DoubleML/multimodal_confounding huggingface dataset:
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. 

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.

Sentiment: negative
This is one of my favourite comedy films. Chris Farley is hilarious as the accident prone moron and David Spade is perfect playing the straight-man to Farley.

The dialogue between the two of them is brilliant. The scene where the two of them are in the car singing along to Superstar by The Carpenters is a classic.

Chris Farley was a great comic actor who had amazing potential - he will be sadly missed.



Sentiment: positive
A fey story of a Martian attempt to colonize Earth. (Things must be pretty bad back on Mars.) Two state troopers investigate the scene of a reported UFO crash. Whatever landed is buried under the ice at Tracy's Pond but there are footsteps in the snow leading to a nearby diner.

The diner has had no customers since eleven o'clock that morning. Now there are a handful of bus passengers sitting around waiting for permission to cross a structurally weak bridge. The bus driver insists that six passengers were aboard the bus, although he didn't notice who they were. The problem is that there are now SEVEN people waiting for the journey to be resumed. One of them is an alien, but which one? All of them are suspect. There's the crazy old man (Jack Elam), of course, who seems to exercise a sub rosa wit. There's a blustering businessman who must get to Boston (John Hoyt). A young couple on their honeymoon. (Execrable performance by the husband, Ron Kipling.) Except for the couples, nobody has noticed anyone else. And even the couples are suspicious of each other. Bride to newly minted husband: "I could have sworn you had a mole on your chin." The story continues in a sprightly but slightly spooky way -- the phone rings for no reason, the lights go on and off, the juke box turns itself on -- and none of it is to be taken seriously.

It's a thoroughly enjoyable ensemble play and the climactic revelation is worth a chuckle. There is no discernible "depth" to it. It's not a moral message about pod people masquerading as normal citizens. It's not a warning of any kind, just a fairy tale that diverts and amuses.

I always enjoy it when it's on. It's especially interesting to see John Hoyt as the irritable and impatient businessman, knowing that in 1954 he was the Roman Senator who masterminded the assassination of Julius Caesar in MGM's version of Shakespeare's play. And here he is -- with three arms.

Oops.

Sentiment: positive
this cartoon is not right,lol I totally disagree with a lot of things it portrayed however it ended on a positive note , but as for me and mine we will not be viewing this in our household mainly because we fight against stereotypes every day and this cartoon just confirms what most white people feel black people act like

the comment one of the little black girls made on the cartoon was that her boyfriend was so conscious (he was white ) that really offended me that's not something we as black people take lightly conscious is a state of being that black people achieve when they realize their true ability

Sentiment: negative
I think the biggest failing something can have is to be boring. Bad is actually better than boring. This thing has no breath. It does have the interesting fact of taking place in Cambodia. How many American made films of the 30's take place in Cambodia. Nevertheless, the conflict there is a little hard to figure out. Even the troop movements are a little confusing. What drags it to a resounding halt is the love story. Why those two guys are so totally transfixed on the dippy blonde I don't know. I thought he should continue to use his Zombies (such as they are) and forget all about her. The movie just plods along. The perfect microcosm is where one of the principle characters follows a Cambodian priest through the water to get to the secret place where the hieroglyphics (or whatever) that explain how to turn people into zombies is kept. I thought they would never get there. One guy takes two steps. He stops. He looks around. The other guy hides behind some columns. He takes two steps. He stops. He looks around. The other guy hides behind some bushes. This is the movie in a nutshell. Then there is the bad acting and insipid dialogue. I actually have a lot of patience when it comes to B movies. This one is insufferable. By the way, a more apt title would be Revolt of the Hypnotized.

Sentiment: negative
I watched Hurlyburly as a second choice after Affliction was sold out. I have never seen so many people walk out of a movie. Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, and Chazz Palminteri can do nothing to save this coke-snorting, endlessly pedantic, bad Mamet-wannabe.

Sentiment: negative
Terrible film with Frank Sinatra as Tony Rome. Here, he gets involved with a dead woman below the sea.

Rome is soon hired to find out what happened to a woman. Naturally, it's the woman below the sea. Her room mate, Lainie Kazan, soon winds up dead on the floor.

An aging Richard Conte plays a police officer and friend of Rome. When a local club owner gets killed, the blame falls on Rome and there becomes an interesting chase scene. That's how bad this picture is if you have to depend on a chase scene to supply the action.

Raquel Welch plays the beauty up to her neck in intrigue. Her acting leads a lot to be desired. 

Martin Gabel is a retired hoodlum whose son is trying to outdo him.

By the film's end, you don't know why the girl was murdered. Don't even bother to ask.

Sentiment: negative
Given that this movie was put together in less than a year might explain its shortness (81 minutes - including end credits, so roughly 76 minutes of actual film). But what it cannot explain is its lack of humor that the previous film possessed.

The gags are quick and sometimes not even funny. The only true funny parts are the quick spoofs on the Nike basketball spots, James Woods' portrayal of Max Van Sydow's character in the Exorcist, and bits and pieces scattered throughout the film. Very unfunny was the take off of Charlie's Angels, which like the first Scary Movie and the Matrix spin off scene, basically recreated the scene without much humor injected into it.

Today's youth might not be able to relate to the spoof gags of the classic supernatural horror films of the 70's such as the Exorcist and maybe of the 80s' Poltergeist, et. al.

Hopefully Scary Movie 3 will take some time to put together, making the spoofs more enjoyable.

One thing though, the film features more than the last one of promising young actress Anna Faris (whom I will admit seemed exceptionally hot in the sequel). Just for her casting and acting ability, I give this movie a "3" out of "10".

Sentiment: negative
I had to write a review for this film after I saw it last night and read some of the comments of people trying to classify the displeasure of this film go down to wfmitchell's post)). I don't fit any any of those classification. The other classification that needs to be on the list is 5) people didn't like this movie because it was not good. I found the film to be booring and forced. My wife picked it for us to see because she is a huge Kidman fan and she also likes Jude Law.

Speaking of Law, it took a long time and a huge amount of suspension of belief for me to believe his southern accent. I can't help but wonder if they didn't make his character less talkative on purpose so we would't have to hear that tortured accent so much.

As far as the movie, it took a long time for it to get interesting (about 1 or 1.5 hours), and then fell flat in it's ending. What was interesting, is that I did not know that this film was directed by Minghella. About 40 minutes into the movie, I asked my wife "this isn't going to be another English Patient is it?" It absolutely was.

As far as the battle scenes. I'm trying to think of a word to describe the opening battle scene, but I think the most descriptive word that accurately describes it is simply "dumb". It was forced, it was unbelievable, it was silly and it was dumb. (After the battle I looked at my wife and asked "was that just dumb?" to which she vigorously nodded her head).

The only bright point in the film was the performance of Zellweger. The role was a bit over acted like any decent comedy relief role, but it worked. From her speech pattern, her walk, her mannerisms and esp. her little quips (my favorite: "If you want to get 3 feet up a bull's ass all you have to do is listen to sweethearts talk to each other"), she was able to create an almost cartoon-like character who did her job extremely well.

I simply did not like this movie and I have to wonder about the kind of people who do say they like it (or the English Patient for that matter). I suspect you could categorize them in one category: 1) Soap opera fans

Sentiment: negative
This movie is great I really enjoyed it.

This movie is about a cat mom named Dutchess and her 3 kittens.T Dutchess and the kittens love music.They have to practice the piano everyday.But the butler named Edgar tries to kidnap Dutchess and her kittens he tries to make them sleep. But he fails. Them Dutchess meets a cat named Thomas O Maily. Thomas falls in love with Dutchess. The cats break into song. With the song everybody wants to be a cat. Thomas gets to love music like the other cats. Thomas and Dutchess really like each other.

I loved this movie and i like the cats to!

Sentiment: positive
I heard many stories about this film being great... Well, I took my chance when I saw it for a cheap price at Ebay last month.

I watched it, and I have only a few comments about it:

1) Terrible story-line, 2) Terrible acting, 3) Bad fighting-scenes...

I never seen any worse movie in my life so far!! When the storyline is bad, than at least make the fights something more interesting. But BOTH are done ridiculously bad...

* The only positive thing about this movie (in my opinion) is Nikki Berwick. God, she looks nice in this movie.

That's about it...

Sentiment: negative
With films like "Wallace & Gromit" and "Chicken Run" under their belt, the good people from the other side of the pond, Aardman Animation, are now introducing us to a bit of their twisted humor in the form of "Creature Comforts".

Derived from a short done early in their careers, "Creature Comforts" is a slice-of-life show where snippets of conversation are removed from their context and given to an animal of some sort.

Aardman Animation went across the country interviewing people with innocuous questions such as, "Are you a liar?" and then speed things up a bit asking about their sex lives.

The answers, while seeming to be boring and mundane, are actually quite funny, when you understand the dialogs come first and the animals are added later.

How many of these animals look like the person making the statements? One of the characters discussing what he looks for in a woman, "I like them kind of thin." is an insect, the Walking Stick.

There are two dogs discussing odors and smells, while sniffing the behind of a poodle, as they talk about the different smells of a woman.

There are two birds in a cage. As the "wife" tells the litany that is her health, her long suffering husband stands by her, saying nothing.

While it might take some time for "Creature Comforts" to find it's "legs", it should find a place on television for those who are tired of the ordinary. While there are more reality shows than Carter has liver pills, "Creature Comforts" is one of a kind and definitely worth watching.

Some of the humor might seem a little racy, it's the claymation that catches the attention of the children (like the old Batman series of the 60's, the jokes are subtle enough the kids won't get them) and it's the jokes that are there for the adults.

Sentiment: positive
Making a film for under 1 Million might be a triumph for a line producer or an accountant but doesn't do anything for the audience. The balance sheet might have been pretty but the viewing experience was poor.

What will be a triumph for Irish Cinema is when people realise that production values and the script can't be sacrificed.

I don't understand why people expend the energy it takes to put a film together when the production quality is worse than a low grade TV show.

The deficiencies of the plot have been mentioned in another review on this site and I totally agree with what was written. What I would add is that the film skimmed the surface of several genres without ever settling in one of them. The film would have benefited from either going the direction of a straight out comedy or social/political commentary.

My overall impression was that the film was rushed, thematically under developed and visually not up to standard. On a positive note the performances and music were very good.

Sentiment: negative
K Murli Mohan Rao made the much better BANDHAN in 1998 This film is an awful remake of THE WEDDING SINGER

Basically in short, the film consists of: Salman Khan who in those days used to have the role of a dejected lover who looses his girl and also he had his comic scenes where he hammed badly even today he does well he does it all here too and also looses his shirt in scenes

Jackie Shroff- wasted, bored and tired, his role is so stupid He is shown as a lover of Pooja Bhatra then in 1 scene he is shown as a womanizer?

Inder Kumar- confusing characterization again

Rani Mukherjee- boring, overweight and does nothing special Pooja Bhatra- tall, fair and actress worthy but lacks talent

Kashmira Shah- says a dial as if a poetry

Mohinish Behl- poor fellow the 2 kids were awful too

The story is the same and has awful comic scenes, a sudden love story and boring drunken scenes plus a forced comic track of Shakti Kapoor

Direction is poor Music is decent

Salman khan just goes through the motions, Jackie is bad, Rani is as usual, Pooja is bad, Mohinish and Kashmira are nothing great Inder is awful

Sentiment: negative
Reasonably effective horror/science-fiction a la "Alien" is fairly well done given its limited ambitions. Some nice special effects and well paced action sequences adequately patch the cracks in the rather tiresome dialogue. When a space craft crash lands on a remote planet the survivors soon become aware that a hideous terror awaits them in the dark of the upcoming total eclipse.

Sentiment: positive
This movies chronicles the life and times of William Castle. He made a series of low budget horror films in the 1950s-1960s that he sold with gimmicks. In "13 Ghosts" you need viewers to see the ghosts (they were in color, the film was in b&w). "The Tingler" had theatre seats equipped with a buzzer that jolted the audience when a monster escapes into a movie theatre. "Marabre" issued a life insurance policy to all members in case they were frightened to death! The movies themselves were pretty bad but the gimmicks had people rushing to see them. In this doc there are interviews with directors inspired by Castle, actors in his movies and his daughter. It also gets into his home life and the kind of man he was (by all accounts he was a great guy). The documentary is affectionate, very funny and absolutely riveting. It's very short (under 90 minutes) and there's never a dull moment. A must see for Castle fans and horror movie fans. My one complaint--there were very few sequences shown from his pictures. That aside this is just great.

Sentiment: positive
I just watched "The Last Wave" in my school's fine arts library. It's intriguing, like all Peter Weir's stuff, but it's not always as attention-holding as I would have liked. I found myself fascinated by the ideas being thrown at me (because they are very well handled by the film's director Weir)but at the same time I was not stimulated enough by them. AKA I got a little bored in spots.

The plot surrounds an Aussie lawyer who becomes obsessed with certain dreams he has which link him to an Aborigone group he is defending.

It starts out with an intense weather sequence and has some very awesome mood effects throughout (most notably the bizarre, "belching" sound design)and strong direction; but it just didn't entertain me like Weir's later films do. I might just need to watch it again though.

Good film about obsession and mystery. Because, in the end, the mystery that exists between the whites and the Aboriginies offers some very severe consequences.

God bless Peter Weir, though. For him alone this film is worth watching ... very organic director. Like an Aussie response Malick! I'd give it a 7 because it's got enough great ideas to overcome its boring moments.

Sentiment: positive
Really, REALLY... What pleases audience (american one!) in this so called show is totally beyond me. What can we learn from these series:

1. Each casino there is spending about 2-3 billion bucks every year to rent a satellite and enormous quantity of hi tech high resolution cameras for their security team. Let FBI bites the dust of them.

2. Every security employee must have voluptuous breasts, of course natural ones. The tits must be shown all the time otherwise they will lose their job. 

3. If the employee happens to be a male, he needs to get breasts implanted, then go to step 2. 

4. Only in Hollywood one can blatantly rip off other show's ideas then implement them as their own and call all this crap "original" and "art". 

5. Every security with tits bigger than 39D is considered immortal and cannot die.

I really would like to have the opportunity to vote with minus values. -10/10 for this one!

Sentiment: negative
All right - it was in black and white and probably on 2" tape - which means the BBC wiped it, right? But it stays in my mind from all those years ago (1960??) as a perfect slice of history enlivened by the most innovative editing and wonderful actors full of youth and bravado.

I WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN! Are you reading this, BBC? Find your original 2" tapes or the 35mm film, deal with the actors and directors for the rights, and re-issue! I know, I know, some of them are dead, some of them are missing in action.

Where else will I be able to see Mary Morris as the 'serpent's heart wrapped in a tiger's hide'? Where else will I be able to see Paul Daneman do 'Now is the winter of discontent....'? Or Robert Hardy deliver his speech about 'that idol ceremony'?

Sentiment: positive
I had just reached thirteen when I first saw this series and I am watching it again, on DVD, over thirty years later. The pictures over the opening credits have never left me. It has affected my view of the world and the peoples in it. My parents were with me long enough to have seen the series with me, and we always discussed the programme afterwards. It gave me a love for studying history and the highest marks I got in our school's public exams!

Sir Laurence Olivier's voice and delivery is timeless and perfect. I get the feeling that the people who lived through it would feel that this is their version of the history of the Second World War. I cannot imagine ever getting bored looking at it. Maybe an similar Cold War series could now be contemplated, although who could replace Sir Laurence is difficult to imagine.

Buy it!

Sentiment: positive
You the living? OK I think I am an intelligent, educated, liberal and really into films. I really like and have a great sense of humour. I was under the impression this was a bleakly painful comedy. They got paid for making this, petrol was used, electricity burnt, food was consumed, sets built........why? I blame the current state of the world on this film and all those people associated with it, I will even include us the viewing public. We are all to blame and deserve whatever coming. Its not funny, not much happens, everyone it seems is bored or boring. There are no conversations, communication is minimal. There is no plot as far as I am aware. I have in fact just lost 89 point something minutes of my life. I will never ever get that time back. The only message I have come away with is perhaps life is too short to sit around watching movies of people doing not much......and then you die!

Sentiment: negative
It is important to realise that Eisenstein was a committed Marxist film maker who held some very specific and particular theories about what film could achieve, and how.

It is simply idle to compare Alexander Nevsky negatively with anything from a similar period in the US; this film comes from the oldest film school in the world, from another continent, from an entirely different approach to cinema.

To appreciate this film a little more, try finding out about Pudovkin's and Kuleshov's theories of montage, for example, or read the Wikipedia entry on Marxist Film Theory. If you're feeling really bold, you might even investigate the triadic forms of Hegelian dialectic.

It follows that if you watch this film without some understanding of Eisenstein's ideas and ideals, you probably won't get it. In Alexander Nevsky the main characters aren't playing themselves, they are meant to be distillations of their nation's character. Nevsky and his generals are deliberately shown larger-than-life, because they represent stylised, heroic aspects of the entire Russian people.

The acting isn't wooden, it's meant to be slightly mannered. It represents a completely different school from the more naturalistic, narrative style which Hollywood was rapidly adopting. Eisenstein's films are especially designed *not* to be realistic. If anything seems somewhat "obvious", whether lighting or language or a pose struck by an actor, it's meant to be that way. Eisenstein was one of the early proponents of film as an art form, not just as entertainment.

If the editing sometimes seems to consist of a clash of images, well, that's the idea. Shots are meant to contrast with each other, Eisenstein's films contain and embody elements of a political/philosophical argument, namely Marxist dialectic.

So sit back, shout hurrah for Russia and her folk-hero defenders, boo at the cowardly nobles and the Teuton invaders, and enjoy the difference.

Sentiment: positive
As a person who knows the filmed ship and some other ships, too, I cannot see the movie as a movie, only. As a movie is has some great, wonderful shots of the ship, most of them done on an existing vessel - apart of the ones in the disaster scenes, of course, and a certain room under deck. But regarding the story and dialogs I only can call it big crap. Nothing of that would happen like this on a real sailing vessel. No wonder, the film had bad impact on the existing ship - if I didn't know better, I wasn't tempted to do a sailing voyage for sure. Definitely, for Europeans I recommend to switch off once the ship ran aground. After that, the over-emotional, very American part begins which I couldn't bear. The pics are really, really great, no wonder in a Ridley Scott film, but if you can avoid listening to the text, it will become much better.

Sentiment: negative
Found this movie in a rental store. Never heard about it before, but it was a good movie. Great acting, and thrilling story line. Great kudos to Vincent Ventresca. He made Thomas character very attractive, and brought a special atmosphere to this movie.

NJ



Sentiment: positive
This makes the third Errol Morris movie I've seen, and I'm increasingly not liking his style. He seems to find very interesting and varied characters, great personalities to create documentaries for, and then with tongue-in-cheek editing make fun of everything they are about. It's never really a direct caricaturation of them and Morris seems most of the time to be saying, "But no, no, these people are really fascinating, really!", but there's always these subtle little canted angles and not-so-subtle editing techniques that show that Morris seems to be mocking them behind their back.

This movie tracks four people who break the traditional boundaries of organic separation... a man who studies African hairless molerats to find that they are amazingly ant-like, a lion tamer, a man who keeps a garden full of animal-shaped shrubbery, and a robot designer. The general theme of the film seems to revolve around the question of what designates animal, human, and life features? So the title of Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control doesn't really seem to mean anything in terms of the movie... right? Except of course Morris seems just a little disturbed by these individuals' passions (he might call them "obsessions") making synthetic designs on life. I share not that fear and honestly don't appreciate some of the connections Morris makes in the film.

But I stress his subtlety. With no voice-over narration and leaving the words entirely to the interviewees, it's not as if Morris ever pounds that anxiety onto the spectators' collective head. Instead he mixes circus footage and ant footage together often at times when they're taken out of the context of the circus and the ants, showing a sort of collective absurdity behind what all of these people are talking about. I don't find them absurd, I find them all very neat and interesting individuals.

Unless, of course, he didn't intend such juxtapositions, which means he's just a bad craftsman instead of a silent subverter. Considering none of this films I've seen so far have particularly impressed me, I don't really care to find out what he's trying to do.

--PolarisDiB

Sentiment: negative
How could I best express my feelings about this movie: hideous? a headache? lack of coherent writing? plain stupidity? Try all of the above for this travesty. And that just for the direction.

Story? Well I guess there is a story. Two dumb blondes look for a job after they crash a plane into a golf course. They are mistaken for a 'world renounced assassin' (sarcasm) and are 'hired' by two 'mobsters'. One thinks "taking him out" means a date, and the other gets the minor actor she dreams of. And of course, the turtle reserve for the farting turtle, that they build with the casino winnings.

Sounds likes all this could be funny? Guess again. They try to make it funny, but its not. Filming sequences aren't well done. I've seen better filming in Hong Kong movies. Visuals are average for a late 80s film. But the problem is that its a 2007 movie.

Not worth my time to ever watch this again. It still doesn't beat Danny Glover's "Out" movie from the early 80s as the worst movie of all time, but then again that film is in a class of its own. "F"

Sentiment: negative
*spoliers* do not read any further if you haven't seen this movie

Picking up after the depressing "Phantasm II" ended; The Tall Man kidnaps Mike, while Reggie and new kid Tim spend most of the rest of the movie trying to get him back, and not end up as slaves on the Tall Man's "Red Planet". This one gets really silly: the trio of thieves in the bright pink hearse were only there for comic relief, and the black karate chick (can't remember her name) was so irritating I couldn't wait to see if the Tall Man killed her character. This one sets it up to almost look like it was going to be Tim's character, who comes in late and ultimately is the hero, but ... it doesn't quite work out that way. By the very end of this story Liz is beheaded by the killer midgets, Mike gets a silver sphere implanted into his skull, the spheres get Reggie and the dwarfs get Tim, and there's no one left to stop The Tall Man. The bad guy wins - now how's that for a surprise twist at the end?

This was filmed in 1993 and unreleased until '95, and the ending of this one was at the time final, and although it's disappointing and anticlimactic it was also a fitting and appropriate ending for this weird little series. But the fourth one changes this ending and adds nothing new but more bad jokes, and an even worse and more nonsensical ending ...

*1/2 out of ****

Sentiment: negative
This movie is called "Solomon Kane". Which it isn't. The main character wears a hat, but that's all he has in common with Robert Howard's character Solomon Kane as known from early pulp magazines and lots of publications ever since these days. It is a fantasy movie, not really that bad and it might easily have passed with a rather good review - if it hadn't been called Solomon Kane. The hero is a newly invented character who definitely is not SK. The story is not Robert Howard, neither.

As a fantasy movie it is one more movie following the traditions of the genre: simple story, poor CGI, poor actors, poor directing. Yet it can be fun, you know: 'the cheaper they are, the better they are'. But since it is called Solomon Kane, I cannot accept it. Imagine a Lord-of-the-Rings movie with a hero Bilbo who fights the black sorcerer Saugalf with the help of his dwarf friend Aragorn and the beautiful heroine Shadowfax. And with a final fight where the three use a magical ring to kill the evil sorcerer who has transformed into the dragon Gondorian. Imagine that. This is exactly what this movie has done with Robert Howard's character Solomon Kane.

I'd give it a 4 stars review if it was just another horror movie, but since it is called Solomon Kane, I can only rate it 3 stars.

Sentiment: negative
Here's why the Jane Show won't work. Once again Canadian bonehead producers and writers can't create a sitcom without putting some kind of different spin on it. I guess these people don't watch a lot of T.V. from the U.S. which has the sitcom model down pat. No, here we have to do something different, we have to make the A story absolutely absurd and then have a meaningful B story to try to make up for it. The characters are two dimensional and the story lines are way over the top: Forklift races??? give me freaking break. Here's a little advice for the writers of the show, Don't write funny situations, find the funny in situations. And remember, you have to be born with a sense of humor to write truly funny stuff, not just be an improv monkey.

Sentiment: negative
It may have been thrilling for an audience in 1946, but the movie is now a bit boring. I had a hard time sitting through the whole thing, and it was very predictable: I mean, we know from the beginning of the movie that Welles is the nazi war criminal, and I'll give you one guess as to whether he is caught and appropriately punished in the end.

Not worth watching. It's sad that Welles only made three movies worth seeing in his long career: Kane, Ambersons, and A Touch of Evil.

Sentiment: negative
When I saw Alien vs. Predator a few years ago, I have to say as stupid as a sequel it was, it was still somewhat enjoyable. Now, there are unfortunately a shortage of good movies out in the theater lately, so my boyfriend and I decided to just go ahead and see what AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem was about. So we saw it a couple nights ago and I have to say that there was absolutely nothing thrilling about this horror sequel. It took a completely different turn from the first AVP movie, it's not a bad idea that they took Alien and Predator and put them in the up class suburbs, but from the idea of the first one explaining their reasons for existing, this was just an average and predictable horror sequel. Not to mention a story that keeps introducing new characters every scene where I wasn't sure who to keep in mind on who was the main character and why, so I couldn't really keep up with the story.

From what I've gathered, of course the Predator and the Alien are up in space having to deal with the stuff of typical sit com neighbors, they're just beating the lights out of each other and they decide to why not? Go ahead and take it out on some Earthlings. So they crash and Alien is taking over the suburbia utopia. But teenagers, including a troubled couple who look like Ken and Barbie, a female marine and her daughter, among others, are going to make sure to kick some space butt, that is if the predator doesn't get there first. Because he is ticked off at the Alien, I guess for starting the party without him, lol, just kidding, actually for killing some of his friends.

AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem isn't the worst movie by any standards, it's still pretty cool with a lot of the visual effects and the fight sequences between Alien and Predator are so cool to watch. Like the first sequel of Alien vs. Predator, the cast is the thing that ruins the film and just seems like they were not well developed, I know it's horror, but the original Alien and Predator films had characters, that you cared about and wanted to win. But it was a semi-decent sequel that I would say is worth a look for some fun, especially for Ken and Barbie's sake.

4/10

Sentiment: negative
Chi-hwa-seong (Painted Fire) recounts the life of Korean painter Jang Seong-ub amidst the changing political landscape of late 19th century Korea.

However, the themes of this film center around the process of artistic creation through the fire of desire of the artist and the expectations and demands of their audience and society.

Jang seong-ub is played masterfully as a complex character who changes from the innocent excitement of youth to a hardened alcoholic tortured soul. This characterization mirrors the young eager artist that finds it more and more difficult to invoke the spirit of artistic creation within himself without letting the creative fire out via drink, erections, and desire.

Although this character development proceeds overall gradually through the film, the emotional complexity of Jang is still played in a constantly oscillating manner building to the films' finale. Interestingly, the montage of the film parallels this constantly changing and seemingly wild emotion or fire of the artist as scenes seamlessly transition from one time and location to another without any conventional 'cues' to the audience that such a scene change will occur. For example, many scenes would change seemingly in mid conversation picking up at another point and location.

The visual scenery of the film is presented beautifully and also oscillates from stark (and perhaps bleak) black and white scenery to more colorful and alive environments that again parallel the paintings of Jang either in simple black ink on white paper or with color added. Rainbows of color enter the film at points as the artist observes nature and especially women that then become reflected in his paintings.

The theme of an artist's individual desire to create versus the expectations and demands of society arises in the film through various points including class distinction, the domination of government over the artist, the accepted norms of the artistic elite, and the base desires of the common masses. Instead of creating his own completely original works, Jang finds himself mostly recreating masterpieces of other artists throughout East Asia. The question thus arises if recreation itself deserves artistic merit.

I wish that I was more familiar with the political events of the period to firmly grasp how they tied into the story - but beyond any comparison to the current role of Korean government in artistic expression and/or censorship I cannot comment.

Overall an extremely well acted film and the cinematography is often breathtaking. A great film to see and then ponder over.

Sentiment: positive
I saw this film at the 2005 Palm Springs International Film Festival. I went in with the assumption that if it stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Hilary Swank it had to be at least decent. Well, after a kind of a slow start, I was far from disappointed. In fact, I was quite pleased with the final product.

I must admit the Afrikaaner and Xhosa(?) accented English of some of the actors were kind of hard to understand but like seeing "Waking Ned Devine", "Trainspotting" or any other film with heavy-accented actors I adjusted after about 15 minutes. And I was trying to figure out why Hilary Swank was supposed to be South African and sounded like she was trying to put on an accent but sounded very American... as if she was making a weak attempt at putting on the accent. But later in the film as more is revealed about her character and how she moved to the US as a teen you begin to understand how she might have lost some or most of her accent. So it began to make sense that only certain words might have a Afrikaaner lilt to them.

I know it's a little weak for one to use film as education but one of the great things about this film is that it was interesting to see a dramatization of a Truth and Reconciliation trial. I'd heard about the T and R process in South Africa after the fall of apartheid but I didn't really know how it worked.

The final verdict is that although some of the scenes felt a little contrived, this was overall a very strong film. The closing sequence where the "truth" comes out was the strong finish every film hopes for. A definite must see for anyone who cares about what happens outside their borders.

Sentiment: positive
Jack Frost, no kids it's not the warm hearted family movie about a dad who comes back from the dead in the form of a snow man. It's about a sadistic killer named Jack Frost who is sprayed with some acid fluid and is morphed into a killer snow man. I happened to catch a copy of this movie so I could have a nice sit back and laugh at it. A killer snow man? Ha, sounds like the perfect comedy/horror movie! Well I was wrong, very wrong.

Jack Frost is about a killer who is being transported via truck to jail so he could fry in the chair at midnight. But it's a snowy night and it collides with a government tanker carrying a new DNA fluid. Jack escapes only to be burnt to death by the acid and morphs into a killer snowman. He returns to the small town of Snowmonton where he was caught by a small time sheriff. Here he is ready to kill again, now as a snow man with cooler powers. He can condense into water, shoot out ice cycles as spears, and grow killer fangs. The only question is, who can stop Frost? This movie is below the typical B-Movie line. The movies begins cheesy but as soon as Jack is burned by the acid, it quickly drops below the cheese line and goes flat. The acting for one is appalling! Here we have a whole cast of unheard of actors who either can't act, can act but has a pointless character, or is just here for a few extra bucks. The only good actor is Scott MacDonald who plays Jack. He looks like a young Richard Kiel combined with Frankenstein. Sadly his appearance is only reduced to three minutes and all we ever see of him is his new snow man form and his wise cracking voice. Plus his wisecracks are anything but funny. Groaning, stupid, and bad.

The plot is horrible! Throughout history there have been numerous murderers. A killer in a hockey mask, a killer with a razer glove, a chainsaw wielding moron, a rapid St. Bernard, but now we stoop to a tacky killer snow man? Oh come on! And the way the characters are introduced are terrible. For one I really wanted Jack to kill the sheriffs son, I mean giving his dad oats with Antifreeze in them so they won't freeze? All the characters are dumb and pointless and the deaths are to cartoony. One woman in strangled with Christmas lights and has her head smashed into a decoration box and a girl is humped to death in the shower (where is the carrot in that scene eh?).

And to top of this horrible movie is the special effects. The first big special effect we have is Jack's DNA mixing in with snow and boy is it terrible. I mean it looks like a 60's fashion of art design, PU! Jack looks fake as well. He looks like a person covered with rubber snow man skin. All the blood and gore is cheesy and the film never takes off with greatness but instead stoops to low levels.

Jack Frost is one of the worst slasher movies ever made. I thought it would be a riot but no! It doesn't try to be funny and it actually tries to be scary. Jack Frost gets 4 out of 10, it at least made me laugh from it's awfulness. Don't even bother with this piece of trash. Jack Frost= D+

Sentiment: negative
If The Lion King is a serious story about a young lion growing up to avenge his father's death, The Lion King 1 and a half is the total opposite, full of whimsy and cheer. The Lion King told the story from the side of Simba the young lion, 1 and a half is from the view of Timone and Pumbaa, a less than perfect duo made up of a meercat who left home because he could not dig tunnels without burying his friends and neighbors and a warthog who has an odor issue. The movie is a little short on substance, but Disney does a good job of filling time with various sketches starring Timone and Pumbaa as they "watch" the movie with us. My favorite is the sing-along that happens halfway through the movie, make sure you watch the bouncing bug! Disney has advertised 1 and a half as "the rest of the story," though it really isn't. It is just a different perspective of The Lion King, without all of the serious stuff that pervaded most of the second half of the original Disney classic. Credit Nathan Lane as Timone and Ernie Sabella as Pumbaa for their voice work, without their efforts, the movie may not have worked. The sing, they entertain, and they make us laugh. They also give us a reason to avoid a hot tub with a warthog.

Sentiment: positive
Is there anything worse than a comedy film that lacks humor? The answer is Yes; one that fails to generate any interest throughout the picture. The premise is not too bad - a naive front man for an illegal business - but this is a potboiler with a poor script and screenplay and just does not work.

Was this considered a good 'B' in 1942? Hard to imagine. The only positive aspect of the picture is the cast, which contains several well-known faces from the '30's and '40's, such as Warren Hymer, Vince Barnett and Robert Armstrong (I always dismiss Richard Cromwell as the weakling who got Gary Cooper killed in "Lives of a Bengal Lancer", so I wasn't counting him).

Can't recommend this one and gave it a rating of 3 - if you have a choice, get a root canal.

Sentiment: negative
I was surprised to like this movie since I'm from the "check your brain at the door and have fun" school of film viewing. However, this film touched my heart. I have friends like mentally retarded Emily. I have friends like unsocialized Evie. And I've been in Evie's shoes, chasing away opportunity out of fear and out of devotion to others.

Amy Madigan's disappointment in her daughters was almost palpable on screen and the awkward moments where she tried to bridge the gap with Evie were raw and painful to watch. And perhaps I am denser than most, but I never saw the twist with Evie's father coming. Usually I cotton on to those things rather quickly.

My reservations are similar to others posted here. I thought Christopher Lloyd's wonderful, sympathetic character (a very different role for him, I thought) was underused. What happened to him once he realized what was going on with the poetry? Would he, like James, try again??? Second, the ending, such as it was, didn't seem to resolve or accomplish anything. I didn't expect the pieces to be picked up and all the ends tied neatly, but I felt that I was left at odds with the characters, that there was no real healing taking place here or any real efforts at healing being made.

Otherwise, exquisite and lyrical and disturbing and, for some, very, very true.

Sentiment: positive
This inept adaptation of arguably one of Martin Amis's weaker novels fails to even draw comparisons with other druggy oeuvres such as Requiem For A Dream or anything penned by Irvine Walsh as it struggles to decide whether it is a slap-stick cartoon or a hyper-realistic hallucination.

Boringly directed by William Marsh in over-saturated hues, a group of public school drop-outs converge in a mansion awaiting the appearance of three American friends for a weekend of decadent drug-taking. And that's it. Except for the ludicrous sub-plot soon-to-be-the-main-plot nonsense about an extremist cult group who express themselves with the violent killings of the world's elite figures, be it political or pampered. Within the first reel you know exactly where this is going.

What is a talented actor like Paul Bettany doing in this tiresome, badly written bore? Made prior to his rise to fame and Jennifer Connelly one can be assured that had he been offered this garbage now he'd have immediately changed agents! Avoid.

Sentiment: negative
Not a terrible film -- my 10 year old boy loved it, and he would be the target demographic, so I guess they hit the spot. Pretty dull for an adult though.

Hard to relate to animated lego characters, even mod high-tech ones.

I thought the choice of the three great virtues of the Bionicle world was a bit odd -- unity, duty, and destiny. Am I the only one who thinks those sound just a bit fascistic? Especially destiny. What about freedom, equality, justice, etc.?

Oh well, it will sell Lego. Kind of dull for a movie, but not bad for a 74-minute advertisement. Could have been a lot worse.

Sentiment: negative
To summerize this movie: nice for TV but too small for the theatre. I enjoyed watching this movie at home but I wont watch it a second time. The concept is good, but what ends up in the movie is just a summary. The end had a 'nice' twist but is still unsatisfying. Maybe it was the intention of the director but it wasn't worked out like a it should be. But then again, it's an OK kind of movie.

Sentiment: positive
Ugh. Unfortunately this is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. None of the characters are remotely likable, which makes this film difficult to watch. They're all miserable thirty year olds who don't take responsibility for their crummy lives. I was only able to make it through a half hour of the film, so there's a chance things got better afterward, but I doubt it. I can't imagine five people as self-absorbed as they are would manage to remain friends with each other for ten years.

Three sex scenes in the first half hour were also disappointing, as they had no relevance to the plot, and were clearly a gratuitous (failed) attempt to bring some life to this otherwise dull film.

Save your time and money, and skip this movie.

Sentiment: negative
Things I learned from "The List".

A decent cinematographer, a hot girl who can act and Malcom McDowell couldn't stop this movie from sucking.

Blockbuster won't give you your money back.

Even when he reads the script and says "Ugh! Really?!", Malcom McDowell still tries.

Chuck Carrington desperately needs acting classes.

Hire a writer.

Jesus hates me too and punished me by making me pay $ 5.50 to see this movie.

When making a movie, you don't need an ending. Just leave everything unexplained, unresolved an uninteresting enough so that the audience falls asleep BEFORE the ending. Genius.

Any random landlord can cure death just by drawing a cross on a window. So make friends.

Your maid can sing you back to life.

Chuck Carrington still needs acting classes.

Your roommate will hate you and make fun of you if you bring home this movie.

Apologies will not be accepted.

Sentiment: negative
Hollow Point, though clumsy in places, manages to be an extremely endearing and amusing action movie.

The primary entertainment value here is humor - everyone turns in clever performances that provide the film with a great deal of energy.

Oh, by the way, advocates of gun safety will be horrified by the conduct of the characters in this movie...

Sentiment: positive