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test_900 | pending | 2637d851-b918-4615-8465-edd346d7370f | This movie is really BAD, there is nothing appealing or worth of commentary in it except for the beautiful settings: Chilean landscape. I know I must supply four lines as a commentary for this movie, but the thing is that it is such a bad movie, that I can only say that is actually BAD. Michael Ironside is the only one who saves the money in the film. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_901 | pending | 7a11356a-2eed-4d81-b6e7-023d17aac9ec | The DVD for this film is by Alpha Video--a company that almost always releases the poorest quality prints. In Alpha's defense, often that is the only print available, but the specialize in public domain and cheap-o films. If you can find another print by a different company, try it first as the print for this film is scratchy and faded. Still, compared to most Alpha DVDs, this one is excellent--especially since the sound is pretty clear (and Alpha never seems to include closed captionings--even with films with horrid sound).<br /><br />A man has been dating a lady for a very long time. One night, he's a bad boy and spends the night with another woman. Soon afterwords, he comes clean to his fiancée about this, she forgives him and they marry.<br /><br />Very soon after the wedding, he gets a frantic call from the other woman--she NEEDS to see him and has just tried to kill herself. When they meet, he learns that she has an STD and she wanted him to know that he, too, might now have it. Then, although there is a nurse there and they are treating her for the suicide attempt, she somehow finds a gun and kills herself! The makes a HUGE mistake. He does not tell his doctor and he doesn't tell his new wife. Some time passes and now she and the baby are infected! At this point, the doctor meets with the guy and tells him about the importance of getting treatment and they shows him rooms filled with horribly infected people (actually, these were just films of people with STDs that they spliced into the film--most of whom have syphilis).<br /><br />In some ways the film is very progressive. It addresses a serious issue and it's interesting how the film encourages couples NOT to wait to get married but to marry fast and give in to those sexual urges--but only with each other (not bad advice at all). On the other hand, the film never exactly says what it's talking about. They never use the terms STD, VD or the like, nor does it even name the diseases. Often it is referring to syphilis but at other times it's talking about herpes or other STDs--the information just isn't very clear or specific--a VERY common problem with such films from this era. Audiences at the time must have felt quite confused about what they were seeing and many of the more naive probably needed to have some of their 'faster' friends explain it all to them! <br /><br />Speaking of "such films", in the 1930s-50s, lots of small and often sleazy production companies made films decrying the dangers of drugs and sex (though often they really just wanted to promise a bit of cheesecake for audiences who usually could not see such racy fare in Hollywood films). Many of these are hysterically funny since they are so over-done and the information so inaccurate. The most famous examples are REEFER MADNESS and SEX MADNESS (both by the same two-bit production company) and compared to how salacious and stupid those two films are, this cheap film seems like it should be in the Criterion Collection!! <br /><br />Interestingly, there are weirdos out there (I would definitely be included among them) that enjoy seeing the films because they are often so bad and so horribly made that they are great fun. This one, however, isn't THAT bad nor is the message that convoluted and the film of the victims isn't as grotesque as some similar films. While the message really should have been more explicit and useful, for a 1933 film it's pretty good--despite the occasionally poor acting and the ludicrous suicide scene. Remember kids--just say 'NO' to suicide!<br /><br />Oh, by the way, the "two years of treatment" they talk about in the film was actually the norm for syphilis back in 1933. Nowadays, it's a lot more treatable--as are the rest of the STDs. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_902 | pending | c9c210d0-37a1-4dd5-bcc0-d16a9615f654 | Director Fabio Barreto got a strange Academy Nominea for his last movie O Quatrilho. Quatrilho is a bad movie, but in Bella Donna, Barreto did one of the Worst movies of All Time. His adaptation of the novel Riacho Doce is ridiculous. Think with me how poor brazilians fishermen speak a perfect english? In the film they do. There isn't a Screenplay, It's only a very long videoclip with a beautiful places and many sex scenes with Moscovis and Henstridge. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_903 | pending | c72cda2a-ef71-4a40-b207-4a588417ffe0 | The movie is a happy lullaby, was made to make us sleep. And that´s what we do, as we dream about the top beautiful Natasha Henstridge. No screenplay, no deep characters, nothing special. So, let´s sleep. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_904 | pending | 0f187078-4d1b-40d4-9d72-eb3f33f85e2d | Since Paul Kersey was running short of actual relatives to avenge, the third installment in the "Death Wish" saga revolves on him returning to New York to visit an old war buddy. He arrives only to find out that Brooklyn entirely changed into a pauperized gangland and that youthful thugs killed his friend and continuously terrorize all the other tenants of a ramshackle apartment building. Kersey strikes a deal with the local police commissioner, conquers the heart of his blond attorney, blows away numerous villains with an impressive Wildey Magnum gun and gradually trains & inspires the petrified New Yorkers to stand up for themselves. Okay, there's no more point in defending the "Death Wish" series after seeing part three. The 1974 original was a masterpiece that revolved on the social drama as much as it did on the retribution and, even though it was pure exploitation, part two still had quite a few redeeming qualities and at least the events were a logically linked to those occurring in the first. Number three frequently feels like a totally separate franchise. Apparently, Kersey isn't an architect anymore, he's ten times more social and talkative than he used to be and suddenly nobody, not even the police, is against vigilante actions anymore? All these changes and several other aspects make it more than obvious that Michael Winner and Charles Bronson reduced their "Death Wish" success to being a purely brainless and exploitative action series, with a death toll that gigantically increases with each episode, armory that becomes more and more explosive and criminals that get nastier, sleazier, meaner and a lot harder to kill. However, the gentlemen didn't seem to realize that the non-stop spitfire of violence actually creates an opposite effect, namely this extremely monotonous and much more boring than the previous two. I once read a brilliant review that referred to "Death Wish 3" as the pure definition of cinematic masturbation. This description couldn't be more spot-on, as the script tiredly moves itself from one repugnant execution sequence to the next. Particularly the final twenty minutes are a complete "orgy" of gunfire, explosions and executions realized through improvised homemade measures. Yi-Haaa! This entry in the series has quite an interesting supportive cast, including Martin Balsam ("Psycho", "12 Angry Men") as the fatigue neighbor who keeps machine guns in his closet, Ed Lauter ("Family Plot", "The Longest Yard") as the slightly unorthodox copper and even Alex Winter (from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!) in his debut role as one of the thugs. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_905 | pending | 4ab2531d-412f-4322-abb6-bf8daf1d4ab7 | The 3rd in the series finds Paul Kersey (Bronson) turning vigilante to get revenge on the thugs that murdered his old buddy. I don't know why this movie shoved me into it, but somehow it did. I found myself rooting for Bronson to wipe the floor with those punks. Every time he blew one of them away I felt good. This movie does not take itself seriously, but what if it did? There is a good build-up to the fireworks finale in which Bronson goes on a rampage. But as far as acting and plot go, it just doesn't measure up. If I lived in that neighborhood, I would get out as fast as I could, but it seems like the people are asking for trouble. I know there is that mentality that we need to save our streets, but there is a limit here folks. I had to give it a 4. Sure there are good "blow 'em away" scenes but that's about it. At that time, Bronson was 64. I'm sure if those thugs really wanted to they could have their way with Bronson. Bronson takes the place of a Schwarzanegger or Stallone in this movie. This movie gives you a sense of rejoice. The common man can save the neighborhood, save the day. To sum it up, this is far from being the original Death Wish, but it is rather good if you are just looking for an hour and a half of shoot 'em up. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_906 | pending | feb8e2f3-4a3e-4029-bdac-e3bb717cf828 | Naked Deanna Troi! <br /><br />Richie's brother Chuck (from "Happy Days") with a reverse mohawk!<br /><br />Death Wish 3 has all this and more, including one clever scene where Chuck Bronson's character sets up a mousetrap like device that brains a punk when he opens the window.<br /><br />Chuck also places a board with a bunch of nails on the floor near another window and smiles when he returns and sees bloody footprints leading away.<br /><br />All I can say about Death Wish 3 is that it is one of most incomprehensible "serious" movies that I have ever seen--loaded to the hilt with mayhem, and nearly zero police response, despite the use of military weapons to mow punks down by the score.<br /><br />As I understand it, Bronson disowned this film, but happily cashed the check from Golan Globus.<br /><br />If you enjoy quality movies, avoid this one, but if you're in for a cheap "Jackass" kind of thrill, check it out. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_907 | pending | ad52790b-92be-4285-b965-282522e7416b | OK, I just flipped channels and caught DW3. I watched it knowing it would be trash..BUT..as a person who has seen tons of films, this one stands up there as one of the most purely bad films I have ever seen...I'm not kidding. It is so bad you have to watch it, like a bad accident you can't turn away from. Sometimes these kinds of films work, IE, Troma movies...but watching Martin Balsam and Charles Bronson slum it up like this is painful....What's even funnier is I pulled up IMDb to see what other people said and it actually scores a 4.1/10??? I can't believe it made it past 1.5! Equally as funny is this is not even the pinnacle of this series...somehow this garbage warranted part 4 and 5? And to top it all off, some dude's comments on here referenced this as the best of the series and his favorite film of all time??? Statements like that scare me about this world! | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_908 | pending | 1720ddd9-8082-4feb-901f-c2d8e3ee2a8f | "Death Wish 3" is the movie equivalent of a shooting gallery. All the characters (apart from Bronson's Paul Kersey, of course) exist merely to be killed, either as "provocation" (the good guys) or as "retribution" (the villains). The director simply pours on the mindless violence (people even get burned alive and blown up), turning this into an urban version of "Commando" (and Charlie, like Arnold, rarely bothers to protect himself from the enemy gunfire). Fans of this short of thing (and, apparently, there are many) will enjoy it, others....beware. (*1/2) | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_909 | pending | 2e3da05c-be4a-4f31-b593-2434c97555cf | This is slightly less sickening than the first two films, but otherwise it's business as usual: a scuzzy, sleazy and unbalanced slice of diseased cinema. Charles Bronson is back, blasting into action when his friend is killed by yobs terrorising the neighbourhood. Crime, you see, is up 11% in the South Belmont area... so what's to be done? A stronger police presence? Tougher jails? Harsher sentences? Nope, the only solution is to send in a loose cannon like Bronson to mete out bloodthirsty revenge or, as the writers would have it, justice: this time he's the personal killing machine of police chief Ed Lauter.<br /><br />The writers bend over backwards to make Kersey the hero, sending the useless cops into the area only to confiscate a weapon from an elderly resident who keeps it for protection, and supplying a scene in which Kersey has his camera stolen and shoots the thief right in the back, to applause from the watching crowd. Capital punishment for theft? Well, okay. The attitude of everyone in the film is that this is a solution, and the dishonest twisting of the characters into ciphers who exist only to cheer Kersey on or back him up is appalling.<br /><br />Sure, these villains are scum, but shouldn't the film leave the audience to make up its mind, rather than slanting the entire thing towards Kersey and his mindless answer? Funnily enough the beleaguered residents don't fear gang reprisals or blame Kersey for any of the violence, which is odd as one character is killed precisely because of Kersey's involvement. At the end of the film they all take guns from their sock drawers and gleefully join in with the massacre, never stopping to think things through or struggle with the thought of having to kill another human being.<br /><br />The atrociously shallow performances don't help Bronson has literally one facial expression throughout and can't even put inflection on the right words. New heights of stupidity are reached here a machine gun? A rocket launcher?! and new lows of misogyny: the movie contrives to desecrate every female character in sight, whether by rape, explosion or throat-slashing; and it sets them up in supremely stupid fashion, like one victim who ventures into the crime-ridden, gang-controlled neighbourhood to ask out a stranger, or another who goes shopping alone at night. This is dreck, pure and simple, mindless garbage put together without style or sense. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_910 | pending | 0cb4bcf2-1f86-4d14-b43d-5289d02fffbe | This movie lacked credibility for two reasons. One, no mayor of a major city, and New York is certainly as major as it gets. Would allow a borough in his city to degenerate into such a violent place to live; especially for voters who could have much to say about his or her future job security. All of the victims in the movie were mostly elderly, Jewish or defenseless. At 62-years of age, I have never seen a movie that depicted such utter lack of respect for authority as this movie did. Even "Escape from New York," which was fictional, up front, i.e. they told you that this was science fiction, didn't resort to such deep-seated violence. In this movie, most of the elderly victims were victimized and yet had guns but were unwilling to use them. Also, in this movie and I have not seen the prior two, is more lawless than the "Escape" movie. Secondly, gangs as far as my research shows have never been as cooperative as this movie makes them out to be. On the one hand they catch a gang member from another gang working in their area and he's killed. Yet when the heroes start shooting at the local gang bangers, the next gang over is welcomed with open arms. Outside gang members are always viewed as outsiders and are stopped. We are supposed to believe that when automatic weapons are used against our gang, the other gangs want to be all into it. Why did the outside gangs come to help? I believe that more than one gang from outside came to help. What did they come for? Another question, why was the gang leader in jail and why do fellow jail inmates ask his permission to attack Bronson's character? This was not a great movie and I could go on, but I won't. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_911 | pending | 3af2e11b-a363-4356-9e88-8c9b1dcaee65 | This movie could very well have been a propaganda movie for the North americian falangist party - or some similar group... The strong man (Kersey) places himself above the law (but not outside the law) and liberates upstanding citizens by killing worthless trash. The only thing that made me think it wasn't made by the KKK was the fact that a jew starred as a good guy... Try watching it again while thinking of it as a propaganda movie for an extreme right wing group - and you'll see what I mean...<br /><br />It's a tragedy that Jimmy Page actually made music for this movie... :( | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_912 | pending | d5b0bf52-63fd-4b9d-ab10-e0cdf1b5be27 | I was disappointed with the third film in the "Death Wish" series and wouldn't recommend this unless you are really into Bronson. He is his usual self in this one, maybe a bit lighter hearted than in the others; the rest of the cast is good if your watching a movie of the week on T.V. - the whole film has the production value of a bad episode of the A-Team and I like the escapism fun of a show like the A-Team but not on the big screen, even if it is an action movie that doesn't claim to be anything to sophisticated. The film takes a while to get going and then when it finally does, it gets out of control to the point of ridiculousness. The plot is something out of an episode of "Highway to Heaven" and Bronson seems like a fish out of water with the majority senior citizen cast and the gun play is so out of control you don't even get any satisfaction from Bronson's revenge against the bad guys. Skip this and go on to the 4th installment which I highly recommend. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_913 | pending | 1623ae70-eb7d-4fb9-bfe6-806d8184e7df | I would put Death Wish 3 in the same box as Stallone's Cobra and Commando. The box that I would sell for $2 at a garage sale with all the videos inside. The story is about the main character coming back from the previous movies' success to ruin it all with this load of trash. Why did the makers want to destroy the reputation of the past 2 films with this cheap junk. The story is so lame that had to be a outrageous sequel. I mentioned Cobra earlier because it has the same mood, that one man can kill 20 or 30 gang members without a scratch. Both this movie and Cobra were bent on showing the hero firing his guns at hip level and the enemy falling in large numbers. Police officers spend hours at the shooting range so why did they get gunned down by gang members firing aimlessly from their hips? This movie was so bad I thought for a minute it was Death Wish 4. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_914 | pending | 8cefdbfa-9aa4-4b3d-891d-fba518fd4522 | Three businessmen are involved in a bar fight with three mysterious men. The three businessmen take revenge, which escalates to a murder after another. Supposedly the story is about the violence that could happen to ordinary people.<br /><br />The plot has too many holes. The details were ignored in order to move the story forward. The acting was uneven. The color balance was awful even though I watched this movie in DVD. The small budget and tight schedule were apparent. The whole thing seems to be an excuse to shoot the final gun fight, and the ending was just unbelievable. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_915 | pending | 1b07e0e4-8d66-4c3a-a7a7-abafa6da1aeb | Seeing this film for the first time twenty years after its release I don't quite get it. Why has this been such a huge hit in 1986? Its amateurishness drips from every scene. The jokes are lame and predictable. The sex scenes are exploitative and over the top (that is not to say that Miss Rudnik does not have nice boobs!). The singing is "schrecklich". The only genuinely funny scene is the big shoot out when the gangsters die break dancing, a trait that dates the movie firmly to the mid-eighties. It's really quite puzzling to me how incapable I am to grasp what evoked the enthusiasm of the cheering audiences in 1986 (and apparently still today, reading my fellow IMDBers comments). | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_916 | pending | 49ba07e7-50dc-4334-aef8-7513148f7caa | This tale of the upper-classes getting their come-uppance and wallowing in their high-class misery is like a contemporary Mid-Sommerish version of an old Joan Crawford movie in which she suffered in mink. Here, people behave in a frightfully civilized manner in the face of adversity. A well-heeled London solicitor, (Tom Wilkinson), discovers that not only is his wife having an affair with the local gentry but that she has also killed their housekeeper's husband in a hit-and-run accident. He throws up, but otherwise his stiff-upper-lip hardly quavers.<br /><br />Written and directed by Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for writing "Gosford Park", (this is his directorial debut), from a novel by Nigel Balchin, it's quite comical although I am not sure how much of the comedy is intended. It's like a throw-back to British films of the forties where characters all behaved like characters in books or plays rather than like people might in real life. However, it's not all bad. Wilkinson is terrific, even if you never believe in him as a person while Emily Watson, (the adulterous wife), and Rupert Everett, (the highly amoral high-class totty), are both very good at covering the cracks in the material. Tony Pierce-Roberts' cinematography ensures that no matter how hard it is on the ear it's always good on the eye. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_917 | pending | bfa06906-fee1-4a27-a7e4-e2176fd39922 | I was pulled into this movie early on, much to my surprise, because I hadn't intended to watch it at all. Now I wish I hadn't. The suspense starts out well, with the hit-and-run resulting in death and the question of whether the guilty character will confess, or be found out, or (doable now, though a no-no in the old days of movie-making) get away with it. The plot's been done before--what plot hasn't--but the tensions inherent in it, with the additional complications and motivations arising out of the illicit love affair, make for an absorbing first half. Then the film abandons the hit-and-run to embark upon a misty exposition of two unrequited, all-suffering loves. The two tracks of plot--hit-and-run and unreasoning love--just don't have enough to do with each other, and that they involve the same characters doesn't bind them enough to justify the departure from the original story line. The screenwriter should have chosen one plot or the other. At the end of the film, in the midst of the movie's second funeral, I found myself thinking, "Now, what does any of this have to do with that hit-and-run?" The filmmakers may think the answer obvious, but I think the movie was plotted and executed flabbily. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_918 | pending | d7385eba-a231-4253-8479-2ff8dfc888b0 | I'm a huge fan of both Emily Watson (Breaking The Waves) and Tom Wilkinson (Normal) and was amused to see them upstaged by Rupert Everett (Dellamorte Dellamore) in this shockingly rather minor movie that had all the ingredients to be so much more. The too brief scenes in which he portrays a languid, infinitely entitled, worthless son of a rich Lord are spot-on and entertaining. But for a love triangle there was remarkably little chemistry to speak of between anyone. The music was annoyingly movie-of-the-week quality, and the voice-over jarring and totally unnecessary. Clearly the work of a first-time director with a small budget who either lacked or didn't sufficiently heed good advice. Too bad.<br /><br />I can appreciate how the people you kind of hate at the beginning are the ones you kind of like at the end, and vice-versa, so there is some sort of character arc, at least in terms of perception. For example, Watson's character, while refreshingly honest to her husband about her feelings for another man, began to grate on me near the end, particularly when she announced to her husband that she simply had absolutely no control over her actions, and later when she simply declared that she would be moving back into their marital flat, with no asking of permission, no apologies offered. And I went from disliking Wilkinson's control freak / moral relativist character to sort of understanding him and not really wanting him to change (unlike his wife).<br /><br />This movie awkwardly morphed from a whodunit to a "Love Story" or "Steel Magnolias" illness drama without sufficiently informing me of the fact, so I was left distractedly guessing what the next plot twist might be long after they had all been revealed (Was it the Lord driving the car? The Lord's dog?). The scene where the Lord visits Wilkinson and relates how brave Watson is, the bestest nurse any dying boyfriend could ever ask for, Florence Nightingale incarnate, etc. was OK until he started over-the-top sobbing like a baby. Good God! If you ask me she's just another flitty rich person with way too much time on her hands, and so she drives her hard working, well providing spouse crazy with unnecessary drama. Her screwing around was just another way to occupy her empty life; the dying guy thing was an added bonus for her as it somehow made her previous actions completely above reproach.<br /><br />Look, everyone would have been better off if Wilkinson had just left her for his secretary, who seemed to appreciate him for who he was. Instead he acted like an abused dog, his open craving for his wife's affection increasing with every kick she gives him. I'm not anti PC or anything, it just didn't ring true, even after taking into account all of the harsh realities of middle age we all tend to face. The ending for me was (and not the director's intention I am certain) depressing. The movie spent the last 80 minutes convincing me that these two people just don't belong together, so I found no joy in the promise of their relationship continuing. I'm not above wanting my emotions manipulated by a story, it just has to be somewhat plausible and not hackneyed. Is that asking too much?<br /><br />My score: 4/10 | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_919 | pending | 3fa176b6-f53d-4364-b7fb-abbd843af942 | First of all, I would like to say that I am a fan of all of the actors that appear in this film and at the time that I rented it, I wanted to like it.<br /><br />I think that the main reason that I was so disappointed was that the outside box promised me a suspense thriller. In my eyes, a suspense thriller for British movies is like something out of a Ruth Rendell novel, something that has a lot of dark twist and turns and leaves the viewer with an ending that is unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon.<br /><br />This movie started out with the promising note of being such a film. We have our main character, that suspects a man that he does not like, of being involved in a hit and run that killed the husband of one of his servants.His notions prove to be right, but the idea that his wife might be involved, does not occur to him until that she confesses to him that she was a part of the crime.<br /><br />The elements of a good suspense thriller were in place, at this point, but from there, I felt that the film took a different direction and became almost some sort of a mild soap opera about who wants to be with who and what the love of a real relationship is. The film might have been enjoyable to me, if the outside box had talked of a twisted lover's triangle and had not been labeled as suspense thriller.This seemed to be more of a soap opera story and the beginning setting seemed to be a mild distraction to the true content of the film. I felt like this film could have done a whole lot better than it did. I felt like it kept leading the viewer up to a big event that never materialized. So, I have to give it a lower rating than I would have liked to and say that it fell short of my expectations. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_920 | pending | c51fde6b-e40c-4757-ba70-9bd1441495e4 | The basic genre is a thriller intercut with an uncomfortable menage-a-trois. Fellowes has tried to make a lot more out of this, using the lies of the title in order to bring about all manner of small twists, invariably designed to surprise the characters more than the audience.<br /><br />It's really rather messy though. Fellowes doesn't seem interested presenting the thriller elements in a fashion that will keep us seat-edged. Rather his focus is on the moral predicaments themselves.<br /><br />The dialogue is inconsistent, stagey here, vernacular there and with the constant surprise of realism undone by the occasional cliché-landmine. Though there is no fussing over the locations so that the actors can get on with existing in their space the dreadful score can't create a further dimension and often works against the emotional momentum of given set pieces. There's also a very prosaic, dare I say it British feel to the filming. I didn't want to see a document of two successful middle class people caught in an extraordinary situation, I wanted to see some sort of artful recounting of the story.<br /><br />Finally it is, in fact, the story which lets the rest down. Just as the elements of suspense are rather flat so the story is an asymmetric sum of subplots of different shapes and sizes, woven as a vehicle for character examination. Wilkinson and Watson support this meta-essay with good performances and John Warnaby's ebullient colleague Simon to Wilkinson is a welcome foil for much of the brow-furrowing.<br /><br />I'm disappointed; not that it's bad, but that it could have been much better. 3/10 | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_921 | pending | 0d24f4b3-40c3-4aae-bbb8-1d6adbf53198 | Starting with a tearjerking poem and images of american missiles, starving children and mutilated palestinians I quickly realised that this was not going to be a objective documentary. 5 youths convicted after the gothenburg riots are interviewed and give a very confused explaination why they had to trash the citycenter and then (oh my god) actually have pay for what they have done. I kept watching and many questions are raised, were the trial properly done and did the cops have the right to do what they did? Lots of questions asked... and then dropped. No interviews with judges or going through documents about the trial.. nothing.<br /><br />In short: Nothing new from what every Swede has seen on tv a hundred times - just poor propaganda. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_922 | pending | aaf56d12-a048-4260-9795-4a5ed35c1344 | Writer & director Robert Downey, Sr., a pioneer of the underground film movement in the 1960s, satirized the New York Madison Avenue advertising world with his avant-garde comedy "Putney Swope." Downey doesn't confine his ridicule to advertising, but tackles black militant culture, the dynamics in Hollywood's portrayal of race, the elite white power structure, and character of corruption in any power struggle. As audacious and ambitious as "Putney Swope" strives to be, it qualifies as a terrible film, amateurishly made on a shoe-string budget with a no-name cast and humor that lacks hilarity. Everything about this movie reeks with improvisation. "Putney Swope" stirred up controversy during its initial release with its politically incorrect handling of race issues and consumer culture. Like most Marx Brothers movies, the plot is thin, providing an excuse for Downey's anecdotal gags, most of which are terrible.<br /><br />The chairman of a prestigious Madison Avenue ad agency dies during a board meeting. Before the body has been removed, the board holds a secret ballot vote to determine who will replace him. Each member understands that they are forbidden to vote for himself. Sheer accident occurs when everyone votes for the token black member, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson), since none thought anybody would cast a ballot for him. Swope pink slips all but one of the white executives, surrounds himself with black, pistol packing employees, and renames the firm "Truth and Soul Advertising." Swope decides to alter the face of American advertising. He refuses to accept clients whose products are alcohol, tobacco, or war toys. Swope's clients stage an exodus after he becomes the CEO, and grandstanding attracts a new line-up of clients that show up at his office lugging bags of money and prepared to suffer abuse from Swope's militant employees. Swope exploits his African-American staff, too, ruthlessly appropriating their ideas after he fires them and conjures up a number of offensive advertising campaigns, all of which are hailed as a 'new wave' of marketing genius. Incredibly, Swope's conservatism proves successful but the agency becomes the target of government operatives who argue Swope's advertising tactics constitute "a threat to the national security." The high point of this black & white, 85-minute comedy are the television commercials shot in color. Unfortunately, Downey doesn't know when to cut off these ads that consistently start out cleverly but wear out their welcome. The funniest part of "Putney Swope" involves our eponymous protagonist's dealings with U.S. President Mimeo in Washington D.C. (Pepi Hermine), a marihuana-toking midget with a Kissinger-like Teutonic adviser (Larry Wolf) spouting tasteless jokes while trying to convince Swope to come up with an advertising campaign for his new car, the Borman 6. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_923 | pending | fabaccf0-736c-4294-9862-90abd6d14fc8 | Black and white satire of a Madison Avenue ad agency being taken over by blacks. They're headed by Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) who is determined to change things. However he turns out to be even WORSE than his white predecessors. That's about as original as this gets.<br /><br />I'm sure this was considered daring and shocking in 1969 but it just seems silly today. The jokes are either unfunny (the president is a midget. HOW is this funny?), cruel or obvious and the film is full of unlikable characters. It's done in a very experimental way which makes it even harder to take...or understand. The movie just gets more bizarre and surreal as it goes along. The ending comes out of nowhere. To make it worse, with the sole exception of Johnson, ALL the acting is bad. Antonio Fargas (a regular in these types of films) is especially annoying as the Arab. This gets three stars because the commercial parodies (done in bright color) ARE amusing and there's a rare good line here and there. I heard this was a cult classic but this is more interesting than good. Skip it...unless you're in experimental 1960s films. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_924 | pending | 5826d7f9-b6a8-4882-a3e9-4569920e768f | I think Downey was perhaps inspired by French new-wave.<br /><br />Who wasn't?<br /><br />Unfortunately, what he ended up creating here was more along the lines of crackhead new-wave.<br /><br />A synapse is obviously a terrible thing to lose and Downey appears to have lost plenty. <br /><br />Just say no, indeed. In more ways than one. Including to watching this film.<br /><br />I couldn't bear it after a while and began fast forwarding through it. It would have been wiser to have just skipped it altogether. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_925 | pending | 924c353f-9bc6-4915-9742-1bedeef47f4d | This is a poor excuse for a movie. A film noir done by Busbee Berkeley? Please! First, let's forget about the plot, a truly simple-minded version of a cynical tough guy turned into a saint by the love of a pretty blonde. Yechh. So what turns her from despising him to loving him? Along with a group of other guys, he helps keep a kid from drowning as they all swim in a water tower and try to survive as the water is siphoned off, stranding them. It isn't exactly heroics, but she's suddenly smitten. It's truly painful to watch Claude Rains trying to portray a hard-bitten, tough-talking, noir-type cop. A crooked grimace is his main and rather pathetic acting tool, along with a growling voice. Most of his energy seems to go into trying to hide the intelligence that shines in all his other roles. How he ever got talked into taking this job I'll never understand. Enjoy it, if you can, for a few period details, the old cars and gas pumps, but don't expect a decent film experience. It wasted 1-1/12 hours of my life. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_926 | pending | efcb7d8c-c428-4242-ba52-307c9ed1f537 | The Monkees "Head" is one of those peculiar phenomenons I've noticed- that when something doesn't make sense, people will try to read things into it and give it great deep meanings, which its creator never intended. Such is the case here.<br /><br />The movie is a stream-of-consciousness spectacle of The Monkees floating in and out of various sketches, blackouts, set pieces, etc. similar to the ones on their TV show. But while the TV show was played for laughs, this doesn't seem to be played for anything except a sort of deep, trippy, pseudo-intellectual state that this brand of psychedelia imposes. All in all, it's The Monkees doing the same schtick, but now it's "consciousness-raising" because the laugh track is removed. There is not a stitch of humor or meaning to the whole thing; it just drones on with colored lights.<br /><br />The music in "Head" should prove to anyone, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Monkees had not a scrap of songwriting ability. The tunes are mostly garbage; the only one that's even listenable is "Porpoise Song", which opens and closes the film. But the thing is, that was a Gerry Goffin-Carole King song, and, while it's above-average for the Monkees, it's below-average by Goffin and King standards. It's like hearing one of the old Peter And Gordon songs that Paul McCartney wrote for them: you might think it's a pretty good song, but then you find out who composed it, and you realize it's a throwaway. Mike Nesmith's song is maybe passable, the rest is worthless. Davy Jones has, I guess, what the filmmakers imagined to be "the big number" in the picture, since it's the only song presented As Show Biz and not cut into a film montage or dream sequence, but it falls flat, too, just because the song isn't any good.<br /><br />I have to admit I always liked the Monkees, so the movie is a real disappointment. Sure, they were cheesy, but they were so cheerful about it.<br /><br />They knew they were cheesy and they were cool with it. But then they got ambitious. In "Head", they actually joke about being a manufactured pop product, but the truth is, they wanted something more. They wanted to be Great Musicians and taken seriously as artists. Maybe not like the Beatles, but something approaching that. "Head" proves that they failed on all counts. 1* out of 4 | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_927 | pending | 560b8017-170e-45c2-a703-40049d0c4c75 | at a Saturday matinee in my home town. I went with an older friend (he was about 12) and my mom let me go because she thought the film would be OK (it's rated G). I was assaulted by loud music, STRANGE images, no plot and a stubborn refusal to make ANY sense. We left halfway through because we were bored, frustrated and our ears hurt. <br /><br />I saw it 22 years later in a revival theatre. My opinion had changed--it's even WORSE! Basically everything I hated about it was still there and the film was VERY 60s...and has dated badly. I got all the little in-jokes...too bad they weren't funny. The constant shifts in tone got quickly annoying and there's absolutely nothing to get a firm grip on. Some people will love this. I found it frustrating...by the end of the film I felt like throwing something heavy at the screen.<br /><br />Also, all the Monkees songs in this movie SUCK (and I DO like them).<br /><br />For ex-hippies only...or if you're stoned. I give this a 1. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_928 | pending | 47124e40-c2af-444b-82f7-ff51d8b3f76f | As their entire career was a pale impersonation of The Beatles, it is no surprise that, shortly after the great fiasco of the Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour," the Monkees would follow up with their own insipid and creative morass of a movie, called "Head." Both movies are not so much a true story with a plot (though MMT attempted to define a plot) as they are a hodge-podge of skits and snippets, interspersed with music and songs and out-takes.<br /><br />"Head" has no plot, other than the pre-fab-four trying to break free of "the box" they are in (i.e. the type-casting of being "Monkees" and the surrounding commercialism) and yet, always finding themselves back in the box. Most skits involve breaks in the "fourth wall" and crossing over into other, seemingly unrelated scenes. Filled with anti-Vietnam war messages and attempts by the group to show their other talents, the film bounces around haphazardly- also to be blamed on the multiple directors.<br /><br />The film, like Magical Mystery Tour, is now excused by some fans as "wonderful symbolism and misunderstood artistic statements." Phooey. Like MMT, it is too many guys with access to too many drugs all trying to make something artsy and making crap.<br /><br />Like MMT, "Head" has some clever moments and offers some relatively unknown Monkees songs that are quite decent. It does develop a bit more charm than MMT and is a bit easier to sit through, but it is not ironic at all that, like everything else the Monkees did, this was just a mimicry of something the Beatles did first... even when it comes to laying an egg. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_929 | pending | 00fe5cce-db06-4118-989d-93056bccef25 | This is possibly the worst movie i've ever seen, it was horribly done it didn't flow it was very choppy, because of that many people didn't understand the movie at all. I had to watch this movie several times before I got an idea about what was happening, OK its like this a kid stole someones car and while running from the police he totals it, for some reason the cops let him off and he has to face his parents who sent him to live with his uncle out in the wilderness, there he meets a girl who loves to rock climb and he gets into the sport and has to beg his uncle to let him enter a contest for climbing, and yeah thats about it like i said horrible movie. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_930 | pending | a175a6de-19a6-4a69-a715-0accc7f0f3ee | Talk about being boring!<br /><br />I got this expecting a fascinating insight into the life of the man who wrote the mythical Night on the Galactic Railroad. I expected to see crazy stories and hijinks of an eccentric man and to discover his inspirations for such bizarre material. Boy, was I wrong.<br /><br />Spring and Chaos is mostly boring with only sporadic moments of innovative animation. It's certainly nothing to write home about and nowhere near as good as NOTGR which is something that I suggest you watch instead. Leave this bore alone. If you absolutely MUST see then either rent it or find it somewhere cheap. Do not pay top dollar. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_931 | pending | dddbe583-2eef-4e98-8a05-ef7ed3751884 | Being a history buff, I rented this movie because of the subject matter. The idea of the Ellis Island experience at the turn of the century focusing on one small group is intriguing. Unfortunately, the movie falls flat. Much of the story is simply boring; nothing much happens for long stretches. The director uses goofy imagery (offered up in the form of daydream sequences) in an apparent attempt to break up the glacial pacing, but instead, it clashes with the authentic look and feel of the movie. The characters are also poorly drawn. In the end, we don't really care as much about them as we should. It's a shame that this wasn't what it could have been. I would still like to see a good movie about the American immigrant experience, but this one isn't it. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_932 | pending | 29cf0e08-8900-4e1b-8cd7-5c25d6bae05e | ***POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW*** <br /><br />What a long and mostly uninteresting movie! Who were these characters? Why didn't I care about them? If I'm going to watch a movie for two hours, I'd like to care about somebody or something. <br /><br />We know that Salvatore dreamed of the riches to be found in the new world. Beyond that, though, we learned little about most of his family's hopes, fears, etc., as they embarked on an adventure into the unknown.<br /><br />And why was Lucy even in this movie? She said little; we knew little about her or what she was doing (was she forced to service men in exchange for being allowed to board the ship?) or what her plans were upon reaching New York. To those who might suggest that she was needed to underscore the point that a single woman, however cultured, could not get into this country alone, I say that that fact is not enough justification to give her so much screen time. That point could have been made in five minutes, with Lucy as a momentary character.<br /><br />More questions: Why wasn't the twin brother at the boat to meet the family? We heard about the brother, and some closure on that point would have been helpful in giving the movie some cohesiveness. Also, how long was the journey from Italy to New York? Given the conditions on the ship, it makes a difference to the viewer if the voyage took five or 10 or 50 days. (Someone said something about seeing land a "week" at one point, but I think that was when they were already en route.) I needed these types of details to better appreciate what they were going through.<br /><br />The only scene I really liked was when the boat, filled with passengers, left the dock. <br /><br />If you choose to rent this movie, do so with remote in hand; you may want the Fast Forward button handy.<br /><br />Finally, may I suggest that, with the right voice-over providing helpful information about the times and the circumstances for immigrants--particularly during the slow stretches of endless shots of the countryside, people walking, etc.--this movie might have made an interesting public TV documentary. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_933 | pending | f3e84812-f4d8-42f9-8d9a-0b386825467f | The best part in this movie is the first one, located in Sicily, I suppose. Crialese shows a good talent for photography and the movie start is delightfully surprising. The rest of the story is quite boring. Crialese uselessly insists on stereotypical situations and characters, trying to melt neorealistic suggestions and video-music technique, Fellinian surrealistic remembrances and a very annoying and completely off-topic soundtrack, leading the whole thing towards an end which gives you the sensation of an exaggeratedly long story cut abruptly short. Frankly, this is a real overrated movie and Crialese is a real overrated director. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_934 | pending | e952b27e-e077-4624-b062-b92d4d42cca1 | The most generic, surface-level biography you could hope for. Busey's impersonation of Holly is accurate -- but who wants to hear Gary Busey sing "Maybe Baby"? Typically, the members of the Hollies are used for comic relief and melodrama (Smith and Stroud, respectively) instead of as people or even characters. When Holly uses a string section, the old jewish-looking guys who come in tell him he's using the same techniques as Mozart. It's just this kind of cheeky statement that makes film biographies like this (and "Amadeus", about the aforementioned Mozart) so worthless. Some entertainment can be derived from Holly's excellent styles and songs done in a B-variation. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_935 | pending | be66f7e1-22bb-417e-b844-58f1b5b716f8 | I always think it would be nice if you could somehow have a 'sneak preview' at some of the old movies that are re-released on DVD, before you purchase them. That way you could save yourself some time, money and a certain degree of aggro when you feel so utterly let down.<br /><br />"The Buddy Holly Story" is such a movie.<br /><br />I do not wish to go into the characterizations, or the holes in the plot, or the messing around with historical facts that this movie encompasses, for I had already come to terms with them twenty years ago, when I first began watching it.<br /><br />I had recorded it on the old (Monaural) Beta machine back in the early 1980s, and liked it so much, that it became a regularly-played favourite. The best part, to my mind, was Gary Busey's performance as the young Buddy, and his near-perfect vocals and guitar playing.<br /><br />I looked forward to the day when I could have it in ...STEREO..., and that is where the disappointment comes in.<br /><br />This DVD version is (supposedly) re-mastered in both audio and video, according to the shell information, but I'm afraid it left me sadly let-down and glancing at my watch, wishing for it to end.<br /><br />The sound is murky, bordering on the unintelligible, and so unprofessionally mixed that it had me yearning for the crystal-clarity vocals of my old Beta tape! <br /><br />Despite what you think of the images, or the plot, or the characters, the real draw card here is the MUSIC......and if you can't hear the lead vocals because they are drowned out by the cymbals, or the backing harmonies, or other ambients, then there's not much left, is there? <br /><br />I'm going to convert my old Beta version to (Mono) DVD for subsequent viewings, and put this one where it belongs, out with the rubbish! <br /><br />"Extinction is the Rule, Survival is the Exception..." | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_936 | pending | 5540d15b-f7d2-4db5-aa4b-924ea054e45b | This movie would have been alright, indeed probably excellent, if the directors would have left the interviews and the concert footage separate. "Into the Void" is a great song, and I hate how it is cut off at the best part to go to an mumbling interview with Ozzy Osbourne. That should have been at the end of the film, or located in a special feature. The best part of concert DVDs is to put them on and let the music play, but "Black Sabbath: The Last Supper" is hard to put and and simply let play because the music is continually interrupted. Nevertheless, there are a few strengths to this film; the concert footage, when it does play, it excellent. Black Sabbath returns to the stage after a long hiatus without Osbourne and this film captures that well: Sabbath basically rocks the fans. The fans, of course, have a sweet advantage in the film because they are seeing the band live, of course, but also they do not have to put up with the incessant interviews that the DVD viewers are burdened with. Shame on Jeb Brien and Monica Hardiman (the directors) for doing this to the film! Also, shame on Wyatt Smith for editing the film in such a way. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_937 | pending | 5f9d36bc-c0d8-4461-bb83-016b563efb0c | To remake "Lost Horizon", as a musical, the need for a Rodgers & Hammerstein or Lerner & Lowe type musical composition was needed. Burt Bacharach and Hal David were the wrong choice. Having said that, my favorite thing about "Lost Horizon", is its score. It's just that the score doesn't fit the piece. The cast, is made-up of mostly non-musical talents (Ullman, Finch and Hussey, were all dubbed, and still don't sound all that great).<br /><br />Frankly, the novella, on which this, and the earlier non-musical film versions were based, is mediocre, at best. While the possibilities for a truly good, cinematic musical version exist, they are not realized here. The film succeeds at being a good, rainy-day vehicle, to pass the time. Otherwise, you are better off, buying the CD of its soundtrack. Only recommended as a curiosity piece, due to the film's awful reputation. I've seen much better; but I've seen MUCH worse. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_938 | pending | 49bd7ad5-a444-429c-8c7c-0d1fa3bafca3 | I was an extra on this film, in the part shot at the airport in the first 15 minutes or so; I was one of the fleeing (mostly Mexican) Bangladeshi refugees running across the runways at Ryan Field in Tucson. At one point, standing around in our turbans as we waited for another shot, one of my fellow extras turned to me asked me what the move was going to be about. I told him it was going to be a remake of Lost Horizons, only as a musical. There was a long pause, then he replied: "Man, this movie is gonna suck". Pretty perceptive of him, I thought. I had a good time and made a bit of money, but even with some interesting personal memories attached to this movie I can't sit through the whole thing. <br /><br />If you ever saw the movie "The Swarm", you can pretty much get the idea. You get to see a lot of famous and talented people wasted on an an idea that on the face of it is just BAD. The idea seemed to be that if you throw enough money at a movie and hire enough big names, then a good story and good writing aren't necessary. Just turn the big crank, and out comes the product. It's just not worth watching. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_939 | pending | bf4b4d91-f016-4b99-99e4-935b2b6d4c87 | ..but unfortunately no one thought about having Van killed in order to save this doomed production. The only positive thing about him in the film is his nice singing voice...too bad the songs are mostly insipid and sappy. Why did I hate Van so much? Well, throughout the film he seemed like he was doing a third-rate Soupy Sales imitation--with lots of mugging, bad jokes and way too much energy spent trying to make everyone laugh. The worst of these moments was when he was "teaching" the class--these kids laughed at EVERYTHING he did. Heck, Van could have read the phone book or showed them autopsy photos and they probably would have laughed! Now Van was not the only bad casting decision in the film--he was just the most obvious. Of course, having John Gielgud (a lovely actor) play an Asian was ridiculous as well as having Michael York play Peter Finch's brother!! The bottom line is that because of these insane casting choices, the film was doomed from the start....and the worst of them was the god-awful Bobby Van. Now in real life, he might have been a lovely person and it's sad that in real life he died so young, but with the material they gave him here I just wanted to rip out his tongue to get him to be quiet.<br /><br />Now I also mentioned the songs--egad, those terrible songs!! The original LOST HORIZON by Frank Capra was a subtle delight throughout--and not a single song and dance number in the film. So why did they decide to add a bazillion songs that did nothing to help the film? They only served to make it seem like a gooey mess--like the original DOCTOR DOOLITTLE combined with LOST HORIZON. The end result is a sickly sweet children's movie--not one that can be enjoyed by anyone over 8.<br /><br />Now if you can remove these problems, you have the basis of a decent film. After all, the plot is lovely and is still hidden beneath all the goo. Peter Finch is particularly good (though certainly not the equal of Ronald Colman in the original). But, considering that the original was a near-perfect classic, why bother with this sticky confection. Who wants to wade through the treacle?! <br /><br />By the way, this film was included in "The 50 Worst Films" book by Harry Medved. While I, too, disliked the film, it wasn't bad enough to merit inclusion in the book. I think it was included mostly because it was such a huge box office failure and because it was released just a few years before the book appeared. An excellent book--just not one of the best selections to the "hallowed hall" of dreck. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_940 | pending | ac8146b2-bedf-4cf3-8202-caecc9d0e608 | I can imagine what happened for this film to come into being: a bunch of studio guys are sitting around, drinking gin-and-tonic, maybe a joint, and one of them comes up with the idea that it would be great if they could find a film that would bridge the generation gap, which at that time was about as far apart as Archie Bunker and Mick Jagger. Something that both college-age rebels and their parents would find equally interesting-- for different reasons, perhaps, but still, a ticket is a ticket. What interested hippies? Asia, philosophy, pacifism, and wild sets and costumes. What interested their parents? Musicals, eye candy, a feel-good script, and nostalgia. Very well, then, "Lost Horizon", the old classic, as a musical, in color. Can't miss, right? It was a bomb. Lost Horizon, by James Hilton, is perhaps less than a classic, but not a bad novel. In broad terms, he sketches out a utopian society in Shangri-la, "The Valley of the Blue Moon", near Tibet, inhabited by peacefully contented villagers who serve an abbey of <i>very</i> long-lived monks. Intruding into paradise is a Gilligan's Island-like planeful of outsiders (a veteran of WWI, a missionary, etc.) each with their own spin on the situation -- what plot there is concerns the reaction of each of them to being presented with a choice to live in paradise, or try to return to the tumult of the Twentieth Century. Taken on its own terms, it's gentle, pop-lit fluff, presenting Hilton's own conservative British views in "Oriental" dress, as exotic and as familiar as a fortune cookie. As captive honored guests of the monks, the castaways are forbidden to leave the valley, but never pressed into work or prayer (not that the monks do too much of that themselves), treated royally, and given simple, yet luxurious accomodations --who'd want to escape? In this Middle American Heaven-on-Earth, the monks are both cultured and wise, the climate is warm, the food is plentiful and tasty, the villagers are picturesque nonentities and nothing ever changes. The nuns are chaste, but encouraged to look pretty, and even flirt a bit ( the reason given is one of the most hilariously inaccurate explanations of Tantric Sex I've ever read). Even their religion is nonthreatening: revealed as a best-of-both worlds blend of Christianity and Buddhism, there's little to offend any but the staunchest fundamentalist or the oddballs out there who actually knew something about Tibet (which in the early Thirties was a very small number).<br /><br />As a Capra film focussing on the adventure/character interplay angles it was enchanting; and perhaps Steven Spielburg could have made it fly, if he'd been around. As an early-Seventies Hollywood product, the adventure was over too quickly, and the updated roster of characters too bland, to make much of an impression. Deprived of the sketchy, suggestive qualities of classic B&W, the monastery resembles a de luxe beauty spa in white and pale blue, and while at least some of the monks' robes tried for historical accuracy, most of the rest of the inmates looked as if on their way to a morning massage and fango bath, with a couple of holes of golf in the afternoon. Maybe Stephan Sondheim could have restored some grit to the story, playing up the very real conflict inside each character's reaction; just five years afterwards, Brian Eno would have captured the tranquil atmosphere to a T; instead, Bert Bacherach and Hal David were given the job of writing the songs, which marry Muzak-like melodies with some of the clunkiest New Agey lyrics ever penned. Quite naturally for the time, every song calls for a dance number, which range from the merely forgettable to the completely boring, and so is the script, which has not one line worth quoting.<br /><br />Tie-ins with this movie were legion -- there were everything from cookbooks to posters planned to promote this film, and such was the hype that I actually went out and bought the sountrack album. Just about the only thing good I can say about it is that it made enough of an impression on me to write this review completely from memory nearly thirty years after -- the next month I read Aldous Huxley, bought a copy of the Bardo Thadol, and hence learned about real Tibetan culture. Moan.<br /><br /> | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_941 | pending | e29ad842-f702-4a06-9e3a-aa0b0eb06f9e | I watched "Deadly Voyage" because David Suchet was in it, after enjoying him in the "Poirot" series. And Joss Ackland is always worth watching, so I went into the film with an expectation of it being a potentially worthwhile film. Alas, it was not to be.<br /><br />I won't bother critiquing the performances, the pacing, the cinematography or any other structural aspect of the film; others here have already given their opinions on those elements. The only thing I want to address is the film's message, since it proclaims in the intro that it's based upon a true story, and therein hangs the film's supposed importance.<br /><br />"Deadly Voyage" primarily focuses upon an impoverished black African man named Kingsley who wants to move to the US, because he believes that he can make money there. Nothing more, nothing less -- his motivation is utterly selfish. (Of course some people will prevaricate by saying that he was doing it for his family, but in fact he decided to have children on the income he could make in Ghana, so he really just created his own problem.) To that end, Kingsley decides to stow-away aboard a Russian freighter bound for New York. In the process of doing this, he faces harsh conditions, racist crew members and other challenges.<br /><br />But this is precisely where the film leaves me unsympathetic. Why should the audience be expected to care about Kingsley? Simply because he has a goal? Goals aren't such a rare commodity that his should be privileged above say, the goal of the ship's captain or the woman he left at home with his newborn child. Kingsley's goal is illegal in the eyes of the US Government. It is also illegal in that it steals from the Russian shipping company. If he makes it to the US, it would involve taking out of a system that he has not put into. And if he gets caught, the shipping company will be fined $45,000. I doubt very much that any of the stowaways care about what their chosen course of action is costing anyone else; they're clearly just out for their own gain. He could've spent the $1,000 he won in the lottery at the beginning of the film, for legal passage to the US, and applied for residency and a work permit. Instead, he takes the illegal (and dangerous) route.<br /><br />So since Kingsley's voyage is illegal, selfish and cannot be ethically justified, why should we care about him or his ordeal? Simply because he faces challenges? Why should his challenges be privileged above the challenge of the Russian shipping company getting to New York without stowaways? Because he's black and the shipping company is white? The reason seems to be because Danny Glover (the film's executive producer) and others involved want us to root for Kingsley, as if he's a hero on some sort of noble voyage. But once you accept that illegal immigration, theft and a fool's mission aren't noble at all, you can't really care about him.<br /><br />Before anyone plays the race card, I assure you that I would've felt the same no matter what ethnicity/nationality the involved parties were. Imagine if a British person decided to stow-away in a train headed for Bhutan, sneak across the border, and collect "unwanted" Buddhist antiquities, to bring back to Britain to sell. How much sympathy could the challenges he faced generate? Very little, I'd bet. So why should we feel different for Kingley? Because he's black? Because he's poor by American standards? The filmmakers are banking on us sharing their views that the ends justify the means, and that a shipping company being fined $45,000 is inconsequential compared to the remote possibility of an unskilled laborer earning slightly more in the US than he could've if he had just stayed in his own home country. I didn't buy it for a minute. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_942 | pending | 9d7ed6f4-be24-42fe-b027-8da9d7f6b5b5 | I put down this vehicle from Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy, and Murphy in particular the first time but having seen it again, recently, I can see that it does have some very funny bits.<br /><br />This is by no means to say that this is the greatest buddy comedy of all time, but really what can you do to the already exhausted subgenre? What director, Tom Dey, has tried to do is make it a satire of the clichés of buddy comedy and the media. Early in the movie the executive of a cable network asks: "How is this different from Cops?", when Chase Renzi is pitching the idea of a reality show dealing with De Niro's character, Mitch Preston (hilariously boring name by the way). That's when I saw it in a new light that I hadn't previously noticed.<br /><br />The idea is to show all the elements of the buddy comedy and put a twist on them. De Niro's reluctance to star in the show and to partner up with Murphy is right out of every cop film you can think of. You can say that De Niro is actually playing himself asking: "Why would I do another movie playing a cop?" Chase Renzi is portrayed to be a Hollywood phony but if you look at her opening scene again, she is merely doing it to save her job. She somehow sees the ridiculousness of what she is doing but she wants to succeed despite that. One line says it all: "Who doesn't want to be on TV?" Maybe this is reading too much into what is essentially a lightweight film, merely set to entertain, but it does give it a little spin that I hadn't noticed before.<br /><br />As for Murphy. You got to applaud him for looking this ridiculous. Trey wants to be a star so bad that he is willing to sell out everything he comes in contact with. Murphy was a big star and maybe it struck a nerve that it is all so fleeting.<br /><br />The plot with the gun is of course pretty boring. The action sequences are nothing special, except the end which required a lot of effort both from cast and crew. One thing that I noticed about the villain is that he is dressed like an 80's pop star. George Michael comes to mind and that adds to the whole media spin.<br /><br />So, I trashed it the first time around but what the heck; if you are gonna do this, why not point out how ridiculous it really is and De Niro and Murphy took a big chance doing this. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_943 | pending | 3064da96-60ea-4d3a-95b3-5c0ed5b2813a | Watching Showtime I got the impression that the producers got the idea to put Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy just for the sake of having a film that co-starred the two of them. Other than that I can't think of a reason to justify the film's existence. Not that it isn't amusing in spots, it certainly is, but the concept is so completely ludicrous that the laughs are somewhat muted.<br /><br />The thing that really got me was Eddie Murphy's character. I can't seem to wrap my mind around the concept of someone being a police officer as strictly a day job. When I was working person at New York State Crime Victims Board I had to deal with all kinds of cops and they ran the gamut between the really dedicated and some real slugs, but I can't think of one who thought that this was just something I do until I get my career going in an area far afield. I mean, can you really see Eddie Murphy or anyone else going through the rigors of the real Police Academy, not the screen version, just to get a day job?<br /><br />Anyway DeNiro is your basic hard working detective who's on the trail of a major gun dealer. He's undercover and Murphy is part of his backup. So what does the showboating Murphy do, he calls a reality based TV series like COPS to film the action. <br /><br />So DeNiro's bust gets blown sky high, but the producer of the show gets some good footage of Murphy and DeNiro and decides on a new reality based television series. So these unwilling partners get joined and try to continue working DeNiro's case with all the TV cameras around.<br /><br />Eddie Murphy's a funny guy, I loved him in Beverly Hills Cop and in the Doctor Doolittle movies, but he's done better things than Showtime and Robert DeNiro certainly has. <br /><br />I guess Murphy wanted a chance to work with DeNiro and DeNiro must have gotten one hefty paycheck to do this film. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_944 | pending | fe8d8230-65e0-4de5-9ba3-c77654253620 | Two popular actors are paired in showtime like De Niro and Murphy playing a police and an actor. Although they share the most screen time together, they do not reach their expected performances such films like Analyse This, Meet the Parents, Dr Doolittle and Nutty Professor. The film starts interestingly but becomes a thin, ordinary comedy which is quite disappointing.It feels like especially De Niro doesn't enjoy being in Showtime. Thats a shame because he really shows his feelings thats what I think. Unfortunately, if the idea had been used cleverly this could have been a more interesting piece of work and could be followed with a sequel like any other popular Hollywood movie. Well, I don't think there would be a sequel to this at least casting De Niro and Murpy again. ** out of ***** | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_945 | pending | 830eadcd-c448-4b25-9153-6dc409ebba37 | With all the hype surrounding the stars of the movie, this movie left me wanting. I expected a much better movie considering the inclusion of the talents of Murphy, De Niro and Russo but found that the movie fell flat on it's face. Comedy sequences were overdone and the superior performances of the stars especially De Niro and Russo couldn't save this one!<br /><br />** out of ***** | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_946 | pending | a7b23772-f93b-4395-93ad-2ea348742925 | The movie is not as funny as the director's preceding (and only other) movie, Shanghai Noon. Showtime did have its moments, but it did not satisfy me. Why it needed to be so foulmouthed, I don't know, but I give Showtime **/**** | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_947 | pending | f46f0237-ead5-4424-a8c5-a1ceb4a7d94e | There comes a time in every big name actor's career when they get sloppy and accept projects that they wouldn't have touched with a 1000 ft. pole in their golden days. Remember "Taxi Driver"? That was a fine film. I can hardly believe that the De Niro of "Showtime" is the same actor.<br /><br />I would rather watch "Time Chasers" twice than see this film again. If anyone offers to take you to see "Showtime" or gives you free passes, or whatever, run away as fast and far as you can. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_948 | pending | d6651778-5efc-40aa-9dac-cc3b0c33e9ec | MINOR PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!!<br /><br />How did such talented actors get involved in such mindless retreaded<br /><br />drivel? Robert DeNiro plays a Dumb Hollywood version of the standard<br /><br />violence prone tough cop (i.e., he beats up the bad guys and rolls his<br /><br />eyes at cops who prefer to stick by the book), and Eddie Murphy plays a<br /><br />not so tough cop who would rather be an actor (i.e., he screams out,<br /><br />"Freeze, police!" and has his "tough look" down pat). Naturally, they<br /><br />are partnered when Bobby's loose cannon tactics get him in hot water<br /><br />with the media and he is essentially blackmailed into starring in a<br /><br />"Cops"-like reality show. Take a breath, cuz that's as funny as it<br /><br />gets.<br /><br />No energy was put into the script - it feels like a pale retread of<br /><br />every copy buddy movie tossed into a blender with "15 Minutes" starring,<br /><br />yes, DeNiro himself as, pretty much the character he is playing here. <br /><br />The jokes fall flat, the action feels listless, and no one seems to be<br /><br />having a good time. It's dead on the screen.<br /><br />Please don't waste your time. Even if you have an overwheming affinity<br /><br />for one of the actors - avoid it and do them a favor. Becauze if this<br /><br />makes money, these kinda of scripts will be deeemed perfectly acceptable<br /><br />for actors of their quality.<br /><br />And to Mr. DeNiro. You used to make serious films. I remember them -<br /><br />they were good. You were nominated for awards for them - remember how<br /><br />much fun that was? Now after "Analyze This" (which was good), "Meet the<br /><br />Parents" (which was also good), and "The Adventures of Rocky and<br /><br />Bullwinkle" (which was NOT good), I think we need to see you parodying<br /><br />yourself less, and BEING yourself more. "Casino" feels like a long time<br /><br />ago. And no, I don't count "15 Minutes" as serious Bobby. Anyone who<br /><br />took that media satire seriously must get their weekly world news | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_949 | pending | 5d9bec7d-1ae8-46eb-97ad-c172477fe788 | Eddy Murphy and Robert De Niro should be a combination that results in a great comedy. Great expectationa often lead to dissapointment, and this proves to be the case.<br /><br />When Eddy as a police officer spoils a drug deal being done by Detective Robert, they botch it so badly that they end up doing a live action reality TV cop show. Logic is not a great component of this movie. The super-gun that they spend the second half of the movie chasing down confirms it. A twelve guage machine gun that leaves large holes in sheetmetal and three will destroy a house in about a minute (without reloading) is as more a fantasy than science fiction. A five pound gun, firing hundreds of shots per minute without any recoil, is certainly the weapon of the future using the technology of the past.<br /><br />It is clear this movie was designed for neither adults nor children, so if you are somewhere in between, this is the movie for you. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_950 | pending | ec035921-29cb-4e5d-8c86-6876c84f047f | Bubbling just beneath the surface of Showtime is a good idea. Actually, it's more like two or three ideas that constantly fight for screentime. This film doesn't just have its cake and eat it too; it has the whole bakery.<br /><br />Detective Mitch Preston (Robert De Niro) has a drug bust interrupted by the media and a brash, cop-slash-actor named Trey Sellars (Eddie Murphy). When Preston's partner is shot, he angrily shoots the camera out of the hands of a pestering newsman, and the tiff lands him in a new reality cop show produced by Chase Renzi (Rene Russo). In the first of many errors and oddities in the movie, that injured partner is never heard from again or alluded to for the remainder of the film.<br /><br />De Niro's best gag is his speech to a classroom of small children to open the picture about how TV cops don't act like real cops. Funny thing is, as the movie progresses, his character and Murphy's begin to act more and more like the clichés they supposedly clash so strongly with. In a smarter movie, De Niro's diatribe could have played as ironic comment; here, it only shows to point out how truly lame the movie is. While a spoof of a reality based cop show could be funny, the team of writers and director Tom Dey (Who made the far superior Shanghai Noon a few years ago; see that movie instead) seem to be on unsure footing, and instead of slamming the TV industry, they really let them off light (The harshest thing they seem to be able to say about network execs is they like to play ping pong at work). Russo's character has a glint of fiendish delight in her eye, but her dialogue and actions rarely match the actress' enthusiasm. <br /><br />With little on screen to keep my attention, my mind began to wander, and that's dangerous in a movie with this many plot holes. For instance; if Showtime (the name given to the cop show) is such a popular smash, why doesn't anyone seem to recognize De Niro and Murphy when they are on the job? For that matter, if their investigation of smuggler and all around mean guy Vargas is being televised, why the heck hasn't someone mentioned to him that they are on his trail? Then again, given this villain's actions maybe I shouldn't be surprised; this is the same joker who is very angry at an associate for using his new supergun without approval, jeopardizing a deal, and then dispatches him how? By using about ten of the superguns to level his entire house, of course! That's like putting out a fire with a bigger fire. <br /><br />Occasionally, Showtime gets laughs, but there simply aren't enough for the film's nearly two hour running time. Even worse, the really smart gags suggest that this movie really could have been on to something, if only they had put in a few more drafts of the script. Murphy mugs and talks as fast as he can with minimal results, and De Niro looks flat out bored through most of this. After a completely unnecessary fistfight between cops and gangsters (That remarkably results in no injuries and no arrests) Russo's character shouts `That's great television!' Perhaps it's great television, but it's far from a great movie. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_951 | pending | d1d8ded7-c7cf-426a-9732-23efde503ae8 | I don't understand jokes. I do believe this is my problem with modern cinema, or those films that are made with millions of dollars in hopes that it will become the next greatest sensation. Isn't it odd people just don't laugh as much anymore, and I do believe one of the diseases to that problem is the film "Showtime". There was absolutely nothing, from the beginning to the end of the credits, with all of the bantering between Murphy and De Niro, with Russo as eye candy, with even standard clichés which make the general population swoon with pre-programmed laughter, there was nothing in this film that made me laugh. There weren't the overbearing physical jokes or the calculated mental vocal jokes at all throughout this debacle of a film. From the beginning, I didn't buy the match-up of De Niro and Murphy as anything more than Hollywood excitement, throughout the commentary the director vividly talks about the hijinks and laughter going on during the shoot where was it in the film? This falls to either two problems the director really doesn't have a sense of comedy or the editor didn't understand the value of the film. Either way, they both doomed the entire hour and a half spent on the Hollywood nightmare "Showtime".<br /><br />Outside of finding no reason to laugh, there was no reason to follow these characters through any moment of the film. There was a glimpse of humor with De Niro's desire to pick up pottery as a hobby (but the director had to write KILN on the machine so audiences would understand WHO DOES THAT?), but that was dropped and never developed. There was the idea that Murphy was an actor, but outside of that one opening monologue, nobody would have understood that. He rents a room in a producer's house in which he can afford on a police officer's salary? This just didn't compute even for Hollywood standards. There was a bad guy who wanted a big gun, but the gun was never developed, nor was there any true test of the weapons capability
even at the end. It became a bigger joke to laugh at an accent than remember the guns. Where was the television show in this? Russo had to get permission from this random guy at the beginning, but there were no consequences. There was nothing in the middle of this film outside of further questions and meaningless dribble. Random characters were introduced, forgotten, re-introduced, and forgotten all over again. The director and producer laughed at this, while we, the meager viewer, must suffer through inside jokes and cliché stereotypes.<br /><br />Was there a love interest in this film? Was there a truly sinister bad guy that went apart from the comic duo to bring true evil to the screen? Were there any pop culture references that didn't come back to Robert De Niro? Was there random chaos throughout this film? If you need the answers to these, obviously, you won't find them in "Showtime". The fact that I am riddling this review with question upon question, only means that this sub-par (actually, well below sub-sub-sub par) filled no quota or resembled anything of value to the cinematic world. Sure, it had big names and one really neat explosion, but there was nothing of substance to this at all. It was almost as if the director said prior to the shoot that he wanted clichés, but not regular clichés go with the bad ones. The plot had no linear structure. The jokes were boring. The characters were drab and underdeveloped. This ranks below even the best of "buddy-cop" films. I like to give films the benefit of the doubt, but nothing worked in this film. Not even Shatner could save this film, and he even tried hard.<br /><br />Overall, I cannot, nor will I, suggest this film to anyone with a pulse. The commentary only confirms the pathetic nature of the film with obvious flaws, horrid jokes, and creators questioning the validity of their work. If creators can't stand behind "Showtime", why should we? I didn't want a "Lethal Weapon" when I watched this, but I did want something like that. I understand there was some form of criticism of "reality television" and the corrupt nature of the media, but that message didn't make it off the page. In fact, I believe I saw "media" leave the theater first when I watched this. Shame carries its heavy hand with this film and I cannot blame it. Murphy used to be a big star, comedy was his middle name (see "Coming to America"), but lately he seems to have lost his edge. De Niro obviously wants to get away from an image that haunts him, but making these sort of films is only going to set him back further. One of these films is equal to one Scorsese picture.<br /><br />Skip this one. I promise, it will make your final cinematic days worthwhile. Oh, and if you laughed at any of the jokes in this film I am truly sorry! <br /><br />Grade: * out of ***** | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_952 | pending | b6bf1cc5-6e47-4c15-937c-3ffda6f83ac5 | For all intents and purposes, Showtime was the worst movie I have ever seen.<br /><br />Why? Because having Deniro in the cast adds immediate credibility and makes you want to watch the movie. I had also made the mistake of watching 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop recently before seeing Showtime and for some strange reason thought Eddie Murphy was still funny. Well he's not. In fact it almost seems like he has been neutered. As I watched this movie I was in amazement that Deniro decided this was a good enough script to lend his name too. No chemistry between him and Murphy whatsoever. Horrible writing, horrible jokes, a movie that you THINK is supposed to be good can't get much worse than this. Not too long after sitting through the wretch that was Showtime I happened to watch National Security starring Martin Lawrence. The movie had its funny parts but wasn't that great. But still it was 20 times better than Showtime. Please if your a Deniro fan DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!! | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_953 | pending | adf3c89e-8671-4fb5-a104-7b34e8150aa1 | This 3-hour made-for-TV miniseries came home with us from Blockbuster's this weekend. The production company clearly spent a lot of money on sets, costuming (Bridget Fonda, especially), and special effects (including a great Jim Henson talking polar bear & reindeer). They should have spent a bit more money getting a coherent script. The story line was so loose that it really never came together. One can overlook Irish-accented Germans, but not herky-jerky storytelling. With senseless loose ends which included a special guest appearance by the Devil, this one is certainly not destined to be a Christmas Classic. A shame that they wasted good performances by the two female leads. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_954 | pending | 2dbab8c1-a9b3-4347-b04c-acfc013c69e2 | Sometimes Hallmark can get it right - like The 10th Kingdom - but many of their fantasy films plod, and this falls into the latter category. The version I saw may have been cut (a demon [?] shown in the trailer and publicity stills didn't appear), but anything that made the movie shorter can only be a blessing.<br /><br />POSSIBLE SPOILERS IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE ORIGINAL FAIRY TALE:<br /><br />Anyway, the film updates the story to the early part of the 20th Century (?), and makes Gerda and Kay (here called Kai - being a Lexx fan, I kept expecting him to say, `The Dead do not solve puzzles') 18 year olds. Hans Christian Andersen's basic story is followed: the boy gets a shard of ice in his eye, goes bad, is taken off by the Snow Queen to solve a puzzle in her palace and Gerda goes to find him, having various adventures on the way.<br /><br />As the two main characters are older than in the original, a lot of time is spent getting them together and `in love'. Unfortunately, I was never convinced that they were particularly in love, and certainly not enough in love to make sense of Gerda's quest. By the time the main plot kicks in, the movie's pace has slowed to a crawl. Alas, when Gerda begins her search for Kai, it only manages to pick up the pace to a leisurely stroll.<br /><br />There are a few odd additions to the story that seem to go nowhere. At the start of the film the Snow Queen kills Gerda's mother, but no explanation for this is given. A polar bear living in the Snow Queen's palace is more than he seems (though this is possibly because the producers realised that the bear's feelings towards the Snow Queen would be OK in a Fairy Tale, but not in a modern film). Again, this is never explained. Also, hints that the Snow Queen has an erotic desire for Kai are dropped, but never followed through. The script is also full of anachronisms that really jar you out of the `fairy tale' mood.<br /><br />The production looks good, though there is evidence of penny-pinching: the Snow Queen's palace is the hotel where Gerda and Kai lived covered in ice. The three main characters are played with varying degrees of success: Kai comes across as bland as does Gerda initially, but once she sets off to find Kai you warm to her. Bridget Fonda looks great as the Snow Queen, but seems to be in a different movie to everyone else.<br /><br />Ultimately, the film is unsatisfying. It looks good, but drags and lacks magic. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_955 | pending | 7cc33080-679a-4f3c-95a2-bb6c4fc92992 | "The Snow Queen" is based on the famous and very beautiful fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, about a girl, Gerda, who goes on a dangerous journey to rescue her friend Kai from the clutches of the Snow Queen. This adaption attempts to capture that story's sense of adventure and luminously intricate imagery through lavish sets and production design, but fails on a number of counts.<br /><br />Like so many Hallmark productions, the potential of the story is completely undercut by heavy-handed scripting and direction. The two actors playing Gerda and Kai are blandly pleasant but forgettable; Bridget Fonda as the Snow Queen looks the part but is otherwise miscast for the role. There's a notable lack of dramatic tension to this meandering three-hour miniseries. At least some of the pacing problems can be attributed to the addition of filler scenes that add very little to the original story, particularly in the opening hour that introduces the main characters.<br /><br />That said, "The Snow Queen" would be just about ideal for pre-teens with a liking for fantasy and a bit of patience. It's great eye-candy without being scary, and the acting is pitched at the sort of pantomime over-the-top level that spells out the storyline in very, very bold text. Just make sure you read them Andersen's story too. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_956 | pending | 0de4096b-06d3-401c-9ac4-c293190afafc | DANGER: Watch for falling spoilers...<br /><br />Boy, was this a bad movie. I know that they were going for a "true love conquers all" kind of thing, but about all this film conquered was about 3(which felt more like 9) hours of my afternoon which I will never get back. The movie is about two young lovers named Kai and Gerta who live in a remote town in a fantasy world. Kai is the much-abused bellboy at a hotel owned by Gerta's father. At first Gerta ignores Kai's advances but she eventually warms up to him much to the disgust of (You Guessed It!) Gerta's father. As if this obstacle wasn't enough to overcome, an evil snow queen shoots a shard of glass in Kai's eye and he becomes a mean person treats Gerta poorly. Kai is eventually taken to the Snow Queen's fortress (Which is the same set as the hotel just covered in ice, because the good people at Hallmark like to go all out) and Gerta sets out on a mission to get Kai back. Along the way she runs into the 3 other seasons that are evil in their own special way, but Gerta escapes them with the help of some dull and forgettable characters she meets along the way. (All the while you will want to turn it off, but can't force yourself to do it. It's probably the most evil and most effective spells cast by the Snow Queen) Anyways, I will spare you from the ending because anything you can think up in your head right now is probably better then how they ended it. So, in conclusion, the Snow Queen is an incredibly boring movie, which takes the fan out of fantasy. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_957 | pending | 0d99064b-efb2-48da-b8cf-f555b05d0638 | Rudolph Maté's film from 1950 is given a revamp for the 80's, Dexter Cornell(Dennis Quaid) is a university lecturer who used to have a successful writing career, but thats now gone down the tubes along with his marriage. The initial exposition plants the notion in the viewers mind that everybody has something against him, so when the revelation comes that he has been poisoned, we are not that surprised, unless of course you are familiar with the original. Dexter after being told he has less than 48hrs to live, decides to trace back his steps with the help of one of his students Sydney Fuller(Meg Ryan), but they find they have many obstacles in their way.<br /><br />The film begins promisingly in black and white, as Dexter staggers in the rain towards the local police station where he wishes to report a murder...his own, but the Huey lewis style 80's beat that accompanies this scene only serves to remove any sense of tension and tells the viewer that this is going to be pretty bad, its only a question of how bad? Sure enough we are soon using the old flashback medium, but now the film resorts to full Technicolor. There are some brief homages to Noir, as the embracing couple stand in front of a venetian blind, but there's really nothing here to recommend it, the performances are awful, Ryan in particular doing her usual dizzy blonde with a cutesy pie smile routine. The film is a lazy attempt to put some unneeded ooomph into an already fine movie premise, obviously trying to cash in one the Body Heat audience, the seeming results are undoubtedly aimed at a teen audience and to be sure, they are welcome to it. 4/10 | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_958 | pending | 41faa5b6-aa3c-498a-a28e-775058d02c64 | Great story and great lead actors (Quaid and Ryan) but the movie suffers from bad directing,bad screenplay and bad script.The lead actors do their part but could not save the movie at all.Too bad because this could have been a good 80's style Hitchcock suspense/mystery/thriller.Ryan looked so young and fresh in this one though.An ok look for big Ryan fans..... | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_959 | pending | 13167960-a880-4457-a86f-d3d6be6bbfc9 | I'm a fan of the 1950's original and about 20 minutes into this remake I started to think this was going to be as good as the original but it wasn't. The motive for the murders was incredibly stupid. Two of the lovers in the movie turn out to be brother and sister-excuse me while I barf. The main character stops in the middle of the movie to have sex which doesn't make sense considering the situation he's in. If the film makers wanted a sex scene they should have put it earlier in the movie before the main character (Dexter played by Dennis Quaid found he's about to die and that he's accused of a crime. There is a reason for where the sex scene is at. Early in the movie Dexter isn't living life to the fullest so he's not interested in sleeping with Meg Ryan. I still feel it would make more sense for the sex scene to have either been cut or earlier in the film and the two siblings not to have been lovers.<br /><br />One of the dumbest parts of the movie involves a gun fight, a couple people getting killed and one person being run over all within 15 yards of a crowded carnival and yet NOBODY AT THE CARNIVAL NOTICES!!! Also in the scene is the tar pits the university where the movie takes place is built on. If you fall into the tar you sink to the bottom and in a matter of seconds. Not only is it hard to believe stuff would sink that fast in tar, but more importantly who builds a university on tar pits. I would say more about how stupid the end of the movie is but I don't want to put a spoiler in my post. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_960 | pending | ed858781-e38f-48ea-bd48-85d00418639d | Interesting plot but painfully dull. The script lacks... lacks acting. To me this film compares with "Made for TV" type movies. I was lucky to survive the film without falling asleep in my popcorn. I watched this film with my family. It is fairly safe to watch with your kids. (only 1 semi sex scene)If you wish to see a young Meg Ryan...check out this movie. Very 80-ish. You will like this movie if you like the combination of depressed people at Christmas, booze, super glue and tar. Or maybe you are like me... and have have a higher standard for acting in films. However I did like the way the movie began and ended! Mark. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_961 | pending | 6d533579-fac5-4dec-b31f-833f87a33f48 | This review contains a partial spoiler.<br /><br />Shallow from the outset, 'D.O.A.' at least starts as if it might be a slick, entertaining piece of nonsense like Fincher's 'The Game'. It's central character(Dennis Quaid) suffers from a nightmarish sequence of events that appear to be setting up a twisted and cunning thriller. But the plot rattles along at too great a pace, leading to a dramatic twist not half way through, when the character learns that he has been poisoned and has only 1-2 days to live. And this, simply, is too big a twist to add casually to a story. Once this has happened, the film's only chance of success is if it treats the psychology of someone in this situation as its principal, indeed, its only subject matter: but 'D.O.A.' continues as if this was just a normal revelation like any other you might usually encounter in a thriller. The problem is two-fold: firstly, Quaid's actions don't convince as what someone is his situation would be likely to do; and secondly, even if they did convince, it's hard to care about what happens next when the most significant point of plot has already been prematurely resolved. The rest of the film is pretty standard fare for a film of this sort, but made more tedious than usual by the character's slightly-treated predicament, which logically dwarfs the events the film is interested in. Dennis Quaid, in the lead role, doesn't convince either as a burnt out professor or as a man who is destined to die: Meg Ryan is, as often, ditzy and annoying. Another negative feature is the ugly 80s soundtrack. Watch 'The Game' instead, which from similar roots remains tight and character-driven, whereas 'D.O.A.' drifts into developments that only undermine its own premise. As the premise is itself quite intriguing, it's a shame to see it drowned in a surplus of over-cooked plot. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_962 | pending | facc206b-949f-480e-91e0-ffcb2b25b95d | POSSIBLE SPOILERS --<br /><br />I love Dennis Quaid and I like Meg Ryan. I was looking forward to seeing them together, being married and all, I wanted to see their on-screen chemistry. Okay, that being said, I guess the fact that they are actors, their off-screen relationship didn't have to permeate their performances, especially with this script.<br /><br />How stupid can a professor be to glue himself to anyone. I don't remember the original, but I can only assume that O'Brien probably was handcuffed to his leading lady, probably in a more inevitable way. If I were "bonded" to someone I'd be pretty angry. The crush I would have would definitely have dissipated quickly. Meg showed not even a little annoyance only slight surprise. Dennis would have to take me kicking and screaming. That whole section of the movie was so horrible -- especially Meg having to go to the bathroom (#2) between dumpsters in the dark at night. Ewww. No f****ing way! <br /><br />What's with Dennis socking every single suspect in the movie. Sock first ask questions later. Not once, not twice but too many times -- I could have kept count if I were so inclined. <br /><br />The most interesting part of the movie was Nick and his family drama. Too bad that couldn't have become more of the plot. The assumed off-screen drama leading up to this tragedy. I think it could have been written in without distracting from Dex' quest. <br /><br />My blame lies with the writer of this screenplay. Unless the director and others doctored it up so much that it's unrecognizable.<br /><br />I won't even get into the real reason poor Dex was murdered. How ludicrous is that. Even when Dex confronted the real killer and the reason was explained, (a true "film noir" moment) everyone on screen seemed bored. Oh, _____ happened. Oh. (yawn) "Dex even says this is a silly reason for a triple murder. Oh the tension, you could cut it with a spoon.<br /><br />If anyone but Dennis had been in this movie, I'd have to give it 1/2 star (only because I really have seen worse), but in this case 1 1/2 stars.<br /><br />For Dennis and Meg stars, see ANYTHING ELSE. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_963 | pending | 501dc6a9-eab0-4f3b-9b6b-bf30ab515462 | "D.O.A." is a non-thrilling thriller from directors Rocky Morton and Annabel<br /><br />Jankel. The acting is okay and the screenplay is pretty bad. This movie also has some moments which will make you laugh at how stupid the scenes of violence<br /><br />are. For example, someone is shot near a window. We then see from outside<br /><br />the building what looks like that person jumped. I laughed my head off when this happened. This movie tries hard, but ultimately fails. Only watch this movie<br /><br />when you have no other choice.<br /><br />My Critique: **<br /><br />Rating: [R]<br /><br />Rating Reasons: Violence and language.*<br /><br />*There was no rating reason available due to its age. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_964 | pending | 99641805-588c-4b74-bb40-a7e9fb846c91 | I rented this movie primarily because it had Meg Ryan in it, and I was disappointed to see that her role is really a mere supporting one. Not only is she not on screen much, but nothing her character does is essential to the plot. Her character could be written out of the story without changing it much. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_965 | pending | d44c5ef4-3c31-4f4b-9629-347e71519e45 | This meandering tale of mob revenge is simply not very interesting, even with Ed McMahon in a ripe role as the chief heavy. Jim Brown kicks ass effectively, Gloria Hendry proves again that she can bring life to even the poorest roles, and Brock Peters is decent as The Cop Who Plays By the Book. It's still dull and badly constructed, and even the print shown on cable is now emasculated of its original James Brown score. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_966 | pending | de33033c-525f-49fb-a295-05c9188e7dcf | As a flagship show, Attack of the Show (AOTS) is endemic of the larger fall of G4 TV; it is a show (and a station) that has fallen so far that it parades sex to try and cover its glaring faults. Its predecessor, The Screen Savers, was a venue for troubleshooting technology problems and scouting out the latest and greatest in technology. It was a nice show with a likable staff and it was fun to see some of the modding and other experiments the crew could put to together.<br /><br />The acquisition of TechTV by G4 bothered some longtime fans of the station, but early returns were actually promising. The emphasis on gaming was a nice addition and I really enjoyed a lot of the coverage of E3 and other big entertainment events.<br /><br />Unfortunately, AOTS now stands as but a shell of its former self. Those overseeing the channel have shifted the focus of the channel away from technology and gaming and toward anything that might elicit drool from young adult men. The result is that AOTS spends as much time parading Olivia Munn or touting the adult film industry as it does covering games. It is so bad it is practically unwatchable.<br /><br />While some may get puerile joy out of this sort of thing, those who genuinely enjoy gaming may wonder where the good coverage went. Equally troubling, young gamers who might tune into G4 thinking their getting gaming - that active gaming group between 10-15 - are instead being fed things aimed toward a more mature audience. On a channel like HBO or Cinemax, things like that are expected. On G4, it's tragic.<br /><br />At least SpikeTV, another male-aimed channel, has good programming like CSI. AOTS, and G4, has very little good left to offer.<br /><br />Too bad, really. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_967 | pending | 52f03c8a-2f01-4f03-a173-55d0b4cc0979 | This show is what happened to The Screen Savers after G4 got its hands on it, taking it from a useful source of computer-related information to a show that had as its high point the shoving of a miniature web server up someone's posterior.<br /><br />As G4's ratings plummeted, they moved away from their original target audience, gamers, to generic hormone-driven young men, adding eye candy to the staff and a sex advice segment. Now even the gamers who applauded the show initially are turning away in disgust. I look forward to the show's, and the network's, overwhelmingly overdue and well-deserved demise. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_968 | pending | 125bfb26-3342-472c-a955-1c55963f6912 | Since this show was changed from TSS (the screen savers) to AOTS (attack of the show)it has gone down hill. TSS with Yoshi and Kevin Rose Alex... etc. Made the show awesome, then they got fired from TSS for an unknown reason. When the show switched to AOTS, it became less about computers, and more about gaming and magazines. It also promoted bands that nobody had heard of, or cared about. Finally I couldn't watch it anymore once Kevin Rose left. He kept it interesting, but he went off to do his own thing, which is good. Kevin Rose now has several online pod casts, and shows, etc on the REV 3 network. Check it out. REV3.com I think, you can get to it by going to www.systm.org. If you want a real tech show rather than aots, then go watch Kevin Roses shows or listen to the tWit podcast.<br /><br />J< | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_969 | pending | dd9525ac-34ec-4065-a64b-c02046c81858 | I saw this movie a while ago and I was looking forward to it. My biggest problem was having seen the trailer I was expecting a very stylish marshal arts movie with plenty of action and maybe a bit of plot to think about along the way. I was sorely disappointed as it would seem that once you have seen the trailer there is nothing else worth watching (if what you are expecting is as described above). My girlfriend at the time gave up half way through and whilst I continued to watch in the hope that something interesting might happen... nothing did. I found no attachment or real interest in any of the characters. I would say just don't bother unless you have a few hours of your life that you don't really care about losing. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_970 | pending | 09e63a30-fb58-4bc4-82f9-73057d7dfde6 | I'm still laughing- Not! I'm still asking my myself what the point was. I barely got a chuckle, this movie sucks. It tries to be charming and touching, but it turns out stupid. I do not recommend it. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_971 | pending | 381e5ddc-0226-4e44-824b-c1f250ec8685 | This is one of the most predictable movies I have ever seen. And this supposed to be funny..... Boring, boring, boring. Find the fast forward button at your remote and use it... I can`t say I laughed once, and the only good feeling this movie gave me was relief when it ended. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_972 | pending | 1f8f4b70-c753-4ca3-95c5-56bbf61c9468 | The most accurate description of how Billy Crystal fairs in "My Giant" is to say that this movie is to his career as "Ishtar" was to Warren Beaty's - it didn't ruin it, but it slowed it down.......a lot. Crystal should know the three golden rules of Hollywood: 1) never play opposite a kid 2) never play opposite an animal 3) never play opposite someone that is almost 3 feet taller than you, is as innocent as a kid and "acts" like an animal.<br /><br />What is this story? A comedy? I guess, but I didn't laugh, except at the scenes where Crystal is on his own and not burdened with his (what-is-her-role-in-this-movie) ex-wife or the afore-mentioned Giant. Did I mention there's also a kid in this film? Well, forget about him. The son is brought in to make us feel sorry for Crystal, and we do, but for the actor, not the character. Billy Crystal is a funny man. If you don't believe me, watch him in old episodes of "Soap" or "Saturday Night Live." Go rent "City Slicker" or "Running Scared" or "When Harry Met Sally."<br /><br />"Giant" is more ho-hum than fee-fi-fo-fum.<br /><br /> | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_973 | pending | 679d1625-18e3-4ee6-9922-ca1689be4fbc | Synopsis: Kid is not accepted into any colleges. He creates a "college" where he and his friends can party by using their parent's tuition money. <br /><br />Wow. A Paean to ignorance. <br /><br />If you believe that we're all OK, man, then this movie is for you. Furthermore, you must understand that:<br /><br />1. Kids have it all inside them--they just need to let it out.<br /><br />2. Teaching really stifles the innate creativity that everyone is born with. <br /><br />3. Someone else should pay for you to follow your passion. <br /><br />4. 300 teenagers can live together in harmony, as long as you take away those restrictive rules. <br /><br />5. Extemporaneous speeches are often much more convincing than a prepared presentation. <br /><br />6. If the Board of Education allows you to open a "charter school" with "nontraditional teaching techniques," it's because they have your best interests at heart. (Not that they are willing to let go of low-functioning students who will end up working fast food anyways.) <br /><br />This movie is one in the college comedy genre, i.e. Animal House. It follows the pattern pretty closely. What's new here though, is a complete attack on higher education, not a parody of the bad elements. It's missing the sympathetic insider, a professor who embodies the worthwhile part of university life. <br /><br />This lack of balance will doom this film to the back rows of Blockbuster. It is so one sided, that I wondered if it was an ironic self-referential take on the whole genre--for about one minute. The movie has no deep meaning, no layers, no introspection. It's as if they let some kids who never went to class do what comes naturally. And what is natural is what the name of the school is: S***. <br /><br />(Never thought I'd say this: Go see something with Will Farrell instead. His comedies can be surprisingly sophisticated.) | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_974 | pending | 5dba5622-a37d-41f1-a9da-7bb7ea66a1da | this movie was downright awful. most of the comedic scenes seem stale and trite, and possibly the funniest scene in the movie had already been given away in previews. the entire premise of the movie is so unbelievable and ridiculous its hard to really get into it. the actors themselves portray the most unrealistic characters. its not just the fact that the movies so hard to swallow, but its how they keep forcing it down your throat expecting you to dumb down and accept it. the plot itself is so shallow and easy to predict. boy somehow gets rejected from every school he applied to(i suppose he completely forgot about attending community college) and decides to create his own school for fellow rejects. all goes well for awhile until the validity of his school comes into question. all the while the dorky character manages to woo his beautiful neighbor into falling for him with his witty sarcasm, which apparently is a skill only he possesses. then comes the final struggle with the students somehow all bonding together and fighting for the survival of the school. of course the main character then persuades the state board of education to allow his school to stay alive with some "inspirational" speech. this movie would have been more fun to watch if i was under the age of 16 and still ignorant of all college matters and issues. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_975 | pending | 38b90808-ec3e-4e28-b620-8a600a26434d | Seriously, I don't understand how Justin Long is becoming increasingly popular. He either has the best agent in Hollywood, or recently sold his soul to Satan. He is almost unbearable to watch on screen, he has little to no charisma, and terrible comedic timing. The only film that he has attempted to anchor that I've remotely enjoyed was Waiting... and that is almost solely because I've worked in a restaurant. But I digress. Aside from it's terrible lead, this film has loads of other debits. I understand that it's supposed to be a cheap popcorn comedy, but that doesn't mean that it has to completely insult our intelligence, and have writing so incredibly hackneyed that it borders on offensive. Lewis Black's considerable talent is wasted here too, as he is at his most incendiary when he is unrestrained, which the PG-13 rating certainly won't allow. The film's sole bright spot was Jonah Hill (who will look almost unrecognizable to fans of the recent Superbad due to the amount of weight he lost in the interim). His one liners were funny on occasion, but were certainly not enough to make this anywhere close to bearable. If you just want to completely turn your brain off (or better yet, don't have one) then maybe you'd enjoy this, but I can't recommend it at all. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_976 | pending | 8990fde1-24e7-4cde-a803-f5b1e36ef592 | Let me start by saying that there's really no reason to watch this movie. I only sat through it because I was trying to kill some time before going to work.<br /><br />Basically, it's your typical sophomoric "comedy" aimed at the teenage set. There's nothing remarkable about it other than the complete ridiculousness of the story, not to mention that there are plot holes big enough to sail a Carnival cruise-liner through. Obviously this isn't supposed to be a realistic movie, it's supposed to be funny. Sadly, it mostly fails on that count as well. I must admit that I laughed a few times, but mainly in a "holy sh*t, I can't believe how stupid this is" kind of way.<br /><br />If you never see this movie you're not missing a thing. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_977 | pending | 2b884b3f-b9a9-42ee-b2bd-0cdd43c1c28a | I see absolutely nothing funny---even remotely funny---in this stupid movie. An unrealistic, silly, ridiculous idea--just completely ridiculous. Hard to believe that the main character, who seems so articulate, intelligent and imaginative, would not be accepted to any college. Even more difficult to believe is that no one shut the place down. The actors portrayed characters straight out of Characterville. We have seen their lot many a time over in many films. Nothing new here. I found it on late night TV, and since there was really nothing else on, I watched the whole boring, stupid film. What a total waste. Maybe if you are a teenager, you may find it amusing. Films are made for an immature mind, so teens, go for it. The rest, no way. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_978 | pending | e19d7d16-7974-4d93-b0d9-915d13b6c52f | Inane, awful farce basically about a young man who refuses to conform or better uses non-conformity to attain his objectives-fool his parents into thinking that he is attending a college. Truth is that this jerk has been rejected by every school he has applied to. After viewing this junk, you will see why.<br /><br />What a ridiculous name- South Hampton Institute of Technology. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the initials of this school of nonsense. Problem with these type of films is that in the end, the non-conformist becomes the accepted mode.<br /><br />Let's step back to the world of reality and call this film what it really is- excessive manipulative junk! | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_979 | pending | 08713538-655e-4859-a420-2c5a4e4b2e04 | I wasn't so impressed with this film, finding it quite tiresome and plain. The plot line was interesting, a kid creating his own college and enrolling hundreds of kids, but the laughs were few and far between. The jokes weren't really funny and i didn't bust a gut at any of the scenes. The characters weren't intriguing and I didn't feel for any of them, even the dawky, fat kid with glasses who tried to enter the frat group. It was a good first watch, but it didn't blow me away and its not one that I would recommend. Comparing it to other films in the same genre, ie, American Pie is just cruel, because there is a film which was laugh-a-plenty. This ACCEPTED failed to raise a smile! | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_980 | pending | aa839d53-bd58-43b2-b0cd-105993e4660e | A quick, funny coming-of-age matinée romp appealing to the underdog aldolescent in us all. It functions, in effect, as a vehicle for Justin Long who has subsequently erupted onto our screens in the fourth Die Hard via PC vs Mac ads, Dodgeball and The Break Up. He's funny, earnest and young - a big career ahead.<br /><br />A town's worth of college wannabes find a fake website Bartelby (Long) has set up to delude his judgemental parents and descend on the 'college' like it were a short notice Facebook party. Lewis Black summises the anarchic philosophy as a stand-in Dean - Long's delinquent friends provide support for the subterfuge and consequent appeal to grander traditions of education and friendship (Adam Herschman deserves special mention for his never-flagging slapstick contribution). Well executed, feelgood and instantly forgettable. 4/10 | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_981 | pending | 3ffa1c48-96b4-40bd-9b44-c0eb14e23069 | Saw this as part of the DC Reel Affirmations Film Festival. I hope they got better movies than this, because this film failed to deliver on any of the hopes that audience may have entertained, from the fantasy of seeing James Franco without his shirt, down to more simple wishes, such as decent acting, coherent direction, character development, or actual production values. Plagued by film school effects such as freeze frames to show moments of emotional distress, and obvious influences ranging from My Own Private Idaho to Terminator 2, this film failed on almost every level to engage the audience. After the first twenty minutes of valiantly trying to take it seriously, the audience collectively threw up it's hands and just started to enjoy the inherent crappiness of the film. I could be upset that I paid nine bucks to see it, and it was two hours I'll never get back, but on the other hand, it was an entertaining two hours I'll never get back. This would have been a classic Mystery Science 3000 episode. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_982 | pending | 477f6328-25d2-4a4e-a1a1-400bb399b9a3 | The Lifetime channel aired this in October but I only got around to watching it now. It's the old eternal triangle again small-town Connecticut boy Dave Ford (Matt Long) has a quick fling with his best friend's girlfriend, Emily Darrow (Emmanuelle Chriqui), on the eve of his departure for law school in New York, thinks about her for the next five years while he isn't doing contracts and briefs, runs into her again when he returns home after the death of his father on the eve of a big exam five years later, and gets involved with her romantically again. But director and co-writer Matthew Cole Weiss goes way over the top, framing the whole thing in flashback as Dave confesses to murdering Emily, her husband and another one of her lovers in front of (here comes the spoiler) a Lesbian cop who's also a flame of Emily's. Weiss overdoes the "flanging" effect by which Dave gets to see chunks of his previous life flash before his eyes even before he's actually dead, cutting those in even while Dave and Emily are having sex and thereby ruining the soft-core porn shots that give even some otherwise pretty lame Lifetime movies at least a bit of audience appeal. I couldn't help but flash back myself to James M. Cain and how much better he wrote women like this in his classic thrillers (all adapted into hit movies) "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity" and "Mildred Pierce." It also doesn't help that the film ends with the bad guys (the bad girls, actually) triumphant and the decent, if naïve and stupid, hero seemingly on his way to the lethal injection table or that the actors playing the people Dave and Emily are cheating on are both better looking than they are. Incidentally, though this film went straight to cable in the U.S. there were some blank spots on the soundtrack indicating where swear words were blipped, so I presume this got a theatrical release somewhere in the world. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_983 | pending | cfce8b3a-dee2-4bad-94db-6e87fa197d7c | All I can say is, this movie is made for the Lifetime Channel on TV, which means no solid characters, no particular style, weak acting all kinds of suggested sex but no-breasts and tushs (because boy, that would just catapult the film into the depths of sleaze wouldn't it?) but the heavily simulated sex, well, that's OK. <br /><br />When watching these films I have to ask myself, when will these types of TV channels and their advertisers ever grow up? I think these companies are actually way behind the times. They really have no clue what the younger generation is in tune with and if they knew they would demand we change. The whole point of many American TV channels like these seems mostly to regurgitate the same sanitized, diluded garbage over and over like a generic movie assembly line. I guess it works for them... or at least it has. Not sure about the future though. <br /><br />Don't bore yourself to death like I did. Seek out some real TV movies on HBO, Showtime, IFC, Starz, etc. Any channel that puts effort into their work and doesn't have to ask a priest what they can or cannot show. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_984 | pending | 702e0a6b-cd9e-414e-8029-6d7f006b31bb | I saw this movie considering this as a normal Hollywood movie but then came to know that its a Movie made for TV channel.On my DVD cover out of 2 critics comments one of the critic stephen farber from moviline reveiwed it as A best movie of the Year..<br /><br />All the character were simple and decent performances except the Brain's character which never gets scope which director wanted to keeps mystery till end.. there was suspense till end but when you see the end that lady Police Officer and main culprit had a Lesbian affair seems to be totally stupid idea.God knows what happens to DAVE the male lead character..<br /><br />The other Critic from Mr. Brown's Movies said that Shocking and Effective but doesn't quite live up to all the Hype... which i saw after watching the Movie .for which i was partially aggree...i should have read this first before taking the movie.. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_985 | pending | 4615ed5f-3595-420b-a286-3f040887ae4a | I do not know what some of these filmmakers are thinking, by making the same type of clichéd film over and over, where the bad guys (bad girls in this case) win. Weak acting and very predictable. Nothing original about it. This same movie has been made over and over again- not different from GOODBYE LOVER (1989), SLOW BURN (2005), or at least ten other movies with the exact same storyline and ending. There are a lot of holes in the movie too. It is as if they ran out of money and just stopped filming. Or perhaps they ran out of ideas. But do not waste your time with this one. It will only leave you upset by having wasted your time watching it. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_986 | pending | 57817b2f-c52b-470f-b5bb-577383982c7c | I was watching the beginning of this on a Friday, mid-day, while working at computer at home, relaxing a bit after a hectic week, and cleaning-up some files and answering some communications. Got interrupted a couple of times, so had trouble getting all the details straight (although it's hardly a work of Hitchcock proportions, where missing a detail can through the whole story off-kilter), and besides it was not exactly an "engrossing" piece of work.<br /><br />So during a commercial, read the only prior comment here (by "mgconlan-1"), and pretty much can agree with its details.<br /><br />Not quite in the category of a film so awful it is fascinatingly "good," but I'd like to catch on tape when run again (rather than seeing it as aired), so I can fast forward as needed and see the parts which I missed this first time.<br /><br />Give it a "3*" because of the attractiveness of the four primary characters. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_987 | pending | b2115e98-4a10-4875-9924-c79508f8384f | It's like someone took a fantasy-type video game and put it in a blender, and the resulting scene mishmash is what we have to sit through.<br /><br />Now let me go on record by saying how much I love Chinese fantasy films. From the fun and silly, to those focusing on martial arts, to the more dramatic and romantic typesit's a genre I very much enjoy. Films like "A Chinese Odyssey: Pandora's Box" and "A Chinese Odyssey: Cinderella" (both of which were written and/or directed by Jeffrey Lau); "The Bride with White Hair"; "Butterfly & Sword"; "Green Snake"; "A Chinese Ghost Story"; "Swordman II"; "Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain"; "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"; and others. Which is why I was looking forward to "A Chinese Tall Story." One of the film's characters is the "Monkey King" (aka Sun Wukong), an extremely well-known character in Chinese mythology, first told in the stories of the "Journey to the West," the epic adventure written about 500 years ago. (The story of the Monkey King and his disciples is also the focus of the "Chinese Odyssey" films, amongst many others). Other familiar characters that appear in the film are Zhu Wuneng (the pig character) and Sha Wujing.<br /><br />So how does it all go wrong? Well, let's take an example familiar to Western audiences. How about the Robin Hood mythology? A well known story from ye olden days. Let's say that our Robin Hood film starred Wesley Snipes as Robin Hood, and Haley Joel Osment as Friar Tuck. Maid Marian is none other than Rosie Perez. Let's give Sir Robin an Uzi as well, because you never know when you might have to waste the Sheriff of Nottingham. They might need rocket packs also, and while we're at it, give them a tactical nuclear weapon because that sure could come in handy. If you think this sounds like a really neat retelling of the Robin Hood tale, then "A Chinese Tall Story" is the movie for you! As I indicated above, this movie is a jumbled mess. In the first 30 minutes, we are introduced not only to Sun Wukong, Zhu Wuneng, and Sha Wujing, but also to the monk Tripitaka (who is actually the main protagonist), kidnapped children, a "millennium bug demon" (which shoots laser beams), an underground Tree God, a lizard imp tribe, an angelic girl in an intergalactic egg, the Lord Chancellor Tortoise, a Sea Dragon King, a ever-morphing magic golden staff, a chatterbox imp girl, wormholes in space, and the Four Heavenly Knights. All this wouldn't be too bad--the tales and myths passed down over the years certainly do have all sorts of fantastical elements. But I guarantee you the Chinese mythology does not include much of the stuff we get subjected to in the last half of the film. (Helpful advice to the filmmakers: Just because your computer effects guys CAN come up with cool looking spaceships and depictions of intergalactic war, does not mean they SHOULD).<br /><br />You know your Chinese mythology movie is on the wrong track when the director asks (and I am not making this upit's a direct quote from the commentary) "I asked the composer whether or not we can have a more rock-and-roll type music when she transforms into some kind of android-like thing." Is there a story hidden in here somewhere? Yes. Yes, there is. Most of the adventure follows Tripitaka (played by Nicholas Tse"Gen-X Cops," "Time and Tide," "My Schoolmate the Barbarian") and Meiyan, the lizard imp girl (played by Charlene Choi and a computer). Choi is the best thing going in this film. You may know her as half of the Canto-pop group "Twins" and from other films such as "The Twins Effect" (a fun flick) and "Just One Look" (a surprisingly good drama/romance/comedy). Poor Choi, being a lizard imp and all, is hardly recognizable with her warts, snagged out teeth, doughy nose, and hunched back. That is until the computers get a hold of and beautify her, which somehow makes it worse. Tse is passable, but all of the supporting actors were abysmal. A couple of recognizable faces in bit parts are wasted.<br /><br />At one point I was debating with myself if "A Chinese Tall Story" was a spoof. I was almost able to convince myself that it was when the intergalactic egg girl (played by a very pretty Fan Bing-Bing) got out and lit up a Marlboro (!) while talking with Tripitaka who was practicing martial arts dressed in a Spider-Man costume (!!). But it is not a spoof. Of course there is the typical Hong Kong silliness, but the movie takes itself seriously enough, with enough scenes of romance and pathos (scored with a sledghammering of violins and evocative cellos) and rousing action and adventure.<br /><br />You might think that you could watch this on a Netflix rental and it wouldn't cost you anything. (Oh, but it'll cost you, all right).<br /><br />Is there anything good to say? Sure. The colors are vibrant (they are the best thing about this movie). And the filmmakers certainly were trying very hard. Too bad all that effort went into a movie that is not much more than a bad video game. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_988 | pending | fbf9f59d-2e11-4262-bd5e-fe0f2881811f | First there was Tsui Hark's Zu Warriors (2001), which is visually ground-breaking, but much lacking in the acting and writing departments, now this movie, which is visually almost as good as Zu (though no longer ground-breaking), but is even worse in the acting and writing departments. It's really sad that there seems to be an almost complete lack of acting and writing talents in the HK movie industry. I guess you need to understand Cantonese to understand how bad and vulgar the dialogs in the movie really are. It's like some delinquent kids talking in the street, it's that bad. To make it worse, the actors and actresses themselves look like delinquent kids, and can't act even if their life depend on it. I understand that this movie is supposed to be a comedy aimed at the younger generation in HK, but has HK youths really become so brain-dead that they can't appreciate anything but such juvenile and vulgar acting/writing? If that's the case, it makes me ashamed to be from HK.<br /><br />I wish HK movie makers will learn some lessons from directors like Zhang Yi-Mou or Ang Lee, and finally make a movie that's both visually stunning as well as competent and mature in the acting and writing departments. And stop using young singers/idols/heartthrobs as actors because they can't act however many fans they may have in HK! | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_989 | pending | ec66cca0-beb4-4065-ab76-bce63df4911a | It borrowed scenes from LOTR, Matrix, Star Wars, etc. The humor is so dry, contrived, and corny, that you can't help but laugh occasionally at its inanity and the fact that you are watching it. Exactly what you'd expect from an HK comedy. The average person would enter with an IQ of 100 and leave with less than 80. Stephen Chow is an obvious omission from this movie. The humor would have worked better with Stephen. The Mandarin version of this movie is not as good as the Cantonese original. The graphics are poor compared to its Hollywood counterparts. There is overdependence on low quality CG. My biggest complaint is its ending. The origin of the white horse is so clearly described in the "Journey to the West" (JW), that this alternate explanation does not work well with story line. Despite its many flaws this movie has far more entertainment value than the other movie Nicholas Tse starred in--The Promise. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_990 | pending | 6adec18e-48b6-440f-a2a8-95d4cfc5069d | Is this a game FMV or a movie? In all honesty, I watched this one out of "choice-less-ness". It is a very big waste of time and money.<br /><br />It seems HK movies are heading in the opposite direction of the rest of the world.<br /><br />Try to put more effort and money into a production and make us want to watch, rather than something you want us to watch.<br /><br />The graphics are so horrible than they looked like something out of the early to mid-90s low resolution games (in comparison to today's).<br /><br />The way they made this movie is almost exactly what they did in the 90s' Wing Commander game, namely the third installment of the series. Stop regressing and make us Asian look so bad at this compared to the big guns in Hollywood.<br /><br />Sure! They have big budgets and better actors. But we have some of the oldest histories, the myths and the legends, the best technophiles and possibly the largest computer graphic talent base in the world! So what went so very very wrong? Did you start using the same old companies that have been working with you for so many films?! Please stop wasting our time and money. This is the reason why HK movies are heading downhill so rapidly. Didn't you claim to be the Hollywood of the Orient? Guess not. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_991 | pending | caa9c256-5c14-476a-ae6c-c7455b4261c0 | A horrible, horrible, horrible film. I saw the original when I was a kid and it gave me nightmares into my teens. When I found out a remake was on the way, I groaned. WHY OH WHY remake a good film? Well, we can thank Dark Castle for buggering yet another classic horror film. This time they've replaced a somewhat interesting story with gore, slower than slow pacing, and yawn-inspired characters. Someone previously said that s/he was surprised that Paris Hilton can act. Uh, were you watching the film? She plays a prissy little tramp. Sounds like typecasting to me. Half of the people in the audience actually CHEERED when she died! That tells you why people are seeing this film. If that's your only reason, then find a better one, because like a black hole this thing will suck out more of your life than you'll want. Had I been alone, I would have left 10 minutes into the boring exposition. This thing is like a moron's guide to crap film-making: In bred Southern git, stupid but attractive leads, knives a plenty, gore a plenty, stock menacing truck, I could go on. After watching this film, I began to really appreciate Jeepers Creepers, and I thought that film sucked. Save yourself and avoid this crapfest at every cost. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_992 | pending | 125188f1-b773-4e99-9744-bec7472266fc | The third film based on Charles Belden's play entitled "Mystery of the Wax Museum" (1933) targets generation X-tasy. Twin screenwriters, Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes, spend more time developing the main characters than other slasher movies--a promising start. Their condition guarantees an authentic point of view. The role of Paige (Paris Hilton) was not much of a stretch for the world's favorite heiress. She peruses "In Style," stripteases boys, chats on a cell, and frets over an ill-conceived pregnancy. Her regular routine has been altered beyond repair. Hilton reached the peak of her performance--not so hot--during the "1 Night in Paris" (2004) parody. While the pimp-my-ride is in motion, she zealously "looks for lip balm" in her boyfriend's (Robert Ri'chard) lap. Finally, the "actress" atones for using the "N" word on the sex tape. Director Jaume Collet-Serra molds his take on the twin thing contrary to the theme of the past. Each exhibited opposite characteristics back then, whereas a pair of either good or bad can come out the womb today. However, the latter does not rule out the former. Childbirth constitutes the luck of the draw. Spectators can hardly consider Vincent (Brian Van Holt) a contemporary Quasimodo. Granted, the recluses share some similarities such as artistry, disfigurement, submissiveness, and murder. Yet, one small variable between the two makes all the difference. Vincent is even uglier on the inside than he is on the out. Collet-Serra's "House of Wax" pays homage to actor Vincent Price from the first remake in 1953. The film leaves obvious van Gogh puns to the imagination of the audience. Still, the choice to split the antagonist in two eliminates a vibrant twist at the end. Professor Henry (Vincent Price) Jarrod's unmasking receives runner-up, but the most terrifying one in horror movie history belongs to Lon Chaney in "Phantom of the Opera" (1925). As far as the new contender is concerned, the aftermath of separation surgery downplays the effect. A surgeon should know operating on Siamese twins scars them--physically and psychologically. Their father needs to call a couple colleagues--Dr. Phil to consult and Dr. McNamara to nip/tuck. Despite what the trailers said, "Wax" is not forever. In fact, you can rid yourself of it by burning it. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_993 | pending | c664d3c5-4e61-4353-9fda-64a385e5b136 | Ignore the extreme votes about "House of Wax", in no way is it either a "1" or a "10". I will try to be of help to anyone thinking about seeing "House of Wax" or for those who saw it based on the trailer and feel cheated. The trailer makes this movie look very promising, which is what trailers are supposed to do. There is only one thing for sure with trailers, if the producers can't cobble together a minute of interesting elements to make a trailer, it is a pretty much a sure thing that the movie is a major suck-fest. But a good trailer only tells you that a few things about the movie are good, it does not give you much idea about the total package. Here a little research can be valuable. <br /><br />"House of Wax" stars Elisha Cuthbert (whose acting skills are closer to Kathy Ireland than to either her fellow Canadian Sarah Polley or her lookalike Rose McGowen), and was directed by a music video artist formerly known as Jaume, in his feature debut. These are not good signs but if you are like me you ignore them and go to see the work of Production Designer Grace Walken, who was responsible for the look of "Ghost Ship". Once again Walken's work is worth seeing, so much so that it looks like 90% of the movie's $30 million budget went to production design. The rest went to Cuthbert to compensate her for the abuse she has to take throughout the film (finger cut off, lips glued shut, tied up, and lots of wading around in assorted gooey stuff). By-the-bye, Cuthbert looks considerably heavier than she did in "The Girl Next Door", about one big pig-out away from having a major weight problem.<br /><br />Which means they had little left over to pay the rest of the cast and crew. And judging from the what was on the screen, this might actually be true. It looks like everyone else donated their time to get their first acting or crew credit. Unfortunately, whether it was inexperience or jealousy over the pay disparity, the contributions of all these inexperienced/incompetent volunteers amount to less than zero.<br /><br />Inexperienced Steven Window's DP work was about as awful as you are likely to see and working in league with an incompetent editor like Joel Negran (insert "Pearl Harbor" here) they manage to take away most of the value added by the production design group. Rather than linger over and showcase the sets, Window filmed this stuff with bad lighting and jerky-zooming-bobbing camera work. Negran compounded the problem with an insane number of disorienting cuts. Poor lighting, an ADD-like camera, and flurry cutting are what you use to hide cheap and crappy production design; not what is needed when the movie's only strength is its expensive and detailed sets.<br /><br />Chan Hayes did the screenplay and Charles Belden (who wrote the original story) is credited as the writer although except for the title and the use of wax figures there is absolutely no similarity. One saving grace is that the movie does not take itself seriously as a horror film and is mostly parody (insert "Van Helsing" here). The murders are played for laughs, too extreme to be scary or even creepy to anyone over age six. The audience particularly cracked up when a certain high profile hotel heiress got her homely face run through by an steel bar, although her earlier half-baked striptease was the only genuinely creepy thing in the film. Another comedy highlight was when Cuthbert sticks her finger through a grate and has it clipped off by the bad guy.<br /><br />The good scenes take place in Trudy's House of Wax, a waxworks that has something to do with a closed sugar mill, conjoined twins, and a lot of roadkill (which Cuthbert gets to bathe in). All this is supposed to be happening somewhere in rural Florida although from the many hills it sure looks like Paul Hogan's country (attention location scouts-the gulf coast is not noted for it's rolling terrain). The screenplay apparently intended to play up the connection (bad pun) between the two sets of twins, but somewhere during production or post-production most of the dialogue concerning this was trimmed. Since what is left about the twin connection makes no sense and goes nowhere, you wonder why it wasn't also cut to reduce the boredom factor.<br /><br />What is particularly sad is that the producers did not have the brains to recognize in mid-production that they had the ingredients for a first rate horror classic-even with the existing cast. What was staring them in the face was a chance to go somewhere with the illusion of a town of wax. Because it is a photographic medium, modern film is intrinsically naturalistic, almost without exception prone to creating an illusion of reality. Here they had a ready-made opportunity to give the photographic medium a theatrical element of extreme stylization. Like an impressionist painting, the town creates the illusion of reality from a distance but reveals itself as a highly stylized wax fabrication up close. Of course they would have had to find a visionary Director and DP to bring the thing off successfully, but everything else was already in place for this to happen. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_994 | pending | 42c70112-bbf1-4764-9175-7b3e63c109c8 | this film is an undisguised attempt to appeal to a younger demographic of fourteen to 24 yr olds', and an insult to all of them. i refuse to believe that that age group is that vapid as to be entertained by this unnecessary "remake". early in the film one of the characters proclaims, "i am surrounded by idiots". this is the defining moment in the film, which goes steadily down from there. full of clichés, red-herring "scares" and unexplained events, the film is also full of characters who are not exactly brainiacs, a formula all too familiar in dumb horror movies. and that crappy "it's so dark i cant see" scenes stolen from Chainsaw Massacre but merely annoying, not building any tension, nor horror. it's difficult to film in the dark, and sometimes darkness is a great vehicle in a film that's suppose to have tension. but my own feeling was that the less you see in this case, the better. maybe he didn't want to wait until morning because he didn't care, other than it might cost him more money to do night scenes well, or he doesn't know how. who knows? unless you have never seen a horror film in your life, or you are two or three years old, every aspect of this film is predictable and done before. warning: Paris Hilton is in this movie. enough said. all in all a blasé slasher film which begs the question, where the h*ll is the wax?it was treated like a lost leader. if you're bored as possible and all other rentals are out or you're just in the mood for a bad horror film, which isn't really scary,or you'd like to see Paris have a pole smash through her head, go ahead and take a chance. it's not the worst movie i've ever seen, but if this is what the producers of this film thinks a younger audience wants, i pray that they are deluded. a profit-driven film with no attempt to achieve any kind of art nor respect for the genre. you know, smart characters make for a scarier movie. i believe this is Collet-Serra's debut as a director, besides commercials and music videos. he has another one coming out in 2006 called Goal 2. hopefully his goal is to make a better film. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_995 | pending | 4349fc57-a4be-44b8-a95d-b8134fedacbc | When they announced this movie for TNT I was excited. A Travesty from Donald Westlake's "Enough" was one of my all time favorite stories. After I watched it I was not all that thrilled. Recently I had the chance to watch it a second time with my aunt, and once again I was disappointed (she didn't like it much either, and she'd never read the book). In this movie they managed to sap all the charm from the book and turn it into dull mush. A big part of the problem was William H. Macy. I like him fine in other films, but he played (Terry/Carey) Thorpe as a stammering, incompetent yutz. In the book Thorpe takes a lot of valium for his nerves, but remains outwardly collected at almost all times which is part of the fun. SPOILERS follow: They also left out a big part of the story (other than a 2 second glimpse at the embassy), where Thorpe solves not 1 but 4 homicides for the police. This is important not just because it's funny, but because it helps set up the relationship between Fred and Thorpe. In the movie Fred's betrayal in the end is not nearly as affecting, because they don't seem all that close. In the book they become pretty good friends especially on Fred's side, which makes it all the more ironic that he is he one that arranges Thorpe's downfall. Fred also suffered a bit from casting, I love Adam Arkin but he was not a cheerful, happy to be alive upbeat sort of Detective, character traits which book Fred possesses which makes it more obviously out of character for him to mess with evidence and thus more shocking. Patricia and Edgarson were pretty close to the book, and James Cromwell was great despite not looking much like Martin Balsam. The whole boring boat house scene which was entirely added for the film was much less interesting than the police finding Edgarson's body after Thorpe ships it to Seattle and blaming the death on the mob. Kit was okay although she was mostly rewritten, and it would have been nice to see her die as she did get slightly annoying. I don't mind changes to books to make movies, I know they are necessary because of length and difficulty, but it would have been nice if some of the changes in this movie had been funnier or smarter instead of duller. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_996 | pending | 1b0f3deb-10d9-4105-90ad-cb98ee620bfb | As a recent convert to Curb Your Enthusiasm, which prompted my viewing of all season's episodes, I expected more, much more from Jeff's efforts.<br /><br />When I view a film offering a slice of an average 'Joe's' life I need reasons to be interested, to care, to feel and believe. And with Jeff Garlin at the helm I also expected a bevy of shining comedic moments. This film failed me time and again.<br /><br />Jeff plays a living with mom, plump sad sack who is a social disaster. He has not had a relationships, real or even casual, for many years. He appears to be mostly unemployed and, as noted, shacks with his mommy dearest. Can things get worse? Sure. In short order he gets sacked by everyone around him including Silverman, Second City (his comedy workshop) and his agent. All reinforce his 'loser' status. Silverman's 'fatty' experiment was as cruel as it was absurd. His obsession with the role of "Marty," as the means of his career's salvation, also hits a big dead end.<br /><br />While the film's final moments offer a glimpse of better things to come the cinematic 'journey,' albeit with occasional golden glimmers, was sadly lacking. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_997 | pending | a6db4cd1-7eef-4feb-9087-4524cd0f064e | Great ensemble cast but unfortunately a bunch of undeveloped ideas make the film drag. One feels not fulfilled at the end after waiting for some kind of conclusion, closure, or at least an ironic twist.<br /><br />It had that familiar "Curb" feel without dare I say it, Larry as the annoying polar opposite. The music was there, the 'show about nothing' scenes pop up, but without any common thread or suspense - it falters as a solo project that ran out of budget.<br /><br />Spoilers: The movie title speaks about cheese but she prefers the rice pudding. Is cheese a better selling title than rice pudding? He prefers just any junk food, regardless of the sell by date. Maybe I want someone to eat 'cheese-dogs' or ice cream in a pirate suit would have at least tied some scenes together.<br /><br />Marty: this is just not funny and overdone. People just don't care about a 'show' within a show. A coffee book table about coffee books was funnier.<br /><br />Unless you are big fans of the cast, save your time and eat some cheese. It doesn't even have to be with anyone. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
test_998 | completed | fd533d07-5fd5-4072-98b2-04da57e11f44 | How i deserved to watch this crap??? Worst ever. The acting was awful, when i read that this was a comedy i expected at least to smile, once - or twice, but.... If you are wiling to loose hour and a half of your lives, this is the right movie. I recommend just look in a wall or something, anything else but watch this "film". Yoy can even watch a documentary (if you are a guy) about pregnant women, i guarantee it will be more entertaining :)The actor in this one (i forgot his name) is not that bad, and i am surprised how hi accepted the role. Anyway "I want someone to eat cheese with" is the right film if you want to punish someone. | [
"neg"
] | [
"9bad0a35-5510-4fdc-90ad-050c1bfeac65"
] | [
"submitted"
] | neg | null | null |
test_999 | pending | 7b85aed2-e37e-46a9-bfe0-5d2fd0cc2a69 | This is absolutely awful. It's everywhere & nowhere & doesn't have any sort of point. I have never understood what is good about Jeff Garlin or Sarah Silverman. Bonnie Hunt is so above this drivel she must have been personal friends w/people involved because there is no way she would have read any part of this so-called "script" & thought, "Yeah I wanna do that!" Most movies I can find at least one or two things that are redeemable or funny. There is ZERO of that in this. It's extremely dumb. There really isn't any other word to describe this. This is quite possibly the biggest waste of money on making of film that I have seen in a long time. Skip this at all cost, you'll be glad you did. | null | null | null | neg | null | null |
Subsets and Splits