reviewId int64 363k 588k | userId int64 33.9k 15.9M | itemId int64 1 1.42M | rating float64 1 10 | title stringlengths 1 10.9k ⌀ | content stringlengths 81 11.6k ⌀ |
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573,574 | 4,532,636 | 335,345 | 4 | This Is What Everyone Got So Worked Up About ? | I finally saw this film after everyone has said all that can be said about it , so I'll be brief . Expecting the absolute worst from Mr . Mel " Sadist " Gibson , I have to say that this film is nowhere near as good as its idolatrous fan base would have you believe , but neither is it as repellent as its detractors clai... |
573,623 | 4,532,636 | 325,710 | 4 | A Good Movie Turned Bad | How disappointing that " The Last Samurai " becomes dreadful in its last half , because the first half is quite engaging . This movie is what results when a director with left-leaning sensibilities tries to make a liberal-minded " message " movie without the courage of his own convictions . So the movie is not content ... |
574,389 | 4,532,636 | 36,723 | 4 | Just Not Very Good | Cover Girl is a lacklustre WWII musical with absolutely nothing memorable about it , save for its signature song , " Long Ago and Far Away . " This film came out before Gene Kelly really hit his artistic stride , and while there are evidences of his burgeoning talent here , mostly he plays sidekick to Rita Hayworth .... |
573,520 | 4,532,636 | 103,644 | 4 | The Alien Itself Is One of the Least Unpleasant Things About This Movie | David Fincher's contribution to the " Alien " series is a completely unpleasant experience . It's grim , dour , grungy and depressing , filled with ugly characters who we don't learn anything about and therefore don't care about . As they get picked off one by one by the alien , we're moved to feel nothing more than th... |
574,167 | 4,532,636 | 450,259 | 4 | Ridiculous in More Ways Than I Can Count | Just in time for the holiday season , director Edward Zwick offers the latest in his long line of bloated , liberal do-gooder movies , this one designed to make a bunch of privileged Americans feel ever-so-slightly-guilty about all of their Christmas consumerism . Of course , he ( and Hollywood ) doesn't want you to fe... |
574,136 | 4,532,636 | 52,182 | 4 | Peyton Place in a Boarding House | A varied assortment of guests sling gossip , secrets and loads of melodrama liberally around the rooms and grounds of an English boarding house . Profound ? No . Entertaining ? For the most part . " Separate Tables " is what results when you mix " Peyton Place " and " Clue . " Everyone's a suspect for Most Noble Suffer... |
573,959 | 4,532,636 | 200,720 | 4 | Desultory Adaptation | Coming into this adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel , I thought that Gillian Anderson was the element of the film I would most dislike . I'd only seen the occasional clip of her from " X Files " or the odd award show , but she always came across as vapid and slightly unlikable . My opinion didn't exactly change afte... |
573,868 | 4,532,636 | 289,043 | 4 | Decent Idea . . . . Not Very Good Movie | 28 Days Later would be a much better movie if the film makers had known what story they wanted to tell . As it is , they start with a high-concept apocalyptic plague premise that degenerates into a slap-dash , jumbled action movie . I suppose Danny Boyle and screenwriter are trying to make the idea of people being in... |
574,261 | 4,532,636 | 396,269 | 4 | The Unfunniest Comedy of the Year | Wedding Crashers just isn't that funny , though I think it wants to be . After a dazzling , energetic initial fifteen minutes or so , the movie settles into a hum-drum , routine comedy formula and never recovers . Owen Wilson is low-key and pleasant enough to carry it through , but Vince Vaughan creates a grotesque c... |
573,859 | 4,532,636 | 32,554 | 5 | Great McGinty Not So Great | A blah Preston Sturges " comedy " about a bum ( Brian Donlevy ) who climbs up the political ladder in corrupt Chicago as a stoolie for a crime boss ( Akim Tamiroff ) , but who discovers a conscience and a genuine desire to do good work along the way . Compared to some of Sturges ' other sparkling films , like " Sulliva... |
573,718 | 4,532,636 | 99,077 | 5 | Cue Tears | A fairly maudlin film with undistinguished direction from Penny Marshall . Robert DeNiro gives an Oscar-bait performance as a catatonic man who responds briefly to the treatment of a benevolent doctor ( Robin Williams , in serious mode ) , only to sink back into his catatonic state . It's reminiscent of the short story... |
574,401 | 4,532,636 | 85,549 | 5 | Work It , Jennifer | A female welder ( yes , you read that correctly ) dreams of being a ballerina - - all she needs to do is convince the audition committee for an elite dancing school that she has what it takes . Boy does she ever , showing them that stripper moves and ballet aren't mutually exclusive , all set to the top 40 sounds of Ir... |
573,796 | 4,532,636 | 35,279 | 5 | Somebody Sabotaged This Film's Screenplay | I don't hear " Saboteur " talked about much in conversations about Hitchcock's films , and I can see why . It feels more like a product of a second-tier director filming in the style of Alfred Hitchcock than a movie directed by the master himself . Robert Cummings is the wronged man in this story , accused of sabotagin... |
573,377 | 4,532,636 | 62,994 | 5 | A Star Is Born ( For Real , This Time ) | Funny Girl may as well be called " A Star Is Born , " because that's what audiences at the time were witnessing , right before their very eyes . This is the film that introduced Barbra Streisand to film audiences and catapulted her into mainstream stardom , and nearly 40 years later , she remains pretty much the only... |
573,503 | 4,532,636 | 103,074 | 5 | Girl Power , Ridley Scott Style | The critical scene in " Thelma & Louise , " and the one I think the screenplay got most wrong , is the one in which Thelma ( Susan Sarandon ) interrupts an attempted rape of her friend , Louise ( Geena Davis ) , in a bar parking lot . The attack is over , the women are walking away , and the attacker calls Thelma somet... |
573,340 | 4,532,636 | 52,619 | 5 | Women in the Workplace , 50s Style | With the decade quickly drawing to a close , director Jean Negulesco realized that subsequent generations would likely revere " Peyton Place " as the ultimate example of 1950s camp , so he hustled this cornball movie out and ended up giving " Peyton Place " quite a run for its money . Actually , " The Best of Everythin... |
573,481 | 4,532,636 | 21,814 | 5 | Classic Horror Movie Sorely Disappoints | I knew Universal Studios excelled at low-budget horror in the 1930s , but I didn't realize just how low budget this movie would be . Tod Browning's " Dracula " looks and moves like an Ed Wood movie ; you can practically see the crewmen hiding just outside of the frame , holding the strings of the fake bats that come fl... |
574,488 | 4,532,636 | 388,482 | 5 | Makes Unreality Seem Realistic | Jason Statham returns as Frank Martin in this weaker-sibling sequel to the 2002 original . This time around , he's filling in as chauffeur for a mucky-muck politician ( Matthew Modine ) and his wife , carting their little boy around from school to doctor to home and back . The little boy is kidnapped by a swarthy villa... |
573,438 | 4,532,636 | 457,430 | 5 | One More Violent Christ Fable | Every so often I have that uncomfortable , squirmy feeling I'm sure all moviegoers do , when you're sitting in the theatre watching a movie that critics and audiences alike have hailed as a masterpiece , and you're not enjoying it all . That was me during " Pan's Labyrinth . " My only reaction after coming out of this ... |
573,958 | 4,532,636 | 410,097 | 5 | As Believable as the Bush Administration's Reasons for Invading Iraq | Not to be outdone by Julia Roberts , Craig Brewer and his earnest cast led by Terrence Howard set out to prove that pimps , as well as whores , can have hearts of gold too . And despite the gritty 70s movie finish they spray over their film , " Hustle & Flow " is about as grounded in reality as " Pretty Woman . " Howar... |
573,543 | 4,532,636 | 285,742 | 5 | Show Boobs , Win Oscar | A grueling film . Don't worry ; the two protagonists , played by Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton , eventually find a sense of peace and redemption . But , and this is a big " but , " not before both of them suffer through the most ridiculously heavy-handed series of tragic events ever committed to celluloid , which ... |
574,520 | 4,532,636 | 418,689 | 5 | First Chapter of the Iwo Jima Saga Is a Resounding Dud | A noble failure . I saw " Letters from Iwo Jima " first , admired it but wasn't blown away by it , but reserved complete judgement until seeing this film , thinking that possibly taken together both it and " Flags of Our Fathers " would resonate more as a whole than either does separately . They don't . " Letters " rem... |
573,876 | 4,532,636 | 342,167 | 5 | Fame Without the Brain | If watching a bunch of high-strung theatre star wannabes prancing around and hissing at one another is what you're in the mood for , " Camp " is made to order . I happened to be in the mood for it , but even so found that it tested my patience . For one thing , it's way too long for its subject matter . For another thi... |
574,428 | 4,532,636 | 70,239 | 5 | Can You Please Stop Singing ? We're Trying to Have the Last Supper Here . . . . . | Andrew Llod Webber's kitchsy musical about the last days of Christ is given a rather limp screen treatment by director Norman Jewison , who never found a story he couldn't pound the life out of . One doesn't watch ALW musicals for their dramatic depth in the first place , so it was a mistake to dilute whatever dramatic... |
574,321 | 4,532,636 | 68,555 | 5 | Maybe the Only Film in History to Feature a Giant Rampaging Boob ? | Woody Allen's two previous films , " Take the Money and Run " and " Bananas , " had comedy-skit feels to them already , and in " Everything You Always Wanted to Know . . . . " he borrows even the comedy-skit format and breaks this film into several independent vignettes , each revolving around the topic of sex . Like a... |
573,664 | 4,532,636 | 380,599 | 5 | Missing the Polanski Touch | If you love " Oliver Twist " and want nothing more than a very straightforward retelling of the Dickens classic , you will be well served by this movie . If , however , you approach this because you're interested in what one of cinema's most interesting and accomplished directors will do with the subject matter , you m... |
574,386 | 4,532,636 | 95,270 | 5 | A Junky , Clunky Movie That at Least Left the Door Open for a Good Remake | John Waters acolytes will hate me for this , but I saw the recent movie musical version of " Hairspray " before I saw Waters ' original , and I couldn't get over the feeling that the original fails in comparison . Ricki Lake does not have what it takes to play Tracy Turnblad , the chubby girl with the big hair who land... |
573,436 | 4,532,636 | 23,775 | 5 | Pre-Code Stanwyck Sleeps Her Way to the Top | This notoriously racy pre-Code film stars a gorgeous and sexy Barbara Stanwyck as a young girl from the wrong side of the tracks who moves to the big city and uses her " feminine ways " to keep herself in furs and jewels . Within the film's first fifteen minutes , Stanwyck's father has tried to pimp her to a frequenter... |
573,561 | 4,532,636 | 61,177 | 5 | A Humorous Experiment , But That's About It | Before he worked up the courage to grab directorial reigns himself , Woody Allen produced this curio that will be entertaining to anyone who's stayed up until 2 : 00 am making fun of bad movies that seem manufactured specifically for air time during the wee hours . The format won't seem fresh to anyone who watches " My... |
573,746 | 4,532,636 | 89,755 | 5 | Classy and Boring | A tasteful and oh-so-dull film about writer Isak Dinesen and her love affair with a big-game hunter in the wilds of Africa . Sydney Pollack clearly wanted to win Oscars with this one , so that most vile of vile movie terms - - prestige - - is dripping from every frame . Well , he won his bookcase full of Oscars , but t... |
573,924 | 4,532,636 | 328,589 | 5 | Saved By Diane Lane | Diane Lane is a fascinating actress to watch . Her face is always doing something interesting , and she has a winning , winsome quality to her that makes you automatically root for her . She takes the role she's given here and actually does things with it that other actresses probably couldn't . Otherwise , this film i... |
573,388 | 4,532,636 | 105,323 | 5 | Pacino's Oscar Bait | You can tell that Al Pacino was determined not to let the 8th chance of an Oscar pass him by , so he throws everything he's got at the Academy voters in this hammy performance as a cranky , blind veteran . Chris O'Donnell gives a blank-faced performance as the preppy college student who's paid to care for the blind dud... |
573,772 | 4,532,636 | 65,528 | 5 | Too Literal and Not Anarchic Enough | Mike Nichols tries for a literal interpretation of Joseph Heller's amazing epic comedy , and the results crash and burn . " Catch-22 " the book is , of course , unfilmable as it is . A movie version would have to be 12 hours long just to fit in all the characters and plots , but there would still remain the daunting ta... |
573,831 | 4,532,636 | 72,308 | 5 | Disaster Strikes Again | Just when you thought disaster films couldn't get any dumber than " The Poseidon Adventure " ( 1972 ) , " The Towering Inferno " comes along and proves that anything's possible . ( And if you think this movie is dumb , check out " Earthquake " from the same year ) . Steve McQueen , Faye Dunaway , Paul Newman , William ... |
574,016 | 4,532,636 | 858,479 | 5 | A Movie About Smart Dumb People and Dumb Smart People | With a title like " Smart People , " you just know there's a lesson to be learned in this movie , and that it probably has something to do with people who think they're smarter than they are . Those people are Dennis Quaid , a tiresome boor of a college lit professor who nobody likes , and his equally tiresome and snar... |
573,934 | 4,532,636 | 109,446 | 5 | Meh , Whatever | Ho-hum screen adaptation of yet another John Grisham pot boiler . Joel Schumacher is pretty much my least favorite director of all time , and Grisham represents the kind of author whose books instantly give me a hankering for classic literature , so the chances that I was really going to think much of this film were sl... |
574,411 | 4,532,636 | 47,203 | 5 | Too Much Even for a Sirk Fan | I like Douglas Sirk movies , and I find the genre of 1950s melodramas fascinating , but even I had trouble stomaching this giant cornball of a movie . Jane Wyman plays the widow of a respected doctor , who dies because a piece of machinery needed to resuscitate him is being used on a nearby accident victim , a spoiled ... |
574,354 | 4,532,636 | 96,061 | 5 | Yes , It's Another Version of " A Christmas Carol " | Yet another version of " A Christmas Carol , " this one set in the present day and starring Bill Murray as a self-absorbed television producer . Though another version of the classic story probably wasn't really necessary , this one is entertaining enough if you're looking to kill a couple of hours on the sofa . The fu... |
573,326 | 4,532,636 | 32,155 | 5 | As Dry as a Civics Lesson | It's admittedly been a long time since I've seen " Young Mr . Lincoln , " but I recall that it plays more as an educational film you'd show in a civics class than as an engaging film . There was no one better to play Lincoln than Henry Fonda , with his willowy frame and haunted eyes . But director John Ford seems too i... |
574,406 | 4,532,636 | 85,244 | 5 | The Midlife Crises of Ordinary People | Nothing is more boring to me than any movie or book about someone else's midlife crisis , and " The Big Chill " is about nothing but a bunch of privileged baby boomers in the middle of them . The big cast features all sorts of actors who would go on to become big stars of the 1980s and beyond : Glenn Close , William Hu... |
574,050 | 4,532,636 | 43,278 | 5 | Kelly Provides the Dance . . . But What About the Rest ? | Gene Kelly was so interested in putting groundbreaking dance on screen in this 1951 musical extravaganza that he forgot to include a story or characters while he was at it . The " Gotta Dance " fantasy ballet sequence in " Singin ' in the Rain " is considered by many to be the only thing wrong with that movie ; the ent... |
574,103 | 4,532,636 | 91,763 | 5 | The First of Many Oliver Stone Onslaughts | So began the string of films with which Oliver Stone would assault our senses and earn him some of the most undeserved accolades in film history . " Platoon " is probably one of his stronger films , but it doesn't hold up well . At the time , it was notable for its authenticity in depicting the life of a Vietnam grunt ... |
573,775 | 4,532,636 | 427,969 | 5 | A Rather Dull Disappointment | This slightly dreary film about the mysterious death of George Reeves , television's " Superman , " and its subsequent investigation feels like an opportunity missed to put a compelling and engaging story on the screen . The pacing is too sluggish and the ambitious screenplay too muddled for the film to ever come fully... |
574,348 | 4,532,636 | 32,194 | 5 | Too Much of a Not Very Good Thing | A very long and very boring soap opera that finds Bette Davis taking care of Charles Boyer's children , much to the disapproval of Boyer's wife , played as a shrill harridan by Barbara O'Neil ( most known to me as the mother of Scarlett O'Hara in the previous year's " Gone with the Wind " ) . Though set in France , the... |
574,202 | 4,532,636 | 60,921 | 5 | The Russians Are Coming . . . . . Wake Me Up When They're Gone | One of those epic all-star comedies in the " It's a Mad Mad , etc . " vein , with a bunch of rushing around and chaotic blundering that's supposed to tickle us with how funny it all is . Well , it's not very funny , or at least I didn't think so , and the fact that it was taken seriously enough to snag four Academy Awa... |
573,732 | 4,532,636 | 67,992 | 5 | I Can't Forgive It for Not Being the Book | This version of the Roald Dahl classic has always weirded me out , and not in a good way . I don't like the way it looks - gangly and ugly - nor the liberties the screenwriters took with the book . I would borrow " Charlie and the Chocolate Factory " from my little grade school library , read it , and as soon as I got ... |
574,507 | 4,532,636 | 113,627 | 5 | If Awards Were Given for Scenery Chewing , They'd Be Named for Nicolas Cage | A dismally depressing film about an alcoholic who travels to Las Vegas to drink himself to death and the hooker he shacks up with in his last days . I think writer / director Mike Figgis intends to amaze us with the film's frankness , but I was instead impressed by its ugliness . Nicolas Cage overacts to the gills ( bi... |
573,634 | 4,532,636 | 92,079 | 5 | This Isn't Life , It's Blake Edwards | This Blake Edwards movie is like all Blake Edwards movies . That means it's fairly lame , has no particular style by which to distinguish itself , and looks like it's been airbrushed . This one revolves around some mid-life crisis topics afflicting a middle-aged couple played by Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews . Andrews ... |
574,316 | 4,532,636 | 452,624 | 5 | This Sure as Hell Ain't No " Casablanca " | A bit of a dud . This Steven Soderbergh experiment tries to recreate the tone and look of WWII cinema and all of those films noir that used the war as a backdrop for stories of foreign intrigue and dirty dealings . He films everything in crisp black and white and uses a square aspect ratio , the same ratio that films w... |
573,569 | 4,532,636 | 47,574 | 5 | Eh , So-So | A harmless enough movie , but at the same time without much to recommend it . " There's No Business Like Show Business " provides one of those backstage musical frameworks on which to hang countless flashy production numbers . The stars ( Ethel Merman , Marilyn Monroe , Donald O'Connor ) take back seat to the CinemaSco... |
573,643 | 4,532,636 | 89,173 | 5 | Some Hate It , But I Think It's the Best in the Series | That wily rascal Jason Voorhees is at it again . . . . or is he ? Yes , this is the installment in the interminable " Friday the 13th " series that thought it would be a good idea to do without its only reason for existence . . . the hockey-masked Jason . Though you hardly notice the loss , since you don't KNOW it's no... |
574,097 | 4,532,636 | 92,099 | 5 | Tom Cruise Became a Star | Top Gun was to the 1980s what Jerry Bruckheimer movies are now : loud , dumb , uber-macho and slightly homoerotic . " Risky Business " had put Tom Cruise on the map , but it was probably this film that launched him into full-fledged stardom . Looking back now , he was obviously born to play this role , since it's not... |
574,207 | 4,532,636 | 50,839 | 5 | Hot and Bothered in Small-Town America | A hopelessly corny and stodgy piece of 1950s film-making that thinks racy subject matter alone makes it important . Well , it doesn't . " Peyton Place " is a static adaptation of a scandalous book , filled with a cast of females who all look the same - - as blonde and coiffed as the most stereotypical image of a 50s ho... |
574,380 | 4,532,636 | 76,666 | 5 | Look Mr . Kotter , I Can Dance ! | It would be almost impossible to believe that John Travolta received an Academy Award nomination for this movie if the Academy didn't have a long history of nominating films and performances that left us scratching our heads at what they were thinking . Actually , Travolta's not bad in this movie ; if anything , he's a... |
574,491 | 4,532,636 | 102,798 | 5 | Men in Tights | Kevin Costner had worked hard the year before to cement his place in Hollywood as a serious director and actor , and nearly undid all of it with his embarrassing performance in this film . Though at the time I believe this film was a hit , so maybe the joke's on me . Costner can't hold on to his British accent for anyt... |
573,450 | 4,532,636 | 37,800 | 5 | Good Luck Getting the Theme Song Out of Your Head | I Know Where I'm Going ! is like other Powell and Pressburger films thematically : forces beyond the control of humans intervene and determine to a large extent the destiny of the heroine . But if you're expecting a dazzling , vivid and energetic film like " The Red Shoes " or " Black Narcissus , " you're bound to be... |
573,976 | 4,532,636 | 22,045 | 5 | Wacko Merry Melody | This bizarre cartoon short is more disturbing than anything . The animation is creepy , and the content is rather adult for the art form . A bunch of unidentifiable animals ( I know I saw a gorilla , and maybe some foxes ? ) drink it up until they're soused , and a grand finale consists of a horse exploding while a bun... |
574,145 | 4,532,636 | 51,459 | 5 | Cat Has No Claws | Yet another example of a 1950s stage to screen adaptation in which the entire reason for the play's existence is removed from the screen version in order to placate the censors . Why did people even want to make movies out of plays if they wanted to remove everything that made the plays interesting in the first place ?... |
573,812 | 4,532,636 | 90,319 | 5 | Say You , Say Me , Say Cold War Tension | One of many films from the 1980s that used the U . S . - Soviet tension of the time as an excuse to put all manner of hokum up on the movie screens . Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines come away relatively unscathed from this movie . Both are in it solely for their dancing abilities , and really that's the whole rea... |
573,910 | 4,532,636 | 395,495 | 5 | A Lame Effort , Partially Saved by Juliette Lewis | Is there a production company somewhere that specializes in churning out the kind of banal , unoffensive films that are frequently used as in-flight movies , and if so , is it responsible for this film ? A flight from London to Chicago happens to be where I saw this movie , and even with absolutely nothing else to do o... |
574,301 | 4,532,636 | 498,399 | 5 | Gloomy Film Has No Real Reason for Existing | An unmitigated gloomy pall has settled on Hollywood this fall . Apparently , a message went out to all filmmakers that every movie released from now through the foreseeable future must be sombre , gray and depressing . Well " We Own the Night " certainly does nothing to buck the trend . This tale of two brothers on opp... |
573,989 | 4,532,636 | 36,230 | 5 | Old Acquaintance Feels Old Hat | I didn't much like this Bette Davis women's picture from 1943 . It starts out promisingly enough , with Davis as a successful writer paying a visit to childhood friend Miriam Hopkins . Always competitive , Hopkins decides she wants to be a writer too , and finds tremendous success writing popular entertainments while D... |
573,370 | 4,532,636 | 133,152 | 5 | Just Not the Same Without Charlton Heston in a Loincloth | Tim Burton takes a disappointingly literal approach to remaking the 1968 cult classic , and what he gives us is an undistinguished action film , not necessarily worse than any number of action films produced in a given year , but so much worse than it could have been given the source material and Burton's fierce imagin... |
574,035 | 4,532,636 | 379,865 | 5 | Makes You Wish This Had Actually Been a Screwball Comedy from the 30s with Different Actors | George Clooney was clearly trying for screwball nostalgia with this sports comedy , but what he actually put together sits on the screen like a lump of lead . Clooney stars as a professional football player back in the days ( 1920s ) when no one cared much for professional football . As an attempt to bring some attenti... |
573,307 | 4,532,636 | 79,261 | 5 | This Age of Aquarius Came About Ten Years Too Late | Hollywood ignored the fact that the cult classic musical was virtually unfilmable ( not to mention the fact that by 1979 it was already outdated ) and made it into a movie anyway . The results are predictably mixed . It's not a disaster , but it's no classic . It suffers from having a strong narrative forced on it , wh... |
574,042 | 4,532,636 | 959,337 | 5 | Everything This Movie Has to Say Has Been Said Before and Said Better | The subject of suburban misery and malaise , and the myth of the American dream , has been dealt with so frequently in movies , television and literature that you may wonder what more there is to say about the topic . If " Revolutionary Road " is any example , the answer is : not much . Indeed , the whole time I was wa... |
573,586 | 4,532,636 | 82,846 | 5 | Wow ! What a Cast for a Lifetime Movie | A gloopy , mawkish family drama that asks three wonderful actors ( Henry Fonda , daughter Jane and Katharine Hepburn ) to deliver material that belongs on the Lifetime channel . Henry Fonda at least gets a character to work with , that of a curmudgeonly husband and father who's beginning to show the first ominous signs... |
574,522 | 4,532,636 | 758,766 | 5 | Fairly Lame and Pretty Dull | The word " innocuous " was invented to describe movies like this . Hugh Grant plays an 80s pop star has-been who has the chance to write a song for a hip young music star and perform it with her at an upcoming concert at Madison Square Garden . The thing is , you see , he can only write catchy music , but he sucks at w... |
574,099 | 4,532,636 | 90,555 | 5 | Why Did We Like This Movie So Much the First Time Around ? | Paul Hogan became a minor star ( o . k . , a VERY minor star ) as a result of this well-received comedy about a man plucked out of the middle of the Australian outback and plunked down in New York City . Cue all of the requisite fish-out-of-water jokes . Viewing the film now , one is appalled at 1 . ) how not very good... |
574,275 | 4,532,636 | 413,015 | 5 | So-So Comedy About Nudity During the Blitz | A lightweight and not especially engaging biopic about a rich bored widow in WWII London who buys a theatre and decides to put on a nudie revue . I'm not sure exactly what drew director Stephen Frears to the material , since he doesn't muster up much energy to tell Laura Henderson's story . I'm assuming that the relati... |
574,421 | 4,532,636 | 397,535 | 5 | At Least Their Hearts Were in the Right Place | I've not read the bestselling book on which this film is based , but I suspect that Rob Marshall jettisoned everything that made the book compelling and left us with a pretty but hollow husk . Regardless , this is one lifeless movie . It's pretty as a picture , to be sure . In fact , stunning production design seems to... |
574,251 | 4,532,636 | 38,363 | 5 | Harmless But Uninspired | Blithe Spirit has Rex Harrison in his acerbic bachelor mode unable to get rid of either of his dead wives . Now if that's not a knock-out premise , I don't know what is , yet this film fell flat for me . This came out the same year as David Lean's other 1946 release , " Brief Encounter , " but it doesn't have any of ... |
574,327 | 4,532,636 | 94,226 | 5 | Pound , Pound , Pound , Mr . De Palma | I know this film has quite a following , but I found it to be fairly ridiculous . In typical fashion , Brian De Palma pounds away at the viewer , music , sound and performances amped up to deafening levels , and he directs with hammer and anvil obviousness . I'm sure he thought he was being immensely clever to pay homa... |
573,496 | 4,532,636 | 92,580 | 5 | Suffers the Fate of Most Compilation Films | Aria as a whole is a pretty underwhelming experience , as most compilation films are . No one segment is very long , so the whole thing is painless to sit through , but I can't really bring myself to recommend it to anyone . The standout segment for me was Ken Russell's , which depicts a woman hallucinating while on ... |
574,066 | 4,532,636 | 99,653 | 5 | We Liked This ? | This huge hit that came out of nowhere in 1990 looks pretty silly in retrospect . Because " Dirty Dancing " was such a big hit , people made the mistake of thinking that Patrick Swayze could actually act and began casting him in roles that required it . His eager attempts at emoting coupled with his ridiculous coif hai... |
573,776 | 4,532,636 | 387,877 | 5 | Not As Bad As I Was Led to Believe , But No Grand Slam for DePalma | I didn't dislike this modern-day noir as much as many seemed to , but it's certainly no resounding success . Director Brian DePalma directs this big-screen version of the James Ellroy crime novel , itself a fictionalized account of the gruesome murder of Elizabeth Short , an aspiring actress who sadly found more fame i... |
573,563 | 4,532,636 | 99,674 | 5 | Oh , Those Corleones . . . | No American filmmaker has had a more disappointing trajectory to his film career than Francis Ford Coppola . To have directed four of the most influential films of the 70's ( the first two " Godfather " films , " The Conversation , " and " Apocalypse Now " ) and then to spend the last two decades churning out one stink... |
574,037 | 4,532,636 | 811,080 | 5 | Not a Great Movie , But the Blu-Ray Is Astounding ! | If you own a Blu-Ray player , run don't walk to rent this movie and see Blu-Ray strut its stuff . This film looks AMAZING - - it's easily one of the most dazzling visual experiences I've ever had . However , do not misinterpret that praise as a recommendation of the film itself . Though it's not the disaster critics ma... |
573,972 | 4,532,636 | 42,332 | 5 | A Dull But Still Popular Disney Effort | This bland , tepid Disney cartoon remains one of the most popular animated films produced by the studio , but it has none of the visual artistry that distinguished the Disney style in its early days in films like " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , " " Pinocchio " and " Fantasia . " " Cinderella " acts as more of a tra... |
574,247 | 4,532,636 | 270,288 | 5 | When Actors Become Directors | All too often , when an actor decides to try his / her hand at directing , the result is disappointing . It's as if actors feel such a need to prove themselves as having a bold directorial vision that the style of their movie takes precedence over the substance . That is the case here with " Confessions of a Dangerous ... |
573,305 | 4,532,636 | 79,710 | 5 | One of Altman's Most Accessible Films Is Also One of His Least Interesting | Paul Dooley and Marta Heflin play a most decidedly IMperfect couple in Robert Altman's version of a romantic comedy . His claim at the time ( justified ) is that Hollywood had always allowed only beautiful people to fall in love , so he wanted to make a romance with a couple of ordinary folk . He succeeded when he foun... |
573,835 | 4,532,636 | 66,601 | 5 | Antonioni's Smug Indictment of American Consumerism | I've always been slightly annoyed at non-American directors who propose to understand everything that is wrong with American culture . America is far from perfect , but so is every other country in the world , and each should focus on figuring out its own problems before taking on those of another ( are you listening ,... |
574,240 | 4,532,636 | 23,470 | 5 | My Jaw Hit the Floor When the Gorilla Made His Appearance | At the intermission of this Cecil B . DeMille epic , I had the sneaking suspicion that I'd been duped . This was the film blamed with bringing down in earnest the iron fist of the Motion Picture Production Code on Hollywood , but I'd seen precious little up to that point to warrant the claim . O . k . so I had seen Cla... |
573,425 | 4,532,636 | 86,377 | 5 | Altman's Stab at Vietnam | I was excited to see that this film was released on DVD , only to be disappointed when I discovered that it's not available anywhere in the U . S . My comment on " Streamers " will have to be based on one viewing a few years ago as part of a Robert Altman seminar I took in college . It's a screen adaptation of a David ... |
573,458 | 4,532,636 | 38,559 | 5 | Hayworth's Attempt to Become More Than a Pin-Up Girl | It seems as if every beautiful actress from the 40's who skated by on looks and sex appeal had at least one bid at gaining credibility for herself as a " serious " actress - - - and " Gilda " was Rita Hayworth's . Don't get me wrong , I think Hayworth is as gorgeous as the next guy , but she's just not a great actress ... |
574,224 | 4,532,636 | 97,165 | 5 | Please Don't Make Me Gag , Mr . Chips | A message about the value of non-conformity comes packaged in an utterly formulaic and treacly film . " Dead Poets Society " belongs to that genre of films about an unconventional teacher who becomes a major figure in the lives of his students . Usually these movies end with the teacher either dying or leaving his posi... |
573,684 | 4,532,636 | 44,391 | 5 | Trash By Any Other Name . . . . . . | This glossy , trashy soap opera of a movie has won all sorts of accolades and an idolatrous fan base , but its appeal is lost on me . It's filmed in chilly black and white , giving it the patina of an art film , but if this were filmed in blazing Technicolor , it wouldn't be any more distinguished than a heap of other ... |
573,960 | 4,532,636 | 77,402 | 5 | These Zombies Should Know When to Quit | A lot of people have tried really hard to read all sorts of subtext into George Romero's big-budget sequel to his unlikely 1968 hit " Night of the Living Dead , " but I remain a dissenter . Yes , yes , I do believe that Romero in an off-hand and cheeky way is lampooning American consumerism by setting his zombie-fest i... |
574,362 | 4,532,636 | 75,995 | 6 | Horseplay | What maybe came across as powerful on stage comes across as rather silly in this screen adaptation of the Peter Schaffer drama . Richard Burton plays a psychiatrist who is assigned the task of probing into the mind of a young man who mutilated ( by blinding ) a stable of horses . As he delves further and further into t... |
573,611 | 4,532,636 | 97,576 | 6 | Far Behind " Raiders " and " Temple of Doom " | This third installment of the Indiana Jones saga has never done it for me , though I have to say it looks like a masterpiece compared to " Kingdom of the Crystal Skull . " There just aren't the fabulous set pieces in this one to distinguish it from the others , and the ending veers too far into hocus-pocus supernatural... |
573,303 | 4,532,636 | 480,242 | 6 | Steve Carell's Moping Can Be Hard to Take | A harmless romantic comedy that begins to fall apart the second you start actually thinking about what you've just seen . Steve Carell plays the single dad ( the mom died of some unnamed illness ) of three girls who intensely dislike him , who takes his daughters to a family reunion at his parents ' idyllic cabin in Rh... |
573,930 | 4,532,636 | 109,045 | 6 | Am I the Only One Who Thinks Guy Pearce Makes a Hot Woman ? | The surprise indie hit about three drag queens who go on a voyage of self discovery . Hollywood liked it so much that it basically remade it as " To Wong Foo , Thanks for Everything , Julie Newmar , " with bigger names and a sanitized plot . Marketing for " Priscilla " makes it seem like a gay romp ( sorry , I couldn't... |
573,635 | 4,532,636 | 91,326 | 6 | How Do You Say " Wax On , Wax Off " in Japanese ? | This unnecessary sequel to the surprise 1984 hit picks up exactly where the previous film left off , and though it's not a great movie , it could have been much worse . In this one , Danny and Mr . Miyagi travel to Japan , where Danny finds himself in yet another karate showdown , and finds time to fall in love with a ... |
574,057 | 4,532,636 | 99,073 | 6 | Barry Levinson's Fan Base Does Not Include Me | Typical Barry Levinson , which means safe , tasteful , lacklustre and fairly dull . An episodic journey across several generations of an immigrant family seeking the American dream . There's lots of syrupy music meant to invoke a vague nostalgia . There are any number of shots clearly intended to impress us with their ... |
574,524 | 4,532,636 | 65,063 | 6 | Set the Model for Allen's Lightweight 70s Comedies | Woody Allen's first crack at directing his own original material is typical of the kind of films he would make into the mid-1970s : lightweight comedies filled with sight gags and one-liners , episodic in structure , more like skit-variety shows than feature length films . But it has some awfully funny moments , not th... |
573,998 | 4,532,636 | 93,260 | 6 | Dennis Quaid Goes on a Fantastic Voyage | An enjoyable enough sci-fi comedy in which Dennis Quaid plays a scientist who's miniaturized and launched into the body of Martin Short . Think of it as a goofy , screwball version of " Fantastic Voyage " . In comedy style , it's actually somewhat reminiscent of the Steve Martin / Lily Tomlin vehicle " All of Me " , in... |
574,087 | 4,532,636 | 110,638 | 6 | Jodie Foster's Wild Child | Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson play a couple of doctors who discover a wild child named Nell , a woman who's grown up completely isolated from human contact , and who as a result has developed her own language , mode of communication , etc . I can understand what drew Jodie Foster to the role of Nell , because on p... |
573,720 | 4,532,636 | 864,761 | 6 | Drag Out Your Period Garb for Another Uninspired Stroll Through History | Keira Knightley has become the go-to actress for portraying spunky feminist characters in period dramas . In her latest , she plays the Duchess of Devonshire , who challenges her husband's right to openly philander by doing some open philandering of her own . But of course she finds that double standards reign supreme ... |
573,428 | 4,532,636 | 431,197 | 6 | The A Team Goes Arabian | This schizophrenic action film can't decide whether it wants to be a solemn lecture about American / Arabian cultural differences or an episode of " The A Team . " Director Peter Berg does an admirable job of maintaining an air of objectivity in this story about a group of American FBI agents who travel to Saudi Arabia... |
573,912 | 4,532,636 | 439,815 | 6 | You Might Think Twice Before Ordering the Escargot | Nathan Fillion's engaging screen personality was largely responsible for making something special out of the potentially run-of-the-mill sci-fi movie " Serenity , " and that same personality does something similar for this film , the latest in the flesh-eating zombie genre . In " Slither , " a meteor from outer space d... |
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