DoubleML/multimodal_confounding huggingface dataset:
If this is not my favorite movie of all time, it definitely is in the top five. I love this. Everything about this is perfect--the clothes, the set, the lines--yes, they're not how normal people talk, but... Right down to the small scenes, especially at the beginning of the office girls changing their shoes, picking a wedgie, watering the office ivy plant, putting lunch in the fridge... Identical to what us office girls do today in the year 2005. I think all the minor characters are wonderful. If someone like Joan Crawford is over the top, it's all part of the package. If you pick out many things in the movie, it is very evident that this was the beginning of the sixties as women were starting to not "take it lying down," at least not if they didn't want to. As far as characters being contradictory, for instance, Suzy Parker's character acting like she's all for flings, but then getting too attached to Louis Jourdan's character, isn't that what many people are like--contradictory? They mix in real stuff with scenes like Diane Baker's character finding the love of her life after miscarrying her illegitimate baby in an accident--lying in the hospital with a big old bandage around her head. This is part of the package too, it's charm--glossy escapism. I like the mix of real stories pertinent today (the stereotypical career woman who only has affairs with married men, therefore doesn't have a family when she is older) with ones that make you wish, "ah, if only I could fall in love with a doctor and he'll love me even though he knows my sordid past, and saw me all messed up after the scandalous accident!!" Also, I just got the DVD, widescreen, it's yet even more beautiful than full screen... Yay!

Sentiment: positive
My husband and I are the parents of an autistic little boy who lives in the same township as the screenwriter of this movie. We were very upset that the JCC is bringing this movie to its Jewish film festival because of the way that the mentally disabled character Frankie is portrayed. We went to see this movie at the local theater when it came out. We demanded out money back. We would encourage the screenwriter to donate a portion of the funds to the JCC's Achad program to apologize.

We did not like seeing Frankie - a mentally disabled and perhaps even autistic teenager - as part of a joke in which he keeps dropping something to look at the nanny's breasts.

There was no point to Frankie's character other than to say "hey, being mentally disabled is funny." Challenges like Frankie's are a serious matter. Families like mine are truly suffering.

The screenwriter needs to explain herself. Does she know families with disabled kids? Does she see the families with disabled kids week after week at the JCC pool?

Sentiment: negative
Billed as a kind of sequel to The Full Monty, about unemployed men in Sheffield, this movie is a fake.

As someone born in Sheffield, and still with links to the city, I was extremely disappointed by this film. Someone said it could have been set in Oklahoma, and that just about sums it up for me. This looked like a romantic view of northern England made for the US market. Probably many Americans - and many southern English people - don't realize that Sheffield is a big city of around half a million inhabitants, with a sophisticated urban culture. In Among Giants it was depicted as some dreary dead-end semi-rural small town, where everyone in Sheffield seemed to drink in the same old-fashioned pub, and where the people's idea of a party was line-dancing in some village-hall lookalike. This was a small close-knit community, not a metropolitan city.

The working-class Sheffield men were totally unlike their real-life counterparts, who are generally taciturn and communicate with each other in grunts and brief dry remarks. They don't chatter, and they certainly don't sing in choirs.

Even the rural settings, supposedly in the Peak District, looked alien to me. I recognized a few places where I used to go hiking, but some of the aerial shots of pylons stretching out over a bleak landscape reminded me more of Wales. Indeed, in the credits at the end I spotted a reference to Gwynedd, Wales. The Peak District is, in the summer, crawling with walkers and tourists in cars. It is situated between two big cities. It is not some kind of wilderness.

As for the notion that a young woman could fall in love with, and lust after, Pete Postlethwaite, that was ludicrous, and could only have been a male dream. Her reasons for becoming his lover were never made apparent. None of the men was shown as having a partner or families; they existed in a vacuum.

Anyone wanting to see a film about unemployed Sheffielders would have been led astray. This Sheffield existed only in the minds of its middle-class writers and film-makers.

It was a gigantic fake!



Sentiment: negative
When you want to celebrate life and love, especially for precious little daughters, you have to shout it from the countryside. And what gorgeous countrysides! There are so many tears of joy even God joins in. See this movie.



Sentiment: positive
I cannot begin to describe how amazing this movie is. Suffice it to say, anytime I'm depressed about how unfair or futile things seem, this is the movie I go rent to put me in the right frame of mind. The background music makes you realize the easiness of existence and how simplicity provides for the greatest happiness. The Indian girl that sings is but one example of a character in this film who does not try hard, and is happy as a result. Persifina, the laundry co-worker of Ruby's (Ashley Judd) is another=-her eyes and smile could make the hardest person's day. I watch this movie and I dream of better days to come or of a good conversation with friends, and I realize that being alone--Ruby is alone quite often--isn't the same as being lonely. Recommended for anyone who enjoys a thoughtful lull of a movie.

Sentiment: positive
I'm Mike Sedlak. I co-wrote the score for this movie. And proud of it. 

And I love all of the comments. Some have not gone far enough.

The movie premiered in San Francisco in the summer of 1973. The theater was packed with friends and family. We all clapped.

Five days latter, it was pulled from all of the screens in the Bay Area.

If anyone is interested hearing some of scene by scene details, which might make the movie even more enjoyable, please let me know.

We could start with the shot where Gideon Blake throws the toilet plunger to distract one of the evil henchmen guarding the radio transmitter on the deck of Bud's house. 

Or how Gideon diffused the bomb in the original version.

Didn't help. It still bombed.

Bring it on.

Sentiment: negative
this movie begins with an ordinary funeral... and it insists so hard on this ordinary funeral feel that i lost interest within 5 minutes of watching, and started skipping scenes. it seems to me whomever made this movie is afflicted to the extent of becoming trapped in a permanent morbid trance, unable to contemplate anything else but death and destruction. well, i ain't one of the dark kids from Southpark, i want a movie that within 10 minutes gets me well into an interesting story, i won't sit and watch 10 minutes of nothing but preparations for a funeral.. my grandma on her last years was fascinated by funerals, perhaps she might have enjoyed this "movie".

Sentiment: negative
Wow! Stacy Peralta has followed up Dogtown and Z-Boys with an equally stunning documentary about the history of the big-wave surfing culture in America. Piecing together insider archival footage along with interviews from surfing legends, we are transported into the daring and free-spirited life of the early pioneers whose sheer passion for the sport spawned an industry that today touches the lives of millions.

It's getting to know these icons and their stories that gives the film its warmth. You can feel the respect Peralta has for this group as we hear accounts of Greg Noll striding from a pack of awestruck fellow surfers on the beach to singularly challenge 50-foot swells off Hawaii's North Coast. Or Jeff Clark, surfing the outrageously dangerous Maverick off the northern California coast all alone for 15 years before it was discovered and became the surfing destination in California. And the storybook history of Laird Hamilton, today's surfing icon. Hearing Greg Noll reverently refer to Hamilton as the best surfer ever sent chills up my spine.

(As an aside, Noll, Clark and others were at the Sundance screenings. Noll humbly described himself as an old, over-the-hill surfer. He was deeply moved by the audience reception of him and film. Both he and Clark were as likable in person as they were in the film.)

Riding Giants pays homage to these extraordinary athletes while at the same time rewarding us with an insight into the magnitude and terrifying power of the waves they seek to conquer, the gut-wrenching vertical drops required to get into them, and the almost unfathomable combination of adrenaline and fear that the surfers experience each time they take on a monster swell.

All this, and the movie has more. For those of us that didn't live in California in the 60's, we get an insight into the impact of surfing on American pop culture. (And, to my surprise, the impact of the movie Gidget on surfing!) Peralta also weaves in a primer on some of the technical aspects of the sport and the history of innovation in equipment. I'm not a surfer, but like the rest of the Sundance audience, I was absolutely captivated by this film. Peralta is staking his claim as the Big Kahuna of American documentaries.

Sentiment: positive
While I understood, that this show is too weird to please everybody, I don't get where all these bad reviews come from, and I'm most surprised over the bad reviews, that it has gotten from fans of the movies. I liked it and got hooked on it since the first episode I watched. It's a little messed up though, that Kuzco was put into school. And it seems to be High School rather than College. But I guess he's only eighteen, right, so it's not like he's too old to get educated? And haven't the royals always had to get the best education avaible to them? So the "Kuzco has to graduate, or he won't become emperor" thing doesn't sound too weird for me. And I guess his education was neglected before, so that's why he has to be educated now.

Sentiment: positive
This movie isn't worth going to the theaters to watch, i did and i didn't like it, the effects on the movie are really well done, and you get a laugh here and there, but the story is really bad, it seemed like they had run out of ideas, and what is that of loki and odin getting along? that totally destroys norse mythology, and i guess they forgot that loki's powers only worked during the NIGHT!! If you really MUST see this movie rent it when it comes out, don't go to the movies for this!

They could have done a lot more with this than they did, it felt like they just wanted to do a movie to show off cool animation and effects

Sentiment: negative
I saw this movie, just now, not when it was released and hailed as best picture of the year here in Israel. and to summarize everything right now, I will just say: this is not a good film.

This is Dror Shaul's second feature film, and I have to admit that his first and the TV drama he made before this picture are much better. further more, this is his first attempt at directing a drama. the early works were comedies, and were funny and effective.

The first thing you have to know if you'll ever see this film: Israel of the 21st century hates the kibbutz and the values it represented since the formation of the state of Israel. the real situation of the kibbutzim is very dire, and some of them disappear one by one. the kibbutz, Hebrew word for collective, was a sort of village for members only, where the values of equality and socialism were the dogma for everyday life. with the change in social values with time, it seems now that the kibbutz was a place where the human spirit was repressed, locked within the dogma rules, with no ticket out. the entrance of capitalist values and way of life in the 90's and so far made it very hard on the kibbutzim to survive. the crazy mother in the film is the central metaphor for that.

But, I regard this film as having nothing to do with nostalgia for the good old days of the kibbutz. once, it was a dream of every young couple to live in a kibbutz and raise children in this quite and beautiful environment. but the film shows the opposite. that the kibbutz, with it's socialist dogma, was a place sort of like a cult of crazy people, with crazy ideas that undermine the freedom of each individual within the collective. this is the central philosophy of post modern capitalism: your individuality is the most important thing. you must place yourself in the center, and no one else but you is the matter. this is the philosophy the film stands for, and that's just it's first sin.

If you disagree with me on the political side, I'm sure you will agree that the acting, the tone of the film, it's script and it's direction are the four sins that follow. the film has no real visual text and none of it's shots is something to remember. it is also very "delicate", a delicacy that is no more than artsy fartsy attempt to provoke emotions, which do not surface, not in the film and not with the viewer. it brings nothing but boredom.

Can someone please explain: why this film won so many prizes? maybe because it shows that Israel is in line with the rest of the world, hating socialist and human values? or maybe it shows that Israel is a "delicate" place, not giving in to dogmas and fanaticism? that we are basically very human and good people, capable of emotions, especially when they are fake ones, just like capitalism expects us to be? or maybe because it tells one of the biggest lies of Israeli cinema in recent years, a lie that undermines the justification of the existence of the Jewish state? no matter what the answer is, it's not a good one. not for the world, not for human values and not for the Jews.

Sentiment: negative
The trio are a pleasant, nostalgic journey to that first hint of desire--when it was still about simple exploration of the unknown--before we "grew up" and added those complexities of HIV status, emotional baggage and gotta-run-my-pager-just-went-off into the emotional mix.

The angst portrayed is pure adolescent angst, but it rings true in all three stories. Their sweetness and positivity make you feel good that you are gay. And those kinds of films are few and far between.

Good news! Both Boys Life and Boys Life 2 are now readily available on DVD as of September 1999.

Sentiment: positive
Lorne Michaels once again proves that he has absolutely no business producing movies.

You'd think that after such dismal flicks "Superstar", "Night at the Roxbury", and "Coneheads", he'd start to get the notion that maybe he doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to movies (and many would argue that he doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to television, as well). Trying to make feature films out of skits that wore out their welcome the third time the were done on SNL makes no sense.

I personally like Tim Meadows, and think that he would be great in the right movie. It's a shame to see a talented guy wasted in a film that features unfunny after unfunny situation, and caps it all with a dreadfully bad song and dance scene. Any laughs here will be because the movie is so bad, not because it's funny.

Oh well, at least we can be thankful that there are many other tired SNL characters who will never have films done about them. It's just too bad that this one made it to the big screen.

Sentiment: negative
Absolutely horrible movie. Not a bad plot concept, but executed horribly. Cliché storyline; bad script. So schlocky it doesn't even qualify for campy. This is the kind of movie that gives sci-fi a bad name.

Sentiment: negative
Don`t be fooled into thinking that this is a remake as in this years remake of THE TIME MACHINE is based on an earlier film . It`s not because this is a pointless re- film . That is the director has used the original camera script shot for shot similar to the " remake " of THE GET AWAY from a few years ago . The scenes are identical to the original , the dialogue is identical to the original , the camera angles are identical , no attempt whatsoever is made to embellish or restructure the original script ,( But with a director like Van Sant at the helm we should be thankful . He sure ain`t no Hitchcock ) in fact I might even be correct in saying the costumes might be the same because the private eye wears a pork pie hat. Didn`t they go out of fashion in the late 1960s ? 

Bottom line:Avoid

Sentiment: negative
J.J. Jameson (from Spiderman 2) Quote ... Crap, Crap, ...

Mega-Crap It pretends to be an homage (un/intentional) to the Coen Brothers ... done poorly.

There is no real mystery to the plot.

Diaz's performance is totally uninspired.

The quirky characters don't really work.

There are a lot of "duh" moments.

I love black comedy, but this film isn't funny.

In my view, it wasn't worth the electricity.

There are many films in this genre which are much more entertaining.

I hope you find this review helpful.

Sentiment: negative
I hate to admit it, but I didn't find it to be one of Hitchcock's best but nonetheless a riveting, climatic thriller. In a remake of Hitchock's 1934 movie of the same title, Dr. Ben McKenna (James Stewart)  the man who knows too much - and his wife Jo McKenna (Doris Day) are holidaying in Morocco with their son Hank (Christopher Oslen) when there is a case of mistaken identity and caught up in the web of an assassination plot. The conspirators go to extreme lengths to prevent them from interfering with their plot: kidnapping their beloved Hank.

I found it surprising that Doris Day, who I usually associate with Rock Hudson comedies, was cast in a Hitchcock film. As I was watching it, I soon realized that this was more of a family film compared to Hitchcock's other works (example: Psycho) and she had singing ability needed to pull off "Que Sera Sera", which she did beautifully. She was well cast as herself and James Stewart had chemistry, which helped make the couple believable.

In comparison to the great director's other works I believe this isn't as good, but it is still a exceedingly entertaining family thriller/mystery. There is also the added bonus of Que Sera Sera, which turned out to be a smash hit for Doris Day. Well directed, well acted. A fine film.

Sentiment: positive
Recently I saw this movie again (after 25 years). In the original there is a scene in the bathroom of an airplane during the landing between Jacqueline Bisset's character and Michael Brandon's character. The rented version did not have this scene in it. Did I imagine this?

Or, is this part of the "clean up" of movies where some are altered to exclude portions some people think are not "appropriate"?

I love this movie -- it is exactly like the friendship between a friend and I and we've been friends for 25 years and saw it together. Her husband thought it was us as well.

Thank you, Joan

Sentiment: positive
Basic meaning of the story is a reality. Cruel true reality. Situations are very funny. You have to laugh when you see, how people can be stupid, obstinate and crazy. The best description will be, if you watch it on your own.

Sentiment: positive
There is the thrill of low-budget film noir. And there is the frustration of meandering, uninteresting movies made on the cheap. This one falls into the second category.

The Spot is the name of a nightclub. The film is about a policeman whose father has been killed by gangsters. He heads out to track them down.

Maybe it was the bad print. Maybe it's me. But I felt I'd seen this a hundred times, most of those times better than it is here.

It has promise, too: The cop is fascinated with a woman who plays records she introduces over juke boxes. They then meet. Now, though this was made well before I was born, I have seen that kind of juke box. And it is incredibly fascinating: When I was a teenager, I wandered into a bar that still had such a device. I always liked juke boxes, in bars or diners. But this one was different. You talked to it and a sultry sounding female voice talked back to you! That is addressed here but dropped into the general, uninteresting stew.

The movie has one thing going for it: In a small role, it features the very young Anne Jeffreys. What a beauty she was, and doubtless still is!

Sentiment: negative
Peter O'Toole is a treat to watch in roles where the lines he speaks are good and offer a chance for him to swagger in drunken stupor. The lovely Susannah York provides a good foil for O'Toole's dramatic presence.

The film alludes to incest--without a single explicit scene--but it is able to entertain the viewer in its raucous social commentary. Though this is not major film by any reckoning, it will be remembered for its entertaining performances. 

Even York, signing the papers at the end, is a treat to watch, exuding tragedy silently. The possible weakness here is Thompson's laid-back direction. But the film floats because of the actors and the script.

I saw the film twice over a period of 20 years--on both occasions with the name "Brotherly love". "Country dance" is a rather farcical and inappropriate title for this movie, wherever it was released as such.

Sentiment: positive
An update of the skits and jokes you would have seen on a Burlesque stage in the first half of the 20th Century. It's a string of several jokes acted out. Some of them you could tell your Grandmother, some of them not, but it's a fairly safe bet she's heard them all before. For what it tries to be, it's not too bad. Before you rent it, remember that it's an older style of entertainment and has more value as history than as comedy or titillation. Robin Williams has a couple of bits, but he's interchangeable with the other players.

Sentiment: negative
This movie has it all. It is a classic depiction of the events that surrounded the migration of thousands of Cuban refugees. Antonio Montana(played by Al Pacino), is just one of the thousands to get a chance to choose his destiny in America. This cinematic yet extremely accurate depiction of Miamis' Drug Empire is astonishing. Brian DePalma does an amazing job directing this picture, so much that, the viewer becomes involved with both the storyline, as well as every character in the cast. With Tony's characters' pressence being so believable and strong, Brian DePalma brang out the raw talent exposed by Steven Bauer(Manny, Tony's best Friend), Mary Elizabeth Mastantonio(Gina, Tony's Sister), Robert Loggia(Frank, Tony's Boss)and Michelle Pfeiffer(Elvira, Frank's Wife). I enjoyed every minute watching this movie, and still watch it on a weekly basis. On this year, the 20th Anniversary of this classic crime movie, I for one am a true believer that in another 20 years people will still refer to this movie in astonishing numbers. With other crime movies being so dramatic I find, this movie is a shock to the system.

Sentiment: positive
This film got roasted by the boys at MST3K, but it's actually a neat and nasty piece of low-budget film noir. The plot is tight, the characters are believable (within the good-boy-gets-obsessed-with-bad-girl genre), the pacing is solid, the climax is well-handled, and the cast is bolstered by several fine character actors. True, most of the time you want to hit the protagonist with a brick, but he's actually quite effectively creepy when he plays the mastermind. The scenes between him and his dad are quite powerful, in a minimalist kind of way. Sure it's depressing, but that's the point. Good movie.

Sentiment: positive
this movie, i won't call it a "film," was basically about nothing and functioned mostly for the popular acts of the time. yeah the war was on full swing (pun intended), and this movie gave the troops and our audiences a treat.

but let's have something with a bit more substance.

loved seeing a young Buddy Rich on the drums. the music was good throughout.

but one cameo after another gets old fast.

i didn't even recognize Zero Mostel! so if you're one from the "greatest generation," as they say, you'll definitely enjoy this...

movie.

Sentiment: negative
That's the only word I can think of to describe this movie. Not waste as in a waste of time (any time spent with these characters is never wasted), but waste as in a waste of opportunities.

When I see this movie, I think of all the Star Trek novels that were written which would have made a much better film than the story Shatner chose. The setup was like an average television episode, while the finish felt like the climax (if you can call it that) of the first movie.

Nimoy, in directing II-IV, focused on the character of Spock--how he faced the Kobayashi Maru outside of the classroom, and how he handled his emotional live now that he had a chance to start fresh. Shatner could have done the same with Kirk here, but he didn't. We don't know much about Kirk that we didn't know before. Again, one of the novels would have been better--try "My Enemy, My Ally" for a very interesting character study of our friend James T. The minor characters are used mostly for cute bits, and the Scotty-Uhura subplot seems way out of left field, particularly since the subtext in the original series was Sulu-Uhura.

Even hardcore fans can't find much to enjoy here. Sorry, but it's true.

Sentiment: negative
(some spoilers) - as if you wouldn't know how it'll end

My expectations for HOLLOW MAN were high. A very good commercial, a director like Paul Verhoeven and actors like Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue, plus a very interesting theme - invisibility. Every premise for a great movie was accomplished. Unfortunately these things didn't matter at all. The movie was very very week, without suspense and awfully predictable. 

It's all about a bunch of scientists who discovered invisibility. After the tests on animals succeeded, Kevin Bacon decides to test it on himself. Once he's invisible, he changes completely, realizing the advantages of not being seen. From this to murder there's a very thin line.

Hollow Man is an ill movie. It suffers of the disease that many new movies have: the special effects. From a challenging theme that could have lead the producers to a great tensed psychological thriller, Verhoeven ruins everything focusing only on special effects, without giving a damn about the real value of the movie. I must admit, the fx are awesome, probably the best i have seen since Matrix, but that's not enough to make a movie good. Actually that's the problem with the movies today. Just like Verhoeven, most directors care only about spectacular scenes - and nothing more. The exceptions are very few, and probably the Matrix is the only movie that combines perfectly fabulous special effects and great plot.

After Starship Troopers, Verhoeven disappoints again. In stead of a great film, HM is cr*p. There are only 2 reasons why you could watch this movie: 1. the special effects 2. the joke with Superman and Wonder Woman (i won't spoil this moment for you...)

Okay, so what went wrong with the movie? Everything. Let's see what i can remember.

--- It's not tensed at all. It should've been, but it's not.

--- It's too predictable . You know from the beginning who will die and who will live.

--- In stead of focusing on the psychological part, Verhoeven cares only about the effects.

--- Very many cliches. 

--- Of course the bad guy wakes up a few times before dying.

--- Just like in every low quality horror, the first rule is to let the characters separate as much as possible. Every time there is somebody alone in the lab, perfect victim for Bacon.

--- Some holes in the plot. Example: at the beginning, Bacon has to scan his finger to enter the lab. After he's invisible, how can he do that?

--- The ending: absolutely horrible.

--- After Shue hits Bacon in the head, Bacon falls down to the ground. Then Shue and Brolin leave quietly and slowly, without looking back. Is that normal? Then Bacon gets up, attacks them, they "kill" him again. And then Shue screams "I heard an explosion" (happened minutes ago), and they suddenly run inside. Didn't she hear that explosion some time before?

--- There's a scene in which you can see the microphones hanging above the actors. Come on, Mr Verhoeven , i expected much more from you!

So that's about Hollow Man. What was supposed to be a great movie turned into a scam. 

Vote: 4 out of 10 (for the special effects)

Sentiment: negative
"Everything is Illuminated" is like viewing a fine piece of museum quality artwork. It absolutely inundates the emotions through a very broad spectrum. Jonathan Safran Foer is played with candor by Elijah Wood. He is in search of his paternal heritage in the Ukraine. His travels bring him in contact with Alex, played very well and with extreme humor by Eugene Hutz. His grandfather is the most emotional tie to this film and he is aptly portrayed by Boris Leskin. If one finds little humor in the human characters in this cinema, then one has only to turn to Mikke, a real dog who is called Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. by Alex and his grandfather. They also call him the "seeing eye bitch". The cinematography is spectacular. The colors are a very important part of the patchwork of the film. It is a film worth the time and emotional investment.

Sentiment: positive
I love the way that this game can make you literally jump out of your seat while you are playing it. The way that the screen jumps and flashes when you get hit, its very realistic while at the same time you have to remember that its just a game and your not really there. The sound effects and audio are amazing. There are a lot of weapons and different spells to cast and you can even choose which spells to make stronger or not. You get this stone that can knock back enemies while you recover mana to blast your foes with even more magic. The best part is that the whole time you are playing it you are really jumpy and afraid of what might lurk around the next corner or what might jump out behind you. If you want to get the full experience, try playing it with head phones on.

Sentiment: positive
This is a whodunnit in the Hitchcock tradition. You are kept in the dark as suspects come and go. Dennis Quaid is supurb as Dexter, a man doomed to die and Meg Ryan excellent as his babe. There is not much not to like in this little suspense and all the pieces fit neatly together the way they should. You won't be sorry you watched this one if you like suspense.

Sentiment: positive
Well here I go with another B industry movie. It's sad enough to see some badly made films but I don't care if a B industry or C industry produces the film. Show some effort in your work. The characters are really bad. The acting isn't in question in this one (surprise), but plot is. How can a tight-knit squad witness two of their fellow soldiers butchered, and then go on as if nothing happened. What sickened me was how the writer even threw in the remaining members a scene where they joke about how nice the doctor's ass was. Give me a break.

Sentiment: negative
If this is classed as 'real life' of London, then the producers must be on different planet.

It is the most depressing, suicidal, dark, dingy, dross on TV.

Everyone is fighting, everything has nasty under tones running through it, nothing is done for genuine reasons.

If you want a real life picture of people in London or the UK, then this programme is by the farthest from reality.

There is not one good word I can say about this programme. The only certainty is that will be a great big fight over Christmas dinner.

Even the characters are totally unbelievable!

Sentiment: negative
So, I got a hold of this as an assignment for Trent Harris, who teaches occasionally in the film dept at the U of U. I guess this is his only real way to get anyone to see his film...

The documentary section at the beginning dragged on. Yes, the kid is a nut-job from no where, but that's not good enough to keep it interesting.

Seeing Sean Penn dressed as a ONJ is the only highlight... and after about thirty seconds it loses all humor.

When Crispin Glover takes on Larry, the story-telling was better, but I just couldn't take anymore...

Sentiment: negative
If you want to see a movie about two utterly unsympathetic characters, this is the one. The acting is superb, both from John Cassavetes as the insane paranoid whom, as the saying goes, they REALLY ARE out to get, and from Peter Falk as his lifelong best friend to whom he turns for rescue. Big mistake, but since they're both amoral mobsters, and misogynistic bastards to boot, it's hard to decide whom to root for LESS. Only writer/director Elaine May could have gotten away with this one. I thought it interesting that in a lengthy interview with producer Michael Hausman included on the DVD, he disclosed that the two stars had "very different ideas" about the script, that the director was nearly impossible to work with, that the director of photography had impossible demands made of him, that the crew was constantly angry about being made to sit around waiting, and so on. This mood of one big VERY dysfunctional family comes across clearly on the screen.

Sentiment: negative
I am decidedly not in the target audience for this film. I am a man nearly 50 who has only recently stumbled across the world of independent film. This happened quite by accident, with the discovery of a movie called Clerks late one night on television. The first two things I noticed about that film were that it was 1) technically amateurish and 2) brilliantly written. When I read an interview with the director in the local paper and he said that one of his influences was Clerks, I started to get interesting. When he said his main influence was The Station Agent, a movie I'd seen on DVD a week prior, I decided I had to go and check it out. The result could be described along the same lines as Clerks, although the two films are nothing alike content wise. Both films suffer from technical gaffes that are overcome through amazing writing. Whereas Clerks is a day in the life of a man who has nothing in his life at all and is afraid to ask tough questions about himself and his situation, Less Like Me is about a man who seemingly forces himself to be constantly busy, he's always running one way or another, filling his life with little things so that he will never have to deal with the big ones. The themes and ideas of this film are strong and poignant. I can tell from watching it that not much has changed since I was growing up, young men still have the same problems they always have. The writer dresses up these problems and themes in the modern vernacular, crafts wonderfully honest characters, and has them do completely believable things. As far as indie cinema goes, this may not be perfect from a technical standpoint, but from an artistic one, it is very close.

Sentiment: positive
Do-It-Yourself indie horror auteur Todd Sheets returns with another entertainingly atrocious nickel'n'dime shot-on-video clunker that's basically just a feeble excuse to sling around a lot of watery blood and gleaming guts as often as possible. An evil demonic scarecrow resurrects the dead as ravenous rot-faced zombies so they can feast on the living. A bunch of bickering college kids, a trio of dangerous escaped convicts led by the vicious Slade (Byron Nichodemus hamming it up to an outrageous degree), two equally savage sleazeball hoodlums, and a trio of hottie sisters all have to do their best to survive this harrowing ordeal. That's it for the needlessly muddled and convoluted plot, but fortunately what this hilariously horrendous hoot lacks in narrative coherence (plenty) it more than compensates for with a pleasing plethora of gloriously gross'n'graphic gore. Disgusting highlights include a woman having her fingers chopped off, a fatal gunshot to a young gal's groin, attempted necrophiliac rape, evisceration, and, of course, more repulsive entrail eating than you can shake a pile of moist intestines at. Moreover, we've also got rough, grainy cinematography that constantly alternates between washed-out color and grimy black and white, ineptly staged fight scenes, lousy acting from a uniformly pathetic no-name cast (Jerry Angell in particular cops the top crummy thespic dishonors for his laughably abysmal histrionics as slimy no-count psycho criminal Joe Bob), a grating head-banging thrash metal soundtrack, and a generic shivery'n'ominous synthesizer score. Let's not forget the ridiculous ending in which several of our survivors stumble across a few vials of flesh-eating bacteria to use on the shambling undead hordes. Sure, this flick is pure dreck, but it has a certain endearingly abominable quality to it that in turn makes it a great deal of so-awful-it's-awesome Grade Z fun for hardcore aficionados of bad fright fare.

Sentiment: positive
"Shadrach" was not my favorite type of movie. I found it overly sentimental and the acting was below par. Harvey Keitel and Andie MacDowell were good but some of the other actors weren't at all believable. I also did not believe that Paul's parents would go away and leave him with the Dabney family, especially when they had a housekeeper living in the home. Their social classes were too far apart to consider this believable. It seemed the Dabney's lifestyle was too exaggerated. There was a scene in the beginning of the movie that showed Andie MacDowell getting out of a car after having sex with someone. Who was it? Her son? What was the scene supposed to show us? Why was the scene even included? It had nothing to do with the rest of the movie and was in fact never alluded to again. It seemed gratuitous and not fitting into the story at all. There were too many inconsistencies in the movie for me. The story concerning Shadrach was nice but I wasn't convinced that the Dabneys would have been as kind and generous as they were portrayed.

Sentiment: negative
Stop me if you hard this one before, some cheerleaders, their coach and a couple guys are trapped within a cabin in the woods when an unseen killer kills them off one by one. Shame on me, after I totally wrote off Jim Wynorski after the horrid "Busty Cops" (it was a long time coming as his last truly good film was 1990's "Hard to Die"), I still for some reason got my hopes up for a supposed sequel to "Slumber Party Massacre". Sadly even my mediocre expectations were not met. This outing is not nearly as fun as even the three previous films in the franchise (and yes I'm including SPM 2, that should tell you something) Furthermore how can you have a slasher film with this little gore??? I mean Come on now!! 

My Grade: D 

Eye Candy: Ricky Ray gets topless; April Flowers and Charity Rahmer show boobs and buns in a shower scene (April gets nude again later in the film), and Tamie Sheffield gets topless and bares buns

Sentiment: negative
All the talent Mr. Sooraj Barjatya showed in his first 3 movies, I thought were all an accident because his 4th one Main prem ki diwani hoon was so bad. But I have to say it wasn't an accident. This guy is talented and the way he has done Vivah is just brilliant. Right from the first scene it affects you. the sequences between shahid and amrita are awesome. The chemistry between these two actors gives glimpses of that between srk and kajol. As usual Alok Nath as the good and loving father is fantastic, so is Anupam Kher. But its a Shahid-Amrita film.Amrita looks good in most scenes though shahid does look a little young to get married but he does a good job of a shy but yet morally strong groom. this movie will especially be liked by those who has gone through such beautiful moments in their life. All in all a brilliant film. hats off to Mr. Sooraj Barjatya...

Sentiment: positive
Unhinged was part of the Video Nasty censorship film selection that the UK built up in the 80's. Keeps the gory stuff out of the hands of children, don't you know! It must have left many wondering what the fuss was all about. By today's standard, Unhinged is a tame little fairy tale.

3 girls are off to a jazz concert... and right away, you know the body count is going to be quite low. They get lost in the woods, & wind up getting in a car accident that looks so fake it's laughable. They are picked up by some nearby residents that live in the woods in a creepy house. One of the girls is seriously injured and has to stay upstairs. Then there's talking. Talking about why the girls are here, and how they must be to dinner on time because mother doesn't like it when someone is late. And more talking. Yakkity yak. Some suspense is built as a crazy guy is walking around and harassing the girls, and someone's eyeball is looking through holes in the walls at the pretty girls in something that looks like Hitchcock's Psycho. I digress because there is so much blah blah in this film, that you wonder when the killings are going to start. In fact, one of the girls gets so bored out of her mind that she walks in the woods, alone, looking for the town. Smart move. She probably knew about the lonely virgin walking alone in the woods part, but just didn't care. More talk continues after this as we wait, wait, and wait some more until the next girl may or may not be killed.

And then there's the twist ending. The "expected" unexpected for some viewers, for others a real gotcha. Quite possibly the ONLY reason why someone would really want to watch this. I don't care how twisted it is, nothing in this movie makes up for the most boring time I had watching it. Even with the minor impact of the ending, the director just didn't have what it takes to really deliver a good story with it. It would have made a much better 30 minute - 1 hour TV episode on say, Tales from the Darkside.

If you really must get this for any reason, perhaps just to say you've watched every slasher movie, do yourself a favor and have the fast-forward button ready. Since the movie has so many unimportant scenes, just zoom through them, and in no time, you'll get to the "WOW, that's what it was all this time" ending. Oh and halfway through the movie there's a shower scene with 2 girls showing boo-bees. Horray for boo-bees. Those beautiful buzzing honey-making boo-bees.

Sentiment: negative
This movie is not just bad, not just corny, it is repulsive. Something about Daphne, about the creepy call-girl, about the whole damn (and I use the word literally) film radiates a grotesquery that would offend a brothel mistress. This film makes my skin crawl, makes me regret having reproductive organs, and makes me feel unclean.

One of the things that bothers me most about this movie is that they used such a good concept. A creature that makes fantasies with disastrous results, rather than the cliché Worst Nightmare and the overdone Twisted Wish, is a truly fascinating film idea.

Thought: The reason why hobgoblins need to be killed before day is that they are attracted to bright lights. During the day, bright lights don't show up well, so they could go anywhere.

Count the Hobgoblins: Four hobgoblins drive out of the film studio, and yet at least nine of the pernicious plush-toys are killed throughout the course of the movie.

Discussion Question: If you had a frigid, demanding, unappreciative girlfriend, would you enter garden-tool-combat with a military chunkhead? Explain.

Sentiment: negative
I'm trying to find something of value here. The best I can muster is that Truffaut wanted to make a movie as tedious, painful, puerile, annoying, illogical, and brainless as the experience of being in love. If that was his goal, then he succeeded, but the solution to his exercise is really a drag to watch.

There is one scene that screams for a spoof: Belmondo compares the features of Deneuve's face to the features in a landscape . All I could think the whole time was "glacier," "ice floe," "two lonely fishermen wearing Army surplus on a frozen lake in Minnesota."

The only other point of interest was the resurrection of Buffoon's theory of climatic determinism. The tropics are presented as paradise, and things get progressively worse as they get colder, hell being Calvinist French Switzerland. That was kind of funny.

Sentiment: negative
Over acted, heavy handed, full of speeches, preachy, on the nose, and over stylized in a way only MTV could be guilty of, Stop-Loss is agit-prop garbage. I expected a lot more with talented young actors such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ryan Philippe, but Screenwriter/Director Kimberly Peirce does a hatchet job of portraying the ill effects of war on American youth. I'm sure she did some work researching the Iraq war and the young men fighting in it, but you'd never guess it from watching Stop-Loss. In many ways this mess reminded me of Catherine Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown, an equally inept, overly stylized, TV movie-like waste of solid subject matter.

http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/

Sentiment: negative
When I first saw "A Cry in the Dark", I had no idea what the plot was. But when I saw it, I was shocked at what it portrayed. When I saw it a second time in an Australian Cinema class, I realized a second point: communication issues. You see, when a dingo snatched Lindy Chamberlain's (Meryl Streep) baby, she and her husband Michael (Sam Neill) were grief-stricken but didn't show it. As Seventh Day Adventists, they believed that God willed this to happen, and so they couldn't mourn it. But when people all over Australia saw their lack of sadness, everyone started believing that Lindy did it herself.

The point is, the wrong message got communicated to the public, and it turned people against Lindy. Even though this was a pure accident, it still happened. It may be one of the biggest disasters resulting from the existence of mass media, regardless of any media outlet's political views.

As for the performances, Streep does a very good job with an Australian accent (no surprise there), and Sam Neill is equally great. You will probably get blown away just by what you see here. Definitely one of Fred Schepisi's best movies ever.

Sentiment: positive
Would a different translation have made it chillier or scarier? Are the subtitles too compact to convey the nuances of the original language? Does it even matter? You may have heard that great actors can make reading a phone book exciting. Well, this is an opportunity to judge for yourself. 

If this isn't about homosexuality, murder, dismemberment, psychopaths, insanity, deviant psychology, then it is about acting - acting helped along with lots of dialog, So, enjoy the acting or muse about how titillating the dialog actually is.

For English speakers, "Twelve Angry Men" might be a better choice. There's a bit more interaction, and you can judge if the acting is consistent with the dialog. You don't have to wonder if you're missing something.

I would recommend Andy Warhol's "Empire" to those who like this film.

Sentiment: negative
A dreary, hopelessly predictable film set in a most unpleasant setting (lower Coachella Valley). Acting is as amateurish as any I've seen. Looks like a screenwriting 101 script. However, it does function as a great sedative.

Sentiment: negative
I am a Shakespeare fan, and I can appreciate what Ken Branagh has done to bring Shakespeare back for a new generation of viewers. However, this movie falls short of conveying the overall intentions of the play with the ridiculous musical sequences. Add that with Alicia Silverstone's stumbling over the dialogue (reminiscent of Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing) and other poorly cast roles, it all equals an excruciating endurance of viewing.

Sentiment: negative
This "movie" will give me nightmares, I will wake up drenched in sweat, screaming "I didn't make this film please don't blame me!" I honestly think it would have been more entertaining to watch a fat guy eating lard in his moms basement for a hour or two, than to watch this crap. I understand money was tight but goddamn what the hell were they thinking there was no thought, plot or effort put into this. This movie needs a warning "Please for the love of god don't fund the drama department a the local JC." On an other note these are the least likable characters I have ever seen, and I have seen movies with Hitler in them. So lastly take my advice the next time you even think about renting this just pop a few hundred Adivl and let the sleep come.

Sentiment: negative