reviewId
int64 363k
588k
| userId
int64 33.9k
15.9M
| itemId
int64 1
1.42M
| rating
float64 1
10
| title
stringlengths 1
10.9k
⌀ | content
stringlengths 81
11.6k
⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
385,418 | 391,152 | 268,995 | 5 |
Capra-Corn for the 21st Century
|
I liked Darabont's first two films , The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile , a lot , though I have problems with each . But I could tell that , if he slipped up , he would make a picture like The Majestic . It's like 1000 megatons of Capra-corn mixed with some half-assed politicizing . The film exists in two realms : at the beginning and end of the film , the main character ( Peter , played by Jim Carrey ) is a Hollywood screenwriter . With only one screenplay under his belt , the House of Un-American Activities calls him in for trial , based on a meeting he attended when he was in college . He didn't even know the Bread Instead of Bullets Club was involved in Communist activities ; he just went there to impress a girl . Angry at his misfortune , Peter goes for a drive and gets in an accident . He loses his memory and ends up in the small town of Laughton , California . This is the second realm of the movie , the small town Americana from Frank Capra's films . Laughton lost a large number of its younger male citizens to WWII , and Peter is mistaken for one of them who was lost in action , Luke . Luke's father ( Martin Landau ) is convinced from the outright that this is his son , and the rest of the town , praying for this kind of miracle , is able to easily convince itself that this amnesiac is their lost hero . The material in this part of the film is actually quite good , and could be the stuff to make a much better film . There's a lot of pathos that exists in the town of Laughton . The film could have been about the pain of loss and the worse pain of denial . The screenwriter and Darabont , though , want little more than to tug at our heart-strings . It tries so hard to be a weepy ( Landau's scenes are pretty awful to watch ) , but it doesn't much succeed . Most of the stuff in Laughton is pretty good , and , like I said , it's good material . The real problem with the film is that the filmmakers are not able to connect those parts to the HUAC stuff . The Americana of Laughton is supposed to convince Peter that what HUAC is doing is wrong and unconstitutional ( he reads aloud the First Amendment when he is called to testify ) . The whole time I was thinking , yeah , hindsight is . This is wishful thinking from the future . None of this works well . Jim Carrey's performance is just bad . He can not do dramatic roles , and he needs to learn this immediately if he wants to stay in the movies . The only performance that's really worth pointing out comes from Bob Balaban as one of the presiding senators in HUAC . He had two great performances last year , here and in Gosford Park . .
|
384,810 | 391,152 | 58,530 | 5 |
Lame sci-fi flick with an inexplicable cult reputation
|
The idea is not bad : a man crash-lands on Mars and has to fend for himself , his only companion a monkey . Unfortunately , the people who made Robinson Crusoe on Mars didn't know jack about science . Not that they had to . It's a B-movie . I like B-sci-fi films , but there's a point where the degree of silliness becomes too much to take . This film actually wants to be taken seriously , I think , but that's not possible . It picks up a bit after Friday shows up . In this film , he is an alien slave . Still , it's a weak excuse for a sci-fi flick . Almost any sci-fi from the previous decade is better . Watch Forbidden Planet again instead . .
|
384,943 | 391,152 | 58,557 | 5 |
Frustrating ( a wildly dissenting view )
|
Frustrating . There are so many exceptional pieces of this film , but there are probably even more pieces that are rather infuriating . The story concerns a neurotic woman who swears she is a medium ( Kim Stanley - giving one of the most mannered performances in cinema history ) . To prove this she devises a plot to kidnap the young daughter of a rich man and then lead the police to her . Her testes-less husband ( Richard Attenborough ) goes along with her plan . After the first couple of minutes of their interaction , we know how sorry he feels for his wife . He doesn't believe any of what she says , but he'll obviously do anything she asks . The kidnapping plot is truly terrible , though . Neither the original author of the novel , Mark McShane , nor the director / screenwriter , Forbes , knew anything about either committing crimes or police procedures . Either that or everyone in Britain is retarded . Attenborough accomplishes this kidnapping by approaching the child's driver and telling him that the school's headmistress has a note for him . When the driver walks away ( with the kid and the keys still in the car ) , Attenborough jumps in and drives away . Okay , don't you think that when the driver finds that there is no note with the headmistress he's going to run back to the car and find it gone , which would then lead to a massive hunt for the vehicle and the man who lied about the note , whom the driver saw very , very clearly ? This crime should have been solved by the next evening . Oh , and don't forget Kim Stanley's trip to the rich man's house , when she tells him that she dreamed about their daughter , who told her the name of her best friend and her favorite stuffed animal . The rich man says , " Oh , you could have heard that anywhere ! " Hmm , really ? I would think that that would raise a certain amount of suspicion , more than it does anyway ( the police visit her house but simply leave when they find them not home , and do not leave anyone to stake out the place ) . The there's this stupid backstory about the kidnappers ' dead son ( they try to hide that fact but it's obvious from the first two seconds of the film ) . The way hints are dropped it comes as no surprise to any thinking audience that there's something even more special about this kid . When that point is finally revealed , it's just silly . Two years later the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? would be much more successful with a similar subplot . It's all so disappointing , because the film is very well directed . Very beautifully so . And Attenborough , despite desperately needing to grow a pair of cojones , is exceptional . Also great is the music , by John Barry . But , damn , so much of the film blows . So little of this story is believable , and it's just so frustrating . That frustration turned into total annoyance by the end of the film . .
|
385,975 | 391,152 | 831,887 | 5 |
I should rate it lower , but it has a couple of things going for it that make it watchable , at least
|
There might be a movement in the future to turn this box office bomb into a cult classic , but it doesn't deserve that . Much in the style of Robert Rodriguez's Sin City , but different enough not to feel like a cheap imitation , The Spirit does look cool . The images are often gorgeous . Add to that a number of pretty women , notably Eva Mendes and Scarlett Johansson , and it's almost worth watching with the sound off . But then you'd miss Sam Jackson's hammy villain , which is fun enough . But after the look and Jackson , there's nothing worth seeing . Miller infamously got a directing credit for Sin City because Rodriguez felt he followed the comic book so literally it would be wrong not to . But Miller here finds that storyboarding is not the same as directing . His tone is all over the place . He's going for over-the-top comic book-style camp , and it works occasionally . More frequently it flops on the ground like a suffocating carp . Miller also doesn't properly establish who any of his characters are , and , especially nearer the beginning , it's difficult to follow the plot . Most of the fault is surely Miller's ( I've also heard that fans of the original Eisner work feel like Miller has put too much of his stamp on the work ) , but the editor is probably partly at fault , too , for the confusion . It's extraordinarily sloppy , but I was carried along enough by the art work enough where I can't rate it too low .
|
384,736 | 391,152 | 256,627 | 5 |
Poor screenplay ; too cutesy at times
|
Azzurro has its moments , mostly because Paolo Villaggio , who plays Guiseppe , the grandfather , has such a marvelous presence . He's a big , fat man with white hair , a white beard , and black-rimmed glasses . He's probably the only guy like that who wouldn't be mistaken for Santa Clause . A couple of the other actors are decent , mostly because they have expressive faces . The script , though , is very weak . It should have been killed long before it arrived on the screen . Half of it is a decent drama about an old man coming to terms with his past . That's always a potent subject . It doesn't even really have to be done well to make a good film . But the other half of the film is pure evil : Guiseppe has a granddaughter whom he dearly loves . She is blind , and Guiseppe wants to get her an operation to repair her sight before he dies . Yuck . The whole being-cured-from-blindness thing has been tired for decades . We can forgive Charlie Chaplin for doing it in City Lights . That film is too charming to criticize that much . Douglas Sirk did a pretty good soaper with a blindness angle in Magnificent Obsession . And we can look past it in Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark . He was experimenting with the melodramatic genre , and it was of interest . But Azzurro is playing the melodrama so cheaply . It's even too stupid to keep the music from swelling to all hell , which makes the already embarrassing moments more so . Besides , that little girl , Francesca Pipoli , is far too annoying . They play the cute angle all the time , and it hurts my head . To boot , they give ol ' Guiseppe a heart condition , just in case the movie wasn't affecting you enough . There is , like I say , some pretty good material concerning Guiseppe's coming to terms with his past . They really should have scrapped the entire blind girl stuff and concentrated on that . It's not everyday we have a big , plump , white-haired man . He's so awesome ! I would cast him in a movie in a second if I were making one . .
|
385,842 | 391,152 | 322,589 | 5 |
Mediocre dance movie
|
Hip-hop dancer Jessica Alba wants to become a professional , as well as save her dance studio , the only place where local kids can hang out and not get in trouble . Yes , it's a 2000s version of Breakin ' 2 : Electric Boogaloo . Unfortunately , Honey has little of the charm of the Breakin ' movies . Well , maybe in 20 years it'll be seen as camp , too . It's kind of the only way any Jessica Alba movies , save maybe Sin City , will ever be viewed in the future . The film is less than terrible when it focuses on the dancing . I say yes to Jessica Alba dancing . Apparently she knew nothing about dancing before taking the role . It's impressive that she learned how to do it so well . Has no one suggested maybe acting classes ?
|
385,378 | 391,152 | 78,350 | 5 |
Will they blame me , or the bees ?
|
Infamous bad movie , with disaster-meister Irwin Allen tackling the important possible , nay , probable future invasion of Africanized honey bees , aka killer bees ( other aliases : Brazilian bees , or just " Africans " in the last third or so of the film , creating wonderful quotations as " Tomorrow there will be no Africans . . . at least not in Huston " ) . As usual , Allen has assembled an embarrassingly rich cast , including Michael Caine in the lead , with support from Katharine Ross , Henry Fonda , Richard Widmark , Olivia DeHavilland , Ben Johnson , Slim Pickens , Fred MacMurray , Lee Grant , Jose Ferrer and several other big name actors ( albeit mostly past their prime - Irwin Allen disaster movies were , savor the pun , where the stars came to die ) . Caine plays an entomologist , an expert on bees , who joins up with an Army general ( Widmark ) after a military base has been decimated by the bees . Caine was never worse . In fact , whenever he gets huffy about the state of films or actors today , someone needs to throw this back in his face . It feels like he has nothing but contempt for the script , barking lines without any conviction , simply shouting them when the script calls for passion . Yes , you'd think he had contempt for the script , but he happily came back to Irwin Allen the next year for the equally despised Beyond the Poseidon Adventure . Widmark fares slightly better , but he has the worst part , that of the always-wrong military commander who wrecks everything . The only actor who makes it out unscathed is Fonda , who may not be particularly good , but who brings a little professionalism into the movie . Like most bad movies , The Swarm is only really bad , in my mind , because it's boring . Way too many scenes of people sitting around talking , arguing , trying to plan a course of attack on billions of killer bees . Yes , the plot of the movie is extraordinarily silly , but it's silly in an entertaining way . The set-pieces are hilarious . I never got sick of the bee victims writhing around in slow-motion while about ten bees buzzed by them at a time . The bees derail a train and even cause a nuclear power plant to explode . And while Michael Caine comes off as a total d-bag , everything he said made me giggle . My favorite line : " We've been fighting a losing battle against the insects for fifteen years , but I never thought I'd see the final face-off in my lifetime . And I never dreamed that it would turn out to be the bees . They've always been our friend . " This is truly his Exorcist II .
|
385,189 | 391,152 | 420,223 | 5 |
Good concept ! Now if they had just come up with a coherent and natural script to go along with it .
|
One of the bigger disappointments of the year . The concept is interesting , and the cast is more than promising . Will Ferrell , in a slightly more serious role than usual , plays an IRS agent who begins to hear a British woman ( Emma Thompson ) narrating his humdrum life . It's merely an annoyance until he hears that his death is imminent . He attempts to discover where this story is going , through the help of an English professor ( Dustin Hoffman ) , but eventually he just decides to live life to its fullest , which includes getting a girl ( Maggie Gyllenhaal ) to like him finally . The general problem is that it feels like the screenwriter ( Zach Helm ) came up with a great concept , but never really figured out where to go with it . Also , he never even comes close to figuring out how to reconcile the fantastic premise with the real world , in which the rest of the film firmly takes place . After the concept has been established , you can really feel Helm uncomfortably forcing the story along . Gyllenhaal's character is one of the best examples . She's made completely two dimensional , a supposed über-liberal hippie chick who despises Ferrell ( who is auditing her ) at first sight , but who later sleeps with him just because he plays her what we assume to be her favorite punk song ( we assume because we're given pretty much no information , except that there's a Clash song playing in her bakery earlier , though the song he plays isn't a Clash song ) . It's one of the worst roles I've seen in 2006 , and Gyllenhaal is at a loss , giving what is easily her worst performance ever . Even worse is the character written for Queen Latifah , who is given absolutely nothing to do . One has to wonder why any producer would shell out the money for a name actress when the role requires nothing . The story gets even worse after Ferrell finally finds Emma Thompson and attempts to stop her from finishing his story . He can't bring himself to read the ending ( it's in outline format , so it hasn't happened yet ) , so he gives it to Hoffman . Hoffman declares that the novel is too good ( though from what the audience heard of the book , it sucks ) for Ferrell to live . At that point , I was totally lost . Luckily it ended quickly enough that I wasn't at the point of despising it yet ( a couple of movies this year , namely Little Miss Sunshine , weren't so lucky ) . Some decent performances and some decent laughs , but it's a pretty big failure .
|
385,085 | 391,152 | 319,343 | 5 |
Ferrell tries his best , but the writing is unambitious and mediocre
|
So-so film with a few really funny moments . It always seemed like the comedy could have gone two steps further than it did . There are tons of missed opportunities and jokes that are built up without payoff ( the news broadcast at the end of the film is a perfect example ) . Elf earns points for being a decent family film in that it has almost no objectionable content ? one very long belch is about it . It's nice that it doesn't resort to gross-out humor , but it could certainly stand to be less lame a lot of the time . Will Ferrell , a former Saturday Night Live actor , stars as a human who is raised by elves until his enormous height compared to the other elves makes this fact all too obvious . When Ferrell finds out that his father ( James Caan ) lives in New York City , he goes out and finds him . It becomes a standard fish-out-of-water comedy . The writing is half-hearted , so the weight of the movie ends up resting wholly on Ferrell , who does his damndest to carry it on his shoulders . I've always been a fan of Ferrell , even if he did create a couple of truly obnoxious characters on SNL . He actually does a fine job in Elf , playing a truly manic but sweet idiot . The filmmakers should have trusted Ferrell more , because it really shoots itself in the foot when it begins to concentrate on a very cheesy and unbelievable crisis in the elf's newfound human family . Ferrell has run away from home , and Caan and his family think they can find him in New York City ? which , of course , they do . And Ferrell ( along with his family and his girlfriend ) have to convince the people of NYC to have faith in Santa Claus so his sleigh can fly . They do this by having the girlfriend ( a very cute Zooey Deschanel , who might look a bit too much like Reese Witherspoon to become a star ) sing ' Santa Claus Is Coming to Town ' on the news . I was enjoying the film , but this kind of formulaic garbage just ruined it . It's nice to see Bob Newhart , Charles Durning , and Andy Richter . One of my favorite comediennes , Amy Sedaris , was also there somewhere , but I must have missed her ( was she one of the elves ? ) . .
|
385,569 | 391,152 | 39,694 | 5 |
How could Hitchcock not tell this was a bad project from the script ?
|
Probably Hitchcock's worst movie . I can't believe he was even involved . The thin plot involves a brilliant lawyer falling in love with a client he believes is innocent , jeopardizing his marriage . Courtroom drama is the second lowest genre , with the lowest being the sports movie . Hitch made another that is as lowly regarded , I Confess , but I thought that one was quite compelling myself . The Paradine Case literally put me to sleep . And look at the cast ! Gregory Peck , Ann Todd , Charles Coburn , Charles Laughton , Ethel Barrymore , Alida Valli - it's hard to believe it came out as bad as it did . All of them do good jobs , too . I also liked Joan Tetzel , who has one of those common Hitchcockian meddling daughter roles , like the one played by Patricia Hitchcock in Strangers on a Train , for instance . Tetzel also had a fine role in the previous year's Duel in the Sun , which was likewise produced by David O . Selznick . The only really worthwhile element of the film is Franz Waxman's sometimes gorgeous musical score . Unless you're a Hitchcock completist like myself , just skip The Paradine Case . You'll be better off , unless , that is , you desperately need some sleep . .
|
385,466 | 391,152 | 416,496 | 5 |
Just bad enough to be boring , not bad enough to be fun
|
Newfangled B-Western , pretty much released straight to video , starring Selma Hayek and Penelope Cruz as bank robbers trying to right the wrong of an evil American railroad company . Dwight Yoakam plays the bad guy and Steven Zahn plays a detective skilled in brand new technologies like fingerprinting . Sam Shepard also briefly appears as a famous bank robber who teaches the bandidas his trade . Produced and co-written by French Eurotrashmeister Luc Besson , I thought this might be amusing crap . Unfortunately , it's unamusing crap . It's actually fairly well made and respectable enough to look at , and the performances are good . But the script is just bad enough to be boring , not entertaining . It's coy , despite the heaving bosoms of Hayek and Cruz . There's maybe only one scene that could be described as sexy . The two actresses do look awfully cute dressed up as cowgirls . They always look like they just took a shower before they shot every scene ( or more likely a milk bath with rose petals ) , and the extras always looked like they just got thrown into dirt piles .
|
385,798 | 391,152 | 41,162 | 5 |
Somewhat fun , but too long to be worth it
|
This is a 15 episode serial based on the Bob Kane comic . It wasn't the first version of Batman brought to the big screen . In 1943 , there was another serial that had Japanese villains . This one is pretty innocuous , and also pretty forgettable . I am almost completely ignorant of the medium of serials . The only other one I've seen is Feuillade's Les Vampires , which is strikingly similar in form , even though made much earlier and in France . American serials are generally known for their cheesiness , their quick pacing and their cliffhangers . If I've gotten that stereotype correctly , Batman and Robin is a perfect example of the form . Some of the cheapness is a lot of fun . Like you notice the one bat that is perpetually flying around in circles in the bat cave . You think he'd die of exhaustion after a while . Vicki Vale appears . While she was in the comic books before this , Bob Kane only incorporated her as a main character after this serial ( though he based his design on Marilyn Monroe ) . Vale here feels a lot like Superman's Lois Lane ( I can't say which character in this form was first ; I don't know enough about their relative histories to say for sure ) . It's fun how difficult a time Batman and Robin have at keeping their identities . Half the time Batman is visiting Commissioner Gordon as Bruce Wayne , and he keeps having to tell people that Batman wants him to convey certain information . The best moment in the series comes when Vicki Vale pulls up behind Bruce Wayne's car ( the Batmobile does not exist in this version ) and Batman and Robin pop out . " Does Bruce Wayne know you're driving his car ? " Vicki asks . Without a pause , Batman replies : " Of course he does . " Their capes and costumes always get in the way when they're fighting . One time Batman's cape almost pulls him down , and he's often shifting his mask so he can see better . I wish the villain had been one of the familiar faces from the Rogues Gallery ( which literally appears in the serial as a filing cabinet ) . Instead we have " the Wizard " , a dull guy in a black hood and cloak . The serial as a whole is amusing , but hardly worth spending four and a half hours watching .
|
384,579 | 391,152 | 83,281 | 5 |
Weak documentary by Errol Morris
|
Errol Morris is easily the most famous documentarian around . His following is somewhat ridiculous . Being the foremost documentarian , it is easy to recognize his faults , as well as his strengths . I have seen several of his films , Gates of Heaven , The Thin Blue Line , Fast Cheap and Out of Control , Mr . Death , and many episodes of his television show First Person . I don't think he's ever produced a masterpiece , or even a great film , for the cinema . Personally , I think he is at his most successful with First Person . His most successful films , IMO , are Mr . Death and The Thin Blue Line . Fast , Cheap , and Out of Control is the pinnacle of what Morris was going for in films like Vernon Florida and Gates of Heaven , that is , documentaries featuring several interviewees with an abstact theme developing in the background . Personally , although it has great critical support , especially with Roger Ebert , I find Gates of Heaven to be an awful film . It's the least coherent documentary I've ever seen . Fast , Cheap , and Out of Control is good , but it seems more like an exercise than a real film . Its themes and points are there , but they are labored . The reason I like Mr . Death and The Thin Blue Line best is because they are concentrated on one subject . I can see what Morris wants to do with Vernon , Florida . It is a series of interviews with eccentric individuals from a small town in Florida . Most are elderly and retired . We have a turkey hunter , a priest , a bored police officer , and a couple who believes that sand grows amongst many others . This seems to me like an attempt to show that everyone has their story or that everyone has something interesting to say . This documentary doesn't really work , but there are several scenes that are very interesting or entertaining . It could use subtitles , because almost all of these people are only semi-coherent . I like this film much better than Gates of Heaven . It's not nearly as messy as that thing . Still , this is a flop . .
|
385,387 | 391,152 | 25,919 | 5 |
Annoying and not very funny
|
I'm sure everyone's experienced this a few times in their film watching lives : you sit down excitedly to watch a film that is widely considered to be a classic , but , from start to finish , it rubs you the wrong way . Nearly everything about it bothers you , you are annoyed and you can't see how anyone could possibly enjoy it . That's what happened to me when I watched Howard Hawks ' Twentieth Century . I was led to believe that it was one of the best comedies of the 1930s . For its first half , I wasn't even quite sure it was a comedy . I could see a few comic bits , notably a stereotypical inebriated character , but it didn't seem to be trying to be a comedy . Maybe a subtle comedy , I thought . It wasn't working on me at all . The second half jumps into a more plainly comic situation , but to me it still wasn't working . I laughed exactly once , a small guffaw that I wished I could have taken back . The plot involves egotistical theater director John Barrymore as he discovers , then moulds , then loves , then loses , then tries to get back Carole Lombard . I guess the comedy is supposed to come from Barrymore's extreme hamminess . To be fair , nobody does ham like John Barrymore , and he does it well . But it doesn't seem too far off his dramatic roles , so I never got that I was supposed to find his meanness amusing . I just hated him . I pitied Lombard as the ingénue at the beginning of the film . Later in the film , she also is a blowhard , a famous Hollywood actress . I hated her , as well . Barrymore and Lombard spend most of the movie shouting at each other at ridiculous volumes . I just wanted it to end . It just seemed like the kind of thing a playwright would find clever , and it comes off as a badly written play .
|
385,045 | 391,152 | 305,206 | 5 |
I didn't like it
|
This has to be # 1 on my list of movies whose popularity I don't understand . It's occasionally humorous , but the story isn't very interesting or insightful . It's the biopic of a comic book writer ( not artist ) who , despite his success , worked as a file clerk most of his life . I like the idea of a biopic about an ordinary guy , but I didn't find Harvey Pekar's life especially interesting . My life deserves a movie more than this guy's . The worst part of it is that I found Pekar's own work trite and uninsightful . Have you ever heard the one about the old Jewish lady arguing with the cashier at the super market ? Of course you have . You've heard it from any number of stand-ups in your life . But you've never heard it as unfunny as when Harvey Pekar tells the story . I liked the acting , especially Hope Davis , who plays Pekar's third wife . I love Pekar's co-worker who is obsessed with Revenge of the Nerds . And I did think that climactic speech about Pekar's phone book namesakes . That's the only time where I felt the film found any depth in its material . Otherwise , I thought American Splendor was kind of lame . .
|
385,221 | 391,152 | 445,161 | 5 |
Excellent images , but no story and a lot of noise
|
Visually stunning , but that's pretty much all it has going for it . This Russian did hold my interest for about an hour . I'd definitely never seen anything like it . But at about that point I realized it wasn't going to go anywhere . It's perfectly satisfied with being weird for weirdness ' sake . There is no coherent narrative . I probably would have enjoyed it anyway , seeing as the visuals are quite fun . However , there are many sequences that are loud and obnoxious , and it just started driving me crazy . After I watched it , I felt like I wanted to punch the first elderly woman whom I ran into . No film should make someone feel that way .
|
385,712 | 391,152 | 331,953 | 5 |
Where the hell are the jokes ?
|
The second feature from the comedy troupe Broken Lizard , the first being Super Troopers . That film was one of the crappiest I've seen of the last few years , but my brother wanted to see Club Dread and I'm easy . And I didn't hate it . Don't get me wrong , I didn't like it either , but I've seen a lot worse . It's a slasher comedy , although it needs way , way more comedy . I found it to be more adequate as a slasher flick , a slasher flick with a few amusing jokes tacked on . The plot involves a serial killer on a rampage on a Costa Rican resort island . This resort is owned by Coconut Pete , a clone of Jimmy Buffet . This character amused me a lot . As performers , the members of Broken Lizard ( and , by the way , I don't know which actors qualify as part of this troupe ) do have talent , but they seriously need to learn how to write a movie script . I may not have hated this movie , but I've got to wonder who the hell keeps giving these nobodies money . .
|
384,895 | 391,152 | 107,157 | 5 |
Profoundly Boring
|
Jeeze , whoever decided , out of the blue , to declare Hou Hsiao-hsien a master filmmaker was really pushing it . Those who chose to believe that opinion are even more guilty . I don't want to declare that he's untalented . I did truly like Dust in the Wind and City of Sadness , no matter how flawed I found them to be . The Puppetmaster is an enormous step in the wrong direction , more like the atrocious A Time to Live , a Time to Die than the two I actually tolerated . Hou's just not especially talented . People praise him to high heaven , claiming that his style is incredibly unique . Let me diagram his directorial technique : 1 . Static long shots with few movements and few close ups . 2 . His shots are often framed by doorways and the like . 3 . Many landscape shots . 4 . Characters in a scene often remain out of sight for a long time at the beginning of a scene , which confounds the audience when a visible character is talking to or interacting with them . 5 . Loose narrative structure . 6 . The subject of his films is most often Taiwanese history , often radiating from the tumultuous period of the WWII era . That's it . There is not one thing on this list that hasn't been done before and much better , whether Asian or Western ( well , maybe the thing about Taiwanese history , but plenty of great filmmakers have illuminated their own country's history ) . The combination of several of these factors ( and no more ) is a recipe for insomnia medication . His cinema is about as limiting as cinema can get , reminscent of pre-Griffith cinema , where filmmakers never thought to move their camera or give a close-up of anything . The effects are all de-dramatizing , which is extraordinarily pointless . As Pauline Kael once said , if films aren't supposed to be entertaining , then what are they supposed to be ? Torture ? I know what Hou's answer would be . Sorry . I went a bit too far with that last paragraph . The Puppetmaster does have its great moments , mostly coming in two forms : theatrical performances ( puppet plays and opera ) and one-on-one interviews with the Puppetmaster himself , Li Tien-lu , where he tells long and rambling stories - long and rambling , but very interesting and entertaining - about his life . The rest of the film is made up of accounts of the events he's talking about acted out on screen . Some are good , some are bad , but none of them are inherently interesting . Since these episodes are only tenuously connected to the past and the future , there is absolutely no weight to these scenes . This is particularly pathetic , because the real Li Tien-lu was the best part of both Dust in the Wind and City of Sadness . I would have been infinitely more contented to just watch the interviews without the sketches , because Li is a beautiful human being ( not to mention a marvelous actor ) whose face , body movements , and tone of voice communicate infinitely more than the motionless actors and actresses who are insultingly acting out his life experiences . And people who would like to deify this director and , consequently , want to crucify me , check out my other tastes : if you want to jump to the conclusion that I'm a brainless American who needs his movies fast , chew on a few of my favorite films that 99 % of the population would find as slow as molasses : 2001 , anything by Andrei Tarkovsky , anything by Antonioni , most things by Bergman , My Dinner with Andre , Dreyer's sound films ( Ordet , Day of Wrath , and Gertrud ) , Rhapsody in August , The Decalogue , and The Dreamlife of Angels , for starters . How about those who would criticize me for not liking loose narratives ? Godard is one of my very favorite filmmakers . And seeing that The Puppetmaster was supposedly improvised , at least in the editing room , I happen to love Pierrot le fou , Godard's film where he , Jean-Paul Belmondo , and Anna Karina grabbed a camera and went out on the road , improvising an entire film ( as rumor has it ) . And if this is all Hou could come up with if he came into this film not having an idea what he was going to make , Fellini did the same thing with 8 , and that is one of the ten best films ever made , in my opinion . Now how come I don't love this master's films ? The answer is simple , methinks : he's no master . I have very stubbornly stuck with a different Hou film every Friday for a month now , and he has revealed little or nothing to me about the human condition or the nature of filmmaking . Seeing that the showings are free , I'm not going to skip them . However , I can breathe a huge sigh of relief that there is a two week break in this particular series . for The Puppetmaster .
|
384,866 | 391,152 | 104,779 | 5 |
Weak in pretty much every way
|
If Polanski has made a worse film , I haven't yet seen it and don't want to . The story is dull and fairly common . It's about the tempestuous relationship between two lovers ( Peter Coyote and Emmanuelle Seigner ) who meet in Paris . At first things are beautiful between them , but over time the relationship deteriorates and becomes abusive . The story actually takes place quite a time after that , when Coyote , now paralyzed , is telling their story to Hugh Grant on a cruise ship . Grant is madly attracted to Seigner , which annoys his wife , Kristin Scott Thomas . I think the worst thing about the film is the casting . Peter Coyote is fine in supporting roles , but he's not a strong enough actor to carry this film . James Woods was originally cast , and he would have been a lot better ( though I doubt he would have been able to make it a good movie ) . I absolutely despise Hugh Grant . Completely talentless , and utterly unable to carry dramatic roles like this one . Emmanuelle Seigner , Polanski's wife , is sultry but not much of an actress . Only Kristin Scott Thomas among the four is reliable , and she's given by far the least to do . Even Victor Bannerjee , whom you may remember as the lead in Lean's A Pasage to India , has more to do than her ( and may just give the best performance in the film , with about five minutes of screen time ) . The film didn't offend me with its sheer terribleness or anything like that . It's just imminently forgettable .
|
385,171 | 391,152 | 107,818 | 5 |
Pretty bad movie
|
You'd think a film with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington would be a pretty good one , right ? Well , I know there are plenty of people who hate Tom Hanks , and I was one of them for a long time . Philadephia was actually why I hated Tom Hanks . People are right to call this movie propagandistic , although several of the commenters below are glaring homophobes ( what many others don't realize is that propaganda is important , and that most people believe what they believe through propaganda ) . What I have not seen anyone mention is how terribly homophobic this movie is . I can't believe intelligent people like Jason Robards , Tom Hanks , and Denzel Washington would ever lend their names to Philadelphia , let alone accept an Oscar because of it . I'm talking about two scenes in particular : the scene where we see Tom Hanks contract AIDS ( by having sex in a gay porno theater with the man who is sitting next to him ) and by having Hanks's character bring Washington to a homosexual party where everyone is dressed in drag . Philadelphia is basically telling the majority of its viewers that , while homosexuals may deserve rights , they are still icky people who do weird things to get their kicks .
|
385,021 | 391,152 | 62,185 | 5 |
Weak film for everyone involved
|
Mostly reminiscent of Suddenly Last Summer , which was made eight years earlier . With the loosening of the Hayes Code , Huston is able to imply a lot more than Mankiewicz could , but , just like the earlier film , in the end it feels like little more than a freakshow , with little insight into the situation or characters . I was hugely disappointed in it . I also found it nearly impossible to pay attention to . It moves slowly and is very poorly paced . Except for some of the racier material that wouldn't have flied just a few years earlier , it's really hard to believe that this was made in 1967 . The film-making feels so creaky and old-fashioned compared to other American films released the same year , like Bonnie & Clyde , Cool Hand Luke and In Cold Blood . I'm not overly familiar with John Huston's filmography , but with a film like Moby Dick it felt like he was the director most responsible for modernity in American cinema . I didn't much care for the performances either . Elizabeth Taylor delivered the performance of her life the previous year with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? , and this feels like a reversion to a more classical , palatable Liz ( palatable in looks and style ; the character is a bitch , but it's nothing new ) . Nice to see that her Martha was just an act , though , which makes that performance even more impressive . I've actually been kind of sick of Brando for several years now . His Actors ' Studio style just gets on my nerves , and those habits are in full force in this film . His constant mumbling is so difficult to understand I had to turn on subtitles . The film's final shot is hilarious , though of course unintentionally . Maybe I'll give this another try down the road , but after one viewing I really didn't care for it .
|
385,117 | 391,152 | 71,544 | 5 |
Not really that good a film
|
I watched this as a supplement to The Last King of Scotland , which I saw the previous weekend . It's actually fairly worthless ( this one , that is ) . I mean , there are interesting things going on in the sidelines . But Amin himself controlled very carefully everything Schroeder was allowed to see and film . He wanted to come off as a good man and great leader . Mostly he comes off as a babbling fool . If anything can be gleaned from the film , it's that this guy just wasn't smart enough to run a country . Like any idiot , Amin let his own bigotry and fear make his decisions for him . Much of the documentary consists of the dictator going on and on about the evils of Israel , and how Uganda will defeat them in an eventual war . There's a little bit of interest here , but mostly the film is dull . Would have made a nice special feature on the Last King of Scotland DVD , but unfortunately Criterion already has the film available .
|
385,301 | 391,152 | 36,342 | 5 |
Maybe I missed something
|
I have seen about a third of Hitchcock's films ( and that is a lot , more than a dozen ) , and Shadow of a Doubt was the first one I disliked . I thought the story and characters were uninteresting . I felt no suspense , except for maybe the last ten minutes . The acting was decent , but not great . I like Joseph Cotten , but he didn't do anything particularly noteworthy here . I liked Teresa Wright , too . I could tell she was a fine actress , but I just didn't like her character . The two younger kids and Hume Cronyn and Henry Travers are a really funny pair , too . Overall , though , Shadow of a Doubt didn't capture me like other Hitchcock films . It's my least favorite so far .
|
384,586 | 391,152 | 1,155,056 | 5 |
Mediocre comedy
|
I could easily sum up my feelings on this one in three words : Not Enough Laughs . But I'll go a little further , ' cause I know that's hardly satisfying . Paul Rudd is a newly engaged man who realizes that he doesn't have any male friends . Where his future wife has seven brides maids , he hasn't a groomsman to his name , let alone a Best Man . The film plays like a romance , except it's about a guy looking for a guy friend . It even ends with his guy friend rushing to the wedding . The guy he finds is Jason Segel , who , for the first time , gets Rudd to act like a guy . Which , of course , ends up upsetting his wife-to-be . Everything's very predictable here . But , I'll say it again , it would all be forgivable if there were laughs . There are some , but never big ones . I might be more forgiving if it weren't for the bevy of fantastic comedies we've had in the past few years . Last year alone there was Forgetting Sarah Marshall , Step Brothers and Pineapple Express . Those three are enough to keep you laughing for weeks , and you remember the laughs . So many laughs , in fact , that after I saw each of those films I forgot many of those laughs . Not because they were forgettable , but because other big laughs replaced the first laughs ! Nothing at all like that here . For the first time in a while , at least among the other films made by the actors featured in this film , almost all of the good moments were in the commercials . And , I must add , this film must set a record for the biggest waste of a great cast : Jaime Pressly , Jane Curtin , J . K . Simmons , Andy Sandberg , Joe Lo Truglio and Thomas Lennon appear . Most of them get a joke or two ( except Curtin ? why cast Jane Curtin and not give her one gag ? ) , but with all those great comedians , you want more .
|
385,804 | 391,152 | 362,270 | 5 |
Some day I will " get " Wes Anderson , but that day has not come yet
|
Wes Anderson would make a hell of a production or costume designer , or cinematographer even . I'm assuming he is the major force behind the aesthetic qualities of his films , and not the actual production or costume designers , or the cinematographer . His direction pretty much sucks , unfortunately . I did like The Life Aquatic quite a bit better than The Royal Tenenbaums , but only because I wasn't overly bothered by everything , and it did not feel torturous . And I was giggling occasionally , which didn't happen whatsoever during Tenenbaums . Like Anderson's previous film , The Life Aquatic deals with plastic characters in plastic situations . I think it might work as abstract art if the dialogue were inaudible , because it looks absolutely gorgeous . But , as it is , the actors mumble in this odd monotone ( Owen Wilson with the worst Southern accent in film history ) , and I can only assume Wes Anderson wanted it that way . I cannot , however , deduce why in the hell he does want it this way .
|
385,244 | 391,152 | 51,554 | 5 |
I'd take Browning's or Murnau's versions any day - and I am not a big fan of either of those films
|
Don't quite understand the popularity of this one ? I found it 82 of the longest minutes of my life . It's a completely lifeless version of the Dracula story , made and performed with the energy of an episode of masterpiece theater . Peter Cushing is decent as Van Helsing , but all the other actors are terrible . I'm sorry , but I found Christopher Lee excessively wrong in this , his most celebrated part . He made absolutely no impression on me , and he doesn't compare to Max Schreck or Bela Lugosi , or even Gary Oldman , sad to say . The set design ( especially Dracula's castle ) and the cinematography are pretty good , but the bright colors just do not work that well in a horror film . Does this movie scare anyone ? There isn't even a smidgen of eeriness in the entire movie . Then is it camp ? There was nothing funny about it , either , and that , without a doubt , includes the poorly conceived comic relief bits . I seriously hope this isn't indicative of the rest of the Hammer horror series ? they have been one of the major holes in my film knowledge . If they don't get better than this , it's a hole that I'm unsure I want filled . .
|
384,876 | 391,152 | 978,759 | 5 |
Lousy indie
|
Stereotypical indie from the sucks-to-be-poor subgenre . Hope I'm not being too glib . It does suck to be poor . I'm nowhere near wealthy myself , and I grew up with a mother under similar circumstances to the protagonist of this film ( a little smarter , though ; at least she realized that she was eligible for food stamps ) . I have more than just sympathy for her and people like her . But I am still suspicious of movies like this that lay it on so thick and seem to delight in jerking the audience's emotions around . The story follows a middle-aged woman ( Melissa Leo ) trying desperately to get by on her meager , part-time wages . Her husband is a thief and gambler , and has stolen the little money she has saved up to buy herself and her two sons a bigger trailer . Up the creek without a paddle , Leo meets up with a Mohawk woman from the nearby reservation ( Misty Upham ) who introduces her to the lucrative world of smuggling illegal immigrants across the Canadian border . First-time director and screenwriter Courtney Hunt seems to be following some kind of indie film-making book , because she makes sure to hit all the cliché bits . Everything is very predictable ; everything that happens in the movie happens for a reason . For instance , every time a radio is on , the weather is reported , which will come back later in the story . The dots are all connected , and there's no room for character or mood building . The tone is pitched at that quiet , supposedly subtle level that so many indies are . The sequence that summarizes the movie is the one where Leo throws a duffel bag out the window of her car on the titular frozen river on a night that the radio , of course , tells us is going to be far below zero , because she's afraid that the Pakistani couple in her trunk might be terrorists . It turns out that their baby was in the bag . Horrible , right ? Well , Leo's reaction is , " Well , we'll just have to go back and get it . " She's so nonchalant about it , I was sure I must have mistakenly heard " baby " . It turns out to be dead . Later , after one of the dozen or so contrivances that drive the film , the baby comes back to life in an apparent miracle . No reaction , at least from Leo . The event ends up changing Upham's outlook on life , but there's no grandiose reaction from her , either . The point is , anyway , that Hunt uses these silly , melodramatic situations which are completely unsubtle , and then she insists with her film-making that her movie is , in fact , subtle . I do have to admit that both Leo and Upham are decent actresses in the movie . I don't think either are award-worthy . It doesn't help that Leo's character often seems so profoundly stupid that it would be easy enough for a privileged audience to dismiss her with , " Well , someone like her deserves to be poor ! " I like the attempt Hunt makes in exploring the subtle ( and occasionally overt ) racism of the white people in the film , but sometimes it feels like she wrote the script without any of it , and someone who read it suggested she add it to give it some more depth . Honestly , if she made it her focus and not just the sideline to the sucks-to-be-poor material , Frozen River would have been a more vital movie . As it is , it's rather poor , and definitely forgettable .
|
385,441 | 391,152 | 133,152 | 5 |
Planet of the Apes , the Remake : Now with 75 % more snarling !
|
SPOILERS ( also for original PoA , 1968 ) You would have to look far and wide to find a bigger fan of the original Planet of the Apes . I nearly went berserk a few months ago when a woman I know said that Planet of the Apes was a so-bad-it's-good type of movie . It took all of my mental power to remain calm ( she wasn't even speaking to me ) . Yes , I worship the original Planet of the Apes and disdain its cheap , money-hungry sequels . It was those that lowered the original's reputation . Now comes the remake , directed by Tim Burton , a director whose work , IMO , is often visually brilliant but more often narratively incompetent . After I saw Sleepy Hollow , I wrote on imdb how I thought Burton should make sure his next script is okay before filming commences . Obviously Tim doesn't care what I think . His Planet of the Apes is a decent , run-of-the-mill summer actioner , but it has these weird attempts at social commentary and , even worse , at comedy . The jokes referencing the original are very cheaply made and only inspired embarrassed laughter . Charlton Heston's cameo is so gauche it's unbelievable . I pity him . The only self-referential gag that worked was a visual one that few people in the theater seemed to notice : the spaceship that Leo ( Mark Wahlberg , who is so bland I almost forgot he was in the film while watching him ) and his crew find in the forbidden zone is a visual pun on the Statue of Liberty ending of the original , even quoting camera angles . I laughed at that bit of cleverness . The make-up ought to be criticized a lot , for it is so much worse than the make-up of the original that it is startling . People nowadays might scoff at the original's make-up , not realizing that it was Academy Award-winning at the time . It is not bad at all , and the emotions could be seen on the faces of the actors . My favorite expression is one that a gorilla soldier has on his face when he is hosing down Taylor , Taylor exclaiming : " It's a madhouse , a madhouse ! " The ape shouts back " SHUT UP YOU FILTHY HUMAN ! " The expression on his face and his tone of voice are powerful . In this one , the make-up artists foolishly tried to ape real apes . What results is once and a while amazing ( the orang-otans , especially Senator Sandar , whose corpulent orang-otan politician is the greatest and most underused creation this film has to offer ; the other orang-otan , Limbo , is the best character in the film ( Paul Giamatti , a good character actor all-around ) ) but more often terrible ( Ari ( Helena Bonham Carter , a poor actress in most respects ) , apparently a chimp , looks so much worse than her counterparts in the original , Zira and Cornelius ; Thade seems more like an invented ape or a werewolf than a chimp ) . The apes ' movement in this film is also ridiculous . They move basically as humans in the original , simply because they were supposed to have evolved . Evolution has given us humans straight backs . These apes run on all fours and jump a hundred feet in the air . What is this , Crouching Chimp Hidden Gorilla ? Maybe a chimp can do that , maybe even an orang-otan , but not a gorilla . Thade ( Tim Roth ) at one point throws a fit where he leaps around like crazy . It's so ridiculous , several people in the theater were laughing . Also ridiculous was the decision to make these evolved apes sound just like their natural counterparts . There is so much squealing in this film that it ends up hurting your ears . Heck , I wish they would have just gone for broke and had them whip feces at the humans during their battles . In the original , characters were well developed and defined . The apes ' society and civilization was well displayed , including the complex ape class-structure . The original film had patience in setting things up , it didn't overburden us with unnecessary action sequences . All in all , the new Planet of the Apes is only worth seeing if you are bored and in desperate need for an action film . It does not work on any intelligent level .
|
384,689 | 391,152 | 90,185 | 5 |
Not of any real worth ; MAJOR SPOILERS , but I'm confident that everything I ruin is so predictable as to be unruinable
|
It's not that I despise this sort of realism , either . This is just an example of the most generic type of realism . It's a dime a dozen . It has no point whatsoever , really . The most effect I got out of it was watching it as a character study of Ah-Ha , the main character . He is the only character , besides Grandma , whom I'll discuss later on , whose name I could remember by the film's end , although there was a rift in my recognition of him after a long period of time was skipped and a new actor began to play him . There may even have been two skips in time ; I'm not sure . My major criticism of this film I must state right here and now : to only be able to proceed in one's narrative by killing characters off is a sign of very poor authorship and a general lack of imagination . Many other films and novels have faced this problem , too . The most famous one , in my opinion , is Gone with the Wind , whose second half is little more than a series of pointless deaths , so much so that , to me , it became very laughable . Another good example is Zhang Yimou's To Live . The most important example , though , is Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy , Pather Panchali , Aparajito , and World of Apu . If you're worried that I might ruin those films for you , go ahead and skip down a bit . These three films seemed to have influenced Hou Hsiao-hsien's film greatly . In fact , the grandmother character seems to me to have been directly taken from Pather Panchali . In that film , an old aunt would wonder about and get lost and such . She was played mostly for humor , as is the grandmother in this film , but that aunt had pathos . Grandma here just seems silly . Okay , here's how predictable A Time to Live , a Time to Die is : within the first five minutes , in the opening narrative , the father's death is clearly foreshadowed . The title of the film , which is pretty generic in the first place , announces this film's subject and even its structure , for the most part . More than halfway through the film , the mother of the main family discovers a growth on her tongue - count her dead , my brain said . Half an hour later , we were at her funeral . To top it off , Grandma dies . Its her death that , for me , hammered the final nail in the coffin . Her death is so morbid that it becomes almost funny . Nearer the end of her life , she cannot move off her mat . She ends up defecating and urinating all over the floor ( apparently with great force - the sht stains are something like half a foot from her anus , which , I assume , is still covered in some fashion ; she must have been eating some extraordinarily spicy General Tso's Chicken or something ) . The teenagers who are taking care of her only discover her death is by the ants which have begun to devour her . And when the morticians begin to move her , well , let me put it this way : have you ever seen a frog that has been out of water for too long , dead with it's legs sticking straight up in the air ? When the morticians move Grandma , her arms are stiff , so when she is moved , her arms , legs and all are so stiff that she is stuck in that position . Yes , I know that that's what would have happened , but it simply looks hilarious . Also , the side on which she lay was totally rotting away . I think the point is supposed to be that , with all the tragedy that they've experienced in their lives , these children just don't want to accept their grandmother's death , who was always so kind to them . Or maybe they didn't want even her shell to be taken away . But , during this moment which is supposed to be touching , it simply turns out to be foul . Grandma does happen to be the most entertaining and interesting character after Ah-Ha , so she really deserves more dignity than Hsiao-hsien is giving her . Compare the similar death in Pather Panchali , the only film in the Apu Trilogy whose tragedies I can accept ; after that they just get repetitive as Hell . As for this film's first two deaths , we don't get to know the characters enough to care . You might think , and , yes , Hsiao-hsien must have been thinking , that just because these are the parents of Ah-Ha , the main character with whom we should be identifying ( and are , for the most part ) , we should feel pain . Nope . That's not how it works . Even if they are the parents of a character with whom we identify , the screenwriter is required to build a touching and realistic relationship between the parents and the child . There was no such pathos involved in the situation . Pathetically , although not " pathetic " in the sense that I had any pathos , but rather in a sad and embarrassing manner , Hsiao-hsien tries to make us care about the father's death by having the mother cry profusely , knowing that people will be more likely cry if someone else is crying . This is no less dishonest than a laugh track . And I don't think anyone in the theater where I saw the film was falling for it . I've been hearing so much about Hou Hsiao-hsien in the past year that I was truly disappointed in this film . However , I'm not going to give up on him . There's a free program featuring many of his films at my university this semester , and I plan to take in every one I can . My rating for this particular film is .
|
385,554 | 391,152 | 49,470 | 5 |
Doesn't touch the original with a 100 ' pole
|
One of Hitchcock's worst , a remake of his infinitely better 1935 film . If it ain't broke , don't fix it , and the 1934 version is a small masterpiece . In many ways , I like Hitch's grittier British works with their dark black & white cinematography . The Master tries to outdo himself by casting James Stewart and filming in color . While the first decision works out fine , the second diminishes the film a lot . However , the worst decision was to cast Doris Day . I admit I've never watched a whole film starring this actress , and I have to admit that her performance here makes me want to avoid all the rest of her movies . She sucks ! There's not two ways about it , her performance here is hugely embarrassing , over-emoting at every corner . Her rendition of the famous song ' Que Sera Sera ' is painful to listen to . I have heard other recordings of her singing the song , and they sounded much , much better . Hitchcock tries for a slow build , but ends up taking forever . It only picks up when Stewart invades the church full of bad guys , and the Albert Hall sequence is probably a bit better than the original ( that's the only bit of the film that even comes close ) . The final nail in the coffin comes with the groan-inducing final joke . Maybe it's just me , but I hated it . .
|
384,673 | 391,152 | 42,906 | 5 |
Inconsequential
|
Some people might find La Ronde sweet and romantic , but I just found it to be weak and thus forgettable . The story's innovative structure does not seem so innovative in 2000 , and it's not because people have copied it ad infinitum . It is because people have improved upon and perfected the multiple storyline film . Nowadays we have masters like Scorsese and especially Altman who can do this kind of film without trying . Ophuls , though , did not have many ( or possibly not any ) real precursors to this sort of work . The film progresses very linearly , far too linearly . It begins with two characters , a man and a woman , meeting . Then one character goes on to meet a member of the opposite sex , then the newcomer goes on to another , and so on , until the person whose story did not move on in the first segment is met by the last character we meet , and then FIN . It is so fixed in this structure that it immediately becomes boring . It would have been possible to keep it from becoming boring if the characters had more depth or the stories themselves could have been deeper , but no . In fact , the segments are varied quite a bit in length . One may last for 15 minutes , the next could last 2 minutes . Characters pop in out of nowhere to become the next link in the chain . I just didn't care about anything that happened . Plus , all the men in the film are enormous jerks . They are very misogynistic and use the women of the film in a terrible way . Not to mention the theme song , which is repeated ad nauseam throughout the film , etc , etc . . . The only real value to the film was that it did contain some very innovative scenes . I did not like the whole thing with the merry-go-round's breakdown symbolizing a man's impotence . It was a bit tacky , but I can't say that it wasn't inventive . I liked the way the narrator ( a character whom I have not discussed ; I'll just say I found him annoying and a little creepy ) led one of the characters through time . My favorite scene in the film involved a very clever way of cutting out a sex scene : when two characters embrace , there is a cut to the narrator , who is looking at a strip of film , the very film we are watching , and he cuts , on screen , the sex scene . That was clever . Someone should steal it . All in all , though , La Ronde is pretty inconsequential . I give it a .
|
384,589 | 391,152 | 467,197 | 5 |
Not bad for a video game adaptation , but not good for a movie
|
About the best that can be said of this movie is that it's hardly the worst film that's ever been made out of a video game . Then again , it pretty much throws the game to the wind anyway . Max Payne was one of the first games of the Playstation 2 system , and , well , it would be giving it too much credit to say that it revolutionized storytelling within a video game . It at least tried to be cinematic in a way that no game up to that point ( 2001 ) had tried to be . It was pretty much a video game noir , complete with its own hardboiled dialogue . The film would have been wise to keep that aspect of the game . It might then have been fun . As it is now , it's a dismal , depressing revenge drama . Mark Wahlberg plays the titular ex-cop who is seeking clues to his wife and child's murder . His investigations lead him to a corporation that has developed a new drug , Valkyr , which gives humans almost god-like power ( in the game I remember it caused you to go into Matrix-style bullet-time physics ) . I guess it's not half bad as a revenge drama , but I always find myself wishing that that didn't even exist as a genre . According to Homer Simpson , revenge fantasies are one of the most common gifts Hollywood gives us . The look of the film is quite excellent , and it looks especially great on Blu Ray . Mila Kunis is sexy as a woman Wahlberg hooks up with , and who is also out for revenge . Recent Bond girl Olga Kurlyenko also appears ( in at least her second video game adaptation , following Hit-man ) ? most Bond girls quickly disappear into the Playboys of history , but I really like this chick . Mostly sexually , but she's not a bad actress . I kind of hope she sticks around for a while .
|
385,226 | 391,152 | 486,551 | 5 |
Occasionally funny , but often lame
|
The most recent film from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe , whose other films include the terrible Super Troopers , Club Dread and The Dukes of Hazard ( the third of which I skipped for some strange reason ) . Why do I keep watching their movies if they are so bad ? Good question . Honestly , I think the guys have a lot of charm , and they're pretty funny at times , and I feel that someday they might go on to do something worthwhile . Jay Chandrasekhar , the guy who directs these films and co-writes them , is actually a pretty darn funny actor . I just wish he'd act in someone else's movie for once so he has something funnier to say and do . Beerfest is their best film , which is not saying much . There's a good 20 minutes before there's even a laugh , and there are only a couple of good laughs within the picture . A lot of giggles , though . Not nearly enough to make it worth sitting through , but I've seen worse .
|
385,273 | 391,152 | 345,061 | 5 |
Muddled sci-fi
|
I really love sci-fi , probably more than any other genre . I like to see different imaginings of the future of humanity . And I am probably more forgiving to sci-fi than I am elsewhere . Code 46 presents an intriguing vision of the future , one where the different races of humanity have intermingled ( though not necessarily interbred ) throughout the globe , and many common phrases in the English language ( which has apparently dominated all other languages ) have been replaced with Spanish , Madarin , Arabic , and other languages . Unfortunately , this idea is never explored , and it ends up feeling false . That has little or nothing to do with the plot . I guess that there are big ( perhaps enclosed ? ) cities where breeding and genetics are kept under a strict control . Outside of these cities , people live as they always have , but are destitute and want to get in . Tim Robbins plays a man investigating a case of people breaking in from the outside . He meets a woman , Samantha Morton , who is in the inside working to help those on the outside . He is attracted to her , though , and does not turn her in . Instead , he impregnates her , violating Code 46 because they have a common genetic code . None of the premises or themes of the film ever make enough sense . I hated a lot of it , truth be told , but the visuals and music made it more pleasant than it would otherwise have been . I have to say , I especially hate Samantha Morton . In the recent past , I was thinking that she is amongst the best young actresses around . But after In America , and especially while watching this , her pixie-ishness just got on my nerves . I had to look up where she was from , because her accent was bugging me so much . Turns out she's from England , so where's she getting this fake , invented accent from ? I just want to punch her . And God knows what possessed her to reveal her vagina for the whole world to see in this movie . The rest of the film doesn't even merit a PG-13 rating , but then , all of a sudden ? hey , it's Samantha Morton's vagina ! No tits , though . .
|
384,954 | 391,152 | 33,879 | 5 |
Pretty lame
|
Mediocre Universal horror film which paired director George Waggner and Lon Chaney Jr . , a pair which would produce one of the best of the genre , The Wolf Man , later that same year . " Electrobiologist " Lionel Atwill doses patient Lon Chaney Jr . with larger and larger jolts of electricity until he becomes his murderous slave . When Chaney follows an order to dispose of Atwill's scientific partner , he is arrested and sentenced to death . Since Chaney is famous for surviving an electrical shock that killed four other people , you would think they would hang him or send him to the gas chamber . But no , they electrocute him , which , of course , gives him super powers and allows him to go on a classic movie monster rampage . The rampage is fun enough , and you've got to love the image of a glowing Lon Chaney Jr . , but most of what comes before is rather boring . The script is quite poor . Late in the film , characters start knowing things that they were never around to learn in the first place . It has a couple of great howl-inducing lines , my favorite being " He stole some rubber boots ! Now he won't die ! " The title is also pretty stupid . It's based on a story called " The Electric Man " . The original story's title was retained in the UK , and I don't understand why that was replaced with its much more generic title .
|
385,845 | 391,152 | 421,715 | 5 |
Twig-thin , pretentious garbage
|
I should have known it was going to happen eventually . There's always one potential Oscar film that I absolutely hate , and in 2008 it is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button . To get it out of the way immediately : yes , the film is technically accomplished . It totally deserves to be nominated for all the technical categories , including score and cinematography . It is absolutely gorgeous at times . But so freakin ' what ? The film behind those technical accomplishments is just plain bad . The film is about a man who is born old and ages backward . He falls in love with a girl who is in reality the same age as he , but he has to wait for her to grow up and for him to grow down . Cool concept , yeah ? I was aware of this story since way back when Spike Jonze was talking about doing it , around 2000 . I've been waiting for it for the better part of this decade . But you know what ? It's just a gimmick . I don't know what F . Scott Fitzgerald's original story is about , how he uses that gimmick , but Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth do absolutely nothing with it . The backward aging thing doesn't provide any insight into how a life is lived . Ben Button the character has no insight , besides a few banal observations . The film has no historical point of view . Set in New Orleans from the end of WWI and ending , chronologically , at Hurricane Katrina , it has almost nothing to say about the 20th or 21st Centuries . This is particularly obvious when there are black and white characters interacting with each other as if no such thing as racial tension existed . Many of the film's critics note its similarities to Forrest Gump , which was also written by Eric Roth . Yes , there are many honest and insightful arguments against Forrest Gump , but at least it didn't turn its back on history the way Ben Button does ( though it does , of course , polish it far too much ) . So little happens in the film , it's almost amazing that they were able to stretch it out for nearly three hours . The film just gives us bland sentiments , two dimensional characters whom I didn't come close to caring about , lots of talk about life and death but no real philosophies on it and no sense of time or place , except for the most generic sort possible . I haven't mentioned the actors yet . This disaster isn't at all their fault . Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett , both fine actors , are given little to do . I guess you could kind of praise Pitt's old man act , but much of the impressiveness of that is due to the special effects and makeup . Taraji P . Henson is getting a lot of praise for her role as Queenie , Benjamin's adoptive mother . She's probably the best actor in the film , but this kind of mammy role is below her talents . No black woman should have to waste her time in such a stereotypical role . The only performances I liked at all were those of Jared Harris , who is a lot of fun as a sea captain , and Tilda Swinton , who is always good . I blame most of this movie on Roth , whose script is so extraordinarily vapid , but Fincher is partly at fault . This just isn't his kind of movie , and it's obvious he isn't able to handle sentimental material . I hate his most famous films , Se7en and Fight Club , because I find them both disgusting , cruel and cynical in a dangerous way . He found his perfect match , in my mind , last year with Zodiac , which utilized his clinical style perfectly . He seems to approach movies with a detached procedure , much as the investigators and journalists of Zodiac are supposed to operate . A grand love story , which Button purports to be ( but never is ) , requires a director more in touch with his emotions .
|
385,511 | 391,152 | 187,738 | 5 |
Big , dumb , and forgettable
|
Blade II isn't terrible . I , in fact , like it a smidgen better than the original . That film suffered from a very uninteresting love interest ( who doesn't come back ) and a dull villain . It had its moments , though , and so does Blade II . The visuals in both films are excellent , with a marvelous eye towards the set designs and costumes . II contains more computer animation , with several scenes using far too much computer animation . It tries to hide that a few times by setting the sequences in the dark or whatever , but you'd have to be mentally challenged not to notice . Because of this , its action sequences don't carry as much weight or energy . It steals liberally from The Matrix and , even moreso , Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon . It's slightly better than The Matrix , pretention incarnate , but can't come close to the physical beauty of CTHD , whose action sequences did not rely on computers . Blade II steals its plot wholesale from Aliens , which is a common action film to steal from ( it's probably the best ever made at this point , over 15 years old now ) . The villains are pretty cool , but they're a direct combination of Max Schreck ( of Nosferatu fame ) and the aliens from Aliens . They're still pretty brutal . A lot of the supporting cast is simply terrible . The film employs a ton of uber-predictable twists and betrayals . You'll see some of them coming and you'll wonder why the writers even bothered with others . .
|
385,725 | 391,152 | 345,032 | 5 |
Mediocre weepy
|
The story of a man ( Kim Rossi Stuart ) reuniting with the disabled son ( Andrea Rossi ) whom he abandoned at birth . This was Italy's official entry for the Academy's Best Foreign Film award , which makes perfect sense : it's the same kind of clichéd , sentimental crap that usually takes home Oscar gold . By some miracle , the Academy skipped it over ( another story of disability , The Sea Inside , won that year ) . The Keys to the House pulls out just about every cliché imaginable . The most obnoxious is perhaps the fact that the boy's mother died in childbirth ? which is why the father has ignored him for 15 years . Like many films dealing with the disabled , it sees them mostly as objects to be dealt with . A woman whom the father befriends during the film ( played by Charlotte Rampling ) also has a disabled child , and at one point she admits that she wishes her daughter would die . The only difference between this movie and your standard American prestige picture is an overbearing score . There are a couple of decent scenes , but , for the most part , and I thank it for this , the film is instantly forgettable . Avoid .
|
385,142 | 391,152 | 298,148 | 5 |
Total crap
|
Only slightly less bad than the original . The story is a little better , I suppose , and it adds a couple of amusing characters . Antonio Banderas would be the highlight as Puss In Boots , but he doesn't have nearly enough screen time . My favorite character was Jennifer Saunders as the villain , the Fairy Godmother . After that , though , the movie just sucks . How many dated jokes can they fit into one movie ? Let's see , we have the ' Are we there yet ? ' gag , which The Simpsons made old in 1990 . The ripples in liquid , which was done a million times the year after Jurassic Park came out . Is it really still funny 11 years later ? In the first Shrek there were Macarena jokes , long after that song was forgotten . Here , we end with Ricky Martin's ' Livin ' la Vita Loca ' which was old and annoying before the original film even hit the theaters . And then there's a bunch of disgusting fart and snot jokes that even cheaply produced television shows would reject as too tasteless . The abundance of C-grade pop songs makes the film even more dreadful . I mean , what happened to Counting Crows ? Their first two albums were great , and now they're doing one of the cheesiest love songs I've ever heard for this piece of garbage . And , worst of all , the animation is awful ! Characters move around jerkily and there's little or no attention paid to physics . Just take a look at Pixar's The Incredibles to see the difference . Seriously , if Shrek 2 beats out The Incredibles for the Oscar this year , as the original beat out the far superior Monsters Inc . , I will be as sad as I was at the results of the recent presidential election . .
|
385,046 | 391,152 | 329,575 | 5 |
Best Picture my . . . eye
|
Zetes ' Dictionary defines ' mediocrity ' as the 2003 Best Picture nominee Seabiscuit , directed by Gary Ross . It's watchable , but it's a weak , uninteresting story that is poorly plotted and has a low success rate at tying said story into its historical context , as hard as it tries . I can take films about underdogs once in a while , providing that they're well done , but Seabiscuit wins , what , a quarter of the way through the movie and then its rich sponsor ( played by Jeff Bridges ) pesters the even richer owner of the Triple Crown winner War Admiral until he finally gives in , lest he be annoyed any further . The only actors who do anything nearing a decent job are Tobey Maguire as Seabiscuit's down-and-out jockey and William H . Macy , who plays a radio sports broadcaster . Jeff Bridges , Chris Cooper , and that other uninteresting lady sleepwalk through the film . The film does boast some fine cinematography . .
|
385,662 | 391,152 | 263,488 | 5 |
Jesus , can't anyone make a decent horror film anymore ?
|
Jeepers Creepers has a lot going for it . It has a decent premise ( nothing extraordinary , but it's workable ) , several excellent scenes , and a great baddy - one that , if the film itself had been better , would have haunted the popular imagination as much as Freddy Krueger . Instead , the dialogue is terrible , the characters often make frustratingly awful and difficult to swallow decisions , and several annoying horror movie cliches that , for Christ's sake , should never be included in a movie again , yet somehow always end up there . How rare is it that a director can direct his own script ? Really , Jeepers Creepers required two , maybe only one rewrite or script doctoring and it could have been a B movie masterpiece . The changes wouldn't have been difficult . I actually suggest that people see this film . Wait for it to move off the new release shelves and then snatch it up . It's only 90 minutes long . Expect your knee to jerk , but I implore you to find the seeds of good ideas in it . And , let me add , they are apparently making a sequel ( the film really didn't make that much money , but , as I remember , it topped the B . O . for a week or two ) . I will definitely rent it when it comes out on video , just to see if Victor Salva has improved himself at all . .
|
384,575 | 391,152 | 59,942 | 5 |
Boring samurai flick
|
There's little to recommend about this cheaply made samurai film . The films of this genre boast great patience , but within that patience there ought to be at least a few good samurai battles . There are only two real battles in this one . The first one has a neat setting , but it takes place during the night and it is so dark that it is difficult to see anything . The climactic battle , which is actually two consecutive battles , is very good but nothing compared to those in much more well known samurai flicks . The editing of the film is consistently poor and reduces the effectiveness of many of its scenes . This movie is only 90 minutes long , but it feels as long as The Seven Samurai . .
|
385,646 | 391,152 | 104,237 | 5 |
Last Lambada in London
|
This is a huge misfire by a great director . In fact , I have seen many , many Malle films and have given four of them 10s , two 9s , and an 8 . That's a great average now brought down considerably by the 5 I'm giving this film . And , truth be told , it isn't a bad film . It's just uneventful . A movie about a man who falls in love with his son's fiancee just isn't all that shocking , at least in the movies . It might have worked if the characters were better developed . Anna ( Juliette Binoche ) is given a compelling background story , but it is not well used by the script , the direction , or the actress . And it pains me to say so , because I am in LOVE with Juliette Binoche . Stephen , the main character , played by Jeremy Irons , is even less well off . We learn nothing at all about him . His lust comes about almost immediate ( which isn't hard to understand : we're talking about BINOCHE here ) , but we are not given any real reason to believe that he would so quickly betray his son and his wife . Martyn ( Rupert Graves ) is the cuckolded son . He has a nice speech about the disappointments he had as a rich child , but that isn't enough to give his character any weight . Slightly better off is Miranda Richardson as Ingrid , Stephen's bored wife . She plays her upper class fears well as she has to deal with the newcomer Anna , who seems suspicious to her . She also has a good scene at the end when she confronts her husband . The one character whom I did find interesting is Sally , the teenage daughter . Through the film , she silently develops and loses a relationship with a boy . It is almost a parody of the seriousness of the two older men's relationship with Anna . We see Sally and her new boyfriend several times together , but he always has headphones on and they never talk to each other ( the adults never seem to talk to their lovers , either ) . Surely , if some more tension had been injected into the mix , or just anything else to get the audience to think about something , it could have been good . As it is , it's a dud . Instead , see some of its precursors : especially Last Tango in Paris , which is the kind of movie that can draw you in . I'd even suggest these two exploitation flicks as alternatives : In the Realm of the Senses ( Japanese : Ai no corrida ) and The Night Porter ( which I think is either a French or Italian film , but I happened to have seen it dubbed into English ) . Those films have the ability to entertain you a little , unlike Damage .
|
385,410 | 391,152 | 77,294 | 5 |
Dumb and dated
|
A post-Watergate conspiracy thriller that kind of found its way into my ( now sputtering ) ' 70s and ' 80s sci-fi marathon . I kind of knew that it didn't fit , but I've always wanted to see it . I actually found it to be laughably bad . But I was laughing , so I have to give it some credit , I suppose . The film was inspired by the " moon landing hoax " conspiracy theory that had been put forward a few years earlier . In this film , the three astronauts of Capricorn One , James Brolin , Sam Waterston and O . J . Simpson , are whisked away just moments before they are about to blast off to Mars . The head scientist of the project , Hal Holbrook , tells them that they would not have survived the mission , so instead they are going to fake it on a film set . The three astronauts are all upstanding citizens , and though Holbrook assures them that America couldn't take another disappointment after Vietnam and Watergate , they are unsure about it . They reluctantly agree to it . But when the pod they are supposedly in explodes on its way down to Earth , they decide to run away , lest they be murdered to complete the illusion . Meanwhile , reporter Elliot Gould is tipped off by a NASA scientist that something is amiss with the project . The setup is all pretty good . What follows isn't . It's not so much that the story as a whole is bad , but there's a lot of really stupid stuff that goes on that drags the film down . At one point on the film set , when he is talking to his wife , Brolin gives a cryptic hint that things aren't as they seem . Gould picks up on this , and this whole segment of the script is awful . Brolin's hint makes no sense , and it's impossible to believe that Gould would ever pick up on it . And then there are the attempts on Gould's life . These assassination attempts are hilariously inept . At one point Gould's brakes are cut and he goes careening around busy city streets at 100 mph in a weird , phony-looking first person point of view shot . He drives up a raised bridge at full speed and flies into water hundreds of feet below , upside down , and lives . In another sequence , Gould visits a ghost town and is shot at . He's the only one in the entire town , the assassin , who is never seen , takes one bad shot at him , and then runs away . Later , a bunch of cops apparently much less ambitious than the crappy assassin try to assassinate his character by planting cocaine on him , which results in him being fired and keeps him in jail for approximately two hours . To stick with Gould , late in the film he joins up with Telly Savalas , a city folk-hatin ' ( and it probably doesn't help than Gould is so Jewy ) , smart alecky crop duster who provides some very unwelcome comic relief . The part of the film that made me laugh to hardest were the two black helicopters that are sent out to kill the escaped astronauts . Director Hyams treats the helicopters as if they were themselves characters , not the people inside ( though they do appear late in the film ) . Kind of a good concept , because these ominous copters are definitely creepy . But when the two helicopters see something interesting , they turn towards each other inquisitively . You can almost see the giant question mark above their heads . The movie becomes sillier and sillier as it moves on . Hyams ' dialogue is belabored , and his actors are pretty much all poor ( Gould is the best , but his role in the film is utterly contrived and stupid ) . The slow motion shot that ends the film is a perfect , giggle-inducing cap to this moronic thriller .
|
385,452 | 391,152 | 826,711 | 5 |
Its vapidity is pretty much par for the course for Hou Hsiao-Hsien
|
Ugh . Yeah , why do I bother ? I have some terrible masochistic streak in my psyche . Truth be told , I kind of liked Hou's two previous films , Three Times and Café Lumiere . Neither was good , per se , but both were pretty and moderately enjoyable . I downright liked parts of Three Times , although I did feel like Hou was shamelessly ripping off Wong Kar-Wai during the parts I liked . The Voyage of the Red Balloon is very much the sister film to Café Lumiere . In Café Lumiere , Hou vacationed in Tokyo and made the film as a tribute to Yasujiro Ozu . It wasn't much of a tribute , honestly . I wouldn't characterize it as an insult to Ozu , but it had nothing to do with Ozu . Voyage of the Red Balloon , likewise , is claimed to be a tribute to Albert Lamorisse and his landmark short film , The Red Balloon . Hou's film references the Lamorisse movie several times , and even has a red balloon that pops in once in a while to greet the young boy . It feels like an afterthought , though , and the film has almost nothing to do with The Red Balloon . Like most Hou films , this one doesn't have much to do with anything . It's embarrassingly empty . Juliette Binoche does voicework in a puppet theater . She's recently divorced , and she's having a rough time of it . Meanwhile , her new nanny , Fang Song , is the new nanny to Binoche's son ( Simon Iteanu ) . The film is very pretty , but it's about as dull as a movie can be and still be called a movie . I find most of Hou's films vapid , but this is a new low .
|
385,889 | 391,152 | 247,380 | 5 |
Only moderately interesting
|
Yeah , I totally agree with the last couple of comments . I love Varda's two most popular films ( which are the only others I've seen ) , Cleo from 5 to 7 and Vagabond , but The Gleaners and I is a rambling , tenuous , and only intermittently interesting mess . She makes all these trash diggers seem like rebellious , beautiful heroes , but really they're nothing but trash diggers . The political message is negligible . I like the stuff about Varda's fleeting life , but it's very poorly integrated into the rest of the film . .
|
385,079 | 391,152 | 64,451 | 5 |
Dull beyond belief
|
I didn't think I could be so bored by a martial arts film . How disappointing ; I was looking forward to finally seeing a film by the legendary director King Hu , but this may turn me off any other films of his . The story is a dull one about a fugitive girl , an expert in martial arts taught by some powerful monks , who moves into a small town hoping to escape her death sentence . Her father had spoken out against a local tyrant , and his whole family was sentenced to death . An artist neighbor of the girl falls for her , and gets mixed up in the dangers she faces . The martial arts sequences are few and far between in this 3 hours + film , and the ones that are there are mostly poor . The editing is so choppy that it's often impossible to tell what's going on . Worse yet , a good number of these sequences are at night , so you can't see anything . Only the two climactic battles ( the film is split in two ) are any good at all , and they are kind of similar , at that . The only commendable aspect of the film is its gorgeous color cinematography . It is truly exceptional , but nothing else about A Touch of Zen is . Think me a rube or what have you , but nothing but pseudo-profundity and a lack of technical knowledge .
|
384,884 | 391,152 | 102,926 | 6 |
After Titanic , the most worthless Best Picture winner of the 1990s
|
What is so special about this film ? I've watched it once , about a year ago , and could never figure it out myself . What I saw was a pretty good thriller which bombed out at the very end . I never thought the acting was all that great either . I think Anthony Hopkins was overacting , and I thought it was one of Jodie Foster's slightest performances . She had a more complex character in Freaky Friday . Oh , and the end that I mentioned above ( I guess SPOILERS ) : Jodie Foster just stumbles on Buffalo Bob while following her clues . It seemed believable to me that she might come upon him before she actually new exactly who she was confronting . But it also made the film seem rushed to actually have the final showdown as soon as she accidentally runs into Buffalo Bob . It almost seemed to me as if they decided that the movie was too long at that point , and that they should just let this coincidence develop into a finale , even if it was premature . If you don't understand what I am talking about , that is , if you thought the film ended at the correct time , read Roger Ebert's review of the film . I did not develop my opinion from his review either , he just confirmed my suspicions . I don't think Silence of the Lambs was particularly fascinating elsewhere , but it was often entertaining . I would have given it a , but the sloppy ending knocks it down to a . Jesus , how did the Academy remember this at awards time . 1992 must have been a slow year .
|
384,991 | 391,152 | 66,065 | 6 |
Disappointing .
|
I love Pasolini , and Medea is easily the weakest of his works that I've seen . After having made the brilliant adaptation of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex , Medea seems rather uninspired . It retains most of Pasolini's beautiful settings , but the script is a poor adaptation of Euripides ' play . The film's as slow as they come , and to me it seemed like a way to cover up the lack of ideas . Maria Callas is excellent as Medea , but she really doesn't have that much screen time , if you measure it . Most of the film is made up of people performing weird rituals , and the characters of Jason and Medea don't do all that much . I don't like Pasolini's interpretation of Jason as a chauvanist , egotistical jerk . It's too simplistic , and it's unfair moralizing from a modern vantage point . The character has much more depth in the various myths , even in Euripides ' play . Medea's depth is sapped , as well , and her motivation in the film is sketchy at best . And then there are a couple of confusing ellipses , especially an extended fantasy sequence ( apparently ) where Medea imagines killing Glauce and Creon , followed by the reality . It feels more like there were two versions of this section , and the editor screwed up and left both in . Pasolini's direction is often amazing , as is the cinematography and music . I didn't hate Medea , but I can't muster any enthusiasm for it . .
|
384,932 | 391,152 | 462,538 | 6 |
Meant more for casual fans than for diehards . Plus , the format just doesn't really work as a movie , I think .
|
I'm an absolute fanatic of The Simpsons and have been watching it since it was on Tracey Ullman . I grew up with it . I was the exact same age as Bart when the very first episode premiered . Unlike a lot of fans , I've never turned my back on the show . I am not one who thinks each new episode is worse than the last . I do acknowledge that it's long past its peak , but I think almost every new episode is funny enough to be worth seeing . Once in a while , they'll produce an episode that's genuinely fantastic . But , really , I don't demand fantastic . I'll settle for a few good laughs and be at least moderately happy . Now comes The Simpsons Movie , which had been talked about for the last 15 years , at least . Much like when I watch new episodes , I wasn't expecting the movie to be that great . Unfortunately , it fell below even those expectations . It has a few good jokes and moments ( the only time I laughed really loud was the Tom Hanks bit ) , but it doesn't do much right . Those who've long turned their backs on the show like to complain about recycled plot lines . It's true , of course , for pretty much every new episode , but the show has grown more manic and self-referential over time . Many don't like that , either , but I personally do like those kind of jokes . The movie just plods along with a predictable plot that's made up of some of the most basic of all Simpsons plots : Homer and Marge relationship problems , Lisa's environmental concerns , and Bart's loss of faith in his father . None of it here is done with the irony of the newer episodes . It's like it's part of the really early Simpsons , when we hadn't seen these plots a billion times . Except it completely lacks the perfect comic timing of the early seasons . In the end , the movie is only an occasionally amusing affair . Certainly it's worth seeing if you're a fan , but , unless you're the kind of nut I am , you can wait for the DVD .
|
384,718 | 391,152 | 112,817 | 6 |
The long awaited reviewing of a movie I've often trashed
|
I'm only somewhat happy to say that it's nowhere near as bad as I remembered it ? I rated it a dismal after just one viewing . Since I first saw it , probably around a decade ago , I've educated myself in both Westerns and Jarmusch , and I can judge it better being more familiar with its referents . My judgment now : still not very good . To be fair , I can't say that I'm the biggest Jarmusch fan . I've seen most of his movies now , and the only one that works for me on any large level is his most recent , Broken Flowers . That film just blows me away . Other than that , I did like Mystery Train . All of the other films I've seen of his , which include Coffee and Cigarettes , Down by Law , Stranger Than Paradise and Dead Man itself , work for me up to a point . After that point , they just bug me . My specific complaint about Dead Man is that it seems to want to be profound , or at least people think it is ( the lead comment on IMDb right now begins : " A profoundly spiritual film speaking to our true human nature in a world of illusion " ) , but it also wants to be a goofy / weird comedy . That goofiness is fun at times , but definitely kills any apparent profundity . And , dammit , how can anyone take it the least bit seriously with that damn fat Indian ? I hate the character of Nobody , and hate Gary Farmer's performance . If it weren't for him , I think I'd like the film . I like a lot about it . First and foremost , the cinematography is outstanding . I also love the quirky costume design . And the supporting performances are fun . I personally don't think Jarmusch is trying to be profound at all . I think the goofiness was more of his intention . In that case , it would have been better if it had been trimmed a bit . This is his longest film , I think , and , even besides Nobody , it overstays its welcome . While I don't hate it anymore , this is certainly my least favorite of Jarmusch's films .
|
385,946 | 391,152 | 177,789 | 6 |
Decent , but I think hardcore Trekkies will find it weaker than it could have been
|
I have to admit that I enjoyed a lot of this film , but as a pretty big fan of Star Trek , I found the jokes to be sometimes quite weak . Many of them are okay , but there's no joke that knocked me flat . Nowhere near flat . Maybe it's not just that the jokes are weak at times . Maybe it is that there are not enough jokes . The characters maybe could have been closer to the actual Star Trek characters . Or it could have been really great if they had actually made it with the actors from the original series ( or even The Next Generation characters , most of whom are moving towards the same situation ) . Also , the script is quite predictable . True , it is a comedy , but comedies don't have to follow strict script outlines . The one thing that I thought they hit closest to the mark was the depiction of the actual Trekkies ( " Questers " in this film , I believe ) . The main Quester was hilarious . And props to my homeboy Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall fame , finally finding some work .
|
385,070 | 391,152 | 206,013 | 6 |
Honestly , I thought this was Ghibli's weakest film that I've seen
|
Based on a Japanese cartoon strip , and it shows . Yes , the visual style is very simple and , honestly , once I got over the novelty of it , it did start to grate . But that's not even what I'm talking about . I only ever read the comic strips in the papers when I'm extremely bored . I like to see just how bland and unfunny they are . My Neigbors the Yamadas isn't entirely bland , but it is often enough that the film disappoints overall . For every charming moment , of which there are quite a few , there are half a dozen moments filled with the most banal of observations about Japanese family life . The script is very episodic , presumably because it is based on a bunch of individual story lines from the comic strips . There are some longer stories , but a majority of the film follows the basic three-box comic strip formula . There's a two part set-up and then a quick punchline , always in the film followed by an annoying musical cue . The best moments of the film are meant to be small and sweet , but even these are so understated that they are mostly forgettable . Ghibli has done toned-down material very well in the past , notably Yoshifumi Kondo's Whisper of the Heart . I would never have imagined that a Studio Ghibli film would disappoint me ; it's beyond comprehension that I had to fight to stay awake during one !
|
385,029 | 391,152 | 388,556 | 6 |
Not among Miike's best films
|
In fact , I might call it his worst , or at least it's close to it . Miike is actually a very good director-for-hire , but he never seems to feel comfortable when he's directing a movie for younger audiences . Like The Great Yokai War and Andromedia , the two other Miike films of this type I've seen , Miike keeps the worst part of his normal aesthetic ? that is , the incredibly drawn out , Asian art-house dialogue scenes . It can work well in dramas or in suspense pictures , but these three films lack anything that could be considered suspenseful . Miike's not allowed , I would guess , to push the boundaries much , so he can't create any memorable setpieces . He works a lot with computer effects in Zebraman , but they're extremely poor . They wouldn't have been acceptable ten years ago in the United States . The film concerns an ineffectual teacher and father , played by Sho Aikawa , who longs to become a super hero he remembers from TV when he was a kid . He is soon endowed with the powers he wishes for so he can fight an alien invasion . Sho Aikawa is very good in the lead , and there are a couple of good sequences . But , all in all , it's a bore .
|
385,610 | 391,152 | 808,331 | 6 |
Interesting failure
|
I would categorize this as an interesting failure . Jacob Kogan plays the title character , the first child of Brad and Abbie Cairn ( Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga ) . After his baby sister is born , Joshua becomes morbid , and more than a little creepy . I love the whole evil child angle , and the fact that there is no supernatural reason for Joshua's behavior makes it even more horrifying . Unfortunately , Ratliff and co-writer David Gilbert haven't written a good enough script to support their idea . While there is no supernatural reason given for Joshua , the kid is so odd and seemingly beyond his own years that I think some viewers will end up supplying their own . I never really bought the character . He ends up almost paper-thin , like there's nothing behind his wickedly blank face . I wouldn't say that Jacob Kogan gives a good performance here , but he certainly has the look of utter wickedness about him . There are other fatal flaws , as well . Sam Rockwell is a little too broad , and comes off as almost comedic . This is especially true in the final half-hour , after Rockwell's character has begun to expect his son of being malicious . I shouldn't be giggling at the whole concept ? this is where some true horror should arise . But Rockwell's reaction to his son's evil is almost comical , and I'm not entirely sure it's unintentional . Particlarly awful is the scene where Rockwell hires a child psychologist to examine Joshua . That whole bit was patently ridiculous : the woman deduces after approximately twelve seconds ( she looks at one drawing ) that Joshua is being abused . And she tells Rockwell instantly ! You'd think if she really thought he was abusing his son , she'd play it more subtly and , you know , call child services or something . That scene is pretty unforgivable . There are , on the other hand , several very good sequences . I especially liked the bit where Joshua gets his mother to step on some broken glass . And that scene where the kid mocks his father for mourning their dead dog ? which Joshua killed , of course ? is chilling .
|
385,806 | 391,152 | 37,008 | 6 |
Not really that good
|
I remember liking this one fine the first time I saw it , though I thought it was maybe a tad overrated . This time , it didn't hold up well at all . I didn't like too much about it . It can't be called noir ; it's not very atmospheric , nor is the cinematography especially dark . I'd rather just call it a murder mystery . But even then , the mystery is fairly simple to solve . And there are a couple of twists along the way that strike me as unbelievable . The celebrated dialogue felt forced to me . The famous score also did not seem good to me . The worst part is the casting , though . I know most would disagree with me , but the only bright spot in the cast is Judith Anderson , and she doesn't have too much to do . Clifton Webb is okay , I guess , but most of the forced dialogue comes from his lips . Gene Tierney is certainly one of the most beautiful Hollywood actresses , but I've always found her just a little bit to the right side of talentless . And , though both were good once in a while , Dana Andrews and Vincent Price are generally two of the dullest actors from the era . Truthfully , Laura doesn't shine as brightly as most want to believe it does .
|
385,939 | 391,152 | 126,376 | 6 |
Interesting for Cohen Fans , but Rather Pretentious
|
This documentary is somewhat lame . It is very worshipful towards Leonard Cohen . There are scenes in Canadian lecture halls where people laugh at his every word , and I wasn't even sure half the time that he was joking . You can tell Cohen doesn't really care . In fact , he speaks in silly little poetic quips that become awfully annoying very quickly . In fact , after the documentary part of the movie is done , there is an interview with Cohen after he has just watched the film . A piece of film that was recorded and not included in the actual documentary is very telling : it shows Cohen writing " CAVEAT EMPTOR " on the wall above a bathtub while he is bathing . Yes , the buyer should beware in this case . Oh , and speaking of buying , you can buy this on VHS or DVD if you really want it . Just go to Amazon . com and search for it . The DVD has a few supplemental short films which are actually more interesting than the feature . There is a goofy music video for " I'm Your Man , " and a couple of really marvelous video montages coupled with Cohen's poetry .
|
385,422 | 391,152 | 169,102 | 6 |
Can a movie about cricket , 15 minutes short of four hours , be entertaining ?
|
The answer : kind of . Occasionally . But Lagaan is a very flawed film . I think the Sports Movie is probably the worst cinematic genre , in that there are really only two possible outcomes in the end . The underdogs either win or they lose . Both options have been so utterly overdone that a sports movie just can't really be very interesting . Add to that the fact that I know so little of cricket ? if you don't , you probably should read up on the rules before you see Lagaan ( like the fact that you can bean a batter without any penalty whatsoever ) ? and that promises a very dull movie . Fortunately , the film manages to be pretty entertaining all the way through . And since I personally broke it up into three different sittings , the length wasn't a big deal ( if I had seen this in the theater , I very well might have despised it ) . It helps that the film is partly a musical . There are , I think , only six musical numbers , all of them good , a couple just fantastic ( they get less impressive as the film goes on ) . The musical score of the film is also very good . And the ( Indian ) actors are all pretty good , with Gracy Singh ( as Gauri ) being an absolutely stunning beauty . I hated the way that the British were portrayed , though . Yeah , I know , they were pretty awful to their subjects at this point of history . But they're so evil , they might as well be twirling their ever-present mustaches . And the more flamboyant the facial hair , the meaner they are . There is a lot of semi-frightening ' I hope our gods break the backs of the Whiteys ! ' sentiment flying around the film , and Lagaan sometimes seems like a very hateful movie . It does very little to actually separate the past with the present , it seems to me . And then there's the white woman . She seems like she might have been added to apologize for the rest of the British characters ( she has no facial hair ) , but she's so poorly written that all of her actions and appearances are laughable . And the semi-romantic relationship between herself and Bhuvan , the main Indian character , is an incredibly anachronistic and unbelievable conceit . Not much is even made of it , really , except for a particularly hilarious scene where she joins in during one of the better musical numbers . I don't particularly recommend Lagaan ( you might want to buy the soundtrack , though , or download a couple of the songs ) , but many may like it much more than I did . .
|
385,261 | 391,152 | 160,535 | 6 |
Sometimes hard to follow
|
This story involves two girls , Dora and Sunako , who are best friends in Yokohama . They vow never to separate , but along enters a man ( with the Western name Henry ) . Sunako goes for him , but he's a bad guy , a gangster and a philanderer . She eventually catches him with another woman , and does something rash . In her shame , Sunako runs away only to become a geisha . Later she meets up with Dora and Henry again , now married to each other and feeling guilty for what became of Sunako . Japanese Girls at the Harbor is often a very pretty film , but I sometimes found it to be poorly made . The first half is especially confusing with Shimizu's gimmicky editing . And the transition between the big event of the first half and the second half of the film is never quite clear . I had initially thought I was confused because I watched it tired , but I watched most of the first half over again and still found it hard to put together . Plus , whenever characters who aren't one of the main three enter the film , it's always hard to understand who they are . The second half of the film is much stronger than the first , but I would still complain that Henry and Dora are never especially interesting characters . My attention was focused entirely on Sunako , and I found it hard to concentrate when she wasn't around . This is the earliest film in the Eclipse Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu box set ( and the only silent film ) , and I've read at least one review of the set that claims that it's the weakest . Looking at the better aspects of the film , it's clear that Shimizu is a talented director . I'm confident that the other films will be better . I definitely do not recommend starting with this film if you're just renting them . Skip it all together , or at least come back to it later .
|
385,504 | 391,152 | 61,395 | 6 |
quite underwhelming
|
there are several hundred foreign films that are so much better than this . It's simply more of the same Bunuel bourgeosie bashing . perhaps it was shocking in the day , but it's dated now . Even Catherine Deneuve is positively weak here . Actually , this was one of her first films , and I was also unimpressed with her performance in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg . I cannot see what is so special about this .
|
384,548 | 391,152 | 177,971 | 6 |
The one thing I never want to hear while in a helicopter : " We're running on fumes here . "
|
It's difficult to gage whether or not _ The Perfect Storm _ is worth seeing . On the negative side , the film contains about the most generic and stock characters and situations one will find in Hollywood . The actors in this film , most of whom are normally great , obviously did this just for the big pay check so that they could star in more Magnolias and Three Kings . But on the positive side , it contains some extremely exciting and physically harrowing scenes . From a technical point of view , it might be the most well done sea disaster film ever made . Whatever happens , don't decide to wait for video to see this film . Even on DVD , it would not be very fun to watch . These waves simply have to be over your head to enjoy this film . See it at a matinee . I paid $3 . 50 to see it , and I'm perfectly happy about that price . And after you watch it , if you do think it's something great , go out and rent _ The Poseidon Adventure _ , which , while the special effects don't reach anywhere near this level , I feel is the best disaster movie I've ever seen . I give _ The Perfect Storm _ .
|
384,956 | 391,152 | 32,258 | 6 |
Silly , but moderately entertaining
|
Though this film is found on DVD in a Bela Lugosi box set , Lugosi has a supporting role . Boris Karloff is also in it in a much more major role , but the star is character actor Stanley Ridges . The fact is , Karloff was supposed to be in the Ridges part and Lugosi in the Karloff part , but Karloff was considered unconvincing in the dual role . Ridges plays a college professor who is harmed during a gangland shooting . Also injured is a gang boss , Red Cannon . Cannon is dying , as is the English professor , so Boris Karloff transplants half of Cannon's brain into the prof's head , which helps him survive . Later on , the prof starts exhibiting memories of Red Cannon . Karloff attempts to use that subliminal knowledge to get hidden gangster money . Unfortunately , the subliminal soon becomes the conscious . It's a moderately entertaining story . The wrap-around story kind of ruins it ? the movie begins with Karloff about to be executed , and then the main thrust of the story is told in flashback . But when we get to why Karloff is about to be executed , it's just stupid .
|
385,629 | 391,152 | 70,155 | 6 |
Decent filmmaking - morally reprehensible story
|
For quite a while , I really loved The Harder They Come . The music is fantastic . The cinematography and location shooting are gorgeous . And , most of all , I was simply fascinated by the Jamaican dialect of English exhibited in the film . A word of warning : this film is in English , but it is very difficult to understand , almost impossible at times . The Jamaicans accent their words completely differently , and their speech patterns have an entirely different cadence than ours do . And I liked the plot a lot for about half or more of the running time . I was genuinely involved with the characters and their stories . Unfortunately , after a certain point , it becomes very morally dubious . Yes , the main character , Ivan ( Jimmy Cliff ) , is not treated too fairly by Preacher . However , it's hard to root for a hero who stabs a man in the back because he confiscated his bicycle . It would be different if the audience were not asked to root for Ivan , but we plainly are . He thinks he'd make a great singer , but the producer of his record refuses to let the radio stations play it . After a while , Ivan is forced to make a living by selling ganja - which goes really well , obviously . When a police officer attempts to pull him over for speeding , he ices the copper . Then a bit later he kills three more , and basically goes on a killing spree . All of a sudden , people want desperately to hear his record on the radio . The producer'll make tons of money , so he lets it have airtime . Instantaneously , Ivan becomes a star and a Robin Hood-esque hero to the supposedly oppressed people of Jamaica . Well , Robin Hood isn't the best example - he's much more O . J . - esque ; is there anyone in the world who won't immediately conjure up the image of a white Bronco during a scene in which a dozen people cheer Ivan on when he's blasting away at a rival ganja dealer ? This is really dispicable , and it becomes even moreso when , during Ivan's final stand-off , the director , Brecht-style , cuts to the movie's Jamaican audience clapping and laughing as he kills a couple of more police officers . .
|
384,969 | 391,152 | 182,295 | 6 |
Interesting failure
|
I applaud Kenneth Branagh for attempting this film . He's going for Shakespeare + Astaire and Rogers . Unfortunately , he doesn't succeed . Therefore , on the other hand , I must castigate Branagh for not planning it all out more carefully . The film has great potential , and is often a lot of fun . But where the tremendous energy goes slack , it simply becomes grating . In fact , it feels like the whole project was tossed together in as short a time as possible . Here are my complaints and suggestions : 1 ) Branagh clearly wanted to make a surreal , visually inventive film , but that inventiveness stops dead in its tracks every time it gets going . He'll be playing with the colors , dressing his characters in beautiful and vibrant shades , but then he won't compose his shots so that the color is at its maximum effectiveness . He just throws everything up on screen . The intent with the sets seems to be to make the film more theatrical . I think this is a mistake , especially when , at first , he was going for the visual inventiveness . Something neat will happen , like , for instance , when the men start floating in the air during " Cheek to Cheek " . I was hoping for a ceiling dance or something , a midair dance , perhaps . Nope . They just float their in the air like Charlie and Grampa Joe , and flailing like a possessed character in the Evil Dead movies . And during the " No Business Like Show Business " scene , the camera is positioned straight above , ready for the Busby Berkeley number . But no . That shot lasts less than a second . 2 ) Which leads me to the second complaint : The editing is far too quick . It's headache-inducing at times . Not that the editing shouldn't be quick . It would work if it were paced a little better . 3 ) Branagh never really utilizes the potential of the older musicals he seems to want to be parodying . He's not bad in segueing into the songs ; I was rather impressed on that account . Sometimes he blends the Shakespeare and the Gershwin , especially in the " They Can't Take That Away From Me , " which may represent Ira Gershwin's best lyrics . But Branagh never does it for any reason other than a gimmick . He sets the story in 1939 Europe , with WWII breaking out across the continent . The Astaire-Rogers team went on hiatus at that point . It would have been so easy to follow the logical loss of innocence of that age . Instead , the musical stuff feels gimmicky and the WWII stuff feels terribly clunky ( especially the climactic montage of the entire war ) . 4 ) What's with Alicia Silverstone ? I almost want to leave her alone , because it's too easy to criticize . To tell you the truth , she's not as bad as I had envisioned , but she's definitely not up to it . I would say as much about Matthew Lillard , too , but his role is so incidental that it's not bothersome . He is actually in the movie all the time , but has little dialogue . Lillard does have one particularly embarrassing scene - although the embarrassment of its creation belongs to Branagh - where he humps his top hat . But , wait , what am I talking about ? This is the guy who cast Keanu Reeves in a Shakespearian movie , not to mention the fact that he was playing Denzel Washington's brother . But I don't want to tear into Branagh . In fact , I was serious when I wrote that I applaud him for attempting Love's Labours Lost . It's worth a look . Few more interesting movies have been made in the past few years , and I can think of no more interesting failure . .
|
384,834 | 391,152 | 398,375 | 6 |
Great concept , great acting - so why does it turn out so weak ?
|
This is the kind of movie that just pisses me off to no end because it has so much potential , but somehow it comes off as exceedingly mediocre . Jennifer Aniston plays a woman who discovers her family was the model for the novel and film The Graduate . She never saw how she fit in with her family , so she wonders if maybe the model for Benjamin , a rich man named Beau Burroughs ( Kevin Costner ) , is her real father . She's wrong , but in the process of this discovery , she ends up sleeping with the man , thus continuing the tradition of her mother ( deceased ) and grandmother ( played here by Shirley MacLaine ) . This in turn ruins her relationship with her loving fiancé ( Mark Ruffalo ) . I remember seeing the trailer last fall and thinking , " This is a great idea . " I laughed pretty much constantly during that preview . Unfortunately , it contains most of the film's best moments . The actual film is more of a romance ( or perhaps a better term would be " chick flick " ) than a comedy . It gets somewhat sappy , and the whole thing lumbers on and his never very strong . This is especially annoying , as all the actors are actually very good . Aniston proves once again that she is a very good actress ( if only she could land some great material ) . Costner gives his second excellent performance of the year ( I thought his performance in The Upside of Anger was perhaps the year's best performance from an actor ) . He was so mediocre earlier on , it's kind of cool to see that maybe he is just now hitting his peak . Mark Ruffalo is very funny , as is Mena Suvari , who plays Aniston's younger sister . And MacLaine's role is absolutely golden . She also had a very good performance elsewhere in ' 05 ( In Her Shoes ) , but she has even more to do here and she flexes her comic muscles . With all that goodness , it really pains me that it's so hard to muster any enthusiasm for this somewhat lame film !
|
385,105 | 391,152 | 63,414 | 6 |
Now on DVD from No Shame
|
Bertolucci was heavily indebted to Godard and the other French New Wave directors in his sophomore feature , Before the Revolution . His third feature , Partner , has him follow Godard into his fin de cinema . Partner is a purely experimental film with little narrative . It's definitely a turn for the worst for Bertolucci . Thankfully he was drawn back into narrative cinema with his fourth film , The Conformist . Partner is worth seeing for fans of the director and New Wave enthusiasts . It has some interesting points . The minimal plot of the film has Pierre Clémenti playing a man with split personalities . Most of the rest of it is made up of random vignettes . Some are amusing , some are annoying . Some are just plain boring . Unfortunately , there just aren't enough amusing ones to make it an easy watch . Clémenti is excellent , and Bertolucci lives up to his reputation as one of the cinema's greatest visual minds . Stefania Sandrelli , who would go on to star in The Conformist , appears briefly with curly blonde hair . She doesn't do much , but she's gorgeous .
|
384,936 | 391,152 | 390,538 | 6 |
A man's Valentine to himself
|
Tarnation is a very personal documentary exploring the director's history and the pain that his mother went through with her various psychological problems . There are two ways to look at this film : either you can see it as a soul-searching document produced by Caouette , or you can see it as an egotistical project taken up to achieve notoriety and project depth . While I think the former view is less cynical , I think I'd lean toward the latter . The film was sold as being about Jonathan and his disturbed mother , but his mother feels almost like an afterthought . The film is almost always , and almost always gloriously so , about Jonathan Caouette . He had a fairly difficult life , it is true . But whenever I personally feel my own life is terrible , I think of a scene from Voltaire's Candide , where each person on a ship is asked to tell their sob story , and each story is more horrific than the last . Yes , Jonathan , it was bad , but others have had much worse , and much more interesting lives . And when you put your face on screen for eighty minutes of the time , use third-person narration to describe the events in your life , and have all of your greatest works of creation on display , it's hard for the audience not to find it egotistical . Still , the film can be affecting , and the editing ( done on a Mac ) shows great skill . The film was an obvious influence on director John Cameron Mitchell's film Shortbus , in which Caouette appeared in a bit part .
|
385,797 | 391,152 | 262,432 | 6 |
Profoundly Annoying
|
George Washington is one of the most upsetting film experiences I've ever had . The reason for this is not what you might expect . It was not bad . A bad film isn't exactly annoying . What is annoying is inconsistency . It is as if it were written and directed by Dr . Jeckyl and Mr . Hyde . Dr . Jeckyl's parts are the great parts , of which there are numerous . In fact , many individual scenes have an utterly profound power , almost knocking me down . But here comes Mr . Hyde ! About of the scenes of the entire film are awful in every aspect . They clash so horribly with the great scenes that it basically kills the film dead . Actually , I think the good parts and bad parts can be identified further . I think I know which aspects were sorely lacking in the film . The film's story is great . I could imagine reading it in a novel and finding it quite compelling . The script , though , lacked a huge part : the dialogue . The dialogue ranges from not bad to terrible . Fundamentally , the dialogue is problematic in the same way as the Terrence Malick film The Thin Red Line . In that film , we here narration of a grand poetical quality coming from these soldiers . It's as if there are two characters : the actual ones , and the fantastically poetic ones . George Washington is the same way , except for one major flaw : these deeply poetic and philosophical musings that these young kids come up with are neither very poetic nor very philosophical . They're all extraordinarily hackneyed , in fact . And to boot , all actors in the film except for one of the kids are HORRENDOUS actors , both in dialogue delivery and in gesticulations . The kid who plays George , arguably the main character , is the best . There is one monologue in the film that I feel the need to just attack ferociously to demonstrate the lowest depths of this film . George's uncle , who has adopted him , is particularly cruel to animals , especially dogs . He admits to killing a dog to his nephew , and then proceeds to tell George the root of this psychological problem . It seems that when he was a young kid , 6 I think , a big dog came up to him and started humping his leg . He tried to overpower the darn thing , but it was too big and knocked him down . It " humped [ him ] all over [ his ] body . " So he went home and got a drill to kill the dog , but that dog was gone . COME ON ! ! ! This is incredibly silly . I cannot think of a sillier event than being raped by a dog ! ! ! Jeeze , I almost threw things at the screen that was so terrible ! This is one of those movies that I would love to see someone remake , cutting the bad things , thickening the rest of the story ( the themes in the film , while potent , are often tenuously held together ) . I bet a really compelling film could be made with just the existing footage . One thing I do have to say , though , is watch out for this director ! This film may have been a failure ( and that is only in my opinion , of course ) , but there is so much worth in it that I think if the director matured , he might produce a real masterpiece . I will give it a because of the good things in it . Really , though , the film falls pretty flat by the end .
|
385,354 | 391,152 | 41,497 | 6 |
Hard to get too enthusiastic after seeing The Assassination of Jesse James
|
Six days after seeing Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , it's still the film at the forefront of my mind . I saw this as a followup to that . Like most Hollywood films of the era ( and most of today ) , I Shot Jesse James plays fast and loose with the facts . In this film , Ford ( John Ireland ) shoots James for the reward money so he can marry his sweetheart ( Barbara Britton ) . Unfortunately , that cowardly act turns her off of him , and she gravitates toward a man named John Kelley ( Preston Foster ) . Kelley is a fictionalized version of Ed O'Kelley , the man who ultimately shot Robert Ford for nothing more than fame . It's pretty hilarious that he's more or less made into the hero of this picture . Jesse James is ludicrously depicted as an avuncular Abe Lincoln figure . Besides all of this hoo-ha , Sam Fuller , whose debut this was , does a decent job characterizing Ford . Too bad Ireland , an actor I immediately recognized but couldn't say for the life of me where I know him from ( I looked it up ? he also played the reporter , and pretty much the lead character , in the Best Picture of that year , All the King's Men ) , is a pretty boring actor . I usually associate Fuller with fast pacing and good plotting , but this one plods along lamely with its romantic triangle melodrama . It does have a couple of good scenes , though , like one where a goofy looking teen ( Gene Collins ) tries to assassinate Ford , and another where Ford encounters a folk singer performing the Jesse James ballad , a scene which is echoed in Dominik's film .
|
385,513 | 391,152 | 6,206 | 6 |
Reviews for episodes 1-4 ( more to come , perhaps )
|
This French crime serial from the 1910s is one of the few silent serials left ( and probably one of the only ones available for consumption ) . Louis Feuillade is its director . I watched the first four episodes ( the tapes come each with four episodes of varying length ) and will give a brief review of each . SPOILERSEpisode 1 : The Severed Head - I was a little afraid that Les Vampires was going to be really bad when I was sitting through The Severed Head . We are introduced to a journalist , Phillipe , who is hot on the trail of a notorious gang called the Vampires , which is the subject of his daily reports in the newspaper . An important lawkeeping official has been found dead , decapitated . Phillipe goes on the hunt , and the clues lead him to the home of Dr . Nox . Dr . Nox is currently showing his mansion to the mansion's potential buyer , an American woman . Long story short , this is a really weak film . The cinematic devices are still pretty new , but Feurillade shows no talent in using them or innovation in this first episode . It is unsuspenseful , slow , and somewhat laughable . . Episode 2 : The Ring That Kills - This one's a lot better than the first one . This one is rather short compared to the other three on the first tape . Phillipe sets up a trap at a ballet . There is a really neat ballet number involving a woman dressed as a bat . Anyway , the plan doesn't go that well and Phillipe gets captured . Luckily , Mazamette , a friend of his , has infiltrated the hideout of the Vampires . Phillipe is freed , and they capture a Vampire and put him in his place ( he is about to be executed ) . All in all , The Ring That Kills is pretty goofy ( some of the humor is intentional , some is not ) , but it is a pretty effective crime movie . . Episode 3 : The Red Cypher - Phillipe takes a few days off of work in order to decipher the codes in a book he has found on the Vampire whom he got killed in his place at the end of Episode 2 . The Vampires devise a way to get into his house using false identities . A replacement maid , whose real name is Irma Vep ( which you might recognize as the title of a French film from the 1990s ) , tries to poison Phillipe , but he tricks her as well . Phillipe's mother gets captured , but she also finds a clever way out of her dilemma . By now , this series is still quite silly , but it's pretty entertaining , especially in plot . The cinematic devices are still not used in any fantastic way , but the plot is getting a bit cleverer . Still a , but nearly an . Episode 4 : The Spectre - This one was a little confusing in its plot . I must have blinked at the wrong moment and missed an expositional intertitle . There's little of interest besides a decently directed and edited murder sequence in a train , good for its time , anyways , and Phillipe's reconnaissance of an office in which Irma Vep is spying , disguised as a secretary . Also , the final scene has a neat little thing in it : Phillippe and Mazamatte are talking on the phone , both of them present in the same shot . Between them is edited a shot of a bridge , a metaphor for the connection between phone lines . It's pretty dumb , but at least Feuillade was trying here . Conclusion for Episodes 1-4 : all in all , an interesting bit of early cinema , but The Vampires really doesn't hold up very well today . It's mostly just a rather flat series of crime stories , perhaps like the kind that might have appeared in a weekly detective magazine or something , filmed straight without invention or embellishment . Sure , it's still early as heck in the cinema , but by the end of the silent period the art form had gone light years beyond Les Vampires . I wish I were more familiar with D . W . Griffith . He's a contemporary of Feuillade's , and the few bits of his films that I have seen seem much more advanced than this serial . I don't want to make a definitive statement on the comparison between the two , though , until I see one of Griffith's films . Even the earlier films by the Lumiere Brothers , Georges Melies , and the Thomas Edison company seem a lot more amazing today than does this . I might see more of the serial if I ever get a chance to see it for free , but I doubt I'd pay any more money to rent them .
|
385,706 | 391,152 | 349,710 | 6 |
Yeah , Firefighters are great , but . . .
|
I don't think dramas about firefighters work . There's just too much tendency to heroize them . They probably deserve it , of course , but uncomplex , two-dimensional heroes are no fun to watch . The story follows the firefighting career of Joaquin Phoenix . We see him get in quite a pickle , and he flashes back to his first days on the crew as well as the meeting and the courting of his girlfriend / wife ( the gorgeous ? but somewhat uninteresting ? Jacinda Barrett ) . John Travolta plays the chief . The movie fades from memory as soon as the credits appear ( the ultra-cheesy " Wow , aren't firefighters grand ! " montage that ends the picture sees to that ) .
|
385,948 | 391,152 | 832,266 | 6 |
Sweet and nice , but not particularly memorable
|
A romance with a bit more intelligence than the average one , a little more heartfelt and one that has a very likable and non-stereotypical man at its center . He is played by Ryan Reynolds , most famous for his role as Van Wilder , but surprisingly good as a romantic lead , and the movie is about him telling the story of how he met his wife ( from whom he is getting a divorce ) to his young daughter ( Abigail Breslin ) . There were three major women in his life , and he changes their names so the daughter can't guess which one is her mother . The three women are played by Elizabeth Banks , Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz . He falls in love with each of them at different times , but always at the wrong time . At times , this is a very sweet movie , and not very cloying . Unfortunately , it's never all that engaging , either . It offers some simple pleasures , but it was , overall , pretty forgettable . I also didn't care for the flashback structure much . Some of the stuff that is apparently being narrated to his daughter is stuff a girl of her age , who incidentally just learned the term " sexual intercourse " the same day at school , doesn't need to hear . When the girl has to stop the story to ask what a threesome is , your story might have gotten a bit too graphic . That gag was certainly more disturbing than funny .
|
384,867 | 391,152 | 348,150 | 6 |
Not terrible , but certainly forgettable
|
Fairly entertaining , but entirely unmemorable . Superman returns from exploring the wastes of his home planet , Krypton , to learn that Lois has a kid and a live-in boyfriend . Meanwhile , Lex Luthor has been released from prison and has invaded the Fortress of Solitude in order to steal Kryptonian technology . The plot from there more or less writes itself . Too bad it also doesn't edit itself , as the film lasts over two and a half hours . The cast is mostly generic . Brandon Routh seems weak , but that's probably not his fault . The screenwriters have written little for him to do . Kate Bosworth is pretty but doesn't strike me as the Lois Lane type . Only Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor gives anything close to a good performance . He pales in comparison to Gene Hackman , but he has some very good moments . I absolutely hate that little moppet who plays Lois ' kid . He's in desperate need of a haircut . The action sequences are mostly enjoyable , although they cross far into the territory of ridiculous . I read an article shortly before the release of the film that said the film pays closer attention to science than previous Superman movies . Perhaps ? the climactic sequence of the ' 78 Superman is one of the most ludicrous moments in cinema history . But the first action sequence , in which Superman saves a doomed plane and no one , given real world physics , would have survived , is nearly as bad .
|
385,790 | 391,152 | 47,892 | 6 | null |
Bob le Flambeur is only of passing interest . With the kind of high art that exists in European film , this film feels superfluous . What is its use ? Is it an exploration of the crime genre ? An homage ? A parody ? If it is any of those , it is just barely . It seemed more to me like a standard heist film with a couple of peculiarities . One of those peculiarities , the musical score , I would rate as excellent . There are a lot of neat little things to hear on the soundtrack , like the tiny bells we hear at one point when Bob flips his coin . Once in a while the editing or cinematography or direction would turn up something interesting . I like the neat downward wipe from the old woman who plops down on her chair to Bob and Anne in Bob's apartment . Some of the camera angles were great . I liked the scene with Bob in his triangular kitchen . What Bob le Flambeur lacks , though , is any characters with whom to identify . None of them are well developed . The film actually has a pretty good first act . When I first met the characters , I liked them . But they never went anywhere . Bob , who is , of course , the main character , is given a somewhat built-up past , but his present character and his motivations were , to me , often vague . Whatever character I saw in him I must have , as I later ( during the film ) realized , inferred from other films that are either very similar or directly referencing this film . Polo should have been more well developed . He had no real history , and his actions seemed to do nothing in the way of his development , but rather were only useful for the advancement of the plot . Likewise Anne . She provided the best hook , since the actress who plays her is very beautiful , but her character is little more than a plot device . The little character that she had was squandered . Her situation seemed interesting , but it never went anywhere . All the other characters were more or less unmemorable . The detective was somewhat interesting , but I never got enough information to feel anything about him . Two other films were constantly swimming in my mind as I grew more and more bored during this film : Stanley Kubrick's The Killing and P . T . Anderson's Hard Eight . The Killing is one of Kubrick's least interesting films for precisely the same reasons that I dislike Bob le Flambeur : it is stuck in the genre of the heist flick , and comes nowhere near passing the boundaries that its genre sets up for it . The heist flick is actually more of a sub-genre , and the more " sub " you get , the fewer variations there are . I was sure all through the film that The Killing was made before Bob le Flambeur , but it actually came out a year later . Either it takes a lot from Bob le Flambeur or I am right : heist flicks have no ability for variation . The jury is still out on P . T . Anderson . All three of his films , Hard Eight , Boogie Night , and Magnolia seemed great when I first saw them , but they feel weaker every time I think about them . My opinion on the quality of each of his films changes often , and my opinion on which one is most valuable changes , too . Hard Eight may be his best film . I did not realize , though I should have assumed , that its plot was stolen from somewhere else . And that somewhere else happens to be Bob le Flambeur . It doesn't steal everything , though . In fact , I think the argument can be made that what is taken from Bob le Flambeur is actually improved in Hard Eight . Hard Eight contains a lot of the same elements of Bob le Flambeur's first act : a gangster whose age has demoted him to mere gambler has a young protégé . A young woman who is or is about to become a prostitute comes into their life , beginning to flirt with the older of the two , but ultimately " given " to the younger by the mentor . Also , there is a hot-shot young hood who tries to sell the older man out . This plot line occurs at the beginning of Bob le Flambeur and does not develop past the point where it effects the plot . Hard Eight does something a lot more interesting . In both films , the young woman and man make grave errors . In Hard Eight , these errors help strengthen the relationship of the young couple .
|
384,875 | 391,152 | 795,493 | 6 |
Starts off well , but the final act is unconvincing
|
I had a strange reaction to this film . Much like most Woody Allen fans , I don't expect much from him nowadays . That leads some to be easily impressed by a film by Vicky Cristina Barcelona . I wasn't , though , when I saw it last weekend . The good reviews unfortunately had gotten my hopes up , and I even threw his previous film , Cassandra's Dream , up on my Netflix queue . After watching VCB , though , I immediately lost interest in Cassandra's Dream . But I forced myself to watch it anyway . The thing was , at first my low expectations were a great asset . I was very much enjoying it . It was far from perfect ; Allen overexplained his themes and made some stuff way too obvious . But it was a good film about normal people who are forced into an impossible situation . The story in short : brothers Ewan MacGregor and Colin Farrell are small-timers who get in over their heads , with a girl and with gambling debts respectively . They beg their rich uncle ( Tom Wilkinson , pretty much wasted ) to help them out financially , and he agrees . He asks a small favor , though : murder a troublemaker who might inform against him . The film does a great job with the build-up to the murder . How would normal people feel in this situation ? Both MacGregor and Farrell are excellent ( though unconvincing as brothers ) in this part of the movie . Then , after they go through with it , the film deals with their guilt . This part of the film , I felt , Woody had not thought through as much . MacGregor's performance kind of falls apart as the character acts unconvincingly . The climax that follows is extraordinarily weak . So the enjoyment I was getting out of it at first was completely quashed by the end .
|
385,526 | 391,152 | 63,350 | 6 |
People actually prefer this to Carnival of Souls ?
|
First thing first : Carnival of Souls kicks this movie's butt so hard that its spine shoots right out of its skull and launches forward so far that it breaks the world record for javelin throwing . The first fifty minutes or so are really terrible , about as clumsily directed and written as anything I can think of . Romero can't think of anything for Barbra ( Judith O'Dea , whose look should prove without a shadow of a doubt that Romero had in fact seen Herk Harvey's film ) to do than sit around staring insanely . The other characters are just as bland and illogical , although it's nice to see a black hero . Duane Jones gives the film's only decent performance . The only way Romero knows how to move the narrative forward is with the television and radio news programs , which provide us with far too much explanation for what's going on . The movie starts to pick up when the ( far too many ) characters attempt to escape the house in which they've boarded themselves up . There are a couple of surprises along the way , and the dread does begin to build . But then the final twist is far too predictable . Whatever little it was building towards falls apart . .
|
384,865 | 391,152 | 365,485 | 6 |
The kind of film that I really wanted to like more , but just didn't
|
A good premise , a pretty good script , good performances , and fairly entertaining ? but for some reason The Matador just doesn't add up to much . A businessman ( Greg Kinnear ) , down on his luck , meets a lonely and mysterious man ( Pierce Brosnan ) in a bar in Mexico City . The two become friends and during an outing at a bullfight , Brosnan reveals that he is a professional hit-man . It takes a while for Kinnear to believe him , but even after he is convinced the two remain friends . They part ways , though , on a sour note . Several months later , Kinnear and his wife ( Hope Davis ) find Brosnan at their door looking for help . The film aims for low key , and I have a lot of respect for that . It's kind of neat to see a movie about a hit-man ( and bullfighting ) with absolutely no on-screen violence whatsoever . And I like the way it depicts two men becoming friends . I like the light comedy . Somehow , I don't really like the movie . I do have some affection for The Matador , but not much enthusiasm .
|
385,355 | 391,152 | 35,713 | 6 |
Better than the material deserves - thanks to Edward Dmytryk - but ends too abruptly
|
Silly , forgotten Universal horror film , now found on DVD in a Best Buy exclusive set . This one concerns a mad scientist with Nazi undertones ( John Carradine ) who kidnaps a circus gorilla and turns her into a human being ( played by Acquanetta ) . As a human , Acquanetta has an uncanny ability to control lions and tigers , and is thus employed at a local circus ( the one whence she , as the gorilla , was kidnapped ) to help big cat tamer Milburn Stone . If Milburn Stone looks familiar , it's because he became famous as " Doc " Adams on Gunsmoke . The movie is silly but fun , with Carradine hamming it up like he usually does . And , while Acquanetta does little acting , she has a hypnotic look with those giant eyes . Unfortunately , the film , like many of the Universal Horror movies , ends abruptly , with a weird narration about the Carradine character . The animal work is pretty stunning for the time , and the editing is mostly convincing that Stone and the big cats are in the cage simultaneously . I would credit director Dmytryk , who was far too competent to be directing this kind of crap ( the next year he would do the wonderful Murder My Sweet ) . If you love animals , you might be sickened at what is done to them . Lions and tigers are thrown into a cage and forced to fight each other . The one big fight ends with a fire hose , and the tiger , at least , looked like it was badly injured . The film is completely forgotten nowadays , but it did spawn two sequels .
|
385,582 | 391,152 | 64,536 | 6 |
Interesting in the development of a genius
|
Some geniuses are made , not born . Fassbinder , who has become one of my very favorite directors , did not begin his career making masterpieces , but clumsy art films . Katzelmacher is the story of a group of bored Germans , several men and several women , who spend their lives sitting , talking , smoking , and screwing each other ( often for money ) . They treat each other like garbage , though they are too lazy to do any real damage . However , when a Greek immigrant rents an apartment from one of them , their cruelty becomes more and more tangible . The women begin spreading rumors about how the Greek ( incidentally played by Fassbinder himself ) is sleeping with certain members of the group and how he has tried to assault a couple of them . The men call him a communist behind his back , and then right to his face , as he speaks almost no German . When the Greek actually begins dating one of them ( played by Fassbinder's most beloved actress , Hanna Schygulla ) , their threats no longer remain merely threats . It's a great story , really , and , if done in Fassbinder's more honed melodrama style , one of the most unique directorial voices we'll ever hear , it could have been a great film . But , in this early stage ( this was his second feature film ) , Fassbinder was more of an avant-guard artist , striving towards Brecht , I suppose , and maybe looking towards the French New Wave . The results are mixed , but mostly leaning towards the annoying side . The film plays like a 90 minute Calvin Klein ad , with the camera lingering too long on motionless , disinterested performers . One of the better scenes has one of the actresses singing an American song in a delightfully amateurish manner while dancing . Somehow this is very beautiful . There is a repeated scene where two characters will walk forward on the same street , arm in arm , with soft piano music in the background ( the only extra-diagetic music in the film ) . This gimmick didn't work very well . While there are some beautiful bits of the film ? besides the aforementioned dance , the relationship between Fassbinder and Schygulla is rather gentle and melancholy ? it pretty much fails . It's very worth seeing , however , if you're interested in the way Fassbinder's amazing career developed .
|
384,630 | 391,152 | 39,595 | 6 |
Retarded concept , but Stewart and Wyman are great
|
Maybe the silliest story ever to make it onto the silver screen . James Stewart plays a pollster looking for a town of such mathematical perfection that , whatever you polled its people , it would reflect exactly what the entire nation would feel about a give subject . He finds this place in Grandview , and there he takes his team . When Stewart finds local newspaper editor Jane Wyman trying to convince the town council to build a new civic center , he butts in . If the town were to change at all , its magical polling phenomenon could fade . Similar to The Music Man , Stewart develops a relationship with Wyman to keep the town as it is . Fortunately , it's less cynical and fake than the relationship between the two main characters of The Music Man , and , where Robert Preston's love still seems suspicious by the end of that film , Stewart's feels genuine quickly . He doesn't want the miracle to end , but he is utterly seduced not only by Wyman , but also by the small town . When the town discovers their perfect polling ability , they screw it up pretty much instantly ( 79 % of the population say they would vote for a woman president ! ) . The town goes down the toilet , and it's up to some faithful citizens , joined by the reformed Stewart , to save it . As ridiculous as the initial concept for Magic Town is , it gets even worse near the end . Stewart did this film directly after It's a Wonderful Life , and the small town sentiment is nearly identical in both films . While the first touches me , it's simply schmaltzy in Magic Town . The performances by Stewart and Wyman , as well as many decent supporting performances from many ever-reliable character actors , are better than the movie deserves . Stewart , in particular , is great . I've never seen this guy give a bad performance , and he throws himself behind this awful script with his full soul . He almost got me to buy it . Wyman's beautiful eyes enchanted me . But in the end , the story was just too ludicrous . .
|
385,043 | 391,152 | 30,089 | 6 |
Lena Horne's screen debut
|
This all black film was Lena Horne's screen debut . Made for black audiences , it was re-released after the cross-over success of her two great 1943 films , Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather . The Duke Is Tops is a typical film about stage performers , and it is certainly a B movie . Duke Davis ( Ralph Cooper ) and Ethel Andrews ( Horne ) are a songwriter / singer team . When Ethel gets bigger offers , Duke can't come with , so he breaks it off hard with her so she'll have no regrets . He travels to the South with an old friend who is selling cure-all elixirs from his wagon ; meanwhile , without Duke's behind-the-scenes work , Ethel is a flop in New York . It's all fairly mediocre . Horne would become a much better actress in her later films . Fans of the singer will probably be disappointed anyways , as she is only in the film for about 15 minutes . Cooper is the star . But there are several wonderful musical performances that make the film much more worth watching than it otherwise would have been . For a much better film of the same time , definitely check out Stormy Weather , which is probably the pinnacle of the all-black films of this era . .
|
385,020 | 391,152 | 295,743 | 6 |
Like a dull woman's sexual fantasy
|
Rather dull and disappointing . A man and woman meet and have a one night stand during a Parisian mass transit strike . It might be a tad more interesting if we knew a single thing about either of these people , but it's all kept very anonymous ( we know that the woman is moving in with her boyfriend , but we don't know anything about the guy , who embodies the physical stereotypes that won the French that offensive , amphibian slur ) . With such a paper-thin scenario , the film doesn't seem like anything more than the sexual fantasy of a very unimaginative woman . You know , meet a handsome stranger and have no-strings-attached sex during which the guy does all the foreplay stuff , takes his sweet time and after which he doesn't take you for granted . There are no real emotions in the story , so Denis lets the music pick up the writing's slack . The film-making is pretty good , but also fairly cliché modern European cinematics . Denis has yet to impress me much .
|
385,962 | 391,152 | 102,494 | 6 |
Interesting , but definitely unsatisfying
|
Feels sloppily cobbled together out of many disparate parts . It's a movie about street hustlers ( mainly River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves ) , and then suddenly something seemed familiar , the dialogue starts to get flowery and I realized I was watching an update of Welles ' Chimes at Midnight . I hadn't realized Keanu had embarrassed himself by trying Shakespeare before Much Ado About Nothing ( he plays the part of Prince John here ) . He starred the same year in the second and final Bill & Ted movie . Here he tries to graduate , but fails . The film jumps all over the place as Reeves and Phoenix look for Phoenix's long lost mother . The film doesn't work well at all . It looks very beautiful . Phoenix is very good . He died a couple of years later , and what a fine actor we lost .
|
385,451 | 391,152 | 981,227 | 6 |
Cute but forgettable
|
Michael Cera plays Nick , a rock musician who has recently been dumped by his girlfriend ( Alexis Dziena ) . The rest of his band forces him into the arms of a beautiful girl , Norah ( Kat Dennings ) who has showed up to their show . The film takes place over one night in New York City , and we watch the two kids fall for each other while some hip music plays over the soundtrack . The two leads are quite charming . We've seen Cera do this same role before , so Dennings is the real surprise here . She's stunning , and this movie's sure to make her a big star . The casting is quite off in this movie , though . It's the kind of movie where Norah is frequently chastised for being a nerd and ugly and sexually inexperienced , but she never comes off as such . Dziena comes off as far too sexy to have been dating Cera in any life . Jay Baruchel shows up as Norah's on-again-off-again boyfriend , and , if you're familiar with his career anyway , he's way too dorky and likable to be playing any sort of villain . Or even anyone cool . I did like the three gay guys who comprised the rest of Cera's band . Aaron Yoo is quite good . He was also in the underrated film Rocket Science last year .
|
385,867 | 391,152 | 64,591 | 6 |
Eh ( but I did get to see Varda in person ! )
|
Agnes Varda smiled at me ! The director was present at the showing of this film ( with her 1982 short Ulysse shown beforehand ) , and she described the historical background of Lions Love ( about two feet from my face ! ) . This was her only film made in America , and it's very much influenced by the cinematic court of Andy Warhol . Lions Love stars Warhol model Viva and two men , James Rado and Gerome Ragni ( the creators of the musical Hair ) as a spiritually linked threesome living in L . A . Filmmaker Shirley Clarke crashes at their apartment , having come to L . A . to meet with producers . To sum the film up , it's late ' 60s garbage . Sorry to say it , but it is . Mostly improvised , with a lot of goofy , goofy scenes . Warhol and his cronies are almost completely forgotten , at least the cinematic section of it . I would guess that this was just one of a hundred films made in a similar style during this period . My only point of reference is the 1972 film Ciao ! Manhattan , which depicts the toppling of Warhol's most famous protege , Edie Sedgwick . That film , I think , is a masterpiece , despite of or because of its cinema verite insanity . Lions Love is much less interesting , and it never reaches an emotional level like Ciao ! Manhattan does . Still , Lions Love isn't worthless . It may be garbage , but it is amusing garbage . This is probably due to my youthful interest surrounding the late 1960s , and most who lived through the era would probably find the film insufferable . And it does find a structural anchor , if not an emotional one , in the assassination of Robert Kennedy , as well as the attempted murder of Andy Warhol . If the film depicts the events factually ( and , from what Madame Varda seemed to imply , these things happened as they were making the film ) , those two events happened on the same day . .
|
385,901 | 391,152 | 18,045 | 6 |
Dull silent epic with some standout moments
|
Divided into two parts , the first half is okay , if generally unremarkable . It concerns a group of Polish people rebelling against the Russians , who are dominating them . The second half is mostly painful to sit through . The leader of the Polish rebels , Boleslas ( Pierre Blanchar ) , is disguised as an undefeatable robotic chess player , designed by Baron von Kempelen ( Charles Dullin ) , who is famous for his automatons . When the automaton faces the Empress of Russia , Catherine II , she cheats to see what her opponent will do . He responds by swiping the pieces off the chess board . The Empress finds it amusing , but orders the automaton to be shot . The film is way overlong ( imdb lists under 90 minutes , but the Milestone DVD runs 139 ) , and the story and themes are convoluted . Like a lot of overambitious silent films , its far too many characters are easy to confuse . I was quite bored through the film . There were several great moments , though . The battle scenes in the first half are exceptional . Bernard uses some sort of handheld camera to make it seem like the viewer is in the battle . It's a common technique nowadays , but I can't recall seeing it earlier than 1927 . This has to be at least one of the first times when this was done . The cinematography is generally good , and often great , especially in the first half . Although the second half is hard to sit through , there is an extended sequence where one character is caught in the middle of a group of Baron von Kempelen's automaton soldiers . I didn't even really know who this character was exactly , but it was a neat scene .
|
385,907 | 391,152 | 18,037 | 6 |
Dull
|
I enjoyed the first forty-five minutes of this film , wondering why it had such a bad reputation . Then I started to become bored , and more bored , until I nodded off . The story , which I kind of liked at first , hits a wall early on and the second half of the film is repetitive and very , very dull . Too bad , too , because I actually like the music of Al Jolson . I love his weird voice and bizarre delivery . The songs presented here do not represent Al at his best . While ' Tootsie ' and ' Blue Skies ' are wonderfully performed ( got to love the whistling in ' Tootsie ' ) , most of the other songs are bad . Most will probably cringe during ' Dirty Hands . ' And his rendition of ' Mammy ' at the end of his film is weak . I have a much better recording of that song . The blackface scenes are probably the least offensive I've seen . Most blackface numbers make fun of blacks . Jolson is only in blackface for two very short numbers . He doesn't even try to act black as most do ( see , for example , Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in 1939's Babes in Arms ) . That doesn't make them good , of course . I don't see how Jolson even became a famous minstrel like this . It's hardly a blackface act at all ( mind that I'm not complaining , just finding it all interesting ) . The story has a very Jewish flavor , which I didn't know about and which provides some interest early on ( before the predictability and sentimentality sensors kicked in ) . .
|
385,476 | 391,152 | 113,256 | 6 |
I think I've come up with a useful description of Hou's style
|
It's cinematic masturbation ( my term ) . That's not the same as intellectual masturbation , mind you . It's not that his films are pretentious , per se . Cinematic masturbation is when the filmmakers have no real desire to share their ideas , thoughts , and motives with the audience . It's all done for their own satisfaction . This is opposed to most other filmmakers , who practise cinematic intercourse , by which they call for the audience to participate in their films emotionally and / or intellectually . Hou's not the only cinematic masturbator . Jean-Luc Godard is another one , though nowhere near the level of Hou . I love Godard , but he has a tendency not to let his audience in on what his motive is ( and , yes , artists , filmmakers most of all , should have a motive ) , especially in certain periods of his career . Tarkovsky's Mirror is another maturbatory film - it's far too incomprehensible to anyone who's not Tarkovsky . This is definitely a value judgement . Masturbation , especially on film , is extremely narcissistic . Frankly , it's unfair . Art is primarily for the audience , not the author . Otherwise , there is no point in it . Take Good Men , Good Women . It's not a bad movie , really . Certainly not Hou's worst . Its main claim to greatness is its excellent cinematography , with some sections in a high-contrast black and white and others in brilliant color . Hou also decides to move his camera a bit and film from different angles . He's finally caught up with D . W . Griffith , although he still falls back on his favorite compositions again and again . The narrative is often great - there are several great individual scenes - but it's ultimately too difficult to follow , which is the exact same complaint I had of my ( currently ) favorite Hou film , City of Sadness . The plot of Good Men , Good Women revolves around the life of a famous Taiwanese actress ( a real person ; the film is dedicated to her ) and , in the more modern section of the film , an actress who is apparently going to play this former actress in a film about her life ( her story is broken into two different time periods ) . This made sense after I read up on it , but it was really confusing when I was watching it . I assume the same actress played both parts . It's confusing because Hou doesn't want to stress anything : characters are introduced with their backs to us or when they're in shadows . How does he really expect us to recognize and latch onto his characters ? He just doesn't care . No , that's not it . It's that he doesn't want us to do so : some pretentious notion that a confusing movie is an artistic one . If I were to see this film again , I might find it better . It's still cinematic masturbation . If the audience , after reading up on it or seeing it several times , then understands it , well , it only becomes mutual masturbation . Satisfying , but wouldn't you much rather be fcking ?
|
384,841 | 391,152 | 60,860 | 6 |
You'd have to be interested in the era
|
Lethargic minimalist film about Louis XIV's rise to power in the mid 17th Century . I suppose if I had a greater interest in the time period or historical characters , I wouldn't have been bored . Case in point , several months ago I saw another of Rossellini's biopics from the same period , Socrates ( 1970 ) , and , as I am a classics scholar , I liked it very much . I know a lot about Socrates , but almost nothing about Louis XIV . Both are similar in style ( although Louis has much less dialogue ) . I guess Rossellini's point was to subtract the usual pomp and circumstance that surrounds the European royalty of this historical period , depicting everything in a very realistic light . I think I can make at least two legitimate criticisms against this film : 1 ) I think it takes too long with the first act , the Cardinal's death . It takes more than a half an hour of a 100 minute film ( actually , the Hen's Tooth video falls about 9 minutes short of that mark ) . We learn nothing much about what is actually going on during this half hour . 2 ) Jean-Marie Patte , who plays Louis XIV , seemed particularly passionless to me . I did like some parts , or at least I found them interesting . At one point , Louis designs his now-famous costume . He tells his subordinates that all nobles will be dressed in exactly the same way . In the following scene , they are . I also liked the meal scene , where we , as well as everyone else in his court , watch as patiently as possible as Louis eats course after course . The nobles in the court feign interest . What weird customs we humans have developed . I wouldn't suggest The Rise of Louis XIV unless you are interested in the period , or are a huge fan of Rossellini . .
|
384,723 | 391,152 | 427,944 | 6 |
Actually not that good at all . A weak satire , but do see it for the performances . Rob Lowe & Adam Brody should be nominated for Oscars ( though they certainly won't be ) .
|
Satire about a tobacco lobbyist ( Aaron Eckhart ) . I can't quite put my finger on why , but I really didn't think it worked . Admittedly , the tobacco industry is an easy target . It would be too easy to villainize Nick Naylor , so it feels kind of like they were trying not to villainize him completely . Which then feels like they were being too soft on him . I mean , isn't he a villain ? It always felt like director / screenwriter Reitman was pulling his punches . The film is moderately entertaining . I actually wish it were a tad funnier , but there are a few really funny moments . Nick's visit to Hollywood is the best part of the film . Rob Lowe as a Hollywood agent and Adam Brody as his assistant give the movie's most memorable performances , and also deliver all the best lines . I also liked Maria Bello and David Koechner as Nick's friends , lobbyists for alcohol and firearms respectively . William H . Macy is also good as an anti-smoking senator , but it makes me question Reitman's intentions that the satirical barbs at him stick much better than the ones against the tobacco industry .
|
384,555 | 391,152 | 373,450 | 6 |
Disappointing effort from Egoyan
|
Egoyan's weakest film , at least since he came to prominence with Exotica . It's actually a somewhat interesting mystery , but it has a lot of flaws . There is a death , possibly a murder , in the hotel suite of two famous comedians ( played by Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon ) , based on Martin and Lewis . That's the film's biggest flaw , that this completely fictional mystery uses Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as a model . It's very distracting . The bulk of the story has a young journalist ( Alison Lohman ) writing the story of the two comedians , trying to solve the mystery . The film-making is pretty good , but Egoyan , except for The Sweet Hereafter , has always been a weak director when it comes to actors . Lohman , who was great in Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men , is awful here ( she does get naked and have sex with a woman , though , which makes the film almost worth seeing ) . Kevin Bacon , who gave his best performance ever last year in the still underseen The Woodsman , isn't especially good , either . Only Firth does a good job . The film is also overscored with some very cliché mystery music . Mychael Danna's scores for Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter were brilliant ; this one's a flop .
|
384,664 | 391,152 | 17,925 | 6 |
repetitive
|
This is a decent silent comedy , but I think that Keaton did better . I don't know how available it is , but I watched his Our Hospitality in a film class , and I laughed out loud , and quite hard . I think it's a lot better the General made me laugh quietly a couple of times . It's really repetitive , too . All the train scenes seemed the same . Plus , The General doesn't give us many close ups of Keaton's amazing face . Our Hospitality shows several hilarious reaction shots .
|
384,850 | 391,152 | 53,137 | 6 |
Waltzing Mathilda is such a beautiful song
|
And On the Beach is probably the only thing that could make one sick of hearing it . This film is about the impending nuclear destruction of Australia . The rest of the world is already gone . We spend the last few months of life on Earth in the company of a navy man and his wife ( Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson ) , their sister ( Ava Gardner ) , a scientist with a guilty conscience ( Fred Astaire ) , and an American sub captain whose family died ( Gregory Peck ) . By the film's end , only one of these characters appeared human to me , the one played by Anthony Perkins . The rest seemed underdeveloped . Most of the fault rests in a morbid desire for melodrama . Just how many Gone With the Wind style kisses do we need to see between Peck and Gardner ? Little with the human characters rings true . And whatever power there could be in the film is absolutely ruined by the constant score . It never knows what it is doing , and it is too strong almost everywhere you hear it . Silence goes a long way , and the couple of scenes where there is silence , especially the scene where Perkins talks to his wife for the last time ( although the music does eventually crop up there , too ) , are powerful . And it's not just that the film is dated . I can deal with dating . It's just not a very well made film to begin with . All the great films that deal with this subject are science fiction , and I suppose that , since sci-fi is never taken seriously enough , this was provided as an alternative . Dr . Strangelove does a lot more to show us the absurdity of nuclear war . Maybe the best anti-nuclear sci-fi was made before this , The Day the Earth Stood Still . The best film that shows both the absurdity of nuclear war and the absurdity of the human race in general would not come for 9 years , but when it did it would be called Planet of the Apes , a much maligned film which ought to be considered one of the best ever made . On the Beach should not .
|
385,014 | 391,152 | 55,256 | 6 |
Loud , obnoxious and jingoistic - certainly not among Wilder's best works
|
Made in West Berlin while the Berlin Wall was being erected and dealing with the Cold War while it was escalating dramatically , there is no shortage of historical interest in this Billy Wilder comedy . However , as much as I don't want to be put into the position of defending the U . S . S . R . , One , Two , Three comes off as painfully jingoistic and the same kind of propaganda that it itself is deriding . It's also guilty of being wildly obnoxious and loud in its comedy , which is , at best , hit or miss . James Cagney plays Coca-Cola's man in West Berlin , on the brink of getting the drink behind the Iron Curtain , for which he expects to get a promotion . His boss scoffs at the idea of commies drinking America's favorite beverage . A different possibility for promotion arrives when Cagney welcomes the boss's 17 year-old daughter ( Pamela Tiffin ) to stay with him and his family . If he does a good job , keeps her away from trouble , he could get out of Germany , whose population reminds him of the war with their boot clicking and militaristic habits ( played as a joke , of course ! ) . Unfortunately , Tiffin is kind of a tramp , and immediately sneaks through the Brandenburg Gate and marries a communist ( Horst Buchholtz ) . Cagney is at his worst here . His character is a mean , petty , unlikeable jerk who yells and throws around his superiority to everyone else constantly . But as annoying as he is , he's nothing compared to Buchholtz , who spouts communist mantras and anti-American slogans at the top of his lungs every time his lips part . Yes , yes , Billy , we get it ! He's indoctrinated ! Now , please , hand me the aspirin ! Add to those two the horribly lame wisecracks of Cagney's wife ( Arlene Francis ) , and we have a triumvirate of the unfunny . The movie does have its pluses , of course . I thought Tiffin was hilarious ( she's not offended at the " Yankee Go Home " balloons because where she comes from , Atlanta , everyone hates Yankees ! ) , and I also liked the hot young secretary ( Lisolette Pulver ) with whom Cagney is having an affair ( after the unsubtle sex of The Apartment , it's no longer believable that Cagney's not sleeping with this woman ) . I also liked the three Russian boobs with whom Cagney is negotiating . Perhaps the best scene in the movie is the one where Cagney tries to sell them Pulver by having her dance on a table in front of them .
|
384,807 | 391,152 | 452,637 | 6 |
Quite likely the most original American film of 2006
|
With that and the excellent performance given by Paul Giamatti , I have to have at least a bit of affection for the film , which is otherwise kind of a mess . Not to mention very silly . Giamatti plays an apartment building superintendent who discovers a strange woman living in the bottom of their swimming pool . She is apparently some kind of water nymph who is being hunted by a grass-furred wolf . If she can get past the beast , a giant eagle will lift her into the sky and bring her home . Hopefully the three giant twig monkeys , along with the uniquely purposeful residents of the apartment complex , can guard her from the grass wolf monster . Seriously . Oh , and the director , M . Night Shyamalan , plays a man who , in the near future , will publish a book that will , Wyld Stallyns style , bring about world peace . And there's a film critic character , played by Bob Balaban , who is ruthlessly ridiculed in the script . I think the thing , as ambitious as it is , could have worked with a few more script revisions . I swear there must have been some important exposition missing near the beginning of the film . And the nymph character , played by Bryce Dallas Howard , is awful . As The Onion put it , she comes off like she's the product of a drunken one night stand between Darryl Hannah in Splash and ET . I do want to rewatch it someday , as I was quite tired when I saw it . If it is as sloppy as it seemed , I think it'll be due for a remake in a decade or two , possibly even by M . Night himself , if they'll let him work after this debacle , as many have dubbed it .
|
384,877 | 391,152 | 940,709 | 6 |
A curio from Chow
|
Stephen Chow follows up his sensational martial arts comedies Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle with what I can only hope will be a curio in a long and illustrious career . CJ7 is not a terrible film , per se , just a small and unsatisfying one . Kind of a rip-off of E . T . with a heavy dose of maudlin , Chaplinesque comedy . Oh , and doggy doo . The story is about a poor boy ( played by a girl , Jiao Xu ) and his father ( Chow ) . Chow is a construction worker who lives in abject poverty because he spends every dime on a high-class school for his son . One might think that gigantic cockroaches and rotten apple dinners might detract from such an education , but not this father . Chow often brings stuff home he finds in the dump for his kid , and one day he finds a glowing green ball . It turns out to be an alien dog-like creature , which the kid names CJ7 . The Chinese may be moving ahead of us at green technology production and cheating in gymnastics , but we can be assured that they will never surpass out ability to create CGI that doesn't totally suck . CGI always kind of sucks , but you learn to appreciate the cartoonish Incredible Hulk after you see CJ7 . It's the kind of special effect that's meant to be cute , but at best looks creepy and at worst , which is most of the time , it just looks fake . Anyway , Jiao Xu soon discovers that CJ7 has magical powers , and it helps bring him and his father closer together . Pretty lame . The film does have some positive points , though . Chow is an excellent director . I have no idea what possessed him to make this movie ( he is credited as a screenwriter , one of six , but I don't know to what extent this movie is " his " ) , but he comes up with some fine set-pieces . There are at least two sequences which include classic Chow kung fu . I really liked the scenes where Jiao Xu is at school . It would have been nicer if these had been developed even more , or maybe even if the entire movie had been about Jiao Xu's experiences at school . IMDb doesn't have the child actors credited beyond Xu , but I love the kid who plays Johnny , the school bully . There's also a giantess who falls for Xu . The goofiness of Chow's earlier films is still prevalent . Sometimes it's just weird , as in the Rube Goldberg-like climactic sequence which ends in a semi-comic tragedy , but it's as often charming .
|
384,935 | 391,152 | 418,279 | 6 |
Entertaining enough most of the way through , but certainly not great
|
Okay , I'm pretty much of the generation to which this film is aimed . I was a kid when this show was on the air . I wasn't a huge fan myself , though . I was more of a He-Man kind of guy . I only barely remember watching Transformers . My parents were unwilling to buy me the toys because they were too expensive and they broke easily during their transformations . I really wasn't at all interested in seeing this movie , except maybe on video to see how bad it was . But I'd heard a lot of good word-of-mouth reports and my friends wanted to see it , so I caved in . A one word review : Meh . A little more : it ain't terrible , certainly a lot better than I expected . The film sustains itself with a beleaguered and just plain weird sense of humor that , if not hilarious , is undeniably amusing . In general , there's just too much going on . There are like fifteen different plot threads . The story isn't too hard to follow and mostly makes sense , but a lot of it could be cut out ( for instance , the second most important piece of female eye candy , Rachael Taylor , and her hacker buddy played by Anthony Anderson ) . The action is quite fun most of the time , but the giant final battle has so much going on that it gets more than a little difficult to follow . I might have actually given the movie a passing grade if not for the quick and unsatisfying final battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron . Transformers is pretty close to being worthwhile , but in the end it's too big , exhausting and disappointing to really recommend .
|
385,739 | 391,152 | 120,201 | 6 |
Half a movie
|
The first time I saw this movie , I walked in on a bunch of friends watching it in a small dorm room . I was bored , so I sat and watched it . I asked somebody how much I had missed , and I was told not much . The first image I saw was a gung ho soldier running towards a giant insect screaming at the top of his lungs , only to be picked up and ripped in half . All right ! ! ! And the violence only got more grizzly and horrific and , thus , comic . The dismemberments ! The decapitations ! Disembowlings ! Brain eating ! Rule ! After an hour and a few minutes , the movie was over , and I had a buzz . It was the kind of fun movie even a seasoned film lover can enjoy . About a month later , I went home and my brother had rented the movie . I told him that I had really liked it , so we sat down and watched it . After all , I had missed a bit of it . Or so I thought . The movie is about two hours long , and it is split right in the center . The second hour is what I saw : the ultra-violent bug warfare . I had missed the first half : the military training . Ugh ! ! ! Sitting through the first half of that movie soured me entirely over the film's entirety . They spend an hour training to fight against human beings , then they spend the second hour not using any of that training . The first half has some sporadic violence and nudity , but it is not worth it ( well , one thing I can ; t argue with is that this is the movie that ( for almost everyone ) introduced Denise Richard's chest to the world ) . Overall , I can only give the movie a . That's how bad the first half is . I would have given it a 9 if it were only an hour long . I recommend watching only the second half of the movie .
|
385,121 | 391,152 | 58,379 | 6 |
Godzilla stumbles around drunkenly , gets the crap beat out of him by a giant moth , then gets even more crap beat out of him by its larvae
|
I'm not a huge fan of kaiju movies , but I do enjoy them to a certain extent . This one has some fun stuff . I love that Godzilla just gets his butt handed to him throughout the whole movie . He destroys stuff , but almost by accident . He crushes a giant building at one point , but only because he steps on the edge of a ledge and trips into it . His reaction to Mothra is priceless , something like : " AH ! Help ! Giant bug ! Ah ! " flailing around senselessly . As with pretty much all the Godzilla movies , the human element is dull and idiotic . Yuriko Hoshi , playing a photographer , is a cutie , though . I swear , people who think Ishiro Honda is a competent director don't really watch these films .
|
385,979 | 391,152 | 50,792 | 6 |
Noble effort , but dull film
|
An attempt to film a Greek tragedy as the Greeks would have seen it , or at least somewhat so . It's intentions are noble , but it doesn't really have any ideas of its own . This is one dull film . The monotonous chanting might have worked for the ancient Athenians , but it cancels out the greatness of the play for modern viewers . Watching this version , Sophocles ' play feels entirely irrelevant to us today . Even though I'm a classics scholar , I've always disliked adaptations of the tragedies ? I feel that we could never really capture what they meant to their original audience , simply because we are so vastly different from them . Fortunately , on a very rare occasion , someone gets it right . Skip this and see Pasolini's 1967 version of the same play . On a side note , William Shatner , in his second feature film performance , plays one of the chorus members . You can't see him , however , on account of his mask .
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.