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510,766 | 453,068 | 118,636 | 6 | not bad , but might have had more potential , somehow | Apt Pupil is a film I might possibly consider watching again , if I didn't have much to do during the day and had absolutely nothing else to watch ( including TV ) . It's one of those transitional films for a director - in this case Bryan Singer - where from one film that's a success to another there's a bridge in the ... |
511,047 | 453,068 | 462,499 | 6 | a case of " you get what you pay for " at the movies . . . . | In this case , you pay for Stallone drawing LOTS of blood , you got it . Lots of it , with many semi-creatively designed ways of their countless means to an end ( blown up , shot , stabbed , ripped out by the throat , shot many times , cluster-bombed , even an arrow for good measure ) . If you like that in your movies ... |
509,671 | 453,068 | 466,839 | 6 | pretty slight , but has enough wit to carry it along | Amy Heckerling's latest romantic comedy , I Could Never Be Your Woman , got , to use a proverbial word , shafted . It was meant for theatrical release and went straight to DVD due to some bad deals done with one of the producers . It's a shame despite the fact that Heckerling's comedy was far from being top-shelf work ... |
508,727 | 453,068 | 382,625 | 6 | maybe the best that could be done from the book - a contrived-to-hell ( no pun intended ) blockbuster with some merit | What can I say that has already be said about Dan Brown's international smash book about the deepest " secret " in Christianity ? Having read only part of it ( as it is , arguably of course , an airplane book with a hugely elevated status over controversy and popularity ) , I can say that the movie , directed by Ron Ho... |
510,906 | 453,068 | 152,015 | 6 | is pretentious always a bad thing ? maybe not , even if it keeps from being very recommendable | I kept thinking watching Pola X , the first Leos Carax film I've seen yet , what it means for a film or any work of art to be " pretentious " . The dictionary defines it as being or seeming to be " expressive of affected , unwarranted , or exaggerated importance , worth , or stature " . Carax does indeed want his film ... |
508,736 | 453,068 | 493,430 | 6 | is it another sign of the decline of American intelligence , or another grab-bag of the most obscene gags and jokes to hit theaters , you decide | Jackass Number Two may not be as " good " as part 1 , though it may depend on how you define ' good ' . I guess it has to mean more to how much you're fulfilled entertainment-wise by the material . To say that the Jackass boys outdo themselves this time is putting it lightly . Maybe it was around the time that one of t... |
508,881 | 453,068 | 112,744 | 6 | the devices of the writer / director vs . the actors | Sean Penn can be a great actor , but with the Crossing Guard he displays a hit or miss attitude in the believability of his characters . It starts with a given for a gripping premise : a man torn completely psychologically from himself , Freddy ( Jack Nicholson ) finds out the man who killed his daughter in a drunk dri... |
509,472 | 453,068 | 91,203 | 6 | is this a good movie ? no . is it completely nonsensical fun ? hell yeah ! | I'll give it up to Russell Mulcahy , he knows how to direct . . . kind of . Somehow his camera is always moving or finding some kind of intense or superfluous or just bat-crazy motion to get something , anything , out of this insane story . Of course , there can be only one , as is a moral of Highlander that seems to b... |
508,638 | 453,068 | 347,840 | 6 | works better in context with Inland Empire | I had known of David Lynch's made-for-his-website shorts called Rabbits long before his latest feature-length film came out , Inland Empire , and when I saw what he had taken from the shorts into the picture it worked a lot better than taken out of context and left by their own . The interpretations can only be so many... |
510,018 | 453,068 | 303,658 | 6 | it's like one big loaf of cyber-teen cheesy-bread ; Miike had to know this was a goof | Talk about a project for hire - this is one of those under-seen movies that is understandably kept nowhere in your local blockbuster , and only discovered on Netflix or Amazon by the fans of director Takashi Miike who might want to look for something even more ' different ' than his high-voltage yakuza pictures and sur... |
509,523 | 453,068 | 60,984 | 6 | interesting as a repetition work , though far from Lynch's best short film | Probably the best , or most engrossed , I found myself in David Lynch's first short film effort - animated of course - was that in his use of repetition there were more chances to spot things not seen the previous time . This is really in some ways rather disgusting in its own abstracted art-school sense , but it grew ... |
508,289 | 453,068 | 355,702 | 6 | passable enough for a easy-going afternoon , but less than outstanding entertainment | Maybe I'm a little jaded from Lords of Dogtown following the documentary Dogtown & Z-Boys , and maybe my interest in the film is compounded by the fact that I'm not that heavy into skateboarders - even ones that can do some incredible things like the Z-Boys . But the film here , which has some moments of fine humor and... |
510,578 | 453,068 | 338,348 | 6 | a little creepy in some unexpected ways , though should be a delight for kids | Maybe seeing The Polar Express would benefit from seeing it again on a big IMAX screen like Robert Zemeckis intended ( it's been playing steadily the past few years in limited holiday IMAX runs with good results ) . But this isn't , if memory serves me , really one of his best films . It does contain that cheerful , st... |
508,210 | 453,068 | 757,361 | 6 | a glimpse at a perpetually torn and frayed family ; Bergman or Rohmer lite | Margot at the Wedding is an admirable but not wholly successful attempt at writer / director Noah Bambach to go another step further following the Squid and the Whale . Where that film had the courage of convictions on the part of Baumbach , making a very personal tragic-comedy where the warts-and-all characters were p... |
508,796 | 453,068 | 1,032,755 | 6 | good try , but not quite cigar for Ritchie on this one | One hopes Guy Ritchie , as with another filmmaker of his age-range Kevin Smith , may grow more as filmmakers as the years go on , but at the moment one senses a kind of rut in the process . It's not even that RocknRolla is an entirely bad film or is unwatchable . On the contrary there are one or two scenes and moments ... |
510,806 | 453,068 | 841,044 | 6 | more like ' Voyage to Italy ' than a Before Sunrise / Sunset picture , it's coarse and funny and loses its way towards the end | 2 Days in Paris speaks of some good gifts that writer / director / composer / editor / co-star Julie Delpy can provide when on a project such as this . It's a personal film , with former boyfriend Adam Goldberg cast as Delpy's character's current significant other of two years , and how the two of them go through Europ... |
508,428 | 453,068 | 66,380 | 6 | a good vampire movie ? Probably not . . . but it is something | Calling director Jesus Franco a pornographer after watching Vampiros Lesbos would be unfair , but not simply for the face that he's directed many , many films throughout a career of B to Z grade projects . It's also because it would be too easy . The man is , after all , an " artist " , or whatever might pass for one i... |
508,938 | 453,068 | 91,635 | 6 | at times quite sexy , and a cool look at Manhattan life , but it's also shallow and dated | One of the perks of Nine Weeks is that the stars , Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger , provide audiences of male and female sexes to come together ; they are both eye candy for each sex , and they didn't look much better than they did here . That's maybe part of the attraction for director Adrian Lyne , actually , the app... |
510,747 | 453,068 | 65,401 | 6 | as much to find fun and amusing as to nitpick , decent AIP flick that could be more | Angel Unchained has the ingredients of your basic AIP picture - bikers , ' cowboys ' ( rednecks ) , hippies , and lots of action . Unfortunately , it isn't entirely synthesized . Perhaps I could've known this by seeing it had been re-rated a PG-13 by the MPAA , but I also thought ' hosh-posh , it still probably has tha... |
510,584 | 453,068 | 65,436 | 6 | has its moments , but generally is not top-shelf Herzog despite it's ambitions | I actually admire what writer / director Werner Herzog was going for with Even Dwarfs Started Small even if I think he didn't quite execute it in a manner that involved me enough . It's got a great idea behind it - inmates at a mental institution , on one of the Canary Islands pre-tourism , create an anarchic uprising ... |
509,639 | 453,068 | 78,056 | 6 | it has its moments . . . and then it also doesn't | Paradise Alley is set in 1946 in the dingy and dirty streets of Hell's Kitchen - or the Bowery , take your pick , maybe more like the Bowery - and is centered on a group of characters , specifically three brothers , and how they try to maintain in their squalor or , as it turns out , try and make a way for themselves t... |
509,795 | 453,068 | 373,177 | 6 | almost too silly and off-the-wall , but it has a charm even for non-Morrissey people | I can't say that I was completely blown away or really impressed by My Life with Morrissey , but there is a definite grungy kind of comic appeal to it . It's too ridiculous and , towards the end , really nuts to be taken too seriously , which is part of the fun and the dilemma in watching it . The dilemma for me , as s... |
510,299 | 453,068 | 65,462 | 6 | very strange , somehow predictable , and still somewhat satirical | Beneath the Planet of the Apes supposes that , along with the cliché that ' if one already came , another will come too ' for a sequel , there are other true mutants on the planet . So , in a sense , Zaius wasn't incorrect in his assumption to Taylor in part one . There is another and another and another - only they're... |
508,502 | 453,068 | 455,538 | 6 | How to Make Occasional Sharp Satire & Drab Romantic Comedy | One would think that a director usually makes the difference in distinguishing the material from other , more standard fare . Robert Weide , while working mostly in TV , has over 2 dozen Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes to his credit , and as such one might think he would be prime material to direct some solid satire . Ye... |
509,450 | 453,068 | 210,164 | 6 | the 6 P's . . . | Yeah , it's an amateurish student effort , but from what I got from the film - as presented on the Clerks DVD set - Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier pretty much acknowledge this in their intro . It's kind of amusing , actually , though not in the very funny , outrageous aspects that would come out in Smith's other works . ... |
509,326 | 453,068 | 963,794 | 6 | Italian giallo in American mainstream clothing | The Ruins takes place in Mexico with four college-age kids ( Tucker , Malone , Ashmore and Ramsy ) and another guy ( Anderson ) , the latter who takes them to a Mayan temple where his brother is working supposedly on a dig . When they get there , a bunch of angry Mexican-Myans attack them , they scurry up to the top of... |
510,745 | 453,068 | 65,604 | 6 | a biker movie that is ALMOST saved by Bruce Dern | The problems do abound in The Cycle Savages , but it could have possibly been a better movie . I did get into the sheer artificiality , and unbelievability , of the movie at times just on the basis of kinda , sort of buying into it . But it's also got a central problem in that there is really nothing ' there ' in the s... |
509,641 | 453,068 | 862,846 | 6 | not very good , not very bad - a definite in-the-middle movie that cant stick to one side | Sunshine Cleaning is a Lifetime movie in Little Miss Sunshine skin . It's not hard to figure ; the producers of Little Miss Sunshine had a gargantuan hit , and so they thought they wanted to take on something that might have had a similar flavor and hit lightning twice . Unfortunately , it didn't happen , but it's not ... |
508,921 | 453,068 | 64,647 | 6 | make sure to find it with subtitles | Currently there is a version of Measures Against Fanatics on you-tube , which was how I got to see this short Werner Herzog film from early in his career . It's about horse racing , or rather the people who take care of the horses , and how to , apparently , protect them from the ' fanatics ' of the title . Unfortunate... |
508,794 | 453,068 | 43,265 | 6 | not up to par with the best of Bogart & / or Huston ; Hepburn gets wildly overpraised | Term " overrated " ; it wouldn't be something I would attribute to a film usually as directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart ( co-star Katherine Hepburn is another matter ) . But overtime this little piece of romantic fluff / saga of war-time daring-do has been called one of the greatest American films eve... |
508,315 | 453,068 | 78,723 | 6 | even a Spielberg mess has a lot of excellent bits ; it's his craziest effort yet , flawed , BIG , and proud of its longevity | I'm not sure I'll want to sit too soon again through 1941 , directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Zemeckis , Bob Gale and John Milius , but I wouldn't trade the experience . Unlike directors nowadays who go BIG and HUGE with action and cheesy comedy and thrills , and their movies end up possibly leaving a ... |
507,987 | 453,068 | 378,224 | 6 | not Sam Jackson / Kevin Spacey Negotiator , that's for sure | Negotiator , a TV-movie directed by the inimitable Takashi Miike , is two-halves of a movie bread . The one halve is a perfectly terrific kidnapping picture , taking its twists but giving the audience its share of excellent acting and a low-key atmosphere to counter the grueling tension . The other half is melodrama co... |
508,178 | 453,068 | 65,760 | 6 | Arrow-feather ! | Roger Corman's Gas-s-s-s , his final film as director for AIP , is dated ( and probably even was for the period it got released ) , but somehow it's almost part of its charm . It's an irreverent comedy about a noxious gas that wipes out everybody - at least in the US much as we can figure - who's over the age of 25 . P... |
508,487 | 453,068 | 64,782 | 6 | actually . . . a lot more fun and watchable than I would've thought , maybe for some wrong reasons | How could one not at least try and watch a big , bulky western yarn where Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood play prospectors who are not only married to the same woman but , yes , sing . Lots of singing . And surrounded by enough extras to give someone a hemorrhage . I did try and watch it , and got through it pretty much ... |
509,845 | 453,068 | 190,532 | 6 | great for McDowell , mostly blah for everyone else | The reason to check out the Little Red Riding Hood episode of Faerie Tale Theatre is not a ) the ' revised ' story , which puffs up ten pages with so-called feminist phooey and a bit involving rocks in a stomach ' , or b ) much of the acting , save maybe for John Vernon aside from the obvious . No , the real reason to ... |
509,764 | 453,068 | 477,457 | 6 | cheesy acting - very cheesy acting - and true sci-fi channel movie-of-the-week visual effects make this watchable | The Pirates porno , the most expensive ever produced ( at a whopping $150 , 000 ) , is excruciating to watch if you're trying to look for a good plot , or entirely " good " acting ability . It's a showcase for the director , named simply Joone , to showcase a lot of well-lit XXX sex scenes and lots of ultra-corny CGI i... |
510,234 | 453,068 | 57,129 | 6 | slightly underwhelmed , though there are certainly worse ( like , for example , the remake ) | I liked most of The Haunting , Robert Wise's adaptation of the novel ( and make no mistke folks , it does feel like an adaptation despite its debt to other haunted house pictures ) , as it's about as competently produced , and with some acting that turns up the intensity level in several spots quite well . I even liked... |
509,544 | 453,068 | 64,939 | 6 | the biker movie pathos , by Al Adamson | In order to get any enjoyment or entertainment , or just dumb-fun in a B-movie ( if that ) kind of way , like Satan's Sadists ( not inappropriately released on DVD in some circles by Troma ) , is to take into context that it was , of course , the late 60's , and it remains in the sub-genre that is the biker-movie . I a... |
509,011 | 453,068 | 412,637 | 6 | a light touch helps from time to time , but it mostly works just enough thanks to the actors | Tom DiCillo is a cool New York-based independent filmmaker , and he's made some good stuff in the past ( most notably as DP for Jim Jarmusch , and as the director of sleepers like the great Living in Oblivion ) , and I wish him the best of luck on anything he does . But on Delirious , he only gets it right some of the ... |
508,675 | 453,068 | 364,970 | 6 | Babylon A . D is ambitious future-fi with too much that's derivative to stick | Babylon AD means well , and it takes itself seriously enough to not come off too self-parodic , with a few major exceptions with dialog and stylistic choices . Its director , Mathieu Kassovitz , isn't some hack for hire , but someone who does care about the message of his picture as well as the art , of creating a very... |
509,425 | 453,068 | 424,136 | 6 | clever . . . too clever by half a ball , I mean half a something . . . | Note - not that too many people will read this , but this comment has some spoilers . Viewer discretion is sort of advised , depending on spoiler-ability and what-not . Hard Candy was one of the most ' talked-about ' indie features of 2006 . I put that in semi-quotes because a movie like Hard Candy does deserve some co... |
510,426 | 453,068 | 71,517 | 6 | the rushed production shows , but it still makes for a fun midnight viewing | According to Jack Hill's commentary on the Foxy Brown DVD , there was only so much time to make Foxy Brown , as the surprise success of Coffy sent American Interational Pictures into a Pam Grier frenzy - they had to have something ready on the double . So Hill pumped out this little quickie of an exploitation flick tha... |
508,754 | 453,068 | 51,500 | 6 | this rare find is completely watchable on one level , almost in spite of itself . . . | You'd know why you'd want to find this film , as it's the ultra-low budget , barely-a-drive-in quickie that features the great Jack Nicholson in his feature debut at the tender age of 21 ( he was a mailman at MGM in his previous years in Hollywood ) . He plays a youth out of control , though also under duress . He's ta... |
511,033 | 453,068 | 90,251 | 6 | an obscure 80s feminist neo-noir that may be obscure for a reason . . . | Variety was shot on the super-cheap on the streets of midtown NYC in 1983 , which is for a short while part of its not exactly charm but precise and evocative mood . This is a Times Square that most wont recognize since the clean-up in recent years ; it's dirty , loaded with porno theaters and video stores , and with s... |
510,084 | 453,068 | 443,680 | 6 | both amazing and annoying , it's a revisionist western with content and style | With maybe the longest title of any film this year , the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , writer / director Andrew Dominik is out to make a real statement on the legacy of outlaw Jesse James and the man who shot him , Robert Ford . Was it murder or almost a kind of suicide ? Was Bob Ford a hero ... |
510,398 | 453,068 | 408,345 | 6 | good story , in the mechanical sense , Ford doing what he does , nothing too special | I was telling my Mother I had just returned from seeing the latest Harrison Ford movie , and all I needed to say was ' it was , you know , a Harrison Ford movie ' , and she said without any real knowledge of the story in the film what the story was about . Because the components are the same as what Ford has been worki... |
509,668 | 453,068 | 48,682 | 6 | an illustrious beginning to Corman's career | Roger Corman started off in the B-movie arena and never left , for better and for worse . This , his first film , gives the false impression that this will be some weird sci-fi movie with actual swamp creatures or something . Instead we get one of the early girl-prison type flicks that would later be popular in the 70s... |
509,982 | 453,068 | 257,516 | 6 | not terrible if you take it for what it is - B movie trash in the guise of the latest Dimension films fright-fest | Cursed isn't any great shakes as a horror film , and I would never put it anywhere near Wes Craven's top tier work ( i . e . Nightmare on Elm Street , Scream , Hills Have Eyes ) . But considering all the work they did to hack through it all , in the re-shoots and the overworked CGI , it's actually not really all that h... |
510,644 | 453,068 | 67,229 | 6 | one of the awesomely bad exploitation flicks of the early 70s ; doesn't mean it's any good , but it's bad fun while it lasts | David E . Durston's most readily available motion picture - which means it's the only one that isn't either an obscure porno or others - is I Drink Your Blood , a quickie made for peanuts and meant to be artful to those who have said peanuts in their brain . All you need to know : satanic hippies - a winning contradict... |
509,078 | 453,068 | 90,568 | 6 | for any other director it'd be a very good if dated 80s effort . . . | . . . for Hal Ashby , it's something of a tragedy in the course of his career . At this point , to give some background , he wasn't getting the same kind of prime work he did in the 70s ( Harold and Maude , Last Detail , Coming Home , Shampoo , Being There ) , this despite the fact that he won an Oscar as editor and no... |
509,742 | 453,068 | 465,624 | 6 | decent enough entertainment for what you might expect | Ivan Reitman unfortunately ( today ) doesn't have the real goods on directing spectacular fantasy comedies that work for all ages and can rake in the huge bucks . It's not that he's become a bad director , but that in an age where the ' Frat pack ' grosses nearly 100 million or more at a clip with each film they put ou... |
509,790 | 453,068 | 443,543 | 6 | there's more potential than is really tapped into in the Illusionist | The Illusionist is actually more than anything an actor's movie , which is a little ironic considering how much romantic sweep and movement there should be in the writing and directing . In terms of Neil Burger's direction , it's never really bad at all , and is very competent most of the time ( aside from a couple of ... |
510,984 | 453,068 | 430,357 | 6 | a film I admire even as it's lacking | I think after seeing writer / director Michael Mann's the Insider and Collateral , maybe I expected a little too much from Miami Vice . But then , even as an 80's baby , I've never seen a single episode of the original Don Johnson TV show that Mann was crucially part of . His film adaptation of the show will definitely... |
508,595 | 453,068 | 67,525 | 6 | post-apocalyptic quasi-guilty pleasure that's better for Heston fans than those looking for I Am Legend | I got what I wanted out of the Omega Man , though if it were a better made movie then I might feel the need to add it to my collection as opposed to sending it back as a rental . It starts off with a very funny and terrifically surreal set-up as Charleton Heston drives around in a red convertible , no one else in the c... |
510,332 | 453,068 | 469,641 | 6 | good if you're looking for a memorial of heroism and courage , though short of really affecting | Maybe part of my reaction to Oliver Stone's latest directorial effort , World Trade Center , is not totally the film's fault , or maybe it is , I still can't decide . Months ago I saw what I thought was the ultimate take on the pain , horror and bottomless grief that came from with United 93 , which took a full-on docu... |
510,075 | 453,068 | 389,790 | 6 | ends up working better than it should , thanks to Seinfeld and some irreverent puns and jokes | My expectations weren't very high for Bee Movie , but it somehow fulfilled what little hope I had that the star power would come through . Unlike Sharktale , where an equally admirable couple of talents combined voice-work ( Scorsese and De Niro ) , Jerry Seinfeld , who co-wrote and co-produced the picture as well , ha... |
510,363 | 453,068 | 482,572 | 6 | strong performances + significant problems in NYPD drama | Interesting to see the reactions to Pride and Glory on IMDb : some people like it a lot , so much so that they rank it as one of their favorite films of the year , while others rank it low , very low , saying it's low-end predictable trash that rips off from every other cop movie around including last year's We Own the... |
509,467 | 453,068 | 817,538 | 6 | a minor effort from Apatow and company , but still better than some other comedies | Could one expect more from Drillbit Taylor's script ? Sure - it's written by Kristofer Brown and Seth Rogen , Beavis & Butt-head alumni and Apatow mega-star respectively ( plus a guy named ' Edmond Dantes ' , which is really John Hughes oddly enough ) - but for what it's worth , as a rental , it's not the worst that co... |
508,039 | 453,068 | 105,665 | 6 | a fever dream that fans may or may not respond to ; a flawed trip into the world of nightmares | Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me is quite the perplexing film as both a David Lynch and Twin Peaks fan , because it's got qualities that should make for one of the best works of the director and doesn't really hit the mark . The problem , in a way , is somewhat comparable to the problem of Dune . There , Lynch's lack of ... |
511,005 | 453,068 | 448,157 | 6 | there are complaints to be had , but mostly it's a fun summer action movie | Will Smith is a great star in Hollywood , and it's fun to see him in Hancock work his way with a character who's an " a-hole " ( don't call him that , by the way , that's the buzz word ) for the first half and then starts to open up and not be so much one in the second half . If for no other reason to see the film it's... |
507,981 | 453,068 | 114,367 | 6 | a combination of Phillip K Dick and Dan O'Bannon in a better than average / less than great sci-fi flick | Screamers is like one of those made-for-HBO science fiction programmers from the mid 90s , except that there's some brighter things going for it . One of these is that it's based on a short story by one of the hallmark authors of science fiction , Philip K Dick , and another is that the script mostly got work done ( an... |
510,704 | 453,068 | 166,843 | 6 | I can't really recommend it , but I was engaged enough in it as a die-hard Romero fan | Oh the days when independent films were made and sometimes barely ever seen . That still happens to this day , but at least now there's DVD ( matter of fact that was the only way I could get to see There's Always Vanilla - it's next to impossible to find on bootleg ) . In , George A . Romero and the Latent Image , his ... |
509,260 | 453,068 | 1,104,733 | 6 | only a little more than South Park-lite thanks to Steve Coogan | Hamlet 2 is sophomoric , satirical , stupid , trying to be smart while being stupid , and anchored by another winning go-for-broke comic turn from Steve Coogan . It's hard for me to see him doing much wrong , be it the segment with Alfred Molina in Coffee and Cigarettes , 24 Hour Party People or , most of all , Tristra... |
510,884 | 453,068 | 161,216 | 6 | Greenwald is better at documentaries than fiction , but its fairly watchable | Unlike some others who have commented on Steal This Movie on IMDb , I don't know that much about Abbie Hoffman , aside from the obvious that he was a fervent protester in the late 60's , and enough of a symbol of the anti-war and anti-Government movement to get a bit part in Forrest Gump ( he's the " war in Viet-ing-Na... |
509,761 | 453,068 | 66,603 | 6 | it's good for a one-time viewing , but I'm not sure if I'd rush to see it again | Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo was good as a throwaway movie-of-the-night to watch with friends ( friends who were into Zatoichi and old samurai movies ) , but in the sense of it being something worthy of its stature , it didn't quite deliver . A big chunk of the problem , as many of reviewers as well as author Stuart Galbrait... |
510,798 | 453,068 | 361,862 | 6 | almost in spite of , or despite , the shabby been-there-done-that script , and a near gimmick of weight loss , Bale makes it watchable | The Machinist is kind of like intellectual counterfeit money , and with a few twists meant to keep some interested and some keeping far as possible away . The more one thinks about the Machinist , the more it's irksome by the cluttered screenplay ( Scott Kosar , with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Amityville Horror re... |
510,790 | 453,068 | 71,120 | 6 | has the makings of a good remake , though on its own it has its share of flaws | All the Kind Strangers was one of the fifty films that came packaged in a box-set titled " Nightmare Worlds " , and it was one of the rare films that wasn't science-fiction . Yet it probably has just as reason for being in the box-set as sci-fi flicks ; it's got the premise , at the least , and from the description ( w... |
509,319 | 453,068 | 455,805 | 6 | decent Lifetime-style movie that tries to deal with some simple-but-complex issues | Then She Found Me is Helen Hunt's directorial debut . Not a terrible one at all . She involves us , the audience , maybe more-so a female audience than male ( not that a man can't enjoy the movie on its comedy / drama terms ) , though this is mostly after its first quarter or third way through . Up until almost half an... |
510,791 | 453,068 | 389,722 | 6 | can a vampire flick be occasionally interesting , usually OK , and sometimes really illogical ? 30 Days of Night is all that | 30 Days of Night might be a lot better in the form of a comic-book ( never read it , heard many great things ) , but as a film it's derivative and original , really stupid ( mostly towards the end ) and with some solid thrills in both the classic and neo-forms . David Slade and his crew do an excellent job at creating ... |
510,768 | 453,068 | 82,009 | 6 | if only the script were halfway as captivating as the animation / music | I remember seeing American Pop years ago , but not remembering much from it aside from its ' different ' kind of animation ( which I now know is rotoscoping where characters move life-like to the point where it's basically plopped onto the real people's action ) and music . The music , actually , more than the animatio... |
510,304 | 453,068 | 825,232 | 6 | probably better than it has any right to be , mostly due to its star power | The Bucket List only mildly calls into the A-list of Hollywood screenwriters Justin Zackham , and it only slightly elevates Rob Reiner as a director . He's had a slump as a director for what seems like the better part of fifteen years ( oddly enough the last time the co-lead of this film , Jack Nicholson , appeared ver... |
510,672 | 453,068 | 413,466 | 6 | a somewhat memorable Indie-doc-B-movie | For the first 20 minutes or so of Wassup Rockers , I thought " been there , done that . " Meaning that , simply , Larry Clark has done this kind of movie before , better , more wisely and with some extra depth on the subject of stray kids doing their own thing without much parental supervision . But then , finally , so... |
509,980 | 453,068 | 396,171 | 6 | fantastic production design , usually spellbinding editing . . . but the results are frustratingly uneven | I'll say it off the bat - I haven't read the book of Perfume by Patrick Suskind . But I have heard that the film is , ironic considering most directors ' claims that it was unfilmable , quite faithful to the source . I don't doubt it , as it has a literary quality all about it . From the John Hurt narration ( and even ... |
510,502 | 453,068 | 86,250 | 6 | Fascinating storytelling , not so fascinating lead performance | Brian De Palma's Scarface , a remake of the 1932 gangster classic by Howard Hawks , changes locations to Miami where Tony Montana ( Al Pacino ) arrives without much going for him . Soon , under circumstances at his disposal , gets to the reign of the gangster's world of 80's cocaine , soon having a sort of empire aroun... |
510,327 | 453,068 | 39,090 | 7 | emphasis on it being ' melodrama ' , an early Kurosawa curio with a strong second half | Perhaps I'm least likely among the several who've commented here about Akira Kurosawa's first post WW2 film , No Regrets For Our Youth , to recommend it so high , as despite it still being a good film it might be ( for the moment ) my least favorite from the director's 30-film oeuvre . It's still got something to it , ... |
509,486 | 453,068 | 940,502 | 7 | watch as David Lynch goes on a boat . . . . and , apparently , directs water | This little short film / experiment from Lynch is meant to be some kind of home movie-cum-fever dream where the basic act of going out onto a lake with a motor boat becomes like some sort of journey to some unknown destination . It's at it's best an immense jolt of visual splendor , shot on Lynch's hardy digital camera... |
508,266 | 453,068 | 61,189 | 7 | a drive-in movie classic that doesn't totally succeed but has nihilistic fun | Roger Corman , though having his rightful clout as one of the pioneers of drive in movies and exploitation pictures , doesn't have a great film with The Wild Angels , but then it's not meant to be . As I watched the film , I thought of an adjective for the film that I hadn't used for one in a while - it's reckless . Li... |
509,058 | 453,068 | 105,121 | 7 | the kind of film that still , years later , gives me the chills | The People Under the Stairs was one of the few films I can recollect that I saw when I first got into the horror genre when I was a lot younger ( the most promising time to get into the genre if it's good , early teens ) that really gave me the ' willies ' . The whole concept has a very demented connotation to it , eve... |
508,006 | 453,068 | 281,686 | 7 | plenty of irreverence , nothing great , but has enough laughs and balance to work | Bubba Ho-tep is one of those films that might work against my better judgment as a film critic IF I didn't know what I was getting into . I heard plenty of word of mouth about the film , and it only made me want to see the movie more , however not in a ' right-away ' fashion ( I just saw it tonight as part of a Hallowe... |
509,163 | 453,068 | 112,817 | 7 | Jarmusch's most ' heavy ' film - original , bleak , tedious , funny , existential . . . | Dead Man is a film I saw two times two years ago . It was the first film by indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch that I had seen ( it was something about the cover of the film - Johnny Depp in Indian war-paint in black & white holding a gun - that intrigued me ) , and the first two times I did and didn't understand what it was... |
507,939 | 453,068 | 295,178 | 7 | one of the funniest film of the year so far ; though not for everyone | I'm sure there's an audience out there not for the comedic taste of Mike Meyers - there are more flatulence / penile / bowel movement / general excrement jokes to fill three other movies , and it's all crammed into a 96 minute piece . With that said , I loved it ; I've been a big fan of Meyers through his career and wi... |
510,775 | 453,068 | 439,815 | 7 | a not too shabby Troma movie with a big studio , and effects galore | I've seen at least a few Troma movies over time , some almost imports ( Satan's Sadists , Cannibal the Musical ) , other born and bred productions ( Toxic Avenger and Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town ) , and it's at times like second generation Roger Corman , with more or less the same entertainment value . It's all fairl... |
510,827 | 453,068 | 330,373 | 7 | not the best of the ' Potter ' movies , but it's got some captivating sights and even extraordinary scenes | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire pushes the franchise into the PG-13 level , and for good reason : Lord Voldermort , played to a chillingly Gothic T by Ralph Fiennes , is much more present not just as an ominous , unnamed presence , but as a vindictive , murderous threat from the grave . He's the Nosferatu of the " ... |
508,731 | 453,068 | 91,369 | 7 | not as successfully fantastical as the other Henson films , but it is an entertaining KID's flick | Watching Labyrinth on TV the other day , after years of having not seen it , I'm reminded in general how I see Jim Henson's work , via the usual Muppets ( in the ' Muppet ' movies ) or in the non-traditional ones ( the spectacular film ' the Dark Crystal ' ) , just a smidgen different than as a kid . For one thing , th... |
510,873 | 453,068 | 65,134 | 7 | a good Eastwood vehicle , competently directed by Siegel , and two great scenes with the mules | Every once in a while watching movies I come across one that has a peculiarity to it , at least as a genre film . Two Mules for Sister Sara is a star vehicle for Clint Eastwood - in his usual Western movie-star swagger and ultra-cool sense of humor a1nd style - and for Shirley MacLaine as a nun ( in clever , convincing... |
508,870 | 453,068 | 87,995 | 7 | the damnedest cult-movie ; uneven but rocking with attitude , humor and individuality | Alex Cox probably knew what he was doing with Repo Man , but it was probably something he concocted while in the basement of a young punk rocker with a lot of dirty second-rate comic books and a lot of booze . How it comes out on the screen makes it a kind of bizarre outcast in the realm of science-fiction comedies , b... |
508,667 | 453,068 | 35,082 | 7 | a decent noir with a few really nice touches , such as the main stars | Jean Gabin didn't star in many American films , and Moontide was the only one I could find from my local library . Maybe it was for the best ; his presence on screen is very ( and I mean this as a compliment ) French in tone and inflection and even in style of speak . In English he fares reasonably well , and gives a s... |
508,145 | 453,068 | 221,300 | 7 | Once you learn more about Jazz on your own , the more " Jazz " feels incomplete | Ken Burns ' Jazz documentary , which is a twenty-hour documentary ( too long or not long enough would be the argument , I'd go with not long enough ) , details the history of Jazz from its origins in Ragtime , up until the 1960's . It is indeed insightful for those who do not know the histories of these people , pretty... |
509,491 | 453,068 | 462,338 | 7 | a film about trickery , done in a tricky style that works , with crackling performances | Lasse Halstrom isn't out , as a film-making , to make really extreme and probing insights into what goes into a prankster / forger like Clifford Irving . Maybe it's because he , like I , saw Orson Welles's film F For Fake , which covered similar ground and has the only substantial footage of Clifford Irving on record a... |
508,733 | 453,068 | 43,879 | 7 | more melodrama than film-noir , but it does have some excellent stuff in it | I would be inclined more to give On Dangerous Ground a higher rating , or just think of it as a great film , even as I find there are certain things in the second half that doesn't quite click as well as in other parts . Two pieces of brilliance go by way of co-writer / director Nicholas Ray , however - casting Robert ... |
509,763 | 453,068 | 26,174 | 7 | not as exciting as one might expect by today's standards , but it has some good old Hollywood spirit to it | Captain Blood isn't the best film by far for Michael Curtiz or Errol Flynn - the latter made his big Hollywood debut here - but it's a surefire Saturday matinée program all the same , a good one considering that it's from the early days of Warner Brothers's ' on-contract ' pictures , where a stock company of actors and... |
509,109 | 453,068 | 780,622 | 7 | part crafty and topical satire , part crazy ' feminist ' horror story | I was a little worried about this going in , even as I loved the joke that was the premise : a vagina with razor sharp fangs inside the walls . How much could be done with something like this ? As I found out , a lot more than I expected , but especially surrounding it as a nifty satire on the world of abstinence pledg... |
509,337 | 453,068 | 70,608 | 7 | it's less than great , but I liked watching it as a kid | I wouldn't recommend the Disney animated 70s movie of Robin Hood as essential Disney , but I have some great memories of it as a kid anyway . If there's any one thing I could probably criticize it's the song numbers - they just don't work and lack the fine polish of the Sherman brothers collaborations . Looking back on... |
510,695 | 453,068 | 101,026 | 7 | two-thirds of a fantastic dark comedy on the nature of sexual insanity , though not as successful as later Almodovar | It's safe to say that even in a film by Pedro Almodovar that is only marginally successful within the margins there are some good , steamy , questionable times to be had . I can just imagine Pedro sitting in front of his notebook just figuring out ways to mix sex , film-making , kidnapping , and other lewd exercises in... |
510,015 | 453,068 | 455,590 | 7 | contains both the conventions and convictions of good thrillers , with a ' tour-de-force ' performance | It would be one thing to make the pat statement ' this is worth seeing if only for Forest Whitaker as dictator Idi Amin ' . For some it will be , and in fact some may just go to see it based on the hype he's been building up in the awards season ( not that it's undeserved ) . But the director Kevin MacDonald , along wi... |
509,827 | 453,068 | 245,171 | 7 | If not a great movie , it is a good one , stirring up questions of Good vs . Evil | Of the filmmaker Werner Herzog , I've heard and read strange things about him and his films . That two of his works , Aguirre : The Wrath of God , and Fitzceraldo , are two of the most bizarre modern European films . That he once ate a shoe from a bet with Errol Morris , and made a documentary about it . That he once s... |
510,221 | 453,068 | 95,385 | 7 | a Linklater travelogue where it's about alienation and meandering around ; better on a second viewing | There were moments watching this narrative experiment - the first of many for Richard Linklater - where it comes about as close to being totally mundane as can be possible with the camera . It probably wasn't a problem for him to get his shots , as it looked as if he was making his own personal ' home movie ' with him ... |
508,209 | 453,068 | 478,049 | 7 | Lennon the peacenik vs Nixon the warmonger paranoid ; a bout that's given good , not great , treatment here | The central premise of The US vs John Lennon ( the latter as described in the Departed , of all movies , semi-sarcastically as " the president before Lincoln " ) is that public figures are always up for grabs if they come out on either side of the fence . Lennon was fervently anti-war - if very unsure about going all t... |
509,407 | 453,068 | 105,378 | 7 | fun to watch for some of the actors and the ' character ' of the fog , but lesser Woody in my book | I could enjoy Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog without really taking it in as being as superior a work as his other 1992 film , Husbands and Wives . Both are a bit like cinematic experiments , H & W being a very loose and improvisational-feeling take on couples in the style of something like Cassavetes or Bergman , and S ... |
507,898 | 453,068 | 113,101 | 7 | a cool batch of 90's indie pathos | Four Rooms was concocted like one of those many , many collaborative efforts from directors in the 60's and 70's ( i . e . The Witches , Ro . Go . PaG , Boccaccio ' 70 , etc ) , except this would revolve around a bell-hop on New Years Eve . It disqualifies itself as being any kind of masterpiece or classic in independe... |
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