id stringlengths 7 11 | text stringlengths 52 10.2k | label int64 0 1 |
|---|---|---|
train_6047 | The brilliant thing about Withnail & I is that it captures that not long left college and life could go either way moment along with all its other finery. Freebird is something for those who probably never considered higher education and just went straight to work aged 15/16. I know some of the broad sheets stuck the knife into this film when it came out in Cinemas but i saw it at a packed house in Hailsham and everybody seemed to really enjoy it. I grew up in the forest of Dean and this took me straight back to my mushrooming and dope days (had some great mates - hate to think what they're all up to now - probably running the local council). I've watched it a couple of times on DVD and already i see the film as an old mate that will stay forever as part of my collection (how can i like this film and the Dambusters - doesn't seem right somehow) I certainly edge towards the second half of this film and i think the social interacting scenes with the locals are brilliantly done. I like the mix of the three lead characters and there really is some lovely writing in here along with some very quotable lines and dare i say a good smattering of integrity. I have tried to obtain the soundtrack, but it has not been released (shame, as it's a corker). Someone told me it was originally a stage play, not quite sure how that worked but i'm sure it was fun. I liked the little Shakespearian touches/references that seem to crop up throughout the film (also spotted the Dylan Thomas ref as well) and like all little gems, there will always be little things to discover like the final scene giving a nod to Easyrider as they start they're next journey. All in all a genuinely unpretentious piece of film making (love it!) | 1 |
train_18219 | This movie is a lot like the movie Hostel, except with *BAD* acting and not much suspense. The gore elements are there, but you don't really feel anything for the characters, making the violence not very effective. Some parts are just strange... like forcing a snake down someones throat. What's up with that? Is that supposed to be scary or gory? It's just kind of stupid. As for torture, there really isn't any (except for the guy getting blow-torched in the beginning, which they don't show anyway). The main bad guy keeps saying "make them die slowly", yet the butcher kills them all very fast. The deaths are all relatively quick. Yes, I did watch the "unrated" version. So, overall, not the worst gore movie I've seen, but not at all good either. You won't miss anything if you skip this one. | 0 |
train_3336 | I have to admit that I went into Fever Pitch with low expectations. It's no huge revelation for me to say that Jimmy Fallon's last movie (Taxi) was Catwomanly bad, and the trailers for Fever Pitch were all right but didn't mesmerize me. I was already preparing some cheesy baseball puns for my review..."I like Jimmy Fallon, but Taxi was strike one in his movie career. Well, now we've got steeeeee-riiiiiike twoooooooo! One more strike, and it's back to SNL!" or "Buy yourself some peanuts and cracker jacks, but don't buy tickets to Fever Pitch. You'll walk out of the theater and never go back!" Then the movie had to go and be way more entertaining than I was expecting. But hey, I couldn't let my puns go to waste, right? Another reason I thought I wouldn't care for the movie is that I hate the Boston Red Sox. My whole family hates 'em. The mere mention of Pedro Martinez' name sends me running to the bathroom. Oh man, hold on......All right, I'm back. Anyway, my mom, who is a St. Louis Cardinals fan, still believes the World Series was rigged last year. She refuses to believe the Sox won it legitimately. But I'm man enough to admit that Fever Pitch caused me to sympathize, albeit only slightly, with the plight of Red Sox fans.Anybody who has a passion for sports will be able to relate to this movie on some level. Unless you have a favorite sports team you can't fully understand the extreme highs and lows that a fan such as Fallon's Ben can go through. There's nothing quite so fresh as the smell of a new season and nothing quite so smooth as a clean slate. Well, figuratively speaking. It's the joy of being a sports fan. "Wait 'til next year," becomes your mantra, your motto, your prayer - and Fever Pitch effectively captures that essence.I love the fact that the movie takes a fictional story and throws it against the real-life backdrop of the Red Sox' improbable World Series run last year. I don't love it so much that I want to marry it, but you know what I mean. I expected this to be handled in a fairly cheesy manner, and while some of the humor is a little silly, it's actually pretty realistic.You see, Ben's uncle took him to his first Red Sox game when he was 7 years old, and when he died he left Ben his two season tickets. Ben hasn't missed a game in 23 years. At the beginning of each season he has a draft day where he and his friends get together to figure out who gets to go to which games with him. He makes everybody dance for the Yankees games and whenever somebody complains he threatens them with tickets for the games with the Royals (sorry Mr. Shade) and the Devil Rays. It's a very good scene, and it works so well because I actually know of people who do the "ticket draft day." I also must admit that I can relate to when Ben goes to dinner with Lindsey and her parents. The Red Sox are playing a road game, but instead of watching it live on TV Ben decides to tape it. One of the most dangerous things in life is taping a game and then being in public and trying to avoid hearing the result. Been there. It's a very tense and scary situation. Weeeeeell, Ben enters the danger zone when a guy shows up at the restaurant and mentions watching the game. Ben immediately covers his ears and starts shrieking like a banshee so as not to hear the outcome. Lindsey is embarrassed, and her parents don't know what to think. Yeah, sports fans can be weird, I don't deny it. But it's real.Now if you're expecting the crude, edgy stuff that the Farrelly brothers are known for then you could be disappointed. They do have their moments though, like when Ben says he likes how Lindsey sometimes talks out of the side of her mouth "like an adorable stroke victim," but overall this is definitely a softer, more romantic side that the bros are putting on display.That's not to say that the movie ever gets way too sappy. Thankfully, when the sap starts to ooze a bit, the Farrellys know when to pull away. A romantic moment with Lindsey jumping on the field and running over to Ben to declare her undying love for him turns into Ben sincerely replying, "You've gotta tell me about the outfield. Is it spongy?" Jimmy Fallon proves that with the right material he can handle himself well on the big screen, and Drew Barrymore remains a constant source of romantic comedy charm. Fever Pitch is just good, solid entertainment that takes a somewhat fresh look at the romantic comedy genre. It's a movie that guys and gals can both relate to. Particularly the guys who practice sports fanaticism at some point during the year and the ladies who must deal with 'em.Now if the Red Sox fans could please shut up about the "Curse of the Bambino" I would appreciate it. My Memphis Tigers have NEVER won the NCAA basketball championship, so I officially declare my plight greater than yours.THE GIST Fans of Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore, romantic comedy, the Red Sox, baseball, or sports fanaticism in general should consider giving Fever Pitch a look. I wouldn't go out of my way to rush and see it at the first available time, but it'll make a great matinée.Rating: 3.25 (out of 5) | 1 |
train_13941 | I picked this movie on the cover alone thinking that i was in for an adventure to the level of "Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom". Unfortunately I was in for a virtual yawn. Not like any yawn i have had before though. This yawn was so large that i could barely find anything of quality in this movie. The cover described amazing special effects. There were none. The movie was so lightweight that even the stereotypes were awfully portrayed. It does give the idea that you can solve problems with violence. Good if you want to teach your kids that. I don't. Keep away from this one. If you are looking for family entertainment then you might find something that is more inspiring elsewhere. | 0 |
train_7804 | I keep watching this movie over and over and over. I have to watch it at least once a week. I am from Africa and looking at that movie taught me some things that I didn't even know about Africa. Denzel's movies are all full of lessons for people of walks of life. I wish he was my own brother. I have also seen and love your Masala Mississipi. What a thrilling situation. When Denzel was trying to hook his brother up on the job, reminds me of my teen ages when my brother was always mad with me about getting myself busy all the time. My brother was always caring for my old father and he wants to see me the same way too. By the way where did Denzel get that African accent from in the Cry Freedom movie? I have first seen that movie in Africa and I didn't know then that Denzel was American till I moved down here. | 1 |
train_16575 | I'm a horror/gore movie freak and this flick was so bad, I felt embarrassed for not only the "actors", but also the director and the poor sap of a producer who actually put his money up for this schlock.From the title, you'd expect some great carnage, somewhat of a storyline and at LEAST some direction or dialog. Instead, you get what looks like a slightly more violent and sexual Three Stooges episode. At least I laugh at the Three Stooges. While watching this crap, I turned another TV on and started watching Howard Stern until something interesting happened.Needless to say, I kept watching Stern.Watching this "film" I realize that I could produce a film with three monkeys, 2 DV cameras, $50 dollars in loose change and a broken PC. This film is my inspiration to get into no-budget film making. Watch this movie if you dare, but be warned...there is a lot of nothing in here but a whole lot of talking and very little action. This makes "KaZaam" look like a Meryl Streep film.I'm sure Germany didn't ban it due to sex or violence. Other countries need to take heed. | 0 |
train_16064 | Pet Sematary , though a nice 80's Horror movie, with a nice Director and atmosphere, IS a copy of the Italian movie ZEDER by Pupi Avati. It's clear that Stephen King has copied almost all the ideas from this director (the movie Zeder was made before King wrote the book)The cat, the ground, everything was copied, this is a case of plagiary , but, being Stephen Kind a famous American writer , it's totally normal that he can get away with this , it's obviously due to the huge difference between this kind of Italians movies with no -budget (and in part, it's crap itself ... ) but the original idea, I repeat it, it's Italian director AvatiLet the world know | 0 |
train_21514 | there are those movies that are bad they are funny, then there are those where you scream "i want that one and a half hours of my life back"...thats pretty much what this is.dean cain tries to be an actor but fails. the sfx are really bad (repeated scenes and rocks that look like falling paper) and the fake plastic guns that have torches taped on them...the split screen effect used to show multiple things happening at once is just terrible.this movie cant even be used as one of those simple night entertainers, its just that badif i could go negative ratings, i would | 0 |
train_11736 | Those who are not familiar with Cassandra Peterson's alter-ego Elvira, then this is a good place to start."Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" starts off with our heroine with the gravity defying boobs receiving a message. It seems that a great aunt of hers has died and that she needs to be present for the reading of the will. Anxious to raise money for a show she wants to open in Las Vegas, she decides to go in hopes of getting lots and lots of money.Unfortunately, the place she has to go is the town of Fallwell, Massachusetts. Having to stay a spell due to her car breaking down, she finds out that her great aunt left her 3 things: a house, a dog and a cookbook. The town residents have mixed reactions:the teens like her, the women hate her, and the men lust after her (Although trying to remain moral pillars of the community). Her worst problem turns out to be her great uncle Vincent (W. Morgan Sheppard), because he wants her cookbook. Seems that the cookbook is a book of spells that will make him a more powerful warlock.The film is actually pretty funny, with Peterson a.k.a. Elvira using her "endowments" and sexiness as a joke ("And don't forget, tomorrow we're showing the head with two things... I mean the thing with two heads"). Especially funny as Edie McClurg as Chastity Pariah, the woman that works her hardest to keep the town in line, but ends up looking ridiculous (The picnic scene is the perfect example). Deserves a peek (The film, not her boobs, of course). | 1 |
train_11524 | This is a quirky little movie, and I have to agree that there is some quirky acting in it as well.It follows the adventures of a young man who decides that he wants to become a famous Las Vegas illusionist, and is partly about following his dream, partly about the dreams of others, and all about the travails of showbiz. I thought the movie was charming, and it has a moment or two of real magic that make the whole thing worthwhile.Alan Arkin is terrific as the magician who never was, and his mentoring of Max makes for a funny and touching relationship.Not for everyone, probably, but if you like movies about the journey, then I think you'll like this one. | 1 |
train_5181 | I thoroughly enjoyed this film overall, but four things really stand out: Sam Raimi's perfect comic timing and performance as the camp handy(?)man, Alan Arkin's wonderful characterisation of the camp owner, and best of all, the cinematography. The beautiful golden tones of the exterior scenes draws me into the film like a sunset at the lakeshore draws me into my own summer memories.The dialog and mood feel very natural and believable. Some reviewers criticise the lack of a more "profound" script. To me, it is exactly that lack that makes this film work. The characters and their problems seem real and because of that, I care about what happens to them.The bottom line is that all the parts come together to create a whole that feels right. | 1 |
train_13789 | This was a new alltime low among westerns. The writing is excruciatingly bad, characters are impossible to emphasize with and are either disgusting or bland, the violence is appalling and technically not very convincingly executed. And Tobey Maguire shows us the flip side of his talent, sleepwalking through his part with those expressionless eyes and that raspy voice of his that here betrays only mannerism. 'Ride With the Devil' is among my five worst movie experiences ever, a western never to be surpassed in the negative respect. | 0 |
train_22655 | I have read several good reviews that have defended and critised the various aspects of this film. One thing I see, over and over, is annoyance with Megan, the idealistic political scientist, trying to change the world. I loved her character. Maybe, because I am a 23 year old political science student and I think I'm going to change the world too, so I relate to Megan. Besides, she's cute. She's no super model, but more of a cute girl next door.OK, so she cried and screamed a lot. It's very dramatic, and seems overdone, but doesn't it fit her character? She goes on that show with the intention of sacrificing her life to prove a point. She thinks people who enjoy such a show are sick. I think she made her argument very well. Of course, being a young naive girl, she is terrified of what she is about to face. I think her acting accurately portrays a young girl showing moral courage despite her overwhelming fear. Furthermore, I think she maintained a certain dignity throughout the film despite the desperate situation she was in.As for the movie in general, other than Megan, it was pretty much what I expected. It had excellent gore scenes, by micro-budget standards. The plot maybe took a quick thought, hardly any contemplation. It's basically just a dark humorist senseless slasher film, which the name implies. I love the sadism of the doctor. He kept ripping Megan's shirt off, not just for the cause of sleaze (though largely so), but also to torment her, before he kills her. The Chainsaw hick was hilarious. For slasher film lovers, he was probably the best character.I give this film 4 out of 10. It had a good setting, almost no plot, and a mix of good and terrible acting. I would recommend it for a cheap thrill, but hardly a diamond in the rough that is micro-budget horror. | 0 |
train_2178 | With lots of sunshine, gauzy light and shadow filtering through windows and into rooms, tracking shots moving through crowds with hand-held camera, quick-paced editing and extreme close-ups here and there, the photography is the thing in this interesting, artistically done film.The plot of this film starts out as a bit of fluff about a beauty contest. The film begins on a warm Sunday at the local swimming pool, where we meet the lovely Lucienne aka Lulu (played by Louise Brooks) - a bit of a show-off in front of the gawking men by poolside, she soon decides to enter herself to represent France in the Miss Europe beauty contest, much to the chagrin of her very jealous, stick-in-the-mud fiancé (a pretty annoying fellow, really). Strutting down the runway the ten contestants display themselves in swimsuits, while the winner is chosen as the contestant who receives the longest applause (I was wondering, couldn't the girls just walk slower to prolong their length of time - and thus applause - on the catwalk?!). Lulu is soon being chased by a Prince and a Maharaja, but her hot-headed beau doesn't like the attentions paid to her by other men or her adoring public, for that matter (I guess he just wants her in his house, cooking his meals, and staying out of sight, eh?!).Louise Brooks is beautiful and charming, her presence helps enhance this film, but it's really the way it is photographed that held my interest the most. A bit distracting is the odd dubbed sound, which is a bit off. The print on this version looked very clear and full of nice contrast though. Watching this I just tried to overlook the sound problems and watch the film visually, and I found the movie to be excellent, well worth seeing. | 1 |
train_8694 | It was in 1988, when I saw "The Ronnie and Nancy Show" for the first time (on Austrian television). At that time, I was already a very big fan of Spitting Image (since when it won the bronze rose of the Montreux Film Festival in 1986). Of course I recorded every show on tape and watched it again and again - especially "The Ronnie and Nancy Show". I remember that scene when Ronnie stood in front of a painting of Abraham Lincoln (thinking it was a mirror) and said to himself "I need a shave". Or most amusing of all, when he played ball with his dog - but vice-versa!It's such a shame, that Spitting Image seems to fall into oblivion; it was one of the most fantastic and most intelligent made TV-shows ever. Compared to other satirical broadcasts it was definitely the best of all. Well, almost 20 years have passed since then, and I wish I could see the show again. Is it possible to purchase it from someone... somewhere? | 1 |
train_9312 | I love to watch this movie a lot because of all the scary scenes about the raptors. I like raptors because they are scary. My favorite parts are the ones where the raptor looks behind the pillar because it reminds me of a scene from the Friday the 13th movie with the girl who eats the banana.I really love to watch a lot of this movie because the computer graphics seem a little fake but it's okay because once you get into the movie you hardly even notice what is going on and I think it's got a good ending even though I didn't really understand what was going on on my first couple viewings I figured it out over time and that's the important part. The other important part is how scary the dinosaurs can be if you're watching it the first time.THIS IS BEST MOVIE. | 1 |
train_7147 | I found the storyline in this movie to be very interesting. Best of all it left out the usual sex and violence (they're getting old) inserted in many movies. The movie was well done in its flashbacks to days gone by in that area of the Southwest. The acting was also superb. | 1 |
train_5628 | Having looked at some of the other comments here, I have a main complaint with this presentation. The two primary characters are attractive in their own ways - the beautiful "victim," and the handsome, obviously extremely "off-center," blue-collar protagonist (if just short of "totally-deranged") - take turns beating the hell out of each other, sort of like a Caucasian Kabuki scenario.This is all right, and this is, of course, mainly a "turning-the-tables" story. However, my referenced complaint is that I believe the director got caught-up in his desire to display Farrah's well-known and obvious physical attributes. Beginning with her being enticingly clad in a thin robe, and with a number of scenes displaying more than needed for any dramatic effect - while immensely pleasing to the eyes, these distract from the poignancy level of the drama.Her roommates I'm certain give performances as written and directed - however, their respective skepticism and histrionic babbling and sobbing, don't ring true -- based upon Farrah's previous experience with this guy, the obvious evidence of his having come to their premises with only the worst of intentions, and that she would have absolutely no grounds to be exaggerating what has occurred.But this is a film and story, compelling as much in spite of, as because of, the director's work. | 1 |
train_6913 | As a community theater actor who works hard at it but doesn't take acting too seriously, I'm always amused by those who treat it as Great Art. This movie skewers the "Actor's Craft" mercilessly while dishing up a lot of good laughs.A ham actor on location for a movie bears a resemblance to the dictator. When the dictator dies of a heart attack from too much drink and food, the actor is kidnapped and forced to play "the part of a lifetime" by the neo-Nazi head of the secret service. He plays it to the hilt, gets the dictator's girlfriend to fall in love with him and vice versa, and turns the tables on his captors beautifully.Lots of great shtick by the leads, lots of good work by some unknown supporting actors, particularly the household staff and two members of the palace guard, and fun little cameos abound. Sammy Davis Jr. makes light of himself, Jonathan Winters plays a semi-retired American businessman with something else going on, and Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, and above all Richard Dreyfuss are exceptional.This is a dumb movie, but it has lots of beautiful locations (in Brazil), a humorous script, and good actors doing their thing and looking like they're actually having fun and not going through the usual existential angst about what is only play-acting! | 1 |
train_8938 | A wonderful film version of the best-selling book and smash Broadway play about the lives of Sadie and Bessie Delany, two African-American sisters who both lived over the age of 100 and told their story of witnessing a century of American history. Ruby Dee and Diahann Carroll give very good performances as Bessie and Sadie, respectively. Amy Madigan also is good as Amy Hill Hearth, the white New York Times reporter whose article about the sisters launched the book, etc. Many of the flashback scenes and even many of the present-day ones are very powerful, if not quite as inspirational as in the book. That is the only real drawback, combined with the fact that certain aspects of the story are not presented clearly, such as the inter-racial background of the sisters' mother and why their father was so stern. But other than that, a very well-done, excellently performed, powerful movie. | 1 |
train_7764 | Another classic study of the effects of wealth on a southern family is masterfully depicted in Written on the Wind.Kyle Hadley has it all. Wealth, a plane, you name it. Kyle's best friend, Mitch, has always gotten him out of difficulty. Mitch finished college, Kyle got thrown out. Mitch is not from a wealthy home. Kyle's family, with Hadley Oil, controls most of everything in the town.While in N.Y., Kyle meets the girl of his dreams, nicely played by Lauren Bacall. After a whirlwind romance, he marries her and brings her home. There she meets her father-in-law who warns her how difficult Kyle can be. Kyle sleeps with a gun under his pillow. The Bacall character meets Kyle's sister, Mary Lee, a tramp if ever there were, played to the fullest by Dorothy Malone, who was voted best supporting actress.Rock Hudson plays Mitch, the faithful friend.A year of wedded bliss for Kyle and his bride ends when Kyle is told by the doctor that he can't have children. It is when his wife reveals to him that she is indeed pregnant, Kyle, thinking that the child is Mitch's, goes on a drunken frenzy and is accidentally shot dead in a memorable scene.Mary Lee, who has always loved Mitch, tries but is unsuccessful in blaming Mitch for Kyle's death. In a memorable courtroom scene, Malone pulled out all the stops in finally admitting that Kyle's death was an unfortunate accident. Her Oscar was well deserved.Surprisingly, Robert Stack, brilliant as Kyle Hadley, was nominated for best supporting actor and lost in an upset victory by Anthony Quinn, as Paul Gauguin, in Lust for Life.Douglas Sirk was the master of soap opera films of the 1950s. Written on the Wind is no exception. ***1/2. | 1 |
train_9387 | As others have commented, I checked this out after Siskel and Ebert listed this as one of their top 10 movies of the year. What a gift. I then went out to buy it, just so that I could loan it out.Best quote? Dwight Yoakum stops his truck when he realizes that someone (Cage) is on top of his cab. When Cage peers down, he apologizes. "I'm sorry if I scared you." Yoakum thrusts his pistol in Cage's face with "Does THIS look like I'm scared?" Great bit of humor after an exciting (and temporary) escape.There really was a sense of fun to this. The constant sighting of the "Welcome to Red Rock" sign elicits a groan and a smiling head shake. The music created a hunting, eerie quality to the film reminiscent of "Twin Peaks". Unlike "Twin Peaks", though, it doesn't spoil things by going too far into the outlandish, needing to "top" itself.I admit watching the credits 15-20 times. You see, they had Yoakum's "Thousand Miles from Nowhere" (perfectly chosen) playing as a freight train curved around down to the desert floor . . with snow-capped mountains in the distance. This was incredible, fluid framing. Further, I've never seen a better unification of sight and sound on film. Also, it totally fit the story. | 1 |
train_20150 | I know I'm in the minority, but...Uwe Boll is about as talented as a frog. Not even a toad; just a frog. He's reminiscent of about a hundred other no-talent hacks who churn out one useless crap-fest after another. This movie? Is a crap-fest. Slater's talent is only minimally utilized leading one to believe he's got other things (like his failed relationship) on his mind. Reid performs as if she has either forgotten her acting lessons, been severely hit on the head and MADE to forget her acting lessons, or has one of the worst directors in the history of film. I'm voting on the third choice, myself, although the other two are always possible. Uwe Boll has never done a single thing from which I've derived even the slightest pleasure. Frankly, I'm satisfied that he made this stinker. I was concerned with Bloodrayne competing with "Underworld: Evolution" for ticket sales. Now, I'm confident that Len Wiseman has nothing, and I mean NOTHING, to worry about.This rates a 1.0/10 rating for this messy, convoluted crap-fest, from...the Fiend :. | 0 |
train_7631 | Kurt Russell's chameleon-like performance, coupled with John Carpenter's flawless filmmaking, makes this one, without a doubt, one of the finest boob-tube bios ever aired. It holds up, too: the emotional foundation is strong enough that it'll never age; Carpenter has preserved for posterity the power and ultimate poignancy of the life of the one and only King of Rock and Roll. (I'd been a borderline Elvis fan most of my life, but it wasn't until I saw this mind-blowingly moving movie that I looked BEYOND the image at the man himself. It was quite a revelation.) ELVIS remains one of the top ten made-for-tv movies of all time. | 1 |
train_22007 | I always get frustrated by films that were obviously written by one gender. Especially when they obviously don't do enough research to find out when something not only doesn't ring true, but rings blatently false.The scene I am remembering is the one in the bathroom where Jack tells his football teammates that he got Diane pregnant. In no way, shape, or form would a guy ever cheer another guy getting a girl pregnant in high school. They might cheer about the guy having sex with the hot cheerleader, but I can also guarantee that the first the football team heard about it would not be at a urinal.It was obvious that this film didn't take itself so seriously, and it wasn't hideously bad, but come on! | 0 |
train_13955 | I have rarely been subjected to such outright nonsense in a film that is supposed to be based on a historical figure. A horrible joke of a film, I cringed throughout. Terrible, trite, distorted and riddled with outright lies and half truths.The famous Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw was to originally be a consultant for this film. However, he found the script to be so historically inaccurate and ridiculous that he refused, and also demanded they stop using his name as a source (it embarrassed him to think people would think he was involved).One scene shows Hitler beating his dog. There is not one source for this. Hitler loved animals above people. He brought in the strictest animal welfare laws in Europe, banned vivisection and animal experimentation. He was also a vegetarian.The film turns his gaining of the Iron Cross into a farce, involving bribery. Utter lies. He was awarded it for repeated acts of bravery over a long period of time.There are no historical documents showing that Hitler ever had a sexual relationship with his niece. Not one.Apart from these, Hitler is portrayed as a rabid simpleton in this garbage flick.If he was even half as ignorant, demented and thick as he is in this nonsense film as in real life you would not even know he had ever existed. Never mind become the leader of Germany.Honestly, this film was utterly terrible.Go watch Downfall and give this a very wide berth. | 0 |
train_8491 | I saw this movie when it was new. Later I rented it in Japan after having been here three years, afraid that I would cringe when I viewed it in the harsh light of my expanded international experience. The movie pleasantly surprised me with how accurately it portrays the culture clash between Japan and Pennsylvania (where I'm from). Not all the stuff is factually spot on, but the tone is perfect.I'm still in Japan many years later, and I continue to enjoy this film for its even-handed treatment of the two sides in the story. Interestingly, although the Japanese-American actors spoke Japanese in the original, the dialog is redubbed in the Japan version to cover up obvious second-language delivery problems.I noticed one reviewer uses this in a Japanese class. I think you can learn more about what to expect from an encounter with Japan by watching this film than by reading any of the "serious" books on the matter (most of which were written in the 80s and financed by propagandizing Japanese companies).Don't be fooled by drag on the average rating caused by one-star reviewers who, among other things, found it implausible that the Japanese would want to build cars in the US. (Of course, the Japanese operate many factories there to be close to the customers and to avoid trade friction.) This is a very warm and funny movie that I would rate higher were it not for a few 80s clichés, like the dancing around to cheesy electronic disco music. Michael Keaton has never been funnier. | 1 |
train_10942 | I would give this show a ten out of ten if it was not for the fart jokes. You people are so damn sensitive it is inane! So quick to point out the "racism" of the show and the jokes, yet are also so quick to say ridiculously sexist, pig-headed crap like "well, duh, some of these other shows do these jokes so much better because at least they have hot women." So disgusting. Abortion jokes are great because, really, who takes abortion seriously anyways? At least I'm not a*bore*son. I hear that Reba McEntire and Sarah Silverman are teaming up to do a movie about sisters taking a road trip together. Talk about a movie of the year! | 1 |
train_12621 | Whoever wrote the screenplay for this movie obviously never consulted any books about Lucille Ball, especially her autobiography. I've never seen so many mistakes in a biopic, ranging from her early years in Celoron and Jamestown to her later years with Desi. I could write a whole list of factual errors, but it would go on for pages. In all, I believe that Lucille Ball is one of those inimitable people who simply cannot be portrayed by anyone other than themselves. If I were Lucie Arnaz and Desi, Jr., I would be irate at how many mistakes were made in this film. The filmmakers tried hard, but the movie seems awfully sloppy to me. | 0 |
train_17581 | Was there a single positive to this film? Critics who knew nothing of video games could spot the gaming errors made. No damage taken with damage clearly visible towards the beginning being a primary example.And I may have missed something, but wasn't Super Mario Bros. 3 suppose to be a game that had never played before? Well if that IS the case, and I did not miss anything... how did Fred Savage's character, and even the girl, know so much about the game already? We're talking things that some people don't know about by their second or third play-through.Beyond the factual and gaming errors there is the general low quality of the film itself. Nothing here is honestly very memorable. The kid wasn't even that good at playing video games in the footage they showed. A lot of kids I knew way back in those days were significantly more experienced. On top of all this the acting and storyline are just mediocre at their strongest points. The characters are bland and completely uninteresting, the 'Wizard' (the youngest child) is a very silent, completely dry child cliché of a little kid who almost never talks because of a trauma. It isn't that this is unrealistic, it's the fact that it had to be thrown into the movie to actually even begin to form a plot that would exceed even 30 minutes.Honestly, the only value that is to be found here is that of a nostalgic nature. If you grew up with this movie you're going to like it whether it was good or not. It was about kids playing video games, and at the time you saw it you likely had an obsession with the NES as well. But unless you loved it as a kid there just isn't anything that's going to keep you interested, and very little that will prevent you from turning it off.No sir, I didn't like it. | 0 |
train_14653 | The 3-D featured in "The Man Who Wasn't There" stands for DUMB, DUMB, DUMB! This inept comedy features lousy 3-D effects that makes the 3-D effects in "Jaws 3", "Amityville 3", and "Friday the 13th Part 3" look better by comparison. Not to mention the movie is asinine to the extreme. This was one of many 1983 movies to feature the pop-off-the-screen effects. Steve Guttenberg and Jeffrey Tambor got trapped in this mess, but at least it didn't kill their careers. Tambor would go on to star on HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show" and Ron Howard's box office smash "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", while Guttenberg followed this flop with "Police Academy" and "Cocoon". What them in those projects instead of them here in "The Man Who Wasn't There". If you do, you'll regret it.1/2* (out of four) | 0 |
train_11823 | I thoroughly enjoyed this true to form take on the Dick Tracy persona. This is a well done product that used modern technology to craft a imagery filled comic era story. If you are a fan of or recently watched some of the old Dick Tracy b&w movies then you're sure to get a kick out of this rendition. The pastel colors and larger than life characters rendered in a painstakingly authentic take on an era gone by is entertainment as it's meant to be. I personally find Madonna's musical element to be a major part of this film-the CD featuring her music from this movie is one I've listened to often over the years, it's just so well done and performed musically and tuned to that era. In my mind, Madonna's finest moment both on-screen but especially musically. This is sure to bring out the "kid" in you. | 1 |
train_22939 | I'd like to think myself as a fairly open minded guy and it takes a lot(!) for me to dislike a movie but this one is without a doubt one of the suckiest, crappiest movie I've ever seen!I have no idea what's wrong with the people who gave it such a good rating here (imdb is usually pretty reliable when it comes to ratings)... the only thing I can imagine is that people must've voted during one or more conditions:1. While being shitfaced / stoned out of their minds 2. They've received hard cash for the votes 3. Under gunpointI can't believe I wasted a good 1 h 45 min of my life for this pathetic excuse for a movie. | 0 |
train_16707 | Ghost Town starts as Kate Barrett (Catherine Hickland) drives along an isolated desert road, her car suddenly breaks down & she hears horses hoofs approaching... Deputy Sheriff Langley (Frank Luz) of Riverton County is called in to investigate Kate's disappearance after her father reports her missing. He finds her broken down car & drives off looking for her, unfortunately his car breaks down too & he has to walk. Langley ends up at at a deserted rundown ghost town, much to his shock Langley soon discovers that it is quite literally a ghost town as it's populated by the ghosts of it's former residents & is run by the evil Devlin (Jimmie F. Skaggs) who has kidnapped Kate for reasons never explained & it's up to Langley to rescue her & end the towns curse...The one & only directorial effort of Richard Governor this odd film didn't really do much for me & I didn't like it all that much. The script by Duke Sandefur tries to mix the horror & western genres which it doesn't do to any great effect. Have you ever wondered why there aren't more horror western hybrid films out there? Well, neither have I but if I were to ask myself such a question I would find all the answers in Ghost Town because it's not very good. The two genres just don't mix that well. There are plenty of clichés, on the western side of things there's the innocent townsfolk who are to scared to stand up to a gang of thugs who are terrorising them, the shoot-outs in the main street, saloon bars with swing doors & prostitutes upstairs & horror wise there's plenty of cobwebs, some ghosts, an ancient curse, talking corpses & a few violent kills. I was just very underwhelmed by it, I suppose there's nothing terribly wrong with it other than it's just dull & the two genres don't sit together that well. There are a few holes in the plot too, why did Devlin kidnap Kate? I know she resembled his previous girlfriend but how did he know that & what was he going to do with her anyway? We never know why this ghost town is full of ghosts either, I mean what's keeping them there & what caused them to come back as ghosts? Then there's the bit at the end where Devlin after being shot says he can't be killed only for Langley to kill him a few seconds later, I mean why didn't the bullets work in the first place?Director Governor does alright, there's a nice horror film atmosphere with some well lit cobweb strewn sets & the standard Hollywood western town is represented here with a central street with wooden buildings lining either side of it. I wouldn't say it's scary because it isn't, there's not much tension either & the film drags in places despite being only just over 80 odd minutes in length. Forget about any gore, there a few bloody gunshot wounds, an after the fact shot of two people with their throats slit & someone is impaled with a metal pole & that's it.I'd have imagined the budget was pretty small here, it's reasonably well made & is competent if nothing else. Credit where credit's due the period costumes & sets are pretty good actually. The acting is alright but no-ones going to win any awards.Ghost Town is a strange film, I'm not really sure who it's meant to appeal to & it certainly didn't appeal to me. Anyone looking for a western will be annoyed with the dumb horror elements while anyone looking for a horror film will be bored by the western elements. It's something a bit different but that doesn't mean it's any good, worth a watch if your desperate but don't bust a gut to see it. | 0 |
train_2555 | The movie wasn't all that great. The book is better. But the movie wasn't all that bad either. It was interesting to say the least. The plot had enough suspense to keep me watching although I wouldn't say I was actually interested in the movie itself. Janine Turner and Antonio Sabato Jr are both gorgeous enough to keep you watching :)They have a few cute scene's that should appeal to the romantic's. Overall I'd give the movie a 7 or 8. It wasn't bad, Just a little lacking plot wise. | 1 |
train_1974 | I think the reason for all the opinionated diarrhea on this movie is that most people have it out for Sharon Stone being around 50 and getting naked while playing sexy. No one cared when the Golden Girls sat around eating cheesecake and discussing their first orgasm, but to see someone post menopausal getting digitally pleased while driving I guess is just too much for some to handle. Let's face it, she looks good, she's light years hotter than my mother who's the same age! It's not an Oscar or a cult classic like the first, but ever since the turn of the century that's all movie goers seem to expect: a cinematic experience that will touch your soul. As such, it never claims to be either. It's an erotic thriller that is both erotic and thrilling, and is a continuation of a brilliant character that we all love to hate. It's the character of Catherine Trammell that helped give way for this sequel. Fans of the first movie want to see more of that frosty ice queen.The cinematography and art direction were lush and extravagant and made me want to move to Britian for sure. The score is amazing as well.Sure there's some overacting from some characters but there's some brilliant work from David Morrissey who's virtually unknown.There's a setback in that the script is virtually the same as the first movie only plugging in a psychiatrist in place of the cop. As well as the criminal decision of the MPAA to force the movie to be cut down even more which takes away from the guilty-pleasure raunchiness that the story is known for.At the very least it's entertaining and fun to look at it, and that's the movie's only intentions. So if you've got beef with Mizz Stone, maybe you should actually SEE the movie and draw your own conclusions before you spew forth your projectile vomit? | 1 |
train_692 | I first saw this movie at a festival. There were many good movies, but few kept me thinking about it long after, and An Insomniac's Nightmare was definitely one of them. Tess is definitely a gifted filmmaker. The shots were great. Casting was perfect. Dominic shined in his role that she perfectly crafted. There wasn't a lot to know about his character, but she wrote the story in such a way that we cared about him. And Ellen-- I can't wait to see where she ends up! She's showing a lot of talent and I hope she does a few more films. With all the million dollar budgets trying to get a cheap thrill, Tess shows that it's all not needing as long as there is a good story and actors. Kudos to everyone involved with this film. And thanks to Tess and co. for distributing it on DVD! | 1 |
train_8588 | It might not be the best movie of 2006 but it was a just a movie to excite and to think about.The Sentinel is a good political thriller movie which seems similar to or even borrows some elements from other political thriller movies such as In the Line of Fire and The Manchurian Candidate. The basic plot of this movie is similar to other movies like this: A plot to kill the President of the United States. Michael Douglas stars as Secret Service Agent Pete Garrison who spearheads the operation only to find out later that he has been framed.Kiefer Sutherland co-stars as a sort of rival by the name of David Breckinridge and Eva Longoria as Jill Marin who is a rookie agent going under the guidance of Agent Breckinridge and Academy Award winner Kim Basinger as First Lady Sarah Ballentine. One improvement for this movie could have been more action as it is by some sources considered just as much an Action film as is a Thriller film but a good thing about this movie is instead of just an assassination plot to kill the US President,it also concerns a mole(traitor) in the Secret Service who is leading the President in the wrong direction. | 1 |
train_7122 | In the immediate aftermath following World War II, sound minds in Hollywood tried to distance themselves from the mindless flag-waving that is a natural ingredient in a war effort. "Best Years of Our Lives' and even 'Gentleman's Agreement' investigated the way Americans looked at themselves in the wake of the war, but Delmer Daves' "Pride of the Marines" beat them to it.The film is about Philadelphia smart alec John Garfield who goes to war as a marine and after a nightmarish evening in a foxhole, with Japanese soldiers eerily crying out at him and his buddies "Mariiines, tonight you die!", he is blinded by a hand-grenade, and dumps his girlfriend back home rather than have to depend on her after coming home.Delmer Daves is uncompromising in his depiction on these men who are brave, as it were, almost by coincidence. They are there, in the foxhole, and when shot at, they react. So much for heroism, but they get the job done. And then comes the self-pity, the dark, gloomy sense of humor. Garfield is in angry denial of his blindness and the film makes no excuses, "There's no free candy for anyone in this world", as his buddy tells him. The same guy, a Jew, played by Dane Clark, reminds him, "In a war somebody gets it, and you're it. Everybody's got problems! When I get back, some guys won't hire me, because my name is Diamond".Great movies are made with guts like these, and if the first half hour of 'Pride of the Marines' fails to rise to the occasion completely, from then on it evolves into a true work of art. You weep, and you ponder, you ache and you hope against hope. Well, simply: art. | 1 |
train_20132 | Many people see this as a classic, but I obviously must have missed something. Life in Anarene, Texas in the early 50's is pretty dull - which means that a movie about life in Anarene, Texas in the early 50's will be pretty dull too! What is it that so many people see in this? Once the last picture show in Anarene closes there really won't be anything to do in town. Duane (Jeff Bridges) makes that point at the end of the movie. But even before it closes there isn't much to do, so basically everything revolves around sex. High school students make plans for how to lose their virginity - sometimes with each other and sometimes with some of the equally bored adults in town. You see, there's not much for them to do either - except to have sex (sometimes with each other and sometimes with the bored teenagers) or to whine about the local high school football team. Three times something happened that I thought was going to add some spark of drama to the movie. Sam (Ben Johnson) dies unexpectedly, but nothing really happens because of that, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Jacy (Cybill Shepherd) elope, but nothing really happens because of that, Joe Bob (Barc Doyle) kidnaps a little girl, but nothing really happens because of that. The only thing that added anything of dramatic value to the movie came at the end with the death of Billy (Sam Bottoms) which really points out the emptiness of life in this pathetic little town, as the men stand around looking at the body debating where to go for breakfast.Peter Bogdanovic filmed this in black and white, which is intended I suppose to point out how grey this town is, but the only thing I found interesting was the early look at actors like Bottoms, Shepherd, Bridges and Randy Quaid. (As an aside it was terrifying to see how much Quaid - in 1971 - actually looks like his character of Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon Vacation movies.) Classic? I don't think so! 3/10 | 0 |
train_18942 | Not only does the film's author, Steven Greenstreet, obviously idolize Michael Moore, but he also follows in his footsteps by using several of Moore's Propaganda film-making tactics. Moore has expertise in distracting the viewer from this focus though, while Greenstreet is obviously less skilled here.Having been privy to all of the issues surrounding Moore's speech at UVSC, I was disappointed to see that the major complaints of the community -- that Moore was being paid $40,000 of the State of Utah 's educational funds to basically promote John Kerry's campaign and to advertise his own liberal movie -- were pushed to the background by Greenstreet while lesser issues were sensationalized.The marketing methods for this video have been equally biased and objectionable... promoting the film by claiming that "Mormon's tried to kill Moore". Not only is this preposterous, but it defames a major religion that Greenstreet obviously has some personal issues with. I followed Moore's visit very closely, and all of the major news agencies noted that Moore's visit came and went without any credible security problems or incidents in Utah.Greenstreet has banked on this film to jump-start his film-making career to the point that he has even dropped out of film school to help accelerate this. This seems to have been a severe miscalculation though, since Moore's visits to roughly 60 other colleges and Universities across the country in 2004 diluted interest for this rather common event. Greenstreet's assumption that American audiences would be interested in this film due to the promoted religious and conservative angles doesn't seem to be well founded.Even the name of the film, This Divided State, is somewhat of a misnomer since Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bush's re-election and thus appears to be more politically unified than any other State. The division in the movie title seems more indicative of the gulf that exists in Greenstreet's ideological differences with his religion and State. If anything, I find a humorous correlation between the religious angle of this supposed documentary and Woody Allen's hilarious contention in Sleeper (1973) that, "I was beaten up by Quakers". | 0 |
train_2091 | What Irving Thalberg did in making this film today would never be attempted again. Making a Chinese story with occidental players even if they are of the caliber of Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Charley Grapewin, and Walter Connolly among others.Perhaps it's partly because the story was written by a westerner, Pearl Buck who got a Pulitzer Prize for her novel in 1932. Ms. Buck, daughter of Chinese missionaries, probably brought China closer to the consciousness of America than any other person. Not the political struggles of China, but the lives and toil of the every day people we find in The Good Earth. Unfortunately later on, Pearl Buck became an apologist for the Kuomintang China of Chiang Kai-Shek in all its virtues and excesses. The rest of her literary output never matched The Good Earth.In The Sundowners there is a great description of comparing China to Australia by Peter Ustinov. When asked the difference, Ustinov said China was very big and very full and Australia was very big and very empty. That's what you see in The Good Earth, China very big and very full of people, more than she can deal with at times.The Good Earth tells the story of Wang Lung (Paul Muni) as a young man who purchases a wife from a large house where she was a slave. The woman O-Lan (Luise Rainer) bears him two sons and sees him through all the good times and bad they have, drought, famine, revolution, and a climatic locust plague.Luise Rainer won the second of two consecutive Oscars for portraying O-Lan. She may have set some kind of record in that it has to be the leading player Oscar performance with the least amount of dialog. Everything she does practically is done with facial expressions, her performance could have been on a silent film with very minimal subtitles. I think only John Mills in Ryan's Daughter had fewer words and he was playing a mentally retarded man.Muni is not always appreciative of how supportive she is in that male dominated culture. Rainer helps in the field, bears and raises the kids, does the housework. When Muni becomes a man of property he takes a Chinese second trophy wife who causes him a lot of grief. Still Rainer stoically bears it all. Still Muni is not a bad man and it's a tribute to the film and his acting and Buck's writing that you don't hate him and the culture gap is bridged. We've got a group of oriental players now who do more than just Kung Fu movies. I'm surprised The Good Earth of all films has not been remade at this point. I'll bet the Chinese government would even let some American company do it on an actual location.Till then we've got this great classic to appreciate and enjoy. | 1 |
train_22070 | For the first time in years, I've felt the need to log into IMDb today to cleanse myself of this movie by writing a review, because it was just such a let-down to watch. The plot sounded awesome when I read it, I expected a minimal mystery thriller, a claustrophobic phantom hunt. Unfortunately, it all gets watered down so bad by a mundane, tiring love story and too many contrived and teeth-gnashingly stupid "no-one-says-things-like-this-except-in-bad-movies"-dialogs that it's just agonizing.Here's a quick run down of the worst offenses of this piece of film: - The script relies so heavily on coincidences and the inexplicable and inexcusable stupidity of the main characters that it's just laughable. No, actually, it's angering. And lazy.- Related to that: Cheap thrills. A long parade "just in time" moments.- The main characters. Alright, it seems that the screenwriter has never experienced actual human beings in real life, but instead has gained all his knowledge from bad movies. Thus, his characters are boring, lifeless second generation clichés. They are mere plot-devices, place-holders without the slightest bit of personality. They are "man and woman in break-up who still love each other". Never seen that one before except in 100,000 movies and it's not getting any more realistic or enjoyable. Think of the blandest two-dimensional Hollywood fare and you've got it. There is not one character in this movie that is even remotely fresh, charming, or interesting.- The far-fetched, vague resolution that's swaying very bad and needs just one nudge to topple, though the word "resolution" might be ill-fitting here, because the movie is a swampy mess that isn't going anywhere anyway. By the time you're through, though, you don't care anymore. The last third of the movie I just fast-forwarded, because it was just so unbearable to watch.Okay, that's it. Whatever redeeming features this movie has, it all gets buried under incompetence. Don't watch this turd. | 0 |
train_6044 | A great British Indy movie! Fantastic chemistry between the 3 main characters make for some hilarious drug-fuelled set pieces that Cheech and Chong would be proud of. Great to see Phil Daniels back on the big screen (even if he has swapped sides since Quadrophenia!) and Gary Stretch is surprisingly good and a treat for the ladies! Loved the final fight scene with it's nod to Zulu and now I know what happened to Arthur Brown after he set himself on fire on Top of the Pops!...he's not acting....he really is a bona-fide British hippie!!! You don't have to be a biker to enjoy this and it's straight into my Friday night post-pub repeat viewing collection. Give this film a go and you won't be disappointed. | 1 |
train_20921 | Funny that I find myself forced to review this movie, but here I am.I am reviewing it, because just recently, I have had the chance to witness the revival of R.C. Sheriff's play "Journey's End" on stage in New York, at the Belasco Theatre, starring Hugh Darcy, Boyd Gaines, Jefferson Mays and others, as well as being masterfully directed by David Grindley.I left the theater shattered. I am not exaggerating, I was flabbergasted. After almost two and a half hours of a recreated and very claustrophobic depiction of soldier's life in the trenches of the Somme (I speculate), during World War One, brought to life vividly, by everyone involved, I came out of the theater with the shakes.Mind you, I am not easily shocked, nor am I too sensitive. I am a stage actor and a director myself, so I know the buttons being pressed to achieve certain effects, both emotionally, as well as psychologically.But what I had just witnessed, came so much to life, that I had chills in my spine as I left.None of these emotions came to life, while watching "Aces High", the movie based on this play and even adapted for the screen, in cooperation with R.C. Sheriff himself, shortly before he died.The screen adaptation takes place in the skies over France. So, gone is the claustrophobic ambiance to start with.The only plus of the movie, are the aerial battle scenes, which look dated in their special effects, compared to today's standards, but still very valid in the flying tactics adopted on screen.Granted there had been a couple of screen adaptations of "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque, which takes place in trenches, and not in the sky, but that was the "German" vision on things, if one would like to be picky on such things."Journey's End" is just the other side of the medal, and would have made it into a great movie, if they had left it alone and intact.The transfer on DVD is poor, even though in Widescreen and adapted for 16:9 TV screens, the quality of the film itself is that of a movie theater. Nothing more, nothing less. It sports various defects, such as minor scratches and dots, although the copy, for the rest, is clean.If you want another WWI movie in your collection, especially for those who love and enjoy to see aerial battles among old-timers, then this is a picture for you. But I rather would suggest "Von Richthofen and Brown" as an alternative, although that too, is a movie filled with inaccuracies.For the rest of you, who love good acting and drama, I would leave this one out. Buy the play. Go watch the play, if you have the chance to get a decent revival of it near you, but keep off this would-be adaptation.It is an anti-war movie, granted, but the weakest I have ever seen in my lifetime ever.The presence of actors such as Trevor Howard, Ray Milland, Richard Johnson and John Gielgud, is just a bluff, since they are just seen in very weak and very brief cameo roles throughout the movie.McDowell, the very talented Christopher Plummer, Simon Ward and Peter Firth, all deliver very weak performances, not due to their lack of skills, but rather due to lack of true and solid direction.There are too many gaps in it, and as said before, it drags itself to the dubious end. Dubious because in the original play, none of the men we come to know and sympathize with, stay alive. They are all killed in a fatal and futile mission. In the movie they all die, except Malcolm McDowell, who manages somehow to stay alive another day, being the wing commander of the unlucky bunch, just to receive another three pilots to fly and die for another lost cause.The end of the play leaves a bare stage in total darkness. You just hear the cannons roar, the machine guns rattle, and grenade impacts throughout the theater. Then, suddenly, total peace and silence. The curtain comes up. Lights. And here they all are. Lined up, standing straight and rigid. Obedient corpses...Far more interesting and far more shocking than "Aces High" finale, which is also dragged by the hair.It is up to you to judge.For me, if I had the money and the contacts to do so, I would take the play and develop it, the way it was meant. Adding here and there some action scene in the field, just to visualize the "outer" horror and slaughter going on in the "vasty fields of France", around the men involved, but then, just strictly concentrating on what is going on, in that tiny "shack" at the edge of sanity and the world...Want such a movie?Then ask for it.This is not it. | 0 |
train_6583 | This long episode packs amount of astounding of surprises, thriller, mystery and concerns about a battle of wits of Sherlock against Charles Augustus Milverton, a master blackmailer. This is an excellent overlong runtime of Jeremy Brett-Holmes series. In the film appear usual Holmes's cannon as Inspector Lestrade and Mrs Hudson, though no Moriarty, however is a greatest villain, Charles Augustus.It's a genuine ripping yarn with intrigue, thrills, and suspense, including an exciting final twist. This is a particular Sherlock movie but we find to Holmes falling in love with a servant, kissing, crying and even robbing. This time along with the episode ¨Scandal in Boheme¨ with Irene Adler, result to be the only one which Holmes is enamored. Top-notch Brett performance, he alongside Peter Cushing are the best Sherlock TV , while in the cinema is forever Basil Rathbone. Brett performs as a resolutive, headstrong, impetuous sleuth. Here Doctor Watson isn't a comic, botcher, and clumsy pal personified by Nigel Bruce, but is an astute and cunning partner well incarnated by Edward Hardwicke, a perfect counterpoint of Brett. Casting is frankly magnificent, special mention to Robert Hardy as astute nasty. Hardy, today famous by role as Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter, is a veteran actor with forty years of career and with several success such as, The 10th kingdom and Winston Churchill. Furthermore appear secondaries actors with terrific performances, Nickolas Grace, Sophie Gordon, Serena Gordon, among others. The movie gets a colorful atmosphere , the London streets and 221 Baker Street's house are well designed. The motion picture is well directed by Peter Hammond, director of various episodes. It's a must see for the Arthur Conan Doyle fans. | 1 |
train_12185 | THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI is proof that the great genius Orson Welles could direct a "mainstream" movie if he wanted to. By comparison to his other, more artistic works, this film has only a moderate amount of craftiness, and almost no esoteric elements.The exception being, of course, the final scene in the hall of mirrors, widely agreed to be one of the greatest scenes in the history of film. It alone is worth the cost of a rental.The sweet surprise was the superb acting by the beautiful Rita Hayworth. Her acting during the beginning and middle of the film is so excellent, she made the other actors appear as caricatures instead of characters. Even the great Mr. Welles. | 1 |
train_555 | My comment would have been added to the RELEASE DATE section, but I couldn't find a place for it. I was really surprised to see that this movie was released in the U.S. in Feb., 1955. I saw it in a "first run" theater in Washington, D.C. in March, 1958. Wonder if it was re-released, or some problem? In my opinion, this movie is very light entertainment, but has some classic characters. John McIntyre does a bang-up job as a corrupt judge/entrepreneur/thief. Walter Brennan does basically the same role he did in Red River years earlier. And, in my opinion, James Stewart gives as fine a performance as he ever did. I have seen this movie a half dozen times or more, and never tire of seeing parts of it again. The photography and scenery are splendid, and it offers a remarkable amount of entertainment in one hour and thirty-six minutes. | 1 |
train_3024 | A film that dramatized an understandable reluctance to face the inevitable coming of the the second world war, when a Spanish Republican, sent by his soon to be overthrown government, (Charles Boyer) infiltrates himself into England looking for support for his cause by trying to influence wealthy mine owners not to sell coal to the fascists back in Spain. He upsets the locals, getting convincingly beaten in one scene, and later in the film facing an angry crowd of miners who see him as yet another threat to their shaky livelihood. Notwithstanding socio-economic hierarchy, xenophobia, and world politics, this film expertly delves into a dark and suspenseful intrigue involving unfaithful compatriots played by Katina Paxinou and Peter Lorre, and is expertly filmed in numerous darkly lit scenes set in a dreary hotel by James Wong Howe, and manages more than once to get under your skin. | 1 |
train_9847 | Had fun watching this film.. despite the feeling I got a lot of the time, that this film was almost copying Monsters Inc. There're quite a few things that are extremely similar between the two, the relationship between an animal/monster and a small child, other animals trying to break that relationship, etc. It felt like that pretty much throughout the film, to me.One of the redeeming features though, is Scrat :) Very very funny character, even if he serves no purpose :) | 1 |
train_16657 | The above seemed a much more appropriate title when me and my suicidal underlings decided to watch this masterpiece of modern bullshit Erotic,Scary, Suspenseful, Well thought out, these are all the things this film fails to be.It is however incredibly funny, the slow sound effects and bad dubbing add to this to make one of the greatest comedies I have seen in recent years. And yet this film doesn't even try to be funny and that is one of the movies grand achievements, it becomes a comedy without even attempting to amuse.Throughout the film an old guy who looks amazingly like Santa Claus goes around ploughing over zombies and smashing vampires into the ground. This made me fail to believe the films title, if this was vampires vs zombies why were the vampires and zombies not fighting? Oh well whatever, besides there were more flaws to this rental than the title. Such as this one; there has been a virus sweeping through America creating zombie like beings who go around acting a lot like your average tourist. And yet there's only four zombies in the entire film. Another problem is besides one shop everywhere is deserted. Surely you'd see zombies roaming about in the woods or in the background a bit. In fact I believe they just drove around in a circle of forest over and over again since they didn't have a high enough budget to film in a wider location, that or the director didn't want to waste his precious time filming in different areas of wood he was to busy sitting in a trailer jerking off to be bothered with such trivial matters.In fact the director had so much fun doing this that he didn't have enough time to hire a big enough cast or even an editor. And so he told the eight members of the cast to dress up as different people and try not to act inconspicuous, whilst I assume he changed his name and began randomly snipping at the film reels "editing isn't a hard job anyway right?" The only reason this "movie" found it's way into our bag was because somehow we got it confused with Freddy vs Jason, strange how these things happen isn't it. And the only way we made it though the night was by strapping gas masks on and bolting them to our skulls to avoid the stink of this nauseating mess.Oh yes we did laugh at the end, but I'm sure one does that a lot when he has lost his sanity................... | 0 |
train_4719 | This movie is why I found this website. I couldn't find this movie anywhere else! I am so glad we found it here! We have seen it on TV before and wanted desperately to find it and buy and have several friends interested in buying it. One other poster commented that it is was boring, though I must say that it is NOT. Especially if you are a horse person, you will love this movie. The horses are awesome, well trained and the movie is well done. It is certainly one we will be purchasing for our home DVD library. We will be recommending it to our friends. The bond made between man and horse in this film was so inspiring and made you want to spend more time with your horses. This is certainly a movie that we will watch several times. | 1 |
train_8141 | I picked up the movie with no cover and not even knowing what it was, but when I watched it I laughed so hard. It is now one of my favorite movies of all time. Rusty and the guys created a masterpiece I would highly recommend this movie to any one with a sense of humor. Thank You Rusty for giving us something to laugh at. | 1 |
train_20581 | One of the requirements of science fiction, at least before it starts to become satire, is that it be somewhat plausible. I would think that an anti-matter bomb would do considerably more damage than for what it was intended. But I'll leave that to the physicists who might have seen Solar Crisis.It is a crisis the earth is facing because solar flares are getting totally out of hand. They're getting close to Earth, so much so that it's become unseasonably hot, as if the entire Earth were Death Valley. The answer is an anti-matter bomb which a space ship will have to take to the sun and explode it there. That will divert the flares off in say the direction of say Mercury providing it's not in direct alignment with the Earth. Who to deliver it, but captain Tim Matheson and his crew. That is if he can keep his mind on the business at hand and not on runaway son, Corin Nemec. Taking care of the personal side of the family problems is admiral Charlton Heston, Matheson's father, and Nemec's grandfather.There's a villain here too, Peter Boyle who is the CEO of a multi-national corporation which in this crisis is trying to control the world's food supply for the survivors. The idea he might not survive doesn't enter into his thinking. He's doing his best to sabotage Matheson's mission.Solar Crisis seems like a bad mix of 2001, A Space Odyssey and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Boyle seems to be taking his cue from Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor in Superman, apparently he's the only one in the cast who realizes he's in a turkey and overacts accordingly.The rest of the cast are stalwart, true blue and dull. Except possibly desert rat Jack Palance who finds Nemec and cares for him. The key here is that the film was directed by that noted Hollywood purveyor of flop films, Allen Smithee. The film gets as much as four stars for the cast involved and it was out in time for a Thanksgiving carving. | 0 |
train_2401 | Guy Kibbee gives the viewer a lot of laughs. Like most candidates, he knows almost nothing. Warren William, a very, under rated actor, is superb in giving instructions to Kibbee; that is, he teaches him to say something which means nothing to the voting public. A campaign based on no comment, "I'll take it under advisement," and "Maybe yes, but then again, maybe no," is the nearly perfect way to win an election. Succinctly, the dumber the candidate, the greater the chance he or she will win. After all, the public can identify with such a person. With respect to the movie, it makes for a lot of comedy. | 1 |
train_2877 | I don't think I need to tell you the story. For it has been told for years and years. So I will just share my feelings. I first saw Cinderella was when I was five years old. From then on I was a Disney child in a good way. The animation now seems childish and old fashioned, but that is part of its charm now. Now, in the age of High School Musical and computer generated images, it seems like people have forgotten the genius and magical essence of early Disney movies. Thankfully I was born before that so I was introduced to this classic. And it seems no matter how old I get, I turn back into that five year old watching it on VHS. Which is the true magic of Disney. | 1 |
train_13559 | I watched this movie last night and already I am struggling to recollect very much about it. The story is about a group of criminals who escape from a space penal colony. They fly to the Moon in a space-age dustbin carrier; when there, they terrorise the dustbin men who work on the Moonbase.It strikes me that rubbish low-budget sci-fi films often involve either desert planets or, like this movie, criminals escaping from penal colonies. Why this is I have no idea. But I can say with some certainty that such films are always diabolical. This one is really no exception. It begins reasonably well with a decent credit sequence and a half-way alright dance music soundtrack. It then degenerates into a boring sci-fi thriller. So little of consequence actually happens in this movie that I am literally struggling to write a helpful review, so if you're reading this I apologise for not being able to enlighten you to the film's subtleties and nuances. For the record, I recall a tedious bunch of baddies, a tedious bunch of goodies, some nuclear warheads and a hologram of a naked woman. Other than that, I'm struggling.If you feel you could be interested in the activities of lunar dustbin men then I would not hesitate to recommend this film. I would also recommend it to those of you who wish to send their friends to sleep and steal their wallets. | 0 |
train_6980 | I must admit, I was one of the skeptics who prematurely judged this show before relatively any information was disseminated about it. I determined that it was going to be a cheap spin-off guided by Ronald D. Moore wielding the retcon-wand.I was wrong!The pilot leaves an excellent impression upon the viewers. The accessibility is marvelous! Of course, seasoned BSG veterans will find themselves immersed in the plot, which is focused on the development of the Cylons before the first War. (58 years before the events of the BSG pilot). The pilot also allows for newcomers, clearly presenting its plot and ideas in the first part of the episode.Don't be mistaken: "Caprica" is not BSG. We are presented with an immersive, cerebral drama dotted by provocative, daring, and controversial ideas. The casting maintains BSG's standards; Stoltz and Morales are simply astounding. Morales' portrayal of Joseph Adama, inspired by Olmos' portrayal of William, gives a wonderful glimpse of William's heroic father. Stoltz's portrayal of Dr. Graystone provokes a lot of thinking and questions.If the quality of the pilot is any indication of what's yet to come, RDM and the creative team are set to continue BSG's legacy of first-rate television programming with another masterfully created television masterpiece. | 1 |
train_22353 | I think that most everyone wants to believe that extraordinary things exist and this film shows no restraint in trying to exploit that to the fullest. The presentation is very interesting, well presented and the graphics are state of the art, but from a scientific point of view it just doesn't work. Hydrogen filled flying bladders? They would need to be the size of a Mack truck to be useful. And then there's the ever-present possibility of a catastrophic explosion. I have no problem with fantasy, just don't try to pass it off as fact. Some folks will always misunderstand. All in all the film is entertaining, but I constantly found myself saying "oh brother, what a load of ....". If you want a FAKE documentary, watch This Is Spinal Tap instead. Or at the very least turn the sound off. | 0 |
train_21591 | Seriously, I've read some of the reviews on this film, and I have to ask, were you people watching the same movie.Yes, I give the set directors a lot of credit for being able to recreate 1930 vintage Los Angeles, but so what? None of the characters are likable, the story seems aimless, Karen Black is simply not a very good actress. Donald Sutherland is just icky. (and his character "Homer Simpson" makes me wish for the animated version. D'oh!) Then you had the creepy child actor, the creepier Billy Barty, and so on.This is one of those films cinema buffs love and the rest of us look at each other and go, "What the heck!" | 0 |
train_5710 | Rene Clair's groundbreaking musical. If you want to see where songs first drove a story this is the place. This is the story of a starving young artist who finds he's won the lottery just as his creditors come calling. Unfortunately his ticket is in his coat, which is in his girlfriends apartment and has been given to an on the run convict who then... oh but that would be telling.This is a light and frothy story where much of the dialog is sung (most people think this didn't happen until Oklahoma or Andrew Lloyd Webber). Its the sort of movie that they don't make any more, and rarely did when they did. Its sound a film from the early days that plays like a movie from five or six years later. Clair moves his camera around in ways that not even Busby Berkeley was doing (though to be honest comparing the two film makers is unfair since Berkeley was doing essentially stage bound dance numbers and Clair was moving the camera through "the real world"). Its an amazing little movie. and its a charming movie that will just make you smile. Its just a fluffy piece of enjoyment.I'm sorry I can't say more. Its just a nice little movie and thats really all you need to know. | 1 |
train_9842 | A glacier slide inside a cavernous ice mountain sends its three characters whoosh down a never-ending wet-slide tube that has enough kick to dazzle kids the same way mature audience may be dazzled by the star gate sequence that closes 2001: A Space Odyssey. Miles apart in vision, but it is a scene of great rush and excitement nonetheless. A magnificent opening sequence also takes place where a furry squirrel-like critter attempts to hide his precious acorn. You've probably seen this scene in the trailer, but as it takes place he starts a domino effect when the mountain starts cracking and, results, an avalanche. The horror just keeps going as the critter tries to outrun the impossible. The movie traces two characters, a mammoth named Manfred (Ray Romano) and a buck-toothed sloth (John Leguizamo) as they try to migrate south. They find a human baby they adopt and then decide to track the parent figures down to return to them. They are joined by a saber tiger named Diego (Denis Leary) whose predatory intentions is to bring the baby to his tiger clan, by leading the mammoth and the sloth into a trap. Diego's meat-eating family wants the mammoth most of all, but Diego's learned values of friendship make easy what choice to ultimately make at the end. There are fatalistic natural dangers of the world along the trip, including an erupted volcano and a glacier bridge that threatens to melt momentarily that is reminiscent of the castle escape in Shrek. Characters contemplate on why they're in the Ice Age, while they could have called it The Big Chill or the Nippy Era. Some characters wish for a forthcoming global warming. Another great line about the mating issues between girlfriends: `All the great guys are never around. The sensitive ones get eaten.' Throwaway lines galore, whimsical comedy and light-fingered adventure makes this one pretty easy to watch. Also, food is so scarce for the nice vegetarians that they consider dandelions and pine cones as `good eating.' The vocal talents of Romano, Leguizamo and Leary make good on their personas, while the children will delight in their antics, the adults will fancy their riffs on their own talents. There is some mild violence and intense content, but kids will be jazzed by the excitement and will get one of their early introductions of the age-old battle of good versus evil, and family tradition and friendship are strong thematic ties. The animators also make majestic use of background landscapes that are coolly fantastic. | 1 |
train_19011 | No likeable characters (the lead is a combination of the WORST of Woody Allen/Paul Provensa/Reiser) and the contrived scenes (did anyone REALLY think thiat kid on the rollerblades was NOT going to knock the guy down?) were just sickeningly bad. | 0 |
train_14675 | Carlos Mencia continually, violently, hatefully screaming "B**ch!" at women is like screaming "N**ger!" at black people, except it's worse. Remember, the B word, unlike the N word, is the only pejorative term that is still associated on a daily basis with violence. "B**ch!" is the last thing women hear before they are raped, beaten, or murdered. This guy is perpetuating violence by hatefully using the language of violence. Sounds like he may be a gay guy trying to cover by woman-bashing, so that he will sound like a hetero. And how about all the Nazi white guys in his audience giving the fascist salutes while their stupid little bimbo white women whimper tee hee hee at their side, clearly terrified to protest this tidal wave of woman-hating. Tee hee hee. Bet Mencia doesn't believe or support free speech for THEM! Come on, Carlos do you want women to have the free speech to b**ch-slap you as loudly and violently and big-mouthed as you do, or do you think "free speech" is only for men to crap on women??? | 0 |
train_3545 | Big splashy film of the Broadway music. Nathan (Frank Sinatra) loves to roll the dice and organize illegal crap games. Blonde loving Adelaide (Vivian Blaine) wants to marry him IF he gives up craps. He decides on one last game when Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando!), who bets big, is in town. He bets Sky that he can't get mission worker Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons) to go with him to Havana. That may sound like a strange plot summary but so is the movie!This is a real mixed bag--there's some wonderful stuff here. The songs are all good and the dancing is incredible. The real show stopper is at the crap game at the end. Also Brando is really quite good here--it might seem strange to think of him singing and dancing but he pulls it off. I have to admit seeing big, bulky Brando pulling off some difficult dance moves was a lot of fun! Also Sinatra is pretty good and Blaine is just wonderful as his long-suffering girlfriend. Her song and dance numbers are definite highlights here.Now for the bad parts--Jean Simmons is a wonderful actress but she's stuck with a drab colorless role and can't do much with it. The movie is far too long at 150 minutes--the scenes between Brando and Simmons really drag and should have been shortened. Also most of the characters speak in very precise English--contractions are never used. Maybe it's trying to be amusing coming out of the mouths of gangsters but I found it jarring and it kept throwing me out of the movie.It's worth catching for the songs and dances but the over length of it does get to you after a while. I give it a 7. | 1 |
train_6422 | Military training films are becoming so common that they are becoming a genre unto themselves. Among the more prominent we have, `Officer and a Gentleman', `Top Gun', `GI Jane', and now `Men of Honor'. The fact that this one happened to be true doesn't change the fact that the formula is the same. This film is probably most like `GI Jane' since it focuses on the desegregation angle.The story is actually quite inspirational and is probably the best human-interest story among those mentioned above. Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is unquestionably a man of great courage and principle, and his strength of character shines through brightly in this film. Unfortunately, director George Tillman has tunnel vision in presenting the characters and eschews character development of various characters other than Brashear in favor of showing Brashear in a constant state of adversity. Billy Sunday (Robert De Niro) is a central figure, and except for the initial scene, the fistfight and a couple of scenes with his wife, we don't know much about him. For instance, Brashear sees the scars on Sunday's palms and we are to assume that he worked a plow, but there is no follow-up on that point. Mr. Pappy (Hal Holbrook) gets only one short scene by which we can judge him. The rest of his screen time shows him pacing around and ranting. If a director is going to make a human-interest story, he needs to humanize the characters.Cuba Gooding Jr. gives an outstanding performance as Brashear. This is probably the best I've seen him. This is a role and a character that is far more complete than any part he has played before, and he rises to the occasion. In `Jerry Maguire', Rod Tidwell was a fascinating, but one-dimensional character with the depth of a rain puddle. Brashear is much more complex and grounded, and the issues he faces are life crises, making the part far more challenging. This is an excellent recovery from Gooding's last role in `Chill Factor', a film so dreadful that it was almost an act of professional suicide to take the part.After a stint trying his hand as a comedian (`Analyze This', `The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle', `Meet The Parents'), Robert DeNiro is back to his dramatic roots with an outstanding performance. DeNiro isn't a bad comedian, he is just such a great dramatic actor that it seems like he shouldn't waste his time doing comedy. DeNiro endows Billy Sunday with a rock hard personality belying a tortured soul. It is a pleasure watching him work. It seems every film I watch lately has Charlize Theron in it. I saw `The Legend of Bagger Vance', `Men of Honor' and `The Yards' right in a row and I was beginning to wonder if she had a part in every film in 2000 (actually, she only did five). This was a minor role for Theron, but she carried it off well and managed to stay with DeNiro step for step. David Keith, who co-starred with Richard Gere in `Officer and a Gentleman', has a cameo hereThe DVD has some interesting special features, including reflections by the real Carl Brashear and some deleted scenes.I enjoyed this film despite the hackneyed plot and the one-dimensional presentation. I rated it a 7/10. I'm a sucker for underdog stories and I have a fondness for stories where strength of character is the central theme. This film is particularly strong in both areas and brings us two memorable acting performances that compensate for some of the director's shortcomings. | 1 |
train_12316 | Ching Siu Tung's and Tsui Hark's A Chinese Ghost Story, aside from being one of the greatest wuxia pian films ever made, is a beautiful and romantic love story as well as an impressively choreographed martial arts film that should belong in every film lover's collection. The sorely missed Hong Kong superstar Leslie Cheung plays a traveling tax collector who spends the night at a haunted temple. While staying at the temple, he meets a colorful cast of characters that include the swordsmen Yin (Wu Ma) and Hsiao Hou, the Tree Devil, and the beautiful ghost Lit Sin Seen, played by the lovely Joey Wong.To free her from the clutches of the evil Tree Devil, he must reincarnate her body and travel to the underworld to defeat an even more powerful demon.Enough good things can't be said about this film. The pacing is perfect, with a great combination of romance, action, fantasy and humor, and the feverishly paced finale should leave you with little chance to breathe. The chemistry between the wonderfully tragic Joey Wong and Leslie Cheung (whose legendary career ended much too soon) really allows the viewer to feel for both of them. Indeed the acting on the whole is so vivacious and full of life, I would say this is one of the most fun viewing experiences I've ever had. Much of the credit goes to Wu Ma in his portrayal of the mysterious Swordsman Yin. His over-the-top persona of a disillusioned swordsman hell bent on vanquishing evil leads to some great moments of humor and traditional HK drama. A wonderful score, lush cinematography with eye popping colors, and frenetic action pieces courtesy of Ching Siu Tung round out this wonderful film. Find a copy anywhere you can. 10/10 | 1 |
train_5403 | This movie is the next segment in the pokemon movies which supplies everything on hopes and dreams of a pokemon warrior named Ash Ketchim and his friends. they go out and they look battle and run into new pokemon and take on new adventures with Pikachu and other pokemon favorites. This adventure takes on with a new pokemon called Celebi a time pokemon. Go join ash Brock and Misty to find all sorts of new things! | 1 |
train_1489 | Overall the film is OK. I think it's better than Sepet and much better than Gubra in term of its story, its sentimental value.There are a few scenes that makes me touched. Yes I agree that the boy (Mukhsin) did his acting very good. Brilliant. I can say that his acting is almost natural.However, the song 'Ne Me Quitte Pas' by Nina Simone really "'menaikkan' my 'bulu' 'roma' ".I love the song. Both the song. "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and "Hujan". I just downloaded the song. Beautiful.And salute to Yasmin. The movie's ending credit makes me touched again. We can see how Yasmin really appreciated her parents in an unique way.I think the movie deserves that Grand Prix Of International Jury at Berlin Film Festival.I give 8.5 out of 1o stars. | 1 |
train_20204 | Well, there's no real plot to speak of, it's just an excuse to show some scenes of extreme violence and gratuitous sex (which can sometimes be fun, too, but it's not in this case). What else can I say about this...? The action, when happening, is inventive and there's a cool scene where two characters are falling from a skyscraper (one that has to be several miles high), but overall there's not much to recommend "Kite". Watch it if you want, but you're not missing much if you skip this one... | 0 |
train_3299 | A great film requiring an acquired taste. If you're into action, wham bam films and hate serious love stories then its not for you. Otherwise, if you like to sit in front of a good intelligent movie now and again I recommend this very highly. Easily the best film produced in Bollywood this century.The only other Indian film I would give 10/10 for is Dil Wale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Even then it comes second to this masterpiece. | 1 |
train_970 | Now, I have seen a lot of movies in my day, but out of every single one there have been a very select few that have been really good to me. And I'm a 19 year old man which is impressed by this movie directed towards a younger audience. This is a very underrated gem for those who watch foreign movies. Almost all the acting is believable, the graphics are decent (for which you won't even be caring about as you watch the movie. Trust me, bitching about the graphics would be a stupid thing to do), the story is well written and it's a movie that everyone can enjoy not just the kids.Here's basically what this movie made me to. It one, made me laugh...a lot, two, made me feel for the characters like you're suppose to, and three, it's a very uplifting story. By the end of this movie you will feel good. Sure, what anime out there hasn't featured some young kid turning into a great warrior and whatever to defeat some great evil. It's a formula that is used a lot. But, in this case it is forgivable because even though they use puppets for some characters and some average graphics you'd see 5 years ago, the appearance of it is not to be judged. It's very touching, the ending is original, and it keeps you into the movie like it is suppose to. If you however try comparing this to other movies like "The Never-ending Story" or whatever it will diverse your opinion. Watch it as it is and you will enjoy it.It has been a good long while since I've been impressed like this. The only other movie where I have gotten this feeling is when I saw TMNT way back when it came out. There is something about this movie I felt about TMNT that really made me love it. So don't over-analyze or take this movie too seriously, just enjoy it. | 1 |
train_6498 | This should be required viewing for all young people. This is documentary at its best, from the haunting music and terrific narration by Olivier to its unflinching and penetrating analyses, The World at War is unforgettable and irreplaceable for anyone who wants to know about humanity's sorry experience at the nadir of the 20th century. | 1 |
train_1308 | I must say that I really had no idea that I was going to sit down and watch this movie. I guess it was the fact that I had nothing better to do between class. But, for once a TV movie caught my interest. More importantly Helen Hunt caught my eye. I really wasn't a big fan of hers prior to this film. Sure I liked Twister and As Good As It Gets. But, something about this movie really did it for me. I would now see myself as a huge fan. This movie comes with high marks from...me. Give it a chance, it won't let you down. | 1 |
train_1745 | How truly friendly, charming and cordial is this unpretentious old serial; I rejoiced in seeing old Lugosi. It is disarmingly friendly and lively. It's the document of a longlost craft. (The best TV series today can hardly compete with these old moderately good serials.) CHANDU is deeply, deeply optimistic and hedonistic . It refreshes the mind. It's not stupid; stupid are those who do not get the terms on which such serials work. CHANDU has an irresistible sense of simple, unpretentious and friendly fun.Without giving away too muchChandu is an Occidental sorcerer who goes also by this Eastern name and who also loves and protects his niece against a sect of killers.Chandu exerts his supernatural gifts in a rather discreet and moderate way.As to the quite sexy niece, Nadji, she is kidnapped by the priest of Ubasti: the sordid Vindhyan. The poor sexy girl is in fact multiply kidnappedin a sarcophagus after being sent asleep with a flower; almost kidnapped from a boat; by a phony policeman; the temple of Lemuria and its strange, creepy ceremonies resemble the KING KONG imageryand are a barbaric mockery of the RCC ceremonies and rituals. Would you protect a girl as bravely as Chandu does?Lugosi looked like an old libidinous and quite heartless, mean drunk, and this only contributed to his performances. He is the prototypical mean drunk uncle, mischievous and cunning and oblique. This might sound like a rather crooked homage to Lugosiyet Burton's biopic of Wood left me this impression about Lugosi and allied to it a strong sympathy for the decrepit actor. I enjoy Lugosi' fancy performances.This serial is unjustly bashed. | 1 |
train_12019 | I've seen this film on Sky Cinema not too long ago.. I must admit, it was a really good Western which features 2 of the big names.. On one side, there's Charlton Heston, playing the infamous and retired lawman Samuel Burgade. On the other.. The late James Coburn playing the villainous Zach Provo.. seeking revenge on Burgade no matter what the cost..!The good thing about this film was there was some really good characters.. Most of the actors played it out really well.. Especially James Coburn, who I find that he was really mean in this film.. But that how it was..Christopher Mitchum, who I've seen everywhere in other films.. Playing Hal Brickman.. I felt his character was left out in the cold, but he manage to get himself back in by teaming up with Burgade, to bring down Provo's posse's!All in all, it was a great film.. Very good to watch.. Great score from the late Jerry Goldsmith..Wonderful piece of Western persona..! 8 out of 10. | 1 |
train_16417 | "The house of the spirits" is quite awful. I live in South America, in a country that suffered a military dictatorship just like the one the movie tries to describe, and even though everyone knows movies may be far far away from reality, this particular movie treats viewers as both ignorant and stupid. Things are not so simple and linear as appears here, and of course political process are much more complicated and interesting that the plot in "The house...". If you can't show that complexity on screen is better not making a movie at all. There are a lot of examples of how can politics be seriously taken in cinema, without so many commonplaces. In some parts I felt that Carmen Miranda may appear within parrots and palm trees. When you talk about certain things you must be not only careful but respectful to your public's intelligence. | 0 |
train_9950 | Very nice action with an interwoven story which actually doesn't suck. Interesting enough to merit watching instead of skipping past to get to the good parts. Having Jenna Jameson and Asia Carrere helps liven it up, too. Jenna in that sweater and those glasses is just astounding! Worth picking up just to see her! | 1 |
train_20475 | As I sat in front of the TV watching this movie, I thought, "Oh, what Alfred Hitchcock, or even Brian DePalma, could have done with this!" Chances are, you will too. It does start out intrigueing. A British park ranger living in Los Angeles (Collin Firth) marries a pretty, demure brunette woman (Lisa Zane) whom he met in a park only a short time ago. Then, one day she dissappears. The police are unable to find any documentation that she ever existed, and Firth conducts his own search. So far, so good. Just as he's about to give up, he turns to his womanizing best friend (Billy Zane), and they stumble onto her former life in L.A.'s sordid underground of drugs, nightclubs, and ametuer filmmaking, and then to her history of mental instability. At that point, Firth's life is in danger, and the film falls apart. None of the characters from Lisa Zane's past are remotely interesting. The film moves slowly, and there's very little action. There is a subplot regarding missing drug money, but it's just a throwaway. No chases, no cliffhanging sequences, and no suspense. Just some dull beatings and a lot of chat by boring characters. One thing worth noting, Lisa Zane and Billy Zane are brother and sister, but they never appear in a scene together. By the end of the movie, you're torn between wondering what might have been and trying to stay awake. | 0 |
train_6579 | Methinks the best screen version of Quo Vadis? ever made. Well, yeah, the plot is not so strong and evident as in the book, sometimes meandering and loosing its suspense among aesthetic subtleties. But the film is really and beautifully "strange", has an enigma and style, that other versions - with R.Taylor and the new one from Poland - definitely lack. It has the air of Roman decadence, the beauty of declining paganism and infant Christianity. At least I believe it has). Brandauer, Forrest and Syudov did excellent job in portraying their characters. Forrest's Petronius seems to be the biggest success of the cast (let alone Brandauer who is the one of the greatest actors ever) and accumulates the very essence of this dying world (IMHO). That's it. That is the way it happened, guys... ))) IMHO | 1 |
train_22264 | In one word... abysmal. I give it one star for the hippie sex scenes and eye candy women, otherwise forget it. Corman's worst effort, bar none. Ben Vereen should have had his name permanently stricken from the cast. I cannot believe that this is now going to be on DVD (as of 2/15/05) with "Wild In The Streets" - another retro stinker. I woke up sick in bed this morning with a cold, decided to watch a movie to cheer me up some, scanned the digital channels... the premise looked interesting enough because I like viewing B-movie sci-fi, hippie culture and rebellious teen flicks. It seemed familiar somehow and with Ben Vereen in the cast, I thought... why not? What a big mistake... it was a horrible start to my day.Only after viewing it, I now know why the familiarity crept into the recesses of my newly-awakened brain. I remembered seeing coming attractions for this film as a 14-year old (I'm 45), back in the early/mid-seventies at the Sombrero, a local art theater that no longer exists... the whole theater laughed hysterically and even groaned out loud at how bad this movie looked. Acting: dreadful, story: awful, cinematography: nearly-awful, music: terrible, sound: horrendous, directing: a joke. If you choose to watch this after my warning, remember... "I told you so.""Gass-s-s-s" is the perfect title for this film... you feel "gassed" after viewing this putrid movie - or maybe that you should be taken to a "gas" chamber for wasting your brain away. I have seen homemade Super 8 movies that put this film to shame. Definitely a new addition to my all-time Top Ten WORST films... it's up there (er, down there) with "Tentacles." Ted in Gilbert, AZ | 0 |
train_3814 | The most interesting thing about Miryang (Secret Sunshine) is the actors. Jeon Do-yeon, as Lee Shin-ae, the main character, is a woman with a young son whose husband has died in a tragic accident, and who leaves Seoul to live in Miryang, which was his home town, with her young son. Jeon's face is very changeable. She is girlish, flirtatious, elegant, aged and sad, desperate and joyous, with it and terribly isolated by turns, and it's all in her face. The film also stars Song Kang-ho as Kim, a man who meets her when her car breaks down coming into Miryang, who happens to run a garage in town, and who follows her around all the time thereafter, despite her apparent lack of interest in his attentions. Song is the biggest star in Korea right now, renowned for his work with Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance; Memories of Murder and The Host). And yet here he plays a throwaway character, almost a forgotten man. But of course he makes him interesting and curiously appealing. He is the essential ballast to keep Jeon's character from floating away.Lee Shin-ae is a piano teacher. She comes to the new town, which is a neutral place, a kind of poor-man's Seoul, a town "just like anywhere else," as Kim says (just as he is in a way just like anyone else). Her little boy is sprightly, as little boys are, but plainly damaged and withdrawn at times too. His father used to snore, and when he misses him he lies awake, pretending to snore. He goes to school, and Shin-ae meets parents and students and shopkeepers. There is a sense of place in the film, even though the place is in a sense "anywhere." People speak in the local dialect, and everyone knows everything, and Shin-ae's Seoul origin is immediately noticed. Is life really harsher here, away from the big city and its sophistication? Shin-ae seems not to realize the danger she is in.Something terrible happens. And Shin-ae doesn't necessarily deal with it in the best possible way. But it happens and she must face the consequences. But she can't. She goes to pieces. A perpetrator is caught, but that's no consolation. Eventually she becomes so despairing, she relents and goes to a born-again Christian meeting an acquaintance has been pressing her to attend. She finds peace and release with this. But when she decides not only to forgive the perpetrator but to go to the prison to tell him so, that experience is full of ironies and it destroys her all over again. She becomes embittered and desperate and she no longer finds solace in religion. And it gets worse than that.Jeon Do-yeon gives her all in this extremely demanding and protean role. Lee Chang-dong may be a very good director. If an actor of the stature of Song Kang-ho expresses enormous admiration for him, that is convincing. According to Scott Foundas of LA Weekly, Lee's first three films, Green Fish (1997), Peppermint Candy (2000) and Oasis (2002) have marked him out as "one of the leading figures of his country's recent cinematic renaissance." But this is not as successful a film as those of other Korean directors whose work I've seen, such as Yong Sang-Soo, Bong Joon-ho, and the prodigiously, almost perversely gifted Park Chan-wook. It may indeed begin as Foundas says as a kind of "Asiatic Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and then "abruptly and without warning" turns into "something of a thriller, and some time after that a nearly Bressonian study in human suffering." But that progression not only seems random and indigestible; the film sags and loses its momentum toward the end and then simply fizzles out, with no sense of an ending. There are also weaknesses in the action. Shin-ae takes foolish chances with her son, and makes bad choices all along. If she is destined for madness like Betty in Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue, which might explain her peculiar and mistaken choices, that isn't something that is properly developed. This is an interesting film, certainly a disturbing one, but one that leaves one doubtful and dissatisfied, after putting one through an emotional wringer.An official selection of the New York Film Festival presented at Lincoln Center, 2007an event that has done right by Korean filmmakers in the recent past. | 1 |
train_3955 | I cannot believe how unknown this movie is,it was absolutely incredible. The ending alone has stuck with me for almost thirty years. The road sign through the rearveiw mirror blew me away. If you liked "RACE WITH THE DEVIL" you will love this movie | 1 |
train_16498 | Can you say "All shock, no plot?" There were so many unexplored directions in this movie. There was no history about the room other than the deaths. *WHY* was it evil? What made it that way? Why an "hour" countdown? Then, there were the unexplored things hinted at; for example we *saw* a camera in the air vent, which he mentioned. But when he climbed up said vent, there was no camera.How about the fact that all the ghosts looked "Digital", and things "winked out" before hitting the ground making a static noise? Hmmm... when you put all of *those* things together, it makes room 1408 look like a high-tech spook house. Except that there was no follow up on that.Oh... by the way... electronics don't work in 1408. Well, except for the TV... the cell phone has no signal, but Wireless Internet works fine. How many incontinuities can you possibly add? I'm sorry, but this film was nothing but "shock after shock". It's all been done before. Reflections in the mirror. Things just out of site. Changing paintings. Bleeding walls. The "Oh, it was all just a dream... no it wasn't." And, if the room was "evil", why make our main character come to terms with his daughter's death, if it was going to keep him trapped there forever anyway? It just didn't make sense.Additionally, there was no background information about "The first book" that he wrote. Just some vague information about the "dad was a jerk" and so forth. Speaking of dads, what was with the bit about his father? "You'll be in my place".Overall, a truly HORRIBLE movie. It was 100% adrenalin shock factor, without any new or innovative effects, and certainly no back story, character development, etc.My overall impression is that the entire movie was made on the "Cheap"; pretty much using one set and a couple of location shots, and was nothing but an effects film of recycled, cheesy, "seen-that-before" effects. | 0 |
train_5659 | AG was an excellent presentation of drama, suspense and thriller that is so rare to American TV. Sheriff Lucas gave many a viewer the willies. We rooted for Caleb as he strove to resist the overtures of Sheriff Lucas. We became engrossed and fearful upon learning of the unthinkable connection between these two characters. The manipulations which weekly gave cause to fear what Lucas would do next were truly surprising. This show lived up to the "Gothic" moniker in ways American entertainment has so seldom attempted, much less mastered. The suits definitely made a big mistake in not supporting this show. This show puts shame to the current glut of "reality" shows- which are so less than satisfying viewing.The call for a DVD box set is well based. This show is quality viewing for a discerning market hungry for quality viewing. A public that is tiring of over-saturation of mind-numbing reality fare will welcome this gem of real storytelling. Bring on the DVD box set!! | 1 |
train_11176 | Ok, first I have to point the fact that when I first saw this flick I was 9 years old. If I had seen this one two weeks ago for the first time, I´d probably have noted that this is just another cheaply-made-cable-TV horror film with some well-made scenes. But when you´re nine you just don´t care about those facts. This scared the hell out of me back then, especially those aforementioned Zelda- scenes (and they still do). Nowadays I´m kind of hooked to this film. I have to see this maybe once in a month, and on every new year´s eve I watch this with a 12-pack of beer & bunch of friends. It´s like an appetizer for a good party! I kinda agree to those people who said that the acting here is pretty unintense. Midkiff and Crosby do look like I wanted Louis and Rachel look like, but one can´t see very much devotion or feelings on the faces of these two. Hughes and Gwynne pretty much save the scenes which "the Creeds" underact. What I actually want to say about this is the fact that there really is no other film that has any kind of similarity to Pet Sematary, and I don´t mean the zombie stuff here. THE ATMOSPHERE OF THIS FILM IS CERTAINLY A NOVELTY AND ONE OF A KIND. Honestly, how many times you have seen a film which on superficial level looks like a cable-TV one, but leave you with a chill compared to only the best horror-chillers out there? Alright I busted some of the cast´s balls a minute ago, but I have to say that all pieces in that level too hone the overall acting to perfection. But hey tell me if you really know some film which is similar to Pet Sematary! I really would love to know...And I don´t mean night of the living dead here...this one is way beyond compare in intelligence compared to that stuff. | 1 |
train_24500 | The only possible way to enjoy this flick is to bang your head against the wall, allow some internal hemorrhaging of the brain, let a bunch of your brain cells die and once you are officially mentally retarded, perhaps then you *MIGHT* enjoy this film.The only saving grace was the story between Raju and Stephanie. Govinda was excellent in the role of the cab driver and so was the Brit girl. Perhaps if they would have created the whole movie on their escapades in India and how they eventually fall in love would have made it a much more enjoyable film.The only reason I gave it a 3 rating is because of Govida and his ability as an actor when it comes to comedy.Juhi Chawla and Anil Kapoor were wasted needlessly. Plus the scene at Heathrow of the re-union was just too much to digest. Being an international traveler in the post 9/11 world, Anil Kapoor would have got himself shot much before he even reached the sky bridge to profess his true love :) But then again the point of the movie was to defy logic, gravity, physics and throw an egg on the face of the *GENERAL* audience.Watch it at your own peril. At least I know I have been scarred for life :( | 0 |
train_16410 | Isabel Allende's magical, lyrical novel about three generations of an aristocratic South American family was vandalized. The lumbering oaf of a movie that resulted--largely due to a magnificent cast of Anglo actors completely unable to carry off the evasive Latin mellifluousness of Allende's characters, and a plodding Scandinavian directorial hand--was so uncomfortable in its own skin that I returned to the theater a second time to make certain I had not missed something vital that might change my opinion. To my disappointment, I had not missed a thing. None among Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close and Vanessa Redgrave could wiggle free of the trap set for them by director Bille August. All of them looked perfectly stiff and resigned, as if, by putting forth as little effort as possible, they expected to fade unnoticed into lovely period sets. (Yes, the film was art directed within an inch of its life.) Curious that the production designer was permitted the gaffe of placing KFC products prominently in a scene that occurs circa 1970--years before KFC came into being. Back then, it was known by its original name: Kentucky Fried Chicken. Even pardoning that, what on earth is Kentucky Fried Chicken doing in a military dictatorship in South America in 1970? American fast food chains did not hit South America until the early 1980s. "The House of the Spirits" should have been the motion picture event of 1993. Because it was so club-footed and slavishly faithful to its vague idea of what the novel represented, Miramax had to market it as an art film. As a result, it was neither event nor art. And for that, Isabel Allende should have pressed charges for rape. | 0 |
train_2026 | I first saw this mini-series a number of years ago on British television and was immediately captivated by the story. This rather surprised me as I am not a great fan of either 'Jane Eyre' or 'Wuthering Heights'; I consider the heroine of the former to be a self-righteous bore, and the latter piece of work as overblown claptrap.'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall', like the aforementioned works, is also somewhat depressing in parts. However, the darker parts of the film were offset by the excitement of Helen's escape, the breathtakingly wild and beautiful landscape of Yorkshire, and the sexual magnetism of Toby Stephens.This film successfully portrays the frustratingly restrictive lifestyle of all women of the time. At best they suffered from a form of minor domestic tyranny as portrayed by the treatment of the womenfolk in the Markham household. At the other end of the scale, there is the unfortunate Helen who is married to a wealthy man of high estate, but is exposed to brutality and humiliation alternating with long periods of neglect. She runs away and experiences a brief moment of freedom but, as a women of mystery living alone in a rural community, she inevitably becomes the subject of spiteful gossip and speculation.Tara Fitzgerald is excellent as the long-suffering Helen Markham. Not only incredibly beautiful (in spite of that terribly unflattering hairstyle) with the most amazing cheekbones, she is also more than capable of playing the central role in the film. Tara is dignified and aloof while, at the same time, allowing us to see that Helen is still dangerously vulnerable. Rupert Graves IS the depraved, yet curiously attractive Arthur Huntingdon - after seeing him, I could never imagine another actor playing that part. Pam Ferris deserves special mention for her role as Gilbert's indulgent mother, as does the actress who played his sister Rose, and Simon Carter who is the uncharitable vicar with a taste for the Good Things in Life. Finally, I could watch this film for Toby Stephens alone; he is so good-looking,rugged, sexy, sensitive (but not in a nauseatingly sentimental way). I am not even sure if he is a good actor as my hormones prevent me from judging him objectively!If there is a fault with the film it is the use of flashbacks which I felt both interfered with the flow of the story and made it slightly confusing. Other people, who have watched this film with me, also had problems with this, and I found I had to explain to them that certain scenes were in fact retrospective.I am extremely grateful for the people responsible for making this film. Not only did I puchase the video (a rare occurrence), but it led me to buy Anne Bronte's superb novel. Naturally, this was better than the film, but only by a narrow margin. I recommend that anyone interested should watch the film and then read the book in that order. | 1 |
train_15350 | If I had realized John Wayne was in this movie, I would not have watched it. It's demeaning to the Japanese, unfortunate for Hollywood and embarrassing to any thinking person. But then, most John Wayne movies are like that. Hollywood in the fifties still believed that everybody in the world loved Americans when the truth was (and still is) somewhat different. The movie deals with the nineteenth century isolationism of Japan. Maybe it's Hollywood that should be isolated.To put it as succinctly as possible, this film is appalling jingoistic claptrap.(Sort of a Madama Butterfly with bad music.) | 0 |
train_10192 | This is the Who at their most powerful. Although before the masterwork Who's Next, which would provide anthems like Baba O'reily and Wont Get Fooled Again. This film shows the group in transition from mod rockers to one of the biggest live bands of the 70's.Daltrey shows what being a front-man is all about, Entwistle steady as ever. Moon is great, check out the ongoing conversation with the drum tech, and see him playing "side saddle" whilst having a bass drum head replaced!Townsend even looks like he's enjoying himself occasionally!Considering they took to the stage at 2am no one in the crowd was asleep! There are not many bands these days could produce a set as tight as this and it is difficult to imagine any of the bands of today producing a concert that in 36 years time will be be enjoyed as much as this one. | 1 |
train_4433 | The story: On the island Texel, photographer Bob, who makes a photo shoot for a magazine, meets the mysterious Kathleen. Her free spirit and lust for life intrigues Bob, who has suffered a very traumatic experience shortly before. Her life is not so simple as it seems, however. Through Kathleen, Bob gets entangled in a dangerous network. Will Kathleen be able to win his trust?Review: The dialogue in this movie is very natural and the story unfolds nicely although it stays a bit on the surface and it would have been nice if the character's 'psychology' would have been worked out a little more. Why do these people do the things they do? What motivates their choices? This is what gives a movie depth and something to think about in my view. The story never reaches an emotional climax, even though the characters go through enough to justify that. So you don't get to know the characters on that deeper level. The actors deliver good work and play in a very natural and 'believable' way, but I think it would have suited the movie better if Kathleen had been played by a younger actress, as this character's naiveness doesn't quite work for a grown-up woman. Camera-work is nice, and there are some great shots of the nature on the island. I give the movie a 7/10. | 1 |
train_21756 | Pointless short about a bunch of half naked men slapping and punching each other. That's it. For about 5 minutes we see this. It's shot in black and white with tons of half-naked men running around slapping each other to the tune of dreadful music. It LOOKS interesting but there's no plot and really--the violence inherent in this got disturbing. Also the homo eroticism in this is played up but mixing it with violence was not a good idea. Some people who like avant garde material might like this but I found it incomprehensible, boring, stupid and (ocassionally) disturbing. Really--what is the point in all this? I saw it as part of a festival of gay shorts and the audience sat there in stunned silence. I really wish I could go lower than 1. | 0 |
train_12669 | I saw this movie recently because a friend brought it with him from NYC. After 30 minutes, I said to him," You've got to be kidding. Is this some sort of joke?" He thought it was good. I told him that I thought it was probably one of the silliest movies ever made. "What was it supposed to be?" I asked. "A propaganda movie made for children?" The plot is stupid. The acting is the worst ever for most of the principals and frankly people who look at this sort of tripe and think it has anything to do with life, love or even afterlife, of which it offers an incredibly idiotic view...need some psychiatric help. Please, if someone tries to get you to stick this in your DVD or Video player, consider it like you would a virus introduced into your computer...it won't destroy your player but it will destroy your evening. If they had made Razzies in the '40s, this would have won in every category. (PS. It also goes under the dubious sobriquet of "Stairway to Heaven.") | 0 |
train_19010 | However, the ladies of all ages will lap it up, no doubt; at least the opposite sex understand what it is to be a mother, and most of us men try to fathom out what it is to be a father. Whether changing nappies is not at all my favourite occupation and trying to get those bottled baby-foodstuffs into errant toothless mouths must rank very high on household duties preferably left to its mother, has absolutely nothing to do with the matter.Some good interpretations here, and a good story idea; the handling of the matter, limited to rather scanty TV-production concepts, gives the film a rather over-mellowy taste with not much new to offer. An insipid way of delivering the goods, and in the end the outcome is so forseeable during the last 20 minutes or so, even my wife dozed off, and I was jumping up to the computer to get the on-line scoring in the Barcelona-Deportivo match, hoping the away team would do something rather good. They did. This film did not.Better by far is Mike Leigh's magnificent "Secrets and Lies" (qv) which touches on the same subject matter, but with Brenda Blethyn playing a far superior part. | 0 |
train_19416 | I had high hopes for it when I heard that it was being made back in 2001 because I read "The Devil and Daniel Webster" when I was a kid and I found it very interesting. They made some changes to the story that don't make much sense to me. Daniel Webster in the story was a famous lawyer from New Hampshire in the story. In the movie he is an editor. A lawyer makes more sense since he ends up representing Jabez Stone against the devil him/herself (he was a man in the story, but was a woman in the movie) in a trial where both of their souls are on the line. As an editor, it doesn't seem likely that Daniel Webster would have the skill to do this.The acting was decent by all except for Alec Baldwin and Dan Aykroyd. These are two actors that I like, they just did an awful job in this movie. It was as though they thought they were acting in a comedy, but the movie was more a serious one than a comedy. This might be partly due to the fact that the movie was filmed with a particular vision in mind, and was then re-edited by somebody else. Given this fact, it's surprising that it was at all coherent. I was surprised to see a fair amount of SNL cast members in the movie, which further leads me to believe it may have originally been filmed with the intention of it being more of a comedy.All in all I would have to say it wasn't completely awful, but it wasn't much good. If I could get the hour and a half back and do something else with it, I would. The ending was especially disappointing. As in the original story, Daniel Webster defeats the devil in the trial. Jabez then starts out again at the beginning of the movie...literally, we are just brought back to the first scene with Jabez, and then the movie abruptly ends. It actually looked as though they just replayed Jabez' first scene over and called it the end. There is no indication that Jabez has the benefit of any of the knowledge or experience he gained, so who is to say he didn't just repeat his mistakes over again, and perhaps over and over in an endless loop? It was an extremely disappointing end and did not make a lot of sense. The decent cast, and the acting of everyone except for Baldwin and Aykroyd are the only things that keep this from being a complete and total crap sandwich. | 0 |
train_12298 | After Garbo's introduction to sound in Clarence Brown's "Anna Christie", Jacques Feyder made a German version of the movie where all of the cast, except for Garbo, were different. While the American version is still more available in the USA and most of the American viewers have primarily seen this version, the Germna "Anna Christie" is more likely to be viewed in Europe. As I have seen both films, I feel the right to compare the two closely-knit productions. Is Jacques Feyder's film different? Is it better than Clarence Brown's? In this analysis, I would like to focus first on what the both movies have in common. They have identical sets, very similar scripts and the same chronologically presented scenes. Here, you also find the story of the young woman who comes back to her father after years of absence and is trying to start a new life. Here, you also have the humorous, though a bit shorter, sequence in the amusement park. However, when emphasizing Garbo herself, I address the first difference. She does not appear to cause such a curiosity while talking. The viewer concentrates more on her acting than on the way she speaks, which occurred, most probably, to 1931 viewers. Garbo was very good in American film and she is also very good here. Yet, to me, she seems even more genuine in the German version. It is noticeable that Garbo does not focus on the way she says the words that much (the effort that was artificially created by the sensation: GARBO TALKS!). Her German is not very well pronounced; yet no one cares: everything is perfectly understood. Therefore, I can easily say the same I did in my American version comment: Skaal Greta Garbo! Yet, the film differs in one very important issue: the rest of the cast. Here comes the question: which portrayal seems more captivating, which one is better for sure? The differences are filled with varieties. Salka Viertel (or Salka Steuerman), Garbo's lifelong friend, does not do the equally great job as Marie Dressler in the role of Marthy Owens. She is not bad, she is different, sometimes overacts (from today's perspective) but is no longer that genuine in the role as Marie Dressler who still amuses us and whose moments have absolutely stood a test of time. Some people even claim that Dressler was better than Garbo in the film and that opinion, though appears to be questionable of course, carries some truth. Theo Shall is more sympathetic as Matt than Charles Bickford but when applied to him, this is not the matter of performance so much as the mater of looks.Who shines in the German "Anna Christie", who is really worth greatest attention is Hans Junkermann in the role of Chris Christopherson, Anna's father. George F. Marion vs Hans Junkermann is like a day vs night difference. Junkermann portrays a real alcohol addict, a man with hopes, with fears, who overdoes the care of his daughter. The scene of Anna's first meeting with her father is truly magnificent, the opening moment of Chris' conversation with Marthy is memorable particularly thanks to his facial expressions and a flawless performance. Junkermann is the Chris whom you like, who you sometimes laugh at, whom you sympathize with, who leaves a picture of a calm alcoholic sailor in your mind. Great! If you have seen the American "Anna Christie" and have a chance to get the German version, I would highly recommend to you this movie because it's a slightly different look at the story, a nice and accurate way to compare, a fine enrichment to Clarence Brown's movie and, foremost, a wonderful chance to discover a marvel of performance: Hans Junkermann's. Skaal or Prost, Hans Junkermann! | 1 |
train_22406 | After reading the reviews, it became obvious that everyone intellectualized this work. How utterly boring. Oh how about the good ol' days and there was nothing like it. Of all the comments no one expressed any emotion to this work or any other.I grew up just after the end of the steam age and this cinematic gem along with Dan'l Boone graced the Saturday afternoon matinées. This was an annual movie that made the rounds and filled the seats with gabbing, yapping, farting, giggling, snot monsters like myself or was-self. And it was a movie theatre filler at the time. Almost as big as the Wizard of Oz.IMDb insists that every critique contains something about the plot. Problem is was that it was rather a template. Here goes. Randolph Scott (cowboy/hero)gathers friends and goes defeats those evil people. Hooray! All of us kids figured out that plot before we plunked our quarter down to watch it. That was just about the plot line of every Scott, John Wayne, Roy Rogers film ever made. If you take the time to go back and review each and every movie - just don't ask for surprises.One must remember the context of the times. There was no or little TV. None for kids. There was school. There was the great outdoors. There were toy guns. No Cyber time. And the steam age had just collapsed. But movies such as this provided the entertainment and filled the imaginations of young whippersnappers. Even the girls got into it.This movie was the entertainment. And it is just as mindless as anything produced today. It had a purpose originally of being propaganda. But quickly came to be kids movies.Our fathers had experienced the real thing. And it wouldn't be until Sam Peckinpah a decade later who finally lavished the red splashes of imitation blood in realistic and copious quantities. Not until his directorship did anyone die slowly, with great pain and miserably. Until Peckinpah war and gun fights were a rather bloodless affair. Thanks Sam.To see a movie had little or no blood, the adults didn't mind. They wouldn't have tolerated it I think. No guts spraying the shattering plant life. So this movie had all of the glory and none of the gory. Gung Ho was suitable for kids then.You will see that I assigned a four to this rating. Why would I do that? Well. It is a terrible movie. No matter how I love it. I do love this movie because it brought back one of the happier moments of my childhood. But it is not all that good of a movie in quality terms. Basically Gung Ho transitted to become a romance novel for children.Should people watch it. Of course. I am not saying to stay away. Realistically however. The plot is simple. The characters shallow? they are shoals. You can love a bad movie. | 0 |
train_13807 | This was really a very bad movie. I am a huge fan of Italian Horror, Argento, Mario Bava, Fulci and yes, even our good friend here Lamberto sometimes comes out with a good one. I found the first two 'Demons' films to be highly entertaining - they were so bad they were great but this one is just so bad that it is really, really bad. It is intensely boring, the story never goes anywhere and I hated the characters - the wife slapping husband and whiny cry-baby pain in the *** wife drove me mad, there was nowhere near enough of the story devoted to the Ogre who was probably the best actor in the whole film. I turned it off about three quarters of the way through because I was very, very BORED! Don't bother. | 0 |
train_13854 | I saw his film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. I am a film student at the Univeristy of Michigan so I know a thing or two about film. And Crispin Glover's film is outrageous. He basically exploits the mentally challenged. Not only is Shirly Temple the anti-Christ (which I admit is a little funny) telling the mentally challenged to kill each other, but there is an obsession with killing snails. Crispin also plays with the idea of being in love with one of his actors who is as they all are, mentally challenged. PETA and Human Rights should be all over this thing. It's not 'counter-culture' as Crispin stated at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, it's exploitation. | 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.