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This is to the Zatoichi movies as the "Star Trek" movies were to "Star Trek"--except that in this case every one of the originals was more entertaining and interesting than this big, shiny re-do, and also better made, if substance is more important than surface. Had I never seen them, I would have thought this good-looking but empty; since I had, I thought its style inappropriate and its content insufficient. The idea of reviving the character in a bigger, slicker production must have sounded good, but there was no point in it, other than the hope of making money; it's just a show, which mostly fails to capture the atmosphere of the character's world and wholly fails to take the character anywhere he hasn't been already (also, the actor wasn't at his best). I'd been hoping to see Ichi at a late stage of life, in a story that would see him out gracefully and draw some conclusion from his experience overall; this just rehashes bits and pieces from the other movies, seasoned with more sex and sfx violence. Not the same experience at all. | 0 |
When I read MOST of the other comments, I felt they were way too glowing for this movie. I found it had completely lost the spark found in the earlier Zatoichi movies and just goes to prove that after a long absence from the screen, it's often best to just let things be. I completely agreed with the Star Trek analogy from another reviewer who compared the FIRST Star Trek movie to the original series---millions of excited fans were waiting and waiting and waiting for the return of the show and were forced to watch a bland and sterile approximation of the original.<br /><br />The plot is at times incomprehensible, it is terribly gory (though the recent NEW Zatoichi by Beat Takeshi is much bloodier) and lacks the heart of the originals. I didn't mind the blood at all, but some may be turned off by it (particularly the scenes with the severed nose and the severed heads). In addition, time has not been good to Ichi--he seems a broken and sad man in this film (much, much more than usual)--and that's something fans of the series may not really want to see.<br /><br />This was a very sorry return for Zatoichi. Unless you are like me and want to see EVERY Zatoichi film, this one is very skipable. See one of the earlier versions or the 2003 ALL-NEW version. | 0 |
The premise, while not quite ludicrous, WAS definitely ridiculous. What SHOULD have occurred, by the second encounter with Tritter was that Tritter should simply be wasted. House hires some guy and de-physicalizes Tritter. In real life, Tritter would have been hauled up for harassment, the rectal thermometer episode would have been exposed in court, providing motive and opportunity and the hospitals lawyers would have made mincemeat out of Tritter and the particular department he worked for. He would be in prison as would anyone complicit in the harassment of House, Chase, Foreman, Cameron, Wilson and Cuddy. The lawsuit would have won House a tasty settlement, enough to keep him supplied with Vicadin well into his old age. While Tritter would wind up somewhere driving a cab, trying to rehabilitate himself by doing good for people for two years before people tumbled to the fact that they'd seen it all before. | 0 |
I am glad to read so many negative comments about the Tritter plot. Everyone I talk to says the same thing. They like House's gruff nature and his intelligence, but really dislike the vindictiveness of this continuing plot. It cuts into the real nature of the hospital story and makes everyone angry at police authority. It needs to have a more caring nature instead of the vindictiveness to everyone at the hospital. Also, there seems to be many questionable legal aspects to what Tritter is actually doing. He alone cannot freeze accounts and have the authority to stop doctors from writing prescriptions for patients. A lot of the vindictiveness he is showing also is hurting the very sick patients at the hospital and the is not a good storyline to portray. I voted the episode awful not because of the story itself, but when you insert the Trittor piece it turns me off and the rest of the plot gets hurt by it, People say they hate to watch the story lines anymore. Please change it. Get Tritter out. | 0 |
A disappointing end to a season that started so well ...<br /><br />Exodus part 2 and other notable episodes were amongst the best seen on TV in any series, where as this was rather bad.<br /><br />Well I am not sure if it was the episode that was a disappointment, but the cheesy guitar music at that accompanied the closing sequence was laughable and would have been more at home in the original series.<br /><br />Its almost as if the corporate execs didn't like the low key down note ending and wanted to jazz it up. They failed and rather spoilt everything.<br /><br />Lets hope this is not a trend for the future.<br /><br />Still at least we saw the return of a certain person even if somewhat bizarrely and tritely done. | 0 |
"Laugh, Clown Laugh" released in 1928, stars the legendary Lon Chaney as a circus clown named Tito. Tito has raised a foundling (a young and beautiful Loretta Young) to adulthood and names her Simonetta. Tito has raised the girl in the circus life, and she has become an accomplished ballerina. While Chaney gives his usual great performance, I could not get past the fact that Tito, now well into middle age, has the hots for the young Simonetta. Although he is not her biological father, he has raised her like a daughter. That kind of "ick" factor permeates throughout the film. Tito competes for Simonetta's affections with a young and handsome 'Count' Luigi (Nils Asther). Simonetta clearly falls for the young man, but feels guilt about abandoning Tito (out of loyalty, not romantic love). The whole premise of the film is ridiculous, and I find it amazing that no one in the film tells Tito what a stupid old fool he is being (until he reveals it himself at the end). The film is noteworthy only because of Loretta Young, who would go on to have a great career. While I adore Chaney's brilliance as an actor, this whole film seems off to me and just downright creepy. | 0 |
I'm a great admirer of Lon Chaney, but the screen writing of this movie just did not work for me. The story jumps around oddly (I've since learned that the film is missing a section), and characters appear and disappear with irritating suddenness. Some of the intertitles are overly explanatory (e.g., "why, you're not a child anymore!"--cut back to picture for a long, slow beat--"you're a woman!" yes, we got it the first time) but there are a few talking sequences that beg for explanations that never appear. (Let's hear Luigi and his blond girlfriend's argument, please!) The plot, which involves incestuous desires (figuratively if not technically) was disturbing to the point that it was hard to watch. To the writer's credit, this issue was treated as a problem, and a May-December match is not portrayed as the right-and-good inevitability of some Mary Pickford films (e.g., "Daddy-Long-Legs"). Chaney gives a good performance, as usual, but I think he has been better-directed in the past--he overdid it a few times here, IMHO. I did enjoy the clown sequences, and was very impressed at the stunts. Loretta Young was charming, though astonishingly young. The film has its moments, but so far, it's my least-favorite Chaney picture. | 0 |
Ziab la ta'kol al lahem is an awful movie.This is only a superposition of scenes without a clear link.Acting is also very bad, despite the presence of a good actor like Ezzat El allayli. But something is really astonishing in this movie, talking about sexuality, emancipation of women, nude scenes are very rare in Arab cinema,even in this days. I really congratulate the director and the actors for their courage. We want to see more of this style in Egyptian movies, but with better quality. The reasons that led me to vote this film as an awful one are not only scenario and acting, but also the lack of prfessionalism. This movie look like an amateur one.We can see a lot of errors in the screen. If you want a good arab movie Ziab la ta'kol al lahm is not the one recommended.But if you wish to encourage the uncensored movies in all the arab world watch it and make your friends and your family do the same. | 0 |
The Egyptian Movies has A Lot Of Filmes With High Level Of Drama Or Romance Or Comedy Or Action Even Sports... "Ziab la Ta'Kohl AL lam" Was banned In Egypt Because It Content Nudity (Full Frontal Female Nudity) And This Kind Of Nudity Is Prohibited In The Egyptian Movies.. When I Saw this Movies I Felt Down... Fool Story.. Nude Actress.. Bad Action.. Some Horror & Awful Colors.. Dear Friend.. If You Wanna See A great Egyptian Movie...Simply: Stay Away Form "Ziab la Ta'Kohl AL lam".. We Have Great Movies In Egypt... We Have A Great Actors Who Won A Global Wins Like: Omar El Sheriff Or Gameel Rateb.. We Have Great Directors Like "Yousef Shahin" So Believe Me Pall.. You Don't Need To See This Movie.. | 0 |
I never heard of this film til it played as part of a Robert Mitchum retrospective at the National Film Theatre in London. Almost 60 years on the cast list looked tasty to say the least with seven names - in addition to top-billed Mitchum - in the public domain; Charles McGraw, not long off The Killers, Barbara Bel Geddes, long before Dallas and arguably still better known as the daughter of Theatre Set Designer Norman, Walter Brennan, who needed no introduction, Frank Faylen, the sadistic male nurse in The Lost Weekend and the much nicer small-town mensch in It's A Wonderful Life, Robert Preston still a decade away from Harold Hill in The Music Man with Tom Tully and Phyllis Thaxter making up the numbers. Alas, most of them were wasting their time. I looked in vain for any 'signature' scenes given that it was Robert Wise on bullhorn. By this time he'd made around a half dozen films and had still to find a style. The story is our old friend the range war and Mitchum must have thought it was barely a cut above the Hopalong Cassidy oaters on which he'd cut his teeth. There are no new twists - if you don't count the unbelievable scene when Mitchum accuses Preston of sleeping with Thaxter to gain information about her father's plans to move his cattle. This is perfectly true but how did Mitchum KNOW? We've seen or heard nothing to indicate how he discovered it. On balance not a lot to be said for this. | 0 |
Lets put it this way. I actually get this movie. I get what the writer/directer was trying to do. I understand that the dialog was meant to be dry and emotionless. I understand that the plot was supposed to be non-climactic and stale. That was what the writer/director was going for. A very very very dry humor/comedy. With all that understanding, I still think the movie sucked. It seemed like the writer/director was trying to recreate Napolean Dynamite with this movie. It had all of the same features. Even the main character behaved similar to Napolean. But Napolean Dynamite was actually funny. Its script worked. This movie is not. It has no purpose. Well, let me rephrase that. Its only purpose is to rip off Napolean Dynamite and try to capture that look and feel. Too bad it didn't work. | 0 |
This isn't a bad movie... but it's the type your girlfriend makes you watch. The story isn't bad .... it just makes the hour and a half seem so long. It's hard for me to trash this movie because I really do like the idea of it but it was just to long and thin on story... too bad. The main character never really seems to change all that much from beginning to end . I mean goes through something "life changing" and he can barely break a smile. I really thought Mac was really good. His weird quirkiness kept the movie from being a complete disaster. Maybe I just don't "get" this film. If anyone can explain it to me I'd love to be informed. | 0 |
In my life I have seen many great and awful movies. I am not an expert in professional reviews, but I have definitely something to say about this one. Firstly, these actors are the worst I have seen... Their acting is so unreal that you even want to throw away the DVD in the first 2 minutes. I think that these actors were not interested in the quality. <br /><br />Another awful thing is about these dialogs - they are so lame. You sometimes feel uncomfortable when you hear them. It seems that your 14 year old son could act better. I feel that this movie had a budget similar to the cost of my 14 year old European car...<br /><br />Please, if my message reaches you - save your time and money. | 0 |
William Shatner in small doses is tolerable. Unfortunately, instead of leaving his character as a minor irritation, and in that moderately amusing, it has been seen fit to enlarge his role and overdo it. Just as occurred in the original Star Trek series. I guess I will never understand American humour, which frequently goes 'over the top' to get the message through. I vote with my feet. I no longer watch the show, which is a shame, because the rest of the cast were good. It is pity that Shatner's overdone role also, affects James Spader's performance. But the majority demonstrate the way society is going, I guess. I don't travel the same routes. Frank | 0 |
I don't think this is too bad of a show under the right conditions. I tolerated the first season.<br /><br />Unfortunately, this is a show about lawyers who aren't really lawyers. God forbid anybody actually go to law school based on these shows, which I had heard was the case when I watched some interviews of the show. It just made me gag a bit.<br /><br />That aside, Spader and Shatner, who are supposed to be the stars of the show, are the most annoying. While this might be a compliment in some situations, it's certainly not here. Their constantly harassing the women on the show is funny at first. But since that's what they're doing literally all the time, I've realized that this is as deep as the show is going to get. Trying to intersperse some serious, dramatic, and even tear-jerking moments in the middle of this mockery of a real show fails to compensate for the progressive loss of interest I've been experiencing trying to enjoy the show.<br /><br />Alan Shore's flamboyant and gratuitous "public service announcements" where he spouts off his opinions do not impress. Denny Crane is just annoying. I was embarrassed for him and for the writers of the show for Crane's speech wearing a colonial outfit.<br /><br />I'm giving two stars because there are moments where I thought the show's attempts to deal with some contemporary issues were done with care.<br /><br />I think the show's writers became aware that the sexual harassment displayed by Denny and Alan was getting overbearing even to those who were more inviting of them from the start. The thing is, I don't care if the sexual harassment treatment in the show is done well, but I just felt that the writer was insulting me with artificially implanting sexual banters all over the show in the hopes that my libido will keep me coming back for more. I'm not a teenager anymore, and I think this show is promising if its goal wasn't to cater to the lowest common denominator to get ratings.<br /><br />Of course, I'm writing this after I realized that it's really not gonna get much better than this. It's a shame because it's one of those shows I'd love to love. | 0 |
Boston legal has turned its tail and is headed for the barn door and th pig slop it has created! When this show first aired almost four season back it was a humorous slap at the legal system which all actors seem to take pride in portraying. It was funny, diversified, and to some extent factual. The characters portrayed were acceptable and to an extent real in their portrayals. The sexual comment and activity were limited and humorous. Julie Bowen is and was beautiful as in other series she participated but is now dragged to the lower depths of Media programming of sex and violence. Julie is an excellent actress and needs a more stable platform than this "production". Rene Adjurdubois Is an excellent actor who has from the days of "Benson" to this production held his own in the field of entertainment, always showing the humor and respectful acting of the production. Captain Kirk "is". Funny and humorous is Candace Bergan and is to be admired for her continuing in this production and is a good actress. James Spader, there is no doubt in his acting ability, however he should go back to his XXX origins such as "Crash" as it appears he has much talent and inclination in that direction. We ask that this series be trashed as it already is and its really starting to smell!!! | 0 |
We purchased this series on DVD because of all of the glowing reviews we had seen here. I gave it three stars because there can be little doubt that sometimes the acting, directing and writing are brilliant. In fact they are so brilliant we did not see the propaganda that was being transmitted so smoothly on the series. If one watches it with discernment, one will see the entire litany of the radical right wing beliefs being promulgated by the Fox (Faux) News Network. To avoid giving away any spoilers I will refrain from pointing out all of the dozens of specific instances. A brief look at the plots found here on IMDb will disclose that everything from torture to gun control to the right of a network to provide "Infomercials" and call them news is justified with cute plot twists and impassioned speeches given by some of the best actors in the world. We watched many shows and finally gave up in disgust when they justified torture using Attorney General Gonzales as a shining example of why all kinds of torture should be used in the name of protecting all of us. The series also manages to demean male and female gays in subtle ways by using them as plot devices depicting evil people. All in all the complete litany of the radical religious right wing.<br /><br />No doubt the popularity of this program will be used by future historians as proof that America lost its way in the early part of the this century. As a student of history myself I would characterize this program as being in a league with the propaganda produced by Goebbels for Hitler and some of the propaganda produced by Hollywood for the American audience during WWII.<br /><br />So if you want to use this as a teaching tool to help your students understand how subtle propaganda can be then by all means do so. Just be sure to purchase an inexpensive used copy so you can avoid enriching the ultra right wingers at Faux Network who produced this travesty. | 0 |
Utterly predictable silly show about a man who has killed his wife by mowing her down when driving and claimed he had blacked out. Why was he still driving a car? Why did he still feel able to drive a car having killed his wife with one? This question has not occurred to the writers. The story then witters on about a psychologist and her failing marriage which is tied into the failing marriage of wife-killing blackout driver. An omniscient mother and one dimensional child are thrown in for good measure, and the whole builds up to a predictable denouement and crashing finale. Are police psychologists so easily taken in? Deadful writing that the actors do their best with, but they are doomed to failure. This is on a par with a Harlequin Romance. Don't waste your time watching this one unless that's what you are aiming for. | 0 |
"I thought I'd be locked away in a padded cell and they'd throw away the key" (Thus is a paraphrased snatch of dialogue from "State of Mind".<br /><br />One wonders in what tangled forest Paula Milne and her co-writer found the magic mushrooms they must have eaten, to create this feeble "whodunnit" and bring such rubbish to our screens. A padded cell should indeed be left available.<br /><br />Niamh Cusack did her best, (as did the other actors) but surely her talent deserves a better vehicle than this. The height of absurdity has been reached, and this particular "State of Mind" is best buried and forgotten, and certainly not just "placed in a box and locked away in a drawer". | 0 |
Whatever happened to British TV drama? From John Major through Tony Blair, the focus of the genre appears to have shifted from social realism to smugly normative women-focused tales about the piddling domestic problems of nice middle class professionals.<br /><br />(Or perhaps TVNZ doesn't buy the good stuff? Please let that be what it is...)<br /><br />The writer's long career in soaps probably explains why the dialogue is made up mostly of stale clichés. Niamh Cusack's performance is strong on meaningful looks, each held by the director for at least half a dozen beats longer than they deserve. Baleful looks, however, are a poor substitute for depth of character, if the writer has failed to provide such material for actors to work with. <br /><br />Of course this is theoretically a thriller, about a murder investigation; but that's not as important as the central character's failing marriage and its attendant problems. Is Cusack's character's husband a complete bastard? Will her son be utterly traumatized by the marriage break up? Making these the central issues isn't a sign of insight -- it indicates a profoundly narcissistic identification by the writer and director with a character who should be getting on with her job.<br /><br />Lynda La Plante knows how to write this stuff so that it feels as if it matters and involves viewers other than housebound neurotics ; evidently Paula Milne isn't up to the task. | 0 |
I own 2 home entertainment stores and I've seen a lot of bad movies in my time but this one was so bad it compelled me to register here and comment on it. How bad was it? Let's just say that Sofia Coppola deserved an Oscar for her performance in Godfather III when compared to Giada Colagrande's in this movie.<br /><br />It was robotic and uninspired. Her lover has just died one month prior to her arrival at the 'Rubber House' he had given her. Once there, she discovers he has cheated on her throughout her relationship but none of it seems to register with her. Within a day, she starts a relationship with Leslie, (Dafoe) the caretaker of the house. Even though she is married to Dafoe off screen, her scenes with him were cold and unemotional.<br /><br />If there was a plot, I missed it. Not even Willem Dafoe could save this movie from the amateur, cinematic train wreck that it is. | 0 |
This title seems more like a filming exercise than a film that should have been released to be seen by the public. For Dafoe and his wife it must have been fun working together in a film for the first time, without taking into consideration that people might actually watch it. I felt like it was 90mins wasted as I waited anxiously for a plot to develop, or even begin.<br /><br />Try to fit this film into a genre and you won't, because it lacks a beginning, middle or ending. I've seen 'arty' movies before and this doesn't even come close to being arty, abstract or original, it just seems to me to be completely pointless.<br /><br />I think it speaks for itself when the only persons that rated this film a 10 were the under 18 age group. No doubt for the constant pointless erotic scenes that the film was insistent on throwing at us. That is if you can call it erotic. It certainly didn't have taste. | 0 |
Predictable, told a thousand times story with the usual drama in between, a couple of pretty raunchy sex scenes intermingled with some character paranoia, 70's style incidental violin horror music that is comical at times, i couldn't help chuckling to myself.<br /><br />I usually like Defoe, and it has to be said that the acting is not all that bad, the "plot" develops at a reasonable pace and does keep you guessing from time to time. Its just that it's all too predictable, i felt like i was watching a made for TV drama instead of a new movie. Maybe thats the style the directors wanted, but it has to be said that the review i read on here before i saw the movie could only have been written by someone involved in its production.<br /><br />Don't expect too much, and if i could wind the clock back i wouldn't have gone to see it at the cinema. I would wait for the bargain bins at your video shop, I'm sure it wont take long. | 0 |
I am a huge Willem Dafoe fan, and really sought out this film (I had to get a Region 5 Chinese DVD of it!). But, it is truly one of the worst that I've seen in quite a while.<br /><br />The acting (except for Dafoe) is horrible. Dafoe and Colagrande BOTH wrote and directed this ( though he isn't credited as a director), and they have NO discernible talents for writing or directing. (Stick to acting Willem; Giada get out of the business, PLEASE!)<br /><br />Absolutely nothing happens. Except a series of completely unconvincing, totally without believable motivation, acts by these two people (that just met) in this house. Colagrande's sleepy, I couldn't care less expression practically NEVER changes. And the sex scenes are downright lame. I actually cringed twice at one of them. Yuck! They're definitely not the least bit erotic, and yet are the only time the film isn't putting you to sleep. Then, it's busy repulsing you.<br /><br />Just awful. | 0 |
I saw this movie today at the Haifa Film Festival in Israel after hearing rave reviews, but I guess the critics were just sucking up to Willem Defoe and his wife (the director) who were present at the festival. It is definitely the slowest movie I have ever seen with numerous pointless, ridiculously long scenes of nothing. Besides Defoe who was decent, the acting of the two and a half other people in the movie, Defoe's wife Giada included, was ridiculously awful (how they cast the part of the salesgirl at the bakery is beyond me). This movie is pretty much plot less with a lame attempt to be abstract and off the wall. The only scene that stirred any kind of reaction in the crowd was vulgar and came from nowhere as if just to add some kind of shock value to the dullness that is this movie. Sorry for being so harsh, but really this movie is a precious waste of time and money. I appreciate good indie cinema, but this movie is not worthy of moviegoers' time. | 0 |
Only one thing could have redeemed this sketch. A healthy gunfight between the happy couple, the exotic model at the delicatessen, and the old-timer from the motel who was (it would have turned out) secretly watching from the woods and had been aging rent-boy to the guys when they'd shared the rubber house. <br /><br />In the process, they could have blown that freezing shack to smithereens, resolved most of the snags; such as the "whore bitch" ode on the windscreen, the reason why the protagonist had "no friends," as well as explaining his coolness under pressure from bloody tampon, incessant phone calls . . . and that crawl-space chic, the green thumb, and his attraction to the simpler life. Quite the technician with the human body, though. Ex-abortionist? Morgue attendant? A bit of a heartbeat would have been nice.<br /><br />It was fun watching these people move around, I guess, but Eleanora's silly Italian games were suffocatingly stereotypical while the caretaker had been to too many yoga classes: a dick, a mind, and a pick-up truck about summed it up for him. I also wished they could have had a bit more luggage: Eleanora is ready to go after putting some black underwear into her nifty red suitcase and the caretaker just needs a cardboard carton there at the motel.<br /><br />Trifling matters, you may well say. I agree, although the niggling bits just didn't add up right in this rush job. Good owl-wrangling, though, and I really felt cold all the way through. | 0 |
I understand wanting to make a movie that is edgy and different. I understand the previous reviewer comments that this is a miss-understood movie. My point is as soon as this movie ended my first comment was: " this is what happens when a rich princess wants to be a movie star and has no talent".....she uses daddy's' money to make a movie she wrote, directs, and pays for.....obviously to close to the movie to realize there was no character development and no directions such as a beginning, middle and ending.....the voyeur part was good and edgy but what was the point? I saw a women go to a house, find some pictures, screw the caretaker, come out side on a very cold night (not believable) to check on noise and runs over her caretaker lover....movie ends......some one educate my ignorant arss?? I really want to know what the point is....what was the directors' vision.....why no development of the dead lover? Why no background on the caretaker? What is the point of the night vision? What is the point of the lipstick on the car? Why a dead caretaker? Why tell us about an escaped mental patient/peeping tom? What's with the urn? Oh and the lamp is that suppose to signify whose' house this is? Territorial? Why? Why would the caretaker feel like it's his house? that aspect was never pursued......as for William Defoe...I rented this movie because he was in it and known for edgy characters.....write back and do tell me what I need to learn....I am just a mom in middle America who loves movies....Chris.... | 0 |
This movie was the worst i've ever seen.<br /><br />It doesn't seem to have a plot but the time you realize this is far beyond the beginning of the movie so you have to watch the shut for a long time to recognize the total incompetence of the director, aka the sloth that plays the tampon chick in the movie, and we do not believe the Willem Dafoe in this movie, he's a clone, because the real Dafoe, like we know from "apocalypse now" and "the boon dock saints", would never agreed to such a script.<br /><br />Duh, (Da)foe wrote this bill shut together with his twenty years minus baby. This movie starts with the credits of the two main characters, Dafoe and Colagrande, and then the two script writers, Dafoe and Colagrande, and then the director, Colagrande.<br /><br />Bottomline (the story); Widow meets guy, guy bangs widow, widow smashes windscreen with guy who banged her.<br /><br />Title in Netherlands; The black widow (different title, same bullshit).<br /><br />DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! It's a total waist of time!!! | 0 |
I too like Dafoe as an actor but i wasted a few hours of my life actually watching this film, I still cant believe i managed to watch it in its entirety. Was there actually a point to the film?, and the ending, well, Im glad i never paid to see this awful pointless piece of pathetic excuse of a film!<br /><br />Im not sure without hunting the facts out but is Dafoe married or seeing the awful actress in this film in real life, if so was it an attempt to kick start her career?, if so im afraid it must have failed..<br /><br />I post this in the hope i can actually put someone off watching this film, even if 1 person takes heed of my comments and decides they would much rather watch paint drying i will feel i have made some good in the world, if only i had had the same advice... | 0 |
The poster who called this "Plotless and pointless" literally took the words I would have used in my subject line. The only thing I'd add is "passionless." For a film made by a real life married couple and featuring lots of graphic sex scenes this movie manages to make what should be a sultry situation into one beyond ice cold. Dafoe and Colagrande look bored during the sex scenes, and the viewer might as well take a Valium and have done with it. Also, please, the women in the audience have seen WAY too many used tampons in their time, and any guy who is turned on by seeing Willem Dafoe pull a bloody tampon out of his wife's vagina really needs to get therapy.<br /><br />I think the key to the film (if there is one) is the restaurant scene where a waiter explains to the perpetually sleepy-eyed Dafoe what a "deconstructed jambalaya" is. (All the ingredients of the dish still separate rather than simmered together.) This movie is a "deconstructed thriller". All the elements are there: spooky, isolated house, dead spouse,creepy violins on the score, weirdo caretaker who comes and goes as he pleases, auto accident deaths and near deaths, characters with a secret past. Basically every thriller cliché you can think of, but NOTHING comes together. Everything just sits there and never meshes into a coherent plot or even an artsy mood piece. At the restaurant, Dafoe passes on the "deconstructed jambalaya". Prospective renters of this mess would do well to leave this deconstructed thriller on the video store shelf. | 0 |
Italian-born Eleonora has inherited from her deceased lover Karl, an ultra-modern and isolated house in the middle of the woods. It's winter and she meets the mysterious caretaker Leslie, who eventually ends up not only just looking after the house, but also that of Eleonora, as she tries to adapt to her new surroundings and a growing attraction between the pair.<br /><br />What was I expecting? A thriller indeed, but it wasn't quite so. That's just the advertising on the package for ya! I'm quite perplex about everything. The title, the story and the motivation. So how to classify it? Well, this wooden character drama is more a enigmatically moody romance bound-story of alienation, possession and dependence twisted into a complicatedly passionate relationship of two masked individuals. Co-writer (along with William Dafoe) and director Giada Colagrande's art-house film is just too clinical, distant and calculated with its mysteriously metaphoric story, which it leaves you questioning what does it all really mean
although when its sudden conclusion materialises, you'll thinking why should I actually care. What we go through feels aimless with ponderous exposition of dead air that focuses of insignificant details and images. Sterile dialogues can contributed to many awkward developments, but more so make for an leaden experience, as it never delves deep enough. Like it believes it does. The sexually salty activities filtered in just never convince and are far from erotic. They are kind of a bump in the already sluggish flow. The base of the plot makes for something interesting and fresh, but it's never fulfilling and I thought there'll be more to it then all of this dreary lingering. Colagrande's direction is professionally stylish and suitably gloomy to want she imagines, but everything feels like it's in slow motion and can get caught up admiring the same views. Most of the action stays at the one location
the house. Camera-work is potently taut, but the sullen musical score can get a bit ridiculous when it goes for some dramatically stabbing music cues that served little sense and purpose to the scenes. Giada Colagrande plays it sensually and William Dafoe sleep walks the part. He looks dog tired! While Seymour Cassel, pokes his head in now and then.<br /><br />Just where is it heading, is anyone's guess. Well, that's if you can wait around for it. I think I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, as it's definitely not what I was expecting from this Indie film. | 0 |
I watched the DVD (called BLACK WIDOW in the U.S.A.) and felt afterward that it was, indeed, a truly awful movie. But they must have cut quite a bit out of the original film, or I missed a lot. The sex scenes had very little vulgarity and no nudity (not even a breast), but I've read several other comments on IMDb.com mentioning the vulgarity and something about a tampon. I did not see anything like that, just a bad, boring film with unlikable characters and a trite, sophomoric plot. Giada Colagrande is either paralyzed from the mouth up or Botoxed to the gills, and nary an expression touches her face. And her name makes me think of super-sizing a beverage at Taco Bell: "I'll have the Cola Grande!" It was actually kind of fun it was so bad, I got to play like I was in my own Mystery Science Theater 3000, noting things like the fact that Dafoe's skin is too big for his face. It's really like silly putty! | 0 |
Jane Russell proved to be a delightful musical-comedy performer in the similarly titled "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"
but, sadly, this film squanders those skills. There is a budget, and nice Paris photography, but the film just doesn't work. Ms. Russell seems to be playing Marilyn Monroe. That leaves nobody to adequately play Jane Russell. Some of the other players are WAY out of their element.<br /><br />There are several embarrassing scenes; most of all, be warned: there is a musical number where boneheaded African cannibals "cook" the brunettes in a pot, after Alan Young sings in a gorilla suit.<br /><br />This is an interesting, at times embarrassing, waste of resources. <br /><br />*** Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (10/29/55) Richard Sale ~ Jane Russell, Jeanne Crain, Alan Young, Scott Brady | 0 |
I would have left the movie halfway through if I hadn't been with people who liked it. The movie is based on real incidents, but it's so over the top it didn't feel real at all. I have some psychological background, hang out with a lot of psychotherapists, and have known seriously crazy people, so it's not that I think people like this don't exist. But in the film, the only characters who seemed consistently human were Augusten's father (Alec Baldwin) and the young Augusten (Jack Kaedin). (Although Evan Rachel Wood was an intriguing diversion - very sexy with a wicked sense of fun). There were a few amusing moments, but the overall tone of the movie was grim, bizarre, and nasty. What a waste of an outstanding cast! As I watched them go through their turns, I just felt like I was watching an acting class. This was brought home during the credits, when a couple of people were shown just sitting there, not acting, not talking. Those few moments were more entertaining than the previous 2 hours. | 0 |
to make up a movie-going audience - I'm certainly stunned by the number of positive comments this wretched film has garnered here. I can't credit it, can't help but be suspicious, for that matter, of back alley payoffs to critics who are touting Annette Bening for an Oscar; the hole in the kitchen ceiling might be more appropriately attributed to her scenery chewing. She's a wonderful actress but this is an unfortunately unbalanced performance, lacking that essential quality film actors must master of catching the cadence of the screenplay and maintaining it for the duration of the disjointed madness that is a film shoot.<br /><br />I don't really want to blame Miss Bening or most of the other performers (well, Gwyneth Paltrow has no excuse for her muzzy work), however, because this is a horrendous adaptation, a classic case of mistranslation (I am prepared to assume. I haven't read the book and don't think I will after this). The script launches us into the middle/muddle of unaccountable behaviour and extreme emotional angst spewing from mystifying characters who have developed relationships neither with us nor each other. It quickly becomes a grotesquely excessive tsunami-like assault that sullies characters and audience alike and left me like a survivor shaking my head at the detritus left at the end of each repetitive episode. Shock and awe would describe my reaction to frantic, bi-polar mood swings between ranting and oh-so-quiet sensitivity, the latter telegraphed by one of the most irritating, manipulative, droning soundtracks I've heard - that is, when all this isn't being set to ludicrously incongruous toons - period stuff, ya know, but chosen with an astounding disregard for the tone of the scenes.<br /><br />How this fine cast got mixed up in this I don't know - I can't believe they saw the screenplay before signing. They certainly apply their skills with commitment - I felt so sorry for the wonderful Jill Clayburgh saddled with a cartoon bag lady costume and wig trying vainly to wrench something of significance from sketchy and clichéd dialogue. In contrast, somehow, Alec Baldwin rises above the material to deliver a consistent, nuanced, real performance. Can somebody give this man a lead role of substance, please? And how about Rachel Evan Wood - or Joseph Fiennes? You'd think the industry could make better use of him, and without appearing as hirsute as Elliot Gould in M.A.S.H. <br /><br />My vote? A standup turd, all right, but no link with heaven. | 0 |
I am a big movie fan. I like movies of all types. This is arguably the worst movie I've ever seen.<br /><br />I get that it follows the book closely, which raises the point that not everything should be made into a movie. Especially since the authenticity of the experiences in the book have been called into question more than once.<br /><br />These characters are not quirky, they are mentally ill. The things that happen are not funny, they are disturbing; especially considering they are supposed to be true.<br /><br />This movie had the feel of The Royal Tenenbaums, another movie I hated, only Running With Scissors was even more dysfunctional and less funny.<br /><br />I will never get those hours back. I wanted to wash my brain after watching. | 0 |
This movie contains no humor for anyone who has lived with a family member who has a mental illness. So many scenes reminded me too graphically of my own life experiences. This movie was the man's version of "Mommy Dearest." It depicts both graphically and accurately the life many children of a mentally ill parent goes through. It also shows how easy it is for a psychiatrist to become corrupt and act like they are God. <br /><br />Someone told me it was funny. No way, I say! It is sick humor at best. <br /><br />The movie is so intense and depressing that my son and I had to leave the room. The best use for this movie is for people who don't understand mental illness or don't believe what we families actually do live through. | 0 |
Not sure why this film was advertised as a wild, quirky, laugh filled comedy. There is not much in this movie that will entertain, nor amuse the moviegoer. Annette Bening (whose acting was touted as being Oscar worthy) comes off here as mannered, with her performance seeming routine. Brian Cox's character is confusing and irritating, and the lead playing Augusten Joseph Cross appears to simply not have the personality to carry his role. The best thing about the film is Evan Rachel Wood, but she is not enough to endorse this boring, unsavory film.<br /><br />The film disappeared quickly and it seems with good reason. I found some of the scenes distasteful (the scene with Brian Cox and his just utilized toilet rivals some of the worst scenes in 'You and Me and Everyone We Know' and 'The Squid and the Whale'), some embarrassing, and most of them unsettling. I found the whole experience a waste of time. Don't you waste your time
| 0 |
Absolutely the most boring movie I have ever spent my money on.This was a wrong choice for all these great stars to waste their reputations on. Boring! boring! boring! Each character was portrayed in a less than inspirational way. No acting talent shown -just reading a part. Alec can play realistic characters normally, Gwynyth made herself look ugly for an unrewarding part, Annette needs advise on how to pick the movies she chooses to play in as do all these big stars who have left me disappointed at the way they have all allowed their talents to be smothered in a feature that leaves much to be desired in entertainment. "Running with scissors" leads the public to anticipate great acting in a film that suggests experiencing tension and deep emotion. There was not one moment when the cast was able to portray any interpretation of this onto the screen. Maybe it was the director's fault----whatever. | 0 |
The film starts to slowly when we got to the cinema we thought it looked quite good but after about 5 mins we were all bored out of our minds and wondering what kind of film we had come to see, i don't like this film and wouldn't recommend it to anyone, the best part of the night was when the alarm and lights came back on because the project broke down because we thought we could all go home. this has to be one of the worst films i have ever seen we were all bored out of or minds and most of the people in the cinema actually RAN out of the doors at the end because it was so rubbish. i am surprised that no one walked out earlier than that. if you go and see it make sure you something to keep you busy, better still Don't go and see it at all. | 0 |
I wonder how the actors acted in this movie. Annette Bening was really herself, half in and half out, was she faking or being natural? It didn't make any difference considering that even if she had been walking on the ceiling it would not have changed the pattern of the film. Brian Cox acted really well. I almost thought that he had always acted this way, tricky, dishonest, in a dirty surrounding where nobody really cared about hygiene. As for Gwyneth Paltrow, the question is what she was doing in this film.<br /><br />This film is quite sickening and disgusting. Who would pay to see such a crap? | 0 |
As the front cover says "The hamlet of our time, for our time".<br /><br />I had to study this filmed version of Hamlet directly after watching Keneth Branagh's version and it was truly a disappointing experience.<br /><br />This version takes a different approach to several aspects of the play including sexuality; one very VERY homosexual Osric and an interesting interaction between Hamlet and Ophelia. I think for the time (60's) this was a very well done version of Hamlet but cannot compare to Branagh's complete version.<br /><br />just a note... I found the video at my local video store (in Australia) and I'm actually looking for a Keneth Branagh DVD to buy if such a thing even exists. If anyone knows of one please tell me. | 0 |
Williamson's accent is tough to wade through. He speaks incredibly quickly, like he is in a rush to get through the lines. During the soliloquies he acts as if he is talking to someone, when he is supposed to be talking to himself. All that and his bald spot just annoyed me. He was just too old for this role. In reading other accounts of Williamson, maybe he got this role because he was mad and the director decided to do a bit of life-imitates-art or forced method acting. When the actors declare Hamlet mad you believe it! Marianne Faithful is a stunning beauty and could botch the role of Ophelia and still get a pass. The set is dark and foreboding but it does look as if shot in a real castle especially the scenes in the tunnels/corridors where the dead king shines as a great light in the sky. | 0 |
I had to compare two versions of Hamlet for my Shakespeare class and unfortunately I picked this version. Everything from the acting (the actors deliver most of their lines directly to the camera) to the camera shots (all medium or close up shots...no scenery shots and very little back ground in the shots) were absolutely terrible. I watched this over my spring break and it is very safe to say that I feel that I was gypped out of 114 minutes of my vacation. Not recommended by any stretch of the imagination. | 0 |
This film deals with two ex-football players who are Fred Williamson, (Mack Derringer) and Gary Busey, (Lenny) who work as private eyes and meet all kinds of ladies and men with some bad backgrounds. Mack Derringer is approached by his ex-wife Vanity (Jennifer Derringer) who works at having sex talk over the telephone. Jennifer is being threatened by one caller who wants to do horrible things to her and she asks for his help along with several other ladies. Mack & Lenny have more time on their hands and often go to Miami, Fl. golf courses or hang out in a Sports Bar where all kinds of city things go on. There is lots of punches, killings and plenty of double meaning words that bring this film completely down to a big ZERO. Don't waste your time, this film cost me only 50 cents and that was too much. | 0 |
one of the worst films i have seen to date. Pathetic action scene and really bad acting also do not help. The only good point is Gary busey's parts but this does not lift the film very much. it lives up to its B film ranking and passes the test with flying colours. A waste of my money although i found entertaining to begin with its gets annoying after a few watches. i do not recommend this film unless you watch it for free or its a gift. ( a gift you can ask for the receipt and send back for a complete refund).<br /><br />Really BAd.<br /><br />1/10. | 0 |
i don't know what they were thinking.by they,i mean anybody even remotely connected to this disaster.i've seen so bad movies,i've seen so really bad movies,and then there's this.but i will say one thing.whoever wrote the script has manged to put what could possibly the most inane dialogue over written,onto the screen.there is nothing good about this movie,either from a technical standpoint or any other standpoint.whoever allowed it to be made and then released should have been fired immediately.there are a few fairly well known names in this movie.actually i hesitate to use the word movie.it's more like a collection of random scenes that have no relation to another and make less than 0 sense.anyway,i fail to see why anyone with any dignity would appear in this.i got it really cheap,and i still got ripped of.even if i had gotten this movie for free,i would still have been ripped off.this is an absoluter 0/10 | 0 |
I saw this for Gary Busey and Fred Williamson thinking they were buddy cops. They are but Busey is in the opening scene then doesn't show up again until like 40 minutes into the movie. Though every scene he's in is awesome. Especially when he disguises himself as a blind hobo.<br /><br />What's incredible about this movie is the plot. In the movie Fred Williamson is trying to find out who stalking and killing phone sex operators. At one point I think thats its Busey. But it turns out I'm only partly right. Busey is not the killer, but he is calling up and harassing the women over the phone. Why? I don't know. In no way is he connected to the killer, he just does it for kicks I guess. | 0 |
For me the only reason for having a look at this remake was to see how bad and funny it could be. There was no doubt about it being funny and bad, because I had seen "Voyna i mir" (1968). Shall we begin? Here we go...<br /><br />Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Pierre Bezukhov - a lean fellow that lacks the depth of the original; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Natasha Rostova - a scarecrow, her image can cause insomnia; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Andrej Bolkonsky - an OK incarnation which, like the lean fellow (cf. above), lacks depth of a Russian soul and "struggle within"; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Napoleon - a rather unimpressive leader; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Prince Bolkonsky - a turd with an English face; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Count Bezukhov - a spineless freak-show...<br /><br />The rest of the characters are not much better.<br /><br />The movements of the actors and the way they look and speak are often atrocious. They behave like modern EU citizens dressed up for a one-day masquerade. It all looks cheap and never comes close to the standards of our Russian men and women of the early 19th century.<br /><br />A good piece of entertainment to scrutinize and make fun of. We had quite a few giggles in our office when remembering this modern product, which had been shown the previous evening on our TV.<br /><br />"User Rating: 8.0/10 (29 votes)" - I guess, many young people have never watched our film ("Voyna i mir" 1968) or have weird sense of "Tarantino-Spielberg" quality. Remember the scene when our hussar is saving his friend, turns around, shoots, and the bridge goes boom? Looks like a CGI explosion.<br /><br />There is neither sense nor craft to make a better version of the novel, which was screened properly in our country once. But I would be happy to watch a Russian remake of "Gone with the Wind". Hey, directors, wake up and get busy with that, instead of spoiling our classics.<br /><br />Now back to common sense. Jokes aside. What I mentioned above is nothing new, though deadly exaggerated.<br /><br />To make foreign actors trying to pass for Russians (while participating in very serious epics and dramas) is a rude mistake and the filmmakers are making this mistake again and again. Of course it results in numerous laughs - especially Clemence Poesy is uncomfortably ridiculous and her dancing and singing makes a Russian viewer think: "This sucks so much that it's funny!").<br /><br />In order to say something new, I'd like to mention the pace of the movie. To my mind, this new version is very patchy. The narration and the scenes are not naturally flowing - they stagger and pop up like in a modern video. Again I have to remember our "Voyna i mir", where the action is so natural and the narration is so easy that you simply sit back and enjoy "going with the flow".<br /><br />I thought that maybe the Borodino battle would be great (to somehow rehabilitate numerous drawbacks) but it has turned out to be no match for the war scenes filmed in 1968.<br /><br />There should be something good in this movie after all. And there is. The actors seem to be trying hard to make it all work. They did not have a chance from the start but they still joined "the losers' team". Plus 1 point for that recklessness. It makes a Russian viewer uncomfortable - some scenes are ironically ridiculous though they are intended to be dramatically powerful and the actors are doing their best. It all evokes pity, and sometimes - fits of laughter.<br /><br />What I still like about this serial is the last part of it. It shows very vividly how everybody gets his or her "salary and taxes". Besides, judging by the movie trailers I thought that the film would have an adult sex scene, which would definitely kill the whole project. But, fortunately, it does not have such rubbish. And that's a big plus.<br /><br />"Voyna i Mir" is no "Harry Potter" and nowadays even we, here in present-day Russia, do not have enough craft to film it properly. Do I have to say that the moral quality of our life has deteriorated immensely? Fortunately, a proper film was screened during our Soviet times. The American version of the 1950s was justified to some extent - ours did not even exist yet. There were extenuating circumstances then.<br /><br />4 out of 10 (1 point is given from the start, 1 point goes for the recklessness, and 2 points for the last part of the serial. Thanks for attention. | 0 |
I didn't like this film at all! First of all,I don't know why, but everyone here says, that Clémence Poésy's play is excellent, which in my opinion is absolutely wrong! She is not like Natasha: another appearance, another character... What's worse, she is a very unexperienced actress and that's why she wasn't able to play this role! She disfigured the heroine completely! That was really disgusting to watch her play! To my mind, that would be much better to give this role to a Russian actress, because that would be much easier for her to understand the Russian soul for a Russian person. Unfortunately, Kutuzov looked like a drunk man, who hasn't shaved 2 weeks and defeated a battle in which he lost his eye...( Thank's God, in this film there're some actors, whose play was awesome! I suppose, that Alessio Boni coped with his task very well! I was pleasantly amazed! He is one of the few people who's read the book, which is very important for the play. In addition, I liked plays of our Russian actors, that was really wonderful to watch them)) The only thing I liked in this work was very beautiful views and amazing dresses! My advice is to read the book and to understand a real sense, the aim, with which Leo Tolstoy wrote this masterpiece, and maybe realize the whole idea of the book... 1 from 10 | 0 |
It's been nearly 30 years, and I STILL hate everyone involved in this movie. It remains the worst movie I've ever seen.<br /><br />Before seeing this, I never much minded Rivers, one way or the other. After seeing this movie, I have an allergic reaction when I accidentally see her on television.<br /><br />I got dragged to this - against my better judgment - by peer pressure. However, coming out of the theater, those friends swore an oath to never again overrule my choice of movie. Nearly thirty years later, we still carry around mental scars from this movie.<br /><br />On my deathbed, one of my regrets will be the time I wasted hoping that this movie might get better. It never did.<br /><br />If you are ever given a choice, you would prefer putting your own eyes out to sitting though this movie.<br /><br />I registered for IMDb comments just in the hope that perhaps I can warn others against viewing this movie. If I can save just one person from watching this, then my existence on this earth will have been justified. | 0 |
Absolutely one of the worst movies of all time.<br /><br />Low production values, terrible story idea, bad script, lackluster acting... and I can't even come up with an adjective suitably descriptive for how poor Joan River's directing is. I know that there's a special place in Hell for the people who financed this film; prolly right below the level reserved for child-raping genocidal maniacs.<br /><br />This movie is a trainwreck.<br /><br />(Terrible) x (infinity) = Rabbit Test.<br /><br />Avoid this at all costs.<br /><br />It's so bad, it isn't even funny how bad it is. | 0 |
Leonard Maltin compared this film to a Mel Brooks comedy. He was far too kind to Ms. Rivers, and far too cruel to Mr. Brooks. Not even the raunchiest Mel Brooks films are this tasteless, and at least they're genuinely funny. This picture deserves a place on the hundred-worst list. | 0 |
I remember this movie when i was 13 (seems a lot of reviews are saying the same thing AGE 13!) with a group of school buddies. We all wanted to see Billy Crystal in his first movie, and fell for the typical commercial ads telling us this was a great comedy. We suffered through about 45 minutes of it, and all agreed to leave the theater. It was grotesque & tasteless, and a far cry from the ability Billy Crystal had to make us laugh, we were not laughing. I stumbled upon this review by accident, and decided to register just to tell the rest of the world what a rot-gut waste of film this was, now if you rent this, you deserve what you get, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!! | 0 |
I cannot say enough bad things about this train wreck. It is one of the few movies I've ever been tempted to walk out of. It was a bad premise to begin with, first pregnant male, but then they tried to make it a spoof. What were they spoofing all those real pregnant males??? This was the worst movie I have ever seen. If it had enough votes it would be on the IMDB bottom 100. If it was possible to give it a zero I would, and I would still feel I had given it too much credit. | 0 |
I am quite sure that this was the worst movie ever made. If you can't make a 13 year old boy laugh at silly humor you should give up comedy forever. Unfortunately Joan Rivers chose differently. The movie is full of predictable gags (some of these are racist) and very unfunny jokes. Particularly memorable is the scene where the doctor tells the lead character that the rabbit has died and he is pregnant (as I write this, I cannot believe this was actually a movie scene). The man rushes to a dead rabbit on the doctors desk and tries to give it mouth to mouth. ROTFLMAO! NOT! The punch line that can tell you how bad things are in this movie is "I knew I should have been on top." ha ha ha ha ah ugh ........ | 0 |
I really can't believe this movie is not in the IMDB worst 250, it is absolutely terrible. When I originally saw it I remember talking about it in a college class and two other people had also seen it. We were all telling other class members not to see it because it was so horrible. By the time we were done some others wanted to see it just because they could not believe anything was as bad as we were saying it was. Don't be like them, just pass this by. I'm sure everyone involved with this movie would also prefer you never see them in this movie. | 0 |
Well to answer one persons's question of "why doesn't anyone remember this film?" it's because really,not that many people saw it in 1978 and it's not been shown much on TV since. (If it's on video that'd be news to me!) Even in the era of sometimes mindless comedies that was the '70s,movie-goers had the smarts to avoid this film. Unless they love Billy Crytal,Paul Lynde or Joan Rivers "that" much! <br /><br />Paul Lynde was funnier on "Bewitched" or "Hollywood Squares" than here. Joan Rivers at this time in her career was getting laughs making cruel jokes about singer Karen Carpenter's lack of weight! Har-har Joan! It also seems like every "somewhat" famous name from the era is in the cast. (Most surprising is Doris Roberts later of "Everybody Loves Raymond".)<br /><br />Anyhow,a somewhat good idea for a storyline,a man getting pregnant instead of the woman goes to waste here. With help from a male friend Crystal gets set up with a hooker to finally lose his virginity but because she was "on top" instead of him,he gets pregnant! (A commentary on women taking positions of power away from men).<br /><br />Crystal's stomach grows,he goes through all the female emotions and related feelings. Unfortunately,he is now a socially misunderstood outcast! He's attacked by a mob who wants him rubbed out (I guess).<br /><br />He's forced to go into seclusion to have his baby...in a barn. Or if you will,a manger (God only knows where it may have exited from! Ewwww!) It turns out (no shock here) to be a girl! <br /><br />Everything else about this movie is worthless and forgettable,the humor is high school level or less.<br /><br />2 stars for a good idea and a few good touching & relevant moments w/ Billy Crystal. Ignore the rest of Rabitt Test,it flunks big time!<br /><br />I can't believe Roddy McDowell signed on either! (END) | 0 |
I saw this film when it first came out in 1978, when I was a sophomore in high school. I took a date to see it. I didn't "get any," needless to say, because the film was so bad! Joan Rivers' career never tanked as badly as it deserved after making this awful, unfunny crap. In fact, unfunny isn't a severe enough term: this film is ANTI-FUNNY! You walk out feeling like any laughter that might have occurred was beaten out of you before it could happen. This isn't worth watching out of curiosity, or out of any sense of it being "so-bad-it's-good." Not even the gang at MST3K could've made this worth watching! The fact that Billy Crystal's career survived this early suicide attempt is a miracle. | 0 |
It's difficult to precisely put into words the sheer awfulness of this film. An entirely new vocabulary will have to be invented to describe the complete absence of anything even remotely recognizable as 'humor' or even 'entertainment' in "Rabbit Test." So, as a small contribution to this future effort, I'd like to suggest this word: <br /><br />"Hubiriffic" (adj.) A combination of 'hubristic' and 'terrific'; used to describe overly ambitious debacles like the film "Rabbit Test."<br /><br />Joan Rivers and "Hollywood Squares" producer Jay Redack have severely over-reached their meager abilities to amuse in this 82-minute festival of wretchedness. Trying to put together an Airplane! style comedy with a moldy collection of gags, (Note to Joan: German doctors haven't been funny since Vaudeville) disinterred from their graves in the Catskills - that's is bad enough. But compounding this cinematic crime is River's directorial style, which can best be described as 'ugly', and a cast of once-and-future has-beens so eager to please they overplay even the weakest of throwaway gags.<br /><br />Adrift in this Sargasso Sea of sap is a hapless Billy Crystal in his film debut role as the film's hapless protagonist Lionel. Watching Crystal in this pic is much like watching a blind person take a stroll in a minefield; eventually the cringe reflex becomes a semi-permanent condition as cheap joke after cheap joke blows up in his face.<br /><br />I can only speculate about the sort of audience who might actually like Rabbit Test. Cabbages, mollusks and mildly retarded lizards are all likely candidates. But for self-aware, thinking humans - I'd enthusiastically recommend pouring bleach in your eyes before I'd recommend "Rabbit Test." | 0 |
Turkish Cinema has a big problem. Directors aren't interested in global cinema. They are local and folkloric, but want to be international. This brings kitsch results such this movie.<br /><br />Film has jokes translated to Spanish from Turkish and they don't have any meaning for non-Turkish audiences. Even for Turkish audiences after 10 years.<br /><br />Players, even Ferhan SENSOY have a worse acting than average. They act like puppets.<br /><br />Movie was shot in Cuba, but nothing includes about Cuba. So Cuba is thought like a banana republic.<br /><br />Waste of money, waste of time. | 0 |
This was allocated to the fans as the "winner takes all" match occurred between two separate "companies" (the World Wrestling Federation and the "Alliance": an amalgamation of former WCW and ECW superstars. Because the final match to duduce the superior company was a tag-team match, the wrestlers were confined to tossing opponents from each side of the ring to another; each wrestler concludes that in order to debiliate their opponents and to intensify the match, interfernce is necessary. Each wrestler merely pummels an opponent with punches, executes a special move, and tags in a partner. The storyline had previously been tarnished by the subterfuge of Vince that a member of the Allance would be fradulent and join the WWF. It was obvious, with that statement, that the WWF would prevail. Overall: very innovative storyline but poor execution, which is not the scarcity of the wrestlers because the match format is tag-team. The remaining matches are just revolting:<br /><br />Edge versus Test: potent "big boot" by Test, but this did not display the true talents of both stars<br /><br />Al Snow Versus Christian: good match but superflous to the pay-per-view<br /><br />Taji versus William Regal: the worst match of the night<br /><br />Immunity Battle Royal: This was an outstandingly fun match to watch, but because the main stars of both companies were involved in the main event, only a wrestler who characteristically appears on "Heat" and is probably a WCW light-heavyweight reject (i.e. the Hurricane who is merely hired as an entertainer)<br /><br />Hardy Boyz Versus Dudley Boyz: The best match of the night: Jeff Hardy executed a "Swanton Bomb" from the summit of a cage and through a wooden table and Matt was wedged into the cage, which appeared to be extremely painful.<br /><br />Because Stone Cold was the WWF champion, Rob Van Dam was the Hardcore Champion, and Kurt Angle was a "mole" in the alliance, all fundamental stars in the main event on the faction of "the Alliance" were granted work after the match's outcome, except for Booker T., who recently attacked a wrestler on "Raw" and will inevitably be given work. Shane McMahon will return to television somehow, and everyone desired to witness the downfall and demise of "the Alliance" to see Stone Cold out of work. The WWF has done much better. A match in which all tiltes were brought to one faction would have been better, and what ever became of Casket and Iron Man matches? | 0 |
WWF Survivor Series 2001<br /><br />This was among the worst events of 2001. Perhaps its biggest flaw was the fact that it didn't follow suit to most of the previous Survivor Series'. There was only ONE survivor series match. And that Survivor Series match went on for 45 minutes. What's more, anyone with a working brain would know that it would end with The Rock versus Austin and The Rock prevailing for his team. And don't get me started on the preview before the event. No matter who won it was obvious that no one was going to f***ing die. There was no need for all of that pointless hype. Whatever the storyline, it was just a wrestling event.<br /><br />And as for the rest of the matches: the first match was Christian defending his European title against Al Snow. It was a good fast paced match and its good to see a heel winning a match fairly. William Regal versus Tajiri was boring and we've seen it 2 or 3 times before. Edge versus Test was good but nothing great. The tag titles steel cage match was the best match of the evening. The battle Royal went on for 10 minutes and no one really cared who'd win in the first place. The Women's title match wasn't great. No, not in the slightest. The main event must have been the most hypocritical match in history. The Alliance lost but guess what, after 5 months every single Alliance superstar returned. The match itself was poor. The Rock eliminated 3 of them and Jericho eliminated 2. The Rock was too caught up with his acting to be there when the invasion began. Jericho was the one that jeopardised the whole match. If I wanted any 2 to be eliminated in the early going it would be them. Everyone knew that Kane, Big Show and Undertaker were just fall guys. 7 matches isn't enough for a Survivor Series. If there's ever a Survivor Series as bad as this again I'll | 0 |
T. Rama Rao made some extremely beautiful films in the 1980s, but he seems to be a filmmaker who cannot mature with the changing times, styles and fashions. He's like stuck with the same old-fashioned film-making style.<br /><br />Actors are not bad, not good either. Anil Kapoor generally acts convincingly his two roles of a father and his son, but the flawed script often makes him look funny and pathetic. Rekha is good, but then - she's always good, and here she's nothing more than such. She makes the best of what she is given, but she always does that. In conclusion, nothing great at all. Raveena is OK, which means ordinary, not bad, not good, nothing.<br /><br />This film is melodramatic, occasionally stupid. Maybe it's a delayed film? Well, even then it still would be below standard. The script is terrible, the film is overdone, and the story goes nowhere. It feels like a film made in the early 1990s, but the script makes it look even older, the style is like from the 1950s.<br /><br />Don't recommend, unless you're a big fan one of the starring actors. | 0 |
The film released at the start of 2000 alongwith MELA both disasters So sad to start a millennium with such nonsense<br /><br />The film seems to suit 70's but looks like an unintentional comedy for 2000<br /><br />Anywayz some classic gems from the film: Paresh Rawal I don't understand to laugh at his role or cry Reason: He goes searching his mother in the village worst part is when he realises a secret of Anil he keeps the secret in his stomach which becomes big and makes him look pregnant I remember in my childhood my teacher told me the same joke Urrf!!!! as a child i laughed at it that time but here?<br /><br />The whole film is a joke can't explain We have Anil in a dual role(One older and younger) and Rekha playing the older's wife and Raveena the youngers We also have reject Harish while Shakti playing the son of Aruna Irani who both fight on who has the worst wig<br /><br />Direction is outdated Music is bad<br /><br />Anil tries hard looks too old in the younger role and too young in the older role yet good effort Rekha is adequate, Raveena too is okay Harish is bad Shakti Kapoor is terrible Aruna Irani is as usual Rajnikant is okay in a cameo | 0 |
I just saw this movie on Flix after timer-taping it. I grew up watching F Troop and had a major hard for Wrangler Jane so I was shocked, literally shocked, to find out after seeing this film that the degenerate homicidal nurse was Melody Patterson, who looks pretty good but also looks completely different and is unfortunately poorly photographed. I would never have guessed it was her in a million years. What the hell is she doing in a picture like this? I agree with the guys here that the movie lacks what it's pushing. No sex, no gore, no tease. It's also a remake of the Atomic Brain aka Monstrosity (1964 or thereabouts). Most of the action is tedious; the main character spends enormous amounts of time running around the crazed doctor's house and basement, and the neighborhood in general, or being roughed up by the cop, all of it boring and time-filling. Now if the Italians would have made this, half the film would have been the Slingblade/Uncle Ernest/Jack Elam henchman fondling the unconscious nude girls. But you only get that for 20 seconds. | 0 |
THE IMMORTALIZER was, uh, interesting. It certainly didn't kill me during its hour and a half duration, but it didn't impress me much either. A group of kids are abducted in an alley by musclehead mutants (in a scene featuring cinema's least convincing head crushing sound effect) and taken to a fancy house in the suburbs. Here Dr. Divine and his team are performing brain transplants for his rich old patients so they can have young bodies again. Hey, this was quietly remade with a big budget a few years later as FREEJACK! Who knew that when you transplant an old person's brain into a different body that their new voice will sound exactly like their old voice? With all this talk of pineal glands and the use of a glowing green serum, you can almost see visions of FROM BEYOND and RE-ANIMATOR dancing in the producers' heads. But the production literally doesn't have the guts to pull it off. I've never understood why, when someone is making a low budget horror film, that they don't pack it to the edge of the frame with gore. The acting is uniformly terrible, with the only good performance coming from Clarke Lindsley as the assistant Dr. Price. He has a nice evil laugh. The only other thing of note about THE IMMORTALIZER is that it features lots of old people doing their own stunts. Seriously, most of the cast takes some serious bumps for old folks. | 0 |
Bradford Dillman plays a scientist who wakes up one morning in the middle of a bloody crime scene; having partial amnesia (or "global amnesia", which one character claims to define as elective loss of memory), the scientist finds a private detective in the phone book in the hopes of piecing his life back together. Abhorrent concoction very loosely based on Walter Ericson's book "Fallen Angel" (filmed in 1965 as "Mirage" with Gregory Peck). It was probably too racy for television--what with drugs and hippies added to the mix--that NBC initially refused to air it, which is how this low-budgeter wound up in theaters. Director James Goldstone gets freaky with the hyperkinetic visuals and camera-tricks, while editor Edward A. Biery goes wild with the zig-zag cuts. Unfortunately, their admittedly-colorful gimmicks cannot cover up the weaknesses of this updated plot, and the acting is woefully overripe. Dillman, under pressure to recall the events of the night in question, goes through an Actor's Seminar of tics, stammers, nose-wipes, and crazy half-laughs while spitting out dialogue like, "Dream...a dream...drugs...yeah, drugs...that SOUND...bells...help!" As a villainous fellow scientist with a Cheshire Cat smile, Pat Hingle nearly upstages Dillman in the Grand Thespian department by continually addressing everyone in baby-talk, strutting about like a middle-aged peacock and twisting his mouth around in agony. Hope Lange's scientist/love-interest is given the short shrift, but not before she screams at indifferent-lover Dillman: "What do I have to do, talk Ape Man? Me want You!" This is one frantic "Jigsaw"! *1/2 from **** | 0 |
I doubt Jigsaw was hip even at the time, the whole LSD theme married to a murder mystery being a patently obvious attempt to grab a young audience of the era without in the least truly showing any understanding of the sixties counterculture. The dated aspect aside, Jigsaw suffers from many problems, including overwrought acting, silly and stilted dialogue, LSD flashbacks that go on interminably long even after the point has been hammered home in the first 60 seconds, a failure to create any true suspense even though the actual plot is, on paper, a great vehicle to do just that, and an ending that is so trite and predictable (not to mention reminiscent of a lot of bad television shows) that the climax is actually an anti-climax. If it was a better movie, we might be able to suspend disbelief on a few things where it would help enjoyment, but the weaknesses are so glaring they only serve to highlight the improbabilities viewers might otherwise overlook. I saw Jigsaw on television and it is definitely late night TV fare meant to fill airspace and pass the time to kill somebody's insomnia rather than anything anybody ought to actively seek out. At very best, a three out of 10. | 0 |
Nell Shipman attempted a plot to lead up to a chase finale in 'Back to God's Country' of the previous year, and she failed miserably. This time, she does better, although it seems pointless. 'Something New' hardly has a plot lying outside of the chase. There's a brief premise, which sets up the hero (co-author and Shipman's boyfriend) to have to save the girl (played by Shipman), then it's nothing but an exciting, implausible chase from there. Of course, it plays out like an hour-long advertisement for a Maxwell Sedan, but the entire movie is congruously ridiculous. It doesn't seem that she learned much from the last-minute rescue films of D.W. Griffith or its parodies by Mack Sennett and other comedians, which she's imitating.<br /><br />One point of interest is that Shipman writes and directs herself into the film as the writer of the film's story, which has as its protagonist a writer (Shipman again), although she doesn't do much else clever or humorous with it, even though she attempts to. Again, others had pioneered the writer's joke in the intertitles, like Anita Loos with 'Wild and Woolly' or Frances Marion with 'A Girl's Folly' (both 1917). At least, Shipman gives the impression that she doesn't take herself or the film seriously--and neither do I. 'Something New,' despite its claim, is hackneyed. | 0 |
Being a fan of silent films, I looked forward to seeing this picture for the first time. I was pretty disappointed. <br /><br />As has been mentioned, the film seems to be one long, long, commercial for the Maxwell automobile. <br /><br />Perhaps if the chase scene was about half the length that it is, I may have enjoyed the film more. But it got old very fast. And while I recognize that reality is stretched many times in films, without lessening a viewer's enjoyment, what was with the Mexican bandits? I mean, they are chasing a car through the mountains, a car that most of the time is moving at about one mile per hour, yet they can't catch up to it? | 0 |
Nell Shipman must have been paid a hefty sum of money to promote the Maxwell automobile's off-road capabilities. The plot of the movie is pretty simple, Nell plays a writer who has a bad case of writer's block, and needs inspiration, so she goes to visit Mexico to absorb the atmosphere. There she meets the hero (Bert Van Tuyle), a cowboy who chooses to drive a car rather than ride a horse. While Nell is visiting with her father's partner at his mining camp, a gang of local bandits kidnap her and bring her to their camp deep in the wilderness. The hero needs to get to her quickly, so he decides to drive there in his car. This is where the film takes a weird twist. Bert proceeds to drive over every terrain imaginable, huge rocks, small streams, heavy brush, scraggly tree stumps, steep inclines, etc etc, for the greater part of the film we get to see this car struggling to crawl over obstacles. Now mind you, this isn't a modern-day ATV, it's a 1920 Maxwell automobile, so it looks very out-of-place as an off-road vehicle. And it clearly has limitations for some of the terrain it encounters, we get to see it stuck more than once in this film. But the filmmakers made an effort to show it beating the odds and eventually passing all the obstacles. Once the hero gets to the hidden camp and rescues the girl, he jumps in the car with her and drives off with the bandits in hot pursuit (on horseback), and at this point it became hysterically funny to me. Watching this car slowly rolling over huge rocks, getting stuck in gravel and mountain brush, going forward and back to get momentum enough to pass over fallen tree limbs, the bandits should have had ample time to catch up. But they never do, even though we are to believe this wilderness chase goes on throughout the night. And in a silly climax, the car climbs a mountainside, and helps Nell and the hero push a huge boulder down the side to crush the pursuing bandits.<br /><br />After seeing this film you would think the army should invest in 1920 Maxwell automobiles because they clearly have better off-road capabilities than Hummers and Bradley tanks combined. Watch this film just for laughs, it's worth it just to see Nell cuddling up to the car grill and saying "You did your best, brave little car" | 0 |
I enjoy quality crapness, and this ranks up there with some of the finest. the cg is out of this world, or at least pre-dates our world, and the insanity of a 6 foot bloke in a rat outfit chasing after people is laughably bad. I quite enjoyed some of this, but the acting is so goddamn awful, and even the obligatory nude scene doesn't really have any baps out in it. just a complete waste of time if ever i saw one. I don't know who wasted more time, me watching this, or the poor saps who got dragged into making it in the faint hope that this will launch their acting careers. I can assure you, it wont. However, on a brighter note, I have managed to successfully do the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon from this movie, so I think it was almost worthwhile watching the 91 minutes of it. | 0 |
Yes, this is one of THOSE movies, so terrible, so insipid, so trite, that you will not be able to stop laughing. I have watched comedies, good comedies, and laughed less than my wife and I laughed at this movie. The other comments give the idea well enough. The characters are so unpleasant you cheer the rats on, the effects are so poorly done you wonder whose elementary school art class was in charge, the acting-- oh the acting-- talk about tired dialogue and embarrassing pauses.<br /><br />But the rat, yes, the big rat. Why we didn't get to see the rat until the end rather surprised me. Often the 'big one' isn't shown until the end because the budget is limited and good effects chew up so much money. I surmise, however, that in this case the big rat was hidden until the end because the filmmakers were ashamed that the best they had was a guy running around dressed up like a woodchuck with third-world dentistry.<br /><br />The most sublime part of the whole movie is the elevator scene. After figuring out that the rats couldn't stand loud noise (migraines from the bad acting?), the main dude rigs up a fire alarm to send the rats into a frenzy. If you've ever wanting to see a pair of rats waltz while blood squirts out of their heads like a geyser, this film is for you. Really, you need to rent it and see for yourself.<br /><br />But not for more than 99¢, OK? | 0 |
well after watching this i can say that it ain't the worst movie ever made,, yes folks there is worse than this,, there are some good points to the movie,, you get to watch drunken teenagers, have horrible deaths,, and cute looking rats eating some science experiment, and getting grotesquely huge,, the drunk janitor,, the cranky doctor,, and yes a girl in thong underwear that has absolutely no shame,, dumb jocks,, i could'nt personally wait for the rat to eat these drunken fools,, i was rooting for the rat the e ntire time,, it had a good premise,, the first part of the movie,, was interesting though with the scientific explantation about the rats,, and the little back story,, but i think that it ruined when the dumb drunken horny teenagers come into play,, the rat in my opinion, the one that get's lost,, her name is Brenda, was so fake,, must have been a cGi rat,, looked like a guy dressed up in a beaver suit,, this was pretty schlocky, lame,, but not totally horribble,, | 0 |
This film is easily one of the worst ones I have ever seen. And I don't mean that in a good way. We wanted to see a crappy horror/thriller, so we picked the one that seemed to be the lousiest in the store. For once, the film was everything we'd expected. And more! (or should I say less?)<br /><br />The actors look like they are reading their lines from posters behind the camera. The so-called special effects are created by putting red see-through plastic in front of the camera to give the impression that we are seeing through the eyes of the killer rats. And the script? Don't even get me started on the script... And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it turns out that the first part of the film was Oscar-material compared to the ending.<br /><br />Take it from me, this film is hilarious if you're into crappy horror-films, but if you want a GOOD film, keep on looking. This is not for you. | 0 |
Altered Species starts one Friday night in Los Angeles where Dr. Irwin (Guy Vieg) & his laboratory assistant Walter (Allen Lee Haff) are burning the midnight oil as they continue to try & perfect a revolutionary new drug called 'Rejenacyn'. As Walter tips the latest failed attempt down the sink the pipes leak the florescent green liquid into the basement where escaped lab rats begin to drink it... Five of Walter's friends, Alicia (Leah Rown in a very fetching outfit including some cool boots that she gets to stomp on a rat with), Gary (Richard Peterson), Burke (Derek Hofman), Frank (David Bradley) & Chelsea (Alexandra Townsend) decide that he has been working too hard & needs to get out so they plan to pick him up & party the night away. Back at the lab & the cleaner Douglas (Robert Broughton) has been attacked & killed by the now homicidal rats in the basement as Walter injects the latest batch of serum in a lab rat which breaks out of it's cage as it grows at an amazing rate. Walter's friends turn up but he can't leave while the rat is still missing so everyone helps him look for it. All six become potential rat food...<br /><br />Also known as Rodentz Altered Species was co-edited & directed by Miles Feldman & has very little to recommend it. The script by producer Serge Rodnunsky is poor & coupled together with the general shoddiness of the production as a whole Altered Species really is lame. For a start the character's are dumb, annoying & clichéd. Then there's the unoriginal plot with the mad scientist, the monster he has created, the isolated location, the stranded human cast & the obligatory final showdown between hero & monster. It's all here somewhere. Altered Species moves along at a fair pace which is just about the best thing I can say about it & thankfully doesn't last that long. It's basically your average run-of-the-mill killer mutant rat film & not a particularly good one at that either.<br /><br />Director Feldman films like a TV film & the whole thing is throughly bland & forgettable while some of the special effects & attack scenes leave a lot to be desired. For a start the CGI rats are awful, the attack sequences feature hand-held jerky camera movement & really quick edits to try & hide the fact that all the rats are just passively sitting there. At various points in Altered Species the rat cages need to shake because of the rats movement but you can clearly see all the rats just sitting there as someone shakes the cages off screen. The giant rat monster at the end looks pretty poor as it's just a guy in a dodgy suit. There are no scares, no tension or atmosphere & since when did basements contain bright neon lighting? There are one or two nice bits of gore here, someone has a nice big messy hole where their face used to be, there's a severed arm & decapitation, lots of rat bites, someone having their eyeball yanked out & a dead mutilated cat.<br /><br />Technically Altered Species is sub standard throughout. It takes place within the confines of one building, has cheap looking CGI effects & low production values. The acting isn't up to much but it isn't too bad & a special mention to Leah Rowan as Alicia as she's a bit of a babe & makes Altered Species just that little bit nicer & easier to watch...<br /><br />Altered Species isn't a particularly good film, in fact it's a pretty bad one but I suppose you could do worse. Not great but it might be worth a watch if your not too demanding & have nothing else to do. | 0 |
What a terrible film.<br /><br />It starts well, with the title sequence, but that's about as good as it gets.<br /><br />The movie is something about rats turning into monsters and going on a killing spree. The acting isn't so much poor, but the script is pointless and the film isn't even scary despite the atmospheric music.<br /><br />It really is amazing that some group cobbled together this bag of rubbish and thought it would make a good film.<br /><br />It isn't a good film. It's trash, and I urge you not to waste a minute of your life on it! One out of ten. | 0 |
Spoiler below, but read on or you'll never know the horrible fate that awaits all planing to rent "Rodentz".<br /><br />On a moonlit night, in a remote research laboratory, a major medical breakthrough is about to have deadly results. A chemical compound that was created to "hunt and destroy" deadly cancer cells has leaked from the hazardous waste disposal system into the building's basement. Now, the rodents involved in the laboratory experiment upstairs are not the only rats in the facility that will become the altered species. Professor Schultz, a leading bio-researcher, has just determined that the addition of a new enzyme now enables his "hunt and destroy" formulation to regenerate for the length of time necessary to neutralize deadly cancer tumors. When three varying degrees of the new mixture are administered to three different rats and the rest poured down the faulty "Waste Hazard" sink, shocking side-effects result in a night of terror.....right.....<br /><br />Seriously, this is probably the worst film I've seen this year. Everything about it screams "Low-budget!", from the horrendous acting to the special effects which are some of the worst I've ever seen. The characters are clichéd morons and act in stupid, predictable ways: walking down dark hallways alone, looking for a cat, tripping and falling so the "rats" can catch up with them, boarding themselves up in a small room, etc. <br /><br />While some films are cheaply made, this film really takes the cake. Every possible corner is cut, everything from reusing earlier shots, filming the "Lab" hallways from different angles to make it look bigger (That reminds me--why were only TWO guys working in this freakin' massive building?!?!?!?), to music and special effects that could be done on a children's workshop PC.<br /><br />That brings me to the worst aspect of this steaming pile of dung--the special effects. Just horrendous. The computer generated rats look so fake and stand out in every scene so even the dumbest of film buffs could see they are computer generated. And that giant rat suit--OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! seriously, are we supposed to believe that freaking beany baby is a monster? Just pitiful........On the better side, some of the gore looks pretty cool, especially considering the budget. <br /><br />The actors all suck. no one involved with the production cared or knew what they were doing. I've wasted enough time with review, just take my advice, it's garbage. 1/10.<br /><br />About the DVD: The transfer sucks, the audio is passable and there's a commentary track on the disk by the director and two of his friends, who say they had absolutely nothing to do with making the film but were there to ask questions and make comments. All three of these sub-human primordial slime are so incredibly stupid that they should be institutionalized before they can harm themselves or others. I don't want to waste any more of you kind reader's time or mine, for I am starting to remember more than I want to about this film..... DVD rating: 1/10. | 0 |
Well then. I just watched an crap-load of movies--all with varying degrees of quality. I wasn't too sure about which one I wanted to review first. Then it hit me like a sack-a-rats: Rodentz. Warn people about Rodentz. This monstrosity stars nobody and is painfully dull to sit through. And it's about mutant rats killing people. Yeah... real freaking' original. "Food of the Gods," or "Willard" anyone? Those were better than this, and that doesn't say much...<br /><br />**POSSIBLE SPOILER**Okay here's the story: Inna laboratory the scientist and his plucky assistant are experimenting on rats and their laboratory is in a crappy neighborhood and crappy building and the plucky assistant's moronic friends show up drunk and everyone becomes food for the crazed rats and just about everybody dies and, oh yeah, there's one giant rat that looks crappy, but it gets killed, the end. There, all in once sentence! Spoiler, you say? Ppfff!! I beg to differ! The second we all realize that there's a giant rat, we all know it's gonna die eventually!!**END SPOILER**<br /><br />Here's the breakdown:<br /><br />The Good: <br /><br />--Well, I watched it for free, but for everyone else... hmmm, no. There's nothing good here. <br /><br />Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help: <br /><br />--Um... well. the gore was decent. --Very average cinematography. <br /><br />--CG rats not as bad as they could've been in some shots...<br /><br />The Bad: <br /><br />--...and in other shots, the CG rats were pathetically cheap-looking. Look, if your film has a low budget, maybe you shouldn't rely on CG. Lesson to take to heart. <br /><br />--The acting is extremely poor.<br /><br />--The characters are beyond uninteresting--we have a mish-mash of clichés and none of them are even done that well. <br /><br />--Booooooooooooring.<br /><br />--Been done before--plenty of times. <br /><br />--Stupid story, just stupid.<br /><br />--Giant rat looks like fat man in poorly conceived bear costume--that was kind of funny--but not funny enough to give this film any worth.<br /><br />--Retarded, unrealistic, and boring dialog. <br /><br />--All the college student rat chow people are drinking Tequila from huge plastic milk jugs--and yet they don't appear to be drunk for anything longer than a few seconds. Way to stick with continuity, guys.<br /><br />The Ugly: <br /><br />--This film is bad. Simply terrible. Worse than you might imagine. It's not even laughably bad like, for instance, "Scarecrow" (2002) or "House of the Dead." Now those movies are crap you can enjoy. Even if they do make you stupider.<br /><br />Memorable Scene: <br /><br />--The lame action-movie ending, complete with uninjured heroes and explosion. Because it didn't feel at all like the rest of this monstrosity--but still sucked.<br /><br />Acting: 2/10 Story: 1/10 Atmosphere: 2/10 Cinematography: 4/10 Character Development: 0/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 4/10 Nudity/Sexuality: 1/10 (I was tending to my son occasionally during the film, so I may have missed it, but was supposedly in there) Violence/Gore: 4/10 Dialogue: 2/10 Music: 1/10 (average for the time) Writing: 1/10 Direction: 2/10<br /><br />Cheesiness: 7/10 Crappiness: 9/10<br /><br />Overall: 1/10<br /><br />Watch it only if you love rat and vermin-based horror films. Wait... Check that. Don't watch it. It's crap.<br /><br />(www.ResidentHazard.com) | 0 |
Winter Kills is a terrible, incoherent and very disappointing conspiracy comedy-thriller from little-known director William Richert. While watching the film, I honestly felt as if I was the emperor in the classic fable The Emperor's New Clothes. The film made me feel like a fool because I couldn't make head nor tail of the serpentine plot and the nonsensical characters. But I felt kind of embarrassed to admit to myself that the film was tying my brain up in knots. So I stuck with it to the end, hoping that the whole tangled mess would untangle itself. Then I realised.... the film is SUPPOSED to be serpentine, nonsensical and illogical, because that's the whole point. This is a satirical look at conspiracy theories and theorists, with the knotting-up of the plot used as a metaphor for the knotting-up of truths, half-truths and lies that define any conspiracy. Even when I got that the joke was on me, I still felt Winter Kills to be a pretty awful movie.<br /><br />Young Nick Kegan (Jeff Bridges) is the younger brother of a former United States President who was assassinated in Philadelphia. Nick is present when a dying man claims that he shot the President and gives detailed information about where he hid the gun. Nick follows the clues, but every step of the way the people helping him seem to die in mysterious circumstances. Also, his father Pa Kegan (John Huston), a vulgar and disgustingly wealthy businessman, keeps interfering with Nick's investigation. The deeper he delves into the assassination, the more Nick realises that he is descending into a web of complex lies and red herrings, where nothing is as it seems and no-one can be trusted.<br /><br />The film is an utter nightmare to follow, and in many ways is not worth trying to follow for the afore-mentioned reason that it deliberately tangles itself up. The cast is packed with extraordinary talent but most of them are wasted. Toshiro Mifune has one of the briefest and most pointless cameo roles in cinematic history; Elizabeth Taylor appears uncredited and has not a single line of dialogue; Richard Boone is given what seems to be an interesting role but his character goes nowhere. John Huston has the best role as the powerful patriarch and provides us with the film's few enjoyable moments with his acerbic delivery. Anthony Perkins also gets a creepy role and handles it well, though his screen time is far too short to do complete justice to the character. Some nudity and sex scenes are tossed in for no real reason and, while they're quite graphic and might appeal to voyeurs, they really belong in another film. The film's semi-comic climax is farcical and disappointing, yet paradoxically memorable in its weird little way. There's obviously a cult audience out there somewhere for Winter Kills.... but I won't be counting myself among its number. | 0 |
With an absolutely amazing cast and crew, this might have been a classic. Instead it is a repetitive paraphrasing of all the conspiracy theories extant in 1979 about the JFK assassination grafted, rather pointlessly, on to a vaguely incoherent plot about the murder of fictitious president Kegan in 1960. Many superb character actors are wasted as they are either not given enough to do - Sterling Hayden or Eli Wallach, for instance, or they are asked to go rather luridly over the top - John Huston. Jeff Bridges and Anthony Perkins do manage to acquit themselves very well, in their very different ways, though.<br /><br />The photography is gorgeous, but does not justify an hour and a half of your life, or the price of the DVD purchase. | 0 |
i can't say i liked this movie very much.it has some amusing moments,but it doesn't seem able to make up its mind whether it is a comedy or a drama.it doesn't really work as either.it's too light in tone to be a drama,and the amusing moments are few and far between.it also doesn't make a lot of sense.things seem to happen for no reason.and it's also extremely convoluted.i feel like they just made things up as they were going.if they had just taken a bit of time to explain things,this might have been a better movie.i would say the ending was anti climatic, but that would mean the rest of the movie had actually been building up to something,which it didn't.it just sorts ends,and that's that.i didn't find it boring,really,but like i said,there there just isn't any point.i'll give Winter Kills a reluctant and weak 3/10 | 0 |
From the pen of Richard Condon (The Manchurian Candidate 1962) comes this muddled tale of political intrigue and assassination. The story, told in almost comic book fashion is difficult to swallow. All-star cast considered, this poor effort is not entirely the fault of the cast and crew: the novel was replete with the same short-comings. It seems as though at times the story is actually mocking the more sincere effort put forth in "Manchurian Candidate." A disappointment on all counts. | 0 |
Ah WINTER KILLS , based on the novel by Richard Condon which deals with a conspiracy that killed the president of the United States 20 years ago . I knew Condon also wrote THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE which dealt with a similar theme and was looking forward to seeing an intelligent thriller<br /><br />WINTER KILLS left me cold . It's not a thriller - It's a piece of worthless crap , possibly the worst movie I've seen this month and boy have I seen a lot of bad movies in June . The problem lies in both the direction and the script and seeing as William Richert was responsible for both then he should be blamed entirely for this unfunny farce <br /><br />There's two things wrong with this movie . First off is the way everything is presented in a totally over the top manner . It's not as OTT as say something like that James Bond movie with David Niven and Peter Sellers but everything has a farcial edge to it with actors completely mugging their performances . This might have been justified if there was entertainment value to the movie but there's none . As a satire it's very silly , so silly that it becomes almost unwatchable . Secondly the scenes seem to have been cut so much that they're rendered senseless . Take for example a scene where the hero is confronting a loopy militia leader called Dawson . Dawson tells the hero he has 30 seconds start then it cuts to the hero being on board a plane . The scenes begin and end with no rhyme nor reason<br /><br />A dire movie that's an ordeal to sit through | 0 |
I watched the pilot and noticed more than a few similarities between 3 lbs and House, M.D.. Tucci's character is brilliant but socially inept out of choice, similar to Laurie's character House, but without the acerbic wit that Laurie brings to House. Meanwhile, Tucci's 'straight guy', the emphatic doctor Seger, is not developed into a more interesting character, like the fallible 'straight guys' Cuddy and Wilson. Indira Varma's character Adrienne Holland is too similar to Jennifer Morrison's doctor Cameron to be a co-incidence.<br /><br />Someone at CBS obviously noticed the success of House, M.D. and told his staff to get him (her) a similar show, hoping that mimicry would prove successful. However, copying a show like House demands the same high level balance of wit and suspense and Tucci and company are just not up to the challenge.<br /><br />I didn't know the show was canceled until I read the comments on IMDb, but it doesn't come as a surprise to me. | 0 |
3lbs is obviously just a self indulgent programme for Stanley Tucci to be a producer/moody deep doctor. Unlike House he has absolutely no personality and unlike Grey's Anatomy the brain surgery cases are't even interesting. This programme is supposed to be set in a leading centre for Neurlogical cases - yet there's nothing interesting or exciting going on! Not even the so called pathetic 'feud' between him and a rival adds anything to the show and neither do those hallucinations. In the pilot there was a brief glimpse into the leads's social life as a father - snooze! boring and pointless.<br /><br />This show is pants,there's a glut of medical dramas around at the moment and this does nothing to make it stand out as special. | 0 |
I can appreciate what Barney is trying to achieve, but after sitting through this last night at a college movie house, I couldn't help but think...when is this gonna end? A very long and ponderous two hours and fifteen minutes. I had only seen a part of Cremaster 3 on DVD and thought I knew what to expect. That said, experimental films such as this are better digested in small increments. There are a couple of beautiful/horrible images...including the title sequence (no kidding), but if you go into this expecting any kind of plot or meaning, then you are in for a long, snooze-inducing ride. I managed to stay awake for the whole thing (if that's a compliment) but more often than not, I was waiting for some kind of meaning or narrative...big mistake. Among the collection of images are a very ornate gift-wrapping ceremony, the creation of a disgusting dish of what appears to be petroleum jelly slabs formed with a cookie cutter and sprinkled with shrimp (this is served to the crew of the ship which is shown throughout the film), a large blubber cheesecake with a large tentacle turd placed in the center of it, and the mutual evisceration of Bjork and director Matthew Barney which eventually culminates in some bizarre kind of communion, followed by their transformation into whale-like creatures. The soundtrack is at times beautiful and annoying...sometimes even maddening. At one time, there is a song being sung by Bjork to go along with the ephemeral rituals being played before us, and at other times there is just a constant droning of a high-pitched instrument, which we see a mysterious woman playing at the beginning and end of the movie. If this sounds like it doesn't make sense, that is because is DOESN'T! If this sounds like your cup of tea, then you will absolutely LOVE it! If this sounds like something that you probably won't like, then stay far away from it, because you will most likely walk out of the theater during the halfway mark like several people at the screening I attended. This is the very definition of an art film. You get from it what you take from it. But otherwise, there really isn't much there, other than a few oddities and constant construction and deconstruction rituals. I'm glad that there is a place for films such as this, but I can't say I would want to sit through it again. However, I can't say I wouldn't want to see one of Barney Cremaster films from start to finish and compare it with this. I think, perhaps now that I know what to expect I might enjoy something like this more. To give you an idea of what kind of comprehension factor this film has, I probably would've liked it better if I had gotten stoned. Then again, it could've felt twice as long as it was, and then it would've REALLY gotten ponderous. Definitely not for everyone. | 0 |
This film is massively boring and pretentious. There is only one good moment when a sailor shaves Mr Barney's(think the purple dinosaur-less pretense) eyebrow. The music is relentlessly cloying-it is sad that Bjork, someone with so much inner beauty, has been brought down to pretentious falsity in her art. The pomp of the tea service makes a beautiful ritual seem vapid. the mythology and culture are not respected in this film they are lifted. Not just from Japanese culture but from another filmmaker...(stay tuned) In a perfect "art imitates life" moment-the crew of the ship finds a giant piece of sh*t. Which is what the audience found in the theatre. There are some set pieces which are very composed and arty without heart---then
prepare for spoilers-I'm talking to you MR BARNEY.<br /><br />The Emperor has no clothes! Mr. Barney you have been outted! I have seen Jodorowsky's HOLY MOUNTAIN. And your thin, fake veil of BS has been lifted. You have stolen your images your style and your ENTIRE ART CATALOGUE from this man. Now that HOLY MOUNTAIN has been released FINALLY let's hope the powers that be at the Art Councils of the world STOP FINANCING YOU! Poor Jodorowsky-lost in a financial battle with the Beatles Lawyer when he is the Lennon/McCartney of film-making. And BTW while Jodorowsky is the Beatle-YOU ARE THE MONKEES! A cheap thin soulless rip off only liked by facile kitschy college freshmen. And BTW I am a filmmaker. If you are interested in making a reality film-I will legally fight you in a ring defending Jodorowsky-you, defending outright thievery. | 0 |
Drawing Restraint 9. dir: Matthew Barney.<br /><br />How do you know when you're in the middle of a pretentious art film? Is it that there is only 8 lines of dialogue in 140 minutes of film? Is it when Bjork is wearing what looks like a giant furry pita on her head in a pseudo-Asian ritual? Maybe when mammoth turds and spinal columns are used in a whale blubber experiment. Or, when you're about ready to kill the composer for making a minimal, and still annoying, version of a Philip Glass score? In any case, Drawing Restraint 9 is among the most pretentious of the modern art movies. At 135 minutes, it adds to its pretension by being boring to boot. I would call the use of color stunning, and the opening sequence interesting, but the rest of the movie looked like it was filmed for a Discovery Channel documentary. That is until it looks like they were trying to film their version of P-ss Christ, but that will be coming up later.<br /><br />Actually, the documentary-esquire portions were the best parts of it. The surface plot is about a whaling ship, and then there is a ritual about making whale fat. Then, there are the guests in the form of Bjork and Matthew Barney who are welcomed on the ship by being put through a ritual of humiliation which includes passed-out head shaving (think frat boy pranks), nicotine patches, and giant furry pita hats. Then there is mutual evisceration, cannibalism, and lets not forget the giant turd.<br /><br />Matthew Barney has written that this is about "the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity." That's almost like saying, "if you don't get it, then you're not creative in your interpretation, so sod off because I'm an artist." Oh, wait, that's the POST-modern interpretation of that sentence and what the movie would be about if it was POST-modern. But, its supposed to be Modern art. Which is about the art itself.<br /><br />So, let's start this whole interpretation bit, shall we? The following lines are only 3/4 serious and should not be taken as any realistic attempt to interpret the movie.<br /><br />The first half-hour concerns pearl divers and the construction of a giant ramp. Obviously, the ramp is symbolic of the need for self-elevation to whatever standards you hold dear, and the pearl divers are looking for pearls of wisdom. Then, on a whaling ship, they build a crate that looks like it is in the crude shape of a whale. Obviously a crude element of foreshadowing.<br /><br />On the ship, they make whale fat inside the shape of the whale, and take out the fins portion. They replace this with a spinal column and later a giant turd. These are supposed to be the states of the movie itself. When its fat, its entertaining but bad for you. When it is the spinal column, its the "important" parts of the movie, or the backbone so to speak. Then, the giant turd is the bowels of the movie, or when the movie is crap.<br /><br />Bjork and Matthew Barney the arrive on separate ships, are put into strange humiliating outfits which AREN'T EVEN WELL MADE OR SYMMETRICAL, one suspects that they ran out of money and Barney was trying to quit smoking. SO, they put patches on his head. They go through a ritual and learn about the ship from a Japanese wise man, who tells them that the ship is scarred from when another ship hit it; a crash or intersection, if you will. This inspires Bjork and Barney, who are different on the outside, to start cutting each other's legs off and eat them so they could turn into whales themselves and be the same person. They intersect. Oh, did I forget to mention that this has been done in a Robbie Williams video? Then, the pearl divers come back with their mouths full of pearls of knowledge which they let fall to make a stupid Venn Diagram. Barney made it through 8th grade geometry, obviously. Or, maybe at least some social studies.<br /><br />Oh, and did I forget Bjork's ear-gouging I-want-to-kill-her score? At times it is hypnotic, but at others you just want to assassinate her.<br /><br />Art film is one thing, but when you just throw up all sorts of symbolism in the hopes of getting a reaction out of people, it becomes a self-destructive joke. When do you cross the line between becoming a joke in terms of art? Dali and Bunuel frequently made surreal pieces of nonsense but were more coherent and/or entertaining than this piece of trash. Un Chien Andalou had the sensibility to cram as much symbolism as it could into less than half an hour.<br /><br />So, can I recommend this? Only if you like dull HIGH ART films with lots of symbolism and flat imagery.<br /><br />D+ | 0 |
I watched this movie as a preview of a Matthew Barney art exhibit. It certainly prepared me. I almost skipped the exhibit and, in retrospect, probably should have.<br /><br />Aside from the score being great (Bjork) and the photography rich and colorful, the content was mostly tedious and predictable. Gee, I really needed to see someone wearing pearls to figure out what the pearl-divers were up to. The film was mostly a silly mixture of Japanese cultural references and industrial shots of modern whaling technology being used in a mock-hunt/harvest. The film "peaks" with enough gratuitous shock-art to turn your stomach.<br /><br />What was the point of the movie? While others might argue that it is an anti-whaling piece, one could equally argue that it somehow also justifies whaling. Personally I think it was Barney's attempt at "flashing" the audience with his anal, fecal, self-mutilation, and cannibalistic fetishes.<br /><br />Bottom line: unless you really get off on Barney's sense of art, don't bother seeing this movie. The message is obscure, the pace slow, and the cultural references pretentious. If you're after shock-art, you'll do better at one of the many "Undead" movies or hunting down an old copy of Hustler and taking in a fecal-cartoon. | 0 |
I couldn't agree more with another reviewer that mentioned Jodorowsky.<br /><br />Barney seems to be utterly boring and uninspired "content-wise". He can produce eye-candy (and I like candy), but its pretentiousness and fundamental artistic emptiness just diminishes all the joy. <br /><br />I am afraid that many people don't distinguish between similar (but really only on the surface) works of Jodorowsky or even more linear film-makers like Tarkovski or Kubrick (I love 2001 Odyssey and was never bored through the ending scenes...) That kind of art as M.Barney's makes adds confusion and fends off the viewers that could otherwise start to appreciate experimental cinema. Typical empty post-modern "conceptual" art. And check his interviews. I just don't buy it, sorry. And so boring. <br /><br />I was never bored seeing Alejandro Jodorowsky's movies, while Drawing Restraint 9 was an utter disappointment. Especially while it offered the possibilities to be something, to actually tell something in a non-linear unorthodox way (like the beginning and the great choreographed dance and preparations for the ship to sail out. Ships "meeting" on the sea... Ideas of feces as an object of value(if it was feces). Those "pearl" divers... Everything could construct a great surreal movie with some content. But it didn't. ANd those horrible pretentious scenes of dressing up and fake tea ceremony... How vain and fake and philosophically pretentious but empty can it get?<br /><br />I has some great picturesque scenes, but the whole movie became so boring and pretentious and utterly empty and fake that it made me physically sick.<br /><br />And it doesn't have good tempo. I like slow pace movies, but this was just boring in some scenes - because it was pretentious and fake - so I was just forced to witnessed prolonged scenes of artistic vanity...<br /><br />That kind of movies just kill the art and spirit in my view. <br /><br />I want more Jodorowsky!!! | 0 |
Don't get the impression from other reviewers that this film stinks cos it's ambivalent about the Japanese whaling industry (which, morally, is no worse than the US meat trade or the Scottish haggis cull), it stinks cos it's pretentious tosh, the sort of up-its-own-behind guff that gets modern art a bad name. That said, there are some stunning images, but there are stunning images in the average bus ride if you use your imagination, so that's no reason to go and see this nonsense. What happens in the film happens very slowly and often accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds like a cat being gutted, and then, just when you thinks it's finished, it starts again. I saw it it in a porn cinema in Rome which had been hired for the weekend to show Barney's film works, which is an admirable and clever way to reclaim what had once been a local fleapit from the dirty-old-men-in-macs brigade, but if the trendy young things and the slightly older beard-stroking Bjork fans were to be honest, everyone might have had a lot more fun if they'd just shown one of the pornoes! | 0 |
Slow and nice images changed one another, with sometimes annoying music (you know Bjork) in background, for the first 75% of the movie. If you did not have enough sleep, that's a good time. <br /><br />But, in the last 20% of the movie director decides to bring idea of re-birth, re-incarnation or else, through S&M images: "spiritual lovers" are cutting each others bodies with knives. For me it was very much disturbing and actually changed general impression of blend of abstract art and images of modern Japanese mystery. <br /><br />Operator and director are great, but weird. <br /><br />Did not enjoy it at all. | 0 |
This has got to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen! There were people leaving the theatre, others were falling asleep (ok, it was a late night show)... This is a no-sense movie, one of those who can make you never want to see an out of mainstream picture again. I would love to watch the making-off of this movie as I am deeply interested on what goes on the minds of the authors of such garbage. Do they laugh when they create all this ridiculous stuff or do they actually think they're doing something interesting? I wonder... The soundtrack is awful apart from some instrumental stuff that reminds you of a previous Bjork album. Even if you're a fan of Bjork's music, stay home. It's the best thing to do. The little, tiny, pieces of nice music are no reason for you to go out and submit yourself to this torture. God!... | 0 |
I thought it would at least be aesthetically beautiful. It was slow, pretentious, and boring. I almost fell asleep. There are some decent songs, but there is this one song at the end which is just some guy yelling out "Yaowwww!" while someone taps randomly on a wooden object. That being said, there are some pretty songs, but it's not worth seeing hte movie over. Go on itunes (they have the album), preview it, and choose the good ones. <br /><br />Half the movie is some guy making tea. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. But you'll see what I mean if you see it. That being said: DON'T SEE IT! | 0 |
"Drawing Restraint 9" is a kind of movie one either loves or hates; fortunately or not, I left it with a strong feeling of wasted time and of being thoroughly stuffed with "killing whales is bad" propaganda. Aesthetically, the movie could have been pleasing, especially its first half, until it is not clear that every action portrayed serves as an allegory of various aspects of whale hunting. Until then, it might be slightly amusing to look at daily chores of japan workers, but later it becomes obvious that anything that appears on the screen is a propaganda, and no single frame is an exception. I use the word "propaganda" because the movie uses basically the old morality play device, where "good" and "bad" are not deduced in the course of action but are set in stone. Probably it's just me, but I find such type of art shallow and preconceived, even when it's all about the noble (no sarcasm here) quest of protecting the environment.<br /><br />In my opinion it is a cardinal sin when a movie material is stretched out without any justification, for the sake of stretching only. In my opinion, "Drawing Restraint 9" could've been easily fit into 75 minutes, but has a torturous length of 2 and 1/4 hours. Yes, there were interesting shots, but there were not enough of these to leave 15-minute gaps of nothingness without notice. The movie has no standard scenario, and there's no evolution of characters, but neither it is a documentary, it's rather a kind of conceptual installation. That's an unusual form for a movie, but it still can be viewed as art even when the concept is as simple and naive as here. OTOH I also believe that the director should've had some honesty and did not pretend that it could be only delivered in no less than 135 minutes.<br /><br />And yes, the music score mostly resembled whale sounds. How surprising.<br /><br />2/10. | 0 |
Renowned cinematographer Freddie Francis (Glory, The Elephant Man) directs this pretty bad horror/drama film. 19th Century England has a different view of how the practice of medicine should be handled than Dr. Thomas Rock, the law stating that only the bodies of hung criminals can be studied and experimented on. But the stockpile of these bodies is a small one, and Rock needs more - and he prefers them fresher. Being a maverick within his circle, he begins to pay people to find bodies for him to study and test on. Desperate sleazebags Robert Fallon and Timothy Broom get wind of this job opportunity and begin to murder people and sell these bodies to Rock. Naturally, this kind of action has even worse consequences than practicing on the dead bodies of non-criminals, and leads to trouble for everyone. While the overall story sounds intriguing on paper, almost everything about The Doctor And The Devils is laughably bad.<br /><br />After the first fifteen minutes of the film you are already beginning to question your decision of sitting down to watch the film. The entire look of the film is just ugly. Seeing as how the film takes place in the slums of England during the 19th Century, the filmmakers were probably going for an "ugly" look, but they don't do it in an artful way. Everything from the sets to the cinematography just look cheap, feeble, and disgusting. Also, just about everything scene is filled with something that you simply cannot take seriously, and most of the time this has to do with someone (both in the small and large roles) doing something that looks or sounds completely ridiculous. Francis sure didn't help out his actors much.<br /><br />Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea play the twisted buddies of the film, Fallon and Broom respectively, and are very bombastic but very bad. Their characters are by nature crazy, but Pryce and Rea overact the parts to death. They especially have trouble keeping the same accent from shot to shot - Pryce in particular goes from Cockney to Irish to Long John Silver to some kind of lagoon creature and so on and so forth. It's also a humor riot to see Twiggy in this film at all, let alone playing an in-demand street whore, since she can't act to save her life (though her song during the final credits isn't so funny). Boy she sure came a long way: from "flower power" to "I'll take mee clothes off for a shillin'!" As bad as those three actors are in this film, Julian Sands takes home the award for the worst performance of the film. He is just as lame as it gets, giving one laugh-out-loud attempt after another at portraying anger, love, happiness, anxiety - pick an emotion, any emotion! <br /><br />There's only one good thing about The Doctor And The Devils: Timothy Dalton's performance of Dr. Rock. Despite being surrounded by cinematic sewage, Dalton is quite excellent; giving an electric portrayal of an overly driven yet good natured man. Too bad the rest of the film could not have been as good as Mr. Dalton.... | 0 |
As others have noted, this should have been an excellent Hammer-style film, and it seems to me that that's how most of the actors were instructed to play it... but the screenplay is so leaden, poorly paced, and filled with a lot of dull soliloquies (poor Timothy Dalton is saddled with most of them) that it's all too overblown and self-important. This is an uncharacteristically weak performance from Dalton, although he quietly nails the climactic scene where Dr. Rock finally realizes what he's done. The only actor who comes off really well is Patrick Stewart who is a most welcome sight. Freddie Francis may have been a great cinematographer, but he was a lousy director. | 0 |
This film is probably the worst film that I have ever seen. I'm studying french at college and thus understood all the dialog, so the language barrier wasn't an issue. I must say it is really hard to empathize with any of the characters depicted in the movie. There is only one professional actor in the cast and I'm guessing no professional directors or writers.<br /><br />Although I have rated it 1 out of 10 it probably doesn't merit such a poor rating. This is merely a futile effort of lowering its current overall rating of 7.3 to something more realistic. Perhaps 4.3 would be a more accurate rating because the film is a true non-event 100 minutes or so in length that you will never get back.<br /><br />The real shame is that I am sure some college student is busting his nut making a film twice as good and half the length. However if you want to join the bandwagon which seems to be rolling around IMDb you might as well go ahead give "Lost in Translation" a 10 as well. | 0 |
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