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3,966 | I wouldn't say this totally sucked, but if it wasn't for Netflix I wouldn't even have this in my house. Steve Martin's eccentric president of a chain of health food stores falls flat. He's just not funny. He's another in a LONG slew of SNL rejects that can only find work whoring themselves to the next SNL movie. The birthing coach with the Elmer Fudd lisp is about as funny as it is original. Amy Poehler simply goes through the same motions she would for a 7 minute SNL skit which is about as funny as SNL lately. The only thing going for this movie is that Tina Fey is easy on the eyes. The ending was predictable as soon as you heard her character couldn't get pregnant. The subject matter could have opened up to other comedic attempts, but it seems to simple simmer along, not really entertaining or creating laughs. | 0 | trimmed_train |
17,692 | Given the nature and origin of the 11 filmakers it is not surprising that this film is at best neutral in its stance towards America. Probably the most 'anti' segment comes from Ken Loach who is definitely not towing the British New Labour party line. Although those events of a year ago are shocking and painful to most Americans and most spectators who saw them unfold live through CNN etc. the majority of the writers and directors choose to show that tragedy is not an American monopoly. Should anybody be surprised that these 3000 deaths are given the same weight elsewhere as the West gives to thousands Tutsi, Tamil, Bosnian, Chilean, Kurdish (need we go on) victims. If this was a 'wake-up' call for the States then it is equally tragic that in the subsequent 12 months the Israel/Palestine impasse is further from a solution while George Bush Jnr. would rather wreak revenge than make the world a safer place. I think many of the contributors wonder where the idealism of the Founding Fathers went, and why America orignally built as a bastion of freedom, justice and tolerance now sees its self-interest paramount while the Third World wonders where the next drink, meal or bullet is coming from. | 1 | trimmed_train |
22,006 | I MAY have seen an episode or 2 when the show originally aired but when I watched 1 episode on netflix I was also hooked. I watched the whole series in like 2 days. :) I really liked Gary Cole's character. First he's thoroughly reprehensible then you start liking the character ("These things have a thousand uses")! His folksy Andy Griffith meets Charles Manson meets Satan is great. Charming, charismatic, smarmy, and uh kind of dangerous and by "kind of" I mean "really". I wanna be like HIM when I grow up. Lucas Black is great too. The accents are great too. Anyway, I thought this was one of the best TV shows ever and you owe it to yourself to see it. | 3 | trimmed_train |
18,339 | This Was One Scary Movie.<br /><br />Brad Pitt Deserved an Oscar for this.<br /><br />A traveling novelist (played by David Duchovny of the X-Files fame) and his girlfriend pick up two hitch-hikers(Juliette Lewis and Brad Pitt) on their way to California. <br /><br />On their way they stop at infamous serial killer murder scenes to photography the scenes for an upcoming book Duchovny's character is working on, little do they know that the most disturbed serial killer in the history of the country is sitting right next to them in the same car. | 1 | trimmed_train |
15,873 | One of Cary Grant's most enduring comedies is Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Although judging by the size of it the dwelling would be a dream mansion today. Still Cary was making a good living in the advertising field even though he was having a devil of a time trying to come up with a slogan for ham with the brand name of Wham.<br /><br />What made this film so popular was the housing shortage of the post World War II years. Returning veterans from the war were claiming their entitlements under the GI Bill of Rights which included home loans. The problem was there literally were not enough houses to satisfy the demand. Around the time the book by Eric Hodgins and the film were so popular Congress passed and President Truman signed the Taft-Ellender- Wagner Housing law which put the government for the first time in the home building business.<br /><br />I had an uncle and aunt who were around the same time building their own home which they moved into in the early Fifties. Like Cary Grant and Myrna Loy they had two daughters and were looking to get out of inner city Rochester. Their place wasn't quite as grand as a house in Connecticut with eighteen rooms, still they lived there the rest of their lives the way Cary and Myrna most likely did.<br /><br />Of course it was expensive and the costs just keep adding up and up, threatening to send Cary to the cleaners. Cary and Myrna also have Melvyn Douglas around to offer counsel, usually too late. Truth be told he's kind of sweet on Myrna and Cary knows it.<br /><br />Myrna Loy's role is simply an extension of Nora Charles. If you can imagine the Charles's moving to the country and William Powell having the headaches Cary Grant does, the film would still work just fine.<br /><br />Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House still works well as comedy because the situations are universal. And this review is dedicated to my Uncle Walter and Aunt Kate who lived in their dream house together for over 40 years. | 1 | trimmed_train |
14,642 | From a modern sensibility, it's sometimes hard to watch older films. It's annoying to have to watch the stereotypical wallflower librarian have to take off her glasses and become pretty and stupid to win a man. Especially such a shallow and inconstant man. He's obviously a player (I wouldn't trust him to stay true to her) who doesn't want to settle down, who only looks at dumb attractive women and always calls them "baby" (ick!). Even after she totally changes her appearance and her life for him, he only goes to her after he's (supposedly) rejected by another woman and learns that Connie spent all her money renovating a boat for him. I wanted her to stand up to him, not pathetically chase after him! His sudden conversion within a few minutes was totally unrealistic and did not work for me.<br /><br />Apart from that subplot, I did like the movie. How can you not like sailors dancing with each other?! (You can tell they were from San Francisco.... ;D) The "rehearsal" dance was great, watching Ginger Rogers purposefully fall in and out of the "correct steps" was great. The last dance scene "Face the Music" with the beautiful costumes and the art deco set was beautiful. And I really enjoyed "We Saw the Sea" (though they did use it a few too many times, as if they realized it was their best song). <br /><br />Anyway, the plot was a bit weak, like most musicals (IMO) - and the songs were OK, but the dancing was worth watching the film for. I wish they could have showed some shots of San Francisco since that was were the film was supposedly set.<br /><br />It's also weird to see such a lighthearted naval film with the knowledge of what Hitler was already doing at that time. I have to try to suspend all knowledge to submerge myself into a made up fantasy land. | 1 | trimmed_train |
24,647 | So when i was little i got this movie as a present and my sister and i loved it. we would watch it all the time. when our friends came over we would have sleepovers and we'd watch big rock candy mountain and grandpa's magical toys. I'm 21 now and i still love this movie, some old friends and i recently got together and watched it, we knew all the songs and we danced and talked about how much we hated Profster when we were little. One friend actually bought this movie and grandpa's magical toys for her 2 year old daughter because she wants to pass on our love of this movie. This really is a movie you can let your kids watch and feel safe, no violence, no bad language, just lots of great songs and important lessons. | 3 | trimmed_train |
17,176 | I commend pictures that try something different. Many films just seem like re-treads of old ideas, so that is the big reason I so strongly recommend Passport to Pimlico.<br /><br />The movie is set just after WW2 and the post-war shortages and rationing seem to be driving Londoners "barmy". The film centers on a tiny neighborhood in London called Pimlico. They, too, are sick of not being able to buy what they want but can see no way out of it. That is until they accidentally stumble upon a hidden treasure and a charter which officially named this neighborhood as a sovereign nation many hundreds of years ago! With this document, they reason, they can bypass all the rationing and coupons and live life just as they want, since it turns out they really AREN'T British subjects! Where the movie goes from there and how the crisis is ultimately resolved is something you'll need to see for yourselves. Leave it up the brilliant minds of Ealing Studios to come up with this gem! | 3 | trimmed_train |
2,806 | Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) travels to Tibet and is bitten by a yeti, which causes him to become a werewolf. He is accidentally killed after he attacks his cheating wife and her lover, and is later revived by a female scientist, Dr. Ilona Ermann, who uses him in mind control experiments. Daninsky later discovers an underground asylum populated by the bizarre subjects of the doctor's failed experiments.<br /><br />Upon hearing of Naschy's death from colleague Jon Kitley, I rummaged through my collection for a suitable film to watch. In my scramble, I found I own not one but three(!) copies of "Fury of the Wolfman". The film is of questionable video quality, the sound is dubbed in a mediocre fashion, the cinematography is sort of slapstick style at times. And the American versions have two love scenes removed. Quite frankly, without a remastered, uncut copy, I wasn't really getting the proper movie in all its glory.<br /><br />This film claims to be the fourth in a long series about the werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky. I suspect this is true, but you wouldn't know this from the film itself. The plot is confusing at times, and there's really no indication that this is a sequel. If you read the plot summaries on Wikipedia and compare them to what is printed on the box, you'll see that I'm not alone in my confusion.<br /><br />Perhaps the film's shortcomings can be forgiven if we understand the production hell it went through. While floating around for years, it was only released in 1973, due to problems involved in finding a distributor. And Naschy said in his autobiography that the director, Zabalza, was an incompetent alcoholic, and that he hated working with him. Those really aren't light accusations, and I have no idea what Zabalza had to say on his own behalf.<br /><br />Chances are, sooner or later you'll come across a low-grade version of "Fury of the Wolfman". It appears in a variety of three-packs and box sets, so you might accidentally acquire it and not even know. What really needs to happen is an American uncut version, with a decent sound and video mix, and the love scenes thrown back in. As far as I know, this does not exist. Let us honor Paul Naschy's legacy and get his films to a wider audience in a level of quality he deserves. | 2 | trimmed_train |
16,236 | If you like Star Wars/Trek, come see where they got all their ideas and cinematic devices. It's my top 2 favorite movies of all times, other-worldly-futuristic and psycho-thriller. The intensity of the root material (Shakespeare's "The Tempest") is not overshadowed by whizbang gimmickry (a la later Lucas). And just because it was made in 1956, don't assume you can 'see the strings' holding the flying saucer up. This was the first movie where you COULDN'T. Miracle it was made at "A-movie" scale, economics and tastes at the time were stacked heavily against it. And director Wilcox's previous 'hit' was "Lassie Come Home". Until I looked him up, I assumed 'Fred Wilcox' was a pseudonym for a director who was already or later became famous, but at the time didn't want to be associated with sci-fi, which was strictly a "B" genre back then. This was either a very VERY visionary production, or a very fortuitous 'mistake' on the part of the folks who bankroll Hollywood.<br /><br />There are the massive-scale mattes with live action almost microscopically inserted that Lucas used extensively. There are intelligent machines that transcend the stereotypical 'user interface'; "computers", as they've come to be portrayed much less futuristically in later works. Star Trek's 'transporter' is there, visually, almost unaltered by Roddenberry 10 years later. And if the Trek/Wars technobabble turns you off, FP's scientific references are not overdone and are all accurate, even today. The "ship" set is comprehensive, sparklingly realistic, as good as anything you've seen since, and more convincing than anything 'Trek' has done, for TV or film. We didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have liked.<br /><br />If you ever wondered how movies got into space so competently, watching FP will explain all that. It's definitely not 'Wagontrain to the Stars'. | 3 | trimmed_train |
4,207 | Looked forward to viewing this film and seeing these great actors perform. However, I was sadly disappointed in the script and the entire plot of the story. David Duchovny,(Dr. Eugene Sands),"Connie & Carla",'04, was the doctor in the story who uses drugs and losses his license to practice medicine. Dr. Sands was visiting a night club and was able to use his medical experience to help a wounded customer and was assisted by Angelina Jolie,(Claire),"Taking Lives",'04, who immediately becomes attracted to Dr. David Sands. Timothy Hutton,(Raymond Blossom),"Kinsey",'04, plays the Big Shot Gangster and a man with all kinds of money and connections. Timothy Hutton seems to over act in most of the scenes and goes completely out of his mind trying to keep his gang members from being killed. Gary Dourdan,(Yates),"CSI-Vegas TV Series", plays a great supporting role and portrays a real COOL DUDE who is a so-called body guard for Raymond Blossom. Angelina Jolie looks beautiful and sexy with her ruby red lips which draws a great deal of attention from all the men. This film is not the greatest, but it does entertain. | 0 | trimmed_train |
24,470 | I recommend watching this film with your significant other if you're planning a romantic evening with him/her. The chemistry between Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan as Tarzan and Jane is so steamy it could fog up your screen.<br /><br />After the original film, we begin to see how Tarzan and Jane have adapted to the jungle and to each other. Jane's skimpy jungle wear and Tarzan's protest when Jane covers up for their visitors illuminates that they are not just romantically, but also quite sexually in love.<br /><br />One's imagination can supplement the constant touching and love talk between Tarzan & Jane to portray how much Jane is actually teaching Tarzan about love emotionally, romantically and sexually. And Jane's student is not only embracing but also thriving with his previously untapped sexuality.<br /><br />The skin show in this film is off the charts. In addition to Jane's two-piece sexy midriff, leg, and hip baring costume, she also has an underwater nude swim with Tarzan. (although it is not O'Sullivan, but Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim who doubles for her in this scene) Weissmuller, also reveals a tremendous body and perfect pectorals in his barely there loincloth. The ladies will delight when Weissmuller emerges from the water after his lengthy fight with the giant crocodile and sounds his yell - with his water soaked loincloth practically falling off his hips.<br /><br />It's a shame that the over-protective censors toned down the adult nature of the Tarzan films after this entry. Although the Weissmuller Tarzan films would still prosper in the years to come, they would rarely approach the sex appeal of this movie. | 3 | trimmed_train |
15,918 | What a night. Perry Mason then Have Gun, Will Travel followed by Gunsmoke (when it was a half hour) and finally at 10:30PM came 'Sea Hunt' with its wonderful opening theme music and Mike's boat sailing off to a new adventure. Terrific.. Regardless of the story it was the lead character (played by Lloyd Bridges), strong, honest, sincere. A Man's Man and a Boy's Man. This brought on an interest in boats that lasted for years. Why they don't show on cable or make it available on video, no idea.. Too bad. | 1 | trimmed_train |
6,759 | The original Lensman series of novels is a classic of the genre. It's pure adventure SF with some substance (here and there) and I've always wondered why Hollywood hasn't filmed it verbatim because it's just the kind of thing they love: massive explosions, super-weapons, uber-heroics, hero gets the girl, aliens (great CGI potential), good versus evil in the purest form, etc etc. Instead (and bear in mind I'm a Japan-o-phile and anime lover) we get this horrendous kiddies movie that rips the guts out of the story, mixes in Star-Wars (ironic as the latter ripped off the books occasionally) pastiches and dumbs the whole thing down to 'Thundercats' level. To see Kimball Kinnison, the epitome of the Galactic Patrol officer and second stage Lensman portrayed as a small boy is pitiful (etc). I just can't understand why the makers did this because they obviously had the rights to the story and could have made far more money (FAR!) by telling straight. It makes no sense. | 2 | trimmed_train |
8,368 | What a waste! This movie could have really been something decent, but the writing, in particular, is crap, and the main characters are rather shallow and uninteresting. Mike Meyers was good, and the historical recreation of late 70s decadence was well crafted, but overall, this movie was a big waste of time. Instead, the movie to watch, that deals with similar themes and the same basic time frame, is the great BOOGIE NIGHTS. | 2 | trimmed_train |
12,483 | This is a good example of how NOT to make a film.<br /><br />There is very little meaningful dialog, no context for the events, and constant cuts between seemingly unrelated scenes. The result is a confused, clueless viewer; the plot is absolutely impossible to follow and the ideas presented are meaningless without listening to the director's commentary.<br /><br />This movie has a lot to do with human atrocity and tries to show how wrong it is, with an emphasis on child abuse. It includes some stock footage of real, horrible acts of violence, including war time executions. Although it works in the context of the movie, I feel that the ideas behind the movie could have been presented without resorting to such extreme content. This film is absolutely NOT for the weak stomached or the easily offended, and should not under any circumstances be shown to minors.<br /><br />The climax is anti-climactic compared to the content of the rest of the movie. If you're not listening to the commentary while it happens you will probably miss it.<br /><br />The director's commentary was a one-shot, "sit the guy down and let him talk, no cuts" type of commentary. While this isn't necessarily bad, the director ends up rambling a lot and often spends minutes at a time complaining about his college, filming conditions, co producers, bad film, and a dozen other things. The constant negativity detracts from what otherwise is an essential tool for understanding the movie.<br /><br />The movie was shot many years ago on 16mm and Super8 film over a period of four years on an extremely low budget. Because of this, the video and audio quality is poor. That alone does not make it a bad movie, but it does make a bad movie worse. | 0 | trimmed_train |
14,595 | The spoiler warning is for those people who want to see for themselves what animals and landscapes pass before their eyes, although I don't mention it in great detail.<br /><br />"Earth" is an approx. 90 minute cinema version based on "Planet earth" which I watched all on BBC TV.The TV version was narrated by David Attenborough, a captivating commentator, who I had wished had also done it for "Earth" but it is Patrick Stewart, Star Trek's Captain Picard. There are regularly shots of the Earth from space so that's may be appropriate. In any case he has a nice enough and calm voice for it. There are 12 chapters in which we follow animal life on earth from North Pole to Antarctica. 3 animal families, polar bear, elephant and whale, appear in more than one of these parts. Each "chapter" starts with an indication how far from north pole or equator it is. We see something of each kind of animal, but only mammals and birds, and some fish, and some beautiful shots of vegetation, mountains, waterfalls, deserts and jungle, a near perfect presentation of the variety of life and landscapes and climates on earth. You get the impression that our planet is only inhabited by animals: people or villages or cities aren't in the film, so it's a typical nature documentary, but breathtakingly shot and accompanied by delightful music. When the film opened I already knew it would end far too soon for me. It is a family film, so no brutal killings of any animals. When one is caught by his hunter the shot ends and in other cases where we see the prey being caught it's shot in slow-motion which makes it less violent and watchable for young children (age limit 6 in The Netherlands). No blood is shed. Some scenes (newly born animals) are really cute and will be adored by kids. It looks like an ordinary nature film but when you know how many shooting days it took (4000) and how much money it has cost it becomes an even more astonishing piece of beauty. It had it's Dutch premiere yesterday, a month before the actual release, in a cinema of 500 seats, of which 15 were taken. True beauty is rarely interesting for cinema goers, it seems. As I knew the TV-series I was of course very curious if my favourite scenes would make it into this movie. Some didn't, but the most impressive shots (big waterfalls) did, luckily. It was the first time I ever cried in a nature film. | 3 | trimmed_train |
7,365 | The script is nice.Though the casting is absolutely non-watchable.No style. the costumes do not look like some from the High Highbury society. Comparing Gwyneth Paltrow with Kate Beckinsale I can only say that Ms. Beckinsale speaks British English better than Ms. Paltrow, though in Ms. Paltrow's acting lies the very nature of Emma Woodhouse. Mr. Northam undoubtedly is the best Mr. Knightley of all versions, he is romantic and not at all sharp-looking and unfeeling like Mr. Knightley in the TV-version. P.S.The spectator cannot see at all Mr. Elton-Ms. Smith relationship's development as it was in the motion version, so one cannot understand where was all Emma's trying of make a Elton-Smith match (besides of the portrait). | 0 | trimmed_train |
756 | This inept adaptation of arguably one of Martin Amis's weaker novels fails to even draw comparisons with other druggy oeuvres such as Requiem For A Dream or anything penned by Irvine Walsh as it struggles to decide whether it is a slap-stick cartoon or a hyper-realistic hallucination.<br /><br />Boringly directed by William Marsh in over-saturated hues, a group of public school drop-outs converge in a mansion awaiting the appearance of three American friends for a weekend of decadent drug-taking. And that's it. Except for the ludicrous sub-plot soon-to-be-the-main-plot nonsense about an extremist cult group who express themselves with the violent killings of the world's elite figures, be it political or pampered. Within the first reel you know exactly where this is going.<br /><br />What is a talented actor like Paul Bettany doing in this tiresome, badly written bore? Made prior to his rise to fame and Jennifer Connelly one can be assured that had he been offered this garbage now he'd have immediately changed agents! Avoid. | 0 | trimmed_train |
16,097 | What are the odds of a "Mermaid" helium balloon traveling from Yuba City, Ca.(on Nov 8th,1993) and landing 4 Days later,(on Nov. 12) in MERMAID, Prince Edward Island, Canada.(Approx. 4000 miles). This is a great movie. It is based on a true story. This movie helps not only children cope with losses, but older people as well. Hope everyone will enjoy it!!! Rhonda | 3 | trimmed_train |
19,598 | "Someones at the Door". OHHH, How I miss this show so bad.. but we are lucky to now have "Invasion". Thank You, Shawn Cassidy. American Gothic, had it all.If I had to pick one thing that I liked best about the show, it has to be its "not predictable plot-lines". Favorite actor was Lucas Black.. I adore that southern accent. I bought the DVD asap, and my kids are fans too. There is some hot n steamy scenes. Some Devilish ones too. So, if kiddos will be watching you may want to edit(fastforward/skip). It has humour, on a Joss Wheedon level, which so many shows lack. Adult wit and adult situation, that are handled with finese. The DVD has some extras, but I wish it has many more. If you want to get thrilled and enjoy a great show, come watch "American Gothic"! | 3 | trimmed_train |
15,410 | At last! A decent British comedy that isn't centred around some mockney bank robbers or spun off from a TV series. John Ivay's film is a psychoactive tale of discovery, dressed in biker gear. The three protagonists are gentle fools with a penchant for failure and each at a turning point in their lives, giving a sensitive, emotional trio of sub-plots to sew the riotous comedy together. The chemistry between the three amigos is palpable and makes for a touching companionship with hilarious dialogue and some classic comedic moments. It feels part Withnail and I, part American Werewolf in London, and part Quadraphenia (but only because of the bike gangs, and Phil Daniels). In fact, Phil Daniels' lovable rogue reminds you of Danny the dealer in Withnail and I, with his scholarly approach and scientific commitment to drugs. This is a great film, particularly for those who've dabbled in psychoactive substances in the past, who will relate to many moments in the film. A personal favourite is the brilliant scene in the Welsh corner shop, buying munchies while tripping on 'shrooms. This gentle comedy will warm the cockles of your heart and have you laughing out loud. And you don't have to ride bikes or even like them to enjoy it. But it'll add to it if you do. Brilliant. | 3 | trimmed_train |
544 | We are not in the fairy tale of the naked emperor. We may confess the truth of what we see, without being stupid, confess, that this show is in many aspects just incomprehensible and that it is clear, that much of it was created out of pure intuition without real concept.<br /><br />Well, obviously many people like such stuff. I don't. I prefer well thought and planed shows. And I also confess, that the show is much to serious for my taste and boring...those love and drug stories...There are so many exciting soaps with lot of suspense (Dallas e.g.), but Twin Peaks can't catch my attention. I don't care about those people, except Cooper and Gordon Cole. | 2 | trimmed_train |
21,431 | Set in a middle class neighborhood in the imaginary town of Willard in the 1950s, this dark comedy with a light touch toys with such American obsessions as gun mania and violence, materialism and keeping up with the Joneses, fear of others, slavery, golf, and the disposing of the dead. Yes, it all sounds a bit heavy, but trust me on this, it's nearly as light as a feather.<br /><br />Zombies are featured prominently among the characters. Crucial questions arise, such as: who will become a zombie (90% of the Willard folks choose this final path, while only 10% prefer a traditional funeral)? Who owns how many Zombies to do their bidding like robots (they've become a mark of social status)? And, what is the range of possible relationships that can be worked out between the living and the sort of reincarnated dead? <br /><br />Somehow, director Andrew Currie, who also co-wrote the lively screenplay (with Robert Chomiak and Dennis Heaton), keeps this improbable material percolating along for an hour and a half without once faltering for want of a good laugh. A super cast helps: Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly, Dylan Baker, Henry Czerny, Tim Blake Nelson, Mary Black and Sonja Bennett are the principals, aided by young K'Sun Ray as Timmy, the innocent kid with a good heart who acts as fair witness to all the lunacy of the grownups. (Having seen her only in "Memento" and "The Matrix," I had no idea that Ms. Moss had such fine comedienne chops.) <br /><br />The production design and music are exquisitely 50s, to a tee. Maybe this one isn't for everybody. It surely will be a hard film to beat for my annual Bizarro Award. But intelligent comedies that stay funny from start to finish are among the hardest won achievements in movie-making. For me anyway, "Fido" is a hoot! My grades: 8.5/10 (A-) (Seen on 01/30/07) | 1 | trimmed_train |
13,684 | Vertigo co-stars Stewart (in his last turn as a romantic lead) and Novak elevate this, Stewart's other "Christmas movie," movie to above mid-level entertainment. The chemistry between the two stars makes for a fairly moving experience and further revelation can be gleaned from the movie if witchcraft is seen as a metaphor for the private pain that hampers many people's relationships. All in all, a nice diversion with legendary stars, 7/10. | 1 | trimmed_train |
23,084 | To fight against the death penalty is a just cause. Everyone who is sane in Europe would think so. In the USA everything is different. The film seems to demonstrate in a first stage that justice can be won against the racist bigot death penalty craving American justice. A young man is freed from death row thanks to a law professor who went back to defense counseling for this particular case. But the film has a sequel. Justice in the USA is entirely governed by the aim of vengeance. Miscarriage of justice is just the same governed by vengeance. One person in the local Public Attorney Offfice has a young man prosecuted on false charges. This Public Attorney's officer drops the charges after a while and the young man walks out free. But he loses his college scholarship and he is castrated by some vengeful people for whom there is never any smoke without a fire. He hides his shame and swears to get his vengeance. But he also needs to satisfy his sexual needs which are more mental than hormonal for sure but even stronger because mental and no longer hormonal and he can only do that with little girls. He apparently teams with another serial killer who is after the same kind of preys. One day the local cops follow their intuition, guided by some vague circumstantial elements in the assassination of a young girl, and they arrest the young chap we are speaking of. They beat him up and interrogate him for 22 hours with nothing but blows and blows and telephone books and guns and Russian roulette. He confesses. Sent to death row, he asks his grandmother to go get the law professor in Massachusetts who is the husband of the Local Public Attorney's representative that had him falsely prosecuted some years ago and the vengeance is on the rails. It will fail but it shows that as soon as one in the line of justice, police work and other security forces steps off the line of absolute legality, some unjust act is done that can ruin even the best accusation case and that can nourish the worst deepest imaginable thirst for vengeance. To charge someone on circumstantial elements is just as bad as to let circumstantial elements ruin the work of the police or of justice. The best intentions on the police side are ruined by some personal involvement and vengeful intention, just as much as the life of a person can be jeopardized by circumstantial elements inflated to the size of evidence, which in its turn will jeopardize the whole case by being just circumstantial, hence easily discardable, with a good lawyer. The film then is a deep reflection on the necessity to respect standards and regulations all along the police and justice line if we don't want to make a mistake, which in its turn of course does not justify the death penalty since anyway it goes against the deepest belief Americans are supposed to have: "We hold these truths to be self-evident , that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence) Life is an unalienable Right that was given to man by his Creator, which means no one but the one who gave it can take it away. Only God can take the life of a person away. The death penalty is the arrogant appropriation of a power that we do not have. Even if we do not evoke God, we cannot justify the death penalty except as an act of vengeance, and here the film shows vengeance is the worst possible motivation in the rendition of justice and in the establishment of public peace. If vengeance is pushed aside there is no other justification for this death penalty. And there can always be a mistake in that pursuit not of Happiness but of vengeance.<br /><br />Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID | 3 | trimmed_train |
3,250 | Oliver Gruner is totally unknown to me. My friend showed me this film because he had seen Gruner in, what he called a pretty good sci-fi film, Nemesis. So as we watched this, we found ourselves fastforwarding through the BS drama parts just to get to the unbelievable action sequences. Gruner loves to kick and kick and kick. And kick! haha<br /><br />Gruner character is a graduate student who is forced to stay in a ghetto close to the one that he grew up in. He finds himself watching after the boy who lives with him because he really wants to join in the Mexican gang that keeps tormenting his family. Instead of joining up, Gruner tells the boy to fight back (against a gang? too crazy). Gruner plays a typical Van Damme character who kills everyone (or maims them pretty bad) and works to rid his block of these gangmembers.<br /><br />The plot was very cheesy and easy to think of. Gruner is probably not very well known because of his script-choosing if this movie is anything to compare possible choices to. This ghetto is pure hell and I enjoyed seeing the motley crew of characters go through it as if they have a chance against Gruner's character. The music was typical action music (thumping pianos and timpani, swelling guitars) which actually wasn't as bad as I make it sound. The director really needed to keep the action going instead of taking a break every 5 minutes for a tense family moment.<br /><br />Ultimately, I gave it a 4/10 because it really tried to be an average action film for Oliver Gruner to star in, but the overall feel of the film leaves you wanting more closure on what you just saw. | 2 | trimmed_train |
2,891 | Seriously crappy movie.<br /><br />First off, the movie starts with a cop and his partner parked outside of a warehouse/furniture store. The "bad" cop takes a girl, which they had pulled over, into the warehouse's attic, while the newbie cop sits outside and ponders what could be happening up there. The "bad" cop eventually returns with a heavy duffel bag, and the newbie cop doesn't think there are any problems, but he still wonders what was in the bag, so he asks, gets a bullshit response, and then he thinks everything is OK (for now).<br /><br />The "bad" cop repeats this process, and even once with a tit scene (made it slightly better). But eventually people start to catch on, which took awhile considering how f***ing obvious it was. One girl gets a voodoo curse placed on her just in case she dies, like ya do. Now, the "bad" cop eventually kills this magically protected bitch, and then he gets rid of the duffel-bagged body.<br /><br />Since she had the oogey-boogey magic put on her, she comes back with lots of eye-shadow on, which is supposed to indicate that she may be a zombie... also, the magic curse causes all of the other girls to become "eye-shadow monsters". Some of the girls meet up with a dude, who is apparently a currency specialist, and he offers them a ride (they look normal to him apparently). But when the girls see other people, such as the one girls husband, he freaks out because she is hideous (some people freak out, but others don't even notice).... massive plot hole.<br /><br />So, to wrap it up, the eye-shadow monsters kill the "bad" cop, who in turn ends up becoming a zombie in the last scene. It was as though they were trying to prep us for a sequel! Like anyone would want to see part 2 of this cow dropping. | 0 | trimmed_train |
18,180 | I waited and waited for this film to come out,the trailers seemed to be on for years, it was worth it. I'm not a big fan of watching films over and over again but i cant wait for this to come out for all to buy! Not a big fan of Jim but this suited him perfectly, there was so much to see and the 'feel good factor' is off the scale, perfect for Christmas. I think Ron did a fab job turning this into a film, If you haven't seen it then do so, if you have, watch it again, i know you want to! | 1 | trimmed_train |
9,592 | As a history nut who is particularly interested in this particular historical event, I was very disappointed with the movie. Granted, the costumes and staging was quite authentic, but the Hollywood portrayal of this "British Little Big Horn" was truly boring.<br /><br />The amount of film footage dedicated to marching or parading troops has to have been unprecedented in film history. Eveytime I heard triumphant background music begin, I knew I had to prepare myself for another laborious scene of meaningless filler. Obviously, the producers had invested heavily into "staging" and were determined to get their money's worth.<br /><br />Despite the outstanding cast, their dialogue was, again, boring and their characters were never developed. Whenever Peter O'toole or Burt Lancaster finished a scene, I would cringe with disappointment. Their given lines were so weak and meaningless that I could hardly believe these were the same two great actors who portrayed Lawrence of Arabia and the Bird Man of Alcatraz respectively.<br /><br />There are worse epics, but this one is not much better. | 2 | trimmed_train |
1,859 | What a piece of junk this movie was. The premise was okay, but even in the beginning with crappy effects to blend in a giant with normal sized people (even the effects in Hercules was better) I knew this would be bad. But the really awful part of the movie is the dialogs. It's completely incoherent, silly and stupid. I felt like it had been written by some 9th grader in creative class and gotten a D-. I want to slap Casper van Diem and the other actors for following this movie through.<br /><br />I've had my share of cheesy and bad movies (I love the tremors series), but this... I do not recommend it at all. It's silly and the totally flabbergastingly bad dialogs will make you cringe. | 0 | trimmed_train |
1,739 | I went to see this film based on the review by Siskel and Ebert; not only did I get duped, but I took some friends along, and had to spend the rest of the day profusely apologizing for making them sit through this pointless crap. After this, I never went to see a movie based solely on Siskel & Ebert's advice. | 0 | trimmed_train |
21,899 | In the early 1970s, many of us who had embraced hippy/acid/alternative culture wholeheartedly, had realised that mainstream society was not going to change in the way we thought it would. For me this film defined the tension of "now what?" that many of the people I knew felt at that time. Do we head for the commune and create our own vision of utopia or do we radicalize and push for change?<br /><br />From the futile gestures to police, the radical rhetoric, the music of Pink Floyd, to the love-making and the explosive images in the desert - so much is in there. It captures well a significant moment in time. | 1 | trimmed_train |
11,772 | **Spoilers contained**<br /><br />I'd heard from various sources that this film was controversial and that the ending in particular was horrific. What I didn't expect was the complete change in tack with about twenty minutes to go. What starts off as a typical cowboy/indian western suddenly descends into a very dull romantic 'comedy' about Honus (Soldier Blue of the title played by Peter Strauss) and Cresta (Candice Bergen) who escape an onslaught of the cavalry by the Cheyenne. The majority of the film then focuses on these two mismatched people hence the romantic comedy bit. Donald Pleasance then turns up and abducts them both for no real apparent reason. They then escape and both turn up (separately) at the cavalry base on the eve of an attack on the Cheyenne base. As Cresta used to be married to one of the Cheyenne chiefs she escapes the cavalry base and joins up with them. So far so ordinary. Then comes the ending. After enduring well over an hour of poor acting involving a cliched will they/won't they get together storyline, the movie then transforms into over the top exploitation involving among other things a decapitation and a child being shot in the back of the head. Similarities can be drawn with the Wild Bunch at this point of the film but the Wild Bunch kept the same tone throughout and didn't resort to extreme gratuitous violence. In some ways, Soldier Blue reminds me of Frank Perry's Last Summer which also completely changed tack for a shock ending. I didn't hate Soldier Blue nor find the ending particularly disturbing but just found it to be pretty dull with an unnecessarily violent ending. If you want to see a film with a truly disturbing slaughter of the innocents, I would recommend Elem Klimov's Come and See. | 2 | trimmed_train |
8,128 | This is a fair little show about the paranormal although it feels as if Art Bell and his ilk figured out how to carve a career out of the attitude that Carl Kolchak exemplified. Of course there probably wouldn't be an X-Files if this show hadn't prepped this audience for it so well. Darren McGavin is not exactly the super-heroic type but he is a plausible(enough) guy to deliver heroic deeds. Check out his work on some of those old Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Here he is the main attraction, there doesn't seem to be a girlfriend or wife who's a distraction. In fact there isn't a whole lot of sex appeal to the show. Something I'm noticing as well is that the pacing isn't really suspenseful in a typical way. There's a lot of throwaway humor to this show. Sometimes its just pokey to get to the climax. There's a thread from this show coming all the way up to the present MAD MEN show in terms of style. Not that David Chase writes Mad Men but the people that worked under him on The Sopranos definitely have emulated and inherited his serio-comic tone. | 2 | trimmed_train |
19,810 | I won't try to speculate as to what Brando was attempting. At his best he turns in such oddball performances, insinuating so many things at once, that it doesn't seem he does anything so much as play by unfailing instinct. Often it seems he is calling attention to some favored aspect of his character over all others, a concentration which, if followed, turns out something of a red herring, as he turns out subtler, craftier than at first appeared. This is a mastery of artifice, not naturalism, as might be associated with the Method. The role of Sky Masterson, as Mankiewicz so wonderfully realized, seems tailored for him, which is to begin with odd, and odd still at the end, because whatever it is Brando has done, he has managed a grace maybe all his own, but a consummate grace nonetheless -- again, odd, coming from an actor with limited musical ability, not ever before or after associated with the musical comedy. Jean Simmons, also oddly cast, is not quite as impressive, but certainly above just-adequate, really delightful in the Havana sequence, and never less than enjoyable throughout. <br /><br />And yet...perhaps because actors are both so concentrated on what it is they are doing, and characters on what it is they intend of each other, there doesn't seem to be the lovers' "chemistry" brought up so insistently more than once. Brando/Sky Masterson and Simmons/Sister Sarah respectively feed off one another well enough, but I for one don't see more beyond that. In a movie this outrightly dazzling and entertaining (and most everything about it, craft-wise, is just that -- dazzling), that lack would seem something tactfully and easily overlooked, but so much would depend upon true chemistry! An, at least partial, transformation of the characters through such chemistry, would lend something positively moving to the final scene. As it is, one leaves this film certainly delighted, but not really moved, except in a way as to negate the trueness of the union. Note Sister Sarah marries in her missionary's uniform, Sky Masterson in his same natty man-about-town duds rather than wedding tux. And they have changed back to those from their previous scene!<br /><br />Funnily enough (that is, insightfully), the most touching, and most serious, scene is, I think, between Brando and Vivian Blaine, as Sinatra/Nathan Detroit's doll, Adelaide, the only scene where these two are exclusively together, not least because there is just no hint of flirtation between them even though it takes place in Adelaide's dressing-room while Adelaide is about to change. Though one may submit there is no place for that, Sky really is the type to "check out" Adelaide in this sort of circumstance. He is even there to tell Adelaide Nathan will not be meeting her to elope. Adelaide and Sky are both true in their respective ways to Nathan, even piteous of him, as is demonstrated through a tone in their exchange. Adelaide is of course also frustrated and disappointed, but her anger is mitigated by her deeper feeling for Nathan, as Sky is admonishing her that she can't love a man and then wish him to be someone else.<br /><br />Guys and Dolls is another turn at the battle of the sexes, around the themes of gambling and salvation. Since both the compulsive gambler and the salvation seeker are more or less unconsciously courting despair, there just may be a dark secret deliberately behind Brando's and Simmons' lack of chemistry. After all, that lack may well denote an excess of narcissistic preoccupation (echoed by the Sinatra/Blaine pairing, though with considerably less self-deception involved), which might explain Brando's and Simmons' odd, rather provoking, interpretations of Sky Masterson and Sister Sarah. I realize Simmons may be mostly depicting coldness and skepticism, but Brando, though playing to confront her, isn't exactly heated and eager, and is more than keeping his distance -- he's also assimilating it, keeping his balance through it. His boldness consists in merely playing against her -- the trip to Cuba, a kiss, whatever it takes -- but he is not actually set on winning through seducing her so much as beating her then in her own turf. This may be shrewd, as playing to zeal may be the only way to get to the missionary, and through. But it makes Sky's transition from merely trying to win a bet to actually wanting Sarah Brown a little less than persuasive. Yet why does he want her? What does falling in love mean to Sky? I find the only way to get around this is by indeed accepting his humanity has kicked in, and that he does not want to end up a mere cad toward Sister Sarah, so he does, as he's promised her, need to deliver the sinners to her prayer meeting, make good by his "marker," as he puts it, as a way of winning her back when it seems he had already won only to lose her. But this still denotes self-concern more than anything. However, it also allows for Sarah Brown's own self-concern, as Sky will placate the missionary in her in order to get back the lover. Neither, at least it seems, will change much by their union, except perhaps in the acceptance of the other. Yet that would seem an all but fatally uneasy proposition: acceptance of is still quite a cry away from achieving happiness in the other, let alone the transcendence they each seem to imply by "chemistry." And behind all this, I suspect is Mankiewicz's full knowing.<br /><br />For all those who might say, in defense of Guys and Dolls yet, that not much can be expected from musicals by way of depth, I need only remind them Cabaret, The Three-penny Opera, Carousel, A Star is Born, even The Sound of Music, which I don't care for as much (and one can keep adding to this list without even reaching forward toward post-Cabaret musicals), all wrap gorgeous music and dance around dire anxieties. | 3 | trimmed_train |
16,752 | I know it's crude, and I know that it isn't at all PC, but it's so funny. If you can put it into perspective that it's from the early 80's and it carries all the stereotypes of the time--and the movie still makes you almost pass out with laughter--than it is truly a good comedy. Going with the tradition of what comedies have been for thousands of years, the subject matter of this film is exagerated. If you can suspend your political correctness for an hour and a half, just to have an all-out laugh, than please watch this.<br /><br />P.S. Would someone please put this out on DVD, it's so hard to find on VHS anymore. | 3 | trimmed_train |
16,751 | When I rented this movie I thought I was going to see a horror-movie. However, there is little horror in this typical seventies mystery-drama directed by strange James T. Flocker. Nice-looking Matt Boston carries the picture with his fine performance and the typical strange atmosphere of Flocker's movies is all-present. | 1 | trimmed_train |
20,496 | I'm from Romania i'll try to speak in English. All i want to say about this movie is that it is and will be my all time number one. Seen it above 30 times at least and will see it for many years now. It has all the little things i like in a movie , it's very touching makes me cry . Shows a whole lot of twisted love things and questions about love and reality , and the true things that matter for different people. It so happens that for me this matters the most , the love , the soul of a man , he's inner being, and this i see in this movie. Perhaps for me it's much more than a motion picture , it's a proof in my mind that it could really exist and that you most make the best out of every moment you live with your soul mate. It's a long way from reality to sci-fi , but .. what if. What if all the capitalism disappeared and economy would go down , would fall? We would all be concerned about other issues and my thought is that , on your death bed , the bigger thing you remember , is not the wealth , not the adventure , not the countries you visited and the people that remember you. But the true friends and your true love and the hope that after you die , all will be god damn perfect and people would be good and care more. WATCH THIS MOVIE and probably it will guide you through your life like it did to me :) Hail from Romania | 3 | trimmed_train |
6,583 | Many King fans hate this because it departed from the book, but film is a different medium and books should change when they make the jump. That notwithstanding, the movie does fail completely, but it fails entirely on film terms. I'd like to smack the people who tell me it's the scariest movie ever made. I always follow up with the question "Really... exactly what scene scared you?" Every fan I've asked, goes silent. Occasionally someone, at a loss for a decent scare (There are none...), names the "Grape-juice-shooting-out-of-elevators" shtick. If you're afraid of that, I don't know what to tell you, except maybe that you're easily scared. I just rolled my eyes watching these z-grade horror ideas play out in this schlocky, incoherent movie.<br /><br />One place it diverts from the book and really is insipid is the tedious work the movie does to get Mr Halloran up to the Overlook only to kill him; with the dumbest member of the audience knowing that Jack is waiting behind one of the columns in the corridor that it takes Halloran FOREVER to walk down. Really one of the stupidest sequences ever put on film. <br /><br />Oh, and nice choice for Mr. Halloran's artwork Stanley! Black light afro-nymphomaniacs really add to the mood and character development of a horror movie. Has there ever been a more "off," out-of-place shot in any movie ever made?<br /><br />I consider it a miracle that I was eventually able to bypass this turd, and agree that Kubricks 2001 is a truly important film, given the immense 'bad will' generated by both this stupid, stupid movie, and the cult of fawning but inarticulate Kubrick fan-boys, who couldn't describe an idea at work in it with every film resource in the Library of Congress in front of them. <br /><br />Toss in the grotesque overacting of Jack Nicholson, the introduction of dumb one-liners at tense moments, and the Razzie nominated performance of Shelly Duvall and you have a very crappy movie. | 0 | trimmed_train |
13,834 | This movie was so good. Leon Phelps is hilarious. I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!! I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!!I went out after and bought a case of Cognac!!!!! | 3 | trimmed_train |
2,074 | "Envy" is bad for a number of reasons. Yes, there are unlikeable characters. That's not the problem. It is that they are unlikeable and we do not care for them at all. "The War of the Roses" featured unlikeable characters but due to proper introductions we grew to at least find ourselves interested in their fate, whereas in "Envy" the introduction is thin, the characters are never believable, and the plot only makes things worse.<br /><br />Ben Stiller is simply repulsive in his role and I'm a fan of his work most of the time. Stiller campaigned to have this released straight-to-video and now I can see why. The movie proposes that he's "best friends" with Jack Black, but from the first five minutes we are given footage that seems to indicate Stiller hates Black. I thought this would develop into some sort of one-sided relationship (a la "The Cable Guy") but it never does, instead Stiller insists he's his "best friend" and I felt confused as he seemed to treat Black like, well, "poo." The movie's plot is ridiculous but it doesn't matter, because it's supposed to be an exaggerated morality tale. Unfortunately the message is lost in the mess. Walken gives a good performance but Black is off-key and annoying (and I usually find him very funny). No, it's not a horrible film but I still can't believe Barry Levinson ("Rain Man," "Sleepers") is responsible for this - it's not one of the worst films of all time but it could certainly be a whole lot better. I wish Va-Poo-Rize did exist - so we could make this film disappear forever.... | 0 | trimmed_train |
15,216 | God! Zorro has been the the subject of about as many movies as Tarzan, and probably had about as many actors in the title role. <br /><br />This Serial is one of my own personal favourites, and as previously stated,it is one of the Top 5 Sound Serials. Oddly enough, this is one production that came out in that water shed year of 1939.* By the time of this production in '39, Zorro was really well known as a (Pulp) literary and movie character. The film opens up with a little foot note about the History of the Mexico's struggle for freedom from rule by a European Monarchy, namely Spain. The story invites comparison with the American Revolutionary War.<br /><br />The story concentrates its attention to the mythical Province of San Mendelito and its 'Council'. It is being addressed by Benito Juarez**on their gold mine's relation to the new Republic of Mexico. Gold shipments must get thru to Mexico City.<br /><br />Don Francisco Uncle to Diego Vega, states that he has organized a group of patriots to act as a protective force for the gold convoys.A thug from the Don del Oro mob, stages an 'insult' to himself and challenges Don Francisco to a duel with swords, Don Frasncisco getting run through.<br /><br />Suddenly the dark clad masked swordsman appears to sword fight and after carving the trademark 'Z' on the face of the bad guy, he dispatches him to the hereafter. Don Francisco declares with his dying breath to his ward Ramon (William Corson) that Zorro is his nephew from the city of Los Angeles. He also attempts to tell of the true identity of Don del Oro, but expires before completing statement.<br /><br />There is a big reception for Diego at Don Francisco's Hacienda, where Diego disappoints Ramon'sister (also ward of Don Francisco) with his timid act. "A FOP!!", she declares.<br /><br />Later,Diego and Ramon slip away to join up with a meeting of the volunteers. When they ask, "who will lead us with Don Francisco now dead?", Ramon declares "Zorro, we are Zorro's Fighting Legion!" Well there is a big battle with the Legion, now all clad on gray, with masks and capes, protecting the Gold Train. Then Zorro seems trapped at a man-made avalanche intended for the convoy, when, well, you know cliffhanger end of Chapter One.<br /><br />Wow! That was a lot of writing for one Chapter, but like most other Serials, the opening one is longer and has a lot of ground to be laid to set up the story line. Let's just let it suffice to say that there are 11 more good, well made, action filled Chapters following.<br /><br />ZORRO's FIGHTING LEGION has all of the elements that made for top cliffhanger action. We have an unknown evil leader who is fomenting trouble between different groups. There is a number of suspects as to who was really behind of the mask of 'Don del Oro'. We had soldiers, renegade Whites, hostile Indians and the Legion.<br /><br />In short, it's safe to say that there is everything one could want, and then some, in this Serial. And, incidentally, they wisely choose to not have the actors affect any Mexican accents.<br /><br />As to just what is there here that makes ZFL stand out from the rest? What makes it different or unique? Well........<br /><br />First of all, it has a much more elaborate and exciting musical score playing and underlining the drama and action on the screen. The opening theme even appears in a flamenco guitar rendition at the Cantina in Chapter One. This is probably the only time that such a highly specialized innovation appears in serial sound track.<br /><br />And yet there is one more feature that really sets the Fighting Legion saga out in front from all others. That is, the film not only has a heroic musical theme, but it also sports Lyrics, yes, the Legionairres sing! We hear them singing in the opening credits and in several Chapters! It really works well and adds to the feelings we get from the viewing.<br /><br />When the Serial was first shown on our local television (circa 1955), all of the gang immediately recognized the voice of Reed Hadley as belonging to 'Captain Braddock from RACKET SQUAD, the TV Series. Mr. Hadley had a very distinctive, deep voice.*** He also handled the role very well. His costume and especially the elongated mask looked very good and was probably very functional.<br /><br />There is a small slip up. A sort of minor anachronism occurs by having Benito Juarez(Carleton Young)addressing the San Mendelito Council, as Juarez was about 18 years old at this time (1824) and, though he was later perhaps the greatest single figure in Mexico's History, he surely hadn't achieved such prominence yet. His inclusion in story probably was to cash in on the release of Warner Brothers' JUAREZ that year, which starred Paul Muni in the title role.<br /><br />This is not only my pick as a top 5 sound serial, but also my favourite Zorro film.<br /><br />* We are reminded of the great crop of top flight movies that year, what with GONE WITH THE WIND, MR.SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, THE CITADEL, JUAREZ, THE WIZARD OF OZ, OF MICE AND MEN, ONE MILLION B.C.,ZENOBIA, WE WANT OUR MUMMY all counted among the output that year.<br /><br />** Once again, Juarez did not ascend to any national importance until around 1850, about 25 years later. Also, the political sub-divisions are referred to as 'Provinces' in the story. In actuality, they are called 'States'. Just as we are called the United States of America, so too,South of the Border they call their Repubhlic the United States of Mexico.<br /><br />*** Reed Hadley was prominent in some very 'A' pictures in which his richly toned voice is exploited to good effect. Watch & listen for his narration in THE HOUSE ON 92nd STREET (1945) and GUADALCANAL DIARY (1945). | 3 | trimmed_train |
20,672 | This was a gem. Amazing acting from the leads Liam Cunningham, Orla Brady and all the supporting cast. The movie raises a subject not only pertinent to Ireland and Irish history but to many communities around the world and many marriage units within those communities. With intensity and sincerity the movie shows how the religious convictions and traditions drove a wedge on a loving and passionate family. The title "Love divided" couldn't capture it any better. Even though it was a true story and happening in Ireland of the 50th seeing how the life of the whole village erodes and "pogroms" are starting reminded me of Russian history. The intolerance and prejudice are still too powerful in the world and unfortunately it's deeply hidden inside the human nature. Just like in the movie the Liam Cunningham's character says "the hatred had always been there under the surface". It was interesting to watch the moral choices people were making in this story. Also the character of a catholic priest and what happened to him in the end of the story was quite meaningful. The story however gives hope that love of two people can conquer everything and love makes us better, stronger. Liam Cunningham's character goes through the whole transformation in the course of the story becoming a man he always wanted to be. Again acting is a top notch. Story is fast-paced. Irish countryside is as beautiful as ever. Highly recommended. | 3 | trimmed_train |
9,339 | Polyester was the very first John Water's film I saw, and I have to say that it was also the "worst" movie I had seen up to that point.<br /><br />Water's group of "talent" included several people who I am sure worked for food, and were willing to say the lines Waters wrote. Every thing about the movie is terrible, acting, camera, editing, and the story about a woman played by 300 lb transvestite Divine was purely absurd.<br /><br />That said, I have to recommend this film because it is very funny, and you won't believe the crap that happens to poor Francine. Her son huffs solvents and stomps unsuspecting women's feet at the grocery store. Her daughter is the sluttiest slut in town. Her husband is a cackling A-hole of a pornographer who does everything in his power to embarrass and humiliate poor Francine.<br /><br />Francine's only friend is played by Edith Massey, possibly the worst actress ever. Edith looks and sounds like she is reading the lines off a cue card and has never seen the script prior to filming.<br /><br />Despite all of Francine's travails, Waters cooks up a fabulous Hollywood ending and everyone (who survives) lives happily ever after. | 0 | trimmed_train |
5,548 | I watched this movie with some friends a couple months ago, I still laugh today thinking about some of the utter stupidity. The first few scenes alone were hilarious. I won't spoil anything for those who wish to see it, I wouldn't want to ruin the laughs. Needless to say the entire time I watched this movie I was trying to figure out exactly what the point of anything the characters in this movie were doing. Towards the end we all got bored however, as the initial hilarity and shock of a movie being this random wore off. There is no plot and not a trace of decent acting. The characters are about as well developed as those in a kindergarten "Learn to Read" book. They even managed to make a lesbian sex scene uninteresting. | 0 | trimmed_train |
3,255 | Back in the days before the Toxic Avenger, the low-camp kings at Troma Films tried to take the high (OK, somewhat-less-low) road of producing straight slasher pics. I'd like to think that viewing the results here is what convinced them to give up all pretension and go for self-conscious parody.<br /><br />Splatter University is another film for the masochists in the audience. As it meanders about through two separate casts and innumerable pointless subplots, it actually becomes painful to watch. Let's see if I can summarize.<br /><br />After learning that a dangerous psychopath has escaped from a local hospital, the action moves to a Catholic university (I don't recall the name, but in honor of the title, let's call it St. Splatter). The students are listless and sullen, and argue pettily with each other, slackers ahead of their time. Meanwhile, the new professor, Julie Parker, proves utterly incompetent at her job. The kids deal with relationships, infidelity, unwanted pregnancies, lecherous priests, and how to avoid doing any work in class; Julie deals with a creepy boyfriend, the inflexible administration at St. Splatter, counseling unwed mothers, and the blank, expressionless looks of her students. None of it means a darn thing or gets resolved in any meaningful way. Oh, and every once in a while, a POV shot comes along and stabs one of the girls to death, but don't hold your breath waiting for it. There's a Red Herring Killer, and then a sadly anticlimactic confrontation with the Real Killer, then it's back to the asylum and roll credits.<br /><br />The slow pace and numerous inane subplots seem almost calculated to produce a mounting sense of frustration in the viewer, which is helped along by choppy editing, coffee-can sound quality, and dialog that just doesn't make any sense. And the most agonizing thing about this movie is the killer's fixation on women - the men in this movie are just so deserving. I'd've paid good money to see someone off the jerk with the pregnant girlfriend, or the lunkhead Lothario who was fooling around with his girlfriend's roommate, or any of the creepy priests. There ain't no justice. | 0 | trimmed_train |
6,930 | I loved "Anchorman; The Legend of Ron Burgundy" and hoped this would be just as funny, but alas, it wasn't. Some bits are excellent though. I thought the sports guy, Champ Kind, professing his love for Ron Burgundy in the car filled with the other members of the news team was hilarious. Everyone is ignoring him and he just gets louder and louder and finally kisses Burgundy which doesn't get acknowledged either. But on the whole the story doesn't gel. It's a noble attempt, however, to salvage the unused bits from the first movie, including an entire plot about some pretty benign would-be domestic terrorists called "The Alarm Clock." Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live is one of the members and has a couple of funny lines, but basically this unused plot line has good reason to be unused in the first movie. The extras on this disk are pretty good, with the best two being the filmed rehearsals featuring lots of improv comedy, and the faux commentary with Will Ferrell and an "exec producer" who Ferrell discovers early on was not even a part of the movie in any way, shape or form. Turns out he's "just a guy" who walked in the side door of the recording studio and pretended to be a producer. It's some pretty funny stuff though and goes on for about 10 or 15 minutes | 2 | trimmed_train |
19,509 | In my line of work, I occasionally get contacted by independent filmmakers who are trying to publicize their film. When I can, I take a look at these low-budget films and often they make me think that the future of Hollywood is going to the dogs. Once in a while, though, there is a film that is born of pure passion and desire, as if created for the purpose of reminding the film industry that good movies are still possible. The short film B R O K E N, directed by Alex Ferrari, is a genuine surprise and worth a second look.<br /><br />Clocking in at a scant 20 minutes, B R O K E N tries to tell a compelling (but surreal) story with almost no back story. The audience is plopped down in the middle of the action with no clue as to what is happening. A young woman (Samantha Jane Polay) awakens from a dream to hear a gunshot and is subsequently abducted from her home. When she awakes, she is surrounded by a group of mercenary thugs that look like they would be at home in a comic book. These nasty guys and girls are larger than life. They are all guns and knives. There is no way out.<br /><br />The kicker here is that, despite being a low budget film it doesn't play like one. From the very beginning, the feeling is that B R O K E N has been shot, edited, and produced by professionals. It looks like something Quentin Tarantino might have done on his day off when he was jamming with the Wachowski brothers. The film is sharp and cool, it looks good and it feels like something big.<br /><br />The acting is much better than I usually see in these smaller films. Polay and Paul Gordon (who plays the head killer, Duncan) were well chosen. As two of the few speaking roles in the film, it is up to them to carry the film. No special effects, no matter how good, would have saved this film from bad acting. Thankfully, Polay manages to convey true fear and Gordon manages to come off as a real psycho. Some of the more limited roles seem to be filled by lesser talent, but it hardly shows.<br /><br />The downside to B R O K E N is that it's only 20 minutes long. The story ends with a Twilight Zone twist that seems a bit contrived and is hardly subtle. Watching it, I felt like I was supposed to have some epiphany, but there was only a feeling that it was much more mundane than I had hoped it would be. The film tries hard to be one of those puzzles that leaves audiences talking for hours at the local coffee shop, but it comes off as unsatisfying. I keep thinking that this is the first 20 minutes of a longer film.<br /><br />MY RATING: 8 out of 10. | 3 | trimmed_train |
15,143 | I saw this film without to know what about were... I'm a fan of Branagh, even more his Shakespeare' films, and, in the beginning, I saw it only for this... and I finished with tears in my eyes, because the great, great serenity, values, affect and brave philosophy about Life of Helena's girl. Recommended to people who are bored with TV programming (in Spain, at least). | 3 | trimmed_train |
16,461 | 'The Mother' is that extraordinary piece of film making - it gets you thinking, it pulls no punches - and ultimately it leaves you thinking. Very much open-ended as to the lead character's fate. Anne Reid (which I only knew briefly from her appearances in some Victoria Wood-led projects and thought a fine comedienne) is truly superb here. Not the stereotypical widowed housewife that was perfect in marriage and motherhood at all. And not all that free-spirited and adventurous at first. She plays her character just with the right note that rings true (well, it did to me). Powerful cast. Great script. Renaissance of European cinema indeed ;) | 3 | trimmed_train |
14,229 | A sweet-natured young mountain man with a sad past (Henry Thomas) comes upon an abandoned baby girl in the woods and instantly falls in love with her. The town elders generally support him in keeping the child, though a local temptress (Cara Seymour) thinks little of the new family. A determined little girl on a long walk and a sinister travelling salesman (David Strathairn at his creepiest) have parallel stories which converge in a fateful way. This is a charming slice-of-life in the Ozarks in the same vein as "Where The Lillies Bloom" & "The Dollmaker". All three were shot on location in those beautiful hills and cover the lives of simple-living -- but not simple-minded -- American folk. A minimum of strong language and brief but pointed violence make this fairly-safe family viewing. | 1 | trimmed_train |
23,476 | I really liked BATMAN: DEAD END, I thought that it had a theatrical feel to it and that given a chance Collora could make a fine film. This trailer didn't quite give me the same impression. The story line, or potential story line, was quite good but due to the acting and special effects left me feeling like this would have made a good TV movie or television show.<br /><br />First, Michael O'Hearn is not that good a Superman. I actually thought he, in his brief appearance, made a decent Clark Kent. Sorry, I just don't think of SuperMan as being that buff. The suit Kent wore masked his size. Batman may have the body of a bodybuilder but not Superman. Supes is toned no doubt but not bulk. Anyway, I didn't care for all his posing and his transformation from Kent to Superman seemed cheezy. Now this may not be just O'Hearn's fault, Collora may have to take some of the credit for poor scripting and direction.<br /><br />Second, the special effects for flying were cheezy. Superman flies through the sky. If was obvious that this Superman flew close to the ground, with the telephone cables and buildings visible above him. I don't think there were any full body shots of Superman flying. Evidently the harness and rigging supporting O'Hearn must have been located on his lower torso.<br /><br />All in all it was a good trailer. I'd probably pay to see a film, if ever made, and would be sure to catch it on television. The story line, an alliance between Lexcorp and Wayne Industries, Superman jealous of Lois's attraction to Wayne, Lex and Twoface teaming to beat Superman and the joining of forces between Batman & Superman is a good one. I'm sure with a larger budget and approval for a full film Collora and company, even O'Hearn could deliver a decent film. Certainly one better than the most of the comic based crap coming out of Hollywood lately. | 1 | trimmed_train |
4,213 | What to say about this movie. Well it is about a bunch of good students who have some bad drugs and turn into delinquent students that sell more of the bad drugs to people. Two of those people have adverse effects as one turns into a toxic avenger type and his girlfriend throws up some creature that grows in the school's basement. That is about all there is to it and they stretch it out for 84 minutes. This movie is pretty bad and should be locked away forever. Though that is not fair, some people like Troma's movies and they can watch it if they want. Troma movies for me though, are the worst movies there are out there. I just watched this one out of morbid curiosity. | 0 | trimmed_train |
1,453 | I loved the Batman tv series and was really looking forward to this. But they tried to do too much.<br /><br />Why they had the story of Adam West and Burt Ward trying to recover the batmobile was beyond me. I don't want to knock Burt or Adam for the way they look now.....It's been 35 years since they appeared at Batman and Robin, but to see them dressed in dress suits and fighting 'badguys' was kinda sad. I would rather of just seen the ex-stars do commentary. The batmobile side story was stupid.<br /><br />As for the flashback movie, I think it was too short and left out way too much. It was really just a quick overview in my opinion. I'd like more background. They showed the Penguin and Joker for about a minute each just to tell the same stuff I already knew. The Joker had a mustache under his makeup and the penguin had to smoke even though he hated it and was an ex-smoker. That was it on those 2.<br /><br />I'd love to read the book. I am sure it has more in it that this showed. Like why was there 2 Riddlers or why 3 Catwoman's or 3 Mister Freezes. Where was Commishioner Gordon, Cheif OHara, Alfred, Mister Freeze, King Tut, etc. the List goes on. Like I said even the ones that were in this one were barely in it.<br /><br />Very disappointing. And really corny. | 0 | trimmed_train |
4,187 | Well, if you like pop/punk, punk, ska, and a tad bit of modern psycho billy, then seeing the live performances are about the only thing worth watching. This movie has tons and tons of band cameos, along with president of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman as a semi-major role, and lots of goofy death scenes. Sounds like it may be good, right? Well, the deaths keep coming, and repeatedly to many different bands of the Warp Tour and the fans at the event. Some of the deaths start of stylish, but then they are recycled over and over, to the point of being completely repetitive. Almost everyone dies of having their head smashed, or intestines being pulled from their stomach. The gore looks as if it was from Andreas Schnaas' "Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence"; with this being the "watered-down type blood", but now that movie is actually decent, and provides humor-something that this movie terribly lacks. Sure, the movie is made by Doug Sakmann from Troma, it's got great low-budget potential, and it tries...but just too hard. Everything is overly meant to be funny in this movie, and thats what brings it down. Everything tries to be too comic and goofy, by using intentional bad acting, an overuse of pointless deaths, and doing the same thing...over and over. It's basically "Mulva: Zombie Ass-Kicker", "Chairman of the Board", or any movie you have made with your friends: it's funny to those who made it, and that's about it.<br /><br />Great potential, great idea, great use of effects-but it's the same thing...over and over: A band plays, a band dies, fans die. Everyone dies, blood is sprayed everywhere, the process is repeated.<br /><br />The question is for these types of movies-which is basically 'bad slap-stick'-do they try too hard, or not at all? | 2 | trimmed_train |
5,336 | I did watch all of the film through to the disgraceful ending even though I felt so angry at what I saw. I felt that the director was screaming for attention and the only way he could achieve this was to be as repulsive as possible. Since I have lived in the UK I have come to love this country but this film depicts British young people in the worst way imaginable. There is nothing to be said but avoid it, it will make you angry and sick. The people involved should be ashamed. | 0 | trimmed_train |
22,853 | Fascinating movie, based on a true story, about an Australian woman, Lindy Chamberlain (Meryl Streep) accused of killing her baby daughter. She insists that a dingo took her baby, but the story is highly suspicious. The film is actually about the media circus that took place around the case, the way Australians interpreted what was presented in the media, and the lynch mob mentality that ultimately led to the woman's conviction, based on barely any hard evidence. I love films that question the media, and also films that take a hard look on how people are railroaded by the justice system. I've always thought that juries ought to be showed 12 Angry Men before they go through with their duties. It's not, as has often been said, a liberal movie, but a clinical look at how we as human beings interpret events based so much on our prejudices and a desire for revenge. A Cry in the Dark is likewise clinical. Schepisi is careful not to make the film at all melodramatic. Some may find the film boring or dry, but I found it engaging. | 3 | trimmed_train |
4,651 | Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...<br /><br />Another computer generated mutant croc on the prowl for human lunchmeat, let loose by another one of those facilities conducting mad science. Gereco Biotech company is fooling around with growth hormone research, accidentally releasing a baby crocodile which is evolving at an accelerating rate.<br /><br />B-movie cast add a deal of fun to this run of the mill "genetic mistake monster movie". Costas Mandylor evokes Mick Dundee, Aussie accent, hat, big ass knife, the works, as a croc specialist hired by Gereco executive Joanna Pacula(..wasted in the stereotypical role of corrupt administrative executive who denies any involvement with the gigantic beast her facility let free on innocent people). Charles Napier is the local sheriff whose town is in danger and Jane Longenecker is his hot daughter, who works at the animal shelter. Soap opera star Matthew Borlenghi is Longenecker's love interest, a local artist who welds sculptures(..his brother is a victim of the croc). Of course, this skill will come in mighty handy when our heroes set up a created trap for the croc, hoping to poison it with carbon monoxide.<br /><br />The croc itself is never the least bit convincing as it rampages through a reserve looking for food, the special effects of a low grade variety. In regards to Roger Corman productions dealing with renegade dino-monsters, I stick with Carnosaur. The monster here is essentially a crocodile standing on it's hind legs, often upright as it pursues potential victims. I felt Mandylor and the filmmakers were spoofing Crocodile Dundee with his croc hunter, and this imitation might amuse where the monster itself fails. Borlenghi and Longenecker actually have pretty good chemistry together on screen. As expected, Pacula gets her commuppance in hilarious fashion(..gulp). | 2 | trimmed_train |
12,558 | I sit through movies like "Tiempo de valientes" and I want to talk about cinema for hours. The admiration this movie caused me is beyond my own limits of explanation, because I'm watching the scenes of the film and I search inside my thoughts for film-making ideas and dialogue innovations that could emerge from something bigger than Damian Szifron's mind.<br /><br />Looking the environment, so uncompromised, so simple, I'm thinking; this man is a genius. No wonder he created what is probably the best television show Argentina ever witnessed, and then a first movie full of elements some contemporary directors haven't still achieved. "El fondo del mar" is the name and, it awakened (a few years ago), my enthusiasm for our everyday cinema.<br /><br />Starting his journey from people's daily real lives, Szifron goes where Pablo Trapero never could in "El Bonaerense"; the Federal Police Department's life. Trapero's film was a journey into a man's mind and experiences, not into the places he saw. Yes, there was a detailed training and lots of crime situations, but Szifron in "in there", his is more of a detective story, like the ones we know and love, with the mysteries and the thrilling music.<br /><br />But there's a lot of humanity in his writing, and he shows us his investigation through the eyes of his main characters, Alfredo Díaz and Mariano Silverstein. There are a lot of actors of great caliber in the film, but these two actors are the ones the film can't do without. The first character (Luis Luque) is a detective that has just found out his wife cheats on him; and has to work on a case.<br /><br />The second one is a psychiatrist that is assigned the treatment of the detective. He wants to deal with him in regular sessions but the sheriff takes advantage of the time disposition and suggests he joins Díaz in his routines: "It's nothing, the usual stuff; no problem". But it is bigger than that, and it will unfold a part of the doctor's personality he didn't know.<br /><br />The relationship developed between the two leads can't be explained unless it is observed, because it regards such a complexity that demonstrates how talented are some men like Szifron that are trying, today, to leave a signature in our history. Reaching points of unbelievable spontaneity, during a high pressure situation, Díaz tells Silverstein: "How do we continue our treatment?", and Silverstein answers: "No, I'm not your doctor. You call me to have dinner; I'm your friend": we laugh because we can't help it.<br /><br />And we can't help laughing when Díaz crashes a car in the street and doesn't gives importance to it, or when he trespasses all the red lights in the street, or when he smokes pot in his police patrol and Silverstein can't believe it (but then smokes it too because he's screwed up); or when Silverstein tries to be friendly with Díaz's robber friends. Magic from Diego Peretti is what we receive there. He, a psychiatrist himself, gives a performance in plan "Locas de amor", but impresses with all his range. Luis Luque on the other hand, is back on track with a top-notch portrayal that reminds us the great actor he is.<br /><br />There's a passion I have for this, and as I said, I could write about it for hours, but unfortunately that's not the way it works and I have to be precise and summarize. Although I have to watch a lot of the old movies and study them, I could assure that "Tiempo de valientes" is the comedy Argentina had been waiting for and never got
Until now. | 3 | trimmed_train |
23,375 | I thought the movie was actually pretty good. I enjoyed the acting and it moved along well. The director seemed to really grasp the story he was trying to tell. I have to see the big budget one coming out today, obviously they had a lot more money to throw at it but was very watchable. When you see a movie like this for a small budget you have to take that in to account when you are viewing it. There were some things that could of been better but most are budget related. The acting was pretty good the F/X and stunts were well done. A couple of standouts were the guy who played the camera asst. and the boy who played the child. These kind of films have kept LA working and this is one that turned out OK. | 1 | trimmed_train |
12,835 | 'Presque Rien' ('Come Undone') is an earlier work by the inordinately gifted writer/ director Sébastien Lifshitz (with the collaboration of writer Stéphane Bouquet - the team that gave us the later 'Wild Side'). As we come to understand Lifshitz's manner of storytelling each of his works becomes more treasureable. By allowing his tender and sensitive love stories to unfold in the same random fashion found in the minds of confused and insecure youths - time now, time passed, time reflective, time imagined, time alone - Lifshitz makes his tales more personal, involving the viewer with every aspect of the characters' responses. It takes a bit of work to key into his method, but going with his technique draws us deeply into the film.<br /><br />Mathieu (handsome and gifted Jérémie Elkaïm) is visiting the seaside for a holiday, a time to allow his mother (Dominique Reymond) to struggle with her undefined illness, cared for by the worldly and wise Annick (Marie Matheron) and accompanied by his sister Sarah (Laetitia Legrix): their distant father has remained at home for business reasons. Weaving in and out of the first moments of the film are images of Mathieu alone, looking depressed, riding trains, speaking to someone in a little recorder. We are left to wonder whether the unfolding action is all memory or contemporary action.<br /><br />While sunning at the beach Mathieu notices a handsome youth his age starring at him, and we can feel Mathieu's emotions quivering with confusion. The youth Cédric (Stéphane Rideau) follows Mathieu and his sister home, continuing the mystery of attraction. Soon Cédric approaches Mathieu and a gentle introduction leads to a kiss that begins a passionate love obsession. Mathieu is terrified of the direction he is taking, rebuffs Cédric's public approaches, but continues to seek him out for consignations. The two young men are fully in the throes of being in love and the enactment of the physical aspect of this relationship, so very necessary to understanding this story, is shared with the audience in some very erotic and sensual scenes. Yet as the summer wears on Mathieu, a committed student, realizes that Cédric is a drifter working in a condiment stand at a carnival. It becomes apparent that Cédric is the Dionysian partner while Mathieu is the Apollonian one: in a telling time in architectural ruin Mathieu is excited by the beauty of the history and space while Cédric is only interested in the place as a new hideaway for lovemaking.<br /><br />Mathieu is a complex person, coping with his familial ties strained by critical illness and a non-present father, a fear of his burgeoning sexuality, and his nascent passion for Cédric. Their moments of joy are disrupted by Cédric's admission of infidelity and Mathieu's inability to cope with that issue and eventually they part ways. Time passes, family changes are made, and Mathieu drifts into depression including a suicide attempt. The manner in which Mathieu copes with all of these challenges and finds solace, strangely enough, in one of Cédric's past lovers Pierre (Nils Ohlund) brings the film to an ambiguous yet wholly successful climax.<br /><br />After viewing the film the feeling of identification with these characters is so strong that the desire to start the film from the beginning now with the knowledge of the complete story is powerful. Lifshitz has given us a film of meditation with passion, conflicts with passion's powers found in love, and a quiet film of silences and reveries that are incomparably beautiful. The entire cast is superb and the direction is gentle and provocative. Lifshitz is most assuredly one of the bright lights of film-making. In French with English subtitles. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp | 3 | trimmed_train |
12,622 | Joe Buck (Jon Voight) decides he's going to leave his small life in Texas and make it big in the Big City. The women are there for the asking and the men are mainly "tutti-fruttis." Wide-eyed, he comes to New York City, not prepared for the series of humiliating misadventures he experiences, one worse than the other. In the middle of that chaos, he meets and befriends Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffmann), a homeless-looking man who lives in an apparently condemned building.<br /><br />There isn't much of a story as MIDNIGHT COWBOY is a series of vignettes destined to bring forth not only Joe Buck's plights in the City, but also inter-cut to his past and show us in shock cuts and semi-psychedelic dream sequences snippets of his past: his failed relationship with his girlfriend Annie (Jennifer Salt) who was gang-raped, his abandonment by his mother, and his apparent abuse by his grandmother, who also had a habit of hustling men for money. An air of pessimism dominates the film almost from the wistful beginning as Nilsson plays throughout the opening credits his deceptively flowery "Everybody's Talking'"; we feel that even while we want Joe to eventually make his mark in the City, the odds are high he won't and will end up working for pennies in a dead-end job -- shown in a masterful shot from his outside point of view later in the film as he watches a man work as a dishwasher in a soup kitchen through a window and sees himself. We know from the look in his eyes he does not want to end like this.<br /><br />A dark story of dashed hopes, John Schlesinger creates haunting images of lost souls at the end of the 60s, and at the center, the prevailing friendship between two men as they struggle to make some sort of meaning to their lives amidst the elusive comfort of a dignified life. There is the implied notion that they may have been lovers -- Ratso's reaching out to hug Joe in the party scene and their the final embrace at the end certainly points at this -- but this is essentially a buddy film, one that manages to survive, literally, to the death, and bring some form of hope to Joe who at the end in Florida seems much changed, older, wiser. | 3 | trimmed_train |
16,531 | I remembered seeing this movie when i was a kid one day on the wonderful world of Disney. This movie has been in my memory for over 30 years and I have been looking for it. I would have to say that out of all the kids movies I saw back then,, this one stuck out more than all of them and after only seeing it once, I really hoped I would get to see it again. The story and images of this movie have been burned into my memory. To this day, I never did see it after that day back in the 70s, in fact, I never remembered the title until an internet search earlier today disclosed it to me. I loved it and want my kids to see it.Does anybody know where I can find it? | 3 | trimmed_train |
14,337 | First let me say the director has some wonderful use of titles in his establishing shots. I really enjoyed them. I really enjoyed this movie but I got to say next to Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinear is pretty lackluster. Brosnan melts into this character so well, that it is really hard to remember that this is the same guy that played bond. It also shows his range and depth as an actor. It is kinda of an indie flick and was really nice to see especially with all of the mainstream movies that flood the movies at this time of the year. I found the characters to be well crafted. The twist in the middle I felt was especially good. I also liked how the characters come off realistically. So many times we have in film these caricatures of people that are not really characters but walking-stereotypes... I like the different approaches this movie takes. I think of sideways when I think of this movie but I think this is more watchable and a better movie overall... | 1 | trimmed_train |
20,627 | This movie starts out brisk, has some slow moments in the middle, but generally moves along well, has a few very good moments, then peters out at the end of Act 3. I was able to get to see this in LA premieres 2 times (with 2 different endings). Jason Lee is a star, but he is not tomorrows leading man. He is humorous and holds his own, but he is better served as a supporting actor. Julia Stiles does 'ok' in a comedy role, new for her, but she doesn't 'steal' this movie, the way a star of her caliber should. For an actress who has so much potential(10 Things, Save the Last Dance, O), it is hard to watch her continue to do roles that are so 'average', and then not have her take the role and run away with the movie (like Daniel Day-Lewis did in 'Gangs'). Selma Blair is a good young actress as well, and does an 'ok' job. I didn't expect an academy award performance from her, and she didn't deliver one, but, her performance was adequate. Chris Koch delivers another film that is 'above average'. Perhaps the problem lies in the script more than anything else. I 'did' like this movie! But, it is not a movie where you walk away and say...'that was great!'...This 'story' has been done so many times before and there was just not much new here. The rehearsal dinner scene was probably the best in the movie, and Larry Miller gives an incredible performance in a supporting role (he could be the best surprise of the film). If you want to go see a movie that will make you laugh a few times, and have an enjoyable evening, I can still recommend this film, but unless they have changed the ending...again...leave during the church scene, or you will surely be disappointed. | 1 | trimmed_train |
24,758 | Kids - of whatever age - do not want to know about their parents' sex lives. And grown-up children are often seriously baffled and disconcerted by any evidence that aging parents possess an active libido. Lastly, many moviegoers are very uncomfortable watching a dowdy, frumpy widow who would pass unnoticed almost anywhere discover her aching capacity and need for raw passion with a handsome man half her age.<br /><br />"The Mother" is a provocative look at a scarcely filmed reality - a woman who isn't ready to stay home, watch "the telly," and vegetate after her husband of nearly three decades, and a controlling, dominating chap at that, packs it in with a massive heart attack.<br /><br />May (Anne Reid) and her husband have two children, each dysfunctional in his or her own way. The male son lives with a beautiful wife who may well be driving him to the Bankruptcy Court with her extravagant commercial venture. Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw), is a teacher with aspirations of succeeding as a writer. She's attractive, not pretty, and she seems to have a close relationship with mum - at first.<br /><br />Back at her house after burying her husband, May determines to not stay there. Rejecting typical widowhood with its legacy of boring days and no adventure, she goes to stay with Paula who has a young son. Paula's boyfriend, Darren (Daniel Craig), is a ruggedly handsome contractor who seems to be taking an awfully long time to complete an addition to May's son's house. May is quite taken with hard-drinking, coke-sniffing Darren whose treatment of Paula ought to have alerted May that he was, for sure, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Cads.<br /><br />What follows is a torrid affair between Darren and the besotted and now bubblingly alive (dare I say reborn?) widow. The love scenes are graphic but take second place to amateur artist May's pen and ink sketches of their trysts which then play a role in the enfolding drama (or debacle, take your pick).<br /><br />The theater in Manhattan was packed for today's early afternoon showing with well over half the audience in the range of May's age. That some were shocked or disturbed to see her disporting herself with erotic abandon in the arms of a much younger man is an understatement. <br /><br />This blindingly honest look at an older woman's awakened passion after decades of dutifully obeying her husband's desire that she stay at home and raise kids (she also mentions he didn't like her to have friends-what a guy) surfaces a number of issues. While May's dalliance with Darren doesn't constitute incest, there are real psychological dimensions, and issues, with a mother bedding her daughter's lover. And Paula isn't made of the stoutest stuff to begin with. The affair, once disclosed, allows the peeling open of the mother-daughter relationship which, from Paula's viewpoint, left something to be desired. Ms. Bradshaw is excellent in the role of a daughter who wants her mother's support as well as her love-she hasn't been dealt a terrible hand by life but it isn't a bed of roses either.<br /><br />May is strong in her resolve to both acknowledge her sexuality and expect, indeed demand, a future of happiness. But she is also inescapably vulnerable. She's fishing in uncharted emotional waters. Who controls her relationship with Darren and why are difficult issues for her to understand, much less resolve. In her sixties, she's still a work in progress.<br /><br />"Something's Gotta Give" recently showcased mature sexuality but in an amusingly antiseptic way assuring no viewer would be discomfited. After all it's Jack Nicholson and the always beautiful Diane Keaton cavorting in the world of the rich. And to insure that no serious psycho-social issues were explored, Keaton's young girlfriend, Amanda Peet, daughter of Keaton, not only blesses the match but insures that the audience knows she and her old(er) would-be lover never hopped into the sack.<br /><br />No easy out here. Anne Reid's inspired performance forces discomfort on some while drawing respect from others. Her naked body bursts with sexuality for some and appears absurd as an object of physical attraction to others (the comments of audience members leaving today reflected all these views).<br /><br />Kudos to director Roger Michell for tackling a fascinating story with verve and empathy.<br /><br />9/10. | 3 | trimmed_train |
18,755 | I saw this film 12 years ago on TNT. It was Susanah York's Birthday and they were showing this film as a double feature with Tom Jones (1963). I have not seen this film on TV since. I took interest in seeing this film because one of the stars is the very funny and talented Jim Dale, as Lusty the sailor. I believe that Dale now does the narration of the Harry Potter books on Casette, but anyway he is quite funny. This is a fast paced comedy. It is not on VHS or DVD. Columbia Pictures should go through their film collection, and consider restoring and releasing this film to DVD. Christopher Plummer is hilarious as Lord Fopington, Ian Bannen is also quite humorous as Ramble the sailor. This is a bawdy comedy, the kind of film one no longer sees, with great production values. ***1/2 stars out of **** | 3 | trimmed_train |
12,264 | This could well be the worst film I've ever seen. Despite what Mikshelt claims, this movie isn't even close to being historically accurate. It starts badly and then it's all downhill from there. We have Hitler's father cursing his own bad luck on the "fact" that he'd married his niece! They were in fact, second cousins. Hitler's mother, Klara, called his father, Alois, "uncle" because Alois had been adopted and raised by Klara's grandfather and brought up as his son, when he was really his nephew. Alois was much older than Klara and so as a child she'd got into the habit of calling Alois, "uncle."<br /><br />The scene in the trenches where Hitler is mocked by his fellow soldiers and decides to take it out on his dog is simply a disgrace and an insult to the intelligence of all viewers. We see Hitler chase the dog through the trench, when he catches up with the poor thing he proceeds to thrash it for disobeying him. In the distance we see and hear his fellow soldiers continue to mock and chastise the cowardly little man, but then a shell lands directly on his persecutors, and every last one, we are told, is killed outright. How then, if Hitler was the only person to survive the scene, did this tale of brutality and cowardice come to be told? Did Hitler himself go around "boasting" about it? - I don't think so.<br /><br />Next up, Hitler bullies and intimidates a poor, stressed out and war weary Jewish officer into giving him an Iron Cross! I can only assume that this Jewish officer had been a pawnbroker before fighting for the Fatherland, and had thoughtfully brought along some pledged medals from his shop, because I'm certain that Iron Crosses were not being handed out as shown in this comic farce.<br /><br />All the grotesque clichés are here, not least the calming and hypnotic effect of Wagner's music upon the little man. If only the producers had kept Ian Kershaw on side. Then they might have discovered that Franz Lehar's "Merry Widow" was more likely to float the Fuhrer's boat than any "Flying Dutchman" from the cannon of Richard Wagner!<br /><br />Hitler may have been responsible for the deaths of 60 million people but how can he ever be forgiven for his appalling taste in music?<br /><br />I could go on but I'd be at it for hours.<br /><br />Give it a miss. | 0 | trimmed_train |
7,853 | Well, no, not really. Its not really a good movie, but its not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I really didn't feel ripped off of my rental money, and sometimes thats all you can ask for. The plot is OK, nothing brilliant or new, the acting is pretty bad, but the cast is pretty. The directing is passable, but the effects are horrible, especially the werewolf effects, which in a werewolf movie, is a pretty big problem. There was a fairly decent amount of nudity, which to me is a pretty good thing, but it wasn't all that hot. All in all, its a fairly average direct to video movie, not the worst film I've ever seen and if you're bored a genre fan, check it out sometime. I'd even watch it again.<br /><br />Bonus fact for horror geeks, Kane Hodder (Jason Vorhees in a few of them) plays the werewolf. | 2 | trimmed_train |
13,207 | I'd love to give this movie a 10/10, but in its existing state I can only go to 8/10 tops. The post-Code editing (read: destroying) of this film warrants a 2-point demerit.<br /><br />From my very limited knowledge of film history, Baby Face was apparently one of two movies that finally broke the camel's back and brought the full wrath and enforcement of the Production Code into play in 1934. (I don't know what the other movie was.) As a result, the movie in its original incarnation was never allowed to be re-released after 1934. It was chopped and edited to bits, and no original version is known to exist today. The best that we can see today is the version that TCM (Turner Classic Movies) shows, but that is blatantly edited in several scenes, and has a really disappointing "happy ending" slapped onto the end.<br /><br />All the above being said, the movie is still pretty darned great and lots of fun to watch. Barbara Stanwyck is, as always, absolutely amazing and wonderful. She is so beautiful and powerful; she just owns the whole movie! She plays a woman who's been used by men her entire life, starting with her father who pimps her out to the local Erie, PA steel workers as well as to local politicians in a quid pro quo of 'if you don't shut down my speakeasy I'll let you sleep with my daughter'. When the father dies in a fiery explosion near the beginning of the flick, the smile on Stanwyck's face is priceless.<br /><br />After the fire, Stanwyck leaves Erie with her maid and heads to New York City. She sets her sights on a skyscraper and starts literally working her way to the top. Starting out with the personnel clerk in the HR department, she sleeps with him to get an entry level position at the bank. From there, she sleeps with man after man after man (including a very young John Wayne) using each new man to help her land a higher paying job on a higher floor of the skyscraper, with increasingly powerful male bosses cum sugar daddies. Stanwyck stops at nothing in her rise to the top. It is great fun to see her and her maid in increasingly fancier clothes and apartments as Stanwyck works her way up the corporate ladder. Stanwyck is the ultimate femme fatale, manipulating, she-vixen in this flick! If you watch this movie, I recommend stopping when you see the George Brent character (Courtland Trenholm) die in Stanwyck's arms. Skip the remaining 3 minutes or so! The "happy ending" slapped on to the end of the movie for post-Code audiences is insulting to the audience's intelligence and lame beyond belief: the bank board members are sitting around a table expositing about Mr. and Mrs. Trenholm's million dollar donation to the bank and how they are living happily but poor in Erie, with former VP Trenholm now working in the steel mills - cut to the exact same footage of a steel plant that we saw in the beginning of the movie - "The End". PUH-LEEZE - HOW LAME! The movie originally ended with George Brent succeeding in his suicide attempt. I think that ending fits the overall mood of the movie much better than the slapped on post-Code ending.<br /><br />I certainly hope that a print of the original pre-Code version of this flick is discovered during my lifetime (update: the original HAS been found and should be out on DVD and/or TCM in 2006!). Until then, I'll enjoy the TCM version and switch it off before the lame-o post-Code ending. | 1 | trimmed_train |
16,680 | "If I sit down I will never stand up again", that's what the mother (the one of the title) says to his son when he tells her to get some rest (she's just widowed). He means that resting is what a woman of his age and in her situation has to do: to rest in peace, to neglect herself. But she's not in the mood for "resting", not yet. She also has a daughter who reproaches her for each and every disasters in her life... Suddenly, the revelation comes: sex and passion in the figure of a muscular carpenter 30 years younger than her (Daniel Craig, the brand new James Bond) when she "thought nobody would ever touch her again". It is a story that makes you reflect on many things, specially on what's a 60 something woman is supposed to do with her life when his husband dies. It doesn't look that we've advanced that such in those aspects. I mean, nobody's surprised when Sean Connery has a love affair in a movie with Catherine Zeta Jones... but what would you think if it was otherwise? An old woman, a young guy... nah, you ain't ready for that, are you?<br /><br />The movie has intimist tones all along its length, except for 2 or 3 sequences in which that tones breaks and out comes some explicit and foul-mouthed dialogs. Those vulgar touches and the way the son and the daughter find out their mother's love affair (pretty absurd -you'll know what I mean when you watch it-) are the only discordant elements in "The Mother". <br /><br />*My rate: 7/10 | 1 | trimmed_train |
23,399 | Had a bad day? Dog bit the mailman? Car wouldn't start? People got on your nerves? Then refresh yourself with a delightful experience.<br /><br />Two women decide to pool their resources in answer to an ad for a month's rental of a villa in Italy. Due to financial circumstances, two other women join them. Two have humdrum marital lives; one is an elderly woman who prefers to live in the past; the fourth is a wealthy and beautiful woman wholly jaded by life.<br /><br />As the spell of the villa permeates their spirits, each grows in her own way and is uplifted in her outlook. This also changes the people in their lives who have visited them. As they leave you know the magic of the villa will remain with them...and you will find your outlook altered, for the better. A delightfully uplifting movie! | 1 | trimmed_train |
5,197 | This is the sort of thing that only now thrills the film eggheads. After all, Feierstein's Flex Crush will have you know that Real Men don't watch anything by Truffaut. <br /><br />It might have been interesting if Truffaut had anything to -say- here. The camera-as-voyeur motif was nothing new. Have we all forgotten De Sica's "Bicycle Thief"? Or anything by Hitchcock?<br /><br />So all we get is the extended metaphor of the juvenile as Truffaut, who spends all his free time 'screwing up his eyes' at the movies, who wrecks schoolroom discipline, gets accused of plagiarism(the many petty thefts), and ultimately escapes societal confines to make 'his own movie'. Sorry...been there, done that too many times for this to matter. | 0 | trimmed_train |
3,935 | WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SLIGHT SPOILERS<br /><br />There's a parallel universe out there where Gone In 60 Seconds is a dark, edgy, controversial independent movie. Unfortunately in this dimension Gone... is a flashy, vacuous, testosterone-fuelled moronfest starring Nicolas Cage.<br /><br />For reasons not really worth getting into, he and his large number of cronies have four days to steal fifty expensive cars, only one of which has an alarm. This crew consists of the guy with the funny-shaped ears who's rumoured to be the new Superman; a guy who conducted electricity in The X-Files; an ex-professional footballer and two token black men.<br /><br />Their enemies are cops, rival car thieves and Bilborough from Cracker, his Manchester accent suitably flattened and broadened for American audiences who are now used to that sort of thing since Daphne in Frasier. There's also Angelina Jolie, who gets no character; save to be a receptacle to men's sexual desires. She and Cage are supposed to be old flames, which is odd, as they never have anything approaching a normal conversation in all of the film's overlong 135m running time.<br /><br />In fact, characterisation is so poor that whenever anyone has a "moment" a violin plays in the background to accentuate the "emotion". It's no spoiler to reveal that Vinnie Jones (who recreates his famous Paul Gasgoine "hand ball" manoeuvre and is quite menacing when silent) only gets one line; not because his inability to speak is integral to the plot but because his eloquent summing up of the film's dubious morality after appearing mute the whole way through is funny. Allegedly. After he struggles through it in his "not-quite-acting-but-it'll-do" London drawl, Cage quips "I always thought you were from Long Island". My ribs, as you might imagine, were well and truly tickled.<br /><br />In fact humour is the most undeveloped aspect, from the tactless comedy policeman to the two token black characters. This sees the biggest aspect of Hollywood take hold; why is it that a black man cannot appear in a major motion picture without being constantly aware of his skin tone and endlessly refer to it? The younger man, who, like the elder, jive-talks for the whole duration, proclaims: "us black people don't like the cold ... we're tropical people". He then goes on to express an urge to smoke a joint and watch Roots. He is, of course, parodying the image of black people, but how funny is that? His older counterpart cannot speak without referring to himself, and thereby his colour, in third person. "My black ass" this, "my black ass" that. Does anyone know any black people who actually speak like that? Thought not.<br /><br />The film's soundtrack is played almost non-stop and with increasing volume, some of the tracks - especially Apollo 440's "Don't Stop The Rock" - so loud they're actually more audible than the sound effects and dialogue. The surroundsound system even separates the two to such a degree that it makes them sound like two different films running together. No background music concept here, it's the aural equivalent of trying to watch a film while someone at the back of the cinema has their stereo turned up full blast. "Keep that music down, young man!"<br /><br />This isn't the worst film in the world and in many ways I enjoyed it. It's just that it's predictable, lazy and witless, with minimal effort in its construction. Apparently box office expectations are considerably down for this movie. After being force-fed junk for several years it appears the general public are starting to wake up to the fact. | 2 | trimmed_train |
2,473 | This movie was pretty bad. Sci-fi is usually my favorite channel so I watch all the original movies that play on it. I really don't know if this movie can be called original. Starting a zoo/theme park on a remote island sounds pretty familiar. What was it, oh yeah, Jurassic Park. But this has Sabertooth tigers instead.<br /><br />The movie starts out with a few stereotypical college kids on an island doing some kind of treasure hunt. One of them ends up dieing a rather gruesome death with some of the worst special effects I've seen. The blood looked a lot like ketchup. Also at the beginning there is a scientist who wants to make as many saber tooth tigers as possible for people to enjoy. 3 of them have already escaped and are going around eating the tourists, or the people invited to the island to see the tigers first hand. Again, sound like Jurassic Park. Probably the coolest thing was the 1000lb saber tooth who crawled around on his front legs killing the mad scientist with a tooth statue of sorts that somehow shrinks and goes through the guys neck. Funniest death I've seen on TV.<br /><br />The acting is extremely cheesy, the special effects are horrible. The CG tigers could almost pass for clay models, and even some of the sounds were off. For instance, when one of the college students is trying to escape, he uses an ax to break down a door, the ax goes into the door and about 2 seconds later you hear the sound. This movie was pretty bad. The cheesy deaths were quite funny though. | 0 | trimmed_train |
5,775 | Well, at least my theater group did, lol. So of course I remember watching Grease since I was a little girl, while it was never my favorite musical or story, it does still hold a little special place in my heart since it's still a lot of fun to watch. I heard horrible things about Grease 2 and that's why I decided to never watch it, but my boyfriend said that it really wasn't all that bad and my friend agreed, so I decided to give it a shot, but I called them up and just laughed. First off the plot is totally stolen from the first one and it wasn't really clever, not to mention they just used the same characters, but with different names and actors. Tell me, how did the Pink Ladies and T-Birds continue years on after the former gangs left? Not to mention the creator face motor cycle enemy, gee, what a striking resemblance to the guys in the first film as well as these T-Birds were just stupid and ridiculous.<br /><br />Another year at Rydell and the music and dancing hasn't stopped. But when a new student who is Sandy's cousin comes into the scene, he is love struck by a pink lady, Stephanie. But she must stick to the code where only Pink Ladies must stick with the T-Birds, so the new student, decides to train as a T-Bird to win her heart. So he dresses up as a rebel motor cycle bandit who can ride well and defeat the evil bikers from easily kicking the T-Bird's butts. But will he tell Stephanie who he really is or will she find out on her own? Well, find out for yourself.<br /><br />Grease 2 is like a silly TV show of some sort that didn't work. The gang didn't click as well as the first Grease did, not to mention Frenchy coming back was a bit silly and unbelievable, because I thought that she graduated from Rydell, but apparently she didn't. The songs were not really that catchy; I'm glad that Michelle was able to bounce back so fast, but that's probably because she was the only one with talent in this silly little sequel, I wouldn't really recommend this film, other than if you are curious, but I warned you, this is just a pathetic attempt at more money from the famous musical.<br /><br />2/10 | 0 | trimmed_train |
2,774 | The main reason for writing this review is I found this "revisioning" of a great play and worthy 1972 film, a horrible movie experience. If I can save someone from watching it, I will have done a good thing.<br /><br />This "new" version is loaded with talent, and it all goes wrong. Kenneth Branagh OKs an ugly, sterile, one note set. He proceeds to film the movie from every arty, distracting, self-centered angle possible. We see reflections of the actors in stainless steel, on security monitors, shots of their heads from 200 ft above, close ups of eyes, chins, and on and on. The screenplay, by a Nobel Laureate, introduces long stretchs of unpleasant homosexual banter, that is being faked by both parties,.... I think?? Given the character "twists" how would I know? The characters themselves,so richly drawn in the original, are crass and unsympathetic. The running time has been cut by an hour, which is either the real problem or the kindest thing the Director did for us. The actors perform their lines effectively, but nothing they say or do is remotely believable. Jude Law is over the top more than Caine, but as the credited Producer, must have had Branagh's blessing.<br /><br />All in all I found this to be an ugly to look at, unconvincing shell of a former classic. Why was it even made??? The paying public spent less that $4M worldwide to see it! A vanity piece of work that fails at every turn. | 0 | trimmed_train |
18,644 | Tweaked a little bit, 'Nothing' could be a children's film. It's a very clever concept, touches upon some interesting metaphysical themes, and goes against pretty much every Hollywood convention you can think of...what goes against everything more than, literally, "nothing"? Nothing is the story of two friends who wish the world away when everything goes wrong with their lives. All that's left is what they don't hate, and a big empty white space. It's hard to focus a story on just two actors for the majority of your film, especially without any cuts to anything going on outside the plot. It focuses on pretty much one subject, but that's prime Vincenzo Natali territory. If you've seen 'Cube', you know already that he tends to like that type of situation. The "nothing" in this movie is apparently infinite space, but Natali somehow manages to make it somewhat claustrophobic, if only because there's literally nothing else, and nowhere else to go. The actors sell it, although you can tell these guys are friends anyway. Two actors from 'Cube' return here (Worth and Kazan), but are entirely different characters. They change throughout the story, and while they're not the strongest actors in the world, they're at least believable.<br /><br />The reason I say this could be a children's film under the right tweaks, is because aside from a few f-bombs and a somewhat unnecessary bloody dream sequence, the whimsical and often silly feel of this movie could very much be digested easily by kids. So I find it an odd choice that the writers decided to add some crass language and a small amount of gore, especially considering there isn't very much of it. This could've gotten a PG rating easily had they simply cut a few things out and changed a little dialogue. There is very little objectionable about this film, but just enough to keep parents from wanting their kids to see it. I only say that's a shame because not because I support censorship, but because that may have been the only thing preventing this movie from having wider exposure.<br /><br />At any rate, this is a reasonably entertaining film, albeit with a few dragged-out scenes. But for literally being about nothing, and focused entirely on two characters and their interactions with absolutely nothing, they do a surprisingly good job for an independent film. | 1 | trimmed_train |
511 | This film has nothing whatever to do with the Sphinx, and the title is just a come-on. The story concerns an imagined true and concealed tomb in the Valley of the Kings, of King Seti I, second pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, New Kingdom period. It is not a bad yarn, and a great deal of the film is shot on location. Even the scenes in the Winter Palace Hotel lobby in Luxor were really shot there, and not in a studio. The second unit stuff is endless, and they must have been let loose on Egypt for weeks. Frank Langella is very good indeed as a sophisticated Egyptian. He should take it up as a sideline. The film is essentially ruined by one of the world's most irritating actresses, Lesley Anne Down, who plays the lead. She spends the whole film wondering how she looks, are her blue eyes refracting light at the correct angle, do all the fellas lust after her, etc. Having started life as a model at the age of ten, what hope could there be for her? She epitomises everything that is most revolting about female vanity and dim-witted inanity. And to think that this film was directed by Franklin Shaffner, who won an Oscar for 'Patton'! He allows this terrible actress to whimper and simper through the film, hysterical one moment, flirting the next, in a kind of hurricane of idiocy as she reels from one man to another, either screaming or making bedroom eyes, it matters not. She is supposed to be a young Egyptologist. But she has never been to Egypt before! She takes a taxi to Giza and catching her first glimpse of the pyramids, gushes in ecstasy: 'But they're so BIG!!!!' Barf! OK, so that was the script, but she takes to the banality too readily, giving the impression that it is her natural element, which I don't doubt for a minute. Elements of the story are sound. There is, indeed, a serious problem about a black market in antiquities there. True! Well done! The novel by Robin Cook, which I have not seen, may be OK for all I know. It was fun to see the name of Cyril Swern as sound recordist on the film, as I knew him pretty well long ago. Stanley Kubrick's step-daughter Katharina is described as 'draughtswoman'. I wonder what that means? Maybe she did some set work. Anyway, the antiquities in the film are pretty good, actually. And we get to see lots of the Cairo Museum and numerous scenic locations. They actually go inside King Tutankhamun's Tomb! I don't imagine that would be allowed today for a movie. A lot of inappropriate scenes take place in mosques. That would not go down well today, but in 1981 such things were not on the agenda. The music for the film is absolutely appalling, worse than Lesley Anne Down in fact! But there were sound track elements which were surprisingly authentic, one being the cacophony of traffic noise of Cairo, which is accurately rendered in the background, and would make anyone who knows Cairo chuckle nervously. Also, the loudspeaker calls to prayer are there the whole time, another touch of authenticity. Why didn't they get this right? It could have been good. | 0 | trimmed_train |
9,887 | Okay, what the hell kind of TRASH have I been watching now? "The Witches' Mountain" has got to be one of the most incoherent and insane Spanish exploitation flicks ever and yet, at the same time, it's also strangely compelling. There's absolutely nothing that makes sense here and I even doubt there ever was a script to work with, but somehow I couldn't turn it off. The scratching your head with confusion starts right away, with an opening sequence about an angry little girl that killed her mother's cat. So you think this film revolves on children possessed by evil forces? Heck no, because after this intro, the girl and her wickedness simply aren't mentioned anymore. Then cut to a guy, with the most impressively trimmed mustache you'll ever see, who breaks up with his girlfriend in a rather unsubtle way. When she asks him to spend his vacation with her, he promptly phones his employer requesting him any type of assignment! Great move. The movie finally starts now, as he travels to an isolated mountain area to photograph some peaks. Though not before he picks up a new girl (Patty Shepard) and photographs her topless! Throughout their journey, all kind of strange events occur that you guessed it are never explained. The girl wakes up in the middle of the forest, loud petrifying music plays everywhere and someone even steals the jeep! Really, car jacking witches? Apparently a coven of silent witches owns the mountains and they practice voodoo on trespassers. That's as close as I get describing the plot, but there's a good chance I'm way off
More important here is the atmosphere! "The Witches' Mountain" is occasionally very creepy, with its spooky music and interesting cinematography. The supportive characters all look uncanny and the ravishing Patty Shepard plays a good heroine. This is the type of European horror film that could have been legendary, if only someone had bothered to write a structured screenplay. | 2 | trimmed_train |
24,602 | Delirious, near plot-less mood piece and if it's more LSD inspired than the Devil then we must remember when it was made! After a startling SM opening (which even itself is not what it seems) we move to soft focus and dream or imaginings or remembering
. Lots of literary and cinematic references and indeed this is the Franco film that Lang himself praised. Beautiful and mesmerising the film unfolds at a leisurely pace but has a richness within each fold. A rare movie to languish within. Old Jess could make 'em when he tried. Fine central performances too including the indomitable Jack Taylor and Howard Vernon. I haven't even mentioned the Lisbon locations - ah! | 1 | trimmed_train |
24,642 | This in my opinion is one of the best action movies of the 1970s. It not only features a great cast but is also loaded with wild shootouts and explosions that are still impressive today. The story is about a Vietnam vet (Kris Kristofferson) being recruited by his brother (Jan-Michael Vincent) to help clean up the criminal element in a small town and what happens when Kris starts taking advantage of his position and becomes as bad as the criminals he was hired to get rid of. It's great seeing Kris play against type. Bernadette Peeters and Victoria Principal both offer great support as the respective ladies of the two male stars. Jan-Michael shows real movie star persona in this film. I don't think Vigilante Force is on video but it occasionally shows up on TV. It's a great flick for guys who like movies. | 3 | trimmed_train |
2,749 | Why did I go to see this film? Honestly, because Jim Carrey was in it and in the past he has made hilarious movies that have made me cry with laughter, so do you really blame me for expecting that again? Additionally, the premise, the funny trailer, his co-star Jennifer Aniston's involvement, and the fact it was a massive hit stateside encouraged me.<br /><br />However, as my "one line Summary" suggests, I was Disappointed. For various reasons;<br /><br />Reason 1: It wasn't funny. In a 2hour movie, I laughed for about 5-10minutes...all together, the rest of the time I sat thinking "I really should have got some ice-cream". I admit that maybe it is wrong to judge Jim Carrey on his previous films, but what does he really expect when he makes Gem's such as 'The Truman Show' , 'Liar Liar' , 'Me, Myself and Irene' , 'Dumb and Dumber' , 'The Mask', and the 'Ace Ventura' films then produces, in Bruce Nolan's own words, such a mediocre film?<br /><br />Reason 2: Jennifer Aniston's role was criminally underwritten. I mean hello! She's been around in the public eye for about ten years now, and in this film she gets about four lines to say. Wrong.<br /><br />Reason 3: One word - Cliché<br /><br />Reason 4: A casual deployment of specifically American References - Jimmy Hoffa, Walter Cronkite 'sweeps week' - is a clue to the film's specifically home-grown appeal. "A teenager says no to drugs and yes to an Education - that's a miracle! Want to see a miracle soon? Be the miracle!" God tells Bruce, a heavy handed sentiment that seems to have gone down a treat in the US, but might face tougher resistance in markets that retain an inkling for subtlety. Additionally, I still go to school, and that statement suggests me and all of my friend's are miracles...or maybe it just means we have brains?<br /><br />In this film there are enough funny Carrey moments to make you chuckle and prevent Bruce Almighty from being a total calamity, but you are advised to start revising your expectations downwards. | 2 | trimmed_train |
1,581 | An innocent man (Steve Guttenberg) has a one-night stand with his boss's wife (Isabelle Huppert). She spots a woman (Elizabeth McGovern) being attacked outside but she can't call the cops because it would blow her marriage to Gutenberg's boss (Paul Shenar). So Guttenberg, honest citizen that he is, when he discovers that another woman was attacked and killed nearby only half an hour later, comes forward and claims to have witnessed the first attack, merely intending to pass on the information given to him by Huppert. Well -- never bear false witness against thy neighbor, as they say.<br /><br />This simple attempt to help the police nab a murderer turns rapidly twisted. When he meets the first near-victim, McGovern, she immediately twigs to what happened, but agrees to keep quiet for the moment. But then Guttenberg finds himself in court, supposed to identify the heavy (Greenquist) and we discover through cross-examination that he is NEAR-SIGHTED and can't identify objects at a distance, let alone faces. (Not that it matters because, after all, he never saw the creep in the first place.) The plot gets practically labyrinthine. Guttenberg winds up the chief suspect when Huppert is murdered too.<br /><br />He barely escapes arrest and holes up with the now-sympathetic McGovern. Guttenberg and McGovern hatch a plan to trap the murderer. She will serve as bait. They'll follow the flagitious creep into one of his seedy haunt and McGovern will act like the doxy that the murderer is attracted to, just to get him to try to kill her. But everything will be okay, see, because not only will Guttenberg keep a close watch on her, and not only will he alert the police a few minutes after she enters this dive, but she will keep a can of mace handy -- just in case.<br /><br />I ask you, the alert viewer, does this scenario unfold as planned? Elizabeth McGovern has a quirkily interesting bone structure. She seems all mandible and tiny mouth at times, but she's vibrant. Steve Guttenberg has hair on his brawn and that's about it. Otherwise he's as helpless as the character he plays. If Isabelle Huppert can act, it isn't evident in this film. The killer is so formed and so groomed that he looks like he's wearing one of those masks of deformity in that Twilight Zone episode about greedy heirs.<br /><br />Didn't the director, Curtis Hanson, go on to make "L.A. Confidential"? That was a nicely done piece of work. Here, everything seems clumsy and contrived, down to the small bit parts. Just before the inevitable violent climax, a uniformed police officer is introduced to delay McGovern's rescue, and the scene is embarrassing to watch. Dick Olsen has a bit part as a late shopper. He's a neat guy and always reliable. Paul Shenar as the cuckolded hubby has a striking face that seems made for the stage and he does a fine job too.<br /><br />That louche joint where McGovern attracts the attention of the murderer, where she plays pool with a couple of hairy apes, was shot at a bar in Carolina Beach, in North Carolina, not far from where I lived. The way the interior is set up, it's clear that this is supposed to be a dangerous and dirty dive. Actually it appears rather more elegant on screen than it did in reality.<br /><br />Overall, this is Hitchcock territory and it brings tears to the eyes to imagine what he would have done with this story. | 2 | trimmed_train |
21,564 | I saw this series when it world premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. I liked the idea behind the film, where two men got together and told a director from each country to direct a movie about 911. These directors never met before until the project was complete, and they saw how it looked all together. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All the pieces were very powerful, and some were controversial. If you are an American, then you may not like this as some of the pieces may be found anti-american. However, i know a few Americans who enjoyed these series. The piece that i found the best was the one from India. It was about how a muslim family, living in the States, had 2 sons, and one of them was missing. The Americans gave them the cold shoulder and automatically assumed that he was linked with the terrorist bombing. It captures the mom's despair and humiliation of these accusations so well, that it brought tears to my eyes. In the end we see that her son had died while trying to save the many victims from the crash of the towers. This was a true story, and that was what made it so real. There were a lot of emotional and powerful pieces, and the African piece was one of the best. It was humourous yet just as powerful as the others. A must see for everyone, and hopefully America will unban this, and let it play in their country. | 3 | trimmed_train |
16,758 | "the day time ended" is an incredible picture. in some ways, it's better than "close encounters of the third kind." (i prefer cheesy independent flicks to big budget spectaculars.) the special effects ARE cheesy, but that's a big part of the fun. jim davis gives an excellent performance in this film. it's probably one of the best roles he ever had in a feature. the musical score is very good. the story DOESN'T make sense. BUT THAT ONLY MAKES IT ALL THE MORE INTRIGUING. like many of the best works of art, "the day time ended" isn't afraid to be subtle and ambiguous. "the day time ended" may be a low budget indie film, but it isn't too much of a stretch to compare it with the "existential" European films of the fifties and sixties. (many of which were low budget independent productions themselves.) | 3 | trimmed_train |
12,827 | I approached this film with low expectations but was very pleasantly surprised. It is very well done and it beats hands down the ballroom dancing movies of recent years, especially "Strictly Ballroom". While the music is nice and the dancing colourful, for me the movie is not about dancing. It is about the very Japanese institution that gives male office workers long commutes to work and free time after work for entertainment that does not involve their families. Here we have the man with the complete family and the large mortgage and a flagging zest for life. He is drawn to the attractive image of a young woman in a dance studio he passes during his commute and this leads him to try ballroom dancing. Also Japanese is the fact that the lecherous motives that initiated his new passion are made plain but somehow accepted, at least eventually, by family and audience. Attitudes to ballroom dancing, as conveyed in the film, are definitely non-Western, though the discipline and the music are clearly cultural imports to Japan. The cultural contrasts are thus intriguing. Even without the cultural insights, the colour, the dance and the enthusiasm of the players all make this a fun film to watch. | 3 | trimmed_train |
12,478 | I have no idea what on earth, or beyond, could have possibly made Sam Mraovich believe that this would have been a worthy project to undertake. Ben & Arthur is one of the worst movies ever made. In fact, I see no reason why it should not be at #1 on the Bottom 100. For although I have not seen, for example, SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (#5 at the time of this publication), I would venture to guess that that film is considerably better than this oozing wound, because even in its vapid dismalness at least Baby Geniuses 2 was professionally made. By contrast, everything, and I do mean everything, in this film is completely unprofessional.<br /><br />The movie is intended to be an attack on the Christian Right's supposed bigotry and hatred toward gays. And I do emphasize "intended." Not only does it completely and utterly fail at its purpose, it also leaves an ugly scar. Instead of creating a compelling and realistic portrait of a gay couple's struggle against a society that largely opposes them, it creates tired, crass stereotypes of each party involved. Ben and Arthur, the namesake couple, are portrayed as two crude, sex-starved, and hopelessly romantic cardboard cutouts who marry when the laws change to allow them to do so. This meets with the opposition of Ben's brother Victor, a Christian minister who, like all Christians (as this movie would have us believe), is loud, prying, stupid, and violent. He tries to kill Ben and Arthur after his associations with them get him kicked out of the ministry. Just like in real life. And if you think that's dreadful (it is), you haven't seen it all.<br /><br />The actors (?) here manage to completely destroy any vestige of credibility in this movie by saying their lines as if they were narrating a YouTube home comedy video. But not even Daniel Day-Lewis and Marlon Brando as the title characters could have saved this clunker, for there would still be the matter of the completely inane and laugh-inducing dialogue that fills every minute of the movie. Every scene has at least one awkward or misplaced quote. For example, in one scene, Victor tries to complain about not being able to have nieces or nephews because of his brother's homosexuality. But instead of portraying this idea clearly, he spits out the stupid, utterly confusing, whiny-sounding line, "You know what, I'm never going to have any nieces or nephews, okay, because you're so F***ED UP!"<br /><br />Even more glaring is the complete lack of production values. Yes, I know this ain't The Dark Knight, but even amateur film makers should know some basics about special effects and editing. For example, six dots of red cake dye do not suffice for realistic bullet wounds. People do not teleport across a room between takes. And objects do not fall FORWARD when shot! <br /><br />Do not waste your money on Ben & Arthur. I don't care if you're 7, 17, or 107. I don't care if you're gay, straight, bi, or undecided. I don't care if you're "just curious." I don't care what pathetic reason you may have to be tempted to buy this dung-heap. Stay away, far away. This movie's only redeeming quality is its ability to be used as a Frisbee. | 0 | trimmed_train |
3,950 | Creep is the story of Kate (Potente), an intensely unlikeable bourgeois bitch that finds herself somehow sleeping through the noise of the last underground train, and waking up to find herself locked in the tube station. After somehow meeting workmate and would-be rapist Guy on a mystery train that runs after the lines have closed, things go awry and she finds herself pursued by what lurks beneath the city's streets. Her story is linked to that of George (Blackwood), an ex-con working in the sewer system; they meet in the final third of the film, brought together by their attempts to escape the monster that pursues them.<br /><br />The pair proceed through a set of increasingly unlikely locations; from the Tube station, they end up in the sewage works before somehow finding themselves in some sort of abandoned underground surgery. Most Tube stations don't have toilets, so how one has a surgery is beyond me. Naturally, the film cares to explain that the surgery doesn't have running water. Yet it has electricity? Just one of many inconsistencies that work against the atmosphere of everyday believability that the film tries to create.<br /><br />The monster itself is a problem. There's a complete lack of reasoning for its actions, it just kills people for no obvious reason. And then of course it keeps some alive for no real reason either, perhaps just so that they can eventually escape and give the film an extra 15 minutes or so running time. I understand that natural evil is supposed to be scary, but then the film attempts to explain itself via a photo of a doctor and his son, and a few shots of some jars containing babies, and yes, it is just as tired and pathetic as it sounds. It also fails to explain how the creature has been underground long enough to lose the ability to speak, communicating only in raptor screams, but not long enough for its pair of shorts to decay. Hmm.<br /><br />This doctor business leads to scene that is the film's desperate attempt to implant itself on your memory, and while it is gory and uncomfortable to watch, it just isn't enough. The final third of the film hinges on an emotional relationship that never existed, and the characters break down and recover for little or no obvious reason. George breaks down, unable to cope with something despite stating that he wants to escape so he can see his daughter again, and Kate becomes emotionally tough seconds after going to pieces over someone that ripped her off for a travelcard. Yeah.<br /><br />After starting out as a "this could happen to anyone" movie, it quickly falls apart as it introduces ideas that make it more and more unrealistic. A complete lack of emotional interest in the characters and an absence of suspense make this one to avoid. | 2 | trimmed_train |
12,338 | This movie will promote the improvement of the mind. Read a book! It's incredible anyone would think this movie deserved the time and investment to make. I've seen "B" movies before but the "C" movie has just been invented. I didn't think I would ever enjoy Power Rangers since my kids stopped watching but I found myself looking for the videos fifteen minutes into "Knights." High school productions are better than this and the actors involved should erase this from their resume. Embarrassment is one of many descriptions that come to mind. My roommate, who loves these types of movies even turned it off. Now that has to really tell you something. If you watch this movie, and like it, I will pray for you. | 0 | trimmed_train |
8,195 | This movie lost me with the crossbow RPG (rocket-propelled grenade). It was like someone cut and pasted a scene from Robocop. I half expected Beowulf to say exclaim, "I LIKE IT!"<br /><br />I watched this because I like Chris Bruno from "The Dead Zone" TV show and he did his part. He chose a strange accent, but at least he kept it consistent for the whole movie -- unlike any of his costars. They kept slipping into all kinds of speech from old English to modern English, sometimes in the same sentence.<br /><br />There are already many comments on how this movie is different from the source material. However, even on its own, this movie's plot is not good. It's just boring, which even the low budget doesn't excuse. Having a low budget means that you need to at least have a good story, dialog and decent acting. Those things don't cost much. Instead, they spent their money on half-assed CGI and some decent costumes and sets.<br /><br />Life is too short to watch this movie. | 0 | trimmed_train |
14,888 | WAQT is a perfect example of a chicken soup not exactly for your soul. The broth unfortunately has lost its actual taste thanks to all the excess dilution and garnishing that went into its making.<br /><br />What's surprising and disappointing about WAQT is that it comes from a director who stayed away from the usual clichés of Hindi cinema in his first venture but who in his second outing gives in for all the stereotype film formulas. While Vipul Shah had the conviction to show something as implausible as blind men robbing a bank in AANKHEN, he just fails to induce life in the entire packaging of WAQT that is based on something as conceivable as a father-son relationship. Adopted from a Gujarati play Aavjo Vhala Fari Malishu, WAQT does have a sensible storyline with a social message to back up. A mature look on the father-son relationship, a father's unconditional love towards his son and a son's responsibility towards his family. Ishwar Chand Sharawat (Amitabh Bachchan) who has established his entire empire on his own from the scratch leads an affluent life with his wife Sumitra (Shefali Shah). Their only son Aditya (Akshay Kumar) never had the need to strive for anything since he got everything tailor-made and spoon-fed in life. Ishwar's pampering has only spoil him all the more.<br /><br />Aditya dreams to turning into a superstar but does nothing to make his dreams come true. In the meanwhile he marries his ladylove Mitali (Priyanka Chopra). Ishwar hopes that marriage will make Aditya a more responsible man but he is disappointed. Aditya is still at his blithe best leading a carefree life.<br /><br />The endurance limit finally collapses when Ishwar expels Aditya from his house. The sudden change in the attitude of his affectionate father towards him and his now expecting wife baffles Aditya. He has no option left but to strive for the livelihood of his wife and his unborn kid. He starts turning into an independent man but the rift in the relationship between him and his father grows.<br /><br />The story is simplistic while the uncomplicated screenplay has a very elementary approach. One can easily identify and relate with the credible characters of both the father and the son. If you are not one of the two, you at least might have come across individuals like them somewhere in real life.<br /><br />Add to it director Vipul Shah's easy handling of the screenplay. With a family affair like this, any other director in his place would have added in tons of melodrama in the proceedings as per the cinematic laws of Bollywood family dramas, turning the film into a compulsive tearjerker. However Shah excels in the effortless handling of emotions for most part of the film.<br /><br />Clear-cut example of his unpretentious direction is palpable in the pre-interval scene where the father expels the son from his house in a rather frivolous manner. The purpose of the scene is achieved without blotting a brunt on the audiences' brains. Ditto for the scene in the second half wherein the now separated father son have a flippant conversation. That's what differentiates WAQT from a KABHI KUSHI GHUM or an EK RISHTAA and in fact places it one level high in terms of treatment.<br /><br />But after gaining all the distinction points, one may wonder where does WAQT still fail in? The problem lies in the fact that while WAQT distinguishes itself from the others in it's league in terms of treatment, it gives in to the glitches in the terms of packaging. What with the director forcing in song-n-dance every now and then in the first half. There's a Johar kinda shaadi song, a Chopra kinda Holi song, a father son disco dandia song, a dream song and a dream come true song inducing sufficient yawns in the viewer. Picture this... the father has just ousted the son from his house and the son is dreaming of a song in Moroccan mountains with his wife. Out of place! Out of reason! and the audience Out of seat.<br /><br />The film just drags in the first half and the actual story starts only in the second half. The director has wasted too much WAQT on unnecessary elements. The much talked about dog chase sequence isn't bad but is not redeeming either. However Akshay Kumar's taandav dance is simply ridiculous. Imagine he qualifies for the star hunt in the movie with this (unintentionally) hilarious histrionic. Add to it the climax set at the finals of the star-hunt where the son bursts out with emotions. That's so archetypal! Also the editing pattern could have been reversed to conceal the father's reason for the change in attitude towards his son.<br /><br />Anu Malik's music is fine though unnecessary in the proceedings. Santosh Thundiiayil's camera-work is competent enough though not much demanding. Aatish Kapadia has come up with some good dialogs for dramatic moments.<br /><br />Boman Irani and Rajpal Yadav make up or the light moments in the film very efficiently. While Rajpal Yadav has been going overboard with his comic histrionics in many films off lately, this time he underplays his character and is completely restrained. His deadpan expressions are perfectly complimented with Boman's over-the-top histrionics.<br /><br />Shefali Shah is convincing in the mother's role. Not to be taken as a censure but she is flawless in both playing and 'looking' her character. Priyanka is gorgeous and performs her part well.<br /><br />Of course the major applause deserves are Akshay Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan. Akshay is especially expressive in the scene where his doting father intentionally berates him to make him aware of his responsibilities. Though Bachchan goes a bit dramatic in a couple of scenes, his brilliance strikes throughout the film.<br /><br />To sum up, WAQT is like a soup whose ingredients are both tasty and nutritional but the final recipe somehow isn't as much appetizing. | 3 | trimmed_train |
13,297 | I just saw this film on Turner Classic Movies last night and was blown away by Victor McLaglen's performance:In every sense of the word a "tour de force". The atmosphere of 1922 Dublin evoked through the cinematography and production design really foreshadowed techniques used in the best film noirs of the 40's and early 50's.Very nice attention to detail also;during Frankie McPhillip's (Wallace Ford's) wake, the mourners are all praying in Gaelic. Max Steiner's score is unforgettable. As in later films such as 1939's GWTW, he appropriated folk ballads to lend local color and a sense of place and time. John Ford: already a film giant in 1935! | 3 | trimmed_train |
23,012 | Wrestlemania 14 is not often looked as one of the great Wrestlemania's but I would personally put it, in my top 5, if not the top 3. It has so many great things, and it truly signified the birth of The Attitude Era, which was WWE's best era, in my opinion. HBK has the heart of a lion, and him putting over Austin like he did, on his way out, was pure class on his part. It has one of the hottest crowds you will ever see, and it has J.R and The King at their announcing best!. <br /><br />Matches.<br /><br />15 team battle royal LOUD pop for L.O.D's return. I'm not a fan of battle royal's, and this is yet another average one. Very predictable, even when you 1st see it, it's obvious L.O.D would win. Looking at Sunny for 8 or so minutes though, definitely helps. <br /><br />2/5<br /><br />WWF Light Heavyweight Championship<br /><br />Taka Michinoku|C| Vs Aguila.<br /><br />Taka gets a surprising pop, with his entrance. Fast, high-flying, and very exciting. If these two had more time, they would have surely tore the roof off, with their stuff. Taka wins with the Michinoku driver.<br /><br />3 1/2 /5<br /><br />WWF European Championship.<br /><br />Triple H|C| Vs Owen Hart Stipulation here, is Chyna is handcuffed to Slaughter. Nice pop for Owen, mixed reaction for Trips. A really, really underrated match, that ranks among one of my favorites for Wrestlemania, actually. The two mixed together very well, and Owen can go with anybody. Trips wins, with Chyna interference.<br /><br />4/5<br /><br />Mixed Tag match. Marc Mero&Sable Vs Goldust&Luna. Defining pop for Sable, unheard of that time, for woman. Sable actually looks hot, and the crowd is just eating her up!. Constant Sable chants, and them erupting almost every time she gets in the ring. Not bad for a Mixed tag match, it had entertaining antics, and passed the time well. Sable's team wins, when Sable hits the TKO.<br /><br />2 1/2 /5<br /><br />WWF Intercontinental Championship. Ken Shamrock Vs The Rock|C|. Before I review the match, I'd like to note The Rock showed off his immense potential, with his interview with Jennifer Flowers, before his match. Nice pop for Shamrock, big time heat for The Rock. Too disappointingly short, and I thought the ending was kinda stupid, though Shamrock's snapping antics were awesome to see, and the crowd went nuts for it. Rock keeps the title, when The Ref reverses the decision.<br /><br />2/5<br /><br />Dumpster match, for The WWF Tag Team Championship<br /><br />Catcus Jack&Terry Funk Vs The New Age Outlaws. The Outlaws are not as over, as they were gonna be at this time. Crowd is actually somewhat dead for this, but I thought it had some great Hardcore bits, with some sick looking bumps. Cactus and Terry win the titles in the end.<br /><br />3/5<br /><br />The Undertaker vs Kane. Big time ovation, for The Undertaker. Much better than there outing at Wrestlemania 20, and for a big man vs big man match, this was really good. It was a great all out brawl, with The Undertaker taking a sick looking bump, through the table. WWE was smart, by making Kane looking strong, even through defeat. After 2 tombstone kick out's, Taker finally puts him away, with a 3rd one.<br /><br />3 1/2 /5<br /><br />WWF Championship. <br /><br />Special Guest Enforcer "Mike Tyson"<br /><br />HBK|C| Vs Steve Austin. Big heat for Tyson. Crowd goes ape sh*t for Austin, definitely one of the biggest pops I have heard. Mixed reaction, for HBK. This is truly a special match up, one of the greatest wrestlemania main events in history, you can tell when J.R is even out of breath. HBK gives it his all, in what was supposed to be his last match, and Austin has rarely been better. The animosity and electricity from the crowd is amazing, and it's as exciting as it gets. Austin wins with the stunner, with Tyson joining 3:16 by knocking out Michaels. Austin's celebratory victory, is a wonder to behold, with one of the nosiest crowd's you will ever see, King said it right, they were going nuts.<br /><br />5/5<br /><br />Bottom line. Wrestlemania 14 is one of the greatest for real. It has everything you want in a Wrestlemania, and truly kick started the Attitude Era. This is very special to me, because it was the 1st Wrestlemania I ever saw, back in 98. "The Austin Era, has begun!"<br /><br />9 1/2 /10 | 3 | trimmed_train |
11,024 | Please Note: I see from the various posts that there was an original silent version and also a sound version of this same film. I saw the sound version and it was esthetically yicky. Considering some indicate that the original version was LONGER and without crappy dubbing, my review must be read with this in mind.<br /><br />Although I know that Rene Clair has a lovely reputation as a film maker and Louise Brooks has a bit of a cult following as well, this is in many ways a technically poorly made film. While Hollywood had already pretty much switched to sound mode around 1929, up through the early to almost the mid-30s, a lot of famous French films were essentially silent films--with some dialog and sound effects very poorly slapped over top the film. The lip movements in many, and in particular this film, don't even come close to matching what is being said and this would explain why an American like Ms. Brooks could do a French film. This is just sloppy and I would have preferred they had just made a silent film--and as a silent film this is would have been an average film--with excellent camera work (at times) and some decent silent-style acting.<br /><br />The problem I also found with the film was the overly simplistic plot. For a silent morality play circa 1920, it would have been fine, but by 1930 standards the plot is a bit hoary (that means "old"--not "slutty"). A lady wins a beauty contest and her macho fiancé can't handle it. She gives it all up, temporarily, but is lured back to the fancy life and this spells her end! A tad melodramatic, huh? And also a bit simplistic and underdeveloped.<br /><br />Finally, the character of the fiancé's friend(?) I found very disturbing and unreal. He looked like Harold Lloyd and spent much of the movie being abused and picked on by the friend and everyone else. As he just took it throughout the movie and no resolution came about, his character seemed superfluous and the treatment he received mean-spirited. Were audiences supposed to laugh as he was abused? This seems to me that's what is implied and I don't like it at all.<br /><br />There are FAR better French films of the era (Le Million, La Femme du Boulanger, Fanny, Regain, and others) as well as better silent films. I just can't understand this film's high rating. | 2 | trimmed_train |
16,844 | As a convert into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I try to absorb as much as I can of my new religion's history. I was invited to attend a showing of this film with my sons & the other young men & women as well as their families of our ward. <br /><br />On a beautiful spring evening, we drove to Kirtland, Ohio to the church's historical village located there. We were to have had reservations at the Vistor's Center to view this movie. Since my movie viewing was limited to only a few church documentaries, I was intrigued. The only "full length motion pictures" of the church's I had seen was "Legacy" and "My Best Two Years", both which I thought were very well written and preformed.<br /><br />At the beginning, the missionary interpretor passed out tissues stating that several people had been deeply moved to the point of tears by this movie. I thought "OK...but it takes a lot to move me to tears." Imagine my surprise when I found myself sobbing! It truly is a very moving & inspirational testament to the Prophet Joseph Smith.<br /><br />See it & believe in it's powerful message! | 3 | trimmed_train |
9,016 | How did such a terrible script manage to attract this cast? Ridiculous, predictable and thoroughly unbelievable, this is well-acted and slickly directed, but the material is so bad it still qualifies as one of the all-time worst thrillers I've seen in years. Amazingly bad, and not in a fun way. Avoid at all costs, even if you're a fan of someone in the cast. | 0 | trimmed_train |
14,422 | Yes, this is one of the great musical movies I grew up with with such great entertainers as Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, not to mention the petite and glorious voice of Kathryn Grayson. The music and dancing is superb. I understand Frank took lessons from Kelly; and there is Kelly dancing with Jerry Mouse, which is quite unique for the time. Betty Garrett plays the waitress who falls in love with Sinatra. She is one of Hollywood's great underrated stars. I saw this again on A&E TV and as well have it in my old VCR tapes. Never get tired of these old musicals. Whatever happened to Hollywood?? | 1 | trimmed_train |
19,152 | My Take: A funny take on THE LION KING, posing as a sequel. Surprisingly amusing. <br /><br />Surprisingly, "Lion King 1 1/2" is actually another funny straight-to-video, that's worth a theatrical treatment. I don't see why Disney released this straight to video, and release crappy movies like "Chicken Little" and "Return to Neverland" theatrically. Those movies are better off seen in the video stores (in the "new releases" area), rather than seeing their theatrical posters outside the theaters.<br /><br />This one is merely a spoof of the first film (although the events in "Simba's Pride" hasn't taken place yet), on Timon (voiced by Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa's (voiced by Ernie Sabella) point of view. We get to see them make fun of the events in the first film. Original voices from the first film, like Matthew Broderick, Woopie Goldberg, Cheeche Martin and Robert Guillaume, return to their voicing roles from the first film, while Julie Kavner and Jerry Stiller give some hilarious comedy relief as Timon's mom and grumpy uncle.<br /><br />So doesn't this sound fun. Maybe not now, but go watch it for yourself. The fact that it's not that serious in its plot makes it the more enjoyable. It's kinda like MST3000 with Timon and Pumbaa.<br /><br />Video movie rating: ***1/2 out of 5. | 1 | trimmed_train |
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