Mouwiya/imdb_reviews_with_labels huggingface dataset:
I do not expect this film to be well understood by viewers out of Romania. This tells something certainly about the value, or maybe about the lack of universality of the film, but also tells something about how different history and even life of common people was in Romania compared to other countries, even in Eastern Europe.
The film is an adaptation of a novel by Marin Preda, a controversial novelist who died during the Communist rule soon after the book was published. It tells the story of an intellectual, professor of philosophy whose life is crushed after he is imprisoned on false accusations at the end of the Stalinist era. Basically the first part of the film tells the story of his fight for survival in prison, the second describes his tentative to regain his life after being released. His release is actually only apparent, Romania of the 60s asks from him different types of compromises and crimes, but yet his fight for survival is as tough morally as in prison.
The film is splendidly acted by some of the best Romanian actors. Stefan Iordache who has the lead role would be in another time and another place a mega-star, we can get here a good glimpse of his fabulous acting art. Although suffering from a hesitant story-telling and falling sometimes in non-essential details or character comics, the film is still an important landmark for the Romanian cinema, as well as for the process of recovering the moral and historic values in the Romanian society.
When I started watching this movie I saw the dude from Buffy, Xander, and figured ah how nice that he's still making a living acting in movies. Now a weird movie I can stand, given that it's a good dose of weird like for example David Lynch movies, twin peaks, lost highway etc. And you sort of have to be in the mood for one. This one however made me mockingly remember the crazy websites about there about conspiracy theory's that make absolutely no sense. I mean come on people Nazi's who conspire with America to make an unholy trinity of evil powers? I was surprised they didn't mention the hollow earth in this movie with Hitler flying saucers and lizard people. Maybe if you had like 60 grams of heroine with this movie it would make some sort of sense, but seriously I don't condone drugs like I don't condone this movie. It should be burned, shredded and forgotten just so good ol' Xander might get another acting job. It wasn't his acting though, that was alright, but the script just didn't make any sense. Sorry.
While being a great James Arness western, this film has gone down as the worst Alamo film ever made. The story was terrible, inaccuracy all through it, and just downright untruths to boot! Continuity was cast to the four winds. Anybody catch the cannon sequence? The Mexicans were dumb enough to fire cannons that obviously had mud and ramrods still sticking out of the tubes. Come on! Then there is Brian Keith's ridiculous hat! Costumer must of been away or something. Or just out of their mind!
Little Edie and Big Edie are characters that anyone can feel compassion for. Even though their house was filthy, this is somehow understandable considering their mental illness. On the message board a poster wrote that "Little Edie has the coping skills of an eight year old." This reminded me of when in the dramatized 2009 version, Big Edie says to Little Edie, "If you're stuck, it's only with yourself!" These women had everything; beauty, talent, intelligence, firm belief in their opinions and actions. Perhaps if Little Edie wasn't so hard on herself the first time things didn't work out, losing her hair, her job, and the love of her life, she would have made it. This somehow ties into what I believe is her mental illness: her inability to pick herself up when times are hard and see that good times lie ahead. The world will never know what have happened if she didn't listen to her mom's plea, "Come home, Edie! Let me take care of you!"
Yet these understandably insecure women somehow manage to be brilliant, heartbreaking, and lovable, even in their extremely filthy home. These women were extraordinary, and their interaction with each other bring humor and sadness. When Edie had one of her emotional breakdowns, dwelling about what could have been, or about how she wants to get out of her home because she feels like a little girl, one gets the intense urge to hug her and tell her that "everything will be okay!"
Great documentary!!
9/10
Gédéon and Jules Naudet wanted to film a documentary about rookie New York City firefighters. What they got was the only film footage inside the World Trade Center on September 11.
Having worked with James Hanlon's ladder company before, Jules went with the captain to inspect and repair a gas leak, while Gédéon stayed at the firehouse in case anything interesting happened. An airplane flying low over the City distracted Jules, and he pointed the camera up, seconds before the plane crashed into Tower One.
Jules asked the captain to follow him into the Towers. The first thing he saw was two people on fire, something he refused to film. He stayed on site for the next several hours, filming reactions of the firefighters and others who were there.
The brothers Naudet took great care in not making the movie too violent, grizzly, and gory. But the language from the firefighters is a little coarse, and CBS showed a lot of balls airing it uncensored. The brothers Naudet mixed footage they filmed with one-on-one interviews so the firefighters could explain their thoughts and emotions during particular moments of the crisis.
Unlike a feature film of similar title, most of the money from DVD sales go to 9/11-related charities. Very well made, emotional, moving, and completely devoid of political propaganda, is the best documentary of the sort to date.
Verhoeven's movie was utter and complete garbage. He's a disgusting hack of a director and should be ashamed. By his own admission, he read 2 chapters of the book, got bored, and decided to make the whole thing up from scratch.
Heinlein would have NEVER supported that trash if he'd been alive to see it. It basically steals the name, mocks politics of the book (which is a good portion of it), and throws in some T&A so the average idiot American moviegoer doesn't get bored.
This anime isn't perfect, but it's at least mostly accurate, as best I can tell.
A good film with--for its time--an intense, sprawling, rather dark story somewhat reminiscent of John Ford's "The Searchers" though not so brutal. The story starts fast and doesn't let up, with several scenes of really good dialog between (Stewart's) Jeff Webster, Ronda Castle and Sheriff Gannon. This film is in some ways reminiscent of "Bend of the River" (1952), also a Mann-Stewart work, but I found it far less sentimental and more interesting. There are a few caveats: a too-quickly wrapped up (and rather sentimental) ending; 24-year-old Corrine Calvert is not very convincing as a naive French teenager, and of course the film takes place in the Mythic West, a land of fable where the real laws of nations and physics don't apply. But these are trivial concerns. James Stewart is surprisingly good as a dark, disengaged man who thinks he cares for no one but himself, and the mountain scenery can't be beat. A fine Western costume drama.
If you ever hear these three words uttered to you..."Joe Don Baker", be afraid...
Final Justice is the low budget action movie based on a sheriff in a Texas town named Geronimo (pronounced as Heronimo). He's an ugly, slimy, rude character who is on the hunt for a criminal in Malta who killed his partner in Texas. His partner actually slumps down twice in the movie. Very bad editing. Joe Don Baker (Geronimo) ends up in jail like 4 or 5 times in this movie, making the plot go nowhere fast. Plus, he shoots everybody like he's in the wild west. I guess nobody told him it was the 20th century. A woman cop is assigned to show him around Malta (who looks like Elaine from Seinfeld) and she is the only one who can put up with the redneck. She must be insane!
The strippers in the bar are the most entertaining characters in this movie. Their dancing is shown throughout the film and I began to bond with the sleazy women. Well, at least it was better than watching Geronimo try to dumb his way out of something. The ending is flawed and somewhat predictable, and I was happy it was finally over. You'll never forget that last line of Joe Don Baker from the movie.
It's so hard to imagine how he was in THREE Bond movies...very weird! Anyway, if you're up for a laugh, then see this one on MST3K sometime. Also, I've heard his other bad movie (among many), "Mitchell" MST3K version is being released on DVD by Rhino. I can't wait to see that!
It's been a looooonnnggg time since I saw this comedy, and I'd forgotten just how idiotic it is. I'd place this easily in the lower two or three of Elvis Presley's very worst movies. Presley plays Joe Whitecloud, a half-breed Indian bull rider who returns home to Arizona and the broken-down shack where his family lives, and where his friends love to party all night long. His parents are played by Burgess Meredith and Katy Jurado, and his old Indian grandpa is Thomas Gomez. None of the three offer anything of substance , comically or otherwise. The government has invested in the family's cattle, but they're lacking a bull. Elvis gets to sing just a few utterly worthless songs, and is pursued by a young boy-crazy gal and her gun-toting mother. This is just a real slapdash of a mess, and the dilapidated surroundings practically stink of manure and don't make this much easier. The one thing that puzzles me, however, is that Elvis actually seems to be having a good time in the film. Hard to believe, considering he got so upset about being stuck making so many mediocre movies.
Don't get fooled with all the big names like Burt Reynolds,James Woods and Anne Archer. They are just glorified extra's. Their scenes were probably filmed in one day or so. Whatever their motives for being in this movie, if you have an actor like James Woods you better make good use of him. To me this is a sign of bad direction through and through. The plot itself wasn't that bad. And the acting from most of the actors was above average. Cuba Gooding Jr. however was terrible. He was so unbelievable that I almost laughed at his dramatic scenes. And since this was meant as a serious movie that can't be a good thing. The action scenes were not bad,but they lacked that special punch to make it more exciting. Again better direction was needed. Also the pacing was wrong for a movie like this. It took the main character almost half an hour to get in action. For an action thriller of only 90 minutes that is far too slow. The only redeeming factor is Angie Harmon. She does her best to make it all work. Too bad the director left her hanging. Yes,this movie could have been much better with a great director. Andy Cheng is far too inexperienced as a director to pull it off. And for an action/stunt coordinator of his caliber you'd expect at least more exciting action scenes. Don't waste your time with this one. Avoid!
When the young Kevin gets the boat of his dead uncle as a gift, he invites five friends of him to a trip to Catalina Island for the weekend. While in the journey, they drink booze, have sex and play games, with each one of them telling his or her greatest fear. Later Kevin drowns in the open sea, the engine stops, and they are haunted and murdered by their greatest innermost fear.
Yesterday, my wife, son, daughter and three other friends joined to watch "Haunted Boat" on DVD. With less than 30 minutes running time, the group gave up watching this messy and boring amateurish piece of crap, and we decided to see another film. Later, I decided to watch the rest of this flick to see how bad it could be and it would have been better off going to bed to sleep. The confused story has an awful cinematography and camera work, with a cast that is probably studying to be actors and actresses and in the end this film seems to be a bad project of cinema school. The terrible and pretentious screenplay shows a ridiculous twist in the end, actually a complete mess that made me not understand what the story is all about. Was the girl insane and traveled alone in the boat, imagining the whole situation with imaginary friends? If that is true, are their friend again in the very end fruit of her madness? My vote is one.
Title (Brazil): "Viagem Para a Morte" ("Trip to the Death")
Nikolai Gogol's story "Viy" has been filmed again and released to home video in the US via Faith Films.
The original story concerns a priest who has to watch over the body of a witch with only his faith to protect him. Greatly expanded and set in America, though clearly filmed in Russia (the houses,clothing and furnishing are all wrong despite the English signs), this is an odd film that doesn't really work.Part of it is the weird setting that tries very hard to be backwoods America but clearly isn't.There are also some weird, intentionally oblique moments as the main character being a reporter at the start and a priest a short time later. I'm not sure why they did that, even after watching the making of piece on the DVD) The other problem is the dubbing which is beyond awful. Its done in such away that everyone speaks when their lips are not on camera- or if they are the voices don't even remotely match the lip flaps. I don't know if its Faith Films fault or that of the producers who made the film hoping to dump into the West (revealed in the making of piece).
The film isn't very good. As I've said it has all sorts of technical issues that just make this an odd ball curio. Despite some really good looking horror images the film never works as a horror film. As film to engender faith its much too confused in this retelling to amount to make anyone feel anyone closer to god.
Given the choice I'd give it a pass, even at a bargain bin price. My advice would be to find the 1960's version of the tale called Viy which will bring both some shivers and some understanding about a belief in god.
At first glance this documentary/fiction/cartoon is quite entertaining and thought provoking. Of course, when something provokes thought, it can then be scrutinized. The reality is this movie combines metaphysics with innuendo and baseless conclusions. The link that "What the Bleep..." would have you see between science and spirituality is, in fact, not rooted in science at all. The Transcendental Meditation study mentioned in the film claims that meditation by a group can reduce crime in a given area, Washington D.C. in this case. In reality the HRA (Homicides, Rapes, and Assaults) crime rate was about 30% higher in 1993 than the average crime rate between 19881992. There was absolutely no decrease in the homicide rate during the study. In fact, each and every claim that links metaphysics to science can and has been debunked.
My conclusion from this information is that this movie is either a poor attempt to indoctrinate people or a joke. Either way, I suggest that you do not waste your time.
If you are looking for a long winded movie about science that could provoke thoughts, you might consider Mindwalk (1990).
Awful dreams, wild premonitions, blasphemy and homosexual fantasies permeate Paul Verhoeven's (arguable) masterpiece of a true femme fatale who loves her men then kills them. Filled with blood and occasional gore, The Fourth Man is truly neurosis inducing. Men will literally leap when Renee swings out her scissors......
Soldier Blue is a movie with pretensions: pretensions to be some sort of profound statement on man's inhumanity to man, on the white man's exploitation of and brutality towards indigenous peoples; a biting, unflinching and sardonic commentary on the horrors of Vietnam. Well, sorry, but it fails miserably to be any of those things. What Soldier Blue actually is is pernicious, trite, badly made, dishonest rubbish.
Another reviewer here hit the nail on the head in saying that it appears to be a hybrid of two entirely different movies. What it is basically is a lame, clichéd, poorly acted "odd couple" romance - Strauss and Bergen overcoming their prejudices about the other's lifestyle and falling in love (ah, bless) - bookended by two sickening massacres which wouldn't have been out of place in a Lucio Fulci splatter flick.
There is no excuse for the repulsive, prurient, gore-drenched climax, in which cute little native American children are variously shot, sliced, dismembered and impaled in loving and graphic close-up, and large-breasted native American women are molested, raped and strung up - no excuse, that is, except box office. (The massacre itself, whilst repulsive in its misplaced intention, is very badly staged and shot; a bunch of actors lying around with bright red paint smeared on them, intercut with a few special-effects sequences of beheading/dismemberment - dismemberments, incidentally, which utilised real amputees in their filming. Now that's what I call exploitation.)
Forget all the pap you've heard (including the ludicrous commentaries that begin and end the movie) about this being a "protest", an indictment of American brutality towards the native peoples. This film doesn't give a stuff about the plight of the Cheyenne; had it done so it would have featured some involving native American characters, would have led us to get to know and to care about the nameless, faceless innocents who get slaughtered at the climax. Instead what we get is the silly white bread romance of Bergen and Strauss (lousy actors both, in this at least), with plenty of blood, guts and severed heads thrown in to attract the curious.
Which is a terrible shame, because there is a movie to be made about the Sand Creek massacre, about all of the real life massacres the US (and Britain, and all so-called "civilised" nations) have participated in over the centuries (Iraq?). this just isn't that movie.
This is by far one of the most boring and horribly acted accounts of the early days of Adolf Hitler that I have ever watched. Robert Carlyle is a wonderful actor, but to cast him as Hitler is just plain wrong. To cast Liev Schrieber as Hitler's longtime friend and aid, Haefengstal must have emitted cries of despair and anguish from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. A J-W playing a Nazi supporter, bad bad bad casting. This was not an enjoyable family film with a good historical background. This was Hollywood rubbish at its finest, cashing in on the strength of a strong (but sorely under utilized) supporting cast of actors whom seemed to have all but disappeared from the acting radar in the past 5 years.
The fake German accents (vee vill vin zis var) is insulting to German people everywhere. My mother is German and she sat fuming at the sound of the voices which kept switching from American/English/German all in the same sentence. The supporting cast make better cardboard cutouts at the local video store than they do on screen. Jenna Malone as the fated Geli Raubal, was splendid though, she captured the innocence and confusion of this tragic young woman who ultimately ended her own life to escape what her future would have been like in Hitler's shadow.
If you would like a tremendously fantastic and historically accurate account of Hitler's early years leading up to and including the war/holocaust, rent "Inside the Third Reich" 1983 starring Rutger Hauer as Albert Speer and Derek Jacobi as Hitler. It was good and made more sense then this baloney.
As a historical researcher of the Third Reich I can honestly tell you, this had me reaching for my books to confirm its myriad of inaccuracies.
This could be a strong candidate for "The Worst Flick Ever". Perhaps without the presence of John Hurt, it could be tolerated as a kid-film. However, the TRAGEDY of this entire endeavor, is that John Hurt, one of the screen's greatest actors, diminishes himself in this....I gave it two points just because Mr. Hurt SHOWED UP...I take AWAY 8 points, because he didn't run from it fast enough. As far as the rest of the cast, they are, simply, terrible. Janine Turner, as pretty as she might be, cannot act to save her soul. And the lead actor is, for all intents and purposes, AWFUL. If you can spare yourself this embarrassment, please do so. It's so bad, it almost HURTS.
Over the years I've seen a bunch of these straight to video Segal movies, and every one holds the same amount of entertainment; unfortanetley, the entertainment level is at a low. Sure, the action sequences were amusing, but that was pretty much it. Seagal was really in his prime when he did movies like; Under Siege, Under Siege 2, and Executive Decision(at least on the action standpoint), but during the past ten years, these types of movies that star Segal really do not meet his past qualifications.
On the more positive side, the movie did make good use of time, like some of the action sequences and use of wit. Just when the movie seemed to just drag on, a pretty cool action scene brought it up out of the gutter. I honestly believe that more of Segal's movies would do better if he wasn't the only one that fans recognize in the movie. Supporting actors and actresses are a very important thing, and if his current movies had this known supporting actors and actresses, maybe the movie will get more popular results.
This is a documentary I came across by chance on the UK TV channel More4 and I have to say I found it extremely interesting and thought provoking. I will also be seeking out the book that was the source material for this documentary. Basically this is Professor Jared Diamond theory on why certain parts of the earth's societies prospered and others did not. The argument he presents was new to me and argued about how the fortune of the right crops and the right animals that where able to domesticated is certainly a compelling one. As for the documentary itself it is well shot and well narrated with not to much of the re-created scenes that spoil many a modern documentary. Diamond also helps by not being to condescending which is a fault of a lot of intellectuals when trying to get a message to the masses. People have claimed his theory is Marxist but I do not buy this and see it more socio geologist. It was also refreshing to hear an theory on the evolution of society not based around religion. Highly recommended viewing.
The plot: A crime lord is uniting 3 different mafias in an entreprise to buy an island, that would then serve as money-laundering facility for organized crime. To thwart that, the FBI tries to bust one of the mafia lords. The thing goes wrong, and by some unlikely plot twists and turns, we are presented with another "cop buddies who don't like each other" movie... one being a female FBI agent, and the other a male ex-DEA agent.
So far, so stupid. But the strength of this movie does not lie in its story - a poor joke, at best. It is funny. (At least the synchronized German version is). The action is good, too, with a memorable scene involving a shot gun and a rocket launcher. But the focus is squarely on the humour. Not intelligent satire, not quite slapstick, but somewhere in between, you get a lot of funny jokes.
However, this film is the opposite of political correctness. Legal drug abuse is featured prominently, without criticism, and even displaying it as cool. That's the bit of the movie that seriously annoyed me, and renders it unsuitable for kids, in my opinion.
All in all, for a nice evening watching come acceptable action with some funny jokes, this movie is perfect. Just remember: In this genre, it is common to leave your brain at the door when you enter the cinema / TV room. Then you'll have a good time. 8/10