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509,315 | 453,068 | 960,144 | 7 | the ' best ' Sandler movie in about five years ( which still means its only ' good ' ) | When I was younger ( i . e . back in the last decade ) , I was an unashamed Adam Sandler fan , as he was made for the kind of target audience ( young teens ) that I was in . Then , as time went on , his comedies got a little bit stale , with only one or two exceptions ( the best , of course , being his role in Punch Dr... |
510,508 | 453,068 | 342,258 | 7 | a little hit for Besson and Li | Usually I don't watch much of Jet Li's works ( not against what he does , just not crazy about his movies ) , but Unleashed , aka Danny the Dog , intrigued me for its premise , its writer / producer ( who could've directed it had he had the guts ) , and the surprise casting of Morgan Freeman . Li plays Danny , a quasi ... |
508,827 | 453,068 | 77,869 | 7 | it's almost like trying to put judgment on some brave , weird , unique piece of interpretation , that only has half its limbs | Godard once said a way to criticize a movie is to just make one , and probably the strongest kind that could be made about Ralph Bakshi's take on Tolkien's magnum opus the Lord of the Rings , has actually been made by Peter Jackson . The recent trilogy , to me , aren't even total masterpieces , but they are given enoug... |
510,841 | 453,068 | 481,797 | 7 | certainly won't be one to show to all ( some , frankly , will hate it ) . but it's challenging in ways filmmakers usually shy away from | It was bound to happen that Youth Without Youth , the first film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola in fifteen years ( the first directed in ten ) , would be lauded by the critics for not being a real " comeback " kind of project . It's surreal , philosophical , mystical , and even has a mood about it that ca... |
510,748 | 453,068 | 66,495 | 7 | both delirious and low-key in separate measure , a decent early turn from Brooksfilms | The Twelve Chairs is not one of Mel Brooks's funniest comedies , but then again it IS a Russian based comedy , where big laughs are as hard to find as a tropical climate . This film does , however , display the director actually able to really tell a good story , and act as storyteller with characters in a plot to care... |
509,473 | 453,068 | 147,746 | 7 | good , if not great , follow-up to Batman the animated series | Batman Beyond was described by Paul Dini as meant for " selling toys . " It goes without saying how much merchandise works into Batman - lord knows that the toys and videos and movies make more money than the comics have in general in years - but it slightly underrates the strengths in this show . As a kids program , i... |
508,499 | 453,068 | 171,359 | 7 | certainly a better Gen-X update than Romeo + Juliet , if not great | This is an interesting if not altogether successful adaptation of Hamlet . I'd think if you're young and about to read the book in high school watching this would soften the blow of the text ( if , of course , not providing an entire picture ) . This is a little like the cliff-notes contemporary example as opposed to t... |
509,933 | 453,068 | 409,182 | 7 | it's action and ' what's coming round the bend ' entertainment , nothing more or less | Poseidon is based on a novel , technically , although most will associate it with the original film The Poseidon Adventure from 1972 , unseen by me . What I do know whenever someone mentions it is that Shelley Winters is very memorable in it ( and actually when they refer to her career they bring up that film or Lolita... |
509,042 | 453,068 | 1,032,856 | 7 | an amusing , small detour on the highway of life | The band , an group of eight Egyptians looking slightly stilted and uncomfortable but always professional , are dropped off at the Israeli airport , but there is no bus to drive them . They eventually get one , but it drops them off in the middle of nowhere . They walk to a local restaurant / dive that's about as empty... |
509,139 | 453,068 | 264,464 | 7 | it did make money over its time . . . entertaining | . . . but did Steven Spielberg's latest Blockbuster-fodder , Catch Me If You Can , have to be released now ? The two leads , Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks have already turned in their best for the year ( Gangs of New York and Road to Perdition , respectively ) , even if those performances weren't great , and Spielber... |
509,455 | 453,068 | 65,492 | 7 | the odd-ball slice of life of Altman's career , but somehow it's a good deal of fun in its schizo-storytelling | Brewster McCloud was the kind of picture I could imagine having being written over many ( count many ) joints and after not getting a career going as an ornithologist ( I might add , the screenwriter only had two or three other projects produced , and nowhere near as seen as this one is in comparison ) . It's as nutty ... |
510,697 | 453,068 | 100,928 | 7 | a minor work , but a very good minor work , about the complexities of a seemingly simple figure | I can't say how much of White Hunter , Black Heart is entirely fact or not . The source material is by Peter Vietrel , a screenwriter who accompanied ( and did uncredited doctoring on the African Queen ) filmmaker / adventurer John Huston to the jungles of Africa to witness more-so shooting elephants than shooting the ... |
510,217 | 453,068 | 365,485 | 7 | the shot where Brosnan is in the speedo walking to the pool may be cooler than any single shot from his Bond performances | And I think for that alone the Matador is worth a view , just a peek , into how something like subverting a persona can work very well . It's not even a terrific movie , per-say , so much as it is a light affair into the lonely world of killers and businessmen , who have trouble doing what they do and wind up meeting e... |
511,002 | 453,068 | 105,323 | 7 | Longish , overrated , but watchable | Scent of the Woman has a story , but luckily ( mainly since it's not the greatest ) , it sticks to it's dialog and actors . Brief plot summary goes as this : a prep kid needs money so he takes a job looking after a blind old guy who lives in a cottage with his family . If that was it , this movie wouldn't have even got... |
510,413 | 453,068 | 810,895 | 7 | not quite as sweet as the movie , but pretty darn close - should definitely appease fans of the comic book | Hellboy : Sword of Storms is in the quality of animation no more or less the standard one might see on the average program on Adult Swim ( Cartoon Network , of course ) . Which means it's always eye-catching , if only on a kind of wacky 2-D level that is left in the dust in these days of cinema going the way of CGI . W... |
508,342 | 453,068 | 39,581 | 7 | sentimental film-noir with a superb cast | I wouldn't say The Long Night is a great film , and if anything it only peaks my interest more to see how much more classic the film it's based on is - Marcel Carne's La Jour se Leve . But for the time it ran , I was mostly glued to the screen , and got wrapped up in the plight of Henry Fonda's character Joe , and his ... |
510,434 | 453,068 | 118,111 | 7 | my least favorite of the recent Guest / Levy collaborations , which means it's still funny , sometimes ingenious | Waiting for Guffman wasn't the first Christopher Guest / Eugene Levy collaboration ( as writers I mean , it's a Guest movie all the way ) I had seen , but I think I probably would've reacted to it as I did after having seen it after Best in Show and A Mighty Wind . It's like Guest and his always inspired troupe were wi... |
510,101 | 453,068 | 470,765 | 7 | not as funny or enormously successful as past outings , but still worth seeing with well-earned laughs | If there's any one big problem in regards to For Your Consideration , the latest rip on a particular section of society by writer / director Christopher Guest and co-writer Eugene Levy , is that the targets aren't inherently wacky already . Don't get me wrong though , when I get the sense of what's going on in Hollywoo... |
510,264 | 453,068 | 109,504 | 7 | a pleasantly buoyant and personal Spike Lee film that only feels disconnected in the last act | Crooklyn has that subjective texture by someone of the New York independent school of film-making ( which means it's a cool school more often than not ) , where personal expression through the medium leads directly into , or out of , the creator's own life experiences . It's a direct approach to call it autobiography ,... |
510,056 | 453,068 | 475,084 | 7 | safer than Lost in La Mancha , though only because Tideland was finished | Getting Gilliam is a fascinating , if brief , film-student examination of what is the directing mind of Terry Gilliam , who works here on Tideland , his crazy movie - and much crazier than one might even typically expect from him . Vincenzo Natali follows along on the slightly bumpy ride of the production of the film ,... |
510,190 | 453,068 | 401,383 | 7 | Shcnabel gets us inside the head of " locked-in syndrome " , and has an often absorbing , experimental picture | I'll have to admit , I can't go completely with how the mass opinion has been about the Diving Bell and the Butterfly , the third film by painter-turned-director Julian Shnabel . I don't think it's any towering achievement overall , and if not for the experimenting with style and mood and nuance it wouldn't connect qui... |
509,460 | 453,068 | 1,036,337 | 7 | looks pretty promising ( for the CW anyway ) | Reaper caught my attention for two reasons : Kevin Smith was directing the pilot episode , and Ray Wise ( Leland from Twin Peaks , his performance on the show a milestone in TV acting ) playing the Devil . Watching the pilot it almost looked like a not totally distant cousin of Dogma , only this time a little less on t... |
509,824 | 453,068 | 74,483 | 7 | not as subject-heavy or thematically engaging as the first two , still as entertaining | It's hard to call The Enforcer the best of the Dirty Harry pictures , but it isn't a disappointment at all ; the quotable lines are still there ( this time the repeatable line is " marvelous " ) , the chases , the the male-driven humor , the ( slight ) political undertones , and the notion that the hero will get his ma... |
508,154 | 453,068 | 64,694 | 7 | on the failure of the hippies . . . featuring Pink Floyd ! | I would be interested to hear from the director , Barbet Schroeder , as to why he decided to make More his first film , and more specifically what his interest in hippies - or rather this form of the Euro-hippie paradise - and about their demise . The film is , at least , true enough to keep one interested , but in its... |
510,004 | 453,068 | 424,345 | 7 | quite a memorable raunchy comedy ( most of the time ) | I'm tempted to give Clerks an even higher rating than I have here , almost out of a certain fondness for Kevin Smith being able to return to the ' Askew-universe ' and not stumble over his shoes as a filmmaker . It's not a flawless film , and when the filmmaker tries to go for some of the silly , warmer-hearted type st... |
511,026 | 453,068 | 1,261,843 | 7 | the basketball equivalent of Scorsese's Shine the Light - a look at the action with amazing coverage | Here's the deal with Kobe Doin ' Work : if you're just a basketball fan , let alone a Kobe Bryant fan , this is mandatory viewing . After seeing this at the Tribeca Film Festival it was clear who this document of a basketball game , not even so much a documentary , was aimed at . For example , my brother would watch th... |
509,298 | 453,068 | 5,044 | 7 | quick and simply and funny , if not Chaplin's very best | This is the kind of shtick put up to please those paying a nickel ( or less ) ' back in the day ' when seeing this for nine minutes could amount to a decent time . What Chaplin is after here is just straight up pantomime , and this is both the strength and weakness of the short . It's great to see bits like Tramp and t... |
508,324 | 453,068 | 427,944 | 7 | a good satire with more laughs in spurts than overall | Thank You For Smoking does two things in particular - it shows it's writer / director , Jason Reitman ( son of Ivan ) , should have a good career ahead of him , with this being a promising debut ; it also shows how casting decisions do make up then crucial framework for a film like this , where its ensemble form needs ... |
509,122 | 453,068 | 496,806 | 7 | simply a fun escapist heist movie | Ocean's Thirteen unfolds not in an excellent great-movie way but how subversive heist movies should - being entertaining while also showing some chutzpah on the part of the filmmaker . Although not reaching the level of tense joy of the original , it does go past the tedious self-consciousness of the second film to be ... |
508,653 | 453,068 | 96,054 | 7 | Lee's sophomore effort is far from great , but it's a fine effort nonetheless | School Daze isn't something that is exclusive to those who went to all-black colleges , despite what some other commenters have said on IMDb . Coming from an average state school , there's still nothing big in the movie that comes from specifically being all-black , as there are many things like fraternities / sororiti... |
508,375 | 453,068 | 420,087 | 7 | Imperfect and spotty , but has more human interest and fun than most movies out now | One of the curious things I found about Robert Altman's new film of Garrison Keilor's A Prairie Home Companion was how , like in some of ( if not most of ) his other films , is the absence of dramatic or comedic expectations . There are some moments where there are minor tragedies laced in , and a few good belly laughs... |
510,612 | 453,068 | 91,757 | 7 | weird , dirty and a little crazy , just like Polanski at his best but not quite | This is one of the oddities in the career of Roman Polanski . It was a project he wanted to do for years , tried to get funding with different actors , and finally settled on Walter Matthau as Captain Red and ( relatively unknown ) Cris Campion as his bumbling long-time sidekick Frog . It's a very weird movie in a resp... |
510,986 | 453,068 | 936,501 | 7 | turn off your brain for the good " good - God - do - they - expect - me - to - believe - that " Besson production | On facebook there is an event coming up I believe in June which is called " National Man Day " , which will be a day for all men everywhere to feel and act like " Men " , whatever that is . If there are any screening rooms available for this kind of created event , Taken could be a good choice as a movie to screen . It... |
509,492 | 453,068 | 342,882 | 7 | A truly fantastical experiment , more than a typical film | That the final result of the Piano Tuner of Earthquakes is not really a great movie is a given when taking into account that the style of which the Quay Brothers have gone to almost perfectionist lengths to attain is always leaping ahead in strength when compared to the dialog or the performances . The story itself is ... |
508,674 | 453,068 | 109,322 | 7 | moves like a good little bebop number , but only hints at what would come | At this point , I wager , Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson weren't entirely sure how their Bottle Rocket feature would turn out . As a means of getting support for it they made this short film which won over James L . Brooks at Sundance and got them a movie deal at Columbia pictures . Their plan worked . . . except that th... |
510,749 | 453,068 | 87,291 | 7 | pretty goofy and transparent homage , but it's very good for kids | Frankenweenie is Tim Burton's first live-action short film , shot for Disney in the mid-80s , and has enough imaginations to overpass some overbearing cheesiness at times . It's a sign of things to come for Burton , and the story and some of the side characters remind one of Edward Scissorhands ( no one understands thi... |
508,269 | 453,068 | 92,076 | 7 | well , at least it's better than the remake | Which maybe might not be saying much , as the one-line summary suggests . This was the first of the series of Chainsaw films that would follow with part 3 ( Leatherface ) , and the first quasi-remake years later . And , perhaps my default , I found this to be the best out of all of them . Maybe that isn't saying much t... |
510,053 | 453,068 | 412,536 | 7 | Last Year at Brideshead | Among many of the most prestigious literature selections , not to mention mini-series , Brideshead Revisited not only wasn't on my radar , I didn't even know if it would be the kind of well-regarded literature or mini-series I intended to watch . But as this newly revised picture , now a mere 136 minutes vs 10 hours , ... |
509,411 | 453,068 | 420,223 | 7 | has a good mix of whimsy and pathos , an excellent Ferrell performance , if less than stellar overall | I'd recommend Stranger Than Fiction , especially if you're a fan of its stars . It also speaks to a good career ahead for first-time screenwriter Zak Helm . That it also is that old , over-used statement - the parts more entertaining than the whole - is maybe in part attributable to an inherent structural flaw in the s... |
508,309 | 453,068 | 74,554 | 7 | a tragic-comedy boosted by Zero Mostel's performance , a fairly sharp script , and a tailor-made Allen character | The Front isn't on my high list of Woody Allen movies to recommend , but then he didn't write and direct it . It was directed by Martin Ritt and Walter Bernstein , very talented ( and as Ritt says , talent with something to show for it ) , and also previously black-listed . They have here fashioned a somewhat conventio... |
510,650 | 453,068 | 95,989 | 7 | Cut it ! Cut it ! Cut it ! Save the film , strike the broad and kill the babies . | It's funny , sort of , that Return of the Killer Tomatoes actually lives up to ( err , goes to the depths of ) the original parody of schlock horror Z-grade movies it's coming from . It knows what it is in its bones , and still has a hell of a lot of fun getting to where it's going - which is almost nothing . I couldn'... |
509,396 | 453,068 | 74,512 | 7 | a minor work from Hitchcock ; however good it is sad that it was his last | Family Plot is about a con-psychic , her cabbie boyfriend , another con-man / thief , and a diamond thief as his squeeze , who all come together unwittingly in a yarn surrounding a search for a son , a 10 grand reward , and some diamonds , plus lots of other small-time shenanigans . In any other hands this would be a v... |
509,120 | 453,068 | 100,594 | 7 | one of the most beautifully photographed films of the 90s , though if amazing imagery isn't lacking , plot is | I always wonder what it might be like to have a film set in a location that is explicitly specific , with this film , as example , the Sahara desert and outlining areas of North Africa , and to not have some kind of Lawrence of Arabia kind of epic story attached to it . It's a challenge for a filmmaker to attempt , and... |
508,943 | 453,068 | 360,486 | 7 | certain things - like an uncommonly bad-ass Keanu Reeves - make this better than it has any right to be | I'm not sure if Francis Lawrence is really up to par to make any kind of great movie , having now seen his first film Constantine and his mega-hit follow-up I Am Legend . But he can make a pretty entertaining spectacle of the dark and supernatural , and add a certain edge that comes most likely for those who are thirst... |
509,931 | 453,068 | 87,182 | 7 | as complex as it is conflicted , and full of artistry that doesn't fully work | In a sense , I looked at David Lynch's adaptation of Dune on the outset for a while like Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus . This is the filmmaker , usually in total control of his work , putting himself out there for an elephantine production early in a career . But in this case , after having seen the film , it's perhaps n... |
509,793 | 453,068 | 64,940 | 7 | maybe the most mixed-bag kind of film I've seen from Fellini yet ( and I'm a big fan ) | I have to think that with a production like Satyricon , co-written and directed ( and practically ring-mastered ) by Federico Fellini , he had a couple of things he had to adhere to in what he could or couldn't show ( not sure what Italy's policies were on nudity or violence and such ) . But overall , this seems to me ... |
511,064 | 453,068 | 299,977 | 7 | If you suspend all disbelief you'll like it , maybe even love it , despite some confusion in the film's structure | Hero , translated here in the states as Ying xiong , is the kind of film that must've seemed either one of the great post-modern epics for their country ( called " Our Land " the film tells us ) , or a flamboyant , ultra-dramatized version of the true events . At the least , Hero is helmed by a talented painter of the ... |
508,300 | 453,068 | 404,802 | 7 | not too surprising it's an HBO film , but a good one nonetheless , with a terrific lead in Moll | I had a vague idea of who Bettie Page was , partly due to her appearance in the very wee days of Playboy ( apparently , when she got her photo taken of her and her Santa hat , just that , she didn't know what the mag was ) . The movie , co-written and directed by American Psycho's Mary Harron , fleshes out the key part... |
510,062 | 453,068 | 416,449 | 7 | one of the most elaborate , yet shallow exercises in 21st century epic style you'll see this year | 300 comes way of Frank Miller , the ultra-famed comic book artist and author ( behind the neo-noir Sin City ) , and Zack Snyder , who brought us the remake of Dawn of the Dead ( not a shame nor not a necessity from the original ) , and it's what movie audiences probably salivate for when it comes to action epics from a... |
508,803 | 453,068 | 490,234 | 7 | not everything works , but when it does it's some riveting , tragic stuff | One of the big achievements of Un Secret which must be noted is that the director , Claude Miller , doesn't entirely sympathize with his characters or make them out to be all completely good Jews . They're not . This is a film concerning the holocaust that doesn't just make a blanket statement like " Nazis = Bad " . No... |
509,902 | 453,068 | 43,018 | 7 | works OK as a melodrama , sometimes better than OK , but it's still a Bunuel film | Even as a " minor " work , I was a little surprised to find out that Luis Bunuel didn't care very much for the experience or final product of Susana ( aka Devil in the Flesh ) . It is , I'll admit , not something I would rush out to tell my fellow Bunuel friends to see ; part of that is practical , since it's only avai... |
508,304 | 453,068 | 66,026 | 7 | clever in some ways , with a formidable cast , but it doesn't hold up as well for me as others | I have to credit Robert Altman's breakthrough film MASH for at least one thing - it's one of the few films from the 70's to look at those in war not as overly anxious and gung-ho military types , but average shlubs working a particular kind of job . In this world of the military medical sidelines , where soldiers get t... |
509,843 | 453,068 | 1,175,491 | 7 | Bush's " Greatest Hits " | Some will say - actually a lot have said - that Oliver Stone's new film on the public history of George W . Bush , the man and the 43rd President , will be slanted or with scenes that show the clear bias of the filmmaker . What happens in W . is that it is and it isn't a sign of bias . Unlike with Nixon , who was a com... |
509,708 | 453,068 | 74,650 | 7 | obviously repetitive , but it has its moments , primarily as an act of rhythmic poetry | They talk so fast that you need ears like a super-hawk to really decipher what they're getting at , but it's this speed at going about selling goods that interest Werner Herzog so much . He's said in interviews that it's almost like " the poetry of capitalism " , as these high-stakes auctioneers , selling off cattle wi... |
508,214 | 453,068 | 442,933 | 7 | an unlikely epic blockbuster done in CGI meant for 3D ; it's brutal and fun | Robert Zemeckis and his Imagemovers team and CGI people and ' motion-capture ' folks have turned out another following the Polar Express in 2004 : once again the technique of a fully realized animated feature wrapped around real-actors performing only animated over . It's a little like a mix-and-match method of Who Fra... |
510,804 | 453,068 | 74,777 | 7 | veers towards being TOO subtle and stuffy , but remains a good view into coldness of 1930s Hollywood | For a little while as I watched the Last Tycoon , I thought I could understand what the critics said of this film when it first came out ( the majority of them I mean ) . The screenplay , written by Harold Pinter from what is supposedly a much richer ( albeit incomplete ) text from F . Scott Fitzgerald , stages many sc... |
508,771 | 453,068 | 67,185 | 7 | a romantic black comedy of the most light-hearted / sinister psychological ideals | I wouldn't say I really clicked into Harold and Maude entirely on a first viewing - maybe I may never will . It almost has something to it at times that I found a bit unique for that un-trustworthy brand of cinema known as the romantic comedy . It's not the last time it's happened , but what I found fascinating about t... |
508,776 | 453,068 | 82,601 | 7 | a more than decent soap-opera with bits of uproarious ' making-movie ' comedy | Fall Guy is advertised on the front of the recently released DVD as " a comedy from the director of Battle Royale " . That last part is true , but it's not entirely a comedy . I was expecting that , and in the first fifteen minutes it is that , incredibly and with total personality-laden hilarity as a Japanese movie st... |
510,290 | 453,068 | 94,663 | 7 | not one of the best of the " serious " Woody Allen films , but it's still underrated , with superb acting | Another Woman demonstrates Woody Allen at going , perhaps even further than Interiors ( and we know how far he went with that ) , into his Ingmar Bergman homage realm of drama . Of course , this is never a bad thing if done right ; Bergman was the " Mack Daddy " of dramatists in dealing with the human psyche , fragile ... |
509,964 | 453,068 | 985,699 | 7 | solid storytelling , almost like a heist movie , minus emotional attachment | Bryan Singer's latest film , Valkyrie , is a step-up from what was a long ' slog ' of a movie-going experience like Superman Returns . His direction here is more in line with the X-Men franchise , oddly enough for a movie about Nazi's scheming to kill Hitler . He has what amounts to a well-oiled machine via Christopher... |
511,028 | 453,068 | 967,945 | 7 | an example of performances making the biggest difference | The Merry Gentlemen has the makings , and perhaps even the trappings , of a predictable neo-noir involving a hit-man ( Michael Keaton ) , a detective ( Bastounes ) and the woman that they're both eying ( Kelly MacDonald ) , and the elements of crime floating all about . But Keaton brings to the table as a first-time di... |
510,446 | 453,068 | 113,819 | 7 | a trifle in Woody Allen's career , but a good and amusing one all the same | I don't think Woody Allen was aiming very high with Mighty Aphrodite , and it's just as well that his targets are lowered onto one of the most " light " comedies ever made about a prostitute and a sports writer , with a Greek chorus in tow . You know the Greek chorus , chiming in at those moments when drama might need ... |
510,760 | 453,068 | 1,155,056 | 7 | the plot isn't what works - it's all about actors , timing , awkward pauses , realistic dialog | I Love You , Man may feel like another Apatow company production , but it's mostly because some of its " stock " company players ( I put quotes as it's both a loose term and just about right ) like Paul Rudd and Jason Siegel . They give the air of using the screenplay as the easiest of diving boards into just shooting-... |
508,495 | 453,068 | 74,829 | 7 | somehow straddles the line between being legitimately good and just bad-good Italian sex-horror flick | I don't know how I could explain that I like Werewolf Woman . It doesn't work logically as a movie , but does one go into a movie that's about a schizo who craves the company of men and then kills them at the instant they try and have their way with her expecting great art ? It's a little like a rougher , more sexed-up... |
508,553 | 453,068 | 87,003 | 7 | Funny look at odd characters but with lots of heart | Woody Allen does not have his best film here , but it ranks up there as being a very fine straightforward romantic comedy . He's got a sharp script for most of his cast , even as his nebbish-sort of usual character , in the form of Danny Rose , is more limited this time around . I also thought some of the material with... |
507,848 | 453,068 | 417,148 | 7 | like any other line of product , you get what you pay for , more or less | Snakes on a Plane has been written and written about online , with the " buzz " forming around not just the idea of such a B-movie conceit of the title explaining the whole crux of the horror and suspense of the picture , but Samuel L . Jackson's part in it . Maybe , however , such hype almost can come back to bite , n... |
509,106 | 453,068 | 74,851 | 7 | visually a real trip . emotionally something else | Nicholas Roeg is a little tricky at times when it comes to narrative . Sometimes he experiments with it excellently ( Bad Timing ) , and other times he slightly dulls the senses in an experimental kind of way ( Dont Look Now ) . The Man Who Fell to Earth seems to be told mostly in a linear fashion , and there seems to ... |
508,402 | 453,068 | 443,701 | 7 | not quite as fantastic as the series at its best , and nowhere near as bad as most critics say | To be upfront , I didn't think the first X-Files movie - Fight the Future - was any kind of great movie , and at best was a very good bridge between two seasons of the show back in 1998 ( very good in that if you're a fan you'll still want to check out the movie repeatedly when it comes on TV , oddly enough ) . So my e... |
509,546 | 453,068 | 768,212 | 7 | imaginative entertainment with some trippy images and a very good , ET-style heart | The Last Mimzy doesn't pander needlessly to its core audience , but at the same time it also has a good accomplishment in that it also has an appeal to adults , or at least those that have passed that age of adolescence and look back on childhood with levels of nostalgia and relief that it's over . It delights as well ... |
508,271 | 453,068 | 492,506 | 7 | a delight for linguists and fans of words , not bad for everyone else | Crossword puzzles , and the many people who make them popular , are the focus in Wordplay , including the editor of the NY Times puzzle ( the most notorious of them in the USA ) , celebrities and politicians , and the general public obsessed with them . As a documentary Wordplay is good , not great , film-making about ... |
508,589 | 453,068 | 366,292 | 7 | takes a while to get going , and nothing groundbreaking , but it's scary | Takashi Miike , in 2003 , decided to take on two very different projects , one Gozu , which was maybe the greatest surrealist-yakuza movie ever made , and One Missed Call , a commercial project ( or rather , not as ' art-house ' or X-rated for the main cineplex theaters , at least in Japan ) for teen fans of the ' grud... |
509,781 | 453,068 | 963,178 | 7 | fairly smart and intriguing , but wouldn't be as powerful without that set piece . . . | Tom Twyker picks his projects with an eye for something that will bring him in on something really significant , even if it's just ( or maybe because of ) one sequence . Previously we saw his adaptation of Perfume which had that incredibly strange and erotica and absurd climax with the orgy in the arena . This time we ... |
509,439 | 453,068 | 44,916 | 7 | Hawks and Grant and Rogers and Monroe - good , not great , " youth " comedy | It's been hard for me so far in viewing the bulk of what's considered Howard Hawks ' best work ( i . e . Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , His Girl Friday ) to be disappointed . Monkey Business is no disappointment , either , but it is kind of lacking in being a really great story or with truly memorable characters . It's a soli... |
508,705 | 453,068 | 486,585 | 7 | not quite long enough to really dig into it all , but as a term-paper-type look , it's not bad , and even funny | How do I talk about a film where I can't even mention its title in this review ( in the IMDb comments the word of the title of this film cannot be put in , unless in the form of fck or sht ) ? I can talk mostly then about how the filmmakers go around the use of the word fck . Fck is the word that gets everyone's ear up... |
507,867 | 453,068 | 117,737 | 7 | Bertolucci's Portrait of the Virgin at 19 | Stealing Beauty is a character piece , not so much ever really driven by plot , and which makes it a particularly European-flavored entry in the Bernardo Bertolucci cannon of films he's made . This shouldn't be a surprise ; the guy's been making them this way for most of his career , save for when he can't not have som... |
509,769 | 453,068 | 79,302 | 7 | a fun trifle from Mr . De Palma that takes advantage of inexperience | The bulk of the crew on Brian De Palma's Home Movies were his college students , but if you asked me where it looks it the most it's hard to say . De Palma decided to make it a challenge in as much that he thrusted these kids ( one of whom Mark Romanek ) into their first real foray into film-making , but he also lessen... |
507,985 | 453,068 | 106,029 | 7 | three filmed plays with equal amounts of character insight , good acting , and run-of-the-mill moments | Three half-hour episodes were produced , two from David Lynch as director and Barry Gifford as writer , one from some random guy , James Signorelli , I never heard of ( though , according to IMDb , directed an Elvira movie , and surprisingly helmed Easy Money ) , each set in a hotel room in a particular year in time : ... |
509,341 | 453,068 | 60,304 | 7 | If you can't afford LSD , try colour TV . | It's strange to see a work by a filmmaker that is a lesser one , but made during his prime . It's like watching a Godard that speaks to his future films - the much lesser ones - while still holding onto the quality of his work at the time . It came after Masculin / Feminine , a very good work , made during Made in USA ... |
510,479 | 453,068 | 1,045,670 | 7 | interesting slice of life , or rather slices of a life , on a naturally happy person in a strange world | In Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky he has a protagonist who I would classify , more or less , as plucky , a naturally happy person - occasionally , maybe , verging on " is-she-high " happy - who is the way she is with anyone she meets . This doesn't always provide very good results , though usually it gives Poppy a surfeit... |
510,847 | 453,068 | 751,089 | 7 | do the hokey pokey . . . | Chinga isn't one of the very best episodes from the X-Files , but as a piece co-written as the only one by Stephen King , it gives more than few obvious but quite entertaining moments . It's all predicated on something that has been in other King works - the girl who is more than a little ' off ' . This time , however ... |
510,447 | 453,068 | 389,557 | 7 | lots of Nazi resistance-fighting intrigue , an ideal cast , good but bulky thriller | Paul Verhoven isn't ever known so much for subtlety as a director , and Black Book doesn't really make any big steps to change that . It is , unlike his films from the past dozen or so years , not intentionally sleazy or overridden with lots of gruesome carnage . There's even a sense that he's probably quite passionate... |
510,673 | 453,068 | 421,715 | 7 | A story of a man's life , told backwards , with both lots of good and some not-so-good at all | David Fincher is a truly gifted storyteller , probably one of the most talented and inspired that have come from that much hallowed age-group of early 1960s born American filmmakers ( i . e . Soderbergh , Tarantino , Linklater ) that rose to prominence in the 1990s with their groundbreaking work . It's a shame then tha... |
509,699 | 453,068 | 465,602 | 7 | the ' Snakes on a Plane ' of the year , which goes without saying it won't hit everyone like a bullet in the , erm , everywhere , but to fans it's aces | You know if you'll want to see Shoot ' Em Up by the trailers alone , and probably by some word of mouth , which is probably how it works for ' cult ' films that somehow get left behind despite high box office expectations . Maybe it needs to start slowly in building the audience , because those that see it will like it... |
510,533 | 453,068 | 55,572 | 7 | A good , not great , early Godard - a film with earnest , sweet qualities in youth | A Woman is a Woman was described by Godard as his " first real movie " . While Breathless to him may have seemed like a ill-born experiment ( he said of it that it didn't turn out like he expected ) , this film displays his skills as a filmmaker that would later bloom out with My Life to Live , Contempt , Band of Outsi... |
510,591 | 453,068 | 82,934 | 7 | is it a remake or just another version of Cain's text ? you decide | I say that one-line statement having yet to read James M . Cain's original ( short ) book , or the 1946 film starring John Garfield and Lana Turner . So I have now seen the Postman Always Rings Twice directed by Bob Rafelson and starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange twice now , and see it on its own terms without m... |
509,493 | 453,068 | 473,107 | 7 | gives a good , cliff-notes analysis of the many facets of Wal-Mart | Wal-Mart : The High Cost of Low Price , is a somewhat valiant attempt by Robert Greenwald to put into a coherent picture what it is that makes Wal-Mart such an overbearing presence as a conglomeration and ultimate capitalist ( or maybe more likely fascist ) entity . It goes something like this : the independent busines... |
509,673 | 453,068 | 109,592 | 7 | has awesome moments of horror and bizarre humor , the rest of it . . . | Cemetery Man is the kind of horror flick I know I SHOULD like a lot more than I do . It certainly is clever with a premise that doesn't give a whole lot to think of will happen : a ' cemetery man ' Francesco ( Rupert Everett , a surprise casting choice but one that works ) and his assistant Gnaghi ( played by a very st... |
510,019 | 453,068 | 197,521 | 7 | I used to think this was it - not one of the best , but a cool prototype anyway | Oh when Americans first pillaged foreign product for big mainstream gains . With Godzilla , King of the Monsters ! we see the beginning of a franchise in all its fractured , cheesy glory . After finally seeing the original Japanese version , Gojira , I also went back to the American version too , which I had seen when ... |
508,769 | 453,068 | 117,438 | 7 | a well-knit and taut thriller with some liabilities | I wouldn't stop watching Ransom when I saw it recently on TV , not necessarily because it was an ultra-gripping thriller - even as it comes close to being that - but because I wanted to see what would happen in the story next . By turns the story is really only plausible in mostly ' movie-logic ' , but in the veneer of... |
510,677 | 453,068 | 94,291 | 7 | I create nothing . I own . | Wall Street is at the least a pretty convincing take on an era , a time that may or may not seem to be caught in that near-decadent time capsule of the mid 80s when the President still had part of the country in the mind-set that business was booming , big-time . Oliver Stone , in taking cues from his ( late ) father ,... |
510,764 | 453,068 | 1,372,710 | 7 | nifty but not very memorable extra / short-doc on Hollis Mason's " Under the Hood " | Like with the DVD release of the Dark Knight , though this time much earlier to coincide with the theatrical release , DC put together this short documentary as a companion piece cum extra to the " source " of the film , which itself is a take-off on the in-between chapters of the Watchmen book . Hollis Mason , the ori... |
509,429 | 453,068 | 949,815 | 7 | If you haven't seen Rickles's stand-up , you don't know the art of the comic-insult | John Landis's new documentary on Don Rickles , Mr . Warmth : The Don Rickles Project , works best when focused squarely on its star attraction . Every so often Landis gets distracted in telling ( or rather showing other people like Bob Newhart ) go on about the glory days of a mob-run Las Vegas , and it starts to loose... |
509,880 | 453,068 | 425,661 | 7 | ah ah , Azuki beans , I love them | What a strangely wonderful , if sometimes slight and bulky , big-budget fantasy this is . Takashi Miike had already proved , by the time he got to The Great Yokhai War , that he could dip into other films aside from his supposed niche of the crime / yakuza genre ( Visitor Q and Andromedia showed this , the former great... |
509,536 | 453,068 | 362,227 | 7 | a good piece of humanist comedy , nothing more , nothing less | The Terminal is sort of like a a Frank Capra tale spun into 21st century America , with it a sort of divide between the naive innocence of ordinary men , and the cynicism of the outside world . It also is akin to E . T . as being about an outsider who comes into a strange situation , gets befriended , but in reality is... |
510,359 | 453,068 | 993,789 | 7 | a big book of a film with some invention and strong acting that is too long | I got to hand it to the filmmaker , Arnaud Desplechin , at least on one significant point : A Christmas Tale is like a big book faithfully adapted to the screen , only in this case non-existent , and it has that wonderful if imperfect feeling of surrounding oneself with the world and atmosphere and attitudes of a famil... |
508,510 | 453,068 | 79,073 | 7 | definitely not the best nor the worst in Stoker adaptations ; Langella makes up a lot of the appeal | Frank Langella - that's almost all I might need to say to get you interested in watching this 524th adaptation of Bram Stoker's quintessential vampire novel . He doesn't have the Euro-creepiness of Bela Lugosi ( nor the eyebrows ) , and Christopher Lee is by many accounts the definitive Dracula , but Langella is someth... |
509,184 | 453,068 | 1,135,487 | 7 | a throwback to very good " light " Hollywood Hitchcock , with virtues and vices ( mostly virtues ) | We need more filmmakers like Tony Gilroy in Hollywood right now . Coming off of his debut feature Michael Clayton , after years of working on stuff like the Bourne movies , to his second film Duplicity , he's marked some strong territory as a guy who can work with top-shelf A-list talent and put them in material that i... |
509,262 | 453,068 | 901,485 | 7 | both slyly self-aware and an enjoyably serious movie about ill-fated bourgeois | At this point in Claude Chabrol's career one might expect him to cut loose and do something just totally crazy and not to give a hoot about his consistent style as a director . A Girl Cut in Two , for better or worse , is still disciplined and carefully constructed and directed , and maybe because of this once in a whi... |
510,647 | 453,068 | 478,209 | 7 | a good subjective approach to the many strands and off-shoots of an under-looked genre of music | Actually , to say that heavy-metal music is just a genre of music is almost insulting in some circles . As someone who's too eclectic to really be solely a metal-head , but has been in the realm of the metal world to see how it goes , I can empathize with Sam Dunn's main intention with the documentary ; this music shou... |
508,622 | 453,068 | 120,838 | 7 | not quite prime-cut Larry David material , but enjoyable all the same | Although it's been a long time since I've seen Sour Grapes , the experience of seeing it - preferably alongside another Seinfeld fan - was fairly pleasant , in that biting Larry David tone . This was the only time David wrote and directed a film , and it does show that he's trying to work through telling a total story ... |
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