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384,795 | 391,152 | 97,937 | 6 |
Nothing special
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This film strikes me as little more than typical Oscar bait . A man disabled with cerebral palsy grows up in a poor Irish family . His father is hard and critical and his mother is loving and shoots words of inspiration at him at measured intervals . The film shows us that the disabled can do everything a normal person can do , like play soccer and get into barfights . Eventually he grows up to become a respected artist and author . Of course , the story is true . It's been done a million times before and since , and I swear it's won an Oscar every single time . This one won two , both for acting , one for the actress playing the mother ( Bredna Fricker ) and one for the lead ( Daniel Day-Lewis ) . I'm a big fan of Day-Lewis . And , honestly , his depiction of cerebral palsy is spot-on . But so what ? I don't particularly think playing a disabled person is difficult , and the actor has done much better elsewhere . In fact , he's no better here than the actor who plays him as a boy . Sheridan's direction is so hacky ; he deserves to be making phony biopics for rappers who won't be remembered five months after the picture comes out .
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385,065 | 391,152 | 55,152 | 6 |
Eh
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This film has a pretty promising beginning ( although that promise is camp ) , it's slack pace makes for a very dull experience in the long run . The only good part ( although it is also lame ) is when Charles Bronson ( who seems miscast ) and David Frankham are left to hang below the airship tied to ropes . It is a bizarre scene , but it is amusing . I give the film a . See the much better The Time Machine , a similar film made in 1960 from the H . G . Welles novel . It is much more profound and is , thank God , not lame .
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385,320 | 391,152 | 76,637 | 6 |
SPOILERS
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I can't believe Paul Schraeder had anything to do with this . I'm kind of wishing they just credited him because the film shares many similarities with Taxi Driver , but it's too different to be considered plagarism . The film starts off very well . William Devane plays a POW just returning home from Vietnam . The performance is very good . Devane really captures what it must be like to return to a world that has more or less forgotten him . His child , a newborn when he was shipped off , has no idea who this man is . He's eager but afraid to spend time with his father , and the father feels much the same way . His wife has since found someone new ( James Best , in fact , from The Dukes of Hazzard ) , and she must walk on eggshells . At first , the unfaithful wife is very tastefully treated . She's shown sympathetically , which I didn't expect . And Devane's attitude to her is also well done . He's obviously hurt , but , in a way , it's like he never believed that he could relate to her anymore anyways , and , in a way , there's a bit of relief that she's not his responsibility . Likewise , James Best isn't ( initially ) made into a jackass or anything like that . But then the writers seem to get bored with this very touching and very human re-adjustment story . Not enough shooting , I guess . Here comes the revenge element , in the stupidest way possible , and the whole film starts to feel like it was written by a Vietnam veteran who had a big chip on his shoulder and needed to congratulate himself for all his underappreciated suffering . Which might be interesting if that were actually the case , but I'm pretty sure it's not . Devane is given some $2 , 000 worth of silver dollars at a public ceremony , and a couple of days later he is confronted by about six big men who want to steal it from him . One has to wonder why any one criminal , let alone a gang of them , would want to rip off a recently returned POW for a measly $2 , 000 . And their stupidity doesn't end there . Not only do they steal Devane's chump change , but they whack his ( soon-to-be ex - ) wife and ten year old son and then they cut off his hand ! You'd think one out of the half-dozen thugs would think to himself , gee , we should probably murder this soon-to-be-insane-with-rage Vietnam veteran , too , but no . They leave him alive , apparently without caring whether or not he'll report the incident to the police . I mean , he did see their faces and almost every name among the criminals was mentioned during the robbery . Or maybe they knew that he was too macho to involve the police . But in that case they didn't think far enough ahead to realize he'd be coming after them a couple of months later when his hand has healed and after he's gotten used to his new hook hand ( and sharpened it ) . The film gets more and more offensive by the minute . All the good work from the beginning is squandered , and it feels like that was done on purpose . Each and every bit of ambiguity from the first half hour is systematically psed on . The most telling moment comes when Devane finally confronts the lead villain and , right before he blasts him , says , " This is for my son , " leaving out his unfaithful wife . It's very pathetic , and so very disappointing considering that there had to be a few smart people who worked on the movie . The first half hour or so , like I said , is excellent . The acting throughout is excellent . The actors did their jobs , creating multifaceted and interesting characters , even when they're doing uninteresting things . Tommy Lee Jones is also in it , and his character , though only in the film a little bit , is extremely interesting . A late portrait of his loving family shows just how much a couple of people cared about making a compelling film . .
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384,813 | 391,152 | 43,118 | 6 |
Joseph Cotten & Alida Valli reunited
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Ever wonder what happened after Anna walked past Holly Martins in the final shot of the 1949 masterpiece The Third Man ? Well , apparently , Holly followed her and broke her legs . . . In Walk Softly , Stranger , Joseph Cotten plays a crook who assumes a new identity in a small town in order to start a new life . Gangsters whom he robbed are after him , and with the money he stole he believes that he can live a peaceful life . In this town , he meets a young paraplegic woman played by Valli . She was also a gambler , but her wild days were over after she took a tragic spill while skiing . The two begin to fall in love . It's probably the only time a disabled character ever had a major role as a love interest in classical Hollywood . Heck , if someone were to play the same role today , she'd probably win an Oscar ! Soon , Cotten's old partner turns up in the town broke , begging for more money . He accidentally let spies track him . The film is very low-key . In fact , it may be too low-key . The romance between Cotten and Valli is effective . It's difficult to know whether or not he is just taking her for a ride for a long time ( she's wealthy ) . The dialogue is sometimes quite clever ( and , then again , it's also sometimes too clever ) . It's the crime part of the picture that's particularly pedestrian . And the end is kind of lame . All in all , it's only 80 minutes long , and it's entertaining enough to maybe sustain that . Valli and Cotten were so much better in The Third Man , but fans of that film might delight in seeing the two as a couple here . Still , with the way that The Third Man ends , it's actually a little disappointing seeing the two actors on screen . The final scene of that film should have been the final word . .
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385,567 | 391,152 | 20,442 | 6 |
Weak Keaton flick
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Easily the least good Buster Keaton film I've ever seen , made after he gave up his status as an independent . It is his last sound film and he is working with director Edward Sedgwick , who directed several of his sound films . I've seen three of those , Sidewalks of New York ( 1931 ) , The Passionate Plumber ( 1932 ) , and What ? No Beer ! ( 1933 ) , which were all huge box office duds , but they're very good and underrated films . I don't know what exactly went wrong with Spite Marriage . It's just very weak . There are a few good moments , but none of them great . The best scene involves Buster trying to get his wife , passed out from too much wine , into bed . The final sequence has a lot of good stunts , but it isn't especially funny . It's only 80 minutes long , so it's worth a watch if you're a Keaton fan . If you aren't , definitely skip it . .
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384,619 | 391,152 | 74,710 | 6 |
A fairly disappointing picture from Ray
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It starts out well enough , with a recent college graduate ( Pradip Mukherjee ) desperate for work . The montage of his looking for work is great , especially a scene where he is interviewed for a job and asked the most irrelevant questions imaginable , including " How much does the moon weigh ? " He looks at the interviewer in disbelief . " What does that have to do with the job ? " " I'll ask the questions here , son ! " After several months of unemployment , he runs into an old friend who sets him up as a " middleman , " where he can make a huge profit with very little effort . It's immoral , and Mukherjee can feel his soul slipping away . But he can't quit , because he doesn't want to disappoint his elderly father ( Satya Bandyopadhyay , who gives the film's best performance ) . The main problem with the movie is that it's just too talky , and no one's talking about anything interesting . It wouldn't work if the characters were talking out loud about the moral dilemma ; that would make the film too obvious . But they just talk endlessly about how they are going to go about their business and so forth . The movie just drags on forever , and then it throws in this utterly contrived ending . Well , I was almost happy for the contrivance , because , although false , at least it didn't involve endless prattle . It's quite overlong . I miss the economy of his better films . A dud by a master . .
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384,853 | 391,152 | 52,918 | 6 |
Sloppy .
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This film flies all over the map , and equals little by its conclusion . The film's main foci are two sets of a mother and daughter . One is made up of Lora and Susie . The father has just died , and Lora is trying to make it as an actress . This is one of the oldest plots in the book , and it gives us little or nothing we haven't seen better elsewhere . The other pair is much better , Annie and Sara Jane . Annie is black , and her daughter's father was mostly white . Sara Jane despises the fact that she is part black , and tries to pass herself off as white all the time . Because of the interesting racial angle , this film is worth watching . It's too bad it works adversely to the way it wanted to , for , although the film desperately wishes to be seen as progressive ( and it succeeds probably more than most films of that era , by making Annie such a potent character ) , it keeps relegating Annie to the status of a maid . She's little different than Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind . McDaniel may well have won an Oscar , she also very well may have deserved it , but she still was nothing but a Mammy . Annie is also so . While the script is trying to come in from the " you should always be yourself " angle where Sara Jane is concerned , it is being tremendously racist . Sure , she should be herself , but all of the characters keep trying to convince her that " to be yourself " = " to be black . " Sara Jane eventually flees and tries to build a life elsewhere as a dancer . There are plenty of powerful scenes involving her character , and , indeed , she was the only character who was exceedingly interesting . As for Douglas Sirk , I really loved Written on the Wind , and kind of liked Magnificent Obsession , but I disliked this one for the most part . His exuberant style in Written on the Wind made that one a masterpiece , but he is too straight-edged with Imitation of Life . It's too much just a soap opera with few signs of subversion or parody . The only one I can see comes with a MAJOR SPOILER : Annie's deathbed scene and funeral are horribly ridiculous . Her deathbed speech goes on for something like 10 minutes , and her funeral is more lavish than Princess Di's .
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385,101 | 391,152 | 990,404 | 6 |
Bahrani doesn't impress me much
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I remember finding Ramin Bahrani's first film , Man Push Cart , a fairly good debut , but one that lacked any real depth . He hasn't grown much in his sophomore feature , Chop Shop . It also focuses on the urban immigrant poor . The main characters of this film are homeless Hispanic orphans , Ale and his teen sister Izzy . Ale is employed at a junkyard , and he gets his sister a job with his boss's wife . The two plan to save their money to buy a food delivery truck , on which Ale has been told he can get a good deal . The film has one conflict that gives it a little energy , when Ale learns that his sister is working nights as a prostitute . It's at its strongest when it's concentrating on Ale's anger and confusion . He begins to act out by committing crimes , which get progressively more serious . The film doesn't have a lot going on , but with this plot point giving the film a mild psychological complexity , it's a decent watch . Unfortunately , the film craps out at the end with a lame , forced plot twist that so ridiculously echoes the one at the end of Man Push Cart that Bahrani should be embarrassed to have went with it . And that final shot is pseudo-poetic trash . Well , it impresses Roger Ebert , anyway .
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385,429 | 391,152 | 58,461 | 6 |
Decent , but doesn't hold a candle to Yojimbo
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A Fistfull of Dollars has its moments , but the original film , Kurosawa's Yojimbo , was much better . Clint Eastwood , though very good , is no Toshiro Mifune . Mifune's nameless man had much more of a character and a personality than his ever-scowling counterpart , Eastwood . The supporting characters were much more interesting in Yojimbo , also . The gunslinger in that film was much cooler than Ramone ( whom I believe to be the counterpart in A Fistfull of Dollars , but I'm not sure ) . Even Christopher Walken in Last Man Standing , a pretty terrible movie , was more interesting than Ramone . Also , the bell ringer , the undertaker , and the bartender were all more interesting in Yojimbo . Fistfull is also not as much fun as Yojimbo . That one was more playful . This on is more gruesome . The music was great in the original , and the score here is a tad bit annoying and overused . The story is basically identical . I actually found them both kind of confusing . Overall , Fistfull gets a from me .
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385,331 | 391,152 | 67,958 | 6 |
Too loose and random for my taste
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The film for which director Dusan Makavejev is best known . It's similar to his later Sweet Movie , which I watched last week , in that it's made up of a bunch of disparate parts edited together . The most prominent thread is a documentary about sexual psychiatrist and ( pseudo - ) scientist Wilhelm Reich , a refugee from Nazi Germany who fled to the United States , where he was ironically persecuted and imprisoned when the government became suspicious of his work . A second thread is fictional , set in Eastern Europe , and is about a sexually liberated woman ( Milena Dravic ) promoting sexual freedom in Communistic language . There are other smaller threads about Andy Warhol's transsexual protégé Jackie Curtis , a hippie with a gun who runs around New York City , a woman who makes dildos and probably a couple of other ones I'm not remembering . The film covers some interesting areas , but it's too loose and not interested enough in any of these things to engage in them . The separate bits began to fall apart , for me at least . Sweet Movie was kind of a mess , but it was a well-structured masterpiece in comparison to WR . I liked Sweet Movie a whole lot more .
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385,758 | 391,152 | 126,662 | 6 |
A goofy piece of WWII propaganda
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A black boy , obsessed with buying a horn at a local pawn shop , tries to earn the final $2 he needs by shining the shoes of rich white men . They are musical scouts , and when they find out that he wants the $2 to buy a horn , they ask him to demonstrate his abilities . He does so in a wonderful musical number . When they offer him a million dollar contract , he becomes upset and says he can't possibly do that . His family would be devastated . The white men are perplexed , but the black boy reveals that he wants to horn so that he can be the bugle boy in the U . S . Army . One of the white men then gladly hands him $2 and delivers the amusing line : " Blow one right in Hitler's face for me , kid ! " I saw this between movies on TCM tonight .
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385,680 | 391,152 | 28,141 | 6 |
Warner Baxter is great , but the film is only so-so
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Not among Ford's best films , unfortunately . Warner Baxter is excellent as Dr . Samuel Mudd , the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he broke it jumping from the balcony in which he shot Abraham Lincoln . Like most Hollywood films , it completely ignores history . It's not generally believed that Mudd was a conspirator against Lincoln , but the truth was a lot murkier than this film presents . The beginning of the film is pretty good , with the assassination and Mudd's arrest and trial . Strangely enough , I thought it got much less interesting when it moved to the titular island , Dry Tortuga in the Florida Keys . I don't exactly know why , but I lost interest during the latter half of the movie , despite the wonderful presence of John Carradine at his hammiest . Love that guy . The bug-eyed Negro characters are pretty annoying in this one , although I thought the character of Buck , a former slave of Mudd's who aids him in prison , was one of the more positive characters of that type I've seen . Not that the depiction isn't fairly racist , but at least he's kind of a hero .
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385,135 | 391,152 | 412,596 | 6 |
I'm that guy who doesn't like Hou Hsiao-Hsien
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Eh , I thought this was slightly above average for Hou . Which means I still didn't care for it much , but I didn't exactly dislike it , either . As far as the ( non - or possibly anti - ) story goes , it's probably his slightest yet . A young woman is newly pregnant . She wanders around , rides the trains , hangs out with a friend , has half-heard conversations on a cell phone , eats , drinks milk , eats some more and generally avoids the issue of what's in her belly . So , yes , it's pretty dull . But Hou does capture an ambiance that is pleasant , at the very least . I have in the past likened Hou's work to sitting on a bus and eavesdropping . Funny , as one of the main characters in this film enjoys recording ambient noises on passenger trains . At least in this film you get to hang around a pretty Japanese girl and Tadanobu Asano , star of such great Asian flicks as Ichi the Killer and Last Life in the Universe . I loved the last sequence and the final shot .
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384,863 | 391,152 | 370,032 | 6 |
Hardly terrible . It might qualify as stupid fun if it were just a tad more fun .
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I should begin by saying that I am overly forgiving toward films of the sci-fi genre . I generally enjoy even the worst sci-fi flicks . According to most , Ultraviolet is one of the worst ( current IMDb rating : 3 . 7 ) , but I didn't think it was that bad at all . Not good , either . Just rather mediocre . If you're looking for a big dumb action movie , you could do a lot worse . For much of the film's run , Ultraviolet ( Milla Jovovich ) runs around slicing people up with little in the way of plot ( what there is is fairly confusing ) . Yeah , the action sequences are laughable , and they do get repetitive , but they're enjoyable in a stupid way . It's only when the film decides to act as if it had a human level that it gets really weak . None of the drama works , mostly because it's difficult to understand what has already happened and what is presently happening . Plus , the action up to a certain point moves at breakneck speed , so it's pretty dumb to slow things down so the characters can actually speak to each other . Less speakie , more killie ! Perhaps the movie's worse flaw is a difficult-to-follow climactic sequence . Like most bad sci-fi films , Ultraviolet's main draw is the visual design . However bad everything else might be , the movie looks awesome . It's mostly done with computers , like Sky Captain and Sin City . Some of the movie plays as if you were watching your friend enjoy a ( fun ) video game . Not especially recommended , but it's better than people have said .
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384,554 | 391,152 | 94,606 | 6 |
Unsatisfied with this acclaimed drama
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Strange , unsatisfying drama with a tinge of quirky comedy . I don't know , it didn't do too much for me . At first , I was infuriated . It felt forced and the dialogue felt so utterly written . It almost felt like the actors were reading the book out loud . I half expected Kathleen Turner to end some of her sentences with " she said " . It does have an interesting message , one that everyone needs to take to heart , that it's very easy to get addicted to routines and never change your life , even when it might be much better to change it . I started to warm to it after a while , but I never crossed the line into liking it . There was one aspect about it that I really liked , though : the musical score by John Williams . Very subtle , not overused . Everything we generally wouldn't expect from John Williams .
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384,893 | 391,152 | 71,458 | 6 |
I feel exactly the opposite way of this film's first commentator below
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I did not find Fassbinder's filmmaking static and boring . I found it brash and exciting . His style is superb . HOWEVER , I have to say that I found the story , with which I am unfamiliar , incredibly bland . How many 19th and early 20th Century novels have this exact same plot ? It's the simplistic " fallen wife " scenario without a spark of invention , it seems to me . In that way , I could not stand this film and was trying hard not to pass out . However , Fassbinder's miraculous filmmaking , cinematography , mise-en-scene , direction , music , even the acting , kept me at least interested . I give it a .
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385,195 | 391,152 | 81,353 | 6 |
Below average Altman , but still interesting
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This film , generally considered one of Altman's greatest follies , is not all that bad . Unfortunately , it's not all that good , either . The director , along with his production team have created a unique and amazing world in Sweethaven , populated by bizarre and amusing live-action cartoon characters . It's an awesome film just to look at . Unfortunately , the script is very weak . I wonder if Altman insisted upon his regular method of film-making , in coming up with a lot of it on the spot , having his actors create the scenes . It feels like there was at least some level of improvisation , and it doesn't work because these characters are all two-dimensional cartoons . Neither Altman nor the actors are ever able to convince that these people are real , even in their fantasy world . When asked to improvise , I imagine the actors had a hard time imagining what their characters ' motivations were , as there's not much psychology in your average Popeye cartoon . A lot of the characters ' interactions consist of moaning , shouting and jumping up and down angrily and it gets annoying . The film might also have worked better if the music were better . Harry Nilsson's songs are almost all poor , except for the two performed by Shelley Duvall , perhaps only because Duvall's Olive Oyl voice sounds so good in song ( remember how brilliantly P . T . Anderson used the song " He Needs Me " in Punch-Drunk Love a few years ago ) . The movie must work in some capacity , though : I absolutely adored it when I was a kid , and watched it numerous times on television . This isn't the disaster it's often touted as , but it's definitely one of Altman's failures .
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385,090 | 391,152 | 60,304 | 6 |
The least successful Godard film I've seen , and I've seen more than a dozen others
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Although it was a critical success when it was released , and it still has strong supporters today , I personally found Two or Three Things I Know About Her a very weak film . It represents a day in the life of a prostitute / housewife , though that itself is difficult to tell . The film is rather amorphous . Maybe that's a word that many would use to describe the whole of Godard's films . But almost all of his other films , with the possible exception of Alphaville and Contempt ( both of which I need to see again , having not seen them for a few years ) , have a little more internal structure and , what is especially missing from Two or Three Things , a pace . Other films of his are also more biting in their satire or drama , depending on what Godard is going for . Two or Three Things is dead in the water . Think of the giddy quickness and insanity of Pierrot le fou or Le Week-End , or the frightening images of Le petit soldat or Vivre sa vie . This film is not worthless , however . I've never seen a Godard film that I would call bad . And it is , like all of his films ( I also haven't seen one that any fan should miss ) , important in his development as a director . You can see Le Week-End about to burst out of the screen . Two or Three Things contains a couple of remarkable scenes , including the coffee scene . Godard narrates in a whisper , philosophizing over his own role in the universe , as creme swirls in a cup of coffee and clusters of bubbles rotate and pop ( the camera is so close that you can't see anything but the coffee in the cup ) . The cinematography in general , by Godard's frequent collaborator Raoul Coutard , is quite good . I especially like the shots of construction equipment , cranes and such . They're kind of like the opposite of Yasujiro Ozu's pillow shots . .
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385,093 | 391,152 | 89,066 | 6 |
Not entirely successful late Godard film
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The films in Godard's late ( and not yet over ) period present some of the greatest challenges to cineasts . Detective is no exception . It is extraordinarily complex in narrative ( or , more precisely , anti-narrative ) , visual composition , and editing structure . Unfortunately , I don't think it's worth it . It's kind of a parody of a detective film ( the one in this film is a hotel dick ) , but it's nearly impossible to figure out what's going on . It can be quite beautiful in its visuals and editing patterns , but never beautiful enough to make it worth seeing . It's not terrible , but , then again , it's not good , either . P . S . First off , yes , the little girl IS Julie Delpy , in case you were wondering . P . P . S . Remember when Martin Scorsese made his version of Cape Fear for MGM because they allowed him to make the highly personal The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ ? Well , he may have gotten that idea from Godard . Detective was made as a straight commercial offering to the studio that produced his highly controversial Hail Mary . It's strange to think of Detective as a commercial venture , though !
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384,858 | 391,152 | 425,598 | 6 |
Watch if you like the music . . .
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but skip it if the main reason you wanted to see it was for Chappelle . I quite like Dave Chappelle . I have since long before he got really famous with his Comedy Central sketch show . That is perhaps why I wasn't especially impressed with his film . He's not the focus . He's engaging when he is on screen , but most of the movie is dedicated to the musicians who play at his block party , among whom are Kanye West , Erykah Badu , Mos Def and the Fugees . While I liked all the music that was showcased , I'm not a particularly big fan of any of it . If you are a fan of any of these musicians , then I imagine the film would appeal to you much more than it did to me .
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384,682 | 391,152 | 114,086 | 6 |
A moderate failure ; still worth seeing
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Michelangelo Antonioni is one of the major figures of cinema history , even if most people haven't heard of him . He was nowhere near as prolific as filmmakers such as Fellini , Godard , Bergman , Kurosawa , or Truffaut . And his films now are difficult to procure . There are only a few readily available , and I have seen all of those but one ( Il Grido , which has recently been released on DVD by Kino ) . Four of the five Antonioni films that I've seen , L'Avventura , Red Desert , Blowup , and The Passenger are among the best films ever made . One other that I've seen , L'Eclisse , I think probably is also to be included among them ; if only the video that I saw would not have been so horribly defiled ! Now I have seen Beyond the Clouds . I had always heard that it was a great failure , but it was difficult to lower my expectations of Antonioni . Wim Wenders ' presence did not help , either . Throughout the film , there were many things that annoyed me , and also many things that I loved . I think a pros / cons list will help here . Cons : 1 . The writing seems weak . All the stories told have little depth , it seems , and we find out almost nothing about anybody we meet in the picture . Usually , Antonioni's writing can be used to show just how well a film can be written , and his characters are the definition of " complex . " But in another way I can also see the style of writing presented here in a more positive light , which I'll comment on later . 2 . The acting is really weak . I cannot in any way defend it . There is not one performer who isn't subpar here , and most of the actors are second-rate actors in the first place ( Irene Jacob excepted ) . John Malkovich is one of the hammiest actors who's ever lived . The only thing I ever liked him in was Being John Malkovich , because that film delightfully ( and , apparently , unnoticeably , at any rate by Malkovich himself ) mocked his very pretensions , which are in full force in this film . 3 . Casual nudity - okay , no one on Earth wants to see John Malkovich buck naked . Fortunately , if you are a fan of female nudity , nearly every woman in the film , including Bond girl Sophie Marceau , appears naked from head to foot with everything in between ( sorry , Irene Jacob fans , no nudity from her ! ) . I myself don't mind nudity when it is called for , like in Last Tango in Paris , but the rampant nudity in this film makes it seem like European softcore along the lines of Emmanuel . Actually , the softcore it really reminded me of was Red Shoe Diaries . The light jazz by Van Morrison just adds to this effect . Antonioni was once a proto-feminist . Many of his most famous films were from a distinctly female point of view . And when men did take over in his films , they were very unlikable . Here , the women are often exploited . Pros : 1 . Cinematography - okay , we have two of the best visual directors of all time working on this film , the cinematography ought to be outstanding . It is , generally . There are a couple of visual moments that are absolutely spectacular , some of the best I've ever seen . This includes an ethereal scene where Malkovich explores a deserted playground on a beach . He sits on a swing , spins around in it with a shot that involves a beautifully moving camera , and then we watch a strong wind blow sand around on the beach ( Antonioni loves showing the wind in his films ) . Another great visual scene involves a camera gliding about a spiral staircase near the end of the film . 2 . Mood - The nonchalant flow of the narrative actually adds a lot of mood . The title of the film is entirely appropriate . You do feel as if you're witnessing something beyond the clouds . Certain stories are left in suspension , never to be resolved , and it feels right . By the final scene , Beyond the Clouds had nearly won me over . Still , there were too many things wrong with it to suggest it to non-Antonioni fans , but Antonioni fans owe it to themselves to see it once .
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385,086 | 391,152 | 51,201 | 6 |
Ridiculously overrated , but Laughton and Lanchester are excellent
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Typical of Billy Wilder films , Witness for the Prosecution is mediocre and overrated . I don't know how his fans defend him so passionately . Sure , he made a few great films , but looking at this courtroom drama , one of his more popular films , how can anyone deny how hackneyed , predictable , and often just how plain stupid it is ? I hate courtroom dramas , but this one is particularly laughable in its depiction of courtroom activities . Fortunately , it does contain two brilliant performances by Charles Laughton and his wife , Elsa Lanchester . Laughton plays the lawyer who defends alleged murderer Tyrone Powell ( in his last performance , and what must be one of his worst ) . He has recently suffered a heart attack , and is advised to take it cool for a while . Elsa Lanchester is his pesky nurse . Their chemistry recalls their great performances in The Private Life of Henry VIII from a quarter of a century earlier . These two keep this sinking ship of a movie from becoming totally sunk . In fact , with the clever twist at the end , I was almost ready to say I liked it ; the three good points , Laughton , Lanchester , and the twist made the film a somewhat pleasant waste of time . But then there is a second twist which is utterly forced and utterly idiotic , so my final verdict must be a slight disapproval . Still , if you haven't seen it , Laughton and Lanchester are worth the time . .
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385,892 | 391,152 | 44,706 | 6 |
Predictable , with the depth of a mediocre TV Western teleplay
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Three criminals wander into a Western town to wait for the 12 : 00 noon train to arrive . Their leader , Frank Miller , will arrive on it and together they will get revenge for Miller's jail time ( he was supposed to be hanged ) . The man who put him in jail is Will Kane ( Gary Cooper ) . He has just been married ( to Grace Kelly ) and is about to leave town , but he figures he can't while those criminals are there to start trouble . He goes back to raise a posse to take the outlaws before they can do anything . No can do , though . Everyone else is out for him / herself , and they all either refuse or ignore Kane when he asks them to be deputees . High Noon telegraphs its every move ten minutes in advance . There's nothing special about it , and its themes are rather trite . It would be passable if any of the performers were good . It's actually kind of depressing , considering how good some of them are elsewhere . I loved Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe , but he seems really uncomfortable in High Noon . We never really learn anything much about Kane , and Cooper only helps us know less . Grace Kelly is particularly bad . To tell the truth , she was never a great actress . One year later , in John Ford's Mogambo , she gave an equally neurotic and unbelievable performance . Only in Hitchcock's films , in particular Rear Window , did she shed that nervous quality . Lloyd Bridges - well , maybe it's just me , but I can never find him effective in a drama . He was so much better when he got older and started to do comedy like Airplane . Perhaps the only one on par with the rest of his career is Thomas " Doc Washburn " Mitchell . The villains are particularly pathetic in High Noon . I know , the " real villains " are those who refuse to fight , but the film would have been infinitely stronger if Frank Miller and the other three thugs had some personality . When a movie talks about a villain for of its run , and then he appears without any bells or whistles , it's sure to disappoint . When the obligatory gunfight arrives , it's nothing if not boring . I longed for the dramatic effectiveness of the shootout in My Darling Clementine . High Noon is a film made with some skill . The cinematography is good . For some reason , it always got really good when they would cut over to the three outlaws waiting for Frank Miller . Those three actors always seemed to be standing in some clever composition . The only thing about High Noon that I would rate as exceptional would be the music . It's quite good , if a bit overused ( especially during the gunfight sequence ; again , I think back to the beautiful and harrowing silence of My Darling Clementine ) . Overall , I don't hate High Noon , but just feel it is weak and definitely overrated . .
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384,731 | 391,152 | 20,620 | 6 |
Yes , it is bad , but . . .
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I think it qualifies as a must-see film for all true scholars of the cinema . That is not to say that it is a good film . It is most certainly not . But this is really a perfect film in which to study the biggest change that this artistic medium ever experienced , the change from silence to sound . The whole film comes off as so , so awkward . It doesn't help that the script is awful . The film is actually over-ambitious , trying hard to cover the entire life of Abe , from birth to death . However bad Abraham Lincoln is , though , I myself found it more than watchable and always fascinating . .
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385,727 | 391,152 | 465,602 | 6 |
It aims to be ridiculous , but , even knowing that , I couldn't quite bring myself to like it
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Hmm . What to say about this one ? Well , if you're the type that thinks action movies like Die Hard 4 are way too realistic , then Shoot ' Em Up might be for you . I mean , it is an action comedy , so you're definitely not supposed to take it seriously . When all kinds of crazy , physically impossible things happen , we're suppose to laugh them off . There's so much cringeworthy stuff in it . Like Clive Owen's carrots , for instance . Bugs Bunny is referenced at one point , a ways into the film , but that's the only thing I could think of from the first moment . The film declares itself a ridiculous cartoon from the first shot , where Owen is seen crunching on a carrot . And then he shoves it through the back of someone's skull . Yeah . The one-liners here ( yes , he does say " Eat your vegetables " when he snuffs the guy with the carrot ) are the worst I've heard since Arnie's Running Man ( " He had to spleet " ) . The plot is so ridiculous that even the slightest thought makes it crumble to pieces . And characters decode impossibly complex mysteries without a second's thought , reminding me of Batman's ball-point banana . " It can be nothing else . " If you can get on the film's wavelength , it's probably quite possible to like or even love this movie ( see Roger Ebert's 3 . 5 star review of it , for example ) . I just couldn't quite get with it .
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385,694 | 391,152 | 387,131 | 6 |
Weak mystery / thriller with mediocre direction by the man who made City of God
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Disappointing followup to the exhilarating City of God . I can appreciate some of what The Constant Gardener tries to do . It wants to put a spotlight on the way the West exploits Africa . But it gets too bogged down in an overcomplicated and only moderately interesting mystery-thriller . I'm not too big on mysteries or thrillers myself , and I often find movies with this much plot entirely boring . And I was fairly bored during most of The Constant Gardener . It's just too busy moving . Yes , it is good once in a while when it concentrates on the protagonist's character , but those moments are few and far between . Ralph Fiennes is a remarkable actor , but his talents have not been used to their full since The English Patient . He brings as much to the lead as he can between all the shaky camera-work . And even when I said above that I like what it is trying to do with Africa , I kind of lied . Well , I do like what it is attempting to do , but it is mostly unsuccessful . The film still depicts the Africans as less important than the Europeans , I think . Every time Ralph Fiennes lands in a new African country , Meirelles has to have the natives dance and sing for the whites . Anyway , the film is not entirely worthless , but it isn't very good , either . What it certainly is is forgettable .
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384,802 | 391,152 | 430,357 | 6 |
Mediocre
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Opinions have been all over the map on this film , some calling it a masterpiece , others one of the worst of 2006 . I'm pretty much exactly in the middle : I just think it's distinctly mediocre . It's hardly terrible , but I can't for the life of me see anything special about it , either . I really appreciate the low-key style , and it's cool to watch . But then , it feels like that's all it is , cool for the sake of coolness , with a heck of a lot of sexy people posing but not doing anything interesting . The plot is pretty much cliché undercover stuff and the characters and the performances are universally beyond dull , with the one exception of Gong Li , who doesn't exactly deliver one of her better performances , but who is constantly engaging , for her beauty if not for anything else . Colin Farrell ( a dead ringer for Billy Ray Cyrus ) and Jamie Foxx made me long for Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas , something that I never thought I'd hear myself say . I suppose the point is to show these two undercover cops beaten down by their difficult careers , but that doesn't make any sense . They're posing as professional drug smugglers and the like , they should have some sort of personality . Since the film is stretched out to 2 hours and 20 minutes , it feels especially dull . The only thing I'm especially thankful for with Miami Vice is it made me admire the skill of Martin Scorsese . I've complained about his tale of undercover cops ( and criminals ) , The Departed , often enough lately , but that's only because I think people are overrating it . At least there , there were interesting characters in whom I actually had a vested interest . And it was a hell of a lot more fun , to boot . In The Departed , you can see how the undercover work is weighing on Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio . While Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx just stand there , posing sexily .
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385,414 | 391,152 | 107,613 | 6 |
Not bad , but too predictable in the end and it has a terrible score
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Anthony Minghella's sophomore feature , and easily his least well known film . It's not too hard to see why . It seems like a pretty generic romantic comedy . I would say that's being unfair , though , as the characters are a little better written than you would expect from the genre , and there is a little more emotional connection , too . But , in the end , it opts for formula instead of trying to figure out a more believable solution . It should be mentioned that this is the only film Minghella directed in which he didn't have a hand in the screenplay . The film stars Matt Dillon and Annabella Sciorra as a divorced couple . Sciorra relies on alimony payments to live , and Dillon is unable to move forward in his current relationship with Mary Louise Parker or to invest in a bowling alley which his friends want to buy . The solution : find a suitable partner for the ex to marry , thus ending alimony . For a long time , it didn't seem like the movie was lame enough to have Dillon fall for his ex-wife , but , alas , that's what eventually happens . Personally , I was so smitten by Mary Louise Parker that I was especially disappointed . Then again , Dillon does come off as kind of a jerk , so I guess I didn't really care with whom he ended up . It's still moderately entertaining , but the straw that breaks the camel's back is the transcendently awful smooth jazz score . Apparently , the composer isn't even listed in the credits ( at least IMDb doesn't list who wrote it ) , but this person deserves to be beaten .
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385,080 | 391,152 | 62,362 | 6 |
Some fun to be had , but it disappoints in the end
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Often a lot of fun , but also often really annoying . The fun is more prevalent , but the bad stuff tends to weigh the good stuff down , so that , in the end , my feelings about it are leaning more towards the negative . It's a goofy late ? 60s look at the 1920s and the flapper fad . Julie Andrews stars as the title character , who dresses in the style of the day , which is sort of mannish ( she hates that she isn't flat-chested , because her long pearl necklace is distorted by her breasts ) . Andrews is awesome , as always . She's so much fun , and she's so beautiful in an odd and intriguing way . Mary Tyler Moore plays a woman who has come to New York to pursue an acting career . When the proprietor of the boarding house in which they live finds out Moore is an orphan , she attempts to abduct her and sell her into prostitution in China . This is a big subplot in the film , and it doesn't work at all . The Chinese are depicted in a very hateful manner in the film , and I would imagine it would even be offensive in 1967 . The romantic plot is where the film more or less succeeds . Millie wants to find herself a single boss so she can hook up with him and be married . Unfortunately , her boss ( John Gavin ) , thinks of Millie as a man ( which she misses at first ) and he falls in love with the more girlish Moore instead . Meanwhile , another guy is courting Millie , a dorky guy named Jimmy ( James Fox ) . One big part of the film that annoys much more than it pleases is Carol Channing's obnoxious role as a playgirl millionairess . It's hard to believe that she was nominated for an Oscar for this painful performance . There is a ton of silly humor , some of which doesn't , some of which does . The film begins as a musical , and there are a couple of great musical numbers near the beginning , but it's almost as if this part of the movie is completely dropped in favor of broad , campy humor . Thoroughly Modern Millie has so much going for it , it's sad that it fails in the end . It's especially sad for Julie Andrews , as this might have been remembered alongside The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins as one of her signature roles . .
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385,895 | 391,152 | 59,956 | 6 |
Interesting failure
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Two vaudeville performers touring South America get involved in a revolution . It's somewhat similar to Woody Allen's Bananas . These two women are played by the impossibly gorgeous Brigette Bardot and the eternally pensive Jeane Moreau . The film is an action comedy , or at least that's what it's going for . But Louis Malle is definitely not up to it . He's actually one of my favorite directors of all time , but he has little idea what he's doing making this film . It must have been the most expensive French film at the time . Malle's previous film , The Fire Within , was a study on suicide and had about , I don't know , ten characters at the most . Viva Maria ! has a billion extras and a ton of speaking parts . It also has elaborate action sequences . The whole picture comes off sloppy . The comedy is especially poor . Almost nothing hits , nearly everything misses . The jokes are very poorly timed . I think I laughed at one of them . Viva Maria ! is worth watching though as a curio . Except for the comic moments , Malle's direction isn't bad . And Bardot and Moreau are always fun to watch . If for nothing else , watch it for the many strip teases they do near the beginning of the film . There are also a couple of very bizarre but wonderful scenes , like the almost Persona-esque " Lady in White " scene , where Moreau and Bardot ( with a little magical help from the editing machine ) dazzle , dizzy , and confound a Mexican baron . The color cinematography is also quite beautiful . It's worth a watch if you have nothing better to watch . .
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385,923 | 391,152 | 247,425 | 6 |
Great first act , great third act , but the middle is so weak that the film buckles under its own weight
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And it collapses . While there is plenty of good material , and even some moments of greatness in In the Bedroom , ultimately it is a failure . Because of the vast amounts of SPOILERS in the remainder of this review - yes , even more than was spoiled by the Academy Awards - I'll say right now that I give this film a . SPOILERSIn the Bedroom takes its structure from The Bicycle Thieves ( immediate SPOILERS for those who haven't seen that film yet , too ; skip onto the next paragraph ) . Based on a story called Killings , that plural marker is as important as the plural in The Bicycle Thieves , which is more often translated incorrectly into English as The Bicycle Thief . There are two bicycle thieves . The protagonist of that film is transformed into the antagonist in the film's climactic sequence . Likewise , Tom Wilkinson's character in In the Bedroom becomes exactly what he is so vexed at : a killer . Todd Fields should have kept that original title actually . The present title , " In the Bedroom , " refers to the lobster traps at the beginning of the film , and presents us with some very pedestrian symbolism . Moreover , it is symbolism which does nothing for the film but make those in the know giggle over its worthlessness . Like I said above , the film has an excellent beginning , with great performances from all sectors . Although the Oscar telecast probably ruined the climactic sequence of the beginning of the film , it still manages to be very powerful . I liked the first act so much that I really wished that the film was only about the relationship between the son and the single mother . The actor who plays Richard Stout , the killer , gives perhaps the film's best and most complex performance , especially when he is brought back near the end . There is one big problem with the end of the first act , though . Hank , the son who gets killed , dies very heroically . This isn't a problem at this point , but when the parents begin blaming each other , and when the Marissa Tomei character is so poorly treated , the audience is wondering how she could possibly be to blame . Well , it's believable on the mother's part . She's such a royal bitch it's impossible to really sympathize with her ever in the film . Well , we'll get to that a bit later . Anyhow , if Hank weren't there , Richard may well have killed her . We're obviously meant to believe that he was in love with her , and his death is tragically romantic . After Hank's death , the film moves onto a funeral scene followed by the first few days afterwards . This is still good , especially the short , wordless scenes that end with a heavy fade . But after these few scenes , the film lapses into endless repitition . Every single scene in the first act is brought back in maddeningly shallow ways . We saw the father and son play poker with friends one night . After his death , we see the same group , sans son , play poker with an uneasy air about them . The father and son listen to rerun Red Sox games on the radio . We see later the father listen to the same program . The father and son went lobster fishing . The father later goes lobster fishing alone . The father loved to visit his son at the dock during his lunch break . Later there is a scene where the father is at a loss for what to do during his lunch break . I'm sitting there screaming in my mind , " OKAY , WE GET IT ALREADY ! " With Spacek , it isn't so much the reminders as it is the smoking . This is the second Best Actress nominee who is forced to smoke to show emotion , Halle Berry being the second . And then we have the obligatory argument scenes and dish smashing scenes ( only three among the five Best Picture nominees this year ; that's not bad ! ) . First off , I would be surprised if anyone in the audience didn't hate Sissy Spacek's character . In fact , I was thinking that her performance was way overblown during a lot of her most passionate scenes , but now I realize that there are people a lot like her . She was realistic , but I despise that kind of person . For instance , who wouldn't cringe and want to smack her when she shouts at her husband that he only allowed their son to date Tomei because he himself wanted some of that action ? I was hoping that the film would end with Wilkinson booting Spacek out of the house , divorcing her flat . The thought also ran across my mind several times that Todd Field might hate his own mother . I've read interviews where he mentioned his mother as a part of the inspiration for that role . Tom Wilkinson's performance I could get more into . He's great all through the movie , except for that second poker scene , where he kind of fumbles . And I'm not entirely sure I believe the murder sequence at the end . Perhaps , but it's a stretch . It's unfortunate that so little works in the film's middle . What I'm most shocked at is how many people didn't notice how little meat it had in the second act . Film critics are getting much sloppier , knowing less and less about their own subject . Todd Field definitely has talent , both as a director and as a screenwriter . I hope next time someone either collaborates with him on the screenplay or at least he allow it to go through a couple of rewrites . The beginning and end of In the Bedroom are so strong that it really is a pity .
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385,594 | 391,152 | 84,805 | 6 |
Second Funniest Movie my Butt
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I have never understood the popularity of this film . Perhaps when it was made in the early 80s it was considered original or daring . To me , it seemed extremely laughless and predictable for most of its running time . Nothing that I saw made me laugh all that much . Nothing surprised me at all . The only person who made me laugh in the entire movie was Bill Murray , who perhaps gives the funniest performance he has ever given in this film . Never , never will I understand why people think this movie is one of the best films of all time . Somebody sold their soul for its popularity , apparently . I give it a .
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385,138 | 391,152 | 339,291 | 6 |
Ought to be better
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Has great promise , but delivers too little . It's always amusing , but I wish it would be more than just amusing . The production design is absolutely fantastic . It's the selling point of the film . Jim Carrey is very funny , and I like at least two of the three child stars . Emily Browning is sure to be the next Christina Ricci . Liam Aiken is also very good . The third child is just a baby , so who can tell whether she can act or not . What I do know is that the character of Sunny was by far my least favorite thing about the film . I did not like the cheap subtitled joke lines that she delivers constantly . The film would have been much better if that character would have been run over by a dump truck . There is an extraordinary animated sequence during the closing credits . This is , in a way , unfortunate . As soon as the film was over , everybody got up and started walking out . The audience did that thing when , as soon as something interesting appears over the closing credits , they all stop standing up , or try to push those who are still sitting down out of their way . That's horrible , but what's worse is that the three people I was with insisted on going . And the worst of all is that the theater rudely turned on the lights so that they could clean . I was forced out ! People worked damn hard on that sequence , probably much harder than the screenwriter or director did . They really ought to have had that open the film , instead of the stupid little clay animation bit that does begin it .
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385,439 | 391,152 | 119,567 | 6 |
I laughed more than anything else . SPOILERS
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Most people thought this was the biggest cinematic disappointment that they had ever seen , that is , until Star Wars : Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace was released two summers afterwards . I write this right after having come home from the third installment , Jurassic Park III , and I can safely say that JPII is the worst of the first 3 ( apparently they're going to make one more , at least ) . Still , I didn't despise it as much as the majority of people . The Lost World : Jurassic Park is the king of unintentional comedy . I've seen honest-to-God Godzilla movies that were less corny than this film . I had sat through the first half-hour , 45 minutes getting more and more irritated , but then came the scene where the trailer was dangling from a cliff . The characters are all hanging onto a rope on the inside of it , and , when it falls , everyone miraculously is able to hang onto the rope and keep it steady so that , say , a door didn't knock them off . My friend sitting next to me shouted " Bull Sht ! " I laughed . After that , it all became a laugh-fest . Whether it was Peter Stormare being devoured by tiny dinos or a little black girl ( from the where - the - heck - did - you - come - from files ) spinning around a randomly placed bar and kicking a raptor in the head ( Jeff Goldblum's immortal unintentionally funny line : " So you failed the gymnastics test , huh ? " ) , I was almost on the floor at times . The best scenes result when , King Kong-style , the characters idiotically haul the T-Rex back to San Francisco , where she can munch on dogs and Japanese people ( I've heard a rumor that the Japanese fellow it devours says : " Why does this always happen to me ? " in Japanese , although that sounds like a tall tale to me ) . Yes , this is a terrible movie , but it is one that contains as many laughs as 90 % of the comedy being released nowadays . . Heck , if it weren't for the fun-killing acting of Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore ( easily the lowest point in her otherwise shining career ) , I would recommend this movie .
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385,453 | 391,152 | 835,787 | 6 |
Hong seems to be making the same film again and again
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Hong Sang-Soo reminds me a lot of Eric Rohmer , which seems to be a comparison many have made before . But I would definitely rank him quite below Rohmer . I've seen four films by Hong now . I liked the first one I saw , Woman Is the Future of Man , a lot , but the other two , besides the one about which I'm currently writing , I only barely recall . Woman on the Beach seems far too similar to Woman Is the Future of Man for me to like it a lot . I didn't hate it , by any means , though I did eventually grow tired of it . I liked the initial conflict , where a man brings along a woman whom he thinks of as his girlfriend on a trip with a film director friend of his . The director is kind of a jerk , and the girl is immediately attracted to him ? either that , or she is so bothered by the meek guy that she just wants to spurn him . Later on , she discovers that the director's jerkiness is a pretty clear character trait . Well , duh . Much as I remember from Woman Is the Future of Man , Hong's major insight seems to be that men ( particularly film directors ) are jerks , and that women like jerks , but also think they can change them . It's a pretty trite observation , really , and , in the end , kind of hateful toward both sexes . It doesn't help that the woman becomes a completely jealous shrew . If I'm remembering correctly , I liked the woman of Woman Is the Future of Man much better . She seemed , in the end , better and stronger than the men in her life .
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385,358 | 391,152 | 291,350 | 6 |
Interesting concept , but I don't think it worked
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Great concept , so-so execution . An interviewer and his cameraman sit down to interview a long-retired actress who's been shunning other reporters for years . The interviewer brings her a gift , a key that she lost long , long ago . It opens up her memories of a man whom she helped in her youth , in the era before WWII , and we see those memories entangled in her film career . These melded flashbacks are a beautiful idea . Unfortunately , for some reason the interviewer and his cameraman come along for the trip , filming the events inside the actress ' head , and eventually even participating in them . This conceit never works , and in fact the film pretty much fails just because of it . It doesn't at all help that both of these characters are constantly used for unnecessary comic relief ( especially the cameraman , whose reaction shots I'm guessing Satoshi Kon found hysterical , as they're in there so frequently ) . If Kon had left these two characters out of the fantasy , the film might have been great . Even so , it still would have been far away from a masterpiece . The central story of the girl looking for her lost love through her memory is great , but I didn't feel like I knew her well enough to care either way .
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385,076 | 391,152 | 395,584 | 6 |
Wait to rent , for sure
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This looked like it might be a genuinely good exploitation / horror flick . It almost is . It's a pretty horrific serial-killer-on-the-lam story , but it's undermined by weak performances from a couple of the main characters , a ripped - from - the - classic - rock - station song score , and some very incompetent direction by Zombie . This is said to be an improvement for him after House of 1000 Corpses , which I didn't see ( because everyone warned me not to ) , and to which The Devil's Rejects is a sequel . If it is an improvement , House of 1000 Corpses must be really slovenly . Exploitation fans will be pleased ( or disgusted or made to squirm in a good way ) by much of the movie . It often works as rednecksploitation . The one thing that always works is Sid Haig as the Marx Brothers-named Captain Spaulding , one of the freakiest looking clowns ( " clown " meant literally ) ever . Bill Moseley plays his psychotic son , but , while his look is pretty frightening , he sounds like a dork whenever he talks ( he's not even threatening when he's slaughtering his victims ) . The weakest link in the film is Zombie's wife , Sheri Moon Zombie . Her performance is pathetic . She's never convincing as a psychopath , in a performance completely ripped-off from Juliette Lewis ' enormously disturbing Mallory Knox from Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers ( an infinitely better and more intelligent film ) . And I've never seen such shameless exploitation of a spouse by a director . Note to Rob Zombie : your wife has a nice butt , but she's not even that hot . You could find a dozen women who look like Sheri Moon Zombie at any bar , and would probably easily be able to pick one of them up long before last call . The penultimate sequence , where the cop who's been chasing them through the whole film ( played by William Forsythe ) tortures the murderers , is actually very good . He ends up giving the murderous family their just deserts . You can almost see that the three have finally felt the kind of evil that they are so accustomed to inflicting on others . Unfortunately , the film ends with a Butch Cassidy-esquire sequence that's just embarrassing .
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384,725 | 391,152 | 47,034 | 6 |
Oh please !
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To me , Ishiro Honda is Japan's answer to Ed Wood . It's true , he's not quite as bad as Wood , and his films were actually hugely successful . Still , Honda shows almost no artistic abilities when it comes to film-making ? it all moves too slow , half the film is stock footage and the miniatures never look like anything but miniatures ? and absolutely no abilities when it comes to writing ? every theme the film has is spoken out loud by the film's characters . Even the famous monster looks like total crap ? grade school kids could have come up with a less turd-looking dinosaur with a stack of newspapers and a bucket of glue . Much like Wood , Honda loved making movies and really had good intentions while doing it , even though he was largely clueless . I can't believe some people take him seriously as a director . The only really good part of the film is its score , by Akira Ifukube . This original version plods along and is dead serious . The cheesier later Godzilla films are much more fun . I wouldn't say it's a total waste of time , though . It's kind of fun in the same way that Plan 9 from Outer Space is . P . S . Be sure to rate my review as unhelpful because you disagree with it !
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385,471 | 391,152 | 10,208 | 6 |
Fear the unrelenting wrath of the Buddha !
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It's always cool to see rare , barely seen films from famous directors . This one is Fritz Lang's take on M . Butterfly ( a story ( a novel ? a play ? ) with which I am unfamiliar ) , about a Japanese woman who marries a European man , only to be abandoned by him , poor and pregnant . The story of the film is very good and should have made a better film . Unfortunately , Lang's direction is very unimpressive and plodding . The actors , too are poor , except for Lil Dangover as the Japanese woman , who is merely adequate . It reeks of early directorial effort . It's definitely worth seeing if you get the chance , if only as a curio . . PS : the quotation I cited in the summary above is actually spoken in the film by a Buddhist monk who wants to destroy the Japanese woman . Can you think of any god more intimidating than the Buddha ? I know I can't .
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384,722 | 391,152 | 459,666 | 6 |
I'm that guy who doesn't like Hou Hsiao-Hsien - but I actually did like at least one part of this film
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A triptych film about love in different time periods . The first segment takes place in 1966 , the second in 1911 and the third in 2005 . Like all multiple-segment movies , the segments are of varying quality . People will of course prefer different segments . The first segment is simple and sweet . A man , about to embark on military duty , meets up with a girl who works in a pool hall . He falls in love with her , and writes her after he leaves . When he returns , he searches for her desperately , and they spend a too-short evening together . It's nice , but it doesn't amount to much . The 1960s American love songs strike me as completely antithetical to everything Hou has stood for in the past . I would be surprised if someone saw this and didn't call to mind Wong Kar-Wai . To be perfectly honest , I had a damn tough time paying any attention at all to the second segment . The story works within historical , cultural and political contexts that are not always easy to understand . For some odd reason , Hou decides to convey the dialogue as if it were a silent movie . It's a strange and pointless gimmick . 1911 is a tad too early to be thinking of any well-known silent cinema . I'm guessing that China had barely seen the technology yet . Plus , the segment is filmed just as the other two are , in splendorous colors ( the photography is drop-dead gorgeous throughout ) . I'm not big on Hou , and I'm not especially big on silent cinema , either , so the cocktail did absolutely nothing for me . Oh , and that awful upscale-hotel elevator music is just unbearable ! The third segment is by far my favorite , and probably my second favorite thing Hou has ever done . Possibly even the best ; I'd have to re-watch Flowers of Shanghai . It's quiet and subtle , like all of Hou's films , but , as rarely happens with me in his cinema , I actually connected with the characters and the story . I don't know if I would have liked it if it were an entire feature , but at this length it worked quite well . Oh , and Shu Qi is a babe . She was also in Millennium Mambo . Kind of wish Hou would have let her make out with that girl in that last segment . Damn you Hou Hsiao-Hsien !
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385,566 | 391,152 | 69,393 | 6 |
Not good . Duvall is especially bad .
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Based on a William Faulkner story to be found in the collection Knight's Gambit , possibly his best work written after WWII , Tomorrow is the story of a dull Southern man who falls in love with a pregnant woman whose husband has run away and then raises the child . The script , written by Horton Foote ( who won an Oscar for his screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird ) is decent , but it straightens out Faulkner's labyrinthine plot ( told only in about 14 pages ) in such a way that it erases a lot of the emotional complexity . It's so straightforward that it becomes sort of dull after a while . The framing story seems like it is retained in the film because it wouldn't make much sense without it , but it isn't retained very well at all . The film also does not have much of a Faulknerian mood , either . Faulkner's world is a sad place , but it's not cold . The sparse black and white photography in the film is wrong for the mood . It seems very inspired by Carl Th . Dreyer - I'm almost positive of it . Several shots especially reminded me of Day of Wrath and Ordet . However , it all may have worked if not for the performances . Usually when you hear of Tomorrow , you hear how amazing Robert Duvall is in the lead . But for my money , this is easily his worst performance . One of them , anyhow . He displays his emotions well enough through his movements and facial expressions , but , for some unknown reason , he comes up with this way of speaking that is simply grating . It's cartoonish . And you've heard this voice if you've ever seen Billy Bob Thornton's 1996 film Sling Blade - Thornton stole the voice straight from Duvall . It was kind of annoying in Sling Blade , but at least that character was mentally handicapped . Duvall's isn't , but you might think he is . It's an execrable performance . It's also a very stage-bound performance ( the adaptation is tertiary , and was a play before it was a film ) . Olga Bellin , who plays the pregnant woman , is not nearly as bad , but her performance also seems false . She talks endlessly ( the character never really appears in the short story ) , and is very annoying with her affected accent . In fact , even counting the supporting players , I've never seen a film with such affected performances as Tomorrow . The only natural performance in the film is from the young boy , Johnny Mask . Tomorrow is worth a look , especially for Faulkner aficionados , but it is a failure . .
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385,216 | 391,152 | 86,631 | 6 |
Rarity from Hou's commercial period ( but you're not missing much , even if you're a fan )
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It's not a good movie , but not a terrible one , either . I think this was actually Hou's most profitable film in Taiwan . I know it was successful , anyway . It's certainly more commercial than any of his other films that I've seen . It stars a famous pop singer of the time , Kenny B ( and , let me tell you , if this guy could be a pop star in Taiwan , YOU could just as easily ) . The press release said it was supposed to be a musical , but that was misleading . I was looking forward to it for that reason ( a Hou musical ? The thought intrigued me ) , but , alas , all I got was one terrible song in which Mr . B popped in once in a while , a teacher singing a song to a class ( both of these are the same song , and it was about sharing cola ! ) , and two songs performed by children at a school play near the end of the film . The plot concerns a teacher ( Kenny B ) fighting to get a law passed to protect the local stream , in which a couple of people have been spotted either poisoning fish or electrocuting them . Let me cut to the point : every scene that does not concern the kids who co-star in the film sucks . The kids are wonderful , just as they were in A Summer at Grandpa's , which Hou made the next year . They are a little less realistic than the children in Grandpa's , and a little more cutesy , but they are remarkable actors all of them . The screenplay is often horrible , but , all in all , it wasn't too bad . I will admit that it is not nearly as important or artistically accomplished as many of the Hou films that I enjoyed less than it . .
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384,780 | 391,152 | 40,665 | 6 |
A poor movie with a couple of great bits , especially Cyd Charisse's two numbers
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Thin and fairly dull Esther Williams vehicle , with Peter Lawford as her love interest . Williams and Lawford are both boring , and have no chemistry together . They are upstaged by just about every single other person in the cast , Cyd Charisse , Ricardo Montalban , Xavier Cugat , Jimmy Durante ( whom you'd think was the star of the movie as much as he's in it ) , Kathryn Beaumont and even a chihuahua . Williams does have a good swimming number near the end , and she wears some fantastic costumes . I can't say anything good about Lawford . Recently departed dancer Cyd Charisse has the two best sequences in the movie , an erotic dance with Montalban and , the best scene in the movie , her dance on the stairs , aided by a group of masked natives . The Technicolor cinematography is beautiful throughout the movie , but it's downright dazzling in that number . At first I thought this was going to be a poor choice in honoring Charisse , but it turned out to be perfect . Child star Kathryn Beaumont went on to provide the voices for Disney's Alice in Wonderland and Wendy Darling . The DVD for this was stunning .
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385,353 | 391,152 | 50,105 | 6 |
The first half promised a masterpiece that the second half couldn't deliver
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I've had this DVD in my collection for several years now , having picked it up cheap at a Black Friday sale . Deborah Kerr's unfortunate passing finally got me to pull it out . Should have went with my first choice , Black Narcissus , instead . An Affair to Remember starts off fine , with Cary Grant and Kerr , both engaged to be married , meeting on a voyage across the Atlantic . The first half of the film follows them as they try to avoid each other , but end up falling in love anyway . As they are about to part ways , they agree to meet each other in six months at the top of the Empire State building . So far , it's lovely . Unfortunately , there's an hour left , and , where the first half was a lovely romantic comedy , the second half is all dull melodrama . When Cary and Kerr are apart , the sizzle between them burns out pretty much instantly . And then the film inserts a bunch of precocious children , whom Kerr teaches to sing . There were a couple of fine child actors in classic Hollywood , but the vast majority of them seem like they are being fed lines two seconds before the camera comes on , and then they just repeat it out of rote . If there's a Hell , I'll be surrounded by kids who appeared in classic movies .
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384,700 | 391,152 | 387,877 | 6 |
Maybe worth renting ; definitely a weak film with some terrible moments . Some good ones , too , though .
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Like all the De Palma films I've seen at least , The Black Dahlia is all style and flash and no substance . Hey , that's cool when the results are fun to watch , as in Sisters , Carlito's Way or Femme Fatale . It doesn't work here , though . It's a busy , hard-boiled police investigation flick that doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the end . De Palma , as you might imagine , goes way over the top in a lot of places , but it just turns out to be embarrassing . There was a lot of inappropriate laughter in the theater . The performances are modeled after old Hollywood , and it just feels like everyone's playing dress-up . The film doesn't offer much to its performers . I was slightly impressed with Hilary Swank , just because her two most famous roles have molded her image into that of a tomboy or butch lesbian . She actually has some lesbiana to deal with here , as well , but she gets to be a femme ( of the fatale variety ) . I've never thought of her as attractive , but she out-sexes Scarlett Johansson in this one . The only truly good performance in the film belongs to Mia Kirshner as Elizabeth Short , the murder victim . You may remember Kirshner as a teenage stripper in Atom Egoyan's Exotica . I didn't know she was still around , but she's very good here , seen only in screen test footage . The characters are all two dimensional , and the screenplay is generally poor . I grew bored fairly quickly . All in all , as disappointing as it may be , it would probably be worth seeing The Black Dahlia . De Palma's camera is as impressive as always . Maybe rent it .
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385,137 | 391,152 | 395,972 | 6 |
Great performances augment a film that is , in reality , quite awful
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Note to Niki Caro : tone it down , just a little . I believe it had to be bad for women in this situation , but , even if it's true , it's difficult to buy that men would break into the women's locker room and smear feces all over the walls . There's more than a fine line between misogyny and insanity . And even if I could believe that , it's difficult to believe that human resources wouldn't side with the victims of a crap-smearing , even a little . I tried to like this piece of Oscar bait , and I did , to a certain extent . Charlize Theron is definitely great in the lead . This is a better performance than the one she won an Oscar for a while back . A lot of the supporting cast is excellent , as well , though they didn't need to give Frances MacDormand Lou Gehrig's disease to get her an Oscar nomination . Caro gets so schmaltzy it makes you sick . The courtroom scenes ( and , lord , do I hate courtroom scenes ) are ridiculous . No lawyer would be allowed to go on with what Woody Harrelson gets away with near the end . And the I-Am-Spartacus climax made me want to throw things . Most of the film is decent , but moments like this kill it dead . My rating is only as high as it is for Theron's performance .
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385,333 | 391,152 | 852,726 | 7 |
Tsukamoto's most conventional and probably his least good , but still a pretty decent flick
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Probably the most conventional film Shinya Tsukamoto has directed . Really , it would only take a couple of tiny clichés for that to happen , since every other film he has made is so utterly unconventional . Nightmare Detective is sort of a police procedural . Detectives are investigating two apparent suicides that seem to have killed themselves while dreaming . It turns out both of these people had called the same number shortly before they died , and the detectives believe that the owner of this number , known as 0 ( zero ) , may have had something to do with the deaths . The detectives , through some huge logical jumps , also seek out a man known as the nightmare detective ( Ryuhei Matsuda of Taboo ) , who has the power to enter dreams . The killer ( Shinya Tsukamoto ) also has this power . The major cliché that bothers me most is that of the hot , young female detective , played by a relative newcomer known only as Hitomi , who has to prove herself to her male co-workers . It's very boring , and , as cute as she is , Hitomi isn't a very good actress , at least not here . My educated guess is that Ms . Hitomi started her career as a model , and was later drafted into acting . There's also the whole cell phone angle , which has already been done by Miike in One Last Call . I admit I have skipped out on that one even though Miike is one of my favorite directors . It's just corny . It also doesn't help that both the hot detective and the cell phone-inspired deaths instantly bring to mind the recent comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall , which used both of these themes to provide major laughs . And I'm sure no one who made that movie had ever seen Nightmare Detective . Still , even having written a mediocre script , Tsukamoto could never lose his talent for direction . And the direction is very Tsukamoto . When Tsukamoto attacks in the nightmares , he appears as a deformed monster that is only half-seen . The visuals are eerily beautiful and I really liked the music , too . All in all , it's a pretty good horror flick . It's the first part of a trilogy , the second of which should be released in Japan later this year . Hitomi is not a part of it , so I'll keep my hopes up .
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385,788 | 391,152 | 83,702 | 7 |
Not as good as I was hoping
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Such interest in Fitzcarraldo was sparked in my mind that I was compulsively forced to purchase the DVD version of it . It was fascinating , a near-masterpiece , I would say . And I desperately wished to see the documentary about its making , Burden of Dreams . Well , probably a year after I first saw Fitzcarraldo , I came home one night to find Burden of Dreams on the Sundance Channel ( praise god for this station ! ) . I had missed about 8 minutes , but , oh well , I sat down to watch the rest . Unfortunately , it did not reveal much about Fitzcarraldo . I had read about the problems Herzog had during the filming , and this is basically what Burden's focus is . The documentary does not go deep enough , though . I would say about a quarter of it ( its running length is just over 90 minutes ) is made up of actual scenes from Fitzcarraldo with maybe a short paragraph to describe the setting and maybe some small bit of behind-the-scene narrative . Another section of the film is made up of interviews with the cast and crew . This should have been the lifeblood of this documentary , but it was not . Herzog's own interviews were interesting , but it is more or less him complaining because things are not going his way ( which he has a right to complain about , but it isn't all that interesting to watch ) . He has this very silly monologue where he complains about how the jungle symbolizes the death of the world , when really the only thing symbolizing death is his dying film . Very disappointing is the documentarians ' inability to get interviews with the cast . I was seriously hoping for some of Klaus Kinski's patented insanity and also at least one interview with the great Claudia Cardinale . There was one tiny interview with Kinski where he complained about having cabin fever for being stuck in the cast camps for weeks at a time , completely justifiable , I would say , and there are no interviews with Cardinale ( although she may have been interviewed before I started watching ) . It made me feel a little disappointed that no documentarians had been there to film Aguirre , the Wrath of God , where Kinski absolutely flipped out ! Never fear , though . There is one very good part of this film : it serves as an ethnographic document for the Indians of South America . Herzog rightly claims that their parts in Fitzcarraldo itself were not sufficiently ethnographic , since they were just doing what he was asking of them . But in the documentary , we see the Indians making masato , an alcoholic drink made of yucca and saliva , we see them playing games such as arrow catching , we even see an attack from a different tribe that believes that the Indians who are working on the film have come to attack them . All of this is extremely interesting .
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384,900 | 391,152 | 39,090 | 7 |
Not among Kurosawa's better films , but certainly interesting
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An interesting film in Kurosawa's canon : it deals explicitly with the WWII era and , alone amongst the man's films , has a woman as the protagonist ( played by Ozu's favorite star , Setsuko Hara ) . Hara plays Yukie , the daughter of a college professor who is fired after expressing leftist ideas . This plot catalyst is based on real events , which happened in Kyoto in 1933 , but the film is entirely fictional . Yukie is caught in the middle of the affection of two of her father's students , Noge and Itokawa , who both follow her father's ideals and both protest on behalf of academic freedom . The film spans from 1933 to immediately after the war , in 1945 . We follow Hara's hardships as she moves to Tokyo and later on to the country , where she must toil in the rice paddies to make a living . It may be blasphemy , but I'm not the biggest Setsuko Hara fan . In Ozu's movies , I sometimes find her smug and annoying . This is especially true for her most famous performance , in Tokyo Story . She's one of the big reasons I couldn't warm to that film . I think she challenges herself more here than she does in her Ozu roles . Sure , it's a more showy performance , but what Hara shows is the skill to depict transformation . At the beginning , she's kind of a brat , and we see her become a full-fledged woman . Unfortunately , the film itself is not great . Probably for political reasons ( United States censors were keeping an eye on the movie industry , of course ) , but also because Kurosawa might not have wanted to drag an already war-bedraggled audience through more mud than he had to , the film is often historically vague . There's some talk of Japan's actions in China , but nothing explicit talked about . Yukie notably leaves Tokyo shortly before America bombed it to oblivion , killing over 50 , 000 civilians in their campaign . She might be suffering in those rice paddies , but honestly she survived the war fairly easily . Kurosawa doesn't handle the whole love triangle thing very well , or maybe it's all just a little trite and boring . Both Noge and Itokawa are rather bland characters . If not for the particularly strong final third , where Hara becomes a peasant farmer , I would probably have called it the director's weakest . But Kurosawa really does shine in that part of the film ( as does Hara ) . The melodramatic montages of toil and suffering seem much more up his alley than the earlier scenes .
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385,952 | 391,152 | 80,380 | 7 |
Worst musical ever ? Maybe !
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Infamously bad musical , often considered the worst movie of that genre . This film is a treasure for bad movie lovers . It's just transcendently awful , an assault to the ears and eyes . Ed Wood-level auteur Menahem Golan , who produced such classics as Over the Top , The Forbidden Dance , the Breakin ' movies , American Ninja , Ninja 3 : The Domination , Superman IV and Masters of the Universe , directs this futuristic retelling of the story of Adam and Eve , set in the distant year of 1994 . Mr . Boogalow is a record company executive who is symbolically the devil . Catherine Mary Stewart and George Gilmour are two Canadian ingénues who try to revive the long-dormant art of the love song ( so 1970s ! ) . Mr . Boogalow quickly puts a stop to that by tempting Stewart to the disco scene . The movie pretty much hits its record industry target , and predicts American Idol ( except that , instead of soulless disco songs , for the most part the contestants on that show sing soulless ballads ) . It's not the stupidest movie in the world . On the other hand , it is one of the most garish imaginable , with its goofy futuristic clothes ( people in the future always tend to like shiny things a lot ) , and the songs are beyond horrible . Well , at least they're laughable . The whole film is , very much so . And I honestly enjoyed it in a masochistic sort of way .
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384,657 | 391,152 | 256,380 | 7 |
I think I should watch it once more
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A frustrating film in a way . I was hugely disappointed in it for a long while , but as the film progressed I kept wondering if my disappointment was merely a product of my unfair expectations . That's probably the case . I expect a daring comedy from the Brothers Farrelly , but Shallow Hal is surprisingly low-key . It doesn't go for easy laughs , as it easily could have done . The plot concerns a looks-obsessed guy ( Jack Black ) who is hypnotized into seeing the inner beauty of others . He falls in love with a fat woman who appears to him as Gwyneth Paltrow . When the film came out , a lot of people complained that this was terrible ; he only loves her because he is attracted to Gwyneth Paltrow , not the fat incarnation that appears in only a couple of shots in the first 90 minutes of the film . But these people didn't really stick around for the payoff in the third act . What's so surprising about this film is how emotionally involving it is . A lot of this is due to Gwyneth Paltrow , who actually gives one of her best performances . But fans of the Farrelly Brothers , as I am myself , will not be shocked to find that emotional center . It was there in both Kingpin and There's Something About Mary . It's just as fun when the Brothers are mean-spirited , however , as they were in Me , Myself , & Irene and , even better , the unfairly maligned Dumb and Dumber . The serious themes are really on full display here , though . The Brothers have a true and touching affection for physical outsiders . I still wish that they wouldn't have forsaken comedy so much , though . I suppose the only jokes would have been fat jokes , but maybe not . Jason Alexander provides almost all of the good laughs . We wonder why he and Jack Black are so mean about the looks of others when they aren't especially gorgeous themselves . Some people are still asking how such a man as Jason Alexander can be so shallow in this film , but they , as I've said before , didn't stick around until the end . This film may improve on repeat viewings , as it was bothering me for a long while . .
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385,647 | 391,152 | 173,840 | 7 |
Entertaining . Just don't expect too much
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And if you're a fan of the Final Fantasy video games , you certainly will be expecting too much . I , like many , have been really excited about this movie for four or five years now , drooling at every little pic or clip we were given by the film's web site . The finished product is , unfortunately , little more than a popcorn movie . Still , as far as popcorn movies are concerned , it is a very good one . Ealier this summer , I had a lot of fun at The Mummy Returns . Final Fantasy was more fun and , by the end , it was somewhat emotionally involving . SPOILERS ( also for the games Final Fantasy 6 & 7 ) Story : the script is probably the film's weakest point . It's not bad , but it is disappointing . The reason for this comes mainly from the comparison between the film and the video games , specifically Final Fantasy VI and VII , easily the two best role playing games ever made . Those who haven't played the video game might scoff , but both of those games were enormously powerful in their emotions . The characters of both of those games were as complex as any in a good sci-fi / fantasy novel . I know plenty of people who cried their eyes out when Aeris was killed . Ditto when Shadow dies in FFVI . I have always thought that those two games could make awesome television series . They're too long for feature films . Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within should not have been written by American writers . The film is too imbued with action / sci-fi cliches , and it borrows heavily from Aliens . The antagonist is particularly weak . They give him a reason for his actions , but I never felt it . That explanation felt more like an excuse that the writers gave him . The main character , Aki , is decently well developed , as well as Dr . Sid and Grey . I wish they all had a little more background , but what they have gives them some dramatic weight . Of the three supporting soldiers , only Neil , voiced by Steve Buscemi , has a character ( which has a lot to do with who is voicing him ! ) . The other two , Jane and Ryan , are far too much like cognate characters in Aliens to be worth much . The Phantoms are an interesting invention . Their motives are pretty original . It's not cliche , anyways . Animation : well , it takes the cake as far as computer animation goes . It exposes Shrek's animation for the mediocrity it is and should be recognized as . The humans look a lot like humans . You can even see the veins on the back of Aki's hand . Unfortunately , the human characters ' expressions are nil . They almost don't exist . Only one character ever smiles , and the animators ' inability to make the character do this convincingly provides the screenwriters a good excuse to make all the characters dire and depressed . These computer animated characters just cannot express emotion in their faces . I am not sure that they ever will . Anyhow , that has to be the next big step in computer animation . Gestures also have a penchant for being choppy and stiff and , much like the realistic video game computer animation that has been produced in the last couple of years , heads bob unnaturally while speaking . Still , go see the film , especially if you have a great theater showing it . It's exciting and fun . Just buy a big bucket of popcorn and enjoy the show .
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384,948 | 391,152 | 427,327 | 7 |
The young cast really makes this movie
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I famously predicted that this movie would bomb in the theater , but I was incredibly wrong . It's actually one of the top-grossing films of the year . When I was fumbling for an excuse as to why it was so successful , I guessed that the film's Disney Channel alumni had brought in a younger audience and recaptured them for repeat business . Well , I think I happened to be right on that account . The film itself isn't anything special . It's quite enjoyable overall , but it doesn't break any artistic ground as compared to John Waters ' original flick . It subtracts some of Waters ' best moments ( my favorite loss being the scene where the characters meet up with Pia Zadora as a beatnik ) , and adds a worthless subplot just so Edna and Wilbur Turnblad can share a duet . It's not even funny how bad John Travolta is in this movie . They might as well have filmed him peeing on Divine's grave . He cannot produce a plausible woman's voice whatsoever , and when he sings it's ten times as grating . I don't even think Travolta was this bad in Battlefield Earth . Christopher Walken brings nothing into his role , which , as far as I remember , has been expanded far too much from the original film . Queen Latifah also brings almost nothing to the picture , except a decent singing voice . Too bad there's hardly a memorable song in the entire musical . I should mention that among the adult cast , James Marsden and especially Michelle Pfeiffer are quite good . So there , I've trashed it as much as I'm going to . There are some things I really didn't care for in the film , but , I must say , the film's young cast , to which I attribute its enormous success , makes it well worth watching . They're all fantastic , without a stinker among them . Nikki Blonsky , Amanda Bynes , Zac Efron , Elijah Kelley , Taylor Parks , and Brittany Snow are all outstanding . They are the equals , if not the betters of the original film's cast . They make the movie , really .
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384,649 | 391,152 | 41,841 | 7 | null |
Good but mostly cliché WWII film about the storming of Iwo Jima . The soldier characters are rather forgettable , and the whole film frankly looks bad after seeing Wellman's superb Battleground , made the same year . When you see Battleground , it gives you a feel of how horrible it would be to have been in combat . Iwo Jima is much lamer . It's the kind of movie where , when someone gets shot , they stand straight up , hold their stomach , say ' UGH ! ' and then fall backwards . One wonders why Iwo Jima is the better remembered of the two films . If it weren't for the fine acting of John Wayne , the film would probably be completely mediocre . Yet even Wayne had a better performance in 1949 , one of his best , doubtless his best up until that time , in Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon . It boggles the mind that the Academy would nominate Wayne for Best Actor for Iwo Jima instead of Yellow Ribbon , but I guess Westerns were already passé .
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384,640 | 391,152 | 390,384 | 7 |
Good ; surprised Carruth hasn't gotten any other jobs yet
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Famous for being made for $7000 , this is a sci-fi flick about a couple of engineers / inventors who stumble upon a way to travel back in time . While it's pretty clear how this could be made for so little money ( location , location , location ? it was probably made in the director's garage and stuff like that ) , it never really looks cheap . Actually , the photography is quite good . Also , the actors , among whom are the director , Shane Carruth , are not at all bad . The problems that the film does have all come from the script , although it has its positive aspects . I'm not really sure if the script is above my head or if it's just pitched in such a way that it feels above my head . The science described in the film sometimes sounds so technical that you want to believe it , but it also sounds so vague that I was wondering if all the dialogue was pretty much meaningless . I suppose I should credit Carruth for making me think his script might actually be really smart , instead of just dismissing it out of hand . That takes talent in itself . But then the vagueness of it is also distancing , and eventually I grew a little bored of the film . Still worth seeing . I have to wonder why Carruth hasn't been tapped by Hollywood yet . He clearly has talent in both the writing and directing departments , and maybe as an actor , too .
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385,678 | 391,152 | 480,249 | 7 |
It starts off pretty well , but then hobbles itself with its cliché baddies
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The latest cinematic adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel , and the first one to use its real name . The other two are The Last Man on Earth , starring Vincent Price , and The Omega Man , starring Charlton Heston . Haven't seen the Price version yet , but The Omega Man is a sentimental favorite of mine . Cheesy and fun , loaded with the trappings of its time ( 1971 ) . Lawrence's version is more serious-minded . He wants to make the audience feel what New York City would be like if you were the only person there . And he succeeds very well . It looks brilliant . Will Smith is capable as the only survivor in NYC . This is more of a horror flick than The Omega Man , and it works well as that . My biggest complaint , though , is that this film really rips off 28 Days Later . The mutants of I Am Legend are pretty much exactly the same as the rage infected people of that film , mostly mindless zombies who roar a lot and hunger for human blood ( The Descent also came to mind a lot , especially with the aversion to light the baddies have ) . With the monsters seeming so much like they did in that one , and with the post-apocalyptic setting being pretty much exactly the same , it feels more like a remake of that than it does of The Omega Man . And frankly , 28 Days Later didn't need to be remade . Not so soon , anyway . Heck , the sequel to 28 Days Later , 28 Weeks Later , did a much better job differentiating itself from its predecessor than this film does . Still , the film is quite entertaining , and one of the better blockbusters of the year .
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384,739 | 391,152 | 462,499 | 7 |
Brutal but good
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Holy crap ! It's kind of silly that they even brought this character back after so much time . I mean , he was a relic of the Vietnam War and , while that's not forgotten , not even in the political spectrum , the political arguments those original films moronically made are pretty dead . The new Rambo doesn't even mention Vietnam . It takes place in nearby Burma , a country of great social strife and unending violence . Believe me , Rambo doesn't help matters much as far as the violence is concerned . When a group of Christian missionaries which he helped get into Burma is captured , Rambo joins a band of mercenaries to try to extract them . It's the most brutal mainstream American film ever made , no doubt . Brains splatter , heads roll and limbs fly off . The worst thing is , this kind of carnage is happening in a lot of places on Earth every day , although probably not instigated by a 62 year-old Vietnam vet . Surprisingly , the film doesn't take this lightly at all . It wants the audience to feel bad . It's hard to recommend this to anyone , because it really is disgusting . It is , however , undoubtedly gripping , as well , if you can stomach it .
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385,082 | 391,152 | 63,149 | 7 |
Don't give up
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Looking at the number of imdb voters for both the I Am Curious films , it seems that few who watch the first end up watching the second ( there are 194 votes for Yellow , and 46 for Blue ) . That's not surprising . Four hours of near-randomness is surely a bit difficult to sit through . And the four hours provide limited rewards . Yet , as one of the few who actually did finish both films , I hardly feel unrewarded . In fact , I think , having seen it all , the sum is greater than the parts . Sjöman does present a kaleidoscope of emotion and thoughts , all very fragmentary , of course , but the fragments are currently drifting around in my mind . I Am Curious might not be a ton of fun to sit through , but I think the films will be a part of me for longer than I might have originally guessed . As a closing note , I must say that the films ' lead actress , Lena Nyman , gives an extraordinary performance , which is another aspect that isn't very obvious if you've just seen Yellow . She runs the entire gamut of emotion . As an actress who is certainly being horribly objectified by her director , she ends up coming out on top of it . If there's one thing I'll take out of the films , it's the sight of her dark , sad , curious gaze . She went on to better things , for example , Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata . Bergman surely realized her talent . I don't remember much in that film besides the two lead performances , who , even if there were a thousand other talented performers in it , would have drawn every ounce of attention towards themselves . I'll have to check it out a second time some day to find Nyman . .
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385,069 | 391,152 | 184,503 | 7 |
Good for this genre
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Often considered the best kaiju film ever made , or at least second best after the original Gojira . I would perhaps concur , though I myself don't consider that title to be particularly difficult to win . But Gamera 3 does have a script that goes a bit deeper than all the others , and the special effects are almost as good as those found in American action movies . And thankfully the monsters themselves are only ever partially created by CGI . They are mostly puppets , I think ( maybe there are guys in suits ) . Gamera is the savior of Earth . Unfortunately , he is so big , and his enemies are so big that their fights cause a huge amount of collateral damage . The story concerns a young girl whose parents were killed by Gamera when he was defending Earth . A few years later , she discovers a baby monster , which she names after her cat Iris ( also killed by that bastard giant turtle ) , and attempts to raise it with the hope that it will someday rival Gamera . Unlike any other kaiju film I've seen , Gamera 3 doesn't glimpse over the fact that if anything actually happened like this , many real people would die horribly . During one scene , we see corpses launched by a huge explosion . I suppose that's an interesting angle , but , honestly , I don't think this genre really needs to take itself so seriously . Sure , Gojira was invented as a symbol of nuclear weapons . But the genre it spawned quickly lost any meaningful subtext . They were cheap to make and cheesily entertaining . Every kaiju film I've watched as an adult has looked lame , but I really did enjoy them as a kid . Gamera 3 doesn't make me feel particularly guilty for enjoying Godzilla stomping on an obviously fake Tokyo when I was a lad . The deaths that it shows rather graphically are somewhat counterproductive . This stuff never really happens , after all . As for flaws in the film-making , the story is somewhat convoluted . There are some annoyingly clichéd characters ? notably the psychic woman and the dandy fop who philosophizes that Gamera and his enemies keep the Earth in balance . The worst thing is that , like most kaiju movies , most of the scenes not involving monsters are extremely boring . This one drags a lot during its first half . I nodded off at least once . But those are just some complaints . Overall , I rather liked the film .
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385,667 | 391,152 | 36,880 | 7 |
No , it's not a great film , but it's better than you may have heard
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The Great Moment , as I'm sure you know , is not a typical Preston Sturges movie . It is a historical drama with a few comic moments , all of which are clunky ( although a couple of the stranger ones are so bizarre they're entertaining in a way , especially when Morton tries to knock out his dog with ether ) . The film might actually have been quite great if the comedy were subtracted completely . Yeah , I know , we're talking Sturges here . But Sturges was a great dramatic director , too . See The Great McGinty if you don't believe me - the comedy there is less than in many of his other films , and the drama is more pronounced . Most often , Sturges was a master of mixing both dramatic and comedic moments . All of his films were like that . The Great Moment has an excellent story at its core . A dentist - he was in medical school , but he ran out of money and had to earn his living as a dentist - wants to find a way to knock out his patients before he pulls teeth . He does so with ether . He also has aspirations to introduce the use of ether into the medical profession . These intentions are noble , but his patent hasn't come through and he feels the guilt of every painful operation . You see , the AMA will not allow doctors to use Letheon ( his name for it ) unless they know exactly what it is . But as soon as he tells , everyone will know , and his discovery will go unrecognized . The film actually has a very good structure . It begins in medias res , with Morton ( Joel McCrea , who is very good in the film ) being advised on how to proceed legally to attain a patent . In taking these steps , he ruins his career and reputation . The rest of the film is the buildup to the loss of his secret . The final scene is very powerful . . One other small reason you should see this : Franklin Pangborn has the funniest facial hair in this film ! Grady Sutton also has a really funny scene .
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385,134 | 391,152 | 436,078 | 7 |
Often hilarious
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Documentary about the world's filthiest joke , as told by dozens of famous ( and not so famous ) comedians . The joke involves a man describing a family act to a talent agent . The act includes any scatology a comedian can invent in his or her head , but normally involves feces , blood , sperm and urine , at the very least . Anyway , the joke isn't funny in itself . It's all in the telling . Which is why the film is somewhat uneven . Not everyone's version is equally funny . It's also uneven because the editing is kind of lousy . They like to cut up a comedian's segment and insert clips of others talking about why the joke is or isn't funny . But then you get a particularly funny person telling the joke , and , bam , this film is absolutely hilarious . And then , after we've heard the joke a dozen times , we start to hear hilarious variations on it . The best part of the film in my mind , is when , after we all know the joke well , we see a mime tell it . I almost died it was so funny . Recommended , especially on DVD . I wish I had had more time to watch the extras .
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385,125 | 391,152 | 455,326 | 7 |
Fun , if you like the show . God knows what you'd make of it if you haven't seen it .
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Hmm ? what to say about this movie ? The first question one must ask is why they bothered to release it to theaters . Perhaps to make the title make sense ? That is , if you can make any sense out of the title . The people I feel most sorry for are all the film critics with unwarped minds who were forced to sit through it . Fortunately , my mind is warped and , while I certainly acknowledge that a cartoon that usually runs for 11 minutes an episode stretched out to 80 + minutes is way too long , I still enjoyed it . It's hilarious often enough , and always at least giggle-worthy . The best part comes right at the beginning of the film , with a parody of the old " Let's all go the lobby ! " ads . The nice snack food items are interrupted in the middle of their song by unruly , death-metal thrashing snack items threatening the lives of the audience if they talk or try to pirate the movie . And they promise that all the money the creators of this film made will be going to drugs . That I don't doubt .
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385,872 | 391,152 | 316,654 | 7 |
I prefer Spider-Man 1
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Good action movie , but I much prefer the first installment . 2 has arguably the greatest comic book villain of all times , Doctor Octopus , which kind of makes the movie a disappointment since , after him , it's rather forgettable . It really should have been better with such a cool bad guy . Unfortunately , it really drags during the dramatic segments . The film makes no points that weren't made in the first one : can Peter Parker exist without becoming Spider-Man ? Will his being Spider-Man always put his loved ones in danger ? We've been over all this before , so , at its worst , 2 seems like a simple retread of the first , which I actually found fairly poignant at times . Besides the action sequences involving Doc Ock , there aren't any images as memorable as those of the first , which we are reminded of by a nice opening credits sequence where those famous images are presented as drawings . There are some pretty great comic sequences , fitting well into Raimi's varied career . Bruce Campbell has a hilarious cameo , and , once again , J . K . Simmons as J . Jonah Jameson gives the best performance in the movie . .
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385,890 | 391,152 | 270,957 | 7 |
Worth a watch
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Fuckland is an interesting film . I personally love the Dogma movement . I wish it had lasted longer . It seems to have already died . Many critics tried their damndest to shut it down . I don't know why . It's the most interesting movement to happen in the cinematic world since the French New Wave . Besides Fuckland , I've seen the first three in the series , Festen , Idioterne , and Mifune . They were all great , Festen being a masterpiece , in my opinion . Fuckland isn't up to those others . I was just fascinated with the filmmaking . It's played as if it were a real documentary , with a real person who was so obsessed with his camera that he refused to put it down . At a few points in the film , it becomes clear that it is a work of complete fiction , but that illusion was protracted for an amazing amount of time . I wish that the filmmakers would have come up with something a bit more interesting to put onscreen . It is basically about this guy , Fabian , who is an Argentinian visiting the Faulkland Islands . Argentinians were only in the last couple of months allowed onto the islands , and Fabian plans to impregnate the women with Argentinian children . He sets his eyes on one , and most of the movie is spent on her seduction . The two actors are very natural . Camilla Heany only kind of hints that she is an actress . Fabian Stratas seems completely real . The politics of the film are somewhat confusing to me , since I have only an inkling of the situation surrounding the island and its recent history . I was 3 , I think , when the Faulklands were invaded . The final bit of the film doesn't work at all . I don't get what the filmmakers were going for there . Still , Fuckland is an interesting Dogma experiment . It does break some Dogma rules , though , notably the no extra-diagetic music rule . There is a lot of that . .
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384,775 | 391,152 | 795,368 | 7 |
Not great , but it ends up being pretty funny by the end
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Amusing , if obvious comedy . It pretends to be one of those wry , British comedies , but the laughs come mostly from cheap jokes involving drugs , sex and poop . But , hey , I can't complain much because there are some good laughs . The cast is good . I especially liked Andy Nyman as a hypochondriac . Alan Tudyk of the show Firefly is also funny ( if certainly not British ) as the guy who accidentally drops acid . Peter Dinklage , the little person from The Station Agent , is also in it as the man trying to blackmail Matthew Macfayden at his father's funeral . This would have been a better movie if it had gotten off to a quicker start . The film is worth seeing , but wait for video .
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385,444 | 391,152 | 28,275 | 7 |
Decent short , but more of a curio for Tati fans
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Wow , Tati was a young man . Here he plays someone's young son , 17 years before M . Hulot's Holiday . The action centers around a boxing match between a champ and Tati , who knows nothing about boxing and has to consult a manual during the fight . It sounds funnier than it really is . Chaplin's boxing match in City Lights is much , much better . The editing of this film can be confusing . Still , it is funny . It's worth a . See it on Criterion's M . Hulot's Holiday DVD , recently released .
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385,638 | 391,152 | 28,270 | 7 |
Jeeze , RKO really was a factory , wasn't it ?
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This film is nearly identical to one of those Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies , except minus music , in place of Astaire is Gene Raymond and in place of Ginger Rogers is Ann Sothern . The supporting characters are taken right from Top Hat or Swing Time . Helen Brodericik , Eric Blore , and Erik Rhodes are all in top form in identical roles from the Astaire / Rogers movies . This particular film is pretty funny , though , mainly because of Eric Blore's power trip when Gene Raymond , his boss , has him pretend to be HIS boss . Blore , always the servant , is hilarious as the pretend-boss . Also , the climactic scene is so bad it's funny . Raymond pretends he's about to commit suicide so that Sothern will prove her love for him . Odd , but charming all the same . .
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384,907 | 391,152 | 499,455 | 7 |
A little slow to start , but that last half hour is excellent
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One can't talk about this film without ruining a long-held secret . Then again , I'm not sure that not knowing would help one to enjoy it , either . Without knowing the film's sense of purpose , it would be easy to get bored , I think . It's not that hard even if you do know , unfortunately , but it might be excruciating if you didn't . So here's the secret ( SPOILERS , duh ! ) : the girl , played by Luisa Williams , has been drafted to execute a suicide bombing mission in Times Square . We never know who the girl is , we have only tiny clues as to why she would agree to do this , and we never know why the mysterious organization , several of whose members we meet , wants this mission carried out . In a way , the film reminded me of last year's Old Joy , and it is similarly frustrating . There's so little information , and the style is so minimalist , that it's hard to care . I liked both films to an extent . I think I slightly prefer Day Night Day Night . It had a hypnotic rhythm about it . Luisa Williams is a very good actress . Plus , the final half hour is quite tense , and worth the wait . The writer / director's decision to completely depoliticize the situation pretty much subtracts any real meaning . The terrorist organization is hilariously diverse . I half expected a Native American in a wheelchair to show up at some point . Loktev's direction is strong . The way she uses sound during that last half hour is impressive .
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384,786 | 391,152 | 499,448 | 7 |
No Lord of the Rings , but probably a tad better than the first Chronicle of Narnia
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I went into this with low expectations , and they were exceeded . I liked it quite a bit , perhaps more than the first film in this series , The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe . I think it's because the religious allegory is much more subtle . I also liked the plot line of royal intrigue and power struggles , which is always a favorite subject of mine . The first time around , I said that the film's main success was the casting of four kids who could act , and that statement holds up perfectly here . Georgie Henley , Skandar Keynes , William Moseley and Anna Popplewell are all great as the Pevensie children , and each of them has their moments to shine . Ben Barnes is the newcomer , Prince Caspian , and is not nearly as successful . He's a pretty but dull boy . Sergio Castellitto makes a good villain , though , and Peter Dinklage and Warwick Davis are good as Narnian dwarfs . There are at least two set-pieces that beat anything from the first film , the night raid on Castellitto's castle and Caspian's attempt to summon the Ice Witch ( Tilda Swinton , in a brief cameo ) . The story ends kind of weakly , with an almost literal deus ex machina . And the fact that Caspian's subjects are overjoyed at his return , despite the fact that their families have been decimated by him in the previous day's battle , bothered me . The next installment of the novels , The Voyage of the Dawn Treader , was my favorite of the seven , so I hope they continue to improve .
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385,319 | 391,152 | 63,205 | 7 |
Good , not great film from the Japanese New Wave
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The story involves four people whose work is blackmail . They're successful in their " business , " but their eyes eventually get too big for their stomachs when they think they've found a way to rip off the yakuza . The job proves harder than the easy money it initially seemed . While it is generally well done , its techniques reminded me a little too much of the annoying modern style with a lot of unnecessary freeze frames , chronological jumps , and shifts from black and white to color . I also felt that the characters ought to have been more well developed ; the story is good , but the style overwhelms possible substance . My favorite part of the film is the fact that the characters whistle the theme tune to Suzuki Seijun's Tokyo Drifter , which means that Suzuki had to have had some popularity if his work was quoted like this . .
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384,829 | 391,152 | 105,197 | 7 |
Good , but far from my favorite Zhang Yimou ( or Gong Li ) film
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Probably my least favorite Zhang Yimou film . Oh , it's not bad . It's pretty good , to tell the truth . But it's the kind of film where you get the point right away and you have to spend 100 minutes watching the filmmaker stumble toward the foregone conclusion . Gong Li plays the title character , a hugely pregnant woman . Her husband just got kicked in the nuts by their farming community's chief , and Qiu Ju wants an apology . Unfortunately , none of the officials she takes the case to can actually force the guy to apologize . They can make him dole out monetary compensation , but that's not good enough for Qiu Ju . Every time she doesn't get the results she wants , she attempts to go to a higher level of authority . It's an amusing situation , but the film kind of plods along slowly . I won't demand Zhang Yimou stick to his wonderful visual talents , but it is disappointing how mundane this film looks and feels . The worst crime perhaps is that Gong Li isn't given much acting to do . I love the final look on her face when the film ends , but I think pretty much anyone could have played Qiu Ju . I know , it sounds like I hated it , but I didn't . I just wasn't overly impressed with it , despite its obvious qualities .
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384,570 | 391,152 | 405,159 | 7 |
Probably wouldn't crack my top 50 of 2004
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I don't understand all the praise . Sure , it's a pretty good movie , but it's flat , obvious , and not at all memorable . Eastwood's last film , Mystic River , was ten times better . Hilary Swank plays a boxer who persists in trying to get trainer Clint Eastwood to make her his student . He finally does accept her , especially after his friend , Morgan Freeman , who works as a janitor in his gym , convinces him of her talent . Most of the movie is a pretty straightforward boxing drama . Swank and Eastwood become each other's surrogate father and daughter , both making up for lost loved ones ( Swank's father is dead , and Eastwood's daughter refuses to talk to him ) . The final act adds a tearjerker . There is also a poorly developed subplot about a few of the regulars at Eastwood's gym . It's slow , but mostly entertaining . Swank is good , but nowhere near the level that she hit with Boys Don't Cry . It's impossible to believe that Eastwood got nominated , especially over Paul Giamatti for Sideways . His direction is fine , but he can barely speak . Plus , he's so old it looks like his skeleton is trying to escape from his body . Morgan Freeman isn't especially great in his supporting role . He can't speak clearly , either . He narrates the film , and it can often be very hard to understand him . Million Dollar Baby is worth seeing , but it certainly isn't award-worthy . .
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385,064 | 391,152 | 52,700 | 7 |
Good acting and good script bogged down by a courtroom ending
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This film is based on the Leopold / Lobe murders , which was also developed into an earlier film , Alfred Hitchcock's magnificent Rope . Now , Compulsion is a good film , but it pales in comparison to Rope , so I would definitely advise people to watch it over this . Leopold and Lobe were two homosexual college students who decided to murder for the intellectual stimulation it would give them . Rope , like most code movies , never mentions that its characters , masterfully played by Jonathan Dall and Farley Granger , are homosexual , but , if you are familiar with the conventions that arose under the code , it is clear that they are . That film works well at setting the two murderers in the roles of outcasts , people who are bitter with the way they are treated in the world . There is a clear homosexuality vs heterosexuality theme in that film ( also note that Rupert , played by James Stewart , was supposed to be gay , also ) . Compulsion , on the other hand , pussyfoots around the issue too much . The way the script establishes the two as homosexual is heavy-handed and obvious , yet , when it comes right down to it , i . e . , in the investigation , interrogation and courtroom sequences , not even a hint of homosexuality comes up , except for a private conversation the boys have with their lawyer . The main fault of the screenplay is this final courtroom sequence . Rope intelligently ended right as the boys were caught . It is implied that they will be executed ( you know it was against code to have murderers survive ? I have no idea what happened in the real case . ) . Compulsion turns into a run-of-the-mill lawyer movie . Fortunately , the lawyer in question happens to be none other than Orson Welles , one of the best actors of all times . And he is great , but the material is not up to him . That summation speech , a requirement of all lawyer movies from To Kill a Mockingbird to My Cousin Vinney , is , without a doubt , the most rambling , repetitive , and boring one I've ever heard . Welles acts it well enough , but when the judge was choked up after he finished , I laughed , thinking that the little stutter he gives could be attributed to his nodding off , too . Before I finish , I do have to commend the cinematography and the excellent performances of Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman , the two murderers , and E . G . Marshall , who is excellent as the D . A . I'd also like to ask if anyone else noticed the similarities between Judd ( Stockwell ) and Norman Bates of Psycho ? Hitchcock must have seen this , because the crow in Bates ' office was posed and angled in an identical way with the one in Judd's bedroom . .
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385,480 | 391,152 | 26,174 | 7 |
Nice ; maybe a bit overrated
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A fun swashbuckler starring Errol Flynn . It's not especially great , but Flynn himself elevates it to a level far beyond what it would have been without him . Really , he's in full form here . The only other Flynn vehicle that I've seen is The Adventures of Robin Hood , which is a far better film . Still , I think Flynn is even better here . He's got such verve and personality . It's certainly not hard to see why he was such a monumental success with the opposite sex ! As for the rest of the cast , I liked Ross Alexander as Blood's somewhat homoerotic friend , Jeremy Pitt , and Basil Rathbone has a nice small role as a partner and rival pirate . I really disliked Olivia de Havilland , however , whom I have liked elsewhere . I didn't even recognize her in Captain Blood ; her character was too dull to deserve any attention . The dialogue is quite good , but the plot and structure of the screenplay are poor . I actually liked the first half , in which Blood has to fight for his freedom from the cruel slavery forced upon him by King James , better than the swashbuckling second half . I found myself yawning a bit at the sword fight and the sea battle finale . Still , it's a film worth watching . .
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385,858 | 391,152 | 37,055 | 7 |
Decent
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An okay international intrigue picture , in the same vein as The Maltese Falcon , but not nearly as good . It's very flawed , and only moderately good . One pro is that Peter Lorre is ( arguably ) the film's star . How often did that happen ? He plays a mystery writer from Holland who runs into a great story while he's in Istanbul . A man named Dimitrios Makropoulos ( Zachary Scott ) , an infamous , international criminal , has died , his bloated corpse found on the beach . Lorre attempts to follow the man's life and exploits , and meets up with several colorful characters who provide Dimitrios ' backstory . Chief amongst them is Sydney Greenstreet , who tries to pull Lorre along on a scheme . It's somewhat entertaining . Lorre is good , Greenstreet is great . Zachary Scott is a disappointment , as is his character . To me , Dimitrios ' story never seemed especially interesting . I never really believed that a writer would spend so much time ( not to mention money ) following this guy's career . This was apparently Scott's first role , but , to tell you the truth , I've never heard of the guy . Whoever he is , he just sleepwalks through the film . If Dimitrios had been more interesting , the film might really have been something . Besides Lorre's and Greenstreet's performances , the film is worth watching for its nice black and white photography . It also has a rather good finale , although Lorre hits a couple of unintentionally funny moments during it . .
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385,937 | 391,152 | 32,671 | 7 |
Frustrating
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Oh , it's a good picture , but , well , it is just hairs away from being a great film . Actually , a lot of hairs . They're all small , individual problems , but there are tons of ' em . Just some small changes in the script , ones that wouldn't have been too difficult to make , and it could have been a Hollywood classic . Ginger Rogers won an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing the title character , a Philadephian of a modest , Irish upbringing . Did she deserve it ? I can't be fair in the matter . I'm totally in love with Ginger Rogers . However , in my opinion , this isn't one of her more memorable performances . She's good , to be sure , but I guess that she's not great for a melodramatic role . Basically , she won it because she died her trademark blonde locks red , akin to John Wayne wearing an eye patch in True Grit . Symbolically , that is , an actress who is perceived to play the same part time and time again went to a different genre . I hate to say that , because , as I said , I LOVE Rogers . I just worship her . I think it's horribly unfortunate that audiences , critics , and even actors themselves cannot accept comedic talent as equal to dramatic talent . I think that a comedic performer has a much , much more difficult job than his or her dramatic counterpart . Drama is easy in comparison . And who besides Ginger Rogers could dance like Ginger Rogers ? Take a look at the musical actresses of the 1950s , to compare : Leslie Caron , Debbie Reynolds , Cyd Charisse . All great . I'd never say anything different . But they're no Ginger Rogers . They all let Gene Kelly do all the work ( Jerry the mouse has more to do than they do ) , whereas Rogers " did everything that [ Fred Astaire ] did , except backwards and in high heels . " Everyone knows that Rogers was amazing in the RKO musicals of the 1930s . That's where you know Rogers from , and that's the direction from which I arrived at this film . However , I've seen at least one non-musical role that could be helpful here , very much so : Stage Door from 1937 . It's about a boarding house for actresses , starring Katherine Hepburn , but there are many other great actresses involved , including Rogers , who is the second most important character in the film . She is enormously quick-witted in that film , sassy and brassy to the extreme , but she also has a lot of choice dramatic scenes in which she is great . Let's talk about Kitty Foyle now . I love the structure : On the same day , Kitty's confronted by her two suitors , both proposing , Wynn , a Philadephia millionaire , and Mark , a doctor ( yes , you read that right : Kitty has to suffer the pulls between a millionaire and a doctor , the poor thing ) . As she stands around trying to make her decision , she begins debating inwardly ( actually , debating with her reflection in the mirror , which is pretty ingenious for the time ) . The whole film is constructed in flashbacks , a year before Citizen Kane . It also uses a snow globe symbolically , which is now getting spooky , a snow globe with a little girl on a sleigh in it . And it's an RKO film . I must be on to something ! Were Welles and Mankiewicz making fun of this ? Onward . The film actually uses symbolism decently , but it can never solidify the abstractions that the symbolism raises satisfactorily . Flowers , a specific type of alcohol , perfume , presidential elections , children . They work metonymically , which means that we're reminded of a previous scene in which , say , that particular type of alcohol is ordered . Sometimes it works , often it doesn't . Maybe when it doesn't , it's because the script ( by Dalton Trumbo , but it was also a novel first , which is probably the source of the symbolism ) uses it too often . The film's biggest problem is that it goes overboard with its melodrama too often . Scenes grow silly . Take the scene where Wynn , seeing Kitty for the first time in a long while , hires an orchestra to play until 5 AM so that they can dance alone ( and not Astaire and Rogers dance , mind you ! ) . If that weren't silly enough , when he is kicked out of the orchestra hall , he hires the orchestra to come to Kitty's appartment to play there ! There's even a scene where Wynn has to argue with the hotel clerk about it , promising him that the orchestra won't wake anybody ! Another scene that should have been great but faltered is one where ( SPOILERS ) Kitty runs into Wynn's new wife and son ( Kitty's own son by him was stillborn after she annulled their marriage ) . The son , who should be hers , forgets his toy and has to come back . Kitty has a conversation with him that should be enormously touching , but , for God's sake , is that kid a terrible actor ! My Lord , he completely craps on the scene . To make the film a bit harder to take , the rival for her love is despicable . In another cringeworthy scene , Kitty pushes the burglar alarm in the department store where she works instead of the stock call button ( seriously , they're RIGHT NEXT to each other ; whoever designed the system should be hit with a bat ! ) . In order to avoid getting fired , a friend tells her to pretend to faint , something that I couldn't understand . The doctor who comes to help her is Mark , and he realizes that she is faking it ( apparently he can tell why , too ) . He demands that she go out with him or he'll tell on her . When she refuses , he threatens ( joking ) that he'll prick her with a syringe if she doesn't agree . Jeeze , and some people have a problem at Fred Astaire's ploys to get Rogers ! When he shows up for the date , he keeps her in her apartment , telling her he has no money to take her out . When he reveals that he was lying , the reason is because he wants to make sure his dates aren't gold-diggers . He must have seen Gold-Diggers of 1933 , too , where Rogers sings " I'm into Money " with paper coins attached to her costume ! Luckily , Mark has enough of what it takes to get along . .
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385,359 | 391,152 | 851,578 | 7 |
Brief review
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Trippy Japanese animé that mixes dreams with reality . You never really know what's going to come next in this picture . It's very entertaining , but only up to a point . It never establishes its own reality , so the constant surrealism does grow tiring after a while . And the characters are thin . A movie with such fantastic imagery shouldn't be as easily forgotten as this one is , and if I cared more about the story and the characters , that wouldn't be the case . I love the drawings themselves , but the animation is choppy , certainly much more so than a Ghibli film . My only other experience with Satoshi Kon is Tokyo Godfathers , and I do prefer Paprika to that for sure . It is quite fun . Certainly worth renting , if not going to the theater .
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384,785 | 391,152 | 41,944 | 7 |
Betty Garrett and a few choice numbers make this a decent musical
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Not one of the great musicals of the classic era , to be sure , but a fairly enjoyable one . The plot is nothing special , with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as ball players both smitten by their new owner , Esther Williams . Another woman , Betty Garrett , shows up about midway through the picture so each of our stars can have a girl . Much like in On the Town , a film made later the same year with Sinatra and Kelly , Garrett steals the show . If she had shown up a tad earlier , it might have been an even better movie . Besides Garrett , what makes the film worth watching are the musical numbers . Not all of them are memorable , but a few are , notably " It's Fate " as sung by Garrett . " Strictly USA " and " O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg " are also very good .
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385,199 | 391,152 | 217,869 | 7 |
a good follow-up to the smash hit The Sixth Sense
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MAJOR SPOILERSThe fundamental flaw of Unbreakable is that Shyamalan clings tenaciously to the structure , pace , themes , characters and mood of The Sixth Sense . That film was the surprise blockbuster in August of 1999 , so it only makes ( financial ) sense for him to emulate it , and the studio to approve it . Alas , although Unbreakable made a large chunk of money at the box office , that success was far below analysts ' estimates and was technically a flop . I had planned on seeing it , but a couple of friends had told me that it wasn't as good as The Sixth Sense . One friend told me that it was the worst major motion picture that he had ever seen and begged me to swear an oath never to see it . I told him that , just based on the artistic success of The Sixth Sense , I had to see it no matter how bad it was . I promised I wouldn't " waste my money " at the theater and waited until it came out on DVD . Heck , I didn't even rent it myself , but watched it after my brother had rented it . And I found it rather good . Like I said , its major flaw is that it wants to be a second The Sixth Sense in every way . I wish the style would have been altered a bit . I would have especially liked it more if it were not so self-serious , for , unlike The Sixth Sense , which was easier to take seriously ( my imagination can accept ghosts without much problem ) , Unbreakable is about the real-life existence of an invincible man , a super hero . I may have liked it even more if it were a bit more clever about its absurd reality . David ( Bruce Willis ) is an ordinary man , and his burgeoning super-hero identity is interesting to watch . It gives his character layers . However , Mr . Glass ( Sam Jackson ) is such an eccentric individual that it is hard to accept him in the sort of realistic setting Shyamalan puts him in . I'd like to talk about the " surprise ending " in this paragraph . This is another misstep of sorts for the film . I think that the surprise ending of The Sixth Sense both clinched its success and harmed the artistic integrity of the film . Most of the audience couldn't give a damn about artistic integrity , let alone plain old integrity , and most of them rushed home to tell all their friends that they never saw that surprise coming and that they have to go see it again to figure out what they missed the first time . I knew a lot of people who thought that that film was bad on subsequent viewings . That is because , despite the makeup of the audience ( and despite the presence of Bruce Willis ) , The Sixth Sense was actually an art film . It was very slow-moving compared to your average blockbuster ( consider the only film that beat it in the b . o . that year : Star Wars , Episode One : The Phantom Menace ) , and the focus was on the characters and their relationships . In Unbreakable , unlike in The Sixth Sense , the surprise ending is so clearly telegraphed that you would have to be completely not paying attention to miss it . However , I did not disapprove of it as much as I did the ending of The Sixth Sense . Unlike that ending , it doesn't force you to go back over everything . That film even had a montage sequence showing earlier scenes . In fact , I was sort of disappointed at the loss of an excellent opportunity with the ending Shyamalan chose . It is sort of like Primal Fear , where Richard Gere stumbles outside , dumbfounded . What I think should have been done here was to actually elevate it to the level of a comic book , actually make Mr . Glass a real super villain . It's as if Shyamalan had no clue what to do here . And all I've talked about was the story . Shyamalan more than proves his worth as a director . His style is perhaps even more polished here than it was in The Sixth Sense . I really loved how he did the climactic sequence , especially the scene where David fell into a pool . I hope that he'll stop trying to ape his one hit and move onto more original projects . Lord knows he has the talent .
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385,981 | 391,152 | 266,697 | 7 |
Don't go too far in your praise : it's merely okay
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I have , for a long time , been skeptical of whether Quentin Tarantino was a worthwhile talent . Certainly Pulp Fiction was a seminal film of the 1990s , for better or worse , and Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown were at least worthwhile . But it was my burgeoning opinion that his style of goofy , self-referential filmmaking was already irrelevant , and that the cinema , even American cinema , had moved beyond anything he could accomplish . And , watching Kill Bill : Vol . 1 , I realized pretty quickly that I was absolutely correct . With a new crop of young proto-auteurs that has been born since QT made Jackie Brown in 1997 , Kill Bill seems awfully trite . I predicted a while back that , if Tarantino didn't make a masterpiece this time around , it would be the end of him . Well , now I think I was wrong about that . Kill Bill is far , far , far from a masterpiece , but it's not a disaster . It's somewhat mediocre , but entertaining enough that I will see its second installment ( and the fact that it comes in two parts doesn't annoy me at all , in fact , as I believed it would ; it ends very well ) , and probably the next movie Tarantino decides to make . As for the film , it's all style , no substance . I spent most of the movie wondering whether I liked it or not . And there was plenty in the film that I didn't like . The story is very poor , not compelling in the least , and the characters are dreadful . The pacing is way too slow , and the dialogue is extremely awkward at times . But the action sequences are fun , if too bloody ( I'm not that big a fan of violence , to tell you the truth ) . I , very unfortunately , had to go to the bathroom during the longest action sequence . I don't think I will ever see this movie again , but I might just to see everything in that balletic melée . But what tipped me over from dislike into indifference was mostly the technical stuff . The costume design is fabulous , as are the cinematography and music . And the production design is some of the best I've seen , a shoo in for an Oscar nomination . Some of the editing during the fight sequences was annoying ( this certainly doesn't compare to real martial arts movies , so the Shaw Brothers logo at the film's opening is a huge tease ) , but a lot of it was very good , too . While the shifting in time wasn't necessary , it worked well . What pushed me from indifference into approval was the animated sequence . It is the only exceptional thing in the film . It reminded me a lot of Peter Chung's work ( he created Aeon Flux , which is perhaps the greatest work of animation in the last decade ; this sequence seemed particularly influenced by the silent Aeon Flux cartoons from Liquid Television ) , but my theatergoing companions did not allow me to stick around and watch the full of the credits . I did see that it was animated in Tokyo , but any other info would be much appreciated . So , in full , Kill Bill is very worthwhile , hardly great ( I'd already call it extremely overrated ? some of the reviews I read last week I find a bit embarrassing ) , but a decent , Sunday afternoon entertainment . You might even want to wait for DVD , as you'll most likely get to see both installments as one long film ( although I have doubts that it would even work as one movie , considering that this first part is nearly two hours long as it is ) . .
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385,459 | 391,152 | 337,978 | 7 |
Extraordinarily silly , but pretty fun
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This afterthought , coming a full 12 years after the third Die Hard movie and 19 years after the original , was destined to be not as good as its predecessors . I mean , after the first one , the people responsible for the sequels were obsessed with packing them more and more full of action . In the new one , the strategy of its filmmakers is to make a movie about 100 times as action-packed as the original . With this much augmentation , the action sequences cross the line from gripping to just plain ridiculous . In this one , guys shooting automatic weapons at John MacLane are just a joke . Easy stuff , really . The only challenge there is to keep the computer hacker ( Justin Long ) he's protecting alive , and even that's not much of a challenge . It only gets decently difficult when a jet fighter is chasing him , firing missiles and super-duper machine guns at him while he drives along crumbling elevated highways in a lumbering semi . Yeah , it's silly . But that doesn't make it bad . It's at least amusingly silly . Bruce Willis hasn't lost any of the charisma he brought into the first three movies . Justin Long is the comic relief , and at first I thought he would be really annoying . But he's fairly funny most of the time . I absolutely loved the main henchman and lover of the villain , played by icy half-Asian Maggie Q , last seen in Mission : Impossible III . There's also an amusing cameo by Kevin Smith . I'm not sure what to think about the villain , played by Timothy Olyphant . At first , he bugged me , but as the film went on , I started to like his demeanor and shiny white teeth . I think he was suitably creepy . However , I think they missed a golden opportunity to make a better movie : since Justin Long is probably best known as the hip kid playing the Mac guy in a series of entertaining television commercials , they really should have cast the PC guy as the villain . Sure , it would have been ultra-jokey , but the film is already so silly , I think it would have been especially awesome .
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384,953 | 391,152 | 765,429 | 7 |
Well made , but too familiar
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Ridley Scott is one of those directors who has built up a lot of good will from audiences , including myself , over the years . But as each successive film of his is released , I find myself wondering why that is . Two of his movies , Alien and Blade Runner , are arguably masterpieces . Does he have more than maybe a couple more that are even good ? Granted , I've missed a couple of well-liked works , notably Black Hawk Down , but the guy also has made Kingdom of Heaven , Hannibal and A Good Year . He's incredibly uneven . His newest film is a gangster epic . It's good , very classically made , respectable , entertaining enough . But it's nothing special . There is not even one moment in it where I was thinking " wow " . Its best sequence , the raid on the drug lab , is easily topped by the similar scene in We Own the Night , which opened last month . Denzel Washington's performance isn't anything we haven't seen him give before , and Russell Crowe's is too methody to be considered very good ( he was better in 3 : 10 to Yuma , but he was methody there , too ) . And it's a huge sin to waste Chiwetel Ejiofor this badly . The story is your basic criminal rise and fall , with a side story of the hard-working , honest cop . The film offers no insight into the situation . There are about seven montage sequences set to era-appropriate pop music . The honest truth is , I barely remembered I saw this movie four hours after it ended . If you've seen The Godfather or Goodfellas , you don't need to see it . On the other hand , if your options are this , Scarface or Blow , you'd be best off with this . Just don't pay too much for it . A rental , at best .
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384,847 | 391,152 | 52,618 | 7 |
Weak with a couple of great set pieces and one great performance
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For a long while , I've described Ben-Hur as the biggest film that I had not yet seen . Now I have . This is one of those classics whose status has been fading with time , and it's no wonder once you've seen the film . Sure , there are a few scenes that are very memorable , and have become part of our common culture . Who can forget the scenes where Judah Ben-Hur is a slave in the galleys , rowing fiercely as the weaker slaves collapse around him ? The music in this scene is what I find particularly memorable . And then there's the chariot race , which I think cements this film as one that is worth seeing more than any other . I also like how the story is constructed , as a side story to the life of Jesus . Christ pops up every once in a while . Early in the film , there is a memorable scene where Christ defies a Roman soldier and gives the parched Ben-Hur water . When the soldier tries to reprimand him , a quick look from Jesus silences him completely . Unfortunately , a whole hell of a lot of the film is very forgettable . Each scene seems to take 25 % longer than it really needs to ? not only are the scenes protracted far beyond their limitations , but the actors stumble slowly through their lines , as if each and every syllable was carrying the cross on its back . It gets old , and quick . The film has very little passion as it lumbers along . Most of the direction seems lackluster . Big , but mostly lacking heart . William Wyler directed one of the most emotionally touching films of all time , Mrs . Miniver , an utterly intimate affair that will stay with me forever . Ben-Hur often just sat there without trying to connect to the audience at all . The acting itself is generally weak . Charlton Heston's performance is certainly not among his best . I actually like him as an actor , but I don't think it's very good here . To be fair , his performance gets better as the film moves along . Ben-Hur's moral dilemma is intriguing , and as his desire for revenge and violence did ultimately touch me . Many of the other performances are just bad ? the one that comes immediately to mind is Haya Harareet as Esther , the slave girl whom Ben-Hur loves and later marries . Martha Scott and Cathy O'Donnell , who play his mother and sister respectively , are too dull to really care too much what happens to them . And I'm disappointed in Sam Jaffe , whom I love as an actor in films such as The Scarlet Empress and Gunga Din . I didn't even recognize him , he has so little energy in this film . Hugh Griffith won an Oscar for playing a sheik , but his character is not memorable at all . The only actor who really hits a home run is Stephen Boyd as Messala , Ben-Hur's childhood friend , now his bitterest enemy . He really projects his inner turmoil . Overall , I say that I am glad that I saw this finally . It may have not worked very well , but I was generally entertained . Not moved at all , but it was nice to watch ( and a lot more fun to criticize ! ) . Only the chariot sequence and a couple of Messala's scenes did anything more than that for me . .
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385,053 | 391,152 | 398,808 | 7 |
A little thin , but good for children
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THIS COMMENT DEFINITELY CONTAINS SPOILERSI read the book by Katherine Patterson way back in grade school . I remembered nothing about it but that the little girl died . It's a charming little story about imagination and friendship , and for kids it's mostly excellent just because it's so easy to recognize one's own life . But , yeah , it's memorable because it was the first book I ever read where one of the main characters died unexpectedly . And even if it's sad for kids , it's important to know about death . The film itself is decent , if unremarkable ( in all honesty , the book is probably not as good as it seemed when I was 10 ) . It has fantasy elements , but they are so ( thankfully ) sparse that they feel like they were invented just to put them in the commercials . They aren't ( very ) annoying when they're there . I'll bet that , for the same reasons that I remember it , it will become a beloved classic among the current crop of kids .
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385,369 | 391,152 | 35,140 | 7 |
Good but very flawed film
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Now , Voyager begins excellently : Bette Davis plays Charlotte Vale , the youngest child of an affluent Boston family . In fact , she was a " late child , " had late in her mother's life . She was not planned , and the doctor who delivered her comforts her mother by telling her that a late child would be a great companion in old age . In the present day , Charlotte is her mother's slave . In fact , it might be best to call mother " Mother , " a prototype for the unseen mother in Hitchcock's Psycho . She is simply cruel and oppressive towards Charlotte , who , because of it , is having a nervous breakdown . Most of the film concerns Charlotte's recovery and the aftermath . Many scenes are great , some are unsuccessful ( for instance , the cab driver in Rio de Janeiro , who is played for gross comedy , is completely unfunny ) . When Charlotte finally goes back home , there are many scenes of the battle between her and her mother , which are all rather good . But there are also a lot of bad scenes where Charlotte's family and acquaintances stare at her in wonderment . The final scenes , where Charlotte takes on a protege at her old mental hospital , are quite a bit too much . The young actress who plays Christina is awful . The film meanders and becomes very silly . The final scene is supposed to be romantic or bittersweet but comes off as almost psychotic . The final line is good , though . It's still worth seeing , but I don't think it will stick in my mind for more than a short while . .
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385,781 | 391,152 | 93,409 | 7 |
Hardly a classic , but a good piece of entertainment
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A major piece of modern pop culture that I had not yet experienced . Now I can finally get all the references , parodies , rip-offs and trivia questions . And I can finally put Lethal Weapon 4 , which for some reason I watched back when it came out on DVD , in context . Maybe I should give it another watch now , but my intuition tells me it still sucks . Truth be told , Lethal Weapon 1 isn't an especially good movie , either , though the final installment ( so far ! ) makes it look like a masterpiece . Mel Gibson and Danny Glover play chatterbox cops who are total opposites in life and style but , of course , are made partners . This probably wasn't the first buddy cop movie , but it is the most influential . Shane Black , who later went on to write and direct the superior Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , wrote a sometimes witty script which is also often ridiculous , repetitive , convoluted and just plain dumb . Richard Donner is one of the best popcorn directors , but a lot of Lethal Weapon feels overstuffed to me . There's just too much going on in many scenes , and the exaggerated performances of the two leads , along with their rapid-fire and frequently incomprehensible dialogue , I was getting a tad annoyed . But never that annoyed . With all its flaws , Lethal Weapon is nothing less than a good bit of entertainment . It's not a film you want to think too much about , but it's also not a film that really invites you to think about it too much , either .
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385,865 | 391,152 | 37,059 | 7 |
A bit overrated
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A very sweet musical starring Judy Garland . The plot concerns a family living in St . Louis whose patriarch has accepted a job in New York City . His family is devastated . The two oldest daughters both have beaus , and the oldest son has a girl as well . The plot is passable . If it weren't for the exceptional songs , the film would have been almost entirely forgettable . Even as it is , I doubt I'll remember much beyond " The Trolley Song " tomorrow morning . It shoots itself in the foot ; all but one of the songs are front-loaded onto the first half of the film , with only one ( albeit a great one , " Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas " ) occurring in the last fifty minutes . Because of this , the film often seems uneven . Although Meet Me in St . Louis is one of the best remembered of the classic era of musicals , Minnelli made many better films . He's only able to pull a couple of non-musical rabbits out of his hat . As for the acting , it's decent . Judy Garland is as beautiful as ever , but I found her character fairly uninteresting . Just another one of those musical heroines who wants nothing more than to be courted . The biggest joy of the film comes from the two youngest daughters , played wonderfully by Joan Carroll and Margaret O'Brien ( the latter won a special - and much deserved - Oscar for best child actress of the year ) . Together they have a morbid fascination with death and murder , a touch that might have been more at place in a Hitchcock film . Well , it still works wonders here ! .
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384,800 | 391,152 | 457,430 | 7 |
It's good , but nowhere near as good as the reviews would have you believe
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I had unsurmountable expectations for this one , and , alas , they remain unsurmounted . It didn't even come close . It is an entertaining film , but , as a whole , it feels half-baked . Near the end of the Spanish Civil War , a little girl , Ofelia , is taken with her pregnant mother to an old mill , where her new husband , a sadistic army captain , awaits . At the mill , she meets a fairy who leads her to a faun , who asks her to perform three tasks so she might take her place as princess of a magical kingdom . It's less a fantasy film than a fairy tale . In that way , I suppose I'm obliged to forgive that its fantasy world goes completely unrealized and remains paper thin throughout . Honestly , except for a couple of sequences , there really isn't a fantasy world . Most of the film takes place in the real world , where the Captain is trying to rid the area of some pesky rebels and Ofelia's mother is struggling to survive her difficult pregnancy . What is much harder to forgive , though , is that Guillermo del Toro extends the two-dimensionality to the Spanish Civil War setting . The Captain is a completely cartoonish bad guy , and the situation is seen completely in black and white . I mean , we're talking about a real conflict here where many people died . It's kind of insulting . If this were an American made film , people would be railing against it . It's also insulting to Spirit of the Beehive , on which del Toro has said he based the film . Where Spirit is a gentle yet effective study on the nature of human cruelty , Pan celebrates human cruelty with extremely violent sequences which are meant to be enjoyed as they are in action films ( the director did , of course , previously make Blade II and Hellboy ) . Wow , it sounds like I hated this film ! I didn't , really . I have some ideological problems with it , obviously , and I wish it were better than it is . But it is an enjoyable little horror / fantasy film . You could do better , but you could do worse , too .
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384,874 | 391,152 | 41,886 | 7 |
Minor Archers , in my opinion
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Newly released by Criterion , The Small Back Room was made by the Archers right after The Red Shoes . I had never even heard of it , and it's definitely a less well known film by the directors . In my opinion , it really is a lesser Archers movie . It reunites two of the stars of Black Narcissus , David Farrar and Kathleen Byron . Farrar plays an explosives expert during WWII who works for the government as a scientist . He and his team are on the case of a booby trap that's being dropped by the Germans from planes . He has lost his right foot in an explosion , and he's being driven crazy by phantom limb syndrome . He's also a recovering alcoholic . The only thing keeping him away from the booze is the love of his girlfriend , played by Byron . The love story is involving , and the bomb stuff is quite suspenseful . Both of the lead performances are excellent ( although Byron is definitely the kind of actress I have a hard time separating from her most famous role ? the sharpness of her features definitely gives off a wicked vibe to me ) . So why was I not blown away by this one ? The major reason is that it's just too talky . There are sequences where the dialogue just goes on and on , and I found my attention wandering . There are many sequences where I could tell there were experts behind the camera , but not a lot jumped out at me . Sure , there's that one fantasy sequence with the clock and the bottle , the showiest bit of the movie , but that felt to me a bit amateurish . It's also reminiscent of two famous dream / fantasy sequences from famous movies that had been made in recent years , Spellbound and The Lost Weekend ( and I would also call those sequences in those two movies overly showy , as well ) . The best sequence in the movie is when the scientists get a visit from a governmental minister in their lab . They hope to show him all the exciting projects they're working on , but he becomes obsessed with their calculator . All in all , I'd say this is a good movie , and one that any Archers lover will want to get a hold of , but it's a lesser work , for sure .
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385,748 | 391,152 | 780,571 | 7 |
Rather entertaining , but there are way too many subplots
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Not a great movie , to be certain , but at least I can say it is ambitious and original . Kevin Costner plays a CEO who is driven by his imaginary friend ( played by William Hurt ) to murder people . On what was supposed to be his last murder , a man from across the street ( Dane Cook ) witnesses him . Instead of turning him in , Cook blackmails Costner into letting him come along on the next killing . Meanwhile , a millionairess cop ( Demi Moore ) tracks Costner , and , in another subplot , Costner suspects that his hot , pregnant , 18 year-old daughter may have inherited his murderous tendencies . And then there are two sub-subplots involving Moore , one in which her second husband is taking her to the cleaners in divorce court ( remember , she's a millionaire ) and another in which an escaped serial killer is trying to get revenge on her for putting him in jail . So , yeah , the film's major problem is that there's way too much going on . It's surprising how well the writers keep it together , though . I would certainly have reduced Moore's character to almost nothing . The whole millionaire cop thing is ridiculous , even more so than the millionaire serial killer ( I mean , we can at least imagine someone like that having an unhealthy lust for power of all types ) . It doesn't help that Demi Moore is a less than mediocre actress in the first place . It's sad to say , in a film co-starring Dane Cook , that Moore gives by far the worst performance . That said , I would also have not cast Dane Cook . He's a spazz , which works okay in the role . But he can't act , and a real actor might have sold it a bit better . Kevin Costner , who seems to be improving with age , is very smooth in the lead . And Hurt is perfect in the role of the devil on Costner's shoulder .
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385,780 | 391,152 | 97,733 | 7 |
Slightly better than the first
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A worthy sequel . In fact , I think it's a bit of an improvement , with tighter plotting and more kinetic action sequences . I also liked , to my surprise , the addition of Joe Pesci as a witness Riggs and Murtaugh are protecting . Yes , he's more than a tad annoying , but he's annoying in a mostly funny way . I also very much liked Mel Gibson's love interest , played by the cute Brit Patsy Kensit , who unfortunately never made it very big . The sequence with the bomb attached to Murtaugh's toilet is classic , and the shot with the woman cop getting blown off her diving board is ( unintentionally ) hilarious . Also side-splitting : the aging henchman played by Derrick O'Connor , who becomes a master of kung fu whenever the shot gets dark enough for a stunt double to take his place .
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385,391 | 391,152 | 914,798 | 7 |
Emotionally draining , if at times overly simplistic
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A classic " through the eyes of childhood " story about the Holocaust . Asa Butterfield plays Bruno , a German 8 year-old whose father ( David Thewlis ) is the officer in charge of a concentration camp . Bruno has no clue what goes on at the camp , which he initially thinks is a farm where the weird farmers wear pajamas all the time . He sneaks up to the fence outside of the camp and meets a Jewish boy , whom he befriends . Slowly , he comes to realize that something awful is happening , and that his father is partly responsible for it . It's a great concept . It's not a great movie . I'm unsure if the fault lies with the original novel or the screenplay ( by director Herman , best known for a couple of ' 90s indies , Little Voice and Brassed Off ) , but the story eschews interesting moral philosophy in favor of a more base emotionality . This is especially true in the ridiculously forced climactic sequence , with its swelling music and completely illogical cross-cutting . There's an earlier sequence in which Bruno informs on the Jewish boy in order to get out of some trouble . This should have formed the climax , similar to Louis Malle's Au Revoir les Enfants . It's impossible to deny that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is powerful , but it should have been better .
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385,269 | 391,152 | 303,658 | 7 |
Certainly one of Miike's lesser films
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Even if , in the future , he becomes the world's most beloved director and everyone everywhere seeks out all his films , Andromedia will be forgotten . There's really no such thing as " typical Miike " , but this film is somehow definitely atypical Miike . It's a teeny cyber-thriller that stars not one , but two Japanese teen pop groups , Speed and Da Pump , both of which get a song . Da Pump , the boy band , even gets their own music video in the middle of the movie for no good reason . So , yeah , it's kind of corny , but it's corny in a fun way . And it's just fun to see Miike do this kind of pap . The film's villains ? whose motives we never really understand ? are goofy and entertaining , especially Christopher Doyle , best know as the cinematographer of Zhang Yimou's Hero , who plays a shorts-wearing evil corporate guy from Detroit . He looks like he was downloaded from the mid-80s . Doyle even gets to dance during Da Pump's big musical number . So Andromedia's not half bad if you can take a bit of goofiness .
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385,112 | 391,152 | 420,609 | 7 |
Good , even if it pales in comparison to Capote ; it wouldn't have been popular even if Capote never had existed
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This film had the unfortunate luck to open only slightly after a film about the exact same subject appeared and won a bunch of awards , but , honestly , it would have been overlooked in any case . It's notable for some of the acting , and mostly because actor Toby Jones is a dead ringer for Truman Capote , but it doesn't dig deep into the complexity of the situation or the characters . McGrath also makes a myriad of bad choices throughout . The interviews with people who knew Capote , first and foremost , feel very pedestrian . It allows McGrath to tell us everything we need to know , instead of showing us . It ends up feeling like we've just heard the story , instead of being able to experience it . It's also a little too jokey in its manner . I especially hated the jaunty musical score that played over every " Truman has fun in New York Society " scene , even up until the end . The film also speculates that Capote did have sex with murderer Perry Smith , which is very unlikely and unhelpful to the story . I also think , though most of the cast is quite good , Daniel Craig is miscast . I suppose it's a prejudice that can't be helped after seeing him in Casino Royale , but he doesn't work as Perry Smith the way Robert Blake or Clifton Collins Jr . did . Craig just comes off as too powerful . He's not very good at suggesting Smith's vulnerability . He's always the scary version of Perry . I don't think there's a single scene between Smith and Capote where Smith doesn't freak out at him . Especially embarrassing and cheesy : that song that Perry sings played over his execution . McGrath should be smacked for that ! The 2005 film Capote really looks good compared to this ( it was my favorite of last year's Best Picture nominees ) .
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384,981 | 391,152 | 128,445 | 7 |
Nothing special
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I don't understand the enormously positive reaction this film has had . I mean , yeah , it's a decent flick , quite entertaining , but it's nothing all that memorable . The story is generally a good one , and pretty original . It does have some major flaws , though . I didn't buy it when Max and Herman began warring against each other . It seemed false to me . As for the acting , I seem to think against the grain here . Common knowledge tells you that Billy Murray gives the performance of a lifetime and that he was absolutely robbed when it comes to Oscar nominations . Often , I hear that Murray's failure to get nominated is the fault of Jason Schwartzman , who plays Max , the main character of this film . Supposedly , his character was thought so unlikable by many critics and , apparently , Academy members that Rushmore was ignored . In my opinion , Bill Murray gives a particularly forgettable performance ( he has been so much better in other films ) and it is Jason Schwartzman who makes the film at all worth watching . I give the film a , but to say that it is one of the best films ever does nothing but show just how few films you've actually seen .
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385,329 | 391,152 | 497,465 | 7 |
Dull , but the story's not bad and the performances are good
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The latest Woody flick is set in Spain , where friends Vicky ( Rebecca Hall ) and Cristina ( Scarlett Johansson ) both get involved with an artist ( Javier Bardem ) . Both women sleep with Bardem , but eventually Johansson ends up with him . Hall goes back to her boring finacé , though her brief affair has distorted her view of her life . Meanwhile , Johansson has to deal with Bardem's crazy ex-wife ( Penelope Cruz ) , who is invited back home after a suicide attempt . The story , though perhaps overcomplicated , is a good one . Unfortunately , Allen kind of spoils it by including a bland voice-over narration that over-explains the plot . The narration distances the audience from the action , and the film started to drag for me . And in the end , it felt like nothing much had happened . I didn't care and I doubt the movie will remain long in my memory . However , that's not to say that it's a bad movie . It's a moderate failure for the long-suffering Allen , but it's a success for most of the actors . In particular , I think Penelope Cruz's performance should be considered award-worthy . It'll probably be worth catching on DVD , but I wouldn't especially recommend you be in any rush .
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385,282 | 391,152 | 45,891 | 7 |
Marilyn is pretty good , as are the jokes about Bogie and Bacall
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In this film , three women , played by three huge stars , Lauren Bacall , Marilyn Monroe , and Betty Grable , move in together with the plan to each land a millionaire . They each get involved with millionaires , but men of more humble means ( and at least one man pretending to be ) end up winning them over in the end . It's kind of lackluster , but it's moderately entertaining . It probably should have been funnier . The only real humor comes from Monroe , who needs glasses but is afraid no man will find her attractive when she's wearing them . She stumbles around bumping into walls and mistaking people's identities . There are also a lot of great in-jokes about Bacall's marriage to Humphrey Bogart . In the film , the millionaire whom she dates is played by the great actor William Powell , who was in his early sixties when the film was made . When he tells Bacall that he's too old for her , she tells him how she adores older men . " You know that old fella from The African Queen . I love that guy ! " Betty Grable is pretty forgettable , but , then again , I never found her particularly talented or attractive . She's pretty average on both fronts , as far as I'm concerned . The film is also interesting as an early example of the use of widescreen ( supposedly it was the first film in that format ) . It was developed in 1953 so that cinemas would have an extra draw , as television was destroying the industry . I watched a cropped version , unfortunately , but I think I did a decent job reconstructing how shots were originally composed . The opening and closing scenes are the most interesting . For no other reason than to demonstrate the new format , the screen encompasses an entire orchestra . The word " Cinemascope " appears enormously both at the beginning and at end . .
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385,818 | 391,152 | 418,689 | 7 |
Pretty good , but somehow failed to move me
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Clint Eastwood's curiously unaffecting WWII picture about the famous picture of the flag raising on Iwo Jima , and what happened to the three men who survived the rest of the battle ( the flag was raised on the fifth day , and the island wasn't taken entirely until a month afterward ) . Well , " unaffecting " is a bit harsh . I just wish it had done more . I wonder if it's simply a case of been-there-done-that . So many WWII pictures have been made over the years , is there really anything left to say ? The three characters in Flags of Our Fathers are sent home to campaign for war bonds . While constantly being called heroes , they have to question that assessment after having watched so many friends get killed on the island . The film follows a staggered chronology , so popular nowadays ( it was also used in The Prestige , which was released concurrently ) , and it often flashes back to the battle , both the taking of the hill on which the flag was erected and the protracted one afterward . It also follows one of the men's sons as he interviews veterans about his father and the other two men . Eastwood's direction is generally pretty subtle , and I love the minimalistic score that he wrote ( partly based on " America the Beautiful " ) , but with screenwriter Paul Haggis in tow , we get some laughably over-the-top scenes . My two favorite Haggis-isms in the film were the dessert in the shape of the flag raising which gets strawberry sauce poured over it and a scene late in the film when some yokel tourists assault Ira Hayes for a photo ( you should remember him from the famous Johnny Cash song " The Ballad of Ira Hayes " ) .
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385,578 | 391,152 | 246,460 | 7 |
Fun enough
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A cinematic sinner am I , as I have only seen one James Bond film not starring Pierce Brosnan , Dr . No , and I have seen each of the films starring Mr . Brosnan ( although I've never seen Goldeneye in its entirety ) . I quite loved Dr . No , and I have no good excuse for avoiding all the ones between it and the Brosnan Bonds other than I have a feeling I would get bored with them after two or three . I know I'll have to check them out someday . The four Brosnan Bond films are so incredibly formulaic that one can guess each plot development half an hour early . I always go through the exact same cycle of emotions when watching them . Step 1 ) This is dull . 2 ) Eh , it's getting better . 3 ) Hey , that was pretty neat . 4 ) Ugh ! What an awful double entendre ! 5 ) Hey , that was really neat ! 6 ) Hey , this rocks ! 7 ) Oh no , not another double entendre ! It always takes far too long to start rocking , but when it does , it does seem like it was worth the price that I paid to watch it ( I watched the movie for free ) . Die Another Day takes much longer to get good than the previous two Bond films ( does anyone really care what they were called ? ) , but it has one enormous saving grace : the villains are extraordinary . Toby Stevens as Gustav Graves and Rick Yune as his main henchman Zao are great characters , well designed and with nicely developed personalities . I can't even remember the names of any of the other villains in the Bond series , except that the last one was played by that guy from The Full Monty . The stunts in this one are quite often remarkable , especially the extended car chase late in the picture ( you'll find that I go out of my way to praise car chases twice this week , which probably labels me as a something or other ) . I really look down on the couple of scenes where computer animation replaces the actors , most notably the parasurfing scene . That was quite obvious , and quite embarrassing . I also find the Matrix effects groan-inducing . Hopefully we're done with those after the monumental failure of The Matrix Reloaded .
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384,902 | 391,152 | 120,831 | 7 |
Good but sloppy
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After falling in love with Tamara Jenkins ' sophomore feature , The Savages , a short while back , I have finally caught up with her debut . It's pretty obviously a first film . Jenkins has created some memorable characters and some good situations , most certainly culled from real-life experiences . But the story arc is pretty weak . The film is at its best when concentrating on its protagonist , Viv , played by the wonderful Natasha Lyonne . She's a great character , the kind that reminds me of how few well developed female characters there are in movies . I also liked Marisa Tomei's character , too , for the same reason . The men are considerably less interesting , and there are almost too many of them . I've never been a fan of Alan Arkin , so it was hard to overcome that prejudice here . He's kind of a despicable character , and it was hard for me to sympathize with Viv's unconditional love for her father . It doesn't help that Jenkins fails to resolve the father character's major transgression in the last part of the film , instead just dismissing it . Jenkins also bombs most of her set-pieces , and a lot of the scenes she tries to end on laughs are duds . And the jaunty score really needed to be dropped . The movie is not nearly as cheerful as the music seems to think it is . Overall , I liked the movie . But I am impressed that Jenkins could create the perfection of The Savages after a sloppy debut and nine years off . That makes her sophomore feature even more impressive .
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