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Seven Ups has been compared to Bullitt for the chase scene, but does not come anywhere near matching Bullitt. Bullitt has a beginning that builds builds builds. When McQueen leaves the seedy hotel, gets into his Mustang, which is parked under the Embarcadero Freeway (now torn down) and notices the Charger sitting nearbye, you know you are about to see something spectacular. From that moment on, when McQueen starts that car, begins the best car chase sequence ever filmed. Adding to it is a terrific Lalo Schriffin If I remember correctly sound track. This goes on for a long time before you actually hear the first tires squealing. That shot of McQueen's Mustang suddenly appearing in Bill Hickman's rear view mirror is unmatched for visual impact. Hickman's look of surprise and double take really adds to the effect. Then of course, San Francisco is unmatched for the setting of cars racing up and down hills and around bends. Also, Bullitt being filmed in the 60s when cars were still "Hot" (Mustang GT and Dodge Charger) made for a better set of wheels then two boring, smog device laden Pontiacs in the 1970s Seven Ups. Bill Hickman was the driver of the bad guy car in both movies. I saw him sitting at an insider movie preview once on the Univeral lot when I was doing movie reviews for a paper. They gave it a good try in Seven Ups though with the chase scene. Seven ups had a few "jumps" over little hills, (Yawn) but of course they were not San Francisco hills. The Seven Ups chase, where they are actually going fast, is longer than the go fast sequence in Bullitt. But the scene of a single shotgun blast totally blowing the hood OFF of Roy Schieders Pontiac is the height of absurdity. Strictly Hollywood, I would say, except that it was filmed in New York.

positive

Sometimes Hallmark can get it right - like The 10th Kingdom - but many of their fantasy films plod, and this falls into the latter category. The version I saw may have been cut (a demon [?] shown in the trailer and publicity stills didn't appear), but anything that made the movie shorter can only be a blessing.<br /><br />POSSIBLE SPOILERS IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE ORIGINAL FAIRY TALE:<br /><br />Anyway, the film updates the story to the early part of the 20th Century (?), and makes Gerda and Kay (here called Kai - being a Lexx fan, I kept expecting him to say, `The Dead do not solve puzzles') 18 year olds. Hans Christian Andersen's basic story is followed: the boy gets a shard of ice in his eye, goes bad, is taken off by the Snow Queen to solve a puzzle in her palace and Gerda goes to find him, having various adventures on the way.<br /><br />As the two main characters are older than in the original, a lot of time is spent getting them together and `in love'. Unfortunately, I was never convinced that they were particularly in love, and certainly not enough in love to make sense of Gerda's quest. By the time the main plot kicks in, the movie's pace has slowed to a crawl. Alas, when Gerda begins her search for Kai, it only manages to pick up the pace to a leisurely stroll.<br /><br />There are a few odd additions to the story that seem to go nowhere. At the start of the film the Snow Queen kills Gerda's mother, but no explanation for this is given. A polar bear living in the Snow Queen's palace is more than he seems (though this is possibly because the producers realised that the bear's feelings towards the Snow Queen would be OK in a Fairy Tale, but not in a modern film). Again, this is never explained. Also, hints that the Snow Queen has an erotic desire for Kai are dropped, but never followed through. The script is also full of anachronisms that really jar you out of the `fairy tale' mood.<br /><br />The production looks good, though there is evidence of penny-pinching: the Snow Queen's palace is the hotel where Gerda and Kai lived covered in ice. The three main characters are played with varying degrees of success: Kai comes across as bland as does Gerda initially, but once she sets off to find Kai you warm to her. Bridget Fonda looks great as the Snow Queen, but seems to be in a different movie to everyone else.<br /><br />Ultimately, the film is unsatisfying. It looks good, but drags and lacks magic.

negative

Pam Grier is the super soul sister of the 1970's, appearing in many blaxploitation films that have recently been discovered and appreciated by a new generation. I can safely say that BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA may be the worst Pam Grier movie I've ever seen.<br /><br />Grier is Lee and Margaret Markov is Karen; they are two female prisoners who escaped from prison after Karen's revolutionary friends attacked the paddy wagon. Chained to each other, the film becomes THE DEFIANT ONES for women, but has three separate plots: a fat criminal (Filipino sleaze star Vic Diaz) wants Lee dead, a cowboy bounty hunter (the excellent Sid Haig) searches for the two girls; and Karen's revolutionary friends search for her. The film eventually becomes so convoluted and uninvolved with the two women that the title should have been MEN CHASING WOMEN. Grier, an action star, is not given any chance to participate in any of the many (overlong) action scenes. Markov is excellent as Karen and Grier is OK as Lee, but both are eventually forgotten in the many subplots. One interesting scene has the bounty hunter forcing a police officer and his chief to drop their pants so he can shoot the one with the smallest penis (judged by his whore), but is easily forgotten amidst all the mayhem.<br /><br />BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA starts out great as a women-in-prison film complete with lesbian wardens and a shower scene, then completely switches to a chase film. If director Eddie Romero (famous for directing Filipino horror films) had just stuck with the WIP theme, he would have been fine. Instead, BMWM gets real old real fast and the surprise ending just makes the audience wonder why they sat through a 90-minute film for it to end like this! Another problem: where is the film supposed to be set? While some of the accents are Hispanic and cities have Spanish names (Los Robles, etc.), all the natives are obviously Asian! Hmmm... Recommended only for die-hard Grier fans, who even then will be disappointed.

negative

Well, I AM "the target market" & I loved it. Furthermore my husband, also a Boomer with strong memories of the '60s, liked it a lot too. I haven't read the book, so I went into it neutral & I was very pleasantly surprised. It's now on our "Highly Recommended" video list.<br /><br />

positive

I agree with the other 9 and 10 star reviews. I saw this at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin. Of the 20 films I saw,7 were really good and this was the best one for me. I'm a sucker for movies that have plot devices where characters go through transformations that totally change their lives. The excellent acting was mostly done by people involved in TV, or it was their first movie. It was written and directed by Jay Floyd. This was his debut as a director. Jay's day job is apparently as a clearance administrator for lots of famous films. Forgiving the Franklins was a total delight and extremely funny in spots. This is one movie where I would buy the DVD and re-watch it, truly a high complement from me. Well done, Jay, yes...give up your day job!

positive

Unfortunately, due to a sluggish start, I can't say that this is one of Hitch's best films. It very excellent none the less. The film stars Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day as parents who get caught up in a political assassination plot and must try to get their kidnapped son back. They both give excellent performances, not surprising of course. Really, however, I was most impressed with Hitchcocks amazing use of music. The climax at the Opera house was fantastic, and using a live orchestra to create music and suspense at the same time was pure genius. Absolutely fantastic suspense came out of that scene. Also, the use of Doris Day singing "Que Sera, Sera" was excellent. Especially when it is transposed on scenes at the end of the film. So, this film to me ends up being Hitchcocks best use of music that I have seen to date. Unfortunately it had a slow start, or I could have recommend this film a little more highly. Even then, it is still well worth a look. 8 out of 10.

positive

Yahoo Serious is like a $3 bottle of wine - had no substance to begin with and just gets worse with age. This film proves he is completely toxic. We can only hope that this is his final film and that its serious lack of success will diminish his chances of obtaining finance for any future ventures. It is right up there with "Lightning Jack" and "Les Patterson Saves the World" as the most abysmal example of Australian comedy imaginable. How tragic it is that with so many infinitely superior comedic talents in Australia Yahoo is given such vehicles to express his brand of puerile school yard comedy. And to think - he had 7 years to come up with the script. True genius!

negative

I'd heard a lot of bad things about this film before seeing it, but thought all the negative comments were probably down to the film's low budget and poor acting - both of which I can deal with when it comes to zombie films. However, what I didn't count on is this film being really, really boring; if there's one thing you can count on from low budget zombies, its gore and entertainment - but unfortunately, this film has neither. I'm quite surprised, because the previous two horror films I've seen from director Bob Clark - Deathdream and Black Christmas - were both highly inventive and entertaining films, but Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things just doesn't cut it. The plot line follows a group of young adults that travel to a burial island in order to mess about with rituals to bring the dead back to life. However, they soon learn that playing with things they don't understand is a really stupid idea when their rituals actually bring the dead back to life and the corpses of the island return to feast on their blood!<br /><br />The plots sounds like it could lead to a decent flick, but what I didn't mention is that the interesting parts don't start until the final twenty minutes; and as this is a ninety minute movie, I'm sure you can guess that this isn't a good thing. The opening hour and ten minutes are padded out with poor acting and even worse characters. I can understand setting up a situation so that the horror is more potent once it comes along; but please, if you're going to spend so long on it, you've really got to make it interesting. All of the characters in the film are over the top and annoying, and personally I just wanted the zombies to hurry up and eat them. The film is not without its merits, however, as the atmosphere is a standout. Lucio Fulci would show seven years later how an isolated island and flesh eating zombies can blend well; but Bob Clark already did it with this film. The direction isn't bad either, but it's brought down by poor make-up effects and a distinct lack of blood, which isn't likely to please fans of zombie movies. Overall, I really can't recommend this film; but if you're a hardcore zombie fanatic, you may get a kick out of it.

negative

This movie was terrible...How can somebody even think that this movie was like the ones back in the "good old days" when Tim Thomerson was not even in it. And to make things worse, they used clips from old trancer movies. Thats just terrible. NO trancer movie is complete without Tim Thomerson.I love Fullmoon films, and i have been watching them since i was 4 years old. I have been through everything they have done and this movie almost made me lose it. Now i got a couple of lines to fill so i will keep going. Their way of breeding new trancers is completely stupid as well as way to send Jack back in time. What happened to the TCL Chamber. AND finally! What happened in the end of trancers 5 where lina says and i quote "Jack Has given me something special" AND her and some other broad looks at her stomach. I don't know...maybe a BABY is in there. There were so many other places of going to, but fullmoon S'd the Bed

negative

I saw this last night at the Tribeca Film Fest and holy god was it bad.. From the script to the editing to the acting to the cinematography-- none of it worked. Not to mention the set design/costumes were so distractingly wrong for the time period (it spans the years from the late 70s up until 2006 or so). Even John Hurt, who's usually an amazing actor, was so over-the- top ridiculous. Granted, Quinten Crisp is an over-the-top guy to begin with, but Hurt was given nothing to work with here. I don't know much else to say except the audience I saw it with absolutely loved it.. so maybe it's just me. But audiences love anything at film festivals when they're sitting next to the director and all the actors. It's not a very accurate test of how good the movie is or how well it will play. Personally, I thought this movie was terrible. On the other hand, it was so terrible that it was hilarious. Get drunk and give it a shot when it's on HBO in 2 years, if it ever makes it that far.

negative

I saw this film with a live performance by the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the music was one of the two things that definitely made the experience for me; particularly, the song after the battle where the woman is looking for her husband was just devastating. The other thing that stood out to me is the battle on the ice itself, a bit of strategy ripped off thoroughly by the makers of _King Arthur_ in 2004. Also, the battle goes on forever (half an hour?)-- painfully long. I can't think of another propaganda film that makes war look less glamorous or rewarding. I'm surprised Stalin liked this film so well; I wouldn't want to go out and fight after watching it.

positive

Somehow, I really thought that I was going to enjoy this film because I love pictures with mountain climbing and a great mystery in the plot. I must say that the photography was fantastic and there was some scary scenes that captured my attention. I thought that Nicole Eggert,(Diana Pennington),"Thank You, Good Night",'01 played a very convincing role as a young girl who had a tragic loss in her life and meets up with some characters who want her to guide them up the mountain. Marc Singer, "Angel Blade",'02, played a very unconvincing weird guy and over acted in many scenes with a bad temper that looked comical. This film was a big disappointed and not worth watching, unless there is nothing on the TV to ENJOY!!

negative

Let's see, cardboard characters like Muslim terrorists have forced a cardboard scientist to perform some exotic drug tests on some cardboard people who have been drugged and kidnapped. You'll be sure to laugh when these pathetic excuses for humanoids get their just deserts! Turns out the drug experiments have given them the ability to sense another world....the world of religious fantasy!--complete with cardboard demons who look like they are made of Papier Mache. Everybody gets dragged off to Hell except for one poor chap who goes to Heaven where he can presumably spend Eternity with the blockheads that created this Masterpiece of the Absurd. I think I'd opt for Hellfire myself. Go see something else, unless you are stoned, in which case, you might actually like it! Couldn't hurt!

negative

Michael Ritchie's "The Couch Trip" is a wonderfully anarchic comedy about what makes a good psychiatrist. It is so subtle and wicked that you start to realize what a stinging satire it really is. It is also Dan Akyroyd's best movie, made in a particularly great film year (1988)for him. First, "The Great Outdoors" and now this.<br /><br />Akyroyd stars as John Burns, a career crook who fakes insanity to escape prison. Now, a dumb comedy would just be about this. But "The Couch Trip" uses this as a springboard for everything else. Beverly Hills psychiatrist George Maitlin (Charles Grodin, subtly hilarious here)has a nervous breakdown and a replacement is selected: Lawrence Baird, who happens to be Akyroyd's psychiatrist! You can pretty much guess what's going to happen, but the great thing about "The Couch Trip" is not what happens, but how it is done. <br /><br />"The Couch Trip" gives Dan Akyroyd the best role he has ever had. His John Burns is one of the truly original comic creations in movie history. Wicked one liners and physical humor are a part of it, but what makes it special is that Akyroyd makes Burns a lovable character. We root for him and grow to like him a whole lot during the 98 minute running time.<br /><br />But Akyroyd isn't alone here. He gets strong support from other great comic actors. Walter Matthau joins the hilarity as a con artist minister who catches on to Burns' secret and commits genteel blackmail. Charles Grodin "slow burns" his way to another great comic role as the burned out psychiatrist. Grodin has been one of the most underappreciated actors in Hollywood. It's criminal they haven't used him more often. Richard Romanus plays Grodin's slimeball lawyer to perfection.<br /><br />"The Couch Trip" is one of many films made by the now-defunct Orion Pictures Corporation that are currently unseen. MGM spent a fortune buying the Orion library but have yet to truly cash in on their acquisition. "The Couch Trip" joins "Dressed to Kill", "Blow Out" and countless others in gathering dust rotting in the vault. Shame on MGM for their inaction. Hopefully, with new management, "The Couch Trip" will find the audience and respect it deserves.<br /><br />**** out of 4 stars

positive

Pluses: Mary Boland is delightfully on edge as always (I never tire of her upper-crust zaniness, especially in "The Women" and "Pride and Prejudice"). W.C. Fields's brief role is fun, though the famous pool table scene stretches its welcome a bit because it seems to go on for ten minutes. The madcap antics of the film, typical of the period, are great. Also, a nod to Alison Skipworth's wonderfully grounded hotel mistress; I would love to see more of her (she reminds me of Marie Dressler, another personality worthy of high praise). <br /><br />Minuses: Gracie Allen. An irritating, unfunny presence whose annoyance went unmatched until the rise of Adam Sandler. That near-falsetto nasalness tinged with an accent of unknown origin gets old in her very first scene. This is the first of the Burns-Allen films I have seen and while I (as a big classic comedy buff) try to experience at least one film with every major comedy star, this is definitely one team I will not be calling upon again. Her timing and interpretation of the material is totally off. A maddeningly mediocre talent.<br /><br />The bottom line: An OK comedy, but the gags are few and far between. And at only an hour long, you can expect that this is not an A grade Hollywood comedy. Recommended only for Boland and Fields fans who want to see all of their work.

negative

So I turned on the TV today at 1:00 PM on a Sunday, expecting to see crap and infomercials, and this great movie was just starting, didn't know what it was but drew me in almost immediately. The movie was excellent.<br /><br />there were a couple of things that didn't make sense for one I don't get why the dead guy was talking about doing stuff to get yourself out of your bad situation, but then Jimmy doesn't really do anything except the basic stuff to survive that anyone would do in his situation, in other words it wasn't his initiative that got him out of his bad situation it was just luck, second I don't get the thing about the girl killing the the gangsters at the end, because the whole thing was partly casued by the thief people stealing Panda's money, and then the other thief kills Panda at the end, so they steal his money twice, and kill him how is that good?

positive

This is a little slow-moving for a horror movie, but the quality is better than you might expect for a director's only effort on IMDb. The camera work and lighting were both surprisingly good, and the acting – although variable – is better than is often found in Indie genre flicks.<br /><br />As the lead, Robert Field is rather stiff, which is especially unfortunate given that his character, Claude, is the film's narrator as well as the centre of its action. However, it was the entry of Christopher (Brandon deSpain) that I considered the turning point of this film – and not in a good way. A twist is introduced in a clumsy fashion, and slow-moving becomes drawn out and overly wordy.<br /><br />On the up side, Pete Barker is consistently entertaining as Father William. He's the easy stand-out in what is a fairly ordinary offering. While the first half hour caught my interest, I ended up feeling quite disappointed in the way things played out.

negative

I went and saw this movie last night after being coaxed to by a few friends of mine. I'll admit that I was reluctant to see it because from what I knew of Ashton Kutcher he was only able to do comedy. I was wrong. Kutcher played the character of Jake Fischer very well, and Kevin Costner played Ben Randall with such professionalism. The sign of a good movie is that it can toy with our emotions. This one did exactly that. The entire theater (which was sold out) was overcome by laughter during the first half of the movie, and were moved to tears during the second half. While exiting the theater I not only saw many women in tears, but many full grown men as well, trying desperately not to let anyone see them crying. This movie was great, and I suggest that you go see it before you judge.

positive

One: your screen will be filled with beautiful effects and colours. These do nothing for the story, but they will keep your lazy eyes occupied for some 50 minutes. A good example is the eternal use of a computer screen that shows each fingerprint from the database as that print is compared with the one they want to find out about. Yeah, right.<br /><br />Two: these guys being like real professional Pros, they will engage each other in intriguing Pro talk: "Look, Grissom, these are what we call fingerprints. Everybody has them, and they are different on each person. So, with these fingerprints we can actually find...".<br /><br />Yup! Exactly like real pros would talk to each other if there wasn't a completely uninformed and stupid audience around.<br /><br />However, not everything about this show is bad. Some stories work to some degree, and the colours _are_ really beautiful. They use red, blue, green, yellow... all of them colours I've loved since kindergarten.

negative

Compared to this, Tarkovsky is a speed freak.<br /><br />Compared to this, Bela Tarr is MTV.<br /><br />Compared to this, the movie "Russian Ark" is a roller-coaster ride.<br /><br />I've just described 3 of the sllllowwwwwesssstttt experiences I've ever known, and this one tops them all. But that's not saying it's bad. On the contrary, I really liked it. But it was a chore.<br /><br />I won't describe the plot, because you can easily find that elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the plot is INSANE. It's one of the most creative and bizarre ideas since "Becoming John Malkovich". I believe the interesting plot is the main reason I kept from nodding off (also, the humour was nice. That's something we rarely see in slow, artsy films).<br /><br />Here we see a bizarre reversal of the norm. Most movies have little plot & little substance; yet they fill 90 mins with a lot of eyecatching images to keep us enthralled. But "The Hole" has 100% plot/theme without much to please the eyes. In that respect, I suppose it's a truly intellectual experience, much like reading a painfully verbose novel like Thackaray's "Vanity Fair" (which I've NEVER been able to finish!).<br /><br />If you have a tremendous attention span, I think you'll really like this film. Despite its molassessy pace, it's highly creative and imaginative. It's like Jean-Pierre Jeunet on quaaludes and with a drab, dusty camera lens. Best of luck.

positive

This was a funny movie. Just having seeing the Evil Dead trilogy not a week ago (and left wanting for more), I got as many Bruce Campbell movies as I could, including really bad ones. This one is funny, without being exceptional, but as sure as hell original.<br /><br />I mean you've got mad scientists, superhuman cyborgs, half brain freaks, gypsies, ex KGB cab drivers, jealousy, murders of passion, love, romance, sex, action and what more, all with the same 6 actors :)<br /><br />You really have to see it and enjoy it, I can't explain it in a text box. I guess it is not so much a cult movie as Evil Dead was, but it certainly has that Bruce Campbell touch I love. Ted Raimi lends a hand, Tamara Gorski looks both beautiful and interesting (she has gone a long way from the hooker in Friday the 13th) and Vladimir Kolev also shows a lot of promise as an actor, although he will probably be cast as secondary character in Hollywood movies his entire career.<br /><br />Bottom line: funny movie. If you liked Evil Dead you'll like this, too.

positive

This is another film where the cinematography is the best thing to recommend it. That would be fine if the film were a travelogue, but as a dramatic exercise in cinematic artistry, that is not good enough. The theme of inter-species respect and co-operation ventures timidly into the forbidden world of inter-species love, but its approach is stereotypical, indicating a lack of understanding of the behavior motives of either species. As with many films, one always wonders what could have been achieved by a more innovative director and a more creative screenwriter. Alas, we probably will never know.

positive

What the heck do people expect in Horror films these days anyway. Does is HAVE to be something grisly like 'SAW' or it's just crap...??? Now, I don't claim to be an all knowing expert, but I'm about 47, I've seen and own literally thousands of films and I honestly think this director really gave this film a good, sincere effort. Believe me, I was getting ready to cringe as soon as the dialog started, ASSUMING it was gonna be awful and I was pleasantly surprised. It's no Mamet script, that's for sure; but COME ON!!! with all the HORRIBLE garbage out there, ESPECIALLY in Horror, I thought this one was WAY closer to the top of the pile than most.<br /><br />The director used a lot of neat, clever camera angles; the soundtrack was excellent and moody, perfect for the atmosphere needed for this kind of film. The editing and timing were very good. And it DIDN'T resort to the tired, worn cliché of excessive 'slasher' violence; for example ***** MINOR SPOILER ***** During an absolutely delightful and fully gratuitous (but tasty..., uh, I mean tasteful) nude shower scene I FULLY expect her to get sliced and diced; but, AMAZINGLY we just get to enjoy her heavenly loveliness and that's it ***** END MINOR SPOILER ***** Also, the tension was built very well, leading up to a nicely ambiguous ending where you are not quite sure what's what. ***** SPOILER ***** Especially where in the scene where the psychiatrist leaves the girl and Pinnochio alone in the office; WE see the doll actually talking to her, but in the video recording we do not. Also, the Mom sees Pinnochio moving about and being quite nasty; so, are BOTH the Mom AND daughter mentally ill...??? Also there is the original 'killer' and what the Mom had surmised about a possible Evil influence. But even with all that, we are STILL not quite sure WHO was doing the killing ***** END SPOILER ***** So, all in all, I believe that it was a good, strong, sincere effort to create some good ol' Early Full Moon type style and with a LOT of restraint on the violence. And with no typical SLEAZE thrown in for no reason (just the lovely, innocent, beautiful shower scene, which I will remember to the end of my days... : ) Compared to the absolute MINDLESS drivel out there, a DEFINITE, strong 8/10!!!

positive

Looking back on Jim Henson's works years after his death is like taking a look back into another time. For unlike most so-called creative types attempting to sell to, or worse yet cynically exploit, children nowadays, Jim never seemed to really forget what it was like to be a child. And if there ever was a moment in which he demonstrated this, Labyrinth aside, it is 1979's Muppet Movie. Filmed as an allegorical story about how Henson came to work in children's television as a puppeteer and ended up with a half-hour show of his own on primetime television, The Muppet Movie ends up an affirmation of everything more progressive, understanding sorts would say to children who did not quite meet the expected norm during the 1980s. And as we enjoy the fruits of an era in which we are gagged and bound from speaking about anything lest someone might get offended, the open celebration of difference or diversity that formed a large part of The Muppet Show is on offer here. I have said it in other comments, but I must say it here. A great light in the world went out the day Jim Henson died.<br /><br />The Muppet Movie begins with its cast sitting down to see the premiere of what were about to see for the next eighty or so minutes. In short, precise strokes, we are introduced to the major players as well as some of the minors. And when the story proper begins, boy are we given a great song to bring us into the moment. The Rainbow Connection painted both a beautiful and sad image of what the Muppets, especially Kermit, were. These were not just a bunch of felt puppets with singular personalities who combined to put on a show. They were living things based upon a part of all of us, only writ so much more boldly than we are used to. As each Muppet was introduced to us in turn, we saw another reflection of part of ourselves, and of course the children in the audience would respond differently to each character. Hence, everyone had a favourite. When Animal appeared behind a drum kit and attempted to eat a cymbal, I knew I had found one of mine. Nowadays, I am more of a Swedish Chef fan, but what the hey.<br /><br />Complementing the characters was a string of musical numbers that further developed their motivations and personalities. Can You Picture That? shared an insight into Dr. Teeth and his band as well as the creative soul of Henson. But the most relevant song to me was Gonzo's number, asking what he is and where he came from. Many of us would spend a lifetime gazing into the stars and, like Gonzo, saying we knew we would be going back there someday. Not that all the songs were so deadly serious, of course. Fozzy and Kermit share a number after they decide to combine their talent (or lack thereof) and hit the road. If any evidence were required that present-day "musicians" have lost the ability to use the pop structure to create something listenable, this number would be it. Never before, and never again, would the group dynamic of a cast and the music so perfectly complement one another. With the puppeteers and voice actors so perfectly on top of their game, the human cast had a lot to live up to.<br /><br />Which makes it all the more amazing that the human element also lived up to their end of the deal. Cameos literally pepper the film, with everyone from Steve Martin to Telly Savalas popping in to offer their support. Even Richard Pryor, the last man one would expect to see in a film about the Muppets, appears to set up a hilarious moment. Mel Brooks' cameo is just as disturbing to me as an adult as it was when I was a small boy, but I suspect that is because Henson knew why I would find it disturbing now. The big acting strength, though, comes from Charles Durning, who as Doc Hopper embodies everything both Henson and his audience determined to resist. At every junction, Hopper comes to either offer Kermit the chance to sell out and betray his own kind. Or perhaps offer stops being the right word when Hopper's attempts to ensure Kermit's compliance become progressively more forceful and violent. The whole thing is one big metaphor for how every artist has his heart broken by the world.<br /><br />Of course, Animal also shows up to remind us that just because our friends are not sweet and cuddly does not make them any less of a friend. In point of fact, Animal turns out to be the best friend that Kermit has in that moment. And that has been the core message of every good show or film Henson has been involved in ever since. That shunning or dismissing others simply because of linguistic or cosmetic differences could literally be the worst mistake one ever makes. There can be little doubt that in today's world where a moron in a purple suit can tell my sons they are not good if they do not have good feelings for fifteen seasons and still not come under serious investigation by child welfare authorities, Henson's creature workshop could never have got off the ground. To misquote the album title, daring to be stupid is one thing, but enforcing the choice upon others is another matter. The Muppet Movie demonstrates how Henson dared to ask us all to think, both inside and outside of the proverbial box. There will never be another entirely like him, but he never would want us to stop trying.<br /><br />Therefore, The Muppet Movie is the epitome of a ten out of ten film. If we were to send a film out into the cosmos to prove to intelligent life that we are worth more than being obliterated, this would be it.

positive

I was very curious about Anatomy (aka Anatomie) and if I was going to see it, I was going to have to buy it since no video stores in my area carried the film. Since it was not a low-priced DVD, I did take a chance and thought I'd take a peek at other comments on IMDb. Many of the comments didn't give me enough hope of forking out lots of bucks for a film I had never seen nor had any clues about. I basically got the idea it was a sexy youth-oriented romp being compared to many cookie-cutter teen thrillers. Well, something in the back of my mind told me to ignore those types of comments and buy it! I did, and was I pleasantly surprised!<br /><br />If it is going to be compared to any other films, I would say it's a variation of Coma and Extreme Measures. I couldn't see any comparison to films like Scream, Urban Legends, et al. Yes, the cast is young (that's because they're med students! At least they aren't the increasingly boring high school type characters), and yes, some are lusty (basically the character played by Anna Loos is, and it is handled quite tastefully in the German language version), but Anatomy is well constructed, there is a tense mood throughout, the sets are amazing, the makeup effects are a wow, and Franka Potente is very credible in her role. I found myself enjoying all of it despite a few gaping holes in the plot! The story of a student discovering a sort-of secret society doing autopsies on still-living patients is a rather creepy scenario and what happens to those patients afterwards is quite clever. Sure, you could ask why didn't she just GET OUT OF THAT TOWN? Okay, but then the film would be over within a half hour.<br /><br />This was the first effort from the German part of Columbia Pictures, and it's actually quite an impressive one. There was a bit of care in the production and to actually offer some genuine thrills is an accomplishment. It is a bit mature in mind, as it doesn't resort to constant opportunities for sexual encounters(a breast fest) or juvenile drug jokes. Anna Loos' character, while often making sexual remarks and looking for some fun, was actually a nice touch--having a character that was a woman more intelligent than any of the men in the school. She found that sex was really just a distraction for her and the men rather lacking.<br /><br />THE IMPORTANT STUFF: Watching this film in the original German language with English or French subtitles is the BEST way to enjoy it. I saw the theatrical trailers dubbed in English and was disgusted by the change it made in the film's tone. I have never seen a properly dubbed film in my life--they never can find voices that suit the film's actors or characters. Sure enough, I tried to watch some of Anatomy dubbed in English and the intelligence level of it dropped severely, making it seem more like a comedy. A good example is when one guy was freaked out at being cut open and screamed to be sewn back up--hearing it in German he sounded frantic, but dubbed in English he sounded like a comedian. Frankly, I'm sick of hearing people say they can't handle reading subtitles or watch a "letterboxed" film. Anatomy comes off as silly with dubbed voices that seem octaves too high for any of the people you see in the film, and Anna Loos' sexual comments then just sound like awful remarks right out of Fast Times At Ridgemont High. I wonder if the negative comments about Anatomy are from people who watched it dubbed, it just doesn't seem like the same film at all! This is not a cheap horror film and deserves to be viewed as it was created. Interesting to note that some of the English subtitles are different in scenes in the feature and the "making of" supplement.<br /><br />As it turns out, I gambled and won with Anatomy. It's a competent thriller with likeable characters and doesn't try to go for cheap thrills.

positive

The one who says that Lucio Fulci is not one of the most important names in the history of splatter is probably mad.The Italian director is a legend among hardcore-horror fans,and his work exceeds the barriers of the genre(who can forgot his western,crime or fantasy flicks).This is probably his goriest film,and unfortunately one the last.A horror director(Fulci as himself) starts hallucinating about gruesome murders.He goes to a psychiatrist,who makes him believe he is the criminal.In this time,the doctor begins a long chain of serial crimes.With such a plot,the movie should have been filled with something.And there are roting corpses,crashed or melted heads,stabbings,decapitations,chainsaw dismemberment and many others.Kind of boring sometimes,the film is saved by the excessive violence that will definitely please the gore addicts.

positive

I don't know where to begin. Perhaps the whole idea of this movie was just a disaster waiting to happen. There is nothing slightly humorous about a kidnapping. I don't know what was more offensive--the subject matter or David Arquette's "performance". It was like watching a bull get it's penis cut off, although I think the bull felt better afterwards. The filmmakers should find something about Sinatra other than his son's kidnapping to show (like, I don't know, his TALENT AS A SINGER!!!!). His family shouldn't have to relive that horror. Thank GOD it was just shown on HBO and not released in theaters. Please don't watch this if you have any self respect.

negative

Turd Pie:<br /><br />* Take x2 franchises * Par-boil for 5 mins * Stir in mixed cardboard characters (non Actors work best) * Add 2 tons of clichés then bake in Your Plot-Hole Microwave until bored. * Serve with a Sprinkling of Dawson's Crack (not a Typo)<br /><br />Voila! - Money spinning Brain Rot for the Emo/World of Warcraft Generation <br /><br />Looking for the keys in drain was the best bit (?) <br /><br />Aside from the first 5 mins, its one of the worst films ever made. <br /><br />Utter, Utter, Nonsense.

negative

By the time the Hellraiser franchise was reaching it's forth film the premise was wearing a bit thin. Dr. Paul Merchant (Bruce Ramsey) is a scientist in the future, whom while prisoner regales his captor of the story of how his ancestors (all played by Ramsey) had first built the evil Lament Configuration puzzle-box that sets evil upon the world and how his bloodline had subsequent dealing with said box. The film is a awash with lack of continuity in regards to the other films and lack of coherency in this one. Yes, this could be due to a combination of rewrites, massive cuts in the original version of the film, or what have you. But I'm reviewing the film as is, and not what it was or could have been. And as it is now it's a mess. Sure the franchise will go on indefinitely with direct to DVD sequels, but this one was pretty much a death-nail to it's chances of getting a new one released theatrically ever again.<br /><br />My Grade: D-

negative

This movie states through its protagonist that the world is essentially sadness and pain and those that ignore this have blinders on. One can argue whether this is true or not. But even if you accept this as true, the movie's ending either A) disputes this by saying there can be some good in tragic situations or B) forgets this and uses a cliched montage in order to leave the audience feeling uplifted.<br /><br />That the movie metaphorically acquits its protagonist by presenting him as a sympathetic character despite any evidence for that sympathy shows contempt for the supporting characters who were the most compelling in the film.<br /><br />So what you have in this film is a script that is not consistent in its theme and direction that does not bring the ending into sync with the rest of the film. There are excellent performances given by every member of the cast especially Spacey, Olin, Martin Donovan, and Ann Magnuson. It's a shame that they weren't supported by a better writer/director.

negative

Although it might seem a bit bizarre to see a 32-year-old woman play the part of a 12-year-old, Mary Pickford soon makes you forget the incongruities and simply enjoy the fun.<br /><br />Mary is a street kid in New York City, with her own lovable gang of mischief makers, whose attentions are engaged by the older William Haines (he was 25 at the time & just on the cusp of his own screen stardom.)<br /><br />To give away too much of the plot would not be fair. Suffice it that Mary is great fun to watch & amply displays why she was Hollywood's first and most beloved super star. Production values are very good, with lots of extras making the NYC street scenes quite believable.

positive

Young Michael Dudikoff like young Lord Greystoke was abandoned in the jungle on a Pacific island as an infant. But instead of being raised by the apes, he fell into the hands of a Japanese soldier who was still living there because he hadn't heard the war was over. And like young Luke Skywalker it turns out he fell into the hands and learned the fighting skills of a Ninja.<br /><br />Good thing because they were separated and the young kid came down with a case of amnesia, but those fighting skills didn't go away. The orphaned kid, now named Joe Armstrong enlists in the Army and gets himself stationed in the Phillipines. Meanwhile his Obi Wan Kenobe played by John Fujioka gets rescued himself and goes to work as a gardener on the estate of planter and terrorist go between Don Stewart using a cheesy accent that seems to vary between French and Spanish.<br /><br />As these things happen everybody meets and Dudikoff both solves the mystery of part of his past and saves the commanding officer's daughter from the bad guys in this Golan-Globus Production. Charles Bronson was getting a bit long in the tooth now and Golan-Globus needed a new star for their action flicks. Michael Dudikoff filled the bill quite nicely and made quite a few films for them including several American Ninja sequels.<br /><br />This film is all action and Dudikoff dispatches bad guys at a record pace. What he doesn't do, Steve James does doing his best Rambo imitation and showing his considerable martial arts skills.<br /><br />The film has enough holes in the plot to drive one of those army vehicles through you see in the story. But that's what the ticket buying public doesn't care about. Dudikoff certainly looks magnificent stripped to his fighting clothes. No wonder so many sequels were made.

negative

Based on an actual story, John Boorman shows the struggle of an American doctor, whose husband and son were murdered and she was continually plagued with her loss. A holiday to Burma with her sister seemed like a good idea to get away from it all, but when her passport was stolen in Rangoon, she could not leave the country with her sister, and was forced to stay back until she could get I.D. papers from the American embassy. To fill in a day before she could fly out, she took a trip into the countryside with a tour guide. "I tried finding something in those stone statues, but nothing stirred in me. I was stone myself." <br /><br />Suddenly all hell broke loose and she was caught in a political revolt. Just when it looked like she had escaped and safely boarded a train, she saw her tour guide get beaten and shot. In a split second she decided to jump from the moving train and try to rescue him, with no thought of herself. Continually her life was in danger. <br /><br />Here is a woman who demonstrated spontaneous, selfless charity, risking her life to save another. Patricia Arquette is beautiful, and not just to look at; she has a beautiful heart. This is an unforgettable story. <br /><br />"We are taught that suffering is the one promise that life always keeps."

positive

As talk-shows go, Larry King Live is not bad, and since he occasionally gets good guests, it's a show to turn on once in awhile, but not compulsively. When Bill Maher, Carl Bernstein, a former president, or other substantive guests sit across from him, it's not too bad. Other times, he tends to host guests involved in the latest celebrity scandal which contributes absolutely no intelligent information to the country and feeds a largely uneducated public that wants to hear the latest gossip about movie and TV stars. During the OJ Simpson trial, it seemed like every other guest on his show was related to the case. But is this really journalism? Or the National Enquirer on the tube? Sometimes, it comes off a little bit like trash television--Jerry Springer in a sit down interview with phone calls instead of a live audience.<br /><br />On the other side, King's show is definitely much better than Bill O'Reilly whose show is nothing more than a rightest-political platform of the Rush Limbaugh variety. That said, Larry King is not a bad interviewer, but alas, he is not a great one. King does not always come off like he completely comprehends when intellectual material is being presented, especially if it is by a scholar or historian with a new book on subtle aspects of politics. Always seems like the minute King can't quite deal with the issue at hand, that's when he turns to the phone calls, maybe hoping someone out in the country will have a better question than he has. He might interview someone like David Gergen, but may not have read any of his books. Sort of like the movie producer that never bothers to read the script.<br /><br />When it's an entertainment celebrity, no problem. He can come off like he's thoroughly knowledgeable since the material is not that substantive anyway. Talking to Elizabeth Taylor about her relationship with Richard Burton is not exactly rocket science. And I notice he usually has seen the star's latest movie. Watching a movie takes much less time and contemplation than reading a book. However, if it's the likes of John Dean or Bob Woodward, King comes off a little like he didn't quite finish his homework. So off to the phones.<br /><br />If you are looking for real in-depth interviewing, Terry Gross of NPR is probably the best interviewer in the United States. She reads and/or researches everything written by or about her guests beforehand and has a working knowledge of those areas. I don't see King quite doing that. Granted, he probably has an audience 1000 times larger than Terry Gross, which may say more about the American audience than King. In short, Larry is better than Bill but not as good as Terry.

positive

Swoon focuses on Leopold and Loeb's homosexual relationship - a facet of the case that has been mostly (and unjustly) ignored since their trial, even by Leopold himself in his autobiography. But, even in its treatment of this Swoon over does it by far. Worse, it twists, combines, and straight out alters the details of the case which will irritate anyone who knows much about it while at the same time managing to confuse those who are not familiar with it. While it is an interestingly made film, Swoon stinks.<br /><br />1 out of 10 - awful.

negative

Thankfully I watched this film alone, enabling me to fast-forward through the worst scenes (aka most of the film, actually). OK, some of it is not all bad, with partially good photography (even some of the under water scenes) and at times not too bad directing. But it still doesn't save the incredibly poor script and way worse acting. Additionally, when I don't find the movies "hottie" to be all that, even the wannabe-sexy love making scenes get dull. Really dull! And for the drama: You know it's always a bad sign when you get to dislike all of the characters so much you really don't care who lives and who dies.<br /><br />If you still haven't gotten tired of the reality series Survivor, you may find something to your liking in this movie. If not, stay well clear!

negative

This movie is very silly and very funny. You can't ever criticize it for taking itself seriously. If you've heard their previous album or seen their HBO videos from the album, you can imagine the extremely foul-mouthed, rocking good time that is this movie which tells the fable of how the group Tenacious D came to be formed.<br /><br />Full of cameos, it not only gives a fictional account of Tenacious D but is a send-up of musical history as well. The humor reminds one of Something About Mary in that they often "go places you'd thought they wouldn't," but it lacks the scatological humor of South Park. This movie contains no nudity, except for mooning.

positive

Very stark, very drab, no real drama. Why not just make a documentary? This isn't exactly The Passion of Joan of Arc. The only reason for seeing Chronicles is to hear the performances. I love Bach's music and even I found it hard to sit through this misery of a film. The great Gustav Leonhardt plays (in two senses of the word) Bach. We don't get much of a sense of him as an actor, since he's given so little to do dramatically. Mostly, he gets to walk purposefully or angrily out of various rooms. Bach's life, of course, was not an Errol Flynn movie. It was indeed fairly drab and more than a little hard. This probably means that the life isn't a terrific candidate for a film. The music, of course, is another story. I recommend The Stations of Bach. Far more information, for one thing, and some insight into the music, which is, after all, why Bach interests us in the first place.

negative

One of the first things I noticed that allowed this culture to stand out among the rest was during the wake at Sole's place. An aerial shot is used to show Sole being flowered with kisses by a sea of women. I believed this was a commentary on the closeness that women had for each other of this culture—ones who stuck together across the generations, separations and misunderstandings, and still being able to bond and rely on each other. Also, the film seemed to glorify women as almost flawless individuals. What I mean by flawless is that they did not suffer the consequences for their actions and were treated as if they had no imperfections. An example of this is shortly after Paula accidentally killed her father. Her mother immediately comes to her rescue and takes full responsibility for the act while Paula seems to suffer almost no remorse for what she has done. Again, another example of this is when each daughter (or granddaughter) has had an opportunity to reunite with their supposed "dead" mother (grandmother). Knowing the stresses that this has most likely caused in their family, each one of them still embraces the mother without care for what she has done—that is, killing her husband and his lover. In this light, women are portrayed as ones who not only love each other independent of character acts, but also ones who don't seem bothered in the least by the acts in which their friends/family members perform.<br /><br />Another idea that I thought was intriguing of this culture was in regards to their idea of the supernatural. With the death of Raimunda and Sole's mother and her inexplicable return, the director builds the audience's emotions to believe that this film is going to embody the supernatural. The people depicted in this culture seem very supernatural, that is to say, very eager to believe that life exists beyond the grave. Their aunt, long-time friend Augustina, the prostitute and other people living in the city of La Mancha all believe the rumors of the dead coming back to family members to finish the "unfinished business." I believed this was a mixed reflection of the culture's religious faith (predominantly Catholic) as well as their need to make amends with those who had no chance to be forgiven during mortality. The belief they held in regards to the dead being "alive" was also to give hope to the destitute circumstances they suffered in mortality. When the viewer is exposed to the fact that this film isn't supernatural at all, it's interesting to observe the role the mother continues to play. She's treated as if she still is a ghost (i.e. hiding in small crevices (underneath the bed or inside a car trunk)). I believe the director portrayed the mother this way to heighten the already existent supernatural beliefs the city had adopted. The mother's character seemed to be a metaphor for the city's long-held belief in life after death.

negative

...now please move on because that's getting on my nerves.<br /><br />Seriously, the man behind brilliant pieces like "My Own Private Idaho" and "To Die For" (and others not so brilliant movies, i.e. the unnecessary "Psycho" remake) started an experimental phase with "Gerry", which reached its peak with the thought-provoking "Elephant". "Last Days" had some interesting aspects but was very uneven, while "Paranoid Park", his new film, also has good-looking 15 year-olds walking around... and not much else. Some cool references to Fellini (the soundtrack reuses some beautiful pieces by Nino Rota) and the elegant cinematography by the legendary Christopher Doyle ("In the Mood for Love") are the highlights, but the movie is just too artsy-fartsy and meaningless for its own doom. We've had much better coming of age stories, and "Paranoid Park" brings nothing new. I don't see anything artistic about seeing excessive shots of Gabe Nevins in his underwear or showering. Or when Nevins and 13 year-old Taylor Momsen (the little girl from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"), who plays his cheerleading girlfriend, have sex for the first time, just because she felt like they had to do it and after they're done, she calls her friend to say how amazing it was (and you can say from Nevins' face how traumatic it was). Everybody knows that they're starting earlier and earlier nowadays, movies like "Thirteen" and even "Elephant" itself (which shows how lost their minds are in general, not only when it comes to sexuality) have done a better portrayal of that. Gus tries to be minimalist and artistic, but the final result is just boring and uninteresting. His next project, "Milk", a biopic about Harvey Milk starring Sean Penn, will, hopefully, bring the good old Gus back, because, frankly, this obsession over underage kids is almost... creepy. 4.5/10.

negative

Rivalry between brothers leads to main story line. Navy Commander Chuck Prescott(Marshall Thompson)has developed the Y12 aircraft to test how far man can go up in the atmosphere. His brother, Lt. Dan Prescott(Bill Edwards), seems to be the best test pilot around and is chosen to go up in the Y12. Dan of course has a problem with taking orders and is also an over confident dare devil. <br /><br />On Dan's second flight, he hits over the 300 miles up comfort zone and his craft passes through a meteor dust storm. Returning to earth, Dan becomes a monster that resembles 200 pounds of bad asphalt. He also has a demanding craving for blood, whether it be from farm animals or fellow human beings.<br /><br />Short runtime of an hour and seventeen minutes; black & white with near stoic acting...typical of low budget sci-fi.<br /><br />Rounding out the cast is Marla Landi, Robert Ayers and Carl Jaffe. Noteworthy trivia: about two months after this film was released; the Russians put the real first man in space.

negative

This is the greatest example I can think of to prove the theory that when Hollywood runs out of good ideas, they make an awful sequel and ruin the first one. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the first Beastmaster; I even liked the third one pretty good, but this movie is atrocious. I am a huge fantasy/sword & sorcery movie fan and I hated to see such a terrible sequel made to such a classic as the first Beastmaster. So why do I hate this movie so much? Well, where do I begin? First of all, the whole idea of the movie is ridiculous. Dar and his evil older brother Arklon(who was nowhere mentioned in the first movie..Huh?) cross over into our world via a handy dimensional time-portal gate. Ya see, Earth just happens to be on the same parallel interdimentional plane as Dar's world. Whereas with the first movie, you're led to think the movie just takes place in the past, but with this one you're shown it's a completely whole other world altogether...that's just one of the many things I hated about this sequel. It didn't work with "Masters of the Universe", and it sure doesn't work here either! Movies like this should take place and stay in their own time-line and their usual surroundings. For Christ's sake, what's next? Hercules in New York...er, uh..bad example! Moving on...<br /><br />Arklon's after a device called a neutron detonator to use as a threat against his enemies to rule his own kingdom. So, it's up to Dar, his ferrets,his eagle,and his tiger(not a spray-painted one this time) to go off and save the world...but along the way they have the help of a young, cool, and hip Senator's daughter who gets caught up in this whole mess and she show's Dar around L.A., takes him for a joyride in her BMW, and helps get him out of tight situations here and there. How convenient right? And speaking of convenient, I found it awfully convenient and easy for Arklon to sneak into a highly guarded military base and get away with a stolen, highly destructive nuclear weapon...even with half the U.S. Army and L.A.P.D. after him....waaaaay to easy, even for an evil barbarian sorcerer from another world. There are sooo many plot holes in this I don't know where to begin; like why did Arklon go to the L.A. zoo for at the end of the movie?!? He absolutely has no reason whatsoever to go there; and wouldn't that be like the last place you'd lure your greatest enemy who just so happens to have the handy ability TO CONTROL ANIMALS?<br /><br />And don't you just love these kinds of movies where the police are portrayed as total idiots and even with half a dozen cops firing at one guy, they still don't manage to hit him? The police in this movie belong in the "Police Academy" series! They are about as useful in this movie as reading glasses are for the blind! Even the title of the movie makes no sense: "Beastmaster 2 : Through the Portal of Time"...they never actually went through a "time" portal because the movie isn't set in the future of Dar's world, it's set in a parallel world along ours in the astral plane, so they NEVER actually go through time, only a dimensional world along theirs; so NO actual time-travel is involved at all! This movie tries to come off as funny and it does...not because of the humor, but because it's just so bad...and that's putting it mildly. The acting, dialogue, plot, characters, and ending are all so cheesy it's hilarious. What more can I expect from the guy that brought us "Return of the Swampthing"(another bad sequel)? Sorely missed here is Don Coscarelli's wonderful directing and serious feel of the first one!! Avoid this stinking piece of garbage like the bubonic plague and stick which the first one and maybe the third one if there's nothing better on T.V.

negative

Cool action - yeah the premise has been done - but not this way - that's the trick. hey folks - SHOCK - it's an X-File.<br /><br />To me - it's cool that Scully/Mulder have almost no scenes together -- they have to adapt, rely on each other's intrinsic sense about what's really going on - and each other's adaptation skills. They read into each other's moves and get the job done.... (sort of).<br /><br />Oh yeah --- really good acting -- do these people get paid to do this? Or- a slow day when the convenience store doesn't call them into work. (hey - Duchovny - where's the day-old donuts?? Malcolm - get to school...)

positive

I rented this movie with my friend for a good laugh. We actually got laughed at by the clerk at the video store because of our questionable movie tastes. Unfortunately, I don't remember the first half of the movie because all I did was stare at the giant metal braces Jane wore. and I didn't hear anything either due to the incomprehensible lisp. The other thing that was able to grasp my attention besides her metal mouth was her questionable fashion sense. This movie was made in 2005 but it seems like the wardrobe people jumped all the way back to 2000 for the clothes. If you remember the days when Aaron Carter was considered a "popstar" and you like high waisted jeans, ankle socks and knee length skirts, then this little trip down memory lane is perfect for you.

negative

All the actors in this film seem bored. They are not really interested in their roles and the dialogue is all delivered in monotone. It's a problem because I think the basic idea for the film is really very sound. I suppose it's just bad direction which leaves the actors drifting.

negative

A genuinely odd, surreal jumble of visual ideas which probably looked extremely puzzling on the printed page; just what drew Robert Redford to the project, one may never know. Sidney J. Furie directs this knockabout journey of an egotistical motorcycle racer taking a milquetoast juvenile under his wing; the kid looks up to this anti-hero, and eventually begins to ape his amorality. Disjointed and off-putting--though for some, the sight of Redford disrobing, about to disrobe, or having been disrobed might be enough to warrant attention. Lauren Hutton gets naked too, however all the sexy flashes are just teasers for the prurient-minded; there simply is no story. Perhaps Furie was making an esoteric comment about feckless wheelers and their flock circa 1970. If true, then this pre-Blank Generation approach backfired, as the film was not a success. *1/2 from ****

negative

Sure, most of the slasher films of the 1980's were not worth the<br /><br />celluloid they were filmed on, but this video nightmare may well be<br /><br />the dullest produced.<br /><br />Six horny pot smoking students decide to go camping. Of course,<br /><br />and you know this already, they begin getting killed one by one by a<br /><br />mysterious stranger. The climax has a hunky forest ranger trying to<br /><br />get to the teens in time before the last cute girl becomes buzzard<br /><br />bait.<br /><br />John Carl Buechler, my least favorite B-movie guy, did the lousy<br /><br />makeup effects here. The cast features Carel Struycken, of "The<br /><br />Witches of Eastwick" and the Addams family movies. Sadly, he<br /><br />does not pop up until the very end of the film, and is covered in<br /><br />burn makeup, rendering him unrecognizable. Steve Bond (anyone<br /><br />remember him?) is here in an early role as a victim.<br /><br />Brown's direction, and the script he cowrote, both smell like the<br /><br />presents brown bears leave in the woods. He pads the film with<br /><br />so much stock wilderness footage, I thought I accidentally rented a<br /><br />special episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Much of the<br /><br />cast sits around the campfire and eats, then walk, and sit and eat<br /><br />again. The forest ranger is involved in the strangest scene ever put<br /><br />in a slasher film: he tells a joke about a wide mouthed frog to a<br /><br />baby deer. Jackie Coogan, who must have forgot he once worked<br /><br />with the legends of silent cinema, has two scenes, and is involved<br /><br />in the second strangest scene ever put in a slasher film: he and<br /><br />the hunky forest ranger have a conversation about cucumber and<br /><br />cream cheese sandwiches on oatmeal bread...yeah.<br /><br />There is not one minute of suspense here. The killer, a forest fire<br /><br />survivor looking for a mate, watches the students from behind<br /><br />trees. We know it is the killer because the film makers have<br /><br />dubbed in a heart beat sound effect that helpfully serves to wake<br /><br />the viewer up every few minutes. Skip this pile of pine sap and rent<br /><br />"Halloween," instead.<br /><br />This is rated (R) for physical violence, mild gun violence, gore,<br /><br />some profanity, brief female nudity, mild sexual content, sexual<br /><br />references, and drug abuse.

negative

Okay they tell you it's real. They don't list any screenwriters or directors, but one viewing of this movie will prove to anyone - It's not real in the way you were hoping for. The speaking rarely sounds like real natural talk...but also down not sound to be scripted. (possibly loosely scripted). To me it sounded much more like they were always trying to ad-lib. (which they almost always did poorly). Therefore, they knew they were making a 'movie', not just collecting real natural footage. So I'm sure these people knew what was going on, knew they had certain spots to look for things that were set up...and they were just told to ad-lib around it all.<br /><br />*************'Major Spoilers'**************** *****************************************<br /><br />Okay, it's so lame. Every item, spot or thing that could be strange or use d as a scare, is magically stumbled upon by these people. Let me list off the ridiculously obviously faked things that happened that I remember:<br /><br />1) Less than 2 minutes of entering the house, they turn a light switch on - the light sparks and a chandelier almost falls on a guy.<br /><br />2) They happen to find an old medical bag with a bloody butcher knife* in it, while exploring the cellar.<br /><br />3) They hear a noise in an armoire, so they open the door slowly - BAM - a cat happens to be in there and jumps straight at the camera while shrieking.<br /><br />4) Then they happen to notice there is a hole in the wall, so let's stick our hand in...wow, they pulled out a doll of a baby wrapped in mummy tape.<br /><br />5) Let's go to the attic, uh-oh it feels 'heavy' up here....BOOM - a chair flies across the room.<br /><br />6) Time to eat. Oh no ! The girl that was scared of bugs had a ROACH in her sandwich ! LOL !....ridiculous.<br /><br />7) Let's get out the Ouija board...oops one of the legs on the planchette fell off the side of the board. That couldn't be because the people were pushing it could it ? (they find out a ghost there is named Charles)<br /><br />8) Wait ! What was that noise in the chimney...CLINK - oh my shackles fell out "I think she* kept people up here".<br /><br />9) Now wimpy girl is going to brave looking up the chimney shaft...oh, what's this she sees something...and is asking people who aren't looking up the chimney what it is. SWISH - It falls off straight at her. (perfect camera shot) She moves just in time. It was more chain.<br /><br />10) Now we have to separate and each 'cleanse' our designated rooms - wouldn't it be something if things started happening one by one to these people now...okay:<br /><br />CHICK #1: Wow, suddenly her room is shaking...but no one elses does.<br /><br />DUDE #1: Actually says to himself "Charles, is that you Charles...it can't be you because you're just a figment of my imagination aren't you Charles". Well guess what, he gets knocked over and dragged across the floor. Another lucky camera shot.<br /><br />CHICK #2: Hears things..try to communicate ...and is standing there getting abrasions or something.<br /><br />DUDE #2: He was in the attic, reached his arm through a hole in the floor and got a splinter....I don't remember what else.<br /><br />11) Dude #2 runs, gets Chick #2...they hear chick and dude #1 screaming...they find them chained to a wall and strapped to a table.(*) They leave. Cut to black. Final text tell us they escaped safely, were treated for minor cuts. They have since had nightmares and insomnia, we also find out the next day a 911 call was made by they name a someone named "Charles".<br /><br />*************'Major Spoilers'**************** ******************over********************<br /><br />Okay, when I first heard this movie was being made, I couldn't wait. I thought it was going to be real. REAL, real. - and more professional, with more professional type people. I love the idea of this type of thing, I'd love to see real haunting footage. Before this movie was released I saw couple reviews of it by people online. They both claimed how fake it was and how stupid the people were.. time passed I forgot about the film....then I realized It was never released at theaters. So I found out it went straight to video, rented it....found that every brutal review was completely true. It's too bad, I really wanted this to be good.<br /><br />Random thought: The house didn't seem to have TVs, radios..kitchen appliances that I recall...which would make me think no one has lived there for a long time. Especially the house is truly known for being haunted...im pretty sure no one lives there. But it looks so clean and tidy...and what was a cat doing there ? The property does not have near by neighbors....<br /><br />All-in-all, you'll only want to rent this if you and your friends wanna sit there and make fun of it...or if you heard about it a long time ago and it intrigued you. (you will will be disappointed if you are expecting a good film...or real film)<br /><br />Random thought: I believe the producer says "The 'footage' you see is real". Well technically it is real footage isn't it ? Real footage of fake hauntings ? Maybe that was his loop hole.<br /><br />I give this this movie one star - strictly on the fact that they told the story of Madame LaLaurie. A real New Orleans story.<br /><br />The best performance was by the guy who teaches the participants about the ghost hunting equipment in the beginning. He was obviously actually real...or a good actor.<br /><br />

negative

Whenever Hayao Miyazaki does the "tri-fecta," (writes, directs, and animates a movie) he makes a classic film for the ages. He has done it again with Gake no ue no Ponyo.<br /><br />The story is about a girl fish who is kept on a very tight leash along with her younger sisters by her father, a bitter ex-human wizard named Fujimoto. The fish escapes from her father and rides a jellyfish to shore, where she is caught up in a dredging operation and finds herself stuck in a bottle. This underwater sequence must be one of the most elaborately drawn animated scenes ever undertaken and stands on its own as a reason to search out the theatrical release. Miyazaki, who shows no fear of having a busy scene, has outdone himself. There were literally hundreds of individually-drawn sea creatures of every imaginable size all in motion at the same time.<br /><br />When the fish escapes the dredging operation while still trapped in the bottle, a five-year old boy named Sousuke spots her in the water and is able to break the bottle, saving her. Since she is the result of her father's magic, she is capable of magic herself--and her father actively tries to retrieve her. The boy names the fish Ponyo. Just when Sousuke learns that Ponyo can speak, her father successfully retrieves her back into captivity.<br /><br />After a war of wills with her father, Ponyo manages to escape again with the ability to change herself into a human. She meets up again with Sousuke in a storm and the story continues from there in many interesting ways. There is a cuteness factor in this film rivaling and arguably surpassing that of Tonari no Totoro. Joe Hisaishi, once again, provided outstanding musical support.<br /><br />The story itself is simple--as are Miyazaki's films in general--and should appeal to a broad spectrum of viewers. While I haven't viewed it enough to be sure, the film doesn't seem to be one which will keep scholars in long discussions as Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi did. Nonetheless, this is the ultimate feel-good entertainment movie. I gave the movie a ten out of ten rating.

positive

"One True Thing" is the kind of movie where the audience is inspired greatly greatly inspired performances. I am not necessarily stating that the film is uplifting, because it isn't. In fact, the movie is down right depressing. I am trying to say that it takes a lot for a movie to generate emotional tears from an attending crowd.<br /><br />I cried in "One True Thing," enough to conclude that this is one of the most emotionally powerful movies of 1998. The characters were perfectly casted. The performances are all guaranteed Oscar Nominees, especially Meryl Streep, who portraits the dying Kate extremely well. Her acting alone was enough to make the movie excel to the point of recommendation, and gives you a new point of view at her. I also thought that Renée Zellweger portrayed a realistic single, free-wheeling woman who has to take care of their own mother. The other cast members including William Hurt & Tom Everett Scott, were also superb. The script of this movie was really fantastic. It is kind of funny how the movie's concept has to do with the controversial happenings in my local area. You see, I live near Lansing, Michigan, and right now a big issue here is assistant suicide doctor Jack Kavorkian's (excuse my miss-spelling if so) ways have just been outlawed. The public will vote on this according to their beliefs in November After watching "One True Thing" it really changed my perspective at this topic, although I have always believed in it. Without revealing the ending of the film I will simply say that suicide is a distant theme in this movie and I think it fits in accurately with the gorgeous story. Overall, this movie does indeed have more emotional impact than "Titanic," "Saving Private Ryan" or any other tearjerker released in the last few years. I think that is because the main idea of this movie is that this kind of thing happened every day, so it relates better to an audience. And indeed, that this could happening to you.

positive

This is a catastrophe movie set in London . Starting multiple hurricane,superstorm and tornadoes on Scotland are displaced towards East , downing England coast and later the South. After several hours of heavy rainful , the London barrier above Thames is short from running over, and it paves the way for disaster. Then a colossal tidal-wave travel relentless down East causing devastation and lives of millions of Londoners are in danger. At the center of the story is a climatologist(Tom Courtenay) a climatologist who tries to save London from the effects of giant wave , trying to convince the authorities that the town dike was unsafe, furthermore a marine engineer (Robert Carlyle) and his ex-wife Samantha(Jessalyn Gilsig) . They are trapped into the barrier and dropped to sea .Meantime the secret government agency HQ ruled by Nash(Joanne Whalley) under direct orders of deputy Minister(David Suchet) attempt to control many displaced and avoid more dead, approximately 200.000. They have a little time to save London from total catastrophe.<br /><br />Perfectly acceptable drama-disaster with alright acting. Magnificent Tom Courtenay as a climatologist who predicts catastrophe and excellent Robert Carlyle and Jessalyn Gilsig as ex-matrimony rekindling their love. The movie packs impressive flood scenes brought to life by the breathtaking computer generator special effects, better than the classic of the 70s , such as 'Earthquake, Inferno Towering' and similarly to 'Armaguedon and Day after tomorrow'. Although isn't a clear denounce, we know that the flood is caused by the greenhouse effect and global warming which originates the ozone hole. The motion picture is well directed by Tony Mitchell. I would recommend this movie to people who like disaster movies. Another adaptations about floods, are the following : 'Flood(1976)'directed by Earl Bellamy with Robert Culp and Barbara Hershey; 'Hard rain(1998)' directed by Mikael Salomon with Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater; ' Flood : a river's rampage(1979)' directed by Bruce Pittman with Richard Thomas

positive

Amanda Bynes is an enormously talented actress, and I've really enjoyed all of her roles in the past, especially in the fantastic "She's the Man." For that reason alone, "Sydney White" was a huge disappointment for me. The real reason for my dislike of this film is the poor use of characters. In a good fun teen comedy, its perfectly alright to have a cast of all fairly reality-based teen characters. In "Sydney White," this idea is thrown out the window.<br /><br />Amanda Bynes makes a fine Sydney, but she is really lacking in a lot of what usually makes her sparkle as an actress. I blame this on the script, which makes her character too bland and restrained, and on the hair/makeup department, which gives her a detestable plastic look and an annoying hair style. The seven "dorks" that Sydney eventually befriends are far worse. They are so dorky that it's impossible to like them or even respect them as characters. They're essentially repulsive gag fodder. As is the story's "Prince Charming," who is completely unbelievable as a character and is about as cheesy as can be.<br /><br />Perhaps the film's biggest star-to-be (with the possible exception of Amanda Bynes) is Sara Paxton, who's actually very good as the conniving Rachel Witchburn. It's just a shame that the script-writers didn't make her a bit more gray than black.<br /><br />The plot is basically that of "Snow White." What kills it is that it is too blunt and obvious a re-imagining. The connections to "Snow White" are thrown at us so much throughout the film that they are ultimately annoying and overblown. Prince Charming is unrealistically charming, the "witch" is far too despicably witchy, the seven "dorks" are too dorky, and Sydney is just too pure of heart. Now, this is not to say that the movie is all bad. Though Bynes is forced down by the script, she still has her moments. As does Sara Paxton, who brings physical comedy to the max in her scenes. Sydney's room-mate, named "Dinky" is also great fun as a character. It's a somewhat funny film at parts that is ultimately just too cheesy and clichéd to recommend.

negative

For real though, this game is where it's at. I'm 20 years old and that's basically where it started for me. 4-bit graphics was fabulous. I hope you all remember this game with as much adoration as I do. That Bluto is a real meany.

positive

Do yourself a favor and stay away from this film. Minus 50 billion out of 10. If you want hard boiled action don`t rent it! If you want a good independent film look elsewhere!<br /><br />I never thought i`d see Burt Reynolds in such a crappy movie. It has the thinnest plot-line ever. Van Damm flicks should win an Academy compared to this one.<br /><br />Rob Lowe once again prove why he is not the hottest actor in the world. Even Hasselhoff would have made a better drug addict than him. I do not want to bore you with more facts about this crappy movie, except to say that you are better off renting anything by Hulk Hogan or Dolph Lundgreen. This should prove my point, if you get my drift.<br /><br />

negative

This movie is a great movie, however it is, as most movie highly predictable. The greatest highlight of the movie of course is the star character Amanda Bynes, who is absolutely gorgeous and hilarious. She is one of very few people in this world who can use all 53 muscles in her face to make the most strangest and gut-busting faces ever made. It's good for the kids, and contains upper male nudity and suggestive nudity towards the end. All in all, they did a good job updating an old classic, and deserves to rest on the movie stand along with O and 10 Things I Hate About You. The other actors also do a swell job, in many of their first time debuts.

positive

Bounty killer George Hilton, smooth Mexican bandit Gilbert Roland (who's great), and bank representative Edd Byrnes each try to outwit one-another while searching for a large amount of gold from one of Roland's train robberies that was hidden by a treacherous member of his gang.<br /><br />Though not the greatest that the genre has to offer, It's still breezy enough with a lot of light-hearted, action-filled fun and a satisfying finale.<br /><br />Any Gun Can Play is mainly remembered for it's opening gag where George Hilton easily guns down three outlaws resembling Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Django.<br /><br />The next year, Hilton and Roland were reunited alongside Van Heflin and Klaus Kinski in the highly recommended The Ruthless Four.

positive

This game is not exactly the best N64 game ever. Sure, it's good, but only when there's 4 players. Without 4 players, the only fun thing to do is take remote mines and see how many people you can kill. But half of this game are levels where you have to save Natalya, so you'll have to limit your use of remote mines in those levels, and that gets quite boring. The graphics don't exactly reach the level of Super Mario 64 or even Mario Kart 64. And if you're talking a great multiplayer in a 1st-person shooter, you'll have to go with Perfect Dark. At least you can play "multiplayer" by yourself.

positive

Continuing in the string of "stalker/slasher" flicks in the vein of "Wolf Creek," "Hostel," "Joy Ride," etc., comes "Rest Stop." The most unoriginal and useless one of them all.<br /><br />We start, reasonably promising, with the violent death of a pretty young girl in a filthy restroom.<br /><br />This is where our interest is lost. We, then, move to the cliché road trip couple, on their way to LA with their eyes on acting stardom. . . which, doing movies like this, they'll never achieve.<br /><br />From the sexual romp in the park, the couple drives, arguing all the way, to a deserted and disgusting rest area for the girl to use the bathroom. Harmless enough until she exits and finds her boyfriend missing and realizes she's being stalked by a lame version of "Joy Ride"'s Rusty Nail. . . only driving around in Mater from "Cars".<br /><br />Honestly, if this had been directed/written/produced/acted by anyone else, it might've been fairly good. But no.<br /><br />Because then comes the ghost story. Yup. . . you guessed it. Plenty of "oh, i'll help you, but wait, you're dead" to "wait is this stalker a person, monster, or ghost?".<br /><br />But wait? Who comes to the rescue to save the girl's life and possibly the movie? That one Lawerence brother. Excellent. We're saved. (sarcasm) Oh wait, no we're not.<br /><br />You know. . . if you want to laugh off a pretty bad, or if you get free rentals like I do, give it a try.<br /><br />If anything, you'll learn how NOT to make a movie.<br /><br />-AP3-

negative

Hey Yall! The best drama every is now on Gospel Music Channel! Go to their website to see the schedule and find out what number it is on your cable or satellite This was one of my favorite shows growing up. It has everything that I want a TV show to be, a clean family friendly drama that does not gross me out. The story about a man, who after loosing his work, decides to set off for a great cross country adventure. Along the way they meet all sorts of interesting people and find themselves in the midst of all kinds of trouble. This show was originally a spin off of Touched By An Angel, another really good family show. Make sure you check it out!

positive

The Guidelines state that a comment must contain a minimum of four lines. That is the only reason I am saying anything more about Tomcats. Because after all, my one line summary really says everything there is to say. There is absolutely NOTHING remotely entertaining in this film.

negative

I watched the beginning twice, could NOT make sense of it, and it bothered me for the whole movie.<br /><br />So, work this out with me: Wayne (the GOOD guy) jumps on the stagecoach, disarms the drivers (!), steals the money (?!), and takes off.<br /><br />Disarmed, one driver is then killed and the other wounded by the bad guys. Thanks to Wayne, who disarmed them, and then watched it happen.<br /><br />Then Wayne drops the money in the dirt, rescues the girl, rides into town, chuckles it up with Yak (too bad about the dead guy, I guess)...and then later says he "found" the money back at the scene. And everyone's okay with that.<br /><br />And he's the good guy? And I'm pretty sure there weren't small, hand-held flashlights at the time. And Bell did his first phone demo in 1876... were they in houses then? Am I thinking too hard about this one? Normally, I'm happy to suspend judgment to enjoy a movie, but this one bothered me. And that's a sign the move didn't really work for me.

negative

Nemesis 3 is the worst movie what I have ever seen!!! I think that Nemesis 3 was only 30 minutes long. And that movie was so boo-oo-ring. When that movie ends and I saw word: NEMESIS 4... I thought I will...NOT watch that movie never again.

negative

The Toxic Avenger... <br /><br />The idea of this movie is that a person that the common population would call this person a looser and then after being thrown into a barrel of toxic waste, mutated into a superhero that is completely disfigured sounded OK even for 1985. This movie is listed as a horror... I even have read of a cult following with this series.... <br /><br />Now this movie even given when it was made was so bad that I couldn't stop watching... the acting is horrible even for an independent film that I think was to be the horror part of this movie...<br /><br />drug dealing, sumo, Godzilla entrance.... I'm all for movies that promote anti-drugs... heck I even like Godzilla and well sumo... I'm not into it but even still I think that the heights of sumo would love to give this movie the 1000 hand slap and ground salt into the eyes of the people that made this movie... <br /><br />Personally I am almost ready to write to the film company that made this and ask them for the 87mins or so of my life back.<br /><br />To me 1 out of 10 is too high it's too bad that there isn't a 0 (zero) or even negative integers to place on a movie here.<br /><br />In other words this movie is J-U-N-K...... would rather watch paint dry and deal with explosive diarrhea then have to watch this movie ever again... I would be the first person that would use not only the packaging of this movie as kindling but I would be up for a good'ol movie and script burning.

negative

I just wanted to say that I was very disappointed after seeing this movie! I was expecting a Biblical story visualized with great special fx, etc. but during the film I found out that this was an absolute disaster... it wasn't biblical at all... only the boat and the animals were similar to the story... if you want a visual 'translation' of the Bible version of Noah then DON'T go watch this movie!

negative

Nelson is a medical professor who wants his four students to put him to death and then bring him back to life so that he can prove that there is an afterlife. So they do and soon enough all of the medical students want to know if there is life after death. The afterlife isn't about pearly gates and lights at the end of the tunnel but something more sinister.<br /><br />Past ghosts come back to haunt them and surely this movie will haunt anyone. It has some pretty scary moments that could translate into real life and it makes people wonder somewhat about what happens when you die. It's a good movie to see when it's raining and you're feeling down. It's also a little weird.<br /><br />See it with a haunted past.

positive

Wow, here is another great golf movie. That's at least three in the past few years that I've really enjoyed, that were well-done, beautifully-filmed and inspirational. The other two were "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" and "The Legend Of Bagger Vance."<br /><br />This is a true underdog story, if there ever was one. To have an amateur defeat all the professionals and win the United States Open Golf Tournament is an unheard-of feat. I believe this is the only time in the 100 years it has ever been accomplished. How much of this film is fiction embellished for dramatic effect, I don't know. I do know that I plan on reading the book, and I know that in real-life, Francis Ouimet had a three-stroke lead in playoff with just two holes to go, unlike what we saw in the film.<br /><br />Whatever. Francis Ouimet's victory over golf legends Harry Vardon and Ted Ray is fact. It is an amazing story and the filmmakers did a super job in presenting it here. It isn't something just for golf fans; this is a fun movie. Kudso to actor-turned-director Bill Paxton for an outstanding job.<br /><br />Yes, a lot of this is just plain golf but there are subplots such as Ouimet's relationship with his father and with a pretty young woman who is obviously interested in him. It's also a touching story of someone giving a little kid a chance. The movie also deals with Vardon's demons of coming from the wrong side of the tracks and trying to make it in an elitist's sport, which it was at the time for both Europeans and Americans.<br /><br />Shia LaBeouf is winsome as Ouimet as is Steven Dillane as Vardon. For those who don't know, Vardon was like the Tiger Woods of his day, maybe even more unbeatable. In the film, Vardon is pictured as a warm, nice guy; a genuine human being. the other major competitor, Ray (Stephen Marcus) is shown as somewhat of a brutish nasty guy. <br /><br />The fourth main character of this golf story might be the coolest person in the film: a fifth-grade boy who winds up being Ouimet's caddie in the Open. He (Josh Flitter) brings a lot of humor and charm to the movie.<br /><br />If all of this - a playoff with the huge underdog against two mighty pros and having come down to the last hole - were not true, you would think, "Oh, man, this is so hokey. Who could believe this?" That's what makes this true-life story fun to see finally captured on film. As with another sports film of 2005 - "Cinderella Man" - here is another excellent movie that got unjustly ignored when it came to awards. I guess nice films don't win awards.....just the hearts of their viewers.

positive

With WWII over, movie studios quickly rushed to focus on vets returning home. "The Best Years of Our Lives" was probably the best example. It portrays various people returning home and how they have to readjust not only to their pre-war lives, but to the overall changing world. Probably the most interesting cast member is non-actor Harold Russell. Having lost his hands in the war, he plays a man with hooks where his hands used to be, and reminds people that he wants to be treated just like everyone else; he went on to win Best Supporting Actor and a special Oscar for the role, making him the only person ever to win two Oscars for the same role. There will probably always be debate over whether this deserved Best Picture more than "It's a Wonderful Life", but I certainly think that they did a good job with it. Very well done.

positive

Gary Cooper and a marshal change identities, since they both agree Cooper would be more efficient facing the outlaws. What is remarkable in this film are the costumes, both the marshal´s and Steve Cochran´s who is the bad guy. Cochran wears his guns backwards, probably to be able to crossdraw. The film starts quite excitingly with a showdown with Wild Bill Hickok. Ruth Roman, looking very pretty is the marshal´s fiancee. There is plenty of action, never a dull moment, but you have to concentrate, because the story is a bit complicated. Good entertainment.

positive

I chose this movie really for my husband-who works in radio broadcasting. I thought that it would be more of a movie that he would enjoy and relate too, though it was from the eighties-so it was a little dated. This movie really draws you in. At times you just want to strangle the host, Barry. At times you just want to send some of the bigots who call in to a true concentration camp. At times you really feel sorry for Barry, because he has truly gotten too big for his jeans if you know what I mean. It was on the Drama channel on Encore-so I am thinking this is a true story. If you truly love dramas you will love this, even if you don't know all the ins and outs of the broadcasting business. If you are an Alec Baldwin fan and are watching it to see him, you shouldn't. His part is really a bit part in this movie.

positive

I personally found the film to be great. I had it on pre-order for a month and watched it twice the day I got it in the mail, and several time since.. Yes, the time lapses may be a bit much, but the rest of the movie clearly compensates for it. All amature cast, yet the acting was right on for each part. The plot itself is just... haggard! There's no other way to describe it. Who makes a movie about someone getting f**gered!??? BAM, thats who. Genius. Simply genius. Two thumbs up. I would be honored to work with him any day, any time, on any thing.

positive

I watched this movie for the first time a few weeks ago, and It was quite possibly one of the most boring, unfunny films I ever had the misfortune of seeing. First of all Matthew Modine is a terrible actor, and ruined most of the movie, on top of that, the plot is just way too silly. The only reason a checked into this film was because of Alec Baldwin, and his character was eliminated pretty quickly. Unless you are a fan of Michelle Phiffer you should probably avoid this movie like the plague. Many people can't praise this film enough, but I just cannot figure out what people find so terrific about it. If its supposed to be the black humor that makes this film so terrific, then I guess anything can pass for comedy these days.

negative

The only reason I haven't given this film an awful rating is because I feel that it was such an awful film in every aspect that it deserves at the very least a 2/10; for not trying. <br /><br />The plot is the least of your worries as you are slapped in the face with over the top language and scenes like 'the singing arse-hole' in a poor attempt to shock and disgust. Seen as the main aim of this film is to shock and the main body of it didn't achieve this, the final scene disgustingly manages to erase the memory of this shockingly pointless film and fulfil its aim to be the most filthy film ever.<br /><br />A really low budget film, awfully acted and the dialogue is shockingly bad.<br /><br />I give it 0/10 really !!!

negative

Although Charlie Chaplin made some great short comedies in the late 1910's, others don't quite make it. Examples like His New Job and Shanghaied come to mind, and I would also The Floorwalker in this category.<br /><br />Charlie gets mistaken for a manager of a department store (and vice versa). This manager tries to steal money from the cash register and make a run for it, and Charlie is just an honest costumer but getting blamed for some missing objects, stolen by other costumers.<br /><br />There aren't many laughs in it, except for the last couple of minutes or so with some great scenes on the escalator. For the rest, quite disappointing.<br /><br />4/10.

negative

I went to see this by myself first to make sure it was suitable for my little boy to see.<br /><br />Thank goodness I did because I certainly would not allow any young child to see this. Why? The violence, death, the funeral. If you are not ready to explain these concepts to your kids then keep them away.<br /><br />Why on earth are these topics covered in a kids movie - especially one that has a tag line of "The original party animals". Might as well put a gangland execution in a Hello Kitty cartoon.<br /><br />As for laughs there were very few and far between. Speaking for myself there were none. The cows looked remarkably similar to the cows in the The Far Side comics. I guess there isn't anything original about this movie apart from the addition of ridiculous violence and antisocial activities for all the young kids to enjoy.

negative

I saw this late at night on a minor channel and I put it on expecting a laugh or two. Martin Lawrence is a good comic actor and I reckoned he might be a good stand-up comedian/actor in the style of Richard Pryor.<br /><br />I couldn't have been more wrong. This concert was awful. It was full of racist comments directed at white people, Muslims and people from India (Muslims and Indians are the same thing in Lawrence's narrow mind) and rambling, clichéd cod-philosophy (Lawrence, like many black comics and directors, can't resist the urge to preach when given a platform. Do we really need a lecture on Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights struggle during a stand-up comedy show?). Then there were his fawning comments designed to ingratiate him with women, it made my skin crawl listening to him.<br /><br />Worst of all, the show simply wasn't funny and I found it boring. I turned over halfway through and flipped back to find him either still preaching or going on and on and on about the birth of his child (there was no humour in the story of the birth of his child and it was self-indulgent on his part to bore us with the details. He clearly didn't have very much to say or he would have cut this section of the show out).<br /><br />This show was rubbish: Runteldat!

negative

The story of Ed Gein is a disturbing and terrifying story. Ed was truly a messed up character and his legacy went on to inspire such 'greats' as The Tooth Fairy, Norman Bates, and Leatherface. How is it then that such a fascinating man has inspired such a boring melodramatic piece of drivel?? Ed Gein made belts out of nipples, bowls out of skulls, lamps out of skin, danced around under the moon in suits of human skin. None of this made it into the movie because they needed to give us a fictitious story of a ridiculously awful deputy and his rather homely, sex-starved girlfriend. This movie seemed to go out of its way to falsify history. What baffles me is that most movies stray from the path of truth to exaggerate history; this one seems to do it to minimize it. I just don't get it.

negative

A rare exception to the rule that great literature makes disappointing films, John Huston's beautiful farewell to life and the movies is almost entirely true to the narrative and the spirit of James Joyce's short story, a tender meditation on love, death and time expressed in the events of a Twelfth Night party in middle-class Dublin circa 1910. Unpromising as the material might appear, the film succeeds by its willingness to tell the story on its own quiet, apparently inconsequential terms, rather than force a conventional cinematic shape of plot points and dramatic incidents upon it. Only once is the wrong note struck, when old Miss Julia (a trained singer and music teacher whose voice is supposed to have been cracked by age, not shattered) sings so badly that the audience burst out laughing when I saw this at the cinema. Fortunately, the mood of hushed and gentle melancholy is re-established in plenty of time for the moment of revelation between the married couple Gabriel and Gretta Conroy in a hotel bedroom as snow begins to fall outside. It's a sad story, I suppose, but the kind that leaves you feeling better, not blue. Especially recommended as a date movie - for people in love who aren't frightened of confronting the sweetness and sadness of life.

positive

More entertaining than all the gay orgies in "300" combined. More heartbreaking than a Shakespearian tragedy. More poetic than even the most melodramatic poems about lost love and blah blah blah. And on top of all that, the greatest trash ever made.<br /><br />A black comedy testing the limits of the human senses, John Waters's cult movie "Pink Flamingos" is a story about the conflict between two families that ends in humiliation, death and of course the eating of dog feces (yeah by the way that is not actually the humiliating part). No no, this is not about the impossible love, there are no Romeos or Juliets on these 90 or so minutes. This movie is about the battle for prestige if you could call it that. The battle for the title - Filthiest person alive.<br /><br />On one side we have Divine (played by the cross-dressing Waters regular... umm... Divine) a caring daughter, good mother, cannibal, murderer, pervert and current owner of said title. She loves her son Crackers a bit way too much. Crackers himself sports a sexual attraction to both chickens and young ladies sometimes mixing them up in threesomes. Family friend and loyal accomplice Cotton gets her satisfaction from watching Crackers during some of his... acts involving the mentioned earlier objects of attraction. Last but not least Divine's mother and grandmother to Crackers, Edie. A 400 hundred pound woman, sleeping, eating and basically living in a baby cradle. She is addicted to eggs and loves the egg-man (the man who brings the eggs...lol).<br /><br />The four of them live peacefully in a caravan outside the city until the moment when they become a target for the Marbles. Exhibitionists, manipulators, cheaters, very evil people actually. Their main source of income comes from the kidnapping and impregnating of young women. For the impregnating part they use their trusted and loyal cross-dressing butler to provide the semen. After that they sale the birthed child to the highest bidder.<br /><br />It was the Marbles's envy towards Divine and her title that will lead to an inevitable confrontation between the two families. An Epic battle of filth, perversion and violence.<br /><br />"Pink Flamingos" is an unsurpassed masterpiece in the trash-movie genre. Loaded with oddities and strange acts, John Waters's movie is loathed and hated by traditionalists, critics and the average movie-going audience. But for the few that remain unscratched by these generalizations the Flamingos is an unforgettable experience. Funny and sick, violent and poetic. It truly is an exercise in poor taste

positive

As a writer and a lapsed Orthodox Jewish woman, I was let down tremendously by this movie. The dialogue is hackneyed and wasteful, the characters, too engaged with lines ranging from the wrackingly prosaic to the stunningly melodramatic, aren't allowed to expand into genuinely textured individuals. The one-trick musical score tries to make up for the blandness, swooping portentously into the silence to jar the viewer and the script out of protracted catatonia.<br /><br />Like an adolescent revolutionary on a self-righteous tirade, this film is blown away by the wisdom of its revelation--patriarchy is wrong--and thoroughly squanders its energies, hammering on this point. The resultant artistic crime is a complete lack of imaginative development; the moral crime is the reduction of human beings to caricatures: martyrs and grotesques.

negative

I was looking forward to this flick. Being an old Robert E Howard fan, mainly from a Conan stand-point. <br /><br />I was not expecting a great deal and thought they could not mess it up too much.... Oh dear - how wrong was I....<br /><br />The main flaw was it was fairly dull. It needed to zip along with a nice helping of supernatural goings-on, sword-fights and the like.<br /><br />You got some gore, but everything else was just pretty life-less. The middle section just seemed to involve 40 minutes in a muddy forest with slow plodding horse-drawn carts and even slower dialogue and character development!<br /><br />On the plus side = Costumes and effects were fine, but not enough to keep your interest.<br /><br />I think it would have been better to tone down the gore, up the tempo, and go for a 12A rating. As a Ten Year old boy, I may have liked this movie. Probably about the age I was first reading the Conan stories funny enough. Perhaps that says a lot about my anticipation of the film?<br /><br />Or....... Go really "Art-House" with tone, direction, etc. But that's fairly high-risk as far as Box Office is concerned.<br /><br />Oh well.... Perhaps the next Conan movie will make up for it?

negative

This movie starts with the main character lying in a coma in a hospital ward, attended by two orderlies. The unconscious main character is heard in a voice over, saying that the orderlies are gay. The orderlies kiss. I watched this in a DVD version and I have the suspicion that this is supposed to be funny – it said „comedy" on the DVD case, after all and it goes on like that. Had I seen this in a movie theater I probably would have heard part of the audience roar with laughter, because it is so funny – and because they are supposed to sit in a comedy. While it is fascinating to think about what it is funny and what isn't, this movie unfortunately only delivers arguments about what isn't.<br /><br />Brilliant brains can MAKE anything funny, people like Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder or Mel Brooks have proved that fact. But you have to know the „mechanics", I suppose. Director and co-scriptwriter Dani Levy does not bother about those mechanics, he thinks that certain things simply ARE funny, the fact that two orderlies are gay and kiss over a man in a coma, for example. Do not get me wrong, some people can MAKE that funny, Dani Levy can't, not for me, anyway.<br /><br />The main problem I have with this movie is that I can't see a reason behind the way the main characters behave. I could not understand why the two brothers, one an orthodox Jew from West Germany one a third class carbon copy of Fast Eddie Felson from former East Germany so strongly disliked each other. They are both rather bland characters. Their children are boring apart from the fact that they are sexually attracted to each other (well, one is a lesbian now but raises the daughter she has with her cousin). But even these incestuous relationships – if anything they are embarrassing - just come through as an excuse because the scriptwriters could not come up with anything better.<br /><br />The acting is not bad, Udo Semel I actually came to like quite a lot although he reminded me more of ex chancellor Helmut Kohl (a lighter version) than of a venerable Orthodox Jew. The direction in itself is not really bad either, but maybe Levy should stick to directing movies, leaving the scriptwriting to someone else. Now I heard he did a comedy about Hitler. Oi, Vai!

negative

This is by far the worst thing I have ever seen on film. My uncle's home movies have more talent in them then this piece of crap.<br /><br />The plot summary is basically that these twin kick boxers are playing some sick survival game with a man and his private army on some island. The man has a very cheap paper maché looking hand.<br /><br />The acting is atrocious in this movie. There are scene changes at the drop of the hat. For instance, for at least 30 seconds we see some guy humming a song to himself which adds NOTHING to the movie. This has the worst dialogue I have ever heard of in my life, I don't think this movie could get any worse then it already is. I would describe it as a want to be chuck Norris action film gone wrong. And I hate chuck Norris.

negative

Carole Lombard and James Stewart gamely try to inject some life and meaning into this bizarrely constructed film about the tribulations of a newlywed couple. The scenes play as if they were parceled out among various directors, each with a different goal. Some are Capra-cute, some screwball, some melodramatic, and some surprisingly noir. There's even an extended adventure sequence, when the plot suddenly focuses on a small plane flying through a blizzard. It's hard to say which scenes are the most incongruous, when the film as a whole is so erratic in tone, and the storyline not exactly believable. Only worth watching for film students or fans of the actors--some smaller parts, such as Judge Doolittle and the intrepid pilot, are also very well played.

negative

"The missing star", who competed for the Golden Lion at 2006 Venice Film Festival, is a film that, when you think about, the first adjective that comes to your mind is: intense. Intense looks, intense sequences, this movie's intensity captures the viewer since the very first scenes at the steelworks, in Italy (I couldn't recognize the city, maybe Genoa or even Naples), although the pace is quite slow.<br /><br />Vincenzo Buonavolontà, the male lead, and with him, all the audience, sees a completely different China than a normal Westerner imagines: horrible high-rise building with about 8 hundred flat owners inside, skyscrapers, desolation, fog, scrapers and cranes everywhere, but also the beauty of the Yangtze Kiang river, that will soon become a big lake because of the controversial dike that will wipe a lot of towns out. China is a country under construction, but, under all these colossal public works, there are still poverty, backwardness and unfair laws.<br /><br />We can relate more easily to this story because Gianni Amelio, the expert director, chose two phenomenal leads: Sergio Castellitto, a well-known actor in Italy, and the Chinese surprise Tai Ling, a total unknown girl that gives an as intense interpretation as Castellitto's.<br /><br />The film is not perfect, there are some flaws here and there, but that doesn't mean it's a mediocre film. Try to see it.

positive

I LOVED this program, and for years searched for it on video. I've contacted a great many folks in my attempts to get a copy...to no avail.<br /><br />I DO, however, have the second half of the program. I would be willing to share MY half, with anyone who can give me a copy of the FIRST half of this show. I'd offer to provide copies of what I have to anyone, BUT it's just only part of the program...so it's just not an adequate representation of the show.<br /><br />There are a few folks selling this on EBAY for some incredible cost (and that's plainly not fair...not to mention blatant copyright violations!).<br /><br />Please send any correspondence to: thndrmouse@aol.com

positive

Here's another of the 1940's westerns that I watch whenever it comes on TCM or FMC, because although it may be flawed historically, it is extremely entertaining and well acted, plus it's got Randolph Scott, my favorite actor second only to Gary Cooper-Well, OK, fourth behind COOP, Charlton Heston, and Gregory Peck. But the film itself, to me anyway, is reasonably historically accurate and as I said before, well acted and "flows" very well-I bet I've seen it 50 or 60 times, and enjoy each viewing more than the one before. I have it on tape from TCM but would buy it in a minute if it ever came out on DVD. See it if you haven't- I guarantee you'll like it!

positive

By 1950, John Ford had already fully-developed the ideas and motifs that would form the core of his most successful Westerns. Always present, for example, is a strong sense of community, most poignantly captured in the Joad family of Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath (1940).' Within these communities, even amid Ford's loftier themes of racism and the pioneer spirit, there's always room for the smaller human interactions, the minor friendships and romances that make life worth living. 'Wagon Master (1950)' came after Ford had released the first two films in his "cavalry" trilogy – 'Fort Apache (1948)' and 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)' – and it covers similar territory, only without the military perspective and, more damningly, the strong lead of John Wayne. Ben Johnson and Harry Cary, Jr. are fine actors, but they feel as though they should be playing second-fiddle to somebody, and Ward Bond's cursing Mormon elder, while potentially a candidate for such a role, isn't given quite enough focus to satisfactorily fit the bill.<br /><br />In 'Wagon Master,' Ford seems so comfortable with his tried-and-tested Western formula that any character development is largely glossed over. Ben Johnson's romance with Joanne Dru is treated as an obligation more than anything else, and Harry Cary Jr's charming of a Mormon girl is so perfunctory as to be almost nonexistent in the final film, leaving one to ponder the survival of deleted scenes. Only in Charles Kemper's charismatic and shamelessly-villainous Uncle Shiloh does Ford try some different, and it works, even with his being surrounded by a troop of insufferably hammy slack-jawed yokels. Where Ford does succeed is in orchestrating the conglomeration of three distinct races of Americans – the values-orientated Mormoms, the easygoing horse-traders, the eccentric travelling showmen – into a cohesive community of pioneers looking towards a bright future. This apparent harmony is thrown into disarray by the arrival of Uncle Shiloh's gun-toting outlaws, who exploit the lawlessness of the Western frontier but ultimately lose out to the noble cowboys who "only ever drew on snakes."<br /><br />Ford reportedly considered Wagon Master among the favourite of his films, and perhaps this has something to do with the absence of big names like John Wayne or Henry Fonda. Armed only with his stock selection of usual players, Ford is able to generate a sense of community by avoiding placing focus on any one character, though most of the Mormom travellers still remain completely anonymous. Despite being undoubtedly well-made, I can't help feeling that this film only does well what other Ford pictures did even better: the terrific majesty of the the Western frontier was presented more beautifully in 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon'; the romances and friendly squabbles among community members took greater prominence in 'Fort Apache'; the early relations with Native Americans, only hinted at here, were more thoroughly examined in 'The Searchers (1956)'; the bold pioneering spirit of the early settlers was explored more movingly (albeit by Henry Hathaway and George Marshall) in 'How the West Was Won (1962).' 'Wagon Master' is pure John Ford, but it isn't a landmark.

positive

... but had to see just how bad it could get. The plotline was thin to begin with, but it just kept getting worse. A female genetic engineering grad student uses her research on accelerated mitosis to artificially create a male, because a biological weapon used in WW3 killed off 97% of the worldwide male population. The surviving men are either high prices gigolos in back alley clubs, or crazed lunatics in run down football stadiums plotting to overthrow the 'Lesbian Conspiracy'. The entire process resembled the microwaving of a large bowl of jello. Press a few buttons and ding you get a baby. Not only that, but he will age to mid 20's in a month, and then begin to age normally (how convenient). Eventually poor Adam gets bored with the secluded cabin in the woods where his creator had raised him and steals her car to 'see the city'.<br /><br />This begins 90 minutes of unlikely chases, convenient plot twists, and several subplots that we never see resolved. As Adam quickly learns, what men did survive are treated as outcasts/criminals, because they are dangerous beasts that cannot help there genetic predisposition to violence. The propaganda machines have been in full swing, scaring women into believing all men are rapists and murderers. This has led to lesbianism being the norm, the fall of Christianity, female only reproduction via cloning, and oh yeah world peace among other implied results. All of which seem unlikely given that only ~30 years had elapsed since the war. Adam stumbles from one bad situation to the next, all the while being genetically programmed to be non-violent and unable to really do much on his own behalf. With the FBI on his trail, madams looking for fresh meat, and his creator trying to recapture him (for herself it seems), he learns that violence is not limited to the male species after all.<br /><br />All in all, I would not recommend this movie.<br /><br />I did however enjoy Veronica Cartwrights portrayal of the 'love to hate her' Director of the FBI, and Julie Bowen didn't do bad as Hope the 'closet hetero' geneticist either.

negative

Dead Man's Bounty (the film's American title) has the look and feel of a classic Italian western. The cinematography, costumes, and sets look great. The cast is rugged, not a pretty face among them. At the beginning I was preparing for a pretty cool movie but what I eventually witnessed was an absolute disaster.<br /><br />The script was perfectly dreadful. There was no suspense whatsoever and very little action or worthwhile drama.<br /><br />Despite looking great, the cast spoke (English) with heavy European accents that were often unintelligible.<br /><br />The final nail in it's coffin was the broad streak of pretentiousness that paints most of the picture, focusing heavily on the character of the barmaid who's featured in a couple of very awkward sex scenes. Also her speech near the end was pretty repugnant!<br /><br />The only novelty comes from the stunt casting of Val Kilmer in the role of the dead man, continuing his recent string of DOA performances!

negative

For Greta Garbo's first talking picture, MGM wisely chose Eugene O'Neill's Pultizer Prize winning 1921 play ANNA Christie. <br /><br />Also wisely, the producers backed Garbo up with not one but two members of the Original Broadway Cast (George Marion as Anna's father, Chris, and James T. Mack as Johnny the Priest - transmuted to "Johnny the Harp" for films so as not to offend). <br /><br />This little change is interesting. Like too many films accused (by those who want MOVIES to be MOVIES and ignore their origins) of being "little more than filmed stage plays," the problem is not the play but the movie makers who wouldn't be more faithful to the property. By diluting a great cinematic stage work so it wouldn't offend anyone, or opening it up because they COULD, too many lose the very qualities which made the piece worth filming in the first place. <br /><br />Fortunately, the respect the studio had for both O'Neill and Garbo allowed ANNA Christie to survive the normally destructive process admirably in Frances Marion's generally sensitive screen adaptation. Wonder of wonders, Marion even allows the POINT of the scene where Garbo's Anna reveals her past on "the farm" to the man she badly wants to marry and the father who sent her there in tact! What the League of Decency must have thought of that! <br /><br />The source play's greatest problem has always been that Chris's friend Marthy tends to walk away with the first act and then disappears from the last two so that Anna can take stage - the two sides of the genuinely good woman men don't always recognize. <br /><br />The perfectly cast Marie Dressler (who had cut her teeth on the Broadway stage as well before going to Hollywood) is the perfect balance for Garbo's Anna in this area as well and the fast moving film at only 90 minutes, doesn't allow us too much time to miss her - one of the few benefits from atmosphere being shown rather than eloquently described in the original - AND screenwriter Marion is wise enough to stray from O'Neill to bring Dressler back for a touching scene two thirds of the way through the film that will remind many of Julie Laverne's second act appearance in SHOW BOAT. <br /><br />Anna and Marthy's early scene together on screen (16 minutes into the film) taking each other's measure and setting up all the tension of the rest of the story is among the most affecting scenes in the entire piece. Not to be missed. <br /><br />ANNA Christie is great tragic play and a good film drama. It's hard to imagine that a latter day remake, which would almost certainly lose the grit and atmosphere of this 1930 remake (it was first filmed without sound in 1923 - also with George Marion's original Broadway Chris) could improve on this excellent filming. <br /><br />The internal scenes hew closest to the play, but the exteriors shouldn't be missed by anyone with an eye to atmosphere. While the background screen work is not to modern technical standards, the backgrounds give a better glimpse than most films of the era of the actual world in which the screen play is set (especially in the New York harbor).<br /><br />Nearly all Garbo's naturalistic performances of the sound era have held up superbly (only the too often parodied death scene from CAMILLE, 7 years later, will occasionally draw snickers because of the heavy handed direction and the parodies), but this ANNA Christie, together with the variety of her 1932 films, MATA HARI and GRAND HOTEL, and the sublime Lubitsch touch on her 1939 comedy, NINOTCHKA ("Garbo laughs!"), surely stand as her best.<br /><br />O'Neill fans who are taken with this play at the edge of his lauded "sea plays," should track down the fine World War II shaped film released in the year before the U.S. entered the conflict, THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (1940). It is almost as skillfully drawn from those sea plays as this one is from ANNA Christie, and features a youngish John Wayne in one of his rare non-Westerns supporting a fine cast of veteran actors showing him the way.

positive

I found this film completely and utterly incomprehensible. I knew some of he facts about Caravagggio, but here they were twisted and puzzling. The images were weirdly interesting but I was looking more for a biographical and/or critical accounting of Caravaggio's life and works, not an LSD type drug trip. The dialogue was very confusing and jumping back and forth in time via the use of trains, calculators, typewriters and cigarettes was extremely distracting. Had it been labelled an "artsy film" I wouldn't have purchased the DVD; now I have a DVD that I'll never watch again and who would buy it? I prefer mainstream films not those that require translation or elucidation. Thumbs down on this one for me!

negative

Ouch. This is one ugly movie. Not only is it badly acted, but it absolutely destroyed the book as well. Horrible. How you could mess up such a classic book is beyond me, but they sure did. Don't even think about even renting this.

negative

This was a fantastically written screenplay when it comes to perceiving things from another perspective. The comedy was timely and not overdone, the acting was generally terrific, and the plot line served a greater purpose of generating misconception when we think about people solely based on their external appearance. The plot twists as the brother/sister character of Amanda Bynes tries to play soccer on the boys team finding instead a new love interest along the way. Tatum Channing is where the real misperception lies and he does a fine job of acting disinterested at first, later coming to realize the most important thing in life is friendship, not attitude.

positive

The distribution was good, the subject could have been interessant and comic. whereas, he described the wandering of an old non credible communist looking for loving sensations. Instead of this, the atmosphere is nor lively nor heavy.

negative

Though for most of us, sexiness is a variable quality, I cannot recall a movie that did for me what this one does. It transported me into an awfully familiar realm of longing and desire. All the compulsive attraction, uncertainty over the outcome, the palpable fear and excitement so attendant to that state of arousal were brought to fever pitch by this flick. So French and what I consider daring! No matter what your orientation, I think that the danger of chasing your desire is brought full-front and center here...much more so, say, than with Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut".

positive

and it's only January, still I'm sure of it!<br /><br />By far this is among the worst Swedish movies I've ever seen and to be honest Swedish movies ain't that good in general. It have been claimed to be "original" and perhaps it can be seen as that for people who never seen a English speaking movie, for us who have been to the cinema the last 10 years it can't help but to feel like Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein have been sitting down one weekend going through the most successful movies from the last years and tried to squeeze it all together in to one Swedish package. What can I say the outcome can just be...poor. First of all the story is just weak to begin with, even worse when it's not just a poor story it's a wish to combine to very poor stories - first a failed try to make Swedish action á la Matrix and then combine it with a really bad moral story. And if you thought it could not be worse you'll notice all the "cool stuff" that just have been thrown in there for absolutely no reason at all more than in a bad way trying to show that Sweden also can do Hollywood movies - which we can't nor should try to. For example the main plot is tried to made deeper by letting youths play a computer game called Storm having absolutely nothing at all with the story or for example how there is a internet side about "Storm" while all the sudden it just is the main characters consciousness - really I don't think even Stein or Mårlind can see a point with three quarters of the movie, more than just trying to show off poor extra effects. For the actors, I've got to admit Eric Ericson does a pretty good job except he does the same job the whole movie through, even tough Storm tries to be a movie about the personal development of DD he does not change one bit in his way of acting. Jonas Karlsson, well to be honest I thought he was a fairly respected actor but judging by Storm... really he just have to be ashamed of this movie, his character and his scar. Lastly Eva Röse is just beyond critic, both her character and her acting. The only reasons Storm succeeds of not getting a 1/10 is for Eric Ericson and, what can I say, at least it tries..

negative

I consider Saboteur as Hitchcock's first "American" film, because the story takes place completely in U.S.<br /><br />There are brilliant scenes in this film. Statue of Liberty Scene, Barry Kane jumping into the water from the bridge, Water fall scene are amazing. Its not Hitchcock's fault that he didn't get the actors he wanted. Hitchcock originally wanted Gary Cooper for the leading roles in Foreign Correspondent and Saboteur. But Gary Cooper wasn't interested in doing a thriller. Another reason why Hitchcock didn't get big stars was because he wasn't one of top directors. Although Rebecca was a huge success, still most of film's success went to Producer David O. Selznick. For Example, David O. Selznick got Best Picture Oscar for Rebecca. And Hitchcock didn't get a Best Director Oscar for Rebecca. Hitchcock started getting some attention after Foreign Correspondent (1940). But Universal gave him a low-budget for Saboteur (1942). Hitchcock tried to get Joel McCrea for this film, because he was willing to work with Hitchcock again with a low salary. He enjoyed working with Hitchcock in Foreign Correspondent (1940). But he was unavailable. So the role went to Robert Cummings. Hitchcock called Robert Cummings "a competent performer." I thought he did his best. He was a less known actor who was willing to play a role when many big actors refused to play the leading male role.<br /><br />As for leading female role, Hitchcock wanted Margaret Sullavan or Barbara Stanwyck for the leading role. They weren't interested either. So Universal decided to give the role to Priscilla Lane. I read in a book that this was one of her favorite films.<br /><br />I also liked the scene at Blind Man's house. That is my favorite scene. If we listen closer to the dialogue in scenes that happen in Uncle Philip's house, then we will see how intense it is. Uncle Philip (Blind Man) was studying Barry Kane's character the moment he entered his house. The moment Barry entered his house, he heard Barry's handcuffs. Through conversation, he realized that Barry Kane isn't a criminal at all. We also see his hearing ability through those scenes. For Example, Barry hears the sound of a car says "Is that a car coming?" Uncle Philip says "2 cars I think." Uncle Philip was right. We see 2 cars in the next scene. Priscilla Lane did a fine job playing her role. She was no big star. But I thought her performance was really good. Another brilliant scene in Uncle Philip's house is the scene where he asks Priscilla Lane (Patricia Martin) "Are you frightened, Pat? Is that what makes you so cruel?" I thought Otto Krueger played the villain brilliantly. Hitchcock wanted Harry Carey for the villain. But he refused. Harry Carey is famous for his role Mr. President in "Mr. Smith goes to Washington." I want to mention more about this film. But I think my post is getting too long.<br /><br />Every Hitchcock film is special in its own way. I am sure Hitchcock fans will like this film. I rate 10 out of 10.

positive

Eisenstien's "Potempkin", (Bronenosets Potyomkin), is among the finest films ever made and possibly the best of the silent era. Eisenstien was a pioneer of film form and his use of montage editing has influenced films to this day. The Odessa Steps massacre footage is as powerful today as it was when first seen over 70 years ago. DO NOT pass up the chance to see this film!

positive

Nickelodeon has gone down the toilet. They have kids saying things like "Oh my God!" and "We're screwed"<br /><br />This show promotes hate for people who aren't good looking, or aren't in the in crowd. It say that sexual promiscuity is alright, by having girls slobbering over shirtless boys. Not to mention the overweight boy who takes off his shirt. The main characters basically shun anyone out of the ordinary. Carly's friend Sam, who may be a lesbian, beats the snot out of anybody that crosses her path, which says it's alright to be a b**ch. This show has so much negativity in it that nobody should watch it! I give it a 0 out of 10!!!

negative

Recently finally available in DVD (11/11/08), Severo Pérez' film...and the Earth Did Not Swallow Him (1994) is based on one of the most highly regarded and discussed novels in Chicano literature. Tomás Rivera's ...y no se lo tragó la tierra/ ...and the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1972) is still generally acknowledged by many critics and serious readers as the classic Chicano novel. Originally written in the Spanish characteristic of South Texas and also translated into English, Rivera's novel continues as an indispensable presence within the Chicano literary landscape. <br /><br />Perez' film, originally made as a highly-rated American Playhouse PBS production has taken some time to be released in DVD. One can only wonder about this matter because its high quality is not an issue. The film, and now DVD, however, remains, so far as I know, the only cinematic adaptation of any Chicano novel and clearly is a tribute to Earth's incredible staying power. This cinematic version also strikes an exceptionally deep-rooted nerve that is, I maintain, both specifically ethnic, yet also generally universal. Doubts about Earth perhaps might have arisen because it is too "ethnic," too alien from a basic American mainstream, too much a "foreign" art indie, too limited in economic resources. Yet, Perez in his version of art, in my opinion connects very effectively, artistically, and creates a sharply-etched portrayal of a Chicano migrant collectivity that focuses on daily family life. As far as a production done with relatively limited economic resources, its lovely cinematographic work and haunting music go much beyond its available funding. Simply viewing the film makes manifest this film's (or DVD) artistic value.<br /><br />Briefly, ….and the Earth did not Swallow Him portrays in a neo-naturalistic way the plight, the suffering, and the despair of Chicano migrant laborers as they follow the crops northward from South Texas to Minnesota in 1952. The local priests bless the beat-up, overstuffed vehicles of these Chicano laborers who can no longer find work in the area and must follow the agricultural trail of the migrant worker northward. This Chicano collectivity, like the depression-era Joads in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, forms an epic tide, driven by economic need, a survival instinct, and anguished despair, and ultimately a barely flickering faith. A tribute to these people of the earth, a collective hero, the DVD is centered on a focal family, and most especially emblematic is a young protagonist within the family, a boy, perhaps twelve or so. This work then, also, functions as a bildungsroman. Ultimately, the viewer's sense of identification is generated through the experiences, subjectivity, and the struggles of the protagonist. Poverty, alienation, child labor, illness (sunstroke and a pregnancy death), discrimination, school absenteeism (the boy's escapism from the bullies of discrimination is spent lying down in a lovely, peaceful cemetery) are laid bare as matter of fact—yet, also symbolically. Worse still, the problematic conflict between the youngster and his mother goes beyond socio-economics and political conflict, into deeper realms of psychology and metaphysics. In a desperate but artistically rendered struggle, the youth battles his mother, an archetypical Mexican-American traditionalist, a representative of god's will, content with prayer, resignation, consolation, and acceptance. The rebellious youth cannot believe in a god that would permit such evil and suffering to be visited upon them. How can God be so cruel, he asks, since his little sister is certainly purely innocent, as to come down with serious illness in the fields? At this point, the boy must overcome obstacles even more daunting than poverty and discrimination. The issues now include death, doubt, and despair, and lack of meaning. And he has few resources available to him—strength of character, his own will power, his intelligence, and a powerful survival instinct. In this desperate, but artistically rendered struggle, the unnamed youngster, the central figure, feels the necessity of his enduring, of his achieving a heightened sense of meaning, and, the viewer hopes, a renewed and strengthened Life Force that can serve as an inspiration to Chicanos and others.<br /><br />This stark battle makes use of a plot device just touched on by the original work to tie the episodic work together: missing immigrant laborers from Mexico who leave no trace upon their death, although this DVD deals not with Mexican but Mexican-American migrant laborers A highly existential work: anguish and despair; a quest; a focus on a Project; and redemption—all under the auspices of free will in spite of the deterministic socio-economic and religious circumstances.<br /><br />Perez has a long list of credits basically as a documentary filmmaker. His many awards are confirmatory. The producer Paul Espinosa is also well-known and has been likewise honored for his work. The 1994 film, in fact, won and deserved a number of awards: first place, audience favorite at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in 1995; first place at the Cairo Film Festival; and a number of other well-deserved awards.<br /><br />In my opinion this film and DVD, Earth, by Perez is the best Chicano film that has been made.

positive