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To say that this is a good show is not to say anything at all. After all, this show is made by the same crew responsible for Airplane and other hilarious and brilliant movies. Writing is superb. Even though the show is built on one-liners, they don't become overbearing or annoying. Leslie Nielsen is flexing his comedy muscle to the full extent as if saying: You ain't seen nothing yet. The format was definitely polished to introduce Naked Gun. When watching these movies, notice how many schticks are taken from the TV show. The brilliant part is that they don't have to be changed too much. The show was truly a testing ground for bigger and better versions to come later. | positive |
As I said, the book was pretty good and this might have been a good movie if Melissa Gilbert hadn't been so horrible and unbelievable in the lead roll. What kind of accent was that suppose to be anyway? It sounded the same as her horrible Russian accent in another movie that I have seen her in. Every time she opened her mouth I cringed. It took 3 tries before I was able to watch the entire movie. Brad Johnson was good as the other lead. <br /><br />I really liked the beach location scenes. They added some much needed brightness to take your mind off of Melissa Gilberts depressing portrayal. I think they could have used San Francisco views more to their advantage though. It looked like the night scenes were actually SF, but I could be wrong. I don't recall the character in the book being this depressing. <br /><br />Please keep Melissa Gilbert out of any future movies that require an accent! | negative |
I usually steer clear of TV movies because of the many ways you know that it's TV movies five seconds into the picture. This one got my attention because of the unusual title and its gloomy, well-crafted mood that is established from the very start. While the ever present rain confirmed my suspicions of a misplaced story (even if claiming to be set in California the movie was largely shot around a stormy Vancouver, B.C.), the dark and oppressive outdoors beautifully complement Olmos' excellent acting. | positive |
Yet another early film from Alfred Hitchcock which seems to have been done out of contractual obligation. As with Juno and the Paycock, you can tell that Hitchcock had little interest in this movie. There is almost no style or craft to it at all. The story revolves around Fred and Emily, a young married couple, who come into some money and go on a cruise which proves to be a test of their marriage. Emily is given a chance at a new life with a good hearted, wealthy man who falls in love with her, but chooses to take the high road and stay with her husband. This might seem more believable if Fred weren't made out to be a completely insensitive, pompous ass who jumps at the first opportunity he sees to leave his wife for another woman. The couple ends up staying together, but the movie lacks any real reconciliation scene. The third act goes in a completely different direction, with the couple stranded on an abandoned ship and rescued by an Asian fishing boat. Joan Barry does give a very stirring performance as the faithful wife of an unfaithful husband. That's about all you can say for this one. | negative |
Well let me go say this because i love history and I know that movie is most important piece in our history and it was beautifully executed movie and Julia Stiles became my #1 favorite actress after seeing her in "The '60s" and i own this movie in my video box with many movies and i suggest you to look for her new movies in the future and try to enjoy history!!!! | positive |
With all the dreck out there, this is a gentle movie about young love. Yes, it's true that young love often makes more out of something than it deserves, but why aren't people down on "Romeo and Juliet"? Paul and Michelle are models of good behave compared to them.<br /><br />Yes, they run away, and set up an ideal life, but this is a movie, not real life. Paul is more sexually interested than Michelle, who has been come onto in a bad way. Eventually, they have sex, but no one is forced into it. The movie does let kids know that sex can cause babies.<br /><br />One thing, there is nudity in the movies. The camera does not focus on it, but it is there.<br /><br />The ending of the movie has Paul in good chance of being found out. In "Paul and Michelle", they separate for a time. If you don't like the ending of a movie, think one up yourself. Alternative endings are not just for DVDs. | positive |
Lonely, disconnected, middle-class housewife in the midst of a divorce seeks solace to reflect on her immediate future. At some sort of bed and breakfast by (well, literally in the sea) the ocean that for some sort of odd reason she subs for the owner. Enter lonely, arrogant Richard Gere. He is a plastic surgeon. He is the only guest at the inn in the sea. Diane Lane is the lonely housewife. You'll never guess these two fall immediately in love. A tropical storm makes them true lovers.<br /><br />The subplots in this melodrama make little or no sense. The locations, photography are fine. Gere remains one of the most over-rated actors in cinema and does not disappoint. Ms. Lane must've needed the money, but phones in her part with grace. | negative |
Clive Barker of Hellraiser fame has written and produced a fantasy horror film that is funny and exciting.<br /><br />The make-up done by Bob Keen and Geoffrey Portass was fantastic. It took quite an imagination to come up with these mutants that lived underground. It was really a treat to see the quality of work.<br /><br />It wasn't particularly horrible, as the worst creature was actually a human serial killer.<br /><br />I just saw Craig Sheffer in Shadow of Doubt the other day and he did a good job in this film also. Nothing spectacular, but fair. This was only Anne Bobby's third film, and she was good also.<br /><br />The ending was spectacular and the rednecks got their just desserts, as did David Cronenberg. Ha! | positive |
this movie absolutely terrible ..not only was the acting awful but so was the sleep got while this movie played..this movie achieved the all powerful goal of crap ..i watched this movie thinking my 5$ wouldn't b in vein .but i was very wrong ..i guarantee u r better off just reading what i have to say about this unbelievably horrible movie b4 ..puttin yourself in the way of this dignity depriving movie ..i give it a negative 1 for trying..but no please no don't watch this movie..i had friends who joined me for this film..shortly after they were no longer found this movie actually will make u end your life please please don't see it i beg of u. if u see this movie make sure u destroy all copies because this movie is a spawn of Satan. | negative |
I must pat myself on the back for watching this movie all the way through because it truly was painful. An incapable painter becomes a fully capable hit-man? This movie was rife with absurdities of which if I mentioned them all I would be giving away the movie. Norm Peterson aka George Wendt must really be in a rut to have agreed to do this movie. The acting was deplorable and the story was even worse. As a sane minded and rational individual, I could not understand where the writer came from nor where he was going with this movie. There was ineptness on the part of every main character, there was a string of hapless and ridiculous events, then the movie ended. One absurd act after another with dialogue doesn't make a movie, it only makes a talkative train wreck. | negative |
Continuing with the exclusive film programme about complicated relationships in some European courts, last night in the Schloss theatre was shown "Anna Boleyn", a film directed by the great Teutonic film director Herr Ernst Lubitsch. The film depicts the terrible story of the Queen consort of the British King Henry VIII. She was executed by her husband ( well, not exactly, the King ordered the executioners to do his dirty work) not to mention that this marriage caused an important political and religious historical event, the English Reformation.<br /><br />The film stars Dame Henny Porten, Germany's first screen superstar during those early years and Herr Emil Jannings, Germany's fattest actor in that silent era. Both play their characters in a suitable way; Dame Porten as an innocent aristocrat who becomes progressively interested in the power that the court offers her and Herr Jannings as the unscrupulous, whimsical and womanizing British monarch, a character very suitable for this German actor who overacts appropriately, given the extravagance and excessive personality of the character himself.<br /><br />In the early film period Herr Lubitsch was known for his outstanding costume films, colossal productions with big budgets ( "Anna Boleyn" cost about 8 million marks, a fortune even for this German count ) taking great care in magnificent decors as can be seen during the coronation procession in Westminster Abbey scene which employed 4.000 extras ( idle Germans of that time were used, causing revolutionary workers to create a fuss when German President Friedrich Ebert visited the set during filming).<br /><br />Besides the spectacle, one of the most important aspect of this and every film of Herr Lubitsch, even during his epic period, is the complex relationship between the main characters. We experience a game of different interests, double meanings, and the complicated art of flirting but what is treated lightly at first ends in tragedy. The importance of those historical facts is brought to bear in an effective way but Lubitsch is really more interested in the changing relationship between Henry VIII and Anna Boleyn.<br /><br />And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must take care that one of his fat and rich heiress doesn't lose her head for this Teutonic aristocrat.<br /><br />Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/ | positive |
This film is about a mysterious love letter that turned 4 people's love life upside down.<br /><br />The idea of the film is interesting, and the film could have been funny. However, this film is simply what a romantic comedy should not be. The characters are inadequately introduced at first, so it gets so confusing. The supporting characters come and go without adequate reasons, as if they exist just for one particular scene and then vanish into thin air. The pacing is awfully slow, that it makes 90 minutes seem more like 180 minutes.<br /><br />It could have been romantic and funny, but this film spectacularly failed to do either. | negative |
This typically melodramatic Bollywood film has inexplicably become a favorite of Western critics. The script is ludicrous, the acting is over-the-top, and it looks cheesy. The only reasons for watching this soap opera are the wonderful songs sung by Mangeshkar and the curtain call of the legendary Meena Kumari. Watching the actress, who was ill during the filming and would drink herself to death at age 40 shortly after the film was released, has the same fascination as watching a train wreck. Her ex-husband, Amrohi, wrote and directed, but lacks the competency to execute either task well. Bollywood has produced far better films. | negative |
In light of the recent and quite good Batman the Brave and the Bold, now is the time to bear a fatal blow to that mistake in the life of Batman. Being a huge fan since the first revival by Tim Burton 20 years ago, I have been able to accept different tonalities in the character, dark or campy. This one is just not credible : too many effects, poor intrigues and so few questions. What is great about Batman is the diversity of his skills and aspects of his personality : detective, crime-fighter, playboy, philanthropist etc. The Batman shows him only in his karate days. And by the way, how come the Penguin is capable of such virtuosity when jumping in the air regardless of his portly corpulence ? And look at the Joker, a mixture of Blanka in Street Fighter 2 and a stereotypical reggae man, what Batman fan could accept such a treason ? Not me anyway. Batman is much better without "The" article in front of his name. | negative |
"Fame" is a very well done portrait of the students who inhabit New York City's High School of the Arts. The film focuses on a group of students who dream of making it big while they perfect their craft at the now famous school. Director Alan Parker allows each of the highlighted students to mature on screen, allowing you to feel a connection with each one. The music here is infectious and fun. The dancing is exciting and fresh. The film eventually became the basis for an Emmy-winning television series starring Debbie Allen and some of the other actors from the film. One of the more enjoyable "dance" films of the 1980's. Received Oscars for music. 8/10 | positive |
At first glance, it would seem natural to compare Where the Sidewalk Ends with Laura. Both have noirish qualities, both were directed by Otto Preminger, and both star Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. But that's where most of the comparisons end. Laura dealt with posh, sophisticated people with means who just happen to find themselves mixed-up in a murder. Where the Sidewalk Ends is set in a completely different strata. These are people with barely two nickels to rub together who are more accustomed to seeing the underbelly of society than going to fancy dress parties. Where the Sidewalk ends is a gritty film filled with desperate people who solve their problems with their fists or some other weapon. Small-time hoods are a dime-a-dozen and cops routinely beat confessions out of the crooks. Getting caught-up in a murder investigation seems as natural as breathing.<br /><br />While I haven't seen his entire body of work, based on what I have seen, Dana Andrews gives one of his best performances as the beat-down cop, Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon. He's the kind of cop who is used to roughing up the local hoods if it gets him information or a confession. One night, he goes too far and accidentally kills a man. He does his best to cover it up. But things get complicated when he falls for the dead man's wife, Morgan Taylor (Tierney), whose father becomes suspect number one in the murder case. As Morgan's father means the world to her, Dixon's got to do what he can to clear the old man without implicating himself.<br /><br />Technically, Where the Sidewalk Ends is outstanding. Besides the terrific performance from Andrews, the movie features the always delightful Tierney. She has a quality that can make even the bleakest of moments seem brighter. The rest of the cast is just as solid with Tom Tully as the wrongly accused father being a real standout. Beyond the acting, the direction, sets, lighting, and cinematography are all top-notch. Overall, it's an amazingly well made film.<br /><br />If I have one complaint (and admittedly it's a very, very minor quibble) it's that Tierney is almost too perfect for the role and her surroundings. It's a little difficult to believe that a woman like that could find herself mixed-up with some of these unsavory characters. It's not really her fault, it's just the way Tierney comes across. She seems a little too beautiful, polished, and delicate for the part. But, her gentle, kind, trusting nature add a sense of needed realism to her portrayal. | positive |
I actually had quite high hopes going into this movie, so I took what was given with a grain of salt and hoped for the best. About 1/3 of the way through the film I simply had to give up, quite simply the movie is a mish-mash of stuff happening for no apparent reason and it's all disconnected. I love movies that make you think, but this movie was just a bunch of ideas thrown together and never really connected.<br /><br />Don't think it's David Lynch-esquire as some would have you believe, it is nowhere near that realm other than some trippy visuals. Saying it's artsy to disguise the fact there's no apparent plot or story is just a manner or justifying why you wasted the 1.5 hours in the film. The acting was good, but that cannot save lack of story. I do agree with the one comment posted previously... "it's like being in some other person's head... while they're on drugs," in other words nothing makes sense. | negative |
I recently saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival where it ended up as one of the audience favorites. This is a spoof on the french cottage industry of OSS 117 films of the 50's and 60's. The first OSS 117 film based on the novel by Jean Bruce was brought to the screen in 1956, long before the first James Bond film, staring Ivan Desny as Hubert Bonisseur De La Bath and six subsequent action adventure spy films were made up to 1970 with Luc Merenda, Frederick Stafford, Kerwin Matthews and John Gaven all taking turns as Oss 117. Jean Dujardin is in the title role in this comedic take on the series. As the film begins set in 1945 he has a french mustache and resembles Desny but as the film begins it's setting of 1955 he really looks like Sean Connery. Jean François Halim wrote this hilarious screenplay of a spy sent to Egypt to investigate the murder of a friend. It borrows on the silliness of Naked Gun, Get Smart and the Pink Panther and uses fresh humor on current events in a delightful combination that international audiences will enjoy and I am sure this will be the only the first of more to come of a revived OSS 117 reworked to comedy adventures. Michel Hazanavicius directs. I would give this a 7.5 and recommend it. | positive |
Although the video box for many copies of this film claims it is about people turned inside out, this is a total lie. In fact, apart from the opening segment, the film isn't even a horror movie. With its sunken treasure, legions of fish people, and mad scientists, it's a lot more like a Doug McClure adventure movie. Obviously, this film is no work of art, but it's kind of fun to watch... Just be warned that the beginning is quite gory. | positive |
almost 4 years after the events of 911, if asked what comes to mind about that day, most people would probably comment on things such as the sight of planes crashing into and the collapse of the twin towers, the scores of people being killed, acts of terrorism and heroism mixed together, etc. everyone who was alive at the time will never forget that day. yet for most of us the memories, although moving, are not on a personal level. now comes an extraordinary film which gives everyone who did not lose a friend or a family member a chance to become involved at a personal level in just what we lost on 911. this is a film that needs to be seen. | positive |
have just got back from seeing this brilliantly funny film.<br /><br />granted, part of the reason i loved it so was because i could point out people and places i knew ('i walk there everyday!', 'i work there!', 'i've had drinks there!', 'hey! that's our postman!' etc...). but, still, if you're out for a 'feel-good' with a bit of spice (excuse the pun) - this is just the right answer. relationships, culture and, most importantly, love are all woven together within the plot.<br /><br />with preston (where the film is set) recently being made a city, it is good to see this work featuring the place and adding to the feeling of uprise. it is also a brilliant representative of the many cultures in this part of the north.<br /><br />fabulous! | positive |
This is definitely one of the weaker of the series of Carry On films. It lacks the usual fun and sparkle and even the cast seem embarrassed by the poor dialogue. By the time this came out, the series was in terminal decline and boy does it show! If you're coming fresh to this series, avoid this one till near the end. | negative |
Murder and insurance fraud take an adulterous couple to "the end of the line"...<br /><br />TV was visually vulgar back in the early 1970s and this truncated, made-for-TV knock-off hurt my eyes. It can't possibly compare to the 1944 Billy Wilder Film Noir classic as anyone in their right mind ought to know -sight unseen- but that doesn't mean this update should be seen as a separate entity, either. Although based on the original Paramount screenplay, there's over half an hour cut out and the director's bland indifference makes what's left imminently forgettable. With rare exception, the younger generation wasn't interested in watching old black and white movies on TV back in 1973 (still true today, alas) so this lurid, compelling tale was new to the overwhelming majority of viewers; then as now, ratings rule and cashing in was its only reel raison d'etre. Gus Van Zandt remade Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO for similar reasons and if these redux led to the seeking out of the original films or novels, so much the better. I loved the James M. Cain source novel enough to tune in back then and I enjoyed this time capsule curio the second time around for the longish hair, halter tops, turbans, ugly decor, and lush auburn locks of "guest star" Samantha Eggar, who didn't try too hard. In addition to recognizing a few of the incidental cast from a childhood spent in front of the boob tube, Lee J. Cobb was able to hold my interest as a world-weary, tired-looking Keyes but Richard Crenna's affable and inoffensive Walter Neff only reminded me of Bill Bixby on a bad day. Improvement upon the original was, of course, never intended in a rush to make a buck but, instead of a mindless retread, a new adaptation of the novel would have been a novel idea. Cain's book differs somewhat from its celluloid incarnations and the horrific shark fins in the moonlight ending is killer. The completist in me is thankful this speeded up "Me Decade" update was included as part of the DOUBLE INDEMNITY DVD extras but the experience not only made me long to see the original, it had me nostalgic for any episode of the better-made COLUMBO TV series. I also flashed back to a very good 1973 ABC TV Movie Of The Week that I haven't seen since its initial airing: John D. Macdonald's LINDA starring the beautiful Stella Stevens as a ruthless femme fatale who murders her lover's (sexy John Saxon) wife and then frames her mild-mannered husband for the crime and, if I remember correctly, there's also an open-ended ending. Like DOUBLE INDEMNITY, it was needlessly remade with TV movie queen Virginia Madsen as the titular vixen and Richard Thomas as the milquetoast husband. | negative |
This has to be one of my 3 favorite Episodes from the Original TV Series.<br /><br />What makes it great is the battle of wits between The Romulan Commander and Kirk, as well as the top-notch acting from Mark Lenard, who later went on to play Spock's father in other TV Episodes and movies. This is a case where those around rose to the level of the talent around them, and Shatner, Nimoy, and the whole cast deliver an outstanding performance in this episode.<br /><br />The writing and plot are also excellent, and I love the direct approach used to show us the characters, and the feelings and thoughts of those characters, and how freely they are expressed by the actors. <br /><br />This very entertaining episode ranks 10 out of 10. AWESOME!! Desert-Buddha | positive |
"Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow" appears to take place in a spotless netherworld, an era long gone by, where the biggest sin a kid could commit would be in defying the law and getting a traffic ticket. It opens with a young female auto fanatic getting the business from her arch rival, who pressures her into a car race. That's about it for the drag-racing--this B-flick is mostly concerned with rock 'n roll, man! The folks at American International were obviously fond of decent, square teens who liked to party and yet didn't mind an adult chaperone. There are a few amusing double entendres and fruity exchanges (Necking Kid: "We thought we'd come out for some fresh air"...Dad: "Where did you think you'd find it, down her throat?"), but the ghost is a little late in arriving. Brief at 65 minutes, the movie cheats us with a climactic car race that actually takes place off-screen and a pre-"Scooby Doo"-styled unmasking which makes no sense. However, for nostalgia buffs, some mindless fun. ** from **** | negative |
this movie takes the voice of terror and makes it better. holmes is protecting an inventor in switzerland and is on the trail of professor moriarity, who has become a nazi. this is a better version of holmes in a WWII world. rathbone does a great job with holmes as a spy and a detective. see this if you liked the voice of terror. | positive |
I remember seeing this film at the West End theater in Louisville, Kentucky when I was a boy. The scene where Dr. Carmus finds the gardener's coffin, and the breathing dead body therein, was the scariest part of the movie for me, only intensified by the darkness of the film. I also wondered about the people hanging from the trees at the end, until I recognized the part of the film in which the family name of the Blackwoods was changed from Blackblood, due to the fact that in the family history there was a character who was known for his many hangings of various people. Sir Thomas Blackwood seemed to get his kicks out of adding to the deaths caused by his family. I also noticed that as Foster first enters the gate of the cemetery, he is careful in noticing the sharp object of the gate, where he meets his end. I would not hesitate to recommend this film to horror movie lovers. | positive |
This film is basically two hours of Dafoe's character drinking himself - nearly literally - to death. The only surprise in this film is that you didn't have enough clues or character knowledge to be surprised. It was just a grim, sad waste of time.<br /><br />Willem Dafoe is excellent actor. Peter Stormare is an excellent actor. But this film just sucked. Slow doesn't make the movie bad, it was just bad. The sketchy plot mixed with artistic ramblings of anamorphic detail aren't cohesively drawn together in a meaningful way for a plot except to highlight some gore which is illustrated from several perspectives, finally at the end. I really appreciate the artistic vision, but as entertainment, it put me to sleep. (Seriously, I fell asleep and had to re-watch the film - which was even more disappointing.)<br /><br />I generally don't like to make negative comments or reviews on the works of others, even when they suck, but this film warranted one. It's just too bad that these great actors were shamed with this end result. | negative |
A film, first and foremost, should be good storytelling. It should be entertaining - and entertaining doesn't necessarily mean "laughs", and it doesn't necessarily mean "light". It basically means you're not bored while watching it. <br /><br />As brilliant as 2001 may be, it is a difficult film to watch, especially for the current (video-game-playing/iPod fumbling) generation. Its slow pace and the sometimes intolerable amount of time it takes for an actor to perform a single action (e.g. the attempt to rescue the crew member floating in space) will stretch your patience. On the other hand, the cinematography is brilliant, the film cleverly directed, the ending thought-provoking and the score...the score is chilling, especially as the crew in the transporter approaches the artifact on the moon. Boy, I had goose bumps, big time. This doesn't happen often when I watch films, and is a testament to Kubrick's directing skills. <br /><br />It IS considered a classic, and many people consider it the best science-fiction film of all time. That alone is a good reason to watch it if you haven't done so yet. However, just because everybody else thinks it's a brilliant film doesn't mean you have to force yourself to like it. You either will (like it) or you won't. Perhaps the slow pace isn't such a bad thing, after all. Directing your attention to something rather static and slow-paced for 2 1/2 hours might teach you a lesson. It will certainly be a different experience to all these fast-moving, fast-paced images we are subjected to these days (whether commercials, music videos or video games). <br /><br />I myself think it's a "memorable" film. But not one I'm eager to watch again anytime soon (unless I'm in a particular mood for slow-paced films). <br /><br />Hence, 7 stars out of 10 from me. | positive |
I had high hopes for this one after reading earlier reviews but it was so slow and the plot so basic that well I wondered if I had read the wrong reviews. <br /><br />Please, a boy meets girl next door at 11 and both aspire to love and being basketball legends. Grow apart, but watch each others progress. Guess what! Both get scholarships to same university and become lovers again until his father is caught out playing around with a younger woman. Our young hero unable to cope has lapse in court concentration but some how decides to go pro and drop studies, and guess what is picked up by Lakers. Dumps the heroine because she was not there for him during this emotional period. So for 5 years they go their own way. She returns from Spain having lost the zest for the game and our hero is getting married in two weeks. Mom tells her that she should fight for her love so she professes her on-going love and challenges him to a basketball shootout. He wins he marries she wins he loves her. Well he won but decides to dump other girl for our girl. The End has her playing basketball and he has baby duties. Sorry 2 is my high score. My partner she scored 0 for a soapy story for those who read Mills and Boon | negative |
You know, I was very surprised when watching this movie. It aired during the day once when i was sick, and having nothing else to do, I continued watching. This is by far the WORST MOVIE EVER! But to my surprise I kept watching. I sat there saying, this is terrible, but yet didn't change the channel because I was so amused at how bad it was. Maybe It was the guy that looked like Big tom from survivor or the dreadful moustaches and mohawks these characters had, that kept me watching. However, the girls weren't half bad, but if that's what you want, there is far better. Oh, and there's "NINJAS" and "PAJAMA BOYS!"<br /><br />So if you like ninja's, bad acting, hilarious(and terrible) dialogue, and two twins who are five feet tall and killing everything in their sight, then this movie is for you. It's so bad it's good. However, I just had to give it a 1 out of ten. I couldn't have put a 10 on it up there with Lord of the Rings.<br /><br />ENJOY!!!!!!!!! :) | negative |
When I was a kid, I remember watching this while visiting a friend of our "Uncle" Phil. We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story is a silly cartoon about a dinosaur called Rex (voiced by the wonderful John Goodman). He tells a little boy dinosaur the story about how the dinosaurs came back to Earth to live. He explains that he was part of the thing that brought them back, along with some friends. The Doctor/Professor villain of this film I think might have been responsible for them being them back, but I don't care about him. The kids might like this, but personally it is just too cheesy. John Goodman was probably the only decent thing. Poor! | negative |
Imagine a world, in which everyone treats anyone nicely, no foul word is ever uttered, office bickering is nonexistent, and your boss invites the office crowd regularly to self-cooked dinners where you can chat about latest interior design styles. Everything is neat, pleasant - well, just nice. In other words: you are in hell. After being dropped off in the middle of nowhere, mid-thirties Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvaag) starts a new job as a book-keeper in a small, clean city. From the beginning he feels foreign in this proper, impersonal world of superficial kindness, surrounded by pleasant but lifeless interior architecture and likewise colleagues. Food tastes of nothing, drinks don't get you drunk, no children anywhere; after initial steps of fitting in, Andreas searches for ways to escape the bland new world. He doesn't know where he came from anymore, but still remembers rich tastes, true feelings - anything beyond the non-committal flatline life he's leading now. THE BOTHERSOME MAN resonates ideas of Huxley and Kafka, but here the cruelty is the omnipresent noncommittal neatness. Unlike PLEASANTVILLE this is not about narrow-minded bigotry, more a fable of our urban free-world civilisation of fitting in. It mostly reminds one of the ingenious FIGHT CLUB scene, in which Edward Norton walks through a mock-IKEA catalogue. Spiced with macabre humour, this Scandinavian laconic tale convinces on every level: story, characters, and relevance. A true screen gem. 8/10 | positive |
I found it a real task to sit through this film. The sound track was not the best and some of the accents made it difficult to understand what was being said. There was little to move the plot along and often the action simply stopped and there was a prolonged period of conversations which seemed extraneous to the movie. These conversations switched between family groups and the observer was left to try and piece together what the common thread was that tied them together. It is rare that I rate a film this low and do so in this case as the entire viewing experience left me thinking "so what" and "why did I waste my time watching this." | negative |
After watching this film last night on Sundance, I realized that much of Nakata's style was first done in this film. Here we have many of the same elements of the RINGU series, especially the idea of the media being the source of the supernatural. Instead of the cursed videotape, we instead having a haunted studio and strange images appearing on film. In fact, the strange images appearing on film brings immediately the cursed videotape in RINGU to mind. The only thing missing was the obsession to water that runs through Nakata's later films. The final scenes are quite chilling, with a bit of a nod to Murnau, what with the door opening by itself ands the ghost entering the room, reminds me immediatly of<br /><br />NOSFERATU. A chilling movie that will make think twice about going up to a catwalk. | positive |
Be warned, the next time you see "Richard Kelly" involved in any production, run away. Fast.<br /><br />Kelly proved to the world after his last movie, "Southland Tales", that he is one pretentious director. It was indulgent and convoluted. In "The Box", not much has changed.<br /><br />I can picture what his pitch to Warner Bros must have been, and I bet the executives at the studio ate it right up: a full-feature film based on one of Richard "Twilight Zone" Matheson's old short stories.<br /><br />Big mistake! Do not read any further unless you want this movie COMPLETELY spoiled for you: <br /><br />Norma (Cameron Diaz) pushes the button. <br /><br />Turns out that Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) has an Alien using his body as a vessel to conduct "experiments" in which the fate of mankind rests. His face is scarred because he was struck by Alien lightening, which killed him, but then brought him back to life to do all of this red button testing. Obviously since Norma pushes the button, knowing full well that someone may die, she must suffer the consequences for failing to consider someone else's life instead of her own. In the end she and her husband (James Marsden) choose to kill Norma instead of having their son grow up deaf and blind.<br /><br />Kelly dances around his film's "message", trying to make the audience figure out what the moral of the story is. Obviously, any person with a brain is saying at the beginning, "What if I was the person who dies?". Richard Kelly doesn't even let his character's have this normal, HUMAN conversation. In fact, they avoid it all together. They appear to both be educated, working at a prestigious school and also for NASA, so why wouldn't they both have a better ability to LOOK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX???<br /><br />If he had the main characters actually have this conversation, the entire movie could have ended right there! Instead, we have to watch weddings go on forever, NASA and the NSA be complacent to Arlington Stewart taking over these government programs, teleportation to show Marsden life beyond our world so it will be "easier" to kill his wife, and drone's controlled by Steward which can be anywhere and nowhere, at any time.<br /><br />The most painful part of this movie is the pacing. Nothing really happens. Its a muddled mish-mash of ideas that are laughable.<br /><br />It is insufferable how this film is being marketed. The commercials make it look like "Saw" and even use the music from those films to sell it. In reality what you get is a slow, dull, laughable (yes, half the theater was laughing at the acting and visual effects), and messy film which is neither imaginative, interesting, nor cohesive. At one point, Cameron Diaz and her son are abducted and then suddenly, she is back in the NSA's big black car with her husband on the way home. Where did she go? Why did they take her? Do we really care? Not anymore you won't.<br /><br />By the end you really won't care what happens to any of the characters. You will be rooting for all of them to die so the film will just end. Go see anything else that's playing. Don't waste your time, or money. | negative |
My girlfriend and I saw this movie when it was originally released. The controversy that surrounded the original release (teen nudity, physical intimacy and unwed pregnancy) were subjects that never touched our view of the film. We were close to the same age as Paul and Michelle and were experiencing many of the same intense and confusing emotions. We were too young to get caught up in the simplistic (at times) acting and the corny (at times) emotional twists. This movie spoke to us in a way that an adult love story never could have. I still remember sitting in the movie theater with my girlfriend and holding her hand while she cried during the tragic (albiet syrupy) final scenes. | positive |
''The 40 Year Old Virgin'''made me laugh a lot. I don't care if it is considered to be a very sexual comedy, I just enjoyed many of the jokes and scenes present in this movie. Steve Carell is perfect as the virgin nerd Andy Stitzer and I think the scene where Andy has his chest hair removed by wax one of the coolest, specially because it is real. Many of the actors and actresses present in this movie are well known or already famous,by the way.<br /><br />Andy Stitzer has a peaceful life. He is a little bit strange and collects lots of toys, but seems harmless. One day, while playing poker with his friends of his work, they discover that Andy is in fact...virgin! And he is already 40 years old! After this surprising revelation, all his friends are trying to make Andy sleep with a woman...the problem is the confusions in which Andy gets in,specially now that he is really starting to like Trish, a woman he met when she was buying a DVD player in the store he works at. | positive |
I've read "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" when I was in high school, and found myself completely engrossed in her story, and also in the Broadway play of her life in the Secret Annexe.<br /><br />However, I'm a little perplexed about how people have perceived her diary and of her as a person, seeing her as a little saint or having a message of hope for the world. I don't think that was the original intention of her diary. She wrote it mainly for herself, even though she did make some rigorous rewrites before the occupants of the Secret Annexe were betrayed, intending it to be published someday.<br /><br />But I never saw her as a saint or as a messenger of hope...but as a very talented writer who could express her thoughts very well and very entertainingly in a diary. No doubt she was a very engaging writer, and she did possess an extraordinary talent with expressing herself fully with words. You really got to know her well through her diary. But the importance of her diary lies in the fact that it is a testament and an important historical document of the proof that the Holocaust did happen.<br /><br />It also brought the tragedy of the Holocaust closer to home, to lose someone that we could put a familiar face and personality to, at such a young age...literally having had her young life ripped away from her and from the other occupants who were murdered in the Holocaust. It's a searing indictment of the Nazis systematic murder of over 6 million Jews, and that should not be forgotten.<br /><br />But it's sad to me that her diary is being so misconstrued as anything more than that. When I look for hope, I have the Bible...the first most widely read non-fiction book in the world. God's Words in the Bible is eternal...but Anne's diary is a diary of a young girl under extraordinary circumstances, and that is it. She is not someone to be worshiped or idolized, because she was an ordinary girl with many flaws, who possessed incredible talent as a writer, and who died at age 15 from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was a victim of the Holocaust, and as this otherwise excellent documentary has so vividly testified, she was Hitler's most famous victim.<br /><br />Besides the Anne Frank's story...the stories from her family members and friends and survivors of the Holocaust were engrossing, vivid and powerful. I especially enjoyed Miep Gies' testimony, and marvel that she is still strong and alive today. Hannah Goslar's testimony was also very interesting. And I also liked hearing from Otto Frank. But I also agree that the moving picture of the young girl with the dark hair and the familiar big eyes at the end was particularly memorable. <br /><br />Another thing about the Holocaust that I kind of disagree with the documentary...is that I don't believe it was just a matter of discrimination...but rather something deeper and more profound, and that was just an act of pure evil. Pure evil. Nothing else but pure evil.<br /><br />Excellent documentary of Anne Frank and of the Holocaust that should be watched. | positive |
Being both a Dario Argento fan and a Phantom of the Opera fan, I was dying to see his first take on the story, before the so-bad-it's-good "Dario Argento's Phantom of the Opera". The film is just terrific, even the plot, which here is one of Argento's best at a coherent story. The way he turns a classic romance story into a creepy slasher is just terrific. The film has a very nightmarish feel, which helps on keeping you on the edge of your seat. The colors have never been better in an Argento film since the jaw-dropping "Suspiria". The murders are clever and gory, all done in Argento's trademark style. The thing with the eyes in this film is just unsettling, and done some much better than in Fulci's splatter. The acting is so-so, but once you seen the movie more times you understand the characters' motivations better, and you get used to it. My two biggest complains about it is the use of rock music. I think it was a clever idea to mix beautiful opera fragments with heavy-metal, but it's not executed very well here. The ending is VERY disappointing, which is the worst thing about the movie, seeming to echo Argento's previous "Phenomena", but done terribly, it just didn't need to end that way. The same thing happened in the director's cut of "The Exorcist". I wished they kept the original ending. But still it's a fantastic motion picture and really a must-see, if only for Daria Nicolodi's memorable murder sequence. | positive |
The Beguiled is one of those under-seen films in the careers of a director &/or actor that ends up playing better than expected. In the same year that Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel collaborated on Dirty Harry they also worked together on this little psycho-sexual drama set in Civil War era Confederacy country. It's almost a 180 from what 'Harry' had for audiences. Here is a film that is under the radar, and with a low-budget to almost no business when compared with what Dirty Harry pulled in. It is also a story where Eastwood is not surrounded in a world full of dangerous men but women who, despite their first appearances, have darker sides to them. And there's even romance in it in between some of the rougher and more complex scenes. But in this kind of framework to make the film, Siegel therefore actually has a little more freedom to do things with the style of the picture that roams into something more European; I'm reminded here and there of Polanski's work in the 60's. It all works though pretty well even with the initial doubt that these two figures of masculine film-making (Eastwood the obvious and Siegel having made his niche in B-noir and low-budget thrillers) can pull off material that could possibly be made for a Lifetime movie.<br /><br />It was also captivating and really darkly comic here and there to see Eastwood's performance working off of these girls. He's doing something a little subversive in his performance by still having the sort of Eastwood machismo- if there is such a thing close to his clichéd movie image- by being a step ahead of this little school for young women at times and not at others. To see Eastwood in a performance like this, as with Play Misty for Me (the other Eastwood work of 1971), shows how cool he can act believably with very good actresses. Particularly here are the four main female characters, each of varying ages and each with varying attractions to their 'Yankee' man. While Siegel's work directing all of the actors has its moments in the first half it's really once the story crosses the half-way mark in the dream sequence (less successful than the director could be capable of) that the real juicy scenes start to pick up. A lot of this is the best that Siegel directed dramatically, pushing the psychological and emotional edges of scenes where not expected.<br /><br />It's a difficult film, all of this praise aside, as it doesn't paint anyone as being too respectable- only the character of Hallie the slave on duty played by Mae Mercer is sort of separated from what transpires between the all-too-curious women and McBurney. Along with this, Eastood here is acting in a role that is and isn't what he's usually seen as during this time of his true formative years in the movies. He's an anti-hero here, which was his trademark of the westerns and other thrillers he was doing at the time. But unlike those films he's not really in a mode where he's 'larger than life', to put it in a way, as he is both deserter and womanizer, deceiver and tricky even in his most charming and affable moments. If it's not one of his best acting jobs, which is hard to really put together considering his catalog, it is one that is worth a look for fans who might want to see another side of him. It's a credit to him, but also to what clicked with his collaborations with Siegel, as they both took chances at this time in Hollywood. | positive |
Why would this film be so good, but only gross an estimated $95,000,000 and have NO award nominations? John Travolta knows what he's doing. He knows he's Michael, a cigar smoking, womanizing, magical arch angel that came down to live with a dying lady and is now in a car with the staff of "The National Mirror" and their dog, Sparky, on the way to Chicago. It then turns into a road trip that's both horrible AND great. I don't even think the death scenes (3 to be exact) make this a tearjerker. The soundtrack is the best with "Heaven Is My Home", "Up Around The Bend", and "Chains Of Fools". I have very great expectations about this and I say that it should have had a little more respect in the 90's. Read my comment. Bye! | positive |
I just watched I. Q. again tonight and had forgotten how much I love this movie. It is wonderfully entertaining and leaves you feeling that all is right with the world. I love the allusions to Mozart all throughout from the opening with "Einstein" playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on the violin to him humming Eine Kleine Nachtmusik during the IQ testing of the Ed Walters. I love that a woman is portrayed as intelligent and encouraged to have a career, an especially unique situation for the 1950's, the time in which this movie is set. (I myself have been a teacher but stayed at home to raise my children, so please don't think I am some staunch women's libber.) It's wonderful how a man who is "only a grease monkey" is finally seen to be just as important and worthy as Catherine's fiance, a clinical behavioral researcher. The message to me is that we are not what we do, but who we are is defined by so much more - no labels. There are so many little gags and one-liners that are almost throwaways if you don't watch and listen carefully.<br /><br />I did catch a few things in the movie that are not listed on the goofs page. In the scene when Ed Walters is to speak at symposium, there are 3 instruments (protractor, ruler, etc.) hanging on the right from the chalk ledge. In the next camera shot, there only 2. In the credits on our video, it lists Tony Shaloub's character as Bob Watters, not Bob Rosetti as he introduces himself in the movie and is listed here on Imdb.<br /><br />I highly recommend this movie. It may be a piece of fluff in some estimations, but has lots more substance than many give it credit for. Not only that, what a great cast is assembled here. Watch it and enjoy! | positive |
Movie about a small town with equal numbers of Mormons and Baptists. New family moves in, cue the overwritten dialog, mediocre acting, green jello salad with shredded carrots, and every other 'inside Mormon joke' known to man. Anyone outside the Mormon culture will have a hard time stomaching this movie. Anyone inside the Mormon culture will be slightly amused with a chuckle here and there. You'll be much better off watching Hess's other movies (Napoleon Dynamite, etc..) than trying to sit through this one. The acting is mediocre. Jared Hess has had his hands on much more quality films like "Saints and Soldiers", and "Napoleon Dynamite". I would recommend both movies over this groaner. | negative |
America's Next Top Model is a great reality show in every sense. It has a great hostess, has great guests, a great production and some of the best professionals of the modeling world contributing for something they hadn't achieved yet: present a true America's Next Top Model. Of course this is not something easy to do, therefore USA and the world already would have 10 top models concurring and fighting between themselves in this cruel world.<br /><br />But it's obvious that its intention is not to present the America's next top model, but yes, the America's Next Pop Model. The show gets together a bunch of models without any experience with different personalities and big personal, professional and financial problems, giving them a chance for bringing to life a dream or to make their lives something worthy. It's obvious that Tyra Banks uses all that for her advantage, she gives the dream, but in exchange for that she gains audience and more popularity. Anyway, she deserves it, because she is intelligent and, if I might say that, a pioneer to this kind of show. Tyra also is a great observer and knows how to give based opinions, differing herself of other models and hostess of foreign versions of the NEXT TOP MODEL franchise. In Brazil, as an example, Fernanda Motta is its hostess and "once-upon-a-time"-Top Model. She doesn't have even 1/10 of Tyra's professional skills, which keeps Tyra Banks on the top. Tyra have professional and personal knowledge about what she says and she's a great mentor because she not only criticizes but she points the mistake and teaches the right way with wisdom.<br /><br />The show doesn't suffer from big problems, it does and fulfills what it promises during the cycles. The models chosen to work on the show in fact are not the best unknown models of entire country because Tyra Banks bets with the difference, and she is right, because she (and also good part of her audience) believes that it's time for the modeling world to change some straight parameters. During the cycles, she and her team really makes fair deliberations, where the weakest go away and the promising ones have new chances to prove their capacities but must be fast to do that, otherwise they lose it.<br /><br />Other very interesting thing is that Tyra also knows to decide who should or shouldn't win even when she's against people's opinion. She knows that whoever wins will be famous, but has a very few possibilities to truly be a worldwide recognized top model. At the same way she knows that, some times, the second place is more valuable than the first, because 1st place wins the title, but second doesn't gets the title stigma. Hardly she makes mistakes when she decides the future of any model during the show.<br /><br />After 9 cycles the show is getting a little tired with some old ideas, it's time for Tyra to change some things and lines because it's getting boring and comparing to the firsts cycles we can see that she's getting bored too, so she needs to do that if she wants the show to live a little longer.<br /><br />Anyway, the show explores the fashion and modeling world, but it's also entertaining for those ones that live outside all of that. It gives the opportunity for some girls and also the market, and also gives great tips for those ones from the audience who shares the same dream. | positive |
I had the privilege to watch Mar Adentro last Friday, and I am still shocked by its beauty, the powerful work of every single actor and actress and Amenabar's unbelievable ability to narrate the story of Ramón Sampedro, who was well known in Spain for asking for a legal euthanasia, lost the court cause, and eventually died in front of a camera drinking a glass with poison, freezing all our hearts with his determination not to go on living forever immobilized because of an accident. <br /><br />Before watching the movie I was already mesmerized by the strong symbology in its title, which I would translate as "Into the Sea" and not as some suggest "Out to sea", and which is taken from an original poem written by the man this story is about. Then I watched the movie. Oh my friends. This is Cinema with a capital C. The narration flows to take you to the heart of every single character: Sampedro, reincarnated in a Bardem that you forget from the very beginning, is in the center as a man full of sense of humour and full of hope, and his hope is to die, because for him, the life he is living is not worthy to be lived. The rest of the characters but one dance around him and respect his decision because they see him as a human independent being (forgetting he depends on the others for everything), even though they do love him so much. And this is what the movie is about: love. You can feel it, you can breathe it in the skin of every character. You witness the growing of the feeling within three women who meet him in the movie: Gené, the member of the association that defend his right to die with dignity, his friend, her story in the movie is the hope for us the lucky ones that can live a normal life in this world; Rosa, the woman who meets a good man in the middle of her list of broken relationships and pain in the hands of all the men who used her and despised her; Julia, the woman who shares a tragic destiny with Ramón, and eventually acts in a way we cannot but only understand.<br /><br />However, before meeting these women Ramón knew what was love like, because you cannot meet him without loving him, and he is deeply loved by his abnegated family: Four characters unique in their humbleness and bravery, each with their own thoughts about his decision, each thought respectable in its own way, because the terrible thing about this story is that nobody is to blame for what happened. That, sadly, life sometimes is that terrible. From this familiar quartet I specially liked Mabel Rivera's work as Ramón's sister in law, Manuela: a terrific performance.<br /><br />I would like to draw attention to three episodes that are for me the best climax points I have seen in a long time, and if you haven't seen the movie don't read this, pass over this paragraph and read again from the next one starting "Mar adentro", let the movie show its secrets to you. The episodes I loved were: 3. The best love scene I have seen in a movie, when I really felt love invading the screen, is when Ramón dreams awake that he is flying to meet Julia in the beach and they kiss each other. 2. Gené speaking by phone with Ramón, the day before he is going to do it, and he tells her it is better they say goodbye at that very moment, not to put her in trouble with the authorities. And then she knows it is the last time they are going to talk, and she has fought for his right to die... but she does not want to lose him, because she loves him as a true friend, and even though she is respecting his decision at all cost. 1. The best. A young Ramón in the beach, looking at his girlfriend under the sun, jumping to the water from the rocks to a sea that is retreating. We see the crash, we hear his voice recalling what happened and claiming he should have died that very moment. The face of Bardem, face downward, shown to us from the bottom. And the hand of a friend who pulls him from the forehead and brings him back to a life that will be a hell for him in the next 30 years. There are many others, like the impressive ending, in spite of the fact that in Spain we know too well what Ramon did.<br /><br />Mar adentro did not deceive me, Amenabar never does, but this time he has to thank the actors that took part in the project, and who maybe took it personally, because this is not just a movie, it is an elegy to a man who died alone when he was asking to die "legally", which meant for him, as Bardem pointed out, dying with the people he loved and who loved him around. | positive |
Indian Summer is a warm, multi-character film, that would make a fine afternoon film (with a bit of editing).<br /><br />The film begins in the past with a group of children being shown a moose, which sets the tone perfectly before cutting into the present, when a group of adults from the "golden age" of the camp are invited back again to spend a few weeks holiday by the head of the camp, Uncle Lou. The film then allows the viewer to spend time with these characters as they remember their times at the camp, and form new memories in their latest stay.<br /><br />The film succeeds in the great way it brings across its characters in this gorgeous setting, and allows them room to develop without having to worry about plot developments. Watching these people reminisce, and their relationships with each other is what the film is all about and why it works so well. It never goes to over the top and melodramatic, always keeping its warmth, charm and realism. I've never seen a film where nostalgia is captured so well, and found myself getting drawn in despite never having been to one of these camps as a child myself.<br /><br />For a warm, nostalgic character movie, I sincerely recommend. | positive |
Two Hands is a highly enjoyable Aussie crime caper, which ultimately succeeds by the way the film easily combines tense dramatic moments, with very funny characters and situations, to give the film the right balance and feel. The comedy of the film occurs naturally, and the laughs haven't been set up too elaborately & haven't been too worked at. It really is very funny, thanks to the fact that each character in the movie is excellently cast, and that each actor/actress recognises and can relate to the Aussie humor. They portray it very well and very realistically. Of course, they're helped out immensely by a fantastic script by writer/director Gregor Jordan. I was reading another review of this film by an American who had seen it, and he heavily criticised it, basically passing it off as a Pulp Fiction clone. I think that that's just rubbish. This film isn't trying to be Pulp Fiction, the feel and style of each of this excellent films are totally opposite. Without wanting to sound superior or arrogant, I think to fully understand this film; the humor, the sincerity, the characters, etc....you have to be Australian, or at least understand the culture, which the other guy obviously didn't have the faintest clue about. Some Americans, whose reviews of certain non-American films, seem ignorant to (and have trouble comprehending) anything that isn't an American product. It's a real shame, because this is a really great film. The love story featured between the main character and the girl is also portrayed in a very real, sincere and sweet way. I'm very proud to have this film in my collection. 4.5 out of 5. | positive |
THE HAND OF DEATH most definitely rates a ten on a scale of one to- due, in no small part, to John Woo's masterful direction, coupled with Kat's superb cinematography: some of the leisurely tracking shots alone are worth the price of a rental; there are moments when this one borders on becoming an art-house film. Both James Tien and Sammo Hung make for the kind of villains you can't help but love to hate. Tien is particularly good as the baddest of the bad. It's a role reversal the likes of which I don't think I've ever seen before (Tien normally played a hero and, in fact, with his moustache, I didn't even recognize him at first). Sammo's goofy "buck teeth" only make an already unsavory character seem even more flawed; that he also happens to be a skilled martial artist makes him even less likable- in a villain you love to hate kind of way. His choreography of the fight scenes throughout is fantastic. Jackie Chan appears briefly (early on and late in the going) as a blacksmith, and I believe I actually glimpsed Yuen Biao somewhere along the way. Tan as the lead is nothing less than magnificent. | positive |
After the success of the first two 'Godfather' films in 1972 and 1974 respectively, Francis Ford Coppola embarked on an ambitious attempt to bring home the reality of the war in Vietnam, which had concluded with the fall of Saigon to the Vietcong in 1975
The plot was loosely based on the book 'Heart of Darkness,' a story by Joseph Conrad about Kurtz, a trading company agent in the African jungle who has acquired mysterious powers over the natives
Coppola retains much of this, including such details as the severed heads outside Kurtz's headquarters and his final words, "The horror
the horror
" <br /><br />In the film, Sheen plays an army captain given the mission to penetrate into Cambodia, and eliminate, with "extreme prejudice," a decorated officer who has become an embarrassment to the authorities
On his journey up the river to the renegade's camp he experiences the demoralization of the US forces, high on dope or drunk with power
<br /><br />Although, as a result of cuts forced on Coppola, the film was accused of incoherence when first released, it was by the most serious attempt to get to grips with the experience of Vietnam and a victorious reinvention of the war film genre
In 1980 the film won an Oscar for Best Cinematography and Best Sound
<br /><br />"Apocalypse Now" was re-released in 2001 with fifty minutes restored
As a result, the motion picture can now be seen as the epic masterpiece it is
| positive |
Russian actress TATIANA SAMOILOVA reminds me so much of the young Audrey Hepburn and the camera in THE CRANES ARE FLYING seems to love her just as much. She is the focal point of a bittersweet war romance against the background of World War II in Moscow.<br /><br />The film is almost poetic in its gorgeous B&W cinematography which was the main reason for watching the film in the first place, since I had never heard of it and decided to give it a try when it aired on TCM.<br /><br />It's a very moving love story about a girl's deep love for a man who is suddenly swept away by his role as a soldier drafted in wartime Russia. She's unable to forget the memory of her romantic attachment to him, but inexplicably marries someone else who has forced himself on her, a pianist who soon realizes that she still loves the soldier she hopes to hear from. Their marriage is a troubled one because she can't let go of her remembrance of a happier time with her soldier sweetheart.<br /><br />By the end of the story, she accepts the idea that he's never going to return and is able to face reality and cope with the situation. There's a very poignant final scene at a train station where arriving soldiers are greeting their loved ones and the tearful girl shares the joy of the returning soldiers by giving some flowers from her bouquet to the joyous families.<br /><br />The stylish and striking camera-work is what carries the film, as well as the honestly played story.<br /><br />Tastefully done, but perhaps the English subtitles didn't tell the whole tale because some of the plot elements seemed a bit blurred to me as if they had been glossed over.<br /><br />Summing up: Easy to see why it won awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Reminded me, in style, of another great Russian film, BALLAD OF A SOLDIER. | positive |
As a long time resident of western Pa I have an intimate knowledge of this topic and found it REGFRESHING to be so authentically captured on film! Kudos to the producers of this epic!!! And what a great legacy to the school children for years to come.<br /><br />The attention to detail and realistic depiction of this complicated web of events make it a one of a kind production.<br /><br />Viewers will find themselves mesmerized by the storyline and captivated by the storytelling.<br /><br />Grahame Greene is magnificent as the presenter.<br /><br />BRAVO!!! | positive |
Let's get right to the heart of the matter...This is a terrible movie. The story is confusing, the supporting cast is laughable and the lead Actors look like they were forced to be in it. The story asks us to believe there is a underground lesbian sex cult where members are being murdered by their psychiatrist who just happens to be a transvestite. Ellen Barkin investigates the crimes and develops a crush on Peta Wilson whose job it seems is to be the cult recruiter. The sex scenes are equivalent to bad porn and when Barkin and Wilson kiss, Poor Ellen looks like she's in pain. Barkin's Talent is totally wasted in this B-grade sexploitation piece of junk and I hope she gave her agent the pink slip after landing her in this film. | negative |
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 | negative |
This could be a strong candidate for "The Worst Flick Ever". Perhaps without the presence of John Hurt, it could be tolerated as a kid-film. However, the TRAGEDY of this entire endeavor, is that John Hurt, one of the screen's greatest actors, diminishes himself in this....I gave it two points just because Mr. Hurt SHOWED UP...I take AWAY 8 points, because he didn't run from it fast enough. As far as the rest of the cast, they are, simply, terrible. Janine Turner, as pretty as she might be, cannot act to save her soul. And the lead actor is, for all intents and purposes, AWFUL. If you can spare yourself this embarrassment, please do so. It's so bad, it almost HURTS. | negative |
The humor in Who's Your Daddy is such poor taste that I actually closed my eyes in certain scenes. Close ups of semen are not funny! Nobody thinks they are. People get nervous when they see something so gross and to hide their nervousness, they laugh. Watching Who's Your Daddy gave me a disgusting nervous feeling. | negative |
I was very moved by the gentle power of this movie and by the mood it created. I think it should have gotten a great deal more credit than it did. I agree that Michelle Pfeiffer should have been nominated, but I think all the performances were outstanding, and that Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange portrayed the deep affinity and conflicts of sisters with great emotional depth and sensitivity. Although I didn't read the book, I found the modern concept of King Lear very cool. I certainly will never look at the play quite the same way again! | positive |
There is no "fun" poking fun at the desperate plight of illegal immigrants! Or the desperate plight of head-shop owners, for that matter! That the richer-than-God Brian Glazer didn't see the irony of having the "heroes" do exactly what the villain does - rob honest, hardworking people of their life savings - doesn't surprise me! Hell, how do you think he got to be richer than God?!<br /><br />In this alleged satire about greed, these mental midgets reveal their own hypocrisy: the McMansions, the McToys, the McChildren, the McIllegals who are paid peanuts to take care of the McMansions, the McToys, and the McChildren! But the main problem (aside from the revolting bigotry) is the premise: as the former executive of a now-infamous company, Dick would be the Big Scalp for every corporate headhunter in the country! No soup kitchens for him! And, raking in high six-figures, you'd think he wouldn't be caught dead around a Gore/Lieberman poster! | negative |
So many great actors, so little worth watching. But with a script that misses so much of what made the book special, I don't hold it against anyone on screen. Though flawed, the book was one of Grisham's only that I truly liked, especially how it captured the flavor of a deep south small town, a slightly different world to a coastal urbanite such as myself. I also loved the matter-of-factness, naturalness of what occurs in the book. In the movie characters are given a "nobility" of personality that seemed so stilted. The villains and foils are flat and 1 dimensional. But as with so much of Joel Schumacher's work, genuineness and authenticity are conspicuously absent, and every point must be delivered via sledgehammer to the midsection. So preachy, stilted, and superficial about so horrendous a tragedy, I wish someone would do a remake and get the story a little more right. | negative |
From what I understand, Fox was embarrassed they released a PG-13 Alien/Predator movie not so long ago. It was not well received by any means.<br /><br />Not exactly sure where to go next, seeing as they thought Anderson was the best director for the franchise and they had produced a true sci-fi gem, Fox turned to it's small, but knowledgeable group of monkeys for answers.<br /><br />These monkeys were by no means veterans of writing sci-fi flicks, but had seen Burton's Planet of the Apes remake and House of the Dead. <br /><br />Their first task: hire actors. Fox gave them a reasonable budget but the monkeys wanted to save the money. They hired fifteen TV actors shortly after.<br /><br />Now, the script. The monkeys wanted to save more of the budget so they wrote the movie themselves. Leaving out important aspects of the two franchises was the easy part. Thinking of great new lines for the general audience to remember years down the line - that was more difficult. They butted heads awhile and came up with a truly award-winning screenplay equipped with cliché characters, idiotic decisions an gaping plot holes.<br /><br />Fox was pleased thus far with the results but wanted to see what was to become of the centerpieces to the film - the aliens and predators. The monkeys again wanted to save money in the budget so they decided to trash the great robotics used in the otherwise terrible AvP original and go with the man-in-the-suit Alien seen in the old films. The actors playing the aliens had trouble fitting into the suits as they weren't properly sized by the monkeys so they jiggled their plastic heads throughout the film with honor. As for the predators, the monkeys decided one predator was enough this time around (again, saving budget) to fight the hordes of aliens that seemingly come out of nowhere. <br /><br />But what about the effects, you ask? Come on now, people. They may be monkeys but they clearly knew CGI would play a key role in the film. Without diving into the budget, the monkeys used a standard Final Cut program and cut and pasted some very nice fire and spark effects throughout. Putting red and green filters over the camera lens provided some excellent Predator visions.<br /><br />The setting was something the monkeys thought long and hard about. If this was to be on Earth, in Colorado of all places, they needed to make it realistic. This was where they admitted they might have made a mistake. See, the monkeys didn't have proper training in this department so they thought turning the lights off in the city and having the movie play out in the dead of night and in the rain was the right thing to do. They simply forgot people like to see the creatures instead of looking at shadows and rain the whole film. To add insult to injury, the monkeys accidentally filmed all the fight scenes incredibly close so no one could see what was fighting or who it was. But again, rookie mistake.<br /><br />The rating. Fox told the monkeys to make the movie R-rated. That was easy. Without showing how many of the injuries or deaths actually happened, the monkeys made a habit of showing the carnage after the fact. It was simple: the viewers got the gore they desired and the monkeys didn't have to film the majority of action shots involving that violence.<br /><br />Some of the actors originally had questions concerning the screenplay. Why does a blue liquid the Predator has endless amounts of magically disintegrate whatever he wants it to and nothing more than that? Why is an ex-convict driving around in a police car the entire movie? Why did the monkeys forget to show a full body shot of the Aliens? Why does a clock play a more memorable role than any of the main characters? The list of questions just kept growing but the monkeys ignored them and finished their masterpiece. <br /><br />Fox was thrilled with their work. So thrilled that they opened the movie nationwide on Christmas Day and even spent a few bucks advertising it the week before it came out. The monkeys had successfully made another installment in these cherished franchises.<br /><br />But some ask, what ever happened to the budget the monkeys forgot to use? They put it towards their next film: Aliens vs. Predator vs. Hulk Hogan. They knew the general public would be upset with the title but they have since released this statement:<br /><br />"To the people- do not worry about our upcoming film. It will be rated R and will have violence."<br /><br />And everyone lived happily ever after. The end. | negative |
What an uninteresting hodge-podge. It could have been something more but no imagination seems to have gone into the script or the direction. A man is framed for murder by his wife and her lover. The conspirators do a pretty thorough job of making him look guilty. But the man (Richard Thomas), whose psychiatric records reveal him as "stable" and "unimaginative", manages to escape from jail, beat it to the conspirator's beach house, and secretly record a conversation between them in which they reveal their guilt. Then he accidentally drops the tape recorder with all the evidence on it into the sea water but manages to retrieve it. He shows a heck of a lot of creativity and improvisational skill for an unimaginative guy, if you ask me.<br /><br />The tape is now damaged goods but it's enough to break down the wife's lover and he sobs out his confession. Bad people are punished. Good people are saved.<br /><br />The location shooting is impressive. The beach house is nothing more than a wooden exterior thrown up on the grounds of Fort Fisher Battlefield on the Cape Fear peninsula. The house was torn down immediately after the production wrapped.<br /><br />It's a pretty place. Unfortunately it's a little hard to see because someone seems to have shot every scene through a pair of pantyhose stretched over the camera lens. It's all very fuzzy. And for all the natural splendor of the location the viewer never gets a real sense of place, of what the sand feels like, of the texture of the gray bark on the stunted evergreens.<br /><br />The acting is okay but the performers have nothing much to work with. The best performance, as is often the case, is given by Dick Olsen as a sleazy but not unsympathetic defense lawyer. Virginia Madsen radiates infidelity with every beat of her eyelashes. Ted McGinley is within his range as an immoral weakling.<br /><br />The musical score neatly blends the ominous with the mysterious and is effective. If you want to hear the original, from which this was ripped off, rent Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and listen to Bernard Hermann's suspenseful theme.<br /><br />I can't think of any particular reason to catch this one except utter boredom. | negative |
Being the second last of Chaplin's Essanay films, CARMEN is a parody of Cecil B. Demille's drama with the same title. It stands as quite obvious that Demille's acknowledged film didn't impress the comedy king that much, which he later admitted in his autobiography.<br /><br />Parodies were not a new experiment for Chaplin. He had done several of them already, namely HIS PREHISTORIC PAST and HIS NEW JOB, and would continue to do so until the very end of his career in films (for instance in A KING IN NEW YORK).<br /><br />Chaplin does a very good portrayal of Don José, and Edna Purviance's is very as good as Carmen. Neither act as we are used to; Charlie is not the lovable Tramp and Edna is far from an innocent little woman, but that was not Chaplin's intentions, either. A BURLESQUE ON CARMEN is a somewhat odd Chaplin-film, very different, but includes good material nonetheless.<br /><br />The main story is, although very differently structured, as in the original drama. Don José is very much in love with Carmen, but is not alone in that field; "Carmen, Carmen, (the) beautiful Carmen, (is) loved by all men under 96," but he has the big advantage that he is an officer, and there we are; this is the famous story about rivalry, love, greed and honor, seen from a humorous perspective. Thanks to Chaplin's and Purviance's performances, and to the wonderful, wonderful music by George Bizet which I highly admire, this could actually have been a near-comedy masterpiece, it's time taken into consideration. It could have been. But unfortunately, although it is a good pretty good comedy, I don't feel it's fair to blame people who claim that A BURLESQUE OF CARMEN is far from being a masterpiece. But it's important to keep in mind that this has nothing to do with any lack of talent, but rather a result of conflicts concerning business. When Chaplin refused to re-sign Essanay contract after completing his last film for the company, POLICE, they took revenge by editing back all the scenes Chaplin originally had edited out from CARMEN. Thanks to this, the film is somewhat confusing and has several pointless scenes which are more annoying than funny, and the film turned out to be rather a Ben Turpin-feature --Turpin played Remendados-- than a Chaplin-short. Naturally, Chaplin was in despair when he discovered what Essanay had done, and had to stay in bed for several days.<br /><br />Despite its obvious flaws, A BURLESQUE OF CARMEN is highly recommended to Chaplin-fans and to admirers of beautiful music. | positive |
Nothing is fantastic! Simple as that! It's a film that shouldn't work, yet does. Natali stays in the realm of Sci-Fi, however this film is also a comedy. Cypher it seemed was a big budget draining affair for Natali (at $7.5million! Woo-hoo Pa!) so with Nothing he scales down again. This is low budget, independent film-making at it's best. Simple, good old fashioned storytelling and an attempt at making a film for artistic merit as apposed to Hollywood's usual reasons for mostly financial gain. Nothing is a film about Nothing and before you ask, no it is not anything like Seinfeld! Basically Andrew and Dave are a couple of losers. They live in a strange looking house beneath two freeways. Andrew is a telesales travel agent who is agoraphobic while Dave is Andrews best mate who stays with him rent free to help him out. Dave is tired of it however and has a gorgeous girlfriend who he wants to move in with. By bizarre mis-fortunes however, Dave finds out his girlfriend embezzled a huge amount of money from Daves work-place incriminating Dave, and Andrew is wrongly accused of sexually assaulting a girl scout (Canadian humour people!). As it turns out Andrew's house is to be demolished as well and he can't stop it happening as the house was built on land it should not have been built on. Both Andrew and Dave are inside the house when the police and the demolition team come calling. They are desperate and can't escape, and in the panic and confusion just as the police burst in everything fades to white. What has happened? Have Dave and Andrew died? They wake to find themselves still in the house only it is quiet. No police, no demolition team, no angry girl scout mother! What happens is Dave and Andy discover they have the ability to "wish or hate away." As it turns out they have hated away the entire outside world. They are left alone. The house is surrounded by nothing, which is portrayed as pure white. So what this means is that the films setting is a house set and then just white. The film is an interesting view on human isolation and the psyche and of course as they spend more time alone together with no food and no water, they begin to tire of each other. They discover they can hate away hunger, which is useful but obviously things get out of hand shall we say. I can't reveal much but I must say bouncing heads are quite a sight to behold.<br /><br />This film is quirky, funny, interesting. The effects are simple yet effective and Natali brings together two buddies from Cube, David Hewlett, and Andrew Millar to lead the film. They have chemistry and also work very well. They have to hold 90% of the movie by themselves and much of it in a pure white background, yet it works. Certainly I expect this to get the same diabolical treatment as Cypher did and it should appear on DVD in a year or two in the states. Nothing is a top quality and unique film and although not as good as Cube or Cypher it once again proves Natali as one of the best up and comers.<br /><br />Natali is someone who has really interested me in his three features so far and I cannot wait for his next feature. I prey to god he doesn't do the proposed Necropolis, written and directed by ADD sufferer, the ever crap Paul Anderson. Vincenzo old buddy if Paul comes round to your pad, RUN!!! RUN LIKE THE WIND!! I hope and prey this guy doesn't take to Hollywood like Alex Proyas did (with the enjoyable yet pussy-footed, sugar coated, helium light: I Robot!). Keep your eyes peeled for this guy. **** | positive |
- When the local sheriff is killed, his wife takes over until and is determined to clean-up the town. Not everyone in town, however, is happy with what she's doing. When the sheriff orders a curfew in town, the local saloon owner (also a woman) hires a killer to take care of the sheriff. There's no way the saloon owner could know that the sheriff and the killer would fall in love.<br /><br />- Gunslinger is an example of what happens when you have a fairly interesting concept and combine it with poor execution. There's a good movie here somewhere trying to get out. In more capable hands or with a larger budget, Gunslinger might have been an entertaining look at the role of women in the Old West. As it is, Gunslinger is a sloppy mess of a movie.<br /><br />- There are just so many things wrong with the movie: a supporting cast with no acting ability, stilted and unnatural dialogue, and sets that look like sets. But the biggest offender is the editing. I was amazed at how many times a scene would begin with the actors (and horses for that matter) obviously waiting for Corman to yell "Action". The best is the scene of two riders on horseback just standing beside a building. All of a sudden, they take off and come racing around the corner like they had been riding hard for several miles. Or, take the example of people who can seemingly transport themselves across town. We see a man enter a building and a second later emerge across town to mount his horse.<br /><br />- It's not as if Corman didn't have a few decent actors to work with. While none were great stars, Beverly Garland, John Ireland, and Allison Hayes were all capable of turning in a good performance. But, in Gunslinger, they're not given much to work with.<br /><br />- I have now seen both the MST3K and non-MST3K versions of the movie. I would strongly recommend going the MST3K route. | negative |
The story line was very straight forward and easy to follow and contained a lot of no-brainer comedy to a point where it just got boring. Some of the audience seemed to find it funny but I like more intelligent humor.<br /><br />There were several known Swedish actors in the movie and their performance were decent considering the script. Lena Endre was good looking as always.<br /><br />I don't remember the original movie so I can't say if it's better or worse.<br /><br />If you enjoy movies like Sällskapsresan this movie might be worth taking a look at. | negative |
I wanted to love this movie. Everything seemed to be in place for an enjoyable, if not groundbreaking, film. It was set in southern France, good-looking and recognizable actors led the cast, and I really admired the vibrant African costumes, the proverbs and music. Despite all this, I didn't love it. Movies are supposed to convey their meaning at the first viewing, but "Secret Laughter" doesn't do that. Nimi and Matthew, as played by Long and Firth (both of whom have played romantic leads before and should have known better), radiate as much warmth and passion as dried fish. I used 'dried fish' deliberately, because it was one of a few - too few - strong lines and moments sprinkled throughout the film. Another winner was when Nimi catches Matthew snooping around her apartment. He finds a book of hers with her first name written on it and says: "Your name is Nimi. I never knew." Then he insists that she call him by his Christian name. I watched this scene intently as Matthew asked Nimi over and over to "say my name", realizing that up until that moment, they always called each other by their last names. I thought this was a turning point for the film, and expected that it get better. It didn't. Why do Nimi and Matthew always seem to stand at ten paces, even in that "say my name" scene? What does Matthew like about Nimi, aside from her obvious beauty? And why would a sensible woman like Nimi fall for a comic book writer who regards his marriage as something he can put on hold when a beautiful exotic 'adventure' comes along? And I'd like to add that it was a little hard for me to get behind a romance built on adultery. Yes, Jenny is a vicious harpy, but if I were in her shoes, but I'd probably match her Cruella tactics to stop my husband from straying. Believe it. The story hints at Nimi's painful past, but never fully explores it. Some critics say Firth seemed a little awkward here, and I agree. For goodness sake, the actor summoned more palpable longing and passion as that early 19th-century snob Mr. Darcy (and while wearing those hideous britches)! As for Long, who did shine in 'Love Jones', there were times when she seemed to concentrate more on her accent than playing her character. Even so, there were many moments the 'say my name' scene among them when she was in total control and came across really well. Yet, 'Secret Laughter' is not without its redeeming qualities, and I've found that it grew on me with more viewings. Nene was well portrayed as supportive and well-meaning, even if she doesn't fully understand Nimi's attraction to Matthew. I absolutely loved it when Nene faced off with Mama Fola in those dueling proverbs scenes. My husband liked it, and usually he's the first to sigh and throw insults at the screen if he doesn't like what is going on. He even chuckled at the scene when Sammy asked Matthew some very frank questions about sex. So there you have it. 'Secret Laughter' was good enough to entertain an avowed curmudgeon like my hubby, but an avid moviegoer like myself will need more than one viewing to appreciate what the director and writer were trying to convey. | positive |
I initially bought this DVD because it had SRK and Aishwarya Rai on the cover and I thought, hey! another film starring Aishu and Shah Rukh, little did I know that Aishwarya would only appear in an item number in the last quarter of the film in a song which she shares with SRK and helps introduce his character who is in the film for about just 15 minutes. Shakti is a film about a mother's love and endurance. It's a film about transformations, ignorance, coming of age, stepping into the know and embracing the harsh realities of life. The item number in which SRK and Aishu appear in has nothing to do with the movie. It's actually a dream sequence that occurs while SRK's drunken character is knocked unconscious by booze. He dreams that Aishwarya Rai is this sexy street girl who shows up at his favourite hangout spot one day, dressed scantily and begins to seduce him. The title of the song is 'Ishq Kamina' (loosely translated as "Love's a bitch!") and it is just plain smoking hot! Don't miss it. | positive |
Travis (James Franco) is a young man riding a train for business reasons (we're to assume) who leaves his beloved phone behind. It gets picked up by a prostitute, Terri (Rachel Miner), and when he goes to her city to pick it up, a series of events occur that are sure to stay with him forever.<br /><br />Both characters have barriers they've put up to defend themselves from communication. But despite their facades, it's obvious both are eager to bust them down. In total there are about 30 or so spoken lines, but from the way James Franco and Rachel Miner use their faces you might as well turn off the volume, words are unnecessary. A scene to look out for is Terri staring at herself in the mirror. You can just feel her despair permeating the room.<br /><br />But, the movie isn't perfect. It's mostly filmed using hand-held cameras, which gets a bit distracting. Mainly due to the acting of Mr. Franco and Miner and the photography, the script's flaws don't stand out as much. Still, sometimes it seems as if the story doesn't really know where it wants to go.<br /><br />All in all, this is the type of film that truly stays with you long after you watched it. An hour after you've seen it, you're still 'what-if'-ing yourself on the behalf of certain characters. It's not flawless, but still leaves you wanting more, wishing it were at least 4x as long. | positive |
Whether or not this adaptation of the Marvel comic was made and shelved so its production company could retain the copyright to the characters, it doesn't change the fact that it's utter rubbish. The Dr. Doom and (especially) Thing costumes are surprisingly good, but everything else suffers from a deficit of either cash or talent. Director Oley Sassone can't even point a camera at stuff without including such howlers as a blind woman's POV, the dialogue is absolutely dismal, the team's costumes don't fit properly, and the effects are appalling: the Human Torch seems to be drawn onto the film with felt tip pens, while Mr. Fantastic's powers are brought to life using a bendy blue stick with a glove on the end. Joseph Culp compensates for having to wear a mask by wildly waving his arms about, Jay Underwood is incredibly annoying, the rest of the cast hit various levels of terrible, and while it's hard not to feel sorry for all these guys who thought this movie would get a release, it's equally difficult to imagine any of them believing it was actually any good. | negative |
This is a great Western story with outstanding veteran actors who made this film great entertainment to view and enjoy. Glenn Ford,(John Parrish),"Midway",'76 tries to play low key after having experienced battles in the war and plays the peace maker role for the time being. John Parrish decides the town is entirely too rough and tough and goes to visit Barbara Stanwyck,(Martha Wilkison),"Crime of Passion",57, who is the wife of Edward G. Robinson,(Lee Wilkison),"The Red House",'47. Lee Wilkison, offers John Parrish Fifteen Thousand Dollars for his ranch and John turns down the offer. Lee Wilkson decides to have his son, Brian Keith,(Cole Wilkison),"The Wind & the Lion",'75, change his mind in more ways than one. There are romantic scenes between May Wynn,(Caroline Vail),"The Caine Mutiny",'54, and John Parrish and some hot encounters with Dianne Foster(Judith Wilkison),"Three Hours to Kill",'54, who hates her father Lee. If you like Edward G. Robinson and Glenn Ford films, this is a film you will want to view and enjoy from beginning to end. | positive |
Story of a good-for-nothing poet and a sidekick singer who puts his words to music. Director Danny Boyle has lost none of his predilection for raking in the gutter of humanity for characters but he has lost, in this film, the edge for creating inspiring and funny films. Strumpet is painful to watch and barely justified by the fact that it was made for TV. | negative |
I have never before seen a movie quite like this, nor as funny. I laughed my goddamned ass off and have watched it repetitively. Infact I am watching it now. Chad from CKY is hot too. Anyway if you never liked it, blow it out your ass, you have no taste. The movie involves Ry (Ryan Dunn) having just broke up with his girlfriend turning to Valo (Bam Margera) and Falcone (Brandon DiCamillo) for help in finding out exactly what she done with "Hellboy" (Rake Yohn), and with the help of Raab (Chris Raab/Raab Himself) they do just that.<br /><br />The fender bender scene and the scene with Cactus at Record Bin were hilarious. | positive |
<br /><br />Average adventure movie that took a serious story and "Holywoodised" it.The watering down effect done particularly towards the average script snatched away this movie's place as a would be solid classic. Why water down such a great storyline?Probably because it deals with "sensitive" colonial subject matters and the producers do not want to create political heat,just quick profits thank you.The directing,cinematography and soundtrack and acting was good.The screenplay was average.The charm of Connery made up for his wrong Arabic accent and all the scenes with President T. Roosevelt were masterpiece takes.The costumes/sets here was very good.Too bad we did not get more of a serious historical drama since this is what the story demands.Only for big fans of the lead actors or fans of exotic Romance/Adventure Holywood movies..... | positive |
OK, it's not a perfect movie by any means but I disagree with the overall IMDb opinion that it's really really bad. I watched a lot of Hong Kong flix in the 1990's and loved the era dearly. I never saw 'Black Mask' at the time and only saw it last week for the first time. Apart from the embarrassingly poor dubbing which my DVD copy didn't give me the option to turn off, the movie contains the raw energy and bravado that permeated Hong Kong movies during this time. I still stick to my guns in the opinion that, when it comes to action, these guys, no matter what their budget, add an element of magic to the screen no Bourne Supremacy, Casino Royale or Mission Impossible (I'm not knocking these movies - I just reckon they lack the spontaneity of this one and feel too regulated) will ever achieve. What is it? It's the feeling that the film-makers were experimenting as they shot and edited, not afraid to leave in some blemishes so as to learn lessons for the next time. For me, this makes watching movies, all the more fun and dangerous. | positive |
Just listen to the Broadway cast album and to the voices of Barbara Harris and John Cullum, who do wonders for the wonderful Lerner and Lane score. Then, with that beautiful cast recording fresh in mind, watch the movie, with Streisand as Streisand, and Yves Montand reading his lines with such a heavy French accent that a chain saw couldn't cut through it. The best part (for those who need something to look forward to) is what Montand does to the introductory part of the title song. Listen as he sings/says: Could anyone among us have an inkling or a clue, what magic feats of wizardry and voodoo you can do? (That one part sums up the problem that results from casting "name stars" in movie musicals instead of the appropriate talent for the various roles.) I can just see Rex Harrison entering that scene and suggesting Montand, too, could learn to do justice to the beauty of the English language.<br /><br /> | negative |
After watching this I thought to myself, there are either too few good writers & directors or lots of producers.<br /><br />At any rate, this is a terrible movie. Terrible in a way that it's not fun, but rather makes you grit your teeth and quiver. Makes you shout "this is wrong" at the movie. Immersion is zero. By now most of you are probably used to the terrible errors/weirdness-es in movies that has computers hackers etc. in them. This movie is like that in every aspect. <br /><br />The only good thing about the movie is the little girl Emily, brilliantly played by Eliza Bennett. I hope she becomes big, and make this ..thing at least worth something.<br /><br />Do yourself a favor. Don't watch this. There is not even proper action in it. Total waste of time. | negative |
My flatmate rented out this film the other night, so we watched it together.<br /><br />The first impression is actually a positive one, because the whole movie is shot in this colorful, grainy, post-MTV texture. Fast sequences, cool angles, sweeping camera moves - for the moment there you feel like you about to watch another "Snatch", for the moment....<br /><br />When the plot actually starts unfolding, one starts to feel as if one over-dosed amphetamine. things just don't make sense anymore. i would hate to spoil the fun of watching it by giving out certain scenes, but then again, the film is so bad that you are actually better off NOT watching it.<br /><br />First you think it is a crime story recounted in a conversation between Keira Knightley and Lucy Liu. WRONG. This conversation provides no coherent narrative whatsoever. Rather on the contrary, Domino's lesbian come on on Lucy Liu's character during the second part of the movie just throws the audience into further confusion.<br /><br />Then i thought that maybe it is a movie about a girl from affluent but dysfunctional background who grew to be a tough bounty hunter. In any case, that is the message conveyed by the opening scenes. But after that the question of Domino's character is entirely lost to the criminal plot. So in short, NO this is NOT a movie about Domino's character.<br /><br />Then i thought, it's probably a story of one robbery. A pretty bloody robbery. 10 millions went missing, bounty hunters are chasing around suspected robbers, mafia kids are executed, hands are removed, Domino tries to crack why this time they get no bounty certificates, etc. But soon this impression is dispelled by another U-turn of the plot.<br /><br />This time we are confronted with a sad story of an obese Afro-American woman, who fakes driver's licenses at the local MVD and at the age of 28 happens to be a youngest grandmother. Lateesha stars on Jerry Springer show, tries to publicize some new, wacky racial theory, and at the same time struggles to find money for her sick granddaughter.<br /><br />What does this have to do with the main plot? URgh, well, nobody knows. Except that director had to explain the audiences where will bounty hunters put their collectors' fee of 300,000.<br /><br />Then at some point you start to think: "Oh, it is about our society and the way media distorts things". There is reality TV crew driving around with the bounty hunters and doing some violent footage. The bounty hunters are also stuck with a bunch of Hollywood actors, who just whine all the time about having their noses broken and themselves dragged around too many crime scenes. But NO, this is not a movie about media, they just appear sporadically throughout the movie.<br /><br />Plus there are numerous other sub-plots: the crazy Afghani guy bent on liberating Afghanistan, the love story between Domino and Chocco, the mescaline episode, the FBI surveillance operation...<br /><br />Can all of the things mentioned above be packed into 2 hrs movie? Judge for yourself, but my conclusion is clear - it is a veritable mess! | negative |
The best that I can say about this film is that it was mildly amusing at times, and that it was an adequate time killer. Unfortunately, this film is also so annoying that I wanted to slap these characters around. This is the kind of film that is so sweet, it hurts your teeth. The intentions were good, I suppose, but things get awfully tiresome when the dialogue is SO nauseating. When the two leads aren't together on-screen, this really isn't bad at all, but be afraid during those frequent moments when the loving couple starts talking to one another. | negative |
WOW, a masterpiece of a movie not to be missed. <br /><br />I had no idea what this movie was when I started watching it late night. I didn't find out it was a Stone film until after the film when I went on IMDb. Watching it, I was mesmerized. The cast, especially Eric Bogosian is just superb. One of the best scripts and camera work ever...The movie drew me in and kept me entranced until the very end...I did not dare blink for fear of missing something...Amazing how a small-budget film can be so engrossing and well made while huge-budget films that feature tons of action and computer generated special effects can be so incredibly boring. Don't miss this film... | positive |
I absolutely hated this movie. Even though the movie wanted to transmit some kind of social message, it was done in such a cliché ridden and melodramatic way like a Mexican soap opera.<br /><br />Also the acting was terrible especially Charityn and her son. That's one of the problems with dominican movies, they use celebrities that can't even act just to attract the masses. <br /><br />I'm even more ashamed about the positive reviews here which sadly means Dominicans are just being condescending to what's done here instead of giving honest and critical opinions that will help our film industry base itself on quality. | negative |
The creative team behind Evan Almighty really should have been able to make a better film. Starring one of America's favourite funnymen and helmed by Ace Ventura Pet Detective director Tom Shadyac one expects a higher laugh count than the picture provides. Hell even Steve Oedekerk who wrote and directed last years atrocious Barnyard, and attains a writing credit here has done better work. The fact of the matter is that Evan Almighty isn't the worst picture of the Summer season but it might well be the most disappointing. The title and creative team behind the picture suggest this is a sequel of sorts to 2003's Bruce Almighty. That picture had Jim Carrey in the lead, and whilst both Steve Carell and Carrey are both funny guys it's the latter who's better suited to this sort of material. I've heard that Carrey was offered this sequel before anyone else, but the actor declined staing he saw no other places for his character to venture. Thus Shadyac moved over to Carell, who ever since an amusing bit part in the 2003 original has been gunning for stardom. After sleeper hits The 40 Year Old Virgin and Little Miss Sunshine the man has become big business, and so it's him rather than rubber faced Jim who leads this production into theatres. The story see's Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) having been elected as a Congressman and thus he and his troop move house and state so Evan can find success with his job. His wife (Lauren Graham) and three kids have doubts but overall show a supportive side towards Evan, who himself looks at the future with optimistic eyes. However things start to go belly up fairly fast, God (Morgan Freeman) appears to Evan stating a flood is coming and that the politician must build an Ark. Initially ignoring the encounter, Evan is quickly granted some robes a beard that refuses to stay shaved and animals are beginning to appear two by two. Evan then begins to put the boat into construction but the neighbourhood aren't happy and neither is a fellow Politician (John Goodman). Anyone expecting the wacky laughs of some of Tom Shadyac's other films will probably be left completely cold by this movie. Ace Ventura, Liar Liar and hell even Bruce Almighty where largely very funny pictures, but all of those ;projects have one thing in commen and thats Jim Carrey's presence. Shadyac hasn't made a worthwhile film without Carrey at the helm, he's worked with Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and now Steve Carell, but still only Carrey seems to meld successfully with Shadyac. Carell after the disappointing Box-Office and critical mauling won't be desperate to work with the director again, and with Carrey now doing more serious projects Shadyac had better find a new comic muse fast. Carell himself is fairly dull here, whoever felt that his bit part in the first movie (Despite being quite amusing) deserved a full length feature should be taken out back and shot. I expect after Bruce Almighty's Box-Office draw it was Universal studios themselves, but you know when a quality comedian can't do anything with a character then the scren persona is a dud, and thats exactly the case with Evan Almighty. Lauren Graham isn't any great shakes as Evan's wife nor do any of the children strike the right note. Freeman lets it all hang loose as God in another amusing and chilled performance but he appears to sporadically to carry the piece. Indeed the most consistent source of laughter is Evan's Secretary (Wanda Sykes) and creep co-worker (Jonah Hill), both made me laugh twice as much as any other character in the project. Oedekerk's writing has been worse (Barnyard) but also better (Ace Ventura When Nature Calls) than his work on this production. His script does have genuinely funny moments but it's also full of cloying family moments and the humour is never weird or indeed offensive enough. The film takes tame and easy swipes at religion when it ought to rip the concept to shreds, indeed the opening church sequence in The Simpsons Movie shakes religion harder than Evan Almighty's whole 95 minute run. With a bit more daring and heart this could have been a far better picture. I don't doubt that the core family audience will be mildly entertained by this film, but if they'll be satisfied is a completely different question. There's a line between being watchable and being worthwhile, a line that Evan Almighty is always on the wrong side off. Maybe when you're feeling bored and the films on cable you can afford to watch, but I can think of plenty better ways to spend my time and indeed more importantly my money than tuning into this mediocre comedy. | negative |
Not to mention easily Pierce Brosnon's best performance. Of course Greg Kinnear is always great. Really, when has he really been bad? I think this film is incredibly underrated! The use of colors in this movie is something very different in today's film world where every other movie has the Payback blue filter. I also love the way they used the song by Asia. Proving that even what was once thought of as kinda cheesy can be really cool placed correctly.<br /><br />I was making my first feature when this came out. Being that my film was a hit-man movie, I had to check out anything in the genre that was released. After seeing it, I'm sure it had some effect on me through the process. It was pretty cool when my film got on the IMDb that it would recommend this film if you liked mine. How any of the others relate I have no idea, making an even more interesting coincidence.<br /><br />http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1337580/ | positive |
A true dark noir movie and a very graphic film, nice storyline of a man pursuing redemption, that may have just left it all too late. Visually there are some really nice scenes artistically amazing as to what can be done with a minimal budget. Full marks to Gareth Maxwell Roberts and team, I look forward to the next project with new ideas although hopefully more British actors would be great. Lisa Ray looked lovely not seen her before and hope to see her again in the future. Subject all interesting Sex,Drugs and Violence. Bring it on. I would definitely say to rent this one and check it out if you're in the mood for a semi moody noir. | positive |
On the face of it this film looked like it might be really good - it isn't.<br /><br />The cast is pretty good, but most of them seemed embarrassed by the whole thing. The real disaster in this film is not the flood, but the script. It attempts to include every cliché in the book, all done incredibly poorly. The ending is very abrupt, but this is a blessing in disguise. Congragulations if you make it that far.<br /><br />All three main male actors (Carlyle, Courtney and Suchet) would surely agree that this is the low point in their careers. I hope they got paid a lot of cash, because none of their reputations come out in tact.<br /><br />The special effects are quite good, but the same thing was done to much better effect in The Day After Tomorrow.<br /><br />In short, a pointless exercise. Don't waste your time. | negative |
Oscar-caliber performance by Peter Falk in an Oscar-caliber-written role. I loved the nuanced, balanced exploration of a long-time marriage - how often do we get that in films, where usually the movie ends when boy & girl get together? This is a movie for adults, a complex view through the eyes of all parties - husband, wife, son - how each have adapted to each other in the past and grow during the story. On top of that, it gave me about 10 major belly laughs, and I'm one of those people who usually sits unamused when the rest of an audience is laughing. This was one of the few truly funny movies I've seen. Great, original jokes. | positive |
Don't even waste your time, let alone pay rental for this piece of dreck! How it got made is beyond me. (I don't know why there's a minimum of 10 lines... I've already summarized this trashy movie, but, oh well...) The acting was awful, like they all needed lessons. The plot was weak, the ending... Feh! I think the cinematography was the only thing that didn't totally suck... well, maybe the sound was minimalistically OK. The one good thing is, if they could make this movie, even make some money with it, there may be hope for any screenwriter with a REAL idea. So, you-all take heart! I guess the same holds true of actors... if these people actually got paid, then you can, too! | negative |
(Avast, slight spoilers ahead) I got this tape from my local library, which keeps a copy for obvious reasons.<br /><br />I once went to the town of Matewan, West Virginia, and in a little museum there I saw the schedule for the town theatre citra May 1954. Movies would change at the theatre each day. As there would be no TV for another decade or so in those parts, this was much of the available entertainment in the town. "The Raid" seems to have been made for towns like Matewan in the 1950's. Although it wasn't listed for that month, I am sure showed there some Monday or Tuesday night for an audience which probably wasn't too demanding. The historical raid - daring and remarkably successful - didn't seem to have been very well researched, so the movie is full of Hollywood embellishments, including a loose cannon played by Lee Marvin. Marvin uses the opportunity to practice being Liberty Valance. And St. Albans seems to have had more Yankee soldiers coming and going through the town than Washington D.C. had.<br /><br />What really made me snicker was when the raiders change into their Confederate uniforms. Only in tacky Civil War paintings do Rebel uniforms look so pristine. When Anne Bancroft's son catches Van Heflin in his uniform just before the raid, I expected the boy to think it was Halloween.<br /><br />And then there's Anne Bancroft herself. While watching the movie I actually looked on the IMDb to see if there was a second Anne Bancroft. The then-studio contract actress looks nothing like in her later films, and has none of the presence she would later have in "The Miracle Worker," "Agnes of God," and of course "The Graduate."<br /><br />Worth seeing if only 1). you live in St. Albans and 2). you have a couple hours to kill on a Hollywood fictionalization of your home town's biggest news story. | negative |
A bumbling error at the Ministry Of Education results in Nutbourne Boys School having to share with St Swithin's School For Girls. This bemuses the respective head teachers of each school and leads to all manner of chaotic goings on, however the two are forced to come to an uneasy alliance in the hope of averting major trouble.<br /><br />The Happiest Days Of Your Life is based on the John Dighton play from 1948, with Dighton writing the part of Headmistress Whitchurch specifically for Margaret Rutherford. Replacing George Howe from the play in the role of Headmaster Pond, is Alastair Sim, and here in lies the crowning glory of this filmic adaptation, Sim & Rutherford are perfectly wonderful, bouncing off each other to keep what is basically a one joke movie, highly entertaining. Directed by the gifted Frank Launder, and produced by the equally adroit Sidney Gilliat, The Happiest Days Of Your Life is a quintessentially British movie, obviously a precursor to the St Trinians franchise, the film entertains the children with it's high jinks clash of the sexes heart, whilst tickling the watching adults with its very saucy undercurrent. Thankfully the chaotic ending cements all that has gone before it to leave this particular viewer with a grin as wide as Nutbourne Rail Station, great fun 8/10. | positive |
Back when I was working person, I remember having a really obnoxious client to deal with who insisted on making everything on a personal basis. I was telling him things that my agency could do and could not do and he firmly believed I was personally out to do him out of what was rightfully his. I swear but I was thinking of this guy as I watched John Malkovich and Clint Eastwood in their battle of wits.<br /><br />In The Line Of Fire casts Clint Eastwood as a veteran Secret Service Agent who was on the job in Dallas as a young man when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He's had his doubts ever since and been given to drink and his life at one time was a real shambles. He's gotten back on the White House detail now and when a potential assassin's landlady rats on her tenant to the Secret Service, it's Eastwood and partner Dylan McDermott who draw the case.<br /><br />But the assassin is no ordinary crank case. He's a professional at his job, trained by and used by the Central Intelligence Agency. John Malkovich earned a deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He lost that year to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive and I'm not sure, but that I thought Malkovich was better.<br /><br />Oddly enough Malkovich might have been better off, but he saw Eastwood as the agent in charge breaking into his apartment while on the job and he insisted on making the whole thing personal. He calls Eastwood throughout the film and taunts him. And after a while what Malkovich says and does causes Clint to get real personal. <br /><br />The presidential assassins we've had in our history have been lucky amateurs, unless you believe in some of the conspiracy theories about some of the assassinations. A guy like Malkovich, a professional with a real or imagined grudge, is the most dangerous kind of foe.<br /><br />Others to note in the cast are Fred Dalton Thompson as the White House chief of staff (and would be president in real life), Rene Russo as another agent who falls for the Eastwood masculine charm, John Mahoney as the Secret Service head, Gary Cole as the White House head Secret Service guy, Gregory-Alan Williams as another agent and Jim Curley and Sally Hughes as the President and First Lady.<br /><br />But when Malkovich is on he owns In The Line Of Fire. The climax with him and Eastwood is unforgettable. | positive |
Mediocre at best. Slow, but probably more entertaining to the younger viewers. A young boy(Chris Miller) is haunted by an Indian spirit and horrid monster in the cellar of his father's new home. Also in the cast are Patrick Kilpatrick, Suzanne Savoy and Ford Rainey. | negative |
Quentin in my opinion has written and directed only really one good movie and that was the multiple award winning Pulp Fiction. However, most of films, especially of recent, have been real REAL turkeys. People still rate him and his stuff today and i really can't see why. There are many other directors and writers nowadays producing far better entertainment in all aspects of their movies. From this point on, i shall not believe the hype that is a Tarantino movie.<br /><br />Inglorious was too long and worse still you felt it. The humor was, well, minimal and not that humorous. The violence was nothing new (minus the end scene). The dialog was sometimes very VERY drawn out.<br /><br />For some they'll love this movie; and for others they'll hate it.<br /><br />... and i thought the subject matter of Nazis was finally put to bed with the awesome 2004 German movie Der Untergang. | negative |
I stumbled onto this movie when I was eBay'ing Caesars Palace stuff, as I'm enamoured with its rich Vegas history as the last of the original luxury resorts still standing in good condition (unless you count Bally's, the original MGM Grand). In that respect, this movie delivers full-force. You're given a grand tour of the Caesars property,which in spite of all the renovations and additions they've done over the 40 years it's been open, looks alarmingly similar. As a film overall, the plot is somewhat difficult to follow, thanks in large part to the horrendous editing. And when I say horrendous, I'm not using that word lightly. There's a lot of spliced-in, second-long snippets of Vegas traffic, casino crowds, and even a scene where the Robert Drivas character is having a conversation with his father about how much he's grown up, and without any explanation, he (Drivas) goes (in those infamous snippets) from being himself, to a baby, to a little boy, and then back to himself while talking back and forth with his father. (That doesn't give away any plot details; if anything, one can be prepared for it and maybe they won't be as flabbergasted as I was by the editing.) The film has aged well otherwise, and has a good message about the inherent differences between a father and his son that most guys could relate to in some form or fashion. | positive |
STAR RATING: ***** Unmissable **** Very Good *** Okay ** You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead * Avoid At All Costs <br /><br />The tale of the titular Adam (Mark O' Halloran) and Paul (Tom Murphy), two heroin addicts in the slums of Dublin and their daily amblings about in their meaningless lives searching for the next fix that will make their day. Along the way they try and reconcile with close family and friends who they've managed to let down and destroy over the years.<br /><br />I know a lot of Irish people like to drink, but it seems some of them have problems with heroin, too by the looks of this movie. I know there is a bit of a drug problem over there, like there is in many parts of the world, so another humorous take on the subject matter is not an entirely unexpected thing.<br /><br />I don't recall the last Irish movie I saw (the film is shot in a style that makes it stand out from any film I've seen lately!) And, judging from that, obviously I'm not as enlightened on their humour as I could be. The film is rather funny in certain parts, but it's obviously another comedy that isn't afraid to raise near-the-knuckle laughs. The scene in which the mentally disabled boy is robbed down the back of an alley is certainly true of what a pair of junkies might do to feed their habit but is nonetheless utterly despicable and I'm not sure if it was meant as dark humour in any way but it certainly didn't put a smile on my face! It's also in stark contrast to their previous actions where they're seen showing their soft side rocking a baby to-and-fro. In light of this, some may find the ending sad, others may see it as just desserts.<br /><br />Overall, I just failed to see the point to the film. I didn't see any motivation in the 'story' it was telling. It just seems to amble along without really involving the audience in any way. Unlike Trainspotting (which dealt with similar themes!) it's an unsuccessful effort for the most part that had me on the verge of nodding off despite it's very short 83 minute running time. Really no more enjoyable than following two real life junkies around for a day. ** | negative |
I liked SOLINO very much. It is a very heart-rending story of an italian family moving to Germany. And it's an story about brotherly love, hope and disappointment. And the film is never boring. Go and see SOLINO! | positive |
I could have liked this if I didn't like Diane Arbus.<br /><br />Didn't really capture Arbus unique visual aesthetic(as Stanley Kubrick did in "The Shinning", with the twin girls in the hallway, a direct homage to one of Arbus most famous photos, and one with haunting qualities none of this movies images have), and certainly none of her character(outgoing), likeness(thin and Jewish, not wasp Queen Kidman), or life, save some very superficial similarities, she was a fashion who later photographed "freaks" and "outsiders", among many things. This film focused on the "freak", as her symbol for artistic and personal empowerment, in a really shallow and predictable fashion. Outside of that, it might have been an interesting movie about middle class fetish, but I was too annoyed to care.<br /><br />Perhaps if Arbus name had been left off, this might have been less annoying, but had it not had her name in the title there would have been nothing to make me interested in seeing in this in the first place. A letdown from "Secretary". | negative |
After I watched this movie, I came to IMDb and read some of the reviews, which compared it to Lost In Translation LITE. When I read that I immediately could see the reviewers point.<br /><br />This movie was a poor attempt at a similar theme. Interestingly, the format of the movie is nearly identical, but the PACING is incredibly different. "10 Items" rushes the viewer through the 1-day time line of the movie, whereas the better-planned "Lost In..." seems to stretch out over a few long days.<br /><br />I'm sure some people will see this because it has Morgan Freeman, and will be disappointed. It seems his better roles now-a-days are supporting roles in big blockbusters, rather than leading roles in sub-$10mil limited release movies and indie films. | negative |
I'm not bothered by the sleazy hosts, nor am I bothered by the cynical, self-righteous stance the makers of this crap take.<br /><br />What I AM bothered about is that the vast majority of the episodes are fake. I wouldn't even be surprised if ALL of the episodes were staged. Hence this isn't a reality show but something far worse even than Oprah: garbage television with zero comma zero appeal. Like daily TV soap opera but with more action and fighting and less plot.<br /><br />The premise would have turned out great - if only it had been executed without cheating the viewer. If only this idea were free of all the legal complications/trappings that would most certainly ensue due to what would happen with real people, and what is eventually aired. Hence the only way to create this """reality show""" was to get some rather desperate actors and make them improvise (and what pitiful and unconvincing improvisation it is most of the time!). Shouldn't this be obvious to anyone who finished grade school? Most reviews I read here don't even mention that any of this is fake, let alone that all of it might be. Wishful thinking or just boundless naivety? <br /><br />The actors hired in this pathetic show are the kind of bottom-of-the-barrel unemployed actors who are miserably waiting on tables, waiting eagerly for a call from a talk show (or this crap), which is when they finally get a chance to make several hundred bucks. I even recognized one actress (in the role of "cheater") that I saw years earlier in "The Jerry Springer Show". And I only saw 6-7 episodes of "Cheaters". How many more of these loser actors are there that appeared in Springer and "Cheaters" that I don't even know about?<br /><br />However, to compare "Cheaters" with Springer isn't fair to the latter. The Springer show is not all fake; a bulk of the episodes are unstaged - hence often highly entertaining. There is no value to be found in "Cheaters", unless you're a struggling actor and want to get tips on how NOT to act in front of the camera.<br /><br />The producers use various (very cheap, transparent) tricks to create the illusion of realness, to give their footage that elusive documentary feel. But it's all in vein. In the end, the more intelligent train-wreck-seeking viewer is left with absolutely squat. "Professional wrestling" has more credibility than this. | negative |
Horror movies can be a lot of fun with low budgets, bad acting, and a bit of panache. I think the film is just missing panache, because, one thuddingly dull scene after another, people make laughably harmless claw-handed grabs at the air. If it weren't so boring, it might be funny.<br /><br />A horror film can go a long way with a tired concept like "college kids in a haunted house," in much the same way the Evil Dead movies had a lot of fun with a similar standard plotline. Hallow's End, unfortunately, doesn't go a long way. Actually, it doesn't go anywhere. It spends the better part of an hour setting up faceless and anonymous characters with what seem like endless interpersonal drama. I have nothing against character development, not even in a horror movie, but these are strictly one-dimensional characters (the alpha-male, the milquetoast, the... um... throwaway characters that exist mostly for sex scenes.) Spending forty-plus bloodless, droning minutes with them was more horrific than when the bloodshed started.<br /><br />Well, implied bloodshed anyway. When the college kids turn into whatever they dressed as for their haunted house (one's a vampire, one's wearing O.R. scrubs and some white pancake) they look pretty much the way they did in their amateur haunted house costumes; The Dead Hate The Living, using a similar theme, is a masterwork in comparison. There isn't really any gore to speak of, nor are there any real scares.<br /><br />I've thought about this one from almost every approach. If it was supposed to be a tight, suspenseful horror movie (which would explain why things moved so slowly), the pathetic sex scenes and cheap monsters would invalidate it. If it was supposed to be a genuine blood & guts horror movie (which would explain the schlock)... where's the blood and guts? And the anticlimax is one of the unexciting endings to a movie I've ever seen. It's the kind of movie that, though it doesn't have a narrator through the film, is bookended by voice-overs because all of the meaningless dialogue just wasn't enough.<br /><br />This was a hard one... coming out of it, I wonder if I've just sat through a christian horror film. Maybe the "I know hell exists" of the opening wasn't meant that way, but there are some hints (or misdirection-- I'm not sure which). For all the profanity in the film, a line like "gosh-darnit" comes off a little absurd, and so does most of the crucifix worshipping, god-fearing, and satan-dreading, especially after some lecherous T&A sex scenes (one heterosexual, one lesbian).<br /><br />If it a christian company (Highland Myst's logo even has a bit of a crucifix resemblance), then this film weighs in heavily for the atheist camp. An omnipotent being can't be this bad a filmmaker.<br /><br /> | negative |
OK, lets get one thing straight, i love dinosaur movies, even the bad ones. So with this in mind lets proceed. "Raptor" is a truly awful film, in fact its not even a film in its own right as it is cobbled together from bits of "Carnosaur", "Carnosaur 2" & "Primal Species - Carnosaur 3". There is some new footage with Eric Roberts as a sheriff and his busty sidekick running around looking confused, frightened or whatever it is there trying to convey (badly) on the emotional scale but then how can they react to something that was filmed several years earlier. The producers (yes Roger Corman i'm talking about you!) even went to the lengths of hiring 2 people from "Carnosaur" to play bit parts so there grisly death scenes can be reused! So this film is the cheapest of the cheap. Watch the 3 original movies, there no Oscar winners but they have some meritt and entertainment value but avoid "Raptor". Oh, it also has the most pointless sex scene that runs for nearly 10 minutes! Do you think they were trying to pad out the running time? | negative |
Thankfully as a student I have been able to watch "Diagnosis Murder" for a number of years now. It is basically about a doctor who solves murders with the help of his LAPD son, a young doctor and a pathologist. DM provided 8 seasons of exceptional entertainment. What made it different from the many other cop shows and worth watching many times over was its cast and quality of writing. The main cast gave good performances and Dick Van Dyke's entertainer roots shone through with the use of magic, dance and humor. The best aspects of DM was the fast pace, witty scripts and of course the toe tapping score. Sadly it has been unfairly compared to "Murder, She Wrote". DM is far superior boasting more difficult mysteries to solve and more variety. Now it is gone TV is a worse place. Gone are the days of feelgood, family friendly cop shows. Now there is just depressing 'gritty' ones. | positive |
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