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I had a hard time staying awake for the two hour opening episode. It was dumbed down to such an extent, I doubt if I learned a single thing. The graphics were rudimentary. Any small idea was repeated ad nauseum. Contrast this to the Cosmos series hosted by Carl Sagan. That had a good musical theme. There was NO music coming from these infernal 10-dimensional Strings. | 0 | negative |
This must be the first movie I've rented and not seen to the end. Complete garbage! The acting, the plot, set and wardrobe looked like it came from a porno movie with a plot. Not even a B move. | 0 | negative |
You know, as you get older, you somehow think the movies you did not like when you were younger, might have been because of your youth and inexperience. Case in point, when I saw The Godfather at age 14, I thought it was boring. 20 years later, its an incredible movie to me. In other words, I grew up and began to appreciate great movies.<br /><br />So I rented Dirty Dancing with my girlfriend last night on her request, as she loved it at age 14 and I hated it at the same age. But I hoped, because I was young and stupid at age 14, perhaps this would be a new experience for me. So I sat down with her to watch, hoping to be enlightened.<br /><br />Well, the night after watching Dirty Dancing, I feel a violation. I feel like someone reached into my soul and robbed me of 2 hours of my life from watching this cheese fest.<br /><br />First, Patrick Swayze plays a 20 year old, but he looks like he is 35. And the premise of the movie is him seducing some underage teenager, wooing her with his dance moves. Really Creepy.<br /><br />Anyway, the movie is the cliché plot where the "wrong side of the tracks" guy and the "rich smart girl" accidentally fall in love with each other. Of course, their romance is fueled by the fact the "rich girl" can't dance a lick, so the "poor hero" teaches her in a week to become an expert dancer for the big end of vacation show, or something like that.<br /><br />But you guessed it: The disapproving father soon enters and forbids the two to see each other, and the movie progresses to secret meetings of dance lessons and love making. This all culminates into the final scene where the entire resort rallies around the two young lovers while the once antagonistic father accepts the 35 year old dancer as his teen daughter's new man.<br /><br />Even my girlfriend whimpered at the end of the movie as she admitted it was not anything like she remembered. I didn't press her, but I did smirk a little, and put the Godfather part II in the DVD player. | 0 | negative |
Pepe Le Pew can either really creep you out or totally sweep you off your feet. Either way, you can't help feeling a little awe on beholding this classic WB character. This commentater personally believes that Pepe was the inspiration behind other would be animated casanovas today from Cartoon Network's "Johnny Bravo" to Disney's Lumiere from "Beauty and the Beast". <br /><br />His unique brand of love making is to be wondered at in today's world where his antics would normally be slapped with a sexual harassment warrant and at least a 50m distance from all his victims. <br /><br />In this particular cartoon, a world weary cat decides to do an ultimate makeover and earn some respect for a change for pretending to be a skunk. All goes well, until Pepe arrives and promptly pursues the unfortunate feline with his overwhelmingly enthusiastic love-making.<br /><br />The groundwork for Pepe's many trademarks are laid in this cartoon. From his adorable "frenchified" love calls to that aggravatingly calm hop-chase of his. <br /><br />This cartoon only goes to show that as far as the world of cartoon fantasy is concerned, the most ardent wooer can go the distance...and have his beloved "pig-eon" leaving dust trails behind them. | 1 | positive |
The first Disney animated film without the strong involvement of Disney himself, this film suffers from the fact that the story is not particularly original or interesting (this is, I believe, the only animated Disney film since the 1940's which is NOT based on an earlier book or other work, but is rather an original story). As others have noted, the plot is essentially a cross between the romance in Lady and the Tramp and the kidnapping/journey home story in 101 Dalmatians.<br /><br />But to overcome this flaw, the filmmakers have successfully used many of the better features of most of the Disney animated films of the previous 10-15 years: Phil Harris (from The Jungle Book) voicing one of the main characters, follows his duet with Louis Prima in the previous film with another here with Scatman Crothers. The quality visual look of this film is virtually carried over from "Dalmatians" (with some nice nods to French Impressionism, it appears), and the villain here (the butler) is strongly reminiscent of the henchmen in that film as well. (This is probably one of Disney's least memorable villains.) The main story goes back and forth between the cats, and the butler's ongoing difficulties with two rural hound dogs (with great voice work by Pat Buttram and George "Goober" Lindsey"). The various animal characters are similarly familiar to those who have seen "Tramp" and "Dalmatians." The cats' owner, while bearing a striking visual resemblance to the wicked stepmother in Sleeping Beauty, bears none of that character's nasty traits and comes across as very warm and generous.<br /><br />The real strength of the film is the voice work; after first going toward the use of mostly familiar actors in The Jungle Book, the tactic is continued strongly here with Disney veterans Harris and Sterling Holloway from The Jungle Book, and Eva Gabor (who would do a very similar character in the later film The Rescuers), as well as Crothers and Nancy Kulp. All are excellent here, particularly Harris and Gabor in the leads. The character animation is as excellent as one would expect, showing a variety of emotions well.<br /><br />Smaller children may be upset by a few brief episodes (an escape from the path of a speeding train, a near-drowning by one of the children), but these are not presented in a particularly frightening or dark manner and are over very quickly. Overall, there's very little of the type of more frightening scenes found in many other Disney classics.<br /><br />One minor oddity is the way some visual aspects of 60's culture are depicted among the jazz-performing cats in supposedly 1910 Paris; one can't help but wonder why the story wasn't set solidly in the present, other than the great deal Paris had changed much of its appearance in the intervening time. It really would have made more sense that way.<br /><br />The songs, while being pleasant and sometimes very enjoyably performed, are not particularly memorable. Nonetheless, the general energy applied here, the excellent voice work and fine animation all contribute to overcome the relatively few and minor weaknesses. Far from the greatness of classic "10"s such as Pinocchio or Aladdin, and not quite up to the "9"s one might give to Sleeping Beauty or 101 Dalmatians, this is probably a rather marginal 8 of 10; perhaps a 7. | 1 | positive |
The movie was very good. I'm an avid mystery fan and I usually figure out who is going to be killed and who did the killing. While I did figure out who was going to be killed I didn't figure out who did it. I wasn't happy with the portrayal of the Gerda character but given the year the movie was supposed to take place it is possible the woman would have been that 'cloying'. Please know that while these Poirot movies are good, they just don't have the same dynamic to them as the series does because they don't have Japp, Ms. Lemon and especially Hastings! David Suchet is definitely Poirot. I have seen every actor who's played him. The worst was Peter Ustinov! | 1 | positive |
I figured the whole joke of the movie would be to see some rich white guy acting like Chris Rock, and then see Chris Rock react to people's reactions. Instead you just see Chris Rock being himself and people not understanding him. There are maybe 2 scenes in the entire movie where they use their gimmick. This should have been a lot better. | 0 | negative |
<br /><br />If you like rap or hip-hop, watch this movie, although it's funny if you don't get the references, as a straight comedy.<br /><br />Haven't seen much of the much hyped CB4, but what I did see didn't have the heart that this little stormer has.<br /><br />Haven't heard from the people involved since, which is a surprise. The film is very similar to Spinal Tap, which is no bad thing, and I think a lot of the dialogue, while priceless in Tap is funnier here, probably because I'm more into rap than rock theses days, so my own judgment does cloud that point.<br /><br />The rap songs are funny as hell, and it's basically spot the reference for most of the film, not all of them are in-your-face, which means the physical comedy and the one-liners get priority over the take-offs.<br /><br />Great fun, one to watch twice if there ever was a movie. | 1 | positive |
Nice description of the situation in the US, it explains different kinds of Islam, not just show terrorist and extremist. Islam can be other thing that killing, they show why some people become terrorist and how to be Muslim without being extremist. It is a great series that Muslims and no-Muslims should see. Now we hope that other series or films will be done to change the idea of all Muslims are terrorist and all Americans want to destroy Islam. It gave me the interest to discover what Islam is exactly and what the US and also European government do to help cohabitation between people of different religion. | 1 | positive |
...And I never thought a movie deserved to be awarded a 1! But this one is honestly the worst movie I've ever watched. My wife picked it up because of the cast, but the storyline right since the DVD box seemed quite predictable. It is not a mystery, nor a juvenile-catching film. It does not include any sensuality, if that's what the title could remotely have suggest any of you. This is just a total no-no. Don't waste your time or money unless you feel like watching a bunch of youngsters in a as-grown-up kind of Gothic setting, where a killer is going after them. Nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing worth watching. Max Makowski makes the worst of Nick Stahl. | 0 | negative |
David Chase's "The Sopranos" is perhaps the most over-praised television show in recent memory. Not only is the series devoid of intellect and passion, it's devoid of a soul. As anyone reading likely knows already, James Gandolfini *IS* Tony Soprano, a big, fat a**hole of a mob boss with a spoiled b*tch of a wife, and two bratty, sh*t-brained kids living in - you guessed it - the armpit of America (that's New Jersey, by the way). Not only is Tony a womanizing adulterer, he's also an unrepentant murdering scumbag, with a crew of "Saturday Night Live" skit-worthy caricatures for subordinates. It's not the fact that Tony is a piece of sh*t mobster that offends me (and apparently only me). Allowing characters to be who and what they are, without judgment, is something American TV hardly allows. But Chase - and his entourage of money-gorged, Emmy-gored writers - have not simply allowed us to observe Tony and his crew as they behave, nor have they even attempted to provide any insight into the action / reaction reality of (even obviously fictionalized) organized crime (a la "The Godfather"). Instead, Chase glorifies and endorses his characters' greedy, violent, and corrupt lifestyle in the same way that Tony, his wife, and even his hair-brained psychologist do week after week (or should I say month after month. Or is it year after year? It seems like the show's paltry 13-episode seasons come out with the same regularity as a lunar eclipse). Much has been made of the series' refusal to adhere to "network" structure, with plot lines that go nowhere, and characters that pop-up and disappear like backyard vermin. But if the show is so brilliant in its lack of structure, why does it always feel like I'm watching a soap-opera? Tired mob clichés, bored housewives, self-serving, irredeemable characters AND plots that go nowhere. More than ever, I can see why so many Americans of Italian heritage are p*ssed at this show. It's enough to make you want to curl up with a good book (Danté's "Inferno" springs to mind).<br /><br />People on IMDb love to claim that there's nothing good on television, and therefore "The Sopranos" is a breath of fresh air. Are these same people too busy paying their cable bills to watch "The Shield"? (It's included in Basic, ya know). How about the (still good) "The West Wing"? Or the brilliantly acted (if erratically written) "Boston Legal"? What about possibly the best comedy of the last few decades, "Arrested Development"? And lest we forget that we live in an age of DVDs - nobody *has* to watch *anything* new. I'd much rather shell out $40 for an over-priced boxed set of, well, pretty much *anything*, than give HBO $10 a month (or $80 a DVD set!) to continue to prove how much of a hack-factory it can be.<br /><br />You want good television? Watch "Homicide: Life on the Street." Or "Murder One". Or "Picket Fences". Or even Chase's prior show, "Northern Exposure." If you're already among "The Sopranos"'s legion of brain-washed fans and critics, it's too late for you. But if not, leave Tony and his worthless kin where they all belong - rotting with the fishes. ("Sleeping" would be way too kind) | 0 | negative |
A train holding union soldiers is transporting $300,000 of gold, along with a banker Clayton, who's there to see it reaches its destination, but it's suddenly robbed by the bandit Monetero. However Bahunda nicks off with the gold and hides it, but when Monetero tries to get it out of him, he's killed by soldiers. The only clue is that of a medallion, but Monetero is captured and soon would be executed. A stranger dressed up as a priest comes by (who after the bounty of Monetero) and offers to save his life for half of the gold. In exchange Monetero gives him half of the medallion, but Clayton notices it and discovers something is up. Soon all three are crossing each other for the gold, but also the bank's insurance company and Monetero's gang are watching on, waiting for their chance to pounce.<br /><br />Just watching the opening sequence you'll know you're in for a spaghetti western with a tongue-in-cheek style and a reliance of sprinkling many references (some nicely realised) from other films (largely the Dollar trilogy) of its sub-genre. Director Enzo Castellari's sprightly direction is sprawling and mostly lightweight, but there's potential in many of his grand, showy set pieces and smooth rhythmic pace. Largely there's a lot of tussles, fist-fights (and plenty of acrobatic stunts) taking place, compared with all-out vicious shootouts. However most of these stunts are very well done, and very enjoyable and when the guns are blazing there's energy to burn. The traditional story sticks close to conventional details, but since there's a lot of conniving and outfoxing going on, the spontaneous nature makes sure you're never quite certain how it's eventually going to play out between the three. This leads up to many effective suspenseful moments, clever twists, and plenty of wink, wink. The humour within the starch script is pretty sly. Worked in favourably amongst the light and zesty style, is Giovanni Bergamini's dynamically taut framing and Francesco De Masi's impulsively rousing music score. The performances are extremely well tailored and form a striking rapport. George Hilton's wry and scuffed turn is solid as the ambiguous stranger. Gilbert Roland brings class and intelligence to his formidable Mexican bandit Monetero. Edd Byrnes gives a poised performance as Clayton, that holds up well. Kareen O'Hara doesn't get much to do, but is a worthy looker. Gerard Herter, Pedro Sanchez and Ivano Staccioli provide able support.<br /><br />A fun and worthy spaghetti parody/homage that throws one curve-ball after another and many fruitful down 'n' dirty antics. | 1 | positive |
If you like shoot em up westerns this is a keeper. I thought that the movie was fun to watch and to see folks that I have not seen in a while. I am no expert but I liked the acting. The town and props etc seemed to fit the period and kind of town that you would find out on the frontier. This is not an A western, not enough people and budget. The costumes and firearms were correct for the time! I expect to see the young actors in the film again in the future. Rachel, Chance, Rebekah and Kirby were great. The SASS (Single Action Shooting Society)members that contributed to this effort were pretty darn good. Hope to see more. | 1 | positive |
This was only the second version of the classic story by Charles Dickens I had seen, and sadly it turned out to be one of the worst. The film opens with a quick live action piece where Simon Callow as Charles Dickens begins the story of A Christmas Carol, and then obviously it goes to animated story itself. You probably already know it, Ebenezer Scrooge is the grouchy cold-blooded businessman who refuses charity and hates Christmas. He is visited by Jacob Marley (Nicolas Cage) who warns him of the visits of the other three ghosts of Christmas Past (Jane Horrocks), Present (Sir Michael Gambon) and the silent Future/Yet To Come. After all this he obviously realises the true magic of Christmas, and promises to be nicer in future. The only changes I noticed to the story were Scrooge having mice as friends (a stupid idea), Scrooge's ex-love Belle (Kate Winslet) needing to see him to help at the orphanage, the Ghost of Christmas Present showing the two kids, "want" and "ignorance", Scrooge still gets haunted after being turned nice, and he's worried he can't keep his promise to stay nice. Also starring Rhys Ifans as Bob Cratchit, Juliet Stevenson as Mrs. Cratchit, Iain Jones as Scrooge's nephew Fred and Colin McFarlane as Fezziwig. The animation is not great quality, the actors have wasted their voices for a worthless piece of garbage. The only good thing that comes from this film is the good voice of Kate Winslet, singing the closing song "What If", as for the rest, it is just excruciatingly awful. Very poor! | 0 | negative |
It has been almost 5 years since the release of this stylish action flick.I have watched this movie almost 10 times and it a great effort by Gautham.From my perspective,I feel this movie is virtually flawless. Surya as ACP Anbuchelvan-no doubt..classy.Jyothika played her role as Maya very well.The character suits her very well.The character that caught movie-goers attention was Pandia.Jeevan played the role of Pandia very well.Brutal and fearsome.Jeevan deservedly received the Best Villain award in the ITFA 2004.The supporting cast of Daniel Balaji,Devadharshini and other performed well.<br /><br />Racy screenplay,perfectly-timed dialogues and brilliant narration by Gautham.The soundtrack by Harris Jeyaraj are all chart-busters while the BGM suits the movie very well.Cinematography by R.D. Rajasekhar is rich.Peter Hein choreographed the stunts well.Anthony's editing is precise.Above all,Kaakha Kaakha is a perfect cop film filled with right doses of action and romance.<br /><br />Even some Hollywood film cant compete with Kaakha Kaakha...undoubtedly. | 1 | positive |
The Sentinel is a movie that was recommended to me years ago, by my father, and i've seen it many times since. It always manages to entertain me, while being effectively creepy as well. The flashback scenes are what really made it for me. Cristina Raines's father running around all creepily, with the two creepy woman, always manages to send chills down my spine. it's your typical good vs evil thing, but at least it manages to be entertaining. The ending I consider to be one of the finest in Horror history. It has plenty of shocks and suspense, seeing Burgess Meredith do his thing as Chazen, had me on the edge of my seat. The Sentinel has the perfect build up of tension. We are never fully comfortable whenever Allison is on screen. We know something terrible is always awaiting her, and that made things all the more tense. This movie is often neglected among horror fans, but I personally think it's one of the better one's out there, and it certainly has enough for all Horror fans, to be satisfied.<br /><br />Performances. Cristina Raines has her wooden moments, but came though in a big way for the most part. She's beautiful to look at, and her chemistry with Saranadon felt natural. Chris Sarandon is great as the boyfriend, Michael. He had an instant screen presence, and I couldn't help but love him. Martin Balsam,José Ferrer,John Carradine,Ava Gardner,Arthur Kennedy,Sylvia Miles,Deborah Raffin,Jerry Orbach,Richard Dreyfuss,Jeff Goldblum and Tom Berenger all have memorable roles, or small cameos. Burgess Meredith is terrific as Chazen. He looks like a normal old man, but what we find out, is absolutely terrifying. Eli Wallach&Christopher Wlaken do well, as the bumbling detectives. Beverly D'Angelo has one chilling scene, that I won't spoil.<br /><br />Bottom line. The Sentinel is an effective Horror film that Horror fans, sadly tend to neglect. It will give you the thrills and scares you need to be satisfied. Well worth the look.<br /><br />7/10 | 1 | positive |
Reports of this film's brilliance appear to have been greatly exaggerated, and unless the other reviewers were watching a different movie, I fail to see how anyone can find this film anything other than dull, unscary, uncreepy, overlong, and at times, unbearably irritating. I'm not some schlocky horror fanatic. I love j-horrors and euro-horrors over American horrors any day, but I feel the need to warn any potential viewers about this film before they invest two hours of their life in it.<br /><br />It could have been so great. A reporter is investigating a series of bizarre deaths and occurrences, which seem ostensibly unlinked, but a series of unnerving tropes appears to connect them - dead pigeons, thudding noises, the presence of strangely tied knots... Our reporter goes from person to person, interviewing them, filming them and then passing on. Three important characters are among this jumble of people, a young, shy psychic girl, an immensely irritating, insane psychic man, and a crazy old woman and her boy, whose importance is not revealed until later on.<br /><br />The problem is that the film is not even remotely interesting, which makes its two hour running time unforgivable. It's also not even remotely scary or creepy. Supposedly scary scenes, like shots of ghoulish faces are done incredibly poorly, shown twice, or worse, we are told when they are about to happen. Other techniques, such as telling us that a family just interviewed "died five days later" simply don't make me care, let alone mildly creeped.<br /><br />The film does pick up a bit towards the end, as our reporter, cameraman, psychic and cursed woman go to a village in order to 'remove' the curse which is linking all these deaths. However, by that time, I was in a state of catatonic boredom, and couldn't care less, so all the fairly creepy camera-work and shocks were wasted on me. The "final tape" is quite good, but once again, I'd given up caring and just wanted this film to end.<br /><br />Boring and dull, not scary and not creepy, I would advise you keep away from Noroi. It has promising moments, but this is a film that was poorly made and not worth your time. | 0 | negative |
If you've ever wondered why they don't make porn with a plot, watch Dream Quest. On the one hand, you have to give the Armstrong credit both for making the effort to capitalize on this idea and for using such a strong adult cast to put some name power behind it. On the other hand, it also quickly becomes apparent why most porns never have more than 15 or 20 seconds of dialog connecting sex scenes together. These people simply cannot act (and the story is, unfortunately, lame to a ridiculous degree).<br /><br />Still, I gave it a 7 because it was a nice try and there didn't seem to be much of an effort to cut corners. Also, I'd like to see more attempts like this one. Maybe someday I will see the perfect combination of porn and plot. | 1 | positive |
This film is about a grieving wife who lost her husband through suicide. She is tormented by her son who refused to speak after that.<br /><br />Child grief is rarely explored on film, so it is refreshing to see a film like Addison's Wall. However, due to the very nature of the film, there is no tension or drama. Apart from a few key emotional moments, everything in the film is very plain. The abrupt ending that does not solve any mysteries certainly do not help the film to be more watchable. Addison's Wall could have been much better, such as exploration of the contents of the wall, a more intensive care program to help Addison to go through his trauma. Instead, the film feels very unfinished and non engaging. | 0 | negative |
A ridiculous movie, a terrible editing job, worst screenplay, ridiculous acting, a story that is completely ununderstandable...<br /><br />If God was going to decide if movies should continue to be done, judging by this one, the entire world movie industry would now be dead...<br /><br />A wonderful movie to show that cinema should not be done by people who "think" they can make movies.<br /><br />I am still wondering who are those two gipsy girls who show up in the movie for over half an hour, and are never introduced to us...<br /><br /> | 0 | negative |
The movie concerns about Philip(Leslie Howard)he's a serious but handicapped medicine student .He falls fatally in love with a heartless, predatory waitress called Mildred(Bette Davis).She leaves him ,engaging with others(Alan Hale,Reginald Denny).Meanwhile he is romanced with another suitors(Kay Johnson,Frances Dee)but she goes back in a mutually destructive affair.<br /><br />Easily the best and first of numerous films versions of Somerset Maugham's novel. Bette Davis as the cockney cruel waitress winning yet another magnificent interpretation with an alluring and smouldering performance ,absolutely hypnotic in her account of the bondage that occurs from the beginning to the finale.Davis rose the stardom with her performance.Her role as tough and crude domineering woman will be repeated several times in posteriors acting . Leslie Howard as the essentially good and decent student subtly destroyed gives an excellent and melancholic performance.He was an awesome actor(Gone with the wind)besides producer and writer and dead in plane crash during WWII. Both will play again in ¨Petrified forest¨(1936). The atmosphere film is elaborately recreated in the RKO(Radio Picture Inc) studio is entirely convincing. Remade in 1946 by Edmund Goulding, with Eleanor Parker and Paul Henreid; and in 1964 by Ken Hughes with Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey . The motion picture will like to classic cinema buffs. Rating : Very good but a little bit dated. | 1 | positive |
William Petersen (that C.S.I guy) has a small uncredited role but it's the best part of the movie. His character comes across smart ass and tough, and it's a fun surprise to see him in this. He has a range that allows him to play just about anything. After his 5 minutes, it goes from looking cool to just nothing much. It leaves you hoping that his character will reappear in the movie but after 20 minutes you give up hope. The movie itself is pretty poor. Worth a watch on TMN or a pick up at the library but not much more. Too much of it reminds you of L.A Confidential except that where that movie starts to get complicated upon itself, this one is so loose, it steers everywhere but where it should. 2 out of 5 stars | 0 | negative |
While to most people watching the movie, this will be of little interest, but out of the many hundreds of movies dealing with magic and the occult in one form or another, this one is probably the best in many ways.<br /><br />From The Golem to The Craft the subject seems to be of endless interest to the movie industry. The majority of movies which touch on it in any way do so childishly (for example "Witchboard", a true piece of utter garbage in every way) either taking the transcendental elements as cheap excuses for cheesy special effects or cardboard cutout villians (cf "Warlock"). More frequently the subject comes up in an hysterical religious context (in the various Revelations-oriented movies, the antichrist is inevitably an advocate of some kind of new-age style practice). Rarely, a movie seems to show at least some passing experience with magic as it is practiced in real life, but the presentation of the occult in such movies can at best be described as allegorical and not literal, or symbolic, or ... just not quite right.<br /><br />I watched this movie again after many years tonight. I had seen it before on VHS; it is a dark, moody piece, and after watching it on DVD, I would say if you have any intention to watch this movie, watch it on DVD, don't watch it on VHS.<br /><br />The darkness and moodiness are overpowering in VHS but in DVD the movie takes on a very different tone. I think Weir pushed the dark aspects intentionally for style, but when the movie is converted to the lower color medium of VHS this goes over the edge. DVD brings the movie to life again and I saw it differently.<br /><br />Anyway, seeing it as if for the first time, I realized that the treatment of magic is extremely good in this movie. It's difficult to go into all the reasons why, I don't care to take the time to do so.<br /><br />For anybody who's curious, anyway, if you want to see what it is like in real life, this movie is just very right on countless levels.<br /><br />And for anybody who isn't, you really wasted a lot of time reading to this point. | 1 | positive |
What a fantastic premise: A movie about the Berlin Airlift. It should have it all. Tragedy. Suspense. Comradeship. Rivals. Berliner Frauleins and tough US pilots. love and Tears. What we've got, is a film with none of the above. Heino Ferch tries to impersonate John Wayne or so, but he fails miserably. He acts so wooden, that at any given moment he should crack. He tries to play the tough guy, instead of being a tough guy! Why would Bettina Zimmermann's character fall in love with him? Cause they were throwing stones in a lake? Cause he brings her coal bricks? The SFX are very, very well done. Too much though. The hundreds or so planes over Berlin, look like an attack-fighter-formation-squadron rather than an organised airlift as it actually was. Interestingly enough, the White House, the Kremlin, and General Lucius D. Clays office seem all to be one and the same dark and dusty set. Notice the same drapes, hanging deep down the windows, as if a protective shield against nuclear fallout. Why is almost every scene INSIDE dark and dusty? By the way, GENERAL LUCIUS D. CLAY, comes across as a small time, insecure, looser General, who doest trust in his own noble idea the airlift. He was very much the opposite. So you combine all those individual blunders and the result is a film with that builds toward no passion, no suspense and no historic accuracy. Sad, it started out so promising
| 0 | negative |
Supreme Sanction is a movie about a female assassin who works for the U.S. government. She has to kill a known TV reporter, but spares his life when she sees that he has a little daughter. Because she hasn't killed him, she becomes the next target of her employers.<br /><br />The script isn't good although I've seen worse B-movies. A hit-man with remorse, the government killing innocent people in the name of fighting terror,... What's next? Aliens rescuing the victim??? No, Supreme Sanction will never win any award because of the script. And the acting isn't any better I'm afraid. A few better known actors (Michael Madsen and Kristy Swanson), who clearly had a lot of bills to pay and therefor accepted to play in this movie, together with some other actors who probably don't even know what a camera really looks like don't do any good to the movie either.<br /><br />So why should you watch this movie? Well, if you haven't got anything better to do but to watch some action flick and you are tired of the 10,531st rerun of Mc Gyver or the A-team, than this might be the movie you want to see. Otherwise you better leave it alone. I give it a 3/10. | 0 | negative |
Help! Once again, Paul Schrader has sabotaged his own intentions with dull, pedantic storytelling. I rearranged a vacation so that I could see this "world premiere." What a mistake! Why did Schrader even want to make an Exorcist film? Lofty intentions are fine, but if I wanted 2 hours of theological babble, I would visit my nephew's Sunday school. Father Merrin's struggle with his faith, as presented in his younger days, is a potentially interesting subject. But an Exorcist movie needs more! The relentlessly draggy presentation, along with ridiculous special effects, makes for a strange production. Who is this movie for? I didn't bother seeing the Harlin version, but at least they apparently tried to deliver some sort of visceral thrills.<br /><br />The Exorcist series has been quite strange. The first film was excellent, but every sequel has been unloved and pointless. Why do they keep making them? I suppose Schrader made it so that he could get a lot of money. But why should we go? | 0 | negative |
Ridiculous, nauseating doggerel with terrible acting; ineptly, superficially, and condescendingly trawling all the most banal clichés about Tuscany and Italy, divorce and midlife. The main actor nervously grimaces her way through the film, struggling to portray the appropriate level of smug, self-congratulatory self-pity the worthless character and script call for. I'm sure the book was bad, but it can't have been this bad! The camera is permanently fitted with a vomit-yellow "Tuscan" lense filter (perhaps the Tuscan sun wasn't Tuscan enough?), which they forgot to remove when the scene shifts to Rome and (how imaginative!) the Amalfi coast. You've never seen the white marble of Rome's Vittorio Emmanuelle monument looking so yellow... I mean Tuscan. One of the worst movies ever, and therefore quite worth a look. | 0 | negative |
The most hardcore bad film buff will be surprised by the overall ineptness of this grade-z "film". Mary Woronov, a clever actress best known for her roles as Mary Bland in Eating Raoul and Miss Togar in Rock 'N' Roll High School, is by far the best thing about this tripe. This film is almost too bad even for MST3K - honestly! | 0 | negative |
Uzumaki, is a visually stunning Film, and I don't think anyone is going to be able to argue that. But, unfortunately, the story somewhat falls flat.<br /><br />The film nevertheless is very entertaining. It uses it's wild style to tell a somewhat non-existant story. The film almost works, just based on it's characters and style, but In my opinion, leaves something to be desired. | 1 | positive |
Dude, I thought this movie rocked. Perfect for just sitting around alone and watching at like 3AM with just you and a bottle. The whole time you are watching it you are thinking WTF? What's gonna happen next.... dude just get with the chick already. Alright..... they are pickin mushrooms... this is odd... but kinda creepy cool. Damn this whole movie has an erotic dirty naughty cold evil undertone to it... it's subtle dance just keeps you drawn to it... you're just waiting for someone to get whacked. But damn... WTF!? You get that and then some. For the morally enraged stomach it is great running to the toilet to barf material. Any movie that can get that kinda reaction out of you deserves an award. | 1 | positive |
The only reason I watched this film was because I had recently read Robert Hough's less than perfect, but interesting, fictionalised account of the life of Big Cat trainer Mabel Stark. Beaty appears as a character in the book, in a less than flattering light.<br /><br />I hadn't realised until checking the movie out later on the IMDb that it was originally a serial. Whoever edited the original running time of 233 minutes down to the 68 minuted version available on DVD has done a hell of a good job. The shortened version plays just as well as any B movie of the period despite the many 'duh-what?' moments. For instance are we really expected to believe our hero dug that twenty foot deep tiger trap in a morning without even getting his jodhpurs dirty? Looking over the chapter titles I see that number five is titled "Gorilla Warfare" and number eleven is called "The Gorilla". There were no gorillas at all in the movie. I guess that's where some of the cuts were made.<br /><br />Historicaly interesting. | 0 | negative |
I find it hard to believe that anyone would put this movie in the same context as the Exorcist. Where the Exorcist was subtle and creepy, Stigmata was blunt, clumsy, and way too formulaic.<br /><br />This is one of the most visually beautiful films I've seen in a while, but the imagery does not make up for the downward spiral of patronizing exposition that makes it unbearable. <br /><br />My interest in this movie was peaked when it was compared to The Exorcist, and my visit to the official web site increased that interest. The web site had many tales of "actual" stigmata throughout history. However, scene by scene, the movie is so obsessed by its quest for "genuineness" that it becomes comical at first, then outright hard to watch toward the end. I began getting suspicious when the priest charged with investigating potential miracles walks into the beauty parlor where our would-be heroine cuts hair and, evidently, flirts with priests.<br /><br />The plot: A woman without faith in God begins receiving the wounds of Christ (the Stigmata) and is baffled and upset about the ordeal. A priest is sent straight from the Vatican to investigate the case. Is Frankie possessed by Satan, or a vessel for Jesus Christ?<br /><br />The only miracle in this film is that it finally ends. | 0 | negative |
This is not as funny and gory as the DVD box claims. I really love twisted and wierd movies, but this one is really just dull! It's one hour of ripped off penises, flying Baby Born dolls and a lot of rape! I think the intention with this amateur sleaze, was to make a It's-so-bad-it's-good movies, but it fails. It's just bad! A few scenes are ok, but in whole it's a mess. If you like amateur splatter like this one (Only way better) I would recommend Andreas Schnass' Violent Shit 2 and 3. | 0 | negative |
"Smokey And The Bandit" wasn't exactly Shakespeare, but then nobody wanted it to be. It was lowdown slapstick, but it did have brains. It had a very smart script with definable characters and a fun wrap-up. People came out of the theater smiling. "Hooper" provides none of this. There is no reason to smile. If it's supposed to be a tribute to the Hollywood Stuntman, it makes them look awfully lazy by providing nothing but badly-choreographed fight scenes and one of the most unconvincing car-jumps I've ever seen. It all looks phony, badly-filmed almost on purpose. Poor Sally Field (as the girlfriend who wrings her hands on the sidelines) is given her weakest role, with not a single funny or smart line ("If you do that jump, I won't be here when you get back"). Burt Reynolds keeps looking at the camera and winking, but the joke is on any audience who sits through "Hooper". * from **** | 0 | negative |
Maybe one of the most entertaining Ninja-movies ever made. A hard-hitting action movie with lots of gore and slow motion (eehaaa!). Made in ´83 and still the greatest swedish action movie made so far! And we can hardly wait to see the upcoming sequel, Ninja mission 2000 - The legacy of Markov! | 1 | positive |
This movie was never intended as a big-budget film but was a cute little picture that pretty much anyone could enjoy. It probably won't change your life, but it is certainly charming and engaging.<br /><br />Clifton Webb plays a curmudgeon (that's certainly not new) who has a TV. However, his ratings are failing and he is worried about cancellation. So he decides maybe he is too out of touch with kids--as he and his wife have none of their own. So, he volunteers as a scoutmaster and regrets doing this almost immediately! Remember, he IS a curmudgeon and doesn't particularly like kids. To make things worse, one of the kids really likes him and follows him like a lost puppy. No matter how indifferently he acts towards the kid, the child just wants to spend time with him! The kid is cute and nearly steals the show all by himself! <br /><br />What happens next and the twists and turns of the movie are something you'll just have to find out for yourself. Understand that this is a light, cute and yet not cloying movie you'll probably enjoy. | 1 | positive |
The centurions is one of the best cartoons ever and it needs to be put on TV and DVD so people can have younger generations enjoy such a good show that is far better than the garbage they have made in the last 14 years. I have a petition online that is at the website address Http://www.petitiononline.com/6600F/petition.html that originally was trying to get this show on five days a week but is now trying to get this show onto DVD since the TV station it was focused on has bad public relations. We all need to convince the people who own this show to put it on DVD so it can be seen by future generations. Also since now Hasbro Toys owns the toy line of this show we might want to try to convince them to make a live action movie of it just like they have done with Transformers and sometime this year G.I.Joe. We need good cartoons like this one to come back and be enjoyed by the younger generations. Please do sign this petition so we can one day have DVDs of the guys who are famous for yelling "Power Extreme!" | 1 | positive |
Wilson (Erica Gavin) is nabbed by the cops and sent to prison in this slick and amusing example of prime 70's exploitation, marking the directing debut of Jonathan Demme. After writing and producing a few of mentor Roger Cormans' New World films, Demme was afforded the opportunity to direct for the first time, and he delivers a movie that not only delivers the expected and tasty doses of nudity and violence, but has an appealing tongue-in-cheek quality to it as well; it's often as funny as it is flashy.<br /><br />Standout scenes include a lewd and crude vaudeville style act performed for the prisoners, as well as a potent dream / fantasy sequence for uptight and obviously very repressed Superintendent McQueen (horror icon Barbara Steele, doing a marvelous turn in this antagonistic role). I also enjoyed a bank robbery scene gone haywire and a carjacking scene that was simply uproarious. As in other movies of this kind, it's also commendable that it's as much a portrait of female empowerment as it is pure exploitation. These women are tough, they take no garbage from anybody, and they're more than capable of handling themselves.<br /><br />Our attractive cast here makes the most of their roles: Juanita Brown as the aggressive Maggie, Roberta Collins as the sassy Belle, Rainbeaux Smith as the cute and timid Lavelle, Gavin as the wide-eyed newcomer, and Lynda Gold (a.k.a. Crystin Sinclaire) in a bright appearance as an accomplice on the outside.<br /><br />As our climax plays out, Demme comes up with a tense "beat the clock" finish as our heroines race to save Belle from being lobotomized by predatory Dr. Randolph (Warren Miller), the type of man who thinks nothing of taking advantage of women.<br /><br />Bouncing along to John Cales' flavorful score, "Caged Heat" is upbeat entertainment and a guaranteed good time.<br /><br />8/10 | 1 | positive |
I can't quite explain why I find this so alluring and "The Leopard" not; it may be because the focus here is on all that was great with that film, those intimate moments that Visconti can render so magnificently. Like that film, it has a majestically slow pace, but this time it isn't overlong. It's the kind of film where nothing happens but twenty minutes passes like that. I think that must be due in part to the way the film deals with flashbacks that act as their own mini-story. Like "The Leopard," it has a sympathetic lead who brings out the same kind of worn pathos -- though Bogard's performance is more willing to open itself to being unlikable, especially in look: he has a really stupid grin that's easy to dislike. It's often quite beautiful in the quiet moments. It's the opulence of Visconti's films, the grandeur of the ball scenes, that I find tedious, as they exchange individual clarity with mass precision. But here, that is part of the point -- Gustav surrounded by a visual din.<br /><br />The way in which the object of Gustav's affection is introduced to us is quite brilliant -- the camera shows a girl, girl, girl, then this beautiful, feminine-featured boy. It's like an allusion to Shakespeare's sonnets, and it doesn't feel heavy-handed. (It's not until the camera views Tadzio fully, pulls back and we see his long, slender legs, that we realize he is not a boy, but an adolescent -- at first we're forced to question Gustav's attraction in an uncomfortable way; Visconti must have known that, and he doesn't shy away from it.) Visconti is extremely patient with Gustav; we get a sense of the man, we know him. It's a largely silent performance, and when he does open his mouth it's to spew venom; no wonder he wants the angelic, open-featured boy to project himself onto. There's a difference with Tadzio (we never know him, just as we never know a handful of Fellini grotesques; but that's because his life is another, its own film), but it's not as flirtatious as it's been made to seem (there is one scene, however, where he twirls around a pole that's too much). Tadzio isn't necessarily leading him on -- he's looking at him; Visconti just zooms in is all.<br /><br />The film doesn't detail Gustav as being gay -- Tadzio isn't even really male, he's a prettified version of a boy (delicate, pale, wispy, with golden locks) that everyone seems to love (including one gorgeous, slightly older young man who he wrestles with). The closest they go to showing what could be understood as a reference to Gustav's homosexuality is the famous barber scene, which unlocks his repressed vanity.<br /><br />It isn't totally successful -- the whole section with Alfred is a waste, and some unnecessary scenes, people carrying bags in long shot, could have been excised. Some parts are heavy-handed, such as when Gustav's boat pulls in and rowdy boys pass him by -- the looks on his face are too obvious. (But during the same scene Gustav throws a fit, wanting a new rower, something so unexplainable that it makes up for it.) But there are some scenes -- touching for the first time -- that build up a remarkable, quiet intensity. Tadzio repeating a piano song again and again, the notes quivering in the air, may be the best example of the anxiety the film has. There is one discussion that contains a debate I'm especially interested: Can art be spiritual if it satisfies the senses, or does it have to go beyond them? (We can consider Tarkovsky, who esteems both Visconti and Mann, to be the prime example of someone going beyond mere sensory sensations.) I think this one manages to do both. 9/10 | 1 | positive |
Although this film has had a lot of praise, I personally found it boring. There are some nice Brasilian sunsets and the characters are believable, but the story of how they interrelate, even if very unusual by our standards, is not interesting enough to sustain a movie this long. The central woman takes up with one man after another in a close knit way and putting the interests of her children first. As the tolerance of the various men is stretched, we see their characters develop. The story unfolds with dignity and aided by excellent acting. It is a rare glimpse into the Brasilian hinterland, far from the city, but hardly exciting enough to keep one's eyes open for. | 0 | negative |
I've just lost 2 hours of my life watching this mindless plot. I could make a better movie with my cellphone camera. How do they manage to get actors to play in those movies?? Porn movies have better scenarios and effects... I wish I had those 2 hours back...<br /><br />The only good thing about this movie is the cast. Even though, their acting skills in this one could not lift this movie to passable, the rest was just WAY too bad! <br /><br />It's the type of movie that I'd recommend using to torture prisoners into scaring them straight.<br /><br />Even worse, I saw a translated version of this flick...Imagine, a bad movie...with an even worst translation...Yikes! | 0 | negative |
This movie was very enjoyable, though you'll only like it if: - you hate going to the dentist but aren't afraid of a movie where one of them goes beserk - you love horror movies<br /><br />I particularly liked the fact that some care was given to explaining the brute actions of the main character. The fact that he's totally obsessed by cleanliness (especially in the mouth) and then catches his wives providing some oral pleasure to the mud-covered pool-man is a pretty believable reason to go overboard.<br /><br />Liked it. I give it an 8. | 1 | positive |
What an awful movie. Full of cliches, perplexing scenes, very bad acting, and an atrotious script. It is hard to believe the same guys that wrote The People vs. Larry Flint and Man on the Moon wrote this garbage. Man, this makes my list of Top 10 Worst Movies of All-Time. Didn't this guy, this director, if you can call him that, realize that the first Problem Child was bad enough? Let alone make a sequel for it!!?? Amazing that piece of trash films like this can be shown to children let alone be released! 1 out of 10 *'s | 0 | negative |
Kevin Spacey is very talented, but unfortunately directing is not his forte. I had high expectations about the film before I rented it and maybe that is why I disliked it so much. I admire Spacey's attempt at making a film that takes place mostly in one small setting, but it's not the attempt that counts. I found the film dull, boring, and stretched out. The acting was nothing spectacular. Gary Sinise has done much better, especially since he is conscious in most of his other films. Skeet Ulrich was disappointing, but this was one of his first films (I did get a kick out of how young and chubby this Scream star looked). The only thing that impressed me about this film was the one shot of the car wreck from above. The center line of the road was perfectly centered and the camera moved on along the line and past the wreck. However, that shot was very "Usual Suspects"ish and my guess is Spacey got the idea from that earlier film of his (which is very good mind you). If you want to see a fabulous film that takes place in one small setting, watch Hitchcock's Lifeboat. Maybe Spacey should have watched it before filming this. | 0 | negative |
I had heard this movie was good from a lot of my friends that saw it, and they all said it was amazing, so I had very high expectations- and Nancy Drew exceeded those high expectations! It had funny parts, it kept me entertained with the action and all the dudes trying to kill her, and Emma Roberts was amazing as Nancy Drew. The rest of the cast was very good, also. I would definitely recommend this movie!! <br /><br />Nancy: "I wonder why those guys were trying to kill us?!" Corky: "Yeah, I was wondering that too. Actually, it's kinda creeping me out!"<br /><br />Nancy: "I hate when people try to kill me. It's so rude!"<br /><br />~Nancy Drew | 1 | positive |
Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean ranks right up there with Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers and other comedy greats. I have never seen people laugh out loud so heartily and literally fall out of their chairs as when I introduced them to Mr. Bean via my videos and now DVDs. I'll never forget the first time my brother saw him. He was over for a visit and I asked him if he'd ever seen Mr. Bean? "Who?" he said. So I got out my video and showed him the one where Mr. Bean is in church and starts to nod off. My brother laughed so hard he fell out of the chair and was holding his stomach from laughing so hard. He became an instant fan of Mr. Bean. We all know how hilarious these episodes are, but the fun is in sharing them with others. I have seen so many people laugh 'til it hurts! Favorite episodes are: the visit of the Queen, the Hotel room stay, late for the Dentist appointment, the Christmas episode (a classic...plus kids love it!) and the New Year Party. Rowan Atkinson is a comic genius! | 1 | positive |
The only thing I remember about this movie are two things: first, as a twelve year old, even I thought it stunk. Second, it was so bad that when Mad magazine did a parody of it, they quit after the first page, and wrote a disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying that they had completely disavowed it.<br /><br />If you want to see great sophomoric comedies of this period, try Animal House. It's so stupid and vulgar it lowers itself to high art. Another good selection would be Caddyshack, the classic with the late Rodney Dangerfield and Bill Murray before he became annoyingly charming, with great lines like greens keeper Carl Spackler's "Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers they'll lock me up and throw away the key." | 0 | negative |
This has to be one of the 5 worst movies ever made. The plot looked intriguing like that of Passenger 57. But with the latter movie it somehow worked a lot better. The plot has been worked out in the worst possible way. Just a few of the awful moments in the movie, A flight attendant is standing in the opened doorway of a flying 747 and trying to close the door without being sucked out by the 250 mile per hour winds?!? Thereafter the lands the aircraft from a few miles out starting at 8000 feet, thats impossible even for 747 pilots with thousands of hour experience. When on the runway (perfectly straight of course) she is instructed to pull on the flaps, HUH!! Come on flaps are there to ensure lift at low speeds, when on the runway you use thrust reverse on the engines and give maximum power! I can go on and on about little and mostly big mistakes in the movie, but then my reply would become the size of the English dictionary. This is a movie you want to miss, take my word for it! | 0 | negative |
I saw this film at the 3rd Adelaide International Film Festival at the Palace cinemas, and was totally switched onto it in the opening five minutes. Thanks goodness for a film that ignores all the rubbish we often see in Australian films that seem to revolve around a)race b)gender and c) class, in favour of er...dare I say....jolly good cinema. The producer, a shy, slightly eccentric chap called Alex Frayne introduced his film, made with a bunch of his mates near the town he spent much of his childhood. Apparently he's spent much of the last year traveling the world with the film, mostly in Europe. The world the film creates is both brilliant and arty, not least because of strange and disconcerting editing style, the Gothic characters, and the surreal sense of time and place that draws viewers into its nightmarish realm.<br /><br />The producer returned for the Q + A after-wards. Someone asked him what his inspiration was - he replied "South Australia." Hear hear! Another asked him what a 'day in the life of alex' entailed. He replied that he drives an old Ute, that he has breakfast at the same table at the same restaurant that he's jolly well eaten at for the past 8 years! and that he plays piano which helps him to think. He doesn't drink booze and plays cricket once a week. Then the Q and A session ended abruptly because of the next film screening - so my thoughts are that for the next festival, they need to extend the after film sessions. | 1 | positive |
The Last Station, director Michael Hoffman's melodrama about the last months in the life of Leo Tolstoy, begins with fog and sleep. Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) lives with his family in a compound at Yasnaya Polyana, taking walks and writing and being seen to by his wife and the adherents to his "movement", people dedicated to his ideas of pacifism, vegetarianism, sexual abstinence and communal property who have gathered in a forest camp not far away. His wife, Sophia (Helen Mirren) wars openly with the head of his movement Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), who she claims in his efforts to convince Tolstoy to sign the rights to his works over to the Russian people is trying to steal the wealth that is owed to her upon her husbands imminent death. Observing all of this is Tolstoy's new steward, Bulgakov (James McAvoy), a naive adherent who is torn between his love of the man and concern for his wife.<br /><br />Hoffman's script, which is based on the novel by Jay Parini, quite often veers itself into confused territory, building up a complex tangle of threads and opaque motivations that ultimately don't resolve themselves in any satisfying way. The scope of the film is grand, and its story should reverberate just as Tolstoy, whose beliefs foreshadowed in some ways both the Bolsheviks' and those of pacifists like Ghandi. It unfortunately doesn't, it's un-unpickable, building up with much gusto confrontations that are constantly ravelling off into nothingness. The three-way relationship between the Church, the faithful Sophia and the unbelieving Tolstoy, for example, is referenced often. In the last section of the film a mute priest in a magnificent hat even shows up, but the script never expands on this beyond awkwardly inserting it into the story as an attempt at enriching it or providing some semblance of historical accuracy. There are a ton of details in the film, but not enough attention is paid to most of them and as a result the film feels cluttered, overburdened, energetic but unfortunately pointless.<br /><br />At its heart is the love story between Sophia and Tolstoy, and that story, as baffling and cramped as it is, is the reason to watch the film. Mirren and Plummer are, unsurprisingly, the best things in the film. Plummer's Tolstoy is vague, at once confused and resolute, apprehensive and full of joy and certainty. Mirren's Sophia is in full panic, in a righteous lather, forced to watch and expected to be mute as her husband gives away his time, his possessions and his money to people who are unquestionably devoted to him but also clearly in possession of their own agendas. They're great performances, all the more so given the vast gulf between the real importance of the couple's place in history and the script's ability to support that, both Sophia and Tolstoy seem willed into the film by Mirren and Plummer alone, both making the best they can out of what meagre material is there. Giammati and McAvoy, both talented actors, are unable to do the same and Giamatti's Chertkov seems neither a revolutionary nor a thief (and not both at once, either) but rather a cipher, a stand-in for a whole package of unresolved anxieties and aborted historical impulses. The scope of this thing never boils down to anything, it hitches along, getting by on the strength of Plummer and Mirren and not much else. It's interesting and pretty, but ultimately unrewarding. 4.5/10 | 0 | negative |
When I first read Hamlet, I couldn't help but think of the ending of OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE, where Bette Midler puts down the play because of how indecisive he is, and says, "Give me Romeo any day." Five acts of a man trying to decide whether or not to kill his uncle or not? Seemed like overkill to me. But upon further reading, I grew to really appreciate the play. I've seen the Olivier and Gibson movie versions(and part of the Nicol Williamson version), and all of them take their model from Olivier; the melancholy Dane. Olivier at least did it without being self-indulgent about it, but Gibson and, from what I saw, Williamson, looked like they went to the "Look, Ma, I'm acting! I'm acting!" school.<br /><br />Now here comes Kenneth Branagh's version, which is breathtaking from start to finish. It finished #2 on my top ten of 1996(behind THE ENGLISH PATIENT, and ahead of LONE STAR, JERRY MAGUIRE, FARGO, SECRETS & LIES, EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, BIG NIGHT, and LOOKING FOR RICHARD), and it's the best Hamlet, and maybe the best Shakespeare, put to film. Obviously, Branagh's talents as a filmmaker, for making the full-length version, in 70mm print, and not losing our interest for four hours, is great, but what seems to get overlooked in discussions about this film is his performance in the title role. This was my favorite performance of the year by far. Branagh avoids the melodrama which actors seem to get trapped in by playing Hamlet as a normal, regular human being, and makes us understand his actions and feelings each step of the way. And unlike Olivier, who depended mostly on his voice, Branagh uses his entire body to demonstrate the range of emotions that Hamlet goes through, but since he plays him as normal, none of it seems like scenery-chewing.<br /><br />The rest of the cast is top-notch as well. I didn't even mind Jack Lemmon, though I agree he was the weakest member of the cast. The most surprising turn came from Charlton Heston; I've always found him stiff as a board, but he's quite commanding as the Player King. The other big surprise was Billy Crystal; I thought I'd find him all wrong as the 1st Gravedigger, but he was his usual funny self while being in character. All in all, a glorious film! | 1 | positive |
Astounding.....This may have been A poor attempt at remaking the already recreated Omen Movie, but I sure enjoyed it.<br /><br />That last Man who commented is a fool, This Movie was one of a kind, And the Music Dark, Jerry Goldsmith Himself, would had applaud this Movie.<br /><br />Great recommendations from Myself to Watch or Buy this Film.<br /><br />I collect horror Movies and Soundtracks, So listen to what I have to say, not that other idiot.<br /><br />There is only one thing that do not fascinate Me, the endings.<br /><br />According to Prophecy it is all inaccurate, Including Final conflict, and Left behind.<br /><br />But My conclusion being.... There great Movies...and should be seen, before the Great Depression falls upon Us, and Before the Democrats Take over the Presidency too.<br /><br />So Signed....Jacob Eder...A Farmer, with A Mastermind. | 1 | positive |
Unfortunately, this movie is so bad. The original Out of Towners was manic and very funny, of course they used the script written by Neil Simon. For some reason Neil Simons script is not used in this film so it falls flat time and time again. Even the audience I was with never laughed. The direction is very slow and tedious and when there is a joke it is given away so the joke dies i.e. The couple having sex in the park. They announce it is a lighting ceremony for New York, well we all know the lights are going to come on and we will be able to see cute and mugging Goldie & Steve do a bit of slap stick. The whole movie winds up being like this...a joke is set up and given away. Why isn't Goldies hair ever even messed up in the movie. You will also notice every close up of Goldie (they use a very intense soft lens). I suggest you rent the original with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis, that's if you want to laugh. | 0 | negative |
This is probably the best television show I've ever seen. I first saw it on Comedy Central several years ago. At the time I was unaware that it had been dramatically edited and was shown out of order, and having just watched all three series in order and unedited (thank you internet and your wondrous "series of tubes") I am SO GLAD I rediscovered it! I think Comedy Central sort of picked and chose their way through series one and two to make a "season"......and I tried to get friends and family to watch it, but nobody really seemed to like it (I need new friends). So, on my own, I made the best out of it that I could. Even when I felt like it was waning a bit, I still felt compelled to continue watching. Years after when I discovered Little Britain, I immediately recognized Pauline from LoG as having influenced Marjorie in Fat Fighters. Also, I love the idea of writers who act the entire show....(not new, but done impeccably here). LB has nothing on LoG! (No offense, Matt & David....Love you)! This is indeed a darkly comedic piece of genius. Serial murder, implied cannibalism.....you name it and it's probably found in this wonderful, unique piece of TV art. The location shots from the very first scene themselves are chilling and seem to beckon you to the town of Royston Vasey.....You'll Never Leave! I think my favorite character would have to be Tubbs, but each character as portrayed has it's own "charm". My least favorite was Papa Lazarous, that was until he re-surfaced in series three (clever and wholly unexpected)! It's best to watch several episodes in a row as it drives the continuity and as I said before, becomes so compelling (while repulsing) that you really CAN'T stop watching. This is not for those with weak stomachs, kids, conservatives or Grandma (unless you've got one saucy granny)! I have always loved British TV, particularly comedies, from Monty Python to Benny Hill, Red Dwarf to Keeping Up Appearances, Absolutely Fabulous and the British originals Coupling and The Office (but not their US counterparts....sorry). This is unlike any of those in that it completely redraws the line between what's funny and what's just sick and twisted. Nothing, NOTHING on US TV has ever come close to this level of entertainment. US broadcast TV is so sad and lame, I can barely stand to watch ANY of it. It's kind of sad that even our cable channels don't have the guts to show unedited versions of this gem (your loss, Comedy Central). Thankfully there are shows like this one that come from the "across the pond" that redeem the entire medium every decade or so. Basic cable here in the US has been making tiny steps the last few years in confidently "crossing lines" with more graphic sexual content, drug use and adult language, but they are still years away from just deciding to be Adults about showing real life, adult behavior (instead of just murder obsession and blowing things up, sheesh, it's like the same basic show format for the past 35 years)! Don't even get me started on US sitcoms! Waste of time and lots of wasted money......did you know that "According to Jim" has been on the air for 10 years??? 10 YEARS?? Anyway... Watch this show, get it on DVD, do what you must and then make your friends watch it as well! You've never seen anything like it. There are three specials that I have not watched yet....I'm saving them to spring on my best friend next time he visits. He'll watch them, even if I have to chain him up and paint him with Excrement! Lines and lines and lines and lines! Note that series three departs from one and two....the greater town seems to fall away to concentrate on newer characters, the laugh track is gone (thank bloody hell), the theme is more band and less orchestra and a bit of the story takes place outside of Royston Vasey. Don't be thrown by any of that as by the end, the series has preserved the quiet perversity first demonstrated in series one and two. I think these four guys have created something sort of undefinable. Brilliant, confident and absolutely demented. You will want to re-watch it again and again. It's amazing that in 5 seconds of screen time they can go from cheap sight-gag to horrifying blasphemy then end with a single actors close-up facial expression. If ever I were to meet any of the writer/performers, I'd implore them not to recreate it or try to top it.....I'd just say "Can I help you at all?" (Then they'd probably slap me, so I'd ask them to sign the slap-mark)! 10 out of 10 | 1 | positive |
OK. So it can be done! We have here the perfect vampire movie. Gothic, beautiful. With all the ingredients. A realistic vampire. A wonderful story. Take note - I am from Transylvania and I assure you, this movie respects the vampire lore! It's exactly like the tales I heard in my childhood. For a transylvanian, it is quite... believable. You must see it, if you are interested by real vampires, as they were depicted in medieval chronicles and not how are they done in recent Hollywood movies (as far as I can guess, the Hollywood problem is they mix vampires with the incubus - which is pretty hilarious for me. Vampires are never good-looking or attractive, they can inspire only horror and repulsion. The incubus - called in my country The Night Flier, is the one beautiful demon which kills his victims by loving them.) I strongly recommend this for any Gothic person out there! See also the sequels, they are all 4 very good! And of course, don't miss DArk shadows! Something similar is Nosferatu In Venice with Klaus Kinski. I recommend that one to. | 1 | positive |
I went to see this film based on the review by Siskel and Ebert; not only did I get duped, but I took some friends along, and had to spend the rest of the day profusely apologizing for making them sit through this pointless crap. After this, I never went to see a movie based solely on Siskel & Ebert's advice. | 0 | negative |
We, as a family, were so delighted with 'The Last of the Blonde Bombshells' we purchased a copy for our home video library.<br /><br />The acting is A1 and the cast contains many favorite actors and singers. The theme is unusual and the script well written. The music/songs are timeless and takes us back to our young days when we sang the songs at the top of our voices. To outline the story here would spoil the 'plot' as it is really nice to sit back and enjoy the story as it unfolds.<br /><br />Full marks to this most enjoyable and uplifting production and we heartily recommend it to anyone who is looking for a belly-laugh and lots of music. | 1 | positive |
Jeff Leroy wanted to makes fun of Scientology so built a horror movie around a cult similar to it. The twist is that instead of frail old L. Ron Hubbard as the cult leader, there's a centuries old space monster who turns his followers into vampires. Our hero is a dirty living college student who is doing research into the occult. His landlord is an attractive blonde who tries to get him to clean up his life with the help of the cult. It doesn't take him long to figure out that she's only after one thing: his blood. "The Screaming" was shot very cheaply on video and I just plain ugly. The space monster (which looks like a giant winged cat that looks perpetually mad and has no skin) is alternately a clay-mation miniature and a large scale animatronics puppet, both of which look awful. The acting and writing are both terrible and the director doesn't even try to disguise the fact that this movie was made for nothing. Avoid this non-scary, pitiful little excuse. | 0 | negative |
I agree with another user here and have to say that this is one of the best Kung Fu movies ever! I watched this as a kid and absolutely loved it! The scaffolding scenes are brilliant and you can really empathise with this guy because he is treated as an outcast. Nice humour and fantastic kung fu this movie rocks! If you like Kung Fu you would love this!!! | 1 | positive |
by Dane Youssef<br /><br />A gang of crooks. The perfect plan. It all goes wrong. They're in trouble. The police are outside. They're cornered. What are they gonna do now?<br /><br />Sound familiar?<br /><br />The movie seems like it's trying to be a combination of the acting workshop, the "indie" film and the theater.<br /><br />It's the kind of things that actors love--it's kind of like a workshop or a play because it mostly consists of tight focusing on the actors acting... acting angry, tense, scared, conversing, scheming, planning--giving the performers a lot of free range to really ham it all up.<br /><br />A trio of crooks, one leader, one goon, one brother, come up with a big heist scheme... and a monkey wrench is thrown into the works. To top things off, there's a bit of a "fender-bender" and one of the crooks in flung through the back of the windshield.<br /><br />The cops are on their tail and they stumble into a bar named poetically (and leadenly) "Dino's Last Chance."<br /><br />Spacey, as a director, tries to keep the focus on the actors' performances and delivery of dialouge. He pans over to a bright passion-red cigarette ad of a smoking and smoldering Bogart. And he keeps all the violence off-screen, really.<br /><br />I think that was a mistake. Focusing on the intensity and gruesome violent scenes would have given the movie some edge.<br /><br />The problem with the movie is that it moves too slow and suffers from miscasting in almost every role. Matt Dillon ("Drugstore Cowboy" and "Wild Things") seems too young and too idealistic to be the leader of this gang.<br /><br />Gary Sinese seems to brooding and deep in thought to be a spineless tag-along with these guys and Joe Mantaga is effective as the traditional routine foul-swearing mad-dog police lieutenant who's all thumbs, but he isn't given anything to really do here.<br /><br />William Fischter is the only actor who is believable in his role as a brainless grunt who just wants to spill blood.<br /><br />And the crooks are in a tense situation where they either go to jail or they try to think of some way out of this.<br /><br />Spacey lacks the ability to create a lot of tension and keep it going. The characters are mostly chatting away, trying to think of a plan... and they're to calm and too articulate. There's even a scene where the crooks are playing pool with a whole swarm of armed cops right outside, ready to strike. At one point, one of the crooks even call the police who are right outside the bar. Oh brother. Oh bother.<br /><br />These cops are going to either blow them away or going to lock them up. Shouldn't the holed-up crooks be a little scared, a little uneasy? Meanwhile, all the real action is happening inside.<br /><br />Someone whips out a gun, a baseball bat, which leads to an ugly confrontation off-screen and there's one more casualty that happens that's... well, kinda sad. But...<br /><br />Faye Dunaway also should have spent more time with a dialect coach, improving on her New Orleans accent. Skeet Ullrich is fine in a smaller part.<br /><br />A cop listening in reaches for a pack of matches at the absolute worst time is a nice look. And so is a scene where someone goes right through the rear windshield. <br /><br />The dialouge is obviously trying to go for a David Mamet approach and it's as profane, but never as realistic or as insightful.<br /><br />The movie feels like too much of what it really is... a really low-budget movie with an actor behind the camera for the first time directing other actors from a script that's "not bad, but needs a few more re-writes." Spacey shows he's not a terrible director, but he lacks a sort of feel for "shaping a movie" and it feels like he's just filming actors act.<br /><br />These actors are all talented and could work with the material, but they all feel out of place. As I said before, the movie really suffers from miscasting. <br /><br />I don't mean that the wrong actors were cast. I think they found just the right cast, but placed them in all the wrong roles. I think switching some of the roles would've helped immensely.<br /><br />Having veteran mob actor Joe Mantagna play the leader of the pack, Gary Sinese as the angry police lieutenant outside on his bullhorn giving orders and barking at his troops, keeping Fischter in his "bloodthirsty goon" part and Matt Dillion as the sacrificial lamb. That would have been a big improvement.<br /><br />When some actors direct, it works. They can even win Oscars for it. But a lot of the time, when actors direct, they have a tendency to just focus on the performances. Just shoot the actors acting.<br /><br />Sometimes it works... but they need a good showcase for it. An excuse for it.<br /><br />Hostage situations are all pretty much the same in real life just like coming-of-age stories so it's only natural that movies about them will go from point A to point B as well.<br /><br />There are a few really great entries into this genre.' Spacey himself appeared in a similar movie about hostage situations: "The Negotiator."<br /><br />This certainly won't become a cult classic, let alone one of AFI's 100. Still, it does have a few nice moments and personal touches, but in the end, it's instantly forgettable and the kind of movie that would play best on regular TV. It's just not worth going out of your way to see.<br /><br />I give a 3 out of 10. <br /><br />Spacey's other directorial credit, "Beyond The Sea" was reportedly a better effort. Hmmm... maybe it's true. You need to fail before you succeed.<br /><br />by Dane Youssef | 0 | negative |
The biggest surprise in this movie was the performance of Daryl Hannah. Rather than playing the stereotypical ditzy blonde roles that she usually does she plays a street-smart, intelligent, world-weary character. She doesn't have a huge role but she does a great job portraying Lois Harlan as a woman tired of, although used to, covering up for her boss' indiscretions. | 1 | positive |
I saw this movie at an actual movie theater (probably the $2.00 one) with my cousin and uncle. We were around 11 and 12, I guess, and really into scary movies. I remember being so excited to see it because my cool uncle let us pick the movie (and we probably never got to do that again!) and sooo disappointed afterwards!! Just boring and not scary. The only redeeming thing I can remember was Corky Pigeon from Silver Spoons, and that wasn't all that great, just someone I recognized. I've seen bad movies before and this one has always stuck out in my mind as the worst. This was from what I can recall, one of the most boring, non-scary, waste of our collective $6, and a waste of film. I have read some of the reviews that say it is worth a watch and I say, "Too each his own", but I wouldn't even bother. Not even so bad it's good. | 0 | negative |
I don't think it really matters too much what the plot of this movie is about, the main thing you'll notice is the extreme amateurishness of the entire production. The acting is what you'd get if you chose people at random off the street. The sound is really annoying - a medicine cabinet closes with all the gusto of a gunshot going off in your ear, while at the same time the dialog is perhaps one-fifth as loud. Miscellaneous on-set noises dominate the soundtrack to a huge degree, with dialog taking a distant back seat. The theme music sounds as if it was about a quarter done when the movie was released, as large portions of the film don't have any music at all. Camera-work can best be described as a gnarled mess, with close-up shots where a medium angle would be much better, cameramen walking around and jostling the camera every which way, absolutely no attention paid to framing any scene, they just shot everything from whatever position it was most convenient for the cameraman to stand. If the cameraman was a foot taller than the actors and you end up looking at the tops of everyone's heads, well, so be it. Editing is just a butcher job; Everything is tossed together in the most abrupt manner possible, nothing flows or transitions in any sense of the word. I don't know if this was shot on video or perhaps a rented camcorder, I tend to think it was the latter. <br /><br />I only made it about three-quarters of the way through this thing before I turned it off, I just got so annoyed at the low quality of the production I couldn't take it anymore. It's like a ninth grade audio-visual class project. | 0 | negative |
Not one of Keaton's best efforts, this was perhaps a veiled attempt to revenge himself on the family he married into - the Talmadges. A Polish/English language barrier and a series of coincidences leads Buster into a marriage with a large Irish woman, who (along with her father and brothers) treat him shabbily until they think he may be an heir to a fortune. Mistaken identities abound here - gags are set up and but for the main fail to pay off.<br /><br />This Metro short does have at least two real laughs - Buster's cleverly turning around his lack of dinner by using the calendar on the wall and the basic ignorance of his adopted family to literally bring the meat to his plate. The other is a family photo, with the entire group slowly collapsing to the floor as the tripod of the camera loses its stability.<br /><br />The yeast beer overflow could have been the catalyst for a massive series of gags built upon gags, but stops short (for all the buildup) of development.<br /><br />Kino's print is crisp and clear and the score is one for player piano, drums and sound effects. Not one of Buster's best efforts, but worth a few laughs. | 0 | negative |
Steven Segal's movie career is a tribute to horrible cinema. I have been tragically bored with every one of them as soon as I realized that they were even more unrealistic than Jean Claude VanDamme's. Has anyone else ever noticed that he never gets hit?! I mean, give me something to root for...a hard fought battle with a bad guy who's scary. TWENTY YEARS and he's still filming the same fight scenes. Fight scenes can often distract you from the fact that your hero cannot act. The boring choreography of a Segal film places his painful lack of acting skill in sharp relief. Worse yet, he's woefully out of shape. Just what we need, a fat stiff who THINKS he's a leading man. There's not one iota of redeeming cinematic value in all this movies ninety or so minutes. Do NOT watch this unless you feel like throwing away an hour and a half of your life. | 0 | negative |
Don't let my constructive criticism stop you from buying and watching this Romy Schneider classic. This movie was shot in a lower budget ,probably against the will of Ernest Marishka, so he had to make due.For example england is portrayed as bordering on Germany.BY a will of the wisp Victoria and her mom are taking a vacation to Germany by buggy ride alone.They arrived their too quick. This probably could not be helped but the castle they rented, for the movie, was Austrian. When she's told that she's queen she goes to the royal room where the members of the court bow to her, where are the British citizens out side from the castle cheering for their new queen? Why ISBN't she showing her self up to the balcony to greet her subjects ?Low budget!Where the audience back then aware of these imperfection? I wonder how the critics felt?Durring the inn scene she meets prince Albert but ISBN't excited about it. Durring the meeting in the eating side of the inn your hear music from famous old American civil war songs like " My old Kentucky home" , and "Old black Joe". What? civil war songs in the 1830's? Is Romy Schneider being portrayed as Scarlet?Where's Mammy? Is Magna Shnieder playing her too? Is Adrian Hoven Rhett or Ashley? What was in Marishka mind?Well this add to the camp.It's unintentionally satirizing Queen Victoria'a story. This is the only reason you should collect it or see it 03 11 09 correction Germany and england are connected | 1 | positive |
I would have liked to put 0.5 but unfortunately I can't. Who can write so bad scripts (I saw the movie five seconds and knew the "bad boy" would be Sutherland - needed to pay his taxes, when you see how good he was in Redford's movie, "Ordinary People" and others ! -).<br /><br />Though I don't like it, but I had no choice, I saw the movie in French, but I know that hearing the real voices of Sheen, Sutherland and Hamilton would have not change things, except maybe making it more pitiful.<br /><br />What makes me sick is that people earn their living making this bad stuff (I forgot to speak about Mr Waterson, far away from the Woody Allen's movies he once used to play in).<br /><br />We had another movie on another French channel : a silly James Bond with Brosnan (I am not talking about the real Bonds with Connery(please it's the end of holidays, wake up !). | 0 | negative |
Its a spoof, its an intelligent comedy, it has some a pathetic action and choreography (and mind it, it is intentional), good hummable songs, good performances by the entire cast, brilliant by Amir, Salman and Paresh and over all an script which is so rare in Indian cinema that too in comedy (watch David Dhawan, Harmesh Malhotra etc). Story is of two wastrels whose only aim is to get rich and famous by any which ways. They come across one such way when they find out that a rich NRI is coming India to get married. Rest of the story is about oneupmanship and how these wastrels try to out wit each other. Entire cast is perfectly cast right from Deven Verma till Viju Khote. Songs are rightly placed and are funny. Surprise package is Salman who acts with perfect timing and this particular act gave him his style of comedy.<br /><br />All an all a fum film which you should not ignore if you like and watch Indian Cinema. | 1 | positive |
Adventures in Dinosaur City, though a creative idea, was a nauseatingly atrocious attempt at filmmaking. Being sucked into a TV and into a new world is interesting. Three teens obsessively enthralled with half-animated dinosaurs is not. Don't waste the time or the brain power to see this sure loser. I wouldn't even let my kids watch it. | 0 | negative |
Sadly, 8 Simple Rules, for dating my teenage daughter, was the last sitcom that John Ritter got to work on after his tragic death in 2003. He was one of my all time favourite actors. He had it all, comedy (who can forget him in Three's Company) but he was also an excellent dramatic actor (Unforgivable worth watching TV movie) As much I loved all the other cast members of the show (Katey, Amy, Kaley and Martin) John was THE star, he was much of the reason I was drawn to the show in the first place, and it was his perfect comedic delivery that was able to crack me up each and every time.<br /><br />I loved how the show wasn't all sugary sweet (as much as I loved The Cosby Show, come on, they were too nice to each other lol) they portrayed the typical family dynamics brilliantly. It was realistic enough what with all the sibling rivalry and the squabbles between parents, but they still kept it funny. A lot of American sitcoms try and fill the shows entirely with morals and what not, and this show didn't do that. Yes, there were some, like tackling important issues, such as drugs and bullying, but they didn't try and be anything other than a fun family comedy.<br /><br />The way they wrote John's death in to the show was brilliantly done, I still sob like a baby each time I see it. You could feel how raw the emotions were during those incredibly hard episodes.<br /><br />I'm sad the show was cancelled, I still enjoy watching the reruns, and I never get tired of it.<br /><br />John Ritter, you'll always be remembered for you hilarious depiction of this over protective father, who would rather lock his daughters up in their room than have them date a boy =) You rock Ritter!!! | 1 | positive |
My parents may enjoy this show, but I fail to find the humor in it. What is so funny about a dentist husband impregnating his hygienist assistant and the oldest daughter getting impregnated by the captain of the high school football team? Absolutely nothing! It's a shock to me sometimes what people think constitutes humor nowadays. Blame that on shows like "The Dating Game" and "The Newlywed Game" bringing the issue of sex to the forefront in the mid-1960s. Sure, the series has its touching moments, still that's no excuse for the content that otherwise went into this series. This is nothing like the family-oriented days of "I Love Lucy" some five decades before. <br /><br />An answer I would have to why this series plays on the Lifetime cable channel is because that channel's brass think women can relate to Reba's character! I absolutely dislike the character of Reba Hart's daughter, Kyra. She is best described as a ditsy and bitter teenager! Funny, I wonder if the actress who played Kyra; Scarlett Pomers, is like that in real life away from acting. Who plays the blockhead ex-husband dentist, Christopher Rich, is not much better. Barbara Jean, played by Melissa Peterman, is ditsy in herself! The characters of Van and Cheyenne are also very annoying.<br /><br />Something else that baffles me is why the dingbat-of-a-series creator, Allison M. Gibson, decided to set the series in where I live 25 miles away from; Houston, Texas! Reba McEntire isn't even from this state, she's an Oklahoman! Why is it during one season or more they decided to make the incidental music sound like a pig snorting? What I mean by that is where we hear this baritone saxophone being played with drums accompanying it, but the melodies are basically tuneless! | 0 | negative |
"A Guy Thing" may not be a classic, but it sure is a good, funny comedy. The plot focuses on Paul (Jason Lee), who wakes up the morning after his bachelor party with no memory and Becky (Julia Stiles) lying naked in his bed. Before he can figure out what happened, he rushes Becky out of his apartment because his fiance Karen (Selma Blair) is coming. After that, as you could imagine, chaos ensues.<br /><br />Almost every single scene in "A Guy Thing" delivers loud laughs. The funniest moments come from when Paul imagines what could happen if he tells Karen. Selma Blair is a truly talented comedian, and the worst thing about this film is that she goes underused. Although, she turns out to be more funny than Stiles' character, who actually isn't that interesting. Of course, not every comedy is perfect.<br /><br />As I said, "A Guy Thing" is no classic, but it's not bad either, 7/10. | 1 | positive |
Though this film doesn't stand out particularly from the movie crowd, its still a very nice film to sit down and watch with your feet up! There maybe the odd one or two mistakes you catch, and the cinematic are a little slipshod, the film itself is very enjoyable and has a wonderful atmosphere to it. The music contributes a lot to the mood of the movie.<br /><br />The acting is none the less impressive (especially the dog he he!) with John Travolta taking the lead of the fun-troublesome-loving Michael. Other characters feel very genuine and perform very well within the film.<br /><br />So after a long day at work, stick "Michael" on in the evening with some ice-cream and enjoy a very quality film in its own right :) | 1 | positive |
This isn't cinema. It isn't talent. It isn't informative. It isn't scary. It isn't entertaining. It isn't anything at all.<br /><br />I got this because my cousin says, "Diablo! COOL!" Yeah, right. The only thing cool about this experience was the lone fact that I didn't buy it but rented it instead.<br /><br />It's shot like a bad soap opera. No wait. Soap operas at least LOOK professional...sorta. This? This looks like it was shot with someone's camcorder. It's horrid! Wretched! It sux.<br /><br />The cinematography is detestable! WHO IS this director anyway? I don't even care enough to look him up. He STINKS! The performances by these poor unsuspecting actors were far better than this crap-fest deserved.<br /><br />2.6/10 on the "B" scale. <br /><br />That registers about a 0.3/10 on the "A" scale from...<br /><br />the Fiend :. | 0 | negative |
I think that most of the folks who have posted comments on this movie don't understand how to watch a movie and/or have little sense of elegance. First, to assess a movie you need to understand the extent to which everything in the film works together. Modern sensibilities demand great drama. No, I don't mean great setting of characters and plots, but they seem to demand emotional trajectories that are greatly tragic or greatly comedic. This is a subtle movie. Its beauty lies in its subtlety (not to be confused with simplicity). Neither the story nor the characters are simple in this movie. It is a beautifully filmed movie that makes the most of combining sensuousness, politics, human weakness, venality...you name it. The world it's set in would be alien and not understood today...a world where if you have it you have to flaunt it NOW and LOUDLY, even if you only think you have it.<br /><br />Many people today don't understand that Victorian society wasn't really Victorian as people understand that term today.<br /><br />This movie helps set the record straight. | 1 | positive |
From 1950 comes a neat thriller about a couple smuggling diamonds from abroad and also the contagious disease smallpox. Evelyn Keyes pulls out all stops as the essential victim of this film-noir. Once back in the United States she is not aware that she could be spreading the disease on everyone and everything she comes in contact with. Eventually she is pursued and must be stopped before an epidemic occurs. Other than Keyes striking performance there is good support from villainous Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright and Whit Bissell. The finale is a humdinger with Miss Keyes on the ledge of a building with spotlights and hundreds of spectators below. A good B flick! | 1 | positive |
I saw the movie as a child when it was released in the theater and it was so bad that it became the makings of a family joke. If the ranking had a zero, this movie would get it. The dinosaurs were awful. The storyline was ridiculous. The acting really doesn't qualify to be called acting. The only reason I even remember the name of the movie so well is because my family still talks about how BAD it really was. | 0 | negative |
This, which was shown dubbed in Italian at a Rome cinema (not as bad as it sounds) after being presented at the Rome Film Festival, is very much an art film and a festival film, guaranteed to charm and delight such audiences for its distinctive style, droll humor; ability to draw comedy from the suffering of others; appealing, cheery music; spot-on performances; overriding sweetness and humanity--but doomed, because of its oddity and lack of a compelling story line, to leave average audiences wondering what they're watching it for and why anyone admires it, how it even got made.<br /><br />Andersson gives us almost a series of dry skits. Running through them are various themes. Money: a guy at the next table (Waldemar Nowak) nicks the wallet of a rich bore talking on a cell phone in a restaurant over a glass of brandy, then goes and orders a set of posh suits made to order; a deadbeat son calls his celebrated father away from an elaborate gathering to beg him for one more loan. A shrink worries aloud about his depleted investments while his wife humps him in bed wearing only a shiny Viking helmet.<br /><br />Depression: an elementary teacher (Jessica Nilsson) breaks down in class because her husband has called her a "harpy;" the rug salesman spouse (Pär Fredriksson) collapses before clients because he's called her that. Several men have depressing dreams. But hey--this is Sweden. Isn't everybody depressed? Love problems: a fat bohemian couple is perpetually breaking up; a girl groupie has fantasies about a lead guitarist, Micke (Eric Bäckman). Wives slam doors when their husbands start to practice their instruments. (Music too is obviously a unifying theme. Besides the dashing guitarist there's a tuba and a drum player who're in a Dixierland band and also play in marches and funerals. Every scene has an added lilt from the music, which niftily links one sequence with another.) A raging storm outside the window of many scenes, violent rain, people out in it, thunder so loud it sounds like a battle raging across the land. This also unifies the tone and gives the impression various scenes are happening on the same dauntingly tempestuous day.<br /><br />Andersson is a master of visual composition and the static middle-distance shot and the film has a foggy gray-green look engineered by DP Gustav Danielsson that's perfect because it evokes the gloom of a Swedish winter but also twinkles with the subtle colors of the director's wit, which ends every scene with a smile. One almost never knew drabness could be so beautiful. (Or perhaps one did: Alexcanr Sokurov creates such effects sometimes in very different contexts.) Within scenes and in the film as a whole there's a kind of stillness that comes out of the visual style, the pacing of scenes, and the detached humanism of the overall outlook. There's something about a fully mastered style that's calming, reassuring.<br /><br />Not everything works equally well. One may feel impatient with the succession of barely related scenes, which read too much sometimes like the work of a Saturday Night Live writer in need of Prozac. Since some scenes plainly move you or draw a laugh, it's obvious that others fall a little flat.<br /><br />But some scenes are real zingers, and one obviously triumphant climax of pure magic is a dream--described and then visualized dreams being another important thread) in which the girl groupie imagines herself in a wedding dress newly married to her fey guitarist ideal, who plays a delicate series of riffs while a crowd of admirers gathers outside a big window. The viewpoint switches to outside and the window slides slowly away as if the building the dream newlyweds look out of were a train moving out of a station to take them to their honeymoon. It's a fresh, subtle, and rather sublime effect.<br /><br />Eventually one may feel everything in You the Living (Du Levande) is a dream, including the recurring scene where the barman is always striking a bronze bell and announcing last order time, whereupon all the torpid customers rise from their tables and go up to get one more drink.<br /><br />An Italian reviewer called this "a small, great film," and that's right. It limits itself in a dozen ways, but there is greatness in it. Roy Andersson is a little master (like some medieval miniaturist) of the inner comedies of Scandanavian gloom, and this is a film unlike any other. Shown this year as a Cannes "Un Certain Regard" selection, this is also the Swedish entry for the 2007 Best Foreign Oscar. Hard to say what Bergman would think, but Andersson worked with him; is famous for his elaborately produced TV commercials, some of which one can see on YouTube. Bergman called them "the best commercials in the world." It will be interesting to see if this director, whose craft is as subtle as his viewpoint, will start working in longer segments some time. Meanwhile, any good film buff really needs to get a look at this.<br /><br />"Schadenfreude" isn't quite the right word. That means delight in the misery of others. Andersson is teaching us to delight in the misery of all of us. | 1 | positive |
I spent 5 hours drenched in this film. Nothing I have ever seen comes close to the delicious funk this film left me in. Never mind females advanced aging dilemma's, human fear vaults off the screen for your viewing. Personally engaging to the ninth degree, the film invests one with an undeniable shared feeling for our lives'. I enjoyed this dalliance with raw wounded gall deep from within. It empowers a mutually shared vestment in the history of human encounters reaching far deeper into the pain, isolation and skewed views of self and others. The result forgives our tepid forming of a bridge away from the muddy sludge of dead we must encounter. The birth in finding real people is a happy pursuit. The effort for realism intersects with the dark ground of our bankrupt culture. | 1 | positive |
EA have shown us that they can make a classic 007 agent and make you feel in the 60's world. The graphics of the game are outstanding and also the voice recording is very professional. I got this game April 2007 (two years after release), and I am still impressed with the gameplay. It's a shame that EA will no longer make 007 games.<br /><br />I give this game 10/10 for the levels it contains, especially the "consulate" level. I would recommend this game to anyone from the age of 13 and over. The only thing I didn't like in the game is the Russian boat level, it was too much pressure. On the whole I like the game A LOT!! | 1 | positive |
After watching this movie I was honestly disappointed - not because of the actors, story or directing - I was disappointed by this film advertisements.<br /><br />The trailers were suggesting that the battalion "have chosen the third way out" other than surrender or die (Polish infos were even misguiding that they had the choice between being killed by own artillery or German guns, they even translated the title wrong as "misplaced battalion"). This have tickled the right spot and I bought the movie.<br /><br />The disappointment started when I realized that the third way is to just sit down and count dead bodies followed by sitting down and counting dead bodies... Then I began to think "hey, this story can't be that simple... I bet this clever officer will find some cunning way to save what left of his troops". Well, he didn't, they were just sitting and waiting for something to happen. And so was I.<br /><br />The story was based on real events of World War I, so the writers couldn't make much use of their imagination, but even thought I found this movie really unchallenging and even a little bit boring. And as I wrote in the first place - it isn't fault of actors, writers or director - their marketing people have raised my expectations high above the level that this movie could cope with. | 0 | negative |
I had high expectations of this movie (the title, translated, is "How We Get Rid of the Others"). After all, the concept is great: a near future in which the ruling elite has taken the consequence of the right-wing government's constant verbal and legislative persecution of so-called freeloaders and the left wing in general, and decided to just kill off everyone who cannot prove that they're contributing something to the establishment (the establishment being called "the common good", but actually meaning the interests of the ruling capitalist ideology).<br /><br />Very cool idea! Ideal for biting satire! Only, this movie completely blows its chance. The satire comes out only in a few scenes and performances of absurdity, but this satire is not sustained; it is neither sharp nor witty. And for an alleged comedy, the movie has nearly no funny scenes. The comedy, I assume, is supposed to be in the absurdity of the situations, but the situations are largely uncomfortable and over-serious, rather than evoking either laughter or thought.<br /><br />The script is rife with grave errors in disposition. The action should have focused on the political aspects and how wrong it would be to do such a thing, but instead oodles of time are spent on a young woman who was the one that wrote the new laws for fun, and who's trying to save everybody, by organizing a resistance that ships people to Africa. All this is beside the point! A movie like this should not pretend to be so serious! It's a satire! A political statement. But it doesn't even begin to actually address the problem it's supposed to be about. Maybe it was afraid of going too far? How cowardly. That's not art. It's not even real satire.<br /><br />Søren Pilmark, a very serious and by now one of Denmark's absolutely senior actors, was very good. He largely carried what little entertainment value the movie had. Everybody else: nothing special (well, perhaps except for Lene Poulsen, who did supply a convincing performance).<br /><br />In fact, a problem with most Danish movies is that the language never sounds natural. Neither the formulation nor the delivery. Why is it so difficult to make it sound right? Why must it be so stilted and artificial? I hope, when people look at these movies fifty years from now, they don't think that this was how people talked in general Danish society.<br /><br />3 out of 10. | 0 | negative |
I realize most people don't know who Solomon Kane is and that the film is pitched at that much larger audience. But then why bother to call it "Solomon Kane" in the first place when the name has no marketable value? The characters certainly has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the R.E. Howard character. Except he has a big hat. That's where the resemblance ends.<br /><br />It's always a bad sign when any superhero/fantasy/sci-fi movie lingers over an origin story, but when you invent one whole cloth like this for a character who didn't have one at all, you've already missed the point completely. Kane is no longer even the fanatical Christian warrior of the stories, but rather a formerly bad guy who is trying to save his soul (this part is in the opening scene).<br /><br />With the most basic character elements changed or simply ignored, the use of the name Solomon Kane is simply perplexing. Is it just so they can say "From the creator of Conan" and hope to plug into a budding franchise if the new "Conan" movie gets off the ground? Ignoring the complete departure from the stories, the movie is competent if utterly generic for the first half but then devolves into sheer stupidity in the climactic scene which involves multiple super baddies (think three "boss levels" at the same time), none of whom is the least bit interesting or menacing.<br /><br />If I wasn't a Kane fan who was disappointed that they completely ignored the source material, I'd probably give the film a 3 or 4 instead of a 1. Even for the (majority of) viewers who will come into this knowing nothing about Kane, it's pretty thin gruel. | 0 | negative |
Peter O'Toole gives a brilliant performance in this movie. I have seen the original version with Robert Donat and I much prefer Peter O'Toole's performance and the movie in general even though it is a musical. I've really never seen anything that Mr. O'Toole is in that I don't like. He is a brilliant actor, multi-talented, giving performances full of passion and depth. Petula Clark also gave a surprisingly good performance and was perfect for the part. It is an all-around heartwarming movie, full of tenderness and bittersweet fun. I will always remember (in para-phrase) the line where Mr. Chips regrets he has never given her children, and she replies, "Of course you have, hundreds of them -- all boys." Thank you for the opportunity to vote for this movie and to voice my opinion. | 1 | positive |
I first watched this film when I was a kid and is the only time in my life that I can remember putting my hands over my face and eyes in utter horror at one particular scene. I remembered it again with a disscusion with my uni friends and promptly bought it on video with plenty of hesitation I might add (to my surprise I only found it on the web in the States when it was made in England!) When I watched it again my reaction and to my surprise was almost the same, of sheer horror and fear and never has my heart been beating so much too. This is in my opinon the SCARIEST film ever made, Hollywood films seem tame in comparison and a bit Pony and Trap (crap), pardon the pun. What is amazing though is the power of this film and at uni when watching this with about twenty of my associates I have never heard so many screams, blokes as well! Even the sight of the video brings the fear of God into me of that one particular scene, and left me feeling that I will never walk alone again in the dark!!!! | 1 | positive |
I don't know much about film-making, but good movies have to tell some sort of a story...your characters have to start and complete their journey. In Last Exit to Brooklyn they may, but its not in any satisfying way, and I'm not meaning a happy ending, just ANY ending.<br /><br />Last Exit to Brooklyn, set in 1952 Brooklyn during a very brutal labor strike, sets a number of story threads in motion. Most involve some of the most unlikeable characters to ever walk across a movie screen. But Last Exit to Brooklyn fails to bring these stories to any conclusion...it leaves some of them dangling with no ending, or blasts off into some bizarre stratosphere for an "artistic" ending.<br /><br />Two cases in point, and they contain spoilers.<br /><br />A sad transvestite character (an important character in the film), is struck by a car and killed. And that's it for him in the movie....he's gone for good, erased from everyone's memory..no reactions from his friends, enemies, lovers....nothing.<br /><br />In another thread the stupid, clueless, and secretly gay strike leader, having been rejected by labor, his gay lover, and found out by the neighborhood thugs, gets stomped by the thugs. The closing scene to the beating shows the streets of Brooklyn, and the streetlights are very, very similar to those of Nazi death camps...and the scene drags on and on and on...and the camera pans down to the body of the labor leader, and he's been crucified.....ppppuuuulllleeeeeez. And of course that's it for him too....brain erasure.....gone.<br /><br />Bottom line....no matter what the reviewers originally said in 1989 about this film....this movie is a depressing piece of sludge. Avoid it. And if you don't be forewarned, it really deserves an NC-17 rating for massive amounts of physical, emotional and sexual brutality...don't even let the teenagers watch. | 0 | negative |
Little Vera is the story of a Russian teenager, her family, and her attempts to find meaning and value in a life sliding increasingly into decay. In her search for meaning, she falls in love with a more intellectual and rebellious Sergei, whose hatred for her deeply flawed parents quickly spirals out of control.<br /><br />Little Vera is shocking and disturbing in nearly every way. The drinking of the father, the enabling and lack of understanding of the mother, the casual lies and misdirection of the brother, and Vera herself forgiving them all their flaws are all shocking and slightly disturbing to watch. However, the raw honesty of the film somehow manages to become even more shocking than the plot or characters. Set in cramped spaces and vast urban decay, Little Vera presented a vastly different view of Soviet life than had ever been seen before. In fact, Little Vera is a portrait of the collapse of Soviet society painted in shades of pain, desperation, and rust. It is the implosion of a family set against the implosion of an entire social order.<br /><br />Although painful and desperately unsatisfying, the film itself is definitely worth seeing, if only to understand the feelings and cultures still reshaping Russia today. | 1 | positive |
They played this on the July 4th Twilight Zone marathon and this is, hands down, the worst Twilight Zone episode I've ever seen. It's completely out of sync with the rest of the series in its tone. Even though Twilight Zone is a pretty uneven series and many episodes end up being groaningly predictable, this one was completely out of place. Compare this to legendary episodes like "A Stop at Willoughby" or "Midnight Sun", and you realize there is no comparison.<br /><br />Buster Keaton did what he could with such terrible material, and frankly it surprises me that someone of his historic comedy stature would stoop to the level of this episode. Even though he seemed to be giving it some effort, he MUST have needed the money... there's no other explanation. | 0 | negative |
'This Is Not a Film' works because it is so true in what it is trying to say. If you ignore the dynamics of the plot and focus in on the message, you will see a little bit of yourself in the main character, Michael. Whether male or female, all of us have come to a point in our lives where we want to look back and reexamine a situation or a relationship. Did it really occur like we remembered? What went wrong? Michael's desire to find Grace is completely selfish. More than anything, he wants to make himself feel better about how things turned out. But even so, he is a sympathetic character because everyone is selfish when it comes to relationships. We would not be in them otherwise. As the film ends, I am not sure if Michael has learned anything new about himself or not. Our best gauge on the relationship is through his friend, Nadia. She is the soul of the movie and reminds us of how there are always two sides to every story. I found Michael to be pompous, arrogant, and just plain clueless. Which is exactly why I liked him. He is a real character. If you've ever wanted to go back and analyze a previous relationship, then this is a film for you. In closing, it is a film for everyone. | 1 | positive |
Even Disney are guilty of the cash cow disease, after the roaring success of The Love Bug in 1968, the house of mouse cashed in with Herbie Rides Again, Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo, and Herbie Goes Bananas. Neither sequel capturing the charm and inoffensive appeal of The Love Bug back in 68, in this one we find race driver Jim Douglas and his sidekick Wheely Applegate, entering Herbie in the Monte Carlo Rally. Naturally things outside of the race start to take over priorities, they get mixed up in a diamond robbery and Herbie falls in love with another car!. The car stunts are of course pleasant and easy on the eye, and it would be churlish of me to really vent venom on such a friendly piece of fluff, it's just that the film goes nowhere fast and personally now i can see it for the coin motivated piece of work it is. Still you get to see Herbie take a bath, foil the baddies and of course dance for the lady in his life, so something there for everyone i think....................4/10. | 0 | negative |
This sci-fi adventure is not the best and by no means the worst. I agree with the statement that bad sci-fi is comical. Bizarre pink tinting and unusual special effects make this a favorite for the late, late, late show viewers. Space explorers on the planet Mars fight off strange giant amoeba-like monsters and other strange creatures. Pretty cool.<br /><br />The cast includes Les Tremayne, Naura Hayden, Gerald Mohr and Jack Kruschen. Get comfy and enjoy. Don't feel bad if you nod off for a moment. I agree with adding this to the list of cult classics to not miss. | 0 | negative |
Hi:<br /><br />I heard about lost from a co-worker that had obvious differences of opinion on entertainment, he loved it. Well I watched an episode or 2 in the early seasons and was bored, so I tuned it out. After a few years I stumbled upon lost; bored with the current sci-fi fare. Wow was I surprised. Can you say gravity well, damn I got sucked in. The pace and scripting are very good, some of the flash forward/backs are so so with the lamer characters, but over all good. My favorite characters are Ben, Locke, Jacob, Richard Alpert, Sayid Jarrah, Sawyer, Hurley, Daniel Faraday, Jin & Wife, Walt, Charlie, Desmond, and Jack's dad. Jack and Michael definitely are immature asshats, very spoiled and immature. Kate 1 step above them, Juliet was way more classy than Kate. Mr. Eko way under-rated and on the level of Charlie if not more, too bad they both died. The guy dressed in black talking to Jacob (way back) is a genuine curiosity. As a whole great, very layered series: looking for more.<br /><br />regards | 1 | positive |
I rented Boogie Nights last week and I could tell you, when I watched the film I had a blast. If you think that when you watch the film you will get sicked by the porn. I mean yes, if your not a porn person who can't bother being by it, than this isn't the film to see. But the thing is, the whole film isn't really about porn. Well halfway through the film is about the porn industry but the other half is about the character development and the bad situations these characters go through. The actors played there roles perfect, especially Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, and William H. Macy. The sex scenes, of course are terrific but mainly focus on the character's hype in porn films until there struggles. Excellent film, one of the best! <br /><br />Hedeen's Outlook: 10/10 **** A+ | 1 | positive |
Considering how much money was budgeted for this film, you would expect more from the story as a whole. This could be quite possibly the most worthless movie I have ever watched. There was no real advancement of anything. Character development, minimal. Plot advancement, maybe. Enjoyment, none. I'm not sure what points were even trying to be made. If you want to see a movie where terrorists are kinda good guys, American CIA bombs everything that doesn't agree with our opinions, all capitalists are corrupt, and you like to see anything resembling a storyboard advancement accompanied by a death, have at. For those of us who realize that it doesn't take killing off a good guy to make a point, we'll stick to other movies. In summary, this was a horrible attempt at an 'Ocean's 11' style hide-the-plot-so-person-has-to- think movie because not only do you not know what's going on, nobody who made the movie did either. Home Alone 3 was a better cinematic piece. | 0 | negative |
I don't think I've ever felt this let down by a film before. After loving Guy Ritchie's two previous films (I don't count Swept Away - he was pussy blind), I was so looking forward to seeing this. <br /><br />The reviews were poor, then again, I don't trust the press anyway. More worrying was the fact that the internet buzz was that this was a bit of a stinker, so it was with some trepidation I handed over my £4.80 yesterday afternoon.<br /><br />I'm not even going to try to explain this film, mainly because I haven't got a clue what was going on and at one point I was honestly close to standing up and asking if it was just me who didn't get it! <br /><br />Unfortunately I think Ritchie seems to have fallen into his wife's trap of taking himself far too seriously.It seems it wasn't good enough for him to make films with good plots, laughs, snappy dialogue and good characters. It's almost as if he had a checklist of films he wanted to rip off, here are some of the ones I noticed:<br /><br />The Matrix, Fight Club, Kill Bill, The Usual Suspects, Vanilla Sky...<br /><br />I think the most frustrating thing is that the performances from the two main actors, Jason Statham and Ray Liotta, were actually very good and it was really the self indulgent story and editing / direction that let the film down.<br /><br />So a big, big thumbs down from me. | 0 | negative |
I'm not the type of person to watch T.V. shows because the acting normally sucks or it's unrealistic or TOO dramatic! But this show is perfect. Everyone can act, and you can relate to the characters and their situations. Everyone has their own personality and Lorelai Gilmore is the best for her sarcastic comments that can make any bad situation seem a little funny. Rory Gilmore is a good role model for all girls. She takes pride in wanting to attend Harvard and boys/boyfriends always come second in her book. She's a loyal friend and always the peace maker. There's subtle romance which is what I like, personally. Not the mushy gushy romance that not many people get to have in their lives, but a realistic type of romance. Every character eventually gets it, and they don't find their prince charming at first glance and they don't just "fall in love" with every guy that comes their way. It's a realistic show but when you watch it, you better brush up on your movies, pop culture, and random facts because Lorelai Gilmore is always making references. I fell in love with this show and if you give it a chance, so will you. | 1 | positive |
Last year was the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species", so it's fitting that Jon Amiel's "Creation" got released. The movie focuses on the period of Darwin's (Paul Bettany) life while he was writing his famous work, and the mild strain that it put on his family life.<br /><br />I guess that the movie overplayed Darwin's tension with his religious wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), and his guilt over his deceased daughter Annie, but I still like the thought of Darwin's theory working like a karate chop on religious dogma. As it was, the US was one of the last countries in which "Creation" found a distributor, due to the creationism-evolution debate (yes, it's still going on).<br /><br />All in all, this isn't a masterpiece, but I recommend it the same way that I recommend "Inherit the Wind". I hope that one day, the creationism-evolution debate won't be an issue. If this film helps put the debate to rest, then more power to everyone in the movie! Also starring Martha West, Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch. | 1 | positive |
Altered Species starts one Friday night in Los Angeles where Dr. Irwin (Guy Vieg) & his laboratory assistant Walter (Allen Lee Haff) are burning the midnight oil as they continue to try & perfect a revolutionary new drug called 'Rejenacyn'. As Walter tips the latest failed attempt down the sink the pipes leak the florescent green liquid into the basement where escaped lab rats begin to drink it... Five of Walter's friends, Alicia (Leah Rown in a very fetching outfit including some cool boots that she gets to stomp on a rat with), Gary (Richard Peterson), Burke (Derek Hofman), Frank (David Bradley) & Chelsea (Alexandra Townsend) decide that he has been working too hard & needs to get out so they plan to pick him up & party the night away. Back at the lab & the cleaner Douglas (Robert Broughton) has been attacked & killed by the now homicidal rats in the basement as Walter injects the latest batch of serum in a lab rat which breaks out of it's cage as it grows at an amazing rate. Walter's friends turn up but he can't leave while the rat is still missing so everyone helps him look for it. All six become potential rat food...<br /><br />Also known as Rodentz Altered Species was co-edited & directed by Miles Feldman & has very little to recommend it. The script by producer Serge Rodnunsky is poor & coupled together with the general shoddiness of the production as a whole Altered Species really is lame. For a start the character's are dumb, annoying & clichéd. Then there's the unoriginal plot with the mad scientist, the monster he has created, the isolated location, the stranded human cast & the obligatory final showdown between hero & monster. It's all here somewhere. Altered Species moves along at a fair pace which is just about the best thing I can say about it & thankfully doesn't last that long. It's basically your average run-of-the-mill killer mutant rat film & not a particularly good one at that either.<br /><br />Director Feldman films like a TV film & the whole thing is throughly bland & forgettable while some of the special effects & attack scenes leave a lot to be desired. For a start the CGI rats are awful, the attack sequences feature hand-held jerky camera movement & really quick edits to try & hide the fact that all the rats are just passively sitting there. At various points in Altered Species the rat cages need to shake because of the rats movement but you can clearly see all the rats just sitting there as someone shakes the cages off screen. The giant rat monster at the end looks pretty poor as it's just a guy in a dodgy suit. There are no scares, no tension or atmosphere & since when did basements contain bright neon lighting? There are one or two nice bits of gore here, someone has a nice big messy hole where their face used to be, there's a severed arm & decapitation, lots of rat bites, someone having their eyeball yanked out & a dead mutilated cat.<br /><br />Technically Altered Species is sub standard throughout. It takes place within the confines of one building, has cheap looking CGI effects & low production values. The acting isn't up to much but it isn't too bad & a special mention to Leah Rowan as Alicia as she's a bit of a babe & makes Altered Species just that little bit nicer & easier to watch...<br /><br />Altered Species isn't a particularly good film, in fact it's a pretty bad one but I suppose you could do worse. Not great but it might be worth a watch if your not too demanding & have nothing else to do. | 0 | negative |
This movie was bad from the start. The only purpose of the movie was that Angela wanted to get a high body count. The acting was horrible. The killings were acted out very badly. Like when Ally got stuffed down that toilet I guess it was in the abandoned cabin. But when the end of the movie comes and Molly and the other guy are in the cabin you see Ally so Angela must have gone in to get her. The part that really got me was when the black girl and Angela were in the cabin and Angela took the guitar string and chocked her. One it was horrible acting and two why wouldn't you just turn around and punch the bitch?!?!? Then when Molly is getting chased by Angela if you have the neigh why not just turn around and stab her??? So stupid. This movie sucked... | 0 | negative |
An excellent interpretation of Jim Thompson's novel, this neo-noir thriller has all the requisite elements--deranged ex-boxer turned drifter, alcoholic widow with sinister desires, ex-cop turned small-time crook, and a kidnap plot destined for doom. Yet, the film never crosses into cliche country, but remains fresh and intriguing. The performances are all superb, particularly Bruce Dern's role as the wicked sleazeball, Uncle Bud. There is a tense uncertainty to the film's movement which, intentional or not, adds to the grim proceedings. Highly recommended. | 1 | positive |
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