review stringlengths 32 13.7k | sentiment stringclasses 2 values |
|---|---|
I tend to fall in and out of love with anime, as the more you watch the more you notice a lot of shows are just poor copies of the few gems or rehashes of old formulas. But every once in a while one of the true gems comes along and it's originality just blows you away. Haruhi is truly one of those shows. Many anime series are originally manga and sometimes the translation into an animated show is rather poorly done and doesn't utilize the benefits animation has over static drawings. Haruhi is actually based on a series of light novels and fires on all cylinders, beautiful animation, great voice acting, great music and a complete and well paced story. Watch it you won't be disappointed, and I'd suggest watching it in broadcast order it works so much better that way. | positive |
My girlfriend once brought around The Zombie Chronicles for us to watch as a joke. Little did we realize the joke was on her for paying £1 for it. While watching this film I started to come up with things I would rather be doing than watching The Zombie Chronicles. These included:<br /><br />1) Drinking bleach 2) Rubbing sand in my eyes 3) Writing a letter to Brad Sykes and Garrett Clancy 4) Re-enacting the American civil war 5) Tax returns 6) GCSE Maths 7) Sex with an old lady.<br /><br />Garrett Clancy, aka Sgt. Ben Draper wrote this? The guy couldn't even dig a hole properly. The best ting he did was kick a door down (the best part of the film). This was the worst film I have ever seen, and I've seen White Noise: The Light. Never has a film had so many mistakes in it. My girlfriend left it here, so now I live with the shame of owning this piece of crap.<br /><br />News just in: Owen Wilson watched this film and tried to kill himself. Fact.<br /><br />DO NOT WATCH | negative |
I think that COMPLETE SAVAGES is a very good TV show and they should make many more episodes. It is one of my favourites!!!! It is very funny and it is really good acting. I say that you should give them a chance to do more episodes. Iknow that they can and they should!!!! They should put COMPLETE SAVAGES on NICKELODEON more than what they do! I'm sure that many people will agree with me!!!!! I like the TV show because it is a very good programme for people our age and it is very funny. I also like COMPLETE SAVAGES because it isn't always about the same thing and things that happen could be real, unlike other YV programmes. When they advertised it, I didn't like the sound of it, but I watched it for the first time and I loved it. COMPLETE SAVAGES is an excellent comedy and I miss it being on TV!!!!!!!!!! I can't really compare COMPLETE SAVAGES with any other TV series because it is different!!!! | positive |
When I was 11, Grease 2 was like crack. It was a classless, shameful, euphoric, and powerfully addictive experience. My sister and I would watch it, rewind it, and watch it over again and again and again until we passed out or became too confused and hostile to stand one another. So, if you are an 11-year old girl, and you reviewed this film as "brilliant" or "fun" or "better than the original Grease," you have your fledgling adolescent hormones to blame and you can rest assured that this unyielding fixation with utter rubbish will pass.<br /><br />If, however, you are not a little girl, you have absolutely no excuse to suggest that Grease 2 was anything but an inane, artless, slipshod embarrassment for all who participated in its production, distribution, and/or consumption.<br /><br />For the sake of criticism, I will dignify the film now by explaining why it blows
<br /><br />1. In a well-executed musical, the songs should advance the narrative or develop the characters. In Grease 2, with a few debatable exceptions, to the music is obscenely pointless. Most of the songs appear to relate gimped innuendo about sex in an excessive and general way ("Score Tonight," "Reproduction," "Do It For Our Country," and "Prowlin'") without making one concrete statement about any of the film's characters or themes. Plus, all of the music is uncomfortably stupid and no one in the cast demonstrates even the crudest semblance of an ability to sing or dance.<br /><br />2. The T-birds should be badass, and if not at least somewhat likable, but instead each of them is an annoying wussy-dufus-loser. In the end, when Johnny Nogerelli offers Michael the sacred T-bird jacket and initiates him into the gang, Michael should kick it to the ground, spit on it, and duck away to fervently scrub any part of his body that was touched by it. But of course, he accepts it as if it is gold because despite the fact that they are a bunch of bumbling meatheads, there is no greater honor than to be one with the T-birds. <br /><br />3. Since Michael is beautiful, smart, kind, resourceful, and above average in everyway (his musical impotence notwithstanding), it is feasible that Stephanie would ultimately embrace him when he reveals himself to be the man behind the mask. Stephanie, on the other hand, is a slovenly, slack-jawed, bubble gum smacking, dirty sweatshirt wearing, gracelessly rude and trashy dingbat. So aside from being pretty (I guess), she harbors no likable characteristics, thus, audiences are given no justification whatsoever for the depth of Michael's attraction to her.<br /><br />I could go on and on, but I didn't want to mention the gross inferiority to its predecessor since there are apparently so many cranks out there who seem to feel that such a comparison is unfair. I will say this though, to those of you who think you want to revisit this mess for old time's sake: Grease 2 is an experience akin to re-living your first kiss. Only you are 32 now and kissing a snot-nosed 13-year old kid with acne and slobby braces. The magic is gone and you are left feeling dirty and disturbed. Trust me. | negative |
Peter Boyle was always a great actor and he proved it by his performance as a gun-ho Bigot, making me hate him everytime he used the "N" word, I watched him and his big mouth and wanted to punch his lights out. ( Just think, Peter Boyle was a Monk once) (Now a supporting actor in "Everybody Loves Raymond") Susan Sarandon making her first debut need a bath right away and enjoyed sharing it with someone else in his own dirty water. I noticed a large Raggerty Ann Doll(creator, John Gruelle) was the only thing that Susan could actually trust and love and the doll appeared in quite a few scenes. If you really want to know about the way out 70's with drugs, free love and pipe dreams, then, enjoy the excellent direction of John G. Avildsen ("Rocky and "The Karate Kid") I always thought that Peter Boyle should have been blown away in the end!! This is definitely a cult classic well worth viewing and sharing with others. | positive |
My girlfriend wanted to see this (lol this is the case a lot)...so I rented it. Then I saw how acclaimed this was nominated for 10 Oscars. GREAT! this should be good ol' drama. This movie had a lot of potential...the direction and the way everything was paced was very well. But once the movie ended, I couldn't help but ask myself if this story was really worth making a film for. Virginia Hill (Annette Bening) was EXTREMELY annoying, I just couldn't tolerate her character at all. Warren Beatty was excellent in the film acting-wise, but again I just found it hard to have sympathy for his character....he just came off essentially as a idiotic, hotheaded loser of a gangster..who had no place in 'the life' in the first place. How'd he get in with the likes of Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano anyway??? This film just left me with a bland but uneasy feeling...what was the big deal with this movie? I just didn't feel a completeness with Bugsy. Beatty's antics, although acted quite well, just seemed too random and illogical. I'm guessing that's how Siegel really was....but it was just too much of that. There just didn't seem to be much of a real story here. My basic assessment of it would be <br /><br />"a hot-headed, playboy, underachieving gangster falls in love with a loser of a woman, comes up with the idea of 'Las Vegas'....but his failed attempt at the casino he builds, along with having no regard for his mob bosses' money gets him killed."<br /><br />What else is there besides that? I just didn't see the big deal with this, and it was a big disappointment. There must've not been many movies to come out in 1991, how this was nominated for 10 Oscars is beyond me (although the two it won is justifiable). 1.5/4 stars. | negative |
I must admit when I saw the preview for "Inglorious Basterds" I gave myself big expectations. THIS FILM DID NOT Disappoint.<br /><br />Rarely when I watch a movie with such high-expectations do I have those expectations met or exceeded; this film did that and more. Even more rarely do I clap at the end of a movie, this I and everyone else in the theater did.<br /><br />I have to say I am a little biased towards Quentin, I grew up with "Pulp Fiction." I watched it when I was 12 and it is still my favorite and most influential film.<br /><br />However, since then Quentin has not really lived up to his billing. His style was getting a little predictable instead of familiar, the quality honestly wasn't there (I never watched Jackie Brown, and then there's Grindhouse). That is until "Inglorious Basterds." What Quentin did was exactly what was needed for the war genre, a spaghetti western feel that could only be done by Tarantino or Sergio Leone, but seeing how Leone is dead, Tarantino's the self appointed guy on this masterpiece.<br /><br />So let's look at the movie which I won't give away. The writing was spot on, a beautiful transition between using not one but four different languages in this movie. Not to mention this movie was set up in the classic Tarantino mold, great scenes of rich meaningful dialog and sudden shocking action.<br /><br />The acting was superb!! Christopher Waltz deserves an Oscar, seriously. I don't say that often, but honestly the man should get one for this movie, he spoke every language in this movie, and delivered with such amazing touch and poise. He stole the show in a movie that everybody was amazingly impressive.<br /><br />I have no problem building this movie up, because this movie is the best film I've seen all year, and probably all of next year. Quite frankly the more I think about it, this movie may crack my top films of all time, and is Quentin's best movie since "Pulp Fiction." Take it from me, watch this film. I loved it doesn't do this movie enough justice.<br /><br />I watched it yesterday and I'm still blown away. Thank you Quentin from the bottom of my heart for you making this movie. You're back on top again buddy. I can't say enough for "Inglorious Basterds!" | positive |
Airplane apart, I don't think I've ever laughed at a film so much in all my life.<br /><br />I love football like mad, but I tend to hate almost any song or film about football as they tend to be unrealistic. This wasn't.<br /><br />I watched it once, it was over 2 years ago & it was brilliant. Everyone I know loved it. I remember the gay physio, the sloping pitch at about a 45 degree angle and 'Shoes' (a player so named because he once turned up for training in a new pair of shoes). Brilliant, that's what goes on in park football.<br /><br />A definite 10/10. If anyone from the TV industry is reading this, considering all the crap you repeat on English tele, please have the sense to show this again (and the Muppets while you're at it). Also does anyone know if this was shown on BBC or ITV. I think it was ITV, so it's worth asking them if they plan to show it again. They should do. | positive |
What a crappy movie! The main character in this movie was supposed to be born and brought up in Canada, yet he had a thicker Indian accent than his parents! Is it just me or does Uday look gay in this movie? Also, do all the chicks in Canada dress like sluts? At least that's how it is in this movie. All the females are dressed like strippers. Don't waste your time with this one! The only good thing about this movie is the setting in beautiful Vancouver. Wonder why Bollywood is going through a slump? It's because of movies like this. I miss the good old' days when Hindi movies were actually entertaining!I couldn't even finish this movie because it was so bad. I think Bollywood needs to stop trying to replicate the style of Hollywood because it's just not working out. They need to stick to their roots because that's what makes Indian movies entertaining. | negative |
and what a combo. Two of the century's great singers star together in this underrated musical. He writes music, she writes lyrics, and they both work for Basil Rathbone who can't write either because his wife died (actually she just got fat!). Best scene is the pawn shop number where Bing sings an impromptu number while the swing band gets their instruments out of hock. Just wonderful. And this is a rare starring role for Broadway legend, Mary Martin, and she's quite good. Charley Grapewin, John Scott Trotter, William Frawley, Oscar Levant (once again the manic pianist), Charles Lane, and Helen Bertram co-star. And who knew Rathbone could be funny? | positive |
OK so this is about 30 minutes of gore with no story whatsoever. There is no spoken dialogue, no subtitles, not even any real characters. You see three people in the entire movie (that are alive) and two are just there for very little reason. The main guy has no emotion and just mutilates corpses for no apparent reason. That is the entire movie. I love to see very gory movies, especially since in America real gore just isn't very common in modern movies. So yeah the gore effects were pretty cool. But it just isn't really disturbing. Why does everyone think it's so disturbing? There are no characters at all, there are just 3 living people and 3 corpses. No one has any personality or back story. You see three corpses being hacked apart and you can't really identify with it unless you just identify with death itself and how this could very well happen (despite the guy losing his job and going to jail very shortly after.) To be disturbing the viewer has to care and to care they have to identify with the victim. For example in a good horror movie you should really care about the main character. Here it's just a guy and a corpse. It's as deep as a puddle made from only a single rain drop. They never give you any reason to care about anyone in the movie. All it is a guy hacking up a few bodies, then he has sex with a body. Now with the sex scene here is an odd thing about it, he makes sure to wear gloves but doesn't use a condom. So he couldn't care less about catching some weird STD from having sex with a corpse but as long as his hands don't get messy there is no problem, now that is really logical. I don't really dislike the movie, I liked that it was very gory but when it ends there is no reason to watch it again, no reason to even care, and it just isn't a very compelling movie. I say if you can find it for under 10 dollars then you might as well get it but if it's more than that it just isn't worth it. | negative |
Watching the first 30 minutes of Sands of Oblivion gave me high hopes. It seemed I was in for a cheaper version of the Mummy. The setup was promising, in the 1920's Cecil B. Demille makes his opus of the Ten Commandments. It seems in using real Egyptian artifacts for the movie set they unleashed an ancient and terrible evil (don't they always?). Aware of what had been unleashed DeMille orders the entire set buried instead of the usual practice of tearing it down. Hopefully the evil will be buried with it for all time. Then we switch to present day where a team is attempting to excavate the site (the movie's first mistake, but hey those period costumes are expensive and this is a Sci-Fi channel movie). The first sightings we get of the Anubis monster are well done and it's a costume that they put some effort into and not the usual cheesy CG effect. Then the body counts starts. This is were the movie went south for me. The reactions to the fact that people are dying in gruesome and strange ways gets a strangely subdued reaction. Once they realize that the ancient evil has again been unleashed and is on a killing spree what do the stock issue leading man and lady do? They make the usual stop to the "guy who knows the truth but never told anyone". After getting that vital information do they share it with the comrades at the dig site? No, they stop off at a hotel for a refreshing shower and some pleasant small talk. Really I'm not the most motivated person but if I knew a demon from ancient Egypt was on the loose and killing everyone in sight and would be coming after me I'd put a little hustle in my step to solve the problem. After this overlong and pointless middle section they get around to destroying the Anubis monster in the usual way, by racing around in dune buggies and shooting it with a rocket launcher while it's standing by a pile of phosphorous grenades. For a Sci-Fi movie it was above the usual crap they put out, which isn't saying much at all. What disappoints me is this could have been a lot more if someone had wrote a decent script for it. | negative |
I have two good things to say about this film: the scenery is beautiful and Peter Falk gives a good performance (considering what he had to work with in terms of dialog and direction). However, that said, I found this film extremely tiresome. Watching paint dry would have been more entertaining. It seemed much longer than 97 minutes. Beginning with opening sequence, where everyone is talking over each other and Paul Reiser is repeating everything that's said to him on the phone, the movie is annoying. The film is filled with clichés and shtick, not to mention endless incidents of audible flatulence by Falk. Also, the director seems to have had difficulty deciding whether to aim for laughs or tears. There are some sequences that are touching, but they're all played for laughs. If schmaltzy, sentimental, and "cute" appeal to you, you'll love it. But if you were hoping for something with more substance, see a different movie. | negative |
Being a fan of Billy Bob Thornton, and the diversity of his skills, I noticed this movie listed, and was surprised I hadn't heard of it.<br /><br />I'd traveled more than usual during both the period it was being filmed in 2000, and when it hit theaters more than 2-1/2 years later (that passage of time is the first clue all was not well with the production).<br /><br />Now Patrick Swayze can't act for sour apples, but Thornton has more than enough ability to make-up for the difference between them. And Charlize Theron is someone whom it would be a pleasure to see, even if it showed her watching paint dry.<br /><br />Being curious, I checked this site's production info. It made a whopping < $600 per screen its opening weekend, and just over $400 each, after its month's theater run in latter 2002. Overall gross was $261K, which I'd doubt could cover cast and crew's hotel and food for a week on location.<br /><br />The story is pretty benign, and even the use of the usually interesting locale of Reno is as dull as the rest of the goings-on.<br /><br />It's something like several SNL bits all pieced together, none individually too great at all, and the overall presentation even worse.<br /><br />Whatever, the expenses for this production had to be considerable - even if all worked for less than their usual fees - so the one thing which made it a barely tolerable opus was the quality of the filming and Billy Bob's present (albeit understandably somewhat laconic here , compared with his usual work.<br /><br />Think of the three superb, totally diverse characters he portrayed in "Sling Blade," "Bandits" and "Bad Santa," and you know he realized this work was below standard, long before the viewers had the opportunity to confirm this. One star for him, even here, and one because production was better than, say, the typical "Lifetime" flick. | negative |
This started bad, got worse, and by the time the girl attacked the old lady at the end i literally wanted to take the DVD to the person we borrowed it off and choke the C**T to death with it. Avoid this film, a little bit of good cinematography and some naked shots, would be almost acceptable if i was 14 and had not seen Jenna Jameson naked a million times. If anyone feels the need to watch this film, i would strongly recommend you spend the time more appropriately, as an example i would say trying to cram a Lego house into your bum with no lube would be a good start. I hear that this film was not the original version, i would very much like to view the original, as it seems that this cut version is devoid of all plot, and apparently most of the nudity, can someone please tell me how i can get in touch with Christian Viel he owes me an hour of my life back! | negative |
This is a bigger budgeted film than usual for genre director Honda (with more evidently elaborate sets) though the special effects still have that distinctive cheesiness to them (witness the giant bats and rodents on display). It also utilizes a surprising number of American actors: Joseph Cotten playing the visionary scientist looks ill-at-ease and frail (but, then, his character is supposed to be 204 years old!), an innocuous Richard Jaeckel is the photographer hero while, as chief villains, we get Cesar Romero and Patricia Medina (both essentially campy). As I've often said, I grew up watching English-language films dubbed in Italian
but hearing Hollywood actors in Japanese is another thing entirely! <br /><br />LATITUDE ZERO feels like a juvenile version of a typical Jules Verne adventure, and is fairly entertaining on that level; indeed, it's preferable to Honda's low-brow variations on the monsters-on-the-rampage formula because of the inherent quaint charm of the set-up in this case. The plot involves the kidnapping of a famous scientist by Romero he was intended to establish himself in the underwater, technologically advanced city devised by Cotten (to which the world's foremost minds are being recruited). We're treated to plenty of silly battles between the rival subs, but the most amusing scenes are certainly the raid on Romero's cave in fact, Cotten doing somersaults and fending off men in rubber suits (via flames and laser emitted from his glove!) must surely count as the nadir of his acting career; the other elder in the cast, Romero, is more in his element after all, he had been The Joker in the BATMAN TV series and movie of the 1960s! Cotten has a scantily-clad blonde physician on his team, and is assisted by a hulking Asian; Romero, on the other hand, is flanked by an Oriental femme fatale who, however, ends up getting a raw deal for her efforts (the girl's brain is eventually transplanted into a hybrid of lion and condor
which is among the phoniest-looking creatures you ever saw!). Apparently, a 2-disc set of this one from Media Blasters streets on this very day!! | negative |
I didn't expect a lot when i went out to see this, but my god what a disappointment. The original was kind of fun within it's genre, but this is so bad, i felt abused when i left the theater. There's no plot, it's not funny, it's not enjoyable to watch, it's straight out embarrassing. After an hour i hoped my patience would be rewarded but now i regret not leaving the theater. Do yourself a favor and ignore this one, see it when it comes to the small screen. Or see it on budget DVD, whatever you do don't waste any money on it. Don't say i didn't warn you. | negative |
If you haven't seen the gong show TV series then you won't like this movie much at all, not that knowing the series makes this a great movie. <br /><br />I give it a 5 out of 10 because a few things make it kind of amusing that help make up for its obvious problems.<br /><br />1) It's a funny snapshot of the era it was made in, the late 1970's and early 1980's. 2) You get a lot of funny cameos of people you've seen on the show. 3) It's interesting to see Chuck (the host) when he isn't doing his on air TV personality. 4) You get to see a lot of bizarre people doing all sorts of weirdness just like you see on the TV show.<br /><br />I won't list all the bad things because there's a lot of them, but here's a few of the most prominent.<br /><br />1) The Gong Show Movie has a lot of the actual TV show clips which gets tired at movie length. 2) The movie's story line outside of the clip segments is very weak and basically is made up of just one plot point. 3) Chuck is actually halfway decent as an actor, but most of the rest of the actors are doing typical way over the top 1970's flatness.<br /><br />It's a good movie to watch when you don't have an hour and a half you want to watch all at once. Watch 20 minutes at a time and it's not so bad. But even then it's not so good either. ;) | negative |
I just finished watching this horribly depressing drama and realized that, in light of recent dramas such as these, the only ones who could be considered abnormal are those who are least aware that life is nothing more than tragic. I would suggest how nauseatingly defeatist and counter-productive this conclusion is, even if relationships and outlooks like those presented in this movie are grounded in fact to some degree. But, instead, I realized that these films have made the very determination of the great "tragedy" trivial when the same boring situations, the same suffocating dysfunctional families and friendships continue to play out just have they been over and over again in some sort of attempt to knock out previous distortions of family life (much of it existing in the 1950s and earlier with personality and character aberrations being made ever so subtle), supplanting it instead with the "reality" of how things actually are. That in fact, what we are watching is no longer the dysfunctional, but in fact, a normal existence and set of circumstances that has actually existed all along, but of which we may have been previously been unaware and thus, have ignored or at least denied.<br /><br />Only problem is, that too many films have been trying to make this point. And by doing so in nearly identical form. When I had read the synopsis for the film, I immediately thought of 'Ice Storm.' While watching the depressing lifelessness of the Travis family, which seemed to endure repeated emotional berating, I immediately recalled 'American Beauty.' And, in some regards, the interactions between the parents and the middle child, Tim, I drew similarities from 'Igby Goes Down.' 'Imaginary Heroes' may be a novel experience, maybe a refreshing one deemed so for an honest portrayal of character that, as said before, is often not permitted to exist in the films of family (which is idiotic to think anyways, considering we were already seeing these kinds of relationships displayed in films like 'Ordinary People' as early as 1980 and which go back even further than that). But, to the well-versed viewer, these films may offer nothing new. They have in fact, become a rather tired testimony of too many filmmakers who may try to out-do the other with the amount of trauma and apathy they can pack into one family (and here, it extends to neighbors and friends). In fact, 'Imaginary Heroes,' the latest in this genre (I do think there have been enough films to accurately declare it a 'genre'), crams so many disasters and surprises into one family, that they would make prize finds for a daytime talk show host. It is the story of a family who is tested by the suicide of the eldest son, a talented and decorated swimmer who hated the sport with a passion. The youngest son knew this, the father was in a daze and blinded by the push for competitiveness in his all-star son. And it's not clear that the mother and sister had much of a relationship with the young man.<br /><br />Granted, it is no less entertaining (to some extent, for those who find this material exhaustively depressing after a while), and the performances are quite good, especially by Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels. But, I sure hope that filmmakers in the future wishing to add to the commentary of struggling familial relationships (which coincidentally or not always seem to be upper-middle class white suburban families) intend to offer something new by way of material and insight. I should see no distinction (and consequently, no purpose) otherwise. | negative |
The plot of this enjoyable MGM musical is contrived and only occasionally amusing, dealing with espionage and romance but the focus of the film is properly pointed upon the tuneful interludes showcasing the enormously talented and athletic tap dancing Eleanor Powell, abetted by Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra, featuring Ziggy Elman, Buddy Rich and Frank Sinatra. Red Skelton shares top billing with Powell, and he and sidekick Bert Lahr are given most of the comedic minutes, although Skelton is more effective when he, if it can be believed, performs as Powell's love interest, with Virginia O'Brien actually providing most of the film's humor as the dancer's companion. The technical brilliance of Powell is evidenced during one incredible scene within which Buddy Rich contributes his drumming skills, and which must be viewed several times in order to permit one's breathing to catch up with her precision. Director Edward Buzzell utilizes his large cast well to move the action nicely along despite the rather disjointed script with which he must deal, and permits Powell's cotangent impossibilities to rule the affair, as is appropriate. | positive |
Closet Land is an amazing, terrifying piece of cinema. It features only two actors in a single set, but never loses your attention. The set design is imaginative and troubling, the staging of scenes maintains your attention, while adding to your own sense of confusion and terror. The acting is outstanding, with Alan Rickman and Madeleine Stowe having the duty of carrying every scene.<br /><br />I first saw this film in 1991, soon after it came out on video. It didn't play in theaters where I lived; not surprising, given its political content. It should be seen, though. It features a brilliant staging of the torture and interrogation techniques used by repressive societies to instill fear and obedience in its citizens. The country is never named, which makes it all the more striking. It could be anywhere; East, West, 3rd World, 1st World. It illustrates what happens when a small group of people decide what is best for everyone; when government becomes the ruler of the citizens, rather than the servant.<br /><br />Madeleine Stowe is a children's author who has been dragged from her bed in the night and subjected to terror and torture. She finds herself in a room with Alan Rickman, a seemingly pleasant functionary. At first it seems a horrible mistake and she is free to go; but, fear causes her to remain and the terror escalates. She is increasingly subjected to physical and mental torture. The interrogator uses sensory deprivation, temporal manipulation, confusion, auditory manipulation, role play, and twisted logic to break down the author. She is humiliated and browbeaten, forced to endure strenuous bodily positions, deprived of food and water.<br /><br />Through it all, she refuses to give in; to do what the interrogator asks. She is told that it will all end if she just signs a confession. A simple little act. She refuses. Through it all, she employs defense mechanisms that have developed since childhood. It is slowly revealed that she was the victim of childhood sexual abuse. To survive, she developed fantasy worlds and characters that would take her away from the abuse. These mechanisms allow her to transcend her torture and turn the tables on her interrogator. She starts attacking his own beliefs and profession, forcing him to examine his own life and motives. In the end, she is free, because she maintains the freedom of thought. The interrogator is the one trapped by the state.<br /><br />This movie was made during the height of the Cold war, Apartheid, and at a time when the crimes of many governments throughout the world made daily news. It is even more timely in a world where "enemy combatants" are held and interrogated in secret prisons, denied legal rights or counsel; where "ethnic cleansing" lays waste to whole societies, and humanitarian aid is denied. It demonstrates that the individual can stand up to the state or other oppressor by refusing to give in to fear and terror. | positive |
As a Native film professor, I can honestly say that this is perhaps one of the worst films with Native content that I have ever viewed. I would rather get a root canal than view this film again. The use of stereotyping, uncreative attempts at utilizing portions of traditional coyote stories and poor camera work were only made worse by the glib uncreative story-line and bad script. The writer and director have displayed the worst parts of a colonized approach to portraying Native people and communities. If this person is Native, they need to go home and apologize to everyone they know for being an apple and for the internalized racism and poor sense of humor that they have developed. If this person is non-native, they need to seriously re-examine their white privilege and ask themselves if they are displaying unexamined, unintentional racism, or if they are intentionally being ignorant. My only hope is that the Native actors in this film had a good time and at least got paid for their efforts. If you want to see good Native films then check out: Christmas in the Clouds, Dance me Outside, Medicine River, PowWow Highway, Smoke Signals...to name just a few. | negative |
My wife and I both agree that this is one of the worst movies ever made. Certainly in the top ten of those I've watched all the way through. At least "Plan 9" was enjoyable.<br /><br />I DID really enjoy "Christine", "The Dead Zone", "Firestarter", "Carrie", and some of his other films. I didn't care much for "Cujo" (only because the sound was so bad on versions I've seen and I often couldn't tell what people were saying), or "Pet Sematary (Pet Cemetery)".<br /><br />But this mess was a total mistake in every way possible. The "creatures" themselves seemed designed by a 9-year-old. (No offense to 9-year-olds.)<br /><br />Even the "one-liners" made us groan and weren't remotely amusing. | negative |
This is a very low budget film, set in one location in a valley shielded by the effects of radiation. The cast, an older man and daughter, a handsome visitor, a couple (a tough buy and gal), a drifter, a donkey and a radiation affected man, interact during the after effects of a nuclear blast. Added to this is an entity watching the women take a bath.<br /><br />They all have guns, some of them get shot, some of them are told to have children, others are murdered and others just drift away and, well this is the movie. Harvey Cormann's first film, it shows a certain simplicity in movie making. To avoid expensive sets, actors go through curtains to enter and exit the house (ie the studio). The location shots filmed in the hills near Hollywood are the backdrop.<br /><br />I would not say this is worth going out of your way to see, but interesting to see how movies with human subjects were made in the 50s. | negative |
The video case for this film reads "a story of beauty, passion, and forbidden fruit". Are they talking about the same movie I just saw?! They can't be, as the film I just saw was beautiful, but there was no passion and as for the fruit, this is all hogwash meant to entice the potential viewer to see this movie. If only it did have some passion or some life to it, I would have greatly enjoyed this film. Instead, it was an agonizingly slow paced and not particularly interesting film that I would definitely not want to see again. It isn't that it's a bad film (after all it IS very beautifully filmed), but it is dull beyond belief. I kept waiting for something exciting or interesting to happen, but then the movie just ended. There was no great sense of excitement, mystery or anything--just a rather unexciting story about a young girl who becomes a servant and spends the next 10 years of her life working as a maid. | negative |
Stereotyped, derivative, unoriginal and boring Western. The two popular stars (Charlton Heston and James Coburn) both give performances that are far from their best, and justifiably so; they both have superficial roles and character traits stated mainly by dialogue. Heston is a sheriff who "liked the world better as it used to be before" and Coburn is an outlaw who "owes something to the man who locked him up and has to pay his debt". Additionally, Heston is so old that he has trouble riding a horse and Coburn is mean and tough but not as cold-blooded a killer as some of the minor villains. Apparently, the filmmakers couldn't come up with even ONE original idea about how to make this movie somewhat distinguished. (*1/2) | negative |
All you really need to know about this movie comes after the opening scene, where a guy falls into a lake and gets eaten. Then they start rolling the title credits: You see "Slugs!" in big letters, followed shortly thereafter by "The Movie." WHEW! I was worried I had accidentally tuned into "Slugs: The Musical" or "Slugs: The Game Show." Anyway, from there the movie deteriorates into a kill-fest. You see a guy cut his hand off because he had slugs in his gardening glove, two people get attacked by slugs while having sex, and a girl falling on her back in an underground passageway get stung to death by killer slugs. It's a pretty silly movie, falling in the "so-bad-it's-good" category. It also is shot so poorly with such grainy film that you're shocked to learn it was made in 1988 (my guess was 1974). I'm VERY surprised it has received as high a score as it has here, because most people here don't give those types of movie any love. But if you want a movie that tries to be scary but ends up being laughable, this is one of your prime candidates. | negative |
I saw this film at the NY Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and thought it was pretty bad. First and most distracting was the way much of it was shot; that is, a lot of slow motion and overly arty close-ups that seemed to have no point--story wise or aesthetically--other than to show the skills of the cinematographer (who I believe was also the director). This film seemed what a pretentious film student would come up with. The lead actor (Sam Levine) was certainly very cute, but was a mediocre actor at best; and the rest of the cast ranged from so-so, to bad. The story itself was mostly annoyingly predictable. I do have to concede that most of the audience seemed to enjoy the film; laughing and sighing constantly, but I disliked it a great deal. | negative |
I caught this film at an OutFest screening in Los Angeles in July, 2006. It's rough around the edges (sound recording in particular is wobbly) and often very funny. The script is rather jarringly episodic and ends abruptly, but Ash Christian infuses the film with lots of genuine heart. It's also a refreshing change of pace to have a gay film that doesn't star underwear models obsessed with partying and chasing straight guys. Props to a warmly sympathetic Jonathan Caouette as Mr. Cox, a kindred spirit to Rodney (Ash Christian), the lively and spirited Ashley Finke as Rodney's best friend, and Deborah Theaker as Rodney's mom, who is given the best one-liners in the script and steals her every scene. The film is like its writer/director/starlumpy and a bit odd, but also very sweet. | positive |
(The beginning might be a spoiler...)<br /><br />"The Eye 2" is the sequel to "The Eye". It's about a pregnant woman who is able to see ghosts and spirits after an incident happened to her.<br /><br />The sound effects scared the hell out of me though momentarily but that's the only scary thing. Some of the scenes from the prequel are comparatively similar and repeated so the chilling effects certainly have chilled. <br /><br />"The Eye" has quite a frightening and indelible impression whereas "The Eye 2" is a forgettable horror-cum-drama film. Omit watching this. Watching "The Eye" is good enough. | negative |
For me the only reason for having a look at this remake was to see how bad and funny it could be. There was no doubt about it being funny and bad, because I had seen "Voyna i mir" (1968). Shall we begin? Here we go...<br /><br />Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Pierre Bezukhov - a lean fellow that lacks the depth of the original; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Natasha Rostova - a scarecrow, her image can cause insomnia; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Andrej Bolkonsky - an OK incarnation which, like the lean fellow (cf. above), lacks depth of a Russian soul and "struggle within"; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Napoleon - a rather unimpressive leader; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Prince Bolkonsky - a turd with an English face; Robert Dornhelm & Brendan Donnison's Count Bezukhov - a spineless freak-show...<br /><br />The rest of the characters are not much better.<br /><br />The movements of the actors and the way they look and speak are often atrocious. They behave like modern EU citizens dressed up for a one-day masquerade. It all looks cheap and never comes close to the standards of our Russian men and women of the early 19th century.<br /><br />A good piece of entertainment to scrutinize and make fun of. We had quite a few giggles in our office when remembering this modern product, which had been shown the previous evening on our TV.<br /><br />"User Rating: 8.0/10 (29 votes)" - I guess, many young people have never watched our film ("Voyna i mir" 1968) or have weird sense of "Tarantino-Spielberg" quality. Remember the scene when our hussar is saving his friend, turns around, shoots, and the bridge goes boom? Looks like a CGI explosion.<br /><br />There is neither sense nor craft to make a better version of the novel, which was screened properly in our country once. But I would be happy to watch a Russian remake of "Gone with the Wind". Hey, directors, wake up and get busy with that, instead of spoiling our classics.<br /><br />Now back to common sense. Jokes aside. What I mentioned above is nothing new, though deadly exaggerated.<br /><br />To make foreign actors trying to pass for Russians (while participating in very serious epics and dramas) is a rude mistake and the filmmakers are making this mistake again and again. Of course it results in numerous laughs - especially Clemence Poesy is uncomfortably ridiculous and her dancing and singing makes a Russian viewer think: "This sucks so much that it's funny!").<br /><br />In order to say something new, I'd like to mention the pace of the movie. To my mind, this new version is very patchy. The narration and the scenes are not naturally flowing - they stagger and pop up like in a modern video. Again I have to remember our "Voyna i mir", where the action is so natural and the narration is so easy that you simply sit back and enjoy "going with the flow".<br /><br />I thought that maybe the Borodino battle would be great (to somehow rehabilitate numerous drawbacks) but it has turned out to be no match for the war scenes filmed in 1968.<br /><br />There should be something good in this movie after all. And there is. The actors seem to be trying hard to make it all work. They did not have a chance from the start but they still joined "the losers' team". Plus 1 point for that recklessness. It makes a Russian viewer uncomfortable - some scenes are ironically ridiculous though they are intended to be dramatically powerful and the actors are doing their best. It all evokes pity, and sometimes - fits of laughter.<br /><br />What I still like about this serial is the last part of it. It shows very vividly how everybody gets his or her "salary and taxes". Besides, judging by the movie trailers I thought that the film would have an adult sex scene, which would definitely kill the whole project. But, fortunately, it does not have such rubbish. And that's a big plus.<br /><br />"Voyna i Mir" is no "Harry Potter" and nowadays even we, here in present-day Russia, do not have enough craft to film it properly. Do I have to say that the moral quality of our life has deteriorated immensely? Fortunately, a proper film was screened during our Soviet times. The American version of the 1950s was justified to some extent - ours did not even exist yet. There were extenuating circumstances then.<br /><br />4 out of 10 (1 point is given from the start, 1 point goes for the recklessness, and 2 points for the last part of the serial. Thanks for attention. | negative |
About halfway through, I realized I didn't care about these characters in the least; however, I watched a bit more anyway. Regrettably, I came back the next day and finished it. I shouldn't have bothered.<br /><br />If you know *anything* about the film beforehand, you know that the lead character will be a plane crash survivor - and the title gives you a pretty good idea of what's gonna happen afterward - he's gonna get on the phone and call people about it! That was almost as bad as "Snakes on a Plane" (another bad aviation catastrophe flick).<br /><br />I realize this is an old film, and the acting style in those days was much less naturalistic than today. But even by those standards, the acting was embarrassing. These weren't characters, they were stereotypes. I suspect this movie was, more than anything, an attempt by Bette Davis to help her husband's (Gary Merrill) career. To no avail however - I have seen oak trees display more genuine emotion than he did.<br /><br />Davis' playing the happy cripple (i.e., a non-glamorous role) was probably looked on as an edgy and bold career move. It wasn't. It was just boring. She was a kind of Tiny Tim in the film, making Trask (Merrill's character) see the truth about love and forgiveness (although she was less winsome than Tiny Tim), calmly dispensing wisdom about life and relationships without a hint that her beloved husband had just died.<br /><br />The final scene, where Trask calls his wife back in Iowa to reconcile, was so affected and over-acted on both ends of the phone line, I almost cringed. I had to remind myself that these people actually got paid for what they were doing in this film.<br /><br />I noticed a lot of people seem to have enjoyed this movie. If you found it uplifting , that's great. But frankly, I just found it bad. There are plenty of old movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood that were far better written and acted. | negative |
Just reading the reviews of this wonderful BBC mini series reminded me how much I enjoyed this when it was first broadcast many years ago. At the time I remember waiting with anticipation for the next installment and fell in love with John Bowe and Janet McTeer ,two talented actors that we don't see enough of on TV or cinema these days. <br /><br />I have tried without success to obtain several of the BBCs fantastic dramas from the past, including the 1973 version of Jane Eyre and the 1972 version of Anne of Green Gables, all wonderful timeless classic stories, which sadly the BBC seem to have no intention of releasing on video or DVD. If anyone learns otherwise I would love to hear from them.<br /><br />In the meantime we will have to content ourselves with our recollections of how wonderful they were. | positive |
Red dust is both well acted and well made but what the movie is about i think will bore many viewers as it did to me. There was a film that was out earlier called "in my Country" with Sam Jackson and it was not that well received and both films were about nearly the same exact thing, I do think Red dust was better because of the more interesting performances especially by future Oscar winner Chiwton Ejofor but the plot is just to lacking, it starts off pretty strong but then the film hits the viewers with countless un-interesting court room sessions, this could have been a great film if the writing was not so lacking. But see if for the performances. | positive |
What a wonderful documentary - I sat down thinking this would be a rehash of the bitchy stories told in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, but it is, in fact, a clear-eyed, glorious celebration of a strange and twisted era that spawned some truly great movies. What struck me was the lack of bitterness apparent in the director interviews, given that now the movie business sucks in a large fashion - instead, folk like Friedkin and Coppola's eyes seem to positively glitter recalling their glory days. The footage of an audience coming out of a daytime screening of the Exorcist was priceless. 'It was - traumatic,' one guy says. A great epitaph for the late Ted Demme, a thrilling film, I just wish it was longer - I could have sat through a three hour cut of this. | positive |
It's not hard to imagine what the main problem for a screenwriter is who wants to have 18 equally well written characters with about the same amount of screen time in a movie that last around 90 minutes. It's almost impossible not to fall back on stereotypes and that is also what writer-director Ralf Westhoff does here. Very few of the characters can be recognized as people that you and me know in real life, many of them are just characterized with two or three attributes and stay vague. I am aware of that but still think that "Shoppen" is successful, namely that it accomplishes just what it wants to. It is a film with very well written dialogue, extremely good acting and a film that made me laugh out loud really often. I don't think that this film wants to make a deep going analysis of loneliness in our modern society, or that it wants to be moral commentary on speed-dating. It's a movie about something that exists and people and their motivation to use it. Funny and entertaining. | positive |
Muscular 'scientists', unpleasantly thin females in swimsuits, lots of beer drinking.. Yet it's too long to be a beer commercial. Oh, okay, there's some plot about a big shark-like monster that's killing people and stuff. But it's nothing you haven't seen before. | negative |
Bloodsuckers has the potential to be a somewhat decent movie, the concept of military types tracking down and battling vampires in space is one with some potential in the cheesier realm of things. Even the idea of the universe being full of various different breeds of vampire, all with different attributes, many of which the characters have yet to find out about, is kind of cool as well. As to how most of the life in the galaxy outside of earth is vampire, I'm not sure how the makers meant for that to work, given the nature of vampires. Who the hell they are meant to be feeding on if almost everyone is a vampire I don't know. As it is the movie comes across a low budget mix of Firefly/Serenity and vampires movies with a dash of Aliens.<br /><br />The action parts of the movie are pretty average and derivative (Particularly of Serenity) but passable- they are reasonably well executed and there is enough gore for a vampire flick, including some of the comical blood-spurting variety. There is a lot of character stuff, most of which is tedious, coming from conflicts between characters who mostly seem like whiny, immature arseholes- primarily cowboy dude and Asian woman. There are a few character scenes that actually kind of work and the actors don't play it too badly but it mostly slows things down. A nice try at fleshing the characters out but people don't watch a movie called Bloodsuckers for character development and drama. The acting is actually okay. Michael Ironside hams it up and is as fun to watch as ever and at least of a couple of the women are hot. The space SFX aren't too bad for what is clearly a low budget work. The story is again pretty average and derivative but as I said the world created has a little bit of potential. The way things are set up Bloodsuckers really does seem like the pilot for a TV series- character dynamics introduced, the world introduced but not explored, etc. <br /><br />The film does have a some highlights and head scratching moments- the kind of stuff that actually makes these dodgy productions watchable. -The scene where our heroes interrogate a talking sock puppet chestburster type creature. Hilarious. - The "sex scene." WTF indeed. -The credit "And Michael Ironside as Muco." The most annoying aspect of it all though is the really awful and usually inappropriate pop music they have playing very loud over half the scenes of the movie. It is painful to listen to and only detracts from what is only average at best.<br /><br />Basically an okay watch is you're up for something cheesy, even if it is just for the "chestburster" scene. | negative |
I really wish that when making a comedy, the people actually tried to make it funny. This is a film that you can sit through, but nothing is special about it. After watching it, you will say that it was alright. It was not boring to watch, but gave the audience no jokes to laugh at. Entertainment should mean that you actually get something more than an o.k. story. This movie wanted to be "Tootsie", but instead it failed.<br /><br />I gave it a 1 out of 10. | negative |
As a Long Island independent film maker myself, and having have had two theatrical releases under my producing/directing belt I had always been told of how much I could learn by viewing a FRED CARPENTER production so I was lucky enough to have his "Eddie Monroe" as my initiation to his superb budgeting, production, casting, settings and masterful directing talents. My heart went out to it's characters, it's story and was totally won over by the trick/switch ending that brought the film's plot to fruition! Location's were marvelously chosen and human emotions in it's characters brought a realistic link to my bonding with all the elements that Mr Carpenter utilized throughout, to his and his film's benefit! | positive |
I haven't yet read Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (though I've read other books of his, all outstanding pieces of satire and game-changing novel pieces). After seeing Keith Gordon's film adaptation of his book, it will be an immediate must-read in the near future. It's the kind of material that I'm sure if it wasn't made in 1995/96 as a film, it would be picked up right away today in the time period when many period post/present-Holocaust/WW2 movies are quite popular. Except that this is much darker, though even more resonant, about the nature of playing roles and the real underlying horror of living with life after war than say The Reader. It's about the very real danger of pretending in wartime, which is what being a spy in WW2 is really all about.<br /><br />It would be one thing if Mother Night had a script with a lot of emotional depth and complexity about the moral choice and constant role- even after the war ends- for Howard W. Cambpell (Nick Nolte), which is does. But it's also just a really strong feat of cinematic technique. Keith Gordon is not someone I usually think of as a director of really strong material (more-so I think back to him as an actor, oddly enough featured briefly with Vonnegut himself in Back to School), but this is a revelation. He takes the story of Campbell as a story of a fractured life: a German propaganda master (the "only American left in Berlin"), who is actually a spy for the Americans but can never have his identity revealed, and was before a playwright who really belonged to "a nation of two", himself and his wife (Sheryl Lee). It follows him from his prison cell, awaiting trial in Israel in 1961, as he writes his memoir and tells of his disillusionment about being a 'pretend' Nazi, and then in 1960 in semi-hiding in a New York apartment, which is where the bulk of the film takes place.<br /><br />Mother Night can be quite heavy, like on a level one might associate with the Pianist, but on another more emotional-cerebral level than the stark poetry of that film. Gordon, by way of Vonnegut, is trying to give us a strong look at a man who has nothing, except the memory (and then later a weird transposition) of his long lost love in a "sister" who has come back to him in NYC, so he's left to his own devices when he befriends a painter (Alan Arkin, very very good here), and then is found out as a Nazi-in-hiding by a white supremacist newsletter, leading wackos to his apartment. On the surface this should be just a straightforward spy story, but not a thing is straightforward. The 'something' of this man's life is staggering, but it's ultimately of his own choosing. Campbell is one of those characters that could be analyzed for hours on end, but the same conclusions might be reached (and, in a way, mirrors the line Goebbels said): the bigger the lie, the more people believe it. That is except for the select few who started the lie and know its secret and power.<br /><br />But oh, it would be one thing if it were just a wonderful and tragic-comic tale, or another if it were featuring some really fantastic performances (which is does: Nolte is at his very best here, and Sheryl Lee, who we might remember from Twin Peaks as Laura Palmer, stuns in multiple roles, especially in the scene when she reveals she's not 'really' Helga). It's also a gorgeously shot film, with brilliant lighting and shots that reflect the state of mind of the character, or just the starkness or sickening colors of the time (watch the scene where an old Campbell watches a film of his younger self spouting out a rant, the juxtaposition of faces is great). And the music selections rise the level of tragedy. It could be argued some of the music is too much, but at other times it elevates the material past its own usual dramatic dimensions and makes it operatic, solemn about human nature.<br /><br />It's not always an easy film to take emotionally, and some of the twists do have that tinge of "whoa" as in any spy story. But it's the subversion from Vonnegut that sticks through, the way of taking appearance and performance, of life imitating art imitating life imitating death, and making it into something worth remembering. I have no idea just yet if the book is better than the film (or the other way around), but at the moment it's hard for me not to recommend this to anyone looking for a masterpiece of post WW2/holocaust storytelling. | positive |
About two hundred members of a Cleveland, Ohio USA film society, named Cinematheque, gathered on August 19, 2000 to view a pristine Cinemascope print of Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film, "Zabriskie Point." Cinematheque Director John Ewing, who does a superlative job of obtaining the finest prints for his series, shared with the audience beforehand that this print was specially flown over from Italy for this one showing only.<br /><br />The audience was held spellbound as the film unfolded its artisty on the huge panoramic screen. Watching this superb print, shown the way Antonioni intended, made one aware that this is indeed a modern art work. It was all the more fitting that the series is housed in the Cleveland Insititue of Art in University Circle. <br /><br />Antonioni's compositions are created for the Cinemascope landscape. His beautiful balancing of images, striking use of colors, sweeping choreographic movements, all are the work of a genuine artist, using the screen as his canvas. <br /><br />At last the audience could understand "Zabriskie Point." As its narrative unfolded, it became obvious that this work is not about story per se, but rather an artist's impressionistic rendering of fleeting images of his subject. The setting of some of the more turbulent activities of the sixties provides only a dramatic motor for the artist's sweeping collage. <br /><br />Antonioni is not bound by conventional narrative standards, and can pause at any point to creatively embroider an event with grandiose embellishments. The audience willingly went with the flow of his remarkable imagination, as his huge images on the massive canvas held one in rapt attention. While the audience may have been only tangentially involved in character relationships, it realized the theme here is human aleination, the director's recurring theme. <br /><br />It was also realized that no print any smaller or of lesser quality than this original one in Cinemascope can do justice to this particular rendering. The audience was therefore all the more appreciative of viewing "Zabriskie Point" in its original, breathtaking format, and broke into thunderous applause at the end. | positive |
For a film that's ostensibly about sex and leather, it doesn't have any right to be as oddly sweet as it is. The story of Bettie Page, a good Christian girl from the South who's momma wouldn't let her date until she married, who moved to New York and ended up becoming the most successful pin-up of her age, is driven by an outstanding performance from Gretchen Moll. Her Page can't quite reconcile the pictures that she takes (nobody's allowed to touch, it's all fun and respectful) with the pornography trials and supposed ill-effects that her images have on the world around her.<br /><br />Page has been an inspiration to every burlesque artist since, not just because she had a figure to die for, but because she invested every picture with an innocent sense of fun that was uniquely sexy and simple at the same time. Rather like this film, in fact. Filmde in both black and white and glorious technicolour, it's a lovely way to spend a couple of hours. | positive |
Thank God! I didn't waste my money renting it but i downloaded it! This happens to be the worst movie i have ever seen in my whole life, f*****g visual effects, unnecessary gore and nudity! Far apart from other Zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead and others. There are lots of loop holes and mistakes in the movie. OK if you get time after reading this comment, please check out the director's(Ulli Lommel) profile. After seeing that i got a self explanation why the movie is like this, i mean every movie directed by Ulli Lommel gets a rating between 1 and 2. And now am not willing to search what kinda movies these are directed by him, but i can finish all this by saying one strong sentence. Even for fun or time pass or even at an extreme bored situation please DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. | negative |
I watched the film recently and it poorly resembles the book is based on. I blame this on poor screenplay and direction. Some parts were forcibly introduced (the gay rape scene) for no apparent reason. I actually read the book after watching the movie and some 20 years or so after reading it for the first time. I found it hard to read and somewhat clumsy. Too many disparate ideas introduced for no benefit at all... other than sensational parts for the time. As it covers stuff that was deemed 'sensitive', to say the least, during communism, I can see the fascination it produced at the time. That isn't the case anymore though or maybe I see things differently now or a bit of both. The film tries too much to cover many aspects from the book, the result being a concoction of scenes that may make some sense to someone who read the book. Even so this is a film that is difficult to watch and maybe should have never been made. | negative |
Remembering the dirty particulars of this insidiously vapid "movie" is akin to digging into your chest cavity with a rusty, salted spoon. Perhaps "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992) was a bit on the predictable side, but this pathetic excuse for a film is just one of the most shameless bids at commercialization I have ever heard of. A boy fighting off spies/terrorists when he's home alone in a Chicago suburb with the chickenpox? Ridiculous! Why did this film have to be made? I am the kind of person who believes even terrible movies are not wastes of time, but rather learning experiences. However, this is actually a waste of time. It should be avoided at all costs. | negative |
Maybe I've seen one too many crime flick, or maybe I don't take the right drugs.<br /><br />This was the most cliché ridden, plot deficient, plot-absurd, just plain stupid movie I have seen in a long time.<br /><br />As for the direction, it looks like it took less time to show this than it did to put it together.<br /><br />In fact it looks like to made it straight to video before it was completed.<br /><br />It's a bad rip off of "M" the classic Fritz Lang film starring Peter Lorre. You'd be SO much better off renting that instead. | negative |
It's as if the editor and screenwriter only had 40 minutes of real running time. This is supposed to be a remake of a Chinese film, which is obviously far superior to this trash. It's clear that some brainless Hollywood suit or writer decided that this movie would be mano a mano, man against man, instead of just letting the story play out with the personalities of the characters that were built in the first 40 minutes. At this point in the film, the characters just don't act like regular people and not even like their own personalities. It makes little sense. It's quite clear why this film flopped. It's just not believable at all and that's too bad - it started out with promise. Don't be fooled. | negative |
For the record, I hate spoof movies. Except for Mel Brooks and AIRPLANE! because those are classics and make fun of the clichés, not the actual movies itself. I think that spoof movies are the bottom of the barrel for both comedy and film. I especially hate things created by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the "geniuses" behind DATE MOVIE, EPIC MOVIE, and MEET THE SPARTANS.<br /><br />I decided to give THE COMEBACKS a look. Since Friedberg and Seltzer had nothing to do with the production, I was as objective as possible. It was just like one of their movies. It was basically every sports movie rolled into one with lame kindergarten jokes, and disturbing images of bodily injury that's supposed to make me laugh and failed.<br /><br />Only someone high would laugh at these jokes. Toilet bowl? Who wrote this? an 11 year old? I was surprised to see that this was the creation of the producers of WEDDING CRASHERS, which was actually pretty decent. But there attempt at the spoof genre was about as funny as a burning orphanage. The only reason that I gave this two stars (when it clearly deserved one) was because Friedberg & Seltzer had nothing to do with this. | negative |
As a child the first installment ("The Little Mermaid") was my favorite movie. It was filled with great characters, songs, and a fun family film. A week or so again I watched this movie for the first time. I believe that this movie was like most sequels and didn't surpass their original. I think that I feel this way possibly because I had high expectations and I have grown up. However, it is not a bad film.<br /><br />It starts when Ariel has just given birth to a beautiful child, Melody. Eric and Ariel feel threatened by Morgana (Eurselas' sister), so they build a large wall around their house which lies on the sea. As Melody grows up she begins to wonder outside of the walls where she is forbidden to go. Trouble stirs up as Morgana tries to take control of the seven seas.<br /><br />I don't want to give away any of the movie so you have to see it to find out. I did like that the voices are the same and again wonderful singing. I think this is a good family film though overall! | negative |
True, there are some goofs, for the one who wants to find them. They're not important, though.<br /><br />The primary feature of this film is watching veteran expert actors do their craft. Kristin Scott Thomas is beautiful and plays well the part of a strong woman, but one who has been hurt. Same for Harrison Ford, who, for the ladies, is just as beau as Kristin is belle for us guys.<br /><br />Their hurt at the hands of their adulterous spouses brings them together in an awkward manner, but one in which they find support in each other. How they evoke their hurt feelings and their humanity within on th screen is why these are such sought performers. The viewer cannot help but feel what they feel, nor can one help wanting to cheer them when they're together.<br /><br />Yes, there are several action scenes involving angry corrupt cops, but they only spice it up a little, and are not a significant part of the movie.<br /><br />For the lover of music, Dave Grusin provides a superb Jazz based background, featuring trumpeter Terrence Blanchard. Like the actors, Grusin shows why he is one of the most sought musical consultants in the movie business. Blanchard shows why he's one the premiere trumpeters on the scene.<br /><br />Not a movie for the lovers of guts, blood, and gore. But for those who want to see a lot of what makes us feel inside, watch a beautiful English actress with big expressive blue eyes who can act, like Harrison Ford, to the endless soothing accompaniment courtesy of Dave Grusin and Terrence Blanchard, this is a move to watch with someone you love. Preferably in bed.<br /><br />I thought it deserved at least an 8. | positive |
I think I found the most misogynistic film of all time: Darklight.<br /><br />The gist of the film- Lilith was Adam's first wife and she was considered imperfect and banished from the garden of Eden because she considered herself Adam's equal and refused to submit to him. See, I took those words straight from the script. Then the film keeps going on and though she is the heroine of the film, the only time that she becomes acceptable is when she does what the men tell her to do! She ends the film under the control of The Faith- an all male group!<br /><br />Other than that the script was predictable and the FX were awful. Apart from the obvious hatred of females that is usually a lot more subtle in modern film, there was nothing original about Darklight. | negative |
This is a pretty run of the mill family move that I am sure most children will enjoy but with really no that much to please any adults viewing the movie. The premise of the film is that Belushi's cop character takes his retirement but gets drawn into a case which results in him becoming a private investigator. The movie's plot is so obvious most of the kids will surely pick the ending before it happens. But additionally to that there seem to be story arcs and sub plots that are forgotten about as the movie progresses. This coupled with a sub plot where the titular K-9 gets pimped out by Belushi. One to be avoided I am afraid. | negative |
I was invited to view this film at a small art museum screening. I had no clue what to expect. I was initially optimistic in the opening credits to see Judd Nelson, Bill Paxton, Wayne Newton, James Cann, Rob Lowe, and Lara-Flynn-Boyle listed. However after some very disturbing grossed-out scenes (that did not add much to the story advancement), this film quickly became a weapon of torture. The gimmick of the vestigial growing arm storyline is never really developed. I patiently kept waiting for this film to cash-in. There was a small payoff in the end, but having to invest and sit through the the endless gross, crude, sexually-perverted, in-your-face screaming, unfunny gore cost too much for me (even for a free viewing). What were these established actors doing in this awful film? The art direction was very convincing and creepy. At the very minimum, it should only be a 75-minute film. This is a film that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld would embrace. | negative |
Okay, I remember watching the first one, and boy did it suck. After watching it, I just laughed it off and told myself, "oh boy, just another low budget B-movie. I'll never see a part 2 to this one." Then, about 1 1/2 years later, there came part two. It sucked even more. But, I just laughed it off again and said, "there's no way I'm ever gonna see a part 3 to this one." Then, about 1/2 a year later, part 3 came out. I was stupid enough to rent it and boy, I just snapped after watching it. God, I never actually realized how much movies can suck these days. Just save yourself $7.50 and don't rent the whole series. Trust me, it's worth every penny. | negative |
***One Out of Ten Stars*** <br /><br />Because if it was, it gets an F. Holy Mother Mary of God was this bad. I mean, I gave it every reasonable accommodation considering it was a straight to video film, but it let me down at every turn. Like so many other B movies, the basic storyline was decent and the filmmakers seemed to have a reasonable level of resources, but the execution was ridiculous. It's a shame they attached the good name of Halloween to this fiasco.<br /><br />The basic premise surrounds some frat douche bags hosting their annual Halloween haunted house fund raiser, when a satanic spell book shows up out of nowhere and hurls the frat boys into a living hell. Well that's the idea anyway, but instead most of the film is devoted to displaying these frat boy's relationship escapades, abound with an outrageous lesbian subplot. Very little of the actual story is devoted to Halloween or the mysterious spell book. It actually makes me mad that the film makers thought they could get away with making such dribble. <br /><br />The film is essentially about frat boy relationships. This IS NOT what the movie is billed as. I'm tempted to track down the producers and at the very least threaten them with bodily harm. The acting is about as bad as it gets, it's atrocious! The script is unintentionally funny. The cinematography is just plain lazy. The whole film is amateur night. This movie actually makes the SyFy channel movie productions look like masterpieces.<br /><br />The last half hour of the film felt like the film makers realized they weren't producing a soap opera and had to throw in some sort of horror sequences. The evil spell book finally comes into play and turns everyone in the haunted house into the character their dressed up as. I almost feel like crying as I write this review. Wow! I mean wow! This thing was an undecipherable chopped up disaster. | negative |
A gave it a "2" instead of a "1" (awful) because there is no denying that many of the visuals were stunning, a lot of talent went into the special effects and artwork. But that wasn't enough to save it.<br /><br />The "sepia" toned, washed out colors sort of thing has been done before many times in other movies. Nothing new there. I can see there were some hat-tips to other old, classic movies. OK. No problem with that.<br /><br />But a movie has got to be entertaining and interesting, not something that would put you to sleep.<br /><br />The story line and the script of this movie WAS awful, the characters two dimensional. Slow moving. Some of the scenes were pretty to look at, but ultimately, as a whole, it was quite boring, I couldn't recommend it. | negative |
How many centuries will pass until the Japanese/Asian horror films abandon the long-haired ghost-woman shtick? Admittedly, they've managed to rip off "Ringu" a million times, and often it worked well - which just goes to show that originality isn't that much of a requirement in the horror genre (or that I'm very uncritical and easy to please?). However, this time around I found myself a little restless, somewhat bored. It's not a bad film, but it's at least half-an-hour longer than it should be, with its absurd 110 minutes length. Compared to many other Japanese horror films, OMC lacks atmosphere and excitement. Plus, the ending is confusing: it makes no sense at all. As for the ring-tone: Miike could have come up with a melody that is more effective than that forgettable little thing. Even though it was played a dozen times I can't even remember it - that's how scary it was. Speaking of Miike, for him this is something of a commercial venture, so if anyone thinks they might be getting perversion of the "Bijita Q" or "Audition" kind, they're wasting their time. | negative |
This episode from the first season slightly edges towards controversy with the whole gender bending angle.I imagine there would have been a significant amount of editing before this was finished to appease censors.<br /><br />The story itself is original and well written and the directing is complemented by the fine acting.(Nicholas Lea makes his X-Files debut though not as Agent Krycek but as a victim called Michael) I especially enjoyed the built up to and the ending itself.<br /><br />Its different but enjoyable.Ignore any bad reviews you may hear.Watch it for yourself and make judgement then | positive |
"Ashes of Time" was an audacious project but ended up being a pretentious movie. This film is a good example of how to tell a simple story in a complex manner. The plot of "Ashes of Time" is fairly simple and comes down to two words: "love triangle". Because of those "love triangles" crossing stories, jealousy, hate and love are the main dynamics displayed by the characters. The narrative part is seen through Ou-yang Feng's eyes (Leslie Cheung). Ou-yang Feng lives in the desert, where he acts as middleman to various swordsmen and becomes the tool of Destiny through which vengeance is achieved. Unfortunately "Ashes of Time" fails in telling these simple stories of love and hate. Wong Kar-wai lost himself driven by a desire to make each frame of the film a painting and an aesthetic experience. In fact beside the casting of beautiful actors (men and women) everything else is a failure in this movie. Dialogs are minimalists and not original at all. Picture's quality is very much unequal, the editing is one of the worst ever seen (at least by me) in the "swordplay" genre and finally the filming of the rare sword fight is very confusing and unappealing. Even the attempt of building artistic scenes is not always achieved: the so call erotic "women on a horse" scene is ridiculous, not erotic and useless. Wong Kar-wai wanted to deliver 100 minutes of pure aesthetic experience and forgot that a film is first about how a plot is told. By forgetting that he delivers an awkward movie that doesn't even fulfill its artistic objective. | negative |
It opens - and for half an hour, runs - like an educational programme on the Old Testament, although not without humour. The movie finally begins to grow wings when the biblical cant gets dropped. In a scene of mixed success Martin Donovan (Jesus) decides to renege on kicking off the Apocalypse and the final quarter of an hour is a sort of humanist 'what's all the fuss about?' play-out, gilded with optimistic conjecture against a (retrospectively, miserably ironic) long shot of the WTC twin towers.<br /><br />Apart from Donovan's authority, the acting is split. There's the thespian melodrama of the rest of the cast: this, though formally contrived for biblical presentation, is appropriate for the modern, paranoid comedy that Hartley's aiming at. But I was also pleasantly surprised at the contribution of PJ Harvey (credited thus, and in danger of existing within the film solely as the pop star entity she is, not least in a set piece scene in a record store and a perilously patchy soundtrack to which contributes). She remained cool - a sort of disingenuous lack of focus - in the manner of many pop icons who have taken to film (I'm thinking the Jagger of Performance here) but nonetheless maintained a convincing integration with both cast and project.<br /><br />Ultimately affirmative, but this bittersweet essay is a bit too much like one and relies more on the perseverance than the imagination of its audience. 4/10 | negative |
I don't know what it is with these Brady kids. First, Barry Williams publicly brags about having sexy with his TV sister, Maureen McCormick, then about dating his TV mom, Florence Hederson. Then, Susan (Cindy) Olsen does music for a bunch of porno movies. Then Mike (Bobby) Lookinland gets in trouble for drunk driving. Finally, Maureen (Marcia) McCormick and Eve (Jan) Plum might have had a little same-sex fling on the side. Now, Christopher (Peter) Knight is pursued by a beautiful young model in her early-20s during his stint on "The Surreal Life", which at first was fun to watch, and now they are married and in a very volatile and hostile relationship. The last episode, where she posed for a bunch of nude photographs with another naked girl for a scrapbook to give to Christopher for his birthday, was not a good move on her part. And he dealt with it in a very mature fashion, just picking up and leaving to clear his head. I think he was always bowing to her every need and now he's finally taking a stand. And I hate to say it, but I think she abuses him, verbally. The way she was torturing him for an engagement ring and the way she reams him for every little thing. Also she talks openly about having flings with other women and it is obvious she still sleeps around on him with women and men, which is not something any self-respecting human being should do when already married to someone. If this were a man talking down to his wife like that, and going out every night partying and having sex with other people, everyone would be rallying behind the wife to leave him. Why should this be any different. What started out as a cute little crush on another reality show blossomed into a huge disaster. Adrianne, as beautiful as she is, is like another Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, clearly in need of some therapy because she cries like a baby over so many silly things. I feel sorry for her, but Chris needs to rid himself of her, because he is a good man who cannot afford to be humiliated like this. | negative |
I would like to tell you just a few things before considering seeing this movie. If at one point or another you thought you've seen good camera work, be prepared to be amazed by this movie. For the record, this movie was made in 1957 in Russia, but the technique used here is probably something that we've seen much later in the western world...about 20 years later. The level of emotions through the film varies quite a lot: happiness -love-war- despair-joy, but in the end you remain with something quite unique: the joy of seeing one masterpiece of filmmaking. The young directors from our time should study more this kind of movies and maybe they will be able to create something similar..even though I think movies like this are very hard to come by... If you've seen "I am Cuba" , then this movie would appeal to you very much, but if not, be prepared for a unique experience. The Russian directors have something in common: very small budgets, great actors, and a joy of creating art...and yes, they are able to create more masterpieces than all the western world together. I am not a big fan of Russia, actually I hate everything that's communist, but the film making in that part of the world, manages to create such feelings that are hard to describe.<br /><br />Enjoy it.<br /><br /> | positive |
Obviously the previous reviewers here are not fans of this genre, but I think this one is done quite well.<br /><br />It's twistedly cute clever & dark. This story brought back memories of the types of girls I was in love with as a child.<br /><br />Also, it makes me want to check out some of Nadia's other movies, many youtube comments about how hot she is in this video. <br /><br />Sure there is some Burton influence here, but I wouldn't say this Brad is trying to rip him off.<br /><br />He is just jumping in & adding his talents to a genre that I can appreciate. I like what he does & he does it well, nuff said! | positive |
Why should you watch this? There are certainly no reasons why you shouldn't watch it! Superbly and amusingly directed by Albert and David Maysles, Grey Gardens was originally intended to be a film on the gentrification of East Hampton, but it turned out to the brothers that it would be more interesting to produce a study on the eccentric life of the two Edith Bouvier Beales, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Their life was certainly an amusing one (Edith spent most of her day in bed singing operas, Edie performing pirouettes and majorette dances with their many cats, one was named Ted Z. Kennedy) The film is interesting because it is both funny and sad - Edith died shortly after the film was released (in February 1977) aged 82 after experiencing some of the fame that she and Edie received after the film (she danced and sang in a nightclub Edie Beale Jr was born in 1925 and is still living in Miami Beach.This film is both engaging and spellbounding. | positive |
I have just watched the season 2 finale of Doctor Who, and apart from a couple of dull episodes this show is fantastic.<br /><br />Its a sad loss that we say goodbye to a main character once again in the season final but the show moves on.<br /><br />The BBC does need to increase the budget on the show, there are only so many things that can happen in London and the surrounding areas. Also some of the special effects all though on the main very good, on the odd occasion do need to be a little more polished.<br /><br />It was a huge gamble for the BBC to bring back a show that lost its way a long time ago and they must be congratulated for doing so.<br /><br />Roll on to the Christmas 2006 special, the 2005 Christmas special was by far the best thing on television. | positive |
49. PAPERHOUSE (thriller/horror, 1988) Sick in bed with a fever 11-year old Anna (Charlotte Burke) has only her drawings to keep her company. Her health progressively worsens as a series of mysterious 'black outs' grip her. In each of these episodes she dreams of a house in a desolate field, with only a sickly-invalid boy named Marc (Elliot Spiers) inhabiting it. When a dark, unknown danger threatens her idyllic "paperhouse", the life of Marc is put in jeopardy. Her life is also in danger as these dreams mirror her own state of health.<br /><br />Critique: Haunting first debut feature from British director Bernard Rose. Taken from a fable ("Marianne Dreams") by Catherine Storr, it leaves plenty of other 'original' fantasy works in its wake. Whenever a story deals with dreams and nightmares it is hard to give it the mixture of fable and reality to make it work in film form. Director Rose successfully captures the children fantasy world aspect along with a darkness that seeks to usurp them.<br /><br />Feverishly scored by Phillip Glass, Rose knows how to use music wisely with expertly timed 'jump out of your seat' moments. Most thrillers are very sloppy in this all-important aspect of scaring the audience into not knowing what the next scene will bring. I also like the way he captures suspense and never lets it go or falter sluggishly into the next sequence of events. Also, his mastery of placing objects within the frame (as in his P.O.V.shots) gives the cinematography an added dimension it would otherwise seem to lack. Only in Europe will you find such ominous looking places as the ones presented here: the lonely house, the fields, coastal towns, watchtower etc. <br /><br />Rose would follow this film with "Candyman" (1992), a true 'thinking person's' horror gem and bona fide cult horror favorite. | positive |
I didn't feel as if I'd been raped like I did with THE ENCHANTED CHRISTMAS,but BELLE'S MAGICAL WORLD is still the antithesis of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Like CHRISTMAS,BMW hates its audience,although not to such an extreme degree. It's ugly,uncanonical,idiotic,and the writing is horrifically bad.None of the stories work. These are not the characters we loved from BATB at all,they're a bunch of pod people. I wanted to dissect it,but after a few minutes,I gave up,because no one in their right mind would take this claptrap seriously. What we have here are three stories. "The Perfect Word" is an overbearing,ponderous study of forgiveness. "Fifi's Folly" only works if you can accept that Babette's name is actually Fifi and that she's a closet James Bond villainess and that Lumiere is an idiot concerning women. "Broken Wing" (or "Broken Wind" as I like to call it) is probably the most heinous of the bunch. Beast hates birds? Since WHEN? Don't watch this crap- every copy of this video deserves to be cremated. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is still a cinematic classic,a transcendent celebration of love,art, intelligence and the human soul. | negative |
A fine effort for an Australian show. which is probably not surprising seeing as there seems to be somewhat of a resurgence in quality Aussie drama. dare i compare this show to the brilliance of love my way? no. but it is reminiscent of early secret life of us. the cast is great, gibney works her magic in the first two episodes i have seen, the British cast is strong also especially the callum and lizzie characters. but abe forsythe may be the saving light (not that it needs saving) if this show is to get another season. i wasn't a fan of his performance in the awesomely awesome marking time mini series a few years back but he was great as hal in always greener. its also good to see brooke satchwell again. lets hope the show keeps improving with each episode. | positive |
Watching this odd little adventure movie, it's hard to believe that it was directed by the same man who brought us such high quality Giallo classics as The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh and The Case of the Scorpion's Tail, but it has to be said that despite it's low quality production values, Island of the Fish Men is an entertaining ride and one that surely deserves more praise than it's getting. Like many Italian films from the seventies, this is one is a rip off of a successful American film, the one in question this time being the critically panned Island of Dr Moreau. Sergio Martino's film takes ideas such as mutation, greed and adventure and moulds it into one slightly compelling film, which makes up for what it's lacks in coherency and logic with a load of mostly intriguing ideas. The central plot follows a boat which crashes on a small island. It quickly becomes apparent that not everything about this place is normal, and it soon transpires that half of the population has been turned into "fish men" - a cross between a man and a fish, which exist for purely selfish reasons...<br /><br />The truth about this movie is that it's a lot more fun if you ignore the trashy production values. The central monsters look completely ridiculous, and much of the movie takes place on sets that look like they cost someone a few pennies - but the movie is well shot in spite of this, with the underwater photography being a particular highlight and the pacing of the movie is well done in that the film never becomes boring. The way that the plot comes together isn't exactly genius, but it takes in a lot of ideas and I've seen films made on plots with much less thought put into them than this one. The biggest location standout in the film is definitely the lost city of Atlantis. To be honest, I'm not a massive fan of adventure movies, and therefore don't see this lost city get mentioned much - but it is always nice to see it in a movie. The central island location is good in that it provides an apt setting for the story and also provides the movie with the right amount of mystery, as Martino makes good use of the voodoo theme. Overall, this isn't exactly a classic and there are certainly a lot worse trashy adventure movies out there than this one. | positive |
One scene demonstrates the mentality of "Terminator Woman" pretty well: Karen Sheperd and another woman are trying to escape from the villain's camp. Karen runs across an armed guard, who points his gun at her, but after a few seconds throws it away and challenges her to a fight. Karen kicks him in the balls, picks up the gun and runs away! Then again, when a film is directed by a martial artist and written / produced by another member of his family, you know you shouldn't expect too much. Karen Sheperd and Jerry Trimble do get some amusing banter going early on, and the film might have turned out better if it had focused more on their love-hate relationship. But after about 20 minutes they get separated, and the film slows to a crawl, and even with the occasional fight scene to liven things up, it lacks excitement. The finale has Trimble fighting Qissi inside a cave and Sheperd going womano-a-womano against the beautiful Ashley Hayden on a speedboat, but the fights are intercut in a way that breaks their flow and diminishes their value. On the positive side, kudos to the costuming department for giving Karen the chance to show spectacular cleavage throughout the film! (*1/2) | negative |
This is a film about 17th Century Italian artists and one artist in particular, a woman Artemisia, an unheard of profession for females at that time, and she dared to paint the male nude detailing his unique musculature.<br /><br />The camera work is principally indoors for that is where the artists mainly worked. There are some great shots. Close-ups by candle light suggest the beautiful work of the classical painters and it is fascinating to watch the painters and their students supported by elaborate scaffolding brushing in details of religious frescoes. It is not surprising that the artistic elements of the film (costumes,faces, make-up) are quite superbly authentic because the Italian churches have preserved all these details in their frescoes for centuries. The beautiful Artemisia is urged by her father to study under the great Florentine artist, Tassi, who has become expert in the art of perspective and landscape painting (something very new) but the unsuspecting Artemisia is introduced to more than new techniques in painting. After posing for her, Tassi violently rapes her. Her father is outraged. Court proceedings follow.<br /><br />This romantic drama has a fairly simple story with an unsatisfactory ending. The outstanding feature of the film is its artistic presentation and attention to detail. Scenes such as women running across a field with the wind billowing their voluminous clothing add wonderful effects.<br /><br />Artemisia says she paints to please herself; her father paints to please others. As for this film, it will please most, I think. | positive |
This is probably the only film I've seen where the IMDb reviews on both sides of the spectrum are 100% accurate. "The Stupids" is an atrocious, dim-witted film with absolutely no artistic merit whatsoever, and is a denigration to a director like John Landis. And that's what makes it great.<br /><br />In order to appreciate "The Stupids", you have to keep in mind a little-known, but very true maxim spoken by director Abo Kyrou: "I urge you to learn to look at bad films, they are so often sublime." In order for any film to work, the film must establish and follow it's own logic, and if it does so convincingly and sincerely, then it's actually possible for the film to work. For example, when you watch "Freddy Got Fingered" as a traditional gross-out comedy, it's complete and utter garbage; when you watch it with the understanding that it's actually a neo-surrealist comedy, it's brilliant.<br /><br />It works with good movies too. If "Jaws" hadn't accepted the reality it created, the air-tank explosion ending wouldn't have worked. But, a lot of people think "Jaws" is vastly overrated for this type of reason, and they aren't wrong. But it has it's strengths, doesn't it? The point being that a movie like this makes sense if you look at it with the right perspective. Some people, like me, get it right away, while others never will no matter how often it's explained. Jim Jarmusch made a compelling defense of "Showgirls" once, and even afterwards I still can't see it from his P.O.V. Doesn't mean he's wrong though. If you have the right frame of mind when you watch this movie (and NO I DO NOT MEAN STONED, I'm gonna put that to bed right now), you can actually enjoy the movie for the dumb, cheap, pointless slapstick late-80s/early-90s-style farce that it is.<br /><br />The defenders and haters of this film are right: It's STUPID, and that's the point. The movie accepts the stupidity of the characters much in the same way "The Jerk" accepted Navin Johnson's idiocy. And because it takes that and runs with it, the movie focuses exclusively on using that to forward the plot and to define the characters. A "bad" movie would actually do this and fail to use that logic properly; bad movie are bad because they make it up as they go along, whereas movies like "The Stupids" knows where it's going, what it's doing and why from the beginning.<br /><br />I can't defend the film from an artistic standpoint, which is why I give it such a low rating. The acting is mostly bad, the jokes very superficial, and the live-action quality probably ruins what would have worked as a cartoon. But I can't deny that it IS entertaining in its own way, and that's why I defend it. I got it right away, and I pity those who don't.<br /><br />I'll admit I was drawn to this movie because of Christopher Lee's delicious cameo appearance (hearing him say "Release the drive bee!" would have been worth the rental price even if I hated this film), but was amazed to find that, aside from the TV Studio Applause Sign segment with Jenny McCarthy, I was never bored, and never disappointed. In fact, many of the jokes, because of their cartoonish context, were hilarious (in particular the airbag-cigarette explosion). They were dumb, but they were funny. And the movie doesn't pretend to be anything else: a STUPID comedy about STUPID characters and instead of apologizing for it, it enjoys itself.<br /><br />And that's exactly why it works. | negative |
This movie should not be viewed unless you are trying to kill yourself. I think this movie could actually cause severe brain damage. The main characters are the whiny non-hero Kevin, Amy, his bratty, ungodly conservative girlfriend, Kyle, a dork in red shorts who enjoys phone sex, Daphne, a scrawny, horny girl who is supposed to be "cool" and has no sense of how to dress, and her oversexed boyfriend Nick, an army recruit who can make an innuendo out of anything. No, I'm not a pervert, that's REALLY how the movie goes. The movie itself is an over-sexed rip-off of 1986's Gremlins, only you'll never find a trace of Gizmo anywhere. No, these Hobgoblins, unleashed by Wimpy Man (I'm sorry, Kevin), make someone's wildest dreams come true, and then kill the victims. Yes, you guessed it-Eventually, they wind up in a strip club, where the nerdy Amy's greatest dream is revealed-She wants to be a stripper! Look, I watched this flick via MST3K, and even with Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot making a laughing-stock out of this cinematic trainwreck and it still made me bleed from both eyes. Not really, but I wish I had. I'm not giving you anymore plot, because reliving it gives me this great urge to drive a pitchfork through my brain. Besides, it's not like there's a plot worth mentioning. They should put a Surgeon's General Warning on this film. | negative |
Nobody could like this movie for its merit but, if you have a sense of humor and enjoy schlock movies for their MST3 quality, then this is for you. It ranks up there with "Road House" for its preposterous characters, sets and story line. The bad writing really cracked me up: "I want you to dust those guys off" instead of ". . . dust those guys." F-14s take off from the carrier but, when they get into formation, they're F-16s! Without a hint of anger or skepticism, Segal goes back to work for the general who, only minutes before, was overseeing a covert "mind wipe" on Seagal. Segal runs out of bullets and resorts to a knife to kill the guards. So naturally, the guards all drop their guns and fight with knives too! The hand grenade is a dud but explodes anyway. The little stealth fighter can fly all the way from California to Afganistan without refueling. Then Segal flies it back to California - the long way, i.e., by way of Europe - even though there's a carrier giving him air support 20 minutes away in the Arabian Sea. The CIC in the carrier consists of 3 black PCs, 2 flat screen TVs and pictures of gauges and maps on the walls. What a hoot! | negative |
Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor team up in this would-be comedy about nightclub owners being squeezed by organized crime. Eddie Murphy wrote and directed this obnoxious ego trip, and therefore has no one to blame but himself for its failure. This is a genuinely bad film, so completely devoid of energy and humor that it serves only as a example of Murphy's contempt for his audience. It would be remarkably easy to continue beating up on this movie, but I will show it more mercy than it showed its audience and stop now. | negative |
Really. Does any week go by that Oprah doesn't remind us that she was abused as child?<br /><br />She makes herself the focus of every interview.<br /><br />Oprah cannot resist commenting on the answer to every question she asks. She often interrupts guests before an answer is finished to interject her own aside or anecdote. Directors are obviously instructed to focus on her closeup reaction rather than guest's faces because that's what counts - what Oprah feels, what Oprah says.<br /><br />Oprah, Oprah, Oprah. It's always all about Oprah.<br /><br />Oprah says - Feel sorry for me, I was so poor. Feel the pain of my battle with my weight. Feel my hurt when I'm turned away from a fancy store after they've already closed. Feel good for buying my magazines and books. Feel good for my success. Feel good when you give to my charity to make me look good. Feel good for making me rich beyond belief.<br /><br />My interpretation of her point of view: YOU VIEWERS ARE ALL DEEPLY FLAWED AND YOU NEED MY DAILY ADVICE. I have all the answers for your life though I have nothing in common with you plebes. I have never been married nor do I want to be. I have never had to raise a family - but I know all about it. I have little respect for men or marriage. I clearly prefer people like me over others - witness "Legends Ball 2006". Gayle is my best friend but we are not gay.<br /><br />As of 7/31/2006, the heading on her website actually reads : "Oprah.com is your leading source for information about love, life, self, relationships, food, home, spirit and health." How presumptive and obnoxious is that ? <br /><br />In June 2006, she crashed two private wedding receptions in Oklahoma to gather footage for her September 2006 shows. She keeps promising to quit TV but her yapfest drags on with no end in sight.<br /><br />Contrary to what she thinks, Oprah is neither a queen nor a goddess nor on a personal mission from God. She's just one very lucky, overweight, black woman who copied Phil Donahue's style and called it her own. She happened to be in the right place at the right time and knew exactly how to suck up to the right demographic. <br /><br />Oprah is the P.T. Barnum of this age and it amazes me that people cannot see through her facade. <br /><br />So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and you too Oprah if you can fit that inflated ego through the door - This way now to the great egress ... | negative |
With a cast of mostly lesser-tiered stars (Alain Delon, Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert), lousy special effects (sure, it was the 70's but "Alien" and "Star Wars" came from the same decade), and a storyline that is so laughable that one might want to cry, this is a "flight" that should have been GROUNDED.<br /><br />Even Academy Award winners Cicely Tyson and George Kennedy can't keep this "bird" airborne.<br /><br />The implausibility of the third film - airplane is submerged in The Bermuda Triangle - is much more believable than this turkey.<br /><br />Avoid "The Concorde" at all costs! | negative |
I hadn't seen this in many years. The acting was so good as I began this time, I thought, "Great! Another movie I misjudged as a foolish young man." But then the theme started to be clear and I felt the same way.<br /><br />This was Hollywood, the seat of glamor; so the concept shouldn't be a surprise. But it is so condescending a concept I feel as if I need to take a shower after watching it. In brief, it tells us that even physically ugly people can seem beautiful to each other and even feel attractive.<br /><br />Dorothy McGuire is likable as the homely heroine. She seems to have been filmed wearing minimal make-up. Robert Young is injured in the war and feels scarred. His parents can't bear to look at him either. He seems to have all his faculties and in part, the notions of disability are outmoded.<br /><br />Herbert Marshall is on hand as a blind pianist. His character speaks is hushed tones and is omniscient.<br /><br />The best performance is given by Mildred Natwick as the owner of the title residence. She is bitter and dour but not made of ice. Her story is much more interesting, and believable, than that of McGuire and Young. | negative |
Im usually wary of movies hovering around the 6/10 mark on IMDb. Id like to think people know what they are talking about and know what they like. I guess the trick with reviewing is to take an approach of "Hey, if i liked types of movies like these- would i give it a higher score than i am about to give it now since I don't like these types of movies" Then again people judge differently , basing more value on acting, or perhaps story or directing. Anyway, landing the plane here- i had rented this movie out before and hadn't had time to watch it, this morning i did.<br /><br />Wow! See this movie. I am personally interested in the paranormal/have read a bit about near death experiences, so automatically i was hooked. I am unsure about some of the comments here saying that a quality cast here was wasted - i disagree- the acting here was superb from all- i think this is the only time i didn't mind Julia Roberts, it was good to see 24's Kiefer Sutherland (Currently at the time of this review, serving a jail sentence for DUI), and Kevin Bacon sporting an interesting hair style.<br /><br />Overall- i liked the direction, the atmosphere, the acting, and the story line most of all- particularly the idea of karma, and , to quote Nelson Wright "Everything we does matters" So true.<br /><br />10/10! | positive |
This is a very moving movie about life itself. The challenges a handicapped person must face in a land that expects perfection is brought to the forefront for all to see and hopefully understand. It should teach the bigots of society that we are all humans, and while some of us are gifted with a mind, heart and sound body, there are decent human beings that exist in the world that are not as lucky, or maybe, we're the unlucky ones. We don't always see the beauty in the world because we're wrapped up in our 'blind' ambitions, and see it only in one light "what can this world do for me!!!". Maybe we all wish we were like Radio, a loving happy individual...who loves everyone. | positive |
The cast and crew of this cheap horror potboiler are more interesting than anything that occurs throughout the movie itself; we have Barbara Payton, Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney Jr., Tom Conway, Paul Cavanaugh and Woody Strode in front of the camera and writer-director Curt Siodmak, cinematographer Charles Van Enger, editorial supervisor Francis D. Lyon and production assistant Herman Cohen behind it. The ill-fated Payton turns the head of virtually every male she comes in contact with deep in the African jungle where she lives on husband Cavanaugh's plantation: doctor Conway secretly desires her while hot-headed foreman Burr's approach is, quite literally, more hands-on. On the other hand, Chaney is (surprisingly enough) the laid-back but knowing authoritarian figure and Strode is a native police official. The plot is very simple but, frankly, does not make a whole lot of sense: after a particularly agitated dinner complete with thunderstorm, Burr and Cavanaugh (art imitating life more on that later) come to blows in the garden over their affection for Payton and, conveniently for Burr, a large snake just happens to be crawling near where Cavanaugh hits the ground! Witnessing the event from behind the bushes, Payton's enigmatic maid (a native witch, no less), for some inexplicable reason, puts a curse on Burr (who has in the meantime married Payton) that periodically turns him into a gorilla...starting from his very wedding day (when his hand briefly turns hirsute)! Consequently, Burr takes to losing himself in the jungle for days on end even if the ape creature itself is barely glimpsed throughout the film. It must be said, however, that the version that I watched ran for just 56 minutes when the 'official' length is elsewhere given as either 66, 70 or 76!! Therefore, the film feels understandably rushed and disjointed if never less than campily enjoyable as it culminates in the gorilla's subjectively-shot chasing of Payton in the jungle, with the former being itself pursued by the gun-toting Chaney and Conway. To get back to the film's tragic blonde leading lady for a minute: after a promising start in movies next to such Hollywood legends as James Cagney and Gary Cooper in, respectively, KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE and DALLAS (both 1950) her career soon nose-dived into B (and lesser) grade territory thanks to her own 'colorful' off-screen antics: her most notorious misdemeanor was being the cause of a much-publicized bar-room brawl between suave husband Franchot Tone and brutish former lover Tom Neal which ended with the former in a coma and Payton actually deserting him for the latter shortly thereafter!! But that was not all: nymphomaniac Payton also boasted that Woody Strode was among her conquests (a controversial issue at the time); short-lived husband Tone, having caught Payton's infidelities on camera, spread the damning photographic evidence around Hollywood and this virtually served to end her days as a starlet her last film appearance being Edgar G. Ulmer's MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955) which I happen to have in my "Unwatched Movies" pile. The last 12 years of her tumultuous life were spent on Skid Row in the throes of booze, drugs, prostitution, beatings, arrests and even a stabbing before, eventually, dying in 1967 in her parents' home at the young age of 39! | negative |
I know a few things that are worst. A few. It had a couple of funny scenes. It is a movie not appropriate for kids but, only a child would find this movie hilarious. This is definetly a movie that you would like to use a free rental coupon for. Don't waste your money just to laugh a couple of times. | negative |
Had never heard of The Man in the Moon until seeing it last evening on THIS HDTV channel. Look, my taste is like any others', eclectic. My favorites run from Blue Velvet to Dr. Strangelove to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir thru The Wizard of Oz and The Loved One, Eraserhead, repo man, and The Spy Within.<br /><br />The Man in the Moon is superbly made, a gentle hearted, joyous and tragic film, beautifully filmed, one in which the actors truly live in the moment rather than act. This sweet tale shortly will be in our private library. This beautiful story of life in a far finer era in rural Louisiana literally transports you to its pastoral setting.<br /><br />It's hard to remain stoic during the film's last moments, particularly when the young girl the extent of her older sister's heart searing private pain and forgives all.<br /><br />Rather than spoil the enjoyment or bore you to sobs with my dull prose, will end now with this suggestion from one who enjoys films which speak from the heart to ours.<br /><br />If you purchase no other film, please, purchase the Man in the Moon. This moving story is one you'll enjoy reliving time and again. It is a joy and a gem, a film all too scarce in this world of hardening hearts.<br /><br />The simple virtues evinced in Man in the Moon are a joy to behold.<br /><br />Paul Vincent Zecchino<br /><br />Manasota Key, Florida<br /><br />05 April, 2009 | positive |
Remember the chain-smoking channeler exposed on 60 Minutes a few years ago? This is her. Lots of folks reviewed this movie without checking the bona fides of the filmmakers. The producers have been using phony "word of mouth" promotions very successfully without disclosing the financial and philosophical underpinnings for this piece of marketing tripe. If you believe in channeling, reincarnation, new age dreck and day-old baloney, this film is for you. If you want a discussion of quantum physics or reality, look elsewhere. The purpose of this movie is to convince you that Ramtha isn't a wacko, so you'll give her a bunch of your money. If you can tiptoe through the Ramtha website without howling in disbelief, then maybe you'll think the bucks you dropped on this infomercial for insanity was well spent. <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN> | negative |
This is a wonderful new movie currently still showing in cinemas in my country. Its director, the Calabrian Gianni Amelio, is in my humble view perhaps the only contemporary Italian director, along with Nanni Moretti, to deserve being called great (that is, apart from the old masters who're still around and occasionally still churning out movies). It's one of my greatest regrets that contemporary Italian cinema has been ailing since the mid-70s, mostly due to a dire lack of funding and nurturing of new talent, something which can be transferred to most fields and which makes Italy one of the most static industrialised countries of our time production-wise (both in an industrial and cultural sense)... unlike, say, China. And this, among other things, is precisely the subject of Amelio's latest movie. Few directors can speak to me about the true, present state of my country and the world as Amelio can, yet his pictures also have a precious timelessness and universality. And for those already worrying that they may be slow, ponderous and worthy - rest assured: of the ones I've seen they most certainly aren't, at least not if you're used to quality European cinema.<br /><br />The basic plot outline: Vincenzo Buonavolontà is a technician at an obsolete steel plant factory somewhere in Italy, probably the North. He is played by Sergio Castellitto, one of contemporary Italy's most versatile and talented actors. When a major Chinese steel company purchases some of the Italian steel plant's industrial machinery, Vincenzo, who struggles to make himself understood with the non-Italian speaking Chinese director, tries to tell him that the machine is defective and its converter needs substituting, an element he's working on custom-building himself. He warns them that not doing this might have very dangerous consequences. Meanwhile a young Chinese woman called Liu Hua acts as interpreter between the two men, but seems to struggle to find adequate translations for some of Vincenzo's technical jargon. The Italian eventually loses his patience with her, virtually pushing her aside and asking her to hand him the Chinese-Italian dictionary so that he can do the translating himself.<br /><br />Despite Vincenzo's warnings, the following morning he finds that the Chinese factory director and his employees have returned to their own country while not heeding his advice about the adequate use of the industrial machine at all. Thus Vincenzo, equipped with his great integrity, sets off for China. And here begins an endlessly fascinating road movie through China, a very topical 21st century Odyssey through the Asian Giant. A latter-day Marco Polo's quest for the secrets of the mysterious nation? Not quite. As in all of Amelio's movies, the journey itself becomes far more important than whether its ultimate "mission" is carried out or not. In fact, the way in which the point is literally brought home, not without a touch of humour, is a lovely, poignant paradox and irony, which made my eyes well up while I was simultaneously smiling. The spectator is let in on the secret that Vincenzo's trip was ultimately completely useless, but he himself doesn't know it, and goes home a satisfied man, a deluded innocent. At least, you figure, he's happy. Sort of.<br /><br />The journeys that Amelio's characters embark on totally uproots and strips them down to their bare, human essentials. They are momentarily without name, status or someone to put in a word for them. These Theo Angelopoulos-like themes are also explored in Lamerica, actually my favourite Amelio movie, closely followed by La stella che non c'è in order of personal preference. In the 1994 movie Lamerica, two Italian racketeers travel to Albania to "do business". Just like Vincenzo, they intend to go there, do what they have to do and then go back home. Instead, one of these two Italians accidentally ends up on an almost Homeric journey through this devastated land just after the fall of Communism.<br /><br />But let us go back to La stella che non c'è: once Vincenzo is in China, he predictably discovers that the seemingly "simple" task of handing the converter to its new owner is anything but straight-forward. The piece of machinery's new location is seemingly almost impossible to determine, unless he embarks on an arduous journey through China. When he comes across Liu Hua, the young interpreter he'd mistreated now working as a librarian, he tries to speak to her but she reacts in a hostile manner, informing him that because of him, she'd lost her job as interpreter back in Italy. Played by the relative newcomer Ling Tai, Liu Hua soon becomes a Virgil to Vincenzo's Dante when she grudgingly figures that she could do worse than to act as guide and interpreter for the Italian on his trip (obviously for a consistent sum of cash). This young Chinese actress may not have the beauty of Ziyi Zhang, nor the movie star glamour of Gong Li, but her charming, expressive and pretty face oozes a combination of defiant strength, intelligence, dignity and wry humour that'll make her features difficult to forget once you've seen the movie. Furthermore, she and Castellitto have wonderful emotional chemistry as co-stars.<br /><br />Amelio weaves dramas that are serious, poetic, mythical, post-neo-realist and humorous all at once, while maintaining a heart-warming ability to explore the fleeting essence of humanity in everyday, commonplace circumstances. A documentary-like naturalness conceals what is actually a meticulously conceived tapestry of faces and places, a vista which also manages to incorporate a cinematography of breath-taking beauty. The photography here is functional yet gorgeous, as befits a movie on the displaced in an industrial and emotional wasteland.<br /><br />Amelio's observant eye is a grown-up, disillusioned one, yet also never a cynical or misanthropic one. The masterful camera angles also often gives a sense of Vincenzo's alienness in the eyes of the Chinese, bringing home a sense of objectivity and cultural impartiality that's very rare in movies about a "familiar" Westerner exploring an "unfamiliar" non-Western country. I cannot recommend this movie enough. | positive |
I wasn't sure at first if I was watching a documentary, propaganda film or dramatic presentation. I guess given the time of production it was a mix of all three.<br /><br />Admittedly the dramatic plot was somewhat predictable. But you had a sense that there would be some interesting scenes as the movie went on. We were able to witness what appeared to be realistic training regimens and equipment.<br /><br />Where this movie came together for me was closer to the end. The scenes had a realism (at least as I perceived it) that I haven't encountered often before. You could place yourself in the action and imagine the thoughts of the young combatants. This was mixed in with the usual problems of portraying passable Japanese soldiers at a time when you might think real Japanese actors would be somewhat scarce.<br /><br />The movie is excellent as a source of the state of the American mindset in 1943 as the war waged with Japan. Also of interest was a dig at the Japanese with respect to the help the USA gave Japan in past years. | positive |
"Purple Rain" has never been a critic's darling but it is a cult classic - and deserves to be. If you are a Prince fan this is for you.<br /><br />The main plot is Prince seeing his abusive parents in himself and him falling in love with a girl. Believe it or not this movie isn't just singing and dancing. There are many intense scenes and it is heartwarming. Sometimes it comes off has funny but when it works it really works. Very hit and miss.<br /><br />No one can really act in the film. Everyone is from one of Prince's side acts like "The Time" and "Vanity 6". Still, it adds charm to the movie. When ever Prince is on screen he lights it up and it fun to see him at his commercial peak. <br /><br />In conclusion, go and see this if you love Prince like me. If you aren't a fan it'll make you one. | positive |
I remember when this piece of trash came out, all the newspapers were squawking about how it had taken Barbra Streisand years to get the film made. Well it couldn't have taken that many years; the play only opened in 1975, eight years previously. It made a Broadway star of the great actress Tovah Feldshuh, who probably should have been cast in the film, but NOOOOO...the Great STAR BARBRA HAD TO DO IT HER WAY. AND WITH MUSIC NO LESS! This film is a total disaster from start to finish. For one thing, Barbra was FORTY YEARS OLD when she made it and she looked every minute of it. There was no way anyone could possibly swallow her as a young girl yearning to study Torah. And then when she dresses up as a boy it gets campy. I get the impression that Streisand could not bear to be unattractive so she played around with the make-up; she is prettier as a boy than she is as a girl. And as if that is not bad enough, she gets involved with both her schoolmate Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin, whose best moment is the shot of his naked rear end) AND his fiancée (Amy Irving, who does her usual sleepwalker routine, a bit of schtick the poor woman always resorts to when the director ignores her and she does not know what she is doing). Yentl even goes so far as to marry the girl; I won't even bother to mention the "wedding night" scene.<br /><br />Then there is the music. Nine totally forgettable songs, all sung by Streisand via voice-over (presumably as a look inside her mind), and each one as intrusive and irritating as fingernails on a blackboard.<br /><br />I won't say that Streisand does not show a glimmer of promise as a director here; some of the visuals are lovely (Patinkin's backside especially), and she has a good eye for balance. The problem with this movie is that she won't get out of her own way. I did not believe her for one second in the title role; she should NEVER have added the songs, and on top of that the whole mess goes on for two hours and fifteen minutes. I was sick of the whole sorry mess after forty-five minutes.<br /><br />Awful, awful, awful. | negative |
This was another great episode from season 11 of South Park. <br /><br />Cartman fakes having Tourette syndrome in order to be able to say whatever he wants without getting in trouble. He is able to swear at the other kids at school. Kyle tells the Principal that Cartman is faking it. But, she doesn't believe it. Chris Hansen is planning on having Cartman to be on Dateline to talk about Tourette syndrome live and uncensored. But later on, Cartman starts to get so addicted to be able to say whatever he wants, that he later on starts to accidentally say embarrassing stuff. This was a funny episode about Cartman faking Tourette syndrome. I Recommend it to any South Park fan. | positive |
My first review of 2010 is "Into The Blue 2: The Reef". The story is about two divers played by Chris Carmack and Laura Vandervoort who love to explore hidden treasures at a bottom of a local reef. One day after a day of exploring they are approached by a couple played by David Anders and Marsha Thomason. They tell the young divers that they want to hire them to explore the reef and find a rare artifact about Columbus' hidden treasure that is reported at the bottom of the reef.<br /><br />Next day the four dive to the bottom of the reef and of coarse after a whole day of diving they find nothing. A few more days past and the two hired divers found out that they a part of a major deadly plot in which they can't escape otherwise they will be killed. They were hired to find two big containers. One contains a nuclear reactor and the other contains a core.<br /><br />The movie also has a back story about another person (brother of the lead character) trying to patch things up with his girlfriend, I reckon this part of the story was a waste of time, this also includes a very steamy sex scene between the couple which to me is a complete waste and wasn't needed to be shown.<br /><br />However apart from that, this movie does have some good underwater photography and the colors blend in well which is why it receives 4 stars. Into The Blue 2 is a sequel only by name. None of the original actors or characters return, it has a dumb plot, stupid characters and a boring climax. | negative |
Right there. Good, entertaining and accurate era-feel to most scenes. Enough personality variations to cover the real people around those days without story distractions from the exceptions. The credits show Peralta from Mar Vista, California.. up the hill from Venice and south of Malibu. I lived there in the Heartbreak Hotel days, pre-Beachboys, next to that surfer kid Bob Cooper up on Wasatch Avenue, where the alley was used to burn surfboards that didn't work. Old skatekey skatewheels were used on plywood cutouts to roll down sidewalk waves. Things were different in each succeeding decade as the cool innocence of the fifties broke into the Warmth of the Sun whitewater freedom and exhilaration of the electric sixties and then into the assertively innovative playtime and inventive evolutionary madness of the weird seventies. The movie gives you a piece of that kind of magic moment in time; in a place where the imaginary wave was real.. the source of culturally significant influences. And BTW, there's another movie that has a similarly American street edginess to it, and has the same genuinely unique goodness with laid back realness that helps refine that elusively eternal sense of cool.. "Two Lane Blacktop" (with one of the best examples of freesouldoit attitude in West Coast California history.. Dennis Wilson). Like Monte Hellman did with that one, thanks, SP, for being right there with this one. GWR | positive |
This is a delightful gem of a movie, unfortunately pigeon-holed as "just for kids." The plot revolves around a young man, Roy Eberhardt, newly arrived in southwest Florida from the Montana mountains. Trying to fit in with the other kids at his middle school, Roy discovers a brother-sister team trying to protect endangered burrowing owls at an illegal construction site. Look for Carl Hiassen, the author of the book upon which this movie is based, as the male secretary to the evil boss at corporate headquarters. Writer/director Wil Shriner is also the clerk at the Public Records Office where the intrepid teen-detectives discover that the incriminating Environmental Impact Report is missing. Luke Wilson nearly steals all the crucial scenes from the charming teen actors who have most of the best lines. Wilson is the bumbling police officer, in his three-wheeled electric police cart complete with blue light and funky siren. As Officer Dave, he tries so hard to do well, but usually ends up falling in the muck, literally! Several times! Jimmy Buffet is pretty low key as the tacitly supportive science teacher. But, young actors Logan Lerman (Roy), Brie Larson (Beatrice the Bear), and Cody Linley (Mullet Fingers) are superb as the teens who finally put Officer Dave on the right track, following the paper trail left by the evil corporate boss. I hope you come away from this movie feeling as good as I did. Just plain fun! One small complaint, though. I hope all non-Floridians realize that not everyone from Florida is as surly to newcomers as depicted in this film. We're really a friendly bunch! Just ask Carl Hiassen and Jimmy Buffet!! | positive |
after my daughter was born in 1983, i needed to lose weight. i tried the 20 minute workout and i was hooked. i lost about 50 lbs. it was the most weight i ever lost in my life. i can't believe this show is forgotten. it would be a blessing if you started a cable channel strictly for exercise and included the 20 minute workout. i think this was the best workout video ever made. i wish i could purchase it somehow and somewhere. the routine was easy to learn and you did work up quite a sweat. the workouts they have today are too complicated and too hard to learn. please do your best to get this video back in circulation. i pray it will be a blessing to all who see and use it. | positive |
Very strange. But meant to be. This director is his own man. Even through there are strains if Polanski, Bergman, and Kafka at least in the episode no 6, the peeping tom one. What made it all so strange, and reminiscent of the above three artists, was that it went all over the place, you never knew where it was headed, and could have ended anyplace, and finally when it did end, could have kept going. The ending is hardly a finality, nobody could tell you what these two characters would be doing in even the next frame. One other thing should be said about the director: No wonder Kubrick found him fascinating. There is a lot of Eyes Wide Shut in this episode somehow, in the direct approach to character, the realistic fantasy elements of both. A Kubrick placement of the camera without any of the stark effects, much more washed out, and hurried, not as fussed over. That said, back to the beginning, still this guy has his own things to say and says them well. Yet, for some reason, there is not a single scene I ever want to see again. But definitely did not feel ripped off in the least watching it one time around. But I did keep getting the feeling of three or four other directors ghosts moving through the parade, blurring everything. The caveat being that it was only episode six: the other nine might give me entirely different takes. But since this episode revolved around peeping, looking, the absolute domain of film, I will say this, he took none of the usual routes, definitely went his own way while carrying the baggage of a lot of good directors behind him. | negative |
I cant believe blockbuster carries this movie. It was SO BAD. I was totally fooled by the box art. DON'T BE FOOLED!! Its not worth your time I promise you. I don't know if the positive reviews for this flick were a joke or what. I am so disappointed. :( <br /><br />The description on the back of the box doesn't even match! The girl that has the voodoo done on her is a stripper. The synopsis on the back says she is only 17. Did the people writing the description for the film even bother to watch it!? Those positive reviews had to be a joke they just had to be. If anyone actually liked this flick then I've lost all faith in humanity.<br /><br />And don't even get me started on the story compared to the title. Or the fact that the entire movie was done all in 2 locations. Or that the cops didn't even have close to real uniforms. Why would i even say that?? Who cares about the cops uniforms!? Compared to the rest of the movie the uniforms were spot on. <br /><br />This movie is an insult to the zombie genre and all of its fans. | negative |
This was without a doubt the worst thing I have ever spent money on. I feel dirty for admitting that I rented this 'movie' and actually paid money to see it. This does not even rate trash. No no. This is the juice that collects at the bottom of industrial dumpsters located in particularly foul neighborhoods after an extraordinarily humid summer. To call it trash would be to degrade trash everywhere. It was so bad I felt I had to register at IMDb and warn my fellow man. This luvahire character claims this movie is great. One has to question his grasp on reality. Let's take some of his comments and analyze them.<br /><br />"The actor who played Ricky (I forgot his name) did a VERY good job."<br /><br />I see. Well, if the director envisioned his audience cringing and wincing at every sentence uttered by Ricky or alternately bursting into uncontrollable laughter at moments when most directors would want a more somber reaction from their viewers, then yes; Ricky did an outstanding job.<br /><br />"I'm an aspiring actor myself taking theater at my school and I had to do a play where I had to cry and it's not easy to be emotional in a scene so I give props to actors who have to do an emotional scene and can pull it off."<br /><br />Wow. I too must give props to actors who can pull off emotional scenes. Luvahire, you may want to look into another line of work there buddy if you think these chuckleheads pulled it off. Still, they can help you if you need to practice crying. Just watch the movie. ha. ha. ha. <br /><br />"BRING ON THE SEQUEL"<br /><br />If I was your theater teacher at school I'd fail you based solely on this comment alone.<br /><br />I am too disgusted to continue. I shall now turn over the movie bashing to my associate, Mr. Bangla. <br /><br />Howdy! If you've continued to read this far, I take it for granted that you've already seen the movie, and you're now looking for one of two things in this comment: 1) Additional vitriolic debasement of what you agree was an exceptionally poor movie. 2) Additional vitriolic debasement of what you feel was a good cinematic effort which needs defending against such libelous scum as myself. Whether you want help articulating your disgust or ammunition for a stirring repartee, if I say anything good it'll only disappoint you--so let me assure you, there is little chance of such disappointment. <br /><br />The other negative comments here at IMDb have already enumerated the particular failings of the movie (e.g. the acting, the soundtrack, the directing, the dialogue, the editing, etc.), however all of these faults can readily be forgiven, in and of themselves. Few people will rent a movie titled "Hood of the Living Dead" if they require these elements to be top-notch. The ultimate failure of "Hood", however, is its failure to deliver on the abundant promise of its name. "Hood of the Living Dead" practically leaps off the shelf at the video store with its implications of corny one-liners and gruesomely creative kills. Here was a chance to mix the cheesy gore of the zombie movie with the realism of life in the ghetto, to have gangsta-thug zombies bombin' on the innocent living while rockin' do-rags, to have undead pimps drivin' over all-too-mortal po-lice in their tricked-out rides. The mixture of the two genres could have been hilarious. Instead, the movie is more like watching middle school kids timidly deliver the lines to a play they are performing, but don't understand. To avoid a feeling of betrayal on the part of their video-rental audience, I suggest that the Quiroz brothers re-release the movie with the following new title: "Hood of the Living Dead: A home-made horror video we shot on our camcorder with some friends over a weekend last summer because we were bored". Or perhaps they could release it as a documentary. "The Day Creativity Died: An exploration of how a low budget movie can still be perfectly devoid of clever or original thought despite lacking ties to a major motion picture studio." <br /><br />The potential renter whose interest has not been quelled, should find the following blurb on the back of the video case: "The Quiroz Brothers have proved once again that watching things which you can easily do yourself is not very interesting."--Mr. Bangla | negative |
This is the award that made me lose all respects for the Hugos.<br /><br />If such a "distinguished" panel can't see or care about the obvious story-telling problems of Battlestar Galactica, then what worth is their award? The answer: not much.<br /><br />Award-winning shows should be examples of creativity and excellence, neither of which are in evidence in BG, in this episode or any other that I've seen.<br /><br />Shooting in drab video is not "artistic", it's just cheap. Shaking the camera is not "creative" it's vomit-inducing and lazy as can be.<br /><br />All BG has shown is how corrupt most award-giving "academies" really are and how easy it is to buy awards with a lot of PR money. | negative |
the movie sucked, it wasn't funny, it wasn't exciting. they tried to make it so bad that it would be good, but failed. and thinking it's cool to like this movie, next to the hype, are the only reasons that this movie is a success...<br /><br />the fact that at this moment 50% voted a 10 out of 10 for this movie seems pretty concerning to me, either the movie going public is going insane or this vote is unrealistic which can have numerous causes, and should be dealt with. anyway it is a less than average movie which bloomed through mouth to mouth advertising. It's success can only be described as a marketing marvel. | negative |
<br /><br />If you're at all interested in pirates, pirate movies, New Orleans/early 19th century American history, or Yul Brynner, see this film for yourself and make up your own mind about it. Don't be put off by various lacklustre reviews. My reaction to it was that it is entertaining, well acted (for the most part), has some very witty dialogue, and that it does an excellent job of portraying the charm, appeal and legendary fascination of the privateer Jean Lafitte. While not all the events in the film are historically accurate (can you show me any historical film that succeeds in this?), I feel the film is accurate in its treatment of the role Lafitte played in New Orleans' history, and the love-hate relationship between the "respectable" citizens of New Orleans and this outlaw who was one of the city's favorite sons. Don't worry about what the film doesn't do, but watch it for what it does do, i.e., for its study of one of New Orleans', and America's, most intriguing historical figures. | positive |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.