uid,id,stars,review,sentiment,type,filename,url 25000,27297,0,"This movie is so bad, you can't help but laugh. The dialogue is horrible, the acting is horrible, the effects are horrible. It is not scary, but it is a helleva good laugh.",,Train,./train/unsup/27297_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093855/usercomments 25001,42807,0,"One is a good first effort by a novice director. Good acting, excellent special effects and cameos by Cleveland news celebrities make this a relatively painless way to spend a couple hours. The weak points were the script and editing which made the story confusing in some parts and overly simplistic in others. Tomeric shows that he has the technical skill to make a reasonable science fiction movie- it will be interesting to see what he can do with a decent script in a more challenging genre like comedy or drama.",,Train,./train/unsup/42807_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0227189/usercomments 25002,4422,0,"Maybe I should have seen this when I was a kid. Perhaps viewing it for the first time in the 21st century just doesn't provide the necessary atmosphere to appreciate what this film is about. But for whatever reason, this movie didn't grab my attention at all. It was full of long, and as far as I can tell, pointless shots of people walking, riding bikes, driving cars, or just plain standing around. They were accompanied by spooky noises or music, but they still dragged on for way too long. Maybe that was the late 70's way of building tension, but by the time 20 minutes had gone by, I was so disenfranchised that there was no way I could be apprehensive. And this while watching it in the dead of night alone with the lights off.

I love horror movies, and especially hokey ones like Evil Dead. My wife and friends start groaning whenever I go off on some movie that everyone else thinks is stupid. But this one...it just didn't work for me.",,Train,./train/unsup/4422_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079714/usercomments 25003,12374,0,"This film is one of the great ones. Having served on an aircraft carrier for 2.5 years, I'm familiar with aircraft carrier excitement. But the movie was more than just wonderful shots of the U.S. Nimitz. The cast was top drawer, and their acting was as good as it gets. Standing above all the great performances was a Japanese actor portraying a shot-down, highly competent, captured Japanese Zero pilot. While racism understandably raises its ugly head during wartime, with epithets and insults hurled in both directions, in fact this Japanese actor portrayed a Japanese warrior at his finest--someone whom Japanese viewers would be proud of. Played equally well were American military personnel, including some Marines. One of the candid themes of the movie is the tragedy of such fine people going to war against each other, whatever their race.

The film is undeniably top drawer, far more mature than than ""Top Gun,"" with even better flying scenes. So I've often wondered why it isn't widely known and not kept in stock in widescreen format. Perhaps the answer is today's wimpy trend towards ""politically correct"" dialog. In one scene, Kirk Douglas refers to the captured Japanese pilot as a ""yellow bastard."" In the video version, this was sanitized. However, sanitized or not, the original racial comment, by itself, may have doomed the film from greater video distribution.

I saw the film when it came out in wide-screen format and saw it several times before it left town. Thereafter, the only other versions available in video were ""fit-to-TV-screen"" size. That was tragic! Though still exciting in ""box"" format, the widescreen original was breathtaking. I cannot imagine why producers haven't released this in DVD in original wide-screen format. It makes a huge difference with this film! (Aircraft carriers are huge!)

One interesting comment to add about the F-14 flying scenes. I was awed by one particular F-14 maneuver, which I didn't think airplanes were capable of doing. A couple of years later, I talked with a Navy fighter pilot and brought this up. He was very familiar with that scene and personally knew the pilot who flew the F-14 in the movie. He told me that the F-14 almost crashed in that scene, stalling while trying to fly too slow, diving for the ocean to pick up speed, and barely recovering just above the wave tops. This near-accident was caught on film and added immensely to the exhibition of flying skill. An exception had been granted to the Navy's policy of not allowing ""dissimilar aircraft"" to fly together in movie scenes. The result of that granted exception was almost the loss of an F-14.

This is an incredibly good drama. I found that the various twists and turns, and particularly the call-it-off ending, all contributed to the drama and moral dilemmas. This is a fine, great movie. Like others who commented here, it seems tragic that this film is not available in widescreen DVD format. Everyone I've shown it to loves it, male and female. Feminism and romance are included, along with a collie dog for the kids.",,Train,./train/unsup/12374_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/usercomments 25004,12131,0,"When I first saw My Dinner with Andre, I didn't like it. It was the opposite of what I thought a movie should be. It seemed to be all talk and little action or movement (the formula for pure cinema is just the opposite). However, something about it stuck with me, and I was lucky enough to catch it again. The second viewing of this film really paid off. I had my bearings and could follow the conversation as it flowed back and forth from the transcendental and almost mystical explorations of Andre to the simple, practical, everyday appreciations of Wally. It suddenly occurred to me that what was happening was much more than just an unusual dinner conversation--it was a back and forth between the two great viewpoints of life. There is something wonderfully exciting and courageous about Andre's search for the truth and reality of things as he travels to mountains and deserts to find it. But there is equally something as exciting and brilliant in Wally's ability to see the miracle of a quiet evening at home (even reading the autobiography of Charlton Heston) or doing his errands and crossing them off the list. Both men are wonderful, and one realizes that this is not just a lot of talk and no action; as with many great artworks, everything is going on just under the surface--all the action is in the realm of ideas, not in physical motion. At the end, like Wally, we come away from the dinner with Andre quite changed for the better. Somehow the world is a little more beautiful, a little more alive, and we are a little more able to see its beauty and appreciate the miracle of it all.",,Train,./train/unsup/12131_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082783/usercomments 25005,32663,0,"We recently screened this film for our English class and I found it to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. There are WAY to many closeups of this actress, the plot was very weak, the props were poorly manufactured, and the sound was unbearable.

DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM.

The film shouldn't have been released to the United States and should have just stayed in Bollywood land where it belongs. This film is neither shocking nor riveting. I can't believe how many people liked this film. A group of normal college kids from Chicago all unanimously agreed that this film was complete trash.",,Train,./train/unsup/32663_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228560/usercomments 25006,30166,0,"Don't let this pass you by. Evocative, funny, poignant, and tragic by turns, it leaves you with a warm feeling and a sense of puzzlement: if they can make things as good as this, how come we have to put up with so much dross? Great ensemble playing, great music, stand-out miniature performances from Christine Lahti, Mercedes Ruehl, Rosie Perez, and Gregory Hines, but the icing on the cake is a chilling song from Taryl Hicks in ""Sax Cantor Riff"". The musical close under the credits was also a knock-out.

Quote of the movie: ""Only in New York...""",,Train,./train/unsup/30166_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120240/usercomments 25007,47314,0,"Naturally, I would hate this movie, because Eddward Furlong is in it. Sadly, that isn't the only reason this sucks. The acting is crap, the plot is forgettable and horror is cheesy. The fact that there is too much violence and not enough atmosphere ruins this movie (the first one sucked too).

I obviously wouldn't recommend this movie to any one with a sense of taste for movies. The actors are awful! (especially Edward Furlong) This movie really just seems like an excuse to desensitize people to violence.

In closing, this movie is pretty lowsy and deserves to be on the bottom 100. If you like movies with strong plots and powerful acting, don't waste your time with this.",,Train,./train/unsup/47314_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105128/usercomments 25008,48524,0,"Despite its comic intentions, Smiley Face turned out to be one of the least funny titles in a genre that has produced several winners. Anna Faris in the lead role is nearly comatose, self-destructive to the point where it's hard to laugh casually at her situation. She functions as a lost child throughout the entire film, barely speaking in complete sentences as her world collapses around her.

The movie strives for zany unpredictability by featuring one mishap after another; unfortunately, the consistently bad outcomes make the plot anything but surprising. The supporting cast is frequently as dull as the main character is demented, and the majority of the jokes fall flat. Those that don't are often written out on the screen, repeated several times, or uttered slowly in case the viewer might be high as well.

Smiley Face takes Hollywood's chic stoner anti-hero to a new low, moving at the pace of a tricycle and leaving plot holes that range from intentional to confusing to downright bizarre. Where Cheech Marin, Dave Chappelle, and John Cho had intelligent witticisms to contribute, Anna Faris displays an eternally glazed look on her face that the viewer will most likely share.",,Train,./train/unsup/48524_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780608/usercomments 25009,40032,0,"what a waste movie, where is the acting??? where are the scenes???

i don't blame Indian audiences, they have lost the taste long time ago. how can this silly movie be a big blockbuster.

other than Lata mangeshkar's voice nothing is good in it. a boring story line that only starts from the second hour.

how can this movie be hit??? and a great classic like Lamhe flop ?? plus Madhuri Dixit didn't deserve that years award. I think Sridevi deserved the award for her powerful performance in Laadla. really there is no match.

i really advice u to avoid this movie. One star only goes for Lata's voice nothing else",,Train,./train/unsup/40032_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110076/usercomments 25010,6491,0,"Baseball is a great sport, but an horrible subject for movies. Except perhaps for EIGHT MEN OUT, or films where the sport is not the principal subject, like COBB, FIELDS OF DREAM, FEAR STRIKES OUT or BULL DURHAM, a comedy. Every time someone tries to make a serious film about baseball, it always fail. Billy Crystal offers us nothing original. His film is full of clichés : abusive slow motions (on the crucial moments, of course) stupid special effect when we see the ball coming right to us, horrible heavy orchestral muzak (on the crucial moments, of course). But the two young actors, Pepper & Jane, are doin' a very fine job. Also, Crystal offers us a good early sixties set. Hey! How about a movie about Barry Bonds breaking McGwire record ? And, in a few years, how about a film about Vladimir Guerrero breaking Bonds record ? I hope that some day Spike Lee will make his movie about Jackie Robinson. That will be the best serious baseball movie of all time.",,Train,./train/unsup/6491_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250934/usercomments 25011,3540,0,"I saw Scrapple at the 1998 Breckenridge Film Fest. The description of the film read, ""Pigs, drugs, and ski bums."" I was intrigued, to say the least, by what would be my favorite film of the festival.

The opening credit scenes had me believing I was watching a movie that was filmed in the mid '70s. By the second scene I knew I was in for a great film. Having lived in ski towns for the past 10 years, I can safely say that Scapple does an outstanding job of relaying the universal, timeless truisms of ski town life.

Entertaining, funny, and cinematically beautiful, the film sends a small message that hits close to home. During the story we fall in love with Al Dean, the king of blind luck, in his efforts to make things right.

This is a film that was put together remarkably well, especially for a first time, independent project. After seeing a movie like Scrapple, one wonders how this film isn't being distributed on a national level, when so many undeserving movies are. I suppose blame lies in the unenlightened viewing public and not in the quality of the film, as Scrapple is the most underrated film I have yet to see.

Kudos to the Hanson brothers for their grassroots efforts to get this movie seen by appreciative moviegoers.",,Train,./train/unsup/3540_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0152319/usercomments 25012,46775,0,"Boy, I never knew how bad a movie can be, but after watching about 20 minutes of this piece of s&%#t I do. To me there is nothing funny about this movie, even if I try to give my brains a so-called day of. It is not that I am interested in more pretentious movies. I mean, I do like ""Under siege"", ""Die hard"" and also some of Jacky Chan's works, but these flicks at least do have descent settings and some funny dialogue.

City hunter will entertain let's say 3 to 8 year olds who are not so bright and it makes one wonder how this scrap made it on DVD while a genuine masterpiece like ""The fearless vampire killers"" is still waiting for a DVD release.",,Train,./train/unsup/46775_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103950/usercomments 25013,38221,0,"I think this is quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. I kept watching waiting for a plot, my husband and I both missed a possible plot. So many things are left unanswered!! I feel like I just woke up from a bad dream and now I'll spend the rest of my evening confused and trying to figure it out. I don't even know if I can tell you what the movie was about I'm so confused but I'll tell you what I know. This guy is in this apartment building where no one acts normal at all. The neighbors are strange, and even the guy at the grocery store is strange. He pays high prices for small items at the grocery store....which is odd, who pays 90 bucks for a gallon of milk? He is trying to figure out what is going on around him and then comes this pretty lame explanation and a very strange ending to the movie. As you are still waiting for them to answer so many questions that have been brought up by the attempt at a plot.....the movie ends...we actually had to check the chapters left on the DVD to see if that was REALLY the end!!!

I wouldn't waste my time with this film unless you like ""fill in the blank"" movies!",,Train,./train/unsup/38221_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317042/usercomments 25014,13949,0,"The Battle of the River Plate is an almost documentary like account of the battle of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee with three allied cruisers and what happened to her subsequently. Heading the small mini fleet was Captain Anthony Quayle and the German captain of the Graf Spee was played by Peter Finch.

December of 1939 was the period known as the 'phony war'. Poland had been overrun by the Nazis and the British and French forces were on the continent safely behind the Maginot line or so they thought at the time. What action there was at this time was on the sea with various naval engagements here and there.

The Graf Spee was doing one number on British commerce in the South Atlantic. It sank nine British merchant vessels, but her captain was no Nazi. He observed the rules of war strictly, picked up sailors from the sunken vessels and all reported good treatment at his hands. When he did reach Montevideo he let all the British sailors go. Sad to say this was not something repeated during World War II.

In any event two British and one New Zealand cruiser, the Ajax, the Achilles and the Exeter took on the Graf Spee and fought it to a bloody standstill. The British were lucky to have facilities at the Falkland Islands for repair. But the Graf Spee headed for Montevideo which was neutral territory at the time.

I'm not quite sure why they did not make for the friendlier shores of Buenos Aires on the River Plate. Even though Juan Peron had not taken charge in Argentina, it was still friendlier to the Germans than Uruguay was. Possibly Finch's character Lansdorff knew the history of Uruguay, a country founded as a neutral buffer state between Argentina and Brazil. In any event the Uruguayans operated correctly under the assumption that they would be at war sooner or later with the Germans as indeed were all the Latin American countries except Argentina after Pearl Harbor. The Graf Spee would have made quite the prize indeed.

As German, British, and Uruguayan diplomats tried to negotiate, Finch took action and blew up the Graf Spee in the middle of the River Plate. The Nazi propaganda machine made him a martyr which in fact he was and the British public was given something to cheer about in those beginning days of World War II.

Finch and Quayle give good performances as a pair of gallant adversaries and The Battle Of The River Plate is a fine war film from the United Kingdom in which even the enemy behaved gallantly.",,Train,./train/unsup/13949_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048990/usercomments 25015,23678,0,"This good-guy-vs-the-evil-tyrant story, set in 19th century Russia, may have been an attempt to extend Steve Reeves' career beyond those ""Hercules"" movies. However, despite the different costumes, it's still a ""Hercules"" movie with the usual stilted dialog, haphazard dubbing, and cardboard characters. On the other hand, there's lots of action, the pace rarely flags, and Reeves gets to do yet another one of those scenes where he's stripped to the waist, bound with ropes, and given a vigorous whipping which, needless to say, has little effect on his defiant character.",,Train,./train/unsup/23678_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052538/usercomments 25016,31868,0,"This is a Thai horror film that was simply fun to watch. A group of friends visit an old teacher of theirs who lives in the jungle. We see through flash backs that terrible things happened to them in the past at their school. Their beautiful teacher seems to have become a homicidal devil worshiping witch. Not only is she able to conjure the dead and cast spells that will make your stomach turn (think fish hooks and reptiles + soft human flesh); but she also seems to have a predilection for torture using a blow torch. Let the mayhem begin!

If you can find it online, download the trailer of the movie and watch it...its one of the best horror trailers you will see. And the movie itself is just as fun. What else can I say about this movie? Interesting and unpredictable storyline. Beautiful jungle scenery. Hot (but evil) Thai babes. Gratuitous gore. What's not to like guys? Watch this one and have a blast!",,Train,./train/unsup/31868_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756222/usercomments 25017,13154,0,"Big Spoiler Alert. So read this only if you've already seen it... or don't care. But you should see it.

First, I give this a 7. It's got some great actors, music, and directing. The creepy mood that the miniseries created was perfect. I sat and watched this straight through and wasn't bored once, despite it's being 5 hours long. UNFORTUNATELY, I couldn't escape two things. First, the massive plot holes, especially towards the ending, and second, the fact that they gave up on the mystery of the room by the final third of the film. One example of a huge hole: The Order. Why even create that subplot if you're going to leave it hanging the way they did? The only answer is that this was supposed to be a pilot. But it didn't feel that way. And there are dozens more that make equally little sense. Second, the mystery was just dropped. The whole question about how and why the room came to be and who the Occupant was before whatever happened happened was just left to float away as though no one would really care anyway. Sure, Joe wanted his daughter back and one could argue that he was thinking about her and nothing else. But to use that explanation is just giving the film an excuse to be sloppy. For a detective, he barely asked any questions and I feel as though it was intentional so we would forget that there was a mystery to begin with. People, especially detectives, are curious and I'm sure that if confronted with something this bizarre, they'd be asking questions for hours (and not get up and leave before the omelets even arrive).

Sadly, these two problems seriously deflated my impression of the series. In large part because they were so annoying. It started out so fun with the competing groups vying for control of the objects and the characters involved behind the secrecy. But once the last hour came, it was as though the studio sent down a memo telling the director to wrap it up so they could start filming a reality TV show on the sets.

This is another example of why you give people enough time to complete the story rather than force it into an allotted time slot. My only hope is that these problems I had were the result of an over-zealous editing team, and that if a DVD of the miniseries comes out, the scenes from the cutting-room floor can be picked up and re-attached so that some sense can be made out of the thing.

In conclusion, it's good. Very good. But it could have been great.",,Train,./train/unsup/13154_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0830361/usercomments 25018,12101,0,"This film has a script so terrible that I reluctantly sat through the entire thing (which is mercifully brief) merely to see how it would play out.

SPOILERS ABOUND!

The film opens with a shot of a manzanita pine overlooking the ocean that immediately establishes the Monterey, California setting and calls to mind the 1961 Marlon Brando film ONE-EYED JACKS, a film with a very similar storyline that was also set near Monterey. We then see Jay Turner (Sterling Hayden) and Max Reno (Ted de Corsia) riding horses along the surf and learn they are fleeing from a robbery. They go into a cave that Reno calls a perfect hideout. Presumably the entrance to the cave is hidden when the tide is up. However, anyone looking for the men shouldn't have too much trouble finding their horses outside. Morever, Turner builds a fire inside the cave. Don't they worry about the smoke giving them away? (For my part, I'd worry about being drowned inside the cave during high tide.)

The men talk and we learn that they've only recently met. They are very different types: Turner is satisfied with the $5,000 he's getting from the heist and wants to give up crime, but Reno wants to continue their partnership and is miffed by Turner's retirement. When Turner goes out to the surf to get a pot of water (What's the water for? Is he intending to use seawater for coffee?) Reno follows him and shoots him in the back. He then takes both horses and flees. This scene stunned me. Why didn't Reno shoot Turner inside the cave, where he could have retrieved the $5,000 and left Turner's body better hidden? Since he seemed not to have retried the money, what was the point of shooting Turner?

The next ONE-EYED JACKS element in the film is the appearance of a beautiful young Mexican woman, Maria Salvador (Pamela Duncan), who likes hanging out at the beach alone. Maria drags Turner out of the surf and somehow gets him to her home, where she nurses him back to health. Predictably, Maria and Turner fall in love. Turner is mellowing but is also obsessed with tracking Reno down and returning him to Monterey, where he can be hanged for murder (i.e., murdering Turner). Maria disapproves, but Turner leaves, vowing to return.

Meanwhile, Max Reno manages to set himself up nicely, under his own name, in a town called Delrey. It wasn't clear where Delrey is, but it seems to be in or near Texas. A long way from Monterey, California, but it makes some sense, as Reno doesn't appear to be worried about being caught by the law.

We first see Reno when he is playing cards in a saloon and winning big. He's obviously cheating, and even the sheriff suggests as much, but he nevertheless wins a huge amount from the saloon's owner. (Would a real saloon owner ever play a complete stranger in a high-stakes poker game?) In a back-room scene, the saloon owner signs over half-interest in his place to Reno, who happens to have a ready-to-sign contract in his jacket pocket. Reno then shoots the man dead and gets away with claiming that the man drew on him. Playing a primitive version of DEADWOOD's Al Swearengen, Reno transforms the formerly tame Delrey saloon into a happening place with fast women, a piano player, and dishonest card dealers.

If Delrey really is in Texas, it's a mystery how Turner finds the place, but he does. He makes a dramatic entrance in Reno's saloon and confidently pretends to be ""John York"" from El Paso when Reno confronts him. It's been a year since Reno has seen Turner, and he never knew Turner well to begin with, so he's not completely sure that York is Turner. He tries a few lame schemes to discover York's true identity. If Reno were Swearengen, he'd simply have York killed to be on the safe side. Eventually, he tries to do just that, but his schemes backfire. Turner ends up as deputy sheriff. Then, as acting sheriff, Turner saves Reno from a lynch mob and takes him back to Monterey. After Turner and Reno leave town, there is a curious sequence in which it becomes unclear what Turner's intentions are. Is he really taking Reno back to Monterey? Does he plan to kill Reno himself? Is he reverting to crime, with Reno as his partner? The answer is (a), and Turner delivers Reno to Monterey sheriff. He then rides back to the beach where he first encountered Maria and finds her pottering around the surf. They fall into each other's arms, but Maria is upset to learn what Turner has done to Reno. Despite the fact that Reno shot Turner in the back and later made several more attempts to have him killed, Maria thinks it wrong to have Reno tried for a murder that didn't take place. Seems like nitpicking, if you ask me. Turner asks Maria if she will love him, no matter what. She says yes, and we next see Turner being put in the same jail cell with Reno.

Talk about a movie that doesn't deliver ... there is NO gun battle at Monterey! However, one of the film's few strengths is its ambiguous ending. I expected to see a scene in which Turner is let off the hook for being reformed, but that doesn't happen either. Instead, Reno welcomes Turner into his cell with open arms, forgives him ""for everything that you've done to me."" The film ends with Turner punching Reno out, as the credits begin to roll. Considering how heavy-handed everything in the script has subtle note. Will Is Turner be prosecuted? Will Reno be hanged? We can only guess. Meanwhile, I wouldn't be surprised if the naive Maria goes back to the beach to pick up more men.",,Train,./train/unsup/12101_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050465/usercomments 25019,49051,0,"The dopey, deadpan character sculptured by Leslie Nielsen is back in a ""James Bond-esque"" comedy as agent WD 40. There are more gag misfires in this movie, than a parking lot full of dead batteries. However, he's such a likeable guy, you can make it over the hump.

Unfortunately, with the exit of the mad geniuses (The Zucker Bros. & Jim Abrahms), there's little here in this script to wave the pom-poms about. It's all been done too many times before.

Of honourable mention is a priceless, very quick cameo with Pat Morita, which is an absolute gem. There are other assorted scenarios that came off well, too. See it if you must on a rainy Sunday, but this is pretty old, borrowed and blue.",,Train,./train/unsup/49051_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117723/usercomments 25020,9132,0,"Reportedly five years in the making, this enchanted, inspired production is perhaps not quite on the level of Disney's first-tier masterpieces (Pinocchio, Dumbo, Snow White and Fantasia), but a strong case could be made for it being the best film the studio has released since its 1991 premiere. From the design of the Beast's awesomely monolithic castle to the heart-stopping, Busby Berkley-inspired dance of china and silver in ""Be Our Guest"", this is one of the most rigorously constructed animated films I've seen. Bolstered by grand, romantic themes of self-sacrifice and eternal honor in the face of persecution, this is a marvelous experience for any age.",,Train,./train/unsup/9132_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/usercomments 25021,46312,0,"I almost want to give it a ten for being so perfectly horrible but the fact that he takes this so seriously makes it so bad. I can't help but watch it. It's great! I'll be waiting for the next 2000 chapters, but he calls it ""hip-hopera"". There is no movement to the music after a chapter ends, he rhymes the same word several times in a row. It's plain awful from a musical standpoint but the fact that it's a farcical, unintentional laugh riot, makes it totally awesome! My favorite line is when the midget (and i love that he's referred to as ""the midget"") says ""oh god, I think I just shitted on myself. How could he sing that line with a straight face?",,Train,./train/unsup/46312_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491587/usercomments 25022,38882,0,"I have seen at least four other films (including Michael Moore's documentary) about the guns in America, and their easy availability - three of these were about senseless shootings in schools. And now we have another.

Unfortunately, this is the least interesting of the lot. Gus van Sant's ""Elephant"" tops the board in its classic understatement, and weaves disparate strands together in the end. With this movie, which dissects the aftermath of a school shooting starts off with a tantalising premise - what happens AFTER?

It is almost too horrible to bear, the mother (a marvelous performance by Marcia Gay Harden) of a shooter in a school massacre, the traumatised police officer, the headmaster who is so intent on stopping guns in schools that he neglects (oh cliché cliché!) his own family and so on are all formulaic plot devices at the best. The performances by the main actors are really good, but the poor material they have been given negates all.

There is no sense of interconnectivity between the individual subplots, not really even at the end, when a totally gratuitous bit of violence brings just two of the sub-plot protagonists accidentally together.

The movie builds up to nothing, and so ends with a big SO WHAT?",,Train,./train/unsup/38882_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416471/usercomments 25023,29465,0,"The movie is badly directed though a good story and Vivek Oberoi cannot act. Please buy the movie if you want an example of how not to direct a movie.So see it at you own risk. The use of actresses has been poor. The feel of an old lady coming back to India in search of her love did not sell too well. But I haven't seen any brilliant work from the director in the recent times except for Iqbal which he produced. The movie had everything that makes a commercial success, it is a period movie it was quiet well done, songs were out of the world the two best music directors Rehman and Ismail Darbar and a commercial cast,the dances were choreographed by S.Dawar group the best dancing school available if you add all this with a good story a very good film!!!!! To make a flop with all this is and art by itself. Please buy this copy to see how not to do it.",,Train,./train/unsup/29465_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396690/usercomments 25024,30558,0,"The only Icelandic film I've ever come across. This and it's two (disappointing) sequels, that is. And what an OUTSTANDING film. Wow. The viking film to end all viking films. None of the others made since (Trees Grow on the Stones Too, 13 Warrior, The Pathfinder *yikes!*, the sequels to this film) have been up to much.

Five VIRTUES of When The Raven Flies:

1. Design wise: The viking clichés of (horned) helmets, shiny swords, dragon headed longboats, and the odd galloping stallions are replaced with an authentic, down-to-earth design: Fur caps, black/rusty cleavers/knives, small ocean going merchant vessels, and those curious Icelandic ponies. It is quite odd seeing the characters ride them. The viking warriors feet almost touch the ground, and they ride in a weird trotting style.

Which help bring us closer to what life could have been like back then.

And did I mention how the director has chosen memorable, gritty faces in almost every role? No tall blond semi-gods here, just dirty survivors in a harsh country/island.

2. Plot wise: An Icelandic film about vikings? A chance to show off Icelandic courage, virtue and heroism, right? Wrong. The hero is from IRELAND, rather, and his story is about a viking victim getting back at the perpetrators.

The plot requires minimum knowledge about Icelandic/Norwegian history. It's set during the late 800s AD. While the political power in Norway is being consolidated around one king, Iceland is being colonized by settlers, hunters, traders, political refugees...and Irish slaves. Iceland was considered a loose and distant part of the young kingdom.

The intrigue be a little hard to follow a first. Relax - it will all make sense later on (as characters dwindle in number).

3. Style wise: This gruesome and captivating story of revenge is - yes- a SPAGHETTI WESTERN. Every trick in the Spaghetti-Western handbook. And I mean it as a compliment.This is on par with Sergio Leone on a good day. And how suitable for the material. Talking is kept to a macho minimum. Closeups of frowning faces and steely eyes trying to penetrate the minds of opponents. Quiet. Sudden violent outbursts. Bittersweet ending. The main character, ""Guest"", isn't even presented with a proper name. Clint's nameless character in the Dollar movies, anyone?

This is an Arctic homage to Sergio Leone. Bravo!

4. Endurance: 24 years on and the film is still standing strong. Some bloods'n gore effects are little on the silly side, some sophomore editing. Some synth music and ditto drums upsets the mood a little at times. My DVD version has no stereo/surround sound. The picture is laser disc fine, not DVD or HD fine.

And those were all the flaws. I mean ALL the flaws. The\is film is so frikkin' strong none of the above really matters.

5. The director still hasn't made anything nearly as impressive as this film. The 1988 sequel, In the Shadow of the Raven, had a bigger budget/production. But lacks the Leone-ish sense of urgency. See for yourself. The last film in his trilogy, Den Kvite Viking, had moments of inspired casting/design/mood etc (a talking wooden Jesus effigy stands out), but is totally overwhelmed by a slow and unconvincing plot. Shame. The more reason to love and revere the original!

See it before they cast Nicholas Cage in a remake!",,Train,./train/unsup/30558_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087432/usercomments 25025,29776,0,"This movie stole 2 hours of my life and I want them back! I kept watching, hoping against hope, that something would happen in the film to redeem itself, but alas, it was not to be. Watching this movie is the cinematic equivalent of a root canal. And for a movie so full of sex, this is about the least erotic thing I can imagine.

While Isabelle Huppert is an undeniably talented and beautiful actress, I can not comprehend what would possess her to star in a film like this. This movie is full of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things, for no discernible reason other than to annoy the viewer. None of the characters are remotely realistic, and their actions and motivations make no sense. In a real world, Isabelle Huppert's character would have been imprisoned and/or institutionalized.

The basic story is this: boy goes to live with his parents, dad dies, son pees all over his dad's stuff and masturbates, mom sniffs her son's butt, mom decides to introduce son to a world of sexual deviance and perversion (including participating in group sex with him), mom decides she should leave before the two of them actually have sex (but she conveniently leaves a whore behind for son to fall in love with), mom continues her career as a prostitute, son and whore whip the local restaurateur and cry, mom comes home to cause more trouble, and then mom dies and son masturbates at her coffin.

There, I just saved you two hours and quite a few brain cells.",,Train,./train/unsup/29776_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381392/usercomments 25026,31411,0,"There are few things worse than ""art"" that wants to appear so hip that it's above it all. THE DOOM GENERATION is an empty piece of bloodied fluff, meandering its way from one ""shocking"" scene to another. It's boring and pretentious. Do not waste your money or time on this one.",,Train,./train/unsup/31411_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112887/usercomments 25027,17502,0,"It is not as much a study of eroticism as it is one man's erotic fantasy about the battle between the sexes…

A rich, horny Italian (Mastroianni) meets a woman on a train… When the train stops, he follows her into a lonely wood, which becomes a futuristic world of forceful women who have almost entirely destroyed completely all men in their society…

Mastroianni's character is left alive as a curiosity piece… His experiences carry him deeper and deeper into this bizarre fantasy city… The film never fully provides passion and erotic lusts, but is tickling and stimulating pleasantly none the less... Fellini's point—that women resent the fact that men are easily excited—is most effectively carried by Donatella Damiani, a buxom and very beautiful young actress who runs nearly naked throughout the movie…

Although the film never tires, it never quite completes its erotic expectations either, giving priority to consider carefully its own bizarre reality… It has elements of science fiction and adventure, but is more exactly a fantasy on the estrangement between men and women...",,Train,./train/unsup/17502_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080539/usercomments 25028,40146,0,"Becca appears to have it all: the hunky boyfriend who dotes on her (and Omigahd he proposed!); a chandelier-shattering voice that goes down well at the local bar; a great job teaching chill-drenn, validated by the 'Teacher of the Year' award; and an adoring family and friends. Should be enough for someone who's essentially a loud, large, brassy, not very pretty Jewish princess.

But no - a skinny, classically good-looking blonde shiksa disses her looks, and so Becca has to beat her at one game she's utterly ill-equipped for: a beauty pageant.

!Spoiler for anyone who didn't see it coming! Happily for her, the miracle of movie magic makes it all possible - ignoring any more realistic scenario in which a woman like her would be blown off in seconds for not adhering to Western beauty industry standards.

This one's not like any of a number of other beauty contest films, in which an essentially spectacular girl has her light hidden under a bushel of bad clothes and glasses, to be revealed in time to win in the final reel. And that's because this film is fundamentally a wish-fulfilment fantasy for - pardon me - fat, ugly, spoilt girls who don't look like Sandra Bullock at her messiest. Its message is that external attractiveness doesn't count as much as 'inner beauty'. Of course, the convenient thing about the inner variety is that there's no agreed standard, so just about anyone can claim it and be believable.

Our Becca has loads, of course, as she reveals constantly. The result is inevitable: hip, hip, hooray, the cute blonde is defeated (worse, she's converted), to the vicarious - not very beautiful - schadenfreude of the Becca-alikes in the audience.

The depressing thing about all this is that of course inner beauty exists, and of course it really is ultimately more profound than the external kind. But to specifically pit inner beauty against good looks *in a good-looks contest* is silly, pointless, and smacks of vicarious spoilt greed. A rather ugly film.

CD",,Train,./train/unsup/40146_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381911/usercomments 25029,28616,0,"Before i saw the movie i read some comments about it... stating it's condemned by several groups of people in Bosnia. I totally understand why, without spoiling anything, the overall message of the movie is shocking. Not only it gives a statement for the gay people in Bosnia, but also one for the whole population.

This movie is not for a broader range of people. In fact.. you will need to respect the way it is told in order to like it. But if you do, then it's genius......

And look for some nice metaphors which are a honor to Sergio Leone.

This movie is available on DVD in Bosnia and other Balkan countries, so if you are in that region you know you can find it.",,Train,./train/unsup/28616_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426470/usercomments 25031,38837,0,"Four people (Denning, Crowley, Grey, and Reeves) meet by accident on the streets of a city that has been emptied overnight of people, except for a few dead bodies. They learn from a newspaper that the city has been invaded and evacuated by everyone else. The cars have been disabled, so the four refugees hole up in the suite of a hotel, making do with candles, beer, and canned food. There WAS a fifth member of the group, a witless little character, but he ran out into the street and was rayed to death by a wandering robot. The invading army, as it turns out, consists entirely of these robots with their death rays. They're impervious to bullets and can destroy airplanes, presumably with the same rays. A gun-toting evil murderer invades the hotel sanctuary of the survivors and puts moves on Crowley (who has fallen in love with Denning after knowing him for only a few hours). The resulting fight sees Grey killed and Denning wounded before the burly Reeves manages to strangle the killer.

The scenes of the survivors are inter cut with scenes of the requisite military and scientists trying just as hard as they can to devise a means of disabling these robots. They finally succeed -- surprise! When the robot army is exposed to sound waves of a certain frequency, it ""cracks their cathode ray tubes."" (Your television set is a cathode ray tube.) The army comes to the rescue at the last moment, too late, alas, to save Reeves but soon enough to whisk off Denning and Crowley.

A cheap and boring movie, I found it almost impossible to watch. Well, sometimes the cheapness can't be helped. A budget will stretch only so far, as we all must know. But this thing could have been written and acted by members of the robot army, who look like they're made of Lego's or like unusually angular Gorts, although we only see one of them at a time.

The dialog sucks. The plot is unoriginal. The special effects might better have been suggested than put on display. The logic of the plot is terribly flawed and the direction careless. (Carefully pruned, it might have been a decent episode of The Outer Limits.) I'll give just one example of a jarring lapse of common sense. The vicious murderer is holding the others at gunpoint and Grey suddenly remembers where she saw him before. He's the guy that murdered that hooker on Skid Row! That's right, admits the evildoer. His picture was all over the papers. They'll be looking for him on every street corner, Denning observes. Not if I slip out through the sewers and get out behind the enemy lines, the murderer sneers. The entire city has been evacuated and is now occupied by indestructible robots who kill people and repulse the military with unknown rays -- yet they'll be watching every street corner for some nobody who killed a hooker! Santa Clause could waltz past the army without interference under these conditions! Well, another example. At the very beginning, Crowley wakes up to find the city empty and she wanders the streets. She stumbles across a dead body and Richard Denning at roughly the same time. They introduce themselves and explain where they spent the previous night. Minutes of frippery go by while neither asks the question: WHAT HAPPENED? It could have been good, even with the inexpensive sets and the second-tier (but seasoned) actors. As it is, it's rather a painful experience except for those who really enjoy cheesy SF movies, and there seem to be legions of those.

The producer, the late Herbert Cohen, provides an audio commentary on the DVD and he seems like a good-natured guy. He's generous with his credits and he didn't mind if people laughed at the crummy effects when the picture was released and he still doesn't mind.",,Train,./train/unsup/38837_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047559/usercomments 25032,48591,0,"Horrible. Like nature and living? This is not it. Don't watch it. It is like the most terrible thing nearly anyone has seen. Boy, I am never going to go on the website again. If it's rated U or something...that is stupid. 18 is the proper rating. If it's not rated at all, they should rate it because children would just think, ""ooh, I MUST see that because I LOVE nature."" Believe me, this has nothing to do with nature. This is all just one big joke about little, cute, cuddly creatures dying in many horrible ways. Awful nature. Very strong bloody violence. Cute little beasts. I hated every single one of them, so don't even THINK about wanting to watch it...unless, of course, you like blood & guts.",,Train,./train/unsup/48591_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770762/usercomments 25033,34962,0,"I'll give it to you straight: This movie is a stupid, boring waste of time. the acting is some of the worst i've ever seen, the charachters are faceless sterotypes, the plot (if you can call it that) is absurd, the soundtrack is a loud, annoying rip off of halloween, and to add to all that, it just doesn't make any sense. Unless you enjoy painful experiences, skip it.",,Train,./train/unsup/34962_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130216/usercomments 25034,47394,0,"I was flipping channels one night and ""The War Wagon"" came on. I saw it when it came out in 1967, but not since. I had forgotten all about it, and was mesmerized by the theme song as the credits rolled. As the wagon thundered across the cowboy landscape, I began to chuckle, then laugh. After it ended, I decided that ""The War Wagon"" gets my vote as the worst theme song I have ever heard. It's so corny that it's hard to believe it ever got to be used. However, Hollywood westerns are notorious for some of the worst musical scores ever conceived. In fact, if you could remove the music from many westerns the movies would be vastly improved. It's always syrupy strings, Wagnerian hero-brass, and the standard thumping bass drums and trombones playing ominous minor scales whenever an Indian comes on the screen. Add a really dumb theme song like ""The War Wagon"" and that's how you write a horse opera.",,Train,./train/unsup/47394_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062472/usercomments 25035,6240,0,"This is another ""sleeper"" about totalitarian regimes in Central America. What is particularly fascinating about this one is that Romero, a non-political man, comes to the realizaton that there is no such thing as apolitical, apolitical ultimately being complicity, and recognizes his responsibility to take a stand for his people, despite pressure from Rome to refrain from doing so.

I remember hearing about the events in this movie on the radio, when they were actually taking place.

For me this reality is a major part of how I felt watching this movie. The movie is quite good, but I didn't enjoy it. I don't think one watches such movies for enjoyment. I give it a 10!",,Train,./train/unsup/6240_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098219/usercomments 25036,24922,0,"The reason Song of Norway is not hailed as a classic like The Sound Of Music is simple- the acting stinks. The music is wonderful, ditto the voices of Florence Henderson (Who backed up Mary Martin in the Broadway version of TSOM) and Frank Porretta. But once they stop singing, and Grieg (Toralv Maurstad(?)) stops playing, the whole thing just sits their like a cold smorgasbord- it looks very good, but it isn't really that appetizing. There is no warmth or rapport between any two of the leads. The bit parts by Mssrs. Robinson, Homolka, and Morley don't last long enough for anyone to forget how uninspiring the whole thing is. It is doubly so when the characters are talking, and there is a shot of the magnificent Norwegian landscape in the background. You'd think the dialogue could at least try to compete with the scenery. As it is, it comes in a distant third, behind the sweeping vistas and the music.

By comparison, TSOM had first-rate actors with a first-rate script, songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and a budget large enough to support them all. If Julie Andrews was a little too sugary, well, at least she could act. And there was nothing sugary about her escape from Austria with the family.

In the end, Song of Norway is dressed up with wonderful location shooting and memorable tunes, but the acting leaves this film with no place to go.",,Train,./train/unsup/24922_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066393/usercomments 25037,35493,0,"Taken separately, Clive Owen, Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush were all brilliant. Clive is certainly convincing as Walter Raleigh, and Cate is brilliant but this film did not flow at all.

I blame the direction, editing and script as being all very very weak.

The resultant mess is a colossal waste of talent! I love the story, and have read and re-read the historical facts pertinent to the film. The premise main was not entirely flawed, although it does gloss over and leave out a lot. (where are you Sir Francis?)

Actually if they had left out Raleigh and had Clive play Drake this might have worked! ) coulda ... shoulda ... woulda .... oh well !!!! Drake was the bigger player than Raleigh and burned the Spanish fleet at Cadiz the year before.

It's possible that Mary Queen of Scots may have been setup by Phillip the Second, although, no one can really say whether that's true, it seems highly unlikely.

Also I doubt that Elizabeth was as uncertain of herself and conflicted as portrayed by the film. By then she was a survivor's survivor and new all the in's and out's of Renaissance Europe's Machiavellian politics. I did give Cate a great opportunity however. Unfortunately the movie just did not carry the story of England and Elizabeth's triumph over the Spanish as well as it could, actually it doesn't carry the story at all.",,Train,./train/unsup/35493_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414055/usercomments 25038,44206,0,"The only reason I did not give this a 1 is because I'm sure the bottom end of the target audience, kids up to maybe 5 years old, will like it. However, this movie was truly horrible. I think the problem rests on the poor acting of the children/young adults and the script. I'm 99% certain the script writers were told ""we want to do a movie where there is a hotel for dogs, make it work somehow."" Spoilers follow, none of much consequence. The opening of the movie, with two white kids in a foster home ripping off a store owner with a box containing a rock instead of a cell phone because they want to buy some burgers for their dog, is the first blow to the movie's credibility. What kind of morals does that teach, first of all? Also, these kids look way too healthy, happy, and affluent to warrant stealing for petty money. So they don't like the dinner their foster mom makes them, so their dog is a stray after 3 years because these kids are irresponsible, so what? The acting is incredibly bad, the characters about as stereotypical as possible - It's Nickelodeon, what else should we expect? If they had worse foster parents, or at least demonstrated being more distraught and emotionally damaged from their parents dying, I'd forgive the stupid stealing bit. The kids act like snobby self-righteous brats throughout the entire film. It basically teaches kids that you can act however you want if you think your mom and dad don't pay enough attention and cook like crap, and that even if you are perfectly well off it is fine to break the law for petty cash.

If you are a dog lover, and a serious one (moderate dog lovers won't love the dogs enough to get past story and acting flaws), then you may enjoy the bits where the dogs act cute. Other than that, I had perfectly acceptable expectations of a KID'S movie about dogs, and they were clearly far too high... If the kids are old enough to see this by themselves, they won't like this movie. If you're stuck taking them, see a movie in a different theater. If they're too young to be unsupervised in front of a screen for an hour and forty minutes, get a dog lover friend to take them.",,Train,./train/unsup/44206_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0785006/usercomments 25039,22875,0,"A heartwarming story about a young woman, her daughter, her boyfriend (then husband)...and her battle with cancer. Christina Raines plays a young woman who is diagnosed with cancer, and rather then choosing to live her life handicapped, she chooses to live the rest of her life to the fullest. She sees life as we all should, for all it's beauty. She leaves her daughter her legacy on a series of tape recordings. Wonderful music by John Denver, sweetly performed by Cliff DeYoung. A real heart warming, tear jerking movie. I would love to obtain a copy of this wonderful film! If you can help, PLEASE email me.",,Train,./train/unsup/22875_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070751/usercomments 25041,7495,0,"This movie inspired me to read the literature of Anais Nin. In comparison of the books, i must say the actors portraying every person did an amazing job. they captured the pure emotional world anais nin wrote about. The relations between characters stayed true to life. I was especially amazed with maria demedieros who played anais nin. Fred Ward who id only known from Tremors surprised me as Henry Miller. This is a beautiful movie in every detail, staying true to the beautiful life it showed.",,Train,./train/unsup/7495_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099762/usercomments 25042,36864,0,"Louise Fletcher is Mama Dracula. Actually Elizabeth Bathory the long ago wicked queen who bathed in the blood of virgins to remain young. Here she's re-imagined as a vampire in modern day trying to deal with the dwindling number of virgins.

Its strange off beat films like this that kill many an award winning actor's and actress's career. Nominally a comedy this is a strange little film that is humorous but never laugh out loud funny. The plot careens along in odd directions and can be somewhat disjointed. Its the type of movie you watch and wonder why anyone thought to make since its neither good nor bad, it just sort of is. Clearly there was something in in the mix that made Ms Fletcher take the role, though it might have been only money.

Frankly this is a hard film to describe. worse its a hard film to remember, partly doing to its disjointed nature and partly due to the the film not being worth remembering. Is it worth seeing? not if you have to search it out. If it falls in your lap, I ran across it as part of a multi movie set, it might be worth trying, assuming you have something else to go to if it doesn't catch your fancy.",,Train,./train/unsup/36864_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081107/usercomments 25043,7170,0,"I must say, I'm not really a fan of Poe, but after this film.. Woh, I am now.. This film was great! The feel brought me back to the time of Alfred Hitchcock! I love this film! Ms. Thatcher was an amazing touch! What to say about this film? It's a great film, especially when you don't know the plot. Thats how I went in and I loved it!

The acting is very good. Austin and Izabella are very great in this film. I for one, am not a Izabella fan, only seeing her in Forsaken. But was pretty impressed. I wonder why she hasn't broken out yet. And Austin Nichols was a very nice addition. He made a great choice of the character, but felt he could've been less wooden. Other than that, great watch! I suggest this to everyone!",,Train,./train/unsup/7170_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455537/usercomments 25044,29338,0,"An American director combined with VM humor: that should be the key to success.

Well, not a single chance. The plot is stupid, the scenario and the lines are equally annoying. One or two jokes are not enough for 1h30. Maybe I'm not the best jury for this movie (I'm bored to death by ""Leana si Costel"" series and I hope it will last less than ""Santa Barbara"" ;-).

However, simply because it's below the expectations is not a ground to consider it automatically the worst. I saw American movies supposed to be good because of directors, scenarists, actors and/or main characters and they were worse than this Garcea. We can afford it too.

That's mark 2!",,Train,./train/unsup/29338_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297132/usercomments 25045,28783,0,"Before i geared up to watch this movie, I hadn't expected much (which perhaps fuelled my enjoyment even more) as other reviews on the internet promised bad fighting sequences and flat acting. I beg to differ, however. The korean lead brings with him a series of quirky expressions and is very likable, and Shu qi's stoic attitude makes his wild expressions stand out all the more.

Despite not knowing each other's mother tongue, it is altogether believable that their marriage would work out, given Shu qi's entourage's quirky mistranslations that turn anything they say into sweet nothings. (Think about it, they would never have the chance to argue!) I entirely recommend watching this, as it had me rolling around in laughter. The first 5 minutes or so may be a bit of a drag, though-however, it is well worth enduring.

My advice for anyone who has yet to watch it? Don't take it too seriously!",,Train,./train/unsup/28783_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439654/usercomments 25046,24201,0,"To begin with, being a fan of the epic genre, I had always wanted to check this one out and, in fact, was very pleased when Universal released it as part of their 5-Disc Cecil B. De Mille collection; however, since I already owned both THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932) and CLEOPATRA (1934) via TCM showings, I kept postponing the purchase of this set – until I acquired the lot through a friend of my father's! Having been duly impressed with those two De Mille spectaculars, I had intended to watch this immediately (I got the film around the middle of last year) but for various reasons – I even had to exclude it from my Christmas viewing – I could only get to it now that Easter is approaching!

Incidentally, the 5th of March happened to mark the centenary from the birth of actor Rex Harrison, who had starred as Saladin (the villainous 'infidel' of THE CRUSADES) in KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS (1954), which I recorded off Italian TV (even if I had already watched it and in spite of its poor reputation) expressly for the purpose of accompanying my viewing of De Mille's film! Anyway, THE CRUSADES is another notable achievement (from the days prior to the epic heyday of the 1950s and 1960s) which goes to prove – yet again – that De Mille was perhaps cinema's greatest purveyor of hokum disguised as inspirational art for the masses (even if this particular example, reportedly, flopped at the box-office).

The central relationship between gorgeous Loretta Young (such strong female presences abound in the director's work) and De Mille regular Henry Wilcoxon (an unusually handsome, and Godless, Richard the Lionheart – amusingly referred to by Saladin as ""The Lion King""!) goes through some interesting, yet oddly believable, tangents during the course of the film. Starting off in antagonistic vein more typical of then-current screwball comedies (he even prefers carousing with his men to their wedding ceremony, where his place is eventually taken by the royal sword!), it develops into one that borders on amour fou – which could jeopardize the outcome of the whole crusade (it's actually comparable to the bond-to-the-death between Roman centurion Fredric March and Christian slave Elissa Landi in the earlier THE SIGN OF THE CROSS)! The excellent supporting cast includes, among others, Ian Keith (as Saladin), Joseph Schildkarut (typically sneaky as one of the Christian rulers), C. Henry Gordon (as the French King, whose sister Katharine De Mille – the director's adopted daughter – Richard has deliberately spurned), Alan Hale (as Richard's minstrel/sidekick, a Little John type that would soon become his trademark), C. Aubrey Smith (as the old hermit who is challenged by the overly confident Saladin at the beginning of the picture to rally the Christian countries in a crusade against his forces and, later, made hostage and chained to a cross to bar passage to the advancing army, he asks Richard to proceed with the attack regardless!) and Mischa Auer (in an early role as a monk).

While the script obviously eschews the Robin Hood legend that has become associated with Richard and the Crusades (the Douglas Fairbanks version of 1922 about that popular outlaw figure, in fact, spends more time with him as a knight than the proverbial 'Merrie Man'!), subtlety is still the last thing one would hope to find in a De Mille pageant. In fact, Young's abduction by the Muslims (with her dressed as a sentry in a suicidal bid to end the discord between the various royals!) is pretty contrived; similarly, the fact that Young is contended in the terms laid down by Saladin for the truce with the Christian world is pure Hollywood. With this in mind, the dialogue (co-written by Dudley Nichols) is consciously stilted throughout – albeit featuring such good lines as Saladin's defiant claim to the monarchs gathered in their tent, ""There is room enough in Asia to bury all of you!""

Made after the dreaded (and stifling) Hays Code came into force, it's not as bloodthirsty as the afore-mentioned THE SIGN OF THE CROSS – even so, the battle scenes are quite realistic (with the clanging of heavy steel being heard as the opposing armies clash in a confusion of warriors and horses) and may well have influenced Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander NEVSKY (1938). There is one evident display of viciousness here on an isolated member of Schildkraut's treacherous army as a clutch of Muslim riders (appearing on the scene to rescue the cornered Wilcoxon at the instigation of Saladin himself, in the hope of thus winning Young's love) fall on him en masse with their spears. Boasting superlative photography (Victor Milner's work in this capacity presented the film with its sole Oscar nomination) and massive crowd scenes, the film survives as tremendous entertainment even after all these years. Incidentally, it seemed common practice in spectacles of the era to provide villains of the Muslim persuasion – as can be gathered from the likes of ABDUL THE DAMNED (1935; a British production I first watched over Christmas), THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER (1935), THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936) and GUNGA DIN (1939).",,Train,./train/unsup/24201_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026249/usercomments 25047,35183,0,"RENT opens full throttle with the cast loudly singing to show us that they are intensely angry about something, though just what they are angry about or why they feel compelled to put it into song is never made clear. Indeed, as the film meanders along for over two hours, it never really goes anywhere beyond the usual contrived plot complications about lovers breaking up and getting back together.

It is obviously going for a slice-of-life quality, trying to recreate a time and a place, in this case AIDS-era New York, circa 1990. The multi-award winning play is based on Puccini's opera ""La Boheme,"" but the film rather apparently seeks inspiration from the screen version of HAIR. Like HAIR, RENT features a rambling plot that only provides an excuse for the songs; but unlike Milos Foreman's underrated classic, RENT is saddled with rather mundane music and cursed with lackluster staging. Tony awards and a Pulitzer prize notwithstanding, RENT drones from one barely memorable song to the next, trying to be soulfully operatic but revealing its greatest weakness: it's faux operetta can't conceal that it is an utterly trivial story about utterly trivial people.

HAIR has the added advantage of being about an era with distinction; the late 1960s were utterly unique in style, attitude and relevancy. Other than taking place at the heart of the AIDS epidemic, there really isn't anything that lends distinction to the milieu that RENT desperately tries to document; 1990 being not that much different from, say, 1975, or for that matter 2005. RENT has the sort of timeless banality that is purposely built into TV sitcoms so that they can play eternally in reruns; if the dialogue didn't mention what year it takes place, it would be difficult to tell. It is certainly difficult to care.

The cast repeatedly breaks into one song or another that pointedly celebrates nonconformity, as if such a thing was a unique and original concept. Unfortunately, so much of what the film embraces as being bohemian, seems less shockingly radical than just plain shallow and trendy. What is set forth as originality comes off as cliché, warmed over beatnik and/or hippie counterculture posturing. Rather than being universal in nature, the film's call for freethinking seems strangely generic. If anything, RENT seems geared to do little more than to romanticize poverty and failure.

A good example is the character of Mark Cohen, a wannabe filmmaker played by Anthony Rapp. Mark is cursed with a caring, middle-class family and is obviously slumming; the great tragedy he suffers during the course of the story is that he lands a high paying job with a future. Throughout the movie, he is constantly filming some sort of vague documentary about his own life, which prompts him to prattle on about his artistic integrity. To this end he utilizes an old-fashioned, hand-cranked camera, eschewing opportunities to use state-of-the-art equipment, let alone get money to finance his project. The resulting film proves to be little more than an amateurish home movie. He is not an artist; he's a kid playing with a toy. RENT is an ambitious effort about people without ambition, merely kids at play.

The roles are tailor-made to safely conform to PC standards of diversity; a carefully balanced quota of blacks, whites, Jews, Latinos, straights, gays, AIDS sufferers, addicts, ""yuppie scum"" and the now almost mandatory free spirit cross-dresser. But it is the type of diversity that is only skin deep; none of the characters stand out as unique individuals; they are diverse for political correctness sake. The characters come together to keep their crumbling tenement building from being torn down, apparently so the characters themselves don't have to actually get on with their inert lives. RENT is a contradictory story that celebrates nonconformity through characters who conform to their common fear of change and growth.

The film's milquetoast radicalism extends to its production, which is no more bold or original than its call for nonconformity. Director Chris Columbus makes little effort to experiment in staging or editing the musical numbers; when he isn't obviously copying A CHORUS LINE or HAIR, Columbus gives us an endless array of static shots of characters standing and singing; so much so that the rare inventive moment, such as Rapp and Tracie Thoms nicely doing ""The Maureen Tango,"" seem strangely out of place. Had the film brushed aside its lame story and been more of a musical revue of showstoppers, (like HAIR, or CHICAGO, or GODSPELL or anything by Busby Berkeley or Astaire and Rodgers) then the superficiality of the material would be irrelevant. RENT strives to be neither original nor traditional and ends up not being much of anything.",,Train,./train/unsup/35183_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294870/usercomments 25048,1910,0,"This film is fantastically understated and has within it the foundations of excellence.

O.C and Stiggs is what great film making is all about - bringing to life an environment that is high fiction but could truly exist somewhere.

Made in 1987, it has all the hall marks of a film made in the late sixties to early seventies. Good films of that time felt free and progressive.

Real classics kind of exist in a little world of their own, and this is just that sort.",,Train,./train/unsup/1910_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089715/usercomments 25049,18106,0,"These two current movies both have boy protagonists (Joshua is eleven and a half and Vitus is ultimately twelve) who happen to be both intellectually brilliant and piano prodigies. 'Joshua,' a psychological thriller with horror overtones, is scary and depressing. 'Vitus' is an upbeat fairy tale children could watch, if they can read subtitles: dialogue is mostly in Swiss German and Hoch Deutsch (with a little English). Neither of these films is quite an unmitigated success, but both have interesting things to say about the plight of being super-smart and prematurely accomplished. Maybe Joshua just wants to be loved; Vitus says he just wants to be a normal boy; but fortunately, there's more to it than that in both cases. Together these are two poles of attitudes toward such young people.

Joshua's posh Upper West Side ""haute bourgeoisie"" or ""über-yuppie"" life takes a dive when a new baby enters the scene. His college-boy-jovial hedge-fund-trader dad Brad (Sam Rockwell) is videoing the infant, and when Joshua ((Jacob Kogan) plays one of his virtuoso pieces, they just ask him to quiet down. Also present in that first scene are his born-again grandma (Celia Weston) and his gay musical show-biz uncle (Dallas Roberts). The uncle is the kindred spirit in the room.

It's funny: both Joshua and Vitus wear little suits and have tidy mops of hair and seem a bit undersize for their ages. But Joshua is a bad seed who spins out an aura of evil and fear off the screen as time goes on, while Vitus is geeky and a prig (for a while anyway) and has a lust for his baby sitter that's at best nutty, but he's otherwise ultimately sweet. Joshua brings down his family, and Vitus saves his. Vitus becomes a successful entrepreneur, and learns to dress casually.

Joshua is like an incubus. He just stands there, sometimes scaring Brad or his mom Abby (Vera Farmiga) by popping up behind them. His face and voice are without affect. Even when he says ""Mommy? Daddy? I love you,"" it's creepy.

Vitus is distant too, initially anyway. He doesn't fit in at school and insults his teachers. But as a small child he has a down-to-earth babysitter, Isabel (played by Kristina Lykawa, later by Tamara Scarpellini), and they enjoy hanging out together. She gets fired and replaced by his English mother (Julike Jenkins), who has blossomed into a controlling stage mom. But where Joshua only occasionally sees his simpatico uncle, Vitus gets to spend a lot of time with his wonderfully relaxed and entertaining granddad (Bruno Ganz, anything but a Hitler this time) , who makes things and goes on walks with the boy and talks about his dreams of being a pilot way back when.

Bad things start happening in Joshua's household from day one (the film takes us, rather harrowingly, through 70-plus). The baby is fine for less than a week when she begins to cry constantly, which brings Abby back to the shaky state she was in during Joshua's early stages--and then some. Perhaps if they'd found an older nanny for the kids, or just the baby, and paid more attention to Josh, the household would not have come apart. Joshua has some very suspenseful moments. You may think the boy will go for the baby, but that's a red herring. His methods are more devious than that and involve night vision film-making, Egyptian methods of mummification, and a performance of ""Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"" that is redesigned as if composed by Bartok. (Like the two boys who play Vitus, Fabrizio Borsani and Teo Gheogiou, the boy who plays Joshua, Jacob Korgan, is a genuine piano prodigy).

'Joshua' has a good, ironic sense of its eastern urban white milieu, and though it may fizzle away a bit at the end, it does make you genuinely uncomfortable. This independent first film by Ratliff uses the conventional sound effects and disintegrating set devices of the horror film in fresh ways. But making Joshua into a monster limits where things can go. Rockwell, Farmiga, and Westson are good insofar as they avoid drifting into caricature. Ratliff previously made a documentary about fundamentalist Christians, and the grandma's attempt to ""save"" Joshua becomes a realistically creepy element. She gets her reward. This is an indictment of insensitive parents, but its picture of a wunderkind demonizes the type.

'Vitus' is a softer world, but this boy is suffering too. In a way his burly dad Leo (Urs Jucker), who creates hearing aids and becomes CEO of a company, is another version of the squash-playing yuppie represented by Sam Rockwell, but he seems more present. The problem is Vitus doesn't fit in in school and then his mom takes him from his childhood piano teacher, who he says he loves, to a famous lady who declares ""a rational mind and a warm heart, those are what make a great pianist."" ""That's why I want to be a vet,"" Vitus answers, refusing to play for her or become her student. Eventually he contrives to stage an accident after which he seems to have lost his special talent and his high IQ. He precedes to carry out some exploits with his granddad that lead to the film's conclusion. This could be rather fun for a young viewer, though some American critics have found this charming story ""simplistic"" or ""sappy."" It does perhaps leave you a little flat because its feel-good finale is too fanciful. 'Joshua' is a film that's riveting and disturbing: its narrow horror focus makes for a concentrated effect. But it's much more fun to watch ''Vitus, which brings up the same issues--about how it's tough to be exceptional--without demonizing brilliance. Teo Gheorghiu may be a little but nerdy, but he has a sensitive face and delivers his lines in ways that are sprightly and nuanced.",,Train,./train/unsup/18106_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478829/usercomments 25050,12581,0,"This movie was very good. It was funny, mysterious, cool, and interesting, it wasn't as good as number 1, but it was still great! Disney should keep it going with good movies like these. I liked all of them(except number 4) because of the originality they put into the characters and the plots. The acting was excellent and the character Sophie was still as cute as can be! Dylan grew, certainly grew. He grew all ugly looking and what not. Even more dorky but that doesn't matter. The writing was excellent and it still had all the excitement from the original film. You will enjoy Kimberly J. Brown's performance because she is a great actress and very pretty. Enjoy all of these movies, i suggest buying them ALL!! 9/10",,Train,./train/unsup/12581_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274761/usercomments 25051,29026,0,"Whether or not you like this movie will probably depend on whether you like seeing movies where the leading characters aren't particularly bright or likable. If you can get past this, you'll probably be a person who would rate this movie higher than a 2.

Kristen seems like a normal and decent sort of person for the first 1/4 of the film. In fact, at times, she physically looks a lot like the director, Liv Ullmann. However, rather inexplicably, she is swept away by a rogue. WHY she loves him exactly is never clear--it just seems like a case of infatuation. BUT, here's where the dumb part of the film occurs. First, despite there being little to base such a strong attraction on, Kirsten sleeps with the man and pledges her life to him--even after she finds out he already has a mistress (who, left her own husband to be with him). Then, despite finding out more and more and more awful things about the guy (he's a real pig), she steadfastly refuses to back away from him---hurting her parents and her fiancé in the process. Think about it--a woman sacrifices everything for a man she barely knows and what so does know about him is really bad stuff!! I hate films about dumb people.

By the way, IF the film had been the same up until she met the jerk and then fell in love with a WORTHY man, then this could have been a wonderful film about a young lady choosing an arranged marriage or listening to her own needs. But, as she is just a horny idiot, this was an opportunity lost.",,Train,./train/unsup/29026_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113576/usercomments 25052,14540,0,"I recently watched this movie for the first time in a long time and I soon realized why I've avoided it for so long. First of all, I have to say that I've always loved the ""Peanuts"" comic strip and the delightfully witty antics of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and Lucy. ""A Charlie Brown Christmas"" is still my all time favorite Xmas special and most of the early specials remain among my favorites. And I saw ""A Boy named Charlie Brown"" at the theatre as a kid and still love it. I never saw ""Snoopy Come Home"" at the theatre,probably because I felt that I was getting too old for the Peanuts gang. But I did catch the movie when it appeared on network TV a few years later. I remember being so disappointed I didn't even watch to the end. So when I decided to take another look at it, I thought maybe I misjudged it. Unfortunately, I realized that I had not misjudged it. First of all, this is the first ""Peanuts"" production that didn't have Charlie Brown in the title. Also, Vince Guaraldi, the wonderfully talented composer of the specials is not involved at all. Then there is a very dark and very sad plot line, involving Snoopy leaving Charlie and the gang to visit his original owner,Leila in the hospital. I know this was a story line from the strip, but in the strip, Charlie Brown and the others don't seem to come off as badly as they do in this film. And lets face it, the music is corny as all get out. Guaraldis music is sorely missed here. His scores are filled with joy and optimism, but the music here is so manipulative and dated, you don't feel joy, but you feel used. The one part I really enjoyed was when Snoopy is captured by the crazy Clara. That was the only time I felt any sense of the joy of the classic ""Peanuts"" specials, although I did get kind of a kick out of Thurl Ravenscroft singing ""No Dogs Allowed"" whenever Snoopy saw a sign with that on it. The story had none of the wit of the strip, the specials or the first movie. It just seemed like a bummer every time Charlie Brown came on, bemoaning the loss of his dog. And even the animation didn't seem as bold or striking as it was in the first movie, with fewer bold choices like the ""Beethoven"" montage from that movie. I've always thought that Snoopy had pretty much taken over the strip in the mid 70s and to an extent, the specials, but the Snoopy obsession seems to have reached its peak here. But I do like the way Peppermint Patty is used here, as well as Woodstock, but thats about it for the positives. Im guessing that the later movies are probably even weaker, because the later specials would suffer, especially following Guaraldis death. You probably think Im just getting old, but I still love the early specials and the first movie and I still love reading classic strips. So I will return to those and get the bad taste of ""Snoopy Come Home"" out of my mouth.",,Train,./train/unsup/14540_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069289/usercomments 25053,28594,0,"How many movies are going to use ""Frightmare"" as a title? And why do they all suck? This low-budget horror flick was poorly shot, likely on digital, with bad acting, dialog and plot. I wish there was something nice I could say, but...

****SPOILER****

Anyway, a serial killer shows up in a small town and terrorizes a highschool senior class. One of the students is a journalist who has studied the killer's exploits. Of course, the police don't buy their story, so the students are forced to try and survive on their own--inside a school-sanctioned haunted house.

The story is lame, the acting is lame, the story is lame...did I say that? Well, it's true.",,Train,./train/unsup/28594_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265496/usercomments 25054,21776,0,"This movie is really a stinker. Everything is good about it except the characters and the writing. It has high production values, the acting is very good, but the characters are shallow, narcissistic and nothing more than sum of their hangups. It's like some teenage film school freshman was given unlimited resources to try to create the most quirky characters ever, without a story to hang it on. Perhaps it's how a spoiled, rich teenager would imagine adults to be, selfish, whiny, demanding and spiritually hollow.

The three brothers are riding a train in India in hopes of finding and visiting their mother who failed to show up at their father's funeral. We are treated to a relentless display of the brothers' bizarre and exhibitionistic behavior as the train trundles through the Indian countryside. They behave like chronically depressed 4 year olds. Maybe the filmmaker thought he was getting at contemporary angst, maybe he just thought he was creating amusing madcap clowns in the spirit of ""A Hard Day's Night."" But these clowns aren't young, their antics don't amuse, they grate. We come to hate them as much as they hate each other. We don't care whether they find their mother or not. The older brother's head is always swathed in bandages, the result of a motorcycle crash which may have been an attempted suicide. He orders the other brothers around and they seem unable to stand up to him. One brother reads a couple of paragraphs from a story he's writing. The story is as shallow and pretentious as this movie and these characters.

Here's the spoiler: they do meet up with the mother (Angelica Houston) who's the biggest narcissist of all. Dressed in white robes and made up with black eyeliner, she holds forth in some sort of Christian mission in the foothills of the Himalayas. Well, you might have known it...these losers were nurtured by this pompous and vain woman. No wonder. In the end the brothers are running to catch the train to go home, as they run they drop their baggage. That's symbolism; get it? They're shedding their baggage, right? But these characters are so light you can't imagine them having any hardly weight at all, even with their baggage. Without the theatrically contrived baggage they wouldn't have any material existence whatsoever.

For the last hour of this film every scene looked like it was going to be the last. The camera focuses on the bewildered faces of the brothers, the music swells, the camera pulls away. At last! you think. It's finally over. But no, there's another scene, and another, and another. At one point they witness a young boy drowning in a canal. They try to rescue him, but can't. They take his body home to his village. There is a funeral. The scene is empty; it's like it happens in dream. The brothers appear unaffected. It is impossible to care about them. I've almost forgotten about this movie and I only saw it 2 days ago. Please, save yourself the boredom.",,Train,./train/unsup/21776_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0838221/usercomments 25055,18725,0,"... but that's an ironic '9'... seriously, if you've ever been bored by a bad Conan rip-off or atrociously dubbed euro-trash, this is the PERFECT movie for you... it's a sci-fi/sword and sandal/post-apocalyptic mish-mash that gets more unbelievable as it goes along. The only way to distill the perfect essence that is Yor is with a meager, unworthy list (scorn) of the more jaw dropping aspects of this classic, underrated treatise on the human condition:

1. The theme song, which at one point explains ""Yor's world/He's the maaaaaaaaaaaan(very high castrato soprano)"".

2. The horde of smurfs-on-steroids that attack and destroy a very ineptly guarded village of hobos in furs... I'm sorry, ""natives"" in furs.

3. Cave bimbo Kalaa's constant assertion that ""Yor's not like other men"" when in fact he looks just like every other South Beach surfer dude who's ever gotten lost in a desert wasteland.

4. The viewer's slow realization that fat, greasy comic relief Pak always and consistently pulls Yor's fat out of the fryer whenever the blonde barbarian putz is about to get killed.

5. Not one, but TWO paper mache dinosaurs. And a giant bat. That becomes an improvised hang glider. No joke.

6. Geez, they just keep coming...how 'bout the line ""Take me with you stranger!"" spoken in all earnestness by a non-acting girl-child.

7. The straw boat that's supposed to represent a sea-based culture's highest technical achievement... with seating for four.

8. Best line in the movie- ""Damn talking box!""

9. Just when you're praying it won't get any more surreal, just when you've thrown up your hands and surrendered your sanity, Darth Vader shows up. Correction: an ARMY of Darth Vaders.

10. John Steiner! Remember him? I don't! But he's the 'Overlord'! And by now, it makes sense!

11. The same South African factory-basement set from MST3k's ""Space Mutiny"". Now you know the movie has to be a quality effort.

12. Laser battle! Yor, having never seen a pulse rifle before, proceeds to pick off half a dozen Vaderbots from a hundred yards... or a coupla feet. My bad.

13. Skipping intermediate plot, just know that there's a wise old blind man with a monologue and a candy-stripe barber's pole jutting from the Overlord's gut, along with genetic engineering and nuclear holocaust and a house of mirrors and a rocket jet escape and OH MY GOD they coulda made a sequel! But we all know sequels are never as good as the originals. Plus the theme song runs over the end credits and Pak displays his gymnast skills during the stirring climax... saving Yor yet again! Whatever you come away from this list with, just remember that what you have in your head is not a suitable prep for the untethered insanity, the pure unadulterated madness, the sheer brain scrambling head trip that is... YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE! Well worth the $.99 + tax from the blowout inventory sale at the local movie gallery.",,Train,./train/unsup/18725_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084935/usercomments 25056,11751,0,"After box office hit Jalla!Jalla!, Josef Fares comes with another comedy, which is a total gas.

It's about some policemen in small-town Sweden who, crime being absent, spend most of their time, and they've got a lot of it, eating hot dogs at the local snack bar. Their biggest problem is a cow occasionally running in the street. Suddenly, they find out the police station is gonna shut down since there are no criminals around. At this point, the four protagonists(including Jalla-veterans Fares Fares and Torkel Peterson) decide to ""raise the statistic"". The results are hilarious...

The movie is really funny and the characters are nice and believable, with the exception of Benny(Torkel Peterson), a complete moron who thinks he's Neo, Rambo and John McClane in one person. Nevertheless, Peterson is actually the main reason I kept laughing while watching the film.

The only problem, if I can call it a problem, is the fact that some gags are a little bit too, you know, Swedish. For example, when the ""kopps"" accidentally blow up the previously mentioned snack bar, Benny's first reaction is ""Oh sh*t! Where the hell are we gonna have lunch now?"".

Aside from that, there's no reason people shouldn't watch, and enjoy, this amusing film.

8,5/10",,Train,./train/unsup/11751_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339230/usercomments 25057,33382,0,"I cannot believe people feel the need to write so ""passionately"" about how much they love this film. How on earth could anyone watch this film and then think it was anything but a steaming pile of low budget crap.

200 American is a joke. Firstly, the storyline is nothing new and at times made me want to become bulimic.

The actors are unbelievably bad. One of the main characters is supposed to be Australian and his accent is awful - it is not Australian at all and I'm sure many Aussies would be very offended by it. Sean Matic really should take it off his CV.

The other actors are hammy at best. They look like they have just come from a local Church amateur dramatics group. Not one of them can make you believe that their character is real.

What I also found annoying and a complete waste of my life was the little scenes here and there that were totally irrelevant and added nothing to the plot or character development e.g. the scene with the models.

The budget must have been about $2. It looks like someone filmed it with a mobile phone and every now and then you see shadows of the crew. AWFUL! The best scene has to be the ""elevator"" scene where they're not actually in an elevator at all. When a lift comes to a sudden stop the people inside usually move a little bit.

Overall this film is an abomination, I would only advise you watch it to laugh at the lives of these pathetic actors and their lack of skill.",,Train,./train/unsup/33382_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387805/usercomments 25058,45234,0,"Dross! Boring and predictable! After only ten minutes into the film, I could stake my life on what would happen at the end - and I was right.

I don't mind romantic comedies, but this is drivel. Even the ""funny"" moments; those slapstick scenes that are added to films to make you laugh uproariously, barely raised a smile (a chipmunk bit his finger – hysterical. A lizard bit his hand and he falls on his back– hilarious).

This film has no redeeming features whatsoever and even the inclusion of such comic genii as Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker couldn't get it going. What did I expect though, going to see a film with those two hams in the starring roles, they actually make Courteney Cox look funny. In my defence though, one night a week I do Support Work and my disabled employer wanted to go to the cinema. There was nothing on we hadn't already seen so we took a chance on this. Well, even he thought it was turd. I thought he was going to sack me!

If you want my advice, don't waste your time with this nonentity. I'd rather nail my eyelids to the floor than sit through this tripe again.",,Train,./train/unsup/45234_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427229/usercomments 25059,47411,0,"If you must watch this movie, do so with the sound off - and perhaps an assortment of music for background noise instead. The elephants are both supposed to be boys, yet the younger brother, TuTu, is obviously performed by a woman trying to sound like a child. The effect is exceptionally annoying. As if this were not bad enough, the dialogue is insufferable. The lines are both poorly written AND poorly delivered. The story is narrated by two cheetahs who at least attempt to sound African, but all other roles are done in various accents - none of them consistent or ethnic. The overall result is campy at best. If my two year old hadn't been interested, I would have turned it off. As it was, my ten year old, eleven year old, my spouse and myself had to leave the room before the movie was part over. Toddlers and preschoolers may enjoy it. Perhaps even kindergartners. Any one over age five should either steer clear, or listen to their ipod in lieu of the movie sound.",,Train,./train/unsup/47411_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0459272/usercomments 25060,20293,0,"** Here be spoilers **

An artist inherits a part in a big store, and plan to sell it to build a musical conservatory. However, there are plans to murder him in an effort to steal the store. Flywheel, a mediocre private detective, is brought in to protect the artist. Of course there immediately is trouble and mix-ups.

Groucho is his usual self, delivers a quick and witty dialog masterfully. By his side his brothers Chico and Harpo bring solid efforts and the three of them is the entire show. The other cast falls into shadow, with few exceptions. However, no harm done because the Marx brothers are very good. As stated, very funny dialog, good comedy and some nice musical scenes.

7/10",,Train,./train/unsup/20293_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033388/usercomments 25061,37788,0,"this movie is lame... I'm an absolute rabid Hammer horror fan, and this little movie comes nowhere near their great quality(this is NOT a Hammer production). Some of the attraction of B-movies is the cheezy horror, unrealistic premises, and downright bad acting... well, the bad acting is here - and the requisite breasts & bums, but there's no actual conflict going on. Again, we don't expect fabulous scriptwriting in these films, but come on, throw us a bone here, please! Something happen already! How about the witch cult kidnaps nubile daughters from the local villages for their 'infernal rites'? Nope, no such luck... Two sisters want to break free of mum & daddy, go to the big city - one finds a modeling agency, modeling agency has witchcraft rites... that's it! Then one sister decides she wants to be High Priestess after one day in the coven, using a magic spell to kill the lesbian HPs that's been hitting on her the whole weekend(she learns fast, eh?). It's basically a few terribly inaccurate occult trappings as an excuse to show some Brit boobies... don't waste your time.",,Train,./train/unsup/37788_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069464/usercomments 25062,35960,0,"The Last Horror Film. What an ambitious title. I bought this film (for $2.00) at a local market, purely because I heard somewhere that it was a quasi-sequel to ""MANIAC"" (One of the greatest horror films of all-time). Well for anyone else who heard this let me tell you now, its not. The story is a fan of a horror actress goes to Cannes to see her and convince her to star in a film with him. Unfortunately he is a nobody so things dont go his way. Then people start dying.

I admit that I really enjoy seeing Joe Spinell act on the screen. He really does have a great talent, if only he had been in better movies. Caroline Munro is her own enjoyable self, and the rest of the cast seems to be made up of family and friends of the filmakers. This film for me was really a missed chance at making a film about somebody who would do anything to get their film made, with an idea that nobody would support. That would have been good. Instead we get a video nasty plot with the above idea as a (badly done) framing device. In fact I think the main character in this is autobiographical of the director himself (Think about it) and his ambition to make a horror film. In fact halfway through I wasnt really interested in this movie anymore and wanted to see what kind of film Joe Spinell's character could make instead. But all up for the market its pitched at its an ok film.",,Train,./train/unsup/35960_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087593/usercomments 25063,23628,0,"God - I love this movie! I must've seen it 20 times by now, and I still can't pass it up when it appears on some random cable station at 1 in the morning! This film was an epiphany to me - great cast, great characters, great story, great locations - all without becoming a stereotyped ""Nu Yawk"" movie. And Tom Waits as Monte? Perfect! Whenever I see this, it makes me miss the City. I was really lucky to have lived there in the early 90's - only a little later than the film's setting. Anyone who doesn't think these Bridge & Tunnel characters are real should spend some time in the boroughs. I highly recommend this film to anyone who wants a slice of New York City life away from the glitz of Manhattan.",,Train,./train/unsup/23628_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102741/usercomments 25064,22980,0,"I saw this at the Seattle International Film Festival in 1991 and was very impressed. I was so surprised that it wasn't in American cinemas soon after. I now have read about the huge price Werner & his people were asking for it. Sometimes distribution issues can kill a film from being seen, and it is us, the audience who gets cheated.

Perhaps Werner could have toured the film in the same way that Warren Miller does his ski films. Warren never fails to get that $12 to $15 per ticket, and he doesn't have to worry about popcorn sales.

I'd love to see a fresh print of this film released theatrically in 2007 and tour the country. Are you reading this Landmark Theaters?",,Train,./train/unsup/22980_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102855/usercomments 25065,21846,0,"I'm sure this was supposed to be a horror movie, or something like that? But no..it's not a horror movie about vampires...in fact, if you see this movie, you'll probably laugh the entire time, due to bad acting, and really really bad jokes, even Blade can do better cliché jokes. I think the gore parts are the only thing good about this movie, but I guess the director wasn't planning to make a gore movie. But heck, I really don't know what the director was trying to do..and I'm sure he was completely high when he hired those actors, specially Rutge Hauer, for the bloodsucking, Count Dracula. A old hag like that shouldn't have teeth at all. And please...the whole movie is a big cliché, nothing different, even the gore parts are hideous. The only reason I saw the entire movie, was because I wanted to make sure the film was bad until the end. And you better believe it was. Even the fight between the Chinese American priest vampire hero and Dracula, was awful. It looked like a handy cap match.. I'll be sure to lock the memories of this movie, in some dark corner of my brain.

Warning: If you really like vampire movies, this one will go to the bottom of your list.",,Train,./train/unsup/21846_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313995/usercomments 25066,42214,0,"how incredibly depressing to watch such a brilliant man saying such ignorant things. maybe he could be somewhat forgiven if his new material was actually funny.

by now his trademark verbosity and mind-boggling referential skills are so well established they can no longer carry his routines like they once did... and so it comes down to the subjects of the jokes. and that's where the trouble really lies. a joke about the only problem with the war in iraq is the fact that soldiers are being forced to follow the rules of engagement? a series of jokes about his doubts on the existence of global warming? jokes about howard dean, robert byrd, and anyone else who hasn't toed party lines? has bill o'reilly begun writing material for him?

there was a brief period -- say, early to mid 90's -- when miller seemed poised to step into the stand-up pantheon and take his place among the greats (richard pryor, lenny bruce, bill hicks, et al), but apparently somewhere along the line the devil showed up early to claim his soul. now he's become a pathetic jester for the fox news set.

truly sad.",,Train,./train/unsup/42214_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770742/usercomments 25067,13651,0,"Frances Gray Patton wrote this beloved novel of a small-town spinster. She is a determined woman, one who turned a wrecked life and an enormous family debt into a reason to teach generations of New England young people the virtues of going-through-the-pain to get the gain. The theme of this film is the positive effect of her rough-hewn self-assertiveness training on her students. Jennifer Jones plays the schoolteacher, from youth to old-age, and very winningly. The film was directed by veteran Henry Koster. Others in the very large and amiably charming cast include Robert Stack, fine actor Robert Douglas, Kipp Hamilton, charismatic Peggy Knudsen, Chuck Connors, Jerry Paris, Mary Wickes, Leslie Bradley, Marshall Thompson, Biff Elliott, Richard Deacon and many more. What happens in the story is that Miss Dove falls ill one day during class and has to be carried from her students and taken to the hospital. The town's generations, all taught by this remarkable woman, react; some come from far away or start stopping by the hospital for news; and this leads to a flashback of how her life's course was changed by her father's money problems and the desertion of her by her erstwhile suitor; how she then vowed to pay back every cent of her father's debt, though she was not personally responsible; and how she began teaching school and has gone on doing so. This intelligent, heart-warming and thought-provoking story has a climax in her medical crisis and a happy ending; it is not perhaps a great film, but Miss Dove is very probably a great character, and one many can learn from long after the film has ended. Every element here is well-crafted and contributes to a surprisingly entertaining and most-believable presentation. Music is by Leigh Harline, cinematography by Leon Shamroy with contributions by Lyle Wheeler and many others. Cool and beautiful, and as fascinating as is the lady herself",,Train,./train/unsup/13651_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048130/usercomments 25068,34991,0,"What bugs me is how people are talking about how funny this is, and its just encouraging the producers and film companies to continue making garbage like this (i.e. the Scary Movie franchise with its 'Epic' & 'Date' movie spin-offs.) I went to this movie not expecting a whole lot, and same with my buddy. Its not so much that I cant get my money back for my ticket, its that I cant get the 1h 45 minutes back that was wasted from my life.

This movie was and is easily the worst movie I have ever seen.

*And its sad that not even the great Chris Walken could save a disaster like this.

If any of you are contemplating and seeing this, I strongly suggest you to not waste your time. Im not one take in the perspective of other peoples opinions, but please... trust me on this one... I have seen a lot of movies, and this one isn't even worth downloading.",,Train,./train/unsup/34991_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424823/usercomments 25069,106,0,"This film is about 30 years old. I know of no conversions to tape or DVD. It had a theatrical run of about two weeks partially due to a bad review but nobody I ever met who saw it disliked the picture. The reviewer either never actually saw the entire film or had an agenda to sink it. When I first saw it my girlfriend (who isn't Jewish) and I and the vast majority of the audience, were roaring with laughter. We returned a number of times with friends and family and everyone loved it.

13 years later I had the privilege of having Sid Ceasar in my car (I was hired to take him to his hotel) and I asked him about the film. He said that he had a lot of fun making the movie, but the studio provided very limited money to advertise and promote the product. No press, no promotion. Studio politics.

Gardenia (overbearing father) and Medford (sweet, but loopy wife and mother) are the parents of Arkin, the older son who lives outside the family home and Reiner (intimidated, milquetoast) who lives in. The family owns a failing, indebted department store. Arkin is married to Anjanette Comer, who desperately wants a child. Arkin claims he is impotent because of the tyranny of his father and the fact that he is the hated high school basketball coach whose team can't even win one game. Ceasar plays a wacky WWII patient at the the VA hospital who still believes that the war is still ongoing.

On a road trip to Florida, Gardenia secretly sets into motion a scheme to burn his Dept. store down and collect the Fire Insurance. Arkin and Reiner think that his parents' absence presents the perfect opportunity to prove their father wrong and refurbish and restock the store and make a success of it. They don't know of the plot and go to work. Ceasar as Gardenia's unwitting foil is priceless. The pace of the film accelerates and is replete with a few clever twists. This effort is worth a sincere second look and a re-release.",,Train,./train/unsup/106_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076029/usercomments 25070,32358,0,"Remember CRITTERS, the 1980s movie about small alien creatures that looked like balls of fur and they rolled all over the place when they attacked unsuspecting earthlings. These critters went through windows and doors, with their big teeth. When I watched THE MARINE and John Cena as the marine in question reminded me of that 1980s movie. First, John Cena has massive set of teeth. Second, we also see him repeatedly jump in and/or out of windows or literally crashing through doors and rolling in a ball formation into houses. That's all we see him do in this really awful action film. This is Cena's first major role and unless they make an official CRITTERS remake, I don't see him doing any more movies. Yep, THE MARINE was that awful.

But what memories about CRITTERS though. Thanks John.",,Train,./train/unsup/32358_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419946/usercomments 25071,26409,0,"Roberta and Mike Findlay made over a dozen nudie/sickie/roughies in the 60s and early 70s, culminating with SNUFF in the late 70s. Of all those films, the FLESH trilogy is the most memorable. TOUCH OF HER FLESH, CURSE OF HER FLESH, and KISS OF HER FLESH were three sickie classics starring Robert West as Richard Jennings, a one-eyed psycho who kills strippers in sadistic ways. This was his beginning and is a tad boring, but pays off.

Richard Jennings witnesses his wife having sex with another man and runs into traffic. Losing one eye and temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, Richard vows his vengeance and vents his frustration while searching for his wife by killing strippers in inventive ways. He sends one a rose with thorns dipped in poison, shoots a poison dart into the stomach of another, and by the finale, a dagger, a buzzsaw, and a crossbow fit into the whole mess.

TOUCH OF HER FLESH is really sick. First the audience is treated to coy sex scenes and stripping/go-go scenes, followed immediately by scenes of death and gore. I guess that's why they call them sickies. All the acting is bad, but most of the women would fit right in a Russ Meyer film! Top-heavy tarts make up most of the nudity here, which is pleasing to the eye and sort of differentiates this from other films of its kind. There are some good instances of cinematography and editing that are above par in an exploitation film as well.

TOUCH OF HER FLESH is not for everyone and will probably offend those looking for a softcore sex film from the 60s. The version I saw was cut, as the film only ran an hour (original running time is 70 minutes), but the sex was not graphic; it's the gore that should draw audiences. Sadistic viewers should enjoy it, but I'm surprised cries of misogyny haven't plagued this film from its release! Not heartily recommended, but is worth a look if you're curious. And you should be if you're reading a review of this!",,Train,./train/unsup/26409_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062385/usercomments 25072,49991,0,"Our Transatlantic puritanical fundaMentalist Judaeo-Christian cousins (at least once removed) strike again, with yet another fear-mongering propagandist defecation.

This time, they are feebly attempting to turn our hearts and minds against the psychedelic mushroom, and all those who indulge in such practises of course, by suggesting that anyone (even an cloying, incessantly altruistic, All American teenage virgin cheerleader-stereotype) can become a psychotic sadistic murderer overnight after ingesting a single ""Death cap"" mushroom (not even a psychedelic strain: merely a poisonous lookalike).

This moronic ""update"" of Reefer Madness, shamelessly and inappropriately steals several visual scenes from the infinitely more intelligent classic, Jacob's Ladder, which remains the only genuinely frightening film of this ilk, in my opinion.

Ah, why am I even bothering. I had better things to do than watch this stool, never mind describe it to you, who is obviously even now contemplating wasting the best part of two hours on this drivel. OK, if you want to see trippy visuals, this is not the film for you: watch Fear and Loathing again, or google ""optical illusion"". This is nothing more than anti-drug propaganda, badly-made on a shoestring, directed and acted by people who have never even seen someone on (or apparently met anyone who has ever taken) psychedelics.",,Train,./train/unsup/49991_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492486/usercomments 25073,11902,0,"This movie was great. I don't know why all of these people thought it wasn't good. If you haven't seen this movie, I advise that you should watch it. You will certainly laugh and you'll certainly have a lot of fun. Steve Martin is great, and so are Goldie Hawn and John Cleese.

I rated it a perfect 10!",,Train,./train/unsup/11902_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210881/usercomments 25074,27838,0,"A cynical attempt by a studio to create a welsh 'trainspotting'. The two main characters are unlikable, the plot is awful and it isn't even funny.",,Train,./train/unsup/27838_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120394/usercomments 25075,45984,0,"As in unbelievably bad, that is.

To a reviewer who called it superb, the director owes you big time,as he has at least one (and probably only) fan of his film.

Boring, slow and 90 minutes longer than it should've been, this movie gives nothing but painful shivers.

And, after the end credits finish, the main question persists: What on earth was it all about? Even though I haven't had a pleasure of being introduced to Mr. Paez's music, I am absolutely positive he is a great composer. But let's face the truth...Neither Mozart nor Bethoeven tried to make their living as painters....With all my respect, Mr. Paez, I hope you get my hint.",,Train,./train/unsup/45984_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0288869/usercomments 25076,13582,0,"It never fails to amaze me, how some people either don't want to or simply do not get what a movie is about. This movie is not about robots, the future, or science fiction. It is about that which is most basic, and yet often, most overlooked by all of us. Life, living, our short time in the scheme of the grander scale of things. It deals with some of the most elemental, and difficult, issues we ultimately most face in our lives. We want to be happy,we want a sense of purpose, we want to feel we belong, we want to feel loved.

I have seen A.I. as well, and the it shares many of the same themes laid out in this film. I only hope, and pray, mans' vanity and blind ambition never produce a machine that truly achieves sentient thought. The profound, deep, and inconsolable sadness and grief it would suffer as it deals with seeing all whom it cares about slowly pass away and leave it lonely would surely be a torment beyond any ability to conceive.",,Train,./train/unsup/13582_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182789/usercomments 25077,34798,0,"Al Pacino, is without a doubt, one of the greatest actors to come and step foot in Hollywood. His older movies like the Godfather and Scarface will forever be classics. In a recent string of events he has managed to pull himself on film with a few ""halfway decent"" titles, but 88 Minutes is the bottom of the barrel.

This has to be one of the most fake movies I've seen in recent years. I can accept movies like Lord of the Rings and Spiderman because they aren't actually supposed to take place in real-time. This whole flick takes itself too seriously, and the ridiculous car chases and explosions make it to show that this couldn't possibly happen in real life. Whoever wrote this needs to go back to school and learn some real engaging material, something that is more real and sophisticated. It's just very unreal.

The scripting was just awful. Terrible one-liners, and the supporting actors all act as if they were on steroids and running rampant as the movie wears on. The female actresses couldn't act to save their lives. And boy, did you ever notice how similar this was compared to other thriller type movies in this era? I mean cm-on it's as if people can't think of something original anymore. Then you come to the ending which is really just a nail in the coffin. Unbelievable and just plain stupid.

I don't know how the same person who played a terrific performance in Scarface can be cast a role in a ""mediocre to bad"" action-type film. I guess actors/actresses adapt and change over time, but if I knew a movie was going to be this bad, I wouldn't star in it to damage my reputation. Al Pacino, we've seen the better of you.

Avoid watching this. Whether you're planning to see this in theaters or later buying it on DVD, prepare to cower yourself in disgust.

1 out of 10.",,Train,./train/unsup/34798_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411061/usercomments 25078,47529,0,"It's not a surprise that Luigi Cozzi, after this movie, never shot a film again (except for two documentaries). This thing is not worth being called a movie (I've directed better films with my friends). The attempt of the director to give the film a photography reminiscent of the chromatic games of Suspiria is simply pathetic, and is nonetheless the better thing of the movie. However this film made me laugh so much with my friends that I should forgive its uselessness and its ugliness. We had a lot of fun. There are two sequences in Paganini Horror (one at the beginning, the other close to the ending) so silly and dumb that you can't do nothing but laugh.. unfortunately the rest of the movie can be quietly trashed away, its boringness is something unbelievable (especially during the music scenes). Maybe this film owes its only appeal to the bad acting of the actors, the principal cause of hilarity. But even the script is wonderful: the invisible barrier is surely the lowest (or highest) moment of the film...",,Train,./train/unsup/47529_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095812/usercomments 25079,8069,0,No comments necessary! You must see it! A must for all racing lovers. Joyful for cineasts! Only boring for boring people. Hard to find though. I wish I had a drivers license myself. Notice the garbage trucks and the pigeons. An anarchistic exclamation also.,,Train,./train/unsup/8069_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169173/usercomments 25080,45814,0,"I loved the first Highlander movie, loved the series, and have found every movie after the first to be pretty awful - but I watch them anyway, hoping against hope that they'll prove me wrong. I thought it couldn't get any worse than Highlander: Endgame, but I was very much mistaken. This is just a terrible movie - like watching a train wreck.

If they didn't destroy continuity in every movie and rewrite the history of the Highlander universe, it might be bearable. Like every other Highlander movie, this one acts like nothing came before it and nothing about it makes sense - it's an insult to the intelligence of the fans. And we have to suffer through yet another half-witted attempt to re-invent the source of immortality and what happens if ""there can be only one."" The post-apocalyptic world is just plain dark and dreary. Endgame was sort of heading in that direction - it was significantly more world-weary and tattered than the world of the series. However, The Source just plain doesn't make sense. For the world to have gotten in this condition, more than a few years would have to have passed, and Joe Dawson should look more than a couple of years older - by rights the character should have been dead before this movie takes place. But hey, I guess they figure we can't add either.

The fight scenes are terrible - the speeded-up special effects destroy the fun of the fight scenes, and you always expect one decent sword-fighting scene in a Highlander movie - not this one! If I had realized how bad this was going to be, I could have resigned myself to ogling Methos for a couple of hours. This movie is so bad even *that* isn't enjoyable. If I had seen this in a movie theater I'd have wanted my money back. As it is, I want back the time I wasted watching this dreck.

I'm giving up Highlander movies for good. As far as I'm concerned, There Can Be Only One Highlander Movie - and this isn't it.",,Train,./train/unsup/45814_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299981/usercomments 25081,29598,0,"None of the British mini-series that found their way across the Atlantic stand as a greater achievement than ""The Glittering Prizes."" Not ""I: Claudius,"" not ""Brideshead Revisited,"" none of them.

Frederic Raphael's script strikes just the right combination of warmth and acidity with a note of genuineness that we don't always associate with this writer. The performances are uniformly apt. Many of the young cast would go on to solid careers, yet few of them would ever give greater performances than they do here.

Undoubtedly the TV technology of the period may appear quaint, but that certainly hasn't held back ""I, Claudius."" I have seen this series again since the first American run in 1977, so I'm not relying only on dim memory. The writing and acting still hold up.

So many of these mini-series are really second-rate, sometimes dreary, but that's what average means, average. ""The Glittering Prizes"" is among a handful of really great pieces of television, and we are waiting impatiently for the BBC to complete excavation of the archives and place this wondrous series before a new generation of viewers.",,Train,./train/unsup/29598_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073999/usercomments 25082,3640,0,"This is a charming film about a tax collector in Tokyo pitted against a gangster. They fall in love. Directed and written by Juzo Itami, ""A Taxing Woman"" stars his wife, Nobuko Miyamoto, as the tax collector and Tsutomu Yamazaki as the tax-evading criminal.

It's a fascinating glimpse into Japanese culture in 1987, when the picture was made. Yamazaki plays the owner of a chain of love hotels, and he hides his income. Miymato plays a recently-promoted tax auditor, and she is given the job of ferreting out his hidden income so that the proper tax is collected. The cat and mouse game begins.

The opposing actors have a real chemistry between them, and their blossoming love comes as no surprise. Since the plot involves love hotels, we get some nudity, and because the cops and crooks are involved, there's a chase scene, too. Miyamoto is shown as a tired woman with bags under her eyes, but she's an attractive and worthy opponent to our tax cheat. That the crook is a complex man capable of - and worthy of - love takes the movie out of the ordinary comedy genre.

If you like this comedy, there's an even lighter farce with the two lead actors you might enjoy: ""Tampopo,"" which preceded ""A Taxing Woman."" ""Tampopo"" involves setting up the perfect raman restaurant, with chefs closely guarding their noodle recipes and other such nonsense. An amusing movie with food eroticism.

""A Taxing Woman"" was so popular, they did a sequel, but I liked the original so much I didn't see the sequel.",,Train,./train/unsup/3640_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093502/usercomments 25083,18888,0,"I actually find myself pitying the clowns who don't get/won't get this film. They are either brain dead or dead at the core... because not being touched by the events strung together here is really not paying attention to the film or to the current state of things. The acting is superb by everyone, obviously especially Michelle Williams. It's a gutsy move to bring in an American to play this blue collar East Ender but she pulled it off with astonishing aplomb. The photography is sensational and helps the emotional story emerge... that is, if you're interested in a story that deals in emotions, which is to say people, which is to say drama. If you don't want drama or people or emotions this is not the film for you. Perhaps no film is for you, but fear not, there are video games for you.",,Train,./train/unsup/18888_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0984200/usercomments 25084,29004,0,"i am in love with this movie, it is the best, granted its long and some parts are long and tedius and not needed but its amazing, the love between sarah and william is amazing, everytime i watch it, i am astounded by the passion the film. i love robert wagners appearence in the end as well, that chemistry is great too. all in all its great..i will always watch this movie and think how wonderful it is an how wonderful the storyline is. I love the actors in the film, i never have seen annette otoole in anything until this, and she is an amazing actress. and anthony andrews is great too. all of them are absolutly a joy to see on screen. i will always watch this.",,Train,./train/unsup/29004_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104051/usercomments 25085,20976,0,"This is not typical Hollywood fare. ""To End All Wars"" is a redemptive story that features Greek philosophical musings about justice, great quotes from Shakespeare, and the teaching of Jesus about non-retaliation and love for enemies. All of this is set against the backdrop of the suffering endured by Allied soldiers in a jungle prison camp during World War II. The filmmakers provide a fascinating contrast between Eastern and Western cultural values, as well as between Christianity and the Japanese Bushido code of behavior. The movie shows clearly and refreshingly that the worldview of a people does influence its behavior, and that it is possible to judge one worldview as superior to another. It also shows that when human beings act selfishly, they lose hope and end up destroying one another. But when we act with sacrificial love toward each other, not only do we stand a better chance of living, we also keep from becoming savages. What a wonderful, thoughtful film! I heartily recommend it for anyone who is tired of the well-worn, formulaic movies that Hollywood seems to be cranking out these days. If you loved Mel Gibson's, ""The Passion of the Christ,"" you will love this film.",,Train,./train/unsup/20976_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243609/usercomments 25086,29101,0,"There was a point - as the film was starting - that I felt that maybe I had had low and unjustified expectations of this film over the last couple of years: forget the bad reviews and box-office sales at the time of its release, and instead concentrate on the actual film itself. After pressing play on the VHS, this rather confused and quite frankly stupid reason of thought was quickly diminished after the first ten minutes or so had passed by.

I won't go into the story much (it does exactly what it says on the tin, except it doesn't scare or entertain) as there isn't that much of a story, and what there is of it feels like a contrived mess that looks like it was thought up by an arrogant 15 year-old who thinks they're a genius (but they're NOT). Most of the film seems to consist of each character walking about in the dark for a bit, and then getting killed. No real scares to speak of, although the crap-looking student nightclub was a bit of a fright I can tell you.",,Train,./train/unsup/29101_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251806/usercomments 25087,29495,0,"The for-pay movie critics raved about ""The Age of Innocence"" often granting it their highest ratings. Gushing about the color, soundtrack, nuanced screenplay and understated acting, this was for many the best of 1993, a coup de grace for Mr. Scorsese. Maybe so. Sure, the colors, and their uses were brilliant and clever. The soundtrack and score were very good, likewise the acting. But the pacing of the movie was too slow. I'm told that the movie transports you to 1870s upper class New York. It's just like you were there. So what. The point of movies is to tell a story, but during the telling this viewer nearly fell asleep.",,Train,./train/unsup/29495_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106226/usercomments 25088,32054,0,"This film is a veritable treasure for those who appreciate small-town Americana at the turn of the century. Set in New England in 1906, we see the plethora of events typical of the era: the high school graduation with individual seniors singing, reciting poetry and the valedictorian speech; the Fourth of July celebration with fireworks and picnics; the careful relationships between the young boys and girls; the close-knit family life with a sister and brother of the parents living with them. I thoroughly enjoyed Clarence Brown's depiction of this lost innocent era, which produced a warm glow within me as I watched. There are very few belly laughs - one I remember was when the protagonist Eric Linden says to his not-so-clever girl (Cecilia Parker) ""I was born 100 years before my time"" and she responds ""I was born 10 days before mine."" But I found myself smiling often at the goings on. Eric Linden carries the film beautifully.

The rest of the cast is superb: Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington as Linden's parents; Mickey Rooney and Bonita Granville as his younger siblings; Aline MacMahon as Byinton's spinster sister and Wallace Beery as Barrymore's alcoholic brother. But I was particularly impressed with Helen Flint playing the vamp who Linden gets involved with when he was drowning his sorrows. The title, by the way, is a line from the poem ""The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.""",,Train,./train/unsup/32054_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026046/usercomments 25089,19630,0,"Awesome movie. Salma and Pierce were great together, clever plot, big twist. And of course, it features my board game, Tanbo. Besides Salma, there were a lot of beautiful women in the movie. Tall slender women with nice round asses bouncing to and fro in tiny little bikinis. The twist at the end wasn't just a little twist, it was a turn-the-movie-upside-down type of twist. Very clever. My compliments to the writers, directors, etc. And as I mentioned, Pierce and Salma were (pretending to be) playing my board game Tanbo, a game I invented 12 years ago. An abstract strategy game which is played on a Go board, with Go stones. Information on Tanbo is easily found on the internet, and can be played at tanbo.com.",,Train,./train/unsup/19630_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367479/usercomments 25090,12448,0,I just caught Lost Things on Showtime a couple of days ago. Its bad when an Australian film comes out and people haven't even heard of it. Not sure about many of you but I had no idea about Lost Things at all. It all starts with four teens on a surfing holiday. Two men and two woman. Everything thing seems to be going fine till they meet a man called Zippo.

This film had me in all the way I was confused and scared at the same time. It takes you a while work out what is going on. Then at the end I think It's up to you yourself to decide what really happened. Which I found to be quiet a good thing.

The only few things I didn't like about this film was. I think just a few to many flashbacks of people just staring out to sea. The other was to cast two leading men that look nearly the same.

I think this film was shot a very low budget so my hat goes off to the filmmakers. If you haven't got foxtel check it out on DVD a good little Aussie film.,,Train,./train/unsup/12448_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366726/usercomments 25091,7791,0,"This finely crafted movie takes us convincingly back to the France of some 100 years ago. Against the setting of a small provincial town, it shows how its prominent citizens mix up with the officers of the local cavalry regiment. Citizenry is represented here by the excellent female star Michèle Morgan, the military equally well by actor Gérard Philipe. The magnificent interaction between the two of them makes this movie going: Morgan, playing a divorced Parisienne running a ladies' fashion shop, has herself seduced at last by officer Philipe's tireless efforts. But at that very moment their relationship takes a turn for the worse.

Their tragedy gets more dimension, and is softened at the same time by the succesful development of another love. A young local girl (Brigitte Bardot) finds her cavalry officer, played by Yves Robert. The sincere human warmth between them contrasts with the stiff etiquette in the Morgan/Philipe-affair.

'Les grandes manoeuvres' (= the big army-excercises) is a very well made movie. I only think it a little too mechanical, as director René Clair forces you to watch it with hardly any emotions. Not even Brigitte Bardot is able to change that.

",,Train,./train/unsup/7791_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048134/usercomments 25092,19686,0,"This is the quintessential example of a bad book being turned into an excellent film. The novel was an international best seller which ""ripped the lid off"" a small town. The movie explored the psychology of the characters and featured some superb acting as well as a musical score that ranks with the very best. Franz Waxman flavored the music with a touch of Aaron Copland and came up with a real winner. Photography was stunning, and the movie makes great use of wide screen.",,Train,./train/unsup/19686_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050839/usercomments 25093,45323,0,"I went to a prescreening of this in early 2005, and it was specifically hyped by one of the featured pilots, Major Novotony, as the Air Force's long overdue answer to Top Gun. Although most of the cinematography was well done for an IMAX theater, there was no real depth to the movie with the audience getting dragged along with a main character that was sheepish and uninteresting--not what people perceive in fighter pilots.

(SPOILERS AHEAD) Although the movie is presented as a pseudo-documentary, it shows the main character in a later exercise mission in a role as a downed pilot involved in escape and evasion from enemy forces, while trying to signal to friendly pararescue forces. This part does not suit the film presentation and feels very staged, as it's unlikely that the opposing forces would not find the downed pilot with all the IMAX crew and equipment focused upon him. Overall, this movie is very sparkly at times, but is composed entirely of makeup with no underlying beauty.",,Train,./train/unsup/45323_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353168/usercomments 25094,17154,0,"So yes this is a nice harem Anime, oh wait, this is supposed to be a horror? You sure could have fooled me. In terms of horror and suspense Higurashi is a complete and utter failure. Elfen Lied has nothing to fear now, it still probably can top this. Okay seriously I am very disappointed in this series, considering I wanted a good suspense thriller that wasn't based purely on 100% excess and shock-factoring.

Higurashi is a story of several different arcs. Each arc is a different version of the same story. In 1983 a young male transfer student comes to a small town. A town with a deadly secret. Apparently after a traditional summer festival one person will be killed and another will disappear. The story repeats in the same fashion through each arc usually ending in a brutal murder or murders of some one or some people, but something.

As wonderful as the plot sounds it really isn't. The series had immense potential to create a suspenseful masterpiece, but instead it's like watching a filler arc when something finally happens after 6 episodes. Each episode is as long winded and wordy as the next, until something may just happen only for it to be a classic and clichéd horror blunder trick. Oh but don't get me wrong, eventually something does happen, but when it FINALLY does it provides maybe a few minutes of fright but that's it. So yes this series seriously lack suspense, half the time you feel more like you are watching a slice-of-life comedy instead of a thriller.

Until some annoying detective constantly shows up to go over the SAME mystery we heard 5 episodes ago! The series can work up it's suspense and chill level, but fails to keep it long enough for us to get remotely interested. The whole time you are just questioning should I fast-forward or not? Sure I like a talky as much as the next guy maybe even more than the next guy, but excessive dialog simply doesn't usually work well in a thriller. The series tries to build and build but the suspense just keeps falling down again. But there are a few eerie moments, (key word being few) such as the wonderful psychotic laughter from the tiny little ones. (see: http://tinyurl.com/2w5tll) and when it finally does get to the horrifying climax it can give you a few chills, before it abruptly cuts off. Other than that, the series heavily relies on it's dialog and music to give any sense of a creepy atmosphere. And that is all it has going for it.

I can't express how dull of a horror this really was. Die hard horror lovers may want to stick to Elfen Lied, as for general suspense lovers (Like me) you may want to avoid this one. Apparently when cicadas cry, this horror dies.",,Train,./train/unsup/17154_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845738/usercomments 25095,4903,0,"They don't seem to make comedies like this anymore, but thankfully, they did once. ""Night Shift,"" directed by Ron Howard, stars Michael Keaton, Henry Winkler, and Shelley Long. Winkler plays Chuck Lumley, a securities broker who may have had a nervous breakdown - anyway, he has taken a job at the morgue so he can be in a quiet place. When he's transferred to the night shift, it ruins his time with his eternally dieting fiancée (Gina Hecht).

Worse than that, Chuck's quiet is shattered by a new employee, Bill Blazejowski (Keaton), who talks into a tape recorder and runs a limo service using the hearses. When Chuck's attractive neighbor, Belinda, a hooker, is in need of a pimp, Bill gathers her and her friends, and he and Chuck run a prostitution service out of the morgue. They take much less of a cut than the average pimp, and Chuck invests their money for them, and gets health insurance for them.

This is a really fun movie, with a terrific performance by Keaton as a wild man whose sense of adventure is infectious to the down and out Winkler. Winkler is the anti-Fonz, and he's wonderful. I had the pleasure of interviewing him once. He's one of the warmest, most natural people one could ever meet. Shelley Long is both funny and sympathetic as Belinda.

Very entertaining.",,Train,./train/unsup/4903_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084412/usercomments 25096,41498,0,"I rented this movie in the video store for my six year old daughter. It carried the Disney label and had some cute raccoons on the front. The movie started out with a narrator talking in a dry, boring, documentary style about developers destroying raccoon habitat in the 1960s to expand Tokyo. Then the raccoons form two armies and square off against each other. Suddenly they transform into Ninja, Sumo, and Samarai raccoons - male raccoons drawn anatomically correct and without pants. Violence and mayhem ensued and I hit the stop button as soon as I got over the shock of the visual assault on my six year old.

The Disney label used to mean something. I thought I could count on a Disney movie being suitable for the whole family, but not anymore. I'm sure the violence in this move will appeal to boys between the ages of 10 and 12, but I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone else.",,Train,./train/unsup/41498_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110008/usercomments 25097,36242,0,"I was very surprised to see that this movie had such a good rating, when i checked it on IMDb after seeing it. This really is one of the worst movies i have ever seen and i have seen many bad movies. It looks like a good movie in the beginning, but when he comes into surgery i couldn't believe how bad it got. This voice-over destroys EVERYTHING! Just imagine you are being cut open like that and then listen to what he says. I saw the movie in German so i don't really know what he said in English, but ironic stuff like ""Yeah right, it doesn't hurt..""?...what is this? Telling yourself ""think about something else"" and then forgetting your pain by just thinking about your girlfriend is just...stupid. And his mother...how the hell does she figure something like that out? Someone comes to tell her, her son died in surgery (what she kind of had to expect). Plus she found some letters in Jessica Albas bag. plus that ""she knows the hospital"" stuff... and then it takes her ""one second"" to figure it out? What the hell?^^ And the ending...why does the police bust them? The patient died in surgery, thats all that happened. That drunk doctor doesn't know anything else either...and then they bust them all, even the girlfriend??? Why??? Despite all that i think Christensen did a bad job, but that doesn't really count for me...those mistakes and stupid things i wrote about above are the problem. I watched this movie with some friends and we all were VERY disappointed... As i said, one of the worst movies i have ever seen... Just don't watch it ;)",,Train,./train/unsup/36242_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211933/usercomments 25098,33218,0,"First of all, I'm not a Pokemon fan. I rented this movie one day because I was frightfully bored. Now, the movie itself was not ALL THAT BAD. Sure, the dialogue sucks, the characters suck and you could care less if Ash suddenly blows up, but the movie did have a few redeeming qualities.

The animated short, Pikachu's Vacation was not one of them. The short was nearly UNBEARABLE, as it was all in Pokemon Jive Talk. It was so excruciating I nearly fast forwarded to the movie. Now the movie itself was ALMOST average. I didn't care for any character except maybe Mewtwo, who was the only one somewhat developed. The movie does have a good message, but they almost state it directly. The final battle was almost exciting, but other than that, this movie is for the Pokemon fans. 3/10",,Train,./train/unsup/33218_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190641/usercomments 25099,17110,0,"This film was a BIG mistake. After the first 2 movies, the fans of ""The Crow"" saga made enough money to put this and the second terrible sequel together. This movie has nothing to do with the originally, brilliant cult movie with Brandon Lee. The story and the actors are so boring and useless that I had to laugh when I saw this crap. The makers they put this together are blind? I don't know who is this director phenomena, but I think he never saw anything about James O Barrs' comic or the first movie. The actor with the name Eric Mobius and his story with the burning scars on his face as a mask are so-so silly. Just try it once, you'll see...",,Train,./train/unsup/17110_0.txt,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132910/usercomments