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tt0124014 | The Mutilator | A woman is seen working on a birthday cake in the kitchen. In another room, her young son puts a sign on a gun cabinet reading: 'Happy Birthday, Daddy. All cleaned by me'. The boy takes out one rifle to polish. He playfully aims the gun and pulls the trigger, and a single bullet shoots right through the door and hits his mother in the back, killing her instantly. The woman's husband returns and sees his dead wife. He violently hits his son, and the boy runs outside while the man drags his dead wife to the living room. He sits with the dead body, has a drink from his large liquor cabinet and puts his son's sign on his wife's corpse. The little boy watches from the kitchen.Several years later, the young boy, named Ed, is drinking with friends at a local dive bar and they are complaining about their monotonous fall break from college. Ed then gets a phone call from his father and Pam tells the others about the accident when Ed shot his mother which "drove his father crazy". Ed's father, known as Big Ed, is a hunter and survivalist and has always been hard on both his wife and only son. Since the death of Ed's mother was ruled an accident, the memory of it has always hanged on him. Ed's father tells him over the phone that he wants to close the condo for the upcoming winter. After Ed tells his friends that making the job will sound simple, they suggest going there for their fall break. Ed, Pam, Ralph, Sue, Mike and Linda jump into Ed's car and drive off.At the beachfront condo house, the group finds the door open and many empty beer bottles inside. Big Ed is nowhere to be found. Pam wants to report it to the authorities, but Ed tells her that the cops are usually not around and the beach patrol enforces the law. They go to his father's trophy room and find various stuffed animal heads from Big Ed's years of hunting, as well as a gaff and a photograph of a dead bloody guy (Ed's dad ran over him with a ski boat). Ed tells them all about his father being a big game hunter and survivalist who was always obsessed with his guns and other weapons he kept around the house. Ed shows them a pyramid stinger in the wall and tells them of a throwing contest between his father and friends. Pam points out an empty space on the wall, and Ed says that his father's battle axe used to be there. Pam thinks that the ax may have been stolen, so Ed tells her that he will call his father in the morning to ask about the condo and the missing axe.Meanwhile, Ed's disheveled father is in the garage having been woken up from a slumber, and gripping the axe. Big Ed dreams of choking, shooting, and slicing the throat of his young son whom he apparently still blames for the death of his wife. Big Ed hides when Linda and Mike enter the garage to look at things around the room, but they are called by inside before they can open the door where Big Ed is hiding.That evening, after dinner, Pam's "dusty roaster" shows that she and Ed are cleaning up. Mike and Linda go for a walk on the beach while the others play a board game in the living room. Pam becomes worried about Mike and Linda being gone for quite a while, so they all go out to look for them on the beach.Mike and Linda find a heated swimming pool in the courtyard area of an unoccupied house down the beach. So they strip down and dive into the water. While they are playfully splashing around, Linda is pulled underwater and drowned; her body is taken away without Mike seeing anything. Mike gets out and sees that all his clothes are missing. He follows a trail of his own clothes, puts them on as he goes along and finally sees Linda's bra near the garage and says "I think I'm getting your message". He checks the door with Linda's hanging panties; another door opens to reveal Big Ed who uses a boat's motor blades to slice open Mike's chest.Ben, an officer of the beach patrol, finds the others where they tell him that they are staying at Big Ed's place and that someone may have broken into the house. Ben goes to the beach condo and looks around, but he is soon beheaded by Big Ed using his battle axe.Ed Jr. and the rest of his friends decide to go back to the house and decide to play 'Blind Man's Bluff'. Sue offers to be first, so the other three go outside and drink a beer as Sue turns off the lights and hides. They finish their beer and go back inside, and Big Ed sneaks out and goes around to the back of the house. Pam finds Sue hiding behind the cooler and hides next to her under the kitchen table. Ralph finds them both and hides, while Big Ed wonders around the house and walks right pass them (neither of the teens are aware to who it really is). Ed Jr. finally ends the game by walking into the kitchen and offering everyone a beer. His murderous father walks outside unnoticed.A little later, everyone goes to bed for the night. Ralph and Sue are kissing on the bed having foreplay, until she tells him that they forgot to lock the front door. Ralph leaves to find Linda and Mike, and he goes to open the garage door thinking that they are inside. He finds Linda's panties and throws a pyramid stinger at the door and hits it. Big Ed suddenly opens the door and jumps out and stabs Ralph in his throat with a pitchfork. Pam hears a noise and tries to wake Ed. Sue goes looking for Ralph, and Big Ed gets inside and takes the gaff off the wall. Pam finally wakes up Ed, and they go looking for the others and find Sue, who says she does not know where Ralph is. They split up to look. Sue is then grabbed by Big Ed, who drags her to the garage and gorily chops her up with his battle axe.Pam and Ed enter the garage and find their dead friends, all hanging by hooks on a wall as kill trophies. They see the shadow of an approaching Big Ed, and Ed Jr. throws Pam into a room. He and Big Ed struggle with each other until Big Ed gets the upper hand and knocks down his son and ties his hands and feet together. Big Ed lifts the axe to kill Ed, but Pam runs out to throw things at Big Ed. The man shoves part of his axe into Ed's leg, and Pam tosses a pyramid stinger at him, hitting his forehead. She then picks up a knife and stabs Big Ed in his chest. Pam then frees Ed and they decide to run to the car to try to get away, but the convertible won't start. Suddenly, Big Ed appears atop the car and begins axing through the top to get at them. He grabs Ed, but Pam burns him with the car's cigarette lighter just as Ed finally manages to start the engine and backs out, knocking Big Ed off the roof. Big Ed then tries to get back on the car's back trunk and Pam throws the car into reverse, crushing him into two pieces.A little later, the police arrive and as they are taking Ed and Pam's statements and hauling the dead bodies out of the garage into body bags. As a cop comes over to inspect Big Ed's remains, the top half of the killer jumps up to cut the officer up with the axe just before he finally expires.In the final scene, Ed goes to see Pam in the hospital and they observe a moment of silence. | comedy, murder, cult, horror, violence, revenge, sadist | train | imdb | null |
tt0441773 | Kung Fu Panda | "Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose kung fu skills were the stuff of legend..." A mysterious panda donning a flowing cape and sedge hat walks through the Chinese landscape. Reputed to be a grand master of kung fu, he enters a tavern where he is immediately attacked by the local ruffians. However, they are no match for his skill and even the legendary kung fu masters, the Furious Five, bow down to the panda's skill, requesting to hang out with him and fight alongside him as......Po the giant panda (Jack Black) wakes up from his dream in his room. His goose father, Mr. Ping (James Hong) calls to him from the noodle restaurant below to help serve tables. Po admires his Furious Five action figures before going downstairs. An extreme fan of Kung Fu, Po dreams of one day becoming a master worthy of fighting alongside the Five but his girth and clumsiness makes this dream simply a dream and his kung fu talents reside only within his knowledge of moves and artifacts. He is hesitant to express his desires to his dad who is more interested in running his restaurant and advertising his famous 'secret ingredient soup'.Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), a red panda who resides at the Jade Palace temple, practices kung fu in the courtyard with his students, the Furious Five; Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Mantis (Seth Rogen), before he is summoned to see tortoise Grand Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim). Fearing something is wrong, Shifu rushes to find him meditating in the grand hall. Oogway doesn't deny bad news but calmly tells Shifu he's predicted that the snow leopard warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane) will escape prison and return to the Valley of Peace to wreak destruction once again. Intent on never letting this happen, Shifu sends his goose messenger, Zeng (Dan Fogler), to fly to Chor-Gom Prison to ensure that security is increased. Oogway then proclaims that it is time to choose the Dragon Warrior; a master of great skill who will be granted the secrets of the universe by reading the Dragon Scroll, kept delicately out of reach on the temple ceiling. Assuming that one of the Furious Five will be chosen, Shifu prepares a competition to determine which one will qualify.Flyers for the competition are spread throughout town and the villagers flock to the temple. Excited to have the opportunity to see his idols in person, Po follows with his noodle cart in tow but struggles on the long staircase to the temple. He is the last to arrive at the gates and finds that they've shut him out. In a desperate bid to see the competition before it's over, Po fashions fireworks to his cart and blasts himself high into the air, only to come crashing down in the arena just as Oogway is preparing to choose out of the Five. Po opens his eyes to see Oogway's finger pointed right at him and is shocked, along with everyone else, when he is proclaimed to be the Dragon Warrior. Oogway's decision is final, despite Shifu's protests, and Po is carried (unsuccessfully) into the temple leaving Tigress greatly disappointed since it seemed Oogway would have chosen her if Po hadn't arrived.Inside the temple, Po examines, with awe, the many weaponry and valuable artifacts before Shifu approaches him and berates him for his obvious lack of skill. He deflates Po's excitement by grabbing his finger in what Po recognizes as the Wuxi Finger Hold, reputed to be extremely powerful. Shifu promises that Po will regret ever being chosen before taking him to the Fives training room where Po is promptly put to the test. Nervous, but excited to try some kung fu moves, Po accepts the challenge but is hurtled, flung, and beaten down to a now-existing Level 0.On the way to the dormitories, Po overhears the Five poke fun at his incompetence. He has an awkward conversation with Crane, opening up to his own doubts of being the Dragon Warrior. Tigress assures his doubts, calling him a disgrace to kung fu and tells him that, if he is wise, he will leave by morning. Disheartened, Po retreats to a secluded spot. Oogway finds him sitting beneath the Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom with peaches stuffed into his mouth. Sensing his distress, and noting that he finds comfort in food, Oogway tells Po that he worries too much about what was or what could be. He should instead focus on the present moment rather than doubting himself.Renewed with a sense of determination, Po rises the next morning before anyone else and announces that he will stay to train. He spars with each of the Furious Five, receiving swift beatings despite his undeterred enthusiasm. Frustrated by Po's perseverance, Shifu is at a loss. However, the Five become impressed by Po's fortitude and eventually start to warm up to him, with the exception of Tigress. During an acupuncture session with Mantis, the Five reveal that Shifu was not always as stern as he currently is. Tigress explains that Tai Lung himself was the reason for Shifu's shift in personality. Having found him as a newborn on the steps of the temple, Shifu raised Tai Lung as his own and began to hope that he was the fabled Dragon Warrior when the cub displayed a natural talent in kung fu. However, when the time came to stand before Oogway, the grand master sensed darkness in Tai Lung and denied him the honor of receiving the Dragon Scroll. Enraged, Tai Lung went on a rampage through the village and attempted to take the scroll by force. Caring for him too much, Shifu was unable to fight Tai Lung and Oogway was forced to defeat him by blocking his chi. Tigress then says that Shifu never cared for anything or anyone since, not even her; his own foster daughter.Meanwhile, Zeng arrives at Chor-Gom Prison and is escorted to Tai Lung's hold by the over-confident Commander Vachir (Michael Clarke Duncan), a rhinoceros. Vachir assures Zeng that the prison is inescapable as one of Zeng's feathers falls within reach of Tai Lung. Using his tail, he uses the feather to remove the chi-blockers in the turtle-shell contraption on his back and break free. Tai Lung escapes the prison in an explosive display of his fierce kung fu abilities and grabs Zeng, instructing him to fly back to Shifu to announce that the real Dragon Warrior is coming home.Back at the temple, Po entertains the Five with some noodle soup he prepared, imitating Shifu using a noodle as a mustache. Outside, Shifu is met by a disheveled Zeng who relays the news. Panicked, Shifu finds Oogway beside the Sacred Peach Tree and tells him that Tai Lung is on his way. Oogway is shocked, but assures Shifu that, if he finds faith in the panda and trains him, Tai Lung will be defeated and Shifu will finally find inner peace. He then gives Shifu his wooden staff and claims that his time has come. He walks near the edge of the cliff side and vanishes in a haze of peach blossoms. Shifu returns to the temple, disconsolate, and informs the Five of Oogway's passing and how Po is their last chance to defeat Tai Lung. Horrified, Po flees from the temple but is soon stopped by Shifu. Po confronts Shifu, saying that he tried to kick him out of the temple and asks how he will train him to become the Dragon Warrior. Shifu admits that he doesnt know.Overhearing this from the temple roof, Tigress leaves the Jade Palace and runs out to the countryside, soon followed by the rest of the Five, to meet Tai Lung head on. They find him crossing the Thread of Hope, a series of bridges through the mountains. They attempt to stop him on the last bridge. After an epic battle, the Five gain the upper hand and appear to have defeated Tai Lung, tying him to the remains of the severed bridge and sending him into the mist below. However, Tai Lung's skills prove superior, and he surprises them by flinging himself onto the cliff and overpowering them with a chi block.Rising that morning, Shifu finds Po in the temple kitchen, surrounded by cabinets with perfect hole punches in the doors and boards broken clean in two. Shifu entertains an idea and tells Po where Monkey keeps his cookies before hiding behind the doorway. He reenters and sees Po performing a perfect split near the ceiling, chowing down on the cookies. Realizing Po's secret, Shifu takes him high into the Wu Dan Mountains to the Pool of Sacred Tears where Oogway founded the origins of kung fu. Shifu proclaims to be Po's master and begins his rigorous training, using food as a reward. Po's unique training proves to be successful and he grows stronger and more coordinated.They return to the temple as Crane flies in, carrying the rest of the Five, who have been paralyzed by Tai Lung's attacks. Shifu rejuvenates them but Po is discouraged by the fact that five masters could not overpower Tai Lung; how could he? Shifu assures him that he will have what no one else has; the Dragon Scroll. Shifu retrieves it for Po and instructs him to read it, but Po exclaims in surprise to find nothing but a blank, reflective glaze on the scroll. Terribly disappointed, Shifu relents to have the Five evacuate the village while he remains at the temple to hold Tai Lung off. The Five reluctantly agree and Po returns to his father who is packing up the noodle shop. Ping tries to console Po, but Po admits that hes not sure of who he is and can't believe he's Ping's son. Taken aback, Ping whispers to Po something he should have told him long ago; the secret ingredient to his famous secret ingredient soup. The secret is... nothing. He explains that something becomes special if people truly believe that it is. Po opens the scroll to see his reflection on its glazed surface and realizes the secret before turning back to the temple.Shifu waits at the top of the steps until Tai Lung arrives. Refusing to give his old student the scroll, Shifu battles Tai Lung who all too easily defeats his master. Tai Lung demands his birthright to have the scroll and blames Shifu for planting dreams in his head of what he thought was his destiny. He yells at Shifu to tell him how proud he is and Shifu admits that he was proud from the first moment, but it was his pride that blinded him from seeing what Tai Lung was becoming. Not looking for apologies, Tai Lung demands only the scroll. He is stopped from dealing a deadly blow to Shifu by Po, who appears, exhausted, at the doorway of the temple. Baffled by the Dragon Warrior's pudgy exterior, Tai Lung nonetheless attacks Po when he reveals the Dragon Scroll in hand. Their battle takes them into the village, each one vying for possession of the scroll. At one point, Po imagines the scroll as a bowl of dumplings to encourage him to climb a high precipice to get it, but Tai Lung is convinced that the scroll is giving him power.Using ingenuity and his rebounding stomach, Po manages to render Tai Lung helpless. Tai Lung spews out a slur of insults before Po takes his finger in the Wuxi Finger Hold. Tai Lung calls Pos bluff and Po admits that Shifu never taught him the move - he figured it out on his own. With a triumphant "Skadoosh!", Po flexes his pinky, resulting in a magnificent wave of raw energy that resonates throughout the valley and is felt by the Five leading the refugees into the hills. Having presumably killed Tai Lung, Po is cheered on by the returning villagers. Tigress and the rest of the Five bow down to Po, calling him master, before Po runs back to the temple to check on Shifu. He finds Shifu lying still, but alive, on the floor of the temple and tells him he defeated Tai Lung. Shifu thanks him and tells Po that he's brought him peace before closing his eyes. Po calls out to him and Shifu reprimands him, saying that he's merely resting. Po lies down beside him and, after a quiet, meditative moment, asks if he wants to get something to eat. Shifu says, Ok.They enjoy a meal of dumplings together at the Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom, overlooking a new day while a seed that Shifu had previously planted begins to bloom. | comedy, cute, violence, clever, good versus evil, flashback, absurd, action, entertaining | train | imdb | All the classic elements of those great kung fu flicks are there, while still keeping it pleasantly G-rated.Let me get this out of the way: this movie has some of the greatest 3D animated fight scenes.
It was the perfect blend of comedy, heart, and action, all necessary elements in a successful and great animation/CGI film, in the tradition of The Incredibles and (less action, but containing the heart and laughter) Ratatouille, Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc.I took my wife and nephew and niece to see it on a Friday night and they enjoyed it, too!
But that's still okay because the animators should be given equal credit (if not more) for delivering the funny, action and heart elements of this movie in an effective, amazing and (I've got to use this) AWESOME manner.
simply a delight to watch.It's clear that Dreamworks has gotten back in the animation game with Kung Fu Panda, after slight ho-hums in Shrek 3 and Bee Movie (call me crazy, but I liked Over The Hedge more than those two).
Hopefully, it should earn well over $500M worldwide because it is so good.This movie rightfully belongs in the top animation movies of all time (okay, let's not include the classic fairy tales of old; let's begin with the 90's onwards), alongside my faves "The Incredibles" "Finding Nemo" and "Beauty & The Beast." Has the makings of being a classic.My wife and I enjoyed it so much that we saw it again the night after.
Master Shifu (voice Dustin Hoffman) must find a way to train Po and make him a Kung Fu Master, especially, after they learn that the snow leopard, Tai Lung (voice Ian McShane), is headed their way.(My Comment) This is a cute animated comedy that also inspires lessons in life.
Unlike his father, who also dreamed but never found the courage to act on it, Panda follows his calling and by "luck" get chosen to be the legendary Dragon warrior by the Kung-Fu grand master, the old turtle, to defeat the evil tiger.
Now the only chance to stop Tai Lung is the glutton Po."Kung Fu Panda" is a very funny and entertaining animation, with the delightful story of a clumsy Panda that dreams on being a hero.
What a fabulous movie...great output from Dreamworks...This is the film, can be watched by all section of audience...very entertaining...The artists selection was too good....Jack Black the real show stealer...I don't think there was any expectations about this movie before release, but if you go with high expectations, definitely it reaches beyond.The story as follows, Po(Jack Black),a panda who helps his father make and serve noodle soup.
One of my favorite scenes is the one in which the Brave Master Shifu battles with his former pupil, the vicious (and I mean vicious) Tai Lung.All the characters add their own little sparkle to the story, like sweetness being added to a cake.
Chinese movie makers should learn a lot from Hollywood.I think Kung Fu Panda perfectly gets together several important Chinese cultural elements: traditional Chinese Kung Fu Tactics, traditional Chinese fighting story, traditional Chinese jokes, traditional Chinese scenes, traditional Chinese music, even traditional Chinese legends!
And even more minor characters like the menacing head of prison security rhino Commander Vachir voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan, all very good.Overall, a fantastic movie experience that I would not mind watching over and over.
It is no wonder it is rated G here, and I expect that the holiday season would allow cash registers to ring, for animation fans with the different styles utilized to tell the story (you must be on time and not miss the opening sequence), for kung fu fans to get a kick out of classic kung fu moves personified in their animal forms - Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Monkey (Jackie Chan) - collectively known as the Fearsome/Fab Five, and for the kids, given the obvious reason that hey, the protagonist is a cuddly bear.
For all its A-list voice actors in the movie, with the likes of Michael Clarke Duncan, Dan Fogler, Ian McShane and those who provide voices to the 5 key animals, Kung Fu Panda is clearly a Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman vehicle.
Jack Black really pulled it off and the complementing voices of Angelina Jolie and Jackie Chan really made this film shine.Jack Black brings his characteristic humor to this movie with great lines such as "There is no charge for awesomeness, and attractiveness." and a general style that makes him...Jack Black!The story was not only engaging but had real life lessons that are good for anyone to learn.
It is pretty, too, especially on Blu-Ray. I imagine this looked awesome on IMAX in the theater.Jack Black does a nice job of voicing the main character, "Po," the panda that surprised everyone, including himself, on what he could achieve if he set his mind to it.
This is just the sweet spot you want - animation perfection coupled with a fine story that delivers an extremely enjoyable, very funny lovely gum drop of a film.I think Dreamworks has easily surpassed Shrek (the first) with Kung Fu Panda.
"Shrek" was great, but had so many puns because of the content (Fairy Tales) that it was almost too easy.With the law-of-diminishing returns Shreks and the passably funny Madagascar under their belt, I had low expectations for "Kung Fu Panda." Pleasant surprise is an understatement: the animators, screenwriters, storytellers, voice actors, and producers all brought their "A game" to this one.
If awesome fight sequences, crazy- mazing animation, and Funny humor are your thing GO SEE THIS MOVIE!Who saw this coming?
Who's gonna go up to their friends and be like "Oh yea Kung Fu Panda was AWESOME!" (oh yea, that's right, ME!) I originally said that Wall- E looks like the best animated movie of the year but I can now say that it has competition (Wall-E will still be the best, but it officially has competition).
Jack Black is on form with his latest outing 'Kung-Fu Panda' a funny and excellently animated tale of dreams, ambition, self belief and of course Kung-Fu. Po is a panda stuck in his job at his dads noodle shop but as he cooks and serves he secretly dreams of being a Kung-Fu master and part of crack fighting force 'The furious five'.
With an all star cast of voice talent here, Black, Hoffman, Jolie and Chan to name but a few, the characters are instantly likable, but what sets this film apart is really the animation which is simply stunning and often uses matrix style slow motion to great effect as the camera whirls you round a fight scene that just stays the right side of not making you dizzy.
No buddy, there's no Panda.And that's specifically the reason I loved this movie.The giant, lazy, slow animal ( Giant Panda ) with it's affinity for food ,having probably the least chance to make it up to Kung-Fu ranks, becomes a hero in this incredible movie.And his master 'Shifu' is a small Red Panda !!But don't get me wrong.Not by magic.The Giant Panda is a large animal with considerable strength and it can be fast when needed.Po the Giant Panda was unexpectedly chosen by Tortoise guru Oogway to defend their valley from the wrath of the snow leopard 'Tai Lung' who was raised by Kung-Fu master Shifu, who is a Red Panda himself.Shifu has five of the best as his students: Tiger, Viper, Crane,Monkey and Mantis.But not one of them, or even, all of them together can defeat the Snow Leopard who used to be the best and most powerful of all of Shifu's students.Sadly 'Tai Lung''s lust for power turned him into a merciless outlaw.Only with the help of Tortoise Guru ( Shifu's master )'Oogway' could Tai Lung be sent into Prison.However Tai Lung breaks prison in an outstanding animation sequence that can compare with Hollywood's best action scenes, and is slated to come back to the valley and wreak havoc in his quest for a 'Secret' power.And now according to Oogway, only the gentle Panda 'Po'( with enough theoretical, bookish knowledge but no Real Kung-Fu experience ) can stop him,and Shifu has to train him in unconventional ways.Watch this movie with your entire family and you will love every second of it.The climax could have been more gripping.Even then, for innovation, a 10 out of 10..
I was entertained.Kung Fu Panda is a good movie, and is reminiscent of the days when Dreamworks came up with Shrek.
Not only is it entertaining/funny but also has a moral to the story which we all should learn from (both adults and children).The graphics is excellent, story is simple/typical (aren't majority of them nowadays) but the moral included makes this animation not only for kids but for everyone.Generally i don't want any sequels to be made since they are just for money grabbing reasons but for this one i hope they make a trilogy since i really LOVE PO..
Kung Fu Panda is one of the best animation movie I have ever seen.
(In the style of the 70's disco hit song "Kung Fu Fighting")Everybody is watching "Kung Fu Panda" That fat panda is getting many sightings Even though at the start the Kung Fun Panda is not a little bit frightening He comes through with expert timing There were funky animated characters again From funky Paramount Animation town They were drawing them up and they were drawing them down It's an ancient Movie art and every Panda creator knew their part From drawing the Panda slips and see him kicking from his gut-covered hipEverybody will love "Kung Fu Panda" Jack Black was great as Panda Even though the Black was not a little bit frightening But he delivered laughs with expert timing There was a funky master Shifu with his Furious Fighting Five There comes a villain tiger Tai Lung, he gets it on I took and bow and made a stand, started clapping with my hands The vocal motion from these actors made me trip, and now we're into these film stripsAll the vocal acting was great in "Kung Fu Panda" Dustin Hoffman's voice work as Shifu was very delighting Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, David Cross, and Lucy Liu were also striking as the Furious Five and even Ian McShane as Tai Lung was also wonderfully frighteningEverybody should see "Kung Fun Panda" Go as fast as lightning Because the theatres are getting packed and is a many people sighting (End of song)I know this review has been a little frightening, but I hope it brought you some laughs with extra smiling.
The bad guy Tai lung wasn't a terrible bad guy since he was a cool fighter and he had a good voice that fits him well, but he was underdeveloped and could've been better.Overall Kung Fu panda is a great film that teaches people that they can do anything in life if they put there minds to it no matter what flaws they have..
But when Po leaves work to witness the selection of the Dragon Warrior (the mighty martial artist who is destined to save the valley from dreadful danger), he somehow finds himself chosen for the position.Now, with only days before the arrival of the villainous Tai Lung, a powerful snow leopard with destruction on his mind, can Po learn the secrets of kung fu in time and become the hero he so desperately wishes to be?Although Kung Fu Panda has a lot going for itcool animation, great characters and some wonderful gags (which work particularly well if you're a fan of martial arts movies) I'm going to go against what seems to be the general consensus, and declare that I thought the ending sucked, and spoilt what might have been an otherwise excellent adventure.Following loads of wonderful action, plenty of laughs, and some mystical mumbo-jumbo about a magical scroll that contains the secret of unimaginable power, Kung Fu Panda turns into a weak morality tale, preaching that real strength comes from belief in oneself.
Jack Black played a clumsy fat Panda to great effect, and was nicely complimented by the other animal characters.
Kung-Fu Panda takes an interesting look at this genre, as well as a modern one.Po, a chubby, yet lovable Panda (Jack Black) works in a noodle shop with his Goose father (David Hong), but dreams of Kung-Fu and fighting with the Fearsome Five, a team made up of Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Viper (Lucy Liu), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Crane (David Cross) and Mantis (Seth Rogen).
Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) is now faced with the task of training a panda with great knowledge but little skill in Kung-Fu. Meanwhile, the evil Tai Long (Ian MacShane) has escaped from prison, and is now threatening the village.
Fortunately, there was enough good comedy, great action sequences, and intriguing characters to keep me entertained and to rate this movie as the best to come out of this summer so far.For starters, Jack Black was perfect as Po the Panda.
Angelina Jolie was a natural to play Tigress, who is probably the first truly strong female character in animation history who also isn't involved in a love story subplot of a film.
The music is very good, from the orchestral parts I heard and does give one a sense of being in China.Overall, there are some things not explained(like why Po's dad is a duck and Po's past) but apart from niggles with lack of originality story-wise and some clichés, this is really an experience to enjoy fully in a cinema I think, due to the sheer scope of the fight sequences and the cinematography of old China.
One has to wonder watching Kung Fu Panda, was there any other point to personifying these animals other than to play on our feelings as to what is 'cute', and sell movie tickets to parents with children?
As far as movies go, this does not measure up as much as other movies in its class, and certainly not as much as other movies in general, and I believe that more care was needed to take this good movie and make it a great one.Strongly recommended for children and bored adults who think it's cute and funny to see a fat panda try to do Kung Fu - no doubt there will be many of you..
Another fun, if not all too predictable film, has Po the Panda, a cook for his father's noodle shop, selected as being the legendary Dragon Warrior, much to the chagrin of five kung-fu artists and their master, who have spent their lives and then some trying to attain that goal.The movie is entirely predictable.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon + Once Upon a Time in China + Jackie Chan's Drunken Master + Bruce Lee + Shaw Brothers Movies + 3D Animation = Kung Fu Panda.
A truly enjoyable movie and likely the best animated film we'll see this year.
As I looked around the theater, everyone was just having so much fun watching Kung Fu Panda, the jokes, the animation, the voices, the story, I felt like I was watching real kung fu movie.
This movie is just so much for the entire family to watch.Po is a panda who is just dreaming of one day to learn kung fu like his idols, the fantastic five, but his father wishes for him to take over their noodle restaurant.
But after Tai Lung escapes, Shifu has to learn to believe in Po and help him with the strengths and the "secret ingredient" that he has.Kung Fu Panda is one of the year's most fun and entertaining movies that anyone could enjoy.
"Kung Fu Panda" manages to leech all of the character and idiosyncraticness out of the voices of fine character actors like Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and others, that you may as well have used a cast of unknowns.A real shame, then, but not a total waste.
But Master Shifu has not much choice as his ex-student, the evil Tai Lung, has escaped from his maximum security prison to claim the position of Dragon Warrior for himself.Some sequences in this movie are breathtaking, I exulted at the thought of animation finally telling us such diverse stories.
Set in the legendary world of ancient China, it features the voice talents of Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, and Jackie Chan (kind of).At first glance the movie looked like a pass, mostly because of a crap title and Jack Black's less than good batting average lately.
My family went to this for Father's Day and two 40ish-year-olds, 19 year old, 18 year old, and 15 year old all thoroughly enjoyed it, laughing out loud numerous times throughout the movie.It was a mix of old kung fu movie nostalgia, The Matrix fight scene choreography, awesome animation, and the humor of Jack Black.
This is one of the best animated movie ever made.Story was good.Direction was great.
The Kung Fu displayed in the film (especially by Tai Lung) is always fun to watch as it has the right blend between animation and comedy.
While not solid, Kung Fu Panda is still one of Dreamworks Animation's best films.
I do think they're great characters as well, but their development was lacking at best (aside from such big voice casts like Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross, and Seth Rogen) and I would've liked to see more of them (well, until the sequel, that is).Overall, while it isn't solid, Kung Fu Panda is still one of DreamWorks Animation's best films next to Shrek, The Prince of Egypt, and How To Train Your Dragon and is a fun-filled martial arts animated adventure that is heartwarming, beautiful, and hilarious at the same time. |
tt0960835 | Transmorphers | In 2009, a race of aliens piloting giant robots have conquered Earth and forced humanity to live underground. They have done this by altering the environment, causing constant rainfall and darkness. Over 300 years later, after many generations of living underground, a small group of human rebels plan to finally take back their world from the mechanical invaders. They soon learn however that the aliens do not pilot the robots, but are the robots.
A patrol, led by Lt. Blackthorn (Thomas Downey), is sent out to capture one of the robots, a Z-bot, so its operating ability can be studied. The patrol is suddenly ambushed by several robots, with some being able to reconfigure themselves, revealing different weapon systems. These units, the 'transmorphers', ambush humans by appearing as mundane features of the terrain, even fooling detection systems. The robots use "brain scans" to read the minds of humans to know their battle plans.
After Blackthorn's patrol is destroyed by the machines, a female lead officer of the human resistance group, General Van Ryberg (Eliza Swenson), argues with fellow officers of the Military and Science Guilds about how to fight the war. Despite some protests, Van Ryberg decides to reinstate a disgraced soldier named Warren Mitchell (Matthew Wolf), who was court-martialed along with his right-hand man, Itchy (Griff Furst), and cryogenically frozen for insubordination. They had killed their unit officer five years earlier. Mitchell is glad to be reinstated, but learns that his former lover, Karina Nadir (Amy Weber), a fighter pilot, is now married to General Van Ryberg.
Mitchell assembles a small military patrol with Itchy as his second-in-command, and Flight Commander Xandria Lux (Shaley Scott), as his military adviser. The patrol is sent out to capture a Z-bot, intact, so its fuel cells can be studied. They hope to shut the machines down by contaminating the fuel cell and placing it in a large radio tower which supposedly controls the machines.
Mitchell and his group ambush and destroy a group of patrol machines, and succeed in capturing one. During the battle, Karina and another female soldier named Blair (Sarah Hall) become stuck behind enemy lines right near the radio tower. They are forced to hide in the ruins around the tower while waiting for help to arrive.
Bringing the Z-bot back to their underground city, Mitchell realizes that the fuel cell has an implanted tracking device that leads the machines to the humans underground city. Van Ryberg takes over as the field commander of the human army and leads them out in a last-ditch effort to defeat the robots, and to rescue her wife.
Mitchell then surprisingly learns from resident scientist Dr. Voloslov Alextzavich (Michael Tower), that he himself is an android constructed by Dr. Alextzavich, with human feelings and understandings. Mitchell realizes that he must get the Z-bot's fuel cell to the radio tower and implant it in the control computer in order to shut the robots down.
Supported by an aerial strike force led by Lux, Mitchell's team fly out and make it to the radio tower where they are able to rescue Karina and Blair. The group breaks into the building, but the anti-human counter-measures make all of them sick and they cannot make it to the main control room. The situation becomes more complicated when the tower reveals itself to be a giant robot.
Meanwhile, General Van Ryberg and her soldiers reach one of the terraforming stations and attempt to take it offline. They attempt to hold off a massive army of robots attacking the underground city. Lux then arrives with her fighter squadron to bomb the attacking robots.
Back at the radio station, Mitchell, using his android abilities, sacrifices himself and takes the tower out, buying enough time for the rest of his team to escape. Once the tower is destroyed the robots all over the world shut down. With the battle won, Karina and Van Ryberg are reunited and the surviving humans see the sun shine through the clouds for the first time in centuries. | sci-fi | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0062957 | Malenka | Just two weeks from her marriage, model Sylvia Morelle [Anita Ekberg] receives a
letter from her Uncle, Count Waldrick [Julián Ugarte], informing her that her mother has
died and that she has inherited a castle and the title of Countess.
Consequently, Sylvia leaves her fiance, Dr Piero Lufuani [John Hamilton], in Rome while
she goes to Castle Waldrick to sign papers and check out her good fortune.
However, the afternoon she arrives at the castle, her uncle is not there
to greet her, and she is told that he never rises this early and will see
her at 10 PM. At precisely 10 PM, Sylvia's uncle appears. For an "uncle",
he looks very young, and Sylvia can't help but notice the chill in his
cheeks. The first thing Uncle does is to show Sylvia a portrait of her
grandmother Malenka and point out how much alike they look (except that
Sylvia is blonde and Malenka has dark hair).Later that night, after Sylvia has gone to bed, she is awakened by a
dark-haired woman who calls herself Blinka [Adriana Ambesi] and who tells Sylvia that her
"Uncle" is not her Uncle, explains how he would lock Sylvia's mother in
her bedroom each night, and warns that he wants Sylvia to do something her
mother refused to do. As Blinka bends down to "kiss" Sylvia's neck, Uncle
interrupts Blinka and, angrily, escorts her to the dungeon where he
proceeds to whip her. When Sylvia confronts her Uncle, he tells her the
family curse. Seems that Grandma Malenka was a witch. It was her
mysterious alchemical rituals and her search for immortality that scared
the villagers, so they burned her at the stake. They didn't know, however,
that Malenka was successful in her search. In fact, Uncle claims to be
Malenka's husband and now lives on as an immortal nosferatu.Uncle commands that Sylvia cancel her plan to wed Piero, but Piero
isn't about to be put off so easily. He and friend Max [Guy Roberts] travel to Waldrick,
but they are turned away at the castle. They go to the village inn where
Piero is asked to examine Bertha Ziemsen [Diana Lorys], who has lately been feeling unwell. It's
a mild case of anemia, says Piero and writes her a prescription for iron.
Later, following a visit from the Count, Bertha is found dead by her
sister Freya [Rosanna Yanni]. Dr Horbinger [Carlos Casaravilla],
the local physician and drunkard, points out
the two holes in Bertha's neck and tells Piero the local legends about
Malenka. Of course, Piero doesn't believe in vampires, and the next day
Bertha is buried without the usual precautions.Meanwhile, back at the castle, tonight is the night of the ritual
that will make Sylvia immortal. First, the Count slices his arm and fills
a chalice with his blood. Then he bades Sylvia to drink it, but Sylvia
refuses. As the Count is about to pour it down her throat, Bertha comes
calling. As the Count is distracted by Bertha, promising to call her
tomorrow, Sylvia dumps out the blood and makes her getaway. Helpful Blinka
shows her a way out of the castle. Sylvia runs to the village inn and into
the arms of Piero, but when she tells him that she saw Bertha, he doesn't
believe her until one of the villagers wanders by and says that he also
saw Bertha.Dr Horbinger advises that they must drive a wooden stake through
Bertha's heart, so that night he, Piero, and Max go to the cemetery to
await Bertha's awakening. Meanwhile, the Count's coachman Vladis [Fernando Bilbao] comes to
the inn and forces Sylvia to return to the castle with him. When Piero
hears that Sylvia has been taken, he, Max, and Dr Horbinger pay the Count
a visit, but Sylvia tells Piero to go away, explaining that she is bound
by her heritage to remain at the castle. When Piero confronts the Count,
the Count has him placed in chains and then explains his plan to have
Sylvia declared insane by virtue of her believing herself to be a vampire,
her Uncle to be over 150 years old, and then killing Piero in order to
drink his blood.Seemingly in a trance and obeying her uncle's commands, Sylvia
approaches Piero to drink his blood. Blinka suddenly enters the room,
announcing that none of this is true. Bertha attacks Blinka, and, while
the Count watches them tussle, Sylvia releases Piero's bonds. Piero
punches the Count and sets him afire. The Count ages before his eyes, and
Malenka's picture begins to burn.Epilogue: The next morning, Sylvia and Piero prepare to return to Rome.
Freya stops Max and asks if she can go to Rome with him and become a
model. Max smiles widely, showing vampire fangs and chases her.
[Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.] | gothic, flashback | train | imdb | Readers should NOT let the negative nellies dissuade them from seeking this film out -- it is a marvelous little bit of Eurotrash from one of the genre's finest directors when he was just flexing his muscles.Most literature I have encountered on MALENKA agree that Ossorio's main inspriration was THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS aka DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES, but he injected the film with a decidedly Medeterranian air that caught on: In many circles, it is considered classic must-have required viewing at the Academy, Mr Spock kind of stuff.BUT, you need to select your home viewing version carefully -- of the three most common forms that exist, the most familiar to us in America is a 75 - 80m "public domain" print that used to run on TV a lot, with the vampire chasing ending in place ...
Then there is a second 96 - 98 minute European cut exported from Holland in the late 1980's -- it contains some additional "scientific" scenes and other dialogue, but NOT the gag ending with the vampire chasing Rosanna Yanni.
The recommended version is actually out on DVD right now at places like Amazon under the name FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD and released by a smallish company called Retromedia who "restored" a widescreen uncut British print for their DVD; uncut meaning that some of the slower scenes trimmed from the 80m public domain print are still in place.What makes their DVD really come to life, though, is the care that went into making the print look good again.
And after so many years of dingy, sepia rotted TV prints you will be shocked at what a beautiful, HARMLESS and fun movie this is -- I'd rather watch MALENKA with my eyes held open by toothpicks than ever have to sit through garbage like INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, DRACULA 2000 or FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA PRESENTS BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA: A FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA FILM ever again.
When her fiancé comes looking for her after she writes a letter breaking off the engagement it livens up the film a bit, but not enough to totally save it, rather he makes it a tolerable piece to watch.
"Fangs of the Living Dead" or "Malenka" (depending on which version) is a decent film of the genre.
I mean, yeah, there are a couple of scenes with red and blue lighting in some tombs underneath the castle that, when watched from a distance, vaguely look like something Mario Bava might have cooked up while he was drunk.
If you want the answer to that, I'll just advice you to take Mario Bava's OPERAZIONE PAURA (aka KILL, BABY, KILL), and put it next to Ossorio's MALENKA and then tell me which one is the good movie and which the bad.
Before director Amando De Ossorio made his classic blind dead films he helmed this interesting tale of vampirism.
She has always despised her father for taking her away from her ancestral estate and raising her in Rome, but her old man had a reason: he had married into a family of witches, warlocks and vampires.Engaged to be married to a doctor (John Hamilton), Ekberg tells her betrothed that she is going to her home country to retrieve her inheritance and will be back in time for the wedding.
This movie is hard to describe as it tells the story of a woman returning to her ancestral home where, perhaps or perhaps not, she is related to a family of vampires, witches, and other nefarious persons/creatures.
The film tries to make everything seem logical in the end as some kind of hoax to deprive this woman of her new worldly possessions(the castle, etc.), but it fails miserably because almost everything that happens in the end is devoid of any real logic.
Sundry characters abound such as an uncle that looks younger than his niece( Anita Ekberg plays the prodigal daughter...more on her in a bit), a fiance and his bumbling lethario/comedian friend, a woman who lives in the castle, enjoys being whipped, and wears a dress two sizes too small thus having her breasts almost spill out, a village doctor who is always drunk and believes in vampire folklore, two sisters that run a local tavern...one anemic and very busty - the other even more heavily bossomed, and, lastly, the strongman servant.
The Spanish vampire 'classic' Malenka plays like a Mel Brooks parody of a Gothic horror movie, only much funnier.
Amando de Ossorio was one of the great directors of Spanish horror, and this film, also known as Malenka, occurs when he was really hitting this stride.There are reportedly three versions of this film, and this one is the best.
A beautiful model in Rome named "Sylvia Morel" (Anita Ekberg) inherits a castle and sets out to take legal possession of it.
But this film does offer some attractive women, most notably two barmaids named "Bertha Zemis" (Diana Lorys) and "Freya Zemis" (Rosanna Yanni) along with the aforementioned Anita Ekberg.
A beautiful woman (Anita Ekberg) learns she has inherited a family castle.
Also there's next to no blood or violence (this film is VERY PG rated) and the makeup on the vampires is pretty comical (the fangs are WAY too big).
She is warned numerous times by the usual scared villagers that there's a curse on her family (typical vampire movie plot fodder).
FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD (1969) * Anita Ekberg, Julián Ugarte, Gianni Medici, Diana Lorys.
In this 1969 film by Amando de Ossorio (Tombs of the Blind Dead) Ekberg plays an Italian fashion model who inherits a creepy Spanish castle, only to learn that her ancestors were vampires.
Fangs of the Living Dead (1969) ** (out of 4)Malenka (Anita Ekberg) receives word that she has inherited a castle so she heads off to claim it.
Once she arrives at the castle she is greeted by Uncle (Julian Ugarte) who seems to be holding back some deep secrets.FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD, the film's U.S. title, isn't the greatest film you're ever going to see but it became a public domain staple on television, VHS, DVD and that's where most people saw it.
The film was directed by Amando de Ossorio and this here was his first venture into the horror genre, although he would make his name several years later with the Blind Dead series.
The film also benefits from a nice music score.FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD isn't an awful movie but there's no question that it's rather bland story makes for a boring film..
Swedish beauty Anita Ekberg plays Sylvia Morel, a model in Rome engaged to hunky doctor Piero Luciani (Gianni Medici).
Sylvia has inherited the family castle, and travels there to see the place and meet her uncle The Count (Julian Ugarte).
(Not that you can blame him.)Worth catching for fans of the celebrated director, but this viewer feels that he didn't really hit paydirt until the 1970s, when he made his best horror films (the "Blind Dead" series, "The Loreley's Grasp").Six out of 10..
Please note - when giving your non-vampire niece a tour of your crypt, please try not to use sentences like "This one in here is REALLY dead" because it just draws suspicion and when you don't answer any subsequent questions it just makes you look guilty.
Her fiancé and his mate turn up to stir things up a bit and most of the chicks run around with plenty cleavage on display and then the Uncle turns a local barmaid into a vampire and the first thing she does is turn up at his front door and start nagging him and then some other crap happens but this film is boring as hell and not worth your time.
A voluptuous model, Sylvia(..the well endowed Anita Ekberg) is to inherit a gargantuan castle from her mother and discovers from her austere, rather enigmatic uncle, Count Walbrooke(Julián Ugarte)that her blood is polluted by the evil curse of her great-grandmother, Malenka, a "practicing witch" who dabbled in alchemy and discovered the key to eternal life, burnt at the stake by superstitious locals.
Sylvia also discovers that her uncle could be a vampire..Director Amando de Ossorio's take on the vampire genre is a moderately entertaining effort with a dash of Bava(the use of colors and darkened areas of the castle), Browning(the reactions of the locals when Sylvia announces her reason for being in their village and the first moments in the castle, along with a cast of eccentrics), and Hammer(lots of heavy bosoms from sexy big chested European women in the cast, with big hair and theatrical acting).
Adriana Ambesis is a supposed vampire slave the Count keeps prisoner and assaults through lashings when she misbehaves and Carlos Casaravilla is a kooky village doc, Horbringer, a boozer who warns our heroes of the possible terror that awaits those who have the misfortune of coming in contact with residents of the castle.The version I watched is a mess.
The attractive women and the castle itself are reasons I'd recommend it, but for pure atmosphere and dread you should pursue the ending of de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead instead.
Along with many other European horror movies of the 1960s and 1970s, mainly Italian, Spanish, and/or Portuguese productions, this movie was a drive-in classic for us boys between the ages of seven and 14.Most adults probably found this to be quite un-scary after seeing movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "Night of the Living Dead." It isn't 'too' scary for a child to have nightmares, but, it has vampires and rustic settings that made for a decent horror movie.After seeing this movie again as an adult, what I find best are the beautiful actresses - Anita Ekberg; Rosanna Yanni; Adrianna Ambesi; and, especially, Diana Lorys.
If he thinks vampires and their rituals are so silly, what's he so scared of?Anyhow, this is a good, even great, vampire movie, if you're a very young horror fan; or, an adult who scares easily.
The return of Count Dracula as played by Christopher Lee in the late 1950's set a trend of sexy blood-suckers, both male and female, and when England got on the Universal band wagon (ironically right after the death of famed vampire extraordinaire Bela Lugosi), other European countries on the main continent followed suit, usually with much T&A and an almost animated look in its filming technique.
Julian Ugarte is her older but still sexy "uncle" who has undead secrets of his own, and his goal is to keep Ekberg's modern day innocent heroine there as part of an effort to end the family curse.Certainly, this isn't anything that 1960's horror aficionados hadn't seen before with "The Fearless Vampire Killers" and other similar tales of the undead haunting second string movie theaters and drive-ins around this time.
***SPOILER ALERT*** Only worth watching for it's star attraction the bust-out Swedish actress Anita Ekberg in a duel role as top Italian fashion model Sylvia Morel and 17th Century burned at the stake witch Malenka.Sylvia gets the news that she inherited the Wadrick Castle and the title of countess on the eve of her wedding to handsome Dr.Pietro Lufuani.
It's also very obvious, from the moment you lay eyes on him, that the pasty looking and ice cold to the touch Count Walbrooke is actually a member of the living dead, a blood sucking vampire!
It also turns out that the Count later, after sucking them dry, turns his victims into vampires like himself to join his army of the walking dead.Traveling to Wadrick together with his friend Max Dr.Lufuani attempts to rescue Sylvia from Count Walbrooke's clutches only ending up a prisoner in his castle.
There is precious little atmosphere in this film, Anita Ekberg's character does indeed come off as annoying, engendering no sympathy.
It seems to me that Malenka was neither witch nor vampire, but an alchemist who died at the stake, but not before successfully prolonging the life of Anita Ekberg's 'uncle.' The girl in the castle and the one from the tavern were only pretending to be vampires, as we see the latter installing her fangs in a tiny compact mirror, and neither are seen after the fiery demise of the 'uncle,' disintegrating simultaneously with the burning portrait.
In the 74 minute TV version, titled "Fangs of the Living Dead," there is a gag ending not seen in the longer print, Rosanna Yanni, sister of the tavern girl, being chased by the dizzy friend of Anita's doctor fiancée, sporting a set of fangs.
I first saw this film on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater back in 1978, alongside superior Spanish horrors such as "The Murder Mansion," "Horror Rises from the Tomb," "The Bell from Hell," "It Happened at Nightmare Inn," and "The Night of the Sorcerers," another credit for Amando de Ossorio, who wrote and directed "Malenka." Such features became cherished friends for long-time horror buffs like me, but now we are able to see them in all their uncut gory glory, with nudity intact.
Besides, this silly Gothic horror from Amando de Ossorio, director of the Blind Dead series, mightn't be all that great, but it does offer up several very attractive Euro-babes who, although they don't get naked, do look extremely ravishing throughout, revealing about as much cleavage as a slip of a dress possibly can.
And hot babes always make the going a lot easier.Anita Ekberg is the leading lady in this silly vampire romp about an heiress, Sylvia Morel, discovering that her new castle is home to bloodsuckers, but she is easily eclipsed by buxom brunette Adriana Ambesi as sexy vamp Blinka, and Diana Lorys and Rosanna Yanni as beautiful barmaid sisters Bertha and Freya Zemis.
Together, this trio of tasty totty ensured that, although the plot was unremarkable and the direction uninspired, I was able to see Fangs to the very end, which, while I'm on the subject, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever (at least in the version I saw): after revealing that the whole vampire thing is a ruse cooked up by Sylvia's uncle, Count Walbrooke (Julián Ugarte), to have his niece committed, the count turns out to be a vampire after all (he disintegrates in flames), after which Max (César Benet), comedy sidekick of Sylvia's fiancé Piero (Gianni Medici), also sprouts a pair of fangs.
This is a wild & wacky vampire flick from the same director who brought you the "Blind Dead" series, mixing up some busty go-go style ladies with campy vampirism chills.Anita Ekberg plays Sylvia, a woman who is surprised to learn that she has inherited a castle, from relatives that she didn't even know she had.
Sylvia also discovers her curious "Uncle", who doesn't look a day older than she does, and the castle is also haunted by some vampirish babes like the mysterious Glinka.
Soon Sylvia is told of her family's undead history, her grandmother Malenka, and her new role as the matriarch of the vampire clan.Meanwhile, Sylvia's fiancé doesn't take too kindly to her announcement that their engagement is off, and he travels with his doofus best friend to the castle to straighten it out.
Well, that is until someone touches a torch to her uncle and he immediately disintegrates.This has got all the makings of a charmingly awful movie, complete with a spook-a-rama harpsichord & organ soundtrack, horrendous dubbing (Anita Ekberg's voice appears to have been dubbed by one of the Gabor sisters, judging from the accent), non-existent special effects, and kooky dialogue ("There's something....going on here....something....EVIL.")If you can find a copy of this, you'd be wise in grabbing it up.
Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) Italy's most famous model inherits a castle on the eve of her wedding plans.
The movie is one of those poorly dubbed, poorly directed, poorly acted films that are fun to watch for that reason.
Sylvia Morel (Anita Ekberg), a famous model, inherits an Italian castle.
When she gets there, she finds it inhabited by her strange uncle (Julian Ugarte) and a bevy of women who Sylvia suspects of being vampires.
The acting is mostly mediocre, though Ekberg is passable in her dual roles as both Sylvia and Malenka (her slayed vampire grandma).
Unfortunately, Ekberg is not very well-dubbed--though, for most part, the dubbing is done reasonably well.When a stake is driven through the uncle's heart, he rapidly ages via lap dissolves in which he looks like an old man with Silly Putty on his face.
(It plays out funnier than I've described it.) At the very end, we see the bachelor, now a vampire himself, chasing a young barmaid—in the middle of the day, while the sun shines brightly.FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD has its problems, but it was refreshing to see a film in which the vampires were evil and creepy, not sexy and hip.
When she arrives to take possession, she learns her castle is a home for the undead who want to bring her into the family.I really wanted to like Fangs of the Living Dead, but two things really hampered my enjoyment.
This is probably due to De Ossorio's lack of skill at this time, something he would polish considerably by the second film (Tombs of the Blind Dead).
De Ossorio believed at this time that the only way to scare someone was to show a lot of close-ups of pasty-faced vampire faces with fangs baring, something that was not the right way for a horror film.
Lovely young model Sylvia Morel (a charming and vibrant performance by the gorgeous and voluptuous Anita Ekberg) inherits a moldy old castle after her mother dies.
Sylvia discovers that her family has a surprising curse: Her grandmother Malenka (also played by Ekberg) not only was a witch, but also her sinister uncle Count Walbrooke (Julian Ugarte having a grand lip-smacking hammy time) and the castle staff are all vampires.
Some sort of nonsense about a woman inheriting a castle filled with vampires.Actually I'm not sure since the print I saw ran 75 minutes which is 25 minutes shorter than the original release version and 10 minutes shorter than the original American release. |
tt0217869 | Unbreakable | The film opens as we see a baby being born in west Philadelphia. This is Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson). Elijah is so brittle that he is born with broken arms and legs. As he grows older, he is taunted at school and called Mr. Glass by his classmates since he is so fragile. As an adult, he runs a successful high priced comic book art gallery specializing in original drawings of super heroes.David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is a security guard at the local college stadium. His marriage is crumbling and in fact, his wife, Audrey Dunn (Robin Wright Penn), sleeps downstairs in their son's room, and David sleeps upstairs with his son (Spencer Treat Clark).On his way back home from a job interview in New York, David's train malfunctions and derails, killing everyone on board except David. He doesn't even have a scratch. After the memorial service for the crash victims, David finds a note on his windshield. It's from a store named "Limited Edition" (Elijah's store) and the note asks, "How many days of your life have you been sick?"David asks his boss and his wife but no one can ever remember him being sick. David takes his son to "Limited Edition" where he meets Elijah.Elijah explains his theory to David...
If Elijah can be born with brittle bones and very easily hurt, shouldn't there be someone the exact opposite? Elijah has researched every disaster to find a sole survivor without a scratch but has had no luck. After years of searching, he finally has found one in David Dunn.David thinks it's interesting but really just thinks Elijah is nuts. Back at the stadium, David gets a call that there is someone there trying to sneak in and asking for David. It's Elijah and he starts explaining his comic book theories to David. Theories about everyday men being super heroes, having powers they haven't yet realized and so on. David bumps into a guy in line and tells the security at the end of the line to start frisking people. They watch as the guy David bumped in to, sees everyone being frisked and leaves the line. Elijah asks David what that was all about and David tells him that when he bumped him, he had an image of a certain kind of handgun.David goes back to work but Elijah follows the guy David bumped into. They go down a long flight of stairs, Elijah falls shattering his leg and breaking several other bones but the last thing he sees is the man's handgun, just as David described it. Elijah was right, David does have some kind of special gift.Back at home, David is working out in the basement with his weight set. His son believed everything Elijah said about David being a hero with a special gift. David still doesn't believe. David asks his son to take some weight off but without him knowing, he puts more weight on. David lifts 250 lbs, the most he's ever done. His son continues putting on more weight until David is now up to 350lbs. He has had all this strength all along that he never knew.Elijah needs his leg rehabbed and his nurse is Audrey, David's wife. Elijah asks her questions about her and David and she explains to him how when they were going out, David was a star football player but got in a car accident due to icy roads. David never played football again. It was because of that, that she and David were married. Had he continued to play, she knows they would have grown apart.Back at work, David gets a call from his son's school that his son has been hurt. His son had hoped that some of David's super hero traits had rubbed off on him. He tried to protect someone that was being picked on and instead got hurt in the process. The school nurse remembers David from when he was at that same school. In fact, it was because of David that they have strict rules about the pool. It seems that David had been picked on near the pool when he was a student there. He fell in and was left in the pool to drown. He was found at the bottom of the pool but somehow survived.David tells this story to Elijah, that in fact, David can get hurt. Elijah tells him that every super hero has a weakness. David's kryptonite is water. The water from the pool and the water from the icy roads.David's wife decides that him surviving the train crash is a sign that maybe they should give their marriage another try. They go out on a "date" and he explains to her that he felt their marriage was over when he stopped waking her up after he had a bad dream.The next night, David breaks into the train station and examines some of the wrecked trains. He starts recalling his own car crash from years earlier and remembers that he wasn't hurt at all. In fact, he had to use his superhuman strength to rescue Audrey from the flaming vehicle.He goes to Elijah and tells him he is right, he has never been sick or injured in any way. Elijah tells him that it's no coincidence that David is in the security field. He needs to go to where people are and protect them.It's a rainy day and David, wearing a hooded rain poncho heads to Penn station. Hundreds of people are passing by. Whenever someone bumps into David he has a vision of that person doing something evil. One is a jewel thief, another a rapist, but when the maintenance man bumps into him, David gets a horrible vision. The vision is of the man going to someone's home and killing the homeowner.David, still wearing the poncho now looking more and more like a super hero's cape, follows the guy as he leaves work. The guy goes to a nice house in a nice neighborhood. David sneaks in the back and finds the dead homeowner inside. He goes upstairs and rescues two sisters tied up in their bathroom. He goes into another room and finds the mother tied up. The window is open and David looks out. When he turns back around, there is the maintenance worker who pushes David out the window. David lands on the backyard pool that has its winter cover on. Suddenly, the cover starts collapsing with David's weight and he gets all tangled up underwater with the cover. He is drowning again but the two sisters force a pole down to him and David grabs it and is saved.David heads back upstairs and wrestles with the guy and finally kills him by breaking his neck.The next scene is David back at home, hanging up his cape, er um.. poncho, and carrying his sleeping wife upstairs to their bed. She wakes up and asks him what is wrong. "I had a bad dream" he says.In the morning while having breakfast, David slides the newspaper over to his son and holds a finger to his mouth to shush him. The headline tells of a mystery hero that saved the two girls. The picture is an artist's rendition of what the girls saw. It shows a superhero-like figure with a hood and cape. The boy looks up at his dad and David just smiles and nods.David goes to Elijah's gallery where Elijah is having a huge gathering for a special show. He and David go to Elijah's back office so they can discuss what had happened. Elijah has been in a wheelchair since his fall. He is real proud of David and they shake hands.Suddenly...Just like Christopher Walken in Stephen King's "The Dead Zone", while shaking hands, David has a vision of Elijah setting a building on fire, another vision of Elijah causing a plane crash and finally, a vision of Elijah exiting the driving compartment of David's train that crashed. David looks around Elijah's office and is horrified at what he sees. Newspaper clippings of hundreds of disasters from around the world. Elijah is the mastermind behind all these events and has staged them for his own selfish benefit.Just like in the comics, every evil villian needs a worthy adversary and Elijah has finally found his.David backs away in horror as Elijah, who in his wheelchair now looks more like Professor X of the X-men, proclaims..."They call me Mr. Glass!"Just before the final credits, a message appears that says that David contacted the authorities and Elijah is now in a mental institution. | murder, cult, horror, atmospheric, flashback, good versus evil, plot twist, storytelling | train | imdb | Yet I know other people who think Signs is his best, specifically because of the way the alien plot line accentuates the central one.Unbreakable is a beautifully simple film, but I think it has to hit you just right for you to completely get it.
Samuel L Jackson's character history is really nicely crafted in the middle of the other plot lines and you get genuinely involved in the people Shyamalan has created.Don't get caught up in all the talk of the twist ending.
If you don't like slow movies, just don't watch this because it moves at a very sedate pace, but I personally think you'll be missing out.
A little character development would have been appreciated, but if the ending was a result of the time-constraint guillotine, then I would expect the developmental scenes to have gone too.The thing that people seem to complain most about this movie is the plot.
His character is amazing and just leaves me shaking my head.This is a pretty low-key movie with the other star, Bruce Willis, playing an extremely subdued role for him, almost too subdued.
I'll just call an interesting fantasy-horror film with a little family story tied in with Willis' wife (Robin Wright) and young boy (Spencer Treat Clark)."Unbreakable" is beautifully filmed, has very little profanity in it, and a strange, strange story with a great twist at the end....one of the best I've ever seen in a movie.
Both are excellent dramas, but Unbreakable was superior in every aspect.I especially admired the camera movement, and the framing of certain scenes to bring to life an actual comic-book.
Night Shyamalan's next movie is at least half as good as Unbreakable, I'll definitely be in line to buy a ticket..
David develops his talents with the support of Price and his son Joseph and, despite his cynicism, starts to try to use his powers to help people on need.The 6th sense was always going to be a hard show to follow up but Shyamalan has managed to make a film that is almost as clever, emotive, thoughtful and slow.
Thinking about the twist will stop you enjoying the main story and will spoil the film for yourself.Willis is excellent - he doesn't set the world on fire, but he does a very low-key performance as a common man confronted with so much potential responsibility.
Willis and Jackson should keep making films together from now on, cause even there worst collaboration so far has still been good - Pulp Fiction, Unbreakable, Die Hard With a Vengeance - it seems to be a winning partnership (Loaded Weapon 1 doesn't count as Willis is only in it for 5 seconds!).
A surprise addition to the cast is Eamonn Walker as Dr Mathison, it's a small role but he is a fine actor and deserves to be seen in big films (check him out in HBO's Oz for a real show of his abilities).Overall it's very slow and may frustrate some people, but if you got the 6th sense then you'll probably get this.
Jackson give very authentic performances that help the film keep its "Any Town USA" and "Average Joe Six-pack" feel very much alive.By virtue of ingenuity and most likely a meticulous preproduction period, Unbreakable manages to be a consummate clinic in directing, writing, acting, and cinematography.
The final plot twist in "The Sixth Sense" made me wonder whether its director could repeat such a stunt, in "Unbreakable".
And then, exactly like in "The Sixth Sense", he pulls the carpet right from under us, in the final seconds of the movie takes away everything, every expectation, he first gave us.
An hour and a half into this movie I wondered how Shyamalan would wrap the film up in a nice little package, without room for a sequel.
Most of the plaudits for Sixth Sense went to the kid and Twelve Monkeys to Pitt, although Jackson is superb as usual, Bruce Willis steals the movie with a subtleness most screen stars cannot portray.
As an adult he lives alone and becomes a comic book art dealer.David Dunn (Bruce Willis) gave up a promising football career after a car accident he wasn't even injured in.
This intriguing picture with twist ending revolves around a security guard named David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who miraculously survives a catastrophic train crash outside Philadelphia .
Night Shyamalan makes cameo appearances in his own movies, like Alfred Hitchcock, one of his favorite directors , this time as a Stadium drug dealer .
Well produced and directed by Night Shyamalam , many of his films have car crashes playing pivotal roles and involve two ordinary individuals with extraordinary abilities or events happening to them , one of the people either has connections to a child or is a child, and the one connected to the child is always having marital difficulties .
Night Shyamalan was still making movies like this.Bruce Willis plays David Dunn, a man unhappy with his marriage and his relationship with his son.
When his train back from New York derails, David is the only survivor and he is sought out by a fragile man named Elijah, who believes David is special.This could easily be cheesy, but Shyamalan wisely plays up the comic-book feeling of the plot while maintaining a certain sense of reality.
In my opinion, this is indicative of the fact the movie going public no longer understands what makes a good film or even recognizes one when they see it.
Night Shyamalan gave his audience in The Sixth Sense, he treats them like complete idiots in Unbreakable, making sure he drops a small foreshadowing to the audience before hitting them over the head with the actual event to make sure they understood.
Top this off with one of the most ridiculous scenes ever put on film in a serious movie (those who have seen it will probably know what I am talking about, those who don't heed my warning and go see it anyway, just watch for the scene with the kid and the gun), and you have a self-indulgent pile of trash unworthy of even going straight to video.
I don't know if Shyamalan was rushed to get this out, or if he got Kevin Costner syndrome after the success of his first movie and decided that he could mail one in, but Unbreakable is Unthinkably bad.
The comic book movie genre of film has been around for quite some time, and this is definitely one of the best of them.A quiet realistic study of what one portion does when they find they are a super hero...M Night Shyamalan is a great director and one of the true original directors working in film production today.
So many awkward dramatic moments, like we experience in real life...all the time loosely at least trying to follow the rules established by the fantasy world of the comic book hero.People have criticised this movie, but many have not realised what the director is trying to do first before laying fault at him.A great movie, my favorite of his work..
All of the characters were very lifelike and at the same time they looked like they come right out of a comic book, that is the best thing about this film..
Great idea.They could have had a classic here where in which the subject of stronger than usual individuals in our everyday reality (the best athletes,soldiers etc.) could have been explored and mirrored with that of the comic book genre writing.Oh the possibilities for that one!But they messed it up!If they wanted a movie that had Willis with paranormal qualities,they should have done this with more action.If they really wanted to make a movie basically for the plot twist in the end,they should not have indicated too blatantly that Willis had paranormal powers.They should have kept us guessing to the end although tend to keep the audience leaning toward the opinion that he MAY have powers,so this way,we can be fooled along with Willis and come to realise he is not as super as Jackson claimed he was.We were all carried away by the insane Jackson.Now that would have been more like it.But no!They showed us those very clear cut scenes of Willis displaying more than your run of the mill Michael Jordan abilities,keenly stating that Willis did indeed have paranormal superhuman abiities.No question about that fact.This mistake really watered down the intended "realisation" plot twist in the end.Still entertaining though and the acting was superb.But it breaks my heart thinking of what this movie could have been like without that simple mistake........
There was absolutely no suspense in this movie, the story became very predictable, and there are no real surprise twists at the end.This movie is a poor follow up to the "Sixth Sense" and anyone expecting the same type or quality of movie may end up very disappointed..
It tired to make that sudden twist at the end like in "The Sixth Sense", but this time it failed.
In "The Sixth Sense", the twist at the end was so emotional, gut wrenching, and thought provoking because during the whole movie you were being drawn into the story.
The scene changes were too abrupt and the development of the characters and storyline(s) were minimal.I had been looking forward to this movie since the first time that I had seen the previews for it, but it was nothing like what I had expected.
Overall it felt like a money grab.At the end of the film, which I had difficulty waiting for, I felt as though I should have been reimbursed not only for my tickets and popcorn, but also for the time that I lost watching it.My advice: wait for it on your local satelite provider....I'm not even sure you could justify the cost of a video rental..
After all it's a pity that actors like Bruce Willis or Samuel L.Jackson went in a film like this for we all know from a lot of different productions about their real skills.
M. Night Shyamalan followed up "The Sixth Sense" with the not-quite-as-great, but no less fascinating, "Unbreakable".
Night film, they either respond with The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable and this shouldn't be surprising, this is truly one of his greatest works, the directing is amazing and the cinematography is just gorgeous, Bruce Willis and Samuel L.
For me, The Sixth Sense is M Night Shyamalan's best film, but Unbreakable comes very, very close.
Bruce Willis and Samuel L.Jackson are both fantastic, and one wonders why they didn't do more together.Some have been dismissive of the ending, I actually thought it was fine, though I was underwhelmed by it on my first viewing a few years back.
I did say before that The Sixth Sense's ending was the only one of a Shyamalan film that worked, after re-watching Unbreakable I take that back.
The film does err on occasion (a sequence in a comic book shop at night is confusing, and the picture's main color scheme--steely blues and grays--becomes visually monotonous), however the wonderful script and performances take the movie to a higher realm for this genre.
So, I rented some more movies, and I had this great story "Unbreakable" about real life super hero's and villains.
Its impression of seriousness is bogus.The family drama which occupies the foreground most of the time is in fact incredibly ordinary: if you imagine this story shorn of its fantastical elements, it would barely pass muster as a TV movie of the week; and (more damagingly) that family story is in no way enriched or even much affected by the journeys taken by Willis's and Jackson's characters.
And I don't even think that this film tells us much about comic books or superhero origin stories -- certainly little that isn't squeezed into the opening couple of minutes of Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" (itself no masterpiece).
Sixth Sense was okay, but I have a feeling (if this movie is at all representative of him as a director/writer) we can expect nothing from him except a nice long piece of film with which to wipe ourselves.
Bruce Willis' lethargic performance is boring to watch, and the supporting cast, including Samuel Jackson, struggle through the meandering, directionless script.
In fact, at least half a dozen times throughout the movie, I thought maybe here is where this film will come alive.
I found the "twist ending" in the "6th Sense" to be obvious from the beginning; "Unbreakable" is more of a twist movie.Watching it again this morning, I still wonder how I missed the many hints that were given to us by this director (upfront disclosure: I am a fan of all of his films), who makes his usual appearance in a scene with Our Hero, David Dunn, played by Bruce Willis.
The everyday name of Our Hero; the name of his girlfriend/wife Audrey Inverso (played by Robin Wright), who does inverse the direction Our Hero could have taken in his life; Our Hero's new friend Eijah Price, aka Mr. Glass, played by Samuel Jackson, whom the movie mostly focuses on in the last 2 minutes; all of these are clues to the directors intent.
I realize something new every time I watch "Unbreakable", and it is my favorite of Shyamalan's films.If you are a fan of the world created by comic books, please see this !
I have rarely been so conscious that I was in a movie theater watching a really bad film other than maybe squirming through the awful Sin City (another comic book conversion disaster).
Now we have Unbreakable, a slow and deliberately paced mystery that manages to be one of the best "superhero" films I've ever seen.The thing with this movie is that it understands comic books.
Robin Wright Penn combines the right mix of love and exasperation as Bruce Willis's wife, and Spencer Treat Clark, as their son, is another kid actor that Hollywood needs to look out for.Many people don't like the ending to this movie, but you know what?
The shots and angles helped provide a better feel for the movie, yet it was still a hard film to watch because the story was hard to understand, as well as hard to see exactly what the plot of the story really was..
Unbreakable isn't too much different, with only a few minor things making it no masterpiece.The story follows a average security guard in Philly played by Bruce Willis, who is in a train when it crashes, being the only survivor, with no injuries sustained.
Some things in common with Shyamalan's past success (an unraveling plot, lovingly played out performances, conflicted ending) with not only the obvious, but also that he has such a trust in his audience of patience and understanding, it is a wonder films like these are made anymore.
With only flaw being a scene of comic book wonder, this film may not be as ground breaking as Sense, but it comes close.
Some other reviewers have compared this to the "Sixth Sense," an earlier movie starring Bruce Willis.
Most of the movie is spent with his son and Samuel Jackson (playing the security guard's polar opposite, a brittle boned and accident prone comic book collector, trying to convince the security guard that he is really supposed to be a superhero.Eventually he is convinced to spend an evening as a kind of vigilante looking for some evildoing to thwart, sort of like a neighborhood watch volunteer who goes on patrol with no cell phone to call 911, no flashlight, and no weapon.
Night Shyamalan....Star-Studded Cast with Brilliant performances from Bruce Willis as David Dunn & Samuel L.
Although he has directed a few misfires since "Unbreakable", Shyamalan is a talented writer and director, and this film is well worth watching..
It's not something that isn't achievable again when comparing it at the time because there were not too many comic books movies or related to superheroes.
Night Shyamalan always provided a twist which was never expected even though I didn't like "The Sixth Sense" for several reasons.
"Unbreakable" seems to be an underrated movie from all the movies that the director worked on and in fact, they don't like it because it's not like "The Sixth Sense's" plot twist at the time.
Well, I prefer this movie rather than "The Sixth Sense" which I think is predictable compared to this."Unbreakable" focuses more on the process of achieving a conclusion and creating it to give a twist like M.
On the other hand, "Unbreakable" leads to the choice of the main character, whether he can accept the truth or not and I also didn't really see the twist coming at the end.This is a story about David Dunne, a security guard who cannot believe in himself because he was the only one who survived in a train accident that killed 100 more peoples.
Bruce Willis, who is also previously cast in "The Sixth Sense", gave his best performance that didn't attract some unique things, but he is just encouraged so much mysteries in this movie.
Night Shayamalan guilt in the past for being a terrible movie maker,but you must give credit where credit is due,because when he makes a good movie it's a very good movie.Bruce Willis's performance is fantastic,certainly nothing like any character he's played before,but Samuel L.
Unbreakable centres around two characters: David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson).
I have no specific liking of Shyamalan films (I liked Sixth Sense, but not Signs) but despite this, this is a great telling of a standard story but from a different perspective.
Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson are fabulous in the movie, and very well directed.
I was expecting something like in the Sixth Sense, life after the twist.Despite this the film is well worth watching, with breath taking performances from both Willis and Jackson, although personally...Jackson gets the nod everytime as the better. |
tt0080745 | Flash Gordon | The story opens with Emperor Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) declaring that he will first play with, and then destroy, the Earth, using seemingly natural disasters which include earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic euptions, tornados, and something called "hot hail".Sometime later on Earth, New York Jets football star "Flash" Gordon (Sam J. Jones) boards a small plane. Onboard, he meets travel journalist Dale Arden (Melody Anderson). Mid-flight, the cockpit is hit by a meteorite sent by Ming and the pilots are sucked out. Flash takes control, and manages to crash land the craft in a greenhouse owned by Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol). Zarkov, who believes the disasters are being caused by an unknown source in space which is sending the moon toward the Earth, has secretly constructed a rocket ship with which he intends to investigate. Zarkov's assistant refuses to help him, so he lures Flash and Dale inside the rocket. After a struggle, the rocket launches into orbit, taking the trio through a vordex to the planet Mongo. There, they are taken prisoner.Flash, Dale and Zarkov are brought to the palace before Ming. Ming orders Dale to be prepared for his pleasure. Flash attempts to resist but is overpowered by Ming's bodyguards. Ming orders Zarkov to be reconditioned and Flash executed by leathal gas. Ming's daughter, Princess Aura (Ornella Muti), manipulates Ming's Chief Surgeon into helping her save Flash, to whom she is attracted, by having him injected with an imunity seurum helps him escape from the palace.Zarkov is seemingly brainwashed by Klytus (Peter Wyngarde), the golden-masked de facto regent of Mongo and Ming's right hand man. Meanwhile, Aura and Flash flee in a shuttle to Arboria, the kingdom of Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton), Aura's lover. En route to Arboria, Aura reluctantly teaches Flash to use a telepathic communicator to contact Dale. He uses it let her know he is still alive. Dale informs Flash that she is locked in Ming's bedchamber. Encouraged by Flash, Dale escapes. Klytus dispatches Zarkov to intercept Dale, who informs Zarkov and a listening Klytus that Flash is alive. The two then escape, as Zarkov reveals he was able to resist the brainwashing process. But after fleeing the city, Dale and Zarkov are captured by Prince Vultan's (Brian Blessed) Hawkmen and taken to his kingdom, Sky City.Aura and Flash arrive at the forest moon Arboria. Aura asks Prince Barin to keep Flash safe. A distrustful Barin, who is in love with Aura, agrees not to kill Flash, but then contrives to force him to take part in a deadly ritual. Barin and Flash take turns sticking their hands into a hollow stump with a poisonous creature inside. When Barin compels Flash to take an extra turn, he pretends to be stung by the creature and begs for a quick death, using this as an opportunity to escape. Barin follows, but they are both captured by Prince Vultan's Hawkmen.Back in Mingo City, Klytus informs Ming that Flash is alive and gains Ming's authority to discover the person responsible. Aura returns alone to Mingo City only to be taken prisoner and tortured by Klytus and General Kala (Mariangela Melato), the head of Ming's secret police. They force Aura to confess to helping Flash escape, and Ming orders her to be banished to the ice moon Frigia after his wedding.Meanwhile, Flash and Barin are captured by the Hawkmen and taken to Sky City, where Flash and Dale are briefly reunited. Flash is forced to fight Barin to the death, but Barin joins forces with Flash when he saves his life. Klytus arrives and threatens Vultan as well as everyone else for their insolence. Flash and Barin double-team up to overpower Klytus and kill him. Knowing that this will bring retribution on the Hawkmen, Vultan orders them to evacuate Sky City, leaving Barin, Flash, Dale and Zarkov behind. Ming's ship arrives shortly afterwards and he orders Barin, Zarkov and Dale to be taken aboard. Ming finds himself impressed with Flash, and offers him lordship over a subjugated Earth in exchange for fealty, as an alternative to death, which Flash refuses. Ming returns to his ship and gives the order to destroy Vultan's kingdom with Flash still on it. Flash cheats death by finding a rocket cycle in the city and escaping before Sky City is destroyed.Flash contacts Vultan, whose people have found refuge on Arboria, and they plot an attack on Mingo City. Flash pretends to attack Mingo City alone on his rocket cycle. General Kala dispatches the war rocket Ajax to bring back Flash's body, but the Hawkmen army intercepts and Flash and the Hawkmen seize control of the rocket after a fierce battle.In Mingo City, Princess Aura overpowers her guard and frees Barin and Zarkov from the execution chamber. Flash and the Hawkmen attack Mingo City in Ajax and Kala activates the city's defenses, as Ming and Dale's wedding starts. Mingo City's lightning field sheild protecting the city can only be penetrated in time to save Earth by flying Ajax in to it in a suicide run. Flash volunteers to stay at the helm to ensure it is successful and allow the Hawkmen to invade the city.Just before the rocket hits, Barin manages to kill Kala then then sabotage the lightning field generators and Ajax plummets into the city's great hall where the wedding is taking place; the ship's bow impales Ming. Ming falls off the rocket nose, seriously wounded, and Flash offers to spare his life if he will stop the attack on Earth, but Ming refuses to submit. Ming attempts to use his power ring on Flash but his power falters and nothing happens. He then aims the ring at himself and is seemingly vaporized by its remaining power seconds before the counter to the destruction of the Earth reaches zero.A huge victory celebration ensues with planet Earth apparently saved and Barin is proclaimed the new ruler of Mongo. Vultan is named general of all of Mongo's armies including the Hawkmen. Thus Mongo's population can live in peace. Aura chooses to marry Barin and stand alongside him. Flash, Dale and Zarkov are asked to stay on Mongo for the time being since the vortex to Earth has been severed with Ming's demise. They all agree to stay, while Zarkov will plan on a way to get the three of them back to Earth somehow.The final shot focuses on Ming's empty power ring, as an unidentified individual picks it up. The words "The End?" fade onto the screen, followed by an echo of Ming's evil laughter. | good versus evil, cult, psychedelic | train | imdb | null |
tt0242572 | Kandukondain Kandukondain | Kandukondain Kandukondain opens with army commando Major Bala (Mammootty) fighting in a war and losing his left leg in a grenade explosion. After the opening credits, Sowmya (Tabu) and Meenakshi "Meenu" (Aishwarya Rai) are shown as the adult daughters of Pathma (Srividya) living in a Chettiar mansion in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu with their maternal grandfather Chandrasekhar (Unnikrishnan Namboothiri), maidservant Chellatha (S. N. Lakshmi) and younger sister Kamala (Shamili). Sowmya is a school principal while Meenu is passionate about classic Tamil poetry, music and dance. Major Bala, one of the rich men in their village falls in love with Meenu, but Meenu falls in love with Srikanth (Abbas). Manohar (Ajith Kumar) is a director who comes to Meenu's house for a film shoot. Sowmya and Manohar fall for each other but an issue crops up between the two and whether Manohar manages to win her back forms the rest of their part of the story.
Chandrasekhar, on his deathbed, tries to say something about the will which was written by him and kept in a box, a long time ago. No one understands him. After his death, their lawyer breaks open the box and found out that he had bequeathed all his property to his younger son Swaminathan (Nizhagal Ravi), remembering the fact that his elder daughter Pathma had eloped and married without his knowledge. Unable to bear Swaminathan's wife's arrogant behaviour upon inheriting the mansion, Sowmya and her family move to Chennai.
In Chennai, Sowmya finds a respectable job in a software company while Meenu becomes a playback singer with the help of Major Bala. Meanwhile, Srikanth's finance company goes bankrupt and he has to pay back his investors. A minister offers to bail out Srikanth and his company if Srikanth marries his daughter. Srikanth agrees and when Meenu finds this out by chance, she is shocked and overwhelmed at Srikanth's hypocrisy. She falls into an open manhole and gets rescued by Bala. Realising Bala's true love for her, Meenu falls in love with him.
Manohar's first movie project is in disarray and he is thrown out. He plans his own movie, a path-breaking action one with Nandhini Varma (Pooja Batra) as the heroine. Nandhini falls for Manohar's charm although not with any serious intentions. Rumours of an affair spread which hurt Sowmya deeply. The movie becomes a big commercial success. When he visits Sowmya's house in Chennai, he finds out that Sowmya is going to California. Tearful exchanges of resentment are exchanged between them as Manohar tries to convince Sowmya after some tearful drama. The movie ends with Manohar marrying Sowmya and Bala marrying Meenakshi. | romantic | train | wikipedia | Engaging characters, witty screenplay, great music.....
I came to this film with the background of having watched and thoroughly Bride & Prejudice, and having not read Austen's Sense & Sensibility.
(I did re-read P& P after watching B&P and enjoyed the contrast.) I was intrigued to see a "real" Indian movie, since Bride & Prejudice is by its own admission a blend of Bollywood and Hollywood.
When I read the reviews of I Have Found It on Amazon, I was intrigued by comments about the difference between Tamil movies such as this and Bollywood musicals.
With that and of course Aishwarya Rai to attract me to this film, I was expecting something good, and I was very much rewarded.
I have the Kino DVD which has good subtitles.
I particularly liked Major Bala--my hat's off to Mammootty for his portrayal of a man torn between love and the fear of pity.
He is the steady center-point while the rest of the characters whirl tumultuously around.
In addition to funny scenes, as when Manohar meets Sowmya, there are many funny comments (e.g., about the necessary elements of Tamil films) and visuals (e.g., the opening shot of a waterfall that seems so romantic but turns into a military scene).
Probably a lot more if you know India and its film industry.
The songs do manage to convey some of the story and not just stop the speeding train (another of Menon's comments on Tamil films), especially my favorite in which Meenu laments losing her poetry.
This is a film one can enjoy over and over..
Jane Austen's story as never told before!.
That Jane Austen's novel "Sense and Sensibility" is a terrific piece of literature goes without saying.
Ang Lee adapted Austen's story for his film of the same name.
The film won Lee accolades for his ability to portray the relationships that Austen weaves with finesse.
Seven seas across from Hollywood, Indian filmmaker "whizkid" Rajiv Menon has created a second, and an even better visual adaptation of Austen's book.
"Kandukondain Kandukondain" is simply an enthralling and enchanting adaptation of a great piece of literature.While he borrows the basic plotline from Austen's novel, Menon changes and adds to numerous portions of the story.
Setting it in contemporary, modern Indian society, Menon gives the film a more identifiable and consumable quality than Lee's version.
The principal characters of the two sisters, played by Tabu and Aishwarya Rai are a notable diversion from the conventional nature of female characters in Indian cinema.
These are strong, determined, and capable women.
Unlike the norm of female characters in many Indian films, these women do not have an obsession with love.
It is just an integral part of their life which the film focusses on.
Rajiv Menon's ability to handle the relationship between the characters of the two sisters and the men who come into their lives and leave, is highly impressive.
While Ang Lee did a commendable job in his treatment of the relationships, one could not identify or even feel for the character because the nature and society in which they were set were too distant.
In "Kandukondain Kandukondain," the characters are real.
They are one of us, we are one of them.Menon has added a lot more material to the plot in order to increase the film's saleability.
However, what sets this film as a class apart is the fact that the addition of "masala" as Indian film industry auteurs like to say it, does not interfere with the artistry of the film.
Menon uses the conventional technique of mass-hybridization and creates an amazingly entertaining, yet fulfilling, "feel-good" film.A.R. Rahman, the musical genius, adorns Menon's film with some exceptional music.
The songs are simply wonderful with Vairamuthu's lyrics drawing inspiration from the poems of Bharathi, perhaps one of the most prominent personalities in the history of Tamil literature.
Bharathi's poems also form an intricate link in the story that is used as a catalyst to build relationships.
This artistic, and poetic feel is something that not only Lee's adaptation lacked, but even the original work by Austen.The cinematography by Ravi K.
Chandran is breathtaking.
The extensive use of color stands out, but never gets too loud to be replusive.
The color combinations are very pleasant and used effectively to create meaning within every shot of the film.
The sets during songs like "Kannamoochie" seem to involve numerous characteristics of modern three dimensional abstract art.
The remaining songs are picturized on locations in 70 MM CINEMASCOPE from the rice fields and waterfalls of South India to the pyramids of Egypt and the castles of Scotland.The film boasts exceptional performances from both Tabu and Aishwarya Rai. Mammootty is the pick of the lot with his highly sensitive, and underplayed performance as Major Bala.
Ajit, Manivannan, and Srividya are very competent.
On the whole, "Kandukondain Kandukondain" is a masterpiece of Indian cinema because of its ability to wholesomely entertain with a lot of intelligence, sense, and sensibility..
Simply superb!.
When I first saw this movie, I wondered how an Indian director managed to come up with such a simple and yet lovely story.
Upon finding out that it is an adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, I was amazed at how Rajiv Menon had managed to make an English story so Indianized.Not only is the story excellent, so are the characters in the movie and the actors who play them.
Everyone played their role to perfection.
I tried hard but could not find any fault with any of them.
Music by A.R. Rahman is excellent too.Of course, my rave review for the movie will not attract everyone to watch it.
Those who like a mix of action, love, silly dances around the tree will probably be bored.
Those of you who like to have a movie bring a smile to your lips and tug at your heartstrings, go watch it.
You won't regret it!.
I think the fact that this movie has a 5.9 is really sad.
This movie is incredible.
This movie is incredible.
It is based on a great tale and is an all-out production, so it has to be great.
The fact that it features a former Miss World doesn't hurt either.
But really, this movie is awesome.
I am white, so you can't call me biased.
Everyone i know that has ever seen it has loved it.
My 10 year old sister and mother are planning to buy it.
And if you like the songs in Indian movies, this has some of the best.
I would say more, but i don't even think i need to.
Engrossing and Beautiful..
The few Bollywood films I've seen have usually thrown me for a loop - I have trouble holding on to all of the plot points when the music videos interrupt - but this one grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
When the dancing happened, the story wasn't destroyed.
The constant gorgeous visuals helped carry me through, and the actors were completely engaging.
It was great to be able to enjoy Jane Austen again, without knowing quite what would happen next.Someone must have misunderstood the system when rating this movie.
It's far better than the 6.1 it has right now.
The only trouble I noticed was that Miss World kept outshining her surroundings, and occasionally drew my attention away from the story.
No complaints, though..
Found Another Bollywood Fave.
Having watched Bride and Prejudice and being an Austen fan, I was more than curious to see how this adaptation of Sense and Sensibility would turn out.
What a treat!
This film takes the basic plot line of two sister's and their journey with love.
There is an older sister who longs for love, yet puts family above her own needs, and the younger one, who nearly misses true love because of her inability to see past her romanticized ideas.
The opening battle scenes are definitely not Austen, and neither are all the MTVized song and dance numbers.
BUT, that's what makes this movie a unique screen experience.
It's the blending of Western and Eastern ideas of a universal plot: love lost and love regained.
There is comedy, romance, even action in this one.
We are becoming definite fans of Bollywood films.
They bring a new twist to the old Hollywood musicals of yesteryear, and subtitles don't get in the way of the entertainment.
Very colorful, fun, and even enchanting..
once you get past how odd Indian films can be for Western audiences, this movie was great.
Indian movies are unlike any other movies I have ever seen--and I've seen a lot of foreign films!
I was initially surprised to see some very odd clichés--even in a drama like this reworking of Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility the actors periodically break into MTV-like music video songs!
The first couple times, this movie really surprised me--as out of no where, groups of dancers magically appeared and the main characters suddenly appeared in such diverse locales as Scotland and Egypt!
However, once I got past the oddness of this and the music, I found I actually liked the musical numbers--they were strangely endearing.But, the best thing about this story was the script.
It started off weird--with a group of Indian soldiers being ambushed while on a peace-keeping mission.
I certainly did NOT remember that when I read the book!!
Try to look past this and the singing and you will find a very vibrant script with characters you really care about and that will touch your heart.
I found myself getting quite misty-eyed near the movie's conclusion!.
excellent, but....
I liked this movie a lot - the characters were engrossing & the music wonderful.
and it's a big one, the DVD version that I saw is horribly subtitled.
The sentence structure is garbled, words are misspelled and worst of all the subtitles flash by on the screen and sometimes cannot be read even with the speed set at slow plus often times they are way behind the action on the screen.
It's really a shame because it is a contemporary & culturally interesting adaptation of Sense & Sensibilty if you can see your way clear of the subtitles.
This is actually one time I would have preferred a dubbed version.
Perhaps with the success of Bride and Prejudice someone will see fit to release this movie with the subtitles it deserves..
a must watch...don't miss it..cult classic.
what a movie.................................
a cult classic from Rajiv Menon.........what an acting by all of them.......i regard this movie to be watched by all......Rahman has been wonderful...it is one of his best works.........and the camera work by Ravi k Chandran is absolutely marvelous........the color used in this film should be appreciated.....the picturization of songs is superb..i have watched this movie about 20 times....still watching it makes my mind fresh.......all the songs in this are one of the bests of Rahman....hats off to Rajiv Menon for adapting the foreign story in a an Indian way.......as far as the acting is concerned.....it was just magnificent by all.......but it was Mammootty whose acting was just unbelievable.......its was such a true and heart felt performance by him.....kudos to Mammootty........but not take the credit away of other lead actors like Ajith,Tabu,Aishwarya Rai.......the dubbing has been superb......all the scenes in this movie are just mind blowing For eg -the climax and emotional scene of Mammootty and Aishwarya Rai.......simply SUPERB.....and also of Tabu and Ajith.....all the supporting actors did their job beautifully...........so i recommend this to be watched by all.....its once in a life time movie........
A classic in the making...!.
Kandukondaen Kandukondean....This movie is gonna linger in my mind throughout my life...as it is one of the movies which gives u the ultimate--"Feel Good" feeling..!
The main plot is an aspiring director( Ajith )could get a break in the film industry and in the other part how he maintains his love life in spite of the failures he faces in this process..The Star cast is impressive with Ajith(The reigning star in tamil cinema),Mamooty( Malayalam industry's legend),Aishwarya(Miss universe)and others...The Songs are too good that i got all the lyrics memorized..!
For the international audience,i recommend this movie for its sheer indulgence to the south Indian culture,aishwarya rai in a different format!,and of course the main plot of difficulties faced by a director in Kollywood(Chennai,India)..
A light hearted movie which wont disappoint u..check it out..!.
amazing song visualisation.
I have seen this movie over 3 times, it has got the best cinematography work for songs.Some sheer hard work has been put in by Ravi K Chandran, 'Konjum Minakalea' is an enthrawling song, it has completely different visualisation Tamil movie has even seen!
The dressing, the location, and Aishwrya looks so good in here.
I guess thats the best of her I have seen so far..!
Though the movie did not do well in the stands, there has been great effort put in by Rajiv Menon.The movie was not a buster, but I give it a 10 on 10.
Really 'found it' interesting!.
Wassn't sure what to think and first, but LOVED it in the end, and I may have cried..
At first I didn't really know what to think and I was a bit lost, but as I got used to who was who and what was going on in the story I LOVED IT!
It was a great story and the one of the ending scenes surprised me with how well the actors did.
I'm not going to lie...I cried a bit.
Jane Austen's stories are always good no matter how lose the adaptation.
I started to like it for comedic value and then ended up loving it for serious!
It is of course not trying to be just like Sense and Senseability so a few of the main story lines are out of order when it comes to the movie, but I think it worked well.
The only really odd part was that on the DVD we were watching it seemed as if every line was being dubbed over.
I'm sure that wasn't the case in reality, but it almost looked like I was watching a dubbed film at parts..
A wonderfully made film!.
The film is indeed a lovely film.
Mesmerizing, hypnotizing, and colorful!
This movie when understood, will cause you to fall in love with the cultural scenes, the culture itself, and the people.
The movie was not dubbed since some viewers tend to think.
The subtitles where excellent and easy to read.
The DVD player I have picks up everything to enjoy.
Jane Austen had nothing to do with this film, since she is born of a different cultural decent.
A wonderfully written storyline!
Aishwarya Rai, is a stunningly beautiful woman.
Whom in Bollywood is not arrogant as the folks in Hollywood.
So, we should stay tuned for her upcoming films.They should be wonderful as well.
I recommend films like Jaaneman and Umaro Jhan..
If you've never seen any Indian films, it takes some getting used to.
A scene will be going on like normal and then the characters burst into song!
I had seen Bride and Prejudice, also with Aishwarya Rai, before this, but that was made for a Western audience so it was easier to watch.I wasn't crazy about this movie, honestly.
I liked some of the scenes wit Meenakshi and Captain Bala (Marianne and Colonel Brandon) the best, actually.
And there were funny parts.
But I felt it took too long to get started (it's over 2 hours long) and then rushed everything in at the end.
I got so bored trying to re-watch it for the review that I skipped over the musical numbers.
I guess I'm just not the right audience for this..
A wonderful adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility!.
At first, I didn't understand why the movie had to be in Tamil and why the main actors and actresses voices had to be dubbed when they were obviously speaking the language.
But as long as you can get passed all that stuff, then you're in for a real treat!
The acting is superb and the twist on Jane Austen's popular novel from which the idea is taken from is very well executed and accepted.
I also enjoyed the jabs the Tamil director took at the Hindu film industry (i.e. making one of the main characters a playback singer, showcasing an popular actress who shuts down a film production because she cannot lip-sync properly, giving all the women in the film backbones, showcasing unsafe working conditions on film sets, just to mention a few).
Aishwarya Rai and Tabu are excellent as two sisters who seem unlucky in love.
Aishwarya's emotional range rivals that of Kate Winslet, who won an Oscar nomination for the same role in the English version, directed by famed director Ang Lee. And Tabu channels Emma Thompson very well!
The songs and costumes are beautiful and the film's backdrop is magnificent.
This is a definite must see!
And a gem for Kollywood! |
tt0095941 | Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio | Lester Parson (Brett Halsey) is a cannibal psychopath who regularly abducts and mutilates young women, eating certain cuts and disposing the rest in his back yard to his horde of pigs. He converces schizophrenically with himself via tape recordings of his own voice. He is also being hounded by Randy (Pier Luigi Conti), a shady loan shark whom he owes money to after accruing bad gambling debts.Lester picks up a certain Maggie MacDonald (Sasha Darwin), an obnoxious, hysterical, mustached, sexually frustrated alcoholic, whom he invites over at his house for dinner. His attempt to poison her is thwarted because she is already so drunk when she arrives at his place that she spills her glass of wine onto the floor. On the next attempt, she giddily mixed up his glass of wine with hers. He finally loses patience on the third try when she swallows the poisoned glassful, only to vomit before it can take effect. As Maggie excuses herself to the bathroom to clean up, he attacks her with a wooden stick. Her scalp splits apart and she runs screaming from the bathroom with blood streaming down her face. He chases her down the corridor bashing her head repeatedly, causing skin to rip away from her face, and a single bloodshot eyeball to roll out of her right eye socket onto the floor.Playing dead for a few seconds, Maggie rises when Parson's back is turned and makes another mad dash for the front door, but is rounded up and punched unconscious. Furious and exhausted, the killer shoves her head into a over and switches it on, leaving her slumped with her flesh slowly melting off her face. Dead at last, Parson shoves Maggie's body into the trunk of his Mercedes. But he has to chop off the corpse's feet to get the body to fit right.When Parson ditches the body at a construction site, he is observed by a local tramp (Marco Di Stefano), who proceeds to attempt to blackmail Parson. Not to be deterred, he follows the derelict as he leaves. Catching up with him on a long stretch of country road, Parson puts his foot on the gas peddle and pursues the terrified man, eventually crunching the vehicle under him. The cars wheels roll backwards over the mangled body. The next day, when Parson sees on the TV that the tramp survived long enough to give the police a description of his attacker. Parson decides to change his image by shaving off his beard and wearing contact lenses in place of his eyeglasses.Parsons next victim is Alice Shogun (Ria De Simone), another crazed middle-aged woman who sings opera during sex. The weary killer strangles her to death with one of her stockings. Placing the body in the front seat of his car, Parson drives away, only to get pulled over by a motorcycle policeman and gets a speeding ticket. But the policeman does not notice that the woman with Parson is dead.Taking Alice's jewelry with him, he tries pawning it only to discover that is all fake. He tries to meet a horse fixer at a local racing stables for a tip about putting a bet on a horse, but the person never shows up. When more TV announcements give further descriptions of the mysterious killer, Parson is forced to chance his image again by dying the color of his black hair into brown, and wearing horn-rimmed, tinted eyeglasses.Sitting morosely at home, Parson responds to an unlikely invitation to "come on over" from Virginia (Zora Ulla Kesler), a similarly bored, lonely, wealthy, but far younger woman, than his previous victims, when she dials his phone number by accident. However, the otherwise desirable Virginia is revealed to have a large and attractive blemish on her upper lip. Even though she seems eager for intimacy, he is repulsed by her ugly scar. After Parson rings up another bad gambling debt to Randy, he decides to kill Virginia to steal whatever money and jewelry she has on her and flee the country.The following evening, Parson meets Virginia in her apartment suite for dinner. When he is about to kill her, she shoots him the chest after discovering the truth about him after seeing another TV broadcast of the latest description of the mysterious lady killer. Mortally wounded, Parson crawls away and ends up in the building garage where he converses with his other self, a shadow on the wall, and eventually dies as it converges with him. | violence, revenge, comedy, murder, romantic | train | imdb | "Touch of Death" is the story of Lester Pearson, a down on his luck gambler whom starts seducing wealthy women with various deformities, then killing them off for a prie fixe lunch of human flesh and cash for his horse racing betting debts.Fulci has an oft tenuous grasp on his plots, but this has to be the most ridiculously over the top entry in the canon.
Though the gore is the usual splatter spectacle (the best of which effects wise is probably the scene where the blackmailing vagrant is run over with Lester's car), it's housed in too goofy of a context to be scary.After several of the least politically correct murder scenes in film (a bearded lady meets death in a microwave, an inexplicably opera singing widow who solos in her sleep is interrupted by being strangled)and some darkly comic body disposal (complete with silly cartoonish theme music), Lester realizes he has a larger problem than lady killing.
The final twist makes no logical sense and shoestring budget shows, but "Touch Of Death" is a mindless guilty pleasure of Fulci poking fun at himself that will entertain his devoted fans..
A killer who sleeps with and then kills women (presumably for their money) is being shadowed by someone who is either copying his murders or placing clues as to his identity at the scenes of his crimes.
You don't get a Fulci film to watch plot but gore, so here goes.....The first scene consists of our hero chopping up a dead body with a chainsaw, but the body is quite obviously a mannequin loaded with red paint.
Other notable gore scenes include a head being microwaved (Fulci was obviously not a physics major nor one who had ever used a microwave before) which again is quite obviously a mannequin and a homeless witness to a murder being run over and over again by a car.
In truth, they are no worse than many early 90's American horror films, but the dubbing is so bad that it's hard to take Fulci's later work seriously at all, really.
Hailing from 1988, Touch Of Death is probably the most frustrating Fulci film I've seen to date, prompting me to join the chorus of horror fans who generalise that his films get worse as you get later into his career.
Considering the plot synopsis, I was expecting some bloody bad-natured fun with this one, but for all its bizarre flourishes, it feels tedious even at a running time of just 80 minutes, and suffers from nauseatingly shabby production values and film-making craft (or lack thereof).El Story: A gambling addict widower wines and dines rich (and strange) women he finds via lonely hearts columns before offing them in gruesome fashion - sometimes eating them or feeding them to animals - and stealing their money to keep his debtors at bay.
Sure, it's unlikely that just one man would be the host for so much screwed-up pathology all at once (addict, psycho/sociopath, cannibal), but this is Fulci!Touch is actually the cheapest and sparsest looking Fulci film I've seen.
With the amount of gore involved, it seems unlikely), and it does reek of crappy old telemovie production values.This is also Fulci's first foray into outright black humour, but he's just too graceless a director to make it work.
The effect isn't really chilling or funny or ironic anything that you'd like it to be - it's mostly just hamfisted and crappy.There are of course some redeeming moments of gore (that you'll be waiting for while trying to stay awake), including the eventual murder by oven(!) of a woman who just won't quit life, even after her face has been totally bashed apart with a bloody great club, and a homeless guy who gets a car run back and forth over him about five times.
Lucio Fulci is one of the leading names in gore-soaked horror cinema, and Touch of Death certainly does that reputation proud!
Fulci's films started to get worse as his career progressed (with the exception of the hilarious Cat in the Brain in 1990), and as this film was released in 1988; you can count on it not being as good as his previous output.
In fact, with films like Don't Torture a Duckling and The Beyond in mind; Touch of Death is one of Fulci's weaker efforts, but even so - there's plenty here to delight the man's fans.
Fulci's use of music helps to instill the absurdity of the film, which sees lonely widower/gigolo Lester Parson taking women home and putting them to use.
Fulci also installs a subplot about the investigation into the murders, and the murderer's descent into madness.This film is something a prelude to Cat in the Brain, and it's obvious that Fulci had Touch of Death in mind when he made his self-starring vehicle, as many of the gore scenes from that film are taken from this one.
The first scene of gore sees our 'hero' going to work with a chainsaw (surely horror cinema's finest weapon), and then putting the remains of his victim into a meat grinder.
Lucio Fulci was famous for his Italian splatter movies, mostly his undead films like Zombie or The Beyond.
At any rate this film stinks, its not funny, and Fulci should have stayed with giallo and supernatural zombie movies.
A moody, middle-aged gigolo (Brett Halsey) kills off women after he gets bored with dating them and uses their body parts for trophies and for consumption.Though many fans are divided, generally "Touch of Death" is regarded as a better latter era Fulci film.
The overdone black humor touches, "unconvincing" gore effects and baffling ending does turn off some fans.
In the end, I can't say I'm surprised that this film shows no sign of the sophistication of Mario Bava's HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (1970) which it resembles in several ways and that it is content to merely pile up the disgustingly gory (but none-too-convincing) effects of dismembered limbs and squashed or melting faces with which, alas, Fulci had by then become completely associated..
Another ropey effort from Italian 'godfather of gore', Lucio Fulci..
Lucio Fulci, a director not exactly renowned for his subtlety, ill-advisedly tries his hand at black humour in Touch of Death, a made for TV movie about Lester Parsons (Brett Halsey), a psycho who seduces and murders rich widows in order to pay his gambling debts.Starting off with a wonderfully gory scene in which the lethal lothario disposes of his latest victim via chainsaw, mincing machine and hungry hogs, Touch of Death starts promisingly enough, but Fulci soon loses control of proceedings, introducing a weird sub-plot involving a mysterious copycat killer and some heavy handed 'comedic' scenes.
There are several more graphic murders which, in true Fulci fashion, are extremely violent and gruesome, but even the high level of bloodletting doesn't stop this from being one of Fulci's poorer efforts.As I have found with many of his other movies, a comprehensible storyline is not exactly high on the agenda when Lucio is behind the camera.
What the hell is that ending all about?Fulci is considered by many to be one of the 'greats' of horror cinema; I don't understand his popularity, finding the majority of the films of his that I have seen so far to be generally lacking both decent narratives and technical proficiency.
You can easily afford yourself to skip most of the films Fulci directed or produced during the late 80's and simply watch "Cat in the Brain" instead, because that one title gathers and repeats the best and absolute goriest footage of no less than SEVEN other Fulci-flicks, including the sickest murders sequences featuring in "When Alice Broke the Mirror".
Lester Parson butchers the ladies (as well as unwelcome witnesses) in gruesome ways, makes steaks out of their juiciest body parts and feeds the remainders to his cat.
The difference between "When Alice Broke the Mirror" and some of Fulci's greatest horror films ("The Beyond", "City of the Living Dead",
") lies in the fact that he totally doesn't bother to create a horrific atmosphere.
The characters, Lester included, are colorless and boring and the murders are ordinarily depicted; like it's the most common thing in the world to put a woman's head in a microwave or repeatedly run back and forth over a human body with a car.
As long as Lester swings around his chainsaw and cuts off women's feet, "When Alice Broke the Mirror" is an undemanding piece of horror entertainment, but other than that, there's isn't a whole lot to recommend..
This film was less surreal than most and mainly focused on dark comedy and a simple crime tale, not much in the way of sets or cinematography, but it did what it set out to do, and with less stumbling than I've come to expect from the 'godfather of gore'.
If Touch of Death was simply the poster filmed for 70 minutes, it'd be such a better movie than what I just watched.Lester (Brett Halsey, Demonia) is a cannibal serial killer who meets, dates and eats various women, sometimes giving parts of them to his pigs.
He also talks to a tape recording of his own voice and has plenty of gambling debts that Randy (Al Cliver, Zombi 2, The Beyond) is ready to collect.There's a long scene that involved Maggie, a woman he marries.
Then, in a moment of absurdity, her body can't fit into his trunk, so he has to saw her legs off.I don't want to see Fulci be a second-rate Herschell Gordon Lewis.Lester is caught by a homeless man (who has the mark of Eibon on his forehead), who he runs over and leaves for dead.
And now, the cops know what he looks like — again — so he dyes his hair and puts on glasses.Depressed at home — and with even more gambling debts — Lester gets a phone call from Virgina (Zora Ulla Kesler, Anthropophagus, The New York Ripper), who is like all of his victims, except much younger.
Then, he dies.Also known as When Alice Broke the Looking Glass, this film is everything Fulci detractors accuse him of being — misogynist, leering, obsessed with gore and slapdash.
Touch of Death's 81 minutes of screen time feels like 81 hours.Postscript: I did not care for the scene where the killer kicks a cat, at all.
Dutch are Deaf is Fulci's attempt at combining black comedy, slapstick and extreme gore into a bundle of low budget headscratching late eighties nonsense that raises loads of questions but doesn't bother answering any, just like Fulci's Sweet House of Horrors and basically any other film he made after 1987.This time, Brett Halsey of naked harpoon wielding ghost nun film Demonia and Demons 6 plays Lester Parson, whom we first see cooking himself a nice steak and watching a video of a less-aesthetically pleasing woman prancing around.
All this is done rather humorously, if you're Lucio Fulci.Lester's constantly in debt to gangster type/book keeper Al Cliver (from Demonia, Zombie Flesh Eaters, New Gladiators, The Beyond and House of Clocks – basically, he's Fulci's go to guy for supporting actors), and in order to get cash, he constantly tracks down, seduces and murders rich widows, all of whom are disfigured for reasons that are beyond my six or seven functioning brain cells.
To make things worse for Lester, he's now apparently got a copycat killer on his tail, who keeps killing people and leaving evidence at the scene, including his genetic code.
Then, tough sh*t.I forgot to mention that Lester often talks to himself via a tape recorder.At least the film does have some sort of ending though, unlike other Fulci films of this era.
Plus, the ending makes no sense and yet again I get the feeling that Fulci might be trying to subtly say something about something or other, but it's lost under the low budget, his vision, and my brain damage.
This films shows all the characteristics that have made Fulci a clearly-recognizable filmmaker: no logic, no plot, very bad actors on one hand ; but on the other, lots of fun and an incredible sense for splatter which has turned him into a world-wide acclaimed king of the genre.
This film in particular offers gruesome and spectacular representations of deaths and murders , very well expressed by incredibly-low-budget but proper special effects : Fulci here is disgusting probably as never before, but if you like the kind it's an experience to be made....
Of Fulci's later movies, Touch of Death is definitely one of his best.
Most of the clips from Fulci's Cat in the Brain film were taken from Touch of Death.This movie is only for Fulci fans.
Touch of Death (1988) ** (out of 4) Lester Parson (Brett Halsey) is about as evil as you can get.
He spends his time looking for rich old women to fall into bed with and then takes pleasure when it comes time to brutally murder them.This later day Lucio Fulci picture is certainly a mixed bag.
The other side, and the positive one, this does contain some outrageous gore scenes and graphic violence that you can only find in a Fulci film.
In fact, the majority of these gore scenes were later used in the director's A CAT IN THE BRAIN.There are some rather surprisingly good elements that can be found here including the black humor that the director brings to the picture.
Another funny bit deals with a woman whose legs keep popping out of the trunk that he's trying to stuff her in.The main reason to watch this movie is for the gore.
The special effects aren't nearly as good as what we saw in earlier Fulci movies but there's no doubt that the majority of the budget went to them.
There's also a chainsaw scene, which is just pure Fulci in the campiest way.TOUCH OF DEATH has some major problems as well.
Touch of Death runs about 1:20 which is a few minutes short of a "complete" film experience in my opinion but Touch of Death plays more like a strange dark horror-comedy of its own variety.Extremely creative gore and special effects implemented throughout much of the film.
Mediocre Fulci's gore/black comedy..
So I decided to rewatch Lucio Fulci's "Touch of Death" aka "When Alice Broke the Mirror".Unfortunately this gore/black comedy is one of his weakest films."The New York Ripper" was the last solid flick of the Godftaher of Gore.Anyway,Brett Halsey plays a maniac who kills rich women for their money,butchers their bodies with a chainsaw and fed their remains to his pigs.Sounds great,but the action drags and the characters are idiotic.There is also plenty of silly comedy that seems out of place.Fans of Italian cult cinema should recognize Zora Kerova and Al Cliver in small roles.There are only four brutal gore scenes in "Touch of Death" including chainsaw dismemberment,running over with a car and finally there is a pretty nasty sequence,which has a woman bludgeoned with a wooden pole and then shoved into an oven.6 out of 10 and that's being kind..
I think it's supposed to be a comedy, but I don't remember laughing much, except at a few blatant inconsistencies and downright glaring errors.An unattractive middle-aged man called Lester meets up with rich unattractive middle-aged women via lonely hearts ads, and then murders them for the money he needs to feed his gambling addiction.
The sequences in which Lester murders the rich widows are all quite brutal but also seemingly dressed up as comedies.
Fulci seems unable to think up any visual representation of this phenomena on screen, so from this point on he just films the actor as normal, shadow and all!!
When seeing a Fulci movie, you really don't expect much of an intentional comedy, but this time it's exactly what you get.
With a healthy dose of gore and disturbing images.Lester Parson is a cannibalistic psychopath and a degenerate gambler who kills ugly, rich women and steals their cash and personal property to fund his lifestyle.
Pretty soon Lester finds out that there's also the other killer around, who imitates his killings and leaves out evidence that all points to Lester.This film is like a low-budget version of American Psycho.
(And even with it's problems way better than the said drivel of Hollywoodism that so poorly tries to turn Bret Easton Ellis' text into film.) Lester's "adventures" are projected in a grotesque and hilarious light, and Fulci has succeeded in creating a very twisted humorous mood, which abruptly changes into horrific carnage.
:) I must say that Fulci has always had some extraordinary nihilistic vigor in the depiction of violence.Too bad that the film doesn't follow this line to the end, and the last 30 minutes is plunged into senseless drivel with some obscure doppelganger plot.
Caution: Spoilers!With "When Alice broke the mirror", Fulci tried to deliver a black comedy for Italian TV.
The result is an extremely mean-spirited and - in the first half - gory movie, even for a Fulci product.The story itself about a serial killer copied and betrayed by his own shadow is not without potential, but what Fulci makes out of it is a rather over-cynical and disgusting film - and it starts right away: The movie opens with Brett Halsey as Lester Parsons eating a steak which he has cut out of his latest victim while watching a video recording of her.
Sick, isn't it?Lester Parsons is probably the most unappealing character Fulci has ever created.
The effects vary from bad to acceptable.Fulci devised the movie as a black comedy, probably a) to make up for the cheap special effects and b) to disarm it a little bit (recall that it was intended for TV).The result remains problematic because Parsons' victims are mostly women with physical defects and Parsons explicitly mocks about them. |
tt0081617 | Terror Train | A large group of college students are at a bonfire for the New Year's Eve celebration. All of the pledges are wearing beanies, and one nerd-ish pledge named Kenny (Derek McKinnon) is sent by the fraternity president Doc (Hart Bochner) and his friends up to a room in the frat house where a sorority sister named Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis) is waiting in the doorway. Alana walks inside the bedroom and stands behind the canopy in the dark room. Kenny undressed, sits in bed, and realizes that he is sitting beside a bloated and rotting corpse. Kenny screams in terror and he stands up on the bed and is caught up in the canopy. Alana seems repulsed as Doc and a group of other students rush in and laugh at Kenny.Three years later. A large group of college kids are exiting a bus at a train station. They have a toast celebrating four great years at college as they prepare to board a charted old train for a New Year's Eve costume party. Carne (Ben Johnson), the lead conductor, has the students board the train while he organizes the route with the dispatcher. Carne helps a magician (David Copperfield) and his assistant carry their luggage on board, as a three-person band board the train for the excursion.Nearby, Ed (Howard Busgang) a prankster student and one of the ones involved in the prank against Kenny, walks around with a sword through his stomach. The other students laugh and think its another one of his practical jokes, but he falls down after the people walk away and board the train. An unseen person takes Ed's Groucho Marx costume and rolls his dead body under the train tracks. The train leaves and the lights at the deserted station are turned off. The killer is wearing Ed's costume as he moves around the train.Meanwhile, Mitchy (Sandee Currie) another one of the students involved in the prank against Kenny, is talking to Alana who is graduating early and hopes they will keep in touch.In the back of the train, the magician is talking to his blond assistant about the rowdy college kids and complaining about having to perform his illusions in front of them.In the lounge car, Doc is celebrating with his fellow frat brothers when one of them asks about the now abolished "hog night" and he mentions that something bad happened. Alana enters and tells them that they "put a kid in the hospital" who had a nervous breakdown due to Doc's prank three years ago. Alana then goes to her boyfriend Mo, also involved in the prank against Kenny, where they retire for some alone time.A little later, Mitchy sees 'Ed' and he follows her towards the sleeping berths. He nearly grabs her when Jackson, another of the students involved in the prank against Kenny, appears. Jackson is very inebriated and he offers 'Ed' a drink. In the nearby lavatory, the killer grabs Jackson, lifts up his mask for a second to let him see his face, and slams Jackson's head into the mirror. The killer then changes out of his Groucho Marx costume and leaves the lavatory.Meanwhile, Alana becomes angry when learning that the train party was Doc's idea after Mo told her that it was his. Two of the sorority sisters, Pet and Merry, show up where Pet thinks that her boyfriend, Ed, missed the train, and Alana argues with Mo about learning that Doc had set him up again. Carne, the conductor, shows Doc and Mitchy a car trick he learned form the magician (it is only a gag), and the couple waits for the occupied bathroom. After a few minutes, they leave to find another one.Later, the magician performs his show before the students and afterwards, the rock band appears to play. Alana talks with the geekish class president (who was a pledge in the opening scene). Meanwhile, Doc asks Mo where Jackson and Ed are. Mo does not know and when he asks where did he find the magician, Doc says that he did not hire a magician for the party and wonders who did.Alana tells Carne that someone may have been left behind, but Carne tells her that the train platform was empty when he viewed it prior to the train leaving. Mitchy hears this and tells them that she saw Ed earlier on the train. Frustrated at being unable to find their boyfriends Jackson and Ed, Merry and Pet approach Doc and Mo who offer to take them to "consulting rooms" as they are both med students.Carne goes off to have a talk with Walter, the engineer of the train, and the stoker, nicknamed Shovels, to ask for the time to reach their destination. Carne then tries his card gag on Charlie, the brake master, who does not understand the joke.Afterwards, Carne then goes to the locked door of the lavatory and knocks on it, asking if there is anyone inside for it has been locked for some time. He unlocks it with his master key and finds a dead Jackson lying on the floor, with blood everywhere. Carne checks and sees that his neck must have been slashed and he quietly locks it again. Carne then tells Walter and Charlie what he found saying "there's a boy dead back there". After looking at a map of the area, they agree that the closest way out is straight ahead as the train is moving though rural and unpopulated wooded areas.Back in the showroom car, Mitchy mentions to Alana on the dance floor that she is leaving to be with Doc, and the magician, after looking at Alana, leaves in the same direction at Mitchy.Charlie arrives at the locked door to the lavatory and tells some girls passing by that it is out of order. Carne opens the door for him and the blood is gone and 'Jackson', wearing his alligator costume, is down on the floor moving. Carne thinks it was a practical joke and Mitchy walks by and leads 'Jackson' away.In Doc and Mo's room, Merry points out Kenny's photo in a yearbook. When Mo mentions about Kenny having a nervous breakdown, Doc yells at Mo not to talk about it, and Pet motions for Doc to keep quiet. Doc and Merry leave Mo alone with Pet.At the same time, Mitchy is with the killer still wearing Jackson's alligator costume, unaware of who it really is. Mitchy beckons him to join her in a berth bed as Merry and Doc walk by. Mitchy leans down and asks 'Jackson' to have her way with her. The killer takes off a glove and lays a hand on Mitchy's chest. She looks down and sees that it is Jackson's severed hand. She tries to scream, but the killer puts his real hand over her mouth.A little later, the magician approaches Alana and asks if she enjoyed his show, and he tries to woo her with more illusions such as the cigarette-through-a-quarter trick, and a levitating rose. Doc sees this and interrupts the conversation to tell Alana that Mo is waiting for her. Doc, for some reason, is not friendly towards the magician.Meanwhile, Carne finds one of Mitchy's shoes on the floor in the sleeping quarters and then finds Mitchy dead with her throat slit in one of the beds. He runs into Alana and asks her whose shoe he has. She goes to get Mo, but he ignores the knocking at his door for a rambunctious Pet is there with him. Carne gets Alana alone in the conductor car and tells her that Mitchy is dead and he shows her the body.The magician puts on a second show where he asks Merry to volunteer for some of his illusions. Doc continues acting in a rude tone around the magician and outright expresses skepticism to the show. After a few minutes, Doc sees Mo hanging his head out of apparent boredom and follows suit. When the magic show ends, Mo does not move or talk, and when Doc hits him, he falls over. Doc takes a closer look at Mo and sees that he is not breathing. Doc's screams for help are ignored by the crowd as they cheer for the magician and his assistant. Doc carries Mo through the train to Carne and Alana and they discover a large stab wound on his chest. Mo is dead.Finally aware that there may be a maniac killer on board the train, Carne checks the lavatory and discovers a bloodied rag that the killer used to clean up the mess after killing Jackson. Carne runs up to the engine room only to find Walter and Shovels both gone (only finding a bloody engineer's cap). Carne and Charlie pull the emergency breaks and, after a tense minute, stops the train. Carne leads the students off the train as he has the chief porter and several of his men look around the train for the killer. Outside, Carne has everyone take off their masks to get a look at all of them as the class president takes a roll call to see who is present.Alana suggests to Doc that the killer might be Kenny wanting to get back at all those involved in the prank against him three years earlier. She tells Doc that after the practical joke with the corpse, Kenny was taken away and when she went to the hospital psych ward later that night to visit him to apologize for the prank, the hospital staff would not let her see Kenny for he was kept in isolation because he had killed someone in the hospital after he was admitted. Doc thinks that with Ed, Jackson, Mo, and Mitchy dead, they are the only two ones left involved in the prank and they might be next.Doc takes Alana to a room and locks the doors. He shows her a yearbook and she sees that Kenny used to be a magician in high school. Alana wants to tell Carne about Kenny, but Doc refuses to let her leave. She gets out of the room and runs when a figure wielding an axe approaches her. But it is only Charlie the break master who tells her to go back outside with the others.Alone in the room, Doc checks every inch of the room from the lockers to the above berths. He sits down and then realizes that he forgot to check under the seats. He stands up and is grabbed by someone under his seat. He tries to escape, but a hand grabs his shoulder. He looks at the hand which has painted black fingernails and Mitchy's class ring. He settles down beliving that Mitchy is joking with him. But the killer pulls out a knife and puts it to his neck and slashes his throat.Carne takes the students back onto the train and has them all packed into the dining room car to sort out who the killer is. With no phone or radio and no roads around, they will have to travel to their destination to find help. Meanwhile, the magician's assistant arrives back in the showroom car and tells him about a killer lurking among them, and he scolds her for wondering around and going outside.As Carne has Charlie restart the train and as it gets underway again, Alana runs up to him and tells him that she thinks the killer is the magician. They go to get Doc, and Carne enters the dark cabin room to find it splattered with blood and he finds Doc with his head cut off in one of the berths.Carne assembles a small group of train porters who arm themselves with fire axes and crowbars. They quietly enter the magician's showroom car where they herd his assistant and all of the students out, and lock the door. The chief porter takes Alana to a compartment and offers to look after her while she rests. Having assembled all of the students into the tightly packed dining room car, Carne and his men enter the showroom car, but the magician is nowhere to be found.In the rooms compartment, the chief porter is sitting dead in a chair, having been stabbed with one of the magician's swords. The killer is now wearing Mitchy's black robe and old man's mask costume and, taking the axe off the dead porter, quietly enters Alana's room and swings the axe at the covers, but it is only an inflatable doll. Alana, anticipating the killer would do just that, jumps out of a closet and stabs the killer in the shoulder with a sword. But the killer gets back up and chases her to the conductors car, but loses his axe when he swings and misses Alana and it flies out a window. Deprived of his weapon, the killer and Alana struggle with him trying to choke Alana. Alana sprays the killer with a fire extinguisher and takes refuge in a caged area with a desk. She locks herself in, and the killer arms himself with a crowbar and knocks out all the lights in the compartment and attempts to pry the lock. But Alana stabs him in the face with a letter opener, kicks the door open and runs out. The killer chases Alana and, during another struggle, falls between the train cars. Carne and his men arrive and leads the wounded and shaken Alana away, unaware that the killer is holding onto the side of the train car.Later, as dawn begins to break, Alana sits alone in the back of the train in the show room and upon looking at the magician's folder and paperwork, finds the magician dead in a box, impaled with his swords. Alana screams, and runs out past the students and goes forward to the conductors compartment at the front of the train to find Carne and sees Charlie sitting at his desk. She tells him that the magician is dead and doesn't know who the killer is anymore. But the figure grabs her hands and she looks up and sees a masked person wearing Charlie's uniform. The killer has obviously killed Charlie, removed his uniform, and threw his body off the train for the side car door is slightly open. Alana asks the killer who he is, and he removes his mask, revealing a pasty white-faced Kenny (complete with a wound to his left cheek where she stabbed him earlier). Kenny then takes off his cap, revealing.... flowing blond hair (Kenny was the magician's female assistant). Kenny takes off his blond wig, removes his false teeth and wipes off his lipstick and white powder makeup. Alana tries to apologize to Kenny for her involvement in the prank, but he tells her that he always had a crush on her. He tells her to kiss him for he feels that Alana owes him just that for the past three years, and she reluctantly obeys. Suddenly, Kenny has a similar eerie reaction as the memory of the practical joke with the corpse comes right back to him. Alana backs away and Carne enters from the engine room with a shovel and sees Kenny reacting to his encounter with Alana. Carne hits Kenny with the shovel, and he falls out of the moving train though the open side door while it is passing a bridge. Kenny falls hundreds of feet and lands in an icy river far below as the train continues moving on. | grindhouse film, murder, cult, horror, violence, revenge, sadist, prank | train | imdb | And as with HALLOWEEN and THE FOG, the heroine at the center of this is none other than Jamie Lee Curtis.But unlike most HALLOWEEN-inspired bloodfests, TERROR TRAIN does boast a lot of good things to lift it above the worst of an always-bad bunch.
Furthermore, the violence and bloodshed are surprisingly kept relatively down; and while the revelation of who the killer is may not in and of itself be so surprising, it does give the opportunity for both Johnson and Curtis to be heroes.TERROR TRAIN may not be everyone's cup of tea (and it doesn't really compare to HALLOWEEN); but for those willing to take a spooky ride, it is well worth it..
And I also loved the fact that the killer uses different costumes for each murder, pure genius.The only draw back on this movie is that most of the murders happen off-screen, but more than makes up for it in the performances like Derek MacKinnion who plays Kenny a very well rounded performance, Ben Johnston does well in his role as the train conducter and even real life magician David Copperfield plays his part well.
The train chief (Ben Johnson) will try to track down the killer among the numerous students (Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner , D.D.Winters : Vanity).
"Terror Train" is a competent looking slasher by director Roger Spottiswoode, but here we go again in the formulaic stakes, which isn't too bad because it's slickly done with a different and claustrophobic setting.
Spottiswoode's capable direction keeps the film level with some flair and the performances by the always watchable Jamie Lee Curtis (who just reprises her signature scream queen role) and Ben Johnson is decent in a minor sense.
The rest of the performances are forgettable with the usual cheeky, drunken frats and you got the stiff looking David Copperfield."Terror Train" is a modest slasher affair all round that at times is a bit too convenient, but while there are some restrictions it still mildly entertains..
"Terror Train" is the final Jamie Lee Curtis horror movie (not including the "Halloween" sequels) and it certainly is a high note to go out on.
The film doesn't have the substance and art that "Halloween" or "The Fog", but one might find that "Terror Train" is an above average slasher film that, like its fellow Curtis movies, relies more on story and thrills than blood and guts.
This movie truly puts others like "Prom Night", "My Bloody Valentine", "Madman", "Happy Birthday to Me", and "Graduation Day" to shame, and one could easily argue that its better than the extremely popular "Friday the 13th" films."Terror Train" is a little more complicated than most slasher fares.
Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty much playing yet another heroine in a horror movie, and her performance is stellar but nothing special."Terror Train" is a great slasher film recommended for slasher fans.
The college students Doc (Hart Bochner), Michelle "Mitchy" (Sandee Currie), Mo (Timothy Webber), Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis), Edward "Ed" (Howard Busgang) and Jackson (Anthony Sherwood) plot a prank for their college mate Kenny Hampson (Derek McKinnon); however the joke goes wrong and Kenny ends up in a mental institution.
"Terror Train" is one of the better entries in the slasher cycle.**SPOILERS**Three years ago, Alaina Maxwell, (Jaime Lee Curtis) humiliates the class nerd in college during a prep rally by accident.
This one's practically bloodless, but there are plenty of thrills and suspense as Curtis and a bunch of her college chums become victims of a vengeful maniac when they have a New Year's Eve costume party on an all-night train ride.
Plus, the killer's identity is a real surprise, because, due to an opening fraternity-hazing scene, you already know his true identity, but you don't know who he's disguised as on the train (and you probably won't be able to guess either.) Ben Johnson brings some credibility to the cast as the kindly conductor, and David Copperfield gets a lot of screen time as -- big stretch -- a magician.
By now horror fans must have seen umpteenth number of times the story where the killer who is been bullied, comes back for revenge but the only difference here is that the action takes place not in some campus or institution but in a train which has a conductor played by Ben Johnson who doesn't get to shoot with a gun but strike with a shovel.
The film opens with a fraternity party prank gone wrong involving nerdy Kenny Hampson, the too smart for their own good frat boys, and an unwitting Alana Maxwell (Jamie Lee Curtis).
In short, "Terror Train" is a film that was made during the time when slasher pictures still had some quality to them and for that reason, no horror fan should pass up the chance to see it.
She's very good in Terror Train; although it feels like a very similar role to those she portrayed in Halloween and Prom Night, there's something stronger about the character that makes Curtis work standout more.There are some stereotypical college partying scenes and generic characters, but Terror Train is very entertaining.
The basic plot structure is given a clear roadmap in the first 15 minutes: horrible victim of practical joke, party, mass murder, etc., etc..What makes this film worth watching is how the little details end up looking so silly 25 years later.
It doesn't take much of an imagination to predict that an unwanted someone climbs aboard, leaving a jesting merry-maker at the station with a sword through his stomach, stealing his mask and costume before he leaves!Lets face it, any slasher movie with Jamie Lee Curtis at the height of her scream queen period has got an instant advantage above its peers.
Another great thing about "Terror Train" is that it relies on true suspense and good performances for its thrills, not the excessive gore and blood that has hindered most of the slashers of this sort.
The only thing I can think of is that this was part of Jamie Lee Curtis' three film hat trick that earned her the title of the premiere "Scream Queen" of the early 80s (the other two films, of course, are the original "Halloween" and "Prom Night"), and for that it automatically gets a free pass from horror geeks even though the movie itself isn't very good at all.
I'll grant that "Terror Train" has an original setting and a few decent set pieces but the finished product was slow moving, filled with annoying characters and wasn't terribly gory or scary, even by 1980 standards.Our story opens during a college fraternity's New Year's Eve party in which a prank on a pledge (involving a corpse in a bed that he thinks is going to be a real girl) goes horribly wrong and said pledge ends up institutionalized.
After several more (relatively bloodless, offscreen) kills, comes the predictable showdown between J.L.C. and the masked slasher.The problem with "Terror Train" is that even though you'd think a train would be a pretty claustrophobic setting for a horror film, the killer is able to roam freely around the cars, some packed with crowds of people no less, and yet he remains undetected till the middle of the movie, which doesn't seem terribly realistic to me.
A group of med students play a cruel gag on nerdish Kenny Hampton at a New Year's Party where a girl lures Kenny into bed,but leaves him there with a corpse taken from the morgue.The shock sends Kenny insane.Three years later the same group holds a fancy dress party aboard a train that they have chartered for a cross-country trip to celebrate their graduation.However Kenny sneaks aboard in disguise and starts killing off those responsible for the prank."Terror Train" is definitely one of the better slasher flicks from early 80's.There is quite a fair amount of suspense and the characters are well-developed.The photography by John Alcott of "The Shining" fame is truly beautiful-the images of train moving through the haunted snowbound Canadian area are simply awesome.8 out of 10..
A couple of minor plot holes aside, the biggest thing that weighs against 'Terror Train' is a precredits scene that gives away the killer's identity; as such, the film lacks the mystery element of something like 'Friday the 13th', but it is a surprisingly gripping ride even with the murderer and his motivations very obvious from the get-go.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode, Script: T.Y. Drake, Cast: Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, David Copperfield Of the mega film franchises to come out of the late 70's and 80's IE: Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, this along with Toby Hooper's Funhouse are what I consider to be 'the best of the rest'.
Someone on the train is killing the passengers and wearing the masks of the victims.Great horror slasher film.
I do not understand this because Terror Train is an interesting story with excellent players, headed by 1971 Academy Award winner, (Best Supporting Actor in The Last Picture Show), Ben Johnson as Carne, (the conductor), scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis as Alana, and David Copperfield as the magician.
But as it happens, the traumatized victim of the prank from the very first scene is back who boards the train and targets the six students involved (Jamie Lee Curtis is one of them) to kill all of them in some nasty ways and then wearing their costumes in order to get closer to his other targets.The train setting the about the only thing original in this horror flick and first time director Roger Spottiswoode makes good use of confining the environment and the fact that not only the killer is wearing a mask, but almost everyone else is too.
But what Spottiswoode can't compensate for is a script that provides unappealing characters, bad dialog, and little in the way of shocks or suspense.Contents: Seven killings (and several disappearances) off-camera mayhem, after-the-fact blood, a severed-head-in-the-upper-berth gag, two seconds of female nudity, a masked psycho, masked victims, lots of train chat, lots of magic tricks (courtesy of David Copperfield in a rare movie appearance), not significantly stupider than usual.
Heading the cast are: Jamie Lee Curtis as the film's heroine; Oscar-winner Ben Johnson as a paternal conductor (Curtis was always paired with father figures during her Scream Queen days: Donald Pleasence in "Halloween" and Leslie Nielsen in "Prom Night"); Hart Bochner as a cruel medical student; and David Copperfield as what else?...a magician!
"Terror Train" is yet another Jamie Lee Curtis/Scream Queen vehicle, and though the action and suspense is nothing new, the ending is quite the surprise.I haven't been this surprised watching a horror movie in a long time.
TERROR TRAIN is a good film it is better than Jamie Lee Curtis's PROM NIGHT.
Like most people I was expecting a rip-off from Halloween, but it actually wasn't.Most people already knew who the killer was, but it was still pretty good especially the last scene with Jamie Lee Curtis and the killer, somewhat suspenseful.
A far cry from the legendary Halloween (I & II) but on par with Prom Night and a heck of a lot better than the Fog, Terror Train is a super slasher film.
Terror train 1980 It start of number of teens getting drunk and having party on new years eve but Then a prank goes wrong I thought prank seen looked a little out dated now ( I wish we saw mire if it )!A fews years have gone by and these same kid's go party train There is a lot of party and talking but I didn't find it had much horror The kiss were far to apart in the movie but we do get see magic person Sone of characters were very moody , for most of the movie There some bloody moments in this movie, will some kills , don't really Get to see Them killed but we did see the after math of Death Even they tired to twist and turn but didn't work me as I knew who the killer was from the middle Lol 5 out of 10.
Jamie Lee Curtis stars as one of many graduating college students who board a train to celebrate, but a killer with a grudge(for a cruel prank used against him four years earlier) disrupts the festivities, as he begins murdering the passengers, and donning their costumes(part of the party) in order to fool them.
In between Halloween and Halloween II, Jamie Lee Curtis did three horror flicks, all in 1980 - The Fog, Prom Night, & Terror Train.After the opening setup where the class nerd (Derek McKinnon) is humiliated by Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis), and three years later a New Year's Eve costume party occurs on a train with the same people involved, we know what is going to happen.All that is left is to see if this is a slasher flick worth our time.Oscar winner Ben Johnson (The Last Picture Show) is the train's conductor.
Terror Train does start off a little slow, most horror movies have a kill scene in the first 5 minutes, not this one, they set up the prank in the first few minutes, at first i thought i was in for a really bad horror film, but was i wrong.
Terror Train is full of suspense and even a good scare, if you like 80's horror this one is for you, and i must say once again Jamie Lee Curtis was great in this.
The murder set-pieces deliver the goods (the ruse of having the killer take up the disguise of each victim, at least, is an interesting one), even if none is especially memorable; the best thing about it is certainly John Alcott's gleaming cinematography (a surprise choice for this type of film, unless the film-makers hoped that his contribution would make the confined train setting as characteristic - and alive - as the Overlook Hotel had been rendered in Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING [1980] but, if that was the case, their plan backfired).While it's always nice to watch veteran character actor Ben Johnson, his top billing is misleading (as is the poster of the film, in which the killer is disguised as the train conductor, though I understand how that may have been done figuratively) because his role is not especially significant; Jamie Lee Curtis is the real star of the film but her role is not as well-rounded as her Laurie Strode in the original HALLOWEEN (1978).
Even though this was Roger Spottiswoode's first ever directed movie, the movie looks and feels like it got made by a genre expert, who had been in the business for at least a decade already.It's a typical slasher that is basically about a killer killing the one after the other med-student, who are celebrating new years eve on a train.
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode (who would later achieve bigger things with Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies), Terror Train stars 'scream-queen du jour' Jamie Lee Curtis as Alana Maxwell, a New Year's Eve reveller at a fancy dress party taking place on board a steam locomotive.
Jamie Lee Curtis After Her Pervious "Scream Queen" Roles "PROM NIGHT" And Two Of John Carpenter's Films "THE FOG" And "HALLOWEEN" Now Delivers Another Stronger Female Lead Performance Who Again is Being Chased And Stalked By Crazed Masked Killer And That's Kenny Hampson Character Who's Seeking Vengeance On Her And Her Friends That Freaked Him Out By a Dumb Stupid Prank, This Film Also Stars Veteran Actor The Late Ben Johnson Who For The First Time Ever Get To Star in a Slasher Film His Role As The Train Conducter Who's Checking All The Passenger Train Cas And Finding Dead Bodys, And it Was Great To See Older Actor Like Ben Johnson Who Have Started in Two Of Sam Peckinpath's Films "THE WILD BUNCH" With William Holden, Robert Ryan, And Warren Oates, And "THE GETAWAY" With Steve McQueen And Alli Mcgraw And Disney's "ANGLES IN THE OUTFIELD" And Also Too There's David Copperfield in His First Film Role, The Director Who Made This Film is Roger Spottiswoode Who Also Have Done The James Bond Film "TOMORROW NEVER DIES" With Pierce Brosnan, "AIR AMERICA" With Robert Downey Jr. And Mel Gibson And "THE 6TH DAY" With Arnold Schwarzenegger And This is Roger Spottiswoode's First Feature Film Dubet.
"Terror Train" is one of the few horror films that Jamie Lee Curtis did after the classic "Halloween", that was actually a pretty dang good horror flick (besides "Prom Night", but that's arguable by many).
Recommended for fans of Jamie Lee Curtis' earlier horror movies, or anyone who enjoys a good slasher movie (and I might add, this would be a great film to show at a party).
There is little gore, but that seems irrelevant with all the mystery that is surrounding the teens aboard the train, which in itself, is an interesting place for a horror film to be set - nowhere to run after all.Aside from the fantastic Jamie Lee Curtis, the rest of the cast are a mixed lot.
Jamie Lee Curtis playing a role, more or less, like the one she played in "Holloween" as the one that not only got away from the slasher but was involved in taking him out with the help of the train conductor Crane, Ben Johnson,gives her usual "Screem Queen" performance as collage student Alanda Maxwell.We know already from the start who the killer is since we see him being driven mad by a collage prank engineered by collage prankster Doc Manly, Hart Bachner, some three years earlier with an unsuspecting Alanda being part of Doc's sick joke.
After the success with Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis followed-up with similar films such as The Fog, Prom Night, Halloween II, and this pathetic thing, Terror Train.
Of the slasher films that Jamie Lee Curtis would appear in after the masterful Halloween (1978), Terror Train is truly the best.
Jamie Lee Curtis,Ben Johnson,a train and the killer. |
tt0498366 | The Life of Reilly | The film begins with Reilly recounting his childhood and his parents in New York City and Connecticut. We meet his family an institutionalized father, a racist, baseball bat-wielding mother, and a lobotomized aunt, amongst others. Eugene ONeill would never get near this family, Reilly declares.
Prior to being put into an institution, Reillys father, a Paramount Pictures poster artist and illustrator, was offered the chance to go into business with another illustrator with the intention of making their first animated film in color together. The catch was simply that the senior Mr. Reilly would have to move himself and his family to California. Perhaps a defining moment in young Reillys life, his father asked his mother her thoughts and she unceremoniously rejected the possibility. The other illustrator went West without the senior Mr. Reilly as a partner. That other illustrator was named Walt Disney.
After the missed opportunity to partner with Walt Disney, Reilly's father began drinking heavily and eventually had a nervous breakdown. Upon being institutionalized, the senior Mr. Reillys family was forced to move out of the Bronx up to Connecticut to live with Mrs. Reillys family.
When Reilly turned eighteen, he moved to New York City. If you wanted to be an actor in those days, he explains, You did something thats really unheard of today you studied." Young and hungry (literally), Reilly managed to find an acting class at HB Studios, which was rather liberal in its door policy and would let in aspiring actors even if they didnt have the money to pay.
Reillys class was taught by a young, award-winning, soon-to-be-legendary actress, Uta Hagen. In the class were such future stars and notables as Steve McQueen, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, and Gene Hackman. It was a group of future Academy Award, Tony Award and Emmy Award winners, and, as Charles explains, We wanted to go on the stage, none of us had any money, and this entire list couldnt act for shit.
It was about this time when a friend of Reilly's arranged a meeting with a powerful NBC executive. Reilly went in and was told, They dont let queers on television. In retrospect, Reilly describes it as, A short meeting. Despite the apparent prejudice against him, his talent and tenacity landed him on Broadway, winning his first Tony Award for his role in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying", as well as leading roles in the original Broadway casts of "Bye Bye Birdie" and "Hello, Dolly! (musical)".
Reilly went on to become a fixture in television appearing in numerous episodes of Car 54, Where Are You?, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (TV series), and starring in Lidsville. He also made hundreds of guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, second in number of appearances only to Bob Hope, and had a more recent memorable guest spot on The X-Files. Over the years, he developed a habit of looking through the weeks TV Guide to see how many times he would be on TV that week. Coming in at over a hundred separate appearances, he reflected on the NBC executive who told him he would not be allowed on television but now Reilly wondered, Who do I have to &!$# to get off?!
Success came to Reillys professional life, and he has used all the knowledge and expertise he has gained through a lifetime spent acting to teach. His longtime friend Burt Reynolds gifted him a theater in which to teach the craft of acting, and it has fulfilled Reilly ever since. As we leave him in what he calls The twilight of an extraordinary life, we see a portrait of an artist, a victim of prejudice who rose above it, a trailblazing comedic personality, an entertainer, a son, a teacher, and a man laid bare for all to see. | autobiographical | train | imdb | Quite the character, a great filming of his one man show.
I saw this at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan.As the film opens, some people on the street are asked if they know who Charles Nelson Reilly is.
Several of them say they've heard his name but don't really know him.
Well, before seeing this film, I feel into that category.
I didn't even realize until right before seeing the film that he has recently passed away.The movie was very entertaining.
I hadn't heard of the stage production, so I didn't know that the movie was a filming of his one man show.
But I really enjoyed it.
Charles Nelson Reilly was quite the character.
He was funny and witty and never worried about making fun of himself.
In the film, Charles mostly talked about his childhood and how he started out in the entertainment business.
There were a lot of great stories and some inside jokes.
I liked whenever he talked about a new person from his family or someone close to him that he would cast a famous person to play the part.This film was a lot of fun and I really got to know who the real Charles Nelson Reilly was.
It's sad that he's gone, but he lived a long life and the film seems to show that he enjoyed every bit of it.
And he gave an excellent finale..
A remembrance.
Well, it is the end of May 2007 and Mr. Charles Nelson Reilly has recently died.
I just learned of it today and, while I know it's silly, I've been sitting here at work getting teary-eyed.
Sure, as a kid I knew him only from The Match Game, but when I saw "Life of Reilly (Save It for the Stage)" last fall I understood at last what a fascinating person and enormous heart lay behind the outrageous public persona.
And, finally, it seems that even the game-show Charles Nelson Reilly was not really ever a mere persona, that he was never anyone but who he was, histrionic and unapologetic and, if you took the trouble to look, enormously dignified.
The movie shows both the man and the artist, a veteran stage actor whose craft at storytelling never ebbed, even as his final years slowed him down physically.As it happens, I ran across the "Jose Chung" episode of the X-Files, with Mr. Reilly in the title role, last week, just before he passed.
That long, serialized interview scene with Gillian Anderson's Dana Scully is just a delight; I think you can see the fun Ms. Anderson is having playing off him.
And it surely contains some of the series' best comic writing.*Sigh.* Mr. Reilly, I shall miss you greatly..
Fantastic.
I just had the opportunity to catch this at the 2007 Madison Film Festival and thought it was such a wonderful film; equally entertaining, touching, and funny.
The content of this film, which is Mr. Reilly's stage show that recaps his life and work, is absolutely fantastic.
Equally important was the editing and capturing of his performance, where I felt the impact and intimacy of a live show.Thanks for sharing your wonderful life, Mr. Reilly!
And for all the lifetime of laughs, even if you want to forget about the TV material.
Thanks to the film makers that brought this performance to a wider audience.I can't recommend this enough and look forward to its release on DVD, so I can share it with my friends.While watching his performance, I realized that performers of his caliber just don't grace the screen anymore.
A thought that is quite depressing..
Unique.
I knew who Charles Nelson Reilly was from the old game shows on TV when I was a kid.
This movie is pretty much a film of his stage act (I didn't know he had one).
The guy lived an incredible life and if he were to read this he would stress that he "STILL IS LIVING an incredible life." This is a great stage act brought to the screen and it has a real neat feel to it.
The camera angles and editing add to this man's story telling.
It is a very unique movie and I can't recommend it enough.
I saw it down at the SWX film festival and everybody was raving about it.
I think you walk into the movie with low expectations (who really wants to see an older man from cheesy game shows in a one-man stage show talk about his life?!) but the movie grabs you..
This movie is amazing - It needs to be seen by more people!.
This is a unique movie as it is the last performance Charles Nelson Reilly ever did of his one man show.
To watch him tell his stories is to see a master weave his craft into words that keep you consistently engrossed by what he has to tell.CNR's life is fascinating.
There is much more to him than most people will ever know.
For years you just knew him as the guy on match game, and that funny guy on the Lucy episode, or wasn't he on ghost and Mrs Muir?
Something about him in all of those things stuck out enough for people to remember him.
The man is an amazing performer, and his words are rich in with the history of Broadway, Hollywood and his personal life.This film needs to be released on DVD or somehow the gameshow network needs to make a deal with the film maker and show it on the gameshow network, or release it with one of the DVD sets!
People need to see it!.
Far less funny but far more engaging than I'd anticipated..
This film consists of the actor, Charles Nelson Reilly, doing a stand-up act where he talks about his life, his family and his experiences.
I had assumed based on the Reilly I'd seen on TV that it would be funny.
And, while there are definitely funny parts, there are as many, if not more, painful parts.
Apparently, he grew up in a strange and emotionally abusive home--and although he doesn't say it, you wonder if he chose acting as a way of dissociating from this.
At first, he talks slow and shows his age.
But, through the course of this talk to a college audience, he becomes more animated and at ease.
And, at times, he seemed amazingly young and spry--bouncing about the stage with a lot more vigor than you'd expect from a man in his mid-70s.
Throughout all this, he's amazingly engaging and you can't help but sit spellbound.
In many ways, it reminds me of a similar film with John Waters called "This Filthy World"--and both are nice opportunities to see these men and gaze into who they really are--or at least who they want you to see.
Well worth seeing even if you aren't a fan of Reilly.
After seeing it, you may well be.Also, for kicks, go to YouTube and type in "Weird Al CNR" and watch the video.
It's all about the massively manly exploits of Charles Nelson Reilly and it's hilarious..
Worth Every Minute!.
This could, by far, be the best stage show I have seen!
I am surprised that I did not discover this film earlier and I wish I had seen it live.
It makes one laugh and cry.
I didn't know Charles Nelson Reilly's humor and talent was so grand until I saw this film.
He was a superb storyteller.
Reilly and his family had more than a few eyeopening and extraordinary experiences.
I've watched it several times and purchased the DVD so I can watch it again with friends and family.
It's one of those films you want to share.
This film makes me wish I had kept a diary of my own so I could share my own family history.
Everyone should see this film!.
Everyone should see this film!.
Brilliant raconteur in a three hour, one-man show.
Just watched the unedited three hour version of The Life of Reilly filmed in San Francisco in 2001.
This is a two DVD set that is superb quality and crystal clear.
It appears that the filming is authorized as CNR sees everything from the stage, throwing barbs at the audience now and again and would unquestionably have commented on the filming had it been done without his permission.
Not having seen the version shown in theaters I have to assume that this is the complete show as opposed to the mini-documentary which most of the posters on this site are referring to.
This is a brilliantly funny one-man show, witty and dramatic, funny and tragic in the telling of stories from Nelson Reilly's life and career.
His performance covers a huge range of subjects and his delivery is masterful.
Strange to believe that his talents will essentially be remembered only for his contribution to Match Game.A one-man show that is both touching and very, very funny.
For anyone who knows anything about show business from way back when - and I'm talking about the great Vaudeville stars of the 20's and 30's, this is a nostalgic mind-blower.
When Nelson Reilly talks about his family, describing them as "portrayed by" Burt Lancaster or Shirley Booth or any one of a multitude of movie stars from the 40's and 50's, the result is hysterical.
What a wonderful memorial to a talented and loving personality..
Entertaining Stage Performer, Frustrating Film-Makers.
I just saw a screening of this film at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Everyone was in great spirits with some pre-show Charles Nelson Reilly t-shirts being given away.
Knowing that CNR was more than just a television perma-guest, I was looking forward to hearing him tell stories as only he can.
He didn't disappoint.
It takes a gifted storyteller to wring humor and pathos out of a painful childhood, and a sharp observer to make the life story so fresh and consistently surprising.
As long as the cameras held steady on CNR and just let the man express himself, the film was excellent.Unfortunately, it seemed that the film-makers wanted to constantly remind the viewer that this was a FILM documentary.
I wanted to hear more stories, especially about his life in the theater, but the film-makers edited three-plus hours of stage material down to barely ninety minutes.
This lead to some jarring transitions and title screens explaining what surely must have been great stories.
Black-and-white film clips interspersed with CNR's monologue detracted from the stories rather than enhance them.
But my biggest complaint, however, was the totally distracting soundtrack.
Electric guitars and synthesizers played constantly, often making it difficult to hear CNR's words.
The director attended the screening and explained that they were still editing the film, and he seemed to acknowledge that it was difficult to hear at times.
I recommend more Charles, mellower editing, and far less soundtrack.The good news is that the director announced the production team's desire to include as a DVD bonus feature an uncut film of CNR's stage show from 2003, which runs about three hours and has plenty of stories and anecdotes.
Maybe my problems with the film are really to disguise my disappointment at never being able to see CNR's show live on stage.
I hope that uncut film will provide the fix..
R.I.P. Charlie.
For anybody who grew up between 1960 to the early 1980's, the name Charles Nelson Reilly should click with you (especially if you watched a ton of kid vid & game shows).
The documentary,filmed mostly at his one man play/monologue/diatribe, on the last two performances should be worth you while.
Reilly recalls his tortured childhood,up thru his late adolescence with a mix of snide humour & pained memories (how he even got through childhood & adolescence with a vile,racist,homophobic control fanatic Mother,a alcoholic,manic depressive Father,a comatose Aunt & other dysfunctional family members is a small miracle in itself).
He also recalls his early years on Broadway (only after he was rejected by the President of NBC for being gay),and his eventual rise as a television celebrity, makes this for a film to be taken upon.
About my only beef is the occasional clumsy camera & editing work that makes this film a wee bit of a challenge (the camera seems to be everywhere it's not supposed to be more than a few times,plus the framing seems to be way off,giving the film a rather clumsy,home movie look, such as 'Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars',which was marred by bad camera & editing work).
If you can get past that, 'The Life Of Reilly' is one to seek out. |
tt0121164 | Corpse Bride | In an unspecified Victorian-era village somewhere in Europe, Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), the son of nouveau riche fish merchants, and Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), the neglected daughter of snobbish aristocrats, are preparing for their arranged marriage, which will simultaneously raise the social class of Victor's parents and restore the wealth of Victoria's penniless family. Both have concerns about marrying someone they do not know, but upon meeting for the first time, they fall for each other. After the shy Victor ruins the wedding rehearsal by forgetting his vows and is scolded by Pastor Galswells (Christopher Lee), he flees and practices his wedding vows in the nearby forest, placing the wedding ring on a nearby upturned tree root.
The root turns out to be the finger of a murdered woman in a tattered bridal gown named Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), who rises from the grave claiming that she is now Victor's wife. After fainting, Victor wakes up and finds out he was spirited away to the surprisingly festive Land of the Dead. The bewildered Victor learns the story of how Emily, his new bride, was murdered years ago by an unknown criminal on the night of her secret elopement. Emily, as a wedding gift, reunites Victor with his long-dead dog, Scraps. Meanwhile, Victoria's parents hear that Victor has been seen in another woman's arms, and become suspicious.
Wanting to reunite with Victoria, Victor tricks Emily into taking him back to the Land of the Living by pretending he wants her to meet his parents. She agrees to this and takes him to see Elder Gutknecht (Michael Gough), the kindly ruler of the underworld, to return Victor and Emily temporarily to the Land of the Living. Once back home, Victor asks Emily to wait in the forest while he rushes off to see Victoria and confess his wish to marry her as soon as possible, to which she gladly returns his feelings. Just as they are about to share a kiss, Emily arrives and sees the two of them together and, feeling betrayed and hurt, angrily drags Victor back to the Land of the Dead. Victoria tells her parents that Victor has been forcibly wed to a dead woman, but they believe she has lost her mind and lock her up in her bedroom. She escapes her room by window and rushes to Galswells to find a way to help Victor, but fails. With Victor gone, Victoria's parents decide to marry her off against her will to a presumed-wealthy newcomer in town named Lord Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant), who appeared at the wedding rehearsal.
Emily is heartbroken by Victor's deception. Victor, however, apologizes for lying to her, and the two reconcile while playing the piano together. Shortly after, Victor's recently deceased family coachman, Mayhew appears in the afterlife and informs Victor of Victoria's impending marriage to Barkis. In order for Victor and Emily's marriage to become valid, Victor must repeat his vows in the Land of the Living and willingly drink the Wine of Ages, a poison - thus joining her in death. Overhearing this, and fretting about having lost Victoria to another man, Victor agrees to die for Emily. All of the dead go "upstairs" to the Land of the Living to perform the wedding ceremony for Victor and Emily. Upon their arrival, the town erupts into a temporary panic until everyone recognizes their loved ones from the dead and they have a joyous reunion under the bizarre circumstances.
After a quarrel with Barkis (and realizing he was only after her supposed money), Victoria follows the procession of dead to the church. Emily notices Victoria and realizes that she is denying Victoria her chance at happiness the same way it was stolen from her. As Victor prepares to drink the cup of poison to kill himself, Emily stops him and reunites him with Victoria. Barkis interrupts them, and Emily recognizes him as her former fiance - who is revealed to be the one who murdered her for her dowry. Barkis tries to kidnap Victoria at sword point, but Victor stops him and the two men duel. The dead townspeople are unable to interfere with the affairs of the living. Emily intercedes to save Victor and Barkis mockingly proposes a toast to Emily, claiming she was "always the bridesmaid, never the bride." He unknowingly drinks the cup of poison. The dead, now able to intercede, happily drag the "new arrival" back to the Land of the Dead for retribution for his crimes. Victoria, now a widow, is once again able to marry Victor.
Emily sets Victor free of his vow to marry her, giving the wedding ring back to Victor and her wedding bouquet to Victoria before exiting the church. As she steps into the moonlight, she transforms into hundreds of butterflies, presumably finding peace, as Victor and Victoria look on wrapped in each other's embrace. | dark, comedy, gothic, cult, horror, psychedelic, romantic | train | wikipedia | A Work of Dark Art. After enchanting audiences with "The Nightmare Before Christmas," Tim Burton brings another stop-motion animated spectacle, "Corpse Bride." In this story, Victor Van Dort, an inept young groom-to-be, can't make his way through his wedding rehearsal.
Helena Bonham Carter is the voice of Emily, the Corpse Bride, giving the dead character lively emotion.
The exceptional stop-motion animation (which has seen an upgrade since 1993's classic Nightmare Before Christmas) joins with top-notch voice talent (Depp and Helena Bonham Carter stand out here) and typically good score/musical work from genius Danny Elfman to create a wonderful movie-going experience.
Yes, this is a movie for anyone - in fact, I think teens and young adults will enjoy it more than younger kids with its dark at times bold humor and fast-paced banter (particulary in the clever songs).
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride was one of the best animated movies I've ever seen.
I gotta tell you.Animation films these days are just getting better and better.Tim Burton's directing and vision succeeds once again.For almost the whole movie,I could tell everyone in the theater was enjoying it.Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter were fabulous voices,the music and songs were just right for the mood,and the story was actually quite different from The Nightmare before Christmas.Altogether it made an enjoyable,clever and funny movie,that I think you will want to see over and over again.Take your friends.Family or relatives to see this classic movie.Trust me you will NOT be disappointed.Or at least I wasn't disappointed.
I probably would have liked this movie more if I had not already seen - many times - "The Nightmare Before Christmas" which was a brilliant and original piece of work.
Good cast (with many Burton stalwarts, incidentally), with the philosophy that less is more make for a good time.Like it or not, it is well-worth noting that this film delivers many firsts to film-making, including new-style digital camera-work on refined stop-motion.
There are songs in here but they are only so-so, and certainly not the attraction to the film.The story starts off slowly, but once the characters went down under into the land of the dead, not only did we finally start seeing some colors other than blue, but the whole film came alive and pretty much stayed that way until the end.As with good animated movies, there is so much you can see that you can't take it all in.
Though its lead character is in fact dead, "Corpse Bride" is inspired dark comedy and an unexpected touching love story.
An almost unrecognizable Johnny Depp voices Victor Van Dort the young man who inadvertently "marries" the Corpse Bride (voiced by the wonderful Helena Bonham Carter).
Hot off the heals from their box-office success Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, their latest collaboration sees Depp lending his voice to Burton's macabre vision in a stop motion animated movie, along the veins of Nightmare Before Christmas (NBC).The story's a little bizarre, a little morbid, but hey, it's Burton on familiar grounds.
The Von Dorts and the Everglots have agreed to an arrange marriage between their children Victor (Depp) and Victoria (Emily Watson), but Victor, fumbling the marriage rehearsals, runs away to seek solace, and accidentally unleashes the Corpse Bride Emily (Helena Bonham Carter, giving the character an impeccable Brit accent).
So begins a crazy love triangle of sorts, involving characters from both the realm of the living and the dead.Surprisingly, Burton managed to squeeze a couple of subplots into this relatively short film, and touched on themes like arranged marriages, what's in it for both families (The Von Dorts are the newly rich, wanting to add prestige to their family name, while the Everglots are bona-fide aristocrats who've gone bust, and need the dough to continue their lifestyle and save face).
If you're acquainted with Burton's works, it's typical of him and his style, so you'll see it coming the way it was, as per his dark visions.The art and characters are very NBC-like too, with their small heads and extremely long limbs.
Yes, the soundtrack adds even more beauty to an already wonderful picture.I am full of nothing but praise for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.
Fortunately, Tim Burton is a wonderful storyteller, and "Corpse Bride" is an example of his imagination.Victor (Johnny Depp) is about to meet his bride Victoria (Emily Watson) for the first time.
But he's not sure if he wants to live among the dead, and he's torn between Emily and Victoria.The stop-motion animation is the same style as "The Nightmare Before Christmas." The animation has come a long way since 1993, but I liked "Nightmare's" story more.
Overall, this is a beautiful love story with likable characters, catchy music, and, of course, visually brilliant animation.PG for scary stuff.
I saw this movie and was so disappointed that he did not end up with the corpse bride or Emily (I felt so sorry for her character - she was cheated out of her life and had nothing in return).
The movie would have more emotional meaning in the end if Victor fell in love with Emily through a progression of character development, after all she shared his passion for piano and may be other things.
After the huge, and endearing, success of Nightmare Before Christmas - director Tim Burton has returned to Gothic animation, this time as director, with the superbly macabre 'Corpse Bride'!
Corpse Bride is rich with skeletons, spiders, maggots and a lush dark atmosphere - making this the most horrific 'kids' animated film I've ever seen.
Burton has gathered up an array of talent for the making of this film, including Johnny Depp, Emily Watson and Helena Bonham Carter in the leads; and horror icons Christopher Lee and Michael Gough delivering great supporting performances.
Danny Elfman has created another great score, and while I don't usually say that I'm a fan of musical numbers in films like this; most of the songs here are actually quite entertaining.
In a way, The Corpse Bride is more mature of an effort story-wise than some of Burton's live-action, R-rated films because it has more imagination.The signature Gothic style is done very well, and the animation is stellar to look at.
The songs in this movie were not as good a those in "Nightmare before Christmas" but the suited the movie fine and they were never annoying.The voice work is fine, Christopher Lee is great, and the characters are really characteristic and alive, ironically enough.
The fantastic Tim Burton presents a delightful animation, with romance, comedy, fantasy and musical using characters the slightly recalls "The Nightmare before Christmas", which is better, but in a totally different story.
The voices of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are amazing, and music score Danny Elfman is great and I highly recommend this stunning animation.
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is by no means a bad movie- indeed, it is much better than most schlock these days- but it is part of a growing category of films with a very specific problem.
Visually, this is true- Corpse Bride looks and feels very similar to the older film, although computer animation makes this one look even better.However, whereas The Nightmare Before Christmas maintained a jovial, family friendly theme and plot (complete with misunderstood heroes and dastardly villains), Corpse Bride gives us a quiet little story about three young adults who find themselves in an impossible moral situation.
While not giving anything away, I'll say that in this sense, the third act of the film presents a very mature dilemma that children (and many adults) are not going to appreciate.Of course, the frustrating thing about this movie is that so much time is spent on song and dance numbers that the moral and romantic elements never really get fleshed out.
Sure they're both Tim Burton and they're both done in a puppet style but they're essentially different mainly because Nightmare was a musical and Corpse Bride is simply a romantic graveyard comedy.
Burton strikes gold again with his newest stop-motion animated film "The Corpse Bride." The animation, along the lines of "The Nightmare Before Christmas", is simply gorgeous, capturing the Gothic fairy tale perfectly.
The piano pieces are definitely my favorite part of the entire movie, and help to portray the dark feeling of the film along with the large Broadway like singing portions which made "Nightmare Before Christmas" famous.
Although I might not say Corpse Bride is a great film on the level of Nightmare Before Christmas (there are some things involved with the characters of Corpse Bride that aren't as realized as in Nightmare, and the songs aren't as instantly classic, arguable I'm sure), I would not tell you not see this film if you are the least bit a fan of Tim Burton's work or of his previous stop-motion film.
This time the story brings a torn to-be married gent named Victor (Johnny Depp voices, thankfully not too recognizable) who is in that uncomfortable point as in other movies where he can't take having to marry someone he barely knows, Victoria (Emily Watson), and her money-hungry parents.
Things get complicated then within this sort of quasi love triangle, where the terrific horror clichés (and others) of old lay the framework for a really sweet, neo-classical love story.For the sheer visual marvels that Burton, co-director Mike Johnson, and their genius team (creating more than 100 MILLION frames for each second of animated film), it gets a high recommendation from me.
It would be one thing if this was all romantic melodrama, but by making it also a sly comedy of (un-dead) manners, it doesn't sell anybody short seeing the film.Kids (maybe not the wee little ones, like 5 and up) will love the wildness of the film, of the kind of awe that Burton tries to bring out in most of his films; adults will find the gags and some punchlines very funny, and there is one animated song/sequence- I forget it's name but it involves the multiple skeletons, the second song in the film- that ranks up there with 'Pink Elephants' in Dumbo for creating such an array of wonders that it practically doesn't matter what the characters are singing about.
At the least, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is a complete triumph of style (not quite) over substance, and at best it delivers more for the eye than any other animated film has this year..
"Corpse Bride" is one of the best animated musicals since "Beauty and the Beast." Danny Elfman is co-creative force with director Tim Burton, as the delightful songs, music and piano playing courtships match the distinctive ensemble of characters.
'The Corpse Bride' isn't nearly as good as Burton's classic 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' but it was a very entertaining, inventive and charming animated feature.
Comparisons to The Nightmare Before Christmas are of course inevitable but to me that's like trying to spot imperfections in two flawless diamonds.The visual in Corpse Bride, especially given the complexity of the puppets, is brilliant beyond anything I've ever seenevery expression (CG quality facial animation performed by cranking tiny gears within the puppets heads) and flowing costume a marvel to behold.
Eventually, though, a decision has to be made: Will Victor remain in the wondrously upbeat land of the dead, with this charming and beautiful, yet strange and mysterious, corpse bride...or will he return home to the one shaded land of the living, to be with the sweet Victoria, whom he has come to love?The Bride is a beautiful movie that grabs the audience and pulls them in, and doesn't let go until the very end.
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005) is a stop-motion-animated Romance as well as Comedy / Family / Fantasy / Musical which takes place in two parallel worlds, in the world of living and in the world of dead.
Victor and Victoria fell in love from the first sight but unknown for him, Victor finds himself married to Emily, a mysterious Corpse bride, and taken to the world of dead which in Burton's movie is much more colorful, friendlier, and jollier than the world of living
With the running time only 76 minutes, "Corpse Bride" simply does not have time to become boring.
But aside from Victor Van Dort and the Corpse Bride, we know about as much about every single character in the story by the end of the film as we did at the beginning.
Like Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion classic "The Nightmare Before Christmas," "Corpse Bride" takes something wonderful and makes it sinister - In this case, the accidental marriage to a corpse.From the opening scene onward there's trouble brewing and you know very well that nothing can go right when you hear the parents of both wedding parties singing "everything must go according to plan." This song is probably the most memorable out of the entire film (which doesn't say much), but it does serve to set the stage.
Actually liked the 'Corpse Bride' a bit more than Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.
Yesterday at school, I watched Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride" for the third time I think.
"Corpse Bride" is one of Tim Burton finest films.
A stop-motion comic-horror-romance musical directed by Tim Burton, which has all the elements and icons of the Burton's quirky universe.The movie tells the story of Victor (Johnny Depp), who is in love with a shy sensitive Victoria (Emily Watson) and finds himself married to the lonely Emily the Corpse Bride (Elena Bonham Carter) due to the release of an old spell.
The "Corpse Bride" movie is another masterpiece from Tim Burton's dark, warped mind.The story told in the movie is very good and captivating.
And they all bring a unique touch to the movie.As with the previous animated movie "Nightmare Before Christmas", the style in "Corpse Bride" is very unique, and there is that Burton sense of elegance to it.
I a Dead Way. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride was one of the best animated movies I've ever seen.
I loved the dialog some of my favorite lines were "Why Go Up There When People Are Dying To Get Down Here" and "Can A Heart Still Break Once It's Stopped Beating." But the most important thing is that this movie makes you feel less frightened about death.
I loved the dialog some of my favorite lines were "Why Go Up There When People Are Dying To Get Down Here" and "Can A Heart Still Break Once It's Stopped Beating." But the most important thing is that this movie makes you feel less frightened about death.
Death in this movie is a lot funner than living and the dead are always having a good time and partying that you feel like dying is not so bad.
Death in this movie is a lot funner than living and the dead are always having a good time and partying that you feel like dying is not so bad.
Thank you Mr. Burten for the Corpse Bride, Nightmare Before Christmas and years worth of your great films..
Thank you Mr. Burten for the Corpse Bride, Nightmare Before Christmas and years worth of your great films..
The voice actors are great; as many times before, Burton features Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in his movies.
It's what we could put forward with the corpse bride who only wants to be happy through wedding.This film could be "Beetlejuice"'s son because of the manner Tim Burton represents us death.
Tim Burtons Corpse Bride is an amazing film.
The team of Tim Burton and Jonny Depp (Edward Scissorhands) return for this sophisticated, humorous brilliantly directed fantasy animation in which a remarkably look a like animation of Depp is juxtaposed with Emily Watson's posh character to create a charming marriage focused story in which there are proposes, engagements and remarkable weddings to look out for.The reason I loved this film was the slowness and gentleness of the plot.
The skeletons, zombies, corpses etc are fantastic, gruesome and funny (watch out for the singing skeleton whom I simply loved!) the living world also appears more dark and gloomy than the death world which is an interesting technique used by Burton and one which is an essential make to this film.In comparison to the nightmare before Christmas the animation is fantastic.
A Nightmare before Christmas is funny; has great music - also by Danny Elfman I believe; the story is delightfully subversive and the animation brilliant.Let's begin with the good news.
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is another attempt at "adult" animation that falls short.
Tim Burton's lovely "Corpse Bride".
The mix of Johnny Depp, Danny Elfman and Tim Burton has had 2 successful movies this year and that includes this beautiful film.
This film is not scary and though that's coming from a big fan of Tim Burton I know people who got scared of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" that liked this movie and thought it was sweet so that's saying a lot.
Of course casting his buddy Johnny Depp to play the shy Victor Van Dort who on the day of his wedding vanishes and accidentally marries the beautiful yet dead Corpse Bride (Carter).
Tim Burton's second stop-motion animation movie (following "The Nightmare Before Christmas").
Either that, or Tim Burton has forgotten how to make a movie without Gothic visuals, dark humor, and haunting music from Danny Elfman.
So, they get married, and Victor tries to find a way out of it.This film was a lot like Burton's previous work "Nightmare before Christmas." Here are some similarities: The main character is male and regrets something.
Tim Burton's 'The Corpse Bride' is about Victor Van Dort, a sweet man with a gentle nature, his parents arrange for him to be married to Victoria Everglot, a genuine soul like himself.
We truly feel for Emily, the Corpse Bride, whose heart was broken once before and is threatened to be broken again, by Victor, who wants to leave the World of the Dead and return to his love, Victoria. |
tt0084777 | Tenebre | Peter Neal, an American writer of violent horror novels, is in Italy to promote his latest work, Tenebrae. He is accompanied by his literary agent, Bullmer and his assistant, Anne. Neal is unaware that he has also been followed to Rome by his embittered ex-wife, Jane. Just before Neal arrived in Rome, Elsa, a young female shoplifter, was murdered with a razor by an unseen assailant. The murderer sends Neal a letter informing him that his books have inspired him to go on a killing spree. Neal is soon contacted by the police in the form of Detective Giermani and his female partner, Inspector Altieri.
More killings take place. Tilde, a beautiful lesbian journalist, is murdered at her home along with her lover Marion. Maria, the young daughter of Neal's landlord, is later hacked to death with a axe after discovering the killer's lair. Neal notices that TV interviewer Christiano Berti has an unusually intense interest in his work. That night, Neal and his Italian assistant Gianni watch Berti's house. Gianni approaches the house alone to get a better view and sees an assailant hack Berti to death with an axe. However, Gianni is unable to see the murderer's face. He returns to Neal to find the novelist has been knocked unconscious on the lawn.
Giermani discovers that Berti was obsessed with Neal's novels, and believes the killings will stop now that Berti is dead. However, Bullmer, who is having an affair with Jane, is stabbed to death while waiting for his lover in a public square. Gianni is haunted by the thought that he missed the importance of something he saw at Berti's house. He returns to the house and suddenly remembers that he had heard Berti confessing to his attacker: "I killed them all, I killed them all!" Before Gianni can share this detail with anyone, he is strangled to death from the back seat of his car.
Jane sits at her kitchen table with a pistol when a figure leaps through her window and hacks off one of her arms. The wound sprays blood over the kitchen walls before Jane falls to the floor. The killer continues to hack at her until she is dead. A woman enters the house and is attacked from behind by the ax. As she falls down, the killer is revealed to be Neal, who thinks he just killed Anne. He turns the body over to discover he actually murdered Inspector Altieri. Giermani and Anne arrive soon afterwards; when Neal sees that he cannot escape, he slits his throat in front of them. Finding the telephone out of order, Giermani and Anne go outside to report the incident from the car radio. Giermani explains to Anne that, upon learning the details of Berti's sadistic murder spree, Neal recovered a previously repressed memory involving his murder of a girl who had sexually humiliated him when he was a youth in Rhode Island. The memory torments Neal and inflames his previously repressed lust for blood, driving him insane. Giermani returns to the house and is murdered by Neal, who had faked his own death. Neal waits inside for Anne to return, but when she opens the door, she accidentally knocks over a metal sculpture that impales and kills Neal. The horror-stricken Anne stands in the rain and screams repeatedly. | gothic, murder, violence, horror, flashback, brainwashing, storytelling | train | wikipedia | I really enjoyed the film, so I bought the rerelease print from Anchor Bay, and I must say, the restored, uncut, letterboxed print looks and sounds wonderful.There's no need to go into the plot other than to say Anthony Franciosa stars as American horror novelist Peter Neal and, while he's in Rome on a book tour, murders are being committed by one of his crazed fans.
"Tenebre" stars Anthony Franciosa as a novelist Peter Neal who finds himself embroiled in a series of grisly murders,as one of his readers starts to imitate the killings in his latest novel Tenebrae.This Dario Argento's bloody thriller is full of startling plot twists and shocking bursts of gory violence.Plenty of serious shocks and a wonderful musical score by Goblin as well as incredibly gory finale that is among Argento's greatest sequences.As usual,there are some stylish killings,particularly a gruesome arm chopping near the end-definitely one of the bloodiest murder scenes I have ever seen.Argento uses some of the most vivid colors imaginable and like his 1977 effort "Suspiria",he uses these colors to enhance the atmosphere of the film.I'll end this review by saying that "Tenebre" is indeed excellent,thrilling,scary,well-acted and anything else I can think of-simply amazing if I have to say the least!Highly recommended..
Like many Italian murder mysteries, the story takes some swallowing, but if you can accept the convoluted plot, there's plenty of fun to be had.Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) is a best-selling novelist who becomes involved in real life murder mystery when the victims of a razor-wielding killer are found with pages from his latest book stuffed in their mouths.One of director Dario Argento's best movies, Tenebre is packed to the rafters with the kind of stuff that make good giallos such a trip to watch.
The movie's stunning cinematography is accompanied by one of Goblin's greatest scores, transforming what may have been mundane moments in the hands of a lesser director into pure works of art (in one amazing scene the camera simply prowls slowly around the outside of a building, but with Argento in control, it is simply breathtaking!).Murder has never been so stylish, and even the most grisly deaths are stunningly captured.
A particularly memorable moment has a young girl stumble into the house of the killer, before being chased through a garden; this scene is shot from the axe-wielding maniac's point of view, and is incredibly effective.Fans of gore are also catered for with several gruesome murders, the best of which involves bucket-loads of arterial spray decorating most of a wall.
Juicy!Argento reveals the identity of the killer in a suitably silly finale (all gialli have them), before offing the murderer in a fittingly gruesome manner.Check out Tenebre and witness one of the great works from one of Italian horror's finest..
Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), a best selling mystery novelist, travels to Rome to promote his new book, Tenebrae, but before he arrives, a serial killer starts a reign of terror, inspired by the killings in the novel.
Excellent giallo thriller from Italian horror master Dario Argento is a favorite of many Argento fans and for good reason.Mystery author becomes the inspiration (or is he the target?) for a serial killer who has been murdering various women.Stylishly done all around and with a gripping story, Tenebre is a fine example of a perfect giallo film.
Stylishly filmed with visually pleasing photography, the stand out sequence being the murder of the two lesbians, the camera starts outside of a window looking in at one of the victims, it then moves up a level to another window, it moves across the side of the house to yet another window in which the second victim can be seen playing a record, then the camera moves up toward the roof, glides along it and back down the opposite side of the house from which it started to rest on the killers gloved hand breaking into the house.
Peter Neal is unaware that he is also being followed by his embittered ex-wife Jane (Veronica Lario) and stalked by a serial killer bent on harassing him while killing all people associated with his work on his latest novel.This is a Shocker/Chopper/Slasher/Horror/Thriller hybrid .
Interesting screenplay plenty of twists and turns by the master of horror , Dario Argento , who double-crosses and cheats like mad to conceal the murderous's identity and including imaginatively staged gory killings ; resulting to be one of his most successful movies .
Peter Neal , Anthony Franciosa, a top murder mystery writer goes to Rome Italy to promote his latest book "Tenebre".
Very effective and unbelievably gory film by Dario Argento about a killer on the loose in Rome with some of the most ingenious plot twists you'll ever see in a murder mystery movie.
"Tenebre" Dario Argento use of technique in regards to the killer was very similar to what Jacques Tourneur used in his 1943 movie "The Leopard Man" which most critics didn't think much of at that time.
Title: Tenebrae Director: Dario Argento Cast: John Saxxon, Anthony Franciosa, Daria Nicolodi Review: Tenebrae is Argentos return to his beloved murderer/detective genre after having departing into the realm of the supernatural in films like Suspiria and Inferno.
On this film were back to seeing gloved hands committing murders and trying to guess who the killer is.This time around the story revolves around writer Peter Neal.
Soon Peter and the local police team up to try and catch the killer before he continues his murdering spree across Rome.This movie is very different from Argentos previous films.
As American mystery writer, Peter Neal, flies from New York to Rome to promote 'Tenebrae', his latest book, a murder takes place in that city; it appears to be linked to his work as it mirrors a killing in the book and pages of it were stuffed in the victim's mouth.
John Saxon (from Black Christmas (1974), Blood Beach (1980), A Nightmare on Elm Street 1 & 3 & From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)) co-stars in this classic by Italian master director Dario Argento, who made the animal trilogy, the three mothers trilogy & Profondo rosso (Deep Red-1975).Tenenbre (1981) is a giallo & a slasher film.
Some of the gore is sloppy & looks a bit fake which makes a couple of the death scenes look fake, some of the females look like drag queens (the rest are beautiful), a very scary, intense chase scenes involving a dog is ruined with some stupid 'coincidences' stupid character actions & a fake kill, there are no interesting or likable characters (some characters are annoying) & overall, i just think the film could have been better.Is Tenebrae gory?
However the rest of his storytelling had become lax and uninspiring, especially in the key department of creating suspense and piling on the thrilling murderous mystery.The script itself is actually probably one of Argento's strongest with a plot that shows tremendous promise and immense possibilities, but despite all the visual qualities it does lack in multiple departments, especially in one where Dario normally excelled: the killings.
In the end I was severely disappointed by the picture, even though the last five minutes or so were probably worth the wait - the movie I must say does end on a very high note and the mystery solution can come as quite a shocking revelation.Extremely unsure why this movie grades so high amongst other Argento movies, as all earlier films I have seen are vastly superior to "Tenebrae" in every key department.
But in TENEBRE the good story line is used only as a basis for bloody mayhem when in fact it could have been really interesting had some of the characters and the story line points had been fleshed out more (no pun intended).But even a standard 1970s/ early 1980s Dario Argento film is better than the best from Hollywood.
(Information from bbfc.co.uk, the official classifiers in this country.) So over the last 17 years, one second of this film has become more offensive!I guess it was withheld from video as the film can be seen as promoting violence against women, which was a big issue here in the early 'eighties (even de Palma's 'Dressed to Kill' received a lot of adverse media publicity).Unfortunately, Tenebrae is a boring load of rubbish, totally lacking in scares, pretty tame, laughable, and remarkably devoid of the Argento 'style' that other reviewers indicate makes the film watchable, and that definitely was present in the director's earlier 'Suspiria'.
One of the best things Anchor Bay Entertainment ever did was rescue the films of Italian shock auteurs like Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and the Bava boys from the bootleg ghetto, exposing their greatness to a new generation of fans in pristine letterboxed editions (even the VHS incarnations raised the bar for film's increasing collectibility).
But on top of the requisite stylish kills, the film is infused with a love for the written word, an eye for classic film techniques, and even some sadistic, black-humored satire toward critics who have accused the director of misogyny.Peter Neal (Tony Franciosa--"Death Wish II"), an American writer with a knack for dark mysteries, heads to Rome to promote his latest novel, 'Tenebre.' Soon after his arrival, beautiful girls start meeting bloody, elaborate deaths at the hands of a black-gloved killer.
It may not possess the candy-colored schemes of "Suspiria," but "Tenebre" gets my vote for being the more spellbinding film.Returning to the giallo turf that made his name, Argento also takes cues from American thrillers (the good-humored cop and his female partner; the inclusion of international celebrity John Saxon), while turning the film into a gleefully perverse, warped love letter to classic mysteries (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is referenced several times)instead of making a "movie within a movie," the director has given us a BOOK within a movie, a "whodunit?" running independently underneath the surface narrative.
Through those time periods, Dario Argento was an amazing Giallo film director, who mastered that genre, and artistically bloody style.
If you're a fan of the typical '70s giallo style of storytelling, this won't be a bad thing, but it's hard to escape the feeling that by 1982 he was already a bit past this.I watched this movie a couple of times years ago before this recent viewing, and my memory of the denouement was somehow totally different from what actually happened.
I can never resist an opportunity to watch a Dario Argento film so I was happy when I had the chance to view Tenebre once again; it's been too long.Argento is not only a master of horror but a true master of death and murder, which he proves in this little mystery tale.When American author Peter Neal (played by Anthony Franciosa) arrives in Rome on his book tour for his latest novel "Tenebre" he is shocked when people linked to his book begin to be murdered, and in some instances in the same manner as the book.One of my favourite scenes in the movie is when the hotel owners daughter is dropped off after a night out and is then pursued by a very tenacious Doberman Pincher.
It is also one of first of his stories that aren't ambiguous and confusing.I would always recommend Dario Argento films as he has a style all of his own with a visual style which works perfectly with his movies.
From the writer-director of Deep Red & Suspiria, Tenebre (also known as Tenebrae) marks Dario Argento's return to the very subgenre of horror he does better than anyone else and presents the filmmaker at the top of his game.
Stylishly directed, dipped in blood-soaked violence and keeping its mystery alive until the very end, it remains one of the finest works of his filmmaking career.The story of Tenebre follows an American author who arrives in Rome to promote his latest murder mystery novel, only to find that his book may have inspired a serial killer to go on a killing spree.
Carrying the entire film on his shoulders, Franciosa does enough to make his character likable, Nicolodi does well for the most part but she goes absolutely bonkers in the final moments, Gemma does well with what he's given while Saxon is the weak link here, surprisingly.On an overall scale, Tenebre is a skilfully crafted, cleverly narrated & unabashedly violent example of giallo horror that not only finishes as one of Dario Argento's best films to date but also ranks as one of the greatest works of giallo horror.
This movie is a real twisted one....beginning like a classical whodunit (some bloody murders remaining quite sober yet,a thriller author endangered by a invasive "fan" , the inspector and his deputy trying to put things together, potential suspects disappearing slowly leaving the viewer scratching his hair about who can be the murderer, business as usual), "Tenebre" turns then to complete visual craziness in the last 30 min.
Violent (One of the most recognized Video - Nasties in UK) but excellently made, with unconscious sequences, master electronic score by Goblin and a camera-work of first class, as always, specially in the roof scene, where a camera in a shot goes from a window to the other side of the house through a roof; besides, inspiration comes from true fears when an Argento fan pursue him terribly and even, threaten him of death.
Tenebre is an absolute masterpiece.Dario Argento was the first with this film to describe the strange relationship between a famous horror writer and a serial killer inspired by his books.
While "TENEBRE" isn't Dario Argento's best work, it is still a pretty good film..
It is not a bad movie, it just isn't up there among his better films such as "PROFONDO ROSSO" and "SUSPIRIA".Unlike most 80's horror films which all seem to be clustered into one category - 'schlock', "TENEBRE" narrowly avoids that category by crafting Dario Argento's magnificent camera work and direction into something that is in a league of its own.
The best part of this film is the standard Argento 'plot twist' that is revealed at the end of the movie.
While it isn't exactly "THE SIXTH SENSE" material, most viewers who hadn't already figured it out will be pleasantly surprised.I enjoyed "TENEBRE" for what it was, but it isn't anything extremely special that distinguishes its difference from all the other countless Italian-produced horror films that were churned out during the 70's and 80's for none other than Argento's brilliant camera direction.
The official synopsis for this film is an American writer in Rome is stalked by a serial killer bent on harassing him while killing all people associated with his work on his latest book.We start off with the writer from the synopsis Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa).
Tenebrae should have been packaged in a "yellow" or giallo cover.This is Argento really showing the cinema viewers his ideas on Giallo.Murder mysteries ,super thrillers, somewhat sexy and very violent are Giallo."Tenebrae" has all the elements it takes, like a good recipe for Lasagna!And Dario Argento places everything right in this one.This is his Climax,and a shining horror moment!If such a thing is possible to presume, this is his best!!
It provides everything a fan of this infamous sub-genre could ask for: graphic scenes of violence, some sleazy moments, plot-twists and, since Dario Argento is concerned, excellent photography (hope you notice the brilliant camera-move over the roof) and the usually fitting score.
The film is a return to giallo style that he had last explored in 1976's Deep Red. The plot involves and american writer who is in Rome promoting his new book and a killer who starts killing people in the style of the book.
Co-writer / director Dario Argento does typically energetic work on this entertaining murder mystery set in Rome.
While I was busy fishing around trying to find films from the 80's aside from Friday THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN and other franchise horror movies which are the only ones my friends know about and it drives me nuts whenever a conversation comes up about 80's horror because they only talk about the same films and how scary they were but I'll bet if they were able to see TENEBRE they would've sang a different tune.TENEBRE is by far one the more stylish and probably most vicious slashers I've seen, of course its actually a giallo but for what my friends consider as true horror this film makes all those films look like dog and pony shows, where in other slashers you would simply see a killer stab or chop his victim with an Axe, the killer in this film makes sure his victims are properly dead, its also a little bit on the weird side but that level of weirdness is part of the film's charm and the camera work is very nice especially a certain crane shot from outside a house, one slight problem with this film is the poor dubbing although it doesn't render the film unwatchable but it is little distracting but only before the main plot kicks in, after that the film will have you hooked.Overall, a much better horror film from the 80's than all of the well known horror films put together and when I show this to my friends I will tell them they are about to watch a real horror film from Italy's top director..
Tenebrae is an extremely suspenseful murder mystery by the "Master of Horror" Dario Argento.
Those who have only seen the aforementioned living nightmare and none of Argento's other films might be confused, or disappointed, by this mind-blowing work of art called "Tenebrae." It is a murder mystery, albeit an ultra-stylized one, and almost doesn't fit into the horror genre.
I must say I like the music though, I just think it has nothing to do with this film.TENEBRE is considered by some as one of the best DARIO ARGENTO's films and mainly one of the most violent. |
tt0091578 | My Beautiful Laundrette | Omar Ali is a young man living in Battersea in the Wandsworth area of South London, right by the railway station during the mid-1980s. His father, Hussein (known to the rest of the family as Papa), once a famous left-wing British Pakistani journalist in Bombay, lives in London but hates Britain's society and its international politics. His dissatisfaction with the world and a family tragedy have led him to sink into alcoholism, so that Omar has to be his caregiver. By contrast, Omar's paternal uncle Nasser is a successful entrepreneur and an active member of the London Pakistani community. Papa asks Nasser to give Omar a job and, after working for a brief time as a car washer in one of his uncle's garages, he is assigned the task of managing a run-down laundrette and turning it into a profitable business.
At Nasser's, Omar meets a few other members of the Pakistani community: Tania, Nasser's daughter and possibly a future bride; and Salim, who trafficks drugs and hires him to deliver them from the airport. While driving Salim and his wife home that night, the three of them get attacked by a group of right-wing extremist street punks. Their apparent leader turns out to be Johnny, Omar's childhood friend. Omar tries to reestablish their past friendship, offering Johnny a job and the opportunity to adopt a better life by working to fix up the laundrette with him. Johnny decides to help with the laundrette and they resume a romantic relationship that (it is implied) had been interrupted after school. Running out of money, Omar and Johnny sell one of Salim's drug deliveries to make cash for the laundrette's substantial renovation.
On the opening day of the laundrette, Omar confronts Johnny on his fascist past. Johnny, feeling guilty, tells him that though he cannot make it up to him, he is with him now. Nasser visits the laundrette with his mistress, Rachel. As they dance together in the laundrette, Omar and Johnny make love in the back room, narrowly escaping discovery. At the inauguration, Tania confronts Rachel about having an affair with her father. Rachel accuses Nasser of having invited Tania on purpose to have her insulted, and storms off despite his protests. Later that night, a drunk Omar proposes to Tania, who accepts on the condition that he raise money to get away. Soon after, Salim reveals to Omar that he is on to them, and demands his money back. Omar's father stops by late in the night and appeals to Johnny to persuade Omar to go to college because he is unhappy with his son running a laundrette.
Offering Salim a chance to invest in his businesses as a much needed 'clean outlet' for his money, Omar decides to take over two laundrettes owned by a friend of Nasser. Salim drives Johnny and Omar to view one of the properties, and he expresses his dislike of the British non-working punks in Johnny's gang. He attempts to run them over and injures one of them. Meanwhile, Rachel falls ill with a skin rash apparently caused by a ritual curse from Nasser's wife, and decides it is best for all that she and Nasser part ways. The next day Tania drops by the laundrette and tells Johnny she is leaving, asking him to come along. He refuses, implicitly revealing the truth about himself and Omar and she departs wordlessly. After Salim arrives and enters the laundrette, the punks, who had been lying in wait, trash his car. When he runs out on noticing them, he is ambushed and viciously attacked. Johnny decides to interrupt and defend him, despite their mutual dislike, and the punks turn their attention to him instead. As he refuses to fight back, they beat him savagely until Omar returns and intervenes, protecting Johnny as the punks trash the laundrette and flee the scene.
Nasser visits Papa, and the two discuss their respective failures, agreeing between them that only Omar's future matters now. Nasser sees Tania at the train platform while she is running away, and he shouts to her but she disappears. Meanwhile, at the laundrette, Omar nurses Johnny, and the two bond. The film ends with a scene of them shirtless, playfully splashing each other with water from a sink, implying that they are continuing their relationship together. | violence, psychedelic, romantic | train | wikipedia | It's about the characters, rather than a social message (but that's there too).'My Beautiful Laundrette' mainly centres around Omar and his relationship with Johnny.
Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke are excellent as Johnny and Omar.
A classic film in my book, My Beautiful Laundrette is the story of Omar, a young restless Asian man caring for his alcoholic father in Thatcherite London.
Similarly I am sure Asian viewers will recognise the struggles inherent in finding an identity in a country which is your home but which can never feel quite like your real home.Omar dreams of success so works to achieve it...along the way he meets up with old school-friend Johnny, who has betrayed him by falling in with a group of neo-nazi's.
Omar never makes a scene.That's what Johnny represents I think, the part of us we keep to ourselves, our passions and desire and those things that are too special to share, kind of like a spiritual belief.
It's very sweet and tender with the frantic kissing and the champange, but my god is it hot.This certainly is a romantic (and more importantly) positive movie where two men are in love yet have a real conflict between them, and obviously gay men are right to love that, but hey, it works for informing white people, making minorities laugh, British people who grew up during that time, showing idiot homophobes that gay people are just the same as everyone else, DDL fans.
The realism is a scrupulously observed portrait of 80s London, its people (entrepreneurs, drunks, racists, wide-boys), locales (dingy flats, delapidated laundrettes, murky car lots) and attitudes (strutting capitalism, dessicated liberalism, farcical extremism).The magic comes from Frears' style, tweaking and heightening the real; from stylised scenes such as Omar's reuniting with Johnny; from some magical set-pieces, especially the opening of the laundrette, Omar and Johnny making love cut with Nasser and Rachel's waltz; from the clashing of an exotic, Oriental world in a determinedly materialist context.
That said, Daniel Day Lewis lends a powerful presence to his role as the punk squatter, Johnny.The climax of the film aptly integrates the various tensions in the film: political, sexual, and social.
He gets in his white mate Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis) to give him a hand and the two guys fall in love.My Beautiful Laundrette completely encapsulates the zeitgeist of 1980's Britain, tackling everything from racial tension, immigration, generation differences, class differences, Thatcherism and homosexuality.
It's a light romantic comedy that lets us see the violence and racism but doesn't linger, making it more powerful when things do happen.As for the relationship between Omar and Johnny, it's portrayed very tenderly (and very sexily, though tasteful).
It's just portrayed as a normal loving relationship and the two actors- both straight- are very convincing.Now Daniel Day Lewis has bagged his third Oscar, breaking the record for Best Actor, how does he fare in a very early film in his career?
Gordon Warneke and Daniel Day-Lewis play the lovers in this intelligent movie which has a cheap British tinge but has some superb moments (Saeed Jaffrey as Warneke's uncle, a professional businessman, not a professional Pakistani') within it.
The first generation then deal and resolve this in their own lives (easing the tension where necessary, with a little help from Daniel), and what better setting than 1980's London, when squatting was a plenty (that is the famous Bonnington Square you see in the movie), Housing Associations, Community Arts, UB40 discounts and other things of the past were just getting axed.
So says Saeed Jaffrey, easily one of the most recognisable Indian actors, at the film's start and sets the tone for this early Film 4 offering from 1985 as the wheeler-dealer uncle, and who typified Thatcherism's era of entrepreneurial immigrants.Radio Times awards a rare five stars for this provocative and ground- breaking film from the now hugely successful director, now, of Stephen Frears and of course, for Daniel Day Lewis, it might have been his last, presumably such a contentious issue inter-racial gay sex would have been seen (and still viewed as), had he not been both brave AND very good.This was just Frear's second feature film and whilst today the production values lag, many of the scenes are (necessarily?) contrived and the acting variable, it still says a lot.
Omar, being one of Thatcher's mass army of 3 million unemployed takes to the challenge and equally unemployed white, former National Front member Johnny (Day-Lewis), a schoolfriend of Omar's get drafted in to help refit the run-down laundrette and to turn it into a Palace full of washing machines.As you can imagine, Johnny's past friends find much to dislike about the company he now keeps, especially as he's been to prison for his past activities and now is not only only cohorting with the Front's seen enemy but having unbridled, active sex with one who is the same sex.
Issues around the pressure for Omar to get married, by arrangement are very relevant, both as in being Pakistani and homosexual.For my money, there are just too many small characters, doing little things that we never see again; they do not contribute to the film and if anything, dissolve its strengths.
Omar may actually have spoken like that but it fails to convince.The romance element is boosted by the way that the refurbished laundrette is to be launched as a dreamy magical palace, with a razzle- dazzle showbiz look and can be seen as the aspiration for people who have little to make a life for themselves.I first saw My Beautiful Laundrette about when it was released and knew friends in the gay community - and have watched the DVD a couple of times since.
And, through some very underhanded means, Omar and his friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis) make the place a success.
It's mostly about Omar and his life as a Pakistani in Britain; a great deal of it is about families, their bonds, and their conflicts; significant parts of it are about Omar's relationship with Johnny, which means that the film is dealing with a lot of material.
As terrific as Daniel Day-Lewis is in this film it really belongs to actor Gordon Warnecke as Omar.
The film that launched Stephen Frear's career, "My Beautiful Laundrette" was originally only released for British TV., yet it was so immensely popular that it was subsequently re-released for the cinema years later.Saeed Jaffrey, Daniel Day Lewis, Roshan Seth and all the supporting cast perform well in this insightful drama of racial tensions, forbidden love and South London culture.
In the end, it's a movie that wants to be about being gay, but also about being Pakistani in London, but also about being a white thug / homeless young guy in 80s London, but also about being a young closeted guy, and also about a guy turning an old business into a new shiny one, while also being about drug dealers, and about standing up to your community for love (a la Romeo and Juliette).
But Johnny's friends HATE Pakistanis and the class differences between Omar and Johnny threaten to tear them apart.This is often called a gay movie but I disagree.
Critically acclaimed, My Beautiful Laundrette is a true masterpiece of British cinema, a remarkable film detailing a collide of cultures, minds and values set against a backdrop of Thatcher's troubled and dysfunctional Britain.
Directed by Stephen Frears and written by Hanif Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette took the world by storm in 1985/86 for its portrayal of gay love, homophobia, racism, capitalism and colliding cultures in such a vibrant and honest way.
It seemed to come with such authentic honesty that many at the time believed it must have come from the mind of a gay man; however, Hanif Kureishi the writer was a heterosexual male with an incredible vision and remarkable ability.Essentially this is the story of life, love and passion, a love story set during rapidly changing society during a time of great differences between those that have and those that didn't and those trying to moving between the two.Described like this, it is perhaps hard to see why it was such an important and landmark film, yet it managed to encapsulate all the tensions of the economically troubled times with panache and tenacious realistic style.
My Beautiful Laundrette remains to this day a wonderful and remarkable piece of British cinema.Read more and find out where this film made it in the Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time book, search on Amazon for Top 50 Most Influential Gay Movies of All Time, or visit - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007FU7HPO.
The focus is on a diverse gay couple (not only racially diverse, either): tough-guy Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis in a career-best performance) and initially naive, star-reaching Omar (Gordon Warnecke, likewise).
What it doesn't have is a budget, making the film look and sound like a cheap made-for-TV movie, hardly surprising since it was, in fact, produced for British television (a remarkably permissive institution, by American network standards at the time).
But it all ends happily ever after, doubly so for director Stephan Frears and actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who were both catapulted into the international arena by the film's success..
Two eccentric protagonists, Johnny and Omar, running such an ordinary business like a launderette, is a major factor to distill the film's offbeat quality.There are several interesting shots.
"My Beautiful Laundrette," released in 1985, is many things: a study of Britain in the '80s, a class story, the story of Pakistanis trying to assimilate, and a gay love story.
Somehow it succeeds on all levels.Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is a young Pakistani living in England and caring for his alcoholic, very ill father Hussein (Roshan Seth), once an important journalist whose left leanings haven't gone over very well in Britain.
Hussein intends for Omar to go to college, but in the meantime, he wants his brother Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey), who runs many businesses with his right hand man Salim (Derrick Branche), to give Omar a job.Omar is ambitious and eventually asks his uncle to let him run the filthy, graffiti-ridden laundrette and make it profitable.
And Johnny has no compunction about seducing Omar.One of the things that makes this film fascinating is the treatment of the gay theme, which is not really treated as a theme at all but merely as information about these two young men.
It's also about racial hatred and the violence it causes.The film is peppered with interesting characters: Nasser's glamorous white mistress (Shirley Anne Field), Nasser's daughter Tania (Rita Wolf), and the volatile Salim.The film is beautifully photographed, particularly in the romantic scenes...Johnny kissing Omar in the alley is but one example.The acting --- well, what can be said about acting where Daniel Day-Lewis has a supporting role?
Frears, with a good sense of these characters, manages to create a world that is gritty and surreal at the same time; still, he gets the film off to such a slipshod start that many viewers might not have the patience to allow the story to build.
There wasn't any sign of a gay love story in the film before!" Probably the author(Hanif Kureishi)of the book tried to make his work more interesting.
Omar hires Johnny to work for him.Director Stephen Frears brings some of the new Pakistani flavor into his London movie.
I like the way the film really does not make a big deal about two good looking sexy guys in love, but focuses more on racism and class issues that plague the UK...and US!
Playing a gay character early in his career certainly did not sabotage Daniel Day-Lewis' success in films.
Daniel Day Lewis who used to wander the streets with his fascist mates meet Omar, a Pakistanian immigrant who is supposed to study at the uni but due to his uncle (a man who is earning money in his way) but ends up working for him as he is totally blinded by the good lifestyle of his uncle.
An ambitious Asian Briton and his white lover strive for success and hope, when they open up a glamorous laundromat."My Beautiful Laundrette" was Stephen Frears' third feature film for the cinema.
I have never seen a relationship in film that comes close to the classic, inspiring, well-known pair of Johnny and Omar.Johnny, who seemingly takes the lead in their sexual and romantic relationship, is a white, rough-and-tumble street punk caught up in a small gang and going nowhere.
Omar is a bright-eyed, handsome Pakistani boy who takes care of his father, and when a taste of work comes his way, wants nothing more than "big money" and to prove the country he lives in will not beat him.
I have never seen any bit of film quite as passionate, honest nor as erotic as the scene where Johnny and Omar make love.
I won't say too much aside from that I thought the ending was sweet and it took me by surprise, not bothering with a few loose ties if only to inspire lovely ambiguity.There is much more to "My Beautiful Laundrette" than Johnny and Omar's romantic relationship, but the symbolism it serves - as representing the hopeful future, their business, how the world sees them - relates to all aspects of the film.
Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke's performances alone are enough of a reason to give it a watch.If you'd like to see a smart, witty, beautiful love story rich in symbolism and more substance than a single review could do justice for, I'd recommend you do yourself a favor by watching "My Beautiful Laundrette.".
The story is about one Pakistani man (Warnecke) and a long time Englishman friend (Day-Lewis) who both live on the wrong side of the tracks as they grope for success in the laundromat business while coping with the usual culture clashing, old school ethnic adult attitudes, their gayness, etc.
Firstly, there is the love affair between the two main characters, Omar and Johnny, brought to life by brilliant performances from both Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis.
But he's never been so on-point, so relevant, direct and just plain right as with his script for Stephen Frears' well-made "My Beautiful Laundrette".Gordon Warnecke plays Omar, a young Pakistani Londoner needing a direction in life in 1980's Britain: time of Thatcher, of aspiration, accumulation.
Omar's world becomes divided between his father, his uncle and his unlikely, erstwhile friend and sometime NF supporter, punk dropout Johnny (an early Daniel Day Lewis).The world of 'Sarf' London in the 80s is brilliantly depicted from the feel of the streets right down to the fundamental, almost feudal divide between rich and poor.
Johnny's kiss stolen from Omar on a dark street corner is one of the all time sexiest moments I can think of in a film, and I can see from other reviewers that I'm not alone.
(Hardly necessary to add that you don't have to be gay to enjoy this film any more than that you have to be a Londoner or British.)Daniel Day Lewis has since made his way to superstardom; Gordon Warnecke inexplicably languishes in occasional British TV appearances today, as far as I can tell.
Starring a very young and dashing Daniel Day-Lewis and an relatively unknown but charming Gordon Warnecke, this is a movie set in the 1980s in the UK and deals with the issues of that time.
The two have to deal with the expectations of Omar's family and the snide remarks Johnny's street "friends" make about him working for a Paki.(Also, some people who watched the film got confused about Tania's role in all this??
'My Beautiful Laundrette' centers around a young Pakistani man named Omar (Gordon Warnecke), living in south London during the height of Margaret Thatcher's reign of England.
Omar's father wants him to go to university to get a good education and a great job, rather than working dead end jobs, however Omar takes a shining to his uncle Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey), who runs a few businesses, but isn't the best person to look up to, due to his infidelity.
Uncle Nasser offers Omar to run a local laundry mat he owns and restore it to make a decent profit.As Omar is working at the laundry mat, he comes across an old friend he hasn't seen in years named Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), a local skinhead now and part of a gang.
Under the iron curtain of Thatcherism in the 1980s, UK veteran Stephen Frears' fourth feature film is an ethnic barrier-breaker in the world queer cinema, much as its fervid confrontations between races and social classes, the central closeted romance between an ex-punk Johnny (Day-Lewis) and a Pakistani Briton Omar (Warnecke) is nurtured with robust intimacy and élan.
Enclosed by a synth-pop heavy pulse, the film starts with Johnny and his gang being expelled from their squatting apartment by some heavies, a similar territory Daniel Day-Lewis would retread in IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993), then cutting to introduce another protagonist, Omar, a college dropout sent to work for his uncle Nasser (Jaffrey) by his bed-ridden father (Seth), a disillusioned idealist and leftist), in Nasser's car-washing lot, Omar meets Nasser's business partner Salim (Branche), a menacing and overbearing bully who conducts some seedy business and Nasser's mistress Rachel (Anne Field), who assumes a quite modernized view of being the other woman, but the entire entanglement will end up with some ludicrous witchcraft.
Gorden Warnecke plays Omar Ali, the go-getting son of an alcoholic Pakistani father and Daniel Day-Lewis is 'Johnny', an 'ex-thug' who is Omar's on again/off again lover.
A new wrinkle occurs when Omar and his friend suddenly become gay lovers who do a lot of French kissing.Presumably this was meant to be a social message movie, but a contrived storyline and characters we do not like or care about bring things down.
Omar hires his old friend from growing up, outsider Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis) at first to wash cars in the garage business he also runs, and then to help the running of the laundrette. |
tt0366292 | Chakushin ari | The film begins with a young girl being rescued from a burning hospital. A firefighter asks her if her mother is still inside, to which she remains speechless.
Meanwhile, Shelley, a college student, sits outside near her koi pond in her Japanese-styled home and after having a chat over the phone with Leann, she hears her cat making strange noises. Shelley walks towards it but after a quick second, she finds it standing on the other side of the pond. Bewildered by the situation, she suddenly hears strange murmuring in the pond and out of nowhere, a hand emerges and drags Shelley into the pond, drowning her. A red candy then appears on the surface and the same hand proceeds to drag the cat and drowns it as well.
Many weeks later, college student Beth Raymond is talking with her friend, Leann, who attended Shelley's funeral. Leann's cellphone rings with a lullaby-like ringtone, and it says it's from Shelley. Leann listens to the voicemail, which is herself screaming. The voicemail is dated three days in the future. Leann begins to experience hallucinations that make her increasingly anxious. While walking home minutes before the time on the voicemail, she calls Beth. Beth runs to get Leann, but unfortunately, she arrives at the same time where Leann accidentally falls off from an overpass and lands on top of a speeding train, killing her. A red candy pops out of her mouth and Leann's hand dials an unknown number on her phone, despite being dead.
At Leann's funeral, Beth's roommate, Taylor, is talking about Shelley receiving a strange voicemail before her death, just like Leann had. Brian, Leann's ex-boyfriend, begins to see disturbing apparitions, and leaves the funeral in a rush. Beth catches Brian outside a coffee shop and Brian shows her a voicemail he received the night Leann died, from Leann's phone. Beth realizes the voicemail is dated mere seconds away. An explosion at a nearby construction site sends a rebar through Brian's torso. Similar to Leann, Brian coughs out a red hard candy and collapses, as Beth stares in horror.
When Beth arrives home, a distraught Taylor is waiting for her. Taylor says she knows she's next, even though she hasn't received a voicemail. Beth assures her that it isn't going to happen, and takes the batteries out of both their cellphones to ensure they can't receive calls. Later that night, Beth and Taylor are awakened by the lullaby ringtone coming from Taylor's battery-less cellphone. Despite having no power source, Taylor's phone screen displays a video message of her death, dated two days in the future.
The next morning, Andrews visits Beth, saying his sister was the one who called Shelley, despite his sister being dead at the time of the call. He also says he traced the voicemail left on his sister's phone and was going to find out more about the person who sent it, Marie Layton. Andrews goes through the local autopsy reports, and finds a report for Ellie Layton, Marie's eldest daughter, who died of an asthma attack. They find records for hospital visits for Ellie and Laurel, who is Ellie's younger sister. Laurel was injured often, which leads Beth to suspect abuse from her mother. As Taylor's time approaches, Beth races to her, and sees Taylor being choked to death by an unseen force. A red hard candy falls out of her mouth. Suddenly, Beth's phone begins to ring and she finds a voicemail dated for tomorrow. In an effort to save herself, Beth decides to find out more about the hospital fire alone.
At the hospital and with less than 30 minutes left, Beth is frightened by various apparitions. She runs into Andrews, and the two try to escape the hospital. They are later separated and Beth finds a crawlspace. She discovers Marie's body, burned to death and clutching a cell phone. At the time of Beth's foretold death, Marie's corpse assaults her while weeping. It is later revealed that Marie was actually protecting Beth, not trying to hurt her. Amazingly, Beth survives her predicted death.
While visiting Laurel, Andrews goes to her room and finds her teddy bear with a video disc in its back. The disc is a video of a camera Marie hid to monitor Laurel and Ellie. The disc reveals that Ellie had cut Laurel's arm with a butcher knife. Marie had entered and realized that the abuse she has been blamed for has been Ellie all along. She then left to take Laurel to the hospital, locking Ellie in the bedroom. Ellie suffers an asthma attack and dies while dialing her mother's cell, making Marie the first real victim of the curse as she died in the hospital fire after leaving the room. Laurel tells Andrews that though Ellie hurt her, she always gave her the red hard candies, the ones found in the mouths of all the victims. Andrews' cellphone begins to ring with a voicemail dated for thirty minutes later.
Andrews realizes that the force behind the murders is Ellie, and races to Beth. After he arrives at her house, the two hear a knock on the door. As Andrews looks through the peephole, a knife stabs through it and kills him. Ellie's spirit appears and reaches out to kill Beth. The spirit of Marie then appears and grabs Ellie, saving Beth yet again. A red candy spills out of Andrews' mouth and his cell begins to dial a number on its own, revealing that Ellie's ghost is still out there, and more people will die. | good versus evil, paranormal, cruelty, sadist, flashback | train | wikipedia | However this factor does not deter Japanese creative production teams to come up with movie gems, in different genres.In the realm of Japanese horrors for example, a studio working with a limited budget has to resort to Jaws-style direction, in which you hardly see or visualise the ghosts/monsters.And it is through the movie's simplicity, or by not showing/explaining too much, that J-horrors have turned up the notch on the haunting and horror levels through movies such as Ring and Dark Water.
i read a lot of bad reviews about this fantastic movie, so i watched it without even expecting something good.Of course i was positively surprised,the actors are very good : very few American actress knows how to express pure terror on they're faces as well as a Japanese actress.Miike success in creating an intense and creepy mood that follows you all the way till the end credits.
it's another Japanese movie with a "grudge" (grudge: curse that happens when someone "most of the times a girl" dies in a tragic or horrible death,then the girl return from the dead to kill,usually grudges have long dark hair covering they're faces) but the ghost or grudge in "one missed call" is a lot more scary than Sadako in ringu or even the one in ju-on and there is a lot of murders going on from the beginning to the end.
Ju-ons (all of them except the part 2 of the one made only for video which sucked badly) are scary; the series break the silent rule of Japanese horrors, its director even say that he tried to go the opposite way Nakata and Kurosawa went, he will scare the audience by showing the ghosts and gore as much as possible.
Now it's time for the ever creative Miike who once scared the hell out of the audience, not by using ghosts, but using a sadistic but innocent-looking girl, to put some new blood into Japanese horrors.
As a big fan of J-horror and Miike, I was so looking forward to the film and that I was afraid my high expectation will kill it, but the result was beyond my expectation, I enjoyed this thrill ride so much I wish it would never end.
Miike has toned down his weird and over-the-top scenes to suit the taste of wider audiences, but this film is still full of creative and scary scenes (the scene at the TV station which I deem so good it's classic, and the scene at the hospital which is so weird and spooky that I wish it could last longer) with quite satisfying story and (many may argue) acceptable open ending.
Takashi shows he knows a lot about filming methods, and also gives us an overview of the Japanese craziness about mobile phones : I can assure you that you will never look again the same way at your phone after seeing such a movie.For the ones who have seen other Japanese horror movies, I would advise it as well, as you enjoy seeing again the same old tricks in a different context...and it works again !So if you have the chance to have this one in a nearby theater...just try it !!.
A high school student named Yumi Kamura finds with a group friends in a coffee bar,while her pal Yoko receives a cellular call with a rare tone which she had heard before.Into screen phone appears one missed call.The message is sent for her cellular and contains a horrible shout that sounds like her voice.Besides the call is from three days after.A time later young people receive the call are dead for terrible killing.A strange curse causes a criminal rampage among various adolescents.The picture gets suspense,horror,shocks,grisly terror and several eerie scenes.The film displays hair-rising and horrifying images with a bit of blood and graphical gore.Mysterious and sinister atmosphere is well made by the photographer Yamamamoto.
Takashi Mike(Ichi the killer) direction sometimes is actually creepy and frightening like proves the first entry ¨Dead or alive¨with the execution starring by a mobster and much more in ¨The audition¨.This horror film is inspired by ¨The ring¨with certain remembrance more even storyline coincidences.Like that and in fact happen in the most part of recently Japan horror cinema deals about an urban legend.It's the initial argument for introducing the terror in the ordinary life by means a phone.While the look is suitable spooky and eerie the plot spread to the breaking point and the final resolution results to be a little confused.The flick will like to Japan modern terror cinema enthusiastic..
They search the family together trying to save Natsumi from her fate."Chakushin Ari" is scary like most of the Asian horror movies, and has a promising beginning supported by a great acting and a good plot.
But not like this guy did it...It takes a lot to creep my out and Takashi Miike managed to do it pretty well in the final twenty minutes of this movie.
One Missed Call is also Know as Chakushin Ari is 2003 J-Horror movie made by Takashi Mike.This movie dose sound a lot like The Ringu but instead of Tape now, it Cell Phone and Instead of a Older DEAD Girl with Long Black Hair, This time, it a little Girl With Long Black Hair.Apart from that, most of this movie is total DifferentMay contain Spoiler ONE MISSED CALL features a series of victims who receive messages on their cell phones: the gimmick is that the calls come from their own cell phones - a day or two in the future - and the messages appear to have been recorded at the precise moment of a violent death.
The mother, who mysteriously disappeared, is eventually found, dead, and the malevolent ghost apparently put to rest - until a twist ending keeps the horror alive.This movies had some really good creepy moments , Awesome creepy Death Ring tone was great.talking about the Ring tone in Japan, had become rather popular and even I have it on my Phone in the UK.
This movie has a more than interesting and good premise and it also has a real promising beginning but as the movie and its story start to progress more the movie actually gets worse and starts to drag and become overlong.Japanese horror movies are well known and appreciated over the world now days, due to the global success of several genre pieces, with of course "Ringu" as the best example of this.
It's made in the same style as any other popular Japanese horror movie, which means that this movie will probably also disappoint most Takashi Miike lovers.Thing with this movie is that it has an alright story and main premise in its beginning but the more it all progresses the harder it gets to understand and the less interest you'll keep in this movie.
There were two moments in this film that made me shudder, both involving an unexpected hand, and after Oodishon (another Miike Takashi one, this one from 1999) had me tingling all over for hours after seeing it, and all of the films this steals from were actually scary, I can't see this film as anything other than a sell-out to the western popularity of the big Japanese horror films.
Though it has elements of this, the characteristics of J-Horror, which are very much rooted in standard social and spiritual taboos that many Japanese people take incredibly seriously, are used as window dressing here, intended to distract the audience from the more important and subtle ideas at work behind the surface of the narrative.It certainly isn't a pastiche or a spoof as some viewers have indicated, though you could argue that it works on a certain satirical level, with the odd hint of benign humour that we've come to expect from Miike woven throughout.
The streets are mostly empty, save for the presence of the adult media, the police (who have a complicated role within the film) and the students who are at the centre of the whole thing.Those claiming that this is a comedy seem uneducated when it comes to Miike and his work; looking for the vapid cartoon character and his torrents of gore and depraved sex, and not the finely nuanced filmmaker who gave us excellent, multi-layered works like Shinjuku Triad Society (1995), Rainy Dog (1997), The Bird People in China (1998), Audition (1999), Dead or Alive: Birds (2000) and Gozu (2003).
And that's what's horror movies are supposed to do, or am i wrong???The ringtone may be nice so, just download it.One advise for you who haven't seen it:-DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE -A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIMEIf i was the one who bought that movie (saw it with a friend) i would of wanted my money back, and the hour and a half i spent watching crap bullshit!But by all means, if u like being bored for an hour or a half expecting a good movie...
This starts a chain of odd deaths which causes our main character, Yumi (Kou Shibasaki) to investigate the source of the phone calls with the help of policeman Hiroshi (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi).Miike knows how to create suspense and he proves it here.
And if like me, you became mesmerized by the ring tone on this movie you can download directly to you cell phone from the following website.Follow this website: http://gallery.mobile9.com/f/10470/You can download the polyphonic ring tone by WAP.Other great movies from the same genre I've seen lately are "The Tale of Two Sisters", "Audition", "Kairo", "Ichi The Killer" and "Night Watch" (from Russia!).Keep watching this extraordinary horror movies and share your thoughts and ideas with everyone!.
Really the only thing that sort-of sets this film apart from being just another generic horror-flick are some wonderfully subversive little scenes that pop up now and again and a few big stand-out scares thanks to the skill of director Miike.
"One Missed Call" is a little overrated but still fairly enjoyable Asian ghost film.**SPOILERS**Following a friends death, Yumi Nakamura, (Kou Shibasaki) wanders about a strange story being told by her friends, about weird messages on their phones warning them of their future deaths.
The fact that the ghost is missing from these scenes is incredibly apparent, hardly anything scary or interesting happens and it basically seems to become more of a police-procedural drama more than anything else, which is not all that bad since the mystery is at least given some more weight to than most others, but when it takes longer than the amount of screen-time given to it to fully get the idea across in a completely non-confusing matter is when it runs into trouble.
I mean, stealing half your chops from Hypnosis is one thing, cause lots of people haven't seen Hypnosis; but really, OK, you start off thinking, "no, this can't be just Ring with cellphones, nobody would be that lazy"; but more and more things happen, and the movie manages to incorporate every single stupid horror cliché from the past 20-odd years of white-person cinema, and pretty much anything you can think of that you're sick of seeing in Asian horror as well, and yet - this is almost admirable in its forthright laziness - never at any point does One Missed Call really do anything to suggest that it's NOT just trying to be Ring with cellphones.(And isn't "Ring with cellphones", really, just about the dumbest idea for a movie ever?
I mean, that's like someone trying to make Psycho with a bathtub scene, isn't it?)Anyways, driving home, I realized that my initial judgment wasn't really the case anyway, as One Missed Call is also an insultingly lazy, sloppy, cynical pastiche of all the most overdone bits from horror videogames (not many of which are scary, and pretty much none of which are the least bit original anyway) and horror writing (I'm sure if you took every book with a predominantly black cover off the shelf of an airport bookstore, threw them in a blender, and tried to read the contents, they'd be either as good as or a little bit better than the script to One Missed Call).However - this is the embarrassing thing - it's still rather skillful at maintaining a palpable sense of dread.
Throughout most of the movie, I was torn between wanting things to just quit being useless already, groaning when long-haired Japanese women appeared in the corner of frame or musical stabs heralded disembodied hands popping out of nowhere to grab at the heroes (because, alright, shock and surprise me, but be aware that I, like most people, have already seen Carrie, for goodness' sake); and trying to think of the last time I'd been this unsettled and edge-of-set-being-on in a movie made by a white person.
I've seen "Ringu" and "Ju-on" (this movie supposedly followed those), and while "Ju-on" I felt was very boring also (not as boring as this film however), "Ringu" did have a very genuinely intensely scary moment at the end....In conclusion, if you're going to start watching Takashi Miike films, don't watch this one first.
But aside from this, there are other good moments of the kind of horror that made Audition the classic that it is, and an ending that puts a very bleak twist on the whole story (and a "it was you all along" kind of connotation that reeks of being lifted from other movies).It's nothing much of a great horror film though, because despite the possible interest in the more horrific side to the story, the one involving child abuse, is not given much clarity- save for a scene in a classroom- until the last twenty minutes of the movie, where lots of emotion spurred on from the actual cell phone ring tone comes out.
If you want to have a clearer picture of what to expect from One Missed Call, think of Juon: The Grudge mixed with the weirdness of Gozu, add a dash of Uzumaki (not a Miike film I know) and the pacing of Audition, and random spots of grotesque images and you have a basic idea of the tone the movie holds.
You'll ruin it for yourself and really, though the basic idea is comparable to many prior ghost films Miike manages to keep things original and retain his wicked sense of humor and bizarre style.One Missed Call is great.
A new horror film that tries to follow the trail of "The Ring" and Hideo Nakata, with a pretty similar plot (this time instead of VHS there're cellular phones), the same look, and a little bit more of gore.It is not totally awful, but it's not the revelation of the season either.
Before the ending and through most of the movie it is more like "Ringu" as we have people trying to find out and trying to stop the mysterious killings as the victims are apparently getting calls from themselves just as they die.
Acclaimed Japanese director Takashi Miike can't seem to get the wheels moving with this torpid thriller, an adaptation of Yasushi Akimoto's book concerning an evil old woman (and child abuser!) who is part of a new urban legend: if your cell-phone rings with a strange tone--and you see the message 'One Missed Call'--you will replay the message only to hear your own final words before your death.
At first, this seems derivative of other Japanese horror movies--especially the "bad mommy" films--but it has a nice dose of nastiness (although not as much gore and twistedness that most viewers are probably accustomed to from the director.) Miike also puts in a few interesting and unpredictable twists that make this one stand apart from its contemporaries.
Since people that are reading this have read the other posts, i won't go on the "it's an Japanese horror movie so it have an grudge " and " it's not then an copy " point.This movie is pretty different and amusing cause it built psychological issues for the characters, including who kills, this give more consistency to it's story and makes it real.The story have an real nice development, and so goes on till the last minutes were it gets screwed.My only advice is "stop watching when there's 5 minutes to the end", but it's still an great movie.
Miike exploits this modern fear to the limit in the greatest horror scene since the one in the shower, or 9-11 itself -- I'm talking about the very public death of Natsumi Konishi.The second half of the movie tracks the heroine as she tries to locate the source of the malevolent phone calls who are picking off her friends left and right, hoping to escape the same fate.
That's really the downfall of this (and most Asian horror movies) is that if it doesn't deliver the scares then it's just not that good.As far as directing, Takashi Miike still did a pretty good job.
More Asian horror films need to be more like Audition and A Tale of Two Sisters, two movies that if they don't frighten or scare you, at least they have great stories, acting, direction, cinematography, and much more to back them up.
Then Yumi's best friend Natsumi Yamashita (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi) receives a call, determined not to let her friend die or even become the next victim Yumi sets out to find the truth behind the killings & stop it...More commonly known under the title One Missed Call to English speaking audiences this Japanese production was directed by Takashi Miike & for me is another rubbishy Asian ghost story, to be brutally honest it's a straight rip-off of Ringu (1998) only difference being instead of a mysterious video tape Chakushin Ari revolves around mobile phones.
Like the scene I've mentioned earlier, it is NOT a very big deal in the movie, that scene is a totally non-sense and has NO connection on the film.One missed call fails only on originality, but it is a very good psychological shocker freshly made by Splatter Horror king, Takashi Miike....and the ring tone is SO very creepy...6/10. |
tt1392170 | The Hunger Games | The nation of Panem, formed from a post-apocalyptic North America, is a country that consists of a wealthy Capitol region surrounded by 12 poorer districts. Early in its history, a rebellion led by a 13th district against the Capitol resulted in its destruction and the creation of an annual televised event known as the Hunger Games. In punishment, and as a reminder of the power and grace of the Capitol, each district must yield one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 through a lottery system to participate in the games. The 'tributes' are chosen during the annual Reaping and are forced to fight to the death, leaving only one survivor to claim victory.Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 16 year-old girl from District 12, a coal-mining region and the poorest of the districts. This year is the 74th Hunger Games and during the Reaping, Katniss' younger sister, Primrose (Willow Shields), is chosen as a tribute. Refusing to let her sister be taken, Katniss volunteers herself instead, becoming District 12's female tribute. The male tribute chosen is a baker's son named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) who is later seen during a flashback giving bread to Katniss to prevent her family from starving.Despite the threat of the games, Katniss dreams of making a new life for herself and her family 'outside the fence' with her friend, Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth). She tells him that she never wants children and, despite her dreams, is realistic in knowing that if she and Gale tried to leave they would be caught. Before she leaves, Katniss comforts her mother (Paula Malcomson) and tells her to stay strong for Primrose.Katniss and Peeta are taken from their district by the gaudily dressed Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and travel to the Capitol. En route, they are fed rich food and treats but are disgusted by the amount of luxuries given to them and the occupants of the train while their families starve at home. They are introduced to their 'mentor' and a former winner of the Hunger Games, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) who appears to be a pessimistic alcoholic. Haymitch grabs a drink and food before leaving their train car. Katniss and Peeta later reunite with Haymitch in another car and he tells them that the key to survival is ensuring they are well liked by the public so that they may get sponsored. By having sponsors they will have more access to survival tools such as matches, knives, or even water and medicine.When they arrive in the gleaming city of the Capitol, the train is greeted by a cheering crowd. Peeta waves to the residents but Katniss refuses to show herself. Haymitch warns her that she better hold on to her knife and that Peeta actually knows what he is doing by feeding the crowd. Katniss meets her stylist, Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), who tells her that, as tributes, they need to make an impression on the audience so they're remembered, especially by the sponsors. Cinna proclaims that someone as brave as Katniss should have a great costume for the Gala Entry Parade in which each pair of tributes wears an outfit reflecting their district's trade. Katniss and Peeta wear black costumes with actual fire emanating from them to symbolize the coal-mining district they reside from. As Cinna hoped, they make a great impression on the audience. Peeta takes Katniss' hand and raises it into the air during the parade for more effect. After the parade the pair go to their penthouse.The tributes under-go basic weaponry and combat training including the use of knives, swords, and bows. In spite of this training their trainer stresses that survival skills should not be underestimated as exposure and infection can kill just as effectively as any sword. One tribute named Cato (Alexander Ludwig) is hot-headed and imposing, proving to be a possibly serious threat. Later, over a meal, Haymitch tells Peeta and Katniss about the Careers district from which Cato comes from. All of the possible tributes train until they're 18 before openly volunteering to participate in the Hunger Games. Haymitch warns them that they win almost every year due to that fact before asking about Katniss' bow and arrow skills. Katniss refocuses on Peeta, describing his impressive strength, but he rebuffs her compliments and confesses that his own mother (Raiko Bowman) thought Katniss to be the superior tribute.When Peeta is bullied by the other tributes during training, Katniss suggests he show off his strength by throwing a large weight across the room. Peeta manages to perform the feat successfully and gains a small amount of respect from the tributes. Later, in succession, each tribute is instructed to show off to the game makers and sponsors, including Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley). When it's Katniss' turn, she decides to show off her archery skills. However, she misses her first shot badly and loses what little attention she already had. Despite her perfect second shot, she doesn't regain their respect. Angered by the sponsors' attitude towards her, Katniss fires an arrow straight through an apple in a roasted pig's mouth, right in front of the stunned sponsors. Katniss sarcastically thanks them for their consideration and leaves. The tributes' scores are then displayed on a television screen, ranking from 0 to 12. Many tributes achieve high scores of 9 to 10, including the Careers Cato and his partner Clove (Isabelle Fuhrman). Peeta receives an 8 while Katniss scores an 11, the highest of all the tributes.The President of the Capitol, Snow (Donald Sutherland) addresses Seneca and tells him that the Hunger Games is about giving the districts hope but that too much hope can actually be dangerous. During another meal, Haymitch tells Katniss about Peeta's decision to go without his help because of the fact that there can only be one winner.On the extravagant Hunger Games TV chat show, each tribute is introduced individually and interviewed by the flamboyant host, Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci). Katniss elicits laughs from the audience during the interview and impresses them by showing off her dress which displays real fire as she twirls. Ceasar gives her the nickname 'girl on fire'. During his interview, Peeta eats the audience up, garnering some laughs himself. It is then that he announces his crush on Katniss, something which angers her intensely. Backstage Katniss pins Peeta to the wall, demanding answers for his behavior. Haymitch separates the two and explains that he could sell the pair as star-crossed lovers which might gain them sponsorship support during the games.Just before the games, Haymitch warns Katniss to avoid the bloodbath at the beginning by heading to the high ground in search of water despite having to leave her bow and arrow behind. The tributes are all injected with a tracking device in their arms as they travel via helicopter to the outdoor arena. The tributes are then taken underground where they report to certain checkpoints before being loaded onto platforms that deliver them to the ground level of the arena. Before she is hoisted up, Katniss says farewell to Cinna who has seen her off. He tells her that, if he was allowed to bet, he would be on her winning. Then she, along with the other tributes, are raised into the arena and a countdown to the Hunger Games begins. As the horn sounds, the tributes rush towards the center cornucopia full of weapons and backpacks, brutally attacking and killing each other in the process. Katniss manages to grab a pack and barely escapes Clove, who embeds a knife in her backpack. Once at a safe distance, Katniss finds a rope, an empty canteen, and a coat inside the backpack. She takes Haymitch's advice and locates water in a nearby stream before she ties herself high up in a tree for the night and attempts to get some sleep. Loud bangs from a cannon indicate the deaths of tributes and we learn that thirteen were killed within the first 8 hours.During the games, Caesar keeps the public up to date with the happenings and announces that an alliance has formed. Katniss witnesses from her tree perch that Peeta has joined with a group of Careers during the night with the intent on leading them to her. While exploring the next day, Katniss gets too close to the outer regions of the arena. The game controllers decide to start a forest fire to lure her further in to the center. She barely manages to escape but does receive a nasty burn on her thigh, causing her to limp. She is then spotted by Cato and 4 other tributes, including Clove and Glimmer (Leven Rambin) who have banded together. We learn that, apparently, the Careers come, collectively, from Districts 1, 2, and 4 who are trained illegally before volunteering to fight; this group of 4 from two districts chases Katniss who eventually escapes by climbing a tree. Cato attempts to follow her up but is unsuccessful. Peeta suggests that the group wait for Katniss to eventually come down for food and water.The group settles for the night beneath the tree and Katniss ties herself to the tree to sleep. She is woken later that night by a parachute containing much needed medicine for her leg wound, sent by Haymitch. She applies the medicine to her burns and they disappear as if nothing happened. Her attention is then caught by a young 12 year old girl in an adjacent tree named Rue (Amandla Stenberg) from District 11. Rue, however, is friendly to Katniss and points out a large trackerjacker nest just above Katniss and dangling over the Career group below. We learn that trackerjackers are genetically engineering wasps whose stings are highly venomous and can cause powerful hallucinations. With enough stings, they can even kill. Katniss climbs up the tree towards the nest and begins sawing at the branch holding it up. The trackerjackers become irritated and start stinging her but, eventually, the branch snaps and the nest falls to the ground, exploding in a wave of wasps. The Careers group flees but Glimmer is stung too many times and succumbs to the venom.Katniss manages to climb down the tree and manages to grab a bow and arrows. As she begins to hallucinate, she sees Peeta approach her and seemingly yell at her to run. Regaining some sense, Katniss escapes but eventually collapses. After a night of hallucinations and nightmares, some involving her father (Phillip Troy Linger), Katniss awakens beneath a tree trunk with leave bandages covering her stings. Unclear as to who exactly helped her, Katniss stumbles around, thinking it must have been Peeta. Rue appears and tells her that she was out cold for 2 days and that she's been the one taking care of her. The two girls decide to team up and go on the offensive. They form a plan to destroy a mountain of food and supplies located in the starting meadow that the Career group is guarding. Rue is to start small fires to distract the remaining Careers while Katniss detonates the booby-trapped mines surounding the mound. They agree to use mockingjays, birds that mimic any tune, to signal to each other. The plan works. The Careers become distracted by the smoke of the fires while one tribute, a boy from District 3 (Ian Nelson), remains at the cornucopia, standing guard. Katniss then notices a female tribute unseen by the others. Foxface (Jacqueline Emerson) from District 5 sprints towards the pyramid of food and supplies, unnoticed by the guard. She picks her way through the mines, steals a backpack, and makes it back into the forest with great cunning.Katniss then shoots at a bag of apples on top of the pile which causes them to cascade down and detonate the mines. The pyramid explodes, sending food and supplies everywhere. Katniss watches, triumphant, as the Career group rushes back to the clearing. Infuriated, Cato demands to know how such a thing could have happened. The guard tribute from District 3 is equally confused but Cato's anger makes him murderous and he snaps the boy's neck. Katniss leaves, disturbed by Cato's ease to kill. She uses the bird call system to find Rue but receives no response until she hears a scared voice calling to her. Katniss finds Rue trapped under a net and releases her just before theyre attacked by Marvel (Jack Quaid), a tribute from District 1. Marvel throws a spear but Katniss dodges the attack and shoots an arrow into his chest, killing him. However, when she turns to Rue, she sees that Marvel's spear has gone through her chest. Distraught, Katniss tries to calm Rue and sings to her peacefully as Rue dies. Katniss then gathers flowers from the forest and spreads them over Rue before her body taken back to her district via hovercraft.Meanwhile, Rue's father is horrified and angered by his daughter's death and starts a riot. His district follows his rebellious example and they destroy the stage showing the games. As Katniss makes a peace gesture to the camera, the 'Peace Keepers' of District 11 arrive and shoot Rue's father dead. President snow is enraged by the rebellion in District 11 and wants to change the game's rules and circumstances to ensure that Katniss is killed. Haymitch pleads with Seneca to keep Katniss alive, issuing a ploy of teen romance as a main reason. Seneca then announces that the rules of the game have been changed; two winners instead of just one will be allotted so long as they belong to the same district. With this knowledge, and having just overheard the remaining Careers mention leaving Peeta for dead by the river, Katniss sets out in search of him. She finds a trail of blood near the river and follows it to where Peeta has camouflaged himself in the rocks. Katniss helps move him to a nearby cave where they are well hidden.Katniss attempts to heal Peeta's sword wound but realizes he has blood poisoning, something that can only be cured with a special medicine. Katniss despairs as there could be no way Haymitch could send some since it would be too expensive at this point. However, as if by magic, an announcement rings out that there will be a feast at the cornucopia for all the tributes but, instead of food, there will be something each tribute desperately needs. Peeta begs Katniss not to leave him and risk her life trying to save him. He asks her to stay and Katniss reluctantly agrees, though she knows there may very well be medicine at the cornucopia that could save his life. The two share a brief kiss, partly as a way to gain more sponsors. However, this hits a nerve with Gale watching back home who is clearly smitten with Katniss. Katniss waits until Peeta has fallen asleep before leaving for the cornucopia.When she arrives, she sees Foxface sprinting towards the supplies, surprising the other tributes with her speed and escaping without much incident. Katniss decides to mimic Foxface's moves and sprints out to grab the medicine but is thrown off guard when she is hit with a knife launched by Clove. The two wrestle and fight before Clove manages to get the upper hand and presses a knife to Katniss' throat. She teases her with bloodlust and mocks her for teaming up with the 'little monster from District 11'; Rue. Before Clove can slit Katniss' throat, she is lifted by Thresh (Dayo Okeniyi), the male tribute from District 11, and thrown against the cornucopia wall. He proceeds to beat her to death against the wall despite her cries for Cato. Thresh tells Katniss that she gets this one chance since she helped Rue but, after this, everything is fair game. Katniss escapes.She returns to the cave with the medicine and administers it to Peeta and herself, healing their wounds. In a more genuine romantic moment, the two fall asleep in each other's arms. The next day, they split up to find food. During her hunt, Katniss hears a cannon signaling another tribute death. Panicked, she runs back to where she last saw Peeta. She finds him near a berry bush, standing bewildered with a handful of berries near the corpse of Foxface, also with berries in her hand. In a mix of anger and relief, Katniss slaps Peeta, telling him that the berries are Nightlock and extremely poisonous. The pair wonder if Cato would ever fall for the same trap that Foxface did before they notice that the sun is going down at mid-day. Unsure of what's to happen, they freeze and ready themselves for an impending attack.In the distance, Thresh cries out followed by the sound of the cannon, signaling his death. They pause for a moment before a giant mutated dog leaps out at them, vicious and the size of a polar bear but with much more speed and agility. Katniss and Peeta sprint through the forest as two more of the dogs begin to pursue them. They are chased to the cornucopia where Peeta helps Katniss climb on top of it, barely making it up himself. They sit back in relief thinking the dogs will kill the last survivor, Cato, and they will be crowned the victors. Cato, however, is also on top of the cornucopia and attacks Katniss, attempting to throw her to the dogs. The three fight each other and Cato grabs Katniss by the throat, holding her near the edge of the structure before Peeta manages to fight him off her. Cato gets the upper hand and gets Peeta in a choke hold to either break his neck, as seen before, or throw him to the mutant dogs.Katniss unsheathes an arrow and points it at him, uncertain whether to shoot or not. Cato, dripping blood, laughs sadistically, telling her that he knows what the games are about now. The tributes aren't just entertainment; they're all weapons designed to make the spectacle of death as painful and unnecessary as possible. Peeta, who is still being choked, appears to try and tell Katniss something while Cato talks. Cato asks if she shoots him, then her 'lover boy' goes down with him. Katniss shoots his hand, forcing him to let go of Peeta. Peeta then pushes Cato off the edge to be mauled by the dogs. Katniss and Peeta watch a moment as Cato is savagely attacked before Katniss shoots an arrow into him, ending his misery. The last cannon goes off and Katniss and Peeta realize they've won the Hunger Games. They embrace and wait for a helicopter to come take them home.No helicopter comes. An announcement then states that the rules which allowed two winners has been revoked, meaning only one shall remain. Peeta begs Katniss to kill him so that she may win but she takes out her hand and holds out some Nightlock berries. She takes some for herself and gives the rest to Peeta, hinting that she'd rather the Capitol have no winners instead of one. Before they can commit suicide, a speaker pleads them to stop and announces that they have both won. They are brought back to the Capitol where Haymitch tells them how foolish they are to have defied the Capitol like that and instructs them to play up the star-crossed couple routine at their final interview. They oblige but Haymitch relents that it will never be enough for the Capitol.We see Seneca Crane being led into a finely polished room. The door is locked behind him while a goblet is set on a pedestal in front of him, containing Nightlock. Although we do not see it, we are led to believe that he is forced to commit suicide.Peeta and Katniss travel back in District 12 by train. Although they are met with a hero's welcome, Haymitch warns Katniss that she is now a political enemy after such a public defiance against the society's leaders. They are greeted by a crowd of cheering residents including Primrose, Katniss' mother, and Gale. Peeta takes Katniss' hand and holds it up in the air.President Snow watches the District 12 welcome from the Capitol. Walking away, he wonders what to do about the two victors and the feelings of rebellion they may have created in the Districts. | suspenseful, mystery, murder, dramatic, violence, cult, flashback, psychedelic, action, romantic, revenge | train | imdb | There's almost nothing to say about a movie like The Hunger Games -- it's been so worked to death to be a successful blockbuster that all of its edges, the things that make a film good or bad, have disappeared.
It just exists as a spectacle, a finished product that defies any critical lens.I could go on about the particulars of the adaptation -- the ridiculousness of the entire Capital setting, or the sometimes disorienting shakycam work, or the great cast of adults patiently playing supporting characters -- or the source material -- the gestures at social commentary, the way that the story protects Katniss from ever having to morally sully herself -- but they all seem to be beside the point.
One wonders if Miss Collins, author of the series, ever read Frederic Brown, or watched classic Star Trek in the late 1960s or during its syndication run in the 70s and 80s, because the basic bulk of the story is taken right out of "Arena" (which also saw reincarnation via an issue of "Adam Strange" in Detective Comics).
Which is okay, because it's not a clone of the story, but uses the basic plot and story written by Brown, and adds many young person and female flourishes to comment on contemporary TV watching habits, and societies' imperilment of becoming addicted to a certain type of bloodletting entertainment.The film is nicely paced, and seems to be riding a fine line of trying to be edgy, real, and young person's fair all at the same time.
Woody "let me tie up traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge some 12 years ago" Harrelson makes an appearance as an aged vet of the games (as I digress bitterly), who relays what wisdom and beneficence that he can to the selected champions of his district.There's romance, there's intrigue, there's hand to hand combat, there's MTV like shaky-cam cinematography, some girlish moments, and even some pyrotechnics (a rarity for any film).
Although i liked this setting much more, it was more appealing.What i didn't liked is at some part i got the feeling i was watching Avatar with the shots in the Arena control room.The movie is too short or the first half is to long and not much time left fro the second part.
In its current form it is boring and crap.If you want a good, gritty, Last Person Standing / Survival of the Fittest -type movie, watch Battle Royale instead..
During the actual hunger game/battle royale, you still don't get much of an action or adventure movie.
And anyone over the age of 18 who still enjoys this needs to grow up and go watch Battle Royale and that'll show you what would really happen in a circumstance like this.The film takes almost an hour to start and when it does start, it actually doesn't.
Battle Royal, the Japanese wonder from which "author" Suzanne Collins stole the plot to "write" 'The Hunger Games', was nothing short of a unique piece of art in a sometime dull cinema industry.
So, after all the hype, I just watched The Hunger Games and really wasn't impressed.It's basically Battle Royale dumbed down for kids.
But overall, I felt like this movie was like a watered-down rip-off of Battle Royale, without half of the emotional depth and pretty much none of the visceral content..
Seeing the "Hunger Games" series gain so much recognition is difficult to fathom; especially when it's more or less a blatant copy of "Battle Royale", a Japanese novel (1996), movie (2000), and manga (2000-2005).
Like the "Battle Royale" manga, "Hunger Games" includes love triangles, a group of teenagers randomly chosen (BR: by class HG: by district), plans to overthrow authority, teens given weapons and forced into a death match, a pair working together to undermine the game with the help of an older mentor who had previously won the game, both female and male main leads, a corrupted government, signal fires and bird calls, a reality TV show program (which IS in the English adaption of the manga (2006) for the series unlike many of you have known), and the list goes on and on.
Moreover, the "Hunger Games" is more like a rip-off of "Battle Royale" than an inspiration since the majority of the plot elements are nearly identical.
If anyone watches Eastern movies or reads Manga they will know that in 1999 a book titled 'Battle Royale' was written with the exact same theme and later adapted into two Manga comics and movies(2000 and 2003{Battle Royale: Requiem} respectively.In Battle Royale students are kidnapped at different times to be used in a 'military' research activity called The Program where they must fight to the death on an isolated island.
In here the stakes are higher(i.e., metal tracking collars with explosives that will kill any insurgents and are all set to detonate simultaneously if no one is killed in a 24 hour period).Personally, Hunger Games was a cheap knock-off of the Battle Royale series sanitized to withing an inch of it's politically incorrect life and a complete waste of my time and brain cells..
Yet, there is no love put into this film it is entirely focused on entertaining your peripheral and lacks substance in dialogue and explanation as well as some of the story being altered in presentation from a book to movie.
If you want to see a far superior movie with practically the same plot then watch Battle Royal.
The story is mediocre to begin with and the cinematography is even worse which ruins the whole experience.Not sure what the director was trying to achieve here but all I can say is its really hard to see an action movie when the cameras aren't showing any action!Really they show trees, random flying object, pointless close up shot of one of the actors anything and everything except the actual action scene!By far the worst movie I have seen this year.
Adapted from Suzanne Collins' trilogy of teen- friendly novels, The Hunger Games looks set to follow in the well-off footsteps of Harry Potter and the soon-to-cease Twilight as the next big-money, low-brow saga for the GCSE bound masses.
Despite all efforts, The Hunger Games is starved of a character or scenario to really care about.A hyped-up, cheesy and dumbed down treatise on human nature, spirit, freedom and TV culture, this is a badly-acted, action-crammed movie built on a much explored prophecy that's been residing in both literature and film for years; a nightmare dystopia in which society is slave to a tyrannical regime.
In director Ross' big screen retooling, The Hunger Games is set in a far from terrifying, post-war America whose totalitarian government get their kicks from a legislation born out of the ashes of World War III; each of the country's 12 districts are to offer up one young girl and boy every year to slog it out on live TV in a last-kid-standing tournament set on a virtual island.
For example 'I wonder if they realise that it's a booby trap,' and then 'It looks like she has worked out how this booby trap works.' The reason that I felt that this story was completely unbelievable, was the explanation of why they have this class system and why they have these 'hunger games.' It was explained that it is a constant reminder of war, and so that there can be a winner that people can support.
If a film, like "Battle Royale", is so good to start with why on earth do you want to try and improve on it?
And before any of you smart alecks decide to say "how can it be a rip off when its based off a book", the answer is simple:Battle Royale came out in 2000, Hunger Games was published in 2008.
with all that said i say watch other movies with the same theme like battle royale the running man..
I was somewhat skeptical when going to see 'The Hunger Games', expecting a novel adaption claiming to be the next Harry Potter, but for older audiences (teenagers like myself).Set in the Distopian not-too-distant future, The Capitol run by Donald Sutherland and other people with strange dress sense, rules the 12 Districts.
We are given nearly no vision and it ends up stressful for the eyes.Taking away the supposed action scenes we are left with minimal character development in the main heroine Katniss, boring dialog and a minimal plot.What really bothers me is that there are already sequels lined up, ready to gross millions, luring in loyal fan bases for 2 hours of low-par filmmaking.
Novel adaptations like The Hunger Games are filmmaking at it's lowest, requiring little to no effort, and shameless sequels, as if the millions this film made isn't enough.Perhaps the novels are better, at least with books, there can't be a shaky camera with extreme close-ups every second.Appalling novel adaption.
The hunger games is a wonderful film that is angaging from start to finish.I really enjoyed this film and what it had to offer.The action was done well even though the camera was shaky it still had that emotional grip during the action sequences.This film has the basic plot of battle royale young adults killing each other and thats it.The hunger games is sent up in a world were people watch all this violence in amusement and shock.The actiing from jennifer lawrence is to die for she gives a eye opening performance.Also josh hutcherson who was stuck in child actor nirvana for a while shines in this well.Woody harrelson and lenny kravitz did a fine job as well.Donald sutherland does a in the shadows performance.For a PG-13 film it is quite dark and grim especially when the action kicks in and when characters talk about the whole idea of the hunger games.If you want a brutal,sometimes jaw dropping but emotional experience watch the hunger games..
Before I start, I've not read the 3 books associated with this film.I watched The Hunger Games on the weekend, and it's an OK movie edited for kids.
As the phrase goes, "there's nothing new in Hollywood" and this is evident throughout this film from start to finish.Please watch the original Battle Royale which is 1000% times better than this, watered down, made to make millions Hollywood creation.This film does not deserve the hype surrounding it, but I just hope the millions this film generates is funnelled into some new and exciting not the same crap often expected from Hollywood..
I Saw A Movie Like This A Few Weeks Ago. Okay, Everyone Who Pays Attention To This Movie's Message Boards Will Know Where This Is Going, I Honestly Tried Not To Compare But Its Like Disturbia And Rear Window, Both Have The Same Plot line So You Can't Not Compare It.Even If I Had Never Seen Battle Royale This Still Would've Been A Bad Movie, Let Me Explain To You In Dot Points Why.1.
If Your Response Is "Oh I Can't Keep Up With Subtitles." I Have A One Word Response "Tough." Battle Royale Is Superior.Now Onto My Other Points Regarding This Movie - There Is Over 2 Hours Of This Crap To Sit Through When The Final Part Of This Is The 3 People Living (At The Time) Running Away From Magic Dogs That Come Onto The Arena By Some Idea About People Putting Them Digitally Onto The Arena (I Kid You Not - And This Is Somebody Who Can Get The Magic Chalk Idea From Day Watch).
the hunger games was so slow i almost fell asleep, was not like the original one no real action i will not waste my money on the next one God forbid if there is one, the acting was not very good the ending was bad, i thought there was more to the movie, did not like the Mockingbird actor being weak at time i would like to have seen here Stronger as a Woman fighter she seemed to weak and just playing the part, the special effects were good that kept me interested but there was not very much of it, and it could of use more of it, too much talk and slow dialog to make it interesting i wanted to scream to the screen Do Something everybody wanted to console someone and no one wanted to fight.
But if the book was released after battle Royal, it would be like me writing Jurassic park and then releasing a film of it?!
I'm one of the many people that wishes this and the other three movies were Rated R and a lot more violent so they could REALLY show the terror of the games and how unpleasant panem really is.P.S. stick with battle royale 1 and 2 instead.
I could care less for any of the characters that die or gets hurt, and the tasks that they perform are .In my opinion, this movie is some kind of rip-off from good movies such as Battle Royale and Brazil (for the scenario and weird people) used in a way that does not work at all.
Genre : Scifi/Action Big Names : Jennifer Lawrence Synopsis: The Hunger Games is based on the eponymous novel, the first of a trilogy penned by Suzanne Collins.Post apocalypse North America, now known as Panem, is now ruled by the autocratic President Snow, who each year conducts a gladiatorial combat contest where 2 teens, called 'tributes', from each of the 12 remaining 'districts' battle it out to death in front of all of Panem.
I have also watched The Truman Show and Battle Royale, which this movie remixed and gurgled out, inadequately.What's good: The novel was the first that I had been able to read cover to cover within 24 hours, in a really long time.
Movies such as Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc...have their share of battles that contain a measure of violence as well -- as so with The Hunger Games, they too, were forced to fight what was evil.
When The Hunger Games came out, all non-book fans could think of was Asian flick Battle Royale of which I think is an okay but forgettable movie.
I imagine these kinds of morality and strategy things are in the book and fans are just filling in these gaps by themselves, but The Hunger Games movie just confused and bored me with its slow plot-hole ridden script, unpleasant hook and unsatisfying climax.
Feeling the story seemed maybe even more important than reading it, so when I went to see the movie, my expectations were very high.On the upside: Great performance by the main characters, excellent visuals and well directed.On the downside: The book gives a lot of context as to how the characters feel and how things have come to be the way they are.
Well after the hype and a suck you in trailer I eagerly sat in my chair awaiting the Cinematic Experience of the year so far.The adverts and trailers went on for what seemed a very long time then, into the film I will cut this short as I don't want anyone else to sit through such badly thought through drivel.Shot with a constant shaky camera (blair witch style) and a story line that just never seemed to get going.A heroine that didn't seem to do much (harry potter) and film that could have been played out in an hour (tv episode) stretched to beyond credulity.Thank goodness we sent the kids into see street dance Wit for it to be on sky...
Absolute rot, and just accepting on one or two arrow shots that Katniss is "Herne the Hunter" reborn does not scan well, and without the books support its a bit of a head nod "Yeah right" for too much of her exploits.I saw Pirates on the same day, which blew me away, creative, good characters and story and compared to a poorly told story with a huge budget; I would take it any day of the week.Imagine "The Golden Compass" but a better story and acting; i.e. it still sucks like a kid on a MacDonalds milkshake; but you don't feel 'quite' as bad for the production crew...Also, almost nobody has mentioned how its a blatant rip-off of The Running Man - only with teenagers, The Running Man is superior in so may respects, but this film has the advertisers buck and a lot of money men rubbing their hands.
I'm extremely biased as well, considering Battle Royale is one of my all-time favorite films/books/graphic novels.
Okay, so let me say this first - I have read the "Hunger Games" books, all three of them in a very short amount of time.
Half of the movie is spent with Katniss going through the entire pre-Hunger Games phases, which worked great for the book, but not for the movie.
Technically, this part is supposed to make you empathize with the characters and get to know them better, only it fails so hard that, at the end of it, you not only don't care for the characters, but you're also bored because you were expecting action-y stuff if you haven't read the books.Then, you think, the Games finally start.
Add to that the shaky camera effects, some very ridiculous scenes, and you get the worst movie (by far) that I have seen in a long time.Bottom line - if you are truly interested in this idea, if you found the trailer interesting, if you feel any urge to watch this movie, just pass and buy the books.
Shades of older movies such as "Rollerball", "Logan's Run" and more recently, "Battle Royale" are very present in "Hunger Games".
In the end, "The Hunger Games" is really a light version of "Battle Royale"..
I even re-read the books after watching the movie, to make sure I wasn't making too much of it...only to come away more frustrated. |
tt0102522 | Nekromantik 2 | The film opens with a scene showing the protagonist of the first Nekromantik, Rob (Daktari Lorenz), committing suicide. The film then goes to a churchyard in the evening where Monika (Monika M) is searching for a way in. She finds her way in and after quite some digging she absconds with the remains of Rob. Once back at her apartment she unwraps her new found interest and sits and smokes a cigarette while watching him. A short vignette follows showing Mark (Mark Reeder), a future interest of Monikas attempting to catch his train to work but missing it. The film then jumps back to Monika attempting to have sex with the corpse by straddling him. She gives up, frustrated and unable to reach a climax the scene ends. Mark then is seen on the phone with a woman she is trying to meet for a movie. He states explicitly that he despises lateness and that she must be punctual. After he waits a few minutes in front of the theater he asks Monika if shed like to join him. She agrees and after the film, which consists of two people eating soft-boiled eggs naked on a roof top, they adjourn to his place for eggs. They meet again at an amusement park for a day out and get along very well. After their day out she decides to destroy the remains of Rob. After his dismemberment she decides to keep a few mementos of Rob: His head and penis. She continues her relationship with Mark but is disappointed after the first time that they have sex. This is due to the fact that he is moving and must be dominated in order for her to get any pleasure. Their relationship begins to take a weird turn when Mark awakes the next day. He discovers the rotting penis that belonged to Rob in the refrigerator and is perplexed to say the least. He returns the penis to the refrigerator and the film goes back to Monika who is having a dream. This dream consists of her singing a song in French next to a pianist (John Boy Walton) playing a piano. Soon after he is seen hanging upside down with Monika photographing him. After these events he begins to question her nature and whether it is perverse. He meets up with a friend at a coffee shop and he tells her about his worries about Monika in a very vague manner and she assures him that he is overreacting. He tells a man at a bar (Florian Koerner Von Gustorf) about his troubles as well. The man assures him that he is, again, overreacting. He then returns to Monika with a fresh pizza in hand for the two of them and is met by a group of women congregated in her living room. He arrives when she is watching a seal autopsy video with her friends. He does not see the video initially but after asking her what they have been doing all afternoon she tells him that they were watching a movie. He asks to see it and is repulsed after being shown it. Monika becomes defensive and he storms off. They talk on the phone later and she asks him to come over and talk it out. He does and in a burst of passion they begin to have sex. She then begins to ride him and pins his arms down. Unaware of his fate he closes his eyes and enjoys the experience. Monika then reaches under the bed and pulls out a bone-saw and slams it into his neck. He writhes in pain but it is too late. She begins to cut his head off and then secures his erection with a cock-ring and leaves the view of the camera. She quickly returns with the head of Rob which she places on the shoulders of Mark. The scene ends and the next shot that is seen is the back of an ambulance. The film ends with a doctor walking down a long corridor. He approaches the camera, in real-time, in a single shot and tells Monika that she is pregnant. | insanity, violence, murder, flashback | train | imdb | There are some genuinely funny scenes that are good for a laugh, and definitely some strong gore that rivals the first "Nekromantik", but I found myself checking my watch too often.
The latter film is a superbly original romantic comedy about an unusual love triangle between a woman, her lover and a rotting corpse.
Nekromantik 2 is a strangely dour affair; the film is slow, affected and a little bit too clever for its own good.
Thankfully, Buttgereit plucks enough grim and gross ideas from his wonderfully sick mind to make the film a worthy, if somewhat disappointing, sequel to a true genre classic.Nekromantik 2 picks up where the original film finished - with Robert pleasuring himself while violently committing suicide with a kitchen knife.
From this point on, the film loses momentum - mostly due to the fact that nothing really happens apart from Monika meeting Mark at the movies and beginning a relationship with him.
There are tedious close-ups of them on a ferris wheel, an unnecessary dating montage and an uncharacteristically dull sex scene.The film only begins to show signs of life when Monika starts asking Mark to play dead during sex and shows him a family photo album full of dead relatives.
Thankfully, the conclusion is premium Buttgereit as Monika finds a way to enjoy the company of both Mark and Robert simultaneously.Buttgereit's excruciatingly long and detailed depictions of corpse cutting, animal dissection and dating rituals do not make for great viewing but the parallels that these sequences draw and the clinical detachment with which Buttgereit draws them, are intellectually stimulating - if clumsy and pretentious.
Admittedly the ending truly must be seen to be believed and easily equals if not tops the originals ending, but the rest of the film (a gruesome dismemberment and a pointless seal autopsy aside) is extremely slow paced, especially the 'art' cinema scene.
With a film as original and shocking as Nekromantik a sequel was never going to pack the same punch.
Director Buttgereit's impressive skills as a film maker are evident throughout: from the opening credit flashback of Part 1's climax, to the infamous seal autopsy, to the must-be-seen-to-be-believed closing sequence.
The original "Nekromantik" was a pretty bizarre misfire attempting to craft a movie out of a subject as taboo as necrophilia, but this so-called "sequel" is even worse.
Not only is the one-note joke REALLY dead this time around, but the title seems like an afterthought, since most of the movie revolves around what looks like a couple's home movies, with some very lame corpse sex intercutting the plodding pace.
Every aspect of "Nekromantik 2" is a cut below its predecessor, from the cheap effects (the "corpse" being the saddest one of all) to the indifferent direction (which Buttgereit must have slept through), to the fact that the whole concept was exhausted (albeit poorly) in the first film..
The only "highlight" is the scene in the end, when Monika cuts off Marks head while having sex and replaces it with Roberts head.
That´s what NEKROMANTIK 2 is all about.If you´re looking for gore you´d better check out some of Peter Jacksons early movies....
I have to say that the way the movie is filmed (nice moving of camera with its charming shaking), is acted (with a kind of "playing for playing"), opened my mind to Evil Dead, another kind of movie made by passionate young and a little crazy people who got the ability to do everything they want.
Well, because this movie was incredibly slow paced and with very little of any interest or any consequential worth, so it just felt like time stood almost still while a whole lot of nothing transpired on the screen.I am rating "Nekromantik 2" 3 out of 10 stars, whereas I rated the prequel 2 out of 10.
This very strange fetish of hers is something she tries to keep from the man (Mark Reeder) she's dating but soon he finds out.Jorg Buttgereit's NEKROMANTIK is a film that pretty much sent shock waves down the horror community and it quickly gained a notorious reputation for being a work of art that really managed to cross several lines.
This sequel isn't nearly as good but there's no doubt that fans of the director will want to check it out and especially since it contains more bizarre and rather vile scenes between the living and the dead.NEKROMANTIK 2 is a more polished and better looking film as it's clear the director was working with more money.
I think the raw nature of the film movie is what helped make it so memorable but I personally didn't mind the more polished look here.
The movie that the two are seeing on a date could have been edited out and I'm not exactly sure what the seal autopsy has to do with anything other than letting the viewer experience some real gore.As usual, the special effects were quite good and I must say that the corpse was a very good design.
The film has several gory moments as well as some outrageous sex scenes and yes there are some involving the corpse.
As if we could ever forget, director Jörg Buttgereit reminds viewers of how his first Nekromantik film ended during this sequel's opening credits (it wasn't pretty, as I'm sure you will recall—a suicide that involved a whole mess of bodily fluids).
Amazingly, the ending to Nekromantik 2 is even more shocking and gory, and to get there one has to wallow in an even greater level of depravity.Buttgereit's film opens with attractive necrophiliac Monika (Monika M.) paying a visit to the grave of Robert Schmadtke (the central character from the first film) and exhuming his body, taking the already decaying corpse back to her pad for some icky sexual antics.
Soon after, however, the young woman embarks on a regular relationship with a live dude, Mark (Mark Reeder), and decides to ditch her dead guy, dismembering the stiff in her bath-tub (keeping only his head and mouldy tally-whacker for old time's sake!).As hard as she tries, though, Monika cannot completely shake her craving for humping the deceased, and begins to imagine Mark as Robert during sex.
It's one hell of a sickening scene and is sure to shock all but the most hardened gore-hounds.But while extreme horror/splatter fans are more than catered for, there are downsides to this sequel as well: at 104 minutes, it's waaaay too long, the generous running time allowing the pace to drag and for Buttgereit to indulge his pretentious side a tad too often.
Thus, viewers are treated to a dull scene in the art-house cinema where Monika meets Mark (did we really need to see so much of the poncey film they were watching?), random shots of snails and slugs, a bizarre musical interlude in which a man with a ponytail tinkles the ivories while a woman wails a song, and a sickening moment in which Monika watches the dissection of a dead seal with her equally twisted friends (animal lovers might want to look away: this bit is really stomach churning).Overall, I think I slightly prefer the original film (if only because it's about half an hour shorter), but if you're a fan of Buttgereit's style, definitely give part 2 a watch: there's more than enough nastiness to make it worth your while..
I had never heard of Jörg Buttgereit before watch this NEKROMANTIK 2 but now I know he has a lot of movies in the same genre of this one.
Only three years after the first film, director Jorg Buttgereit went back behind the camera and made 'Nekromantik 2' for his loyal cult audience.
Actually, the German authorities seized the movie a few days after it was released, but luckily for Buttgereit and us, they did not confiscate the original negative of the film, hence now we have an excellent Blu-ray from Cult Epics in glorious high definition.Some people might look at this sequel much like how they viewed the first film, which is a sadistic film that depicts deplorable violence and sex acts so depraved that it would make the seasoned cinephile blush.
Others like myself, view the original film and 'Nekromantik 2' as a work of art that is expertly crafted to show a woman and man's search for love and sexual satisfaction.
Sure, they go about it in a much different way than we're used to seeing, and in this case, we follow a woman who engages in sex with corpses, but there is so much more to the larger picture than just having sex with the dead.Buttgereit wants to show us the simplistic nature of a human trying to find love and not be lonely, and how sometimes that might be more of a struggle than not.
Soon after, a woman named Monika is seeing digging up Rob's corpse (from the first film) and bringing it back to her apartment.
Monika and Mark seem to be the loving couple that could be in any romantic comedy as they see movies and go to the park together.
However, Mark is unaware of Monika's unnatural need for the dead until he sees a few images in her apartment and walks in on Monika and a few friends, watching some truly disturbing shows on television.Despite all of this, Mark is like Monika in a way.
Though one is more distant than the other, both are trying to find their better half in life, and Buttgereit reveals each emotion and action with a calm and collected view as if to tell us that's it's okay to choose this lifestyle.More often than not these days, horror directors tend to only rely on the gore aspect and only want an action scene that follows into another action scene.
How Jorge Buttergereit had more money,the movie has bigger budget.I watched as the plot unfolded
the film went on and I kept paying good attention at the first 20 silent minutes.
The film is shot the same way as the original, it has no dark atmosphere, Buttgereit uses his score again, only different.
Before The SURPRISE ENDING I wanted to do cruel things to the screenplay; I yelled and tried to turn it off.I hated this movie,to tell you Monika ,our new hero goes in the cemetery in broad daylight and digs up Rob Shmadtke who had a less boring life then her.
This film is actually dead, but doesn't know it.There was nothing new at all in Nekromantik 2,there's an seal autopsy with women fixed to the screen,it may have worked in the first Nekromantik but it has no reason in this.
Lucker the necrophagous, kissed, aftermath, and Nekromantik had better ways of showing us the characters lives, and they had better ones.Monika doesn't really know what she wants in life or in death,we don't really get to know much about her except she likes having sex with Mark without moving,watching animal autopsies and hanging with friends.
A few things that annoyed me :the swaying of the camera in a bar scene where Mark yaks with a friend, Monika M's face and acting throughout,she even cuts Rob's body apart.
But sure,I'll try seeing Buttgereit's Schramm and the Death king.I just won't watch this again
but maybe the ending.
*******CONTAINS SPOILERS*************** Anyone with a more extreme taste for horror cinema would surely have come across the Nekromantik films at one time or another, and after finally hearing so much about them i procured copies of 1 and 2.
I will not go into part one here, but part 2 was simply a really low budget (it looks horrible, which kind of gives the film a dirty nihilistic feel) art fest with two extreme gore sequences...The first is a massively long sequence of the 'protagonist' cutting up the dead body of Rob which she has dug up, the scene drags on for what seems like 25 minutes, with Monika slowly sawing each limb off the corpse and pulling out its entrails.
This scene involves Monika finally deciding that she wants the best of both worlds, that is her living boyfriends body, with her dead boyfriends head.
I fast forwarded through 70% of the movie (and i never do that) because it was simply painful to watch.Its like Jorg Buttface was giving a slap to the face of gorehounds, saying "im going to give you one real cool gore sequence, but before you see that, you're going to have to sit through the *beep*est 90 minutes of celluloid you're likely to see this year!" And i include the cutting up of the corpse..
The acting is better but still worse, the story line is also a turkey but this kind of movies must have it from the gore factor and yep, there's a lot.
Like the first one the movie is a bit too long but the second part also became cult due the fact of , again, the love scene.
1. She has mixed feelings regarding necrophilia, it is hard to come to terms with(In the beginning she vomits when she fondles Rob.) the loneliness of love for the dead, and Mark could represent her genuine hope of connecting with Life as well as Death.
With that thought in mind there are films I've come to in my travels that at the end i ask myself or whoever is still in the room at that time " How can you follow that one up?".
Monika meets a nice guy who dubs porn films for a living.
After some odd indicators that Monika isn't who she says she is and some soul searching she decides to have her cake...or corpse and eat it too resulting in a creative but disgusting solution to her love troubles.Now first off i do not in any way shape or form advocate or condone necrophilia but the film was solid.
Love it or hate it this is one of the few times that one will find a film that actually lives up to the original.
Keeping Robert's severed head in a wooden chest and his pecker in her refrigerator, Monika M will have to come to a decision regarding Mark and the result is quite a hatchet job, let me tell you(*wink* *wink*).Well, you do see a little bit of necro-loving, and if you are looking for some shocking, disturbing subject matter, director Jörg Buttgereit doesn't fail to deliver the goods.
Jörg Buttgereit takes plenty of time shooting the sky or a lizard / snail under Monika's surveillance as she conducts her sickening activities.The opening of the film carefully studies Monika's desecration of Robert's grave, preparing us for what is to come.
Nekromantik 2 is set in Germany where a nurse named Monika (Monika M.) digs up the corpse of necrophiliac Robert Schmadtke from the original Nekromantic (1987), she takes it back to her flat where she has sex with it.
While this is happening Monika is also seeing a guy called Mark (Mark Reeder) who starts to have suspicions about her when she asks him to have sex but not to move while doing so & the strange photo's of him in dead positions don't help either, unable to be totally satisfied in bed by either the living or deceased Monika devises a plan to have the best of both worlds...This German production was co-edited, co-written & directed by Jorg Buttgereit & I have to say Nekromantik 2 is an acquired taste to say the least.
The script by Buttgereit & Franz Rodenkirchen doesn't really have a plot so to speak, it's a bizarre & often grotesque character study of someone who has necrophilia & if that sounds like something you would enjoy watching then the original Nekromantic & this sequel are the films for you as I don't think there are many other films quite like them.
There are some strange scenes though, particularly when Mark finds Robert's severed penis in Monika's fridge & doesn't seem to say anything, I mean wouldn't you?
There's the predictable gross scenes of sex with a corpse, there's an extremely gory decapitation & a sequence where Monika saws Robert's corpse up in a bath, it's lovingly shown in detail complete with severed body parts & intestines.
The acting is OK by people who probably needed the money.Nekromantik 2 is not a film for everyone, I found a certain morbid fascination with it & it's got some nasty scenes in it which helps although I'm not sure everyone will agree with me & take many positives from it.
I haven't seen any other scene like that involving a decapitation, gore, and sex in such a brutal way.
The gore effects are also top notch and are the highlight of the movie.The movie is worth the watch for it's shocking content and brutal scenes.
This sequel to "Nekromantik" is pretty weak to me.The first one is filled with magic,whilst "Nekromantik 2" is just overly long and dull.A young woman named Monika(Monika M.)takes home a corpse of Robert,the necrophile murderer who committed suicide at the end of the first film.Then she finds a live boyfriend-his name is Mark and he has a job dubbing porn movies.They strike up a relationship,but soon all hell breaks loose..."Nekromantik 2" is a slow-moving film filled with meaningless sequences.The special effects are excellent-Robert's rotting corpse is disturbingly real.The sequence,where Monika dismembers his body is truly hideous.There is also very graphic footage of a seal autopsy that will definitely sicken most viewers.The climax has to be seen to be believed-it's so sick and horrendously gory that it won't be easily forgotten.This is perhaps the most graphic depiction of sexual violence ever captured on film,therefore it's a crying shame that the rest of the film is so pointless.Still if you liked "Nekromantik" give this one a look..
"Nekromantik 2" came out 4 years after the original movie and the writer and director, as usual, is Jörg Buttgereit. |
tt0973790 | Steel Trap | With a million dollars cash in the vault, Jim Osborne (Joseph Cotten), an assistant bank manager in Los Angeles, is tempted to steal from his own bank and flee the country. Doing research at the library, he learns that Brazil has no extradition treaty with the United States. If he steals the money at close of business on a Friday, he will have time to travel to Brazil before the theft is even discovered. But the season when the bank opens on Saturdays is about to begin, so he must take action the same week or else wait for months.
He tells his wife Laurie (Teresa Wright) that the bank is sending him to Rio de Janeiro on business and he wants her and their daughter to travel with him. It is a great opportunity for his career, he says, and he has been given it in preference to the person who would normally be sent, so he cautions her not to talk to anyone about it. Laurie is delighted with the news, but insists their daughter stay at home with Laurie's mother. Jim decides he can send for her after Laurie knows they are staying in Rio.
With his inside knowledge and trusted position, the theft from the bank vault is simple enough, but the travel logistics are difficult. Flights are full, passports and visas are needed on a rush basis, and the Osbornes face a series of delays and miss a connection at New Orleans. At this point an airline employee, made suspicious by Jim's urgent manner and very heavy baggage, tips off a customs officer to check whether he is illegally exporting gold, and the money is revealed.
Unreported large cash transactions are legal in 1952, but the customs man knows it is not at all normal for a bank to send only a single employee with so much cash. Though he suspects some wrongdoing, he cannot reach Jim's boss by telephone before the Osbornes' flight is called, and there is no customs violation, so he lets them go. However, they are on standby and the flight is already full. They will not be able to reach Rio on Sunday. Now fearing arrest, Jim checks into a hotel using a false name. Laurie overhears this, realizes the truth, and confronts him. When he admits what he has done, she wants no part in it; she flies back to Los Angeles.
Within hours Jim realizes that his wife and daughter are far more important to him than his dreams of wealth. Fortunately, it may still be possible to save the situation. Laurie was too upset to tell anyone why she had suddenly returned, and Jim has used his own money for their travel expenses, so the bank's money is intact. After phoning his wife, Jim flies back and just manages to replace the money before it is missed. | murder | train | wikipedia | If you're looking for a horror movie that is just simple and a bit "mindless", then Steel Trap may just be for you.
Its starts off interesting with the use of children nursery rhymes to try to add a scary element to the movie, but then half way in, decides to forget about it.
It tries to draw you in by making you believe it's going to be a unique horror film, but ends up being another slasher movie.
It seemed like the writers were trying too hard to make the characters sound "American" with the overuse of profanity and the poor choice of dialog.
This did hurt the movie towards the end of the film, when things were being resolved, as all the pieces of the puzzle didn't add up well enough for me.
The movie even tries to hint itself at the ending and the killer, but as stated before, the lack of story development hurt the film's chance to give you that "oh my gosh" ending it was trying to go for.
Not overcomplicated, nothing too confusing thrown at you, honestly, Steel Trap is good if you just want a B or C rated horror movie to throw in the DVD player on a night you don't have anything better to do.
Some directors seem to think that this is the easiest genre out there, and that anyone can make a horror movie, but nothing could be further from the truth.Steel Trap is yet another really poor attempt at making a buck of other peoples original ideas.
At first, I thought this would be something of a Saw type of movie, but it is more like a straight forward slasher.
It's really not that difficult to attract say the police or fire department to a skyscraper in the middle of a large city.If you're bored out of your skull, I suppose this movie is better than staring at the wall or re-arranging your sock drawer, but if you've got anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, better to do, I suggest you do that instead of watching Steel Trap..
A bad horror movie.
I think that a filmmaker who decides to make a slasher flick has two choices : having a lot of faith on the screenplay and to trust that he found a new perspective for making that formula interesting or making a completely mercenary film which is full of clichés for finally making a cheap movie.The crappy film Steel Trap belongs to the second style.The slasher films became popular thanks to Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th and,since of that,we have seen hundred of movies with similar structures,characters and story.The details change,so every slasher movie tries to be different by using a curious location or a new mask,just to mention two examples.I do not pretend to find a lot of originality on slasher films but what I pretend to find is even the minimum effort for giving the known formula a special element,making it interesting and entertaining.Steel Trap could have chosen that difficult point but,instead of risking,director and co-screenwriter Luis Cámara and co-screenwriter Gabrielle Galanter wasted that opportunity so Steel Trap is a tedious experience with an extremely weak screenplay,repulsive characters,a boring and generic killer without any personality and a forced and arbitrary ending.I usually do not like to criticize an independent film from my favourite genre but,even on some incompetent works (like Return to Sleepaway Camp),I appreciate some energy and enthusiasm which on some way compensate some fails of the movie.But Steel Trap does not even have that.Plus,to add more negative things,Cámara's direction is completely insipid.In other words,it seems nobody involved on this movie was really interested on it.The characters are so repulsive that I was glad when the killer started to kill them.Steel Trap is a very crappy film.This is one of that movies in which I feel I really lost the time with it and that's the worst sin a movie can make.If you wanna see a very good modern slasher flick,I recommend you the Norwegian movie Fritt Vilt.Skip Steel Trap,a very bad horror film..
Ten years after his first short director Luis Camera made his first effort to make a full feature in the horror genre.
Another thing that tears it down is for example one being stabbed by a knife but after a few moments he talks again like nothing is going on.Due the gore added it is still watchable but it do has some stupid situations.Gore 2/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5.
During a New Year's Eve party in a closed office building, the successful chef Kathy King (Georgia Mackenzie) and the guests Wade (Mark Wilson), Robert (Pascal Langdale), his fiancée Nicole (Julia Ballard), Melanie (Annabelle Wallis) and Adam (Adam Rayner) are invited to a VIP party on another floor by a mysterious guest.
Sooner they learn that they are trapped and without any way out from the floor and their host is killing them, one by one."Steel Trap" is another stupid and absurd slasher, with awful and aggressive dialogs – most of the women are called "bitch" or "slut" without any reaction; non-likable characters; unbelievable situations in an abandoned building where all the floors are neat and operable; excessive use of clichés; and a lame, ridiculous and absurd conclusion.
Good movie for New Year's Eve!.
In any case, if you need a horror movie for New Year's Eve, you could do worse than this one.
It is generally enjoyable, and actually stays truer to the New Year's Eve theme throughout the movie than Bloody New Year (1987) which got kind of Christmas-y in the middle.
Anyway..The movie opens on a New Year's Eve party complete with a rock performance of Auld Lang Syne on top of an abandoned office building.
As they split off to solve riddles, the killer starts picking them off in twisted ways.The production values are good, and personally I think the acting is not bad.
The characters go nuts rather quickly, and the "guy you now hate" is clearly reaching to make you hate him, going off about everything that is too stupid to go off about.But overall the movie is enjoyable.
this was a pretty lame horror movie in my opinion.the kills are pretty tame,even weak.i'd say it was a Saw rip off,but it doesn't even come close to that film.it's not nearly as clever.none of the actors seem to be putting fort any effort.the dialogue is pretty lame too,in my mind at least.for most of the running time,this thing is trying to be a serious horror film,but it abruptly changes tone at the end and becomes a black comedy.ironically,the ending is the only part of the movie that works,for me anyway.i expected it to take the usual route most horror/slasher flicks take,but it didn't so kudos to the filmmakers for that at least.still,that does little to save the movie.for me Steel Trap is a 4/10.
This is the second part of my little review series: Movies that are way better than you expect."Steel trap" seems at first sight to be another ordinary psychological thriller or slasher movie in the shadows of the great "The cube", "Mind Hunters" and "Saw".
I expected a movie of a quality comparable to "House of 9" or "Nine dead" but I was rather wrong.The movie starts with the introduction to some stereotypical and rather ordinary characters and I was already close to judge the lack of originality of this movie.
The killing methods turned out to be rather original, the atmosphere was sinister and gripping and the whole story attached me more to the characters.
The great thing is that there are many wrong clues and also some right ones and I happened to analyze the behaviour of each candidate and had to change my mind and opinion many times.The third and last great surprise is without a doubt the twist in the end of the movie that I didn't really see coming.
This ending really rated this movie way up beyond the average slasher flick.To keep it short, this is a rather original and gripping movie of a more and more popular genre and the rating average in here is definitely way too low.
The movie is entertaining and an ideal choice for any horror movie night with your mates and you will keep guessing and expecting until the very end..
Now coming from someone who is very much into the horror genre and can usually find some shining moments in the worst of the worst gore or scare flicks, I really can't think of one nice thing to say about this one except for - It was so bad I laughed a few times...
But not in the way a Troma movie is so bad it made you laugh.
No, no, no, Steel Trap was just really bad.
At a upscale New Years party on the top of an abandoned high rise, several extremely annoying individuals are invited down a few floors to where the "real party is at".
There are no inventive deaths, no well built suspense, no likable characters, atrocious acting - good and evil, and worst of all the dialouge is so forced it will embarrass you to no end..
Five people are lured away from a New Years' Eve party on the rooftop of an abandoned building, with the promise of a more interesting party just a few floors below.
Our protagonists often spend their time sniping at each other in this ultimately lame survival thriller.Very annoying characters populate this hackneyed, nondescript story, which can't work up any surprises that are worth a damn.
Some members of the horror audience may be expecting something more along the lines of a "Saw" sequel, but in truth, while the movie is somewhat sadistic it's never overly gory.
bad acting, predictable, nothing to waste your time on.
NOthing to do with the movie and technically there is NO steel trap so inaccurate title also.
Steel Trap starts New Years Eve at a glitzy flash high profile media party held in an abandoned skyscraper, five of the guest's get cryptic text messages on their phones which goad them into taking the elevator to a lower floor where another even more interesting sounding is being held.
As the groups number decreases as various people are killed off the survivors try to figure out who is behind the clues & deadly traps & find a safe way out...Tellingly also known as Jigsaw: Tower of Death this German production was co-written & directed by Luis Cámara & shot under the title The Condemned this is a fairly decent if average Saw (2004) rip-off with a bunch of character's running around some enclosed location being killed off by various traps set-up by some mysterious villain.
For what it is Steel Trap isn't too bad actually, I mean it's not brilliant but it's watchable.
One thing that stands out here is how unlikable the character's are & it's quite satisfying to see them killed off.
The reasons behind the killer & their motives are alright, there's nothing profound or deep here & the twists & revelations won't amaze you but they work well enough & I do like the fact that the villain is seen to win & I liked that their main motive was just plain revenge & that killing the other character's off just felt good.
The death's could have used a bit more gore & imagination while the traps themselves aren't that clever while the whole set-up is rather complicated & for everything to happen the way it does took some planning.
At 88 odd minutes the pace is alright although by the end scene after scene of people running around exactly the same looking corridors does tend to get tiresome although the final twist just about makes the effort worth it.The film starts off quite gory with a severed pigs head & a guy who has his lips sewn shut & then hung upside down & his throat is cut but then the other kills aren't quite as good with blood splatter but little graphic violence, a woman has an axe banged into her head, there's a cool slit throat & a ripped out heart.
The film looks pretty good & is competent, there's none of that shaky hand-held crap & no fast quick editing either which always helps.Apparently shot in Cologne in Germany I assume this is meant to be set in the US as all the character's speak English & things like mobile phones, exit signs & messages are all written in English.
The acting is alright from a decent looking cast that features adults rather than annoying teens.Steel Trap is a fairly decent Saw rip-off as some mysterious killer uses various traps to kill off some people trapped inside a building, it's not great or anything but I thought it was alright for what it was & is watchable if nothing else..
It looks like someone wanted to take advantage of the success of slasher/thriller movies like SAW and Battle Royale but just couldn't think of an original idea, so mixed thriller classics, and added some blood.
The characters are all very annoying and the story lacks any kind of suspense.
Very interesting and gripping; the characters are likable and the fear is believable, and whilst I initially thought that the twist was a bit tacky to begin with, the more it carried on the more I was pleased and surprised with how it developed.
A New Years Party on the top of a plush abandoned building.
A group of spoiled success types(..rock singer, newspaper columnist, television exec, celebrity cook, entertainment lawyer, high-maintenance slut)find themselves trapped in the isolated wings of the abandoned building after following a riddle to a properly prepared party by a psycho.
The gore-murders lack bite and slasher fans who watch this genre passionately will find them merely adequte.
This is a rather tedious slasher with a lot of the film showing this group trying to find an exit while bickering with each other.
There's of course a twist(..does the killer have a partner in crime?), but "Steel Trap" is little more than a tired Saw retread set in a building that lacks atmosphere, no matter how often the lights blink on and off.
The killer should be creepy, but he's merely a walking kill-device whose motives for committing these acts is embarrassingly uninspired.
Some slasher fans might get a kick out of who's *really* behind this mind trap, as the film closes with a warped comic tone mimicking cooking shows.
The riddles used in the film are corny instead of witty, leading the characters in a maze of doors and rooms with the killer knowing exactly where to strike almost at all times..
And what is it exactly that everyone here has in common?And how many times has he seen Saw?The first thing to notice in this film, is the abominable acting.
It truly is some of the worst performances i have seen, and each line that is delivered is cringe inducing.The characters are unlikeable people, and the killers outfit looks like something out of doctor who.
The kills are boring, and no real effort has been made to make this film even slightly original.It's as if they have taken the sludge from Saw 2 and tried to make something out of it, and we just get something boring, not even entertaining in the slightest.But the twist at the end is hilariously bad and almost makes up for the preceding 90 minutes.
A select number of people at a New Year's Eve party receive a text message that instructs them to a private party on the 27th floor.
The characters have been hand selected by a slasher in a mask who is stalking the building and floor.
This modern day slasher film has a few interesting plot twists to keep you guessing and interested, such as why has this group been selected to be slaughtered?
Certainly slasher film fans will have the most fun here.
The movies biggest flaw, and it's a common one, is that most of the characters are so obnoxious you want to see them die.
Seven people who are celebrating New Year's Eve in a high-rise office building find themselves being forced by a cunning mysterious psychopath to participate in a deadly game.
Director Luis Camera, who also co-wrote the clever script with Gabrielle Galanter, relates the absorbing story at a snappy pace, builds a good deal of tension, and makes excellent atmospheric use of the claustrophobic setting.
STEEL TRAP is one of these type of movies that appears on obscure horror channels , channels which are so obscure they usually hype up a film like this like it's the latest Hollywood blockbuster .
Having said that I did STEEL TRAP was possibly better than I was expecting , but that's not saying much The story is interesting enough .
A bunch of drug taking , middle class 30 somethings meet at a new years party and find themselves getting invited to a party on another floor , one that promises much fun and excitement only to find that the party guests are now fighting for their lives .
There is some interest in the scenario , despite - or more likely because of - the unoriginality involved STEEL TRAP does have its moments .
There's nods to SAW and CUBE though to be fair the movie doesn't over do the gore too much in order to disguise its short comings However the biggest shortcoming is the ending where a character then explains the motives for the murders committed .
It's a bit like watching MISEREY which is no bad thing in itself these type of having to explain everything is somewhat patronising .
I've also never understood why in these type of movies everyone else gets killed without any explanation except for the last man standing. |
tt0061138 | Un homme et une femme | A young widow, Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimée), is raising her daughter Françoise (Souad Amidou) alone following the death of her husband (Pierre Barouh) who worked as a stuntman and who died in a movie set accident that she witnessed. Still working as a film script supervisor, Anne divides her time between her home in Paris and Deauville in northern France where her daughter attends boarding school. A young widower, Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant), is raising his son Antoine (Antoine Sire) alone following the death of his wife Valerie (Valerie Lagrange) who committed suicide after Jean-Louis was in a near fatal crash during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Still working as a race car driver, Jean-Louis divides his time between Paris and Deauville where his son also attends boarding school.
One day Anne and Jean-Louis meet at the Deauville boarding school after Anne misses the last train back to Paris. Jean-Louis offers her a lift and the two become acquainted during the drive home, enjoying each other's company. When he drops her off, he asks if she would like to drive up together the following weekend, and she gives him her phone number. After a busy week at the track preparing for the next race, Jean-Louis calls and they meet early Sunday morning and drive to Deauville in the rain. Clearly attracted to each other, they enjoy a pleasant Sunday lunch with their children who get along well. Later that afternoon they go for a boat ride followed by a walk on the beach at sunset.
Jean-Louis spends the following week preparing for and driving in the Monte Carlo Rally in southeast France. Every day, Anne closely follows news reports of the race, which takes place in poor weather conditions along the icy roads of the French Riviera. Of the 273 cars that started the race, only 42 were able to finish, including Jean Louis's white Mustang, number 184. Watching the television coverage of the conclusion of the race, Anne sends Jean-Louis a telegram that reads, "Bravo! I love you. Anne."
That night at a dinner for the drivers at the Monte Carlo Casino, Jean-Louis receives the telegram and leaves immediately. He jumps into the same car he used during the race and drives through the night to Paris, telling himself that when a woman sends a telegram like that, you go to her no matter what. Along the way he imagines what their reunion will be like. At her Paris apartment, Jean-Louis learns that Anne is in Deauville, so he continues north. Jean-Louis finally arrives in Deauville and finds Anne and the two children playing on the beach. When they see each other, they run into each other's arms and embrace.
After dropping their children off at the boarding school, Jean-Louis and Anne drive into town where they rent a room and begin to make love with passionate tenderness. While they are in each other's arms, however, Jean-Louis senses that something is not right. Anne's memories of her deceased husband are still with her and she feels uncomfortable continuing. Anne says it would be best for her to take the train back to Paris alone. After dropping her off at the station, Jean-Louis drives home alone, unable to understand her feelings. On the train Anne can only think of Jean-Louis and their time together. Meanwhile, Jean-Louis drives south through the French countryside to the Paris train station, just as her train is arriving. As she leaves the train, she spots Jean-Louis and is surprised, hesitates briefly, and then walks toward him and they embrace. | romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0364751 | Without a Paddle | Ten years after graduating high school, three friends, Jerry (Matthew Lillard), Dan (Seth Green) and Tom (Dax Shepard), find out that their childhood friend, Billy (Antony Starr), died in a para-sailing accident in Costa Rica. After the burial, they take a trip down to memory lane and enter their tree house, where the four hung out when they were children. They find a map leading to D. B. Cooper's lost treasure that Billy has apparently been working on his whole life. Dan takes a break from his job as a doctor and joins Jerry and Tom on a camping trip to find the treasure.They take a canoe down the river and find Grandpa's Nose (a rock formation), and they stay on the riverside for the night. Standing around the camp fire, they discover they forgot to bring food; so Tom goes out to catch some fish. Despite his shining skills, a grizzly bear shows up and chases the group away. Dan trips and is caught up with by the bear, who thinks Dan is its cub. It brings Dan back to its 'nest' and forces him to eat a mutilated dead squirrel. Dan manages to escape and the trio ends up sleeping in a tree. In the morning, they find all their gear ripped up and completely destroyed by the bear - even Dan's cellphone, which the animal swallowed. The bear, they find to their dismay, had also ripped a hole in the map.The trio takes off in the river, but, unable to read the map, they go the wrong way. The split leads them into rapids where they are nearly killed and drowned. The map is lost, and they end up falling off a waterfall, but landing safely in a belly of water. Unfortunately, their canoe has been smashed to pieces. They take off into the woods with a compass and find themselves at a pot farm, in which two violent farmers, Dennis (Abraham Benrubi) and Elwood (Ethan Suplee), mistake them for thieves and start shooting at them. The friends escape into the farm, but the security flares go off and hit the growth, causing a bunch of smoke to wallow around and get the trio effectively stoned. While the farmers, wearing bandannas over their faces, are on their tail, the guys fall into a pond barely escape, using reeds to breathe. The farmers take off, and the guys then run into the woods. In the morning, the farmers find their crop burned and they set off to kill Jerry, Dan and Tom.The trio meets two hippie girls far into the forest, who treat the men with food, communication, and love up in their huge tree. Using the radio, the farmers find them and attempt to cut down the tree, both distressing and enraging the hippie girls. They drop paper bags full of feces at the farmers to distract them while the guys escape. Half naked, the guys are lost into the woods, while it is pouring rain. The only way they have to survive is to hold on to each other for warmth. Suddenly, they are caught by a man living up in the mountains, who takes the them up to his hut and provides them with clothes. The man is named Del Knox (Burt Reynolds), once D. B.'s partner before his death.The next morning, the farmers find them and assault the house. The guys escape while Del Knox shoots at the two bad guys with his revolver. The guys stumble upon the site in which D. B. crashed landed, discovering his corpse along with the suitcase holding the money. It turns out that D. B. burned his share of the money, just for a few more minutes of life. They then toss their valuable possessions on his body, including Dan's C-3PO action figure, Jerry's Brian Bosworth card, and Tom's condom. The only way out of the cave is for Dan to crawl through a small tunnel. The farmers find Jerry and Tom below and Dan comes from the ground and hits them with a log. The farmers fall down and they engage in a brawl with Tom and Jerry, consisting of Tom kicking the gun out of Elwood's hands, Dennis tossing Jerry onto the ground, Then Tom leaps onto Dennis's back so Dennis spins Tom off, then they begin punching, kicking and biting. Eventually, a sheriff (who actually helped Dan, Tom, and Jerry in the beginning) arrives; however, it is discovered that he was working with the pot farmers all along. The three are cornered and Jerry, who took one of the farmer's grenades, flips off the pin but accidentally drops it. Moments before it blows, he throws it towards the bad guys; it explodes, causing a tree to fall on the farmers and sheriff. The three bad guys are arrested afterwards.In the end, Jerry, Dan, and Tom earn half of the remaining money from D. B. Cooper's partner. Jerry proposes to his girlfriend, Dan starts a relationship with one of the hippie girls and gets laid for the first time, and Tom is a camp counselor for a children's summer camp, who ends up telling his troop all about the camping trip. | violence, romantic, humor, storytelling, home movie | train | imdb | The film talks about a trio friends(Seth Green,Dax Shepard,Matthew Lillard),later the death a childhood's friend ,they propose the making a hick by canoe into woods of Oregon territory.Their aim is the looking for of D.B Cooper bounty for carrying out the promise they made when were little boys .Cooper was a mythic high-jacker(nowadays famous by character played by Muse Watson in ¨Prison Break¨)who jumped from the airplane(1971) and parachuted,disappearing posteriorly,although his bounty was partially found.The misfit group fulfill a canoeing along the Columbia river where find numerous risks,rapid streams,waterfalls and get worse, besides in the surface encounters dangerous animals like a bear and a drug-cultivating rednecks.But also they know a beautiful girls(Rachel Blanchard and Christina Moore) living on a tree and an older mountain man(Burt Reynolds).The picture mingles comedy,adventures,action,cynical sense of humor and is pretty bemusing.It's a crossover among ¨Deliverance¨even with the presence of Burt Reynolds and ¨City slickers¨as a Philadelphia young people who are going to countryside excursion.The movie displays several ingredients for the entertaining as glimmer outdoors,stirring canoeing,sexy-girls and thrilling pursuits.The humor is intelligent and bold though sometimes is gross-out.Most of the laughters and sight gags galore work acceptably,especially the jokes between the three friends,as when they flee of the dangerous rednecks and dropped underwater or when the damp trio sleep gather together.Wonderful landscapes are splendidly reflected by the cameraman Jonathan Brown and appropriate musical score by Christophe Beck.The motion picture is professionally directed by Steven Brill.
Along the way, they encounter everything from a bear, tree-hugging hotties, and a couple of pot growing rednecks.This film has some of the funniest scenes that I have seen in a long time.
The image of Mott saying 'help' as he looked back while being carried off had me laughing way too high way too long but it and some other scenes were hilarious and I couldn't help it then either.All in all a good film for the genre.
There they meet up with wild man Burt Reynolds, who was acclaimed for his performance in the original 'Deliverance', actually the character that Shepard inherited in this 'remake'.There are no actual thrills in 'Without a Paddle' (unlike 'Deliverance'!!!), it sets its sight on glorious comedy.
But it you want to cut loose and have fun and laugh 'til you hurt, then this is the movie for you.Seth Green, as always, plays it straight and ends up being the funniest one of all.
They decide to continue his journey, but do not understand the dangers they will soon encounter.Although the cast listing of 'Without a Paddle' is small, it's still got three great comedy stars leading it.
Still, it is not very long and will still make a good movie to watch on a wet day."Help me." - Dan Mott (Seth Green).
Three childhood friends (Seth Green, Matthew Lilard, Dax Sheppard) reunite at a friend's funeral, and go off on a camping trip downstream to try and find the lost treasure they always dreamed of finding in their youth in his honour.
(one finds Dax Shepard riding his motorcycle into the graveyard at the burial of his friend, and bellowing out to the funeral attendees 'Where did you guys park?') The inclusion of Burt Reynolds' crazy mountain man is a comedic plus, but the nature loving hippy-girls and uncouth drug traffickers which pop up periodically aren't as funny as they should be.
The odd laugh will definitely turn up, but there are many better comedies around, so unless you're simply up for an evening of mostly forgettable fun, you might want to leave Without a Paddle wallowing in the shallows.6.5/10.
I didn't even know Dax Shepard was a real actor but after seeing his performance in this movie he most likely won't branch out from comedy.
At first I saw it because I'm in love with Matthew Lillard and Seth Green, but now I'm seeing it again cause it was so funny.The movie had really great actors who really brought the movie to life.
Two of the main characters are named Tom & Jerry which is a perfect choice, because in all of those Tom & Jerry cartoons I've watched, I didn't see them get into as much as trouble as the characters in this movie get into.Just like any other copies of the genre, with the help of all that adventure they encounter, they end up their journey with a moralistic lesson which might be about friendship, or live the moment, or any other thing.
There's also a certain degree of surrealness in the things they encounter - the women who live in a tree to protect it from loggers are a definite high point!Overall it's not a very good movie - the plot is pretty thin, and the vast majority of the jokes are the sort that make you smile rather than the sort that make you laugh.
If you're looking for a film that requires little or no thought but delivers good laughs in a "Road Trip" wilderness-type setting, then this is for you.
Quite what Matthew Lillard and Seth Green, in particular, were thinking when they agreed to this is beyond me.3 childhood friends united in their early 30s when their 4th member dies decide to realise his 'legacy' by going on a treasure hunt he planned in meticulous detail.
When I first saw the television ads for this movie, I thought it looked like another of the countless dumb comedies Hollywood seems to crank out these days.
The DVD cast commentary is quite funny, and you can tell they had a great time making the movie.
Matthew Lillard is obviously one of the worst actors of modern times (his 'work' in the Scooby-Doo masterpieces vouches for it); the storyline is SO old, oh my God, I've probably seen 50 'go for the treasure and end up spiritually lifted' comedies (why didn't they stop with City Slickers?); the two moronic rednecks(you were right about Wrong Turn-a comedy in its own way), the cheesy, totally not funny 'weed jokes'(STOP WITH THE 'dogs on drugs' jokes PLEASE-see Road Trip-)-all of this should be enough to scare off any movie goer.I have all possible respect however for the tree-hippies (the typical teen comedy nude scene was inexplicably amiss however).
I'm a big fan of the Road Trip/Campus Comedy movies, but sadly this movie misses the mark, and was frankly a bit of a let down.It isn't awful, it just lacks laughs too often and can't compete with the likes of Road Trip/American Pie and Old School to name a few.It isn't all bad news, Without a paddle does have some amusing moments, and some interesting characters, but just not enough to become a great comedy.Worth a watch.Just don't expect too much.6/10.
I really expected to enjoy this movie because I looked forward to seeing Matthew Lillard, Seth Green, and the other guy-Dax Shepherd.
The DB Cooper part of the film gave me a good "Goonies" vibe, but the film goes stale trying to hard to be funny.From a bear attack that goes awry, to two of the stupidest rednecks in the history of stupid rednecks (and that is saying something), to dog's tripping on pot (I know Hollywood smokes the green occasionally, so why do they always make heads have visuals.
Burt Reynolds makes a brief appearance and shows us exactly why they say he is the biggest actor to ever star in so many bombs, his range is so limited as seen in this film.The plot is not bad at all, in fact to some degree is somewhat a original spin on an overused idea (White Water Summer, Deliverence, City Slickers, etc.).
i liked this movie.it has been a while since i seen a good movie.at first i didn't care to see it cause i thought it would be dumb but my husband talked me into it.they coulnd have picked a better name cause that name was a little cheesy...after i found out kevin bacon was in it and seth green i knew it had to be good..i give props to kevin!!!I liked the way they went down the waterfall i know if they actually had to do that it would have been real scary..i don't know if i could do somethin like that.the most funny part was when they were under that rock and were cuddled up with each other.the bear was a good scene especially when he carried seth off thinking it was a cub..
My best friends and I watched this in high school, although we live in different places in the country now we still refer to the movie all the time and when we can get together, it's just like the movie in the way we are catching up, doing stupid stuff, and laughing.
Dax Shepard as Tom gives a performance that is entertaining and makes us like his character, much like Zach in the sequel, except Tom doesn't have an equivalent in that movie.I mostly feel sorry for Seth Green here as Dan, but he has his moments.
I appreciated the camaraderie of the three friends (Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard), the hip soundtrack, the excellent guest appearance of Burt Reynolds and the awesome New Zealand locations.
Its a fun-loving tale about friendship & adventure!'Without a Paddle' Synopsis: After their friend dies, three men decide to fulfill their childhood promise by going on a camping expedition for the lost D.B. Cooper bounty, with calamitous results.'Without a Paddle' works wonders as an entertainer.
Editing is pretty good.Performance-Wise: Seth Green, Matthew Lillard & Dax Shepard are in top-form, enacting the likable leading-men with terrific energy.
I think it was awesome, the fact that these guys are really good friends and at the same time their always insulting each other makes me roll on the floor laughing.
I also loved it when the old man, says "If you want something you got to go get it, and you got to go right now" when it pouring rain outside, so the 3 guys get up and the guy says "Not right now you idiots, I just really laughed there, i think its a great movie.
i liked seth green way more after i saw this movie, same as matthew lillard.
This was a truly excellent comedy!!!!!!!!American Pie meets the Goonies meets Stand by Me!!!I'm the same age as the guys in movie, so guess the movie relates to me pretty well, I laughed all the way through, from the rapids and them going over the waterfall, to hippy chicks in the trees dropping turds on the bad guys.I read the rating on IMDb for this movie and thought it was going to be lame, i was surprised it turned out to be hilarious, cant wait for the DVD release.This wont go down as a classic but will have you in stitches, and the complimentary feel good ending of a good comedy, made this one of the best films I've seen this year.
After all, it's about time Seth Green played a super-nerd and Dax Shepard got a major role in a movie!
I bought this movie on DVD when it first came out and I watch it every now and then when I feel like a good laugh!
Once in the wilderness, they encounter a ferocious grizzly bear, a couple of tree-hugging (and tree-dwelling) nymphets, and two hillbilly pot farmers who look and act like a couple of leftovers from a touring company of "Deliverance." Dax Shepard, Matthew Lillard and Seth Green play the young men who spend most of their time rescuing one another from death-defying accidents or running for their lives from predatory man and beast - with the occasional time out for big-think observations around the campfire about freedom vs.
It was awesome actually being in Oregon and seeing this movie which takes place in Oregon (even though it was filmed in New Zealand), and each time they would mention something about the state or show footage of something that looked like it, the audience responded gleefully.Plot summery: Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Shephard, all attend the funeral of an old friend in Oregon state.
They decide that in memory of their friend, they will go on a camping trip and find the treasure.What follows is the some of the best comedy I've ever seen in a movie.
I already knew about Seth Green (Dan Mott) and Matthew Lillard (Jerry Conlaine) from prior films, but I had never seen Dax Shepard (Tom Marshall).
It did have some hilarious moments but it still had an almost serious storyline and a good adventure story as well, and as a big fan of adventure films, i really liked the movie.I love comedies as well, but sometimes when adventure and comedy cross together they can become really corny, but seeing as this movie is not a big budget adventure film the comedy fits in perfectly, and after all it is a comedy film.The story follows three old reunited friends on a quest to find their deceased friends' treasure after discovering a map in their old club tree house.The three main characters, played by Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Sheppard, are so funny together and are perfectly cast.The film has a serious and sentimental side to it.
I have never seen one of Seth Green's movies, but this is the first time and he is a really good actor.
I have enjoyed watching Dax Shepherd on Punk'd, but he is a much better actor in real movies than I think most people give him credit for.
Great laughs and a feel-good movie.
I watched it again and i had to laugh equally loud as i did the first time.This movie has every ingredient a good Road-Trip movie should have.A adventure; seeking the long lost treasure of DB Cooper, hot chicks, redneck weedgrowing hillbillies, a protective bear, and the best of all are the 3 main characters.
The blue river, the green mountain, the fresh air, I wish that I can live in a place like that.Seth green is adorable, I don't know how old he is, but he is like a big kid in this movie, his acting looks natural and naive which made his jokes even funnier.I wish that I can have a fun adventure with those guys in the wild, that would be so unforgettable!.
And a lot of laughs, not least Burt Reynold appearing in the role as the guy had lived alone in the wood for thirty years, looking for his friend Cooper and his fortune!
The acting of the Seth Green, Dax Shepard and Matthew Lilliard as the three friends is superb, as is that of the bad guys; Ray Baker, Ethan Suplee and Abraham Benrubi.In contrast to Deliverance this film has a fine female supporting cast, too, but they just have minor roles.As others have commented, the dialogue is great, the scenes with the female grizzly (played by Bart the Bear!!) were the best bear acting I've seen for a while.Great fun and a bit of depth as well - much better than the critics have given it credit for!
When I saw the previews for "Without a Paddle" i was expecting a stupid, plot less movie that wasn't funny in the slightest way.
This is not a bad little combination that, despite the enormous pitfalls in the story line, played quite decent.The actors in this film were not comedy genius', but the did know how to make you laugh and that worked for me.
Maybe it was the final editing, but you finished this film feeling like you missed a big chunk of the action.Overall, this was a decent little movie that had me laughing at some parts while waiting for others to end.
I thought this movie wasn't only a knee slappin comedy but it was also good cause it had a moral "Love your life and live it everyday" I thought this was a great buddy comedy and it was funny throughout the whole thing.
You should also see it for it's great actors (Seth Green, Mathew Lillard, Dax Shepard) This film may not be as amusing as you hoped cause it is very similar to the diliverance.
But none the less its funny Now for those of you who have seen it (remember the part where Tom came in on his motorcycle and asked "Where did you guys park?") "hahahahahaha",sigh, I also thought it's choice of actors were perfect paranoid Dan (Seth Green), Leader smart guy (Mathew Lillard), Tough guy/slacker (Dax Shepard.) Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Wraping up this movie was FANTASTIC about three guys that need one last childhood adventure with their best friends before realizing what great lives they had and the new ones that start with the others in their lives!!!!!!!!!!I strongly recommend this movie to anyone was has a sense of humor and is not afraid to just burst out laughing along with all the others in the audience!!!!!!!.
I really thought without a paddle was funny.its one of those movies i can see 100 times and don't get tired of it.
some of the comedy was cheap but really good.i didn't see the movie until a few years after it came out and i thought "what have i been missing out on" its not exactly a family film but still OK for older audiences.
Seth Green, I thought was the best as Scott Evil, but this movie made me really like him.
All 3 of the above actors are great, there really funny, and I never thought that with the 3 of them, there would be enough laughs as there are in this movie.
It had an interesting story co-written by Fred Wolf and Harris Goldberg (two screenwriters who have co-wrote some of my favorite comedies of all time), it had Steven Brill as the director, and it starred Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, and Dax Shepard who are all funny guys so I expected the movie to be a laugh riot. |
tt0069047 | La orgía nocturna de los vampiros | Seven very tired passengers -- Ernesto [Indio González], Godo [Luis Ciges], Cesar [David Aller], Marcos [Manuel de Blas], Alma [Dianik Zurakowska],
Raquel [Charo Soriano], and Raquel's eight year old daughter Violet [Sarita Gil] -- are traveling by
bus to Bojoni (filmed in Spain) where they have secured jobs working for
an aristocratic family. Suddenly, the bus driver suffers a heart attack.
After moving the dead driver to the back of the bus, Ernesto takes the
wheel. When a road sign indicates that Bojoni is 110 Km, while the town of
Tolnia is only 10 Km, the group decides to get dinner and lodging for the
night in Tolnia before continuing to Bojoni in the morning. When they
arrive in Tolnia, however, there is not a soul to be seen, except for
Luis [Jack Taylor], an American traveler who arrived in Tolnia about an hour ago and has
been walking around the village looking for someone...anyone.The fire in the village tavern is warm and the shelves are stocked
with liquor, so the travelers help themselves and decide to rest in the
inn's bedrooms while Ernesto stays in the tavern in case someone shows up.
As the hours pass and the clock strikes midnight, Ernesto goes out to
check on the bus and discovers that the dead driver is missing. As he
walks around the village looking for the driver, Ernesto is attacked by
some ghoulish villagers intent on drinking his blood.In the morning, the travelers awaken to a breakfast of rolls and hot
coffee. All the villagers have returned, including "Major" Boris [José Guardiola], the
village mayor. The Major apologizes and explains that the villagers were
at the cemetery yesterday, paying their respects to a recently-deceased,
but well-loved, villager. The Major graciously extends the village's
hospitality to the travelers, even serving them a delicious roast before
they leave for Bojoni. Unfortunately, when they go to leave, the bus won't
start. Danged if Luis's car has the same problem. Looks like they'll have
to stay on for a few days until they can get help from Bojoni. Marcos
makes it clear that they don't have the money to pay for their food and
keep, but the Major assures them that they will be taken care of
comfortably by the Countess. And so they are. Every day, they are served
luscious meat dishes. What they don't know is that the Countess [Helga Liné] has
ordered that various villagers give up parts of their body in order to
feed the visitors.The Countess, like everyone else in the village, is very eager to
have the travelers remain in town for a few days, enjoying the village's
hospitality at her expense. She is so thrilled at having "persons who get
around" that she invites Cesar, the well-read professor, to remain at her
house that evening in order to recite to her from the works of
Shakespeare, Browning, and O'Neill. Part of her hospitality includes
taking Cesar to her bed, but she's not after sex; it's Cesar's blood she
wants. After drinking her fill, the Countess tosses his body over the
veranda to the hungry villagers below.Meanwhile, back at the tavern, Luis is busying himself peeping on
Alma through a hole he discovered in his wardrobe. Marcos and Godo are
summoned by Ernesto to see something in the bus but fall prey to the
vampires. The next morning, Luis notices that the bus is missing, begins
to get suspicious, and starts planning out a means of escape. Violet is
playing hide-and-seek with a boy [Fernando Romero] she has befriended when she witnesses the
arm of the ax grinder being chopped off, but she says nothing. A nice
dinner is served that evening, but Alma is very upset when she finds a
finger on her plate. A bit later, Raquel tells Violet to stay in their
room while she goes to talk with Marcos, but Violet's boy friend persuades
her to come out and play anyway. He leads her into the cemetery. When the
vampires come out, he tries to hide Violet but ends up smothering her.
Raquel has returned to her room and found Violet missing, so she goes
looking for her daughter. Unfortunately for Raquel, she encounters the
villagers, along with Cesar, Ernesto, Godo, and Marcos, who fall prey upon
her.That night, Luis and Alma make their escape. Of course, they are
pursued by the village people, but they finally manage to make it to
Bojoni. The Bojoni police cannot find Tolnia on the map, but they drive
back with Luis and Alma to check out their claim. Lo and behold, there is
nothing there, except for the wrecked bus. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.] | murder | train | imdb | The driver has a fulminating heart attack, and the group decides to drive to the near village of Tolnio instead, to spend the night and follow to Bojoni on the next morning.
I particularly liked the scenes where meat is served to the hosts; the death of the little girl; the finger in the food of Alma; the vampires chasing the car with Louis and Alma; and the beautiful breasts of Dyanik Zurakowska, with marks of bikini.
A busload of people off to work in a remote castle have to stop in a small village because their bus driver died.
The story in itself is not original but the film is very atmospheric with an isolated mountain village in Spain being a fresh and interesting location.
Reminiscent of Piero Regnoli's THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE and Jean Brismee's THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE, Leon Klimovsky's THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY finds a busload of disparate characters stranded in the middle of a desolate Carpathian countryside and forced to rely on the kindness of strangers...
Eschewing fangwork and the usual Gothic trappings of the vampire mythos, Klimovsky and his screenwriters (Antonio Fos had co-written Eloy de la Iglesia's CANNIBAL MAN and CLOCKWORK TERROR) return to European folklore to present shabby, homely revenants whose attacks, while relatively bloodless, effectively communicate a vibe of disgust and dread.Rounding out the stellar international cast is American expatriate actor Jack Taylor (recently seen in Roman Polanski's THE NINTH GATE), Dianik Zurakowska (CAULDRON OF BLOOD, THE HANGING WOMAN), Manuel de Blas (ASSIGNMENT: TERROR, THE HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE), Luis Ciges (HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB, VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES and Pedro Almodovar's LABYRINTH OF PASSION) and Fernando Bilbao (FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD, DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN).Known mostly for war films and westerns, the Argentina-born Leon Klimovsky directed THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY during a period of exclusive horror filmmaking, which included the popular Paul Naschy vehicles THE WEREWOLF VS.
Atmospheric and creepy tale of a group of travellers whose coach is diverted to the uncharted Spanish village of Tonia, where the locals disappear at night and emerge later as something other than human.
A mysterious Countess (Line) and her off-sider, the town's unofficial mayor (Guardiola) try to convince the travellers to stay in town and enjoy their hospitality, boasting the best "roast" in the region - as another reviewer remarked, 'finger-lickin' good - the origins of which are somewhat dubious to say the least.Impressive sets and locations really depict a sense of isolation, and the quaint town and its characters are all effectively drawn in spite of some bizarre sub-plots.
The scene in which she passively seduces one of the weary travellers is great erotic-horror.Plenty of little oddities to capture the imagination, despite the ungainly title, Klimovsky's film is well-paced, intelligently scripted and very entertaining.
"Vampires' Night Orgy" is about a group of travellers who find themselves in a village inhabited by bloodthirsty vampires.The decaying and highly atmospheric village is called Tolnia.Everything seems to be black,grey or brown-filled with morbid aura death and gloom.Jack Taylor makes for a reliably sleazy leading man while Dyanik Zurakowska and Helga Liné are both strikingly hot.Some of the scenes where the villagers seem to emerge from the cracks in the walls to slowly engulf their victims evoke memories of the "Blind Dead" series.The only drawback is the jazzy background music which is very annoying.Overall,if you are a fan of 70's Eurohorror give this stylish entertainer a look.7 orgies out of 10..
When their driver has a heart attack, a busload of tourists find themselves stranded in a strange, out of the way village.
Cheeky little number involving a bus load of folks hired for some far off job travelling the Spanish countryside when their bus driver has a heart attack and dies.
Problem is, the travellers haven't figured it out yet.While not overflowing with gore or nudity (although it has a bit of both), this one is quite well paced for a Spanish horror film and has a nice creepy atmosphere throughout.
There's a ghostly kid who hangs out with a travelling kid, the countess who seduces one of the bus party, and the whole thing reminded me a bit of Messiah of Evil, what with the entire town turning up and silently descending on the victims.
There's also a bit of humour, what with the vampire with axe having to villagers to 'donate' body parts.As with most Spanish films, I have no idea if this is cut or not
but it's a good 'un.
Of course, one of the main problems with the film is the title I watched it under which is The Vampire's Night Orgy which kind of removes any mystery qualities this film may of had.
What kills this movie is they do not really address any of this, which means the makers of the film brought stuff up they would never really explain which is going to detract points from me.The story has a bus load of people headed for a town where they are apparently going to be working at a mansion or something.
The bus driver dies from a heart attack and the group drives to a nearer town to figure out what to do and to rest.
Something dark is going on though, and it may be already too late for the group of stranded travelers.It had its moments, but I did not care for the fact that so many things the film brought up were never addressed.
These vampires are violent - this is a horror film and not a porn movie.
Nothing much, and what it does often incoherent.Some summaries tell us that the people of the village are all vampires, and yet there seems to be a class of indigenous victim, three of whom are injured in the movie.
"A busload of travelers must stop in a small European village after their bus driver suffers a heart attack.
Eventually, the travelers uncover the truth behind their hosts and find they have stumbled upon a village inhabited by vampires," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.From Spain, this "Vampire's Night Orgy" does not deliver the goods; although, it has a fairly nice start, and a few good scenes.
And, certainly, NONE of it needs explaining after the movie's inexplicable ending.*** La orgía nocturna de los vampiros (1973) León Klimovsky ~ Jack Taylor, Dyanik Zurakowska, José Guardiola.
The biggest hook for this movie is the opportunity to see Dyanik Zurakowska.Directed by León Klimovsky, who did two of Paul Naschy's werewolf films, the film includes many horror veterans in the cast.Now, if you tourist bus breaks down, and the town where you are stranded offers to put you up for free, and gives you spending money to boot, you might do well to head out on your feet very fast.
Don't get your hopes up though, 'cos the title certainly isn't referring to a heaving mass of nekkidness featuring some top Euro-crumpet: the best this film can offer in terms of nudity is a brief topless scene from blonde babe Dyanik Zurakowska.
I can only guess the title was intended to refer to an orgy of violence, but although there is plenty of death in the film, it's also very disappointing, with very little in the way of gore.Fans of dodgy Euro-horror might get a kick out of the use of a completely incongruous jazzy score, and the sight of a vampire that bears a passing resemblance to camp 70s TV detective Jason King made me giggle a bit, but other than that there is very little about this lame Brigadoon/2000 Maniacs-inspired tosh that would make me recommend it, other than as a possible cure for insomnia.3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb..
This 1970's Euro Horror Vampire Flick is Pretty Bad. When it come to these 1960's and 70's Euro horror films where a busload of tourists wind up stranded in a creepy Gothic setting, I am usually right along for the ride.
None of the passengers seem too disturbed by the events, save for one pretty lady who asks a fellow passenger for a cigarette to calm her nerves.Anyway, they wind up at a town where the vampire residents mysteriously all disappear sometimes at night and sometimes during the day.
The town is run by "The Countess" played by one of my favorite Euro- horror actresses, Helga Line.
Add to all this some pretty bad acting, terrible dubbing, sloppy edits, and an atrocious soundtrack that sounds more like it was made for one of those goofy British 60's sex-comedies than a Gothic horror film - mix them all together and you have the sloppy "Vampires Night Orgy".
A town full of vampires and this is all the film-makers could come up with?
As a matter of fact, this movie does not look and feel at all like a vampire flick.
They are all pretty much the same in style, story, characters and settings but they just aren't as skilfully and originally done as its Italian counterparts.You could even call this movie a bit of a bore, since basically very little interesting is happening, horror-wise, in its first 20 minutes.
Despite the fact that they are now carrying a man's dead body, the remaining tourists decide to forego their journey in order to follow a road sign to a nearby village, in hopes of finding some food and a hotel where they can sleep.Don't expect it to make a whole lot of sense.
Even though nobody's around, they help themselves to the booze and the beds, forgetting all about the corpse in their tour bus.One boozy guy stays up alone, nodding off at one of the tables while drinking the local wine, and when he stumbles out into the streets at midnight, he's attacked by the vampire Welcome Wagon.As one would expect from a movie titled "Vampire's Night Orgy", our heroes have stumbled upon a nest of bloodsuckers, helmed by a vampire known as "the Countess".
In one of the movies more grotesque plot points, the vampires are faced with the predicament of a lack of meat to serve to the travelers, so they solve the problem by hacking off the limbs of various villagers (vampire?
who knows?) and serving them up as dinner.Additionally, the Countess decides to get a little action from one of the guys in the traveling party, insisting that he stay behind with her to recite Shakespeare while the others go back to the Inn.
The vampire attacks are also eerie in their own right, avoiding most of the usual fangs-in-the-neck business and having the villagers attack the travelers by descending on them en masse, fixing their mouths over any body part like hungry dogs.Like I said...it won't make any sense, but it's not a disappointing film in the least.
"Cannibalistic vampires who eat their guests...and, feed their guests (and, their own villagers), to guests...and, who live in a long-gone, archaic town that 'pops-up' every so often!" "WHAT!?!?"This is one of those very good and quite disturbing European horror movies made in Spain/Italy (and, sometimes in Portugal) in the late-1960s-early-1970s that became a drive-in staple, and, cult-classic!
They're the 'best' for creepy-old settings; eerie-old castles and buildings; and, adding some 'real' history to old myths and producing great horror films!
Now, in my late forties, I still enjoy watching this now and again (especially with my Son who loves horror movies - imagine that!?!?)...it's actually a very good movie!NOTE - it's no small wonder that this movie is being rated so low on IMDb since many of the people doing the rating are expecting a 'sexual' orgy!?!?
You see, this cut off from the rest of the world's rustic village's inhabitants consist of nothing but ravenous, long-fanged, flesh-eating, blood-drinking vampires who intend on making yummy meals out of Taylor and friends!
The expert direction from Spanish fright film maestro Leon ("Werewolf Vs. the Vampire Woman") Klimovsky begins things in a deceptively gradual and deliberate manner, deftly creating a nightmarishly spooky atmosphere which eventually gives way to a steady succession of jump-out-at-you startling shocks.
"The Vampire's Night Orgy" is an enjoyable and fun European vampire entry.**SPOILERS**Traveling through the Spanish countryside, tourists Alma, (Dvanik Zurakowski) Raquel, (Charo Soriano) Marcos, (Manuel de Blas) Cesar, (David Aller) Godo, (Luis Ciges) and Ernesto, (Gaspar Gonzalez) breakdown in a small town and decide to get some help for the night.
That also applies to the few special effects, especially with the grotesque physiognomies of many of the villager extras who with the lighting and shadows on display along with the usual evil vampire grin makes them look really good, and the different amount of time that the other areas give to it through the lighting is great.
There's even some more goodness to be found from the rather unusual events, such as the vampire getting passionate with one of the travelers in her bedroom, only to suddenly reveal those massive fangs and hurling the unfortunate victim through a window to the zombie hoards waiting below, a weird dreamlike scenes of the zombie villagers attacking some of the tourists on a bus, and a giant who selects villagers to have a limb chopped off to provide meat to feed the tourists at the inn, which also includes a rather unique revelation sequence involving a finger found on a plate, but for the most part, this one is played really straight, and there's really a lot of great atmospherics to be found.
A particularly distressing scene involves one of the female passengers who gets turned into a zombie and is later seen exhuming the body of her dead daughter and mournfully dragging it away with her introduces an unexpected note of poignancy just when you think you have the film pinned down as an enjoyable but lightweight piece of b-movie fun.
It was filmed on a good location, one of those remote mountain country villages where it always seems like winter, photographed in the bleak and gloomy style of many 70s horror films that is always a plus.
For example, if you're like this busload of tourists marooned in the Italian village of Tonia, the entire populace could be vampires—even the old guy with no teeth.As far as low-budget Italian horror films go, THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY is neither terribly good nor bad.
The film never explains who that kid is, or why he hangs out in a village of vampires.
(It's supposed to be midnight.)So, there you have it: THE VAMPIRES' NIGHT ORGY, the film version of the creepy-looking guy who sits on a park bench all day but never really bothers anyone..
A bus full of travellers is heading for the town of Bojoni when the driver suffers a fatal heart attack, and the group is forced to stay in the deserted Tolnio village overnight.
There are some good moments – the female vampire decomposing in the back of the car as Luis (Jack Taylor) and Alma (Dyanik Zurokowska) drive into the sun-set, and the afore-mentioned disappearing ghost-boy who accompanies young Violeta (Sarita Gill), for example.
Luis(Franco regular Jack Taylor), a traveler passing through, falls in love with Alma(Dyanik Zurakowska)and believes that the people of the village are not who they appear.
His car was tampered with and fixing the cut wire will be a top priority so that Luis and, the ever-frightened Alma, can get out of this place before they are doomed like the others.Director León Klimovsky, known for his films starring Paul Naschy, attempts to develop an atmospheric horror film regarding trapped outsiders in a hostile place where vampiric citizens are around every corner.
There's little to no blood, quite an anemic vampire film.
I looked at the year 1974 and knew to expect something not as graphic as the kind of stuff we see today in horror/ vampire stories, but at least something worth the ride to watch.
But when I began watching The Vampire's Night Orgy first problem I found with it is the dubbed English version that was on the DVD box set is terrible.
When they arrive at night and go into a tavern it seems no one is in this village but one creepy guy with brown straight hair and a mustache that arrived shortly before the main lead characters.
Oh and this happens more than once during this film.Anyways to speed things up the first killing happens the first night they are in the village.
The leader of the village tells our leads of the film sorry no one was around to welcome them last night.
Then in the next scene her fangs aren't even bloody after just killing the guy.Alright so our two main leads meet in a room the creepy mustache man and the blonde woman and discuss that things are very fishy around this village when the sun goes down.
Well thats the plot of this film and for one it needs a different title, no sex orgy ever happened on screen, call it The Vampire's Night Massacre would be better.
bunch of people on a bus get stranded in a village where it looked like world war two had just ended last week.
there is a ridiculously bad "escape" scene with everyone in town, it looked like, hanging on his car, rocking it back and forth and so on.
Pretty Dull Night Orgy of the Vampire Villagers.
"The Vampires' Night Orgy" (1973) also has this certain charm typical of Spanish 70s Horror, but, sadly, it is also one of the dullest films of its kind.
Eurohorror regular Jack Taylor plays the hero, the female roles are cast with Helga Liné as the Countess, and Dyanik Zurakowska, and many of the other cast members also look familiar, mainly from European Horror and Exploitation productions.
In common Exploitation tradition, this one's title might raise expectations that the film doesn't live up to - "The Vampires' Night Orgy" contains very little sleaze. |
tt0051413 | Bijo to ekitai ningen | (Japanese Version)
Following a routine nuclear experiment, the ship Ryujin Maru II disappeared while in the South Pacific Days later, another ship, bound for Izu, stumbles upon the craft adrift at sea. Six members of the crew decide to board the ship. To their surprise, they find no one on board at all, only clothes lying around but in a way that, in dim light, make them look like a person is in them. In the captain's room, they find an unfinished log, and begin to suspect that the crew must have been killed somehow. While leaving the captain's room, Dai, one of the crew members who boarded the ship, is killed by a mysterious blue liquid that climbs up his leg and melts his body, leaving only his clothes behind. After killing Dai, the liquid takes the shape of a man and is joined by another one from the window. The monsters rush at one of the terrified men and quickly claim another victim. Next, Sou is killed on the dock while trying to escape. Only two of the original six make it off the ship alive, and they spot Liquid People (H-Men) walking around the deck as they disembark away from the ship.
Much later, in the outskirts of Tokyo, a drug smuggler by the name of Misaki is mysteriously killed while trying to get away, leaving only his clothes behind. The police investigate by going to his apartment, only to find his girlfriend, Arai Chikako, who says he hasn't returned for five days. Arai works at the cabaret, so the police decide to go there for further investigation. After her performance, the police go back to Arai's room and find a man backstage with her. After finding a note to Arai in his pocket, they bring him in as a suspect. He is identified as Masada, an assistant professor at Jyoto University. Masada explains that he wanted to talk to Arai about Misaki, and explains his theory that Misaki's disappearance is the result of his physical form melting away, possibly from an extreme amount of radiation in the rain that night. The police don't buy a word, and set up patrols at Misaki's apartment where Arai is living.
That night, a man by the name of Nishiyama sneaks into the apartment and threatens Arai, asking her where Misaki is; however, he gets no answer as Arai explains that she simply doesn't know. After thinking it over Nishiyama states that he will spare her life for tonight, and leaves by the window. Not long after, Arai hears gun shots that are followed by a scream. Arai then opens the door to the apartment and faints in the hall. The police go the room to investigate, and look out the window only to see clothes and a gun lying out on the street.
In the morning, the police take Arai in for questioning, but get no new information from her. Masada arrives at the police station to try and prove his theory to them once more, this time he invites them to go back to the hospital with him where he announces that he has collected witnesses that will prove his theory. Once there, the witnesses tell their story of the six members of their ship that boarded the ship, and how four of the men lost their lives that night. Masada next shows him the effect of the Ash of Death, the type of nuclear explosion that the Ryujin Maru II was exposed to, on a bullfrog. The bullfrog melts almost immediately, all of its cells are transformed into a liquid. The police still don't buy that the Misaki disappearance is related to this, though. The police decide to question Arai again, this time showing her a group of pictures, asking her to identify who came into the apartment the night before. She points out Nishiyama out of the pictures, a member of the Hanada gang.
Meanwhile, Masada finds a lifesaver on the docks that belongs to the Ryujin Maru II, and he starts to suspect that the liquid might have attached itself to it and traveled to Tokyo. Masada takes the lifesaver back to the University, where he and his colleagues find out that the lifesaver is indeed radioactive. Arai then visits the institute to find Masada and tells him about the murders, and how a liquid killed the victims. Professor Maki is intrigued by the girl's story, and asks that Masada goes to the police station and tell them their findings. Masada complies, but is still laughed at down at the station. The police become notably annoyed with his persistence in pursuing this theory. So, to stay in their favor, Masada divulges that he believes that a waiter at the cabaret may be in on the drug smuggling.
That night, the police visit the cabaret again, disguised as customers. They watch, and mark down, which tables the waiter stops at for long periods of time. Every time someone from one of these marked tables starts to leave, they arrest them as a suspect. Eventually the guests of the club begin to catch on, and one of them fires his gun right before they cuff him. The waiter hears this and warns Uchida, an intricate figure in the drug smuggling ring, and they retreat to one of the dancer's rooms. Once inside, they try to escape through the window, but are cut off by an H-Man. The waiter, along with one of the dancers is killed. The H-Man next tries to get Arai, but is distracted by one of the policemen, who starts firing at it. The H-Man liquefies the officer, and then escapes through the window. During the commotion, Uchida takes off his clothes to fake his death, and escapes.
The police now accept Masada's theory about the Ash of Death. It's also confirmed that the liquid got to Tokyo by attaching itself to the lifesaver. Maki explains to the authorities that the only way to kill the creatures is by electrocution or incineration. Then Masada, after studying Uchida's clothes, explains to the police that they weren't radioactive, meaning he must have escaped. Shortly after this discovery, Arai is kidnapped by Uchida.
Meanwhile, the authorities plan to use their high voltage discharge unit to stop the H-men's infiltration upstream. Next they plan to evacuate and fill the surrounding bodies of water with gasoline, to incinerate the ones already in the city.
Before the authorities can put this plan into operation, Uchida leads Arai into the sewers to retrieve the stash of drugs that the waiter had been hiding down there. In the meantime, Masada finds a piece of Arai's clothing floating in the water near one of the sewage valves, and rushes in the sewers looking for her. The police catch wind of Masada's actions and ask permission to go down with one of the teams preparing the "gasoline operation". A rescue team is then prepared, and goes in after them. Uchida is killed shortly after by one of the liquid people, and Arai begins to flee. Masada finds her, and manages to help her get away as the rescue team discovers them both, with the H-men in hot pursuit. The water is then ignited, burning alive all of the monsters and putting an end to their reign of terror.
(English Dubbed Version)
The movie began with a clip of the rising mushroom cloud the result of a nuclear test. Followed on from there a scene is shown of a drug dealing in progress during a rainy night in a city. Misaki came out of a sewer to meet an accomplice waiting inside a car. Misaki shot at something that was melting him away.
At the police station, witnesses including a police on a beat are giving statements to station officers who found the things being told a bit far fetched. Furthering the investigation into the drug dealings, police detectives went to Misaki's apartment. They found his girlfriend, Chikako Arai a cabaret singer, brought her to the station for questioning. Later, the detectives stake out the cabaret and arrested Masada, a biologist and a university professor, as a suspect because on him was found a note he wrote to Arai. When brought to the police station for questioning, Detective Tominaga recognized Masada cleared him of being a suspect.
Later on, when Arai came back to Misaki's apartment she found the window wide open. She switched on the light and a man, Nishiyama, hiding behind the curtain grabs her and threatens her to tell him where is Misaki. He left the apartment through the window since Arai does not know Misaki's whereabout and police detectives are below. Gun shots and the scream of a man are heard. Arai covers her face in horror, opens the door of the apartment straggles out and faints in the hall way. The police goes in the room to investigate, looks out the window only to see clothes and a gun lying out in a puddle on the street.
In the morning, Arai is questioned at the police station about the incident the night before but gets no where. Just as the detectives are finishing their reports with their chief Detective Tominaga Masada arrives asks Tominaga whether he found Misaki. After some conversational exchanges, Tominaga invites Masada to talk to Arai to see if he can get some info from her. As Masada was questioning Arai, Tominaga pokes fun at Masada's theory of the missing Misaki and informed him that another person has disappeared the same way as Misaki. This brought Masada to ask Tominaga to follow him to the hospital where he introduces two witnesses to something that can support his theory.
The witnesses tell their story of what happened when they and four other members of their ship boarded the drifting ship, Ryujin Maru II and how four of those men lost their lives that night. Masada shows him the effect of the Ash of Death, the type of nuclear explosion the Ryujin Maru II was exposed to, on a bullfrog. The bullfrog melts almost immediately, all of its cells are transformed into liquid. The police still don't buy that the Misaki disappearance is related to this.
Masada shows a lifesaver, from Ryujin Maru II, found by some fishermen on the docks in Tokyo Bay to the detectives but they are not interested. Masada takes the lifesaver back to the University, where he and his colleagues found out that the lifesaver is radioactive. Arai visits the institute to find Masada and tells him that she witnessed a person being dissolved/meltdown. Professor Maki is intrigued by the girl's story. Masada under Professor Maki's instruction went to see Tominaga and told him what they found and that the public must be warned of the impending menace threatening them. The police still refuse to believe him. In the end, Masada chides them for not having pity on Arai because she is being hounded by the police as well as the gangsters. He told them that if they trusted her and go to the cabaret she could point out to them the drug smuggling gang members at the cabaret of whom the waiter is the main person to watch as he is the connection.
The police took up the suggestion went to cabaret under disguise. As each of the pointed out members leave, they are arrested. The one of them fires his gun before he was handcuffed. The waiter heard it warns Uchida and they retreat to one of the dancer's rooms. They try to escape through the window, but are cut off by an H-Man. The waiter, along with one of the dancers is killed. The H-Man next tries to get Arai at the ladies but she escapes. The H-Man tries again to get Arai but gets distracted by a detective shooting at it. It liquefies the detective and then escapes.During the commotion, Uchida takes off his clothes to fake his death and escapes.
The police now accepts Masada's theory about the Ash of Death. It's also confirmed that the liquid got to Tokyo by attaching itself to the lifesaver. Maki explains to the authorities that the only way to kill the creatures is by electrocution or incineration. Then Masada, after studying Uchida's clothes, explains to the police that they weren't radioactive, meaning he must have escaped. Shortly after this discovery, Arai is kidnapped by Uchida.
Meanwhile, the authorities plan to use their high voltage discharge unit to stop the H-men's infiltration upstream. Next they plan to evacuate and fill the surrounding bodies of water with gasoline, to incinerate the ones already in the city.
Before the authorities can put this plan into operation, Uchida leads Arai into the sewers to retrieve the stash of drugs. In the meantime, Masada finds a piece of Arai's clothing floating in the water near one of the sewage outlet, and rushes into the sewer looking for her. Tominaga catch wind of Masada's actions goes down to the sewer too with one of the teams preparing the "gasoline operation". A rescue team is then prepared, and goes in after them. Uchida is killed shortly after by one of the liquid people, and Arai begins to flee. Masada finds her, and manages to help her get away as the rescue team discovers them both, with the H-men in hot pursuit. The water is then ignited, burning alive all of the monsters and putting an end to their reign of terror. The narrator made a final statement that with the continuing H-bombing tests the next ruler of the Earth may be the H-men. | horror | train | wikipedia | null |
tt3110958 | Now You See Me 2 | New Jersey, 1984The magician Lionel Shrike (Richard Laing) is set to perform a trick in which he attempts to escape from a safe as it is dropped into the river. Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) is reporting on the event, claiming it can't be done. Lionel's son Dylan (William Henderson) runs to his dad, expressing doubts over the trick. Lionel assures Dylan he'll be out in five minutes. Lionel gets in the safe and it's dropped in the water. Five minutes pass, and Lionel never resurfaces. People begin to panic, and Dylan tries running toward the water, but he is held back by authorities.We see a video from Thaddeus in the present as he sits in his prison cell. He mentions the magic society known as The Eye, and how The Horsemen will get what's coming to them.New York City, Present Day.The Horsemen have been hiding out for a year since their last heist show. Since then, Henley Reeves has left the group. J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) is walking through a tunnel that leads him into a room. A voice speaks to Danny, claiming to be part of The Eye, the underground consortium of magic and illusion. Danny is sick of hiding out and not having made progress over the past year, but the voice tries to assure Danny that things are about to pay off.Meanwhile, Dylan Shrike (now played by Mark Ruffalo) is still playing out his own act as an agent by pretending to be on the trail of The Horsemen, despite being their mole. He talks to new agent Natalie Austin (Sanaa Lathan) and senior agent Cowan (David Warshofsky) about the trail he's picked up, but they think he's full of crap.Danny returns to his apartment to find a woman named Lula May (Lizzy Caplan) on his couch. He triggers a set-up that makes it look like Lula gets decapitated on his couch, but Danny knows it's a trick. She appears behind him and starts saying what she knows about The Horsemen. Danny recognizes her from a show she performed ages ago in which she pulled a hat out of a rabbit (you read it right). He tries tying her up, but when his back is turned, Lula disappears.Danny is summoned to meet with the rest of The Horsemen. Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) are practicing throwing cards, while Jack thinks he's gotten the hang of hypnotism (he hasn't). The three go to their meeting place to find Dylan and Lula together, as she is now part of the group. Dylan says it's time for their next show to go on. The plan is to sabotage a launch for the tech program Octa, and to expose the company's CEO Owen Case (Ben Lamb) for being a fraud and taking the information of his consumers.The Horsemen get to the launch site in New York while disguised as employees. They set up the trap with cameras, and Merritt hypnotizes Owen into walking into a room where he will openly broadcast his deceit. The show begins, with Danny, Lula, and Merritt taking the stage and the audience taking The Horsemen's reappearance as a big surprise. Suddenly, Dylan finds a fool tarot card in his booklet. Before The Horsemen can perform any tricks, however, their own show is sabotaged as a distorted voice begins to speak. The voice starts to expose the secrets of The Horsemen, namely that Jack is still alive and that Dylan is their mole. This happens as Natalie, Cowan, and other FBI agents show up. They begin to arrest Dylan, but he uncuffs himself and cuffs the agents together.The Horsemen all run to the roof of the building to escape. They slide down a chute, thinking they will land in a truck that gets them out of there. However, they end up in the kitchen of a Chinese food restaurant. To their bewilderment, they have somehow ended up in Macau. To add even more confusion, The Horsemen discover that this was partially orchestrated by Merritt's twin brother Chase (also Woody Harrelson in a duo role). A group of armed thugs take The Horsemen away in vans.Dylan gets a phone call from Thaddeus, still speaking as though he is going to exact his revenge. Dylan later uses Cowan's ID to get into Thaddeus's prison cell and eventually set him free as he helps him figure out what happened with The Horsemen.The Horsemen ride with Chase to their next destination. Chase and Merritt explain that were once a brotherly duo that performed together, until Merritt went off and made a name for himself, leaving Chase kicked to the curb. Chase says that he once disguised himself as a pizza delivery guy and hypnotized Merritt before stealing his information along with that of the other three Horsemen. The thugs bring The Horsemen into a building and take it up to the penthouse where they meet Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe), Owen's former partner that was believed to have died a year earlier. Walter faked his death (which he claims to have gotten from Jack) after Owen had him declared unstable when Owen stole Walter's plans and took credit for their work. Walter also explains how The Horsemen ended up in China - they were put to sleep as they slid down the chutes and were flown out to Macau while unconscious. Walter then states that he wants The Horsemen to pull off a heist in which they are to infiltrate an underground facility and steal a memory stick that would allow people like Owen to gather information on many people. Lula, Merritt, and Jack all refuse, but Danny agrees to it.The next day, The Horsemen go to what is said to be the oldest magic shop in the world. They meet a man named Li (Jay Chou) and his grandmother Bu Bu (Tsai Chin). Li provides The Horsemen with the materials they need to pull off their heist.Dylan and Thaddeus fly out to Macau to find The Horsemen. Thaddeus knows that Dylan had been plotting revenge on him after believing Thaddeus goaded Lionel into performing the trick that took his life, leaving Dylan still angered. When the two arrive, they visit the same magic shop and speak to Bu Bu and Li in regards to what they know about The Horsemen. Thaddeus walks into a sarcophagus and disappears, leaving Dylan with only a note that says "Your move".The Horsemen must first meet a South African gangster at a casino before he guides them to the facility where they will find the stick. They are brought there in disguise as researchers. Creating diversions, Jack gets the stick and attaches it to a playing card. The Horsemen get inspected individually, while constantly trying to keep the card hidden from view. After a long inspection, they are cleared to get out. Knowing the stick would set off the metal detector, Danny creates another distraction to allow Merritt to throw the card to Lula without detection.Danny waits for someone to pick up the stick, but when Walter shows up with his thugs, Danny learns that he's being double-crossed. Walter's thugs hit Danny as Walter demands the stick, but Dylan appears and makes it seem like he grabbed the card from Danny, leading the thugs to chase after Dylan. After taking out most of the thugs, Dylan runs into Chase, who distracts him long enough for Walter to show up and knock Dylan unconscious.Dylan is brought onto a boat. Walter knows about Dylan's desire to avenge his father, which Walter states is something that he relates to, as this is part of his plan. His father turns out to be Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), the same man that Dylan aided The Horsemen in screwing over after Tressler's company denied Dylan's mother a claim after Lionel's death. Tressler coldly dismisses this and proceeds to have Dylan placed into a safe. They drop the safe into the river, confident that Dylan will drown. As the villains leave, Dylan manages to pick the lock open, but he loses consciousness before he can resurface. Thankfully, The Horsemen figured out where he was, and Danny pulls him up.Tressler gets into his limo and sits next to Thaddeus, as he apparently helped in getting back at Dylan and The Horsemen.After resuscitating Dylan, The Horsemen take him to their hideout. They discover that the card they have with the stick is fake, meaning they may have lost it at some point when Danny and Dylan were attacked. Feeling despaired, they are then met by Li and Bu Bu, who reveal that they are part of The Eye and have been watching The Horsemen for a while. They realize that they need to put on a show to expose Walter and Tressler. They begin to set up their plan.The Horsemen head to London to put on their show. First, Jack does a set up in front of a small crowd of people where he takes three volunteers (two jacks and a queen) to hide behind three large cards while people try to guess where the queen went. Next, Lula does a performance involving doves. Then, Danny is gathered in front of a large crowd where it appears to be raining, leading him to act as though he is manipulating the water. The FBI head in toward London to find The Horsemen, while Walter, Tressler, and Chase are all tracking their locations as well, noticing that they are all located in a pattern.Chase finds Merritt and deduces that he is headed toward Greenwich. Feeling that they are in trouble, Dylan calls The Horsemen together to meet at their rendezvous point. Meanwhile, the FBI have managed to apprehend Thaddeus. Dylan and The Horsemen are caught by Walter's goons and taken to his plane. As they take off, Chase suggests that they throw them all off the plane. One by one, the five are thrown off the plane. As Walter and Tressler drink to celebrate, they notice something tastes wrong with their champagne. Tressler then peels off the sticker and sees a fool card. The plane stops, and they look outside to see The Horsemen waving at them. The villains get off the plane and see that the entire thing was staged. Thousands of Londoners are gathered around the Thames to watch the show, which is also streaming around the world. The Horsemen then elaborate on how the show was set up, using help from Li and other willing participants, leading them to a fake hangar that made the villains think they took off. Jack also managed to hypnotize Chase when he bumped into him moments earlier into planning to throw The Horsemen off the plane. They expose Walter and Tressler to the public, along with Chase, leading to the three of them getting arrested.Natalie confronts Dylan for his deceit, though he claims he's still the same guy she looked up to when she started working for the FBI. He hands her the stick with all the incriminating evidence, and he vanishes.Not long after, Dylan and The Horsemen are taken to a building belonging to The Eye. Dylan enters a room and finds pictures of his father, including one of him with Thaddeus. Thaddeus emerges (he escaped custody) and explains that he and Lionel were partners whose act was pretending to be rivals. He has always felt remorse over what happened to Lionel, but he is proud of the magician Dylan grew up to be. Dylan appears to forgive Thaddeus, and he asks what happens now. Thaddeus says he should find a successor, just as Danny and the other three walk in. Thaddeus walks out, but not before telling the five to pay no mind to the curtain in the room. They end up walking to the curtain and find a door behind it. This leads them toward a spiral staircase. They walk down to see whatever happens to be at the bottom, and the film suddenly ends. | revenge, suspenseful, comedy, flashback | train | imdb | null |
tt0093058 | Full Metal Jacket | It's the late 1960s at Parris Island, South Carolina, the U.S. Marine Corps Training Camp, where a group of young Marine recruits, after having their heads shaved, are being prepped for basic training by the brutal Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey), whose orders are to "weed out all non-hackers". Hartman gives each of the Marines nicknames; one pragmatic recruit who talks behind his back becomes "Joker" (Matthew Modine); a Texas recruit becomes "Cowboy" (Arliss Howard). And finally Leonard Lawrence, a 6-foot 3-inch, 280 pound, slow-witted recruit with low intelligence and ambition becomes "Gomer Pyle" (Vincent D'Onofrio), and the focus of Hartman's brutality, because the overweight boy cannot keep up with the other more physically fit recruits in the grueling obstacle courses.One morning during muster, Hartman asks Joker if he believes in the Virgin Mary. Joker responds that he doesn't, angering the Catholic drill instructor. The clearly religious Hartman continues to ask Joker if he believes in the Virgin Mary, and Joker continues to resist, confirming that he doesn't because he's an atheist. Despite Hartman's slapping him in the face, Joker stubbornly refuses to change his answer, stating that he belives that Hartman will only "beat him harder if he reverses himself." Hartman immediately promotes Joker to squad leader for having the courage to stand up to his drill instructor. However, Hartman also gives Joker the difficult job of being Pyle's personal instructor. Off on the sidelines over the next few days, Joker helps Pyle through the obstacle courses, shows him how to operate and clean a rifle, and how to make his bed. But all of this effort is later proven to be a waste.One evening during a routine inspection, Hartman, noticing that Pyle's foot locker is unlocked, searches it and finds a jelly doughnut; food is strictly forbidden in the barracks (and Pyle is not permitted to eat donuts because he's overweight). Enraged, Hartman decides that from then on instead of punishing Pyle, he'll punish all the other recruits in the platoon. A few nights later, the angry recruits attack Pyle with soap bars wrapped in towels while Cowboy gags him and a few others hold him down on his bed. At first, Joker is reluctant to attack his friend, but after Cowboy persuades him, Joker hits Pyle longer and harder than most of the others. In his bunk, Joker covers his ears, ashamed at himself for his actions, while Pyle howls in pain.After the traumatic experience, Pyle slowly begins to go insane but also shapes up and becomes the fastest and best rifleman of the entire platoon, impressing Hartman. When Joker sees Pyle talking to his rifle and staring off into space blankly, and not responding to interaction, he realizes that Pyle is losing his mind ("Section 8"), and confides in Cowboy about Pyle's growing mental breakdown. By the end of basic training, Pyle clearly has been completely dehumanized by its rigors.After graduation, Hartman assigns each recruit a MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), most of them as 0300 (Infantry). One exception is Joker who is assigned as a 4212 (Basic Military Journalism). On the platoon's last night on Parris Island, Joker draws fire watch (guard patrol), during which he discovers Pyle in the bathroom loading his M-14 rifle with live ammunition. Frightened, Joker attempts to calm the insane Pyle, who begins shouting, executing drill commands, and reciting the Rifleman's Creed. The noise awakens Hartman, who confronts Pyle and demands that he drop the rifle. When Pyle refuses and does not respond, Hartman hurls further insults at him. Pyle responds by shooting Hartman dead, and then aims the rifle at Joker. Joker pleads with Pyle, who lowers the rifle and nods, possibly in recognition of Joker as a friend. Pyle sits down on a toilet, places the muzzle of the weapon in his mouth and pulls the trigger, killing himself.One year later, Joker is in Da Nang, reporting on the Vietnam War for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. He and his partner, combat photographer Rafterman (Kevyn Major Howard), meet a prostitute (Leanne Hong) in the streets and encounter a thief (Nguyen Hue Phong) who steals Rafterman's camera. When they return to their base, they are given new assignments, but Joker wants to go to the front lines to get a good story.That evening in the barracks, Rafterman talks with the others GIs about wanting to go into combat, as Joker claims he has done. One of the other GIs mocks Joker, saying he knows Joker has never been in combat because he doesn't have the "thousand-yard stare." The sound of nearby gunfire interrupts their argument. The North Vietnamese Army is attacking and attempting to overrun the base in what turns out to be the beginning of the Tet Offensive. Joker's unit returns fire but the base is not attacked as heavily as other locations.The next day, the staff learns about enemy attacks throughout South Vietnam. Joker's commander, Lt. Lockhart (John Terry), assigns Joker to Phu Bai, a Marine forward operating-base near the ancient Vietnamese city of Hue, to cover the combat taking place in the area. Rafterman accompanies him, hoping to get some combat experience. During the helicopter ride, Joker and Rafterman encounter an insane door gunner who shoots indiscriminately at unarmed Vietnamese civilians on the ground, boasting about his ability to kill.When they land outside Hue, Joker and Rafterman meet and talk to a lieutenant, Touchdown (Ed O'Ross). He tells Joker, who is looking for his old friend Cowboy, that he's Cowboy's commanding officer. However, before Joker and Rafterman meet the squad, they follow up a rumor about Vietnamese civilians who are reported to have been executed by the Viet Cong. They go to the mass grave and find over 20 bodies in a mass grave that have been covered with lime. Joker talks to a lieutenant who confirms that the dead people were told by the Viet Cong they'd be "re-educated" at a public meeting and were killed when they arrived. As they wrap up their coverage, Joker is approached and lectured by a belligerent colonel (Bruce Boa) who demands to know why Joker wears a peace symbol on his body armor when he also has the words 'Born to Kill' written on his helmet. Joker suggests it has to do with the "duality of Man" according to Jung. The cynical colonel doesn't believe him and tells him to "get with the program".They later meet Cowboy's unit, the Lusthog Squad, and Joker is finally reunited with Cowboy, who has been promoted to sergeant and is second-in-command. Joker accompanies the squad during the Battle of Hue. During the battle the enemy kills their commanding officer, Lt. Touchdown. Another Marine nicknamed Crazy Earl (Kieron Jecchinis) takes command of the squad. The group goes into battle and quickly comes under enemy fire from a nearby building (which appears to be a building containing a blast-furnace among a ruined factory). Afterward, the squad is interviewed by a touring combat news team, and they share their experiences and opinion of the war. A little while later a South Vietnamese Army soldier and pimp (Tan Hung Francione) with a prostitute (Leanne Hong) visit the resting Marines to offer her services to them.A few days later, the squad goes out on patrol again, this time in the factory-ruins north of the Perfume River which divides the city of Hue, where the Americans believe enemy forces have hidden themselves. Crazy Earl comes across a toy rabbit in a ruined building and picks it up, triggering an explosive booby trap that kills him, leaving Cowboy as the reluctant squad leader. The squad becomes lost in more ruined buildings, and a unseen sniper (Ngoc Le) pins them down wounding two of their comrades, first Eightball (Dorian Harewood), and then Doc Jay (Jon Stafford) when he tries to drag Eightball to safety. The sniper refrains from killing the wounded men, with the apparent intention to draw more of the squad into range. The M-60 machine gunner, Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) disregards Cowboy's orders to withdraw, charges into the clump of warehouse buildings, and locates the sniper. As the squad maneuvers to try to locate the sniper's position, Cowboy is shot. He is rushed behind one of the blown-out buildings where the squad tries to keep him alive; they fail and Cowboy dies in Joker's arms.Animal Mother assumes command of the remaining Marines and angrily declares, "Let's go get some payback." Using smoke grenades to conceal their advance, the squad enters the building and searches for the sniper. Joker finds the sniper on an upper floor, but his rifle jams as he tries to shoot. The enemy sniper, a teenage girl, spins around, opening fire with her AK-47 automatic rifle, pinning him behind a column. Panicked, Joker drops his rifle and draws his sidearm, however he is unable to shoot back. Rafterman arrives and shoots the sniper, saving Joker. As Animal Mother and other Marines of the squad converge, she begins to pray in her native language, then repeatedly begs (in English) "shoot me", prompting an argument about whether to leave her to die from her wounds or to put her out of her misery. Animal Mother decides to allow a mercy killing only if Joker performs it. After some hesitation, Joker shoots her with his sidearm. The Marines sarcastically congratulate him on his first kill as Joker stares into the distance, having finally gotten his dehumanized "thousand yard stare".The film concludes with a night time shot of Joker, Rafterman, Animal Mother, and all the other Marines marching through the burning ruins of Hue toward their bivouac for the night, singing the 'Mickey Mouse March'. Joker states that despite being "in a world of shit", he is glad to be alive, and is no longer afraid. | dark, murder, dramatic, violence, anti war, action, brainwashing | train | imdb | SPOILER: Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 realistic Vietnam war film and is one of the best films of the 80's ever made, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick.
A superb ensemble falls in for for Stanley Kubrick's brilliant saga about the Vietnam War and the dehumanizing process that turns people into trained killers.
From Basic training rigors to Hue City combat nightmare, Full Metal Jacket scores a cinematic direct hit.The film focus on a two-segment look at the effect of the military mindset and war itself on Vietnam era Marines.
"Joker" Davis (Matthew Modine) and about torture physics of a young men who is a marine recruit in the platoon lead by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman his Parris Island drill instructor who tortures him by punish his whole squad for his mistakes.
The film now more focus on one of those recruits Private Joker (Matthew Moddine) from the boot camp Parris Island, who is in Da Nang Vietnam, reporting on the Vietnam War for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
Joker and Rafterman are assigned to Phu Bai, a Marine forward operating-base near the ancient Vietnamese city of Hue, Joker is reunited with his team recruit from his training boot camp Paris Island, Cowboy and his unit, the Lusthog Squad, before they met Cowboy's Unit they are go trough They go to the mass grave and find over 20 bodies in a mass grave that have been covered with lime.The film is Staney Kubrick's best realistic Vietnam War film of all time.
I don't know if that's good or bad for training (I had my face slapped hard my first day of boot camp and that was just for openers), but then all of us old-timers like to brag about how tough it useta be!A final note: It's interesting to compare "Full Metal Jacket" to another attempt at a portrayal of Parris Island, Jack Webb's "The DI," made around '55 or '56.
`Full Metal Jacket' is very much a movie of two halves - the first half dealing with a group of conscripts in training at military camp and the hardships they endure under their `hard-as-nails' instructor.
'Full Metal Jacket' was a film that I had been meaning to watch for a while after all the good stuff I had heard about it.It really is a film of two halves, unfortunately I didn't like the 2nd half.The 1st half at boot camp was excellent, we saw a lot of character development and emotion as well as a lot of humour and really serious issues.
R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio were just brilliant.The 2nd half I didn't enjoy as much, it looked great and there was a lot of action but it was just a bit boring and felt really dragged out, whereas the 1st part just had everything that you wanted.Glad I got round to seeing it but wouldn't watch it again, slightly disappointed after a really good start to the film.6/10..
Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket seems like an uncompleted film, but to me that's poetic justice to one of America's uncompleted wars.
This is the journey undertaken by Private "Joker" J.T. Davis, from brutal training camp to Vietnam itself.As most people know by now, Full Metal Jacket is divided very much into two different halves, halves that to me show the best and worst of the talented director, Stanley Kubrick.
For the first part we are subjected to the training regime inflicted on wet behind the ears boys, boys soon to become Marines out in the harshness of the Vietnam War. This is real dehumanising stuff, frighteningly essayed by the brilliance of drill instructor R Lee Ermey's performance.
A preliminary note: anyone who liked this movie well enough to read comments should know that a considerable amount of detail in both it and _Apocalypse Now_ had origins in a 1968 Japanese novel called Into a Black Sun, by a Japanese war correspondent working in Vietnam at the time.
The plot is about a group of soldiers who are turned into killers in marine training, and are then sent off to the Vietnam War.Kubrick once again does a great job at directing.
They may be fighting for freedom, but the soldiers are motivated by other things - camaraderie, macho posturing and the urge to kill instilled in them at boot camp.I cannot understand those who criticise this Kubrick film above others for consisting of multiple episodes with very different feel and setting.
Animal Mother may indeed be an Animal Mother, but when it comes to the crunch he is clear-headed, effective and fiercely loyal to his comrades, and even musters a grudging sympathy for the dying sniper in acceding to Joker's humane despatching of her.All in all, an unforgettable film, totally different in feel to any other war movie I have seen.
The unifying theme of Stanley Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket' is that Vietnam put American in the toilet; each of the film's three parts, or "Acts", has characters in what is repeatedly described as "a world of s--t." The men are successful trained to kill - but, they do not know when to kill, who to kill, or why anyone should die.
The reason for the war is explained, "We are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out." Probably, the film's strongest "story" is told in the first "Act"; it features drill sergeant R.
Some of the material in the rest of the film becomes very weak, in comparison; especially disappointing are some mid-movie scenes "staged" for the camera of "Stars and Stripes" photographer "Rafterman" (Kevyn Major Howard) - the characters all say silly things for the camera.
Modine's Pvt. Joker is especially interesting, dying to get into action one minute, but once the bullets start whizzing, scared out of his wits.Bottom Line: an excellent war film, and should be considered one of the best of all time.
The film's strength is it's wonderful streak of black comedy that runs right the way through it is the reason for watching and makes it feel a little different from other hardcore war movies of this ilk.Kubrick is always going to be watchable but this is not one of his best.
Only D'Onofrio (Pyle) came out of this as a real person.Overall this is a good anti-war film but not a great one.
This is an excellent film that shows that film maker Stanley Kubrick has lost none of his skill despite a 7 year break between projects.The film is plotted in two distinct parts, the first half, which is the stronger part is concerned with the impact of brutal training on the wannabe soldiers, with the second part focusing on the story told from the central character, Private Joker, played by an effective Matthew Modine in a deliberate low key and understated manner.
After a several year absence, Stanley Kubrick returned to the screen with the hard-hitting "Full Metal Jacket", about an American platoon going to Vietnam.
"Full Metal Jacket" follows a single Marine-nicknamed Joker(Mathew Modine)-through boot camp and a portion of his time in Vietnam.
Kubrick/Herr/Hasford`s razor sharp script takes us on a blackly comical tour of the horrors of basic training with Sergeant Hartman , private Joker and Leonard Lawrence being the central characters , but then the film cuts to the battlefields of `Nam with only a couple of characters like Joker and Cowboy linking the two segments .
It's odd that they chose Joker, a war correspondant (journalist), for a main character ; I guess they wanted to show the hardening of a pretty normal guy instead of just jumping in the action with a testosterone/adrenaline junkie lusting for a kill seen in countless movies, it's more human that way..
Kubrick, as always, shows the audience events and then allows them their own conclusions (sort of like real life, huh?)I served in the Army and like most veterans, the boot camp sequence (the first film) is funny, scary, informative and exhausting, just like basic training.
R. Lee Ermey dominates this Stanley Kubrick directed Vietnam War drama, as he plays profane, no-nonsense, ultra tough Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, who belittles, browbeats, and insults the marine recruits in brutal boot camp training.
In fact, years of movie-watching just enhanced my dislike for what looks more than ever like an half-baked, over simplistic war movie.As everybody knows, FMJ is basically two movies stuck together, with little relation to each other.
Same scene some 15 minutes later, only this time the prostitute is pimped out by a local guy.I could ask many questions about this movie
For instance if Kubrick was supposed to be over-meticulous and detail crazy how did he missed the fact that the UK does not look like Vietnam?
"Full Metal Jacket" is a kind of disjointed film told through a boot camp setting in the first half and a war setting in second half.
This is "Full Metal Jacket'" strongest element as we see some great film-making of things we've seen done numerous times before, but here; Kubrick brings us one of the most memorable characters in film history with Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R.
Pyle becomes the second best character, only to Hartman, but once we leave the basic training scenes we're thrown into a war we've seen before and a war we've seen captured on film much better.
"Full Metal Jacket" offers a lot of laughs in the first half of the film and actually goes for too many laughs with Hartman in the opening scene as Kubrick and company just go for the next joke about their sexual orientation.
After so much it got the point where I was thinking, "When is he going to get back to his speech and stop calling these guys fags and queers 15,000 different ways?" "Full Metal Jacket" shows how dehumanizing war can be as we see "born to kill" written on the helmet of Joker (Mathew Modine) with a peace sign on his chest that represent the "duality of man" (as we're told).
These characters in "Full Metal Jacket" seem hardly likable, and they are very rarely put through any type of emotional anguish, which is the key to all great war films--even "Forrest Gump" had some.I enjoyed the first half of the movie, which is basically the training period.
Yes, if my ears can stand the assault, Ermey can be fun to hear, and young, fat Vincent D'Onofrio as "Pvt. Pyle," the victim of the sergeant's rage, terminates his boss in a memorable scene, the main character of the film is "Pvt. Joker," played by Matthew Modine, and I didn't like the guy.
It made a star of Lee Ermey, whose Drill Sergeant was terrifyingly real, primarily because that is what he was in reality.Like all of Kubrick's work, this film contains iconic imagery that sears into your mind's eye and becomes very hard to erase; the final scenes, and the film's closing, with its perfect marriage of image, sound, and music, haunt you and leave you reflecting on the last 2 two hours..
Lee Ermey,by the way).Not only is war hell,preparing for it can be just as bad,if you don't have a healthy state of mind to begin with.This is the case for Pvt. Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio,who really packed on the pounds for this role).You can almost feel him cracking throughout the first portion of the film,leading to a violent showdown with his tormenting commanding officer.The second half of the film is a basic display of the horrors of war itself,and very well done.Excellent direction by Stanley Kubrick,who always seemed to have a knack for not repeating himself a director,in terms of the types of films he directed.This was his "war" film,and it's an absolute masterpiece.Must see film..
Though Drill Instructors are not allowed to cuss or hit recruits anymore the details of training that have been shown are a great reminder of what a person has signed up for.The Vietnam War description could hold true for many Marines, but in the end this is just a movie.
Stanley Kubrick was already a legend when he made Full Metal Jacket- a war movie.
Stanley Kubrick was already a legend when he made Full Metal Jacket- a war movie.
Many people seem to think it gets weaker after the boot camp and the second part isn't as good, I like the whole movie, the second half has at least the same amount of memorable scenes if not more!.
"Full Metal Jacket" (1987) is a war drama that accurately displays the hardship of the military, in this case the Marine Corps, during the Vietnam War. The film is through the perspective of Private Joker, played by Matthew Modine, as he navigates basic training and the war.
I feel the point of this film was to shed light on the actualities of the military during training and war time, which have been improved since Vietnam.
I think Matthew Modine and Vincent D'Onofrio deserve special mentions too for coming up with contrasting, yet equally compelling performances respectively.In conclusion, I'll say 'Full Metal Jacket' doesn't quite achieve greatness due to the flawed second half of the film.
In the same way that "Trainspotting" was an anti-drug film that did not gloss over anything, "Full Metal Jacket" is (for me) an anti-war film that stares straight at the ugliness of war and the potential for violence within almost all people, especially those trained, conditioned, even twisted, into military roles, without preaching even a single time.
I felt like I was walking through the movie with the Marines, from the barracks to the battlefield scenes.I have seen others criticize this film for the voice over, but I felt that it was used sparingly, and was helpful, not overdone.
I felt like I was walking through the movie with the Marines, from the barracks to the battlefield scenes.I have seen others criticize this film for the voice over, but I felt that it was used sparingly, and was helpful, not overdone.
The narrator doesn't say anything that seems out-of-place.Others have commented on the music, the acting, and so on, so I won't add my repetitive comments, except that the drill sergeant is perfect!The combination of the demented treatment the recruits receive in boot camp with the combined "hours of boredom, seconds of terror" feel of the Vietnam scenes is intense and not for everyone, but feels REAL.10 out of 10, perfect..
The narrator doesn't say anything that seems out-of-place.Others have commented on the music, the acting, and so on, so I won't add my repetitive comments, except that the drill sergeant is perfect!The combination of the demented treatment the recruits receive in boot camp with the combined "hours of boredom, seconds of terror" feel of the Vietnam scenes is intense and not for everyone, but feels REAL.10 out of 10, perfect..
Stanley Kubrick takes us back to a squad of U.S. Marines through their United States Marine Corps Recruit Training and depicts some of the experiences of two of them in the Tet Offensive (1968) during the Vietnam War.
The first third of Stanley Kubrick's take on the Vietnam War is as powerful and shocking as any film ever made about the military
In the film's opening shots, we see close-ups of new Marine recruits getting their heads shaved at a military training post
The next shot follows Hartman (R.
Lee Ermey) as he strides through a barracks and completes the first stage of the young men's intimidating indoctrination into the Marine Corps
The scene also establishes the measured pace that Kubrick maintains throughout
Booming, gloriously profane, and imaginative, Sgt. Hartman is a force of nature that will mold these boys into killing machines
At that point, most war films would turn to the young men, sketch out their pasts and then show their transformation into a cohesive unit
These kids are names and archetypes who will react differently to Hartman's approach
Kubrick makes Ermey such a mesmerizing force that one key early element is easy to overlook
From the first moment we see him in the barber's chair, before we even know his name, it is abundantly clear that Leonard is mad
He has that familiar vacant, smiling, dull-eyed expression of evil that Kubrick also uses to define Little Alex in "A Clockwork Orange" and Jack Torrance in "The Shining." The other characters do not see it, and so the inevitable confrontation between Hartman and Leonard is all the more horrifying
The middle section of the film establishes Joker's role as a war reporter, working behind the lines during the Tet Offensive of 1968, and his desire for some "trigger time" with his old pals from basic
That's where Kubrick shapes his view of the Vietnam war
In the third part, a new sociopath named Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) is introduced, and the focus shifts to a patrol searching through the bombed out city of Hue to root out a sniper
That is where the filmmakers comment most pointedly on the war itself
They see it as a dead-end that serve no purpose
That's certainly a valid artistic interpretation of history
Many other films have made the same points, often more eloquently
But Kubrick isn't interested in eloquence, either
The three sections are unmistakably separated from each other
The first stands on its own though key elements are stated again at the end
For the viewer expecting a "traditional" war film, the result is disconcerting, frustrating, and somehow unfinished
Most Kubrick fans will admit that "Paths of Glory" and "Dr. Strangelove" are more enjoyable, but even if their man is not in top form, "Full Metal Jacket" is challenging, and repeated viewings reveal more details and connections.
I was very surprised to learn recently, from Matthew Modine's newly published "Full Metal Jacket Diary," that Kubrick shot the Vietnam portion of the movie (or most of it, anyway) first, and the Parris Island portion second.
just watch this film and you will see why its the best war movie ever! |
tt0432348 | Saw II | The film opens with Michael (Noam Jenkins), a police informant, finding himself ensnared in a deadly trap created by the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell). A videotaped message informs him that a Venus flytrap-like helmet full of spikes has been locked around his neck and will close on his head unless he finds the key in time. Michael realizes, through hints left by Jigsaw, that the key has been implanted behind his right eye. He finds a scalpel nearby, but cannot bring himself to cut out his own eye. When the timer runs out, the device slams shut, killing him instantly.After arguing with his rebellious teenage son Daniel (Erik Knudsen), Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is called to the scene of yet another death perpetrated by Jigsaw on account of his name being written on the wall. Noticing that a padlock on the iron maiden-like device around the victim's neck bares a Wilson Steel logo, he gathers a SWAT team and arrives at the company's abandoned factory, which has now become another lair of Jigsaw's. A set of computer monitors shows several people trapped in a mysterious house, with Daniel among them; a timer is also present, with less than two hours left. Considerably weakened by his rapidly-advancing brain cancer, Jigsaw informs detective Mathews that he will see his son in a "safe, secure state" if he can sit in the room and converse with him long enough.In the house, the kidnapped people are trying to figure out how they got there. One person is passed out on the floor and later turns out to be Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), a familiar face from the first Saw film wherein she was the only character to escape her trap. There are six people in addition to Daniel and Amanda, and none of them knows who the others are. Amanda finds a cassette player and a note falls to the floor. She plays the cassette and they all learn that the door to the house will open in three hours but a toxic nerve gas is leaking into the house which will kill them in two hours unless they can find antidotes. One of these is in a safe in the room with them; the combination to which is said to be "in the back of [their] mind." The tape also states that the key to how they are connected to each other is marked by an X. Gus (Tony Nappo) is quickly killed while peering out the door's peep hole because Xavier (Franky G) attempts to unlock the door with a key found with the note which reads "do not attempt to use the key on the door to this room."Saw II now intercuts between Jigsaw's lair as Matthews' talks with Jigsaw in an attempt to buy time while the video signal is traced, and the captives in the house trying to secure antidotes. In the basement, they find a message for Obi (Tim Burd) revealing that he helped in the capture of everybody in the house. Soon after, he is burned to death by a furnace after attempting to take the two antidotes from inside. While he is burning, he notices a switch that COULD have turned off the fire, next to a drawing of the devil (on the tape, jigsaw says "when you're in hell, only the devil can help you out"). He dies without getting the syringes out, and everyone goes back upstairs.A door without a padlock is found and Xavier pushes in the door which starts a count-down timer. Another tape is found, in which Jigsaw condemns Xavier for being a drug dealer. A pit with thousands of used hypodermic syringes is revealed, with a key to an antidote hidden within. Instead of searching the pit himself, Xavier throws Amanda in. Amanda retrieves the key, but Xavier fails to unlock the door before the timer runs out. The antidote remains locked up.Back in Jigsaw's office, he reveals that the people trapped in the house are all criminals who were framed by Matthews at one point, and that his son may be in danger should the others discover his identity. Matthews, growing impatient with Jigsaw's philosophical ramblings, trashes Jigsaw's models and plans; Jigsaw remains unmoved.Xavier, having abandoned the others, finds a colored number written on the back of Gus' neck. Realizing this is where the combination to the safe must be hidden, Xavier pulls out a knife and tells Jonus (Glenn Plummer) to turn around. Jonus assumes Xaxier means him harm and of course fights back and almost gets away but a coughing fit stops him. Xavier takes advantage of this fit and kills Jonas to retrieve his number and begins stalking the remaining captives. Laura (Beverley Mitchell) notices an X marking a painting on the wall and upon lifting it, finds a photo tacked to the back of it. The photo shows that Daniel is the son of their arresting officer, Eric Mathews. Soon after discovering the clue, Laura succumbs to the poison.Addison somehow finds another unlocked room and stumbles upon a glass box containing an antidote, a trap meant for Gus, and becomes caught in it. If she had only taken a moment to look around, she would have seen the key hanging from the ceiling on the other side of the box. Xavier comes to Addison, alerted by her screams for help, but only to obtain her number. Rather than unlock the box, he leaves her to die of blood loss. Xavier then discovers that Daniel is Matthews' son by finding the discarded photo and hunts him and Amanda down.Watching this on the monitors in Jigsaw's headquarters, Matthews loses control and violently assaults Jigsaw, nearly killing him and ultimately forcing him to take him to the house at gunpoint. As they depart, the tech team discovers the signal going to the monitors and follows it.Xavier pursues Amanda and Daniel through a trapdoor, which leads to the bathroom trap from the first film; inside are the decomposing severed foot of Dr. Gordon and the remains of Zepp Hindle and Adam Faulkner in an advanced state of decomposition. After Xavier threatens Amanda for her number, she asks him how he intends to read his own number. In response, Xavier slices off the piece of skin from the back of his neck where it is written. Xavier then attacks a prone Daniel, but he is revealed to be playing dead and slashes Xavier's throat open with Dr. Gordon's hacksaw from the previous film.Meanwhile, Matthews arrives at the house and makes his way inside, eventually finding the trapdoor. The SWAT team, meanwhile, arrives at the location of the video signal, but it is not the same house that has been shown on the monitors in Jigsaw's lair; the events in the house took place a few hours earlier and were broadcast from tapes.Matthews arrives in the bathroom and is stabbed in the thigh with a hypodermic syringe and knocked unconscious by a person wearing a pig mask.The timer at Jigsaw's lair expires and a safe opens, revealing Daniel inside wearing an oxygen mask.Matthews awakens to find himself chained to a pipe. An audio tape lying next to him reveals that Amanda has put him there. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Amanda has become Jigsaw's protégé, and that Matthews is her first victim, as revenge for framing her and sending her to prison where she became addicted to heroin. Amanda appears in the door and says "Game over!" before closing the bathroom door while Mathews screams threats and abuse. Outside the house, a very badly beaten Jigsaw slowly forms a smile, as he is happy that his master plan has worked perfectly. | mystery, gothic, murder, violence, horror, flashback, clever, suspenseful, sadist | train | imdb | null |
tt0094721 | Beetlejuice | In a sleepy little town in New England, we meet Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin) Maitland, a couple who have chosen to take a vacation by staying at home. However, the realtor who sold them the house, Jane (Annie McEnroe), tries to entice them to sell the house, since it seems too big for just a couple. The Maitlands reject her pleas and head to town. On the way home they swerve to avoid a dog, which sends them into a river where they drown.Unaware that they are dead, the Maitlands return to the house, unsure how they got back so quickly. Adam decides to go back outside to 'retrace their steps,' but finds himself on a strange desert planet inhabited by striped sandworms. When he returns to the house, Barbara says he was gone for two hours and shows him a book that she found on a table, Handbook for the Recently Deceased.Time passes relatively quickly, and soon, the Maitlands' house is sold again (under Jane's watchful eye) to the Deetzes, a New York family composed of Charles (Jeffrey Jones), Delia (Catherine O'Hara), and their daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder). While Charles wishes for a quiet respite from the hustle and bustle of New York, Delia can't stand the simple life, and hires a decorator named Otho (Glenn Shadix) to make the house more 'livable' and more to her tastes.Adam and Barbara try to scare the Deetzes, but all their efforts are for naught, as it seems that the living can't see the dead. They take refuge in the attic, where Adam locks the door. However, Lydia finds a skeleton key and tries to open the door. As Adam and Barbara foil her attempts, a TV in the attic comes to life, advertising the services of someone named Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), who claims to be able to scare the living.Consulting the handbook, Adam creates a door that takes him and Barbara to a waiting room in the afterlife, filled with others who have met rather gruesome fates. They are shown to a special room, which reveals their home after it has been redecorated by Delia and Otho. It is here that they are introduced to their case worker Juno (Sylvia Sidney), who chastises them for their haunting methods and cautions them not to take the advice of the person they saw on the television.Returning to the house, Adam and Barbara dress up in sheets to try and scare Charles and Delia, but their attempt fails again. Annoyed with the spooky noises, Lydia finds them, and the two are amazed when they remove the bedsheets and realize she can see them! Lydia reveals that she found their handbook, and found a passage that explains how 'live people ignore the strange and unusual,' something she considered herself to be.The Maitlands enlist Lydia to help get the Deetzes out of their house, but no one believes her. Not sure what to do, Barbara notices something in the model of the town in the attic: a glowing light around a small grave that appears to belong to Beetlejuice. She says his name three times, and she and Adam are whisked into the model, where they unearth Beetlejuice's body. Once they've done so they regret it, as Beetlejuice is a rather crazy, uncouth and insane ghoul. Turned off by his personality, they resolve to scare the Deetzes themselves.At a dinner party Delia throws to show her sculptures and other art pieces, the entire group ends up singing 'The Banana Boat Song,' and the shrimp dish in front of them turns into grasping hands. The Maitlands think they've finally succeeded, only to find that their antics have actually amused the Deetzes. The Deetzes send Lydia to bring them down, and when they refuse, everyone clambers to the attic, demanding that the Maitlands show themselves. They find no one there, but Charles is entranced by the miniature of the town, and Otho finds and takes the handbook.Leaving the attic, Charles feels that there is a lucrative business venture just waiting to happen. However, his cheerfulness turns to horror as Beetlejuice transforms into a large snake, freaking out the family by knocking Otho down the stairs and dropping Charles to the floor below. Barbara manages to call the snake off by uttering Beetlejuice's name three times. Lydia is distraught, thinking that the snake was the Maitlands intending to do more than just scare them.The Maitlands are brought before Juno again, who takes them to task for breaking a number of rules: having photos taken of themselves, letting Beetlejuice out, and letting Otho get hold of the handbook. Juno encourages the Maitlands to work harder to scare the Deetzes, and Barbara and Adam contort their features into grotesque forms. However, Barbara has some apprehensions, as she likes Lydia.Meanwhile, Lydia grows so upset that she writes a suicide letter. Going to the attic to say goodbye to the Maitlands, she encounters Beetlejuice in the model. Beetlejuice tries to convince her that he can help her find the Maitlands if she says his name three times. Lydia is almost tricked into saying this, until she realizes that Beetlejuice was the snake, and doubts if he really can help her find the Maitlands. Just then, Adam and Barbara appear, and Lydia explains what was about to happen. Lydia, feeling distraught to be living, tells them of her wish to be dead. Barbara talks her out of these thoughts, and tells her that they've decided to not scare the family, and allow them to stay.Just then, Otho and Charles appear in the attic; Lydia and the Maitlands hide. Otho and Charles carry Adam's model of the town downstairs, where they give Charles' business associate Maxie Deen (Robert Goulet) an overview of Charles' plan to turn the town into a paranormal-themed attraction. Charles also requests that Lydia produce the Maitlands for their guests, but when she refuses, Otho explains that he has a way.Using the handbook and the Maitlands' wedding clothes, Otho performs a seance that forces the couple to appear before them. However, this causes the Maitlands to deteriorate, their forms reverting to their decaying corpses.Frantic, Lydia rushes to the model and sees Beetlejuice in the graveyard. She begs him to help her. Beetlejuice agrees on the condition that Lydia marries him. She agrees to this, and the Maitlands are saved. However, Beetlejuice then holds Lydia to her word, and holds Charles and Delia hostage as 'witnesses,' as Otho escapes.Both Adam and Barbara struggle to stop Beetlejuice, who sends Adam into the model and Barbara to the sandworm planet. Through a joint effort, they do away with Beetlejuice and save Lydia.In the aftermath, the Maitlands and the Deetzes co-occupy the house, and Lydia is much more cheerful in her new environment. | comedy, fantasy, gothic, paranormal, whimsical, cult, alternate reality, horror, haunting, psychedelic, entertaining | train | imdb | Director Tim Burton is very careful not to overload the movie with raunch; he is surprisingly careful in setting up this story, and he works magic within a dubious scenario: a comic fantasy about dead folks which ultimately celebrates life.
Once again I'm not sure exactly how to start this comment other than to praise Tim Burton, Beetlejuice is a movie that was based on his idea and is still remembered to this very day.
An ultra-zany story of rural couple Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis), who accidentally get killed and witness a tasteless couple moving into their house, forcing them to hire "bio-exorcist" Beetle Juice (Michael Keaton), is truly something else.
His sophomore effort shows the story of a married couple (the Maitlands played with good degree by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who die accidentally off a bridge and wind up the target for a upper-class family (including a young yet well played Winona Ryder) and a weird yet scary ghost (with the most) named Beetleguise (or Beetlejuice in a scene of laughs) played to immense complexity by Michael Keaton.
A great cast lead by the very appealing and likable Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as the newly dead Maitlands, a star turn by Michael Keaton as the gonzo "bio-exorcist" title character, and strong support from Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara, and especially Winona Ryder (a performance that really put her on the map), as the new occupants of the Maitlands house.
But in Beetlejuice, we see a new dimension humour being experimented with.Taking into the account that the movie was made in 1988 with limited special effects, Beetlejuice could be simply labelled as "creativity at its best".Tim Burton is a pure visionary and with this movie you cannot help but appreciate the amount of creativity he has and his ability to translate it to screen.Acting is top-rate from all fronts.
This movie always was: 1 - very popular; 2 - very different; 3 - very entertaining; 4 - a very fast-moving hour-and-a-half of a film.Several characters in here - mainly Michael Keaton's unique and sometimes- revolting title character "Beetlejuice"- are always fascinating to watch.
Now, she's my favorite and someone I find absolutely hilarious as the messed-up wife/mother of a family who moves into a "haunted house" inhabited by Baldwin and Davis.Keaton made himself a name as an actor with this whacked-out Robin Williams-type role, although he never really followed up with anything that was as popular as this film.
All of them are good.Tim Burton directed the film and so I wasn't surprised there were the typical occult themes with ghosts and the like, and no heaven or hell but some other strange existence being touted where dead people go....a ridiculous picture of the afterlife.
A surreal , grotesque farce with continual surprises about an ultra-nice couple (Alec Baldwin , Geena Davis) of recently deceased ghosts who contract the services of a "bio-exorcist" called Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton, the title character is named for a bright red star in the constellation of Orion, Betelgeusein) in order to remove the obnoxious new owners of their house , and they contract him to rid of all trespassers for a price .
Among those who feel the need to hire are a couple of newly-dead who are confined to a living hell in their own home which is being invaded by obnoxious new inhabitants , a family of post-modern art-lovers , formed by a marriage (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara who was a replacement for an ill Anjelica Huston as Delia, on the set she met her future husband, production designer Bo Welch who created the inventive set design) and their rare daughter named Lydia (Winona Ryder ; though also auditioned for the role Juliette Lewis , Diane Lane, Sarah Jessica Parker, Brooke Shields, Molly Ringwald and Jennifer Connelly all turned down the same role) .
Lively and amusing musical score by Danny Elffman , Tim Burton's usual .Not surprisingly, the movie's impressive box-office success created plans for a sequel: Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian.
A script was commissioned and Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder both signed on to reprise their respective roles, but Tim Burton lost interest in the project and went on to direct Batman and Batman Returns instead.
was still trying to get the original sequel concept into production but a finished film has yet to materialize.The motion picture was well realized by Tim Burton , giving a quirky vision of the afterlife and showing his usual weird touches .
They arrive in the form of gag inducing trendy NYC interior designer Otho (Glenn Shadix RIP) who acts like he walked right out of a satirical episode of South Park), Charles (Jeffrey Jones the lovable bugger) and Delia Deetz (a spastic Catherine O Hara) and their cutie daughter Lydia (an emo Winona Ryder, one of my first movie crushes ♡♡).
Burton has always been at his pitch-black, satirical best ripping apart ideologies of 'normal life', and he has a ball equally taking jabs at our goodhearted ghostly protagonists (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, both charmingly flustered), who are tickled pink by the prospect of a 'staycation' cooped up refurbishing their home, or the house's posthumous inhabitants (the deliciously demented Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara), who tastelessly claw at postmodern décor or oafishly Machiavellian capitalism, goaded on by their preening design consultant Otho (the note-perfect Glen Shadix).
Somehow, in its mad tornado of satire, gorgeously oddball visuals, and adventurously eccentric performances, seasoned with Danny Elfman at his infectiously bouncy best, and sprinkled with a couple of Harry Belafonte Calypso dance numbers for good measure (naturally
), Burton's Gothic ode to the afterlife couldn't surge with more life and vibrancy.
'Beetlejuice', a black comedy about the afterlife, is hardly mainstream Hollywood fare, but I also found it far from entertaining.The central characters, Adam and Barbara Maitland, are a nice-but-wet young couple, who live just outside an idyllic small New England town in one of those huge, rambling weather boarded mansions that looks as though it has been taken straight from an Edward Hopper painting.
OK, we're talking about one of the greatest films guys..Ever since I was little it was my first favorite movie, i've seen it like a hundred times(I do have a life) and I never get tired of it!!Tim Burton is a complete talented freak who I love!Beetljuice is extremely funny and creepy(especially the part with the exorcist movie)Not to mention the closing song '' Jump in the line'' I used to get up and dance and wished that I could float like Winona Ryder!Excellent, what can I say?
The use of Burton's regular actors(Catherine O'Hara, Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Glenn Shadix) as well as the others create a perfect cast for this cult classic film.
But Beetle Juice wants to get married to Lydia to definitely return to the world of the living.The first feature of Tim Burton is a delightful comedy, where he introduces a calling card of his dark style with nice characters in a very funny story, great makeup and special effects and a stunning and hilarious performance of Michael Keaton.
When their attempts to scare away the obnoxious new owners of their home prove less than successful, recently deceased couple Barbara and Adam Maitland (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) turn to outrageous 'bio-exorcist' Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) for help.They played Harry Belafonte's 'Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)' at my work's Xmas 'do' this year, which made me realise that it's been a whopping 25 years since I last saw Beetlejuice (as well as making me painfully aware that dancing the conga when sober isn't anywhere near as much fun as it is while plastered—next year, I drink!).
Sadly, a quarter of a century later, the film isn't anywhere near as much fun as I remembered it to be
There are plenty of creative ideas and director Tim Burton's morbid style is much in evidence, but the film as a whole proves to be far less than the sum of its parts—a series of quirky, macabre, but not very funny gags with little in the way of a decent story to tie it all together.
Keaton is also rather irritating as the 'ghost with the most'; thankfully he gets precious little screen-time (despite the film being named after his character), but Winona Ryder, an actress that I simply cannot abide, is sadly present throughout..
The careers of Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin would ignite big a couple of years later."Beetle Juice" is vivid, colorful, funny and represents something different in the comedy scene..
There are pretty awesome special effects at work (sand worms, Beetle Snake, and a scene where Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin compete to see who can make a scarier face), tons of make-up, some legitimately eerie moments, and a hilarious performance by Keaton as the troublesome everyman ghost, Beetle Juice.Classic Tim Burton combining humor and scares, the morbid and the silly, and the bizarre visual flair we've all come to know and love.
Twice.There's some blood and some creepy stuff going around: plenty of dead bodies(mostly doing and saying funny stuff) with all sorts of ailments, constant talk of the afterlife, some risqué jokes that will most likely go over the brow of your ten year old, and one of the best usages of the "F" word in cinema history.Everything about the film is exceptional, and if you like your horror with some humor, look no further..
To do this, they have the help of experienced ghosts and two unusual allies: the daughter of the new house owners and another ghost, deeply unorthodox and expert in the art of scaring the living.The film is a classic comedy of black humor, which plays with death and life in the beyond, just as it makes a great mockery to the pseudo-intellectuals of American society.
Directed by Tim Burton, there are a lot of elements that we associate, almost instinctively, with this director: an unusual plot with offbeat themes, a comedy difficult to please everyone, out of the box sets and costumes and a refined, fun and contagious soundtrack.The cast did a great job.
Winona Ryder, once a regular in Burton's films (remember "Scissorhands"), is quite good at playing the rebellious daughter of the new owners of the house, which, for a reason the film never explains, has the ability to see and speak with them, as if she were a medium.Overall, this movie was a pleasant surprise.
Beetlejuice is one of those characters in film you are either going to love or hate.I've long been a fan of Tim Burton.
When I watched for the very first time Beetlejuice, I was still a young child whose only reference to the After Life World was the TV show cartoon Casper, that young ghost whose only wish is to become a little boy once again.So when my parents showed me that movie for the first time and tried to comfort me, assuring that it's not as scary as it looks, I was spooked anyway (the pun is intended).But I loved it even if I was scared a couple of times.
I will be honest, it's a strange humor as it's a dark comedy, but it's all good.I'm not sure exactly how to start this comment other than to praise Tim Burton, Beetlejuice is a movie that was based on his idea and is still remembered to this very day.
BEETLEJUICE is an important film for at least one reason: It established Tim Burton's style and featured a lot of the people, behind and in front of the camera, who he would collaborate with over the next 20 years or so.
So, for not quite delivering the riotous comedy I expected, BEETLEJUICE is still a highly entertaining showcase for special effects and Michael Keaton's manic energy, as well as being Tim Burton's first true film (or at least emblematic of his style)..
Tim Burton built his name on his macabre style but "Beetlejuice" is one odd movie (in a good way).
Finally they get a specialist Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) to excise the living from their house.Tim Burton is a complete original, and this is the first tastes of his quirky visual sense.
The film focuses on The Maitlands, a married couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who die in a car accident and find themselves living as ghosts in their large former home even after the pretentious and dysfunctional Deetz family has moved in.
They soon learn Lydia, the daughter (Winona Ryder), can actually see them.Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) comes into the picture as a ghost who claims to be able to scare the living better than anyone.
Geena David and Alec Baldwin are great as the couple who die, Winona Ryder rules as Lydia the daughter who can see the couple and Michael Keaton almost steals the show as Beetleguese a.k.a. Beetle Juice.
There's actually a sort of "Health and Haunted Services" system in the Great Beyond that provides assistance in the form of caseworkers (who are about as helpful in death as they are in life), and Adam and Barbara's "help" comes in the form of the cynical and cancerous Juno, (the great Sylvia Sidney), who goes completely by the book...but does tip the deceased darlings off to one dangerously unpredictable possibility for a resolution of their problem.His name, as you know by now, is Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) - or as more commonly known - "Beetlejuice." He's a caseworker turned "independent contractor", which means he's bad news for the Maitlands, worse news for the Dietzes, and the best thing to happen to horror-comedies since three guys named Venkman, Spengler and Stanz.
After they die, Adam (Baldwin) and Barbara (Davis) come back to their house as ghosts and find a family is moving in and the couple try to scare them away with help from bio-exorcist Beetlejuice.Tim Burton's reputation as the darkest and most Gothic director started here with a bizarre but wonderfully different tale of the dead and is both funny, and yet psychological scary, and brings a niche to the market in a strange and sophisticated way.The film has a terrific opening with Danny Elfman's score exquisite to the bird's eye view of the town going past and the upbeat music plays right into our hands and will gear you up ready for the horror and excitement to begin.Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October) impresses as ambitious Adam and has good on screen chemistry with Geena Davis (Thelma and Louise) and the pair create many laughs and are a joy to watch, especially when playing around with the sheets.Winona Ryder (Girl, interrupted) gives a great performance as Lydia, the weird and wonderful teenager, who gives the film a more serious and realistic feel against Keaton's comic Beetlejuice.The star of the show is Keaton (Batman) who plays bio-exorcist Beetlejuice, a crazed man who is evil, eccentric and enjoyable to watch, because he is weird and different, one of Tim Burton's finest creations, right up there with Edward Scissorhands.
Enjoyed this film and the great acting by Alec Baldwin, (Adam) and Geena Davis, (Barbara) who are a married young couple who move into a home they are very happy with and they are both deeply in love with each other and are kissing each other all the time.
This combined with solid performances from the entire cast and of Course Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, you know your on to a winner.Keaton Brings Beetlejuice to life in this hilarious comedy, as he is called upon to help some ghosts excorisise the living from their home, with unpredicted results.This movie quite simply gets funnier every time you see it, and there is literally nothing else like it, that i have seen.Terrific 8/10.
Michael Keaton is perfect in the title role, while Burton has him surrounded by top-notch leading and supporting talent, including a typically hilarious Catherine O'Hara and a star-making turn by Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz.
Beetlejuice is a quirky offbeat dark comedy from the late 1980s starring Michael Keaton and directed by Tim Burton.
Beetlejuice is a quirky offbeat dark comedy from the late 1980s starring Michael Keaton and directed by Tim Burton.
Incredible premise and funny idea of Tim Burton's morbidity which delivery each single scene in high class dark comedy,the highlights of movie probable are Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice and the trial center which all ghost are sending to make a propper registration always obeying a long waiting queue with astronomic number,more the old Sylvia Sidney in small role!!Resume:First watch: 1995 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.25.
RELEASED IN 1988 and directed by Tim Burton, "Beetlejuice" chronicles the story of a couple (Alec Baldwin & Geena Davis) who accidently perish after moving to a quaint Connecticut town.
Beetlejuice is mostly a product of the 1980's, but there's something about Tim Burton's flare for the absolute absurd supernatural that gives this film an incomparable likability.Burton teamed up with his early career favorite Michael Keaton for the title character, and in turn created what is perhaps one of the most iconic performances of all time.
Deals with a family haunted by a recently deceased young couple (Baldwin and Davis)—yes, it certainly sounds like a cliché horror movie, but the talented cast and the memorable scenes make it anything but, especially with Keaton in the titular role as an obnoxious ghost trying to permanently scare away the new inhabitants.
His character seems fairly likable, and combined with Geena Davis as his wife, the two create a couple that everyone can adore.All in all, if you are looking for some fun time with a movie that won't bore you for a second, give Beetlejuice a try.
Michael Keaton stars as the thoroughly obnoxious, trouble making ghost Beetle Juice, who is summoned by a recently deceased couple(Geena Davis & Alec Baldwin) to help them scare away the new tenants of their old home, since they have failed to do so. |
tt0055205 | Murder She Said | This is based on the Agatha Christie book "4:50 from Paddington" and the opening locale is Paddington Station in London. The movie starts with Miss Jane Marple (Margaret Rutherford) being escorted with her bags, by a porter, onto a train car. While traveling through the countryside another train slowly overtakes and Miss Marple sees a murder being committed -- a man whose face she can't see choking a woman in her thirties.She reports the murder to the porter and although he is disbelieving, he reports it to the authorities at the next station, Brackhampton. At her home, she is interviewed by Inspector Craddock, C.I.D. (Charles Tingwell). He is skeptical, too, as they have done a search for a body and found nothing. Miss Marple informs him she is going to do her own investigation.She enlists the aide of her friend Mr. Stringer (played by Stringer Davis, Margaret Rutherford's real-life husband), the local librarian, and they do a search along the railroad line. There they find a piece of the fur from the murdered woman's fur collar at the top of a masonry wall that separates the rail line from a private estate, which Mr. Stringer identifies as Ackenthorpe Hall Estate. They have to take cover from a groundskeeper walking a fierce-looking dog and Miss Marple concocts a plan, which she subsequently carries out, to take employment at the hall to further investigate, for she is convinced that the murdered woman's body is on the hall grounds.As she arrives by a car driven by Mr. Stringer at the hall (which appears to be right on the edge of town), we see it as past its best days but still nice. It sits on grounds of five or ten acres. We see the staff which consists of Mrs. Kidder who comes in three times a week to do the "rough work" and some cooking, a gardener and groundskeeper, Hillman, and now Miss Marple as the main house-keeper and cook. She is greeted by the daughter, Emma, of the owner, Mr. Ackenthorpe (James Robertson Justice) . Also living there is Emma's nephew who is visiting while on school holidays. Mr. Ackenthorpe is an irascible old man, an invalid who spends most of his time in his room. He sneaks cigars and booze against doctor's orders. There's a verbal exchange and Miss Marples gives as good as she gets.Settling in, she meets the nephew, fourteen year old Alexander Easley, a good natured but mischievous kid. He describes the future heirs to Mr. Ackenthorpe's estate: "Uncle Harold, stinking rich and just as mean." "Uncle Albert, deadly dull, poor fellow." "Uncle Cedric who paints, but not for art's sake." "There was an Uncle Edmond who was killed during the war." and then there's Alexander's father Brian Eastley, "the WWII fighter ace". His mother is dead.The other major character is Mr. Ackenthorpe's house-visiting physician, Dr. Quimper,who it is apparent has a romantic relationship with Emma.Next day on the job, she investigates the grounds under the guise of practicing golf. We learn she won the "Ladies Open Handicap in 1921". Alexander accompanies her as she explores the outbuildings. Inside are old carriages and buggies, and a room which contains some Egyptian artifacts. They also find a music compact, which we later learn had fallen from the murdered woman's clothing. "Jane" claims it as her own. Hillman arrives and runs them off before they can explore the Egyptian room. That night Jane sneaks out to the Egyptian room and finds the murdered woman's corpse hidden in a sarcophagus. She has Mr. Stringer anonymously inform the police.As Inspector Craddick and his Sergeant are investigating the scene, the doctor arrives and suggests that the woman is French because of the clothes she is wearing. Miss Marple tells the inspector in private that she is the one who found the body, and now she has his respect.A day or days later, we see the heirs at dinner, as they are visiting for a weekend. There are the four men plus Emma. We learn each of the sons and son-in-law has some intrigue going on. There's also speculation that the murdered woman could have been "Martine" a French woman they've never met who supposedly married the son who was killed during the war in France. Emma had earlier received a letter from this Martine saying she was going to visit. If this Martine had arrived and shown proof of the marriage, she would have been entitled to a share of the estate, thus each heir would have had a financial incentive to murder her.Next we learn that the compact has been stolen from Jane's room and thus it is believed that this was done by the murderer and her life may be in danger. It also turns out that old Mr. Ackenthorpe had had an attack of indigestion some months prior. The doctor had had some suspicion of arsenic poisoning but hadn't mentioned it to the police. Emma takes the letter she received from Martine to the police.That night, after supper, several of the members of the family get seriously ill, and one, Albert dies.The next night, Harold is found dead with a shotgun wound, on the grounds.The compact is found -- young Alexander has taken it -- thus ending that line of investigation but Miss Marple announces she thinks she knows who the killer is, and has a plan to catch him, which she gives to Inspector Craddock, but which is kept from us.That night, everyone is gathered in the drawing room, and Alexander comes in showing off the music box, which he says belongs to Miss Marple, and which he had borrowed and will drop off with her on the way to bed. Later, Miss Marple is in her bedroom, knitting, when the killer enters -- it is Doctor Quimper. He had a plan to marry Emma and acquire a share of the inheritance but he was already married (unknown to everyone), so he had murdered his wife. His suggestion that the murdered woman was French was just to throw off the police and direct suspicion on the rest of the family. Miss Marple gets him to confess as he doesn't intend to let her live, but the police are in hiding and prevent the murder. Doctor Quimper is placed under arrest.The next day, Jane is giving her notice to Mr. Ackenthorpe and he proposes marriage, which she declines.The movie ends with Mr. Stringer taking Miss Marple home in his car. Alexander has affixed a bunch of cans on strings to the rear bumper along with a "Just Married" sign to the rear trunk deck. Alexander laughs and waves as he runs after the car. | cult, mystery, murder | train | imdb | null |
tt0111495 | Trois couleurs: Rouge | The film begins with clips that track a telephone call between London and Geneva, where a French university student and part-time model, Valentine Dusot (Irène Jacob), is talking to her emotionally infantile but possessive boyfriend. During her work as a model, she poses for a chewing-gum campaign, during the photo shoot the photographer asks her to look very sad. While walking back home Auguste, a neighbor of Valentine's, drops a set of books and he notices that a particular chapter of the Criminial Code was open at random and he concentrates on that passage.While driving back to her apartment, Valentine accidentally runs over a dog. She tracks down the owner, a reclusive retired judge, Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant). He seems unconcerned by the accident or the injuries sustained by Rita, his dog. Valentine takes Rita to a veterinarian, where she learns that Rita is pregnant. Valentine takes the dog home.The next day, she talks to her boyfriend over the phone and relates how she came to acquire the dog. He becomes angry since they initially met when she ran over his dog accidentally some years before, and wants her to take the dog back.While walking Rita, the dog runs off again and Valentine figures that it went home to Kern, where she finally finds the dog. He says that Rita is now hers since he wishes for nothing in life. Earlier that day she had received a lot of money in the mail and she figures out that it was Kern who sent her the money to pay for the veterinarian's bill, but he got the amount wrong. Kern goes inside to get some change but does not come back out. Valentine wanders into his house and finds him listening to his neighbors' private telephone conversations. Valentine is appalled and threatens to denounce Kern to his neighbors. Kern challenges her to do this and points out one neighbor's residence. At first, she goes to do so, but does not tell them anything, seeing that their daughter is also listening in on the conversation. She goes back to Kern and asks him to stop eavesdroping but he replies that he has been doing it all his life, but now he knows where to find the truth.Kern points out an attractive man to Valentine in his window. He suspects him to run the entire heroin market in Geneva but cannot hear his calls because he uses a Japanese phone. Valentine insults him and Kern concludes that she has a strong feeling against drugs, and after a bit of conversation Kern figures out that Valentine's feelings towards drugs stem from a piece of news in her paper and a photo of a young man, her brother, who discovered that he is not his father's son and has been using drugs for a year. Kern tells her that it shall make no difference that she denounces him for his spying, the people's lives he listens to shall eventually turn into hell. She leaves saying that she feels nothing but pity for him.While visiting Kern, Valentine also hears a conversation between Karin and Auguste, where they discuss if they should go bowling. Valentine covers her ears, but from the very little she heard she concludes that they love each other. Kern disagrees. That evening Valentine is alone at home and hopes that her boyfriend shall call but it is the photographer who calls, saying that her poster was set up that evening and asks her bowling to celebrate.Meanwhile, Auguste takes his exam and passes it and becomes a judge. Karin asks him if he was asked any questions regarding the article that was open when he dropped his books. Auguste says 'yes'. Karin gives him a fountain pen as a gift and he wonders what the first judgment he signs with it will be.That evening, Kern writes a series of letters to his neighbors and denounces himself, and the community files a class action suit against him. At the law courts, he sees Karin meeting another man. Earlier, Auguste had missed a call from Karin and tried to call her back but never hears from her again.Valentine reads in her paper a piece of news about a retired judge that spied on his neighbors and she goes to Kern telling him that she said nothing to anybody. He confesses that it was him just to see what she would do. He asks her in and shows her that Rita has had seven puppies. They discuss that on their last conversation she spoke about pity but he later realized that it was actually disgust. He wonders about the reasons why people obey laws and it turns out that often it is more on selfish grounds and from fear than about obeying the law or being decent. It is his birthday and they have a couple of drinks. During their conversation he reminisces about a sailor he acquitted a long time ago, only later realizing he had made a mistake, and that the man was guilty. However the man later married and had children and later grandchildren and lives peacefully and happy. Valentine says that he did what he had to do, but Kern wonders how many other people that he acquitted or condemned might have seen a different life had he decided otherwise; he sympathizes with them and with his neighbors who have been throwing stones at his windows, saying that in their circumstances and being them he might have done the same, but in his role as judge he never stepped out of his shoes and never really understood other people. He also suggests that being in a position of deciding what is truth and what is not is a lack of modesty and vanity on behalf of humankind. When the conversation turns to Kerns' past romantic life he avoids the question by telling her about a dream he had about her. Valentine tells Kern about her intended trip to England to visit her boyfriend. Kern suggests that she take the ferry.Meanwhile, Auguste is unable to reach his girlfriend Karin since graduation. One evening he goes to her place and sees her legs wrapped around another man. Distraught, he leaves. By chance Auguste sees Karin and her new boyfriend in a restaurant, he gets her attention but when she rushes outside to try to explain he hides from her. Kern calls Karin's personalized weather service and inquires about the weather in the English Channel, which she expects to be perfect as she is about to take a trip there (with her new boyfriend who owns a boat).The day before Valentine leaves, she invites Kern to a fashion show where she is modeling. After the show, they speak about the dream he had about her, where she was 50 years old and happy with an unidentified man. The conversation then turns to him and the reasons why he disliked Karin. Kern reveals that before becoming a judge, he was in love with a woman very much like Karin, who betrayed him for another man. While preparing for his exam he once went to the same theater where the fashion show took place and he accidentally dropped one of his books. When he picked it up, Kern studied the chapter where the book accidentally opened, which turned out to be the crucial question at his examination. When he broke up with his girlfriend he followed her across the English Channel but never saw her again, because she died in an accident. Later, he was assigned to judge a case where the defendant was the same man who took his girlfriend from him. Regardless of this connection, Kern did not recuse himself from the case, since the connection was only known to him and condemned the man, the judgment was legal but he subsequently resigned his post.Valentine takes her ferry to England, and Auguste is also on the ferry, although the two never quite meet each other. Suddenly a storm rises and sinks both the ferry and the boat with Karin and her boyfriend.In the final scene, Judge Kern views a newsreel report about the sinking, and learns that of the 1,435 passengers and crew, only seven survivors were rescued. By coincidence the survivors are the main characters from the first two films of the trilogy; Julie and Olivier from 'Blue'; Karol and Dominique from 'White'; and Valentine and Auguste, who finally meet for the first time, as well as an English bartender named Stephen Killian. As with the other movies, the film's final sequence shows a character crying - in this case, the judge - over the events that has transpired... but the final image replicates the iconic chewing-gum poster of Valentine. | psychedelic, mystery, atmospheric | train | imdb | null |
tt0088850 | Brewster's Millions | Montgomery "Monty" Brewster (Richard Pryor) is a second-rate minor league baseball pitcher with the Hackensack Bulls. One night after winning a game, Monty and his best friend, the Bulls' catcher, Spike Nolan (John Candy), are hitting on two women at a local bar. When they try to leave with them, they're confronted by two large men who claim they are the women's husbands. Monty and Spike are punched out by the men and a large bar brawl starts. They are later arrested and thrown in jail. Their coach, Charley, tells them that management has decided to kick them off the team. In court, Monty tries to explain the fight to the judge, who is wholly unsympathetic. The photographer that had been following Monty suddenly rises and tells the judge that he represents an unidentified party that will post bail for both Monty and Spike if they plead guilty.J.B. Donaldo (Joe Grifasi) (the same photographer from the courtroom) takes them to New York City with him. At the Manhattan law office of Granville & Baxter, Brewster is told that his recently deceased great-uncle Rupert Horn (Hume Cronyn), whom he has never met, has left him his entire fortune because Monty is his only living blood relative (by way of Monty's grandmother, Rupert's half-sister), but with several conditions.Rupert's last will is on film and features the wheezy and ill-tempered Rupert himself. He relates a story from his youth where his father made him smoke a whole box of cigars to punish him for smoking just one. Rupert tells Monty that he wants Monty to hate spending money. Monty will be given $30 million to spend in 30 days. If he's successful, he'll be awarded the full inheritance of $300 million. Brewster is challenged to either take $1 million upfront (as part of a 'Wimp' clause) or spend $30 million within 30 days to inherit $300 million. If he chooses the former, the law firm becomes executor of the estate and divides the money among charities (after taking a sizable fee). In the latter case, after 30 days, he must spend the entire $30 million within one month under the following rules:1.) With the exception of those who witnessed the will reading, whom are the firm's two senior partners George Granville (David White) and Norris Baxter (Jerome Dempsey) and Rupert's estate lawyer Edward Roundfield (Pat Hingle), Brewster cannot reveal to anyone the will's terms. He may only tell everyone else he inherited $30 million.2.) Brewster must spend the money on tangible items. If anything he buys accrues value, such as an investment that earns money, that is considered part of the money he inherited and he must spend that as well.3.) Directly giving away money is capped at 10%, split between 5% in gambling losses and another 5% maximum to be donated to charity.4.) Brewster may not willfully damage anything he buys with the money.5.) After 30 days, he may not own any assets that are not already his (in other words, nothing but "the clothes on his back").If any of these rules are violated, the challenge is forfeited. Also, any remaining money that he has left after 30 days will go to the law firm and Brewster will be left with nothing. Despite the tempting offer just to "wimp out" and walk away with a one-time payment of $1 million, especially after the law firm reveals that they already did a background check on him and showed that the highest annual salary he ever earned was $11,000-a-year while a member of the Toledo Mud Hens, Monty decides to take the $30 million challenge.After leaving the offices, Monty goes to a bank across the street where the money is waiting for him. He appoints Spike as the vice president of an investment corporation he's building and hires one of the bank's security guards as his personal guard for the next month. He also asks to rent the bank vault where the cash is stored and is granted a 30-day lease and refuses an account that will earn him interest.On the street, Monty hires a Russian taxi driver (Yakov Smirnov) to be his personal driver. He has the driver rent a fleet of limousines and other drivers. He takes everyone in earshot out for an expensive dinner in Manhattan. At dinner he talks with the accountant that Granville and Baxter have assigned to him, Angela Drake (Lonette McKee), an attractive woman and law student clerking in the firm, who Monty is instantly smitten with. Monty tries to convince her that he's not another newly rich snob and asks her out, thinking he can hire someone to do her work for her. He is coldly rebuffed by Angela, who has a fiance, Warren (a junior partner at the law firm).Monty rents a large penthouse in the Plaza Hotel and a large amount of office space in the same building. He has also hired a couple of high-priced tailors to make custom suits for him, renting the clothes themselves. With the salary that Monty is paying him, Spike fixes himself up. Down in the new office that Monty is renting, he meets Angela's boyfriend Warren (Stephen Collins) and his former girlfriend Margaret, whom Monty has hired to redecorate the office space. Unknown to anyone, Granville and Baxter have slyly charged Warren with spying on Monty to make sure he does not complete the challenge so they can get his millions for themselves.In Monty's office over the next few days, are hundreds of people looking to either do business with Monty or scam him. One man has an investment offer; a large iceberg will be outfitted with giant engines and be sailed to the Middle East where the ice will be used to supply water to the farmers in the region. Monty is also allowed to gamble 5% of his $30 million, so he hires a bookie to bet on every long shot he can. Monty calls his old Bulls coach and tells him he plans to fix up their old playing field in Hackensack and that he'll arrange a three-inning exhibition game where the Bulls will play the New York Yankees.Monty continues his spending campaign for a few weeks. One night he's inspired by an idea from Spike to invest in expensive items like stamps. Monty goes to a fine collectibles store and asks to see the most expensive stamp the owner has. The stamp is the infamous Inverted Jenny which Monty buys for $1,250,000. Granville and Baxter read the story in the newspaper, thinking Monty has violated the terms of the will. Baxter finds a postcard in the daily mail that has a photo of the Hackensack Bulls and a bland message from Monty. After a few moments, Baxter realizes that Monty has used the Inverted Jenny stamp to mail the card, thereby devaluing it. Both men are furious and have a private meeting with Warren where they show him the will (the conditions of not revealing the $30 million spending plan in 30 days does not apply to the others of the will reading). They then order him to cause a small error in bookkeeping amounting to $20,000 that will be discovered at the last moment. They promise Warren that he'll be made full partner and that Monty's real $300 million inheritance will go to the firm.Spike and the rest of Monty's friends and associates become very worried about Monty's frivolous spending and try to convince him to curtail it. When Monty finds out that the iceberg investment has turned out to be lucrative, he immediately wants to sell his stock in it. Moments later the bookie he hired storms in and tells him he's won a large amount of money on the bets he placed and that he's banned from any more gambling in New York. Monty decides to donate the money to charity (he's also allowed to donate 5% of the $30 million).Spike and his financial adviser, Eugene (David Wohl), both rush into Monty's office one day with exciting news. Spike had invested a large amount of Monty's money in a venture and earned Monty's company $10 million. Monty becomes upset, realizing that he's "right back where he started" and orders everyone out of his office. On television, he sees a news commentary about New York's upcoming mayoral election. The reporter says that his news station has chosen not to endorse either candidate. Monty enters the race himself, declaring a ticket called "None of the Above" where he wants to buy the votes of New York. The campaign involves a large amount of advertising, staffing and televised ads and drains much of the $30 million in a short amount of time. When Monty's two opponents, Heller and Salvino, figure out that Monty's campaign could defeat them both, they both agree to sue him for libel. Monty settles out of court for a huge amount of several million.Meanwhile, Angela has grown increasingly cold toward Monty, thinking he's foolish for spending the $30 million so rapidly. Earlier, Monty had tried to give her a new Aston-Martin convertible -- a violation of the will that Monty can't tell Angela about. While he talks to her on the street, he's overseen by both Warren and Margaret, who mistakenly assume Monty and Angela are having an affair.The day of the big Bulls vs Yankees game arrives. At the game, the Bulls start out doing very well against the Yankees, until the Yanks fight back and defeat the Bulls. After the game, Roundfeld approaches Monty in the locker room and tells him if he wins the election, the $60,000 annual salary given to him as mayor could be considered an asset in accordance with the will. Monty announces to the crowd that he's withdrawing from the election. He also invites everyone to a final party which he'll pay for with his last $38,000.At the party, Monty plans to get very drunk. Spike and Melvin take up a small collection to give to Monty so he won't be flat broke. Monty refuses the money. Spike suggests that he and Monty buy a nice sports car and leave New York for a new life. Monty still turns him down. Alienated, Spike walks away from Monty for good.The next morning (on the 30th day), the landlord for Monty's office and penthouse politely evicts him. The tailors take back all the clothes he rented and he finds his old Chicago Cubs jersey in the closet. Monty leaves the Plaza in his old street clothes and wanders off into Manhattan... alone. That evening, a local newscaster (Peter Jason), wondering where Monty has vanished to after declaring that he is now flat broke, announces that the mayoral race will be held again in a run-off election after primary election results showed that Monty's campaign had worked to sink the campaigns of Heller and Salvino, with the voters indeed voted for "none of the above". The run-off election will be held in a few days with neither Heller or Salvino running for office ever again.At 11:50 pm, Monty reappears at Granville & Baxter that night to finalize the will. Before he enters the meeting with the two, he's stopped by Warren who eagerly gives him the $20,000 he'd withheld. Monty is immediately upset thinking he'd lost and, with the clock about to strike the midnight deadline, agrees to sign whatever paperwork the two men have. While Warren watches, Angela suddenly appears. Warren discloses the conditions of Monty's will and shows her the receipt she'd missed for the money he'd given Monty. Angela is furious and rushes in to stop Monty from turning over the money to the firm, saying that Warren had cheated him. Warren tells Monty and Angela that he'd suspected they'd been having an affair all along and Angela tries to hit him. Monty stops her and punches Warren himself, in which Warren promises to sue him. When offered an out-of-court settlement for the money he'd been given, Warren refuses. Monty suddenly decides to hire Angela on retainer for $20,000. She frantically writes him a receipt by the stroke of midnight and Roundfeld declares Monty's inheritance complete. He also promises to investigate Granville and Baxter for any wrongdoing for revealing to Warren the terms of the will. Monty and Angela leave the office together where they agree to talk about his legal options and of his new inheritance. | entertaining | train | imdb | Montgomery Brewster (Richard Pryor) is a down and out baseball player in the lower leagues along with his best friend Spike Nolan (John Candy).
Out of the blue he inherits 30 Million Dollars that he must spend in 30 Days and have nothing to show for it, so he can get his real inheritance of 300 Million Dollars; oh yes and he he can't tell anyone why he has to waste all this money.This excellent and hilarious story is played out brilliantly by Pryor and Candy, and it takes us on a spending spree that has its up and downs for poor Mr Brewster.
Because of the nature of the movies theme, Brewsters millions is quite firmly rooted in the 80's when it was made, but it still entertains with ease and is well worth watching.7/10.
You can imagine that any movie that stars Richard Pryor and John Candy must be a funny one, and this definitely qualifies.The plot is disarmingly (and misleadingly) simple.
Montgomery Brewster (Pryor) stands to inherit a $300 million fortune from a long lost uncle (played by Hume Cronyn), whose will is videotaped.
To get the money, Brewster must first spend $30 million in 30 days.
At first I still didn't think there would be that great a challenge, but in fact, as Monty discovers, it's hard to spend $30 million without actually purchasing anything of lasting value.The movie progresses through Monty's spending spree on hotel rooms, parties, employees, the minor league baseball team he played for and finally his campaign to NOT be elected mayor.
It's also interesting to see the reactions of his friends (especially Candy) to his squanderings, because another condition to the will is that he can't tell anyone what's going on.It's really quite a lot of fun, and Pryor and Candy together make it worth watching.7/10.
His manic energy, his sheer frustration with the impossibility of his dilemma (spend 30 million dollars until you are dead broke and not have a single penny or asset left at the end, in order to inherit three HUNDRED million) and the fact that he channels so much believability into what would otherwise be absurd are highly laudable.
With an excellent supporting cast that included the likes of John Candy and Jerry Orbach, it's hard to imagine anyone too jaded to enjoy this film.
Whether it's on your personal "best comedy" list or not, it's not a film you can easily excuse not watching whether a Pryor fan or not.
From third rate baseball playing bum, to toast of the town millionaire, back to a bum again before a highly rewarding ending comedically and emotionally, "Brewster's Millions" pulls off the best trick of all - it makes the viewer feel like a million bucks for having watched it..
I cant understand the low IMDb rating for what is a very funny film with two great stars in Richard Pryor and John Candy.
Pryor is outstanding and with the talented John Candy in support the film certainly doesn't lack laughs.
Richard Pryor stars as a minor-league baseball pitcher in New Jersey who gets an inheritance, but the inheritance has a large catch.
The film is a comedy of how Brewster finds creative ways of spending the 30 million dollars and not always getting it right.
In one of his all time best film performances, Richard Pryor portrays Montgomery Brewster, the pitcher for a minor league baseball team in New Jersey.
Believe it or not, "Brewster's Millions", in which Richard Pryor plays a guy who has to spend $30 million in 30 days so that he can inherit $300 million from his late uncle (Hume Cronyn) but can't tell anyone the second part, is based on a 1902 novel.
Brewster's Millions starring Jack Buchanan, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Edward Abeles, Dennis O'Keefe, and now, Richard Pryor.
Yes, this is the 5th reincarnation of this story, and probably the funniest Richard Pryor movie out there, A simple story: to inherit millions, Monty (Pryor) must spend a certain amount of money in a certain amount of time without ending up with anything he didn't originally own.
Its hard to believe that both comedy actors from this 1985 film have both passed on in the last 20 years and its quite sad watching the film knowing this specially when you see the high energy performances from both Richard Pryor and John Candy.
Brewster's Millions is a fun and engaging lightweight comedy from the summer of 1985 which tells the story of Monty Brewster a down on his luck baseball player that dreams of fame and fortune.
The movie is really fun, its fantastic to watch Pryor trying to spend every last penny.
A fun and feel good kind of film, a trip back to a childhood film, pulled off greatly by the comedy great Richard Pryor..
"Brewster's Millions" is a fun film starring the late Richard Pryor (See No Evil, Hear No Evil,Harlem Nights) as Monty Brewster and the late John Candy (The Great Outdoors, Delirious) as Spike Nolan.
Monty Brewster has a chance to inherit over 300 million dollars from his late great uncle.
However, Brewster has only 30 days to spend 30 million dollars without accumulating assets.
While Brewster's Millions is not a perfect movie by all means, but it is a bright and breezy film that does have its heart in the right place.
And although the story is quite simple, there is enough material to engage throughout, and a lot of it is to do with the fun chemistry between Richard Pryor and John Candy.
There is also a hilarious cameo from Rick Moranis and Jerry Orbach is always good value.All in all, Brewster's Millions is a fun film with heart even if there are parts/aspects that could have done with more work.
If he could spend $30 million in 30 days 1.) having no assets 2.) not give it away philanthropically or otherwise 3.) and have receipts for all money spent (and no he can't buy the Hope Diamond and give it away) all without telling anyone.
Wrong!The movie was a wacky series of events perpetrated by Monty Brewster to the bemusement of his friend Spike Nolan (John Candy) and his accountant Angela Drake (Lonette Davis).
Sadly, at least three of the main characters are dead today: Richard Pryor, John Candy and Jerry Orbach..
Brewster (Pryor) has to spend 30 million $ in 30 days and end up with no possessions but the shirt on his back as a condition to inherit 300m$ from his uncle.
This movie, with Richard Pryor and John Candy stacks up well with the other films.
This is the second filmed version of the Brewster's Millions story I watched that I managed to enjoy.
It starred Richard Pryor as Monty Brewster, here a minor league baseball player who sees film of his late grandpa (Hume Cronyn) who tells him the conditions of his will.
John Candy is Pryor's baseball buddy, Lonette McKee-who previously co-starred with him in Which Way is Up?-is his accountant, Candy's "SCTV" co-star Rick Moranis is someone who likes to repeat whatever someone next to him says, and David White-who I remember as Larry Tate on "Bewitched"-is one of the executers of the will.
This wasn't as funny as the previous version I watched but I still had some good laughs watching Pryor, Candy, Moranis, and some of the changes in some scenes.
The down-on-luck baseball player Brewster (Richard Pryor) is about to have his life drastically changed after being the sole heir of a big fortune.
But in order to get the millions of dollars he's forced to spend U$30 million in the period of a month without getting having any properties or certain things to himself or wasting money away, those are the rules given to him.
He's closely followed by his best friend (John Candy), an accountant (Lonette McKee) from the bank, and also a colleague of her whose mission is to make Brewster lose this "game" and let the money stay in the bank.Despite the great premise, the problem is that "Brewster's Millions" is never so much funny like it could have been.
Examples: Rick Moranis, playing the greatest impersonator of all and Joe Grifasi, playing Brewster's "personal photographer", they both offer such an enjoyable good time for us, more rewarding than all the fuzzy events with Pryor's character.
"Brewster's Millions" deals with ethics, moral, the money's importance in people's lives and manages to be a little funny.
The greatest thing is that it touched some poignant themes but it never got too serious or tacky (sure, Brewster understands even under contradictory circumstances, that even with all that money he gets he doesn't necessary feel better about it), it simply stick to the cheerful comedy with plenty of humor.
The story is a remake of an earlier movie and based on a book about a minor league ball player given an inheritance by his uncle on the condition that he's able to spend 30 million dollars in 30 days and not have one asset to his name after those 30 days are up.
What then happens is Pryor's character doing a whirlwind of things to spend his money with an accountant close by to keep track of everything so they know when he's hit the magic number.
Richard Pryor and John Candy were really good in the film!
Pryor's Worst Movie By Far. More Like Brewster's Penny..
Various other conditions are also made painfully clear.REVIEW: A well-constructed cast including Richard Pryor and John Candy, and decent character actors of yesteryear such as Lonette McKee, Stephen Collins, Jerry Orbach, Pat Hingle and Hume Cronyn, make the most of a great idea that is otherwise ill-served by a mediocre script and perfectly standard direction from the usually quite brilliant Walter Hill.
The writing is fair, but more laughs are derived from Pryor and Candy's performances than dialog and situations(though the film tries quite hard, sometimes too hard; basically throwing everything its got at the viewers at times).
I recommend it to fans of 80's comedies, Richard Pryor and/or John Candy.
It's a pretty unlikely and totally ridiculous premise, and for me it resulted in a film that wasn't entirely successful.I think the main problem with this film is that it didn't focus on the right areas in order to generate humour; the whole premise of Monty Brewster being able to inherit the $300,000,000 is to spend $30,000,000 without telling anyone about the deal.
In many ways, this felt like a complete waste as the idea was a good one for a bit of goofy fun, but unfortunately the writers made it very much a one joke film that failed to exploit other avenues of potential that were most definitely there for the taking.On a positive note, there were some laughs to be found here and there - the funniest scene in the film was probably the scene where Brewster's uncle is reading his terms of the Will to Brewster.
Pryor and Candy are both excellent comedy actors and they were both very good here (although I did think that they both 'overacted' at times).
Well the pitcher who is played by the late great Richard Pryor takes the challenge and begins a spending spree that on the surface would seem to be very easy.
I could easily spend thirty million in 30 days, but there is a catch as at the end of the thirty days he must have only what he had at the beginning of the challenge which means he is basically going to have to rent not buy, throw lavish parties and come up with other ways to spend money without actually owning anything.
It has some funny moments though, but the film is just rather annoying in a lot of places too to be a good movie..
Brewster's Millions (1985) ** (out of 4)Montgomery Brewster (Richard Pryor) is a failed minor league ball player who gets the chance of a lifetime when a relative he didn't know he had dies and offers up a $300 million dollar inheritance.
The only catch is that he must enter into an agreement where he gets $30 million and must spend every penny of it without having any assets after a thirty day period.If you're going through the career of Pryor then it's easy to see why he'd want to make this movie.
That's the good thing but the only problem happens when there's nothing more to do.I mean, the film starts off quite good as Pryor is in good form and his wild and maniac-style works very well early on when his character first gets the money and starts blowing it.
Even the comedy runs out because how many times can you get the same laugh from the same type of joke?As I said, Pryor is in fine form as is John Candy.
Montgomery Brewster (Richard Pryor) pitches minor league ball in Hackensack, New Jersey with his loudmouthed catcher best friend Spike Nolan (John Candy).
Now unless Richard Pryor spends 30 million on a homeless woman for that kind of challenge then that sounds like a terrific idea.
Like Richard Pryor should spend 30 million on Erin Brockovich..
Richard Prior has to spend 30 million dollars in thirty days to inherit 300 million dollars sounds easy, not.I won't tell you why not you'll have to watch it to figure that out.
It has a good story to as you slowly watch Prior begin to hate money,& the fact he can't tell anybody whats going on, you now why he's spending money like a mad man makes it even better.
Brewster's Millions (1985) was another sell out role for Richard Pryor and another eighties remake.
Find out when you watch Brewster's Millions!Another time waster from Richard Pryor.
Richard Pryor steals the show in this one as a minor league baseball player who must spend $30,000,000 in 30 days.
Richard Pryor's performance isn't extremely memorable; the actor to see this film for is John Candy, who steals the show as soon as we see him.Pryor plays Brewster, a man who is offered a strange proposition by some elderly men.
There are only so many gags available when you are talking about a man having to waste money in a certain amount of days.For some reason, the eighties comedies really sparked an interest in films with people in odd places doing odd things.
If you like "Trading Places," and all those other campy comedies from the eighties where people are put in odd situations, see "Brewster's Millions." The only other reason to see it would be if you are a fan of the actors.
Monty Brewster is a minor league baseball player who finds himself with a rich relative who leaves him £300 million.
However to prove he knows the value of money Brewster must spend £30 million in 30 days and have no assets to show for it.
Pryor and Candy generate few laughs in this comedy about a man who stands to inherit a vast fortune with one: He must spend $30 million in thirty days and have no tangible assets at the end..
You know the story, Brewster (played so-so by Richard Pryor) has 30 days to spend 30 millions.
John Candy is funny as the friend/manager who wants to make the money profitable.It's good for a 6 out 10..
If you catch this movie lazing on a Sunday afternoon - it's worth watching -- richard pryor and john candy are good and to hear john candy get all excited over gaining an extra 10 million dollars thru the stock market while pryor is trying to spend 30 million in 30 days makes you want to sing along with candy as he pumps his fists - 10 million 10 million 10 million dollars...
This is a story about a minor league baseball player, Richard Pryor, who is well liked and comes into money!
Pryor is very funny with all the excitement of spending a lot of money recklessly and trying not to receive any back, but he has to have receipts for all spent.
The casting of some great comedians like John Candy, Jerry Orbach, and Hume Cronyn are a great asset to this film.
Someone hired by those who would like to see Brewster fail to acquire the 300 millions tricks him to still have money before the deadline to spend everything.
It is am homage to a couple of fine film comedians who are no longer with us.Richard Pryor & John Candy did not work together enough, and this movie makes up for that loss.
The funny thing is these older films don't have quite the same impact, for example...the 1945 version sees Brewster having to spend a mere 1 million Dollars in 60 days or less to inherit 7 million (slight alteration from the original novel which has a full year to spend the 1 million).
A rich old relation leaves Monty Brewster (Pryor) a tough decision in his will, he can either take 1 million Dollars no questions asked right away or he can take the challenge.
The challenge being he has 30 days to spend 30 million Dollars and not have any assets (that he doesn't already own) at the end of it.
Richard Pryor and John Candy are both good, clean actors and comedians and the jokes are seriously funny in this one.
Monty Brewster, played superbly by Richard Pryor, gets into a fight after pitching in a little league baseball game.
Basically Montgomery 'Monty' Brewster (Richard Pryor) is a minor league baseball player, and after a fight ending up appearing before a court, and being cut from his team, a man who has been following him pays his bail.
So, now Brewster is doing every crazy thing he can think of to blow his $30m, with the help of his baseball friend Spike Nolan (John Candy) and personal accountant Angela Drake (Lonette McKee). |
tt0052378 | War of the Colossal Beast | The film starts with a young Mexican man driving a truck at a breakneck pace. After the truck ends up submerged in water, the young man gets out of the truck, looking at something and screaming his head off.Sometime afterwards in Guavos, Mexico, the owner of the truck named John Swanson goes into the Sheriff's office to report the truck to be missing. The Sheriff then explains to John that they have already located the young man who was driving the truck, but he is in a state of shock, unable to say anything. Going to the scene where the man was found, the Swanson and the Sheriff note that the trucks tracks indicate that something lifted it off the ground, to which the truck owner finds this hard to believe.The news of the Swanson's disappearing truck soon appears on news outlets. One person who watches the program is Joyce Manning. She soon contacts Swanson, as well as the Army, who send US Army Major Baird to her place. Joyce then tells the two of her theory, that Swanson's truck was taken by her brother, Glenn Manning. Previously, exposure to an atomic bomb had caused Glenn to grow over 60 ft tall. He then went on a rampage that ended with him being shot and plunging into the waters beneath the Hoover Dam. Joyce surmises that the waters may have carried him down to Mexico.Joyce soon makes her way down to Guavos, where the young man comes out of his shock, and explains that it was a "big person" that attacked his truck. Major Baird soon comes down when Joyce tells him what the young man saw. The Major is accompanied by Dr Carmichael. Joyce and several other people go out to the site where the young man was found, and find a large footprint. There are more prints leading up into the nearby mountains. Following them, the group finds an area littered with trucks. However, as darkness is setting in, the group returns back to town.Even so, Joyce is upset when at dinner, Major Baird explains that he has contacted the Mexican Government to supply them with artillery and tanks to capture Glen. Joyce feels that if they can find him, maybe they can reason with him to give himself up peacefully. At Joyce's insistence, Major Baird returns with her to the mountains where some of the trucks were. Here, they find Swanson's missing truck, as well as others that have been emptied, leading the two to surmise that Glen may be raiding the trucks for food. As if to answer their question, Glen appears, though grunting like an animal, and looking through another truck. Half his face is exposed skeleton now due to the fall and damage.In order to capture Glen, the group fills a bread truck with drugged bread. Glen catches the truck and then after eating the contents, collapses due to the drugs. Major Baird, Joyce and several others attempt to bring Glen back to the United States, but there is confusion as to what to do with him. The air transport runs low on fuel, and is forced to land in Los Angeles. Against the wishes of the city, Glen is taken to a hanger at the Los Angeles Airport, and tied down with chains. He eventually escapes, causing some bloodshed and general disarray, before he is tranquilized, and then tied down once again, this time with reinforced chains and a patrol on duty to make sure he doesn't escape again.Dr Carmichael and several others note that Glen's mental condition has deteriorated, and attempt to see if he may have any recollection of who he is. However, their tests illicit no vocal response from Glen but grunts and anguished cries. Due to Glen no longer seeming to be fit to live among human society, he is scheduled to be transported to a deserted island, even though Joyce protests this.While Joyce is with Major Baird, a call comes that Glen has escaped and has headed towards the Griffith Park Observatory. Glen is spotted and picks up a bus full of schoolchildren. Joyce appears and manages to get Glen to put the bus down. Pleading with her brother to think and remember, Glen looks at his sister and says her name, ("Joyce!"), before going to a nearby power line, electrocuting himself to death. | insanity, flashback | train | imdb | Col. Glenn Manning, having survived the fall from Boulder Dam is disfigured and hopelessly insane,(he somehow manages to hold on to his loin cloth),the U.S. military tries to contain him while his sister (Sally Fraser) tries to communicate with him.
(This was one of the factors that made NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD one of the classic horror movies of its time).For all of its faults, WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, as well as its predecessor is fun to watch and I never get tired of playing the videos every now and then.Rating: **** out of *****.
The sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man continues with the further adventures of the unfortunate Colonel Glen Manning now having lost an eye and most of the flesh around the right side of his jaw.
Colonel Manning, the amazing 60ft colossal man from the same film, falls into the Colorado River at the end of that film from not-so-friendly military firepower.
Manning is played this time by the same guy that played the giant with the bad face and eye in Gordon's The Cyclops.
Here we have a guy who survived a fall off of the Hoover Dam after getting a couple of missles in the eyeball in Amazing Colossal Man.So he is running loose in Mexico looking for 3 square meals a day by swiping food trucks off the road.Yes, that is a mighty big diaper he's wearing too.But we sure don't want to go there !!The effects are good for their time.The growls of the monster scared me as a kid (although now I wonder if it is intestinal distress due to his knocking back all of those spicy tacos.
A sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man has the giant alive and well.
"War of the Colossal Beast," the sequel to the cult-classic "The Amazing Colossal Man," isn't as bad as some critics would have you believe.
The Colossal Beast's first appearance in the film can still shock the unsuspecting viewer, and the end sequence at Griffith Park -- along with the reinserted color pay-off -- make this film a must for any '50s B-movie enthusiast..
Now that digital and satellite cable has arrived, I can look at the Amazing Colossal Beast and laugh at the cheap special effects because I know the tv wont play the Star Spangles Banner and trun to snow.
Even though this movie picks a less subtle approach than its predecessor "The Amazing Collosal Man", this movie still works out as a rather good and enjoyable B-movie.Basically there is even less story than the last time and the movies starts off were the first movie stopped.
Of course the movie gets rather ridicules at times, also with its characters and dialogs but what else could be expected from a movie like this.The first movie still sort of picked a more emotional monster approach, in the same way as for instance was the case with classic monster movies such as "Frankenstein" and "The Wolf Man".
This movie still somewhat has a 'realistic' approach feeling over it but the emotional elements involving the main character are pretty much gone by now because of the reason that the condition of him has influenced his brain, as already was the case at the ending of the first movie, causing him to be more of a growling monster this time.The movie is directed by the same director (Bert I.
Of course it doesn't look like much special by todays standards but back in the '50's this must have really scared some people and must have been amazed by some of the movie its effects.
Even now the movie still remains sort of somewhat scary at times because of the make-up effects and growls of the amazing colossal man, or beast as this movie its title calls him.
And this is the biggest reason NOT to see this film--it simply isn't any fun.Although you would think that the enormous man died at the end of "The Amazing Colossal Man", somehow Colonel Manning somehow ends up in Mexico.
Gordon's sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man. It's cheaply made with excessive footage from the first movie used as flashbacks to pad the runtime.
Gordon was known to milk a successful formula dry, but his efforts perhaps never felt more mercenary than here – for he not only revived the unfortunate protagonist of THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN but, to show his degeneration to an essentially subhuman level, he was given the chief attribute (an annoyingly loud growl) of THE CYCLOPS (both these films emanated from the previous year)!
A sure sign of the quick cash-in status of this one is the fact that the film-makers did not even bother to re-read the original's script, where it is mentioned that Glenn Langan had no surviving relatives
but a sister somehow pops up here!; incidentally, one cannot blame the actor for presumably declining to reprise his by-now unenviable role, but neither were any of the other characters retained (which is odd, to say the least)!
While the lack of heartburn this time around can be explained by the scientists in the first film having succeeded in stalling his growth, he acquires a physical and almost skeletal makeover – which, along with the title (despite its obvious exaggeration, since his acts of aggression basically revolve around pillaging food-trucks for sustenance and, at the climax, threatening to throw a school-bus filled with children at the inquisitive crowds and assorted military figures below!) and a surprising switch to colour for the monster's literally electrifying come-uppance, virtually constitute its sole points of interest..
War Of The Colossal Beast takes up where The Amazing Colossal Man had ended.
So he's going around doing a whole lot of destructive things until he's captured by the military, then he escapes and does a few more destructive things and he's getting to be a real problem.Both the Colossal films were big in the drive-in circuit back in the Fifties.
War Of the Colossal Beast followed a year after The Amazing Colossal Man and was directed by Bert I Gorden or Mr BIG.In Mexico, truck loads of food are going missing and they turn out to be the responsibility of Glann Manning the giant.
He then electrocutes himself to death by touching some high voltage power lines.The end bit is where the movie explodes into full colour.The cast includes Dean Parkin as Manning and 50's sci-fi regulars Sally Fraser (Earth vs.
the Spider) as his sister and Russ Bender,who also appeared in The Amazing Colossel Man but is playing a different role in this one.Thoush not as good as the Colossel Man,I quite enjoyed watching this sequel.Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 5..
I really love this kind of sci-fi movie,exploring such weird idea where a man was exposed from nuclear bomb's radiation and became gradually giant,the first movie was so successfully that got this sequel,now the beast arise in Mexico rural area...curiously the final scene when the giant monster died electrified the movie turns black and white in color until the end....here in Brazil came out in double feature with both movies...amazing trash movie from the fifties!!
War of the Colossal Beast (1958) ** (out of 4)AIP waiting no time in getting this sequel to THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN off the ground and into drive-ins.
Joyce Manning (Sally Fraser) believes that her brother didn't die at the end of the previous film and after hearing a strange news story from Mexico she heads down there.
Sure enough the giant Glenn Manning (Duncan 'Dean' Parkin) is living in the desert and soon the military tries to capture him to see if they can help.WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST is slightly better than the original, although it shares most of the same weaknesses as that film.
Still, there's no question that it's the look of the monster that makes WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST so much fun and slightly better than the original..
Meh. Glenn Manning, the Amazing Colossal Man, believed dead after falling from the Hoover Dam, reemerges in rural Mexico, brain damaged, disfigured, and very hungry.So we have a sequel to the "Amazing Colossal Man" with a title that makes it sounds like it is gonna be an action-packed slugfest, you know, like Godzilla films or something.
First, I'm embarrassed to say that I've never seen "The Amazing Colossal Man", although I basically know what the plot is.
Of course, you gotta feel sorry for the big guy, seeing what he goes through.As can be expected, there's a major plot hole (how does a giant walk through LA without getting seen?), but we should just sit back and enjoy the complete silliness of the movie.
War of the Colossal Beast actually has a pretty emotional core, and the film's final moments are quite touching.
I have seen snippets of the original film, The Amazing Colossal Man, and I have known of this film.
The problem with the film is that this colossal beast does not really get to terrorize much at all in this one and there is not much of a war going on as about the only action the military does is drive vehicles into position.
Just scenes of speculation and then the colossal beast appears and gets captured and spends most of the film on his back.
Glenn Manning(the colossal man) amazingly still alive, having somehow survived his fall from the Hoover dam, though he is now disfigured and insane, and discovered in Mexico, where the army goes to capture him, then brings him back to America for study.
Add to the fact that this film really has not plot, just a bunch of scenes of The Colossal man roaming around.
While THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN is not a good film, at least it isn't dull dreary and uneventful as WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST is.
Good ole Bert I Gordon helms this huge slice of Velveeta, a straight- faced sequel to his "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" clone, The Amazing Colossal Man. Colonel Manning didn't die as thought, roaming the countryside of Guavos, Mexico, lifting food trucks off roads, his face and brain damaged.
Requiring some anger management, the Amazing Colossal Man has survived the encounter at the Hoover Dam, and much to the army's dismay, ends up very much alive, even angrier than ever.
At 60 feet tall (10 feet taller than the angry female giant played by Allison Hayes the very same year), he leaves behind some huge footprints, and this is very disconcerting for the locales.Knowing that the teenagers who frequent the drive-ins during the late 1950's weren't really looking to the plot of a movie, but for infrequent breaks to get some oxygen back in their lungs after their own private activities, American International tossed these films out like beads at Mardis Gras.
I'm surprised the army trying to find a way to trap him didn't shake their head when one person in authority told them, "We don't have facilities for a giant here!" And that is after they get the run-around from pretty every government agency, telling them to look for assistance elsewhere.I'll give AIP one credit here, however; The make-up for the Colossal beast reminded me of Vincent Price in the "Dr. Philbes" movies they made well over a decade later.
War of the Colossal Beat continues the story of Col. Glenn Manning that began in The Amazing Colossal Man. I'm not really sure why Mr. B.I.G. felt the need to do a sequel (Who am I kidding?
Add a few plot details concerning Manning terrorizing the Mexican countryside and you've got War of the Colossal Beast.
********************SPOILER ALERT*********************After falling to his supposed death from Boulder Dam at the end of AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, Glen Manning manages to survive, minus half of his face and whatever sanity he had left.
At one point, a spark of his memory returns, and once he realizes what he has become, he electrocutes himself on the high tension wires surrounding the Griffith Park Observatory.WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, like it's predecessor is a grade-B cheapie that still stands the test of time.
Those of you unfamiliar with the first movie just have to know the Col. Glenn Manning was turned into the Colossal Man via that 50's favorite, radioactivity, and was shot off Boulder Dam and presumed deceased at the conclusion of that picture.
War of the Colossal Beast starts in Los Angeles as Joyce Mannning (Sally Fraser) hears about a strange incident in Mexico in which a man's truck mysterious disappears without leaving any tracks.
The sister of 60 foot giant Col. Glenn Manning (Dean Parkin) who was apparently shot dead by the US military but whose body was never found Joyce suspects that her brother might be responsible for the vanishing truck & travels to Mexico to investigate, Major Mark Baird (Roger Pace) joins her & together they discover Glenn hiding in a mountain range & stealing trucks for food supplies.
Gordon this direct sequel to his earlier The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) was made only a couple of years later & having seen the original as recently as a couple of days ago I have to say while neither are exactly masterpieces I actually thought The War of the Colossal Beast was the slightly better film although most claim the opposite.
The script is fairly basic, there's not a lot to the film & it's just a case of Manning being captured by the military, escaping, being captured again & escaping again although how he can just disappear is a mystery to me as a 60 foot tall giant isn't exactly inconspicuous is he?
The acting isn't great but it's not terrible, the original Colossal Man has been replaced with Dean Pickering who only gets to say one word throughout the entire film & has some fairly effective disfigured face make-up although his constant loud moaning type noises that makes irritated me.The War of the Colossal Beast is a pretty good late 50's sci-fi monster film, it's fairly basic & not that much happens but at only 70 odd minutes it's fun while it last's.
Gordon's "War of the Colossal Beast" is a sequel to his 1957 opus "The Amazing Colossal Man." The original depicted the tragic circumstances surrounding the exposure of U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Glen Manning to plutonium radiation from a bomb blast.
He stomps off for Las Vegas and winds up atop Hoover Dam where he falls apparently to his death."War of the Colossal Beast" picks up after Manning disappeared from his fall at Hoover Dam. Miraculously, although his body was never found, the eponymous monster survived the plunge and is alive and well in Mexico when the sequel starts!
What is interesting about "War of the Colossal Beast" is its finale when the monster seizes the high power lines.
**SPOILERS** After being hit by a number of bazooka shells and falling some 700 feet from the top of the Hoover Dam 60 foot Glenn Manning, Duncan Parkin, somehow survived and ended up, flowing downstream, in Mexico.
It's Manning's sister Joyce, Sally Fraser, who by watching a news report on the incident suspected that her "Big" brother had survived in his battle with the US Army as was now determined to find him.
With him destined to go through life wearing a giant makeshift diaper, since there's no clothes that can possible fit him, Manning put an end to it all by electrocuting himself, by grabbing a live 50 foot power line, and did it in living color!The most unusual thing about the movie "War of the Colossal Beast" is that its star Duncan Parkin as Glenn Manning was overshadowed by actor Glenn Langan who played Glenn Manning in the previous movie that the film was based on "The Amazing Colossal Man"!
This sequel to "The Amazing Colossal Man" has its flaws but is a more than acceptable follow-up to the earlier film and in some ways is even better.Other have pointed out the inconsistencies in story and logic from the first film to this one.
You don't really need to have seen "Amazing Colossal Man" to follow this flick.Like other 50's monster movies such as "Them!" and "The Black Scorpion", this begins with a lot of suspense, as a terrified young Mexican boy flees in terror from something we cannot see.
The sister of Colonel Glenn Manning, the Amazing Colossal Man, believes that the recent disappearance of grocery trucks in the Mexican countryside might mean her mutated "big brother" survived his previous fall from Hoover Dam. We get to see George Becwar playing the ultimate ugly American who owned the missing trucks and who constantly repeats "Get the Picture?" to everybody.Joyce Manning's hunch is right: Glenn Manning is still alive but in even worse shape than the first film.
Sally Fraser is cute as Joyce and Dean Parkin makes for an effective monster as the Colossal Man, complete with some beast-like growls and grumbles.
Stock footage from the first movie is obviously used to pad the running time, but brings those who missed the first movie up to speed on Manning's back story.I think the effects here are much better than in the first film.
We're told he's 60 feet tall, but when he first appears, he looks almost 600 FEET tall!The obvious humanity of Glenn Manning, even in beast-like mode, gives him a lot more pathos than the giant bugs and dinosaurs running amok around the same time.
"War of the Colossal Beast" is a sequel to "The Amazing Colossal Man".
Manning's sister Joyce alerts the military that he brother is indeed alive and loose in Mexico.
For some unknown reason, Glenn Langan did not appear in the second movie so American International hired a look alike actor(Parkin) to portray the giant man. |
tt0465234 | National Treasure: Book of Secrets | When a missing page from the diary of John Wilkes Booth surfaces, Bens great-great grandfather is suddenly implicated as a key conspirator in Abraham Lincolns death. Determined to prove his ancestors innocence, Ben follows an international chain of clues that takes him on a chase from Paris to London and ultimately back to America. This journey leads Ben and his crew not only to surprising revelations but to the trail of the worlds most treasured secrets.Five days after the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and Michael O'Laughlen, both members of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC), enter a tavern and approach Thomas Gates (Ben Gates' great-great-grandfather), a well-known puzzle solver, to decode a message written in Booth's diary. Thomas recognizes the message and begins to translate it. While he does so, Booth leaves for Ford's Theatre to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, a clue to a map to Cibola, the city of gold, and realizes the men are still loyal to the South and have a sinister motive for finding the treasure. A fight breaks out, and Thomas rips several pages from the diary and throws them in the fireplace. Thomas is shot, and the gunman attempts to retrieve the pages, but only obtains a page fragment. As Thomas dies, Thomas tells his distraught son, Charles Gates, "The debt that all men pay..."Over 140 years later, Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) is telling his great-great-grandfather's story at a Civilian Heroes conference. Black market dealer Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), a Virginia Military Institute graduate, shows one of the 18 missing pages of John Wilkes Booth's diary, with Thomas Gates' name on it, convincing everyone that Thomas was not only a conspirator, but the grand architect of the Lincoln assassination, which tarnishes the Gates family's reputation and Ben is disgraced. Refusing to allow his ancestor's name to be tarnished, Ben sets out to prove the innocence of his great-great-grandfather. Ben discovers a cipher pointing to Édouard Laboulaye hidden on the back of the diary page. He travels to Paris, France, where he finds a clue engraved on the torch of the scale model of the Statue of Liberty on the Île des Cygnes, referring to the two Resolute desks. Ben then heads to England to look at the desk at Buckingham Palace with the help of his friend Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) and estranged girlfriend, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) (His relationship with Abigail having soured due to him constantly predicting what she might want without even bothering to ask her, even if he is often correct in his assumptions). From the Queen's desk, he obtains an ancient wooden plank with ancient symbols carved into it.Meanwhile, Wilkinson breaks into Patrick Gates' (Jon Voight) house and clones Patrick's cell phone in order to track Ben's whereabouts. Wilkinson eventually obtains the wooden plank, but not before Ben manages to photograph the symbols carved into the plank. At Ben's insistence, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife and Ben's mother, Dr. Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren) for help in translating the symbols. She does so, but points out that some of the glyphs are partial, leading Ben to conclude another plank must be hidden in the other Resolute desk located in the Oval Office. Ben and Abigail coax Abigail's new love interest, Connor (Ty Burrell), who works at the White House, into letting them into the office to see the desk. Ben discovers that the second plank is missing, but he does find a stamp bearing the seal of the Book of Secrets. Riley tells Ben that the Book of Secrets contains documents collected by Presidents for Presidents' eyes only, covering such controversial subjects as the eighteen minutes erased from Watergate tapes, Area 51, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.After he and his family set the situation up so that all other hotels where the party might take place are fully booked, Ben crashes the president's birthday party at Mount Vernon, where he meets the president (Bruce Greenwood). After showing him a map of Mt. Vernon drawn by George Washington, Ben convinces the president to follow him into a secret tunnel under the House where he confronts him about the book; the president sympathetically warns Ben that his actions will be interpreted as an attempt to kidnap the president, confirming a conclusion Ben and his companions have already reached; Ben is now wanted for committing a federal offense. Ben convinces the president to reveal the location of the book, which is at the Library of Congress. The President also tells Ben to read page 47 along with the information he needs.
Shooting of the film in LondonIn the book, Ben finds a picture of the missing plank from the desk and an entry by President Coolidge, who found the plank in 1924, had it destroyed, and commissioned Gutzon Borglum to carve Mount Rushmore to erase the map's landmarks in order to protect the treasure. Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick head to Mount Rushmore where they meet Wilkinson, who has kidnapped Ben's mother. He helps them find the entrance of a cave containing the legendary Native American city of gold, Cíbola. Once inside, they encounter several traps, and Ben, Abigail, Riley, and Wilkinson get separated from Ben's parents. Eventually, they find the city of gold behind Mount Rushmore. However, in order to leave the city of gold when it suddenly begins flooding, one person has to stay behind to hold open the stone door to the drainage tunnel beneath the city, an action which would result in certain death. Wilkinson demands to go first by threatening Abigail, so Ben agrees to stay behind. However the pounding of waves causes Wilkinson to be the one to stay behind, where he drowns in the cavern beneath the city.Ben clears his family's name with the discovery and is cleared of all charges when the president tells everyone that Ben did not kidnap him, but actually saved his life when the secret passage they were looking at was accidentally activated. Everyone including Wilkinson is given credit for the discovery of the Lost City of Gold. The president then asks Ben about what he read on page 47 of the Book of Secrets, to which Ben replies, "It's life-altering, sir."The last scene shows Riley walking down the street when he sees his towed car. He jumps in, and discovers a letter from the president. The back says "Tax Free." Riley reverses, and crashes. | entertaining, historical, murder | train | imdb | The outraged Ben decides to prove the honor of his ancestor and together with his wife Abigail (Diane Kruger) and his best friend, the writer Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), they head to France, England and Washington to collect clues to lead them to a lost city of gold Cinola and clean the name of Thomas Gates.
But Mitch Wilkinson is following each step of Ben and his friends to take the merit of finding the treasure for himself."National Treasure: Book of Secrets" is an entertaining and full of action adventure that follows the style of Indiana Jones combined with "Da Vinci Code.
It almost felt like the writers could not think of any new, clever clues for Nicolas Cage to solve or more suspense without action scenes.First lets look at the positives.
The cast is excellent, Nicolas Cage in a role he knows very well, Jon Voight as Cage fathers is very convincing, Ed Harris is the bad guy that the only thing he wants is to find the treasure and keep it to himself, Harvey Keitel as an FBI agent wit a brief but convincing performance and Helen Mirren as Nicola's mother with a good and even funny performance.
Coupled by the fact that the Indiana Jones trilogy (at the time) probably will not have another sequel see the light of day, then the onus is on crafting a tale based on controversies, with Indy Jones tendencies, and chances are a new winner will be born.Hence, National Treasure in the year end of 2004, which made a decent dent in the box office, starring Nicolas Cage as an Indy like clone Benjamin Gates, embroiled in a mystery of the Templar's treasure, with sidekick Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) as the tech wizard necessary to assist him, while at the same time romancing Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), who joins his band of treasure seekers against her wishes.
However, like the first installment, the material, clues and riddles are still quite US history heavy, so if you're well versed with certain characters (brought to life early in the movie) or events (thanks to paying attention during history lessons), then yes, Book of Secrets will give you an additional boost in being able to identify with it.
Otherwise, don't fret, as the casual movie goer with popcorn in hand will definitely not feel lost.The narrative and plot still feel a little staged and rigged for convenience (and run time of course), as one event will inevitably lead to the next and to the inevitable ending (like how CSI solves crime within 45 minutes sans ads), but they're still a lot of fun watching how the characters go through the motion in believing that they're onto something really big.
While the first had a lot of puzzles to solve, which kept some of us guessing and playing along as well, this time round the number of riddles have been reduced significantly, and signs of Mission: Impossible creeping in as our band of treasure hunters seek to perform the impossible, pertaining to levels of security guarding their mark.In an excuse to make the sequel, we have Ben Gates and GATESENIOR reuniting to clear the good name of their ancestor, who's recently accused of being a co-conspirator, or even mastermind, behind the assassination of US President Abramham Lincoln.
And of course, help comes in the form of Abigail, who's now estranged from Gates, trusty tech sidekick with the complementary witty lines Riley (and his red Ferarri), and now joined by Ben's mom Emily Appleton, played by Helen Mirren, who's in the movie to contrast her relationship with Patrick to that between Ben and Abigail.However, we're not really interested in whimsical attempts to add depth to characters, are we?
And toward the end, I can't help but to compare it to Jackie Chan's The Myth, which in itself was somewhat of a treasure- hunter movie, involving the elixir of life (We're still stuck with gold here though).And add to that Harvey Keitel's FBI agent Sadusky, the office of the most powerful man in the world, and teases from the Book of Secrets, we've got ourselves a handful being squeezed within 2 hours.
The film cast is pretty good , in fact , it includes includes three Oscar winners : Nicolas Cage, Helen Mirren and Jon Voight ; and two Oscar nominees: Harvey Keitel and Ed Harris .
So much could have been done, but instead the world has another soul blackening B movie that cost more money than I'll ever have in my entire life.National Treasure: Book of Secrets made me want to cry..
Obviously, I was thinking they stepped up the game to the surprise hit, first movie, but, alas, 'National Treasure: Book of Secrets' was a lot worse.
So, here I am, Astonished at how amazing Jerry managed to direct an amazing movie like this one; how Nicholas Cage, Diane Kruger, Bartha, Voight, and Harris, act this one out, into a somehow very terrific movie, funny but tense, and yet, very entertaining, just like the first one.National Treasure: Book of Secrets, talk about how Ben Gates try to prove that his ancestor's (Thomas Gates), is not the mastermind behind Lincoln's assassination.And just like the first one, it's still filled with laughable, serious, and patriotic sense.
The film isn't painful in the sense there is nothing to read into nor is it a disaster in the sense the film fails from scene one and doesn't let up alá Batman & Robin or Thunderbirds but it still grates and grates in its own way.In fact with the National Treasure films, I am quickly developing another natural hatred of a Disney franchise; a hatred that began in the Summer of 2006 when I saw the first Pirates of the Caribbean film and quickly cottoned onto the masses of followers who just seem too brainwashed by the actors, pacing and 'fun' the films offer to even notice how crap it was.
Emily (Mirren) and Patrick's (Voight) bickering runs parallel with Ben and Abigail's falling out and it is the common-denominator in treasure hunting that threatens to bring them all back together again as a happy family.So the adventure sees them propelled through Paris complete with funny looking French policemen who show up on bicycles (yes, proper push bikes) and act in an oblivious manner; it sees them propelled to London during which I actually took offence to Cage's impression of an Englishman as he rolls out the accent and the clichés before outsmarting the British police who are equally inept.
The films wants to think that Abigail kissing the white house official in the Oval Office just as Ben finds what he needs is 'funny' and the characters in general rely too much on technology to see them home; scenes like the button that 'pops the trunk' and the overuse of computers and phones are examples.
Still, if the film can get kids interested in history, whether it's the legend of El Dorado or Lincoln's assassination, then I suppose "National Treasure: Book Of Secrets" can be said to have some redeeming value, it's plot implausibility notwithstanding..
get me wrong.there are still some thrilling moments,just not as many as as i had hoped or expected.plus,there were a few absurd moments even in the context of the film.still,it is entertaining and worth watching.this time around,Ed Harris joins the cast as does Helen Mirren who adds some class to the film.for me,National Treasure: Book of Secrets is a 7/10.
I liked National Treasure 1.It was not a great movie but it could keep me very entertained.Bot,now,National Treasure:Book of Secrets forgets any logic or credibility.The first part also neither was too logic but,at least,it could get a good balance between stupidity and humor.But,the second part totally falls in the silliness and it uses the humor to tell a ridiculous and forced story.Also,the action scenes are irrelevant to the story.Nicolas Cage repeats the achievement he made in Ghost Rider and Next(two other crappy movies):he puts a lot of enthusiasm to his character.I think Cage is the only positive element in this film,as he was in the mentioned films.I'll talk about the rest of the cast.This film wastes four excellent actors who are Ed Harris,Jon Voight,Helen Mirren and Harvey Keitel.Diane Kruger does what she can with her role and Justin Bartha does not show any charisma as the comic-relief.National Treasure:Book of Secrets is a very crappy sequel.I do not recommend it..
Nicholas Cage,Diane Kruger,Justin Bertha,Jon Voight,Ed Harris,Bruce Greenwood,Helen Mirren, and Harvey Keitel make a fantastic cast of characters.
The historical story and visits to Buckingham Palace, The White House, Mount Rushmore, The Library of Congress, Mount Vernon, and a rendition of the assassination of President Lincoln make National Treasure:Book of Secrets a great,fun film for anyone.
NT2 contains the same base formula as NT1, but this time it is far m ore watered down, with much less clues and less real action, but more development of the interpersonal relationships between Ben Gates (Nic Cage) and his parents (Helen Mirren and Jon Voight) and his lady.
I then imagine you split up the workload for the script of the movie like this: 1 guy thinks of funny clues, 1 guy thinks of some extra background story for the characters and the dialogue they have George Lucas write, because let's face it, he's cheap.Finally you put all 3 into the same Word document and you send it straight to production because damn it, it's milking time.
Finally the thing get's edited and every scene gets as much dialogue and story cut out because of how awful it is.Seriously, those of you saying Jon Voigt or Helen Mirren do a good job in this movie, come on.
Along the way, Patrick is forced to reconcile with Ben's mother Emily (Helen Mirren) and Ben must reconcile with his love interest from the previous film Abigail (Diane Kruger) as well as his friend Riley (Justin Bertha) all whilst being pursued by FBI Agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel.) It all builds up to an 'explosive' finale where Ben must kidnap the president (Bruce Greenwood.) Critics have been pretty unanimous with their condemnation of this unnecessary sequel to the only marginally enjoyable 2004 film National Treasure.
I have to admit that I enjoyed the first Treasure film and was expecting a lot of the same with the second.It did start off with a good premise with the secrets and hunting in the first half but after it seemed to resemble a serial of the 30's.I could pretty much know what was going to happen in the next "cliff hanging sequence".It seems everyone just phoned in their lines.No amount of rum and eggnog prepared me for this .All in all I was pretty much bored in the second half and could not wait for the film to end so I could go home and open my Christmas gifts.
Black cabs, double decker red buses,Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, red post boxes...........yawn, it really is as predictable as that.The plot is preposterous, and helen Mirren looks as though she would have been better employed looking for a decent script rather than trotting out the banal dross she has to speak.The two hour running time is desperately short of both decent action and witty script, instead we have to trudge through a formula so clunky that you find yourself screaming for an on screen mechanic to give it some oil.Of course the set pieces are fine, and the stars do their bit - but no more.Avoid unless you are pretty desperate for something to do..
Yes, National Treasure 2 could've been a very fun popcorn movie, and it is, but the film is filled with too many immature jokes to make kids laugh.
A surprisingly good find this year, or in any year, is "National Treasure: Book of Secrets." Canned style music always implies a better film than the filmmakers delivered, but this time the pic lives up to the almost impossible climaxes in the score.The thing with this one is the actors, and the characters they play.
Despite all this, the film is still a lot of fun, thanks to some awesome chase scenes, the great special effects and the fun performances of Nicolas Cage, Helen Mirren and Jon Voight.
I watched national treasure 2 and must admit I really enjoyed the movie (apart from the fact it was freezing cold in the cinema), the action and plot line were kept moving at really good pace so you never really felt bored (something I did feel in the first movie).
The characters themselves have grown and developed since the last movie you can see the bond between cage and voight as father and son, riley now trying to step out of cages shadows etc
Oh and the person criticising kruges acting who cares she is fit and does her job well (i.e she looks good)If you want to see a movie that will not challenge you to much, keep you entertained, and also have a good plot line (which it does no matter how un realistic at times) then I do recommend this film.
A couple years ago I saw that little movie we called National Treasure, sorta like the new Indiana Jones wanna-be, I didn't get into the film.
But the sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets came last year and I had again no interest in seeing the movie, but my mom bought the film and wanted to watch it together, so I figured to just sit through it, it actually wasn't as bad as I was expecting.
I think the reason why I disliked the first National Treasure was due to the fact that it was too deep with history in order for it to be a family film and could be confusing at times.
But National Treasure: Book of Secrets explains itself well and has more exciting action sequences and just a great story.Ben Gates is back, this time his life isn't looking so good, his girlfriend, Abigal, threw him out, his friend, Riley isn't the best seller on his new book, then his great great grandfather is accused of helping John Wilkes Booth kill President Lincoln.
But Ben is determined to clear the family name, but Mitch Wilkinson wants his family name to remain sacred and plans to drag Ben's family down and claim all the fortune for himself.National Treasure: Book of Secrets is an exciting adventure film, one of the better I've seen in a while.
But National Treasure: Book of Secrets otherwise is a decent family film that is enjoyable and exciting, I'd recommend it if you're looking for a fun film.7/10.
The cast includes many actors from the first film, with Nicholas Cage and Diane Kruger leading the way and keeping the flaws and virtues shown earlier, like the lack of depth and personality of their characters and some very enjoyable comical vein.
However, even though it isn't the best movie ever, I had a good time watching the film.
It's a thrilling story line that allows the viewer to feel like they are part of the adventure.The first movie was great but generally sequels are never as good.
In addition, Justin Bartha returns as comical sidekick Riley Poole, Jon Voigt returns as Patrick Gates, Ben's father; and Diane Kruger returns as Abigail Chase, Ben's romantic interest.The story line is full of archeology, history, humor, and adventure that takes our lead characters to Paris, London, Washington DC, and Mount Rushmore.All in all, this is a pattern with which many are very familiar: the pattern successfully rendered in the Indiana Jones movies.I won't give away anything except to say that I myself think that the National Treasure franchise is far less engaging than the Indiana Jones franchise.
Neither this National Treasure movie, nor its predecessor, lead me in this direction.As for the lead characters, Indiana Jones is so much more appealing, to me, compared to Ben Gates.
And I was able to tolerate Mr. Cage this time, I thought he did a very good job and as usual Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Helen Mirren and Ed Harris were great (although Harris' villain was pretty bland, luckily he can act).The action was also very well filmed and at times highly excited and well thought out (the balancing rock sequence was exceptionally well done).
Nicholas Cage plays the lead character Ben Gates a treasure hunter like his father before him who becomes involves in a fight to clear his families name names from being involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Watched National Treasure:Book Of Secrets Featuring Nicolas Cage(Face/Off) as Ben Gates, Justin Bartha(Failure To Launch) as Riley Poole , Diane Kruger(Troy) as Abigail Chase, Jon Voigt(Mission:Impossible) as Patrick Gates , Oscar Winner Helen Mirren(The Queen) as Emily Appleton-Gates , Ed Harris(A History Of Violence) as Mitch Wilkinson, Bruce Greenwood(Thirteen Days) as The President,Ty Burrell(Dawn Of The Dead) as Connor, Albert Hall(Malcolm X) as Nichols and Harvey Keitel(Reservoir Dogs) as Sadusky.
Released in 2007 and directed by Jon Turteltaub, "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" brings back Nicolas Cages as Ben Gates, along with his assistant, Riley (Justin Bartha), hot girlfriend (Diane Kruger) and father (Jon Voight).
So, when I saw this sequel, I wasn't expecting it to be an improvement over the first, but can at least be enjoyable and my wish came true at last.I'll admit that the story, just like the original's, is predictable with a weakest script, an even longer climax compared to the first, and the villain not being big enough throughout the film, but those flaws didn't matter as it had some redeeming qualities the first National Treasure had.The cinematography is magnificent and the cast is great with some great performances from Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren, and Ed Harris.
It entertains, and as such, it's definitely fulfilling its promise.I enjoyed it, and Nicolas Cage is well cast as the treasure hunter, while John Voight's and Helen Mirren's appearance is refreshing and makes the movie all the more fun to watch.. |
tt1569334 | Zapiski ekspeditora Taynoy kantselyarii | ''The secret service agent's memories'' is a russian historical film based on the novel by Oleg Ryaskov. It was directed and produced by Oleg Ryaskov in 2010-2011. The world premiere was held at the tv channel Russia 1 in Russion Federation, on June 10, 2011. Also movie was shoved in USA, Canada ( by HULU), Germany, Thailand, Latvia, (1 Baltic channel) Litva, Estonia, (Ren TV Baltia),Ukraine (Channal 1+1), RTR-PLANETA (All world tv channal). It is late 1720s, Russia. Tsar Peter the Great dies and his highly appreciated associate and friend Prince Menshikov rules the country. Those who oppose to the Prince scheme against him. Courier Ivan Samoylov the army officer fails one of the risky tasks given to him to him by court intriguers and honestly confesses this. He is to be punished, but Head of Secret Service likes the officers qualities and make him a secret service courier. From now on he starts a chain of mysterious investigation that involves masons, pirates and grand dukes of the court. | romantic | train | imdb | null |
tt2473510 | Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension | The film starts in 1988 at the end of the third film. A supernatural entity bends Dennis backwards and kills him. Grandma Lois (Hallie Foote) guides young Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) upstairs where they meet with a guy named Kent (Don McManus), whom Lois says will be the girls' teacher. Kent tells the girls that he is going to help them with something that will benefit them in the future.We jump to 2013 in Santa Rosa, CA at the Fleege home. Dad Ryan (Chris J. Murray) is with his daughter Leila (Ivy George) as they wait for Ryan's brother Mike (Dan Gill) to show up. Mike is staying with his brother after going through a pretty bad break-up. Ryan's wife Emily (Brit Shaw) doesn't like the idea of Mike staying for too long. Joining them is a friend named Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley).While going through some stuff, Ryan and Mike come across a camera and some old tapes. They play one of the tapes and see Katie and Kristi as kids while Mike records the events with the camera. Another tape shows the girls in a room with Kent asking Kristi what she sees. Based on what she describes, Ryan is a bit creeped out to notice that Kristi is describing Leila's room. Kent asks Kristi if she sees "him". Kristi strains and says yes before a skeletal blue flash goes over her face and the power in the house go out.Mike records the family as Leila puts the angel on top of the Christmas tree. When Ryan gets ahold of the camera, he sees that it's picking up particles in the air, and it sounds like he's underwater as he walks past it.
?Leila starts acting strangely. Ryan catches her with her bleeding hand pressed against the bathroom mirror while saying something backwards. When they leave, the handprint fades into the mirror before something cracks it. When Ryan and Skyler review the footage, they play the tape backwards and see that Leila is saying "Bloody Mary".Ryan starts to leave cameras in the living room and Leila's room. On Night #1, a dark spirit forms next to Leila's bedside. She wakes up and talks to it like a friend. When asked about who her new friend is, Leila calls it "Toby". Ryan walks into the room and Tobi vanishes.Ryan and Mike bring Skyler in to watch the tapes. The guys note how Katie and Kristi are seen with their mom and Dennis in some videos, but the videos of them from a few years later only feature Lois and Kent, and how cult-like Kent's teachings appear to be.Mike and Skyler are outside with the camera. They notice a ripple in the pool. A dark cloud appears to jump from the pool and go into the woods. There, they find Leila alone. It becomes evident that Toby's presence is only ever noticeable around Leila.Night #2 - Ryan and Mike are awake as they try to catch new footage. Ryan goes into Leila's room and watches her sleep. From the window, an entity with a slightly noticeable demonic face appears and flies toward Ryan, frightening him.The guys review the footage and get a better look at the demon's face. They later go into Leila's room and see that she's drawn weird symbols on her bedroom wall, which Ryan recognizes from some papers he found with the same symbols.Night #3 - Leila wakes up and follows Toby to the living room. She turns on the gas and leaves it going for a while until Emily comes downstairs and turns it off. She sends Leila to her room, after which the gas turns on by itself again. Moments later, the angel falls off the tree with a loud thud.Concerned about Leila's behavior, Ryan and Emily call in Father Todd (Michael Krawic). The priest goes into Leila's room and tries to talk to her. He rubs holy water over her forehead. Leila grins slightly but stays still as Todd asks more questions. After a brief moment, Leila growls and lunges at Todd, throwing him to the ground as her parents try to pull her off of him.Night #4 - Ryan and Mike watch another Katie/Kristi video. Kristi is still trying to describe her visions to Kent. What she describes is eerily similar to the room in which the brothers are standing in. What's more, Kristi says she sees two brothers. Leila then comes in, complaining that she can't sleep. Ryan picks her up, and she sneezes. Mike then catches Katie and Kristi saying "bless you" in the video.The adults dig a little deeper into the events surrounding the tapes and the girls. Ryan reads up on Hunter Rey (Kristi's son), who appeared in one of the videos from 1992, despite not being born until 2006 on the exact same day as Leila. Emily reads about a cult called The Midwives that uses the blood of two firstborns in order to bring something into the world. They also see some drawings of a creature with multiple eyes, something that Leila has made drawings of.Night #5 - A crack forms in the wall in Leila's room. It opens up a tunnel that she climbs through and stays in for hours. The adults notice she's nowhere to be found and scramble to find her. Leila later re-emerges in her room, seemingly dazed out. She says that "he" is going to take her away.The adults worry about Leila as she grows increasingly detached from them. They forbid her to be friends with Toby, but Leila won't listen.Night #6 - The adults stay awake and close to Leila. Downstairs, Ryan picks up Toby forming around Mike. They hide in the kitchen as they can see Toby through the camera, stomping and making troublesome noises while growling menacingly.Deciding that enough is enough, Ryan and Emily call Father Todd to get rid of Toby once and for all. He says that since Leila is not technically possessed, they aren't doing an exorcism, but an extermination. That night, the adults soak some sheets in warm water and draw a circle with a star in the middle on the floor that everyone stands in. They get Leila and prepare for the cleansing. Toby starts to shake the house like an earthquake. Mike turns on the night vision as the adults jump out of the circle as Toby lunges toward them, where we finally get a look at his demonic face. He becomes trapped in the circle as the adults throw the sheets on him. He rises as a tall figure and stomps toward them until Todd speaks an incantation that supposedly vanquishes Toby. Everyone thinks it's over, and Leila appears to snap back to normal...until Skyler's neck starts twisting and she regurgitates an acidic black bile that burns Mike to death. Leila runs away. Her parents chase after her, but Toby puts his arm through Ryan's chest, killing him. Emily then finds the tunnel in Leila's wall and follows her through it.Emily finds herself in the basement of Katie and Kristi's old home back in 1992. She sees blood dripping from the ceiling and she fears the worst. Emily then comes face-to-face with Katie and Kristi, whose eyes are both blacked out. Katie tells Emily it's too late and that "he's" real now. Emily finds Leila, grinning with her hand bleeding. A stomping noise is heard, and Emily sees Toby, now having finally taken on a physical form of his own. She pleads with Toby to spare her since he got what he wanted, but he grabs her by the throat and snaps her neck.The film (and series) ends with Leila taking Toby's hand and walking away off-screen. | paranormal | train | imdb | null |
tt1668200 | Elle s'appelait Sarah | It is the year 1942 in Paris, France. The scene opens with a young girl playing with her brother in a bedroom. The two children are laughing and having fun together when several sharp knocks sound on the front door of the apartment. The girl, Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) immediately quiets down. Sarah and her mother, Madame Starzynski (Natasha Mashkevich), go to the front door and and are greeted by two French policemen. They are able to see Sarah and her mother, but they do not see or hear her brother or her father. Sarah says that both her father and her brother have been missing for several days, but inside she knows that her brother is in the bedroom.Sarah rushes back to the bedroom where her brother is and tells him to hide in a closet, despite his protests. The boy reluctantly climbs in after Sarah tells him that it is just like the game that they played before, and that she will be back soon. Sarah locks the door, then takes the key, holding it tightly in her hand. Sarah and her mother are then arrested by the officers. On their way out of the alleyway, they bump into Sarah's father, M. Starzynski (Arben Bajraktaraj, and the officers arrest him as well.Sarah's family, except for her brother, are all loaded into trucks to be taken to the Velodrome d'Hiver, where many other arrested Jews are also kept in unsanitary, dim and generally inhuman conditions by the Paris police force and the French Secret Service. While there, Sarah's family meets another woman. The family and the woman are having a conversation about what is happening when the woman starts violently coughing, although it is not apparent to the audience whether she is faking her being sick or whether she is actually sick. Mme. Starzynski, panicked, calls for a doctor. The woman reports that she is coughing blood up. A nurse takes her away to the infirmary. From their vantage point, Sarah and her family are able to see the woman enter the infirmary, come out with several papers, then leave the Velodrome after presenting said papers to the guards. M. Starzynski, stunned, yells at the guards to let him follow. The guards refuse, and instead slam a gun butt in his head, dazing him. He is then told to stand up and go back to the area in the Velodrome where he came from.The deportees are then transferred to the French Beaune-la-Rolande containment camp. This was not a concentration camp, and the purpose was not to force labor or to kill the inmates. There is strict order that men are to go to one side, and that women and children are to go to other side. M. Starzynski is separated from his family. He says that he will see them soon. He is never seen again.Later, the women and the children are split from each other. There is much reluctancy to do so, and many mothers protest, holding on to their children, and their children doing the same. Mme. Starzynski and Sarah are separated, but when Mme. Starzynski attempts to run and get Sarah, complete pandemonium ensues. The French guards are unable to restore order without resorting to physical force. The guards use their guns to hit the inmates to separate them. When Mme. Starzynski finds Sarah, the two sit on the ground, hoping. Suddenly, a French guard uses a powerful stream of water to separate them.Later in the day, there is commotion as the children crowd around a portion of barbed wire. The women of the camp are trying to hand the children fruits and bread, much to the guards amusement. Sarah notices an apple fall from a womans hand to the ground. As she reaches for the apple, one of the guards steps on the apple to prevent Sarah from getting at it. Sarah looks at the guard sympathetically, and he releases his foot from the apple, allowing Sarah to take it. This is the last time that the women will ever be seen.The children are now on their own in the camp. Sarah comes down with a fever, and she falls asleep for three days. She awakens to another girl sitting on her bunk in the barrack, who informs her that she has been sick for a while. Sarah suddenly remembers the key, but she cannot find it. As she is looking, the other girl pulls out the key from her pocket and asks Sarah if she is looking for it. Sarah grabs the key as the other girl introduces herself as Rachel (Sarah Ber). Sarah secretively explains to Rachel that she locked her brother in a closet to avoid having the French police find him, and that she must get back to Paris to let him out. The two girls agree to go with each other, and escape. They sit in the barrack, contemplating the best way to do it.The two girls eventually decide to escape during the day. They figure that when the sun is out, it will be hot and the guards will be in the shade. Sarah remembers seeing a small ditch under a portion of barbed wire. If they were to escape at night, the guards would notice any movement, and they have searchlights. Sarah tells Rachel to layer up with as many sweaters as she can. When Rachel questions this logic, Sarah explains that the barbed wire around the camp will hurt less when they crawl under it.The two girls hatch their plan, sneaking out of the barracks in broad daylight. It is swelteringly hot outside. Like they expected, all of the guards are in the shade, and are avoiding looking in the sun. The two girls run over to the barbed wire, in their sweaters. Sarah finds the ditch, and lifts the barbed wire over it so that Rachel can escape. When Rachel is about halfway through the wire, a large shadow appears, from the guard. Both of the girls look up at him. The guard announces that escaping is against the rules. Sarah looks at the guard and quietly says his name, Jacques. The officer, stunned, asks how Sarah knows his name. Sarah remembers when the officer released the apple for her, and shortly after, heard someone say his name. She is able to break the officer by saying that she will never forget him for what he has done. The officer, emotional, looks around, then lifts up the wire for the two girls to escape.The two girls run through a field of grain, then into a forest. Rachel realizes that if they are to have any chance of not getting caught, they need to remove their yellow stars, indicating that they are Jews. As night falls, the two girls look desperately for any sign of civilization. Rachel, however, is getting weak, and is not sure if she will be able to make it back to Paris. Suddenly, Sarah sees lights coming from a village, and begins running towards it. They are roaming the streets, when they see a series of military trucks. The girls rush to hide. After that, they begin roaming the streets, looking for anyone that can help them. They come across a house with the windows open. Sarah shouts, trying to gain their attention so that they can help Rachel. The man inside shuns both of the girls and slam the windows shut. The girls find the mans shed and sleep for the night.The next morning, the man comes to the shed to find the two girls sleeping. He shouts at them to scram, but Sarah explains that her friend is gravely ill. The man, hesitating, looks around and takes both of the girls to the home. Sarah introduces herself under a fake name, but Rachel is too ill to speak. The owner of the home, Jules Dufaure (Niels Arestrup) and his wife, Genevieve Dufaure (Dominique Frot), decide to call a physician to examine the girl. The physician arrives with a German officer. While the physician treats Rachel, the guard asks if there is another child, since there was recently an escape at the camp. Genevieve, knowing this might happen, had hid Sarah before the officer came. Genevieve and Jules both agree to let the officer inspect the home. As the officer begins his search, the doctor comes back, announcing that Rachel has died. The officer, distracted, follows the physician back outside. The two men leave, leaving Genevieve, Jules and Sarah in the home.Days later, the Dufaures board a train to take Sarah back to her familys apartment in Paris. The Dufaures, not wanting trouble for having one of the escapees, dress Sarah in boy's clothes to avoid detection, and Jules creates fake identification papers for Sarah. When an officer comes around to check the papers, Jules papers are copied well enough to fool the officer, and Sarah is allowed to continue. In Paris, Sarah rushes into the apartment building, and despite the Dufaures calls for her to be cautious, Sarah keeps running. She runs up to the third floor, knocking furiously on the apartment door. A young boy opens the door and answers; Sarah pushes him aside without explanation and finds the closet where she locked her brother. When she unlocks the cupboard, she is horrified by what she finds, and screams hysterically. The audience presumes that the boy has died.After the war, Sarah continues to live as a family member with the Dufaures and their two grandsons. When she turns 18, she moves to the United States, hoping to put everything that happened behind her. She stops corresponding with the Dufaures when she gets married and has a son, William. When her son is nine, Sarah still despondent and blaming herself for her brother's death commits suicide by driving her car into the path of an oncoming truck. It's explained to her son that her death was an accident.The movie cuts to the present day, 2009. A magazine journalist, Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas) has inherited the French apartment of her grandparents. Julia does not know this, but her great-grandfather was the boy who opened the door to Sarah in 1942. Julia, having done an article on the French roundup of Jews, finds herself craving more about the history of the apartment, especially since she learns that the apartment came into her husbands family at about the time of the French roundup, and she begins to investigate the people involved in the ownership of that apartment unit.Julia begins an obsessive quest to find any trace of Sarah, eventually learning of her life in Brooklyn and finally locating William Rainsford (Aidan Quinn) in Italy, after extensive reasoning revealed that his grandmother was in fact Sarah Starzynski. She meets with him in Florence, Italy, and asks him for information about his mother, but learns to her surprise that William does not know his mother's history or even that she was a Jew, believing only that she had been a French farm girl. Listening in amazement, William rejects the story and dismisses Julia. Later, everything is confirmed to William by his dying father, Richard, including Sarah's suicide. He gives William Sarah's journals and notes, telling him Sarah immediately had William baptized right after his birth, fearing that "being Jewish" was a threat to him and explaining that "...we're all a product of our history." The key to the cupboard is among the items handed to him by his father.Julia, having given up hope of having another child after years of unsuccessful attempts to conceive with her ex-husband,Bertrand Tezac (Frédéric Pierrot), discovers she's pregnant. Her husband loves their life with their 12-year-old daughter, Zoe, as it is and does not want to have another child at this point in life. Julia ultimately decides against an abortion, has another daughter, divorces her husband and eventually moves with her new baby daughter to New York City.Two years later, William, having contacted Julia, meets her for a late lunch in a restaurant favored by Sarah and gives her additional information about his mother that the Dufaures had. Julia is amazed and happy for him, and has brought her young daughter along to the meeting. William breaks into tears when Julia tells him her daughter's name is Sarah. Julia comforts him as they both look at little Sarah. | murder | train | imdb | null |
tt0066011 | Love Story | The film tells of Oliver Barrett IV, who comes from a family of wealthy and well-respected Harvard University graduates. At Radcliffe library, the Harvard student meets and falls in love with Jennifer Cavelleri, a working-class, quick-witted Radcliffe College student. Upon graduation from college, the two decide to marry against the wishes of Oliver's father, who thereupon severs ties with his son.Without his father's financial support, the couple struggles to pay Oliver's way through Harvard Law School with Jenny working as a private school teacher. They rent the top floor of a house near the Law School at 119 Oxford Street, in the Agassiz neighborhood of Cambridge, adjacent to a local laundromat (still in existence today - MyOxfordLaundry.com). Graduating third in his class at Harvard Law, Oliver takes a position at a respectable New York law firm.With Oliver's new income, the pair of 24-year-olds decide to have a child. After failing, they consult a medical specialist, who after repeated tests, informs Oliver that Jenny is ill and will soon die. Oliver then tries again. While this is not stated explicitly, she appears to have leukemia.As instructed by his doctor, Oliver attempts to live a "normal life" without telling Jenny of her condition. Jenny nevertheless discovers her ailment after confronting her doctor about her recent illness. With their days together numbered, Jenny begins costly cancer therapy, and Oliver soon becomes unable to afford the multiplying hospital expenses. Desperate, he seeks financial relief from his father. When the senior Barrett asks if he needs the money because he got some girl "in trouble", Oliver says yes instead of telling his father the truth about Jenny's condition.From her hospital bed, Jenny speaks with her father about funeral arrangements, then asks for Oliver. She tells him to avoid blaming himself, and asks him to embrace her tightly before she dies. They lie together on the hospital bed.The novel also includes the double meaning of a love story between Oliver and his father, highlighted by the scene between Oliver and his father at the end of the book. When Mr. Barrett realizes that Jenny is ill and that his son borrowed the money for her, he immediately sets out for New York. By the time he reaches the hospital, Jenny is dead. Mr. Barrett apologizes to his son, who replies with something Jenny once told him: "Love means never having to say you're sorry." | tragedy, cult, romantic, sentimental | train | imdb | A box office phenomenon at the time (this was one of those movie that people reportedly waited in line for hours to see), LOVE STORY has continued to be ridiculed by cynics and adored by romantics for decades.
The film even manages to make subtle commentary on class struggles, personal identity, and even the changing attitudes of religion, all of which while never appearing preachy or obvious under Hiller's unpretentious direction.Ali MacGraw brings an undeniable spunk to her characterization here which helps undercut the potential sentimentality of the picture, and lends the finale a greater emotional punch.
A movie like 'Love Story' could have easily gone wrong but kudos to director Hiller for his fine execution and for pulling all the ingredients together so effectively with the help of whimsical cinematography, impressive soundtrack and fine actors.
My parents always say that they don't do movies (or music, for that matter) like they used to, and on this occasion, I had to agree.The movie's premise is simple: the typical boy meets girl love story, with the cliché rich boy, poor girl angle.
In a way "Love Story" was bare raising and set the standards for many later romantic movies.
Everybody have been through similar events in their life at one point, in one way or another.Now days lots of people actually complain about the tag-line and famous quote from the movie; 'Love means never having to say you're sorry'.
By today everybody knows the story for this film; boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy discovers girl has terminal illness.Even though I am a guy, I cried at the end of this (something very rare).
I am not very good at analyzing actor performances and other aspects of the movie but judging from the Academy Award and nominations and the 709 other people that has given this movie a 10/10 rating I would guess that I am not the only one to like the movie.Finally, I would not have lost any sleep if they had left out the part about "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Nice Feel-good/Break-your-heart movie..
Start with "Romeo and Juliet," remove the soaring Shakespearean language, the interesting characterizations and plot intricacies, and keep Romeo alive at the end, and you might get something approximating this gloopy 1970 blockbuster."Love Story" made temporary box-office stars out of Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal, who both fooled American movie audiences into thinking they could actually act based on their performances as star-crossed lovers whose socioeconomic status threatens to keep them apart.
Never fear though -- love always triumphs in the end, unless of course leukemia triumphs first.O'Neal's star would last a little longer, and at least he would choose a couple of very memorable films throughout the next few years ("Paper Moon," "Barry Lyndon") even if his performances would be instantly forgettable.
I know she recently appeared in the play "Festen," based on the Danish film "The Celebration," which opened on Broadway and quickly tanked.Some 37 years later, the only truly memorable thing about "Love Story" is its musical theme.Grade: C.
I somehow saw this in the theater during it's initial release as it must have been the allure of Ali McGraw and I've seen it probably three times since over the years to make sure I didn't miss something about this film but I don't think I did.
It was nominated for most of the biggest awards in Best Picture, Best Director for Arthur Hiller, Best Actor in Ryan O'Neal, Best Actress for Ali McGraw, Best Supporting Actor for John Marley and Best Screenplay for author Eric Segal as well as Best Score and Best song for Francis Lai. Well, Lai was a deserved nomination and in fact won those two Oscars but the rest of the nominations were a cinematic joke.
Ryan O'Neal had made a couple of minor films before and was most noted for his television roles and he like McGraw turned in a stiff, wooden performance here and there was no on screen chemistry between them.
Director Arthur Hiller had made the leap from television to feature films with a string of mediocre movies until moderate success with the Out of Towners before Love Story and after would see more moderate success in comedies in The Hospital, The In-Laws and Silver Streak but any success he ever had were in comedies.
Now that I'm "all grown up" I cannot believe that 1970 America got mesmerized by such schmaltz.For Love Story to garner a Best Picture nomination must mean that 1970 was a weak year for films.
You may live in your own airbrushed utopia where everything smells of roses and girls as beautiful as Ali Macgraw never get sick, but "Love Story" is here to gleefully stomp on your idealism and shake you awake to the realisation that the world is actually a pretty grim place.
Once this stunning revelation has been uncovered, we can all have a good cry and get on with our lives, eh?!For those few individuals who actually lived in the real world before they watched this turgid sapfest, I'm afraid only tears of anger await.Anger at how we're expected to identify with two wannabe rich snobs who don't share a single likable quality between them and don't even act as if they're on the same planet as other humans half the time; anger at glib catchphrases dutifully trotted out so the smug middle-classes can put down their relationship manuals and parrot them while pretending to be Dr. Ruth; and great floods of anger leading to murderous thoughts every time Jennifer is vacuous enough to mistake the term 'Preppie' for a cutting insult.
Ali Macgraw is nice to look at, but after hearing the *exact* same syllables fly out of her mouth countless times, it'll be a brave soul indeed who doesn't feel close to the edge of sanity.Above all, anger at the millions who were naive enough to buy wholesale into this shameless commercial formula and actually believe that the film they were watching invented our noble visions of grand passion.
This treacly, contrived "romance" about a snobby rich boy who falls in love with a poor girl (two awful performances, by the way) jerks tears only from the softest, dullest moviegoers.
Jenny played by Ali MacGraw is a glib music major at Radcliffe who falls in love with the boorish Oliver III.
Personally, I'm with the latter group, but I do love this movie because it makes for great conversation (it's also made for some of the best, and funniest, negative films reviews I've ever read).
**plot giveaway but the first spoken line in the movie will do it too**It's amazing considering all the hype that surrounded Love Story, first as a novel by Erich Segal, and then this film directed by Arthur Hiller, that thirty years later it is hardly thought of at all.
When the first line of your novel or screenplay, tells the audience that one of the main characters is going to die at the end, you had better put that death and what leads up to it on the screen in such a way that it will pull some kind of emotion out of those watching.
More about that later.Many reviewers have been extremely critical of both Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw in their criticism of Love Story.
And in this film, it's always fun to watch.Ray Milland plays Oliver Barrett III, and does it with a cold austere demeanor, but yet we can still sense his love for his son.
His scenes near the end of the film, are the best Love Story has to offer, and won him an Academy Award Nomination.So what went wrong?
This was a popular novel back in the day and the film was a blockbuster that propelled Ryan O Neal and Ali McGraw to stardom.It is a simple tale of two people who meet, fall in love, get married and then one of them becomes ill.Oliver is a rich kid who comes from a family of wealth and privilege.
The doctors do not tell her but tell her husband what is wrong with her.It's an interesting film of its time, nice music, a few stars making their early screen appearances but nothing much more except a famous line that has now part of everyday language: "Love means never having to say you're sorry.".
Absolutely the greatest romance film ever made, "Love Story", broke all kinds of records at the box office becoming the biggest movie ever made to date in 1970.
This is at least one story which will never get old.To be honest, many critics did compare this to French director Claude Lelouch's style of film, due to the fact that French composer Francis Lai (who did score most of Mr.Lelouch movies) did the music for this movie.To watch, and re-watch again if you believe "Love means never having to say you're sorry...".
The success of "Love Story" relies heavily on the acting of Oliver and Jenny (Ali McGraw) and the chemistry they had together.
"Love means never having to say you're sorry!" Probably one of the most ridiculous lines ever spoken by a leading lady, and could have destroyed the movie had it not been for the rest of the movie being such a wonderful experience.One thing I really liked was the relationship between Ali McGraw's character and her father, played by John Marley.
I agree on the issue of the grainy film, the esoteric elitist, Cambridge atmosphere evoked here, the two actors in a simple story of young lovers with a sad ending.It is not perfect, but Ali McGraw looks believable and honest as "down at heel" Jenny a "poor" Radcliffe student (I assume she is on scholarship then), for her music studies.Ryan O'Neal, not a great actor but has a few scenes here like the Christmas church scene, as he views his wife teaching choir to young students.
"Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O'Neal) and music student Jennifer Cavalleri (Ali MacGraw) share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore.
Soon, what began as a brutally honest friendship becomes the love story of their lives." That DVD sleeve summary also notes that this film was nominated for seven "Academy Awards"; not sure how that happened, but it won the most deserved "Oscar", for Francis Lai's excellent musical score.
You keep wondering what MacGraw's problem is - there is simply nothing to really fill out the characterization of the scripted "conceited Radcliffe bitch." It might have better if MacGraw knew about her illness from the start, and hid it from O'Neal.******* Love Story (12/16/70) Arthur Hiller ~ Ryan O'Neal, Ali McGraw, Ray Milland, John Marley.
this is an unorthodox romantic drama.it doesn't follow all the typical conventions of the genre.the characters and their action aren't typical.and the movie isn't overly maudlin or sentimental.in fact,it has almost none of that.but it works.sure it does tug on the heart strings,but in a way that doesn't feel like manipulation it's very subtle.credit that to the writing of Eric Segal.the the two main characters,Jennifer Cavalleri(Ali MacGraw)and Oliver Barrett IV(Ryan O'Neal)aren't what you would call likable,yet they tend to endear themselves to you through the course of the film,enough that you do end up caring about them.overall,i was drawn in to the story from the get go right to the end credits.for me,Love Story is an 8/10.
Originally it was supposed to be "Love means not ever having to say you're sorry" as mentioned in the best-selling novel of the same name.I have seen a lot of romance films released before, during and after Love Story, but none deliver the same emotional impact this one did to me.
With only a few minor differences, the premise and development of the film's story is the same as that of the best-selling novel it is based on: Jennifer Cavalleri (Ali MacGraw) and Oliver Barret IV (Ryan O' Neal) are two Harvard students (just like the screenwriter and novel author Erich Segal) from entirely different backgrounds who fall in love: she is a poor, brilliant but sometimes foul-mouthed "Social-zero Radcliffe Bitch" , he is a muscular, smart and polite "Harvard Preppie Millionaire ".
Their love for each other even outweighs the cold war between Oliver and his authoritarian father (Ray Milland), economic hardships and then the unthinkable.Ali Macgraw and Ryan O'Neal shine together, their chemistry is spot-on perfect and they are 100% believable as you laugh at the jokes they make to each other and cry at their trials and tribulations.
Ryan O'Neal (Oliver Barrett IV) and Ali McGraw(Jenny Cavilleri) play Ivy League over-achievers who fall in love.
I first saw this film as a little girl and fell in love with it that very minute.I don't care what anyone says, its wonderful.I cry my eyes out each time and enjoy every minute of it.Ryan O'Neal was so handsome in it and Ali McGraw was Beautiful.They don't make films like that anymore, a gentle weepy with such romance.To those of you who love the film with me, isn't it the best.To those who don't, don't watch it, just use your remote.We will be the lucky ones.Another favourite of mine is The Other side of the Mountain, which in England was called " A window to the Sky " another weepy.
The best part is the chase between the two principal characters (Ollie, Ryan O'Neal & Jenny, Ali McGraw) and the war between Ollie and his father (Ray Milland).
In the movie Oliver Barrett, a rich Harvard jock, falls in love with Jenny Cavilerri, a poor Radcliffe music major.
This movie is amazing and it truly is the best love story of all time.
The cast led by Ryan O'Neal, the stunningly beautiful Ali MacGraw, Ray Milland and John Marley is truly unique to other romances.MacGraw and O'Neal turned in their BEST performances with "Love Story," and they will always be remembered as the most romantic couple ever to come on the big screen.Segal's story is the type of story, which makes me want to live within that world and never leave.
"Love Story" is the type of movie one says to themselves that this is a place I never want to leave and a movie I want to watch over and over.These are the feelings I have toward "Love Story." True love and chemistry has not radiated from two characters on screen as "Love Story" did with Ryan O'Neal's character Oliver and Ali Macgraw's Jenny.This film covers the good times, bad times, sad times and everything in between.
It is true testament to the talent of the fine actors involved, the writer who penned the novel and the director who turned the novel into a movie."Love Story" set the standard for which other romance dramas should strive to become.
Although I wasn't even born in 1970, but I think Love Story is the best romance movie ever made.
I`m not what you would call an avid fan of the romance genre and the majority of the films I have seen with 'love' as the main theme I have usually viewed in the company of others (the movie having been their choice).
Love Story is one of my favorite books and movies of all time.
Last and certainly not least, all films must have credible and believable plots.MacGraw and O'Neal turned in their BEST performances with "Love Story," and they will always be remembered as the most romantic couple ever to come on the big screen.This film covers the good times, bad times, sad times and everything in between.I have not seen more love radiate from two individuals on or off screen as I did with Ryan O'Neal's character Oliver and Ali Macgraw's Jenny.
I loved the scenery (wintry New England in a college setting), the great chemistry and acting of Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal, and the gorgeous music!
Maybe people could not identify with rich preppy kid Oliver Barrett IV but there were certainly a lot of folks who identified with scholarship kid from Providence.Who meet at Harvard and I guess opposites do attract because it really is love at first sight for Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw.
The "love story" involves two students from Harvard: The guy (Ryan O'Neal) is a likable hockey player from an incredibly rich family who doesn't get along with his rigidly high-class father (Ray Milland); the gal (Ali MacGraw) is an intelligent musician from a working-class family who strangely calls her father "Phil" and cusses a lot.When I first saw the film, over four years ago, I didn't much like Ali MacGraw's character.
Love Story (1970) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Rich law student Oliver (Ryan O'Neil) falls in love with poor girl Jennifer (Ali MacGraw) and even though the two have nothing in common they end up in a wonderful love affair that leads to marriage and tragedy.
LOVE STORY is a film that I just watched for the first time and it's one that I knew about the ending long before.
Sometimes I watch movies and don't see what others see in it but there's no doubt that I fully understand the love some have for this film.
The movie's story is simple: the story is about very rich millionaire's son Oliver (Ryan O'Neal) who happens to fall in love with the poor girl Jenny till the day the doctor diagnosed her with cancer.
It is true testament to the talent of O'Neal and McGraw, the writer who penned the novel and the director who turned the novel into a movie."Love Story" set the standard for which other romance dramas should strive to become.
When the film reached the part where Jenny tells Oliver "Love means never having to say you're sorry!" I sort of responded with Oh yeah, I remember this part.
This is Love Story, and it's a good one at that.The film doesn't hold back. |
tt0114568 | Stripteaser | The story starts one late one weekday evening at Zipper's Clown Palace topless strip club. The beautiful Christina (Maria Ford) is on stage and devoted fan Carey (Lance August), a socially backwards, stuttering, but good natured young man sits at her feet.Outside a bus drops off Neil (Rick Dean), a man with sunglasses and a white cane. He taps his way across the street and into Zipper's bar where he orders a drink. The burley bar tender (R.A. Mihailoff) tells him he's already served last call, but patron, Frankie (George Russo) talks the barman into letting him buy the blind man a drink. They both regret this as Neil turns out to be an obnoxious loudmouth.Outside two corrupt plainclothes cops, Roland (George Tovar) and Joey (Patric Zimmerman) are cruising the streets. Roland is interested in two things: First, getting information on a recent robbery and second, finding a stash of cocaine he can seize to feed his habit. They plan to visit Zipper's later as they know the barman is a dealer, but first they drop by informant Acid Arnie's (M.C. McCurdy) apartment. After grabbing Arnie's meager supply of cocaine and pot they threaten him until he snitches on the robbers.Back at Zipper's, the barman is so annoyed at Neil he declares the bar closed and tells everybody to leave. At this point Neil pulls off the glasses and reveals he is not blind. He also produces a pistol and orders the barman to lock the front door so nobody can go in or out. He then forces the patrons and staff to sit at the bar while he takes the stage. The group consists of the barman, Frankie, Frankie's friend Buzz (J.R. Kuykendall), Christina, Carey and strippers Sandra (Nikki Fritz) and Kitten (Ann-Marie Holman). The butch Sandra and the pretty, passive Kitten are lesbian lovers.Neil is no normal robber and he pistol whips Buzz into unconsciousness for asking why he doesn't just take the money and leave. He then turns his attention to a terrified Carey, telling him that he will shoot him if he cannot answer a trivia question by the count of five. Kristen is able to answer before the deadline and this gives Neil another idea. Seeing Carey's devotion to Christina, he orders them to go behind the stage curtain. Christina will have six minutes to arouse Carey and be engaged in intercourse with him, or he will shoot her.At this outrage the barman confronts Neil and Neil shoots him in the gut.Behind the curtain, at first Carey is too scared to get aroused, but Christina is able to calm him down and promises him she will take him to Vegas if they both live through this. As a bit of comic relief Carey murmurs that he doesn't know if he is ready for such a commitment.Neil allows Sandra to check on the dying barman and give him some water. As she leans close the barman whispers that there is a shotgun behind the bar. From that point on Sandra tries to find an excuse to go behind the bar and get the gun, but Neil seems too suspicious of her to let her go.After six minutes Neil checks behind the curtain and is surprised to find Christina and Carey making love. Leaving them to continue, he now turns his attention on Kitten, ordering her to give him a lap dance up on stage. Kitten tells him she is too scared, but he threatens to kill her if she does not comply. Her eyes are wide with terror she gives him a dance with her fear somehow increasing its eroticism. Not satisfied with letting her strip off just her top, he makes her continue until she is only wearing stocking and high heels and only then allows her to return to Sandra's sheltering arms.Meanwhile the cops, done with Arnie, pull up in front of Zipper's. They can see that something is wrong as it is well past closing time and the lights are on and there are cars in the parking lot. The cops know something bad is going down and decide to pull behind the bar into an alley so they can smoke some pot and decide if they want to get involved.Neil orders Carey and Christina out from behind the curtain so he can tell the group a story. Before going out front Christina whispers to Carey that she has a gun in her purse and if she can get to it, Carey should be ready to distract Neil so she can shoot him.Neil tells the story of a man with bad chemicals in his brain that makes him do bad things. It is soon clear that he is talking about himself. The man, he says, is considering suicide when he sees a beautiful woman. We soon realize he is talking about Christina. The man decides instead of suicide he will stalk the girl getting pleasure out of watching her without her realizing it. He asks Christina if she wonders why the guy she went out on a date with never called her back. The answer is given to us in a flashback when we see Neil torture and murder him.In the alley the cops have finally decided to intervene by slipping in the back door. Joey picks the lock while Roland stands behind him with a shotgun.Christina, clearly nervous at the thought of Neil stalking her, begs him to let her get her cigarettes from her purse. He does and as she fumbles for a lighter, Carey starts demanding to go to the restroom. This distracts Neil and Christina pulls out a pistol and fires at him. Her shot is low, though, and hits the chair Neil is sitting on and he is uninjured. He returns fire and Christina, hit, drops the gun and stumbles back into a corner. Kitten tries to crawl over the bar to safety, but is shot by Neil. Frankie runs toward the back door and is also shot. One of the bullets goes stray, through the back door, and hits cop Joey in the head.Sandra jumps behind the bar and grabs the shotgun. She stands up and takes a shot at Neil, but misses. Outside an enraged Roland blows the door open with his shotgun. Seeing Sandra behind the bar with a weapon, he blasts her. Neil fires at Roland, but Buzz, who has been faking being unconscious on the floor, chooses the wrong moment to make a run for it and gets hit in the crossfire.Roland chases Neil down the stage and behind the curtains blasting away with the shotgun. Thinking Neil is dead he approaches the center of the curtain and is killed when Neil comes out from the far end. Carey retrieves the gun from the floor and confronts Neil. Neil, knowing that Carey has never fired a gun in his life laughs at him, but Carey, enraged by what Neil has done to Christina, empties the gun into Neil's chest. As Neil lies dying, Carey rushes to embrace Christina, who is propped up in the corner bleeding. She opens her eyes and asks if he has a cigarette and we realize she is still alive.In the final scene we see Christina being wheeled out to an ambulance while Carey follows. They are apparently the only survivors of the evening's slaughter. As they get in the ambulance Carey tells Christina he is rethinking his stand on commitment. | cult, murder | train | imdb | A typical Maria Ford Bare-it-all flick.
This movie has an interesting premise.
A supposedly blind man (Rick Dean) enters a strip club.
You wonder for what purpose.
Clearly he can't see anything behind his shades.
Perhaps, he's there for the drinks.
Or maybe, he has an acute sense of smell.
This is after all a fully nude strip club.
Well, to make a long story short, the answer is OBSESSION.
You can't blame Rick.
Maria Ford, the lead dancer, is a 9/10.
She's all-natural, but her best assets are her lovely face and legs.
A beautiful woman is a wonder of nature.
In a sea of a thousand faces, hers is the one that stands out.
Your libido is aroused by her every move, you can't wait to put $100 in her garter.
In one of Maria's dance numbers, she wears high-heel sneakers.
You know, the kind Little Richard or Mitch Ryder rhapsodize about.
Every beautiful stripper has more than one admirer, though.
Lance August plays a stuttering customer, who apparently comes to this bar just to see Maria.
Naturally the plot develops to the point where Lance and Maria become strange bar-fellows, who must cope with madman Rick, when he draws a gun on the bartender, patrons, and other dancers.
This movie has something for all fans of exploitation films to savor.
In addition to a gun crazed loonie, a sexy blond, and a shy geek, you also have two lesbian or bi-sexual strippers (one being tiny, and the other buff), the usual horny drunks, two cops who half-work, and a cozy venue for all to interact.
Without going XXX, this is about as realistic a depiction of strip clubs as you'll find in any film.
Forget about Showgirls (Elizabeth Berkley) and StripTease (Demi Moore).
I wouldn't give those ladies a $1 tip..
Pretty good, actually.
I was surprised by this movie.
It's not bad at all.
It's basically your standard "psycho-in-a-strip-joint" movie, but this time the psycho is pretty memorable.
Oh, and the main stripper is Maria Ford, who is incredibly gorgeous.As movies set in strip joints go, this is nowhere near Exotica (obviously) but much better than Showgirls or Striptease..
Memorable - But Could Have Been SO Much Better...
The late, great Rick Dean carried nearly the full weight of this film, imho.
Other than he and Lance('C-C-C-C-Carey') August, the entire cast needed changing.
Kinda-pretty Maria Ford's acting was as stilted and amateurish as ever - and She clearly needed cast against a stripper's pole about as much as Mr. T does.
Now, I cherish all Women and especially pretty Ones in high heels and lingerie - perhaps even more than most guys - and I was let down to see Her as the lead.
I mean, Ms Charlize Theron would have been WAY more fun to watch in a strip club than Ms Maria ever could be - AND they surely could have afforded Ms Charlize easier, back then - of course, in '95, She was only 20.
But, nearly any Pinup from back then would have done this movie much better than our Ms Maria was able to.HOWEVER - I DID enjoy it, I'll NEVER forget it.
If you can yawn past Ms Maria's halfhearted performances on both the pole and Her dialogue - as well as tolerate the hokey directing - it's actually a damn cool film.It's also got several chuckle-moments in it, too - i.e. Rick's clumsy entry into the club - that was worth a few rewinds, right there, hahaha!-Just focus on Rick's character (he's topping his game, here) and the strippers (other than Ms Maria, hehe) and you'll be fine.In a nutshell: This is a flawed-but-memorable film; a fun, dark, attention-holding watch..
Okay.
This film has a few good things going for it and a few bad things as well.
First, Maria Ford (as "Christina Loren") was fantastic.
Her acting was solid, her dance routines were top-notch and she was very sexy.
The other dancers, Nikki Fritz (as "Sandra") and Ann-Marie Holman ("Kitten") weren't quite in the same league but at least they provided some entertainment value.
Additionally, Rick Dean (as the psychopath "Neil") performed exceptionally well.
But eventually his constant diatribes got very annoying and towards the end I hoped he would turn the gun on himself.
Anything to get him to shut up.
I also didn't care for the character "Carey" (Lance August) or the two cops who just sat in the car taking up valuable time and film footage.
They detracted from the film more than anything else.
Especially Carey.
Even so, this film wasn't too bad.
But Maria Ford couldn't carry the entire movie by herself and Rick Dean had too much film time as it was.
Perhaps if the writer (Duane Whitaker) had devoted more time and energy to a few other cast members (other than Lance August that is) this would have been much better.
But he didn't and the film suffers accordingly.
Still, for an extremely low-budget production and all of the aforementioned flaws I suppose it was okay and merits an average rating.
But just barely..
I'm stunned at how much I liked this.
Admit it.
Stripteaser doesn't sound like the name of a good movie, does it?
When I tell you it's set almost entirely in a strip club called Zipper's Clown Palace and has a cast that includes a guy who looks like a retarded Ed Begley Jr. with a bowl haircut and a pseudo-Asian Janeane Garofalo, it doesn't exactly raise your expectations, does it?
And that it does have women getting naked, but one of them has an immobile set of fake knockers and another has nipples so orange it looks like she's breast feeding Oompa Loompas, that really clinches it, right?
This film just has to suck.Wrong.Powered along by an outstanding performance, some deceptively well written scenes and direction that regularly surprises you, Stripteaser is much better than you would ever hope or expect.
In all honesty, I picked it up at my video store expecting it to be some piece of crap I could have fun ripping apart.
And when it started with a pretty but too thin young woman taking off her clothes in front of a bunch of actors who might as well have had "Career Extra" tattooed on their foreheads, I thought my expectation was confirmed.But then a guy walks into Zipper's Clown Palace, a blind guy who looks and talks like a cross between Howard Stern and Gary Busey.
I was ready to write him and the whole movie off as another example of what happens when you give a camera a very small amount of money to filmmakers who have ambition but no talent.
But after a few minutes of watching the Stern-Busey crossbreed, I had to acknowledge something.
I was becoming more and more interested in what he was saying and how he was saying it.
There was a cleverness to his dialog and while his performance chewed a little scenery, there was something genuine and magnetic about it.
And then I noticed the direction, while ordinary for the most part, would every so often do something a little smarter and more skillful than I would have anticipated.By the time the Stern-Busey crossbreed pulled a gun and took everybody else in the strip club hostage, this film had me hooked.
When it introduced a degenerate coke fiend of a cop and his portly partner into the mix, it reeled me in.
As the crossbreed strutted across the strip club catwalk, manipulating his hostages in a game to which only he knew the rules, Stripteaser dragged me into the boat, clubbed me on the head and gutted me for supper.Now, I'll grant that there is plenty of shlock to this production and there's a very significant problem with the plot.
This story should logically come to an end about a half-hour sooner than it does and only keeps going because the script arbitrarily pushes the pause button on a subplot.
The screenplay probably needed to go through another couple of drafts and some of the roles could have been played by better actors.
But none of that interfered with my enjoyment of this movie.Rick Dean is superb as the Stern-Busey crossbreed.
He's so good here, I would now rent another film solely because he's in it.
George Tovar and Patric Zimmerman as the two cops are also excellent in their matter-of-fact portrayal as the bottom rung of the urban police ladder.
Writer Duane Whitaker and Director Dan Golden have also made me interested in any of their other work.Films like this are the reason I keep going, to find little gems like this and hopefully let other people know they're worth their time and money.
There are so many appallingly bad movies out there that no one should ever see.
Stripteaser is one of the films you should watch instead..
An effectively tense and sleazy thriller.
Cunning and lethal blind maniac vagrant Neil (a wired, intense, bravura performance by the late, great Rick Dean in one of his patented insane villain parts) terrorizes a handful of folks in a strip club at gunpoint.
Neil cruelly uses everyone's individual weaknesses against them.
The main target of Neil's twisted obsession is lovely stripper Christina Martin (well played by the stunningly gorgeous Maria Ford).
Director Dan Golden, working from a clever and compact script by Duane Whitaker, wrings plenty of gut-wrenching tension from the simple, yet gripping premise and certainly doesn't skimp on the tasty bare distaff skin.
Dean and Ford both turn in stand-out work in their juicy lead roles; they receive excellent support from Lance August as stuttering shy guy Carey, George Tovar as corrupt cop Roland, Nikki Fritz as mannish, domineering lesbian Sandra, the adorable Ann-Marie Holman as Sandra's mousy, passive lover Kitten, and R.A. Mihailoff (Leatherface in "Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III") as tough bartender Little.
Both Timothy Wynn's funky score and Andrea Rosotto's slick cinematography are up to par.
Popping up in nice cameos are John Lazar (Z-Man in "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls") as a bar patron and Linnea Quigley as a waitress.
The DVD boasts a few nifty extras: several trailers, a funny outtake reel, and a lively, informative and highly entertaining commentary by Rick Dean and Dan Golden.
Good, nasty fun. |
tt1211837 | Doctor Strange | A sorcerer, later revealed to be Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), tears some pages from a chained book in a library and escapes with the help of several followers. The owner of the book, whom we later meet as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), goes after them. As he flees, Kaecilius bends, folds, and reshapes the streets and buildings of the city (think Inception, but more kaleidoscopic). Though she's a formidable magical fighter, the Ancient One is unable to pin down Kaecilius and he escapes.Dr. Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is cool and confident as he performs a delicate brain surgery. As he finishes, Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) rushes in to show him an x-ray of a patient with a bullet in the brain. He goes to the ER surgery and quickly does a manual extraction with forceps, demonstrating his impressive hand control. He and Christine joke about their on-again, off-again relationship. She turns down his request to join him that evening.Strange dresses for the evening in his expensive condo (modern decor, lots of windows, amazing views), pausing to choose from a drawer full of high-end watches. Speeding out of his condo in his Lamborghini Huracán, Strange heads north. He calls an assistant to consider his next patients; he's in high demand but he wants only difficult, interesting cases. Distracted and driving recklessly, he crashes and the car plunges into the river.He is airlifted back to his hospital and Christine is there when he awakens, badly hurt. His hands have had to be rebuilt and are immobilized in a framework of pins and wires. Recovering slowly after further surgeries, his hands remain stiff and shaky -- he can no longer work as a neurosurgeon. Feeling sorry for himself, Strange breaks up with Christine. He hears about a man called Jonathan Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt) who, inexplicably, recovered from a half-body paralysis. Strange finds Pangborn playing basketball and the man tells him he found the cure in Kamar-Taj.Strange makes his way to Nepal and wanders the streets of Kathmandu. He is noticed and followed. Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) saves him from muggers and takes him to Kamar-Taj. There he meets the Ancient One.She knows all about Strange and introduces him to a new reality. He begins training and slowly learns to open gates to jump across the world. He learns the temple is part of a secret group saving the world from enemies in other dimensions and universes. While training, Mordo shows Strange a magic stick, a relic and says the relics must choose him. He explains that Kaecilius, a former student of the Ancient One, has stolen a spell from a book and escaped with three zealots; there is worry he will decipher the spell and call in Dormammu from the Dark Dimension to take over the world. Strange is upset and says he hasn't come to join their group, only to cure his hands.Strange visits Kamar-Taj's library, which is kept by Wong (Benedict Wong). He quickly learns how to use a time-shifting pendant, the Eye of Agamotto, which enables him to see the missing page from the book. Mordo tells him it is forbidden to use time spells as they can cause time loops and other problems.There are three Sanctums, in London, New York, and Hong Kong, where the group watches out for the world. Kaecilius finally deciphers the stole spell and his group attacks the London Sanctum, a plain building with a logo window. The backlash from the London Sanctum throws Strange through a door and into the New York Sanctum. The building is deserted as he wanders the floors looking at various artifacts. He notices a burgundy cloak in a glass case that moves as he looks at it. At the end of a corridor he finds three glass doors that turn out to be gateways to other places; you change the destination by turning a dial next to each door.Kaecilius and his group attack the New York Sanctum. Strange develops fighting skills on the fly. He gets rid of two zealots using the gateways and the burgundy cloak, a relic which seems to have some intelligence and wraps itself around him. The cloak helps him subdue the third zealot and restrain Kaecilius. Strange and Kaecilius have a talk about the Ancient One and immortality in which Kaecilius claims that the Ancient One has achieved her long life using powers from the Dark Dimension. Once Strange lets down his guard the third zealot revives and stabs him. Strange manages to open a gate and stagger into a cleaner's closet in Christine's hospital. He barely manages to get on a table as Christine hooks him to a heart monitor and removes a excess blood from around his heart. Meanwhile, Strange separates his astral body and continues to fight the zealot, finally killing him with the help of a defibrillator. The zealot isn't visible to Christine, but she can tell something is going on and she's very spooked. Sewn up and recovering, Strange tells Christine he must return and goes back through the gate.Kaecilius has escaped and Mordo joins Strange in New York. The Ancient One also comes and suggests Strange take over the New York Sanctum; he refuses. They're impressed the magical cape, known as the Cloak of Levitation, has chosen him.Kaecilius returns with more zealots and Strange creates a Mirror Dimension to contain the fight and they go out into the street. Kaecilius uses his powers to shape-shift the city (as he did in the opening scene when he fought the Ancient One) and disorient Strange. The Ancient One returns to help but she falls and is mortally wounded. Strange takes her to Christine's hospital but it is too late. Strange follows the Ancient One's spirit in his astral form and they talk overlooking New York City. She accepts this is her end and suggests Strange can take over.Back in the New York Sanctum, Strange and Mordo realize Hong Kong is next on Kaecilius' list. They gate over but the Hong Kong Sanctum has been overrun. Wong, who was guarding it, is dead and Dormammu's Dark Dimension is growing from the location of the Sanctum. Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to start reversing the process but Kaecilius recovers and manages to stun Strange, stopping the process before it can complete . Strange thinks of something and flies off into the heart of the Dormammu's Dark Dimention. Here, he confronts Dormammu and manages to create an infinite time loop: Strange gets killed in various ways but is always reset. Dormammu is furious but finally agrees to leave Earth alone in return for Strange stopping the time loop. Back on the street, Strange sends Kaecilius and his crew into the Dark Dimension just before it vanishes.Mordo is upset that Strange broke the rules in using the time pendant and that the Ancient One used what he considers to be forbidden powers to prolong her life. Before she died, the Ancient One warned Strange that Mordo was very big on following the rules -- both his weakness and his strength -- and that Strange's flexibility would be an important factor when they worked together. But Mordo says there must be a reckoning and he retires from the group and walks away.Strange takes over the New York Sanctum. He puts the Eye of Agamotto back in its guarded place at Kamar-Taj, where Wong tells him it's an infinity stone.Sometime later Dr.Strange sits with Thor and agrees to help him find Odin and rid Earth of Thor's scheming brother, Loki.And Mordo visits Pangborn and takes back the magic repairing his back. Pangborn collapses. Mordo says the problem is too many sorcerers on Earth. | murder, violence, flashback, good versus evil, psychedelic, humor | train | imdb | Every normal movie watcher will love the action, humour, adventure and fantasy throughout the film.A solid new character introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with loads of potential.
Overall Doctor Strange is both fun and funny, clever and pretty, well acted and well-written, and is just an all-around great movie.
This is my review of Doctor Strange (spoiler free) **** (4/5) SINCE 2014s GUARDIANS of the Galaxy stomped all over the box-office with it's over $800 million boot and Ant-Man repeating the same process a year later, the Marvel Cinematic Universe have developed quite a knack for bringing to life virtually unknown origin stories in quite a spectacular fashion and that brilliant record shows that Doctor Strange will be no exception.
The whole concept here is that this was strange from day one and the story written and directed by long time fan and look-a-like Scott Derrickson using his own vision this origin story is brilliant, and to put it lightly mind-blowing and is certainly a vast improvement over his last feature Deliver Us From Evil his vision and his screenplay are very clever and cognitive as the screenplay alone will manipulate the mind.
It may surprise you to know that the insanity that is this movie starts out ordinary with Dr. Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) working his normal shift as a show off neurosurgeon in a hospital along with his colleague/life partner Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), until he is the victim of a terrible car crash (might this be a lesson to never text and drive) and shatters almost every nerve in his hand and has to undergo several procedures in order to get better.
It's quite the spectacle.The first act is used to just settling into the story and introducing the many characters played by big international players, and also training with magic which is done in a very intriguing way as the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) shows him the powers of the mind and he looks very impressed as he has gone from a none believer to becoming a learner – this scene is both inventive and has a colourful kaleidoscope which looks amazing in 3D.
The clever screenplay also adds some hilarious moments where they are needed proving that the director can make a serious film with insane CGI and even add some comedy to the final production.Doctor Strange may be one of the strangest and possibly the most insane addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe but is still nonetheless entertaining and this proves that Marvel are keeping a better record with kick-ass origin stories, that are a spectacular CGI f**kathon and if the end result is this entertaining then that is a record that shall continue for decades, much better than the record currently obtained by the DCEU who at the moment need a miracle to overcome the disastrous films they've made lately.
Easily one of the best films this year and shall be remembered for ages and who knows may even repeat the box-office record set by Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. This is a strange world.VERDICT: The Marvel Cinematic Universe shines again with manipulative sorcery and cognitive storytelling as this may be the strangest addition but still delivers some kick-ass entertainment.8/10 powerfully manipulative..
Doctor Strange being a different kind of hero doesn't really excuse most of this film's conventional plotting.There's a much more interesting film in here, one in which Mads Mikkelsen isn't the main villain (yet) and getting in the way of the hero's journey and in which Tilda Swinton is even more ambiguous.
In terms of the quality of the film as a whole, I would give Doctor Strange a 7, but because of its visual effects and implications for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I am totally giving it an 8.
This isn't really a review, more or an informal statement.So this has been the number one film I've been looking forward to all year (yep more than Civil War and Finding Dory) for a few reasons, one its a marvel Movie which I am a big fan off, Doctor Strange is a great character and story, and Benedict Cumberbatch is my favourite actor.
Don't get me wrong the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) have never made a bad film) but after some of the bi disappointments this year (Batman vs Superman, suicide squad, X men Apocalypse ( I like it but the majority of society doesn't)) and that the director Scott Derrickson has only produced not great horror films, I did worry slightly.But I am so glad to breath a proud sigh of relief, as Marvel have done their job as usual in creating a great fun action film with a great story and well executed performances.
What I love about Cumberbatch is that he can tackle countless roles and characters which is what is very clear here, by displaying elements of being an ass-whole (excuse my language) becoming a strong confident hero and also a quirky humorous fellow.A big hats off to Tilda Swinton as well delivering an awesome performance as the mysterious Ancient One, showing off her wise craftsmanship as a teacher and skills as a defender of the dimensions.The story is a solid great structure with comfortable direction by Scott Derickson, just a bit rough around the edges in a few moments, but nothing to make me go mental over the internet.One of the big aspects of this film is the heavy visual effects, giving us a hint of Christopher Nolan's Inception at times (best film ever made).
(Cpt America, is a super strength patriot, Thor is a God, Hulk is a green monster, and Doctor Strange is a sorcerer) Doctor Strange was everything I wanted and needed it to be, a really solid good, fun, Marvel movie with a spot on performance by Cumberbatch, can't wait to see him in the future movies.
Yes there are other super hero movies with better stories but before going into doctor strange, i went for the visuals to see what they can do based on visuals i seen in the comics and to me they achieved the fantasy reality.
The cast for Doctor Strange includes Benedict Cumberbatch playing Stephen Strange, Rachel McAdams playing Christine, Chiwetel Ejiofor playing Baron Mordor.Doctor Strange is the origin story of how a very successful surgeon ends up in a unexpected car5 crash, that ends up damaging the nerves in his hands.
Co-stars Rachel McAdams and Chiwetel Ejiofor help make doctor strange different and stand out from marvel other 13 movies in the MCU.Fans were excited to see how Benedict Cumberbatch will portray the character and after watching the movie i could say he does the character justice.
Very excited." With stunning special effects that would even make you feel like magic is real, Doctor Strange introduced Magic into the MCU, which open up an entirely different universe.
Doctor strange is a great movie and is a must watch for any comic book fan..
Doctor StrangeThe worst part of being a medically trained super-hero is everybody wants a free diagnosis.Thankfully, the villain in this fantasy film is keeping their moles to themselves.When an accident leaves his hands mangled, noted neurosurgeon Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) seeks out a powerful mystic (Tilda Swinton) in hopes of regaining mobility.
Instead, the conceited clinician is introduced to an ancient magic that imbues him with the ability to cast-spells, travel between realms and astral project.Elsewhere, an embittered ex-student (Mads Mikkelsen) gathers the numinous articles needed to summon a dormant evil from the dark dimension and release it on New York.Intriguing enough for amateurs and faithful enough for diehards, this mind-bending adaptation of Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme is a masterpiece.
I understood it by the end of it, it got me excited when certain things were happening and it made me think how the other Marvel superheroes would cope with the mystical power of Doctor Strange.With the film going into magic effectively, it will be hard for some people to take it seriously.
The first 45 minutes of the film feel like bad long exposition and yet nothing really happens, it's all just more mindless CGI farts from Disney marvel and the effects and style are obvious rip offs from Batman Begins and Inception(but better movies).
The writing is all over the place and we don't get to know the characters, they're simply put there.Because Kevin Feige and Disney are in love with fart jokes,kiddie one liners of course we get to see and hear those (again!) and of course, more explosions (because why not).As for the characters: ancient One barely does anything in the whole movie, The emo looking guy (cant remember his name lol) is a one note villain, Doctor Strange phoned it in and The British Woman was NOT Ancient one at all, as expected she played some feminist(BECAUSE IT'S 2016).Finally, the big battle comes and nothing really happened, the world is being destroyed and the governments sit quiet.SPOILER ALERT!This movie has NO SOUL whatsoever, boring, badly acted, awful written, the worst movie of the year so far..
Benedict Cumberbatch did the character Doctor Strange justice.I think Scott Derrickson did a fine job directing this multi- dimensional CGI fest superhero movie, as the plot served it's purpose quite well.Now for the negative roles, Kaecilius..once a pupil of the Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient one, lost his way and turned to darkness, similar to the likes of Mordo in the comics.
He is a real talented actor, and a very important character in the Strange mythos, so the writers could have done a lot better.Music and the score were good, not the best in the MCU, but syncs quite well with scenes.So the best part of the movie was Benedict and his portrayal of Doctor Strange, a simple plot and the extra stunning visuals.
very nice this movie I watched on the internet recently and really enjoyed it, the film has a lot of action and special effects, those who read the comic book doctor strange in the years 90, will recognize much in this film in common with marvel comics, all the characters in the movie were very faithful stories that used to read in childhood reading the stories from marvel.
Doctor Strange is a complicated character in the comic books, and Marvel did an amazing job at translating it to the screen in an original and breath taking way.
I will not claim that the films are similar beyond the visual, but the best way I can explain how poorly the superpowers were explored in Doctor Strange is to directly compare it to Inception.In Inception, we have a bunch of characters who are able to manipulate the world around them.
Quite Possibly The Most Authentically Psychedelic Movie You'll Ever See. Early on, during one of the first of many mind - and reality - bending moments in this film, it hit me that the 'Marvel Cinematic Universe' movies made the past 10 years are going to be seen in a half-century's time as just as classic and golden an age of film making as Disney's heyday in the 1940s, or at the very least, Pixar's rule of animation from the 90s on.Yes, some are weaker than others - the second Thor film and the third Iron Man, for starters - but at their best they are very close to perfect, and so clearly what all those woefully misguided blockbuster abominations like The Force Awakens and Batman Vs Superman want to be.
(It looks a lot like that cool demo reel at the beginning of Inception when Leonardo DiCaprio showed off all the awesome powers they weren't allowed to use again for the rest of the film.) Truth be told, I had no idea how any of this was supposed to work, as Doctor Strange is the kind of movie where people dart around during action scenes yelling arbitrary rules for what you're watching.
You might Think that the Ticket You Bought was "Spiked" with an Hallucinogen when You "Open Your Eye" to this Entertainment.Indescribable (like the psychedelic experience) SFX and what this Universe Unleashes is Complex, Captivating, and it's all done with Slight Tongue in Cheek and Wears its Weirdness Well.For a Super-Hero Movie that's so "Strange" it is Easily Accessible for Non-Fan-Boys and Lovers of the Comics will be Impressed.
Strange is a character in his own right, on his own mission, and who better than current man of the moment Cumberbatch to play him, which he does very well, embodying the lead character in every inch as, reliably, do co stars Swinton and Ejiofor.As entertaining as they are, too many of these superhero films nowadays get weighed down in endless back story, dragging proceedings on for longer than they really need to, especially the 'origin' stories.
The greatness of the film of course comes from it's ability to have an excellent story and it's visual storytelling to be through the roof.Let me first say that in my opinion Benedict Cumberbatch is a superb actor who gives an outstanding performance as Dr. Strange, who at times is an ass but at the same time he's able to portray him as sympathetic.
I was in shock and in awe for every sequence, my eyes were glued to the screen and I was so happy for that.Although it follows the mainstream marvel origin story, Doctor Strange still manages to not feel like every other superhero movie.
Of all the Marvel Studios' origin story's like Iron Man and Thor thankfully Doctor Strange is in the top tier.
Benedict Cumberbatch is well cast, if Marvel is indeed planning on making the new "RDJ- like" character archetype then they're lucky to find another Sherlock actor to fill in that role because his arrogance, charisma and elegance were all translated so fluidly in the film.
Not much to say about the musical score as well, ever since the "Marvel Symphonic Universe" essay made by Tony Zhou(Every Frame a Painting) it wasn't quite a surprise to have a rather generic and even non- existent Doctor Strange theme, odd considering solo films like Iron Man 1 and Ant-Man had their own distinct musical scores you can attach them too.Overall, it's not a great movie, not a bad movie either.
When this movie was first announced that Benedict Cumberbatch would be stepping into the role of Doctor Strange, I think everyone agreed he looked the part and we knew he could play the part.
I'll definitely have to see it a second time to take in all the action and set pieces (not to mention Easter Eggs), but I can say, without a doubt, it is within my top 5 Marvel movies (the top five including Captain America Civil War, Captain America The Winter Soldier, The Avengers, Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Avengers Age Of Ultron; Doctor Strange is tied with The Winter Soldier).The effects are mind boggling, and the magic helps mask the whole "fake looking" problem that some movies suffer from.
That said, with the current proliferation of formulaic superhero movies, this unfamiliarity might have actually help the latest movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, *Dr Strange*.For the non-Marvel comics' readers, Dr Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) was a real doctor – a neurosurgeon – before getting into a horrific car accident that destroyed his hands and effectively ended his career.
McAdam's Dr Christine Palmer made use of what little screen time she had to aid and heal Strange, although McAdams could probably do nothing and still be likable; Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo was the good-natured and straight- laced teaching assistant, whose rigid personality probably made him the most disillusioned by the Ancient One's doings; and for all the cries of whitewashing, Swinton does an admirable job playing the mystical and otherworldly Ancient One.For the Marvel fans – this review would probably not change your mind on this movie.
Doctor Strange, directed by Scott Derrickson, is not only the fourteenth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but a film that brings in a whole new perspective of magic and sorcery in the franchise.
Not only do the visuals take your mind away, but it shows that Marvel still has what it takes to make good films (especially with so many superhero movies coming out in the next couple of years).
To finish off, we are taken on a visually impressive journey throughout Doctor Strange's world and how he prepares to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a big way..
Doctor Strange does very well in introducing a character I'm not too familiar with, taking time to explore his origin story and becoming one of the most different offerings within the MCU.Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is one of the world's leading neurosurgeons who, after a major car accident, is forced to give up his career due to severe injuries sustained to his hands.
Watching Strange learn the secrets of the mystic arts gets pretty psychedelic at times while the action sequences, including a landscape shifting chase through New York, are quite breathtaking.Coming to the performances, Doctor Strange features a lead in Benedict Cumberbatch that proves, once again, Marvel have got the casting for one of their heroes spot on again.
Doctor Strange is a superhero film based on the Marvel Comic Book of the same name.
Along with Guardians of the Galaxy, this film wasn't afraid to take risks or stray too far from the typical Marvel superhero formula.Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a brilliant but arrogant neurosurgeon, is involved in a car accident that seriously damages the nerve endings in his hands.
Any movie with 'big' roles for Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tilda Swinton is going to be good, but this one adds Mads Mikkelsen as the 'villian', and Benedict Cumberbatch as the 'hero' - awesome !!!
This movie is one of my all-time favorite origin stories, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. |
tt0292963 | Before the Devil Knows You're Dead | Note: The story is explained here in its chronological order, rather than as it is presented in the film.
Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a finance executive at a real estate firm in New York City. Facing an upcoming audit he knows will reveal his having embezzled from his employer (in support of a drug habit), Andy decides to escape to Brazil, believing there to exist no extradition treaty between Brazil and the United States. To raise the necessary funds for the trip and to establish himself once there, he hatches a scheme and enlists the aid of his brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke), himself in need of money to pay three months' back child support as well as his daughter's private school tuition. Hank, meanwhile, has been having a long-standing affair with Andy's wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei), who has been unsatisfied with her marriage.
Of the two brothers, Hank is well-meaning, but weak-willed and cowardly, easily dominated by his stronger-willed older brother, Andy, a ruthless schemer. Andy in turn harbors great resentment that his younger and more attractive brother received more love and affection from his parents than he did during childhood. Andy devises a plan to rob their parents' jewelry store, to which Hank reluctantly agrees. Andy argues that he cannot go himself because he has been in the neighborhood recently, and could therefore be recognized. They assume that only Doris, an elderly woman who works for their parents, will be in the store. Andy states that just a toy gun is needed and that it is a victimless crime, because insurance will fully compensate their parents for the stolen items. Andy plans to fence the jewelry via a New York City dealer his father knows, and expects to net about US$120,000 from the robbery.
Without consulting Andy, Hank hires Bobby Lasorda (Brian F. O'Byrne), an acquaintance who is an experienced thief, to help him in the robbery, as he is too frightened to carry out the crime alone. Bobby reveals a real gun and decides he will commit the robbery himself; Hank just needs to wait in the car. Unbeknownst to the robbers, the brothers' mother Nanette (Rosemary Harris) happens to be filling in for Doris. The robbery goes awry when Nanette pulls a hidden gun on Bobby, causing a shootout; Bobby dies on the scene, and Nanette falls into a coma, dying a week later in the hospital after her husband Charles (Albert Finney) agrees to take her off life support. Charles, unsatisfied with the police's indifference, decides to investigate on his own, and he becomes obsessed with finding information about the crime and others involved in it. Shortly after the botched robbery, Hank is confronted by Bobby's brother-in-law Dex (Michael Shannon), who demands financial compensation for Bobby's death to provide for his sister, Chris (Aleksa Palladino), Bobby's widow.
While Andy is away from his office dealing with his mother's death, his superiors at work repeatedly try to contact him regarding irregularities in his department's accounts that have been revealed by the audit. At the wake for Nanette, Andy and Charles have a complex and emotional exchange, wherein Charles states he loves Andy despite their long-standing differences; Andy says he has always felt like an outsider in his father's house. When Andy questions his biological heritage, Charles slaps him. Andy and Gina immediately depart, and on the drive home Andy has an emotional breakdown over his relationship with his father. Later, at home, Gina tells Andy his boss has been trying to get in touch with him, and expresses her frustration with their marriage and Andy's growing coldness. Andy, preoccupied with covering up his embezzlement and trying to help Hank deal with Dex's blackmail, hardly reacts when Gina announces she is leaving him. Her desperate attempt to extract an emotional response from him – revealing her affair with Hank – fails, and she leaves.
Charles, searching for information about the robbery, visits the same fence Andy had contacted in New York City. After an acrimonious exchange that indicates Charles and the jeweler have known and disliked each other for decades, the jeweler hands Andy's business card to Charles, revealing to Charles that Andy recently came to him looking to fence some jewels. Charles immediately goes looking for Andy. Andy decides to resolve the blackmail situation with Hank by robbing a heroin dealer that he frequents, and then escape abroad. At the dealer's apartment, Andy and Hank overpower the dealer and steal his money. Hank is shocked when Andy kills the dealer and a client who happened to be present. The brothers then go to pay off Dex, but Andy impulsively kills him from fear of continued blackmail. Andy appears ready to kill Chris (Bobby's widow and Dex's sister) when Hank objects. Andy turns the gun on Hank, revealing that he knows about Hank and Gina's relationship. Hank begs Andy to kill him, but Andy hesitates. As Andy pauses over whether to shoot his brother, Chris shoots Andy with her brother's gun, wounding him. Hank leaves his brother and guiltily leaves some of the money behind for Chris before fleeing with the money, drugs and paraphernalia they robbed from the heroin dealer.
After leaving the fence, Charles tails Andy. He follows Andy from his apartment tower, watches as he goes to Hank's apartment, then follows his sons to their meeting with Chris, and finally follows Andy to the hospital where the paramedics take his wounded son. Andy breaks down and apologizes to his estranged father for the robbery, explaining Nanette's death was an accident. Charles seemingly accepts his apology. Charles then attaches Andy's heart monitor to himself and suffocates his son to death with a pillow. Andy struggles to stop his father, but in his weakened condition he is overpowered. As nurses rush to help Andy, Charles walks away. | suspenseful, neo noir, murder, violence, flashback, melodrama, revenge | train | wikipedia | After a cold sex scene, between Andy and Gina, in South America, we know that Andy is a payroll manager who finds himself in a hard economic situation where he badly needs some extra money
We also discover that he has been stealing from his job and using the money to his drug habits
He's also attempting to keep up with his wife, who just might be having an affair
To solve all their problems, he persuades his brothera likable loserto join him in a plan to steal their own parent's small store
Their parents are happily married and proprietors of a jewelry store situated in New York's Westchester County
Sixty thousand dollars is all they'll need to get their life out of desperation
Three main characters are important in this movie
First the two brothers
Each of them is a complex individual, threatened with multiple motivations, and sunk into doubts and disappointments
The two are desperate characters, financially and emotionally
Andy is selfish
He feels that he has never had the love of his father
He is the corrupting influence, turning his brother into an assailant, and his beautiful woman into an adulteress
Hank is a puppet too weak to resist his brother's wishes
His ex-wife is one of the reasons he needs money as he owes her hundreds in child support
.
He longs to regain the confidence he once had with his father
The third character is their weary and deplorable father Charles Hanson (Albert Finney), especially in the haunting climactic scenes
Telling you more about the details could lessen the impact of the film, and therefore the entertainment...Tomei's performance conveys great depth and emotion even with her look, her touch, her particular move
Lumet's direction is firm, fresh and brutal..
Two dysfunctional brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) get tired of competing for who is the bigger f***-up and who Daddy (Albert Finney) loves more, so they hatch a hair-brained scheme to rob Mommy and Daddy's jewelry store so that they can clear their debts and start fresh.
The coherent and classical presentation he uses makes the similarly structured films of wunderkinds Christopher Nolan and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu seem like amateur hour.Of course, what Lumet is best at is directing amazing ensemble casts and tricking them into acting within an inch of their lives.
Lumet runs them through the gamut of emotions that culminate in a scene that is the best of its kind since William Holden taunted Beatrice Straight right into a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in "Network." The Devil of any great film is in the details, from Albert Finney's tap of his car's trunk that won't close due to a fender bender, to the look Amy Ryan (fresh off her amazing turn in "Gone Baby Gone") gives her ex-husband Ethan Hawke at his mawkish promise to his little girl all three of them knows he won't keep, to the systematic unraveling of a family on the skids, to the dialog begging for cultists to quote it (my favorite line being the hilariously threatening "Do you mind if I call you Chico?") to the excellent Carter Burwell score.
The film literally starts with a bang, but we are out of that comfort zone pretty quickly.I don't know the origins of this story by first time scriptwriter Kelly Masterton but I suspect that like Lumet's great 70's film "Dog Day Afternoon" it is based on fact it's too silly to be untrue.
The film consists of an all-star cast, including the likes of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei and Albert Finney.
Those of you who have seen the film will know what I am referring to and those unaware are in for a treat.The story, while simple and admittedly not too original, manages to effectively show the characters' descent into violence and madness while jumping to before and after the event in which the movie revolves around.
I was always aware of where our characters were and what point of the story I was witnessing.Now I have seen many comparisons between this film and the masterpiece known as Fargo, and while it shares the same theme of "simple crime gone horribly wrong" Before The Devil Knows You're Dead is not a darkly comedic venture.
Director Sidney Lumet has made some masterpieces,like Network,Dog Day Afternoon or Serpico.But,he was not having too much luck on his most recent works.Gloria (1999) was pathetic and Find Me Guilty was an interesting,but failed experiment.Now,Lumet brings his best film in decades and,by my point of view,a true masterpiece:Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.I think this film is like a rebirth for Lumet.This movie has an excellent story which,deeply,has many layers.Also,I think the ending of the movie is perfect.The performances are brilliant.Philip Seymour Hoffman brings,as usual,a magnificent performance and he's,no doubt,one of the best actors of our days.Ethan Hawke is also an excellent actor but he's underrated by my point of view.His performance in here is great.The rest of the cast is also excellent(specially,the great Albert Finney) but these two actors bring monumental performances which were sadly ignored by the pathetic Oscars.The film has a good level of intensity,in part thanks to the performances and,in part,thanks to the brilliant screenplay.Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is a real masterpiece with perfect direction,a great screenplay and excellent performances.We need more movies like this..
And even better is the fact that it comes from one of the greatest classic directorial forces of our time, the legendary Sidney Lumet, who many have said has passed his prime but returns in full force with this viciously rich crime thriller.It's one of those films whose plots are so thick, that one is very reluctant to go into details.
Also on the topic of the cast, the two supporting female characters wives of the brothers also feature fantastic performances from Amy Ryan and Marisa Tomei, whose looks just get better and better as the years go by.This film isn't revolutionary.
The lead performances are incredibly intense and the film features absolutely fantastic turns from Hoffman, Hawke and Finney; but the truly greatest wonder of the film is that three years after he won a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, much revered as the ultimate sign of retirement in the film business, Sidney Lumet proves that he still has the immense talent to deliver a truly wonderful, resonant, intense piece of cinema reminiscent of his golden years..
At around the hour mark, Sidney Lumet transforms this film into something that is so much more than the sum of its parts; it eventually morphs into a multi-faceted family drama, exploring the full realm of human emotions/relations, as the story comes to its chilling climax.As is the case with Lumet, he manages to coax exceptional performances out of his star-studded cast, without any notion of over-acting or hyperbole.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, in one of his best roles, is a complex, mysterious, and interesting character, and oftentimes dwarfs Ethan Hawke, who plays his brother, Hank.
What starts out as just another movie about "heist-gone-wrong" develops into an intricate plot about familial dysfunction and everyday people trying to make ends meet (although some ends are bigger than others).Only Lumet could've directed this: you can see his extremely confident camera style (albeit in the hands of expert- cinematographer Ron Fortunato) throughout the entire film.
No example is more notorious of this than Phillip Seymour Hoffman's performance: the intensity of the actor is paired perfectly with the acuteness of Fortunato's camera work.Each shot is carefully blocked and assembled, never allowing the actors to "take a breather", ramping up the intensity or slowly building it up at the director's whim.The movie hops back and forth between the characters timelines to further convey and deepen their connection both to the main story and to each other.Despite this non-linear structure, the subtle allusion to certain objects or events always lets the viewer know when in time the action is taking place, which could only be achieved through solid and well-thought-out editing.Before The Devil Knows You're Dead is a gem and definitely worth the time.
The rest of the cast, which includes the very talented, Marisa Tomei and the legendary Albert Finney, down to smallest of roles are as perfect an ensemble as you'll ever see in in film.If you haven't seen this movie, do yourself a favor and go as soon as you can..
With that said, Sidney Lumet's highly praised new film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, brings out some electric turns from its cast.
The ending works, don't get me wrong, it's just that it is what we thought would play out from the start of the final transitionthose epileptic screen flashes to let us know we were moving in time to a different character were laughably annoyingto the last main point of view change, while also allowing the results of a major character's arc to be left untouched.Again, though, despite all that is wrong and unoriginal about the story, the performances are fantastic.
The good parts come mostly before the third act throws credibility out the window, not least in the way that one of the characters finds it easy to keep his car kerbside in mid-town Manhattan without causing at least a discussion with a traffic cop.By that time the movie feels as though it wants to soar way above such trivia, but for me it stayed earthbound, in spite of the formidable talents involved.
All the actors look dreadful, and I honestly couldn't care less about the characters or plot (Hoffman and his brother, played by Ethan Hawke, plan to rob their parent's jewelry store but LOW AND BEHOLD, the plan goes awry).
She is a fine actress who needs more roles like "In the Bedroom" and less that require lip biting and breast exposure.Watching Lumet deftly handle the non-linear story line and the panic of Hoffman and Hawke make us realize just how good he is as a director.
The best is his following of Hoffman through the apartment during his "quiet" tantrum after Tomei leaves him.So this one is worth seeing to see real film pros like Lumet, Hoffman and Finney; but also a great exercise in mentally re-writing a script on the fly!.
It was strong from the opening scene right down to the final scene.It tells a story of how family can turn on one another and the consequences that lay ahead if that path is taken.I really can't say enough about the wonderful job Sidney Lumet did in directing and how he just kept it going strong for the full couple hours.All I can say about the storyline is that it takes you to a place not too many people can relate to in regards to their family relationships, but it sure is a great ride learning more and more about the main characters along the way.I highly recommend this movie as I'm sure that most people that see it will share a similar opinion as mine..
The film's title comes from a famous Irish blessing, which declares, "And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead", verbiage very much apt for protagonist brothers Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke).In short, Andy and Hank, both short of money for various reasons, are looking to rob a "mom and pop" jewellery store, yet the sting in the tail lies in the fact that this store is owned by their parents.
Embroiled in the turmoil is Andy's wife Gina (Marisa Tomei), who is torn between the two brothers in a very twisted love triangle.Lumet enjoys utilising non-linear narrative to great effect in this film we open on the day of the robbery, and subsequently dart around various days before and after it, which reveals to us a wealth of important and, at times, shocking information.
Andy, in particular, is of dubious moral character, and Hank, driven by a need to stay afloat, is dragged down into the abyss with him.It is a massive credit to the picture to be endowed with such acting powerhouses as Hoffman and Finney, that one is able to find all of the film's familial issues to be convincing precursors to their present problems, without at all seeming forced.
The final twenty minutes is so chock full of unpredictability (yet still manages to be tangible), and so masterfully acted, that even if you find the melodrama to be several steps too far, there is nevertheless an assortment of reasons to both watch and revel in this electrifying, dramatic character study.Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is packed with Oscar-worthy material the tragic, spiralling plot is unflinching in its portrayal of man's desperation, thanks to Kelly Masterson's sharp and inventive script.
But no need to bury him so soon, Lumet's come back (at the age of 83, and he's already making a new movie) with a hard boiled "melo/thriler" (the director himself insists on the melodrama part) that certainly has the youth and the strength of his best movies, as "Serpico" or "A Dog Day Afternoon".The movie looks a lot like "A dog day", with it's story of a stupid old-up, where everything goes wrong.
Unfolding by moving back and forth in time and presenting different viewpoints, the movie begins with a catastrophically fouled up robbery that continues the downward spiral of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character Andy Hanson.
With the Requiem for a Dream meets Closer persona, the film tells the story of Andy and Hank, two brothers who come up with a perfect plan to solve all their financial problems; they will rob their parents jewelry store.
Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman have chemistry together, Marisa Tomei as well seems sincere and believable, the father's expertly played by Albert Finney (really a strong character)."The Devil Knows You're Dead" has a special narrative structure, moving smartly back and forth in time and showing perspectives and characters from very different angles.
Albert Finney, in the role of father to these two, deserves much mention, as he pieces together all the clues in "what happened." Phillip Seymour Hoffman is incredible in this character role of a person simply caught up in the under-draft of desperation, with Ethan Hawk cast in the perfect role of younger brother trusting his older brother that, somehow, everything was going to workout just right....and it doesn't.Don't miss this movie!.
Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) plan to rob their parent (Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris)'s jewelry store.
The characters are well developed and superbly portrayed by Hawke and Hoffman.The movie is broken down into fragments and fed back to the audience in a way that is both dramatic but also a little distracting.The characters are all pretty self-destructive and the film has a general sour taste to it.Very good highly recommended, but don't expect 'Oceans 11' or too many happy endings..
Tragedy follows the family right to the bitter end, which is believable, and makes Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, one of Sidney Lumet's better dramas, and Hoffman is great, as usual..
Kelly Masterson's first script tells the story of Andy (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), two brothers that, because of how life is, decide to rob their parents' jewelry store.
If there's something we know for sure, it's that the movie is very concerned for us to differentiate the characters; the two brothers and their father (Albert Finney), and how each of them live their days before and after the robbery in question.
Lumet's concern (contained in Masterson's script) for the characters can be seen in the different angles from where he shows us a particular moment that's repeated twice (in case we missed any detail), and in the performances by the great Hoffman and that powerful actor that Ethan Hawke is, and the rest of the fantastic ensemble.
Old ,venerated film directors shouldn't be allowed to direct movies like "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead".
They shouldn't be overseeing astonishing powerhouse acting performances by talents such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Albert Finney, or film Marisa Tomei in such a way that she looks sexy and totally smoking hot.
To draw us deeper into the plight of the characters and the world they have created for themselves, the filmmakers have come up with a demanding and complex - but always comprehensible - multi-level time structure through which to tell their story, creating a fascinating puzzle for the audience to solve.Thanks to brilliant performances by Hoffmann, Hawke and Albert Finney as the boys' father, the movie evolves into a gripping family drama in which feelings and resentments, simmering just beneath the surface for decades, are suddenly brought to the fore by the heavy-handed machinations of Fate."Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" has all the earmarks of a classic tragedy, with one glaring exception: Andy and Hank demonstrate little of the potential nobility whose fall we would normally be called upon to mourn.
Sidney Lumet's 2007 film "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is a drama/crime thriller about two brothers who decide to solve their money problems by robbing a jewelry store, and not just any jewelry store.
Sidney Lumet is one of my favorite directors and to see him put out a film like "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" at age 82 is fascinating.
As good as this terrific cast is too, there is little connection with the characters and thus we feel little when tragedy befalls them.First-time screenwriter Kelly Masterson tells his original story about two brothers, Andy and Hank Hanson (Hoffman and Hawke respectively) who are strapped for cash and decide robbing their parents' jewelry store will get the job done without hurting anyone (since the shop is insured). |
tt0082089 | Body Heat | Mary Ann Simpson (Kathleen Turner) and Matty Tyler (Kim Zimmer) graduate together from Wheaton High School in Illinois. According to the yearbook, Mary Ann's goal is to be rich and live in an exotic land. She pursues her goal in a calculated, manipulative, and ruthless manner that includes a switch of identities.The following synopsis describes events in chronological order, but the viewer learns many of the events only at the end of the movie.Mary Ann Simpson gets involved in bad things after high school, but then sets her sights on wealthy Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna). She knows Walker will not marry her if he finds out about her past. She decides to adopt the identity of her high school classmate Matty Tyler. As Matty Tyler, she arranges to meet Edmund Walker. They get married and move to a waterfront estate in Pine Haven, Florida. Edmund travels frequently and is involved in many business dealings, including an investment in an abandoned beachfront hotel nearby.Edmund's will leaves much of his estate to his niece. Matty Tyler Walker (the real Mary Ann) knows that if his will is invalidated for any reason, she would inherit all his estate as the surviving spouse under state law of intestacy. Matty devises a plan to murder Edmund and get all of his estate. To carry out the plan, she must find an attorney to commit the murder and forge a new, invalid will. She will then implicate the attorney as the murderer and kill him in what looks like an accident to end any further investigation.Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a slightly disreputable attorney. One of the wills he drafted was invalidated and he was sued for legal malpractice. His best friends are prosecutor Peter Lowenstein (Ted Danson) and detective Oscar Grace (J.A. Preston).At a party, Matty Tyler Walker meets an attorney who tells her about the legal malpractice case against Ned. Matty decides that Ned is the perfect target for her scheme. Matty arranges to meet Ned and they begin a hot affair. She eventually talks Ned into murdering Edmund. Ned gets advice on arson devices from his client Teddy Lewis (Mickey Rourke). Matty asks Ned to change Edmund's will and forge his signature. He refuses because he thinks it will attract attention.As the murder plans develop, Ned makes a surprise visit to see Matty and finds another woman meeting with Matty. Matty introduces her as "Mary Ann Simpson," but unknown to Ned (or to the viewer) she is actually the real Matty Tyler. The real Matty Tyler has learned about Matty Tyler Walker's deception and is blackmailing her. Matty Tyler Walker must now alter her plans to also get rid of the real Matty.On the night Edmund is to be killed, Ned goes to Miami and checks into a motel to give himself an alibi. He then drives back to Edmund and Matty's house and murders Edmund. He takes Edmund's body to the abandoned beachfront hotel and sets it on fire, hoping to make it look like Edmund tried to commit arson and was accidentally killed in the process. While Ned is gone setting the fire, Matty telephones the front desk of Ned's motel repeatedly and asks to speak with Ned. The front desk rings Ned's room but no one answers. Matty knows that Ned is not there and that his failure to answer the telephone calls will destroy his alibi.After the murder and the fire, Ned is shocked to learn that Matty changed the will and made it appear that Ned was involved. The redrafted will is invalid and, as a result, all of Edmund's estate passes to Matty. When Edmund's estate is eventually settled, Matty sends all the money to a secret bank account overseas.Oscar Grace and Peter Lowenstein investigate Edmund's death. They learn that Edmund's body was discovered without his glasses. If his glasses are found elsewhere, it would suggest he was murdered elsewhere and his body then taken to the hotel. They also discover the motel telephone records that show Ned did not stay in his Miami motel room the night of the death. They reluctantly begin to suspect their friend Ned.Meanwhile, Matty Tyler Walker has developed a revised plan that will get rid of both Ned and the real Matty. The first part involves a made-up story that her former housekeeper has Edmund's missing glasses and is threatening to turn them over to the police unless she is paid off. If the glasses are kept from the police, there would still be a chance that Edmund's death would be ruled an accident rather than a homicide. The second part of the plan is to murder the real Matty and place her body in the boat house at her estate. The third part is to send Ned to the boat house on the pretext of recovering the glasses. The boat house will be rigged to explode a few seconds after the door is opened.Before Matty can fully execute her plan, Ned happens to meet the attorney who originally told Matty about him. Ned suspects he has been set up. Then Teddy Lewis tells Ned that Matty had asked him questions about rigging a delayed explosion.Matty Tyler Walker murders the real Matty Tyler and puts her body in the boat house. She then calls Ned and tells him the housekeeper has been paid off and has left the glasses in the boat house. Matty asks Ned to go to the boat house and pick them up. Ned goes to the the boat house, carefully inspects it, and sees the trip wire on the door. Matty arrives, expecting to find the boat house destroyed with the bodies of Ned and the real Matty inside. She is startled to see Ned alive and the boat house intact. Ned tells Matty that he has learned the truth. Matty denies it and swears that she really does love him. To prove his suspicions are unfounded, Matty says she will go down to the boat house by herself. Matty opens the boat house door and then, unknown to Ned, secretly dives into the water and swims away. The boat house explodes a few seconds later.The dental records confirm that the real Matty Tyler's body was in the boat house. The police believe that Matty Tyler Walker and Ned were responsible for Edmund's death and that Matty Tyler Walker was killed in the boat house fire. Ned is charged with Edmund's murder and convicted. The fake Matty retrieves the money from the overseas account and moves to an exotic land. While in prison, Ned obtains a copy of the Wheaton High School yearbook and his suspicions about the switched identities are confirmed when he sees the photos of Mary Ann and Matty. He knows that Mary Ann Simpson/Matty Tyler Walker has succeeded in achieving her high school goal. | suspenseful, neo noir, murder, atmospheric | train | imdb | By that, I mainly mean nudity and profanity, although the language isn't that offensive.Kathleen Turner plays a femme fatale, similar to Barbara Stanwyck's role with Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity," except with a different ending.
I liked the classic actors better but Turner and Hurt shine with their performances, too.This is steamy movie to say the least.
(Hey, my 87-year-old father is dating a 24-year bimbo in Florida, so I know of where I speak.)The story is divided into three segments: (1) the setup; (2) the romance and plotting of the crime and (3) the crime and unraveling of Hurt as things begin to go very wrong.An intriguing film, this loses nothing with multiple viewings.
The coastal Florida town in Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat brings to mind remote colonial outposts in movies like The Letter (nearby Miami, here, seems as far away as London).
Soon, the pillow talk works around to murder....Of course, Body Heat is a latter-day version of the story for which Double Indemnity serves as archetype: Duplicitous woman seduces lust-addled stud into killing rich older husband, then leaves him to twist slowly, slowly in the wind.
In her movie debut, Turner makes her deepest impression with her best asset, that dimple-Haig voice of hers, all silk and smoke (but neither she nor Kasdan, who also wrote the script, quite justify her character's long and intricate back-story of ruthless scheming).
A lightning fast affair develops between the ultra-hot and erotic Kathleen Turner and small-time Florida attorney William Hurt in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave in "Body Heat", arguably the most under-rated and most under-appreciated movie of the 1980s.
`It's the movie code,' she explained: Evil-doers must be punished."While I'm not a fan of the sex and language direction that films have taken since the movie code died, part of the fun in watching `Body Heat' is knowing that there is a chance that either or both William Hurt and Kathleen Turner will get by with killing Turner's husband, played by Richard Crenna.`Body Heat' is almost as good as `Double Indemnity,' which is considered by many to be best of the man-teams-with-woman-to-kill-her-husband genre.
In the hot Pinehaven, Florida, the smalltime wolf lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt) flirts with the sexy but married Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) and they begin a torrid love affair.
Ned carefully plots a perfect scheme for killing Edmund; however things go wrong when successive evidences are disclosed conspiring against him."Body Heat" is the greatest homage to film-noir ever!
It stars Academy-Award winner (Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1985) William Hurt with a mustache and a dangling cigarette as Ned Racine, a not overly bright Florida lawyer smitten by Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner in her steamy film debut) a rich housewife with a husband she hates, and a yearning to breathe free.
After watching this movie several(dozen) times I've found what I think are several semi-hidden clues to indicate the direction things are going in Body Heat.
a world where certain modernities have gotten stuck in time.Written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, this film stars William Hurt as Ned Racine, a mediocre attorney in a small southern town who is more famous for one particular legal screw-up - one that figures prominently into the plot - than his small time victories.
During a searing heatwave, Ned Racine(William Hurt) a none to bright Floridian lawyer with an eye for the ladies meets up with and seduces a married woman Matty Walker(Kathleen Turner) and after a torrid affair they are soon plotting to kill her husband (Richard Crenna)so that she can inherit his wealth and be free.Of course all is not what it seems in this neo-noir, the plot obviously takes a nod towards its eminent predecessors Double Indemnity and A Postman always rings twice, but it is more than a mere remake and Kasdan has added his own original spin on the story and made it his own.
Body Heat is full of the witty dialogue you might expect in a JM Cain script and all the twists of an 1980's erotic thriller and an excellent sexual tension is developed between the leads both of whom excel in their respective performances .A must see for all Noir fans..
William Hurt and Katleen Turner complement and play off each other well and Ted Danson turns in a fine performance as does Mickey Rourke and any time Richard Crenna show up in a film you can expect a great performance out of him.
****SPOILERS**** Steamy melodrama set in Florida during the middle of a record heat wave which was nothing like the heat generated on the screen by the two stars, William Hurt & Kathleen Turner, in the movie.Ned Racine, William Hurt, a local lawyer one hot steamy night at a town concert meets sexy and sultry Matty Walker, Kathleen Turner.
The results of that chance meeting leads to a sizzling and torrid affair and ends in murder and deception and finally the loss of Ned's freedom in what has to be one of the most erotic and well thought out "Film Noir" movies ever made.
Unlike the great "Film Noir" movies of the 1940's like "Double Indemnity" and "Out Of The Past" to name a few "Body Heat" is not hampered by the restrictions and limitations of the Hayes Commission back then.
Good early career performances by Ted Danson, Peter Lowenstein, as Ned's friend and fellow lawyer and Mickey Rourke, Teddy Lewis, as an accused arsonist who Ned got off and who later reluctantly gets involved in the murder plot on Matty's husband Edmund.
Superior story and acting with a really unsuspecting ending makes "Body Heat" not just one of the best "Film Noir" movies of all time but the one that all movies of that genre are to be compared too in the future..
One thing I really liked about Body Heat was the way Kasdan, the director, complimented the audience's intelligence by focusing on the plot and not exploiting Kathleen Turner's sexuality to excess.
There's plenty of heat generated in BODY HEAT and most of it comes from the steamy situations set up by director Lawrence Kasdan and, in her debut film role, KATHLEEN TURNER, who turns up the heat even more with a dynamic performance as "the femme fatale".But all of the material will seem familiar if you've ever seen THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE or DOUBLE INDEMNITY.
Still, there are some fresh new twists that will have you wondering just how this whole story will play out once WILLIAM HURT (in a role similar to Fred MacMurray's in DOUBLE INDEMNITY) learns that he's been played for a fall guy by Turner, who wants him to kill her wealthy husband so they can share the wealth.Not only is there a clever twist at the end, but the whole story has been modernized for '80s audiences by including some graphic depictions of soft core sex.
Cain might have written in the '30s or '40s, and when done as effectively as it is here, with John Barry's intriguing score adding some extra dimension to the film noir atmosphere of the tale, it can hold the audience in its grip until that final moment.Well worth seeing for Hurt's very persuasive performance as the weak-minded lawyer dazzled by sex and Turner's debut as a screen siren..
(It also alienates those viewers, such as myself, who don't care to be invited to be voyeurs.)Consequently, Body Heat - a densely plotted film even by noir standards - is left with an awful lot of plot to pack into its second act, and the second half's dialogue and structure suffer from the need to make every line and scene contribute to the explication.
To look on the positive side, which involves overlooking the blandness of William Hurt and Kathleen Turner's performances (compare them with the guilt-fired sexual derangement of Lana Turner, Fred MacMurray and John Garfield in the older films), there are good things about Body Heat.
The surprising interest that ignites this movie is the relationship between Ned and Matty, between William Hurt and Kathleen Turner.
During the whole time when I was watching Body Heat, I was reminded of other femme-fatales that were erected straight out from other 1940's film-noir classics like Double Indemnity, The Asphalt Jungle and Out of the Past.
First look at Body Heat by Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire Strikes Back, Accidental Tourist) one may think "Hey, so what, it looks like a remake of Double Indemnity." But a couple of factors give this film a life of its own.
And of course, there's Kathleen Turner and William Hurt in what could be considered their finest performances they ever committed to celluloid.In fact, foreshadowing is the name of the game here, as seedy Florida lawyer Ned Racine gradually realizes his fated connection to femme fatale Matty Walker.
The carnal lust that the characters share for one another fits with the film's salacious and 'heated' tone, where morality is blurred and greed overtakes common sense.I figured I could predict how the story would even play out, but I was taken by surprise with a well written twist that plays on the expectations of the viewer, and makes a passionate commentary on the human condition.So after the film was finished, I wasn't left thinking "So What?" anymore, so much as "Man, I wish I could have directed that film." A fine piece of American Neo-Noir and one of the better mystery/thrillers of the 80s.
Body Heat is also reminiscent of that classic film noir of the 1940s - Double Indemnity.Ned Racine (Hurt) is a somewhat inept and dishonest lawyer in a small town in Florida.
To be certain, Kathleen Turner looks like a cross between Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Montgomery (could there be a sexier combo?).Obviously, the movie is intended as a tribute to film noir, and it certainly succeeds.
(Not all of it from the bodies of the two main characters - Matty and Ned.) The dialogue cleverly works the metaphor of the heat into the steamy affair that Matty (Kathleen Turner) is having with the small-town lawyer (William Hurt).
Body Heat is writer Lawrence Kasden's very successful directorial debut.William Hurt is a lawyer who is drawn into a plot by Kathleen Turner to get rid of her slimy husband Richard Crenna.The acting in this film is outstanding.
Body Heat is a classic thriller that pays homage to the film noir movies of the 1940s.
It looks good, the music is great and Kathleen Turner is hot, hot, hot!You'll be extremely surprised at how intelligent and well-made this film is..
Kathleen Turner and William Hurt are paired in a classic thriller that rivals the best noir films of the 1940s.
The movie itself seems to drip with the heat and humidity of south Florida and John Barry's sultry, suggestive music score is a great accompaniment to an excellent film..
All these things conspire to work against him, as he meets smart and pretty Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), who is looking for someone just like Ned. And she gives him a thorough workout.To tell more about the plot would not be productive, only to say that it is a very clever story, and very well told in this highly entertaining movie.
Kathleen Turner and William Hurt are both superb.Edit: I watched it again July 2018, film and story holds up very well, one of my favorite modern 'noir' along with 'Basic Instinct'..
The movie is a sensuous film noir as well as a diabolical thriller; William Hurt and Kathleen Turner spin a web of illicit sex and murder,and all around them,the inescapable heat that seems to stick to everything and becomes as tangible as the characters.
Most crucially, it fails to make you care about either character, so that the rest of the film feels merely like an extended exercise in plot exposition, the broad thrust of the movie is far too clearly telegraphed so the viewer is left watching simply to see which possible twists have actually been chosen to achieve the necessary overall effect.
Body Heat is widely compared to one of the original, and still one of the best, films noir ever made, Double Indemnity.
William Hurt and Kathleen Turner work amazingly well onscreen, and the cloyingly hot and muggy atmosphere takes a welcome turn from the typical wet streets of classic noir films and makes it work spectacularly well in enhancing the tension of the film.
In the case of low-rent Floridian lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt), it's the classic combination of sex and money (with an oppressive heatwave to fuel the craziness) that makes him kill for Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner), sultry wife of shady businessman Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna).
Unfortunately for Ned, Matty—if that is indeed her real name—is about as fatale as a femme can be, and is using her smouldering looks, sensuous curves and incredible sexual magnetism to manipulate the poor chump like a puppet.Full of hot steamy nights, shadowy offices, smoky bars, and seedy characters on the edge of the law, Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat has all the elements one might expect from a classic 40s film noir, but being a product of the 80s, is far less suggestive when it comes to the eroticism.
But Body Heat isn't just about the rampant sweaty sex: the plot is suitably intriguing, the supporting performances are spot-on (including great turns by Ted Danson and a young Mickey Rourke), Kasdan's direction is extremely stylish, and John Barry's jazzy score is simply wonderful..
It may be a knowing homage bordering on parody at times but this remains a real gem of a movie, illuminated by a truly brilliant performance from a then-debuting actress.Sleazy small-town lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt) struggles to cope during a Florida heatwave along with his partner Peter Lowenstein (Ted Danson).
saw this film today, and though i thoroughly enjoyed it, if you're at all familiar with the film noirs of the 1940s and '50s, this movie won't surprise you in the least - the plot is lifted straight from that mode (or genre, or whatever it is we're calling it these days :).the acting is quite good, especially by william hurt, who plays the role of the dumb as a doornail ned racine to a tee.
kathleen turner (and, if the other comment i read on this page is correct, in her first role) is also quite good, as the updated femme fatale, but we never really believe that she loves ned, do we?derivative it might be, but it's certainly a quite enjoyable film, even for those noir fans like me, who could pick the film's ending about three minutes in.
You'll just be glad that it's finally ending.Kathleen Turner plays our mysterious seductress, Matty Walker, and she certainly brings plenty of heat to the role, steaming up the screen in a way her Double Indemnity counterpart Barbara Stanwyck never would have been allowed to back in 1944.
Hurt and Turner have great chemistry and have some of the most erotic, turn-on sex scenes ever committed to film, yet with very little nudity.
I rate Body Heat the best of all the film noir movies.
Watch it at least twice to see how everything links together.Kathleen Turner and William Hurt play their roles perfectly, and catch Ted Danson as the A.D.A.I rate Body Heat the best of all the film noir movies.It is a definite 10.
The talents of William Hurt( Ned Racine) and Kathleen Turner(Matty Walker)("Crimes of Passion" with Anthony Perkins) along with the late Richard Crenna("Judging Amy" TV Series) and last but not least Ted Danson (Peter Lowenstein) of "Cheers" and "Becker" made this a great 1980's classic.
It is the best Film Noir ever, and though I know every twist and turn it will take, watching it take them is a thrill each time.
The film indeed has all trumps: - superbly intricate and intelligent script and perfect direction by Lawrence Kasdan, together with a beautiful photography which adequately renders the necessary sultry atmosphere; - haunting musical score by John Barry; - perfect cast: one of his best performances by talented William Hurt, together with the astonishing debut of Kathleen Turner, who never again had such a vehicle for her talents; strong supporting actors, including notably Richard Crenna, Mickey Rourke ( then a newcomer ), and last but not least a quite remarkable Ted Danson.
The acting is superb , on all the cast,Even the victum Richard Crenna, William Hurt was great, and so was Kathleen Turner, Got her into stardom.
In the midst of a searing Florida heat wave, a woman (Kathleen Turner) convinces her lover (William Hurt), a small-town lawyer, to murder her rich husband (Richard Crenna).This film gets you very quickly with its raw sexuality.
William Hurt and Kathleen Turner are passing the time by having an affair, when Bill gets a very bad idea: why not do away with her husband?Had I known there was a neo-noir element in this movie, I might have watched it sooner.
And if William Hurt holds up his end of the acting very well, Kathleen Turner looks increasingly stiff and decorative.Director Lawrence Kasdan likes to make impressive films, on the heels of Stars Wars and Indiana Jones movies (one of each).
Naturally, nude scenes of Kathleen Turner do no harm to the film's entertainment value.Body Heat is classy and elegant; the cinematography and especially the acting are good enough that even the sex doesn't feel forced and exploitative.
One thing is for sure, they should never get too greedy by wanting all his money...With William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke I must say that Lawrence Kasdan certainly had a nose for young talent.
BODY HEAT delivers when it comes to good nudity, palpable room temperatures, and some great leg shots of Kathleen Turner in the femme fatale role of her career.
I can watch BODY HEAT over and over again, and still be enthralled by it.Great acting, striking direction, sultry music, beautiful cinematography,and a wonderful film noir plot. |
tt0050210 | The Brain from Planet Arous | Titles and credits run over a vista of the desert with a mountain in the background. It is evening and a light descends from the sky and explodes into the mountain. Dr. Steve March (John Agar) is in his lab working and notices something strange on his Geiger counter. He tells his colleague, Dan Murphy (Robert Fuller) that it makes no sense. Dan is absorbed reading a pulp science fiction novel and is paying no attention, until he hears the Geiger counter suddenly register radioactivity after a long silence. Steve has located the source. It is thirty miles away at Mystery Mountain. Sally Fallon (Joyce Meadows) arrives and reminds her fiancé and Dan that they haven't even stopped for lunch. After another burst of radioactivity is detected, Steve proclaims, "Dan, were going over to Mystery Mountain." Sally convinces them they need to eat first.At the Fallon residence they have lunch. John Fallon (Thomas Browne Henry) arrives home. He is Sally's father. Steve explains that he and Dan are going to Mystery Mountain. John is surprised. He explains that at this time of year temperatures can reach 120 degrees in the desert. Steve reveals that, "A hot blast of gamma is coming from Mystery Mountain. That's cause enough for any scientist to go out into the desert." Dan is not anxious to go, but agrees. They set out in a Jeep. A rock fall blocks their path. Steve notices rock debris indicating recent activity, and they walk the rest of the way. They make their way to a cave. Steve is convinced it was blasted out recently, but notices no footprints. With flashlights in hand, they walk through the cave checking their counters for any radioactivity. Suddenly the counter registers a high dose of radioactivity, then just as suddenly goes silent. They pull their weapons and announce themselves. They see it--a bright light followed by the floating apparition of a huge brain with glowing eyes. Steve empties his gun into the form and collapses. Dan fires a couple of rounds from his rifle and also succumbs to the bright light emanating from the creature. It is an intense burst of radiation that kills him. The brain shrinks in size and enters Steve's body.Sally is at home, out on the porch with her dog, George, when the phone rings. It is her father inquiring about Steve and Dan. Steve appears outside, enters the house and embraces Sally. He tells her they found nothing. He is uncharacteristically aggressive and she is slightly taken aback. She asks about Dan and is told he went to Las Vegas. Sally is suspicious and notices something is different about her fiancé. Steve winces in pain, then recovers explaining it is just a toothache. He kisses her again, even more aggressively, tearing her blouse. George comes to her rescue attacking Steve. Steve fights off the dog, then storms off. He gets in his car and drives away. Back in his lab, Steve is seated in a chair when the brain exits his body. The brain tells Steve, "I am Gor. I need your body as a dwelling place while Im here on your Earth." Gor explains that Steve was chosen specifically because of his special knowledge of nuclear energy and his access to government facilities.John Fallon returns home and greets his daughter. Sally tells her father she thinks Steve is ill. She suspects that something is wrong. John stops by Steve's lab to talk to him. Steve has another attack and asks John to leave. When he stands up from behind the water cooler we can see his metallic eyes. At the Fallon home, John and Sally have lunch. Sally continues to express her concern about Steve. She convinces her father to make a trip out to Mystery Mountain the next morning. They take the same route and stop at the rock fall. There they find the canteen and jeep tracks left by Steve and Dan. They walk down to the cave to rest. Sally remarks that the cave is new. They explore the cave system and find Steve and Dan's footprints. Sally notices a flash of light and screams. They walk on and find Steve's abandoned scintillator. John's light reveals Dan's body. He walks over and notices the burns on the body. Vol, another brain from the planet Arous, appears and communicates with John and Sally telepathically. He explains his mission on Earth. He is here to capture or kill the criminal, Gor. He closes his encounter with John and Sally with a promise to meet them at their home at 8:00 p.m. the next evening.Steve makes a call to the Atomic Energy Facility at Indian Springs. He invites himself to the next scheduled test on Friday, as an observer. Gor plans a test of his power that day. He promises Steve power and wealth. At the Fallon home, right on time, Vol appears. He invites the Fallons to help him save the Earth. He asks for a host that can get close to Gor while he inhabits Steve's body. They settle on George, the dog, as a host for Vol. Vol enters the dog. Gor re-inhabits Steve's body. Steve finishes dressing and drives to the Fallon home. On the way he sees an airplane in the sky. He stops and with his metallic eyes destroys the airliner mid-flight. He laughs then continues his way to see his fiancée. Vol, now safely hidden in George's canine body, joins Sally and Steve in the car. They stop and talk. Steve promises Sally the world, then roughly kisses her. He hints at a new power that, "Will make me the most feared man on Earth." A radio broadcast they hear in the car about the airplane crash diverts them to the scene. The Colonel in charge shows Steve one of the bodies. He is burned like Dan Murphy. He escorts Steve over to meet Professor Dale Tate (Dale Tate). They examine a piece of wreckage and note the radiation damage. Steve and Sally talk about the power that destroyed the plane. When she gets home she tells her father about the plane crash. Vol tells father and daughter that Gor can only be destroyed when he assumes his true form. While he is in transition or occupying Steve's body his is invulnerable. "In Earth's atmosphere, we must return to our true state once every twenty-four hours in order to assimilate enough oxygen for life." He further reveals that a heavy blow on a region known as the Fissure of Rolando can kill him.Sheriff Wiley Pane (Tim Graham) comes to see Steve at his lab. He wants to ask Steve a few questions about Dan Murphy. He tells Steve that Dan is dead. Steve sticks to his Las Vegas story, but the Sheriff explains that he knows when and how Dan died. When pressed, a confidently possessed Steve confesses to the murder of Dan and the destruction of the airliner. He quietly tells the sheriff, "And now I'm going to kill you." The Sheriff pulls his gun, but is stopped by a bright flash of light. Steve stashes his body in the corner of the lab.At the Pentagon, a military committee assembles to examine the wreckage and concludes the Earth has been invaded. The Colonel chairing the committee, later specifically addressed as Frogley by Steve, (Ken Terrell) reports that Dan and the passengers of the airplane were killed by intense radiation. The group adjourns and plans to meet again at Indian Springs. Steve and the dog arrive at the Fallon home. Steve explains that the dog stopped by the evening before and stayed to eat. Vol never had a chance to confront Gor, as he never left Steve's body. Steve gloats about the upcoming meeting at Indian Springs. He promises Sally fame and fortune when they move to Washington, D.C. She pretends to love Steve, so as not to make Gor suspicious.Steve appears at Indian Springs for the Friday test. He is introduced to General Brown (E. Leslie Thomas). Steve explains that he has an explanation for the deaths of Dan and the aircraft destruction. Steve walks over to the window and invites the assembled to watch the closed circuit television. He unleashes a power that destroys all the targets set up for the planned nuclear test. He calmly tells the group, "What you've just seen me do to that one small area, I can do to a city, a nation, or a continent." The Colonel (addressed as Frogley by Steve) leaves the room. He returns with a gun and empties eight bullets into Steve with no effect. A flash of light dispatches the Colonel. Steve orders that representatives of the superpower nations return to discuss terms. Any nation that does not attend will have their capital city destroyed.Steve meets with the superpower representatives. He chastises the Russian representative (Bill Giorgio) for his late arrival. General Brown explains to the representatives that Steve is not joking. He has seen first-hand the death and destruction the man caused. The man is to be taken seriously. They walk over to the window and watch as Steve destroys another airliner. Steve laughs maniacally and resumes his meeting. He demands all the Uranium and Plutonium available on Earth. In addition he insists all atomic resources, factories, transportation and shipping, industrial facilities be put at his disposal for the purpose of building an invasion force. He will use an interplanetary force, the Earth will supply, to invade Arous. He closes the meeting.Sally surreptitiously enters Steve's lab. She makes a note on a page with a diagram of a brain of Gor's vulnerable spot. She leaves the page on a table next to his chair. As she is about to exit the lab, Steve arrives. She hides herself as Steve falls into his chair and Gor exits his body. Sally does not see the Sheriff's body, yet. While Gor proudly boasts about his accomplishments, Steve sees Sally's note and an axe by the fireplace. Sally finally sees the Sheriff's burned body and screams. This diverts Gors attention towards her, leaving Steve time to grab the axe and hit Gor while he is in a solidly physical state. He strikes the vulnerable Fissure of Rolando region on Gor and kills him. Seeing his enemy vanquished, Vol exits George's body and departs the area. Sally tells Steve about Vol and how she knew how to kill him. She brings George into the lab and talks to him, as she thinks Vol is still using George as a host. When the dog does not respond she is perplexed. Steve doesn't believe her story telling her, "You and your imagination." They embrace and kiss. We close with the opening shot of Mystery Mountain. | brainwashing | train | imdb | null |
tt0096969 | Born on the Fourth of July | The film opens when Ron Kovic is a young boy living in Massapequa, Long Island, New York. He grows up in a patriotic and Catholic household, instilling within him a strong sense of pride in his country and his religion. As a teenager, and a top member of his high school's wrestling team, he proves himself physically fit and athletic, as well as an academically exceptional student. When local Marine recruiting NCOs visit his school and give Ron and his fellow seniors an impassioned lecture about the Corps, Ron decides to enlist. He misses his prom, because he is unable to get a date with his love interest, Donna. He confronts her at the prom and has a dance with her on his last night before leaving.The story then jumps to Kovic's second Vietnam tour in 1968. Now a Marine sergeant and on patrol, his unit massacres a village of Vietnamese citizens, believing them to be enemy combatants. During the retreat, Kovic becomes disoriented and accidentally shoots one of the new arrivals to his platoon, a younger Marine private first class, Wilson, who ends up in the line of fire between sides. Despite the frantic efforts of the Navy Corpsman present who try to save him, Wilson dies from his wounds. Overwhelmed by guilt, Kovic appeals to his executive officer (XO), who merely tells him to forget the incident. The meeting has a negative effect on Ron, who is crushed at being brushed off by his XO.The platoon goes out on another hazardous patrol on January 20. During a firefight, Kovic is critically wounded, shot in the ankle and through the chest, smashing his spine. He lays trapped in a field facing sure death, until a fellow Marine rescues him. Paralyzed from the mid-chest down, he spends several months recovering at the Bronx Veterans Administration hospital. The living conditions in the hospital are deplorable; rats crawl freely on the floors, the staff is generally apathetic to their patients' needs, doctors visit the patients infrequently, drug use is rampant, and equipment is too old and ill-maintained to be useful. He desperately tries to walk again with the use of crutches and braces, despite repeated warnings from his doctors. However, he soon suffers a bad fall that causes a compound fracture of his thighbone. The injury nearly robs him of his leg and puts Ron in traction for several months, and he vehemently argues with the staff and the doctors who consider resorting to amputation.Ron returns home, permanently in a wheelchair, with his leg intact. At home, he begins to alienate his family and friends, complaining about hippies, students and other young adults staging anti-war rallies across the country and burning the American flag. Though he tries to maintain his dignity as a Marine, Ron gradually begins to become disillusioned, feeling that his government has forgotten and even betrayed him and his fellow Vietnam Veterans. In Ron's absence his younger brother Tommy has already become staunchly anti-war, leading to a rift between them. His highly religious mother also seems unable to deal with Ron's new attitude as a resentful, paralyzed veteran. His problems are as much psychological as they are physical and he quickly becomes alcoholic and belligerent. During an Independence Day parade, he shows signs of post-traumatic stress when firecrackers explode and when a baby in the crowd starts crying it reminds him of the village he and his unit massacred and he is unable to finish his speech. He reunites with his old high school friend, Timmy Burns, who is also a wounded veteran, and the two spend Ron's birthday sharing war stories.Ron goes to visit Donna at her college in Syracuse, New York. The two reminisce and she asks him to attend a vigil for the victims of the Kent State shootings. However, he cannot do so, because his chair prevents him from getting very far on campus because of curbs and stairways. He and Donna are separated after she and her fellow students are arrested by the police at her college for demonstrating against the Vietnam War.Ron's disillusionment grows severe enough that he has an intense fight with his mother after returning home drunk one night after having a barroom confrontation with a World War II veteran that fought on Iwo Jima who expressed no sympathy to Ron, who himself had been acting obnoxiously in the bar. After venting his rage at his mother's embarrassment over having a disabled son, he has an emotional conversation with his father and he later leaves home, traveling to a small town in Mexico ("The Village of the Sun") that seems to be a haven for paralyzed Vietnam veterans. He has his first sexual experience with a prostitute he believes he's in love with. Ron wants to ask her to marry him but when he sees her with another customer, the realization of real love versus a mere physical sexual experience sets in, and he decides against it. Hooking up with another wheelchair-bound veteran, Charlie, who is furious over a prostitute mocking his lack of sexual function due to his severe wounding in Vietnam, the two travel to what they believe will be a friendlier village. After annoying their taxicab driver, they end up stranded on the side of the road. They quarrel and fight, spilling each other out of their wheelchairs. Eventually, they are picked up by a man with a truck and driven back to the "Village of the Sun".On his way back to Long Island, Ron makes a side trek to Georgia to visit the parents and family of PFC Wilson, the Marine he believes that he killed during his tour. He tells them the real story about how their son died and confesses his guilt to them. Wilson's widow, now the mother of the deceased soldier's toddler son, admits that she cannot find it in her heart to forgive Ron for killing her husband, but God just might. Mr and Mrs. Wilson, however, are more forgiving and even sympathetic to his predicament and suffering, because Wilson's father fought in the Pacific Theater during World War II and is even disillusioned with the war in Vietnam. In spite of the mixed reactions he receives, the confession seems to lift a heavy weight from Ron's conscience.Ron joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) and travels to the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami. He and his compatriots force their way into the convention hall during Richard Nixon's acceptance speech and cause a commotion that gets brief coverage on the national news. Ron himself tells a reporter about his negative experiences in Vietnam and the horrific VA hospital conditions. His interview is cut short when guards eject him and his fellow vets from the hall and attempt to turn them over to the police. They manage to break free from the police, regroup, and charge the hall again, though not so successfully this time. The film ends with Kovic speaking at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, shortly after the publication of his autobiography Born on the Fourth of July. | dramatic, boring | train | imdb | There are a thousand details that Stone got exactly right, from Dalton Trumbo's paperback novel of a paraplegic from WW I, Johnny Got His Gun, that sat on a tray near Kovic's hospital bed, to the black medic telling him that there was a more important war going on at the same time as the Vietnam war, namely the civil rights movement, to a mother throwing her son out of the house when he no longer fulfilled her trophy case vision of what her son ought to be, to Willem DaFoe's remark about what you have to do sexually when nothing in the middle moves.
Certainly to watch Ron Kovic, just an ordinary Joe who believed in his country and the sentiments of John Wayne movies and comic book heroics, go from a depressed, enraged, drug-addled waste of a human being to an enlightened, focused, articulate, and ultimately triumphant spokesman for the anti-war movement, for veterans, and the disabled was wonderful to see.
Your answer could be anything depending upon your political and ideological preferences, but the reality of thousands who lost their lives and limbs continues to hurt.Oliver Stone's Born on Fourth of July - based on the true story of Ron Kovic - takes the audience through the triumph and trauma of a crusader who went from one side of the war debate to the other.
In the inadequately equipped hospital, his dreamer instincts crashed against the harsh realities of political ambivalence, not for the first time though.Over next eight years that are depicted in this masterpiece, the character of Ron Kovic (played by Tom Cruise with unprecedented brilliance) goes through the trauma of knowing that no one will "love him now", that even his own sibling is not on the same side of ideology, that the government had more pressing issues than taking good care of war veterans, that his countrymen did not necessarily endorse of his view point.
He takes the tale of Ron Kovic (who wrote the book with the same name as the film and scripted by him and Stone) and turns it into a blisteringly awesome and ultimately harrowing picture that has performances, scenes and direction that top Platoon (maybe it's a sign that practice makes perfect)Anyway, the tale centers on Ron Kovic (played to a utter T by Tom Cruise) good old-boy-type of American kid who decides he wants to fight for his country in the Vietnam war even if he has to die for his country.
All this, and more (including one of the most volcanic scenes I have ever seen between Cruise and Dafoe on a Mexico road) lead him to become a anti-war activist.In making the big theme of the picture Kovic and his feeling on the war, Stone depicts his journey excellently by showing his desire to be in it, his confusion afterwards, his eventual hatred and then placement in being against the war all the while still being a patriot.
Cruise gives the best peformance he ever will in a film as Kovic.....the golden boy who comes home paralysed and confused at the way his country is reacting to Vietnam.
"Born on the Fourth of July" is an absorbing piece of work, based on a true story, about Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a gung-ho Marine-turned-war-protester.
"Born on the Fourth of July" is a film based on the real-life experiences of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise in an Oscar-nominated role).
This is without doubt a very good, well-made film, exploring the effect the Vietnam War had on America and its values.The film is based on the true-life experiences of Ron Kovic, and is scripted from his book by director Oliver Stone and Kovic himself.
Tom Cruise, continuing his move away from teenage heart-throb, plays the lead character whom we follow from fresh-faced youth, to frontline soldier in Vietnam, to hospitalised patient, right through to embittered wheelchair bound protestor.'Born on the 4th of July' revolves around Kovic to such a degree that any flaws in the characterisation would be fatal.
It's a condescending attitude for a filmmaker to take, and it's responsible for pretty much making me shun Stone films to this day.Star Tom Cruise had proved to the world he could act the year before in "Rain Man," and the Academy dutifully acknowledged that fact by handing him a Best Actor nomination for this film.
Just because Oliver Stone's heart is in the right place doesn't make this unofficial sequel to his Oscar winning 'Platoon' a good film, and in typical sledgehammer fashion he turns the moving true story of disabled, disillusioned Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic into little more than a bad soap opera.
Anyway, despite these comments the film still worked for me and it is an impacting story even if Oliver Stone is not the person I would have chosen to tell the story a very good director but 'non-partisan' is not a term that could ever be laid at his feet and at points this film gets a little sermonising as a result.A big factor in this film working is a superb performance by Cruise who was still, at this point, a clean cut poster boy and not the one I would have imagined taking this role!
Indeed, so impressive is Oliver Stone as a showman that it is all too easy to overlook that many of the stories he tells range from the mediocre to (in this case) the horrid.Tom Cruise plays the famous Vietnam War-era Marine Ron Kovic; the man himself appears in a small role in the film.
A country divided and a young mind changed forever in it's on going struggle to understand the insanity and horror of war.Tom Cruise gives the performance of his career as Ron kovic going from shy, high school all American kid to wheelchair bound Vietnam veteran.
Sadly, like Moore, Stone has the power and finances to inflict all his prejudices on the public in the form of movies.....and people what they see on screen.For every "Ron Kovic," the main subject of the film and a real-life guy who turned out to be a very bitter ex-soldier, there are thousands of military heroes who are proud to have represented the U.S.A. in Southeast Asia and have no regrets for doing so, but filmmakers like Stone will never do stories about them.
The movie's slow, there are grotesque scenes, violence, profanities, etc.This film tells the true story of Ron Kovic, a Vietnam-war veteran's tortuous life after the war, and what we see here is basically the aftermath of how the Vietnam War has transformed him(mentally, physically, emotionally), shaped his attitudes of war, affected his self-esteem, and so on.
But Born on the Fourth of July is THE kind of film that had to be made for the story had to be told - what the Vietnam War did to people, in this case the main protagonist, Ron Kovic, was devastating.
God will judge him and even be appreciative for what he has done for the others.National pride can have effective results but is ultimately evil because by believing in that you automatically create another adversary, that "You are not one of us".So many people get naturalised into citizens of countries where they are not originally from, in the twenty first century romantic patroiticism must be considered evil and imposes an adverse effect in evolutionary process as a whole.Tom Cruise's delivers one of the greatest performances of his life, well at least that's before he'd gone nuts.I also like Willem Dafoe's performance as a paralysed vet, he is one of the gifted actors of our generation.In short if you join a war to kill other human beings there is just likely possibility that you will get killed too.
Oliver Stone - who appears briefly as a TV interviewer - had already focused on the Vietnam War with "Platoon", but he did an even better job with "Born on the Fourth of July".
Telling the story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), an all-American boy turned anti-war activist, Stone brings political issues to the screen once again.
Cruise's performance is one of his finest (and he was nominated for Best Actor in 1989), but both he and Stone try too hard they take a good story and turn it into an overwhelming anti-war propaganda piece.
And in BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, he gives us another man's view of the war, like Stone a soldier who had become disenfranchised by the war.The man at the center of this true-life story is Ron Kovic, a Marine who believed in the myths of American might, the honor of serving one's country, John Wayne, and the threat that communism posed.
Once a love-it-or-leave-it patriot, Kovic came to realize he could be a force for Good by protesting what the Vietnam war had done, not only to his fellow servicemen but to America.This is what is at the heart of BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, and Stone (with help from Kovic, who collaborated with the director on the screenplay, which was based on his 1976 memoir) brings all the memories back of those traumatic years in American history.
Continuing my plan to watch every Tom Cruise movie in order, I come to Born On The 4th Of July (1988)Plot In A Paragraph: The biography of Ron Kovic (Crusie) Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.Anyone who thought Cruise was just a pretty boy, who could not act, were proved wrong with this powerful movie.
Tom Cruise gives a great performance as Ron Kovic, a veteran who virtually lost everything, including his legs, fighting in Vietnam.
The second of Oliver Stone's three films on the subject of Vietnam, this one stars Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, a wounded war vet who comes home to discover the grateful reception he expected isn't waiting for him.
According to the special edition DVD sleeve: "Tom Cruise delivers a riveting and unforgettable portrayal of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone's Academy Award-winning (for direction and editing) masterpiece.
Of the many powerful scenes, the one with Kovic finally confessing to an incident of "friendly fire" may be the film's greatest moment; although it didn't happen in real life; it perfectly illustrates the film's overriding thesis: "The Truth Shall Make You Free." ********* Born on the Fourth of July (12/20/89) Oliver Stone ~ Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, Kyra Sedgwick, Raymond J.
Ron Kovic himself served his country well while he was in the Marines; he earned several medals and commendations for his bravery and loyalty (including the Bronze Star Medal for valor, Navy Commendation Medal, and Vietnam Cross of Gallantry), and I feel great pity for him for having endorsed a blatant anti-war propaganda movie like this.
Oliver Stone's Born on the fourth of July stars Tom Cruise as Ron who dreams of serving in the military.
Tom Cruise is in his A game (especially break down sequence where he confesses his sins) and doing some of his career's best work despite of not getting the essential support from the cast except for Willem Dafoe who helps him survive a mid-act sequence.Born On The Fourth Of July is resurrected on incarcerating, both the good and bad deeds, whose unexpected influence led humankind to its doom..
"Born on the Fourth of July," Oliver Stone's return to the subject of the Vietnam War, one he knows intimately, shows a different side of the war's impact than "Platoon" and frames it powerfully in the course of American history.
Rather than craft a heavily editorialized anti-war message as he's been wont to do, Stone focuses on a real-life protagonist whose story says it all, veteran Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise).The journey of this movie is Kovic's transformation from all- American, patriotic, devoted Christian marine volunteer to a vocal, unapologetic Vietnam War detractor, and all the bumps and bruises (inside and out) he endured along the way.
Stone drops in a few characters singing Bob Dylan songs in quiet moments, for example, to convey the cultural shift that took place in America following the Kennedy assassination and into the Vietnam War and subsequent (and consequent) counterculture and protest movements and race riots.Being able to observe this dramatic swing in American human history that Kovic's story captures so well has a nostalgic resonance, but "Born on the Fourth" doesn't feel as personally moving.
We follow one solider (Tom Cruise) named Ron Kovic, paralyzed in the Vietnam war who is strongly anti-war and pro-human rights after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
Tom Cruise did an extraordinary job as Ron Kovic, as did Willem Defoe as Charlie, and Stone's directing tricks were masterful, but the film lacked the edge of Stone's other movies like Platoon and Talk Radio.>My only real problem with this was the middle stretch, because to me it kind of dragged on for a while, but the Vietnam scenes were powerful and haunting, but when Ron came back home the film just sort of stood still for half an hour, but other than that, it was a good movie.
Ron Kovic, Oliver Stone and Tom Cruise form a creative triumvirate (as story source, director, and lead actor, respectively) in this moving Vietnam War saga.
Born on the fourth of July is not a happy trip, but by the end of the film you are not depressed, you are left wondering and bewildered at the experience of one man, Ron Kovic (who co-wrote the script), and the pain, suffering and re-building which his life had to endure.
Second, this movie is probably the best thing Oliver Stone ever directed along with the amazing collaboration of Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic and super star Tom Cruise.
One also wonders what Hemingway might have thought of Kovic's experience against his character Barnes.Oliver Stone got a Best Director Oscar for Born On The Fourth Of July and the film also got an Oscar for Editing.
The movie is based on the real-life story of Ron Kovic (played by Tom Cruise), a decorated Marine who was in his second tour of duty in Vietnam when he was critically injured.
Born On The Fourth Of July is the second of three films Oliver Stone did on Vietnam.I have seen Platoon but not Heaven and Earth.
While Platoon deals with the actual war this film deals with the aftermath.The main character Ron Kovic is an idealistic young American in the early 60's who goes to fight for his country in Vietnam and comes home in a wheelchair paralyzed from the waist down.The rest of the film deals with how he goes from bitter drunk to a anti-war protester.As with all Oliver stone films I have seen that deal with politics this movie leans to the left,albeit not as heavy as Nixon.If you can deal with the slightly bent take on facts and who is to blame for the war this film is a powerful addition to the canon of films that try to show the horrors of war both during and after.Tom Cruise is absolutely brilliant in this film and carries this film very well.He should have won a Best Actor award for this filmThis film works great as a double feature with Platoon to give you a deeper understanding of Vietnam.In summary I felt that this film while not the best anti-war film I have seen,that goes to Grave Of The Fireflies,it is worth watching if you are interested in the effect war has on people and how life changes completely after for everyone involved..
All in all this is a very powerful war movie with an excellent Tom Cruise and some very fine directing from Oliver Stone.
Born On The Fourth Of July (1989) is more or less the biography of Ron Kovic, a Vietnam vet who eventually becomes anti-war after feeling abandoned and forgotten by the country he fought for.The film moves along well enough, and despite the wonderful portrayal of Kovic by Tom Cruise, I did not find myself entirely drawn into the story.
Tom Cruise stars in this true story as Ron Kovic, an idealistic young man whose life is transformed when he is paralysed while fighting in Vietnam.In many ways this is a very good film, which shows how circumstances can cause someone to change from being an idealistic young man eager to do their duty, into a bitter person who believes there is nothing left to live for.
Tom Cruise, in his best acting job yet, plays Ron Kovic, a young man who enters Vietnam with more American spirit than you could ask for, but discovers the horror behind the patriotism.
Born On The Fourth of July starts out with a young Ron Kovic being very positive about war, doing the right thing, and believing in his country.
He realizes all the things he's lost because he tried to be a hero, and all the emotional torment he gained because of innocent people he killed.Born On The Fourth of July can be viewed as an anti-war film, but it's mostly about Ron Kovic's struggles dealing with a country that lied to him, being in a wheelchair, having his voice heard, and being redeemed.This is easily Tom Cruise's best performance yet and one of the best movies dealing with the aftermath of the Vietnam war.
Amazing direction (Oliver Stone), amazing acting (Tom Cruise, et al.), and amazing story (Ron Kovic and the United States military during the Viet Nam war).
My Age: 13Based on the autobiography of Ron Kovic, this film tells the story of his life from when he was a boy to when he becomes a political anti-war activist.
Ron Kovic, played by Tom Cruise, decides to join the Marines and fight for America in the Vietnam War.
Born On The Fourth Of July is the story of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic and spans three decades(50's, 60's and 70's).
Born On The Fourth Of July has one of Tom Cruise's finest performances and Oliver Stone won his second Oscar for best director. |
tt0120903 | X-Men | In 1944 Nazi-occupied Auschwitz, Poland, 14-year-old Erik Lehnsherr is separated from his parents upon entering the Auschwitz concentration camp. While trying to reach them, he causes a set of metal gates to bend towards him before being knocked out by guards. Fifty-six years later, U.S. Senator Robert Kelly attempts to pass a "Mutant Registration Act" in Congress, which would force mutants to publicly reveal their identities and abilities. Present are a middle-aged Lehnsherr, now going by the name "Magneto", and an old friend of his, the telepathic Professor Charles Xavier. Seeing Lehnsherr in attendance, Xavier becomes concerned with how he will respond to the Registration Act.
Meanwhile, in Meridian, Mississippi, 17-year-old Marie D'Ancanto accidentally puts her boyfriend into a coma upon kissing him, her mutant ability to absorb the powers and life force of others manifesting. She runs away from home and adopts the name Rogue. In Alberta she meets a mutant named Logan, also known as Wolverine, who possesses superhuman healing abilities and metal claws that protrude from his knuckles. While on the road together, they are attacked by a minion of Magneto's, Sabretooth, until two of Xavier's students, Cyclops and Storm, arrive to successfully save them. Wolverine and Rogue are brought to Xavier's mansion and school for mutants in Westchester County, New York. Xavier tells Logan that Magneto appears to have taken an interest in Wolverine, and he asks him to stay while Xavier's mutants, the X-Men, investigate why. Rogue meanwhile enrolls in the school.
Senator Kelly is abducted by two more of Magneto's minions, Toad and the Mystique, and brought to their hideout on the uncharted island of Genosha. There, Magneto himself uses Kelly as a test subject for a machine powered by his magnetic abilities that regenerate a field of radiation, inducing mutation in normal humans. Kelly later escapes. When Rogue uses her power on Wolverine in view of her classmates, she is convinced by Mystique (disguised as classmate Bobby Drake) that Xavier is angry with her and she should leave the school. Xavier uses his mutant-locating machine Cerebro to find Rogue at a train station, and the X-Men go to retrieve her. Meanwhile, Mystique enters Cerebro and sabotages it.
At the train station, Magneto reveals he does not want Wolverine but Rogue, whom he abducts. Kelly arrives at Xavier's school and Xavier reads his mind to learn about Magneto's machine. Realizing the strain of powering it nearly killed Magneto, the group deduces he intends to transfer his powers to Rogue and use her to power it at the cost of her life. Kelly's newly gained powers backfire and he dies when his body breaks down into a slimy goop of substance. Xavier attempts to locate Rogue using Cerebro, but Mystique's sabotage incapacitates him and he falls into a coma. Fellow telekinetic/telepath Jean Grey fixes Cerebro and uses it, learning that Magneto plans to place his mutation-inducing machine on Liberty Island and use it to "mutate" the world leaders meeting at a summit on nearby Ellis Island. The X-Men scale the Statue of Liberty battling Magneto's mutants while Magneto transfers his powers to Rogue and activates the mutating machine. As Wolverine confronts and distracts Magneto, Cyclops blasts him away, allowing Wolverine to destroy the machine. He transfers his powers to Rogue and his healing abilities rejuvenate her, while incapacitating himself.
Professor Xavier and Wolverine recover from their comas. The group also learn that Mystique escaped the island battle and is impersonating Senator Kelly. Xavier gives Wolverine a lead to his past at an abandoned military installation in Canada. Magneto is imprisoned in a complex constructed of plastic and is visited by Xavier, and warns him he intends to escape one day and continue the fight. | psychological, murder, stupid, paranormal, violence, cult, flashback, psychedelic, action, entertaining | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0499556 | War | In San Francisco, FBI Agents John Crawford (Jason Statham) and Tom Lone (Terry Chen) are at a Dock Warehouse. Tom lives with his wife & daughter. Toms daughters younger than 10. John lives with his wife & son. Johns sons younger than 10. The Chinese Triads are also at the same Warehouse. Crawfords carrying a shotgun. Toms carrying a pistol. Tom and John manage to kill more than 2 Chinese Triads. Rogues(Jet Li) also evil. Rogues also a notorious assassin. Rogue wears a mask. John fails to shoot Rogue. While Johns looking for Rogue, Rogue shoots Johns arm. Rogues about to kill John, but Tom manages to shoot Rogue in the face more than 1 time. Since Tom shot Rogue, it caused Rogue to fall into the water. John tells Tom that the mans name was Rogue. John also tells Tom that Rogue stopped working for CIA. Since Rogue stopped working for CIA, its probably because Rogue betrayed CIA. John also tells Tom that Rogue worked for Japanese Yakuza. But Tom doesnt believe that Rogue exists. Few minutes ago, John found trademark titanium shells with depleted uranium slugs & John realized that those titanium shells belong to Rogue. Titanium shells refer to Gun Shells. John tells Tom that Rogues gun shells have Rogues signatures. Now, Tom believes that Rogue exists. San Francisco Police also shows up. 1 day later, John & his family are planning to go to Toms house. When John calls Toms house phone, Tom tells John that Rogue's body was never found. Tom also tells John that Rogues body mustve got eaten. Rogues presumed dead. After John talks to Tom, John turns off the phone. Unfortunately, its revealed that Rogues still alive. Rogue was able to locate Toms house. Rogue wants to get revenge because Tom shot Rogue. Rogue wants to kill Tom. When Rogue breaks into Toms house, Rogue forces Toms family to go into the bedroom. Toms inside the bathroom, but Tom doesnt know that theres an intruder. When Tom comes out of the bathroom, Rogue shoots Tom in the face. Tom realizes that Rogues still alive. Rogue probably beats up Tom. Rogue throws Tom into the bedroom. When Rogue steps on Toms back, it means that Toms unable to move. Rogue uses a pistol to kill Toms family. Few minutes later, John & his family go to Toms house. They find out that Toms house got set on fire. Since the police found 3 dead bodies inside Toms house, it means that the dead bodies got burned. One of the dead bodies is a guy. The 2nd dead bodys a lady. The 3rd dead bodys a girl. Since there were 3 dead bodies inside Toms house, it means that Tom & his family are dead. When John goes inside Toms house, John sees Rogues Gun Shells. John realizes that Rogues still alive. John believes that Rogue killed Tom & his family. John wants to get revenge by killing Rogue.Crawford wants justice for his partner and vows to kill Rogue to get even. In the mean time, Rogue skillfully incites a war between the Triads and Yakuzas in San Francisco for no apparent reason. Rogue seems to be working for the local mafia Chang (John Lone) while he kills his son-like man in Triads and skillfully manages to let him believe it's done by the Yakuzas and tips the man's brother about a man working under Shiro (Ryo Ishibashi), leading him to his location of a tea house where the rival gangs fight while Rogue sits in a winow picking off anyone coming out with a sniper rifle from both gangs.Rogue is a very good fighter, an excellent liar and is skilled at vanishing abruptly. He works for the Japanese Yakuza while still workin with Chang's Triad and kills Chang upon the Japanese mob's orders. But he didn't followed the mob's full order by not killing Chang's wife and daughter as he previously promised Shiro.Crawford finds out Rogue had actually changed his face by plastic surgery and found the surgeon who done the same and confirms his current identity of Victor Shaw (Jet Li). By his watchmen, Crawford manages to get snaps of Rogue killing Shiro's assassins and assisting the wife and daughter of Chang into a car. Crawford gives these snaps to the Shiro who finally turns up in San Francisco cleverly lured by Rogue using a pair of priceless gold horse statues (one of them is a fake of the other) from Japan. Shiro orders his men to torture Rogue to find out where Chang's wife and daughter were hidden but Rogue escapes and kills the Shiro's men and sets off the bomb he had in the other suitcase killing almost everyone except Shiro. It's revealed that Rogue wants to kill Shiro too. Rogue decides to use a sword to fight Shiro. Shiro also grabs a sword.Shiro asks him why he's doing this and Rogue replies that it's because of a killing the Shiro had ordered. Shiro wondered which one of the many orders and it turns out to be the killing of Tom Lone and his family. Telling he shouldn't have ordered to kill the women and child. Shiro realizes that Rogue's none other Tom Lone. Rogue killed Tom's family, but Tom managed to kill Rogue. Since Tom killed Rogue, Tom used plastic surgery to disguise himself as Rogue. 3 years after Rogue & Tom's family got killed, Tom decided to come back to San Francisco to destroy Shiro's enemies, Shiro's henchmen, and Shiro. Tom wanted to kill Shiro last because Tom wanted to avenge his family's death. Tom/Rogue sets on a skilled fight which at last the mob was not able to hold and reveals another stunning truth that it's all because Crawford let it happen. This makes another interesting twist and after learning the fact, Tom/Rogue kills Shiro by beheading him.The Wife of Chang receives a package with a letter saying "Make A New Life" from Tom/Rogue with the original gold horse statue in it. Shiro's daughter, who had returned to Japan, receives the same letter (in Japanese) with a suitcase, which revealed to contain Shiro's head.Rogue calls Crawford to set a meeting at the first known place for both of them and Crawford sets a sniper and visits that place to kill Rogue. Rogue and Crawford fight furiously and at one end when they're close to face to face, Rogue reveals he's actually Tom Lone. Crawford recognizes Tom's eyes and apologizes for what happened, and asks if he could ever forgive him. Tom changes his name to Rogue. The FBI agent assigned to shoot Rogue/Lone attempted to target him, but Crawford jumps in the way, and Tom/Rogue shoots him in the back, killing him. Even though Crawford apologized to Tom/Rogue, Tom/Rogue didn't accept Crawford's apology. Tom/Rogue's stupid because he should've accepted Crawford's apology.Tom/Rogue drives away in his car with the suitcase full of money that the Triad had given him earlier in the movie, and the movie ends. | dramatic, violence, revenge, neo noir, murder | train | imdb | If you walk into a movie theater showing "War" and expect to be dazzled by some thought-provoking paragon of acting destined to change the way the world thinks about film and culture, you're either an idiot or an idealist.
Jason Statham delivers a pretty good performance, considering that this is really designed for pure blood-and-guts glory, and Jet Li is as impressive now as he was in "Romeo Must Die" and "Kiss of the Dragon" (thank GOD he hasn't retired).
In other words: know what you're going to get here.We get many, many gunshots to head., long range to up-close-and personal, swords into mouths and through back of head and through just about any other body part, a car chase, motorcycle chases, a few bare breasts and a bunch of attention-grabbing scenes of brutality, which definitely outnumber the quieter scenes.Jason Statham seems to be the new macho man of the day, playing this kind of role in numerous films the past few years.
It's just about the right length.The best part of this ultra-violent movie dealing with rival Asian gangs and FBI agent (s) in the middle in the BIG twist near the end of the film.
"War" is surprising.Jason Statham plays FBI Agent Jack Crawford, who leads a task force against both the Chinese Triad led by Chang (cool John Lone) and the Yakuza led by Shiro (bold Ryo Ishibashi).
Ryo Ishibashi is great as the larger than life Shiro, providing is a captivating and powerful rival for both Li and Statham."War" is a solid action movie with great performances from Jason Statham and Jet Li. Statham and Li are at the top of their games.
The stunts were all tame and the editing cut every half-second in the action scenes so that it could make any actor seem like they could empty a room full of thugs.Jet Li started out great in America with movies such as Kiss of the Dragon and Romeo Must Die. Statham and Li have both worked together in The One which i thought to be a brilliant movie where the plot and the action worked perfectly together..
You don't seem to care about any of the characters, some lines you can predict yourself and most of all the action was mediocre at best.I wont even go into detail about how horrible the ending is, but it left me and my friends in the cinema looking at each other thinking "is that it?"Jet Li can do better.
It seems the only reason (very stupid really) is they do not speak "American English" (Stathan is British and Jet Li Chinese); something never bothered Arnold .In any case, this time are both back and together in a thriller full cruel and bloody violent scene and several unexpected twists that completely change the movie.Those expecting over the top martial arts fights will be disappointed.
Most of the action is gun based however extremely realistic (and violent) and the good guys do not hesitate on killing in cold blood.War is about people trying to avenge killings, fights for power and honor between Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triads and ambition.
Even in the talking scenes every sentence is a new shot, with a different center of focus, It is most likely to keep your eyes moving and the action high, even when most movies slow down at these parts.
I think there could have actually been a little more of the martial arts and special effects, it is like Corey Yuen is taking a sabbatical leave in the middle of the film and leave the scene to the director, but the plot was still good enough to hold your attention throughout.
And ever since I saw the Transporter, I've been a big fan of Jason Statham and know he's been studying martial arts more and more especially since he starred in the movie The One alongside none other then Jet Li, where they first got the idea to do a movie like this together.So as you can see, my expectations for this movie were through the roof!
Jet Li should not be wasting his time trying to act first of all, since you could barely understand half the lines he utters in the first place...The first hour is all story, no fighting whatsoever, then you'll get a quick little dose of what might be something, only to end in gunfire and bullets.
This movie keeps you hanging on the great story and keeps you hoping that there will be a huge pay-off fight scene in the end between Jet and Jason that will make up for all this waiting finally pay-off.2 words, It Doesn't!
With his movies like Crank and The Transporter doubles becoming guilty pleasures (read: just Statham kicking up a storm without a reasonable story to boot), I'd actually come to enjoy his work choreographed by Corey Yuen (who also does the action choreography here), together with other ensemble movies he starred in, like The Italian Job and Snatch, amongst others.
You have HK actor Mark Cheng (from his latest movie Invisible Target) lending his charisma but becoming a laughing stock, John Lone demonstrating he's still very much being typecast in Hollywood roles, Devon Aoki continuing to be that flower vase who doesn't look good up close (somehow the cinematic camera dislikes her), and hey, once TV actress from this part of the world, Steph Song, gets a cameo too, spending most of the screen time screaming.Everything's pure flash with zero substance.
Jet Li and Statham meet on the big screen to prove they are still action heroes.War suffers from weak plot line and confusing characters.
Many people expected, or it feels like they were expecting, a movie whit twisting plot, color full characters and many more..I don't understand that..THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT KILLING AND ACTION!!!!THIS IS WAR.
Jet Li stars as Rogue a Yojimbo inspired assassin who pits the triads (Led by Year Of The Dragon's John Lone) and the Yakuza (Led by Ryo Ishibashi) against each other in a mostly pointless actioner which rarely makes sense (Seriously this is not intelligent, it's just nonsensical) and worst of all delivers only minimal action despite the would be promise of Jet Li/Jason Statham fight.
The movie goes for a plot and in those regards the movie fails since the story has no real characters that are all that likable and watching Jet Li and Jason Statham violently dispatch bad guys without once feeling vulnerable is among the film's biggest tedious points.
War attempts to blend it's action with a surprisingly compelling story line, the film's build up unfortunately falls apart in it's lack luster third act.Jason Statham plays Jack Crawford, a special ops agent in L.A.
This movie has great gunfights and some good fighting sequences but, overall the fighting didn't overcome the bad acting, the illegitimate characters, no martial arts, the twisty storyline, and the confusing transitions.
so i bet everybody just can't wait to see a spectacular martial arts showdown between jason statham and jet li.well guess what.it doesn't happen.just got back from seeing this lame movie and i would like my money refunded.there is very little martial arts action in this movie.maybe a big five minutes worth of fighting.all there is in this movie is boring gunfight that we have seen in every action movie.i was waiting for the big fight scene between jet li and jason statham and when the met at the very end of the movie they fought for maybe a minute.yes you read that right.if you are a martial arts fan do not go see this movie..
Fight choreographer from the Transporter, Jason Statham, Jet Li. You'd expect a great Martial Arts action flick what you get is a B Movie with little to know fighting by the two stars.
This could have worked had the story been interesting enough but having Jet Li kill someone and then having Jason Statham investigate the scene while having flashbacks to murders we've already seen just came out plain boring.
The new martial arts-action film "War" comes to us from the former music video director Philip G.
But too bad it's just too confusing to make any real sense with."War" could have really been something amazing in that regard because we have two reasonably capable stars (Jet Li and Jason Statham) going head-to-head, toe-to-toe, big time, for the first time in a long time, on the big screen.
The tough and gruff Statham, on the other hand, gets a chance at some "acting" but this appears to be a minimum too, since I'm not all that entirely convinced by his performance, and he seems like one of Steven Seagal's later characters.The film's action scenes are what "War" is best at.
However, actually martial arts hand-to-hand combat is at a minimum and the film mostly focuses on your usual car chases and shoot-outs and gun-play (although there is a rather brief sword fight between Li and a yakuza crime boss toward the end).
You would expect two heavy-hitters like Li and Statham to actually go to war in at least one scene.In the end, "War" is yet another Hollywood action flick to serve up some sort of originality in East meets West culture-clashing.
You want them to be good guys, but you are never surprised when they cross the line - almost Han Solo like (but this movie has no wookies).I won't re-summarize the plot here, but I will say that the action is amazing and the story won't let you down.
The bravado surrounding this movie was the usual blend of short, action-crammed trailers and moody looking lead poses.Unfortunately, the movie fails to deliver on so many levels except the entirely predictable ones.The clichéd cop interactions, the naff fight scenes and classic Jap gang pleasantries of hits against rivals, all wrapped up in an unengaging plot line.Jet Li really doesn't impress as he has done in other movies, and Jason Statham's attempts at acting are becoming tiresome, he should certainly stick to keeping his mouth shut and kicking people's behinds.
They even introduce yet another Transporter-esquire axe-dodging scene - really nothing new.No character really convinces you to care about their plight nor did I end up giving a monkeys about who rang victorious in the end - inevitable as it all was anyway.There are far batter action movies out there - this is really an average way to pass the time..
Jet Li and Jason Statham should hang there head in shame a this piece of crap................i repeat CRAP CRAP CRAP............yes thats right CRAP........no fights......no action just 2 hours of dribble...the only action i saw was from my mate swearing his head off at the movie for being so crap..............very very disappointing......i only give it 3/10 because of the hot chick that hands jet li a brief case full of money then gets naked i give her a 10/10........i can't believe that i wasted my time and money on this piece of CRAP....there i said it again CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
So all in all i think everyone who wants a solid action movie with good performances and great fight/gun fight scenes then this movie is for you.
I expected an endless stream of action and violence and that the whole movie would be about Jet Li and Jason Statham fighting each other.
It was predictable (I knew what the twist will be from the beginning), unnecessarily complicated, had too many characters and lacked good action.An assassin named Rogue murders the partner of John Crawford (Statham), an FBI agent.
Jason Statham plays Crawford a Special Agent for the F.B.I. who's partner is murdered by an extremely lethal assassin called Rogue (Jet Li), spends three years seeking revenge and finally discovers two powerful war-lords are locked into a deadly and extremely violent confrontation.
It's here that I ask 'would it have been better if it were Crawford's family that had died during the point of attack?' This way, we would've had more of a connection with Crawford and his actions might actually have been more meaningful.So Jack goes on this revenge mission in the fashion only Jason Statham can, that sort of grunting complete with an array of nasty facial expressions as he beats people up and sticks guns in their faces.
I suppose this is why I enjoyed Paul Haggis' Crash from a few years ago; a film that takes the crime genre to a degree and sets it in America but with the multicultural element used to good effect rather than like this.In-between all the running and shooting and whatever else there was, Jet Li's Rouge will spout some meaningless clap trap about '...at every moment in the world, things change' and other such quips that so desperately want to bring humanity to the character and film but come across as forced and quite silly.
Perhaps the film might've worked had Crawford's family been killed at the beginning but then the film wouldn't be able to unleash a twist on us; perhaps a slower pace as well as some sort of clarity added to most of the scenes would've worked and maybe if you're going to include people of multiple ethnicities and races, it might be a good idea to give everyone a fair crack rather than purely your Chinese co-lead actor who does all the kung-fu we expect him to do anyway, shame on most people involved..
When it all got too over-the-top, I actually started laughing.The fight scene to watch for is a sword battle that Jet Li has in the climax of the film (NOT with Jason Statham!).
Jet Li and Jason Statham's War is one of the worst action movie of the year.
And Eddie was right on the money, 'cos War isn't even good for a 100+ minutes of mindlessly violent entertainment, the film wasting the talents of both of its stars with a tedious story-line and poorly handled action sequences, all accompanied by a horribly generic soundtrack.Statham plays tough cop Crawford, who is determined to catch Rogue (Li), the yakuza assassin responsible for the murder of his partner.
When War came out, it was pretty much a flop!I don't know how though, with superstars Jet Li and Jason Statham, along with a host of other well known faces, plenty of action and a dark plot of revenge and dirty cops.I didn't really like it upon its release, all but a few fights that come about eventually, and still after re-watching it a number of years later, I still can't seem to find a spot for it!Its not that anything in particular is wrong with it, its just that there is something so unappealing that just does't seem to carry the wow factor like most of said stars other films do.The actors are great, the action is great, the plot okay.
WAR sets up the viewer with promises (Jason Statham, Jet Li in his first movie as a straight actor i.e. post-martial arts), but for the most part those promises are not delivered.
Jet Li, one of the best in martial art movies and Jason Statham, who has been doing good in action movies.I recommend it to the guys(and girls)who like movies with good cars,violence and who like a bit of a twist in it.
This was an really good movie with an interesting well paced plot, great action sequences, not overly gory (though a lot of the reviews make it seem like it's a total blood bath - most of the violence is really well done) and pretty decent dialog.
Granted, I do like a lot of action movies but this one is much better than many because it's well acted and actually interesting as opposed to a bunch of guys with guns and swords running around killing everyone.
The film's various shoot-ups and car chases supply the moving and generally bloody background to this game of cat-and-mouse between Statham and Li.Nobody pays to watch movies like 'War' for striking performances, and this is just as well.
Personally, I think this movie was utterly disappointing.The action scenes were what is expected from a pure action movie, but its been a while since I've seen/heard a thinner storyline (EVEN for an action movie)...A film starring BOTH Jet Li and Jason Statham, 2 of my favorite modern-day actors within the action-genre, could have been so much better, I mean to go from movies like "Hero"/"Kiss of the dragon" or "Crank"/"Revolver" to this is a downright shame.Then again, its not much they can personally do about a horrible script and mediocre supporting cast members.The one who did OK in the supporting role were Devon Aoki, to me it felt like most of the movies budget went to pay these 3 main characters...I haven't lost any faith in the acting skill of the stated actors, but hope to see them in more entertaining roles in the future..
Mann film.If you're not sure of which movie to watch this coming weekend, I would highly recommend "War." The solid action, fast paced storyline and surprise ending make the movie ticket worth every dollar.8 / 10 stars.
Many thought that Fearless was to be his last action movie, however, they were wrong as he has indeed returned in dramatic fashion in Lions Gate Films' latest movie, War. Jason Statham (The Transporter, Crank) also stars making this the first battle between Li and Statham in six years since The One.FBI Agent Jack Crawford (Jason Statham) seeks revenge after the apparent murder of his partner, Tom Wynne (Terry Chen), and family by the notorious assassin Rogue (Jet Li).
You might think that a movie that has both Jet Li and Jason Statham would have a lot of promise, especially since the movie managed to get the great Corey Yuen to choreograph the fight scenes.
When you hear there is another movie where Jason Statham and Jet Li play together, you think it must be good. |
tt2357291 | Rio 2 | The film starts with an enormous celebration going on across Rio de Janeiro. In the bird community of the city, we catch up with blue macaws Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway), now married with three kids. They dance and sing together with their pals Raphael (George Lopez), Pedro (will.i.am), and Nico (Jamie Foxx). Blu asks Raphael where the kids are. Raphael says he left them with the bulldog Luiz (Tracy Morgan). Luiz says he left them with the little bird Tiny (Kate Micucci). The kids - Carla (Rachel Crow), Bia (Amandla Stenberg), and Tiago (Pierce Gagnon) - tied Tiny up to a bunch of fireworks. Their parents come flying in to prevent them from lighting them when Blu grabs the match. However, he burns himself and causes the fireworks to light up. He gets Tiny out but gets himself caught, and is launched into the sky as the fireworks erupt in an epic display, for all of Rio and the birds to see.Blu's owner Linda (Leslie Mann) and her husband/fellow bird lover Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) are sailing on a boat in the jungle to bring a plump red bird back to its habitat with its family. They don't notice the waterfalls up ahead and they fall over the edge, but they're both okay. A bird flies overhead and drops its feather. Tulio grabs it and inspects it. It's a feather of a blue macaw.News gets out that Linda and Tulio discovered more blue macaws out there. They decide to travel to the Amazon jungle to find this flock. Jewel wants to travel there as well since she feels Blu has domesticated their kids too much, and they must stay in touch with their bird nature. Nico and Pedro wanna join so they can scout for exotic talent for their little Carnival show. The only person they have so far is Raphael's wife Eva (Bebel Gilberto), who is an awful singer. Meanwhile, a sinister logging tycoon known only as Big Boss (Miguel Ferrer) gets wind of Linda and Tulio's mission, fearing they will interfere with his plans.Blu guides himself, along with his family and friends, to the Amazon with human equipment, like a GPS. They keep getting lost until they fly together as a group. On the ground, the evil cockatoo Nigel (Jemaine Clement) is now a flightless performing bird in a market, along with Gabi the poisonous tree frog (Kristin Chenoweth) and Charlie the anteater. Nigel is forced to be a fortune telling bird, while Gabi swoons over him, helplessly in love. Nigel spots Blu and his family flying up ahead, driving him to seek revenge against the bird that cost him his flight. He causes a fiasco at the market, releasing Gabi and Charlie. He rides on Charlie's back with Gabi to chase after the birds.Nigel, Gabi, and Charlie sneak on board a boat on their trip to catch Blu. Nigel falls asleep, and Gabi sings the song "Poisonous Love" to express her feelings for Nigel, and the fact that she can't touch him because she is poisonous. When he wakes up, they spot Blu and his family on the boat. Nigel goes to make his killing move, when Charlie gets stuck in a bottle while trying to eat some ants. He pulls it off and hits an alarm, causing a commotion on the boat that foils Nigel's plan.Big Boss also comes into the Amazon jungle to meet with his associates. He orders them to get rid of Linda and Tulio, for they are searching for macaws in an area that he plans to cut down.Upon arriving in the jungle, Blu is snatched up by another bird, leading him and his family and friends to find the whole flock of blue macaws. They're led by Eduardo (Andy Garcia), Jewel's father. They have a tearful reunion after being separated by loggers. This caused Eduardo to have a distrust for humans. He greets Blu and his grandchildren. Also joining the party is Jewel's old childhood friend Roberto (Bruno Mars), who sings a smooth ballad to welcome Jewel back to her home, along with Jewel's Aunt Mimi (Rita Moreno). Roberto lets Blu and his family stay inside a tree that he remodeled himself. Although Blu is not comfortable with this new setting, he can see that Jewel is happy.Eduardo decides to take Blu around the jungle in what he tells Jewel is sightseeing, when it is really a series of tests for Blu to prove his worth in the jungle. He gets hurt more than once, and appears to pale in comparison to Roberto, who always receives praise from Eduardo. They also encounter the rival tribe of scarlet macaws, led by Felipe (Philip Lawrence). They taunt and antagonize Eduardo for trying to help someone like Blu. Blu only ruffles up Eduardo's feathers (sorry) by trying to utilize Linda's equipment in the wild. Eduardo orders Roberto to keep an eye on Blu, fearing he is in league with the loggers.Elsewhere, Nico and Pedro continue their talent search with Raphael. Carla joins them, having a knack for performing and an interest in music as well. Most of the people that come to audition for the show have exceptional talent, but they keep eating each other alive...literally. However, they get a surprise visit from Nigel (in disguise), who performs with Gabi a very entertaining rendition of "I Will Survive". At the same time, Linda and Tulio are discovered by Big Boss and his men after the logger's monkeys searched for them. The villains tie Linda and Tulio together to a tree as they go off to cut more down.Blu goes to get a Brazilian nut for Jewel, since they're her favorite. The loggers' monkeys trick Blu into flying to the scarlet macaws' territory. He tries to take the Brazilian nut, unaware that it belongs to them. He causes the scarlet macaws to challenge the blue macaws to a game that is the bird equivalent of soccer. After not letting Blu join the game, Eduardo reluctantly lets him join when he sees that most of his players are getting taken out. Although Blu appears to be skilled, he ends up scoring the winning goal for the opposite team. Eduardo berates Blu for his failure, leading Blu to feel unwanted and unneeded in this place. He argues with Jewel, who tells him to choose where he prefers to stay.Feeling conflicted, Blu flies somewhere away from the tribe, causing Jewel to think he's abandoning them. Instead, he comes across Linda's campsite to say goodbye, knowing he belongs with Jewel in the place where she feels happy. Blu then senses that something is not right. He finds Linda and Tulio tied together. He sets them free and discovers the loggers wreaking havoc in the jungle. Many trees are cut down and hauled off. Roberto finds Blu in this spot, causing the bird to recount a traumatizing encounter with humans. Blu has him fly back to the tribe so they can warn everyone together about the loggers. Blu convinces Eduardo to join forces so that they can save their home.The loggers start to make their way into the deeper part of the jungle. Linda and Tulio stand in front of the bulldozers to stop them, but what makes the villains stop is seeing the entire flock of blue macaws sitting in the trees, looking very unhappy. The scarlet macaws call a truce to help save the forest, along with the other animals. Everybody swoops in to attack the loggers and frighten them away, but Big Boss shows no fear to the animals. He drives a vehicle into the forest, but Linda holds him off in a bulldozer that she commandeers. Eduardo is caught in the middle of them, but he is rescued by Tulio. Big Boss starts to set off some dynamite strapped in the trees. Blu spots them and pulls them off, with Nigel following. Blu grabs the dynamite and flies high up with them, and Nigel grabs on. The dynamite is flung into the air, and Nigel then jumps onto Blu, revealing himself to his nemesis. An explosion rings out as the dynamite blows up, throwing the birds into the trees. They fight while tied together, giving Gabi a chance to take a toothpick swabbed with her poison to shoot at Blu. She accidentally hits Nigel, who thinks he is going to die. He does an incredibly theatrical death, with Gabi swallowing a drop of her poison to be with Nigel. Bia points out that Gabi isn't poisonous, and that it's a common misconception. Overjoyed at this revelation, Gabi grabs Nigel so they can be together, to his dismay. Meanwhile, Big Boss is swallowed whole by a snake.The jungle is saved, and Eduardo accepts Blu as part of the tribe. Nigel and Gabi are sent to Rio to be studied. Charlie ditches them. Blu decides to stay in the Amazon with Jewel and his family, but they agree to visit Rio during the summer.The film ends with the animals putting on Nico and Pedro's Carnival show, with Carla joining in the celebration. | romantic | train | imdb | null |
tt0073195 | Jaws | Late one night, on one of the many beaches of Amity Island off the coast of New England, a group of teenagers throw a bonfire party. Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie), a beautiful blonde, catches the eye of partygoer Tom Cassidy (Jonathan Filley) and leads him away from the group to go skinny-dipping with her in the ocean. Tom, quite drunk, passes out on the beach before he can even undress, but Chrissy, undeterred, strips down and dives into the surf.As Chrissy swims further from the shoreline, she pauses to tread water. Ominous music plays as an unseen creature notices Chrissy's paddling legs from beneath the water's surface and begins to approach her. Chrissy is quickly attacked by the creature, who grabs hold of her leg and violently drags her underwater. Her screams for help go unheard, and eerie silence follows her submergence.The surrounding community of Amity is preparing for the upcoming Independence Day weekend, their most financially beneficial point of the year. The community depends on tourism as a major source of economic support and waits eagerly for each summer to arrive when herds of mainlanders come to savor Amity's shores. Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Amity's Chief of Police, receives a call at home regarding Chrissie Watkins' disappearance. Following the report made by Tom Cassidy that she was last seen off the coast, Brody goes to the beach with his deputy Jeff Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer) to search for clues. Hendricks soon stumbles upon the segmented remains of Chrissie, washed up on the shore and being feasted upon by crabs.Back at the police station, Brody receives a call from the coroner (Robert Nevin) , who determines that Chrissie Watkins was the victim of a shark attack. Fearing for the safety of Amity's many swimmers, Brody immediately prepares to close the beaches until further investigations can be made. His intentions are quickly noticed by Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) who, fearing for the income loss that would result from closing the beach at such a pivotal point in the summer, attempts to convince Brody that a shark attack is too hasty a conclusion, and pressures Brody and the coroner to change the Chrissie's official cause of death to being cut up by a boat propeller. Brody remains dedicated to the safety of Amity's citizens and tourists, regardless of the financial toll the town might endure. However, Vaughn prevents him from closing the beaches just yet.Over the next few days, ferryloads of tourists arrive on Amity's shores. The beaches are crowded each day, and Brody is extremely anxious that there will be another attack. As Brody and his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary) sit in the sand, Brody intently scans the shoreline for any sign of trouble. A ways down the beach, young Alex Kitner (Jeffrey Voorhees) asks his mother for permission to go swimming. Though Mrs. Kitner (Lee Fierro) notes that her son's fingers are starting to "prune" from the time he has already spent in the water that day, she allows him ten more minutes. Alex and his yellow raft enter the ocean one last time before Alex is attacked by what is unmistakably an enormous shark. The other swimmers panic and rush out of the water, while the bloodied and shredded remains of Alex Kitner's raft wash up in the surf. Mrs. Kitner calls out desperately for her son, unaware that he has just been killed.With dozens of witnesses to Alex Kitner's gruesome death, the presence of a shark in Amity waters is certain and Brody is finally permitted to close the beaches. Alex's grieving mother issues a $3000 reward to anyone who can catch the shark that killed her son, and a town meeting is held to discuss the official shark problem. While Brody explains that the police department is expanding their efforts to keep the beaches safe and bringing in a shark expert from the Oceanographic Institute to assist them, most of the assembled townspeople are simply angry about the beaches being closed, although Mayor Vaughn assures them it will only be for 24 hours. The chatter is quelled by Sam Quint (Robert Shaw), an eccentric and roughened local fisherman who guarantees the capture and slaughter of the offending shark for the price of $10,000. Though his offer is not accepted at that point, Quint seems confident that the job will fall to him eventually.With Mrs. Kitner's reward made public, scores of amateur shark hunters crowd Amity's docks. Two local men make a clumsy attempt to lure the shark with a pork roast, which results in one of them nearly being the shark's third victim. Arriving at the same time as the horde of overconfident fishermen is Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), the shark expert from the Oceanographic Institute hired by the Amity police. After meeting with Brody, Hooper is allowed to view the remains of Chrissie Watkins. Hooper, visibly shaken after examining the mangled body parts, assures Brody that a shark was responsible. More specifically, a Great White.The town breathes a sigh of relief when the corpse of a large tiger shark is hung on the docks, having been caught by some of the contending fishermen. Brody is initially elated, believing the nightmare to be over, until Hooper examines the mouth of the beast and determines that its bite radius did not match the wounds on Chrissie Watkins' body, and therefore was likely not the shark they were seeking. Hooper attempts to convince Mayor Vaughn to keep the beaches closed until an autopsy on the shark can be completed and the contents of its stomach can be analyzed for human remains, but Vaughn impatiently dismisses his pleas.The crowd falls silent as Mrs. Kitner arrives, clad in black and choking back tears, presumably returning from her son's funeral. She approaches Brody and slaps him across the face, furiously accusing him of keeping the beaches open despite having prior knowledge that there was a man-eating shark in the water. She makes clear her belief that Brody was largely responsible for Alex's death. Brody's determination to find the killer shark only increases.As Brody attempts to unwind at home, Hooper visits the house to share his thoughts on the shark situation. When Ellen Brody asks about his background, Hooper explains that he had been fascinated by sharks ever since he was a boy and remains just as enthusiastic about studying them. Hooper theorizes that Amity may have a "rogue shark," in its waters, which will likely remain until its food source is entirely gone. Brody and Hooper decide to examine the stomach contents of the tiger shark, and proceed to the docks. Hooper slices open the shark and finds nothing to conform that it had eaten anything other than fish, tin cans, and a license plate within the last several days. Hooper once again confirms that the shark responsible for the killings would have a much larger bite radius than the tiger shark, and believes that the only shark species that would meet that criteria is the Great White.Continuing their investigation that night, Hooper takes Brody onto his boat to do some reconnaissance on the water. Brody, who faces an additional source of stress within the shark case due to his fear of the water, drinks heavily before setting foot on the vessel. Using sonar equipment, Hooper locates a large object a good distance away from the shoreline. Brody recognizes it as the boat of Ben Gardner (Craig Kingsbury), a local fisherman. Hooper decides to investigate the half-submerged craft, despite Brody's protests, and dons his scuba gear before entering the water. Hooper discovers a large hole in the hull of the boat, and finds an enormous tooth embedded in the side. While examining the tooth, Hooper is horrified to see the corpse of Ben Gardner floating out of the hull, one of his eyes missing. Hooper drops the tooth and rushes to the surface.Brody and Hooper make yet another attempt to reason with Mayor Vaughn, hoping their discoveries from the previous night will make a difference. Vaughn, however, still stubbornly ignores their words and states that even with the evidence of Ben Gardner's ravaged boat, there is no proof that a shark is responsible. Hooper explains that he pulled a shark tooth "the size of a shotglass" out of the hull of Gardner's boat, but Vaughn merely insults and dismisses him once again since Hooper cannot produce the tooth he dropped in the water.Independence Day weekend finally arrives along with plenty of tourists, but the beachgoers are made uneasy by the numerous police boats patrolling the water for the shark. Vaughn is concerned that no one is swimming, and asks a personal friend in attendance to enter the water, along with his wife and grandchildren, to put everyone's minds at ease. The man and his family reluctantly and warily obey, and others begin to relax and follow suit.Brody is aiding with shark patrol, while Ellen and their two young sons remain on the beach. When Brody's elder son Michael (Chris Rebello) wishes to take his boat out into the water with one of his friends, Brody asks him to take it into the adjacent estuary just to be safe. While complaining that "the pond is for old ladies," Michael reluctantly agrees. In the meantime, a dorsal fin appears among the swimmers in the main water, and panic ensues. The crowd scrambles back onto the beach, only to learn that the "shark" was merely a cardboard fin and two boys in snorkel gear playing a prank.The beachgoers begin to relax, but a young woman overlooking the water sees the unmistakable form of a huge shark making its way into the estuary, where Michael and his friend are sailing. The woman's cry is first dismissed as another prank, but when Ellen reminds her husband that their son is in the pond, Brody goes to investigate. Michael and his friend are approached by a man in a rowboat (Ted Grossman), presumably the friend's father, who is instructing them on their knotting techniques, when both vessels are suddenly capsized by the shark. All three of the startled sailors surface, and Michael watches in paralyzed horror as the man fails to reach his rowboat before the shark attacks him and rips him apart.Michael and his friend are brought safely to shore, though Michael is taken to the hospital to be treated for shock. Brody confronts Vaughn once again and puts his foot down, demanding that real action must be taken to deal with the shark. Vaughn, for once, is vulnerable and shaken, realizing that his own children were on the beach that day as well. He finally relents and gives Brody full permission to do all that is necessary to stop the shark.Brody seeks out Quint and promptly hires him to catch the shark for $10,000. Though Quint desires to complete the mission alone, Brody insists that he and Hooper will go as well. There is instant tension between Quint and Hooper, with Quint seeing Hooper as a naive college boy with no real shark-hunting experience, and Hooper seeing Quint as a reckless thrill-seeker. Though Hooper proves himself a perfectly capable sailor, the tension remains as the three men embark on their voyage in Quint's boat, the "Orca."Once out to sea, the men set about attracting the shark by ladling chum off the stern of the boat. Quint attaches a line of piano wire to a sturdy rod secured against a specially-designed fishing chair on the deck. After hours of waiting, the wire goes taut and Quint believes the shark has finally shown up. The shark swims under the boat until the piano wire snaps, proving the immense strength of the beast they are up against.As the voyage presses on with no further sign of the shark, Brody grumpily ladles more chum off the back of the boat, while Quint continues to show his disdain for Hooper. Without warning, the massive head of a Great White shark emerges from the water for a moment, and we get our first good look at the size of the fish. Brody is stunned and alerts Quint. Hooper notices the shark beginning to circle the boat, and Quint rushes out for a look. He estimates the shark is 25 feet long, and weighs three tons. After barking a few orders to Brody and Hooper, Quint begins to fire harpoons tied to plastic barrels, intended to both slow the shark down and act as visible tracking devices. Though Quint manages to hit the shark with three harpoons, the barrels have no effect and the shark easily pulls them underwater. Just in time, Hooper manages to attach a technological tracking device to the beast before it disappears again.That night, the men have dinner and drinks below deck and Hooper surprisingly begins to bond with Quint as they compare tattoos and scars. Brody notices that Quint has had a tattoo removed. The mood suddenly darkens as Quint admits that the former tattoo represented the US Navy cruiser "Indianapolis." Quint, aboard that ship in World War II when it was sunk by torpedoes, had witnessed the deaths of roughly 800 men that day, many of whom were eaten by sharks as they struggled helplessly in the water. Quint's eerie retelling of the disaster confirms how his hatred for sharks began, and reveals his guilt at being one of the mere 300 sailors who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. After the solemnity of Quint's story, the three men sing a rowdy sea shanty to lighten the mood, but are interrupted by the returning shark violently knocking into their boat, causing it to begin leaking. Quint rushes on deck and fires at the three telltale barrels, but the shark escapes once again.The next day, the men attempt to repair the boat, with limited success. Seawater has contaminated the fuel, and the thick clouds of smoke belching from the ship's exhaust pipe are a sign of engine damage. When the shark returns, Quint, waiting and ready, instructs Hooper to grab the barrels with a hook and secure them to the stern. Hooper succeeds, and Quint attempts to drag the shark by powering the boat to full throttle, but the shark uses its immense strength to pull the boat in the opposite direction, nearly capsizing it and causing further structural damage before Quint cuts the ropes attached to the boat. The shark breaks free from the barrels and submerges again. Quint demonstrates the extent of his mad vengeance against sharks by destroying the radio which Brody was attempting to use to call for help. The shark begins to chase the boat, and Quint steers back toward land at full speed, dismissing Hooper's protests that he is overtaxing the already damaged engine. When the engine inevitably fails, the three men are trapped on a sinking boat with no means of propulsion and no radio. Quint offers life jackets to the other men, though he takes none for himself.Running out of options, Hooper resorts to putting on his scuba gear and having Quint and Brody lower him into the water inside a shark cage, his aim being to inject the shark with poison using a harpoon syringe. The cage proves to be no match for the shark, who attacks Hooper with such ferocity that he drops the harpoon and is forced to hide in a reef while his cage is being destroyed. Brody and Quint haul up the remains of the shark cage, sans Hooper, and assume him to be dead. They barely have time to process the notion before the shark leaps from the water like a breaching whale and lands most of its body on the sinking stern of the boat. Quint and Brody hang on to the cabin for dear life as the boat is upended, the shark's gaping mouth at the bottom of the drop. Quint ultimately loses his grip and, despite Brody's endeavors to pull him to safety, slides into the mouth of the shark and is devoured. The shark, with Quint's corpse in its mouth, slides back into the water.Horrified, and believing himself to be the only survivor of this seemingly doomed mission, Brody hastily enters the cabin of the rapidly sinking boat and finds one of Hooper's pressurized air tanks. The shark smashes through the side of the boat, mere feet away from Brody, whose attempts to drive it off by beating it with the tank result in the tank becoming lodged in the shark's mouth before the beast swims away again.With little more than the boat's mast above water now, Brody climbs to the top of the mast with a rifle in his hand. Now possessing some of Quint's courage and madness, Brody begins to fire at the approaching shark, hoping to hit the air tank in its mouth. At last, Brody hits his mark. The tank explodes, taking the shark with it, and Brody laughs maniacally as blood and shark meat rain down around him into the sea.Moments later, Hooper finally surfaces, alive and well. The two men celebrate the end of their adventure with a weak chuckle before assembling a makeshift raft and paddling back to Amity's shore. | horror, cult, suspenseful, violence, prank | train | imdb | Steven Spielberg captures pure terror in that scene.Jaws completely absorbs you, as the trio of shark hunters venture off to try to snare the great white you begin to feel part of their adventure.
It's the Michael Jordan of cinema: there will never be another 'Jaws,' simply because the film so profoundly changed the way movies are made and marketed.Based on Peter Benchley's bestselling novel, 'Jaws' centers around the fictional North Atlantic resort island of Amity, which finds itself terrorized by an enormous great white shark.
The remains of young Christine Watkins are found on the beach, the apparent victim of a shark attack(Chrissie Watkins' death scene at the opening of the movie is one of the most legendary in the history of film).
Chief Brody wants to close the beaches, but is refused permission by Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) and the Amity selectmen, all of whom fear that news of a shark attack off of Amity will threaten the summer tourist trade, on which the town depends for its very survival.
Together, Hooper and Brody struggle in vain against both the shark and Mayor Vaughan, who is certain that keeping the beaches open for the sake of the town's economy (and his own real-estate business) is worth the gamble.Finally, Brody and Hooper charter an expedition with the enigmatic, vaguely malevolent Quint (Robert Shaw), Amity's most feared and respected shark hunter, to find and kill the shark and save the town from financial disaster.
Hooper, the scientist, is awestruck at having encountered the Bigfoot of the sea; Quint, the crafty fisherman with a serious chip on his shoulder against sharks, realizes he has met the ultimate test of his skills; Brody, who swims poorly and is afraid of water, must overcome abject fear and disorientation just to maintain his composure.
That said, the most brilliant aspect of 'Jaws' was a serendipitous accident.The special effects team had yet to fully troubleshoot 'Bruce,' the mechanical shark, by the time filming was to begin.
Consequently, the audience's fear is magnified by the fact that, for the majority of the film, they cannot see the shark, creating suspense towards the climax of the confrontation between man and beast on Quint's fishing boat.'Jaws' succeeds on almost every level.
Jaws is a movie the I grew up with, it's like the first real horror film I ever watched.
I'm questioning, because it seems like all the terrific horror films came out of the 70's.Jaws is based on the best seller book by Peter Benchley.
But when another attack ensues and almost kills Brody's young son, Michael, he, Matt, and a cocky man, Quint go out to find Jaws themselves.This turns into several of the greatest cinematic scenes of all time, like the "Indianapolis" speech brilliantly given by Quint, how he describes seeing his first shark was just so intense and you couldn't turn away from the screen.
Police chief Martin Brody, shark hunter Quint and marine biologist Matt Hooper set sail in the hope of killing the great white monster.Jaws is responsible for many things, it's responsible for propelling director Steven Spielberg's career into the stratosphere, it was responsible for a downturn in the package holiday trade, and it was responsible for shaping the summer blockbuster release practise's.
There are many other things which one doesn't need to bore you with, it's just true to say that Jaws is firmly ensconced in movie history, if one hasn't seen it then one surely knows about it, it is, even today, part of popular culture.But is it any good?
Hell yes it is, one or two easily overlooked flaws aside, it busted the box office {world wide} and tapped into a primal fear that resides in the majority of mankind, the unseen that resides in the sea.Jaws sets out its marker right from the start with a truly shocking and attention grabbing opening sequence, from then on in Spielberg {learning from Hitchcock for sure} tweaks the tension to have the audience living on their nerves, even as character building {by way of Brody's family arc} sedates the pace, we just know that it's all relative to an extension of fear and terror that is around the next corner.
Jolts and shocks pop up from time to time to help build the unease whilst Spielberg makes the audience wait before we even see what it is that so coldly and efficiently destroys man, and then the claustrophobic switch as our brave protagonists are out at sea on Quint's boat, unaware that the giant menace is now hunting them, eyes as black as death itself.So many great scenes linger for all time in the memory, the entrance of Quint is a hum dinger, a mournful widow reducing Brody to a stunned realism, the Indianappolis monologue, the bigger boat!
Yet Roy Scheider {Brody}, Robert Shaw {Quint} and Richard Dreyfuss {Hooper} were from from original choices, Charlton Heston was wanted for the role of Brody, Sterling Hayden and Lee Marvin were both mooted for Quint, and John Voight was Spielberg's preferred choice for Hooper, whilst Jaws author {and co screen writer here} Peter Benchley was heading for the top by asking for Newman, Redford and McQueen!!
Whether it was the mechanical shark's failure to operate correctly or Spielberg's decision to simply see less of the shark until the end of the film, the "less is more" idea works perfectly, particularly in the opening scene, which is chilling to this day.One thing I do want to add: if you choose to watch this film at home, do yourself a favor and rent or buy the WIDESCREEN version.
"Jaws" is definitely one of those movies, that is thanks to the amazing cast and the crew the classic masterpiece that it is today.Let's face it, the story is dumb and silly and in a way very average.
Jaws is an epic movie and it is My favorite shark film.Great acting by Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss but the acting was superb in My opinion by Robert Shaw!The shark itself was awesome!The view of the water in Jaws is spooky and it makes you feel that anything can be in it!The music by John Williams is great and the direction by Steven Spielberg is terrific!Jaws has three other sequels but they aren't classics like this!If you like shark movies and haven't seen Jaws or even if you have check out Jaws today!.
In this film, Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) who refuses to close down a New England beach over 4th of July weekend due to a recent shark attack.
Police chief Brody (Roy Scheider) happily married (to Lorraine Gary) tries to convince local authorities (Murray Hamilton) who reluctantly listen him to empty the resort place , but the large shark attacks and the victims run afoul and provoking a real carnage and those serving for lunch .
Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) contacts a man from the National Geographic Institute (Oscar-Winner:Richard Dreyfuss) for help and a hired fisherman (The late-Robert Shaw) are going to haunt down the great white shark.Directed by four-time Oscar Winner:Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, The War of the Worlds-2005) made an terrific suspense thriller with elements of adventure and horror.
Later in the film, a marine scientist, played by Richard Dreyfuss explains that the first victim in the movie, in the beginning of the film says that it wasn't no boating accident, it was a shark.
It is a testament to Spielberg's directing abilities that this film still creates deep seated phobias in those that watch it!Essentially a remake of Duel except with a shark replacing the truck this is a lesson in suspense for directors.
This is the best option as it is very rubbery looking, but it also heightens the tension as the unknown moves under water to attack us.Roy Scheider is excellent as Chief Brody with great support from Dreyfuss and Shaw.
And the success of JAWS is entirely down to the way that it exploits mans fear of the sea The great thing about this movie is how focused it is , Spielberg's cut out all the crap from the book like the politics of the town , and the sexual subplots and made the ending truly climatic .
It's obviously a giant animontronic model of some kind and since Spielberg has spent so much time using very effective suspense like the soundtrack and the shark's POV for much of the running time the on screen revelation is unfortunately going to be a disappointment But let's not talk about minor disappointment and just admire what the director has given us here .
Often considered to be the ultimate summer blockbuster, Jaws (1975) goes even further than that; standing as a truly radical and exciting piece of film-making, rich in character, action, energy and technique; and filled with some truly iconic moments that have endured throughout the subsequent thirty-five years and still retain the power and ability to shock and excite the audience in more than equal measures.
Here, Spielberg is also able to suggest the kind of danger lurking ahead, creating a sense of suspense for the audience that will pay off in the final third of the film, where we find non-stop action, drama and pure character dynamics.Much has already been written about the sharp vibrancy of the story and the slow build up to the eventual revelation of the event that triggers the narrative and sends us headlong into that four-way battle of wits that dominates the film's final act; with the screenwriters taking an obvious leaf from Hitchcock - and in particular, The Birds (1963) - with that idea of a small, seemingly idyllic island community being terrorised by an ecological, naturalistic horror that is never fully explained (and remains all the more terrifying for it).
Spielberg's confident approach to a cinema of this scale, even at such an early point in his career, is already apparent; with the problems behind the scenes actually being used to the benefit of the film, turning something that could have been a fairly obvious maritime disaster movie with a fake rubber shark and producing a film that was slightly more enigmatic, character driven and open to interpretation.For example, you can clearly read metaphorical interpretations into the portrayal of the shark and how it affects this community; bringing out the quiet desperation of the islanders and the corruption of its town officials who just want to keep the money rolling in, regardless of the cost; are of which are fairly prevalent when we think of the film in the 70's context, post-Watergate/post-Vietnam.
It's an example of what happens when the right people come together for the right reasons, for the right movie.Firstly, author Peter Benchley co-wrote the screenplay (the screenplay itself is adapted from his own novel of the same name) that became one of the new, classic scary-stories of our time: a huge great white shark is terrorizing the residents of a small New England beach community.
Amity Police Chief Brody (the recently departed Roy Scheider), marine expert Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and grizzled shark hunter Quint (the late Robert Shaw) are the heroic three who volunteer to have a climatic showdown with this man-eating menace appropriate described as mother nature's ultimate killing machine.I should make it clear that for years I was never one of this movie's biggest fans.
And I'm also sure that the liberties with sharks were liberties well-taken for the sake of dramatic potential: This movie did its job in scaring the living daylights out of a lot of people.Most importantly, other than serving up great scares, suspense and adventure, "Jaws" is responsible for starting the career of Hollywood director Steven Spielberg.
The Mayor refuses to shut down the beach even though Chief Brody and a scientist who studies sharks Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) beg him to.The 4th of July weekend approaches and the town has all heard of the shark who has killed a local woman and no one is in the water.
This local fisherman named Sam Quint, played by Robert Shaw, seems to have a great deal of experience with sharks and definitely views them as something to be feared.This trip out to sea ends up being a shocker to them all.
But 'Jaws' is definitely THE Summer blockbuster (and also the one to own).Steven Spielberg was in the beginning of his career when he made this movie.
Of course unlike many modern day blockbusters, Jaws had something more than just action and suspense; it was chock full of likable, three-dimensional characters, and it had this magical touch that could simply be explained if one only looks to the film's director, Steven Spielberg.The premise of Jaws is one that if you were simply told about as opposed to seeing it, you would probably laugh your head off.
Few people knew what a Great White Shark looked like, but they have ever since this film came out!No, it doesn't hold the terror it did when released about 30 years ago, but it is still scary, still entertaining and moves at a fast pace.
In one of the most memorable scenes, Brody and Hooper come upon the remains of the shark's destructive power without actually seeing the shark itself.This film was Steven Spielberg's big-time debut into the upper echelons of cinema.
As well before the days of special effects, CGI, and 3-D Spielberg did his best making this film with scenes of a mechanical shark.
And the film is suspense filled as most scenes don't show the shark directly attacking the victims, yet it's often the things that are hidden and underneath that are the most terrifying like an underwater great white.
And most memorable is the pulsating original theme score from the film, you've heard it many times as it just carries the suspense and drama of the film along so well.Based on Peter Benchley's novel(I must say a must read)"Jaws" is set in a New England northeastern island resort town of Amity.
Brody does the best to cope with it with support from wife Ellen(Lorraine Gary).Still matters need to be taken further so enter two problem solver helpers one in the form of Sam Quint(Robert Shaw)a weathered and crazy odd ball shark hunter who's methods are unorthodox and then to complete the twosome it's young hotshot educated marine scientist Matt Hooper(Richard Dreyfuss).
And along the way this film turns into a suspenseful adventure of shark hunting that's helped by the wonderful and pulsating score it just keeps you on the edge of your seat, as in the end your happy to be served a big great white lunch with the death of Jaws!
And the way that Steven shot the film even though tough and difficult by filming water scenes and moving the camera a lot on boat was well done and his working of the mechanical shark takes a big bite out of today's special effects and CGI and 3-D works.
The success of this film can be attributed to the chemistry among the three stars: Scheider as the police chief, Shaw as the shark hunter, and Dreyfuss as a marine scientist.
The audience is excited when the three men set out at to kill the menacing shark.Sure, a movie 30 years old probably isn't scary right now, but perhaps at its time.
The film has humour, good acting, a very good musical score by the world's best movie composer John Williams, and good special effects for its time.
It's a crowd pleaser for sure but I just don't see the big hoopla this film generated back then and still today.The big problem with JAWS is the "terror" aspect of the story: the killer shark can only kill people if they're in the ocean.
instant classic and one of a kind that has not since been emulated Jaws is one of the two movies that got me into film making.From the camera movement to the actors all way to the perfect direction from Steven Spielberg.The effects of this movie also help the movie with the shark not being revealed often.Stil watch again and again to study and to enjoy.the characters are so well developed and conflict against each other and the island where it takes place really gives you a sense of the world they live in.as they all depend on the island and it beaches to remain open especially the mayor who clearly does not care of the safety of his people.honestly i would love to give this movie 10/10 but its not perfect movies do age over time and that is the only thing that lets this movie down..
Check out the author of the novel "Jaws" that the film was based on Peter Benchley as a TV reporter on the Amity beach just before the killer shark springs or swims into action..
The reason why Jaws is truly spielberg most entertaining film is that he really made the movie for us, he always wanted to make us laughed, or make us scare.
Spielberg uses the shark to suspenseful effect for most of the movie.
All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all.¨ Jaws marked a before and after in American Cinema; it became the first true Blockbuster movie and it has since influenced films for 35 years.
The film works on two very different levels: one, a simple shocker and the other is complex character study of three people ("Police Chief Martin Brody" played by Roy Scheider,"Matt Hooper" played by Richard Dreyfuss and "Quint" played by Robert Shaw) dealing with horrific shark attacks.
To that end, they decided on Roy Scheider as police chief Brody, Robert Shaw as grizzled fisherman Quint and Richard Dreyfuss as shark expert Hooper.
The late great Roy Scheider brings a golden performance as Chief of Police Martin Brody, Robert Shaw delivers fine acting as Quint, the shark-killing fisherman, Richard Dreyfuss portrays an incredible performance as Matt Hooper, the oceanographer, and Murray Hamilton does a great job playing the mayor of Amity. |
tt0373074 | Kung fu | Turmoil grips Shanghai in the 1940s. Various gangs vie for power, the most feared of which is The Axe Gang, led by the infamous Brother Sum and aptly named after its weapon of choice. In the absence of law enforcement, people can live peacefully only in poor areas which do not appeal to the gangs. An example is Pig Sty Alley, a tenement home to people of various trades, run by a lecherous landlord and his domineering wife. One day, two troublemakers, Sing and Bone, come to the alley impersonating members of the Axe Gang in order to gain respect. Their plan fails miserably, and Sing's antics attract the real gang to the scene. In the massive brawl that ensues, more than fifty gangsters are defeated by three tenants who are actually powerful martial arts masters: Coolie, Master of the "Twelve Kicks;" Tailor, master of the "Iron Fist;" and Donut, master of the "Hexagon Staff."After the fight, Sing and Bone are apprehended by Brother Sum for causing trouble and publicly humiliating the Axe Gang. The two narrowly escape death when Sing quickly picks the locks on the chains with which they are bound. Sing asks Sum to make himself and Bone members of the Axe Gang. Impressed with his skill at lockpicking, Sum tells them that if they kill just one person, he will allow them to join the gang. The next day the duo return to Pig Sty Alley to murder the Landlady, but fail comically due to ineptitude. The two part ways and narrowly escape from the furious Landlady. Sing is badly injured and hides in a traffic control pulpit, where his injuries spontaneously heal. During this convalescence he unconsciously strikes the steel sides of the pulpit, leaving deep impressions of his hands. After he has fully recovered, he rejoins Bone, but is unable to explain his mysterious healing.Sing and Bone lament their failure on the streets, and Sing describes his childhood. He spent his meagre life savings to buy a Buddhist Palm manual from a beggar with the intention of "preserving world peace." He trained himself, but when he tried to defend a mute girl from bullies trying to steal her lollipop, he was beaten. Sing concludes that good guys never win and decides to become a criminal. After telling his story, the duo then steal ice cream from a street vendor, laughing maniacally as they escape from her on a tram.Angered by his gang's defeat, Brother Sum hires the Harpists, a pair of skilled assassins who fight using a magical Guqin. They strike Pig Sty Alley at night as Coolie, Tailor and Donut are preparing to depart, having been evicted for antagonizing the gang. The three are quickly overwhelmed, prompting the Landlord and Landlady, revealed to be Kung fu masters of even greater prowess, to intervene. Although the killers and the Axe Gang are driven off, the three evictees suffer fatal injuries: Coolie is decapitated, Tailor dies of stab wounds, and Donut dies of blunt-force trauma. The Landlord and Landlady evacuate Pig Sty Alley out of concern for their tenants' safety.The following day, after being humiliated and pummeled by a clerk he had previously antagonized, Sing mugs the female ice cream vendor from the earlier scene. She is revealed to be the mute girl from his childhood whom he had vainly tried to defend. He recognizes the old lollipop she offers him as a token of her gratitude, but becomes upset, rebuffing her and berating Bone. In exasperation, he drives Bone away and is picked up by members of the Axe Gang. Brother Sum, having earlier witnessed Sing's ability to quickly pick locks, instructs him to sneak into a mental asylum to free The Beast, a mercenary rumored to be the most dangerous person alive.The Beast is freed and brought over to the Axe Gang headquarters behind a casino. However, his flippant attitude and sloppy appearance puzzles Sum and his men. Soon, they are ultimately convinced when The Beast fires a gun point-blank at his own head then stops the bullet between two fingers. The Beast, however, loses interest in Sum, and approaches the Landlord and Landlady, who have come to Sum's casino to deal with him and his gang. The three masters engage one another, and although initially overcome, the Landlady is able to subdue The Beast by breaking the top off a giant funeral bell and using it as a megaphone to amplify her sonic technique, the Lion's Roar. The Beast, injured, pretends to surrender, but then attempts to stab his opponents with poisoned barbs. Although he fails, the Landlord and Landlady are forced to lock their bodies with his to counter his attack, and all three become unable to move. Sum orders Sing to kill the Landlady and Landlord, but feeling reformed, Sing beats away Sum and hits The Beast instead. Enraged, The Beast breaks free of the joint-lock and pummels Sing. Fortunately, Sing is spirited away by the Landlord and Landlady when The Beast's back is turned. The Beast, annoyed by his complaints, casually kills Sum, and gives chase.At Pig Sty Alley, Sing, while wrapped head-to-toe in bandages and treated with Chinese medicine, undergoes a metamorphosis. He quickly recovers from his wounds, and his latent potential as a "natural-born Kung Fu genius" is realized. He engages the Axe Gang and The Beast, fending off the gangsters with ease. However The Beast puts up a fight, and his Toad Technique sends Sing rocketing into the sky. As he falls back to Earth, Sing recalls the Buddhist Palm, and delivers a blow that knocks The Beast flat and leaves a huge, hand-shaped crater in the ground. The Beast again pretends to surrender, but when Sing relents, The Beast tries to stab him with his poisoned barb, just as he had tried to stab the Landlord and Landlady. Sing calmly performs another Buddhist Palm technique, leaving a three-story hole in the wall of the tenement, although he intentionally avoids hitting The Beast. Stunned, The Beast remains immobile while Sing relieves him of his weapon. The Beast, stammering, asks Sing what sort of technique he had just performed - Sing offers to teach him, and, weeping, The Beast kneels at his feet and admits the battle is over, Sing victorious.Some time later, Sing and Bone open a candy store. When the mute ice cream vendor walks by, Sing goes out to meet her. The two see each other as their childhood selves, and run happily into the shop while some people of Pig Sty Alley, including the Landlord and Landlady are shown as normal citizens. Outside, the same beggar who sold Sing the Buddhist Palm manual offers a selection of martial arts manuals to a boy eating a lollipop. | comedy, murder, cult, violence, flashback, absurd, psychedelic, action, philosophical, romantic, entertaining | train | imdb | Chow's comedic timing gets better and better with every movie he makes, and while his films are depending more and more on CGI these days, and makes this movie much more a fantasy kung fu film than a traditional one, it hardly detracts from the enjoyable experience.
Kung Fu Hustle not only reminds us of Chow's terrific comedic timing, it introduces us to his stunning visual eye and exhilarating action direction.
When the scene is funny you appreciate the comedy, when it switches gears to action you are blown away by the terrific sequences, when it switches to melodrama you are on the edge of your seat awaiting character responses, and when they're all fused together you do exactly what Chow is hoping you'll do.
Kung Fu Hustle tells the story of Sing, a wannabe gangster attempting to join the famous Axe Gang (who during some of the early scenes seem to spoof Gangs of New York - look for a firework visual quote), a legion of black suits responsible for a series of gruesome murders and complete dominance over a 1940s Hong Kong.
Stephen Chow shows respects to them, as the way he respects Bruce Lee. Above all, Kung-Fu Hustle is a movie with great hilarity, stunning CGI effects, fantastic Kung-Fu, and the lives of ordinary people.
Stephen Chow truly understands kung-fu, in my opinion, and it a sure thing that he crazies about it.It's not a common kung-fu movie like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Hero".
Five minutes later, a nuclear strike warning in my town couldn't have torn me away from the screen, and it's been watched a dozen times since.There's always been a certain cheesiness to Hong Kong cinema, but on rare occasions a writer or director will directly tap a nerve and somehow weave that directly into the story: 'Kung Fu Hustle' is one of those films.
In the wildly imaginative and action-packed Kung Fu Hustle, petty thief Sing (Stephen Chow) aspires to be a ruthless gangster.
With jaw-dropping fight sequences by Yeun Wo Ping (famed action choreographer of Kill Bill Vol.1 & 2 and The Matrix) Kung Fu Hustle will blow you away!
So, it doesn't look good for A-xing at the beginning of the movie.It doesn't get any better, either a little later as we discover it is A-xing's goal is to become a member of the notorious Axe Gang, the fiercest, cruelest and most widespread gang of the city.One day when A-xing goes into a slum, Pig Cage Town, to do his usual extortion, he witnesses a real clash between two gangs: the Axe Gang is clearing out a local gang that has not shown allegiance to the Axe. A-xing realizes the slum residents -- including the plump landlady and her skinny and wimpy-looking husband -- have each turned into kung-fu masters to fight against the large group of gangs.A-xing then realizes this is a battle between good and evil and that he is called to choose one side.Stephen Chow continues his unique comedy style, twisting the slapstick jokes and reinterpreting them with his composed face.
I liked Shaolin Soccer, it was full of laughs and Stephen Chow has done it again with Kung Fu Hustle.
I would even say that Kung Fu Hustle is a more refined Shoalin Soccer in terms of storyline, action sequences and acting.The setting is great with some nice scenes of old Hong Kong and the way people used to live.
Okay, the story was predictable but that didn't take away the enjoyment one bit.Overall, it is a highly recommended movie to watch and I can't wait for his next film..
I'm not very familiar with the previous work of the director Stephen Chow except for Shaolin Soccer but this flick has everything to entertain any movie fan.Both the humor and the drama made me weep like a small girl, even thou I'm a guy almost at my 30's.
I can't tell you how many times where I've walked out of a martial arts - or even action - movie, and been immensely disappointed because the fighting and explosions were great, but the rest of it simply fell short.
So having said that, consider this a rave review of Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle".While the film itself was entertaining, the prospect of summarizing the scattered plot is not.
The two areas of town don't concern themselves with one another until a wannabe member of the Axe Gang, Sing (Stephen Chow) and his sidekick (Chi Chung Lam) poses as a member in the tenement to extort money, causing a series of events to occur in the tenement that wind up with most of the Axe Gang either killed or injured and Brother Sum (Kwok Kuen Chan), the leader of the gang, to do everything in his power to wreak revenge on both the tenement and its occupants, particularly those who act as its safeguards.As I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of parts that I found so funny that I was either finding myself almost lightheaded from laughing so hard, or finding myself obnoxious because I would struggle to recoup in order to read the subtitles in time to not miss anything.
So while the film was overall one of the funniest I've seen in recent memory, there were a couple of great moments of highly stylized action."Kung Fu Hustle" wasn't a perfect film by any means, but the criticisms I have about it are completely nitpicky.
The story of Kung-fu hustle itself is set in a sort of 70's China and people like me who love travelling and different cultures get a real feel of being in China.
I watched Kung-fu hustle a few times now and bought it on DVD and cant wait for his next movie.
This movie is a highly creative and stylized action film from the Hong Kong kung fu genre.A lot of wit, slapstick, visual effects, killer kung fu, and a unique plot offer an incredibly fun and entertaining film.
If the language was not so hard to master at such a point this far in my life, I would love to be able to learn it just to get the true dialogue they were speaking.From the background story of Sing to the rag tag collection of people living in Pig Sty Alley to the seemingly inept but fear in sheer numbers of the Axe Gang, this film has enough characters to satisfy anyone.
They each have a place in the movie and I don't think it would be the same without them.The story, cinematography, the effects(at times obviously CG but they fit within the context of the film), the characters and even the music all make this a memorable viewing, enough to put this in my collection of films that I could watch over and over without growing tired of it.There is so much I actually enjoyed of this film, I would love to dig deeper into the career of Stephen Chow.
I had not heard of him before this viewing, but I would like to see if his other films were as entertaining.If you like movies that have martial arts, enough action and comedy to spare with a story strong enough to hold it all together, I would recommend you catch this movie.
This movie has everything--comedy, drama, pathos, incredible action, slapstick, great acting, a great story, wildly inventive absurdity, actual thematic threads (a long gone element in US films), moments of sheer poetry, and genuine heart.
If Chow had become the US star he should have a couple of years ago, Americans would have lined up for Hustle even if they had never seen a kung fu movie in their lives.
Note the chain smoking landlady and the song and dance routines that on the surface seem ludicrous but add bonus comedy value as you know someone is about to have their teeth cut out or met with the 'Hand of God'- a brilliant scene that ends the film.Another worthy attempt by Mr Chow, creating 95 minutes of well thought (and fought) out, thoughtless action!
We're presented with lots of genuine comic scenes and I liked how Chow used many classic films as reference source (e.g. The Shining, Casino etc).In terms of performances, 'Kung Fu' belongs to the Qiu Yuen, Wah Yuen and Stephen Chow.
To Stephen Chow's credit, it feels totally original, and you find yourself as you're watching the movie eagerly waiting for the next bit of insane craziness he's going to throw on to the screen.This movie pokes fun at the earnestness of recent films in the genre, like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Hero," and "House of Flying Daggers." Nothing is taken seriously here, and thank God for that.
Because of the action and good sound this is best seen on the big screen, but if you can't see it on the big screen, just make sure you see it :-) Good music, good humour, big characters, good choreography, plenty of surprises and a story set at a fun pace.The people who made this used many of their own ideas, not something you see that often these days in mainstream cinema and that is why I found this so refreshing.
If you've seen Shaolin Soccer (or earlier films like God of Cookery), you may have scratched your head at the bizarre references in Chow's movies.
This is a normal man's dream of Super Gongfu Hero, it's a real hero's story in true-life.We are personally on the scene of movie world,you can feel the happiness or the sadness of Chow& hits friend.
Comedy, martial art action and lots of fun with a splendid Stephen Chow.
This amusing film deals about a a pair small delinquents named Sing(Stephen Chow) and his sidekick Bone(Chun) in Shanghai during the 1940s.Sing wishes unite with Axe gang led by heinous criminal Brother Sun(Chan).A slum named Pig Sty Alley is the solely location where the Axes band don't extort but the inhabitants are hapless and poor.The slum is ruled by a loud-mouthed landlady(Qiu Yen) with an apparently feeble husband.The wannabe mobsters,Sing and Bone,attempt swindle a barber when the authentic Axe gangster appear in Pig slum.Them,it results to be that various Kung Fu experts with breathtaking strength are living into slum and an incredible fighting take place.The Axes gang leader contract a magician violinists fighters and an obnoxious assassin which break out from the prison for eliminate the slum rebels.And Sing spontaneously decides save the day,turning a extraordinary transformation.This entertaining film displays noisy action,slapstick comedy,tongue in check,spectacular martial art struggles and is pretty bemusing.Stephen Chow- combining his facet of actor and director-introduce his comedy talent and hilarious moments here and there,developing his trademark,creating parodies along with hard-hitting Kung-Fu scenes.He frequently utilizes Chinese name ¨Sing¨ in his films.Stephen Chow collaborated with another legendary Kung Fu choreographer,Yuen Wo Ping,famous since '70's for his Hong Kong movies and nowadays working in Hollywood(Matrix ,among others).The overwhelming fighting and sensational action scenes are made by cables and wires and by computer generator,as well.Besides appear,one of the most notorious experts, Sammo Hung(Martial law) as additional action choreographer.The supporting cast is frankly magnificent,special mention for Qiu Yen,as the landlady,she apprenticed Chinese martial art and Beijing-opera skills with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung under the same master in her younger days and played as a girl wrestler saving Roger Moore in Bond 007¨The man with the golden gun(1974)¨,in order to add fat for the picture,she took a Japanese sumo fighter's diet(like Renée Zeelweger for Bridget Jones).The motion picture is produced by Columbia Pictures Production Asia,Beijing film studio and China film group.Chow's creativity into comedy and Kung Fu action had been demonstrated with the successful¨Shaolin soccer¨,now with ¨Kung Fu¨going on to amuse viewers around the world .He's recently shooting the following the sequel with similar actors..
But as in all good comedy there is also a message.Talented director/writer (with Tsang Kan Cheong)/star Stephen Chow has the whole concept of Kung Fu as entertainment down pat.
Overall the effects and fight scenes make the film very worthwhile and therefore highly recommendable.Overall Kong Fu Hustle is an incredible achievement in film making and everyone who is not afraid to see the Hong Kong action genre spoofed should definitely watch it.8/10.
Part action film, part love story, part loving homage, Hustle is a pitch-perfect example of the best that Hong Kong cinema has to offer, effortlessly mixing digital wizardry with old-school martial arts stunts while never skipping a comedic beat.
Bruce may have proved himself as a fighter but Stephen Chow proves himself as a creator and actor.Ultimately Kung Fu Hustle is a movie that you have to see.
Kung-Fu is an action-comedy, in many senses of the word, but that's not enough, it contains the utter height of "coolness" in a very Die Hardish sense, yet leaves you emotive, much like the first time you finished watching Episode I.
This movie is fantastic and extremely funny.It is a brilliant comedy because it's very funny.This is a parody to martial arts movies like Matrix reloaded.Stephen Chow is confirmed as a genius with this film and his previous film(Shaolin soccer)was excellent too.I went to the cinema to see this without waiting great thing but I took a great surprise.This is an extraordinary comedy(by my point of view)and I totally recommend this fantastic film,because movies like this deserve to be seen.I die to see Kung fu hustle 2 but I will have to wait.This is a great,fantastic and superb film.A must see.Rating : 10.
Absolutely cool movie with action filled comedy blended fight scenes .The stunt choreography is done to a level next to complete perfection .
Lee's review in the Chicago Reader will discuss the context of this movie in learned fashion for you, explaining how Chow puts ordinary everyday Chinese characters "back into a genre whose elements have degenerated into global cliché." I don't know that I appreciated all that, but I could see this would be huge fun for the intense kung fu fan, and I also could see the link Lee notes with Sergio Leone..
With some genuinely funny moments and some stunning visuals, I think you could find this deeply entertaining whether you're a fan of the genre or not.Don't go watch this film if you're looking for gritty, realistic fight scenes, because you'll be disappointed.
It is truly as fresh and new a movie that has been made in the action comedy genre.Stephen Chow has used himself effectively, not allowing his character to overshadow the movie.
Having given us a taster of his films with the amusing but bizarre "Shaolin Soccer", Chow goes well and truly overboard with "Kung Fu Hustle" which is possibly the most over-blown, chop-socky action film in existence but unlike some, this film is a great deal of fun.The film take place in 1940's China where the police are powerless to stop the vicious Axe Gang from ruling the city.
Let me just say that although story-telling isn't the strong point of martial arts movies, "Kung Fu Hustle" is one that bucks the trend.
Id like to thank Stephen chow for making such a great film!
The film blends action, comedy and even romance together while using cartoon like martial arts moves.
What makes this movie so great is that the movie combines good old-school kung fu action with excellent visual and special effects, and also a few action and chase sequences that look like they were ripped off of old Warner Brothers cartoons.
The visuals shine during these scenes, especially the chase between the landlady and the main character (Sing, played by the director/writer of the film, Stephen Chow).
There is a lot of slapstick and physical humor that makes up for the lack of jokes involving dialogue; so if you are the kind that does not laugh at a typical businessman beating down two wanna-be assassins or a guy throwing a knife at a woman, only to have it bounce back and stab him, then you are not going to find this movie as funny as other people would.Bottom Line: One of the best films in a very long time.
Stephen Chow managed to blend irreverance and poignancy, action and introspection, violence and comedy, satire and personal belief very, very well in Kung Fu Hustle.
Like chow's other films, the plot is a typical good guys must fight bad guys story, but the plot isn't what you'll remember.
Stephen Chow Sing Chi's Kung Fu Hustle may be the most satisfying film-going experience that Hong Kong film enthusiasts have dreamed for in recent years.
When there's action, you never want to blink for a second; when the action isn't on, there is always comedy, suspense, or complex drama to keep us involved.In my book, Stephen Chow in crafting Kung Fu Hustle has reached the peak of perfection in film-making.
I like especially the ones done by the tailor and the old man, and not to mention the fighting and action, everything you'd expect in a kung fu movie.
There are, however, several laugh out loud slapstick sequences in Kung Fu Hustle that comes as a nice surprise (the surprise being that it was actually funny, and reasonably inoffensive).The action choreography is first rate, the special effects are hugely imaginative, all in all the technical credits are above par for a Hong Kong film.The references to the Matrix are courtesy of great wire-kung fu fights choreographed by the inestimable Yuen Wo Ping.
Stephen Chow gives us a great movie once again after the funny Shoalin Soccer.
Kung Fu Hustle combines humor, creativity, imagination (WAY out the box when compared to most US movies) epic fight scenes and wonderful cinematography.
Kung Fu Hustle is a great mix of action cinematography and cartoon like special effects.
I feel like I do not need to see another fight or action scene in a movie ever again.
Many movies that mix martial arts with comedy fail to find a good balance between both styles and I don't like most of these attempts but this film here is one of the worst attempts to combine these two genres. |
tt0105323 | Scent of a Woman | Charlie Simms is a student at an exclusive New England prep school, Baird. Unlike most of his peers, Charlie was not born to a wealthy family and attends Baird on scholarship. To pay for a flight home to Oregon for Christmas, Charlie accepts a temporary job over Thanksgiving weekend looking after retired Army Ranger Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, who Charlie discovers to be a cantankerous blind alcoholic.Charlie and George Willis, Jr., another student at the preparatory school, witness several students setting up a prank for the school's headmaster Trask. Following the prank, Trask presses Charlie and George to divulge the names of the perpetrators. Trask offers a bribe, a letter of recommendation that would virtually guarantee his acceptance to Harvard. Charlie continues to remain silent but appears conflicted.Shortly after Charlie arrives, Slade unexpectedly whisks Charlie off on a trip to New York City. Slade reserves a room at the Waldorf-Astoria. During dinner at an upscale restaurant, Slade glibly states the goals of the trip, which involve enjoying luxurious accommodations in New York before committing suicide. Charlie is taken aback and does not know if Slade is serious.They pay an uninvited visit to Slade's brother's home for Thanksgiving dinner. Slade is an unpleasant surprise for the family, as he deliberately provokes everyone and the night ends in acrimony. During this time the reason behind Slade's blindness is also revealed: while still an active officer, Slade used to juggle grenades while drunk. One grenade got away from him and exploded, causing his blindness.As they return to New York, Charlie tells Slade about his complications at school. Slade advises Charlie to inform on his classmates and go to Harvard, warning him that George will probably be pressured into not maintaining silence, however, with his influential father (also an alum of Baird) behind him, his punishment will likely be light. Later at a restaurant, Slade is aware of Donna; a young woman waiting for her date. Although blind, Slade leads Donna in a spectacular tango ("Por una Cabeza") on the dance floor. That night, he hires a female escort. While Slade enjoys his evening with the escort, Charlie calls the ski resort that George and Harry (the student who planned the prank on Trask) are spending the break at and finds out from George that Trask has elevated his investigation of the prank and that George's father has become involved. The phone call makes Charlie more tense than ever.Deeply despondent the next morning, Slade responds to Charlie's suggestion that they test drive a Ferrari. Charlie lets Slade drive the car and Slade begins speeding, attracting the attention of a police officer (Ron Eldard), whom Slade manages to appease without giving away his blindness.When they return to the hotel, Slade sends Charlie out on a list of errands. Charlie initially leaves the room but quickly becomes suspicious. Charlie returns to find Slade in his military uniform, preparing to commit suicide with a gun from which Charlie had made Slade promise to remove the bullets earlier, regarding which Slade states "I lied". Charlie intervenes and attempts to grab Slade's gun. Slade, however, easily overpowers him, threatening to shoot Charlie before himself. They enter a tense argument, with both struggling for the gun; however, after Charlie bravely calms Slade, he backs down.The two return to Baird. Slade gives Charlie the money he owes him in cash and then touches Charlie's face, feeling for the first time how Charlie looks. He also offers Charlie any references he many need in the future and has Manny drive him home.At school, Charlie and George are subjected to a formal inquiry in front of the student body and the student/faculty disciplinary committee. As headmaster Trask is opening the proceedings, Slade unexpectedly returns to the school, joining Charlie on the auditorium stage for support. For his defense, George has enlisted the help of his wealthy father, and divulges the names of the perpetrators, qualifying that his vision wasn't clear. When pressed for more details, George passes the burden to Charlie. Although struggling with his decision, Charlie gives no information, so Trask recommends Charlie's expulsion.At this, Slade cannot contain his silence any longer and launches into a passionate speech defending Charlie and questioning the integrity of a system that rewards informing on classmates. He tells them that Charlie has shown integrity in his actions and for the committee to not expel him because this is what great leaders are made of and he will make them proud in the future. The disciplinary committee decides to place on probation the students named by George, and to give George neither recognition nor commendation for his testimony. They excuse Charlie from any punishment and allow him to have no further say in the inquiries, to loud applause from the student body.As Charlie escorts Slade to his limo, a female political science teacher, Christine Downes, who was part of the disciplinary committee approaches Slade, commending him for his speech. Seeing a spark between them, Charlie tells Ms. Downes that Slade served on President Lyndon Johnson's staff. A romantic prospect is hinted between Slade and Ms. Downes as they part ways.Charlie takes Slade home, where they go their separate ways. The colonel walks towards his house and greets his niece's young children happily as Charlie watches by the limo. | dramatic, atmospheric, prank | train | imdb | null |
tt0384806 | The Amityville Horror | In 1974, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. murdered his family at their house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. He claimed that he was persuaded to kill them by voices he heard in the house.
One year later, married couple George and Kathy Lutz move into the house along with Kathy's three children from a previous marriage, Billy, Michael, and Chelsea. The family soon begins experiencing paranormal events in the house. Chelsea claims that she has befriended a girl named Jodie, a name belonging to one of the murdered DeFeo children.
One night the couple decide to go out, and they hire a babysitter to watch the three kids. When the babysitter, Lisa, arrives, they come to find out that she had previously been hired to babysit for the DeFeos. Lisa tells them about the murders that took place in their house. When she goes to Chelsea's room, Chelsea tells her that she is a bad babysitter, claiming that Jodie told her so. Lisa begins to scold Jodie for being the reason behind her getting fired. Then Billy dares Lisa to go inside the closet (the same closet where Jodie was murdered), and she gets locked inside. After a few seconds she encounters Jodie herself, and begs to be let out. She goes into shock and the paramedics arrive to take her away; on the way to the hospital, Lisa tells Kathy that she had seen Jodie.
George's behavior towards Kathy and her children becomes abusive and the paranormal activity continues. Kathy asks priest Father Callaway (Philip Baker Hall) to bless the house, as a protective measure to prevent any future paranormal incidents, but Father Callaway flees the house when he encounters such occurrences himself. Kathy discovers that the house once belonged to a cult preacher named Reverend Jeremiah Ketcham, whose evil actions towards Native Americans during his "mission" in 17th century Amityville are said to be the cause of the haunting at 112 Ocean Avenue. Meanwhile, George, as he is walking through the basement of the house, encounters the apparitions of the various Indians who were tortured and killed there by Ketcham centuries ago. Entering a dimly-lit room, George encounters Ketcham himself (though he is not aware of who he is), and the ghostly figure of the evil missionary turns around, picks up a knife, and slits his throat in an act of recreating his suicide, covering George with blood, and causing him to become nearly completely possessed.
Kathy becomes convinced that George's abusive behavior is owed to a spiritual possession. Following urgent advice from Father Callaway, Kathy tries to evacuate her children from the house and escort them to safety, but the possessed George attempts to kill her and the children; Kathy knocks him out to prevent him from doing so and transports him away from the residence. Subsequently, George is released from the spirit's control and the family permanently leaves the house. A title card states that the family left within 28 days of arriving and never returned. Jodie is shown standing in the now empty house and screaming in terror while the house rearranges itself. Subsequently, she is pulled beneath the floor by a pair of disembodied hands. | insanity, horror, murder | train | wikipedia | But all in all, a decent effort, just like i said.HOWEVER.If you're going into this expecting any resemblance WHATSOEVER to the book, the original film, or any of the stories told over the years, you're going to be severely disappointed.
Don't get me wrong, this is still effective, but if you're going to release a movie and promote it as "Based on the True Story" then you might wanna make sure that the movie at least RESEMBLES the original story.In fact, George Lutz is currently in litigation with MGM films over the content of the movie, claiming that it shows his family in a potentially damaging light.
A remake of the film by the same name from 1979, which was based on Jay Anson's book about a supposedly "true" haunting, Amityville Horror begins in familiar territory by showing us Ronald DeFeo, Jr.
A year later, newlyweds George (Ryan Reynolds) and Kathy Lutz (Melissa George), with three kids from her previous marriage in tow, buy the vacant house at a steal, although they hesitate a bit once they learn why it's so cheap.
The film recounts their very brief but tumultuous stay at the home the Lutz's believed would be their dream home, but which turned into a nightmare.After seeing the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), which had the same production team, principal scriptwriter and visual effects team, and which I loved--I gave it a 10--I was completely psyched for the Amityville Horror remake.
Even though Reynolds does a great job in his transformation as George Lutz (and the acting is superb all around), there was a sense of buildup in the original that this remake is missing.
In terms of cinematic legacy, the original "The Amityville Horror" managed to foreshadow both "The Shining" and "Poltergeist" while swiping a few nods from "The Exorcist." But time has not been kind to the hit 1979 horror film, once considered spooky but now considered at best a camp classic.The remake opens in the late 1970s, with George Lutz (Ryan Reynolds) and his new wife Kathy (Melissa George) getting what appears to be the deal of a lifetime.
It's not long before strange things start to happen with the new family as well.Chelsea (Chloë Grace Moretz) starts seeing the ghost of the previous little girl who occupied the house, Billy (Jesse James) and Michael (Jimmy Bennett) see supernatural activity while also being blamed for the trouble it causes, and George begins to go mad, taking increasingly drastic steps to maintain order and discipline the children.
It's not long before Kathy begins to suspect that all is not right in their quaint little home."The Amityville Horror" is such a mediocre film, you can't help but wonder what was once considered so shocking about the original story.
It's just a shame there's never been a horror movie filmed in the house to do its spooky appearance justice.The other thing to note is that the remake still claims to be based on a true story, which is partially true.
The real life Lutz's account was eventually proved to be a hoax to cover up the fact that the family couldn't pay their mortgage, but not before the family made millions on everything from talk show appearances to the movie rights.The movie never really lets you into the horror that is occurring, and director Andrew Douglas does a very workman-like job directing the story, never really doing anything to interest us in the characters or situation.
As Kathy, George manages to be the emotional anchor holding the film together and does a good job, however her character puts up with far too much stress before she finally acts.
My advice: Don't see the 1979 version first, don't think about it too hard, pretend it's not based on the "true story", and just enjoy this great horror film.
5. When I left the movie did I feel like I had been part of it (ie Suspension of Disbelief)When I look at the Amityville Horror it scored highly in all of these categories, especially the last which in my opinion is the most important of the 5.
Since I saw it, I've been watching lots of horror movies, and so far, haven't found one that scared me as badly as "Signs." I saw the movies that people said were the scariest ever, like The Excorsist, Saw, and Scream, but I really found none of them scary.
The editors did work on films like Face/Off, True Romance and MI:II, which certainly helped a novice director (Andrew Douglas), whose only other film was a Southern-Christian documentary entitled 'Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus'.The film is not perfect - there are a few moments of tedium - namely when the characters - particularly Ryan Reynold's ever-darkening George - get repetitive, especially with the dialogue.
And the end drags a little as the family desperately try to escape the horror - no, I won't spoil it, but think to yourself when watching the film: why not just break the bloody window?
A family(Ryan Reynolds,Melissa George and sons)moves to Long Island where is purchased a Victorian home ,their house of dreams but they find only devilish horror.Longtime ago,there occurred a grisly mass killing based on an allegedly real life occurrence in Amityville.
And now a possessed father is plunged by demonic forces into supernatural attitude driving him to mistreat and beat the kiddies.He is attempting to find out the bottom of events by ways of the cellar.Meanwhile a exorcist(Philip Baker Hall)tries praying to vanquish the malignant spirit.The film contains restless terror and great loads of gore and blood and usual poltergeists phenomenon caused by the curse as pipes and wall ooze stuff,flies swarm,doors suddenly slam ;it is recreated with high grade special effects which are frightening and horrifying the spectator.It's actually halfway decent terror movie that will like to ghostly and eerie occur fonds.
.Although this is a new version from previous film, it's one of the highest earning horror movie of the last years.The motion picture is well directed by Andrew Douglas.
By comparison, we've come along way since the days that the horror movie genre had to depend on sound tech for the scary effects of a film.
I have always been a little leery of movie remakes, especially when it comes to classic horror films, but since I did enjoy Michael Bay's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (even with the story changes) I figured I'd give it a try.
This movie starts off good, and gets better.Well, I don't have much to say about this film, aside that from all points of view, it was just a fun little horror flick.
Ryan Reynolds is there show off his non-70's hair and impressive abs; his character is unlikable from the very start and almost IMMEDIATELY upon moving into the house begins to act like he's possessed.
All the while the family slowly begins to unravel and fall apart as the spirits of the previous tenants haunt and possess the current occupants.Throughout the movie there are a few scary scenes and creepy moments, but for the most part the remake of the 1979 classic is just silly.
Copious elements of Kubric's version of "The Shining" were added to complement an otherwise aimless and brain-dead retelling of the original Amityville story.Throughout the film, I wondered if this was not, primarily, a retelling of one of my favorite horror flicks, but instead a diatribe on the horrors of a bad marriage.
Soon, the family feels an eerie presence in the house and George Lutz (Ryan Reynolds) -- the new dad -- begins to change.The movie overall is a respectable one.
The mood is very nice, the New York Times rightfully called it "a modest improvement over the original", and I freely admit there were moments I was on edge thinking something nasty was going to come popping out, a feeling I very rarely have anymore after seeing so many "scary movies".
There's the ever so familiar haunted house, Dad losing his mind, heads shaking à la Jacob's Ladder, weird shadows moving fast and making insect sounds and the more than overused spooky little girl (really, having such a kid in another horror movie is idiotic and didn't even make much sense in this particular movie).
I went to see the movie to have a tense thriller shoved down my neck but this just stuck to instant shocks and loud music to scare you.I am not convinced about the characters and to be honest I am already struggling to remember who they were.All in all it was an OK film and if you are seeing it for the first time then you will enjoy it.
The longer they are in the house, the worse it gets, and everything comes to a climax on the 28th day.This was a movie remake that was pretty good.
I enjoyed it but I don't think it had enough originality to be remembered as a great horror film of the 21st century..
And excellent acting from Ryan Reynolds especially the way he changes from the beginning of the movie to the end.Certainly among the best horror films.
Even if you don't believe the story of George and Kathy Lutz, this is still a scary flick.And the fact remains, Ronald DeFaio did murder his 6 family members while they slept, because voices in the house told him to "catch em, Kill 'em," in this freaky house in 1974..Did the house become haunted after this tragedy?
However, I thought this was a solid horror film with a few good jump scares and a few inspired original sequences.
this is truly the scariest film I've ever watched, now that I'm home I can't remember exactly what it was that I was so scared of, but in the cinema it was a completely different story I was rooted to the back of my seat and sunk as low into it as possible as shock after shock hit the screen without warning.I can honestly say I have never been in a cinema where the audience have looked so shaken and been so quiet when getting up to leave after the film had ended.I think the scary element of the film is that horrors appear on screen with little or no warning from the actors, environment or the music and disappear as spontaneously as they arrived, I can guarantee that you WILL find this film satisfactory for money and you WILL be shaken by it..
Being a family friend, he comes to bless the house when he experiences the horror himself, being told to "GET OUT!!!" This occurs in the book as well and the 1979 original film in the factual order.
Change the tag line to "For God's Sake, Ryan Reynolds, Put A Goddamn Shirt On!" If you're a fan of the original, of horror movies, or just good movies in general, avoid "The Amityville Horror" remake at all costs..
The Amityville Horror, a film directed by Andrew Douglas, was released in 2005 starring Ryan Reynolds.
The Amityville Horror Based on a true storyDirector:Adrew Douglas Year:2005 Horror Characters: Ryan Reynolds....George Lutz Melissa George...Kathy Lutz Jesse James...Billy Lutz Chloe Moretz...Chealsea Lutz Rachel Nichols...Lisa Philip Barker Hall...Minister Callawaythe original movie ¨The Amityville Horror¨on 1979, Is considered as a classic horror film, I never liked so much,so that is way I will take the risk to say that ¨The Amityville Horror¨ on 2005 is better that the original one but not for this reason is a good movie.
The story is about a horrible murder that happened to the Defeo family, is they own child Ronald who killed their parents and siblings with a gun, with the reason that a voice told him to do it , few years after another family move in the same house that the tragedy happened, and between 28 days the start to felling a paranormal activity, threatening with repeat the history.The story that is the movie based on, is fascinating, and if the real factors of that maybe we will never know, is still a mystery, the Director do not care about the real factors he just wanted to make it interesting, making the story a paranormal movie, full of ghost, and family split.Adrew Douglas, decided to keep the steps of a typical horror movie frenetic edition, loud music rumbles, suspense, obviousness in all the movie, and everything that we already saw in many movies.This version of the movie is based in the family split than the paranormal activity, because at beginning we can see a lovely family, but when the move into that house that lovely family become in bitter family, maybe this movie is not so good, but I could be worst, I do not recommend this movie to children younger than 14 years old, because there are a lot of appearances, and many scary moments that will affect them, I give to this movie a 7 in a range of 1 to 10.I fell that I need to recommend you to see it because you will like, and the story is quite good..
Every scene is filled with something brilliant, you're getting a lot of shocks and the whole movie in itself takes you to a journey through a story, that is actually based on a true one.Usually, I don't quite like remakes of old movies, and The Amityville Horror is a remake of TAH from 1979 with James Brolin and Margot Kidder.
A classic haunted house yarn with solid performances from the cast - young and old, Amityville Horror (2005) is not a subtle, psychological horror but a balls-out, in-yer-face monster picture with the vengeful ghosts and demons appearing on screen from the moment the Lutz family arrive at their new home.Although it claims to be based on a true story no real attempt is made to keep the mayhem within the bounds of reality and George's rapid descent into insanity isn't so much an homage to Nicholson in The Shining as a parody.
Ryan Reynolds is superb as the troubled head of his step-family and while best known for his light-hearted roles shows here he can turn charm to menace at the flick of a switch.Amityville is the least well-respected of the clutch of iconic horrors from the 1970s and has spawned some truly awful sequels, but this remake does the story proud, reinventing it for a multiplex audience used to glamorous leads and stories told through OTT gore and special effects.There's nothing really original here and the 2005 film ticks all the boxes for haunted house clichés e.g. spooky faces at windows, erratic plumbing, moving furniture, clocks stopping etc but does it with a brazen panache and lack of pretencion that makes the film enjoyable for what it is..
I loved the fact that although this was a remake of classic film the actors especially Ryan Reynolds who adds a bit of comedy to whatever he does, didn't take anything to far which is a good thing considering this was a true story and over acting this could of led to trouble.
As they try to settle in weird things start happening to the father.This movie was not all bad I mean Ryan Reynolds did a surprisingly good job in this one definitely playing outside his comfort zone.
Ryan Reynolds, as George Lutz is first rate as you see his character progressively change and Melissa George is reliable as usual.It's an effective remake but you can't help but think they could have just made an original haunted house horror film with such clearly talented people..
Kathy: "Is this discipline or torture?" George: "I thought it was meatloaf." Based on one of the most fraudulent "true stories" in history, "The Amityville Horror" attempts to re-create and re-package a poorly aged film from 1979 of the same name, this time casting Ryan Reynolds ("Waiting," "Van Wilder") and Melissa George ("30 Days Of Nights") in the role of the Lutz family, who despite receiving an education from their real estate agent move their family into the very same home that Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his family in one year prior.
The house is hardly a dream come true, however, as George (Reynolds) goes from Mr. Nice Guy to stereotypical bad step-father in under a day while ghosts play with the children and terrorize a baby-sitter who was too old for the job anyway.Directed by Andrew Douglas and produced by Platinum Dunes ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003)), this re-telling is surprisingly close to that of the original, and doesn't stray much except in the fact that it's paced a little better.
which is the fate the previous family living in the house suffered.The only real truly convincing piece of horror with this film is that is is based on a true story.
Later they realized that the house is cursed and one of the family members is possessed by an evil spirit in their new home.Directed by Andrew Douglas made an faster paced and shorter somewhat punchier remake of the popular 1979 horror movie.
The original Amityville Horror was not very interesting movie with "Based of true events" note.
Remake of the 70's cult thriller is a solidly-done supernatural thriller and actually becomes a more effectively entertaining horror movie than the original film.Young couple moves their family into a Long Island house, where the family that lived there before was brutally murdered.
After you finish the movie you're safe in your home, everything's okay, and the scariness is over.All in all though the remake of the Amityville Horror is enjoyable.
A day at the time George (Ryan) getting meaner and darker, as of the previous owner that kill his entire family after moving into the house 28 days later.I have never seen the original or anything but I can say this, this movie is actually really fun to watch.
If you want to see a scary, haunted house movie, this one is very good.
And, if you've seen the original Amityville Horror (or read the book), you might find this movie strangely unfamiliar. |
tt1591479 | Act of Valor | The film opens with narration by Dave speaking about the code of a soldier. Dave says every man has a code, an ethos that he lives by. The code allows him to do his job and get home. He always tries to get home.In San Diego, Seal Team 7 is doing a test jump out of an airplane.The Philippines. A man in an ice cream van, Abu Shabal (Jason Cottle) is quickly driving through traffic trying to reach his destination. He wears a surgical mask to hide his identity. In the back of the van is a young woman. She is sweating but it has nothing to do with the heat.We see a school full of children. We see a black car with U.S. diplomat plates come inside. Shabal is able to get the ice cream van into the school and the kids run towards it, screaming for ice cream. Shabal jokes with the kids while the woman tries to serve ice cream. The U.S. ambassador is met with by his son and asks if he can get ice cream. His father agrees and moves towards the group. Shabal sees this and nods to the woman. He begins to walk away. The truck explodes, killing the Ambassador and his son, numerous other innocent children and a nearby guard. A burnt child is briefly seen emerges from fire, screaming while running away.Cut to a bar in the United States. Lt. Rorke and SOC Dave are sitting down enjoying a drink when Rorke mentions his wife is pregnant with their first child and he wants to keep it quiet. Dave is understanding, and then proceeds to tell the entire bar that Rorke is having a kid. Rorke shakes his head and tells Dave that he wants him to bring his family down to the beach (Dave has a wife and 5 kids) and they can have one last get together before they have to ship out again. Rorke will even teach Dave how to surf.Costa Rica. A young woman named Morales (Rosalyn Sanchez) is giving a small child a shot in a medical tent. A convoy of cars show up. In one is Christo (Alex Veadov), who runs up to the group of children in the clearing, giving them candy. Christo sees Morales and she gives him a smile.Morales meets with Walter Ross (Nestor Serrano). Morales is in actuality CIA as is Ross. They have been watching Christo because he is a major drug lord. The problem is, Christo gives back much of his wealth to the community for housing, medical centers, and schools which make the people extremely loyal to him.Morales and Ross are at her hotel room playing scrabble, waiting for Chinese food she ordered to arrive. There is a knock on the door and Ross opens the door thinking it is the delivery man. Two men are at the door. They shoot Ross in the head. Morales reaches for her gun and kills one before she is subdued. They knock her out, cut up the carpet and roll her in it, carrying her out. They place her in the back of the truck and drive off.Back in the U.S. Rorke and Dave got to the beach with their families. Rorke attempts to teach Dave how to surf. Later during the night, we meet the rest of the squad. Remy, their sniper. Ray, their communications man. Sonny, their EOD operator. Ajay, a former muy thai fighter. Mikey, a 20-year veteran. And finally Miller, their senior chief who commands them all. Rorke talks to his squad telling them whatever they need to fix in their lives, they need to do it now before they ship out. They need to be completely focused on the mission, so they can all come home together.The next morning, Rorke says goodbye to his wife. He mentions that if they have a boy, he thinks James is a good name. When he leaves, his wife falls to the floor and cries, afraid once more that this will be the time he won't come back.In Mexico, Morales is hung up by her hands, beaten within an inch of her life. Her right eye is swollen shut. Her torturer comes in with a phone. Morales pleads with the voice saying she is just a doctor. Christo, who is in the Ukraine tells her he knows she is CIA and she better start talking. Christo tells his man to keep Morales alive and to only call back when she talks.The Seal Team is briefed by Miller about Ross' murder and Morales capture by Christo. What makes it more interesting is that Morales had been investigating Christo's link to Abu Shallah, a high value target who is responsible for the school bombing in the Philippines. Their mission is to extract Morales from her captives and find out what she knows.The squad is on a plane, waiting to jump out. Dave jokes that jumping out of the plane is only 2nd worse to changing a diaper. Rorke tells him he is looking forward to it actually. They jump out and land safely. They set up nearby and wait for morning to come so they can strike.In the morning, two U.S. helicopters carrying boats head for the water. They drop the boats with men and race off. They will help the squad extract Morales.Morales has been tortured further and can hear a drill being readied. She finally seems ready to break, pleading for the torture to stop. Her torturer doesn't listen and drills more holes in her hands. The squad hears her screams and Dave makes a call. They are going in before it is too late.Rorke and three men head into the water while Remy and a spotter stay behind. In a cool sequence, one of the men peers out of the water near a enemy on a dock. Remy shoots the guy in the head, and the solider catches the body into the water, not causing any alarm. Remy shoots several other cartel men and Rorke's men continue to search the buildings. A few cartel men find them and a panic forms in the camp. Mikey is shot and goes down while Rorke and the others clear the camp, with Remy providing backup. They find Morales and kill her torturer. They prep her for transport while another SEAL finds a cell phone on the torturer.Remy and their spotter realize that backup is arriving to the camp so they need to move Morales and Mikey now. Rorke's group jump into a truck outside and race off for the extraction. They call the gunboats telling them it will be a hot extract. Remy and his spotter are able to catch up with the group and destroy one of the trucks with a M72 LAW. They continue to race for extraction. Mikey, presumed dead, finally awakens and is shocked by the wound on his head. The cartel soldiers are firing on the truck and SEALS returns fire, killing several. They finally hit the river and drive straight into it just as their backup arrives. The gunboats utterly destroy two trucks with GAU-17/A miniguns and cause the rest of the cartel men to take cover. The squad gets themselves and Morales on the boats and escape.Abu Shabal goes to the Ukraine and goes to meet a contact who is making their explosive vests. The contact explains they are lightweight, concealable and use 500 ceramic ball bearings that cannot be picked up by metal detectors. The contact goes on to suggest a single vest used in a crowded stadium could cause an economic collapse.Christo and Shabal meet. Christo explains that the CIA is looking at him and he has to go underground. Shabal is enraged, saying he has trained Christo's men for a year and now Christo is failing to hold up his part of the agreement. Christo says that is not true; he is keeping his word but he will not be directly involved with Shabal's plans. Shabal will have to use Christo's associates. Shabal still thinks Christo is going back on their plans.The USS Bon Homme, U.S. Coast. Miller is told Mikey will live but he will lose an eye from his wound. Miller reveals that the phone they found when they rescued Morales opens up a powder keg. They have just found the Christo/Shabal link. Miller clarifies that Christo is more of a smuggler and Shabal is a terrorist who recruits bombers. Miller thinks Shabal will use Christo to smuggle suicide bombers over the U.S. border to hit them at home. They need to stop them before it's too late. Miller tells he will be sending AJ and Ray to Somalia, Africa to do recon on a supposed drop off for Shabal. The rest will stay on the boat in case they have to go to Mexico. As for Miller, he needs to track Christo down since he has tried to disappear. Rorke gives Dave a letter he wrote for his kid just in case he doesn't make it and Dave jokes he will turn it into a paper airplane.Ray and AJ jump out of plane with a boat. They meet up with a submarine and travel to Somalia. They take a submersible the rest of the way. They stake out the airstrip and see Shabal there. AJ notices a group of Flipinos praying and realizes they must be the suicide bombers. Down on the ground, Shabal is briefed how his people will be taken to Mexico to travel into the U.S. via tunnels. The planes take off and Ray and AJ pack up getting the photos and audio they needed.South Pacific seas. Christo is on a boat with several ladies and an armed escort.
Back on the USS Bon Homme, Rorke uses a Sat Phone to call his wife. His wife tells him to be careful. They exchange "I love you's" then hang up.Back at Christo's boat, one of his girls brings him a drink while he talks to his daughter. The boat begins to shake as several helicopters and boats surround the boat. The U.S. soldiers get on the boat and kill Christo's men and disable the men on the other boats. Miller comes onto the boat in a crisp suit and begins interrogating Christo. Christo explains that he and Shabal were childhood friends and their lives took different paths. He doesn't agree with Shabal's ideology but he agrees in the goals. He uses a pendulum as a metaphor. He is the first ball clacking forward, the last one is Shabal and in the middle taking the hits is the United States. Miller gets pissed and pushes it off the table. "You think this is a game!" Miller screams.Miller calms himself, and asks Christo about his family, his daughter. Christo says he hopes to see her every day. Miller shows him surveillance footage of him and his daughter playing in a pool. Miller lays into him with that. As of this moment, Christo's life is over. He will spend the rest of his life in a box. His wife will divorce him and get a new man. His daughter will get married one day and he won't be there. He will miss everything. Miller lets that sink in for a moment. Christo makes him swear that his family won't be harmed, and Miller gives his word.Christo explains that Shabal is smuggling suicide bombers into Mexico so they can go over the border to bomb U.S. targets in order to make 9/11 look like "a joke." Miller asks how he can stop it. "I can't," Christo says. Miller asks when it is happening. "It's happening as we speak," Christo says.Rorke, Dave and the rest of the squad travel to the border in the Baja California Norte state capital of Mexcali on Intel of Shabal's men being there. They land and covertly search a village for the men. However, they enter the wrong building and a woman alerts the entire village to their presence, causing a huge firefight with the drug runners. They are able to repel the attack with mass firepower though not without some close calls. Dave is hit in the chest with a RPG that luckily turns out to be a dud and overall, the SEALS suffer no casualities and take out a few of the suicide bombers and cartel members. Finding some of the vests, they realize the severity of the situation. However, they are briefed mid mission that they didn't get all the bombers. Shabal has already moved with the rest of the bombers.Shabal is on a boat handing out targets to his bombers. One says the Las Vegas Strip. Shabal looks at them and says they are truly a family now. Shabal and his bombers are herded onto a bus by a coyote who will take them to the tunnels.The SEAL squad rendezvous with the Mexican military who knows where Shabal is taking the bombers. However, the squad leader of the Mexican military warns that the area is protected by the drug cartels and they will protect Shabal at all costs. The men need to be ready for the extra enemies they will face.The SEALS, along with the Mexican military travel to the tunnels via small dump trucks. They break into the tunnel system compound where Shabal and his bombers are about to leave. A large firefight ensues where the SEALS and Mexican military fight the cartel to get to Shabal. Rorke, Dave, and a few others go searching while the others decimate the cartel foot soldiers.Near the tunnel entrances, Shabal orders one of his suicide bombers, a woman to stay behind and try and kill some of the SEALS, saying she shall meet her husband again in heaven.Rorke and Dave clear the rooms until they reach one with the woman. A lone tear rolls down her face. "BOMB!!!" Rorke screams and pulls Dave back as the woman pushes the button. She blows up, throwing ball bearing everywhere, killing a cartel member in the process.
Rorke, Dave, and the squad cautiously continue onward. They enter another room where in the rafters a man pulls the pin of a small grenade and throws it at them. Rorke sees it and having no time to get rid of it otherwise, makes the ultimate sacrifice. He jumps on top of it, shielding the others with his body. It explodes, mortally wounding him. The others look on in shock and Dave screams in horror. Ray tells Dave he's got Rorke and Dave moves on to kill Shabal and the bombers.At the tunnel entrance, the cartel coyote says he will cover Shabal and his men. Dave enters the room and kills the coyote and several of the bombers before being peppered with multiple bullets by Shabal. Dave's vision goes blurry and red. He sees one last bomber trying to run for the tunnel. He is able to use the last of his strength to raise his pistol and kill him. Shabal sees he is down, and approaches him to finish him off when another of the SEALS enters and fires multiple rounds into Shabal, instantly killing him. The man checks on Dave. One of the other men radios command telling them that Shabal and the suicide bombers are all dead, and that Rorke and Dave are down. We see Rorke, bleeding out as he blinks his eyes. He stops blinking and dies.Back in the U.S., they have Rorke's funeral. Dave survived his multiple gunshots but is in a wheelchair due to his injuries. Rorke's wife is presented with a flag, along with his father's flag, which Rorke carried with him every mission. Rorke's SEAL brethren stamp their Tridents into his coffin and salute him. Dave stays at the coffin of his friend in silence.We hear the narration of Dave. It's a letter to Rorke's son. He tells him he has the blood of warriors in him and he should live his life with no fear, and do his best to be a good man. Rorke's wife reads the letter and breaks down. She looks at her son and gives a sad smile, knowing at least her husband will live on through their child.The last scene is Dave at the beach alone with a surfboard. He stares at the waves, before going in, trying to finally surf.Title cards dedicate the film to the numerous U.S. SEALS that had given their lives since 9/11 in fighting the Islamic anarchists and suicide bombers. A text scrawl lists them all. | realism, violence, suspenseful, action, murder | train | imdb | Since my service ended I have been working in film and TV myself to somewhat try and make a difference in this manner.This movie may not have Oscar winning acting, but it gave me a true chilling effect of realism.
Act of Valour set out to create a film with 100% authentic and realistic action sequences and promote the lives of US Navy Seals.
The advertisement of using real navy seals as the main characters creates a level of military authenticity and accuracy that I have not seen in a film for a long time.
What little is lost in the SEALs' lack of acting chops is more than made up for by honest performances from the men who actually do this stuff for a living and the film's gripping battle realism.
If you've ever wanted to know what Call of Duty: The Movie would be like then look no further than Act of Valor, the action packed war film featuring active duty Navy Seals as some of the main characters.
It feels more like a recruitment video than a film, and I think it might have been better off as one instead.Act of Valor is a film that wants to be intense, super cool, and also profound.
I said before that the film stars actual Navy Seals, so it should be expected that the acting will be dreadful...
The script is beyond awful with incredibly cheesy and lifeless dialogue and a terribly empty story that most certainly, perhaps even deliberately, takes a back seat to the visual spectacle aspect of Act of Valor.All in all the story is practically non-existent here and the only thing this film has going for it is it's patriotism and firefights.
I won't deny that Act of Valor is pretty cool and it certainly makes one proud to be an American, but I cannot say that it's a good film.
The brutality of war is masked in the "awesomeness" of war machines, brothers in arms clichés, and heavy duty shooting action.At times you're not sure if you indeed watching a US army recruitment video, as some have said here.At times you feel like it's a B-class action flick.At times you feel like it's an adrenalin filled CGI-effect demovideo, or maybe even like playing Call of Duty on your XBox.As I am someone who likes movies a lot, especially action movies, who has been in the army, and who lives in Europe, it doesn't make much sense..
For those that have voted this down because of the acting, you knew going into it who the actors are, also this is not a movie about acting, it's a story about the lives of Navy Seals, it just so happens that they get to show you great action clips of what things are really like..
You get to see the real trials a Navy Seal faces, not portrayed by Hollywood producers and actors who have never seen real action!
I was actually rooting for the terrorists 3 minutes into the movie, hoping that they would kill all the SEALs and end my pain.I'm honestly worried about people who enjoy this movie because they clearly don't have the wherewithal to understand what a cliché is and why story tellers shouldn't use them.
"Act of Valor" proves that soldiers aren't actors and that if you're going to make a movie out of a gimmick you should ensure that someone has the common sense to stop the project before it becomes a colossal waste of time.
I can't go into the premise of this movie without informing you of the biggest flaw of the movie: the stunts and characters of this film are performed by actual active duty Navy SEALS.
I half expected Rorke to tell us that he was retiring after this last mission and that he hoped to reconcile with his son whom he hadn't seen in ten years and the villains to be gay child molesters on top of terrorists and drug dealers.The cliché storm is not limited to our heroes, this film goes out of its way to throw in cardboard cutouts for our heroes to fight in the form of Generic Brand Bad Guys.
It's a terrible movie that I can only "recommend" if you are yourself an active Navy SEAL, you haven't seen a movie in so long you can't remember what acting is like and you are not able to access any war/shooter video game movies.
Considering a lot of people in the film weren't actors, they did a good job.Loved it, and this movie could serve as a recruiting film for how awesome the Navy is.
Lead by SOC Dave and LCDR Rorke, a team of seven Navy Seals are re-deployed to prevent Abu Shabal (Jason Cottle) and his undetectable weapons of devastation from reaching highly populated American cities.Before addressing the reasons behind why this movie was received with mixed reactions, let me first dwell on what makes this movie different, and in my opinion, worth a watch.
First and foremost is the obvious casting of real life Navy SEALs. It's one thing to watch seasoned action movie stars blow stuff up because you expect them to.
I. Jane" (also Ridley Scott) is about the level of intensity and determination put into becoming a Navy SEAL, then this movie succeeds in showing the world why average paid, low profiled individuals risk their lives so that freedom remains a birth right in America.
- it does however work, and it works pretty well.The film is split into two parts - in both parts the SEALs (played by real SEALs) go on an operation - we get to see the insertion, action, extraction, the cost - I would have liked more planning and briefing - but I'll forgive it as there was also no obligatory bar scene.
It is reminiscent of British and American war films - John Wayne would be proud - but it brings some modern sensibilities to the filming.It's shot in a basic action format with some nods to documentary - though more would have been good - and the camera looks and feels quite similar to Arnie's action films - Predator and Commando - and it even borrows some tricks from thriller movies - over- shoulder, heavy breathing, etc; There's nothing new, but it is a good solid, easy to watch, approach.
But thats not something that makes a movie better.I'm sure if this where real actors everyone would be like: "crap this movie sucks" *I'm not criticizing any thing associated with American military or politics in the first place.
I'm rather criticizing the makers of this movie for letting us pay money to watch an over length navy commercial in which real soldiers give them self's away to act real war business so it appears cool.WAR IS NOT COOL!
Casting real soldiers for action scenes is one thing, but to ask them to carry a movie and take an audience with them seems like hubris.
"This film is based on real acts of valor." Moreover, I love that the filmmakers drafted actual Navy SEALs to star in the film to realistically portray and physically fill the roles they had written and that the SEALs' names are not in the film's credits.
They are all socialist and hate America...they would rather, as this current President has stated, see us be "More like China" What is very heartening is the Public reception with this movie beating all others out at the box office the first weekend it showed....the American People know a good American Story when they see it and this was one of the most Encouraging American Movies of all-time along with "American Sniper" and "Lone Survivor" our War movies of this decade have finally hit the same quality of patriotism as those from the 50's and 60's such as "A Bridge too Far", "The Great Escape", "The Longest Day" and "Patton" just to name a few.I believe the current and ONGOING WAR ON TERROR which is NOT OVER and has never stopped folks....will be more defining to our way of life and freedom than either of the so-called BIG WARS we're ever in danger of becoming.The movie is based on true events and uses real, active navy seals and their families to depict the actual capabilities of today's 21st century special operations warriors....completely blew me away and left a lump in my throat and great food for thought with the ending monologue and Tecumseh poem....it truly made me re-evaluate my life.
While it was definitely obvious that the soldiers in this movie (who were actual SEALS) were not the best actors out there, and some scenes were perhaps a little bit overdone because of it, what I absolutely love about this movie is the clean and accurate depiction of modern warfare (in as far as my experience has gone).
I think anyone who likes war and action movies will appreciate the outstanding action scenes and details this film indeed has.
I enjoyed the movie and found it, in some ways, scary that military like these Seal teams are what stands between terrorist and another threat to the United States.
These men and women are amazing and to finally allow them to be shown on TV is an enduring credit to the director and crew that had to go against everything Hollywood currently stands for to do it.Real life military personnel and their families are not what the Oscar critics are going to want to see so don't expect it to get any acclaim this year or the next.
Although the acting was probably not as top-notch as some cinema buffs would be used to, the fact that they are not paid actors but actual Navy SEALs means it's more than good enough.
Up front, I have to say that although none of them will likely win an academy award for their acting, their effort in an unfamiliar landscape was heroic and a good deal better that other attempts we've all seen to use "real" people in film roles (with the possible exception of Audie Murphy).
I was honored to see a screening of Act Of Valor following Navy SEALs on a typical stretch of their lives at home with their families, through actual missions in defense of my freedom.
They don't actually need to be SEAL qualified, just enough to perform the correct actions, because that's what movies are all about: making what's on the screen look believable.What Act of Valor has instead are real-life SEALS pretending to be actors.
The film takes you literally all over the world, and it's one heck of a ride, it truly broadens the scope of what these men do, and as an American, it truly makes me proud to be one, but not only of these SEALS, but of our branches of Militaries in general.The action scenes are stunning, they are efficient, brutal, and to the point, i've never gotten so many chills in my life.
But with all that there is still the emotional side present with this film that rounds out Act of Valor to a fantastic movie that is worth going and seeing.
The acting in a few of the beginning scenes was kind of sketchy but during the action scenes (75% of the movie) it was the same that would be expected of Hollywood actors.
The overall story of the film is pretty basic, but knowing that those are actual Navy Seals on screen really drives it home.
Act of Valor has accomplished what the entertainment industry alone never could: create a blockbuster, heart- pumping, breathtaking, tear-jerker film with a wholesome message and unmatched authenticity, all without the help of big-named professional actors.The Bandito Brothers were invited by the Department of Defense to make a movie featuring the elite Special Operations Forces (SOF) known as the Navy SEALs. They were given unprecedented access.
Among the highly publicized and greatest hook of this would-be potential blockbuster is none others than casting actual active-duty Navy SEALs as lead roles -- the first of its kind ever seen in Hollywood movie.
excellent movie, actions scenes are well done actors does a great job story reminds me of modern day video game, in my opinion this should have been a mini series with more to the story , after you watch the movie it feels like they rushed itI recommend if you have the chance to watch the movie watch it,it's pity it hasn't been released oversees i had to watch it onlinemy only question is some say the actors were in service navy seals is that true or false, i don't think the military would allow that10 out 10 :) PS English is my second language so excuse my spelling :) and it would be great if they make a sequel.
The seals acting when it comes to normal dialog isn't at strong as the actual actors, but that doesn't take much away from the movie.
These men are integral to telling the story, and as one would expect, the movie comes from the point of view that the team's actions in the film and in general are noble in cause.
My husband and I just finished watching this film and BOTH really enjoyed it,there is of course strong language and some torture but you must expect that from this sort of film.I would perhaps compare it to a BLACK HAWK DOWN type of movie and cannot criticize the acting because they made us believe they were Navy Seals and they were!!
Not only does this film use real Navy Seals (US SAS) and their families, it is "based on real life acts of valour." It makes other action films ridiculous because this is showing it for real, these guys know about ops and shooting and some of the moves are just incredible.
The action is, in places, incredible and it's great seeing how it should be done compared to films where the actors have had training but are "pretending;" there's such a smoothness and togetherness with how the SEALS work - like they are fluid and symbiotic.
We admired films like Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan but finally, a movie that truly honors the troops, the finest action military war movie ever made has finally arrived in ACT OF VALOR.
Starring six active duty Navy SEALs, so from the get-go, ACT OF VALOR intends on taking you to the heart of how it's all done, because you're not dealing with actors trying to be soldiers.
ACT OF VALOR is military action movie at its best
I'm not sure if every print released in theaters would have the intro by the directing team but the screening that I attended, did.
I have to give mad props to the six real life Navy SEALs who are stars of this film, they may not have acting backgrounds and it's more than obvious when you see their performance on screen, but you can tell that they did the best they could and it's full of conviction, these are guys who really want their stories told so that people could get a better understanding of why they do what they do everyday.I as an action fan, am very pleased with ACT OF VALOR's high intensity, and I'm not talking just about the masterfully choreographed combat sequences and the advanced battlefield technology that will leave you in awe, but I also enjoy the film's first person shooter point of view that keeps you on the edge of your seat, it's better than any found footage method could ever hope to get, the way ACT OF VALOR handles it is more effective, more engaging, it doesn't need to go IMAX or 3D just to get you in the jungle and feel like you're part of the mission.
Throughout the film, I had pretty low expectations upon watching it and thought it was going to be one of those mediocre action movies that you would expect from Hollywood, but when I was captivated by it's story, I said to myself, "This is a very original movie.
Act of Valor was a good attempt by the first time directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh with real-time army men doing some wonderful action sequences.
It was a bold attempt by the first time directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh to recruit the real-time war heroes in a military movie and the result was in form of a good action flick made on a shoe-string budget (12 million).
In essence there are only character actors, and the dialogue is kept simple, especially for the SEALs. These facts give the movie a very different feel than something like Mission Impossible.
And while Act of Valor may not be a work of art, it is an excellent action film which gives us a sense for the real heroes who are out there working in the US military..
But one of the big things that makes the movie great to me is that because they used real SEALs they couldn't give them a credit.
So the only thing you know about the people playing these roles is they're real SEALs and the only time you've seen them is in this movie.Also great action scenes with a lot of impressive filming locations like them being on the top of real subs and aircraft carriers at different points in the movie, to add to the realism.
Basically all the movie does is showing the one shootout or action scene after the other, with in between some horrendous dialog and acting by its non-actors.
Real Navy SEALs or not, this movie is nothing more than a propaganda tool made to look like a video game in order to appeal to the 20-something Call of Duty generation.
I was a bit apprehensive about watching this movie at first knowing that the roles in the movie were played out by real-life Navy Seals. |
tt0453556 | TMNT | The film begins with a turtles prologue, explaning their transformation and their victory of defeating their arch-nemisis The Shredder. Then, 3000 years back, Yaolt, a warrior-king, and his four generals, lead an army in conquest of the world. After defeating a Central American kingdom, Yaotl learns that when nine stars align every 3000 years, called the Stars of Kikan, a portal of immense power to another world opens as a beam of light. The portal gives Yaotl immortality, but turns his generals to stone and releases thirteen monsters into the world, which decimates his army and remain active into the present.In present day Central America, a group of corrupt army officers steal a village's supplies. While driving through a forest, the group is stopped by a log on the road and is silently attacked by an unseen enemy. Their truck and the village's supplies roll back to the village the next morning. Some time later, April O' Neil searches through the forest to discover Leonardo.Leo asks of his brothers, and what has become of them after his departure. Donetello is now a one-turtle tech-support company, Michealangelo has started a party buisness called Cowabunga Carl, and Rapheal sleeps all day, and by night is a motorcycle riding vigilante named The Nightwatcher, where he is taking out robbers who have robbed a bank.April, meanwhile, has started a shipping business and was in the country to get an ancient artifact. Leo has been living in Central America for the past year in order to find himself as a leader, and he doesn't want to return lest Splinter think him a failure. April pleads with him to come back, but fails. Though she suspects this since he disappears before she can say anything else.Back in New York, Mikey drives his Cowabunga Carl van through the streets and parks it in an alleyway. Slipping through a manhole, he skates the sewer pipes to the turtles' lair. While watching a story about Nightwatcher, Mikey shows his fondness for his vigilante days, which Don tells him to get over. Raph mocks him for moving on so quick and supports the Nightwatcher, which starts an argument between the two. Master Splinter comes in and stops the argument from escalating, and Ralph heads off to bed.At the docks, April is supervising the unloading of an ancient statue for her cargo business. After calling her roommate Casey Jones, the two bring the statue to their client, Max Winters. Winters is the head of WintersCorp, one of the largest corporations on Earth. Casey accidentally knocks over a ceramic pot, which triggers an alarm that locks down the whole building. The statue is the last of the Four Generals, which Winters has been gathering. After April and Casey leave, Karai (Zhang Ziyi) and the Foot Clan enter. After the defeat of the Shredder, the Foot Clan has lost a great deal of its former glory, agreeing to work for Winters for a price. Winters orders them to be his eyes and ears and to bring to him some "friends" who will be coming to the city.As Nightwatcher, Raphael is confronted by Casey, who knows it's Raph under the armor, saying that he looks like a big, metal turtle. The two join forces to catch a crook that Raph busted a week ago. Later that night it is made clear Raph does miss Leo, despite his anger towards him, while Casey admits his own insecurities over his and April's relationship. In Winter's tower, Winters uses small devices to wake his Stone Generals up.Elsewhere, Leo makes his way into New York through holding an airplane tire. He leaps off and lands in the water, and soon is making his way through the sewers. He enters the Turtles' base and finds an unsurprised Splinter in his dojo. Leo apologizes for failing, and Splinter assures that he didn't. It's more important to focus on making his family a team again and he forbids the four from fighting until they can fight as one. Splinter also mentions to Leo that Raph was the most hurt by his absence, although he won't admit it. Raph hears this and becomes jealous of Splinter's favor of Leo over him. Leo wakes up Don and Mikey, and they are overjoyed to see him, while Raph briefly greets him before going to bed.Later, as the four turtles meet on a building to train, where Leo admits he wants to stop the Nightwatcher, the four discover the Foot Clan fighting a giant, ape-like monster in a building construction. In order to stop it from escaping, the four join in and cause extreme damage to the building before being covered in rubble. While the brothers are buried, the four stone generals appear, defeat the monster, and carry it off in a garbage truck. The turtles free themselves and return to the sewers.In the WintersCorp building, Karai is angry that she was not told of the monsters, but agrees to continue assisting the stone generals, even after Winters apologizes for making them 'hired guns', and stating that he has more faith in his Stone Generals. The monster is placed in chains and sealed in a cage. After learning of the incident, Splinter reprimands the turtles for fighting against his orders. Raph becomes angry at Leo and leaves the lair. The Stone Generals, meanwhile, along with the Foot, violently defeat the monsters one at a time.Raph meets up with Casey and the two witness the Foot and the Generals beat a bat-like monster. They are spotted and Raph is hit with a dart and a General's stone shuriken before they escape. One of the Stone Generals, Gato, goes after them, but runs off to avoid being seen by a police helicopter. Raph falls unconscious afterwards.Meanwhile, the generals are beginning to realize that once Winters has all thirteen monsters, their immortality will be forfeited, so they begin laying plans against him while Don calculates that once the stars align, the portal will fall right into the WintersCorp building.That night, Raph, as Nightwatcher, saves a cook from another monster and is attacked by it in the diner, soon feeding it the ninja weapon smoke bomb. The monster runs out, and the Nightwather is mistaken by the cook as a villain, as he tries to give him back the cash register, but is seen by Leo who chases him down. Eventually they fight on a rooftop and Raph's helmet is knocked off by an Upper cut from Leo. The two argue before Raph challenges Leo to prove his superiority. In the fight, Raph breaks Leo's swords and wins, but, realizing how close he came to killing his brother, runs off. As Leo watches him go he is hit with a dart by the Generals, who wish to use him as a substitute for the final monster. Raph hears his screams but is too late to help.Raph heads back home and confesses what he's done to Splinter, telling his master that he understands why he chose Leo to lead the four of them. Splinter assures him that he respects Raph's passion and courage, the traits of a great leader, and he does love him deeply, also stating that these traits must be tempered with compassion and humility. Raph tells Splinter that Leonardo has been captured, showing him the broken swords that he himself broke. Soon the whole team, including Casey and April, led by Raph, make their plan to get Leo back. April reveals a new yellow ninja outfit she got in Japan, and gives Casey a black, metal hockey mask.The stars align and a beam of energy shoots from the sky and down the roofless tower of Winter's building. Inside, Winters is starting up the process when things start going wrong and as the battle between an army of Foot and the Turtles rages outside, the generals tell Winters that they have no plans on becoming mortal again.The Turtles get into the building and shut the security doors to keep the Foot out. This is accomplished by Casey, who breaks another ancient looking piece of pottery, closing the heavy metal doors. They free Leo and Raph gives him a new pair of swords, tucked in Casey's weapons bag, as an apology. Winters gets tossed off the balcony in his corporations main hall, by his betraying stone brothers, and wakes up to see April and 'giant turtles' standing before him. At first he thinks he's simply dazed, until April tells him they know what he's been up to, and wants him to close the portal. Winters tells them that is exactly what he is trying to do, to send the monsters back and break the curse he and his brothers are under, right as the Foot break the door down.The Generals then reveal there plans to use the portal to summon an army of monsters forth into their world, and keep their immortal curse going as long as they don't have the 13th monster. They urge the Foot to join them, but Karai honors her agreement with Winters and sends her ninjas to locate the final monster so that they can bring it back to WintersCorps tower. The turtles stay behind to deal with the generals, Splinter and Winters fight the monsters that are coming out of the form the portal back, and April, Casey, and Karai go to find the real thirteenth monster.Working as a team, the Turtles prove to be an even match for the Generals. Leonado battles the cat-like General Gato, Michelangelo battles the female snake-like General Serpiente, Donatello battles the gorilla-like General Mono, and Raphael battles the eagle-like General Agulia. Impressed with their skills, Agulia offers them a place along side them, which Raph naturally rejects.Pretty soon, Michelangelo's 'Cowabunga Carl Party Van', driven by April, who is arguing with Casey, is seen rocketing through the streets with a dragon on its tail, while Karai wonders why they aren't more concerned about the monster chasing them. April drives the van through the lobby just as the turtles get all four generals lined up. April brakes hard, crashing into various objects and causing the chasing dragon to trip and slide across the marble floor, sweeping the generals into the vortex, sending both the generals and the monsters to another world.As the team pulls itself clear of the rubble, Casey kisses April, much to Raph's amusement. Karai tells the turtles that they will have business later and hints at the return of the Shredder before leaving. Winters, laughing joyously, dies, turning into dust which Mikey accidentally breathes in.Back at the headquarters, Splinter puts Winter's battle helmet on a shelf in his dojo, along with the Shredder's helmet. Raph also puts his Nightwatcher helmet on the shelves, retiring it from service. Mikey soon attempts to put his "Cowabunga Carl" mask on the shelf. That night, the turtles jump across the rooftops of New York as Raph reflects on what it means to be a hero... and what it means to be family. | violence, entertaining, flashback | train | imdb | null |
tt1012804 | Redbelt | The movie opens in a Jiu-Jitsu studio where Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is teaching an advanced class. Mike employs a unique training method. Before a sparring match, each fighter draws one of three marbles, two black and one white. Whoever draws a black marble has to fight with a handicap as determined by the spin of a wheel much like a board game. Joe (Max Martini), a police officer training for a black belt, draws a black marble and must compete with his hands shackled in front of him while his opponent drew the white marble and is unencumbered. Joe puts up an impressive fight but ultimately loses when he is unable to break a choke hold. Mike consoles him by showing Joe that despite the handicap, he could've easily broken the choke hold if he was more focused.Meanwhile, Laura (Emily Mortimer) is driving through a heavy downpour desperately trying to locate a pharmacy before it closes to fill a prescription. Frustrated and distracted while talking on her phone, she sideswipes a parked truck. Seeking the truck's owner, Laura wanders into the Jiu-Jitsu academy while Mike is demonstrating how Joe's police issued shoulder holster is a liability in a fight. Joe sees that Laura is soaked and distressed so he chivalrously tries to take her coat. Startled, she grabs Joe's stray gun which he set down only briefly during Mike's private demonstration. The gun fires and shatters the studio's front window. Laura picks up the ejected shell casing while Joe and Mike are shocked by how easily and dramatically she was frightened.Mike and Joe agree to hide that the shooting ever happened. Technically, the police could charge Laura with attempted murder which wouldn't be fair to a woman who is clearly just disturbed and meant no harm. But claiming the window broke because of strong wind makes it an act of God and not covered by Mike's insurance. This sparks an argument between Mike and his wife over finances. Apparently the academy is bankrupt. The only reason it hasn't closed is because Mike's wife, Sondra (Alice Braga), is supplementing with profits from her fashion business which puts a strain on her income. Sondra advises Mike to ask for a loan from Sondra's brother, Ricardo (John Machado), a mixed martial arts champion.Mike goes to visit Ricardo at his club which is co-owned by Sondra's other brother, Bruno (Rodrigo Santoro). Mike notices that the club has no bouncer. Joe was supposed to be bouncing to earn extra cash for his family's unnamed medical bills. Ricardo is unavailable so Mike meets with Bruno instead. While waiting to see Bruno, Mike is entertained by a cocky magician. The man displays some incredible sleight of hand by turning a die from black to white with uncanny ease. Mike also learns from the bartender that Joe quit bouncing because Bruno never paid him.In the club's office, Bruno and fight promoter Marty Brown (Ricky Jay) are discussing how to promote a championship mixed martial arts fight between Ricardo and a Japanese legend, Morisaki (Enson Inoue). Marty makes some references to fixing the fight and Bruno debates with him about whether or not Ricardo will go for it.Mike finally meets with Bruno and questions him about why he didn't pay Joe. Bruno gives a mysteriously vague explanation claiming that he planned on paying Joe eventually but Joe was impatient. Bruno also tries to encourage Mike to fight on the undercard in the aforementioned upcoming fight which could potentially pay out $50,000. But Mike follows a strict, samurai-like code. He believes competition weakens the fighter because a competition is not a fight, especially when it's only for money. Their conversation is interrupted when Bruno notices on the security monitors that Chet Frank (Tim Allen), an aging Hollywood action star, just entered the club without a bodyguard.Chet offers to buy a woman at the bar a drink, but the woman's boyfriend gets offended and picks a fight with Chet. When the boyfriend attempts to attack Chet with a broken bottle, Mike intervenes to stop the fight. Two more guys attack Mike, but Mike quickly subdues them.The following day, a messenger shows up at Mike's door delivering an expensive watch from Chet Frank and an invitation to dinner. Chet is grateful for Mike's intervention in the bar fight. Mike gives the watch to Joe and advises him to pawn it. Mike feels responsible for hooking Joe up with an employer that stiffed him.Mike goes to the academy the following morning and finds that Laura is paying to fix the window. She apologizes for her odd behavior the previous evening and accepts an enrollment form for Mike's class.That evening during dinner, Chet's wife (Rebecca Pidgeon) admires Sondra's fashion style and arranges an informal business deal to buy a large supply of dresses from Sondra's company. After hearing some of the tenets of Mike's teaching philosophy, Chet invites Mike to the set of his recent film project the next morning. Before parting ways, Sondra encourages Mike to tell Chet's business associate, Jerry Weiss (Joe Mantegna), about the marble drawing training method. Jerry thinks it's an interesting concept and comments on how it could be a clever gimmick to use in competitive fighting to draw a crowd.The next morning, Mike visits the movie set. Chet is running late so Mike wanders the set and discovers a colleague/acquaintance is doing stunt choreography for the movie's hand to hand combat. Having served in Desert Storm, Mike was able to answer some of Chet's technical questions about the military. Impressed with Mike's knowledge, Chet asks Mike to be a co-producer of the film. Jerry invites Mike to dinner that evening to discuss the details. Mike returns home to share the good news with Sondra and begins faxing details of his training methods to Jerry so they can be used in the movie.Mike meets with Laura later that afternoon for a private lesson. Laura reveals that she was raped while the assailant held a knife to her throat thus explaining why she's easily startled. Skeptical of Mike being able to help her, she begins to exit the studio. Mike aggressively grabs her from behind holding a rubber training knife to her throat. After showing her how she could've escaped from such a predicament, Laura cathartically sobs.Later while preparing for the beginner class, Joe shows up to the studio and informs Mike that he was temporarily suspended from duty after trying to pawn a stolen watch. Mike is shocked to learn it was stolen and assures Joe that he will straighten things out.When meeting Jerry for dinner, Mike insists on sorting out the issue of the stolen watch before discussing other business. Jerry is shocked and embarrassed to learn the watch was stolen and excuses himself to go make a phone call to handle the matter. Jerry never returns and Mike leaves the restaurant puzzled. When Mike gets home, Sondra is also confused. The phone numbers that Chet's wife gave her have been disconnected. Sondra is panicky because she already ordered $30,000 worth of fabric based on their oral business arrangement. Sondra borrowed the money for the fabric from a loan shark (David Paymer).Mike meets with the loan shark to plead for more time to pay back the money. During their conversation, Mike notices Marty Brown and Bruno on television promoting the mixed martial arts match of Ricardo versus Morisaki. As a promotional gimmick, they are planning to use Mike's marble drawing technique for the undercard fights.Mike then hires Laura to see if they can sue the fight promoter for stealing Mike's idea. The problem is they can't prove how Marty Brown could've stolen the idea if Mike never told it to him. That question is answered when Jerry Weiss enters Marty's office and refers to Marty as his new partner. This connected Mike's idea to Jerry then to Marty thus allowing Laura to prove theft and conspiracy to defraud. But Marty's lawyer threatens that if they don't drop the lawsuit then he will hand over proof to the police, in the form of an empty shell casing with Laura's fingerprints, that she attempted to kill an off duty cop. He can also prove that Mike was a witness who covered up the attempted murder by bribing the cop with a stolen wrist watch.Upon hearing about this situation, Joe feels entirely responsible and kills himself. Mike visits Joe's wife to console her but finds she is inconsolable. She claims Joe was trying to preserve the honor of the academy and Mike's principles. But mostly she's angry because she's stuck with a stack of bills that she can't pay. Mike feels obligated to help. Desperately in need of money, Mike decides to abandon his principles and compete as an undercard fighter in the upcoming competition.When Mike arrives at the arena before the fight, he learns that the promoters have made the marble drawing look like an elaborate, ancient ritual conducted by an elderly man wearing a ceremonial mask and escorted by tribal drummers. Mike also learns that his mentor, known as The Professor, is present at the fight. As Mike walks through the halls of the arena, he peers through a partially opened dressing room door and sees that the elderly Asian man who draws the colored stones is actually the magician from Bruno's club in disguise. The magician is vainly displaying his sleight of hand skills in the dressing room mirror and secretly switching colored marbles. Mike realizes that the fight is fixed. Unbeknownst to the competitors, the magician assigns the handicap as predetermined by the fight promoters. Disgusted by this revelation, Mike confronts the promoters/conspirators: Marty, Jerry and Bruno. They confirm the accusation and also reveal that Ricardo is intentionally losing the fight to Morisaki so they can make money on the rematch.When Mike accuses them of being responsible for Joe's suicide, Jerry laments that it was unfortunate but blames Mike for being stupid enough to give a gift from someone as important as Chet Frank. Jerry also tells Mike that Sondra is the one who told them about Laura shooting the window. Bruno justifies her betrayal by explaining that his sister is too smart to stay with someone who can't provide for her.As Mike is exiting the arena, he meets with Laura. Their conversation is not audible, but it ends with Laura giving Mike a loud, echoing slap to the face. Mike then re-enters the arena determined to expose that the fights are fixed. One by one, security guards try to stop Mike but they are unsuccessful. Finally, Ricardo engages Mike. As they begin fighting in the arena's corridors, the audience and camera crews take notice. Eventually, Ricardo puts Mike in a difficult choke hold. As he's losing consciousness, Mike is inspired by the sight of The Professor and reverses the hold. Mike wins the fight. He is approached by Morisaki who awards Mike with his ivory-studded belt, previously referred to as a Japanese national treasure. Mike is then approached by The Professor himself who awards Mike with the coveted Redbelt, signifying Mike as his one worthy pupil. | violence, neo noir, plot twist | train | imdb | As David Edelstein says in his nonetheless favorable review of 'Redbelt,' its plot is "so bizarrely convoluted it barely holds together on a narrative level." Maybe Edelstein's right that this is typical of fight movies; it's even more typical of Mamet.
Some have just attributed this to Mamet's doing a "noir," a "prize fight story," even a "Rocky," with "mixed martial arts" (jujitsu really) the updated replacement of boxing--and this time not even getting in the way of the (for him) new genre.
This is so much an action movie and Ejiofor is so convincing that the dialog very rarely sounds mannered this time.If you understand what Mamet's doing and how that's different this time from both Mamet's routines and the sports genre film, the ending ins't hasty or confused so much as emotionally satisfying and right.
However, after watching Redbelt, I have been forced to say something.In short the film is about a martial arts instructor who is too idealistic for the real world around him.
Many people also felt that this film should have been considered for the Cadillac Award, and were disappointed that Redbelt was ineligible for the top competition honor.As always taut screenplay and cracking dialogues were the hallmark of the film, like any other Mamet movie or play.
I have not been able to pin point so far, but I do see parallels between the protagonists of his earlier film Spartan (played by Val Kilmer) and Redbelt (played to greatness by the ever brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor).Overall an amazing film and Mamet fans won't be disappointed..
Maybe I was tired or just too caught up in the acting and fight sequences, but it really surprised me in a good way; I didn't see it coming at all.Credit should go to the performers too for keeping their end of the game high quality.
A true hero, Mike Terry continues on his path of righteousness, pushing the anger away and clearing his mind to prevail.The rest of the castconsisting of many Mamet regulars like wife Rebecca Pidgeon, David Paymer, and Ricky Jay in small rolestake the words and nail each reading.
Max Martini stands out as Terry's star pupil and backbone emotionally to the story; Alice Braga is good as the wife finding that standing by her man may not be the way to succeed financially in life; Emily Mortimer is fantastic as the troubled attorney who's accidental introduction to the gym puts everything into motion; and Tim Allen shows that maybe he still has some good serious turns in him if only he can get some time off from children's fare.
Respect, honor, greed, back-stabbing and gratitude rule this film, turning it into an intriguing, emotional and entertaining movie.With fantastic acting by most, smart, realistic writing, and some emotional scenes, REDBELT delivers an especially big wallop on the intimate side.
Writer director David Mamet gave a brief introduction before presenting what he is known for, a very intriguing story with several characters that have their own agendas and who will deceive to get what they want.The protagonist is Mike Terry as played with smoldering intensity by Chiwetel Ejiorfor, who've I've seen before in supporting roles in "American Gangster" and "Talk to Me." Generally, he's generally is every single scene and the audience will discover the plot twists the same time he does.The first scene begins with Ejiofor as a jujitsu instructor, shouting "Breath, breathe, there is always a way out," as he oversees two contestants Max Martini and Jose Pablo Cantino having quite an intense workout that almost has fatal consequences until Ejorfor intervenes.
Advertising an all-star cast, the trailer for Red Belt, and two generous reviews from otherwise reliable TV sources, inspired hope in me that Red Belt might reset the bar for martial arts action films, marking an end to the Bruce Lee era, exiting that dragon and entering a new era of fight realism adjoined to excellence in cinema.
There are few fight scenes in Red Belt, and this was okay by me because the goal, I thought, was to make a real movie, unlike film fodder from Charles Norris et al,where plots are the meek excuse for flashy, over-choreographed fight action at every street corner, and good guys always prevail.
I am a fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor (Mike Terry, lead character), and I would not have gone to Red Belt had he, or an actor of his caliber not starred in the movie.
David Mamet's Redbelt is more than a Jiu-Jitsu competition for the highest belt; in the best tradition of complicated fight films, this competition is for the principled soul of academy owner/instructor Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the fight representing a challenge to his long-standing Samurai principle that "a competition is not a fight." Mamet's love affair with crisp crude language (See Spartan and Glengarry Glen Ross for starters) is in this film still a staccato rhythm mixed with minimal dialogue emphasizing the great issues such as authenticity and honesty rather than expletives.
Not to mention his rich personal life.So if you're a Mamet fan or a student of cinema or of dialogue or of acting or of martial arts, see REDBELT (one word).
But I suspect it was this:And this may be more important than anything I have said above-- It may be that Mamet sees such cynical ugliness and dirtiness in Hollywood and in professional fighting (both part of the same set of ethics) that no plot point is needed to simply tell us, Hey, those are bad people.But if cynicism is what he wants to promote, how's this: I cynically suspect Mamet wrote this story so he could meet some favorite boxers and hang out inside the boxing and martial arts scene.
You don't know who any of the characters are, the movie doesn't explain who anybody is, and there is no way of discerning what role (if any) they all play in the plot until the last few minutes of the film.Basically, if you don't mind watching a depressing movie that makes little sense until the end of the movie, then be my guest.
Without other option, Mike decides to fight in the ring to raise the necessary money to pay his debts."Redbelt" is a deceptive movie of the great writer and director David Mamet.
What remains most remarkable about Redbelt, David Mamet's latest feature as writer/director, is not that it's seemingly like many a boxing/fight genre picture, or that he incorporates a solid twist with it being ju-jitsu with martial arts code thrown in.
It's that he places a lead character, Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a truly honorable and good man who lives completely by the code as a teacher and practicer of black-belt ju-jitsu, into the midst of a usual Mametian universe.
It's this conflict, of putting a heroic character who will without fail do the right thing even when presented with his hope on a (dirty) silver platter, that makes things a little more interesting than the average bear.That being said, Mamet is working in something of a limited scope- of the traditional guy-gets-in-a-jam B-movie found in some sports and noir flicks of old Hollywood.
Instead, Mamet has other characters to that part of the show, like Tim Allen's typical movie-star character (which he fits just right for), and grubby fight promoter Ricky Jay. Then there are some good, tricky female parts for Alice Braga (a rising talent to be sure), and Emily Mortimer as a lawyer.While the dialog, as usual for Mamet, is beyond reproach, it's a sensibility in the material that keeps things moving well along when things should seem obvious and black-and-white.
After saving his ass in a vicious bar brawl, action star Chet Frank (Tim Allen) asks jujitsu sensei Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), "So you train people to fight?" Mike replies, "No, I train people to prevail." David Mamet's "Redbelt" has a poignant reverence for the martial arts in a captivating story of honor.
I had read that Mamet himself is a brown belt in Brazilian Jujitsu, and had wanted to a make movie about mixed martial arts for a while.
This is coming from someone who's not a David Mamet aficionado, but "Red Belt" had everything I love in movies: a great story with complex characters, clash of ethics, vice, greed, and self-preservation.
But everyone who familiar with David Mamet's works will know what they have to be expected.Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner and self-defense instructor who imparts upon his students the skills to survive on the street, rather than prevail in unarmed combat sports.
The story follows Mike Terry, a martial arts instructor who teaches his students how to prevail in the real world and come out of any situation.
When an elevation of unfortunate events starting with an encounter of a disturbed lawyer and ranging from problems dealing with money, marriage, and morals, Mike finds it harder and harder to live his honorable life and might have to go against his beliefs which means stepping into the ring.Anyone stepping into this movie expecting an action packed mixed martial arts extravaganza like Undisputed 2 will be disappointed.
This is the only martial arts movie in my collection where I don't care about how well shot and awesome the fight scenes are but with Redbelt I come for the emotional ride and well told and relatable narrative.
I have almost always enjoyed the movies from director and screenwriter David Mamet,because of their ingenious ideas,sharp dialogues and detailed performances.However,there were a few occasions in which I was not completely satisfied with the mechanic of the stories.In other words,on various occasions I could note the gears from the story turning in order to getting to the specific point Mamet wants to lead.That's not a fatal fail,and that does not avoid them from being excellent movies,but that thing makes them to be a little bit rigid.Redbelt represents a significant thematic innovation on his career,offering a very interesting re-interpretation of the martial arts movies; or,better said,from the concepts of honour and nobility on which are based some of the best movies from that genre.Besides,in Redbelt,Mamet left his old tricks aside,so because,of that,the movie feels less rigid than other films from his filmography.As a final result,we have a fascinating movie and I think it is one of his best films,by my humble point of view.Redbelt is the nearest to an action movie directed by Mamet.Spartan was near from that genre,but I think this time we have a more concrete combination of suspense,story and violence.Of course that by saying "action genre",I am not talking about hollow male fantasies with invincible heroes and a lot of special effects.Mamet is more interested on the intellectual aspect of the action and I think the best confrontations from this movie are on the main character's mind.What takes me to the great Chiwetel Ejiofor.In his relatively short career,he has consecrated himself as one of the best contemporary actors; one of those interpreters who have talent for facing any role,like the exuberant travesty from Kinky Boots to the shy concierge from Dirty Pretty Things.I hope to see someday his huge talent to be recognized by awards,but what is more important than that is that he always brings phenomenal performances,as we can see on Redbelt.His acting on this movie is simultaneously detailed,deep and credible.The rest of the cast is also very solid,and the members who mostly stand out are Tim Allen,who surprised me very much with an excellent performance,and Emily Mortimer,who is simply perfect.The screenplay is brilliant and the best element from it is the way in which it shows the interactions between the characters.The only fail from it is that the ending is a little bit predictable.But that is something minor in sight of all the positive elements from this movie.Redbelt is an excellent movie which deserves a very enthusiastic recommendation because of its great screenplay,its perfect performances,and for being very entertaining from the moment it starts to the moment it ends..
While there is no denying a great screenplay is the ideal starting point for any good movie, Mamet's arrogant approach to directing is the very reason his films always feel like lifeless slaves to the written word.
Redbelt is so un-self aware, it honestly believes it can pull off one of the most hamfisted, yet straight faced endings to a martial arts movie since Van Damme's cheesefest Bloodsport.One of these days A Hard Rains Gonna Fall and I sure hope it takes David Mamet the director down the sewer with it.http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/.
What an amazing and powerful film.It just goes to show that Mamet is capable of applying his style to just about any kind of film.I don't know why I discovered this movie by accident, I should be hearing about it from everyone, it's really that good.I won't sit here and go over the plot or anything like that, just wanted to say that I never write comments on films here, as a matter of fact, this is only the 2nd time.This movie is awesome, if you are a fan of David Mamet's films it is absolutely essential to watch as it really shows an evolution and maturity in his work never seen before.The usual gang is all here, Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, Rebecca Pidgeon, with everyone putting in a solid performance.
None of the individuals story lines had a proper ending, especially Tim Allen who went missing through most of the movie and after all of the various events, Mike Terry still didn't solve his money problems so it all seemed a bit pointless.
When I started watching this, I wasn't too sure what I was getting myself into, we all watched typical action films; they tend to be a 'no-brainer', well, not this one.The cast could not have been better picked, with strong and convincing performance from Ejiofor, the way he played, made it easier to understand the lead character's essence; not wealth-driven nor money-driven person unlike his wife.
The movie slowed down half way but overall, moved at a steady pace which is where the difference comes with director's vision; he tells the story, tries to get you to know the characters, and this is where I think this film could have been even more than what I saw.I am not a big fan of MMA, but the choreography was brilliant, the movements looked so real.
In David Mamet's "Redbelt," Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is the proprietor of a mixed-martial-arts academy, who - ironic for a business-owner - is opposed on principle to entrepreneurship and competition.
Like most Mamet films the plots are convoluted and sometimes even the characters don't even know what exactly is happening.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is Mike, a martial arts instructor who tries to live his life according to principles, to maintain the spirit of the samurai, while the world around him is crumbling.He is assisted capably by standout performances from Alice Braga (City of God) as the wife who betrays him for money, Emily Mortimer (Paris, je t'aime), who brings everything crashing down, and Max Martini ("The Unit") as his student who upholds the honor of the academy and pays a dear price to do so.
While far from perfect (mostly for a few plot contrivances), Mamet has succeeded in crafting a modern martial arts flick that appears to be grounded firmly in modern, "reality-based" martial arts, and yet still has the attitude of traditional samurai stoicism.In short, the plot involves a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teacher, Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who becomes haphazardly involved with the Hollywood elite and corrupt Mixed-Martial-Arts promoters after saving a celebrity actor's life (Tim Allen) in a bar-room brawl.
David Mamet just wanted to fill time by adding b-movie elements to his script so he can get to the final fight which was not good, form camera angles to choreography.
This story twists and turns so much that in some areas does not make sense.What should have been a good story just sort of fell apart for small reasons.Bad luck, good luck, no luck, revenge, fight, honor...whatever.Maybe it's just me, but I was looking for some martial arts fighting in a martial arts movie, not just some wrestling.I've seen better moves in The Karate Kid series.Ed Oneil's character didn't even have to be there - as with plenty of the cast...they were pretty much useless or underdeveloped characters.This story needed 20 more minutes to properly end it and structure it - but like so many I watched this week, fell short.A useless suicide, legal cases that don't have any merit, scenes that don't go anywhere...that right...it's a David Mamet film - you should expect that..
Likewise, those coming to Redbelt thinking it is what it appears to be on the face of it (another film in the mould of Never Back Down) will be disappointing that it is not all about the fighting and that the martial arts action is a distant second to the characters themselves.Mamet doesn't forget this though and his writing has all the pitch, pace and rhythm that we have become accustom to.
I have watched this movie when it first came out and by the end of it I was left with a sense of emptiness and confusion, like, what the hell just happened??OK, to be honest I am not a big fan of cheesy dramas with plots were the main character is basically a washed out loser like Mike Terry is portrayed.
Mike Terry easily wins the fight, wipes the dust off and is given a Red belt which in REAL LIFE is the highest achievement in Jiu Jitsu and Martial Arts in general.
Yes, the dialogue is phenomenal, but there's something in the way that every little scene comes together near the end and results in a huge turning point in the film that amazes me.Early on in the film, attorney Laura Black (Emily Mortimer) stumbles into Mike Terry's (Ejiofor) jiu-jitsu gym and accidentally fires a police officer's gun through a window.
I really don't understand how anyone can enjoy watching a martial art movie with such terrible fight scenes. |
tt0100618 | Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 | Kim Levitt is an aspiring journalist working for the newspaper, L.A. Eye, as a classified ads editor. Her sexist boss, Eli, seems to give all of the men in her office the breaks, including her boyfriend Hank. When a woman is discovered dead on the sidewalk, half-burned to ashes in an apparent case of spontaneous human combustion, Kim decides to pursue the story on her own without Eli's approval. Her first stop is Munn Fresh Meat, a butcher shop run by Jo near the site of the suicide's landing. Kim asks him about the jumper. He tells her that the suicide probably got to the roof of the building she jumped from through the apartments there.Around the corner, she enters a used book store. Kim asks for a book on spontaneous combustion, which the proprietor, Fima, finds for her. At checkout, she insists that Kim take another book from her, Initiation of the Virgin Goddess. Kim initially refuses, but Fima insists and declares it her invitation to a picnic she's having with friends the next day. Fima shows Kim the way to the roof of the building. Kim inspects the spot where the jumper leapt from and tests it herself by standing on the ledge. Behind her, Ricky (a slave) arrives. He sticks his head in a ventilation pipe as Kim approaches him. From inside, Ricky pulls out a large, slimy insect larva. He shows it to Kim, who screams and runs off.Back in her own apartment, Kim discovers her sink is full of cockroaches; she frantically sprays insecticide on them. She settles down on the kitchen table to eat dinner and flips open the book Fima loaned her. The page she randomly arrives at is titled "The Spiral: Symbol of Women's Power". Kim glances at her plate of noodles and notices that they are arranged in a vague spiral. She spies another roach crawling out of a loaf of bread. Using the book, she bats at it. In the process, her spaghetti dish crashes to the floor. Leaving it on the floor, she leaves to spend Christmas Eve with Hank's family.At Hank's parents' house, his mother Ann serves drinks and snacks, his father Gus guzzles beer and his little brother Lonnie shakes the presents under the Christmas tree. When Kim tries to explain to Lonnie that even though she's Jewish, that Hanukkah and Christmas are just two different holidays that deal with the same thing in their different ways, Gus gets upset. When Kim talks about her job at the Eye, Gus says that he believes a woman's place is in the home since Eve was made from Adam's rib. Hank testily replies that that story is just an allegory, but Gus disagrees, claiming it is "goddamned real".When Kim returns to her apartment, she scrapes the dead roach from Fima's book and flips it open. The page she randomly lands on is titled "The Fire of Lilith" and it depicts a woman whose lower half is engulfed in flames. Kim glances down at the plate of spaghetti on the floor. The spaghetti is now arranged in a flame-like pattern. Across from the spaghetti, she thinks she see a giant roach under the couch. She throws the book at it and it scurries off. She looks, but is unable to find it. While looking, she notices the spaghetti on the floor pulsating. She gets violently ill and passes out on the floor. Knocking on the door from her coworker Janice wakes her up the next day. Kim decides not to go to work and instead drives to Fima's picnic. There, the motherly Fima introduces her to Katherine Harrison (Jeanne Bates), a self-described old crone, and the young Jane Yanana. They tell her about Lilith, Adam's first wife and the "spirit of all that crawls". Kim begins to feel the effects of the wine they are drinking and lays down. Just as she begins to see something in the tree branches above her, Hank arrives and drives her to work.At the Eye, Eli, instead of being angry about Kim not showing up for work all morning, lets her officially have the spontaneous combustion story. Kim wonders how Hank knew where to find her. He says that Janice told him. When Kim asks Janice how she knew, Janice claims that Kim herself had told her. Hank and Kim return to the roof to investigate the story further. There, they find a spiral drawn on the ground as well as Ricky's lean-to. Hank leaves and Kim decides to visit Fima's apartment. Fima serves her a cup of tea, which makes Kim nauseous at first and sleepy later. Fima tells Kim of her daughter Lilith, whom Kim reminds her of. Fima offers her another date and demands that Kim eat it. She does, even though it looks like a roach in her hand. Soon after, Kim passes out.She awakens surrounded by Jane, Fima, Katherine, and Li; they strip her of her clothes and paint a dark line from her forehead to her chin and a spiral around her navel. Ricky brings in the same larva from the ventilation pipe, and he places it on her stomach. As Katherine chants a spell and Ricky and Fima slice open a live rat over her, the larva crawls into Kim's body. Under her skin, the larva crawls up Kim's body. It emerges from her mouth as a full-grown, giant, multi-segmented roach; Kim vomits the creature out. Ricky slices the creature in half and drips its innards onto Kim's face in a near-sexual manner. Kim wakes up later fully dressed, still in Fima's apartment. The four women encourage her to stay, but she escapes and runs home. There she finds Hank waiting for her. The stressed Kim starts a fight with him, but he calms her down and they begin to make love. While doing so, Ricky casually enters the apartment, sits on their bed and begins watching TV. When he flips to a channel showing a clip from Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!, he laughs. The noise alerts Hank, who demands that Ricky leave. They scuffle and Hank is stabbed to death by Ricky. Kim manages to answer her ringing phone during the fight and screams for Janice to help her. Ricky captures Kim and binds her. Janice arrives, but doesn't help Kim. Instead, she admonishes Ricky for the mess and tells him to take Kim straight to Fima while she cleans up.Ricky locks Kim in the meat locker at Munn Fresh Meat where she passes out again. When she awakens, she is surrounded by the entire cult. Fima places her in a chair and tells her "it's not easy to give birth to yourself." Ricky, wearing a phallic mask, rapes Kim. Kim reawakens alone in the meat locker; at first her fingers bind themselves together in a knot. Then she experiences incredible pain as her legs bind together into an insect-like tail. Kim passes out one more time. She awakens in the meat locker as Jo opens the door. She frees her legs from a brittle cocoon-like substance and covers her as best as she can. Jo tells her that she has been initiated and that she should go.Kim returns to Fima's bookstore where Fima admits that the woman who jumped was her daughter Lilith and that she wants Kim to take her place. She explains that the experience Kim just had has freed her from men and the fear that they bring. Kim believes she was simply hallucinating, but Fima insists that she created everything that she saw using the magic within her. Fima then reveals that she must kill a man in order to complete her initiation or else she will be consumed by fire just as Lilith was, and Kim refuses. Kim brings a policeman, Detective Burt, to her apartment. There, everything is spotless and there's no trace of Hank's body. At her office's Christmas party, Eli claims that Hank is away on assignment. Janice there welcomes her to the family. Furious and confused, Kim storms out of the office and walks down the sidewalk. She notices Ricky following her and ducks into a motel room. Her feet begin to get painfully hot. She jumps into the shower, but they still burst into tiny flames. Ricky enters the room and, in pain, Kim agrees to kidnap Lonnie to complete the initiation.Kim lures Lonnie out of Hank's parents' house and into a waiting van. When Ann goes to investigate, Ricky tapes her mouth shut and strangles and electrocutes Gus with a string of Christmas lights. As the house begins to burn, Ricky jumps into the van and they drive back to Fima's rooftop. With Lonnie tied up on the roof, Fima hands Kim a knife and tells her to kill him. Kim refuses and instead stabs Fima. In anger, Fima pulls the knife from her belly and stabs Ricky. Giant larva feed on the wounded man as Kim's legs begin to get hot. Kim's hands knot themselves into together once again, then they start on fire. She stabs her modified, flaming hands into Fima's knife wound. This transfers the curse of Lilith to her, who dives off the roof just as her daughter had. Kim hugs Lonnie and tells him that it's all over. | violence, cult, murder | train | imdb | While asking the owner of a bookstore (Maude Adams) within the building about the strange death, she is lead into a sacrificial cult of modern day witches that plan on using her for one of their sacrificial ceremonies on Christmas Eve.Take elements from "Rosemary's Baby" and throw in some nasty monster creatures and feminist witches in a Christmas setting, and you've got this movie.
This film has pretty decent acting, Maude Adams is the best of the cast as the head of the cult, and the special effects are pretty cheap but sufficient.
This is the only "Silent Night, Deadly Night" film that I've seen so far, but still I'd probably only recommend this to hardcore fans of the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" series, and from what I know this sequel is unrelated to the other films.
Horror-meister Brian Yuzna (Society, Dentist 1 and 2), delivers the goods in this chilling entry into the SN,DN series.
Both The script and acting are unimaginative but it's good horror fun from the Yuzna team that we've all come to love and it makes a great holiday family......err, horror film.
Silent Night, Dead Night 4 (Otherwise known as both Initiation and Bugs) is a weird one because it's another Horror franchise that ditches the original material and goes in a new direction altogether.The first 3 movies were about the psychotic "Naughty" Caldwell brothers, this is oddly about a coven of witches and their bug themed birthing rituals and.....yeah, it gets a bit weird.Starring industry legend Clint Howard and Phantasm alumni Reggie Bannister this isn't as bad as you'd imagine but it's a really weird choice to veer off so dramatically.Okay fine it can work, Halloween 3 for example is my favorite of the franchise and has nothing to do with Michael Myers.This is passable, but weird.
Also not one for those with weak stomachs, some of it is really quite grosse.A bizzare choice of content, but it could have been worse.The Good:Reggie Bannister, Clint Howard and Allyce Beasley are all greatCreature effects are greatThe Bad:Just plain weirdSimply not a Silent Night, Deadly Night movieThings I Learnt From This Movie:All Asian people know karate chops.
Both of them were B-movies, sure, but they had good ideas, the weird make-up effects that Society, Yuzna's freaky debut, made him known for, and lots of B-charm of their own.
Why Yuzna even bothered with the trite SNDN series I don't know - probably it started with a late-night call like this: " Well, that last Silent Night Deadly Night movie did OK, so if you have anything which we could somehow distribute under that franchise, we'll do it." The only thing that connects this one to the others is the character of Ricky (this time it's the great Clint Howard in one of his lamest performances) who's shot-to-goo brain has healed remarkably well in just one year.
The story is uninteresting from the start, the acting is bland (the unknown Neith Hunter probably got the lead because she was willing to do the slime-trenched nude scenes) and yes, there's Yuzna's trademark scenes involving Screaming Mad George's body melt effects which are fun as always, but they are few and short, hardly worth the wait.
I'm a huge Brian Yuzna fan, it all began after watching the classic horror/comedy Re-Animator.This fourth installment of the moderately entertaining Silent Night Deadly Night franchise is far better than the previous three.
Granted I was disappointed when Santa never made an appearance in this film, but Yuzna ands ingredients that had been lacking from the original three films.Screaming Mad George's effects are always first rate, the giant bugs were marvelous and gross at the same time.
Lead actress Neith Hunter is a very capable actress, and much like other Yuzna flicks(Re-Animator's Barbara Crampton & Progeny's Jillian McWhirter) isn't afraid to showcase some skin here and there.I absolutely hate Ron Howard's talentless brother Clint, but much like Tori Spelling in Sol Goode, his minuscule talents were suited for the role.Go ahead and rent it if your a fan of decent low budget horror flicks..
For whatever reason they called it a Silent Night, Deadly Night sequel, and had it set at Christmas time.
Just like Pt. 3, it's Christmas in L.A., so now snow on the ground.Clint Howard's character is named Ricky, which has to be more than just a coincidence.
But I can't see how this Ricky can be tied to the Ricky in Pt.2 and 3.Screaming Mad George still has the cochroach puppets left over from Nightmare On Elm Street 4.It's good to see Reggie Banister in a movie not directed by Don Coscorelli..
An ambitious, stubborn wannabe reporter, Kim (pretty Neith Hunter) determines that she'll solve the mystery of a young woman's bizarre suicide - which may have involved spontaneous human combustion, treating her boyfriend Hank (Tommy Hinkley) like crap in the process.
Among all the trappings are a barrage of insects, maggots, and the ghoulishly fun "surrealistic" makeup effects of the great Screaming Mad George, who'd done such memorable work on "Society", Yuzna's directing debut.
The amusing selection of actors also includes Allyce Beasley of 'Moonlighting' fame as Kim's friend Janice, lovely Bond girl Maud Adams as the alluring and enigmatic Fima, Ben Slack, the psychiatrist in "Society", as Hank's prejudiced dad, Yuzna's own son Conan as Hank's kid brother Lonnie, and "Phantasm" series star Reggie Bannister in a highly entertaining turn as Kim and Hank's boss at the newspaper.
What's truly ridiculous is how the makers of these movies seem always obliged to include any sort of archive footage, as scenes from SNDN 3, "Better Watch Out" play out on a TV screen.
This film is totally insane...and by totally insane, I mean that is totally insane to imagine that someone watched any of the previous three Silent Night, Deadly Night films...before dreaming up this lesbian cult bio-horror as an appropriate sequel.In fact, the only logical explanation is that this was a completely separate project, that was already written- and possibly even partially filmed already- when Yuzna had it appropriated by the SNDN franchise...after which he shot a few extra scenes, as to sell the Ricky connection (which is weak as f*ck, at best- and doesn't make sense at all, if you think about it).You could easily go through and watch this entire film without a) realizing it takes place on or around Christmas, and b) that the mental patient that is subservient to the lesbian cult is supposed to be Ricky.It was likely a pre-existing film called Initiation, that they added to the SNDN franchise, because after the second and third films were flops- they figured Yuzna could somehow revive it from it's death throes, by sketchily attempting to tie it into the ongoing storyline, after the fact.With that being said, it's actually a pretty good little film.
But all this is secondary to it being only remotely connected (and forced, at that) to the original franchise- whose name it bears.Worth a watch if you are into lesbian cults, bio-horror, or Clint Howard.5.5 out of 10..
A young reporter investigating a bizarre death becomes involved with a coven of modern day witches headed by Maud Adams.
Trying to investigate an apparent suicide, a reporter is drawn into a strange cult-like collection of women looking to host their demonic leader and tries to find a way of keeping a dangerous prophecy from coming true.This was a slightly-more enjoyable sequel effort that still has some problems with it.
The initial story about the suicide attempt and the strange situations that surround it are quite engaging, which is nicely matched by the later storyline of her investigation slowly leading her further and further into their powers which enable plenty of exciting times through some highly effective and shocking scenes.
This one tends to run around thinking that it needs to simply throw weird and slimy special effects around hoping that will cause the audience to squirm when it does nothing of the sort and instead simply continues an overlong tradition of random scene of slimy bugs after another which isn't scary in the slightest.
After the deadly dull third film producer / director Brain Yunza would ambitiously steer away from the psycho Santa formula (no more Billy, Ricky or mother superior) of the first three "Silent Night, Deadly Night" outings, for something unrelated and could have easily stood alone by just sticking to the title "Initiation".
"Initiation: "Silent Night, Deadly Night 4" is an atypically strange holiday shocker, which delves into witchcraft, the occult and nasty looking bugs.
The story centres on a bunch of female characters (an almost feminist stance streams through the material) led by the likes of an outstanding Maud Adams and Neith Hunter as the feisty newspaper reporter heroine, but the scene stealer is support actor Clint Howard who's dementedly humorous with his offbeat character.
The fourth entry in the mostly terrible Silent Night, Deadly Night series tries to move away from the killer Santa shtick.
The story this time is about a female reporter who investigates a girl's suspicious death and becomes involved with a group of witches.
It's directed by Brian Yuzna, who has done more fun and creative horror films than this.
it's no longer about killer Santa any more,This movie was a lot better then the last 2 sequels, A reporter investigating the bizarre death of a woman who leaped from a building in flames finds herself mixed up in a cult of witches who are making her part of their sacrificial ceremony during the Christmas season.There were good moment in this movie, which I really enjoyed some of effect, which can be a little cheesyThe acting was better then last 2 movies as well.
First, let me start off by saying that as an avid horror fan, I can appreciate the vision of most movies - good or bad.
The lead female character is believable to a degree, and Clint Howard delivers a decent performance as well, but the acting in general isn't too thought provoking.
The fact that this film tacks on the Silent Night, Deadly Night moniker on the end of the title is pitiful; I absolutely refuse to label it as an "original horror movie twist about Christmas." For my own personal records that I keep offline, this has to be the second worst horror movie contained within a series, only slightly falling below the Howling III...an abomination so horrendous that the cast and crew responsbile should be tarred and feathered.
Unrelated to the first three movies in this series, this has a confused and confusing story about a newspaper reporter stumbling onto some kind of feminist group in L.A. and they want her to join them to replace one of their number's dead daughter.
This made for cable TV movie is completely unrelated to the first three movies or the next one in this series, it throws everything but the kitchen sink into it's bizarre, nonsensical story: everything from spontaneous combustion to bugs, giant cockroaches and feminists, Adam's legendary first wife Lilith, Clint Howard and more bugs, disgusting special effects and still more bugs, but none of it makes much sense so you don't really care what happens to anyone in the movie.
Ricky was in the film played by Clint howard but he was definately not what I remembered him being like (NAUGHTY, PUNISH).
Yours truly has a dumb but very punctual tradition to watch at least one holiday-themed horror movie during the Christmas period.
After all these years, however, I'm running out of options and pretty much the only Christmas horror movies that I haven't seen yet are the more obscure sequels in the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" franchise.
I couldn't get my filthy claws on part III, so I went straight to Brian Yuzna's fourth installment which has absolutely nothing to do with the original 1984 classic and actually hardly even qualifies as a Christmas movie.
"SN,DN: Initiation" actually feels somewhat as if co- creator and director Brian Yuzna couldn't stuff all his crazy figments in his previous film "Society" and thus especially thought up another senseless plot.
This way, he could also prolong his collaboration with the awesome special effects wizard Screaming Mad George and stuff the script – like a Christmas turkey – with perversities, filth and bugs.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to look for an actual Christmas horror movie!.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990)* 1/2 (out of 4) A woman puts herself on fire and jumps from the roof of a building and the next day a reporter (Neith Hunter) tries to figure out why.
Those wanting to see a killer Santa Claus are going to be disappointed because the fat man doesn't make an appearance here except for a brief clip from the previous movie.
This film here isn't awful but there's simply nothing here we haven't seen before and in the end the thing is just too weak to be entertaining.
The film contains a lot of bug stuff so those creeped out by the critters running around will probably find this stuff effective.
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4 stays away from the controversy of the previous film and I can respect the filmmakers for trying to do something new with the series but in the end it's just something we've seen countless times before.
If you're going to do a movie about a woman getting involved with witches then you need to try something fresher than what's here..
Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990)As I watched this movie, I was baffled as why this film was in the Silent Night series.
Clint Howard (House of the Dead) and Reggie Bannister (Phantasm) were the biggest names in this film, but otherwise the rest are pretty much unknown.
Director Brian Yuzna (The Dentist) lacks the appropriate Christmas scenery, which would add to the film's intensity and horror.
A reporter (Neith Hunter) investigates a woman's mysterious death, but gets caught in witches' coven led by occult bookstore owner (Maud Adams).
In-name-only sequel doesn't follow the first three films, but Ricky (Clint Howard) is in this one with very little to do.
Not to mention that the new Ricky (Portrayed by Clint Howard) is watching footage from 3 in one scene it does'nt make any sense to me.
At the end Ricky is killed but he suddenly repeares in 5 what is wrong with all this 5 Silent Night, Deadly Night movies?
When I was 14 I went through a phase when I needed to watch as many horror flicks as possible.Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990),with Allyce Beasley,was one of them.I have read almost all of the comments here, and I find them all pretty accurate--even if severely divergent.
The biggest bug she can't rid herself of is ogre-like Ricky(Clint Howard playing his usually disgusting troll who Yuzna embellishes by photographing him with imaginative angles)who is the coven's gopher/soldier doing their bidding so that their ceremonies and such get accomplished.
Oh, and Yuzna makes sure to show us why this film is in the series as a fourth film(..other than merely exploiting the title for his own purposes)by showing an excerpt of the previous sequel where the blind girl dreams of being nearly attacked by the killer Santa.
Feisty reporter Kim (an appealingly perky performance by the pretty Neith Hunter) investigates the mysterious fiery death of a young woman.
This movie further benefits from sound acting by an able cast, with stand-out contributions by Maud Adams as alluring cult leader Fima, Tommy Hinkley as Kim's horny, supportive boyfriend Hank, Allyce Beasley as sympathetic coworker Janice, and Reggie Banister as Kim's sexist jerk boss Eli. Clint Howard is genuinely creepy and unnerving as geeky and grubby cult flunky Ricky; Howard brutally butchers one man with a knife, strangles another guy with Christmas tree lights, and even has kinky ritualistic sex with Kim (yuck!).
The first Silent Night, Deadly Night is an average slasher movie with a few nice touches, but is overall a pretty forgettable film.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 is much better than the previous two and is very entertaining.
Kim, a woman who wants the perfect story so she can finally be a reporter sees this on the news and starts looking for clues.
Kim and Fima become fast friends, but strange things happen to Kim. Weird visions, bugs, and a cult haunt Kim. She learns that the woman in the beginning was Fima's daughter and Fima wants Kim to take her place as her new one.
On Christmas Eve Kim is about to perform the final part of the ritual, but changes her mind and must battle the cult to survive.Good story, effects, and great acting.
A female reporter (Neith Hunter) is investigating the bizarre suicide of a woman in flames who jumped off a building.
Brian Yuzna is responsible for one of my favorite horror movies!
Clint Howard is a revered horror actor, but I couldn't stand him in this movie.
None of the Silent Night: Deadly Night films will ever win an Academy Award, but at least you don't feel cheated out of a couple of hours of your life watching them.
It shouldn't even be allowed to carry the Silent Night/Deadly Night title.It has nothing at all to do with the Christmas killer theme of the others & is sorely lacking any interesting storyline here.
But whereas Halloween III was a decent movie, Brian Yuzna has directed a turd.
In Part 4, Clint Howard plays a character named Ricky.
This horror sequel, also known as SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 4, is another lame affair.
Nowadays she's just an embarrassing old woman.Which leaves me to conclude that, as is sadly the case with a lot of modern horror films, the special effects are the only worthwhile things.
It's horrible.I can only be glad that Brian Yuzna has rid himself of this trash and is now making enjoyable films again, like TICKS, THE DENTIST, and PROGENY. |
tt0099088 | Back to the Future Part III | We pick up where Part II left off. 1955 Doc (Christopher Lloyd) has just finished helping Marty's counterpart return to 1985, and is running down the street shouting and laughing victoriously. Marty runs to him and grabs him from behind. Doc is shocked, saying that he just sent Marty back to the future. Marty says that he's back from the future, and Doc faints.Doc awakens the next morning back at his house, with the TV playing Howdy Doody, not quite sure how he got home. Marty is dozing in a chair nearby, resting his feet on his hoverboard. Doc gets out his recorder and notes that he may have seen a vision of Marty afterwards saying he had 'come back from the future,' but thinks he may have been hallucinating. This turns out to be a reality, when Marty appears, scaring Doc, whose flailing hands play ominous chords on his organ.Marty explains that he came back to 1955 in regards to recovering the sports almanac from Biff to save the future. Marty then explains that afterwards, the 1985 Doc was in the DeLorean when it got struck by lightning, which sent him back to 1885. Doc questions how Marty would know this, when Marty reveals the 70-year-old Western Union letter he received.Doc reads over the letter. His 1985 version notes that the DeLorean has been hidden in the Delgado gold mine, with instructions for replacement parts for the 1955 Doc to help repair the time machine. The letter also notes that the flying circuits were destroyed by the lightning strike, meaning the DeLorean will never be able to fly again. 1985 Doc instructs Marty to take the DeLorean back to 1985 and destroy it, as he thinks the time machine has caused too much destruction. Doc explicitly warns Marty to not come back to 1885 to get him, as he is perfectly content living out the rest of his life in the Old West.Later that morning, Doc and Marty go to the abandoned Delgado mine, located at Boot Hill Cemetery, and use dynamite to blast their way in. They locate the DeLorean when they find a cross beam with Doc's initials blocking up a side tunnel. They find the DeLorean under a tarp inside another tunnel. They find the tires have decayed and the gas tank has been emptied.After an afternoon of digging, Doc and Marty remove the DeLorean and hitch it up to a tow truck, preparing to tow it back to Doc's laboratory. As they are preparing to leave, Doc's dog Copernicus starts whimpering. Marty walks over to investigate and see what is troubling Copernicus, and to his shock, finds a tombstone with the inscription, "Here Lies Emmett Brown, Died September 7, 1885". Marty realizes that this means Doc died about a week after he wrote the letter to Marty and left it with Western Union . The tombstone says it was "erected in eternal memory by his beloved Clara", a name unknown to either Marty or Doc. More alarming to Doc is that the tombstone notes he was "shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of 80 dollars".Doc is shocked to see just what his fate living in 1885 is. Marty and Doc take a picture of the tombstone, and then go to the local archives to try to find more information about Doc's killer. They learn that Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) was a notorious gunman who got his nickname "Mad Dog" from his short temper and his tendency to drool. He bragged that he had killed 12 men ("not including Indians or Chinamen"), but this claim cannot be substantiated because in 1884, Buford killed a newspaper editor who had written an unfavorable story about him. Marty and Doc also find information about the McFly family living in Hill Valley in 1885. Marty is skeptical about the possibility that the "Emmett L. Brown" on the tombstone is Doc, but Doc says it can't be him because the Browns did not first arrive in Hill Valley until 1908....and then they find a photo of Doc posing next to the under-construction clock on the clock tower. Even though Marty has been told to return to 1985, he tells 1955 Doc that he is instead going to 1885 and save Doc from being killed by Tannen.After Doc manages to repair the time machine, he provides Marty with a cowboy outfit (albeit one that is almost too colorful for the old west), and takes them to a closed Drive-In theater near an open-area of land. Doc explains that since the open country hasn't changed much in over 70 years, Marty should be able to avoid anyone seeing the time-machine, or possible crashing the DeLorean.Doc then sets the time circuits in the DeLorean to September 2nd (since the letter was written on September 1st. This is done so that Marty cannot interfere with Doc writing the letter and having it given to Western Union...to avoid a possible time paradox), and Marty drives off. However, once arriving in 1885, he finds himself almost run over by a group of Indians, followed closely by Cavalry men who are chasing them.Marty drives the DeLorean across the rocky terrain, before finding a small cave to hide the DeLorean in. However, after getting out, Marty discovers two problems: first, the rocky terrain has somehow ruptured the vehicle's fuel line, and second, a bear is also in the cave. Marty quickly rushes away from the bear, but falls down a nearby hillside, crashing into a fence, and falling unconscious.When he wakes up, he finds himself in the home of Seamus McFly (also Michael J. Fox), and his wife Maggie (Lea Thompson), and their infant son, William. Marty soon realizes he is in the homestead of his ancestors, and claims that his name is Clint Eastwood, when they ask him who he is. During dinner, Marty explains his searching for the local blacksmith, and Seamus offers to help.Marty gets a new hat from Seamus. The next morning, following Seamus's advice, Marty follows the railroad tracks to the train station for Hill Valley...albeit a Western mining town that is still being developed. Even the iconic clock tower that Marty knows is still being constructed, with a dedication to take place the coming weekend.Marty then goes to the Palace Saloon, where he orders whiskey after some confusion. Just as Marty is asking where he can find the local blacksmith, Buford and his gang come in, mistaking him for Seamus. Marty manages to convince them his name is "Clint Eastwood". Buford asks the bartender where the blacksmith (Doc) is, and the bartender says he doesn't know where he is. This causes Marty to realize he's talking to Buford, and inadvertently calls him "Mad Dog". Unfortunately, it turns out that everyone knows Buford becomes enraged whenever someone calls him "Mad Dog," because almost on cue, every single individual in the saloon either runs away or hides. Buford immediately pulls out his revolver and begins shooting at Marty's feet to make him "dance." To distract Buford, Marty begins to moonwalk like Michael Jackson, before accidentally launching a spittoon full of tobacco juice on Buford. Now furious, Buford intends to kill Marty, who rushes out of the saloon, but not before Buford and his gang lasso him and drag him through town, before intending to hang Marty on a pulley and rope at the site of the clock tower building.However, Marty is saved when Doc appears with a large rifle bearing an elaborate scope that "can shoot the flea off a dog's back at 500 yards," and severs the rope with a single shot, freeing Marty. Buford turns his anger on Doc, unhappy with a shoeing job Doc recently did for one of his horses. Buford demands $80 from Doc, as the $75 horse threw one of its shoes a few days ago, throwing Buford off, and also causing him to break the $5 bottle of whiskey he was carrying at the time. Buford subsequently shot the horse. Marty realizes that this is the matter of $80 that Doc's tombstone says he will be killed over. Doc claims that Buford shooting the horse evens things out since Buford never paid him for the work and Buford warns Doc to watch his back, before he and his gang ride off on their horses.Turning his attention to Marty, Doc is upset that Marty did not follow his instructions, but once they get back to the blacksmith shop, Doc is given the information about his impending doom. The mention of "beloved Clara" also doesn't ring any bells with Doc, but that is when Mayor Hubert stops by, and reminds Doc that he agreed at last week's town meeting to pick up the new school teacher. They've just received word that she's coming in tomorrow morning. As an afterthought, the mayor offhandedly tells Doc the teacher's name is Clara Clayton. Marty and Doc now know who will erect the tombstone in his memory.Doc then decides that to avoid getting into any kind of time-altering love affair, he will simply not pick up Clara from the train depot the next day and decides that they should get the DeLorean Marty came back in, and go. However, when Marty explains that the fuel line is ruptured, Doc's eyes go wide. Marty explains that as long as they have the Mr Fusion generator, they should be able to get back. It is then that Doc explains the flaw in Marty's thinking: Mr Fusion powers the time circuits and the flux capacitor, but the car still needs gasoline to run... gasoline that will not appear until several years into the 20th century.Doc and Marty then recover the DeLorean, and try everything from a team of horses pulling the vehicle, to using an incredibly strong alcoholic drink. The horses cannot pull the DeLorean above 24mph, and the alcoholic drink ends up destroying the fuel-injection manifold on the car which will take Doc a month to rebuild.Realizing that the DeLorean can't run under it's own power, and they can't pull it, Doc figures they will need to push it up to 88 mph. Hearing the whistle of the train pulling into the station, he surmises a possible solution.Doc and Marty go to talk to the engineer, and pretend to have a wager going to see if a steam engine could get up to 90 mph. The engineer explains that it most likely would depend on three factors: having a long-enough section of mostly straight track, preferably on a downhill grade; having no cars coupled behind the tender to lighten the amount of horsepower lost; and getting the fire hot enough without blowing up the boiler. Doc soon finds that the next train coming through the area will be on Monday morning at 8am. Checking a railway map, Doc finds what they are looking for: a long straight stretch that goes over Clayton ravine (oddly called Shonash, the old Indian name for the ravine). In 1985, the tracks run near the Hilldale housing development, but Marty notes that in 1885, there is no bridge spanning the ravine.Going out to see for themselves, Marty decides they have to change their plans: the trestle is partially complete, and will not be finished for another 18 months according to a sign at the bumper block. Doc however, tells Marty he is 'not thinking fourth-dimensionally.' In 1985, the bridge will exist. With this reasoning, if they can reach 88mph before they reach the edge of the ravine, they'll instantly time-travel to 1985 when the bridge is completed, and simply coast right across.As they prepare to head back to town, the panicked cries of a woman on a runaway buckboard wagon catches their ears. Doc manages to save the woman before the wagon hits a rock, uncouples from the runaway horses, and crashes over the side of the ravine. To both Marty and Doc's shock, it's Clara Clayton (Marty Steenburgen). She'd lost control of the horses when they'd been scared by a rattlesnake. Doc and Marty escort her to her new house adjacent to the town's schoolhouse. Doc explains to Clara that he'll clear up the issues with the owner of the buckboard rental business in town, and tells Clara that he also has a shop. However, he falters by first saying he's a scientist, which piques Clara's interest. Marty eventually tells Doc they have to be going, and they head off.As they go a ways off, Doc makes mention how Ms Clayton almost ended up at the bottom of Clayton Ravine. It's then that Marty remembers the history of the ravine that was taught to him in school: Clayton Ravine was named after a school teacher who fell in there 100 years ago (meaning 1885) and how all his classmates "have teachers they'd like to see fall into the ravine." Doc now realizes that they may have seriously changed history, and curses inventing the time machine, believing it has now continued to ruin things.The next day, Doc has finished outfitting the DeLorean with standard gauge track wheels, and shows Marty a scale miniature of his plan for getting them back:The next night, they'll load the DeLorean onto the tracks along the stretch near an abandoned silver mine. When the 8am train leaves the station on Monday morning, they'll stop it at the switch track, uncouple the extra cars and then hijack (or "borrow" to use Doc's term) the locomotive, and use it to push the time machine. Doc calculates that they'll get the engine to 88mph, time travel back to 1985, and coast across the completed bridge.Marty notices a windmill marked as their "Point of no return." Doc explains this is the fail-safe point. At this point, they can still stop the train before it reaches the ravine, but once they pass the windmill, there's no turning back.The explanation is cut short when Clara appears. Clara has brought her telescope to Doc in hopes he might be able to fix it, as it was damaged in the buckboard accident. Doc quickly explains he can fix it and have it done that evening. However, Clara reminds him that the Town Festival will take place, but Doc still says he'll have it fixed by then. Clara then leaves, saying she hopes to see Doc (whom she calls "Emmett") and Mr. Eastwood there.That night at the festival, the clock that will eventually grace the clock tower is activated, and a number of the citizens can have their photo taken in front of it. Marty and Doc decide to pose with the clock, as it has so far played a big role in their lives.As the festival goes on, Doc meets Clara, and the two dance. Meanwhile, Marty takes part in a Colt firearms demonstration, and runs into Seamus, Maggie, and William McFly again.Meanwhile, Buford and his men have come to town, with Buford intending to take care of Doc. After surrendering their firearms to Marshal Strickland (James Tolkan) and his Deputy, the group enters, but not before Buford pulls out a concealed Derringer revolver he has snuck in. Buford ends up sneaking up on Doc, threatening to shoot him. With the small-caliber barrel of the tiny gun buried in Doc's back, the shot will be muffled. Buford also growls to Doc that someone who's shot with the gun will take a few days to die from internal bleeding -- Doc will linger for a few days before dying on Monday, September 7th. Buford then catches sight of Clara, he demands a dance. Doc becomes the gentleman in the moment and demands that he'd rather be shot, but Clara says she'll dance with Buford to save Doc. Clara dances with Buford for a bit before kicking him in his shin. Buford strikes Clara, knocking her to the ground, before Doc's voice shatters the moment, yelling for Buford to stop what he's doing. Furious, Buford raises his gun and prepares to shoot Doc in the head. Before he can shoot, Marty grabs a Frisbee company pie-plate, and flings it, knocking off Buford's aim, causing Mad Dog to lose his only shot. Marty demands that Buford leave his friends alone, but Buford then manages to provoke Marty by calling him "yellow."Wanting to prove Buford wrong, Marty agrees to a dual at 8am on Monday. After Buford and his gang leaves, Doc has a few words with Marty, but not before Clara comes up, and Doc says he'll take her home.Marty is then accosted by several men who are ecstatic that he has the guts to stand up to Buford. One of them is the Colt firearms man, who gives Marty a Colt Peacemaker to use in the duel (with the promise that if Marty loses, the salesman gets the gun back).The only naysayers in the group are Marty's ancestors, who chastise him for giving in and not just walking away. Case in point: Seamus and Maggie recall Seamus's late brother Martin. He was a very tough person, but he also picked fights whenever someone called him a coward, which turned out to be his downfall when someone fatally stabbed him in the chest during a brawl at a saloon in Virginia City.Back at Clara's house, she and Doc are watching the stars, when their conversation turns to Jules Verne, an author whom both of them love, and Doc and Clara realize they have each met someone very special.The next morning, Marty goes out walking and encounters Doc, having come back from Clara's, with a big smile on his face. As they walk through town, they one of the stores has finished making new tombstones...one of them just like the one seen at the Boot Hill Cemetery in 1955. Doc checks the photograph, and notices the tombstone and the date are still apparent, but there's no inscription on who is buried there.As they continue to talk, the town undertaker comes by, measuring Marty for a coffin. When Marty asks why, the undertaker explains that there are betting odds in town that he will lose...and Doc explains that the tombstone could now be meant for Marty."Great Scott!!" says Marty, realizing he could soon end up dead."I know, this is heavy," says Doc.Doc then notices the Colt Peacemaker that Marty is carrying, and Marty explains that he intends to get back at Tannen for calling him 'yellow.' Doc chastises Marty for going through with this, and explains how this causes the Rolls-Royce incident affecting his 2015 life. Marty is now curious about this unmentioned information about his future, but Doc refuses to say more.Later that evening, after installing the DeLorean onto the tracks, Doc explains that he is not going back, and intends to stay with Clara. However, after some talk, Marty tells Doc that this could very well continue to ruin the space-time continuum. Doc regards his friend's request, but still decides to go to Clara, to say goodbye.Going to her house, Doc attempts to say goodbye in a subtle way, but Clara realizes he is keeping something from her, and wants to know the truth. Wanting to be honest with her, he explains that he is from the future and is going to return there the next day. Instead of understanding, Clara feels that he is lying as a way to say he doesn't love her anymore.Heartbroken, Doc goes to town, and into the saloon, requesting whiskey. A salesman sees Doc, and engages him in conversation. As the conversation they are discussing mentions the word 'future,' Doc then begins to preach about what the future will bring.The next morning, Marty wakes up, but finds Doc gone. Heading into town, he finds him still at the saloon, still awake after all this time, the untouched whiskey on the bar. Marty manages to shake his friend out of his depression, and the two head off...but not before Doc drinks a toast to the future...with the whiskey knocking him out cold!The bartender mixes a concoction that manages to wake Doc out of his stupor, but still has him knocked out. As Marty and the bartender continue to try and revive Doc, Seamus arrives in the bar, claiming that 'something told him he should be there.'Just as it seems things can't get any worse, Buford arrives, and demands the duel to take place immediately. The others in the bar demand Marty fight Buford, but seeing Seamus looking at him, and thinking of the consequences of his actions, Marty decides not to go through with it...just as Doc revives!The two try to sneak out the back of the saloon, only to be seen by Buford's gang. Doc is captured, while Marty ends up diving into the building next door. Buford then gives Marty an ultimatum: either come out in 1 minute, or Doc will be shot.Meanwhile, heartbroken from the 'lie' she was told, Clara has boarded the 8am train, intending to head to San Francisco. As she sits in one of the coaches, the salesman who was talking to Doc the previous night tells the guy sitting next to him about the 'heartbroken' man he met the previous night, who had a girl he loved named Clara. Hearing this, Clara asks and confirms that it was Doc he was talking to. Pulling the brake cord on the train, the engine barrels to a stop, and she rushes back towards Hill Valley.Back in town, Buford's minute is up, and Marty appears. Marty drops his weapon, claiming he wishes to settle the dual 'like men.' However, Buford shoots Marty in the chest, and he goes down. Chuckling over his kill, Buford is then shocked when Marty rises up from the ground, revealing like his hero in A Fistful of Dollars that he is wearing the steel door to an iron stove under his clothing and that it stopped the bullet. Marty gets in several good punches, before Buford finally is knocked out and collapses into a manure cart.During the battle, Buford is knocked into the tombstone that was in the photo. As Marty and Doc look at the photo, the tombstone disappears. Just then a deputy marshal rides in and arrests Tannen for robbing a stagecoach. With their business now about getting back to the future, Marty gives Seamus the Colt Peacemaker, telling him it's worth $8, and he and Doc head off toward the train.Meanwhile, Clara has made it back to town, but finds Doc's blacksmith shop deserted. However, her attention is then drawn to the miniature, of which sits a strange vehicle with the words 'time machine' written on it.Doc and Marty manage to 'borrow' the locomotive, and switch it over to the new track. Prepping the DeLorean and the train, Doc pulls out some colored logs that he calls 'presto logs,' which will help push the train to the desired speed they need.After the first two logs go off, Doc attempts to climb onto the DeLorean, but not before hearing the steam whistle of the train! Turning back, Doc sees that Clara has caught up to the train, and is now aboard, calling out that she loves him. Doc intends to go back to the cab, but just then, the DeLorean passes the windmill, cancelling any chance to stop the train.Doc then decides that they will then take Clara back with them, and has her climb out to him. However, just before they reach each other, the final log explodes in the furnace of the train, jolting the engine and causing Clara to almost fall over the side.Marty helps Doc by throwing him the hoverboard, which Doc uses to save Clara. Marty watches as the two hover off to the side, before shutting the door. The DeLorean then reaches 88mph and disappears...with the locomotive barreling over the side of the ravine, and exploding in a huge fireball.Marty then finds himself back in 1985, as the DeLorean coasts over the completed bridge (now spanning "Eastwood Ravine"). As the DeLorean coasts through a grade crossing, we see the lights flashing and the gates lowered, and motorists looking at Marty oddly. Just then, a train horn is heard, and Marty sees a diesel engine barreling head-on toward the DeLorean. With no time to save the car, Marty jumps clear as the engine plows into the time machine, destroying it. Once the train has passed, Marty looks over the wreckage, and finds the Flux Capacitor and the Time Circuits (both of which give a small flash before falling silent). "Well Doc," says Marty, sadly, "It's destroyed. Just like you wanted."Returning to the Lyon Estates, Marty is ecstatic that everything is back to normal, including his family and Biff (no longer the tyrant of the altered timeline from the second film, but the secretly-bitter auto detailer). Worried about Jennifer, Marty gets in his Toyota 4x4, and goes to her house to find her still sleeping on the porch like she was when Marty left her in 1985-A. Upon waking up, Jennifer tells Marty that she had a terrible nightmare.As they drive past the still-in-development Hilldale housing complex, one of Marty's classmates named Needles pulls up next to the two in a Ford Bronco and challenges Marty to a race. Marty declines at first, until Needles calls him 'Chicken.' However, when the light they are at turns green, Marty throws his vehicle into reverse, not going through with the race.As he and Jennifer watch, a white Rolls-Royce comes out of a sidestreet, and Needles' truck barely misses it. Marty remarks how he would have hit that car, causing Jennifer to reach into her coat pocket...finding the "YOU'RE FIRED!!!" fax from 2015, with the words slowly fading away (proving that Marty's decision has now changed their future).The two return to the wreckage of the DeLorean. As they are looking, the grade crossing suddenly activates even though there is no train in sight. Suddenly Marty and Jennifer are blown back as a vintage steam-engine appears with the DeLorean's sonic boom, piloted by Doc, who cheerfully tells Marty that his new invention runs on steam. Doc then introduces the two to Clara, as well as their sons: Jules and Verne. Doc then tells Marty that he decided to return to get Einstein, and to let Marty know he was all right.Doc also presents Marty with a framed picture of the two of them, taking at the clock dedication in 1885.Jennifer then tells Doc of the fax she had from the future, that is now erased. Doc explains that this simply means their future is theirs to make of it what they will.Doc then prepares to return with his family back in time."Hey Doc," asks Marty, "Where are you going now? Back to the future?""Nope," says Doc, with a smile and a wave," already been there!"As Marty and Jennifer watch, The steam engine's wheels fold underneath, turning into a hover train, and it rises into the air, circles around, before reaching 88mph, and flying at the camera. | comedy, fantasy, alternate reality, humor, alternate history, entertaining, sci-fi | train | imdb | I love the rescue mission in which Marty goes back in time from the year 1955 back in to the past in to the Old West to save his best friend Doc Brown from getting killed by an outlaw Buford Tannen.
It was a return to the basics, the friendship between Marty and Doc and how each was thrown through time to change not only the future of Hill Valley, but also their own lives and their future choices.Robert Zemeckis' (the writer) decision to send the two friends back to 1885, in their final adventure, was brilliant.
In Back To The Future III, the challenges that face Doc and Marty are ingenius, and a solution to their problems is extremely difficult to think of, which makes it that much more fun to watch the film.
Having set a new standard in time travel films with Back To The Future and Back To The Future Part II, it was with eager anticipation that I looked forward to seeing if Robert Zemeckis could bring his trilogy to a satisfying conclusion.
As if all this wasn't good enough, Zemeckis also gives us several old western character actors, Dub Taylor, Pat Buttram, and Harry Carey Jr. Another great touch thrown in just for the fun of it.In reviewing the fist two parts of the trilogy, I failed to mention Alan Silvestri's terrific score.
Wilson) "over a matter of $80 dollars." So Marty decides to go back and rescue Doc before the murder can occur, but he is bedeviled by a rip in the fuel line - meaning they have to find another way to get the time machine to hit 88 miles per hour - and Doc falling in love with school teacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen).
That's why I saw the third part just after the second =D.In this movie the main character, the young Marty McFly (Michael J.Fox), has to go back to 1885 in order to find his long-time friend and eminent scientist Emmett Brown.
Doc has been accidentally sent to the old Far West at the end of the second movie and this film tells Marty's journey to find his friend and go back to the present.I am really fond of the first two movies so I had a little apprehension about this one.
And here comes the conclusion of one of the finest and most likable cinematic trilogies: "Back to the Future Part III", more than a sequel, a resourcing in the spirit that made the first film such an endearing classic, with an even more escapist value in the setting, the Far West during the 1880's.
This continuity helps to appreciate the second part that feels more like a link between the two other films while "Part III" resurrects the spirit of the first one by focusing on the emotionality rather than the eternal "back to the future" mission.This has always been Marty's preoccupation and the thrust of the trilogy but the travels also had the merit to solve some familial issues and help a beloved character to improve something in his life, if anything, the trilogy defines the notion of 'coming-of-age' as the inspirational aspect of the film, its encouragement for success through self-improvement.
But I may make the film sound too intellectual when it's also a great comedy and one hell of a western.The film is the opportunity to rediscover and say goodbye to the wonderful characters of Hill Valley, to see the first McFlys in American land, to witness the inauguration of the clock tower which, as Doc said, was fitting that he and Marty could witness, not to mention Marty pretending to be named Clint Eastwood, at the risk of tarnishing this name by becoming the biggest yellow belly in the Old West.
I can't resist to the scene where Marty, realizing that he might be killed instead of Doc utters a "Great Scott" followed by Doc's comment "I know this is heavy", when Marty wonders why they always have to "cut these things so damn close" or when, in the most dramatic situations, he reacts by an ironic 'perfect'.And speaking of dramatic, the film also provides great thrilling moments you'd expect from a Western, and probably the most heart-pounding climax from the trilogy with the train sequence, so suspenseful, I remember I had to pause for seconds the first time I watched it.
Naturally, Marty says he will travel back to 1885 and get Doc and bring him back to the future with him (though it couldn't be 1955, because there's already one Doc there).There are time-jumping laws that are not obeyed by the scriptwriters here, and much worse than in the second film, but this one's so well concentrated and so much the better movie that they hardly matter.
She fits right into the wild west world, as the dainty schoolteacher who plays "his beloved Clara" to the Doc.Like the others, its larger-than-life tone, with the over-blown time-travel dialogue and melodramatic highs and lows, render it into a kind of live-action cartoon.
This is also Marty's last chance to travel back to his own time with no more time interference.The special effects team really did an awesome job in making the time travel elements seem spectacular but realistic-looking, especially the DeLorean, and the cinematography of the Old Wild West was detailed and captures the 1800s feel very well.Just like the first two movies, the direction by Robert Zemeckis was well-paced from start to finish, making the film intriguing throughout, from Marty meeting his ancestors in the old west to Doc meeting schoolteacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen).
Back to the Future Part III, didn't simply "phone it in" for its' final act, it provided a complete compilation to its time travel exploits.This story picks up where the second left off; with Marty (Michael J.
Wilson), Marty gains the attention of the gun that he discovered was to kill Doc. In the final installment of Robert Zemeckis beloved time traveling adventure, out duo is outrunning a gun, deciding between love and fate, and learning that the words of others should only ever be words rather than a reflection of ourselves; a pleasing finale to the Back to the Future series.Once again, the brilliant on-screen chemistry of Michael J.
Wilson)while Doc falls in love with a woman named Clara(Mary Steenburgen).Back To The Future Part III is a brilliant and entertaining finale to the amazing Back To The Future Trilogy and basically proves that all good things must come to an end.
Making a final film in a movie Trilogy is tough but Director Robert Zemeckis has created a conclusion that brings things to a fitting end that brings the Back To The Future Trilogy full circle.
There's something special about these movies that just makes you love them and they just really hold up as masterpieces.I remember watching this one a lot as a kid on VHS and there is so much to like about this movie.The plot for this film centers around Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) travels back to 1885 to find Dr. Emmitt Brown (Christoper Lloyd) before Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen (Thomas F.Wilson) finds him first we are also introduce to Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen).The fact the movie is set in the Old West makes it plenty of opportunely to use the setting and it does that pretty well.The Effects are pretty awesome plus I enjoy the comedy bits of the movie it goes to show how with creative writing you will have a win win for the fans.
He is helped by the young Dr. Brown to use the same De Lorean(left behind in 1885 for Marty) to get back to 1985, but instead uses it to go back to 1885 to rescue him, since he learns that he'll be gunned down by Buford Tannen(Thomas Wilson again) Doc doesn't want to leave though, since he has fallen in love with a new schoolteacher Clara(played by Mary Steenburgen) who is also destined to die...Highly entertaining completion to the saga is great fun throughout, making clever use of its ideas and culture differences, but doing so with the same good-natured charm of the first.
After the Doc is sent back to the old west Marty (Fox) finds the 1955 Doc for help to travel to 1885 to save his future self from assassination.The third and final instalment to the time travelling trilogy brings around a western adventure for the coolest time traveller of all Marty McFly as he attempts to save the Doc's life.In 1985 back to the future brought around a sensational new concept of travelling back and forth and altering past events and with the coolest car on the market was a worldwide smash and rightly so.
And only being 2 when this was released, I feel I missed the appreciation to the climax of a truly brilliant series.Still praised to this very day the conclusion has more action, drama and adventure than the previous two parts and adapting a western styled genre gives the series diversity whilst still maintaining a powerful segment devoted to science.As Marty and the Doc contemplate returning back to the present in 1985 numerous factors arise to cause problems for their future.
Mad Dog wants their lives whilst a love interest for the Doc appears, deflecting his attention from the present as he contemplates his own future.Having focused purposefully on Marty's family for the previous two films it was a nice gesture to focus in more on the doc's life and outlook and as a result this feels more rewarding and the entire trilogy benefits from spreading its emotions through its main players.
Marty McFly travels back in time to save his friend.'Back to the Future Part III' takes place in the Wild West & O Boy, It's Fun going back in time.
What isn't happening is what often occurs with certain other sequels belonging to certain other franchises; that is to say, simulacrum-imbued romps of previous entries following that same lead character, of whom was never particularly interesting in the first place, trudging through the same locations and doing the same act with nothing registering and not much of it particularly interesting.The film continues the adventures of Marty McFly, but it veers more away to his faithful partner in time, Emmett "Doc" Brown, in the fashion the last entry alluded it would: Doc's favourite ever era in history was "the old West", while at one point in Part II, he stated his intent to dismantle the confounded time machine built out of a Delorean and focus his attentions on the "one other mystery of the universe: women(!)".
Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) in Part II of the Back to the Future trilogy, the time-travelling pair keep it relatively simple for Part III, spending nearly the whole film in one place and one year: the wicked wild, wild west of 1885, where Marty meets his Oirish ancestors, Doc falls in love (with schoolteacher Clara Clayton, played by the lovely Mary Steenburgen), and both face mortal danger from gun-slinging outlaw Mad Dog Tannen (Thomas F.
Wilson) and his gang.Considering that it was shot back-to-back with Part II, the lack of narrative complexity for the final chapter comes as a bit of a surprise, but does little to diminish the film's overall ability to entertain: Part III might be a less frantic affair, but thanks to an excellent script packed with witty dialogue, welcome character development, plenty of tips of the Stetson to the previous two films, and a rousing finale, it is no less enjoyable than its predecessors, thus making the whole trilogy one of the most consistently brilliant series of movies ever..
Doc Brown is back in 1885 in the Old West, soon to be joined by Marty who has found that Doc is in mortal danger from Burford "Mad-Dog" Tannen.Rounding out what turned out to be a hugely popular trilogy, Back to the Future Part III restored the core essence heart of Part 1, whilst simultaneously tying up all the threads with a fully formed story.
Wilson returns for villain duties as Tannen, a Western bully villain pulled straight out of many a classic Oater from way back in the day, and Lea Thompson & Elisabeth Shue ensure the "past" is not forgotten.When Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale started making Back To The Future in 1985, could they have envisaged that they would make three films and end up with a steam engine time machine in the Wild West?
Seeing the surprise and originality factor had pretty much vanished entirely after the two first films, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis were forced to come up with a slightly different approach for the finale of their hugely successful and ultimately entertaining time-traveling "Back to the Future" trilogy.
But Doc ends up falling in love with Clara and Marty gets himself in trouble with "Mad Dog" but Marty's faith is now, more serious than Doc's previous dangerous faith.Directed by Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, Death Becomes Her, Used Cars) made an enjoyable, entertaining fantasy/comedy/adventure sequel that is better than the complicated second film.
I love this third act and it always makes me glassy eyed when "the end" comes up.The relationship between Doc and Marty is one of the great character building relationships in film.
But with freedom comes anarchy, this time taking the form of Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen - fastest gun in the west.I will admit that there is a noticeable lack of excitement as Doc romances Clara Clayton which goes against the ever-escalating disaster suspense of the series and might not interest viewers who are not keen period love stories.
This time McFly goes back to 1985 to save the Doc.It is my least favorite of the three movies but still very entertaining and a great ending to the series.I will first say what makes me like this movie less than the other two.
And as always Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd are on cracking form as Marty and Doc. Overall, despite the occasionally mediocre story, this is a worthy end to a great trilogy.
Back to the Future is a great movie and it is part of a great trilogy.Many people may not like the time travel movies but I do and BTTF trilogy is the movies for ME.I just love the fact that one of MY favorite actors Christopher Lloyd is in all three of them and I just love the way he is in them.And not to mention Michael J.
It's nice to see Doc getting attention but it's still not what I was looking for in a BTTF film.The movie plays out like a generic western/fish-out-of-water comedy and is good for some laughs.
Fox as Marty McFly travels back to 1885 to help out Doc Brown who is in a spot of bother.Just like the previous two films there are plenty of laughs and some truly great scenes (particularly the final scenes).
I really like how Doc Brown is a little more the main character of the film this time and for once Marty is more the supporting character, it makes sense having this switch since this is the final entry why not.
Can Marty McFly and Doc Brown put everything back in balance or will the universe collapse from within itself?The final chapter of the Back to the Future trilogy is a fun watch but a big drop off from part II.
Back To The Future Part Three is a fantastic movie with an amazing story line,terrific characters and a great cast.Fans of the previous two installments wont be too disappointed,I do think that the previous two are better,but this is still terrific,especially for a third installment,but I just found the the previous two,jumping around from past,present and future,more interesting and exciting than the Wild West heme in this,but its still very enjoyable with a good Western parody and wraps up the trilogy perfectly,you wont be wishing they made a fourth one,because they started and finished this trilogy too well to take any chances with a new version.Back to the Future is definitely the weakest of the trilogy,but its still both an exciting and pleasing conclusion.Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) travels back in time to 1885,where his friend Doctor Emmet Brown (Christopher Llyod) is enjoying a more peaceful wild west atmosphere there,but Marty must save him,because judging by his gravestone that Marty discovered in 1955,he will be shot and killed in one week..
Marty(Fox) goes back to 1885 to save his pal Doc Brown (Lloyd) from getting killed by Mad Dog Tannen (Wilson), during the film Doc falls in love with Clara Clayton (Steenburgen)a new teacher who arrived in town.
The second film saw introduction of Marty's girlfriend Jennifer and the finale saw Clara Clayton, a love interest for Emmett "Doc" Brown.The film was set in the 1885 old west, which was a great change.
The second film saw introduction of Marty's girlfriend Jennifer and the finale saw Clara Clayton, a love interest for Emmett "Doc" Brown.The film was set in the 1885 old west, which was a great change.
The Adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown are exciting to watch in the first two films and the fun doesn't stop in the third.Often called the worst film of the bunch, BTTF three takes our characters to the old west.
Fox and Christopher Lloyd as Marty and Doc. One of the all-time great film pairings.
Using the DeLorean, Marty goes back to 1885 to save Doc by brining him back to 1985 where it all began; however on arrival he almost immediately gets into trouble with Mad Dog himself.Having done the future in the previous film, this final instalment in the trilogy goes back to the old west to produce and enjoyable story while also poking fun at the traditions of the western. |
tt0059045 | I coltelli del vendicatore | Vikingland, the 9th Century. On a beach, a witch reads the future to Karan (Elisa Pichelli) and her young son, Moki (Luciano Polletin). Karan is the wife of King Arald (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), who is thought to have been killed at sea. It is Karan's hope that her husband will return to rescue them from the clutches of the evil Aghen (Fausto Tozzi) a local warlord who wishes to marry her. The witch assures Karan that Arald will return, but she also warns Karan that Aghen is near and that he has every intention of marrying her to assume the kinghsip before killing her and Moki. Their only hope is to run away and live in seculsion until he king returns.As the witch predicts, Aghen returns. Together with his band of thugs, Aghen spreads fear throughout the village the kills anybody who apposed him, He is infuriated that Karan has fled, and goes to the old witch to find out where she is hiding. The old woman refuses to assist him, and also warns that a man is approaching whi will put an end to his reign of terror. Aghen laughts this off, and sends some his men to find Karan.Meanwhile, a rugged drifter named Helmut (Cameron Mitchell) is riding though the forest on horseback and stops at a cabin to ask for some food. The cabin is Karan's new hiding place. She sends him off, as she fears he might be connected with Aghen. But Moki recognizes the mans benevolent nature and persuades him to stay. At a nearby stream, Helmut catches some fish and as he sits down to each, he hears screaming from the cottage. Two of Aghen's men have arrived and are trying to abduct Karan and Moki, but Helmut comes to their rescue. Using his signature knifes, he kills both intruders and offers to clean up the mess they have made. Karan and Moki both feel drawn to him, and so Helmut is allowed to stay.Over the next few days, Helmut acts as a substitute father for Moki, and teaches him how to fish and throw knifes. Karan grows to be very fond of Helmut, but worries that, if her husband should return, he might take offence that a stranger has taken in on their lives. Helmut confesses that he is very interested in Karan, and encourages her to explain why she is living in exile. She reveals her true identity of being a princess, and Helmut is visibly shaken. Karan then tells of how, on her wedding day, Aghen incited the wrath of Rurik, an opposing monarch, by killing his wife and child. The king, who had hoped to make an alliance with Rurik, was enraged by this and orders Aghen to leave the village for good. Neverthless, Rurik struck back that same night by slaughtering many of the villagers, including the king, and raping Karan. With the death of the king, Arald took his place and swore vengance or Rurik. At the end of her story, Karan is overcome with emotion and flees from the room. Left alone, Helmut thinks to himself. He now realizes why Karan looks familiar to him. Helmut is actually Rurik, who is traveling incognito. Following his attack on the village, he lost the respect of his people and gave up his title for a life of wondering. The only reason why Karan does not recognize him is that she has only met him that fateful night, and he was wearing a mask. Although his identity is safe, Helmut/Rurik is wracked with guilt and wonders if he could actually be Moki's real father.The following day, Helmut discovers that Aghen has returned. Helmut goes to the village to find him, but while he waits at the local inn, he sees Moki looking in at him thought the window. He leaves to take the boy home, and tells Aghens men that he will return later that evening. They catch sight of a tattoo on his arm depicting a man holding the sun on his shoulders. When Aghen is informed about it, he becomes panic-stricken for he knows that only Rurik bears such a mark. Helmut/Rurik eventually confronts his enemy, promising to tear his heart out, but Aghen escapes unharmed.The next morning, King Arald and his men return from their long voyage at sea. It has taken them five years to get back home, leading everybody to think them dead, but now that they have arrived, Arald is anxious to settle the score with Rurik. When Arald catches Helmut/Rurik at the inn, he challenges him to a swordfight. Rurik backs down, and even when Arald starts attacking him, he refuses to fight back. The scene is interrupted by the arrival of Karan who tells them that Moki has been kidnapped by Aghen. Rurik breaks away from the fight and runs to the boy's aid, with a vengeful Arald close behind.Rurik and Arald reluctantly join forces to track Aghen to a cave near the beach. Rurik appears out of the shadows, and throws a knife at Aghen, which hits him right in the heart killing him at last. With Arald reunited with his family, and his vendetta against Aghen settled, Rurik quietly leaves and rides off into the sunset at the beach. | revenge, violence | train | imdb | Sword And Sandal Film for Bava-Enthusiasts.
"Knives of the Avenger" (1966) is a somewhat cheesy, but doubtlessly fun 'Sword and Sandal' flick by the arguably greatest Horror director of all-time, the brilliant Mario Bava.
If I was to select one all-time favorite director of mine it would quite possibly be Mario Bava, as no other director has ever been capable of combining beauty and terror and creating a haunting and overwhelming atmosphere as it was the case with the supreme master of Gothic Horror and inventor of the Giallo.
The man's repertoire includes more masterpiece than that of any other Horror director.
"Black Sunday", 1960) is doubtlessly one of the greatest Horror films of all-time, and his filmography includes so many brilliant that it is hard to pick favorites: Gothic tales like "La Frusta E Il Corpo"(The Whip and the Body", 1963), "I Tre Volti Della Paura" ("Black Sabbath", 1963) and "Operazione Paura" ("Kill Baby Kill", 1966), the Giallo-milestone "Sei Donne Per L'Assassino" ("Blood And Black Lace", 1964) or the ingenious Crime-Thriller "Cani Arrabiati" ("Rabid Dogs", 1974) are only some of the many brilliant films this man has made, and I could probably go on praising Bava forever.
This being said, "Knives of the Avenger" certainly isn't a masterpiece or must-see, and definitely ranges among the lesser films in Bava's impressive filmography.
While anybody unfamiliar with this great director's work should definitely start their journey into the fascinating world of Mario Bava with another film, this one is yet a fun little film that is recommendable to my fellow fans of the man."Knives of the Avenger" is a vengeance-themed Sword and Sandal film that was made in 1966, several years after the genre's heyday in the 50s and early 60s.
Cameron Mitchell stars as Rurik, a Barbarian (Viking?) warrior, who saves the young beauty Karin (Elissa Pichelli) and her son from the clutches of an evil warlord (Fausto Tozzi)...
Bava, as always, succeeds in giving his film a great look and nice atmosphere.
For its time and genre the film also has quite a bunch of violent and somewhat gory moments, and the hero is quite dark and vengeful.
This one's cast includes the leading men from two of Bava's greatest achievements, Cameron Mitchell (who starred in "Blood and Black Lace"), and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (who starred in "Kill Baby...
Mitchell, who is the leading man here, is a very good actor; while this role doesn't need great acting skills, he has what it takes - a grim look.
The revenge-story isn't exactly unique, but it's entertaining enough and well-executed by Bava's skillful direction.
The film is nicely shot and supported by a cool, genre-typically heroic score.
This is a cheesy film, of course, and by no means a masterpiece.
It certainly ranges among the least important films Bava has ever made and doesn't nearly play in the same league as any of his Horror films (including the director's personal least favorite of his films, the somewhat weird "Five Dolls For An August Moon").
Yet it is fun enough and warmly recommended to my fellow Bava fans who have seen most of the man's many masterpieces..
In the ancient times, the savage and cruel warrior Hagen (Frank Ross) is chasing Queen Karin (Lisa Wagner) and her son Moki (Louis Polletin) to marry her and usurp the kingdom of her husband, King Arald (Jack Stuart).
Karin and Moki are hid in a cottage in the woods living like peasants and they are protected by a stranger, the warrior Helmut (Cameron Mitchell), who is an expert in knives.
Moki gets close to Helmut that teaches him how to hunt and fight and later Karin discloses to him that three years ago, her husband traveled in a ship to overseas to seek grains to his starving people.
Further she tells that Hagen was the responsible for the starvation since he had broken the truce between the kingdoms of Arald and King Rurik and killed his wife and son.
Thirsty for revenge, King Rurik had invaded her kingdom with his warriors and killed the people and raped the women including her in her honeymoon, but spared the life of Arald.
Helmut, who is actually King Rurik, falls in love for Karin and questions whether Moki is his son.This is the first action movie of Mario Bava that I have seen and I found it an underrated tale of revenge and redemption.
The screenplay is very well written, disclosing a dramatic story, and supported by great direction and acting and magnificent cinematography.
In the end, the viewer is never sure whether Moki is the son of Rurik or Arald but the tears of Karin might indicate that she knows the truth about the fatherhood of Moki.
KNIVES OF THE AVENGER (Mario Bava, 1966) ***.
The last of Mario Bava's various peplums for the silver screen – although he would still have a couple more stabs at the genre for Italian TV – is also the last of four films (one of them in an uncredited capacity) he made with second-tier Hollywood star Cameron Mitchell.
It seems rather incredible to me now that Italian producers were still trying, at this late stage, to emulate the commercially successful formula of THE VIKINGS (1958) – even down to dyeing their leading man's hair blonde like Kirk Douglas'.The film starts atmospherically enough with a witch on a sandy beach waxing metaphysically about the doom-laden future lying in wait for a vanquished Queen (the rather wooden Lisa Wagner) and her treacherous pursuer (Fausto Tozzi, a forceful if decidedly one-note portrayal).
Despite the expected bouts of lively action, the film is surprisingly intimate for this director and genre; in fact, an even stronger influence is that of SHANE (1953), complete with adulating kid – an aspect which is further reinforced by the various scenes of horsemanship and showdowns in dark taverns.
Besides, even the action sequences rarely involve more than a couple of characters (including the climax set inside a cave), and the fact that it employs flashbacks (which help render the two male leads – the stoic and, decidedly, ambivalent Mitchell and the rugged Giacomo Rossi Stuart – more rounded than is par for the course) is largely a departure for this kind of film.On the debit side, one must certainly note the sluggish pace.
All in all, even if still perhaps his best peplum, this is a lesser Bava film – which I rather enjoyed more the first time around (ironically, watched via a pan-and-scan print on Italian TV!)..
This is a good film, Bava & Cameron Mitchell both do good work imo, the soundtrack is excellent & there are a couple real gems in this film regarding Bava's visual strengths.
One such scene shows the bad guy galloping off linearly away from the screen zig zagging through hills descending into a valley as the soundtrack thunders & his descent has a strange visual extrapolation to it that I'm still not sure how Bava achieved, you have to see it.Another such scene is when Mitchell reveals his face from under his helmet with the burning village surrounding him, very impressive visuals!
Again, the music & Bava's commanding sense of visual style come together for a moment of perfection.This is really Shane redone as a Viking film & it's actually quite good.
I recommend it however not to neophytes of Bava, there are other obviously more well known titles in his filmography that one should start with.At some point every Bava fan should see this film.
I need to see Eric the Conqueror, that one I still have not seen, I think Bava did 3 Viking themed films.
BTW he was the special effects director for Steve Reeves original 'Hercules' film!.
Cameron Mitchell and his stunt double take on the Viking hordes in this cheaply made Mario Bava film that carries a little more emotional weight than usual.
This film cost $75,000 to make, which is surely really cheap even for 1966?The story is this: jerk Viking Hagen has just returned from exile to his home town to claim the throne from himself, as the previous King, Arald, has seemingly drowned at sea.
The only way Hagen can become King is to marry Arald's wife, Karin, but she has gone into hiding to get away from him, hiding with her son in a remote cottage.
Hagen has his men scour the land looking for her, and ignores the prophecy of a strange old woman that a man is on his way to kill Hagen.One day, hunky Cameron Mitchell turns up at the cottage looking for shelter and some food, and ends up saving Karin from two of Hagen's men in a rather violent fight.
Turns out Cameron is a drifter who offers his services to Karin and starts training her son to be a fierce fighter, but also falls in love with Karin and sees the kid as some sort of surrogate son.
This is all heading somewhere!Everyone has a past and it's the past that comes back to haunt the characters in this film, as Cameron seeks both revenge and redemption and is actually quite believable as a man torn between his conflicting emotions.
He's also hard as nails and takes down quite a few of Hagen's men with his throwing knives, even if his stunt double has a totally different colour of hair.You can tell this was made cheaply, due to the limited sets, most of the action on the beach taking place in the one area, and a general sparse feel to the whole film, but then again you've got Mario Bava behind the camera, so everything looks better than any big budget film made last week with the most hi-tech CGI you can imagine.
Plenty of action too, mainly Cameron taking on gurff Viking types.
He also gets a good performance out of Cameron Mitchell, who is prone to hamming it up in most of his roles.
Boring Viking film from Mario Bava.
I generally can find something to like about all the big cult film subgenres; but the one exception to that is definitely the 'sword and sandal' film.
I tuned into this one simply because it has the great Mario Bava at the helm; however, it turns out that Bava is just as bad as Fulci when it comes to films like this, and Knives of the Avenger is heinously boring.
What we basically get is a bunch of people that are supposed to be Vikings (I think) running around in silly costumes.
Anyway, this basically goes on for about eighty five hours...sorry, I mean eighty five minutes and then the film ends.
Mario Bava made his name in the horror genre and his directorial style lends itself to the genre so well as Bava is brilliant at creating atmosphere.
This film does actually feature some decent camera work and Bava does create a few good atmospheric scenes.
However, that's really the only good thing I have to say about this film.
Before seeing Knives of the Avenger, I had Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Bombs down as Bava's least fine hour; but now I'd say it's a tie between the two.
Lesser Bava movie - for die-hard fans.
****)Poorly paced Viking epic about Mitchell, who comes to protect the wife of a dead king from an usurper, unaware that she has reason to exact vengeance on him.
Score, photography, acting is quite nice, but, to reiterate, sluggish story-telling diminishes the effect.
Stick with OPERAZIONE PAURA, LISA E IL DIAVOLO, CANI ARRABBIATI or CINQUE BAMBOLE...Afterword:In the liner notes, Bava historian Tim Lucas considers this film "the genre's last hurrah" and sees it as a "distinct forerunner of the sword and sorcery genre".
Cameron Mitchell stars in this Viking film that essentially is a traditional western plot but set in the Middle Ages.
Mitchell plays the hero--a guy who comes to town and finds that a local baddie is tormenting folks.
So, being a noble sort of guy, he comes to the aid of a woman and her son--not realizing that she is a queen living in hiding.
Despite Mitchell tossing knives about and acting manly, it's pretty dull.
Considering the zillions of Samson/Hercules/Machiste Italian films (most of which were terrible), I assumed this dubbed film would be just horrible.
Perhaps having the talented director Mario Bava (known for horror films) helped a bit.
Knives of the Avenger (1966) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Mario Bava directed this viking tale about a Queen (Lisa Wagner) and her son on the run from a ruthless warrior (Frank Ross) but a stranger (Cameron Mitchell) comes to their rescue.
KNIVES OF THE AVENGER was apparently started by a different director but it was going so badly that Bava was brought on to clean things up.
From what I've read, he pretty much re-shot the majority of the film and that's a good thing because once again his talent is head and shoulders above the rather standard screenplay.
After the success of THE VIKINGS nearly everyone was throwing in these types of stories and the one being told here is rather bland and doesn't really stand out against the others.
I watched this with my young son and he was confused as to why these vikings didn't have ships but I wasn't about to open up a conversation about budgets.
For the most part the film remains entertaining thanks to the technical genius of Bava as well as Mitchell.
Now I'm not going to sit here and say that Mitchell turned in a great performance but as a fan of his, it was rather fun seeing him in this role.
Ross is also very good in the role of the villain, although leading lady Wagner was a bit too stiff for her own good.
There's some nice cinematography throughout the film and there's one brilliant sequence where we're in the dark, a man goes through a wall and then we're in the bright outdoors.
How this was filmed and shot is certainly the highlight of the picture.
KNIVES OF THE AVENGER has a pretty standard and boring story but it's brought to life by the positive aspects so fans of Bava will want to check this out..
Bava Takes on the Vikings.
A mysterious knife-throwing viking warrior protects a young peasant woman and her young son from the clutches of a evil regent bent on claiming the title of king and the woman for himself.Although a certified fan of Mario Bava's work (particularly his horror films), what actually got me interested in watching this was Giacomo Rossi-Stuart.
And this is a shame -- Italy has its share of stars, and Rossi-Stuart is one of them.He is not top billed here (Cameron Mitchell is), but still attracts notice.
it is pretty good, but not a genre I feel confident making strong judgments about..
*****SPOILERS******Italian "epic" of revenge provides for lots of viking combat with axes and swords.
Mitchell makes a surprisingly good viking despite the ridiculous costume and directionless story (the villains are supposedly searching for the supermodel mom and son but can't find them even though they seem to live just outside of town).Nice atmospheric lighting and colors in classic Bava style.
Not as good as "Hercules in the Haunted World" or Bava's horror and suspense films, but worth seeing for fans of 60s Italian muscleman films..
Noble Viking warrior Rurik (a strong and credible portrayal by Cameron Mitchell) vows to protect the fiery Karin (well played by the lovely Lisa Wagner) and her spunky son Moki (the charming Louis Polletin) from the vile clutches of the savage Hagen (a perfectly hateful Frank Ross) and his army of nasty brutes.
Director/co-writer Mario Bava takes a welcome break from his usual horror fare to deliver a surprisingly complex and low-key, but still occasionally exciting period action drama that's essentially a thoughtful and inspired variant on the classic Western "Shane." Bava relates the absorbing story about revenge, betrayal and loyalty at a steady pace and stages the down'n'dirty fight scenes with considerable brio (a protracted confrontation between Rurik and Hagen in a tavern rates as a definite thrilling highlight).
The cast all give sound performances: Mitchell excels in one of his best roles, with sturdy support from Wagner, Ross, and Jack Stuart as Karin's gallant husband Harald.
A fun film..
A typically dark and brooding Norse saga from Mario Bava, who had previously successfully contributed to the costume adventure genre with 1961's ERIK THE VIKING (and also uncredited on the same year's LAST OF THE VIKINGS).
Although this is a small-scale film lacking in the spectacular battle sequences which highlighted many other European adventure films of the period, KNIVES OF THE AVENGER is nonetheless a powerful, human-focused drama with complex characterisation and a great visual look.
Bava inserts lots of footage of the lonely and desolate countryside which gives the movie a really good setting and plenty of atmosphere, enhanced by some lush music.The numerous fights in the movie are invariably suspenseful and well-staged, with a cat and mouse battle in a tavern being particularly suspenseful.
Bava wrings above average performances from his cast, in particular Mitchell once again as the would-be "hero" of the film, who has a dark and deadly secret in his past this time.
Mitchell undeniably bears traces of Eastwood's Man With No Name and Nero's Django with his mysterious stranger on horseback character and his performance strengthens the film as a whole.
Giacomo Rossi-Stuart also makes a dashing Harald, King of Norway.Bava tends to keep the gore to a minimum in the film (aside from a couple of shocking severed heads) but has fun with some minor moments, like a playful scene in which a dog hides and whimpers under a table when the villain enters the room.
KNIVES OF THE AVENGER is an intense and gripping saga worth seeking for fans of the costume adventure film, Mario Bava addicts, or just simply those looking to see lots of bad guys being killed by having knives thrown at them. |
tt0138647 | Nattens engel | Following the death of her grandmother, Rebecca [Maria Karlsen] has inherited Angel
Land Estate, a large, gothic mansion with plenty of rooms and family
secrets lying in the dark, dank, spiderweb-filled cellar. Rebecca and her
boyfriend Mads [Tomas Villum Jensen], along with Rebecca's best friend Charlotte [Mette Louise Holland], have come to
check it out. Scarier than the dark mansion, however, is the fact that
Grandma dabbled in the occult and was president of the Society for the
Protection of Vampires. Historian by trade, Grandma did research into the
life of her father Rikard, a minister turned vampire, and compiled it all
in a book titled Nattens Engel. Charlotte and Mads talk Rebecca into
sharing the stories with them.Rikard's story starts in 1850 Copenhagen when a vampire was ravaging
the city. When the mayor's daughter fell victim, the mayor put together a
hunting party which included the young minister, much to the chagrin of
his wife and young daughter. Armed with an ornate vampire-stabbing dagger,
the hunting party tracked the vampire down to the harbor. They were
successful in destroying the creature, but not before it got the bite on
Rikard. Rikard turned vampire, changed his name to Rico Mortiz, and waged
a new reign of terror until just a few years ago when a group of leather
jacket clad hoods, led by Tim, attempted to put Rico to rest.Meanwhile, Rebecca has been exploring the cellar and discovered the
original vampire-stabbing dagger. She also finds a scroll. Although the
scroll is in Latin, Charlotte is able to translate part of it. It says
that the vampire will walk again if someone says "the seven forgotten
words." But Charlotte and Mads are getting a bit antsy and want to go on
to the club, so Mads calls a taxi. Rebecca decides to stay behind so that
she can try to translate the rest of the scroll, so Mads and Charlotte go
upstairs to wait for the cab. While waiting, Mads starts to read the next
story in the Nattens Engel.It concerns the fact that, every 100 years, Rico must impregnate a
woman to bear him a child from whom he must then drink the blood. Rico
chose Marie Liman, hypnotized and raped her, and then awaited the birth.
Marie figured that the baby was from her boyfriend Alex until she began
having dreams about what really happened. When she told Alex that the baby
wasn't his, he dumped her. Fortunately, Father Esiah Garcia down in Peru
had been having visions about the pregnancy and came all the way to Europe
to help Marie. It got Father Garcia killed, but Marie was able to kill the
baby by drinking holy water, which resulted in Rico turning into a pile of
dried up bat bones.Mads and Charlotte are feeling pretty spooked after reading about
Marie, so Charlotte tosses the book out the window and puts on some music
to liven things up. Since the taxi still hasn't arrived, she decides to
pass the time by seducing Mads. (Some best friend!) Meanwhile, down in the
cellar, Rebecca is being mesmerized by Rico into lighting seven candles
and reciting the seven forgotten words -- Brujah Gangrel Malkavia
Nosferatu Toreador Tremere Ventrue -- while slitting her wrist and letting
the blood drip on Rico's bones. Voila, Rico Mortiz [Eric Holmey] is back amongst the
undead...and he's hungry.Rebecca has the sense to hide when she sees Rico taking batform, so
Rico flies upstairs and sates his thirst on Charlotte while Mads pulls up
his pants and runs into Rebecca. After drinking Charlotte's blood, Rico is
able to take human form. Rebecca plunges the superduper vampire-stabbing
dagger into Rico's chest, but unfortunately she misses his heart. His
recoil causes them all to crash through a window, landing out on the lawn.
Rico begs Rebecca to meld her blood with his ("We're family...I need your
blood"), but Rebecca reminds him of the family he left behind back in
1850. As Rico anguishes over the memory, Rebecca plunges the dagger back
into his chest, this time hitting his heart.Rico roars in pain, and hands suddenly come up from the ground and
start to pull him under. Just as he sinks below the surface, there is a
flash of fire and suddenly Rikard [Christian Gronvall] is lying on the ground. They both notice
a brilliant light in the night sky and look up to see an angel floating
down to earth. It is Rikard's dead wife. She takes his hand and they float
up to heaven together. Just then, the taxi arrives. Rebecca and Mads drive
off together, promising each other that they will buy another house. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.] | violence, flashback | train | imdb | null |
tt0115571 | The Arrival | Zane Zaminski (Charlie Sheen), a radio astronomer working for SETI, discovers an extraterrestrial radio signal from Wolf 336, a star 14 light years from Earth. Zane reports this to his supervisor, Phil Gordian (Ron Silver) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but Phil dismisses the claims. Zane soon finds that he has been fired because of supposed budget cuts, and blacklisted, preventing him from working at other telescopes. Taking a job as a television satellite installer, he creates his own telescope array using his customers' dishes in the neighborhood, operating it secretly from his attic with help of his young next door neighbor, Kiki.Zane relocates the signal, but it is drowned out by a terrestrial signal from a Mexican radio station. Zane attempts to tell his former coworker, Calvin (Richard Schiff), but finds he has just died suspiciously from carbon monoxide poisoning. Zane travels to Mexico and finds the radio station was burnt to the ground. Searching the local area, he comes across a new power plant. There, he helps climatologist Ilana Green (Lindsay Crouse) protect her atmospheric analysis equipment from the plant's overzealous security forces. Ilana explains that the Earth's temperature has recently risen several degrees, melting the polar ice. She is investigating the power plant, one of several recently built, that appears to be the cause of this increase. The two are released, but without Ilana's equipment. Surprisingly, Zane realizes one of the guards could pass as the identical twin of his former boss, Phil, except that he is of Mexican ethnicity (whereas Phil is not). As Zane and Ilana regroup, Phil instructs some agents, posing as gardeners, to release an alien device in Zane's attic that creates a miniature black hole, consuming all of Zane's equipment. Zane leaves Ilana to again investigate the power plant and she is soon killed by a scorpion planted in her room.Zane discovers the plant is a front for an underground alien base. The very different looking aliens are able to disguise themselves with an external skin to infiltrate our society. Zane finds that all of the bases expel large amounts of emissions into the atmosphere. Zane is discovered but escapes back into the nearby town and attempts to convince the local sheriff of the situation. However, alien agents bring Ilana's body to the police station, making Zane a suspect in her death; Zane escapes and sneaks back into the United States. He accosts Phil on the JPL grounds, forcing him to admit that the aliens are trying to raise the Earth's temperature to not only kill off humans but make the planet hospitable for themselves. Zane secretly records the conversation and once Phil discovers the recording he sends agents to stop Zane.Zane returns home to find his attic devoid of equipment. He figures out the only way to broadcast the tape is to go to a nearby telescope and beam the signal directly to a television satellite, broadcasting it worldwide. With the help of his girlfriend Char (Teri Polo) and Kiki, he travels to the telescope. Phil and his agents soon disable the telescope controls from the main building. Zane leaves the tape with Kiki and instructs him to transmit it when he gives the order and then he and Char sneak over to the telescope's base and barricade themselves in the control room. Zane makes the necessary adjustments and tells Kiki to active the tape, but Kiki reveals himself to be an alien agent, and opens the door to allow Phil inside and confiscate the tape himself.Phil and his agents ram down the door to the telescope room with a van, but Zane freezes them with cryogenic gases. As he works to free the tape stuck in Phil's frozen jacket, one of the agents drops a sphere which starts to form another singularity in the room. Zane and Char escape through the telescope's optical path before the device implodes most of the telescope base, exiting safely onto on the collapsed dish. In the distance they see Kiki, and Zane tells him to tell the aliens that he will soon broadcast this tape; they watch as Kiki runs off. In the film's epilogue, Zane's conversation with Phil is broadcasted across the globe | suspenseful, murder | train | imdb | One scene in particular involving a large dish and someone almost falling off the side of it almost caused me to make a mess in my pants when first watching the film on the big screen.When I saw it the theater was mostly empty (not good for the movie, but it probably allowed us to enjoy it some more) and it was its first run (did it have a second?).
Its sad the film didn't do as well as it should have, at the time it was the best alien related movie in theaters (I seem to remember independence day being out at the same time).My one gripe is a somewhat weak ending (especially considering the strength of the rest of the movie).
Overall it is an entertaining and somewhat thought provoking film that you won't regret watching unless you don't like movies that emphasize suspense instead of action.
Global warming is more of a subplot that leads Mr Sheen in a certain direction and nothing more.The special effects are fairly spartan but effective and nicely creepy when they are used.Some of the characters are kind of annoying but are necessary, and don't detract from the film overall.A worthwhile rental, especially if you have a large TV to watch it on..
Since then, it has gained some life on video and will probably gain more popularity since the film marks the debut of director David Twohy, who is proving to be a force to reckon with in Hollywood, especially after his success with Pitch Black.Zane Ziminski (Charlie Sheen) is a brilliant radio astronomer who, along with his partner (Richard Schiff), receive a radio signal which Ziminski believes was emitted from an extraterrestrial source.
As Ziminski continues his investigation, he believes he may have uncovered a worldwide alien conspiracy.What makes The Arrival as great a film as it is is because of the story, which is smart and interesting.
Despite this being his first time behind the camera, he proves himself an adroit filmmaker, weaving the story together brilliantly, and unfolding little plot surprises along the way.The Arrival is primarily a thriller, and Twohy is more than competent at creating action and suspense (witness Pitch Black), both elements of which are sharply executed in this film.
The film moves at a lightning pace and there's never a loss of momentum or a lag in the running time, which runs smoothly throughout all 115 minutes.The cast is also strong, with Charlie Sheen taking top acting honors.
*** 1/2 out of ****Writer/director David Twohy accomplished the near-impossible in the summer of 1996; he delivered a fun, fast-paced AND intelligent sci-fi thriller with The Arrival, an intriguing, thought-provoking film that was unfairly ignored in theaters at the time of its release (most viewers chose to see Twister, M:I, Independence Day).
The movie has a classic premise about a radio astronomer (Charlie Sheen) who receives a signal from outer space that may or may not have come from extraterrestrial life.To say anymore would be unforgivable, as Twohy packs in believable twists and turns throughout the plot, which is fun without insulting the brain, and complex without ever bogging down in mind-numbing confusion.
The script does have a few head-scratchers here and there (I was particularly miffed that Lindsay Crouse's character, an environmentalist, wasn't familiar with the concept of terraforming) and some contrivances, but they're hardly bothersome and aren't noticeable until a second viewing.As good a screenwriter as Twohy is, he's even more adept as a director (further proven by Pitch Black, a superbly crafted deep-space thriller with a script not even half as smart as The Arrival's).
With great pacing and precise editing, Twohy builds momentum with each discovery Sheen unfolds, until it culminates to an edge-of-the-seat climax that's quite satisfying (unlike...cough...cough..."V: the Final Battle", Independence Day).The cast is all-around effective, with Sheen delivering a surprisingly terrific performance as the paranoid astronomer.
Composer Arthur Kempel's score adds a bit more tension to the already excruciating suspense, and evokes a creepy atmosphere during the film's quieter moments.Remember, folks, The Arrival is a rarity, a once in a while example of how pure movie magic can be created when we've got dedicated filmmakers who want to intrigue the audience rather than catering to demographics just for the sake of box office returns.
Charlie Sheen plays Zane, a radio astronomer who accidentally discovers an alien signal from space, that also has origins on Earth.
Zane then finds out he has been fired, and the tape he gave to his boss disappears, so now very suspicious, he undertakes his own investigation, which leads him to an alarming truth about aliens who are indeed very much among us...Well written and directed by David Twohy, this science fiction film is a pleasant surprise, and Charlie Sheen is appealing and believable as the man determined to find the truth, and warn the world; sounds like a certain FBI agent from "The X-Files"....
earth film succeeded because it added humor to the suspense story and Charlie Sheen did a great job adding to that with an expression-filled face that made he and this film fun to watch.Story-wise, most of it made no sense as Sheen got out of one impossible scrap after another but good sci-fi special effects and suspense helped make the story interesting and fast-moving.
When the astronomer Zane Ziminski (Charlie Sheen) receives signal from a distant star, he reports and gives all the evidences to his chief, Phil Gordian (Ron Silver), and is immediately fired.
They meet each other in a small Mexican town, where Zane finds that aliens are preparing to annihilate the human race and preparing Earth for their occupation."The Arrival" has a good story that uses the abnormal raise of temperature and change in the climate on Earth as part of a plot of invasion of our planet by aliens.
Zane (Charlie Sheen), an astronomer discovers intelligent alien life , as he picks up strange signals from outer space .
Zane Zaminsky (Charlie Sheen) and Calvin (Richard Schiff) working a radio telescope discover a signal from 14.6 light years away.
I'm not sure acting is his strong point.In this truly terrible X-Files rip-off, Charlie's eyebrows are permanently hiked up around his hairline, and running around Mexico bare-chested (it's hot, you see) is not enough to keep us interested for nearly two hours.How David Twohy managed to get finance for any movie after this is beyond me, and he should definitely get someone else to read over his scripts; I didn't know whether to groan or guffaw most of the time.
Title: The Arrival; Genre: Sci-Fi; Certificate: 15; Year: 1996; Director: David N TwohyStarring: Charlie Sheen, Teri Polo, Ron SilverWith the renaissance of science fiction, (similar to the brief rebirth of westerns recently), there are many frustrated script writers only too eager to share their visions of alien invasions and futuristic apocalypse.
Charlie Sheen, who has slipped into freefall since the heady days of "Platoon", is Zane Ziminski, a radio telescope operator who searches the airwaves for alien contact from outer space.
Charlie Sheen acts exactly as he did in Hot Shots (and part of me hoped this will turn out to be a parody in the end), while the other actors are mostly alien to movies :)The link to B&B comes from the actions taken by both human and aliens.
Charlie Sheen stars as a scientist who discovers that there really is "life out there." The only problem is that it's not out thereit's here, and they're covering up his discovery in hopes of remaining incognito.This movie plays like a cheap sci-fi movie of the 30's.
I'm a fan of Charlie Sheen and I think Teri Polo is cute, but that's about as far as this movie goes.3 out of 10 stars (and that's a gift)..
Sheen to be the main actor in this film.The guy act as if he is under the influence of some pretty intense stuff, like crack/cocaine.His facial expression and wide open-eyes were a major let-down.
David Twohy (Pitch Black) plays it by the numbers here but creates a very believable conspiracy film with Charlie Sheen playing a radio astronomer who tells all and sundry that he has picked up on extraterrestrial signals, when no one takes him seriously he gets in his car and goes of on a quest to get proof.
Those who crave conspiracy theories and cover ups, your time will not go to waste.Radio astronomer Zane Ziminsky (Charlie Sheen) believes he's picked up a cosmic noise that signals extraterrestrial intelligence.
David Twohy, a Talented Writer/Director is one Filmmaker that is consistently interesting, making Movies that almost always are a Notch Above.In this Film there is an Abundance of Paranoia and Government Cover-Ups that lend an Unsettling Feel and the SFX and Makeup are Creepy and suck every Low-Budget Dollar into a Visually Impressive, pervasive Trickery, that is Original and Clever.This is an Underrated Sleeper that never got the Attention or Acclaim that it deserves.
Charlie Sheen is a Dynamo of a Geek and comes close to Over Acting but is always Engaging and Likable.The rest of the Cast does a Good Job of surrounding this Radio Astronomer with Threatening Characters and Friendly Confidants.
If you want to make a serious movie about alien attacks, you need to get another kind of actor, and other sets, and something more realistic, something different than seen someone escaping from prison just because a window was open.I like Charlie Sheen when he was young or right now when he does what he does best: play himself.
Charlie Sheen may be the only reason I didn't give it a 1, because I like the guy in other things he is in.And you know, I actually can't believe IMDb gives this thing a 6.2 at this point in time.
This movie has a great, rather original premise, a suspenseful plot, good cimematography, better-than average special effects, and a competent cast.
But the thing was I never seen any previews or trailers for the film nor did I recall ever hearing about The Arrival until we arrived at the theater to see it.A movie that cast Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Crouse, Richard Schiff, Ron Silver, Teri Polo and many more.
One of the films that unless you were in the theater when it was release it's not easy to describe because the film was just one that quite unexpected and you never know what would happened next because it had you on the edge of your seat It just one of those rare movies that you have to just sit down and watch to better understand it because only a few words can best fit it.If you enjoy 90s movies or are looking for those movies that you can't guess at then give this one a shot you might be surprised how it turns outI give the Arrival an 7 out of 10.
'Arrival' is a film that depicts aliens already present on earth and working on their plan for domination.Charlie Sheen plays astrophysicist Zane Zaminsky who struggles to survive in science since he is getting paid by short-term grants that are about to expire.
Sheen goes to the extremes to prove his point first to his girlfriend (played by Teri Polo) who initially distrusts him and then to his bosses in the observatory.The film has a strong b-movie character and I think that's the reason it is more entertaining given the subject; it takes more liberties with the script and even if the situations are a bit over the top sometimes they are still suspenseful.
"The Arrival" is a film that appeals to a wider audience due to its continual action, along with a global message in its wake that affects us all.Zane Zaminsky, a radio astronomer, works in a job that in real life would be about as exciting as watching cows graze to most folks.
the last third of the movie is an amalgamation of sloppy CGI, overdone performances, and coincidences/contrivances, that are so distracting it ruins my ability to sit back and enjoy the remainder of the film.There is no way The Arrival should've ended up like this.
If your idea of good science fiction is reading the latest issue of Analog, you'll love The Arrival.This movie was released a month before & was completely eclipsed by Independence Day. The contrast between the two could not be greater.
The plot has plenty of twists and turns to keep viewers wondering what will happen next.If you enjoy a little plot with your sci-fi film, then watch this movie.
While initially shocked by a rather portly Charlie Sheen, I was thoroughly entertained with a solid story possessing intelligence, action, and an effective cast.It is hard to describe this film without ruining it for any readers that have not seen it.
Whereas "Independence Day" is the traditional-conservative-values treatment of the theme, in which American cleverness and firepower save the day, "The Arrival" is the liberal-environmental-disaster flick, wherein a cabal of aliens is deliberately speeding up the process of global warming so as to make Earth suitable for their colonies.Charlie Sheen is a jittery radio astronomer whiz-kid who discovers this conspiracy of extraterrestrial terraforming (how's that for an oxymoron?), which is being financed by American investors in PlanetCorp, the aliens' front company.
This is thebest science fiction thriller since 'Aliens.' Completely original, and a nice performance by otherwise so-so Charlie Sheen.
"The Arrival," (1996), starring Charlie Sheen, may not be the dullest sci-fi film ever made, but it tries real hard.
I will say that "The Arrival" is a mildly confusing movie, portraying an astronomer (Charlie Sheen) discovering alien life hiding an ugly secret.
You have to use your imagination while watching this movie.First of all: I liked Charlie Sheen.
The only weak character, to my thinking anyway, is the environmentalist scientist, in that her acting ability runs the gamut of a to c (though she at least looks the part).Final note - the idea of the aliens constructing masks to look like Earthlings was brilliant, as was the plot device of Sheen's noticing doubles.
before i watched this film i thought it would be crap i only hired it because Charlie Sheen is in it.But the film turned out to be really good there was never a boring scene it keep me entertained from start to finish.I would highly recommend it to fans of sci-fi movies or any one looking for a good movie to watch.In the film charlie sheen plays a astronomer who discovers an alien transmission and he tries to tell people but he gets fired.And then he is doing experiments to try and find the alien signal again and he discovers it came from Mexico.And then he goes down to Mexico to try and find the aliens and people try to kill him.over all a good film 7/10.
THE ARRIVAL (1996) *** Charlie Sheen, Teri Polo, Ron Silver, Lindsay Crouse.
The story is fun with lots of twists and turns and the movie has some great special fx ( Including the believable aliens and also the super awesome "Implosion bomb") Take the time to check it out and be pleasantly surprised..
Charlie Sheen (Zane) is very convincing as the slightly paranoid radio astronomer who first detects the alien messages.
THE ARRIVAL ('sci-fi', 1996) Obsessed with finding alien life, radio astronomer Zane (Charlie Sheen) scans the universe for any trace.
This was one of the best sci-fi alien takeover movies that I have seen simply for the fact that the plot was great.
(I mean, are you as tired of Area 51-driven plots as I am?) The premise is more interesting, the investigation (a bit) more believable, and the technology of the invaders more original.It was refreshing to see real scientists, making discoveries by doing real science--I refer here to the Lindsay Crouse character, tracking down anomalous data in atmospheric gases, rather than Charlie Sheen's radio astronomer.
The Arrival (1996) is a cult classic science fiction about a radio astronomer Zane Zaminsky (Charlie Sheen) who discovers evidence of intelligent alien life and quickly gets thrown into the middle of a conspiracy that turns his life upside down.
The Arrival is my favorite David Twohy film and the best of Charlie Sheen movie ever.
The acting in this film from Charlie Sheen and Ron Silver is brilliant I love this movie to death I love it!
to me this this movie is an easy 8 and it is a prototypical "good" science fiction thriller movie -- intense, perfectly executed, original plot no copycat, shown to the tune of a forgettable and occasionally insulting story.Plot: Radio astronomer Zane Zaminsky (Charlie Sheen) believes he's picked up a cosmic noise that signals extraterrestrial intelligence.
Arrested for the murder of a scientist (Lindsay Crouse) investigating and impending ecological disaster, Zane's escape custody carrying proof of a world-shattering alien invasion in this intense sci-fi thriller.I first saw this movie on a cable when I was in high school.
I did not recognize Charlie Sheen with a beard watching this movie it quickly become my favorite Alien film.
The only real difference is the scale of the movie, the other two are very grand blockbuster, while The Arrival feels more like a little, smart thriller...which it certainly is.But the most interesting point for me is that this is written and directed by David Twohy.
THE ARRIVAL is one of the earliest Hollywood films made to cash in on the success of THE X-FILES on TV, telling of astronomer Charlie Sheen who becomes convinced that he and he alone has detected an alien signal from deepest space.
I am happy to say that 'The Arrival' succeeds at both.The movie stars Charlie Sheen as Zane a radio astronomer fearlessly listening the for the all-important voices from outer space.
Charlie Sheen, Teri Polo, Lindsay Crouse and Ron Silver star in this 1996 sci-fi film.
Sheen (Wall Street) plays Zane, an astronomer who discovers an alien conspiracy after picking up a radio signal from space. |
tt0221069 | Chasing Sleep | Ed Saxon (Jeff Daniels), a college professor, wakes up to find his wife has not returned home. He takes some mysterious pills, then calls one of his wife's friends, Susie (Molly Price), confusedly asking whether he should be worried. Susie suggests that he call the local hospital, but they have no record of his wife being admitted. After further consulting Susie, he decides to call the police. When Detective Derm (Gil Bellows) arrives, Derm takes pills similar to Saxon's. They check her workplace and listen to some messages on the answering machine. George Simian (Julian McMahon) has left a message, inquiring about his wife, and Derm remarks that her abandoned car was found near Simian's house. Saxon also has to deal with the college, annoyed that he didn't show up to teach his class, which leads one of his students, Sadie (Emily Bergl), to also leave a message.
Saxon suffers a series of hallucinations and blackouts, advancing time quickly. In short time, he receives increasingly irritated calls from work, which he blows off; an abusive phone call from George Simian, followed by a physical altercation; and a visit by Sadie, concerned about his unexplained absences. Saxon declines to tell Sadie about his missing wife, instead telling her that his wife is visiting her mother. Sadie collapses in the bathroom, bloodying her nose, and complains of having heard a woman scream. Saxon explains that the neighbors, who fight often, can sometimes be heard from his house, and he gives her a change of clothes. After she leaves, Derm returns, wanting to search the house for clues. Sadie's bloody shirt is discovered by Derm, who seems satisfied with Saxon's explanation. Derm also finds a diary, which Saxon didn't know his wife kept. In it, Saxon's wife expresses mixed emotions for her husband, including pity, contempt, and fear. Despite his promise to give the diary to Derm, Saxon burns the diary.
Geoffrey Costas (Zach Grenier), a psychiatrist who leads a victim support group, visits Saxon, offering him comfort. Saxon initially declines, before soliciting stronger medication, to fight off long-term insomnia. Despite the strong medication, Saxon does not seem to fall asleep, though he suffers more blackouts and apparent hallucinations. Sadie returns to his house, concerned that he has missed more classes, but Susie interrupts them. Saxon angrily brushes aside Susie's concerns and explains that Sadie is just a student. After he gets rid of Susie, Sadie expresses her feelings of loneliness and isolation, as well as admiration for Saxon's poetry. This leads to an abortive tryst, which Saxon abruptly calls off. Humiliated and confused, Sadie leaves.
Derm calls Saxon to reveal that they've discovered his wife's body. Depressed, Saxon welcomes the chance to talk to Costas again. They discuss how traumatic events can lead to inappropriate guilt, and Costas convinces Saxon to allow him to speak to the police, on his behalf. However, the police reveal that they have not discovered the wife's body, after all, leading both Costas and Derm to suspect Saxon. Saxon has further hallucinations, leading him to suspect himself, as well. Simian, who had been arrested previously for assaulting Saxon, returns to Saxon's house again, enraged and seeking to kill Saxon. Saxon instead kills Simian, and, consumed with guilt, swallows every pill that he can find. Derm, arriving at the house afterward, kneels down, in front of Saxon, while Saxon denies killing anyone. The bathtub then overflows with blood, and Saxon sees his wife playing the piano. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0105470 | Stepfather III | Having survived the stab wounds he sustained at the end of the previous film, Gene Clifford (Robert Wightman), escapes from the same institution in Puget Sound, Washington he was placed in four years ago. He seeks out a back alley plastic surgeon (Mario Roccuzzo) to alter his appearance, using no anesthesia. After a few days, Gene kills the doctor by slitting his throat with a bone saw and makes his way to Deer View, California, where he acquires a new identity, "Keith Grant", as well as a small cottage and a job at a plant nursery. Nine months after crafting his new life, Keith, during an Easter dance held by the church, meets divorced school principal Christine Davis (Priscilla Barnes) and her psychosomatically paralyzed son Andy (David Tom). Keith and Christine begin dating. When Christine's possessive ex-boyfriend Mark Wraynal (Stephen Mendel) follows Keith home and confronts him, Keith offers to have a chat. Keith kills him with a shovel and buries the body in his garden.
Keith and Christine marry, despite Andy's misgivings. Andy's biological father Steve (Jay Acovone) offers Andy the chance to spend the summer with his family and attend a school for the gifted, and Andy decides to take his father up on the offer, despite Keith's protests. With Andy gone and Christine revealed to be infertile, Keith begins courting Jennifer Ashley (Season Hubley), a widow who has moved into Keith's old cottage with her son Nicholas (Adam Ryen). Keith plans to murder Christine and marry Jennifer. Andy sees a news story about an unidentified serial killer who murders families, and suspects that Gene is the culprit. Meanwhile, Christine and Jennifer meet and become friends, which makes Keith nervous. Keith murders his boss with a garden implement, Mr. Thompson (Dennis Paladino), when Thompson mentions that he spotted Keith cheating on Christine with Jennifer.
Andy asks family friend Father Ernest Brennan (John Ingle) to help him discover Keiths past. Andy invites Brennan over for dinner and the two sneak Keith's fork off the table, to have the fingerprints analyzed. Realizing Brennan is up to something, Keith excuses himself after dinner and follows the priest home. He runs Brennan off the road, beats him to death, and makes it look like a car accident. He also discovers the fork. When Christine mentions visiting Jennifer, Keith rushes to the plant nursery and calls Jennifer, telling her to meet him. Before going to the nursery Jennifer calls Christine to cancel their meeting, claiming her new boyfriend called with an emergency. When Jennifer arrives, Keith reveals he is married before claiming he needs her out of the way. Keith knocks her unconscious and prepares to kill her by feeding her body into a big wood chipper.
Christine and Andy suddenly appear; Christine has figured out that Keith is Jennifer's new boyfriend and confronts him about the affair. He beats her unconscious when she discovers Jennifer weakly writhing on the ground. As Keith prepares to murder his two lovers, Andy finds the courage to get out of his wheelchair and walk. Gene chases him through the cemetery, until Andy knocks him into the wood chipper. However, Gene is only hanging on the edge and grabs Andy. Christine gets up and helps Andy get away, leaving Gene to fall into the chipper, killing him. | murder | train | wikipedia | It is surprisingly good for a made-for-cable movie, and it stands up to Stepfather II, at the very least.
Terry O'Quinn does not return to his role in this one, he is replaced by Robert Wightman.
The plastic surgery sequence is particularly unsettling, as the stepfather undergoes the procedure without any anesthesia, and by a 'back-alley' plastic surgeon.
Priscilla Barnes carries the whole movie.
I get a kick out of these Stepfather movies.
The I just wanna be a family man gets a super duper facial make over from an underground plastic surgeon then finds another single mom with child and we're off and running.
Robert Wightman just didn't seem to be able to project that Psycho demeanor that Terry O'Quinn was so good at.
As many times that the Stepfather had been stabbed, shot, hit over the head etc.
you'd think that he would have wised up and said `This time I'm gonna get a girl who doesn't already have a child and try it that way for a change.'.
The part in the movie that just made it so stupid is when there in the gardens and the little kid in the wheelchair is trying to save his mom from the stepfather and he just gets up from his wheelchair and starts walking as if he was never paralyzed and he also starts RUNNING from the stepfather who is trying to kill him.
As awful this movie is i still sat threw the whole thing.
Stepfather 3 Father's Day ranks as the worst horror film ever even Troll 2 was better than this trash.
I know it seems kind of dishonest to comment on a movie if you haven't seen it all the way through, but trust me on this one, kids...you don't need to see this turkey all the way through to know how bad it truly is.
The only way you wouldn't know how that bout would end up, is if you've NEVER SEEN A MOVIE BEFORE!
And the whole thing with 'Bad Ex' threatening good ol' 'Stepfather,' as he's turning his flower bed with a BIG shovel???
Meaning I could channel surf over to a really GOOD movie, even one that's been on about a thousand times.
Like the first NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, which I'm sure I've seen about a thousand times and still enjoyed it.Well, thanks to STEPFATHER 3, make that a thousand and one.So, if you want to respect yourself in the morning, do what Terry O'Quinn did way before me.
This movie's script, plot and acting are all so stupid (except for Priscilla Barnes) that they're hilarious.
Unfortunately, this was intended to be a horror film.Unless you like movies that are so bad they're funny (a la Plan 9 From Outer Space), I'd recommend avoiding this film..
Keith Grant (Robert Wightman) seems like an ideal choice for a husband.
Unfortunately, Keith is also the same mass murderer played by Terry O'Quinn in the two previous entries.
Thanks to the miracle of plastic surgery, the psycho is now a new man (literally) and is free to continue on in his psychotic search for the "perfect" family.
He meets, romances and marries a schoolteacher (Priscilla Barnes) with a prodigal, computer-obsessed, wheelchair-bound son (David Tom), who sees right through Keith's facade.
And they're not perfect so you know what to expect.Wightman has his hands full trying to fill in for the wonderful O'Quinn, and comes off more nerdy and weird than psychotic and calculating.
That aside, this third entry is acceptable genre fare, with a good supporting cast, realistic characters and some stupid fun with a garden mulch machine.Score: 4 out of 10.
how about the scenes where the stepfather gets angry and goes by himself chopping wood or whatever while he is yelling at himself.
The only reason that i kept watching was that it is a ridiculous bad film!The only thing horrible was the camera-work!
I kept laughing in disbelief over so much stupidity!Watch this only as an example how to do things the bad way in movie-making.
Obviously Terry O'quinn didn't want to do this so they made up the storyline that the stepfather had his face changed so that he could go on with his murderous ways.
With an annoying wheelchair-bound son to boot, we recommended surfing right past this film..
Wow, and I thought the second one was bad,This the stepfather as yet again escaped from the insane asylum and had his face surgically, that one to add a re-cast into the story.This was no wear near as good as first movie, it was even worse then second movie, which I didn't not like that much,However I do think this movie was far more bloody then the other two movies put together, there were few gory deaths in this movie, even the way they show the death scenes look a bit strange in bad way.The acting in this movie was really bad from most of the cast, I didn't think Robert Wightman was the right person for this role, I just could find him believable as the killer.I did like how the movie ended, also some parts of the movie are very predicable as we seen twice, with little sub plot about boy in wheelchair.I was not aware that this was TV movie until now, I thought it was decent and really bloody for TV movie, the acting was really bad in this movie from most of the cast.4 out of 10.
I loved the Stepfather movies and it's a shame they cannot go onto a fourth chapter after this...I won;t spoil it for you but...it's a sad ending to the franchise..
The first movie was OK, second not bad, but this last movie designed for the cable simply sucks !
The acting is so bad, the plot (what plot ?) is poor and maybe less inventive than a '' Bold and the Beautiful'' episode.Robert Wightman (as the stepfather) is the worst actor on earth.
Terry O'Quinn, who performed the stepfather in the two previous movies, was frightening.
Wightman is funny and idiot by moments, especially in the final scene.Sincerely, avoid this movie, don't even waste a buck for it.
You know, i sort of liked this one even though Terry O'Quinn wasn't in it.
The things i liked about this is the brilliant idea of plastic surgery on a killer's face, and the way Robert Wightman portrayed the stepfather as a Terry O'Quinn Wannabe.
When I first saw this one i kind of laughed at who played the stepfather because the last time i saw Wightman was when he replaced Richard Thomas as John Boy Walton, so in the long run John Boy Walton is playing the stepfather who seemed to be of a goofy version of O'Quinn, but on the other hand, perhaps if he was crazy enough to take the role of John Boy Walton i guess he would be crazy enough to play a psychotic perfect family man.
Just keep all that in mind when you ask why they would choose Wightman as the stepfather.
As for the rest of the cast, Priscilla Barnes did not seem to be the vulnerable victim, it looked like Season Hubley had that part.
The first film in the Stepfather slasher film series was excellent!
This third film felt unnecessary, particularly because it was minus the star of the first two films, Terry O'Quinn.
This sequel picks up following the events of part two with the homicidal stepfather again escaping custody and this time getting plastic surgery, which explains the change of actor.
Robert Wightman takes over as Keith Grant / The Stepfather and once again tries to find the perfect all-American family.
This new family has Priscilla Barnes as the mother to a young wheelchair-bound boy, who is paralyzed for no medically explained reason.
works its way into the film's finale where he has to use his legs to fight off his deranged stepfather.
Wightman is passable as the stepfather and actually does a good job impersonating the odd Robert Young Father Knows Best speech cadence established by O'Quinn in the firsts two films, but he lacks the the edge and frightening mental instability O'Quinn brought to the role.
Stepfather III (1992) ** (out of 4)After the events in the previous film, the stepfather finds himself at a plastic surgeon changing his apperance.
Flash forward nine months and single mother Christine (Priscilla Barnes) meets the charming Keith Grant (Robert Wightman).
The two quickly fall in love but Christine's young son Andy (David Tom) just feels that something isn't quite right with his new stepfather.You know, STEPFATHER III was obviously just a cheap film to try and cash in on the success of the first two but I must say that there was an actual good movie lurking around this thing but sadly it just never came together, which is really too bad.
With that being said, the film was quite frustrating to me because for every good thing there were at least two bad ones and in the end the film is more of a disappointment than anything else.Obviously the plastic surgery bit was done because Terry O'Quinn wasn't willing to come back to the film.
This entire gimmick seems pretty stupid so perhaps it would have been a better idea had they simply started the series over and had a new person doing the killings.
However, that decision wasn't made and we've got the same guy once again looking for the perfect family.
One of the film's good parts is the fact that there's a twist in the story where a second family enters the picture halfway through.
I really liked how they did this and thought it added something fresh to the story.I liked other touches throughout the film including smaller moments where Keith is carrying out these two lives and mixes them up.
Performances are also rather mixed here as Barnes was quite good and I also liked John Ingle in the role of Father Brennan.
This movie clocks in at 104-minutes, which is way too long for this type of film.
A lot of the family drama could have been left out and the film just takes way too long to get where it's going.
The family killer from parts one and two gets a face change via plastic surgery and sets his sights on finding a new wife.
It´s not a sooo bad movie !.
OK , Stepfather 3 is sometimes very boring but the Gore-Effects in this movie are very bloody and were made very good !
So you can watch this movie 1 or 2 times and you will have fun with it !.
"The Stepfather III" is one of the most un necessary sequels on Slasher cinema history.
I liked this movie for the wrong reasons.
I mean, when you rent/buy this movie you want to have cheap entertainment, or watch some gore.
I watched it because it features Prsicila Barnes, and because it's a sequel to a guilty pleasure: The Stepfather.
Expect some decent death scenes and good acting.
This is a perfect example of a regular Slasher flick with drama tones made for T.V. The ending is actually pretty good and it assures that the stepfather won't return.
The highlight of the movie is Priscila Barnes in a steamy sex scene where she wears sexy lingerie.
That's it.This time the Stepfather with a perfect plastic surgery in the face returns with a horrible attitude.
The kid gets really annoying at some point but delivers a good role.You could either watch the movie for Mrs. Barnes or if you love low budget Slashers.
Stepfather III: Cashgrab sequel.
Terry O'Quinn was fantastic as the antagonist in the previous films, he made them entertaining and better than by all rights they should have been.Having a sequel without him in was just asking for trouble but to Robert Wightman's credit he actually did a good job.Sadly the film starts off poorly, the very concept of the plastic surgery is quite frankly offensive to the viewers!
If you can get past that this is essentially the same film as the previous two and is a passable if much not needed effort.The one difference here is that our antagonist decides that one family isn't enough and pry's himself into the lives of two while desperately trying to keep them apart.This is harmless enough stuff but in many ways felt more like a Lifetime original than a Stepfather movie.The Good: Strong performance by Robert Wightman The Bad: Plastic surgery concept is ridiculous Things I Learnt From This Movie: Plastic surgery comes with a free voice change The sight of a priest and a young boy bonding makes me uncomfortable, and this one couldn't even run away!
This sequel features a new actor as Stepfather, and boy, do i miss Terry O'Quinn.
To me he was 'The Stepfather'...In this version Stepfather is a lot younger (with lil help from scalpel) and in one part is dressed as The Easter Bunny....There are a few interesting moments where his old character emerges, but not an awfully good rendition...( note, unlike some people I don't watch films for sex scenes alone!!
)I watched it cos it was from the Stepfather clan, and I have a thing about the films!!
Most of all -lots of fun!!!Basically I am giving this a six out of ten as a film filler...More of a TV movie...associated recommendations from me would be psycho IV and Halloween III....
~Spoiler~ The only thing that worked about Stepfather 2 was Terry O'Quinn.
How is a Stepfather movie going to measure up with his absence?
Stepfather 3 is a horrible attempt to breathe new life into a dated franchise.
It's plastic surgery time.
Robert Wightman takes over the Stepfather mantle and I feel bad for the guy.
He's doing a very stiff impersonation of O'Quinn the entire run of the movie.
Maybe if he had made the character his own, the movie wouldn't have been so horrid.
The Stepfather is trying to deal with two families at once because he's unsatisfied with his situation.
The ending is definitive this time (even moreso than the last two films).
The Stepfather is shoved into a wood chipper by the paralyzed boy who has finally overcome his fear of walking (yes, it's as cheesy as you picture).
Can you keep a good stepfather down, despite him being shot and stabbed in the heart multiple times?
That's why even if Terry O'Quinn isn't coming back, his character definitely will in this made for HBO movie.Yes, Gene Clifford has survived being stabbed with a clawhammer in the heart and went right back into the same mental institution in Puget Sound.
And he escapes it all over again, finding a back alley surgeon to change his appearance, all with no anesthesia, before killing that very same doctor.Oh yeah - now the stepfather is played by Robert Wightman, who is best known for taking over the role of John-Boy Walton from Richard Thomas.Now, he's Keith Grant, a gardener who dresses up as the Easter Bunny for a church party.
There, he meets Christine Davis (Priscilla Barnes from TV's Three's Company) and her son Andy, who has been in a wheelchair since an accident.
He's surprised when his new dad misidentifies him as Nicholas, so the typical stepfather behavior has started as he begins forgetting his identity and killing anyone who learns the truth, like that troublemaking priest!Will the stepfather find true love?
All of these questions and probably a few more will be answered by the end of this movie.If you watch this movie without looking at the screen, you may think that Terry O'Quinn is still in it.
But once you watch it, the acting isn't as good.
In fact, Wightman is quite wooden, particularly in a sex scene with Barnes where she's sweaty and super into it.
Stepfather III.
Distributor: VIDMARK Entertainment Plot: Even the asylum couldn't keep the Stepfather away from his grisly mission.
This time he has found two loving families...and the ideal job---burying things in the earth at Thompson's Nursery.
And getting rid of bodies is so easy now---there's a people sized shredder in the potting shed.Audio/Video: Excellent picture quality from Vidmark.Extras: Nothing.Final Thoughts: Stepfather 3 is different from the rest because Terry Quinn is absent.
**This review may contain spoilers** Even though this movie is the weakest in the series I would say I walked into this movie with almost no expectations whatsoever and it surprised me.
The Stepfather has now gone through plastic surgery and is searching for a new "perfect" family.
This felt like a rehash of the first movie since it's almost the same story except for the plastic surgery involved in the plot.Terry O'Quinn is replaced by Robert Wightman and this is what's probably the biggest problem with the movie.
He's nowhere near as good as Terry O'Quinn but he keeps getting better the longer into the movie you get (when he plays the "nice" Stepfather is the weakest part of the movie but when he plays the "evil" Stepfather he does a really great job).
The supporting cast is probably the best part of the movie and the actress who carries this movie on her shoulders is Priscilla Barnes, she gives her all in this movie and she does a really great job.
Another character I was very fond of was Father Brennan played by John Ingle, he was very likable and funny at times as one of the most down to earth preachers I've seen on film.
A surprise for me was the character of Andy portrayed excellent by David Tom (espesially during the more emotional scenes).The soundtrack is good and you can sort of hear the theme from the previous two films in the series within this theme if you listen very closely.For a made for TV movie Stepfather 3 was great, even though it's the worst in the series I can recommend it if you enjoyed the first two. |
tt0087592 | The Last Horror Film | Vinny Durand (Joe Spinell) is a New York City taxi driver who is obsessed with the international cult actress Jana Bates (Caroline Munro), who is known as the "queen of horror films". Vinny returns home to his apartment where he lives with his mother (played by Joe Spinell's real life mother), where he tells her that he's packing to go to the Cannes Film Festival in France hoping to meet Jana Bates and get her to star in his movie as his career start of being a film director. But his mother calls it just another one of his "crazy ideas."
Vinny arrives in Cannes and tries to get to meet Jana several times, but is turned away. Jana is in Cannes to promote her latest horror film Scream where she has been nominated for Best Actress. Accompanying Jana is her manager and ex-husband Bret Bates (Glenn Jacobson), and the film's producer Alan Cunningham (Judd Hamilton) who is her current beau. Vinny phones Bret to talk to Jana at her hotel room, but get hung up on. Shortly afterwards, Jana is at a press conference with Alan when she receives flowers and a note saying, "You've made your last horror film." When she goes to see Bret at his hotel room, she finds him dead, after being slit and later beheaded and runs away, when she later returns with the police, the body is gone.
Vinny continues following Jana around and filming her with his movie camera. Marty Bernestein (Devon Goldenberg) runs into Vinny and shrugs him off when Vinny asks him if he's willing promote his movie. Marty meets with the movie's director Stanley Kline (David Winters), and his personal assistant Susan Archer (Susanne Benson) where they reveal that all of them have received the same notes that Jana and Bret received. But when Marty takes his suspicions to the police, they think that Bret's disappearance is another publicity stunt. The next day, Marty gets a letter from Bret to meet him in a theater screening room. When Marty shows up, he is hacked with a hatchet by a hooded figure.
While Jana attends more press conferences, Vinny goes to a nightclub where he attacks a stripper after seeing her as Jana. He goes to a local cinema where he watches a gory horror film of Stanley Kline, and runs into him outside the theater. The following day, Susan tells Stanley that she wants to leave Cannes, but he convinces her to stay a while longer. That evening, both of them are killed by the hooded figure atop a building where Stanley is stabbed, and she falls off the building's ledge after getting shot. The killer then takes his movie camera and films all the deaths.
Across town in Jana's hotel room, Vinny sneaks in with a bottle of champagne and surprises Jana as she's taking a shower. He asks her to appear in his movie, but she insists him to leave immediately, causing Vinny to break down in tears. Angered and upset, Vinny smashes the bottle in the sink and threatens Jana with the bottle's jagged edge. When the doorbell rings, Jana shoves Vinny aside and sprints off. Jana, clad only in her bathroom towel, runs screaming through the hotel lobby being chased by Vinny. The people in the lobby think it is another public stunt and applaud. Vinny, caught off guard, stops and smiles for them, allowing Jana to escape, who runs into Alan and a group of reporters outside the hotel. After explaining what happened, Alan tells Jana that he will take her away from the city.
The next day, Alan drives Jana to a remote castle in the French countryside where a musician friend of his, named Jonathan, is staying. Vinny follows them. That evening, Vinny sneaks into the castle, but is chased away by Jana's bodyguards who accidentally kill Jonathan as he tries to stop Vinny.
Alan and Jana return to Cannes for the awards ceremony where Vinny sneaks into the festivities dressed as a local policeman. While Jana waits in the back wing of the building, Vinny subdues Jana with chloroform and takes the unconscious actress away in his car back to the castle to film a scene there. Vinny films a scene with him playing Dracula and Jana as a victim. Suddenly, Bret Bates shows up with another camera and a pistol, and congratulates Vinny on setting everything up for him. Bret is revealed to be the killer and the mastermind behind this whole thing, not Vinny. Bret reveals that on the day when Vinny phoned him about his movie proposal, he realized that he had the perfect fall guy to set Vinny up for all the killings and to get even with Jana for leaving him. Vinny throws his cape over Bret, distracting him, and runs. But Bret grabs Jana and taunts Vinny to come out in the open. Outside, Vinny turns on a motorcycle's headlights, blinding Bret, and as Jana steps aside, Vinny murders Bret with a chainsaw, via armless and beheaded. As Alan arrives with the police, Vinny stands before Bret's dead body and screams.
The image falls back to reveal that the whole story is a movie that Vinny filmed at the Cannes Film Festival with Jana Bates, and he is now back in New York showing it to his mother in a screening room. His mother tells Vinny that she's finally proud of him for directing and starring in his first movie, but Vinny explains that it will be his last horror film. As Vinny starts to talk to his mother about ideas for his next movie, the old woman interrupts him to ask for a joint. The two share to smoke as the film ends. | pornographic, cult, satire, murder, violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0058620 | Strait-Jacket | Various flashbacks and images introduce Lucy Harbin [Joan Crawford], a young woman who comes home unexpectedly to find her husband in bed with another woman. Carol, their very young daughter, is in bed right in the next room, but she is awake. Heartbroken, Lucy suffers a moment of fury and confusion that leads her to spontaneously pick up a nearby axe and decapitate her husband and his lover while they sleep. Carol watches in terror and shock as Lucy hacks the two bodies to pieces. Lucy is declared insane and sent to an asylum, where she endures traumatic shock treatments for her mental breakdown.The narrator of the flashback is revealed to be Carol, now a young woman. It is twenty years later, and Carol is opening up about her past to her boyfriend, Michael Fields. After Lucy's incarceration, Carol was taken in by her aunt and uncle, Bill and Emily, and the family lives on a farm in a rural location. Carol is revealing the family history to Michael because Lucy is being released from the asylum, and is coming to live with the family. When Lucy arrives, she is skittish. She cautiously acclimates to the farm, exploring the area with Carol and meeting the gritty-looking farm hand, Krause. But she is clearly thrilled to see Carol again, and is touched by the lovely young woman Carol has become. Carol is a sculptress and has a spacious studio filled with her work, and she thrills Lucy by giving her a bust of herself just as she was in her youth.Things quickly start to get strange. Carol shocks Lucy by presenting her with two bracelets she used to wear when she was a young woman, large dangling charm bracelets that jangle when she walks. Carol seems intent on recreating Lucy as a young woman, taking her clothes shopping and buying her a wig that mimics the hairstyle she wore the last time Carol saw her. Lucy is uncomfortable with this, but agrees to dress this way to please her daughter, whom she desperately wants to make amends with. While they are in the wig shop, Lucy hears strange voices, as if children are singing a morbid nursery rhyme about her crimes. She dismisses it as nerves. Later, she suffers a terrible nightmare and wakes up to discover two bloody heads in bed with her, with a bloody axe lying nearby. When she wakes the others, the items are gone from her room. Lucy starts to think she is relapsing.Things get worse when Carol attempts to introduce Michael to her mother. When Michael stops by for drinks, Lucy seems to try and seduce him, all with Carol right there in the room. The embarassing scene is interrupted by Lucy's former psychiatrist, Dr. Anderson, who makes an unexpected visit. When he sees how unstable Lucy seems, Dr. Anderson makes comments to the family that suggest he would like to take Lucy back to the hospital. When the doctor gets Lucy alone, his comments upset her and she runs off. As Dr. Anderson searches for her around the farm, he enters the darkened barn and a shadowy figure corners him--it appears to be Lucy, the silhouette revealing her hairstyle and figure, right down to the jangling bracelets she wears. The figure is holding an axe, and quickly decapitates Dr. Anderson.Carol returns to the farmhouse to find her mother alone in the darkened living room. The doctor's car is still outside, and Carol quickly comes to the conclusion that her mother has killed him. In a panic, Carol drives the doctor's car into a barn and locks it in, but she is spotted by Krause, who is lurking the shadows. The next day, Carol sees Krause painting the car a different color and angrily confronts him, but he smugly suggests that he knows what happened to the doctor, and that he'll turn Lucy in to the authorities if Carol fires him. Lucy overhears the conversation from the window. Later that evening, Krause is stalked and murdered with the axe.Lucy prepares for an evening that she dreads, a dinner party intended to introduce her to Michael's parents. If Michael and Carol are to be married, these will be their in-laws, and Michael's family is very wealthy, his father being the proprietor of a very successful dairy farm. Lucy has a panic attack in the powder room while at the Fields'--after spilling coffee on her dress, she retreats to the washroom and suffers a flashback because of the wallpaper, which resembles the bars of a prison cell. Carol calms her down and takes her back to the party. Mr. & Mrs. Fields are cordial until they plot to get Lucy alone so they can have a private conversation with her: Mrs. Fields is suspicious of Lucy, and poor Lucy makes a terrible misstep by revealing to Mr. & Mrs. Fields that her daughter and Michael are planning to be married. The Fields had not been informed of this yet, and they react disapprovingly. Mrs. Fields in particular gets very haughty with Lucy, making suggestions about her past, and Lucy suddenly snaps at her, revealing that she was in an asylum for twenty years. She says that under no circumstances will she allow the Fields' to interfere with her daughter's happiness, and she storms out of the house.Michael drives Emily and Carol back to their house while he and Bill go out looking for Lucy, who has disappeared. Emily sends Carol to bed, but Carol is restless and cannot sleep. With Michael gone from the Fields' house, Mr. and Mrs. Fields are alone in their house and they hear sounds to suggest someone is prowling around. Mr. Fields is oblivious, but when he goes into his closet to get undressed for the evening, he is attacked by the figure of Lucy, brandishing an axe. Mrs. Fields becomes suspicious and goes looking for her husband, eventually finding his body in the dressing room. Horrified, she retreats, only to be confronted by the figure of Lucy in the bedroom. Before the axe can fall, the bedroom door opens and the real Lucy comes in; after scuffling with the other figure, Lucy tears off a mask to reveal her daughter's face underneath. Carol has been committing the murders while dressing as her mother; scarred by witnessing the double homicide committed by her mother, Carol's mind was unstable ever since. Certain that Mr. and Mrs. Fields would never allow Michael to marry her without a great deal of trouble, she plotted to make it appear as if Lucy murdered them in a rage, which would send Lucy back to the asylum and allow her to marry Michael. Her mind shattered, Carol clutches the mask of her mother and screams at it "I hate you! I hate you! Oh I'm sorry, I love you! I hate you! I love you!" Outside on the porch, Lucy hears her daughter's insane ravings and weeps, perhaps remembering her own moment of insanity.An epilogue reveals Lucy discussing her plans with Bill. With Carol now committed to an asylum just as she once was, Lucy intends to stand by her daughter and be whatever kind of support that she needs. | dark, neo noir, murder, cult, horror, flashback, insanity, revenge | train | imdb | Throughout his career, producer-director William Castle liked to build his movies around gimmicks: TINGLER had "Percepto," 13 GHOSTS had "Illusion-O," and HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL had "Emergo." But STRAIT-JACKET had something better: Joan Crawford herself, who plays in a style that can only be described as "Emote-O-Rama." Say what you like about Crawford, she never gave any performance less than one hundred percent, and in STRAIT-JACKET she gives one hundred and fifty.
Later, as Lucy in her 40s, Joan plays the role like a nice little old lady who occasionally drops acid: when she's not busy with her nervous breakdown, she sucks down bourbon, attempts to seduce her daughter's boyfriend (even to the point of putting her fingers in his mouth), knits like a fiend, lights a cigarette by striking a match on a record album, raises hell at a dinner party...
And I have absolutely no doubt that THIS was the film Faye Dunaway studied the most when preparing to play Crawford in the infamous MOMMIE DEAREST; watch both back-to-back and you'll know exactly what I mean.The rest of the cast is pretty interesting as well, featuring Diane Baker as daughter Carol, Leif Erickson as Crawford's brother, George Kennedy as an unsavory farmhand, and a very young Lee Majors as the ill-fated husband--not to mention Mitchell Cox, a Pepsi V.P. Joan was favoring at the time.
It's all campy and bizarre and hilariously weird and ramped up to the nth degree by Crawford's full-force performance.With a somewhat better script and production values, STRAIT-JACKET could easily have matched Bette Davis' more sophisticated HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE; as it stands, however, it is a cult movie in all caps.
"Strait-Jacket" tells this story: Lucy Habin (Joan Crawford) surprises her husband with another woman.
The story is interesting and will keep your attention till the end.I've seen 2 other Castle films ("The Tingler" and "House on Haunted Hill") - both of them funny and entertaining, but I think that "Strait-Jacket" is the best one - it is not so amateurish and goes deeper than the other ones, but still preserves the light touch characteristic of William Castle.
Strait-Jacket(1964) a film starring Joan Crawford as a woman who comes home to find her husband getting busy with another woman.
William Castle is best known for fun, gimmicky horror flicks the likes of The House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler; but his resume features some more complex films that can comfortably sit alongside the best B-movies of the sixties, and Straight-Jacket is one such film.
The film opens up with a great little sequence which shows why the lead character was sent to the asylum, and although the plotting takes a downturn after that; Castle manages to keep things interesting all the way down to the explosive ending.
She Was All Woman...And Knew It. And so with those words begins this wacked out slasher film/murder mystery that shows Joan Crawford lopping off the heads of her husband and his girlfriend while they lie in post-coital repose -- and that's before the opening credits have even started!
Joan Crawford may have been hell to live and work with in her personal life, but it takes an actress with a unique skill to make a film like this not only competent, but almost fascinating.As for the movie itself, it's laughably predictable.
Her little daughter Carol witnesses the murder.After twenty years in an asylum, Lucy is released by her Dr. Anderson (Mitchell Cox) and her brother Bill Cutler (Leif Erickson) brings her back to her farm where he lives with his wife and Carol (Diane Baker).
Is Lucy killing again?"Strait Jacket" is a predictable thriller by William Castle with Joan Crawford, who has a great performance as usual.
Joan Crawford, the Arched Eyebrow Queen of Melodrama, is surprisingly vulnerable throughout most of this thriller involving a former axe murderess who gets released from the sanitarium and tries to make peace with her estranged daughter (Diane Baker), now a pretty twentysomething living on her uncle's farm.
Despite the obvious camp appeal--and Crawford's penchant for baubles, bangles and beads--it's a creepy character-study about insanity (not quite a horror flick, although a genuine thriller) and the stark black and white photography and eye-popping design gives "Strait-Jacket" a terrific look.
Pretty soon, though, Lucy is plagued by horrible visions and begins to hear upsetting things, and now it seems that the people she is coming into contact with are being brutally murdered
.with an axe.Grand Dame GuignolIt seems on odd blend on first glance, Oscar winner Crawford paired up with Castle, maestro of the gimmick led movie, producing a film written by Bloch, author of the novel that would become Hitchcock's Psycho.
Having a woman who is the protagonist-who may be the antagonist-also adds bite to Castle's production, but he, and his film, are indebted to Crawford and her wonderful OTT trip into self parody.Joan Blondell was all set to play Lucy Harbin, but an accident at home meant she was unable to fill the role.
Here Castle had the ultimate gimmick to sell his film, Crawford herself, although he couldn't resist some sort of tie-in so had millions of tiny cardboard axes made up to give to paying punters at the theatre.Sure it's a film that nods towards Psycho and Baby Jane et al, but the denouement here more than holds its own, while there's also a glorious bit of fun to be observed at the end with the Columbia Torch Lady logo suitably tampered with.
The truth is that William Castle never directed big budget films (I believe he wasn't interested either) and his direction was most simple, but somehow he managed to get some little classics of the genre particularly this one and "The House on the Haunted Hill" (perhaps a bit less serious) in my opinion.After 20 years in an asylum for having murdered his husband and lover with an axe in a rage attack, cured Lucy Hurbin goes back home to live in a farm with her daughter Carol, a brother and his wife; but shortly after Lucy arrives the axe murders return.Castle pushes the story easily, handles more than acceptably the tension and head-chops, and though the finale is inevitably predictable (otherwise the film wouldn't make any sense) you look forward to it and enjoy it.Joan Crawford is very good as Lucy a role that she makes without effort and Diane Baker is good too as her sweet daughter.
Before long, Lucy is having hallucinations and people who cross her wind up decapitated.One of director/producer William Castle's last really good horror-thrillers is a starring vehicle for an aging Joan Crawford, long since past the point of being taken seriously.
By the 1960s, she was reduced to playing caricatures of herself, or ghouls, as in this William Castle thriller.Robert "Psycho" Bloch penned this slasher film, about a jealous woman who spends 20 years in an asylum after she "took an axe and gave her husband 40 whacks...and gave his girlfriend 41." She's finally released to the custody of her brother and his wife, and her long-lost daughter (who witnessed the murders as a child).It's not hard to guess how it's going to end, but it's kind of fun watching it all spin out, with a few beheadings along the way to keep one's interest.
William Castle directs this campy classic with a pretty strait-forward approach as Lucy comes home and strange things start to happen to her and around her and, of course in a film like this, to other people and their health and welfare.
Joan Crawford's over the top performance as a wronged woman who decides to make her younger husband and his mistress into chop suey with an axe and is put away for 20 years and to be blamed for recurring murders when she is released is a case of it doesn't get any better than this.
Both works are hinged on backstories of maternal anxiety that crackle with tension.Joan Crawford gives a palpably frenzied performance as Lucy Harbin, a woman convicted of the brutal murder (decapitation via axe, if you want to get technical) of her husband and his mistress, all before the eyes of her young daughter.
Could Lucy be responsible, or is someone trying to take advantage of her fragile state?Aside from Crawford's histrionics, Strait-Jacket also offers up a good supporting performance from Diane Baker.
Strait-Jacket (1964) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Joan Crawford chops off her husbands head as well as his lover and gets sent away to an asylum.
She really pulls it off and gets away with her digressions.For example, there is a scene where Joan's character, Lucy Harbin, is nervous and has been talked into dressing and looking as she did twenty years earlier by her daughter.
The whole scene is priceless and I could not believe how Lucy ended up lighting her cigarette!I handed out way too many stars for this movie, but I would give it the full 10 for Joan Crawford's performance and ad libs in this type of role.
Joan Crawford stars as a woman newly released from an insane asylum for the beheading of her cheating husband and some floozie he was getting in on with some twenty years earlier.The surreal, psychotronic opening credits help set the tone for this one; and what follows nicely lives up to the hype.
A behind-the-scenes debate once favored quitting (Greta Garbo) or waiting (Katharine Hepburn) over what Crawford and Bette Davis did (accept these roles) - but the murderous movies were popular, and remain fun to watch.******* Strait-Jacket (1/19/64) William Castle ~ Joan Crawford, Diane Baker, John Anthony Hayes, George Kennedy.
In 1960,"Psycho" made Robert Bloch a famous horror writer.In 1963,"whatever happened to Baby Jane?" made Bette Davis and Joan Crawford potential actresses for horror flicks.Davis carried on with Aldrich in "Hush hush sweet Charlotte" while Crawford had to content herself with William Castle,not a bad choice (He would buy "Rosemary's baby rights and would produce it four years later)for a follow-up.SPOILERS This is a hilarious funny movie.I do not know if it was intended as a spoof,but to my eyes ,it's grand guignol,a grotesque farce where Crawford overacts as hell :with her black wig (see "Psycho" ,there are many similarities in the two stories,it was obvious that Bloch was capitalizing on the 1960 blockbuster) , her fake bracelets and her ridiculous dress ,she's bound to net horse-laugh.And what can we say of this incredible scene where TWO Joan Crawford are fighting against each other complete with axes and screams?And another one where she tries to seduce her daughter's squeeze?And another one when she quarrels with the so-called fiancé's snobbish (probably nouveaux riches)rich wealthy folks?And another one...the list is endless...BIG SPOILER But the biggest surprise ,so to speak,concernsDiane Baker's character.At least ,in "Psycho" ,did Perkins show signs of nervousness,of mental fragility,so his behavior made sense.Here ,it's impossible to swallow the "truth" when Baker turns into a monster (and the mask is one of the biggest joke I've ever seen in a horror movie).If you like kitsch,guilty pleasures,do not miss "Straight-Jacket" !.
And certainly also not without importance, this film stars Joan Crawford in a post-"Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" - role and that surely guarantees another grotesque, uncompromising and self-parodying performance of the great lady!
One of Joan Crawford's very first horror movie roles and by far her best is the role of Lucy Harbin in this William Castle classic.
After spending twenty years in an insane asylum for her crime, she is released and goes to live with her daughter on their farm property, but it is not long before goings on around the farm seem to point to Lucy's questionable sanity (and innocence).While William Castle earned his reputation for schlock-ridden gimmicky horror films, his pictures with Crawford are true gems; this film and "I Saw What You Did," to be specific.
What's most surprising though is, as in "Psycho," the way in which the film's conclusion turns on its audience, and the plot twist is just as unexpected to a 21st century audience as it was in 1964.Crawford's dedication to her role in the film is astounding, and in "Strait-Jacket" she is able to take a stab at the madwoman villainess whom she played opposite to in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" two years earlier.
The movie was campy, but it was a good choice by William Castle to get Joan Crawford to play the main character.
How much the star has fallen for an Oscar winning actress to do b-grade horror.A step up from his last movie with a similar Hitchcock premise to it, homicidal, Crawford plays a woman who spent 20 years in a loony bin for killing her husband and his lover with an Axe. Attempting to get her life together and bond with the daughter she left behind, Joan's character Lucy finds herself slowly going insane again.The movie is way more develop than homicidal and is given justice by Crawford's acting skills, despite how outdated some of the dialog is.
Carol Harbin (Diane Baker) is still haunted after witnessing her mother Lucy (Joan Crawford) murder her father and mistress 20 years earlier.
And then a couple of axe murders occur, and all signs point straight at Lucy...but a clever twist and exciting/creepy conclusion make 'Strait Jacket' much more compelling than many other horror films.I love this movie, it's one of my favourite old time "classic" horror flicks.
When the locals start getting axed, suspicions turn in one direction.This is probably one of William Castle's better known films, due mostly to the star power of Joan Crawford.
After playing the head nurse in an insane asylum in The Caretakers, Joan Crawford must have decided to see how the other side lived so her next film was Strait-Jacket where she was a mental patient.
William Castle directed this (for its time) gory thriller that stars Joan Crawford as Lucy Harbin, recently released from a mental asylum after 20 years for murdering her husband and his girlfriend with an ax.
In the opening sequence of "Strait-Jacket" Joan Crawford (in her late 50's) actually has the audacity to play her character Lucy at 20-something (in very soft lighting, of course!).
When La Crawford is sent home to stay with her daughter (the lovely Diane Baker, whose career had apparently fallen on hard times as well), heads begin to roll again and guess who the cops think is wielding the axe?
This would've been a hysterically camp entrance for ANYONE, but the fact that it's a sixty-ish Joan Crawford made up to look thirtysomething (sleazy floral dress, jangling charm bracelets and a ridiculous black wig) transcends camp and sends it into orbit.Flash forward to the present; Lucy is being released from the mental hospital and coming to live with her daughter, Carol (Diane Baker), and her brother and sister-in-law, on their farm.
Written by Robert Bloch (who also wrote Psycho), this story of hateful revenge, mother/daughter madness and psycho axe-murders, was axe-ually quite an effective and compelling little b-movie that proudly lived up to William Castle's reputation for delivering sensational thrills on a less-than-sensational budget.I certainly give all of the actors in Strait-Jacket plenty of credit for their credible character portrayals.
There wasn't a single insincere performance in the lot.Besides Joan Crawford's intense role as the tragically mad woman who's now been released from an insane asylum after a 20-year sentence - I give a special nod of recognition to George Kennedy who played Leo Krause, the filthy, callous farm-hand who seemed to enjoy (for the benefit of others) heartlessly slaughtering the farm animals with the aid of his trusty axe.At the time of this film (1964), Joan Crawford was on the Board of Directors at Pepsi-Cola.
snarl!), I "Thank you", Joan Crawford, for being one of the very first to start this truly unwelcome trend that still continues in movies to this very day) As a somewhat comical, twisted, tongue-in-cheek trivia note - The viewer will notice that, at the very end of the picture, when the famous Columbia Pictures' icon (the classic woman holding a torch) appears on screen, she is now shown as being headless, with her noggin noticeably sitting down at her feet.All-in-all - Strait-Jacket's gore may be decidedly laughable when compared to the gruesome standards of today, but as a wacky (or should I say "whacky"?) mother/daughter madness/murder story, it certainly didn't let me down..
She commits a crime of passion, lopping off both their heads with an axe.20 years later, she's released from a mental asylum, to go to the family farm and into the care of her brother Bill (Leif Erickson), his wife (Rochelle Hudson), and Lucy's own daughter Carol (Diane Baker), who witnessed the double decapitation as a three year old child.
The director William Castle did a bang up job with this movie, the mood and tension was all there and the eeriness of the atoms-here was top notch, the beginning with the double murder was fantastic, and the scene with Joan Crawford being carted off in a strait jacket was highly enjoyable.Okay some of the effects do look corny but given the fact that this movie came out in 1964 is understandable.
Like when some of the people getting axed, you can tell that they are mannequins, but that doesn't matter to me, and okay the twist at the end was pretty obvious and not surprising and this movie does try it's hardest to steer you away from the big twist doesn't quite work, but other than that I found this early horror movie very entertaining.The performances in this movie were superb, Joan Crawford as always brilliant, her swift change from meek old woman to vamp when she meets her daughters boyfriend had me stitches, no-one beats her she did that without being too hammy.
"Straightjacket" doesn't really feel like a horror film much, but it does feel good when it is.**SPOILERS**In an insane asylum, Lucy Harbin, (Joan Crawford) is released and goes to visit her daughter Carol, (Diane Baker) after twenty years of being away. |
tt0116731 | The Juror | Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is a sculptor who lives in New York with her son Oliver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt); she works a day job as a data entry clerk. Annie is selected to be a juror in the trial of mob boss Louie Boffano (Tony Lo Bianco), who is accused of ordering the murder of Salvatore Riggio.
Mark Cordell (Alec Baldwin) buys some of Annie's artwork and then wines and dines her before she discovers he is better known as "The Teacher", Boffano's enforcer and the actual perpetrator of Riggio's murder. Mark tells Annie to persuade the jury to acquit Boffano, or she and Oliver will die.
A frightened Annie convinces the jury to acquit Boffano. After the trial, Boffano questions whether Annie should "disappear", seeing her as a loose end. Mark convinces Boffano otherwise. Mark goes after Annie's friend Juliet (Anne Heche). After having sex with her, Mark reveals himself to be Annie's stalker. He pulls a gun and forces Juliet to take a fatal drug overdose. Mark boasts of Juliet's murder to Eddie (James Gandolfini), who also works for Boffano but unlike Mark, is sympathetic to Annie as he is a parent himself.
To ensure her son's safety, Annie hides Oliver in the village of T'ui Cuch, Guatemala. The prosecutor, who figured out Annie was threatened, wants Annie to turn state's witness so they can go after Mark, who now plans to take over Boffano's empire.
Annie convinces the prosecutor to let her wear a wire in a scheduled meeting with Mark. Annie removes the wire and gives it to Eddie, insinuating she and Mark are now a couple. Annie then succeeds in getting Mark to incriminate himself in a boastful rant about his ambitions, which she tapes on a hidden tape recorder. She uses the tape to tip off Boffano, who schedules a meeting with Mark.
Boffano's plan backfires when Mark kills both Boffano and his son Joseph (Michael Rispoli), along with their henchmen. He also slashes Eddie's throat. Mark, furious at Annie's betrayal, calls her, revealing his intention to travel to Guatemala to kill Oliver.
Annie travels to Guatemala where there is a showdown with Mark. He chases Oliver into a structure, where locals shoot Mark. Annie, also armed with a pistol, fires six more shots, making sure Mark is dead after he tries to shoot Annie with a gun pulled from his ankle holster. Oliver is unharmed. | revenge, murder | train | wikipedia | 'The Juror' has a strong, easy to follow plot and some really great acting; Alec Baldwin's role was terrifyingly real!
One almost wishes that there weren't this little matter of her agreeing to serve on the jury in the case of a Mafia boss on trial for murder..I will gloss over the excellent, if unlikely, plot since it would be preemptive to reveal any of it, and concentrate on Demi Moore who is gorgeous, strange and riveting.It might seem impossible to give an 'heroic' performance in a thriller, since the point of a thriller is pure entertainment, but this movie manages to look into the nature of good and evil a bit more than most, and Moore plays her part like our dream of a true heroine.
This movie is enough to recommend on the strength of the acting from Moore, Gandolfini, and especially Alec Baldwin but it is a shame that some of the excesses and superfluousness (especially the unsatisfying escapade in Guatemala) could not have been cut out.
Instead of more action it would have been interesting if the ethical aspect of a compromised juror (albeit unwillingly) could have been explored in the spirit of 12 Angry Men. Anyway, this movie still rates a 7/10 on the strength of some undeniable suspense and very strong acting especially from Baldwin..
Oh yeah, other reasons to watch this film are nice supporting performances from Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche.
This is, by far, Demi Moore's best film to date as she shows so much emotion as a single mother stuck in a difficult position between working for the mafia in order to save her family and herself.
Alec Baldwin is pretty good as the villain and Anne Heche gives all she has as the token best friend.
A thoroughly enjoyable film with the sexy and talented Alec Baldwin playing a sadistic dark character role as a hitman for the Bofanno family.
The film's opening is both entertaining and unpredictable as Demi Moore's character, Annie Laird is called up for jury service and is subsequently taken on as a juror for the Bofanno case " the big spaghettio" , a nick name for Louis Bofanno's character.
I liked the film on several levels: Acting (Moore, Gandolfini, Heche, and Baldwin), plot (plausible), and suspense (twists, timing, ending).
That Moore apparently received the Razzie award for worst actress is simply incomprehensible – I thought she was completely compelling in her role as single mother who is threatened along with her teenage son by the mob unless she cooperates as a juror in rendering a not-guilty verdict for a guilty mobster.
The movie then began to meander with all these small sub-plots between Baldwin, Moore, the mafia guy, Anne Heche etc.
Demi Moore gives a sullen performance as an artist and single mom who is harassed by mobsters while serving jury-duty on murder trial involving Mafia Godfather.
Overwritten, inconsistent film attempts to outweigh its campier aspects with mind-thriller clichés (such as Alec Baldwin's role as a egomaniacal hit-man) but results are still closer to "Murder, She Wrote" than to anything resembling Tom Clancy.
Anne Heche does what she can with a best-friend role and there are a few rousing scenes, but the off-kilter script buries the good points, giving way to a pushy, unpleasant and occasionally offensive movie.
Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is a sculptress and single mother to Oliver (Gordon-Levitt) who essentially talks her way onto the jury of a major Mafia trial.
That leads to her being targeted and manipulated by a hit-man(Baldwin) who demands that Annie produce a not guilty verdict
Baldwin and Moore trying their best, and are compelling to a point, it all eventually unravels due to over-length and implausibility of the characters, whose actions over the course of the film are increasingly unlikely.This film is a great demonstration of Demi Moore's lacking of facial expression.
Heche in the leading role And Moore in the role of best friend, could have raised this movie up from being slightly better than average into an exciting thriller.
I do like the Alec Baldwin-Demi Moore version, however I think they capitalized on the fact that this movie was not noticed on a wide basis and jumped in to make a movie with the same premise.
The Juror is a lurid little crime/courtroom thriller from the 90's that features Alec Baldwin in one of his then frequent asshole roles, Demi Moore in a solid lead and a startlingly young Joseph Gordon Levitt as her son.
I don't really know alot about Demi Moore, but after watching her in this, i will definitely purchase more of her films, she was completely convincing as a mother who enters a court case involving the mafia, and ends up on there hit list, but it was the story that gripped me, alot of mafia type movies are long drawn out sagas, that are hard to follow, this one is much different as it takes you away from the usual mafia story, and cosentrates more on the relationship of the mother and her son, which softens the whole tone, and also the hitman has a real purpose, and is one of the main characters played by Alec Baldwin, who is brilliant in any part he's playing, he really is evil in this one, but him and Demi worked well together, just a shame there was no romance..
There is a lot wrong with this movie, but none of that is really Moore's fault, as despite a stellar cast (Alec Baldwin, James Gandolfini, and Anne Heche) it is her who carries the movie on her own.
Alec Baldwin does his usual good work, and Anne Heche stole the movie as the "best friend," but this is done in such a clinical and cynical way, so it feels like a machine did this movie, rather than people.
It's just a thriller, and as such, an EXCELLENT ONE!!I followed it in total concentration, being captivated by such superb actors and director and finding all scenes and sequences amazingly perfect.There is not a single word spoken unnecessarily and every one is always in character, plus a great photography and as eye candy Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin, two superb actors on top of being gorgeous.I found this movie above average for a thriller, surprisingly above average!!.
Obviously aimed for those who love the John Grisham type of thriller, THE JUROR has all the elements for a suspenseful film about jury tampering amid the trial of a Mafia boss, but doesn't quite reach its full potential.
Perhaps the climactic showdown in Guatemala is where the story really runs into trouble finding a proper conclusion.DEMI MOORE remains rather detached in her role as a young woman who is approached by ALEC BALDWIN for seemingly innocent purposes, when it turns out that he is actually someone called "The Teacher" assigned to get her to sway the others on the jury to vote for an acquittal.He's so menacing (and Baldwin does "menacing" as well as any method actor available), that she reluctantly does her best to persuade the jurors to change their votes.
Seeing as THE JUROR revolves round a plot of someone trying to convince a jury to find a man accused of murder innocent I was expecting something along the lines of 12 ANGRY MEN and you do not believe how foolish I feel writing this paragraph .
After all a tense court room drama would have needed a good script and some intense acting , neither of which can be found in a film containing the words " Starring Demi Moore "
Just think this could have been quite good if the producers had decided to focus on the heroine trying to get her fellow jurors onto her side in an open and shut case , and it goes without saying there`s a massive cop out where the script decides to forgo any explanation why the jury changed their mind about the accused .
Demi Moore (who isn't my favourite actress) was fine as sculptor Annie Laird, and James Gandolfini carried his weight as Eddie, a sympathetic member of a local mob family.
Ann Heche was superfluous as Annie's friend Juliet.The story revolves around Annie being selected for jury duty in a murder trial involving the head of the mob family, Louis Boffano (Tony Lo Bianco.) Desperate to get Boffano acquitted, Eddie and the Teacher are sent to threaten Annie, telling her that unless she successfully argues for an acquittal in the case, her son Oliver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) will be killed.
Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is an artist selected as a juror in the big trial.
But, psychotic henchman Alec Baldwin (as Vincent, the "Teacher") will do anything to insure Ms. Moore vote his mob boss "Not Guilty"; this puts the lives of Moore, son Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Oliver), and topless best friend Anne Heche (as Juliet) in grave danger."The Juror" makes little sense, if you think too much about what is happening to Moore; but, she is attractive, and the movie is moderately engaging.
This is the movie to cite if you want to be excused from jury duty.***** The Juror (2/2/96) Brian Gibson ~ Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Heche.
Certainly if I was The Teacher, I wouldn't be putting all my hopes on only one person, trying to convince them that an already guilty person in the minds of the jury to be innocent, especially considering the outcomes of the trial if Annie failed to convince her fellow jury to vote 'not guilty'.However, what I do like about this movie is the incredible cast.
Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin, Anne Heche and Joseph Gorden-Levitt are all really good in their roles.
My favourite part in this story is when The Teacher (Alec Baldwin) asks Annie (Demi Moore)when they are in the woods, whether she believes that he is capable of giving himself whole-heartedly to love.
I liked Demi moore in A Few Good Men, The Juror, and Ghost.
I recommend this only to very big fans of Demi Moore, James Gandolfini, Alec Baldwin and/or Anne Heche, and possibly huge fans of the genre.
Like a lot of thrillers from those days the movie has a pretty solid cast, with some well known names in it, like Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin, Anne Heche and James Gandolfini.
The juror of the title is Annie Laird (Demi Moore).It seems that The Teacher is not only a hit-man for the boss on trial but also somewhat of a power behind the throne, though we get this information more from claims made by other mafiosi than from what we see of his interaction with them.
This movie about Demi Moore as member of jury on a Mafia trial being intimidated by hit-man to push for a not guilty verdict appear far-fetched, untrue and impossible in reality.
Demi Moore plays Annie Laird, a single mother with a teenage son named Oliver(played by Joseph-Gordon Levitt) who is chosen to serve on the jury of a big mafia trial.
Alec Baldwin plays a mysterious hit man known as "The Teacher", who is hired by the mob to intimidate Annie into insuring that the jury comes back with a not guilty verdict.
Anne Heche is memorable as Annie's best friend Juliet,as is James Gandolfini as a mob associate.Though features good actors trying their best, and is surprisingly compelling to a point, it all eventually unravels due to over-length and implausibility of the characters, whose actions over the course of the film are increasingly unlikely..
The always steady Alec Baldwin gives a fine performance and Demi Moore is very believable in her role.
When the trial is over, he can't let her go...There are two big problems with this movie, they should have trimmed the ending by at least ten minutes, and Baldwin should not have got his motivation from the T-1000.There are times when he is so autonomous, you can almost hear the mechanics grinding in the background, which is a shame, because in the first act, he is really convincing, but when we find out he's the Teacher, it's as if he's expecting the audience to want him go that little more Psychotic.Moore is as good as she always is, convincing as the parent who is worried for her son's well being.
I'll confess to being more a fan of Heche than Moore, but I think my argument is supported by examining the roles and quality of work done by each woman in the years after The Juror.Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is a sculptress and single mother to Oliver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who essentially talks her way onto the jury of a major Mafia trial.
She succeeds, only to find that the twisted romantic obsession of "Teacher" is far more dangerous than any aspect of organized crime.Putting aside Moore's deficiencies as the star of the show, this is a pretty good flick up until and ending that goes over-the-top and all the way to Guatemala.
And in the relationships between "Teacher" and other mobsters, Tally defuses the super-villain aura around his bad guy and makes him both more believable and more frightening because of that.And when Moore is able to play Annie as a strong and defiant person, her strengths as an actress shine through.
Exciting thriller about a woman on jury duty who is threatened by the mob to make sure that the jury votes for acquittal.Demi Moore is the juror with conviction, that is to save her young son who is threatened.
As the villain, Alec Baldwin gets to chew the scenery at times, but at other moments he gives his role an almost disturbing complexity; when he tells Demi's character that he loves her, despite the monstrous things he has done, you believe him.
A deglamorized Demi Moore is convincing, and then we have James Gandolfini as Baldwin's family-man associate, Anne Heche as Moore's best friend, Tony Lo Bianco as a Mafia boss, and others in smaller parts.
"The Juror" is a well paced suspenseful film,with great performances from the two main actors, Alec Baldwin,and Demi Moore.the supporting cast includes Anne Heche,James Gandolfini and a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt.Demi Moore Plays Annie Laird,mother to Oliver,(Levitt)and also a juror juror in a high profile murder case against a mob leader.Annie is forced by a mob associate to convince the other jurors to render a verdict of non-guilty or her son or others she cares for will be harmed.the problem is,the jury is convinced of the guilt of the mobster and the evidence seems to indicate guilt.I won't say any more about the plot.i will say that what follows is loads of suspense and nail biting tension.Demi Moore is so convincing as the mother who feels helpless and Alec Baldwin is Brilliant as her tormentor.the movie doesn't end the way i thought it would(and i mean that in a good way)instead offering up a few twists i wasn't expecting right up until the final moments.A terrificly entertaining film,which relies (very successfully) on suspense and great performances.
A representative of the mob, Alex Baldwin, contacts a juror, Demi Moore, in a murder case against mob boss Tony Lo Bianco.
Brian Gibson's "The Juror" based on a novel by George Dawes Green falls in the category of forgettable average films even though it stars a cast of very talented performers like Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Heche and James Gandolfini.
Demi Moore stars as a sculptor names Annie Laird who's been assigned to stand as a juror on the trial of a hardened Mafia crime boss, only to fell her life and her young son Oliver (Joseph Gordon Levitt)are in jeopardy.
I'm not condemning Moore or Baldwin in any way; they give a good performances in what's given to them, but the motives between the leading hero and villain just don't hit the right cords.
You begin to notice that there's something very strange in the film after the person big shot Mafia bigwig Louie Boffano aka the big Spaghetti-O , Tony La Bianco, whom Juror #1 Annie Lierd, Demi Moore, was blackmailed into getting off on a murder charge got acquitted.
The guy doing most of the blackmailing is Vincent "The Teacher", Alec Baldwin, who freelances as a hit-man for the Boffano Family between affairs with those, women of course, whom he's blackmailing like Annie.
If you have two hours to kill (or whack, in the mob nomenclature), then feel free to watch The Juror, a brain-dead thriller that is best witnessed on TV (you don't have to pay for it and you can pretty-much tell when the cussing, sex, and bloodletting are being snipped out).It's an easy synopsis, here--mob boss orders a hit, Alec Baldwin carries it out, there's a trial, Demi Moore gets threatened in order to keep her from voting "guilty," biff-boom-bang.
By the end, there are lots of bullet holes in the bad guys, Moore has turned from cutesy artist to Dirty Harriet, and, if you're an Anne Heche or Alec Baldwin fan, you are wondering if you should rent this nonsense to see what all happened in the sack.
Boffano did not like the way Annie looked at him after the verdict was read and wants Teacher to take her out.
The problem with 'The Juror' is that his target is so stupid that we don't sense that he has to work very hard.Her name is Annie (Demi Moore) and she is happily serving on a jury in which a mafia godfather is on trial for murder.
He is called The Teacher and is played well by Alec Baldwin who manages to turn in good performances in bad movies.
Naturally, The Teacher informs Annie that all she has to do is say two little words - Not Guilty or bad things will befall her and those around her especially her son.The movie goes on and on and on even after the trial is over. |
tt0039190 | The Bishop's Wife | On a snowy evening, a dapper gentleman (Cary Grant) strolls serenely through the streets of New York City, admiring the Christmas decorations and the smiling faces of children. He seems to be wandering around doing good deeds for others, almost magically appearing at the right place and time. He helps a blind man cross the street and rescues a baby whose carriage is rolling into traffic. When he sees the beautiful but sad Julia (Loretta Young) converse with her old friend Prof. Wutheridge (Monty Woolley), he takes a serious interest in helping her. Feigning an old acquaintance, he gets more information from the professor, who's unsure if they've ever really met, but guardedly tells the gentleman about Julia's troubles. As they part, Wutheridge wonders who the fellow really is.When she arrives home, Julia finds her husband Henry Brougham (David Niven), the Episcopalian bishop of the local diocese, in a heated argument with the chair of the cathedral committee, Mrs. Hamilton (Gladys Cooper), a wealthy but domineering older woman. Henry has a dream of building a new cathedral, and needs Mrs. Hamilton's financial support. Unfortunately, she demands that the cathedral be built as a monument to her late husband. Later, Henry argues with Julia, and it's obvious that their marriage is strained by his preoccupation with the cathedral. Harried and harassed, Henry is at his wit's end, and retiring to his study he prays for guidance. Turning to leave, he is surprised to find a gentleman has somehow appeared in his study. Telling Henry that his name is Dudley, the gentleman reveals that he's an angel, and he's come in answer to Henry's prayer.Despite Henry's doubts, Dudley quickly charms his way into Henry's life, becoming a favorite of his maid Matilda (Elsa Lanchester), his little daughter Debby (Karolyn Grimes), his secretary, his St Bernard Queenie, and even his wife Julia, all the while preventing Henry from telling anyone what Dudley claims to be. Julia enjoys Dudley's company, delighting in his broad knowledge of the world and his ability to do seemingly everything well. Meanwhile, Henry gets no closer to building his cathedral, and becomes increasingly angry with Dudley for being so intrusive.A confrontation looms, and Henry decides to submit to Mrs. Hamilton's demands in order to speed things along, get his old life back, and get rid of Dudley. His visit to Mrs. Hamilton is fraught with tension before he even sets off because he'd agreed to have lunch with Julia that afternoon and hear the boys' choir rehearse at St. Timothy's, his old church. Dudley offers to see Mrs. Hamilton so Henry can keep his appointment with Julia and the choir, but Henry curtly refuses, so Dudley meets Julia. He takes her to lunch, to the choir practice, and then they go skating. While Dudley brings out the best in the boy sopranos, Henry abases himself. In the movie's funniest scene, he apologizes to Mrs. Hamilton for disagreeing with her and promises the cathedral will be built exactly as she wishes. She adds a new condition: in the stained-glass window depicting St. George and the dragon, St. George must have her late husband's face. "Who do you see as the dragon?" asks Henry, and she looks at him a bit suspiciously, but he's all innocence. Having achieved his objective he tries to go, but finds himself stuck to his chair, which prevents him from meeting Julia. Everyone involved — the bishop, the dowager, and her butler — is much too dignified to allow the scene to descend into farce, but it takes some doing to avoid it, with Henry creeping around the room in the hunched posture forced upon him by the chair. Eventually he calls home and asks Matilda to bring him another pair of trousers.Later that afternoon, Henry tells Dudley he can leave; Henry's prayer had been answered. Dudley's not so sure. What does Henry really want: the cathedral, or Julia's happiness? Enraged, Henry demands that Dudley get out of his life at once, and as Dudley departs with a smile, he admonishes Henry not to let Julia see him this angry. Later, visiting Professor Wutheridge, Henry confesses that he's probably lost Julia to Dudley, and is surprised to find that he can actually tell the professor about Dudley being an angel. Wutheridge reminds Henry that he has an advantage over an angel: he is a mortal man, and Julia is a mortal woman.During the afternoon on December 24th, Henry gives his secretary Miss Cassaway (Sara Haden) the manuscript of his Christmas Eve sermon to type. She isn't thrilled to be staying late on Christmas Eve, so when Dudley turns up and offers to finish it for her, she's quick to accept. Dudley tosses the manuscript and incomplete typescript into the fire, orders the typewriter "Take a sermon," and starts dictating a sermon about Christmas gifts and an empty stocking.Meanwhile, Henry and Julia have gone to pay some calls, finishing with Mrs. Hamilton. But Dudley is there before them. Left alone to await her in the drawing room, he finds an old musical manuscript dedicated lovingly to Agnes (Mrs. Hamilton's first name is Agnes) and signed "Allan" — not her late husband's name. When she comes in Dudley's playing the composition on her harp. Hearing it again after many years moves her, and she tells Dudley that the composer, Allan, was the only man she ever loved. They were engaged, but he didn't have any money and because she feared poverty, she broke it off. She married Mr. Hamilton because he was fond of her, and he was very rich. Mrs. Hamilton breaks down and cries on Dudley's shoulder. when the Broughams arrive she's uncharacteristically warm, asks them to call her Agnes, and mentions in passing that she's decided to give her money to help the poor.Back at the house, Henry faces Dudley one last time. Henry tells him that Julia means more to him than life itself, and he's willing to fight Dudley no matter what may happen. Relieved that Henry has gotten his priorities straight at last, a beaming Dudley tells Henry that he's leaving, and that Henry's prayer has been answered. Confused, Henry disagrees. "I prayed for a cathedral," he says."No Henry, you prayed for guidance," says Dudley. "That has been given to you."Dudley has a final meeting with Julia to let her know that he's unlikely to see her again — angels aren't assigned to the same post more than once because they're not supposed to form attachments — but he is tired of constantly moving. She realizes what he's saying and tells him very firmly that he must indeed go away and never come back. When he leaves, Dudley takes with him all memory of his existence. None of the people he's helped remember him at all. As they gather in church for Henry's Christmas Eve sermon, Dudley stands outside, unrecognized. He smiles and walks off into the city. Henry delivers Dudley's sermon, asking his flock to fill Jesus's stocking with gifts of "loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance: all the shining gifts that make peace on earth." | paranormal | train | imdb | A good script and inspired casting is what makes this film a real winner.Cary Grant as Dudley the Angel has a charm that transcends his role.When he enters a room his presence fills the screen -- you know he is there even if you cannot always see him.
Not hard to do with Cary Grant I am sure -- but they take it to the spiritual level.David Niven gives just the right amount of disbelief and cynicism as the Bishop that may have lost his faith.I have always enjoyed performances by Monty Wooley and again he is perfectly cast as the self-described "has-been scholar." The special effects are wonderful for a time (1947) when special effects were pretty much in their infancy.Movie books classify "The Bishop's Wife" as a fantasy -- but there is so much more there than that.It is a love story, a comedy, a drama and an all around inspiring film."Peace on Earth; good will towards men.".
Grant gets to flash those pearly whites of his and be charming and Young gets to look beautiful and torn between depressed husband and fun-loving Dudley, and Niven gets to showcase his British stiff upper lip while at the same time display some very funny slapstick pratfalls.
This charming Christmas fantasy truly warms the hart and kindles the soul.David Nivin plays the perfect foil for Cary's assignment of "answering the bishop's prayers".
Loretta Young's charming demeanor as the bishops devoted, but neglected wife, distracts Cary("Dudley")from his primary mission, and leads the audience on a heart warming journey through small town America at mid 20th century, during a memorable Christmas season.My young son saw this movie for the first time when he was nine years old.
The special effects are minimalist but effective, the careful framing and lighting of Gregg Toland's ("Citizen Kane") black and white cinematography, the tentative steps title character Julia (Loretta Young) takes as she starts to experience happiness again, and the slow realization by Bishop Henry of how far he has drifted from what matters the most.The unity and subtlety is best illustrated in the scene of Henry walking up the sidewalk towards the Professor's (Monty Wooley) apartment.
Henry and Julia's young daughter is played by Karolyn Grimes (Zuzu in "It's a Wonderful Life").A nice thing is that while the film's "little" miracles are done on screen they are interwoven into the fabric of the story instead of dominating a scene.
Reverend Henry Brougham (David Niven) is working very hard to get his cathedral built--in fact, he's so busy speaking to wealthy clients and attending business meetings that he forgets that the one thing he needs most in this world is his wife Julia (Loretta Young) and their daughter Debbie.
It's a shame that Loretta Young spent most of the film looking pensive, and even in her character's moments of joy--say the ice-skating scene--she simply fails to leap off the screen and run away with the audience's hearts.Cary Grant has no such problem, however.
Cary Grant is charming as Dudley, the angel sent to answer the prayers of the bishop (David Niven) who is desperately trying to raise funding for a new cathedral.
Niven plays the bishop and, as usual in the film world, is portrayed as a weak clergyman.Nonetheless, it is a charming, feel pretty-good movie that entertains through most of it.
The Bishop's wife has all three.Dudley, Played by Cary Grant, is an Angel sent to David Niven, the Bishop who wants to build a grand Cathedral.
"The Bishop's Wife's" Oscar for best sound was there on display.When the filming began, Cary Grant was cast as the Bishop and David Niven as the angel.
If I had a problem this Yuletide season, I'd kind of like Cary Grant to help me out, if I couldn't get Bing Crosby.Loretta Young is radiant as the woman who causes Cary's halo to slip and David Niven is as charming as he always is.
Loretta Young who is as beautiful as always,plays David Niven's wife who finds Cary Grant (Dudley) very charming and fun to be with.
I would recommend watching this film when there is nothing to distract you from the humour and every bit of action going on in the story as you will want to take in every moment.I had never heard of this movie until I received it for Chrstmas, so it might be a little known treat for all the die-hard Cary Grant fans out there.
Although I'm not a big fan of David Niven, I enjoyed him in his role as the bishop.My favorite scenes include the annual debate between the professor and merchant for the purchase of a Christmas tree (which resembles the Charlie Brown variety), lunch at Michele's where Dudley invites the snoopy gossips to join he and Julia, ice skating on the pond (whoever did the comic skating for the taxi driver was wonderful), and when the boys choir starts singing with one or two voices added at a time until the whole rehearsal room is filled with heavenly music.I look forward to viewing this classic, and not just at holidays!.
A delightful script, excellent acting, along with beautiful sets and deft direction make this simple movie stand up so well even today.Cary Grant plays an angel that comes to assist the extremely controlling and obsessed Bishop, played by David Niven.
In addition to these two wonderful actors, the film also features Loretta Young, Monty Woolley, James Gleason, Elsa Lanchester and Gladys Cooper.
I didn't realise who Cary Grant(the angel), David Niven(the bishop), and Loretta Young(bishop's wife) were at the time.
Cary Grant is masterful as Dudley, and the rest of the cast are superb.I have never even watched the remake ("The Preacher's Wife" with Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston) because I just know that they have managed to ruin my all-time favourite movie by trying to "update" a story which simply does not require it.Message to Disney: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!.
However where "It's A Wonderful Life" has a much darker undertone in its literally life or death narrative, here all good angel Cary Grant has to do is divert Bisop David Niven away from a glory-hunting cathedral-building blind alley back to the path of piety and humility and at the same time restore him to the bosom of his loving family.There are many Christmassy touches, with snow everywhere, ice-skating in the park, Christmas tree decorations and carol-singing boy choirs with many of these giving Dudley the angel (why do angels always cop such corny names?) the opportunity to flex his miraculous muscles to do good.
It's all done very entertainingly, the special effects nicely rendered for the time and once Cary gets those less than angelic thoughts about the bishop's pretty wife, Loretta Yong, out of his head and on the way take the rich old cold widow Mrs Hamilton (Gladys Cooper) on a Scrooge-like conversion, the happy ending is never in doubt.The acting by a big-name cast is affable - Cary is hardly exercised and merely requires to look beatific most of the time and Loretta Young is attractive and effervescent.
I'm not sure about David Niven in a dog-collar but he gets the best line (humorously but subtly likening Mrs Hamilton to a dragon) and Golden Age perennials James Gleason and Monty Woolley do well in support.As a whole the film seems a little too full to bursting with good-cheer and peace for all men - even driving avowed non-believer Wooley to church by the end and encouraging Mrs Hamilton to pledge her millions to helping the poor "everywhere in the world" but that might just be the cynic in me.
Cary Grant is angel Dudley, David Niven is the Bishop, and Loretta Young is the Bishops wife.
David Niven and Cary Grant are two of my favorite actors.The head boy in the snowball fight also plays a young Jimmy Stewart in the movie it a wonderful life..
Like the old professor it renews my faith in the world every time I see it.Cary Grant never looked more amazing, acted more charming, or brought to life a deeper character than Dudley the Angel.
Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young, Monty Woolley, James Gleason, Gladys Cooper and Elsa Lanchester, all help to make this a perennial necessity for Christmas viewings.
Karolyn Grimes, who plays Young and Niven's daughter, makes appearances occasionally and talks about this film and "It's A Wonderful Life." She looks like Meryl Streep now.
Yes, this is a sentimental piece with an overtly Christian message, but it is a very fine movie nonetheless.Viewers can savor the expert characterizations of Cary Grant as Dudley the angel, contrasted with David Niven's stressed-out bishop Henry Brougham.
Both Niven and Grant possessed fine comic abilities, and Koster allows them full rein to exercise their range of facial expressions.The film benefits from a strong supporting cast, including Young as a harassed housewife redeemed from drudgery by Dudley's intervention; Monty Woolley as a distinguished professor who eventually admits that he has spent the last few years of his life in utter idleness; Elsa Lanchester as an unusually high-spirited parlor-maid; and James Gleason as a cab-driver learning how to skate once more.The subject-matter is very much of its time, as Mrs. Hamilton is dissuaded from giving $1m.
This movie is one of those special films which you appreciate more and more each time you see it.Superb casting with Cary Grant as the 'angel' sent from heaven to help the Bishop, David Niven, to make a crucial decision, and Loretta Young as "the Bishops Wife" ( What a doll !!
Excellent supporting performances are added by Monty Wooley ( the professor ) and veteran character actor James Gleason in the role of a philanthropic cab driver who is just happy to have Cary and Loretta as passengers for their 'uniqueness'.The main plot shows Grant TRYING to be a faithful assistant to a Bishop who is insecure at the very least about many aspects of his life.
It's fun to dig into the vaults occasionally and come up with a classic that perhaps you've never seen, or haven't seen for a long time; and it's especially satisfying when you come up with a gem like `The Bishop's Wife,' directed by Henry Koster and starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven.
Watching this film, it's easy to understand why it's been designated as `classic.' Well written and stylishly delivered, `The Bishop's Wife' is an absorbing, memorable film that makes you realize (either again or, perhaps for many, the first time) why Grant, Young and Niven are considered `stars,' and how much great character actors like Woolley, Gleason and Lanchester contributed to so many great films during their careers.
I discovered this movie on TV many years ago, never having heard of it previously, but what a joy, being able to call on such talents as Niven, Grant and Loretta Young, not to mention stalwart supporting players such as Gladys Cooper, Monty Woolley and Elsa Lanchester, gave the studio a head start of course.
So even the "incidental" music turns out to have an enormously gratifying emotional arc and payoff -- like every other element in this expertly crafted piece."The Bishop's Wife" is, really, a small intimate story with none of the elaborate allegorical scope of Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." I constantly discover nuances in the performances I hadn't noticed before; inventive camera angles and compositions by legendary cinematographer Gregg Toland ("Citizen Kane"); and flawless pacing by director Koster.Every scene, every sequence, has an arc and a payoff and builds naturally to the next.
But this is the film that makes all the others seem like runners-up.Dudley (Cary Grant - playing an angel) is an inspiration to me each time I see this movie.
The story is about an angel named Dudley (Cary Grant) sent to Earth to help Bishop Henry (David Niven), who's struggling with raising the money necessary to build a new cathedral, all the while neglecting his wife Julia (Loretta Young).Cary Grant is just perfect as Dudley, one of his best 1940s roles.
Also of note to fans of another Christmas classic: Karolyn Grimes and Bobby Anderson (Zuzu and young George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life) are in this.It's a quality production with great direction and cinematography, and a witty and emotional script full of very human characters who are flawed but not in the same broken way that description is used today.
He is sent help, as Christmas approaches, in the form of Dudley (Cary Grant)--an angel...Dudley announces himself only to Henry, the bishop; to the others, including staff Elsa Lanchester, and Sara Haden, a daughter Debbie and wife Young he is "a new assistant" hired by Henry.
I will not reveal the ending to this charming and only-occasionally-troubled tale; Dudley's explanation of religion to the daughter does not quite hold together; but the fun in the film for me as for millions lies in watching Grant suggest the dangerous strength of the human side versus the angelic--and the simplicity of the good will he uses, by means of which he awakens individuals to realizing that even if life cannot be perfect, it could be better if they set their priorities in order and then did something about them.
What's so wrong with depicting a world bathed in such a rosy black & white hue, and like craggy taxi driver James Gleason wistfully declares at one point helps restore your faith in human nature (if not your faith).At a difficult fund raising moment bishop David Niven's prayer for guidance is answered by angel Cary Grant appearing, who then also appears to step into the bishop's shoes, scarf, business and marriage to loyal wife Loretta Young.
The years following World War II brought an influx of angels (or Heavenly Conductors) to the movie screen in films such as Stairway to Heaven, It's a Wonderful Life, and the 1947 The Bishop's Wife starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven.
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, original score, and film editing, the only Oscar the film won, however, was that for Best Sound and the performances by Grant, Young, and Niven, considered to be among their best, were overlooked.In the film, Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) asks for divine guidance to help raise the money to build a cathedral, a project to which he is so single-minded about that his values, marriage, and family are put in jeopardy.
This particular angel (Cary Grant) is rather handsome and charming and takes particular notice of Henry's wife Julia (Loretta Young) who is under the impression that he is Henry's new assistant.
The film has some memorable set pieces that are worth the price of admission by themselves.Dudley, Julia, and Sylvester performing a sparkling skating routine (with the help of professional doubles), Sherry glasses that keep filling up by themselves, Dudley miraculously rounding up a group of forgetful boys to perform the beautiful hymn O Sing to God (Noel) by Gounod at St. Timothy's church, and Dudley "finding" a harp to play in Agnes' living room.The Bishop's Wife has a good message, brilliant performances especially from Cary Grant, and a joyous feel to it, though it is somewhat dampened by the humorless and aloof Henry who doesn't seem to get the message of humility and love that Dudley is trying to convey (well, at least not right away).
For example, can you imagine the roles in this film performed by anyone else other than Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven, Monty Woolley, and James Gleason?
But she's certainly more than passable.One of my favorite performances came from Elsa Lanchester, in a minor role as the family maid.This movie becomes magical only once---during the ice skating scene between Cary Grant, Young and James Gleason.
Originally, Theresa Wright was to play Julia, the title character and Dana Andrews was to be the angel, Dudley, opposite Cary Grant as the Bishop.
It's an absolutely marvelous holiday fantasy that delivers it's message of the true spirit of Christmas without coming close to hitting you over the head with it.It's, along with Harvey (1950, a high water mark for director Henry Koster, who had considerable help from supporting cast members James Gleason as a cabbie and Monte Woolley as a beaten down old professor who finds new life through Dudley..
Grant plays Dudley, Young is Julia Broughham, and Niven is Bishop Henry Brougham.
Enjoyed this film years ago and recently viewed this film on TCM and enjoyed this great Classic film where Cary Grant, (Dudley) plays the role as an angel who visits Bishop Henry Brougham,(David Niven).
Cary Grant is the "minor" angel sent to earth to help sort things out between the marriage of the Bishop played by David Niven and his wife and their congregations quest to build a new cathedral.
Seiter with Cary Grant as the Bishop and David Niven as the angel.
The Bishop's Wife is just one of those charming movies that portrays the world as you'd wish it to be and has Dudley as everyone's great angel.
"The Bishop's Wife" is simply a tremendous movie, beautifully combining the talents of Cary Grant (Dudley the angel), David Niven (Bishop Henry Brougham) and Loretta Young (Julia Brougham).
Although not actually a Christmas film, 'The Bishop's Wife' does have a holiday glow about it, due largely to the performances of Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven in the starring roles.
Cary Grant is an angel named Dudley who automatically charms everyone except Niven-the only one who even knows what he is.
Cary Grant plays Dudley with such an intense charm it is impossible to take one's eyes off him, something the other characters in the film clearly feel.
Handsome angel Dudley (Cary Grant) makes everyone's Christmas a little happier (especially Julia's (Loretta Young), the titular spouse) as he indirectly guides her conflicted husband, Bishop Brougham (David Niven) who is trying to raise money for a new cathedral.
David Niven, Cary Grant, Loretta Young, James Gleason, Karolyn Grimes, Elsa Lanchester, Monty Wooley, The Mitchell Boy's Choir. |
tt0036931 | House of Frankenstein | It's some 20 years after the Frankenstein monster and the wolfman met their demise in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" (1943), but Dr Neimann [Boris Karloff] and his hunchback assistant Daniel [J Carroll Naish], currently locked in jail, still plan for a way to cure Daniel's deformity by Dr Frankenstein's operation. When lightning destroys the jail wall, they escape. They link up with Dr Lampini's traveling horror show, and Daniel kills Lampini [George Zucco] so that Neimann can take his place. They plan to head "towards those for whom I have UNloving memories."First stop is Regalberg where they revive Dracula [John Carradine], in the guise of Baron Latoes from Transylvania, who kills the Burgermeister who originally put Neimann in jail. Dracula is re-skeletonized by the morning sun as he attempts to crawl back into his coffin.Next, they head for the village of Frankenstein to search for Dr Frankenstein's records. Here, Daniel rescues and falls in love with gypsy girl Ilonka (Elena Verdugo]. They find the ice cave where the Frankenstein monster [Glenn Strange] and the wolfman [Lon Chaney, Jr] lie frozen, revive the wolfman, and enlist his help in return for a cure if he will help in transporting the monster to Neimann's old laboratory in Visaria.On the way to Visaria, Daniel and Neimann care for the monster while Larry Talbot [the wolfman] and Ilonka drive the wagon and fall in love, much to Daniel's dismay. They also kidnap two of Neimann's nemeses--Herr Ullman [Frank Reicher] and Herr Strauss [Michael Mark] -- because Neimann plans to give Ullman's brain to the monster, the monster's brain to Talbot, and the wolfman's brain to Strauss. Daniel begs for Talbot's body so he can have Ilonka, but Neimann says no. Daniel attempts to warn Ilonka about Talbot's wolfman side, but she refuses to believe him. To release his anger, Daniel whips the supposedly unconscious monster.The full moon rises that night, and Talbot changes to the wolfman. The next day he confesses to Ilonka. She vows to release him. That evening, Neimann finally gets down to business. He revives the monster but not soon enough. Talbot changes into the wolfman and attacks Ilonka who shoots him; they both die. Distraught, Daniel attacks Neimann, the monster kills Daniel, the villagers see the lights flickering in Neimann's laboratory windows and attack the monster, who carries Neimann's body into the swamp where they both get sucked into quicksand. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl.] | revenge, gothic | train | imdb | In a move to re-generate interest in its fading horror series, Universal gives us Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Wolf Man, the Hunchback and the Mad Doctor all in the same film.
When a severe thunderstorm destroys the foundation of the prison he's housed in, Niemann manages an escape and attempts to locate the original diary of Dr. Frankenstein, running into Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Frankenstein Monster along the way.
So the theory was if the public loved 2 monsters, let's toss five at them!!Strangely enough this works.The mad doctor Niemann(Boris Karloff) and his hunchback assistant are locked in prison.
They head to the town that vilified the mad doctor years before.Without giving too much away the doctor stumbles upon Dracula(John Carradine),Wolfman (Lon Chaney) & the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange).They all figure into his plot of revenge against the men who sent him to prison.This movie has a wonderful sense of lunacy to it.Boris gives a fine performance as Niemann.Carradine gives his first portrayal of Dracula.
Once Nieman reaches the Frankenstein ruin,he resurrects Laurnece Talbot,and The Frankenstein Monster,to do more of his evil bidding...House of Frankenstein will never reach up to Whale's Frankenstein,or Bride of Frankenstein,Browing's Dracula,or Waggner's Wolf Man,but it is fun,and a good pop corn film.
Along the way they revive Dracula (John Carradine) and Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) pops up as the Wolf Man. Silly but enjoyable all-star monster mash.
Later, Niemann and the hunchback encounter a gypsy caravan where Daniel falls in love with a beautiful gypsy girl: shades of Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame." She winds up traveling with them to Frankenstein's ruined castle, where they find Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange, his first appearance in this role) and the Wolf Man frozen in ice.
House of Frankenstein features Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine alongside the masterful Boris Karloff -- who is absolutely amazing for sheer presence alone -- as an enthusiastic, budding mad-scientist named Dr. Niemann who escapes from prison after a bolt of lightning inexplicably strikes the granite reformatory that he and his servant -- a hunchback assistant played by J.
Oh, and then Dracula dies like a wussy and his dull little role is over as if it never existed since it never helped move along or even remotely create a plot out of this revolving-door mishmash of monster cameos (read on).Though this is essentially a sequel to 1943's Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman, the title sort of refers to Neimann's aspiration to carry on Dr. Henry Frankenstein's work (speaking of which, the Monster doesn't appear until about 45 minutes into the film), though Neimann's objectives are never quite revealed to the viewer.
Besides getting to toss a hunchback through a window (and who doesn't enjoy doing just that every now and again), he descends - quite dramatically -- into quicksand and lies around comatose the rest of the time (how about a cross-promotion film with the Weekend At Bernie's franchise -- Bernie Does Vasaria?).As the famous Universal Studios monsters continued to parade out, I began to think of the marketing possibilities this film might have had if the whole state of affairs would have been placed in the here-and-now - playsets, lunch-boxes, limited-edition bobble-heads, House of Frankenstein-flavored fruit bars, Taco Bell Wolfman Burrito tie-ins, Dr. Neimann chemistry sets, etc.!
To exact his revenge, he calls upon the Frankenstein monster (played by Glenn Strange), Count Dracula (John Carradine), the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.), and a hunchback (J.
Dr. Gustav Newmann(Boris Karloff) is jailed for accusation as body snatcher.He breaks out and along the hunchback Daniel(J.Carroll Naish) take the ¨ chamber of horrors showside¨ of Professor Lampini(George Zucco) containing the skeleton of count Dracula(John Carradine).They are going to Frankestein's village and later they are returning to Vesaria.His aim is taking the experiments on life of death by Henry Frankestein found into archives of the castle.The doctor tries scientific experiments to cure various Universal monsters but results that their bad habits to emerge.The second half has them dealing with the werewolf called Larry Talbot(Lon Chaney) and monster Frankestein(Glen Strange in his first appearance as monster).Meanwhile the hunchback falls in love with a Zingara(Elena Verdugo) and developing a loving triangle with the werewolf,the beast marked for the pentagram.
Atmospheric,slick terror film ,creaky at times but it's still impressive.Fim displays excellent set design,ambitious screenplay with too many monsters and enjoyable and sensitive interpretation of all casting.Lon Chaney Jr's top notch acting in the role which made him a terror movie legend.J Carroll Naish is excellent as a hunchback similar to Igor.The movie is also called¨The Zingara and the monsters¨,as the title suggests,various of Universal's most famous monsters confront and fight among them .
Carrol Naish) manage to escape, and decide to find Dr. Frankenstein's diaries in order to learn from his discoveries.In his travel, they will find count Dracula (John Carradine), the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) and Frankenstein's monster himself (Glenn Strange).
He was certainly more than his famous role of the monster in the first three Frankenstein movies.Lon Chaney Jr. continues in his classic role as the tormented Larry Talbot, and while both John Carradine and Glenn Strange receive very few screen time, their appearance is well received.The main problem of the movie is that with the exception of the Wolf Man and the Hunchback, the rest of the characters receives very little development.
The plot involves three of the Universal monsters--Dracula (John Carradine), Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) It's all done in the usual atmospheric style with some impressive sets and photography.
But fear not -- both turn in excellent performances all the same, with Glenn Strange proving himself to be such a great choice for Frankenstein that he would return again in "House of Dracula" and "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein".J. Carrol Naish is also noteworthy as Niemann's hunchback assistant.
More conflicts arise when Ilonka shows more interest in Talbot than with Daniel, leading to his jealousy and madness.HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN repeats the formula used in the previous Monster feast, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943), in which the story brings together legendary monsters into one single film, this time combining the elements of Count Dracula, The Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster.
This is also the only known film in which Lawrence Talbot is referred to as The Wolf Man. Lionel Atwill, who previously appeared in earlier Frankenstein segments starting with THE SON (1939), returns once more, and again, in a different portrayal, this time as Inspector Arnz in the earlier portion involving Dracula.
Frankensteins monster(Glenn strange)the wolfman/Larry Talbot(Lon Chaney Jr)count Dracula(john carridine)a mad doctor(Boris Karloff)his evil hunchback assistant(j Carroll naish)all together for some mayhem.and revenge.oh and there's a professor lampini(George zucco)and his traveling house of horrors.and a very pretty girl(Anne Gwynne)who falls into Dracula's spell.this was the first time john carridine played Dracula,he did it very well.Boris Karloff who originally played Frankensteins monster in the first three,plays a very twisted mad doctor who wants to use the monster to get revenge on those who put him in prison.and Larry Talbot who still has the wolfman curse tries to get the doctors help.Glenn strange who is best remembered as the bartender on the 1960's western TV gunsmoke plays Frankensteins monster for the first time.its a good monster free for all,hail hail the gangs all here.
HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN boasts an interesting cast: Lon Chaney, Jr. does his thing as poor afflicted Wolf Man Talbot again, Boris Karloff gets hammy when discussing Dracula's powers to George Zucco, but is nonetheless enjoyable to watch, John Carradine, while no Bela Lugosi, portrayed Dracula well( he actually looked more like the Count as described in Bram Stoker's novel than Lugosi), Glenn Strange puts in his first appearance as Frankenstein's monster, and that fine actor Lionel Atwill should have been given more to do in his role as police inspector.
This film doesn't, and while it gets a little bit too camp at times and it doesn't always make perfect sense, House of Frankenstein manages to give equal credence to all of its big players, and the film features moments that allow the Monster, Dracula and The Wolf Man to shine.
This movie features the three most popular Universal Pictures classic monsters; Dracula, The Frankenstein Monster and The Wolf Man. Lon Chaney Jr. returns in his role as Lawrence Talbot/The Wolf Man This time the role of Dracula is played by John Carradine (indeed the father of..) and the role of the Frankenstein Monster is played by Glenn Strange.
In truth there's not really a whole movie here, it's more a skew-whiff anthology involving Dracula (John Carradine), the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr) and Frankenstein's Monster (Glenn Strange), with Boris Karloff's mad scientist and J.
After a short encounter with Dracula via a travelling chamber of horrors side-show, the pair head off to the Frankenstein castle - with pretty gypsy girl and Larry Talbot/Wolf Man in tow - where hopes and dreams involve a lot of brain swapping.What transpires is a bit of violent jealousy and disappointments, building up to the monster smack down finale just as the villagers once again take unkindly to the presence of monsters in their midst.
Carroll Naish escaping from prison and insinuating themselves into George Zucco's traveling "Chamber of Horrors" show.This was John Carradine's first appearance as Count Dracula (who seems to have fallen on hard times, seeing how much he's shriveled from the time of SON OF Dracula [1943]) and he adds a welcome touch of theatricality to the brew, most evident in the scene where he demonstrates his hypnotic control over Anne Gwynne as well as his untimely demise - though one would be hard-pressed to believe the vampire would somehow bow down to Karloff, a mere mortal, and do his bidding!
If you like Lon Chaney Jr., Glen Strange, the classic Universal Monsters, great black and white movies, and horror films then I strongly recommend that you check out this film today!.
After Dracula is destroyed by the authorities, they later stumble upon the frozen bodies of both The Wolf Man(played by Lon Chaney Jr.) and the Frankenstein monster(played by Glenn Strange)Niemann promises Larry Talbot to help him with his curse, but is really only interested in the monster.
It's great to see Lon Chaney as the Wolfman one more time, and John Carradine provides a new feel for Count Dracula (though it would have been nice to see his segment incorporated into the rest of the story rather than as a separate segment).Try to forget the complications of today's overblown "horror" movies and return to a time when glorious black and white mists and well-defined characters were the order of the day!.
Niemann convinces the gang of monsters into helping him deal revenge against the men who put him in prison fifteen years ago.Lon Chaney Jr. is of course Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man. John Carradine tries his hand at being the Prince of Darkness and Glenn Strange plays the Frankenstein monster.
Wow this was pretty good,, you got Frankenstein, Dracula, the Hunchback,, the Mad Scientist, and of course the Wolf Man,, but what no mummy or the invisible man,, but anyways,, Lon Chaney Jr. is the Wolf Man,, Boris Karloff is NOT the monster,, he is ....the mad scientist, John Carradine get's to be Dracula,, hmm where was Bela Lugosi,,,, anyway , you get all of these monsters together and there's gonna be some trouble brewing somewhere, and there is,, all at the House of Ludwig Frankenstein,, the second son of the Baron.
The mad scientist and his assistant break out of prison in hopes of finding the Frankenstein lost notes, along the way they encounter Dracula,, and the Wolf Man,, the Frankenstein monster doens't show up till later in the movie , and he has one great scene at the end,, pretty good movie if you ask this horror fan..
Also joining them for the ride: Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) and the wolf man (Lon Chaney Jr.), who are found frozen in a glacier ice cavern.From this point it gets even more daft, with Niemann and Co travelling to the doctor's old lab where he plans a series of brain swapping experiments.
On the other hand there's John Carradine as a not-very-convincing Dracula, Lon Chaney's increasingly tired hysterics as Larry Talbot / The Wolf Man, and Glenn Strange does little as the Frankenstein Monster except lie on a slab and finally get up and lumber around a bit.A big plus: `House' features another appearance of the incredibly durable Frankenstein lab equipment, which I always get a kick out of seeing.
In the second half of the film the doctor and hunchback come across Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange) and plan on an operation to cure both.
There's a mad scientist, his hunchbacked assistant, Gypsies, Dracula, the Wolf Man and, of course, Frankenstein's monster.The film marks Boris Karloff's return to the Frankenstein series after an absence from "The Ghost of Frankenstein" (1942) and "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man," but in the role of the mad scientist instead of the monster and, by this point at least, the doctor is the better part.
Astonishingly, Niemann and company happen upon the very place where The Frankenstein Monster (now played by Glenn Strange) and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) had battled to their apparent deaths, just one movie prior!
Consider all the great horror ingredients in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN:Karloff, Chaney, Carradine, Atwill...Frankenstein's Monster, Wolf Man, Dracula...weird European locations, a gypsy girl, an eerie laboratory, a hunchbacked assistant, a burgomaster, and a cast of angry villagers with torches!What could go wrong?
Boris Karloff plays an escaped convict/scientist who, for reasons unexplained by the film, wants to switch the brains of the Frankenstein monster with the Wolf Man. Why?
When Dracula finds himself being chased by an angry mob, Niemann leaves him to his fate and then goes on to the next town and the next adventure, which finds him discovering the frozen bodies of the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster.So begins the movie proper and the characters' motives all come into play.
This was an excellent addition to the Universal line with John Carradine as Dracula, Chaney reprising his role as the Wolf Man, and Glenn Strange as the monster.
I can only assume that most movie-going audiences in the '40s were calling the monster by the F-name--so that may explain the title; a better hook to draw in the matinée audiences.After stewing in what must have been a very ancient dungeon--since the mere rumble of thunder sends the place crashing down--mad scientist Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff) and his hunchback friend Daniel overtake a traveling chamber of horrors, with the show's main attraction being the preserved skeleton of Count Dracula--with stake still lodged between his skeletal remains.
"Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man" wasn't the most successful horror-effort, but still the good people at Universal Pictures decided to carry on with the concept of 'stewing' the different classic monster icons together in one film.
Dracula, terrifically portrayed by John Carradine, never has the pleasure of meeting Wolf Man Larry Talbot and the Frankenstein monster only briefly opens his eyes & mouth in the final moments of the film.
Karloff had strong affection for the part and he was too appreciative for all the Monster had done to make him famous.Karloff was even against the changes made to the character in the Bride Of...('35) and the Son Of...('39);so it's very understandable that he'd never actually play the Monster after the 1939 film.Boris Karloff could see that the role would degrade to merely a sidekick for other Universal monsters such as The Wolf Man and later Count Dracula in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein(1948).As House Of Frankenstein begins,we discover that Karloff is Dr. Gustav Niemann who has long been imprisoned in the Neustadt Prison with a hunchbacked killer named Daniel played by J.Carrol Naish.Neimann is the epitome of a mad scientist(having once given a dog the brain of a man) with his ancient jail cell covered in chalk writings,drawings and mathematical equations while he speaks reverently of the late Baron Henry Frankenstein.Lightning strikes the old prison and destroys both the Dr.'s and Daniel's cells ...allowing them to escape together.After helping Professor Bruno Lampini(George Zucco) get his wagons unstuck from a rain drenched road,they murder him and his driver and take over the traveling show.
(Now played by John Carradine.) After Dracula dies taking out the first victim of Neimann's revenge, they defrost the Wolf Man (still played by Lon Chaney Jr.) and Frankenstein (Now played by Glenn Strange.) Some Mad Science shenanigans later, all the monsters are killed, although most of the name ones come back for the next movie in the film.I think this is a bit better than most of this series, for no other reason that Karloff breathes some life into his part..
Just go with Professor Lampini's (Zucco) explanation before he gets offed by Niemann and Daniel (Naish) - "...believe me my friends, this is no fake!" With this sixth entry in the Universal series, the Frankenstein mythos is put to rest unless you want to consider (as I do) one final stab at reuniting The Monster and Wolf Man in 1948's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein", this time with an assist from Bela Lugosi's Dracula.
Originally planned to have a whole gang of monsters, the final product includes Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, Dracula, a mad scientist and his hunchbacked assistant.
In fact, it's noteworthy for being a Frankenstein movie that features Karloff in a role other than the monster.He plays the dastardly Dr. Niemann, who escapes from jail with his hunchbacked associate, Daniel (J.
Carrol Naish as his pitiable hunchbacked assistant; Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man; John Carradine in his first of two appearances as Dracula for Universal Studios; and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's Monster. |
tt0051226 | Zombies of Mora Tau | The movie opens with titles and credits over a pen and ink drawing of four zombies walking through the mist. There is a panning shot of the shoreline, then a car approaching on a dirt road at dusk. The driver, Sam (Gene Roth) is transporting Jan Peters (Autumn Russell) to her grandmother's house near Dakar on the African continent. It is a bumpy ride and Jan tells us it has been ten years since her last visit. On the highway a man blocks the road. Sam runs the man over and continues to drive like nothing happened. Jan is horrified and demands Sam stop the car. Sam explains, "It wasn't a man, it was one of them." They arrive and one of the headlights on the car shows sign of the collision. Waiting outside the house is Jan's grandmother (Marjorie Eaton). Mrs. Peters tells Jan, "There's no one on the road." Despite her protests, Sam and Mrs. Peters go on like nothing happened. They hear the horn of a ship offshore.Inside the main cabin of the salvage ship we meet: Dr. Jonathan Eggert (Morris Ankrum), their diver, Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer), the financial backer of the salvage, George Harrison (Joel Ashley) and his wife, Mona Harrison (Allison Hayes). They talk about the salvage and what each will do with their share of, "a million bucks in diamonds." Mona is a gold digger and a flirt. She shows way too much interest in Jeff. While Jeff might like to reciprocate, fooling around with the wife of the boss is bad for business, and his health. The ship's captain tells Harrison the launch is ready to take them to shore. They go out on deck. A man in a striped shirt swims toward the boat. When a deck hand, Johnson (Mel Curtis) leans over he is grabbed by the swimmer and pulled overboard. Harrison shoots at the swimmer. When they recover Johnson's body they discover his neck was broken. Mrs. Peters' dog barks at something approaching their dock. Mrs. Peters sees it but pays it no attention. Jan confronts her. Mrs. Peters tells her granddaughter, "You wouldn't believe me, Jan." She tells Jan the renewed activity of salvage has brought "them" back. The launch lands and Mrs. Peters and Jan greet them. She tells them she was expecting them, and adds, "I wrote. I warned you of the danger." Mrs. Peters takes them on a tour of the graveyard. She shows them every salvage party grave, the date and their nationalities: 1906--British, 1914--German, 1923--British, 1928--Portuguese, and 1938--American. She tells them theirs is the sixth attempt and there are already graves dug for them. Mona manages to fall into an open grave, panics and becomes hysterical. Mrs. Peters puts them up for the night.Harrison and Jeff plan their salvage dive scheduled for the next day. Dr. Eggert talks to Mrs. Peters. He tells her he's spent twenty years researching the legend of the Susan B. He came for the story and to complete his book. Mrs. Peters shows Eggert a picture of Jeremy Peters, captain of the Susan B. and tells him she's seen him. She recounts the legend and how the diamonds were stolen from a temple, a fight, the ship scuttled in the bay, and the crew killed. The ten men including her husband, Captain Peters, are still guarding the diamonds. She tells Eggert she returned after his death, built the house, and intends to help her zombie husband, "return to dust, to find his eternal rest."In the bedroom, Mona and Jan are screaming at the approach of a zombie. Responding to the commotion, Jeff enters with Harrison and attempts to break the zombie's back. Failing in that, he hits it repeatedly in the face with no effect at all. His attempt to choke the zombie gets him thrown across the room. Mrs. Peters waves a torch at it and it departs. "Fire, that's the only way to fight them," she explains. She tells Jan that she will help the salvage group because, "only when the diamonds are destroyed will your grandfather be able to rest." Jan is dubious of her grandmother's plan having any chance of success, but she does tell Jeff he should abandon his plan to recover the diamonds. She tells Jeff about the drive to the house and the man they hit on the road. She asks Jeff to help her find out if the man is dead. They drive down the road and stop when Jan notices something. They find the remains of the broken headlight and some seaweed. They walk up the road looking for more clues. They decide to return the next morning and follow the footprints. While Jeff goes to the car for something, a zombie picks up Jan and carries her away. Jeff follows, the zombie doubles back, still carrying Jan and attacks Jeff. Jeff drives a knife into its neck, which has no effect. It carries Jan away, past the graveyard to a mausoleum. It places her on a bench, her screams waking the remaining zombies from their torpor. They get up out of their stone sarcophagi and approach Jan. Jeff shoots off a couple of flares to hold them back. Leading the pack outside is Captain Peters (Frank Hagney). The flares keep them at bay.At breakfast the next morning Jeff explains his and Jan's adventure with the zombies. Mona thinks Jeff was set up by Jan and the zombie ambush. Mrs. Peters joins Jeff, Harrison, Dr. Eggert and Mona at the breakfast table. She thanks Jeff for Jan's rescue. Jeff and Harrison renegotiate their partnership--it is now 50/50. They return to the boat and Jeff makes his first dive. He spots the ship wreck, but complains the helmet leaks. He walks along the bottom and up to the sunken ship. A zombie appears and walks towards the ship. Jeff enters the hold of the ship, but the zombie is right behind him. He spots the safe. The zombie attacks and dislodges his air and communication lines, but not before Jeff requests to be hoisted back aboard. Jeff is brought on board, barely alive. They take him back to Mrs. Peters' house where she and Jan nurse him back to health. Mona objects when Mrs. Peters tries to administer a stimulant to help him breathe. In fact everyone except her granddaughter suspects she is trying to poison Jeff. Jan drinks some. Jan gives Jeff some of the potion. While waiting for Jeff to recover, Harrison, Mona and Dr. Eggert play cards. Mona goes in to see Jeff. She and Jan argue until Harrison comes in and removes his wife, giving her a good slap. Angry and humiliated, Mona runs from the house. When Mona doesn't return by nightfall, Mrs. Peters is convinced the zombies have her.They take the car to the mausoleum. Jeff, Harrison, Eggert and two crewmembers, Art (Lewis Webb) and Johnny (Leonard P. Geer) walk through the jungle to the graveyard. Harrison finds Mona's bracelet. Jeff, Harrison and Eggert walk on to the mausoleum. Art and Johnny are told to stay at the graveyard. The men enter the mausoleum and find Mona on the floor. The zombies get up and approach the three. Harrison goes to retrieve his wife's body. Mona wakes and sits up. They all walk out and set a fire by the door to hold the zombies back. They drive back to the house. Jan notices Mona is cold to the touch. Harrison notes that she hasn't said a word. Mrs. Peters finally announces the obvious, "She's dead. Your wife is dead Mr. Harrison." Harrison insists they stay the night in the house. That night Mona gets up out of bed, grabs a knife and walks to the room next door. She stabs and kills Art who is sleeping. Johnny wakes in time to jump out of bed and call for help. Harrison and Jeff enter the room and disarm her. With candles they direct Mona back to her room and hold her there with more candles placed in a circle around the bed. Jeff concludes, "If fire'll work here, it'll work underwater, too."The next morning, Jeff and Harrison build a fire in front of the mausoleum. They think they will be able to work undisturbed if the zombies are bottled up. They return to the boat and prepare for their dive with acetylene torches. Jeff dives first, followed by Harrison. The plan is for Jeff to torch open the safe by cutting the hinges while Harrison uses his torch to hold off the zombies if any show up. Captain Peters and half a dozen zombies approach the men working on the sunken ship. There must have been another exit from the mausoleum. Jeff completes the work on the hinges and removes the cask of diamonds. The zombies are all over Harrison and he calls topside to be pulled up. Jeff holds off two zombies with his torch. Harrison makes it to the surface and is brought aboard the ship. Jeff makes it up with the diamonds and hands the cask to Eggert. The zombies are boarding the ship. They try to repel the attack with stick torches and kerosene, but end up barricaded in a cabin. Jeff makes a makeshift torch out of a pillow case and lighter fluid. He exits the ship with the diamonds. The zombies follow anyone with the diamonds. Jeff gets back to the house. Jeff and Jan stop in to see Mona. She's attracted to the diamonds but held in her bed by the candles. Jeff and Jan go to the living room and meet with Mrs. Peters. They open the box of diamonds. Harrison and Eggert arrive in the dinghy. They make straight for the house as the zombies swim ashore and also head for the house. Harrison confronts Mrs. Peters, Jan, and Jeff and demands the chest of diamonds at gun point. Harrison takes the chest and exits. What he doesn't know is that Jeff has them in a silk scarf. Harrison goes to get his wife using the chest to lure her outside and to follow him. Mona grabs the chest and hits her husband over the head with it, killing him. She takes the chest and she and the zombies return to the mausoleum. Jeff has the diamonds and wants Jan to leave with him. Mrs. Peters tells him if he scatters the diamonds where no man can recover them the zombies will stop. They leave the house and board the launch. The zombies, Mona and Captain Peters return when they discover the chest is empty. Jeff hands the diamonds over to Mrs. Peters. She sobs as she throws them into the sea. She tells her zombie husband, "At last, Jeremy Peters, at long last." Captain Peters disappears and his empty uniform falls to the ground. We close with Jeff and Jan kissing. | violence, murder | train | imdb | One of the many plot implausibilities in this enjoyably awful Sam Katzman-produced dreck occurs when Allison Hayes, she of the killer figure, is murdered by diamond-loving zombies and becomes one of the walking dead.
It seems every group of treasure-seekers that tries to steal the loot, end up dead, so good ole granny (who seems to be the only one who accepts these walking weirdos) takes it upon herself to have the grave sites pre-dug for their convenience....how charming...
This flick also provides us with our standard staple of "ear-piercing scream" from the helpless and unknowledgeable "Jan" The underwater sequence becomes quite amusing when the zombies casually stroll along the bottom of the lake towards their sunken ship....I guess being dead prevents the burning of calories, thereby giving them that extra weight to stay down............happy viewing!.
Although slammed by most of the critics, this flick isn't a bad little time waster.A search party arrives at a plantation off of the coast of Africa.
It easily has creepy scenes that may have influenced later zombie movies.Decent late night viewing!.
A bunch of people go to the island of Mora Tau. Right off the coast of it, a ship sank with diamonds aboard and they want them.
There's nice guy Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer), Dr. Eggert (Morris Ankrum), George Harrison (!!!) (Joel Ashley) and his slutty wife Mona (the immortal Allison Hayes).
What they don't know is that the ship is guarded by zombies who kill anyone who tries to take the jewels.Admittadely novel idea is almost completely destroyed by a silly script and some pretty bad acting.
It does have a little creepy scene when the zombies attack at the end and Hayes (a seriously under rated actress) is very good in a nothing role.
Zombies are guarding a sunken ship full of treasures in a lagoon on the outskirts of a sleepy, nearly-deserted Southern town.
Cardboard screamer shenanigans; sure, some of it is fun, and the sequence where the zombies walk out of the water is skillfully done, but Allison Hayes (as the sexy bad girl) still can't act!
ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU is certainly a juvenile, sometimes cardboard, horror movie, not least because zombie monsters were pretty juvenile after Victor Halperin and before George Romero.
During this time I had an obsession with 1950's science fiction or horror movies, big or small, good or bad, simply because they took me to a comfortable inner landscape which these films idealized.
Only now, these innocent movies emerge as places in which I attempt to retrieve that last youth.Now this behaviour may sound naive, but let's face it, so are a lot of these films that we escape to.
This film is disarming in its innocence which invites the willing into its simple world-- it still manages to deliver the goods with such simple means as a creepy scene in which candles surround someone with "zombie fever".
The only problem is that the treasure's being guarded by a small band of sleepwalking-style zombies (the original sailors who went down with the ship when it sank) and they've done a fine job so far of killing every other search party that has intervened over the decades.
The elderly wife of the zombified captain is still alive and wants the diamonds too, but only to destroy them so she may give rest to her husband's wandering soul.That description is much more interesting than the way the movie actually pans out, but at least we've got the stunning Allison Hayes to gawk at as she plays the bitchy babe with the killer figure.
The sunken cargo of diamonds have lured many seekers; but all have been turned back by a crew of zombies.This little movie is better than you think.
Arriving at a small African community, a group of diamond searchers find the area guarded by reanimated zombies raised by voodoo and try to enlist a local couple to combat the creatures and get away alive.This is a decidedly decent early effort in the zombie genre.
As well, there's the low-budget nature of the film does have some getting over as the make-up work in non-existent on the zombies beyond contact lenses, the sets are minimal and repeatedly utilized while keeping the action relegated to a few small, short set-pieces that are found throughout here.
The showcase here, though, is undoubtedly the underwater retrieval sequences which features not only the underwater battle with the creatures as well as the centerpiece attack on the ship itself where the creatures come on-board to force battles and barricading tactics that are far more traditionally-inspired which allows for a lot of great fun in the film.
They spend most of the movie on the island of Mora Tau with an old lady who tells them that the diamonds must be destroyed to put an end to the zombies.Fun B movie from producer Sam Katzman.
Among the people on this trip are pragmatic hero Jeff Clark (Gregg Palmer), Dr. Eggert (Morris Ankrum), a professor who's writing a book, George Harrison (!) (Joel Ashley), ostensibly the man in charge, and Georges' wife Mona (Allison Hayes).
The cast gives the proceedings very straight faced performances; Palmer is a decent hero, Autumn Russell is pretty as his leading lady, Ashley is an amusing jerk, Hayes (otherwise known as the 50 foot woman) is hilariously bitchy in her part, and Ankrum as always is a delight to watch.
It's a hoot to note the fact that these particular zombies are like Frankensteins' monster and have an aversion to fire.Overall, this is deliciously daft horror, guided by prolific B director of the era Edward Cahn, that at least only goes on for a fairly trim 69 minutes.
While in no way a classic film, "The Zombies of Mora Tau" is an important one in the development of the genre of "living dead" cinema.It would take another ten years for a young director named George A.
Romero to perfect the zombie film with "Night of the Living Dead", but the roots of that legendary film can easily be traced back to this production(and the Edward Cahn's other living dead flick, "Invisible Invaders").The film wastes no time getting underway and is paced pretty well throughout.
The special effects are dismal, especially in the supposed underwater scenes, but only add to the charm of the overall film.The pedestrian acting does become grating in places.
Allison Hayes, who was amusingly over the top in the 1950's classic, "Attack of the 50ft Woman", stumbles through the movie as though she wasn't aware of where she was half of the time.
(Again - something not unusual in these B-pictures from yesteryear).All in all, "The Zombies of Mora Tau" is a fun and nostalgic film, perfect for late night viewing with the lights off with a bowl of popcorn on your lap.
Funded by a very wealthy man, a group of people head to the coast of Africa in search of treasure - diamonds.
This film is not all that bad - it's a fun to watch type of horror with a little bit different twist to zombie films since a deep sea treasure hunt adventure is involved.
Cahn directed this horror thriller that stars Gregg Palmer and Allison Hayes, who lead a group of treasure-hunters to an isolated African coast where there lies a sunken ship which is reputed to hold a huge cache of diamonds.
Other expeditions have met with death, but that doesn't deter this current group, who learn that the sunken ship is guarded by its undead crew, zombies who will stop at nothing to preserve the diamonds.
A group of American divers arrive off the coast of Africa to search for a ship that sunk many years before carrying a treasure of valuable diamonds.
But that's about the only inconvenience to living in this extremely remote corner of the world (I mean, aside from the undead who wander around incessantly, which would be a bit inconvenient at times I suppose.)I also chuckled at both Mona (Allison Hayes) - the wife of the expedition's leader - and Jan (Autumn Russell) - who's the granddaughter who makes Grandma Peters a grandma.
50's beauty and B movie star, Allison Hayes, played the moll and also a zombie in a creepy scene with candles.Not a bad flick to get you in the Halloween spirit..
I thought "Plan 9 from Outer Space" was the worst black and white b movies schlock I had ever seen, but "Zombies of Mora Tau" would be right there with it.
The story line consists of two adventurers searching for some lost diamonds on a boat that had sunk 60 years earlier....funny how they run into the "zombies" as the film title says that are wearing t shirts, polo shirts and long sleeve shirts and showing no ill effects of age....the makeup dept did not even try to make the zombies scary looking...ugh!!!!
Want more,...there is a 90 year old lady with white hair who keeps advising the heroes to beware of the zombies and that there is a curse on the diamonds.....she was the former wife of one of the zombies....wow, this movie is total schlock.....definitely drive in material for the late 1950s as the second run feature on a twin bill..
This is the only title I had not yet checked out from Columbia's ICONS OF HORROR: SAM KATZMAN Box Set. As expected, being a pre-Romero zombie flick, the monsters in this one are of the voodoo (rather than flesh-eating) variety; still, their being guardians of the deep was an interesting novelty, looking forward to both the "Blind Dead" entry THE GHOST GALLEON (1975; albeit the least in the series) and John Carpenter's underrated THE FOG (1980)!
Into the picture now step a handful of adventurers after buried treasure: as it happens, the captain of the zombie conglomerate (who sleep in hidden coffins like vampires?!) happens to be the old woman's deceased husband (at one point, she almost takes pride in the fact that, unlike her, he has retained his looks – she does not seem to mind the skin discoloration that goes with death, not to mention the extra decomposition that inevitably sets in through the effect of sea-water on his flesh?!).
As some of you may know, I am not much of a fan of zombie movies and never found them scary: this load of ghouls, then, barely have any make-up on to suggest they are indeed the living dead – the film-makers simply slapped some seaweed on them, believing it would do the trick!
1st watched 9/28/2014 -- 2 out of 10(Dir-Edward Cahn): Idiotic plot holes and storyline make this one of the worst zombie movies I've seen -- especially since it was put out by a major studio.
Basically the movie put's Hollywood hotties with a paranoid old woman in the hunt for treasure in Africa that happens to be guarded by the living dead.
Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) * 1/2 (out of 4) Silly horror film from Columbia about zombies guarding some diamonds on the bottom of the sea.
There's nothing particularly remarkable about "Zombies of Mora-Tau", but it isn't the worst way to pass about an hour of your life.
The zombies in this film are reanimated sailors who must guard a cursed treasure (remind anyone of any recent mega-hits?).
They look pretty silly in their striped shirts; it doesn't look like anyone even thought to make them look a bit aged or anything like that.The film's best asset is Allison Hayes and the scenes involving her character, including the memorable scene where she's clearly a zombie but nobody wants to believe it, so they lead her back to the house and surround her with candles at the old lady's (Marjorie Eaton) insistence.
We have scenes of graveyards and so forth I think it's quite a nice effect when the old lady shows the group all those graves and when asked who they are for says "they're yours." But I can hardly imagine any person older than 5 who would be scared by this film in the 20th Century because it really doesn't even try that hard.
Once you get to the scenes with the underwater treasure search you realize this is, like "Invisible Invaders", more of an action/adventure film than a horror film.It's not nearly as inept as some posters here have said, but it's clearly a movie that didn't have high ambitions.
ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU is proof positive that Cahn was a very capable filmmaker in his own right and is worth a look by fans of the genre..
Now, people who aren't accustomed to "old-style zombies" may not like or appreciate this film too much.
After all, it's in black and white and the zombies are nothing like what we currently see in the movies today.
But this was what horror films looked like back in the 50's and while it isn't necessarily "scary" by today's standards, it does have some suspense and creepiness all the same.
A zombie captain and crew guard the treasure of a sunken ship.
The excellent cast of familiar 50's B-movie faces adds greatly to the silly fun: Gregg Palmer as hunky, stalwart diver Jeff Clark, Allison Hayes as the snippy Mona Harrison, Morris Ankrum as the sage, friendly Dr. Jonathan Eggert, Autumn Russell as the sweet Jan Peters, Joel Ashley as the gruff George Harrison, Marjorie Eaton as the wise Grandmother Peters, and Gene Roth as Sam the chauffeur.
Zombies of Mora Tau is so insultingly stupid and lame that it almost made me long for the 'good ole days' of the 1940s when Abbott and Costello were busy ruining the Universal Monsters franchise (though A&C enthusiasts still refuse to admit how unfunny those films were).
It seems that the original thieves of the treasure all met an untimely demise and 10 zombies now guard said treasure (though why they live in 10 lined up coffins in a cave like Snow Whites dwarfs is anyone's guess) and will not rest until said treasure is 'destroyed' as the old lady says.
The sailors dream of riches and ignore her warnings and try to get the treasure anyway...These are also among the least scary voodoo zombies I've seen in a movie.
If all the reels of this film were at the bottom of the sea, I think I'd voodoo up some zombies to guard them and ensure that they were never retrieved so that movie audiences would be spared the horror of seeing this film.**SPOILERS**I have several issues with this film and its lazy writing:*The dive crew/sailors are too dumb to realize that the woman is not 'ill' but now has become one of the zombies and is exhibiting all the same traits.
These characters are obviously much dumber than your average horror movie morons.*Sure the old lady claims the zombies are indestructible, but that doesn't stop the sailors from using knives and other weapons on them ineffectively.
Zombies of Mora Tau. A crew seeking diamonds in an African watery tomb, encounter the zombie sailor thieves who once stole it not willing to allow their treasure into others' hands even after death.
An elderly woman, Grandmother Peters(Marjorie Eaton) who lives in a home nearby, whose husband was the skipper of that unfortunate voyage and her reason for relocating roots in Africa, warns the crew that death will be their only reward for removing the diamond chest from it's underwater crypt.
Gregg Palmer is Jeff Clark, the flawed heroic sailor on the voyage, who often goes underwater to retrieve the treasure box despite zombie resistance.
Sam Katzman's "Zombies of Mora Tau" is a decent film.
It has a good cast(Morris Ankrum, Gregg Palmer and Allison Hayes), tight direction and a chilling musical score.
They are guarded by the Zombies and anyone attempting to retrieve them meets a horrible death or in the case of Allison Hayes, turns into a Zombie as well.
I'm not into Zombie movies but this was fun to watch if not a bit hokey in some parts.
This was a gem from 1957, before Romero ripped off Richard Matheson and ruined the Zombie forever.The crew of a ship has been cursed to guard treasure, bringing death to any who try to salvage the diamonds.
Now on land and sea these Zombies are determined to prevent anyone from getting their hands on the diamonds and have killed scores of diamonds hunters over the last 50 or so years in trying to find them.When Jan Peters, Autumn Russell, came to visit her grandmother Gradma Peters, Marjorie Eaton, at her West African estate that things really started popping, from under and over the waves, in the movie.
It's when Jan came on the scene together with a group of diamond hunters headed by the non-Beatle George Harrison, Joel Ashley, and his crew together with his sexy busting out of her bra wife Mona, Allison Hayes, handsome underwater diver Jeff Clark, Greg Plamer, and African historian Dr. Jonathan Eggart, Morris Ankrum, you just knew that the Zombie weren't that far behind.Sure enough the Zombies as soon as their diamond treasure was to be discovered came out of the shadows in full force to stop anyone who came within ten yards of it.
It was Grandma Peters the late Captain Jeremy Peters wife who warned her grand daughter Jan together with her scavenger hunting party that it's bad if not deadly news for them to mess with the Zombies and their diamonds.
It's in that action the Zombies lead by Grandma Peters' husband Capt Jeremy Peters will finally find their eternal peace and stop walking the earth like dead men on super steroids with strings attached to them.
The strange thing about all that is that Grandma Peters dumped the diamonds in what looks like a ten foot deep lake or pond, not the vast and at some places five mile deep Atlantic Ocean, where the Zombies can easily recover them!. |
tt0199974 | The Prophet's Game | The Prophet's Game involves a game master (the killer) giving out obscure clues to all of the players. It is a game among anonymous people with enigmas and riddles that prophesies the next victim. If you want the next victim to be saved you have to give the solution to the latest riddle you received. Of course the game is rigged. The players attempt to find out what dead celebrity the clues are referring so they can stay in the game. At least one player determines that some of the dead celebrities were not dead when the clue was given to them.Vincent Swan (Dennis Hopper) is a retired veteran police investigator who becomes obsessed with catching a serial killer making his way down the West Coast. The Killer brings Swan into the investigation by sending him a postcard, similar to one used in the previous killings. When the killer begins doing his grisly work in Los Angeles, Swan leaves Seattle for L.A., though the local police regard him as a loose cannon and aren't so sure they want his help. The murderer enjoys playing cat and mouse with Swan, calling him to taunt him about the game, pulling him back into the investigation of new killings
The killer gets some guarantee by menacing the players with some reprisal on some close relatives or friends. The method of operation turns out be a copycat of a serial killer in Seattle, who now-retired police detective Swan supposedly solved by killing the culprit. Swan decides to help the LA police who definitely do not want his help The riddles are obscure and the explanations are too quick for us to wonder what it really means and how they manage to get the solutions. The movie spirals into a personal conflict between Swan and the Killer and several celebrities die along the way. Swan eventually enlists the assistance of one of tthe Homocide detectives assigned to the case (Stephanie Zimbalist) and one of the players who realizes that the victims are still alive at the time the clues are delivered.For the final clue The Prophet gives clues that lead Swann to realize HE is the next victim. He gives teh player the wrong answer which lets him out of the game. The Prophet then calls Swan to tell him the detective is a captive and will be the next victim unless he comes to meet the Prophet. The prophet turns out to be the sister of the first killer, who Swan believed had raped and murdered his daughter as a twisted part of the firstgame. The brother and sister were both in on the kidnappings and killings. a struggle ensues, Swan tricks the Prophet and eventually gains the advantage. Rather than killing the Prophet, he wounds her, giving her life in a mental prison. | murder | train | imdb | Dennis Hopper is intense.
He is by far the best thing in this by the numbers serial killer 'thriller'.
The idea of the prophet's game itself is interesting, and could make a pretty good movie, but this isn't it.
It's too bogged down in revenge, police politics, and laughable action to go anywhere, and the ending is unbelievably unsatisfying, with so much still left unanswered.
As for the direction, there is really nothing to distinguish The Prophet's Game from a million other B movies, and although the supporting cast try hard, (with a few notable exceptions) they can't lift it from its dire script..
The most puzzling part of this film was where don swayze went.
he had finished his role in the film even before the opening credit s came on.
Dennis hopper did his best here obviously he's getting on & his judgment is clouded now so no sane actor would have their mame on this film.
he chases a man over half his age for about 2 minutes & isn't even tired - strange cause he's 65.
There are numerous bad takes in the film - one where a girl looks straight at the camera looking like she's taking instructions from the crew.
The plot rambles along with some decent twists but the idea wasn't worked on well enough so in the end the film is disappointing..
I went to the VIDEO STORE to rent THE TAO of STEVE and did not look carefully at the DVD case and ended up renting this stinker of a flick instead.
Now don't get me wrong, this film had potential.
Dennis Hopper is always at least tolerable or better, and is not bad here.
The problem was the poorly explained plot, the numerous bad performances, and the director's insistence on using every police cliche going.
The film uses the venetian blind shadows in just about every scene.
Seems to me it went straight to video for a reason..
I started rooting for one character to be the next to die just because the actor's performance was so God-awful.
Dennis Hopper was likeable and gives a good performance.
Stephanie Zimbalist's performance was marred by a now-you- hear-it, now-you-don't Noo Yawk accent.
Other than that, a silly plot with a one-trick pony of a twist, cheap psychological background, stupid police tricks (don't they go to some police school that teaches them to disarm suspects and carry their cell phones with them rather than leave them deep in the woods, in their hidden cars?), and ponderous music make this a movie to miss..
The plot of this movie sounded fairly interesting so I tried it.
All I can say is, 'don't waste your time.' The plot was poorly explained.
The acting was bad.We have become used to seeing so much better that it is jarring to see a movie done this badly.
This movie was truly awful..
Good movie with interesting twists.
Who will win the Prophet's Game?.
Dennis Hopper plays Vincent Swann, a retired detective with a personal vendetta, to perfection in this movie.
As the retired detective whose daughter was killed by a mass murderer, when the tell-tale killings start again, he starts to wonder if he got the right man.
Famous people are randomly murdered and body parts taken.
The players of the Prophet's Game decide who lives or dies.Although the movie is a little slow, there is enough intrigue to keep you hanging on to the last minute.
The movie is directed very well, with a good supporting cast.
(Michael Dorn's distinctive voice is used to good effect as the Police Commissioner.)As the players start disappearing, and Vincent is taunted, the winner of the Prophet's Game is always the Prophet....
The storyline of this movie had the potential to be good and intriguing, however the writer massacred it.
The characters' motivations where sketchy and overacted, even by the usually charismatic Dennis Hopper.
Some of the lines had me laughing when it was obviously meant to be suspensful, serious, or cathartic.Overall, it is worth a watch for a Dennis Hopper fan.
The job of the director is to pull a performance out of an actor.
Maybe the director was having a bad year?!
which basically shows you that some of our favorite actors aren't as talented as we thought we were.
Stephanie Zimbalist basically played a character somewhat reminiscent of Valerie Harper, in voice only.
we don't want to see her looking bad, takes all the fun out of watching her.
Dennis Hopper was his usual boring self ...
Do we really want our hero types playing villains?
Basically, the movie is a flop ...
guess she's only good in a Clint Eastwood movie, because she stunk worse than anyone else!
Disturbing, occasionally graphic, with some good performances.
At the start of the movie, a farmer wonders if his lack of success is due to God punishing him.
He catches his son and daughter playing The Prophet's Game, which he considers evil.
Since he believes his son killed a dog (the boy denies it) and the son doesn't want to stop playing the evil game, the father believes he must beat his son (this is implied, not shown) to keep him from going to Hell.
The mother, despite pleas from her daughter to stop the beating, can only comfort her daughter; she appears afraid to confront her husband.In present-day Seattle, retired detective Vincent Swan receives a phone call from the Los Angeles Police.
The LAPD needs help with another serial killer whose pattern appears the same as that of a killer in Seattle; not only did Swan catch the man, but his daughter was one of the victims.
Either Swan caught the wrong man or there is a copycat.Alan is a teaching assistant at a Los Angeles college.
Their first scene together suggests this will be a comedy-mystery, but there is little to laugh about after the one scene.
Barb knows yet another celebrity has been murdered; we saw it happen but couldn't see the face of the killer, who dressed in black.
The killer dismembers the bodies, and while we don't see it, there is plenty of blood on the screen and it's still quite disgusting to watch.Lewis and Alan both play The Prophet's Game, as do several students at the college.
The killer is offering clues about his victims through the game, and the police figure this out too late for one of the celebrities.
Furthermore, they cover up the fact that this celebrity is dead, but Barb knows.
And Alan, contacted by phone, is told to correctly answer the questions of the killer, whose voice is disguised, or else.
Will the cops figure out what is going on in time to stop another murder?The mystery is not anything groundbreaking, but it is chilling to hear the killer harass Alan, knowing this person seems to have no conscience.
And there's a pretty good chase scene where the detectives run after a suspect.The biggest reason to watch this movie is for two great performances--Dennis Hopper as the Seattle detective who tries hard to catch the killer, and Sondra Locke as Adele (yes, she's capable of much more than those silly orangutan movies with Clint Eastwood, which I enjoyed).At the same time, toward the movie's end, I saw one of the must graphic and disturbing dead bodies I have ever seen on a TV screen.
Perhaps the great horror classics have this and worse, but I don't watch those.Stephanie Zimbalist does a good job as one of the Los Angeles detectives, and while she is a Christian (apparently Catholic because she prays to Mary at one point), she demonstrates her faith more positively than that farmer.I never heard of the actress who played Barb, but she was pretty good, especially when she walked around Alan's apartment in just a shirt and made every effort to call attention to her legs.
Actually, if you look closely, she is wearing a bra, but still ...Is it worth seeing?
I guess it depends on what type mysteries you like.
A game without interest!.
Disappointing police drama concerning the challenge between an old detective (Hooper) and a weird and uncanny serial killer.
Tired formula with a plot that goes along in a peasant pace with no real catch or interesting situations and characters.
Following in the footsteps of 'Seven', yet another copycat psycho thriller, this time with famous folk being bumped off as part of a game played over the Internet.
Without the two leads this really would deserve the bargain bin, Hopper and Zimbalist at least keep their characters interesting.
This film was on sale in Wal-Mart and I decided that for the price it was worth purchasing.
As soon as the film began, I knew right from the start that I was going to enjoy this type of film.
Dennis Hopper(Vincent Swan),"20th & Wolf",'05, played a retired detective who had some experience with a past serial killer whom he had killed.
Vincent is called back to Los Angeles where the crime had taken place years ago and tried to assist the police department with this Cold Case.
Stephanie Zimbalist,(Francis Aldobrandi),"Malpractice",'01, is assigned to Vincent Swan to work on the case together.
There is an appearance of Sandra Locke,(Adele Highsmith),"Clean & Narrow",'99, who gives a great supporting role and it was great to see her acting without her ex live in bow, Clint Eastwood.
If you like a mystery story from 1999, this is not a bad film to view..
DVD surprise.
I don't really have strong feelings about the movie.
I paid $1.00 for the DVD at WalMart and I think I got my money's worth.
I watch a lot of movies and am surprised I had never seen this one.
Dennis Hopper is dependable in most any role and this one was no exception.
The story was OK, but the ending was no great surprise.
This one was sharp and had good color throughout.
No extras, of course, like director's comments, subtitles or other goodies, but the movie ran full length without any gaps or pixelating and with decent enough sound.
Dennis Hopper as a retired detective tracking down a serial killer with Stephanie Zimbalist.
Released in 2000 and directed by David Worth, "The Prophets Game" is a crime thriller starring Dennis Hopper as Vincent Swan, a retired detective from Seattle who is asked to fly to Los Angeles to help solve a new rash of murders similar to a case he supposedly solved a dozen years earlier.
Stephanie Zimbalist co-stars as "Al," a frustrated officer assigned to keep an eye on Swan while Joe Penny plays the hardboiled chief of detectives.
Robert Yocum, Shannon Whirry, Greg Lauren, Michael Dorn and Sondra Locke are also on hand.While this went straight-to-video in the USA & most other countries it had a theatrical release in Spain and Korea.
Having a more modest budget than feature thrillers, it lacks the polish of the similarly themed "The Dead Pool" (1988), not to mention it lacks a super-cop like Dirty Harry and the corresponding fast action, although it has some action.
What "The Prophet's Game" has in its favor is an impressive character-driven script by Carol Chrest only hampered by convolution.
On top of this you have zesty performances by all the principle cast members.
Both Swan and Al are nicely fleshed-out and you care about them and the outcome of the story.
Penny and Locke also give knockout performances, although their roles are relatively minor.
Some people don't like it because of the limitations of its modest budget, but I was nicely entertained from beginning to end.
You'll probably like it too if you favor dialogue-driven stories and don't insist on blockbuster budgets.
I wouldn't want to pay top dollar to see it at the theater, but it works well for TV, DVD or rental.AN INQUIRY: There's a scene well into the second half where Swan (Hopper) is walking with two other characters through a campus and a few extras pass between the camera and them.
One is a woman wearing white pants who is talking to another person.
I need to know who this woman in white pants is.
I presume she's an extra provided by the casting agency that hired extras for the movie.
I must see more of this actress; it's of the utmost importance.The movie runs 106 minutes and was shot in Ventura and Santa Barbara, California.GRADE: B-(PS: The "INQUIRY" is a joke).
I saw the DVD version of this mystery/thriller.
I must say that Dennis Hopper and Stefanie Zimbalist are highlights of the movie but it kind of ends with their performances.
Hopper shows he can act with his face and develop the unsaid script.
Zimbalist is a revelation as she portrays an aging, slightly dumpy vice cop who has about had it.
Remembering her TV work I gained respect for her acting and personal strength in avoiding face lifts et al.
The movie is a bit formula although it has its moments.
People who like the serial killer genre with game playing and shock effects will probably like it.
It is nice to see Michael Dorn without his Star Trek makeup but his part is much too small.
How much mystery can there be when you are almost through the movie and Sandra Locke has not shown up yet?
The DVD is full screen, sharp, but a little grainy on my system and DTS sound is an option.
Overall a disappointment but Hopper and Zimbalist are worth every penny of rental money..
My very favorite thing about this movie was how a bunch of the central characters were apparently supposed to be college students, but they were all in their thirties.
The fat guy was stereotypically obnoxious, and the female lead's sex drive was clearly well-in-place for the age, and they were all playing some trendy new game on the internet, yet their physical appearances made them woefully ill-suited for the parts they played.I especially liked the one main dude with his backwards cap who was always riding his bike around and such.So believably youthful!.
Hopper and 2 chars walking though a (college?) campus.
i did not sit through this movie, but i remember one specific scene: Hopper/Swan was walking with two other characters through a campus of some sort, and some extras pass between the camera and the trio.
One is definitely a woman, wearing white pants, and she is walking and talking to another person.
Later in the scene, we see them again in the background, and it appears the second person is also a woman.Does anyone know who the woman in white pants is or how to find out?
I presume she is an extra provided by the Entertainement Casting Company, the firm who provided the extras to the set for this film.
Great cast, interesting story line, but does not deliver..
Movie has a wonderful cast of talented actors in off-key roles for each; Dennis Hopper at the "good guy retired cop", Stephanie Zimbalist as a church-going cop with cropped hair (looks nothing like she did when in the series with Pierce Brosnan!) and Sondra Locke as the serial killer running the game.
She is short cropped and looks very different than she did in any Clint Eastwood movie...I did not recognize her face, only her voice, and had was surprised at the end of the film to see it was her.
Another recognizable voice is Michael Dorn (Who played the Klingon in Star Trek - The Next Generation) as a very authoritative, convincing cop.Worth it to watch for the cast and their wonderful performances alone and potentially great storyline...just something must have gotten lost between the translation and the story comes off as stiff and unbelievable in parts.
Great special effects and still recommend renting this movie..
Not Very Good.
it actually turned out to be a little better than i thought this cheap budget would be, but still very bad...............................Dennis hopper was pretty good, and the rest of the cast was OK, it was shot pretty well, and has a storyline, that makes you want to see it, but don't please..........its about a serial killer known as the prophet and has killed again,and sends a postcard to Vincent swan(detective, but detective swan(hopper) had killed him a few years ago, but he come to a conclusion that hes a copycat or he actually didn't kill him, so in the rest of the story the prophet leaves clues with his mutilated victims and detective swan tries to solve the mystery.
A fairly good suspense film, even a thriller, with a serial killer who comes back after having died on the scene of his last or latest crime.
And he gets into a new series.
We know from the very start who the killer or killers is or are.
But we will only understand that very beginning at the end.
It is a game among anonymous people with enigmas and riddles that prophesies the next victim.
If you want the next victim to be saved you have to give the solution to the latest riddle you received.
Of course the game is rigged.
The killer gets some guarantee by menacing the players with some reprisal on some close relatives or friends.
Of course the object of the game is to bring the cop who put an end to the first series of serial killings into the game to get some kind of vengeance.
We can also wonder how this killer can single-handedly kidnap or abduct an adult.
But I guess everything has to remain slightly mysterious.
The happy ending is of course very optimistic.
The killer could have done a lot more damage if the end had not been too vain and had only considered vengeance.
That killer being insane, definitely schizophrenic, does not explain why in the last moments of the adventure criminal reason departs and vanity takes over. |
tt0076704 | Shock Waves | The film opens as Rose (Brooke Adams) is found drifting alone in a small rowboat. Two fishermen find the dinghy and pull her onto their boat, barely alive and in a horrible state. Her voiceover indicates she had been rescued from some terrifying experience. The film's events are flashbacks.Rose is seen previously as part of a small group of tourists aboard a small commercial pleasure boat. The Captain (John Carradine) seems to be having trouble with the boat. His mate, Chuck (Fred Buch), seems to share a mutual attraction with Rose. Also on board are Dobbs (Don Stout), who is the boat's cook; Keith (Luke Halpin), another tourist; and a bickering married couple named Norman (Jack Davidson) and Beverly (D.J. Sidney).After some trouble with the engine, the Captain and Chuck are faced with the fact that their navigation system is going haywire after they encounter a strange orange haze. The others sense that something is wrong and that they may be lost at sea. Norman in particular becomes very whiny about it, insulting the Captain and being generally abrasive to everyone. In the darkness of night, a hulking ship suddenly appears and brushes up alongside their boat, damaging it. The Captain sends up a flare, which momentarily lights up the eerie sight of a huge, rotting vessel wrecked nearby.The next morning, everyone wakes up to find the Captain missing. Realizing the boat is slowly taking on water, everyone evacuates in the lifeboat and makes for a nearby island. They also see the huge wreck in the light of day; it appears to have been there for decades, nothing more than a skeletal framework, and now seemingly immobile, stranded on the island's reef. The group is startled to find the body of the Captain, apparently drowned while he was trying to check the underside of the boat for damage. They explore the island and discover a large, rundown hotel. At first they think it's deserted, but they soon discover a reclusive old man living there (Peter Cushing).The man seems alarmed by their tale of the "ship" that rammed their boat, and he goes down to the beach to see for himself. Under the water, strange zombie-like men begin to gather, walking from the wreck along the ocean floor until they're at the island. As Dobbs gathers items to help him prepare food for the castaways, the zombies corner him in the water and one of them attacks; before it kills him, Dobbs falls in a cluster of sea urchins and is horribly mangled. Rose comes out to swim and discovers the body. Back inside the hotel, their reluctant host tells them that he was a Nazi commander in charge of the "Death Corps", a group of zombified men created to live underwater and in any type of condition. The creatures were intended to be a powerful weapon for the Nazis, but they proved difficult to control and were "recalled". Just as the war was ending, the Commander was at sea with them awaiting orders on how to proceed. When Germany lost the war, he decided to sink the ship and live in exile on the nearby island. Realizing the zombies have returned somehow, he says they are doomed. The Commander goes down to the beach again and sees a few of the zombies off in the distance; they refuse to obey him and disappear under the water. They follow him to a secluded place and drown him in a stream.The others attempt to locate a boat that the Commander told them about. They find it hidden in some brush, and pilot it out through the streams to the open water, but the boat becomes stuck on a mud bank and must be pushed; pursued by the zombies and struggling to control the boat, it gets away from them and sails off, empty. Norman is drowned in a stream by zombies, and Rose tries to make her way back to the hotel. Chased by a zombie, it gets her, but she pulls off its goggles and it dies.Chuck, Beverly and Keith also return to the hotel. They decide to barricade themselves inside the hotel's large refrigerator unit for protection from the zombies, but the close quarters and stress start to make the survivors fight with one another. Keith freaks out once they're inside with the door locked, and he fights with Chuck. In the melee, he pulls out a flare gun and ends up accidentally shooting a flare inside the cooler, blinding Beverly. Chuck and Rose escape to an old furnace room, where they hide inside two metal grates. Beverly, who now can't see anything, hides in a closet. Keith is confronted outside by the zombies; they corner him in a swimming pool and drown him.The next morning, Chuck and Rose discover Keith's body. They also discover Beverly dead, drowned in a large fish tank. Now on their own, they try to escape in a small sightseeing rowboat with a glass bottom. The zombies attack, and although Chuck manages to defeat one by pulling off its goggles, a second one grabs him and drowns him just as the dinghy breaches the reef and drifts free. Rose sees Chuck's lifeless body pressed up against the glass bottom of the boat and screams.The film has come full circle, with Rose's voiceover returning. She is now in a hospital bed, seemingly writing in a journal. Her dialogue begins to repeat itself over and over, and we see she is writing nonsense in her journal, apparently insane. | murder | train | imdb | null |
tt0116136 | DragonHeart | Dragonheart begins with Bowen (Dennis Quaid), a Knight of the "Old Code" of honor, valor and chivalry, tutoring his young protege, Einon (Lee Oakes) in both swordplay and the values of a knight. Einon is the king's son and heir to the throne. The lesson, conducted amongst the ruins of an old Roman fortress, is interrupted by Brok (Brian Thompson), leader of the armies of King Freyne (Peter Hric). Brok tells Einon of a peasant rebellion, and King Freyne wants Einon to witness it being crushed. Einon rushes to the village where the fighting is taking place, forcing Bowen to follow to protect him. Einon thinks Bowen's blade will be the best on the battlefield, but Bowen warns Einon to learn the difference between battle and butchery, and only by doing so will he be a greater ruler than his father. Einon promises that he will be a greater ruler.(During the battle, a caption says the movie takes place in England in the year 984 A.D.)Bowen is separated from Einon when the youth rushes off as his father, who brazenly rode off alone to set fire to huts and homes, is surrounded by peasants in an ambush. Freyne is dismounted and killed. When the villagers disperse, Einon rushes from a hiding place and takes the crown off his father's head. Freyne, who isn't quite dead yet, grabs at Einon who struggles free, yelling, "It's mine!" In the confusion, a young girl (Sandra Kovacicova) wearing a bucket on her head as a helmet, falls off of the balcony of a smoking hut and knocks Einon into a spiked post which pierces through his chest, grievously wounding him. The girl takes off her helm to reveal long red hair. They look at each other for a moment, the girl remorseful and Einon with pain. Bowen rides in and grabs Einon, rushing him to the castle. Royal physicians prepare to work on saving Einon, who is crying in pain, but Einon's mother, Queen Aislinn (Julie Christie), orders them all out except for Bowen. As Aislinn examines her son's wound, Bowen says Einon is beyond all help. Aislinn looks at a small statue of a dragon and says, "Not all."Aislinn, Bowen, and a small company of soldiers go to a cave in the mountains where Aislinn calls to a being of reverence. To the shock of everyone else, a dragon appears, though most of him is hidden in shadow. When he sees the severity of Einon's wound, he is reluctant to help and warns Aislinn the consequences of what must be done to save him. Aislinn assures the dragon that Einon is not like his father and vows to ensure that he grows up to be a fine leader and role model for his people, but the dragon insists that Einon swear to all this himself. Einon swears by the dragon just as he breathes his last. Bowen angrily shouts at the dragon but is reprimanded as the dragon opens a chest plate and removes half his heart, placing it in Einon's chest. He then seals the wound with a blast of fire. As Einon wakes up, he commands the boy to do as he promised. Aislinn kneels before the dragon in gratitude, and Bowen promises to repay the favor any way he can, any time in the future when the dragon might need him. On the way back down the mountain, Einon calls Brok to him and tells him that he will rebuild the Roman fortress as the new royal castle. Brok states that the task will take many men, and Einon says, "Yes, it will."The rebellion is crushed and the peasants are all forced to provide hard labor to rebuild the castle. The rebel leader, Redbeard (Terry O'Neill) and several of his best cohorts are brought before young Einon in chains. Einon decrees that their eyes should be burned out. Bowen interferes and breaks the restraints binding Redbeard and the peasant leaders, allowing them to flee. Einon berates Bowen for interefering but Bowen protests Einon's cruelty towards his subjects, reminding him of the Code. Einon replies that the king is above the Code. Angry, Bowen tells Einon that the king is even more bound to the Code than anyone. Outraged at Einon's sudden cruel demeanor, Bowen rushes to the dragon's cave, shouting that the dragon's 'gift' corrupted Einon and that Bowen has decided on a new vow-- to spend the rest of his life hunting the dragon down to ultimately kill him.Twelve years later we encounter a traveling monk named Brother Gilbert (Pete Postlethwaite) spouting poetry and prose to himself to be written down. Suddenly, he sees a dragon fly past, with Bowen charging after it. He catches up to the dragon beyond the edge of a hill (we see grass, earth, and hay flying up). Brother Gilbert sighs in sorrow as he sees Bowen's horse run over the hill riderless until, finally, Bowen emerges, victorious. Brother Gilbert praises Bowen on his bravery, as a servant for King Einon, Lord Felton (Jason Isaacs), arrives to give Bowen the kingdom's gratitude. But Bowen wants the gold he was apparently promised for killing the dragon, insisting that despite his honor as a knight, he still has to eat and upkeep his horse and gear. Lord Felton scoffs at Bowen as having become a rogue mercenary only interested in money.Meanwhile Redbeard, now old, blind, and feeble, is working in a quarry, when his daughter, Kara (Dina Meyer) comes to bring him some water. The cup is shot out of his hand by a now-adult King Einon (David Thewlis), accompanied by Brok and Felton. Kara begs that Einon show some mercy on her father and to release him. Einon agrees to do so-- and shoots Redbeard through the heart with an arrow. Einon exclaims that death is a release, not a punishment. He rides off with Felton and Brok chuckling, leaving Kara to grieve.Brother Gilbert follows Bowen, seeking to write poetry about his deeds as a dragonslayer. Pausing to rest near a waterfall, they discover that behind this waterfall is a cave housing another dragon (voiced by Sean Connery). Bowen moves forward through the falls to kill the dragon, but it escapes and leads Bowen on a wild chase, taunting him along the way. Soon, they come to an empty field where they fight face-to-face. The dragon scoops Bowen into his mouth where Bowen stabs his sword against the dragon's palate. Both stuck, they come to an impasse and remain that way for a number of hours. Brother Gilbert, watching nearby and reciting more prose, eventually falls asleep. After some arguing, the dragon has had enough; he pushes Bowen out of his mouth and traps him under his claws. Instead of killing Bowen, the dragon offers an alternative which would be beneficial for both of them.The next day we see the dragon flying over a village, terrorizing the peasants. Bowen arrives and agrees to save the villagers for a price. He and the dragon stage a mock battle where Bowen appears to kill the dragon with a large spear projected from a ballista. The dragon feigns a hit and falls into the river where he stealthily swims away. They meet later, Bowen counting his gold. He is satisfied with the new partnership but is wondering about his draconian partner, who claims to now be the last of his kind. The dragon admits he does long to die but is frightened at the prospect of losing his soul.We see Einon and his retinue enjoying a nightly feast in the castle; Queen Aislinn sits morosely nearby, alone and clearly distasteful at what Einon has become. As Einon lifts a silver flagon to drink, in its reflection he sees a figure crouched high in a window directly behind him. He moves quickly just as Kara, holding a knife and bent on killing Einon, crashes down onto the table. The guards drag Kara off to the dungeon as she kicks and screams of how Einon murdered her father. Aislinn glares at Einon who takes the knife and stabs it angrily into a roasted boar.Some time later, Einon goes down to the dungeon to see Kara. She is now grimy from the filth of the dungeon and long chains bolted into the wall are attached to heavy steel manacles around her wrists. Kara rushes at Einon only for the chains to stop her short. Einon recognizes the fire in Kara's eyes, and looking at her fiery red hair, realizes that Kara was the young girl who accidentally fell into him many years ago, thus the one responsible for the wound that required the dragon's gift to heal him. He tells her that he is indebted to her for this.The scene switches to Bowen and the dragon at their camp, Bowen has been calling the dragon simply 'dragon,' and the dragon decides he's tired of it since he has a name. Bowen asks what it is, though the dragon claims he couldn't possibly pronounce it. Still, he obliges to answer but is cut off as his shoulder flares red and he falls back, roaring in pain.The scene quickly switches to Einon's bedroom. He falls against a wall with a fresh wound on his shoulder (this implies the link between him and the dragon). Kara backs away from him, holding a knife. They are both dressed in sleeping clothes. Einon mocks Kara to hit more flesh, less cloth next time and forces her to his bed, grabbing the knife away from her. He offers her the chance to be his bride, an idea Kara finds repugnant. He leaves her in his room to think it over and walks away.Back at the camp, Bowen places a blanket over the dragon's wound who explains that it is merely something the just pops up every now and then. The dragon closes his eyes to sleep and wakes up some time later to see Bowen still awake. Bowen says that he's been thinking of a name for the dragon and offers to call him Draco, after the constellation. Although amused that the name only means 'dragon' in another tongue, the dragon is honored.Later still, Kara remains locked in Einon's bedroom alone, looking to escape, when a large stone in the floor suddenly slides aside and Aislinn appears. She tells Kara that she will lead her through a hidden tunnel so she can escape. Kara is grateful for the release, but Aislinn is gone before Kara can properly thank her.Once free, Kara goes to her home village looking to incite another rebellion against Einon. However, the villagers, remembering what happened last time, want none of it and pelt her with rotten vegetables. One of the senior villagers, Hewe (Wolf Christian), who aided Kara's father Redbeard in the previous rebellion and now without one of his eyes, is incensed at Kara. Before she can argue further, Draco appears and pretends to attack. Bowen arrives soon after, offering to rid the village of the nuisance for a price. Kara berates Bowen as a blackmailer who is no different than Einon. Needing to get Kara out of the way, Bowen slyly suggests that a maiden sacrifice to the dragon might get him to leave the people alone.The villagers waste no time tying Kara to a stake placed in a wagon for the dragon. Of course, Draco finds the idea of a sacrifice distasteful, and it turns out he is quite opposed to eating humans. In order to finish the scam, Draco grabs Kara and flies off, pretending to be appeased by the 'sacrifice.' When Bowen chases after Draco to see where he's gone to, he finds him sitting at the waterfall where they first met singing pleasantly to Kara, who sits on a rock nearby. No longer at all afraid, Kara questions Draco's benign nature against his decision to attack her village. When Bowen arrives, she waves a dagger in his face to defend Draco, though she quickly realizes that they indeed work together.The scene is interrupted by Einon and a group of soldiers. Draco enters his cave, escaping notice. Einon does not fail to notice, however, that Bowen is in company of Kara, the woman he intends to marry. When Bowen tells Einon to leave them alone, Einon challenges him to battle. Bowen's swordplay skills are as sharp as ever but Einon proves to be a match for him. Bowen berates Einon for betraying the code and the vows he spoke. Einon retorts that he lied; as far as he was concerned, Bowen taught him to fight, nothing more. Bowen's spirit is broken at the realization that Einon was always as treacherous and malevolent as his father and that all he wanted was the absolute power of the king's crown. His concentration lapses and Einon defeats him, stabbing him in the chest. Einon pretends to leave Bowen merely wounded and when he turns back to throw a dagger at him, Draco lunges forward menacingly and pulls back his chest plate, revealing to a frightened Einon his half heart and an open target. Einon flees while Bowen angrily states that he had everything under control.Kara accompanies Bowen on the road, trying to talk him into leading a rebellion against Einon, but Bowen is too disillusioned to do so. Draco flies past him en route to another village that he and Bowen are planning to bilk out of its gold. At the village, the elder is counting out gold when Kara, disgusted at the scam, arrives to proclaim Bowen a fraud. But Brother Gilbert arrives to defend him as a great dragonslayer. Kara knows that Bowen and Draco are working together, but of course her claim is met with uproarious laughter and ridicule, Bowen laughing with the villagers to cover himself.Bowen and Draco carry out the routine with Kara and Brother Gilbert watching, but the scam goes wrong when the river Draco lands in after pretending to be killed is too shallow for him to swim away unseen. The villagers advance, intending to cut Draco up for meat to feed themselves. To save himself, Draco flies off, proving the scam. The villagers decide they will cut up and eat Bowen, Kara and Brother Gilbert instead. As they sit on Bowen's horse, surrounded, Draco grabs them and flies them all to Avalon, the legendary resting place of King Arthur.At Avalon, Draco tells the tale of how dragons must earn entry into their equivalent of heaven, and those who fail fade into oblivion. Draco is frightened that this fate now awaits him because of a sacrifice he made long ago that proved malevolent, despite his best intentions. He is the dragon that gave Einon half his heart and he did so knowing that Einon would betray all the vows he made. Desperate to redeem himself, he offers to return to the villages with Kara and help her start a new rebellion. Despondent and having lost faith in the Old Code, Bowen refuses. Later on, during a rainstorm, Bowen is brought out to a large courtyard surrounded by statues of kings past, by the voice of Draco muttering an old tenant. Bowen then sees a vision at the statue of King Arthur who recites the creed of the Old Code. Bowen repeats the words and is filled with a new sense of purpose, reminded of all that he once swore himself to. Draco appears, smiling, and shields Bowen from the rain with one of his wings.Back at Kara's home village, Bowen tells the people that he is starting a war against Einon, and when they see that he has the support of a dragon, they are all moved to rebellion. The men are trained by Bowen to fight and even Brother Gilbert proves to be a master archer.Brok happens to ride by the village and finds the people fletching arrows and smithing whatever weapons of war they can; practicing combat and adapting farm tools to be used as weapons. He sees Draco in the village, hears him roar, and rushes off to inform Einon.Lord Felton smugly dismisses the revolt, but Einon warns him that he will not underestimate either Bowen or the dragon. Einon knows Bowen too well and takes the threat very seriously. Aislinn comes to Einon and presents him with a gift... a team of five of the finest dragonslayers in the land.When Bowen feels the villagers are ready, he leads the forces to Einon's castle. Einon is suited up in chain-mail armor and eager for battle. Felton and Brok try to stop him from rushing out, arguing that the castle is impregnable and the villagers will soon give up... but Draco begins assaulting the castle from the air, taking out many of its defenses, and easily outwitting the dragonslayers.Einon leads his men out to meet Bowen. Looking to crush Bowen, he signals a charge. Bowen signals a retreat and the villagers lead Einon's men into the woods, where suddenly the villagers turn to face the soldiers and more villagers come out of hiding, showing their numbers to be far greater than was thought. Numerous traps are set up through the forest and Brother Gilbert hides in the trees with fellow archers, though hesitant to kill. He soon devises clever ways to distract and wound the soldiers. Bowen fights on horseback with his sword, while Kara leads the footsoldiers, battling with twin hand axes and slaying several soldiers in her own right.Seeing his soldiers losing the battle, Einon signals a retreat, turning and fleeing for the castle. Several villagers try to stop him but Einon dispatches them easily. Bowen yells for Brother Gilbert to stop Einon. Brother Gilbert struggles with the Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," before finally releasing an arrow right into Einon's heart. No sooner does the arrow strike, when Draco drops from the sky like a stone with a harsh cry. Bowen freezes in his tracks, stricken with horror, watching Einon slowly pull the arrow out of his chest in bewilderment. Suddenly Einon spurs his horse and races to the castle, where the dragonslayers have chained Draco down with a web of steel chains. Einon reaches them and orders them not to kill Draco... he wants him alive, and safe..."for all eternity." Draco moans, "Oh... no."Bowen goes to the castle to save Draco with Kara and Brother Gilbert. Kara starts to lead them through the secret passage she was led through by Aislinn, and Hewe and the peasant soldiers meet up with them, saying they need to open a gate so the other villagers can enter. Bowen emerges with Kara and Brother Gilbert inside the castle in Einon's room, where they find Einon waiting for them. Bowen and Einon battle through the underground sewers and back to the castle.Hewe and the peasant soldiers kill several guards through the gate and open it. Felton is looking to escape and sees Kara approaching. Hiding, he grabs her from behind, looking to use her as a hostage to escape, but Hewe stabs him in the back and kills him.Running through the castle, Kara is ambushed by Brok, but he is too overconfident, and he leaves himself wide open for a killing strike from a two-handed battle axe Kara grabs. He dies in astonishment, saying "a girl" several times.In the courtyard where Draco is being held and guarded, we see a silhouetted figure approach a soldier, who bows to the silhouette, before being stabbed dead with a knife. Draco recognizes Aislinn and calls her forth. Aislinn kneels before Draco, who knows that she is here for only one reason. Aislinn picks up a long spear and prepares to stab Draco with it, but Einon stops her. The hit he took from the arrow helped Einon figure out that his life is tied to Draco's and that as long as Draco lives, Einon is virtually immortal...but if Draco was killed, Einon would die as well. Aislinn explains that she made a mistake years ago when she "saved a creature not worth saving." Einon, angry and disappointed at his mother's betrayal, merely says, "How unmotherly of you." Draco strains against his chains, growling, as Aislinn turns away from Einon and walks off. Einon follows her into the shadows, carrying the spear, and we hear Aislinn cry out.Einon comes across Bowen and they battle their way up onto the parapets as Kara watches. Einon breaks Bowen's sword. As Bowen swings away from Einon on a pulley, Einon loses his balance and plunges off the parapet, breaking through a wooden walkway into the bottom of the castle. Bowen reaches Draco and starts to unchain him, and Draco reveals the final piece of the puzzle... through the shared heart, he and Einon share each other's physical pain, but Draco's half holds the life force, and he must die in order to vanquish Einon. Bowen has come to respect and admire Draco too much and cannot bring himself to kill his friend. But Einon appears, bloody but alive, grabbing Kara from behind and putting his sword to her neck. Draco bites hard on his own hand and Einon feels the pain and is forced to drop his sword. Kara pulls away from him, and Einon draws a dagger and rushes at Bowen. In a tense moment, Bown seems unsure until Draco gives him a reassuring smile, pulling back his chest plate. Bowen hurls Kara's axe into Draco's heart. Einon gasps and collapses in shock as Draco smiles at Bowen one last time before peacefully dying.Kara, Brother Gilbert, and the victorious villagers gather around the body of Draco where Bowen is mourning his passing, not knowing who or where to turn to for inspiration. Then he hears Draco's voice telling him to look to the stars. Draco's body dissipates into a rolling ball of reddish light that slowly ascends into the skies, heading toward the constellation that Bowen named him after. The other stars gather around Draco's soul-- the collective of dragons welcoming the last of their kind home. Bowen smiles as he sees that Draco has redeemed himself and gained entry into his heaven.The movie closes with a voiceover from Brother Gilbert, recounting that Bowen and Kara led the people of the kingdom through a golden age of wisdom, justice, and brotherhood for many years, and that Draco's star always shone down on them as a source of inspiration and strength, whenever they needed him. | fantasy, murder, whimsical, cult, good versus evil, humor, action, revenge | train | imdb | null |
tt0056687 | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? | In 1917, nine-year-old "Baby" Jane Hudson (Julie Allred) is a vaudevillian child star. She performs to adoring crowds and inspires the creation of a rather expensive Baby Jane doll. Jane is shown to have become a spoiled brat whose doting stage-father Ray Hudson (Dave Willock) gives in to her whims and demands while her disapproving mother and jealous, overlooked 11-year-old sister Blanche Hudson (Gina Gillespie) watch from the sidelines.By 1935, the now grown sisters' roles have reversed. Both are movie stars, but Blanche is the successful and glamorous one, while Jane's films have flopped. Unable to establish her talent as an adult actress, Jane has taken to drinking. One night after coming home from a party, their car pulls up the driveway to their mansion and one of the sisters steps out to open the gate. When she reaches the gate, the sister who is driving steps on the accelerator, smashing the car into the gate.In 1962, a wheelchair bound Blanche (Joan Crawford) and a severely aged Jane (Bette Davis) are living together in a creepy mansion in Los Angeles. Blanche lives primarily in her bedroom watching her old movies on television and reliving her former career. Jane is an antagonist who fights with her sister constantly, drinks excessively, and wears caked-on makeup in an effort to appear young again. Blanche is heavily dependent on her bitter, abusive sister, except for her friendly relationship with their cleaning woman, Elvira Stitt (Maidie Norman). Elvira is concerned for Blanches well-being at the hands of "crazy" Jane, but Blanche defends her. Elvira tells Blanche that she has discovered her sister has been opening her mail and dumping it in the trash, but Blanche is slow to condemn her and shows concern for her sister's welfare.In her own world, Jane is reliving her childhood success in a dark, disturbing manner. She is lost in her memories when she sees her reflection in the mirror and is horrified. At that moment Blanche calls for her sister with an annoying, repeated use of a bedside buzzer from her room: She wants to know why she cannot call out on the telephone was it left off the hook downstairs? Jane is annoyed when Blanche informs her she may be selling the house. Jane fights with her sister, fearing what will become of her, and rips the telephone cord from the wall, further isolating Blanche in her room. When Jane brings Blanche's lunch afterwards, Blanche finds under the silver serving dish lies her beloved parakeet, dead on a bed of tomato slices.Jane makes herself up to go out and place an advertisement for a piano player so she can restart her performing career. While she is out, Blanche tries to get the attention of her neighbor, Mrs. Bates (Anna Lee), who is tending her flowers below Blanche's window. When Blanche cannot get her attention, she writes a note pleading for help and throws it from her window. Unfortunately, Jane returns at that moment and the distraction of the car coming up the driveway prevents Mrs. Bates from seeing the crumpled paper. Jane finds the note, however, and when she brings Blanche's dinner up, she argues with her sister again, telling her the house is hers and it will never be sold. Jane mocks her sister's kindly concern and drops the folded note in her lap. Jane leaves the room, and when Blanche goes to her serving tray for dinner, she cannot bring herself to touch it.The next morning when Elvira arrives, Jane tells her she can have the day off. Jane's abuse of Blanche continues and they fight again when she brings Blanche her lunch. Blanche has not touched her dinner from the night before and wants to know why her breakfast had not been brought. Jane responds because she had not eaten her dinner and Jane tauntingly eats from the previous night's plate. As she takes the dinner tray away, she tells her sister they have rats in the basement, and when Blanche goes to eat her lunch, she finds a dead rat on the plate. Blanche screams and Jane laughs evilly at her sister's despair.Meanwhile, a talented, down-and-out, overweight young man named Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) sees Jane's newspaper advertisement and phones the Hudson house to make an appointment for that afternoon. Edwin lives with his mother and hopes to use this opportunity to land some cash for himself and his mother.When Edwin shows up at the house, Jane grotesquely performs her signature song from her childhood, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy," with Edwin playing the piano. Edwin tries to conceal his disgust. Jane brags about who she was as a child and shows him a scrapbook of herself. At this time, Blanche uses her buzzer repeatedly to call her sister, wanting to know who the visitor is. Enraged, Jane goes upstairs, confronts Blanche, and rips the buzzer out of the wall and slaps her sister.Back in the living room, Jane and Edwin agree to his salary and they plot their moves. Jane then drives him home. While shes out, Blanche goes into Jane's room looking for food (by now, she hasn't eaten in a couple of days) and discovers that Jane has practiced forging her signature and is writing checks under Blanche's name. She works her way down the stairs to the telephone. Blanche calls Jane's doctor and tells him that she needs help and asks if he could come to the house right away.Jane comes home to find Blanche on the phone, talking to the doctor. Blanche abruptly ends the conversation and tries to make excuses in front of her enraged sister. Jane beats her as she lies on the floor, kicking her in the head and stomach until she is unconscious. Jane then calls the doctor back and, disguising her voice as Blanche, tells him not to come because "Jane found another doctor". Then Jane drags her sister to her room, ties her by her arms, gags her, and leaves her there.The next day, Elvira arrives to see Blanche. Jane tells her that her services are no longer needed and dismisses her. Suspicious, Elvira sneaks into the house when Jane leaves for the bank to get money to pay Edwin. She finds Blanche's room locked and is attempting to remove the door from the hinges when Jane comes home and catches her. Upon Elvira's demands, Jane gives her the key, and as the maid enters the darkened room to find Blanche bound and gagged, Jane uses a hammer to kill Elvira. Jane sinks deeper into her delusions, saying, "If only they had loved me enough." Edwin rings the doorbell, but Jane does not answer, "Not now Edwin, not now," and when he leaves, she sobs in despair. She drags Elvira's dead body from the house and disposes of it by dropping it some distance away in a garbage bin.One week later, the police phone the Hudson house and tell Jane that a cousin of her maid reported her missing. Jane tells them that she hasn't seen Elvira in a week. A panicked Jane then prepares to leave with her sister, fearing the police will discover what she's done. Suddenly, a drunken Edwin shows up at the house, demanding to receive his first payment. While he is there, a weakened Blanche is able to knock over a bedside table in her room. Edwin hears the noise, goes upstairs to investigate, and finds Blanche tied to her bed. He is shocked at her "dying" condition as she begs for his help. Edwin runs from the house and gets away from Jane. Desperate, Jane puts her sister in the car and drives to the beach.The next morning, the search is on for the missing Hudson sisters. Elvira's body was found by the police, and there are bulletins on the radio. Blanche, starved and dehydrated, is lying on the sand with Jane sitting beside her, oblivious to her plight. Aware that she is dying, Blanche tells Jane the truth of what happened years before. It was she, Blanche, who tried to run over her drunken sister. Jane, however, moved out of the way in time and Blanche had slammed into the gate and snapped her spine, but managed to drag herself out of the car and up to the wrecked gate. Because Jane was too drunk to realize what happened, she has long believed that she was responsible for her sisters condition. Jane sadly asks, "You mean all this time we could have been friends?"However, this revelation comes too little too late for Jane, whose mental health has completely deteriorated by this point. Jane runs to a beach-side concession booth to get ice cream cones for the two of them. Two policemen arrive and intercept Jane as she is returning with the ice cream cones. As a crowd of beach-goers begin surrounding her, Jane realizes that she again has the attention she's long craved, and she dances before the onlookers, joyfully happy at last, in her decayed imagination. The police spot a motionless Blanche lying on the sand and break through the crowd to help her as the deranged Jane continues to dance.THE END | comedy, dark, gothic, murder, cult, insanity, revenge | train | imdb | Ryan Murphy's series "Feud" in which Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon play Joan Crawford and Bette Davis at the time of Baby Jane and beyond.
The stories behind the making of the film are as interesting as the movie, with Miss Crawford demanding the set be kept at a breezy 55 (but preservative) degrees causing all kinds of problems with Miss Davis's bronchitis.
The chilling score is suits the movie and the camera-work reminds me a lot of Hitchcock.The story focuses on two sisters, Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford) who was crippled in an accident awhile ago and "Baby" Jane Hudson (Bette Davis).
They live in an old mansion, with Blanche confined to her room upstairs while Jane gets madder and more cruel by the day.Bette Davis gives the star performance here, some may call it over-acting but it is far from.
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were the biggest rivals during the golden age of Hollywood.This is their only collaboration.In the beginning of the movie we're at 1917, where the six-year old Baby Jane Hudson (Davis) is a successful Vaudeville performer.Then we move to 1935 where her sister Blanche (Crawford) becomes paralyzed in an automobile accident for which Jane is held responsible.In the present-day of the film we see Blanche being kept as a prisoner upstairs of their mansion by the sadistic Jane.Robert Aldrich' What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) is a terrific psychological thriller with some black comedy.The leading ladies are truly magnificent.Bette Davis was born a hundred years ago in 1908 and died in 1989.She could play all kind of roles and make the characters memorable.Baby Jane Hudson is that kind of a role.Joan Crawford lived from 1905 to 1977 and started making pictures during the silent era.Her Blanche Hudson is vulnerable and that's why we like her that much.A fine performance is given by Victor Buono who plays the shiftless musician Victor Flagg.Maidie Norman plays Elvira Stitt.Michael Fox, who the soap opera fans remember from The Bold and the Beautiful plays Motorcycle cop.This movie is a classic..
And the incredibly brave performances by Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Victor Bono and the rest -- not to mention the script and Robert Aldrich's direction -- make this simply the most definitive "Hollywood" psycho-thriller since "Sunset Boulevard."There's "A Star Is Born," in any of its incarnations.
Which is also "true" in its (their) way.And there is "Sunset Boulevard" and "Baby Jane," which are even more true, and more brilliantly made.These are not "horror films." They are riveting psychological studies, cast with astonishing actors, and magnificently directed and photographed.They are the equivalent of Hitchcock's "Psycho," IMHO, which was preceeded by "Sunset Boulevard" and followed by "Baby Jane."Each different, each brilliant, each marked by some of the most indelible performances ever captured on film.It's typical of adolescents to make a "joke" about things that make them uncomfortable.But when experience and age acquaint one with people like Baby Jane and Norma Desmond and, yes, Norman Bates, what's the point of joking?These three films will tell those characters' stories forever, and better than 99% of films ever made.That's why they're classics..
Joan Crawford plays Blanche and very well too, a former big star whose career ended after a strange car accident that put her on a wheel chair for life.In the end things are not completely as they seem but the final twist is not what makes this film an extremely good one; it's the strange relationship between the sisters, that requires of that final twist to understand Blanche's tolerant conduct towards her sister.The movie is perhaps a little too long and it would probably have been even better with a 10 minutes cut.
In 1917, Baby Jane is a famous, but spoiled child star that performs a show with her father under the jealous look of her sister Blanche.
In 1935, Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford) becomes a famous and glamorous actress in Hollywood and the untalented Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) only acts because Blanche forces the producers to give parts to her.
Meanwhile she continues to torment Blanche and her cruelty increases."What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" is one of the greatest American movies ever, with top-notch performances of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
While Joan Crawford's Blanche is stuck in a wheelchair Bette Davis's Jane takes care of her.
Victor Buono is also excellent as a rather peculiar pianist.While I've never been a big Crawford fan, she is quite good as Blanche, whose genial indulgence of her sister slowly turns to terror.The movie is a classic of its kind and necessary viewing for fans of Davis and/or 60s thrillers..
Detractors see it as a misogynist load of horse manure about a couple of self-loathing sisters hauled up together in a decaying Hollywood mansion, a too-close-to-home study of the real life rivalry between stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford or even as a veiled study of homosexual self-depreciation with the sisters as ageing drag queens.
Later on in life the other sister, Blanche (played by Joan Crawford) became a popular Hollywood movie star, overshadowing her now 'has-been' sister.
Finally after all these years watched this classic 1962 picture "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", and I must say that it was a thrilling and chilling horror type spin take on rivalry and jealousy, showing the madness of a crazy mind!
And the film works so well due to the fact of the performances of two legends Joan Crawford and Bette Davis who's chemistry rolls so well it's like you can feel the drama and hard feelings not just between the characters, but it's in real life the two seem to be at each other!
The tale involves the story of Baby Jane(Bette Davis) a child vaudeville success act who's stubborn and selfish and later on as her star fades her older sister Blanche(Joan Crawford)becomes a better and well known actress.
Overall excellent film of madness, isolation, jealousy, rivalry and just overall crazy with suspense and a feel good horror film for 1962 a film that's a classic for it's rogue take and go against the grain way and the performance of legends Crawford and Davis help stamp the mark on this classic..
Revitalising the then-fading careers of two actresses who were Hollywood's biggest stars in their heydays, and giving birth to a new subgenre of horror in the process, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is an often disturbing, at times chilling & thoroughly captivating example of hag horror that's powered by outstanding lead performances from Bette Davis & Joan Crawford.The story of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane follows Jane & Blanche Hudson, two ageing sisters who live together in an old Hollywood mansion.
Still resentful of her wheelchair-bound sister's success, Jane makes Blanche's life a living hell.Directed by Robert Aldrich, the film quickly glances through the prime years of both sisters before the accident that sets its main plot into motion.
Editing keeps the plot interesting and steadily paces it, while the background score stays in sync with the unfolding events.Coming to the acting department, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is steered by Bette Davis & Joan Crawford, and the remaining cast is simply no match to the performance these two veteran actresses put on the screen.
Davis embraces her old hag persona with open arms and fully dives into her role to deliver a truly manic, disturbing & deranged performance whereas Crawford chips in with a restrained input that was physically demanding & plays her part with quiet temperament.On an overall scale, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is a smartly crafted, expertly photographed and splendidly performed psychological thriller and what catapults it to higher level is the stinging chemistry between Bette Davis & Joan Crawford.
Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) was a child star with a sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford) who felt left out.
They are both psychological horror/thriller films, directed by Robert Aldrich, adapted from novels by Henry Farrell, with screenplays by Lukas Heller, both filmed in black & white in the early 1960s--a time when that began to be more of an artistic than a budgetary decision or necessity--and both very similar in tone, with Bette Davis as a "crazy old bat" in a big old house, interacting with a female rival, with major supporting characters as maids and men who are around as more submissive love interests, and so on.
But, that all changed within the first 15 minutes as I quickly became quite engrossed in the contrasting character portrayals given by its 2 lead, veteran actresses, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (both in their mid-50s at the time).I know that a lot of people rave approvingly about Davis's grotesque make-up and all of her "scenery-chewing" antics as being the highlight of this picture - But, personally, my vote for most outstanding performance goes to Crawford as Blanche Hudson, a prisoner trapped in her own tailor-made hell.I'd say that Crawford's riveting "Please....
Help me!" scene clearly put all of Davis's over-the-top shenanigans to absolute shame.Yes. This tragic tale about madness, pent-up resentment and living a life of long-faded dreams definitely has its fair share of glaring flaws - But, all the same, it certainly does hold up quite well, 53 years down the road.I definitely give film-maker, Robert Aldrich, a lot of credit for his competent direction of this picture.
OK, so I knew I was in for some good acting when I decided to watch whatever happened to baby Jane, I mean Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
I'm not a huge Joan Crawford fan, really because of the woman she was in real life and the kind of mother she was, but I must say that her performance here is good, and boy so is Bette Davis's.
There may be many films which can boast of that emotional authenticity and tensions barely acted but there is hardly any film compared to WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE by Robert Aldrich where two women are able to almost hypnotize the viewers for more than 2 hours' time.Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, as much as they hated each other in real life, deliver something unique here.
Probably less understood near the end of the movie, Ms Crawford absolutely equals Bette Davis, which makes the two leading women deliver brilliant performances.The supporting cast are worth considering, here, primarily I mean Victor Buono as Edwin Flagg and Marjorie Bennett as his mother Dehlia.
Therefore, the encounter of Baby Jane as a daddy's girl and Edwin Flagg (no matter how ambitious and educated as he may seem) as mummy's boy is an emotional, dramatic, comedic highlight of the movie.It is also important to mention music score, haunting music score and the cinematography that correspond to the bunch of emotions appearing in viewers.The fascination of this film, the thrill and a bit of fear it may create have stood a test of time.
tells the story of Baby Jane (Bette Davis), an aged child star and her disabled sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford) for whom Baby Jane 'looks after'.
Every part of the picture works in concert with the others - the actors are truly fascinating, the set is perfect, the theme of neglect - all are portrayed with finesse.So many great things come from this film - the trudging up the stairs of Jane three times a day, every day of the year carrying heavy silver service meals - the fact that Blanche's movies are shown on TV and are hailed while Jane's movies languish in the dust bins - well, it goes on and on.
at all cost and make herself a much too obvious 'look at me' target throughout this film.also, joan's wonderfully conveyed despair and horror in her swirling wheelchair after the infamous 'rat' had been served to her, brings to mind shades of a louise howell, a tragically mentally troubled crawford role from the 1947 noir classic 'possessed' which earned her a second oscar nomination.at any rate, as in 'grand hotel,' where joan steals the show from garbo, so too in 'baby jane' she steals it from davis.
Bette Davis plays Jane Hudson; a former child star (once known as Baby Jane Hudson) who was eclipsed by her sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) as she got older.
Also the lead is stunning: Joan Crawford is pretty good as paralyzed and despaired Blanche Hudson, but Bette Davis´ performance is over the top, her part rules the whole film!
Watching it again, the film maintains its chilling and shocking values, but there is also under the surface a sadness, compassion and campiness(in a good way) that I didn't notice as much previously.What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is essentially a must see movie.
Joan Crawford is superb, but Bette Davis has the meatier role as a very over-the-edge character and gives a portrayal that is both terrifying and heartbreaking.Overall, a must see film especially for the leads.
Davis hires pianist Victor Buono (as Edwin) to manage her "career" while making Crawford a terrified prisoner in her upstairs bedroom
"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" made Davis and Crawford box-office stars again, and opened up a successful new film genre for "Golden Age" actresses.
you have, played out on screen for your enjoyment, the sorry states of two grandes dames of cinema - Bette Davis and Joan Crawford - and the much-maligned producer-director Robert Aldrich.The two leading ladies famously had a longstanding rivalry, and it's often commented on how this fuelled their performances.
The film has but one plot-twist and an awful lot of talk (Victor Buono's role as a nutty mama's boy is tiring); however, it's a one-shot deal to see Davis and Crawford together, and a few of their shared scenes do live up to all the Hollywood stories which have now become legendary.
Instead, Baby Jane left the audience wondering and confused, since there was nothing in the whole of the movie, most noticeably lacking in Joan Crawford's performance, to make it make sense in the end..
Bette Davis gives an amazing performance as Jane Hudson, and Joan Crawford gives an amazing performance as well playing Blanche.
The ending is also very surprising and it just might make you cry (if your a joan crawford and bette davis fan) This film is a must see for any Old Hollywood fans or just to see two great performances.
Everybody knows of the real life feud between lead stars Bette Davis & Joan Crawford, this works perfectly for the movie.
Joan Crawford's performance as the rising new star Blanche is a perfect contrast to Davis' Jane.
So, the way this movie started out to be made has many versions, but one of them was that Crawford always wanted to work with Davis so when she found this book "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane", she immediately visited Davis when Davis was playing on Broadway in Night of the Iguana.
She is ostensibly her sister's carer, but in fact she is jealous of Blanche's greater success and never misses an opportunity to torment her sister whom she keeps a virtual prisoner in their gloomy mansion.The two stars of the film were Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
I hadn't seen this film in ages,so it was with some trepidation that I watched it with my better half recently.Would it be dated?Would it seem boring?No,it is a cracking film and holds up very well today.We all know that there was this intense rivalry between Bette and Joan,but this just makes the film more compelling.You are constantly trying to find signs,little details really,about their apparent loathing for each other.So who comes out tops?An honourable draw I'd say.Bette Davis has by far the more showy part and boy does she relish it.She may chew on a pretty thick slice of ham at times,but her performance glues you to the screen.By contrast,Joan Crawford underplays her role as the wheelchair bound Blanche and this makes for a well balanced film with many terrific scenes.I won't give anything away here,but though the film may seem a little twisted,there are still parts of the film that may shock.It Isn't all about the two stars as Victor Buono scores as a slightly camp piano player and he reminded me a lot of Oliver Hardy in his build and mannerisms.This film should really be in the top 250 and it amazes me that it Isn't.Two Hollywood greats in fierce competition makes this a gem of a movie..
Mean, spiteful, former child star Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) is the primary care-giver for her invalid sister Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford).
Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) a faded film star and her wheelchair bound sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) live together in a huge mansion.
It's my opinion that "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" is Bette Davi's best film.
But to us, as viewers, her performance is a hint of things to come.In later years, out of jealousy and frustration, adult Jane (Bette Davis) will physically and mentally abuse her more talented, but crippled, sister, which is the basis for the movie.
Well, because of how poorly Davis' "Baby Jane" character treats Crawford's Sister Blanche character!
Acting by two leads was great - loved both performances equally.Overall, "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" isn't really a horror movie as its genre description suggest.
In the present day, Blanche (Joan Crawford) is wheelchair bound while Jane (Bette Davis) controls her life.
Influential and memorable thriller with Bette Davis playing a former child star who torments her crippled sister Joan Crawford.
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford two of the bigger stars of the movies co starred in this film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich.
Her chilling rendition of 'I Love You Daddy' is scary to say the least.Joan Crawford is one of my favourite actresses of the time and her Blanche is a contrast to Davis's Jane.
Davis and Crawford Make it a Must See. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
The has-been Baby Jane (Bette Davis) runs over his sister (Joan Crawford) after she becomes the biggest star in Hollywood. |
tt0118883 | Conspiracy Theory | Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson), an obsessivecompulsive New York City taxi driver, visits his friend Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts), who works for the U.S. Attorney, at the Justice Department. She is trying to solve her father's murder. Jerry tells her that NASA is trying to kill the President using a secret weapon on the Space Shuttle that can trigger earthquakes.Jerry identifies some men on the street as CIA, follows them into a building, and is captured by them. He wakes up in a mental hospital bound to a wheelchair. A doctor (Patrick Stewart) tapes his eyes open, injects him with LSD, and interrogates him using torture. As the LSD kicks in Jerry remembers many previous sessions, which he sees as terrifying cartoons. In a fit of panic, Jerry manages to bite the doctor's nose and sufficiently incapacitate him long enough to escape, still bound to the wheelchair. He manages to shut himself in a laundry truck, escaping the premises. Jerry goes to Alice's office again and grabs a guard's gun, collapsing in Alice's arms.Alice visits Jerry in the hospital. Handcuffed to the bed and forced to enter a drug-induced sleep, he pleads with her to switch his chart with that of a criminal in the next bed or he will be dead by morning. In the morning, when Alice visits again, the criminal is dead, as he has suffered a mysterious heart attack during the night. The CIA, FBI and other agencies are there. She meets a mysterious CIA psychiatrist, Dr. Jonas. Meanwhile Jerry fakes a heart attack and escapes again, dropping himself down a linen chute. Jerry dresses up as a doctor and escapes the building.Jonas quizzes Alice over lunch; she explains that Jerry saved her from muggers once, so she tolerates him. In Jerry's hospital room she finds a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. As she discusses it with an FBI officer named Lowry, the CIA come and confiscate all of Jerry's personal items. Lowry offers to share information with her but she declines.The CIA cannot find Jerry. Alice goes to her car, and finds Jerry hiding in it. She stops the car and speaks with Lowry, who is tailing them, and then they go to Jerry's apartment where he tells her about his conspiracy theories and his newsletter. He has dozens of copies of Catcher. He feels compelled to buy it, but doesn't know why. They are interrupted when Jerry's alarm goes off, signaling the entry of a CIA SWAT team. Jerry sets everything on fire and they leave by his secret trapdoor exit. In the room below, there is a large mural on the wall, which features both Alice and the triple smokestacks of a factory near the mental institution.The pair go to Alice's apartment and he reveals he's been watching her through her window. She kicks him out. Outside, Jerry confronts Lowry and his partner staking out her place, and he warns them, at gunpoint, not to hurt her. He goes to a book store and buys a copy of Catcher. The CIA detects his purchase, and sends agents to catch him. Jerry sees their black helicopters with men rappelling down and goes into a theater. He yells "there's a bomb under my chair" and manages to escape during the resulting panic.The next morning, Alice has been calling each person who gets the newsletter, and they have all died that night except one. Jerry uses a ruse to get her out of the office, and then attaches cables from the CIA vehicle following her to a vendor's cart. On a bus they discuss more of his theories. In a subway station where one Herriman drowned in another conspiracy, she agrees to check the autopsy. He says he loves her and she rejects him.Alice goes to see the last surviving person on the subscription list, and it is Jonas. He explains that Jerry was an MK-ULTRA subject but the project was terminated - except for his research. Jonas shows her a photo of her father taken from Jerry's locker, and claims that Jerry went out of control and killed her father. She is crushed.Jerry sends Alice a pizza containing a message to meet him. Jonas gets her to agree to a homing device in the pizza box and Jerry drives her with the box across the Queensboro bridge. He has made previous arrangements that enable him to ditch the agents following them, leaving the homing device behind. As he drives her to her father's private horse stables, Jerry tells her that he can almost remember what happened and is taking her to where "the music is playing." Alice turns on her mobile phone so they can still track her. At the stables Jerry remembers that he was sent to kill her father (a judge who was about to expose Jonas's operation) but found he couldn't kill him. Instead they became friends and Jerry promised to watch over Alice before the judge was killed by another assassin. She admits she switched the charts in the hospital. The CIA arrive and capture Jerry. Jonas gloats but Jerry says, "you've never seen her run." Alice outruns the men; a sniper misses her, killing the last guy chasing her, and she escapes.Jonas tortures Jerry again. Meanwhile, Alice leads the FBI men (who are not actually FBI but from a "secret agency that watches the other agencies") to Jonas's office, but it has been entirely dismantled. Declining Lowry's help, Alice starts searching for Jerry. She realizes that a detail of Jerry's large mural is near a mental hospital and goes there. She bribes an attendant to show her an unused wing, breaks in through locked doors, and finds Jerry after hearing him singing through the ventilation ducts. As Jonas catches them, Lowry arrives with his men and attacks Jonas's men. Jerry attempts to drown Jonas but is shot once. In retaliation, Alice shoots Jonas dead. Alice tells Jerry she loves him as he is taken away in an ambulance.Some time later, Alice visits Jerry's grave, leaving his union pin upon it, before returning to horse riding. As she rides away, Jerry, Lowry and Flip watching her. Jerry is not allowed to contact her until they are sure they have rounded up all of Jonas's other subjects. He secretly lets her know he is still alive by placing his union pin on her horse's saddle and the film ends. | comedy, mystery, murder, dramatic, thought-provoking, flashback, brainwashing, romantic | train | imdb | Mel Gibson put a lot of energy into what was obviously a demanding role and, as usual, Julia Roberts lights up the screen in every scene she's in.
I found this film really hard to focus on, there was Mel Gibson playing a paranoid crazy guy, being dragged off by government/non-government 'spooks' and having some sort of weird obsession with Julia Roberts.
Mel Gibson played a completely different character than what we usually see, which worked to his benefit and Julia Roberts proved with this film, that she still had star power.
Although nothing really happened between them, the audience could clearly see Jerry's (Mel Gibson)love for Alice (Julia Roberts.)Now, the plot.
That guy Mel Gibson plays in that new movie, Conspiracy Theory." The thing that I didn't tell her was that...I had driven a taxi just the year before I met her.
Action-Sequences are realistic.Performance-Wise: Mel Gibson is convincing in his portrayal of a man obsessed with conspiracy theories.
He plays a cab driver (Jerry Fletcher) in love with Julia Roberts(Alice Sutton), he has theories about conspiracies.
Stone, in fact, would like this film since it gives credence to these paranoid fantasies and gives several cheap shots to conservatives along the way.Political propaganda-aside, this is a fun movie to watch and the most fun might be Gibson's house, which is too incredible to describe here.
Mel is fascinating to watch and really makes this movie what it is with his outrageous character "Jerry Fletcher." Julia Roberts gives a solid performance while looking about as good as she ever looked.
The plot is conspiracy freak Jerry Fletcher(Mel Gibson), for some reason can not seem to stop watching over Alice Sutton(Julia Roberts), and he is always telling her about his new conspiracy theories, and she never has the heart to tell him to just go away.
So one day Jerry ends up being kidnapped, and put in a torture room, where he is being asked questions by Patrick Stewart(X-Men)(I won't tell you what his name is in the movie because it might ruin a little bit).
Mel Gibson's crazy performance waffles between brilliance and just plain over-the-top and I had a hard time believing any part of the romancy thing going on between him and Julia Roberts as he was just a little too certifiable for anyone to fall for.
The plot is full of twists and turns plus a lot of action.Allice Sutton (Julie Roberts) is batted back and forth between Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart) and Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson).
It is hard to trust either man, but she finds herself caught in a web of lies in which she has to pick a side, and we don't know the truth of the matter until the end of the film.While the film is full of action, my favorite moment in the film is where Jerry Fletcher begins to cry about his multiple volumes of Catcher in the Rye.I have never been a big fan of Julia Roberts, but she does an amazing job performing the character of Alice Sutton.
Well in this film Mel Gibson sees a conspiracy everywhere and tries to pursuade Julia Roberts, that certain 'incidents' weren't quite as they seem.
When you consider that Mel Gibson, the chip himself, and Julia Roberts, another classically overrated Hollywood actor, star in this movie, you have to be very wary.
I quite enjoyed the idea as I think most people do of a conspiracy theory, no matter how far fetched it may be.Mel is a very capable actor, just a bitter individual who lets his emotions take control of the truth.
This movie was run down by the critics and people seem to come away with the thought that "Jerry" was crazy and finally one out of his many theories was real.
If no one had believed enough to listen to him, there would have been no story.The question is why do viewers still come away with the belief that "Jerry" is crazy, and got himself into trouble when he was doing about all he could to deal with his post traumatic condition, and was picked up just for discovering some CIA offices by being suspicious.The movie has a lot of twists and turns, and maybe a few too many toward the end, but I was amazed to find that most of the conspiracy theories mentioned are now known and documented as true..
Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts are just right as the half-psychotic conspiracy theorist and the skeptical-but-compassionate U.S. attorney.
In this movie we see Julia Roberts playing a single lawyer, and Jerry (Mel Gibson), a taxi driver, is in love with her.
He thinks that Dr. Jonas(Patrick Stewart) will help him, but it turns out that was one conspiracy he didn't anticipate...Entertaining thriller is well directed by Richard Donner, with a good pace and reasonably believable story, though it does go on a bit too long, and becomes a bit too convoluted, but otherwise this film works well, and some of Jerry's theories may not be so nutty anymore....
However, I did know that the co-stars were Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts, two Hollywood movie stars I had been familiar with for a long time.
So, I rented "Conspiracy Theory" because I knew it was another film directed by Donner and starring Gibson and it also looked like a promising thriller.
Fortunately, there are definitely some good thrills and action, and Mel Gibson puts on an impressive performance as Jerry Fletcher, though his character here is no match for the likable Martin Riggs in the "Lethal Weapon" series.
Julia Roberts as Alice Sutton and Patrick Stewart (another actor I've been familiar with for a long time) as Dr. Jonas are also memorable cast highlights.At 135 minutes, this 1997 thriller is a fairly long movie, and later in the film, it didn't seem as flawed to me as it did for a long time before then.
'Conspiracy Theory' is another near miss for Richard Donner, but it's worth cracking even so, all thanks to Gibson and Roberts....
Conspiracy Theory Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) is a lonely New York City taxi driver who lives a very organised, but paranoid, existence.
But he has trouble convincing Alice of this, who has listened to Jerry's musings far too many times to believe any of them.While his creative output over the years hasn't been specifically worth mentioning, Richard Donner is hardly a filmmaker deserving of much criticism; his movies supply solid, if forgettable, entertainment that is worth the price of admission.
At this time, one may think perhaps Donner teaming up again with 'Assassins' scribe Brian Helgeland wasn't a bad idea, as 'Theory' offers truly entertaining moments when it lets the audience see how Jerry's eccentric lifestyle brushes against the people of the city, and inhibits his own daily activities.
Mel Gibson plays Jerry Fletcher, a neurotic, goof ball NYC cab driver, convinced that powerful people are out to get the little guys like him.
What do you get when you mix a good script, Richard Donner, Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart and a classic song called "Can´t Take My Eyes Off You"?
Most of the action thrillers that come out of Hollywood are pure crap, but every now and then someone writes a good movie and finds someone else to bring it to the big screen.I have nothing bad to say about Conspiracy Theory, it might be bit long but it´s not a big deal.
I think the overriding thing I take from the film is the story itself, it's whole conspiracy theme and dark shadowy shenanigans make the film never less than interesting and it compels you to stay with it no matter what contrivances come your way.Starting out with a first reel leading you to believe that it's a comedy first and foremost the film then shifts to such a high gear it kind of submarines you to the point that you feel you have to rewind to see if you are not watching a double bill !, the pace is up and down and twists pop up at set point markers, but it works well because the story is an engrossing one and I feel Donner has done pretty much a perfect job with the material at hand.Julia Roberts is a safe choice as Alice Sutton, the role calls for a safe approach, say your lines with credibility and feed off the leading man, she does this with no problems at all, but she really is playing second fiddle to Mel Gibson's ball of energy performance as main protagonist Jerry Fletcher, it's a twitchy and potent turn from Gibson that I feel is vastly under praised in view of his career output.
Mel Gibson plays a very unique character - a paranoid weirdo who believes that everyone is out to get him and everything that happens is part of some vast conspiracy.
Julia Roberts plays a Justice Department worker who for some reason, Gibson's character likes to tell his far-fetched stories to.
Little details like the way he locks everything in his apartment (the coffee is in a locked container in his locked refrigerator inside his six times over locked apartment) really make him a very interesting and real character to follow.Picard's character and a couple of the other 'bad guys' in the movie are a little less developed and their roles are not as well explained.
The chemistry between Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts is great and they both give excellent performances.
I was seduced, I guess, because objectively speaking this is just your usual phony thriller, with chase scenes beginning in the first reel and continuing throughout, with the little guy as hero, and a convoluted plot worthy of a wanna-be thriller writer retired from the CIA.Mel Gibson plays a New York City cabby addicted to conspiracy theories, but (of course) it turns out that "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." And boy are they ever!
Now I'm one of those big Mel Gibson-fans, so I generally like his movies, but I still think this one is well worth seeing, even though you're not the biggest Mel Gibson-fan.The reason for seeing this should not be because you want an insight into conspiracy theories, but because you want to be entertained.
Gibson does his "crazy man Riggs" mode in parts of this film and Patrick Stewart, Julia Roberts do what they can to save this mess.In short, Jerry is obsessed with a government agent.
Then he gets kidnapped by spooks, tortured by Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart) and it's a matter of figuring out which theory of his got him into trouble.This movie wants to be and NEEDS to be a paranoid thriller.
I've always been a fan of Conspiracy Theories so I figured I would check this one out,, it's above average,, based on the acting between our stars, Mel Gibson, Julia Robert,, and Patrick Stewart,, I was hoping for an actual conspiracy,, instead we get the old,, CIA, mind control stuff, rogue killer programmed to assassinate someone,, which isn't that bad, but some of the theories in the movie like the Oliver Stone --George Bush one,, I was like wow OK..
Mel's character, Jerry Fletcher is majorly paranoid, insanely crazy as one of his theories actually turns out to be true, problem for him is as he has so many now he has to figure out which theory he is right about,, he get's help from a young lady he saved from a mugging 6 months ago,, so he is like her guardian angel so to speak,, very interesting movie,, once you get by all the covert military mind control stuff..
Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts and even Patrick Stewart did their best to Richard Donner make his great movie.
Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts steal the scenes and the plot leads you in another world full of action, passion and romance.
This film is one of my all time favourites despite doing poorly at the cinemas, I believe there are more things going on around us than we are aware of.I am also a big fan of Mel Gibson after seeing him in the Lethal Weapon movies and Richard Donner the director here did those films as well so the crew was excellent.For those out there who knock this film for being unrealistic I say this: how do you know, since it is set around a premise which by its very nature nobody knows anything about how do you know how realistic it is.7/10.
And when he publishes a newsletter, things start happening to him...Beautiful Julia Roberts plays Alice Sutton perfectly -- she is exactly balanced between believing Jerry Fletcher and not believing him.
This movie is definitely worth watching, not for its story-line which tries, but fails, to surprise, but for the charming atmosphere around the main characters, peaking with their short visit to Jerry's (Gibson's) apartment.
Jerry Fletcher is a very lovable character...and I certainly give Mel Gibson 10 stars for his GREAT acting in the film.
Wow, this was a great movie -- I was so glad to see Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson finally team up.
Before watching "Conspiracy Theory", I expected to see another big action comedy from the Silver/Donner/Gibson-Team.
The romantic part of the film deals with the emotions of two lonely people, Mel Gibson as the confused and paranoid taxi driver Jerry, and Julia Roberts as a sad and restless lawyer called Alice.
And a super Soundtrack supports these scenes and makes them very effective.If you liked the film, you may be interested in the following recommendations: Payback, action-thriller by Brian Helgeland with Mel Gibson and much black humour; Enemy of the State, paranoia-thriller by Tony Scott with many stars and a lot of action; Maverick, comedy by Richard Donner with Mel Gibson and pure fun..
I kept watching Richard Donner's Conspiracy Theory, praying, pleading to the movie gods that more than once (The Omen) in his overlong career, Donner would create a film that wouldn't collapse under the weight of hysteria and broken promises.There are no gods.Once again, an interesting premise, this time, an ordinary man who suffers from paranoiac delusions of rampant conspiracies (and the hidden causes of his "illness"), gets lost in the inevitable, the assumption that you, the viewer, will become so invested in the characters and story, that you will forgive (or worse, that you won't notice) the massive incoherence, the ridiculous plot twists and devices, the glaring inattention to logic and physics and chemistry and human physiology.Conspiracy consumers, the great dunderheaded doofi who suck up plots to kill presidents, to keep us from knowing about aliens, and (because of a criminal lack of economic education in this country), to assume gas prices go up and down at the flick of a corporate/government switch will love this sort of brainless trash.
Maybe this is why I didn't think much of Richard Donner's CONSPIRACY THEORY Or maybe it's because this isn't a very good movie despite its theme .
The musical score does set the right tone for a comedy thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously while Brian Helgeland's script does show Julia Robert's character on a running machine near the start of the movie which is a good example of telegraphing a script .
I think this was one of Mel Gibson's best performances and also a very intelligent performance by Julia Roberts.
Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts make a great team.
Casting for this movie was spot on with Mel as not quite the hero, Julia as a strong, determined woman, and Patrick Stewart in one of his best roles outside Star Trek.
As for the ending; AWFUL for several different reasons:1) All of a sudden Alice (Julia Roberts) is in love with Jerry (Mel Gibson)?
Must be because Jerry looks like Mel Gibson
2) (Plot points revealed here, so those of you who haven't seen the movie, do not read further.) We were made to think, briefly, that Gibson's character had died.
Conspiracy Theory is a 1997 thriller that centers around Jerry (Mel Gibson), a spaced-out taxi driver, and his relationship with Alice (Julia Roberts), a Justice Dept lawyer.
Plot In A Paragraph: Jerry (Gibson) is a New York City cab driver who is obsessed with conspiracy theories.
Anyway, the Mel Gibson/Julia Roberts Movie is a Missed Opportunity, Dumbed Down and Played Mostly Tongue in Cheek.
Julia Roberts does a great job playing someone who is suddenly thrown in the middle of a crazy man's theory.There are no huge action scenes with big explosions, Richard Donner is contained and try to focus on the tension, which is good.
When Jerry (Mel Gibson) and Alice (Julia Roberts) were in danger or being pursued, I got a little scared.
Now, in conclusion, if you are a fan of Mel Gibson or Julia Roberts, I highly recommend this movie.
In every scene he keeps glancing at the viewer out of the corner of his eye, winking, "See, I'm not *really* crazy Jerry, I'm good ole Mel Gibson, big-time star, I never sweat, I never forget to shave, and I *always* look great." Too bad, since Julia Roberts does hold up her end just fine.
Who would have thought Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts doing a film together wouldn't be as good as imagined?
Mel Gibson brings a very well done performance in another combo with director Richard Donner about a taxi-driver who may be half crazy, but knows his facts, and that he is now a target, along with a woman (Julia Roberts).
Mel Gibson as Jerry Fletcher, New York Cab Driver and Conspiracy Theory fanatic is at his wacko best.
Julia Roberts plays her role just the way any talented actor would play it and Mel Gibson is just as good and he is hot.
The only reason I rented this movie, is that I saw Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts on the cover.
Mel Gibson and Julia Robert.well it's a great movie and everybody should watch it. |
tt1132620 | Män som hatar kvinnor | Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who works for the magazine Millennium, a local Swedish newspaper that publishes left-wing political articles, loses a libel case brought on by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. The magazine & Blomkvist are ordered to pay damages and Blomkvist is sentenced to a short prison term.While waiting to serve his sentence, Blomkvist is approached by a lawyer for Henrik Vanger, the frail & wealthy octagenarian of The Vanger Group, who lives in a remote island located several miles to the north of Stockholm, surrounded by other family members' houses.It turns out Mr. Vanger wants to hire Blomkvist to unearth the truth behind his niece Harriet's disappearance some 40 years ago when she was sixteen. Although her body was never found, Mr. Vanger believes it was murder because that day there was an accident on the only bridge that links the island with the mainland. The bridge was closed, nobody could get out & nobody could get onto the island. Yet, Harriet just vanished into thin air. Although 40 years have passed on the cold case, Mr. Vanger still hopes to learn what happened to her, before he dies.Before going to the island to see Mr. Vanger, Blomkvist is unaware that he is being followed & photographed by Lisbeth Salander, a Goth girl who makes a living as a computer hacker and who works part-time at Merrin Security Inc.The young woman has a troubled past---due to crime committed in her youth, (later we learn that when she was much younger, she had set fire to a man, presumably her abusive father, in a car) she must report to a probation guardian who controls her finances. One day, she is informed that her previous guardian has had a stroke, and a new one has been assigned to her. During her first meeting with him, a lawyer named Nils Bjurman, he forces her to perform oral sex on him, threatening to accuse her of causing trouble and have her put into a psychiatric hospital, if she does not comply.Some days later, Lisbeth Salander is attacked by punks in a subway tunnel and during the scuffle, her laptop computer is damaged, which requires her to re-visit Nils Bjurman to request some of her own money to replace it. She arrives at his apartment to get the money for the new computer, fully expecting she might have to endure further sexual harrassment from him, but is prepared, with a camcorder hidden in her purse, to record the violation. In spite of her seeming cooperation, Bjurman catches her completely off guard by throwing her down and hits her violently, then handcuffs her to his bed and binds her legs, proceeding to brutally rape her... again threatening her to keep quiet about the abuse.Some time later, Salander shows up unannounced at Bjurman's door, and turns on him with an electric stun device. She strips him naked and binds and gags him, as he had done to her. She plays what she had recorded the last time she was there so he will understand that she has proof against him. Salander proceeds to sodomize him forcefully with a dildo she finds in his room, then using a tattoo needle, carves permanently on his chest and abdomen: "I am a sadistic pig & rapist". She threatens to reveal the evidence she has to the authorities and the media, and from now on, he has to abide by HER rules---never contact her again, not touch her finances, and release her from guardianship with glowing behavior reports in a year's time. (So as not to arouse suspicion.)During his investigation, Blomkvist finds out his PC is being hacked into, after Lisbeth Salander sends an "anonymous" clue to him to assist him in the investigation of the disappearance of Vanger's niece, Harriet. He's able to trace back to Salander and comes to her apartment back in Stockholm where Lisbeth has just spent the night with another woman, named Miriam Wu, whom Lisbeth apparented picked up the night before. He persuades her to collaborate with him in his research. Together they dig up more and more troubling information which shows something more sinister than just Mr. Vanger's relatives preying on his fortune and who, perhaps, had succeed in getting rid of Harriet for the sake of inheritance.As the investigation (and their relationship) progresses, Blomkvist and Salander return to the cottage Blomkvist is renting one night to discover the lock has been picked & someone has been examining their research. Blomkvist decides to pay a clandestine visit to the home of one of Mr. Vanger's brothers who had always been Nazi sympathizers. He is surprised inside, however, by the old man, with a rifle pointing to his face. Martin, Harriet's brother, appears & tries to calm down the old man, then leaves with Mikael.Blomkvist confides to Martin a lot of information that he has dug up, and Martin leaves the room under the pretense of calling police. While Martin is out of the room, Mikael suddenly questions what Martin was doing in the old man's house, too, but the revelation comes to late, as Martin injects him in the neck with some kind of tranquilizer. When he awakens, he finds himself tied up and Martin reveals himself as a serial killer who has killed many women over the past four decades. He shows Blomkvist a collection of photos of all the dead women he raped & mutilated. The reason: "I take whatever I want". He admits that his father was a religious fanatic, and had taught him how to strangle victims. Martin puts a noose around Blomkvist's neck and winches him up to hang him.Salander, after doing more research at the archives of Mr. Vanger's company, comes back to the house where they're staying and finds that Blomkvist is missing. After viewing the surveillance video and seeing who the intruder was, Salander rushes to Martin's house just in time to save Blomkvist from being hanged, taking a golf club to Martin's head and arms. Despite having a broken right arm, Martin gets away in his car and drives full speed but uncertain with Salander on her motobike in hot pursuit. To avoid a frontal collision with a big truck, Martin swerves off the roadside and the car overturns down a steep slope, coming to rest upside down. As Salander arrives, he begs and pleads for help, but she just looks at him and recalls setting the match to her abusive father in his car years before. Martin is burned alive when the gasoline leaks and catches fire as Salander just walks away.Salander doesn't want to face the police so she writes to Blomkvist a note and leaves. With information supplied by Salander, Blomkvist goes to Australia to find a woman whose goes by the name Anita, who was Harriet's aunt and friend, but who was known to have died of cancer years back. He returns to see Mr. Vanger with Anita... or, the real Harriet... in tow.It turns out Harriet was never killed by any of the Vanger family members. In fact back in 1965, she killed her own father after many years of being brutally raped by him, and by her own brother Martin. Her drunken Nazi father had chased her down to a pier where Harriet got into a boat. Harriet used an oar to knock him into the water, and keep him underwater until he stopped breathing. Everyone assumed he was drunk, fell into the water of the lake and drowned. However, she was seen by Martin and he continued to abuse her until he went away to college. One day she saw Martin had returned home and she decided to leave the island at once. With the help of her look-alike aunt Anita, she got off the island by hiding in Anita's car under a blanket & fled to Australia with Anita's passport. Now with Martin dead and learning her uncle Henrik had never stopped thinking of her, she decided to return to Sweden to reunite with him. For all those 40 years she sent him framed dried flowers every year, as she had done as a child, meant as a message that she was "out there somewhere," but he had always thought it was the killer who was sending them to taunt him.Later, Blomkvist goes to prison to serve his three-month sentence. One day he receives a visit from Salander who brings him a lot of reading material. He finds it to be incriminating documents against Wennerström. Upon his release, Blomkvist again publishes these findings in the Millennium. Wennerström apparently commits suicide as a result. It is discovered that a large amount of money has been withdrawn from his Cayman bank account by a mysterious woman. Upon seeing a picture on TV, Blomkvist recognizes a now-blonde Salander and smiles.In the final scene, Salander is shown getting out of a chauffered driven limousine, well-dressed and lovely, and walks away along the sidewalk of a sunny seaside resort with palm trees along the beach. | dark, suspenseful, gothic, murder, violence, flashback, revenge, sadist, home movie | train | imdb | null |
tt2395427 | Avengers: Age of Ultron | In the Eastern European country of Sokovia, the Avengers – Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton – raid a Hydra facility commanded by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, who has been experimenting on humans using the scepter previously wielded by Loki. They encounter two of Strucker's test subjects – twins Pietro Maximoff, who has superhuman speed, and Wanda Maximoff, who can manipulate minds and project energy – and apprehend Strucker, while Stark retrieves Loki's scepter.
Stark and Banner discover an artificial intelligence within the scepter's gem, and secretly use it to complete Stark's "Ultron" global defense program. The unexpectedly sentient Ultron, believing he must eradicate humanity to save Earth, eliminates Stark's A.I. J.A.R.V.I.S. and attacks the Avengers at their headquarters. Escaping with the scepter, Ultron uses the resources in Strucker's Sokovia base to upgrade his rudimentary body and build an army of robot drones. Having killed Strucker, he recruits the Maximoffs, who hold Stark responsible for their parents' deaths by his weapons, and go to the base of arms dealer Ulysses Klaue to obtain Wakandan vibranium. The Avengers attack Ultron and the Maximoffs, but Wanda subdues them with haunting visions, causing the Hulk (Banner) to rampage until Stark stops him with his anti-Hulk armor.1
A worldwide backlash over the resulting destruction, and the fears Wanda's hallucinations incited, send the team into hiding at a safehouse. Thor departs to consult with Dr. Erik Selvig on the meaning of the apocalyptic future he saw in his hallucination, while Romanoff and Banner plan to flee together after realizing a mutual attraction. However, Nick Fury arrives and encourages the team to form a plan to stop Ultron. In Seoul, Ultron forces the team's friend Dr. Helen Cho to use her synthetic-tissue technology, together with vibranium and the scepter's gem, to perfect a new body for him. As Ultron uploads himself into the body, Wanda is able to read his mind; discovering his plan for human extinction, the Maximoffs turn against Ultron. Rogers, Romanoff, and Barton find Ultron and retrieve the synthetic body, but Ultron captures Romanoff.
The Avengers fight amongst themselves when Stark secretly uploads J.A.R.V.I.S. – who is still operational after hiding from Ultron inside the Internet – into the synthetic body. Thor returns to help activate the body, explaining that the gem on its brow – one of the six Infinity Stones, the most powerful objects in existence – was part of his vision. This "Vision" and the Maximoffs accompany the Avengers to Sokovia, where Ultron has used the remaining vibranium to build a machine to lift a large part of the capital city skyward, intending to crash it into the ground to cause global extinction. Banner rescues Romanoff, who awakens the Hulk for the battle. The Avengers fight Ultron's army while Fury arrives in a Helicarrier with Maria Hill, James Rhodes and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to evacuate civilians. Pietro dies when he shields Barton from gunfire, and a vengeful Wanda abandons her post to destroy Ultron's primary body, which allows one of his drones to activate the machine. The city plummets, but Stark and Thor overload the machine and shatter the landmass. In the aftermath, the Hulk, unwilling to endanger Romanoff by being with her, departs in a Quinjet, while the Vision confronts Ultron's last remaining body.
Later, with the Avengers having established a new base run by Fury, Hill, Cho, and Selvig, Thor returns to Asgard to learn more about the forces he suspects have manipulated recent events. As Stark leaves and Barton retires, Rogers and Romanoff prepare to train new Avengers: Rhodes, the Vision, Sam Wilson, and Wanda.
In a mid-credits scene, Thanos, dissatisfied by the failures of his pawns, dons a gauntlet2 and vows to retrieve the Infinity Stones himself. | murder, violence, flashback, good versus evil, humor, revenge | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0088925 | City Limits | Fifteen years from now [well, from the time this flick was done, so that would be 1984+15=1994]A gang of motorbikers arrive to a house in the middle of nowhere. The owner directly shoots them. The gang takes inside one of their own, who's wounded. Albert (James Earl Jones) accepts taking him inside. He says that a plague killed almost all the adults, and the children had to support themselves and survive in a wild world. Two teenagers meet and swim naked in the reservoir of drinking water. She (Joannelle Nadine Romero) stays at a farm while Lee (John Stockwell) goes a round riding his bike with a lizard-skull mask. He has the dream of all bike gangs joining together, instead of having the Clippers and the DA. He is not interested in farm life anymore. He goes to the city where he's attacked by a crowd of workers. At the beginning, the DA are threatening towards Lee (Marcia Holley, Kane Hodder and Alan Marcus). Lee leaves and saves Yogi (Rae Dawn Chong) from a biker attack, who at the beginning didn't even want to tell him her name. They have to hide behind wall from other crazy bikers. At a warehouse, Frankie (Pamela Ludwig) tells Mick (Darrell Larson) that they have found cat food which humans can eat.Carver (Robby Benson) wants to control the city as a first step to control the whole world. His plan is to wreck everything using a gang against another, as in this chaotic world there are no police forces. Wickings (Kim Cattrall) is mentioned by Chris (Sean Ryan), as she will attend the fight. There's going to be a fight for Lee. They go to the library / local museum to have a duel. Wickins says to Mick that she works for the government, who works to bring law, medicine and food to the city. The duel starts with nets and chains as weapons. From behind an Indian poster appears another biker fighting against lee, who won't kill the loser Mick - and Yogi is happy about that decision, because her gang wants to end the violence.Later, Wickings admits that she's only an observer. Carver gets a truckload of weapons. Whitey (John Diehl), another biker is spying on the operation but falls from a woodbeam. Ray (Danny De la Paz), Carver's ally, shoots Whitey, and Wickins sees it, but can't do anything about it. Wickins passes on the message that Carver and Bolo (Robert Weisser) are not following the directives to secure the workforce. She is told to be the one who secures workforce. Ray tells her not to interfere and leave.Wickings tells Lee that Mick is going to be killed. Yogi tries to help him and remembers how child Mick (Norbert "Morgan" Weisser) saves her (Ola Butler) from being run over. Lee takes Yogi to the new more powerful bike, but Ernie (Dean Devlin) rides it, but it's too much for him and he falls over. Mick is alive but hurt and he has a fight with Lee because the former thinks that from now then it's every man and woman for themselves.He gets over this idea when he gets well. Him, Yogi, Lee, the rest of the gang and Wickins prepare their bikes for the fig fight. They armour them. They attack Carver's headquarters. Ernie begins the attack hidden while Lee and Yogi approach Ray and Carver face-to-face.The shooting fight begins. Lee and his people are losing, but toy aircraft is thrown to help them by Wickins and Albert. That is the winning hand for Lee and his gang.Wickings communicates that there's law in the city from that moment on. | cult | train | imdb | null |
tt0084565 | Querelle | The plot centers on the handsome Belgian sailor Georges Querelle, who is also a thief and murderer. When his ship, Le Vengeur, arrives in Brest, he visits the Feria, a bar and brothel for sailors run by the madame Lysiane, whose lover, Robert, is Querelle's brother. Querelle has a love/hate relationship with his brother; when they meet at La Feria, they embrace, but also punch one another slowly and repeatedly in the belly. Lysiane's husband Nono tends bar and manages La Feria's underhanded affairs with the assistance of his friend, the corrupt police captain Mario.
Querelle makes a deal to sell opium to Nono, and murders his accomplice Vic. After delivering the drugs, Querelle announces that he wants to sleep with Lysiane. He knows that this means he will have to throw dice with Nono, who, as Lysiane's husband, has the privilege of playing a game of chance with all of her prospective lovers. If Nono loses, the suitor is allowed to proceed with his affair. If the suitor loses, however, he must submit to anal sex with Nono first. "That way, I can say my wife only sleeps with assholes, " Nono says. Querelle deliberately loses the game, allowing himself to be sodomized by Nono. When Nono gloats about Querelle's "loss" to Robert, who won his dice game, the brothers end up in a violent fight. Later, Querelle becomes Lysiane's lover, and also has sex with Mario.
Luckily for Querelle, a construction worker called Gil murders his coworker Theo, who had been harassing and sexually assaulting him. Gil is also considered to be the murderer of Vic. Gil hides from the police in an abandoned prison, and Roger, who is in love with Gil, establishes contact between Querelle and Gil in the hopes that Querelle can help Gil flee. Querelle falls in love with Gil, who closely resembles his brother. Gil returns his affections, but Querelle betrays Gil by tipping off the police. Querelle had cleverly arranged it so that his murder of Vic is also blamed on Gil.
In parallel there is a plot line concerning Querelle's superior, Lieutenant Seblon, who is in love with Querelle, and constantly tries to prove his manliness to him. Seblon is aware that Querelle murdered Vic, but chooses to protect him. Near the end of the film, Seblon reveals his love and concern to a drunken Querelle, and they kiss and embrace before returning to Le Vengeur. | psychedelic, murder, melodrama | train | wikipedia | Since Brad Davis also appeared in THE PLAYER, we might say this film is like Huckleberry Finn meeting Nosferatu with a drunken Anne Rice as narrator.
As a source novel, Genet's 'Querelle' presents a challenge for any adaptation but as this is R.W. Fassbinder's final work, one is compelled to ignore one's initial (poor) response and dig for signs of the vision seen elsewhere in his cannon.This is a film that unrelentingly refuses to let the viewer in.
Of course, much of this overtly gay posturing can be seen simply as high camp and add an undeniable veneer of silliness which is, quite frankly, hard to shake off.However, this is a deeply serious film.
It's hard to fully know what to make of 'Querelle' but either way, although stunningly lit, it has little of the swagger or movement of his best work and comes across as rather staid and inert.
I frequently find Fassbinder quite preachy, but with Querelle, he just lets the action unfold like a contagious disease infecting the viewer's mind with its rapturous toxins.
Far from being a masterpiece like "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" or "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", but this is a very good project directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, his last and the one he got some of the heaviest criticism of his career.
In a way, the most tragical of all of his works after being forced to cut part of it to get a release in America, probably the first time he ever had to back down and cut something he directed.Based on author Jean Genet's 1947 novel Querelle de Brest, the movie revolves about Querelle, an Belgian sailor (Brad Davis) who plays with danger with his criminal affairs selling opium and his involvement with male and female, using of his good looks to get what he wants.
Querelle's a man with many love affairs and relations, center of attention of his own brother (Hanno Pöschl), and their strange "brotherhood", love/hate kind of thing; Nuno, his wife (Jeanne Moreau) owner of a decadent bar where most of the film takes place, and he's treasured from distance by his captain (Franco Nero).
The other half of the film explores what can be called of real love between Querelle and a murderer (who is played by the same actor who plays the brother).The movie is very open when it comes to presenting Querelle's involvements with both genders, specially his sexual scenes with another men, very bold at the time.
If the story gets too much on a second plan, since the ideas are somewhat vague, foggy, the high point of enjoyment of the film is seeing Querelle getting well with his mates.
Fassbinder intrigues us more with the whole concept of man being a product of his environment, adapting to his (and others) needs and what he makes here (don't know if the same happen in the book) is a strange fantasy world where everyone is bisexual or have more inclination towards another man, enjoying endless sunsets created on fake sets, surrounded by large columns resembling phallic elements.
The script is more like a literary work than a cinematic experience, with several cards expressing Querelle's inner thoughts or the captain's romantic narration watching the love of his life, working all sweaty.Rainer had his reasons and perhaps we'll never know what motivated him making this film in the way he did, but the artist is deeply immersed in this work, putting elements of his life, his love and all (including a dedication to El-Hedi Ben Salem, one of his partners, who died that year).
The risk taken by Brad Davis was incredible and unfortunately he paid the price for it, barely appearing on well-known films or great projects.
I think many times before see it, because I didn't know if "Querelle" was the correct film to begin to understand the work of an artist like Fassbinder.
and i read a Lot of critics that tell that was a bad movie and a bad work of Fassbinder...
Fassbinder's "Querelle" is one of the best movies that i have ever seen with this delicate topic of homosexuality.Fassbinder's "Querelle", based in the novel of the same name by Genet, told us the story of Querelle, a sailor who is going to live an unpleasant conflict among him and the people who surrounds him.
The movie is too an analization of the masculine thing, and is important have clear that Fassbinder's "Querelle" is not a gay film at all...
is the recognition of different ways to love.I have not seen much of Fassbinder (I hope that my next film, that i want see: "The Marriage of Maria Braun", catch me like this one) but this work with poetic force is one of the most important looks (As i said before) to the human decadence (With "Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma" and "Dogville").
Feels like Fassbinder is exploring the darker side of human psyche rater than being interested in some linear story-telling - and he is quite good at it.
A R.W. Fassbinder double-feature binge (Chinese ROULETTE 1976 and QUERELLE 1982, his swan song) coincides with a starting point for me to access his oeuvre, as one of the pioneer of modern German cinema, Fassbinder has a burning-too-fast career orbit, as if he was exerting all his energy in cranking out films before his dooming self-indulgent suicide at the age of 37 (with more than 40 works done in 15 years).
While QUERELLE is projected on more ritualized dark amber light maroon background setting stimulating a claustrophobic oppression of lust and desire within a handful locations (the faux-deck of a ship ashore, the phallus worship Hotel Feria Bar, an underground tunnel for hideaway), a male-dominant sexual obsession mingled with blatant homosexual thrust to an astounding incestuous extremity, brilliantly done via an intuitive candor.
Mirror is a recurrent item in both films, exposes the other-half which reflects the true id inside one's soul, in Chinese ROULETTE the stunning flux of the stationary tableaux interlacing two or three out of the eight characters orchestrates a scintillating picture of a guilt-and-punishment visual symphony with swishy panache; in QUERELLE, mirrors reduce their occurrence but the conscientiously measured compositions transpire an even more ostentatious narcissism with a sultry plume of hormone-excreting rugged contours of male bodies.
QUERELLE is adapted from Jean Genet's novel "QUERELLE DE BREST", whose literature text also introduced through the soothing voice-over of an unknown narrator, the film does stage a sensible amount of poetic license to filter a vicarious compassion through a singular mortal's inscrutable behavioral symptoms; in Chinese ROULETTE, a prose (or poem) soliloquy of androgyny also contrives to reach the same effect (but sounds a trifle recondite when contextualizing it under the film's incumbent situation).
Two veterans, Franco Nero is either recording his secret affection in the cabinet or wandering near Querelle from oblique angles; the fading beauty Jeanne Moreau, hums "Each man kills the things he loves", and is lost in her own fantasy of the banquet she can savor.
Personally I incline towards QUERELLE's unconventional approach to kill off the ambiguities of sexual orientation and examine the most primal desire made with blood and flesh, but Chinese ROULETTE achieves another form of success, it maintains a serene aplomb above all the vile assault and bitter turbulence, like the unspecified pistol shot at the coda, no matter who bites the dust, a bullet is never an ultimate solution to all the problems..
check!)Querelle is an experimental, epic piece of erotic deflation, generally too challenging, complex and inert for any audience that it might reach, ...kind of like a Genet book actually.
Concerning the queerness of the film, i would say that this is something really complex: again, the sexual scene between Querelle and Nono has a sacramental mood, and ritual characteristics - as the assassination of the sailor by Querelle - which make of this scene something else: not only an exposition of human, maybe depraved, desires, but of a desire to reach the unreachable: god or devil, never mind.
I will likely never know the absolute answer to that, but I am willing to bet that past and future viewers will fall into these two groups: Those who feel that unclear character motivations, loosely constructed plot-structure and melodramatically poetic theatrics bespeak a larger sentiment, one not blatantly stated in this film; And the second group, who will leave this viewing experience raising their eye-brows in confusion, and possibly having a good laugh.This film, though wordy, probably operates most effectively in its nonverbal trappings.
The sets have a bourgeois richness that is almost tactile, the direction of movement is staged and coordinated like dance in some scenes, and the lighting is one of the best uses of expressionism out side of the American film noir idiom I've ever seen.The script is an abstract exploration of people's motivations, specifically as they relate to the more carnal side of love, and there is also an underlying, equally abstract, message about the methods and means of self-exploration.
All of this is told from the unique perspective of a naive, amoral young man who is, at the time that this film is set, exploring and learning about himself largely through acts of violence, sex and betrayal.
Brad Davis' acting in the lead role is a strange mixture of stoic detach and reined-in anger/passion and I can not begin to describe it to someone who has not seen the film.This film, in my opinion, can not escape the onus of its "high camp factor", One gets the feeling that this is the stuff that John Waters may have cackled at in his formative years.
So much so that critics have never quite been able to stomach it.'Querelle' is such a stunning work of art on several levels: the Navy dockyard set with its near-sepia hazy opiate yellows and browns (contrasting against the colour of the sailors' outfits, the brilliant whiteness a parody of purity), evoking both sickness and a perpetual dusk of hard-ons, repression, indulgence and violence; the cinematography, some of the best in any Fassbinder film, capturing the actors' reflections in mirrors as the camera coolly observes the lovers they talk to (or 'at') -- lust in an impenetrable frame in which no one can be satisfied and everyone has their own agenda; the incredible erotic sexual ambiance that manages to be both appealing and threatening; the acting (Davis clearly finds this unsubtle role liberating after working in the very gay yet very homophobic world of Hollywood).
it has Brad Davis shirtless and sweaty in almost every scene (the one in which he's covered in oil and grease has to be the money shot); it features Jeanne Moreau being dramatic and elegant and making statements about men's 'pricks' (in a role that seemingly couldn't have been anyone else's); it's an adaptation of a work by the brilliant Jean Genet; it's directed by the incredible Fassbinder; it has lines like, 'my cock came out covered in s--t, if you want to know' -- how could all of this equal a bad film?
Not even the date of his death, which he supposes to be near.' Fassbinder would be dead before the film was released, four years before Genet.
And besides his films, we know nothing about Fassbinder.'Querelle' is Fassbinder's final 'f--k you.'.
Jean genet and fassbinder at their decadent best.
I found this movie to be very intriguing, and found myself trying to catch all the phallic symbolism on the etched window panes and the writing on the walls of the local W.C. Franco Nero, plays the Lieutenent who is much enamored with Querelle and tapes his longings for him.
Fassbinder's last film is based on what would seem to be an unfilmable 'Querelle de Brest' by Jean Genet, and Genet's only film 'Un Chant D'Amour' must certainly have provided some inspiration for the symbolism of this movie.
With half-naked oiled-up sailors and enormous phallic mooring posts.What on earth Franco Nero and Jeanne Moreau thought they were doing agreeing to take part in this septic tank of a film is quite beyond me.Truly, the worst movie I have ever tried to watch.
Not really a straight adaptation of Genet's work, but as the title says "a film about Jean Genet's 'Querelle De Brest'".
Amidst this increasingly deep mosaic of the characteristics of the human psyche, a wild expressionistic decor and background only adds to the internal structure of what is already an "internal" film.As Fassbinder explores the structure of his homosexuality, one gets the impression that Querelle and Robert (the two brothers) are actually the same person (as suggested in the ending when Lysiane, throwing the Tarot cards, declares that "you don't have a brother, you never really had a brother" amidst a sense of relief in Robert).
The movie deals with a gay named Querelle who has some sort of loathing for his homosexual desires which he takes out on innocent people/his lovers.
It's a good analogy, and for his (regrettably) final feature, Querelle, I suggest it's the sauna- a sauna lit with gaudy orange-yellows and loaded with overly serious homosexual theater patrons with occasional guest stars who should be in better rooms like Jeanne Moreau and Franco Nero.
One can't help but see the passion in the project, an overtly theatrical and artificial film that has the subtitle "A Film About Jean Genet's Querelle".
With this one, Fassbinder takes the sort of tactic Godard did in his later years- the lesser ones, arguably- as a blend develops between title cards, "authoritative" narration not too unlike the sort in Little Children, and an actual (if not very coherent) narrative of a sailor, Querelle, who gets gay sex for the first time, kills his opium dealer, gets embroiled in a mystery involving his boss, and somehow Jeanne Moreau's bar owner keeps an eye over everything more or less in-between her repeated song she sings.That, at least, is as much as I could figure.
I'm actually surprised this hasn't screened as a midnight movie from time to time in New York city, a movie that gay and straight can embrace as a film that is funnier and more ironically quotable than the trashiest melodrama Fassbinder couldn't have tried to concoct of his best day.Yes, Querelle is shot with a painterly eye, and yes its DoP Schwarzenberger provides a few stunning compositions, and then the rest of the time it's just...
Querelle, therefore, depicts an Utopian new world, the word "Utopian" having its proper sense, since: "the Brest, as described by Genet, it a totally invented one, it does not exist at all, except perhaps in a bar in Texas" (Fassbinder, Loc. Cit., p.
-, Fassbinder added that, for the first time in his career, he filmed the whole movie in the studio.
Therefore, it does not astonish that all apocalyptic scenes in Fassbinder's work (e.g. the 14th part of "Berlin Alexanderplatz") are places, where the traces (signs by their very nature) come back to live like it is said to be happen on doomsday.
Amgonst the 66 movies that R.W. Fassbinder made in his only 37 years long life (the single episodes, none of them less than 1 hour, counted as singles), "Querelle", his last work (1982), seems to march to a different drummer.
Fassbinder's Final Film, and Far from his Best.
Went in with high hopes, a fan of Fassbinder's other works, but this is arguably his worst movie.
Perhaps I did not notice the bad acting in his earlier movies (all being in German) but in this film actors give weird, stilted performances.
'Querelle' the sailor is played by Brad Davis and his performance is equally as good as in 'Midnight express'.
Drug-overdosing before release, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder kept his distance.****** Querelle (8/31/82) Rainer Werner Fassbinder ~ Brad Davis, Hanno Poschl, Franco Nero, Jeanne Moreau.
Set piece film, a must see for movie connisseurs.
Querelle played adequately by Davis is a gay sailor, who just arrived at his new port,, starts to frequent this bar, to pick up other sailors and have sex with them.
Franco Nero, as always, is in top form as Querelle's captain, who even he has a thing for Davis, and we have thought provoking points in his words, plus voice overs, from a faceless star, which, a couple of annoying psalms appear on the black screen as we fade into another.
I'm not sure what Rainer Werner Fassbinder was trying to do with this film.
Now I'm not a true art house connoisseur, in fact I have seen very few films in this genre so maybe I am not best paced to review it but I will give it a shot.Brad Davis gives a charismatic performance in the lead role, he manages to look beautiful, innocent and down right grubby at the same time, so well done to him, not easy to do.
The rest of the cast do a good job, I think the trouble is you don't like any of them including Querelle.
Fassbinders last film,not his BEST but will do as a reminder of what he accomplished in his too short career.r..
QUERILLE is based on a novel by Genet.Combining the artistry of Fassbinder & Genet into one film is not easy.The film is a murder mystery,a many part love story (mostly male).
Heath Ledger.Jeanne Moreau gives another excellent performance as the bar Owner.Franco Nero plays the ship officer who is lusting after Querille (Brad Davis).All the other actors are equally excellent.There are a few sex scenes (male-male) they are done with erotic & are in no way offensive.The cinematography is quite abstract with beautiful images almost like paintings.This film is not for all tastes, but for Fassbinder fans it is a must.One more thing, I have viewed this a few times previously and finally understood the song that Jeane Moreau sings throughout the movieRatings: ***1/2 (out of 4) 91 points (out of 100 IMDb 8 (out of 10). |
tt0091480 | Manon des sources | The film "Manon des Sources" (1986), together with "Jean de Florette" (1986), which PRECEDES IT, are the screen rendition of Marcel Pagnol's exquisite novel, "L'eau des Collines" ("The Water from the Hills," 1963). It is the story of two competing projects, one carried out by the city-dweller Jean Cadoret, and the other by the peasant Ugolin, set in the rustic and picturesque environment of Provence in the 1920s. It is a story of opposites: the city versus the country, modernity versus traditional, good versus bad, and memory versus oblivion."Manon des Sources," takes place some ten years after "Jean de Florette", also in the village of "les Bastides" and the surrounding hills. Ugolin's carnation-growing business is prospering, as inferred when he sells his flowers to a retailer who complains about their high prices. Manon (Emmanuelle Béart) is now a beautiful, wild shepherdess, spending her time in the hills and valleys of the area, tending her flock of goats. She totally ignores "les Bastides," and the villagers aware of her presence, reciprocate, calling her "la sauvageonne" - the wild child. She lives with her mother and Baptistine (Margarita Lozano), at "le Plantier." A new character is introduced, the new village school teacher, Bernard Olivier (Hippolyte Girardot) who is also an amateur mineralogist.One day while hunting in the hills, Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil), comes across Manon who is dancing nude, playing a tune on her father's harmonica. This is the proverbial love-at-first-sight. Too shy to approach Manon directly, he continues to spy on her, following her in the hills. He sets traps to capture birds and rabbits, which he then places in her traps as gifts. From then on, Ugolin is obsessed with Manon. César Soubeyran (Yves Montand), "le Papet,", who had been pushing a reluctant Ugolin to marry in order to continue the Soubeyran line, is thrilled when Ugolin finally confesses, although in a rather unusual manner, his matrimonial intentions. Ugolin decides to "move in" and propose to Manon in a most clumsy and outrageous manner. She is repulsed by "the toad" and runs away from him (Actually, in real life, Daniel Auteuil was briefly married to Emmanuelle Béart).Sometime later, Manon overhears two hunters from "les Bastides," Pamphile (André Dupon) and Cabridan (Pierre-Jean Rippert) discussing how Ugolin had plugged the spring on her father's property, and the fact that everybody in the village knew of the existence of that spring and kept quiet about it. Manon runs away, crying and screaming: she is crushed, and she swears to take revenge on Ugolin, César , and the whole village. Her opportunity arrives when she discovers a cave containing the source of the spring which supplies the water to Ugolin's property and to the village's square's fountain. She blocks the course of the spring: this is an unmitigated catastrophe for the whole village.At first, Ugolin fetches the needed water for his flowers from the spring at "le Plantier," the way poor Jean used to do, but this is only a makeshift solution. Without the spring's flow, his carnation business is doomed, as will be the whole village. The village council summons a Government expert who basically tells them that they are on their own.The following Sunday, the church is packed for the high Mass. The priest (Jean Bouchaud) tells the congregation that this disaster is God's response to a criminal act perpetrated by one among them. He calls for a procession to bring the spring back to life. Following the Mass, the entire village gathers in the school yard to celebrate Bernard's birthday.At this gathering, Manon publicly accuses Ugolin and César of having plugged the spring. Her accusation is backed up by Eliacin (Didier Pain), who had been a witness to the bad deed. Although admitting to no wrongdoing, Ugolin totally breaks down and falls to his knees, imploring Manon to marry him. Many of the assembled villagers confess their treachery, as César drags a crushed Ugolin out of the assembly and back to his house.Sometime later, César summons the mayor, Philoxène (Armand Meffre), and Belloiseau (Lucien Damiani), to "les Romarins," where they find Ugolin hanging from a tree, the same tree where young Manon's swing used to hang.Bernard, invoking the memory of her father, convinces Manon to unplug the spring. The two set out in the middle of the night to free the water. The next day, as the priest's procession is taking place, the water starts flowing again from the village fountain. "Miracle!" some shout, but for Philoxene and others, it is mere coincidence.Bernard and Manon get married, and soon she is with child.An ancient village resident, the old, blind Delphine (Yvonne Gamy) returns to "les Bastides." She often meets with César in front of the church at dusk. During one of these meetings, Delphine recalls to César a certain letter that Florette had sent to him while he was in the army. This scene is the most heart-wrenching that one could imagine. Following Delphine's revelation, César loses all will to live, and one evening, after having confessed to the priest, he takes to his bed, and dies peacefully. | dramatic, revenge, romantic | train | imdb | null |
tt0065207 | Where Eagles Dare | It is the winter of 1944. A lone transport plane, in German Luftwaffe insignia, picks its way through the peaks of the Bavarian Alps by night. Inside, seven paratroopers, in German Fallschirmjaeger uniform, wait in grim silence for the jump signal. Among them is their leader, Major Smith (Richard Burton) and his junior officer, Lieutenant Schaeffer (Clint Eastwood). The others: Christiansen (Donald Houston), Barkely (Peter Barkworth), Thomas (William Squire), Mac Pherson (Neil Mc Carthy) and Harrod (Brook Williams) are enlisted men. In the silent tension, Major Smith ponders his mission briefing.Flashing back to headquarters in London, the Fallschirjaeger paratroops turn out to be a team of highly trained British MI6 agents (except for Shaeffer, who is on loan from the American OSS). Briefed by intelligence chief, Admiral Rolland (Michael Hordern), and his executive officer, Colonel Turner (Patrick Wymark), the team's mission is to rescue a captured American, General Carnaby (Robert Beatty), an Allied planner for Operation Overlord (D-Day). The General's plane has been shot down, and he is being held prisoner at the Schloss Adler (Castle of Eagles), an impregnable mountain-top fortress that also serves as headquarters for the German Alpine Korps. The prisoner must be rescued before he can divulge any information about Operation Overlord.Back in the present, the plane reaches its drop zone and the seven commandos parachute into a snow-covered mountain wilderness. Unseen by any of the men, a mysterious woman, also in Fallschirmjaeger gear, emerges from the planes cargo compartment and jumps after them. Smith's team gathers on their landing zone, only to find that their radioman, Harrod, is missing. After a quick search, he is found dead, his neck apparently broken in the drop. However, Major Smith is suspicious. Though the radioman's neck is bruised, there are no logs or large rocks buried beneath the snow to account for such an injury. He keeps silent, however, about his misgivings, and the group carries on to shelter in a high Alpine farmhouse that remains unoccupied in winter.Once there, Smith claims he's forgotten the code books carried by the dead radioman and goes back out into the night to get them, but instead detours around to the barn where he meets the mystery woman from the plane, Mary (Mary Ure). They obviously know each other very well, and after an hour of her company, Smith returns to the farmhouse. A skeptical Lt. Schaffer sits there patiently waiting, cleaning his gun, He obviously doesn't believe a word of Smith's story, but says nothing.The next day, the team climbs over the next ridge in the mountains, and see the Schloss-Adler castle on a peak across the valley. Waiting until dusk, they descend and sneak into the village at the base of the mountain. Changing into Wermacht uniforms, they bluff their way into the village and enter an inn, listening for information on Gen. Carnaby. Smith has a coded exchange with the barmaid (who turns out to be a British agent as well), and shortly thereafter meets both her and Mary in the woodshed behind the inn. He explains that he's in a hurry to get into the castle above because the Germans don't really have an American General, but instead have an impersonator named Cartright Jones who knows nothing about the second front. Astonished, Mary can't believe they've gone to all this trouble to rescue an imposter, but Smith has no time for further explanations, and produces forged papers that will get Mary into the castle that night with a new job as a servant.Exiting the woodshed, Smith finds another member of his team murdered, laying in the snow behind a scout car. He rejoins Schaffer in the inn, who has had enough of Smith's deceptions, and demands to be told the real story behind this mission, or he's out. As Smith starts to explain, the SS bursts in, capturing Smith, Schaffer and the other three agents. Smith and Schaffer are driven away in a staff car, while the other three men are taken away for questioning. Mary meanwhile rides the cable car up to the castle and begins to make her preparations.A mile from the village, Schaffer and Smith manage to start a fight in the car and to kill the German soldiers. They hike back to the village, pick up their hidden gear, blow up a warehouse as a diversion, steal a motorcycle and drive back out of the village along the road to the airport. They install small bombs on the telephone poles along the road, and rig trip wires to snow-poles along the road edge. Returning once more to the village, they find their three fellow agents being led into the cable car for a trip up to the castle, and make their way quickly up onto the roof of the terminal. As the car pulls out, Smith and Schaffer climb onto its roof, riding unseen up to the castle.After a harrowing ride on top of the cable car, they leap to the ledge above the terminal and claw their way up. Far above, Mary lowers a rope from a castle window, and they climb up the cliff face. Laying their final plans, Smith and Schaffer quietly make their way to the castle's great hall, where the Germans are talking to "Carnaby" over brandy and cigars. Since he politely but firmly refuses to tell them anything, they must regrettably resort to Scopolamine to get the information they want. The three captured members of Smith's rescue team are also brought in, and it is revealed that they are really double agents, posing as British but working for the Germans. As they are about to inject the fake General with truth serum, Smith quietly walks up out of the shadows surprising everyone, and declares that the double agents are still lying. Smith himself is tracking them, and he is really working for SS Military Intelligence. Pointing his gun at an astonished Schaffer, Smith tells him to sit down and shut up.Smith goes on to prove his true loyalties to the German High Command, and manages to convince the three traitors that they have been trapped. Desperate to prove they are really on the same side, they write down all the info they have on Nazi agents working in England. Smith gathers this up and asks German Col. Kramer (Anton Diffring) to review it, then quietly signals Schaffer to get ready. "Compare their notes with my original," he tells Kramer, handing him another notebook. Leafing through it, Kramer finds all the pages are blank, and is stunned by the realization that Smith had duped them all. He really is a British agent, and has tricked the Nazis into revealing their entire spy network in England.In the ensuing confusion, Smith and Schaffer (who tells Smith that he's "about as confused as I ever hope to be") battle their way back out of the castle and onto the cable car. Escaping back down to the village, they highjack a large bus and speed out of town with the Germans in hot pursuit. Tripping the bombs they'd laid ealier as they drive by, the telephone poles are blasted in half and fall to block the road. The Germans are slowed but not stopped, and use dynamite of their own to blast through the obstacles. The team manages to beat them to the airport, where the same plane that had flown them in now swoops down and lands, allowing them to clamber in and escape through a hail of gunfire.Taking a long sigh of relief, they sit back as they're met in the plane by the man who'd sent them on this mission, Col. Turner (Patrick Wymark), second in command of British Intelligence. As he reviews the list of agents in disbelief, as Smith calmly tells Turner that there's one name that isn't on the list: that of the top German agent in England, confirmed by Colonel Kramer back at the castle. He shows the note to Turner, who shoots an alarmed look back at Smith."It's your own name Colonel," he says. "Don't look so surprised."Pointing a gun at Smith, Turner calmly tries to talk his way out, but cannot. When in desperation he pulls the trigger to shoot Smith, the gun doesn't fire; Smith had removed to firing pin before the mission. With no cards left to play and facing certain hanging, Turner, sweat beading on his forehead, calmly asks if there is an alternative."Do you want it?" asks Smith.Turner nods. He slowly gets up, walks to the door in the rear of the plane and opens it. Taking a last bitter look at Smith, he jumps to his death."Is that it Major?" asks Schaffer tiredly as he replaces the door."Yes, that's it," replies Smith. He leans back in his seat and closes his eyes. The plane lumbers on through the night, returning to England. | plot twist, violence, romantic, flashback | train | imdb | null |
tt0460949 | Stranglehold | In latter-day Hong Kong, a policeman goes missing. The department is dumbfounded by the disappearance until they receive a ransom call from an unnamed source. The kidnappers request that a single officer appear at Kowloon market. Tequila volunteers for the assignment against his superior's wish, beginning a sequence of battles with rival Triads and the Russian Mafia that extends from the street markets of Hong Kong to the museums of Chicago.
Tequila finds the missing officer's badge with the picture of the officer dead. Tequila chases the kidnappers, which eventually lead him to Wong, the Triad boss of a group called Dragon Claw, who claims he was set up by Golden Kane. Tequila learns that his ex-wife, Billiewho is also Wong's daughterand her daughter have been kidnapped by the Russian mob group, Zakarov. Tequila then heads to Chicago to rescue his family, leading to a shootout in a Chicago museum in which Tequila kills the Russian mob boss, Damon. Tequila finds Billie, and at the same time Tequila's undercover partner bursts in and opens fire on both of them, killing her. Tequila pursues him and manages to corner him. His undercover partner reveals that the Russian mafia was going to use Billie (through threatening her daughter) to remove the Triads from power by making her testify against Wong and that he was sent by Wong to kill her. Tequila kills him in an intense gunfight and heads back to Hong Kong, collaborating with Golden Kane to take down Dragon Claw by arranging an exchange in the slums of Kowloon as Golden Kane has Billie's daughter and would return her for "a slice of Hong Kong". The plan fails when Tequila did not make it at the arranged time and Wong's right hand man kills the leader of Golden Kane. Tequila chases Wong back to his estate and kills his second in command while his daughter kills Wong. | violence | train | imdb | null |
tt0422401 | Hatchet | Set in the Louisiana bayou, it is the story of the legend of Victor Crowley. A group of tourists discover that the legend is real and more horrifying than they ever imagined.Two hunters, Sampson (Robert Englund) and his son Ainsley (Joshua Leonard), are fishing in a swamp during a full moon. Ainsley says he has to use the restroom, and Sampson rows their boat to shore. While Ainsley is urinating, Sampson falls silent; Ainsley goes to see where he is and finds Sampson's mutilated body. He grabs his harpoon, only to be murdered by a monstrous being.During a Mardi Gras celebration in downtown New Orleans, there is a group of friends including Ben (Joel Moore) and his best friend Marcus (Deon Richmond), who have come to have some fun since Ben's girlfriend of eight years recently dumped him. Ben decides to go on a haunted swamp tour, and Marcus agrees to go with him. The two find that the tour is closed because the guide, Rev. Zombie (Tony Todd), was sued for negligence. Rev. Zombie suggests that they try a place farther down the street, owned by the over-the-top, inexperienced tour guide Shawn (Parry Shen). Marcus decides to leave but changes his mind upon seeing two topless girls: Misty (Mercedes McNab), a ditzy porn star, and Jenna (Joleigh Fioreavanti), a bossy, boastful, up-and-coming actress. Their sleazy director, Shapiro (Joel Murray), is also there. Ben pays for himself and Marcus and Shawn leads them to his tour bus, where the other tourists, Jim (Richard Riehle) and Shannon Permatteo (Patrika Darbo), a Minnesota couple, and the quiet, hot-tempered Marybeth (Tamara Feldman) are waiting.Ben tries to make friends with Marybeth, who rejects him, while Marcus takes a liking to Jenna. Shawn does not know what he is doing, which the others realize as they arrive at the swamp. Shapiro has Misty and Jenna strip down and film a scene for Bayou Beavers as everyone boards the boat, while a homeless swamp-dweller warns them away from the swamp. Shawn leads them through swamplands and past abandoned houses, including one where Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder), a deformed creature, lived. Shawn mentions "one night Victor's dad goes crazy and whacks him in the face with a hatchet" while looking at "ghost lights"; however, Shannon sees someone in the trees, and Shawn accidentally crashes into a rock, sinking the boat. To reach land, they must walk across a broken tree. Jim is bitten on the leg by an alligator, making him, Misty and Shapiro fall into the water. They reach shore and run to safety, while Jim bleeds profusely. They realize that Shawn is not a tour guide; he is just a college student looking for money. Marybeth takes out a gun she brought and informs them that her father and brother, Sampson and Ainsley, disappeared while fishing nearby, presumably at Crowley's hands. She then tells them the real story of Victor Crowley.Long ago, presumably the 1940s-60s, Crowley was a deformed boy (Rileah Vanderbilt) who was kept hidden from the world by his father. One Halloween, a group of kids decided to scare Victor by throwing fireworks into his house, but the house was engulfed in flames. Victor's father (also Hodder) tried to hack down the door with a hatchet to save Victor, but because Victor was pressed up against the other side of the door trying to get out, he hit him in the face with the hatchet, killing him. Victor's father died of a broken heart ten years later. Marybeth believes Victor roams the swamp as a vengeful spirit, killing anyone who enters.Victor mostly kills people near his house, which they are standing in front of. Shannon becomes infuriated with how scared everyone is and decides to help her husband into the house. Victor emerges and kills the Permatteos. Marybeth shoots Victor, but only makes him fall. While running away, Shapiro is separated from the others and killed by Victor. The others find Shapiro's body.Marybeth suggests they return to the Crowley house to get weapons, and all six of them go to the house. Jenna, Shawn, Marcus, and Misty stand guard while Marybeth and Ben go into the shed to get weapons, but find Sampson and Ainsley's bodies instead. Ben comforts Marybeth, and they grab a shovel and a pitchfork, while the others are scared by noises in the bushes. Jenna is killed by Victor as Marybeth and Ben arrive with the weapons. Marybeth hits Victor with the shovel, making him fall and get stabbed with the pitchfork by Ben. Shawn reaches for the shovel, but Victor grabs it first, chopping off Shawn's leg with it, and then decapitating him while the others flee.The survivors decide to lure Victor back to his house and set him on fire with the gasoline tanks in the shed. They return to the house and Ben goes into the shed to retrieve a gasoline tank, while Misty stands guard and Marybeth and Marcus act as bait to lure Victor in. Marybeth and Marcus discover that Misty is missing, and her head and torso are thrown onto Ben by Victor. Ben finds a tank and throws it on Victor while Marybeth and Marcus set him on fire, but it begins to rain and the fire is extinguished. The three begin running through a cemetery and find the gate locked; Ben is tackled by Victor who spits up blood in his face before he is dragged to safety.They start running away, but Marcus is grabbed by Victor and killed. Victor grabs a gate pole and chases Ben and Marybeth, throwing it into Ben's foot. Marybeth bends the pole until it is pointed at Victor, who impales himself upon it. Ben and Marybeth board Sampson's boat and head out; Marybeth is snared by seaweed and pulled underwater. She sees Ben's arm sticking into the water for her to grab, but is pulled up by Victor, who is holding a dying Ben's severed forearm. The film ends with Victor holding her screaming. | violence, absurd, boring, murder, storytelling | train | imdb | Watching the film feels more like viewing a condensed reel of slasher kills with a few drunk and fun-loving friends - certainly not a bad thing, but not exactly a horror movie either.
In summary, I'd certainly recommend the film for anyone who gets a kick out of the slasher craze of the 80s, but be sure you're in the mood for goofy fun and not an actual horror flick..
While I wouldn't be too sure about that, Hatchet does make one thing clear at least, and that's that writer/director Adam Green has undeniable talent.Structured largely as a parody of the Friday the 13th films, Hatchet casts legendary Jason Voorhees stand-in Kane Hodder as Victor Crowley, the deformed son of a backwoods Louisiana bayou fisherman (also played by Hodder), who was presumed killed years earlier in a house fire started by a bunch of tormenting local kids.Green follows the stock formula for such movies: take a bunch of folks, find an excuse to strand them in monster country, and let the audience revel in watching them get picked off one-by-one.Where Green excels, however, is in his smartly written, comically-paced script that is chalk full of genuinely funny inside jokes that are blatant winks at the audience and along the way establish more of a bond with Sean of the Dead than Halloween.In terms of horror movies, there's nothing going on here that is particularly inventive or even scary, but Green clearly isn't out to achieve that.
Rather, he's paying homage to a genre that he grew up with, as is clear by the cameos he's given to icons Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street) and Tony Todd (Candyman and numerous others).Bolstered by good acting, top notch production values, and intentionally rubbery costume effects, Hatchet panders to the fan-boy crowd in glorious revelry.
Clearly Green knows his audience likes to sit back, kick the Fangoria magazines off the couch, and watch somebody take a belt sander in their kisser.While I think labeling Victor Crowley as the next horror icon in the same vein as Jason, Michael Myers, and Freddy is complete preposterousness, saying Adam Green is someone to keep an eye on is a more realistic, and complimentary laurel..
The basic story is some people want to go on a haunted tour in the New Orleans swamps, and they get their wish along with a story about the spirit of a Victor Crowley who was hideously deformed at birth, and accidentally hit in the head with a hatchet by his Father when their house caught fire, the Father was trying to save him.
There's nothing original and all that great about this movie, it's basically just another slasher film with some obvious humor, and excellent gore effects.
I think "Hatchet" is being over-hyped, in fact, WAY over-hyped, and a lot of horror/gore fans are going to be a little let down, especially with the awful ending..
Hatchet (2006) is another of those modern horror movies that tries to copy the magic of 80's horror's, although it did have some sort of 80's feel, it just didn't have much else.The storyline was boring and predictable, and i didn't really care for any of the characters either, and some people have "TRIED" to claim that Victor Crowley, is the next horror icon.........
Fresh and unique, forging a new path through the wastleland of redundant slasher flicks as "Sean of the Dead" and "Scream" had done in previous years.Unfortunately about half way through, this movie does a complete about-face.
The cast of this horrible movie were ugly as hell and couldn't act worth sh*t.The desperate to get laid black guy "Marcus" trying to be funny was painful to watch, and the annoying Chinese tour guide "Shawn" with the fake Southern accent was enough to make you wanna slit your wrists it was so bad.
There is just not any good American horror movies anymore.Once in awhile something good and decent does comes along though,but movies like Hatchet have turned the genre in to a joke..
Repetitive, silly, and completely lacking in suspense are what comes to my mind when I think of Hatchet, and that is being relatively kind to it.I was a horror film fan in the 1980s, and readily watched various entries in the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, among others.
As I remember this period of filmmaking well, I can certainly recognize where Adam Green drew inspiration for Hatchet, but, frankly, he has assembled a film that is far more inept and valueless than even some of the worst 80s slasher films.The plot, of which there is little, goes as follows: Ben (Joel David Moore) and his friend Marcus (Deon Richmond) are visiting Mardi Gras in New Orleans to help Ben take his mind off a recent bad breakup.
It becomes a race against time for the various shipwrecked individuals to make their way back to civilization with all body parts intact.If you are interested in watching a film put forth a great deal of effort to create some of the goriest, most over the top, no holds barred violent death scenes in recent memory, then pop Hatchet in the DVD player, sit back and enjoy.
The premise is weak, although the comedy in the characters was fun (and this was the ONLY mild thing of interest) it somewhat gives the impression of a bait and switch as if the whole 'murder hunt' was an actual game like a double bluff, and if you take the scenes apart it is entirely acted out that way, but to actually sit thru this trash fest and discover it was trying to take itself serious was more horrific than the movie could ever achieve alone.
Even though they are fun to watch, they don't offer the same realistic blood thirsty gore that the recent films offer.Hatchet is cheesy, unrealistic, and down-right awful.
The only reason I am giving this film one star is because I can't give zero.The tag-line of "next generation horror" really got my pumped up to see this movie - boy was I wrong.The plot was old school and so was the cheesy nudity.
I got on the buzz train for this film and really wished I hadn't, the acting and dialog was sub par to that of any 80's cheese horror flicks.I think Robert Englund and Tony Todd were just terrible in the film, I know it had tried to be campy but it came out like molded cheese.Cheesy films I don't mind but this has got to be one of the most over hyped gore throwback to the 80's film that I have seen.Again don't let the pretty cool gore soaked scenes cloud your judgment people...this is basically on par with any Troma release and that's all.Wait for video and rent it for the gore..
I am a big horror film fan and have seen just about every horror film going even the very bad, I read about Hatchet nearly 2 years ago and when I saw a trailer for it I was very excited, expecting another Friday the 13th series to begin, the wait was not worth it, I was very disappointed, it did not have the atmosphere of a horror film, more of a comedy but a non funny one, OK the gore and was good and the deaths were original but it did not have that eerie feel about it, if anyone understands what I am saying, like when you watched the Friday the 13th films for the first time, Camp Crystal lake had an eerie aura about it.
It should be an indictable offence to hype up a piece of drivel like this with the intent of duping unsuspecting people to think they are going to get a good movie.The glowing reviews here have to be either from (paid?) fanboys or people with extremely shallow intellect.The gore fx are ultra-cheesy, the blood looks like raspberry syrup, the jump scares only work because of the music crescendos.If you're expecting something John Carpenter or Wes Craven-e s q u e (I thought the Admins had fixed the stupid "-esquire" thing, but it seems not), you won't find it in this.
I saw a very by the book slasher flick with no surprises or real twists on the genre.The plot concerns a tour group in the NOLA swamps that begin to be picked off one by one by the deformed Victor Crowley (wow what an original name).
- Official site In the tradition of 80's slasher movies, Hatchet starts of as a genuinely creepy, genuinely funny horror/comedy.
As it is he looks like he has walked off of the set of 'Wrong Turn', a far more imaginative horror movie.Whilst the film pays homage to many horror classics, the ending is a blatant rip off of one of these.
The rest of the cast aren't given a lot to do, and a couple of the ladies(including Mercedes McNab of 'Angel' fame) are there with no other purpose than to show their breasts and scream.Overall there are enough jumps and laughs to keep it going for its extremely short run time (85 mins), but If you are a die hard horror fan, then you will have seen most horrors and will find the nostalgic feel of 'Hatchet' enjoyable, which it is in a mindless way.
Oh yeah, way too much blood getting slopped around, kinda took away from any scary realism and further established this as a B-film.Bottom Line: If you're looking for an older style horror flick where the monster never seems to die, check it out, but don't expect too much in the way of a story, scare, or acting.
You can hardly blame them as the script and plot weren't desperately inspiring and two of the girls were only there to provide more gratuitous topless footage.It's a hammed up, cheesy movie with a sense of fun but not enough going for it to even to amuse you if you're the kind that likes to watch those 'so bad they're good' type horror movies.
I have seen enough movies that I should know better than to go into movies with expectations, but I was really excited about seeing the "Old School American Horror" that this film advertised itself as.
This is, however, not what the film delivered.When I think of Old School American Horror three movies instantly come to mind; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Halloween (1978), all of which have been remade into lesser films in the last 5 years, but that is beside the point.
I'm not sure whether the blame for this goes to Kane Hodder, the makeup effect crew, or the director, but Victor Crowley just didn't really scare me.Speaking of laughing at the film, that is another place where this film departed from the Old School American Horror.
If you've seen enough horror movies you'll probably be able to pick them out when you watch the film as well.
It's rare for horror movies these days to scare the crap out of you while making you laugh out loud.I can't wait until this comes out in theaters, Anyone who reads this MUST try to see it at the Tribeca film festival.
The plot of "Hatchet" centers on friends Ben and Marcus,who decide to join a haunted bayou cruise.Led by maverick guide Shawn the doomed group of tourists sails into the darkness.The boat sinks in waters known to be haunted by Victor "Hatchet Face" Crowley(Kane Hodder),who aims at butchering his guests piece by piece."Hatchet" is amazing.It perfectly blends humor with stomach churning gore.The violence is so gruesome that it quickly becomes comical,Victor Crowley looks wonderfully campy and the gore flows freely.The best part of Green's film is its comic pacing.Due to its frenetic action the film often reminded me Sam Raimi's splatter classic "The Evil Dead".So if you are a fan of crazy early 80's slasher gorefests give it a look..
The monster fails to frighten, the girls shake their boobs at the camera a few times too many and the death scenes are fairly ridiculous but not in the 'fun' way.I usually LOVE to watch horror-made-comedy but in this case, the movie falls short in all respects.
I had read a lot about HATCHET online over the last year and thought it could be a nice little horror flick to enjoy like Wrong Turn or Cabin Fever.
That was until 2006, when Hodder was cast as the first (And only) actor to play the deformed ghoul Victor Crowley for Adam Green's new horror franchise "Hatchet." While I can't speak to how much the role has eased the sting of being dropped as Jason Voorhees for "Freddy v.s Jason", I can certainly say that it should.
It's ugly to look at, but there's no doubt this was director Adam Green's intention...And have I mentioned yet how scary Hodder is as Victor Crowley?"Hatchet" is a MUST watch for any horror fan nostalgic for the "good old days" of slasher movies.
Hype surrounded this film for quite some time before it was released, Hatchet was being heralded as the one of the best horror movies of this decade and a genre defining work.
Although Hatchet is an entertaining movie, it adds nothing to the slasher sub-genre and it is not all original.Nonetheless, amongst all the dire remakes, shoddy Saw movies and bland sequels, Green has created a damn good horror/comedy with bucket loads of extreme gore.
And the nudge/wink factor even extends to stunts and makeup, with Kane Hodder (one of the more well-known men behind Jason Voorhees' scarred hockey mask) playing lead monster-man Victor Crowley, and MMI Master John Buechler providing the gaggingly OTT makeup effects (which he did for several of the Friday THE 13TH films.)I don't think rabid horror fans and writers did Green any favors by hyping this up the way it was, because sold as a great little 'B' pic, it might've had a bigger shot at a decent theatrical release.
It is definitely worth your time.So if your a fan of Slasher films; and you call yourself a horror fan....you HAVE to see this movie!.
Story is great very isolated very dark and the victims have no way of getting help no way out but to get rid of the bad guy and the special FX are amazing a lot of blood a lot of gore and some pretty good acting on the part of the cast I'd say this movie will go down as a gore fan favorite right there with Friday the 13s and the Halloweens.
Like those movies "Hatchet" includes typical genre elements (in this case gore and a slasher), but it never ever really tries to scare us.
There are also some nice little cameos by slasher favorites (Robert "Freddy" Englund and Kane "Jason" Hodder appear together in yet another persiflage on the genre that made them famous, and Tony "Candyman" Todd makes a hilarious appearance, too).Another thing that reminds me of Abbott and Costello and that prevents "Hatchet" from becoming horror in any way is the fake looking stage design.
The whole movie plays like a remake of "Friday The 13th" and it's hard to tell whether that's meant to be a loving homage or if it's just a blatant rip off that writer/director Adam Green mistook for typical "Old school American horror".
If you are a fan of Horror you will love this movie.It has everything, and I mean everything, I like about horror movies, including true Horror icons in the film.Victor Crawley shows us that their is more to fear in the night than Jason and Freddy...There is a new killer on the loose and he's out for your blood.The Kills are over the top and the tension will have you throwing your popcorn in the air...Do yourself a favor and catch Hatchet before Victor catches up to you.I look forward to more thrillers from Adam Green.Wait....
'Hatchet' is one of those horror films that in 15, 20 years we will truly appreciate it for what it is, and what it did for the genre.It has a pretty basic storyline that follows a tour group out to a haunted swamp where Victor Crowley lives.
In OLD School the rule is, You fool around, then the killings begin.I think Adam Green should take his talent of gore, watch a few more truly scary old Skool horror flicks and try again, but without so much comedy and "Bad" actors.
That's probably how most people felt when they saw this.But it's not based of the book about a 14 year old surviving in the wilderness,nope,it's about a group of people stuck in the swamps of New Orleans being chased by a man who looks like the unmasked Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part II,so there similar kind of?I mean there both about survival.Anyways,onto the review.First,the good,when you're talking about horror movies,you gotta talk about the kills,how they good were they?In this movie,they're great,Kool Aid was going everywhere.There was some funny moments and I love the tone.It's so goofy and campy,but it kinda works.The effects are great,and some characters are well developed.I also like the low budget like cinematography.I also like that there isn't an endless body count.Now,the bad.Most characters aren't very well developed,and felt like cheap jokes,which,now that I think about it,that's a pro,the fact that the director(Adam Green)is making fun of typical horror movie characters,so,nevermind.But now,the real cons,the pacing was bad,it felt way too fast.The villain I thought wasn't scary,and very cliché,like ya,he'll rip you apart but he has no character,he's just crazy,though he's a parody of Jason Voorhees,just not a good one,he was so bland.I also thought most of the jokes didn't work.Hatchet is a fun throwback to the 80s slasher films that suffers from poor characters and a weak villain..
In 2006 director Adam Green wanted to bring back the feeling those movies gave fans with his slasher Hatchet.With cameos and parts going to Tony "Candyman" Todd, Kane "Jason" Hodder, and Robert "Freddy" Englund, heavy use of practical effects over computer effects and a villain who looked like an 80's type of killer, Hatchet seemed posed to take a spot alongside the best in the sub-genre.
why years after this movie was made, let everyone know that because of all the hype you decided to watch it...?anyone expecting Hatchet to be anything more than just straight up ridiculous gory fun is a complete idiot.
Hatchet is a blood-soaked love letter to the campy horror-slasher films of the '80s. |
tt0075342 | The Town That Dreaded Sundown | Sunday, March 3, 1946, in the small town of Texarkana, Arkansas, Sammy and Linda Mae are out parking in a car. The car hood pops open and a man wearing a hood over his face takes something from the engine. Sammy realizes that someone is out there and fruitlessly tries starting the car as the hooded man breaks the drivers side car window with a pipe and pulls Sammy out. Linda Mae screams, and the man goes for her as well.Linda Mae is found lying severely wounded on the side of the road the following morning and both she and Sammy are taken to a nearby hospital. A doctor tells Deputy Ramsey and Sheriff Barker that Linda Mae was "bitten" and "literally chewed" on different parts of her body by the assailant. Police Chief Sullivan asks about the Lovers Lane Case and he tells the other officers to warn people about parking on lonely roads. Ramsey states his belief that the mysterious person will strike again.On March 24, Howard and his girlfriend, Emma Lou, go out driving in the rain. After hearing gunshots, Ramey, patrolling in his car, finds Howard's parked car, but no one around. Ramsey hears more gunshots and in the woods he finds Howard and Emma Lou, both dead, having been shot several times. The hooded killer gets in the parked car and drives away.Since the killer, now known as "The Phantom" seems to have no motive and the townspeople begin to dread sundown. A few days later, Ramsey goes to the nearby train station to meet Captain Morales, a famous criminal investigator and Texas Ranger who arrives in Texarkana to find the killer. Morales has the officers set up a curfew for the entire town. Many people are on the case, including a few associates of the FBI whom also arrive in town to assist. But a number of criminals and crazy people come forward admitting to the murders, while a horde of other citizens are demanding protection.Ramsey tells Morales that on April 14, twenty-one more days after the second attack, the killer may strike again. Morales sets up decoys (cops posing as couples in unmarked parked cars). That very night at the local Junior and High Schools Prom, many people are leaving under the watchful eyes of the police officers nearby. Peggy gets her trombone and leaves with her boyfriend Roy. Roy suggests parking at their favorite spot, despite Peggy's wariness over the recent murders. After making out, the two of them nod off and wake up in their car at 2:40 in the morning. As Roy starts the car and begins to drive away, the Phantom suddenly appears and jumps on their car, grabs Roy and causes both of them to fall out. The Phantom whacks Roy on the head with a pistol and chases Peggy down, and ties her to a tree. A dazed Roy gets up and tries to run away, but the killer shoots him dead. The killer gets Peggy's trombone, attaches a knife to the end, and "plays" the instrument, stabbing Peggy in the back a few times, killing her.The next day, Morales is upset that the Phantom was able to kill again with all the law officers out looking for him. In a nearby diner, Morales, Ramsey and the group talk to Dr. Kress, who says that the Phantom is apparently motivated by a strong sex drive and will probably not get caught. He also says that the killings are like a game of the Phantom. Morales asks the doctor if the killer is insane, in which Dr. Kress replies "oh, yes!" At a nearby table, an unseen man, (wearing the killer's boots and slacks) stands up and walks out of the diner unnoticed after he has apparently heard everything the officers were talking about.Back at the station, Morales talks to a man named Johnson, who says that he was held at gunpoint by a man claiming to have killed five people. Morales and Ramsey get a call about an armed man. They spot him speeding away from a store and chase him down. The man, Eddie, is arrested after they find that he is driving a stolen car. Johnson identifies him as the man with the gun. Under interrogation, Eddie says that he is the Phantom, but Morales does not believe him and correctly suspects that Eddie is just another nutcase who wants to confess to being the killer in order to gain publicity and fame for it.On Friday, May 3, Helen drives away after grocery shopping and is unknowingly followed by the unseen killer who is identified by his familiar boots. While she is at home in a remote farmhouse, her husband, Floyd, in the living room, is sitting in a armchair reading a newspaper when the Phantom walks up to the window and shoots him twice with a silenced pistol. Helen only hears the breaking glass and enters the living room to see Floyd fall out of his chair to the floor dead with two bullet wounds in the back of his head and neck. Helen runs to a phone to call the police when the killer bursts into the house through the front door and shoots Helen twice in the face. While the Phantom enters the living room to look at Floyd's dead body, Helen, despite being shot in her right cheek and shot through her open mouth, manages to crawl out of the house through the back door and stumbles into a cornfield. The Phantom follows her out with a pick axe. After a cat-and-mouse game of hiding in the cornfield, Helen gets to a nearby house and bangs on the door and windows yelling for help. A concerned farmer, armed with a shotgun, comes out to help her in. The killer, seeing the man with a gun, angrily flees.Another few weeks later, Ramsey and Morales get a call about an abandoned car that fits the description of the car Ramsey saw that rainy night. They find the car and they get some shotguns from their police car and run off into the woods to look for the Phantom. They find the Phantom walking around an old quarry, walking around with the hood still on him. Morales and Ramsey chase the Phantom through the woods and to railroad tracks where the Phantom jumps over the tracks and a moving train gets between them. Morales fires under the moving train and hits the killer in his left leg. The Phantom manages to stumble away into the woods on the other side of the tracks.Over the next few days, police officers and Bloodhound dogs search the woods and the nearby swamps, but the wounded killer is not found. Afterwards, the killings stop, but the fear continues on to this day. The voice-over narrator explains that no one ever found out what happened to the Phantom. | grindhouse film, murder, violence, cult, horror, sadist | train | imdb | null |
tt1097643 | Fifty Dead Men Walking | In the 1980s when the Irish civil conflict was at its most treacherous, 16-17 year old Martin McGartland was recruited by the British police to infiltrate and spy on the IRA. He lived his life under constant threat of exposure and subsequent guaranteed torture and death yet he continued because his information saved many lives. He enjoyed the buzz until one day he was discovered and had to escape against all odds. Inspired by a true story, to this day he is on the run.Marty McGartland, aged 16-17 street hustler from Ireland, living in the 1980s. He gets noticed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, but thinks their cruel justice is no good. The British want to use Marty as well, because of his connection to the community undetected. The British police want him to infiltrate and spy on the IRA. Marty decides to work for the police because of his IRA dislike. He soon forgets his political preferences when his powerful position takes over. Despite fearing that the IRA will find out about his spying, he builds up a new sense of self esteem. Afraid his family and friends will be murdered if they are informed, Marty starts to lead a double life. Even his new girlfriend Lara knows nothing of his work.Things start to take their toll when the British sell them out. They explain their system could fall down and reveal Marty was their bait all along. The IRA capture and torture Marty, but he is able to escape. His best friend and former British police colleague finds Marty and decides to help him hide. Marty knows the IRA will turn to his family and is forced to make a decision, saving himself or his beloved ones. | suspenseful, action, murder | train | imdb | null |
tt0109297 | Blink | A bar in which an Irish-sounding band called The Drovers (Sean C. Cleland, Craig Winston Damon, Michael Kirkpatrick & David Callahan) are playing music. A group of executive dudes is creating a bit of a mess. One of them gets cocky and tells the rest of his beer-drinking buds that he's is going to know that girl sexually, and he points to the young woman who's playing the fiddler. The rest of the men bet him twenty dollars that he won't be able to seduce the woman. The cocky man gets up and dances duck-style in front of the female player, who looks so lost in her music, that she doesn't even realise he's there. The cocky man grows wilder and wilder and he makes a full striptease in front of everybody, trying to impress her, reaching to the point when he shows her his ass... to no avail. Another female patron (Caryn Cheever) of the bar gets excited and starts throwing money to the cocky man, as though that were a strip nightclub and he were performing for her. The camera lens approaches the fiddler player, who is called Emma Brody (Madeleine Stower) and the audience can see that there's a kind of shroud over her blue eyes: she is blind, and that's why she didn't take any notice of the cocky man at all.The concert finishes and everybody is happy because the public had the best time of their lives. Her friend Candice (Laurie Metcalf) congratulates the band while they are packing their things into their van, especially Emma who drove everybody wild, but she says that her biggest fan is her dog Ralphie (Louie). On the underground train, we can see Ralphie on his harness, as a leading dog. A passenger (Kevin Mathews) pets Ralphie on his head saying "nice dog".Emma arrives to his flat in a bulding called "Flat Iron Building". She knows that the clerk, Mr Cuchetto (Mario Tanzi) is in the main lobby, although he tries to hide and doesn't say anything until she has acknowledged him. She sits in front of the TV while muching something and giving some to Ralphie. Doctor Ryan Pierce (Peter Friedman) phones her to tell her that they've finally found a doctor for her although it's Saturday night. The organs of the donor can't wait anymore.Things move fast as Emma is going to have her corneas implanted. Pierce fills up the form for her as it looks like the nurse (Renee Lockett-Lawson) is not very helpful.A man wakes up alongside a woman (Kate Buddeke) he doesn't seem to quite recapture. He dresses and leaves, steals the newspaper and a young boy (Dallas J. Crawford) asks him whether he's the new "Mr Whitney", to which he answers he's Santa Claus. To give rid of the child, he gives him some bucks.Emma has had surgery on only one eye. Nurse Bobby (Sam Sanders) and Emma crack a few jokes before taking her bandage off. She is nervous, and wants to be alone with the surgeon. Emma cries when she sees Pierce's face, although in a dizzy and distorted way. Light blinds her, but Emma can look at herself in the mirror, although her face feels distorted as well. Now, her left eye looks brown, but her right eye is still of that light veiled blue colour. Somebody knocks at her door, opens it but leaves without answering to her questions of who it was.Dr Pierce says that Emma can see, but that she isn't able to recognise what she sees quite well. Emma tells come in to Candice, but who enters is Dr Pierce. When she describes her lady visitor, Dr Pierce tells her that that was Candice, but that she brought the bunch of flowers the day before. Dr Pierce thinks that she may have a perceptual delay in recognition.Soon, Emma has her right eye performed surgery on. Soon, she is well enough to call on her family, with whom Ralphie has stayed all the time during Emma's hospital stay. There, a reporter, (Lia D. Mortensen) interviews her. Emma asks the reporter if she is pretty, and she answers that her boyfriend tells her she is. Emma seems to have low self-esteem.Emma comes back home with Ralphie, but as soon as she arrives to the stairs she lets him go free, and she goes afterwards on her own. She falls down because of her blurry eyesight. One neighbour, Valerie Wheaton (Joy Gregory) of her appears and tells her that she has slid a letter for her which got delievered to her home. Emma does the rest of the climbing up on her own.Back home, Ralphie stares at Emma's drunk behaviour: she throws a glass to her reflection and a slipper to the tv set. Emma goes to the door and sees a shadow which she thinks it must be the clerk. Somebody whispers "Emma, it's alright" and leaves.The following morning, Emma wakes up in half a stupor. She sees that the door to her apartment is open and goes to close it, when she sees a dangerous staring at her. She feels surprised and turns around, seeing the man staring back at her in her apartment. She leaves out a soft cry, but immediately she only sees the blurry images of the courtains and Ralphie barking at her. Emma bangs on Valerie's door, but nor she neither Mr Cuchetto open up their doors. Emma heads for the main door of her building. Even the face of an old bump (Les Podewell) looks scary.The police station is noisy and nobody has the time to sit and talk to her ordeal. So she decides to talk to Detective John Hallstrom (Aidan Quinn), who is munching on a doghnout. Aidan seems to be laughing at her, so she gets impatient and asks if cops do something or just sit around and drink coffee. John asks her if she drank something last night, and when she admits that she had drunk a lot of wine, he gets rid of her because she couldn't read a funny poster saying "Detectives do it under cover". She says she asked for him because of his voice. Leuetenant Mitchell (Brudce A. Young) arrives, and tells John to clean up his office space, but John leaves the task to Thomas Ridgely (James Remar), who was the cop which didn't have the time to listen to Emma first.On her following revision, Emma complains to Pierce that she feels like an idiot and that she looks like her mother. Pierce tells her that she is pretty.The bloody body of Valerie Wheaton appears on her bathtub. She was raped and strangled. The forensic doctor (Darryl Rocky Davis) feels disgusted at John's humour, questioning the dead boty about what happened. John knocks at Emma's door and they recognise each other immediately. Valerie used to have a lover whom she would call "baby". The man who said "Emma, it's alright", was not Mr Cachutto, as he had a different voice. The conversation ends with Emma asking him if he likes roses, because she can smell the scent. All the interrogation takes place at the light of some candles, so that Emma's eyes can't hurt her.John talks to Mitchell now that he has started to believe her. When Emma returns to her apartment, a cop opens the door for her. At the stairs, she confuses another cop with Valerie jumping in front of her with her toungue out. She also remembers herself as a child (Heather Schwartz), applying some lipstick when her mother (Marilyn Dodds Frank) appears and knocks her face in the mirror.Candice and Emma go see a basketball match in which Michael Jordan (Himself) is playing. They have a sexy conversation in which Emma says that, when she is having sex with a man, she can picture anyone she pleases in her mind. Meanwhile, the police focus on Valerie's necklace, a Greek-looking Catholic cross. All the cops give Hallstrom a hard time about the case and Emma.The Dovers - with Emma - play at the Metro, a huge venue which stays sold out. Emma has trouble playing because the images she sees confuse her, but tries to concentrate. At one point, she thinks she sees the man at her doorstep among the audience. She stops playing and tells Candice to call Hallstrom. She tries to identify the attacant among a series of suspects; at first, she thinks she has identified number 4, but then her sight clears and the man (Ed Clay) is nothing like the man she saw.Hallstrom is angry because she had said that her sight was better. He asks about her mother, but she refuses to comment on that. They have a conversation while having some coffee. Soon afterwards, Pierce can testify that Emma can now see and read. While walking down a corridor, Emma thinks she can recognise a man there, but then, there is nobody in the corridor. Emma leaves the hospital with Ralphie. Ralph acts weirdly, stopping, pulling from Emma backwards, and then running to a small pool of.. may be blood? Ralph barks, maybe at the underground train, maybe at a man who is in the parking lot. Ralph runs after him, barking, but the man runs away and another car drives over poor Ralphie. She tells the cops that Ralph could smell the man. Ralph is badly-hurt but alive.Now it's Mitchell who thinks that Emma is a dead-end for the case. John emphasizes that she saw him, so he visits her afterwards. Even a small lamp can hurt her eyes, and she admits that she saw Valerie and her father after they were dead. Emma goes mad and breaks every lightbulb to pieces. John pushes her against the wall, and it looks like there is some attraction between them.The parade of Saint Patrick's day. A cop, (Kevin D. Swerdlow), mentions to John that she plays the violin. He goers to listen to her at a bar, and somehow looks enraptured by her violin solo. Candice thinks that Hallstrom is good-looking, but he has to follow Emma going out with Frank. However, she kisses outside and then comes into her apartment alone. She realises that he's following her. John Hallstrom goes up to Emma's apartment, and they make love.A cop called Officer Crowe (Matt Roth) is waiting outside Emma's reading a newspaper in order to keep her safe and there's an ackward moment with Hallstrom. Still naked, Emma smells the roses. John and Emma attend a baseball match and end up making love again.Cut to Margaret Tattersall (Lucy Childs) talking endlessly on the phone, while her dog is barking outside. A man approaches from her back and attacks her, with a necklace similar to Valerie's held in his hands. Meanwhile, John and Emma are having breakfast and making love again, but a call interrupts them. John takes Emma to the police station, but Ridgeley asks him what she's doing there. John insists that she saw the murderer. Lt Mitchell reminds him that he can't discuss the case with anybody, and John says that he should take him out of the case.John goes to the Tattersalls' home, and there, the angry son Mark (Blake Whealy) is playing basketball because nobody wants to state clearly to him that his mother is dead. John finds a bunch of red roses in the floor, which was going to be a present from Mr Tattersall (Tim Monsion) to his wife. The widower points to a photograph of the family, and in the back, a priest (Don Forston) walks out. John sits in his car nervously biting his nails.Emma goes back to her apartment on her own. She opens up her wardrobe and there are two eyes painted on the full-length mirror. John shows a photograph of that to Ridgely. Emma and John argue, and she ends up punching him in the face. In the ensuing fight, a mirror gets broken to pieces so that Emma hurts one of her hands. She gets very angry and she tells him to "get the fuck away" and storms off. She goes to pick the underground train, but the station is empty.John runs after her but it's too late. Ridgely shouts to him that he's put her into danger and has jeopardized all the case. At the platform, Emma sees the shadow of a man approaching. She moves backwards, terrified. She jumps onto her train, but the man has jumped onto it as well. She starts to run in a panic. She cries "help" to several other female passengers, but nobody moves. It looks like this time it's really the man she saw. Emma stops when she says a girl with her face bloodied. The conductor (Jackie Samuel) approaches Emma, who has fainted. The man following her was Ridgely, because John had told him that Emma might be taking the underground.Emma goes to another check-out with Dr Pierce, who gives an ackward feeling to me washing his hands like crazy. Emma goes to the police station to talk to John, but Mitchell tells her that he's not there. Emma is about to leave, but she finally decides to talk to Lt Mitchell, stating that the murderer washes his hands as a surgeon would do. Meanwhile, John goes to the hospital and talks to the nurse who keeps the records (Mary Seibel) and gets the name of Leslie Davison, the blood donor for Emma's surgery. He got the clue from reading Emma's mail, after understanding that there was a mishap with Emma and Valerie's addresses. He tells the rest of cops that Leslie Davison's organs were to different people, and that Mrs Tattersall was one of them, Emma was another, and that Valerie was killed by mistake.Pierce insists to Emma that the donor's family wants to see her, because her father wants to know if the organs of Leslie changed the receptor's life. Emma kinda holds her violin, not wanting to listen to him. Dr Pierce can't even enter her apartment, as the watching cop is still outside. When Pierce is about to disappear, Emma opens the door.Mrs. Davison (Mary Ann Thebus) lets John check Leslie's belongings, kept in a cartonbox. Hallstrom sees that, among them belongings, there is a Catholic cross necklace, similar to the one found on Valerie's body. Crowe takes Emma to Mrs. Davison's and he waits outside, putting the car onto a car wash. Emma tries to visit Mrs Davison, but she is not home. She leaves, and tells Crowe, who accompanied her but waited outside, not to go away, because she wanted to go home. However, the man Emma had seen is inside the police car, having killed Crowe. Emma tries to run away, but he takes her, closing the rail door.Hallstrom and Ridgely are talking to two nurses (Valerie Spencer and Kathryn Miller) who are able to describe the man who came looking for the child who received a donation. One of the nurses recognises the name of Neal Booker (Paul Dillon), who used to be very angry and upset.The guy looks at Emma in her eyes and talks to her as if she were Leslie, commenting that her eyes look different, but that eyes are the windows of the soul. Emma talks to him, trying to appease him: she is trapped inside the enclosed parking space. She picks Crowe's gun from him and shoots - however, her eyes had misguided her once again, as she has shot to the place where Booker used to stand, but is not standing in anymore.Neal Booker laughs, and talks to her while moving continuously. He tells her that he's closer than she thinks, and that she wouldn't even notice him if he were standing by her side, but Emma can guide herself by the voice and by what little she sees inside the garage, and can shoot quite close to him. She shoots the lights, so that he will be at a disadvantage, not her, and Neal Booker starts to whistle.Emma moves out of her cover while the police siren's long weil is approaching. Neal attacks her from behind, and Emma shouts "I'm here" and hides under a car, but with all the racket of cars and police people approaching, nobody seems to listen to her cries for help.The alarm of a car goes off when Emma pushes Neal against a car during their fight. The sound can be heard outside, but nobody listens to it. Hallstrom and Ridgely get into Neal Booker's flat, in which there are still pictures and drawings of Leslie Davison. As nobody is there, both cops leave the place. Outside, dumb Hallstrom makes a comment "somebody stop that noise", about the alarm car. The next thing they hear, Emma is shooting Neal Booker, who was approaching her menathingly, telling her that she was not good enough.Emma has killed Neal. The cops enter, and the alarm of the car suddenly shuts itself off! Another cop takes her out of the place.Mitchell looks at Emma with something similar to admiration. She leaves after having given her declaration out at the police station. Ridgely offers to take her home, but when she is about to get in, she notices dirty John with Ralph. Ridgely looks jealous when she leaves with them.John and Emma kiss.Cut to Emma playing with the Drovers. End credits.---written by KrystelClaire | mystery, neo noir, murder | train | imdb | null |
tt0099108 | Basket Case 2 | Duane Bradley (Kevin van Hentenryck) has survived to the fall from the condo where he used to live with his deformed brother. The newscaster (Judy Grafe) gives the description of handsome Duane but his brother is so ugly! Both lie at hospital, where the nurse feels disgusted. The nurse called Sherri (Alexandra Auder) doesn't realise that Duane has left his bed because she's so busy flirting with the police officer (Brian Fitzpatrick) at the door. Duane picks up his brother and they leave the hospital room killing the cop. The newswoman wants to talk to Duane and his brother Belial for five minutes, but another cop won't let her do so. Duane and his brother leave the building when two ladies appear with a truck lorry to help them out.At the ladies' home, Duane dreams with a whole family of deformed people. The ladies are Granny Ruth (Annie Ross), who is a kind of Duane's aunt 7 times removed, and Susan (Heather Rattray), her granddaughter. They put Belial in the nursery room. Ruth wants to give shelter and safety to him, saying that she heard everything about him from his mother, and that there are other like him. Ruth and Susan bring a basket so that Belial can live there. Apart from that, she tells him that as this is Ruth's home, they will have to live by her rules. They take Belal to the penthouse, where a crowd of Belial-like people are, among them Lorenzo, a tenor-voice huge head and mouth with almost no body to be seen. There, Belial meets Eve hidden under a blanket, who for a year wasn't able to talk to anybody, so maybe he can help to bring her out of her shell.Lou (Jason Evers) an editor, wants a journalist called Marcie Elly (Kathryn Meisle) to investigate where Duane and Belial are. Ruth goes to see a man who announces a monster, a mystery of the nature in a fair, but it's only a fake machier-paper home project. However, the journalist finds some alive person in a red liquid. Ruth works as a kind of psychiatrist for Belial, trying to convince him that "ripping faces off people is not in his best interest".Duane walks with a limp so he makes use of a walking stick. He sees deformed people doing things around the home, and he goes to talk to Susan in the kitchen, while she's organizing the groceries she's just bought. Duane remembers how his mother decided to separate Belial, attacked to his body, and left his brother for death.Duane feels that he's not like Belial or any of the other inhabitants of the home. Duane wants to talk to him. He discovers that Belial and Eve are caressing each other. He tells Belial that he wants to live free, join the outside world and leave him with Eve.Susan opens the door to the journalist called Marcie, who talks to Ruth. Duane enters, and the journalist recognises him, even though Ruth calls him "Michael". Duane won't leave until they are all safe at home. Ruth talks to "her children", urging them to fight.The photographer enters Ruth's. The monsters attack him... and take plenty of photos of him being killed. She tells her private detective friend Phil (Ted Sorel) about Duane. The detective later talks to Duane at Clarcy's Bar. All the monsters are at the bar, with masks, and as Duane states "we -Duane and the detective- are the freaks, the ones who don't belong here-". The detective runs away with a gun, but Belial kills him as he has killed the bartender.Up to now Susan, Ruth and Duane didn't know the name of the journalist, Marcie Elly, but now they know it because Belial took the wallet from the detective's pocket. Marcie is waiting for him. She was having a shower, and she starts receiving phonecalls, but nobody answers. Duane arrives to tell Marcie that Belial wants to give her an interview. All the monsters appear, but no Belial: he's not in his usual oblong basket. He jumps from the dirty clothes' basket at Mercie's bathroom. Belial doesn't kill Marcie, but causes her to become a freak with a disfigured face as well.The freaks are then seen celebrating a huge fraternity dinner together. Duane loves Susan, so he wants to leave with her. Susan tells him she's not normal. Meanwhile, Belial and Eve also kiss, they have passionate sex.Susan tells Duane her "particularity": she's been pregnant for the last six years, but the baby doesn't want to be born, so he'll stay at her womb until he decides to leave. Duane is so distraught that he pushes Susan out of the window, killing her. All the rest of the monsters go crazy, because Susan fell on top of their dinner table. Duane gets so distraught that he picks Belial up and sews him to his body again. | comedy, grindhouse film, murder, cult, violence, insanity, satire | train | imdb | This first sequel to the original "Basket Case" sees the return of Duane (Kevin VanHentenryck, who is in all of the Basket Case movies), and this flick introduces Annie Ross as Granny Ruth, who gives a memorable performance, and returns for "Basket Case 3: The Progeny".
This second entry in the series is not as gory as the first at all, but it has better acting, more freaks, and a cheesy attempt at a love story between Duane and Susan (Heather Rattray).
As far as sequels are concerned, this tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy from the original film's director Frank Henenlotter is pretty good.
The make-up effects are really good and there is just the right amount of humor and horror combined in the design of the 'freaks' that it makes for a highly entertaining flick.
Each resident takes on their own personality and even though they later turn murderous the viewer finds themselves not only sympathizing with Duane, his brother and the rest of the freaks, but you will actually find yourself rooting them on as they seek revenge against several reporters from a sleazy tabloid who threaten to expose the Bradleys as well as a sleazy old man who runs a 'freak show' and falsely claims to have captured Belail.
Duane and his deformed Siamese twin brother Belial survived the fall from their hotel window in the original, to wake up in a hospital.
To make matters worse is that their hideaway is put at risk a by reporter who is after a story about the twins.After being surprised by how good the original was, I was a bit disappointed with this sequel as it felt like a dumb down comic adventure.
So the freaks community been chased just for their "differences" from the mass seems to be a more intense and "intellectual" reading key for this movie, much more than you could have been thinking.Crazy and really good special effects, technically much better than the average low budget movie, funny plot: it's got much more than you could expect from a movie of this kind!I can't say if I prefer this one ore the next one, but sure this two are very different from the first Basket Case: here you will find true comedy painted in a gory way, but no suspense or thrills!.
Duane and his mutant brother Belial are back in this first sequel to the ever-classic tongue-in-cheek series.For this go-round, Duane and Belial escape from a hospital (after Belial makes sure a few of the staff members are missing their faces)and find refuge in the house of Granny Ruth (Annie Ross), who lives in a spacious house which cares for "differently abled" um, "persons." Some of the "people" in Granny Ruth's house have animal like features, such as claws and gills (even Belial, in a masterfully done puppeteering and make-up venue, is simply a hideous head with evil eyes, very sharp teeth, and two arms with claw-like fingernails extending from the hands).Belial never really speaks.
Of course, director Hennenlotter probably intended this, sense it sets up room for another sequel."Basket Case 2" is wicked fun!
The first "Basket Case" movie looked like it was made on a shoe-string budget.
Not in the least of course due to the later success and cult following the first movie received.Kevin Van Hentenryck is still as horrible as ever before in his acting but they cleverly resolved this by putting in way more characters this time, so the entire focus of the movie this time isn't just upon Duane and Belial.
It also lets Duane act more as a psycho this time, which also allows Van Hentenryck to do his bad overacting and make him get away with it.The story is of course silly but it also still is a notch up when compared to the first movie.
I really like the first Basket Case back in (1982), as it was very Gory also really funny, a lot of Funnow they are back again, this movie start of by showing, what happened at the end of The Basket Case, Soon start from the ending of the first movieThe twins are now main headline on the news , Granny Ruth and her Grandaugter are watching the news and know who these two are, as they rush to the hospital, Duane and Belial break out of the hospital after he killed one of the doctors.
Then Ruth hide them away from outside world, with her family, then they find out that, Beiial is not one of a kinda as there are others like him in her house, that she takes care of.Duane now feel like a normal person, wants to be a normal person and wants to leave but he ends up getting seen by the Reporter, now he has to stay, as he put the rest of the Freaks in danger, of being found out.This movie is not as Great, as the cult classic Basket Case (1982).
The film picks up right where the first one left of with Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) being attacked by his mutant brother and falling out the window of his Times Square flophouse.
She brings the duo back to her mansion where she houses a variety of freaks.Frank Henenlotter's follow-up is obviously a bigger affair with a nice budget from James Glickenhaus, but this sequel fails to pack the sleazy punch of the first film.
if you've seen the first movie you basically know what to expect from this one...more revenge from the brothers bradley...but this time they are joined by a house full of new friends to help them!!very fun movie and worth a look for any horror fan!.
I have respect for any movie that can make you laugh, make you sick, make you a little nervous AND inspire concern all at the same time, especially considering it probably cost a total of 50 cents to produce, from the look of things.Everyone remembers how Duane's brother was a mutant lump cut off and left for dead in the garbage, then Duane tossed the whole mess in a basket and they became a homicidal tag-team.
The story continues with the brothers being rescued by an older lady and her daughter who run a home for outcast mutants, and the complications that follow.This film is a lot like Tod Browning's "Freaks"; it isn't "horror," really, the story is told from the point of view of the monsters, who are far more interesting and poignant than the evil people around them.
Oh yeah, the house is also chock full of dozens of friendly freaks, including a female version of Belial named Eve.This entry certainly has a much different feel than the original BASKET CASE, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
This time around, Duane and his deformed brother find shelter with "Granny Ruth", a woman who has dedicated her life to take care of those "freaks" that otherwise find no place in society.Just as with its predecessor, the movie focuses on the theme of social rejection and "trying to fit in".
Comparatively speaking, Duane and his brother play less of an important role this time, as the story branches out to include more characters and more "freaks".Go and watch it if you liked the first installment of the series..
Basket Case 2 take off right after the event of the first one and this time it way more disturbing and wacky than ever.The acting definitely improve a lot with characters like Bradley and the new comer Granny Ruth the owner of a mansion for freak people.The gore is more bloody and more fun than the first one.There many memorable scene like the brother talk which give me the creeps but the real showstealer is the last 10 minute of total WTF just happened moments?I enjoy this movie very much but still the way their handle Bradley emotion when he went from a chill dude to a more f*ck up version of his brother is just so wrong.
Overall, though, BASKET CASE 2, while not as memorable as its predecessor, is still a very entertaining flick that feels more horror than comedy, though there are some mildly humorous moments, but most of that is left to the third film.
If you liked the first film, you should find many things to enjoy with this very entertaining sequel..
oh yeah also Belial finds a freak that looks like him and they have some awkward stump bumping which becomes important for the 3rd film.
yes, it is a good film not amazing id say its an improvement on the original in a way as the violence is much better and the budget is much higher.
It just has to be seen to give it any justice, because those designs are hard to describe.Storywise then "Basket Case 2" was adequate, although I can't really say that I overly enjoyed the collection of freaks much, it just added a very silly comedy element to the movie.
The story is about Duane and Belial coming to seek refuse with Granny Ruth, after having escape hospitalization, where they join with a group of freakishly deformed creatures.
But news of their whereabouts and the possibility of exposing the freaks safe haven is looming around the corner.Kevin Van Hentenryck is back in the role as Duane, and does what he does, like it or not.I found "Basket Case 2" to be treading a slippery slope and it just took a turn for the worse and went in the wrong direction.
Basket Case 2 (1990) ** (out of 4)Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) and his deformed brother managed to survive the ending of the previous film.
Once at their new home the two try to settle in with other freaks but a pesky news woman (Judy Grafe) won't leave them alone.BASKET CASE wasn't the greatest movie ever made but it contained a certain atmosphere and a certain look at the sleazy side of New York City that it was impossible to ignore.
This sequel had a much bigger budget, is a lot less sleazy and has a completely different look but it's unique enough to where it's entertaining in its own way.
Director Frank Henenlotter certainly doesn't like making "normal" movies and this one here has enough strangeness for two films.Again, if you're expecting the look or feel of the original then it's best that you don't even bother with this sequel.
What I enjoyed most is that they try to make this sequel pick up exactly where the original left off, which isn't something a lot of films try.
There, Belial and Duane get a ride from Granny Ruth (Annie Ross) and Susan (Heather Rattray) to their home, which is a house of other outlandishly deformed outcasts.
Turns out the first chance Duane finds love, he wants to sleep with the girl (just like the original film).
Even after Belial finds love, he continues to kill people (just like the original film).
And although the design of Belial has changed, he at least has better movement from before and doesn't howl at ear blistering decibels like the original movie.Robert M.
And because the effects look better, it doesn't seem as obvious that Belial was originally a puppet and now more like a live creature.
BASKET CASE 2 points towards being a successful sequel, featuring as it does a storyline that goes elsewhere instead of copying the first, but sadly come the ending you realise virtually nothing has happened of interest throughout.The problem with the movie isn't the ingredients, which are more than adequate, but the narrative.
Everyone's favourite surgically-separated Siamese-twins, Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) and Belial, return for more freakish fun in Basket Case 2, in which the brothers escape from hospital (after their near fatal fall in the first film) and find sanctuary at the home of 'Granny Ruth' (Annie Ross), who runs a haven for the physically deformed.
Meanwhile, a reporter working for the gutter press is hoping for a major scoop by tracking down the brothers' whereabouts...Frank Henenlotter's sequel to his demented debut Basket Case once again displays a very unique vision and some incredibly dark humour, but made on a bigger budget, and away from the the original's 42nd Street locale, it lacks the trashiness, sleaziness and general grubbiness that gave the original film much of its charm.Also serving to weaken the film somewhat is the collection of grotesque freaks that reside at Granny Ruth's place, who include a buck-toothed, floppy eared creature, a frog-headed man, a living gargoyle, and one monstrosity with teeth as big as planks; these creations are inventive, but way too silly looking and childish in their mannerisms to be unsettling.Fortunately the positives outweigh the negatives: the cast pitch their performances perfectly, imbuing the film with just the right level of deranged lunacy; there are some inspired touches of twisted humour (gotta love the disabled badge on Granny Ruth's van and Belial's hilarious sex scene); and Henenlotter manages to deliver quite a few effectively macabre moments, my favourite bits being a meeting between Duane and a reporter in an Irish bar that doesn't go as planned for the newsman, a photographer's unexpected encounter with the freaks in Granny Ruth's attic, Duane coming face-to-face with a 'baby' that refuses to be born, and a suitably disturbing finale that sees the psychotic siblings joined together once again..
they are played more for chuckles and giggles than scares.SEMI-SPOILERS: This is a fun little movie about Belial and Dwayne (who didn't really die in the first one, rather ended up in the hospital) finding their way to a house of freaks, where they fit in.
He falls in love, as does Belial.Along the way they get entangled with a tabloid reporter who wants to expose this house of freaks.
i have yet to see the first but want to very soon this sequel was just plain bizarre but in a good way it had some neat effects hideous deformities this is well made on a low budget and surprisingly pretty entertaining it has a bizarre love making scene with Duane's brother and another person it also has lots of funny dialog the acting is good Keith Van Hentenryck is great here as Duane loved his crazy performance near the end Annie Ross is very cool here i liked her a lot she can play a good crazy person too!
8 years after the original low-budget classic (better say class-sick!) Basket Case, Hennenlotter delivers a sequel less brutal and less gore
but more absurd and imaginative.
Together with a jolly bunch of freaks, Duane fights vulture newspaper people and Belial even finds true love up in Ruth's attic
Basket Case 2 is a sleazy and trashy romp that gives a totally new meaning to the expression "bad taste".
Meanwhile, Belial falls in love with a female freak such as himself as Duane falls in love with a seemingly normal young woman, who assists Ruth, named Susan(Heather Rattray).Henenlotter's oddball sequel to his cult hit is really designed for the kind of crowd with a twisted sense of humor, not an audience at large.
I did feel the ending takes things a bit too far, but it's more of a personal opinion..Duane's reaction to Susan's "flaw" and how he decides to "re-join" with his brother maybe pushes the limits of bad taste.
As a longtime fan of horror films any chance to see iconic figures return to the screen in a movie that is as good as the original is a great thing.
That isn't the case with BASKETCASE 2.The first film told the story of Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck) and his brother Belial.
Instead the pair have survived the fall and been taken away by Granny Ruth (Annie Ross) and her daughter Susan (Heather Rattray) to a home she runs especially for people like Duane and Belial.
However,I can tell you this is one of the best b movie horrors I have seen in a long time.Basket case 2 is what evil dead 2 was to evil dead.
In the last film (despite the low budget effects) Belial looked good in a cheesy way.
Switching off of that subject I would like to say that this film did have a higher budget and it was good that Kevin Van Hentenryck returned to play as Duane in this movie and that the budget was a lot higher in this film and the production value is noticeably better.
Whatever.What I really hate about Basket Case 2 is that it's like a real movie.
After the opening credits which are over a cool black and white drawing of Belial where he looks totally different to how he looks in the actual film, Basket Case 2 picks up right where the original Basket Case (1982) left off with Duane Bradley (Kevin Van Hentenryck, who returns for this sequel) and his deformed mutant Siamese twin brother lying in Times Square in front of the Broslin Hotel having just fell from their room window.
In their mansion and hideaway for various freaks, Granny Ruth Smoeller (Annie Ross) and her granddaughter Susan (Heather Rattray) watch the news broadcasts and decide they should help Duane and Belial.
Back at their mansion in New Jersey Ruth and Susan take both Duane and Belial in, make them feel welcome, show them around and introduce them to the other assorted freaks who reside there.
However, Duane, Belial, Ruth and the rest of the freaky residents aren't going to let a snooping reporter expose them and plan to stop her and anyone else she has told, by whatever means necessary!Written and directed by Frank Henenlotter who was also responsible for the original, and like the original I really didn't think too much of it.
I will not watch the next movie Basket Case 3, it is terrible, I don't know why some people say it is a comedy.. |
tt0080520 | Cheech and Chong's Next Movie | As the movie opens, Cheech & Chong are siphoning gas from a tow truck to fill the tank of their "borrowed" car. As they drive away, Chong rolls and lights up a joint, igniting the gas fumes and causing an explosion in the car. Cheech is dropped off at a movie studio to ask a girlfriend for clean clothes, claiming his state was caused by rescuing a baby from a fire. Meanwhile, Chong returns the car to their prudish neighbor, resulting in a confrontation as the neighbor rants. Chong returns his sentiments by shooting exhaust fumes out of the house window, killing the neighbor's rose bushes. After smoking up, Chong plugs in his guitar and starts wailing away loudly, annoying the entire neighborhood. Cheech arrives, barely managing to pull the power on the amplifier. Cheech drives Chong to pick up a urine sample for his probation officer (last time, he used an unwashed mayonnaise jar; this time, his sister's urine, and she's pregnant!). While driving down the street, Cheech swerves the van causing the urine to splash all over Chong. Chong pulls out a large bag of what appears to be cocaine, refusing to share until Cheech asks to just "smell" it. Chong shoves the bag in Cheech's face, revealing it to be a bag of his laundry soap. Cheech grabs and drinks from the urine sample, spits it out, and Chong hands the urine to him again! The next morning, Cheech awakens to find the van has been stolen. The phone rings, Chong answers and hands it to Cheech, only to find that Cheech has been fired and that his employer has retrieved the van. The day continues as the guys go to the welfare office causing a ruckus as Cheech attempts to fornicate with one of the office workers on her office floor. Later, Cheech invites the worker over the house, practically pushing Chong out the front door. Upon finding that Cheech's cousin (Red) is in town, Cheech sends Chong to meet with Red. Chong finds Red arguing in a hotel lobby with Pee Wee Herman over an unpaid bill only to discover that Red is trying to get back his large duffel bag, stuffed full with marijuana buds. The two break into another room through a window, make their way to Red's room, and successfully grab Red's luggage. Meanwhile, Pee Wee has called the police and while leaving, Red records the police sirens and bullhorn comments on his boombox. The two end up at a brothel and, as they're leaving, Red plays the police sounds on his boombox, emptying the brothel completely, including a tied-up girl. She takes them to the home of her "trick" and before long, all of them, save Cheech, end up in a comedy club. Meanwhile, Cheech has fallen asleep waiting for Donna, the office worker, dreaming vividly of her. Back at the comedy club, Pee Wee Herman shows up and a riot ensues. As Red & Chong leave, Chong complains that they left the herb behind. Red takes Chong to one of his marijuana fields to get more with the police in hot pursuit. The police set off the booby-traps as Red and Chong are abducted by aliens. Back at the house, Donna shows up while Cheech is dreaming that the neighbor has interrupted his fun. He shouts out in his sleep "Get out! Get the f*** out, you f*** a**hole!" Donna, thinking he's yelling through the door at her, leaves angrily. Cheech falls back asleep, continuing to dream. Chong appears in the dream as a warlord and, upon awakening, realizes that Chong is now home, wearing a horned helmet, and holding a vial of "space coke." Cheech samples the coke and goes into a rage, tearing a hole in the side of the house and doing the same to the neighbor's house. The movie ends with Cheech & Chong flying high into the air to the great doobie in the sky. | humor, adult comedy | train | imdb | Hey, I grew up on Cheech and Chong films.
This is probably the second best of the lot, closely following "up in smoke".If you don't like Cheech Marin or Tommy Chong, this movie probably isn't for you.
If you like Tommy Chong in that 70's show, you will most likely like this movie.
And if you have any interest in Paul Reubins in his pre-pee wee herman years, this is the movie for you.The story isn't much, but it has a semblance of a story to keep things moving fairly smoothly- unlike some other Cheech and Chong films.
This movie is less a variety show than later Cheech and Chong films.
And most fans of that 70's show will probably like this movie.Go watch this movie and Up in Smoke now!!.
A typical romp through Cheech and Chong's reality which includes drugs, singing, more drugs, cars and driving, even more drugs, Pee Wee, aliens, gasoline, laundry, stand up comedy, surprisingly more drugs and SPACE COKE !!.
It is not as coherent or plausible as Up in Smoke but it still is incredibly funny, without becoming as strange as Nice Dreams.
Also funny is Cheech's song (Mexican-Americans) and Chong's follow up song.
Another notable scene is the welfare office scene with Jones (human noise machine), from the Police Academy series, and the old laughing man.
Second film starring the Cheech and Chong duo..
Cheech & Chong's Next Movie (1980) was the second film to star to pot loving duo of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong.
One day, Cheech wants to get his freak on so he tries to get Chong out of the house.
Just watch CHEECH & CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE to find out!!Tommy Chong takes over the directorial reigns for the sequel.
Funny but not as good as the first film.
But Cheech and Chong fans will enjoy it.
If you love this movie, you have to watch the edited version the next time it's on Comedy Central!.
Anyway, instead of the marijuana which Cheech and Chong are supposed to have in their possession, they are said to have diamonds!
Not they're best, but still gives a debut for Pee Wee. Richard Cheech Marin and Thomas Chong's (or really Cheech and Chong) Next Movie doesn't match up to the original and best (Up In Smoke), but it is still funny.
A new plot has Chong taking care of Cheech's weird, blond cousin (also played by Cheech), while they have hijinks stirring with the real Cheech waiting for a date.
A little flat at times, but it delivers the goods in spots, primarily in Paul Reubens (credited here as the hotel man but sounds and acts like a early Pee Wee) with his first role cameo.
So I decided to see what would be on at 1:00 in the morning and Cheech & Chong's Next Movie was being aired so I checked it out.I've seen a number of their films and while they aren't the greatest comedies ever made they are much better than what is coming out these days.
The characters that Richard Marin and Tommy Chong have created are so likable despite their many vices.
Of course, L.A. has always been a crazier city than Ottawa.In Next Movie, Cheech and Chong (unrelated to the characters of Pedro De Pacas and Anthony "Man" Stoner from Up In Smoke) are basically doing their thing in L.A., trying to find work and later go on Welfare.
It's pretty much a "Day In The Life" of two stoners in L.A. in the first half of the film.In the second half, Cheech announces to Chong that he has a hot date and needs Chong to clear out as he plans to clean up their dumpy bungalow.
He tells Chong to go see his cousin Red (also played by Cheech).
And it is the Mary-Jane that sets them on a wild adventure through the city.While the film isn't as laugh-as-loud as the first, there are plenty of outlandish moments, such as the antics of characters at the Welfare Office or seeing Cheech & Chong steal gasoline for their car.
A good soundtrack is also offered.While Up In Smoke and Nice Dreams are the better films, Next Movie is still quite good.
This movie is fun to watch , doesnt have much of a plot (well, there isn't a plot), but there are good jokes and situations that you will laugh at.
The basic storyline is Cheech is trying to have a nice date, while Chong is partying with Cheech's cousin (They smoke dope , go in a music store, a massage parlor, a comedy club, and even go into someones house they don't even know!
One of Cheech and Chong's best movies.
The part where Chong is on stage trying to re-tell a joke Cheech told earlier is classic!
Cheech and Chong are now sharing accommodation in a condemned building, while their next door neighbour constantly tells them what he thinks of them.
Their follow up to "Up In Smoke" sees the risible doped up duo slumming it out again in some zany comical episodes in "Next Movie".
Just like the gags do, the characters come and go with one very memorable performance from comedian Paul Reubens as a pipsqueak hotel clerk and another from Sy Kramer as their uptight neighbour Mr. Neatnik.
Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong work of each other naturally well with ace timing as the bumbling, carefree potheads Cheech and Chong.
I've only caught the first three films of the series and even though I think this one is the lesser of the three (the others being "Up In Smoke" and "Nice Dreams") it still has its fare share of unexpected laughs.
Second of Cheech and Chongs drug trilogy is easily the worst of the 3, but not incredibly bad, with guaranteed laughs for fans of the duo.
As with the other movies, the story is almost non-existent, and just there to provide the basis for a lot of gags and laughs.
This has the funnist jokes out of all the Cheech & Chong flicks.
Well this movie is pretty good and great to rent when you want to see a good classic.
The best Cheech & Chong movie so far!!
Of all the Cheech and Chong this is most certain the best so far.
Cheech loses his job and gets his welfare clerk girl Donna in trouble.
Cheech's cousin Red (Cheech Marin) can't pay his hotel bill and the clerk (Paul Reubens) is holding his luggage.
Cheech and Chong Strike Again.
The two stoners (Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong) and their friends go through another series of crazy, drug-influenced misadventures.Almost everyone agrees that this second Cheech and Chong film is not as good as the first ("Up In Smoke").
Still fun and funny, but not the cultural milestone of the first film.Where this film excels is in the casting of Paul Reubens, Phil Hartman, Elvira, Edie McClurg and the Groundlings.
And, before the Pee-Wee Herman movie did it, the use of the song "Tequila".
Cheech and Chong undergo several adventures at: A movie set,their house,a neighbor's house,the welfare office,a hotel,a brothel,a music store,a rich girl's house,a comedy club,the ultimate weed field,and a ufo!!
Cheech plays two roles, himself, and his red-headed party animal cousin Red. Chong is wonderfully deadpan, and Pee-Wee Herman shows up in the hotel and the comedy club!
The second movie featuring the stoner duo has them continue their goofy adventures.
"Cheech & Chong's Next Movie" is one cool litany of silliness!
I understand that a heavily edited version appears on TV; like hell I'll watch an edited version of Cheech & Chong.
A really funny one.Along with the main stars, the movie also has Evelyn Guerrero, Edie McClurg, Paul Reubens (as Pee-Wee Herman for the very first time) and Cassandra Peterson (sorry, not as Elvira).Yes, it's very much a period piece, but how can you not die laughing at what C&C do?.
The opening sequence alone is worth the cost of admission, as Cheech and Chong drag that big ol garbage can across the parking lot, filled with gas.
I watched this film recently and it holds up, being just as funny upon each viewing.
When you see the opening scenes with Cheech & Chong trying to siphon gas from a car, losing most of it because of a milk carton clog and the rest of it from reckless spillage, you know this film is going to be different.
This brain-dead character is the epitome of boredom, and when left to his own devices he invariably ends up revving his motorcycle inside the house, making as much electric guitar noise as is theoretically possible, and consistently annoying the neighbors.The second part of the movie, unfortunately, lapses into a series of mediocre setpieces, featuring Cheech's cousin Red (actually Cheech Marin himself) wandering through hotels, nightclubs, and the Sunset Strip.
The movie then just gets bizarre rather than funny.This film is certainly the best Cheech & Chong movie and is is good for a few good belly laughs, but they are a little bit few and far between.
This is definitely a stoners-only movie, and even then there are some scenes that are appalling.
So, basically, don't watch this movie if you don't like marijuana.
In fact, everyone in the movie except for Cheech and Chong is pretty much non-existent.
This reminded me of my favorite stoner movie of all time, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in some ways - but not the good ones.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate this movie, and there ARE some laugh-out-loud moments indeed.
So, since most of the movie is based on gags that revolve around this, I didn't find much of it funny.
And I usually like stoner movies.Now believe me when I say, you have to be completely blasted to sit through this.
Because the whole movie itself seems like a dream.
There are some very cringeworthy moments in the movie, and most of them courtesy of Cheech.
Chong is a bit more interesting, civilized and leveled character, and the best scenes all involve him.
So it all depends on your point of view really.I guess this is a movie to be enjoyed really really wasted, when you don't want to think at all, and with stoned friends who might have seen it before a couple of times.
The only problem is, your night will probably have been more fun than this movie.Up in Smoke is a lot better, this is for C&C aficionados only.
One of Cheech & Chong's best.
If your a heavy Cheech fan you may be a little disappointed because he sees limited action in this movie.
Disappointing Follow Up. Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (1980)** (out of 4)This follow up to UP IN SMOKE really doesn't have any plot but just a bunch of gags dealing with Cheech and Chong getting into various bits of trouble and yes, most of it deals with pot.
CHEECH AND CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE is a surprisingly lame and tame movie that hasn't aged very well at all.
I remember watching this back in the day and thinking it was at least a middle ground C&C movie but when viewed today I have to wonder if I was smoking something myself.
Even some of the opening bits aren't nearly as funny as one would hope for but if a gun was at my head I'd say that the pee and bag of "cocaine" would be the best of the film.
Needless to say, both Cheech and Chong are very good in their roles and we also get a fun performance by Paul Reubens.
I guess fans of the comedy duo will want to see everything the group did but there's no question that this here isn't one of their best..
I first saw this film 10 years ago or so, and I still crack up every time I watch it.
The jokes perfectly lampoon the pothead lifestyle, far better than latter day knockoffs like Half-Baked attempt to.There isn't a plot, so to speak; the film is more of a collection of various skits; as the films protagonists wander around Los Angeles in their legendary haze.
Many people cite Up In Smoke as C&C's best work, but I would have to say that Next Movie is superior.So if you're in the mood for an hour and half of belly laughs, light up, tune in, and let your mind float away =)Oh, and FREE TOMMY CHONG!.
This was stupid funny movie..
Cheech and Chong are the dopiest wasted guys ever...
Now Cheech is a sellout working on kids movies.....
This movie is like far out man I mean its like ..
(man) That's what came to mind as I watched this movie, Man!
Cheech Y Chong seem to be having fun, and I had fun, too.
Cheech and Chong are back but this time as themselves not as Pedro DePacas and Man. Paul Ruebens a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman also stars in this film.
Cheech also plays his redheaded wild eyed loud and noisy Cousin Red who takes Chong a really wild night through Downtown Los Angeles.
Cheech and Chong gave it there best shot with this film but did not hit hit the bullseye.
If you look at the neighborhood that Cheech and Chong live in during the day shots you will notice that it is none other than the Universal Studios backlot.
Paul Ruebens plays a stuckup snobby Hotel Clerk who at night becomes comedian Pee Wee Herman.
The big bag of weed storyline got changed for Comedy Central tv and the new storyline is a big bag of diamonds that aliens come to Earth for, therefore figuring in the U.F.O. scenario at the end of the movie in the Marijuana field.
Anyway thats about all I can say about Next Movie except that it could have been better if C&C stuck with Pedro and Man..
The bag that "Red" drops to Chong has diamonds in it instead of marijuana, but the conversation still remains the same ("...it's worth ~$3000/lb").
Cheech and Chong are now sharing accommodation in a condemned building, while their next door neighbor constantly tells them what he thinks of them.
While, Chong is lazing about, Cheech has got himself a job and also a girlfriend.
While, Chong is lazing about, Cheech has got himself a job and also a girlfriend.
So, Cheech kicks Chong out of the house to have some fun with his cousin Red who's in town.
So, Cheech kicks Chong out of the house to have some fun with his cousin Red who's in town.
This is Their follow up to "Up In Smoke" another classic stoner movie.
if you are a Stoner you will love this movie like another Cheech & Chong movie its totally worth watching and getting for your collection..
there's nothing like seeing a full-on stoner film in an Air Force theater to really appreciate its finer points..
As C & C's "Next Movie" it marked a fairly big shift in quality from "Up in Smoke".
Chong really seemed to have learned his craft in the interim and the pacing and action in this movie are very different (and much slicker).It's hard to describe what this movie is "about" because it's really not about anything - just a simple, but incredibly convoluted story involving one or two days in the life of our heroes, with the humorous addition of Cheech's alter ego, Cousin Red. While Cheech sits home waiting for his date Donna to finally show, Chong and red have an amazing adventure with a bunch of random people they find along the way (and Red's duffel bag filled with 20 pounds of weed - that red thinks is worth
I'm not sure why this rather strange film works, but it does...the world is presented in a light way, the interactions are humorous, the characters are bizarre (in fact, Cheech, Chong and Red manage to come out looking like the most "normal" folks in the story) yet all seem to fit in this strange world somehow.
If you like stoner humor, or even if you don't, this movie can be a fun watch if you happen to be in the right mood.
The thin line between stupid and humor gets crossed many times in this movie - but there are enough genuinely funny moments to make it a decent watch..
You can't set your sights too high when the first words that are heard in the movie are those coming from Chong saying, "This is bullsh*t".
Seeing that Tommy Chong directed this movie, I'll take him at his word.
The thing is, although I would agree that 'Next Movie' is largely bullsh*t, it doesn't really matter to Cheech & Chong as they continue to look entirely comfortable going down the same road of comedy, doing the same things for laughs.
Did I just describe 'Up In Smoke' or 'Next Movie'?
Fans of Cheech & Chong will defend the movie, but you would expect as much.
On the rare occasion that a laugh comes at you from out of nowhere it almost always arrives not from Cheech & Chong, but rather from one the talented extras in the cast.The performances from the rest of the cast, most notably Paul Reubens and Edie McClurg are what stand out as good.
Watching Paul Reubens loose his composure at the hotel desk, then later at the nightclub are by far the best scenes in the movie.
Edie McClurg has a very small part in the film, but is funny in every scene she's in.
But the attempt from Cheech to play a new character named 'Red' doesn't really add much to 'Next Movie' and comes off as desperation wrapped in a wig with an endless supply of weed and zig zags.
Edie McClurg has to be grateful that she had a career after the opening credits introduced her to movie fans who first caught this in theaters, while Paul Reubens/Pee Wee Herman is likely glad to be anywhere at this point. |
tt0377091 | Mean Creek | When small and shy Sam admits to his older brother Rocky that the school bully, a dyslexic boy named George, has hurt him because he moved George's video camera while George was filming himself playing basketball, Rocky devises a plan to exact revenge on George.
Rocky recruits his friends, Clyde and Marty, to assist him with his plan. Part of the prank entails taking George on a boating trip to celebrate Sam's birthday party. The ultimate joke, in their opinion, will be when they get him to strip in a game of truth or dare, then make him run home naked.
Sam invites his girlfriend Millie along. He does not tell her the plan until they arrive near the river. Millie refuses to continue until Sam promises that he will call the plan off, which Sam agrees to do. Sam tells his brother to stop, and Rocky tells his friends what Sam has conveyed to him. Although Clyde has no problem with it, Marty is very reluctant to not go through with the plan. Throughout the trip, George attempts clumsily to fit in with the others by telling rude jokes, which the other members of the group do not find amusing. Despite his seemingly desperate attempts to fit it, George also gets confrontational when questioned about his motives (or lack of) when attacking someone. The group soon realizes that although George is annoying and is extremely insecure, he is very lonely and just wants to be accepted.
On the boat, Marty deviates from the others' plan and initiates a game of truth or dare, though the rest decide to go along. After George shoots Rocky with a water gun in good fun, George makes a funny quip about Marty's father, not remembering that it is a sore subject as Marty's father killed himself. This sets off Marty who dares George to strip naked and jump in the water. When he doesn't comply, he exposes the whole plan and starts to ridicule him.
Angered and humiliated, George launches into a vulgar tirade against everyone else on the boat, ending by crudely mocking Marty's dead father. Marty snaps and Rocky, in an attempt to stop the fight, accidentally pushes George off the boat. Unable to swim, George struggles to remain afloat in the water. As the others regard the scene in horror, George accidentally hits his head with his video camera and does not come to the surface. Rocky dives into the water but is unable to find George. Minutes later, George appears face down in the shallow water close to the shore. Rocky exhorts the others to help him bring George to shore, where Millie gives him CPR. The effort is in vain as George is dead and it is apparent that he cannot be revived.
The group is traumatized and in fear of being charged with murder. They dig a hole and bury George. Clyde's plan is to explain that it was an accident but Marty threatens them, gaining the complicity of both Clyde and the rest of the group. As they had already tricked George into not telling his mother where he was going, she would not know of their involvement. Marty speaks to the only witnesses of George with the group, his brother and his brother's friend, and they agree to keep quiet.
Marty goes to tell the news to his friends, who have all gathered at Sam and Rocky's house. They are willing to accept the consequences as opposed to having the guilt of George's death hanging over their heads. Marty refuses to turn himself in and feels betrayed by all of them. He storms out and convinces his brother to give him his gun and car. The brother again agrees to the favor, albeit reluctantly. Marty robs a gas station with the gun and drives off, becoming a fugitive. Meanwhile, the others go to George's house and confess to his mother.
Sam is later seen in a confession room, telling the story to the police, who later find and view the tape from George's video camera. In a final scene, audio of George explaining his dream of becoming a filmmaker and documenting his life in hopes that those who see it will finally understand him plays in the background while Sam watches the sheriff exhume George's body. | dramatic, revenge, violence, prank | train | wikipedia | No one has any whiny special requests, and no one refuses to share a room with someone.Guess that explains why this movie made no sense to my friend.However, if you are an American, as I am, this movie is deeply touching, and may even bring back unsettling childhood memories of bullies.Scott Mechlowicz is certifiably great in this movie, as is Josh Peck, who plays George, the bully.
This movie is best seen knowing as little as possible about the plot.I think if I had to defend American movie making against all the criticism of how Hollywood depends on special effects, big name actors, and lurid story lines, I would choose this movie as proof that American movies are still the best in the world.Addition added January 16, 2009: I have been writing reviews here for over three years.
Jacob Aaron Estes really captures the essence of what its like to be a male adolescent...the dialogue feels like its coming straight from the heart.This movie portrays the state of mind of a teenager beautifully.
In Oregon, when the bully George Tooney (Josh Peck) beats his schoolmate Sam Merric (Rory Culkin), his older brother Rocky (Trevor Morhan) schemes a prank with his two also teenager friends Clyde (Ryan Kelley) and Marty (Scott Mechlowicz) seeking revenge.
When they decide to play "truth or dare" in the middle of the river, the truth about the prank is disclosed to George and he offends the boys mostly the traumatized Marty, leading the group to an accident with tragic consequences."Mean Creek" is a simple, real, powerful and impressive story.
Feature-film newcomer Jacob Aaron Estes' prank-gone-too-far morality tale isn't as riveting as 'Deliverance', but his 'Mean Creek' hits many of the same haunting notes.
After all, George the bully (Josh Peck) is just a fat fool who might even be a nice guy.Ah, but a good film never lets its characters off the hook that easily.
amazing piece of film you end up feeling making...sorry for the bully, but then things just down down hill.....watched it on a date, and i must say it was better than what we say the previous day....i recommend it to everyone.
The acting was also exceptional, and the actors captured all the strong emotions caused by a death and regret, but in a subtle way.The story slowly reveals the characters' true selves as they travel along a river, planning to pull a prank on George (Josh Peck), a local bully who has dangerous mood swings, and beat up Sam (Rory Culkin).
But instead Mean Creek is an understated and surprisingly thought-provoking film that has understandably been notching up a few awards worldwide.Sam, a young lad (maybe about 12) gets a serious kicking from a very overweight boy, George, who flies into a rage when Sam goes near his camcorder.
One of the threads of the film suggests that the heavy-handedness of the justice system draws people into criminality because they feel that, having strayed a little, they have no choice but to embrace a life on the wrong side of the law.When I was at school (in a time when caning had almost, but not quite, been completely phased out), I had been bullied frequently by one boy (who picked on many kids).
The characters are realistic and believable, the dialogue is realistic and believable, and the situation the cast faces is realistic and believable.George Tooney (Josh Peck) is a school bully who has been beating up and harassing Sam Merric (Rory Culkin) for a while.
Sam's older brother, Rocky (Travor Morgan), and Rocky's two friends, Marty (Scott Mechlowicz) and Clyde (Ryan Kelley), scheme up a plan to get back at George for bullying Sam. The plan is simple: invite George to a boating trip for Sam's fake birthday, strip George naked, throw him into the water, and have him walk all the way home naked.
However, George's insults soon go too far, which sets off the main conflict of the movie.I like how the film is so realistic in its depiction of teenagers and bullying and ways of dealing with conflict.
I was especially impressed with Rory Culkin (Macaulay's more talented brother), Carly Schroeder as the well-intentioned girl, and Josh Peck as fat unpopular George, who clearly wants to be popular yet can't help being unpleasant.
Mean Creek shows the tale of a young boy who is bullied in school one day and he tells his brother and his brother gets his gang and makes a plan to get payback.The plan is to fake the little kids birthday and go on a boating trip in the woods.It all turns out that the bully is just a misunderstood kid that has problems in reading stop signs and minds his own business and likes filming stuff.Later,they decide to call the plan off but one lad doesn't want to abandon the plan and tries to make the plan work himself.Josh Peck stars in this movie and plays the part as the bully who is not a bully at all.I'm not a fan of the T.V show Drake and Josh but I watch it sometimes and I think that Josh Peck does a great job in this movie.This is recommended to Drake and Josh fans and if you like drama movies.The acting was very good and had a few funny moments and memorable moments that won't go away.I would watch this again because I enjoyed this movie..
In "Mean Creek," they break out of the clichés and become characters with real depths, problems and insecurities.The teenagers, however, don't take up the centre of the story; Sam, played by Rory Culkin, does.
Adolescence, while making the body more mature, seems, for a while at least, to have the opposite effect on the mind.Sam is bullied at school by George (Josh Peck), an overweight, arrogant and lonely boy who films almost everything with his digital video camera.
Watching these kids together, I got a sense of a real group of people, rather than characters who simply advance the plot with every line of dialogue.Having young people acting in a movie isn't always entirely successful, but this team pulls it off.
"Mean Creek" is a film about high school aged kids who conspire to get even with a school bully with a prank which goes seriously wrong.
Not here this film does not take one wrong turn, it gives the grief, it gives the conversation that we usually would never here (you'll know it when you hear it)To make this movie even better it is almost completely centered around the kids in the situation, which gives these extremely strong young actors a chance to show their acting abilities which are nothing short of amazing.I would recommend this film to any thoughtful moviegoer but would make a special emphasis for the younger moviegoer to try and see this.
The acting is brutally honest, in fact, I found myself connecting with almost every character, or at least empathizing.The story follows a kid who is beaten up by a bully and his brother, along with his brother's two friends, seek revenge.
Sam (Rory Culkin) has been bullied by fat, mean and obnoxious George (Josh Peck) with the latest incident (which opens the film) seeing him bashed leading to substantial bruises.
But I knew nothing about the story and what a wonderful surprise "Mean Creek" proved to be.This is an intelligent, engaging movie buoyed by some of the best acting by young actors this year.
But I knew nothing about the story and what a wonderful surprise "Mean Creek" proved to be.This is an intelligent, engaging movie buoyed by some of the best acting by young actors this year.
Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes, who won a 1998 Nicholl Fellowship in Screen writing for his script, takes the basic premise of revenge against a school bully and turns it into a moving and gripping film.
Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes, who won a 1998 Nicholl Fellowship in Screen writing for his script, takes the basic premise of revenge against a school bully and turns it into a moving and gripping film.
Incidentally, this is the second terrific movie to come out of that Nicholl class - the other was Karen Moncrieff's "Blue Car," one of last year's best films.Given the subject matter, "Mean Creek" could easily have been another after-school special masquerading as an indie feature.
Incidentally, this is the second terrific movie to come out of that Nicholl class - the other was Karen Moncrieff's "Blue Car," one of last year's best films.Given the subject matter, "Mean Creek" could easily have been another after-school special masquerading as an indie feature.
Culkin again is convincing as a skittish young boy being picked on by the school bully, but the two startlingly brilliant performances are by Josh Peck as the bully George, and Carly Schroeder as Millie, the young girl unexpectedly dragged into the plot.Peck makes George captivating when he could just as easily made him a typical, one-note bully.
Culkin again is convincing as a skittish young boy being picked on by the school bully, but the two startlingly brilliant performances are by Josh Peck as the bully George, and Carly Schroeder as Millie, the young girl unexpectedly dragged into the plot.Peck makes George captivating when he could just as easily made him a typical, one-note bully.
A nasty fat kid beats up Rory McCulkin (who wouldn't), and Rory's older brother and friends decide to play a MEAN joke on him, while on a boat trip in a CREEK.
(There were a few good actors, especially the Caulkin kid.) It's funny how they even put the "bully brother" in there just like S.B.M. Oh and yea, the dead body just like S.B.M. The only major difference was that this time there was a GIRL in the group.
However, things take a turn for the worst, and it's up to the kids to either walk away or face the consequences.Mean Creek is a fantastic coming-of-age/drama movie.
For young adolescents, it's absolutely merciful on the mind and wellbeing.The film opens with a young Sam (Rory Culkin) being beaten, harassed, and viciously assaulted by George (Josh Peck), a chubby dyslexic kid with no real friends.
Despite his easy-going and often forgiving nature, Sam holds onto this beating and goes along with the plans of his older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) and his friends Clyde (Ryan Kelley) and Marty (Scott Mechlowicz) of getting George back by taking him out to the middle of a lake on a boat, initiating a game of truth or dare to get him to strip, and having him jump into the water and leaving him stranded.Sam takes his young girl friend Millie (Carly Schroeder) along.
Just like Larry Clark did with his exceptional film Bully, Estes devotes the last half-hour or so to how the characters deal with their actions, and avoids simplistic moralizing and easy ways out.
Peck's performance is surprisingly tender, especially during a vulgar key-scene on the boat.Through the lens of low-budget filmmaking, Estes makes a completely immersing and exciting picture that works because of its depiction of murder, its meditative atmosphere, its gaggle of great character actors, and its intimate focus on the adolescents involved in this issue (we pleasantly do not have to suffer through scenes with adult characters who "don't understand." Mean Creek is an often terrifying picture but it need be seen by everyone.Starring: Rory Culkin, Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Josh Peck, Carly Schroeder.
The ending is versatile, with loose ends, and viewers can ponder on and over what has really happened and if the consequences did reflect the true nature of events.In general, Mean Creek is a decent independent drama, but it is also complex to specify its audience - it is not suitable to most families with children, but adults only may find difficult to dedicate their time for a movie where adult characters and very briefly on screen..
A subject that I think most people forget about once they've reached a certain age, "Mean Creek" is absolutely unforgettable, and leaves you with a bit of a shiver running down your spine, that you definitely need to feel for yourself.Set in Oregon, and filmed on location, "Mean Creek" begins with the video taping of an overweight young boy in middle school playing basketball during recess.
Aaron Estes debut is a beautiful and haunting tale, that despite its simplicity and some flaws, manages to both be a gripping piece of entertainment/storytelling and also a fairly complex analysis of hate, guilt, loneliness and all the many other human emotions that are especially hard to cope with when you're a teen.Estes has wisely chosen to keep the plot fairly simple, this gives him room to delve into the mindset and feelings of these very different yet also very alike kids, and he really grabs that opportunity, constantly conveying new back story and exposition, but always in an unobtrusive way and without ever loosing sight of the central conflict that drives the plot along.Along with DP Sharone Meir the director also creates an intriguing world, the strikingly photogenic setting is milked for all it's worth, and despite some minor indulgences, especially noticeable in one central scene set at a riverbank, the choice to mix hard hand-held images with poetic Mallick like images generally comes of as an inspired and strong choice that puts you right in there with the characters and their predicaments.The characters are all fleshed out (though some do of course get more time then others) and the actors all seem to relish the chance to play something much closer to real human beings then the cyphers that normally occupy youth-movies.
Even if there was no other reason to see it, it would still be worth it for the magnificent performances (luckily there's plenty of other reasons, including a great score).Structurally the film is flawed, but through no real fault of its own, it's just so that the scene everything revolves around is so powerful that only by throwing explosions or car chases in there could it ever be topped, and since Estes doesn't feel like throwing superficial drama in to make the ending more satisfying, that is not the kind of film he's making here, there's no way around the fact that the last part of the film is a little bit less gripping then the rest.A good movie, well worth seeing, and it doesn't really matter if you're young or old, it will still resonate I believe..
Beautifully filmed on location in Oregon, and played to perfection by a dynamic young cast (headed by Scott Mechlowicz - soon to be seen in PEACEFUL WARRIOR - and Rory Culkin, giving a standout performance in a central role), the movie builds tension from the outset, as an 'innocent' excursion into America's wilderness becomes increasingly soured by Peck's careless insults and clumsy attempts to ingratiate himself with his newfound 'friends'.
Never Thought it was going to be the most Impressive and delightful drama i ever seen.Firstly,i was reading the premise and it seemed like the "typical and classic" story in cinema.I never wanted to see it.But,when i bought it at DVD store a week ago,it turned to be The Greatest and The most touching-drama crime i ever seen.I felt there was an energy to made me cry,sobbed and so guilty.There was a very exciting moral-message in this story.When it went to the ending,all i did just sat in my couch,silent and felt numb.I was shocking!The Cast were so Exceptional and Natural.They were acting very impressive and unbelievable.The Script was Brilliant.The Director and the Cinematography were so Terrific and Top-Notch.Can't Wait for sort of this smart drama film next time.Bravo!!
Personally, I think the best performance is Ryan Kelley's as Clyde, because it was the most understated of the roles, and yet he created a complex character with relatively little material to work on, although all of the actors, especially Josh Peck, were exceptional.
I was very impressed with Schroeder, in fact, to be perfectly honest, I was a little worried that she wouldn't do so well, but she made a strong effort to be this character and performed nicely.This movie is about friendship,differences,decisions and is a great example of a "Coming of Age" film.
they invite him 2 Sam's "birthday party" and along with Sam and his should-be-girlfriend Milly (carly Schroeder) embark on a boating trip, but they soon find out that George has more than one nuance to him and begin to regret their hasty revenge................This film is mainly about the six kids and there is not a weak link among them in acting ability.
Because this kind of situation does happen (you might hear similar stories in the news), lots of filmmakers try to create movies like it, but hardly ever succeed at producing the 'real feel' that Mean Creek does.
It disappoints me because indie films like these don't really get the time of day unlike big-budget Hollywood films.The story first starts off with a young teenager named Sam {Rory Culkin}who gets picked on by a misunderstood bully, George {Josh Peck}.
On the other hand, if you appreciate fine acting, especially from young actors, and enjoy a movie with a morality problem embedded in a simple but solid story, then you will probably like this movie.An obnoxious school bully pummels a small kid on the playground in the opening scenes, an all-too-familiar scenario in real life.
Young Rory Culkin is also very believable as a boy bullied by his enemies and friends.The film's first fifty minutes are great because they leave us unsure about where we stand with the central character.
Rory Culkin plays Sam, a kid who often finds himself at the hands of George (Josh Peck), the schoolyard bully.
The film revolves around Sam (Rory Culkin), a middle-schooler who is beat up by an overweight bully, George (Josh Peck). |
tt1047007 | Young @ Heart | Over the last 25 years, there has existed a group of senior citizens living in Northampton, Massachusetts, who refuse to let age and ill health get them down. Young@Heart is a documentary based on the lives of the current singing group of 24 senior citizens, brought to the big screen by British filmmaker, Stephen Walker, who saw their performance in London. Young@Heart is not your ordinary singing chorus, because they sing rock, punk, disco, and the average age is 81 with the oldest being 92 year old Eileen Hall. The documentary follows the group over a six-week rigorous rehearsal schedule, plus practicing at home for an upcoming sold-out concert in their home town. The group has many songs in their repertoire, but Bob Cilman, the stern but sympathetic chorus director, has added several songs for the new concert. These are not easy for the group to learn such as "Yes We Can", "Schizophrenia" and "I Got You or (I Feel Good)". After several weeks of practice, the group is on their way to the local jail to give a performance, when they learn that one of their members passed away the night before. It is devastating for them, but they have learned that the show must go on. They all pull together and practice even harder to get ready for their evening performance. That night, their concert is a rousing success, and ends with a standing ovation. Douglas Young (the-movie-guy) | entertaining, queer | train | imdb | null |
tt1623205 | Oz the Great and Powerful | Oscar Diggs (James Franco) is an ambitious illusionist/con man employed by a midwestern traveling circus. Despite being greatly ambitious, Oscar's magic career isn't taking off. His illusions are cheap, his suits are torn and patched, and he's barely making enough money to keep his head above water. Frank (Zach Braff), Oscar's circus assistant, barges into Oscar's caravan as he puts the moves on his latest magician's assistant May (Abigail Spencer). He produces a small wooden music box, which he claims once belonged to his great-grandmother, and gives it to May as a token of his love. Frank reminds Oscar, (or Oz, as he's known), that his next show is about to begin. Frank hands Oz the show's cash takings: an old hat filled with a dozen quarters and nickels. Oz reluctantly plucks a pair of coins from the hat and gives them to Frank, and pockets the rest. Frank is unhappy with how Oz treats him.The magic show begins with Oz striding out onto the stage in a mystical, quasi-oriental robe and turban A young girl in a wheelchair in the front row (Joey King) watches in awe as Oz calls for a volunteer. A dozen hands shoot up, but none belong to May, Oz's assistant and ringer for the show. Oz finally calls May to the stage, much to the bewilderment of the crowd, and she takes the stage. Backstage, Frank produces all of the practical effects for the show: playing music, setting off pyrotechnics, etc. On stage Oz puts May into a deep sleep and causes her unconscious body to float in mid air. An irate voice shouts something from the back: "I see a wire!" Another voice joins in: "Yeah! I see two of 'em!" Bright lights are cast onto the stage, and sure enough, two very visible wires are seen suspending May's body from the ceiling "I want my money back you fraud!" Oz gestures to Frank, who tosses him a scimitar. Oz flicks the scimitar between his hands and then violently cuts the visible wires.... but May remains floating. The crowd gasps and Oz, for the finale, whips the silk sheet off of May's body, revealing empty air. The crowd applauds in unison, and Oz happily accepts the "Bravos!" and "Encores!", and then a small voice cuts through the cheers: "Make me walk!" All goes silent. The little girl in the front row, in the wheelchair, pushes herself toward the stage and repeats her pleas "Please, Wizard. Make me walk!" Oz, caught off guard by the unscripted request, seeks a diplomatic or heartfelt response, but all that comes out is "I'm not that kind of wizard, kid." The crowd turns on him, booing and hissing. Oz, who is now being pelted by popcorn and peanut shells, tells Frank to close the curtains.Outside, the circus-folk are hurriedly packing up the traveling circus as gray clouds swirl above them. Frank takes Oz aside and tells him that a certain lady-friend is waiting for him in his caravan. He sidesteps the chaos, enters his caravan and is surprised to see a young blonde woman, and not May, waiting for him. This is Annie (Michelle Williams); one of Oz's old romances he met on the road. She's come to see Oz because another man proposed to her and she wanted to tell him first. The pair's chemistry is obvious, but Oz's philandering has ruined anything they might have had. Outside, May watches as another brunette, close to her age, bursts out of a tent holding a music box identical to the one Oz gave her. She swiftly realizes that Oz used her. Seconds later an angry strong-man, the woman's husband, comes bursting out of the tent, hell-bent on tearing Oz a new one. The strong-man crashes through Oz's caravan wall and chases Oz all through the fairground. Oz manages to sneak aboard a readied hot air balloon and escape the clutches of the strong-man. As he soars away Frank throws Oz his hat and magician's bag, filled with his various illusionary instruments. From above Oz watches as all the circus folk fearfully run away, and then he sees it: a massive tornado which is sucking him in. Oz pins himself as tightly as possible into the balloon's basket as the entire contraption is violently whipped back-and-forth inside the tornado.After nearly being impaled dozens of times, Oz and the balloon escape the violent winds of the twister and emerge in the colorful, widescreen World of Oz. Oz and the balloon luckily avoid hitting the giant mountains surrounding them, but the balloon ultimately crashes, and Oz unceremoniously lands in a shallow river. Oz, bewildered, finds himself surrounded with gigantic sentient plants and small mischievous fairies which peck at his legs. He calls out for help, and through the bushes appears the beautiful and alluring Theodora (Mila Kunis). Theodora answers him and Oz, struck by her beauty, puts on the charm. He tells her that his name is Oz, and she is shocked -- the prophecy foretold that a wizard named Oz (the name of their land) would return to Oz and save them from the Wicked Witch. Oz, jokes that all witches must be green, warted, and must ride a broom, to which Theodora responds "but I'm a witch." She explains that there are good witches and wicked witches, and that she is simply a good witch. Mysterious growling echoes from the forest nearby and Theodora, recognizing the sound of the Wicked Witch's minions tells Oz to hide. The pair disappear into an alcove and watch as a frightening winged howler monkey swoops in and searches for them. Oz, thinking quickly, reaches into his top hat and retrieves a white dove which he releases into the air. The howler monkey, seeing the bird, flies off after it. Oz and Theodora escape and begin their trek to the Emerald City.Oz uses his charms to appeal to Theodora, and she soon falls in love with him. She tells him that as the new Wizard of Oz, he will soon become the land's new king and that, if he will allow it, she will be his queen. As a token of his love, Oz gives Theodora a wooden music box -- the same type of box given to May and countless other women he met over the years. The pair walks toward the Emerald City and soon come across a winged Capuchin monkey tangled in a mass of man eating plants. Theodora implores that Oz help the monkey and Oz, eager to impress his new girl, frees the monkey, named Finley (Zach Braff) from the weeds. Oz soon realizes that the plants were not the true threat. A massive lion appears, about to pounce on Oz and Finley. Oz, without thinking, reaches into his jacket pocket and tosses a handful of powder to the ground. Thick red smoke explodes from the ground and frightens the cowardly lion away. Theodora, now convinced that Oz is the true wizard of the prophecy, hugs him. Finley, thankful for Oz's intervention, offers his servitude to Oz for life. Finley explains that as a debtor to Oz, he must do anything and everything Oz says. Oz immediately tells the shocked Finley that he is not the Wizard that Theodora thinks that he is. He's just a con man, with a few illusions and tricks up his sleeve. Finley is disappointed to hear this news, but doesn't tell Theodora. Oz hands his heavy bag to Finley and tells him to follow them. The trio soon meets a large caravan of horses and soldiers along a yellow-brick road. Their leader, Knuck (Tony Cox) does not believe Oz is the great wizard Theodora says he is. Oz talks down to Knuck, calls him "sour puss" and tells him to obey his king. Oz and Theodora jump into a carriage and are whisked away to the Emerald City. Inside the city Theodora introduces Oz to her sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz) -- a young brunette witch with a green sapphire necklace around her neck. Both wise and beautiful, Evanora looks at Oz with skepticism. She and Theodora take him to the throne room, which Oz treats with little reverence. Evanora chides the gullible Theodora for believing that Oz was the wizard from the prophecy, but agrees to humor Oz until she can fully prove that he's a fraud.Evanora takes Oz to the King's vault: a massive chamber overflowing with gold and riches, all property of the King of Oz. Oz excitedly dives into the piles of gold while the ever skeptical Evanora looks on. She reminds Oz that the vault is the property of the King of Oz, which he will be only when he kills the Wicked Witch. Oz, realizing that his Kingship comes with strings attached, drops the gold and begins to believe that he'll never be king. Evanora soothes him and explains that killing the Wicked Witch won't be difficult. All that's required is breaking her wand; break the wand, kill the witch, that's it. Bolstered by this new found information, Oz readies himself to go find the witch.With Finley in tow, Oz heads off to the dark woods to find and kill the Wicked Witch. Along the way the pair happens across a recently devastated town. The entire city is made of porcelain: porcelain houses which look like gigantic teapots, porcelain trees, and porcelain residents. It's all too spooky. They hear crying inside one of the few still-standing houses. Inside they find a tiny, young porcelain girl who, after the attack, was broken. Her legs were separated from her body, and she's unable to move. Oz comforts the China Girl (Joey King) and produces, from his bag, a small bottle of instant-dry glue. He repairs her shattered legs and helps her get to her feet. She happily thanks Oz and Finley and tags along with them on their journey. The trio comes to a fork in the road; turn left for the Emerald City, turn right for the dark woods. Oz tells the China Girl to walk to the Emerald City and tell Evanora that she is a friend of Oz. The China Girl throws a fit, and refuses to leave Oz as her family and friends are broken and dead, and he's the only friend she's got. Oz allows the China Girl to follow them to the dark woods.The Dark Woods are frightening. Twisted, violent plants try to impale the trio as they make their way deeper into the forest. They finally come to a cemetery and see a dark, hooded figure trying to enter. They quickly realize that the figure must be the Wicked Witch, and watch as the figure carefully places its wand onto a pile of boxes nearby. While Finley distracts the figure, Oz sneaks over to the wand, takes it and is about to break it in two when a soothing voice stops him. The hooded figure unveils herself, revealing a beautiful blonde face beneath it, identical to Annie (Michelle Williams). She introduces herself as Glinda and explains that the true Wicked Witch is back at the Emerald City. Evanora, years ago, sought to rule Oz by herself and killed their father, the King, so she could rule uncontested. When rumors swelled that the Wizard of Oz would return and take his place as King, Evanora vowed to never let that happen. She'd trick the Wizard into killing the sister who opposed her, Glinda, and then kill the Wizard herself so that she could rule Oz forever. When Glinda learned of Evanora's treachery, she left the Emerald City and spent every day at her father, the King's, grave. Back in Emerald City Evanora watches, in her crystal ball, as her plans to kill Glinda failed. Angered, Evanora sends out her armies to stop and kill Oz and Glinda. Back in the graveyard, the quartet of Oz, Glinda, Finley and China Girl hear the stomping of boots approaching. Evanora's army marches through the graveyard, intent on killing them. Glinda pleads with Oz to do something magical to stop the army and Oz, being nothing more than a con man illusionist, asks her to take care of it. She takes her wand and draws thick fog out of the ground, blinding the army of Winkies and baboons. The quartet finds themselves at the end of a cliff, hanging over a bottomless pit and Glinda, with no other option, leaps off the cliff. With the army quickly approaching Finley, China Girl, and finally Oz fall after her. The four appear, moments later in gigantic floating soap bubbles, which send them flying miles away. In the distance, Oz sees and inquires about a small city encapsulated within a giant, soapy bubble. Gilda explains that the bubble is a protective barrier, which keeps out anybody with evil or malcontent in their heart. Oz, being both slightly evil and malicious himself, fears that he won't be able to get through. Glinda, Finley and China Girl easily glide through the bubble barrier, and Oz, after bouncing off the of barrier a few times, is finally able to squeak through.In Emerald City, Evanora is not pleased with Oz and Glinda escaping her grasp. She concocts a plan. She invites Theodora into her quarters and magically produces a small wooden music box identical to the one Oz gave Theodora. Theodora, upon seeing the music box, is hurt by Oz's presumed betrayal and returns to her room. She sits in front of her vanity mirror and cries. Her tears are like acid, etching permanent burns into her skin.Glinda introduces Oz to the people of the quaint city within the bubble: farmers, tinkerers, munchkins, etc. They all live in innocent, unspoilt happiness and are very excited to meet and hear from the wizard of myth and prophecy. Oz, now convinced that his rouse has gone too far takes Glinda aside and explains that he is not a real magician. He's a fake, a charlitan, an illusionist who can't perform real magic. Glinda, to Oz's surprise, admits that she knows. She knew from the moment she first met him, but just because she knows doesn't mean that the townspeople need to. With this new information, Oz puts on a show of confidence, convincing the townspeople that he is the wizard they hoped would return to destroy the Wicked Witch.Theodora's anger at Oz is at a boiling point, as is evidenced by her severely disfigured, acid-burnt face. Evanora, now in total control of Theodora convinces Theodora to follow along with her plan and become more powerful than any wizard ever. Evanora produces a small, green apple and tells Theodora that the apple will give her the power to kill Oz. She bites into the apple and soon keels over. Her skin darkes, her voice deepens, and her silhouette grows tall and evil. Theodora grabs a black brimmed hat and laughs maniacally. A mysterious storm cloud appears over Glinda and Oz's town. A red-hot light at the center of the cloud pounds against the "impenetrable" bubble surrounding the town. The cloud pounds against the bubble again and again until it breaks like an egg. The red-hot light beams into the city, landing like a meteor in the town square. A glowing evil figure emerges from the crater -- it's Theodora, transfigured into a green-skinned, black-suited old witch. She confronts Oz, and explains that she has become a truly Wicked Witch because of his treachery. She steals a broom from a townsperson and rides away, leaving a trail of black smoke behind her. Amidst the chaos, Glinda searches for Oz, but finds that he's run off. She confronts him in his quarters, where he's quickly packing his bags for a hasty escape. Glinda tries giving Oz the confidence to believe in himself, and to look past the fact that he's not a real wizard. Through soul-searching, Oz formulates a plan. He tells Glinda to gather the town's smartest and strongest. Oz meets with the town's Master Tinker (Bill Cobbs) and his men, the appointed scientists of the city, and together they plan an illusion to trick Theodora and Evanora. Under Oz's guidance the townspeople create elaborate mechanisms for the show. Oz shows the tinkers how to create a movie projector, how to create black powder, and finally how to build a hot-air balloon. Oz asks the head Tinker to keep the balloon a secret. He and Glinda, together, form a battle plan. They look at a map of the Emerald City and its outlying areas. Oz suggests that they enter the city through the Poppy fields, but Glinda explains that the poppy fields will put anyone who breaths in their spores, into an inescapable deep sleep. Oz thinks of a way to use this to their advantage. Finally, Glinda reveals that she has a contact to get them into the city unnoticed. Knuck, AKA Sour puss, appears and reveals himself to be their inside man.The assault on Emerald City begins. Oz, along with Knuck and other munchkins, disguise themselves and sneak past an unwitting Winkie Gate Keeper (Bruce Campbell). They sneak the carriage, filled with the projection equipment and Oz's balloon, into the city. As soon as they pass through the gate, Oz separates himself from the group, with the balloon, and sneaks up to the King's vault, and begins filling the hot-air balloon's basket with gold. Down on the ground, Finley, Knuck and the Master Tinker see that Oz has betrayed them, in favor of escaping with a balloon full of gold, but continue with the plan. Out at the edge of the city Glinda casts a spell which sends thick fog across the landscape. Theodora and Evanora, distracted by the thick blanket of fog, watch as an army of soldiers stomps through the fog, toward the city. The pair of witches sends out their entire army of baboons to stop the incoming force. The baboons tear-into the soldiers, but are shocked to find that they're full of hay. The fog dissipates, revealing that the soldiers are mechanical scarecrows, built by the townspeople, and to make matters worse, the fog was covering the poppy field. Almost all of the baboons fall into a deep sleep, leaving the city mostly defenseless. The townspeople disappear back into the woods as a few conscious baboons go after them. Glinda is suddenly taken hostage by a pair of them. She drops her wand into the field and is taken up into the center of the city. Evanora searches the grass for the wand, but thanks to the China Girl, is unable to find it. Evanora flies back into the city, and at its center is met by Theodora. The pair stand on either side of Glinda, who has been chained to a pair of posts. The angry citizens of Emerald City watch on in horror as Evanora and Theodora torture Glinda with lightning and fire attacks. Above them, Oz's balloon appears. Evanora points at the balloon, and exposes Oz as a greedy fraud, trying to escape with the town's riches instead of defending the town as the prophecy foretold. Evanora angrily shoots fire at the hot air balloon, exploding it, and sending the riches crashing down to the ground in a giant plume of black smoke. Glinda, shocked by Oz's death, cries, and prepares to die. Suddenly a booming voice echoes throughout the city and Oz's ghostly face appears on the plume of smoke. He explains that his death was necessary to become the true Wizard of Oz, and that he is now immortal and all-powerful. Evanora and Theodora are speechless. They fire lightning and fireballs into Oz's ghostly facade, but they do nothing. Secretly, Oz, Knuck, Finley, and the Master Tinker sit huddled in the caravan at the center of the city, projecting a moving image onto the black smoke, putting-on a spectacular illusion. While distracted, the China Girl sneaks Glinda her wand and manages to break her free. Upon finding Glinda gone, the townspeople turning on her, and a massive floating head in the sky, Evanora escapes into the castle, leaving Theodora to deal with the town by herself. Soon Oz, and the townspeople, rain fireworks down onto Theodora, forcing her to escape on her broom. As she trails into the distance, she promises to return and stop Oz for good.Evanora, inside the castle, is confronted by Glinda seated in her father's throne. Evanora shoots lightning at Glinda, but Glinda deflects the attacks with her wand. The fight starts on the ground but ends in the air. Evanora grabs Glinda by the throat, and Glinda grasps at Evanora's chest. Their attacks rebound off one another and the two land, painfully, on the ground. Evanora prepares to deliver the killing blow, but lacks the magic to do so. She reaches for her neck, the emerald necklace that had been around it, the source of her power, is gone; shattered into a thousand pieces on the ground, under Glinda. Evanora suddenly keels over. Her beautiful features disappear. Her nails grow long and dirty, her skin becomes wrinkled and liver-spotted, and an old hag appears in her place. The old, true Evanora lunges at Glinda, but Glinda, with wand in hand, repels her attack and sends her flying through the castle window. She's caught by a pair of flying baboons and carried off into the distance.The Emerald City, now freed of tyranny, celebrates. Glinda walks into the throne room and is greeted by the smokey visage of Oz, hovering over the throne. Finley latches the door. China Girl and Knuck close the curtains and once the coast is clear, Master Tinker switches-off the mechanism and out steps Oz, in the flesh. As thanks for their exemplary work, Oz gives each of them a gift. To Master Tinker, he gives a swiss-army knife, complete with a fork and spoon. To Knuck, (A.K.A.; Sour Puss), he gives a novelty mask with a smile painted on it. To Finley he gives his top hat and friendship, and to China Girl he offers themselves as her new family. Finally, to Glinda, he takes her behind the curtain and plants a giant kiss on her. | fantasy, whimsical, good versus evil, psychedelic, romantic, revenge, entertaining, storytelling, sci-fi | train | imdb | The supporting cast also performs pretty well, sometimes capturing that original 'Wizard of Oz' magic.The Bad: Going into this film with high expectations for the dialogue, & acting is going to leave you very disappointed.
(Such as transferring characters of "the real world" into characters of The Land of Oz) Without saying too much, I can tell you that this film is stuck somewhere between being a fun and family friendly revitalization of the original story and being a serious and intriguing fantasy film for a wide movie-going audience - and the formula just doesn't work.
The character is a shallow small time magician and the story shows how he comes full circle to be the Great and Powerful Oz from the Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, his change happens after taking a grievous toll.
The character development is amazing and shows exactly why things were they way they are in the Wizard of Oz. Simply stated Oz the Great and Powerful is truly a prefect prequel..
I love Wicked (book and musical), Tin Man, Return to Oz, The Wiz (the musical more than the movie), and even Geoff Ryman's oh-so-depressing novel Was. There's no such thing as an "official" version of the story anymore, so I don't mind a little pastiche here and there.
And, of course, Rachel Weisz steals the show with a delicious performance, embodying a great number of classic villains from Snow White's Evil Queen to Star Wars' Emperor Palpatine.Visually, the film is a delight.
James Franco is a Movie Star (and some may question why) and Not an Actor, so He can by No Stretch of the Imagination Pull off the Charm Needed for the Wizard.
She is not believable as the wicked witch of the west and just comes across as lightweight compare to her sisters played by Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams who are both much better actors than this film deserved.
Williams does the same, making her sweet tooth character a joy to watch as well and brings a real sincerity to the role which is a god sent because of how insincere Franco is in his.It is a beautiful movie and the CGI does not give you a headache but other those things and the efforts of Weisz and Williams, The movie has too many strikes against it thanks to the script and the miscasting of Franco and Kunis..
Oscar learns that he is the only hope for the inhabitants of Oz that believe that he is a powerful magician and his only chance to defeat Evanora and Theodora is using illusion since he has no magic power."Oz the Great and Powerful" is an entertaining fantasy movie, with beautiful special effects and great cast.
That all changes, however, when he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Glinda (Michelle Williams , though Blake Lively was offered the role), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting.
With this film, they were able to patch things up and reconcile .This story about OZ has been adapted several times such as : An old and mute version (1925) , the classic and the best rendition , the MGM release ¨The wizard of Oz¨ (1939) by Victor Fleming with Judy Garland , Ray Bolger , Billy Burke , Jack Haley , Frank Morgan and Margaret Hamilton as witch ; remade in 1978 as ¨The Wiz¨ by Sidney Lumet with Diana Ross , Richard Pryor and Michael Jackson and ¨Return to Oz¨ (1985) by Walter Murch with Fauriza Falk ,Nicol Willliamson, Matt Clark and Piper Laurie ..
I have read some of the previews here and I agree what were people expecting, to be running this movie down also the actors.It is a wonderful movie not to be missed.I loved it 10/10 full of old world Disney charm I think its full of Fantasy Colour for young and old.The China girl I loved as she seemed alive and so cute and Finley the Monkey made me laugh I felt like a child again as I was 6 yrs old when I saw the original movie, now i'm 65yrs old this was a real treat.The story explained what the original movie was about and the characters were just fabulous loved them all,will see many times and buy when its released..
And, like any great genius, Raimi is a sincere and honest storymaker who teamed up with the greatest wizards in the film industry to help bring the enchanting Land of Oz to life, Raimi assembled his own band of technical wizards and movie magicians, bring Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire's imaginative screenplay to life.
Raimi's casting is equally exceptional: James Franco shines as the predestined Wizard; Mila Kunis (Black Swan) is superb as the tormented young witch Theodora; Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) delivers another great performance as Theodora's older sister, Evanora, the witch who rules over the Emerald City; and Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain, Blue Valentine, My Week with Marilyn) is sensational as Glinda, the Good Witch.
Then there's 13-year-old actress Joey King (Ramona and Beezus), who plays a girl in a wheelchair at the circus and voices another unforgettable CGI character in the story, China Girl, the porcelain child who also joins the future Wizard on his fateful excursion through Oz. Oz the Great and Powerful has everything in entertainment you can wish for and much, much more.
Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams, and Rachel Weisz (my personal favorite actress from the movie) play the three sisters slash witches.
Its does not help at all that there is some major casting missteps along the way, like the main character himself played by James Franco, who is just wrong for the role.
The little china doll was a better actor!Mila Kunis was beautiful but disappointing; Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams did their best to save a terrible movie.
It's as wondrous, if not more so, as the dazzling world in Tim Burton's Wonderland, only with more memorable characters and a better story.The true wizard behind the emerald curtain is master director Sam Raimi.
What is of concern though, is just how horribly wrong director Sam Raimi and his cast get it in what should've been a rip-roaringly fun adventure with glorious musical numbers, beautiful visuals and memorable versions of characters we already know and love.
From the god awful make-up of Mila Kunis' wicked witch and the failed attempts of comedy relief to James Franco's embarrassingly over-the-top performance as the titular wizard and the unrefined and leaden dialogue (with forced references that subsequently feel tacky); Oz is just one misstep after the next, making the two hour plus runtime a slog to get through.
Rachel Weisz provides a glimmer of entertainment as the unashamedly benevolent witch Evanora and the opening Kansas sequence shot in black and white with an old-school aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (ie, not widescreen) is a nice treat, but neither can save this from being a great and powerful let down..
Sam, you've done if before.I see raving about how great the CGI is in this film, but the monkey still don't look real.You could say it's easy for me to sit on my couch and give a negative review to a movie, and it is.
The sisters Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Theodora (Mila Kunis) send him on a deadly quest to kill the Wicked Witch which brings him into contact with Glinda the Good (Michelle Williams), flying monkeys, and a china doll.James Franco plays the fast-talking ladies man, hustling his customers and co-workers at the circus in Kansas.
Amazing special effects, great actors, all wrapped in a fun, colorful and surprising movie filled with numerous twists (that is if you haven't seen the 1939's Wizard of Oz, I'm sure if I would have seen that film I would have this film spoiled}.P.S. I find it quite ironic that a film where three beautiful women play scheming witches is released on the International Women's Day. Perhaps Disney's hidden message?.
Anyone who gives this film a single star should check out the 1969 kiddie matinée version of "The Marvelous Land of Oz" or last year's "The Witches of Oz" if they want to see what a truly dismal Oz movie really looks like.The part where the movie fell a bit flat for me was the "woman scorned" plot element.
I hate myself for it, but while listening to the fairly hackneyed dialogue between Evanora and Theadora, for the briefest of moments, I found myself almost wishing that I was watching a "Wicked" film instead.Each member of the cast did a fine job in my book, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite character of the movie: China Girl.
The visuals in this movie are stunning, all of the acting was great (James Franco, Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis especially), the script was well-done, and the overall quality of the movie was exceptional.
Oz the Great and Powerful is Disney's prequel to the 1939 classic movie The Wizard of Oz, and it is set 20 years before the tale of Dorothy Gale's (Judy Garland) journey into the Land of Oz. The movie characters are based on The Oz series by L.
Frank Baum.The movie is delightful and Disney paid homage to the old classic by starting the introduction of the movie's main character Oscar "Oz" Diggs (James Franco) in black and white and the moment he stepped into Oz the movie transformed to color, just like that of the 1939 classic which started in sepia tinted black and white, and the moment Dorothy got to Oz the movie transformed into colored.I enjoyed the colorful bit of the movie I do have to give kudos to the story, it was interesting and involving, I found myself drawn in and the idea that showed that The Wizard of Oz was first truly a con man, a con man of mere magic tricks who travels with a circus, until one day he found himself in the Land of Oz where they await their savior a Wizard so great that he will be able to defeat the witch sisters.Here our hero comes into Oz as a con man and we get to see him metamorphose into the wizard we know him to be in the The Oz Series.The movie did face some hiccups during production, some of which were due to the cast having other roles that they had to leave to go fulfill, and then there was the legal rights as Warner Bros owned all the rights to the elements used in the 1939 classic such things like: the color of the wicked witch of the west (here her shade of green differs from the 1939 classic), her mole was not present, the yellow brick road was also nowhere to be seen, although there is a brick road.Director Sam Raimi and James Franco worked together in the Spiderman trilogy where Franco played Osborne.
Here Raimi did an impressive work coordinating the events that took place in this film.This movie did make reference to the characters in the old classic, like a lady Oz was seeing told him she is getting married to a man whose last name was Gale (Dorothy Gale), we see the creation of the scarecrow, we get to see the men who created the Tin Man and we saw how the cowardly lion became coward when he got frightened away by Oz.My take on this movie is that it is fun and a nice watch for those who have a mind that is ready to fly.www.lagsreviews.com.
He does a great job with the roll and certainly deserves to be noted.On a personal note, I thought this film was going to be over the top with bad characters and a director that would TRY to emulate the original.
(I suspect Franco's extremely limited range might have been part of the problem, but I'm doing my best to stay in the screenplay end of this shallow pool) I was a little surprised to hear his character fear that he might not pass the "good heart" test of flying through a bubble (A bubble that looked just like the Dawn dish soap variety I buy for my son at the dollar store
) Up to that point I just saw him as a cheapskate prankster with a line for every lady.
I knew going in this was not in anyway going to live up to the most beloved film of all time; however, I adore the idea of giving us the back story of Oscar, or the Wizard of Oz. I never read the novels and now having seen this film I definitely will, because I want to give my own visual splendor to this story and the book will consist of actual intellectual dialogue.Right off the bat James Franco and Mila Kunis are leading this film so big FAIL right there.
But as the top billed actors no thank you and going back to this mythical world that blew my mind as a child I wanted this piece to be so much stronger than what we were given.Sam Raimi is a good director, but the last film I adore of his was The Army of Darkness; the Spiderman trilogy was okay and honestly I wouldn't give them the time of day if not for it's seamless and unintentional hokeyness...plus Bruce Campbell is the man.
Mila Kunis I know you were trying it definitely shows, but you lacked direction, the focus and motivation as a character was completely lost on me, and forgive my male mentality but all I saw was green cleavage when you appeared on screen after your transformation.Visually it was quite pleasing the first 20 minutes than I got bored of the CGI, just way too much CGI and someone on this site said it best; it was like Burton's Alice in Wonderland, too much CGI not enough story.
But as the land of Oz begins to widen and its characters, as well as Diggs' journey, begins to unfold, somewhere over the rainbow is where the story and movie looses so much of its magic.Franco plays Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Issac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, small time magician in a moving circus, con-artist and 20th Century playboy.
It had everything a good family movie needs: fun, magic, science, mystery, good actors, beautiful story line and it definitely won't be boring to watch in any age!
What makes it so great is that director Sam Raimi decides that the location set was going to look just like the original Wizard of Oz (1939), fake.
It is a good story but, maybe could have tell it in less time and leave the audience wanting more, not thinking "God, this movie is quite long".
Worst film I have seen for the last 3 years The acting is terrible the silly monkey fencible is annoyingthe CGI is poor the story is weak and the plot rubbish, the script uselessI love the original OZ , this is completer nonsense and a massive let downI was expecting a wonderful fairy tale and I got the most boring film with worst actorsavoid total waste of time I would rather read a newspaper on the toilet it is utter useless.
A piece of advice for anyone thinking about seeing Oz: The Great and Powerful: the further you can get from the majestic 1939 masterpiece The Wizard of Oz, the more chance you stand of having a good time with the prequel.For those of us that feel a strong connection to the original film, Disney's first big release of the year is a trite, overloaded bog of cloying CG, nauseating characters, and a needlessly dark tone that betrays of the innocence of a world so many of us grew up with.It's nothing new to observe that many of the big summer pictures of the last decade or so have leaned towards a darker tone, and it's also not necessarily a bad thing.
Due to the cultural footprint of the original, even people who may not have seen it in a long time, or ever, are probably familiar enough with the story that we know how this film is going to play out.There was no prophecy about Dorothy's trip to Oz to defeat the Witch, each of the supporting characters had their motivation set up in little more than a sentence or two, and it's hard to deny that story turned out pretty well.
The colors are magnificent and there are many instances that play homage to the original Wizard of Oz. I was completely drawn into the story and at the end you feel good about yourself and have hope for these world that far-far away.
Well, I enjoyed the special effects, casting, and the vividness of this 120 minute tale of almost predictable storyline.James Franco suits aptly as the wizard Oz, while Mila Kunis disappointed me maybe because most of the time she isn't portrayed cleverly.
While watching the movie you can generally feel that Raimi has invested a serious effort to represent "Oz the Great and Powerful" as something between a children's fairy tales, a dark fantasy for adults and a decent prequel for "The Wizard of Oz".
'Oz - the Great and the Powerful,' in case you don't know, is a prequel to the classic Wizard of Oz film of the 1930s, showing how the wizard himself got to the magical land and his encounters with the witches before Dorothy squashed one and doused the other.My hopes weren't high when I went in to see this.
Finally, Michelle Williams does a great job as Glinda, the only good witch.Overall, Oz the Great and Powerful is a very fun, action-packed film that explores the origins of Oz and the Wizard.
A movie starring James Franco to tell us the story of the wizard and how he got to Oz using way too much CG I, boring story line, and bad acting. |
tt0266697 | Kill Bill: Vol. 1 | Before the credits we learn that the film is about the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, which has five members. A quotation gives the flavour: "Revenge is a dish best served cold". In monochrome, a gasping, blood-covered bride (Uma Thurman) looks up from a chapel floor. A hand wipes her face using a handkerchief with the name Bill in the corner, while a male voice explains that what he is about to do is not a sadistic act, but a masochistic one. Just before he shoots her in the head, the Bride tells Bill (David Carradine) that the baby she carries is his. A gunshot is heard and the opening credits begin, backed by the song "Bang Bang".Chapter 1: #2. Pasadena.The Bride drives up in a yellow and red pickup truck, outside a suburban home and strolls to the front door. As she rings, a flashback shows the Bride crashing to the floor and looking up to see the face of one of her attackers, Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox). As soon as the door is open, the Bride's fist crashes into Vernita's face. A savage fight follows, first with fists, then with knives. The fight pauses when a school bus draws up outside and a little girl walks through the door. The antagonists hide their knives and pretend nothing is amiss despite the wreckage around them. They both reassure the child, Nikki (Ambrosia Kelley). The Bride mentions that she used to have a child who would be the same age as Nikki (four). Vernita sends the girl to her room. At this point Vernita is introduced as a member of the Deadly Vipers, codename Copperhead. The Bride is also a member, codename Black Mamba. The Bride makes clear that she is here for revenge but promises not to kill Vernita in front of her child. They plan a fight later, but while Vernita is preparing cereal for her child she fires a concealed gun at the Bride. She misses and the Bride kills her with a thrown knife.The child walks in, a witness to her mother's death. The Bride apologises but explains that her mother had it coming to her. She tells Nikki that if, when she grows up, she can't get past the killing, she should come find the Bride. "I'll be waiting," the Bride promises. She returns to the pickup, which is emblazoned with the words Pussy Wagon, crosses Vernita's name from a list headed "Death List Five," and drives away.Chapter 2: The Blood Splattered BrideFour years earlier in an El Paso wedding chapel, police are investigating a mass murder. The sheriff (Michael Parks) drives up and is told that there has been an execution-style massacre leaving nine bodies, including the bride, the groom, the preacher and his wife, the guests, and even the piano player. The sheriff strolls around commenting on the massacre, stops near the bride, and remarks on how good-looking she was. He immediately recognizes the name she was using, Arlene Machiavelli, as an alias. As he kneels to look more closely at her, she suddenly (perhaps unintentionally) spits in his face. We see her rushed to a hospital, where she lies in a deep coma.A smartly dressed blonde woman walks through the hospital, whistling a tune. She finds a changing room and emerges dressed as a nurse with a red-cross patch over one eye and carrying a tray with a syringe. A title identifies her as Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) of the Deadly Vipers, codename California Mountain Snake. She stands over the comatose Bride and says that her gift is to allow her to die in her sleep. As she prepares to inject the contents of the syringe into the Bride's IV line, her mobile phone rings. It is Bill, who orders her to abort the mission in view of the Bride's survival of their previous efforts to assassinate her, and because it would lower them. Elle is furious, but does as ordered and leaves.Four years later, the Bride is still lying in a coma. A mosquito bites her and she sits up with a shriek. In a flashback she sees a gun pointing at her and a bullet approaching in slow motion. She begins to feel her body, first noticing the metallic sound of her skull and then feeling the absence of the baby in her womb. She shrieks again and sobs pitifully. When she hears approaching footsteps, she lies back and pretends to be still in a coma. An orderly (Michael Bowen) enters, accompanied by a large trucker (Jonathan Loughran). The orderly explains that, for $75, this attractive woman is available for whatever the trucker wants. The man pays up and is told that he can do anything as long as he doesn't leave any marks. The orderly leaves and the man climbs on top of the Bride. As he starts to kiss her she bites down on his lower lip and severs it in a profusion of blood. He's left unconscious or dead.The Bride tries to get out of bed but collapses as her legs will not support her. When she hears the orderly returning she picks up a knife and crawls behind the door. He enters and stands aghast at the carnage and the empty bed. She slashes his heel and he falls to the floor. Then, slamming the door into his head, she demands to know where Bill is. She reads the name Buck on the orderly's name tag, which triggers memories of his earlier assaults on her. She gives him a couple more violent blows with the door, perhaps killing him, then searches him for his car keys. The key fob says "Pussy Wagon" in distinctive pink script. Propelling herself to the basement car park in a wheelchair, the Bride is able to identify Buck's yellow pickup because it says "Pussy Wagon" on the back. She hauls herself in and starts the long process of getting her legs moving again.A shot of the rest of the Deadly Vipers gang introduces O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), codename Cottonmouth, now head of the Tokyo yakuza.Chapter 3: The Origins of O-Ren IshiiIn anime format, the film follows O-Ren's development from the age of nine, when she witnessed the murder of her parents. Her father, an American military officer, had tried to fight off several yakuza henchman, but was killed. The yakuza leader, a sleazy old man, Matsumoto, also brutally murders O-Ren's Japanese mother. The last of Matsumoto's men lights a fire in the room, letting the house burn to the ground. O-Ren survives and avenges the murders at age 11 in blood-spouting style, taking advantage of Matsumoto's pedophilia. She grows up to be a world-class assassin.Meanwhile 13 hours have passed and the Bride has regained use of her legs, so she sets out on her revenge trail. We see her flying to Okinawa.Chapter 4: The Man from OkinawaThe Bride enters a Japanese sushi bar and there is a longish scene with the jovial bar-keeper and some slapstick action with his assistant. Things get serious when she tells the bar-keeper that she is looking for him, Hattori Hanzo (Shin'ichi Chiba). She explains that she needs some "Japanese steel" to kill vermin. He shows her to his attic where he keeps an array of the katanas (swords) he has made. When she tries one out he says that they are not for sale and he has sworn not to make any more "instruments of death". She explains that her "vermin" is a former pupil of his and he correctly guesses that she means Bill. He agrees to make her a sword, which will take a month. He suggests the Bride spend that time training.A month later we see Hanzo examining the new sword, which he believes is his finest work. He hands it to her in a small and solemn ceremony where he admits he broke his personal pact not to make any more swords but has done so because he supports the Bride's mission.Chapter 5: Showdown at the House of Blue LeavesThe film returns to O-Ren and shows her as newly elected Head of the Council of all the yakuza bosses. When one objects to her election on the grounds of her mixed-race origin (she is Chinese/Japanese-American), she immediately beheads him and warns the others never to disparage her heritage in any way or they'll suffer the same fate. We are introduced to O-Ren's lieutenants: her French-Japanese lawyer Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), another of Bill's protégées; her teenage bodyguard Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), a vicious killer sporting a plaid-skirted school uniform; and Johnny Mo (Chia-Hui Liu, credited as Gordon Liu), the head of her strongarm men, the Crazy 88.The Bride flies into Tokyo and appears in yellow leathers and helmet riding a yellow motorbike while O-Ren and her motorcade are heading for a restaurant. The Bride spots Sofie in her car and there is a flashback to Sofie calmly taking a call on her mobile while the Bride and her party were being slaughtered. O-Ren and her immediate subordinates arrive at the restaurant and are ushered upstairs to a private dining room by the obsequious owners. At the bar, the Bride sits quietly and watches.O-Ren and her party are enjoying themselves when O-Ren senses something threatening. She throws a small dart with a red tassel through the paper wall to lodge in a beam in the hallway outside, startling the Bride, who is lurking near the private room. O-Ren sends Gogo to look around, but the Bride has braced herself against the ceiling and Gogo doesn't see her. The Bride enters the toilet and while stripping off her leathers, hears "Auld Lang Syne," the distinctive ring-tone of Sofie's mobile.With Sofie in tow, the Bride loudly announces her presence from the restaurant floor, which brings O-Ren and her party rushing out onto the balcony. While they watch she slashes off one of Sofie's arms and pandemonium ensues as the diners and staff flee.O-Ren sends her lieutenants down singly or in groups to kill the Bride, but all end up being cut apart. The final defender is Gogo, who opposes the Bride's sword with a ball and chain in a vicious fight, ending when the Bride kills Gogo by embedding a broken, nail-studded table leg in her temple. Before O-Ren and the Bride can engage, the roar of motorbikes is heard and the Crazy 88 pour in. The ensuing battle of one against many is long, balletic and bloody but finally only one of the 88 remains -- the youngest -- and the Bride sends him off with a spanking. She announces to the defeated Crazy 88 that they may leave, but they must leave behind their severed limbs, which belong to her now. She also orders Sofie to stay.Outside in the snow, the Bride and O-Ren fight it out in a long and evenly-matched sword-fight. At the start of the fight, O-Ren casts doubt on the provenance of the Bride's sword. The Bride wins by slicing off the top of O-Ren's head; before she dies, O-Ren apologizes for an earlier insult and remarks that the sword must really be a Hanzo. Later, the Bride crosses O-Ren's name from her list.The Bride loads Sofie into a car and drives to a point where she can roll her down a snowy slope to a hospital. The Bride has tortured Sofie, cutting off her other arm for information on the whereabouts of the other Vipers and Bill. As the Bride draws up her "Death List Five," we see Sofie, talking to someone whose face is not seen but who is clearly Bill. She tells Bill that under threat of having more limbs cut off, she has told the Bride everything she knows. She explains that the Bride kept her alive just so she could tell Bill in person all that happened and warn him that soon all of them would be dead. Bill's final words are "Is she aware that her daughter is still alive?"To be continued.... | comedy, mystery, neo noir, murder, boring, allegory, cult, violence, flashback, psychedelic, action, romantic, tragedy, revenge, entertaining | train | imdb | Having seen Tarantino's 3 previous films, going into the cinema, my expectations for 'Kill Bill' were already over the roof.
I had quite simply never seen anything even remotely like it.In 'Kill Bill', the revenge plot serves only as a larger story arc, thus allowing Tarantino to play with as many different genres as he likes, and boy - what a mix he dishes out!
Some of the shots are simply incredible; the score is, for the most part, vintage Tarantino selections- and the RZA does a very good job at filling the blanks; Uma Thurman is a great female lead, for sheer presence (and decent acting chops).
Kill Bill Vol. 1 is yet another quality film of Tarantino's short, but distinguished list.Kill Bill involves a nameless woman (Uma Thurman) who is slowing seeking revenge on her former hit squad the Viper Squad and her boss Bill (David Caradine.) Her former hit squad wronged her by gunning down her closest friends and family during her wedding and putting her into a coma while being pregnant.
As the story progresses (through this film and the sequel), you find out who she really, why Bill wanted her dead and the fate of her daughter.The movie is really a combination of Tarantino's love for the 70's over-dramatized Kung-Fu movie era and story of revenge with rich dialog.
What really makes this movie is Tarantino ability to make bad to mediocre actors seem like good ones, a smart and hilarious dialog and a good storyline.
The movie also features a couple of classic Tarantino showdowns, including an unforgettable one with the Japanese infamous crime lord, O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Lui.) Once again, Tarantino puts his imagination at work again in his story telling by using some of his old techniques like jumping timelines and some new ones like adding Japanese animation for character backgrounds.I wouldn't really recommend this film to someone who is really not from the Pulp Fiction era.
This film is really just homage to flicks that frequently appear on Sunday Samurai Showcase, revenge and Tarantino's continuous fascination with Uma Thurman.
Even when fighting against more than 50 Crazy 8's, it replicated admirably the incredibly one-sided fights from some of the best martial arts movies made 30 years ago.All in all, a great and original film!
Probably Tarantino's most universal movie to date, with a little less character dependency than most of his films and a more linear approach than usual, Kill Bill Volume 1 is a great place to start for anyone new to his movies.
I don't mean to imply this is a shallow film (far from it), i simply found it easier on the mind than Tarantino's other movies.Uma Thurman, left for dead by her ex-boyfriend (Bill) doesn't die and begins her quest for vengeance, by hunting down Bill's gang members in a search for Bill.
Armed with a Samurai sword and a deadly blend of martial arts skills, Uma delivers action, violence and passion as she plays out the character with beautiful precision.Need i say, this is excellently directed, brilliantly scripted and cast, and should be in everyone's Tarantino collection.10/10 Second only to Pulp Fiction.
It has been six years since we have seen a movie from one of the world's most talked about directors, Quentin Tarantino, but the wait for me, has been worth the while.
Tarantino can now add the martial arts masterpiece 'Kill Bill' to his resume, a film that left me speechless after I had seen it.
But, what else should we expect from a movie freak, like Quentin Tarantino?An entire wedding party is slaughtered during a dress rehearsal in a rural chapel: the pregnant woman in the blood-splattered wedding dress is Black Mamba, better known as 'The Bride'.
But without the violence, KB would have not been the movie it was.This time Tarantino has not focussed on the dialogue in this movie, when it came to writing its script, more he wanted to show what the characters he had created, and why they were in the position they were in.
I also feel that Tarantino is in some way trying to show his appreciation to Pulp Fiction, the movie that made him successful, via KB.
Her demise was highly entertaining to say the least, again reminiscent of Pulp Fiction.All the scenes with fighting in KB are a highlight for me, especially the sword fighting, as they are so fun and intense, with the last hour of the movie purely exhausting, with the final showdown between 'TB' and Cottonmouth & co.
The middle section of film was also great, as it tells the majority of the KB Vol. 1 story, although parts are pretty disturbing.Kill Bill is another film by Quentin Tarantino, where I have to say it was 'exceptionally well made'.
After changing the popular film landscape in the 1990's with the classics "Reservoir Dogs","Pulp Fiction",and to a much lesser extent,"Jackie Brown",Tarantino spent a half a decade in hibernation,accompanied by little more than a television set,a movie projector,and collection of Johnny Cash records and a bong.
But now he is back after a six year hiatus with "Kill Bill",a thrill ride with the grand style of his earlier films and a brilliant tribute to those Shaw Brothers martial arts flicks of the 1970's and the action heroes of that same decade with includs Charles Bronson,Telly Savalas,Burt Reynolds,Clint Eastwood,Fred Williamson,Steve McQueen,Jim Brown and James Coburn.
And by the way,what Quentin Tarantino movie wouldn't be correct without his main man Samuel L.
Overall it is the best idea ever the other two films I've seen with animated sequences are Lola Rennt a German movie & Karam an Indian movie and both of them are my all time most favourite films as well as Kill Bill.2.
I thought it was going to be simple because Bill was the main target but it turned out to be more difficult.The main reason why it is one of my favourite is because I'm a huge fan of revenge movies and Kill Bill gives a very deep insight of the topic e.g. Like the Old Klingon Proverb on the screen before the film which is "Revenge is a dish best served cold" & when Hattori Hanzo said that "Revenge is never a straight line.
The movie its story comes totally secondary, as Tarantino used this movie as an experimental tool to mix several, mostly Asian cinema, styles together and blend it into one big visual experience of violence and unusual over-the-top looking sequences.
Most notably of course in the animated segment (that is great by the way) but also in almost every action/fight sequence in the movie and its violence.
It therefor really isn't Tarantino's best but it's definitely his most experimental and most visually orientated, style-full, splendid movie.Unusual, over-the-top but strangely intriguing, entertaining and overall brilliant.
Many many many people have caught on to what Tarantino has done over and over again since 1992, and many many many people really don't appreciate it.Keep this in mind if you decide to subject yourself to this horrible excuse for a film: the person who supposedly wrote pulp fiction actually wrote this.
What this movie does have: a blond-haired, blue eyed girl that wears this totally cool motorcycle suit and, like, totally kills 200 people, single-handedly, with one sword, Awesome!!!!!
There is no trace of the intricate story building of Pulp Fiction, nor of the empathy for the characters sometimes found in Jackie Brown.All we get here is an endless orgy of über-cool nasty people in designer clothing cutting off feet on highly stylized stage sets, with fountaineous gushes of blood the high-point of the fun.The action scenes are tired, bleak copies only.
I haven't seen such an over-hyped piece of garbage since Titanic.I'm sure this movie has its fan base but for hollywood to market it as a flashy chick martial arts flick is just wrong..
So many similarities between this QT movie and Sergio Leone's action films (once upon a time in the west; the good, the bad and the ugly).
I like film to convey points of plot and character and mood and attitude through imagery and action...
yes, they are well done, but I found myself wanting to go home and watch all of a Leone western, or a early-70's Japanese pop-Samurai film, or "Battle Royale," or one of my favorite HK action flicks, rather than Tarantino's far-too-short pastiches of same.
The film mingles martial arts , Hong Kong movies , Spaghetti Western , action movies with Japanese Manga or anime .Uma Thurman is wonderful and overblown .
David Carradine makes an invisible intervention , his acting stays for the second part .Interesting and stirring screenplay , according to Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman the idea for doing "Kill Bill" began during the filming of Pulp Fiction (1994) , the two began talking about the kinds of movies that they would like to do and Quentin said he would like to do a 70's style kung-fu flick .
I have seen all the movies I mentioned, and each surpasses Kill Bill in violence, story, choreography, or all three, people are heaping undue praise on QT.
This movie was directed by that guy who likes to kill things.
There was a lot of blood and gore in these movies, but they had a story - something "Kill Bill" is totally lacking.I was rather appalled to see this movie so many people are mad about - and to see that it's nothing else but a meaningless bunch of fight scenes, full of blood and bad taste.Has Tarantino finally lost his mind?
Tarantino seems so much hypnotized by style, that unless you're not a movie-freak, there is no way in which you can't keep on noticing references after references of a superficially exploited collection of stylish movements (mangas, comic strips, Samurai movies, pop culture, watered down atmospheres specific to such or such director, etc.)This time, his only apparent goal is how to overwhelm the viewer under a shower of violence and ox-blood
No storyline whatsoever, no purpose, no way to identify ourselves with any of the characters, except for Bill's, the only one who seems to have some sort of emotions, and who incidentally is a psychopath (any contradiction here?)After viewing it, mostly in fast forward mode during those endless figures of sword combats, I asked myself what kind of irreconcilable trauma poor Quent must have suffered in his youth
And again, the targets of his spurs of most sadistic creativity are either women, gays, colored people, or figures of authority (I let you decide which belongs to which in his 3 previous movies).
only good action's not sufficient.but you have to be realistic and see what kill bill is: a remake of scenes from old action films and a minimal, bound together by a ridiculous plot, made up in 15 minutes.
Tarantino set out to create a homage to those martial arts movies he watched as a clerk in a video store.
Or is everybody thinking that one can't give an bad review to a film that has been directed by someone who has created so well received cult movies as "Reservoir dogs" or "Pulp Fiction" or who has been involved in "From dusk 'til dawn"?
Sometimes, I think that an aggressive teenager who likes some gore and splatter horror movies and some fight movies in the key of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude van Damme rather that Ti Lung or David Chiang had the idea of such a movie, but not a adult who knows the whole genre and has an IQ of 160.To really evaluate this film you might have seen the original Asian movies that inspired Quentin Tarantino.
This kind of filming was an art for itself, while "Kill Bill" is just a superficial gore movie with a lot of dead people, fight scenes and wanna-be cool dialogues.Give those Asian films a chance and forget about this silly opera of violence from a director who has done a few nice movies in the past and lives from its reputation....
But somehow, since it's Tarantino, and since it's Uma Thurman, people are willing to rate it high.In my eyes it's got nothing good in it at all.
One, I usually love Tarantino--his directing, writing, the films he's produced, etc.--and two, the reason I didn't like Kill Bill Volume 1 had nothing to do with not liking the fight scenes or violence/gore.
I love that stuff and that's the only part of the film that I found even mildly entertaining.Instead, the problem with Kill Bill Volume 1 is that it is extremely boring, almost completely lacks suspense, has awful pacing, and makes a number of self-indulgent stylistic missteps.
There is a sense of venturing into the unknown, where anything could happen.However, after this, Tarantino chooses to cling too tightly to his beloved device of non-sequential story construction, and the bulk of the film concerns Uma Thurman's attempt to take down a character whom we already know she has killed.
In Kill Bill, the violence was almost boring.In an effort to be "retro hip", Tarantino includes a number of elements that blend with the film as seamlessly as President Bush in an Iraqi mosque.
I have seen some Japanese action movies, which was all just violence, blood, screams with an entirely peculiar story.
I've seen and mostly enjoyed QT's other films, so I can't begin to describe how disappointed I was--this is self-indulgent, overhyped crap, with no redeeming features.As a friend said, "Despite what you may have read, it's not a tribute to kung fu movies, it's not clever, hip or slick - it's tedious, pointless and empty drivel." I unfortunately could not agree more.
You can, of course, paint them all in blood, but isn't it rather tasteless to make the whole film just a one bloody mess?Sorry, Tarantino, but Uma vs.
I expected to see a lot of milking of seventies cinema, television and music and I think Tarantino milked the whole decade dry, or what was left of it after his earlier movies, in this first part of Kill Bill.
But these irritations aside I loved Uma Thurman in this movie and it's great to see her carry a lead and hack away like she means it.
The way in which Tarantino practically clubs us over the head with the fact that we don't know Thurman's character's name, for instance, seems particularly amateurish when compared with David Fincher's handling of the same sort of device in Fight Club where, if it weren't for the scene where Helen Bonham Carter's character brings it up, you could watch the movie multiple times and probably not notice that you never learn the main character's name.
Both reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are classics of the highest order and rightfully Tarantino was recognised as a good director for these films.
A action/crime/thriller about a women named "the Bride"(Uma Thurman) who was at one time a part of a group of world class female assassins until the leader of the group "bill"(David Carradine) and the other assassins turn on her.They beat her up so bad she goes into a coma 4 1/2 years later she awakens from the coma and seeks the people who tried to kill her and her unborn child so she can kill them.Give me a break this is a very very stupid movie the story is ridiculous a total peace of vile crap.The gore in this movie is like no other movie I have ever seen they must have spent 2 million dollars on fake blood.It was almost sickening to watch the violence in this movie it makes "fargo" look like "the lion king".Uma Thurman's acting was absolutely dreadful.The screenplay was very bad also Quentin Tarantino tried to get clever with the directing but didn't quiet pull it off in my opinion.Best actor/actress-Lucy LiuTerrible,Vile,Disgusting,Movie-Jake HydenI rated this 2 out of 102/10.
I was looking forward to seeing "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," as I had enjoyed "Pulp Fiction" and I had heard good things about the movie.
Now, having seen the movie, I can look back see that the violence was merely a cover for the lack of plot and the lack of just about everything else.I'll start off by relating the good characteristics of this film (of which, however, there are very few).
It is, as we all know, over the top violent, but I was yawning through much of the violence when I wasn't looking away.Recommended for: --people who will pay to watch Quentin (or Uma) read the phone book --kung fu, etc movie fans --other folks on a bored rainy day, nothing else showing, if you won't mind the violenceIt is laughable and an insult to Quentin's brilliant earlier work that this has landed itself in the top #100+ movies.
Note: I haven't seen vol.2 yet.I'm definitely not an admirer of Tarantino's works but I'm always trying to see all major Hollywood movies and expected something better than that gory disaster.
Three times I fell asleep trying to watch this film but boring rehashed fight scenes labeled as a movie kept me from making the credits.
This film is poor in how again and again, the main character escapes not based on her spirit but because she is special and favored by the filmmaker thus automatically given passage to the next scene of the movie because of a fluke or good luck.I feel Quentin Tarantino cut a side character out of the story and centered the script on someone based off of favoritism.
If this film didn't have names like Quentin Tarantino directing and Uma Thurman starring, they wouldn't have even been able to find a distributor for a movie this bad.
On the other hand, if you are a fan of martial arts movies, you should love Kill Bill..
the opening fight with Uma killing some black women is so bad,it will go down in history as how not to open a movie. |
tt0082118 | The Burning | At Camp Blackfoot, five boy campers decide to frighten the caretaker, Cropsy (Lou David). The group heads over to his cabin with a box, and one boy goes inside, puts the box down, lights something and walks out. They rap on the window until Cropsy wakes up, and sees a wormy skull with lit candles in the eye sockets. He screams and inadverntany knocks over the skull, setting the bed afire and burning a nearby gasoline can which explodes, spreading flames all over the cabin. Cropsy runs out, engulfed in flames, and falls down a small incline into the nearby lake. One week later, at St. Catherine's hospital, an orderly takes a nebbish intern to see a man, badly burnt, who was lucky to survive. As the orderly stands by the curtain to an oxygen tent, Cropsy's charred hand grabs the orderly, who screams in terror.Five years later, Cropsy is released from the hospital, apparently very disfigured from the scorching episode. Cropsy walks the streets at night, dressed in all black clothing with a hat and hiding in the shadows so no one will get a clear look at his face. A prostitute standing by the entrance to a seedy apartment building offers to take him inside. Cropsy enters the prostitute's apartment (being careful to turn out the lights before he enters). As she is preparing, Cropsy gets close and the terrified hooker tells him to leave after seeing his (still unseen) disfigured face. Cropsy struggles with the prostitute, grabs a pair of scissors, and stabs the hooker to death.Several days later at Camp Stonewater, several of the campers are playing baseball, Cropsy is glimpsed crouching in the bushes armed with a pair of garden sheers, but he does not intervene. That evening in the cafeteria, one of the campers, Karen (Carolyn Houlihan) tells the councelor Michelle (Leah Ayres) that she likes the camper Eddy, but she is a little frightened of him because of his macho nature.The next morning, another camper named Sally (Carrick Glenn) wakes up and goes to shower. While showering, she hears a noise and screams "who's there?" She throws back the shower curtain and screams. Michelle, Karen, and the rest of the girls from her cabin run in and they see Alfred (Brian Backer) running away. Coucelor Todd (Brian Matthews) stops Alfred and has a serious talk with him in his office. Alfred says that he just wanted to scare Sally and that people are always picking on him. Todd says that he knows how Alfred feels because, five years ago, when Todd was a camper at a nearby summer camp, he and several of his friends were sent home from camp for a practical joke that went wrong. A little later, Glazer (Larry Joshua), Sally's brutish boyfriend, warns Alfred to stay away from his girl.Later, the campers are swimming in the lake when Glazer pushes Alfred off the dock and into the water. One of Alfred's friends, Dave (Jason Alexander) jumps in and helps Alfred out because he cannot swim. Dave, Woodstock (Fisher Stevens), Eddy (Ned Eisenberg) and Fish (J.R. McKechnie) help Alfred get revenge against Glazer. Woodstock shoots Glazer in the butt with an air pistol while he is on a raft trying to woo Sally.In the cabin that night, Cropsy is hanging around and spying on the campers when Alfred reacts when he sees Cropsy's at the window. But the other campers don't see anything. Glazer asks Fish to buy some condoms from him for his upcoming intimate time with Sally, while Dave and Woodstock play cards. In the cafeteria, the head councelor talks to Michelle, Todd, and the rest of the campers about a three-day canoe trip to Devil's Creek, several miles downriver from the camp.The next day, a large group of campers are out canoeing. At night, around a campfire, Todd tells the story of Cropsy the caretaker. He mentions the prank and that Cropsy survives in the woods, killing animals and eating them raw. Eddy jumps out in a mask and scares everyone. Later, after everyone has gone to sleep for the night, Eddy and Karen take a walk to a nearby small lake where they begin kissing. Karen seems doubtful about wanting to have sex with Eddy, and he decides to skinny dip in the lake. When Karen joins him and remains unsure about his true intentions, Eddy grows angry, and Karen leaves. She finds her clothes scattered around the trees. While looking for them, Karen is attacked and killed by Cropsy who slashes her throat with a pair of garden shears.The next morning, Todd and Michelle ask Eddy where Karen is and he says that he does not know. Soon, they learn that all the canoes are missing, and Todd finally decides that the group needs to construct a makeshift raft to get back to their camp. After helping cutting down some small trees, the group manages to finish the raft. Glazer goes off with Sally to make out with her while Alfred spies on them.Eddy, Woodstock, Fish, and two of the female campers Marnie (Bonnie Deroski) and Rhoda (Ame Segull) leave on the raft to row back to camp. After paddling up river for a few miles, they see one of their canoes and row towards it. But when they reach their canoe (in the movie's most shocking and violently horrific scene) Cropsy, crouched inside waiting, leaps out onto the raft and, in a matter of seconds, slashes, chops, and dismembers all five campers to death.That evening, unaware of the massacre on the raft, Todd and the others wait for help to arrive. Glazer and Sally go off in a sleeping bag for a remote part of the woods for sex. Despite the unsatisfying moments of intimacy, they decide to stay for another. Glazer goes back to the main campsite to get matches to light a fire. While he is gone, Cropsy attacks Sally. Glazer gets the matches, and Alfred gets out of his sleeping bag to follow Glazer to watch him and Sally have sex. Glazer returns to the sleeping bag to find Sally dead, and he is killed by Cropsy who impales him by his neck onto a tree with the shears. Alfred runs back to the campsite to tell Todd that Glazer is dead and the "man with the horrible face" did it. Todd reluctantly follows Alfred back to the site where they find the dead and bloody Glazer and Sally. Cropsy jumps out from behind a tree and swipes at Todd with the shears, nicking him in his forehead. Alfred screams and runs away into the woods with Cropsy in pursuit. Todd wakes up and stumbles off into the woods.The next day, the campers see the raft return as it floats down towards them. Michelle swims out to the raft and finds various parts of the campers on the raft, including the dead and mutilated Woodstock. Todd returns to the camp and tells Michelle and the six remaining campers, Barbara, Tiger, Sophie, Diane, Alan, and Dave, to row back to the camp to get help while he goes off to find Alfred who may still be alive. Todd grabs a felling axe and goes looking for Alfred who is hiding in the woods from Cropsy still hounding him.The campers on the raft return to Camp Stonewater and Michelle warns the supervisor, Jeff, to rescue Todd and Alfred still out there. Jeff and Michelle jump in a motorboat and head down river towards Devil's Creek.Meanwhile, Alfred is grabbed by Cropsy and bound and gagged inside a building which looks like an old copper mine. Todd, having heard Alfred's screams, gets to the mine shaft and goes inside (after finding a dead Karen). Cropsy pins Alfred's left arm to a wall with the shears and goes after Todd with an old blowtorch which is a crudely modified flame-thrower. Todd enters the area near a workshop and stable area and sees Cropsy (whose horribly burned face is finally seen) holding the flamethrower. A flashback shows that Todd was one of the five campers who was responsible for the prank. Cropsy turns off the flamethrower, and Todd hears Alfred scream again. Cropsy reappears again in the shed and turns back on the flamethrower and tries to set Todd on fire while he swings at the manic with the axe. As Cropsy is swinging the flames around, Alfred frees himself and stabs Cropsy in the back with the garden shears. At the same time, Michelle and Jeff arrive at the campsite where she waves down a police helicopter that arrives and disembarks a few policemen who advance into the woods. Back at the mine, Todd and Alfred begin to walk out of the mine when Cropsy revives and attacks Alfred. Alfred moves out of the way as Todd swings the axe, hitting Cropsy in the face and pinning him to a support pillar. Alfred grabs Cropsy's modified flamethrower and sets him afire. Now relieved that Cropsy is finally dead, Alfred and Todd walk out of the mine shaft while the standing-up body of Cropsy continues to burn.In the final scene, the story of Cropsy and his legend is being told around a campfire. | revenge, cult, murder, violence, prank | train | imdb | This movie has a different story, it is not that bad and it is a good slasher movie and it just become my favorite horror film.The story follows campers from summer camp goes with canoe trip to Devil's Creek once there they become targets, from a former summer camp caretaker, horribly burned from a prank gone wrong, with a pair of hedge clippers to take revenge on the campers.
The effects are above average (though quite heavily cut in the British version) thanks to gore-king, Tom Savini and Rick Wakeman's electronic music score is far more effective than Harry Manfredini's psycho-like strings in Friday the 13th.
One of the first (and best) horror films to follow in the massive success of Friday the 13th (1980) is this terrifically bloody slasher film.Prank leaves camp caretaker horribly disfigured and ready for some harsh vengeance.
Enter a band of teenagers and a sharp pair of garden shears...While admittedly The Burning isn't the most well-written horror movie of the period, it's definitely one that delivers great atmosphere and suspense.
Five years later, he returns to the area to take revenge against one of his former persecutors (now a camp counsellor) and the kids in his charge.Makeup artist Tom Savini rejected an opportunity to work on "Friday the 13th Part 2" (1981) in order to create effects for Tony Maylam's THE BURNING, yet another in the assembly line of low-budget horror movies which emerged in the wake of HALLOWEEN (1978).
Unfortunately, the climax - set mostly within an abandoned mineshaft - is staged and executed with little flair or suspense, and amounts to something of a major disappointment.Of course, the main point of interest - besides seeing some familiar faces in early roles, including Jason Alexander (TV's "Seinfeld"), Fisher Stevens (SHORT CIRCUIT) and an unrecognisable Holly Hunter - is Savini's horrific makeup effects: Victims are slashed, stabbed, punctured and poked in graphic detail, and blood flows copiously from some horribly convincing wounds.
Hedge clippers in hand, the caretaker begins his reign of terror on the counselors and attendees."The Burning" has the raunchy toilet humor of "Meatballs" mixed with everything you came to expect from slasher films like "Friday the 13th" and "Sleepaway Camp." You have nice girls making bad decisions by hooking up with bad guys.
Special Make-up Artist Tom Savini returns to camp for a second time after his classic work on "Friday the 13th." His handiwork keeps the blood flowing efficiently.Brian Backer plays a character more annoying than the one he did in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Jason Alexander (yes, George Costanza) portrays a sporty and popular high schooler.
She looks like she was maybe 13 years old."The Burning" is another one of those cult classics many people forget about in the shadow of "Friday the 13th." If you're a fan of 1980s slasher movies, it's a must-own..
The thing that really makes this outstanding isn't the handful of actors in the cast of unknowns that went on to bigger and better things (Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter,etc.), but Tom Savini's realistic and gruesome effects, some of his best work.
"The Burning" showed up on Showtime late one night, as I've noticed many rare films have (one time, I saw a really strange Italian action-adventure movie from the 80s, complete with bad dubbing and all) so I decided to tape it, hoping to finally see the infamous "raft scene," which was probably the only reason I wanted to see this.
Future Miramax honchos Bob and Harvey Weinstein made their big break into filmmaking with this movie based on the real-life round-the-campfire scary story of the Kropsy Maniac, filmed in upstate New York around the same time as the thematically similar "Madman".Here, the psychotic killer is actually named Cropsy, and was a drunken, abusive caretaker at a summer camp before accidentally burning himself - badly - after a prank concocted by vindictive campers goes bad.
Five years later, poor Cropsy (Lou David), now deformed and loosed upon the world after a long hospital stay punctuated by unsuccessful skin graft operations, returns to the area he knows so well to exact extremely brutal vengeance with a pair of garden shears.That weapon alone is enough to make Cropsy iconic, and, although this movie is very standard stuff story wise, it's executed with skill by a crew headed by director Tony Maylam.
The cool and creepy electronic music score is the work of Rick Wakeman.Brian Matthews as male lead Todd and Leah Ayres as female lead Michelle are okay but over shadowed by the supporting cast including some very familiar faces who went on to great fame in the years to come - Jason Alexander, who's a hoot as smug life-of-the-party type guy Dave, Fisher Stevens, as the amiable Woodstock, Brian Backer ("Rat" in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") as nerdy outcast Alfred, Ned Eisenberg as obnoxious, aggressive Eddy, and Larry Joshua, who's a riot as domineering bully Glazer.
Yes, the raft scene is ultimately violent and looks very realistic in most aspects but that's about the extent of its violence (except for maybe the hooker scene) and doesn't do much from other slashers considering all other scenes involved.There are a few young actors in "The Burning" who rose to fame many years later after this film had been released but contributed nothing to their popularity.
Tom Savini does a nice job on the gore effects here which don't seem to be all that different from his works on "Friday the 13th" which this film is strangely similar to in style (as is most 80's slashers).The Cropsy character is an interesting character though gives no evidence of being a mean person before his accident.
The Burning showcases some of Tom Savini's best work (originally cut to ribbons in the original theatrical and VHS releases) , a moody synth score by Rick Wakeman, and an amusing cast of characters (many of whom have very recognizable faces).There's atmosphere, suspense, brutal kills, some likable characters...what more could one want from a slasher flick?
You get "The Burning," the best 80's slasher movie since "Friday the 13th!" After a prank goes wrong, Cropsy, the sadistic drunk caretaker, is horribly disfigured after being burned alive.
Well, too bad for the campers of Camp Stonewater, because they're very close to the old remains of Camp Blackfoot, and Cropsy is watching them, ready to tear them apart with his large garden shears.Tom Savini has said that "The Burning" is not a "Friday the 13th" ripoff, even though it has those elements.
First, there's the excellent effects of Tom Savini, who creates some of the most perfect kills of the 80's slasher trend, including the infamous "raft massacre" sequence.Next, there's an awesome cast of young, talented teens.
Brian Matthews and Leah Ayres are very good as Todd and Michelle, Larry Joshua is so lovably hateful as Glazer, Brian Backer of "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" fame makes a very good outcast as Alfred, Jason Alexander(George of "Seinfeld") is awesome as Dave, and so is a young Fisher Stevens("Short Circuit") as Woodstock, and if you look close enough, Holly Hunter is in there as Sophie.
The cast is gigantic, so I don't want to drag this paragraph out.Also, there's the great direction of Tony Maylam, who never made another horror movie after "The Burning." He actually has some style, filming wonderful POV shots, those amazing kills, and he chose the right place to film the movie.And finally, "The Burning" has a very creative, techno, vintage score by Rick Wakeman, who is popular for being in the hit rock band YES!.
Coming from "The Burning," he shows a lot of talent.Although the script is a little bit thin, Tony Maylam's 1981 gore-ific slasher flick is one of the most awesome movies to come out of the genre.
The first movie produced by Miramax's Bob and Harvey Weinstein, and one of the earliest solo flights by makeup marvel Tom Savini, THE BURNING fell victim to the "Video Nasties" controversy that raged in London during the Eighties, and as a result a lot of the horrifying set pieces here were neutered down to a late-night shock show edit.
:o) It all builds up nicely and there's some excellent gore scenes in the 2nd half of the movie when Cropsy the janitor returns to kill off kids from the summer camp and get revenge for his burning!!
I give The Burning 8.7/10, very entertaining slasher, very good pacing, very good characters, loads of impressive gore from the master Tom Savini and a creepy ending, i advise all horror movie fans to SEE THIS NOW!!!.
After spending five years in hospital Cropsy, now a disfigured monster, is released back into society and eventually heads back to the campsite with murderous revenge in mind!The Burning' was one of a spate of campsite slashers made to capitalise on the success of the previous years Friday the 13th' and is quite possibly the sub-genre's most enduring film.
The actors are more believeble than in the Friday 13th-series, and the killings are excellent done by the master of horror-effects, Tom Savini.Also, very funny to see Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld) in his first ever screen-apperance - and doing a fine job too!.
And it's good to see this mayhem occurring in starkest daylight.The storyline is typical, but the unusual (for a slasher) Rick Wakeman score adds a little "class" to the proceedings.The late Brit director Tony Maylam, who never made another horror pic in his life, directs THE BURNING with solid efficiency and squeezes decent performances from the young cast.Cropsy's tragic backstory -- that he was a mean-spirited asshole who got teased a lot -- doesn't do much for our sympathies.
The special effects (by Tom Savini of Friday the 13th) are the only saving grace of this uninteresting, badly-acted and sloppily-scripted piece of junk.One scene in particular stands out in my mind: the counselors (yes, this movie takes place at a summer camp; original isn't it?) are discussing the legend of the movie's killer.
There is a nice score but it's repeated so often you're tired of it by the end of the movie.This also has a young Jason Alexander (with hair!) and is the film debut of Holly Hunter (good luck trying to spot her).
'The Burning' Is A surprisingly good early eighties's Slasher Flick, the film was an early production by the now world famous 'Miramax' studio, it also has the debut's of well known's such as Oscar winner Holly Hunter, And Seinfield's Jason Alexander, Film's plot has a childish prank by summer camp councilors's goes horribly wrong when they accidentally burn an obnoxious caretaker beyond recognition, skip to five year's later the Caretaker is out of care from the hospital, and out for revenge, which has superb special make up effect's from make up maestro Tom Savini,But be warned some of the slashing's are definitely not the faint of heart,.
Gory, excellent, scary and very i Cool totally a horror classic, this is what you look for in a slasher film, a creepy killer, great gore, suspense, and hilarious actor's this movie was so fun and totally worth it, today this is what horror needs., now lets get on to the real stuff, the burning would get a 9.5/10 for me because it basically is a enjoyable film and is a visual masterpiece to slasher collection and will always be one of my favorites.
But still, 'Friday the 13th' is the film that, through being a financial success, really established the slasher genre in all its cliché glory and it is clearly this that 'The Burning' was hoping to cash in on.The plot hardly needs detailing: a large group of children, some older and some younger, spend the holidays in a summer camp where a deranged former caretaker, Cropsey, enacts his brutal and gory revenge for the prank-gone-wrong which left him horrendously burned some years before.
So far, so predicable slasher
and yet, the film retains a high watch-ability factor from clearly being done by people who knew what they were doing as the film was the first to be written and produced by the Weinsteins, the gory kills are courtesy of maestro Tom Savini (who had actually worked on 'Friday the 13th), the soundtrack was done my prog-rock king Rick Wakeman, and the cast includes good performances from a young Jason Alexander (George from 'Seinfeld') and Fisher Stevens (the Indian guy from 'Short Circuit').
Cropsy's back, and he's got a score to settle.Barely a year following the release of the smash-hit slasher 'Friday The 13th', the clones began to fill up the assembly line, and in tune with the genre's trademark lack of subtlety, 'The Burning' makes little attempt to disguise its roots.
Produced and written by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who later went on to become major movie producers and the owners of the major company Miramax Films, this bloody little camp-set slasher film is sure to please nearly any horror fan.
forget that pile of crap scream and i know what you did last summer and watch the burning a real slasher and not a preppy slasher like the two i mentioned.they will never make slasher movies like the burning ever again unfortunately.besides high tension and toolbox murders remake nothing has come out besides wannabe slasher garbage.if you want to see very gory murders created by the god of gore effects tom savini then i suggest you get a copy and make sure it is uncut.this has a classic killer with a burned face picking off teenagers with his big pair of gardening shears.this is a Friday the 13th clone that has never had a sequel and i don't know why it is way better than most of the Friday sequels.
This came out a week after "Friday the 13th Part 2" in 1981 and contains all the staples of that blossoming franchise: disfigured killer, iconic weapon (in this case, garden shears), summer camp, camp counselors, a prank gone wrong, swimming antics, deep woods sexual frolics, death during (or after) sex, a secret hideout for the killer, semi-nekkid or fully nekkid teen girls, etc."The Burning" is held in high esteem mostly for its infamous raft sequence, but that only involves about 30 seconds and it's not THAT phenomenal.
Before they were huge producers, the Weinstein brothers released a little known slasher picture entitled "The Burning", which featured in small roles modern day stars Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter.
The film features the right amount of suspense to keep you on the edge, a compelling story, likable and unique characters, and of course a pool full of blood."The Burning" is basically about a cruel camp caretaker named Cropsy who gets horribly burned in a prank-gone-wrong by some of the kids.
The killer wields a large pair of hedge shears and uses them to good effect, slashing throats, impaling and, in one particularly grisly scene, chopping off a young man's fingers and causing them to fly into the air.One of the great video nasties of the early eighties, 'The Burning' is pretty cool.
Look closely and you'll also spot a young Jason Alexander, who succeeds in giving the best performance!Of course, the real reason that any one would want to see the full version of this all but forgotten slasher is for Tom Savini's great gore effects unrestricted.
That films like "The Prowler" (directed by Joseph Zito, who also did the third "Friday" sequel) and Tony Maylam's "The Burning" are remembered as such "standouts" today owes more to their timing and the expertise of FX go-to-guy Tom Savini than any sort of creativity.
It starts with a pretty good burning man, but after a stupid bit in a hospital and an out-of-place city scene featuring an ugly hooker, we're left with an outstandingly average summer camp killer movie in the "Friday the 13th"/"Sleepaway Camp" vein.
Now the former creepy caretaker decides to stalk a group of summer camp pranksters for one bloody unforgettable revenge, they won't forgot.Directed by Tony Maylam (Split Second) made an effective, brutal, slasher film in the wake of "Friday the 13th".
One by one unsuspecting campers get cut up by Cropsys Hedge clippers as he prowls the dark woods.The Burning is clearly one of the many Friday the 13th ripp-offs that plagued the 80s cinema screens, however this one is probably one of the best in the genre.The Burning have everything that makes a slasher great, gory kills created by the genius Tom Savini, realistic and lovable characters, excellent music, great mood and lots of suspense.
Many Famous faces such as Jason Alexander (George in Seinfield!) and Holly Hunter are seen in the movie, this makes it even more fun to watch.As a fan of the slasher genre i love The Burning and have seen it repeated times on VHS, however i saw it on DVD last night.MGMs DVD release of the Burning is close to flawless and totally uncut.
The killing scenes in this film were under direction of its makeup artist Tom Savini, who worked on horror classics such as Friday The 13th, Maniac, Dawn Of The Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and many more.
Luckily the version I have is the uncut Australian release.Overall, "The Burning" is an underrated and exceptional slasher film which all horror fans should get alot out of, particularly fans of Friday The 13th, Sleepaway Camp, etc.
The special effects by Tom Savini are great and the general entertainment for a slasher type horror film is excellent.
Not only does it feature a recognizable cast of up and coming soon-to-be-stars, but it has career-best work by makeup artist Tom Savini, a wicked score by Rick Wakeman, and an impressive series of set pieces.The plot is your usual summer camp slash 'n dash stuff - a camp caretaker is left horribly burned after a prank goes wrong and, years later, he returns to make sure all the kids at Camp Blackfoot have as bad a time as he did.Let's face it, that's not exactly reinventing the wheel, but there's a lot to recommend her. |
tt0980970 | The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader | Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes), almost but not quite an adult, envies adult men. He tries to enlist in His Majesty's Army, but the recruiter, of course, catches him out with his fake I.D., especially when his sister Lucy (Georgie Henley) reminds him that he was supposed to help her with grocery shopping.Lucy envies any girl whom she thinks is prettier than she. The problem is that her only standards of beauty are her older sister Susan (Anna Popplewell), now in America, and any other girl who is hanging on the arm of a young man.Edmund and Lucy have another problem. Because the war still rages, they are evacuated once again. Only while Peter (William Moseley) and Susan are evaculated all the way to America, Edmund and Lucy are evacuated, not to Professor Digory Kirke's country estate (see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), but to the home of their obnoxious cousin, Eustace Clarence Scrubb (Will Poulter). Eustace has no social graces whatsoever and would like nothing better than to treat Edmund and Lucy as he would treat any of the arthropods in his considerable, and repulsive, collection.One afternoon, Lucy and Edmund are alone in the room that Edmund has to share with Eustace. They notice a painting on a wall--a painting of a ship on an ocean, a ship that looks very much like one of the ships they once sailed in the world of Narnia, where once they had reigned as a king and a queen. Only as they stare at the painting, the water seems to move, and the ship seems to come right at them. Eustace enters, and makes fun of them for indulging, as he sees it, in a flight of fancy. But then the seawater starts to *spill into the room.* Eustace, panicked, tears the painting off the wall, but that does no good. In the next instant, the room is full of water, rising until they are swimming in it. Soon they are underwater, and rising up to the surface of a real ocean. And there comes the ship, big as life!The crew of that ship pick them up at once. Edmund and Lucy discover, to their delight, that the ship is actually Narnian. The distinguished passenger on board is none other than King Caspian (Ben Barnes), with whom they had fought a successful war three years before (in Narnian time; see Prince Caspian). Eustace is thoroughly affronted, especially with a Talking Mouse (Simon Pegg) who protests that he was only trying to resuscitate him! To make matters worse, a walking, talking Minotaur (Shane Rangi) tells him that he is aboard the Dawn Treader, "the finest ship in the Narnian Navy!"Caspian welcomes Edmund and Lucy on board as honored guests. Then, after outfitting them both in Narnian clothing, he gives Lucy her dagger and medicinal cordial (and Susan's bow and arrows), and offers Edmund his old electric torch, which he had left behind.Now Caspian reveals his mission. He is looking for the Seven Lost Lords of Narnia, friends of his father's whom Lord Protector Miraz had driven into exile. They had fled to the Lone Islands, and no one has heard from them since. Caspian's mission: to rescue or recover them.Reepicheep the Talking Mouse has a mission of his own: he wants to travel to the literal end of the world, and find the country of Aslan (Liam Neeson), the lion-shaped God-King of the world of Narnia.Lucy thoroughly enjoys the sights and sounds of Narnia. Edmund and Caspian entertain the crew with a fencing match. Eustace stubbornly insists that he "never lost" his "sea legs." Eustace boasts that he will find the British Consulate, as if Britain even *has* a consulate in this world. But all this idle talk stops, as the Dawn Treader comes within sight of land: Narrowhaven, capital city on the largest of the Lone Islands, their immediate destination.Tavros the Minotaur, who obviously serves as boatswain on board, orders two longboats fitted out. In them, Caspian leads a landing party ashore. Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Reepicheep are all part of it. They find Narrowhaven deserted, and Caspian and the children go further inland to investigate. Inside an empty hall, they find ledgers showing purchases and sales--of slaves. Just then, the slavers rappel down ropes and attack. Lucy, Edmund, and Caspian handily fight off the attackers, but Eustace is easily seized, and used as leverage to capture all four of them. In the dungeon into which the slavers throw them, they find Lord Bern (Terry Norris), first of the Seven Lords, who has been a prisoner for many years. Bern recognizes Caspian as his king and tells him what has befallen Narrowhaven. Then they watch as the slavers take a cartload of very frightened slaves, load them into a longboat, and shove it out to sea--where an animated green mist suddenly appears, washes over them, and then disappears--with the slaves. Lord Bern tells Caspian that his six companions set out to find the source of the mist, and never returned. Bern has reproached himself ever since for not going with them.The next day, the slavers try to sell the children at auction. An apparent buyer shows up--who is actually Lord Drinian (Gary Sweet), captain of Dawn Treader, and enough men-at-arms to take over the town and set all the slaves at liberty. Eustace tries to steal away in a longboat, but succeeds only in decking another slaver who tries to kill him before the other Narnians show up.A distraught man of Narrowhaven name Rhince (Arthur Angel), seeking to find his wife Helaine (Rachel Blakely), who was on the last longboat devoured by the mists, signs on with Dawn Treader's crew. Lord Bern then retrieves a sword he has kept all this time, one of seven swords that Aslan gave to the Seven Lords. Bern gives this to Caspian, who then gives it to Edmund to use while he is in Narnia.Dawn Treader sets sail to go further east. Eustace keeps a diary, always assuming that everything around him is an illusion. And then on his first full night on board, he tries to steal water and food from the ship's rations. Reepicheep catches him at it, and the two fight a quick duel, Reepicheep with his sword, and Eustace with the first weapon he finds handy: a galley knife. The fight is almost one-sided, except that Reepicheep is trying more to train Eustace in swordfighting than to do him any real harm. Then Eustace falls over a bundle--that turns out to be a little girl, Gael (Arabella Morton), Rhince and Helaine's daughter, who desperately wants to find her mother. Captain Drinian says nothing about the attempted ration theft, and simply welcomes the little girl as "an extra crewmember." Lucy takes to Gael quickly and acts as her protector.Dawn Treader next fetches up at another apparently uninhabited island. Only this island *is* inhabited, by invisible men who hop about on one foot each--but are quite capable of abducting someone. They abduct Lucy and bring her into the garden of a mansion several yards inland (a mansion that is also invisible, and by the same means: a magic spell). They want her to go into this mansion, find a book of spells, and recite a spell to render them visible once again. Lucy reluctantly does so, especially after the voices tell her that they can neither read nor write.Caspian finds Lucy missing and awakens Edmund and the other members of the landing party (except Eustace, who sleeps on).Inside the mansion, Lucy finds the spell book, which she cannot open until she breathes upon it. She finds all sorts of spells inside, including a spell to make snow (she tries it, with success), and a spell to make one beautiful. She tears that page out, and then an angry lion's voice roars at her, rustling the pages. Then she hears Aslan's voice calling her name, after she looks into a mirror and sees her sister Susan's face. Now Lucy returns to the business at hand: she finds the spell to make things visible and says it. Just in time, too, for the inhabitants have captured Caspian and the landing party. When they become visible again, they let their guard down and tell all.Lucy reappears, and introduces Coriakin (Bille Brown), the master of the island. Coriakin apologizes for rendering the monopods ("Dufflepuds") invisible, saying that he had to protect them from "The Evil", i.e., the force behind the Green Mist. Now Coriakin has something to reveal: an animated, interactive chart of the eastern part of the Great Ocean. He tells Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace that they must proceed to Aslan's Table, with a Blue Star to guide them, and lay upon it all of the Seven Swords of Aslan. But he also warns them: "You are all about to be tested." That applies equally to Caspian (who has always felt that he was not the king his father was) as it does to Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace.Dawn Treader then sets out again, this time sailing into a storm. Fourteen days effectively dampen everyone's spirits, except those of Reepicheep, who is hearty enough to accept anything as part of the adventure. Even Captain Drinian is reluctant, but Caspian insists on pressing on and reminds Drinian sharply that they have taken on a crewman and his daughter, who are very eager to find their loved one.During the storm, Lucy has the bad sense to try out the beauty spell. With the result that she becomes Susan, and finds herself with her brothers Peter (William Moseley) and Edmund in America. Problem: no such person as Lucy, and no Narnia, either. Now thoroughly frightened, Lucy awakes with a scream, to find herself face-to-face with Aslan. Aslan chides her for wishing herself away, and doubting her own value--for without Lucy, the Pevensies would never have found Narnia. Lucy, having learned her lesson, burns the beauty spell.The Green Mist briefly appears, and then moves out to the quarters that Edmund and Caspian share. Edmund wakes up to hear a voice he never wanted to hear again: that of his ancient temptress and cruel enemy, the White Witch of Narnia (Tilda Swinton). Then the Mist retreats when Lucy walks in on the boys to say that she could not sleep. Edmund knows why.The next day, the Dawn Treader puts ashore at yet another island. This one is uninhabited for real. Edmund, Lucy, and Caspian descend into a cave, where they find a pool of water with a golden statue at the bottom. Edmund tries to probe it with a broken-off branch--and the branch turns to gold in his hand. Then they realize that the statue is actually one of the Seven Lords, Restimar, now "aurified" and dead. They know that they must retrieve Restimar's sword--but Edmund is much taken with realizing that anything dipped into the pool turns to gold. He sees riches for himself, and Caspian sees a resource over which he, as king, should take dominion. Then the two start to argue, and only Lucy's intervention keeps the two from killing each other in a duel. And so they retrieve the sword and leave the pool alone.Eustace, meanwhile, goes off exploring on his own--and finds a rock defile filled with more treasure than he has ever seen in one place: gold, silver, and gemstones, all for the taking. He finds a skeleton (actually that of Lord Octesian) and puts on a gold bracelet that the skeleton had been wearing. That is a mistake.In the next scene, Caspian and Edmund set out to find Eustace, who they assume has strayed form camp. They find his clothing and diary, and fear the worst for him. They then recognize Octesian's remains and recover his sword. Then, out of nowhere, a winged, fire-breathing dragon swoops down from the mountains and alights on Dawn Treader's spar. Drinian leads his men-at-arms in a futile attempt to shoot the dragon off, and then Reepicheep climbs the mast and embeds his tiny sword into the dragon's talon. The dragon shrieks, jumps off, and flies back ashore--where he finds Edmund and Caspian, scoops up Edmund in his talons, and carries him inland, where Edmund reads this legend, burnt into the rocks: I AM EUSTACE.Edmund and Caspian realize the terrible truth: the dragon's treasure turned Eustace himself into a dragon. Lucy manages to relieve Eustace of Octesian's bracelet, which now hurts him terribly. Caspian observes that everyone in the world of Narnia knows that a dragon's treasure is enchanted, hence dangerous to collect or even to touch. Lucy, Edmund, Caspian, Gail, and Reepicheep agree to stay on the island overnight to keep Eustace company and decide how best to accommodate Eustace. Reepicheep actually warms to Eustace and tells him some of his favorite adventure stories. Eustace, unable to communicate, at least seems glad of the company. Reepicheep also suggests to Eustace that his transformation is a sign of an "extraordinary destiny" to come.In the next morning, the Blue Star appears to them. Dawn Treader embarks, with Eustace flying alongside. A mermaid tries to warn Lucy that they should sail no further; Lucy does not understand, and Caspian is determined to press on. Soon the ship is becalmed, and the men must fall to with their oars--until Eustace wraps his tail around the ship's figurehead and takes it in tow.That night, Dawn Treader lands at yet another island--Rhamandu's Island, where Aslan's Table is always spread. There the crew find three more of the Lords (Revilian, Argoz, and Mavramorn), not dead but fast asleep and tangled in their own beards. At Caspian's direction, they recover the swords that the Three Lords carried. They lay these, and the swords they brought with them, on the table--but they make only six. They still must recover one more.Then the Blue Star appears to them, and takes the form of a young woman--Liliandil (Laura Brent). She encourages them to eat freely of the fruit of Aslan's Table, and assures them that the three Lords are under a sleeping spell only for their own good, to stop them from killing one another, as they almost did. Liliandil then tells them that they must sail on to one more island: the Dark Island, source of the Green Mist and of every man's nightmare. There Lord Rhoop (Bruce Spence), carrying the last sword, walks that island, mad with fear. This will be their greatest hazard, for the island will make any man's nightmare take real form.Still they sail on to the island, with all hands armed. (Caspian gives his sword, that once belonged to Peter, to Edmund; Edmund gave up his sword at Aslan's Table.) Reepicheep struggles to give Eustace a pep talk, to remind him that, as a dragon, he has much better natural armor and weapons than any other hand aboard, and so should not flinch from battle.As Dawn Treader approaches the Dark Island, the Green Mist reaches out to it, though the men do their best to ignore it. Rhince sees a vision of his missing wife. Drinian sees a thick fog, that robs him of sight. Caspian sees a vision of his father, Caspian IX (Nathaniel Parker), dressing him down. Edmund sees the White Witch, who offers him the same thing that she once offered him many years before: to make him her king.Then they hear Lord Rhoop, shouting at them to keep off. Rhoop bears the Seventh Sword, as everyone thought he would. Rhoop is reluctant to come aboard, but Eustace simply flies to the island, scoops up Rhoop, and sets him on board. Rhoop acknowledges Caspian and warns Caspian that they must put out to sea at once and not think too much. But Edmund thinks of a Great Sea Serpent, which now takes form and attacks the ship.Eustace flies into battle and attacks the Serpent with all the fire he has--but the Serpent takes Eustace in his jaws, flings him this way and that, and throws him onto the rocks. Eustace recovers and blows more fire on the Serpent. Rhoop then foolishly throws his sword at the Serpent. He misses--and the sword embeds itself in Eustace' shoulder.Eustace flies off to Rhamadu's Island and makes a hard belly landing on the sand, as the Sea Serpent wraps itself around Dawn Treader, threatening to crush her. Edmund and Caspian seek to steer Dawn Treader toward the rocks, to ram the Serpent. Edmund challenges the Serpent, using Peter's old sword, while Caspian struggles with the wheel. Caspian's strategy is successful: they manage to stun the Serpent by slamming its head into a rock.Eustace, on the sand bar, wakes up. Aslan appears to him, and with a roar, burns off Eustace' dragon skin. Eustace wakes up, finding himself back in his old form, and with the Seventh Sword nearby. He takes it in hand and realizes that he is on Rhamandu's Island and can walk into the room of Aslan's Table. So while Dawn Treader's crew continue their desperate fight with the Serpent, and Edmund must struggle again with the temptation of the White Witch, Eustace races to the table and lays the last Sword on top of the other Six. The Mist tries to stop Eustace, but he disperses it with the sword.Edmund, of course, can't see Eustace doing this. But suddenly Peter's original sword, which he is carrying, turns bright blue. He realizes at once that the sword now is far more powerful than it ever was. So, though the White Witch (or her apparition) tries to dissuade him, he impales the Serpent with it. The Serpent dies and falls to the shallow bottom. The deep darkness lifts, and Dawn Treader is in daylight again. At Aslan's Table, the Three Lords awaken--and at the Dark Island, now no longer dark, every longboat of slaves that had gone to the Green Mist now comes out to meet Dawn Treader. Rhince and Gael are reunited with Helaine. Eustace then finds himself in the water, swimming to Dawn Treader. Reepicheep jumps in to rescue Eustace--and then they realize that the water is no longer sour, but sweet. Dawn Treader has now come within sight of Aslan's Country.Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, Eustace, and Reepicheep set out alone in a longboat to Aslan's Shore--which has a permanent, stationary breaker of surf on it. Aslan joins them there and informs them that their journey is at an end. Caspian, knowing that he would never return from an adventure into Aslan's Country, decides at the last instant to turn back, and go back to Narnia to govern it properly. Reepicheep is welcomed permanently into Aslan's Country, as has always been his destiny.Edmund says it's time for him, Lucy and Eustace to return home. Lucy understands that for her and Edmund, this is their last time in Narnia; they won't be returning. Aslan tells the Pevensies that they must now learn the name that Aslan bears on Earth, and their time on Narnia was intended to help them do that. Eustace is assured that he might be needed on Narnia once more, in the future.Aslan then sends Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace back to earth, back the way they came. They find themselves back in the room in Eustace' house. Eustace hangs the fallen painting back on the wall--and in it, Dawn Treader is sailing away from them. The film ends with Eustace' last diary record: that in the days that followed, the children spoke often of Narnia, and when the Pevensies leave, as they do once the war ends, Eustace will miss them. (But in a hint of the next intended sequel, Alberta Scrubb, Eustace' mother, shouts up to Eustace that a little girl named Jill Pole has stopped in for a visit.) | good versus evil, violence, alternate reality | train | imdb | Unfortunately this meant that most of the magic of the story was lost as well.I gave the film 6 stars due to the redeeming qualities that were the stunning visuals, some excellent acting (notably by Will Poulter as Eustace), and a beautifully executed final scene.If you haven't read the book, then you may enjoy this film immensely, but if you are a true Narnia fan, don't go in with very high expectations..
Not sure why, as I would expect them to improve with each film as did the young cast of the Harry Potter movies.Overall, the story has surprisingly been well adapted considering not a great deal actually happens in the book.
But I think most children will enjoy this immensely, regardless if they read the books or not.With better written dialogue and better handling of the child performances (namely Lucy and Edmund), this could have been a much better film but as its stands its an enjoyable enough entry in this series.Oh and I will say it again, do not watch this in 3d..
Today, I checked out the latest entry of the Chronicles of Narnia film franchise based on the books by C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.In this film, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie are currently taking shelter in a home owned by their uncle.
Just like the first two films, Dawn Treader is handsomely produced, boasting impressive production design, costumes, makeup, sound design, and special effects, and some great battle sequences, such as a daring escape from slave traders, and a nail biting final battle with ferocious sea serpents.But you know what?
There's also a somewhat distracting end credits country tune performed by Carrie Underwood, which by itself is quite lovely, but in the context of the film, feels out of place to the fantasy of Narnia.It really does seem like the series has gotten worse with each new film.
This film is about the Pevensies and their cousin entering Narnia again, in order to help Prince Caspian gather all seven swords of the lords to fight against dark forces."The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is a good film.
The film is made by 20th Century Fox and Walden Media, directed by Michael Apted, still with actors Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian, Liam Neesan as the voice of Aslan the Lion, Skander Keynes again as Edmund, Georgie Henley as Lucy, with Will Poulter (Son of Rambow) as their cousin Eustace.The story centers around Edmund and Lucy returning to Narnia this time with their whiny cousin Eustace where they meet up with Prince Caspian, now King Caspian, onboard the Narnia ship the Dawn Treader.
Flowing along quickly, this is by far the shortest in runtime of the series yet also the most powerful and magical, it starts well and ends on a such a high emotional note there are few that will escape unaffected from any screening.Special effects stand out, with the absence of WETA in the production and special effects I was anxious to see if the new team, actually a fairly large group of small companies, could match what WETA was able to create I am here to tell you YES and in some ways they have surprassed their creations.
The only one that seemed a little down was Aslan who though looking good seems a step down from what WETA created in Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian but the rest is so vivid with color and imagination there is little doubt that it will not just capture the imagination of the young but the entire family and keep them from first shot to last frame.Music is another powerful entry, the strong Narnia theme running through this film giving it wonder and magic that belongs in this type of film.
Everyone from Edmund to Lucy, to Caspian, to Reepicheep, to Eustace, get powerful scenes that culimate in the strongest ending to a Narnia films and one of the most poignant scenes I have seen in a film in a very long time.Christians out there, do you fear that the Christian themes are stripped out of this movie?
I believe one would be fine seeing it or not seeing it in 3D, whatever you prefer.Overall, Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a powerful entry in the fantasy genre, a great film for the entire family, and the type of film that belongs in December and should be watched time and time again by young and old alike!
It follows King Caspian in a journey to find the seven lost lords of Narnia whom King Miraz banished during his reign in the previous film with his ship, the Dawn Treader.
Michael Apted replacing Andrew Adamson is definitely an advance in the Narnia film series.However, Narnian fans will miss Peter and Susan Pevensie as they would not return as main characters but rather just as cameos.
But, for me, it was acceptable and let's hope that it's acceptable for other fans of the book."The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (what a long title it is) is absolutely a must-watch film for this holiday season and is very suitable for Christmas.
There were reasons to be both excited and nervous about this third instalment of the "Narnia" series, but luckily Michael Apted has made a fun, swashbucking family film.Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are stuck in Cambridge, England, living with their bratty and selfish cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter).
And there is, and a supposedly good one - one which will not only test their battling skills what with dragons, serpents and storms on the way, but also bring them face to face with their inner demons and fears.As far as the similarity of the movie's plot with the book goes, I frankly admit to having no idea regarding that.
I mean, the amount of visual effects present in the film and the quality of each shot is simply brilliant - from the dragon to the serpent to the wide shots of The Dawn Treader to the Islands to the waves to Reepicheep the mouse and finally, the great Aslan.
Once again we are draw into the world of Narnia as Edmund and Lucy along with their cousin Eustace to help King Caspian find seven Lords banished from Narnia by his uncle.This third film in the Narnia series is a great improvement on the last and by far the best yet.
Discovery of the 7 lords and their swords is itself a moral journey for everyone and while C.S. Lewis did brilliantly in detailing those aspects, Apted is short of time and just like all Narnian films, this one too falls short of the book's magical effect.
The shortest of the 3 films, yet least action packed, 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' betters its predecessor by being closer to the book with moral implications and child-like adventures.
Lucy (George Henley) and Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) return to Narnia with their cousin Eustace (Will Poucher) where they meet up with Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) for a trip across the sea aboard the royal ship The Dawn Treader .
When a painting of a ship sailing on the sea of Narnia overflows water in their room, Lucy, Edmund and Eustace are transported to the ocean of Narnia and rescued by King Caspian (Ben Barnes) and the crew of the ship The Dawn Treader.
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is a great adventure supported by awesome CGI and the delightful Reepicheep that "steals the film".
We were invited to 20th Century Fox Offices in Soho Square London with Premier Christian Media to see a special private preview of the 'Chronicles of Narnia; Voyage of the Dawn Treader' If you liked the first two by Disney you will LOVE this one by Walden Media.This classic story is often half heartedly retold by program makers, coming 3rd in the series of the Chronicles of Narnia.This adaptation was well filmed, well acted and well scripted.
came out it seemed that this was going to be very different from the previous two ( and not necessarily in a good way) Today my suspicions were confirmed and I have to say that this is by far the less exciting movie of the Narnia series.
It cant get any magical than this,it was amazing seeing Narnia back at its best.It was like a fairy tale that you imagine only in your dreams.Fox has given rebirth to Narnia,and director apted has directed amazingly well,the boy who played Eustace(Will Poulter) acted amazingly,there was many scenes which got enlightened more by his presence and by his voice over.The climax was also taken well,though there is no straight villain here,the concept of "your evil in the mind is the villain"was kinda cool because it showed you each and everyone's fear and desires.So it kind of made me thinking who is going to come really.I have not read the book(i don't know whether it is based on book),but still it was amazing and magicalI think finally Narnia Universe will flourish in Fox....Long Live Narnia !!!!!!!.
I really love the Narnia series but this one....this one is just bad..The acting seems to have gotten worse than last movie, the script is just plain rubbish, then the audio feels like it was recorded with a cellphone...no depth no clarity no nothing.
I'm just saying if you're a movie buff like me (I've watched over a thousand films), if you love the Narnia series, and if you have a good eye for performance, you might not enjoy this movie.
I have read the Chronicles of Narnia series many times and have always thought this book would be the best one in a movie.
The voice actors also do their part well, with Liam Neeson, wise as ever as the voice of Aslan, and especially Simon Pegg as Reepicheep (replacing Eddie Izzard from the previous one), giving his character a wiser and more noble personality.While the story looks like a cookie-cutter fare, there's more to it than one will normally think; there are some elements which adults may come to appreciate more than children, especially at the end.
I am very disappointed,I love movies like lord of the rings,harry potter,narnia and when I've heard that they are making this movie I was so excited and eager to see it...!!!I was expecting this sequel a little darker as it happened with Prince Caspian....but unfortunately this sequel is neither better nor darker than the previous films,it's just a flop.It's shame to be compared with Pirates of Caribbean...!This film is far too light and simple and there is no doubt that the absence of Disney is obvious.The only good thing was the role of the irritating cousin,this kid was indeed irritating...!It would be awesome when this kid become older to act to the SAW as a victim...!!!Anyway if you need to choose from watching this film or jumping off a cliff....choose the cliff..
Apted probably also told Henley that humans always respond favorably to a smile, so when in doubt, smile like crazy.* And this kid is in doubt a lot, calling up the old expression "When all around you are losing their heads, maybe they know something you don't."Edmund once again finds himself playing 2nd fiddle, this time to Ben Barnes, reprising his role as Caspian from the eponymous 2nd film, except that now he's the king, not merely a prince.
The titular ship, the Dawn Treader, hops from island to island, with a different adventure at each stop along the way until the grand climactic battle with a giant sea serpent, conjured into existence by Edmund's imagination in much the same way as the giant Sta-Puft marshmallow man in Ghostbusters.Had the stupidest of the crew been blessed with even a single game's experience at D&D, they would have known enuf to set somebody on watch every night, but they don't even learn from their failure to do so the 1st couple of times, giving rise to what Roger Ebert calls the "idiot plot", one in which the entire story would fall apart if even 1 character did something sensible or reasonable.For me, the most irritating aspect of these films is something endemic to Lewis's source novels, namely the mincing around the Christian apologetics.
Less the muddling direction and lacklustre 3D effects, the film scores on other aesthetic aspects.Affairs get hasty in returning Edmund and Lucy back to Narnia with their cousin Eustace (resembling the pronunciation of 'useless') this time.
You know right from the start that either a spectacular Narnian adventure lies ahead or sloppy screen writing gets in the way of proper plot development.Unfortunately, it's the later.It's interesting to hear what Edmund actually said in the film after the party has been picked up by Prince Caspian and his vessel in the open sea.
Positives: Two gorgeous looking kings (Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie and Ben Barnes as Caspian) are a great plus, and probably one of the main reasons I can still watch this movie.Beautiful environments.Speed; it doesn't bore you.
They bring back a small glimpse of the magic which the first ones held.Negatives: Far away from the book's plot.The creatures of Narnia aren't as well made as in previous films.Will Poulter as Eustace.
"The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader" sees Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) return to Narnia with their cousin, Eustace (Will Poulter).
They once again meet up with Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) as they try to defeat the new evil in Narnia."The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader" is a beautiful film visually to watch.
And Will Poulter as Eustace is a complete caricature, boring to watch, and not at all believable.The problem with this film is that is simply goes from one action scene to the next, with little or no character development or meaningful down-time.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third film in the series based on CS Lewis' fantasy novels.
On the good ship Dawn Treader, captained by Prince Caspian (from the second movie in the series), the Pevensie children/monarchs in Narnia sail close to unchartered waters and islands.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third film of the franchise base upon the classic books by CS Lewis based upon the adventures of the Pevensie children in the mythical realm of Narnia.
Another odd thing is apparently only two of the Pevensie children (Edmund and Lucy) travel to Narnia along with their cousin Eustace (who comes of as a pretentious, pathetic child destined for a job as a banker or something like that).The children appear on the Dawn Treader a ship owned and captained by Prince Caspian who is looking for his fathers seven advisers.
In this film, Lucy and Edmund Pevensie return to Narnia, for the last time, accompanied by an inconvenient and annoying cousin named Eustace, to assist Caspian to find seven lords of Telmar who disappeared at sea.Directed by Michael Apted, it has screenplay by Michael Petroni, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
The cast was headed by Georgie Henley (Lucy), Skandar Keynes (Edmund), Ben Barnes (Caspian), Will Poulter (Eustace) and also features the voices of Eddie Izzard (Reepicheep) and Liam Neeson (Aslan)."Chronicles of Narnia" is a trilogy that started badly and ended worse.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn TreaderEntering other realms via wall art could be a thought-provoking experience – so long as the artist isn't Michael Godard.Thankfully, the painting that the three minors in this action-adventure crawl through doesn't depict any guitar-wielding olives.As the war effort continues, siblings Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) go to live with their cousin Eustace (Will Poulter).There, the cousins are transported to Narnia, courtesy of a seascape painting on Lucy's bedroom wall.Boarding a vessel helmed by Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), the three make themselves useful by assisting the crew in their search for the missing Lords of Narnia.While it does feature a menacing sea-creature, this third installment of the fantasy franchise is laden with a dull storyline, annoying characters and Christian propaganda.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third instalment in the book to film adaptation of C.S Lewis' novels.
The first two in the series were astounding films so my question was – do the changes in production prevent The Voyage of the Dawn Treader from being another great film?Continuing from Prince Caspian, at the end where Caspian was left the king of Narnia and the Pevensie siblings travelled back to their world, the movie begins with Lucy and Edmund living in England during a war and we are introduced to a new character.
As with the previous two movies based upon C.S. Lewis's books, Voyage of the Dawn Treader continues the story of good verse evil.
We thought it was the best Narnia film made.Where we left off from "Prince Caspian," Peter and Susan are in America with their parents, while Lucy and Edmund are staying with their cousin Eustace Scrubb in Cambridge.
Luckily, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" brings back the old Narnian magic in this installment!For a basic plot summary, "Voyage" sees the younger Pevensie siblings, Edmund (Skander Keynes) & Lucy (Georgie Henley), as well as their cousin Eustace (Will Poulter), once again drawn back into Narnia in order to help Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) defeat the last remaining threat to Narnian peace by sailing towards Aslan Country in search of lost citizens.The action/adventure is breathtaking and is a great change-of-pace from the slogging "Caspian".
When a picture in Eustace's house starts to leak water (one example of good special effects in the film), the three find themselves in the seas of Narnia where Caspian (Ben Barnes), now king, picks them up in his finest ship, the Dawn Treader.
Lucy, Edmund and Eustace enter into the world of Narnia through a painting of sea and taken aboard on the Dawn Treader where they meets Caspian. |
tt0061014 | Le spie vengono dal semifreddo | The foppish mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) plots another mad scheme to take over the world by killing off the major military leaders of every country; to that end, he creates in his secret lab a bevy of bodacious girl bombs; full-length, life-size robots that explode when embraced.Goldfoots plans become compromised when the mysterious deaths arouse the suspicions of Bill Dexter (Fabian), a former member of the Security Intelligence Command (S.I.C.) who has been expelled from the organization for being too much of a lady's man at seducing all or most of the female employees of the company. While following Dr. Goldfoot, Dexter runs into two dim-witted hotel doorman, named Franco (Franco Franchi) and Ciccio (Ciccio Ingrassia), who have aspirations toward becoming secret agents. Goldfoot positions one of his girl bombs, an exact duplicate of a lovely hat-check girl, in the hotel where Franco and Ciccio work. The hotel is playing hose to an important Belgian General, and Goldfoot knows that the military man will be unable to resist the allure of his girl bomb. Before Dexter can do anything to stop this plan, he is attacked by the simpleton Franco and Ciccio who mistakenly think that Dexter is a foreign spy. In the ensuing confusion, the Belgian general, "bites the dust."Soon afterwards, a NATO officer, General Willis (Vincent Price in a dual role), is abducted by Dr. Goldfoot. Apart from being the last surviving NATO general, Willis also happens to the dead splitting image of Dr. Goldfoot albeit with a very noticeable stammer, and a black eye patch over his right eye. Willis is killed soon after by one of the girl bombs, and Dr. Goldfoot plots to take his place at an important conference.When Goldfoot receives information that a secret meeting is being held at SIC headquarters, he has the room electronically bugged. General Benson and his associates determine that the only way to catch the man responsible for these bizarre killings is to assign their two best agents to the task. Using a high-tech computer, named Rita, General Benson decides it is the best way to determine the two best SIC agents will be flawlessly chosen. But Dr. Goldfoot sabotages the computer, and the two agents selected to carry out the job are none other than Franco and Ciccio.Meanwhile, General Benson's secretary, Rosanna (Laura Antonelli), convinces Dexter to assist Franco and Ciccio in their investigation. What Dexter fails to realize that he too is being monitored by Goldfoot, who fears that the young man might be more capable than he appears to be. Goldfoot also takes an interest in Rosanna, and has one of his henchmen kidnap her when Dexter leaves her apartment. She is subsequently replaced by a duplicate girl bomb. When Dexter returns to her apartment that same evening, he finds a definite changes in Rosanna's behavior. Whereas she had earlier slapped him across the face for making a pass at her, she now appears seductive and passionate in her disposition. Though Dexter is charged with excitement over the case, the girl bomb does her best to lure him into an embrace, even resorting to an impromptu striptease. But Dexter sees through her disguise and avoids the trap set by Dr. Goldfoot. The duplicate Rosanna is subsequently shorted out in an accident, while Dexter goes in search of the real Rosanna.Having earlier been tipped off by Dexter that Dr. Goldfoot is hiding out in a mansion in the countryside, Franco and Ciccio decide to upstage him by raiding the place and taking full credit for its discovery. When they arrive with General Benson and the authorities, the only find that the place is a private school girls. In fact, this is yet another deceptive illusion arranged by the diabolical doctor, with the girl bombs posing as passive students, and the doctor himself posing as a matron (with his beard concealed by a black veil). Satisifed that the entire trip was a false alarm, Benson and his men depart. Franco and Ciccio decide to stay behind and in so doing, they are captured by Dr. Goldfoot and his henchmen. They break free, and the henchmen search the mansion for them. Franco manages to escape by posing an a girl bomb. Dr. Goldfoot is suprisingly fooled by Francos discuse when he rationalizes the strange looking girl bomb as being the result of failing to "oil the machine". But Ciccio is trapped when he unsuccessfully attempts to impersonate Goldfoot's reflection in a fake mirror (shades of the classic 'mirror scene' from the Marx Brother's 'Duck Soup').That night, Franco returns to the mansion with Dexter to try to rescue Ciccio and Rosanna. In the interim, Ciccio has been duplicated with a 'guy bomb' and Rosanna has, literally, been kept in cold storage. Dexter retrieves Rosanna, and after battling it out with Ciccio's duplicate, the two inept doormen are once again reunited.His plans for world domination still in place, Dr. Goldfoot attempts to flee. A hilariously silly, climatic mad chase ensures, leading through such picturesque sights as the Roman Coliseum (which is slightly damaged when Goldfoot smashes his car into one of the pillars), the Trevi Fountain (which Dr. Goldfoot stops for a second to throw a coin in the fountain for good luck), and an amusement park. The chase culminates in the air with Goldfoot boarding a US aircraft under the guise of General Wilson, and Dexter and his two cohorts pursing them in a hot air balloon. Landing the balloon on the wings of the plane, Dexter and the others foil Goldfoot's escape. The three heroes battle it out with the henchmen, but Dr. Goldfoot takes advantage of the commotion by quietly donning a parachute and bailing out. Before he escapes, however, Goldfoot sets the control panels of the plan on a course for Moscow; once it reaches the designed sights, the bomb doors will open and a super bomb will be released on the Kremlin. While Dexter tries to take control of the plane, Franco and Ciccio head into the bomb compartment to try do defuse the bomb. They manage to disarm the bomb, but the bomb doors open prematurely, and they are dropped into the heart of Siberia, riding the bomb like a horse (shades of 'Dr. Strangelove').Epilogue. Dexter is back in America having been reinstated as a member of SIC, while he starts making plans to rescue Franco and Ciccio from Siberia. But a telex arrives from President Lyndon Johnson that the plans have been scrapped and that the entire incident must be kept under cover. Dexter is emotionally devastated, but plots not to give up, even if he has to go on alone to rescue Franco and Ciccio. Meanwhile in Siberia, Franco and Ciccio are happily residing in a Soviet prison camp, in which the camp director is none other than..... Dr. Goldfoot. | good versus evil, murder | train | imdb | I should emend that statement after watching this movie: I'd watch Vincent Price read a phone book IF he was nowhere near a pair of Italian idiots...I saw Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, so I knew what to expect; but, any camp enjoyment one could derive from this film was nullified by the idiot doormen/spies who mug their way through every scene like a horrible Jim Carey.Price plays the role light and talks to the camera through some of the movie.
His performance made Frankie Avalon look like Lawrence Olivier.The girls are pretty, fleshy Italian types.
GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS.Both films begin with the military leaders of various nations being lured into an explosive, and fatal, kiss by the scantily clad charms of the insidious Dr. Goldfoot's robot girl bombs, and both films end with a climactic confrontation between the forces of good and evil aboard an airborne American jumbo bomber, but the events between produce two very different movies.DR.
GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS stars the popular singer and would-be actor Fabian as well intentioned but barely competent Bill Dexter, an agent of the Security Intelligence Command, or SIC.
Assisted by Colonel Benson's gorgeous, but frigid, secretary, Rosanna, ( the anything but frigid Laura Antonelli ) Dexter bumbles his way through various clichéd perils to save NATO's leaders from being blown to bits.LE SPIE VENGONO DAL SEMIFREDDO stars the Italian comedy duo of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia as a pair of totally incompetent accidental spies, who, following information from American agent Bill Dexter, manage to track the villainous Dr. Goldfoot to his lair, and then get trapped there by him.
Dexter arrives on the scene to rescue the bumbling duo, just in time for the climactic chase and final showdown aboard the bomber.What both versions share is that neither will ever be mistaken for a great movie comedy.
An even less appealing team than Marty Allen and Steve Rossi in LAST OF THE SECRET AGENTS, it is truly frightening to reflect on this duo of barely talented "comedians" being so popular as to star in over one hundred motion pictures.Surprisingly, then, it is LE SPIE VENGONO DAL SEMIFREDDO that is the better of the two movies.
Without a doubt the best thing about either film is Vincent Price, and his Dr. Goldfoot character is better treated, though barely so, in the Italian release.
Lastly, several of the American version's most preposterously bad moments, such as the very poorly done demise of Rosanna's robot double, are wisely not in the Italian cut of the film.
The substituted Franco and Ciccio scenes are merely silly, rather than painfully embarrassing.In watching either version, it is difficult to believe that the director was the great Mario Bava.
In the hands of talents like Vincent Price and Mario Bava the result should have been a first rate black comedy.
Unfortunately the combination of too many other factors, both behind and in front of the camera, diminished the final result into films which are little more than interesting curiosities.For fans of Mario Bava, Vincent Price or simply for the curious, both films have been made available on home video.
GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS was released in a fair pan and scan VHS edition in 1995 as part of MGM's Vincent Price Collection.
In regard to Price, Dr Gooldfoot and the Girl Bombs is arguably his worst film(though Green Hell and Story of Mankind are just as poor as well) but he being Price looks as though he was at least he was enjoying himself, though I read somewhere that that wasn't the case.
Fabian is really bland and looks lost, but what truly sinks Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is the double act Ciccio and Franco, mugging and grimacing with no charm, genuine comic timing or grace whatsoever.
A rather bizarre mix of surreal gags, verbal comedy (including some breaking of the fourth wall) and juvenile slapstick (prepare for lots and lots of fast motion), "Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs" suffers from often shoddy special effects, and Franco Franchi's mugging will not be to everybody's taste, to put it mildly, but it also has its strengths: Vincent Price is far and away the best thing in the film, clearly having a ball with atypical (for him) low comedy, but hitting some high spots as well, through his excellent delivery ("And then there were none!").
The one with the largest role is a young Laura Antonelli, in one of her first films: not only does she have a steamy seduction scene (playing a robot version of her human character), but she also shows a knack for slapstick comedy.
My wife will be happy to tell you that I watch a lot of bad movies, but usually in the genre of "so bad that they're good." The first movie in this series fell into that category, but this sequel moved the "bad" needle way past the "camp" point to the point of no return.The plot is paper-thin, the dubbing is awful, the sets, rear projections, models, and special effects are grade-school level, and most of the actors are unbearable.
(Why do bad movies like this always use voice actors who use cartoon voices rather than normal speech?) You know the movie is in trouble when the director calls for sped-up action (a la Benny Hill).Vincent Price, who would do anything for money, floats above the cesspool to some degree, especially when he's hamming it up straight to the camera.
How they talked Vincent Price into this, I'm not sure, though he was already hamming it up in the previous movie.
All this is kind of incidental; the main plot has the two main leads/buffoons improbably/accidentally join up with S.I.C. as agents.Goldfoot, of course, is a broad parody of the outrageous villains from the James Bond films.
I've written that the previous Goldfoot movie was the most ridiculous parody of the Bond craze, but this Italian take on the whole thing takes it to yet another level.
Mario Bava made many GREAT movies in his career, but this isn't one of them!
This film is horrible -- the script stinks, the photography is bad (very unusual for Bava) and the staging of scenes is inept -- there is nothing good about this film.I usually defend composer Les Baxter, but his score is also rotten, and the original Italian music is even worse...
And finally, can there be a worse comedy duo than Franco & Ciccio?
Mario Bava is one of my all time favourite directors, and Vincent Price is one of my all time favourite actors; so despite the fact that I didn't like Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine at all, I still felt almost as if catching this needless sequel was a duty I had to fulfil.
Before making this film, Bava had already directed a number of classics including Black Sabbath, Black Sunday and The Whip and The Body, while Vincent Price had completed his work on Roger Corman's Poe Anthology along with several other classic films.
Anyway, the plot has something to do with dubious 'assassin' Dr Goldfoot building an army of robot bombs that look like pretty girls (will be familiar to Austin Powers fans!), and he uses them to eliminate some of Nato's world leaders...or something.Mario Bava's best work was in the horror genre and as such a lot of what I like about his directorial style is relative to the genre; but he has proved on many occasions that he's capable of delivering good films in other genres, but you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise based on this film!
What a shame that this is the only film he and the great Vincent Price made together!
At a struggle, I could only really think of two good things to say about this film; one is that Vincent Price is entertaining (although he could read out a recipe book and it would be entertaining) and the other is that some of the girls featured are nice to look at.
I wouldn't recommend this movie to even hardcore Bava and Price fans....
That's not a good thing for a comedy to do.I'd be interested to see the US release of this, which I understand features a lot less of Franco and Ciccio.
Even the normally reliable Vincent Price phones it in.Bava can work cinematic miracles with high-camp sixties silliness - see "Danger: Diabolik" - but this is among the very worst films I have ever seen.
(Not that they got them.) Vincent Price is the ONLY reason to see this film.
Fans of Vincent Price and Mario Bava should avoid..
The first Dr. Goldfoot movie seemed like a lot of fun in theory - a campy, spy spoof starring horror legend Vincent Price as a mad scientist with an army of beautiful female robots.
To add insult to injury it was directed by the (usually) brilliant Mario Bava, and released in the same year as his classic shocker 'Kill, Baby...Kill!' What went wrong exactly is hard to say but EVERYTHING about this movie stinks.
And most of the "comedy" is supplied by a couple of atrocious Italian comedians called Franco and Ciccio.
'Dr Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs' is an all time low for Mario Bava, and the worst movie I've ever seen Vincent Price appear in.
Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) has a new plan for world domination: he is going to send beautiful women after military men...
Now, I do not think it is as bad as most people do, but I do accept a number of things: it is not as funny, the continuity from the first film makes little sense, Goldfoot keeps breaking the fourth wall for some reason, and Mario Bava is better than this.Really, all you have is everything from the first film toned down a few notches.
The biggest problem, among many, was that the project "was to be edited into two completely different films" and the "American version, widely hailed as a bomb, is not the work of Mario Bava, as it was re-written, re-scored and re-edited without his participation".
Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs (Mario Bava, 1966) **.
To cut to the chase, I have to admit that I was not as intolerant towards the film as I had been on that preliminary viewing: ironically, I used to lap up vehicles by the comic duo of Ciccio (Ingrassia) & Franco (Franchi) as a kid but, somehow, I could not picture them in the same frame as horror icon Vincent Price or 'submitting' to the direction of a technician and master stylist like Bava (in any case, their work has not withstood the test of time all that well, pretty much in the way of the Abbott & Costello comedies – with the one most readily given to mugging, Franco, even supplying the rather noisy song over the opening credits)!; having perhaps checked out the just-as-campy original (called DR.
GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE [1965], by the way) in the interim may have softened my opinion of the sequel to a certain extent (though it is still a toss-up with the horrendous make-over job that became THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM [1975] in constituting the nadir of the Bava canon).
The film sees Goldfoot (flanked by a Chinese acolyte named "Hardjob", in clear emulation of Harold Sakata's character from the James Bond extravaganza GOLDFINGER [1964]) upping the ante by being intent on world domination (with the female robots turning combustible, hence the U.S. title – since the Italian original is a parody of John Le Carre''s "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold", brought to the screen the previous year, and puts the emphasis on the movie's star comedians!) rather just misappropriation of funds as in the first entry.
To be honest, one is still embarrassed to associate the picture with either Price (especially when disguising himself in a nun's habit!) or Bava (and it is particularly lamentable that the two only managed to collaborate on material clearly below their standards and talents!) but, taken on its own merits (if such a term can be applied here), there are certainly some mild pleasures to be derived from the ensuing concoction – with the most inspired ideas being Ciccio & Franco picking up artillery items from the F.B.I. arsenal as if they were on a supermarket spree, the fact that the voice artist assigned to dub their burly and flustered Chief (remember that Italian films at this time were generally shot M.O.S.) is the same one who does Oliver Hardy in the Laurel & Hardy vehicles (I wonder how it sounded in the English-dubbed version?), and a rather brief reprise of the classic mirror gag devised by Max Linder (albeit most famously adopted by The Marx Bros.' DUCK SOUP [1933]) involving Price and Ingrassia!
Vincent Price, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia they do not have absolute no fun, on the contrary, they are more than meager.
I'd heard this thing (movie is too generous a term) was watchable for the presence of Vincent Price.
...is better than either of the two "Dr. Goldfoot" movies."Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine" (1965) and "Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs" (1966) are spoofs of the early James Bond flicks and, to a lesser degree, the early 60's beach movies with Avalon & Funicello (mainly because Frankie stars in the first one and it shares the harmless, fun-spirited flare of the beach flicks).
Since I love both (and "I Dream of Jeanie") I figured I'd like these movies way more than I did, but I found them pretty forgettable, not to mention lame.
These movies are also enjoyable as period-pieces as it's interesting to see the mid-60's styles, etc.As far as the women go, I was a little disappointed with the first one in this respect; the second one is much better, not to mention it was directed by Mario Bava (which many insist is his worst film, lol).At the end of the day, the Dr. Goldfoot movies are throwaway flicks, but they're worth catching for the highlights noted above, if you're in the right frame of mind.The first movie runs 88 minutes and the second one 82 minutes.GRADE: C-.
Vincent Price must have signed for two pictures otherwise I can hardly believe there was a demand for a sequel to Dr. Goldfoot In The Bikini Machine.
This film was done in Italy and I can hardly believe that Vincent Price and Fabian the only two Americans in the cast weren't slightly embarrassed.
In his second and mercifully last outing, mad scientist Vincent Price (as Dr. Goldfoot) uses his gold bikini-clad robots to seduce NATO generals into compromising positions.
Assisting Fabian are bumbling doormen Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia.
This would have been both funnier and sexier had it been filmed in the nude.** Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (7/29/66) Mario Bava ~ Vincent Price, Fabian, Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia.
Although his car plunges over a cliff at the end of the previous movie, "Dr. Goldfoot" (Vincent Price) does not die.
Instead he reappears in this sequel and begins using female robots with bombs attached to them to blow up NATO generals all over the world.
First of all, for a comedy it just wasn't that funny with the two bumbling Italian agents "Franco" (Franco Franchi) and "Ciccio" (Ciccio Ingrassia) being especially annoying.
Mario Bava is responsible for some of my all-time favorite movies.
However, if he thought of Five Dolls for an August Moon as his worst then (as I wrote in my comment for that movie) "I guess Bava never had the misfortune of watching his movie Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs".
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is just that a complete and utter BOMB of a movie.
Other than Vincent Price's gleeful performance as Dr. Goldfoot, I can't think of another positive thing to mention.
The comedy, especially on the part of the two Italian buffoons Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia (maybe it's a cultural thing), isn't funny at all.
In the end, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is so bad that it makes Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (the first of the two Goldfoot movies) look like a masterpiece of cinema (which it most definitely isn't).
As much as I hate to do it, I've got to give this Mario Bava film a 2/10..
Nefarious mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot (delightfully essayed with deliciously lip-smacking hammy panache by Vincent Price) once again plots to take over the world by creating sexy female robot bombs that are specifically designed to blow up top generals of NATO countries.
Worst of all, the Italian comedy duo of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia prove to be more annoying than amusing.
I am aware that the first film left the door open for a follow up, but it's too bad that they basically just watched Saturday morning cartoons for inspiration rather than come up with anything clever.Back and as bad as ever, buffoonish evil scientist Vincent Price wants to take over the world, and he's about as likely to as Snidely Whiplash or Boris Badinov.
At least a couple of Sixties teen heart throbs had the good sense not to venture into the sequel to "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine".
He's probably still kicking himself.However nothing must have scared Vincent Price, an actor who spent a good deal of his own time scaring movie audiences with stuff like "House on Haunted Hill" and "Tales of Terror".
In it's own way, I guess 'Girl Bombs' is scary too; once you see it you'll be clawing the walls for a week until your nervous system settles down.As bad as the first movie was, if you were paying attention you might have been amused by the Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck cameos, and a handful of sight gags that made the effort a little bit of fun. |
tt0068863 | Lisa e il diavolo | [note: this synopsis is only for Mario Bava's true and original Lisa and the Devil (1973), not the re-shot, re-edited version 'The House of Exorcism' (1975)]Lisa Reiner (Elke Sommer) is a young American woman vacationing in Spain with some friends of hers. During a stop in a small town square with her tour group, Lisa grows to admire a fresco of the devil carrying a dead man's body which her tour guide describes as the devil carrying away lost souls back to Hell. As her group disperses, Lisa hears a beautiful piece of music. She leaves her companions and traces its source to an elaborate music box in a little antique shop just outside the main square. While inside the shop, she encounters a strange man (Telly Savalas) purchasing parts of a life-size mannequin. After making eye contact, Lisa is startled when the man bears an uncanny resemblance to the devil depicted in the painting. The man's peculiar behaviour distresses Lisa, so she flees from the shop to rejoin her friends.However, she becomes hopelessly lost in the maze of backstreets of the town. Though she has only walked a short distance beforehand, the back streets and alleyways seem totally alien to her. The locals refuse to give her directions, as side streets lead to dead ends. Lisa runs into the mysterious man a second time, though this time he is carrying a full-length, life-sized mannequin eerily similar to the painting depicted in the main square, as well as carrying the music box still playing the haunting tune. Introducing himself as Leandro, he gives Lisa some vague directions back to the main square, then walks around a corner and disappears. But the direction that Leandro points to the main square leads only to more unfamiliar streets. Next, Lisa encounters a strange man who looks a lot like the mannequin that Leandro was carrying. These bizarre coincidences begin to terrify Lisa, and the stranger acts as though she is his long-lost lover. Frantic, Lisa pushes him away and the man falls down a flight of stone steps, apparently dead. Lisa runs off in a panic.Night falls on the village, and Lisa remains lost. However, her luck seems to be improving when she hitches a ride in a old vintage 1940s limousine which contains Francis Leher (Eduardo Fajardo) and his wife Sophie (Silvia Koscina) whom are driving through the village with their chauffeur George (Gabriele Tinit). But their limousine soon breaks down just outside a old villa on the town's outskirts. The four travelers push their car into the villa grounds and knock on the front door asking for assistance. The villa turns out to be occupied by an elderly blind countess (Alida Valli), and her neurotic son Maximilian (Alessio Orano). When Maximilian spots Lisa, he becomes convinced that she is the reincarnation of a woman that loved and lost. Maximilian implores his mother to allow the four stranded tourists to stay for the night while he helps the chauffeur repair the car's engine. Though the villa is well-appointed, it has a strange atmosphere. Lisa is subsequently shocked to discover that Leandro is the family butler, who also recognizes her from their brief meetings earlier, and seems a little too friendly to Lisa.As Leandro settles Lisa, Francis and Sophie, and George into their living quarters for the night, Lisa jumps with fright when she sees the same man from the village who tried to attack her, staring at her through the window. Lisa tries to get away from the house, but her departure is thwarted by Maximilian, who begs her to stay. As she feels some attraction to the young man, as well as pity for him, Lisa relents.The four travellers are settled down to dinner, while the food is served by Leandro. Lisa further notices the weird atmosphere of the place, when Maximilian continues to remind Lisa that she has a resemblance towards his lost lover, Elena. But Francis and Sophie's relationship becomes more strained as dinner progresses. Francis' cold, dispassionate nature forces Sophie to walk away from him, and she falls into the arms of George, whom they have quick passionate sex. A short while later, George is found dead, with a pair of scissors plunged into his throat. Sophie immediately assumes that her husband did it, and she flees outside into the car where she starts it up, When Francis comes out to stop her from leaving, she runs over him over and over again. But upon returning into the house, Sophie is killed by Maximilian in a hurtful, gory way. It was Maximilian who murdered the chauffeur to prevent Lisa from leaving.With the meddling strangers out of the way, Maximilian turns his attention to Lisa where it's revealed that the man who pursued Lisa in the village is actually Maximilian's stepfather Carlos (Espartaco Santoni). Like Maximilian, he had previously fallen in love with Elena, the woman displayed in a few old photographs who bears an amazing resemblance to Lisa. Carlos had abandoned the countess and ran off with Elena, who was also Maximilian's lover. Before she had a chance to join him, Maximilian had murdered Elena and stored her body in a concealed room so he could continue to have her, even in death. Apparently when Carlos returned to the village, he assumed after seeing Lisa that she was Elena. Now that Maximilian had murdered Carlos, he puts him display in an open coffin in the parlor so that nobody can take Lisa away from him.At this point, Lisa still has no idea that Maximilian is completely deranged, and on top of that, she's still being casually nice to him. When Maximilian decides to share his secret with Lisa about his lost love Elena, he takes her to the concealed room, and shows her Elena's skeletal remains, Lisa finally then backs away in horror and rejects Maximilian. But rather than kill her, he chloroforms Lisa and puts her in the bed next to Elena's remains. Maximilian strips Lisa naked and tries to have sex with the unconscious woman. But in his twisted state of mind, he feels that the skeletal remains of Elena is mocking him and he cannot perform. Apparently deciding that in order to consummate the relationship, he will have to marry her.Maximilian meets his mother in the parlor who's paying respects to her dead husband where he tells her of his intentions. The Countess, jealous of the hold Elena, in the form of Lisa, continues to hold over the men in her life, demands that Maximilian kill Lisa and dispose of her and the rest of the bodies before the police show up looking for her and the other murder victims. But Maximilian's devotion to Lisa is complete, and rather then get rid of her, he stabs his mother dead as she stands by the coffin that contains Carlos' body.All of these events are observed by Leandro, whose presence seem to haunt the villa, and who seems to be orchestrating the bizarre occurrences as some kind of sick game. Unsettled by this act of matricide, Maximilian rushes about the house looking for Leandro who, for once, is nowhere to be found. Instead, Maximilian finds the bodies of all his victims, including the skeletal Elena, seated at the dinner table looking at him. He turns around and sees his undead mother shambling towards him. In shock, Maximilian recoils backwards, only to fall out a second floor window, and onto the spikes of a gate. Emerging from behind the body of the dead Countess, Leandro remarks, "oh, it slipped".The next morning, Lisa wakes up, naked and in unfamiliar surroundings. Though it seems to be the exact same concealed room, it is now infested with vegetation and she is alone with no bodies anywhere. Putting her clothes back on, Lisa walks through the house and finds that its entirely deserted. In fact, it looks that nobody has lived in the house for a long time. Confused, but somewhat relieved that the entire night's experience was apparently nothing but a bad dream, Lisa leaves the house and runs into a group of schoolgirls playing ball in the street. The balls rolls in her direction and she catches it. One of the the girls points to Lisa and proclaims her a ghost because nobody has lived in the villa for a hundred years. The girls run away screaming. Lisa walks around a little and within minutes finds herself back in the town square from the beginning of the movie. She is observed by Leandro a short distance away who is being given a mannequin likeness of her.Lisa takes a taxi to the airport and enters a plane. After the plane takes off, Lisa notices the she is the only passenger. She searches section after section, only to discover the dead bodies of Maximilian, the Countess and all the others in the first class compartment. Frantically, Lisa makes her way to the cockpit where she opens the door and discovers that Leandro is the pilot, who lets out a devilish laugh. Lisa transforms into a ghastly pale mannequin and slumps to the floor. | violence, gothic, murder | train | imdb | Of course, the argument could also be made that this film suffers from slow pacing and a telegraphed conclusion, but I still think the movie is gorgeous, and Elke Sommer is a delight.But don't let that stop you from checking out "House of Exorcism", either!
She just cuts loose & goes for it, mugging for the camera, vomiting toads, and dripping lots of green bile (natch).Compared to "Lisa and the Devil", "House of Exorcism" is an absolute abomination, but the producer was a demented genius in forcing the issue of the possession subplot, since the film in its original form was far too "art house" to make any money on the drive-in circuit.
Well I finally managed to get to see 'Lisa And The Devil' as Bava originally intended it, rather than the very dodgy 'House Of Exorcism' version I had previously seen, and the original is ten times better!
The cast are all good, but Telly Savalas gives a standout performance just on the right side of over the top, and Elke Sommer appears much more believable as the confused protagonist of this movie, rather than the unconvincing Linda Blair wanna-be of 'House Of Exorcism'.
If you like Bava films, then you will surely enjoy Lisa and the Devil.
Eventually Lisa ends up getting a lift from a bickering couple (the wife of whom is having an affair with her chauffer) and they all end up at the usual huge mansion/castle inhabited by angry man Maximillian, his blind mother Alida Valli, and chirpy butler Telly Savalas, complete with Kojack lollipop.
The house is full of Bava's favourite prop: creepy dolls, and things just get stranger and stranger for here on out.There's no point in detailing any more of the plot, but it involves murder, mysterious characters locked in rooms surrounded by slices of cake, people becoming dummies and Telly Savalas breaking the ankles of a corpse in order to fit it into a coffin.
Lisa and the Devil is perhaps the most unique of the great Mario Bava's horror films.
The fluid camera-work is excellent, the Gothic scenery and sets are nicely captured, and the haunting music score is perfectly pitched to give this film a stylish and chilling atmosphere.The cast is also quite good.
It's a truly original horror gem and one of Bava's greatest works.Footnote: Avoid a terribly re-edited and re-worked version of the film re-named House of Exorcism.
They find shelter into a luxurious mansion where inhabits strange characters , a countess (Alida Valli) , his son (Alessio Orano) and the butler (Telly Savalas).The picture belongs to Italian horror genre , Mario Bava along Riccardo Freda (Secret of Dr Hitchcock , Vampires , The spectre) and subsequently Dario Argento (Deep red , Suspira , Inferno) are the fundamental creators of Latin terror genre .
The film gets an attractive and enjoyable casting , a gorgeous Elke Sommer (The prize) , an enticing Sylva Koscina (Miguel Strogoff) , a veteran Alida Valli (The Paradine trial) and a sympathetic devil with lollipop included played by Telly Savalas (Kojak) .
During the sightseeing in Toledo, Spain, the tourist Lisa Reiner (Elke Sommer) sees an ancient painting of the devil on the wall and leaves her group for a moment; however she gets lost in the narrow streets.
My vote is seven.Fortunately I saw "Lisa and the Devil" first; the opportunist commercial version released in USA with the title "The House of the Exorcism" on the trail of the success of "The Exorcist" is terrible and destroys the creepy atmosphere of the original movie.
Lisa and the Devil features many of Bava's trademarks; a devilish atmosphere, superbly chilling use of lighting and a general foreboding feel to the movie that gives the impression that something bad will happen.
The actors in the movie are also fairly accomplished; it features Elke Sommer, who also starred in Bava's atmospheric shocker, "Baron Blood", among other films and Telly Savalas, who gives a great turn as the creepy butler of the house.
Overall, Lisa and the Devil is a good horror movie with much to admire, most notably the superb creation of atmosphere from Mario Bava but I feel that if it had concentrated less on putting lots of ideas into it, and more on concentrating on the ones it already had; then it would have been a better film..
"Lisa and the Devil" follows a woman touring Spain who wanders from her tour group; she becomes transfixed by a portrait of the devil in a fresco, and begins to lose sense of herself, time, and space as she seems to enter a waking nightmare.Perhaps Mario Bava's most surrealist offering, "Lisa and the Devil" was re-edited and grossly manipulated with reshoots upon its U.S. release, ending up with an entirely new title: "House of Exorcism." The differences between the two versions are so extreme that they literally are completely different films in both tone and narrative.
You may be wondering how a film can so easily be reworked in such a way, but Bava's loose and unanchored narrative makes it fairly easy."Lisa and the Devil" is a legitimately engrossing epic fantasy that is both unnerving and aesthetically gorgeous.
The film retains a kitschy late sixties look to it, and in some ways reminds me of Jess Franco's "Succubus," which was made several years prior—I do think "Lisa and the Devil" is ultimately the better film, no question, but they both share in common the floaty dreamscape backdrops in which a woman finds herself.The film is genuinely weird and disorienting at times, but never in a way that disenfranchises the viewer; what's perhaps most intriguing is that it essentially begins in medias res, taking a fairly mundane situation (a woman touring a city) and throwing it straight down the rabbit hole.
All in all, "Lisa and the Devil" is a great surrealist horror film, and a steadfast example of Bava's later, more narratively playful offerings.
telly savalas does an excellent job as satan, and i loved how he enjoyed his trademark lollipop even during an italian horror film as though to say--"the devil loves ya, baby!" modern horror directors get everything wrong and make the mistake of thinking that meaningless action and excessive gore make an effective and memorable film, when nothing could be further from the truth.
This was my third time watching this most personal of Bava's works: whether it is due to the fact that the last two occasions proved problematic (the original Image Entertainment DVD experienced an audio glitch during playback that nearly blasted my TV speakers, while there were constant audio-related issues on the Italian-language track of the copy I acquired of the movie's Raro Video edition!) or the shadow that always loomed large over it in the shape of the execrable re-edit THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM (1975), I have never been really taken with the film as many others seem to be!!
{1966}, also co-written by Natale and a film whose stature seems to grow with each viewing, I mention how LISA owes a debt to it in the desolate narrow streets/decaying villa settings and the general nightmarish vibe) and, yet, it comes off as strangely aloof: one does not really connect with any of the characters throughout
especially, as with A BAY OF BLOOD (1971), these largely seem to be on hand merely to ratchet up the 'body count' department (did we really need an additional love triangle to the mind-boggling quintet – taking into consideration that Elke Sommer here undertakes a dual role – already involved?!).
The rest of the cast, however, are only so-so: Alessio Orano is, fatally, unsympathetic as an impotent necrophile(!); Alida Valli, on the other hand, is imposing as ever playing his aristocratic and over-protective blind mother; and Espartaco Santoni is decidedly baffling as the latter's husband and the former's rival for love of his own spouse Sommer (his comings and goings, sometimes literally from death to life, eventually grew irritating!); while Sylva Koscina, Eduardo Fajardo and Gabriele Tinti, as already intimated, are at once underused and downright redundant!
Typical of Bava, too, the movie's look cannot be faulted (despite having a Spanish d.p., with a penchant for shooting in soft-focus, forced on him), effortlessly moving between the modern-day 'bookends' and the period milieu of its central narrative.By the way, given that I am going through the director's filmography in a non-linear fashion, it becomes interesting to note parallels between efforts that one would probably overlook if they were to be viewed chronologically; recently, for instance, I picked up on how SHOCK (1977) is pretty much a reworking of THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963) and even HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (1970) in its depiction of a deranged protagonist coming to terms with a crime that had been all but blocked out of its consciousness.
Having just re-acquainted myself with the latter prior to my screening LISA, which I took as Bava's most Buñuelian work (in view of its leading man's affinity with the latter's Archibaldo De La Cruz), here we have an ending – the Devil adopting modern means of transportation – which recalls the Surrealist maestro's slyly abrupt way of concluding his SIMON OF THE DESERT (1965)!
The audio commentary did sometimes go overboard in trying to match the poetic quality of the picture: the last rose of the season plucked by Orano for Sommer at one point apparently stood for Bava's own last gasp at making an international name for himself – if you say so, Tim
but, then, I was grateful to learn that Bava appreciated the work of Georges Franju and, indeed, it had never occurred to me before that he recruited two ladies from his films, i.e. Valli (from EYES WITHOUT A FACE {1960} – her mannered death scene being even incorporated in the finale here) and Koscina (from JUDEX {1963}), for LISA!
I've seen that film so many times I recognize those.Anyway, Lisa and the Devil is very low on dialog and big on atmosphere.
Everything seems normal at first, but bizarre things begin to happen, and we eventually discover that there are many things about each character that we don't know.Much of the horror in "La Casa dell'esorcismo" (the American title is "Lisa and the Devil") comes from camera angle and blurred shots, creating the sense of descent into terror and madness.
It's one of those films where the plot, believe it or not, isn't all that important--and this aspect makes "Lisa and the Devil" a lot like another good horror film, "Suspiria"--and that's putting the film in very good company.Elke Sommer is on vacation.
In fact, in a nude scene late in the film, you don't feel it's the least bit gratuitous--it's more like a lovely work of art--even if some of it also involves a weird necrophilic murderer!
That's pretty cool and as I write this I am watching "House of Exorcism".UPDATE: Apparently there is no separate page for both films--just one for "Lisa and the Devil"--so my review for the bastardized re- working is included here: An obvious difference you soon notice is that a different person dubbed Sommer's voice.
I'd give this one a 3--and that's being generous.UPDATE: Since I originally posted this review, IMDb has now created a separate page for "House of Exorcism" and it gets its just desserts as a terrible film and "Lisa and the Devil" avoids this distinction..
It's incoherent, confusing and complex; elements we didn't need because the script is pretty obvious (Elke Sommers plays Lisa, Telly Savalas is the villainous "Devil", and then the movie ends) from the beginning.
LISA & THE DEVIL is a mostly effective dream-like Gothic horror film with a few problems and an ending that almost destroys everything that was meticulously created before.
The film is filled with the usual Mario Bava elements: non-linear story, a handsome psycho, mannequins, colorful settings, the past tormenting the present, corrupt family, gory murders, etc.
Watching LISA & THE DEVIL is like watching a catalog of all Bava films in one.
Elke Sommer does a wonderful job as Lisa in the fact that there is an aura of mystery around her.Telly Savalas gives an excellent performance as the devil as he is both charming and evil.
Lisa and the Devil was a film where famed Italian director Mario Bava was given full creative control.
This possession themed material was inspired by The Exorcist (1973) and it was then spliced in along with huge sections of Lisa and the Devil, the resulting film was The House of Exorcism (1975).
Intriguing prologue--with tourist Elke Sommer lost on the deserted streets of Spain after locking eyes with a dead ringer for the Devil himself--is then canceled out by reincarnation/house of horrors plot that goes around in circles (many defenders of the movie say that is precisely the point).
Fans of Italian horror know that imagery is more important than plot in italian films, and this is indeed true in Lisa and the Devil.
Mario Bava's original version is regarded by many as a classic of surreal, dreamlike horror, but I found it a crushing bore from start to finish.Elke Sommer stars as tourist Lisa Reiner, who, after becoming lost in a Spanish town, gets a lift from a couple passing by in their car.
During the night Lisa has many strange encounters with the bizarre family and their even stranger butler (played by Telly Savalas, sucking on a lollipop, just like Kojak).Since I found the tedious story very hard to follow, I won't go into any more detail than that, other than to say that I think it was a ghost story.
This film is credited as "La Casa dell'exorcismo"/"The House Of Exorcism" here, but Mario Bava's original version is the one called "Lisa e il diavolo"/"Lisa And The Devil".
Mario Bava, arguably the greatest Horror director of all-time, created his most bizarre work in 1972 with "Lisa And The Devil".
I do not want to give anything away, but I can assure that "Lisa And The Devil" is a film that creates a hypnotic and nightmarish atmosphere like hardly another.
As all Bava films, "Lisa And The Devil" is wonderfully photographed in beautiful yet exceptionally eerie Gothic settings.
As stated above, "Lisa And The Devil" is not one of the absolute greatest films by Mario Bava, but it is definitely a great one.
I wonder why that movie is listed as the House of the Exorcism instead of Lisa and the Devil.
Lisa and the Devil (1973) ** (out of 4) A tourist (Elke Sommer) gets lost in an unknown European city but soon ends up at a strange mansion being run by a weird son, his even stranger mother and their lolly-pop sucking butler (Telly Savalas) who might just be the devil himself.
As I said, on a technical level this movie is near flawless but the story is also important to me and Bava never can drag me in and instead the entire film feels like one scene dragging after the next.
A film more reminiscent to the works of Jean Cocteau and Luis Bunuel than it's horror contemporaries, "Lisa and the Devil" is a barroque, nightmarish ride through what may well be Hell, as we follow a lost tourist - Lisa (the gorgeous Elke Sommer), finding shelter at a spooky villa owned by the mysterious Contessa and her son (Alida Valli and Alessio Orano), and soon finds herself caught in a grizzly web involving necrophilia, incest and murder, all of which is controlled by the sinister butler Leandro (Telly Savalas), who may or may not be the Devil himself.
The most impressive sequences feature Sommer possessed by Satan and spitting up a pea-soup-like substance and spewing rhetoric like Regan in "The Exorcist."Director Mario Bava provides some impressive visuals, but the plot is choppy, much of the dialogue overdubbed (typical of Italian horror), and the acting mediocre.Bear in mind that several versions of this film are available.
These two were made for each other.House of Exorcism is basically a travesty, an abomination where a co-producer(..this being Alfred Leone)takes a perfectly fine film well visualized by a true master of the macabre and creates instead a ludicrous, unnecessary rehash of The Exorcist, adding material with Robert Alda(..attempting desperately to bring sincerity and dignity to his role as a wounded priest, despite the hilariously profane gibberish coming from a possessed Elke Sommer's mouth), splicing in footage from "Lisa and the Devil" to pad everything out to cash in on another religious shocker's success.
(Small spoilers included) According to the title, I'm reviewing the House of Exorcism here but I better start by saying that the below discussed version is `Lisa and the Devil' in all the glory like Mario Bava intended it!
Lisa and the Devil however, is a pure Bava masterpiece and one of the most beautiful horror movies ever made.
The film doesn't quite add up to a movie which is mainly because it is actually Bava's Lisa and the devil and additional scenes shot by the producer.
Very few movies say "death" this many times over, and Lisa & the Devil is a film about the loneliness of the human-condition.
Sadly, Image didn't do a recut with Lisa & the Devil from the superior film-elements from House of Exorcism, it's a little weaker in image-quality.
Now, he was allowed to make movies without studio interference.Bava was allowed to create Lisa and the Devil as a non-commercial film, but it flopped in Italy and the U.S., where it would be retitled House of Exorcism with twenty minutes of the film cut and a new scene with Elke Sommer and Robert Alda would rip off The Exorcist.
She collapses and becomes the dummy that he carries back to the house.Lisa and the Devil was Bava's dream project turned nightmare.
The movies are completely different in tone, point of view, story, values, and virtually any other category you might think of DESPITE the fact that House of Exorcism is made up from Lisa and the Devil for at least 75%.
Let's talk about Bava's film, Lisa and the Devil. |
tt0116770 | La lengua asesina | A lady says that she should have stayed in Mexico and lead a suburban life, even killing her husband like her mother did. She's breaking the fourth wall.Welcome to New Mexico. Two bank clerks are overjoyed that have robbed a bank successfully. They are Vic (Richard Waters) and Chip (Nigel Whitmey). A Marilyn-Monroe lookalike and a Las Vegas guy who were driving the convertible car look at each other, take their guns out and aim at the bank clerks. She is Candy (Melinda Clarke) and he is Johnny (Jason Durr). They abandon the clerks with their mouths sown together. He goes to jail, and she hides as a nun in a convent.Four years later, a reporter (Alicia Borrachero) is talking about the pure petrol sold at a particular New Mexico petrol station while a photographer (Ricardo Fraguas) takes pictures. The station is attended by nuns. It's the last petrol station for 300 miles.Rita (Mapi Galán) is a novice nun who gives Candy a letter from her lover, who is about to leave jail. Candy dresses in a sexy red dress and Rita will miss her. Rita is a mute.A prison warden (Robert Englund) beats Johnny because he's about to leave the prison; he thinks that Johnny'll return to the prison soon enough, as he's going to fuck it up somehow. Another prison inmate helps Johnny. Chip sees the photo of the nuns in the local paper, shown by Vic.Candy and her dog, called Rudolph, arrive at Porky, a derelict café. Ted (José Truchado) is forced to carry out the "inspection" of the area by the prison warden. Chip appears at the petrol station, but Rita doesn't want to betray Candy and her dogs. He performs a fellatio to the pump. One of the nuns produces a gun and tells him that Candy has left the convent. Chip steals somebody else's clothes because his outfit was damaged by the petrol.Something falls from space onto Earth. Candy eats with her three poodles while Rita has a kind of extasis by herself while praying. Everything trembles and an asteroid crashes onto Earth. A ball of fire from that flies away and falls onto Candy's soup. She jumps all over the place, flies around and metamorphoses onto a humanoid beat. Meanwhile, Rita has fainted. The Mother Superior (Tusse Silberg) thinks that the kiss of life from other nun to Rita is disgusting.Four sexily-clad people notice Candy, who now looks different. The warden asks Flash (Edward Tudor-Pole) to make Johnny's life difficult in exchange for a recommendation for parole. Flash tries to provoke Johnny. The puddles have become people. They are Rudolph (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Loca (Daniel "Danny" Edwards), Heidi (David Dale) and Mimi (Kimberly Kimberly).Chip appears demanding his money. Candy asks for help, as she's become a monster. Chip refuses to leave her until Johnny arrives. Chip decides to have a bath while he waits. Candy can't even cook, because her new tongue has a life of her own. Candy begs Chip to help her, and talks and talks without looking at her, so he can't see Candy's huge tongue touching him. Candy kisses him and the tongue kills him.The chief warden has its own portable toilet with pictures of boys. When he tries to flush the toilet, tied-down Flash falls into it, wrecking it. All the rest of inmates laugh about Johnny's booby trap.The poodles paint the walls. The tongue slaps Candy when she tries to cut it with an electric knife. The tongue writes on her forehead EAT. Randolph tells her to eat. Candy tells the dogs to bring Johnny. The warden plays golf using Johnny as a tee. The cook nun (Alicia Garrigues) shows the Mother Superior and the chubby nun (Luchi López) Rita's drawings.At home, Candy tries to get rid of her tongue with an iron and a toaster. The tongue attacks her in revenge. Candy isn't able to cut it completely. Rita leaves the convent. The poodles dance in front of the warden and the prisoners, while an old nun (Mabel Karr) is tied down in their car. The warden shoots the dancers.Later that night, the warden captures a dove and calls it Johnny, who has escaped with another warden. They stop their car and see a pink-lit religious image; Johnny is attacked by the pinkish dust, the same which attacked Candy and gave her her tongue. The poodles will give the nun and their other prisoner as food to Candy.The warden makes a makeshift nest for the dove with his wig. The poodles dress the prisoner nun as one of them. Rita adores the pink alien thing in the middle of the desert. The tongue writes GIVE ME on the wall when Candy tries to refrain from eating. Rita picks a piece of the pinkish thing with an pickaxe and that makes Candy's tongue not to eat the nun. Rita takes the pickaxe from Johnny's body and puts there the pinkish stuff to heal him.Meanwhile, Candy cuts her veins, but the tongue tells her "not to go, because I need you" and heals her. The tongue has a male voice and says that he can speak and hear everything she thinks.Rita steals a car and faints at Candy's. The poodles wash her and give her sexy clothes. They see Candy french-kissing a woman and killing her through a dark mirror. The tongue attacks Rita, but the poodles defend her. Johnny can't uncuff himself and Vic attacks him. Vic shoots Johnny and pees on the pink alien thing - it starts to glow and kills him.Candy is pregnant from the tongue, who kills the warden. Unluckily, Johnny is still handcuffed to a car which he's trying to push closer to Candy. The inmates tell Candy that Johnny has found somebody else, and one of them tries to rape her. The tongue doesn't defend Candy at the beginning, when she really needs her. All the inmates escape, except the two the tongue kills. Candy thanks the tongue.The runaways find the alien pink thingy. Johnny thanks Rita for saving his life and they make love. Candy sees them while drunk. Candy pushes the bed to which they are tied to a cliff, but a tree root prevents it from falling for a while. The poodles give a man to Candy to eat. Luckily for them, Johnny and Rita have survived. They have got rid of the cuffs somehow and Rita helps Johnny limp to safety.The warden wakes up and picks up a shotgun. He kills the dove first of all. Candy caresses and cherishes the tongue - it is as though they are lovers from now on. The tongue performs a cunnilingus to Candy. They all try to learn how to put a diaper to a baby.The warden apears and falls down to the floor, shooting once. That calls everybody's attention. The tongue attacks the warden and Johnny, who slaps her. When he sees the tongue, he helps the warden to his feet. Rita leaves in a car with the warden and Johnny. Candy and the poodles drive after them. They all drive to the convent, where they crash onto the petrol station. Everybody enters the church, where all the surviving nuns are. Rita says that Candy is the devil. Johnny shoots the water reservoir in the church.The two wardens are beginning to fall in love while hiding in the confession box. Johnny throws a piece of the pink stuff onto the watery floor, but Candy takes herself out of there using her tongue as a coil. Candy and the tongue attack Johnny and Rita. Johnny hesitates to push Candy to the bottom of a well, but he can't kill them. Rita finally cuts the tongue at its bases. Candy becomes a human again.Return to the beginning: Candy wants to forget about tongues, men, money... she only wants hope.--written by KrystelClaire | violence, cult | train | imdb | This horror story is set in New Mexico when something falls from space onto Earth , it involves two delinquents , she is Candy (a beautiful Mandy Clarke) and he is Johnny (Jason Durr) , they flee with the loot from a hold-up , but the latter is trapped and does prison time .
As a meteorite crashes near the station transforming the young girl into an alien being with a gigantic voracious tongue and the puddles have become people (now very famous Jonathan Rhys Meyers , among others) , in fact into four Drag Queens .
While , Johnny being chased by the jail officials led by a nasty Prison Director (Robert Englund who along with Doug Bradley as Wig are two terror myths) , and even the chief warden has its own portable toilet .
After that , the Drag Queens/poodles dance in front of the wardens and the prisoners, then the wardens shoot the dancers ; meantime an old nun (Mabel Karr who married the great Spanish actor Fernando Rey) is tied down in their car .
The main starring results to be the ¨killer tongue¨ , it delivers the goods , adding some acceptable FX , as when the tongue slaps Candy when she tries to cut it with an electric knife ; furthermore , the tongue writes on her forehead and makes many other fantastic things .
Dirty humor turns out to be sometimes cheesy and gross-out with numerous naughty and picaresque situations such as sex jokes , bad taste and adult scenes .
This really sexy chick is waiting at a middle of nowhere desert house for her man to be released from a prison where this gay overseer is giving him a really "hard" time, get it?
But wait, I'm just starting...she turns into this freaky, but even sexier sort of monster...and her TONGUE DEVELOPS A LIFE OF IT'S OWN!
"Killer Tongue" is an absurd tale about alien invasion..and we ain't talkin' your average boring X-files nonsense here.
This gory black Sci-Fi comedy properly tries too hard to make it as a gross-out cultfilm but, still, I was highly entertained by the insane scenes of death by tongue.
This is a melding of a sci-fi horror flick and all of the "Evil Dead" movies.
Mind you, if you're here at Killer Tongue, you're a fan of the genre (or at least of those bizarre independent flicks that bring a smile to your face), and can appreciate the movie on those grounds.
All you namby pamby Julia Roberts movie going public should just stick to renting that piece of trash "Steel Magnolias" again while the rest of us enjoy great flciks like this.I get a kick out of reviewers that rented this and expected high cinema...hello McFly, it's a movie called "The Killer Tongue"Anyways, the movie concerns a hot chickie played by the always gorgeous Mindy Clark (billed here as Melinda Clark) who was a standout in "Return Of The Living Dead 3" who eats some alien infested soup and becomes a chickie with a mutant, talking tongue.Her poodles eat the soup and POOF they become drag queens.Anyways, I don't want to spoil the twists and turns and fun stuff.I got a huge kick out of Robert Englund (who plays Freddy Kreuger) and Doug Bradley (who plays Pinhead in the "Hellraiser" movies) towards the end when Robert tells Doug "I like you better with the natural look" a great inside reference about the Pinhead makeup.So, if you want something different then by all means check this out.
Here's a horror version of PRISCILLA: QUEEN OF THE DESERT (they wish!) starring Melinda/Mindy (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3) Clarke as Candy, a desert dweller who pulls off a bank heist with boyfriend Johnny (Jason Durr).
The dogs turn into obnoxious drag queen "bitches" and Candy develops a VERY long, talking, killing forked tongue she can't control.
You watch her and see someone very funny during the slapstick scenes, very convincing during the horror scenes and VERY sexy in various wigs and disguises, including an eye-popping, skin tight latex bodysuit...and wonder how come this actress isn't a huge star.
It's too bad the rest of this cult attempt doesn't live up to her promise.Blame director/scripter Sciamma, who thinks the outlandish premise alone is enough to sustain laughs...but his vulgar gags, annoying supporting characters and stupid dialogue are no substitute for a real sense of humor.
Another nail in the coffin; the film looks cheap, lots of garish colors and sets are strangely muted by muddy photography and the dusty desert locales.
Then she turns into this weird woman in black tight clothes, with a 10 feet killer tongue.
To complete this nonsense her poodles are transformed in three really strange gay men, all this while her boyfriend tries to escape from the mad sadistic guy in prison.
In his calculated bid for cult status, director Alberto Sciamma makes Killer Tongue as weird and wacky as possible, throwing in such outlandish ingredients as a talking extraterrestrial tongue that inhabits the mouth of a female bank robber, a group of poodles transformed into drag queens, a nun given a sexy make-over by the aforementioned poodle people, a fascistic wig-wearing prison guard with a pet dove, and all manner of bloody deaths including lots of full body explosions; the result is a predictably garish, gaudy, gory and extremely camp exercise in cartoonish excess (think John Waters' films/Earth Girls Are Easy/Priscilla, Queen of the Desert mixed with any other outrageous nonsense that crosses your mind), but it is one that frequently falls flat on its outlandish ass, not just by being dreadfully unfunny and extremely irritating at times, but for simply for trying TOO hard.The cast, clearly believing that this film would become a favourite with the B-movie crowd, thus immortalising them in the pantheon of cult cinema, put in embarrassingly OTT performances, desperately trying to inject a manic sense of fun into proceedings but failing spectacularly.
Robert Englund is particularly cringe-worthy in his role as the jack-booted guard who leers at photos of hunky men in the john, but everyone else gives him a good run for his money.
Meanwhile, Sciamma ladles on almost every vulgar and ostentatious camp cliché possible, only drawing the line at delivering a musical number involving gay dwarfs in sequined tutus and a troupe of fire-breathing gimps.About the only people who deserve any praise for this mess are Bob Keen and his Image Animation team, who don't let the inanity of the whole project prevent them from providing some impressive animatronic tongue effects and quite a bit of nice splatter..
Maybe I set my self up for a fall by believing the mini-hype around 'The Killer Tongue', but whatever the reason I found this movie for the most part to be tedious, and generally unfunny.
Melinda Clarke ('Spawn') shows a lot more screen appeal than the mundane script she has to work with, and is easily the best thing about this.
This movie right off is not one of the most bizarre or even gory films which I have seen.
I usually disregard plot and characters in these films because it always makes things confusing.
Not your ordinary nunnery, but one that runs a gas station in the New Mexico desert.After some alien magic, Candy grows a long tongue and her poodles are turned into flamboyant drag queens (one is Jonathan Rhys Meyers).
While Candy is getting used to her new tongue, her boyfriend is being tortured by none other than Robert Englund, who is the Chief Guard at the jail.The nuns don't go away from the story after Candy leaves.
One (Mapi Galán) is wandering the desert and comes on some alien rock that gives her healing powers, and another has been transformed by the transvestites.The huge tongue - we are talking 6+ feet here - transforms and talks!
Candy tries to commit suicide, but the tongue heals her just like the nun in the desert heals her boyfriend.That nun was doing some special healing to Johnny later on, and they barely escaped with their lives after Candy caught them.Anyway, Candy finds out that a six foot tongue can do things that Johnny can't.This is one strange movie.
Melinda Clark ( from Return of the Living Dead 3),Two horror icons; Robert Englund ( Freddy Kruger from "The Nightmare on Elm Street movies" )and Doug Bradley ( Pinhead from the "Hellraiser" movies ),Transvestite Poodles, A women ( Melinda Clark )that gets a "Killer Tongue" that could self impregnate, and a prison break.
The comment coming from Englund to Bradley..." You know...I kind of like you with the "natural" look." is also priceless ( both Englund and Bradley known for their latex covered Horror icon characters )...well there is my two cents and please don't take my words seriously either...but I'll leave you with this...Horror movies are suppose to be rated R NOT rated PG-13!!!.
I've recently discovered this movie, and you might say I've been catapulted into a miniature cult status with it!I'm just amending my previous comment by saying; Killer Tongue is a film that has great unpredictable flair (I keep saying; "Meanwhile..." after scene changes with a lopsided grin), and reminiscent of many other filmmaker's early work, while they still have that restless vitality that comes without the jaded, cynical nature of experience.
Some foreign films can really be found to deliver some spice!Also, the Tongue itself is uncredited, isn't it?
Released in 1996, "Killer Tongue" stars Melinda Clarke as a woman hiding out with her four poodles in the desert of the Southwest USA with the cash from a bank robbery while her boyfriend (Jason Durr) is released from a nearby prison.
When a meteorite crashes, her pastel-colored poodles morph into four drag queens while her tongue becomes an elongated separate entity that she must learn to control or somehow kill.
Robert Englund is on hand as a gay prison guard.The movie plays like a mish-mash of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "Rocky Horror," "Faster Pussycat!
There are 2-3 quality songs on the soundtrack/score and the tongue F/X were excellent for 1996 and hold up quite well.But it's all for naught because the movie's generally incoherent and tries too hard to be a bizarre cult flick with an overabundance of fruity twaddle.The film runs 94 minutes was shot in Almería, Andalucía, Spain, with studio stuff done in Madrid.GRADE: D (2.5/10).
I guess what I mean is, "The Shawshank Redemption" is a better film than "Killer Tongue".
Well, maybe it was around the time in "Killer Tongue" when the hateful prison warden (Robert Englund) gets into an outhouse plastered with pornography only to have an inmate dropped right on top of him from a crane.
I think it was right about then that I realized that "Killer Tongue" was not going to be the cinematic masterpiece I had hoped for.Don't get me wrong, the "hilarious" outhouse shenanigans are not the film's only misstep.
Take, for instance, the movie's "hilarious" gag of having poodles magically transformed into loathsome and annoying humans.
Before I saw this movie I had a generally positive image of Poodle-Men, but "Killer Tongue" has changed that- I will never vote for a Poodle-Man now!
Their movie is near unwatchable- jokes and gore are merely suggested instead of shown thanks to the poor editing, the acting is horrible, the sets are supposed to look off the wall but are pretty bland, parts that are supposed to be outrageous are trite (Sex Starved Nuns?
Parts of it are funny, but still, you can actually smell how bad this movie is.
Horror icons Doug Bradley (Pinhead) and Englund (Freddy Kreuger) give the worst performances of their careers, and Mindy Clarke was a favorite of mine from "Return of the Living Dead part 3", but is painfully bad in this.Unless you're a connoisseur of killer tongue movies- and, rest assured, this is the "Citizen Kane" of killer tongue movies- stay very, very far away from this movie.
Rent "Death Mask" or "The Wizard of Gore", just run away from "Killer Tongue"..
I think the transvestite poodles did it for me, or better yet, her talking tongue...or perhaps the guy getting the virgin mother statue mounted to a jeep windshield caught in his throat.
This film comes from the crappy movie company called A-Pix, They were responsible for distributing crappy 90's movies such as Jack Frost, Razor Blade, Smile and The Ice Cream Man. I remember watching a couple of A-Pix movies when I was younger and being just appalled at how crappy they were.The movie starts with a bank robbery a la Bonnie and Clyde.
She eats it and converts into smoking hot sexy babe,with a Killer Tongue!Well she fights it at first but eventually she gets used to it.
Then suddenly her alien tongue begins to talk and they have a sexual intercourse later in the movie.The picture quality for this movie is really terrible, considering the small budget and they obviously used a crappy camera.Bottom line killer tongue is very horrible film, but a lot of men might want to watch it due to the title, hey that's the reason why I watched it.
Not a bad movie if you have time.
Also called Killer Tongue.
If you have time to kill this isn't a bad movie to do it with.
Mindy Clarke is the best in an over the top performance with her Tongue who sounds like that gay actor guy with the hoarse deep voice.
I would liked to seen more of Mindy(Candy in the movie) and the Tongue do more stuff together.
A class C movie good enough to pass the time with..
Where can I possibly start.The Killer Tongue looked good on the shelf.
I should have read between the lines but instead I thought `Wow!!!' It's even got the hilarious one-liner under the title that reads `Go for your gums.' Tack City here we come.A black, bizarre comedy with a heavy Sci-Fi/Horror element running throughout, The Killer Tongue is an absurd film that you really cannot prepare yourself for.
it's one of those films that you really have to see for yourself.The film can lay claim to winning a host of alternative film awards including `Best Actress', `Best Special Effects' and `Best Director', but somehow this is totally meaningless when you're watching a film revolving around a 10-foot, flesh-eating, talking tongue that lives inside the oh-so-cute figure of Candy (Melinda Clarke).Candy is waiting for her boyfriend to be released from jail.
Yep, alien invasion through soup.So stupid in fact that my brain switched off, Candy then turns into a complete Marilyn Mansonesque figurine that simply has to feed her tongue with human flesh.
Best bit so far.Not alone, Candy's' pet poodles also had a good deal of soup that night.
What follows are scenes involving a lot of tongue wrestling, strangulation and wriggling.Robert Englund (of Freddy Krueger fame) plays an eccentric, evil jail warden who is partial to a bit of man-on-man.
Surprisingly he's great in the role, which makes me wonder what he got into after the Nightmare on Elm Street series of pictures.A completely off-the-wall, highly unpredictable film, The Killer Tongue is worth watching because you'll probably never see anything quite like it ever again.
It's very hard to enjoy a film where characters are screaming at the top of their lungs during 80% of the movie for no reason..
"Killer Tongue" is an uneasy mixture of sci-fi, horror, and supposed comedy.
What a terrible mess: a possible good idea (a sort of alien creature shaped like a tongue enter inside a beautiful woman, trying to get a child from her) is ruined by a crap of a story, involving a bank robbery and a lot of homosexuals, dressed like drag queens in a New Mexican village.
How Mindy Clarke and Robert Englund have finished in this Spanish production I cannot say, but I had the best expectations for this movie and after seeing it, they are all gone like bubbles of hope..
One of the worst films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through, Killer Tongue is a horrible melange of the worst elements of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Brain Damage, and Pulp Fiction.
Following in the footsteps of other recent Spanish flicks like ACCION MUTANTE and DAY OF THE BEAST, KILLER TONGUE strives for all out comedy of the Troma variety.
Unfortunately, as is nearly always the case these days, much of the comedy in this film just isn't funny, and not a lot really happens until the last twenty minutes or so.
This feels like the idea of a killer tongue was invented first by some drunk, and then a plot loosely constructed around it.
Firstly, the heroine, Melinda Clarke, more familiar to red-blooded males for her piercing eyes (amongst other things) in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3, here looking a lot like a goth.
Then there's Doug Bradley, who's never really been in anything good apart from the HELLRAISER series (he played Pinhead), which is yet another shame as he's quite an interesting actor.
It turns out, then, that the most memorable actor in the show is in fact Robert Englund, who steals every scene he's in as a sadistic prison officer.
With Englund and Bradley involved, the film was begging for some 'Freddy vs.
Perhaps if your idea of a good time is watching an actress run around in a PVC suit, then this film is for you, but otherwise give it a miss.
The only good thing about this film?
first of all let's start out by saying that Robert Englund Doug Bradley and Melinda Clark should be commended for having to be associated with this piece of drivel.
wanna know how bad this movie is?
i responded as saying "the killer tongue huh?" she was like how did you know that?
i mean it looked like a good movie at first Freddy pinhead Melinda. |
tt0024025 | Flying Down to Rio | The film opens with an airplane flying straight at the audience. Its propeller spins into the films title frame. During the opening credits each of the principal characters is introduced in a film clip from the movie that includes their real name and the character they portray. Then, the same airplane shot is seen; this time its propeller spins into a distant shot of the Hotel Hibiscus in Miami. A sign appears: Hotel Hibiscus, Roger Bond and His Yankee Clipper Band Now Playing in the Date Grove.
Mr. Hammerstein (Franklin Pangborn) inspects the hotels chefs, the bellboys and maids. Hammerstein, who has been brought from Switzerland to shape up the hotels staff, seems uncomfortable with one of the buxom maids and isn't pleased with anothers shoe heels that are terribly worn. Next, he wants to inspect the band. The head waiter (Eric Blore) points to the opposite side of the room where the band members are lounging. Honey Hale (Ginger Rogers), the bands female vocalist, greets Hammerstein with, Good morning, Popeye. He reprimands her for speaking before he has asked her a question. Then, he tells the band members that he has had several complaints about them; he is particularly upset that they have been too familiar with the guests. Hammerstein asks where Roger Bond (Gene Raymond), the bands leader, and Bonds assistant, Fred Ayres (Fred Astaire), are. Honey says, Coming right down.
The scene switches to a small single engine airplane doing a loop-de-loop before it lands. Once it stops, Fred is the first out; he has to hold on to the struts to keep from falling. There is a small piano in the plane right behind the front seats; Roger uses the instrument to write songs during his flights. Fred and Roger rush to the hotel for a scheduled radio program.
At the hotel, Hammerstein is pacing, the band is waiting on the bandstand and everybody is looking at their watches. At the last possible moment, Roger and Fred sneak in from the back of the bandstand, Roger welcomes the radio listeners and introduces their first song, Music Makes Me with a complete vocalization by the charming, bubbling, effervescent little lady, Miss Honey Hale. During the vocal break, as couples dance by, Roger makes eyes at several of the pretty women and they smile right back. Fred, who plays the accordion, warns Roger to take it easy and not get them fired. Roger zeros in on a Brazilian that is sitting at a table with several other young women. All these women show interest in Roger, but it is the Brazilian who sends him a note. He promptly turns the band over to Fred to dance with her. One of the girls at the table asks, What have these Brazilians got below the equator that we haven't?
When Hammerstein sees Bond and the girl dancing together, he sends the head waiter to tell her aunt, Dona Elena de Rezende (Blanche Friderici). The head waiter passes the assignment to a waiter that the girl is dancing with a musician, who passes it to a bellboy that she is dancing with the drummer, who reports to a maid the now completely distorted message that she is dancing with a piccolo player, who announces to the aunt that her niece is involved with a gigolo. When Dona Elena finds them downstairs, she pays Roger as if he was a gigolo. He uses the money to purchase an orchid for the girl (the girls name is Belinha de Rezende, who is played by Dolores Del Rio), who gives the orchid to Hammerstein because, she says, in her country they grow like weeds. However, when Roger isn't looking, she retrieves the orchid. Hammerstein promptly fires Roger and his band.
The next morning, Fred joyfully announces to the band that Roger has landed them a job at the Hotel Atlântico in Rio de Janeiro.
The next scene shows Roger and Belinha at a writing desk composing radiograms; theres a wall between them so they don't see each other. Rogers message is addressed to Júlio Ribeiro (Raul Roulien) in Rio. It says, Thanks old pal; will bring band down in time to open new hotel. Belinha's radiogram is addressed to Carlos de Rezende (Walter Walker) at the Hotel Atlântico in Rio. It says, Father dear, sorry you are ill; we missed this weeks Rio plane, taking next. Love to Júlio. Belinha and Roger bump into each other as they make their way to send their messages. She apologizes for causing him to get fired. He is pleasantly surprised when she explains she had missed the airplane to Rio de Janeiro. He tells her he knows a friend who has a plane that could give her a ride, but it is a small plane with room for just one passenger. She is excited about the offer, so she rushes upstairs to tell her aunt. Roger informs Fred that he wont be flying down to Rio with him. Flying down to Rio, Roger says, boy, what a title for a new song.
Of course, the friend with the airplane is Roger, who for some reason Belinha and her aunt do not recognize when they arrive at the air field. It is only after they are airborn that Roger reveals his identity by singing a couple of lines from Just a Gigolo. After dark, the planes engine has a mechanical problem, so they are forced to land on a moonlit beach for repairs. She is certain there really isn't anything wrong; it is just Rogers attempt to woo her again. Once he finds the problem, a clogged fuel line, he decides to keep it a secret. Secretly, shes excited about being marooned with him on a deserted island, but she doesn't want him to know.
Roger crawls back into the plane to make up a new song for the occasion on his piano it works! Soon, she is in the plane with him and they are kissing. She immediately feels guilty because she is engaged (an arranged marriage). When Roger brags that her engagement wont stop him from seeing her, she slaps him then, he spanks her.
They spend the night there with Roger sleeping on the beach and Belinha inside the plane. The next morning, Roger wakes her, but she ignores him, so he goes exploring. When she climbs out of the plane, she sees some black men and, assuming theyre savages, screams for Roger and runs to find him. When Roger rushes to her aid, he is knocked out by something falling from the sky. When he revives, he discovers he was hit by a golf ball. They had landed near Port-au-Prince Golf Club in Haiti. The wild men Belinha saw were the clubs bellhops out for their morning swim in the ocean. The airport is a short distance away and, since the regular Rio flight had spent the night on the island, Belinha decides to take it the rest of the way. Before she leaves, she tells Roger he will find the engine part he through away, the fuel line, on top of the piano.
The scene shifts to Rio; the film audience views a short travelogue of the city from the air. Then, Roger tells his friend, Júlio, about the wonderful Brazilian girl he met at the Hotel Hibiscus in Miami (Roger still doesn't know her name). By Rogers description, Julio realizes he is talking about his fiance. Roger asks Júlio to help him find the girl. Fred interrupts their conversation to tell him the band is waiting downstairs to go to the Carioca Casino, an outdoor club, to hear the Turuna Band. The only thing on Rogers mind is finding the lovely tropical girl.
Depressed by Rogers tale of his newly discovered Brazilian love, Júlio telephones Belinha wanting to see her, but she claims she is too busy. Before Roger leaves, Júlio invites him and Fred to be his guests at a dance at the Aviators Club the following night. Roger hopes hell find the girl there. He also has a new song he'd like to try out there. He demonstrates a little of Orchids in the Moonlight on the piano for Júlio and tells him he wrote it for her.
The next scene is the Carioca Casino, where Rogers band members have come to hear a native band, the Turunas. The crowd begs the bands leader to play The Carioca. As the song begins, the locals quickly flood the dance floor. Fred, Honey and others from the band sit at elevated tables watching and learning the dance. The primary idea of The Carioca is for the dancers to keep their foreheads together while they dance. Ginger inquires, Whats this business about the foreheads?, to which Fred answers, Mental telepathy. Gingers wisecrack reply is, I can tell what they're thinking about from here. After watching some more, Fred takes Honey by the hand and says, Lets try it, to which, Ginger replies, Well show em a thing or three. They begin dancing near the band leader, who encourages them to dance on seven white pianos which are somehow connected to form a circle. Fred and Honeys dance is exuberant, but they definitely don't keep their foreheads together all the time. The other dancers stop to watch these two talented foreigners. After a dance chorus, three different women sing the lyrics. As these singers perform, various groups dance, some of them rather erotically. As the last singer concludes, Fred and Honey join the dance again as the connected pianos begin to revolve and seven pianists begin to play. When the camera pulls back, the set is flooded with dancers, some of whom form a revolving pyramid. The next morning, a sign advertises the gala opening of the Hotel Atlântico soon and three Greek men, from a gambling syndicate in Monte Carlo, who are plotting with a local bank to take over the hotel from Senhor Rezende, are seen. Roger, Honey and Fred are walking the streets with Roger constantly looking for his lost love. Fred tries to think of something they could do that would top The Carioca, while Honey just wants to eat. Fred sees Belinha at an outdoor café with her aunt, so he sends Roger in the opposite direction. The next scene is the party at the Aviators Club. When Fred arrives, Júlio introduces him to his fiancé and her aunt. Definitely surprised, Fred heads off to intercept Roger. Belinha's father, Senhor Rezende, joins their table. The clubs band (a sextet), who are seated in the gondola of a large hot air balloon that is suspended from the ceiling, play a tango for dancing. Júlio says it is a new number being played for the first time. Belinha seems to recognize the song right away and Júlio notes her reaction. She excuses herself and wanders out onto a terrace; Júlio follows her. He mentions the romantic song the band is playing. He tells her the words are dangerously romantic and, on a tropical island, could make any woman fall for any man. He proceeds to sing Orchids in the Moonlight, the song Roger had played on the piano during his night with Belinha on the beach. Shortly after Júlio's singing is finished, Roger climbs over the terrace wall to discover the girl he has been seeking. Julio introduces her to his best friend, Roger, and introduces Roger to senhorita Rezende, his fiancé, which creates an uncomfortable situation. To get away, Belinha asks Fred, who has happened by, if this isn't their dance. While Belinha and Fred dance to a chorus singing more of Orchids in the Moonlight, Roger and Júlio decide to let nature and common sense take their courses in resolving their predicament with Belinha.
The three Greeks have arranged with city government officials that the Hotel Atlântico not be issued an entertainment permit so its opening will be a failure.
While Fred tries to rehearse a rag-tag crew of chorus girls, the band starts playing a fast arrangement of Music Makes Me. His feet just cant resist; he starts to tap dance with both arms flailing. After a few steps, he tries to resume talking to his chorus girls, but once again, he cant resist the beat. Some policemen arrive to inform Fred that the rehearsals must stop because Senhor Rezende doesn't have an entertainment permit. Belinha, who is wearing a bathing suit, translates for Fred. Her father arrives and explains he had a permit for the original opening date, but when there was a delay, he had to get another one. Only the Mayor can issue the permit and he is mysteriously out of town. Senhor Rezende is resigned to delaying the opening again. Fred and Roger would like to help but how? Suddenly, Roger hears some airplanes above and that gives him an idea. He just has to convince the members of the Aviators Club to cooperate.
Roger, Fred, Honey and Júlio arrive at an airfield where several of the club members and their airplanes have gathered. They convince the chorus girls to go along with their plan. They fit the planes wings with apparatus that will allow the girls to turn their floor show into an airborne extravaganza. Carlos de Rezende sends Roger a Saint Christopher statue with the following note: I send you this token which has been in my family for 433 years, in deep gratitude for your gallant efforts to save me from ruin, and to help consummate the long cherished plan of my daughters marriage to Júlio.
People begin arriving for the hotels opening including Belinha and a group of American tourists from another hotel. Rogers band sneaks in with their disguised instruments.
Just before the airplanes take off, Júlio receives a note from Roger. It tells Julio to be the lead pilot and the hero so he can impress Belinha and marry her. Roger is taking a flight to Buenos Aires.
As the air show begins, skywriters spell out Hotel Atlântico Presents Yankee Clippers. Seeing this, the Mayors representative warns Senhor Rezende against doing anything that would offend the authorities. The sky fills with single wings and bi-planes with twenty-two frightened chorus girls strapped to the wings.
When Roger sends Belinha a message, she meets him and learns that Júlio is leading the air show and that Roger plans to go away. They say goodbye with a kiss that Júlio observes from the air with his binoculars.
Its show time! The band unwraps their instruments and begins to play Flying Down to Rio, which is sung by Fred. Honey, who is straddling the lead plane which is piloted by Júlio, waves instructions to the rest of the girls as they perform their aerial choreography. In one sequence, some of the girls clothes are ripped off (they have on something underneath), three males toss a girl back and forth from one side of the planes wing to the other and in another a girl trapeze artist falls but is caught by one of the males on a lower aircraft. Just as the exhibition ends, the Mayor arrives and congratulates Rezende on a superb grand opening performance (the band is playing The Carioca during this sequence). The three Greeks, seen as shadows, are hit on the head with bottles by three unseen assailants. Júlio lands on a nearby beach, rushes to the hotel, grabs Belinha, tells her he is taking her on her honeymoon and drives her to the dock where a passenger seaplane (the China Clipper) is embarking. Both of them board the aircraft and Júlio deposits Belinha in a seat opposite from Rogers. Júlio gets the captain to marry Roger and Belinha and bails out of the airplane. | romantic | train | imdb | You'd be surprised at what they could get away with in those days - it would be forty years before a film could get away with a line like that spoken by a starlet of her South American rivals - `What have those girls got below the equator that we haven't got?'The film, about a love triangle between a Brazilian woman and two members of a swing band, is of course famous for two things - the slightly surreal sequence in which showgirls ride a biplane down to Rio in Busby Berkley-esque formation, and the debut of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as a screen team.
Millions of Americans were out of work and millions more lived in fear of the economic and political realities plaguing the world.So Hollywood turned out films like this one, escapist fare about rich dilettantes drifting back and forth from Miami to Rio. Indeed, the hero of this little trifle, Gene Raymond, is the scion of a wealthy family who will inherit lots of money, if he gives up fiddling around with song writing and aviation.
But "Flying Down to Rio" is remembered today for one thing and one thing only, the first pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who would become the greatest dance team in movie history.
And then, finally, there is that other sequence this film is known for, the truly amazing production number featuring the title song, "Flying Down to Rio" in which a bevy of beautiful girls allow themselves to be strapped to the wings of biplanes and flown over Rio as entertainment during the opening of a hotel.
But then, the real fun was watching Astaire and Rogers in subsequent films proving that in addition to having a good eye for manly stuff like big gorillas and airplanes, Merian C.Cooper was not exactly blind to musical talent, either..
I gave this "Fred Astaire" comedy-romance-musical higher marks than normal because the romance, usually the sappy part of the Astaire films, doesn't dominate as it does most of his movies.As usual, there are a number of interesting dance scenes including a spectacular Busby Berkeley-type production on the wings of airplanes.
By the time Flying Down to Rio was released in 1933, It was Warner Brothers who had been having the success as far as musicals were concerned.Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell were the uncrowned King and Queen of song and dance land and in films like 42nd Street, Footlight Parade and Gold Diggers and the later movies Dames and Flirtation Walk they were paving the way for a motion picture genre that would continue in much the same vein for the next twenty years.With kaleidescope routines expertly directed by Busby Berkeley via overhead cameras, the movie musical was finally taking shape bearing little or no resemblance to earlier dismal efforts like MGM'S Broadway Melody of 1929 or their equally unimpressive Hollywood Review from the same year.RKO was at the time a struggling studio with huge debts and was on the verge of going bankrupt.
However they decided to capitalize on this medium in an effort to pull themselves back into the black.Flying Down to Rio was in all respects no different to any other of the films they produced at the time and I'm sure this film would have sank into obscurity and be long forgotten had it not been for the movie milestone it boasts.Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were cast as only 3rd and 4th billed performers, to all intents and purposes, the token dance act, a novelty.
However, no matter how dull the storyline to "Rio" is (and it is believe me) it is soon forgotten when Fred and Ginger perform their first ever screen dance, The Carioca, a musical number with Latin- American tempo complete with stunning costumes, guest singers and the very kaleidoscopic shots of which Busby Berkeley himself would have been proud.
Astaire is given further opportunity to shine in two stunning solos which will leave the viewer in no doubt whatsoever why he was the very best at his chosen craft.Complete with the now famous 'girls-strapped-onto-aeroplane-wings' scene and with the added talents of Delores Del Rio and Gene Raymond adding the romance, It all helps to make an otherwise dull film into a legendary silver screen gem..
Gene Raymond plays the conniving bandleader who chases her from Miami to Rio, with an impromptu island stop en route.There are some nice touches (the ghostly 'consciences' of Raymond and del Rio for one, the back projection of orchids and palm trees showcasing her thoughts as her local hick boyfriend sings 'Orchids in the Moonlight') but of course the real interest of this movie is for two reasons - one, the clever and inventive acrobatic stuff with the girls tied to aeroplane wings etc over a new nightspot; and two, the first screen teaming of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who light up the movie with 'The Carioca'.
Flying Down to Rio will always be best known for being the movie that first paired Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but, believe me, its worth goes far beyond just that stunning accomplishment.
It is nevertheless a fun movie, with Astaire doing some wonderful solo dancing and of course, his dance with Ginger, which sent them on their way to movie history.The stars of the film are Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond.
FLYING DOWN TO RIO (RKO Radio, 1933), directed by Thornton Freeland, is a musical showcase for Mexican star Dolores Del Rio playing a Brazilian beauty named Belinia De Rezende, Gene Raymond as Roger Bond, a girl chasing orchestra leader, and Raul Roulien as Julio Rubeiro as Belinia's fiancé and Roger's best friend who complicates matters.
By the film's conclusion, the ones who "walked off" with the movie are the supporting players of Ginger Rogers as the band vocalist, and Fred Astaire as the accordionist-dancer, in that order, thus, the beginning of a new screen team, and never again in the persona of sassy Honey Hale and semi-sophisticated Fred Ayres.
As for the plot elements, it remains similar to the ones used in subsequent Astaire and Rogers films, but this time the situations of strangers meeting followed by a merry mix-up, belongs to its leading players (Del Rio, Raymond and Roulien).
In between all this comes the singing and dancing to help the plot along.With the music and lyrics by Gus Kahn, Edward Eliscu and Vincent Youmans, the songs include: "Music Makes Me" (sung by Ginger Rogers in the foreground with Fred Astaire, as one of the members of the band, playing the accordion in the background); "The Carioca" (performed by musicians, danced by numerous Brazilians, sung by Alice Gentle and Etta Moten, and danced briefly by Astaire and Rogers); "Orchids in the Moonlight" (sung by Raul Roulien to Dolores Del Rio/reprise, danced by Astaire and Del Rio, with one observer saying to another, "Oh, look, Belinha is dancing our tango with an Americano."); "Music Makes Me" (tap dance solo by Astaire); and "Flying Down to Rio" (sung by Fred Astaire/ danced by girls chained to the wings of the flying airplanes).Other than some advanced camera techniques used in this production, portions of the movie play like a picture postcard advertisement, mainly during its montage sequences where the camera focuses first from an air-view of famous landmarks, then from the ground view of Rio De Janiero, and flipping over to other scenes of the city from people walking the streets to cars driving down the roads before returning to the storyline.In the supporting cast are Blanche Frederici as Belinda's old-fashioned Aunt (Tia) Elena; Roy D'Arcy, Maurice Black and Armand Kaliz as the Greeks; Franklin Pangborn as Mr. Hammerstein; Luis Alberni as The Rio Casino Manager; and Eric Blore as Mr. Butterbass making his first of five performances in an Astaire and Rogers musical.
While the plot (whatever there is of one) seems to be about the unlikely romance between Ms. del Rio and Raymond, the only reason this movie was a hit and is still often shown today is because it's the first time a legendary dance couple is teamed on screen for the first time in an exciting number called "The Carioca"-Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Not that Ms. del Rio and Raymond don't do well by themselves when they appear but this being a musical comedy, Fred and Ginger are the only ones actually doing both the singing and dancing here with both having their own solo spots at the end and beginning, respectively.
We can see Hollywood moving out of the Busby Berkely, pure-spectacle-with-no-regard-for-the-plot kind of numbers and move more into the part-of-the-story-and-motivated-by-character kind of dances that the movie musical is famous for, particularly in Astaire & Rogers' later movies.
If you're interested in the on screen pairings of Astaire & Rogers, don't feel bad about skipping this one and moving on to 'The Gay Divorcée.'KEVIN: The latest film from RKO is a visually appealing but otherwise hopelessly routine musical romance starring Gene Raymond and lovely former silent star Dolores del Rio. They play a couple who meet at a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
who cares.
Quite spectacular, Busby Berkeley over at Warner Brothers must have cried all day wondering why he didn't think of it first.The plot is simply your basic love triangle involving band-leader Gene Raymond, Brazilian heiress Dolores Del Rio, and her fiancé Raul Roulien.
On a higher note, the exotic Latin American musical number "The Carioca" was excellently performed by all, and the finale, "Flying Down to Rio", with chorus girls dancing on the wings of planes in motion was somewhat spectacular, but still eclipsed by the earlier number.
And one more ingredient: it has Fred and Ginger doing a couple of snappy routines including a little number called "The Carioca" which gets extensive treatment.Forget the boy-meets-girl plot with band leader Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio. It's just an excuse to showcase some musical interludes, some of which go on for too great a length.Del Rio proves that she's a great beauty but shows absolutely no talent for romantic comedy and Gene Raymond has been seen to better advantage in other films.
She manages to prove that she's no singer but quite a capable dancer.Eric Blore has a tiny role but Franklin Pangborn gets to strut his stuff early on in the film as the flustered hotel manager.Summing up: Worth a look only for the first pairing of Astaire and Rogers, but clumsy plotting and overproduced dance numbers keep it from being one of their best pairings..
This technique of filming dance would revolutionize dance performance in film.The director looked to dazzle his audience with every variation of novelty cuts and what must have been seen as cutting-edge special effects (the images of performers on the wings of flying planes).Because the humor in the movie is played so broadly, the acting is not very good, but they got what they were aiming for--a light excuse for entertainment that was just what America wanted during the Great Depression.I am a fan of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, singly and in tandem.
These boys & girls were all a bunch of one-dimensional paper-dolls, with the women, as usual, wearing way too much make-up and dressed to the nines in the most ridiculous-looking fashions imaginable.I understand that this movie is considered to be a big deal by many film-buffs just because it was the first picture to feature the likes of Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers dancing (this time the Carioca) together.Well, if that's all that this film is notable for, then, from my point of view, it only deserves a 3-star rating.
On the other hand, there are many great moments, you get to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in their first screen pairing, the beautiful Dolores del Rio, and quite a bit of pre-code naughtiness spicing it all up.
It makes for quite a bit of entertainment if you just roll with it.Fred Astaire dances and sings well of course, but he also does a great job as the supporting actor, making faces and comments about the leading man's (Gene Raymond) love interests.
Their parts of frontline competing lovers in fact are taken by the named leads, the rather anodyne Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio. The other points of interest for me were the occasional camera tricks involved, for example when Raymond and Del Rio are tormented by their consciences and the off-screen depiction of the sinister gentlemen-financiers conspiring against the hotel's success, as well as the pre-Hays Code values (or lack of same) on show, quite literally on occasions, indeed our first view of Ginger sees her apparently dancing in a see-through negligee, not to mention the scantily-clad girl wing-walkers improbably assembled on the squadron of planes flown in for the big opening night.The story is typical light-comedy fluff, although I'm not sure I agreed with the conclusion which has Raymond breaking up the engagement of Del Rio and her Brazilian fiancé.
There's certainly a degree of ambition in some of the camera shots, particularly the extended Astaire and Rogers number "The Carioca" and the air-show at the end, obvious as the projection work is to modern eyes although some of the stunts are hilarious in their execution, notably the flying save of the girl who falls from the airborne trapeze, trust me this does happen!Otherwise the wooden doe-eyed acting of the leads and their stiff, prissy dialogue at times, plus the light-operatic musical style of some of the numbers makes the movie a little hard-going at times, but Fred and Ginger just about make it watching all the way through.
Today, the 1933 Radio Pictures musical "Flying Down to Rio" is perhaps best remembered for two things: It is the film featuring the classic, eye-bugging sequence of chorus girls dancing on the wings of airplanes in flight, and it marked the first, epochal teaming of what was to become cinema's most elegant, enduring and beloved song-and-dance team, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Roger (played by Gene Raymond) soon falls hard for the charms of a Brazilian lady with the memorable handle Belinha de Rezende, not knowing that she's the fiancée of his pal (Raul Roulien), who's just hired the band to play in Rio. Mexican beauty Dolores del Rio does well in her exotic role of Belinha, and before long, the whole gang is dancing and romancing down in the tropics.
Highlights of this film include Ginger singing the infectiously bouncy "Music Makes Me," Raul singing "Orchids in the Moonlight" to Dolores, Fred's high-speed specialty tap number, and the sight of those chorus girls doing their Rockette-like thing on the wings of those airplanes (some truly special FX here).
"Flying Down To Rio" is noted these days for being the first film which paired Astaire and Rogers, and for it's incredible finale with pretty young things strapped to the wings of airplanes in flight (courtesy of some convincing back projection.) The plot is light and fluffy as a soufflé and there are some wonderful character actors like Franklin Pangborn, Eric Blore and one of my favorite battle-axes Blanche Frederici "I think I shall go and eat an aspirin" along for the ride.
Energetic Musical for the Depression Era. Although remembered today for the first pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, FLYING DOWN TO RIO doesn't really give them much to do, apart from one solo and a segment in a long song-and-dance sequence set to Vincent Youmans' "The Carioca." Astaire has a pleasant wise- cracking role playing second fiddle to nominal star Gene Raymond, a Dick Powell lookalike playing romantic hero Roger Bond, who falls in love with Latina beauty Belinha De Rezende (Dolores del Rio) and spends much of the movie pursuing her.
Raymond doesn't have much to do, although there is one well-staged dream-sequence where he and del Rio are ostensibly marooned on a desert island, and their souls encourage them to take amorous steps - even though their consciences try to prevent them.This film is not really an Astaire/Rogers dance musical, but Radio Pictures' (they had not yet merged with RKO) version of some of the Busby Berkeley spectaculars being made over at Warner Brothers.
Entertaining early RKO musical with Latin bombshell Dolores Del Rio taking the leading role, but one Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers stealing the notices for their "Carioca".
Highlights are Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers dancing "The Carioca" -and a bevy of dancing girls on wings of planes for the eye-popping finale."When this opulent Pre-Code musical extravaganza was released, its stars were Dolores Del Rio & Gene Raymond -but it was second leads Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers (in their first teaming) who waltzed away with the film.
I'm guessing that at the time the film was built around the title number which may well have been subtitled Eat Your Heart Out, Busby Berkley, which featured a bra-less chorus line strapped on to the wings of a half dozen planes as they fly over Rio de Janeiro but probably even then this spectacle was forced to share top honors with the sensational dancing of Fred and Ginger.
The official stars were not Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - they were Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio, but unfortunately for them, once the film was released they were forgotten.
This film was essentially a Gene Raymond-Delores Del Rio film with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire as supporting characters BEFORE they went on to their own pictures (very shortly after completing this film).
But sadly, that was their only dance together in the movie, because of course, we had to make time for Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio. Ginger Roger's "Music Makes Me" number in the beginning is kind of weak, but it was still catchy and enjoyable.
In fact,they played as the supporting cast to Gene Raymond and Dolores Del Rio. However,it is Fred and Ginger that steal the show, even if it isn't their most remarkable performance(they only perform a dance number in one scene!). |
tt0070898 | A Warm December | This bittersweet movie centers around Dr. Matt Younger (Sidney Poitier) recently widowed, who travels to England on a month long holiday with his charming young daugther Stephanie(Yvette Curtis). While there, his meets a beautiful and mysterious stranger Katherine(Ester Anderson). She elicits his help to avoid a man who is following her. It turns out that this gentleman is her bodyguard. Katherine is the niece of a prominent African diplomat, and they are in England on official business. Katherine also has a medical condition which necesitates her being watched closely by her bodyguard to prevent harm from befalling her. Dr. Younger begins to get to know her and quickly falls in love with her, but she keeps her medical "problem" to herself, preferring to disappear whenever she feels sick. While on a vacation trip to the English countryside with Katherine and Stephanie, Dr. Younger discovers her little secret. He wants to marry her regardless. In the end, she must make a choice between having a family , even if only for a short time, or continuing her life as it has been. | melodrama | train | imdb | null |
tt0780583 | Plane Dead | On a routine flight from Los Angeles to Paris, a renegade group of scientists has smuggled aboard a secret container holding a fellow scientist infected with a deadly genetically engineered virus which reanimates the dead.The virus is a variant of the Malaria virus, created by three scientists. They discovered and manufactured the virus with the intent of turning it into a biological weapon. Their goal was to produce soldiers who could continue fighting, even while mortally wounded. The virus is transmitted through bodily fluids. The infected have superhuman abilities, sprinting and leaping beyond human capabilities. The zombies become very durable, and one particular zombie survives despite being thrown into a plane's engine.The 747 jumbo jet encounters massive thunderstorms, and the turbulence releases the scientist from the cargo hold. A guard assigned to her kills her with an MP-5, when she re-animates and attacks and kills him, turning him into a zombie. Two of the scientists go below to ascertain if the container has been damaged by the turbulence, and are also killed, starting a zombie outbreak. They then attack several passengers in the cabin, and an epidemic of the undead begins.The uninfected passengers must now fight for survival aboard the flight. No government will allow the infected airliner to land, leaving the survivors stranded in the sky with their ravenous tormentors. Ultimately a golf pro (Billy), his wife (Anna), a cop (Burrows), a con artist (Frank), an Air Marshal (Paul) and a stewardess (Megan) are all that are left of the uninfected people. They must make their way to the cockpit and signal a fighter jet behind them that there are still living people aboard the 747 or the fighter will destroy them. After managing to get an MP-5 from the dead guard, Burrows, Frank and Billy make their way from the tail of the plane to the cockpit. Billy is bitten but manages to kill the zombie. Anna rushes to help while Paul holds off the infected in the back. Unfortunately, while fighting in close quarters, Anna is also bitten. She manages to kill the infected by stabbing an umbrella through its mouth and out the back of its head, but realizes she will shortly die and reawaken. She and Billy back up against an exit door and when he runs out of ammo they open it, sucking themselves and several zombies out of the plane to their apparently final deaths.Frank and Burrows make it to the cockpit where Frank kills the zombie copilot, and the two of them try to get the plane off autopilot and signal the fighter which fires at them. They're ultimately successful and waggle the plane's wings, alerting the fighter. The fighter pilot hits the abort key and the missile explodes away from the 747, but close enough to the plane to open a hole in the side. All the zombies are apparently sucked out. Frank and Burrows try to control the plane, but hit a mountain and crash land near Las Vegas. During the crash the pilot is reanimated and attacks them but Burrows manages to blow his head off with the MP-5. Megan, Paul, Frank and Burrows all survive and make their way towards the city, but after they leave its revealed that four zombies survived as well. The movie ends with the zombies shambling towards the city. | violence | train | imdb | It took a concept that has been done to death, people locked in a confined area fighting back a zombie invasion...(Night of the Living Dead being the blueprint) and gave it a twist that I really appreciated.Being trapped in a confined space with the Zombies, leaving you with zero room to hide and none of that long drawn out psychological mind-screw most films rely on to kill time.I loved this movie, and if you love zombie flicks, I'm sure you will too..
The gore is guaranteed to please people, as the script features several ingenious new methods to kill zombies, like an umbrella through the head, nine-iron golf clubs and of course airplane engines.
It stands out because it presents you with some things you don't expect from the average low-budget direct-to-video Zombie flick, i.e. a script that actually works, decent acting, neat make-up effects and even a nice score.What I liked about the plot: There's are rather long but surprisingly suspenseful introduction before it gets bloody.
But what I got was an EXTREMELY entertaining action/horror that puts this Zombie flick on the same top 10 list as Rodrigues "Planet Terror".Sure it's a low budget movie but I doesn't feel like it.
I would gladly have paid for a ticket to seen it on the big screen.Now THIS is how you make use of a limited budget.We got HUGE amounts of Zombies and gore (okey not like Planet Terror but plenty enough) and lot's of action and explosions, especially in the last half hour.What I also liked was the characters.
Usually in low budget movies we get the most crappiest and annoying actors on the planet, but in this one they can ACTUALLY act, and most of them are likable as well.Not unlike Snakes on a Plane where you HATED them all ;)The Zombie make-up FX were brilliant and they were the crazy brutal type of zombies as in the remake of Dawn of the Dead.
I started watching it and first 35 minutes were just as I expected the whole movie to be, but surprisingly after first 35-40 minutes it gets much better, special effects, plot and even acting gets better, well acting gets better because all amateur actors are killed by zombies.
Director Scott Thomas gets the max out of his limited budget: The movie seldom looks like a cheapo, the special effects are more than just decent, and you might recognize a few familiar faces (Kevin J.
If you thought that Snakes on a Plane was the ultimate in in-flight terror, wait until you get a load of Flight Of The Living Deada silly, unpretentious, and delightfully gory tale of an outbreak of the undead on board a trans-Atlantic aircraft.The trouble begins when spot of extreme turbulence causes a supposedly secure container in the hold (belonging to three unscrupulous scientists working on an experimental virus) to break open and release its deadly cargothe body of an infected woman.
Now, rather than relaxing on the red-eye as they had planned, the passengers on this particular overnight flight find themselves fighting for survival against an ever growing horde of bloodthirsty zombies.What makes Flight of the Living Dead so fun is its no holds barred, anything goes approach, and its twisted sense of humour, which delivers laughs and scares in equal doses.
Frank is a very funny characterslimy, but quick wittedand he actually ends up being something of a hero.Also worthy of mention are Kristen Kerr as the pretty stewardess heroine, Derek Webster as a pro-golfer who uses his impressive swing to great effect against the zombies, and Erick Avari (from TV's Heroes) as the scientist responsible for the outbreak, who eventually becomes a particularly memorable member of the walking dead.Considering this is a relatively low-budget affair, the effects are uniformly good, with some impressive CGI shots of the aircraft in flight, and some nicely realised zombies.
The gore quotient is also more than adequate, with some lovely squishy effects including a zombie decapitation, an umbrella through the skull (where have I seen that done before???) and a half-zombie which walks on its hands.I watched this film immediately after the much higher-budgeted and over-hyped Planet Terror, and whilst Rodriguez's film might have been the slicker of the two movies, Flight Of The Living Dead was more entertaining.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb..
I'm not sure how much of the humor is intentional, but some of it definitely is, and the film has a feeling overall kind of in between "Army of Darkness" and every PG-13 popcorn horror movie ever made.The look of the zombies is pretty much the same as all of the other new direct-to-video and made-for-TV zombies films, but somehow it feels just right here.
If you're looking for a good, fun, scary and gory zombie film you can't go wrong with this.
The plot is wafer-thin and the gore is nothing that you haven't seen before.Like I said, it's no classic, but if you're in the mood for (yet another) zombie film and you're in a forgiving mood, then this one might fill an hour and a half of your life.For me, the only part I really rolled my eyes at were when the undead – somehow – managed to 'punch through' the floor of the plane in order to climb out of the 'hold' and get into the cabin to feast on the passengers.
this is the first time that i've seen zombies on a plane, and you know what it turned out much better than i thought it would have, this one is very good i think.
the cargo is some kind of chemichal that when unleashed turns the dead back into the living,, as the movie progresses , the dead start to come out,, and battle passengers on the plane for control of the aircraft, the Pentagon finds out and tries to shoot the plane down, meantime the passengers are getting eaten up one by one, a small group survives and is left to do battle with the zombies..
this is a silly addition to the recently revived zombie genre of recent years, this one has a frankly ridiculous premise and at first looks as if it is going to be awful, but it is in fact great fun.the gore and a few moments of suspense are there,and most of all film has a wicked sense of humourand even manages a couple of intentional belly laughs.a demented mix of any recent zombie film,disaster movies and "airplane".overall result is good fun..
You know exactly in advance what you're going to get when you watch a movie like this, with a title such as this one has.It takes a bit too long for the movie for the horror to kick really in but this has obviously to do with the movie its restrained budget and also story.
I mean, how much good and interesting can you come up with a movie that's completely set aboard a plane.About halve way through the action really kicks in and the gloves are off!
I think that pretty much sums up how serious you have to take this movie.This movie is simply good and enjoyable for what it is, a deliberate simple gory B-horror flick, featuring a whole bunch of zombies.
My problem was that I figured there's no way you can knock off "Night of the Living Dead" (a classic) and "Snakes on a Plane" (a train wreck) at the same time and possibly have a decent film.
The other problem is it IS a bit on the light side, I'm not sure if I'd need to see this again and again like "Dead Alive" or "Shaun," it's got a bit of a video-game movie mentality, basically just a lot of action, and that doesn't always work well in repeated viewings.
I know that guy!" actors who play the bit roles in a thousand different shows and movies.The special effects are pretty bad, definitely low budget.
So if you are a zombie fan or a gorehound, then sink your teeth into "Flight of the Living Dead", because it is a good movie..
This is how you make a scary horror movie with a combination of a limited budget, a decent cast, good characters, good dialogue, good zombie movie, a limited setting, and lots of monsters with nowhere to run for the victims.
There's lots of fun to be had with this movie, you have almost every cliché in the ''big book of airplane disaster clichés.'' you've got the air marshal, the cop with the fugitive criminal who knows how to fly a plane, the having sex on an airplane teenagers, and pilots who die at the end of the movie so the fugitives saves the day, and we even have tiger woods.
I appreciated the humour in the movie...Kevin O'Connor does what he does best...your never quite sure if you should trust the man...the story lines that introduce the characters were well written...except for the girlfriend with the headphones...she wasn't believable and you find your hoping she gets bit just so you don't have to watch her performance any longer!
The gore is over the top for sure, so it keeps things true to the genre without having that "gross out" effect on people who care more for substance than show.This film is definitely not for everyone, but if you don't mind your movies low-budget and if you enjoy zombie films, this is one that will not disappoint!.
Most people look over straight to DVD titles unless you frequent regularly to the local DVD hire shop.I came upon the title by random looking about for new horror flicks, been a fan of zombie horrors such as day of the dead, dawn of the dead, night of the living dead and so on I thought from the title it sounded like a new twist on a theme which has been done so many times before, of course as Id never heard of the movie I was bound to be sceptical on how it would look and more so how crap the acting and plot line would be.Surprisingly I can say Im quite pleased with the movie and would go as far to say considering low budgets it works really well, the acting is strong and the plot works well "much better than the apposed 'snakes on a plane' pish" The effects are as good as any other zombie flick I've ever seen.
"Flight of the Living Dead" is an enormously entertaining, albeit cheesy zombie film.**SPOILERS**Flying to Paris, Dr. Lucas, (Dale Midkiff) grows uneasy with colleagues Dr. Conroy, (David Spielburg) and Dr. Sebastien, (Cliff Weissman) transporting a high classified mission for the US on a commercial jet.
Otherwise, it's a really good entry.The Final Verdict: With a lot to really like about it, this here is a rather entertaining zombie film that will certainly appeal to the fans.
The special effects were almost as bad as most of the acting and basically the movie didn't show us anything we haven't seen a hundred times already in this genre, and since when did a zombie get neutralized by a non-head shot!
I put off watching this zombie film for years because of the title & the amount of really crappy cheap low budget terrible zombie films was coming straight to dvd all the time so this looked like another terrible one but i was wrong!!!
The set up is good fun & very exciting for a low budget zombie B-movie i mean on a plane is a cool fun & suspenseful idea & it works!!!
I genuinely enjoyed how much fun this was i liked most of the characters & that's rare & there wasn't any really terrible annoying characters you hated they was ok to good & when the plane becomes infected with the outbreak & the passengers are turning into savage infected zombie creatures attacking everyone with scary yellow eyes it reminded me of cool old school 80's Horror's such as Demons (1985) came to mind the most as they was trapped in a cinema & the infected creatures with yellow eyes was attacking anyone in their way just like this but confined to a plane instead of a cinema.
It's great flesh ripping fun with excellent zombie make up & fx & infact this film doesn't look or feel cheap at all it's made really well & looks like a nice proper budget cinema movie!!!
Great late night entertainment & actual a really good zombie film..
The zombies are crawling through the airplane and can appear anywhere at any time; once there is an attack in the bathroom, and later some start coming from the floor.The acting is not bad, which is surprising for a movie like this (where good or even decent acting tends to be rarely found).
It not only isn't scary, it's full of bad acting and stupid characters who you couldn't possibly care about; so what if they're all zombies by the time the plane lands?Even the title is lame.
Going into Flight of the Living Dead, I had limited expectations but I ended up being entertained throughout most of the movie.
this is one of the gorier zombie flicks i have seen in a while.it takes awhile to get to that point,though.once it does,it basically becomes barely controlled chaos,mayhem and carnage.this is not a big budget movie by any stretch,but i think it's played as camp,more than anything,so the low budget doesn't really matter.there are some very funny scenes,which i think are intentional.the movie is never boring.it's even fun at times.the acting won't win any awards,but basically,it's just a zombie free for all,so there isn't really a lot of acting required.if you can get around the absurd premise,and if you're a gore hound,this could be the movie for you.for me,even though i enjoyed it,there were some moments that were a bit too sick for me.as a result, i would have to give Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane a 5.7/10.
No it is not perfect and the budget is not big(but they did do a good job with it) but what do you expect from a movie with a premise of zombies on an airplane?
In case you didn't know this movie is Snakes on A Plane minus snakes plus zombies.The acting was exceptionally good for a straight-to-video release and some of the gore effects were cheap.
Unreversable regretment.My advice is if you are looking for a movie, with great acting and special effects this is going to be a big disappointment.Worst Zombie movie I've watched in years, Rather watch election propaganda than this, since you already know from the start you get bad acting..
If you watched other zombie classics like the quoted Night of the living dead (a nearly 43 year old movie, which is much scarier, than this 4 year old film) or the return of the living dead you can see that people are gathering up and try to survive after the initial shock (at least in small groups).
I usually love zombie flicks, the great ones, the good ones, even the adequate ones are worth it for a few looks and a few laughs, but Flight of the Living Dead turns out to be little more than a decent concept executed rather poorly.
Genre fans might enjoy themselves with this one, but I can't say I was particularly impressed; there are a lot better movies out there, and FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD doesn't offer anything that we haven't seen before.
The good thing about playing in a film where you're turned into a zombie is that although your character gets killed off early you're still in the rest of the picture.
Flight of The Living Dead is actually a well made, well acted, entertaining, fun, gory, movie with some really terrific special effects and thrilling moments.
As the few remaining passengers fight for survival aboard the plane they also have to worry about events outside as the Pentagon aware of the situation orders the plane destroyed...Co-written & directed by Scott Thomas & also known under it's working title Plane Dead (the version I saw was called Plane Dead in fact) once it actually wakes up & gets going Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane is rather fun if your a zombie/horror fan which I consider myself both.
The main problem I had with Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Palne was how slow it is to get going, the zombie action doesn't really start until way past the three quarters of an hour mark which is just too long really to sit down & watch these passengers sitting down on a plane.
Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane is a fun film & not really meant to be scary which is just as well because it isn't, the setting is unusual for a zombie film too which I liked & thought was something a bit different.Technically the film is fine, it's surprisingly well made with good production values.
O'Connor to Brian Thompson.Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane is a fun light hearted gory horror zombie film that once it gets going is terrific stuff, unfortunately it takes a while to get going & the entire first forty five minutes doesn't do it any favours.
After watching Plane dead i actually thought it was quite good.A basic plot run down of this film is that a plane full of passengers and their crew are going on a flight from Los Angeles to Paris.In the first 30 minutes of the film we are introduced to many different characters some that are likable and have personality and others that have attitudes and you cant wait to see them be terrorised later on. |
tt0374212 | Señorita Justice | Anna Rios (Yancy Mendia) is a young lawyer who negotiates property agreements in the city of Miami. Anna learns that her younger brother was murdered in a gang-related drive-by attack and learns that her father had emotionally broken down. Not capable of opposing the call of her home, she proceeds to the seedy streets where she was raised to look into the subject. She takes a sabbatical from work, and heads back to the pollo frito she once knew, sending her father on vacation so she can get down to business. It isn't long before Anna enlists the help of a transgender nymphomaniac childhood friend, named Vanessa (Mirtha Michelle), and rekindles an old flame, named Hector (Kalex), all in the name of avenging her murdered brother.
During Anna's investigation she meets two female cops, Detectives Garcia (Edith González) and Martinez (Eva Longoria) who are investigating her brother's murder, but are renowned less for their detection skills. Both Garcia and Martinez become persuaded into believing that one of Anna's childhood friends, Hector, witnessed the slaying. He, however, is unwilling to cooperate.
Anna's search for the killers lead her to a sleazy gang leader named Mo (Michael Francis) who turns out to be under the thumb of a greedy local businessman, named Manny Sanchez (Tito Puente Jr.) whom is determined to instigate a gang war to drive them out of the neighborhood for a real estate business. Anna eventually finds herself in over-her-head when she gets pursued not only by Detective Garcia, but also Mo's gang members, and a ruthless female Yakuza assassin. When Mo is killed in a similar drive-by shooting, Anna thinks that she has been looking in the wrong place and focuses her attention on Hector who admits to her that he was with her brother that night, but thinks that HE was the target, not her brother.
When Hector makes plans with Anna to leave the neighborhood, he too is gunned down in a drive-by shooting which fills Anna with grief and rage. Thinking that Manny Sanchez is behind it, Anna teams up with Vanessa where they abduct Manny as he is leaving his office and try to get him to confess. But Anna is betrayed by Vanessa who reveals that she was the one who killed her brother. Vanessa admits that Hector was the target for he was investigating Manny, plus he was also romanticaly involved with Vanessa. But Anna manages to talk Vanessa into lowering her gun, in which she turns the gun on herself and committs suicide by shooting herself out of guilt. Anna forces Manny to take her to a seedy motel where the two thugs he hired to terrorize the neighborhood and whom killed Hector are residing. Anna breaks into their room and kills both of them in a quick shootout, as well as Manny.
Anna goes back to her law office building where she confronts her former boss, Charles Adams, who has been working behind the scenes to orchestrate this whole thing. When Anna tries to shoot him, she is attacked by Chiba, the brutal Japanese assasin sent from Japan to kill her. After a climatic and brutal fistfight between the two women in the lobby of the building, Anna gets the upper hand and kills the female Yakuza by slashing her neck with her cross necklass that she wears around her neck. Relieved but exhausted, Anna is only confronted by Charles, pointing a gun at her. Before he can shoot Anna, Detective Garcia runs in and shoots him dead.
In the final scene, Detectives Garcia and Martinez arrive at Anna's house to thank her for solving the case for them. Anna tells them that she has decided to stay in her old neighborhood and live with her father when he returns, and that she will open up her own law practice to help those less fortunate then her. Garcia thanks Anna for her help, but also tells her to stay out of trouble. When the two women detectives leave to respond to a call, Anna gets out her street clothes from her suitcase, impling that she will intend to continue her second lifestyle of fighting crime as Señorita Justice. | murder | train | wikipedia | It had been a good, long time since me and my high school buddies sat down to a righteously awful straight-to-video flick.
This confused mess fit the bill and then some.Try to picture a sort of Pam Grier-type exploitation movie but with Cuban Americans and production values that make you wonder if they just strung three episodes of an ethnic soap opera together, and you have some idea what this is like.
With dozens of goofy montages and instances of recycled footage, it has to have more padding than any 80 minute movie I've ever seen.
The action sequences are edited badly (tons of dissolves a la "John Carpenter's Vampires"), choreographed worse (looks like they got the guy that did "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers"), and performed horrendously.
The ladies are gorgeous, the guys are cheesy and sleazy--pretty much all the prerequisites are met for a raucous evening in front of the tube with friends and beer.
The acting was bad, the quality stank, and the whole thing was like the fascination of the abhorrent.
The only surprise in the entire (baaaad) plot was that nobody broke out having sex - that's the quality of movie we're talking about - usually films this bad are rated XXX; they have no other redeeming feature.
Basically, this appears to be a way to show that gangstas from Habanita are just as screwed up as all the other ones...
OK, so the whole thing did hang together in a weird sort of way, but it left an awful lot of loose ends.
It starts in the middle and ends in the middle.
Apparently, I don't watch enough daytime drama to keep up with this sort of stuff.
I was expecting some sort of Hispanic shoot-em-up, but what I got was a lousy plot with the worst acting, filming and action.
Also, apparently, the denizens of Habanita all spontaneously speak English (well, maybe so, although you'd never know it from being there - it's not that they can't speak English, it's just they normally speak Spanish with each other), and, furthermore, they can't cuss worth spit.
Spaniards really cuss with extraordinary inventiveness, whereas these guys just mouth off a few limited tacos..
Senorita Justice breaks the rules -- and delivers an inspiring, edge-of-your-seat action movie!.
A jealous ex-lover of gorgeous and talented Yancy Mendia?
I rented "Senorita Justice" on a whim at Blockbuster because the cover looked sexy.
Boy, did I make a good choice!
The movie was filled with action, suspense, drama, and a good moral.Using the exotic Miami as a backdrop, the movie starts with lawyer Anna Rios (Yancy Mendia) who seems to have it all.
A good job, a Caucasian, rich boyfriend, and a comfy life.
That is until her childhood friend Vanessa (Mirtha Michelle, who flows effortlessly in an emotionally challenging role) shows up and reveals Anna's brother was killed.Anna can't believe it so she goes back home to get to the bottom of this since the cops (Eva Longoria and Edith Gonzales) are not doing anything.
In the process of finding out who killed her brother, Anna discovers and appreciates her Hispanic roots."Senorita Justice" could've been any other action movie with things blown up from side to side.
Not so, the movie balances intense action scenes with stories about love, friendship, and finding out who you are.For those looking for Anna to kick some butt, you will not be disappointed!
Reportedly, Mendia did all her own stunts and it looks great!
I was on the edge of my seat when robbers tried to attack her as she was showering.
You have to watch to find out what happens!
She is also an expert at firing guns, much more than Angelina Jolie in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider." The final fight scene pits Anna against an Asian woman (Grayce Wey) and it was freaking cool!
Mendia is no dainty flower either, she is both athletic and beautiful.
This is one of the best fight sequences I've ever seen!
It looked so natural and un-choreograph like "Alias" or movies like "Mortal Kombat." The underlying message of "Senorita Justice" resonates with many of us.
I cried at the end.
Anna went through so much but she never once gave up to avenge her brother's death.
Anna Rios is an inspiration; no matter how big her enemies were, she didn't back down.
It's a good example of mind over matter.I must not forget to mention the cast.
I don't think the movie would've been as great with a different cast.
Everyone had challenging roles but played it convincingly.
I believe we can all relate to at least one of these characters.Yancy Mendia is a revelation; I'm surprised I have not seen her in other movies.
She made Anna seductive and strong, but at the same time vulnerable and the girl you want to be friends with.
The role of Anna Rios required a variety of emotions from grieving over her brother's death to finding out who she is to beating up baddies.
Props to Mendia for handling it so well; she is definitely a star to look out for.The supporting cast was also very strong.
Mirtha Michelle had a challenging role of playing the no-nonsense best friend Vanessa; at the same time, she was hiding a big secret.
Michelle did it so well, transitioning her character's emotions from scene to scene with ease.
The standout moment is when she is grieving for her lover's loss; it just breaks your heart as the camera won't shy away from her tears.
The last scene with Michelle just shocked the heck out of me!
You have to watch to find out.Seasoned actress Edith González made us dislike her character but at the same reason know why.
She was playing a cop who followed the rules but knew much more than she let on.
With one glance or an exhausting sigh, González did not reveal her character's intentions too early.
She played every note correctly -- subtle and sneaky.Eva Longoria was barely in this movie so I cannot say much about her.
It was disappointing we didn't see much of her since she's so good in "Desperate Housewives." Maybe she wasn't that well-known or was still honing up her acting skills when they filmed "Senorita Justice" so that's why her role was so small.Overall, "Senorita Justice" was a treasure.
It kept me on the edge of my seat and brought me to tears.
And it had a good message to its audience; I would definitely show it to my kids.
Anna Rios is a good role model.
More movies like "Senoirta Justice" should be made.The only reason I did not give the movie 10 stars was because I felt it was too short.
I wanted to find out more about Anna and what she did after.
BEST direct to video B movie in years.
I admit it, I like B movies.
I loved Russ Meyer movies (even with Roger Ebert's lame scripts) I constantly look for them at the Video Store and 90% are lame worthless waste of time like the late-night soft-porn on Cable.But this one Rocks.
It's got Style.
It's got real babes that can act and do Martial Arts.
I haven't seen one this cool since Faster Pussycat Kill Kill.Every scene looks like a setup to a porn scene, only just as you get ready to see hot babes rip the clothes of the guy, BAM!
BIFF!(That's right I said BIFF!)The hot babes kick the livin daylights out of the bad gang bangers!Besides the title character by Starlet Babe Yancy, you get Eva Longoria as a Latina gangsta moll, Latin Soap star Edith Gonzales as a head detective (zipping her top up when Lawyer-Yancy walks in to end the "interrogation") Graycie Wey is the hottest evil Chinese Kung Fu Killer since Lucy Lui and only one of those incredibly boring cable soft core candle-light soft-jazz "tender lovemaking" scenes.Every other time you think somebody's gonna get lucky they get a kick in the face instead.Checkit out - Awesome!.
MIAMI HERE I COME!.
Even though this is a low budget film it makes me wanna take my ass to Miami!
The movie is a lot of fun, good locations, good action, (it needed more) and good looking women, I've never seen so many fine looking females in one movie -- DAMN!
Make more low budget movies look like this one.
The film is slicker than most of the straight to video Latin movies that are out there.
It starts out a little slow but it picks up and with some shoot-outs, cool Kung-fu fights and cat fights between two females -- MEOWWWWW!The lead actress in the title role is a little stiff but this ain't Shakespear, it's Senorita Justice baby!
The girl that played Vanessa was pretty convincing along Mo, he was a bad ass in the movie.
If you're home on a Friday or Saturday night and ya got nothing to do and your a straight male, then this movie can't miss!.
The main reason why I rented this movie was the appearance of Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria.
If you're thinking of doing the same...DON'T!
She is barely in this terribly-acted, atrociously-produced movie and it was a complete was of 80 minutes.
It's almost like many of these characters have never seen how humans act.
The music is way too loud in some places and the songs are second-rate.
I must admit, I did watch the entire film to see where this train wreck ended up.
Plus, the actors/actresses were very kind to the eyes.
That was another reason I kept tuned into this flick.
Let's just say this won't be winning many awards..
Really bad but darn funny.
I cannot believe anyone would think this is a 'good' movie.
It's only good for laughs as the acting is so terrible it is laugh out loud funny.
When Senorita Justice straps on her guns they are so huge she can barely walk and they go missing from scene to scene, one minute she has them then they are gone, must be the magic of cinema.
If you like to laugh at bad movies watch this you'll crack up every five minutes.
The fight scenes are too much it looks like all the actors are really trying to remember what the stunt folks told them...Let see do I punch him then kick, or was it kick then punch..gosh this is hard.
This movie is somebody's guilty pleasure.
The mixed production values and cheap soundtrack music (in between the reggaeton cuts) is reminiscent of porn films of the 70s.
You start wondering about 15 minutes into it when any of the characters are going to hit the sheets in between the fist fights.
I suspect that this film is one that most of its otherwise respectable actors don't talk about these days.
Also, why it was never seen in theatres.As someone else said, there is only one reason to even bother with this film, and that's Edith Gonzales.
She takes a back seat to Eva Longoria in this film, but at least proves she has the option to act in English if the right project came along..
Let me start by saying this: I wanted to like this movie.
However, despite my best efforts, I couldn't bring myself to tolerate this abhorred abomination that this database has deemed a movie.
Even the transitions between each vomit inducing scene where terrible.
I watched this movie with a friend because we knew one of the leads.
I lost both my lunch and my dignity for the 80 minutes I'll never get back.
No lie, the friend I watched this with actually became nauseous and left early.
Unfortunately, I insisted on watching the rest of this disaster.
Eva Longoria is used as window dressing on the cover despite her total screen time of about 3 minutes.
The music is putrid, lighting and shots abysmal, and the fight scenes are worse than any STUDENT film I've ever seen.
Myself having made a few amateur fight videos, let me say that me and 3 random people off the street could have created better.
The next time a production company wants to throw thousands in the toilet, I'd appreciate it if they could do it in a way that doesn't send viewers racing to the toilet as well..
Oh My. It is a good thing I did not watch this horrible a$$ movie.
I mean when I saw the action scenes as well as the horrible acting scenes, it just made me want to kick the sh!t out of my friends TV.
What were these people thinking.
It looks like they waisted about over $50,000 dollars on horrible acting lighting stupid stunt scenes as well as the last scene (OH MY GOD!!!!!), how are you going to "slit someone's throat" and have like a drop of blood come out and then die.
It was also funny how she beat up those three guys when they wanted to run the train.
That was funny as anything.
So funny I thought about watching some paint dry to try and get my mind off of the horrible fight scene.
This is a stupid movie and it should be pulled so no one can waist 80 minutes of their lives to watch it.
Man I mean if I wanted a long and painful death I wouldn't want to watch it still.
I would not want the last parts of my life of any memory of that movie..
Shhh,...I love this movie!!!.
With fanboys and even critics giving thumbs up to B*TCH SLAP, despite the fact they all admit its a terrible movie, Im compelled to defend this very guilty pleasure.
Senorita Justice satiates the same itch B*TCH SLAP does but replaces the typical silicon-ed cheerleader bimbos (that Hollywood insists are the only type of woman thats sexy) with wide hipped, midriff bearing, raven haired Latina beauties.
And I should know about them, I married one.
Yes, yes, yes, as all the user reviews point out, the script is crapola, the acting is community theater and production quality is below telenovela.
Plus the fight scenes are embarrassing, the gunfire consists of only sound effects and the soundtrack is made up of the same three songs played over and over and over and ALL the men are wienies.
But, with every woman wearing the absolutely tightest outfits, giving tude and throwing down at the drop of a pin, Senorita Justice is hard to turn off.
And what red blooded male (or female) can resist the sight of a belly baring Yancy Mendia shooting two silver 45s John Woo style with low rider jeans snug to her waist?
Really, it doesn't matter, because all the strutting and scowling ends with Yancy hand to hand with a Yakuza femme fatale finale!
You know, if it had cred from Rodriguez or Tarantino with Death Proof type font on the cover, it be the hitting the DVD shelves of every drooling fan-boy in North America.
So, don't let the Eva Longoria fans derail this because she doesn't star, Senorita Justice is a sweet drink.
Yancy.
Yes, a waste of time, but goodness that Yancy Mendia girl is cute.
Even cuter than Eva. The most ridiculous part of it is the inclusion of Edith Gonzalez in it.
She's a big time soap star, so I was quite surprised at her appearance in this.
Her accent is quite apparent.
Oh, and I also liked that the heroine drove a Nissan 240 in the film.
Lol. I'm trying to stretch out this comment because IMDb will not let me post this unless it's at least ten lines long.
OK, also, this is the only film where the girl looks cuter in a goofy dress than in her "sexy" garb..
So I'm drinkin with my roommates, we make our over to Hollywood video and what do we see?
Senorita Justice!
Oh man that sounds action packed!
Who wouldn't, you know?
It starts out with porno sounding music, we're like "oh yeah, this is going to be good".
So, with out giving away anything else, except that it wasn't good at all, I have to say they successfully insulted most of the different cultures in florida, and any one's intelligence that was watching it.
I was drunk and was able to realize that, so note to self, do not watch sober.
I don't know if you consider this a spoiler, but 90 percent of the scenes end with some one looking camera right and shaking their head.
I still don't know.
Oh, and the white chick with the really bad latina accent...
More Anna Rios, please!.
Here was a movie that stars a Latina as the lead character.
It was set in Miami and featured a primarily Hispanic cast.
Anna is a successful lawyer who has to go back to the mean streets where she grew up to find out who killed her brother.
It turns out that even though she now has a comfortable corporate lifestyle, she is the most dangerous person alive, fighting off three grown men at a time.Not that I would pretend that it shows anything authentic about how people from this culture live, but as a mindless action movie, it was refreshing to have a young Hispanic woman in the lead.
I liked that she was the most intelligent and powerful person in every situation.
The fact that her white boyfriend was corrupt, along with numerous references to white culture being less than desirable, makes me think that it was either written or directed by non-whites.
I can only give it a five because the story and the dialog were mostly silly, and the acting had no sense of timing, especially the lead cop.
But I enjoyed it all the way through as a dumb action movie and like some other reviewers on IMDb, I liked the character of Anna enough that I would like a sequel. |
tt0039211 | Born to Kill | Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) has just received a Reno divorce in Nevada. That night, she discovers one of her neighbors, Laury Palmer, and Palmer's gentleman caller both murdered in Palmer's home. The killer is Palmer's other boyfriend, Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney), an insanely jealous man who won't abide anyone "cutting in" on him.
Helen says nothing to the police; she's leaving town and doesn't want to be impeded. She runs into Sam and is instantly attracted to his self-confidence and brutality, but she is engaged to marry a wealthy boyfriend, Fred (Phillip Terry). Sam wants to call on her in San Francisco. He arrives there and meets Georgia Staples (Audrey Long), Helen's foster sister, also rich. Sam soon shifts his attentions to her, marrying the sister for her money after a whirlwind romance. Neither Helen's engagement nor Sam's marriage is an impediment to their beginning an affair.
Meanwhile, back in Reno, the owner of the boarding house where Helen lived has hired a mercenary, verse-quoting detective, Albert Arnett (Walter Slezak), to find out who killed Laury. The detective follows Sam's friend, Marty (Elisha Cook Jr.), to San Francisco, where he soon begins to make blackmailing overtures to Helen. Marty finds out who hired the detective and attempts to kill her, but Sam thinks he's trying to cut in on his action and kills Marty.
Fred is troubled by the resulting police investigation, as well as by Helen's increasingly heartless demeanor. He calls off their engagement. Sam and Helen face off in a fatal confrontation as their schemes begin unraveling, with Sam fatally shooting Helen before he is slain by police. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | As good as she and Tierney play off each other, for me, the most entertaining parts of the film were watching three of the supporting characters, played by Elisha Cook Jr., Walter Slezak and Esther Howard.Cook played his normal film noir jittery-worried gangster accomplice and victim.
The detective (Walter Slezak) is too perfect in his delicate selfishness, and good old Elisha Cook Jr. is a surprising, and also perfect, good guy with too much tolerance due to his large heart.It isn't a surprise that a good script and some talented actors are put together with such smart, fast panache by a young Robert Wise, more famous for little tidbits like West Side Story and Sound of Music.
It may well have been the closest to the big leagues that he got and, for me, its the best thing he's ever done (and, under Wise's economic direction, the film could certainly compare favourably with Reservoir Dogs).The film sits well with all those minor noir classics the late 40's and early 50's with apparent ease: Wise's own The Set-Up; Anthony Mann's Raw Deal and the T-Men, Kiss Of Death, and Ray's masterly debut, They Live By Night.It's not specified just who the title refers to but it could apply equally and aptly to both Tierney's and his peerless co-star's Claire Trevor (for me the Queen of the noir femme fatales)characters.(In the UK it is titled Lady OF Deceit but in my opinion it does Tierney a disservice by apparently ignoring his contribution to the mayhem).The story is basically a simple one: Tierney is an ex-boxer who is prone to violent fits of jealousy which erupts with fatal consequences when he spots a girl friend out with another man.
In addition to the stars, it boasts wonderful performances by notorious scene-stealers, Elisha Cook Jr., and Walter Slezak, while Esther Howard is a delight as a boarding house owner who realises that a beach is not always the safest place at night.Although Robert Wise acquitted himself well in his later big budget films, its in films such as this, the aforementioned Set-Up, and his Val Lewton horror classics that he showed himself to be an economic, effective and underrated director.
In Reno, the cold-hearted Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) has just divorced from her husband and returns to the boarding house owned by Mrs. Kraft (Esther Howard) to pay her expenses and say goodbye to her and to Mrs. Kraft neighbor and best friend Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell) since she intends to return to San Francisco early in the morning.
The gold-digger Sam seduces Georgia and sooner they get married, but the calculating Helen feels horny for Sam. Meanwhile Mrs. Kraft hires the smart and sleazy private eyes Matthew Albert Arnett (Walter Slezak) to investigate the murder of her friend Laury.
"Born to Kill" is a film-noir that tells the story of a cold, greedy and calculating woman that feels desire for a ruthless killer.
Claire Trevor performs an ambitious woman that is an iceberg and plans to marry for money with a good man that controls her bad instincts and sees her world collapsing when she meets the amoral killer Sam Wild.
The only remotely sympathetic characters are a pair of dupes and an old drunk, everyone who's got anything on the ball is corrupt and ruthless.Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney) is a homme fatal, as attractive yet deadly to women as any of a dozen femmes fatal in other films are to men.
"Born To Kill" is a very unpleasant film.Its premise is unpleasant, its narrative is unpleasant, its denouement is unpleasant.Unfortunately it is very well done.The cast was great, with superlative performances from actors who mostly didn't become household names.Claire Trevor, who did, was outstanding, looking her best, giving one of her best portrayals.Elisha Cook, Jr., gives an excellent performance, perhaps the best chance he ever had in movies to shine, to portray a sympathetic character.Too often he was just someone slimy, unlikable.
That her character gets so many chances to do so is a tribute to the writers and producers who didn't shortchange the script or its audiences.Kathryn Card, who later played the mother of Lucy Ricardo on "I Love Lucy," is a maid in "Born To Kill," yet she is such a dominant personality she stands out.Again it is a tribute to the writers and producers that the character is allowed to do so, to speak lines, to be a visible part of the story.Other "minor" characters are played by names -- Ellen Corby, for instance, often uncredited except here at IMDb -- who went on to some fame and fortune, and they got a chance, with this script and under the direction of Robert Wise (surely proved a genius over the years), to be more than atmosphere or background."Born To Kill" is not fun, but it is something film historians will want to see..
Superior film noir classic directed by the late Robert Wise about Claire Trevor and her love for a killer, Lawrence Tierney.
Well, just like with any film noir, it gets more complicated with Tierney marrying Trevor's foster sister(a wealthy woman in her own right) and being tailed by sleazy, literate detective Walter Slezak.
Born to Kill is nothing great in terms of plot or story - we have seen much of the same before - but under the adroit eyes of Wise and aided by big performances by talented actors and actresses - it rises above the mundane to be a vintage film noir classic.
Here, in 1947, RKO finally delves headlong into the abyss of Krafft-Ebings Psychopathia sexualis, and though the fatal-attraction plot may not be entirely plausible, Robert Wise's direction is taut and trim, the timing pure excellence, while angel-faced and downright ravishing Claire Trevor – marvelously dressed in one stunning ensemble after another by costume designer Edward Stevenson (Out of the Past) – gives the probably best performance of her career opposed to Lawrence Tierney, the Most Vicious Mutha ever to roam Hollywood Boulevard.
Lawrence Tierney is "Born to Kill" in this 1947 noir starring Claire Trevor, Walter Slezak, Isobel Jewell, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Audrey Long.
When a detective comes to town (Slezak), hired by Mrs. Kraft, and starts nosing around, Wild knows it's time to take action.This is a good noir, but unlike some others, the casting of Tierney was troublesome to me.
Trevor may be the Woolworth version of Ava Gardner in looks but not talent and as Helen she is one convincing hard boiled egg.There's some scene stealing supporting performances turned in by Estelle Howard as Mrs. Kraft and Walter Slezak as the detective and perennial noir citizen Elisha Cook Jr. in a meatier than usual role as Sam's pal has some moments that evoke Nicholson in Chinatown.Robert Wise's perverse dark tale may be a long way from the syrupy critically slammed, mega hit Sound of Musics part of town but his polished craftsmanship is at home in both places.
More than just a detective-investigates-a-murder-in-a-sleazy-world story, this one shows how murderer Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney) and witness Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) use the murder to manipulate each other.
Lawrence Tierney and the amazing Clare Trevor put in tremendously believable performances and although they dominate whilst on screen we do also get great comic performances from, Audrey Long who seeks to avenge her friend's death but does like a drop or two of beer, and Walter Slezak as the opportunistic private eye.
It also looks at how slender the difference is between respectability and sleaze.There are four characters in the film whom illustrate this: they are the stars, Lawrence Tierney, Claire Trevor, and Walter Slezak, and the supporting actress Esther Howard.
She does worry about Tierney's decision (one he really enjoys thinking about) of taking over the management and editorial policy of his wife's newspaper.Howard (in an interestingly complex role - she enjoys a good time, but she turns out to be extremely moralistic) hires Walter Slezak as a detective to find out who killed her friend.
Even so, it's difficult to get past the stressful, awkward experience of watching a categorically difficult Tierney, constantly hoping to glean what beautiful, wealthy women like Claire Trevor and Audrey Long find so irresistible about him.Tierney plays an incomprehensible character named Sam Wild, a psychopathic slum kid, a former boxer and rancher, with a no-good personality and a scalding temper, who somehow manages to marry a rich and classy newspaper heiress, in the plush blonde form of Long.
I found Claire Trevor an excellent actress with a superb range of gradations in her interpretation of this multifaceted character of Helen Brent; Ms. Trevor is the main carrier of the whole movie.Walter Sleazak (Albert Arnett, the private detective) was a natural actor and he seems to be a real detective, fitting the character as a glove in his professional hand.Lawrence Tierney (Sam Wilde, the "Born to Kill" of the Title) was very good in his rol, although, reading his biography, it seems that he didn't interpret at all, he was just like that in real life, a very troublesome kind of personality.Elisha Cook Jr. just walks through the picture, being such an experienced actor, for him this was no challenge at all.But a special mention must be done for Esther Howard (Mrs. Kraft) who stole the picture every time she appeared on screen.It must be said that although this kind of movie, when so very well done as is the case of "Born to Kill", with such excellency in the director's chair as Robert Wise in command, can be so immensely entertaining, one has to suspend belief because many, many of the situations are so improbable that they were there because otherwise there was no story to tell..
The story begins when a recently divorced Reno woman Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) finds the dead bodies of her neighbour Laury and the latter's boyfriend, but chooses to not get involved in the impending criminal investigation, as she is just about to move to San Francisco to start a new life.
Expect both the expected and the unexpected when Tierney begins romancing Trevor's wealthy foster sister, as the preceding is only a fraction of this sparkling, trashy Robert Wise-directed melodrama.******* Born to Kill (5/3/47) Robert Wise ~ Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Esther Howard.
Those already mentioned plus Elisha Cook, Jr. as Tierney's luckless pal, Walter Slezak as a private detective open to a little blackmail, and Esther Howard as the landlady in Reno who hires Slezak to investigate the murder of her friend Jewell.Born To Kill will keep you glued to the television or the big screen as it did in 1946 I'm sure.
Arnett's investigation takes him from Reno to San Francisco, where the story's climax plays out with often-humorous scenes involving Elisha Cook, Jr., Walter Slezak, and Esther Howard.Born to Kill is a good movie with some of the best noir stars.
Robert Wise directed this film noir that stars Lawrence Tierney as Sam Wild, a cold and ruthless killer who meets up with equally ruthless Helen Brent(played by Claire Trevor) on a train leaving San Francisco.
He lives up to his fearsome reputation by playing an ice-cold, larger-than-life and incredibly ruthless killer in LADY OF DECEIT (original title: BORN TO KILL), a film noir with an absolutely stunning first ten minutes to recommend it.A couple of these RKO programmers have spellbound me with twist opening scenes, but the one here blew me away.
It stars Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Elisha Cook Jr., Audrey Long, Isabel Jewell and Esther Howard.
Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by Robert De Grasse.Trevor plays conniving divorcée Helen Brent, who risks her chances at the wealth and security she craves with the man she doesn't love by falling for hotheaded murderer Sam Wild (Tierney), who, with his own agenda, is soon to marry her foster sister.I wouldn't trade places with you if they sliced me into little pieces.Hard-bitten noir of some substance that pits two of noir's most unlikable characters against each other.
That he was 'born' to kill is confirmed in the first few moments of the picture, when the man kills an innocent couple out of sheer jealousy and sudden outburst of aggression.The only person to see the bodies lying lifelessly on the floor is a beautiful woman Helen Trent (Claire Trevor), whose divorce has just come through, but she really doesn't want to get involved in the whole murderous affair and decides not to tell anybody about what she saw.
This is a pretty tough and cynical film to come from the typically tasteful Robert Wise: an exemplary noir with both Claire Trevor and the indomitable Lawrence Tierney at their very best; BORN TO KILL also offers memorable roles to such sterling character actors as Walter Slezak, Elisha Cook Jr., and (especially) Esther Howard.
(There Are Spoilers) Movie with all the ingredients of a perfect Film-Noir suspense/drama even though the story is a bit strained with a couple made for each other but hooked up, or married, to someone else.Just having been divorced in Reno from her first husband gold-digger and social climber Helen Brent, Claire Trevor, is engaged to rich and well connected Fred Grover, Phillip Terry.
Fred realized that she's as cold as the iceberg that struck the Titanic and just as entertaining.Getting in touch with private detective Albert Arnett( Walter Slezak), who was hired by Laury's friend old Mrs. Kraft tried to find who murderer her, Helen at first tries to get Arnett off Sam's tail but later double-cross him to the police because she knows she can't have him all for herself.
So here are Claire Trevor as a desperate divorcée, Walter Slezak as a greedy gumshoe, Elisha Cook, Jr. as the sort of homicidal pal every murderer needs and wonderful Esther Howard as a besotted old lush, acting up a storm -- and Tierney offering up one of the two or three expressions of which he was capable.
When this film first starts, one might think the title refers to the character played by Lawrence Tierney, a killer who hitches himself to the affluent sister of a woman (Claire Trevor) who happened to stumble across the scene of one of his crimes.
Despite its rather grim subject matter, this is an absolutely fascinating movie in which the perverse natures of some of its characters are a constant source of interest and life threatening danger.In a Reno boarding house, Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell) explains to the landlady Mrs Kraft (Esther Howard) and a resident called Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) how she likes to keep two boyfriends at a time because it keeps the one that she's really interested in jealous and this she believes makes his feelings for her more intense.
Sam visits Helen in San Francisco and when it becomes clear that she's determined to marry Fred, he concentrates on getting to know Georgia who he subsequently marries for her money.The alcoholic Mrs Kraft is determined to bring her friend's murderer to justice and so hires an eccentric and seriously corrupt private detective called Albert Arnett (Walter Slezak) to investigate.
When newly divorced Helen Trent (Claire Trevor), living in Mrs Kraft's (Esther Howard) Reno boarding house, comes across a murder freshly committed by Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney), she decides to bolt town immediately.
Two supporting characters make the film oh, so very interesting-Elisha Cook Jr. as Tierney's creepy pal, who shows up in San Francisco for Tierney's wedding to Long and finds himself embroiled in the intrigue, and Esther Howard as Trevor's former landlady in Reno.
Noir tended to be a male-dominated genre with female actors in secondary roles ("Gilda" is perhaps something of an exception), but here Lawrence Tierney as Sam and Claire Trevor as Helen are roughly equal in prominence.
Sam Wilde kills Laury Palmer and her gentleman friend out of jealousy.A woman called Helen Brent discovers the bodies but says nothing to the police.She and Sam meet on the train and become fond of each other.But she's engaged to a wealthy man called Fred.So Sam shifts his attention to her rich foster sister Georgia Staples and marries her.But most of his attention is still in Helen, and vice versa.Mrs. Kraft, the owner of the boarding house where Helen lived, has hired a detective to find out who killed Laury.Born to Kill (1947) is the first Film-Noir made by Robert Wise.The movie works real good.It's a very dark and cynical melodrama.Lawrence Tierney does convincing job as the bad man Sam.Claire Trevor is excellent as Helen.Walter Slezak is very good as the detective Albert Arnett.Audrey Long is wonderful as Georgia.Elisha Cook Jr. is great as Marty Waterman, Sam's friend.Isabel Jewell is terrific as Laury.Esther Howard is marvelous as Mr. Kraft.There's a lot of good stuff in this movie.One of the most memorable scenes must be where Marty is set to kill Mrs. Kraft in the darkness, but he gets killed by Sam instead.The ending is something you also remember..
There's no back story for the male lead Lawrence Tierney nor for his relationship with Elisha Cooke Jnr; following Claire Trevor he finds her with her half-sister and fiancé.
And a very noirish movie it is too, with great performances all around, especially from Claire Trevor (as the deadlier), Lawrence Tierney (as the deadly), Walter Slezak (as the Clayton's detective) and Audrey Long (as the lovely heroine), and not to forget the amazingly tough Isabel Jewel and super-sweaty Elisha Cook, Jr. Yes, these are exactly the sort of characters noir is made of!
Very good story of murder, the way Hollywood made those film noir movies of the 1940s.While Lawrence Tierney shines as the sadistic murderer, it's Claire Trevor who steals the show as the woman staying in the same boarding house where the murders are committed.
An average, over dark film noir starring Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor. |
tt0313443 | Out of Time | Chief Matthias Whitlock (Denzel Washington) gets a call from a woman about an intruder. He finishes his beer and heads over. She invites him in to her bedroom for the investigation, they end up on the bed kissing, it was a ruse and just foreplay. The chief gets another call interrupting the "assault with a deadly weapon" fun.In Banyan Key, FL, Chief Whitlock has breakfast in a cafe, he engages the owner, Chris Harrison (Dean Cain) with some edgy banter. Chris' wife, Ann (Sanaa Lathan) the caller from the previous evening, says hello politely.Matt goes to his office and meets his friend Jay (John Billingsley), the medical examiner. Ex wife Alex Diaz-Whitlock (Eva Mendes) comes asking for keys to get some stuff, Matt gives her a hard time.Matt goes fishing from his deck and Ann arrives her husband, is away for the weekend. They have a quickie in the hallway. Later in bed, Ann gets a call and has to leave. At Mercy Hospital Oncology she meets a Dr (Alex Carter) and has Matt there acting as her brother. The Dr says her cancer is out of remission, she has 6 months to live. Matt asks about alternative approaches, the Dr says they are expensive, no guarantees.Matt talks to a tearful Ann. There is a clinic in Switzerland with 17% success rate. Ann wants to break off the relationship.Matt buys flowers for her. Ann shows Matt a $1mil insurance policy her husband took out on her on her 32 birthday, her mother died at 33. Chris arrives and Matt slips out. Chris grills her about the Dr visit, they argued loudly. Matt knocks on the front door and says he is checking out a prowler.Ann calls Matt and says she had figured out how to get to Switzerland. She takes Matt to meet a guy who will give her $750k in return for being named the beneficiary on the insurance.Later she is upset, there Is a rule that one cannot change beneficiaries after 1 year, which is in 2 days.Matt and Jay have beers at a bar. Chris confronts him after Jay leaves. Chris hints he knows Ann is seeing another guy, Matt. Matt almost admits it is him as tensions rise between the two.Ann comes by Matt's house the next day apologetic. She gives him an envelope, making him the beneficiary. She is leaving town, needs some peace.Matt is served with divorce papers and is upset. He brings Ann police custody drug money to pay for Switzerland.Later, back at his house Jay is there but Matt herds him out. He tries to phone Ann, the phone keeps ringing. He drives to her house, it is dark. A motion sensor light comes on, the neighbor sees him. Matt leaves. Later the house explodes in flames.In the morning two burnt corpses are in the embers. Alex shows up, she is a homicide detective. The fire chief shows a device, it was arson. Alex catches a lift with Matt and apologizes for the divorce paper timing but says it has been 8 months.Alex and Matt go to Ann's work, her boss, a dentist, says she had cancer. A co-worker says she was having an affair, she received flowers. Matt fakes a call to the flower shop and reports the husband sent them. Next Alex plans to go to the oncologist, Matt begs off, they argue. Matt shows off his GPS device that allows him to track everyone on his force.She gets him to come but in the office, he goes to the washroom but stops when he hears the doctor's name. They see her doctor, a woman who says Ann was healthy. Matt rushes to the hospital office he was in with Ann, it is another Dr. Friedland, but he has no patient named Ann. Matt takes a gold pen in an envelope. In the car Alex is calling for phone records, Matt is nervous. Back at the cop shop the neighbor is giving info to a sketch artist. The woman says Matt was the man, no one believes her. Matt sends a junior staff to Miami with the pen to check fingerprints.The DEA (Terry Loughlin) calls and says they are coming for the evidence money that afternoon. Matt becomes very tense. A cop has found a lead on the insurance policy, Matt says he will track it down.At the fax machine Whitlock intercepts the incoming records with his name on the list. He scans the list and tries to edit the file. He re-sends it to the fax machine from his PC but then has to go and delete the first incoming resend from the phone company without anyone noticing.Jay arrives with the autopsy report.Then another cop shows up with cell phone records, there is one regular number, it is Matt's. He quickly uses his cell to turn off his voice mails. Jay is there, recognizes the number and tells Alex it is his. Outside, Matt comes clean to Jay and says he was setup, he gave Ann the drug money.The phone call comes in from Miami, the fingerprints on the pen are from Tony Cabot, an ex-con. Matt asks for the last known address, it is closeby.Matt goes with Jay to the address. It is deserted but they find a credit card statement in a trash can and Cabot's Mercy Hospital pass. They return to the station, Jay offers to drive him to the airport to go to Costa Rica. Matt says he is not running.At the office, the insurance company phones and on speakerphone tells the cops Chris Harrison was the beneficiary, but wait, there seems to be a change form coming, might be in the mail room. Alex asks him to find it and call back in half an hour.Matt finds out from the credit card company where the card was last used, a hotel in Miami. He hears Alex also asking about Paul Cabot in the squad room.As he is leaving two DEA agents arrive for the evidence money, DW buys time by telling them he sent it to their office, he has a telecon with their angry boss.In the hotel Cabot is on the phone with Chris, planning their escape.At the hotel Matt pretends to be Cabot and gets a new room key from the front desk, he goes up to room 715. Entering with gun drawn he is jumped by Cabot and the two men fight. They end up crashing through the slider onto the balcony, it collapses and both men hang in mid air. Finally Cabot falls to his death, Matt crawls back up and finds a briefcase, the money is there. Trying to leave, Alex arrives with backup, the front desk clerk points him out as Matt dashes to a stairwell, the chase is on, but Alex didn't get a good look at the runner. Then Matt re-appears and says he just got here too. In the confusion he manages to get out the back door with the money to his car. He calls Jay to say he has the money. Alex arrives at his car and says they need to talk.They go to a bar and talk about their relationship, then Alex asks Matt if wants to say anything, he doesn't. They return to Banyan Key in silence. Back in the squad, Alex once again looks at the cell phone records. She tells Matt the hotel clerk will be there in 30 minutes.A weeping Ann phones and says she is sorry but Chris made her do it, she still needs the money. Matt gets the address and ducks out the washroom window. The hotel clerk arrives.Alex looks again at the face sketch and clues in it is Matt. The call comes in, the new beneficiary is Matthias Whitlock. The three DEA agents show up asking to see Whitlock, Alex hears all the details about the $485,000.Jay is driving when the GPS unit in the glovebox beeps and he sees a dot flashing at Runyon Pt. A short time later his car breaks down.Matt arrives at a dark shack. He enters warily and sees a beaten Ann. Chris appears and starts shooting, a gunfight. Chris is out of ammo, trying to escape he is shot by Ann. She points the gun at Matt, and admits she was behind it all. She shoots Matt in the thigh but before she can kill him as he screams, Alex shoots and kills her from behind. Alex checks the briefcase and only sees a GPS tracking unit.The rest of the police arrive, Alex gives a plausible explanation. The three DEA agents arrive demanding the money, just then Jay arrives with the satchel, saying there was a mistake with the address.As Matt is loaded into an ambulance Alex asks if he loved Ann he says no, but was just stupid.Later, Matt is fishing from his deck. Alex arrives relaxed and friendly talking about moving her stuff. Jay arrives with mail, the insurance company informing him he is to get $1 mil. Alex says he can't accept it as conflict of interest. Matt agrees as Alex says she is moving back in together. | suspenseful, mystery, neo noir, murder, violence | train | imdb | There may have been a handful of good (or decent) film noirs recently, but the bad outnumber them by about 100 to 1.I went into Carl Franklin's "Out of Time" with a certain amount of interest--I wasn't sure what to expect.
I had finally come to expect a fairly decent thriller with illogical plot holes and a boring pace.I was wrong.With a back-to-back viewing of David Spade's "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" and "Out of Time," there was a nice contrast going, which may explain why I enjoyed the film so very much.
But there's one thing for certain--it's a lot cleverer than most films of its kind.Matt Whitlock (Denzel Washington) is running out of time.
And, unlike some films, when you stop to take a look at the plot twists in "Out of Time"...they actually make sense.Denzel Washington is one of the best actors in Hollywood; he can lift any film out of mediocrity, including that underrated supernatural thriller "Fallen" with John Goodman.
So arises the quandary of how he's going to solve the case and clear his name before it's too late, especially given that his ex-wife Alex (Eva Mendes) is absolutely intent on solving the case.The movie's real strength lies in the twists and turns that they throw in from time to time.
But I actually considered Matt's friend Chae (John Billingsley) to be the best character in the movie; I mean, some of those monologues were so great.All in all, it's not any kind of masterpiece.
Sure, a couple of the twists could be seen a mile away, but it was the way the scenes were cleanly executed to the point where you had to wonder "How is he getting out of this?" While some of the reviews are over the top, this is certainly one of those popcorn movies that I wouldn't mind spending a little dough on.
Denzel Washington is a policeman who is "Out of Time" in this 2003 film also starring Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, and Dean Cain.Washington plays Matt Whitlock, a policeman involved in an affair with the beautiful Ann Harrison (Lathan).
How he wriggles out of various situations makes for some good suspense and engrossing viewing.Washington is excellent as the harried cop, and the film is well worth watching, even though it's easy to figure out past a certain point.
Every movie I have seen with Denzel Washington in it has been a good movie.This is no exception .What I liked about out of time is it had everything.It has great comic relief,drama,mystery and action.I really love movies that lead me in one direction and just when I think I have it all figured out wham!
The direction is good and it really helps the film keep a good sense of pace in the way the camera spins around in even the office environment but really it is the cast that make this stand out from the many other crime thrillers that never make it to the cinema.Washington may well be slumming it here (he criticised it because he said all he did was run) but he holds the attention really well.
Denzel Washington, (Matthias Lee Whitlock),"Training Day",'01, played the role of a pretty sharp Police Chief when it came to crime.
Have seen better pictures with Denzel Washington, but this film does hold your interest from beginning to the very end..
It stars Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain and John Billingsley.
The cast around Washington enhance the quality: Lathan in the tricky role shows a number of layered gears, Cain is imposing as a bully boy husband (where did this Cain go?) and Billingsley almost sneaks in and steals the movie as the loyal and stoic comedy side-kick.So pesky flaws aside, this is a good recommendation as a night in movie for those with a kink for contemporary neo-noir.
That didn't bother me, although I have to admit at one point I began wondering "when is something violent going to happen." Many film noirs were like this, anyway, building up tension until the end.I still found it pretty interesting most of the way, with a nice twist at the end.
Denzel Washington acting is top-notch , he has got much experience in twenty and some years of career , Eva Mendes is enjoyable and enticing and Sanaa Latham ready as future first star in ¨Alien vs Predator¨ , Dean Cain (ex Superman) gives a different role to usual .
Matt Lee Whitlock (Denzel Washington) is the police chief of Florida small town Banyan Key. He just cracked a big drug case confiscating $450k.
He's getting divorced from fellow police officer Alex (Eva Mendes) and having an affair with Anne Merai Harrison (Sanaa Lathan) who is separated from violent husband Chris (Dean Cain).
STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All CostsMatt Whitlock (Denzel Washington) is the immoral police chief of a small coastal town in Florida.He is having a sleazy affair with Ann Marai Harrison (Sanaa Lathan),a dental nurse and the wife of fellow police officer and rival Chris (Dean Cain),who mistreats her mentally and physically.One day,posing as her brother,he and Ann Marai pay a visit to the doctors to pick up some blood test results.It is here they are dealt the shocking blow that Ann Marai has an incurable form of cancer and has roughly only six months to live.Ann Marai wakes up to the hopelessness of her situation,but Whitlock clings on to hope in the shape of some treatment in a foreign country.It's going to cost a fair bit though,and money doesn't seem to be readily available.Desperate for cash,Whitlock steals a small fortune seized from a drug bust and puts it forward.Then,the next morning everything goes pear shaped when both Ann Marai and Chris are killed in an apparent arson attack.Aside from losing the woman he loved,Whitlock must now also contend with the mounting evidence putting him in the frame,especially when a nearby elderly neighbour (Evelyn Brooks) points him out as a suspect and a homicide squad,headed by his wife Alex (Eva Mendes) find evidence that suggests he was the new benificerary of Ann Marai's will.This is the second pairing of Washington and director Carl Franklin since the film noir Devil in a Blue Dress,nine years ago in 1995.The films are very similar in substance and style,and are conveyed in a very similar way.Washington,though not turning in the best performance of his career,carries the film fairly engagingly,and is given good support in the shape of Lathan,Cain and Mendes.Though the performances are perfectly on par,a lot of the film's shortcomings are attributable to director Franklin,who allows the pace to become rather laxed and to lose it's sense of narrative structure in parts.Like many thrillers nowadays,he also allows credibility to be stretched fairly far in certain parts,requiring a rather huge and unreasonable suspension of disbelief from the audience.He does also,however,really require you to use your brain and pay attention at all times to everything that is being said and inferred,no matter how preposterous it may sometimes be.The film emerges as being as good as you could hope it would be,serving it's purpose as a watchable but ultimately generic Hollywood cookie cutter thriller.***.
And since there are so many close ups, neither achieves the punch that a more restrained use would provide - and at the same time the film doesn't have to show the lack of production values.The plot is too predictable and the suspense consists mostly of eerie music that we recognize from countless TV productions also - it does not work.Only for die-hard fans of the always reliable Denzel Washington..
You've got Denzel at one of his best performances playing the role of the Chief of a Police Department.The plot of this movie is quite simple.
The movie has been presented so meticulously- it just keeps you waiting for 'what next?'Denzel Washington is probably the best character to have done justice to the role.
So the stage has been set for the rest of Out of Time, a frenetic, sometimes tense thriller that, by force of star power and sure direction, just manages to elevate itself above the unremarkable genre which binds it.Many movies before this one have told the story of the innocent man trying to extricate himself from a sticky situation, proving his innocence while at the same time trying to catch the bad guy.
The two actors create just the right kind of chemistry as two people who are apart for good reason, it seems, but who still like each other enough to be able to have civilized conversations while working together on the murder investigation.But the real glue holding the ordinariness together is Denzel Washington.
I liked the "rattlesnake tail shake" sound as he neared danger.I am so happy the director, Carl Franklin, didn't use the unnecessary "jumpy" visual effects in Quake's editing program that were so prevalent and distracting in Man on Fire.I have seen this movie several times and although I have the DVD, I watch it whenever it appears on TV.
I say familiar territory because it's basically a reworking of Costner and Hackman's 1987 NO WAY OUT scenario, which was itself a remake of 1948's THE BIG CLOCK with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton, and, once you accept the implausibility of the situation and the stupidity of Washington's character, it's not half bad, and though it has a few twists I didn't anticipate, the predictable ending is now a little clichéd and leaves too many loose ends for my liking.Denzel Washington acquits himself well as Denzel Washington; a bearded Dean (SUPERMAN) Cain does a great, almost Colin Farrell quality, turn, refreshingly, as a villain; the girls are gorgeous; but the real star is ENTERPRISE's 'Dr. Phlox', the much underrated John Billingsley, as a beer guzzling baseball capped Medical Examiner (imagine an amalgam of Jack Klugman's Quincy and Oscar Madison characters), and the only one in on Washington's predicament.
The movie features solid performances by Denzel Washington (as Matt Lee Whitlock) and Eva Menedes (as Alex Diaz Whitlock) playing the separated couple each working their own angle on the crime that occurs.
With excellent supporting work by John Billingsley (as Chae, the medical examiner), Dean Cain (as Chris Harrison), and Sanaa Lathan (as Ann Merai Harrison) this movie keeps you guessing until the end.There are some interesting plot twists at the end of the movie which you may or may not figure out by the end.
His lover, Sanaa Lathan who does a decent job and her brutal husband and football player Dean Cain got burned in their house just before she wanted to join Denzel Washington with a huge amount of money from a drug raid that he gave to her to be able to escape with her and fight her cancer illness.
And Denzel Washington tries to erase any proof that connects him to his lover and soon gets in trouble as he has to find the money that he illegally gave to the dead beauty and that strangely disappeared.By the time, the tension slowly rises, Denzel Washington gets in some really disturbing and uneasy situations and there also some action that comes in and the main characters finally get more profound than before and the movie loosely touches topics like friendship, forgiveness, love, passion, lies and truth.
What really saves this film are the decent performances and the entertaining flow after the first twenty-five minutes or so that keep the tension and attention on a high level.If you finally want to see a decent and entertaining thriller with some good acting I would recommend you this movie.
for this genre(crime drama/thriller)this movie is pretty good.it's certainly entertaining and thrilling.it's also pretty fast paced.the acting is decent but not spectacular.Denzel Washington plays the main character,and he has been better.Eva Mendes is also in the movie,and depending on your taste in women,may be reason enough to watch the movie.though the movie is of a serious nature it still comes off as a fluff piece.it isn't really original for the genre.there are a few twists and turns,for sure,but many movies of the genre have those.you probably won't be fooled too much,since most of the film is predictable.still,it's fun getting there.for me,Out of Time is a 7/10.
It's an ok film, nothing special and it's the presence of Denzel Washington that keeps it in an above average level.The story is mostly predictable, even though it's full of twists.
I can't really understand why studios find it necessary to give away so much of the plot surprises in the advertisements, but they do and we learn to live with it and go on.If you have seen any of the trailers for Out of Time, you'll know whats going on long before Matt Whitlock (Denzel Washington)does.
Entertaining and suspenseful con movie with excellent acting from Denzel Washington and Eva Mendes..
I always enjoy Denzel Washington-movies and 'Out Of Time' wasn't an exception on this.
I'm surprised that none of the erudite film viewers here have noticed that, despite the lack of a credit, this film is a remake of the John Farrow/Ray Milland film "The Big Clock", which was also remade by Roger Donaldson/Kevin Costner as "No Way Out"...That said, it faithfully hues to most all of the plot elements of it's predecessors (which is a good thing)and additionally benefits by outstanding acting from all of the leads, particularly Washington and Mendes, who display real chemistry.
OUT OF TIME (2003) *** Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain, John Billingsley.
Washington stars as a small time chief of police in a Florida up to his neck in trouble when his illicit affair with Lathan heats up to include some serious implications involving double indemnity, extortion and scandal as he attempts to resolve the matters at hand by staying one-step ahead of his recently promoted to homicide detective (and separated from) wife Mendes.
Last but not the least "John Billingsley", he justified his role.Last words, very gripping, heart throbbing and intense thriller and you will not feel like "Out of time" while watching this movie..
Now with time running out and the ax about to fall on him, by the DEA agents finding out he heisted the drug money, Wintlock can only hope that he get's to both Ann & Chris before the law gets to him as well as them skipping out of the country and leaving him holding the bag!***MAJOR SPOILER***Beautiful Florida photography as well as fine acting from it's cast especially the sexy and hot as a Florida summer Eva Mendez, who looks like a young Raquel Welch, as Wintlock's estrange wife Alex as Baryan Key's top homicide detective make the somewhat uneven storyline and unnecessary sub-plots in "Out of Time" more then watchable.
Even the opening credits have a touch of Rat Pack style to them but once all the fuss dies down, what we have here is a fairly average but competent thriller let down by a predictable story.Denzel Washington plays Chief Matt Whitlock, a cop in the sleepy Florida town of Banyan Key. Despite having recently divorced fellow cop Alex (Eva Mendes), Matt is enjoying an affair with local resident Ann Harrison (Sanaa Lathan) whose recent diagnosis with terminal cancer remains a secret from her abusive husband (Dean Cain).
As far as pacing (when the movie takes off), think 'Run Lola Run' meets 'Nick of Time'.I like that Denzel doesnt feel constrained to play one particular kind of role.
I have to agree with many people that posted before that this movie started off a little slow and that the plot isn't the most unique story out there, but all in all, Out of Time is still a solid whodunit film.
When a double-homicide takes place, things start get interesting for Denzel Washington's character as he tries to solve the mystery all while outrunning his fellow police officers who suspect he did the crime.Denzel did a great job in this movie as always, but it was his supporting cast that really surprised me.
I suspect the fact that they were appearing opposite the 'great' Denzel Washington (who made the part of Matt look so easy) allowed them to take their performances to another dimension.The only person who looked lost in this movie was Eva Mendes.The Florida landscape also added to the tension, as it was 'steamy' and made the characters a little crazy (i think).Kudos to Carl Franklin, the director.This is my kind of film - more of the same please!!!.
Matt Whitlock(Denzel Washington) who is the chief of police in Miami, discovers that a woman he has been secretly seeing (Sanaa Lathan) and her husband (Dean Cain) where burned to death in there house.
My only complaint was that it was a bit predictable, but it had me on the edge of my seat for portions of the film.Denzel Washington did a good job with this movie.
I hope Denzel Washington picks a better movie to star in next time.
Carl Franklin's "Out Of Time" is the second movie to team the director with star Denzel Washington.
We'll start with the stand-outs: .Sanaa Lathan who plays Ann Merai Harrison was really bad in this movie, it was painful to watch, out of all the actors her performance was really dry and uneven (how did she get this part!).John Billingsley as Chae was not too good either as the comic relief.
If any of you enjoy Denzel's acting, give this movie at least one viewing...he seriously is one of the great actors of our time!
Unfortunately, nothing happens in this picture, or perhaps, the principals were having a great time in South Florida and the film became something of a second thought.This is a predictable situation, where the viewer knows before hand what is coming next and how it will end.
This is just one of those movies that you watch when you are bored and nothing else is on.Next time I suggest a little mystery, maybe some suspense, and definitely a surprise ending.
This movie puts Denzel Washington's Florida police chief into a situation that seems to be dragging him further and further down. |
tt0109302 | Bloodlust: Subspecies III | NOTE: Sequel to Subspecies II: Bloodstone (1993).Mummy heals Radu's wounds while Becky summons Mel Thompson and Lt Marin to the
tomb in the cemetery. They find Professor Popescu's body but nothing else to
substantiate Becky's story about vampires and a witch. As night
approaches, Radu, Mummy and Michelle leave the tomb and return to Castle
Vladislav. Becky, Mel and Lt. Marin follow but cannot enter the castle
because the professor's secret entrance has been blown up.Villagers begin to disappear. Mel calls his CIA friend, who shows up at the castle
with silver bullets and full commando regalia. He and Mel scale the
castle wall. Mummy kills the CIA agent, imprisons Mel, and orders Radu to kill
Michelle. But Radu is in love with Michelle and beheads Mummy instead.
Radu begins to realize that he has killed off his entire bloodline out of
love for Michelle and bargains with her--Michelle's devotion for Becky's
life. Michelle agrees and goes outside to talk with Becky. Radu kills Lt
Marin who is watching from the bushes. Becky holds a gun with silver
bullets to Radu's head and orders him to release Mel. Michelle takes the
gun from Becky and turns it on Radu. She retrieves the bloodstone then,
along with Becky and Mel, runs from the castle with Radu in pursuit.But daylight is approaching, and both Radu and Michelle are in pain. Becky and
Mel zip Michelle into a light tight body bag and toss the bloodstone over
the castle wall. Radu attempts to retrieve it but the sun is too strong.
He catches on fire, tumbles over the castle wall, and is staked on the
limb of a dead tree. As Radu's body is destroyed, drops of his blood
transform into his subspecies. [Synopsis by BJ Kuehl] | tragedy, violence, gothic | train | imdb | Just edges out S2 as my favorite in this hugely entertaining vampire series, mostly on the strength of Anders Hove and Denise Duff's performances.
Same basic plot: Rebecca and her Fearless Vampire Stalkers continue where they left off, in pursuit of her sister Michelle, Radu, and the Bloodstone; while Radu tries futilely to gain the love and loyalty of his adamantly defiant "fledgling", Michelle.Hove has completely sounded the depths of Radu's character and his portrayal of this tragic monster is poignant and heartfelt.
Unable to command his headstrong protégé's fealty to the master she refuses to acknowledge, unable to win her heart with gifts or intimate displays of trust, Radu's despair is utterly human, yet he never turns on her.
Despite his constant praise of pain and suffering, his deathly face conceals a heart capable of loyal and true love.As for Denise Duff as Michelle, she is probably the coolest vampiress EVER, and if it not for Radu would no-doubt be the star of this series.
The Subspecies movies deserve acclaim for their strong female characters, and Michelle is the toughest, a determinedly human woman who resists becoming a vampire with every fiber of her strength and will.
At the same time, we see her grow in undead power and skill, and realize that if she keeps control of the Bloodstone - with which she can resist the need to kill - she'll become an immortal to reckon with.
Her scenes with Radu are really something to see, as the two vampires match wills eye-to-eye again and again, and she forces Radu to blink every time.Their story is truly "Beauty and the Beast" without the happy ending, and indeed it's hard not to think of that classic story in the sequence where Michelle begs to see her sister just one last time.
Like the Beast, Radu is unwilling to let his "pretty one" go, but gives his permission, hoping to prove his love by a gesture of faith in her; and just as in the fairy tale, his hopeful gesture has sad consequences.
The look on his face as she sweeps past him while he pleads for her devotion could bring a tougher fan than me to tears.
--These are some of the best characterizations in modern vampire film, and among the very few that I really care about.Once you see this you will NEED to see #4!.
Love Will Tear Us Apart.
Poor Radu.
He's been stabbed and staked by his fledgling Michelle and her sister Becky and left for dead in the bottom of a dusty crypt in a Bucharest cemetery.
But Radu's mummy comes to the rescue, recapturing Michelle almost instantly and healing her much abused son before the next moon rises.
Upon awakening, Michelle is horrified to realize that Radu is not dead, nor has he released his hold on her.
Michelle, disgusted by her vampiric urges, nevertheless demands that Radu show her the ropes.
Radu, pathetically in love with the beautiful Michelle, alternatively tries to win her affections and force her into submission.
Mummy resents the new fledgling and urges her son to destroy her.
And Becky has not yet given up on the idea of a rescue, and she's brought plenty of back up this time.This third entry in the Subspecies series is every bit as fun as the first two, allowing its cast of characters to grow and evolve.
Anders Hove as Radu becomes an object of pity here, revealing Radu not as evil incarnate, but as a lonely, miserable wretch who has never been loved...not even by his mummy.
Michelle's continued rejection of her hideous Master is heartbreaking to watch.
Time and again she professes her hatred for Radu, and Radu accepts it in silence and takes her back without a word against her, protecting her no matter what the cost.
His love for her is genuinely pathetic and one can't help but feel some pity for him at last.
Denise Duff as Michelle is very good once again, expressing sorrow and pain but also satisfaction and enthusiasm in her new found powers.
Highlights include an emotional scene between Radu and Michelle atop the battlements of Castle Vladislas, and a brief but very funny sequence involving Becky, Radu and a gun loaded with silver bullets.
Followed by a fourth film (Bloodstorm: Subspecies 4) which, sadly, is nowhere near as good as the first three Subspecies films..
Though not quite as great as "Subspecies 2," and with an unsatisfying ending, it was still better than the original.It picks up where the last one left off, with babe Michelle in the vampiric clutches of Radu and his shrivelled, cackling mother, and the forces of good attempting to save her.
There were some great and legitimate moments of tension, mostly due to characterization, and that's always welcome.
Anders Hove does a fantastic job as the pitiful, all-too-human vampire, Radu, in love with Michelle who can only hate him.
It was well-written, although a lot slower-moving than "Subspecies 2," but definitely worth a look..
Conclusion to the planned trilogy directed by Ted Nicolaou this third film ends rather openly suggesting that Full Moon Productions were already sizing up future instalments.
This time Radu kidnaps Michelle and takes her to the castle that he shares with his mother, a Sorceress.
He teaches her to master her vampire powers, willing to sacrifice everything to empower his true love when Michelle's sister Rebecca attacks his stronghold.The trilogy is weakening here with little original storyline and little excitement.
However the series still - at this point - remains highly unique and still fantastically riveting.
Once again the acting is of a high standard, the Romanian locations breathtaking and the script, score and direction, even in this 'weaker hour' surpass many larger budget films.
Radu's romantic side.
Now I know that most of the Subspecies fans prefer the second movie over Bloodlust: Subspecies III, but I think this was actually my favorite of the series.
This is where we see a little bit of Radu's weakness and that he can have mortal feelings for another, even love.
Weither or not he's in love with Michelle, I think he admires her innocence and beauty, the power she holds over him, she knows it and definitely takes advantage of it, who can blame her, right?
But I love how the story goes into Radu, he fears this emotion, understandably, and it blinds him.
This is strangely a tragic love story that really intrigues me, it goes from teacher/student to love/hate.
Radu though I promise still delivers the good scares like the other Subspecies movies.Radu and his student, Michelle, are up to a lot, while he teaches her what it means to be a vampire, Radu's mother thinks it's a bad idea to keep her.
Michelle's sister, Morgan, will not give up and she will do anything to save her sister's should.
Michelle tells Radu that she can never love him, that she hates him and would rather just die instead of being a vampire but Radu wishes for her to stay with him forever.Bloodlust: Subspecies III is just continuing where the second Subspecies left off.
My favorite scene was where Michelle is outside and Radu comes from behind her and she asks what can kill them, the dialog he delivers as well as his expressions, for a low budget film, Anders Hove is a good actor and makes Radu very believable.
This was a fun series to get into, I really have enjoyed it, these are the horror films I've been looking for and would highly recommend them for a good scare.7/10.
One of the Better Full Moons.
Still in the thrall of the evil vampire Radu (Anders Hove), Michelle yearns to be taught the skills of the vampire.
Meanwhile, her sister Becky tries to free her from his evil clutches, and this time, she has brought some help.Shot back to back with part two, the "Subspecies" series is one of the better things to come out of Full Moon.
Maybe it had creative independence, or maybe the budget was better in that era.
But we haven't seen anything this good from Full Moon in a long time.Others have commented that, despite the low budget, the film is a lot of fun because it doesn't take itself too seriously.
Solid sequel to the surprisingly straight faced Charles Band horror franchise.
I'm quite surprised at myself for having not watching this Charles Band Full Moon Features production before and have quickly become a fan of the Subspecies series of films.
I think what I like most about the series is that the vampires here are neither the Bela Lugosi elegant gentlemen type, nor are they the emo Anne Rice/Sookie Stackhouse type of vampires.
The vampire Radu is a nasty scary looking monster.
In many ways, he reminds me of the Steve Niles vampires in "30 Days of Night." In this third installment, Radu is still controlling one of the sisters from the previous film and her other sister is trying to free her from Radu's thrall.
As with the previous films, this was competently directed by Ted Nicolaou, who makes the most of the European locations and the real-life castle that was owed by Band's production company at the time (and which appeared in just about every Full Moon film of this era, even one misguided Trancers film).
Anders Hove continues to be creepy as Count Radu, the practical special effects are solid (and bloody), and the production values are better than most Full Moon productions.
Overall, this one is a must see for fans of Charles Band films, but honestly this film is probably not one for non-fan of Full Moon Features..
Enjoyable if flawed Gothic vampire tale.
After escaping from the vampire lair, a woman continues the search for the deadly vampire and his bride in her sister with the help of her friend only to have the local authorities disbelieving in their story which complicates matters until they finally are forced together to stop them.This was an enjoyable if somewhat flawed entry.
Once again, this one manages to get plenty of mileage out of its Gothic trappings, which are kept to a high majority of the time throughout here.
The opening resurrection ceremony, featuring the demonic hag performing the ritual on the girl by slicing her arm and using the blood to reanimate the other vampire or the discovery of the bloodied and mangled bodies from the previous encounter gives this a great start, and the use of them flying away out from under the investigators eyes is a solid and engaging ploy.
Keeping the vampire and his mummified mother on-screen for a large portion of this section as he attempts to teach her the ways of the vampire like she wanted gives this a kind of enjoyable entrance into the whole affair.
Those training sessions offer some rather fine moments being held in the candlelit room which adds to the atmosphere of him training her before eventually forcing her to drink from the city girl he captured for her.
That also leads nicely into the final half where it really manages to let loose with some fine action in the assault on the impenetrable lair high inside the castle walls with their initial scaling of the walls and the resultant firefight with the mummy before having the tables turned and leading into the fun of the vampires being awakened which gives way to them being captured and tortured by the two.
Even without the frantic actions and confrontations throughout here, the violence and gore manages to hold off enough to really work quite a lot to really like here.
The main issue holding this one down is the fact that there's not a whole lot of real vampire action in here unlike the others in the series.
The middle portion of the film descends into an endless series of either investigation scenes with the two trying to look into the history of the vampires in the area while avoiding the authorities or scenes of him trying to teach her how to be a vampire.
While there's some fun to be had with the idea of her out stalking those around the city and upsetting the community which in turn leads into their distrust of the investigation, that this is what the movie descends into leaves it not all that exciting for a large portion of the running time which is somewhat frustrating.
As well, the film manages to spend a great deal of time worrying over the grave seriousness of finale but it just drags it all out to endless degrees which severely reduces their impact as it features a ton of elements that pad this one out quite heartily, from their turning on each other to the escape attempt and finally leading into the actual way out of the castle which is far longer than necessary.
Continuing directly after the major cliffhanger of the previous film (well after a short recap of the aforementioned movie at least) Subspecies 3 jumps right back into the thick of it.
With Rebecca trying to save her beloved sister/recent vampire Michelle from evil vampire Radu and his witch of a mother.While there are parts of the film that I really enjoyed, this third film as a whole is a bit too padded and i believe that it would've been better served (artistically if not financially) by trimming it down and combining the footage left with part 2 to make a much better film.
As it is, the film was OK, it just could've been such better.Eye Candy: Elvira Deatcu gets briefly topless and Melanie Shatner provides T&A.
An excellent job yet again, but this is where the cracks start to appear in this great series.
I know, my screen name is "SubspeciesRaduFan," but even I have to admit that the series begins to get more cheesy here, with a few minor flawed moments moments.
So here's my summary: Michelle killed Radu, but his mother grabbed her and brought her son back to life using Michelle's blood.
Radu continues trying to get Michelle to accept her condition and his love..
Meanwhile, Becky, Mel, and a CIA agent plot to help Michelle escape the vampire's clutches.
As a previous reviewer said, Radu is becoming more of a pitiful creature than an evil monster like he was in the previous movies.
Poor guy is completely unloved, even by his mother and (now permanently deceased) father giving some justification for his evil.This movie is still a masterpiece, don't get me wrong; it just lacks the atmosphere of the first two.
Bloodlust: Subspecies III starts where the previous film Bloodstone: Subspecies II (1994) finished with Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) running off to find help while her poor sister Michelle (Denice Duff) is kidnapped by Radu (Anders Hove) & his zombie Witch Mother (Pamela Gordon) who whisks them back to Radu's castle.
The police are called & Popescu's (Michael Denish) body is found in the crypt but no Michelle, Witches or Vampires.
Together with Mel (Kevin Spirtas) Rebecca sets out to find her sister Michelle (again) while Radu tries to convince her to love him (again)...Written & directed by Ted Nicolaou who ended up directing all the Subspecies films thus far I have to say that out of the first three Bloodlust: Subspecies III is the worst.
By low budget horror film standards it's not too bad I suppose but after a fairly decent original & a surprisingly good second Subspecies film this definitely felt like one Subspecies film too many.
The story is slow & Radu the evil Vampire is getting less & less to do with each film, here he spends almost the whole running time in his castle trying to convince Michelle to love him for reasons never explained, I mean why he is so infatuated with her anyway?
Then there's Rebecca's attempts to find her sister which wastes more minutes until the inevitable showdown at the end.
This is fairly forgettable stuff to be honest, the romance tinged plot is standard fare in Vampire films & nothing else really happens besides.
It's alright & it's watchable enough but I am glad I saw it on TV for free rather than spend any money on it.
Not one I will be adding to my collection anytime soon.Bloodlust: Subspecies III was actually shot back-to-back with Bloodstone: Subspecies II, I would imagine that the same thing that happened with Puppet Master 4 (1993) & Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter (1994) made around the same time as this also befell this in that Full Moon Entertainment had a deal with Paramount going to theatrically release some of their films but when that fell through the planned films (both a Puppet Master & Subspecies one) were split into two films each & made at the same time with the same cast's & crew.
Certainly Bloodstone: Subspecies II & Bloodlust: Subspecies III feel like they could have been edited down into one film & as it is both feel a little incomplete & empty, especially this one.
The film looks alright but no different than the previous film & there's a distinct lack of gore too.
The little stop-motion animated monsters from the original make a brief appearance at the end to set up yet another sequel.Shot in Bucharest in Romania the location work is the best thing about Bloodlust: Subspecies III to be honest, the production values are OK & it looks nice enough but it's just all a bit dull really.
Most of the cast from Bloodstone: Subspecies II feature here & are alright.Bloodlust: Subspecies III is definitely my least favourite Subspecies film so far although I still haven't seen the final one to date Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm (1998) although I will have within the next week or so.
This is an OK Vampire film but forgettable & not as good as the previous two, difficult to recommend to anyone other than die hard Subspecies fans. |
tt0084737 | Summer Lovers | Americans Michael Pappas (Peter Gallagher) and Cathy Featherstone (Daryl Hannah), a young couple who have just graduated from college, have known each other about 10 years and have been together about half that time. They vacation for the summer on the Greek island of Santorini. When they visit a nude beach crowded with other young tourists, they are hesitant at first but find themselves getting caught up in the uninhibited energy that surrounds them.
Cathy reads a book of sexual techniques, then ties Michael to the bed and drips candle wax on his chest. She comments that everyone thinks she's "such a Goody Two-Shoes" but she wants a little more adventure.
Michael, who says he has never been with another woman, keeps noticing Lina Broussard (Valerie Quennessen), a French archaeologist on temporary assignment at the nearby Akrotiri excavation. One day, at the beach without Cathy, he gets his chance to talk to Lina and ends up starting an affair with her. He then feels so guilty that Cathy immediately notices something is wrong, and he admits what he has done, insisting that he still loves Cathy.
Cathy is naturally disturbed by this, but tells him to get it out of his system, which he takes as permission to return to Lina. Cathy then goes to a local bar intending to sleep with another man as a way to get revenge against Michael for cheating on her. But in the end she chickens out after getting picked up by an amorous local boy. When Michael comes home later after seeing Lina again, Cathy is angry.
Cathy goes to Lina's home to confront her. Lina assures Cathy that she does not intend to take Michael away from her, which seems to calm Cathy somewhat. Lina and Cathy end up spending several hours together getting acquainted, and find themselves fascinated by each other's work — Lina's archeology and Cathy's photography.
Michael is confused when he learns that the two women are developing a friendship, but he quickly recovers and the three of them spend a few days gradually getting closer. Cathy knows Michael is still sleeping with Lina from time to time, but seems to accept it, although she says it would be difficult for her to see them in bed together. Nevertheless, she tolerates increasing signs of affection between Michael and Lina in her presence.
In a very tense scene one evening, Cathy encourages Michael to kiss Lina. He gives Lina a light peck, but Cathy says it isn't convincing. He gradually turns up the heat while watching Cathy intently for her reaction. He then kisses Cathy, checking to see how this makes Lina feel. The three end up spending the night together. Lina moves in with them, and they continue enjoying the island paradise as a threesome.
Just as the fantasy seems to be a total success, the natural complications of domestic life, like who does the laundry or dishes, come to the foreground. The three work through these problems, but then Cathy's mother (Barbara Rush) appears on a surprise visit, snapping everyone back to reality. Cathy tells her mother she's never been happier in her life. Although Lina claims to be bad at relationships and prefers just "screwing", the three actually seem to be falling in love all around.
Finding herself in an intense relationship, and uncertain about her future with them, Lina begins to fear getting hurt when the summer ends and the Americans return home. They tell her it doesn't have to end, but don't go into any details. To avoid getting too close to her new friends, Lina disappears with another young man, Jan Tolin (Hans van Tongeren), she met at the beach.
Cathy and Michael are distraught, and spend several days searching for Lina. Eventually they conclude they won't find her as long as she wants to remain hidden. But their memories of Lina loom over everything they try to do, and they can no longer enjoy their time on the island. They pack up to return home, even though they have three weeks remaining prepaid on their rental.
Lina finds her fears are outweighed by her feelings for the Americans, and returns to reunite with them, only to discover they have already gone. She races to the airport and intercepts them just as they are about to board the aircraft. Overjoyed at seeing her again, Cathy and Michael return to spend the last three weeks of their summer with her. | adult comedy | train | wikipedia | Two young people vacation on a Greek Island and meet a French woman who has led a rather eclectic life.
It serves to introduce us to Darryl Hannah and Valerie Quennessen, who was lost in an automobile accident in the eighties.If you're looking for a movie that will give you a few laughs, a little titillation and some harmless sexuality, this is a good choice.
Like "Bagdad Cafe", and "Summer of '42" this movie has a certain 'magic' to it that stays with you for a very long time afterward.
It's not due to any one element, but rather, the synergy created between the beautiful cinematography of the lush Greek scenery, the chemistry between the drop-dead gorgeous cast (all at their absolute peak of sexual/physical ripeness), a dynamic, inspiring soundtrack, and a subtle, well-crafted plot (if you can actually call it that...it is more of a skeletal framework...a backdrop against which to explore the issues at hand) It is a more mature examination, a graduate course, if you will, of the sexual revolution.
(I doubt the movie would have had nearly the same effect if the principals were Roseanne & Oprah, with Pauley Shore playing the male lead...) Funny thing, when it came out, prurient minds dismissed it as the quintessential sleazy male fantasy.
5 years before "Dirty Dancing", there was Summer Lovers.The sole tragic note to this movie is that Valerie Quennessen died only 7 years after its release..
A pre-stardom Gallagher brings his self-conscious, sexually naive girlfriend (Hannah) to a splendid Greek island where nudity on the beach is common and sex and drugs are everywhere for the taking.
Expected resentments occur once Hannah finds out, but what sets this apart from the other 2000 stories about adultery that have been filmed is this...once Hannah meets Quennessen, she finds herself enamored of her so much that she starts to encourage the relationship between her and Gallagher.
The best aspects of the film include the tremendously inviting and arresting Greek scenery and architecture, the ultra-pop soundtrack (which is occasionally intrusive) and surprisingly natural performances of the rather green lead actors.
This is a wonderful movie- described by many as an escapist fantasy, but letter perfect in it's depiction of the awkward relationship of European-adventuring couple Gallagher + Darryl Hannah in her most resplendent role (Rent this one-she is nude in 60% of it and have no idea how they pared it down for AMC), the difficult mechanics of a 3-way relationship, the sexual politics of the steamy Greek Isles, the carefree tentative joy of gorgeous twenty somethings on the loose in paradise.
The location on the fabled Greek Island of Santorini (Thera) is breathlessly beautiful- it was annihilated in 1600 BC in a titantic volcanic explosion that wiped out the whole Eastern Med, and probably the source of Atlantis legends- 10 years later ('92) I visited (maybe subconciously from the movie) and still think it's the most beautiful place in the world- 1000 ft.
Think Jackie Kennedy made a bad mistake banning JFK Jr from marrying her- his life would have been far more fulfilled with this magnificent sweetheart than with the hard eyed Bissette, who reportedly demanded he wait for her sister and take off for Martha's Vinyard 1 1/4 hours later than he wanted, into the deadly dusk.This movie uses songs more perfectly than almost any movie I can think of- "I'm so excited", "Everbody needs a little time away"- Chicago, at just the appropriate points.
A few years later I traveled to Greece to visit the different places I saw in the movie and remembered so fondly.
When Michael (Peter Gallagher)turns to Cathy on their first full morning in Santorini and asks, "Don't you feel something?" he is clearly referring not only to Santorini's sparse and rocky beauty, its sense of history, but something perhaps even a bit metaphysical.Valerie Quennessen was lovely -- anyone who'd say she was a "butterface" (as did a previous poster) is a buffoon: "She's quite pretty but her (butter) face." Anyway, I think this movie is great fun and very rewarding despite its technical flaws.
What's worse, a film has to often use dialog in place of looks and feelings that take place and have meaning in a relationship, but that are lost to the observer, and the dialog here often fails.But at the same time, Summer Lovers doesn't blink when looking into freedom of the body, and freedom in relationships.
It is the emotional connection between the three main characters that is central to the plot.For those who don't know what polyamory means, it is basically the ability to love more than one person, and the story does a good job of conveying that concept.
Some people may be disappointed that it isn't more fantastic and dwell more on the passion, but the fact that it attends to the difficulties as well as the fantasies is a point in its favor.In this sense, the movie progresses, as each character starts with certain notions that are evaluated and disposed of, or new notions that are adopted.
The setting is pleasant, and young, fit people are enjoyable to watch, especially when they go skinny-dipping in the Aegean Sea. It isn't something I necessarily want to watch again and again, and the general concept of an emotional threesome may be anathema to some people, but if you are interested in the general concept of polyamory, this might be a good way to get a feel for it..
The biggest disappontment that I got from the movie is finding out that the beautiful Valerie Quennessen died in an auto accident in 1989.
This easy life was a world away from the one in which I lived, so I decided that I would make it one of my goals to go to the Greek Islands to try to recapture any or part of that movie.
I've been several times now to different islands, but the movie makes me want to be part of what they have.
I haven't seen the movie since but have never ever forgotten the feeling that made me travel half way around the world to try to recapture.
The characters really get to you and you almost feel the emotions they are having.I thought Darrell Hannah was beautiful as always and the location was beautiful as well.The type of story was offbeat and not the usual boring love story.I also liked the odd sorts of people that show up during the film.It is a great movie to watch on a rainy day or late at night.I would never have thought to watch the movie by the title so do not let the name fool you.It is a movie I can watch over and over..
One of Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher's first films, it is a tale of love and romance set on the incredibly romantic Greek island of Santorini.
In the early '80s I got my first car and being that the VCR was not around to slake my drive to see bad movies right away, I saw a lot of them in the local multiplex west of Pittsburgh.
It's everyone's idea of a sunny Greek vacation crammed into one movie, and that 's why I just love it..
Like most men that have watched this movie, I fell in love with her.
Like many, I was saddened by seeing that Valerie died only 7 years after this movie....I was just crashed.
I hope to one day go to Greece and have a good time like the stars in this movie did.
A movie that makes you feel good.
That said, it's a good thing Daryl Hannah is stunning, and that her character is shy and awkward and doesn't have a whole lot to say, because she's a bit wooden in this early role.
A young couple vacations in Greece, ostensibly to save their rocky relationship, falling rather innocently into a sexual menage with a beautiful archaeologist.
Some of it is truly embarrassing, although the cast is squirrelly and fun, particularly Daryl Hannah (pre-"Splash") as one of those uptight American beauties who learns to loosen up with another woman in her bed.
Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah star as a couple who go to the Greek Islands to search beneath the beauty of the country, and the art of the culture.
I have wanted to go to Greece since seeing this movie 20 years ago.
That alone makes this movie worth seeing.I also liked the sexual adventurousness of the film.
of course I saw it again and probably will another ten times.Besides the great aerial view from the Greek islands, the good taste and manners of the nude scenes, wouldn't it be any one´s dream when we were fifteen back in those ages?.Where did we lose this kind of movie?.
Anyway, just wanted to post my opinion about "summer lovers", i think i saw this movie three years ago, or so...
That is reserved for those who are much more well off.So, here we have well off Peter Gallagher (Short Cuts, American Beauty) and his girlfriend Daryl Hannah (Splash, Kill Bill Vol. 2) spending the Summer on Santorini.
Well, it seems that Michael (Gallagher) isn't satisfied with a hot girl on a beautiful island and wants to add Lina (Valérie Quennessen) to his life.
Yes, we see Darryl in her skin debut as she sunbathes nude, and she has a fantastic wet-t-shirt scene, and there are babes galore on the beach topless and fully nude, and on and on, but face it, if you suggested this to your girl and she looked like Daryl Hannah, she would probably tell you to take a hike..
Yes, I saw this as a total "guy" light porn fantasy film...lovely locals...two women...two willing women...better yet: one blonde one brunette...one foreign...one familiar...lots of abandon...lots of freedom...to me it equaled: lots of boredom.
Instead it looked like a film that some hollywood guy who had lotsa ties put together in hopes we would all accept what would go on in his mind as reality and sexual responsibility would play a huge role in how one chooses casual partners.
But I have to admit the best parts of this film to me was seeing Hans van Tongeren in a short part because I loved him in "Spetters"...so I thought his career and notice was on the rise here in America (later I found out he died, what a tragedy!!!) and the song "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" by Chicago which turned out to be a big hit of that time since their career was ALMOST forgotten until this.
I caught the majority of this movie on AMC about a month ago, and being that I was on the island of Santorini this time a year ago, I put the remote down and enjoyed this flick, and it was even the edited version- not one naked body did I see.
But beyond that, the movie left me with a good feeling when it was over; the care-free attitudes, beautiful scenery, and shedding of traditional American ideals of relationships made me want to see it again as soon as it was over.
There are quite a number of beautiful people in the film and many of them are half dressed or naked while sunning or swimming.I am not a huge fan of Peter Gallagher, but his character Michael Pappas pulls off every guy's dream of getting his girlfriend to approve of him fooling around with another woman.
Daryl Hannah is his American girlfriend Cathy who is looking to grow, become more open and sexually move away from her "nice girl" persona in Santorini.
Valérie Quennessen is the lovely other woman Lina who eventually moves in with Michael and Cathy at their villa just across the way from hers.
The chemistry was there especially in Valerie Q's (Lina) long looks at Darryl Hannah while they sunned or talked over wine.So there is little plot and the little there is has no substance this is a feel good movie which just doesn't feel good enough due to the heterocentric hero's mugging.
This is a perfect movie to get someone you love ready to drop it all and fly to Greece.
An American couple (Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah) take a vacation to the beautiful Greek islands.
And what straight guy wouldn't fantasize about having two beautiful women as lovers on a Greek island?
Adonis-like Peter Gallagher (as Michael Pappas) and gorgeous blonde girlfriend Daryl Hannah (as Cathy Featherstone) go to the Greek islands, for a hot vacation.
But, after seeing sexy French sunbather Valérie Quennessen (as Lina), Mr. Gallagher has a better idea!
Writer/director Randal Kleiser's "Summer Lovers" is more of a modeling than a film assignment for the three stars; but, to their credit, they try to act, as well as look, good.
These interesting asides don't make the film anything greater than lightweight fluff, however.**** Summer Lovers (1982) Randal Kleiser ~ Peter Gallagher, Daryl Hannah, Valérie Quennessen.
I only embarked on this movie because I had a romance my self on Santorini in the spring of 1982 (same year the film was shot).
The content is actually a bit hot: a young couple goes into vacations and each one loves and get intimate alone or together with the same woman
Today, it would be an almost porn movie whereas in the 80s, it's like a spicy enchanted experience: sure the movie is lucky to have a young Darryl but we don't see much of her skin and we recall foremost her soft, sweet attitude!
The only good thing about this film is the cinematography of the Greek Isles.
Otherwise, it's just a movie version of a pictorial from a men's magazine, although the script (such as it is) has a few touches of Cosmopolitan.You'll love this film if you're into soft core porn, Darryl Hannah, or European brunettes.
Here you have a beautiful paradise filmed entirely in Greece, including the city of Crete, then you have Daryl Hannah's only halfway decent performance to date, finally there is plenty of gratuitous nudity and BANG it still bombs.
Watching Summer Lovers made me want to go to Greece.
Gallagher and Hannah are satisfactory, their hot french friend that makes up the mutual love triangle, is actually better, the life of our three performers.
Right from the opening credits this movie is like being in a time warp.
Alas, the ending of the film was somehow even worse than what I was anticipating halfway through.The story and characters are a tacky framework for a movie which really only has 2 things going for it: beautiful scenery of Greece and nudity.Un428ly, this movie doesn't make it into the "so bad it's funny" category either.
A young couple travels to the islands and discovers sexual freedom.During their stay, they encounter a young beautiful woman (Valerie Quinnesson) who involves them in a mutual love triangle.
American couple Michael Pappas (Peter Gallagher) and Cathy Featherstone (Daryl Hannah) rent a Greek villa for their summer holidays.
Forget the silly story about a young American couple who go to Santorini,Greece and end up having a menage a trois with a French Archaeologist.
See this movie for the spectacular scenery of the most beautiful island in Greece named Santorini and for the nice music..
The first half of this movie has the beaches of Greece (Santorini) littered with the highest concentration of supermodel style bodies I have ever seen.Oh yeah, the plot and acting are above average and character interactions are mildly amusing.Did I mention the great bodies and they are nude!.
the non-sexual relationship between Lina and Kathy was beautiful, warm and loving.
Amorous Michael (hunky Peter Gallagher) and his sweet girlfriend Cathy (Daryl Hannah at her most charming and delectable) are an American couple vacationing on the Greek island of Santorini.
Summer Lovers (1982): Dir: Randal Kleiser / Cast: Peter Gallagher, Daryl Hannah, Valerie Quennessen, Barbara Rush, Hans van Tongeren: The Greek Islands offer beauty, history and romance but the title of this film is misleading in its stance on open relationships.
Peter Gallagher plays Michael Pappas and Daryl Hannah plays his girlfriend Cathy Featherstone.
Your Fantasy Acted Out. If you're a woman, you've probably always wanted to visit the Mediterranean islands, bask in the bright bright sunshine, swim in the blue blue water, and dance on the white sandy beaches.And if you're a guy, you're probably always wanted to make it with two good looking babes who seem to be OK about that arrangement.Either way, you get your wish with SUMMER LOVERS.
Michael and Cathy (Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah), two college-age sweethearts have come to a Greek island as a sort of pre-nup romp.
Now you might suppose that Daryl Hannah would be more than satisfactory for any man alive, but before many days pass Michael is taking an interest in a sweet young thing in a neighboring cabin, Lena (Valerie Quennessen).
Except, of course, Michael and Cathy have run out of money and their visas have expired and they are not permitted to get any jobs locally, and they don't speak the language, and Lena has none of those problems but how long can she sustain those two nitwits.This is a fantasy -- nice sunny beaches, Daryl Hannah and Valerie Quennessen not wearing much.
Summer Lovers has attractive stars, the boyishly handsome Pater Gallagher, the positively luminous Daryl Hannah, and the incredible magnetism of Valérie Quennessen.
All we really have is the vacationing couple Michael(Gallagher)and Cathy(Hannah)meeting archaeologist Lina(Quennessen), the three bonding over a summer, enjoying the good times that happen every day around the Greek village.
But, pretty much Summer Lovers consists of various scenes where the three enjoy each other's company after an awkward shaky start when Cathy was a bit distanced about the idea of Michael having passionate sex with Lina.
The beginning looks more like a travel ad for Greece than an actual movie. |
tt0060121 | Arabesque | Professor Ragheeb (George Coulouris) is taken aback that his regular optometrist is not working, Sloane (John Merivale), a man who he has never met, taking his regular optometrist's place. During the eye examination, Sloane places drops in Ragheeb's eyes, blinding him in pain after a few seconds. After Ragheeb collapses and dies on the floor, Sloane takes off Ragheeb's glasses, and breaks them open to reveal a small piece of paper with crude drawings - seemingly hieroglyphics - on it.At Oxford, Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck), an American, has taken over an absent Professor Ragheeb's class on ancient hieroglyphics. David makes a crude remark to wake up one of his sleeping students, Fanshaw (Gordon Griffin). At the end of the class, David is approached by Sloane, now referring to himself as Major Sylvester Pennington Sloane, a retired British military man now working as the private secretary for Middle Eastern shipping magnate, Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel), who would like to see him immediately on a lucrative business matter. David politely declines without knowing the specifics.David is out for a run when he is ambushed and forced into a Rolls-Royce limousine. He is taken aback by what just happened, until he notices that one of the men in the limo is Hassan Jena (Carl Duering), the Prime Minister of the Middle Eastern country where Beshraavi lives. David is in awe of Jena. The other man in the back of the limo is Mohammed Lufti (Harold Kasket), Jena's ambassador to Great Britain. Jena asks David to accept Beshraavi's offer so that he can find out what exactly Beshraavi's plans are specifically with some opposition to Jena's government policies. In doing this task, David is not to tell anyone he has met Jena, or that Jena is already in Great Britain. There is also some personal risk to David as Beshraavi is a dangerous man. Regardless, David accepts in his admiration for Jena.David meets with Beshraavi in a luxurious and expansive house in London, Beshraavi who has a menacing presence with a peregrine falcon with a penchant to kill if need be. Beshraavi asks David to decode a Hittite inscription - the piece of paper Sloane removed from Ragheeb's glasses - for a payment of $30,000. It should take David no more than a few hours, but Beshraavi gives David a veiled threat that he will be a prisoner at the house until the job is complete.In the library of the house, David is eating individually wrapped candies while he works on decoding the cipher. An exotically beautiful woman who David does not know, enters the room unannounced. She is Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren), the owner of the house and Beshraavi's lover. Beshraavi, who later enters, infers that David can look but cannot touch with regard to Yasmin, with who he was immediately infatuated.There are four at the dinner table: Beshraavi, Yasmin, David and an English businessman named Beauchamp (Ernest Clark). As Yasmin accidentally knocks over a tray, she is able secretly to slip David a few pieces of paper. David accidentally reveals those papers, Beshraavi who wants to know what they are. David is able to conceal their contents, not wanting to get Yasmin into trouble. David immediately excuses himself, followed closely by Yasmin. Beauchamp and Beshraavi now alone together, Beauchamp remarks that Prime Minister Jena's signing of a business treaty with the British in two days will ruin Beshraavi's shipping business, Beshraavi who, in turn, says that the treaty will not be signed as told to him by a dependable soothsayer.Alone in a bathroom in the house, David reads the two pieces of paper slipped to him by Yasmin, one a news clipping about Professor Ragheeb's accidental death, the other a note from Yasmin asking him to meet her in her bedroom. As David meets Yasmin in her expansive ensuite and she turning on the shower just in case they could be overheard, Yasmin tells David that Beshraavi had Ragheeb killed, and will do the same to David once he decodes the cipher. Their conversation is interrupted as Beshraavi tries to get into the ensuite. As David hides in the shower stall with the water still running, Yasmin lets Beshraavi in. Yasmin and Beshraavi talk about issues such as David's work, and the cipher. Not to arouse Beshraavi's suspicions, Yasmin is forced to take her shower, exposing her naked self to David. Sloane then telephones Yasmin's bedroom phone, he telling Bashraavi that David and the cipher are missing. Overhearing that conversation from the ensuite, Yasmin confirms from David that he has the cipher in his possession. To hide it and without telling Yasmin, he wraps it in one of the candy wrappers he has been eating, a red wrapper with the number "9", which he places in his pocket among some other candy. As some in Beshraavi's employ go searching for David through the house, Beshraavi demonstrates to one of Yasmin's employees, Hemsley (Jimmy Gardner) that he can buy people for their loyalty or else exact extreme revenge. From that encounter, Hemsley tells Beshraavi that he saw David earlier come into this bedroom. Forced to show himself, David and Yasmin emerge from the ensuite, David seemingly abducting her at scissor-point. They escape together, with one of Beshraavi's henchmen, Mustapha (Larry Taylor), on their trail. That chase takes them to the Zoological Gardens, where among other things Mustapha shoots an aquarium, breaking the glass and killing the fish inside. Eventually, Mustapha and David get into a struggle, when a man from behind kills Mustapha. He identifies himself as Inspector Webster (Duncan Lamont) with CID, he who had placed Yasmin's house under surveillance. When a gardens guard approaches asking about who they are and who will pay for the damages, Webster kills him as he would not have been able to show him police identification. Because of this act, David surmises that Webster is not CID, and can't be working for either Beshraavi or Jena. It is then that Webster reveals that he is working with Yasmin.David awakens in the back of a moving panel van after being knocked unconscious by Webster back at the gardens. Webster and Yasmin are now with another man, who is in a loving embrace with Yasmin, he identifying himself as Yussef Kassim. All he wants to know is where the cipher is. David, seeing that they have emptied out his pockets of the candies with the cipher which are now on a shelf in the van, tells Yussef that Beshraavi has the cipher. They decide to use truth serum on David, after which, in a drugged stupor, he talks what they believe is gibberish about the number "9". Believing that he was telling the truth that Beshraavi has the cipher, Yussef tells Yasmin to work on Beshraavi to find out where it is, while they dump David out of the moving van in the middle of the highway. Still in a hallucinatory drugged state, David is almost killed several times over as he largely believes he's a bullfighter and the passing cars are bulls. Eventually, he stumbles across a bicycle and cycles away.The next morning, Yasmin arrives home to Beshraavi's loving embrace. They talk about why David took her hostage - she explaining that it was to escape from Beshraavi's threats to keep him a prisoner at the house until the job was complete - and both David and Mustapha having been killed at Yussef's hands. In the discussion, Yasmin implies that Beshraavi stole the cipher, which was intended for Yussef from Ragheeb, and that Yussef does not yet know the coded message. While Yasmin tells him that neither David or Yussef have the cipher, Beshraavi states that he doesn't have it. He also states that David is not dead, but was seen alive arriving back home on bicycle. Yasmin also tells him that Yussef kept her alive as he thinks she is working with him to get the cipher from Beshraavi. Believing David still has the cipher, Beshraavi sends Yasmin to get it from him as he believes her feminine methods would work better on David than Sloane's more violent ones.At David's apartment, he, still groggy from the drugs, is awoken by the telephone ringing. It is Jena, to who David tells that he doesn't know what's going on with Beshraavi yet, and that he does not have the cipher. Despite his near death encounters, David is reinspired after speaking to Jena. At the end of their conversation, Yasmin bursts into the apartment. Incredulous that she would show up after doing nothing while watching him almost get killed by her "boyfriend" Yussef, Yasmin is able to convince him that she hates Yussef and that the only reason she is in cahoots with him is that his boss, a general back home named Ali orchestrating a military takeover, has her mother and sisters hostage and will kill them if she doesn't cooperate. Likewise, she is only being friendly to Beshraavi on Yussef's orders. She is then able to convince him that what he needs to do is break the code of the cipher so that she can report that information back to the embassy, which will ensure both their safeties. It is then that both realize that neither has the cipher, and that it is still in the back of the van.David and Yasmin are at the construction site Yussef uses as his front. They spot the van. Before they can get to it, they see Yussef then Webster heading for the van. Before the two men leave, Webster, hungry, takes all the candy including the one in which David wrapped the cipher. Following Webster as he eats one candy after another, they pick up the discarded wrappers, to see if it is the red number 9 with the cipher. Some of the wrappers are more difficult to get to than others. They notice that Webster ate the red wrapped number 9 candy and spotted the cipher inside. He goes to a telephone booth to make a call, looking the number up in the telephone booth, meaning that the call is not to Yussef, whose number he already knows. Going to the booth after Webster has left, they see he has scribbled "3:30" underneath the listing for Beshraavi Shipping, meaning that Webster has joined forces with Beshraavi and will be meeting him at 3:30. Knowing Beshraavi's routine, Yasmin knows their meeting place.At Ascot, a decked out Yasmin is with Beshraavi, while a decked out David is looking for Webster. David and Yasmin are able to talk briefly to make plans to meet at 9 o'clock that evening at Trafalgar Square after David gets the cipher from Webster. David spots Webster rendezvousing with Sloane, to who he will hand over the cipher. David is able to poke the paper out of Webster's hand, the paper flying in the air and landing in the middle of the horse track with the horses in a race approaching. As David and Webster scuffle with each other, Sloane gets out a knife to stab David. He misses and instead stabs Webster dead. David risks his life by running out onto the track to retrieve the cipher. He is able to do so just before the horses gallop by, David running away with cipher in hand. This entire situation is visible not only to the entire crowd but more specifically Yasmin and Beshraavi.On a train, David is tracing a copy of the cipher, he who still has not been able to decode it. After he completes the copy, he places the original into a self-addressed stamped envelope which he posts immediately after getting off the train. There, he sees the headlines of the newspaper, which implicates him as Webster's murderer. He telephones Jena for help in this matter, Jena who can offer none except for the advice to stay clear of the police, which David does as he notices a bobby heading toward the telephone booth.Yasmin and Beshraavi are back at her house, he who has bought her several pairs of new shoes. As he helps her try on each pair caressing her legs in the process, they discuss what happened at Ascot. He believes this situation is perfect as she can get close to David, find out what decoded message is from him, and bring that information back to Beshraavi. Beshraavi threatens her in the process, implying that he will kill her if she doesn't succeed.David goes to Ragheeb's house, wanting to speak to his widow (Malya Nappi) as he figures that Ragheeb, who was murdered because of the cipher, may have told her what the decoded message is, or at least mentioned where he got it or have some notes somewhere among his possessions about it. He tells her of Ragheeb's death being murder by Beshraavi. Looking at the copy of the cipher, Ragheeb's widow tears it up in frustration, she finally at least implying that she knew that Ragheeb was working on something dangerous. David also tells her that he is working with Yasmin, her mother and sisters in danger at the hands of General Ali. On this news, Ragheeb's widow states that Yasmin is lying in that she has no mother or sisters, only a father who happens to be General Ali himself.At 9 o'clock that night at Trafalgar Square, David hops into Yasmin's just arrived car and they drive off. They are being tailed by one of Beshraavi's men, but Yasmin is able to lose him. Yasmin, grateful that David is still alive and not in jail, tells him of her discussion with Beshraavi. She asks directly if he still has the cipher. He responds that he no longer needs it as he has decoded the message as, "The peg will not pass until the swans fly high in the kingdom of vesta", he getting much of this made up idea from a billboard they just passed. He says he has done his job, he not needing to know what the message actually means. Rather than she dropping him off for his own safety while she goes to the embassy to report the information, he convinces her that it would be safer for him to stay with her, and that she can telephone the information to the embassy at a pay phone, which she does. She in turn convinces him that she does have to go to the embassy to deal with the aftermath, so he that he needs to find his own way from here as the police at the embassy would arrest him on sight. Following their arrangement to meet at the Knightsbridge Hotel where he is staying, he gets out of the car and she drives away, but he flags down a taxi to follow her. They follow her to Yussef's construction site, she obviously having telephoned him to arrange this meeting. However, hiding in the shadows, David can see Yasmin looking for Yussef in the building, and can see Yussef operating the wrecking ball, he who is planning to kill Yasmin with it. David rushes to save her, just before the wrecking ball comes crashing to where she was standing. Yussef, with wrecking ball, has the two of them on the run through the semi-demolished building, with one near miss after another. David eventually is able to maneuver himself to a spot where the wrecking ball hits an electrical power source, sending a major jolt of electricity through the wrecking ball machine to its cab, electrocuting Yussef to death.As David and Yasmin drive off, they argue, David mad at her for lying about going to the embassy and lying about her mother and sisters, he having got the truth from Ragheeb's widow. Yasmin then figures out why Yussef lured her to the construction site. She tells David that Ragheeb's widow is in cahoots with Yussef, Mrs. Ragheeb who lied to David about Yasmin's family and she who telephoned Yussef to tell him that Yasmin was double crossing him. Learning that Yasmin was telling the truth, David confesses that the story he told her of the decoded message was made up, and that he has not yet decoded it.At David's hotel room, David has worked through the night trying to decode the cipher, while Yasmin has been asleep in the bed. He wakes her up with a loving kiss when he has figured it out. It is not Hittite hieroglyphics as he initially believed it to be but rather a simple children's code. The decoded message is the nursery rhyme "goosey goosey gander", which is probably a red herring for something else. Remembering that Ragheeb's widow tore up a copy of the cipher upon seeing it, David finally realizes that it is not the drawings themselves, but rather something else on the original piece of paper which contains the message. Retrieving the original from the Hammersmith post office where he mailed it, David, in Yasmin's car while she is driving, tries several theories before he hits the jackpot: the cipher was written with dissolvable ink, which leaves the message remaining after dissolved. What remains is a microdot, when under a microscope reveals, "Beshraavi plans assassinate Jena twelve thirty June eighteenth", which is in twenty minutes time. They don't know where to go until Yasmin sees on a newscast that Jena has just landed at the airport. Facing road obstacles, David and Yasmin are able to make it to the airport a few minutes before 12:30. They, however, have problems trying to gain access to the press conference currently taking place. In the background, Jena, who has just been asked by a reporter about the business treaty he is about to sign with the British government, states that he will not be signing the treaty upon review of its contents. Fighting the police and the crowd, David is able to get to Jena and knock him to the ground, when bullets, from Sloane's machine gun, land where Jena was just standing. Jena is grateful to David for saving his life, David in turn telling him that the coded message stated that Beshraavi was going to kill him. Shocked, Jena asks to speak to David in private. Then, Lufti, as Jena is trying to make his way into a private room, shoots Jena dead. Yasmin whisks David off among the melee. She tries to convince him that the man who was just shot is not Jena. David is incredulous to this as he tells her that he knows Jena, has met him, and talked to him several times in the last few days. Yasmin, who now knows the entire picture of David's involvement, knows now that Beshraavi hired this man to impersonate Jena to David, without Beshraavi disclosing to the imposter that it would be a suicide mission. What tipped Yasmin to he not being Jena was that there was no recognition on his face of who she was, she who is a spy working for the real Jena.Making their way to a surveillance truck monitoring all of Jena's movement upon landing, Yasmin asks to see all the footage shot thus far. Reviewing that footage, Yasmin figures that the switch was made in the car transferring Jena from the plane to the terminal, as he was no longer wearing his trademark slippers after emerging from the window darkened car. Rushing off to where the car is located, they notice a large trunk being transferred from the car to a truck, they figuring Jena being inside the trunk. Yasmin figures Beshraavi needed the fake Jena to denounce the treaty before being killed in order to save his shipping business. Able to slip in the back of the truck as it takes off, David and Yasmin open the locked trunk to find the real Jena inside, bound and gagged but otherwise all right. The truck is headed to Yasmin's house and a waiting Beshraavi. The trunk removed from the truck, David, Yasmin and Jena are able to hide inside the truck while Beshraavi and his men transport the trunk to the house. Beshraavi, however, notices that the trunk's lock is broken. Suspicious, he orders the trunk to be opened right then and there, to find it devoid of Jena. By that time, David, Yasmin and Jena are able to run from the truck but are spotted off in the distance. A chase ensues, first through a low wheat field, where David, Yasmin and Jena are tracked by Beshraavi's men in various harvesting machines, one whose thrashing blades almost kill the three. Arriving at the stables, the three are able to secure some horses. At this time, Beshraavi and Sloane among others are following them in a helicopter with machine guns in hand. When the three arrive at a bridge, David figures they have better cover on foot among the bridge's structure. Beshraavi and Sloane are able to get some shots on the three as they race across the bridge, the helicopter making pass after pass underneath the bridge span. Getting to the mid span, the three are forced to stop due to construction work on the bridge. David, standing up to grab a construction site ladder, is an open target for Beshraavi and Sloane's next pass, they who end up missing David. As the helicopter makes its pass right underneath them on the bridge span, David drops the ladder into the helicopter's rotor. Disabled, the helicopter crashes below them into a burning blaze.David and Yasmin are in a romantic mood as they float leisurely in a canoe on a lake. Oblivious to what is going on around them as they kiss and embrace, they crash into a row boat. The male of the male/female couple in the row boat is angry at David, that is until he sees that it is Professor Pollock, the rower being his "sleeping" student, Fanshaw. To get the out of their crashed predicament, David uses a pole jabbed into the lake bottom to push off. He pushes too hard, leaving himself suspended on the pole away from the canoe. David tells Yasmin he can't swim as he falls into the water. Concerned, Yasmin jumps in to save him. "Swimming" David emerges from the water, he telling her that it was his turn to lie in what has been the major characteristic of their shared history. They embrace in the water. | murder | train | imdb | Both of them adrift in a tourist-eye as well as beautifully photographed London and on the run from sinister crooks and death-dealing , double secret agents who want to take a hieroglyph .This is a sparklingly sophisticated comedy/thriller/romance with Donen's stylish direction and full of plot twists , suspense , fast moving , red herrings and adding enough effects gimmicks .
Enjoyable score by Henry Mancini , including catching musical leitmotif .This espionage adventure picture was stunningly directed by Stanley Donen who made in similar style ¨Charade¨ with Gary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who was never more beautiful .
If director Stanley Donen's classic 1963 comedy-thriller CHARADE is Hitchcock Lite, then ARABESQUE is Hitchcock Lite after taking a few classes in James Bond 101 (including an opening title sequence by Maurice Binder, who also did the honors for CHARADE as well as for most of the Bond movies).
As the hieroglyphics expert embroiled in Middle Eastern intrigue while decoding the cipher everyone's after, the usual slightly wooden note in Gregory Peck's delivery is oddly effective as he tries to loosen up and deliver Cary Grant-like witticisms (from co-scripter "Pierre Marton," a.k.a. CHARADE alumnus Peter Stone).
Highlights of Arabesque are Gregory Peck playing the somewhat bumbling type, Sophia Loren's exotic beauty, and some memorable humorous situations like Pollack hiding in the shower with Jasmin while being questioned and later the two of them trailing the guy who drops the candy wrappers.
His performance isn't nearly as bad or hammy as some other reviews have indicated, but where Loren's charisma and beauty aid her in creating a completely different character than Audrey Hepburn's in "Charade," Peck comes off as an unfortunately blurred carbon coby of Grant in that earlier film.
If I had the impossible task of naming one film as "My Favorite Most Enjoyable Movie" this and it's bookend, "Charade," would be it.It is Stanley Donen's near perfect blend of Alfred Hitchcock meets James Bond.
Both feature classic Henry Mancini scores, stylish female ward-robing by the likes of Givenchy and Christian Dior and both feature memorable titles by 007's legendary title master, Maurice Binder.But it's Arabesque's wildly inventive cinematography which sets it apart from virtually every other action film.
The cinematography in Arabesque fascinates me and entertains me no end to this day.Gregory Peck's square yet hip college professor plays perfectly with Sophia Loren's chic spy - and Sophia was never more flat-out stunning.
The whole look and feel just oozes what you imagine the '60s to be--intrigue, mysterious/swarthy foreign spies, a totally cool/hot babe (Sophia Loren could not be any more gorgeous) and a handsome yet bumbling professor (Gregory Peck out harrison Ford-ing Harrison Ford years ahead of the curve).
Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck team up in this virtual re-make/sequel to director Stanley Donen's Charade, made three years earlier.
Like the Grant character in Charade, it is impossible to work out just which side Loren is on until the film's final stages.
With Gregory Peck knocking off one liners and Sophia Loren for eye candy, this film is a good one to catch if you have never seen it before...The villains in the film are a bit over the top and a tad campy but this only adds to the charm of the film..
They're all after the meaning of that message, it could upset the balance of power in the Middle-east circa 1966.In a role originally intended for Cary Grant before he announced that Walk Don't Run would be his final film, Gregory Peck ably fills the role of the debonair professor with a disarming quip for all occasions.
He invites Pollock to travel to London to meet the wealthy Nejim Beshraavi (Alan Badel) to translate a cipher in a hieroglyphic, but Pollock refuses the work.Soon Pollock is summoned by the Arabian Prime Minister Hassan Jena (Carl Duering), who is unofficially in England and asks him to accept the assignment and spy the activities of Beshraavi that might be plotting something evil.
Pollock meets Beshraavi's mistress Yasmin Azir (Sophia Loren), who tells him that he is in danger and Beshraavi will kill him in the end of his work the same way he did with Professor Ragheeb.
The story of a clumsy professor from Oxford that is involved in an international conspiracy in London has hilarious moments, like for example the shower scene with Sophia Loren that makes this movie worthwhile.
Grant wore humor like a glove and wallowed in it- Peck is much more serious.At times we forget that this film is a spy thriller, due to the comedy elements.
The film has only three major character--a professor of Wgyptology played tongue-in-cheek and beautifully by Gregory Peck; a gorgeous and mysterious female who may or may not be bad, played with style by Sophia Loren; and an understated British-accented Arabic villain, brought to life by Alan Badel.
Gregory Peck is far better as a professor here in my judgment than Cary Grant was an advertising executive in "North By Northwest", for instance; Sophia Loren has one of her most charismatic and successful roles in the film, given how little there actually was for her to work with.
This is a very enjoyable MOVIE; Gregory Peck puts on his best Cary Grant face and Sophia Loren is simply stunning.
Peck shows a nice balance between comic and dramatic acting in this film - compare his scenes where he trying to prevent a political assassination and the scenes where he finds himself hiding from the bad guys (in this case Alan Badel) by standing in the shower while Sophia Loren takes a shower - Peck is obviously enjoying that scene.Loren was good too, playing an impossible role: one moment a conspirator, the next the kept woman of the villain, the next Peck's ally and friend.
If it got great after the drug scene, then I will never know.Sophia Loren: there is no question she was drop-dead gorgeous, and even the site of her naked back in the shower is enough to steam up any room, but she is wasted in this stupid movie and all I could do was feel bad for her predicament.
***SPOILERS*** Gregory Peck as visiting American Oxford language professor David Pollock has his hand full chasing that fast filly and mystery woman Yasmin Azir, Sophia Loren,all over London and it's surroundings.
As noted many times before,ARABESQUE is a rehash,if virtually not a sequel,to the same director's CHARADE made several years earlier.It is not as good as the previous effort,a superbly scripted and cast comedy thriller with the incomparable Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.Grant was apparently intended for the lead here,and although he would have been in his early sixties if this casting had gone ahead,he would have been a more assured lead than his replacement Gregory Peck.Peck,a fine straight actor,seems a little uncomfortable handling the various wisecracks and witticisms abound in the script,something which the ever-youthful Grant would have handled with more aplomb.That said,at 50,Peck's performance is perfectly acceptable,and he is a credible,handsome romantic lead to the alluring Sophia Loren,whose English by this time was fluent enough for her to give a more charming,rounded performance than in previous UK or US films.The best performance though comes from Mancunian actor Alan Badel,who despite an excess of gravy-stained make-up and dark shades,remarkably manages to make his villainous,suave Arab character almost entirely convincing.Badel wisely doesn't give the part a cod foreign accent which would have turned the role into a crude caricature but a deliberate,carefully modulated standard English accent which gives the part a depth and menace it didn't necessarily have in the script.Badel dominates the film,but oddly enough another Mancunian actor,George Coulouris,also plays an Arab character in the opening scene.The script by Peter Stone has much similarity with CHARADE with it's various twists and turns,but tends to lack it's predecessor's surprises and cleverness,though amusing lines and incident do usually compensate.Stanley Donen's direction is commendably brisk and pacey,though by this time(the mid 1960's),directors of spy thrillers like this thought it was the right thing to add flashy,kaleidoscopic camera tricks and angles to it's content.Donen is no different here,filming many scenes behind various pieces of furniture,glass,etc.
which were somewhat pointless even four decades ago and date such films pretty badly now.It's main technical achievement is sumptuous photography by Christopher Challis,one of the best colour cameramen of his day if not the best.If Donen hadn't fallen into the trap of trying to be trendy and directed ARABESQUE in a more restrained,yet effective way like CHARADE,it would probably have been rather better,but despite it's flaws,ARABESQUE is still a largely enjoyable,fast-moving and amusing comedy thriller..
You've guessed it: apart from a construction site, a railway station, a stud farm and a few roads, that's where this film is set.David Pollock, (Gregory Peck), an Oxford University lecturer in hieroglyphics, is hired by an Arab shipping magnate to translate an ancient Hittite inscription, which is really a secret code.
While engaged in this task he meets a mysterious Arab woman (Sophia Loren) who is the magnate's girlfriend.There then follows a series of adventures involving some of the weirdest characters ever seen in a mainstream film thriller.
Peter Stone's script is absurdly convoluted and too "clever" for its own good; Donen's direction is gimmicky, lacking the simplicity and effectiveness of his work in the earlier film; Gregory Peck delivers his supposedly witty lines flatly and makes an unsuccessful effort to imitate Cary Grant's mannerisms; and Sophia Loren basically exists in the movie for the one scene where she shows off her gorgeous legs.
Problem is Greg wasn't too good at goofy comedy (the part was meant for Cary Grant who thankfully must have realized he was too old for it), the plot seems to have been concocted in nightly installments - by different people, the timing is awful - some scenes look like rehearsals or outtakes & the acting is the pits.
A Panavision/Technicolor production with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Christopher Challis.Hieroglyphics expert David Pollock (Peck) is thrust into a world of shifty political intrigue involving a Middle Eastern Prime Minister, a beautiful spy and a sinister rich businessman.There's quite a bit wrong with Arabesque, with white actors made up as Arabs, a scatter-gun plot, weak finale, a barely threatening villain and Peck is no action hero!
Professor David Pollock (Gregory Peck) is kidnapped by Beshraavi (Alan Badel) to decipher some hieroglyphics that contain state secrets (or something).
The plot concerns about a cryptic hieroglyphic message, and I don't want to spoil the details but it would be a quite disappointing turnover for the fuss, and the adventures are arranged one on the heels of another , an expedient strategy to cover up the ludicrousness of the happenings, jammed with comic reliefs, unexpected twist and arduous action set pieces, on a similar scale, the movie is a crowd-pampering blockbuster of its time, money is splurged to a keep the ever-present fatigue at bay.On a technical level, DP Christopher Challis's cinematography dares to go out on a limb to be occasionally hypnotic (when Pollock is drugged and left walking in the highway), menacing (the opening sequence where a blatant murder is carried out in an eye-doctor clinic), or ominous (a night chase in a zoo with flashes on awaken creatures); Henry Mancini's score concerts seamlessly with the story to establish a pleasant viewing experience albeit its larger-than-life goofiness.
With this movie adding the exotic charm of Sophia Loren as Peck's leading lady, rich technicolour hues, swinging London settings and a soundtrack by Henry Mancini, all the elements appear to be present for another entertaining exercise in suspense and skullduggery, there's even a cryptic one word title too, (although it probably looks less than P.C. with today's hindsight) and a decent Saul Bass-lite title sequence.From there though, it pretty much all goes west, or should that be far east given the intrigue at the heart of the story.
Of course it's not long before this innocent abroad is inveigled into a plot to assassinate a Far Eastern prime minister, where he runs into Miss Loren, who seems to wear a different glamorous Christian Dior outfit in every scene.Via a circuitous route taking in Horseguard's Parade, Ascot Races and Heathrow Airport, Peck is menaced by being thrown out of a moving car at night on a motorway, attacked by a wrecking ball on a derelict building site and finally by a combine harvester of all things before the day is saved and the now loving couple splash happily ever after.Director Donen has admitted since that he employed every camera trick and angle to cover up the glaring gaps in the script and I suppose if you view it through a trippy psychedelic prism you might get a kick from it, but Peck's unconvincing turn as the boffin turned secret agent wings the film mortally and its sad to see this fine actor overcompensate for the film's deficiencies by mugging frantically to paper over the cracks.
Love thriller with a touch of comedy and have a lot of respect for Gregory Peck, Alan Badel, Sophia Loren, Stanley Donen and Henry Mancini.
Peck plays an American professor, and when he's recruited to help stop an assassination attempt on a Middle Eastern Prime Minister, he meets Sophia Loren.
Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren star in "Arabesque," directed by Stanley Donen, who gave us "Charade." This isn't "Charade" - nothing could be - but this derivative film has its roots in Hitchcock and "Charade." Gregory Peck is the common man - in this case, a professor - who is more or less kidnapped to translate a cipher.
"Arabesque" is one of those 60's films that mixes political intrigue with tongue-in-check humor that benefits from a stellar cast, featuring Oscar winners Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren.
while this film is often compared unfavourably to charade, with good reason, it is an entertaining film.Charade is almost perfect and it would be difficult for any other movie to match its iconic status.Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren cannot compare to Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn but they are solid stars in their own right..Loren is not the world's best actress but she is exquisite to look at.
Peck is aging but still a major star and there is an old pro's grace about him.OK so arabesque is not charade but its a beautifully shot piece of entertainment with a good central performance from Gregory Peck and its better than 90% of the rest of the movies out there..
Except for the poison eye drops used on a spy at the start of the movie, Sophia Loren's gravity-defying chest, and the realization that the look on Gregory Peck's face isn't from acting but embarrassment, there's nothing commendable about Arabesque, a stupid-cutesy combination of Charade, Bond, and Mirage.Much to the chagrin of Charade, Bond, and Mirage.I saw Arabesque as a kid and got bored with it.
I think if they'd gotten Grant and a leading lady with a lighter touch (and some more convincing Arabs) "Arabesque" might have been a minor romantic adventure classic, instead of a major bad movie classic.The film, though not a big success at the time of release, and not fondly remembered now, does seem to have been pretty influential on future makers of action-adventure romance flicks.
An Odd Title draws attention to this bit of Fluff from Director Stanley Donen as He Followed Up the Enormous Success of the Similar "Charade" (1964), this time it's Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren.1966 was a Time of Hollywood in Flux being Swept up in Cultural and Political Turmoil.
GREGORY PECK and SOPHIA LOREN make a handsome couple, even though Peck was pushing 50 at the time and still looked good enough to play romantic leads with the best of them.
And when one of the final revelations involves a man pretending to be another, it makes you think of Hitchcock and the assassination attempt in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.In other words, don't expect too much originality in the various plot devices, nor expect too much wit in the cornball exchanges between the villains (KIERON MOORE, ALAN BADEL, JOHN MERIVALE) and the out of his depth hero (PECK) who finds that trying to decipher a Hittite code can be a dangerous thing when so many enemies want to get their hands on the encrypted message.It moves briskly under Donen's stylish direction.
After the success of his Hitchcock homage "Charade", director Stanley Donen made this very similar comedy-thriller with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in the lead roles.
Gregory Peck handles the "man thrust into the middle of a mystery" role very well, Sophia Loren's performance, as the mysterious Yasmin, is excellent but easy to overlook, due to how beautiful she looks, and Alan Badel makes an excellent villain, -complete with ever present dark glasses and a hawk!
Mr. Donnen probably thought this movie would be as appreciated as the latter one, but alas, even though it's by no means, a dud, on second viewing, there are signs that perhaps he should have sticked to the other genre where he excelled.It must have seemed to be a great idea to throw Gregory Peck, an aging star, who always gave a good performance, against Sophia Loren, at the height of her beauty.
Alan Bates is way over the top as the thoroughly evil Beshraavi and Kerion Moore with his "hip" dialogue doesn't come across."Arabesque" has its moments and it certainly has Sophia Loren but Gregory Peck is more at home in serious dramas..
I especially liked the performances of both Gregory Peck and the lovely Sophia Loren.
Considering that this film featured Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, I expected more than I got.
There are just so many similar elements, though Sophia Loren is playing the role played by Cary Grant in the previous film and Gregory Peck is taking Audrey Hepburn's!
This one feels very much like CHARADE, and merely recasts the central roles in the form of Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. |
tt0114857 | Virtuosity | Lt. Parker Barnes (Washington) and another officer, Donavan, step off of a subway car. Their surroundings appear to be glitching as they run down a crowded city street. Donavan is not sure of where he is going, but Parker runs confidently into a Japanese structure. Donavan asks what they are looking for, and Barnes replies that they will know when they find a man with eyes like his own. They see a man (Crowe) sitting behind a screen, and they begin firing upon him. He jumps out of the way and grabs a gun of his own to return the fire. The foe snidely knocks out his partner and promises to return for Barnes. Barnes searches for him inside the building, but the man is able to surprise him and injures his arm. As Barnes recovers, the man taunts him, until Barnes is able to successfully shoot him in the arm. Unfortunately, the villain cheats and is able to gain the upper hand. The men disappear from the scene, and is is shown that they are in a virtual reality mechanism and in peril. The men are going into shock, and Donavan dies.Wallace (Fichtner) and Elizabeth Deane (Fletcher) oversee the whole thing and argue about the failsafes before driving away. Parker claims again that the man, SID 6.7, cheated. He was not supposed to be able to electrocute people, as he found out by checking the database. The police chief, William Cochran (Forsythe) tells Barnes that he is trying to get him out of prison sooner, but all he wants is chalk. He then reprimands him for shooting another person within the program, but Barnes said that he wasn't real and he didn't want to end up like Donavan. Barnes then goes back to his automated prison cell, where it is revealed that he has a metal arm. He is forced to walk through a hall with many doors and people that are booing. A man emerges and attacks him with a knife, but Barnes wins handily and is dragged away by guards. Daryl Lidenmeyer (Spinelli), the program creator, approaches SID and tells him that he knows that he is the one that deactivated the protocols. SID says that killing was a real rush and refuses to be shut down. He says that in order to continue operations, Lidenmeyer needed to sacrifice his queen.A therapist, Madison Carter (Lynch), comes in to give a psychological evaluation on Barnes. He claims that he was defending himself in the fight yesterday, and subtly mocks her. She reveals that she was watching his simulation yesterday to research a book that she was writing. He tells her that he knew that SID was in the restaurant due to the :) on the building. She states that they need to talk about Matthew Grimes, the man who killed his wife and daughter and took his arm. She claimed they needed to make sure that his act of violence wouldn't ever happen again, to which he replied that it couldn't because his family was already dead.
The scene cuts back to the testing lab where a woman in a robe is flirting with a man named Clyde (OConnor). She strips down to her underwear and begs him to come inside the program. Lidenmeyer approaches behind him and terminates the program, and offers to combine their technology of nanobots and AI to bring Sheila, the girl program, to life. Clyde agrees and goes to set up the necessary materials, while Lidenmeyer activates SID instead. SID begins flirting with Sheila, until Lidenmeyer deactivates him and takes out his module. He follows Clyde down to his lab where he shows him the nanotechnology that allows him to rebuild a part of a snake using glass. Clyde drops SIDs module, which he believes to be Sheilas, into a blue substance.Parker lies on the floor of his cell with his chalk, and has flashbacks of his family.SID is able to emerge from a shell into a nano body of his own. He immediately kills Clyde, and searches for Daryl who has fled out of fear. SID chops off his own finger and watches it regrow. The police chief vouches for Barnes to be able to catch SID out on the streets. They offer him a full pardon if he is able to catch SID in the real world, but he would be tracked for the rest of his life. He mocks them for thinking he would agree to be treated like an animal for their mistakes. However, allows them to place the microchip into his head. Carter says that she would like to go with Parker and threatens to go public if denied.Barnes dislikes the idea of Carter going with him, and he states that he is not responsible for her if anything happens. She suggests that they start by investigating earlier models of SID to figure out his motives.
SID dresses himself in a suit in a room that contain the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Edwards. Barnes and Carter arrive at the scene to see the decapitates bodies and a message scrolled on the walls. They determine that SID is copycatting murders; starting with the Manson murders.They go back to the building where they can run the earlier SID programs and learn that he is composed of almost 200 different murderers. Barnes is horrified to learn that one of these murders is Matthew Grimes. Carter comes back to her house to see her daughter, Karin (Cuoco), and Barnes cringes watching her. She calls Cochran to ask why Grimes would have attacked Barnes's family, when he was a political activist. Barnes was getting too close to his plans, so he kidnapped his family to throw him off. Karin approaches Barnes's car and they make small talk about baseball. (Simultaneously) SID goes to a club where people in leather are dancing and taking photographs. He approaches the main woman in leather, and then shoots the head off an automated bartender. He forces everyone down to the ground, shoots a man trying to run, and forces a woman to film him. Barnes picks up the news of SID's hostage situation and drives there with Carter. SID is recording peoples screams and cries to make a symphony. Parker leaves his vehicle to rush onto the scene. SID shoots four cops who come inside, and he alerts everyone that they are almost out of time. Parker arrives and empties his entire mag into SIDs back, who leaps onto an elevator, flicks him off, and escapes in a cop car. Parker jumps onto the hood of the car and shoots it as it races away. Carter follows and picks him up to chase him. SID eats the glass from the broken windshield to patch himself back back up. He giggles and crashes into cars along the road, while taunting Barnes through the police radio. He gets out and stands on top of the car and jumps over the side of the bridge.Wallace complains to Deane about having to destroy the future of nanotechnology. Cochran scolds Barnes for shooting Sid that many times in a populated area. Deane, Barnes, Cochran, and Wallace discover that he is evolving into something new. SID walks through an electronics store and changes every TV to the news coverage of his attack from the previous night. A man switches the channel to watch his wrestling program, so SID breaks his neck while someone records on a camcorder. Carter and Barnes arrive at the store and discover that SID has probably gone to the wrestling match, due to the enormous number of people. The crew up in the control room have been slaughtered, unbeknownst to the crowd who is still cheering. SID flirts with a beautiful woman in the crowd and throws her boyfriend on the bottom floor. He backflips onto the floor and then into the ring, before spotting Parker in the audience and running out of the stadium. Parker chases him out of the building and onto a light rail. SID holds up a woman in front of him and taunts him while the rail pulls away. Barnes shoots anyway and the hostage falls down dead, and SID rides away on the train. The police put Parker in the back of a van to return him to prison. Parker tells Carter that SID is now mocking him with Grimess catchphrase; "This ones for you Parker", before killing someone. Carter checks the body and finds out that the woman was shot from the back, so Parker couldn't have killed him. She realizes that SID is trying to set him up and tells Cochran, but he doesn't believe her. Barnes is sitting in the van and has another flashback about his family. In it, Grimes is being interviewed by a reporter and spots Parker sneaking in through a window. Parker hears cries and rushes to find his wife and daughter locked up in a room with a bomb. They beg him to help them, but when he enters the room, a motion sensor sets the bomb off, killing them both and blowing off Barnes's arm. Barnes rushes in and kills Grimes's henchman and finally Grimes. The reporter and cameraman approached him from the back, and he turned around shooting blindly and killed them. Back in the van, SID arrives and talks to him through the grates.Then he opens the back of the van and throws Barnes the key. He reveals that the microchip in Barnes's head has the capability of killing him in 30 seconds, and then frames him for killing two guards before disappearing.Barnes calls Carter to let her know hes with his family. Carter then calls Cochran who now believes that Barnes is innocent. She also tells him about the neurotoxin in the microchip. Wallace readies the satellite for the activation of the toxin, but Cochran busts in and destroys the machines.Carter finds Barnes at his family's grave and they rush off to try to stop SID from his next demonstration at the largest television event ever. While people on the street are chanting about borders and guns, SID kills the men in the sound booth and tweaks controls to project Death TV. He then shoots a man in the head on camera. He states that he can do any kind of killing that the viewers want to see, but his first victim will be Karin Carter, Madison's daughter. Madison begins crying hysterically, so Barnes promises to find her, but she needs to find a way to cut off all phone lines to the building. SID states that Karin will be blown up in two hours, and the viewer number continues to rise. Barnes is spotted by the police, but escapes the gunfire by entering an elevator. Lidenmeyer returns from hiding, but Carter pistol whips him across the face.SID puts a gun in a man named Ed's mouth, but releases him when the phone lines go dead. Barnes arrives and shoots SID many times, but he escapes through the ceiling. They exchange gunfire, and a helicopter threatens Barnes. Barnes shoots SID multiple times and they fight on the rooftops, before crashing into a glass building with glass sheets. The shards stuck through SID's body and separate his limbs. Barnes believes that he is incapacitated, and gets very close to him. However, SID grabs Parker and attempts to impale him, as well, while regenerating his arms and legs. Parker punches through SID's head and grabs the module; effectively disabling the antagonist. Carter walks in with Lidenmeyer, who states that Barnes has now ruined his chances of finding Karin. Parker stares into the module and relives the moment before the crash through the wall. However, this time, SID wins and throws Barnes over the wall and onto the pavement. Carter approaches SID who kidnaps her and takes her to her daughter. It is revealed that this time, Barnes and Madison are within the virtual reality mechanism, but SID does not realize this. SID flirts with Madison against a building that holds Karin. Daryl kills Cochran with a tire lever, which traps Barnes inside the simulation. SID sends Barnes into sensory overload in an attempt to kill him, so Madison shoots Daryl to help Barnes out of the mechanism. Barnes punches Wallace and unplugs SID, then tells Carter that they are going to save her daughter. Barnes avoids the booby traps by climbing in the fan in the top, but realizes that Karin is sitting on a press switch, so he cannot move her. Carter tells her daughter to remain very still. Barnes pulls a wire out of his arm and connects to to the computer box and successfully disarms the timer. The bomb squad neutralize the bomb and save the girl. | murder, violence, flashback, good versus evil, insanity, sadist, sci-fi | train | imdb | You can't help but like Crowe's gleeful portrayal of a schizophrenic nano-bot serial killer in this ridiculous film, and with futuristic fascists, pervey programmers and a bucket loads of virtual reality cyber nonsense, this should really be a winner in the style of The Demolition Man or the Robocop series.
Parker must hunt down and destroy a murderous cyborg, SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe), who is menacing the general public after jumping out of a virtual reality program.
It is not Denzel Washington's finest hour (he is adequate); however, Russell Crowe is positively gleeful in his portrayal of the ultimately designed killing machine.
That though is because of Russell Crowe's character: SID 6.7 who possesses over 150 serial killer personalities.
He had two very talented actors in Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe yet he was not able to generate the excitement and fast pace feeling that is needed to make a good action movie.The writing is also at fault too.
You could see that Denzel Washington, already an established actor at that time, and Russell Crowe, not established, really tried to push this movie forward.
I especially liked Denzel Washington, who always manages to be believable in his role when he doesn't try to be a soul brotha.' Granted, the cinematography was pretty average as well as the music, but then again, the performance of the two main stars really made this film a winner..
Hollywood's always been a midwife for technology between the science industry and the common man, and in the area of virtual reality it's given us "Johhny Mnemonic" and this actioner, starring Denzel Washington.Basic plot is this: The police have been using virtual reality as a training method, to test recruits.
Here, Denzel gets to briefly run around inside a VR world, chasing after virtual killer Russell Crowe, known as Sid 6.7 (very close to 6.66, isn't it?).
Denzel Washington plays Lt. Parker Barnes, who has to help find SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe), a virtual serial killer who has escaped into the real world in 1999 LA.Yes, that certainly sounds like it could degenerate into the kind of garbage that Hollywood usually turns out.
Obviously, this isn't even remotely in the same league as that one, but given that it was released in 1995, it almost seems like a prediction of how computer-centric the world would become.Not a masterpiece by any stretch - both Washington and Crowe have done much better work (and now they're both Oscar winners) - but worth seeing, if only once..
I watched this movie again last night and didn't know whether to classify it as a comedy or Sci-Fi. I think the reason why I gave it a 6 star rating is because it does have some humor to it.
Denzel Washington plays the hero Parker Barnes while an over-the-top Russell Crowe plays Sid 6.7, the villain.
In the end, this advantage is also Sid's only weakness: the larger his injuries, the longer time it will take to regenerate and the easier it is for him to be defeated.Now some people may view "Virtuosity" to be, at best, ultra-violent entertainment, which it is not.
In the futuristic world of 1999, former policeman Denzel Washington (as Parker Barnes) is released from prison to help catch "virtual reality" android run amok Russell Crowe (as S.I.D. 6.7).
Crowe gets a kick out of killing people, and eats glass to rejuvenate.***** Virtuosity (8/4/95) Brett Leonard ~ Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Kelly Lynch, Stephen Spinella.
In 1991, with John Lithgow playing the heavy, Denzel Washington was the puppet in a movie called 'Ricochet.' It is now five years later and once again Mr. Washington is taken for a violent ride in this Brett Leonard film called " Virtuosity.
With Police Chief Cochran (William Forsythe, finally playing a Good-guy), oversees, Lt. Parker Barnes, (Denzel Washington) a former detective as he sets out to recapture an impervious maniacal Android.
The director of such a film as The Lawnmower Man didn't really make anything of note since this film Virtuosity (unless one counts Highlander 5: The Source to be of actual quality which is hard to argue for), but there was a time when he knew where to put the camera and shoot as far as action and competency with his actors.
The plot of Virtuosity is cut out of other movies to be sure, and would be again (one may be reminded of 12 Monkeys with its convicted man put on a mission by his captors, or even by Batman with its anti-hero and psychotic villain creating chaos all over the city), but, perhaps if only in retrospect, the movies carries some solid entertainment in the near-mindless tradition of loud, stupid Hollywood science fiction movies of the 90's.
It's like John Woo lite.There isn't much to the plot except that a former detective (Washington) in prison for killing a man, and a few others, one of whom responsible for the death of his wife and daughter, is put into a virtual reality simulation against a psychotic being (Crowe), who is let into the real world by an asswipe who wants to get back at his bosses or something, and now the mano-a-mano is on in the real world (and, another former movie reference, Escape from NY: finish the mission, get a full pardon, but don't mind the chip in your head that might kill you).
It's likely the highpoint of Leonard's career, which may not be saying much, but putting together cool virtual reality sequences (the opening is most thrilling) and two high-caliber stars makes for some fun Saturday afternoon viewing..
Denzel Washington's Parker Barnes, hired to track down a virtual villain let loose in the real world, is, surprise, himself an ex-cop.
The villain in question, Russell Crowe's SID 6.7, is a composite of dozens of murderers, including, surprise, the killer of Barnes' wife and daughter.
And Crowe's over-the-top bad guy is just too much at times, though perhaps that was the point.But there are some good things to be said about VIRTUOSITY.
Washington's performance is nearly the saving grace the film needs, even though our star sometimes seems to be asking the same question as the audience: What is he doing in a picture like this?
Director Brett Leonard keeps things moving at a reasonable pace, though the film sometimes feels a bit too much like THE LAWNMOWER MAN, his highly disappointing entry from three years prior.VIRTUOSITY is not a completely lost cause, but it is stunningly average considering the talent involved.
And as a result when you add pretty ordinary acting, cliched special effects and action sequences and a really poor script that just tries too hard to be cool you come away with a really poor film.
She is indeed the mother of the little girl, that Sid uses ultimately in trying to kill Parker Barnes (played by Washington).
Linch gets so little character development that we couldn't care less for her.Overall, the movie is entertaining, but only because of Russell Crowe.
I recently managed to hunt down a copy of the dvd (ah yes the joys of widescreen and stereo sound!) This movie is by far (in my opinion) Russell Crowe's and Denzel Washington's best movie.
It's much like a dark comedy, and is done in an almost comic-book fashion, with SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe) stealing the show with a top-notch performance.
Denzel Washington is Parker Barnes, a convict who can gain his freedom by destroying Sid 6.7, a virtual reality killer who gets into the real world.
I like Denzel Washington, and it seemed to have a decent plot, that though it seemed silly, I thought would explain itself better in the film.
I even thought the film would be good despite Russell Crowe's presence (I think he's full of himself).
The reason to watch "Virtuosity" is Russell Crowe, who's in top shape here (women will agree for sure) and clearly having the time of his life.
The premise of the film is that a police training, virtual reality serial killer, programmed with over 200 personalities, gets put into a robotic body and reeks havoc on LA.
What makes this interesting is Russel Crowe's character polarization towards the use of fear, which is emotion and contrary to the movie plot theory using only logic and power of that logic.
Denzel Washington comes off flat as a pancake here while Russell Crowe steals every scene he's in.
Denzel Washington looks bored the whole time and Kelly Linch's character is written autrociously, but Russell Crowe is having a ball and he is so hot, hot, hot.
VirtuosityIf real life were like a video game you would get gold coins and eternal life for committing mass murder.Unfortunately, as the avatar in this sci-fi thriller is about to find out, the real world has real consequences.SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe) is a VR composite of serial killers, including the man who murdered the wife and daughter of Lt. Barnes (Denzel Washington), who is now serving time for his retaliation.
So when SID escapes the virtual world and goes on a killing spree, it only makes sense to send Barnes, and a criminal psychologist (Kelly Lynch), after the astute android.
Ahead of its time, this action-heavy, tech savvy cat-and-mouse cavort with a memorable performance from Crowe is crippled only by its clichéd cops and robbers script and by the clunky special effects of the mid-1990s.Incidentally, there would've been more bloodshed if Ask Jeeves had escaped into our reality.
I hope none of the other reviews spoiled it.) To shoot you straight, in 2018, this movie is just a silly parade of nonsense, and not even Crowe or Washington can save this from a bad act.
He and John Donovan are test subjects tracking down serial killer program SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe) in virtual reality training in the Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre.
With SID being free in the real world, the Commissioner offers Barnes a full pardon to bring SID back to virtual reality with the help of criminal psychologist Dr. Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch).I really love the ideas in this movie.
Sid played by Russell Crowe is the type of character you expect in this type of movie and gives the movie some spice which helps it from being a completely terrible movie and waste of time.
If you are thinking of renting this movie remember that there ARE plot holes, and bad moments in the film as well as funny moments too, just don't take it too seriously..
Sid 6.7 wreaks all sorts of havoc and only one man could stop him is ex-cop turned convict (Two Time Oscar-Winner:Denzel Washington) might be able to stop him.Directed by Brett Leonard (Hideaway, The Lawnmover Man, Man-Thing) made an entertaining if forgettable futuristic action thriller.
The story, on an overall scale, is too slow and dreary for its own good but this movie has excellent special effects, awesome action scenes and a fantastic musical score that make it marginally worth a look anyway.
The good guy in this film is Denzel Washington's Parker Barnes, a cop assigned to catch the bad guy, Russell Crowe's SID 6.7.
Some other strong points of this film is it's good pacing along with some decent effects (for the time) and, like I had mentioned, Russell Crowe as the bad guy is pretty entertaining, although at times, also quite chilling.So, I think what you have to consider if you are trying to determine whether you want to spend your time watching this or not, is whether you like this TYPE of Science Fiction.
First Russell Crowe wasn't even getting work before this movie.
We are taught through the genius of this film that if man does one day create a virtual man comprised of over 200 serial killers, that perhaps that man should not be brought into the real world.Denzel Washington was good, but not The Preacher's Wife good.
If you enjoyed Russell Crowe's Gladiator arena viciousness, watch Virtuosity as well -- its an effective display of mean streak :) Denzel is his standard bland cop.
Terrible Denzel Washington-Russell Crowe Vehicle.
"Virtuosity" is a pure mess of a movie about a computer-generated killer (Russell Crowe) who escapes cyber-space and becomes a threat in the real world.
The only real thing that might make someone check this film out is the fact that fellow 1999 Best Actor nominees Washington and Crowe worked together on this yawner.
Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington are both good in this movie, Crowe as a jolly killer and Washington as the jaded cop.
Denzel Washington has done better, and he really does not shine in this film, but he outshines Russell Crowe by about a googolplex (ten to the googol'th power).
Denzel Washington Week: Day 1Nothing says the 90's like Virtuosity, a big hunk of circuit board sleaze and cheese that is so of it's time that it's hard to watch it these days without believing it to be some kind of spoof.
Crowe is Sid.6, a virtual reality program molded from the personalities of several different serial killers and designed to basically wreak havoc.
The head of the Institute (William Forsythe) has the brilliant idea to recruit ex-cop whack job Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington) to hunt Sid down and destroy him.
Admittedly, I enjoyed Russel Crowe's performance as he has some of the best one-liners in the film but with such a below average script and action, the experience is that of dullness, uninspired, trite and true film making that would make Ed Wood proud to this day(if he were alive that is).I tried to like it.
There's one main reason to see this film; sure, the story is interesting, the sci-fi concepts innovative despite their derivative nature, and the performances are all quite good, but it still remains undisputable to this viewer that Russell Crowe as SID 6.7 is a performance not to be missed.SID is a great villain; he is repulsive, revelling in death and pain, but at the same time charismatic and very, very funny.
By the time this film got a cinematic release in Australia, Denzel Washington's visage had been firmly relegated into the background of the theatrical poster in favour of Russell Crowe.
But the film is valiantly rescued by a brilliant performance from Crowe, who eats up the character and his surroundings like there may well be no tomorrow (and in his position at the time in Hollywood, there usually isn't).
In this film the best actor is, no people not Denzel Washington, he is merely OK, but Cameron Crowe, he rocks.
While I have nothing against action films, I usually like a bit of intrigue and clever plotting to help move things along.
Not so in this film.The sole reason to watch is for the special effects, of which there are lots, as the film uses virtual reality as a basis (much like its predecessor, THE LAWNMOWER MAN).
Washington is a good actor and is fine in his role, but Russell Crowe, as the villain, is very obnoxious (intentional) to the extent that he made me want to switch off.
Both Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe are 'A-list' actors who have been in some top-notch pictures during their careers.
End of movie.What could have been a fascinating journey through a virtual reality dream-like world, turns into an ordinary cop-criminal encounter featuring a series of dull chase scenes, once SID becomes a real-life android.
When SID manages to inject his personality into a nano-machine android, it appears that Barnes might be the only one who can stop him............The film is total rubbish from beginning to end, and Washington allegedly only starred in it because his son wanted him to do it, but to see two wonderful actors star in such exploitative nonsense, you cannot help but love every second of it.Crowe has a mouthful of scenery in every frame he's in, and he appears to be channelling every comic book villain portrayed before 1995.
Anyway I had a lot of fun with Russell Crowe's psychopathic killer android and Denzel Washington's ex-cop ex-convict hero.7/10.
Fun Little Flick With Great Performances From Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe!.
This was a fun little flick with great performances from Washington and Crowe!.
It is a little cheesy at times, but it's all a lot of fun due to a great performance from Denzel Washington, and a delightful over the top performance from Russel Crowe.it started out rather average, but it soon turns up a notch, and becomes exciting and thrilling the rest of the way!.
i saw this movie way back,close to when it came out.i loved it then.however after watching it today,i'm not sure why.i was just not impressed.true there was some action,but mostly the movie was loud music and noises,more than anything.it was directed by Brett Leonard,and you never no what you might get with him.for instance he directed the Brillint VR masterpiece,"Lawnmower Man"but then he was also behind the dreadful(and i mean dreadful)man-thing.while"Vituosity" is nowhere near as bad as "Man-thing,it is also nowhere near as good as "Lawnmower Man.the strongest aspect of the movie is Russel Crowe's Performance as the villain.you can tell he really immersed himself in the role and had a lot of fun with it.Denzel Washinton plays the hero in the movie,and while his performance wasn't horrible,he has done better work.Also in the cast are Kelly Lynch and William Forsythe.Forsythe plays a good guy in this movie,a departure for him,however his role is very small.now,to the negative aspects of the movie.there were many boring moments and it was just loud for the sake of being loud,maybe distracting the viewer into thinking something is happening,when nothing of any consequence is happening.anyway,i'd have to say this movie average at best,therefore 5/10.
Even though the concept was a little thin, Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe rescued the film with their performances..
Denzel Washington stars in apretty thankless role as Parker Barnes, a vengeance-ridden cop who has to stop a vicious killer named Sid (a deliciously over-the-top Russell Crowe).
But the film's real winners go to Russell Crowe and its creativeout-of-the-ordinary premise. |
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