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544,424 | 562,732 | 125,971 | 8 | Outside Providence does not seem like much from the preview , but it turns out to be a surprisingly good comedy . | Outside Providence seems like just another low budget , goofy high school comedy from the preview , but it is really a good movie . Timothy Dunphy is the lovable high school screw-up whose father sends him off to boarding school after he is involved in an accident with a parked police cruiser while smoking pot with his loser buddies . He develops an unlikely romantic relationship with the stunningly beautiful Jane Weston ( Amy Smart ) at the repressive school while fighting off the disciplinary excesses of the school faculty . This seems like the premise of the kind of ridiculous high school comedies that characterized the 80s ( Screwballs , Ski School , etc . ) , but Outside Providence works well because it has heart . Timothy Dunphy is sent off unwillingly to this hellish school , and it turns out to be a really eye-opening experience for him . He develops a lot of insight about himself , his friends , his romantic endeavors , and his family . The story is not exactly something that is entirely original , but the presentation of the film and the acting are extremely good , and the end result is a great comedy . Alec Baldwin delivers a hilarious performance as the emotionally closed-off father , regularly referring to his own son as " dildo . " He steals every scene he is in , and he should be particularly noted for his ability to give such a convincing portrayal of an emotionless , macho father and still be convincing in the emotionally tense scene between him and Timothy where he describes Tim's late mother . That scene in particular is unexpectedly intense . Outside Providence is a good comedy . It does not resort to tasteless sexual fourth-grade humor to pull it along ( which is one of the biggest problems with teen comedies lately - American Pie , Scary Movie ( there was no hope for that one from the beginning ) , There's Something About Mary , and Road Trip , which should have been a great movie ) . Instead , Outside Providence focuses on character development and a good story , and tops it all off with a healthy amount of comedy in the form of the cast , the characters , the script , dialogue , and pretty much everything else . Probably one of the best elements of this movie is that it is not a relentless comedy . It doesn't grab desperately for a laugh every second of the way , but instead it rounds out the content with drama , romance , skillful comedy , as well as good writing , directing , and acting . Outside Providence is badly underrated and should not be missed . |
543,806 | 562,732 | 497,465 | 8 | What happens in Europe stays in Europe . . . | One thing I've noticed about nearly all of Woody Allen's movies is that , regardless of how good the rest of the movie is , the dialogue is generally written and performed with a nearly flawless realism that pushes the surprisingly intricate stories along at a pretty fast pace , often leaving me with the feeling that the story is bigger than the movie and has to be squeezed to make it fit . In order to do this , Allen has recruited the talents of Christopher Evan Welch to provide a narrative voice-over and tell the portions of the story that can't be passed on simply through images and dialogue . Unfortunately , I developed an inability to see Woody Allen as anyone other than Woody Allen no matter what movie he's appearing in . This is a condition that has endured unchecked within me for the last ten years , since the release of Antz , which starred an animated , insect version of Woody , but who was nevertheless still Woody . He did write the movie , but the narrator speaks in such a distinct Woody Allen style that it becomes a little confusing why he didn't just narrate the thing himself . Or not have a narrator , that might have been a good idea , too . The narration thickens the story and gives it more detail , but it also makes it feel rushed . Here's a little example ? " Vicky was already thinking of herself as a kind of expatriate , not smothered by what she believed to be America's puritanical and materialistic culture , which she had little patience for . She saw herself more as a European soul , in tune with the thinkers and artists she felt expressed her tragic , romantic , free-thinking view of life . " The movie is about characters that Allen can clearly relate to , but that most people in the audience will fail to relate to . We envy their lives , but for the most part we have nothing in common with any of them and thus it becomes difficult to care about them . Luckily , the primary characters , Juan Antonio ( Javier Bardem ) , Cristina ( Scarlett Johansson ) , and Maria Elena ( Penelope Cruz ) are played by three tremendous actors , and their performances are glowing . Vicky and Cristina are best friends who decide to spend a couple of summer months in Barcelona with Vicky's family , who live in the area . Vicky is studying Catalan studies , so it seems like the perfect destination . She's into romantic stability and is happily engaged to a man named Doug , who is completely dedicated to her but is , unfortunately , also a massive tool . Cristina , on the other hand , is more impulsive and unpredictable , not afraid to take risks and invite a little turmoil into her life . She recently worked for months on a 12-minute film about love that she then hated , and is now getting shakily into photography . She wanders around Spanish towns taking clichéd photographs of empty alleyways and people , either just sightseeing or for some reason thinking she's doing something original . While the two of them are eating in a charming café , a good-looking Spanish man approaches them and invites them on a trip , leaving in an hour , to a small town called Oviedo , where the three of them will eat good food , drink good wine , and make love . The different reaction of the two girls sets up the premise that supports the rest of the movie . Vicky is horrified and offended , Cristina is immediately intrigued and ultimately accepts , with " no guarantees . " What follows is a remarkably well-told but dense story about highly developed characters who lead fascinating but chaotic lives but who live in such a way that it's nearly impossible to relate to them in any way . It reminds me of the characters in William Faulkner's intolerable novel " The Sun Also Rises , " who also live in Spain and have nothing but money and leisure time . Such a lifestyle is difficult for me to understand or care about . Juan Antonio is an abstract artist of some acclaim , and has famously been through a violent divorce which was well-covered by the news media . Evidently he and his wife tried to kill each other , but of course their stories differ wildly . A complex series of events leads to Cristina living together with Juan Antonio in his home in Spain and Vicky back in New York and suffering through a series of new emotional hurdles , until one day Maria Elena , Juan Antonio's ex-wife , tries to commit suicide and ends up living with Juan Antonio and Cristina because she has nowhere else to go . Where the movie goes from there is where it really gets interesting and strange , but I won't give anything else away . By the way , I don't know if you realize this , but European vacations have an astonishing ability to wreck American relationships if only one half of the couple is making the trip . This happened to me with a girl that I dated in college who once traveled in Europe for a summer , and I didn't even find out about it until more than a year later , and by that time I had already gone to Europe myself and committed the same crime ! What is it with that place ? ? Oh and just so you know , one of my best friend's here in China was born and raised in San Sebastian , in the Basque country in northern Spain , and he was deeply unimpressed with the movie . He says it felt like nothing more than a " Lonely Planet Guide to Barcelona ! " Personally , I thoroughly enjoyed the story-telling and the performances , particularly the lack of predictability and the many narrative twists and turns . I recommend it . |
543,836 | 562,732 | 113,133 | 8 | A comedy that is very well thought out and very intelligent . This is often difficult to watch , but it works because it has heart . | Funny Bones is not a traditional comedy . It starts off being deliberately unamusing , yet it later becomes evident that this was done not only to establish reason for the events that occur during the rest of the movie , but also to create good character development . Oliver Platt proves that he is not only a great comedic actor , but he can be just as good when he is trying NOT to be funny . His on-stage scenes early in the film were not only well-lit but also wonderfully acted and photographed . Jerry Lewis also performs a surprisingly convincing role in a startling turn from sheer comedic hilarity to a seriously dramatic role as Platt's legendary comedian father . Platt plays Tommy Fawkes , a struggling stand-up comedian trying to live up to the legacy that his famous father George Fawkes ( Jerry Lewis ) has created . George is now retired , and Tommy is struggling to get his career started . After yet another painful failure onstage , Tommy decides to travel back to Blackpool , England , where his family's comedy originated . The people that Tommy meets there are strangely fascinating , and Lee Evans delivers a particularly interesting performance as Jack Parker , the high energy comedian who is on the run from the law and is also George Fawkes ' bastard son . His one full length comedy act is absolutely amazing to watch . As Tommy is holding auditions trying to find something funny to include in his own act back in the States , he learns more and more about the people living in Blackpool and about their history as well as some dishonorable actions of his own father , and he learns an important lesson from it all . He ultimately finds his place in the world of live acting , and the transformation from who he was at the beginning of the film to who he is at the end is incredible . Funny Bones is an excellent but very different comedy that is ultimately very rewarding and satisfying . The cinematic trickery and the skillful use of lighting add to the experience , and the acting is excellent all around . The circus scene at the end of the film was great , it was tense and amazingly well done . Although slow at times , this is a great film about overcoming obstacles and developing your own view of the world , as well as the importance of finding your rightful place in it . |
544,710 | 562,732 | 240,772 | 8 | Hell yes . | The remake of Ocean's 11 is a tremendously entertaining movie . I personally find Brad Pitt and George Clooney to be among the most watchable actors working today , so I found the movie to be hugely appealing despite numerous plot holes , an almost nonstop barrage of clichés , a ridiculous ending , and Don Cheadle . Before I go on , I should mention that I think Cheadle is an immensely talented actor with some great performance's under his belt , such as his work in Boogie Nights , Traffic , and A Lesson Before Dying ( sure , he can't pronounce Vladivostok , but it was still a great performance ) . The problem with his character here , probably the most controversial role of the entire movie , is that he was forced to take on this ridiculous accent , making him the Jar Jar Binks of Ocean's 11 . Pretty sad , but I hope it serves as a lesson for how dumb it is to have well known actors take on thick accents . It does nothing but call attention to itself and invite criticism for the actor's ability to pull it off . And given the content of the discussion boards on the IMDb , Cheadle didn't pull it off so well . That being said , the rest of the movie is enormously entertaining , even though Andy Garcia , who I have had an unjustifiable aversion to ever since Desperate Measures , turns his character of the ridiculously rich Terry Benedict , owner of three casinos in Las Vegas , into an almost cartoonish villain . George Clooney plays the title character Danny Ocean , recently released from prison where he had plenty of time to develop intricate plots for robbing three casinos simultaneously . The parole board asks him if he thinks he would ever return to a life of crime were he released , he smiles , gets released , and promptly returns to a life of crime . This is the kind of character that Clooney was born to play . Brad Pitt plays Ocean's Second , the second man in charge and much of the pull behind getting this whole thing together . We get the usual montage of hilarious antics being committed by those that are to be sought to be among Ocean's 11 ( edited together on the same template used to introduce us to the colorful characters in Armageddon ) , each one fulfilling the need for another stereotype . In this way , the movie is pretty weak , but it is so entertaining to watch the robberies pulled off that it makes up for a lot of these shortcomings . Brad Pitt lends his massive presence to the film as Rusty , an old friend of Danny's . Rusty is an interesting character , sort of a freelancer in Vegas , living his life in the casinos , obviously raking in comfortable amounts of cash from his less than legal endeavors , and willing only to dress in the highest of fashion . Strange , however , for a man to constantly wear such high priced clothing when he is ALWAYS eating . Matt Damon plays the part of the pickpocket , whose skills come into good use in the plot in ways which I will not reveal , Don Cheadle plays the demolitions expert , Bernie Mac gets a great role as a card dealer with a not so clean past , and Elliott Gould makes a huge turn from his character in American History X to play the part of a washed up con man , eager for revenge against Terry Benedict , who put him out of business . The idea is to rob the central safe that stores the cash for the three casinos in question . Supposedly this is the most ingenious and impenetrable vault ever created by mankind ( as this is generally how it is described throughout the movie ) , which begs the question of why the blueprints for the vault are kept under the watchful eye of a cheaply rented night security guard . That's like leaving the keys to Fort Knox in plain view outside the vault and protected by a thin pane of glass . ( spoilers ) Complicating matters , conveniently for the script , is the little factoid that Benedict is now dating Ocean's ex-wife , who left him because he was involved in a life of crime . It's interesting to see the movie take place in what is to me the familiar setting of Las Vegas , but it is not enough to distract attention from the disastrous romantic content of the movie . Not only does Tess ( Roberts ) come off as a stiff and exceedingly unpleasant woman , but she left Danny in the first place for being a criminal and landing himself in prison . Then he pulls off this astronomical heist , stealing millions and millions of dollars from her current love interest ( as well as managing to get him to admit on camera that he cares more about money than he does about Tess ) , and THEN she wants him back . What , she didn't want to be with him before because his criminal life landed him in prison , but now she wants him back because he's GOOD at being a criminal ? Please . Nevertheless , while the ending almost completely ruined the movie because it leaves such a bad aftertaste , the rest of the film is hugely entertaining , bad fake accents notwithstanding . There are lots of twists and turns , lots of people get what is coming to them , and as is to be expected from a movie starring Brad Pitt , George Clooney , Matt Damon and Julia Roberts , the star power is substantial . It ends badly , but it's great up to that point . It's just too bad that the bad part is so near the end and therefore in the front of your mind at the end of the movie . |
544,724 | 562,732 | 338,348 | 8 | The true meaning of Christmas is in your heart ? | I read a review by another IMDb user who compared the look of the film to illustrations in old children's books , the ones that , for certain generations , bring back warm and much - cherished memories , and while The Polar Express didn't exactly knock my socks off like I expected it would , this is exactly what it looks like , and that kind of aesthetic appeal can go a long way . The story involves an urgent Christmas time emergency . A young boy lies quietly in his bed on Christmas Eve , as the story begins , and pores over doubts in his mind about the existence of Santa Claus . Enter The Polar Express , a magical train designed for just such an emergency . The conductor , in the film's defining moment , calmly urges the astonished boy , " I think you should get on the train . " There are definite roller coaster moments which , for all of the movie's thematic cleverness , remind us periodically that this is meant to be a good ride , thrilling us with the stomach - turning train travel as much as with the brilliant animation and entirely new form of acting . This new kind of acting and animation is done through something that I believe is called performance capture , where the actors really act out the scenes that they are in , and using a gigantic number of sensors placed over the actor's face and body , the performance is then entered into the computer , and Tom Hanks can be turned into a whole host of characters in the same movie . I believe he plays five parts in this movie . What I love about the movie is that it doesn't give us a sugary confection when we get to the North Pole . Santa is not jolly old St . Nick here , he's a businessman with a lot of employees . Tiny employees , but also not cute little elves either . Even the reindeer look like real animals , that grunt and snort and , gasp , may even have bodily functions ! There were some points where I felt that the character of the conductor was a little too abrasive , even mean . I appreciate that the movie doesn't shoot for your traditional Christmas movie , opting instead to add some excitement and even be a little scary , but at some times the effort to do this became a little transparent and we get something where the conductor just comes off as a jerk . Then again , I should mention that it is ironically because of things like this that the movie is so watchable , and re-watchable . I've heard some people worry about what this new method of capturing performances will mean in the future ( I know that some people are , for some reason , worried that actors will some day literally be able to " phone-in " their performances ) , although that doesn't exactly strike me as a valid concern . It seems like an addition to the art , rather than a corruption . Either way , it's a pretty exciting ride ! |
544,639 | 562,732 | 120,710 | 8 | What is insanity truly like ? Watch In Dreams and you'll find out . | The color red is very significant in In Dreams , in everything from the apples that seem to represent Claire's ( Annette Bening ) fears to the red dress that she is dressed in the numerous times that she ' dies ' to the weird red color of Vivian's ( Robert Downey Jr . ) hair towards the end of the film . The color red is used to constantly remind the audience of the tenseness and fear in the film . Ironically enough , the first thing that went through my mind when I saw Robert Downey Jr . as the psychopath as he approached Claire toward the end of the film was that he was horribly miscast in this film , and that his presence would inevitably lead to the ultimate disappointment that I expected to feel after the movie ended . However , aside from the goofy contact lenses that he wore and the obviously dyed hair , I was surprisingly impressed with his contribution to the film . In the film's closing scene , in particular , he was able to deliver one final performance that left jaws dropped as the credits began . In Dreams is definitely not for everyone . I think that for this particular film , there will be people who loved it , people who hated it , and people who just didn't understand it , with probably not much in between . Unfortunately , it was much more effective on the big screen than on video , but with a healthy twist of the volume knob , it can be made to have virtually the same effect . Just don't watch it alone if you live out in the woods ! |
544,268 | 562,732 | 4,210 | 8 | A cross section of Chaplin's first year in film-making . | It is no secret that Charlie Chaplin spent most of his first year in film-making churning out simple short comedies for Keystone Studios , in which he spent most of his time either kicking , punching , and throwing bricks at people or planting kisses on uncomfortable women . Laffing Gas is kind of a cross section of Chaplin's first year in film because it has all of those elements , as well as about the same ending as most of the other Keystone films , but it also shows a lot of Chaplin's most brilliant talents , the tricks that he does with his body and his cane and his hat . Also , I am not sure if it was just the copy that I watched , but part of the film plays in regular motion , rather than the slightly fast motion of most of the other short films , so you can see pretty clearly what it actually looked like when they were filming the fight scenes . Early in the film , Charlie walks into the dentist's office where he works and immediately has a fistfight with another guy , the receptionist , I guess , in the office . And this guy is tiny , by the way . Chaplin was a little guy himself , but this other guy makes Chaplin look like a giant . Anyway , they have a fight scene that is in normal speed , so it almost looks like slow-motion . The film is also one of the more violent of the Keystone films ; at one point a guy gets hit in the face with a brick and then seems to spit out some teeth , soon landing himself in the dentist's office and being worked on by Charlie , who threw the brick in the first place , with a pair of what looks like bolt-cutters . There is a brief use of laughing gas in the film , but most of it is another ten minute slapstick fight scene interspersed with some genuinely brilliant moments . Also note that one scene in the film is filmed on the sidewalk in front of a place called the Sunset Pharmacy , which I imagine was a real place somewhere on Sunset Blvd . in Los Angeles . If anyone knows anything about that , please let me know ! |
544,085 | 562,732 | 258,463 | 8 | The Bourne Identity is a taut psychological thriller that explores the genre from a variety of new standpoints , but doesn't quite manage to be as great as it could have and should have been . | In one of the more anticipated thrillers released this year , Matt Damon takes on the role of a CIA assassin who has failed an assassination mission only to wake up and find himself on a strange fishing boat with no memory of who or where he is or how he even got there . It starts off under this immediately interesting premise , with Damon's character progressively educating himself about his identity through the gradual realization of his own ignorance to the true reality of who he is . The more he learns , the more he realizes that he doesn't know , as the saying goes . And we are more than willing to tag along and make all of these thrilling discoveries with him . The movie has a remarkable amount of strong points , but almost as many weak points . It grows a little frustrating after a while as we learn how much Marie is willing to put up with in order to stay with this guy . It's kind of important that she's there because , as he said in the most amusing line in the film , she's the only person he knows . On the other hand , it's hard to imagine that someone as good-looking as Franka Potente has been having such a hard time finding a boyfriend that she is willing to go through the car chases and gunfights and explosions that are involved with her new friend , who hasn't told her his name because he didn't even know it himself . And why did he pay her $20 , 000 for the ride to Paris ? Did that serve any purpose in the film other than illustrating the massive amount of money that he has at his disposal ? On the one hand , it's easy to see how weak the scriptwriting is when we consider the real logistics of Marie deciding to stay by Jason's side ( if that IS his real name ? ) through all of this mess , but on the other hand , we are willing to forgive things like that because the rest of the movie is so good . Some of the action scenes are a little extensive , but even most of those are forgivable . There is a scene , for example , where Bourne pushes a man's body off of a flight of stairs and over a drop of four or five stories , is able to concentrate enough to shoot a guy a couple of flights down , and then uses the body as a sort of cushion to break his fall . This is something that I've always wondered about ( I can't remember why , but I've wondered why I haven't seen someone do this in an action movie before . Maybe now I know why ) . Now , if Bourne is capable of doing half the things that we've seen him do in this movie , I'm more than willing to believe that he could pull something like this off , although the landing didn't look real at all . Now all I need is to see more people simply shooting the guy who's holding a gun to a hostage's head , demanding escape . I'm sick and tired of seeing cops put their guns down and let the bad guy go instead of just shooting him in the head when they had him in their crosshairs . I saw Charlie Sheen do it in Navy Seals , I just wish more action films would catch on and quit with the weak scripts . Remember that scene in Snatch when Mickey O'Neil threw that first punch and knocked that huge guy out ? Something similar happened in The Bourne identity when Bourne is sleeping on a bench in a snow-covered park and two police officers come to tell him to move along , and he ends up beating them both to the ground before he even really realizes what he's doing . This is what makes the movie fun . Sure , it's not the most intellectually involved screenplay , and it's even been done before in almost exactly the same form , but it's fun to go along with this character as he discovers all of these skills that he has , especially since he doesn't even know why he has them . ( spoilers ) There are times during the film when there are so many possible identities that may each be the real one ( if there IS a real one ) that it gets confusing as to which identity he is investigating or which one is thought dead by his enemies . However , whenever this does happen , it only serves to concentrate more attention on the action and the physical aspect of the film , which is clearly its strongest asset . We eventually learn that Jason Bourne is a $30 million government weapon , and if I remember correctly , there was nothing in the film to suggest for certain that Jason was not some sort of cyborg , including that first kiss scene . When Marie put that first peck on his lips , he stood there staring at her for a few moments too long , like he was consulting his memory banks trying to figure out how to react in this sort of situation . Besides , if he were a cyborg , it would explain his bulletproof shoulder blades ! Here's a guy that has survived floating for an unknown period of time unconscious in the ocean ( okay , THAT hints that he's not a cyborg ) , two bullet wounds to the back that would have punctured both lungs and probably his heart if it weren't for the above-mentioned bulletproof shoulder blades , and who can pull all sorts of fight moves that make Neo and Morpheus look like kids , and we are taken along with him as he desperately tries to figure out who he is . It's not exactly clear who the bad guy ( s ) is or are in this film , which only serves to add to the suspense and fun created within it . It's an interesting and refreshing change to see the kind of character development that we see in this film , where we grow to like and to root for this guy with amnesia only to later learn that he was pretty much the mastermind of the botched assassination attempt . Given that , he can't really be seen as the good guy , but I guess that since he only wants to forget all that and start a new life with Marie we're meant to see him that way . And speaking of which , this is the first element of the film where it starts to falter . This guy is a trained government assassin , yet he is completely derailed by a couple of kids at the crucial point in his mission . Sure , it would not be a pleasant thing to see an African leader murdered in a film in front of his kids , but you have to wonder where that $30 million went if he is so easily weakened . But if you can look past the questionable female presence in the film ( questionable only because no woman on earth would go through all this for a good looking guy ) and the obligatory ending ( I remember watching the conclusion of all of Bourne's troubles , and just waiting for the impending reunion scene ) , you will get a quality action film . There are some scenes where the movie knows it's messing up ( such as when Bourne amazingly knows EXACLTY where the shotgun is in a house that he has only spent one night in ) , but it is always sure to correct itself sometime during the film ( in this case , in the scene where he explains to Marie that he knows that the best place to find a gun right now is in the cab of the gray pick-up truck out front ) . Of course , we can't understand how he could know this , but that's beside the point because we aren't meant to discover a full understanding of who he was before the assassination attempt . The Bourne Identity is not about who Jason Bourne was before he lost his memory , its about who he is as a human being underneath all of the training that he was given by the government and the purpose of which he no longer understands or believes in . He doesn't want to be an assassin , he wants a normal life with Marie . We're just here to see the conflict involved in getting rid of one life and starting the other . These are very different themes for one movie to deal with , which is why it falters at some points , but the action and the acting and sheer fast-paced excitement over-shadow the lesser elements , making The Bourne Identity a very worthy action thriller . |
544,513 | 562,732 | 65,377 | 8 | Eventually , Airport presents a very interesting and intricate story . | I had never heard of this movie when I watched it recently , and I actually thought that it was a spoof of Airplane , and not the other way around , until I noticed that it was made a decade earlier . Although Airport starts off with nearly 45 minutes of mind-numbing boredom , it builds up a number of separate stories that all eventually come together in a very clever and thrilling way . The movie is probably too long by about an hour , but because of this we were able to really get to know the characters , maybe even more than we might want to . It seems to take forever , but once the movie really gets going , it is a very exciting and entertaining drama . When you watch Airport , it is very clearly a 70's film . It has dated fairly badly , but it is still entertaining if you can sit through it long enough for it to really get started . The runway scenes , those involving the airplane that was stuck in the snow , were particularly well made , and the acting was good , but the movie was a little too talky . It seemed that it told too much of the story through dialogue , which is one of the things that made the first half so boring . Now , I'm not against extensive dialogue , but it has to be right for the movie , and Airport was almost too much of a thriller to be moving that slow for that long . However , despite all of this , don't be put off by the movie's extensive running time or the superficial clunkiness that the movie seems to have , or even the fact that one of the main characters ( Burt Lancaster ) is one of the ugliest men ever to be shown on the silver screen . Once the film gets around to the bomb on the plane , you start to see how all of these seemingly obscure stories that you have been watching tie together . Airport is a very well thought out and scripted movie , and it is ultimately very satisfying . |
543,849 | 562,732 | 8,975 | 8 | Keaton steals the show . | I may be biased toward Buster Keaton since I have seen so many more of his films than of Fatty Arbuckle's , but I think that he was a far better physical comedian than Fatty was . Arbuckle performs some astonishing tricks as the cook , flipping pancakes behind his back and tossing utensils and such , and he should be recognized for this as well as his tremendous contributions to silent comedies . Both actors have much stronger works , but this is a clean short comedy , surprisingly well restored for having been sitting lost in some attic for more than 70 years . It makes me wish I was around back then , when the magic in Hollywood was still alive . |
544,550 | 562,732 | 86,006 | 8 | A quality re-make , but still not nearly as good as Thunderball . | I'm sick and tired of people complaining that Never Say Never Again is just a weak remake of Thunderball . Yes , that movie's influence is unmistakable , but the tremendous and almost universal inferiority of re-made films is reserved for such thoughtless and unintelligent films like the 1998 re-make of Psycho . While it's true that the opening theme of the twelfth ( and Connery's last ) Bond film is one of the worst of the entire series , the film itself still manages to stand on its own , despite many other weaknesses . Besides that , even the weak title song is made to blend pretty nicely with the closing dialogue in the film . Sure , Sean Connery was getting a little on in age when this movie was filmed ( at least by James Bond standards ) , but there is plenty of evidence in the narrative that makes it clear that this was not exactly unknown to the filmmakers . James Bond is near retirement before he is handed his assignment , having spent most of recent time teaching , not doing , and there is even the tongue in cheek insistence from M that he pay more attention to his health , dieting and training and getting more exercise and whatnot . Besides , this is James Bond , remember ? This guy is supposed to be some kind of super human , and all of his fans are getting all upset because he's got some gray hairs . When this guy retires at the end of the film , M sends poor ' Small-Fawcett ' ( in a hilarious cameo from Rowan Atkinson ) to tell Bond that without him , he worries about the safety of the free world , and all of you people can't get over the fact that he's not a sprightly young man anymore . Come on , Sean Connery could STILL play James Bond just as good as he ever could , or at least better than anyone else ever has been able to . The majority of the film deals with the elaborate plan to steal nuclear missiles and hold the world hostage ( as Dr . Evil would say , ' Oh hell , let's just do what we always do ? ' ) , so there's clearly not much new there , but this is one of the Bond films that had the better one liners . There's the amusing scene where Bond is asked for a urine sample ? ' If you could just fill this beaker for me ? ' ' From here ? ' There are a lot of good one-liners , but the sexual innuendos aimed at Mr . Bond are especially prevalent in this installment . But then later he happens to throw that very urine sample into a villain's face , making him scream as if his face were burning off . Not a very good attempt at comic relief , especially since this guy had been kicking Bond's ass with some sort of super-spring device that could cut through pretty much anything . And of course , Kim Basinger stars in this film as one of the best Bond girls of the entire series . It's no secret that Never Say Never Again has dated badly , and one of the things that has dated the worst is the special effects ? with the one exception of the flying missiles , which were obviously fake but still impressive for 1982 . The colored contact lens at the beginning of the film was totally without effect , and the laser watch was one of the worst things in the entire movie , second only to those damn sharks . Evidently , Fatima Blush put some sort of device on his scuba tank that attracted sharks ( granted , they did have weird guiding mechanisms of their own ) , in a scene that more than likely inspired the classic line , ' I have one simple request . And that is to have sharks with FRICKIN ' laser beams attached to their heads ! ' And then , of course , there is the exploding hotel room scene which was redone in an episode of The Simpsons , and which was obviously followed by another obligatory and overly casual one-liner from James . The domination video game created by Largo , the film's villain , is an especially memorable scene , and the film also boasts what is probably the best motorcycle chase in the entire series ( far to superior to the laughable one in Tomorrow Never Dies ) . But despite many strengths , the film's weaknesses are left clearer in the audience's mind at the end of the film due in large part to the anticlimactic underwater conclusion ( one of the more obvious parts borrowed from Thunderball , and inferiorly recreated ) . Never mind the fact that Largo revealed some crucial information to Bond as he left him in the tower alive ( Dr . Evil's brilliance , once again , ' I'll just leave him there without actually witnessing his death and just assume everything went to plan . What ? ' ) , the climax of what is expected to be a fast-paced action film should never take place in a muted underwater atmosphere . All in all , Never Say Never Again ranks very highly on the James Bond scale , and Connery's wink at the end of the film ( as well as the two closing lines ) suggested at the time that he may still return for another turn as Bond . Clearly , this is no longer very likely , so we can only hope . |
544,414 | 562,732 | 277,027 | 8 | Genuinely heartwarming but truly unrealistic . . . | The overarching tendency that I noticed in I Am Sam is that it is so good at making the audience root for Sam and his daughter Lucy to be able to stay together , but the better it is at that , the further it gets from reality . Very little is revealed about Lucy's conception beyond the fact that she was born from a homeless woman who " only wanted a place to sleep . " Granted , we don't need graphic details , but it's pretty hard to imagine Sam being involved in sexual or even romantic situation , much less being in a position to offer someone a place to sleep . The guy literally can't make a cup of coffee . Nevertheless , Lucy comes into the world and , despite having the " mental capacity of a 7 - year-old , " his love for Lucy is real and he desperately doesn't want to lose her . Where the movie really gains sympathy and is heartwarming is in Sam's struggle to understand why she's being taken away . He just wants to spend time with her and play with her and read to her and simply can't grasp what's so bad about that . I Am Sam is an actor's film . It's all about Dakota Fanning's performance as Lucy and Sean Penn's performance as Sam , both of which are astonishing . What is the deal with Dakota Fanning , by the way ? I can't understand that girl at all . She is one of the only actors I've ever seen who so consistently turns in nearly flawless performances , even in the otherwise disappointing Man On Fire , in which the managed to steal the show even from the great Denzel Washington . The girl was born in the mid-90s , for crying out loud ! The main problem with the film is that , while it's tremendously effective as a heartwarming tear-jerker , the bad guys are right . The lawyers fighting to have Lucy taken away and put into a foster home are portrayed almost as movie-villains , when in fact what they are fighting for is , in fact , in Lucy's best interest . It's not a genuine flaw , as I'll explain later , but I can understand the criticisms . It's not the best thing in the eyes of an 8-year-old girl or in the eyes of a movie audience , but in the real world , it's true that a man who struggle to read anything more complex than Dr . Seuss will have significant difficulties raising a daughter more than literally a matter of months after the age we see her in the movie . When Lucy wants to learn to drive or has boyfriend trouble , she will likely be much less interested in , as Ebert pointed out , helping her father with her own homework . But what the movie definitely does right is that , even though it's based on a massive fallacious myth ( " Love is all you need " is not at all true in any kind of relationship , parental , romantic , or otherwise ) , it does show the importance of people coming together to help each other . It's a thin line , but the movie is not about love , it's about caring . It's about everyone doing what is best for everyone else , not everyone doing what is best for Lucy , because that can be the worst thing for other people and , in turn , a terrible thing for Lucy . Laura Dern's character , Randy Carpenter , is introduced as a foster mother for which Lucy has not the slightest hint of affection ( " My dad's coming . Why don't you just go do something . . . " ) , and presents a stern front when Sam arrives . She sees him as a bit of a threat to her , in that he doesn't understand her emotions and needs , but as she begins to understand the relationship between Lucy and her father her tone changes by the end . Sam can't raise Lucy alone , and many people have criticized the movie for this , but it should be noted that the movie also understands this . It ends in the only way that it should ( and the only way that it could , as it were ) , and even though , like As Good As It Gets , it ends with the feeling that more difficulties are just around the corner , we get what we want . It's flawed but it's a huge achievement as well . And it's a great date movie ! |
544,681 | 562,732 | 120,587 | 8 | Smarter than A Bug's Life but not quite as fun . | I always love a good animated film or TV show that can entertain both children and adults , like Toy Story or Shrek or The Simpsons , and while Antz is definitely aimed at pleasing both its older and younger audience members , there is something about it that is not quite as fun as its animated counterpart . There were numerous movies that were released seemingly in pairs around the same time as Antz and A Bug's Life were released , with one of them being better or more successful than the other , and it's clear to me that A Bug's Life is the superior film in this case . Antz , however , is certainly brilliantly written ( like a lot of Woody Allen's best work ) , but unfortunately the film is not as versatile as I imagine was hoped . Part of the problem may just be that Woody Allen is so recognizable . From the second Z starts talking Allen's neurotic , spectacled face jumps off the screen at you as if he were really there , waving his arms frantically . But his character is given great lines and there is certainly a lot of charming characters . I am reminded of some other " animated " films in which the characters look and act like the actors doing their voices , like The Polar Express or the recent and highly disappointing A Scanner Darkly . Sylvester Stallone , Christopher Walken , and Danny Glover all star as their animated selves , and this is one of the movie's charms . The story , however , and especially the message , is amazing in its importance and clever delivery . We are introduced to a colony of ants that all mindlessly go about their age-old jobs supporting the hive , when suddenly one of them breaches that line that separates humans from animals , he starts thinking for himself . He begins to lament that his own personal needs are overlooked completely as he does everything to support the colony . There is a charming scene where all of the ants are dancing at a cleverly designed insect bar , and while they all dance in an insect-like unison , Z decides he's had enough of the conformity and cuts loose on the dance floor . He immediately charms the beautiful ( as beautiful as an insect can get , I guess ) and engaged Princess Bala , who is immediately drawn to his sense of freedom and individuality . There are a couple of militaristic ants , perfectly named General Mandible and Colonel Cutter and played by Gene Hackman and Christopher Walken , who are obsessed with the defense of the colony and want to divert all resources to the build up of the military . They even give the queen false reports of an impending invasion of the far superior termites in order to convince the queen that they must act before its too late . Lately I have been learning a lot about Chinese history , and this is astonishing in the similarity to the way Mao Tse-tung deliberately inflated the possibility of an impending American invasion of China so that he could convince Stalin to give him the resources and expertise needed to build a nuclear bomb . Or the way he would commonly instigate action from Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang so that he could make a massacre look like self - defense . Thankfully , when it happens in Antz it is much less scary ! The movie is filled with stunning visual sequences , many of them brilliantly inspired by the real lives of ants , with others that are clearly wild , but fun , flights of fancy . The animation is incredible and the script is intelligent , although there is just a tiny bit of Allen's unique style of comedy that doesn't fit very smoothly into an animated film , particularly one aimed mostly at adults . In a lot of ways , however , it does work . When praised for laughing in the face of death , Z comments in true Woody Allen form , " Actually I stand behind Death and make belittling comments at its back . " There is a noted absence of cute showtoons and cloying romance in the movie , which even features a surprising amount of battle violence , a lot of which may very well put off some of the movie's youngest audience members . But it's also revealing about some of the unique physical characteristics of ants , like the one about how dismemberment may not quite kill them , but not the one about how it's almost literally impossible to drown ants . They can live for weeks underwater , but are given a human-like need for oxygen for the benefit of the plot . The end of the movie is a fun romp into the world outside the colony , and our heroes are clearly unprepared . There are some clever and brilliant things that happen to Z and Princess Bala , like getting stuck in a piece of gum of the bottom of a shoe on their search for " Insectopia , " a picnic . But the most important thing about the movie is the message . It's not about being yourself , but about not being the same as everyone else . After Z's brief military experience , he potently remembers a life-changing piece of advice given to him there . " Don't follow orders for the rest of your life . " |
544,570 | 562,732 | 120,596 | 8 | A surprisingly delightful romantic comedy about the horrors of marriage ! | SPOILERS I was remarkably uninterested in this movie when I first heard about it . I just can't say that a romantic comedy starring Chris O'Donnell held any appeal for me , and to be perfectly honest , I can't even remember why I decided to watch it . Whatever led me to watch this film , I'm glad , because it was surprisingly amusing . There are certain reasons for watching a romantic comedy , and not all of them have to do with going out on your second date with your high school boyfriend or girlfriend . A good romantic comedy will have a quality romance element that will keep the female audience adequately interested , as well as enough good comedy to keep the attention of those guys who just can't get into the romance even a little bit ( oh , shut up , you know you had tears in your eyes ) . The Wedding Singer is a perfect example of a romantic comedy that fills these requirements in just the right proportions . In the case of The Bachelor , you don't have to be scared away just because Chris O'Donnell belongs in a romantic comedy only slightly more than someone like Jet Li or Steven Seagal does . There is an amusing plot that involves massive amounts of money that will be awarded to Jimmy Shannon ( O'Donnell ) if he married by his 30th birthday , which is inconveniently the next day . Now , as there are good things that a romantic comedy should strive for , such as all those described above , there are also horribly frustrating things that are unfortunately common in these films . To describe a couple of them stereotypically , there is the aggravatingly stubborn girlfriend , and the boyfriend who turns into a complete moron at just the right ( or wrong ) times . Jimmy's girlfriend , Anne ( Renee Zellweger ) , knows that Jimmy doesn't want to get married , and therefore makes a big fuss when he wants to get married because of this money . For crying out loud , it's a HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ! ! CONVINCE HIM LATER ! ! ! You'd think that she would at least keep the prenuptial agreement in mind before turning him down for being shallow . If anything , she should smack him if he's still hesitant to marry after being promised all this money ( in , by the way , an absolutely hilarious video will ) . But of course , we can't blame everything on the girl , right ? Of course not . Jimmy has the unenviable skill of invariably sticking his foot so far in his mouth at just the wrong moment that he'll have to have it surgically removed . He screws up proposal after proposal in the most idiotic ways , challenging the audience to keep from screaming out how stupid it is to daydream about horses on the helipad as he's proposing to Anne ( as they say , if you love your freedom , your marriage will fail ) , or to tell Zoe how far down on the list she is . Thankfully , however , frustrating nonsense like this , although sadly prevalent in the film , is satisfactorily countered by side-splitting comedy , a lot of which is embodied in the grumpy old grandfather with the loudspeaker ( ' PROCREATE ! ! ' ) . Other than the bonehead proposals that Jimmy gives to his ex-girlfriends , that part of the film was actually pretty well structured . The only one of them who actually agrees to marry him is pretty good looking but is also a greedy bich . And , as if that weren't bad enough , her name's BUCKley . I don't care how good looking you are , Buckley is the name of a redneck boy . On the other hand , at least she was honest that she was only interested in the marriage as a business arrangement . ( spoilers ) So as we near the end of the film , it becomes time for the happy ending to develop , so marriage is suddenly made to be a good thing . I think that this is true myself ( both of my parents are divorced , but are also each happily re-married ) , but the institution of marriage is clearly manipulated in this movie in order to further the plot in just the right way . Manipulative , yes , but also not necessarily excessive or even bad . We eventually encounter a happily married priest who calls marriage the best thing that ever happened to him , and this is basically what changes Jimmy's mind about the whole thing , which only leaves the task of finding Anne and getting her to believe that he really wants to marry her and to get the ceremony done in time to get the money promised in his grandfather's hilarious video will . Her train arrives at 5 : 50 , and he has to be married by 6 : 05 . Trains are ALWAYS late , but we'll ignore that for now . This is , of course , the time when he wakes up in church and gets mobbed by eager brides , who all begin spouting criteria at him for some mysterious reason , and then get mad at him for his preferences . He says that he likes blondes , and is ACCUSED by brunettes left and right for it . He should have said , ' No biches . ' There are some serious logical discrepancies in the final scene , such as the Where's Waldo-like scene of the brides mobbing the police car but parting calmly for Anne to pass through , as well as the fact that they all quiet down immediately when Anne's sister tells them to . There is a cheesy cutesy scene when Anne asks if this can please be her day , the crowd of angry brides mysteriously applauds when they are pronounced man and wife , and then the fat guy announces ' Cake for everybody ! ' which leaves us to wonder how they are to provide cake for everyone in that crowd when the cakes cost $800 each . Obviously not perfect , but as a whole , the film is entertaining and amusing , despite a lot of cheesy garbage , and it can be enjoyed for that . It didn't start out with a lot of promise , but I think that the movie came through . |
543,935 | 562,732 | 11,071 | 8 | Not bad . . . | I've seen better Buster Keaton short films , but this one still manages to portray the rather dreary fate of a man who finds himself in prison because an escaped convict switched clothes with him after he knocked himself unconscious with a golf ball . His is ultimately to be hung , and I think the film deserves respect for keeping you laughing even while a man gets a noose wrapped around his neck . The story involves Keaton's efforts to escape from the prison , oppressed at first by the prison guards holding him prisoner and then by a massive behemoth of a convict , who takes control of the small prison by knocking out all of the guards with a sledge hammer ( in a rather entertaining sequence where he smacks them all one by one and they pile up like the police cars in Blues Brothers 2000 ) at right about the same time that Keaton manages to switch clothes with one of them in order to help himself escape . Lots of clever slapstick gags , some of which may have influenced Chaplin's work in Pay Day , made a couple years later , make this an entertaining short from one of the giants of silent film comedy . |
544,515 | 562,732 | 130,529 | 8 | The Cane Mutiny ! ! | The unnatural history of the introduction of cane toads into Australia is a hilarious documentary about what is certainly one of the most foolish of history's human attempts at changing their environment for their own advantage . It is almost sickening to consider the sheer numbers of these hideous creatures that were crawling all over north eastern Australia , as well as the absolute , unfiltered stupidity that led to their being brought into Australia in the first place . There does not appear to have been much more thought put into their introduction onto the continent other than they share part of the name of the pests that they were brought to eradicate . I doubt very much , for example , that anyone looked much deeper into the nature ( most importantly the feeding and mating habits ) of the cane toads before they were brought over . Mating habits is something that most certainly should have been investigated , as the cane toad's sex drive is proven to be so strong that they are willing and able to attempt to mate with everything from a shoe to a human hand to a squashed and VERY dead cane toad . It's almost as though the people who brought these things into Australia said ' CANE toads , CANE grubs . Of COURSE ! ! ' From the frightening shot of the little girl early in the documentary lovingly playing with one of the ridiculously unattractive toads to the other little girl playing with one of the ridiculously unattractive creatures near the end of the documentary , Cane Toads is a testament to the sheer extent of the human capacity for stupidity . It's amazing to me how friendly some people became with the creatures , which seem to be some of the most resilient creatures on earth , due to their ability to eat just about anything smaller than themselves and their almost total lack of any predators ( except , of course , for the speeding tires of fed up Australians ) . Resilience , however , does not equal aesthetic appeal , as the cane toads are some of the most repulsive creatures I've ever seen . Cane Toads takes a natural approach to looking at an environment plagued by a pest that was destroying a certain crop , and then takes a strange turn when it introduces the fact that humans introduced another pest in hopes of reducing the problem but succeeded only in greatly increasing them . It's an extremely unusual documentary , and it shows the perspectives on what I can't escape calling some of the more backwards specimens of the human species . Definitely an entertaining documentary , just remember that one of the natural rules of life requires that you do not look at a cane toad while you're eating . I only tell you this because I wish someone had told ME that before I watched the movie ! |
544,542 | 562,732 | 289,879 | 8 | Note to self : Don't write anything down . Wait , maybe I better not write this ? | The Butterfly Effect , unfortunately marketed as most notable because of a turn from idiot comedy to strong dramatic performance by Ashton Kutcher , begins with a title explaining one of the tenets of Chaos Theory , specifically that a butterfly flapping its wings starts a chain reaction of events that can result in a hurricane on the other side of the planet . Interestingly , a theory which has almost nothing to do with this movie . This movie is not about a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a hurricane tens of thousands of miles away , it's about a butterfly that flaps its wings , deciding to fly intself toward a deadly spiderweb or toward a safe open field of sweet flowers , and the effects that that single decision has on that same butterfly's future life , not on the weather occurrences on the other side of the planet . Kutcher plays Evan Treborn , a kid who inherited a thinly described mental disorder from his father , who has lived most of Evan's life in a hospital for the criminally insane . The specifics of his disorder are not important , as the effects are explained by the movie . We meet Evan as a young boy , creating concerns among the school staff by drawing a picture of a knife-wielding person standing over a lot of bloody corpses when asked to draw a picture of what he wanted to be when he grew up . Grisly , yes , but the artistic ability in the drawing is stunning . It should have been more childishly drawn were it's artistic competence to garner not a single mention from the teachers so worried about it . In order to work toward a solution to the problem , the school psychologist suggests having Evan begin to keep a journal , sort of as a way to map out his thoughts and see if they might be able to find out what happens in the periods when Evan ' loses the time , ' as Aaron Stampler from Primal Fear described his similar experiences . These journals later in Evan's life provide him the opportunity to sort of mentally travel through time and change occurrences that happened in order to change the disastrous future . When I think about the change brought about by the small things that Evan goes back and changes , I'm reminded of a film released last year called Thirteen ( which , at the time of this writing , I haven't seen ) . Parents may find themselves disturbed at how Thirteen presents how easily a perfect daughter can be turned horribly wrong by hanging out with the wrong people . Incidentally , this is where a thin version of the above-mentioned Chaos Theory comes into play in The Butterfly Effect . The difference between a butterfly causing a hurricane by flapping its wings and the chains of events in this movie is that the butterfly flapping its wings falls victim to a fallacy of logical thinking called ' post hoc , ergo prompter hoc ' ( ' After this , therefore because of this ' ) . Certainly an interesting theory , but one that can never be proven because no hurricane could ever be traced back to a single event that , had it never taken place , might have resulted in the absence of the hurricane . The Butterfly Effect's version is much simpler . The path of life has many forks , and different choices in life lead to different futures . A Simpson's episode that dealt with this exact idea comes to mind . In an amusing alteration of a famous science fiction story , Homer manages to build a time machine out of something that only he could build a time machine from ? a toaster . Back in the time of the dinosaurs , he accidentally squishes a bug , then travels back to the present to find the world totally transformed . Ned Flanders as the all-powerful diddly-dictator , his family extremely classy but without the existence of donuts ( too much for Homer to bear , so he tragically travels back again to fix it before realizing that donuts fall from the sky like rain ) , they're back to normal but eat with their tongues like lizards , etc . Each time he travels back in time , he changes something and returns to the present to find things completely different . The difference in The Butterfly Effect is that the things that Evan changes affect only him and his friends , and apparently no one else . Evan has grown up to be a productive college student , studying psychology in hopes of learning something about his troubled past . I won't go into how odd it is that he reveals deeply disturbing things about himself as well as having been forced to perform in a child pornography video and yet nothing ever came of it ( maybe no one ever read his journals , just like they never noticed his obvious artistic brilliance because they were too concerned over his extensive use of the red crayon ? ) , because the important thing is that he is later able to read through these old journal entries as a sort of portal to travel back to the time at which they were written so that he can change events that had tragic affects on the lives of him and his friends . There are scenes in The Butterfly Effect that are genuinely scary , and the film itself has a thoroughly creepy feel throughout ( not the least reason for which is a gigantic amount of hugely disturbing scenes involving the characters as children - many of which went beyond the extent necessary in order to get their point across ) . These are , incidentally , the reason that the film at many points becomes campy and callous , surely inspiring a good portion of the many negative reviews of the film . Little kids acting in ways that little kids are not supposed to act can be pretty funny , that's why South Park was such a huge hit , but I could certainly have done with significantly less profanity and violence from them ( maybe a few less vicious death threats and one or two fewer 2X4's to the face would have been beneficial ) . The logic behind the traveling back in time and the mechanisms of the switches from one reality to the next is never very clearly explained , although given the scope of the swinging from present to past and back and forth again , had it been shown it would really have been a rather trivial issue . The jumps back in time are interesting in that Evan is literally able to jump into his younger self , speaking and acting as an adult though still a young boy , quickly and efficiently changing specific events and thus instantly altering the future ( although not eradicating from his own memory the alternate future that he just fixed , even though he fixed things so that they never even happened ? thus enters the paradoxes always involved with time travel ) . There are also things that don't make sense on a logical level in the movie . Here's a question , for example - if Evan knew about what was going to happen when the lady walks over to her mailbox with her baby , why did he run up and stand right in front of it when he went back to prevent their deaths ? You would think that he would have anticipated the blast , since he knew exactly when it was going to happen . I liked The Butterfly Effect a lot more than I thought I would , I had heard a lot of bad things about it . It's strange in that it starts off with a very interesting premise , then starts to get a little rough and border at times on being campy , but ultimately comes around full circle and I found myself more impressed than I anticipated when I saw the story come around and explain why it started the way it did and what the beginning scene meant . It's one of those films that starts right in the middle ( maybe because even the film doesn't understand Evan's mind ) , and then ultimately comes back to that point , gradually revealing the meaning of the film as a whole . Leave the kids and most of your desire to apply logic to the movies at home and it's thoroughly enjoyable . |
544,241 | 562,732 | 264,935 | 8 | Objection ! ! Leading ! | I almost didn't watch Murder By Numbers , for two reasons . First , I'm not the biggest Sandra Bullock fan , but second and more importantly , the trailer does not do the movie justice at all . In fact , I would advise against watching the trailer , because it will almost destroy all interest in watching the movie , like it did to me . The problem is that the trailer gives the impression that Murder By Numbers is a murder mystery with no mystery , because it is obvious from the start that there is no question as to who the murderers are . It leaves you with the feeling that if you watch the preview , you've seen the movie . Kind of like what happened with Pleasantville . It is not long before it becomes clear that this is not a murder mystery , it's a murder thriller . True , there is never any question about who the killers are , but the point of the movie is the chess game that they play with the investigators on their trail . It is difficult to accept Sandra Bullock as a CSI , but at least in the second half of the film she pulls it off . In the first half she was going through the motions , for some reason not really seeming to believe what she was saying , or who she was supposed to be in the film . Of course , this is all just my reaction , I could be completely wrong . On the negative side , the movie comes dangerously close to glorifying the Columbine shootings , although it features one rich popular kid and one recluse as the killers , while Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were both outcasts lashing out against the popular crowd . Richard , the popular kid , displays some odd behavior in his friendship with Justin , the recluse . He seems to think that they're dating and acts like an over-protective , jealous boyfriend , generating much of his rage from times when Justin doesn't pay enough attention to him or , even worse , kisses a girl . Justin is the brains behind the operation , having studied in great detail the investigative practices that would follow their master plan , Richard is the motivation . He really wants to do this , and the only reason that he ever gives in the movie is that he was bored . A true sociopath . On the other hand , maybe it was Richard who felt like the outcast , given his lack of success with the girls . Granted , he didn't seem to have any trouble getting in bed with the girl Justin was interested in in order to turn him against her , but consider the reaction that he always seemed to get from Lisa , which was limited to obscene hand gestures . He was , of course , of the variety of high school kids who thought that the good way to get a girl's attention was to drive up next to her blasting Iron Maiden at full volume and flashing the devil's horns . Charming . Maybe if he had tried some more romantic Iron Maiden than The Number of the Beast , like Seventh Son of a Seventh Son , or Infinite Dreams . Chicks love Infinite Dreams . The movie has a lot to say about the bureaucracy of criminal investigations , as Cassie Mayweather ( Bullock ) struggles to follow the strong leads that she has come across , while her boss attempts to force her to stop investigating the crime , already intent on closing the case with the tentative conclusion already reached . I'm not sure if this is meant to portray him as simply wanting the case over and done with or to show that he really doesn't care whether the real killer ( s ) is / are ever caught , as long as someone goes down for the crime . Either way it's not a very glowing portrayal of authority figures . Then again , Cassie , being the only flaw in their plan , is meant to come across as this sort of reckless independent investigator , in one of the very few weak things about this movie . That's what every movie like this does . There is always someone who is forced to give up on a case because they're too close to it ( the victim was a relative , lover , etc . ) , because they are a liability ( they know the killer , the killer knows them , etc . ) , or because they are too dangerous ( they destroyed half a city block and lost a lot of evidence ) . In this case , Cassie's forced to leave the case because she has found clues that might lead her to the real killers . Nice . Pretty weak way to generate suspense , but overall with some good twists this is still a pretty entertaining thriller . |
544,861 | 562,732 | 89,424 | 8 | Excellent story , but a little slow and boring at some points . | Kiss of the Spider Woman takes the classic man undercover story and throws just about every twist into it that you can think of . William Hurt plays Luis Molina , a homosexual who is being held in a South American prison peppered with political prisoners , and is sharing a cell with Valentin Arregui , who happens to be one of those political prisoners . The Great Depression in the early 1930s was ironically one of the most successful periods in history for the cinema , because the main reason for going to the movies ( which filmmakers were very aware of ) was escapism . Films were made that were meant to help people forget temporarily about their dreary and poverty-stricken everyday lives . Although Kiss of the Spider Woman does not take place in the 30s , the film starts off with Molina dictating ( no pun intended ) to Valentin the events that take place in his favorite romance film , which Valentin quickly identifies as a Nazi propaganda film . Valentin disapproves of Molina's romantic love for such a film , but ultimately comes to admire the way that he uses it so successfully as a form of escapism from the miserable prison . ( spoilers ) We eventually find out that Molina is being used to try to get information out of Valentin , information that failed to be achieved through torture , and the main conflict of the film comes from Molina's struggle about whether he wants to betray Valentin in order to reduce his own sentence , or if he wants to honor their newly formed but very strong friendship . Some of the best moments of the film come from Molina's demands from the police , saying that they are normal and if they are not met , Valentin will become suspicious and will not divulge the desired information . He manages to get the increasingly suspicious police to provide several deliveries of exotic foods to the two men , who are both hardly able to stand the prison food , which Valentin refers to one time as ' glue . ' The other plot that takes place in the story is the development of Molina's and Valentin's friendship . These are two extremely different men , and the friendship that develops between them is extremely unlikely but the film manages to make it believable , which is one of the movie's more noteworthy strong points . I could have done without the sex scene , but you have to admit that it signified an extremely powerful bond between the two men , particularly because we know that Valentin is not homosexual , and this bond comes into play later when Molina decides not to turn on him . The end of the film does not really fit the artful style of the rest of the movie , and it gets very slow at many points , but the quality is unmistakably there . |
544,251 | 562,732 | 437,696 | 8 | Morgan Spurlock continues the 30 days theme , with spotty success . | Given the sheer brilliance and immediate importance of Super Size Me , I was eager to see Morgan Spurlock's next project , the unscripted documentary series " 30 Days . " Within a few minutes into the first episode , it becomes clear that he is going to use the same structure as he used in his feature documentary , but it also becomes clear that there are a great many subjects and issues in the country and in the world that could use the old Spurlock treatment , if not to solve them , to at least call people's attention to them . In that way , I would say that the series is already a success . Sadly , I doubt his documentary ( or even the far superior book - and upcoming , almost surely inferior movie - Fast Food Nation ) has had the impact that he had hoped for and America ( and our health ) really need , but it is certainly a step in the right direction . The basis of this series is that each week someone is taken out of their daily lives and placed into the lives of someone else , someone either polarly different from them , or who leads a lifestyle that is morally , politically , religiously , or some way abhorrent or unacceptable for whatever reason . The Binge Drinking Mom , for example , was abhorred by her daughter's kamikaze-style partying , as was the straight guy by all of the gays that he was surrounded by for a month , and the Christian found himself unwilling and unable to follow many of the customs of the Muslims with whom he lived in his episode . Many of the episodes are astonishing in their ability to illuminate the plight of some of the people in this country , such as the first episode , about our nation's ridiculous minimum wage , as well as to really change and heal uninformed and prejudicial feelings and beliefs , such as the episode where the straight man lives with a gay man for a month . There are true differences and real friendships made , not some contrived piece of claptrap staged for the passing cameras . Then again , some episodes reveal something of a lack of ideas , or at least a failed experiment . The Binge Drinking Mom episode , for example , is stunning in its pointlessness and absurdity , almost as if it belonged in a different series . There is absolutely no sense of realism or positive change anywhere in the episode . If anything , it is the mother whose weakness should be focused on , given the pathetically wan behavior she exhibits when confronted with her daughter's belligerent behavior . She hangs her head in submission as her daughter puts her hand in her face to shut her up about her partying as she answers her ringing cell phone and complains to one of her friends about her pain-in-the-ass mom . Had mom calmly reached over ( as mine surely would have done ) , taken the phone out of her daughter's hand , snapped it in half and laid the pieces onto the table , and then laid down the law , she would have gotten her daughter's attention , at least for the remainder of the time that they spent at the table . Instead , the mother's ensuing drinking experiment comes off as a tired plea of desperation which neither the daughter nor the audience can ever take seriously . Nevertheless , the series as a whole has a lot of good points to make about everything from drinking to religion to sexual orientation , and it is lucky in that it has a pretty open-ended premise . As long as there are problems in America , theoretically it could go on forever . Although given the problem of the diminishing American attention span , much of America , myself included ( although not for lack of interest ) , may soon be on the lookout for what Morgan's got up his other sleeve . |
544,371 | 562,732 | 124,819 | 8 | You can't hold the cheesiness against it . | Orgazmo is the kind of movie that is cheesy to the point that it's obviously meant to be that way . You can't watch a movie like this and think even for a second that it is meant to be taken seriously , or even that it takes itself seriously . And all of this is clear just from looking at the cover box , so you know from the minute that you pick the movie up that you are about to watch an extremely goofball comedy . With that in mind , you can really appreciate Orgazmo for what it is . Trey Parker and Matt Stone , the famous creators of South Park and the hilarious BASEketball , have returned with another comedy , this one with much less taste but at least as many laughs . Orgazmo is the story of a Mormon missionary who inadvertently winds up starring in an adult film in Los Angeles , but who never seems to lose his faith . Trey Parker plays Elder Young , the above-mentioned missionary , and also writes and directs this unusually amusing b-movie . Orgazmo is a straightforward film that has a very obvious intent . It is aimed at the same audience as other infinitely inferior movies like Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2 , but it actually succeeds because its creators have some filmmaking talent that goes beyond a simple purge of every disgusting joke that they learned in fourth grade . Parker and Stone are just naturally funny guys , as has become obvious by now , which is why they have managed to take the potential-free combination of the porn industry and a tiny budget and make it into a hilarious comedy . Trey Parker plays Elder Young , a missionary assigned to do his mission work in Hollywood , and in a hilarious run-in with porn director Max Orbison , he ends up defending himself against a gang of thugs and thereby earning a high paying position as the leading man in Orbison's newest porno . Seduced by the offer of a huge amount of money , which he plans to spend on a house for himself and his ridiculous girlfriend ( ' Jesus and I love you ! ' ) , Young agrees to take on the role , provided he doesn't have to do any actual intercourse . Sound like the makings for a great comedy ? No ? Exactly ! That's what makes it so good ! This material is total crap , but that's where the comedy comes from ! This is a spoof of lots of different types of films , not the least of which are martial arts films , for reasons which you'll just have to watch the movie to see , and it succeeds on many different levels . The characters are hilarious ( there is a truly classic moment when Choda Boy explains to Young that , believe it or not , he doesn't get a lot of action from women . The fact that he's strapping a dildo to the top of his head might have something to do with that . ) , and there are just some great scenes . The movie is aware of its place , and it doesn't try to pretend that it is something that it's not . Get a bunch of your buddies together and have a couple beers while you watch this movie , you'll love it . |
544,910 | 562,732 | 93,773 | 8 | Welcome to the jungle , baby ? | Consider that so many of the roles that Arnold Schwarzenegger takes on are so similar , including Predator , and yet this film is so much better than most of the others . I enjoy watching his movies just because he's such a watch-able guy , even in his bad movies ( which are many ) , but I think the thing that really makes Predator stand out is its simplicity . The movie starts , the guys get dropped in the jungle , lots of blood and carnage flies across the screen , and the movie simply ends . No romance , no complex back story , no soldier struggling with problems in his past or even trauma caused by the horrible things he experiences during the movie . This is one of the things that made First Blood so good . It may turn out to be a movie about a lot of muscle-bound meatheads in the woods , but it doesn't insult the audience or try to apply complexity to a story that can't support it . Interestingly , the movie features two eventual governors . Jesse Ventura even wrote a book which was released while he was the governor of Minnesota and he used his favorite line in this movie as the title . And the book's actually pretty interesting ; there are some funny stories in it about things that went on while they were filming this movie . Arnold , on the other hand , is actually ( and thankfully ) given a relatively small amount of stupid one-liners , which are an idiotic byproduct of hard action movies that I've never really understood the necessity for . They don't reveal anything about the characters who say them , they don't add to the story or further the plot , and with rare exceptions , they're not funny . But I guess comic relief has to come from somewhere , and since complexity is not a requisite for movies like this , I can't really expect a lot of thought being put into the comedic content either . I watched Predator having never seen it from beginning to end and having just re-watched the original Alien . I am currently in the process of re-watching both series ' , for obvious reasons . One thing that I notice about both of them is the way they take their time in introducing the enemies which , in both films , are aliens . Predator doesn't waste much time dwelling on the origin of the alien , we pretty much assume it came from a space ship that flashed across the screen at the opening of the movie . Alien , on the other hand , went into remarkable detail about where its alien came from . What Predator does do , very effectively , I think , is that it has the guys fighting some very human enemies , which allows the movie to later take its sweet time in having them realize that the new enemy is not human at all . This is also , incidentally , weakly rehashed in the sequel , using the secrecy of this mission and team as an excuse to have more guys who don't know what's going on . The death scenes are actually pretty tasteful , given the genre . They are just gory enough to illustrate the violence of the enemy without being gratuitous . Just enough is shown to show how vicious the alien is , and there are some strange things done to and with the bodies that make you wonder about the alien's intentions or needs . The first deaths suggest vengeance if not some sort of ritual , but later ones suggest that the alien may be feeding off of his ( or her ) victims . Oddly enough , it is not until the awful Predator 2 that we learn that it kills for sport . Yes , the movie occasionally gets embarrassingly macho , but the skill with which it is put together far overshadows any tough-guy goofiness . Consider , for example , the ease with which the movie switches from showing the guys hunting the alien to their realization that they are the ones being hunted . In some cases , this transition takes place during a single shot and with virtually no movement in the shot at all except a change in someone's expression . It is truly a fight between a group of predators , which we understand because they are human like us , and a single predator whose powers and weaknesses are unknown . It's not Oscar material , needless to say , but it's a great action movie in part because it already knows that . |
544,689 | 562,732 | 60,794 | 8 | Faster , pussycat . . . | This is a surprisingly effective horror film , since I got it on a collection of 10 old horror movies for $15 . I have three or four other ten horror movie collections and have only seen one or two films from them . I wonder how many more are actually worth watching ? I have a love of really old and even really bad horror movies , For some reason terrible old horror movies can be a ton of fun to watch , while terrible new horror movies just come off as exploitative and stupid ( Cabin Fever , Wrong Turn , House of the Dead , etc . ) . In Mario Bava's 1966 horror classic , Kill , Baby , Kill , there have been some mysterious deaths in a small village , the isolation and pure strangeness of which reminds me of the town from The Wicker Man . Evidently a seven year old girl burned to death 20 years earlier and continues to haunt the town . Anybody that she reveals herself to almost immediately dies a terrible death which will look like suicide to any subsequent investigation . As was also the case in The Wicker Man , the outside detective assigned to the case gradually questions his certainty that it's all just some kind of superstitious hysteria . He initially explains the phenomena as poverty and ignorance , combined with superstition . A dangerous combination , to be sure . Bava takes this premise and does all kinds of cinematic trickery with it , much more than is common in horror . He makes psychological use of lighting and color , expertly frames his shots within outstanding sets ( seriously , even the bad ones are good ) , and delivers the surprisingly complex story with a level of skill rarely seen in the genre . He makes good use of the quick zoom lens and such ever-effective horror film tools as children and hallways ( Kubrick was surely influenced by this film when he made The Shining , we have the ghost of a little girl , the creepy hallways , even the ghostly bouncing ball ) and does some great things with a spiral staircase . I expected the movie to be terrible , at least because of the collection in which it is contained , although I guess I should be careful about assuming that a 10-movie horror collection that comes out to $1 . 50 per movie will be full of bad ones . One of my other collections has the original House on Haunted Hill and Night of the Living Dead , for example , but I didn't expect many more that would be any good . Kill , Baby , Kill , though , is certainly an overlooked gem . |
544,055 | 562,732 | 290,003 | 8 | That nativity scene is too much for me ! | In a lot of ways I am surprised at the sheer simplicity of these old Bean TV shows , but that nativity scene was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in one of his shows . It reminds me of Chaplin's dance of the dinner rolls . It is so simple , but clearly a stroke of true genius . Recently I watched all of Chaplin's earliest comedies , and now as I watch these Bean episodes , it's clear to me that Bean is the closest thing that we have to the great silent comedy . He is essentially a silent slapstick artist like the old greats like Chaplin and Keaton and Fatty Arbuckler , but with his own personality . Bean definitely lives in his own little world ! I have to say that I was less than impressed with the turkey preparation scene , it's just a little too , ah , meaty for me . I love eating meat , but something about a gigantic raw turkey getting stuck on someone's head is a little off-putting to me . But the nativity scene , the Christmas stockings , and other things like the tainted clams scenes are definite classics ! |
544,370 | 562,732 | 93,870 | 8 | Classic action ? | Paul Verhoeven's ambitious action masterpiece was a huge success at the time of its release in 1987 , but I tend to think that it would not be nearly a successful if a film like it had been released today . Action and science fiction movies have come a long way since the 80's , and it's also no secret that the success of Robocop owes a huge amount to it's far superior predecessor , The Terminator , but Robocop is also very much able to stand on its own . The first Teminator film , released in 1984 , is undeniably the film that really launched interest in the whole man vs . machine / cyborg theme , Robocop came along a few years later and renewed that interest , then we had a pathetic installment called Cyborg from Van Damme in 1989 , a couple of mediocre Robocop sequels , and of course , the stunningly successful and well-made Terminator 2 : Judgement Day . Robocop is separated from The Terminator most significantly in that the entire movie takes place in the future and there is not time travel ( other than that ) involved . The conflict here is not necessarily between man and machine , but between man and man where machine is used as a weapon between the two . It is definitely a more basic version of the almost universal good vs . evil story structure , with man on either end of the story in this case and each with their own superhuman robot to fight the other with . The story is thankfully complicated by the involvement of a gang of tremendously hardcore criminals who work for the bad guys at OCP but are not necessarily controlled by them , which leaves open a lot of possibilities in the plot and prevents it from being entirely predictable . Robocop is definitely among the most violent non-Scorsese films out there , almost to the point of being nauseating . This is definitely not something to show to the kids ( although my parents allowed me to watch it over and over when I was a kid myself ? I don't know how I could stand it ) , but it's good for something to watch when you're in the mood for what seems to be a really bad action movie that somehow managed to succeed . The movie is well written and well-acted ( although some of the criminals in the film were exaggerated to the point of amusement ) , and has some startlingly realistic special effects , especially the shootings ( although I've never actually seen anyone get shot before , so I can only assume that that's what it looks like ) . Robocop is almost like a cult classic , because someone who watches it now for the first time is not likely to enjoy it very much although original fans are likely to defend the film to no end , but it is definitely among the best of director Paul Verhoeven's U . S . films , which include mediocre productions like Showgirls and Hollow Man . This movie is undoubtedly more violent than most people are likely to enjoy , but if there is a place in modern cinema for gratuitous violence ( and I tend to think that there is ) then it is in movies like Robocop . It is a movie that was never meant to win any Academy Awards , and it earns respect by not pretending that it is . |
544,284 | 562,732 | 264,796 | 8 | No wonder Hayden Christensen got that role in Episode II ? | Life As A House tells the story of an aging man diagnosed with terminal cancer who makes one of those deathbed conversions from a hopeless slob and absentee father into someone who wants to reunite himself with his son and rebuild the shack that he has been living in for most of his life , much of which was spent with a wife that he had been promising a new house to throughout nearly their entire marriage . Hayden Christensen plays exactly the same role that he played in Episode II , a whiny little brat , with the exception that in this movie , he ultimately grows to love his father , who he has no relationship with and no desire to start one now . I saw Attack of the Clones before I saw Life As A House , and I think that part of Christensen's skill as an actor is that he can be so aggravatingly whiny , although I'm not sure I would consider that a skill . His teenage angst came through fairly well in Life As A House , but he overacts so much that he is almost completely unconvincing . ( spoilers ) As a whole , the film is about overcoming old grudges and getting people back together , even if this reunion is the result only of an impending death . The obligatory happy ending is certainly noticeable , but it's not entirely unsatisfying . At the risk of sounding morbid , I'm glad that they didn't go so far as to find some sort of miracle sure for George ( Kevin Kline ) , but instead let him pass on and have the rest of his characters accept his death and for his son to complete the mission that he set out to do . The painful growing of the relationship between George and his son was effectively portrayed , but weighted down only by the nerve-grating performance from Christensen . The film ends on a strong note in that it is not so weak as to have Sam , the son , give in completely and live happily ever after in his father's dream house , and even the sappy portion , giving the house as a gift to a woman who was the victim of a car accident in which George was involved years and years earlier , is not so sappy that it makes you roll your eyes and say here we go again as the movie switches to auto-pilot . There are so many people in our society that have been victims of any kind of unfortunate circumstance that it is good to see someone do something for them , even if only in the movies . Helping out those who are less fortunate is a powerful message for a Hollywood movie to deliver , and Life As A House does that , with only the most minor and excusable drawbacks . |
543,748 | 562,732 | 60,834 | 8 | Amusing short Pink Panther cartoon . | The Pink Blueprint involves the Pink Panther's efforts to replace a construction workers boring blueprints with one of his own , which would result in the construction of a crazy looking futuristic house . He and the worker get into a funny competition of sorts , each trying to use the same construction site to build totally different buildings . It's set up in a series of short scenes that each involve a run-in between the two as they work on their projects , and the Pink Panther is generally the winner of these confrontations , which usually end in some hilarious mishaps for the poor construction guy . The film is pretty dated , but it's still pretty entertaining , and it features an unexpected ending in which the Pink Panther does not exactly get the last laugh . I saw this short film on a videotape with the fourth James Bond film , Thunderball . Both were good shows . |
544,350 | 562,732 | 289,941 | 8 | Mr . Bean stumbles belligerently through a series of routine daily events , each one going horribly wrong and treating the audience to another dose of unintentional hilarity as only Bean can . | This is the first time I have seen any of the old Bean TV shows that aired in the UK before the movie was released here in the states in 1997 . I was reminded of some of Roberto Benigni's older films , such as Johnny Stecchino , which I watched because I was endlessly impressed with Life Is Beautiful . As in Benigni's case , the comedy in Bean's older TV show is virtually identical to that in his movie . Some of the scenes go on for a little too long , such as the diving board scene , but there are some scenes that just about knocked me off the couch I was laughing so hard , such as the television scene . When Bean is inching along the chair on his belly , crawling steadily closer to the TV so he can see it , he finally gets to a point where he can see the screen , and the second he turns his head toward it the reception goes out again . Believe me , this is a lot funnier in the show than it is in my review . It was totally predictable but completely side-splitting , I loved it . The swimming pool scene is followed by two only slightly less amusing skits , one involving a remarkably complex lunch in the park that just goes all wrong in the end and the other involving a date to a horror movie which , as with the diving board scene , goes on for a little too long . The next episode contains three more scenes that are entertaining in their own little Beany way , but none of which come close to the TV scene in the first episode . There is also a bonus skit at the end during which Bean makes extensive and hilarious efforts to get to the front of the line at the bus stop , even going so far as to cut in front of a mother with a baby carriage and to trick a blind man into thinking that the bus is there and then stepping into the street . I think we all know how this ends , and it's strange that Bean's comedy can be so predictable and still be so entertaining . Excellent source of light comedy and even insightfulness , at least in that it is interesting ( although obvious ) to consider why the bus stop skit was not previously shown on television . Not exactly the most intellectual entertainment , but the quality is there . |
544,146 | 562,732 | 4,637 | 8 | One of the better plots . . . | For about the first two thirds of The Landlady's Pet ( that's the real title , by the way - The Star Boarder was the former title , but ultimately it was changed ) it seems that it is going to come across as three distinctly separate parts - the first third , where Charlie is the " star boarder , " the landlady's favorite lodger to the chagrin of her jealous husband , the drunken scene , and the obnoxious son's disruptive magic lantern show . But as soon as the lantern show begins it becomes clear that it is going to tie the rest of the film together , which is something that Chaplin wasn't doing much during that first year making Keystone short comedies for Mack Sennett . The drunken scene is sort of a straggler , it doesn't seem to have any reason for being there other than that Chaplin can do it so well ( so well , in fact , that Robert Downey Jr . included it as part of his performance in the phenomenal 1992 film about Chaplin's life ) , the conclusion of the film and the tying up of loose ends is a welcome surprise . Watch for Gordon Griffith , a mainstay in Chaplin's earliest films , stealing the show as the landlady and her husband's obnoxious son . It's easy to see why Chaplin kept casting him in his films ! |
543,893 | 562,732 | 76,752 | 8 | 007 entering the computerized age ? | The Spy Who Loved Me starts off slow with a less than impressive opening scene but ultimately is one of the better films in the series . It's about a supervillain named Karl Stromberg who has isolated himself from society in a massive underwater lair that reminds me of the Nautilus from Jules Verne's " 20 , 000 Leagues Under the Sea . " Like Captain Nemo , Stromberg prefers an ocean life because of the peace and tranquility of the underwater world . When he meets Bond , he asks him , " Why do we seek to conquer space when seven tenths of our universe remains to be explored ? " But even his lofty his goal of creating an underground city is not his master plan . He has also built a super-tanker large enough to open up the jaws of its bow and swallow entire nuclear submarines and use them for his own ends . When the British and the Russians each find that they're missing a nuclear submarine , a massive hunt is started to find out what happened to them . The concern , needless to say , is understandable . I am curious as to why the subs didn't have ANY kind of tracking system installed in them . I mean , I realize this was before the time of LoJack , but these are not old Hondas , they're nuclear freaking submarines ! Maybe the most amazing thing in the movie is that both the British and Soviets somehow overcame the embarrassment of having lost one of the most powerful and expensive pieces of military technology in their mutual arsenals long enough to realize that the other had the same problem ! I'm just imagining the conversation ? " Yeah , London ? This is Moscow . We seem to have misplaced a nuclear sub , so if you run into one , could you give us a holler ? . . . . What ? You're missing one , TOO ? ! Oh , thank God ! We thought we were the only ones ! " Bond is obliged to team up with Russian agent XXX , a beautiful woman who's fiancé he killed in the movie's opening sequence . It's a tense relationship , as she tells him that as soon as their mission is accomplished , she will kill him too . Also notable about this movie is that it is a bit more violent than most of the Bond films , especially the more recent ones . Bond kills a surprising number of people , some of them almost in cold blood . The Spy Who Loved Me is the movie that introduced the unstoppable henchman Jaws , a steel-toothed giant played by Richard Kiel . Jaws was so popular that he was brought back for the next Bond film , Moonraker , although he never once utters a word . I'm guess it's because it would be so hard for Kiel to get anything out around those alloy dentures . I loved the wild villanousness of the bad guy in The Spy Who Loved Me . No simple murder mystery or enormous embezzlement scheme , this Stromberg wanted to start a war between Britain and the Soviet Union , knowing that global destruction would follow , paving the way for him to , as Homer Simpson once put it , " start a new life under the sea . " Of all the outlandishly nutty schemes ! This is the kind of thing that could only ever exist in a James Bond movie , and it makes for one of the more entertaining entries in the series . |
544,257 | 562,732 | 274,546 | 8 | In a time when horror movies have become direct-to-video crap or cheesy first-run crap , how is it that the Hellraiser movies are among the least noticed and yet probably the most clever and impressive sequel | The beginning of the fifth Hellraiser sequel raises something of a moral dilemma , which is extremely rare for a horror movie . After the car crash , Trevor , our hero , escapes from the car after it sinks to the bottom of the river and he rushes to the surface to get air , then returns to attempt to save his wife . At that point , my immediate reaction was that he deserves any suffering that comes to him , since he left his wife on the bottom of the river to go and try to save himself . On the other hand , it probably wouldn't have done much good had he remained down there and lost consciousness right there with her . I guess that's why they tell you on the airlines to secure your own oxygen mask and THEN help your kid . But while this early scene inspired in me an unusually complex combination of thoughts and emotions , it unfortunately is unable to escape from the destructive presence of reality on the possibility of it happening the way it did . I am willing to suspend disbelief on the premise that the guy was screaming at his wife underwater through the window , watching her drown right in front of his blurred eyes and therefore not necessarily able to think all that clearly , but on the other hand , riverbeds have an overwhelming tendency to be covered with big , round , hard , window-breaking rocks . When the investigation begins , things start to get a little strange and we begin to realize that there is something weird about what happened in that crash . Evidently the car was found with the doors open , which puts some serious holes in the story about not being able to get the doors open to save his wife . It turns out that he has come back with a spotted memory , and that the crash that we saw at the beginning of the movie may not have been exactly how the event unfolded . Things seem to have happened that he doesn't remember . I found it highly amusing that the detective that always gave him a hard time because he didn't believe his story was named Detective Gibbons , just because I recently took an Anthropology class in which I learned what a ' gibbon ' is . I would NOT have been able to keep my cool with this guy though , who was hugely overacting and throwing harsh accusations which were not necessarily unfounded but definitely a little too confident and , if accusations can be this , a little too accusatory . The best thing about this installment in the Hellraiser series is that it works on a psychological level with the main character . Granted , this is nothing new in the horror genre , but it is done very well here . We never know when he is seeing reality , when he's dreaming , when he's having delusions , inaccurate flashbacks , and there is plenty of opportunity for lots of twists and turns , and thankfully these opportunities are not ignored . I hate it when movies do that ( see Hollow Man ) . Because of this , we never expect things like the startlingly effecting scare in the vending machine , one of my favorite scares in the movie . Pinhead has thankfully been given a much more prevalent role than he had in the rather disappointing Hellraiser Inferno , the least Hellraiser movie of all of them , and it's morbidly pleasing to see some of the familiar Cenobites return , like Chatterer . The movie closes with the old ' leave him and take me ' cliché , but as a whole it is a quality entry in the Hellraiser saga . It is well-written , well-thought out ( almost unheard of for a horror movie these days ) , and entertaining , and most importantly , it is more than just another cash in on a successful series . There are a lot of horror series ' that are well past their time to pass away , but as long as they keep putting this much thought and creativity into the Hellraiser films , I say there is infinite opportunity for sequels . |
543,807 | 562,732 | 441,773 | 8 | Second best animated feature of the year ! ! | The evolution of the martial arts genre has been of particular interest to me lately , as I recently bought a Bruce Lee collection and have been watching a few of his old classics and comparing them to the newer species of movies like Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon and Shaolin Soccer . I wasn't all that excited about the switch to zero gravity that we saw in Crouching Tiger , but the impact and the sheer style of Shaolin Soccer was completely unexpected and pretty damned amazing . Also , the Shaolin Temple , where Chinese kung-fu originated , is about a 45-minute drive from where I live in central China . I've been there a couple times and the kung-fu shows that they put on are pretty spectacular . With that in mind , I was curious to see how kung-fu would be portrayed in a kid's movie , although I should say that I expected something truly goofy with a title like Kung Fu Panda , but I was surprised and relieved that the movie avoided being a childish kickboxing cartoon . True , it's about a Panda that is so fat that he has trouble getting out of bed in the morning , but in the film as a whole , the childish moments , the sort of over-the-top laughs and cartoonish fat jokes were mainly designed to get laughs and , more importantly , create a charming and likable main character . And it would be foolish to say that the movie doesn't have it's laughs . Jack Black provides the voice of Po , a young Panda entering the last stages of his childhood , where he is beginning to wonder if taking over the tiny noodle shop run by his father Mr . Ping , a stork , is really that future intended for him . They live in the Chinese Valley of Peace under the stately shadow of a temple that towers overhead . The temple is of vast importance , too , not only historically but as the location where the ceremony to choose the Dragon Warrior will be held . Po has fantasies about becoming the Dragon Warrior , fantasies that seem at once ridiculous and inevitable , given the fact that Kung Fu Panda , for all its strengths , is essentially an underdog story . Unfortunately , Po's job is to keep his head out of the clouds and drag a noodle cart up the endless steps to the mountaintop temple and sell them to the people going to watch the ceremony . He is understandably disheartened and disillusioned . Po's central challenge is not just to find a way to enter the ceremony and win the Dragon Warrior title , but first to find a way to tell his father that he is not interested in carrying on the family business , that he has bigger dreams . This is the serious issue that the movie approaches , and it handles it much more seriously and effectively than I would have anticipated . The ceremony itself , on the other hand , is where the movie has fun with itself . You see , there's a battle between five contenders , the winner of whom will be crowned the Dragon Warrior and will then go on to kung-fu fight the much-feared Tai Lung , who has escaped from prison and is on a mad quest to secure dominance over the valley . " Tai lung , " by the way , in Mandarin is written like this - ? ? , and it means " too cold . " Now , the head monk at the temple , a giant turtle named Oogway , is in charge of selecting one of five candidates who is the most qualified to take on Tai Lung and stop him . I missed the part where they explained why they don't just send all of them , but no matter . The whole thing is for fun , you remember . The five candidates are a spider-thin praying mantis about as threatening as a spider-tin praying mantis , a monkey voiced by Jackie Chan , a Tigress ( Angelina Jolie ) , a Viper ( Lucy Liu ) , and Crane ( David Cross ) , although after a series of fortunate events Oogway ends up choosing Po . The kung fu takes place without the constraints of live action , so it's obviously quite different from the traditional kung fu film , even the modern ones that make wide use of special effects , but there is plenty of fighting action and it's pretty impressive . The only drawback is something common to almost all animated movies and cartoons - the characters seem generally impervious to damage , even after suffering falls and hits that should kill them . The little birdies fly around their heads for a minute and the show goes on . Sure , it's for the kids , but it definitely makes the kung-fu a lot less effective . Much of the comedy , however , is derived not from the slapstick fighting but from the that Po is a die-hard kung-fu fan and is suddenly thrown into close proximity with the Furious Five , who are nothing less than idols to him . Jack Black is provided with endless comedic opportunities in voicing a character who is resolutely chasing his dream of becoming the Dragon Warrior , while at the same-time becoming hopelessly tongue-tied and star-struck just by being in the presence of his competitors . The animation isn't anything new , and we've either hit a wall as far as the possibilities of creating realism or there just wasn't any need for this movie to push the computer animation technology any further . I suspect the latter . As we may remember from the disappointing 2000 film Dinosaur , there are times when too much realism can make an animated movie a lot less fun than it should be . Kung Fu Panda deserves the Oscar nomination that it has gotten for Best Animated Feature Film , but it won't win and it shouldn't . It's a charming and fun romp that is short enough that adults will be able to sit through it , but it doesn't carry the depth of meaning that movies like Toy Story or Shrek or this year's WALL-E do . The kids , however , are going to flip for it . |
543,919 | 562,732 | 91,949 | 8 | So cutesy but so good ! ! | I haven't seen Short Circuit for some time now , but it is such a huge milestone in my childhood that I have to say something about it . Maturer audiences will have a hard time overlooking some of the childish nuances of the movie , but it is such a fun and entertaining family film that all of those things can be easily forgiven . It reminds me of other wonderful family films like Flight of the Navigator and The Goonies , that I used to watch over and over when I was a kid . I feel like I've lost something when I can't think of a single movie now that I love so much that I will watch it a few times a week . Maybe I just am more aware of the time involved in watching the same movie over and over today than I used to be . Johnny 5 is a robot designed for military use until one day it's struck by lightning and , apparently , comes to life . This is a pretty tired formula , something man-made suddenly displaying life-like qualities and wanting to be recognized as a real boy , but it's accompanied by some clever messages about the advancement of technology , particularly technology designed to replace humans , which has always been seen as a bit of a dangerous idea , criticized brilliantly by everyone from Charlie Chaplin to James Cameron . Johnny 5's adventures involve his efforts to avoid capture by the people who made him ( " NOVA ! No ! ! " ) , while at the same time trying to prove to the world that he's a living entity now . They could not make a movie like this today . Sadly , CGI has forever replaced the need to create a physical robot like the one that plays Johnny 5 in this movie , so any Short Circuit that was made today would just be some soul-less digital effect cavorting across the screen , instantly forgettable . But here , he's really there , and he's heavy and clumsy and metallic , but so memorable as a movie character that I've recently read that the actual robot prop was sold for something like $500 , 000 . Now THAT is a fan ! Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy have a cute chemistry on screen that is satisfactorily simple . They are both cookie-cutter caricatures , Sheedy the lonely Stephanie , who drives an ice-cream truck for a living , and Guttenberg plays a scientist named Newton , who works for the evil NOVA but who only needs a cute ice-cream lady and a charming robot to change his evil ways . Sound like fun ? No ? Well , it is , trust me . The film has definitely dated , but I'll take special effects that look dated 20 years later over expensive CGI that never looked real in the first place any day . A lot of films claim to be fun for all ages , but Short Circuit is one of the few that really is . It's too bad that movies like this seem to be gone forever now ? . |
544,228 | 562,732 | 83,284 | 8 | Stallone's take on the Great Escape . | So I'm no expert on World War II , but the idea of some German prison officers being even remotely interested in a game of soccer between themselves and their prisoners seems pretty ludicrous to me . Nonetheless , this movie does a good job of justifying that idea , presenting it as a huge propaganda event , something that would not have been too much of a stretch coming from Nazi Germany . The similarities to Steve McQueen's Great Escape are extensive , of course , but mostly in theme . i . e . the prisoners are duty-bound to constantly attempt to escape , and there are not a lot of different plot options that can come out of that duty other than a lot of officers planning tunnels and a lot of Germans trying to figure out what escape plans are being hatched under their noses . In the movie's defense , even though the pairing of soccer with WWII prison camps is an uncomfortable match , the movie certainly does create tension and the ending is very , very good , I must say . When Stallone is first asked to return to the prison camp after having escaped , it was almost a mirror image of what Steve McQueen did for his fellow inmates in the 1963 version , but what unfolds in the rest of the movie is fairly original . The half time " escape " scene was very good as well . Having already returned once , Robert Hatch ( Stallone ) is faced with a choice that is much , much deeper than is commonly found in movies as low grade as many people are sure to judge this one . The closing scene is by far my favorite . You may have seen it coming a mile away , but I have to admit that it didn't even occur to me and , while I was kicking myself for not having seen it coming sooner , it's one of those things where it seems perfectly natural that the events were leading there all along . And having an ending that seems perfectly natural and yet is not completely predictable is one of the more difficult balancing acts that need to be pulled off in screen-writing . For my part , I was impressed , it's just a matter of getting over that hump of accepting the basic premise . I was sure able to . |
544,860 | 562,732 | 265,029 | 8 | An entertaining look behind the scenes of the movie star romances . | Normally , who is married to / engaged to / dating who in the movie world is something that I couldn't possibly care less about , and I still don't care , but America's Sweethearts manages to make that very subject amusing and entertaining . John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones play Eddie Thomas and Gwen Harrison , two movie stars who have been tremendously successful working together and who have worked their way into the heart of the American public . The conflict comes from their highly publicized breakup , which has resulted in two consecutive box office failures for Gwen and some serious psychological problems for Eddie . Stanley Tucci takes on a small but very effective role as Dave Kingman , the short tempered studio executive , furious with Christopher Walken's much more entertaining Hal Weidmann , the introverted filmmaker who sent Kingman the first print of his film ( after charging $86 million of the studio's money ) , which consisted of nothing but titles and the hilarious message , ' We could also do these in blue . ' Kingman throws a predictable but very funny tantrum . We spend the rest of the film wondering why Weidmann is so cocky toward Kingman and so close-mouthed about the film , but we are rewarded in the final act . Julia Roberts comes back in an ironic role when compared to her recent ( and far superior ) role in Notting Hill , in which she was America's Sweetheart who had fallen in love with a regular guy . Here , she is the constantly unnoticed sister of Gwen Harrison , her big movie star sister . Both women are perfectly cast as the famous movie star and the famous movie star's sister , but this is more a testament to their abilities as actors than it is to the ingenuity of the casting director . The acting was just excellent . Hank Azaria plays the part of Hector ( ' This is bull-chit ! ' ) , the over-the-top Spanish guy with the hilarious lisp that Gwen has been seeing ever since her rough break up with Eddie . Hector is an amusing character , but it is obvious from the first scene where we see him ( in which he insists that he and Gwen will ' go to the ? hunket ' together . ' ) that he is an expendable character . He's funny , but he still badly mangled the Spanish accent as well as the lisp , coming off as amusing but impossible to take seriously . The entire romantic subplot of the film was predictable from the very beginning , if only because it was given away in its entirety in the theatrical trailer . If you have ever heard of this movie before watching it , then you've already seen the emotional scene where Kiki ( Roberts ) tells Eddie that that woman that he saw standing by the spa that he had to spend the rest of his life with was her , and not her sister Gwen . From that perspective , America's Sweethearts is one of those movies where if you've seen the preview , you've seen the movie ( take Pleasantville as another example ) . Christopher Walken provides an excellent source of comic relief as well as one of the only really interesting characters in the film . He is the nutty filmmaker ( indeed , the best films almost unwaveringly come from the people who are a little ? off ' ) who edits his films in the Unabomber's cabin , which he had moved onto his property , and who indeed created a truly memorable film , of which we unfortunately are only able to see a small portion . ' The Blair Bitch Project , ' as the press later calls it , is a kind of film that would be really interesting . The tabloids would have a field day . There are a lot of sight gags and low brow humor in America's Sweethearts , and it is reported to bear a striking resemblance to Singin ' In The Rain ( although remains far inferior to that classic musical comedy ) , but it manages to keep the audience entertained if not hanging on every word . True film fanatics are sure to pick it apart for nearly feeding off of classic films and for following such a clear-cut formula , but there is definitely something to be enjoyed here . |
544,384 | 562,732 | 331,952 | 8 | Great chronology ! | ( spoilers ) I had spotted a spectacular editing failure when I noticed that Wayne Hayes ( Robert Redford ) and his captor Arnold ( Willem Dafoe ) remained in the same day while his wife and family and team of investigators passed through several days . The story switches back and forth between Wayne and Arnold and the rest of Wayne's family , desperately hoping for his safe return , but the passage of time is not the same . We see Wayne's and Arnold's experiences in much greater detail , while his wife Eileen , in a wonderful performance from Helen Mirren , and the rest of Wayne's family pass through days of the same desperate situation . The true story upon which this movie is based demands exactly this kind of presentation , which is one of the things that I really loved about the movie . The other thing is the way it really keeps you guessing . The whole set-up of the movie is designed to provide a vast array of different things that could be happening . I found myself trying to guess if Eileen was involved , if the head investigator was involved , even if Wayne himself was involved . Indeed , the long look that he gives his wife before he leaves for work at the beginning of the movie suggests that he anticipated not seeing her for a while . Willem Dafoe , a consistently tremendous presence in his movies , delivers yet another wonderful role as the kidnapper . I am amazed to see how effective he can be in a movie like The Boondock Saints , and then be equally effective here , in a role that is such a polar opposite . Already a hugely watchable actor , Dafoe perfectly fits the character of Arnold , so naïve that he thinks he could pull something like this off , then leave the country with his wife and have no one ever find out what happened , including his wife . The details behind his ultimate decision not to leave the country and to instead remain at home , stupidly spending the ransom money at the same local store is left up for debate . I've read that the guy who actually pulled off the kidnapping and murder in The Netherlands served something like 12 or 13 years in prison for his crime , and then was released and went back to his wife , who took him back . Weird . I think that part of the reason that the movie works so well is that it remains mysterious for so long . It is not until near the end of the film that the full scope of what is going on is revealed , leaving lots of time for people to formulate incorrect theories about who is really behind it all . This is a very difficult movie to predict , which I liked , unless of course you know the story upon which it is based . Even so , however , it is still enjoyable as a tight thriller . It moves at its own pace , not compromising the story for the sake of a thrill , and is brilliantly edited , especially in light of the true story that it is portraying . Robert Redford is perfectly cast in his character , partly because his real life is probably not that different from that of Wayne Hayes , so all he had to do was imagine what it would be like were he really kidnapped . The kidnapping initially appears to involve a substantial number of people , but the shortcomings of Arnold's plan gradually reveal themselves as things start to go less and less according to plan . It's easy to understand that people could have been put off by the ending , which certainly comes off as a little sappy , even something of a copout , but I was glad to see that it remained faithful to the true story . Wayne doesn't miraculously survive that gunshot wound , but he does live on in his wife's memories . I'd like to believe that that note he asked Arnold to mail to her really did reach her in the true story , but regardless , we live on in the memories of our loved ones , and the fact that this movie showed this in a rather deliberate way should not necessarily be counted against it . |
544,723 | 562,732 | 128,853 | 8 | Deceptively cute . . . | I'm reminded of the shallow complaints that I heard about Runaway Bride , since it starred Richard Gere and Julia Roberts , who had already starred in the astronomically successful Pretty Woman together . Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are teamed up again in a nice little romantic comedy and the producers no doubt hope that people can forget Sleepless in Seattle , also written and directed by Nora Ephron , and accept an entirely new story . And like Runaway Bride , it worked . The premise of the story is ludicrous in the extreme , not just that two highly attractive people fall in love through online chatting , but more because they get to know each other in real life at exactly the same time as they are starting to get to know each other online . It's a pretty wild aberration from reality , but on the other hand it allows for a compelling analysis of the different personalities that people assume online and in real life . There is also something to be said about the characterization . Tom Hanks plays on his status as a Hollywood megastar to portray the CEO of a mega bookstore chain , and who better to play the owner of a cute little corner bookstore than Meg Ryan , who is so cute that she could very well represent a 10 on a 1-10 cuteness scale . 10 being the cutest and one being , I don't know , Burt Lancaster or something . I find it a little amusing that the title of the film is from that asinine voice that used to welcome you when you would sign on to the internet back in the mid to late 90s , back when people still used AOL . There is a healthy level of irony included in the movie , as Joe Fox ( Hanks ) opens one of his massive bookstores around the corner from Kathleen's ( Ryan ) little shop , and she turns to her online friend , Joe , for help and advice . I appreciate how well they hide their identities , although they have such polarly opposite opinions about commercialism and professional ethics that it seems almost impossible that they should get along so well , especially when Kathleen , at least , is looking for comforting words to help her get through an experience that people like Joe make their living doing to people . I really like that the movie makes such a strong comment about megastores without making them seem evil , or demonizing the people that open and run them . Quite the opposite , in fact . Joe Fox , who is destroying the future of a charming little bookstore that Kathleen inherited from her mother , seems like a perfect fit for the greedy , commercial movie villain , but the whole charm of the movie is that we meet a wealthy businessman with dollar signs in his eyes , and before we know it we're rooting for his happiness . It takes a massive charm , like Hanks ' , to pull something like that off . While it's sad to see so many small businesses perish under the influence of the homogenized , impersonal super stores , it's also a sad reality of any growing society . Consider , for example , the emotional pain and insignificance that milkmen must have felt when the first supermarkets came along with their refrigerators and their plastic jugs back in the 50s and 60s . The neighborhood lost something of its personality and charm , interpersonal relationships were totally transformed , but now it's hard to imagine an American city without a Safeway or an Albertson's , or even a Piggly Wiggly . I think the really evil stores are ones like Wal Mart , which might be surpassing McDonald's as the worst American company . But the biggest problem with Wal Mart is the greed of the family that owns it . They bleed their employees dry while pocketing astronomical profits , and opening a store in every city imaginable . I live in a small town in central eastern China called Luoyang , and yes , a Wal Mart opened here a few months ago . Unbelievable . But the comment that this movie makes is that , love them or hate them , they are definitely convenient and affordable , and it's even fun to poke around in them . The biggest problem with them is that they are impersonal , you lose that quality of knowing people on a first name basis , and even of having employees who know about what they're selling . There's a scene in this movie where Kathleen wanders into Joe's store and has an experience where we learn that the movie understands this loss of a personal , friendly atmosphere . For all the lack of realism about how Joe and Kathleen meet and the fact that they fall in love , the movie is charming and fun and it's hard to remain indifferent to the happiness of the main characters . They each start the movie with other significant others , but end their respective relationships , leaving them newly single polar opposites looking to each other online for comfort and support . This might be the most obvious set-up I've seen in a movie in some years , so it's a testament to the quality of the movie that it's still a fun ride to the inevitable conclusion ? |
544,256 | 562,732 | 76,578 | 8 | Based on the BOOK ! | Maybe that declaration in the opening credits just struck me as funny because a documentary like this seems to ham-handed and primal to me that it's hard to imagine the movie having been based on a book version of it , as though they translated the plotline of a book about body-building to a movie . At any rate , now that I've made fun of the movie , I'd like to say that I am hugely impressed with it as a documentary about bodybuilding . It is one of those in-depth documentaries that follows its subjects around at all hours - in the weight room , at home , before , during , and after competitions , etc . We meet all kinds of gigantic bodybuilders , a couple of whom we recognize from movies and TV shows that they did later in their lives - probably most notably Lou Ferrigno who later starred as The Incredible Hulk , and this other guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger , who you may have heard of if you've been living on earth for the last three decades or so . ( spoilers ) It is amazing to me the intensity of the training for these competitions , but I suppose that they all know that the harder they work , the better the chances are that they will get ahead of the competition , who are also working themselves to death . Schwarzenegger and his colleagues are absolutely massive in this documentary , it's a curiosity piece even just to be reminded of what a human mass he used to be compared to today , although he's still a pretty huge guy . We see all the work and effort that goes into these competitions from behind the scenes , watching the body-builders at home with their families as they prepare for upcoming competitions , we see the sportsmanship as well as the less sportsman-like things . There are scenes of them trying to sabotage each other in order to get ahead ( even Arnold , who really towered above his competition in sheer size and symmetry ) , which amazes me because it just seems like it would diminish the elation of a victory , but I guess the competitions are to be won at all costs . Mike Katz really struck me as a particularly good sport when he didn't win , sitting sort of in a daze and saying how great it was for the winner and that he must really be thrilled and he just had to go shake his hand . I felt really bad for the guy because you could feel his disappointment , although I always had this feeling that he was holding his frustration back because there was a camera pointed at him . Still a great sport , I have to say . I also loved an earlier quote from Katz , who was a great sport but not necessarily the most well-spoken one , ' I'm the type of person who's the type of dog who's gonna fight back . ' The movie has a very heavy documentary feel , this is not a very produced documentary . The camera is shaky , handheld , out of focus at times , there are rough transitions and zooms , etc , and all of this serves to add to the realism of the entire thing . It's kind of disappointing that one of the final competitors was a well-deserving African American competitor , and there is not a scrap of coverage of him in the entire film , he is not given a single individual shot or line of dialogue . That's a hell of an oversight , if you ask me , regardless of how good the rest of the documentary was . I was amazed at the part where Arnold is talking about how he wouldn't even return to Austria to go to his father's funeral because he was in the middle of the competition and didn't even want to think about it . It's incredible how much these guys shut off their entire lives in order to compete in these bodybuilding events . Actually , the reason I sought out this movie was because I heard on the radio that it is extremely difficult to find right now , because the whole state of California seems to be trying to get their hands on it because Arnold is currently running for Governor and evidently he smokes pot in this movie . It's true , although personally , if I was Arnold , I would be more concerned about the scene where he talks about how the competitors admire him so much so it's really easy to give them bad advice so they'll fall behind , or even worse , the interview where he talks about the deep pleasure he gets from body-building , where he says things like , ' I am cumming day and night ! I'm in heaven ! ' |
544,111 | 562,732 | 1,068,680 | 8 | The most powerful three-letter word in the English language ! | OK , I have to tell you a true story , you're not gonna believe this . I tried this " yes " thing a couple years ago , in late 2006 . The first thing I did was accept an offer to teach English in China ( I'm still here ) , then I was invited into dozens of Chinese homes , I agreed to an idea to ride a bicycle from my city to Beijing ( about 600 miles ) , I was thereafter featured in the local newspaper , and through no real talent of my own I made an appearance on national Chinese television giving an interview and singing a song in Chinese . It hasn't all been fun and games though . I also accepted a casual invitation from someone I had known for about two hours to visit a nearby city which turned out to be forbidden to foreigners , so I was arrested as a spy and questioned in a Communist prison for 7 hours . Try it ! Anyway , I was moved to tell you that story , because you would be surprised at how real the possibility is that the word ' yes ' can actually change your life . It's so easy to get stuck in a comfortable rut and just stay there . Not that there is anything wrong with that , a comfortable rut is certainly better than a lifetime of hardship , but I'm going to go ahead and suggest that saying yes for a while is probably going to make the ride a little more interesting . Jim Carrey stars as Carl Allen , a regular guy with a regular job who really just wants to be left alone . He turns down invitations from his friends to go out on the town , he refuses offers and opportunities and invitations left and right , preferring the comfort of his own sofa and a rented video or two . And I can't say I blame him . There are few things as appealing to me as an evening in my apartment by myself watching whatever movie I might want to watch . Even two years after the word ' yes ' has landed me in central eastern China , you would be amazed at how often I enjoy that particular situation . Complicating matters is the fact that Carl's wife left him , badly injuring not only his pride but his self0image and possibly even his mental stability . Not only does he reject chances to interact with friends and family , but he's also a loan agent at a major bank , so he says no for a living ! He attends a YES seminar , where he learns that saying yes to everything can have brilliant affects on his life , whereas saying no could cause the sky to fall on his head . There is a crucial ( and tasteless ) scene where he is put into a position where he is forced to say no , and all hell breaks predictably loose . Yes Man is definitely a light-hearted and goofy comedy , but there is a thread of reality that permeates it and really makes you think that it's saying something real , which is something that is generally only true of the best Jim Carrey movies , like The Truman Show or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . It's not at the same level as those movies , but there is something here that really might make your life a little more interesting , and when was the last time you ever saw a movie with the potential to do that ? " The world is a playground . You know that when you're a kid , but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it . " |
544,490 | 562,732 | 1,175,491 | 8 | The American people want revenge . They liked Afghanistan and they want more . ? Karl Rove . | The first decade of the 21st Century is undeniably characterized first and foremost in America , possibly even more than the lengthy wars that we have become involved in , by the atmosphere of sheer political tension . George W . Bush has been called many names , from " visionary " to " the worst President in American history , but the one that applies to a review of this allegedly biographical film is probably " the Great Divider . " Like it or not , regardless of your own political standpoint , Bush cleaved the nation in two along political lines in a cleaner and more thorough cut than probably anyone else in American history . It follows , then , that a biographical film about his life , made and released during his actual presidency , should raise some controversy . It may be reasonable to assume that your political convictions will color your impression of the film , but as a fair account of Bush's life as relevant to his presidency , the movie appears to make a conscious effort to portray scenes and sections of Bush's life as we know them from a huge variety of published materials from his former aides , reporters , etc . On the other hand , it's also not hard to tell that director Oliver Stone doesn't have many nice things to say , which tends to take away from the film's believability a little . But Bush haters will eat it up . The movie starts out as Bush was suffering through a fraternity hazing ceremony at Yale and then moves through a series of disjointed events throughout his life in an effort , I suppose , to give us a better idea of who he is and what life experiences caused him to make the decisions that he made and to stick by certain things in the face of what seemed to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary . There is no arguing with the fact that the movie is fascinating as long as you have at least the slightest interest in modern American politics , but it's true that it's impossible to ignore the political slant . I don't have much nice to say about Bush myself , but it would have been a much better artistic and ethical decision to lay off the Bush-bashing in a movie like this . Granted , the movie presents itself as an honest attempt to tell the story of a man whose life was peppered with enormous mistakes , addictions , failures , and short-comings , and who then made it into the highest office in America and continued many of the same habits of making mistakes and ignoring advice , but when you have things like Bush's famous creation of the word " misunderestimate " and his inability to articulate what happens when you " fool me twice , " it becomes obvious that the movie has an agenda entirely different from showing us something more about a compelling and fascinating figure in the annals of modern American government . Especially when such things as those little slips of the tongue are taken entirely out of reality and plugged into situations convenient for them to fit nicely into the screenplay . I agree that Bush was a terrible president , it's just too bad that Stone felt so compelled to spend so much time poking immature fun at the man when he should have been making an informative and lastingly important film about his life . There are amazing impersonations of many of the members of his administration , Richard Dreyfuss gives us an incredibly effective portrayal of Cheney's quiet , ruthless confidence , Toby Jones is a small Karl Rove but captures his political brilliance and his understanding of how to pull Bush's strings , and Jeffrey Wright gives a great performance as Colin Powell , a sole voice of warning about the implications of going to war . A voice that is clearly informed and knowledgeable but that is summarily ignored . But there are also some lacking performances . Scott Glenn doesn't look or act like Donald Rumsfeld but fills the role well enough , James Cromwell couldn't be less like Bush Sr . but provides the necessary imposing father figure whose apparent preference for his other son created a lot of Bush's drive to become something , even if , as the movie argues , it was something that he was not prepared or qualified for . Worst of all is Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice . Hers is one of the closest physical comparisons , but my god , what a nasally , whiny performance . Her bizarre attempts to capture the voice of the real Condoleeza was the most distracting and ineffective thing in the entire movie . This is her worst performance since Beloved . The two things that the movie attempts to do are to show us who Bush the man is and to give us some insight into how and why he made the decisions that he made while in the White House . It is an interesting portrayal of a young adult life that shows us a lot of things that we have long since already known about . But the reading public and those who follow political developments in at least minor detail will not learn much of anything new , and that's probably the movie's biggest weakness . It's most compelling scenes are the ones in the inner circle , meetings with top members of the administration discussing the run-up to the Iraq war , although the extent to which these scenes are all conjecture ? educated conjecture , but still conjecture ? subtracts from the immediate believability of it all . I was disappointed at how much time I spent wondering how much of this was just made up , especially the stuff from Bush's personal life . When the director so obviously makes no efforts to hide his own political opinions , it's a little distracting when he presumes to paint such a detailed picture of both the personal and professional lives of Bush and so many of the important members of his administration . |
544,619 | 562,732 | 303,350 | 8 | The poor kid would have dealt with the ordeal with the dog a lot better had he read Call of the Wild . | Then again , of course , the whole point was that he was a poor black kid , pretty much a slave to the rich white man who doesn't exactly prepare him for the University . I just couldn't help remember how vicious the beatings were that the sled dogs suffered in that book . The story focuses initially on a rich white man who takes a puppy away from a young boy , puts the dog into a burlap sack and proceeds to kick him viciously , because " the dog must learn . " There is some room for individual interpretation of that statement , but the overwhelming fact is that the man forces the boy to open the sack to let the dog out , and the boy worries because he knows that the dog will think that it was him doing the kicking . It's difficult to say whether this technique was more to subordinate the boy or to turn the puppy into a working dog that will be useful on the farm as well as useful as a watchdog when it grows into a full sized dog , but I get the feeling that they are both the goals of this repulsive practice . The film transcends the rather limited and immediate lesson of the dangers of abusing those under you and comes off to me as more of a life lesson of the extended effects that your actions can have . This process of claiming and maintaining power over the boy and the dog combined to cost the man his life and the boy his best friend . It's odd that the tagline listed on the IMDb says that ultimately both of their lives hang in the balance at the mercy of the dog , because other than not being able to get his master's medicine to him , his life was really not in any danger . I guess he was his master , anyway . But the only way the boy's life was in danger was if he depended on the man to the point where the man's death would mean he was going to starve to death . The dog thought he was protecting his master and would not have attacked the boy unless he tried to approach the man . This is a pretty powerful film , and while I think the message itself is not exactly lightning out of a clear sky for unexpectedness , it is delivered with a richness and clarity that should be praised , especially in such a short film . |
544,597 | 562,732 | 327,056 | 8 | The most impressive thing was the cast . | Before I go on , I should mention that Mystic River is an outstandingly well-made movie . I saw it months after it was released , after it had been acclaimed one of the best movies of the year , and after it had officially been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar . So I guess I just expected more , especially from Clint Eastwood , one of the greatest living stars of the cinema . That being said , I can appreciate it being hailed as one of the best pictures of 2003 , it definitely was , but I was bothered that Big Fish wasn't nominated for Best Picture BEFORE I saw this movie . And I'm sorry to all you Eastwood / Penn / Fishburne / Linney / Robbins / Bacon / etc fans out there , but Big Fish was better . I was immensely impressed with the cast in this movie . For the first half hour or so , almost every scene introduced another well-known and enormously talented actor . Lawrence Fishburne proves that he has not been typecast as Morpheus ( thank God ) , Sean Penn delivers yet another smashing performance as a man desperately trying to cope with his emotions , which have been scattered out of control , I was shocked at Tim Robbins ' incredible ability to completely transform his voice to one with a Boston accent ( this is one of the most difficult things for a well-known actor to do ) , Kevin Bacon makes an outstanding detective ( he's one of the most versatile actors working today , regardless of how much you like or dislike him ) , and Laura Linney gives a performance that is interesting in that it is hugely effective but she still seems to be holding something back . Even while you're seeing her perform this role with amazing skill , you can tell that she is an even better actor than you're seeing . ( spoilers ) Essentially , Mystic River is a murder mystery . Robbins , Bacon , and Penn play the parts of Dave , Sean , and Jimmy , three kids who grew up in the same neighborhood ( two on the same street ) but grew apart as they got older ( grew apart , that is , in contact , not so much in proximity ) . The film begins with them carving their names into wet cement when a black car comes along and a man gets out , pretending to be a police officer . Sean and Jimmy live on that very street , so they are let go , but Dave lives across the neighborhood , so he has to get into the car to be taken home . It's not long after that car stops that you know it's not really a police officer ( even back then their cars were never that filthy ) , and so Dave is kidnapped and , while it's never explicitly mentioned in the movie what happened to him beyond that he was held in a dirty basement for four hours , the unnecessary hints are more than enough . What I like about the murder mystery that comes later is that Dave has such a concrete mental reason for committing the murder that he did . It's understandable that he might have gotten scared and not come out and admitted what he did , but I would have thought that he would at least have told his wife what really happened . She was obviously not going to turn him in , given the extent to which she went to cover up her beating of what he claimed to be a mugger . Meanwhile , the same night , Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter has been shot and beaten to death in another part of the city , and Sean is the detective assigned to the case , along with his curiously named partner , Whitey Powers ( Lawrence Fishburne ) . Hopefully there's no subtle meaning to what happens when you remove the last letters of his first and last name . What Eastwood constructs from this outline is a tense thriller that comes to a tense conclusion that , I think , is just a little too similar to the tense conclusion of his outstanding 1999 film True Crime . Sean , Dave , and Jimmy have interestingly all grown into fairly unhappy or at least spotty lives , Jimmy as the owner of the corner store ( closely watching over his 19-year-old daughter ) , Dave as a handyman with deep emotional scars from his childhood , and Sean as the homicide detective with the nutcase of a wife who keeps calling and then not saying anything . Jimmy's daughter is dating a boy named Brendan , who Jimmy viciously disapproved of , and he is asked at several points in the movie why he dislikes the boy so much , and he can't really answer , because he has no reason . He dislikes the boy so much because the screenplay needs him to . Each of the actors is given at least one scene where their acting abilities are tested , and mostly all of them do remarkably well . It's kind of disappointing to learn that Sean Penn is just as incapable of doing crying scenes as Jack Nicholson proved that he also is in Something's Gotta Give ( indeed , Tom Guiry , who played Brendan , performed his crying scene much better than Penn did ) . I think Penn is more skilled as a man who is struggling with his emotions and the chaos in his life , illustrated through the lines on his forehead and the vacant look in his eyes . Actually crying is a little too forward for him . So now that I've made my superficial complaint , I think that the main reason that I don't think Mystic River deserves the massive Oscar buzz that it has generated , besides the fact that Big Fish is better by leaps and bounds , is because underneath all the big names and impressive production value , it is really a pretty simple detective story . Sean and Whitey ( Bacon and Fishburne ) , as the lead investigators working on the case of Jimmy's missing daughter , spend the majority of their scenes together acting like bumbling B-movie detectives , speaking to each other as though they have to explain everything they say to the other person . They're both detectives , right ? So why do they constantly have to explain to each other why certain theories and possibilities won't work ? The vast majority of their conversations with each other in respect to the case are so obviously contrived that it's almost like they're reading cue cards , and I happen to know that they are each better actors than to do something like that . That's just shoddy writing . Sean's wife also plays a rather obscure and unnecessary role . Sure , she represents the chaos that has befallen Sean's life , as well as the order that ultimately follows ( conveniently when the case is solved ) , but the symbolism is so shallow and textbook that the movie would have been better off without it . If anything , they could have had her start actually talking to her some other time than the exact minute that Sean discovers the last remnants of the mystery still lurking beneath the surface of the screenplay . Jimmy admits what he did , Sean's face registers the understandable shock , and his phone rings . Cute . And while I'm at it , I might as well mention that , by the time the case is solved , Sean has been working on it too hard and for too long to simply let Jimmy walk away at the end , chugging his bottle of Jack Daniel's as he walks down the street , having admitted to killing Dave . It really bothered me that he was willing to just let him walk away like that ( sure , he lost his daughter and was an old friend , but he also killed their other old friend . Was Sean just going to let that go ? ) . The only reason that I can think of for doing this was a pretty effective shot that came later during a parade downtown . Dave's wife can be seen wandering the crowd aimlessly , Sean is there with his own family , and as he looks into the crowd across the street , he sees Jimmy surrounded by his usual hoodlums , the ones who had been conducting his own tragically misled investigation of his daughter's murder . As Sean looks at Jimmy , he makes a gun with his fingers and points it at Jimmy , I suppose indicating that he plans to take him down in the future ( or maybe just saying hi , imagine the same gesture with a wink , for example ) , to which Jimmy responds by spreading his hands and raising his eyebrows as if to say , ' What are you gonna do ? ' I love the way Jimmy looks in this shot . He's matured in the few moments since we last saw him . Years have been added to his life , he has noticeably changed . His new confidence and his new experience and the way he sits , is dressed , and carries himself indicate that he has become a different person . He's become a godfather . |
544,261 | 562,732 | 280,387 | 8 | Yeah , Steve ! | You know what I love about the Academy Awards ceremonies ? They provide insight into the personalities of so many of our favorite Hollywood stars . There was a great , although short , interview with Anthony Hopkins in the pre-show event , where an obviously star-struck reporter asked him how he did what he did and whatnot , and Hopkins responded simply , ' Well , that's what they pay me to do so I do it . ' There's something really refreshing about knowing that even such gigantic stars as Anthony Hopkins are really just regular people like the rest of us . Steve Martin , not very arguably the greatest host the Academy Awards have ever had , hosts the show this year , delivering some of his less effective but always amusing comedy . In the ceremony for the 2002 Oscars , Martin was absolutely hilarious from beginning to end , but I thought that this year he had a few jokes that were a little too dry or tasteless and weren't as effective as his brand of humor generally is . This year he kind of reminded me of the heavily rehearsed and almost universally flat humor of someone like Dennis Miller , although not necessarily quite THAT bad . Nonetheless , I still think that Martin is the best host that the Academy Awards have ever had . Russell Crowe certainly seemed upset or angry or something this year , which rather amazed me since he had such an enormous presence at the ceremony , not the least reason for which was his spectacular role in Gladiator . Obviously , Björk had the most memorable outfit , showing up and performing in what looked to be a swan draped over her neck , but she is an eccentric and artistic person , and at least it's nice to see someone who didn't just show up wearing a $20 , 000 dress like everyone else at the ceremony . There comes a point where even the most ridiculously expensive attire becomes repetitive and boring . Notice , for example , that her outfit may very well have been made by Björk herself , and yet it's the one that was the most talked about . Björk's performance was also one of the highlights of the evening . It's so weird that she can deliver such a good performance when she is so obviously terrified , but she is definitely one of the more talented musicians working today , and has also proven her skill as an actress in the excellent ( although more than a little depressing ) Dancer in the Dark . Best Picture went to Gladiator , obviously , just like we all knew it would . This year was particularly strange in that category , since you could tell that Gladiator would win Best Picture just by looking at its cover . It's an epic film and it is amazingly well made in every category . I also thought it was strange that Crouching Tiger was in the Best Picture category , since it kind of defeats the purpose of having a Best Foreign Film category at all . If that's the way they run it , they might as well just combine the two categories . On the other hand , I think it's very important to have a Foreign Film category separate , because it allows for more focus on foreign films , which tend to be the best films . And besides that , Crouching Tiger , if any foreign movie , deserves to transcend the Foreign Film category and participate in the most anticipated category of the evening . So now that we actually have an Academy Awards ceremony where there is not too much controversy over who won the big awards ( at least not as much as there was in the ceremony in 1999 ) , it's still disappointing that no one has done anything about the streams of celebrities that come onstage to deliver wooden speeches about the next category . If these are sometimes multiple Oscar winners , why do they read their introductions as though they're reading it for the first time off an index card ? |
544,065 | 562,732 | 67,185 | 8 | An entertaining but very strange black comedy . Almost too strange . | Bud Cort plays the part of Harold , a young man who seems to feel that his mother does not pay enough attention to him . After not receiving much of a reaction from her after having staged numerous extremely elaborate suicide scenes , he soon loses interest , especially after meeting Maude , an eccentric 80-year-old woman with whom he eventually falls in love . Their relationship , obviously , is the subject of the majority of the story of this highly entertaining film . Maude is your typical elderly lady who likes to steal cars and mouth off to cops who are more interested in arresting her than anything else . While she speeds off after having been pulled over , she laughingly mentioning how the police always like to ' play games . ' This unique film follows Harold and Maude through their adventures and portrays the development of their highly unlikely mutual love , and the result , strangely enough , is quite good . One of the only negative things that can be said of this film ( keeping in mind all of the things that it can get away with , given the kind of film that it is ) , is that it has dated pretty badly . When watched today , its age is very clear , but at the same time , this does not necessarily take away from the film as a whole . This is good comedy partly because there are really no other films like it , it is a true cult classic because of the following that it has developed over the years , and regardless of its shortcomings , it remains an interesting film . |
544,719 | 562,732 | 5,489 | 8 | Charlie struggling to get a job in the movies ? | There is something uniquely charming about the short comedies that Chaplin made that poke fun at his art form or that show us a little bit of the mechanics of how these movies are made . The most notable example other than His New Job is the charming and fun Behind the Screen , although this film is a lot of fun , too . It starts out in the waiting room , apparently for the opportunity to interview for a job as a film extra . He immediately begins flirting with a woman in the room , and soon does the old hat gag where someone demands that he take it off but he keeps putting it back on , finally doing that cute trick where he flips it up in the air . I feel like I've seen him do that in at least four or five films , although I have to say that he does it best in The Immigrant . It seems that the characterization is getting pretty developed by this point , and that the little tramp has earned a good following of fans who want to see him in each new Chaplin film . There is less and less effort put into giving him a role in each film , he generally just comes out and plays himself . There are lots of traditional Chaplin antics in the waiting room as he competes for the film extra position , although when he finally gets into the interview room and blows into that earpiece , it might be the first time I've literally laughed out loud at one of these short comedies in quite a while . Charlie is dressed as a soldier for his part in the film within the film , although as is to be expected , things soon go wrong and his lack of acting talent becomes abundantly clear . I always find it a little amusing when actors play roles in which , at some point , they lament the fact that they have no acting talent . But my favorite part of the film is that it shows us behind the scenes , what some of the film sets looked like back in 1915 . I always find it fascinating when I catch a glimpse of something real in these old movies , even if it's something tiny , like wafting smoke or the unintentional movement of curtains or a throw rug . It is endlessly fascinating to me to imagine what it was like to really be there , what the set looked like to the naked eye , in real life and in color . Here , we are treated to some shots of the inside of the soundstage , which I guess is the next best thing . Generally , the movie is clever and fun , but other than some interesting behind the scenes shots there's really nothing new here . The ending is even a little violent , but this is still one of the more fun of Chaplin's earliest work . |
544,864 | 562,732 | 230,169 | 8 | A boy's best friend is his mother . . . | This strangely titled film is something that should have been presented to the horror genre years ago . Normally , you would say that this is a blatant rip off of such classics as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs , but as the tagline says , this is a true story that took place in the 1950s and was inspirational toward all of those movies . Even if nothing else , the film is a curiosity piece because of its portrayal of the always morbidly fascinating interior of a tremendously troubled mind , combined with the added bonus that it's a true story . Probably the best element of the film was the way that so much of Ed Gein's childhood and background was presented . He was raised in a horrifyingly dysfunctional family , with an physically abusive father ( as in The Cell ) and an intensely and forcefully religious mother ( maybe she was the inspiration for Carrie White's intensely religious mother ? ) . There is a particularly memorable scene in which a ten year old Ed walks in on his mother and father as they are brutally butchering a pig , and he begins to cry , angering his father enough to hit his mother , and causing her to blame him for the entire thing . No wonder he's so messed up ! His terrible experiences as a child clearly played a huge role in the formation of his twisted personality and outlook on life as an adult , and this is extensively and necessarily presented in the film . What results is not a horror film , although this is what would be expected from a film that is a true story about the life and times of a famous serial murderer . Instead , we get sort of a hybrid film that is one part drama , one part documentary , and one part horror / thriller . Nothing in the film is going to make you jump out of your seat , but you will squirm uncomfortably at least a few times as some of Ed's deeds and habits ( such as the fascinating anatomical interior design of his room ) are vividly presented . ( spoilers ) As a horror fan , I was particularly interested in watching the scenes that were clearly the inspiration for the films mentioned above . We know that Psycho was inspired by the whole portion of the film with Ed's religious and overpowering mother , especially his obsession with bringing her back to life later in the film . And , of course , some material from Texas Chainsaw can be seen when Ed is wearing other people's faces on his own , in a grotesque scene in which he gleefully parades on his front porch wearing a full bodysuit of human skin , including a woman's torso , breasts and all , clearly the inspiration for the nasty habits of Jame Gumb in The Silence of the Lambs . Obviously , none of these scenes were available to be viewed when any of the above films were produced or written , but Gein's behaviors have been unmistakably influential towards all of those films . Horror fans may be put off by the film's relatively slow pace , but you have to appreciate the depth that this pace allows the movie to have . We have time to get to know the people in the town . And not just the murderer and his victims , but the investigating police and the mystified and horrified citizens as well . The story is told in this way so that it can get under your skin and move you , and I think that it succeeds in doing that . This stuff really happened , and the movie manages to present it in a way that makes it seem more real to us - even though it happened half a century ago - in a way that no news article ever could . It's not for the weak of heart or stomach , but it is informational as well as entertaining , and it avoids manipulation and gratuitous violence or gore because the story it presents is true . You know it's about a serial murderer , so watch it to get into his head and learn about why he did the things that he did . |
544,479 | 562,732 | 90,305 | 8 | Is Weird Science a piece of cinematic cheese ? Yes , undeniably . Is it a must-see ? Hell yeah ! | Sure , Weird Science is not a spectacular film . It will never be mentioned in a history of film class , and watching it fifteen years after its release shows that time has not been kind to it at all . But as a good , fun comedy , it lives on forever . Just as computers were really beginning to make a big impression on the world , a couple of geeky kids , Gary ( Anthony Michael Hall ) and Wyatt ( Ian Mitchell Smith ) , decide to create a girlfriend for themselves using Wyatt's ' sophisticated ' computer . The way that they actually design her , although ridiculously unrealistic , is hilarious ! Weird Science is what I like to call a " Cheese Classic . " It required minimal talent to put it together , but there is an element of endless amusement that can be found in the film that makes it great . From the bras on Wyatt's and Gary's heads during the creation process to countless inexplicably hilarious pieces of dialogue ( " Wyatt , your kitchen is blue . . . " ) , Weird Science is a true comedy classic . It is , however , the film which probably had the most mixed reviews until the Blair Witch Project , so I suggest watching it for yourself . Just keep in mind that it is meant to be laughed at , not learned from ! |
544,427 | 562,732 | 298,408 | 8 | I'd much rather be in here than out there in that cold world . . . | It has taken me years to get around to watching Laurel Canyon , even after having lived in Los Angeles and worked in West Hollywood for a year and a half . There is more about the southern California lifestyle to dislike than can ever be explained in less than 1 , 000 words , and this movie takes on really just a tiny , tiny part of it , but it paints a picture of show business life clashing with ' normal ' life that matches the reality that I experienced there with astonishing accuracy . Of course , a lot of the effect comes from the location shooting . Anyone from Los Angeles will instantly recognize many of the locations , particularly things like the Château Marmont hotel ( where , incidentally , Lindsay Lohan lived for months and months in 2006 while she couldn't seem to stop partying enough to find a real apartment ) and , more importantly , that charming cafe at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Kirkwood Drive , where I often used to go for coffee . Jim Morisson's house , a few feet away , is sadly overlooked , which is strange since the movie is about the hectic world behind the scenes of the music industry . Christian Bale plays the part of Sam , a young professional , a psychiatrist already tired of his profession and struggling to start a life with his young wife , Alex . Kate Beckinsale is the perfect embodiment of a young bride horrified by the debauchery taking place around her , as she and Sam move into his mother's house to find , to their dismay , that she has not moved out as promised , but is still there recording music with some dirty , stoned musicians . It is truly remarkable how flawlessly Francisc McDormand fits into the role of the aging mother still stuck in a rock star lifestyle . She is truly one of our most versatile actors ! While the relationship between Sam and Alex is realistic and convincing enough ( especially Sam's dismay at bringing Alex around his mother , and his clearly desperate need not to displease her - note the way he looks at her when he declines his mother's offer of a drink . . . ) , but the mother-son relationship is not believable in the slightest . But this , however , is not something that I think the movie is shooting for . This is not a family drama , it's a comparison of different lifestyles , sort of a peek into the craziness of show business life juxtaposed with everyday American society ( the educated kind , at least ) , and how completely different and unmixable they are . Unmixable ? Is that a word ? Anyway , you get the idea . Water and oil . It's nearly impossible to imagine a smart , well-balanced young man entering his career as a psychiatrist having come from the environment that Jane ( McDormand ) would have provided him during childhood , but the situational drama that comes from their relationship is revelatory about both lifestyles . The actual neighborhoods and the style of the houses in that part of Hollywood are presented perfectly , thanks in no small part to the location shooting , but it also captures the attitude in many ways as well . I will say that I found the ending to be a bit sudden , but if nothing else , it's one of those movies that makes you think . You may find yourself imagining one lifestyle or the other , and comparing your own thoughts to how the people in the movie were living . It makes you think , and while I found some scenes and situations a little too far of a stretch ( Sam's fascination with the darker lifestyle is interesting , but getting involved sexually with her husband's mother ? Yeah RIGHT . . . ) , it's still an interesting and well-written drama . |
543,818 | 562,732 | 354,351 | 8 | If you didn't love Caddyshack ( like I didn't ) , watch this documentary and maybe you will . | I didn't love Caddyshack before or after I watched this documentary , but I liked the movie more afterwards . I prefer making-of documentaries that have more recent interviews with the cast and crew , as this one did . I think there are better insights provided by people looking back at the making of the movie and their experiences and goals during production rather than interviews of people on the set during filming , where they are interviewed between takes , wearing their costumes from the movies and whatnot . The stars and director of Caddyshack look back with tongue in cheek , particularly Chevy Chase , who thinks that less money should have been spent on the mechanical gopher and more on more of him in the movie . The actor who played the Italian golfer in the movie looks back with what appears to be genuine resentment that there was so little of him in the movie . Evidently , there was a lot more of him in the script than in the final film , because he claims that he and one or two other people were the stars of the film but were cut out in the editing room . Given his role in the movie , however , I find it hard to imagine how his character was the star of the movie . Then again , this is the same guy who claimed that the movie was originally supposed to be an epic drama , so maybe he thought he was performing for a different movie . At any rate , this documentary gives some great looks back at what the director and stars experienced during the production of the movie , as well as lots of looks at outtakes and behind the scenes footage . One actor was unable to eat chocolate for years after the movie was made because of the Baby Ruth in the pool scene . Good thing she didn't do a shower murder scene , she might have ended up looking like a peasant from the time of King Arthur , whose skin was scarcely visible through the dirt ( if , of course , Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee is to be believed ) . Whatever the case , I would think that the director's ability to get sponsorship from a candy company for later films suffered more than this woman's ability to eat chocolate , and probably led to him taking bit parts in better movies later in life , such as the doctor in As Good As It Gets which , incidentally , is what Caddyshack becomes after watching this making-of documentary . Not bad . |
544,402 | 562,732 | 113,819 | 8 | Isn't life ironic ? | I've never been a big fan of Woody Allen , although I have seen few of his films . Mostly I feel like his performances get a little old for me , since he can only really play himself , in all his awkward , stuttering glory . He has a peculiarly dry style of humor that , to me , seems to get a little routine . He sort of satirizes the world around him as though consistently astonished at the strangeness of it all , dropping clever comments and observations as though by accident . He's not my favorite filmmaker , but one thing that seems pretty consistent about his films is that they are generally brilliantly written , and Mighty Aphrodite is no exception . I was a little put off by the intercutting to the bad performance art group , acting out Allen's interpretation of life's little absurdities on a decaying Greek amphitheater , and in increasingly modern and unpoetic language ( " Certain thoughts are better left unthunk ! " ) . Allen stars as Lenny , a sportswriter in a failing marriage with a woman named Amanda ( Helena Bonham Carter ) , who thinks that if they have a baby it might save their marriage . The film opens with their conversation on the subject , in which they discuss all of the possibilities , including adoption , which Lenny immediately dismisses as unacceptable . All it takes , however , is one look at the cute kid from the adoption agency and his heart melts . Max , the new baby , soon grows up into a remarkable young man , and Lenny sets off on a personal mission to find his birth mother . He believes that any kid as smart as Max must have an equally brilliant mother , and he wants to know where the prodigal son came from . In Allen's illustration of some of life's great ironies , the birth mother that he discovered is a woman who calls herself Linda or Leslie , when she's not using one of the screen names she adopts in her performances in porn films , which she believes is just acting . There is a strange chemistry between Linda and Lenny , because she is so much younger and taller and sexier than he is , and because she's a prostitute and thinks he is just another paying customer . Quite the contrary , he is so astonished and horrified that he can hardly stand up . There is obviously a very strong sexual undertone in the movie , since Linda is both a hooker and porn star , and I've read reviews of the movie that suggest that even the graphic sexual descriptions have a sense of innocence , as if they are not really signifiers for the explicit sexual acts that they describe . I wouldn't quite say that . I think they take on that sense of detachment because Linda is so unbelievably dumb that she doesn't really understand the meaning of what she's talking about . She seems childish when she talks about it , which lends a sense of detachment , but I would hardly say innocence . Lenny's mission is to get Linda to clean up her life and become a respectable woman , like he imagined Max's mother to be . An intellectual giant is clearly out of the question , so he decides to settle for just getting her into a healthy and respectable relationship . His first attempt is a young boxer who dreams of moving back to his brother's farm and becoming a potato farmer . He is a match for Linda's diminutive intellect , and there is a touchingly awkward scene where he introduces the two of them in a park and then leaves . Both of them are clearly clueless about what to do . For almost the entire movie we're waiting to see when Lenny will tell Linda the real reason why he sought her out , especially when she emotionally reveals that she once had a child but had to give him up . The other revelation that we wait for is for Kevin , Linda's new boyfriend , to discover who she really is . Lenny had given him an impossible story about her , one which would fall apart the first time they had a normal conversation . When it finally happens , he reacts violently . Mira Sorvino's performance as Linda might be the most irritating performance that has ever been nominated for an Oscar . Her bizarre falsetto whine always made me think of the kind of voice that a babysitter might adopt to make the kids laugh when they miss their mom . Her mind is absolutely vacant and uncomprehending of the world around her , so it's hard to imagine her in a normal relationship at all , which may be why we never see that happen . She's also given ridiculous lines like " Not a day doesn't go by that I don't wake up thinking about him . " The double negatives render it nearly meaningless , but we can guess what she means . The film's biggest weakness , however , is the astonishingly obvious plot devices , which are so incredibly witless and weak that they stand out like big red flags in an otherwise well written movie . Linda's pimp won't let her quit but has an intense love of sports ( " I'd give my own mother for courtside Knick's tickets ! " ) . Lenny , conveniently , is a sportswriter . Or , my favorite , the movie spends all this time trying to find a good man for Linda , but when all efforts fail , Mr . Right quite literally falls out of the blue sky . Nice . Thankfully , the movie ends with an interesting twist of fate that calls attention to the movie's interesting assertions about the human condition . It's a strange tale of highly flawed people eventually achieving happiness . Maybe most people would choose a different form of happiness , but what they found this might have been the only kind available to them . |
544,685 | 562,732 | 291,751 | 8 | A fun look back . | Several years after the introduction of the hilarious Bean show , it is only natural that there should be a Best Of episode . We get a look back at some of his old classic bits , and probably the only thing disappointing is that there is no way that they could fit all of the worthy skits into one episode . My favorite of the flashbacks is definitely when he drives his car with the armchair on the roof , this is something that only Bean could come up with . He has such a bizarre outlook on the world that when he gets these wild ideas into his head , you don't even think twice . I mean after all , the guy locks his car with a padlock ! I'm still not crazy about the out of control giant turkey scene , but all the rest are great fun . Even the turkey scene is amusing , the thing is just so pasty and clammy and unpleasant looking . Interestingly , the attic scenes with teddy , which we cut back to in between flashbacks , are also some of the better parts of the episode . Bean's " ta-daaa ! ! " when he opens Teddy's umbrella is a comedy skit unto itself . Outstanding ! |
543,894 | 562,732 | 90,264 | 8 | 007 entering the computerized age ? | Dr . No , the original 007 film , was basically a murder mystery , so whenever I see a Bond film like A View to A Kill , I am always struck by how far the series has come and how much bigger the stories get . In this installment , we get a truly evil , classic Bond-style villain with Max Zorin ( played by a wonderfully nefarious Christopher Walken - who looks exactly like Luscious Malfoy , by the way ) , with a truly evil , classic master plan . The movie starts with Bond on a mission in the Soviet Union where he narrowly escapes after recovering a microchip off the snow-bound body of another British agent . There is a great ski chase in the movie's opening scene as he's pursued by the Russians , but at one point , the song " California Girls " comes on for about a minute and then fades out just as suddenly . I'm going to go ahead and say that this must be the most out of place piece of music in any James Bond film ever made . It seems that the microchip that he recovered is a " silicon integrated unit " capable of triggering a magnetic pulse and blowing out everything that uses a similar chip , which would include anything from toasters to the most advanced computers . I didn't know toasters were computerized in the mid-1980s ( are they now ? ) , but needless to say , a nuclear explosion over England would short out the entire country , destroying their national defenses and rendering the entirety of their population completely toast-less . The British have a computer chip that is impervious to all magnetic pulse damage , and Bond's mission is to find out how the Soviets have managed to get a hold of an exact copy of one . An investigation of a suspicious horse-race gambling circuit leads to Max Zorin ( also the maker of the original chip ) , who is suspected of selling the design to the Russians . But of course , starting a war between the British and the Russians is not nearly enough , Zorin plans to create an underground earthquake in California , sink the entire Silicon Valley and corner the market on all computer manufacturing ! I think it's safe to say that the plot of this particular movie is years ahead of its time . If Zorin had succeeded in his plan , no one would have known that he had created the earthquake , and he would now be the most powerful man in the universe . His sidekick , May Day , is played by Jamaican actress Grace Jones , who is best known for doing scary roles like this one . I'm not sure what the deal was with her hair in this movie , but they definitely went overboard a few times . There is one point in the film where it looks like it was sculpted to look exactly like Batman's ears . Who comes up with this stuff ? Nevertheless , she is one of the better female Bond villains ( and a rare example of genuine character development and change ) , as is Walken's Max Zorin . In order to raise money for his take-over of the computer market , he has devised a scheme where he implants devices into race-horses that time injections of horse steroids , so that they aren't detected in pre-race blood tests . Pretty clever , but it's the design of that underground earthquake that really takes the cake . It's so good that it even provided the inspiration of an episode of " Ducktales ! " There is some depth added to the characters of Zorin and May Day near the end of the film as well when it is revealed that Zorin is ex-KGB and , if it weren't for them , he and May Day would now be nothing but walking biological experiments . We never learn exactly what is meant by this , but it doesn't matter . There is a great chase through the streets of Sa Francisco and a thrilling finale atop the Golden Gate Bridge . Love it or hate it , this is definitely vintage Bond . Note : A disclaimer at the beginning of the movie informs us that " Neither the name Zorin nor any other name or character in this film is meant to portray a real company or actual person . " What about the KGB ? |
544,612 | 562,732 | 267,626 | 8 | It's frightening how close we came . . . | K-19 has a massive cast , especially in the two lead characters of Mikhail Polenin ( Liam Neeson ) and Alexei Vostrikov ( Harrison Ford ) . My understanding is that Ford wanted to take on a role different than ones he had taken in the past to prevent type-casting , and while he does a good job in his role ( as does just about everyone involved ) , the movie does slip up a little bit by having an almost nonexistent Russian presence in what is supposed to be the story of a Russian submarine . Comparisons to the far superior Hunt for Red October are inevitable , and it is interesting to note that that movie was also about a Russian submarine but was presented all in English , but it doesn't lose credibility the way K-19 does , probably because it at least maintained a Russian accent , while Ford is speaking an unmistakable American accent and Neeson , well , Neeson is just Neeson and that's always good . He makes a great German but is less convincing as a Russian . I don't know why . Nevertheless , as a story about an extremely important submarine mission rife with problems the movie succeeds brilliantly . K-19 is basically Russia's protection again nuclear war , which they fear the Americans might start at any moment . They hope to deter attack by showing evidence that they can issue destruction in return , and it is because of this that the sub is commissioned and sent on a mission to the polar ice caps to launch a test missile . There is a great scene where all of the crew and many other people are witnessing the launch of the submarine , and a woman swings a bottle of champagne on a rope to smash against the hull , but it bounces off unbroken . " We're cursed , " one of the dismayed crewmen says . That woman must have felt terrible . There is an immediate rivalry between Polenin , who understands the ship's limitations and wants them corrected before beginning the mission , and Vostrikov , who also understands the ship's limitations but also understands how important the mission is and so outranks Polenin's protests . One of the best things about the movie is that the dramatic action is pushed along by genuine concerns . The movie would have suffered terribly if they were ignoring such important problems with the submarine without good reason . One of the best things about the movie is that it is able to create so much dramatic tension , even though it takes place during peacetime . There was a huge amount of political tension in the air , but there wasn't a war going on . This is why there is not a lot of concern shown when an American destroyer is sighted near the submarine , because one of the goals of the mission is for the Americans to see what they're doing . Instead , a small leak aboard the nuclear sub becomes a problem big enough to potentially start a war . Incidentally , one of the crewmen noticed something wrong with one of the dials at least twice before the leak was discovered ( once before the ship left port ) . Had he reported that problem when he first noticed it , he could have saved the lives of everyone who died because of the radiation and prevented the entire thing . At any rate , once the leak is discovered , the options are to abandon ship and surrender the crucial technology to the Americans ( a single concession which could dramatically alter the futures of the two nations , and thus rendering it unacceptable ) , try to repair the reactor without sufficient protection against the radiation , or scuttle the ship ( also unacceptable because of the boat's importance ) . There is a tense scene where Vostikov orders the ship to dive to almost crush depth , one of the obligatory scenes in submarine movies where the hull creaks and groans and everyone stares at the ceiling , like there's something to see there , and then he orders the ship to ascend at breakneck speed , surfacing through a layer of ice . Vostrikov intends to push the boat and the men to the limit so that they all know what the limit is , but unfortunately it culminates in a hugely disappointing display of digital effects as the ship breaks through the ice in something that looks more like it belongs in a cartoon than a serious film like this ( I was reminded of the unfortunate Scrat's efforts to save an acorn from a splitting glacier in Ice Age ) . The film requires an extra bit of suspension of disbelief to accept a story about a Russian submarine but without any Russian actors . I'm curious to know how it was received in Russia . I imagine it was a hit , despite the lack of Russian presence in the film , because it illustrates their courage and dedication to their country in the most difficult of times . But nonetheless , it is hugely effective and never lets up once it gets going . The ending strikes me as the part where the most creative liberties were taken with the original true story , leaving you with the feeling of a Hollywood ending imposed on a true story from Russian and American history . But if nothing else , the movie is a fascinating look at how close we came to widespread destruction during one of the most tense times in modern history . |
544,193 | 562,732 | 115,697 | 8 | Quite possibly the late Chris Farley's funniest movie . | Black Sheep is one of the two films in which Chris Farley stars alongside the constant sarcasm of David Spade ( the other being Tommy Boy , which is almost as funny ) , and the results are childish but endlessly amusing . Farley plays Mike Donnelly , the younger and nuttier brother of Al Donnelly , who is campaigning to be governor of Washington . Mike's seemingly constant screw-ups , which cause serious havoc during his brother's campaign , provide for the majority of the comedy in the film . There can be no mistake that this is entirely slapstick comedy , but it succeeds very well because Farley can pull it off so well . The hopelessly geeky Spade balances out Farley's hyper-activity with his collected but nerdy performance , leaving us with an odd couple that could be called a slightly less mature version of that of the late Walter Matthou and the later Jack Lemmon ( a moment of silence for Matthou , Lemmon , and Farley , would be in order about now ? ) . It is strange that such an immature film could deal so extensively with a relatively serious subject as politics and still manage to keep the slapstick successful , especially since there are moments of real emotion in the film . Gary Busey appears in a small but very effective and amusing role as Sgt . Drake Savage , a military-minded guy who ultimately seems to have a heart of gold . The interactions between him and Spade are some of the funniest moments in the film , along with the constant humor that seems to always be emanating from Farley . The cabin scene with Mike and Steve ( Spade ) is especially amusing ( " I got dibs on top bunk ! " ) . I am not going to attempt to say that Black Sheep is a truly intellectual film , nor is there anything particularly amazing about the script or direction , but the comedy is excellent , there can be no mistake about that . I mean , Tommy Boy and other movies , like Major Payne , are no cerebral workouts either , but the comedy is there . That's the reason to watch these movies , and to their credit , you can tell that just by looking at the cover . You probably won't learn anything or see the portrayal of many serious issues in a movie like Black Sheep , but you will laugh heartily and you will remember it for that . |
544,078 | 562,732 | 187,393 | 8 | The Patriot truly was an epic film , but the effects of Hollywood were much more heavily felt than in the movie's 1995 counterpart , Braveheart . | The Patriot is a beautifully made film . It has a very engaging story and it is very well acted and directed , but it was also heavily influenced by Hollywood . Normally , the effects of Hollywood are not inherently damaging to movies in general ( although they rarely add to a film's cinematic value ) , but in the case of a period film like The Patriot , it is best to avoid the influences of Hollywood . The first problem that is presented is the fact that a " Hollywood Movie " is NEVER compatible with real life . The real world is just not the same as the world that is presented in the movies , and the Patriot attempted to tell a bit of real history , the same way that Braveheart did . Even though the film was historically accurate to a certain extent , many of the battles were either blended together or completely fabricated , and the events that took place in those battles are , in many cases , clearly manipulated . I believe one of the ending scenes , involving Benjamin Martin ( Gibson ) and Charles Cornwallis ( Tom Wilkinson ) , provides a good example . And Mel Gibson played EXACTLY the same role that he played in Braveheart ! ! He was the average guy who suffered an unimaginable loss to the sheer brutality of the ' enemy , ' and decides to take it upon himself to take the enemy out . He is such a spectacular warrior that he is able to kill dozens of men single-handedly , and the enemy is so shocked that they think he is a " ghost . " Wasn't that exact line in Braveheart somewhere ? I have to admit that it was a lot of fun to watch those battle scenes , but the lack of originality is something that I absolutely have to complain about . Besides that , the film also attempted to address certain issues in history , but these attempts were clearly very weak . They wanted to address the slavery issue , so they had a slave in the movie who is fighting in order to earn his freedom , but winds up fighting alongside the other white soldiers even though the necessary time to earn his freedom has passed . This is a very noble thing to do , and it was very inspiring to watch , but then you realize that this was the only black man in the entire film . That is a very small effort to put towards addressing such an enormous issue , especially in American history . Furthermore , the very end of the film ( possible spoilers ahead ) , while uplifting and much easier to watch than the ending to Braveheart , was obviously meant to manipulate the audience's emotions . I don't like to have my emotions manipulated like that , even if it IS nice to see a " happily ever after " ending . Everything was finally coming together for everyone in the movie , including the solitary slave , who apparently found the perfect white man to spend his freedom working for . It's ironic that when everything works out perfectly in a movie , it ends up being more disappointing than a film that has a tragic ending , like Braveheart did . I think that this is a pattern that can be seen most in war films , because the target audience for war films likes to see what really happened . They don't want a nice flowery ending , they don't want anything sugar coated to make it easier to watch , they want the history books acted out on film . This led to the success of films like Braveheart , Saving Private Ryan , All Quiet on the Western Front , Full Metal Jacket , etc . When the facts are altered in any way , it immediately lessens the impact of the film . Despite all of my complaints , I do acknowledge that The Patriot was an amazing film , and it was extremely well made , with even a bit of good comic relief included ( comic relief is almost required in war films , in my opinion ) . It is something that should be watched by anyone who even remotely enjoys war films or even just period films . All that I have pointed out in this review are some of the things to be advised about before watching it . |
544,013 | 562,732 | 84,602 | 8 | Why so serious ? | Like Part 2 , Rocky 3 starts off where the last movie left off , but things are totally different now . Rocky has the feel of a real person with a real , three dimensional life by now , but he's come a long way from the Rocky we knew in the first two movies . Most notably , he's RICH now . He has a genuine career going in full swing in boxing by now , and the first part of the movie is a montage of event fights , all of which he wins soundly and comfortably . He is a tremendous champion with 10 successful title defense fights and a whole list of corporate sponsors . Not surprisingly , he begins to feel overconfident and a little lazy . There is some ham-handed foreshadowing as we see clips of a concerned Mr . T in the audience at Rocky's fights , and it's not long before Clubber Lang ( Mr . T ) begins publicly insulting Rocky , challenging him to a fight and taunting him at press conferences . I'm curious about where Lang's anger comes from . He is clearly furious with Rocky , but we know nothing about him . We don't know anything about his past as a fighter other than what is passed on through dialogue , and the unsolved mystery surrounding his uncontrollable rage is probably the movie's only genuine fault . The important thing that we are told is that Lang is not a boxer , like Rocky , but a wrestler , so it's a completely different , ah , ball game this time . There is an interesting fight that Rocky has midway through the movie with a hulking giant ( Hulk Hogan ) curiously named " Thunderlips , " in an illustration of what had become of his career . He had reached such a level of success that his fights became little more than performances put on to generate ticket sales , but Rocky's humanitarianism shows through , as he sometimes donates all proceeds , as in the case of the fight with Thunderlips , to various charities . But as always , Rocky maintains his laid back demeanor , letting the insults and taunts roll off his back , which is one of the qualities that has really allowed him to win so many hearts . But at an outdoor press conference , Lang taunts Rocky's wife , and he gets genuinely angry for the first time in the first three movies , other than the sudden tantrum he had in the first film when Mickey first asked to be his manager . After this , everything starts to fall apart . It turns out that his championship is not what he thought it was , and he is put into a position where he has to defend his wife's honor as well as his own , and to do that he has to fight a fighter that no one , including himself , really believes he can beat . True to his form , Mickey tells him , " This guy'll kill you to death inside of three rounds ! " And there is no mistake to be made about that . Lang is absolutely a KILLER . This guy has no interest in getting a knockout , he doesn't even seem that interested in being recognized as the real champion , he just wants to hurt Rocky . Essentially Lang's role in the movie is to knock Rocky out of the rut of complacency that he has gotten into . Thunderlips was billed as nearly 7 feet tall and 390 pounds , which I think it roughly twice Rocky's size , and is clearly a wrestler and not a fighter , and yet Rocky was able to win a fight with him , so it's no surprise that he assumed the fight with Lang would be about the same . When they finally fight , Lang walks all over him , and Rocky realizes that he has gotten soft . Apollo Creed , by the way , is now a sportscaster , and becomes Rocky's trainer when they learn how tough Lang really is . The movie loses track a little when Apollo starts training Rocky like he's never been in a gym before , like he's a complete amateur . Yeah , he hasn't been losing much lately , but does that mean he hasn't set foot inside a gym in all those years ? Doubtful , but nevertheless , it's great to see Rocky whipping himself back into shape and once again becoming that hardened hero that we have come to love . Although I have to admit , I loved the swimming scene . Rocky swims like my grandmother ! There is one moment of almost unforgivable cheese when Rocky and Mickey have a heart to heart on the beach at sunset in which , for example , Rocky claims that he's really afraid for the first time in his life . Isn't that a direct quote from the first movie ? There is notably more anger in part three than either of the previous movies , and while a second sequel runs a high likelihood of being the one that marks the first really noticeable turn downwards in the quality of the series ( hear that , Terminator ? ) , this one is no less watchable than the first two and , amazingly , neither is part 4 . Well done ! By the way , it's interesting that , at one point , a sportscaster notes just before a major fight , " The odds of Rocky making a comeback at 34 are long indeed ! " Yeah , how about at 60 ? |
544,026 | 562,732 | 88,944 | 8 | The ultimate action b-classic ! | When I was a kid I may have been the biggest Commando fan ever . I think I must have watched it at least 30 times or so , I used to watch it every day after school . It is totally cheesy and Arnold is basically a superhero not far removed from Rambo other than by the fact that he has more honorable intentions . Rambo was just mentally destroyed by his military experience , while Schwartzenegger's John Matrix was turned into a nearly perfect military fighting machine but just wanted to live a normal life , but was forced back into action when his daughter is kidnapped . Now that I'm older I notice that it's a little strange that nothing is ever said about Matrix's wife , the mother of his daughter Jenny , an early role for Alyssa Milano . But at any rate , he has certainly done well for himself , living together with Jenny in an absolutely beautiful mountain home with spectacular views of the valley below . We are introduced to John as he is carrying an enormous tree trunk through the woods back towards his house to chop up for firewood . This is how he spends his time , you see . His relationship with his daughter is shown through a cloyingly cheesy musical montage of them skipping along and holding hands and putting ice cream in each other's faces and whatnot . We get it , we get it . But I'll tell you why I love the movie . Jenny is kidnapped by terrorists who try to force him to commit an assassination in order to win her freedom . In one of the best scenes in the movie , Matrix is escorted onto an airplane by one of the terrorists , who he manages to kill before take-off and disguise as a sleeping passenger , and then he makes his way to the undercarriage of the plane , literally tearing through canvas barriers and whatnot , and onto the landing gear , flinging himself off of the plane upon take-off and landing in a swamp below . He then has until the plane lands in the distant country to rescue his daughter before the bad guys learn he wasn't on the plane . Arnold long ago said that guns are his one love in all of his movies , and this one is no exception . I don't know why it is so fascinating to me , because I am not a fan of guns myself , but when he breaks into that gun shop and fills shopping carts with guns and grenades and whatnot , I always feel like a kid in a candy store . There is a slightly awkward relationship between John and Cindy , a woman with whom he had a very rough introduction but who soon sided with him to help him rescue his daughter . There is no chemistry whatsoever between John and Cindy ( presenting a convincing romantic relationship has never been one of Arnold's strong points ) , but they make an interesting enough team as they make their way closer and closer to Bennett , the big bad guy and one of Matrix's old enemies . There are some outstandingly overblown gunfights and explosions and car chases , but it is all so much fun that I can't really say anything bad about it . Like all good bad b-movies , Commando is packed with explosions and firepower and dynamite and guns and grenades and whatnot , but still comes down to a hand to hand knife-fight at the end and is packed with cheesy one-liners , except that some of them in this movie are genuinely entertaining and amusing . This is not high class action , but it is definitely tons of fun ! |
544,731 | 562,732 | 119,528 | 8 | Jim Carrey is back in yet another great comedy , although it doesn't quite live up to the spectacular Dumb & Dumber . | Liar Liar is about a boy who , after being stood up by his big-shot lawyer father one too many times , wishes that for just one day his dad couldn't lie . This wreaks havoc on his personal life and even more on his professional life as a lawyer who makes a living putting criminals back on the streets . Carrey is immediately and constantly hilarious in his role as the unwillfully honest Fletcher Reede . Every scene is full of awkwardly straightforward behavior and dialogue ( " Whatever takes the focus off your head ! ) that is funny because it is so unusual and unexpected . Maura Tierney delivers one of the best performances of her career ( second only to her wonderful job in Primal Fear ) , but Cary Elwes plays a disappointing turn from his amazing job in The Princess Bride . Seeing him as the endlessly charming Wesley in that film and then seeing him as a squirrely step-father type in Liar Liar just didn't seem to fit , but the film was able to overcome such small problems and present itself as a good and entertaining comedy . In addition to the good comedy that Liar Liar presented , there were strange comedic scenes that Carrey had never done before . For example , I have never seen him portray a descent into madness as was shown with the blue pen , and it should be noted how well this funny man played the part of a man trying very hard not to be funny , with hilarious results . This is a bit like his role in Man on the Moon where he was a comedian playing a comedian who was often deliberately not funny , and the results there were hilarious as well . Jim Carrey's great comedy acting skills were a crucial element of this film , but they are not the only redeeming value of the movie itself . The story is solid and legitimate as well , and it is well-presented and directed , resulting in a good , fun comedy . |
544,356 | 562,732 | 58,213 | 8 | A classic thriller that deserves another look . | Hush . . . Hush , Sweet Charlotte has , over the years , deteriorated into the type of film that was clearly a tremendous experience in 1964 , but is fairly tame by today's standards . The thrill is unmistakable , but the film can hardly be called a horror film anymore , especially when we now have been subjected to films like The Texas Chainsaws and The Exorcist and a steady succession of generally satisfactory Stephen King films . The thing to keep in mind is that this is one of the films that Stephen King himself watched as a kid and was influenced by when he first began to write creatively . This is a horror thriller to be compared with something like the original Carnival of Souls ( nevermind the awful re-make ) . When you watch that movie , you can tell that people in the 1960's were deeply affected by it , but it's not gonna send your popcorn flying across the room when you watch it today . Bette Davis delivers a remarkable performance , to add to the respectable list of strikingly diverse roles that she played in her extensive career . While the pacing of the story in Hush . . . Hush , Sweet Charlotte runs a little slow , and the film tends to be slightly longer than necessary , the murder mystery is so well presented that even as a member of the all-knowing audience , we don't know the truth about it all until the very end . The black and white photography has , as always , made for a better focus on the performances , and director Robert Aldrich made some excellent use of lighting and shadows that are especially effective in black and white . An influence from Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock may very well have been the inspiration . This is not an edge of your seat type horror thriller , but it's cinematic value and the talent behind the camera are unmistakable . |
544,399 | 562,732 | 7,507 | 8 | Rover , wanderer , nomad , vagabond , call me what you will ? | Chaplin starts out The Vagabond playing in a bar , basically as a street performer , but soon finds himself run out by the more fully developed band who is unhappy that he's stealing their customers . Soon he wanders out into the woods and almost aimlessly stumbles across a group of backwards country people . There is a hunch-backed hag of a woman that looks like a witch but is probably the wife of a mountain of a man who likes to beat the women around him and carries a huge whip wherever he goes . This guy is ripe for a slapstick smack down . There's an amusing scene where a young girl is beaten by the man and then Charlie shows up and tries to cheer her up by going nuts on the violin , succeeding only in getting too excited and falling into a tub of water behind him . After a series of unfortunate events , he trades his trademark cane in for a bigger stick and proceeds to knock out all the men in sight , finally making off with the young girl and the family's house , which is really just a horse-drawn wagon . I am curious about one of the first things that happens after he " liberates " her from her family . He takes a tub of water and roughly scrubs her face , sticking his fingers into her ears and nose while he washes her . The fact that he washes her face rather than allowing her to do it herself is obviously a physical comedy ploy , but it also gave me the feeling that he is sort of washing the country off of her , turning her into a respectable woman . At any rate , soon she stumbles upon an artist who finds her so beautiful that he wants to paint her , and the result is so wonderful that she gains a following in the uppity art world . Soon some rich art fans show up to take save her from a life in rags and bring her , presumably , to the big city . Charlie refuses a reward ( or payment for selling the girl , as it were ) and simply hugs the girl and probably wishes her good luck as she sets off in the big car . But the girl decides she doesn't want to leave without him , so they turn around and go back for him . This story is fraught with problems , of course , like if she would ever start to miss her family or if her upbringing in the big city would conflict with her background as a country girl , and the ending is also a little too cute and neat , but for Chaplin's early silent comedies , this is a very complex story with a definable beginning , middle and end . I felt a little uncomfortable during the face-washing scene , but overall this is definitely a higher quality example of Chaplin's early work . |
544,098 | 562,732 | 439,020 | 8 | A special effects movie like Troy deserved more than 11 minutes about the special effects . | This is one of three other production documentaries included on the two-disc DVD of Troy , and it tells some interesting footage about how some of the special effects were done and how they were edited together . My favorite is how they talk about how a shot of the Greek soldiers storming across the beach toward Troy was filmed on a beach in Mexico while the shot of them entering the city was filmed in Malta , on the other side of the world . Both shots were filmed on a cable ( another interesting technique explained here ) and edited together into a single shot . So without even cutting , a smooth tracking shot switches locations thousands of miles apart and is perfectly smooth . I love that . One of the guys on the special effects crew also talks about how they took out about 60 % of the ships that appeared in the trailer for the film because it just looked too crowded , they were sailing too close together , taking each other's wind , etc . That's a pretty interesting story , I just found it a bit odd because the shot they refer to is not in the theatrical trailer included with the DVD . Maybe they took them out of the theatrical trailer , too . But the thing that I found most impressive was that they wrote their own software for creating many of the special effects shots in the movie because there wasn't really any software available on the market that could accomplish everything that they wanted to do . There was an incredible amount of work put into making people believe that they were looking at history and not at a movie , and in my opinion it was with much success . The video also includes an interesting segment on the sound effects in the movie , which are always interesting . See , for example , the segments on sound effects in the making-of Indiana Jones documentaries . That's the kind of thing that makes me want to learn more about how sound is done in movies ! Overall it's a good show , but the editing again is jolting , there is quite often not enough time allowed for you to get a good look at the sets and locations . There's nothing worse than a behind-the-scenes documentary that doesn't allow you enough time to get a look behind the scenes before cutting to something else . Luckily the information revealed in the video is still very interesting . My biggest gripe is that , over all three of the documentaries included on the supplemental DVD that comes with the movie , there is all of a single , solitary line included from an interview with Peter O'Toole , by far the biggest actor involved with the film . Disappointing , to say the least . |
544,097 | 562,732 | 439,021 | 8 | An excellent look at the history of the real Troy . | At the risk of revealing the sheer extent of my ignorance of Greek history , I must admit that before I saw this documentary I wasn't sure if Troy was a real place or if it was mythical , like Atlantis . I know that there is some debate as to whether Achilles ever lived , but this documentary gives great insight into what relatively little is known about the real city of Troy . I love how they talk about how they didn't know much about what Greece looked like at the time , so they combined research with imagination which is really the only way it could have been done . But they glamorized it because it is an epic film about heroes , which to me is a satisfactory justification for straying from reality . It is not completely historically accurate , but we don't know much about the history so I see no problem with taking some liberties , providing that any real information known is adapted into the movie whenever possible . They talk about the guy who actually excavated Troy , even showing footage of the ruins of the real city , which is a truly amazing sight . Some of the research for what Troy looked like was done at the British Museum , which I happen to know is a great place for doing research like that because I have been there and the amount of history collected in that building is astonishing . There are so many statues and other things that would have been wonderful as props in the movie if not for their great historical value and the difficulty that would have been involved in stealing them . An incredible amount of work and detail also went into designing the square of Troy . And not only did a hurricane destroy the entire wall of Troy so that they had to rebuild it , but they were initially shooting in Morocco and had to move production to Mexico , on the other side of the world , because of the impending war in Iraq . I always find it interesting to hear about the logistical problems like these that come up when making a movie , particularly on location . There are some weird quirks in the editing , such as jolting transitional sequences and a quick shot of a trailer that has " Living The Dream " spray-painted on the side of it , which appears out of nowhere and literally for about five frames , barely enough time to note that there are words on it , much less to read them . I hate it when these things are put together like that . These documentaries promise a look behind the scenes but are cut together so fast that you hardly get a good look at anything . If you want to show a lot of different things , make the documentary longer , not the shots shorter . There is some great stuff about the making of the Trojan horse and the way the city was made to burn , as well as the revelation that , while it seems reasonably clear that Troy was destroyed by enemy attack , it's possible that there may have been more than one war . Lots of interesting historical facts that really made me want to learn more . |
544,813 | 562,732 | 71,577 | 8 | A worthy adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel , with only the really necessary drawbacks . | The Great Gatsby is a book that is very much expected to be made into a movie , and has been adapted several times before this one . It is an intricate story that entails an enormous amount of meaning and significance to society , but the literary version is not one that is capable of being adapted into a film that can capture the entire effect , because so much of the quality of The Great Gatsby lies in the words that are used in the novel , the way things are described , the way people think , etc . This can never be completely transferred to film , and this version of Gatsby leaves out a huge amount of the language and even unnecessarily changes several important scenes . I have heard Robert Redford criticized for fitting the upper-class half of Gatsby's personality too closely and not capturing his darker side well enough , but this is a completely superficial argument . It's true that Redford looks right at home in Gatsby's mansion and his clothes and everything , but it's also true that he walks through the entire movie as though he's not quite sure where he is or how he got there and , above all , that he's nervous about something that he's done or is about to do . I can understand someone thinking that Redford doesn't look like a bad enough guy to play Gatsby , but if there is any problem with him portraying Gatsby's darker side , it's probably more a result of the fact that so much of his hidden dealings are hidden or removed from the film than any weakness on the part of Redford's performance or his appearance in the role . We see one suspicious phone conversation and we realize his intentions with Daisy and how he came to be where he is , but this is told rather than shown . Mia Farrow gives a satisfactory performance as Daisy , although she does not capture many of Daisy's characteristics from the novel , most importantly , I think , the stunning beauty of the sort that would cause a man like Gatsby to spend several years completely transforming his life and becoming filthy rich ( and becoming a criminal while he's at it ) , only to keep his mind occupied with thoughts of Daisy despite all his money and the fact that his ocean-side mansion is constantly crawling with celebrities and beautiful people . Daisy has to be a ridiculously beautiful woman to justify that kind of behavior , or else Gatsby would have to at least be a completely obsessive nutcase . Neither is true . Farrow's shortcomings as Daisy are hugely overshadowed , however , by the character of Tom Buchanan , who is changed from a ' hulking brute of a man ' in the novel to a tall and skinny guy who only has the slow intellect and harsh jealousy toward Gatsby from his character in the novel . Bruce Dern is hugely miscast in this role , but does a decent job going through the motions of his character , at least the verbal ones that he's given . Sam Waterson probably gives the best performance in the film as Nick Carraway , although there is something of an awkward feel with his character if only because he is the narrator in the film , telling the story through his own eyes , while in the film he is an external character and the vast majority of his internal thoughts are necessarily erased . More than the performances , however , there are some scenes that are changed from the novel that just shouldn't have been . I can understand changing or reducing a scene or some dialogue here and there ( although in the case of a classic novel like this , changing anything is almost always a dangerous proposition ) , but there were some scenes that were very important in the novel , either to the story or to the process of characterization or anything else , that were changed for no good reason and with no good affect . The introduction of the characters of Tom , Daisy and Jordan , and most importantly , Gatsby himself were enormously altered for the film , for no apparent reason . Tom has a self-involved introduction in the novel where he introduces himself to Nick by making a comment on his own success , Daisy and Jordan are introduced sitting carelessly in the gigantic living room at Tom and Daisy's house amidst an atmosphere the likes of which no film is likely to reproduce , and Gatsby , most of all , has a wonderful introduction where he is sitting talking to Nick at one of his parties , and Nick casually mentions that he has been invited by some man named Gatsby that he's never met or even seen . Gatsby looks at him in surprise , saying , ' I'M Gatsby . ' This is the perfect way to introduce Gatsby as a man with the means to put on a social event of this caliber but without a clue in the moon about how to interact with his guests . Rather than this simple introduction , however , Nick is approached by one of Gatsby's servers and asked to come upstairs . This is a creepy scene which makes Nick feel nervous as though he's in trouble ( which is understandable since the man who approached him won't say a word and gives him a sly smile here and there as though Nick's the enemy and he's being taken prisoner by the mob boss ) . Nick gets upstairs and Gatsby is standing alone in a room looking out over his party , and there follows a creepy scene in which Gatsby stumbles over his words trying to introduce himself , and no a scrap of his joviality is captured from the novel . In the book , Gatsby is a man who doesn't know the social rules of his parties but is glad to have a grand old time with Nick even though they'd never met , while in the movie he nervously stumbles through plans to go out boating the next day , leaving Nick to stand there still not quite sure what he's supposed to do . I watched this version of The Great Gatsby just after watching the 1993 version of The Secret Garden , which is a film that takes a magical novel and makes a wonderful film out of it , but only really captures the basics of it , the necessary parts that are needed to have the film present the story and make sense . This version of The Great Gatsby is similar in that it is an enjoyable film that captures the story of the novel , but because of the richness of the language used in the book and some of the things that were , for some reason , changed for no apparent reason other than to be different from the original text , it doesn't capture the same experience as the novel . |
544,308 | 562,732 | 387,575 | 8 | You've heard of dolls that bleed ? This one pees ! | Contains Spoilers So here's my synopsis , I liked Bride of Chucky as much as the original , a little more than part 2 , and MUCH more than part 3 . I really think that the move toward comedy and slightly away from horror , as well as our increasing familiarity with Chucky himself , has allowed the movies , and Chucky , to look back at themselves from a different level which , as we all know by now , is a great perspective from which to have some great one-liners and horror movie homages . The appearance of various horror movie souvenirs like Jason's and Michael Meyers ' masks and the Texas chainsaw as well as the re-creation of pinhead from Bride of Chucky are some examples . This is what Seed of Chucky sets out to outdo , not add to the already elaborate nature of the murders committed by the monster doll that we all nonetheless love . Seed of Chucky starts off with an odd scene . I guess I should have caught on to what was really going on in this scene , since it opens with the fruit of Chucky's loins being given as a gift to a child in the UK , the little girl's father casually eating a plate of raw steak as he looks disgustedly at the hideous little doll that arrived in the mail with no return address . I've lived in England , and to the best of my knowledge , I don't remember uncooked red meat being a great midday snack . On the other hand , I don't remember the gutterpunks traveling overseas to collect new dolls for their ventriloquist acts either . While their offspring has been given as a gift to a young British girl , Chucky and Tiff ( who is sporting a brand new , totally unburned body ) are starring in Child's Play 5 , in this case , I believe , called Chucky Goes Psycho , one of countless classic horror film references peppered throughout the movie . My favorite was the scene where Chucky hacks through the door with a hatchet , then just as he's about to explain exactly where Johnny is , he blanks and says , ' I can't think of a thing to say ! ' Goofy on the one hand , but on the other hand , as in the pinhead scene in Bride of Chucky , I thought it was clever that they set up this reference to a classic horror film and then didn't even need to go through with it . They know their audience knows what's going on , and I like that . In another , more extensive reference , the movie takes place during the making of the new Child's Play movie , just like Wes Craven did in his New Nightmare . Jennifer Tilly plays herself , but Brad Dourif does not because , of course , Chucky was real all along , right ? He's just hibernating while they have him hooked up to wires so they can make him act in their movie . Jennifer Tilly pokes fun at her craft and herself , complaining extensively in one scene that she never gets any good roles , that she's just as good an actress , if not better , than Julia Roberts , and that she deserves more than anyone else the role of the Virgin Mary in the upcoming Bible epic directed by , of course , rapper Redman . I have not had the nerve to put myself through How High , despite it's having been filmed at UCLA , my own backward , but I was hugely impressed with Redman's performance in this movie . He will never be able to portray a director preparing to shoot a Biblical epic , much less really direct one , but that's not the point of this movie . This entire sequence is poking fun at the fakeness of Hollywood , and it cracks me up . Besides , given the cavernous nature of Jennifer Tilly's mansion , she hardly seems to be doing too badly . Martha Stewart would be proud of her home , if not her choice of company . And speaking of cracking me up , here's something interesting . Just when you thought horror movies couldn't be unpredictable , especially in high-numbered sequels , Chucky has a cross-dressing , kung-fu fighting , Japanese-speaking British son with razor sharp teeth . Okay , the teeth were predictable , but a British kung-fu master who speaks Japanese ? Where did THAT come from ? ? The movie walks a tenuous line between an asexual nature for Glen / Glenda and outright homosexuality . The cross-dressing scene leans toward the latter , especially because not for a second from beginning to end does Glen / Glenda look or sound female . Those idiots in White Chicks looked more female than this kid . I'm assuming the choice of name is another film reference , this time to Ed Wood's 1953 film Glen or Glenda , otherwise it would seem to have been more prudent to select a name that could have been either sex , like Chris or Sam or Alex or Bill . Wait , scratch that last one . There is a scene where Jennifer Tilly sneaks onto the horror set to get a candy bar that she hid in Chucky's clothes , in another of the scenes where she pokes fun at herself ( in one later scene , Tiff is dragging the unconscious Tilly and comments , ' My God she's fat ? ' ) , and she comes across the head of one of the prop men , picking it up and kissing it before realizing that it's real . This is the only scene in the movie that I wasn't too impressed with . I guess I've just lost my taste for beheading scenes in the movies . But as Day After Tomorrow shows that it's okay to destroy big cities in the movies again , I guess it's okay to behead people , too . Still , however , a fun movie , but one most likely to be enjoyed by horror fans and , especially , Chucky fans . Note : Watch the movie and you'll get an idea of where the alternate title Bride of Chucky 2 comes from ? |
544,602 | 562,732 | 104,257 | 8 | A Few Good Men takes a routine legal conflict , packages it in a formula film , and brilliantly makes it into a great legal thriller . | As is quite often the case with legal thrillers , A Few Good Men starts off by showing the act of violence that the rest of the movie tries to justify . It is a taut legal thriller that keeps you breathless from beginning to end as the case slowly unfolds , going into startling detail and even more surprisingly maintaining the audience's attention throughout the entire ordeal . Tom Cruise stars as Lieutenant Daniel Alistair Kaffee , a smart-ass young lawyer , barely a year out of law school and taking on a case that's much bigger than anything he's ever attempted . He has already compiled an impressive list of successful cases , hence his appointment to this rather intimidating case . Demi Moore stumbles over her role as Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway , who is supposed to be sort of supervising Kaffee's performance in this case , but anytime she lectures him in what is supposed to be an authoritative dialogue , it's not hard to see why he talks back to her so much . I am not what you would call an expert on Demi Moore's iconography , I can't say that her roles in films like Striptease or G . I . Jane affected her role in A Few Good Men , because at the time I'm writing this review I've never seen either of those films , but there is something about her that makes her completely unconvincing as a threatening superior officer . Her dialogues are strained and over-rehearsed , but luckily the strength of the rest of the cast and the story itself is more than enough to make up for any weakness on Moore's part . Jack Nicholson also stars in a role that he seems to have been born to play , although as the film plays out you realize that the role doesn't do him justice as an actor . Oddly enough , it is the ultimate fate of Nicholson's character that turns out to be one of the few things that brought the quality of the movie down . Obviously this is not because of Nicholson's performance in the film , but because of the way his character was written . As we approach the end of the film , and Kaffee takes the biggest risk of all ( putting Colonel Jessep ( Nicholson ) on the stand and making an accusation that better be true or will result in Kaffee being court-martialed , which he drunkenly acknowledges in what is arguably the most hilarious scene in the film ) , the plot starts to jump through hoops just to get to a conclusion . ( spoilers ) The legal case presented in the movie is so intricate and entails so many people and so many different morals that it's hard to determine who the real bad guy is . This is certainly not an open and shut case . But the thing that brings the movie down is that it has the guts to present a case that is not easily solvable , but then has such a copout ending . As Kaffee has a final brainstorm to put Jessep on the stand , he is fully aware of the consequences that he will face is he fails to get the necessary self-criminating information out of him , but decides to go along with the plan , completely convinced that he will admit his guilt in the case so we can all go home ( ' I think he WANTS to say it ! ' ) . Sure enough , in the courtroom when Jessep is on the stand , Kaffee eventually asks him if he ordered the Code Red ( after the now-laughable ' You can't handle the truth ! ! ' scene ) , to which Jessep brilliantly responds , ' You're damn right I did ! ! ' Okay , we know what really happened ( even though we had known pretty much since the beginning , so the movie's over , right ? My concern here is that throughout the entire movie up to that point , Colonel Nathan R . Jessep is NOT portrayed as the kind of man that would accidentally admit something like that in a military court of law . What he IS presented as , on the other hand , is the kind of man that WOULD know that letting information like that slip would certainly result in him going to prison . Well , at least they left out the part where he nervously scans the courtroom and says , ' I ? hope I didn't say that out loud just now ? ' with a weak smile . In keeping with the overly-intricate legal content of the film , A Few Good Men realizes that it is not a simple legal thriller that can be ended as cleanly as a Scooby-Doo cartoon , even to the point that it ends with Kaffee and his rival lawyer , played expertly by Kevin Bacon , discussing their next moves in continuing this case in other directions , similar to the ending of Rules of Engagement , another deeply involved military thriller . The question that A Few Good Men approaches is the moral conduct of the military officers that stand on a wall at the edges of our nation and provide us with the freedom that we enjoy , how much civilian law applies to them , and even , on the outside , whether or not it is really them alone that provide us with freedom , or at least protect it . Certainly flawed , but A Few Good Men lives up to the expectation of being a star-studded military legal thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat for almost two and a half hours , with plenty of comic relief thrown in that is amazingly able to not take away from the seriousness of the film at all . Rather than cheap laughs , we are given an amusing personality that makes us like the main character , Kaffee , even more . The acting and the story and the direction certainly deliver what is promised , but the movie ultimately pans out to be something that should have been better than it was . The ending was open-ended and complemented the complexity of the moral content , but still came about entirely too conveniently . |
544,574 | 562,732 | 187,738 | 8 | Ahhh , MUCH better ! ! | Blade II is an exciting action film that takes the tired vampire story and adds a new twist by introducing an entirely new villain . Sure , there is sure to be some controversy ( at least among film fans and fans of the genre ) about whether or not it is right to introduce new characters in this way . Vampires are a tired theme at the movies , but it is a time-honored genre in itself that deserves respect just from the fact that it has been around for so long in literature before the movies . The question of whether or not the writers were justified in introducing these new characters is , in my opinion , satisfied by the fact that they made such quality villains that fit so well into the genre . I am thrilled to see that they didn't just make another dumb Blade film that was exactly the same as the original except for the possibility of some new special effects , because these new characters , called Reapers , are exactly what the film series , as well as , potentially , the genre as a whole , needed . Reapers are blood-feeders , just like vampires , except they feed on humans as well as vampires , effectively making them an enemy of both , and their thirst is much stronger than the traditional vampire . And to make matters worse ( or better , depending on whether you are an enemy of the Reapers of a member of the audience ) , they are identified by a scar which runs down their chin . This scar is where the lower jaw splits open when the Reaper is feeding , creating a frighteningly massive mouth like a vampire version of the Predator , and which has things inside it reminiscent of the horrifying and strangely unique Tremors . There are some amazing make-up effects here as well , although I can see the film being automatically overlooked at the Oscars in 2003 simply because it is the successor of such a low class action / horror film , as well as because this is just not the kind of movie that wins Academy Awards . I'm not sure that there is anything in this film that is likely to catch the Academy's attention , but the make-up was very impressive to say the least . Wesley Snipes returns to the role of Blade , the half-human / half-vampire creature dubbed the ' Daywalker ' because of his ability to withstand sunlight . This is in itself one of the better parts of the movie , because even though I was enormously unimpressed with the original film , there is no one that could play this character as well as Snipes does . There is also an interesting conflict introduced as Blade is forced to team up with the vampires , his mortal enemies who we are to assume could turn on him at any time , in order to fight the Reapers ( by far the more dangerous enemy ) , who ? reproduce , ' you might say , at an astonishing rate . It's too bad , though , that the existence of the Reapers was introduced by vampires in a rather impressive although entirely unnecessary fight scene between a couple of vampires and Blade himself . Blade is attacked one night by two vampires wearing body suits ( and some goggles that probably retain the coolest effect of the entire film ) , they fight violently for several minutes at full speed without rest , until one of them suddenly kneels before Blade and asks for a truce , informing him that there is now something on the streets that is even worse than him . If they were going to ask for a truce , you would think that they would approach him at least a little differently . One of these vampires ( the better fighter , as it were ) turns out to be Nyssa Damaskinos , a sexy brunette vampire who's lipstick was not smeared in the least even by all of those flying kicks that she took to the face from Blade about 15 feet in the air . Remarkable . There seems to be a growing trend of having honest fight scenes replaced at an ever-increasing amount by special effects . Consider how vastly the role of special effects increased in Jet Li's fight scenes in Lethal Weapon 4 ( relatively few special effects ) , Romeo Must Die ( massive amounts of special effects ) , and The One ( relatively few movements that were NOT special effects ) . This same trend is clearly influencing other films that are not made to be primarily fighting films , such as Blade and Blade II . The weapons that Blade carries around are still cool ( think of them as a dark version of the toys that James Bond was sometimes given to take on his missions ) , and while the fight scenes in Blade and especially Blade II are undeniably thrilling and fun to watch , it's impossible to ignore the fact that most of what we are watching is computer generated . As a whole , Blade II succeeds in reviving the story of Blade , which was not done justice by the original film . The Reapers were a much-needed and very impressive addition to the story , and the resulting conflict between the vampires and Blade himself as they are forced to take sides together provides such an interesting conflict that it almost overshadows the one created by the Reapers , who are by far the more dangerous villains . There is , of course , some stuff here that was thrown in without apparent reason and therefore without beneficial affect ( such as the unnecessary , however impressive , fight scene between Blade and the two vampires early in the film ) , but as a whole the film rises high above its predecessor . The fact that the original film ends with Blade becoming a worldly vampire-hunter is mostly ignored in this film , although this one does end with a similar bit of comic relief and may even leave room for a second sequel . And as much as I disliked the original film , after watching Blade II I can't say that I would be too disappointed to see a Blade III come out in a few years . |
544,154 | 562,732 | 20,629 | 8 | Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori . | The irony of this quote ( " Sweet and fitting it is to die for the fatherland ) is what All Quiet on the Western Front is all about . The movie paints a very clear , even blindly obvious , picture of the difference between the young recruit's expectation of battlefield glory and the battle weary veteran's knowledge of the bloody reality of war . The beginning of the movie suggests a military atmosphere that will stifle everything else in American daily life , as a military marching bands trudges past , drowning out the words of a lecturer in a classroom , but then changes directions when we realize that that professor is spouting militaristic propaganda at his young male students , vehemently urging them to join up and fight for their country . By the end of his speech , modern audiences might be astonished at the naked lies about battle , but the young men are cheering by the end and desperate to enlist . There is , of course , massive difference between the audiences that first saw the film in April 1930 and today's audiences , and the thematic elements make this abundantly clear . Remember that this movie , one of our first Best Picture winners , was made for an audience most of whom had never seen moving images of war , and had no idea what life was really like on the battlefield . Because of that , the movie lacks in realism , although mostly only in the behavior and dialogue of the men . The actual battle scenes are startlingly realistic . The men remind me of reading old Hardy Boys books , which contain dialogue which can't possibly be at all realistic . Some of the dialogue here in this movie is funny because it is so different from how people would speak today ( " You are the gay heroes that will repulse the enemy when called upon to do so ! " ) , but mostly it is simply the ham-handed delivery of the thematic elements that gets a little tiring ( " You're just a man , like me , and I killed you ! We only wanted to live , you and I . If we didn't have these guns and these uniforms , we could be brothers ! " ) . Needless to say , the men quickly realize that they are not running off to the glorious battle . As with any war , when they left home , they were leaving to fight for their country . But when they arrived at their destination they find that they're not fighting for their country at all , they're fighting for their lives . My historical knowledge of World War I is pretty limited , so I was a little confused at one scene where four American soldiers are bathing in the river , and soon notice three attractive French women casually strolling past the river . Initially I thought that they were just camping near a small village , apparently oblivious to the war , until the men managed to seduce the women using some soggy bread that had been soaked in the dirty river water , suddenly revealing that these smiling young women are virtually starving . The plight of the French civilians is hardly portrayed well . One soldier goes home on temporary leave , and the movie also gets his battle remorse totally wrong . When he sees his family , he mumbles and trudges past , indifferent to see his loved ones again . It is as though he has lost his job , not returned after months and months and months at war . Soon he is at a table talking to some of the old politicians pulling the strings of the war , who accuse him of not knowing a thing about it when he tells them that the war isn't what they think it is . To say that this is an anti-war film is certainly an understatement . In fact , the film ends on a decidedly unpatriotic note . A soldier speaks in the same classroom he used to go to , telling the eager young men about the reality of war . " It's dirty and painful to die for your country , And what good is it ? Death is stronger than duty to one's country . " He then returns to the front , which now feels more like home to him than his home . The film has a great , meaningful ending , as well . It is as anti-climactic as you can imagine , but has a deep and resonating meaning . The movie has not dated well , but being one of America's earliest war films , it is certainly successful . |
544,852 | 562,732 | 298,148 | 8 | Is this a spoof ? | While Shrek 2 was another great , confectionery romp like the first one , the homages to old fairy tales and other movies are approaching the area of campy spoofs . I was just waiting for Leslie Nielsen to pop up somewhere . Fiona pulls a layer of mud off of Shrek's face , kissing him upside down like Mary Jane Watson in Sam Raimi's Spiderman , The Little Mermaid washes onto shore and Fiona throws her back to the sharks as though she were trying to steal Shrek away from her , she and Shrek enjoy a romantic time lit by the light of lots of little Tinkerbells in jars , Fiona becomes the Lord of the Ring , and Shrek later in the movie cooks up and is helped out by the Stay-Puft Gingerbread Man . This is all great stuff that movie buffs are sure to love , but a lot of the humor has gone downhill , not necessarily in the maturity department ( the first movie was pretty immature at many points ) , but in the tact department ( the first movie was immature , but tactfully so ) . As best as I can remember , for example , there were no loud fart jokes in part 1 that blew Shrek's untucked shirt out behind him from the force of the wind . Shrek has gone from moderate irritation and sarcasm to downright anger , and much of the entire first half of the movie is saved by a masterful performance from Antonio Banderas as the voice of Puss in Boots . Which is too bad , too , because once the movie gets going it goes right back to the same level of animated superiority of its predecessor . In Shrek 2 , Shrek and Fiona are now married , as we saw in the end of the last movie , which necessarily brings the narrative to a slightly higher level of maturity , since the main characters are past a major point in their lives that most of their target audience is not even close to . Donkey has returned , uninvited again , but dearly loved by the audience at least as much as he is for some reason detested by Shrek . I think that the main problem with Shrek 2 is that the conflict is so minimized . Shrek is married now , and the prevailing conflicts in the movie are things like meeting the in-laws and keeping Fiona from being drugged into falling in love with another , more politically correct man , while part 1 was all about the fairy tale quests to slay the fire-breathing dragon and save the beautiful princess . Of course , even though he's married , Shrek is still an ogre and still has the manners and demeanor of an ogre , which are for some reason epitomized at a dinner with his new in-laws in order to create sort of a Meet the Parents type scene , except that the King , who Shrek is supposed to impress , apparently has table manners not too dissimilar from Shrek's . Maybe the movie's trying to say that there's really not much difference between royalty and ogres . In Shrek 1 , Shrek saved the princess and won her heart ( thanks in no small part to the fact that she has a little condition that turned her into a ogre at night ) . Now , in the sequel , the real Prince Charming , who Aesop might dictate should have saved her in the first place , goes to the highest chamber in the storybook castle to rescue her and finds only a gender-confused wolf there reading the latest copy of Pork Illustrated , and is understandably furious . Thus begins his quest to find the princess and win her heart , even though she has already been rescued ( from the imprisonment imposed by the very parents Shrek is out to impress ) and her heart already won . Responding to a summons from Fiona's parents , who want to meet their daughter's new husband , they go on a long journey to reach the kingdom of Far , Far , Away ( with Donkey all the while asking if they're there yet ) , and are met with the expected shock of a kingdom and two parents not ready to welcome back two enormous , hideous ogres , and all manner of hilarious mayhem ensues . Joan Rivers also makes a cameo as Joan Rivers , commentating on the outfits of the stars as they parade down the red carpet . And by the way , who has a grudge against poor Pinocchio ? Not only does he get caught wearing women's underwear , but it's a thong and he lies about it ! And then , to add injury to insult , as it were , he gets turned into a real boy just in time to suffer a fall that would have shattered most of his brand new bones , and then he gets turned back into a puppet again ! What did he ever do to deserve such shabby treatment ? ? |
544,541 | 562,732 | 313,443 | 8 | Not just another Denzel movie ? | The more Denzel Washington movies that I watch , while he remains one of my favorite actors , the more apparent it becomes that he seems to play basic variations of the same character over and over . I think I was first put off when John Q came out , I saw it , and it occurred to me that he was playing yet another desperate black man deciding to take matters into his own hands , sort of the character who disregards the law completely , but we allow it because we , unlike almost anyone else in the movie , know that it's okay because his purpose is honorable . The end , as they say , justifies the means . Given that , I watched Out of Time expecting something similar ( certainly the movie's tagline doesn't promise anything different ) , but was surprised at how entertaining and subtly different it was from his other films . Granted , he is still a desperate black guy forced to break the law in order to prove his own innocence , but in this case his innocence is not quite as flawless as it is made out to be in many of his other films . In John Q , for example , he is the perfect father , willing to go to any length possible ( including giving his own life ) in order to save his son's life . In Out of Time , the main purpose of the first third of the film is to expose his failed marriage and his willingness to have a relationship with a married woman . In a sense , the beginning of the movie is all about his imperfections . ( spoilers ) The movie also makes an unexpected and fairly sharp turn about a third of the way through . It starts off being about a police chief who falls in love with a married and terminally ill woman and so decides to steal massive amounts of evidence money so they can run away together , and then quickly turns when the woman and her husband turn against him , faking their own fiery deaths and smartly setting up the entire situation so that every bit of evidence points to him , Matt Whitlock , so they get away with all that evidence money that she stole for him at the beginning . The tension builds brilliantly as Whitlock tries desperately to prevent the rest of the police force working on the case from realizing that he has been named the new beneficiary on the life insurance policy , that he was seen outside the house the night it burned to the ground , supposedly killing the woman and her husband , he's all over her phone records , etc . Probably the main problem is that , pretty much from the beginning of the conflict , you may find yourself yelling at the screen , wishing that he would just come clean early on , because there's a pretty good chance from the beginning that he could explain away the deaths , and accept responsibility for only the crime that he was really guilty of , having an affair with a married woman . Doesn't it seem , for example , that it would be hard to prove that a CHIEF OF POLICE would be so stupid as to kill a woman mere days after she named him the primary beneficiary to her million dollar insurance policy ? Few members of any police force are that foolish . Nevertheless , the tension built as he tries to prevent the discovery of his involvement long enough so that he can straighten things out keeps the movie moving at a brisk pace , but the movie sadly comes to a tired cliché of an ending . I'm sick and tired , for example , of seeing action movies that come to an end where our hero is on the floor on his back holding up his hands in defeat while the villain points his / her gun at him , and just as the villain is about to shoot , we hear a gunshot and see a look of surprise , then shock , then death come across their face . It's been done too many times , and it's too bad that an action film like this one , which was otherwise very well made , had an ending like this that just didn't fit with the creativeness of the rest of the film . The same thing happened to a recent , very well made action film called 15 Minutes . Despite the character flaws that are introduced in the early portion of the movie , we are able to forgive Whitlock because of his motives . He and his wife , to whom he is still married , are separated and headed rapidly for a divorce ( the plot thickens because she is the head homicide detective working on the case that's leading rapidly toward him ) , and Ann , the woman he's having an affair with , is married to an abusive boyfriend who Whitlock is trying to save her from . Despite the fact that the movie comes to a boring end that is something of a let-down , as a whole it is very entertaining and more in the vein of the quality suspense thrillers that I have come to expect from Denzel Washington . |
544,565 | 562,732 | 96,256 | 8 | Quite possibly the scariest funny movie ever made . Or the funniest scary movie ever made . | They Live is one of those horror movies that is so scary and so good that it has become a comedy classic . Yes , comedy . There are maybe a total of five horror films that were made in the 80s that are or ever were even slightly frightening , the majority of them , particularly those which remain popular today , are popular because of their comedic value much more than their scariness . Now , I don't mean to badmouth 80s horror or to suggest that these movies are a sustained string of cinematic failures , but you really can't watch something like one of the Nightmares on Elm Street or a Friday the 13th film and afterwards say that you laughed less than you were scared . Okay , so maybe this is just me , but I really think that it can hardly be denied that the comedic content of horror films provide a large part of their overall appeal . And whether you personally agree with me or not , it's not hard to see that John Carpenter agrees . My favorite example of this in They Live is the way Nada ( the basically nameless main character ) reacts when he first begins to see what the alien beings really look like when he finds those glasses . Personally , I would have kept my visions a little more to myself until I figured out what was going on , but this guy hilariously tells an elderly woman exactly what he thinks of her appearance in the middle of a crowded convenience store . Now , I should probably point out that this is not really something that translates very well into film-review form , you just have to see it for yourself . By explaining it in writing here I feel like Mr . Burns trying to be funny ( ' We'll have some excellent practically-based jokes ! ' ) . And then , of course , there is the violence , which is so overdone that it's subsequent humor is nearly unrivaled until Quentin Tarantino came along and made Kill Bill . Nada is a construction worker who is struggling to maintain a job ( as are many of the other workers ) , but desperately needs to show his visions to someone else just to make sure he's not insane . He finds himself wanted by the police ( for reasons that I won't explain ) , and shows up at the construction site where he works to try to get one of his coworkers ( also struggling to maintain this job to make ends meet ) to try on the glasses . Personally , if I was in that guy's situation I wouldn't want to be getting involved with this apparent nutcase either , especially if I needed that job as badly as he obviously did . Nada is not about to let the guy go until he sees , though , and thus follows The Fight Scene , capitalized for obvious reasons . And by the way , if the guy didn't want to get involved with Nada , it seems like it would have been slightly less troublesome to just look through the glasses and walk away than to get into a full-on kickboxing match with him in broad daylight for half and hour or so . I watched the DVD version of They Live , and I have to say that I was a little disappointed that there was nothing on the DVD about how they did the makeup of the aliens , because I always thought that that was the most interesting part of the movie ( besides the fact that the whole control issue so closely resembled the operation of mass media and commercialism in real life ) . So what you have in They Live is a very interesting premise with a pretty simple delivery , but it works because it's cleverly done and believable , despite the fact that the whole magical sunglasses thing is more something that you might expect to see in a fiction story written by a kid in fourth grade . When I was in fourth grade I wrote a story about a hat that I could put on to make myself invisible , and the conceptual difference is really not that much . They Live is one of those 80s horror / comedy gems that is widely overlooked , especially today , when massive video chains like Blockbuster have reduced their horror sections to contain little more than the ridiculous crap that Hollywood cranks out and foolishly labels horror films , like Jeepers Creepers ( one of the dumbest horror films to come along since I Know What You Did Last Summer ) and other such nonsense . Granted , they still carry a few of the good ones - my local Blockbuster still has the original Nosferatu in its horror section , as well as some of the excellent recent horror films like The Ring and Ringu , upon which The Ring was based . And I DID rent They Live from my local Blockbuster , but it was in the DRAMA section . WOW . This is an example of the way that the horror genre has evolved and the way that older horror films have been affected . You would think that if they were going to completely redefine a genre , they would at least have put a movie like They Live in the COMEDY section . |
544,409 | 562,732 | 1,103,965 | 8 | And the baby goes to ? | Coming on the heels of the great writer's strike in Hollywood , the 2007 Academy Awards ceremony began amidst wonder about what it would be like , after the Golden Globes , I think , was presented as a bare bones ceremony to which few people showed up . I didn't pay much attention to the writer's strike , partly because I'm living in the middle of China at the moment and partly because I just don't see what the big screaming deal is . Maybe it's because I work for a living so it's hard for me to understand the unjust plight of people who get paid 100 times what I make to sit at home and write jokes . Anyway , John Stewart , again the Oscars ' host , introduces the show by exclaiming , " You're here ! I can't believe you're here ! " He then , of course , goes on to ridicule the whole fiasco , clearly touching some nerves but hopefully lightening the tone a little as well . As usual , Stewart has some great jokes ( " What a shame , Titler had some great ideas ! He just couldn't get past the name ? . and the mustache ? " ) , and some that just clearly make the audience uncomfortable . But again , luckily we have the writers back so we can watch some of our most talented actors come on stage and tell jokes with all the animation and energy of a hockey puck . That's one of the biggest mysteries of the Oscars . Every year , we see the most talented people in the business come on stage and give astonishingly wooden deliveries of their highly rehearsed jokes and speeches . Maybe this is what happens when they don't have a good director helping them ? George Clooney , surprisingly , seemed to get just a little stuck once or twice during his speech introducing the outstanding 80 years of Oscar sequence . Maybe because of the deadpan response to his cheerful " Hi guys ! " greeting to the audience . Maybe they were tired . I thought it was funny . The show could always use a little informality to lighten the tension . John Stewart doesn't exactly have the most perfect track record of delivering classic jokes on stage . He's a funny guy , but nearly half of his jokes must make at least half the audience squirm in their seats ( " I believe Javier Bardem told his mother where the bathroom is ? " ) . I'm sure that high school kids failing their Spanish classes are still rolling over that one . The rest of us , not so much . As always the awards are criticized for that ridiculous time limit imposed on the winners . It is certainly true that this show , and any awards show , is ABOUT the winners , and the majority of it should be given to them to give thanks to what is often one of the greatest honors of their lives . John Stewart has plenty of time to make bad jokes and often poke ridiculous fun at some of our most talented actors , yet those actors themselves are so often rushed off the stage by that incessant orchestra music , which is really no different from someone extending a hook onto the stage and yanking the speaker off by their neck . Obviously , it's clear why this happens . The Oscars , unfortunately , are about honoring the greatest achievement in film-making , but more than that , they are a media frenzy . The show is designed to get ratings much more than to honor performances or achievements . This is why the greatest actors and animators and directors and costume designers and writers are shooed offstage so that Stewart can introduce another pointless montage that does nothing but eat up time . In this ceremony , he even mentions that , had the writer's strike continued , they would have had to " pad the show with even more montages " ( Oscar Salute to Binoculars and Periscopes ? ? Bad Dreams , An Oscar Salute ! ? ? ) . Pad the show ! ! What , was there a shortage of material ? After showing these film clips , which Stewart introduces as pointless , he quips about how great it is that they don't have to waste our time by showing them . What the hell is going on here ? Is this what the winners are rushed off the stage for ? And by the way , best category announcement of the evening has to go to Forrest Whitaker , and best acceptance speeches ? Tilda Swinton and Marketa Irglova . Definitely . Note : John Stewart mentions the IMDb as he is introducing Nicole Kidman onto the stage . I think that's the first time I've ever heard anyone mention the IMDb at the Oscars . It's just too bad that he has become so famous as a political satirist , because political satire only has the tiniest place at an event like the Oscars . More importantly , it has made it nearly impossible for Stewart to offer genuine congratulations without sounding like he's going to crack some stupid joke afterwards ( which half the time he does ) . All in all , even though the Oscars seem to get more commercialized every year , they are still all about the love of movies , and this year is no different . It's an inspiring show no matter how many little bothersome things we have to deal with , and it's hard not to enjoy a lot of people experiencing their dreams literally coming true before our eyes . I particularly loved the occasional history of the Oscars montages that they would show in between awards . THAT is the stuff the show should be padded with . After all , remembering great moments in film is what it's all about . |
544,900 | 562,732 | 458,525 | 8 | Looks like we're gonna need new sheets again , baby ? | It is perfectly fitting that the new X-Men movie should include " Wolverine " in the title , since none of the three previous movies explained the history of his mutation , although slightly less fitting that " X-Men " should be in the title , because it is more like a spin off for Wolverine , the franchise's most popular character , than it is another X-Men movie . Granted , the histories of some of the other X-Men that we know are mentioned , such as Sabertooth , who is the result of Wolverine's brother Victor evolving along darker lines , and Cyclops also shows up , but for the most part we get Wolverine growing to understand his mutation as he is put into a team with a whole new group of mutants . Not that that's a bad thing , of course . Die hard fans may not be so pleased to see that so little of the new movie has to do with the mutants that we know so far , and while my own knowledge of the comic books is absolute zero , I'm going to go ahead and suggest that the new movie is enjoyable even though it almost certainly doesn't live up to the expectations of the comic-thumping crowd . The movie opens in northwestern Canada in 1840 . Wolverine ( now just Jimmy ) and his brother Victor witness the brutal killing of their father which is almost exactly the same as the killing of young Rory Devaney's father in The Devil's Own , except for one crucial difference . You'll know it when you see it . It's a moment that comes dangerously close to an homage joke , but the recovery is thankfully quick . Their Canadian citizenship makes for a great scene late in the film that will have Canadian movie theaters erupting with cheers , although it doesn't explain why Jimmy and Victor fight side by side in the Civil War , World War I , World War II , and Vietnam which , unless I'm sorely mistaken , are mostly all more American wars than Canadian . Nevertheless , it's one of the movie's many great sequences . Anyway , in Vietnam things get a little crazy . Victor loses his cool and has a confrontation with a senior officer that results in the death of one of them , and when a firing squad fails to kill them , they are offered a position on board a super-secret black Ops team so they can REALLY serve their country . Well , they can serve their neighbors to the south , anyway . What follows is Jimmy's journey to find a place in the world for himself , and all along the way he has to avoid being used for powers that he has but doesn't even fully understand yet , and he discovers a major project headed by William Stryker ( Danny Huston ) , who is secretly planning to capture all of the mutants ' powers and create a single super-mutant with the powers of all of them and , presumably , none of their weaknesses . A lot of action tension falls away as it becomes more and more apparent that the relevant mutants , particularly Wolverine , are immune not only to death but to injury , but the entertainment level is high and the effects and photography are generally pretty good . There is some pretty disappointing blue-screen work late in the film in it's ambitious climactic scene , although to be completely honest , I was forced to watch a pirated DVD that I bought last week here in China that had 13 other movies on it . The picture quality is of course reduced , but more importantly , somehow someone got their hands on a copy of the movie where a lot of the visual effects weren't even finished , like external shots of planes flying and mostly the entire final scene . There was actually one point where Victor puts his hand on a window and a text label pops up saying " claws grow . " I'm assuming that in the final version , his claws grew menacingly . For those of you with access to American theaters , I hope you appreciate the sheer picture quality that you are able to experience , you don't know what you're not missing ! X-Men : Origins is not the best X-Men movie ( I would argue that X2 was the best so far ) and it's a strange choice for director Gavin Hood , whose directing efforts include the hugely impressive 2005 film Tsotsi and 2007's Rendition . He has definitely hit the big time with this movie ( like Alfonso Cuaron did when he was asked to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ) , although it seems like fans of his directing will be unimpressed with his latest choice , but those of us who remember him acting in bad action and horror films like The Curse III and American Ninja 5 will be thrilled at how far he's come ! But even though a lot of fans and critics may not be as impressed with the latest X-Men film than past entries in the series ( Roger Ebert was pretty much a dick about the whole thing ) , X-Men : Origins is definitely a strong film considering that it's the third sequel . If they can keep them at least this good , they could easily squeeze out a couple more . |
544,576 | 562,732 | 236,493 | 8 | An entertaining twist on the traditional modern romance . | As has been the case with nearly every romantic comedy ever made , Jerry ( Brad Pitt ) and Samantha ( Julia Roberts ) are in a wonderful relationship that is nearly destroyed by a lot of stupidity . There is a horribly frustrating encounter between the two in which Samantha refuses to believe that Jerry is being forced to retrieve this priceless pistol from Mexico or else be killed . Never mind the gun , Jerry , you promised to take me to Las Vegas . I don't care if they're going to kill you , either , it's your life , or me , you decide ! Why can't we ever have a conflict introduced in a film like this that's not introduced as a result of a nerve-grindingly stubborn woman or a complete moron of a boyfriend ? In the recent The Bachelor , for example , which was an otherwise very entertaining film , much of the conflict comes as a result of Chris O'Donnell's character DAYDREAMING at the most crucial moment , which happened to be a moment on which any flesh and blood human being would be focused like a freaking laser beam . Jerry is forced to go pick up this pistol in Mexico , charmingly named The Mexican , by his criminal boss , who is in jail partly because of Jerry . So needless to say , Jerry owes him a favor , to say the least . The movie picks itself up and dusts itself off is when Samantha is kidnapped by James Gandolfini's wonderful character , Leroy . Samantha's stubborn departure early in the film separates her and Jerry for the most part of the rest of it , but they are still involved with each other , entirely through Leroy . He has been sent to kidnap Samantha as sort of an extra inspiration to get Jerry to complete his task , and the interactions between Leroy and Samantha are arguably some of the most entertaining parts of the film , along with Jerry's pathetic attempts to fit in among a completely and hopelessly foreign culture . Leroy and Samantha ultimately wind up searching each other's souls and helping each other out enormously on an emotional and sociological level , while Jerry struggles down in Mexico to get the pistol and then return to Samantha . The conflict , as well as the drama , is increased along the way as Samantha complains to Leroy about Jerry , listing all of his inefficiencies and shortcomings , while Jerry is at the same time running into one troublesome situation after another , mostly due to mistakes that come as a result of his seeming inability to stop thinking about her . He can't wait to get back to her , and she can't get over her anger that he left in the first place . Clearly , this is a fascinating story compared to the general slop served up in romantic comedies , and I think that the only thing that really takes away from the film a great deal is the initial formation of the rift between Jerry and Samantha , which the rest of the film concentrates on filling . This is the tough spot for romantic comedies , and if The Mexican had had a better introduction of the conflict , the film would have been nearly perfect as a romantic comedy . It did , at least , only have the horribly stubborn girlfriend , rather than the horribly stubborn girlfriend combined with the abysmally moronic boyfriend , as was the case in the above-mentioned The Bachelor . Probably the film's strongest points are the complexity and diversity of the characters , as well as the originality of some of them ( Leroy , for the most part ) , and the interactions between them . The conflict is curiously explored as Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts , the two huge names associated with the film , are separated for most of the movie , but kept tied together with the fascinating character of Leroy , who never seems to surprise us . While the premise is not very interestingly presented , the film itself attempts to solve it in interesting and fun ways , leaving us with the feeling that we didn't just watch the exact same romantic comedy that has been released five or ten times a year for as long as many of us can remember . Pitt plays a character that doesn't fit very well with his iconography , and the film has it's share of tactical flaws , but as a whole it meets its lofty expectations . |
544,869 | 562,732 | 104,409 | 8 | Hellraiser III is by far the best of the series so far . It is the first one that has any decent acting ( although still not great ) , good direction , and even a fairly respectable story . | Pinhead has returned , and again he wants to destroy that pesky puzzle box , the door to Hell , so that he will never have to go back . His return to the world of the living is fascinatingly done with an updated version of that horrific rotating pillar that we're all so familiar with by this point . Kevin Bernhardt plays J . P . Monroe , an arrogant night club owner ( the ' Boiler Room ' ) who is at first persuaded by Pinhead ( still trapped in the stone pillar ) to help him come fully back to life in the traditional Hellraiser manner . As is to be expected , not everything goes perfectly as planned , and the ensuing madness is both sickening and morbidly entertaining . Ashley Laurence has been mercifully removed from the cast ( probably saving the film from failing like the first two did ) , except for a thankfully brief cameo in which her character is referred to in order to learn about the history of the box and to prove its capabilities . Hellraiser III gives the series a much needed jump-start , following a weak but cult classic original , as well as an even weaker first sequel . Unfortunately , the ' Female Cenobite ' ( mysteriously left unnamed ) , ' Chatterer , ' and ' Butterball ' ( both of whom probably SHOULD have been left unnamed ) are gone , but a series of about half a dozen new Cenobites keeps the hellish imagery alive . I think that one of the better elements of this installment in the series is that they show all of the new Cenobites being created . However , when Doc becomes a Cenobite ( ' Camerahead ' ) , some of his dialogue refers to his life as a human , contradicting the previously established characteristic of the Cenobites that they don't remember their human selves . In the anti-religious tradition of the Hellraiser series ( remember ' Jesus Wept , ' from part I ? That was by far my favorite ) , some of Pinhead's antics in the church near the end of the film are great . When the priest holds up the cross to him , Pinhead melts it in the poor guy's hand , which is a terribly cruel thing to do , but at the same time he utters an absolutely brilliant bit of dialogue , ' Thou shalt not bow down to any graven image . ' Words to live by , people . After that , Pinhead's self-crucifixion scene was wonderfully sickening , yet his intentions in doing that were both clearly presented and morbidly farcical . Jesus was crucified , paying for man's sins , thereby saving mankind from damnation and becoming the subject of countless masses of people's unquestioning adoration , inspiring Pinhead to crucify himself and state that ' I am the way . ' This is great stuff . Besides all that , I think that this installment had some of the best death scenes of the series so far , particularly in the nightclub . Some of that was almost physically painful to watch , a sure sign of success for a horror film . Not only was that Boiler Room massacre convincingly portrayed , but writer Peter Atkins also had the excellent idea to have poor Terri walk through the masses of mutilated bodies after the massacre had ended . Pretty uplifting stuff , huh ? A little too gory and bloody ? Don't moan about that , it's not supposed to be good , clean , fun . This is a horror film , and by definition , horror films are supposed to be horrible . And Hellraiser III achieves this horror better than either of the two that preceded it , finally leaving the viewer satisfied . Even when you think you are watching what will be a cheesy ending , a plot twist makes it good again , saving us ( and the film , technically ) from a goofy and patronizing ? happily-ever-after . ' This was a very good horror film . It's almost worth watching the first two just to get to this one , and hopefully this unexpected but very welcome upward trend will continue with the rest of the series . |
544,593 | 562,732 | 313,542 | 8 | Very Bruckheimer-esque ? | John Grisham is famous for constructing tight , fascinating and tense legal thrillers , and Runaway Jury is really no exception , but unfortunately it doesn't really seem to take itself very seriously , which is bad for a movie that falls in a subgenre that should really be taken seriously . The movie's basic idea is to take a high-profile court case involving a potentially massive settlement and transfer the suspense from the prosecution / defense and place it largely on the formation and manipulation of the jury itself . Gene Hackman plays a powerful behind-the-scenes sort of jury-selection officer who is paid by the gun company , the defendant , to select the jury that is most likely to provide a favorable verdict ? hence the popular quote , ' I was under the impression we had already purchased a verdict . ' The movie focuses entirely on the corruption and injustices of the justice system , presenting the jury as a manipulated mob of people chosen for their similar characteristics that even they don't know that they have ( or at least don't know that they're the reason they were selected for the case ) . Some of the best moments in the movie are the quick editing and fast dialogue during the jury selection process , as Hackman's character establishes his confidence , experience , and knowledge . At this point in the movie , you almost wish he were a good guy just because he's so good at what he does . The novel on which the movie is based was about a case against big tobacco , the movie uses a case against a gun company to add a sense of immediacy and a more direct , violent death . The film starts out with a man going on a shooting rampage in the middle of a business office , shooting and killing anyone who crosses his path . The widow of one of the victim's files a lawsuit against the gun corporation that provided that weapon , and the corporation responds by hiring Rakin Fitch ( Hackman ) to root out a jury that would swing the verdict in their favor . John Cusack delivers a great performance as the guy on the inside , so to speak , in that he and a woman with whom he is working are doing a little jury swinging of their own . Thus enters the eyebrow-raising portion of the film . Cusack plays Nick Easter , a man who manipulates Fitch the entire time that Fitch thinks he's manipulating him and the rest of the potential jurors . He is teamed up with a woman named Marlee , and some of the tricks that they pull in order to create the illusion that they have complete control over the jury , not Fitch , are hugely impressive , but many if not most are at least as unlikely . I particularly liked the ' Are you feeling patriotic ' trick , but there were others , such as the one where they got one woman kicked out for having alcohol in the jury room , that just worked out too conveniently for them . He acts hungover and gets her to offer him a bottle the second that a bailiff walks in the room . Please . ( spoilers ) Aside from that , however , the movie moves along remarkably well and never drags . There is the rather pressing problem that the laws in America , I think , are pretty clear that the manufacturer of a firearm cannot be held accountable for what people do with their products ( every major city in the country would be so buried in legal battles against the gun industry that there would be neither time nor lawyers for anything else ) , so I think the point of the movie is more to punish them for trying to buy the verdict than for any initial wrongdoing . Unfortunately , that takes away a lot of the satisfaction from the final verdict , or at least renders the change from tobacco to guns rather meaningless , since the trial is about corruption in the legal system , not wrongdoing by the industry in question . The tensest parts of the movie are when Fitch catches on to what's happening with his jury , and his subsequent inability to do anything about it , since so many people are watching this high-profile case and you can't exactly change the entire jury right in the middle of the trial . The movie trips a little bit when it tries to pass on a message about gun violence , because that's really not what kind of movie this is . Runaway Jury is meant to entertain , not necessarily to deliver a message about gun violence , especially since it takes place in a legal world that is so picture perfect ( even in it's corruption ) that it could really only exist in a John Grisham movie . Besides , Michael Moore recently eliminated any need for a fictional film to tackle the issue of gun control . Runaway Jury went a little too far , tackling subject matter more serious than itself when it took on gun control . It should have just kept to its area of expertise ? jury control . |
544,114 | 562,732 | 479,143 | 8 | Let's start building some hurting bombs ! | Another Rocky movie is definitely a long shot , to say the least . Stallone came out with a new Rocky movie and a new Rambo movie pretty close to each other , so it's pretty easy to assume that he's having career trouble and desperate for a couple of new hits . I haven't seen the new Rambo yet , but I just watched Rocky Balboa and it was much better than I expected . I remember one scene in Rocky III where a newscaster said something like " A comeback for Balboa at age 34 is a longshot indeed , " and that was more than two decades ago ! Adrian has died of cancer and Rocky has become a restaurant owner , still loved and respected throughout his community by pretty much everyone except for the people who are immediate and stunning a$$holes to him . What was the deal with that teenage girl berating him at the bar at the beginning ? Are there really teenagers who act like that ? And why didn't the bartender swiftly boot her and her clearly underage friends out into the street where they belong ? Clearly , this was an attempt to show how times have changed , from that foul-mouthed little girl in the first movie who Rocky walked home and gave his famous pep-talk to ( and who , by the way , is now the bartender ) , and into these clownish teenagers . Sad , how the times have changed . Even sadder , the changing times don't stop at the teens . The neighborhood is falling apart , all the old places that we have come to know and love from the first five movies are all dilapidated wrecks , and Rocky takes a few reminiscent strolls through the neighborhood , remembering fond memories . The whole beginning of the movie is pretty sappy , but the movie becomes interesting ( and strikingly predictable ) when we meet the new Heavyweight Champion of the World , which himself must also be a suggestion of how times have changed for the worse . The Heavyweight champions used to be enormous fighting machines , guys of unbelievable size who are carved out of wood and represent truly formidable and intimidating opponents . So what is the deal with this Mason " The Line " Dixon ? Antonio Tarver is a real life light heavyweight fighter with a highly impressive record , but he does not for one second look like a world heavyweight champion . I knew guys on the junior varsity football team at my high school who looked more like heavyweight champions than this guy . He may be a good fighter , but he's just not a heavyweight champion , especially not a movie champion . At any rate , you know those guys who sit around those noisy TV studios talking about sports after the game ? I always thought those were some of the goofiest guys on TV ( they're like frat boys in fancy suits ) , but soon they start talking about how the undefeated Dixon has been spoon-fed all of his opponents , and that back in the old days Rocky fought much tougher , harder fights . You may remember this form of media taunting as the major catalyst that drove Rocky II , but this time around they have the technology to actually computer generate a theoretical fight between Rocky , in his prime , and Dixon . Rocky scores a pretty decisive win and Dixon , of course , is unimpressed . Soon begins Dixon's expected taunts and demands to fight Rocky , who is sort of dragged into the whole thing unwillingly . There is also the issue of his son , who has grown into an older version of the disrespectful little punk that he was in part 5 . He has some uppity office job and is striving for respect among his colleagues and superiors , but can't ever seem to get it because of who his father is . Needless to say , he's not so enthusiastic about this new fight with Dixon , because no one takes Rocky even the tiniest bit seriously in the run-up to the fight . Paulie is still around and still his old , lovable self . At one point he walks into Rocky's restaurant and Marie ( the little girl from the first movie who was a bartender in this one until she lost her job and started working for Rocky ) asked him if he has a reservation , and he responds , " Do I look like a freakin ' Indian ? " At least some things haven't changed ! Despite Mason Dixon never for a second looking like a professional boxer , they did do a good job of making him an arrogant , immediately dislikable character . He's an egotistic , pompous jerkoff , and when juxtaposed with Rocky's ever-present charm , it's impossible not to know how the movie is going to end . Still , I won't give it away . The important thing is that this is a respectable addition to the Rocky saga , and I think a successful and satisfactory conclusion to the series . Rocky is clearly getting to be an old man by now , but they do a good job of making us believe that he still has enough left in him for one more fight . And best of all , the very last line in the movie proves that he has still done it for all the right reasons ? |
544,091 | 562,732 | 121,765 | 8 | . and the Star Wars saga makes a massive comeback ! ! | It was no small task for George Lucas to make up for that ridiculous mess that bore the title of Episode I . While Episode II : Attack of the Clones was far from unflawed , it is vastly superior to its predecessor , providing for some serious entertainment and a huge relief for Star Wars fans around the world . Sadly , Star Wars has sank to the level at which many people are almost ashamed to like the new films anymore , an unfortunate fact which has come about solely as a result of Episode I , and the failure of Episode I is due in no small part to the abysmally moronic addition of a character like Jar Jar Binks , who is easily one of the most popularly hated characters ever put on screen . On the other hand , Episode II runs a strong campaign as the worst script of any Star Wars film which has ever been or ( hopefully ) ever WILL be made . What you have in Episode II is a spectacular piece of computer animation that presents some spectacular battle scenes , chases , landscapes and settings , new and interesting aliens , etc . This part of the film is just as fascinating as was expected , and the hand to hand combat scenes as well as the aerial maneuvering scenes are wonderfully well-done and entertaining . However , there is the addition of a love scene between Anakin Skywalker and Senator Amidala . Now , the Jedi have long since been know to be forbidden to express the emotions of love , hate , anger , etc . , so it is obvious from the outset that the addition of a love story into the Star Wars world can only have negative results . This awful love story couples with the MASSIVE amount of confusing political dialogue that makes up much of the film , which can do nothing but confuse all but the most dedicated and knowledgeable Star Wars fans . I like that Lucas has placed so much emphasis on expanding the story that he has already created , but at the same time it is disappointing that people who watch the movie for some good entertainment are being alienated in favor of the stereotypical Star Wars geek . When I first saw posters in theaters advertising Episode II , and saw the tagline ' A Jedi Shall Not Know Anger . Nor Hatred . Nor Love , ' along with a romantic picture of Anakin and Amidala , my heart sank . This is exactly the kind of thing that ruins one Bruckheimer film after another , and now it's going to plague the Star Wars saga . Needless to say , my expectations for the film sank even lower than they did as a result of Episode I , because in that poster I saw the makings of a cheesy teenage romance . When I actually saw the film , I found that it far exceeded the disappointing quality of its predecessor , while at the same time being continually brought down by the hideous romance . I always try to keep an open mind about movies , especially ones which have such a dedicated fan base and such a huge reputation as the Star Wars films , but this is by far one of the worst presentations of a love story that I have ever seen . Every bit of dialogue that takes place between Anakin and Amidala is pathetically clichéd , rendering their romance ( or lack thereof ) nothing more than an anchor that held the rest of the film down . There is not a single memorable acting performance throughout the entire film , either . It was good to see Samuel L . Jackson adding his part to the series again , but even his small part was wooden and mechanical , as though he were either reading cue cards or reciting lines that he had rehearsed hundreds of times . Hayden Christensen is the most disappointing addition to Episode II besides the ridiculous Jar Jar ( I'll get to him later ) , mumbling his way through his lines and at some points even sounding like a pouting 10-year-old who's had his toys taken away ( the line ' Someday I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever ' is impressive in a tired cliché kind of way , but he delivers it like a whiny little kid ) . Natalie Portman was never convincing for a second in any of her role in the Star Wars saga as a young Senator , and in Episode II she delivers more of the same childish political mumbo jumbo as in the last movie , but at least she TRIES to take herself seriously , which Christensen doesn't . She's about as right for this role as Denise Richards was for the freaking nuclear physicist in The World Is Not Enough , one of the worst Bond films ever created , and in Episode II her character is made even less convincing as she goofily grins her way through this dumb teen crush . The film ultimately builds to a wildly impressive shot of the Clone armies loading in perfect lineup onto the massive star ships which are to take them to their attack , and then we get a sort of Lord of the Rings ending , in a way , in that the movie ends right where it seems to be beginning . While the beginning of the end credits are accompanied with a bitter sense of disappointment , I can't help thinking that this will wisely add to the expectation of Episode III , and I don't hold this ending against the film as a whole any more than I did that of The Lord of the Rings . With the exception of the astonishingly idiotic romantic subplot , Episode II is a hugely entertaining piece of cinematography with many references to the Star Wars story as a whole , which are sure to delight dedicated fans ( although not all of these allusions are impressive or even necessary ) . Whether you hate the new films just because they don't do justice to the classics or you love them just because they're Star Wars films , there are things here that are just undeniably thrilling ( such as , for example , Obi-Wan's flying leap out the window early in the film to catch the spying droid and , even more , the immensely impressive fight scene where Yoda works his Jedi magic ) . Okay , speaking of Yoda - Yes , he looked completely different than he did in the original series , and YES , he can FIGHT ! His fight scene was by far the most memorable in the film , and it ended in a brilliant way ( in which neither opponent lost , and neither won ) . It was Episode II's version of the hugely impressive fight scene between Qui-Gon Jinn , Obi-Wan Kenobi , and Darth Maul in Episode I , and this year's version hugely improved upon that one in that , instead of the pathetically disappointing end of the fight that we got in Episode I , we have a much more mature and memorable end in Episode II . And , of course , let's not forget Jar Jar Binks . This is a character that was added to the saga in Episode I to the gigantic disappointment to the movie going public in general , and because he has been bashed probably in every review ever written about this film or the last one , I will instead give my theory as to why he was in Episode II at all . George Lucas applied his brilliant imagination ( which , by the way , is FAR superior to his directing skills ) to the creation of Episode I , wanting to come up with a unique character to renew interest in the series . He came up with Jar Jar , put him in the film , and was greeted with massive disgust , even ( and , indeed , ESPECIALLY ) from his most dedicated fans . It was revealed fairly early that he planned to bring the character back in Episode II , which left ME feeling that he didn't care what the public thought if it went against his own preferences . However , when the movie was released , we find that Jar Jar has a hugely down-sized role , which makes it clear that Lucas knew that he is a hated character and should not be in the movie . However , he can't simply take him out entirely because that would be like admitting that he was wrong , so basically I think that Lucas left him in , only a little bit , to avoid making what would essentially be an internal apology . No one wanted to see Jar Jar , but removing him completely would have been too much of a step backwards for Lucas to take and still maintain some cinematic integrity . As a whole , Episode II clearly has its share of positive and negative qualities , and it carries the rare distinction of containing what seems to be more than its share of both . There are thrilling battle and fight scenes delivered in highly impressive digital photography and interspersed with god-awful love scenes and flat , rigid dialogue pretty much throughout . In comparison to the original films , especially the 1977 Star Wars , Episode II is little more than an attempt to pass an inferior story along under the guise of some impressive special effects , but as far as the new films , Episode II comes through to revive the series from the dismal effects of the disappointing Episode I . And it's a good thing , too , because after Episode I , the Star Wars series badly needed a good boost . |
544,834 | 562,732 | 144,084 | 8 | A dark look at the subconscious mind of the typical American male . | American Psycho seems to be concerned with what it is that Americans really think about , and puts forth a rather disturbing assertion . This movie reminds me of an old video I saw of Jim Carrey back when he was a stand-up comedian . I think this was even before his Saturday Night Live days . He was talking about how we all have these weird , violent urges many times a day , but luckily we all have that voice of reason in our heads that tells us not to act on these urges ( ' Ah-ah-ah , turning the car into oncoming traffic ? is counterproductive ! ! ' ) . Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman is a guy who has those normal urges , just like any normal American , but lacks the voice of reason . He acts on his urges , and basically becomes what any of us would become if we did the same thing . Sure , I'm kind of going out on a limb to say that any normal American would turn into the murderous monster that Patrick Bateman is , but there is definitely an element of truth to that . If everyone acted on their urges , the world would be a nightmarish place . The movie starts out by introducing Bateman as a typical young businessman in the tradition of the guys in Boiler Room . Completely obsessed with money , superficiality , a dizzying array of skin creams and ointments , reservations at the trendiest restaurants in town , the goofy names for the colors of his business cards , etc . You know , things that normal people don't care about . But of course , Patrick Bateman is not a normal guy . These are all things that reflect the heavy undercurrent of sexual symbolism . This film is packed with references to the insecurity of the typical male about his sexuality , and Bateman acts all of these things out in every way from the kind of business card that he has to the kinds of people that he kills and how he kills them . Not a pretty idea , but the film definitely has something to say . This is not just some frivolous exercise in sex and violence and murder and rape , the movie has a message to deliver and it knows how to get some attention . American Beauty had a million things to say , not the least of which had to do with modern American society's obsession with superficiality and skin-deep beauty . American Psycho has some similar things to say , most of them much darker than anything in American Beauty ( which had some pretty dark stuff in it ! ) , but not delivered in quite the same stunningly skilled and complex package . American Psycho is a masculine film about American males and directed by a woman , which is just as well because a male director may have been a little insecure about portraying a deeper level of male consciousness in such a brutally accurate manner . |
543,853 | 562,732 | 326,614 | 8 | That's it , I'm getting a job at a hotel . . . | Directed by Alfonso Cuaron's lesser known brother , Carlos , Wedding Night reveals a shared interest in sex and comedy between the two brothers , although with slightly less tragedy than Alfonso tends to portray . While Alfonso mixes sex and tragedy and gets comedy as a result , Carlos goes straight for sex and comedy in this diminutive short film which , at a tiny four or five minutes long , is surprisingly effective at telling a story . A short , short story , but an entertaining one and a funny one . I haven't seen any of Carlos Cuaron's other work , but he shows a genuine skill and storytelling ability in this short comedy . |
544,610 | 562,732 | 42,707 | 8 | Much better than expected ! | As it is described in the collection in which it now appears , The Man Who Cheated Himself is definitely a classic piece of textbook film noir . I am embarrassed to say that I had never heard of Lee Cobb until I saw him in 12 Angry Men a couple months ago . He was an astonishingly busy actor between the 1930s and 1970s , appearing in more than 100 films and television shows . The video quality of the copy that I saw was not the best , the picture was unclear and scratched and the sound was like an old vinyl record , but I watched the movie expecting to see a stunningly bad old movie , given that I bought it in a collection of something like 15 movies , most of which seem to have been long since forgotten . I will admit that I didn't feel a lot of chemistry between Cobb's police chief Cullen and Lois Frazer , Jane Wyatt's femme fatale , but I was willing to accept it as a catalyst to propel the plot and their fates further down the tubes . There is a definite effort to generate Hitchcockian suspense during the middle portion of the film as their cover story grows thinner and thinner . I have read some reviewers that disagree , but I think that this part of the film is done particularly well , given that it is so realistic . The process is complicated by the fact that the other lead investigator on the murder is Cullen's younger brother , who grows continually closer and closer to the truth , which he desperately doesn't want to be true , while Cobb's Cullen has more and more often to talk down to him as though he's a rookie , telling him he is naïve and inexperienced when , in fact , he is doing everything right . ( spoilers ) The chase sequence at Fort Point at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge is the best part of the film , although for some reason it seems like it is dragged out a bit , as if they wanted to get as much out of their access to the site as possible , yet the scene was barely five minutes long . I have visited Fort Point many times when I was a kid and lived in the Bay Area , and I seem to remember a rather eccentric portrayal of it in Bicentennial Man , but this is clearly a much more interesting and successful use of it in a film , at least until Kim Novak threw herself into the Bay here in 1958 . The very end of The Man Who Cheated Himself is a little confusing to me . The plot is clear and the ending is perfect , although I can't understand the half smile on Cullen's ( Cobb's ) face as he sees Lois walk by with her new lawyer boyfriend , whom she is entrusting to ensure her freedom almost as a trade for her love , as Cullen is led away to his miserable fate . Maybe he simply can't believe what has happened . The movie has a definite B-movie feel ( not the least reason for which is Wyatt's uninspired performance ) but it is well written and otherwise well made . |
543,832 | 562,732 | 220,506 | 8 | Hey , at least the series isn't sinking as precipitously as the Hellraiser series . Just kidding . This movie rocked . Seriously . You're hearing this from a dedicated Halloween fan . Resurrection deserves to be w | I read another reviewer's comments about Halloween : Resurrection , and one of the things that he said in his review is that hardcore Halloween fans will be disappointed . On the contrary , I think that hardcore Halloween fans , a brilliant group of movie buffs with whom I proudly associate myself , are among the few that will really be satisfied . The Halloween that John Carpenter released in 1978 is among the most well known horror films ever created , which is why people who are not so familiar with the series ( and the fact that the original will never be topped or even matched ) are the ones that will expect a horror movie experience of some incredible mangnitude , and when they realize that no sequel can never accomplish that , they'll walk away shaking their head in disillusionment . I , on the other hand , with the benefit of a very in-depth understanding of the Halloween series as a whole , realize that any sequel to a film as good as the original Halloween is made for entertainment purposes only , and for the most part , this kind of entertainment doesn't include many real scares . If nothing else , I enjoyed this movie just because of the film score , which remains one of the best and most powerful horror film scores ever recorded . Granted , the movie trips over itself almost immediately . It contains a scene very early in the film which is so ludicrous that it threatens to set the stage for an hour and a half of no-brain horror , but luckily the movie is able to turn itself around . There is a stereotypical scene in horror movie lore , and I don't know if it really has a name yet , but this is how it goes . There is some goofy and contrived conversation that leads to one person being in a high-risk room ( this is a horror movie term ) alone , while the other person ( who SHOULD have been there at the time ) lags behind doing something stupid ( in this case , eating a candy bar from the vending machine ) . The moron finally catches up ( I'll give a spoiler warning here , even though I'm only about to spoil a scene within the first ten minutes of the film ) , and notices that a running dryer is making a suspicious amount of noise . He walks up and finds a severed head inside the dryer . The problem here is that we know there's a head in the dryer as soon as the guard slows down and looks at it , but the dryer is drying a load of WHITES and there's not a DROP of blood on a single garment . I hope I'm not the only one picking up on the discrepancy here . I've gotten a quarter of an inch cut on the top of my head ( from a water-skiing incident that I won't get into ) that bled so much that it covered my face and chest and completely soaked my swimming shorts ( the lesson I learned that day is that head wounds bleed a LOT ) , so I ASSUME that a SEVERED HEAD would bleed at LEAST as much . Okay , let's overlook the bleeding head thing ( this is the kind of thing that comes up when you're analyzing a horror movie , so hear me out here ) , you still have to deal with the fact that , while the guard nervously creeps up to the drying machine that contains not a single solitary drop of blood , he evidently didn't notice the headless body of the other guard , which was so close to him when he was peering into the dryer that he tripped over it when he stumbled backwards in shock . Was this guy so curious about what was in the dryer that he stepped right over his friend's headless body ? Before you answer that , let me just tell you that the rest of the movie doesn't operate at QUITE that level of sheer stupidity , so feel free to check it out . I was a little dismayed at first when I realized that Busta Rhymes was in the film , if only because he so viciously mutilated an Ozzy Osbourne song a few years ago , but he proves me to be an idiot by delivering an excellent performance as one of the heroes of the film . I'm a die-hard Ozzy fan , but even after Busta ruined one of Ozzy's songs , I am willing to forgive him after seeing his performance in this film . One of the things that I liked about this movie , that I should have seen coming given the sheer magnitude of horror films that I've watched ( REAL spoiler warning ) is that Michael Myers was not brought back to life by some goofy Evil-Can't-Be-Killed crap , but by the simple fact that he disguised someone else as himself in the previous film , and so Laurie Strode decapitated someone who she thought was Michael Myers , but was really some poor guy with a crushed larynx and three kids . At this point , by the way , I'd like to point out that if you're revolted by the fact that a guy withthree kids getting killed is a RELIEF , you may not enjoy the Halloween films . I'm still a little confused by the fact that Laurie gets stabbed and apparently killed ( I'd like to reiterate my spoiler warning here ) . I assume that her ' death ' ( see my X2 review if you think I'm referring to an actual death here ) is just another sign that yet ANOTHER Halloween film is inevitable , but I was expecting her to jump out at some crucial moment when some helpless teenager was about to get killed . Oddly enough , I think the internet portion of the film was remarkably effective , since I've seen total trash like Dee Snider's Strangeland , and realize how easily this kind of thing can be totally screwed up . The movie contains the obligatory element of romance , and like almost not a single other film that I've ever seen , the two characters involved in romance never meet each other . For that alone the movie deserves some commendation . There is a little bit of a Can't Hardly Wait element as two geeky freshman go to a party supposedly designated for people older and cooler than them , and they wind up heroes without forcing us to suffer through any cheesy romance scenes beyond the heroine thanking her hero on television . When was the last time the hero and heroine made contact only through television ? Am I wrong to think that the movie deserves to be rewarded for at least trying something new ? I am not a fan of endless horror movie sequels . I have yet to see Jason X , but having seen all 47 or so sequels of Friday the 13th , I know that unless they come up with something as fresh and entertaining as Halloween : Resurrection , the series has long since passed away . I am also , I might mention , not at ALL a fan of rap musicians covering classic rock songs , but even though Busta Rhymes did that and screwed it up just as badly as they all do , I really enjoyed Resurrection , as well as his individual performance in it . It is Halloween 8 , a sequel number that holds no distinction other than the fact that it is the only one in years worth watching that goes beyond being worth watching just because you're a fan and are obligated to see them all . This sequel undoubtedly stands above the rest , I can only hope that it sets a trend . |
543,793 | 562,732 | 300,556 | 8 | Never underestimate the importance of release forms ! ! | Speaking of time travel , there is an interesting paradox that seems to surround movies that involve time travel ( The Time Machine ( namely the remake ) , Timeline , Time Cop ( for obvious reasons , admittedly ) , etc ) , in that no one seems to like them but they keep getting made . Well , maybe no one likes them but me . I can't get enough . I think that the fact that their popularity seems to exist only among filmmakers ( and me ) , and not the general public , is more a symptom of sci-fi in general . Science fiction is one of the two easiest genres to be badly screwed up ( the other , needless to say , being horror ) , with a massive quantity of awful movies being made for every one good one that comes along , and a massive number of good ones for every great one . So do the math . The great movies are not common . I would say that one of the main reasons that these movies are generally not too well accepted , especially science fiction ones involving time travel , is that any amount of time travel involves a certain perspective on the world ( pertaining to time travel in the past ) , while time travel into the future involves a certain imagination of what the future will look like , and that vision is not likely to be very similar to your own vision of the future . Hence the common dislike . I , on the other hand , get a huge kick out of seeing other people's imagination about what the future will hold , which is why I tend to enjoy time travel films so much . There are exceptions , however , such as the fact that the people who made the 2002 version of The Time Machine seem to have a massive misunderstanding of the mechanics of evolution ( both of organic life as well as the evolution of the language spoken by the creatures 800 , 000 years in the future ) , but for the most part , I think time travel movies are not assertions of what the future will look like , but a more direct approach to the very basic function that all movies are meant to create ? escapism . What better way to escape the routine of daily life than by going to a completely different time ? That being said , I'd like to take this opportunity to defend Timeline , because scanning through the other reviews on the IMDb is enough to reveal that there are a lot of people out there who didn't appreciate it as much as I did . Roger Ebert was certainly less than impressed . Okay , so I could have done without Paul Walker , who hasn't been in a good movie since Pleasantville ( I should say whose ONLY good movie was Pleasantville ) , but the overall premise and execution of the film I found to be tons of fun . There is a lot of talk about nothing interesting being done with the premise , and while I can't say that I completely disagree , it also doesn't completely bring the movie down . True , there are millions of possibilities that the movie could have explored , and it only explored maybe five of them , but they were still fun . For example , the actual experience of traveling through time ( which I was very much looking forward to , given the fact that the travelers have to be broken down to a molecular level ) is conveyed with nothing more than a series of underwater shots and a bunch of dissolves , very disappointing . Then there is the fact that so much could have been added had someone from the 14th Century been brought back to the present time , which would have been more interesting since they would not have had any idea what was going on , unlike the scientists . But I guess that was already done in Kate & Leopold , another movie that I genuinely enjoyed but that received lukewarm reviews . There was a very interesting event involving someone that snuck a hand grenade back into the 14th Century ( perhaps knowing that they were going to arrive right in the middle of a war ) , only to zap himself back in time after pulling the pin , just in time to destroy the machine that sent everyone back . This , unfortunately , is where the movie really starts to fall apart . We're told at the beginning that this machine has been able to fax actual , 3-dimensional objects from this machine to an ' identical ' one in New York City . The question that immediately arises , then , is why the hell don't they go to that machine to get the scientists back instead of furiously trying to repair the exploded one ? ( spoilers ) Then , of course , you have the ' villain ' who ultimately refuses to allow even an effort to get the scientists back , since they only have the machine back to 81 % performance when they begin to run out of time . Simply having the scientists sign release forms upon their departure would have solved that problem right away . They already knew that they sometimes had problems getting people back in the same condition in which they left , you would think that it would have been standard procedure . There is , of course , the question of ethics , but this guy was clearly more concerned about their resulting deformities ' ruining us . ' It was also pretty clever how they introduced a deadline into a movie involving time travel , by the way . There is nothing more frustrating than the characters rushing to get something done in a movie in which they can simply travel back further and have more time . This was one of the only things that bothered me a little bit about the Back to the Future movies , how Doc is always rushing around saying , ' Damn ! I'm late ! ' But I guess it's kind of like when you were a kid playing Nintendo and you used to get mad at the video game even though you had the Game Genie and had infinite lives . Come on , you had the Game Genie , didn't you ? ? Anyway , in order to travel back in time in Timeline , they open up a wormhole , I guess in the space-time continuum or something , which only stays open for a certain length of time before closing again , and the people have to come back through the same wormhole that they left in . Hence the deadline and the opportunity to include one of those digital clocks counting down the time that Roger Ebert loves so much . Now , while the movie ignores tons of possibilities that could have been explored with the concept of time travel , I really liked the idea of the scientists themselves going back and thoroughly altering history , one of those things that mostly all time travel movies and books ( even The Simpsons ) before revel as the ultimate thing NOT to do when traveling through time , especially into the past . Not so here , the professor , first of all , is able to send a message back to the future in leaving a note and his glasses to be found 600 years later so that his contemporaries will know that he's in the past . They travel back and arrive right in the middle of a war , hence the widespread and justified complaints that the movies simply uses time travel as an excuse to stage some elaborate battle scenes . I can hardly argue with that , but due to my own undying love of time travel in the movies , I found much more beyond that to enjoy . It could have done so much more , but the entertainment value is hardly sacrificed . |
544,095 | 562,732 | 48,281 | 8 | A classic crime comedy that evidently can't be updated . | The humor in this movie is not only British , which is notoriously misunderstood by American audiences ( and vice versa ) , which is odd because both the writer and director were American , but it is also now five decades old . Only the best American comedies have lasted anywhere near that long ( consider , for example , the sad fate of many of the movies that people thought were really funny in the 80s ? Police Academy , anyone ? ) . The reason The Ladykillers has not only survived but has now been remade is because the comedy in it is not only effective , but it is intelligent , and it is very difficult not to be impressed by a comedy with a brain . Alec Guinness is in top form as the leader of the gang , whose members reflects criminals of all walks of life . The ingenious plan is to rent out a room from a sweet old lady while they pull off a heist . The comedy , for me , lies in the difference between what is planned and what is played out , particularly in the difficulties that the gang of criminals have in outsmarting a sweet old lady who acts like a grandmother supervising a group of unruly grandchildren . The problem that the movie has is that the pace is very slow and much of the comedy has faded over the years , but structurally and intellectually it remains a respectable film , even more now in comparison to its disastrous remake . What went wrong in the remake is that they did not maintain who the character of Mrs . Wilberforce was , because it was the juxtaposition of her as a frail old woman surrounded by toughened criminals that made it funny when things kept going wrong in their plan . In the remake she is replaced by Mrs . Munson , a tough-talking woman who was to be feared from the outset . There is no irony in being overpowered by someone more powerful than yourself from the outset , which I imagine is why the remake also featured Marlon Wayans and a case of irritable bowel syndrome , which I have never seen used in an even remotely amusing way . While the original film may be a bit too slow for modern audiences , it is indeed charming the way 87-year-old Mrs . Wilberforce continually foils their carefully thought out plans , many times inadvertently . Alec Guinness is wonderful as the band's leader , wearing outrageous false teeth , nearly rivaling Lon Chaney as the man of a thousand faces , and Peter Sellers is one of the criminals as well . I'm no expert about British comedies or Alec Guinness ' early works , but I can certainly tell enough from watching this movie that the Coen Brothers ' remake did nothing to impress the British about Hollywood's respect for the classics . |
544,196 | 562,732 | 805,570 | 8 | Models and Boy Scouts advised to avoid riding subways alone after 2am ? | It is one of my unwritten principles about film criticism never to say things like " Such-and - such movie could only have come from the mind of so-and-so . " It's a self-congratulatory phrase that sell-out critics ( film critics and books critics alike ) use in efforts to get their names on movie or book covers , and having been a fan of writers like Clive Barker and Stephen King since I was about 11 years old , I've heard it more than enough times for it to have become an empty cliché in my mind . Nevertheless , The Midnight Meat Train , my friends , could only have come from the mind of Clive Barker . Sorry about that . It has been probably something like 15 years since I read Barker's Books of Blood , and pretty much the only thing I remembered very clearly from The Midnight Meat Train were the creatures on the train and that thing with the tongue at the end of the story . That's an image that won't leave your mind easily ! I also recommend reading " The Skins of the Fathers " and " The Body Politic , " the latter of which was featured in the disappointing film Quicksilver Highway . Bradley Cooper stars as Leon , young photographer desperate to earn the recognition of a local famous artist named Susan Hoff . Unfortunately , his main technique is the gigantic cliché of trying to " capture the city as it really is , " which has to be the most uninteresting goal imaginable for any photographer . Maybe he doesn't understand for how many decades that exact same thing has been pursued by countless tens of thousands of photographers . As is to be expected , Susan is unimpressed and wants something more , so Leon soon finds himself perusing the late-night subways trying to catch the perfect stills of violent crimes in progress . He discovers a man who has a habit of riding the last train past the last stop and butchering the remaining subway inhabitants like cattle , and Leon becomes obsessed with getting to the bottom of the crimes , only to discover that this particular series of murders has a history that can be traced back well over a century . The movie is padded pretty heavily , of course , given that it's adapted from a short story , but for the most part it stays true to the original tale . Mostly , certain things are fleshed out a lot more , characters are added , and other side elements are added completely , but the disturbing heart of the story is here . We could easily have done without Leon's atrocious girlfriend , however . She has to be the whiniest , most self-righteous and controlling woman that I've seen in a movie in years . They are meant to be getting married soon , and when Leon photographs an attempted gang-rape in progress and then the victim later goes missing ( and the police don't believe anything is really going on ) , his girlfriend is not for one second supportive or interested or even concerned , she simply instructs him not to take night photography anymore . She informs him that he is to turn in his photos to the police and move on . She also has an emotional scene in the second half of the movie that is such a preposterously bad piece of acting that it made me want to throw myself in front of a meat train ! As a horror movie it works surprisingly well . There is at least one shot that I've never seen done in any horror movie , and I've been a pretty avid horror fan for nearly two decades . Unfortunately , there are also more than a few scenes that simply make no sense whatsoever . Mahogany , the " butcher " ( played by Vinnie Jones ) has bloody gastric problems that are never really quite explained , although the more distracting aberration is his bizarre outbreak of marble-sized moles or warts that covers his chest , which he routinely cuts off with a scalpel and collects in jars in his medicine cabinet . It's a satisfactorily horrible affliction , to be sure , but it would have been nice if it hadn't just been thrown in randomly for effect . I was also a little confused by the Asian hottie that gets assaulted near the beginning of the movie . She nearly gets gang-raped by a group of gangsters , is barely saved , and proceeds to get on the subway alone anyway . It was weird enough that she was riding the subway home alone in the middle of the night anyway ( she's a MODEL , by the way ) , but man , she sure made a quick recovery from the attack ! Later , a group of kids are walking through the subway selling fund-raiser candy bars at 2am . I hope they get a dedication merit badge for that ! The movie is shot in a properly metallic blue that permeates just about every shot of the movie , never letting you forget that you're looking at a series of horror movie sets , but this is still leaps and bounds better than the vast majority of horror movies being heaved into theaters these days . It has buckets and buckets of gore and so will definitely satisfy the gore-hounds , but it has an interesting story which prevents it from coming off as a stupid , mindless orgy of violence , like Eli Roth's head-smackingly stupid film Hostel . The thing that I have always appreciated about Clive Barker's stories ( and Stephen King's ) is that the better ones are not just scary movies , they have something of what Freud called the " uncanny . " They tell stories of familiar things , familiar objects , but cast them in a light and place them in surroundings that make them off-putting on a level that lesser horror films can't even begin to aspire to . So even when the CGI blood effects are laughably bad , the arc of the story is taking us somewhere so different than what we're used to that it's pretty easy to overlook . For horror fans , this is a definite must-see . |
544,232 | 562,732 | 438,323 | 8 | Pretty interesting look behind the scenes of the Flight of the Phoenix remake . | The first thing that really struck me about this documentary was how much of an , ah , emotional man John Moore is . There are some great looks behind the scenes of the making of the movie , which are almost always overshadowed by the occasional tempter tantrums the John Moore throws . Granted , he's in the middle of making a multi-million dollar movie on the other side of the planet and in the middle of the desert , but it really seemed to me like he was the only person getting upset all the time . There is a funny scene where Giovanni Ribisi is taken away from the set to give an interview for Entertainment Tonight or something , and he has to introduce himself four or five times for all of the different channels that will be playing the interview . Most of the main actors give interviews , impromptu or not , in this documentary , and I especially like that it spends very little time showing footage from the final film , concentrating more on footage taken of the actual shooting of the movie , not the results of it , and that is how good supplemental documentaries are made . And like most documentaries included with the DVDs of less than great movies , this one actually made me like the movie more , because it gives insights not only into the intentions of the movie but the experiences of the cast and crew in making it , which always helps me identify . Not bad . |
544,405 | 562,732 | 127,723 | 8 | A surprise classic ! | I just read a review of Can't Hardly Wait on the IMDb by a user who mentioned that he has walked by the movie in his local video store countless times before finally renting it . Personally , I saw it countless times when it was released because I worked at a video store at the time , but it is probably the one movie that I have been " meaning " to write a review about since I started writing reviews on the IMDb nearly ten years ago . The teen comedies , especially the ones that use losing virginity as major plot devices , are an intolerable lot almost without exception . This one , however , is definitely an exception . Everything is blown out of proportion from what high school is really like ( and I went to a ridiculously rich high school , so I know what it's like to party in multi-million dollar mansions while the parents ( someone else's , of course ) are away ) , but it's blown out of proportion in all the right ways . It's hard to pinpoint what it is that makes this movie work while so many other movies like it fail completely , because it does have a lot of the same flaws . Granted , I should be a little careful , because I haven't seen the movie in at least six years and it's dangerous to review a movie I haven't seen for that long ( the movies that I thought were cool when I was in high school are now sometimes shockingly bad ) , but while this is certainly not a family movie or a critic's movie , for its target audience it can definitely serve as some pretty good fun . It's true that Can't Hardly Wait doesn't remotely approach the honesty and importance of the classic high school films , like Say Anything or The Breakfast Club , and it's also true that most of the characters ( almost all , in fact ) are comic caricatures of the traditional high school types , but the movie never pretends to be anything more than that . I think it understands that it's a joke , and so it just has fun with itself , and with the right state of mind we can have a blast along with it . Seth Green is the white kid who thinks he's black , and he pulls off the accent and the behavior remarkably well . So well , in fact , that for a while I thought he might be typecast like Sean Penn was for a while by Fast Times ( another classic ) and Keanu Reeves was by Bill & Ted ( Keanu had a much harder time shaking that image , but he has definitely done it by now . Peter Facinelli is good as Mike Dexter ( his most memorable role before or since ) , the cool kid with the hot girlfriend who has an agreement with his friends to break up with their high school girlfriends so they can graduate to college women . Unfortunately , he's the only one who goes through with it , and thus enters poor Jennifer Love Hewitt , who mopes and moans through most of her role , one of the only boring and totally uninteresting parts of the movie . Even her goofy future-sorority-girl girlfriends are more entertaining . Then again , Hewitt's character , as it is , doesn't belong in this movie , she belongs in a movie that takes itself a little more seriously , and even then she should be played by someone else . But the real highlight is Charlie Korsmo as William Lichter , the geeky kid trying desperately with his Star Wars buddies to get into a cool party and sabotage it . While his buddies wait on the roof acting out their favorite Star Wars scenes , William proceeds to get drunk and ultimately give us the best scene in the movie , a heroic live performance of Guns N ' Roses ' Paradise City in front of the whole party , who finally begin to see him in a new light . Strangely , Korsmo hasn't acted since this movie . There is another character named Denise Fleming who spends most of the movie locked in a bathroom with Kenny Fisher ( Seth Green ) , with whom she used to be close friends until he became , as they say , too cool for her . Their conversation is the most realistic and heartwarming thing in the movie , it's always been confusing to me why the writers locked her in a bathroom for the whole movie . Probably to give her and Kenny enough time to have their heart-to-heart chat , " etc . " It's easy to badmouth a movie like this . It has many of the stereotypes of your typical high school comedy , and the situations and the structure that the writers have created are often ludicrous in the extreme . The movie's target audience may not be as big as the truly successful coming of age films , but the target audience is richly rewarded with this movie . It's about 100 times better than American Pie , for example . Unlike that movie , there are no cringe-inducing scenes , no stomach-turning toilet humor , and no conspicuously shaped holes in any apple pies . This movie is just good fun ! |
544,528 | 562,732 | 55,928 | 8 | It's too bad that Sean Connery foresaw the succession of awful movies that were to eventually follow , because he was by far the best James Bond ever . | Dr . No is the film that introduced the movie world to James Bond , the world's most famous ' secret ' agent . This is where we first see most of the things that have come to be traditional in 007 movies , such as Bond's indestructibility , his blatant but perpetually uneventful flirtatious exchanges with Moneypenny , and the fact that he always gets the girl , or , as is often the case , girls . What we don't see here are the fast paced opening sequence ( although there is a skeletal version that can be found here ) or many of the high tech gadgets that are 98 % of the reason that Pierce Brosnan is able to pull off the role . Disagree ? Just imagine Pierce trying to be James Bond without a brand new remote control BMW or some cool x-ray glasses . Pierce is the flashy version of the calm , collected James Bond that Sean Connery portrayed . What Dr . No lacked in sheer technological paraphernalia it more than made up for with it's character development and it's quality story . Dr . No himself is built up to be the real star of the film . We find out that people are more willing to risk substantial personal injury rather than cross him , and we know so much about him far before we ever see him that he develops a mysterious aura . He is not exactly an imaginative villain , but this suspensefully slow introduction makes him very effective ( similar to the eventual introduction of Harry Lime in The Third Man , a method that prompted Orson Welles to call his part as Lime a ' true star role ' ) . While this is very effective in developing his character , his Wizard-of-Oz-like appearance in that strange room at the end of the pier was a little more on the clumsy side . But hey , he's the proud owner of the biggest baddest goldfish on the planet , so who's to argue with him ? It's true that Dr . No is not the same hard core and high tech action film that James Bond has come to be known as in the latest films , but it still is not afraid to clearly broadcast its commercial intentions . While the more recent Bond films are little more than entertaining BMW commercials , this one heavily advertises vodka ? I guess BMWs weren't cool enough back in 1962 . In one particular scene , Bond picks up a half empty ( or half full ? ) bottle of Smirnoff vodka , smells it , suspecting poison , and then opens a drawer and pulls out fresh bottle of Smirnoff vodka . For someone with such an important job and who has so many enemies who would love to catch him a little off guard and kill him , James Bond sure drinks a lot . Of course , being the first Bond film , Dr . No had a lot of influence on the Austin Powers films , and this is something that is fun to watch for in the old 007 movies . We see the way Dr . No is dressed , in a prototypical outfit later adopted for Dr . Evil ( the origins of that name can be found here as well ) , you have the goofy plastic radiation suits at the end of the film , and there are also a few pieces of dialogue that the first Austin Powers film has rendered completely hilarious ( ' I'm sure the west would welcome a scientist of your ? caliber ? ' ) . Interestingly enough , Dr . No seems to have borrowed from previous films as well , but not with such great success . The control room at the end of the film is strangely similar to the great machines from Metropolis , which is pretty weak as far as set design . Sure , sets in 1962 weren't as spectacular as many are today , but Metropolis ' sets were just as good as those seen in Dr . No , and Metropolis was filmed in 1926 . ( spoilers ) Bond's relationship with Honey Ryder - played by the stunningly beautiful Ursula Andress , the most beautiful Bond girl ever , but with by far the ugliest name - is not very realistic ( he meets some girl on the beach who travels the world collecting shells and they are initially forced to team up , after which they gradually fall in love ) . But despite this , she added a great deal to the rest of the film , and she also established the tradition of the Bond girl . The day for night photography was not convincing at all , and the film even had some traces of racism that were very disturbing . For example , just after having been shot at on the beach , and the three of them are preparing to leave , Bond tells Quarrel , the simple-minded black man , to ' Fetch my shoes . ' Not only that , but this poor guy is dressed in a bright red shirt while they're trying to hide in the jungle , and needless to say , he dies a horrible death early in the film . It's a good thing that this racism didn't become a Bond film tradition . Dr . No is the film that started it all in the seemingly endless 007 film series , and is therefore required viewing for any James Bond fan . The film is interesting and entertaining , despite its many shortcomings , and is also worth watching because of the many things that are now amusing but were not originally meant to be . The Austin Powers stuff , of course , is funny to see , but there are also more subtle things , like Sean Connery's line , ' There are no such things as dragons . ' Who would have thought that this guy would go on to provide the voice for a digitally created dragon in a mediocre fantasy film in 1996 ? If you are into fairly well developed action films , this one shouldn't be missed . |
543,848 | 562,732 | 120,915 | 8 | It begins . . . | The Phantom Menace is one of those movies that I have been meaning to review since I first saw it on opening day years and years ago . I have a little book where I make notes of movies I would like to review , and when I flipped back to the page for Episode I , I noticed that the last time I jotted down a couple of points about this movie was December 26 , 2002 . Odd coincidence that I should be four years later to the day that I finally sit down to review it . The first thing that really struck me after seeing it for the first time was a huge sense of surprise at how much it did not live up to my expectations . I'm hardly a Star Wars fanatic , I don't even know many character names beyond the primary three or four , but I know the three original films and I understand how brilliant they are . I think that what went wrong was a combination of almost unprecedented expectation , too much CGI capability , and too much money . Lucas , who loathed studios in his earlier days as a filmmaker , now laments the fact that he has nearly become a studio himself . He funded Episode I out of his own pocket , and I think that now that he has the ability to really do anything he wants ( since he has unlimited funding and it's all his own anyway , so he makes all of the rules with virtually no limitations ) , we get for the first time a really look at his strengths and weaknesses . I'm not going to go into the weaknesses too much because there are far more strengths than weaknesses , and I suppose I should point out at this point that The Phantom Menace is a very strong Star Wars movie , it's just not what it could have and should have been . It will take audiences time to accept additions like a digital Yoda , Samuel L . Jackson , and Jar Jar Binks to such a well known saga as the Star Wars films , and I think that things like that can account for some of the bad reactions that the movie received . On the other hand , the film really emphasizes how powerful Lucas ' visual imagination is , which could also be seen in the first three films . His ability to dream up imaginary worlds and creatures and societies is as astonishing as it ever has been , and the general , overall badassedness ( and the names ! ) of characters like Qui Gon Jin and Darth Maul is astonishing . The battle between Obi Wan , Qui Gon Jin , and Darth Maul I think is one of the best fight scenes in the entire series up to this point . Consider the way that Qui Gon , when they are fighting through that hallway where they're separated periodically by force fields , kneels and meditates when they're separated , while Darth Maul paces back and forth like a caged tiger . And of course the pod-racing scene was phenomenal ! And the look of the film is beautiful from beginning to end . Indeed , during the slow parts , if you find yourself drifting away from the complexities of the plot being unfolded through diplomatic dialogue a little too thick to handle , you can entertain yourself just by gazing at the stunning surroundings . Jake Lloyd handles his role well for someone so young , as does the initially questionably cast Natalie Portman , who seems far too cute for the role but pulls it off brilliantly . Liam Neeson steals every scene he is in ( and seems to belong in the film more than anyone else ) , but the casting seems to be all pretty much right on the mark . It's really unfortunate about Jar Jar though , he's just not a clever character . This is the first film that George Lucas has directed in more than 20 years ( since the original Star Wars film ) , and it's clear that he is getting the feel of it all back in this movie . As brilliant as he is , directing is not his strong point , but as we saw from Episodes II and III , in The Phantom Menace he was just getting warmed up . |
544,779 | 562,732 | 163,187 | 8 | You know what ? Don't tell me anything about Pretty Woman , because I don't even want to hear it . | Runaway Bride is just a good romantic comedy . Yes , the director and the two big name stars are the same as the film's 1990 counterpart , but even though the two films have striking and almost offensive similarities , Runaway Bride has a good enough story that I refuse to believe that it relied on the success of its predecessor . Julia Roberts is Maggie Carpenter , a hardware store owner ( a laughable profession surpassed only by Denise Richards as a nuclear weapons specialist in The World Is Not Enough . Yeah RIGHT ! ) , and Richard Gere is a newspaper columnist ( Ike Graham ) who has been fired for printing a supposedly false column about a woman who consistently runs out on her marriages . When he travels to the tiny town where she lives to learn more about her life and possibly get his job back , he finds that there is more to her than just a newspaper column . By the end of the film , there is such a huge media hype about Maggie's wedding that it's a wonder that Ike wasn't honored for his ' false ' column about her . Joan Cusack has never looked and acted better than she did in this movie , delivering a wonderful nasally performance that was strangely heartwarming . Runaway Bride had all kinds of wonderful scenes . I particularly liked the wedding rehearsal scene . The look on Christopher Meloni's face was priceless ! There were so many good things about this film that I am able to overlook the superficial look of unoriginality . If you just look past the director and the two big names , the story itself is not at all like any other film . There will , of course , be the inevitable cynical comparisons to Pretty Woman , and these complaints are understandable , but people who condemn Runaway Bride as a rip-off of Pretty Woman or some sort of re-make are simply not looking at the film , but only at the names on the bill . This is a very good romantic comedy , and it should not be missed simply because of a superficial comparison to Pretty Woman . |
544,552 | 562,732 | 112,281 | 8 | A worthy sequel . | ( spoilers ) Ace Ventura : When Nature Calls is unmistakably a childish movie , but so is the first Ace Ventura , so what did you expect ? The opening sequence involving a raccoon suspended from a wire high up in the mountains ( in an amusing parody of Cliffhanger ) is a little too cheesy even by Ventura standards at some points , but the movie as a whole is a very satisfying comedy . Ace commits himself to an Ashram after losing the raccoon , unable to bear the emotional turmoil of allowing the poor animal to fall to its death . When Fulton Greenwall shows up to ask for Ace's help in retrieving a sacred bat so that war between two African tribes can be prevented , Ace at first refuses the task , citing how sorely needed he is here at the Ashram . The monks ' wild party after he agrees to take the case was a little too childish , but it was a hilarious scene when Ace rolls the slinky down the stairs of the Ashram ( ' Of course ! Let's do all the things that YOU wanna do ? ' ) , and it was even funnier when Greenwall was trying to explain the situation to Ace on the plane ( ' I'm sorry , what were you saying ? ' ) . There are a lot of goofball antics that sink slightly below the level of Ace Ventura comedy , such as the dusting for fingerprints scene and Ace's ' meditation ' scene , but there is no shortage of laughs in the film . The hilarious scene at Ronald Kamp's party is also done in a slightly different version here , as Greenwall takes Ace to see Vincent Cadby at the consulate in Africa ( ' Funny , it didn't seem that painful when you were doing it to the horse ? ' ) . Some of the jokes are recycled , such as Ace's breathless analysis of Cadby , but even these recycled jokes are not entirely without effect . In the movie's defense , at least the jokes weren't copied to the extent that they were copied in the sequel to Austin Powers , which was far inferior to the original . Jim Carrey delivered a style of acting in the Ace Ventura films that is fairly unique to them - he never really acted this crazy in any of his later films , probably because he became so much more well-known and this kind of acting was just too silly for the quality of an actor that he later proved himself to be . There was some of what could be called over-acting in Ace Ventura : When Nature Calls , but the comedy is never compromised because of this . The Ace Ventura's are not the most classy comedies ever made , and they require the presence of at least some of your inner child in order to fully enjoy , but their comedic appeal is much higher than is common in movies like this . Watch them with an open mind , and you're sure to enjoy them . |
544,341 | 562,732 | 283,461 | 8 | Great detail from cast and crew . | The Making of Sands of Iwo Jima goes into great detail about who starred in the movie and who some of the main crew members were , presumably because so little on set footage exists . A surprising number of the original cast appear in interviews in this short documentary to talk about their experiences making the movie . Leonard Maltin also goes into detail about the military atmosphere at the time the movie was released , giving valuable insight into its relevance . It seems that in the late 1940s the Marine Corps itself was in danger of being eliminated , seen as unnecessary because of other organizations like the Army . In fact , one of the reasons that Wayne did the movie was to help the Marines . They were badly in need of a PR boost at the time and they certainly got it from this film , which was tremendously popular and successful . There are interesting tidbits revealed by one of the men who appeared in the film about John Wayne's acting , such as the way he always hesitates slightly when he's making so he can get himself four or five feet of film . This guy turned himself into a star in more ways than just his acting skills ! His son also makes an appearance in this documentary , talking about his father and his own relations to some of the men involved with the film . We also learn in this documentary that a lot of Sands of Iwo Jima was filmed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego , the extensive beach of which was used for many of the battle scenes . There are details revealed about methods used by the special effects team to achieve the appearance of full scale battle , which is actually one of the weak parts of the film , although was great for 1949 . Some interesting facts are revealed as well , such as the fact that lots of Marines were enlisted from Camp Pendleton to appear in the film , and the original flag and three of the original six guys who erected the flag on Mt . Surabachi also appear in the film , which garnered John Wayne his first Oscar nomination . The film ultimately became sort of a recruiting film for the Marines , who evidently capitalized on the movie's popularity . One of the few things that I didn't like about this documentary was that it ended with a dramatic slow motion American flag waving in the wind and filling the whole screen . Not that I have anything against the flag , obviously , but it overemphasizes a point that is already very strongly made . There's no need to smack the viewer over the head with the patriotism that the movie and this documentary celebrate . All in all , though , this is an entertaining and informative documentary . |
544,099 | 562,732 | 103,644 | 8 | Quality in this series didn't rise exponentially , like the titles , but this one is still worth seeing . | Just about everyone I talk to about the Alien movies always says the same thing , that you only need to watch the first two because the Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection are both terrible . Having just watched Alien 3 again recently for the first time in probably ten years , I'm surprised that people think it is such a terrible . My theory is that since the first Alien was a groundbreaking science fiction film and the second one knocked people over backwards because many people thought it was even BETTER than the first one , there was expectation that this one would be better than them both . And when you look at the titles , it's not hard to see where that expectation came from , even beyond the unexpected rise in quality from the first to the second film . The first film was about an alien , the second film was plural , and this one is Alien Cubed , for crying out loud . The movie takes place in a distant prison outpost for what you might call the " lost cause criminals , " which results in an odd combination of rapists , murderers , child molesters and ? religion . What ? It is indeed odd that when Ripley inadvertently finds herself there , the only woman these men have seen in years , they struggle to remain composed , having sworn an oath of celibacy . This all takes place early in the movie and I was completely convinced that it was all downhill from there , but gradually I found the movie more and more interesting ( or maybe I was just in a mood to be entertained rather than to look for things to complain about , which is another mood in which I often find myself ) . After all , I've never been to prison and I do not adhere to any particular religion , so I'm willing to grant that this is just beyond my understanding . It is , after all , a moving explanation that the men have been able to escape temptation at this outpost and look to spiritual means as sort of a way to cleanse themselves of their sins and prevent themselves from committing any more . Once on the island , Ripley is made to shave her head because they " have a problem with lice there , " which results in the shaved mug of Ripley which has become the iconographic image of this film . The scene where the alien first approaches her is a great scene . She's pressed against a wall , terrified , and we get a close of up her face , turned to the side toward the camera as the alien pushes its gigantic head against her cheek , which is another of the most famous images from the movie . The alien retracts without harming her , almost as though it recognizes her . To me that doesn't say " I recognize you so I'll let you go , " it says " I'm back , and I'm saving you for last . " Open your mind and you have to love this stuff ! Ripley has crash landed on Fury 161 , the prison outpost , and is the only survivor . The little girl , Newt , from the last film was killed and Ripley begins to raise eyebrows when she insists on an autopsy to ensure that there is not an alien incubating inside her . Again , she has much difficulty getting people to believe her until they start turning into greasy spots on the hull . The image of the film is completely different from the first two movies , Ripley is not only completely unarmed because she's on a prison outpost , but she doesn't even have any hair . She has nothing but the most basic human resources , which I think justifies this sequel , which could have fallen easily had it tried to take the firepower in the other direction . Not as great as the first two , obviously , but David Fincher made his feature film directing debut with something that is certainly worth seeing . |
543,820 | 562,732 | 310,357 | 8 | Goodnight , Clark ? | It's easy to see the elements of this movie that led to its Luke-warm at best public reception . As Julie Ng's wonderful making-of documentary included on the DVD explains , it quietly disappeared from theaters two weeks after its release . I can easily see people being put off by a movie about a guy who raises vast numbers of rats in his basement and then becomes a sort of lord and master of them , teaching them to follow his orders and to do things like climb into briefcases and chew up tires at his command . On the other hand , I can also see a lot of people seeing stuff like that in this movie and then being unable to look past it and see how well made and performed this film is . Crispin Glover is an incredibly impressive actor , and he fits into this role so comfortably that it is amazing to me that it took so many other actors turning the part down before it was offered to him . I think many of the other actors would have been good in the role as well , most notably Doug Hutchison , who played Percy in The Green Mile , but Crispin Glover was just outstanding . My favorite parts of the movie were the scenes at the very beginning , such as the one scene where Willard has just walked up the stairs and his sick mother calls from the other room , asking why he's up so late and what he's been doing . The camera is focused on Willard's face the entire time , and is a great example of how amazingly well Crispin Glover is able to act with his face . Willard has been living with his sick mother , caring for her and working at an office job at a company that his late father owned . He lived a very isolated life , leaving home only to go to work , where his boss is constantly trying to figure out how to get rid of him . His mother insults him with careless but deeply damaging comments like maybe he would be able to find a girl if he had a better name . In one scene she decides that maybe Clark would be a better name , so she's going to call him Clark from now on . It's not hard to see why he's a little " off . " Willard's mother hears rats crawling around in the basement and is always yelling at Willard to go do something about it , so in a monumental act of rebellion he decides to feed and cultivate them rather than killing them . He escapes the dreariness and depression of his everyday life by raising these rats , which are his only real friends , and ultimately uses them to exact his revenge on the world by which he has been so abused . This , of course , is where the movie turns decisively toward cult status . I haven't seen the original Willard at the time of this writing , but this remake has certainly earned itself cult classic status , which it could never transcend but which I think it deserves to . It is very competently made , richly directed and acted , but the subject matter prevents it from being accepted by wider tastes . It's not a movie for all audiences , but is very well made within its genre . Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses is another recent example of a movie that is spectacularly well made but was not accepted well by the public , probably because the majority of movie-going audiences just don't have the appetite for that kind of raw horror anymore . Rob Zombie just doesn't care , he made the kind of movie that he wanted to see , and he deserves respect for that . Similarly , Willard is a movie that believes in itself , which is certainly more than can be said of much of the empty drivel released by Hollywood these days . |
544,726 | 562,732 | 339,542 | 8 | Interesting analysis . | The full first half of this supplemental documentary concentrates on what almost comes off as a conspiracy theory about the likelihood of a biological weapon being launched somewhere in the world , causing an epidemic of disease that wipes out a frightening number of the people on earth , similar to what happens in the movie . It's up for debate about how justified that concern is , because people have been talking about how we're on the verge of nuclear war for decades , and now it appears that , despite all of the terrorism in the world , the likelihood of sovereign nations knowingly destroying each other gets less every year . Or maybe I'm just not tuned in to the level of hatred that is taking place in the world today . More interesting is the second half , which talks a lot about the production of the movie , how they did the make-up for the infected victims and how they emptied the streets of London for those opening shots , as well as plenty of commentary about what the people involved thought about the subject matter . For me , the only drawback seems to be that the discussions of past pandemics and the possibility of future pandemics are conducted with such inevitable conviction that it makes them come off as just a little bit hysterical . Yeah , the danger is there , but the danger of something is always there . In modern times , it just seems to me that mankind is more likely to reach a higher level of peace if we all stop trying to predict pandemics and wars and terrorist attacks and start trying to live in peace with our neighbors . I don't see a lot of that effort going on these days ? |
543,921 | 562,732 | 389,722 | 8 | Much better than I expected . | 30 Days of Night starts out with a fascinating introduction to its fascinating setting , Barrow , Alaska , the northernmost city in America . A quick look at Google earth with reveal this to be true ? Barrow is very near Barrow Point , the northern tip of North America . I have a strange fascination with places like this . I'll probably never make it out there , but when I hear of places like that it always makes me want to visit them . For now , however , I'll have to settle for this vampire movie , which in many ways is better than average , but is less than average in many other ways . Josh Hartnett plays the town Sheriff , Eben Oleson , who spends his days crossing the t's and dotting the i's of his job , often just keeping up the formalities or other times in order to make the citizens , even the ones living alone out in the frozen wilderness , remember that they are all part of the town . You see , it's a pretty quiet life that they lead up there in the far north . Before long , however , some Strange Occurrences start taking place , with increasingly mysterious implications and circumstances , and then animals and people start turning up brutally killed . Structurally the film is pretty routine , but it's location adds a new element to the genre , and some of the photography is outstanding . There are a few aerial shots of the carnage , for example , some while the killing is actually taking place , which are some of the best shots I've ever seen in a vampire film . Similarly , the vampires themselves are impressively performed , despite your occasional overacting . The special effects and make up come together for an impressive affect that reminds me of those unbelievably creepy Asian schoolgirls in that LFO music video called " Freak . " I recommend it , it's crazy . Before long , as is to be expected , you have a core group of the townspeople , the only survivors , we can presume , holed up somewhere sleeping in shifts , taking turns on watch out , rationing food , etc , and of course there is somewhere that " if they can reach it they'll have enough food to last a month . " This has all been done who knows how many times , but there is something added to the personality of the vampires that I hadn't seen before . There is an interesting hierarchy to them , they are stratified with a leader and his minions followed by I imagine an army of lower level vampires that obey orders . In order to achieve motive for the screenplay's need for the whole town to be exterminated , the leader actually makes a clever statement , telling his followers that it has taken them centuries to make people believe that they were just a bad dream , so the humans all had to be destroyed to prevent the escape of any eyewitnesses . Evidently he's unaware of the real world response that a group of people would get from the rest of America if they were to come forward and claim that a horde of vampires had wiped out the entire population of the country's northernmost city . And one thing that I have to mention , the ending of the film ( which is generally the worst part of most horror movies ) is outstanding . Sheriff Oleson , in order to save the rest of the survivors , infects himself with vampire blood and then battles the vampires on his own before he fully transforms into one of them . There is , of course , going to be the standard complaint that the sun doesn't " set " one day and then lead to 30 days of darkness , but I should think that such a thing is irrelevant to a movie like this . In reality , think of it like the sun rises lower and lower in the sky as winter approaches , finally doing sort of a ring along the horizon for some time during winter , at which time it's never really daytime and never really nighttime . I've always wanted to see that . Although the movie is not without plot holes ( there is an eerie shot of a ship ominously approaching the shore in the opening of the movie , which one of the vampires watches with some mixture of fascination and fear , and yet we never find out anything about it ) , the last shot in the movie is the perfect ending to the story , and the movie also , by the way , has what might be the most graphic beheading I've ever seen . If you're into that , don't miss this one ! |
544,014 | 562,732 | 79,817 | 8 | Apollo's mad ? | So when Apollo says at the end of the first film that there isn't going to be any rematch ( sorry , " ain't gonna be no rematch " ) , I'm thinking that it was probably because no one really knew how big the movie was going to be . I think the original film was meant to be a single movie that stood on its own , but a sequel was squeezed out when it turned out to be a Best Picture winner , and since this first sequel was so good , it seems only natural that it should be followed by four more , right ? The movie starts off exactly where the original film left off . It even shows the last few minutes of the last film before continuing on to the hospital , where Creed's attitude has changed drastically . He is no longer telling Rocky that there will be no rematch , now he's so angry that he's demanding , from his wheelchair , that Rocky get up out of his own wheelchair right then and there and they'll finish the fight . Rocky , in his unique way , politely wonders what Apollo's so mad about , but ultimately they both go their separate ways in the hospital because , of course , neither can really stand up under their own power too well by this point . Rocky and Adrian are now married and shopping for a new house and a new life together using Rocky's winnings from his first fight with Apollo . But the money goes quickly , even though it was such a huge and commercially successful spectacle . You remember in the original film , for his amateur fights , his total prize money was something like $40 . Rocky brought home tens of thousands from the fight with Apollo , but he and Adrian bought a house and a car and various other essentials and soon found themselves again with little to no money and a whole list of new expenses . Rocky promised Adrian that he wouldn't fight anymore because she just can't handle the stress and the emotional trauma of watching her love getting battered all over the ring , so when Apollo begins publicly chastising Rocky for winning by freak chance and demanding that he face him again in the ring , Rocky has to grin and bear it even though he is forced to earn money doing janitorial work at the local boxing gym . The movie works because it plays on all the things about Rocky's personality that made us love him in the first place . A lesser film would have had the hero angrily fling his mop and bucket against the wall and get right up in Apollo's face , but Rocky is more devoted to his wife than to his public image , so he literally does grin and ignore the taunts and demands coming from Rocky , even though his life has become something so timid and moneyless . Adrian hears the demands and watches Rocky worriedly , afraid that he is going to give in to the pressure and endanger his safety again , but even though Rocky is tentatively interested in defending his reputation in the ring , it is more important to him to make his wife happy . But both are driven to the ring because Apollo has lost the respect of his fans , who think that he was paid to take a fall , and Rocky and Adrian are on their way to the poor house . It is one of the film's few week moments when she changes her mind and urges him to fight again , but the formula that we saw and loved from the first film comes back and it still works here . The only major drawback of the first Rocky sequel is that it is much , much too sappy . There are genuine emotional moments when Adrian falls into a coma after giving birth to their son , but mostly it is things like the army of thousands of children following Rocky completely parent-less as he goes on one of his famous training runs . I realize he's famous in Philadelphia now , but an endless crowd of children ? Come on ? The fight at the end of the movie fulfills a dream that was unfulfilled in the first movie , and some people will argue that it is unnecessary since , in some ways , it sort of negates the whole purpose of the first movie ending the way it did , but Rocky II is such a good movie that this doesn't seem to matter . The fight's not as well done as in the original film , for most of the time you may find yourself wondering why Rocky , from start to finish , doesn't block Apollo's punches at ALL , but it is no less exciting . In the world of sequels , this is definitely among the best ones . Oh and by the way , Rocky II was released the day after I was born ! |
544,826 | 562,732 | 335,185 | 8 | A reminder that more racism is not the answer to racism . | In the movie , it is stated that the Bible says " An eye for an eye . " There is , first of all , the old saying that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind , but I think a more important concern is that an eye for an eye being applied in this case would lead to three " death by dragging " convictions . That would be a pretty bad publicity stunt , to put it mildly , even though the three men who would do something like that to someone do not deserve to live . My thought during the movie was that George W . Bush was the governor at the time , and he famously stated that he gave an average of 15 minutes of consideration to each case before approving a death sentence . Jasper , Texas is a brilliant TV movie about the horrendous dragging death of James Byrd in 1998 , as well as the staggering ineptitude of the government , brought on by conflicting policies . The movie , for example , certainly doesn't believe in the boundlessness of the Second Amendment . There are extensive scenes where the immediately likable but barely literate town sheriff , played brilliantly by Jon Voigt , struggles to convince the Black Panthers not to bring guns to their demonstration outside the courthouse , but is rendered powerless by their right to bear arms . True , they have the right to bear arms , but do they have the right to incite violence ? To instigate a riot ? These are both avenues by which the sheriff could have forbidden them by law from appearing armed in front of the courthouse , but chose to ignore them or was unaware that he had the power to stop people from inciting violence , an intention which the Black Panthers and KKK made no effort to hide . The Black Panthers plan a demonstration outside the courthouse to rival the KKK , a group of backward lunatics who also organized a demonstration . I didn't even know the KKK still existed , this is a group whose beliefs are so absolutely archaic that it is indeed heartbreaking to know that there are still people in this very country , in the 21st century , who still adhere to them . It's pathetic . But the Black Panthers , as this movie shows , are no less racist than the KKK . The trial scenes in the film are great , although we only see the trial of one of the three men involved in the murder , and at one point the dirtbag defense attorney objects , saying that no chain has been introduced as evidence . I would have thought that he would have been well aware of the fate of the chain used to kill James Byrd , at least from the prosecuting attorney , since both sides are required by law to reveal to the other side the details of their respective cases . Also , in one scene , as a friend of the murderer reads to the court a letter that he wrote her in which he says " white is right , " he mouths the words along with her and then grins , proud of his racist wit but apparently unaware that he is helping to cement his conviction . We didn't need that . We know the guy's guilty . The movie makes it very clear , however , that it is the media that creates the real trouble with things like this . There is one reporter who would constantly ask questions designed to make the interviewee uncomfortable of back them into a corner . Every time this woman opened her mouth I wished someone would take that microphone and shove it in . It's an interesting parallel that blacks and whites work together on this case and are friends with each other outside of work , but the people that they represent seem completely divided . In one scene , however , we learn that racism exists on all levels , and the movie ends with a sign that racism will go on . It's odd that there is all of this talk about whether or not the town is a racist town , which might be hard to prove even given the heinous murder that took place went unpunished since the town has a black mayor . Although the trial resulted in the right decision , it is clear at the end of the movie that the race situation might be worse off than it was before . I like to think that the human race is headed in the right direction , though . |
543,913 | 562,732 | 108,071 | 8 | There is something to be said about the story of The Secret Garden when even such a skeletal film adaptation as this one can be so wildly entertaining . | This version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden takes the novel and eliminates all but the most crucial elements to make sure the story makes sense , but there is so much left out from the book that it takes away a lot of the magic . Rather than have the garden act as a magical entity in itself , it is more of an escape from the creepy dreariness of Misselthwaite Manor , a gigantic monstrosity of a mansion that does justice to the enormity of the one portrayed in the novel but is such a brooding and unpleasant place that the escape of it overshadows the magical curiosity that should be entailed by the garden . The film creates a great sense of atmosphere , with the long hallways and the tremendously and unnecessarily elaborate living quarters that Mary is placed in , and we see some wonderful things as Mary sneaks around to explore the mansion , although she really only goes into one room and then her explorations are over . Kate Maberly delivers a wonderful performance as Mary Lennox , the spoiled little girl who is sent to live with her uncle , the reclusive Lord Craven , when her parents die of cholera in India , an event which never seems to affect her since her parents were always too busy for her anyway . Mary doesn't seem to care too much where she is being moved to beyond the fact that it is such an inconvenience for her , and she soon has to face the fact that she is no longer going to be waited on hand and foot like she was by her Ayah in India . Heydon Prowse also gives a great performance as Colin Craven , the young boy who is so extraordinarily spoiled that he has become literally incapable of caring for himself or even standing up . The young actors in this film are much more impressive than young actors often are ( this is the kind of actor that is most likely to be forgiven for a bad performance because they're so darn cute ) , each portraying wonderfully the characters as they are presented in the novel . Andrew Knott as Dickon is the other major example , perfectly portraying the magical young boy who has a way with animals . The thing that makes the movie not compare to the novel is that there are some important things from the book that are left out of this film version , some of which I can understand being done for time purposes but there are some things that just should have been put in , in one way or another . There is nothing , for example , about the exercises that Colin indirectly learns from Bob Haworth in order to strengthen his legs , there's nothing about Colin's plans to become a scientist and an explorer and a lecturer ( this kid wanted to be Indiana Jones and they didn't even mention it in the movie ! ) , we see nothing of Colin's extravagant plans for how he should present his newfound health and strength to his father , there's very little said about the Magic that all three of them have found in the garden , and even Dickon's entire family ( which is enormous in size as well as significance to the story ) is left out entirely . These are just a few of the things that I noticed to be missing , and I'm sure the list goes on . The story itself is also hugely simplified , but if you take into consideration a film adaptation of something like Frankenstein , you can see that this could have been a lot worse . The 1933 film version of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel covered maybe 3-5 % of the novel , which completely changed the meaning of the story and transformed Frankenstein's monster ( Frankenstein is , of course , not the monster , but you already know that because you've read the book , right ? ) from an enormously intelligent creature who only wants to fit in to the world that he has been placed in and into a hulking , thoughtless beast . In this case , this version of The Secret Garden could have been a lot worse , but on the other hand , it could also have been a lot better , hence my conflict . For the most part , the story is here , which is a good thing . We know that the garden once belonged to and was loved by Lord Craven's wife , and we know that she died giving birth to Colin which is why Lord Craven locked up the garden forever and can scarcely stand even to look at his crippled son , who he fears will turn out to be a hunchback like himself ( although neither of them look like hunchbacks at any time during the film ) . We briefly see Mary's life in India and we see a heavily diluted version of the part where she realizes what has happened to her parents , and then she is moved to Misselthwaite . The movie diverts from the book almost immediately , but mostly when Mary goes to Misselthwaite Manor . She is urged to go outside and explore by the endlessly patient Martha , and almost immediately runs into the secret garden . The grounds are bitterly cold and it's almost uncomfortable watching this portion of the film , which reminds me of other uncomfortable but wonderful films like Buffalo ' 66 and Affliction , but this is the sort of thing that replaces the real magic in the book . Rather than find the garden as a truly magical place , it is an escape from the dreariness of the rest of Misselthwaite . The robin is an important part of the story and it is found in the movie , but thankfully it is not presented quite as much as in the book . This is one of the only things that is fortunately subdued a little bit , since in the book the robin goes through a mating period and there is actually one chapter late in the novel where the robin and his mate have a conversation about Dickon and his strange friends , whom they're not too sure about . There are certainly some things from the novel that are left out of the movie with good reason , such as this scene where the narrative goes into the thoughts of the robins , which can only be disorienting and awkward unless it was done much earlier in the novel ( and even then it would not have fit too well with the rest of the story ) . The ham-handed delivery of the moral at the beginning of Chapter 17 is also left out with good reason , but then there are little things changed as well , such as the simplification of the plot which takes away from the magic of the story as a whole , and even smaller things , like the fact that the command that Mary teaches Colin to tell her servants that he is done with them is changed from ' You have my permission to go , ' in the novel , to ' I have spoken , all depart , ' in the book . Did you ever see Sphere ? That bad science fiction movie from 1998 that was based on the Michael Crichton novel ? They did something similar in that movie , changing some of the names of the characters for no apparent reason . I can never understand why they would do things like that when making books into movies . On the one hand , I can understand that there are some books that could be made a lot better with a little tweaking here and there , but The Secret Garden is a classic novel that , with a few tweaks here and there , is most likely to be changed into a movie that could have been a lot better with a few small changes . Or , as it were , without a few small changes . This movie is sure to entertain and delight its target audience , but it should not be taken in place of the novel , which is hugely superior . I have spoken . All depart . |
543,805 | 562,732 | 397,892 | 8 | Lost Super-Puppy , Answers to the Name of Bolt . If Found , Please Contact The Incredibles . . . | I've read that Bolt is the first computer animated feature to come from Disney Studios since Pixar's John Lasseter took control of it , and it's easy to see the Pixar presence in the movie . John Travolta and Miley Cyrus provide the celebrity voice talent for the movie , about a dog who stars in a superhero TV show but who is just as unaware that he's an actor as he is that he's a dog . Remember at the end of A Bug's Life when they animated together some outtakes where shots from the movie were messed up because of various mishaps on set ? I thought that was one of the most charming ideas in an already fun and entertaining movie , and in Bolt they have taken that and centered an entire movie around it . Bolt and Penny are a team battling the evil green-eyed man , who has kidnapped Penny's father and are attempting to extract information out of him . Between shooting sessions , Bolt lives in a trailer , unaware that Penny is going home to her real life and that the world returns to normal when he's not around . He believes that he is exercising extraordinary restraint in not using his superpowers to teach a lesson to a couple of wise-cracking alley-cats who tease him through the roof vent of his trailer at night . Through a series of unfortunate events initiated by an encounter with the cats , Bolt finds himself accidentally shipped in a box to the east coast , from where he must travel across America in the real world in his quest to become reunited with Penny . In watching a movie about a cute superhero who suddenly finds himself in the real world and must gradually accept the heartbreaking news that there's nothing special about him , it's impossible not to think of Buzz Lightyear , who suffered through exactly the same situation in Toy Story almost 15 years ago , but even though this seems to point to a disappointing characterization weakness in the movie , it is the characters who are the most interesting . There is nothing particularly fresh or interesting about Penny , who is really nothing more than a catalyst to drive Bolt's adventure , and even Bolt himself is giving us a predictable performance of a dog who thinks he has superpowers , but the characters that he meets along the way are the best things about the movie . He encounters a hardened alley-cat in New York named Mittens who has been bullying pigeons into making regular food donations to her ( a clear homage to the bullying grasshoppers in A Bug's Life ) . She and Bolt become tied together with a leash and he forces her to help him get to California . But it's the even smaller characters that are the most interesting and charming . The Italian-American pigeons that Bolt meets in New York , who just know that they know his face from somewhere but can't quite place it , are incredibly well-animated and cleverly voiced . But my favorite is Rhino , a superfan of Bolt's TV show whom Bolt and Mittens meet in a trailer park on their way to the west coast . Rhino will be a popular favorite character from the movie . He's overcome with excitement at meeting his hero , and it provides a unique comedic situation when both he and Bolt think that Bolt has super-powers , while Mittens must pacify them in order to get what she wants . She has been dragged scratching and screaming into this situation , and her disbelief at her miserable luck provides a good portion of the movie's comedy . The family content of the movie plays up the ongoing cats and dogs rivalry that I don't remember seeing this directly portrayed since the relatively disappointing 2001 film Cats & Dogs . In one of the movie's more amusing sequences , Mittens teaches how to beg , and he successfully gets one trailer park family after another to offer food to his puppy-dog begging skills . When Mittens tries it , she gets a frying pan flung at her . The movie knows how to work the comedy of a computer animated feature , which is why it was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar and is also why it's a lot of fun , but beneath the clever screen-writing and occasionally amazing animation , the standard-issue cartoon-messages of never abandoning a friend in need make the rest of the movie pretty un-spectacular . Bolt deserves to be nominated as one of the best animated features of 2008 , but it also deserves to come in behind Kung Fu Panda , the second best animated feature of the year , and WALL-E , which will win . |
544,702 | 562,732 | 91,080 | 8 | Every installment gets worse than the last one . Except this one . | The movie starts off fairly well , relatively speaking . Tommy Jarvis has grown up into a young man and returns to Jason's grave , unable to go on living unless he can completely verify for himself that Jason is really dead . On the other hand , digging up Jason's grave and essentially freeing him ( since Tommy doesn't believe that Jason can be killed ) doesn't exactly strike me as the best course of action . What was he planning to do , collect Jason's teeth and go check his dental records ? At any rate , at least there is some thought put into an interesting way to bring Jason back to life , at least long enough to kill enough kids to fill up another movie . Tommy digs Jason up and then stabs his decayed corpse with a nearby fencepost , which is promptly struck by lightning thus bringing Jason back to life . It was earlier in this scene in the movie that someone utters the line , " Some folks have a strange idea of entertainment , " which I had planned on using as the summary line in my review . Sadly , I logged on to the IMDb and the first thing I noticed was that I was not as clever as I thought . It is , after all , one of the best lines in the movie , since it is such a tongue in cheek jab at the movie's biggest fans . During the paintball scene that soon follows , I was immediately struck by the intelligence of the characters . I really appreciate that this movie has people in it who are boneheads but they're not stupid . These are regular guys with undeveloped intellects rather than the typical horror movie moron , one of the worst things to ever see in a horror film . Or any other film , for that matter . It is a great scene when Jason gets his hands on a machete , for example . One of the boneheads in the movie , Burt , is shot by a woman during the paintball game , after which he proceeds to hack away at the trees around him , and check this out . He curses to himself that she shouldn't have been out there in the first place , she should have stayed where she belonged ( presumably the kitchen ) , etc . This is a development of his character as well as the revelation of a deep character flaw that allows the audience to enjoy his death even after learning something about who he is . When was someone invented as fodder ever given that depth of character ? Never ! Sure , we hardly learn about his childhood and his dreams , but the point is that he ceases to be nothing but some poor sucker to get hacked up in a creative way by Jason . Then you have the other guy who loses his gun . Again , a lesser horror film would have had him lose his gun through some monumental act of paralyzing stupidity . In this film , he's just an office geek who isn't used to handling guns . He thinks he's in a warzone but he is just out of his element , and Jason is closing in to remind him of where he belongs . These are some of the best characters ever put into the Friday the 13th series . Granted , the movie does have its share of lame goofiness . The cemetery man ( that's a good movie , too ) , for example , at the beginning responds to Tommy's request to dig up Jason with something like , " Dig him up ? Does he think I'm a farthead ? ! Huh huh huh ! " but the characters clearly have the most depth and meaning that we have seen in the series so far . The dumbest characters in the movie are the cops , which I'm sure has some sort of hidden message ( which Hitchcock would have appreciated , no doubt ) , and there is also a clever scene involving the TV . One of the kids staying at the camp ( oh , I forgot to tell you , they've changed the charming name of Camp Blood so that they can operate as a summer camp ) one night swears that she saw a monster . The counselors tell her that it's okay , it was just a bad dream , but she insists that it was real , " just like TV . " Hear that , parents ? Don't let your kids watch too much TV or they'll grow up and watch movies like this ! Besides that , the little girl's name was Nancy . Could this be an homage to Nightmare on Elm Street ? There is an interesting plot structure that involves the police thinking that Tommy is doing the killing , which ties in neatly with their status as the dumbest guys in the movie . This is leaps and bounds better than the sequels that preceded it ( and light years better than Part VIII ! ! ) , there's even some good direction . The shot of Jason standing on top of the burning motor-home is one of the best shots thus far in the series . If you're going to watch some Friday the 13th movies , definitely don't miss this one . It's easy to get tired of the same old thing by this point , but this one is worth skipping ahead to see . |
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