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385,280 | 391,152 | 45,935 | 7 | Nice colors , slow story , great climax | A samurai falls in love with a woman whose life he saves . He is offered a reward for his bravery , and he asks if he can be married to that woman . Unfortunately , she is already married and the samurai's request cannot be fulfilled . He is steadfast in his desire , and tries forcibly to take her from her husband . The elements of many cheap thrillers exist in that scenario . Gate of Hell doesn't do too much to distinguish itself , although it's certainly not a thriller . Basically , the whole film is an excuse for its admittedly great climactic sequence , where the samurai invades the home of the woman and her husband at night . I really like how this sequence ends , but there are some questions left unanswered - annoyingly so . The husband even asks them aloud , and there really isn't a satisfactory explanation . Other than that sequence , most of the rest of the film is kind of tedious . Fortunately , the absolutely beautiful cinematography - was this Japan's first film in color ? - always manages to be impressive . The costume design actually won an Academy Award , a much deserved one , if I may say so myself . It also won an honorary Oscar for Best Foreign Film , the year before that category was made official . Furthermore , it was the first Japanese film to win the Palme D'Or at Cannes . . |
384,976 | 391,152 | 105,378 | 7 | Rather flawed , but entertaining | Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog is just play . It's a comic take on German Expressionist filmmaking , like Fritz Lang's M , and other German art , especially Kafka's The Trial . Woody Allen plays a K-like character who is woken up by a lynch mob who want his help in capturing a serial killer , but they never tell him exactly what they want him to do . Mia Farrow plays a circus sword swallower who's fed up with her husband ( John Malkovich ) . The story is kind of random , half of it following Allen , who ends up being suspected of the murders , and the other half following Farrow , who ends up sleeping with a man ( John Cusack ) for the extravagant sum of $700 . The story ends up being disappointing , but it's fun . It's worth a watch . . |
385,066 | 391,152 | 59,113 | 7 | Good but very flawed film | This isn't one of those classics that you just have to see . In fact , you could live the rest of your life very happily without ever having seen it , even if you are a major film buff . There are plenty of other films you could see in its stead , and , with the time you would save by skipping this 3 hour and 20 minute opus , you could watch two better films . SPOILERSStill , Doctor Zhivago is worthwhile . It is very well directed , as you can only expect from David Lean . The score is justifiably famous . The cinematography is also quite glorious at times . I wish I could say the same for the writing . The film's dramatic angle revolves around an affair between Yuri Zhivago ( Omar Sharif ) and Lara ( Julie Christie ) , a woman , not his wife , whom he meets and grows to admire during medical services for WWI . Unfortunately , the film never really develops their relationship . I never felt any dramatic weight when the two were separated or when they found each other after long lapses . I am a definite weeper when it comes to romantic epics , but I didn't come anywhere close to shedding tear one during this film . In fact , I was always disappointed that the screenplay ( or novel , really ) kept pushing Yuri away from his wife , Tanya ( Geraldine Chaplin ) , who always seemed better to me . Besides , as I have said , there really is never a reason why Yuri would abandon Tanya . Most of these feelings come from the poor character development . Yuri himself is developed decently , but some of his decisions seem unrealistic and forced . The two women in his life are the biggest problem Tanya seems left cold by the writers , and I suspect she is this way just so we end up not sympathizing with her , or at least so we end up wanting Zhivago to go to Lara . But Lara is not well developed either . Her situation at the beginning is very interesting , but after we meet up with her again during WWI , she doesn't really seem the same . Worse yet , the man whom she originally married , Pasha , is swept away during the war to live a different life . We meet up with him a couple of times along the way , but he is only a plot device . Lara never seems affected by his loss . The two characters who do register are supporting ones , Yevgraf Zhivago ( Alec Guinness ) ( Yuri's half-brother whom he hardly knows and only meets a couple of times ) and Komarovsky ( Rod Steiger ) . A lot of the difficulty in character association is the fault of the actors , though . Omar Sharif is good as Yuri , but not great . Geraldine Chaplin , a very underrated actress indeed ( she was the daughter of Charlie Chaplin , and , if you wish to see her act in a film , see Nashville , made a decade later ) , is cruelly underutilized . It is her remarkable acting skill that allowed her character to live at all and that made me identify with Tanya rather than with Lara . And Guinness and Steiger steal every scene they are in , both great at playing characters with ambiguous morality . In fact , I have to lay a lot of the blame on the general failure of the film on Christie . She is a great actress elsewhere , but she fumbles here . Big time . She plays Lara as someone with deep stares . But those stares , meant to exhibit longing or profundity or whatever come off more as blank and thoughtless . Christie clearly doesn't know what to do with the part . I don't know how early this was in her career , but she was definitely not ready for it . Her character , though underwritten , could have at least seemed passionate towards Yuri , but there is never an ounce of chemistry involved . If you want to see her as a mature actress , catch Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs . Miller , where she plays the titular Miller . She's riveting there . Besides these major flaws , I'd still recommend it to anyone who loves David Lean or epics or even Alec Guinness or Rod Steiger . It is worth watching just for Guinness ' subtle performance . But be prepared to sit for a prolonged period of time . If it gets boring , just concentrate on the pretty pictures and music . However , if you want to skip onto some of its descendants , see Warren Beatty's Reds or Philip Kaufmann's The Unbearable Lightness of Being . They both have some similarities in theme and setting with Doctor Zhivago , and they are much more thought out and beautiful . . |
385,757 | 391,152 | 457,572 | 7 | Great idea , so-so results | In a 1950's style America , humanity has survived the zombie apocalypse , which happened much as it did in Romero's Night of the Living Dead , and is now living safe inside fenced-in safe zones . There is an invention , a collar of some sort , that is able to quell the zombies ' hunger for human flesh . Now they are used as servants , or , in some cases , pets . Fido is the Lassie of zombies . He even belongs to a boy named Timmy . Unfortunately , as tame as the zombies are , the collars don't always work so well . Timmy and Fido get into trouble when the collar gets turned off , and zombie mayhem begins . The concept is gold , but I don't think co-writer / director Andrew Currie produces anything that interesting . His film-making is often sloppy . It sometimes feels like he spent all his budget on some vintage autos and an unnecessary helicopter shot . The zombie makeup looks terrible , which is always distracting . And the zombie actors are generally awful , probably on account of Currie's direction . They all seem too expressive in their faces and eyes . There are a lot of interesting aspects of this post-apocalyptic society , but the world and its rules are never adequately explained . To boot , it's difficult to understand some of the backstories , especially that of the father ( played by Dylan Baker ) . I'd still give a slight recommendation , just because the idea is so fantastic . And it's an amusing picture , even if it disappoints . |
384,925 | 391,152 | 110,907 | 7 | Unfairly Maligned . Far better than people give it credit for | And that's not saying that it's great either . It is not . But it's tremendously low imdb rating makes me wonder who the heck is voting here . Pret-a-Porter is a pretty good Robert Altman film that is no better or worse than Short Cuts , which , while I feel it is a good film , I also think it is overrated . This one is , however , heavily underrated , and they both got the same imdb score from me : = stars . This is another attempt to make another Nashville . There's a humongous ensemble cast of actors , some of the best on the planet , a couple of the best who ever lived . The screenwriter doesn't connect it all very well , and lots of the characters seem superfluous or underdeveloped , unlike in Nashville where even the characters who are only in a couple of scenes are as familiar to the viewer as a close friend . I would particularly have liked the Danny Aiello / Teri Garr section to have been removed . It falls pretty flat . The Sophia Loren / Marcello Mastrioanni section , the section that most film buffs are going to be excited for , also plops by its end . And Kim Basinger , a good actress , truly deserving her L . A . Confidential Oscar , is not very good as the Southern U . S . reporter : her accent is difficult to get around , and her character is often annoying , too . Sometimes , though , her pieces succeed . Many other of the vignettes succeed quite well , although there are never any fireworks about to shoot off . The Tim Robbins / Julia Roberts plot is very funny . The three publishers , Sally Kellerman , Tracy Ullman , and Linda Hunt's attempts to sign photographer Milo ( Stephen Rea ) to their magazine are all very humorous . The love quadrangle between the two designers , Forest Whitaker and Richard E . Grant , and their lovers is very good , also . Anouk Aimee's section is also great , maybe the best part ( Rupet Everett is good , also ) . I loved her so much in La Dolce Vita and 8 . I was aching for her and Marcello Mastrioanni to interact . The ending is truly fantastic . It is very well directed and filmed . It's a good film . |
384,703 | 391,152 | 106,504 | 7 | Perhaps not entirely successful , but definitely good and well worth seeing | A small project wedged between his first two more mainstream products , The Adjuster and Exotica , Calendar stars the director and his wife , Arsinée Khanjian as a photographer and his wife . They are traveling to different Armenian churches in order to photograph them for a calendar . Both of them are Armenian by heritage , but he is disconnected from it , while she speaks the language ( and acts as translator ) . During the trip , their Armenian guide begins to grow closer to the wife . The film actually takes place much later , as Egoyan , now no longer with his wife , is trying to duplicate her by holding " auditions " with women , presumably re-enacting the first meeting with his ex . It's all rather confusing . I never quite figured it all out . I'm not sure the film works . I liked all the stuff about the Armenian churches ( some beautiful images here , and the film's style in these scenes is great ) , but the whole narrative about the dates never seemed to come to fruition . However , it is an extremely interesting film , and it's rather haunting at the end . Calendar itself may feel somewhat incomplete , but Egoyan is definitely a fully-fledged artist here . The only earlier film of his I've seen , Speaking Parts , did not communicate his talent . This is definitely worth seeing , especially as it only runs at 75 minutes . |
385,542 | 391,152 | 264,616 | 7 | Great story and acting , but needs a shot of adrenaline | Frailty has a hugely innovative script . Perhaps it should be remembered when Oscar time arrives at the end of 2002 . And Bill Paxton and Matthew McConaughey are very good as well . Paxton especially , who also directed , gives one of his best performances . His best , in my opinion , was in A Simple Plan , but this is nearly equal . And I never cared for McConaughey , but he's pretty good here . Matthew O'Leary , who plays the younger Fenton , is a find . He creates a very believable character . Jeremy Sumpter , young Adam , is nearly as good . My major criticism of Frailty is that the film doesn't generate enough dread in order to make it into a really successful horror film or thriller . As it stands , it's just an interesting serial killer drama with some good twists at the end . There were maybe two spots that made me jump . I never felt frightened at all . There was hardly any real suspense . Still , Frailty is well worth seeing for its original plotline . . |
384,623 | 391,152 | 65,391 | 7 | For fans only | Not one of Fassbinder's best , but certainly worth a look for those interested in the man's work . In mood and style , it's reminiscent of Godard's Alphaville , and my reactions to both films are similar : I am intrigued , but a bit bored . And I don't think either succeed in the end . The American Soldier concerns a haughty German-American soldier , fresh from Vietnam , who struts around killing people for reasons which are kept mostly obscure ( he's some kind of gangster or hitman ) . The police are after him , though the police seem just as wicked . I didn't care much about what was going on ? no compelling reason was ever given for me to care . However , many elements of the film impressed me . Fassbinder's idiosyncratic sense of pace and mood pervades . The performances are pretty good . Fassbinder himself appears in a small role and , as usual , he delivers a remarkable performance . He has to be the best actor / director of all time . Peer Raben never seems to write a lot of music for Fassbinder's films . Instead , he just writes one theme that is used several times throughout the given picture . They are always exceptional , and his theme ( and also theme song , which is the same tune with lyrics added ) is excellent here . And then there's this ending . Fassbinder has a talent for unique and notable endings , and the end of this film is one of the weirdest and most remarkable I've ever seen . . |
385,753 | 391,152 | 841,046 | 7 | Slight but occasionally hilarious | After seeing The TV Set earlier this week , I was especially interested in seeing the followup film from director Jake Kasdan and producer Judd Apatow . The biopic is definitely a genre in much need of a spoofing , and I figured Kasdan and Apatow , with the often brilliant John C . Reilly in the lead , would produce a spoof with perhaps a little more depth than other films of the genre . But , alas , Walk Hard walks about the same line as the Hot Shot movies , somewhat below The Naked Gun and somewhat above Scary Movie . It's funny for the most part , but painfully two-dimensional . It does have some nice jokes concerning the history of pop music that might bypass the younger generations . I especially loved when Dewey Cox went through his Brian Wilson period . The recording session of his Pet Sounds-like album is just great . " I need an army of didjeridoos ! " Perhaps the funniest joke of the film are the various music stars of the era whose personae are occupied by celebrities in cameos . I actually wish they had gone even further with this , covering as many musicians as they could . The moment of the film that made me laugh the most is when Frankie Muniz , the kid from Malcolm in the Middle , appears as Buddy Holly . The casting is truly inspired , and I just love the way every phony celebrity is called by both their first name and last name every time they are mentioned , like , " Well hello , Buddy Holly " or " How are you doing , Paul McCartney ? " The entire sequence where Cox meets The Beatles in India had me holding my sides . That could have gone on for longer . There are a lot of other jokes that cracked me up , as well . The entire first sequence , where we see the obligatory tragedy that sets Cox's life in motion , is hilarious . The recurring joke where , whenever Dewey gets especially upset , he finds the nearest bathroom sink , rips it out , and smashes it on the ground is one that is close to my heart . It seems that there are at least two Oscar clips of actors or , more commonly , actresses , smashing dishes on the ground when they are angry . And , if you want to see something extremely rare , Tim Meadows is hilarious in another recurring joke , where Cox walks in on him doing drugs in a back room ( a direct parody of Ray ) and then joins him . So , yeah , there are some great gags . But then there are long dry stretches . And , as I said , the film is very shallow . It's content to be just a spoof , so , in the end , it's not all that memorable . But it's well worth watching if you're looking for some quick , easy laughs . |
385,068 | 391,152 | 405,422 | 7 | Has heart , but it's only moderately funny | Reminds me of the Farrelly Brothers ' last few films . It's a comedy that wants to come off as really touching and thoughtful , one that doesn't want to use its pathetic characters for laughs , but then forgets to be especially funny otherwise . The 40 Year-Old Virgin is funny often enough to make it worth seeing , but the laughs are rarely belly laughs . I just never felt satisfied even after its best jokes . It seemed to be pulling some major punches . Scenes go on for a long time without payoff , and other scenes that seem to have golden setups get cut way too short . For example , in one sequence the title character's friends set him up with a prostitute . It becomes obvious from the outset that it's a man , but as soon as that's established , the movie cuts to the next scene . We don't see the virgin try to get out of the situation . We don't see the hooker try to do anything . There's a lot of potential for great comedy there ; it doesn't have to be that dirty , either , to be funny . God knows we don't need a second Deuce Bigalow movie in the theaters this weekend . Steve Carell is very good , and all the characters are quite well fleshed out . I wish they would have done maybe a little more with Catherine Keener . She seems like she might be more interesting if we knew more about her . The movie's worth seeing , but wait for video . |
384,653 | 391,152 | 26,564 | 7 | Okay | A fun and charming film , but pretty forgettable . I watched it as the first part of a double feature ( the second film being Mildred Pierce ) , and I hardly remember a thing about it . The story concerns the people of Flanders who have to deal with a Spanish invasion ( the year is 1616 ) . They are peaceful people and the Spanish are not . The mayor and other regents of the city are sure that there will be rape and bloodshed everywhere . Most of them want to flee . The mayor's wife and the other women don't like their husbands ' cowardice . They try to think of a way to avoid violence . When the Spanish arrive , the men are mostly hiding and the mayor is playing dead . The women charm them . The Duke of the Spaniards is attracted to the mayor's wife . Meanwhile , there's a cute little love subplot between an artist and the mayor's daughter . Her father wants her to marry a man of higher class , but her mother perfectly loves the romantic artist . Through the film , she contrives a way for the two to get married without the mayor's approval . There are many better films to search out and watch , but if you think you've seen everything else , I guess this is okay to see . . |
385,685 | 391,152 | 21,654 | 7 | On DVD , the Criterion Berlin Alexanderplatz set , disc 7 | Located on disc 7 , the extras disc , of the new Criterion Berlin Alexanderplatz set . This is well worth seeing if you've just gotten your way through the 15 . 5 hour version . There's also a 23 minute long lecture on the original Alfred Döblin novel and its adaptations over the years that is a must-see , as it helps put it all into perspective . If not for the inevitable spoilers , I'd almost recommend watching that extra before you attempt either the film or the series . This original film , adapted with the help of the novelist , is apparently quite different from the novel , to which the Fassbinder series sticks pretty closely . The character of Franz Biberkopf is much more likable here . He's still kind of dumb , but he's not strictly to blame for the ills that befall him and those around him . This was because the star of the film , Heinrich George ( Metropolis ) , probably didn't want to be depicted as an unthinking jerk . It's amazing that the writers are able to whittle the enormous plot into an 83 minute film , and for the most part , I was enjoying it . It's just when the character of Mieze is introduced that it begins to fall apart . She just shows up too fast , and doesn't have time to win the audience's affection . She almost feels like an afterthought here . I did think Maria Bard was very good as Cilly ( who is a composite of all of Biberkopf's girlfriends up to Mieze , including Eva ) . |
385,735 | 391,152 | 91,406 | 7 | No , it's not based on the popular song by Kansas . . . | SLIGHT SPOILERSHou Hsiao-hsien is a filmmaker whose name has been dropped a thousand times in conversations I've had in the past year . Last week , I had a chance to see A Time to Live and a Time to Die . It was terrible . BUT , it was early in his career , and I was warned that many did not care for it . I can't imagine who would , but apparently there are some on the planet . And , to boot , not that many people had seen it . It is not available on video in the US . Those who alerted me to this filmmaker's existence were thoughtful and intelligent people , so I had no intention on giving up on Hsiao-hsien . This week , I got a chance to see Dust in the Wind . And I liked it . Now , it's nothing to write home about , but , this being , I think , the film he made right after ATtLaTtD , his maturation can be seen quite clearly . The script of Dust in the Wind is much better . When this film began , and I saw the aging but humorous grandfather , the injured and quiet father , and the harsh mother , I figured , oh hell , this Hsiao-hsien guy is such a poor writer that he can't even come up with a different family for his next film . The family of ATtLaTtD consisted of an old grandmother who supplied all the comic relief , a mother who was constantly disciplining her children , and a father who was dying of TB . The only difference in DitW was that the grandfather was actually amusing ; the grandmother in the earlier film was simply a nuisance . And , lo and behold , Hsiao-hsien ( and his editor ) had learned how to edit ! ATtLaTtD worked on the assumption that all a movie has to contain to be great is a multitude of long takes . A film can be good if it has a fondness for longer takes ( take a look at anything Andrei Tarkovsky's made ) , but I would say that only a pro should depend on them so heavily . We art-house patrons may like the occasional ten minute take , but those who know their stuff can tell when the director and editor were keeping the takes long simply because they have no imagination . Hollywood style editing has proven itself over and over again and , unless you are a Tarkovsky or an Ozu , forget it , bud . The first scene of DitW is made up of a couple of long takes of 1 ) a train pushing forward on the tracks ( about a three or four minute take ) and 2 ) of the two main characters standing in the train ( about a two minute take ) . The second scene , where grandpa attempts to feed the children , is edited with quick cuts , almost jump cuts , which suggests the old man's mounting frustrations with his disobedient grandchildren ( the way in which he gets one grandson to eat his dinner is classic ) . This is how editing works , and Hsiao-hsien has learned that . Now his ten minute takes are not a burden . They carry more weight . The film also contains its share of truly fantastic scenes , including those opening two that I referenced . Another one involves the two main characters , Wan ( the boy ) and Huen ( the girl ) , who are dependent on each other and call it love , at a bar with a bunch of friends . The emotions that play out in this scene are fantastic . Wan's friends convince Huen to take her first drink of beer , which she does in one huge gulp , followed closely by a second on her own accord . Then Hsiao-hsien cuts to a shot over Huen's shoulder . A space to her right is left open around the otherwise full table , and , from across the table , Han fills that gap . The shot lasts for some five minutes . Han is angry at Huen , and the emotions are broadcast marvelously , mostly by the way Han smokes , in this composition . The best scene in the movie involves Han's attempts to steal a moped . This was the only scene that truly affected me . At least one scene really bothered me . The visual style of this film is rather bland . And I don't mind that ; the genre is neorealism ( whether Hsiao-hsien knows that or not ; his debts to Vittorio de Sica and Satyajit Ray seem clear enough to me ) , and the visuals are supposed to look cheap ( because , well , these movies are made for very little money ) . For a film like this , when I say that a shot is well composed , like the bar scene I mentioned above , it is because it is composed in such a way to give the scene its maximum emotional weight . That shot was marvelous not because it was flashy , but because it seemed natural and it was miraculously economical . Now there comes a shot nearer the film's end , after Han is drafted into the army , in which two soldiers are shot at a high angle in silhouette as they stand on top of a hill , bluish storm clouds against a pinkish sky . In a film where naturalism is the goal of every composition , this particular shot stands out like a sore thumb . C'mon , Hou , if you want to emulate Ingmar Bergman , wait until your next film and then style your film in that manner ! It's a truly embarrassing shot . I've said nothing about the film's story . Suffice it to say , it is touching , but not too much so . Han is a well developed character , but I felt that I ought to have known Huen more . Her decision near the end of the film comes too quickly and at too great a distance from the action . The audience then has no choice but to make a bitter judgement on her character . We side solely with Han , when we it should be more ambiguous ; previously , they had been given rather equal footing in their developments . The final scene is quite beautiful , however , and leaves the audience feeling like they've witnessed something at least somewhat worthwhile . . |
384,661 | 391,152 | 120,655 | 7 | Kevin Smith's worthy diatribe over organized religion | Dogma is probably Kevin Smith's best film so far . It is extremely funny in the same vein as his previous films , and it does a rather good job discussing the confused state of Christianity today . I believe he comes up with a very good synopsis of the situation . The film , though , has some problems . The clashing of serious religious issues with both dirty , sometimes tasteless jokes and hardcore violence was severely jarring . Another problem is that the antagonists and their situation are more interesting than the protagonists . We've seen a lot of stories about people who had to rely in their faith as they are simultaneously losing it . Harvey Keitel's role in From Dusk Till Dawn , for example , was like this . There are also too many protagonists . What the heck did they even need Selma Hayek in the movie for ? She plays a Muse , a deity which isn't even Christian . Her character accomplishes little in the way of plot . The angels were much more interesting to me , and the film cuts away from them right when Bartleby , played by Affleck , and Loki , Matt Damon , both have vital character changes . They basically switch personalities , and the movie actually cuts to a standard scene where Linda Fiorentino questions her abilities ( the scene reminded me of the one in the Muppet Movie where Kermit the Frog went off from the other Muppets to ask himself if what he was doing was right ) . Also , the ending goes on for way too long , with six different characters each having their own reconciliation with God ( who actually contributes to the soundtrack ) . It goes on for so long , Smith had Jay and Silent Bob do something funny to keep the audience from growing restless . The biggest problem the movie has , though , is the abundance of explanation . Smith introduces so many different bits of Christian politics and beliefs that nearly a quarter of the entire film consists of characters explaining these things . I can appreciate the amount of detail that Smith included , but it detracts a bit from the film . Although I have a lot of complaints , the film did succeed in passing on its point , and it especially succeeds in being hilarious . If you did like his previous efforts , you will like this . And if you like Jay and Silent Bob , this is the film out of Smith's four that they figure the most prominently . There was a little disappointment in that Silent Bob did not give us any nugget of wisdom as he does in Clerks and Chasing Amy ( and Mallrats , if you count the blurb from The Empire Strikes Back ) . His two lines are pretty dumb . Anyway , |
385,495 | 391,152 | 210,075 | 7 | Overcomes its weak script | Girlfight is , in fact , little more than a female Rocky . In fact , compared to Rocky , this movie is not very good . It is stuffed with some of the most hackneyed sports cliches you'll ever see . Maybe it's just impossible to come up with a decent sports film . It always comes down to a final fight . There are very few options along the way . POSSIBLE SPOILERSTo thicken the proceedings , three conflicts are built up . One between the main character , Diana , and her friends at high school , one between her and her father and her family situation , and one between her and her new boyfriend . Unfortunately , all are lacking in certain ways . The first , between her and her classmates , falls flat quickly . Maybe I just have a strong distaste for anything involving high school ( I've been thankfully out of that situation for several years now ) , but I feel it is all underwritten . None of her classmates are developed in a significant enough way to make us care about the outcome of the conflict ( and , to spoil it , they never resolve the issue ) . We'll skip her family relationships for the moment ( they're a bit complicated ) and go on to her boyfriend . It's all pretty cliche , with Diana feeling jealousy over the trampy girl who always is trying to get her man back . Also , and it comes as no surprise , she is forced to box her boyfriend in the film's climactic scene . First off , the director / writer cheats by refusing to give us a good view of the actual match . She films it in slow motion and cuts out significant portions , giving you no idea what is happening in the match ; when the decision comes , you have no clue who will win . That adds a bit of suspense , but an actual boxing match , something that you may crave by this time ( there's very little boxing in the film , really ) , would have produced more suspense . However , the boyfriend situation works much better than the friend situation . The actors have chemistry , and , although cliche , I did care about their relationship . Their final scene , although sewn together with formulae , is touching ( it is an ode to the famous ending of Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows , where we end in a freeze-frame towards which the camera moves closer and closer ) . Now I must talk about the relationship between Diana and her family . I'm not sure I understood the situation with her brother , and I'm not sure whether that's my fault ( it was hot and humid , and thus difficult to pay attention at times ) or the writer's fault . Anyway , I'll take the blame for that one . What I can argue over is the relationship and situation between Diana and her father . He is a very interesting character , and I think he's diminished by both the writing and the actor playing him . The casting for this character was very poor indeed . He's supposed to be a brute who has changed his ways ( supposedly ; I might have misinterpreted this situation , also ) . Diana accuses him of driving her mother to suicide by beating her . This whole backstory is what stimulates Diana's character the most , and Kusama develops it very by-the-books ( straight from Screenwriting 101 ) , mentioning it passim . She ( Kusama ) thinks she's being really subtle , but she ends up underplaying it too much . If I had written it , I would have given this whole conflict much more prominence , as well as the role of the brother . Still , the way it is done gives any mention of the mother an emotional background , and two scenes involving it are probably the two best scenes in the film : one where Diana is forced to sell a locket which contains pictures of her and her mother ( she keeps the pictures of course , but it is heartbreaking when she is standing outside the pawn shop with those two naked photos in her hand ) and one where Diana attacks her father physically , accusing him of killing her mother . A couple of more things about the writing and the direction : it would also have been good to develop more strongly the relationship between Diana and her trainer . It seemed to me as if Kusama had wanted to do this , but chickened out . It ends up being rather cliche . I'm beginning to paint a picture which , to me , seems pretty clear . I'm betting that Kusama had a much more complex film going for her , one that may have soared past its cliches like an eagle , but that she felt as if it would be far too long a film if she had used it all . I have mapped out four different relationships that Diana has to deal with , and all four peter out for the most part . All four could have been developed much further . But it ended up being 111 minutes long , about the average length , maybe even a little more , for a feature film . I've already shown Truffaut's influence on this film . Godard , the other French New Wave giant , also influences quite a bit . Jump cuts are used constantly . Godard's first film , Breathless , is most famous for its jump cuts , and he said that he used them so often because , for his first film , he didn't want it to be too long . Jump cuts cut significant time from the film . This is obviously why Kusama jump cuts so often , and , like Godard's Breathless , it is her first film . But I have done little besides complain ! I must tell you why it " overcomes its weak script " ! Michelle Rodriguez absolutely shines . Seriously , I think I'm in love with her and I pray that she'll get more parts . I remember , when commercials for this film would air on television , friends would comment on how ugly Rodriguez was . I think she's absolutely stunning . She has so much personality and so much skill in this film . You may correctly say that she sports only one expression throughout the film , a scowl , but you ought to notice , too , that Rodriguez is expressing a lot of feelings underneath that scowl . It is only a front , a defense mechanism , and Rodriguez ( as well as Kusama ) knows this . Her Diana is an endearing character , and , as hackneyed as the film can get at times , she always makes it worth watching and I always cared for her . I give the film a . May we see Michelle Rodriguez soon in another film . This woman's Oscar material . |
385,584 | 391,152 | 28,597 | 7 | I was disappointed , I'm sorry to say | I was rather disappointed in this screwball comedy , from a director whom I generally love . And it's another one of those films where there are so many great elements ? Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are so perfect that it's really frustrating I laughed so little . Well , there were some scenes near the beginning that made me laugh a lot , but , as the film progressed , I felt it slowed down considerably . The last half hour was extremely weak , with two sequences in a row which were not only unfunny , but nearly unbearable ( starting where Dunne pretended she was Grant's sister was particularly painful to watch ) . I also didn't like the cheap shots at Middle America , although I laughed uproariously at the line , spoken by an Oklahoman oil baron , ' I'm so happy , I could eat three steaks ! ' I also thought the end was poor , although I did like the clocks . Overall , I think the film is okay , but the disappointment is something that will linger a lot longer than the parts I did like . |
385,324 | 391,152 | 285,861 | 7 | Philip Seymour Hoffman is great , but the film is kind of a bore | A straightforward film about a gambling addict , Dan Mahowny , beautifully played by Philip Seymour Hoffman . Yet , as good as Hoffman is in the film , saying that he gives a great performance is like saying the ice in my freezer is cold . Philip Seymour Hoffman [ I ] always [ / I ] gives a great performance . So what else does Owning Mahowny have to offer ? Well , there are several other good performances . Minnie Driver dresses down to play a Canadian bank teller from the early 1980s . She is quite good , but it's not an especially interesting role and I have to wonder why she would uglify herself with that awful hairdo for a movie that focuses almost entirely on the lead . If she was looking to win awards , she came to the wrong place . Maury Chaykin , one of my favorite Canadian character actors , is very good as Mahowny's bookie . I also liked Chris Collins , who plays a young man in Atlantic City who begins as a nobody working for Mahowny's favorite casino . When Mahowny shows a fondness for the kid , his boss pulls him up in the world and has him become the gambler's personal assistant . The manager of the casino is played by John Hurt . I don't know if I like him . He seems so evil at times I expected him to tap his fingers together and exclaim ' Excellent ' in a Mr . Burns voice . The most interesting part of the film , outside of Hoffman's performance , is the way Hurt is portrayed as Mahowny's shadow . When Mahowny is losing , Hurt is winning , and vice versa . He's as addicted to Mahowny's gambling as much as Mahowny . Other than that , the film offers few if any insights . See it for Hoffman's performance if you're a fan . Or just catch any of his other pictures . He's good in everything . . |
384,950 | 391,152 | 405,336 | 7 | Nonsensical ? Yes . But definitely interesting , and worth your time . | Richard Kelly's followup to the cult classic Donnie Darko , which finally makes its arrival in theaters a year and a half after its legendarily disastrous Cannes debut in May of 2006 . And what you heard about it is absolutely true : it makes little to no sense . You'll spend much of the movie wondering who people are , what they are doing and how they all fit together . It's not worth getting too deep into the plot in a review . After all , it's incomprehensible . But the film takes place in an alternate universe where a nuclear bomb exploded in Texas in 2005 , starting WWIII . Now it's three years later , and political tensions are mounting as we near the 2008 election . The film takes place in southern California , a hotbed for political dissidents . The cast of characters is enormous . You might think Altman meets sci-fi ( but don't think Quintet ) . The cast is filled with B-list stars ( Dwayne " The Rock " Johnson and Sarah Michelle Gellar may be level stars , and Justin Timberlake is , well , an A list music star , anyway ) , all of whom give fairly good performances . I especially liked Gellar , who probably delivers her best movie performance here , and Miranda Richardson as the head of this world's version of Big Brother . Even though I was wishing like hell the movie made more sense , I found myself enjoying it . It's an interesting look at the current zeitgeist ( especially the lampoon of the 24 hour news cycle that pops up everywhere in the film , often providing us with information ) . Kelly is a talented filmmaker , there's no doubt . There is a host of memorable sequences and some beautiful shots ( despite the occasionally ugly look of digital video , most obvious when the camera pans ) . And , heck , even as a writer , Kelly is hugely gifted . This is an original story , and , despite the fact that it is nonsensical most of the time , it's never boring . His imagination is boundless . It's a blessing and a curse . The medium also harms this work , I think . It may have worked better as a TV show or mini-series . Anyway , the bottom line is , after all , I'd rather see something I've never seen before , even if it doesn't always work , than the same old plots over and over . I sincerely hope Southland Tales doesn't destroy Richard Kelly's career . The future of cinema would lose something special if that happened . |
385,262 | 391,152 | 23,775 | 7 | Stanwyck is great , but the film is just decent ( though indecent ! ) | Infamous pre-code film , really the one film that caused people to insist on the Hayes Code being strictly enforced . Barbara Stanwyck stars as a young girl whose liquor-selling father has no problem pimping her out to customers . When he dies in an accident , she's released out into the world with the knowledge that her nubile body can get her whatever she wants . She goes to New York and proceeds to climb the corporate ladder , one bed at a time . Although obviously there's no actual sex shown , the film is quite sleazy . Unfortunately , after the initial shock value fades ( around the time Stanwyck screws a rail car inspector so she can travel for free ) , the film becomes a tad repetitive and dull . Stanwyck herself is the only thing that keeps the film worth sitting through . As always , she's fantastic . |
385,239 | 391,152 | 299,458 | 7 | Frustratingly uneven , just like George Washington | David Gordon Green is a most irritating director . He is so clearly talented , immensely so , but he cannot for the life of him mold his creations into a working whole . All the Real Girls is beautiful , and at times its so poignant , intense , and truthful that it seems like it is hitting the very meaning of love . Then the very next moment , he craps on that with a completely ludicrous , forced , and utterly false scene . It was exactly this way with George Washington , another horribly frustrating film that made me joyous one moment and ped off the next . What Green really needs is a co-writer to edit his script . Or Green might try adapting a screenplay , because , as a writer , he has little sense of what is good and bad , since both qualities stand so close side by side in the two films he has made . I did think All the Real Girls worked slightly better than George Washington , mostly because the actors in this movie can act , unlike a majority of the child stars of his debut . . |
385,485 | 391,152 | 58,898 | 7 | pretty but empty | This was the third Godard film I saw , and I saw it at a time when I was still eagerly building the base of my film knowledge . I found it dull and incomprehensible , but it seemed like interesting filmmaking ( at the time Breathless was the most amazing , original , and refreshing film that I had ever seen ) . It , and the second Godard film I saw , Contempt , put me off of the fellow for at least two more years ( I still need to see Contempt a second time ) . I finally fell in love with him on that fourth and fifth film , watched on the same night , Une femme est une femme and ( more particularly ) Vivre sa vie . After that I was a huge Godard fan , but it still took me almost two years to go back to Alphaville . I hoped that four extra years and about a thousand new films would have helped me appreciate the film ; either that or help me understand why the film wasn't any good . The verdict on this second viewing : it improved a little , but I still feel it's one of Godard's weakest films . By turns fascinating , silly , and just plain pretentious , Alphaville is at the very least an extraordinarily visually beautiful film . If I find the plot and themes somewhat trite , I can always marvel at the almost constantly artful black and white composition . Perhaps what the film really needed was a more interesting central character than Lemmy Caution , and a more interesting actor than Eddie Constantine ( whom I do love in Lars von Trier's Europa , which I believe was his last film ) . Caution / Constantine bored me , and I was constantly waiting for Anna Karina to reappear . Truth be told , she's not especially great , either . I've seen , I think , all but one of her collaborations with JLG , and this is easily her least interesting performance . Well , she's still pretty enough to look at . Again , beautiful , but , again , empty . |
384,606 | 391,152 | 17,765 | 7 | Mostly hit and miss Buster Keaton movie | Certainly not one of Keaton's best films . There are a lot of funny jokes , few of which provide belly laughs ( maybe only one or two really big laughs ) . A lot of the less funny jokes are still cute and smile-inducing . Buster Keaton is as great as ever . His stunts in this film are amazing . I prefer almost every other Keaton movie I've seen , save for his most famous , The General , with which I was unimpressed . . |
385,165 | 391,152 | 437,777 | 7 | Rather good , though not especially memorable | Nothing special narratively , I suppose , but this romance is a cut above the average Hollywood film . A black , professional woman ( Sanaa Lathan ) starts a relationship with a white landscaper ( Simon Baker ) . They hit it off , but soon racial issues ( and , to a lesser extent , class issues ) start to weigh them down . They break up and find other people , but , of course , everything ends up working out in the long run . The characters are well written , and the performances are very good , especially Lathan's . It would be easy to just put these two eye candy actors together and hope for people to like them on account of their looks , but they are well characterized . The film also looks amazing , which is weird considering the genre . Romances and romantic comedies don't have to look good , really , but this one does . I think Sanaa Hamri might turn out to be a big talent . Keep an eye on her . By the way , what the heck is with John Ratzenberger showing up in the last scene ? That was weird . He doesn't even have a line . Not that he's a big star or anything , but you'd think he wouldn't have to do the work of an extra to pay the rent . |
384,599 | 391,152 | 58,985 | 7 | Interesting failure , but it looks beautiful | SPOILERSYou could tell that Agnes Varda had half of a great idea going into this film , but she never panned it out to its fullest extent . It begins interestingly enough , and progresses so for about half an hour or forty-five minutes . Then it plateaus and nothing very important comes of it . The story has a young married man , Francois , who is in a state of perfect happiness with his beautiful , down-to-earth wife and two beautiful young children ( these four are played by an actual married couple , the Drouots , and their children ) . On the job , Francois begins to run into a postal clerk named Emilie . He's attracted to her and thinks to himself , " Hey , I'm happy , but if I can make myself happier still , is there any harm ? " So he starts to date her without losing an iota of interest in his wife . SPOILERS . Eventually , he decides to tell his wife , and he does so guiltlessly . She seems to take it well , and the two make love in an idyllic , pastoral setting . After their lovemaking , Francois falls asleep . When he awakens , she has drowned herself ( apparently ) . Several months later , Francois and Emilie marry and she becomes a mother to the two children , working her hardest at taking the role . As the film ends , we realize that she has incorporated herself into the family perfectly and everything is back to normal . They will live happily ever after , or at least I didn't see any real foreshadowing of future tragedies . Now , my first instinct is to take the film as being slightly ironic . Wouldn't you think a woman director would want to satirize this man and his rather selfish attitude ? Perhaps Varda thinks that a lot of men feel that they should be able to , or at least could successfully love two women at once . There's never a hint that either Francois ' wife or Emilie would ever take another lover themselves . They are both absurdly selfless . Emilie totally accepts her position as the paramour . The wife does at first , of course , but it was only a lie so she could punish him . Even more ironic and unfair is that Francois only barely suffers from her death . Even their children seem wonderfully happy next to the indirect and direct causes of their mother's death . However , I'm fairly sure that the audience isn't supposed to hate Francois . In reality , it seems to me that Varda was trying to challenge social conventions and that she herself is asking why a man can't be perfectly happy loving two women . If this is the case , and it did seem so to me , I feel that Varda is just being a bit facetious . Francois is not a very believable character . He spouts some very ridiculous philosophy about why he should follow his heart and love both women . The audience , in fact , often laughed at these thoughts , because they were , in truth , silly . Francois , at times , seems absolutely naïve . Perhaps this is more support for my first interpretation . But if that were true , the movie still doesn't work . To satirize a kind of person , it's best to have them even remotely believable , which Francois , as I have stated , is not . Even if this film does fail in its narrative , it is still well worth seeing . It is perhaps best known for being Varda's first film in color . I saw an absolutely beautiful print : this woman knows how to use the format . It's all so vibrant ; the colors are not exaggerated , but they're composed in such a way that they stand out almost in three dimensions . And she uses these beautiful fades to green , red , blue , white , and so forth . . |
385,110 | 391,152 | 499,554 | 7 | Basically identical to the show | My first film of 2007 is a big screen port of one of my favorite television shows . I'll have to be honest : this doesn't seem like the kind of show that would lead to a very good big screen movie . Of course , Sacha Baron Cohen did a great job with his adaptation of his Borat character last year , and Reno 911 ! is similar in a lot of ways . It's not gonzo ( that means , all actors , no real people ) , but it is all improv comedy . Truthfully , I think the performers of Reno 911 ! ( most of them , anyway ) are far more talented than Cohen , and that the characters are funnier , at least when compared to Borat's segments from Da Ali G Show . Well , Reno 911 ! doesn't come close to surpassing Borat , but it is a pretty fun movie . Hit or miss , definitely , much more so than Borat , but its best moments are great . It is pretty much a direct port of the TV show ? they definitely could have made a three part episode about the team taking over the Miami police department ; they actually have had series of episodes in the past . Sacha Baron Cohen expanded his Borat character , which is why it was more successful . |
385,148 | 391,152 | 65,492 | 7 | Robert Altman proves to be no Maestro | Robert Altman is undoubtedly one of the best American directors of all time , but he very often missteps . Remember Popeye ? Well , Brewster McCloud , his first effort post-MASH , his enormous hit and Oscar winner , shouldn't really be considered a misstep , per se . It certainly is an interesting film . It's just that Altman never knows when to stop , and by the end , I couldn't wait for it to end . The first hour is hilarious . It's original , even for Altman it is unique . But after about an hour , there's this fifteen or so minute car chase that's just lame . There have been hundreds of car chases in film history , and only about three have been exciting , all three of those being in the Mad Max series . This one goes on and on . I can give it one complement , or insult , however you might see it . It predicts The Dukes of Hazzard . Several cop cars chase around an orange muscle car . This car chase kills whatever mood has been growing . Also , the film is just too dang clever for its own good . Cleverness is a good thing in the movies , because you see so little of it . But when a film is trying to be so different that it just becomes silly , well , like I said above , you just have to know when to stop . Altman ends with what seems to be an ode to Fellini's 8 . During that circus , the reason that the audience's emotions are so high is because you know and love the characters who are dancing around . Here , they're all just caricatures . I shouldn't be so hard on it . To tell you the truth , I liked it for a very long time . The film itself took too many missteps , and ended much more poorly than it had began . |
385,179 | 391,152 | 46,004 | 7 | Fun but slight | A cute premise stretched rather thin . A 7 year-old boy is tricked by his 12 year-old brother into thinking he accidentally shot him . The kid is so upset he runs away , taking with him six dollars the boys ' mother left behind for them . He goes to Coney Island and spends two whole days there . It's all nice and charming , but it might have worked better as a thirty minute episode of a TV series , or even at an hour . At 80 minutes , it gets repetitive and loses much of its potential charm . Shots are even reused several times . Richie Andrusco as the 7 year-old and Richard Brewster as his older brother are excellent child stars . They are far more natural than any counterpart in a Hollywood film of this time period . It's funny the way things change . That prank with the gun would surely have seemed very cruel in 1953 . But with that kind of event being an everyday 10 o'clock news item , it's much more tainted right now . And it's funny that , when I first saw Jack the Pony Ride Man , I didn't think of him as a concerned adult but as a potential child molester ! . |
384,769 | 391,152 | 499,537 | 7 | Good , but Panahi's done better | In The White Balloon and Crimson Gold , the two other films by Jafar Panahi that I've seen , the director mines surprising amounts of depth in subjects that seem , on the surface , slight . In Offside , Panahi's seriocomic tribute to Iranian women standing up for their rights , I don't think he's as successful . Not that what he's saying isn't important , of course ( and it's too bad that , like pretty much every other Panahi film , Iranians can't see it ) . But , after a while , the film feels a tad flat , and it feels long even at 90 minutes . Not saying I didn't like it , though . The actors are all fantastic , and the celebration at the end of the film is infectious . But it's not an important work , in my opinion . |
384,787 | 391,152 | 368,891 | 7 | Incredibly stupid , but , I have to admit , I enjoyed it | For a movie that's pretty much just a cheap combination of Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code , I was surprised at how much I enjoyed National Treasure . Oh , it's dumb , but it's dumb fun . Nicolas Cage stars as the latest descendant of the Gates family , whose members have spent their existence following the treasure of the Knights Templar . The Freemasons , descended from the Knights Templar , have supposedly left a series of clues leading to this treasure . Cage , in his hammy mode , carries the movie . His sidekicks , Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha , are mostly boring , as are the villains ( led by Sean Bean ) . Harvey Keitel and Jon Voight pop up in supporting roles , but neither of them adds too much . It really is the Nicolas Cage show . It moves quick and doesn't allow you to overthink any of the extremely simple story . I'd definitely place this in the " guilty pleasure " column , but a pleasure it is . |
385,270 | 391,152 | 385,004 | 7 | Maddeningly disappointing | Okay , it's actually a pretty good film , but after being so absolutely blown away by Zhang's previous martial arts picture , Hero , his follow up could only disappoint . It just feels so unambitious and small in comparison . The script is far less interesting and timeless . It takes over half the movie before anything especially fascinating happens . Sure , the " echo game " scene is okay . But think of Hero , whose first set piece was the fight between Nameless and Sky . When I saw that back in August , my jaw hit the floor . I knew I was in for something truly amazing . The echo game is interesting , but also a bit silly . I guess a lot of things in Hero were silly , too , when you think about them ? like the lake fight between Nameless and Broken Sword . But Hero captivated me , where Daggers barely registered . As far as the martial arts sequences go , I wasn't astounded by a single one . The bamboo forest was the best , but it isn't as wonderful as , say , the fight in the trees from Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon , or , indeed , even the bamboo forest fights of King Hu's A Touch of Zen , a picture I didn't like at all . It's only in Flying Dagger's final sequence where it triumphs over the mediocrity that has been trying to creep in throughout the film . Even with it , it still feels like only three-quarters of a movie . I'm probably being more harsh than I ought to , though . It has many worthwhile elements . The costumes are particularly great , and the only aspect that I would say is beyond Hero is the music . . |
385,380 | 391,152 | 464,141 | 7 | Good , but not that good | Good , but I was expecting better given the reviews . It's about at the same level as , say , The Others . Belén Rueda plays an adult orphan who now lives in her former orphanage with her husband and adopted son . Her son speaks of imaginary friends , which she and her husband find normal . But these imaginary friends , it starts to seem , may really be ghosts . One day , the son vanishes , and Rueda thinks the ghosts may have something to do with it . The film is quite spooky , but I think the eeriness is pretty much ruined by an overzealous musical score . This really needed to be more subtle . The script has a couple of great twists , but , in general , it's fairly poor . It contains scenes where characters sit around and spout out endless exposition . Home movies are discovered which provide endless clues to the mystery . The most annoying flaw is that police and detectives are brought in to solve the case , and they find nothing . Later on , Rueda discovers all kinds of obvious clues that police searching for a missing child wouldn't have left uncovered . The final twist , I think , is particularly brilliant , but the movie lost me again with a lousy , sentimental ending . |
385,091 | 391,152 | 60,675 | 7 | OR The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola | That alternate title for Masculin Feminin , The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola , is provided in the middle of the film . It is probably the most famous thing from it . It's actually a good title . Politics and pop culture mix in odd ways in the film , and the characters are uncertain about both of those aspects of their lives . Truth be told , Masculin Feminin is a lesser work by Jean-Luc Godard . It was made during a difficult period in his life : his relationship with Anna Karina , his wife and favorite actress , star of many of his early films such as Le petit soldat , Une femme est une femme , and especially Vivre sa vie , was falling apart . Therefore , this particular film is very bitter and hopeless . Godard is also unsure of where he's going . The film stars Jean-Pierre Leaud , who is most famous for playing Antoine Doinel in such Truffaut films as The 400 Blows . His girlfriend is played by Chantal Goya , who was a pop star at the time ( and she plays an up-and-coming pop singer in the film ) . The film loses track of its supporting players . They are omnipresent , but when they have scenes without Leaud or Goya , the film gets tedious . Godard doesn't know what he's doing with them . This is especially true of a long scene where Leaud's best friend tries to court Goya's best friend in a kitchen . He asks her many questions , but they are all very trite ones about her sex life . I swear , he asks the same three questions a dozen times each . It gets old fast , and the scene lasts forever . There are several good sequences , but nothing that really equals the best of Jean-Luc Godard . Perhaps its real value is in its editing . Godard's editing is always interesting , and Masculin Feminin shows us his skill with long takes . Also , there are a couple of great tracking shots . . |
385,166 | 391,152 | 468,565 | 7 | Not great , but it's okay | Very Miramax-ish film from South Africa . It won the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars this year . A petty criminal known as Tsotsi ( slang for " thug " ) shoots a woman in order to steal her car , not knowing that her baby is in the back seat . He can't bring himself to abandon the child , and takes it along with him . Will Tsotsi find redemption through love for the kid ? Well , duh . But it ain't quite that schmaltzy . Tsotsi's character is well defined , and the story doesn't make him pure allegory or anything like that . The acting is quite good , and the film-making , especially the cinematography , is often very good . Unfortunately , I didn't find the film particularly memorable . It's worth seeing , I think . |
384,789 | 391,152 | 369,441 | 7 | A disappointment , but an enjoyable one | The film aims at being a good satire . It is a remake of a 1977 film that I haven't seen , but this version is very rooted in modern events . It takes the Enron scandal as a starting point and depicts an upper middle class culture where many people are fighting it out for a few jobs . After attempting to work at a Wal-Mart clone and even as a day laborer , Jim Carrey gives up and decides the only way to get what he deserves is to steal it . He and his wife ( Téa Leoni ) go on a crime spree . The movie does have some anger behind the story , and it does have some satirical teeth . Unfortunately , it doesn't quite bite hard enough . A combination of mediocre direction and poor editing make a lot of the comedy sequences ? many of which feel like , with a good rewrite , they would have been gut-busting ? fall somewhat flat . I also imagine that the screenplay went through many hands , and the rewriting that it did get was more of a watering-down . There's also a weird thing that happens in the background . All over the place we see Gore / Liberman signs and bumper stickers , which works to set the film in 2000 . For a long time , I was wondering why the filmmakers were blaming Bill Clinton , still for some reason every conservative's whipping boy , for all these corporate scandals when , more often than not , the CEOs and CFOs were die-hard , campaign-contributing Republicans ( there isn't a single Bush / Cheney sign to be seen ) . I'm still not sure why all the Gore / Liberman signs , but the only reason the film is set in 2000 , it turns out , is to set up a joke whose punchline only comes in the film's final moments ? one character announces that he finally got a new job ? at Enron . It's a joke that doesn't even make sense , and one that is certainly not funny , though it's meant to be . So , anyway , all that needs some more exploration . I imagine that the filmmakers had a good idea that never fully came to fruition . Anyway , the film is something of a failure , but I laughed , and I did enjoy it . I also thought it was very historically interesting . |
385,412 | 391,152 | 963,794 | 7 | Not great , but better than one might expect | I was in the mood for a horror flick , and the trailer to this one was quite spooky . I was pretty sure I could read through the advertisement to see the movie beneath , but I figured , eh , what the hell . Thankfully , while the movie doesn't quite match the eeriness of that preview , The Ruins is a moderately successful horror movie . It's not too stupid , and it delivers some good scares . Nothing to write home about , but it's pretty rare even to find a decent movie in this genre . The movie starts out pretty unremarkably , introducing us to a bunch of vapid college students on vacation in Mexico . They meet a German backpacker who asks them if they want to help him look for his brother , who went to visit an archaeological site and never came back . They arrive at the base of a pyramid , and a bunch of natives with guns and arrows drive them to the top , and then don't let them leave . Of course , there's something even worse than natives up there . Unlike most modern horror films , The Ruins doesn't reveal everything straight away . It allows us to see stuff moving in the background , but doesn't introduce us to the real danger until quite a way into the picture . The acting is a little better than this kind of movie usually has . The wonderful young actress Jena Malone is the biggest name , and was , in fact , the reason I finally decided to see the movie . Laura Ramsey is surprisingly excellent for an actress who began her career with the MTV " documentary " The Real Cancun . Jonathan Tucker and Shawn Ashmore play the two American men , and Joe Anderson the German backpacker . It does end poorly , but I enjoyed it . |
385,761 | 391,152 | 25,746 | 7 | Entertaining , but a huge mess | The Scarlet Empress is clearly a grab for the same dollar that MGM's Queen Christina had made with star Greta Garbo the year before . Similarly , in 1931 , Paramount released their version of Mata Hari , which MGM had released earlier that same year starring Garbo , called Dishonored , with Marlene Dietrich . The extravagant Josef von Sternberg did everything in his power to make The Scarlet Empress a visual feast , but his flat direction caused it to be a failure . It's supposedly one of the most carefully composed films ever made in Hollywood . To me , it looked like von Sternberg just threw a bunch of weird statuary on the set and filmed as is . Only once in a very long while does it betray a care in the cinematography . Most of the time it simply seems overproduced . It seems to me that Eisenstein must have seen this movie . In his Ivan the Terrible films , he seems to have taken the seed that von Sternberg planted here and expands it into what can truly be called a visual masterpiece 11 years later . The script is nonsensical , but , in a way , this is what makes the film worth watching . It makes the film seem absolutely insane , almost psychodelic , in a way . 1960s audiences would probably have appreciated it the most . Sam Jaffe plays a mad duke , whom Dietrich is forced to marry . This was Jaffe's first film , and later he would play the title character in Gunga Din . He is hilarious here as a half-wit ( which also reminds me of the Ivan the Terrible movies ) . Louisse Dresser's queen is a wack-job , too . One particular dinner she had reminded me of the tea party in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . The worst thing about the film is Dietrich's performance , unfortunately . She doesn't play an innocent too well . Even if she did , von Sternberg never gives her enough screen time . I think that the film's intertitles are on screen more than Marlene Dietrich . Still , the film is worth watching , just for its insanity . . |
385,619 | 391,152 | 83,151 | 7 | Of the three Béla Tarr films recently released by Facets on DVD , The Outsider is my favorite | Not that I loved it or anything . It's still rooted in the clichés of socialist realism and it has long , repetitive scenes of people chattering on . But I connected with this one pretty well . The main character , András , is a talented but unambitious musician . He plays the violin exceptionally well , but doesn't think he could make a living at it because he's not classically trained . Instead , he wastes his life away at a factory in a small town ; he only works there because he has to support his illegitimate son . The film's best scenes all involve music , which is also true of the other two Facets releases , The Prefab People and Family Nest ( though those two used music much more sparingly than The Outsider ) . Music seems to hold a special place in Tarr's work , or at least these early works . I wouldn't especially recommend any of these three films . You might want to wait until Satantango or The Werckmeister Harmonies ? both of which sound much more interesting ? eventually make their way to DVD . If you have seen those films and are looking into the development of this artist , these films are worthwhile enough . |
384,790 | 391,152 | 98,596 | 7 | A great story told in a rather dull fashion | Philippe Noiret plays a military bureaucrat who is meticulously trying to catalogue the casualties of WWI . He and two women cross paths during the excavation of a train that was buried in a tunnel by German explosives . This would make for a great existential movie , but it's all talk talk talk . The dialogue is endless , and , with the long running time , the whole picture seems that way , too . The film would be much more powerful if it demonstrated its themes more visually . Instead , the emotions come off as somewhat flatter than they deserve to be . The production is also poor ; it feels like it was made for television . And the musical score is so weak it takes the film down a peg itself . It's still worth watching , but I think it really could have been a lot better . |
385,987 | 391,152 | 39,589 | 7 | Starts out great , goes downhill long before it ends | Disappointing , though only because it begins so promisingly . Lucille Ball stars as a dance hall girl , an American in London , who becomes a detective to find out what has happened to a missing friend . A serial killer poet is on the prowl . The police have Lucy answer personal ads , which is how the killer found his eight victims . This provides some excellent vignettes , the most amazing and memorable of which stars Boris Karloff . He's only in the film for five minutes , but , man , he is so good here . He's the only thing that can steal the movie away from Lucille Ball . Fortunately , Ball is wonderful , too . This is one of her best performances . George Sanders also stars as a night club manager who develops an interest in Lucy . He's good , but I never ever believe that his initial lust ever turns into love , as it supposedly does here . Though the mystery is in the first two-thirds of the film , all the secrets are revealed rather poorly at a certain point . And then the police investigation drags on and on and on . Lured screeches to a halt from which it never recovers . The faults are all in the script . . |
385,539 | 391,152 | 140,307 | 7 | Okay , but kind of generic | Afraid to Die , one of the four Yasuzo Masumura films that Fantoma has recently released on DVD , contains several examples of the directorial mastery of the same man who directed Giants and Toys and Bind Beast - in fact , the entire film is skillfully directed - but the script is terribly dull . Also working against the film is Yukio Mishima . He was the original draw for the film . He was a famous novelist at the time , probably the most famous in Japan , and his fans desperately wanted to see him in a film . Unfortunately , he's not a very good actor . I guess his poor performance is just as well blamed on the script , though . His character fluctuates a lot . We're supposed to like him , or at least sympathize with him , but that's not really possible . He's a pure scumbag . Afraid to Die is worth watching . It's not very long , and , like I said above , there are a couple of great scenes . One particular death scene is alone worth the price of a rental , if you're lucky enough to find it on your local video shelf . If you're thinking about buying any of Fantoma's Masumura DVDs , this one's not really worth it . Definitely buy Giants and Toys and Blind Beast . I haven't yet seen Manji . I did order it , though , so by the time you read this I could have already posted a review . Check it out . For Afraid to Die : . |
384,544 | 391,152 | 124,819 | 7 | Blew away my expectations | Having unfortunately caught BASEketball a month or so ago , I was in no hurry to see Orgazmo . But someone rented it , so I decided to brave it . Boy , am I glad I did . While it's nothing masterful , it has enough belly laughs to warrant a big recommendation from me . There were many scenes where I was nearly on the floor , and there were relatively few jokes that made me cringe . I would put it in the " guilty pleasure " pile with movies like Dumb and Dumber , Billy Madison , and Kingpin . They shouldn't be funny , they shouldn't even amuse me in the least , but I can't help laughing my butt off . I give Orgazmo a . I would have given it an ( Jesus and I know I laughed hard enough for an 8 ) , but the " dramatic " moments , especially those concerning John Young's girlfriend , slowed the film to a complete stop . |
385,362 | 391,152 | 449,088 | 7 | Moves along a bit too slowly to be as good as the first two | A disappointment , although definitely pretty good . Certainly better than Spider-Man 3 . But that ain't saying much , now is it ? Basically , At World's End carries over Dead Man's Chest's major problem of too much plot , but loses its virtue of breathless pacing . At World's End is far too slow at times , and it can be easy to get bored between setpieces . Which aren't , I should say , as good as those in either of the first two films . But , all in all , it isn't bad and it's still a lot of fun . Johnny Depp is as great as ever , and he , Geoffrey Rush , Naomie Harris and Bill Nighy's CGI face take part in an enormous ham-off . Personally , I think Rush won . As for the setpieces , the surreal , Being John Malkovich-inspired sequence in Davy Jones's locker is a lot of fun , and the climactic battle aboard the Flying Dutchman , though definitely a little too busy , is cracking . |
385,298 | 391,152 | 130,623 | 7 | Not as bad as I had thought it would be , but it's still basically a rip-off of The Land Before Time ( 1 ) | To my amazement , I didn't find this movie reprehensible . I was actually moderately entertained by it . I saw it because of the eye candy ( and , at 82 minutes , I figured that , even if it was awful , I could last through it ) . I was expecting an awful script with awful voice actors spouting awful lines . That prejudgement was only 50 % true . The script wasn't awful , but it wasn't very good either . It was a lot like The Land Before Time without the compelling characters and adventure . I really liked that movie . It was a movie that I ( sort of ) grew up on ( I think it came out when I was 10 ) . There are even some shots in _ Dinosaur _ that seemed directly taken from The Land Before Time . The one thing that I was entirely correct about was the dialogue . Whew ! It stank . The jokes were especially at fault . The many children in the audience very rarely laughed . I think one kid laughed at the awfully silly word " jerkasaurus . " No one laughed at the " Love Monkey " joke , no one laughed at the obligatory " I've got a monkey on my back " joke . Luckily , the comic lines weren't that great in number . And there was only one lemur who was meant to be comical . Actually , the lemurs were the most interesting characters . Their designs and their characters were the most interesting in the film . Anyway , to sum up , you might want to see this in the theater because of the animation . It is truly remarkable . I don't think that dinosaurs work particularly well with it . The way they look when they make human gestures and facial expressions is kind of stupid . Disney wanted Dinosaurs simply because they're a perpetual source of interest for young children . Most of the kids who will really enjoy this movie have grown up after the Jurassic Park era . Dinosaur toys will be extremely easy to market . In fact , my favorite part of this movie was when the little kid across the aisle shouted " Look Daddy ! I have that toy ! It's Pleo ! " ( if you are an adult , you should wait to see this movie at a 9 : 00 PM show , because kids talk all through movies nowadays ; don't parents teach their kids that this is rude anymore ? I never was allowed to talk during movies when I was that young ) . This film might be a preview of the future of the computer animated movies , e . g . , the Final Fantasy movie that will open next summer . It is worth some money . |
385,751 | 391,152 | 401,383 | 7 | Not much more than a gimmick | Just a gimmick . It's a good one , even a great one , but , once the film ended , I realized it was just a gimmick . A gimmick propping up one of my least favorite movie plots : the paralyzed person triumphing ( in a way ) against adversity . Others include The Wings of Eagles and , more recently , The Sea Inside . The style , which attempts to capture everything from the point of its protagonist , a man with locked-in syndrome ( i . e . , he can only move one eye , but is entirely conscious ) . I'm impressed by what Schnabel was able to achieve here , but I must say , I never felt anything for any of the characters . Only Max von Sydow , with two knockout scenes , registers . The man's three female helpers are easy to mix up , and his wife and mistress don't have much personality . Because of this , it faded almost as soon as the credits started to roll . |
385,914 | 391,152 | 104,684 | 7 | Godly Action Sequences , So-So Script | I have hardly ever experienced action sequences so awesome . American action has never reached this kind of pinnacle . But the rest of the script is very cliche . I was sure the captain would say to Chow Yun-Fat : " You're a loose canon , Tequila ! " and he basically did say that . The final sequence of the film is hard to take . It seemed to me that John Woo was getting off with killing off innocent victims and putting newborn babies in grave danger . I still give this film a , but I was getting more than a little annoyed at these sorts of things near the end . |
385,764 | 391,152 | 93,818 | 7 | Entertaining , but lesser Woody | Radio Days seems like it should be one of Woody Allen's best movies . Unfortunately , the structure is so amorphous that nothing at all registers . There are a ton of promising vignettes , but none of them are developed . Like , for instance , what happened with the burglars , or even with the prize they won for the people they were robbing ? Where does Sally ( Mia Farrow ) fit into the story at all ? What about the teacher whom the boys saw naked ? Allen drops it like a hotcake . The actors are all good , but their characters aren't developed enough to really care about . I guess that they were so familiar to Allen that he forgot to do so . It's not often when an 85 minute movie seems long . I did enjoy myself watching it , but I was glad when it was over . It won't stay in my mind for more than 20 more minutes . . |
385,036 | 391,152 | 443,274 | 7 | Solid thriller | This seemed to get a lot of flack for not being political enough when it was based around the assassination of the President of the United States by terrorists . I can understand wanting it to be more relevant and intelligent . Doesn't the subject deserve that ? Maybe . I don't think necessarily . It just uses the current zeitgeist to make an entertaining thriller , and if you can take that , you'll have some fun . The film shows the assassination attempt from the points of view of several characters , finally joining the events up near the end . The cast is uniformly good , and includes Forest Whitaker , Dennis Quaid , Matthew Fox , William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver . The trailers and commercials give away an awful lot , so if you haven't seen them , the film might be even more entertaining . The story is kind of silly if you examine it too closely , but the pace is fast enough that you're not too likely to do that . I wish the editing weren't so frantic , especially during the car chase climax . It's exciting , but would have been better if done Bourne-style , not MTV-style . I'm hoping more action filmmakers start stealing from the Bourne movies in the future . Certainly not exemplary , but it's worth a rental or a matinée . |
385,500 | 391,152 | 89,366 | 7 | typically iconoclastic Godard | Hail Mary is done in the exact same style as the only other late Godard film I've seen , First Name : Carmen , which , I believe , he did right before this one . The narrative is fractured , much more so than even his classical films such as Breathless and Pierrot le fou , and it is impossible to understand exactly what's going on . Like in many of his early films , he plays with sound effects and music . It may have been clever and interesting in Une femme est une femme , but it has grown old here . Still , Hail Mary , like First Name : Carmen , musters enough mood to make it well worth seeing . With First Name : Carmen , I was interested at the beginning and bored by the end . Here , although the prologue is quite good , the first half of the real film bothered me , and the second half grew more interesting as it progressed . What I'm saying here is that you have to stick with it and be patient . It can be rewarding . Also , Hail Mary seemed to me one of Godard's more visually accomplished films , probably second to Vivre sa vie . You'll see some of the most gorgeous photographs of clouds and the sun , the moon , fields , flowers , and nude women . Some of the nudes are absolutely stunning and it never felt to me pornographic ( unlike First Name : Carmen ) . They reminded me of beautiful paintings that I have seen by the likes of Lucien Freud ( I don't know if people know him , but I was particularly struck by some of his sleeping nudes ; I think he is the son of Sigmund , and I know he was a companion of Francis Bacon ) . Other more abstract photos reminded me of Picasso . . |
385,002 | 391,152 | 332,047 | 7 | Decent romantic comedy , but the Farrelly Brothers ought to go back to their more racy material | The Farrelly Brothers have pretty much lost their comic touch now . They haven't had a single laugh-out-loud moment in any of their last three films . These movies , which also include Shallow Hal and Stuck on You ( not counting Osmosis Jones , which they only partially directed ) , are sweet and nice , and probably fine date movies . Fever Pitch actually has a very well created relationship between the two leads , Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore . Fallon isn't very good , and probably should have stuck it out on SNL a couple of more years . Barrymore is good . It's about time she moved onto more substantive material . I enjoyed Fever Pitch , but forgot about it during the post-movie bathroom break . Worth renting , probably , or maybe seeing on a date . I really wish the Farrelly Brothers would stop being so slight . You guys are funny ! Go back to your more childish stuff , you were better at it ! |
385,118 | 391,152 | 269,217 | 7 | Too much romantic melodrama makes it drag , but it's worth seeing for the good parts | Harvey Weinstein famously used to buy up foreign films and then would refuse to distribute them to American theaters , thus reducing competition in the arthouses for the films he actually decided to release . Tears of the Black Tiger was one of those films . Now Magnolia Films got it away from him and has it available . It's a Thai Western , with some of the weirdest and wildest production design to be seen . Unfortunately , it doesn't live up to that amazing trailer that played the art-house circuit back in January . While it certainly is a lot of fun in parts , the pacing is poor and the story gets so bogged down in romantic melodrama that at times it's downright boring . Still , those fun parts make it worth sitting through . When the Sergio Leone-esquire violence begins , it's always entertaining . And it has a couple of the best movie deaths ever . |
385,968 | 391,152 | 98,663 | 7 | I love The Wizard . It's so bad . | Yes , this is the infamous 100 minute long Nintendo commercial , climaxing with the reveal of Super Mario Bros . 3 , which was released a couple of months afterward . It also has time to fit in commercials for Hostess deserts and Universal Studios theme park . Yet , for a commercial , it's not half bad . I admit , I like it 99 % based on misplaced nostalgia ( I was 10 when the movie was released ) . Not only was it about Nintendo , it starred Fred Savage ! I seriously didn't even remember Christian Slater was in it , nor Beau Bridges ( who is terrible pretending he knows how to play Nintendo , flailing at the buttons as he does ) . And the girl who co-stars is Jenny Lewis , now one of today's greatest musicians , heading the band Rilo Kiley as well as having a fantastic solo career . I would never have recognized her . The story's not that bad . As far as feature length commercials go , it's quite a bit better than Mac & Me . youtube . com / watch ? v = Ya0F83Bmbl4 . |
385,317 | 391,152 | 45,061 | 7 | Not one of John Ford's best | Although The Quiet Man has traditionally had a place on the top of John Ford's career , I found it to be second , or maybe even third tier Ford . I've seen more than a dozen that I prefer to it , with only two that are on its low level , none really below ( however , I like them all ) . The story here is uninteresting . John Wayne moves to his homeland of Ireland from the U . S . , buys back his family home , and courts a young woman ( Maureen O'Hara ) . Her brother ( Victor McLaglen ) must approve of the marriage , but he refuses . Later in the film townspeople trick him into giving his siter to Wayne in marriage , which starts a bitter feud . The film is played for romance and comedy , and only moderately succeeds in both sectors . It begins very romantically , but as soon as O'Hara's part expands , she immediately becomes overbearing , annoying , and somewhat psychotic . I sure as hell wouldn't want anything to do with that woman . And John Wayne does little with his character . The role is underwritten , with a particularly flimsy backstory . Wayne is generally a very good actor in Ford's films , but he has little to do and , more or less , just stumbles through the entire film . He actually gets pretty mean to O'Hara late in the film , but I disliked her character so much that I almost approved of the scene where Wayne drags her over the landscape on her butt . The supporting cast has better luck . Barry Fitzgerald especially shines , and Ward Bond , Victor McLaglen , and many others whose names I didn't catch were good , too . Perhaps the best reason to watch the film is for the beautiful color cinematography . It catches the country of Ireland well . The music is also quite beautiful . Overall , The Quiet Man does have some great scenes , but there's generally little of interest happening . It's rather overlong at 2 hours and 9 minutes . A lot of other Ford films are more worthy , The Grapes of Wrath , My Darling Clementine , The Searchers , The Wagon Master , the list could go on for nearly a mile . The Quiet Man gets a , which is quite unimpressive for such a beloved film from such a wonderful director . |
385,683 | 391,152 | 470,705 | 7 | Bizarre and amusing . Michael Shannon is a great discovery . | Um , okay . An odd film , to say the least . And certainly not an entirely satisfying one . I have a feeling Friedkin and playwright / screenwriter Tracy Letts want me to take it a lot more seriously than I did , or could . The film follows a man and a woman as they slowly ? no , make that quickly ? go insane . Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd are the stars . As I hinted above , the film is based on a stage play . It would be wrong to call the film " stagey " , because Friedkin , with a lot of help from photographer Michael Grady , does a very good job of keeping it cinematic , despite its mostly one-setting location and a couple of obvious stage effects . It's not the presentation that feels like the play , but the dialogue and , naturally stemming from that , the performances . I have to admit that I'm not a fan of the medium of plays , although I do enjoy musicals for the most part . Stereotypical play dialogue sounds so unnatural , so phony . Even when the characters are whispering on screen , you can almost hear it as stage whispers . And the gestures and facial expressions seem overly large . This makes sense as the film moves on , when the two characters have gone utterly insane , but it's annoying early on . The performances are quite good , though , for what they are . Really , Michael Shannon is at times fantastic . In this and , in a much smaller role , in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead , he's made an enormous impression on me . His presence will be a selling point for future movies . I don't much see the point that Letts is trying to make with this story , but I have to say , it is enjoyably weird , and certainly memorable . Nothing great , but worth seeing once . |
385,363 | 391,152 | 468,526 | 7 | There's such a thing as too subtle | It is nice to see a film that doesn't spoonfeed its audience information to help us understand what's going on , but there is also such a thing as not giving us enough information , as well . Old Joy is a very short film ( a mere 76 minutes long ) about two old friends ( Will Oldham and Daniel London ) who go on a day and a half long camping trip in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon . We observe , as flies on the wall , the interactions of these two , and it's our job to parcel out the things we learn and try to make something out of all of it . There's just enough information to keep me interested , but in the end , I think I decided that there's just not enough to make me care too much . This is more like Gerry than it is like My Dinner with Andre , but it lacks the beautiful artistic abstraction of Gus Van Sant's film . And the weird homoerotic scene at the end just felt odd and misplaced . I think much as heterosexual men like to imagine that pretty girls all have a little lesbian in them , some heterosexual women fantasize that any two buddies would screw each other if they found themselves alone and naked . |
385,438 | 391,152 | 107,290 | 7 | A bit disappointing considering its credentials | Upon seeing JPIII today , I was thinking back to the first and the second . JPIII earned a from me , which means that it accomplished what it set out to do with minimal stupidity and no pretenses . The first one I also gave a . Originally , I had given it a , but I hadn't seen it since it was first in the theaters in 1992 and was just remembering how cool it was that first time you saw a computer animated dinosaur , how the word " wow " was on everybody's lips for months and even years afterwards when recalling this film . Unfortunately , when I saw it again in 1999 , and after I had actually studied film and had a superior understanding of the art form , it seemed trite . Comparing it to the other toothy monster which Spielberg brought to life , Jaws , Jurassic Park is a near dud . One who once made action masterpieces later made pap , hardly better than any other action film at the theaters . JPI is better than JP3 . It creates suspense a bit better . I can't think of a more tense moment than when the little girl falls through the floor and a raptor's mouth comes about an inch from her dangling foot . Still , it is nothing more than an actioner . A good one , but not anything better . |
385,627 | 391,152 | 39,661 | 7 | Not as good as I heard | Long-obscure cult film noir finally makes it to DVD thanks to Fox's noir line . It's about a sideshow con-man , played by Tyrone Power , who learns how to play the role of a mentalist . His skills become so great he moves to nightclub shows , whereupon he learns a way to cheat people out of even more money . Considering its glowing reputation , I frankly found it rather overrated . It definitely has some good stuff , and some excellent cinematography . The story is very original . However , as original as the plot is , the overall script is only passable . There are a lot of weak moments , and a lot of unbelievable twists . I was left wishing it would have been better than it was . The acting is also mostly mediocre , but I did really like sweet Coleen Gray . I'm not sure if her performance is good or not , but she sure is pretty . It's still worth watching ? just don't let your expectations ruin it for you . |
385,731 | 391,152 | 64,703 | 7 | Interesting , but far too slow and confusing | This film should be more important than it is , but the director ( and editor ) makes the fatal error of assuming that if a film is slow it is automatically artistic . No , sometimes a film that is slow is nothing but , and all the great things in your picture quickly fade from memory when you leave the theater or rewind the tape . This is the conflict of the film : the chief of the Horabbat tribe has just died and his sons are in line to take order , but they object to the tribe's way of making a living : tomb robbing and selling ancient relics to foreigners . This has been their way of doing things for a couple of millennia , and the tribe elders try to get rid of the two brothers . At the same time , archeologists from Cairo have come down to excavate and save the relics from being sold to foreigners , while at the same time stealing the relics to take back to Cairo . To tell you the truth , I can't remember too much after that , though I just stopped watching it two hours ago . It is very ambiguous about who is in the right , and the ending is , if I understood it , lacking any sort of climax . The best things about this film are its cinematography and its score , both of which are exemplary . It's too bad the narrative is so confusing and , well , frankly , boring . It's worth seeing , but , since it's not on video , it's certainly not worth going to great lengths to see it . . |
385,325 | 391,152 | 338,466 | 7 | A touching movie , but it has a lack of comedy | Boy , Bobby and Peter Farrelly really are sweet at their core . Even in their big gross-out masterpieces like Kingpin and There's Something About Mary , there were complex and touching characters . They brought this part of their work to the surface with their last film , Shallow Hal , which wasn't very funny but carried with it a very good message . Their new film , Stuck on You , is a bit funnier than Shallow Hal ( which was almost a drama ) , but the human story is very much on the surface again . Unfortunately , with their two latest movies , it feels like Bobby and Peter have completely lost their edge . Stuck on You has a few hilarious moments , but I walked away feeling slightly moved , but thinking very much that I would have preferred something more daring . I sure hope they go back to their gold material . I mean , sure , Kingpin and There's Something About Mary had one joke that missed for every four that worked , but I'd rather groan at a risky and ultimately cheap joke than slightly enjoy myself for two hours . If the Farrellys wanted to move over into fuller drama , they might be able to successfully . The emotional worth of Stuck on You is actually very worthy . To boot , the performances from most of the cast are brilliant . Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play conjoined twins ( who should , by definition , be identical , but never mind ) . The best performance in the film comes from Eva Mendes , who eventually becomes Kinnear's girlfriend . Mendes is so sexy and she looks like such a stereotypical bimbo , it's really wonderful to see the Farrellys make so much out of her . And Cher has an excellent supporting role . If you're a fan of the Farrellys like I am , Stuck on You is very well worth seeing . I hope like hell that they get back in stride and films like this and Shallow Hal are only stepping stones to the next level ( and I truly think this will probably happen ) . As it is , I liked it fine but , dammit , it needs more and better jokes ! . |
385,119 | 391,152 | 113,247 | 7 | Didn't do much for me | Good , but somewhat overrated . It's a French Do the Right Thing , which is its biggest problem . It apes Spike Lee so much that I don't think it ever finds a voice of its own . Plus , its three protagonists , Vinz , Saïd and Hubert are all pretty despicable . Am I really to feel sorry for these guys when they've been insulting and assaulting every person they run into ? Kind of reminds me of the American film Kids , too . Sure , the film is , I assume , steeped in honesty about its characters . But that doesn't mean I feel sorry for them in the end . The film is very well made , if a little self-conscious about its freshness . Doesn't surprise me much that director Kassovitz went on to make Gothika . |
384,849 | 391,152 | 24,548 | 7 | A matter of interest only | This is the first Mae West film I've seen , and I am terribly disappointed . It was , sadly , a test of my patience , and it is only 65 minutes long ! Maybe the biggest problem is that this film is referred to as a comedy . Well , the plot is not comedic . It plays out like low-rent Hitchcock ( REALLY low-rent ) . It is basically about a bar where there are some very illegal activities going on , the worst being white slavery . The cops have it staked out and , at the end , everyone gets arrested . The only comedy comes from West's one-liners , of which there are unfortunately very few . The film is worth watching once just for a couple of reasons , the biggest being Mae West . The movie may be pretty bad , but she is excellent to watch . She also has a few nice musical numbers . The other major reason to watch is for Cary Grant's first major role . He has said before that this was the least favorite of the movies that he did , and it's no wonder . He looks terrible , like he's made of clay . Except for his cleft chin , you could hardly recognize him . |
385,116 | 391,152 | 427,954 | 7 | Too much fun to dismiss | The plot of Tony Jaa's first big movie , Ong-Bak , was insanely simple : sacred statue stolen and taken to the big city , rural martial arts master goes to retrieve it , kicks butt along the way . The plot of his new film is pretty much identical , except for the statue is now a baby elephant and his mother . So one has to wonder what's with all the unfollowable subplots that happen once Jaa is in the city ( Sydney , in this case ) . Part of the confusion probably has to do with the half hour cut by good ol ' Harvey " Scissorhands " Weinstein , but the extra plots do seem unnecessary . Then again , it doesn't really matter . When Jaa starts his special brand of butt-kicking , the movie's a ball . Silly , but a lot of fun ( though not nearly as fun as Ong-Bak , so if you didn't like that one , go ahead and avoid this one ) . As many complaints as I had throughout the picture , it won me over for a couple of its fight scenes , most notably the four minute super-take in which Jaa ascends several flights of stairs , wasting whoever gets in his way ( think of it as Children of Men with karate ! ) . And then there's this scene where he snaps the bones of about a hundred henchmen in a row . But nothing will prepare you for this one moment during the climactic fight . I won't spoil it for you , but I'm not kidding when I say it's the single greatest " I can't believe they did that ! " moment I've ever seen . It had me and two of my buddies laughing for several minutes afterward . We had to pause it and wait for our tears to dry . Then we couldn't resist rewinding it and watching it again . And then the movie ended , and we watched the scene in question again , and again and again , and then again in slow motion , and then again with the " Step " button , examining it a frame at a time . So , yes , the movie is actually kind of crappy , but it's well worth seeing . |
384,926 | 391,152 | 160,127 | 7 | SPOILERS People were begging me never to see this movie . . . | But I did anyway . And those people were wrong . Charlie's Angels , while not showing up at any awards ceremony ( although the people who run those might be wrong , too ) , is quite a good action flick . In fact , I don't often like action movies , but this one turned out to be special . I'll go through a few cons first before I get to what I did like : the script is the biggest problem of the film . The action sequences almost always work , if not for the adrenaline rush then for the giddiness of them . It is the exposition that hardly ever works . The introductory vignettes give the film an immediate sour flavor , and , for a long time , the movie heads downhill . Don't worry , though . As soon as the next action scene starts , you'll forget about anything excessively crappy that came before . The humor of the script often worked , but not always . They went a bit too far with the tongue-in-cheek shtick . Wink wink nudge nudge . The only technical thing I can complain about is the constant desire to Matrixify the action sequences . I despised the Matrix , and I'll quickly tell you why : it is NOTHING but an action flick with a script no deeper than Charlie's Angels YET it believed that it was speaking grand profundities . What's worse , audiences bought the pseudo-philosophic mumbo jumbo it was spitting out . As for that film's action , the first slo-mo scene is neat , but it is used so poorly throughout the rest of the film that it renders itself ineffective YET people still ate it up . Films that The Matrix influenced have sort of made better use of the technique , but , really , you can only go so far with it . Charlie's Angles does some pretty neat stuff with it . The bullet scene in Charlie's Angels , stolen directly from The Matrix , is put to decent use here , showing us the truth of a situation where in regular speed the truth would have escaped the audience ( as it does the characters ) . Pros : well , the action , dummy . This film has some of the most beautiful action sequences this side of Die Hard . Also , something that is never noticed with action movies , usually because they are so schlocky , but Charlie's Angels has some of the most beautiful cinematography I've seen in recent years . And that's not just because the frames enclose beautiful women or scenery . The DP and director know how to use the camera , especially how to move it . There is a long , unbroken shot in Knox's apartment that is truly awesome . A cinematography award would not be out of place here . It's techniques are often innovative , too , even if it does also steal a lot . The scene where Drew Barrymore gets shot out the window is amazing in the way it rewinds the scene to show us what actually happened . The use of split screen is also good . It is not new , perhaps , but I haven't seen it done in this way . I hope the director , credited as McG , directs even better action films in the future . All he needs is a great script and , bam , you may just have an action masterpiece , something that is rarer than the dodo . One actor has to be singled out , and it is not one of the angels : Crispin Glover . He's always been sort of an odd fellow in his films , but it was impossible to predict him as a James Bond's - adversary's - main - henchman type , sort of like Jaws from Moonraker . He says not a word , but he's just so good at what he does in this movie . It would be kind of sad if he were from now on terminally type cast as that character , but I'd love to see him in another similar role . As for the Angels themselves , well , they are gorgeous . I'm not a Drew Barrymore fan , usually , but she's pretty hot here . Lucy Liu is also good , and Cameron Diaz is a goddess . |
385,041 | 391,152 | 29,971 | 7 | Average Astaire / Rogers vehicle | I was absolutely sure that I had seen each of the RKO Astaire-Rogers pairings . Somehow Carefree slipped under my radar . I liked the concept , which has Astaire as a psychoanalyst trying to probe Ginger Rogers ' mind to understand why she won't marry his friend and her longtime beau , Ralph Bellamy . Like pretty much every Hollywood film that utilizes psychoanalysis as a prop , it is treated as a joke and as if it were magic . At one point , during a dance , when Fred is trying to control Ginger , he wiggles his fingers like a sorcerer . It's all in good fun . Carefree comes off as overly sexist at times . Of course it was 1938 , but it's hard not to wince at Astaire's guess that Rogers is a brainless ninny , even before he meets her . And , of course , Astaire can easily and completely control Rogers mind in whatever way he wants . Again , all in good fun ; again , 1938 . There are a couple of hilarious scenes where Ginger is hypnotized , or anesthesized . Carefree also develops some unexpected emotional depth from its situation . Rogers eventually falls for Astaire , but Astaire's best friend , Bellamy , still loves her . I guess it's kind of nice to have something like that , but it probably harms the film . The frivolity of a Top Hat comes off a lot better . ' Carefree ' the film really isnt ! There aren't too many musical numbers , but we do get to see Astaire and Rogers dance in slow motion ; ' The Yam ' is a cute song , and its dance number is the best in the movie ; and ' Change Partners ' is the best song in the film . Irving Berlin wrote the music for this film . |
385,898 | 391,152 | 14,646 | 7 | Interesting , but the story is too sloppy | Bizarre Russian sci-fi , socialist silent about a scientist who builds a rocketship , flies to Mars , and leads the Martian proletariat in a communist revolution . Or at least that's what I've always heard that that was what Aelita was about . In reality , this part of the plot only takes up about fifteen minutes of this 111 minute film . Most of it takes place on Earth , where a scientist , Los , suffers the infidelities and hedonism of his wife . He watches her with scorn as their philandering neighbor feeds her pieces of chocolate . This movie may hold the record for having the most unnecessary subplots . There's a man who is training to be a spy / private detective / undercover policeman ( the professions seem kind of mixed up ) and then there's a soldier who has had much experience ' winning over ' neighboring lands to the Soviet Union . Meanwhile , on Mars , curious Queen Aelita is wasting the planet's energy supply by using a newly invented telescope to watch Earthlings . She falls in love with the scientist . The movie is mainly valuable for the early science fiction settings . The filmmakers do a very good job with the art design on Mars . Of course everything looks very silly and impractical , but it's always amusing . Some of the sets and costumes are more imaginative than anything in Metropolis . Of course , Prozanov isn't anywhere near the talent Lang was , and most of the time the images are haphazardly composed . The Earth sequences , which take up the vast majority of the film , are not too bad , to tell you the truth . In fact , the story is pretty good . It certainly needed to be cleaned up a lot , especially so we might understand why the side characters exist in the first place ( it makes more sense when they get to Mars , ¾ of the way through the picture ) . The acting is quite excellent . I thought the Martians were particularly well cast . I was actually quite enjoying Aelita : Queen of Mars , but the cop-out ending is rather bothersome . It's worth seeing , but it might be helpful to know beforehand that it's going to fall apart completely by the end . . |
385,158 | 391,152 | 435,625 | 7 | Scary ? Yes . Original ? Not by a long shot . | I'm tempted to rate this higher than I'm going to because it's so rare that a horror movie is genuinely scary . When it's at its best , The Descent is extremely blood-curdling . Don't read any further if you don't want spoilers ( though they are light spoilers , they are nonetheless spoilers ) . It also avoids effectively my pet peeve in horror movies : the women characters ( and the major characters in this film are all women ) don't fight back like wusses . Most women in thrillers and horror movies whack their enemy on the head once and then run away . These ladies know that if they don't give it their all , they'll be dead . So , anyway , it's a horror movie that's scary and not stupid . What's not to love ? My problem was that writer / director Mashall goes out of his way to hit every cliché in the book . It may be effective , but it's far from original . A lot of the film is just Aliens , and that final shock is total J-horror . Most of the scares are achieved by the cheap " boo " tactic . The film is much more effective when it isn't deafening us with musical stings . The entire prologue feels extraneous , and there isn't even a pay-off that involves it . The film really should have just started with the six women meeting at the cabin the night before the spelunking . They would have lost 20 minutes , but that resulting 80 minute horror film would have been better . The characters in general are pretty weak . They aren't as bad as your run-of-the-mill horror flick , but they aren't that much better , either . Still , it works and it's well worth seeing . Definitely see it in the dark if you do . |
384,701 | 391,152 | 427,969 | 7 | It's good , but far from great | Adrien Brody plays a detective investigating , and becoming obsessed with the death of George Reeves , most famous for playing Superman on television ( played by Ben Affleck ) . The story of George Reeves is a compelling and sad one , and that's where the film is best . Reeves ( in flashbacks ) is having an affair with a studio boss's wife ( played by Diane Lane ; her husband is played by Bob Hoskins ) . He becomes a kept man , and his career is going nowhere . The detective part of the movie is much less successful , mainly because it all feels like a been-here-done-that . Brody is fine ; he's kind of channeling Peter Falk from Columbo . The character's drama is pretty much all cliché . He's divorced and is having relationship problems with his son , and has to deal with his ex's new meathead boyfriend . For some not very believable reason he becomes so entangled in the case that he refuses payment when his client turns tail and runs . He's working on another , less interesting case that he's not doing very well on because he's so worked up about the Reeves case ( seriously , this subplot should have been excised ) . He even gets beat up by some heavies . I just never really cared . I wanted to get back to the Reeves story . Affleck gives the best performance of his life ( which isn't saying much , honestly ) . Lane is also very good . There are also several very good supporting performances , from Robin Tunney ( playing Reeves's fiancée ) , Jeffrey DeMunn ( playing Reeves ' agent ) and others . I liked the movie , but it is somewhat uneven . |
385,534 | 391,152 | 43,313 | 7 | My first Ozu | Yasujiro Ozu is considered second only to Kurosawa in the hierarchy of Japanese cinema ( by Westerners , anyhow ) , so it has always shocked me how unavailable his films are . Most of his films do exist on VHS , and there is at least one on DVD , Ohayo , which I have considered purchasing in the past , but have not as of yet . But , for God's sake , I live in a decently large city now , and I can hardly find a single film of his . Finally , I did manage to rent one , Early Summer . I can say right away that I did not enjoy it . I found it of interest in cultural aspects , but I was also quite unaffected by it , and , frankly , quite bored . I don't bore easily , either . The cultural aspects were valuable , in that it showed me a part of Japanese culture that I did not know very well , that is the intimate workings of family life . I have a feeling , though , that these modes of thought are outdated in Japan now . I think my main problem with the film was the script itself . I liked most of the characters , but I cannot say that I really got to know them all that well . I liked the grandparents , the uncle , and the young children the most . I found the main character somewhat uncompelling and underdeveloped . I'm certainly not going to give up on Ozu . I know his reputation . Early Summer is not among his more famous films , anyway , and I'm sure , from reading about them , that Tokyo Story or Floating Blossoms would be much more appealing to me . I still would give this film . If you like it , may I suggest a couple of films : To Live , a Chinese film by Zhang Yimou which follows two characters from when they meet and marry to when they are aged . Also , the Apu trilogy , from Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray . I particularly like the first installment , Pather Panchali , and have actually not seen the third , World of Apu . But this film reminded me a lot of those films . |
385,581 | 391,152 | 286,716 | 7 | Adequately entertaining , nothing more | Ang Lee tries hard to make the film good , but his efforts to inject substance and art to the project are misguided . Why couldn't he have just tried to make it fun ? Last year's Spider-Man fulfilled a lot of that promise . The Hulk ( or Hulk ? imdb provides the ' The , ' which isn't in the main title of the film or on any of the posters ) does entertain when action strikes . There are at least three great action sequences , although a couple of them take place at night , making them difficult to comprehend at times . The finale is especially muddled , and I could only barely tell what happened . But I had to love the Hulk ? literal id . I want the sequel to be Bruce Banner-less . The rest of the movie is better than it ought to be , with particularly good performances from Jennifer Connelly ( who seems to think she is vying for her next Oscar ) and Nick Nolte ( who is the only one who seems to know exactly which movie he's in ) . Director Lee tries to present the movie as a living comic book . It doesn't come off too badly , but this has been done better before in the animated television series The Maxx . . |
384,909 | 391,152 | 190,590 | 7 | By Far the Worst Movie the Coen Brothers Have Ever Done | Like many people , I first became associated with the Coen brothers through Fargo . They might have been the first filmmakers whose entire body of work I searched out and watched . And I liked every one of them . And then I was the first person in line to see their next film ( their previous film now ) The Big Lebowski . And that one just added to their shining reputation . And now , some three and a half or so years later , comes their next film , O Brother , Where Art Thou ? It has all the marks of a Coen brothers ' movie , but , for some reason , it doesn't work at all . And I know why , or at least I think I do . What makes a Coen brothers ' film distinct from a film of another director ? Some would say quirkiness . This is certainly part of it . But people can copy quirkiness , and have . Take Being John Malkovich . It is possibly the quirkiest film ever made outside of the Coen universe . But no one would mistake it for a Coen brothers ' film . Why is this ? Well , in my opinion , which , of course , is informed , it is the Coen brothers ' sense of perfection and meticulousness both in the technical aspects , the performances , and the script . Technically , O Brother is a match for any of their other films . The cinematography , mise-en-scene , sound and editing are great . The script is the biggest problem . It is bad . Not that there aren't good ideas in there . In fact , any one of the episodes could have turned out to be hilarious . Possibly , its just that there are too many episodes . Therefore , each episode runs for approximately two minutes before it is over . Each episode comprises about one sequence , and each sequence is composed of about two or three scenes . Take a look at Miller's Crossing , for example , to compare . The pace is slow . O Brother is not a short movie , yet it feels that way . And because of the sloppy script , there are no performances to speak of , really . I like any one of the actors on screen , but their characters , even the character of George Clooney , are all one dimensional . It isn't necessary to flesh out every character of a comedy , but I think some of the more colorful supporting characters should have had more screentime , more development . John Goodman should have had a more substantial part , for instance ( although his Southern accent is not very good ) , and Charles Durning's part should have been better . In fact , the whole gubernatorial race part of the plot should have been more in focus . I would have based the plot more around it , rather than having it taking place in the corners . The way the Coens get rid of Durning's opponent is just bad . The only thing the film did get right is the music . The main song that the escapees sing is just marvelous . And all the other songs written by T . Bone Burnett are excellent , also . In fact , it would be a travesty if at least that main song didn't get nominated for an Oscar . It completely deserves it . I would have given the film an all-time Coen brothers low score of , being the former low ( The Hudsucker Proxy ) , but I have to give it at least one point for the music , so final score = . |
385,330 | 391,152 | 942,385 | 7 | They really need to cool down with movie trailers ! Felt like I'd already seen the movie ! | Very amusing big budget comedy about a bunch of superstar actors who think they're making a movie when they're really lost in the jungle and being pursued by machine-gun wielding members of a drug cartel . Ben Stiller plays a huge action star trying to break into drama . Robert Downey Jr . plays a method actor who goes so deep into character that he doesn't break it until the DVD commentary . And Jack Black is a star of fart-themed movies who is addicted to heroin . I laughed a lot at Tropic Thunder , but I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped I would . Part of it is that they've had so many previews and commercials for the movie , and they've been airing them since April or so , and I've pretty much seen the whole movie . But that might not really be the whole reason , because even the jokes that I hadn't seen - and there were plenty - weren't always making me laugh . And even when I was laughing , I never laughed big . And maybe it's because two other comedies released in the past month , Step Brothers and Pineapple Express , both made my sides split . Yes , even Step Brothers , as stupid as I will admit it was . While I would recommend those two even more , I would also say Tropic Thunder is well worth seeing . |
385,531 | 391,152 | 234,837 | 7 | Good act one , but . . . | Suzhou River's beginning represents an extremely compelling film . It has it all - a great narrative , great acting , great score , and it is emotionally involving . But the director / screenwriter throws it all away when he decides simply to revert back to Sir Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo . Vertigo is one of those films that is impossible to top , so it is just a waste of time to try . Here is my experience during Suzhou River , after having enjoyed the first 30 minutes or so immensely : I hear the score sampling Bernard Herrmann's Vertiginous theme , and see the camera quoting the film , and my mind immediately jumped back on my dreamlike memories of Vertigo . It's as if Suzhou River disappeared . Near the end , the film started to become a little more original , and my daydreams faded , but I was pretty lost at that point . Don't get me wrong . Suzhou River is still a fine film . I would actually like someone to remake most of it , taking out the Vertigo homage and inserting something more original . |
385,707 | 391,152 | 358,082 | 7 | Stupendous visuals only barely make up for a forgettable story and characters | The first 2005 film I've seen , and , really , it's the only one released so far this year that I have had even the littlest desire to see at the theater . It was worth seeing , but it's forgettable . The visuals are absolutely eye-popping . The film's best sequence is a Rube Goldberg-esque public transportation system across town . I think if that had gone on for 90 minutes , we would have had some kind of masterpiece on our hands . Instead , we get a dull story of a group of nearly outmoded robots rebelling against an evil company that is no longer building spare parts . The head of that company used to be all for the common folk , but he's disappeared and left a despot in his place . The underground area , where they melt scrap , is really cool , and reminded me of The Nightmare Before Christmas . Madame Gasket , who rules this part of the city , was the most interestingly designed character . Robin Williams is very annoying , but , to his credit , he is playing a character here , not just himself . I wasn't thinking " Man , is Robin Williams annoying , " but rather , " Man , that character Robin Williams is playing is annoying . " I doubt that could be taken as much of a compliment , though . All of the other main characters are especially forgettable , especially Halle Berry's character , who is supposedly the female lead . I think most of the audiences wanted the protagonist to end up with the second female lead , who is a tad more interesting . And I think the filmmakers realized this , too , because the hero only barely ends up with Berry at the end . The movie is also in need of laughs . I chuckled a bit , but that was all . The funniest moment is the robot who does the robot dance . As much as I can complain , though , I would still highly recommend ( renting ) it for the visuals alone . |
384,881 | 391,152 | 39,825 | 7 | I wish Harold Lloyd's work was more available . . . | Previously , I had only seen one Harold Lloyd feature film ( Safety Last , which I loved ) , and a couple of short films that he made . I was fascinated by the obscure actor , whose name only the most knowledgeable of film buffs will recognize . Sure , Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are great , but so was Harold Lloyd . He has unfairly been forgotten by almost everyone . Nowadays , the only video one can find in America of his work is his updating of his character from The Freshman , The Sin of Mr . Diddlebock , also called Mad Wedensday . So I rented it , and I enjoyed it quite a bit . While it is not as funny as a silent movie would be ( anyone who is familiar with silent comedy will tell you , I believe , that there has never been anything funnier than the silent comedies ) , it is still witty and funny and quite enjoyable . It's not a laugh riot , but it was always entertaining . I'm guessing that a lot of the film was based on Lloyd's famous silent movies , perhaps not entirely forgotten in 1947 ( or maybe they were , since The Sin of Mr . Diddlebock was re-edited and renamed and rereleased in 1950 ) . I know that the scenes with Harold trying to rescue his lion from a high building ledge at least seemed to be pointing back to Safety Last , but the newer scenes were a lot less impressive than his old ones . Still , if I can't find his masterpieces , at least I can enjoy some steady work of his . |
385,866 | 391,152 | 64,828 | 7 | Too obscure , but I can't help but like a Pasolini film | With this , I only have one more Pasolini feature to go and I have seen all of them ( the missing culprit being Accatone ) . Porcile does not represent Pasolini at his best . It's far too abstract and obscure . Two stories alternate , one taking place in a quasi-legendary time and one in modern times . The quasi-legendary scenes concern a young cannibal , some rapists and murderers . The modern sequence concerns some former Nazis living in Italy . One of their sons , played by French actor Jean-Pierre Leaud , is sick of the evil , bourgeois lifestyle he leads . At one point , since he lacks any ambition , he throws himself into an intentional coma . I don't get it , especially how the two parts work together . Still , as a Pasolini fan , I have to admit that it is a strikingly made film . I especially liked the scenes set in the past . Pasolini regulars Franco Citti and Ninetto Davoli ( the only actor , I believe , who appears in both parts of the film , although I have no clue why ) come along for the ride . Pasolini fans should certainly see it , others should avoid . . |
384,755 | 391,152 | 60,424 | 7 | Passable Billy Wilder comedy ; the first pairing of the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau team | I'm not a huge Billy Wilder fan . I love Some Like it Hot , but was never too impressed with Double Indemnity and I really disliked Stalag 17 . I'm rather ambivalent towards The Fortune Cookie . I laughed a bit , but was also bored some of the time . It actually kind of lacks successful jokes . Walter Matthau , who won a deserved Oscar ( thought probably a sympathy Oscar , since he had a heart attack during the making of the film ) , plays the crooked lawyer who plans to milk an insurance company after his brother-in-law , Lemmon , a cameraman for the Cleveland Browns , is run down by a football player . Most of the best jokes are Matthau's . He has a lot of energy in the role and has a lot of great one liners as well as extended speeches . Jack Lemmon himself is good but had many better roles in his career ( look no further than to Some Like it Hot ) . He is still in love with his ex-wife who ran away with someone who promised her a singing career . She comes back to take care of Lemmon , but she's clearly a gold-digger . Ron Rich plays the football player who knocked Lemmon down . He's a little stiff , and , really , could they have found a whiter black man on Earth ? Much of the film's dramatics rely on his situation . He feels guilty for the injury , and Lemmon feels guilty for faking the injury and thus damaging the player's own confidence . These dramatic pulls never work well , though , since Rich is not all that good . There're also a lot of racial issues that are raised matter-of-factly - this was made at the height of the civil rights movement - and the casting of Ron Rich , who is so wimpy , sensitive , soft-voiced and light-skinned , is rather disingenuous . Still , at least the film is trying to show a friendship building between Rich and Lemmon . The film loses further pith because of the story . It's nothing special and it becomes , through the film's course , excessively predictable . Billy Wilder's direction is decent , but ordinary . The cinematography is pretty good and crisp black and white , but it may have seemed better in color . Really , all of my attention was focused on Matthau and Lemmon . . |
385,940 | 391,152 | 115,964 | 7 | Works best if you're familiar with Cronenberg beforehand | Crash fits perfectly in David Cronenberg's canon . It has the same fascination with cold , mechanical images that we see in The Fly and Videodrome . If this is your first Cronenberg film , you'll be understandably lost . It is certainly not his best , though . I like the film particularly for its boundary-pushing . Boy , does it push some boundaries ! It has many unique and fascinating scenes . But it has one major problem : once it shows us its ideas , it sort of just repeats over and over . It never really goes anywhere with its ideas . It should have ended at least twenty or thirty minutes before it did . But no one on Earth wants to see James Spader have sex with Elias Koteas . Oh , disturbing image ! |
385,577 | 391,152 | 39,853 | 7 | See it for Keenan Wynn , at the very least | Enjoyable final Thin Man film with Mr . and Mrs . Charles investigating the death of a jazz musician . Of the three Thin Man movies I've seen , I don't think I ever really was able to follow the convoluted mystery plots , not because they were beyond me , but because I didn't care much . I find them rather uninteresting . But William Powell and Myrna Loy are both so wonderful , and their chemistry so perfect that the films are never less than fun to watch . I enjoyed this one quite a bit , especially the jazz music that accompanies the plot . The supporting cast is excellent , especially Keenan Wynn , who gives a hilarious performance as a jive-talking clarinetist . It's very amusing watching Nick and Nora trying to understand his hip slang . Wynn is definitely the highlight of the picture . There are a lot of beautiful female co-stars as well , including Gloria Grahame , Patricia Morison , and Bess Flowers . . |
385,224 | 391,152 | 452,624 | 7 | Worth seeing , but I wish it were better than it is | Soderbergh is a director with a decent amount of guts but not a lot of talent . Here he attempts to make a classic Hollywood film , reminiscent of The Third Man and Casablanca , by mimicking , or at least trying to mimic , the classical style of cinematography , by scratching the negative , having the dialogue recorded on mono ( I think ) , and having the actors deliver performances along the lines of the studio days . The gimmick honestly doesn't work all that well . Lovers of classic films will notice how different the film-making is from that of the ' 40s . How hazy the cinematography is compared to Casablanca or The Third Man ( it looks like you're watching a movie on a black and white television ) . Or how much more swearing and sexual content there is in the film . Yes , the gimmick is a weak one and somewhat detrimental to the rest of the film . Otherwise , it's a pretty good mystery . Not a great one . The pacing lags in the middle , and the mystery only starts to make sense right near the end , when much of the audience has stopped caring . The film's strongest asset is Cate Blanchett , who channels Marlene Dietrich . She is easily one of today's best actresses , and the only cinematographic triumph of the film is the lighting of her face ? she's drop-dead beautiful . I'll probably be hung by the nostalgists , but I'd take her ? in both her acting skills and beauty ? over the lead actresses of Casablanca and The Third Man . George Clooney is decent , but his character is fairly two-dimensional . He's a pretty boring hero . I really liked Tobey Maguire , though . His character was much more interesting , and I wish he could have been in the movie more . I absolutely loved the climactic sequence , but the film continues on for too long after that . Blanchett's big revelation at the end feels rather anticlimactic . |
385,322 | 391,152 | 117,883 | 7 | Decent thriller ; nothing too special | Moderately entertaining thriller from Spain , from the director who would later make his English language debut with The Others , and whose 1997 film , Open Your Eyes , was remaid in Hollywood as Vanilla Sky . I would say it is obvious from Thesis , his Amenábar's first feature film , that he was aiming for a career in Hollywood . This movie could easily have been made in the USA . It's filmmaking is straightforward , the story is rather uncomplex , and its ways of generating tension and suspense are as hackneyed as anything made over here . The film is about two college students , Ana Torrent ( the little girl from Spirit of the Beehive ? surprisingly ugly as an adult ) and Fele Martínez , who discover that there is a ring of snuff filmmakers working at their school . Torrent is doing a report on violence in the media , and she meets Martínez because he is a connoisseur of violence and porn on film . Martínez is my favorite part of the film , because he is unattractive and nerdish . Most would find him difficult to trust in the real world , and any suspicion cast upon him would be difficult for most to refuse . Conversely , their main suspect ( Eduardo Noriega ) is extraordinarily handsome . Even though all the evidence seems to point towards him , Torrent can barely refrain from jumping his bones whenever he presents himself . Amenábar tries to make the audience unsure of which of these two characters did it , but anyone intelligent will figure it out instantly . The whodunit part of the movie is very weak . And I really didn't like the final bit , where the filmmakers desperately attempt to inject some substance concerning violence and the media . A news program which has newly acquired snuff tapes plans to show them live on television . While everyone will agree that the news media are extremely irresponsible when it comes to exploiting violence , this film is itself exploiting violence for that very same entertainment value . In no way is Thesis an anti-violence film . It gets plenty of thrills from making the audience listen to the girls in the snuff films shriek and so forth , once in a while even allowing us a peek at human guts being further torn asunder by a buzz-saw . To boot , snuff is a fiction invented by mystery writers and filmmakers specifically to avoid violence . No one has ever produced one that wasn't proven to be a complete fake . Enough bitching . If you're looking for an entertaining couple of hours , you could do a lot better , but you could also do a heck of a lot worse . . |
385,455 | 391,152 | 1,185,616 | 7 | Curious film that I admit I felt a little iffy about | A unique film , a blend of documentary and animation . It definitely shares some aspects with Richard Linklater's Waking Life , but it seems fresh and new . Ari Folman interviews people with whom he served in the Lebanon War in 1983 . He himself was a soldier at the time , but he seems to have blocked the entire period from his memory . The film is almost all animated , mostly because it wants to illustrate the events described by his interviewees . He also wants these horrible events which he doesn't remember experiencing to come across as dreams or nightmares . The style of animation is very odd , very simple , and very beautiful . It's an entertaining and mystical film , but it didn't win me over completely . I kept thinking , " Wow , this is beautiful , " or " Wow , this looks neat , " and then I'd feel guilty for that . The dreamlike quality of the film becomes kind of numbing after a while . Folman switches to live action , real-life footage of the atrocities he doesn't remember witnessing to show that it definitely wasn't a dream , but I felt like it was too little too late . |
384,705 | 391,152 | 342,735 | 7 | Deeply flawed but extremely interesting film from Lars von Trier | First thing's first , he shouldn't have repeated the style of Dogville . It worked there , yes , but it isn't something that was going to work twice . It weakens this film quite a bit , because it all feels like a been-there-done-that . I'm not 100 % sure what von Trier's point is supposed to be , but the film seems to be trying at both a commentary on American racial attitudes as well as an allegory of the Iraq War . The latter part mostly works , although even it has some flaws . Grace ( played now by Bryce Dallas Howard ) , unlike the United States , doesn't have to use force to free the slaves of Manderlay . There is no collateral damage , and it's hard to dislike Grace for wanting to help these people . However , it does make a good point that helping these people form their own society has its own dangers . When all they've ever known is servitude and cruelty , how are they going to treat their fellow man ? That argument may be condescending to the Iraqis , but I have to admit I agree . As far as the racial themes go , Lars von Trier , a man , I don't have to remind you , who has never even set foot in America , has no idea what he is talking about . Well , I suppose some idea . I mean , everybody reads . But the American racial situation is far more complex than he understands , and the film , with regards to this theme , echoes the kind of jackassery of Neil Young's " Southern Man " . It's not surprising that von Trier's indictment of American society doesn't work ; it didn't work in Dogville , either . He even ends this film exactly the same way , with David Bowie's " Young American " playing over a montage of supposedly damning photos . The final photo is of a black man cleaning off the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial . The irony of just how non-damning that image is is lost on Lars von Trier . |
384,542 | 391,152 | 80,520 | 7 | If you love this movie , you have to watch the edited version the next time it's on Comedy Central ! | And I'll tell you why : whoever decided to edit this movie to make it suitable for television was very ill-advised . EVERYTHING CONCERNING DRUGS IS CUT OUT AND COVERED UP ! ! ! How do they do it , you might ask ? Well , they don't do it very well , that's for sure . Anyway , instead of the marijuana which Cheech and Chong are supposed to have in their possession , they are said to have diamonds ! Still , the characters go around in a haze of marijuana smoke stoning others along their way with no explanation whatsoever ! |
385,234 | 391,152 | 71,910 | 7 | Very flawed but interesting and often beautiful film | It's easy to dismiss a film like this or Salo or In the Realm of the Senses as garbage . It's too easy , in fact , and not very fair . These films are all very interesting , if you can take them . And , if you can't stand the heat , hey , stay out of the kitchen . Among the ranks of what I'll call the Artsploitation flick , The Night Porter is rather tame . There are only a couple of hardcore sex scenes , and there are really only two scenes with nudity . What I like about this film is , first and foremost , the performance by Dirk Bogarde . The subtle guilt and shame he projects is simply amazing . He really builds a three dimensional character , and mostly without dialogue . Other performers are weaker . Charlotte Rampling , his captive , gives a very uneven performance . Sometimes it seems on the money , other times it seems forced , or blank . None of the others are really worth mentioning , except for that one actor's ballet dancing , which is quite remarkable . Cavani's direction is sensuous . I saw this film for the second time today , and I had failed to notice before that it was directed by a woman . Unfortunately , that doesn't affect my reading of the film any , but it is interesting . This definitely seemed like a male project . Cavani's direction has a certain grace , a certain elegance . The film contains several scenes that could be called masterpieces in the midst of a lesser work . My favorite in the entire film is the one where Lucia locks herself in the bathroom , breaks a bottle in front of the door , and then allows Max to run in after her . This scene is so marvelously directed , it would work particularly well when seen as a separate entity . The famous nude cabaret song , the one depicted on the Criterion cover , is also exquisite . Technically , it is perfect . The cinematography is beautiful , as I've mentioned . The musical score is also gorgeous . It's possibly one of the greatest . The biggest failure of the film is definitely its script . The story is very difficult to follow . It's never clear exactly what has happened since the war , and what these former Nazis are doing in Vienna . It's also unclear what exactly the trials are that are always being brought up . And I'm not sure what they are afraid of , what they originally plan to do with Lucia , or anything like that . Or why they can't break into Max's apartment again . A lot of this stuff seems silly . I would have also liked Lucia's character better developed . We get the sense that she accepted Max's advances so quickly so that she could get his protection , which she receives in that biblical dance scene . I want more yet . With Max so well developed , Lucia feels somewhat like an object for the plot . I rate this a high . |
385,747 | 391,152 | 64,886 | 7 | Pretty good translation to film | I don't read all that much because I'm a little dislexic , which makes reading take a lot longer for me than it does for others . That's why I am more of a film fanatic than a literature fanatic . But there is one author whose work keeps me thoroughly interested , and that author is William Faulkner . In my opinion ( and it is an opinion that is well informed ; despite not reading often , I would consider myself well read . Instead of wasting time reading weak entertainment like John Grisham , Tom Clancy , and Micheal Chrichton , when I do read , I always make sure it is something that is highly regarded among literature experts ) , there is no better author than William Faulkner . His style surpasses everything else that I've read . And I have read _ The Reivers _ . While it doesn't match up with the rest of his work ( in fact , I consider it the least of all those that I've read , and I've read all of his bona fide masterpieces ) , it is still a thoroughly enjoyable novel . It does not match up because its narrative style is greatly diminished when compared to _ The Sound and the Fury _ or _ Absalom , Absalom ! _ . _ The Reivers _ is also very anticlimactic , which ends up harming the rest of the novel . Well , _ The Reivers _ , with its unimpressive style , is the perfect Faulkner novel for the big screen . And the film version actually improves on the ending , removing the anticlimactic scenes ( in the novel , Boss shows up after the first heat of the race , and then the second heat is postponed while Boss negotiates Boon out of jail ( in addition to smacking Corrie , he also beat the heck out of Butch , the sheriff ( or " shurf " in pure Faulknerian ) ) . Also , the film actually adds some very well written dialogue that was not in the novel . The film does miss one important thing , though . It never feels as if much time has passed . In the novel , several scenes are carried out a lot longer . Basically , we experience everything that happens to Lucius , and by cutting out some scenes , we don't feel as if we've not slept much . There is more to the Mr . Binford scene , there is a lot more to do with Otis ( his character was perhaps the most severely excised in the film version ) , and there is an enormous episode involving the transportation of Lightning , the horse , to Possum . The subtraction of all this material results in the feeling that the events in this film go by too quickly . I give the film the same grade that I give the novel , an . While the film fixes the anticlimax , it also goes faster than it should . |
385,579 | 391,152 | 60,486 | 7 | Very difficult , with limited rewards ; possibly better upon repeat viewings | Possibly the most confusing movie I've ever sat through , it took me a long time to get anything out of it . I just couldn't grab onto even the slightest shred of a plot , and , without the ability to find a hook , it felt at first like watching a blank wall . But eventually , I started making inroads and , as the film progresses , its chopped-up plot begins to emerge . It is the story of a rapist and murderer and two women with whom he is intricately involved . Shino is one of his rape victims , and also , we find out , a woman he rescued from suicide in the past . Jinbo is the killer's wife , who knows his guilt ( or at least suspects it ) but loves him and wants to protect him . Nagisa Oshima actually went to film school in France , and , though part of the Japanese New Wave , no one will miss the French New Wave influences , especially Alain Resnais , whose films have similarly infuriated me in the past with their difficult narratives . Even if I never understood what the hell happened here , the film has several great aspects . The acting is quite good , that's clear . But , in particular , the music , by Hikaru Hayashi , and the cinematography , by Akira Takada , are extremely beautiful . I think I might like this one better if I give it yet another try . |
385,383 | 391,152 | 27,996 | 7 | It never caught my interest , but I can't say it was bad | In the past , I have sometimes found myself able to enjoy Capra's populism and sometimes unable . I go back and forth on the philosophy , as well as the director's sentimentalism . The day I watched Mr . Deeds Goes to Town , I just wasn't buying it . Gary Cooper plays a bumpkin who inherits $20 million from an uncle he didn't even know . He's spirited off to New York City , where the media are chomping at the bit to find out more about him . Reporter Jean Arthur pretends to be another stranger in the city and befriends Cooper , secretly writing newspaper articles about how dumb he is behind his back ( a plot line that the Coen Brothers adopted for The Hudsucker Proxy ) . The movie is never particularly bad . I enjoyed it at some points . But I can't say I was ever really interested in it . And it devolves into my single least favorite classic movie cliché , a courtroom sequence where the audience laughs uproariously at every revelation . Cooper , of whom I'm not a big fan , gives one of his better performances , and Arthur , of whom I am a big fan , is , as always , wonderful . The film got a bunch of Oscar nominations , but Arthur was sadly left out . |
384,633 | 391,152 | 441,773 | 7 | I suppose it's wrong to compare it to Pixar's work , but it is a decent little flick | Decent animated entertainment from Dreamworks , the poor man's Pixar . Except for Shrek , which I despised , Dreamworks ' animated films have been rather enjoyable , if unremarkable , and Kung Fu Panda continues this trend . Jack Black voices Po , a fat , clumsy panda who dreams of kung fu while working in a noodle shop . One day , he is chosen by a kung fu master to be the next dragon warrior , the one who will defeat über-villain Tai Lung ( Ian McShane ) . Will he embarrass himself , or will at some point realize that , if he believes in himself , he can accomplish anything ? Only the stupidest children can't figure that one out . Other voices are provided by Dustin Hoffman , Angelina Jolie , Jackie Chan , Lucy Liu , Seth Rogen , David Cross , and Michael Clark Duncan . Jesus . Just think about how much money Dreamworks wasted on all these people . Jackie Chan , for instance , has possibly one line in the entire movie , and probably made a million dollars for it . The movie itself is enjoyable , especially during the action sequences , which go by a little too fast but are well choreographed . The storyboarders had their work cut out for them . The artwork is probably the best looking Dreamworks has yet conceived , but compare it to the visionary WALL-E and it's clear that this studio is just for kids . |
384,771 | 391,152 | 452,702 | 7 | Good thriller | Unambitious but quite fun little thriller . It stars Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale as an about-to-be-divorced married couple who get stranded in the middle of nowhere and bed down at a crappy motel . The motel's manager ( Frank Whaley ) turns out to be in the snuff film business . He films his customers as his buddies torture and slaughter them . The film looks great , and is well acted , especially by Whaley . It avoids being stupid or predictable for most of its run , but trips up a couple of times later on . You know whenever a lumbering old police officer shows up , he won't survive more than a couple of minutes . One has to wonder why no other officers shows up after that first one vanished off the face of the Earth . And , just when you think the film has some guts to do something completely unexpected , it turns out to be just a tease . |
385,512 | 391,152 | 268,978 | 7 | Good but overrated biopic | SPOILERSIt's always inspiring to see someone overcome adversity like John Nash , the real-life hero of A Beautiful Mind . A brilliant mathematician , he suffered from sever paranoid schizophrenia for most of his adult life . But he learned to live with it , as normal a life as possible , and he ended up being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1994 . It's a great story . Too bad it's so generically told in Ron Howard's film . It's as by-the-numbers as a film like this can really get . The direction is bland , and the writing can be quite dull at times . Shine , for instance , is a much better film very similar in plot and structure . I must make an interjection in my own criticisms for this film , though . One reason why A Beautiful Mind may lack power is that it had some major points spoiled in the advertising . We don't actually know in the film , not until a long time in , that Nash is suffering delusions and fantasies . For instance , Ed Harris ' character is imaginary , which can be deduced almost instantly . But would I have assumed that if I didn't know what the film was about ? Can't be so sure . Anyhow , A Beautiful Mind is well worth seeing . The actors are pretty good . Russel Crowe may have given his best performance so far in the film . He won an Oscar last year for a rather lame role in Gladiator , but if he wins this year ( I write this the night before the Oscars air , by the way ) it will be very deserved . We've got an actor here who will continue to impress the hell out of us . Hopefully he can restrain himself from beating the crap out of people ( I think that it might cost him the award , but we'll see in approximately 24 hours ! An update : it did ) . Jennifer Connely is good , but she's been a lot better elsewhere , most notably in Dark City and Requiem for a Dream . It wouldn't be too out of line to award her , though . The rest of the awards it has been nominated for can vanish , for all I care . There's nothing special about Ron Howard's direction . It may be his best film , but that's a backhanded complement coming from me . The editing is plain . James Horner's score is particularly bad . It's far too overdramatic . The makeup is a possibility , though . Russel Crowe's old man makeup is quite good . I give the film a . |
384,777 | 391,152 | 76,686 | 7 | Far from great , but I don't think it's as bad as many say | A film even most Bergman enthusiasts dislike . However , as weak as it is , I have to admit I found a lot to like about it . First , the bad : David Carradine is pretty awful . He's had an uneven career , giving several very good performances and many bad ones . In the interviews included on the MGM DVD , it seems clear that he was out of his element working with Bergman ( the featurette , incidentally , is a must-see ; it's hilariously awkward , especially with Carradine's positive take on the film and his own work in it and how it contradicts what Liv Ullmann has to say ) . Secondly , this was the biggest budget Bergman ever worked with ( Dino de Laurentiis produced it when Bergman was hiding from Swedish authorities in Munich ) , and it feels like a lot of his attention to the emotions of the film , and possibly also David Carradine , was diverted to the handling of the massive amounts of extras and the massive sets of 1920s Germany . Third , the script takes too long to develop . The first half of the film can be excruciatingly slow , and most of the good material comes in near the end . I fear that , for most , it'll be a matter of too little , too late . The good : well , to counteract Carradine's crusty performance , we have the fantastic Liv Ullmann . True , she's a little hard to understand through her accent ( I should have probably also noted in the " bad " section the sound , which I think was just badly done ; I watched the film with subtitles , but then , hey , it's a Bergman film , so no big deal , right ? ) , but she's as expressive as always . She brings out a lot of emotion , and does it subtly . The setting , Depression-era Germany , is vividly recreated . The Bergman film The Serpent's Egg reminds me most of is Hour of the Wolf , in that it is a horror film . The setting is truly horrifying . The film builds to a surreal , dreamlike climax with Carradine winding his way through a labyrinth . These scenes are impressively done , as are several others . I love the one-shot scene where Carradine wanders into a crowded dance club looking for booze . There really is a lot to like , even though , overall , it's pretty hard to enjoy . Honestly , I think it's well worth seeing . |
385,272 | 391,152 | 45,323 | 7 | Lesser John Ford is still quite good | Ford might be best known for his Westerns , but he made nearly as many military pictures as he made Westerns ( perhaps more if we were to count his cavalry pictures in the military genre ) . What Price Glory is a WWI picture starring James Cagney as a commanding officer . He's involved with the daughter of an innkeeper , Charmaine ( Corinne Calvet ) , but he doesn't think he should marry her . He pushes off one of his underlings ( Dan Dailey ) on her , but later regrets it . There's also a nice romantic subplot involving a young Robert Wagner and a French teenager , Marisa Pavan . A lot of it works very well . I love Calvet . She's best known for her role in Anthony Mann's The Far Country , where she played the pig-tailed girl with the stocking cap who was always trying to sing for Jimmy Stewart . Oh , I know she's not a great actress , but she's so damn cute and charming . I love her character here , nice but opportunistic . The sets and cinematography are very good . The one aspect that really harms it is Dan Dailey . He gives a very weak performance and is very unsympathetic . . |
385,771 | 391,152 | 74,512 | 7 | No , not great Hitchcock , but entertaining nonetheless | Family Plot differs from all the other Hitchcock films . It lacks suspense , for the most part , and it is not as funny as many of his films . Instead , it is just an amusing little yarn . I like the way the film starts with two separate plot lines which gradually merge . Even if it is not the most original thing in the world ( especially since two of Family Plot's stars were main players in Robert Altman's Nashville ) , it still makes the film interesting . If anyone else had made this film , it probably would be more fondly received by the public , although I doubt anyone would still be watching it today . The two characters with whom we begin the film , whom we would consider the heroes , are the best , and are played lovingly by Barbara Harris and Bruce Dern . She's a hack psychic milking old ladies out of pensions , and he's a cabbie who cannot find enough time both to drive his cab and participate in Harris ' schemes . Although the characters aren't as well developed as those in numerous other Hitchcock ventures , they're entertaining . The other couple , Karen Black and William Devane , fare less well . They're more crafty in their crimes , perpetrating large-scale kidnappings for enormous ransoms . Karen Black's character is very underdeveloped , hardly showing any depth . What character she does have is not entirely believable , since Karen Black seems too nice to play a hardcore criminal . William Devane is decent as the sinister mastermind , but the history provided to his character is far more brutal than is believable ( he locked his adopted parents in their bedroom and set fire to their house ) . I liked the idea of the small time crooks clashing with the professionals , and I liked the outcome of the film . All in all , it is decent and worth watching . It does not feel anything like a Hitchcock film , so I wouldn't expect anything like Vertigo or Rear Window when approaching this , his swan song . |
384,806 | 391,152 | 434,139 | 7 | Well observed drama | I only watched this film because it takes place in Madison , WI , where I lived for a couple of years a while back . I was surprised to find a pretty good film . Zach Braff plays a man nearing 30 whose girlfriend is newly pregnant . Feeling trapped , he is easily seduced by a 20 year-old girl who throws herself at him . Meanwhile , his three best friends face the crises that come with that age . I thought the characters and situations were very well observed , and the acting was quite good . Casey Affleck in particular is great as the married friend with a 1 year-old who's starting to think that it might be for the best if he and his wife split up . My only real problem is with Braff's girlfriend's parents , played by Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson , who are having marital problems themselves . That subplot is poorly developed and poorly integrated into the rest of the film , and Danner overperforms her role terribly . Is it just me , or does she seem pickled drunk in every movie she's in ? Must be me . The movie is a remake of a 2001 Italian drama of the same name , which I haven't seen . |
385,590 | 391,152 | 200,071 | 7 | Tough call | I can say I definitely did not like _ Rosetta _ . And I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it . What , are you kidding ? This movie is impossible to enjoy . I mean that I did not find it successful . It's the kind of movie that only exists to challenge its audience . I may not have been entirely up to that challenge . Watching a Dogma 95 film on four hours sleep and ten hours work was certainly not the best idea I've ever had . But I was certainly not the only one who felt that the final product was kind of a dud . I saw it in a theater with at least 90 other people , and there were a lot of moans and groans being uttered during the last ten minutes . And this wasn't just from a couple of people who may have accidentally wandered in an art theater by accident . Here are my complaints : a film like this has to be saying something , and , in order to work , it has to make me think about the world around me , especially regarding our old friend , the Human Condition . _ Rosetta _ only made me think about how exactly the film failed . Basically the moral of the movie is : life sucks . It never questions why life sucks . Its conclusion , as far as I can tell , is that it just does . The major obstruction that arose in my mind during it were obvious similarities in theme , style , and character to The Dreamlife of Angles , which I regard as one of the best films of the 1990s . They are both about young women living in the lowlands ( _ Rosetta _ takes place in Belgium , _ Dreamlife _ in Lille , France ) who desperately need jobs to live , jobs which are extremely hard to come by . _ Dreamlife _ has an edge over _ Rosetta _ , though . It shows us two different perspectives of this sort of life . One of the two main characters of that film cannot handle the life of poverty , whereas the other finds ways to deal with it . Their characters are well drawn , and we care about them . Heck , I think there are no other two characters from the 1990s ( besides maybe Ben and Sera from Leaving Las Vegas ) whom I know and love more . Most of _ Rosetta _ is just the camera operator following Rosetta as she stomps all over town . She has a personality , but it doesn't go to far . She lives to survive , if that even makes any sense . All of her personality traits arise from a very survival of the fittest attitude ( and Rosetta knows that she is not the fittest ) . This is realistic , to be sure , but it is very hard to care for her . She is so closed off to the world that I could not care all that much about her . If you met her on the street and said hello , I would guess that she would punch you . But look at the bitter woman from _ Dreamlife _ . Her character generally resides in her bitterness , but she has extra depth . As people usually are when they are bitter , she is very vulnerable and is bitter to , at least partly , keep people from knowing her . Thus , I cared much for her , and I wept profusely for her all throughout the film . Rosetta did not make me feel a thing about her . But here is what I like : While I may not have been the least bit compelled by the character Rosetta , the actress playing her was great . This seems paradoxical , but I'll try to explain it . The character as written by the screenwriter has little depth . But there is some depth , and all of it comes from the actress . Her constant stomping leaves her mainly with a sharp frown , but the scenes where she is actually doing something , that actress is amazing . Her face is very expressive , even though the directors seem not to have wanted her to use her facial repetoire during most of the film . There were a couple of scenes which elevated the film for brief periods . There are two very painful scenes where Rosetta tries to stay at her current job . And the very ending , while I was quite disappointed in what the plot was doing with the characters , shows us one of the saddest faces ever filmed . I would never suggest that anyone watch this film , but in the future , if this actress gains any of the fame which she deserves , you may want to hunt this film down . You may dislike it , but it is worth seeing it just for her . So I gave this movie a , which is a pretty big stretch . |
384,720 | 391,152 | 22,111 | 7 | Not bad , but a tad stale | It might have been wise to watch the two earlier versions of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon before I re-watched the 1941 classic . It would have reminded me just how great Huston's film is . The ' 31 version isn't bad , per se . It has the same major flaw that most films of this early talkie era had : leaden dialogue delivery . It's also a bit stagy , though by no means the worst I've seen from the time . None of the actors are as good as their ' 41 counterparts , with the possible exception of Bebe Daniels , most famous for her role in 42nd Street . She's a bit sexier than Mary Astor , and it's more believable that she could hold sway over men . I also thought Otto Matieson was pretty good as Joel Cairo . Una Merkel is very cute as Effie , Spade's secretary . Thelma Todd , of Marx Brothers ' movies fame , also co-stars as Iva Archer . Ricardo Cortez plays Sam . He's a bit too nice for the part , like he should rather be starring in musicals ( Daniels doesn't suffer this way ? she's appropriately ruthless ) . The film only runs 78 minutes , but it feels a lot longer . It excises even more of the novel than Huston's version , but the pacing is really slow ( the ' 41 movie runs 100 minutes ) . It seems the major success in Huston's movie ? well , besides the awesome cast ? was its lightning pacing . It also changes some things around at the end , if I remember right . I actually really liked the final sequence , not in the ' 41 version and ( if memory serves me correctly ) not in the novel , either , where Spade visits Ms . Wonderly ( which isn't a pseudonym in this movie ) in prison . I wouldn't say it surpasses the ' 41 version in any way , but then again I've never quite been satisfied with Spade's final exchanges with Brigid O'Shaughnessy either . |
384,794 | 391,152 | 97,940 | 7 | I liked it ; I wish I liked it more | After falling in love with Jarmusch's most recent film , Broken Flowers , I thought perhaps the door would be open and I would learn to love the rest of his films . Unfortunately , watching Mystery Train , I feel the same distance that I have felt watching most of his other films . Don't get me wrong , there are some wonderful things about Mystery Train , and , overall , I liked it more than I did Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law . But I always felt like I should be liking it a lot more , and I just never felt much more than a nice affection for the movie . The film contains three segments about people in Memphis , Tennessee . I especially liked the first one , which has two Japanese tourists there to visit Sun Records and Graceland . The second segment I liked less , which involves an Italian widow and a motormouth American she runs into . The third I liked slightly better than the second , and slightly less than the first . It involves three guys ( one of them being Steve Buscemi ) , one of whom has a loaded gun and is drunk ( who is not Steve Buscemi ) . All three stories meet up at a flophouse run by Screamin ' Jay Hawkins ( famous for recording the song " You Put a Spell on Me " ) and a goofy little bellboy played by Spike Lee's brother , Cinqué . I really liked those two . The whole film is mysterious and charming , with a bit of magic in the air , but somehow , for me at least , it didn't result in too much . |
384,815 | 391,152 | 71,737 | 7 | If nothing else , it's probably the only French New Wave film that begins with a decapitation ! | I'm still inching into the cinema of Robert Bresson , as I would a hot bath . I saw Pickpocket a couple of months ago . I liked it , but didn't agree that it was a masterpiece of any sort . I picked up Lancelot of the Lake because the video box caught my eye . I didn't expect a French New Wave guy to be directing Medieval drama ( I also rented Rohmer's Perceval at the same time , but have not yet watched it ) , especially Bresson , whom I associate with a certain slowness . The result is mixed . The film is certainly not entirely successful , but I'd say that it is an extraordinarily interesting film . I have a problem with his decision to erase all emotion from his actors . That works decently in Pickpocket , but not as well here . The story takes place after the Knights of the Round Table have failed to find the Holy Grail . They return defeated . They feel that they have been denied by God himself . And then they begin to doubt themselves , and eventually to turn against each other . The story is one that ought to be imbued with emotions , especially Lancelot and Guinivere . Also , Lancelot's enemies , who are jealous of his affair with the queen more than they are angry on King Arthur's behalf , their rivalry should be readable on their faces . Instead , the actors emote about as much as cardboard cutouts . I guess Bresson is going for naturalism , but he falls way below that mark . Real people have emotions . On the other hand , Robert Bresson's direction , that is , everything but the acting , is excellent . Most everything works , and there are many masterful sequences . It's perfectly paced ( well , that is , if you like his style ) . The editing is often amazing . The art direction and music are also very good . As for the script , well , it can sometimes be confusing . Once in a while , I got a bit lost . But most of it works really well . . |
385,728 | 391,152 | 12,494 | 7 | Great effects in this silent flick | Destiny demonstrates just how great Fritz Lang was with his special effects . This was three years before The Nibelungenlied and five before Metropolis , and there are many eye-popping visuals . He would improve even more by The Nibelungenlied , which may be the pinnacle of silent effects films , even greater than Metropolis . As far as the really early German silent films go , I prefer Destiny to two much more famous films that were made around the same time , The Cabinet of Dr . Caligari and Nosferatu . To tell you the truth , I think those two films were just randomly selected to stand as masterpieces , for they don't stand the test of time at all . And neither does Destiny , really . I gave all three a , but Destiny is the best of the three . Its only problem is its slow plotting . It was often difficult to stay awake . Indeed , a woman sitting in front of me slept through a good third of it ! |
384,647 | 391,152 | 52,954 | 7 | Pales in comparison to Dutt's previous film , Pyaasa | A huge disappointment ! Dutt's Pyaasa is one of my all-time favorite films ; few have moved me so greatly . I didn't think he could top that one , but I also didn't think that his next film would fall so low . I mean , it's a fairly good film , but it really failed to resonate with me . Where Pyaasa was an archetypical plot that aspired to myth , Kaagaz Ke Phool is more along the lines of melodrama . Completely lost is the previous film's visual and aural poetry . The story of Paper Flowers concerns a film director , played by Dutt , who discovers a poor woman , Waheeda Rehman , to star in his new film . The two of them develop a special relationship that approaches love , but is not quite there . Then the director's daughter , Baby Naaz , enters the picture . The director's wife separated ( not divorced ) from him because her upper class family did not approve of a man involved in the film industry . But the daughter cannot stand to see her father fall for another woman , so she convinces Rehman to quit after the film is done . Disaster ensues for everyone . For this film to work better , I think the characters really needed to be better developed . They are mostly pretty generic . The daughter especially needed a more fully written role , because she basically ruins two lives and we only hastily see how she is affected by this . The movie pulls together a bit by its end , and its last couple of sequences are good , but nothing comes close to the cinematic magic of Pyaasa . Even the songs are far below Bollywood standards ; they're too few and far between , and they tend to sound alike . Sometimes I wasn't sure if one song was a reprise of another . I liked a few of them , especially those sung by the actress character ( sung , that is , by Geeta Dutt , as the actors tend not to sing in Bollywood ) . . |
385,025 | 391,152 | 380,066 | 7 | Better than most of the junk horror that gets a theatrical release | Lucky McKee made one of the best horror films of the decade with May , but his followup was deemed unreleasable by the money men . That's very unfortunate . While it is no May , it's better than most of the schlock horror that makes a ton of money at the box office . It is a deeply flawed film . It's not entirely original . A troubled girl is sent away to an all-girls boarding school . The staff is creepy and are most definitely up to something . There are legends surrounding the school's history , and the recent string of student disappearances might have something to do with them . The film's biggest problem is its too-quick and confusing climax . It's loud , obnoxious , and unworthy of what has come before . The rest of the film is quite eerie . The acting is very good ( Agnes Bruckner plays the lead , and along for the ride are Patricia Clarkson and Bruce Campbell ) , and McKee's direction is generally wonderful . Perhaps a slight disappointment after May , but still a worthy followup . I have faith that McKee will go on to make more great films . Just hope someone deems them releaseable . |
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