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tt0081036 | The Lathe of Heaven | In Portland, Oregon, in the near future, George Orr is charged with misuse of multiple prescription medications, which he was taking to keep himself from dreaming; he volunteers for psychiatric care to avoid prosecution, and is assigned to the care of licensed oneirologist William Haber. Orr's explanation of his drug abuse is incredible: he has known since age 17 that his dreams change reality, and tries to prevent himself from dreaming because he fears their effects.
Haber initially considers Orr's fear as a delusional symptom of neurosis or psychosis, referring to him as "possibly an intelligent schizophrenic". He puts Orr into a hypnotic trance, and encourages him to have an "effective dream" to record his brain function.
When he realizes Orr is telling the truth, Haber begins to use Orr's "effective dreams" to first create a prestigious, well-funded institute run by himself, then to attempt to solve various social problems. These solutions unravel quickly: Haber suggests that Orr dream of an end to racism (resulting in a world where everyone's skin becomes a uniform shade of gray), a solution to overpopulation (resulting in a plague wiping out three-fourths of the human population), the end to all conflict on Earth (resulting in an alien invasion uniting mankind).
Only after numerous failed attempts to "make the world right", Haber admits to Orr he believes in Orr's power. Having analyzed Orr's supremely complex dreaming brainwaves, Haber begins creating a machine that will similarly enhance his own and allow him to remake reality directly.
Orr turns to lawyer Heather LeLache for help in getting out of his government-mandated treatments with Haber. LeLache doubts Orr's sanity, but agrees to help him, eventually becoming an ally.
As Haber continues to use Orr to create change in human society, Orr remembers a dream he experienced years ago, which is briefly portrayed at the opening of the film (and which, it turns out, is in fact reality): the world was destroyed in a nuclear war, and Orr had been dying from radiation poisoning. In his dying moments, Orr dreams a world where the war did not happen, resulting in the events of the film as we saw them.
Haber enters the final version of his machine for directing dreams, and learns this truth, driving him mad. Orr had joined him in the dream state, and was able to change the world back to a relatively normal version - not destroyed, and not severely altered.
The end of the film shows Orr working in an antique store run by an alien, with LeLache coming in to browse. She has no memory of him, but agrees to have lunch with him. They encounter Haber, wheelchair bound, on their way to lunch, and Haber recognizes Orr, but cannot come out of his catatonia. | alternate reality | train | wikipedia | I had public television on several days ago (March 10, 2001) and "Lathe of Heaven" was starting on their series "Movies Worth Taping".
It was made in 1987 as the first made-for-public-TV film, and is based on a novel by Ursula Le Guin.This movie explores the notion of "effective dreaming", where one's dreams actually come true.
When he has these dreams, he wakes to find that his dreamt-up situations are now not only reality, but other people suddenly have adapted as if this reality has been with the world for some time.George is traumatized by these dreams, and seeks the help of Dr. William Haber (Kevin Conway).
Dr. Haber's intentions are good, to harness the power of these effective dreams to the betterment of the world, but he clearly abuses the doctor-patient relationship and hypnotizes George to have specific kinds of dreams.
One motto of this film might be "be careful what you dream about"!I found the special effects sometimes interesting, but often heavy-handed and not so smoothly executed.
"The Lathe of Heaven" doesn't have the fresh and exciting visual effects of earlier science fiction films like "2001" or later ones, but is an interesting film that is a must see for science fiction fans..
Bruce Davison (recently the Senator in "X-men") played the protagonist, George Orr. And various Metroplex locations stood in for Portland in the near-future year of 2002.
Because if he does dream a special kind of dream, an "effective" dream, it changes reality "all the way back to the Stone Age".Dr. William Haber is an oneirologist: a dream specialist.
If you check amazon.com, as I did last night, you will find that this is a bald-faced lie: TLoH will be released on VHS and DVD later this month, with the interviews and all.The only thing that burned my butt about the film that I saw last night was the one change they made.
It takes quite a bit of thought to really follow the plot if you haven't read the book, but it's worth watching several times.
This wasn't because of special effects, lasers or destructive monsters, but because of the psychological element of control and power that plagues the mind.Based on the phenomenal book by Ursula Le Guin, the film does the book justice.
Though, in the end, a book is a book and a movie is a movie, lovers of the novel will not be disappointed.If you love a great story, full of conflict, tension and surprises, you will enjoy this romp through the mind of George Orr and his inherent angst and strife.
No more rip-offs of rip-offs of old movie serials: we were finally going to see "real" science fiction on television again (for the first time since the '60's); not the compromise of commercial television but the kind of SF that could only come from Public Television.
The story is wildly original: what would the world be like if your dreams all came true- not your daydreams, but the uncontrollable ones at night?.
I was quite please since now I know what to look for.This movie is true classic Science Fiction right up there with Forbidden Planet and many others and has had a profound effect on my concepts and perception of reality and recommend it not only to sci-fi enthusiasts but people who are into psychology studies too.
Movies like The Lathe of Heaven, Brazil, and other such psycho-dramas can help us to understand ourselves in very unconventional ways..
I first saw this film on PBS when I was 15 and was totally engrossed as it was one of the most unique and compelling movies I'd ever seen.
I was surprised to find that it was still as absorbing as it was in 1980.The story revolves around George Orr (played very well by Bruce Davison of X-Men) , a simple, ordinary and good-hearted guy who feels cursed with the ability to dream "effective dreams" or dreams that change the face of reality.
This was finally re-shown here on OPB in Portland during the spring membership drive after it's first and only showing in 1980 or so (apparently it was the most requested show of all time) and it is a rather effective piece of science fiction.George Orr, a simple man by most standards, has dreams that change the world, and after overdosing on drugs trying to quell these dreams, he is charged to the care of Dr. Haber -- a well meaning and philanthropic therapist.
Dr. Haber recognizes George's ability to change the future via dreaming of alternate realities, and he adopts a plan to create a perfect world by suggesting dreams of ridding humanity of the scourges that plague it (overpopulation, racism, war, etc) to George through hypnosis.
George in his simplicity realizes that there is no "perfect world", and that the meaning of human existence is not necessarily to create a perfect world, a concept that Dr. Haber fails to grasp.It's a movie that's very definitive of the science fiction of the time, watching it made me think of Huxley's Brave New World, and even THX 1138, although comparisons can hardly be drawn.
You can see George go from a psychological mess to a man with a surprising strength of will, while Doctor Haber becomes less interested in helping George with his problems and more interested in using him to change the world...with or without George's consent.The special effects are not as bad as I've been told and they don't really distract from the story.
Don't be surprised if you find yourself wondering if you could have done better in either character's place, or paying closer attention to your dreams right after you see this film..
As the die-hard science fiction fans know, special effects are great, but without a great story, it won't stand the test of time.Based on Ursula K.
And easily one of the very best made for t.v. movies ever.The effects are low budget, but that's not important, the story is amazing.
Great science fiction frames the familiar, in a new context and sheds truth on things we were unable to recognize in their mundane form.This story moved me, in the way the book Stranger in a Strange Land did.
Like the first time I read 2001 (The movie is meaningless without the book).It is a story about reality, how we perceive it, how we shape it.
This is of course told in an abstracted way, but the message is clear.If you are looking for crazy robots and sleek starships, move on.If you are looking for a thought provoking story, that will stick with you for days, or as I see with myself and others here, decades, then this is a cult classic that you simply can not miss.I would have given it a 10, but the effects are low budget, though that does not make it any less amazing..
I absolutely loved this movie when I first saw in on TV in the 70's and looked for it for years before I finally found and bought a VHS copy.In many ways, I think this is the finest bit of SF ever to be put on TV.
This eschewed all of them and instead provided a thought-provoking and sometimes funny look at man's relation to reality.Its difficult to say more without spoiling some of the more wonderful moments of the film, but I very much enjoyed seeing how the various characters interacted with each other throughout the film as the circumstances changed..
Now that it is at last available on video and DVD, I candefinitely say that it is one of the best science fiction films ofall time (and you'll note I do NOT say "Sci-Fi").
This movie is a piece of sci-fi "heaven." The plot, special effects, and overall feel to the movie leaves the viewer in a state of complete contemplation of what could be if our thoughts could become reality through our dreams.
I thought this was one of the best science fiction movies of all time.
This movie left such a strong impression on me when I watched it in 1980 that when the DVD was released a couple years ago I was surprised how much of the film I remembered.The story is less straight sci-fi and more a format for Le Guin to explore the philosophical differences between the elite masters of technology trying to shape our world and ordinary human beings who can only live in it.
In this film, it is the Orr-dinary human being who has the power, even if he can't quite control it.George Orr (ordinary?) has a zen-like outlook on life that ultimately allows him to survive his world-altering dreams with his sanity intact, the same can't be said for...well you'll have to watch and find out!.
It's a significant sci-fi film and one whose plot (considering the book was written in the early 60's) has "inspired" (ripped-off is another synonym that comes to mind) many sci-fi tales since.That being said, I just want to say that it's not the substitution of The Beatles "With a Little Help From My Friends" with a bland cover version (the singer sounds like a Randy Newman clone) that angers me so much--I realize due to right's costs this may have been the only affordable way this film could see the light of day again, it's the fact that nowhere on the DVD notes or even in the disclaimer at the beginning of the film explaining how they had to rescue the film from a copy since the original print was lost does it even ACKNOWLEDGE they had to make a substitution!
George Orr, a dreamer that could turn dreams into reality(even if he was not at the Lab of Dr. Habber); was the main character in this mysterious scifi TV movie.
A little cloudy in parts but the plot almost dictates that this will be the case - the observer has to keep up with current events as they change each time George dreams a new reality.For a die hard sci-fi fan such as myself, this vision has a good dark-future feeling to it much in the equilibrium style with many elements of the "butterfly effect" plot evident.A fairly slow moving pace, good acting all round and of course the beautiful Margaret Avery as the lead female.If you're a sci-fier and enjoyed the butterfly effect then give this movie a watch - I thoroughly enjoyed it..
I think about this film every time I hear the song "With a Little Help From My Friends," which played an important part in the movie.
It is a great example of a low budget science fiction film that succeeds on every level.
But Lathe stands on a good story, an interesting morality play, and it doesn't feel like a video game.
If you see only 1 science fiction movie in your lifetime, let it be the 1980 The Lathe of Heaven based on Ursula K.
For those who saw it on PBS (aired 12 times, I think), there was nothing like the scene when George runs up on the roof to see the clouds clearing with the original "with a little help from my friends" playing in the background.
Most of the movie was pulled from the book but the story is a bit different.Do NOT waste your time on the remake, it is terrible.
Though the movie is clearly a product of its time, the ideas seem to have a perpetual life and are even more relevant to me today (i.e do-gooder interventions, futility of over-control of complex events, and enlightenment to those who choose not to intervene).Nice work PBS and you deserve all the credit for making the stretch to keep us entertained.
I often hear, or read, reviews that say something to the effect, "It was nothing like the book," or "They followed the book exactly." To those reviews I say "Who cares?" The Lathe of Heaven is an excelent example of how following the book exactly does not mean that the movie is excellent.
I like it far better than "Snowcrash," or "Neuromancer." This movie is poorly acted, has special effects that are laughable, was edited by a heavy handed oaf without an artistic bone in his body, and has a soundtrack so bad that the "Flash Gordon" sound track looks good in comparison.
Not all that long after it was written, this movie adaptation was done for original TV broadcast, so it has a low-budget feel to it, and the lead actors (Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, Margaret Avery) weren't all that well known at the time.
It's such a great story and so easily translatable to the screen for today's SF-familiar audiences that you can easily imagine a much bigger-budget superb production being done now complete with advanced CGI that would do justice to the hero George Orr's world-changing visions.George Orr (Davison) is a perfectly ordinary, nice, low-key guy except for one thing: when pressed into it, he has "effective dreams" that change reality and rewrite history.
George's torturous journey through one history after another and eventual resolution are the substance of the movie.This production disappeared for a long time after its original airing, but finally now you can see it on YouTube.
A sensitive, thoughtful adaptation of the Ursula LeGuin classic about dreams, power, responsibility, Taoism, reality, unreality, and being in & at one with the world, it's blessed with three strong & subtle performances.
The film knows that real science-fiction isn't about special effects; it's about people & ideas.
Builds slowly, nicely done, but could have been much more tightly edited, hopefully the new version will be an improvement.The story, which deals with the nature of reality, is excellent, and I recommend the book, but the execution of this made for TV movie is below average, and tends to put me to sleep..
The idea is interesting, a man can change reality with his dreams but these changes are at the mercy of his subconscious so we get an easy excuse for disasters and surprises.The special effects are awful, really cheap and comical at time.The acting is good, only a small cast who are fairly convincing in their roles.The plot is also good, the characters are believable in their reactions, some trying to control things others to escape.The film is let down by a poor ending, it is weak and silly and makes the film pointless..
This adaptation of Le Guin's best book tells the intriguing story of a man whos dreams change reality and a psychiatrist who uses that gift/curse for his own ends.It's not a slick production, being mainly 2 or 3 people having conversations and some dream sequences that attempt to tell large stories with small special effects, but it's still very effective.
I first watched this movie with my dad on its original broadcast, and the only reason I understand the scene is because he, having read the book several times (he taught a class in sci-fi literature), knew exactly what was going on.
PBS's first ever made-for-TV movie is an ambitious adaptation of a classic sci-fi novel by Ursula K.
One can go a little bit more metaphysical and consider that the psychologist is actually a person in a reality dreamed of by George, so its all, in a sense about him, not about the world.The film, however, would have felt dated even in 1980, I think.
The plot follows the story faithfully - after all Ursula LeGuin consulted on the movie - but doesn't bring anything new.Bottom line: a very intriguing and thought provoking idea, but a less stellar adaptation..
Why couldn't the producers license the copyright to use the actual Beatle recording of,"Little Help from My Friends,"instead of some cheap knock off?I have my own hypothesis about the film, George Orr experiencing terminal radiation sickness from the global nuclear conflagration is merely dreaming up these alternate realities in the few nanoseconds prior to his own death..
Once George wakens, he is the only person to remember the alternative past, that is until he visits a psychiatrist who realizes the potential of George's dreams and sets out to 'right' the world with fantastic consequences.This film is full of ambiguous metaphor and allegory so that everyone seems to see something a little different.
So all in all it really wasn't that bizarre for George to be thinking about aliens because even though the film is set in 1998, it's very much a product of the 70's.The copy I watched had an interview with the author, Leguin, who declined to interpret the book/movie as she wasn't entirely sure of all the meanings both might hold.
For non-space opera/bullet-time sci-fi fans, this is right up there with SOLARIS (either version) or GATTACA (another underrated classic; a deft blend of BRAVE NEW WORLD and film noir).
We remember the line when he tells George Orr, "we are going to make the world right." But the elemental forces of nature cannot be controlled by neither God or man, and regardless of our noble intentions, there are dark consequences every time we try do to something to better ourselves.
The interpretation I made the first time I viewed the film was this, although you may interpret any which way you'd like - the individual (George Orr), each of us, man or woman, is an instrument or sum of nature and we are as if part of a bigger dream or series of dreams that is our lifetime, the dreams ending completely when we die.
Like one of George Orr's dreams..
LeGuin's novel about George Orr, a young man whose dreams literally do come true and a scheming, manipulative psychiatrist who attempts to control him for his own purposes.
Once we understand the trick of the story – the inadvertently evil Dr. Haber's attempt to force 'effective dreamer' George Orr to have dreams that will change the world for the better keeps inevitably backfiring – the film gets repetitive. |
tt0106417 | Gekijô-ban - Bishôjo senshi Sêrâ Mûn R | === Make Up! Sailor Guardian ===
Usagi and Chibiusa overhear two girls talking about the Sailor Guardians after they see a poster. As the girls debate over the smartest, most elegant, strongest, and the leader of the Sailor Guardians, Usagi grandly claims those titles for herself. Chibiusa shakes her head at Usagi's delusion. Clips appear from the debut of each Sailor Guardian, and that girl's image song plays in the background. When even Tuxedo Mask has been mentioned, and the girls are about to leave, Usagi butts in on their conversation and asks them directly about Sailor Moon. The girls give a series of glowing compliments about Sailor Moon, but unlike their analysis of the other Sailor Guardians, they also list her faults. After the girls leave, Usagi sarcastically apologizes for being a clumsy cry-baby and then bursts into exaggerated tears.
=== Promise of the Rose ===
A young Mamoru Chiba hands a mysterious boy a rose before he disappears, vowing to bring Mamoru a flower. In the present, Mamoru meets up with Usagi Tsukino and the Sailor Guardians at the Jindai Botanical Garden. Usagi attempts to kiss Mamoru, but when he suspects the other girls of spying on him, he walks off outside alone.
The stranger appears from the garden's fountain and takes Mamoru's hands into his own, which makes Usagi uncomfortable. Usagi tries to break the man's grasp from Mamoru, but is knocked down. The man vows that no one will prevent him from keeping his promise before disappearing again. Mamoru tells Usagi that the stranger's name is Fiore (フィオレ, Fiore). At Rei Hino's temple, the Sailor Guardians discuss an asteroid which has started to approach Earth and on which Luna and Artemis have discovered traces of vegetal life. The talk turns into rumors about Mamoru's and Fiore's possible relationship, while Usagi thinks about how Mamoru had told her that he had no family and was alone, and how she had promised him she would be his family from now on.
Fiore sends his flower-monster henchwoman, Glycina (グリシナ), to Tokyo to drain the population's life-energy, but the Sailor Guardians free them and destroy the monster. Fiore appears, revealing his responsibility for the attack, and uses a flower called a Xenian (キセニアン, Kisenian) before severely injuring the Sailor Guardians. Mamoru attempts to talk Fiore out of fighting but the Xenian controls Fiore's mind. After Mamoru saves Usagi from certain death by intercepting his attack, Fiore takes Mamoru to an asteroid rapidly approaching Earth and begins to revive him in a crystal filled with liquid. While in the crystal, Mamoru remembers meeting Fiore after his parents died in a car accident. Mamoru had previously assumed that he had made up the boy as an imaginary friend. Fiore explains that he had to leave Mamoru because of the Earth's unsuitable atmosphere; Mamoru gave Fiore a rose before disappearing. Fiore searched the galaxy to find a flower for Mamoru, finding the Xenian in the process. Seeking revenge on the humans for his loneliness, Fiore returns to Earth.
Meanwhile, Luna and Artemis tell the Sailor Guardians that the Xenian can destroy planets using weak-hearted people. Ami Mizuno realizes that the energy from the asteroid matches the flower-monster's evil energy, deducing that Fiore has hidden there. The Sailor Guardians decide to rescue Mamoru. Despite her initial reluctance, the Sailors and Chibiusa convince Usagi to save Mamoru and confront Fiore.
After the Sailor Guardians fly to the asteroid, Fiore reveals his plans to scatter flower-seeds to drain humanity's energy on Earth. The Sailors Guardians then fight hundreds of flower-monsters, but they end up captured. When Fiore orders Usagi to surrender, she is unable to feel his loneliness; Fiore begins to drain her life-force. Mamoru escapes and saves Sailor Moon by throwing a rose at Fiore. The rose embedded in Fiore's chest blossoms, freeing him from the Xenian's control. The flowers on the asteroid disappear, but it continues to hurtle towards Earth. Usagi uses the Silver Crystal to transform into Princess Serenity to change the course of the asteroid. In an attempt to stop Usagi, Fiore soon realizes that when Usagi and Mamoru were children, she gave Mamoru the rose that was once given to him after Fiore had left. With Fiore and the Xenian destroyed by the Silver Crystal, Usagi, Mamoru and the Sailor Guardians combine their powers to divert the asteroid away from the Earth. The Silver Crystal is shattered and Usagi dies of exhaustion. Back on Earth, despite Luna and Artemis' concern over why the Sailor Guardians are taking too long, Chibiusa assures them that the girls are all right.
In the aftermath, the Guardians and Mamoru are devastated by Usagi's death, but Fiore reappears and thanks Mamoru. Using a nectar-filled flower with Fiore's life-energy, Mamoru wets his lips with the nectar and kisses Usagi, reviving her and repowering the Silver Crystal. Fiore, reduced to the form of a child again, returns to space to live in peace. | romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0252684 | Manic | After brutally beating another teen with a baseball bat during a baseball game, Lyle Jensen, an impulsive and aggressive teen, is admitted to the juvenile psychiatric ward of a hospital along with other troubled teens: Tracy, Chad, Michael, Kenny, and Sara. Lyle is placed in a room with Kenny, a reticent 13-year-old, and form some semblance of a sibling relationship. Lyle has problems adjusting to the confinements of the institution and it is Dr. David Monroe's job to get them to talk in group therapy sessions.
Lyle finds himself attracted to Tracy. She is reluctant to become close to him due to her low self-esteem and fear of him. Tracy has constant terrible nightmares. Lyle becomes curious about why she screams at night and later finds out she is a victim of rape. In their room, Kenny and Lyle begin a discussion about their fathers, at which point Kenny announces that his stepfather is going to visit him. After a disastrous visit, it is revealed that the stepfather sexually molests him. Due to a confrontation between Dr. Monroe, Kenny, and his stepfather, Kenny is transferred to another unit of the institution.
A group meeting takes place in which the patients and Dr. Monroe discuss their worries about the situation with Kenny. Michael, a violent gangster, feels no empathy for Kenny and states that he received what he deserved. At this point, Lyle jumps up and attacks Michael, but the guards pull them apart. Dr. Monroe becomes upset at Lyle and begins throwing chairs around the room, demonstrating to Lyle that reacting out of anger accomplishes nothing. The two later have a conversation in which the doctor apologizes.
During his stay, Lyle had formed a friendship with Chad, who suffers from manic depressive disorder and agoraphobia. The two make plans to go to Amsterdam with the money from Chad's trust fund. Later, Chad and Sara have an argument over Van Gogh's painting "Wheat Field with Crows." Sara states that the painting represents freedom, while Chad states that the painting represents depression and confinement. Sara is soon released and departs from the psychiatric ward, leaving Tracy heartbroken. When it comes close to Chad's eighteenth birthday, he backs out of the plan to go to Amsterdam stating that running off to another place will not change his life, however, he encourages Lyle to go ahead without him. The day before his release, Chad cuts himself while reading The Myth of Sisyphus. When discovered, he attacks one of the guards and cuts the guard's neck causing him to be removed from the ward. During the scuffle between Chad and the guard, the guard drops his keys, which Lyle takes without notice. That night, Lyle uses the keys to get into Tracy's room. He apologizes and the two embrace and kiss.
The day of his escape, Lyle searches for Tracy. Unable to find her, he asks Michael of her whereabouts. Michael inquires if Lyle has raped Tracy yet since "she wants it." This enrages Lyle, and moments later he breaks into Michael's room and attacks him, leaving him lying bloody in a corner. When he leaves Michael's room, he sees Tracy and tells her that he was looking for her. She says nothing and does nothing as he unlocks the door of the institution and runs out the gate. Lyle leaves the institution and makes his way to a bus stop. He waits at the bus terminal and when it pulls up, there is a poster of Van Gogh's "Wheat Field with Crows" on the side of it. Seeing the painting, Lyle is reminded of the argument between Chad and Sara. Lyle does not board the bus and instead walks back to the institution. | romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0067411 | McCabe & Mrs. Miller | In 1902 Washington State, a gambler named John McCabe (Warren Beatty) arrives mysteriously and mumbling to himself in the town of Presbyterian Church (named after its only substantial building, a tall but mostly unused [in the film] chapel). McCabe quickly takes a dominant position over the town's simple-minded and lethargic miners, thanks to his aggressive personality and rumors that he is a gunfighter.
McCabe establishes a makeshift brothel, consisting of three prostitutes purchased for $200 from a pimp in the nearby town of Bearpaw. British cockney Constance Miller (Julie Christie) arrives in town and tells him she could run a brothel for him more profitably; unknown to him she is addicted to opium. The two become financially successful business partners, open a higher class establishment, including a bathhouse for hygiene, and a love interest develops between the two.
As the town becomes richer, Sears (Michael Murphy) and Hollander (Antony Holland), a pair of agents from the Harrison Shaughnessy mining company in Bearpaw, arrive to buy out McCabe's business, as well as the surrounding zinc mines. Shaughnessy is notorious for having people killed when they refuse to sell. McCabe does not want to sell at their initial price of $5,500, but he overplays his hand in the negotiations in spite of Mrs. Miller's warnings that he is underestimating the violence that will ensue if they do not take the money.
Three bounty hunters—Butler (Hugh Millais), Breed (Jace Van Der Veen) and Kid (Manfred Schulz)—are dispatched by the mining company to kill McCabe, as well as make an example of him, but he refuses to abandon the town. Clearly afraid of the gunmen when they arrive in town, McCabe initially tries to appease them. Reflecting back to early in the film when he's reputed to be a gunfighter (aka Pudgy McCabe), who shot someone in a card game, Butler confronts McCabe about the incident. After hearing McCabe's story, with the addition that the gun was a Derringer, Butler proclaims that McCabe has never killed anyone in his life. McCabe later tries to find Sears and Hollander to try to settle on a price, but upon learning that they have left the area, he visits lawyer Clement Samuels (William Devane) to try to obtain legal protection from Harrison Shaughnessy. Although the lawyer agrees to help McCabe bust the mining company's monopoly on the area, McCabe returns to town convinced that he must face the bounty hunters on his own.
When a lethal confrontation becomes inevitable, McCabe arms himself and hides in the chapel during the early morning hours, but is evicted by the armed pastor, who is then shot by Butler in a case of mistaken identity. A broken lantern starts a fire in the church and the townspeople rush to help extinguish it. McCabe continues his evasion and, by shooting them in the back from hidden positions, kills two of the would-be assassins, one of whom wounds McCabe as he falls. As the townsfolk mobilize to fight the chapel fire, McCabe plays cat-and-mouse with the last gunman, Butler. McCabe is shot in the back and mortally wounded but feigns death and kills Butler with a Derringer when he approaches to confirm McCabe's identity. While the townspeople celebrate extinguishing the fire, McCabe dies alone in the snow and Mrs. Miller visits an opium den. | cult, humor, murder, atmospheric, romantic | train | wikipedia | Leonard Cohen's songs don't seem an ordinary choice for a western, but Robert Altman was no ordinary director, and his "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" was definitely not your traditional western.
And, more than anything, it's a love story.John McCabe (Warren Beatty), charismatic but no so smart, sets up a whorehouse in the Old West.
Constance Miller (Julie Christie), beautiful, strong and determined, soon arrives in town and offers to run the "business" and share the profits with McCabe.
It's the beginning of his, her and the town's doom.Even when exploring such a visual genre as the western (and visually the film is also very compelling, with great use of real snow and a beautifully shot "duel" on a bridge), Altman uses one of his most notorious trademarks: the overlapping dialogue, commonly used in ensembles but also wisely used in a more intimate, character-driven story like this.
Beatty gives one of his most subtle, captivating performances, and Christie empowers Mrs. Miller with flesh and blood - she was definitely one of the most beautiful and intriguing actresses of her time, alongside Faye Dunaway and Jane Fonda, who set up a standard for beautiful, strong women who were much more than sheer eye candy.
So, next time someone says Clint Eastwood reinvented the western with his masterpiece "Unforgiven", remember: 21 years before, Altman had experimented and succeeded on that with his "McCabe & Mrs. Miller".
The first thing to know about Robert Altman's revisionist Western "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is that it takes place in Washington state.
True to its title, the story centers on gambler and brothel owner John McCabe (Warren Beatty) and his shrewd business partner, Mrs. Constance Miller (Julie Christie).
Greater than the sum of its parts, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is memorable for the pervasive but understated mood that runs through every frame, creating a truly atmospheric and humanistic film..
And unlike most Westerns, which are plot driven, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is less about plot than about the tone or mood of the frontier setting.The film takes place in the Pacific Northwest.
In bucking cinematic tradition, therefore, this film deserves respect, because it is at least unusual, and perhaps even closer in some ways to the ambiance of life on the American frontier than our stereotyped notions, as depicted in typical John Wayne movies.Not that the plot is unimportant.
In those scenes, I think they went overboard with the ultra dim lighting.Strictly atypical for the Western genre, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" provides a pleasant change from cinematic stereotypes, and conveys a different perspective on life in the Old West.
Few westerns have succeeded so strangely yet so completely in evoking a sense of place and time than Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs Miller".
But then "MASH" wasn't a conventional war movie either just as "Nashville" wasn't really about the country music business.As for McCabe himself, Beatty plays him with the same laconic, stammering mannerisms he applies to all his roles, (and which he seems either blessed or cursed with in real life), and which actually makes him a perfect Altman hero, (or anti-hero, if you prefer).
One of the few "cowboys" in the film dies in his underwear.By a long shot, then, this is not your typical western, but it is better.The wooden characters of old are replaced with real people to whom we can relate and about whom we can care.
The West was not the nicest place to live; it was dangerous and inhospitable as it is in McCabe.I could go on and on about how Altman inverts the western film tradition throughout the movie (as well as how he dismantles the notion that capitalism is a good economic and social system), but I will not.
I've lived with it's haunting scenes for a quarter of a century and, as with anything of depth, constantly find new charms in my old love.From the evocative lyrics of the opening score to it's sudden chilling and deadly encounters, this movie lives in your mind long after the final blizzard cloaks the frame.If one is a contrarian I would guess the only thing to do after seeing this for perhaps the fiftieth time is to begin looking for that moment where someone, anyone has put a foot wrong in this production.
I mean, it's pretty clear early on that McCabe is a bit of a buffoon, but I think this is the crucial point in the film when we know we really care about his fate.Wonderfully acted by Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in the lead roles(as well as the supporting cast), being in the hands of Robert Altman, and with some great music by Leonard Cohen, McCabe & Mrs. Miller proves itself as a great, great movie.
And of those that do, most convey style only, not a place, not a whole presentation of the way the world works.This film is about the best example I know where the world is 'real,' the situation governs everything and the primary substance is the presentation of a Shakespearian quality cosmology of fate.The camera moves not so much with the story, but it enters and leaves.
Robert Altman puts his unique spin on the Western, and gives us a haunting and mournful film, and one of the best in his canon.Warren Beatty buries himself underneath a bushy beard and an enormous fur coat to play McCabe, an opportunist who considers himself to have much more business savvy than he actually does.
These two develop a timid affection for one another that's never overtly expressed, but their relationship doesn't have time to prosper, as a trio of hit men arrive to rub out McCabe after he refuses to sell his holdings to a corporation intent on buying him out.Not surprisingly, considering the director, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is a strange film.
The harsh environment is a character itself, and few movies have a more memorable ending, with McCabe engaged in a most unconventional shoot out amid waist-high drifts of snow.Altman is of course interested in debunking the usual Western myths.
Vilmos Zsigmond bathes everything in an ethereal light, and if there are images of icy starkness, there are also reverse images of rich warmth, notably those that take place in the whorehouse itself, which ironically becomes much more of a civilizing agent and cultural epicenter for the small town than the church that figures so prominently in other ways.One of the best from Altman's golden period as a director, and one of the best films to emerge from any director in the 1970s.Grade: A.
Robert Altman's downbeat, new-fangled western from Edmund Naughton's book "McCabe" was overlooked at the time of its release but in the past years has garnered a sterling critical following.
Altman creates a solemn, wintry atmosphere for the movie which gives the audience a certain sense of time and place, but the action in this sorry little town is limited--most of the story being made up of vignettes--and Altman's pacing is deliberately slow.
Robert Altman's almost painfully unromanticized vision of the Old West, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is the kind of film that just isn't made anymore.
Warren Beatty and Julie Christie are impressive as the deeply flawed but still sympathetic title characters, Leonard Cohen's songs fit the murky, tragic mood of the film perfectly (despite having been written and recorded a number of years before), and Altman directs with a sure hand.
The story of entrepreneur John McCabe (Warren Beatty), who sets up a whorehouse in a western town with the help of Constance Miller (Julie Christie) is interesting but ultimately too difficult to be worthwhile.
Warren Beatty plays John McCabe, who sets up a brothel in a small town in the Pacific Northwest around the turn of the century.
It almost doesn't suffice to call "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" a western; it's more surreal and gritty than we would expect.Robert Altman made a masterpiece in the true sense of the word.
There then appears an ex-whore named Mrs Miller (Julie Christie) who offers to use her experience to help McCabe run his business, while sharing in the profits .
During post-production on this film, 'Robert Altman' was having a difficult time finding a proper musical score, until he attended a party where the album "Songs of Leonard Cohen" was playing and noticed that several songs from the album seemed to fit in with the overall mood and themes of the movie .
Colorful and evocative cinematography in Panavisión by classic cameraman Vilmos Zsigmond , giving a rich texture on the Western atmosphere .The motion picture was well directed by Robert Altman who offers an adequate image of Western period , as he deglamorizes ordinary mood with his realist sights .
With its dark imagery and unusual story, it paved the way for modern pieces of art such as Unforgiven, There Will Be Blood and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.Removing all the varnish applied to the Old West, the film gives an honest account of John McCabe, a man who is essentially a gambler.
A heavy western dealing with themes of isolation and redeemers, McCabe and Mrs. Miller came off a touch thematically weighed down.Upon his arrival to the town of Presbyterian Church, gambler John McCabe (Warren Beatty) quickly learns that the town of God is nearly God-less, as the church remains under construction.
The audience eventually starts rooting for McCabe, in hopes that someday find his leaves.All-in-all, I applaud Robert Altman for providing audiences with such a deep film, and bringing such allegory and theme to the western genre.
If only the director had more faith in his audience to reach the conclusions he was intending, rather than weighing down the film with so much symbolism, McCabe and Mrs. Miller could have risen to "Classic" status outside of the western genre.
Julie Christie is a great beauty but here she's deliberately "uglied up" so as to add to the film's perceived authenticity.It's a revisionist western and a good one.
The film begins with McCabe (Warren Beatty) coming into a dirty western mining town and setting up a brothel.
So, in this sense, I am happy to see a film like "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" because it presents a stark contrast to the squeaky clean and silly image we used to get in westerns.
McCabe and Mrs Miller, although it does have a fine story, great direction, a very good script and well realised characters, it is more a mood piece than anything else, and the mood is really quite haunting.
I would recommend this movie for any fan of revisionist westerns, Robert Altman or slow-building, moody films; I wouldn't recommend it for anyone seeking an action-packed, shoot'em up kind of movie..
The end of the film is extremely well done, with the close up of McCabe freezing to death in the snow, as the camera blurs out, and cutting back to Mrs. Miller getting high in the opium den.
Music is by Leonard Cohen and cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond.A gambler and a prostitute become business partners in the remote mining town of Presbyterian Church, as their enterprise booms it comes to the attention of a large mining corporation who want to buy the action.Altman's grim and dirty slice of the Old West (Northwestern here to be precise) is a divisive picture in Western fan circles.
Put up as a flag bearer for the Anti-Western splinter, a mud and rags Oater for terminology purpose, there is no denying the quality on show across the board.Set in bleak winter time, Altman and his crew pour on the atmospherics in practically every frame, with the director using his familiar film making trademarks (overlap conversations, realistic movement of characters in framing shots etc) for maximum impact.
While Zsigmond brilliantly photographs the extreme difference between the homely feel of the interiors, with that of the cold snowy wilderness outside the doors, where the muted colours ooze period flavour.Purposely built for the film, the town of Presbyterian Church is a sea of mud, snow and timber, where the weather is perpetually dank, the surroundings enveloping chief protagonist McCabe like an unearthly portent.
Right from the first shot of 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller', Robert Altman leaves no stone unturned to subvert, toy with and deconstruct every trope of the conventional Western.
Altman shakes up the gender politics by making Julie Christie's character of Mrs. Miller(Constance) a strong, independent woman who is clearly intellectually superior to Mccabe.
Other than work, there is nothing much to do in this area.This film is about a businessman named John McCabe (Warren Beatty) who builds himself a whorehouse in this remote Western town.
McCabe is dim-witted when it comes to business, and I love how Mrs. Miller changes that.Another interesting item about the film is the music.
This town features a Presbyterian Church, which plays a prominent role in the plot and in the ending, where there is a cat-and-mouse shootout.McCabe and Mrs. Miller is an excellent film and one of Altman's masterpieces.
Warren Beatty's performance (not too far from his real life persona)as a small town entrepreneur and part-time pimp, is his best and so is Julie Christie's (as the Madame/original-feminist with more business sense than Beatty).
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Robert Altman's western about the dimwitted McCabe (Warren Beatty) who goes to the woods of Washington to open a whorehouse but since he doesn't know the business too well, he takes in a partner, Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie).
Warren Beatty and Julie Christie really impress as the titular McCabe and Mrs Miller and the rest of the cast are pretty solid too.
Robert Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" came a year after his breakout hit "M.A.S.H." and found him subverting the Western genre.
As for the soundtrack, Leonard Cohen's songs prove to be ideally suited to the film.Ultimately, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is an engrossing Western that doesn't rely on convention.
Few westerns are quite as good as this; Robert Altman's film is a dreamy nightmare western set in the turn of the century in a small woods-town where Mr. McCabe (Warren Beatty in his best performance) arrives to make a profit of starting businesses concerning gambling and women, the latter getting him involved with Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie).
Among these I would include "Short Cuts," "Popeye" and "Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." His two worst efforts, however, are probably his two Western films, "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" (quite possibly the worst Western ever made) and this incredibly overrated film."McCabe" does have some good points, which include terrific attention to detail in art direction-set decoration and Julie Christie's excellent performance, but these are not enough to overcome poorly lit photography, the annoyingly unclear overlapped dialogue, Beatty's poor acting and Leonard Cohen's insipid musical score.
It is part the Leonard Cohen music, part the ambiguity of the characters and part the general indictment of capitalism.Of all of the directors storied films, McCabe is probably the most visually appealing.
The Cohen music made it seem like a "hippified" western in 1971, but like the entire film, has stood the test of time and now seems classic.One last comment about Warren Beatty.
Like: Robert Altman, Leonard Cohen, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.
A wonderful Warren Beatty stars in the title role of two bit gambler John McCabe, who gets the idea to open a saloon & whorehouse in the small mining town of Presbyterian Church.
"McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is a work of cinematic brilliance, not only because of its fascinating characters, unique plot, and entertaining dialogue-but also because of its setting and atmosphere!
Julie Christie impresses with her charming and chilling performance as the lovely Mrs. Miller, while Warren Beatty is shockingly good as the tragic protagonist McCabe.
His luck improves with the arrival of Mrs. Miller a former cockney prostitute who bets she can make McCabe's budding business much more profitable.By the sounds of it, director Robert Altman is constructing a western in the mode of Man of the West (1958) or The Far Country (1954) (albeit with a brothel involved).
I am personally torn between the films very purposeful demystifying of the old west and at times forceful indignation towards it.McCabe and Mrs. Miller is certainly not for everyone, the least of all unabashed fans of the western genre.
Finally, while those who were never fans if Robert Altman's oeuvre will find nothing new to really gravitate towards, there's no denying McCabe and Mrs. Miller is bar-none one of his best films..
The movie takes its time, but I found the film incredibly engaging because of the performances of Warren Beatty and Julie Christie.
His songs worked well with the film and it breathed more life into this western.Robert Altman's film is about a businessman named John McCabe who builds a whorehouse in a remote Western town.
Soon after that, several businessmen arrives asking to buy McCabe's business, but his answer may bring consequences to himself, Mrs. Miller, and the whole town.Also prevalent in 70's movies are films that don't rely on big casts.
Despite some horses and odd scenes of fighting, "Mccabe and Mrs.Miller" is not at all a western in the real sense of the word.
He opens a brothel in this rough frontier town.Success comes in the form of Mrs Miller played by the remarkable Julie Christie a whore, madam and opium smoker who has big ideas and dreams earns both a lot of money which attracts the attention of a corporation which makes an offer to McCabe to buy his holdings.This is not a fast moving film, nor a shoot em up western.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller is probably the film, if not as much than Nashville more than the Player, that critics praise to the heavens when it comes to Robert Altman. |
tt0166485 | Anna and the King | Anna Leonowens (Jodie Foster) is a British widow who has come to Siam with her son Louis (Tom Felton) to teach English to the dozens of children of King Mongkut (Chow Yun-fat). She is a strong-willed, intelligent woman for her time, and this pleases the King. Mongkut wants to modernize Siam, thinking this will help his country resist colonialism and protect the ancient traditions that give Siam its identity. Mongkut and Anna discuss differences between Eastern and Western love, but he dismisses the notion that a man can be happy with only one wife. In order to win favors through Britain's ambassadors, Mongkut orders a sumptuous reception and appoints Anna to organize it. During the reception, the King spars graciously and wittily with Sir Mycroft Kincaid (Bill Stewart), of the East India Company. The Europeans express their beliefs that Siam is a superstitious, backward nation. Mongkut dances with Anna at the reception.
Anna is enchanted by the royal children, particularly Princess Fa-Ying (Melissa Campbell). The little girl adores the playful monkeys who live in the royal garden's trees. When Fa-Ying falls ill with cholera, Anna is summoned to her chambers to say goodbye. She gets there just as Fa-Ying dies in King Mongkut's arms, and the two mourn together. Mongkut later finds that one of the monkeys "borrowed" his glasses as his daughter used to do. He finds comfort for his grief in his belief in reincarnation, with a notion that Fa-ying might be reborn as one of her beloved animals. Lady Tuptim (Bai Ling), the King's newest concubine, was already engaged to marry another man, Khun Phra Balat (Sean Ghazi), when she was brought to court. Mongkut is kind to her, but Tuptim yearns for her true love. She disguises herself as a young man and runs away, joining the monastery where her former fiancé lives. She is tracked down, returned to the palace, and put on trial where she is caned. Anna, unable to bear the sight, tries to prevent the execution and is forcibly removed from the court. Her outburst prevents Mongkut from showing clemency, because he cannot be seen as beholden to her. Tuptim and Balat are beheaded publicly and Anna prepares to leave Siam.
Siam is under siege from what appears to be a British-funded coup d'état against King Mongkut, using Burmese soldiers. Mongkut sends his brother Prince Chaofa (Kay Siu Lim) and military advisor General Alak (Randall Duk Kim) and their troops to investigate. Alak is really the man behind the coup, and he poisons the regiment and kills Chaofa. Alak then flees into Burma, where he summons and readies troops to invade Siam, kill King Mongkut and all his children. Mongkut's army is too far from the palace to engage the rebels, so he creates a ruse - that a white elephant has been spotted, and the court must go to see it. This allows him to flee the palace with his children and wives, and give his armies time to reach them. Anna returns to help Mongkut, since her presence in his entourage will give credence to the tale about the white elephant. Mongkut plans to take his family to a monastery where he spent part of his life. Halfway through the journey they see Alak's army in the distance and realize they can't outrun him. Mongkut and his soldiers set explosives on a wooden bridge high above a canyon floor as Alak and his army approach. Mongkut orders his "army" to stay back and rides to the bridge with only two soldiers. Alak, at the head of his army, confronts Mongkut on the bridge.
Anna and Louis create a brilliant deception from their hiding spot in the forest. Louis uses his horn to replicate the sound of a bugle charge, as Anna "attacks" the area with harmless fireworks. The Burmese, believing the King has brought British soldiers, panic and retreat. Alak's attempt to recall and regroup his troops fails. Alak stands alone, but Mongkut refuses to kill him, saying that Alak will have to live with his shame. As Mongkut turns to ride back to Siam, Alak grabs his gun and aims at his back, but one of Mongkut's guards detonates the explosives. The bridge and Alak are blown to pieces.
At the end of the film, Mongkut has one last dance with Anna before she leaves Siam. He tells her that now he understands why a man can be content with only one woman. A voice-over tells viewers that Chulalongkorn became king after his father's death. Chulalongkorn abolished slavery and instituted religious freedom with the help of his father's 'vision'. | historical, murder | train | wikipedia | For it was clear that Anna was as much changed by Siam and the King as he and the children were by her.I was highly impressed with the performance turned in by Yun-Fat Chow.
I assumed it would be a re-make either of the original 1946 movie or the better known Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of 1956.In actual fact, the movie is neither a re-make of these previous FOX efforts, but rather an adaption of Anna Leonowens' own memoirs of the time she spent in Siam.Jodie Foster gave a fascinating, beautiful performance as Anna.
This is the second film of the year (the other being "The Green Mile") that I have seen that I believe will recieve Oscar nominations in several categories, of which, best film, best male and femal actor and best cinematography will be definitely considered."Anna and the King" is an epic film about a British woman who accepts an offer to go to Siam (Thailand) to teach western education to the King of Siam's 58 children.
This obviously does not sit well with the King but at the same time he is intrigued by this woman's boldness and so the story begins about cultural education (both British and Siamese) and a blossoming romance that has you yearning for a happy ending.Foster plays Anna Leonowens very well and at times makes you hate her for her narrow minded view of the world as she portrays a woman who truely believes that "British teachings are the ways of the world." Her comments about British rule and colonization makes you cringe at times as she comes across as this arrogant, cold woman who believes that she is in Siam to bring culture and wisdom to a backwards country.
Although Jodie Foster is the top billing name, this film definitely belongs to Chow Yun-Fat and it would be ashame not to see him get an oscar consideration for his performance.
There are only two other movies I would consider to be worthy of masterpiece status: "Saving Private Ryan" and "Titanic." Now a third can be added to this list: "Anna And The King." "Anna and The King" is a true masterpiece that is filled with heart & soul, a beautful setting and superb performances.I was very impressed with the performance of Chow-Yun Fat because he made the transition from action star to dramatic actor flawlessly.
I knew Foster and Fat were compatible; however, I failed to realize how much until I viewed the movie."Anna and The King" is visually stunning in so many ways with beautiful settings such as the palace.
Jodie Foster delivers yet another spectacular performance as Anna Leonowens, an Englishwoman who is to educate the children of King Mongkut, played by Chow Yun-Fat, who FINALLY delivers a spectacular perform.
The story in Anna and the King was made even more interesting by the staggering visuals, the beautifully designed costumes, and the excellent acting, rather than the cartoonish excessiveness of films like The Perfect Storm.
There are only two other movies I would consider to be worthy of masterpiece status: "Saving Private Ryan" and "Titanic." Now a third can be added to this list: "Anna And The King." "Anna and The King" is a true masterpiece that is filled with heart, soul and superb performances.I was very impressed with the performance of Chow-Yun Fat because he made the transition from action star to dramatic actor flawlessly.
She once again has established herself among the elite that have the special gift of natural talent.Foster and Fat come together beautifully to bring the true story of the romance of Anna Leonowens and King Momokut."Anna and The King" is visually stunning in so many ways with beautiful settings such as the palace.
Clash of two cultures causes many troubles, but also causes many changes in the king's way of thinking and understanding and mostly influence king's oldest son who when he inherits the throne, reforms country, abolish slavery and reforms judiciary.Great acting, very emotional story and just enough of action make two hours of movie simply whiz through you and leave you with tears in your eyes.....................................................
At the time the film was released the critics all panned Jodi Foster's performance, especially her accent, but I think that she did an excellent job as a Victorian English woman, trying to survive in a foreign world, and maintain her own values as well.
Great work from Jodi Foster and Chow-Yun Fat. This was a fantastic movie.
From this movie, we bet that both with his hard work and the great instructor, it has paid off.Like I said before, unfortunately, Chow-Yun Fat hasn't seeing the rewards for his efforts being recognized in Hollywood.
Even if you expect the participants to burst into song any minute as in the well-know "King and I" with Debra Kerr and Yul Brynner, you won't be disappointed with this beautiful, well-crafted version of the 19th century biography, "Anna and the King of Siam."The characters of Anna and Siam's monarch are well-fleshed out with Jodi Foster (whose British accent falters a bit) and the actor who plays the king.
There are many emotional moments in the film and although long, I found the film entertaining..The scenery and sets are magnificent but, what drew me to this film was the acting talent..particularly Jodie and Chow Yun Fat. Chow Yun Fat displays a remarkable sense of opulence in his role and his interpretation of the King of Siam is quite interesting!
I read somewhere that the film was a disappointment at the box office but considering the direction mainstream film is heading these days I truly wonder what the demographics of film going audiences are..I, personally like a good story with actors who truly care about their craft and I found this to be the case in Anna and the King...
As the people from the country of location , i had a rare chance to watch this movie in the theatre because it had been banned.Thais have for a long time been worshiping the Monarchy as the demi-God.The expression about them in any negative ways like deprecating,offending,blaming .....etc.
will be forbidden ,banned and punished according to the Lese Majeste law.The ban of this movie in Thailand vexed the liberal -minded a lot.They blamed the authority for the dictatorship.But one fine day i had a chance to buy the DVD and intentionally watched it with out prejudice.The production was quite mediocre ; compared with "The last emperor" or the other historical films although the filmmaker spent a lot of money on it.The funniest thing happening whenever Thais watched this movie was that the actor and the crews were Malaysians and they could speak Thai , as memorizing from the script , very poorly.If this movie had had a chance to be in Thai theatre , it would not have been able to captured the Thais' hearts.The second negative point of his movie was about King Monkut.Jo yun fat was absolutely different from the characteristic of the real king.King Monkut had been in priest hood for 27 years and he was the scholar.I wouldn't deny for his irascibility , but Jo could be only the good warrior king.The third was that this movie didn't only convey the audience with the historical account errors , it also made the new plot about Siam , so i want to correct these ;1.There was never the civil war or coup d'estate in Siam during king Monkut's reign.The king could sit on his throne very safely , supported by the family of powerful nobility named Boonnak.2.
This was a compelling true (yet slightly tainted by Hollywood) account of Anna Leonowens as a teacher that tutors the children of the King of Siam.It was a romantic movie that made the viewer have the same emotions as those that played in it.
I cry out loud every time I see this scene.Yun-Fat loves children and it shows in every scene he has with the talented young actors who play what the King called, the future hope of Thailand.Anna and The King is a film to love as long as you don't let history bog you down.
Background sound track was excellent that gives a real feel of the story and characters...Well performed by Anna & the King especially the scenes around the killing of Tuptim for deciding a noble path via Buddhist Monk...Great lifetime Movie.
I had seen the musical with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr before, and I love that as well - but in this movie one gets a more thorough, serious and realistic take on the subject, more meat on the bones so to speak."Anna and the King" is first of all a love story of course.
Anna Leonowens, a widow played by Jodie Foster, comes to Siam with her son to be the teacher for the children of the King of Siam, King Mongkut, played by Yun-Fat Chow.
This is an entertaining quasi-romantic drama that centres upon the relationship between an English woman Welsh, actually who taught English language to the children of King Mongkut of Siam (today, Thailand) in the 1860s.As cinematography and narrative, it works well: very professionally staged, filmed and acted by the production and acting crew.
That should not deter you from enjoying the acting prowess of Chow Yun-Fat as the King and Jodie Foster as Anna Leonowens.That is, if you like costume and historical dramas, then you'd probably find this film to be quiet acceptable.
Andy Tennant the director of films such as Hitch and Fools Rush in directs this re imagining of The King and I.Although everyone already knows the basis of the story before they even sit down to watch this film Tennant is smart enough to combine elements that we know and love with new concepts while making the film far more visually interesting than the musical ever was.Jodie Foster does well with her role while there is also a nice early appearance of Tom Felton who Harry Potter fans will know as Draco Malfoy in the role of her son.Not quite sure this film can be placed in the same category of films like Gladiator or Braveheart as others have claimed but it is an enjoyable enough film..
Both Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat are fine as the leads but the film isn't particularly interesting.
It starts with her arrival to the palace and follows her time there.Three reasons why this movie really succeeds: Great acting by Yun-Fat Chow (absolutely fantastic as the king) and Jodie Foster (the teacher), a great story with interesting events, and really nice visuals.The biggest difficultly will be actually getting motivated to watch this movie because it may sound a bit simplistic and "family oriented".
And this time or better in this case, the remake might look good (even on paper, with two heavyweights in the front line - Chow Yun Fat and Jodie Foster, and some bit players behind them, Bai Ling and so forth), but it's what inside that counts.
The acting by Jodie Foster was good but to be honest, Yun-Fat Chow isn't good playing a person who tries to speak English.Again, the overall look of the film, including costume designs are great but some points in the film might be slow, long, boring, and unnecessary.
There are only two other movies I would consider to be worthy of masterpiece status: "Saving Private Ryan" and "Titanic." Now a third can be added to this list: "Anna and the King." "Anna and the King" is a true masterpiece that is filled with heart & soul, a beautiful setting and superb performances.I was very impressed with the performance of Chow-Yun Fat because he made the transition from action star to dramatic actor flawlessly.
He made it so easy for me to enjoy this movie because of his screen presence and believability of the performance as well as the chemistry between Anna and the King.This masterpiece can not be completed without the performance Jodie Foster turned in.
He made it so easy for me to enjoy this movie because of his screen presence and believability of the performance as well as the chemistry between Anna and the King.This masterpiece can not be completed without the performance Jodie Foster turned in.
He made it so easy for me to enjoy this movie because of his screen presence and believability of the performance as well as the chemistry between Anna and the King.This masterpiece can not be completed without the performance Jodie Foster turned in.
Anna has her ideas and strong opinions about the Siamese ways and King Mongfut has his about England's and doesn't like her butting into his problems at the beginning of movie, but as they get to know each other they slowly start to look past each others differences and become more than good friends.
It had shown like a few times on the television before, with the latest like early this year.English governess Anna Leonowens (Jodie Foster) was being called to be the governess of the Thai king's (Chow Yun Fatt) several children.
Jody Foster came thru with this film like she has never done before and I don't believe that she will ever do again.This story of the relationship of Anna Leonowens and King Mongkut of Siam was so true to her diary that my heart screams out to those that do not understand the true meaning of the story.Siam was the strongest nation in Southeast Asia from 1767 to 1893.
"Anna and The King" is a true masterpiece that is filled with heart & soul, a beautiful setting and superb performances.I was very impressed with the performance of Chow-Yun Fat because he made the transition from action star to dramatic actor flawlessly.
"Anna and The King" is a true masterpiece that is filled with heart & soul, a beautiful setting and superb performances.I was very impressed with the performance of Chow-Yun Fat because he made the transition from action star to dramatic actor flawlessly.
He made it so easy for me to enjoy this movie because of his screen presence and believability of the performance as well as the chemistry between Anna and the King of Siam.This masterpiece can not be complete without the performance Jodie Foster gave as Anna Leonowens.
He made it so easy for me to enjoy this movie because of his screen presence and believability of the performance as well as the chemistry between Anna and the King of Siam.This masterpiece can not be complete without the performance Jodie Foster gave as Anna Leonowens.
She once again has established herself among the elite that have the special gift of natural talent.Foster and Fat come together beautifully to bring the true story of the romance of Anna Leonowens and King Momokut.
She once again has established herself among the elite that have the special gift of natural talent.Foster and Fat come together beautifully to bring the true story of the romance of Anna Leonowens and King Momokut.
She once again has established herself among the elite that have the special gift of natural talent.Foster and Fat come together beautifully to bring the true story of the romance of Anna Leonowens and King Momokut.
She once again has established herself among the elite that have the special gift of natural talent.Foster and Fat come together beautifully to bring the true story of the romance of Anna Leonowens and King Momokut.
The chemistry can be felt from a distance and it works from the first minute they come together."Anna and The King" is visually stunning in so many ways with beautiful settings such as the palace.
The chemistry can be felt from a distance and it works from the first minute they come together."Anna and The King" is visually stunning in so many ways with beautiful settings such as the palace.
This movie was a magical retelling of the Anna and the King of Siam story.
Upon their meeting Anna reveals herself as a very stubborn western cultured woman, who believes in equals and constantly opposes the King, who has 68 children, 26 wives and 40+ concubines yet his heart settles upon Anna even due to their conflicts he tries to bring his country into an alliance with England in order to keep the Burmese regime out, but with his own life and the lives of his royal family at risk King Mongkut is forced to make some difficult choices.A very touching movie I gave this an even 8/10, a brilliant performance by Chow Yun-Fat and Jodie Foster, for a moment it seemed as if something would happen between Anna and the King, but the suspense of their feelings lasts to the very end..
Chow Yun Fat and Jodie Foster both gave great performances and I liked all the actors in it.
But in spite of these details the movie was pretty good, performance of Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat was remarkable.
It has shown different forms of love, especially on the romantic love between Anna (Jodie Foster) and the King (Chow Yun-Fat).
So-so effort that features a surprisingly dull Jodie Foster as Anna Leonowens, the true-life Indian-born Englishwoman who journeyed to Siam in the late 19th century to teach "the modern world of science" to the many children of King Mongkut (Chow Yun-Fat).
Chow Yun-Fat was great, I like him more than Jodie Foster in this film.
Chow Yun-Fat has such a captivating smile it is a shame it is never seen with all of the grim movies he does.Jody Foster as Anna is an interesting choice for Anna but she does the part very well and is believable.The secondary cast is very good and you get the impression that many of parts for the minor characters was very carefully scripted.Historical dramas are always difficult to produce; too much and the audience gets bored, too little (which is the usual case) and you miss part of the story.
Jodie Foster plays Anna and Chow Yun-Fat plays The King.
Good movie, Chow Yun-fat great, Foster stiff.. |
tt0066894 | Carry on Henry | The film opens with a passage, which states:
This film is based on a recently discovered manuscript by one William Cobbler, which reveals that Henry VIII did in fact have two more wives. Although it was first thought that Cromwell originated the story, it is now known to be definitely all Cobbler's... from beginning to end.
Henry VIII (Sid James) has his wife (Patsy Rowlands) beheaded and quickly marries Marie of Normandy (Joan Sims). This union was organised at the behest of bumbling Cardinal Wolsey (Terry Scott) as Marie is cousin of King Francis I of France. Henry's wedding night ardour dies when he finds she reeks of garlic, but she refuses to stop eating it. Marie gets frustrated so soon receives amorous advances from Sir Roger de Lodgerley (Charles Hawtrey who, while still in his camp persona, is playing against type as a ladies man).
Henry is keen to be rid of Marie, as he has met the lovely Bettina (Barbara Windsor, in her favourite Carry On role). Bettina is the daughter of the Earl of Bristol (Peter Butterworth, in a one scene cameo), a punning reference to Bristols. Thomas Cromwell (Kenneth Williams) assists in ousting Marie by organising Lord Hampton of Wick (Kenneth Connor) to kidnap the King in a staged plot. Cromwell and Lord Hampton also secretly plot to bring the king to harm as part of this escapade, but the false kidnapping fails.
Henry seizes on Marie's infidelity with de Lodgerley to be free of her; all he needs is a confession from de Lodgerley. He orders Cromwell to extract a confession using any means necessary. This leads to a running joke in the torture chamber as Henry keeps changing his mind about the confession due to political necessities, requiring multiple changes and retractions of the original confession. Wolsey is baffled by all the intrigue, and Cromwell is driven to treason by all of Henry's unreasonable demands. | historical fiction | train | wikipedia | CARRY ON HENRY may not have had quite the same effect - such is the unshakeable British obsession with the past, one of the film's main targets - but it's always nice to see that someone else found A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and THE LION IN WINTER to be pompous tripe as well.HENRY, like CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER, is an example of a modest franchise miraculously finding an appropriate subject and creating a work of art.
The jokes are franker than were usual at this point, but clever rather than crude, and funny when they were crude.This is also the last time the cast would be as brilliant as this - a well-oiled machine perfectly in control of the material.
Kenneth Williams is aptly, hilariously Machiavellian; Charles Hawtrey is endearingly inappropriate as the brave knight and lover who undergoes all sorts of horrible tortures for his Queen - the heterosexual potency of these obviously gay stars are an uproarious counterpoint to the macho King's unsuccessful promiscuity.
But it is the godlike Sid James who rightly walks away with the film, cinema's best ever King Henry.
The merging of his usual persona - the chuckling lecher who is repeatedly thwarted in his amorous endeavours (itself a remarkable comment of tyranny throughout the ages), married to a sex-mad woman he can't abide - with the portrayal of an historical icon creates satire of great depth.Whereas the aforementined, Oscar-garlanded pageants are rigidly respectful of English history, HENRY is breezily sceptical.
The film quite clearly sets out its stall of bogusnes - it is based on recently discovered documents by William Cobbler - only to show how unreliable our grasp of history is; how it's always told in somebody's vested interests, at the expense of someone else.The film therefore prefigures the awesome Monty Python deconstructions of the 70s, with jokes about the Labour government, and with King's wenches who demand payment before favours, and whose fathers complain about taxation.
From the writers of Carry On comes this fantastic and comical portrayal of King Henry VIII (Sid James) and his French Queen Marie (Joan Sims).
Henry VIII of Great Britain has just married the French princess Marie and is eager to consummate the marriage- until he finds she has a taste for the revolting garlic.
Rather then give it up, the Queen holds the garlic close and Henry orders the marriage annulled, prompting his close ministers Cromwell (Kenneth Williams) and Wolsey (Terry Scott) to battle it out together.
And when a pretty lady (Barbara Windsor) enters Henrys court he makes up his mind to marry her, with hilarious consequences.
Carry On Henry tells of Henry VIII's other two wives, the ones that history forgot to mention: ample, French, garlic-munching Queen Marie (the delightful Joan Sims) and saucy blonde strumpet Queen Bettina (bubbly Barbara Windsor).
When Henry (Sid James) finds it impossible to consummate his marriage to the former thanks to her terrible aroma, he seeks a quickie divorce and an even quicker marriage to the latter, but in doing so threatens to upset both the Vatican and the King of France.Historically duplicitous and hysterically on the mark, this lively Tudor romp is hugely entertaining viewing thanks to a silly script that plays fast and loose with the facts (even throwing in fun anachronisms such as a breezy jazz rendition of Greensleeves, Guy Fawkes, and the guillotine), plenty of ribald innuendo, lots of heaving bosoms, and spirited performances from the Carry On regulars, with Sid James, in particular, excelling in the role of Henry, giving arguably the greatest (certainly the most memorable) cinematic portrayal of the formidable monarch..
An outstanding spoof of historical costume dramas, "Carry On Henry" is one of the best, if not THE best, of the Carry On series.
Sid James is in great form as the frustrated King Henry VIII, with fine support from Kenneth Williams & Terry Scott as the schemers Cromwell & Wolsey, Joan Sims as the buxom, garlic-addicted queen, Charles Hawtrey as her unlikely paramour, and Barbara Windsor as the giggly maiden pursued by the king.
The performers are all at their best, the script is packed with clever gags, and the production values could compete with any "serious" period piece of the time.
The 21st film of the long running Carry On series is a bawdy trip into the court of King Henry VIII (Sid James).
The King has recently married Queen Marie of Normandy (Joan Sims) but since she eats too much garlic, thus putting the King off his conjugal rights, he plots to get her out the way.
However, he must tread carefully as a war with France could easily arise should anything happen to the Queen.Some of the best colour Carry On movies would turn out to be set in an historical period.
Carry On Henry is not one of the best from the historical romps, but it's a goodie and for those who like the saucy side of the series then it has plenty of appeal.The presence of James on womanising and boozing form, and Barbara Windsor doing her no brain all sexuality act, gives this entry its saucy soul, while Terry Scott (superb visual ticks), Kenny Williams (a continuously wonderful foil for Scott) and Charles Hawtrey mince about with gleeful abandon.
This is a fabulously funny send up of history and the Carry on cast are in great form.
A glamorous great star.The gag of the garlic does not work today because this was made at a time when garlic was not something popular with the conservative English diet.
An unofficial tale about Henry VIII's two brief marriages between Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour.The usual crude humour of the series is reasonably neglected in preference of real wit and poignancy, the acting shows unexpected sophistication, the dialogue sharp, and even the period detail seems stimulatingly accurate in this surprisingly effective travesty of "Anne of the Thousand Days", "Lion in Winter", "A Man for All Seasons" and other British historical sagas.
Carry on Henry is an entertaining enough entry in the comedy franchise, but I don't think it is as good as Carry on Cleo, Carry on Screaming or Carry On Up the Khyber.
It is true that Talbot Rothwell's script isn't the sharpest one on the block, though there are some great one liners("it's all cock and no pea") and some priceless scenes, especially the ones with Barbara Windsor.
Sid James is suitably merry as the monarch of the title, and Kenneth Williams is hilarious as always.
Barbara Windsor looked lovely and also gives a very funny performance.
Sid has his definitive role as Henry and it's alarming that he almost missed out due to other commitments, with Harry Secombe being considered for the part; no doubt Harry would have made a great King Hal, but it wouldn't have been the same at all.
Charles Hawtrey, with much more to do than usual, gives a glorious performance as the King's 'taster' who samples much more than the food.
Who could forget Barbara Windsor as Rothwell's Bettina, the best Bet to come Henry's way in years.
Joan Sims and the rest of the cast are excellent too, as is Alan Hume's photography, making HENRY look very lavish for a low budget film.
Only problem is I can't watch anything about Henry and his court without thinking of Sid, Kenny and the team..
On paper this could have been one of the funniest Carry On features, with plum parts for Sid James as Henry VIII and Kenneth Williams as the King's schemer-supreme Thomas Cromwell, but after the written prologue which describes what follows as a load of old Cobblers, I found little else to amuse me in this irreverent romp through Tudor England.
Like so many other low-brow British comedies of the time on screens both big and small, this un-P.C outlook towards females really has dated very badly and lacks the saving grace of genuinely funny gags.
Old troopers like James, Williams and Joan Sims try hard but even with them it's possible to detect a discernible going through the motions and by the time we get to see Barbara Windsor's bare bottom well into the film, it's obvious that the series's best days are behind it (no pun intended).At its best, as in say, "Carry On Cleo", "Carry On Cowboy" or "Carry On Up The Khyber", the series had lots of funny characters and a ready, typically saucy British seaside humour which made them easy to watch and chuckle along to.
A Good Carry On Film.
This film has the core cast which made the best Carry Ons. It stars the irrepressible Sid James as the king, along with the always fun to watch Kenneth Williams as Cromwell.
That duo made the best Carry Ons, they just seemed to always work well together.
Add in the always welcome Joan Sims, the always bubbly Barbara Windsor and the also welcome Charles Hawtrey as Sir Roger and you know you're going to enjoy this.
There have been better Carry On films, and the film carries the usual sexual innuendos and once in a while too cheap laughs, but with this cast it hardly matters.
You know what to expect with a CARRY ON film : A repertory of comedy actors , nudge nudge wink wink humour involving double entrendes and a few laughs too .
Unfortunately I`ve got to disagree with most of the comments here and say I don`t rate CARRY ON HENRY as one of the better films in the series and after the very funny caption " Mind my chopper " ( Which absolutely no one outside Britain will get ) the laughs are few and far between as the plot revolves around King Henry and his marital troubles .
It should be pointed out that all the best CARRY ON films like Up The Kyber , Screaming and Cleo had been made before this which probably indicates the series had run out of steam.
With such people as Charlton Heston, Richard Burton, Robert Shaw, and Montagu Love playing Henry VIII you get the idea it's both a plumb role and a serious part.
But the big screen never a Henry VIII like the one that Sidney James gives us in Carry On Henry VIII.Henry gets a couple extra wives in this one, dropped nicely between Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard.
After that James gets a present of French princess Joan Sims cousin of King Francis I of France and that seems like a good bet to solidify an alliance.But on the wedding night it turns out Henry can't stand her garlic breath.
Not to mention the machinations of Kenneth Williams as Thomas Cromwell and Terry Scott as Cardinal Wolsey.Then there's poor Charles Hawtrey who is the king's equerry and Queen Sims believes that her needs come first if the king isn't meeting them, maybe Hawtrey will.
That was quite the seduction scene.Medieval England never saw history like this, but Carry On Henry VIII gives out with a lot of laughs..
Patsy Rowlands is totally wasted which is a shame.Kenneth Williams and Terry Scott are very good.
The nude scenes with Babs is good clean carry on fun it does not spoil the reputation of the film.
CARRY ON HENRY is, for me, one of the weakest of the entire Carry On film series.
I always find their costume adventures slightly stodgy, but they usually make up for this with a witty script and great humour (the bit with Charles Hawtrey on the guillotine receiving the letter in CARRY ON DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD always springs to mind).
Unfortunately, CARRY ON HENRY came at a time when the wit was in short supply and the genuine laughs were outweighed five to one by an incessant array of lowbrow jokes and obvious humour.The inimitable Sid James stars as Henry VIII, dealing with a couple of extra wives thanks to the machinations of Talbot Rothwell.
Thus he has to deal with a garlic-munching Joan Sims and an often-naked Barbara Windsor as a young lady-in-waiting who he sets his sights on.
James is as fantastic as ever, and there are a couple of fine supporting roles from a nostrilly Kenneth Williams and a constantly gurning Terry Scott, but otherwise the film as a whole feels quite limited.The authenticity is present in the shape of some fantastic costumes and sets, and there are some nice, if minor, performances from an oddly dignified Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey.
The Carry On Gang's unofficial leader, Sidney James, is rather preposterously miscast as Henry VIII in this bawdy episode from the infamous monarch's life.
Basic but broadly funny spoof that stands out as being one of the better film in the series.
The story told by this film is based on a manuscript discovered by one William Cobbler which reveals that Henry VIII did in fact have two more wives.
With the beheading of his most recent wife, Henry hopes that new bride Queen Marie of Normandy will, erm, give it up to him in the bedroom.
Things are going great until her habit of eating garlic all the time turns out to be a major turn-off on their first night together and Henry demands the wedding be annulled.
Meanwhile a group of conspirators conspire to remove Henry from the throne as they see him as an embarrassment to England on the world stage.Although the 1970's saw the death of the Carry On series, this film is an example in the sort of vehicle that produced the team's most enjoyable work namely a subject that is ripe for irreverent spoofing but yet produces an acceptable narrative at the same time.
Although hardly high art, Henry sends up the English historical dramas with good humour, providing a very basic plot with jokes that are suggestively rude without being out and out crude to any detrimental extent.
The humour is not the sharpest you'll see (to say the least!) but it is at least witty and quite well delivered by the usual cast.James moulds Henry in the image of his own Carry On personae and it comes off well (oh-err).
Williams is better because he uses his usual delivery well and has plenty of good lines; likewise Terry Scott is enjoyable in a supporting role.
Hawtrey minces around the edges and gets some cheeky laughs with an easy performance while Windsor plays it all up front as usual!
Support from Connor, Gilmore and others is good and the lot of them pretty much match the irreverent tone of the material.Overall this is not a fantastic nor a hilarious comedy but it is still one of the better in the Carry On series.
The material sits within an acceptable narrative and good sets/costumes and the jokes are witty and funny, avoiding the uninspired crudity that would later kill the series..
Carry on Henry rates as one of the best of the Carry on Films, they couldn't really fail with this one.
Henry VIII is still one of the most interesting and fascinating figures in British history, Sid James was one of our best loved Carry on actors, couple that with one of the best scripts and some rather good production values and you get this bawdy, funny Royal romp.Some of the costumes wouldn't have looked out of place in a BBC production of the tudors, some really are exceptional, I suppose there wouldn't have been quite so many heaving bosoms.Lots of the carry on regulars are on good form, being the lead I think it's fair to say the show is all about Sid, it's one of his best performances.
Charles Hawtrey is also at his best as Sir Roger de Lodgerley, his his dialogues with Kenneth Williams and his torture scenes are hilarious.Brilliant film 9/10.
Set in the Court of Henry VIII, the king is having marital difficulties.
The situation is made harder for the king when he meets Bettina; a pretty lass who believes in waiting till she is married.This film is as funny as it is because the casting is spot on; Sid James does a fine job as the randy king doomed never to get any; Kenneth Williams does equally well as the scheming chancellor Thomas Cromwell and Charles Hawtrey is hilarious as Sir Roger, the man who bedded the queen and grew a couple of feet after a stretch on the rack!
Joan Sims and Barbara Windsor were also good as rivals for the king's attention Maria and Bettina.
Some later Carry On films rely on smut and innuendo rather too much; thankfully this one has plenty of funny clean jokes and what innuendo there is usually raises a chuckle.
Fans of the series will almost certainly enjoy this and even people who aren't usually keen on Carry Ons should get a few laughs; just don't expect historical accuracy..
Just an average Carry On film.
Sid James plays Henry VIII.
His helpers or crew consist of Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey and Terry Scott.
The story of Henry VIII and his six wives is one of the most famous in history, and it is also quite a predictable one that the Carry On team would spoof.
Basically King Henry VIII (Sid James) married Queen Marie of Normandy (Joan Sims), after killing current wife (Patsy Rowlands), but before they can consummate the marriage he finds she is eating too much garlic, and he wants a divorce.
Henry now has to find a way to get ride of her, and wants someone to have an affair with her and confess to it, and Sir Roger De Lodgerley (Charles Hawtrey) may have just helped do it.
Henry soon finds himself enjoying the company of a woman again with the lovely Bettina (Barbara Windsor), daughter of Charles the Earl of Bristol (Peter Butterworth).
Also starring Terry Scott as Cardinal Wolsey, Julian Holloway as Sir Thomas, Peter Gilmore as King Francis of France and Star Wars' David Prowse as Beared Torturer. |
tt0061037 | Le streghe | During a holiday with his grandmother Helga (Mai Zetterling) in Norway, Luke Eveshim (Jasen Fisher) is told stories about "real" witches, female demons with a genocidal hatred for children, all of whom emit an odor obnoxious to witches. Helga tells him that her childhood friend was taken and cursed to spend the rest of her life trapped inside a painting. After Luke's parents are accidentally killed, Helga becomes Luke's legal guardian and they move to England. While building a treehouse, Luke is accosted by a witch, though he sees through her ruse and avoids his potential death, hiding at the top of the tree. On Luke's 9th birthday, Helga falls ill with her diabetes. Her doctor advises them to spend the summer by the sea.
They stay at a seaside resort, where Luke meets and befriends a gluttonous but friendly boy, Bruno Jenkins (Charlie Potter), while getting on the bad side of the hotel manager, Mr. Stringer (Rowan Atkinson), after his pet mice frighten a maid who is having an affair with the manager. Also staying at the hotel are a convention load of witches, masquerading as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with the Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston), the leader of the world's witches, attending their annual meeting.
Luke inadvertently discovers the witches while playing with his pet mice inside the ballroom, where the witches hold their meeting. The Grand High Witch unveils her latest weapon: a formula to turn children into mice, which they will use on confectionery products in sweet shops and candy stores to be opened using a money provided by the Grand High Witch. Bruno is lured into the room, having already been given chocolate laced with the formula a couple of hours earlier. He turns into a mouse and flees. Luke attempts to escape but is also captured and turned into a mouse, though he avoids being squashed. He finds Bruno and reunites with Helga who recovered while Luke was adventuring.
Luke devises a plan to kill the witches by sneaking into the Grand High Witch's room to steal a bottle of the formula. Luke manages to drop the bottle into a pot of cress soup destined for the witches' dinner tables. Mr. Jenkins (Bill Paterson) also orders the soup, though Helga stops him from consuming it at the last minute. The formula turns all the witches into mice, just after Bruno speaks up to tell his father that he is really a mouse. The staff and hotel guests join in killing the mice, unknowingly ridding England of its witches. as Helga returns Bruno to his parents. The Grand High Witch is spotted by Helga, who traps her under a water jug, enabling Mr. Stringer to dispatch her with a meat cleaver.
Luke and Helga return to their home, where they are delivered the Grand High Witch's trunk full of money and an address book of all witches in the USA. Luke (who had secretly readdressed the trunk at the resort) suggests that they might use it to eradicate the world's witches once and for all. That night, the Grand High Witch's assistant Miss Irvine (Jane Horrocks), who had quit her job and escaped the massacre, repented and reformed her herself to be a good witch. She pays a visit to the house and uses her power to return Luke to his human body and return his pet mice before leaving to repeat the process with Bruno. | adult comedy | train | wikipedia | Mangano, the wife of famed producer Dino de Laurentiis, gets a royal showcase here, portraying five different women in five short films, each directed by a noted Italian director.
In the first (and lengthiest) one, she is a beleaguered movie star who hides away in the large ski chalet of an acquaintance and is promptly pursued by the men and nearly deconstructed by the women.
This film has some interesting camera placement and some intriguing aspects, but isn't particularly revelatory or surprising.
Next Mangano plays a well-dressed woman whose car is stopped at the site of an accident.
She picks up an injured man and speeds through the city waving a white handkerchief, but passes various first aid stations and hospitals along the way.
In the third short film, she is a green-haired deaf-mute who becomes the wife of a lonely widower who has been searching the country for a bride (and a step-mother for his son.) This is by far the most unusual of the stories and is told with much bizarre imagery, whimsy and surrealism.
Next up, Mangano plays a fiery Sicilian woman who has been wronged.
Finally, she is a bored and unappreciated housewife married to Eastwood (of all people!) who complains to him about the mundane existence they share all the while fantasizing about what their life was once like and could be again with a little imagination.
This one probably holds the most interest of the five because of the presence of a boyishly young Eastwood (who is quite game for the various shenanigans in the piece) and the myriad of striking costume and hairstyle changes that occur on Mangano throughout.
It is a must-see for fans of the over-the-top "What a Way to Go!"-esque clothes of the time.
All but the last film suffer from the dreaded English dubbing, but some amount of entertainment value manages to come through.
This melange of stories will not appeal to everyone, but most viewers will at least get a slight kick out of the last one if only for the sight of pup Eastwood and the way-out clothes in the fantasy sequences..
I once caught 15 minutes on Italian tv of Pasolini's contribution and was completely fascinated by it.
Having now also seen his film "Uccellacci e uccellini," made the same year as "Le Streghe" and in much the same absurdist style, I understand even more fully the political commentary being made in both films.
The social and political commentary in Pasolini's work is delivered obliquely and with great humor but is nonetheless vital to an understanding of both the style and content of his films.
Even after having lived in Italy for some time, speaking the language fluently and learning as much as I could about the complicated political events of the fifties, sixties and seventies, I am aware that as a foreigner I am still at a disadvantage to fully "getting" the point that's being made in these two films.
I would think it would be nearly impossible to find them anything other than strange and disconnected without some familiarity with the Italian political milieu of that period.
However, that said, I think the beauty of the stylization - successfully realized and united on every level, design, costumes, cinematography and most particularly, acting - works irregardless and is entertaining in and of itself.
It's especially interesting to see a comic performer as beloved and mainstream as Toto was at that time, so willingly and completely giving himself over to a director as completely experimental and also so controversial in an extremely volatile political climate as was Pasolini.
My only negative comment about "Le streghe" is that I wish it weren't so impossible to get hold of as I would love to see this very beautiful film in its entirety..
You should definitely see this movie if you like a) 60's clothes, b) 60's movie sets, c) weird movies, d) Silvana Mangano, and e) obscure Clint Eastwood titles (yes, he's in it, too), among other things..
It was conceived probably as a showcase for Silvia Mangano but it is only natural that with such talented directors the movie is not about her, it is instead about them.
The first and last episodes are a charming display of misogyny, being the first the silent vivisection of a woman while in the later, featuring a almost speechless Clint Stewood, a cathartic (or rather hysterical) woman lists verborhagically the common places of women paradoxes.
But it is Pasollini's "Earth seen from the moon" piece that really breaks through, depicting the perfect woman - half blond, half brunet and entirely mute.
The shortest episode, "Senso Civico" is completely superfluous and echoes another superfluous over-excited-Italian-freak-in-the-traffic episode played by Roberto Begnini in Jim Jarmush's "Night on earth".
*** out of ****This is basically a collection of five short films all about women and the roles that people feel that they play in society.
It gives us different interpretations of women and how people feel around them.
The first story is about a famous actress who hides away from the public at a ski resort, before discovering that she's pregnant.
It starts out slow, but it becomes pretty haunting to watch after a while.The second story gives us a woman who has an injured man in her car who is supposed to drive him to the hospital, but instead drives by several of them before going to where she wants to go.
Perhaps this is supposed to be a comment on how a woman supports a man in times of need?
The third story is an indescribably weird and chaotic satire of a father and son who look for a woman to be the father's wife and his son's mother.
They come upon a woman who is deaf and are able to get something going with her before the story gets even weirder.
This film actually really made me feel weird and left my mind broken in a million directions, but i couldn't stop watching it no matter how much i tired.The forth is a story about a man who murders several people because of a woman.
This one isn't really funny at all and is actually pretty depressing when you really get right down to it.The fifth story has Clint Eastwood in it as the uninteresting husband of a woman who escapes into an imaginary world where she gets sweet revenge on him for being so boring.My favorite story is the third, simply because it is so strange and unlike anything that it must be seen to be believed.
These five shorts have an undeniable breezy quality, commenting on the freewheeling Italian lifestyle of the swingin' sixties and also offering some timeless "period" storytelling.
Visconti's work is redolent of Fellini's "Juliet of the Spirits"' upper class shenanigans, with the celebrity angle making Woody Allen's comments nearly half a century later seem, well, tired and inferior.
Silvana Mangano appears a bit, well, exhausted in this film and others of the series, like Chrisitna Applegate on a bad day, but the costuming and Kitzbuehl apres ski setting in a chalet make Visconti's short irresistible.
The Pasolini work is charming in a semi-dada-esque way, especially with the knowledge that the young male pimply faced "actor' may well have been really a boy toy from the streets of Roma.
The story has a punk rock feel that rings with folkloric quirkiness and white magic."Civic Spirit" is the most emblematic of the five, very au courant of the era, using an injured man as an excuse to barrel through Rome traffic at top speed under the guise of being hospital bound, while the driving beauty is really just using the poor hapless man as a shill to get to a rendezvous on time-- very cute, and Silvana looks fabulous once again, as she rushes to meet her playboy date.
This film is on cable on occasion late at night and worth sitting through for the afficionado of these fine directors.
I was severely disappointed upon finding out that this movie wasn't an anthology film themed around witches, but instead the segments don't have a clear connecting point other than the fact that each of them stars Silvana Mangano.The animated intro is my favorite part of the movie.
However, it's completely misleading (same as the title), as it foreshadows a plot centered about witches.The first story (The Witch Burned Alive, dir.
The story isn't all that interesting either.The second one (Civic Sense, dir.
It's a pointless story about a woman offering to take an injured man to the hospital.
The punchline isn't really clever, the direction bland, and the story is surprisingly dull for lasting only four minutes.The third segment (The Earth as Seen from the Moon, dir.
Pasolini) is the second worst.
The musical track that keeps playing gets aggravating quickly and the plot makes no sense whatsoever.
The message of the story is clear only to Pasolini, and probably not even to him.The fourth story (The Girl From Sicily, dir.
It isn't given much time, which is shame because the plot is better than the first three story lines.The final story (An Evening Like The Others, dir.
Because of the plot and style, it's somewhat similar to Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits.
Both Mangano and Eastwood are fun to watch and there are some clever shots and sequences, mostly the ones set in the wife's dream world.
In the scene where she criticizes the comic books her son reads, you can see an issue of the comic book "Kriminal", about which I agree with her because that comic is horrible.All in all, there's no reason why this movie's premise shouldn't have been set around the actual witches..
This one's a big-named Dog. The last segment, with Mangano and Clint Eastwood, is at least interesting, if only for a look at baby Clint, but ultimately goes nowhere.
Trivia note: in the first segment, filmed in Kitzbuhel, Austria, one of the press photogs is a Kitzbuhel local who was a ski instructor at the time, according to my husband who lived in Kitzbuhel around the same period.
"Oh my darling Absurdity!" - Not much of a film; Mangano's watchable..
This portmanteau film, comprised of 5 short efforts by noted Italian directors, is decidedly unsuccessful.
The best 2 are Luchino Visconti's "The Witch Burned Alive" and "An Evening Like The Others" by Vittorio De Sica, and those are far from excellent, but are quite effective.
The whole thing is dated in quite a negative way, although some of the visuals and music is impressive, particularly that tune in the first segment that Mangano dances to.
What perplexes is the general lack of film-making invention in any of them - any surrealism is mild and far from interesting.
Pasolini's piece is pretty objectionable and bizarre, yet with seemingly no reason to it, with two frankly farcical characters indulging in dull, insubstantial activities.
What this odd but tedious collection of films do all display is an attempt at style-over-substance modish cinema.
The de Sica piece however, has quite a good use of fantasy sequences, using the sensuous Silvana Mangano to the full.
In its favour it can be said to have style - at least in the de Sica and Visconti pieces - and a rather effective array of hair stylings for Mangano, who appeals in all of the pieces.
Mangano makes no impression in the middle 3 segments, perhaps as she's a mute "Absurdity" in Pasolini's, and is a mere catalyst in the other 2.
She's good enough in the bookending pieces though, creating some character, unlike any other performers.
Clint Eastwood is pretty anonymous really, but the last piece does flow well, with inventive, sometimes bizarre sequences of Silvana Mangano's fantasies.
Beware the Pasolini segment...!
The best 25 minutes of Clint Eastwood's career lurk inside this uneven grab bag of shorts by five directors, among them greats.
So good is he in Vittorio De Sica's brilliant segment (as the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit who unleashes his wife's libidinous Walter Middy) that you wonder what would have happened had Eastwood done more comedy.
The rest of the material is mildly charming, middling, dated, watchable only for Silvano Mangano, or, in the case of the Pasolini, dreadful..
Mangano,Totó and Eastwood.
Funny Italian comedy with Mangano in all episodes.but the funniest is with Totó telling some kind nonsense with pit of black humor by pasolini,the last episode come Eastwood in Italian's day making the husband who is now 10 years boring marriage,Silvana Magano is fantastic in every way...Gorgeus!!!.
I understand he theme of the movie is the difference of roles women play but the title is so misleading.
There was only one of the four stories I found funny.
The story with Clint Eastwood was only okay.
The first story was probably the worst and I wanted to quit the movie many times during it.
Some interesting camera every once and while but not worth the watch in my opinion..
I love foreign films...for the most part.
They give a viewer an insight into other countries and film styles from around the world.
That exposure reveals how various directors in the U.S. have altered their styles from the things they've learned abroad.
But not always.In some cases there are directors who march to their own drum, creating their own unique and singular style.
Those directors are most often hailed as creative geniuses whose artistic expression exceeds the limits place on them by the art form they have chosen.
I'd love to be included among those who feel this way but unfortunately I'm not.
I see film as a combination of art and commodity, an entertainment for all.
I'd heard of several of the directors involved including Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Watching what they've delivered here hasn't stopped me from wanting to see their works but I wouldn't base my interests on this offering.The film is composed of 5 segments, one for each director and all starring Silvana Mangano.
Mangano was the wife of producer De Laurentiis at the time and while she was recognized as a star one has to assume he produced this film in the hopes of furthering her career.
Other than the fact she is featured in all 5 there is no connecting theme here that I could make out.In the first segment she's featured as a reclusive movie star/model who's run off to her friend's ski villa.
There she's met with awe by her friend's social circle, the women who choose to pick at her frailties and the men who all want to bed her for the night.
The piece comes off as a reflection on fame and the down side of it, never offering a standard story with beginning, middle and end.
Well shot and acted the worst part of this is the fact as the lengthiest story here it goes nowhere and tells us nothing.Our next offering has Mangano as a woman driving her car and being held up by an accident on the road.
She volunteers to take the injured man to the hospital and the majority of this segment is little more than her driving recklessly to the point of potentially doing more damage to the man than he already received.
The end can be seen coming miles in advance and therefore loses any surprise or humor that one would expect.
This piece felt like a comedic effort that just goes a little too long.
It is also the best piece offered.Third up is the weirdest of the bunch.
Told in excruciatingly surrealistic style it tells the story of a man whose wife has died leaving him with their grown son and no one to look after them.
He meets a woman who is mute, runs off and marries her and then brings her home to a shack they live in.
Longing for a better home he convinces her to fake a suicide threat in hopes people will give them money to prevent it from happening.
From the extreme colors chosen for people's hair, clothing and homes this looks like an episode of Pee Wee's Playhouse.
The end result is one of those what have I just watched style films.Fourth is another somewhat entertaining piece that has a woman manipulating her father.
The piece is short and to the point but offers little.Lastly is the story of a woman who feels that her marriage has fallen flat, the excitement gone from their lives.
He goes to work, comes home and ignores her while she's done all she can to please him.
As with all the stories it ends nowhere, nothing advanced or changed.
This segment is notable for the casting of Clint Eastwood in the role of the husband.
By this time he was a star in Italy having made his first two spaghetti westerns the 2 years before.
Watching him here is painful at times, especially when a segment calls for his interpretation of Fred Astaire like moves.On the whole while the movie was interesting to watch from a historical perspective it lacked anything I would call entertaining.
It is a case of style over substance, where the directors were more concerned with showing off how different they were than the mainstream, how artistic they could be and little more.
As I said I'm a fan of foreign film but not of movies that purport to enlighten me or to show off how artistic they can be at the expense of entertainment.
Others may enjoy films of that sort but for me and most they tend to be ones to pass by.For those fans, the ones who enjoy works like this, Arrow has come through again with a version that will be a must to those fans collections.
To start with they're offering a 2k restoration of the film done exclusively for this release.
No matter what the film no one can say that Arrow short changes fans and their customers. |
tt0070034 | Enter the Dragon | Lee (Bruce Lee), a highly skilled Shaolin martial artist from Hong Kong is approached by Braithwaite, a British intelligence agent investigating suspected crime lord Han (Shih Kien). Lee is persuaded to attend a high-profile martial arts competition on Han's private island in order to gather evidence that will prove his involvement in drug trafficking and prostitution. Shortly before his departure, Lee also learns that his sister's killer, O'Hara (Robert Wall), is working as Han's bodyguard on the island. Also fighting in the competition are indebted gambling addict Roper (John Saxon) and fellow Vietnam war veteran Williams (Jim Kelly).
At the end of the first day, Han gives strict orders that the competitors do not leave their rooms. Lee makes contact with undercover operative Mei Ling (Betty Chung), and sneaks into Han's compound looking for evidence. He is discovered by several guards, but manages to escape. The next morning, Han has the guards publicly killed by chief guard Bolo (Bolo Yeung) for failing him. After the execution, Lee faces O'Hara in the competition and after an emotional battle ends up killing him. With the day's competition over, Han confronts Williams – who had also left his room the previous night to exercise – about the identity of the intruder, and beats him to death when he refuses to cooperate. Han then reveals the scale of his drug operation to Roper in the hope that he will join his organization. He also implicitly threatens to imprison Roper, along with all the other martial artists who competed in Han's tournament in the past, if Roper refuses. Despite being initially convinced, Roper refuses after learning Williams' fate.
Lee sneaks out again that night and manages to send a message to Braithwaite, but is finally captured after a protracted battle with the guards. The next morning Han arranges for Roper to fight Lee, but Roper refuses. As punishment, he is forced to fight Bolo instead but manages to overpower and kill him after a grueling encounter. Enraged by the unexpected victory, Han commands his remaining men to kill Lee and Roper. Facing insurmountable odds, they are soon aided by the island's prisoners, who had been freed by Mei Ling. Han escapes, pursued by Lee, who finally corners him in a hidden mirror room. The mirrors give Han an advantage, but Lee breaks all the room's mirrors to reveal Han's location, and eventually kills him. Lee returns to the main battle, which is now over. A bruised and bloodied Roper sits victorious while the military finally arrive to take control of the island. | suspenseful, murder, cult, violence, flashback, good versus evil, revenge | train | wikipedia | In the years since his bizarre and tragic death, martial arts legend and master Bruce Lee has become a sort of icon within the Kung-fu movie circuit.The last film that he completed before his death, 1973's "Enter the Dragon," has become not only a masterful showcase for Lee's talents (both fighting and acting), but in the 31 years since its release has become perhaps the definitive martial arts movie of all time.Lee, in his first and last English-speaking performance, stars as a martial arts expert who is recruited by the British government to infiltrate an island fortress, under the cover of being invited to a martial arts tournament, to investigate a possible slavery/drug ring led by a former nemesis of his.
Soon enough, Lee, together with two other martial artists, Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly), go to work kicking a** everywhere until the final showdown with the murderous, one-handed villain Han in the classic "Hall of Mirrors" fight sequence."Enter the Dragon," a joint American-Chinese production, was intended to be Bruce Lee's introduction to Western audiences, but due to his tragic death just weeks before the film's American release, we will never know what he would have been capable of here in the states.
Many of them still hold up very well, especially by 2004's standards, where fight scenes are mostly digitally enhanced or involve "wire" or "Matrix-fu" to make up for lack of actual stunt work; plus one has to remember that this film was made in 1973, in the days before wirework would become dominant in today's martial arts cinema.
But more than anything, this was Bruce Lee's entrée to Americans; many people, including myself, were introduced to martial arts cinema through "Enter the Dragon."There are also several cameos made by future martial arts stars that would eventually reach stardom, most notably Jackie Chan (as a henchman during the "Cavern Fight" sequence who has his neck broken by Lee) and Sammo Hung (as Lee's sparring partner in the opening fight sequence).I could go on and on about what makes this movie immortal, but I feel I should let you see what makes it great.
Long held to be the grand-daddy of all martial arts films, Enter the Dragon was recently re- released on DVD with the full treatment digital restoration, a few short scenes added back in, and interviews with all of the surviving cast, plus some extras about the film and a few interviews with Bruce Lee. Most of you have probably already seen it, as it's thirty years old, but even though the film is almost absurdly steeped in the 70s, it still holds up remarkably well.
Now, however, it is the chief testament to the grace and skill of Bruce Lee, and the only one of his four films that he had any sort of creative control over and you can see the difference between this and his Hong Kong films easily.Lee does a Tony Danza and plays Mr. Lee, a shao-lin warrior who is recruited by a foreign government (it's assumed to be the English but is never explicitly stated) to infiltrate the island of a megalomaniac martial artist named Han (Kien Shih) who holds tournaments to find the best martial artists in the world.
It gives one pause while watching Enter the Dragon to think of just what Bruce Lee could have accomplished had he lived.I suppose those who don't like martial arts wouldn't care for this film, but I've seen it convert even unbelievers before.
Even though it is more than 25 years since Enter the Dragon was first released, to this day it is still hailed as the landmark of martial arts films.Used primarily as a vehicle for the late, great Bruce Lee this movie has a thin plot, little actual character development and the acting isn't fantastic.....it was never meant to be another Citizen Kane.
There is also the use of traditional Oriental weapons (nunchaku, escrima sticks, etc..), although the British censors in their wisdom have seen fit the cut the nunchaku sequence, and I'm afraid, like any censored movie, it just isn't the same watching when you know you aren't getting the full monty, so to speak.Still, on the whole one of my personal favourites and a must see for any action or seventies film fan.
You don't need any other reason to watch this movie than Bruce Lee, but having John Saxon ('Planet Of Blood', 'Tenebrae') co-star is an added treat, and Jim Kelly is super cool.
Though Saxon does a passable job, his performance is a bit fibrous at times.Worth seeing for the sets and settings alone, this film is driven well by its fast pace, simple but engaging story line, and the sheer talent of Bruce Lee. Of course, there are the usual problems of the martial arts genre - villains whose sense of honor for the most part only applies to life-threatening situations fighting would-be heroes, the lack of any weapons besides fists and unused knives, unnecessary nude scenes - it is very easy to overlook these problems and just enjoy the film.Highly recommended..
Enter the Dragon is the Citizen Kane and Bruce Lee is the Orson Welles of the martial arts film genre.
We can only imagine what his follow up vehicles would have been like.One thing I do know from watching an old black and white interview with Bruce was that he said he had kind of made it his goal in life to show people around the world that there was more to martial arts than just breaking boards and little men kicking big men in the crotch.
They also feature a good array of weapons as well as many unarmed fights Bruce Lee is great as our protagonist; no martial arts actor is as intense as he was.
Enter the Dragon is a joy to watch for any fan of martial arts flicks.The story is about Lee's quest to bring justice to a renegade Shaolin monk (with a fake, removable hand) at a tournament he hosts to recruit people for his criminal organization, but the thin plot is really there only to give Lee lots of guys to fight.
In its style, it somehow resembles funky and incomparably more violent Marial Arts version of the older James Bond films - sexy ladies and eccentric villains come along with stylish and ultra-violent unarmed battle on a beautiful remote island.Kung Fu expert Lee (Bruce Lee) is applied to attend a tournament on a remote island owned by the mysterious Han (Kien Shih).
Needless to say, he had sex appeal and maintained it even when he was in the throes of beating the chi (life force) out of some idiot who believed incorrectly that he could whoop Lee in a fight.Enter The Dragon was a film which, I believe, showcased every ounce of Bruce's talents (including his use of English for the first time in his films!) I suggest you check out the movie today and enjoy a wonderful talent..
This is, without doubt the greatest Martial Arts film ever to grace the silver screen.It stars the legendary Bruce Lee, who mysteriously died a month before the movie went on general release.
His death arguably had a lot to do with the success of the movie, but you can't take anything away from the awesome action sequences and incredibly choreographed combat scenes.The general cinema going public tend to take these films with a pinch of salt, as they traditionally contain poor performances, silly effects and ridiculous plots.
Enter the Dragon is the final movie that martial arts great Bruce Lee filmed and is a fast-paced, no-nonsense action film about him joining a competition sponsored by renegade Shaolin artist Han (Kien Shih).
Of course the special attention was on main actor Bruce Lee and his great Martial Arts-performances make you forget all those video-lamers like Marc Dacasos, Don "The Dragon" Wilson and even Jean-Claude Van Damme easily!
I also liked the supporting cast including Jim Kelly, Bolo Yeung ("Bloodsport"), villain Kien Shih (Great Blofeld-parody!) and especially the appearance of John Saxon ("Tenebre", "From Dusk Till Dawn"), who´s probably the greatest B-movie actor alive!
One of the great classics of the action genre, Enter The Dragon is set apart by Bruce Lee's charisma, Lalo Schifrin's wonderful, funky score as well as great costumes, sets and fight sequences.
Right because it has influenced countless followers in the martial-arts/kung-fu genre, and can be counted on as holding some of the finest, slickest (not slick in the sense of Jackie Chan's amazing stunts or the artsy-fartsy slickness of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) fight scenes ever filmed.
To sum the review up, I do agree with the argument that Enter the Dragon tends to be over-rated (many say this is the greatest martial arts film ever and say it without seeing the countless films that have come out of Chinese cinema), but as a star in the genre Bruce Lee helped to popularize, he proves here that HE and his philosophies & techniques ("there is no technique" he states early on) will endure for decades and generations to come..
And you have offended the Shaolin temple."Enter the Dragon isn't what I call a masterpiece of film making or anything near outstanding when it comes to it's characters, acting or story line, but honestly, who comes to see a Bruce Lee movie expecting that?
Counted amongst the greatest examples of its genre, notable for being the final film appearance of the incomparable Bruce Lee and equally admirable for offering a wonderful insight into the Chinese culture, the contribution this classic has made in bringing martial arts into world cinema remains unsurpassed to this day.Set in Hong Kong, Enter the Dragon tells the story of Lee, a gifted Shaolin martial artist who is invited to take part in a martial arts tournament that is being hosted on an isolated island by an excommunicated Shaolin disciple.
The plot is simplistic itself, following three characters Lee (Bruce Lee), Roper (John Saxon), and Williams (Jim Kelly) all attending a martial arts tournament on a secluded island for different reasons.
Don't worry too much pony-tailed readers, I still view Bruce Lee as an icon who broke new ground and ushered in the era which saw Jackie and Jet find success, and he was also a man with amazing charisma and screen presence, but black and white films were amazing to people once too, then time passed and we realised that Big Bird was actually yellow.Regardless Enter the Dragon will still go down in history as Bruce's masterwork.In the opening scenes Bruce consults with his master who it must be said is a total martial arts film cliché complete with wispy glued on beard and a bad dub that uses phrases even the Wu-Tang would find too corny to sample.
Even though the fight is choreographed in a far more fluid and realistic manner when compared with the older kung-fu movies there is still the sense that attackers are counting down for their shot as Bruce dispatches them, the brilliantly executed chaos of some of Jackie's better works are non-existent here.The film moves towards the climactic showdown and as soon as we learn that Mr Han has a metal hand it is always going to come down to him and Lee going one on one.
It's always been difficult for me to agree on which of Bruce Lee's films has the best fight action, but there's very little doubt in my mind as to the one I find the most enjoyable: Enter The Dragon, with its James Bond style plot, superb cast, quotable dialogue, impossibly cool soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin, and memorable comic-book villain, is pure cult perfection and a film that I don't think I'll ever grow tired of.Bruce plays Lee, a martial artist who agrees to take part in a tournament in order to avenge his sister, whose death was caused by henchmen of crime-lord Han, owner of the fortified island where the contest is taking place.
Aided by fellow combatant Roper (John Saxon) and pretty secret agent Su Lin (Angela Mao), Lee successfully destroys the evil empire, but not before taking care of his sister's killers, hordes of nameless guards, formidable muscle-man Bolo, and finally, razor-handed head villain Han himself.Any film that opens with a fight between Bruce Lee and HK legend Sammo Hung is going to be great, but chuck in cool cat Saxon, his bad-ass bro' with a 'fro Jim Kelly, unforgettable bad guy Bolo Yeung, a classic Bruce nunchaku scene, and a tense finalé that is like the showdown from The Man With The Golden Gun, but better and with fists, and what you have is a legendary piece of martial arts cinema so packed with testosterone that some say simply watching it makes you perform better in bed.And I've seen it loads of times!.
STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All CostsAt the end of the '60's and start of the '70's,thanks to the phenomenal Bruce Lee,campy kung fu adventure escapades were the things of the time.Today,their relevance of all the animal like screaming and Shaolon music themes still echoes fluently in any Jet Li/Jackie Chan film,as anyone who watches the current MTV ''Video Clash'' thing will understand.Enter The Dragon possesses a timeless feel to it,a film of all time classic status.While many will complain that the plot is poor,what in fact is the truth is that since then,more kung fu/action films of a similar nature have been produced,and so looking back today it seems kind of lame and predictable.But for the time,when kung fu films were in the birth of their origin,this film was truly revolutionary.If not,why has it spawned so many imitations?Lee is truly the greatest martial artist of all time to appear on celliloid.A seemingly indestructable enclosed mountain of a guy,nothing can go by him and not admit defeat.His grace and precision during contact movement is truly something to behold.This is most apparent in the final showdown with Shih Kien.Along with the theme tune of Shaft,this is quite probably one of the most memorable and deservedly so of the early '70's actioners.*****.
This film has the best martial arts action in the history of cinema.Bruce Lee is amazing in this movie, and there are even a couple of those famous "close-up" shots of his face after obliterating an opponent with some fantastic move or another, along with that howl of his that just kind of tapers off very slowly along with the slow-motion action of the sequence.
I'm not totally sure it's him, but it sure looks like him.Overall, if you are a Bruce Lee fan, or a martial arts fan, or just adore fabulous action sequences, be sure and get this movie.
Bruce Lee may have been on the martial arts scene for several years and he already made his mark in with a string of impressive movies in Hong Kong.
Whilst I admire the likes of Donny Yen Jet Li and Jackie Chan there simply is no one that comes close to the charisma and presence that Bruce Lee had.There is no greater testament to that than right here in what most martial arts fans regard as one of if not the greatest martial arts film of all time.The fight scenes are very well choreographed and there is enough action to keep this movie flowing.Storyline wise there is nothing new here but considering this was made in 1973 there have been quite a few movies since that have gone down a similar path.The supporting cast are good and they compliment Bruce quite well.The last half an hour though is all about Bruce and to watch this genius at work is worth every cent.It is a shame that Bruce died so young as it would have been interesting to see just what this great artist would have had in store for us..
Bruce Lee's abilities are featured, including his feral fighting mannerisms and sounds.Like other martial arts films, ETD has numerous elements that can remind us of a James Bond movie--the villain dressed in black, his cat, his island fortress, etc.
1st watched 12/21/2013 -- 7 out of 10(Dir-Robert Clouse): Well done martial arts film that shows everyone why Bruce Lee was such an icon in this genre.
Lee and allies Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly) infiltrate Han's island, where most of the film's action takes place.The plot is really secondary to the presence of Bruce Lee and an ensemble of fighting sequences that are well choreographed, but redundant.
There are comparable films and fighters today, of course, but none to equal the martial arts spirit of Bruce Lee.For those who are new to Bruce Lee, I would recommend seeing all of his early movies made in China before Enter the Dragon.
Let me start off by saying that Enter the Dragon is a great film for anyone interested in a pure tournament fighter's story as well as anyone who wants to see Bruce Lee in his American-made master piece.
Even if you are not big on Bruce Lee or martial arts in general, you owe it to yourself to check this movie out for the sheer genuineness of a tournament fighting flick with a good story..
Enter the Dragon was my first exposure to the work of Bruce Lee. I must say that he was a true Martial Arts genius and master, and I plan to check out some of his other films.
Enter The Dragon is a movie that contains not only a handful of unique and genius fighting scenes but also a great deal of master lee's philosophy and way of thinking.
Miraculously, the fight scenes were not sped up, but slowed down, because of Lee's sheer speed.Lastly, Enter THe Dragon set standards for martial arts films every where, standards not realized until the 1990s.PS Watch out for Jackie Chan in this film, he is one of the henchmen, and his kneck was broken by Bruce himself.. |
tt0115714 | Bloodsport III | Bloodsport III reintroduces the character Alex Cardo (Daniel Bernhardt) from Bloodsport II. As Alex gambles in a casino, masked men steal money and a package from the casino, but not before Alex beats up several of the men. After the robbery, the casino owner convinces Alex to retrieve the package (a bag of diamonds) from the robbers, since they belong to a mob boss named Duvalier (John Rhys-Davies). Alex does so, and Duvalier invites him to a dinner party he's hosting as thanks.
At the party, Duvalier shows Alex his top fighter, the Beast, and tries to convince Alex to fight in his upcoming Kumite. Alex refuses, since he does not fight for profit, much to Duvalier's ire. To provoke him into fighting, Duvalier has Sun (James Hong), Alex's mentor, teacher, and spiritual "father", killed. Alex turns to Leung (Pat Morita) to whom he was indebted in Bloodsport II: The Next Kumite. Leung directs him to the great shaman, Makato "the Judge", to whom Alex must turn for guidance. (The Judge is Sun's brother who developed his own variation of Sun's Iron Hand technique). The judge teaches him to fully channel the energy in his mind and body in order to rout the Beast in the Kumite.
By this point however, Duvalier has invested everything in the Beast, and no longer wants Alex in his Kumite, for fear he will upset the odds. When he is unable to block Alex's entry, he has his men stationed at the entrances to the tournament arena. Alex gets round this by posing as one of the entourage of another fighter. Both Alex and the Beast make their way through the Kumite, and face each other in the finals. Alex is initially outmatched by the Beast's great physical strength and endurance, and takes a severe beating as a result. Eventually, he remembers his training, and is able to knock out the Beast. He refrains from killing Duvalier, knowing that it won't bring Sun back. | violence | train | wikipedia | Third time harms....
Daniel Bernhardt returns as Alex Cardo as he tells in flashback to his son, how his mentor James Hong was killed, how he wins the kumite against "The Beast" who is a titan and along the way discusses how he met the lad's mother.
Also on how the kid's grandfather was a no good scumbag, in other words it is Bloodsport for a younger generation.
Bloodsport II wasn't exactly great (In fact far from good) but when compared to this boring dud of a sequel, it almost feels as if you can sense how bored the movie is with itself.
The fight sequences this time are terribly staged, with martial artistry so sloppy, you'd swear you walked in on a drunken fight.
The movie starts off reasonably well enough but once the training montage begins, you'll be so bored that your only excitement in the fight sequences, will be getting closer to the ending.
The movie is just so lame.
Also the singing in which Amber van Lynt does, is quite positively more damaging to the human body, then any harm "The Beast" inflicts.
(I'm not sure if i'm the first to bring that up, but how nobody remembers such awful singing is mind boggling.) * out of 4-(Bad).
Not as good as the 2nd Bloodsport.
When I first saw bloodsport 2 I was so impressed.
Bloodsport 2 had everything.
Lots of fighters,a ruthless villain{Demon} and the character of Alex Cardo was cool.
The story was good.
And the man teaches him the Iron hand and Alex in return fights in the Kumite to win his friends freedom and to honor him for making Alex a changed man.Then we come to Bloodsport 3.
I was expecting another good movie.
The only good part about this movie is the fight scenes.
Thats it.This movie didn't have many fight scenes.
And the main villain/fighter the beast,is no where as awesome and ruthless as the Demon from the second film.
He seemed slow and tired at times and it looked liked they had to stop the fights just so the guy could regain his breath.Not to mention the storyline.
What was the point of Alex having to go re learn martial arts if he already knew how to fight.
All he would have to have done is use the iron hand on the beast and win the damn thing.And the fighters in this movie wern't as good.
They seemed skinny as hell and arrogant.This movie shouldn't have been made.
Stick with the first 2 films.
Don't waste your time on this movie.
It will disappoint you start to finish..
Daniel Bernhard returns in this 3rd installment in the series.
I suspect that this movie were made in a big rush, since it's worse than "Bloodsport 2" in many ways.
The fighting in this movie isn't that good, and it's just too much of the same styles.
The Kumite in this movie has to be the worst Kumite ever arranged.
One detail that particularly draw my attention, was one of the fighters sitting on the bench ringside and waiting to fight.
But when he was fighting, he suddenly had lots of hair.
Things like this confirms that this is a C-movie, and probably really low-budget.
You should watch Bloodsport III if you have enjoyed the first two, but know that it is inferior to those movies.First of all, the narration style is the same as in the second one(told by flash-backs).
This is not bad, but it doesn't bring anything new to the franchise, and the between flash-back scenes in B2 were arguably better.
Secondly, the main villain (who somehow looks like Vince Vaughn).
His name is "The Beast"...OK, the name of the bad guy in B2 was "Demon", so does every bad guy now have to have a weird name like "Evil Guy" or whatever?
Also, and more importantly, he really isn't that impressive, and doesn't look like he poses a threat to the hero.
Finally, all the other Kumite fighters sucked.
Some of them had funny names (Lima Lama, JJ Tucker), but none of them were sympathetic, rather super annoying (except for Lima Lama).Now for the good.
The movie was a shot in Sri Lanka, which makes for an interesting change of locale.
A lot of the team behind B2 is back for this one, and it's nice to see actors like Pat Morita and James Hong don't mind coming back for just one scene.
It's also nice to see actors like John-Rhys Davies, who played Sallah in Indiana Jones, and Gimli in Lord Of The Rings, will also act in movies like Bloodsport.
Also, and importantly, though handled somewhat awkwardly, the underlying storyline in B3 is deeper and has more meaning than all the other Bloodsports.All in all, while inferior to it's predecessors, Bloodsport III is a movie for which one should not have high expectations, and with Daniel Bernhardt in the lead, it delivers it's promise..
Swiss martial arts dude Daniel Bernhardt stands in again for Van Damme in this second sequel to "Bloodsport".
Alex Cardo has retired from martial arts after winning the Kumite in the last flick, but rich heavy Jonathan Rhys-Davies wants him to compete in a new Kumite he's putting on.
When our hero refuses, Davies kills his former teacher James Hong (who wisely appears to have agreed to be in this movie for less than 5 minutes).
Cardo seeks out Pat Morita (also in this flick for mere minutes), who hooks Cardo up with his brother, who trains him, even though it is repeatedly stated that Cardo is the best martial artist in the world.
He returns to take revenge on Davies by entering the Kumite ...
which is actually what Davies wanted him to do in the first place.
Cardo "gets revenge" by winning the competition, which is what Davies wanted ...
Awful movie.
Not interesting at all, plot is also bad.
Bloodsport I was okay, II was kinda watchable, but III and IV are terrible!
Poor acting, poor fighting scenes...
This movie is one of those movies where you want to leave the cinema although you paid to watch it.
Of course I didn't watch it in the cinema, but I was like "dear God, will it end already".
You get bored watching it, you know the ending, there are no surprising parts, twists, nothing.
It's better than Bloodsport IV, but hey, that's not so hard since IV is one of the worst movies ever made!
It would be better for director if he hadn't made sequels after first Bloodsport movie with van Damme.
There isn't much to say about this film, except that slowly goes down...
This is just one of those bad martial arts films...
with classic story about Alex Cardo who's taking a revenge upon a rich mobster and his "monster" fighter called the Beast.
Again with Daniel Bernhardt in leading role and his Van Damme face expressions.
He travels on Thailand to another master to train him for next Kumite.
We get to see John Rhys Davies as the leading bad guy, the mobster, who is doing nothing but walking around with a large cigar in his mouth and look menacing, just like in "Cyborg Cop", James Hong and Pat Morita are there again...
The fights are good, no complaints there...
This is strictly for martial arts fans..
no better or worse than the second installment(entertaining enough).
at first,it looked like this movie was going down the crapper and quickly.somehow, though,it turns out not too bad.unlike,number two,which isn't really a sequel,this one is.the main character returns,and learns more lessons.i liked the training montages.to me,they were better than the ones in the second film.at times,i could swear it was Van Damme on screen.Daniel Bernhardt really looks like at times.the plot is quite ridiculous,but the action is better,i think.the fight scenes are better at times.
the ending could have been a bit better,as the climax seemed to short.however,overall,this movie is no better or worse than the previous entry, and it's not a complete waste of time.in fact,it's quite entertaining.so i'll give it a 6/10.
pure crap..
I saw Bloodsport, sadly one of Van Damme's best films, and could say it wasn't all that stupid.
Number 2 was far more entertaining, mostly because they cast Daniel Bernhardt as the lead, (a basically taller, better acting, better looking and better fighting version of JCVD).
For the love of your sanity, don't see this movie!
Don't touch this piece of maggot-infested crap!
If you feel the need to see a film that so bad that it actually entertains you, go see "Cool As Ice".
Bloodsport 3, however, is not one of those films..
no point in this film.
when i watched the first two bloodsport films i thought that they were pretty good (especially the first film).
and then when they made a third one i immedietly rented it at the local movie store and was dissapointed in how stupid this film was.
the action seens werent too bad, but the storyline was completely messed...
if you ask me, there was no point in making this film.
A BAD SEQUEL!!!.
The first Bloodsport is a great action movie.
It's sure sucks big time.
The plot and the acting sucks.
My 2-year old brother can act 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than the actors in this movie.
Watch the first movie instead.
And stay far far away from this crappy movie.I hope to god there will not be a Bloodsport 4.* out of ****.
Movie.
In my opinion this truly is the WORST FILM EVER MADE.
The only thing that could possibly be worse is the fourth installment, which I was unaware of until now.
The only reason you would watch this is to laugh at how bad it is, which I did for the first half hour or so.
So on second thoughts don't even see it for that reason.
If you want to watch something that's so bad it's enjoyable, go rent out Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Hell this film is even worse than Scary Movie 2, and I really, REALLY hated that film.
But don't go see it if you liked Scary Movie 2.
It's nothing like it..
Alex is the love child of Sean Connery and Van Damn and knows random street hookers on a first name basis....
Alex is the love child of Sean Connery and Van Damn, a casino gambling agent who fights in random Kumite tournaments and has mystical powers.Some ninjas try to rob a casino with just knives and swords, and are easily defeated by our hero Alex, bring a gun next time?Then a redhead in a blue dress sings to him at a barHe then goes on some mini Quests for experience points to level up by fighting generic ninjas for some diamonds, then fighting some crime guys in an antique shop...He then goes to various dinner parties and claims that he doesn't fight anymore (liar) even though he fought earlier...He then wanders the streets and seems to know random street hookers on a first name basis...A smoke bomb in the phone goes off and somehow knocks people over?
Alex gets played like a deck of cards!The iron hand can heal with magic which is totally real because I can do it too!He then trains with some random master guy and flirts with his niece through various training montages while getting shot at with arrows, similar to Dodge Ball "if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball" except its "If you can dodge an arrow, you can dodge an effort to make a better plot"The bad guy who originally wanted him to fight now doesn't want him to fight...
M. Night Shyamalan plot twist?More random training montages where he makes dumb noises with ropes then catches an arrow, but doesn't catch the opportunity to bang that guys daughter or whatever in the bath house.
She then tells him "your like a brother to me" what kind of messed up family is this?Beats up some random guys and doesn't even bother calling the policeMore training montages with random dangerous nonsense...
and hes ready to fight the Beast!With his training complete, he decides to go to an opium den?
and of course fights again...Random Kumite starts in India or something...His son is terrible at chopping fire wood but alex then shares his secret fire bending powers and can start fires with his mind.In the tournament some guy uses a whip which is somehow allowed?The beast is basically like the Mountain from GOT, I feel like he needs an eye patch or a scarred face, but all we get is a mustache.In some fights, the bad guys teleport around the stage due to the editing and filming.Final fight!
The BEAST!
Lets face it, we all knew Alex was going to win.The ending music is so 90s its painful, Cheerful hip hop version of Mortal Kombat.And that's how Alex didn't teach his son to chop lumber properly.
Alex Cardo (Bernhardt) is a Punchfighter, but he'd rather be having tender heart-to-heart talks with his classically 90's son Jason (David Schatz).
While he trains his tot in the ways of Martial Arts, he regales him with stories of the time he won the Kumite (thus eliminating any sense of suspense or drama and telegraphing a spoiler alert from the get-go).
Alex recounts the tale of his time in "the Far East" when he used to frequent casinos while dressed in a white tuxedo.
Alex tells of the evil fight promoter Duvalier (Rhys-Davies), and how he murdered his mentor Master Sun (Hong).
He neglects to mention why Pat Morita is only seen for about 30 seconds and for no apparent reason.
To win the tournament, Alex goes to the countryside and begins training extensively, which is a prerequisite if you want to win.
Alex soon dons his singlet and enters the ring, and proceeds to work his way through a bunch of fighters with no character development beyond their names, such as Bruce Burly (McElroy) (though why J.
J. Perry had to play a guy named J.
Finally he faces off against The Beast (Oleson), an almost comically oversized meathead of the highest order.
Will Alex live to tell the tale to his son?
Apparently there's no real limit on how many of these types of movies can be made.
The original Bloodsport and Kickboxer films truly opened the floodgates during the video store era for Punchfighters for decades to come, even up to the present day.
But the problem with movies like this is, during the last half-hour at least, it gets very boring and repetitive.
But you have to show the Kumite, right?
So on and on it goes.Before the internet and even Pay-Per-View, renting movies like this was one of the only ways to see fighting of this kind on film.
So the movie gets somewhat of a pass, but it really should have bothered to do a bit more character development and maybe concentrated a little less on extended Kumite footage.
We realize we're talking about Bloodsport III here, but still, we think that's a fair criticism.
The first half of Bloodsport III is actually a lot of fun.
But then it slows down and becomes more standard, unfortunately enough.Daniel Bernhardt must have been an obvious choice to fill the shoes of Van Damme, because, let's face it, he's basically the same person.
We've never seen them in the same place at the same time, have we?
But somewhere in between Van Damme and Olivier Gruner, the Bernhardt dwells.
At many points throughout the film, you could swear that it IS Van Damme.
But Bernhardt puts forth his best "suave eyebrow" to woo the ladies, and why wouldn't he go after Crystal Duvalier (Van Lent), with a singing voice like that?
In the "white tuxedo" scene, he truly is Daniel BernBond.
In the "white tuxedo" scene, he truly is Daniel BernBond.
But the man has his own personal problems and demons as well, as he has nightmares of recycled footage that he has to contend with.Perhaps, in the end, Bloodsport III raises more questions than it answers (what exactly is the timeline of all these Kumite matches as they relate to parts II and III?
But it does have a noteworthy end-credits song, "Rhythm of the Kumite" - a techno tune where you think at any moment someone will yell "Mortal Kombat!!!!!" - but they do indeed yell "Bloodsport!!!!!", so, no harm no foul.
So basically the first half is entertaining but it devolves into a slog.
So watch it on YouTube and save the money on your credit Cardo..
Just finished watching the movie, yesterday I have seen part II.
It's not as good as part 2, and well, they shoudn't have named it part III.
I mean, the events concerning master Sun, are not possible since Master Sun was telling the students about the last kumite as an old man, so he was still alive.
But then again Highlander 2,3 and 5 are also horrible, whilst parts 1 and 4 are very nice, and the increasing number behind American Ninja/kickboxer is also, let's say not an increase of quality.I have the tendency to watch lets say, the lesser pearls of the movie world in the weekend.
And if you expect a B film, this is rather OK.
It's 90 minutes of not-too-bad acting and nice fighting scenes.
Obviously the continuity is very very poor (JJ and the bandage of the long haired fighter) and the biggest mistake???
'several years after winning the kumite, I was living in the far east'....WHY SAY THAT???
the film was shot in Sri Lanka, all the people are 'indian', why say that it's in the far east?...
Eventually this film is OK, I enjoyed watching it...
If you want to see it, don't expect anything fancy, just real B material, and you can have a nice 1.5 hr.cheers |
tt0823333 | Blade: The Series | In the pilot, Krista Starr returns from military service in Iraq to learn that her twin brother, Zack, has died under mysterious circumstances. Her investigation reveals that Zack was a "familiar" - a kind of indentured servant who agrees to do a vampire's bidding in the hopes that his "master" will eventually reward him with eternal life. Krista's search for her brother's killer soon brings her face to face with Blade, as well as with the killer himself, Marcus Van Sciver. Marcus is a powerful vampire and high-ranking member of the House of Chthon. Smitten with Krista, Marcus decides to turn her into a vampire by injecting her with his blood. Krista is then approached by Blade, who injects her with the same serum he uses to control his own vampire instincts, and offers her a chance to help him avenge her brother's death and bring down Marcus and the House of Chthon, and revealed that Zack was trying to do a sting operation with Blade. The two form a reluctant partnership.
The remainder of the season follows Krista's attempts to maintain her cover in the House of Chthon, all the while struggling with her growing predatory nature, and Marcus's (supposed) efforts to develop a "vaccine" that will render vampires immune to all their traditional weaknesses; sunlight, silver, garlic, etc. It is later revealed that Marcus's true purpose is to create a virus called the Aurora Project that will specifically target "purebloods," the ruling vampire class, and leave the turnbloods (normal vampires like Chase and Marcus, who were once human) unscathed. He eventually unleashes his weapon in the series finale, surprisingly enough with Blade's help. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0056732 | El Ángel Exterminador | During a formal dinner party at the lavish mansion of Señor Edmundo Nóbile and his wife, Lucia, the servants unaccountably leave their posts until only the major-domo is left. After dinner the guests adjourn to the music room, where one of the women, Blanca, plays a piano sonata. Later, when they might normally be expected to return home, the guests curiously remove their jackets, loosen their gowns, and settle down for the night on couches, chairs and the floor.
By morning it is apparent that, for some inexplicable reason, they are unable to leave. The guests consume what little drinks and food are left from the previous night's party. Days pass, and their plight intensifies; they become thirsty, hungry, quarrelsome, hostile, and hysterical – only Dr. Carlos Conde, applying logic and reason, manages to keep his cool and guide the guests through the ordeal. One of the guests, the elderly Sergio Russell, dies, and his body is placed in a large cupboard. Much later in the film, Béatriz and Eduardo, a young couple about to be married, lock themselves in a closet and commit suicide.
The guests eventually manage to break open a wall enough to access a water pipe. In the end, several sheep and a bear break loose from their bonds and find their way to the room; the guests take in the sheep and proceed to slaughter and roast them on fires made from floorboards and broken furniture. Dr. Conde reveals to Nóbile that one of his patients, Leonora, is dying from cancer and accepts a secret supply of morphine from the host to keep her pain under control. The supply of drugs is however stolen by Francis and Juana, a brother and sister. Ana, a Jew and a practitioner of Kabbalah, tries to free the guests by performing a mystical ceremony, which fails.
Eventually, Raúl suggests that Nóbile is responsible for their predicament and that he must be sacrificed. Only Dr. Conde and the noble Colonel Alvaro oppose the angry mob claiming Nóbile's blood. As Nóbile offers to take his own life, a young foreign guest, Leticia (nicknamed "La Valkiria") sees that they are all seated in the same positions as when their plight began. Upon her encouragement, the group starts reconstructing their conversation and movements from the night of the party and discover that they are then free to leave the room. Outside the manor, the guests are greeted by the local police and the servants, who had left the house on the night of the party and who had similarly found themselves unable to enter it.
To give thanks for their salvation, the guests attend a Te Deum at the cathedral. When the service is over, the churchgoers along with the clergy are also trapped. It is not entirely clear though, whether those that were trapped in the house before are now trapped again. They seem to have disappeared. The situation in the church is followed by a riot on the streets and the military step in to brutally clamp down, firing on the rioters. The last scene shows a flock of sheep entering the church in single file, accompanied by the sound of gunshots. | comedy, avant garde, allegory, insanity, absurd, psychedelic, satire | train | wikipedia | The key to this movie is setting up the central plot, and the director does such a good job of it that after a while; we don't care that the film is based on an idea that makes no sense at all, and are just able to run with it.
That was what Luis Bunuel used to answer when asked about the meaning of one of his least accessible works.Much less linear than "Viridiana" -featuring the same actress Silvia Pinal-which precedes it,"El Angel exterminador" can be looked upon as an allegory.We find a lot of permanent features of the Bunuel canon in it though.The fact that the guests cannot leave the luxury house will find an equivalent in "le charme discret de la bourgeoisie"(1972) when the five characters cannot have a good meal at the restaurant;the guests turning like lions in a cage echo to this strange picture of the five heroes of "charme discret" walking on an endless road.This is the kind of movie that will have as many interpretations as there are users writing about it.And Bunuel would probably be the first to say that anyone is allowed to see his movie as he feels it in his soul -which is a word he would not certainly approve of though.Another put-down of the bourgeoisie ,probably;As Charlie Chaplin would not have let an ice-cream fall on a poor woman's dress,Bunuel's wholesale massacre concerns the rich,the well-to-do.The house may be a metaphor for their world which they want to keep exactly as it is.But Bunuel soon scratches the varnish and after long hours,his powerful bourgeois are just men and rather hateful selfish cowards -the scene when they rush to get a glass of water.And as they cannot rely on themselves and on their pals,the only assistance can only come from above:so they promise God they will chant Te Deums, they will go to Lourdes and buy a washable rubber Virgin (sic).Surrealist pictures,which had been absent since "cela s'appelle l'aurore" (1955) come back for a while during one night,and they mainly deal with religion and heaven.The mystery of the night hours will come back in "le fantôme de la liberté" (1974)The last pictures bring the missing link :the army ,shooting people (talking about a revolution?) ,as the bourgeois keep on singing(?) and praying(?)in the cathedral.Recommended?Everything Bunuel did is crying to be watched..
The Exterminating Angel, what a movie- I've seen it twice now and each time it went against (in the best possible way) my better logic.
There is no apparent reason they cannot leave, but there they stay for days, going back to a primitive state in which their dearest "discreet charm" (euphemism, the rule of the game, as in Renoir's 1939 film) vanishes.
This film has an interesting premise: a dinner party of rich bourgeoisie find themselves inexplicably unable to leave the house.
The resolution is utterly meaningless and random, and it leaves you saying to yourself "I could have thought of a million better ways to end that movie." But as it were, Bunuel chose the most vapid resolution, similar to a cheezy TV scifi drama where the solution is to "switch the polarity from plus to minus!" This film is utterly unfulfilling to anyone who is thirsty for philosophy and depth.
Luis Bunuel used this simple meta-narrative concept of people trapped, to create one of his finest satires, and his first explicitly surrealist film since L'Age D'Or (1930).
After Bunuel's previous film, Viridiana (1961), was condemned by the Vatican and banned in his native country of Spain (and where it was made), he moved back to Mexico where he had been making films throughout the 1940's and 50's, and produced a scabrous attack on General Francisco Franco's Spanish fascist dictatorship, and the institutions, and bourgeois facets of the country that were founded on the destruction of the poor and the proletariat, during the civil war that ended in 1939.Whilst the film works as political allegory, on a base narrative level, it functions as an irrational comedy; or farce.
But with this, it also shows how even the "civilised" sections of society, once they are stripped of their social status, their inherited manners of "education", and their ability to use wealth, the fall into absolute decay, probably falling apart greater than the lower classes, with their lessened moral outlook, and an almost infantile inability to deal with regular obstacles.Winner of the 1962 Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, this was to begin what become (rather belatedly for the 62 year old) his most productive, celebrated and interesting period of his career, based in Paris, beginning with Belle de Jour (1967) and ending with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977).
This is weird story about a group of higher class , a drama with surrealism and sour portrait upon social stratum , catholicism , with plenty of dream imaginary and many other things , being stunningly realized by the Spanish maestro of surrealism , the great Luis Buñuel .
Interesting and thought-provoking screenplay from the same Luis Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza, Buñuel's usual screenwriter ; they pull off a straight-faced treatment of shocking subject matter .The movie script was original and early working title "The Castaways of Providence Street" , then Luis Buñuel took the title The Exterminating Angel from his friend José Bergamin, the Spanish poet, who had mentioned it the year before for a play he wanted to write .
Most Buñuel's films were surreal black comedies , parables that satirized moral hypocrisy , social moral , artistic pretension, and , of course , the Catholic Church .
The ending is ridiculous without being funny and the ending after the ending was a predictable way to stretch the thin idea past 90 minutes.Yes, Luis Buñuel had an interesting career but I don't know why people consider this his best work..
If you want an introduction into the anarchic, surrealistic, bourgeois-baiting world of Luis Bunuel 'The Exterminating Angel' is the best place to start.
The initial premise is simple, albeit puzzling - the guests at a dinner party mysteriously find themselves unable to leave their hosts house at the end of the evening.
Me, I think he made some of the greatest movies of all time, especially his fertile 1960s period which included some of his very best work like 'Belle De Jour' and yes, 'The Exterminating Angel'..
Best not to try to assign any symbolic meaning to it unintended by the director (as an opening note from the director states, more or less.) I really must see some more of Buñuel's films; I've only seen a few.Unfortunately, the video I watched (Hen's Tooth Video) was a little washed-out looking, with definition lost most in the brightest whites and darkest blacks.
The social ritual in which assorted bourgeois people sit at a large banquet table and are plied with different courses of elegantly prepared food by foot servants, which had been anxiously and expertly prepared by the chef and his kitchen staff.Bunuel alerts us {the viewers} early as to the incipient chaos to follow by having the kitchen staff abandon their conventional order of events by unpredictably walking off the job.
The result is a lingering death paralyzed within the chalked circle.At the end of the dinner, and after pleasantries and some cultivated appreciation of classical piano playing, the invisible circle is chalked at the exit to the dining-room leaving the assorted guests unable to perform the act of taking their leave and departing.Here you have the central issue of the film, as the bourgeois guests descend into a nightmarish hell of inertia, apathy and utter lack of resourcefulness, so that the typical bourgeois traits of herd-like conformity, self interest and alienation become stumbling blocks to the simple human capacity to act.
People die, lovers commit suicide, sheep {the lamb of God?} are eaten as civilization, of which the human social phenomenon of the bourgeois can be considered to be its apex, crumbles back into the cesspool of primal soup from which it developed.The spell is eventually broken when one of the guests remembers the alchemical and ancient magical practice of reenacting the events that led up to the circle being drawn but then changing its chain of magical order by leaving, {like an automaton}, at the usual time and mannerThe movie then reverts back to the prologue with the sheep entering the Cathedral, in order to worship.
You can only find this film more like a comedy, with people complaining because they just can't seem to leave the darn dinning room.
These days such a line would cross another line, but like racism...while things have grown better over time, I think a lot of classist attitudes have gone covert, and still flourish till this day.Many people have cited the opening quote from this film: "The best explanation of this film is that, from the standpoint of pure reason, there is no explanation." Which could be a good premise for a horror film (which this film oddly could be seen as), or more likely as a surrealist's credo.
It gave my mind one last twist, and made me twig on the ridiculous notion not so long ago proffered by some that Iraqi's needed someone like Saddam Hussein to "lead" them.The world is still surreal even though Bunuel has left the dinner party..
The interest quickly evaporates into boredom as we get repeated views of guests descending into lethargy when they find they can't bring themselves to leave the dining room, which gradually begins to resemble a pig sty.Now, I, personally, have a reputation as leaning strongly to the left, so my lack of appreciation of Bunuel doesn't stem from opposition to his political orientation.
THE HUCKSTERS shows another sort of up-scale scoundrel at work, and there are many other films that display the villainy and lack of any moral integrity of upper class types in a manner far more interesting and meaningful than folks of the ilk of Bunuel and Berthold Brecht ever did.
When the film starts we are watching first the servants one after the other leaving the mansion, except the valet, who is staying to serve the guests.
Just perfect!!Big fans of Luis Bunuel appreciate the perfection of this movie....I could watch this film again and again......
In one way you could look this movie as a post-modernist, there's no real answers to life and such, but I tend to say that this is a criticism about the class wars, social satire and surrealist piece of art.
I don't know, the trapped in a room thing, could be a metaphor on how they are all living in their own world, how they live in this box (or a room) and how they don't break out from that.I'm going to try to makes sense on why couldn't they leave...
Luis Bunuel's film follows a dozen or so members of an upper class society in Mexico City attend a dinner party at a large mansion where, for no apparent reason, they find themselves unable (psychologially, not physically) to leave a music room.
Bunuel's 1962 film revolves (almost literally) around a group of middle-class people at a dinner party.
The ending reveals more than I will say but I think this is Bunuel's best film of those I've seen and it is a crisp, timeless watch which asks more questions than it answers..
i had probably seen these pieces before because i am a snob and an 'intellectualloide', although it might also be due to the fact that i'm European.i've been watching: _los olvidados_, 1950, _viridiana_, 1961, _belle de jour_, 1967, _tristana_, 1970, _ensayo de un crimen_, 1955, _el ángel exterminador_, 1962 and _the discrete charm of the bourgeoisie, 1972although i still have much left to see, i have concluded that his work differs from time to time.-some keywords are: *surrealism *sade *dreams *abject *poverty *Mexico** *méxico** *méjico** *france *españa-some key words are": .oneiric world .social realism .social critique .ancient regime .the 20s .the 30s .the 50s .the 60s .the 70s .the bells (the sound of bells on moving animals) .folk tales .folk remembrances .death .self sacrifice-also, my partner and i had a problem watching _el ángel exterminator).
Buñuel's 1962 masterpiece of bourgeoisie-baiting Freudian repression, 'The Exterminating Angel' is a Surrealist slaughterhouse.A group of wealthy upper-class members of the bourgeoisie find themselves mysteriously trapped inside a house when attending a lavish dinner party.
The doors are not locked and there is no logical reason why they cannot leave, yet they remain trapped like prisoners, and likewise, no one can enter (the flummoxed police are stationed outside, trying to work out how to save the rich people).
The poor are more important to the rich than they ever realise.A film like 'The Exterminating Angel' serves to remind us that, regardless of wealth, we are all trapped inside the frigid, repressive boxes of our own (and society's) creation, and a conscious decision to leave them on our own terms is nearly impossible..
The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave.Following the Viridiana scandal, Buñuel returned to Mexico, but kept his production team and decided to make another movie starring Silvia Pinal.
The film, originally called The Outcasts of Providence Street, was renamed The Exterminating Angel after Buñuel picked it from an unfinished play his friend José Bergamín was writing at the time.
Movie, surrealistic (what a word!) and with this Spanish film director I mark our future goal.I prefer to accept the story as theoretical setting, presenting the bubble of happiness of the rich class in society - the so-called "elite" who never gave up their status and would not admit it to someone lower.
The film ends with a flock of sheep running towards the church where the people are imprisoned, suggesting that human beings are like lambs to the slaughter.
Exterminating Angel, The (1962) *** (out of 4) Luis Bunuel's film about a group of people, who after dinner can't leave the room they are in.
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL is a surrealist drama about a high class as social parasites, which are gathered in one place.After a visit to an opera, a group of fashionable people from high society has gathered at a party in a villa of a respected gentleman and his wife.
I found a lot of good information along with some glaring errors regarding the film, to which I attribute the possibility that the authors probably did not have access to a videotape copy of the movie and were thus unable to view it many times over.That being said, I've been able to gather that the movie is primarily Buñuel's impression of "high society" parties that seem to go on forever (as he stated himself in several interviews).
No one could throw a party on the screen like Don Luis Bunuel did - in his films people just can't get enough of the parties - they either can't get started ("The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie") or they are so sumptuous that the guests would never leave - in a perfect companion piece to the Discreet Charm.., "The Exterminating Angel" (1962), very funny comedy with very dark (as usual for Bunuel) humor.
They just don't have a willpower to open the door and go outside where the police, family members, and press are waiting...not be able to make few steps to the party house and open the door from outside....Once again Bunuel proves that he is one of just a few artists who could tell the same joke over and over again and get away with it creating the film as perplexing, absurdist, bizarre and in the same time irresistibly funny and clever as "The Exterminating Angel".
In the morning, for an unknown reason, it is apparent they are trapped in the music room, not physically but psychologically, unable to leave the guests consume what little water and food they can find from the previous night's party.
Mexican movie-maker Luis Buñuel, well-respected for his surrealist films, outdid himself with this.
The story is simple: some dinner guests strangely find themselves unable to leave the house where they have eaten.Rather than indulge in outlandish visuals to create an effect as Buñuel frequently did, this film conveys its surrealistic magic chiefly through dialogue.
I read some other reviews afterward to see what other viewers thought.Overall, the movie felt like a combination of a long Twilight Zone episode combined with a surrealistic art house film.
The director was clearly making a commentary on the upper class of Mexico at the time the movie was made, including much of the inane interaction that typically happens at social events.
Bunuel did have a couple of instances where a scene repeated itself, but I frankly did not understand why.The device of having the party guests trapped in the room was never explained, and I think I preferred it that way.
In The Exterminating Angel high society dinner guests find themselves unable to leave the room, stay there for days, and lapse into neurosis before the strange spell is broken; when they go to church to give thanks, they find themselves unable to leave.The film is a fascinating surrealist fantasia on themes elaborated with even more panache in The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (1972).
POSSIBLE SPOILERSIt does come as a little boring but Luis Bunuel's "The Exterminating Angel" is a lot better than "L'age D'or." A group of aristocratic socialites are invited to a dinner part and for some apparent reason, they don't leave.
This satire shows Bunuel's contempt for the middle class aristocracy; the way the individuals, for some reason, lack the will to leave the premises.
Making Cinema Out Of Thin Air. I seldom watch movies that are built on nothing and yet transmit as many ideas as Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel.
When one stops to reflect how this movie is built, one realises it's just a group of people trapped inside a living room; and yet it holds the viewer in thrall until the end.An upper class couple invite their friends for a pleasant dinner. |
tt0338466 | Stuck on You | Conjoined twins Bob and Walt Tenor try to live as normally as possible. Outgoing and sociable Walt aspires to be a Hollywood actor, however, whereas shy, introverted Bob prefers the quiet life. They run Quikee Burger, a diner in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, that guarantees free meals to customers whose orders are not completed in three minutes, a testament to how skilled and in sync Bob and Walt are with each other. Though Walt is comfortable socializing with women, Bob is the shyer of the two, and carries on a long-distance relationship with a pen pal named May Fong whom he has never met in person, and who is unaware that they are conjoined twins.
Walt gets a role in a local play. Bob stays as much as possible in the background, as he has a tendency to get stage fright. Following the play's success, Walt decides to follow his dream to Hollywood and persuades his hesitant brother to go along for the ride. They rent an apartment in California and become friends with fellow aspiring actress April Mercedes. When she expresses curiosity about their conjoinment, Walt explains that they share a liver that is mostly Bob's, and that because surgical separation entails a higher risk to Walt, Bob would not consent to the surgery, even though Walt favored it. It is also the reason why Walt appears somewhat older than Bob. (Greg Kinnear is seven years older than Matt Damon in real life.)
Walt's efforts to find acting work in Hollywood are fraught with difficulty, and his agent, Morty O'Reilly, is little help, offering at one point to get him a job in a pornographic film. Cher is upset that she has ended up starring in a prime-time TV show called Honey and the Beaze. She wants out of the deal, so she decides to hire Walt as her co-star (since her contract states she can choose anyone she wants), certain the show will get cancelled. The producers, realizing Cher's scheme, foil it by going forward with the production, compensating for Bob's presence by keeping him out of the camera frame and employing bluescreen effects. The show is a surprise hit and Walt becomes famous.
Walt arranges for May Fong to come to California. Although he did this without Bob's consent, Bob and May Fong develop a romantic relationship, though the twins' attempt to keep their conjoined nature a secret proves challenging, especially since Walt must accompany the new couple everywhere, sometimes using creative solutions like disguising himself as a giant teddy bear. Eventually however, when May discovers the twins in bed, she concludes that they are a homosexual couple rather than brothers. Although Bob shows May that they are indeed conjoined twins, May is nonetheless in even greater shock at the deception, and flees.
Morty informs the twins that word has leaked about Walt and Bob being conjoined. Rather than hide this, the twins decide to embrace it, and they both become huge celebrities, making commercials and appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. While Walt enjoys this success, he knows that Bob is unhappy because he misses May. Resolving that Bob needs to be independent from him in order to be happy, Walt demands they be surgically separated. When Bob refuses, Walt, determined to convince him, begins acting wild and crazy until Bob can no longer take it. Walt starts to make a fool of himself by getting drunk and accidentally snatching a woman's purse. They eventually end up spending the night in jail for drunk driving; even though Walt was drinking, Bob is the one who suffers the hangover since their shared liver is mostly his. When they are released the following morning, they get into a fight and Bob decides to go with the operation.
On the night before the surgery, May shows up and apologizes to Bob for running out the way she did. Bob informs her that they're getting separated; although she does not want them to, he knows that it's best for them. At the hospital, May and April keep a vigil until learning from Ben Carson, a real-life neurosurgeon playing a cameo role, that the surgery was successful. Bob and May, both being small-town people, decide to move back to Oak Bluffs, but Bob finds the separation from Walt difficult, both practically and emotionally, and is unable to do the things by himself that the twins used to do together, such as maintain Quikee Burger's three-minute challenge or play hockey. Walt, for his part, loses his job when Honey and the Beaze is canceled due to low ratings, and finds it difficult to find subsequent work. He is also emotionally devastated by Bob's absence. After having a brief talk with Cher about what's best for him, he decides to move back to Oak Bluffs.
One year later, Walt and Bob are back in Oak Bluffs running the restaurant together, Bob and May have married and May is pregnant. The twins simulate their former conjoinment with Velcro clothing that attaches them to one another. Walt finds creative fulfillment continuing in local plays, including a musical in which he and Meryl Streep play Bonnie and Clyde. | romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | I went into the cinema with friends and said: "It's a Farrelly Brothers film; you can guess the level of humour." There's Something About Mary I love, but let's face it -- the humour is quite crass, even if the movie does have some heart.
Walt decides to move to California to try his luck at the big time, and although Bob is initially reluctant, he also has a beautiful "Internet pal" in California who he's been talking to for more than three years.Compared to some of directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly's other films, such as Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, and Me, Myself And Irene, we could say that the humor in Stuck On You is much more subtle.
If you are familiar with Daisy and Violet Hilton's story, for example--they were infamous sideshow performers who were conjoined twins--you'll note similarities, such as how they approached relationships with persons of the opposite sex.Like much of the Farrelly Brothers other work, however, Stuck On You is as heartwarming as funny, and on one level, it's primarily a very odd romance film.
That is apparently the case with Stuck On You, the Farrellys latest and tamest, but it's also one of their sweetest and funniest films to date.Bob and Walt Tenor (Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear) are conjoined twins who've spent their whole lives in Martha's Vineyard.
But the show is an unexpected success thanks to Walt's burgeoning popularity, which puts a crimp in his relationship with Bob.Reviewing comedies has always been a bit difficult for me, which is why I usually stick to the stuff that I find easier to write about (action/adventure, horror, drama, anything but comedy), but given all the knocks this film has taken (particularly the fact that barely anybody saw it in theaters) I felt a slight sense of obligation to mention that Stuck On You is the funniest and most touching comedy I've seen in recent memory.This is not to say that the film always had me choking with laughter (though a scene involving a guy in front of his typewriter did get the biggest laugh out of me all year), but rather that it consistently delivered smiles, chuckles, and solid laughs without ever bogging down, no easy feat for a movie that runs for just under two hours.Aside from the lack of sexual humor, there's a major difference between the style of comedy the Farrellys employ here than in some of their prior films.
Had not even half of the jokes worked as well as they did, their performances would still warrant this movie a passable recommendation.Stuck On You doesn't always juggle its various subplots perfectly; while Wen Yann Shih does play well into the film, a lot of brief cameos and a wide assortment of characters aren't meshed in as well.
The magic of Stuck On You is that its protagonists are always the same throughout, making no genuine "it's a miracle!" revelations about themselves at the last minute; after all, brotherly love is still brotherly love.When the last twenty minutes threaten to devolve into sentimental clap-trap, the Farrellys punch in the necessary humor that defuses any of the building sap (spoiler:I think my favorite scene in the whole film is when Bob and Walt re-unite after parting their separate ways, in a scene that's both hilarious and touching), making the film sweet without getting too sweet.
Going into this movie i expected another typical Farrelly movie, fearing i might hate it because the past years i haven't been such a big fan of dumb comedies, but this is actually very different, it is definitely a comedy, and it has a lot of small sketches that can crack you up, but underneath all the comedy they really managed to create a film with personal meaning, moral, and most important in this movie is the warm feeling you get off it.What saves this movie really is the slight seriousity below the comedy, the movie does never try to be stupid and it works all the way through, you get really personal with the two main characters, who btw does an outstanding job, both of them are great in their roles, and i think it's good to see Matt Damon showing his potential, once again, in a very different genre than his former work.The strength of the movie really is all these small sketches, there are so many, and they are just funny, every single one of them, how they work together, it's just so well made, small jokes that you may forget fast, but at the time they work, and the fight in the disco was just so great hehe, i couldn't help it, i loved it, the movie made me laugh, just as i thought i would never find a movie again that could make me laugh, i think it's nice to see that there are still comedies that are based on the comedy, that are funny without being dumb.
'Stuck On You' is a cult-movie, directed by the Farrelly brothers and having the participation of famous persons, such as Meryl Streep (uncredited), Cher and Griffin Dunne.
So, it's with great reluctance that I write a less than stellar review of "Stuck On You".It's not a horrible film, but like many recent Farrelly releases it's muddled and illustrates a tug of war between the movies the Farrellys want to make the and movies the Farrelly's fans want them to make."Stuck On You" tells the tale of Bob and Walt Tenor, conjoined twins who live a good, peaceful life on Nantucket Island.
Eva Mendes is primarily a cleavage delivery device in "Stuck On You", which is a shame because she's not a bad actress and she could have some comedic chops.How are Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon in this film?
That something is taking a story about goofy conjoined twins (Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear), tossing in bathroom and masturbation jokes, and then seeing a basic metaphor about the loss people feel when separated from another human being with whom they have spent their lives.I commend the Farrellys because `Stuck on You' does not play for the broadest laughs but gently lampoons pretentious Hollywood and overtly praises the sincere emotions of two linked humans and the New England town that loves them regardless of their disability.
The Farrellys are not the Coens, whose satire is more Kaufmans' `Adaptation' (Even if the brother is only imagined) than Zuckers' `Airplane.' But the Farrellys' five major motion pictures make them as bankable as any other successful brothers in the business.Seeing diva Cher make fun of herself and Meryl Streep cutup as co-star with Kinnear in a musical stage production of `Bonnie and Clyde'(Think `Springtime for Hitler') are a couple of reasons to see this film.
It seems here like the Farrellys, who are known for their bad taste, wanted to make fun of conjoined twins, but felt like it may upset some people, so instead they cast them in a loving light, but don't know what to do with it.
Nice comedy does not work for the Farrellys.Bob (Matt Damon) and Walt (Greg Kinnear) have been stuck together for all of their lives.
Back to the Farrellys for a minute, more jokes could have been made not at the expense of conjoined twins but just with them, something like in Airplane 2: The Sequel.I don't understand why everyone makes fun of Damon's acting, he's a solid actor, and he wasn't half bad here, but Kinnear was his better half.
Take "Stuck On You".It's the story of Bob (Matt Damon) and Walt Tenor (Greg Kinnear), conjoined twins remaking their lives when extroverted Walt pursues his acting dreams in Hollywood and introverted Bobby must go along for the ride.
Damon and Kinnear display nice chemistry, and I chuckled a couple of times.But the Farrellys seem more interested in displaying their humanity than making a funny film.
This film has below average acting and plot development, and fails to keep the audience interested in the movie for longer than 5 minutes.I believe the film tries to be both a comical experience as well as a mushy love story at the same time, but there is no way of knowing for sure because the film does a horrible job of emphasizing both qualities.
Maybe you saw the trailer and still thought it wouldn't be any good.Well, all those statements applied to me, and I'm telling you to forget it all, because "Stuck On You" is easily the Farrelly brothers' best film since the classic "There's Something About Mary".Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play Bob and Walt Tenor, conjoined ("siamese") twins living in Martha's Vineyard, and are popular and well-liked there.
I am continually amazed at his ability to play any kind of character, whether it's an action hero like in "The Bourne Identity" or a complete dweeb like in "Stuck On You" (and anything in between) and do it convincingly.Cher is also quite a good sport to play herself as such a mean prima donna for most of the movie.I also really like the way the Farrelly brothers like to include handicapped people in small roles of their films without any hint of being pretentious or pious about it.
Most notable in this film is Ray "Rocket" Valliere, a mentally handicapped man who gives one of the most likeable performances in the movie."Stuck On You" isn't perfect (the middle section is a bit dry), but for the most part it's a very entertaining, very funny, and yes, even touching film that is never less that fun to watch.
Stuck On You (2003) Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Eva Mendes, Wen Yann Shih, Ray "Rocket" Valliere, Cher, Pat Crawford Brown, Tommy Songin, Terence Bernie Hines, Seymour Cassel, Griffin Dunne, Jay Leno, Meryl Streep, Frankie Muniz, D: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly.
One-joke comedy about Damon and Kinnear, a pair of conjoined twin brothers, leaving their burger joint in Martha's Vineyard so one of them can pursue his dream of Hollywood stardom.
This is a particular shock considering that the film is the brainchild of the Farrelly Brothers, who practically took out the patent on outrageous and insane ribald comedy.Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear star as twins, conjoined from birth, who leave their home in Martha's Vineyard to seek fame and fortune as actors in Hollywood.
The biggest laugh I had in a movie for a long time was when it is revealed who her boyfriend is.One more thing: that scene where Damon and Kinnear flip the burgers together was pretty cool.My rating:4 out of 10.
The Farelly brothers are pidgeon-holed for making gross-out comedies based on the strength of a few scenes of some of their most popular movies, such as "Dumb and Dumber" and "There's Something about Mary." When their 2003 movie "Stuck on You," arrived at cinemas people wrongly assumed that it would contain more of those types of shenanigans.Instead, the humor in "Stuck on You" is much more subtle and sweet-natured.
I'm actually not sure why this worked for me but it did -on a very basic level.Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play conjoined twins Walt and Bob whose brotherly bond is tested when Bob decides to leave their idyllic hometown life and pursue an acting career in Los Angeles.
Stuck On You is a great comedy movie with a well written storyline that is filled with plenty of hilarious and cringe worthy scenes and a cast that clearly had a lot of fun starring in this movie.I am a huge fan of the Farrelly brothers,and while I certainly don't think this movie is anywhere near as memorable as movies like Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary,it still is packed with plenty of moments that will make you know it is definitely a Farrelly brothers movie,and it had me laughing all the way through.I was surprised that they got Matt Damon to be in this,it's nothing I like what he has done before and nothing he will ever do again,but it was great to see him take on something very different,and the chemistry between him and Greg Kinnear is what makes this movie.Stuck On You is certainly not the Farrelly brothers finest movie,but I would still recommend it to fans and to anyone looking for a good comedy.Two Siamese twins find each other "separating" when they learn that they have two very different dreams after one brother forces to other to go to LA with him in order to pursue an acting career.Best Performance: Greg Kinnear Worst Performance: Cher.
Bob (Matt Damon) and Walt Tenor (Greg Kinnear) are conjoined twins living in Martha's Vineyard.
The story focuses on Bob (Damon) and Walt (Kinnear), a pair of conjoined twins who are stuck together at the hip.
Walt decides that after being a long-suffering actor in Massachusetts he should try his luck in Hollywood, and Bob reluctantly agrees to follow him.After a string of failed gigs, Walt becomes acquired by Cher, and this leads to his success on a network drama, at the same time trying to hide the fact that he is a conjoined twin to his audience.Stuck on You is a rare comedy, and it reminds me a lot of Adam Sandler's surprisingly good 50 First Dates.
Overall, the film is much more subtle, which is either good or bad depending on how you like your comedies.The humour here isn't as slapstick & madcap as you might expect from a movie about conjoined twins.
Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear turn in really great performances.They are certainly funny, and deliver the lines and the physical comedy in a way which makes you feel that they had a terrific time doing so.
Cher's role and Meryl Streep's cameo are also delightful.The Farrelly brothers usually make some gross but funny comedies, but there is really something about "Stuck on You" that warms people and make people laugh..
The idea of Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as Siamese twins might sound a bit odd in theory, but trust the Farrelly brothers (Dumb & Dumber, There's Something About Marry) to turn this twisted theme into a touching dramedy with just the right amount of laughter as well.Damon and Kinnear star as Bob and Walt, conjoined twins who decide to make it big in Hollywood despite their joint problem (pun intended).
Bobby and Peter Farrelly, the kings of gross-out comedy, select a typically 'taboo' subject for their sixth collaboration, but shy away from inserting any real gross-out gags (when, let's face it, the opportunities are plentiful) choosing instead to journey into a clichéd area of sentimentality that leave this comedy feeling as bland as any other second-rate comedy coming out of Hollywood these days.Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play the conjoined twins presumably Ben was busy and, while Damon makes a good job of playing Bob, the more shy and less assertive of the pair, Kinnear's more confident twin Walt is played a little too broadly at times.
Comedy directed by the Farrelly-brothers ("There is Something About Marry") starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear ("As Good As It Gets") and Cher.
Matt Damon is a great actor and I loved Greg Kinnear in "As Good As It Gets".
I had my doubts on the plot of the film but never took it seriously, And it had its conjoined ins & outs but that's the way its supposed to be, Some parts of the movie I thought about giving up but I could never stay away, But also thought about cracking up even though some of it was of bad taste, And its no great comedy but I am sure you'll find that sometimes you'll laugh hysterically(Chorus) Yes it's true , I was kind of happy to see `Stuck On You' Yes it's true , I was kind of happy to see `Stuck On You' Because I can see that the film was stuck with puns that were quite funnyEnd of song **** Good.
The whole point to a movie like this is to show how stupid and funny it is, that two guys are stuck together, not to show how sad and heartbreaking it is that they not want to always be around one another.Basic Plot:Greg Kinear and Matt Damon star as two brothers, Walt and Bob, who were born connected at the waste, I.E. they're Siamese twins.
It's not laugh- a-minute funny, and some sections even drag on a bit, but there are some really, truly funny bits that more than make up for that - the teddy sequence, Bob's panic attacks at inopportune moments (his brown paper bag wafting into shot when Walt is filming), the brothers' fight etc, usually slapstick, but also some nice timing and expressions from the actors, in fact, both lead performances were really great; I was taken aback by how much I came to care for these characters, who connected really well (no pun intended).
I found this movie easy to watch, with highly likeable characters, and a funny and touching story.Although I didn't like this as much as previous Farrelly films, it was slightly more sentimental than I expected.Recommended for an easy to watch giggle!.
Instead of picking any actress actress to act like a ditz, point and laugh a lot they have to waste the potential credibility of someone who actually has talent.As for Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, they do as well as you could expect from having to be stuck together for an entire movie.
I mean, come on; its fine to make a movie, even a comedy out of conjoined twins going to Hollywood, but to the extent that they were MAKING FUN and such was just WRONG, and disappointing.Some jokes were funny, ones I crack all the time.
Bob (Oscar-Winner:Matt Damon) and Walt Tenor (Greg Kinnear) are twin brothers, who share a passion and a liver for life.
Greg Kinnear was actually really but the rest of the characters were not as good like Matt Damon. |
tt0056896 | California | A deserter who had been an Army lieutenant, Jonathan Trumbo is hired to guide a wagon train bound for California during the California Gold Rush. When a woman named Lily Bishop is accused of cheating at poker in a saloon, farmer Michael Fabian invites her to join the wagon train over Trumbo's strenuous objections. Trumbo, too, accuses of her of cheating at cards after losing to Lily, an insult she promises not to forget.
Lily leaves with Booth Pennock, a ruffian who injures Trumbo with a whip before departing. Lily ends up in Pharaoh City, running a saloon. The town is controlled by Pharaoh Coffin, a former slave trader who opposes the law and order of California approving statehood. Trumbo turns up and gets involved in a saloon brawl. Lily orders him never to set foot there again, but Trumbo wins the place in a poker game.
She mistakenly takes Pharaoh to be an honest man and moves onto his hacienda. Coffin's men beat up Trumbo, who is rescued on the trail by Mexicans and vows revenge. When his wounds heal, Trumbo returns and becomes a spokesman for statehood advocacy. Coffin's hired men kill Fabian for similar beliefs, causing Lily to finally see Coffin for the crazed villain he is. Trumbo forms a posse and corners Coffin, who is descending into madness. Lily shoots him. Trumbo, in love with Lily, promises to return to the Army to atone for his desertion, hoping someday to return to her. | violence, action | train | wikipedia | kind of a historical story.... Jock Mahoney and Faith Domergue star in this film, which wants to tell a story of California's fight for statehood. Michael O'Casey's mother was a Hernandez, proud Californian, but when O'Casey comes to town to get her a tombstone, the town is on the verge of a battle scene. General Micheltorena is coming to rape and pillage, in the name of "peace keeping", but has left a trail of destruction where-ever he goes. The budget for this thing must have been about four dollars! whenever they talk about fighting back and getting the neighbors and ranchers to stand up to the soldiers, all we ever see is O'Casey taking on everyone in sight! He enlists the local cantina owner, as well as the local female mexican ranch-owner. and of course they fight over him. Lots of complicated, little sub-plots here... the cantina owner is schtupping Don Francisco, who is also supposed to marry the ranch-owner. Directed by Hamil Petroff, who directed a whopping TWO films... and had only acted in seven. It's kind of hit or miss. Has moments of good acting and story, but they spend an awful lot of time cracking jokes and showing us how the protective aunt must chaperone the female land owner. showing on epix channel. mildly entertaining, but it aint no shakespeare.. Good movie when nothing else is on. If you have nothing else to do or to watch, this is the movie for you. It is an action movie with too little action, but it does have a great score and evokes Zorro at certain points, but only momentarily. The story itself if typical of the late 1950s and early 60s, an outsider comes into a local situation, sees the evil in it and sets about righting wrongs to win the girl in the end. However, its premise is a bit stretched as is the acting. There are some areas where you must suspend history. First of all, the rifles the army uses are rolling block Spencers or Springfields of the 1870s, not 1840s. I also saw at least on revolver, which was not produced until the 1850s. However if you enjoyed Mahoney in Yancy Derringer, you'll like this movie.. "You don't have to know my rules to die.". This was a tough movie to follow because the sound was so poor. It had the feel of a 1950's 'B' Western making it hard to imagine it was made as late as 1963. That would explain Jock Mahoney's aged appearance since his 1958 TV series "Yancy Derringer", flourishes of which we see in the character of Don Michael O'Casey. Here he shows some of that Yancy charisma with the ladies, along with the stunt riding skills that made him a hit as Range Rider in the early Fifties.Set in 1842 California, the story revolves around the question of that territory's statehood. Don Francisco Hernandez (Michael Pate) has allied himself with General Miguel Torena against that prospect in the hopes of becoming it's first Mexican governor. His romantic ambitions call for a marriage to a woman who doesn't love him, Marianna De La Rosa (Susan Seaforth), who in turn finds she has feelings for the handsome renegade Don Mike. There's also a woman in the middle, Carlotta Torres, who does love Francisco, but realizes that he's an evil and ambitious man.Though the viewer finds himself siding with the cause of 'Viva Hernandez', it's a tenuous position since the film builds little in the way of sympathy for one side or the other. Don Francisco's hopes for power are crushed when the General confesses that he's on the outs with his superiors in Mexico City, and when Irish Mexican O'Casey defeats him in a sword duel, he knows enough to call it quits. Until he makes a run for it, and is gunned down by a Hernandez loyalist. Oh yeah, Don Francisco was Michael O'Casey's uncle, but it's not that important.There's really little to recommend this film other than an offbeat treat for fans of Jacques/Jack/Jock O'Mahoney. Though as mentioned earlier, you'll be watching an older Yancy putting his spell on the ladies as he finds a way to outwit the bad guys.. Good cast, but bum script and miserable production values!. This small-budget black-and-white western starts off with some impressive stock footage (some of it ex-color and ex-3-D) tied together with a ludicrously pretentious commentary. The movie ends with a competently staged sword duel between aging hero, Jock Mahoney, and morose villain, Michael Pate. In between are long stretches of instant information dialogue and clichés of the order, "You better get out of here!" The producer/director is a gent named Hamil Petroff. According to IMDb, Petroff was an extremely minor jack-of-all-trades with other insignificant credits as a sound technician, a choreographer, and an actor. His only other movie as a producer and director was "Runaway Girl" in 1965, again with Jock Mahoney as the lead. Needless to say, Petroff's direction here is stolidly uninteresting, although the film editor, Bert Honey (who also worked on "Runaway Girl") has made a commendable effort to pep up some of the longer takes by rapid inter-cutting between reverse angles. Alas, despite her prominent billing, Faith Domergue has only a secondary role – and to her lot fall most of the dialogue's clichés! The script does somewhat better with Nestor Paiva, who steals the movie's acting honors. His little farewell speech, in which he philosophically, even cheerfully, resigns himself to his fate, is one of the movie's high spots. On the other hand, Michael Pate's villain lacks both charm and sparkle. Production credits are generally no more than fair. In fact, budget restrictions are painfully evident in the telephone booth sets. |
tt0083936 | Fighting Back | The film opens with Philadelphia TV reporters viewing and broadcasting a news story about violence in society since JFK Assassination in 1963. With the increase in crime, Philadelphia is becoming unsafe. Proud Italian-American John D'Angelo (Tom Skerritt) runs a deli in town. While driving with his wife, Lisa (Patti LuPone), D'Angelo comes across a pimp known as Eldorado (Pete Richardson) brutalizing one of his prostitutes. John's wife confronts the pimp and the pimp chases the D'Angelos, ramming his car into the back of the D'Angelos' vehicle, injuring Lisa and killing their unborn baby. John's mother Vera (Gina DeAngles) is assaulted in the neighborhood.
John decides to make a stand, organizing a neighborhood patrol composed of regular citizens who are also fed up with the crime in their neighborhood. They call themselves The People's Neighborhood Patrol, or “PNP” for short. The PNP has their own uniforms consisting of blue hats and vests that have a PNP logo on them, a headquarters to take phone calls, along with vehicles all containing their PNP logo and is led by John and his best friend Vince Morelli (Michael Sarrazin), a police officer. After D'Angelo's house is burglarized and their dog is killed, the film cuts to the reporters' studio footage of Newark, New Jersey ten years after the 1967 Newark riots, self-defense classes in Beverly Hills, various target practice sessions and the Guardian Angels on patrol in New York City. With Vince's help, the police allow the PNP to patrol the neighborhood. However, the PNP seem to operate with no regard for the law and do as they please. To make their first stand and to introduce themselves to the neighborhood, the group goes to a dirty bar in town known for being a hot spot for criminals, which Eldorado and his men are known patrons of. John casually walks into the bar with the rest of the PNP behind him. John confronts the bartender (Allan Graf), trying to get answers as to who is responsible for mugging his mother. Things turn violent when the bartender laughs in John’s face, triggering an all-out brawl, but the PNP come out on top.
John and the PNP start gaining media attention, and the neighborhood starts to rally behind the PNP. The group starts taking out pimps, drug dealers, muggers, and thieves. The PNP operates above the law. John D’Angelo does what he wants, and his actions are seen as racial discrimination by a small portion of the African-American community. John D’Angelo meets with Ivanhoe Washington (Yaphet Kotto), a black leader of a similar vigilante movement. Ivanhoe presents John with the two men who mugged his mother, one of whom is white while the other is black. John beats up the black man, proving Ivanhoe’s point that John is guilty of discrimination.
With widespread media attention, John decides to run for councilman in the upcoming election. Just when things are looking good for the city, tragedy strikes when Vince is gunned down and killed at the hands of Eldorado and his men. In retaliation, John organizes a large scale attack on the park where Vince was killed. All members of the PNP head to the park, where they demand that everyone in the park clear out. When their demands are ignored, the PNP takes action, and starts clearing out the park by way of brute force. A large brawl soon erupts, and police arrive on the scene not long after. John spots Eldorado and chases after him; during the chase John is tackled and arrested by police. Eldorado manages to get away.
While meeting with Police Commissioner (Ted Ross), John is informed where Eldorado is, the Commissioner sardonically explaining that John can understand that at the moment the police are "too busy" to arrest Eldorado at the moment (in effect, inviting John to assassinate Eldorado.) When John explains he doesn't know how to thank him, the Commissioner explains that "oh yes, he does," and that his job is based on working with people, paying and collecting favors, and that John is going to owe him some big ones when he's elected.
Essentially having permission from the Commissioner to take out Eldorado, John waits patiently on the roof above Eldorado's vehicle. When Eldorado and his men enter the car, John drops a grenade though the vehicle's roof. The grenade explodes, killing everyone inside the car.
John ends up winning the election, and a large celebration with family and friends takes place inside his deli. The PNP have cleaned up the neighborhood, and crime is no more. The final scene shows children playing in the very same park that was once occupied by criminals. | murder | train | wikipedia | Streets of Philadelphia
The grim, early 80's vigilante edition.
First of all I concur with all my fellow reviewers who can't seem to fathom that "Death Vengeance" is still so underrated, unknown and unavailable on DVD.
This is a cult movie in the purest definition of the term, for crying out loud, with an acclaimed director and cast and a harshly realist subject that is applicable to all times and all big cities!
Even more so, there were most vigilante thrillers all too easily revert to crowd-pleasing violence (Charlie Bronson's "Death Wish" being the best example of this), at least "Death Vengeance" attempts to remain more rational, with ordinary characters, dramatic sub plots, politically engaged and socially relevant.
Tom Skerritt, in one of his best performances ever, stars as the Italian-American John D'Angelo who owns a deli shop in the roughest and most crime-infested neighborhood in Philadelphia.
Following a couple of dramatic incidents where his wife lost their unborn baby and his mother her ring finger, John mobilizes his fellow petrified neighbors into founding the People's Neighbourhood Patrol.
In a relatively short time, they free the park and streets around their houses of muggers, drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes and organized crime.
Even though John's family life suffers under his obsession and he often has difficulties of drawing the line between what's legal and what's not, his achievements grow increasingly important.
So important even, that the current mayor fears John to become an unbeatable rival in the next elections.
"Death Vengeance" is a strong and compelling revenge/vigilante thriller with the emphasis on character development and grim atmosphere.
The sequences where John D'Angelo confronts Ivanhoe Washington (a black volunteer who tries to keep petty criminals off the streets) are equally important as the sequences where the vigilantes battle hardcore thugs in the park.
For the real die-hard fanatics of grisly early 80's cult cinema, "Death Vengeance" has quite a lot of brutal images to offer as well, like the drug store hold-up, but the violence never becomes gratuitous or overly exploitative.
That alone is a remarkable accomplishment of director Lewis Teague ("Alligator", "Cujo").
The supportive cast is excellent as well, with Michael Sarrazin ("The Reincarnation of Peter Proud"), Yaphet Kotto ("Across 110th Street") and David "Sledge Hammer" Rasche!
Is there an online petition anywhere to release this gem on DVD that I can sign?.
More than a Death Wish Rip-off.
Why this has never been released on DVD I'll never know, especially when so much grade-z rubbish has been given the lavish 'Special Edition' treatment.
This is, quite simply, one of the finest 'revenge' genre films made and far more intelligent than most of it's type.
I mean, just take a look at the cast: Tom Skerrit, Michael Sarrazin.
These a class actors.What makes Death Vengeance so strong are the well developed characters.
You identify with them more than anything.
Paul Kersey was someone who appealed to the lowest common denominator, those who liked to cheer violent characters responding in a totally over the top fashion.
John D'Angelo seemed to be grounded more in reality, reacting in a way we can understand.
While not always sympathetic, Skerrit's performance made him believable.The film was marketed in a fairly deceptive way.
This is more than just another shoot-em-up no-brainer and deserves to be recognised as such.
Director Lewis Teague could have taken the easy option, thrown in lots of action set-pieces and had a sky-high bodycount.
Instead, he decided to engage our brains instead of our base instincts.
He, and the film need to be recognised for this.
Shame this doesn't happen more often.
See it and you will find an underrated and surprisingly thought provoking film..
Taking back the neighbourhood........
Here's an almost criminally forgotten post Death Wish gem from director Lewis Teague.Whilst perhaps not as violent, nor as rewarding purely entertainment wise as the aforementioned pinnacle of the vigilante/revenge genre, this film approaches the issue of taking the law into one's own hands in a very different (and perhaps more realistic) manner and succeeds in delivering a solid ninety or so minutes of highly gripping viewing.The always superb Tom Skerrit headlines as Michael D'Angelo, a humble greengrocer who is pushed too far by a series of brutal events and who subsequently decides to fight back by setting up a citizens patrol force in order to clean up the area in which he lives.
Not giving too much away, but fuelled by his anger at the both the suffering of those around him and additionally the blatant inefficiency of the police force to tidy up the neighbourhood, Michael's methods are very hands on, leading to a number of violent altercations with the criminal denizens in the district.Despite the nature of the subject material (perfect exploitation fodder), the director and cast performances manage to instill a far deeper sentiment into this than that usually found in a typical vigilante/revenge flick of the era.
In fact, far from a simple tale of one mans war on crime, this serves in effect as a fascinating study of the social degeneration and general feeling of hopelessness, powerlessness and despair so prevalent in today's society at the escalating crime statistics and inefficacy of the law system to punish those responsible.
The simple message is that together, as communities we can unite and turn the tide against this abject unhappiness for both ourselves and indeed future generations.Rousing stuff indeed and highly recommended..
Great revenge thriller..
Set in an Italian neighborhood of Philadelphia "Fighting Back" tells the story of a storekeeper(Tom Skerritt),who is outraged by an incident on the streets that results in his pregnant wife losing the baby and by a robbery in which his mother's ring finger is cut off.He organizes the local people into a security patrol.The patrol does wipe out crime but operates beyond the law with our vigilante carrying on more of a personal vendetta than a campaign to establish law and order."Fighting Back" by Lewis Teague is a taut and exciting revenge thriller obviously influenced by "Death Wish" movies.The film is well-acted and looks surprisingly authentic.There is not much violence on display,however if you are a fan of thought-provoking cinema you can't miss this gritty flick.8 out of 10..
5.8 rating about right...wanted to like this more, but movie is aimless.
I love these 1970s and early 80s gritty movies, and in this regard, the film delivers.
The large old American cars, the street scenery, the police, etc.
all has that feel that you don't get in today's movie.
But overall, the film fails to deliver.
By the middle of the movie I was starting to get bored waiting for something more interesting to happen.
Much of the movie is also unrealistic.
The police seem virtually non-existent, which is not genuine (even if the point is that a neighborhood watch is needed).
The rivalry with the pimp also made no sense, there were a series of meetings which just did not flow with the plot.
Overall, you are unlikely to be very satisfied with this film, although it is reasonably watchable.
This is why the rating is in the 5-6 range and the film remains obscure.
The few reviewers who gave it an 8 to 10 rating are waaaaaaay over-rating the movie and do not know what a true 9 or 10 movie is (in my view, only 4-6 movies a year can really be called a 9 or 10)..
"Remember this business is all about favours.".
Oh here we go again, another low-budget vigilante feature of someone trying to make a difference.
Actually I enjoy these types of features, no matter how well-worn or rancid they can be.
However "Fighting Back" was a surprisingly effective if mildly realistic piece (up until a point), while not always fulfilling it did provoke some harsh and lasting set-pieces with a barnstorming performance by Tom Skerritt.
It kind of crosses paths with films such as; "Death Wish" (1974), "Boardwalk" (1979) and "Vigilante" (1983).
While scathingly violent and exploitative, its messages are obvious (especially the use of Yaphet Kotto's pointless character) and ambitiously put across with a multi-facet bunch of central characters that are thoroughly illustrated and this helps make the situations deliver on the impact.
There's a lot more food for thought here, but it kind of over does towards the end.After an incident involving a pimp and his elderly mother ending up injured in a hold up, John D'Angelo finally has had enough of the crime suffocating his community.
With the support of friends and neighbours he organises the People's Neighbourhood Patrol to protect their lifestyles.
Dressed up in uniforms (caps, bubble vests and wooden bats) and their own patrol car ("Ghostbusters" anyone?).
The only way to do it is to fight fire with fire, but still staying in the boundaries of the law.
This gets on the nerves of the local police, upsets worried politicians and only aggravates the street gangs, especially the pimp he crossed paths with.What starts off basic, than moves away into political territory and the problems that face the D'Angelo character (things getting out of hand).
Where soon he becomes self-obsessed and pinned-down with his campaign, where judgements are clouded, hot-headed confrontations erupt and his wife's (Patti LuPone) well-being for her family is discarded.
Skerritt's character is not particularly sympathetic either, as from what he's doing he becomes news --- popularity sky rockets --- a people's hero --- why not run for office.
Michael Sarrazin is excellent in the role as D'Angelo's friend, who just happens to be a cop.
Sarrazin's character is much more agreeable in his motives.Director Lewis Teague ("Alligator (1980)", "Cujo (1983)") does a respectably stark and gritty job capturing the urban decay and crime-riddled environment.
There's a tit for tat structure to the group doing their rounds, but the constant beatings are excitingly gripping ""Nobody laughs at my momma!".
There's one sequence where a fast food outlet owner just happens to have a battle axe(!?) stored away, when D'Angelo comes a knocking.
The pacing is rapid and some scenes are highly charged, although the ending (D'Angelo and the Pimp) does feel so anti-climatic."Fighting Back" has its feet in both camps; exploitative but also contemplative..
Cool 80s Urban Vigilante Schlock.
How disappointing this isn't available on DVD.
It seems people are even absurdly inspired by "Fighting Back", judging from wannabe vigilante "Legend_In_The_Making"'s comments, (thinks it's a friggin 10 star classic).
I consider this as good badfilm, nothing more.
I remember back in the 80s, this was one of those films HBO would show constantly - must have been cheap for them!
Some very classic moments - the plot provides plenty of reasons for Tom Skeritt's character John D'Angelo to vent his righteous rage - the old lady getting her finger cut off for her wedding ring - the family dog found hung in the shower by thugs, and the neighborhood pimp who calls John D'Angelo's wife a bitch, and then tells JA "a man who can't control his woman can't control his bowels - he shits his pants." Oh no he din't!!
The crime in the area becomes so bad that John D'Angelo forms a "citizen's patrol", complete with a bad-ass modified ex-police car and a black member so you'll know that the urban paranoia at least isn't racist.
I won't reveal any more, but suffice it to say that I really miss this film, and much of it is indelibly etched into my memory.This movie is so over the top, I would recommend it to anyone like me who enjoys the unintended humor in this type of genre.
Good luck finding it on VHS.
I give it the five stars (out of ten) that it so richly deserves. |
tt0214874 | The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by name of Sleepy Hollow ... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere.
The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (historical Tarrytown, New York), in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. Some residents say this town was bewitched during the early days of the Dutch settlement. Other residents say an old Native American chief, the wizard of his tribe, held his powwows here before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. The most infamous spectre in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman, said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper that had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head".
The "Legend" relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer, Baltus Van Tassel. Crane, a Yankee and an outsider, sees marriage to Katrina as a means of procuring Van Tassel's extravagant wealth. Bones, the local hero, vies with Ichabod for Katrina's hand, playing a series of pranks on the jittery schoolmaster, and the fate of Sleepy Hollow's fortune weighs in the balance for some time. The tension between the three is soon brought to a head. On a placid autumn night, the ambitious Crane attends a harvest party at the Van Tassels' homestead. He dances, partakes in the feast, and listens to ghostly legends told by Brom and the locals, but his true aim is to propose to Katrina after the guests leave. His intentions, however, are ill-fated.
After having failed to secure Katrina's hand, Ichabod rides home "heavy-hearted and crestfallen" through the woods between Van Tassel's farmstead and the Sleepy Hollow settlement. As he passes several purportedly haunted spots, his active imagination is engorged by the ghost stories told at Baltus' harvest party. After nervously passing under a lightning-stricken tulip tree purportedly haunted by the ghost of British spy Major André, Ichabod encounters a cloaked rider at an intersection in a menacing swamp. Unsettled by his fellow traveler's eerie size and silence, the teacher is horrified to discover that his companion's head is not on his shoulders, but on his saddle. In a frenzied race to the bridge adjacent to the Old Dutch Burying Ground, where the Hessian is said to "vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone" upon crossing it, Ichabod rides for his life, desperately goading his temperamental plow horse down the Hollow. However, to Crane's horror, the ghoul clambers over the bridge, rears his horse, and hurls his severed head into Ichabod's terrified face.
The next morning, Ichabod has mysteriously disappeared from town, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones, who was said "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related." Indeed, the only relics of the schoolmaster's flight are his wandering horse, trampled saddle, discarded hat, and a mysterious shattered pumpkin. Although the nature of the Headless Horseman is left open to interpretation, the story implies that the ghost was really Brom (an agile stunt rider) in disguise. Irving's narrator concludes, however, by stating that the old Dutch wives continue to promote the belief that Ichabod was "spirited away by supernatural means," and a legend develops around his disappearance and sightings of his melancholy spirit. | romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0119472 | Knockin' on Heaven's Door | Two patients (Martin Brest and Rudi Wurlitzer) meet in a hospital, just after learning that both have an untreatable disease. They start talking about their death that is to come very soon. When they find a bottle of tequila, Martin finds out that Rudi has never seen the sea. Martin tells Rudi that all they talk about in Heaven is how beautiful the sea is.
Drunk and still in their pajamas, they steal a baby blue Mercedes-Benz W113 classic roadster and go for their last mission - to see the sea. The car belongs to a crime boss. They rob several small shops, only to find that there is a million dollars in cash in the trunk of their car.
As they progress closer to their goal, police along with gangsters start the hot pursuit. Eventually, the two friends find themselves trapped in the middle of a countryside road by police units on one side and gangsters on the other, pointing their guns at each other. The stand-off finally erupts into a big shoot-out while the two make a desperate escape through the corn field. After that, Martin buys a pink Cadillac of the same model as the one which Elvis Presley presented to his mother. His wish is to give the same present to his own mother. As he fulfills the wish, they get ambushed by police near Martin's mother's house. Martin pretends to have a seizure and falls on the ground. He is taken to the hospital in an ambulance with Rudi sitting by his side. En route, Martin and Rudi hijack the vehicle to continue their quest. On the way to the ocean they stop by a brothel, where Rudi wants to fulfil his wish to have sex with two women at the same time. By coincidence, the brothel is owned by the boss whose money they had found in the car they have stolen at the beginning of the journey. They are seen by the two gangsters who were after them throughout their journey. The gangsters take Rudi and Martin to their boss who asks them for money they should return. Martin says that the money was spent and sent to various people which drives the criminal boss insane. Enraged, the boss points a gun at them ready to shoot, but Curtiz, the most influential criminal to whom the money was meant to be delivered, comes in. After a short talk he says “Then you better run, before you run out of time”. The capo goes on talking about that in heaven everybody would be talking about the ocean. Curtiz spares their lives and lets them go.
The film ends as Martin and Rudi arrive at the ocean’s shore. They walk to the sandy beach and Martin falls dead on the ground. Rudi imperturbably sits down beside his friend, facing the ocean and watching the surf. | comedy, humor | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0029926 | Blondes at Work | Lieutenant Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) is in trouble with his boss, who suspects him of leaking police information to his girlfriend reporter Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell). Torchy and Steve have an argument because Torchy keep getting story after story for her newspaper. They agreed that they will not exchange information about any police cases in the future. And Torchy is told by her boyfriend to lay off the latest murder case that his handling; the killing of Marvin Spencer and the heir to the Bon Ton department store. Marvin was seen being escorted into a cab by his friend Maitland Greer (Donald Briggs) just moments before he was found dead in his room at the Park Plaza Hotel.
With Torchy's latest story of Marvin's murder hitting the front page of the newspaper, McBride's boss Capt. McTavish (Frank Shannon) orders him to keep information away from Torchy. Capt. McTavish isn't really concerned about Torchy getting her hands on top secret police information, he is secretly working for Torchy's rival newspaper, The Daily Express, who wants Torchy's access to top secret police investigation cut off. Maitland is arrested for Marvin's murder. Torchy finds a clue which led her to Louisa Revelle (Rosella Towne) the woman who was with Marvin the night he was stabbed. She admits to Torchy that Maitland was present that night and is upset with his arrest for murder, but will not reveal any more information. Torchy decides to eavesdrop on the trial's jury from a nearby supply closet. She overhears the jury's decision to declare Maitland guilty, and out-maneuvers both Capt. McTavish and the Daily Express into thinking that the jury verdict is going to be innocent. To their surprise, Maitland is found guilty, which has the newspaper's editor red-faced.
At the same time, Torchy breaks the story in an extra edition in her own newspaper, before the verdict is announced in court. However, the judge sentences her to jail for contempt. Steve visits Torchy a few days later and has her released from jail. He informs her that after the verdict was announced, Louisa confessed to the crime; she stabbed Marvin when he threatened to shoot Maitland, who has become her new lover. Steve says that it looks like self-defense and speculates that both Louisa and Maitland will be cleared. Torchy is disappointed because she didn't have time to write the story and have it make the front page. Steve tells her that he filed the story for her, before the other newspapers and once again Torchy scoops them all. | murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0102609 | Other People's Money | Lawrence "Larry the Liquidator" Garfield (Danny DeVito) is a successful corporate raider who has become rich buying up companies and selling off their assets. With the help of a computerized stock analyzing program called Carmen, Garfield has identified New England Wire & Cable as his next target. The struggling company is run by the benevolent and folksy Andrew "Jorgy" Jorgenson (Gregory Peck) and is the primary employer in its small Rhode Island town.
After stubbornly insisting that no outsider can seize control of a business his father began, Jorgy is finally persuaded to hire his stepdaughter Kate (Penelope Ann Miller), a big-city lawyer, to defend against a hostile takeover. Garfield is instantly smitten with the beautiful Kate, although he is on to her tactics and does not waver from his goal of becoming the majority stockholder of New England Wire & Cable. Garfield tactlessly and unsuccessfully tries to seduce her. Despite their antagonism, Kate finds herself attracted to Garfield's bold nature.
The takeover attempt begins to fracture the New England Wire & Cable family. Kate's mother Bea (Piper Laurie) secretly travels to Garfield's offices to offer one million dollars in greenmail to Garfield if he'll go away, but he refuses, stating, "I don't take money from widows or orphans." Trusted company president Bill Coles (Dean Jones), fearful that the takeover will leave him with nothing, offers to let Garfield vote his shares in the company in exchange for a million-dollar payout. Garfield agrees, but specifies that Coles will get only half as much if his shares fail to make up the margin of victory.
Garfield concedes to Jorgy's offer to let the matter be settled at the annual shareholder's meeting. Relying on the support of longtime friends and investors, Jorgy makes an impassioned plea to save the company, appealing to the traditions of manufacturing as opposed to the new breed of capitalism which Larry the Liquidator represents, in which buyers of companies create no products or jobs and are interested only in money. The shareholders seem swayed by Jorgy's speech and boo Garfield when he gets up to give a rebuttal.
In his rebuttal, Garfield compares New England Wire & Cable to the last buggy whip manufacturer, arguing that even though the company's product may be high quality, changing technology has rendered it obsolete. Rather than running a failing business into the ground, he contends that the shareholders should follow his lead and get what value they can from the stock before the company's inevitable demise. At least when this company is liquidated, he says, they'll end up with a few dollars in their pocket.
When the vote is taken, the shareholders agree to give Garfield controlling interest in the company. The margin of victory is greater than Coles' shares and thus he does not receive the full amount he betrayed Jorgy to get.
Back at home in Manhattan, Garfield finds himself uncharacteristically despondent after his victory, having realized he has lost his chance for a romance with Kate. Just then, Kate calls. She's been having discussions with a Japanese automaker that wants to hire New England Wire & Cable to manufacture stainless steel wire cloth for making airbags, something which will make the company profitable again. An excited Garfield invites her to dinner to discuss it. | satire | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0044487 | Le carrosse d'or | The Viceroy of a remote 18th century Peruvian town has purchased a magnificent golden coach from Europe. The Viceroy hints of his intention to give the coach to his mistress, the Marquise, but has decided to pay for it with public funds, since he plans to use it to overawe the populace and flatter the local nobility, who enthusiastically look forward to taking turns parading in it. By coincidence, the coach arrives on the same ship that carries an Italian commedia dell'arte troupe composed of men, women and children who perform as singers, actors, acrobats and comics. The troupe is led by Don Antonio, who also portrays the stock character of Pantalone on stage, and features Camilla, who plays the stock role of Columbina.
Once members of the troupe refurbish the town’s dilapidated theater, their performances meet with success only after local hero, Ramon, a Toreador, becomes smitten with Camilla and starts leading the applause. Similarly, after a command performance at the Viceroy’s palace, the gentry withhold their favor until the Viceroy signals his approval and asks to meet the women of the company. He, too, is taken with Camilla, who is the only person who makes him feel comfortable and light-hearted. He gives her a splendid necklace, which enrages her jealous swain, Felipe, who has been accompanying the troupe on their travels. Felipe attacks Camilla and causes a riotous backstage brawl, after which he runs off to join the army.
The Viceroy has become infatuated with Camilla and announces that he has decided to pay for the coach with his own money, in order to give it to her as a love gift. This outrages the Marquise along with the rest of the nobility, who are already smarting over the Viceroy’s demands for money to finance military defenses against an insurgency. Led by the Duc de Castro, they threaten to strip the Viceroy of his post, an action that can only succeed if endorsed by the country’s Bishop. When the Viceroy vacillates in the face of this intimidation, Camilla spurns him in disgust.
After watching a triumphant performance by Ramon in the bullring, Camilla impetuously gives him her necklace, which emboldens him to visit her lodging that night and propose that they become a celebrity couple in order to enhance their earning power as performers. There he encounters Felipe, who has returned from extended army service in order to reclaim Camilla and take her away with him to live a simple life among the natives. While the two men fight each other with swords, the Viceroy arrives to tell Camilla that he has defied the nobility and is giving her the coach, which she can claim from him immediately. Upon questioning, he admits to her that he expects the Bishop, who arrives on the morrow, to approve the nobles’ plan to depose him. Felipe and Ramon are arrested for dueling in public.
All is resolved the next morning when Camilla gives the coach to the Bishop as a gesture of piety. The Bishop announces his plan to use the coach to transport the sacraments to sick and dying peasants and calls for peace and reconciliation between all the disputing parties. As the curtain falls, Don Antonio reminds Camilla that, as an actress, she is only able to realize her true self when she is performing on the stage. | atmospheric | train | wikipedia | I once read a review in which the critic expressed the opinion that Anna Magnani's looks couldn't make it likely that the male characters of the plot fell in love with her.
But this is a complete misunderstanding of the story, it is not because of her beauty they love her, but because she makes them laugh, she brings them to that other world which theater creates.
"La Carozza D'Oro" is the only Italian film made by Jean Renoir.
As Renoir recognized later, his main collaborator in the making of the film was Antonio Vivaldi in a form of his music that director used to hear while writing the script which is based on a stage play by Prosper Merimee.
Anna Magnani gives a superb performance as a main star of the group - Camilla, whose main passion in life is theater.
She finds herself in the center of attention of the three man: a toreador Ramon (Riccardo Rioli), a Vice King Ferdinand (Duncan Lamont) and a young adventurous officer Felipe (Paul Campbell) facing the tough choice in making a decision: whom to choose?A funny theatrical comedy of life from great French director Jean Renoir, with superb acting and wonderful music from Antonio Vivaldi.
I didn't know if I would like it as much as Renoir's more famous films of the 30s, and I had previously found some of the color films he did in the 50s to be less accessible.
The color is sumptuous and breathtaking; I have always like Technicolor, in which this film is shot, for the richness of its palette.
It is the film of Anna Magnani.
because it represents not only charming reconstruction of Commedia dell' Arte but the chance to admire a precise way to build the seduction of a woman discovering herself.
it is a Jean Renoir film and his mark is obvious in each scene.
But I should had known better really, since this movie had Jean Renoir at the helm, a man who really knew how to always tell a story, in the combination with some impressing visuals.I liked the movie definitely better than expected and I enjoyed it from basically start till finish.
It has some great sets and costumes in it, that help to give the movie a certain atmosphere, consistent with the time period it got set in.
It doesn't ever feel though as if the movie got set in a small town of Central America, that is a Spanish colony.
Jean Renoir's colorful English language comedy is not the masterpiece prevailing critical opinion would have you believe ("riotously textural!" raved the Village Voice), but it is a pleasant and entertaining novelty.
A spirited Anna Magnani leads a troupe of Italian actors to a Spanish colony in 18th century Peru, where the appreciative Viceroy rewards her talent (and beauty) with the gift of a golden coach, setting off a small political and romantic scandal.
It plays for the most part not unlike a literate stage farce, and Renoir emphasizes the theatricality of the story by directing (and shooting) it like theatre, with deliberate, flat compositions and distracting color costumes; the action even begins on a legitimate stage, the walls of which 'disappear' as soon as Renoir's camera dollies into it.
The (at the time) newly struck 1992 print, presented by Martin Scorsese, shows obvious evidence of restoration only in the curious epilogue, which brings the story back to its original stage setting, and appears to have been poorly reconstructed on video..
An Italian Commedia dell'arte troupe ends up in Peru to entertain the court of Lima with intrigues and consequences...
This is Jean Renoir at his most gorgeous and playful, although he was already getting old when this was made as an enthusiastic tribute to "Commedia dell'arte" staging Anna Magnani as the ultimate primadonna and diva, who in spite of her over-maturity attracts even a king to court her simply by her stardom as an overwhelming actress.
The story is silly, of course, and not at all credible and gets steadily more ridiculous all the time, some scenes are actually quite trying for their tedious imbecility, but all comedies are like that - they are never serious, and in comedy everything is allowed, especially silliness.
The outstanding merit of the film is how it brings the Commedia dell'arte alive and seemingly more alive than ever - the first theatre scenes are like fireworks in their ebullient sprightliness and a joy both to the eye and the intellect for being so rich in their apparent improvisations with new whims all the time, but it's actually nothing but mastery of expert direction, and jean Renoir knew all about that.
Treat it for what it is, a hilarious comedy out of this world, and forbear with the impossible intrigue and hopeless failures of turn-outs that try your patience - Anna Magnani compensates fully for them all with her delightful troupe, where the children are an additional wonder to a gloriously preposterous performance..
The film was intended to look like a play within a movie and unfortunately, this was part of the problem--it lacked realism and seemed stagy.
I usually don't comment on the unattractiveness of a star, as this seems really shallow, but when the woman is so incorrectly portrayed as possessing intense sexual magnetism, it does affect the viewing experience.I would also like to add that the music was great.
A small and poor Italian Commedia dell'Arte troupe has gone to colonial South America.
Its leading lady Anna Magnani (Camilla) has three admirers: poor Spanish nobleman Odoardo Spadaro (Don Antonio), the Colonial Viceroy Duncan Lamont (Ferdinand), and the leading toreador Riccardo Rioli (Ramon), who struggle for her attention.Very theatrical and obviously shot in a studio.
Includes nice reconstructions of Commedia dell'Arte performances (though probably much better in the film than in reality).
Renoir introduces Carosse as a "fantasy" in the "spanish style" and it was at this time in his life where he was ready to dedicate himself to theater.
A montage of shots connected through dissolves as well as the static camera solidify a sense of tableau fitting appropriately with the specularity of the commedia dell'arte theme.
Renoir would take a new look at this at the end of Cancan when Gabin rehearses the performance in his mind from backstage.
The Golden Coach is very much a film these for Renoir as he plays out the most important elements of his personal philosophy - that of internal and external truths and the masks that people wear to manage their relationship and mode of expression.
It was shot principally in English, which meant an extra layer of strain for La Magnani, whose manic, over-the-top performance can't quite hide the somewhat anaemic storyline.Luckily, her overacting fits well enough with the character's context and the decidedly light and bawdy mood of the whole piece: she's a professional Commedia del Arte 'actor' touring a 16th Century Latin America which decadent Spaniards hold in their venal grip.
The great Italian star drags behind her a motley crew of fellow-Italians who match her quiver for quiver in the wild hand-gesturing repertoire and performs convincingly the stage stunts that were the Commedia's stock in trade.
Was Renoir asleep when this guy auditioned?Anyway, none of that matters, because this is a film that is as much art-directed as it is directed.
There is no doubting Renoir's genuine desire to pay tribute to the Commedia genre, and his loving attention to the detail of early theatrical craft draws you in.
After all, wasn't this popular form of street theatre an early precursor to the great art perfected later on the big screen by the likes of Lubitsch or Renoir himself?In the end, I feel an indulgent love for this film, a late entry into the great French master's career and -like French Cancan - a little bit 'so what?'.
Not only could I get drowned again and again in its sensuous celebration of Technicolor as life and drama, but there is also a core quality that has to do with how Renoir renders the spiritual essence of the Commedia company: throughout the film, these displaced paupers and underfed globe-trotters display total servitude and total freedom in equal measure.
As a filmmaker who frequently struggled to achieve his vision against the strictures of the commercial film industry, Renoir seems to know intimately what those characters' lives were about..
To this reviewer's reckoning, one has to inure the fact that French auteur Jean Renoir's latter track record smacks of resting on his tremendous laurels, THE GOLDEN COACH, the first of his post-Hollywood musical comedies trilogy, will be followed by FRENCH CANCAN (1955) and ELENA AND HER MEN (1956), headlines Anna Magnani as the pillar of an Italian Commedia dell'arte troupe, setting its foot in a 18th century colonial Peru.Ms. Magnani is Camilla, whose romantic embroilment with 3 different male suitors: Ferdinand (Lamont), the Spanish viceroy, Ramon (Rioli), an indigenous toreador and her longtime Italian beau Felipe (Campbell), will be immediately thrown into a whirlpool of romp and pomp, with the titular golden coach as a token of love from the noble viceroy, which can be put into practical use to save his pending deposition if Camilla feels up to do it.First things first, amped up by Vivaldi's repertoire, gingered up by Magnani and her troupe shrouded in sheer Technicolor splendor and variegated costumes, not to mention the deadpan aristocratic panoply and comic skits impromptu, THE GOLDEN COACH is so eye-pleasing and ear-soothing that, for one second, one might assume it is a masterpiece in the making, to certain extent, that expectation is partially validated by Renoir's effortless facility to beautifully refine the stodgy with freewheeling ease and the Midas touch, a compassionate, pyrotechnic Magnani, who defies any moral obligation and jaundiced ageism to attest that for a woman in the mellow years, her Camilla is second to none in commanding her own life path and expressing her own feelings, and she has many options at hand: retreating to a simpler, quieter life with Felipe, becoming a celebrity couple among locals with Ramon, aiding with Fedinand in his silk-stocking intrigues, or just resuming her stock role of Columbina with the troupe, it is her call and hers only.A Cinecittà production bursts into its full-blown lavishness of its visual complexion and texture, THE GOLDEN COACH is a vintage farce hampered by its folly-driven staginess and erstwhile flippancy, unwieldy in its glittering sheen but still a very different kettle of fish from any other vanity projects, for one thing, Renoir is quite au fait with men's sophomoric foibles and a believer in a woman's elemental beneficence..
Jean Renoir, the masterful creator of such films as Les Regles du Jeu and La Grande Illusion tries his hand at a period piece, set in Spanish ruled Latin America, filmed in English with American and Italian actors.
The memorable performance of the film was by its star Anna Magnani as Camilla, an Italian actress who has come to perform with her troupe and is courted by 3 men, a captain in the army, a sports hero matador and the viceroy.
The ending ties together the message of the film as we see Camilla make her choice.
The film in interesting and compelling if not powerful.This movie is like this interesting meat pastry that I ate at Sabor Latino in Ann Arbor.
For the first 102 minutes, I saw this film much as MATTHEWSCOTT8: a pleasant movie that was charming and colorful, but otherwise ordinary.
Most pursue some narrow selfish objective, but on rare occasions one overcomes their greed and achieves a degree of liberation and fulfillment (in this case Camilla).The second play is the stage on which the our narrator stands; a kind of Bardo between the fist play and our audience.
The audience is a sea of human souls - all those who have passed away as their personal play has ended.The narrator tells us that Camilla is missing.
I seemed to remember a more elegant ending, when Anna Magnani steps back on stage.
I take this as a metaphor for the play of creation as described in the Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter 2, when Krishna says to Arjuna, "Be without the three gunas." So Camilla has come to understand this, has given up her attachment to material things, symbolized by the coach, and even to the whole rigmarole of worldly life, and goes back to her true essence, which is to be the witness to all this churning activity.
The only other film I had seen by Jean Renoir was Rules of the Game.
To say I'm not a fan of Commedia dell'Arte would be an understatement, so some of the theatrical scenes at the beginning of the film began to seem interminable.But yay.
It had seized me and there would be no release.I think it is because while watching Renoir's work, you know indisputably that you are in the presence of genius.
How he creates this momentum to move the story forward in such a way as to have the excitement of the most intense action film.Speaking of action, there is a sword fight in this film that is wonderful.And tons of humor.And it's loaded with so much heart.Anna Magnani was great.As great as Magnani was, even greater, IMO, was Duncan Lamont who played the Viceroy.
Sumptuous costume drama and unique historical setting not enough to offset silly machinations of jealous suitors.
After all, it's directed by the great Jean Renoir, the setting is unique (a Spanish colony in Peru in the 18th century), the plot is unusual (a commedia dell'arte troupe must prove its mettle in a potentially hostile environment) and the protagonist played by Anna Magnani, lends her star power to the proceedings.I like how the character of Ferdinand the Viceroy (in perhaps Duncan Lamont's greatest role) is not your typical autocrat who is bent on making everyone's lives, miserable.
Quite the contrary, the Viceroy is beholden to the aristocracy who eventually decide to vote him out after he chooses to give the Golden Coach to Camilla (Magnani), who he has fallen in love with.
I also like the witty banter between Lamont and Magnani, as he tries to seduce the headstrong Camilla.As the plot develops, the Viceroy isn't the only fellow who has fallen in love with Camilla.
He ends up fighting with Felipe after his return for a visit and we're again expected to laugh simply because of both their jealous infatuations.Magnani knew no English when she was hired for the role and it's remarkable how fast she learned the language.
I guess it's her personality that sways them but in real life, can you imagine all three men going after such a brash (and not that physically attractive) type of woman?'The Golden Coach' denouement reminds me of the similar denouement in Moliere's 'Tartuffe'.
You'll recall that it's the King who makes everything right at the end; similarly here it's the Bishop, who accepts Camilla's gift of the coach and plans on using it to transport sacraments to the sick and dying.
Ultimately, 'The Golden Coach' is a sumptuous costume drama with a unique, historical setting.
If you like the commedia dell'arte, you'll certainly be rewarded (in terms of drama, it seems awfully dated to me).I understand that Renoir himself was more proud of the stage design than the narrative.
There's also a little of Renoir's philosophizing at the end where we're reminded that Camilla really can only realize her true self when she's performing on the stage.
It was very interesting to read that French director Jean Renoir (Boudo Saved from Drowning, La Grande Illusion, La Règle Du Jeu (The Rules of the Game)) made this film in the English language, he planned to make a French version but had no money to do it, so this the original that all the critics praise.
Basically set in 18th Century, in a small Central American town in Peru, a travelling Commedia dell'Arte theatre company arrives to entertain the people and the high society aristocracy.
The chief aristocrat of the town is the Viceroy (Duncan Lamont), who has recently bought a fabulous golden coach from Europe to give to his mistress.
But this plan changes when he gets to to know the leading lady and actress of the troupe, Camilla (Anna Magnani), he falls in love with her and gives the coach to her instead, and she starts to become accustomed to the high life.
In the end Camilla solves the situation by donating the coach the Bishop of Lima, and she returns to the theatre troupe and there is a big celebration for their preponderance.
It was handy that I did not have to read any subtitles through the film, the cast were all fine, especially Magnani who was radiant as the performer turned unlikely high class socialite of sorts, the story was just about simple enough that I could pay attention to the right parts, the costumes and use of colour is lavish, it feels like a play on stage, I'm sure that was the point, a likable period drama.
"The Golden Coach" was an interesting project for Jean Renoir.
According to his own biography, this film interested him on more of a design level, than on a story-telling level.
And from a technical point of view, the film is a feast for the eyes, and therefore a success.The cast, especially Anna Magnani as Camilla, is excellent.
They play the characters in a commedia dell'arte style production.
I'm not sure what Renoir intended, but I thought that the story, while contrived, was interesting.7 out of 10.
It was a nice idea to try to replicate the Commedia del Arte and lots of the set-ups are easy on the eye but overall, what's it all about, Alfie..
I saw 'The Golden Coach' twenty years ago in a big screen revival.
So I thought I'd watch it again, now that I have hundreds of really great films under my belt ...and I see why nothing stuck in my head. |
tt0398808 | Bridge to Terabithia | Jesse "Jess" Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) is a 12-year-old aspiring artist living with his financially struggling family in Lark Creek. He rides the bus to school with his little sister May Belle (Bailee Madison), where he avoids the school bully Janice Avery (Lauren Clinton). In class, Jess is teased by classmates Scott Hoager (Cameron Wakefield) and Gary Fulcher (Elliot Lawless), and meets new student Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb). At recess, Jess enters a running event, for which he had been training at home. Leslie also enters and manages to beat all the boys, much to Jess' irritation. On the way home, Jess and Leslie learn that they are next-door neighbors.
Later in the evening Jess becomes frustrated when he finds that May Belle has drawn in his notebook, but his strict yet caring father (Robert Patrick) sides with her. He later watches them gardening together, disappointed that his father does not spend time with him. Moreover, his mother cherishes her daughter more than him. The next day at school, Leslie compliments Jess' drawing ability, and they soon become friends. After school, they venture into the woods and swing across a creek on a rope. Jess and Leslie find an abandoned tree house on the other side, and invent a new world, which they call Terabithia. The fantasy world, which is a reflection on their lives, comes to life through their eyes as they explore the surroundings. For the next few days, Jess and Leslie spend their free time in the tree house getting to know each other.
Leslie gives Jess an art kit on his birthday, much to his delight. Jess becomes angry with his father's attitude to him, and refuses the existence of Terabithia the next day at school. Afterwards, Jess apologizes to Leslie by giving her a puppy, whom she names Prince Terrien. Once in Terabithia, they fight with various creatures, including a troll resembling Janice, and a squirrel-like creature resembling Hoager, whom they name the 'Sqoager'.At school, Leslie becomes frustrated by Janice's fee for using the toilet. Jess and Leslie play a prank on Janice, and she becomes the laughing stock of everyone on the bus. Once Leslie's parents finish their book, she and Jess help paint their house. Jess is impressed by her parents' happiness, and smiles as he watches their family. At school, Leslie discovers an upset Janice that her bullying is due to her abusive father, and they become friends and later Janice becomes Jess' friend. Jess and Leslie take P.T. to Terabithia, where they fight off several creatures resembling students at their school. When it starts raining, they decide to go home, and Jess looks on smiling as Leslie runs away.
The next morning, Ms. Edmunds (Zooey Deschanel), Jess' music teacher, calls to invite him on a one-on-one field trip to an art museum. Jess tries to ask his mother's permission; however, she is half-asleep and he takes her mumbling as approval. Jess doesn't ask Leslie to accompany him, and merely looks at her house as they drive by. When he returns home, Jess finds that his father and mother were worried sick since they didn't know where he was. His father reveals to Jess that Leslie had died that morning while trying to swing across the rain-swollen creek. Jess, being traumatized by this shocking news, first denies it, then runs out of his house to check on Leslie, but he discovers the emergency vehicles surrounding her house, and has no choice but to accept Leslie's death.
The following day, Jesse and his parents visit the Burke family home to pay their respects. Leslie's father, Bill Burke (Latham Gaines), tells Jess that she loved him, and thanks him for being a very good friend to her, since she had trouble making friends at her old school. Jess feels overwhelming guilt for Leslie's death, but his father consoles him to keep their friendship alive for her sake.
Jess decides to re-imagine Terabithia and builds a bridge across the river to welcome a new ruler. He invites May Belle to Terabithia; she is delighted because she was previously denied any opportunity to enter. They bring back Terabithia in even greater splendor, with Jess as king and his sister as a queen. | paranormal, fantasy, storytelling | train | wikipedia | After seeing it, I struggled to think of a better way of marketing this film, without giving away its ending or taking away the only audience that still seems to watch PG movies, kids.After watching it, however, I couldn't imagine taking anyone under ten to see it, nor could I imagine anyone under ten enjoying it as much as young adults, or even older audiences would.
If anything, the movie was a lot better than the preview made it seem to be, and I was pleasantly surprised.Instead of the brash and rude approach to filming movies, that seems to be the standard today with effects driven movies, Terabithia focuses on the characters, the story, and the heart when telling this beautiful tale.
Instead, Terabithia uses the talents of both the amazing young actors, and its adult cast to enthrall and absorb the viewer in the magic of imagination and the reality of every-day life.The story focuses on young Jess Aarons, whose school life and home life aren't all that ideal.
From what I had seen in the trailers, I thought the movie would be about two kids that end up in some magical world, similar to the Chronicles of Narnia (clearly, I did not read the book).
Rather than being a fairytale for youngsters, the movie actually gives the viewer an inside look in a young boy's life and all the troubles he faces, concerning school, family and friends.
The movie is a faithful and touching adaptation of the beloved children's classic book.The two main characters, Jesse and Leslie (splendidly played by John Hucheson and Annasophia Robb) are typical pre-teens, steering their way through the routine ups and downs kids everywhere deal with, and they develop a friendship/first crush due to their common interests and challenges.
Great movie for all ages I took my five year old and fiancé they loved it.....Josh Hutcherson was great in this and so was Anna Sophia Robb .....People actually cried and clapped after the show it touches your inner child...It will take you through a life experience that not all kids go through in life but you will be absorbed in the film as I was...If you are looking for a great film instead of all the kids movies that rely on jokes that are used over and over ...go to this film and you will be satisfied with drama, light comedy and maybe slight depression of the reality it faces, but your spirit will be lifted as will your child's..
Life, is not a pretty thing and more than the magical kingdom of Terabithia, this is a tale of a young kids' coming to terms with matters of being bullied, being loved, having a true friend and even trying to understand death.By the end of it all, many people around me were moved to tears and I myself was trying desperately to hold back.
This is the first time I write a review.Because this one really touched my heart.I have not heard about this movie or the book until yesterday.One of my friends gave me this movie weeks ago,but I saw this movie yesterday.Before watching this movie I have no expectations.I thought his will be a Narnia like movies.But the movie changed it.Josh Hutcherson and Anna Sophia Robb is excellent in this movie.I don't think this is only a kids movie,this is for everyone who had a childhood.This is the movie which made me cry.I expected Leslie will return in the end.I think all the characters in this movie have done a excellent work.This movie is haunting me till today.If there is anyone who haven't watch this movie please watch.Before watching this movie "keep your mind wide open"..
It's a fine kids movie for most of the film with great performances from Hutcherson and especially Robb.
Jess' younger sister Maybelle is quite cute and surprisingly believable as the annoying younger sister and most of the other players do a decent job with what little roles they have.I really remember loving the story when I was younger because it related directly to my own imaginative flights of fancy and the real-world portion was also relevant to me at the same time.
This movie was a based off a friendship between a boy named Jess(from a poor family) and a girl named Leslie(who's parents don't pay attention much to her because they are writers and they barely stop writing.
the acting was good though in my opinion it could have been a little bit better, I was not expecting the twist in the middle though, I do recommend this, it's a good family film to go to, Also the special effects where really great, I hear the novel is supposed to be better so i might go read it.
With the fantasy, the life of Jesse becomes bearable until the day a tragedy happens.After watching "Bridge to Terabithia" I immediately recalled my disappointment with the 1991 "My Girl".
I was impressed with the charm, beauty and talent of AnnaSophia Robb in the role of Leslie Burke, and I loved her character; and I never forget Josh Hutcherson, the Gabe of the delightful and sweet first love story "Little Manhattan".
If your mind is wide enough then let your imagination take you over the Bridge to Terabithia.This kid's, albeit family movie goes deeper than the standard fantasy movie, and his new soul mate has him believing that what we can imagine can become real; all it takes is a little courage and determination.
I have just watched this film and it's terrific, the young actors were super, the story was great and the ending very moving, it was nice to see Mr Patrick in a different type of role, up to now he has been in action type films but here he plays a father, just an ordinary Joe, this is truly a film for all the family, but in my case there was just me and my dog, the only film to ever make me cry was "Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with Ingrid Bergman and that was way back the but "Bridge.." did just that l found tears rolling down my cheek it's that kind of film and it must have got me just there, do watch this film it is amazing...oh in case you wonder l'm 63, never to old to show your feelings..
BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, in my opinion, is a very touching movie based on Katherine Paterson's first-rate bestseller about a special friendship for all ages that will warm your heart and possibly make you cry.
Another film that it evokes is "Stand by Me" in that it deals with the trials and difficulties encountered by children who don't quite "fit in" as they grow up and the importance (and depth) of childhood friendships.The focus is on the young lead characters but this in no way means that it is a specifically children's movie.
It is rather a true family movie that adults will enjoy just as much and in some ways the depth of emotion will be lost on young children (recommended for 10+).
At a time where fantasy movies are on top of the world, there comes a film that brings every bit of magic and wonder but with emotion and drama that is unparallelled.This is a movie that will capture the heart and mind in ways that I have never seen.And as a couple of closing comment:For those who say that this is not a family movie and that the theme of death and drama is inappropriate, can I remind you of one of the most successful family movies of my childhood, My Girl.
Gabor Csupo brings to us a world which can only be imagined, if you decide to open your mind..."bridge to terabithia" will appeal to you WHOLLY as a positively charged movie.
Annasophia Robb plays the role of the catalyst in the movie..bringing hutcherson's young mind closer to the power of his imagination that he has been anxiously waiting to unlock..
'The Bridge of Terebithia' is an intelligent family film made in the manner of Disney classics like 'Old Yeller' and 'The Fox and the Hound', where things aren't always dressed up prettily just because many in the target audience are children.Based on the novel by Katherine Paterson, this film revolves around twelve-year-old Jesse, the only son of his working class parents' five children.
But when reality soon seeks to crash down on the children's world, changing their lives forever, can Jesse hold on to the magic of Terebithia...The child actors in this film were phenomenal and carried the story with the grace of veteran actors who had decades of experience under their belts.
Robert Patrick, one of the few adult actors to stand out in what is very much the child actors' film, was notable in his role as Jesse's father, a man who believed in showing his children the importance of hard-work, not realising his aloof nature was distancing his son from him, yet who did love his family very much even if he couldn't always demonstrate that effectively.The problem with this film was that it was marketed as if it was a fantasy-lite flick in the vein of 'Harry Potter' or 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe' when it is much more a coming-of-age film similar, in many ways, to 'My Girl', 'Jack the Bear' and 'Wide Awake'.
The primary thread of 'The Bridge to Terebithia' is about a boy standing on the cusp of puberty, the bridge between childhood and adulthood, and having to learn the harsh realities of life without letting go of his belief in magic and the jubilance of embracing his imagination.And, as a coming-of-age film, this succeeds very well in teaching children that, even if there is a darker side to the world, it doesn't mean it has to be a terrible place to live while also leaving adult viewers nostalgic for the time when they were Jesse's age and learning these lessons.
They're both outcasts from the rest of the pupils and create a fantasy world in the woods called Terabithia.This is basically a boy meets girl, overcome personal and family problems, make new friends, tragedy and family comes together afterwards type movie.
Going into the movie, I already knew the plot but did not know the ending, and because I love and have a great bond with both brothers I trusted their opinions on the book and hoped the film would be what the book was in comparison.I was blown away.
i was disappointed in this movie.it thought there would be more of a fantasy element to it,but that was just a very small part of the movie.most of the movie was nothing spectacular,with very little story or character development.i just felt they could have done more with the material.that's not to say that it's bad movie,because it isn't.the movie takes a dark turn towards the latter half,and becomes heartbreaking.i don't think it would be suitable for really young kids,because there are some pretty serious themes to it,and because it takes such a dark turn.there's nothing really offensive though,but parents should really use their discretion.for me,i give Bridge to Terabithia a 5/10.
And Robert Patrick and Zooey Deschanel were perfectly cast.The movie tells the story of young artistic yet shy Jesse Aarons (JOSH HUTCHERSON) and how his life is changed forever after meeting the new girl at school, his next-door neighbour, Leslie Burke (ANNASOPHIA ROBB) Together, Jesse and Leslie escape to Terabithia were they do what they want and are able to forget their reality troubles.This movie is really sad, yet enjoyable.
The characters were played reasonably well for child actors, and despite the often repetitive 'usual' expectation depicted in the scenes at school, the story, in my opinion, was better then some previously made films trying to portray a similar theme.
This film is about two school kids' special journey into a fantasy land called Terabithia.The trailer looks so promising, with all sorts of amazing mystical creatures.
Based on a children's fantasy story written by Katherine Paterson, and produced by the same company that did the latest Chronicles of Narnia, I thought that the movie would probably be mediocre given my lukewarm response to films of similar genre like Pan's Labyrinth and The Last Mimzy.
Even though the movie is / was intended to be a children fantasy the way it was presented I as an audience saw it as - A warm love story between coming to age of neighbors boy and a girl of may be around 14 years of age played by Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb respectively.
Bridge to Terabithia is not your average fantasy film--in fact, the movie has very little to do with fantasy and much more to do with the power of the imagination.
The ensemble cast really put the cherry on top of this wonderfully crafted film that is among the best of its genre.Terabithia stars Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb are sensational in the leading roles, and manage to hold the entire movie on their shoulders.
Joss Hutcherson plays Jess, a lonely bullied kid who befriends the school newbie Leslie (the superb AnnaSophia Robb), together they invent an imaginary world, Terabithia, which they explore to escape the drab mediocrity of their school and in Jess' case home lives.I have to admit I was expecting something along the lines of "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe", but I couldn't be more wrong.The film is set in small town in modern day America, Joss' parents show very little love or affection to him, something he becomes more aware of when at Leslie's house when they 'help' paint a room.The film also deals with very adult themes, that as a child bad things can happen, you can lose people you love and care for.The two leads are excellent, and for two actors barely in their teens they should have promising careers ahead of them, my only criticism is that I wish Zooey Deshanel would put a few pounds on, she does look a bit skinny nowadays!
How sad that the movie makers thought so little of the story they were weaving that they felt the need to provide a literal visualisation for the kids' fantasies.Just a beautiful and wholesome film, one that I really thought would never get made again in this age of bling, perversion and shock.
when i first saw this film advertised i thought here we go again a fantasy film come rubbish but no this film is absolutely wonderful, the entire cast were all first class, the settings and surroundings wonderful and from a previous writer no crappy special effects ,this film is definitely not a kids film for under 8s, maybe the first half of the film then later on it gets a bit to serious or sad for younger children, the film itself can make you feel happy and even happier then sad and then just makes you burst into tears, whilst watching the film you really don't expect the outcome to hit you hard as it is really a joy to watch then boom the entire film changes and thats when it becomes a (LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRE FILM )but for all you out there who enjoy a good crying match then this is definitely the film for you,I'm 46 today and have 3 grown ups and a grandchild and another on the way and i balled my eyes out for a solid 15 minutes, when upon watching this and sitting crying it makes you think about things you've lost in the past and makes you cry even more.
I read or go to the movies to be entertained, to escape from life for a little bit, not to be reminded of how crappy it can be.My kids didn't cry, but they did think it was sad and I expect they were disappointed.
i cried from the middle to the end ..i was crying more and more ...pausing the movie and looking for tissues ..believe me it did worth it..maybe the special features or effect was not very good but the story and the fantasy its an amazing thing.
Based on Katherine Patterson's beautiful book, Bridge to Terabithia is a beautiful, charming and touching fantasy film, that serves as an emotionally rich testament to the life-changing power of friendship.
She played Leslie where her family didn't have time for her (though it wasn't really shown much throughout the movie) as she moved in and meets the main character, Jesse, played pretty well by Josh Hutcherson.
Robert Patrick acts out screen time, he definitely brings some powerful emotion to the film.This movie might feel a little mature for young children, not that it's an unsettling story, but some scenes could upset them.
I was just a little too old to have read the book when I was a kid, so I don't know how the film compares, but I can say it is a wonderful fantasy film.Jess is a budding young artist who's picked on at school, he befriends the new girl, Leslie, a social misfit who encourages him to dream in spite of his father's constant admonishments to "get your head out of the clouds".
I remember my imaginations of my childhood and I now follow my daughter creating imaginary worlds herself.Bridge to Terabithia is a marvelous movie about childhood, imagination, love and attachment.Young Jess Aarons is not very happy about his life.
Bridge to Terabithia, based on the book, is a story about two kids, Jess and Leslie, who form a friendship over a shared outcast status at their school.
The movie version of Bridge was incredibly true to the book, and the young actors portraying Leslie and Jess did a fantastic job. |
tt0094597 | 976-EVIL | The movie centers around cousins Spike (Patrick O'Bryan) and Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys), both teenagers who live with Hoax's overtly religious mother Lucy (Sandy Dennis). While Spike is the neighborhood motorcycle bad boy, Hoax is an introverted nerd. Even though Spike genuinely cares for his cousin and protects him from bullies, Hoax is filled with resentment that he cannot stand up for himself or get the girl he wants (both of which Spike does effortlessly).
Both boys stumble upon 976-EVIL, which on the surface is just a novelty phone line that gives creepy-themed fortunes for a few dollars. However, the line is actually used by Satan to subtly corrupt mortals into his bidding. Spike loses interest in the line quickly, but Hoax soon discovers the true nature of the line and uses it to get revenge on everyone who has wronged him.
Soon Hoax's spirit is almost entirely consumed by Satan, who possesses Hoax to cause death and destruction, culminating in an opening to Hell appearing before their house. Spike confronts Hoax, but is quickly overpowered. In a desperate last ploy, he calls earnestly to his cousin, reminding him of the plans they had to take a vacation that summer.
Hoax's fleeting soul resurfaces briefly, and realizes his horrible mistake and embraces Spike, begging for help. Spike, realizing Hoax is lost and cannot be separated from the demonic presence, betrays his cousin and throws him into the pit of Hell. | horror, cult, revenge, murder, violence | train | wikipedia | There are lots of times when you know that someone is going to die, and he draws it out to the point where it is almost painful to watch (I obviously can't give examples without ruining it.) So, I recommend it to anyone who likes horror..
Actor Robert Englund, who had played nightmare-invading/teen throat-slashing Freddy Krueger in the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies for several years, was a perfect choice to direct this scary/funny movie.
Also in the picture is Hoax's religious nut mother Lucy (Sandy Dennis), who wins my award for the most annoying character I've ever seen in a movie, and that's not a good thing.
Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund directs a film about an outsider getting their revenge, in the style of films like Carrie and Evilspeak.
As you've probably guessed; brains aren't a major strongpoint here.The relationship between the two cousins that the film centres on makes up its backbone, and it could have been good if Englund had spent a bit more time concentrating on it.
Unsurprisingly, the kill scenes and gore seem to be Englund's main priority, and while I don't necessarily have a problem with this; the final third is pretty much entirely about the younger cousin's 'revenge', and it doesn't take long to get really boring.
The acting isn't too bad, with future gay porn star Stephen Geoffreys taking the lead role and convincing as a young kid despite actually being in his mid-twenties during filming.
The opening stalking scene of the victim being blown up and set on fire in a phone booth, having the spiders in the oven- dinner, the bathroom stalking when he's possessed taking out the gang- members who bullied him and the second poker game held during the rampage are perfect examples of the cheesiness throughout here, as they should not be taken seriously and yet come across as perfectly serious during it's time.
Not the best horror film that you will watch, but it is significant as Robert Englund's director debut.It's a typical story of a nerdy teen (Stephen Geoffreys) with a whacked out mother (Oscar-winner Sandy Dennis looking a lot heavier than I remember her), who keeps getting his head shoved in the toilet by the school bullies, and just wants to be cool like his cousin Spike (Patrick O'Bryan).He manages to find a way to reach out to the dark side and get revenge on everyone - well, almost everyone.
if that is your real name" with no reason in the story to presume that it may not be his real name - genius I am a huge Robert Englund fan, I wish he would direct a comedy, if he can make a horror so funny I think his comedy would give people a hernia.The worst film ever made, I cant wait until it comes out on DVD so I can buy it!!!!!!.
His portrayal of a geek pushed around by creeps at school and then taking revenge on them when he gains Satanic powers by dialing a 976 horrorscope number is undeniable fun.Yes, there are plot holes galore but Geoffreys performance as wigged out psychobitch geek who ain't gonna take it anymore is utterly kickass.
So much so I had to rave about it twice in this review.The direction and script needed a lot of work and director Robert Englund should have played the part of the magazine reporter himself, but it still makes for a sometimes fun horror flick..
I also am surprised to see that Robert Englund directed this one and I think he did okay as most of the problems I found with the film came more from the story and from the editing.
The imagery is great and it has some okay acting as it is not stiff, the end has the killer getting a bit too cute with the one liners actually reminding one a bit of Freddy Krueger's lines in the Elm Street horror films.The story has a strange phone number that seems to predict things a bit too well being used by a dude named Spike; however, Spike soon stops using the number after nearly being killed by a runaway car.
Hoax is played by Stephen Geoffreys, best known as Evil from Fright Night.
He is pretty much the same character, just a bigger nerd this time around.The film had some good moments and I liked it somewhat.
Or so it goes in this lame-brained horror flick directed by Mr. Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, which includes a script written by Brian Helgeland and Rhet Topham.
With Englund's first time behind the camera, you would expect something truly unique or at least something close to being even remotely frightening like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984), but when things get interesting "976-EVIL" devolves into typical slasher/possession stuff and thus joins the ranks of so many other "B" horror movies from the 1980s.The movie at least has an inventive premise: dialing the title phone number puts you on a hot line with the Devil himself.
A creepy voice (Englund) on the other end gives you some advice (your "horror-scope") and it pays off, but usually at a price: your soul.Teenage biker-punk Spike (Patrick O'Neal), an indebted gambler, is able to use the words of wisdom bestowed upon him and break free of his poker habit before the hot line's influence has a chance to truly take hold of him.
Now a full-fledged psychopath possessed by the Devil, he soon starts growing jet-black fingernails and scales and speaking in an ever-creepy Satanic voice who has a tendency of dropping painfully unfunny one-liners that mostly fall flat on their face.Of course with a title like "976-EVIL," you could only expect the worst from this horror movie.
But even then, it takes almost forever for that to even start.Geoffreys, a regular in '80s horror movies like 1985's "Fright Night," seems almost pitch-perfect as the shy kid who stood to gain some confidence with Satanic powers, but comes off instead as another rejected nerd-turned-braindead screen slasher who goes on a murderous rampage against his tormentors.
Robert Englund does a reasonable job in directing this film, and the cast approach their characters in the typical way horror film characters are approached.
The acting isn't great, the plot could use touch-ups, other than that it's not too bad.Stephen Geoffreys plays Hoax, the typical high school loner who gets picked on.
When Hoax finds a piece of paper which has the "Horror"scope number 976 EVIL on it, he calls it up and is transformed into a revenge seeking demon.It surely isn't worthy of making a sequel to it, however it did spawn a sequel, which I haven't had a chance to see yet, however I understand that Spike returns in the second movie..
The plot isn't very strong, with the focus much more heavily on over-the-top and often ridiculous gore-- as one might expect from a film directed by Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.
Stephen Geoffreys' performance as Hoax is exactly what one might expect after his role in Fright Night-- he's intense, wild, and interesting-- but his co-star, Patrick O'Bryan, is far less notable as Spike.
The film attempts to heavily lean on the cousin bond as a plot device, but the relationship isn't very well-developed, or very believable, which leaves much of the story transparent and wholly unsurprising.That being said, it's easy to enjoy if you don't expect it to be something more than a cheap teen horror movie from the 80s.
Yes, it's often campy, but I find it entertaining as hell.The fact that 976-EVIL is directed by Robert Englund (the original Freddy Krueger) makes it kind of worth watching all on it's own.
Robert Englund finally steps behind the camera, directing "976-EVIL", about a phone number that gives people satanic powers.
But all you got was a badly directed and acted film with a creepy villain trying to be a second rate Freddy Krueger (i.e. spouting off very bad one liners).A no good rascal (Spike) who lives with a strange woman and her nerdy kid is extremely bored.
This odd, incoherent, cheesy and ridicule late-80's horror feature represents the directorial debut of Robert 'Freddy Krueger' Englund.
You guessed it, "976-Evil" is just another lowbrow horror version of "Revenge of the Nerds" and the only good thing about it is the choice to cast Stephen Geoffreys.
After being picked on one time too many, Hoax calls the number and soon seeks revenge on those who have tormented him.976-EVIL is best remembered for being directed by Robert Englund but I must say that I really didn't find too much of it to be impressive.
I was really shocked because there's not really anything that happens in the movie and once things finally start to pick up its too late as you've already checked out.The direction by Englund has a few clever touches including one sequence in a bathroom that has the camera above the toilets looking down.
The fact that this film is directed by Robert Englund in the late 1980's, it's well worth the watch since he brings the Nightmare on Elm Street cheese into his first film.
All this stems from the main character Hoax, played by Stephen Geoffreys, also known for his role in Fright Night.
If you're looking for a dark humored horror movie, this film delivers the goods.
Nerdy kid in town (Stephen Geoffrey of "Fright Night") gets revenge on everyone who ever wronged him when he hooks up with Satan, via horror hot-line "976-EVIL." Directed by Robert Englund of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" fame, the film is obviously very low budget but not completely without charm.
i just thought that it was hilarious too see a title called 976-evil , i remember hearing a lot about this movie when it came out, so i thought that i would give it a try, i was impressed by it, the idea of evil coming in over the phone lines, a teenage boy loses a bet in a poker game and has to give up the pink slip to his 48 harley, so he finds this ad on paper with the phone number to call in,, it's like a horoscope , anyway the kid follows the advice given and wins back the money to get his pink slip back,, enter the cousin, a little nerdy kid who gets bullied at school constantly, he winds up with the phone number and calls in , and low and behold he follows the advice given as well, pretty soon he ends up being in control of his life,, no longer being bullied, especially by his ratically religious mother, this is a neat little film that i liked very much..
Two cousins played by hunky Patrick O'Bryan and nerd Stephen Geoffreys get involved with a satanic phone line (the title).
I'm a huge horror fan and really wanted to like this (because of Robert Englund) but I couldn't.
The only thing that Hoax looks up to his good-hearted punk cousin Spike (Patrick O'Bryan), who lives next-door to him.
Now Hoax uses the power from the phone number he called giving him and he uses it for revenge.Directed by Robert Englund made an fairly entertaining horror/thriller with elements of fantasy.
A group of 80's 'tough-guys' meet their commupence when the nerd that they always pick on uses a 'horror-scope' phone-line to gain evil supernatural powers.
The worst was by far the spider out of the box of cereals death which was just not scary by a long-shot!I would have thought that the man who plays the scariest and most haunting character of all time, Freddy Krueger, would know how to scare his audiences and this film would have surely left a scare on his reputation.
One question, why???All in all, a bad horror movie which seemed more like Home Alone than a film directed by Freddy himself.
Robert Englund was Freddy Krueger when he directed this movie.
I am a huge fan of Robert Englund but this movie isn´t very good it is not very well acted and rather silly than scary.
The scant few teenagers who went to see "976-EVIL" in 1989 probably had no idea who Sandy Dennis was (just as the kids who first saw "Carrie" didn't know who Piper Laurie was), but the veteran actress manages to bring a few minutes of class to an otherwise lousy, fifth-rate screamer about a nerdy high school kid acquiring demonic powers from a satanic phone number.
Being the directorial debut of Robert 'Freddy Krueger' Englund, it comes as no surprise to find that 976-EVIL follows the same cheesy route as the numerous Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, with the villain of the piece, high school wimp turned demon Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys), cracking corny one-liners as he offs those who have made his life a misery.There's not much originality on display, the pace is a little slow, and the film is lacking in outrageous gore effects, but with decent performances from Geoffreys (whose film career would soon take a surprising turn), Patrick O'Bryan as Hoax's cool cousin Spike, and Lezlie Deane as school hottie Suzie (who provides the obligatory T&A), a memorable scene guaranteed to have arachnophobes squirming, plus a reasonably spectacular finale over the pits of Hell, it's not a total loss, and not nearly as bad Jim Wynorski's diabolical sequel..
I guess I have a soft spot, a very small one, for this forgotten film, which was directed by horror icon Robert Englund.
A typical late '80s horror film, which has an goodish premise (a direct phone line to Hell), but which loses things at the end.
While the film could have been a lot more thoughtful and interesting, it wastes the story and instead gives us lots of special effects and gore, in place of plot development.However it's not quite as bad as some of the trash turned out in the 1980s, and the story is just about diverting enough to pass the time.
Unfortunately, director Robert Englund, better known as Freddy Krueger in the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series (and for his incessant cameos in many 90's horror films) gives us a rather poor film, this man is an actor, not a director for god's sake, so why did he even bother?
Englund's presence is even more obvious in the way that the demon makes stupid wisecracks and jokes at the end of the film, just like Freddy.The acting is pretty poor.
It's left to Stephen Geoffreys (FRIGHT NIGHT) to carry the main body of the film, and while he's quite funny as the nerdish, snivelling loser, he's not in the least bit effective at the end.
Much to Hoax's surprise it works a treat but thug Marcus & his gang show up & ruins things, after this somewhat embarrassing & humiliating experience Hoax continues to phone the number but receives advice on Satanic rituals & the more Hoax calls 976 Evil the gates of hell begin to open in Hoax's house & he becomes possessed by evil forces which turn him into a brutal Demonic killer...Directed by Robert Englund I personally thought 976-Evil was a decent time waster & a pretty watchable horror film.
The script by Brian Helgeland & Rhet Topham moves along at a fair pace although it does drag in a couple of places & it does take itself a little seriously at times although to it's credit it is something a bit different, I mean it doesn't always work brilliantly but at least I didn't sit there thinking I'd seen it all before already like so many horror films & I wasn't bored either.
The acting is also pretty good, except the terrible Sandy Dennis & her almost as terrible hair-dos.976-Evil isn't the greatest film ever made but it's a decent effort that I enjoyed watching, it won't be the best horror film you've ever watched but I doubt it'll be the worst either.
Spike and Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys from Fright Night) are cousins who live under the overly watchful eye of Hoax's super religious mother Lucy (Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, God Told Me To).
Hoax is a nerd that's afraid of everyone while Spike is a motorcycle riding bad boy with the girl of his cousin's dreams, Suzie (Lezlie Deane, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare).Both boys start using the novelty phone number 976-EVIL, which reads them creepy-themed fortunes for a few dollars.
(Hoax kinda sorta looks like the Michael Jackson zombie in that "Thriller" video, toward the film's end, more than anything else!) All the better, to finally take vengeance on all the high school bullies who have long been harassing him.
This film is absolutely awful and a good example of what dire straits the horror genre was in around this time.
Made in the late eighties and directed by Robert Englund, I pretty much knew what to expect from '976 Evil' before it even began.
As the tension builds you know exactly when something awful is going to happen but heah, isn't that what this style of horror movie is all about.From the leather clad greaser Spike, right through to the awkward teenager Hoax (played by Stephen Geoffreys of 'Fright Night') the characters are standard fare for an eighties horror flick.Basically this is an eighties horror film about a teenager who becomes possessed after calling a 1-900 number.
Great cast full of 80' and 90's legends and Robert Englunds directorial debut.When a nerdy kid calls a psychic hot line ran by the devil (or something - you decide) he is possessed and all his wishes come true and he takes on all of the people who bully him and cause his life to be a miserable one.
The number will give you anything you want, but gets mad if you don't use its gifts and let the evil take you over.Stephen Geoffreys did an amazing job acting here, hes one of my faves from the 80's. |
tt0272607 | Farz | Secret Agent 116 named Gopal has been assigned the case of homicide of a fellow secret agent (303) by the head of CID, who (303) found evidence that can help identify the perpetrators. During this investigation, Gopal meets with lovely Sunita, and both end up falling in love with each other. The traitor responsible for killing of agent 303 has gone to meet 303's sister Kamla and tells her that he is a CID inspector and investigating his brother's case, warning that her brother's killer may attempt on her pretending as his colleague and friend. He elsewhere unsuccessfully continued on the life of agent 116. 116 goes to meet Kamla and sees 303's portrait and notes down the studio photographer's name, but Kamla is convinced that 116 is the killer of her brother. Kamla is approached by another mafia don, Damodar, for her help in eliminating 116, which she agrees. Damodar turns out to be Sunita's father, when Sunita introduces him, Gopal gets suspicious about him and commences a background check, which reveal that her father is a gangster. As he sets out his case against Damodar, he continues his romance with Sunita. During Sunita's birthday party, Damodar directs his henchman to kill 116, which 116 escapes after some car chase. 116 hesitantly reveals to Sunita that her father is a gangster. Heartbroken Sunita confronts her father, who tells her that he was forced into his life of crime and terrorism, and some other person controls them all, overheard by 116 and his assistant who are hiding outside. 116 goes out for his search for real culprit to a skyscraper apartment where Kamla was plotted. Kamla seductively dances and mix some intoxicant pill in his drink which overlooked by 116, and acted as drank and eventually senseless. Goons take him to their secret den in city outskirts, along with Sunita, who mistakes them as Hospital Ward boys. In the den, 116 captures one of the goon leaders and forced him to reveal some information. 116 fights his way with Sunita and escapes in a vehicle. In the meantime, CID agents trace a letter leading to clues regarding the Chinese conspiracy to destabilise the nation and accommodated by traitors inside, led by a person wearing Mao uniform named Supremo who only speaks a few broken English sentences. Rest of the movie follows the 116's efforts to thwart a foreign conspiracy against India. | revenge | train | wikipedia | Decent action flick!.
Farz is definitely a good action-packed cop thriller worth watching.
Sunny Deol fits the cop role, which is obviously tailor made for him.
This movie has tons of mind-blowing action and thrills.
The action is superb!
His introduction and the climax are very well-done like everything else.
Jackie Shroff is superb and tough as the suave villain.
Sunny Deol's shear machismo is just awesome, and for that, he is truly the Action King.
The climax was explosive, although it would have been perfect had Sunny used big machine guns.
Om Puri's role as the good and honest cop reminds you of Ghayal.
Johnny Lever provides comic relief, although it was shocking to see his character killed in the movie.
Sunny Deol's cop role is similar to that of Champion, but this role is substantially more action-packed.
Enjoy!.
watch it and don't take it too seriously.
This was the first Bollywood movie I ever saw and it was incredible - I have to say first that all songs blew me away, action is fun, the dancing is wonderful and Sunny Deol has a lot of sex appeal.
His acting is not that good, and he can't really dance, but you keep expecting he'll take off his shirt (which doesn't happen).
After all, he's a serious cop.
Who gets set up by a terrorist.
The story is rather simple, but if you don't take it too seriously (how could I, I laugh at Stallone/Segal/Van Damme/the Rock movies) it's quite enjoyable.
I thought of it as a caricature of a Hollywood movie, and you know what?
In that sense, movies like Farz are far superior to those produced in Hollywood..
A lousy "remake" of Lethal Weapon.
Well, the subject says it all.
Acting is bad, and the plot is not very appealing.
Preity Zinta, I must admit, is worth seeing in this one.
In addition, the main theme song is quite remarkable..
Outdated.
Sunny Deol has done several thousand films wherein he played a muscle flexing cop, Is that new?
Raj Kanwar the same director who gave him JEET gives him a stale film, I agree Raj Kanwar's films hardly had new stories but there had some substance as well.
This film was perhaps stuck for 4 years in cans The film released few months after Raj Kanwar's superhit Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega which released in 2000.
Farz is a mix of Lethal Weapon and Richochet and several other Hollywood films, there is nothing new we haven't watched before.
The film follows the same action template done to death thousand times, Also we have a weird cameo by Johny Lever who reaches at the right place at the right time and that too with different getups.
There is a reason given but not justifiable.Direction by Raj Kanwar is not that great, due to the stale plot Music also is staleSunny Deol repeats himself and does the same act he has done before, Preity Zinta with a dubbed voice doesn't get much scope, Jackie Shroff is superb as the villain, strangely his last release before this was Mission Kashmir where too he played a villain.
Mukesh Tiwari tends to overdo it, Johny Lever tries hard to be funny, Om Puri and Farida Jalal are okay,.
Very good movie.
Farz very good movie with action and the Sunny deol is in a Brillant honest cop & preity zints was a average & the villan of the movie Jackie shroff played Villan after Mission Kashmir(2000) but the film was a Average |
tt0490847 | Double Tap | Leslie Cheung plays Rick Pang, a shooting champion who is also a gun expert who tinkers with his pistols and modified its magazine to perfect his technique known as 'double tap' which is the terminology for a shooter placing two shots in the same exact spot, to maximize marksmanship in any competition.
In a shooting competition, he goes up against another experienced top cop who is just as comfortable on the pistols as Rick, named Miu. Unfortunately, the competition was marred by a depressed day trader, a friend of Miu, who lost much in the stock market and threatened the safety of the contest, wounding the shooting supervisor, another of Miu's friends. Rick was forced to kill him with his trademark double tap as the former approaches Colleen and Vincent. Miu took note of this astounding technique in the post-mortem while Rick's experience from this encounter was strangely exciting to him and he discovers his lust for murdering others in cold blood.
As further murders were committed by an unknown gunman with the similar 'double tap' technique, the list of possible candidates by the police was narrowed down to just a few candidates but Miu was utterly convinced that Rick was also behind all those heinous crimes and hauls him up for investigation. Although Rick was released after an interrogation (having had no solid evidence incriminating him), Miu continued to pursue him and pressurise Rick to an extent that the murderer was suddenly possessed by rage and decided to take the law in his own hands. Rick went to his favorite shooting range and lay in wait for his pursuers. Arming himself with live rounds for his modified pistol, he engaged in a fierce gunfight with the cops and escaped at the first possible opportunity.
It later transpired that Rick was indeed haunted by his earlier murder at the competition but his insatiated lust for murder was further fuelled by his obsession with the 'double tap' technique as he sought to perfect it. Further, he has inadvertently discovered a new use for his pistols: to kill those who opposed him and those who pushed him to the brink. | comedy, neo noir, murder, flashback, good versus evil, romantic, tragedy, revenge | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0303714 | Barbershop | On a cold winter, Calvin Palmer, Jr. (Ice Cube) decides he has had enough of trying to keep open the barbershop his father handed down to him. He cannot borrow, revenues are falling, and he seems more interested in get-rich-quick schemes to bring in easy money. Without telling his employees, or the customers, he sells the barbershop to a greedy loan shark, Lester Wallace (Keith David), who secretly plans to turn it into a strip club.
After spending a day at work, and realizing just how vital the barbershop is to the surrounding community, Calvin rethinks his decision and tries to get the shop back - only to find out Wallace wants double the $20,000 he paid Calvin to return it, and before 7 pm that day. Right after he admits to the employees that he sold the barber shop, and that it would be closing at the end of the day, the police arrive to arrest one of the barbers, named Ricky (Michael Ealy). He is accused of driving his pickup truck into a nearby market to steal an ATM, but the ATM thief, JD (Anthony Anderson), a cousin of Ricky's, is revealed to be actually the one who committed the crime after borrowing Ricky's truck. Because this is, potentially, Ricky's 'third strike', he could be sentenced to life in prison. Calvin uses the $20,000 from Lester to bail Ricky out of jail, yet Ricky is still angry, as JD set him up.
Calvin reveals that he found a gun in Ricky's locker in the barbershop and shows it to him. They stop the car and Ricky throws the gun into the river, proving that he does not want to get into any more trouble. Then they both go to confront Lester. Lester, as well as JD and his best friend Billy (Lahmard Tate) (who were still trying to pry the ATM open and took it to Lester's place without his knowledge) are confronted by Calvin and Ricky. They demand Lester give the barbershop back. Lester is angered and orders his bodyguard Monk to pull out his gun. The police arrive just in time to save Calvin and Ricky, but JD and Billy are arrested. Calvin and Ricky see the ATM, and get a $50,000 reward for returning it to police. They get the money, and the barbershop reopens with even better business than before. In the meantime, Calvin's wife, Jennifer (Jazsmin Lewis), has given birth to a baby boy. | entertaining, blaxploitation | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0073650 | Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma | In 1944 in the Republic of Salò, the Fascist-occupied portion of Italy, four wealthy men of power, the Duke, the Bishop, the Magistrate and the President, agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. They recruit four teenage boys to act as guards (dressed with uniforms of Decima Flottiglia MAS) and four young soldiers (called "studs", "cockmongers" or "fuckers"), who are chosen because of their big penises. They then kidnap nine young men and nine young women and take them to a palace near Marzabotto. Accompanying them are four middle-aged prostitutes, also collaborators, who recount arousing stories for the men, who sadistically exploit their victims.
During the many days at the palace, the four men devise increasingly abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. During breakfast, the daughters enter the dining hall naked to serve food. One of the studs trips and rapes a daughter in front of the crowd, which laughs at her cries of pain. Intrigued, the President moons several slaves before prompting the stud to perform anal sex on him and the Duke sings 'Sul Ponte di perati' and everybody sings also. A girl who tries to escape is slain and a middle-aged prostitute continues with her story. Two victims are forced to marry. The ceremony is interrupted when the Duke fondles several victims and prostitutes. At the end, the bride and groom are forced to fondle each other and the men rape them to stop them from having sex with each other. During this, the Magistrate engages with the Duke in three-way intercourse.
Another day, the victims are forced to act like dogs. When one of the victims, Lamberto, refuses, the Magistrate whips him and tortures the President's daughter by tricking her into eating food containing nails. Non-penetrative sex gives way to coprophagia. As Signora Maggi tells her story, the President notices that one of the studs has an erection and fondles him. Another stud uses a female victim's hand to masturbate himself. Signora Maggi relates how she killed her mother, and Renata cries, remembering the murder of her own mother. The Duke, sexually excited at the sound of her cries, begins verbally abusing her. The Duke orders the guards and studs to undress her. During this, she begs God for death, and the Duke punishes her by defecating and forcing her to eat his feces. The President leaves to masturbate. Later, the other victims are presented with a meal of human feces. During a search for the victim with the most beautiful buttocks, Franco is picked and promised death in the future.
Later, there is a black mass-like wedding between the studs and the men of power. The men angrily order the children to laugh, but they are too grief-stricken to do so. The Pianist and Signora Vaccari tell jokes to make the victims laugh. The wedding ceremony ensues with each man of power exchanging rings with a stud. After the wedding, the Bishop is sodomized by his stud. The Bishop then leaves to examine the captives in their rooms, where they start systematically betraying each other: Claudio reveals that Graziella is hiding a photograph, Graziella reveals that Eva and Antiniska are having a secret sexual affair, and Ezio, a collaborator and the black servant are shot dead after being found having sex, but not before Ezio makes a defiant socialist salute. Victim Umberto Chessari is appointed to replace Ezio. Toward the end, the remaining victims are called out to determine which of them will be punished. Graziella is spared due to her betrayal of Eva, and Rino is spared due to his submissive relationship with the Duke. Those who are called are given a blue ribbon and sentenced to a painful death. The victims huddle together and cry and pray in the bathroom. They are then tortured and murdered through methods such as branding, hanging, scalping, burning, and having their tongues and eyes cut out, as each libertine takes his turn to watch as voyeur. The soldiers shake hands and bid farewell, and the Pianist commits suicide due to her grief.
The film's final shot is of two young soldiers, who had witnessed and collaborated in all the atrocities, dancing a simple waltz together. | avant garde, cruelty, murder, bleak, thought-provoking, cult, sadist, violence, insanity, humor, satire, tragedy, storytelling | train | wikipedia | Pier Paolo Pasolini, as is well known, was murdered not long after he finished work on this, his most audacious and confrontational film, yet even the most casual viewing of SALO begs the question - had he not been murdered, would he have taken his own life anyway?
Every sequence, every shot and practically every moment of this film is so burdened with despair, barely concealed rage and a towering disgust with the human race, one gets the impression that Pasolini was barely hanging onto life - and any attendant shreds of hope - by his fingernails.
Although ostensibly an adaptation of one of DeSade's most depraved works channeled through the horrifying excesses of the Second World War with the Fascist ruling classes as its (authentically vile) villains, SALO also contains a lot of contemporary criticism - Pasolini hated the modern world, and explained the stomach-churning 'banquet of s**t' as a none-too-subtle attack on the encroaching global domination of the fast food chains.
(The scenes of sexual excess can similarly be read as a despairing attack on the permissive society - those who come to SALO expecting titillation or B-movie sleaze will be sorely disappointed.) Beyond the nihilistic content, which has been well documented elsewhere, the film has an overall mood that seems to have been engineered to make the viewer thoroughly depressed.
Yet, you will wish you could forget them.The film is about a group of rich Fascists during WWII-Nazi Occupied Italy, where they kidnap a group of 18 youngsters, allowing only physically perfect specimins to stay, and subject them to various forms of mental, physical and sexual torture over the next 120 Days.
Just when you think what you are seeing can't get worse, it does, ten-fold.What makes Salo so brutally shocking and disturbing is its uncompromised and blunt way of showing the acts of horror.
Upon realizing this, one also realizes how the horrible acts shown in the film are possible, and it's a terrible realization.Salo continues to descend until at the end, when we are taken to the punishing grounds, where various rule breakers are tortured and murdered.
This entire film experience MUST be viewed as a symbolic, emotional "explanation" of what it was like to live under Nazi/Fascist rule (in this case), and how an otherwise normal, decent society could be turned into lunatics and sub-animals.
We are given no insight into the lives of these children, while we are shown at great length the heads of state personal histories and sadistic proclivities.Salo has stood the test of time because of it's unflinching portrayal of human violence and idealism, and the fact that, as the Criterion collection states: "Moral redemption may be nothing but a myth." Be warned: for many, Salo is a film not easily shaken off after a single viewing..
Pasolini was outraged and disappointed with the human-condition, and Italian politics had become chaos--leading Sergio Leone to remark at the time that, "Italian politics have become ridiculous." The scenario of Salo is fairly-simple: a group of Italian-fascists retreat to a palace in Northern Italy (where there was a great-deal of support for Italian fascism and the Monarch) with a group of sixteen boys and girls.
Many reviewers have commented that this movie is powerful and that everyone should see it because it gives you access to true feelings of disgust and guilt about man's inhumanity to man, especially during times of anarchistic, despotic, or fascist rule.
If you need this movie to understand how terrible the crimes visited on people by the fascists, Nazi and otherwise, during WWII were, then Pasolini's only success is that he has demonstrated just how sick and desensitized our global society has become.Stark brutality has its value as a tool for demonstrating the full force of certain horrible events.
At the core, Salo: 120 Days of Sodom, is interesting as a concept, from which it was taken from Sade's novel - a group of f*cked up fascists during the end of world war two capture some young boys and girls and force them to go under sexual and mental tortures.
I can't recommend Salo except for extreme, die-hard film buffs and for nihilistic types (and maybe for those interested in understanding the nature of fascism), and for those looking for what's worse after Gibson's POTC.
(Pasolini's political enemies at the time were not fascists at all, but the Christian Democrats)...Furthermore it is NOT a defense of Sade, but an apology for his earlier writings and films which mythicized acts of violence and glorified them as the pure, unconscious, pre-verbal expression of the subproletariat.
Although Pasolini uses De Sade's "120 Days of Sodom" as scaffolding and as a pointed commentary, "Saló" is actually based on real events that happened in the Republic of Saló in Northern Italy, where a group of wealthy fascists abducted a large group of young men and women, went on to debase them, and after they were done with them they killed them.
I just accidentally watched this movie in a small cinema, but I think there are two groups of mentally sick people, the first is who make films like this, the second is who enjoy them and feel some exceptional artistic deepness..
I've also read that this movie, maybe in the same vein as the former, is also a snuff film that the director, Pasolini, put together in a deliberate attempt to offend people who watch it to its conclusion.
As I have often said, "Salò" is the movie that changed my relation with films, when I became conscious of one of cinema's most important characteristics, called "impression of reality", and learned how different film languages, with all their techniques, effects and punctuations, can manipulate people's emotions.I believe that since Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote "Teorema" (the long poem), he was convinced that sex was the most effective weapon against bourgeoisie, as had been stated by people like Wilhelm Reich or indirectly by the Marquis de Sade, a bourgeois himself (please, correct me if I am wrong).
"Salò" seemed to be his definite demonstration of such assumption, although I wonder how would have been his next film, "Porno-Teo-Kolossal", an erotic-theological super-spectacle he was preparing with playwright Eduardo de Filippo and actor Ninetto Davoli (notice a hint of the reverential in the frame's compositions of "Salò", which resemble religious tableaux.)As a reaction to a consumerist society sunk in terrorism and political crisis as was Italy in the 1970s, Pasolini created this parable of power, using Brechtian techniques and taking full advantage of the depth of field, to shock audiences accostumed to as he said- "cowboys and Indians and Sophia Loren" (who reportedly left the movie house in revulsion).
It's not easy to grasp in a single viewing all the connotations of a film that was attacked by both right and left, a movie about ideological perversion, genocidal sadism, pandering masochism and the transformation of human bodies into objects, a motion picture that addresses the fascist we all have inside, and that - after so much pessimism - gives us an image of "hope" (sort of) in the final scene in which a young guard teaches another one to dance!Impressed by a film that had an essential bibliography in its credits, I was in awe in 1975.
At that time, I was the program director of the University of Panamá cinema and I rescued the film, which was exhibited for a month in the campus.A couple of years ago I heard a wise final word about Pasolini's masterpiece, from a friend, filmmaker Orlando Senna.
But "Salò or the 120 days of Sodom" changes an entire thought that i had created of Pasolini.This unpleasant movie about the human coldness is based on a story written by Sade.
The story is about four powerful and fascist men that, with four former prostitutes they kidnap a number of adolescent men and women to torture them sadistically.I didn't want to watch the movie the first time that the opportunity appeared, i decided that it was better to wait and to investigate to understand the movie well.
When i saw it the impact was hard but not traumatic."Salò or the 120 days of Sodom" can be seen by any person that wants to see it, this movie is not exclusive for intellectual people, but the person that wants to see it should investigate first about the fascism, of the life of Pasolini, of Sade and until the same Dante Alighieri.
I think that if people don't take these steps first, the movie will be superficially view and it wont be seen by their meaning.This criticizes by Pasolini toward the war it is a perfect metaphor of the fascism in Italy and at the same time a summarized chronicle of what this artist lived time behind.
It is a work that many times, for alone to see the superficial thing and not the meaning, is not well interpreted."Salò or the 120 days of Sodom" is not a movie to enjoy, it is a movie to make us think on that sometimes us, the people, should be it that supposedly are, human.
For people without this background, "Salò" appears as a museum of random historical absurdity, merging the Marquis De Sade's stories and the fascist practices of Mussolini that accompanied the film director's whole life."Salò" urges the audience to watch behind the pictures, thus behind the signs.
What director Pier Paolo Pasolini does with 'Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom' is making a point a lot of people already understand.
Sex and violence and the desire to power are very much connected, Pasolini thinks and shows.The story itself exists out of nine boys and nine girls being physically and mentally tortured, most of the time sexually.
The stories told in the film are more disturbing than most of the things shown, and the only really disgusting scene deals with excrement and eating.What Pasolini does, one thing I particularly admired, is show human nature in the most evil way.
The metaphor is insultingly obvious and childish, and to be honest, while watching this film nothing would have made me happier than punching the director in the face for being a tasteless, talentless, puerile little child for thinking this piece of cinema excrement could be considered art in any way.
Supporters (read, pseudo-intellectual art snobs who have no actual concept of art) of this film go "Ahh but there are naked children everywhere and they get raped and the director is edgy and he thinks fascism is bad" is enough to justify the existence of this mediocre porn.
"Salo or 120 Days of Sodom" (1975) by Pier Paolo Pasolini is the film that completely lives up to its reputation of one of or even THE most disturbing, depressing, cruel, and unwatchable ever made.
As for Pasolini's work, I've loved and admired every one of his films I've seen before I decided to see Salo.
I don't know but it is unforgettable whether you like it or not and it was made by a brilliant master of cinema.It is truly one of its kind films, and sometimes I think it is great, but more often - why Pasolini made it?
I still hear the cry of one of the girls-victims in the end of the film, "Why did God abandon us?!!" In the world where God turned his face away from His creatures, horror and degradation of these proportions are possible, and they may and do repeat over and over again in different periods of time, in different countries and continents.Pasolini's last film is not the one I will ever want to see again but I believe it should be seen at least once by any thinking viewer..
I almost want to say that I made a mistake in seeing this film because it is the single most depressing and disturbing film I think I've ever seen.It takes place in WWII fascist Italy and deals with a group of senior members of government rounding up 18 young men and women to take them to a secluded palace with a plan to torture and sexually degrade them.
It is true that a great work of art is inexhaustible and that many of us would benefit from added information about it; in the case of Pasolini, however, the "explanations" are considerably more interesting than the work itself, and this is particularly true of SALO, a film of notorious reputation.With SALO, Pasolini very freely adapts de Sade into a tale of young innocents kidnapped for use as sexual toys by the 'powerful but depraved' during World War II.
Of all the movies I've seen, and I've seen a lot, Salò is by far the most disturbing, disgusting, and utterly powerful film.
Having used IMDb as a research tool (and a way to kill time) over the last 4 years, I have never felt the need to sign up an account and post a review; there is an abundance of intelligent and articulate movie buffs who know what they are talking about.My hats off to every last one of them.People interested in this movie should know that "..just because you can, doesn't mean you should".Given the opportunity to create a masterpiece, adding to a very narrow genre, the director fails miserably on so many levels.The characters are poorly developed and have no depth.
This inspired(?) Passolini to make this movie,based on the Marquis de Sade novel.The viewer is sucked into this vulgar and sexually explicit movie.It is hard to imagine what the cast and crew must have gone through making this movie,but the acting is surprisingly good and focussed on shocking the viewer.The people who say that this movie is too much are right,it is.But that doesn't mean that it should be boycotted.Like I already said,this isn't cheap porn.it is based on a terrible time in the history of the world and although the story isn't based on facts,it wouldn't surprise me if this really happened.Those Nazi's and fascits were REALLY sick!It is impossible for me to give this movie a high grade,not only because of the explicit shots but also and even more so because of the lack of storyline and originality.Oh yes,"Salo" is very original in it's own right but the scenes are sort of copies of each other.Just look at the 'stories' by the old ladies.These scenes are countless and most of the time the same.Yet,the repetition of these scenes make it even more shocking.
Overall,not a movie that you watch with your friends on a saturday night with beer and nuts.But "Salo" has a message to everyone who thinks that war and oppression is just about shooting and bombing.War and oppression also means that there are things going on that are easily forgotten by the people,but nevertheless really happened.
Things I would've never expected from a film that has been banned and outlawed in several different countries.When compared to recent torture porn films, or even those that date back several years or decades ago like Cannibal Holocaust or the distasteful and horrendous August Underground, it is shocking to stumble upon a film that features sodomy, sexual humiliation, torture, manipulation, cruelty, depravity, fascism, totalitarianism, graphic rape, homosexuality, and voyeurism all in the same film.
The film, adapted from the Marquis DeSade's 'The 120 Days' is set during the final days of fascism in Italy, during 1944,when a group of Fascists take a batch of newly arrested Communist youths to a swanky house in the countryside, and subject them to four months of some of the most de humanizing,degrading forms of humiliation,torture & eventual horrific deaths that one could hope to see on screen.
Yes. Then, Salò has to be the greatest film on history.Watch the movie if you truly want to, sure it's shocking, but every great work of art is as well.Ed..
After seeing most of Pasolini's films, and liking or even admiring nearly every one, I still don't understand why he had to make this horrible and disgusting movie..
Like all Pasolini's films, 'Salo' is literally monotonous, one tone (think of 'Gospel', 'Teorema') where a single idea is carried unswervingly through to its conclusion, without beginning or end, without variation.
The Marquis de Sade had already been adapted :the last segment of Bunuel's "l'âge d'or' for instance;There's also Vadim's farce "le vice et la vertu " which shares something with Pasolini's work:both take place during WW2.As I cannot say something nice about Vadim.."Salo" came aside as a shock in 1975-76 when it was released:it's strange Pasolini should make such a desperate work after his trilogy full of joie de vivre ("Decameron","Canterbury"" mille e una notte").The darkest sequence of "mille e una nota" -a young adolescent killed by his gay lover because it's "written"-might be a vague clue but it does not explain this extreme pessimism."Salo" ,although it takes place during WW2 is not the kind of movie you leave ,giving a sigh of relief:"fortunately,it would not happen nowadays!"WW2 and facism are only alibis:what you see on the screen happens every day .It's not a movie for peeping toms ,do not expect to get an eyeful:this is not a movie to give you pleasure,but to cause you pain,to make you scream,to make you wonder why man can stoop so low.It's impossible to leave this movie unharmed;a lot of sequences will force you to look away.Pasolini leaves no hope to his audience;only rebellion attempts (the girl who hides a photo in her bed,the two girls making love,the boy sleeping with a black maid,the two boys dancing together)are short escapes from a God-forsaken world;and these rebellions are thwarted by informing."Salo" is a movie which I recommend but only to these with a strong stomach;definitely NOT the one to begin with if you want to discover PP Pasolini:when I saw the movie in 1976,I almost threw up;As far the last third (the tortures) is concerned,my memory censored it:I did not remember it when I saw the film again 25 years later..
Just as De Sade's book tells you more about the man who wrote it than the work itself, so too do I think less of SALO as a film than the end-product of the man who made it.. |
tt2328813 | Trudno byt bogom | A group of 30 scientists travel from Earth to a nearly-identical alien planet that is culturally and technologically centuries behind. The inhabitants of this planet have brutally suppressed a renaissance movement, murdering anybody they consider to be an intellectual, and thus the planet is stuck in the middle ages. Anton, one of the scientists from Earth, is sent to infiltrate the local populace of the Kingdom of Arkanar and help them progress as a society, although he is forbidden from getting involved with local politics or forcibly interfering with the advancement of technology or culture. He assumes the identity of Don Rumata, a nobleman who resides in a large castle surrounded by poverty. There, he lives with Ari, a young woman whom he has taken as his bride, and the juvenile prince of Arkanar. Rumata's presence divides local opinion; some treat him as a God, others despise him.
Don Rumata tasks himself with finding Budakh, a doctor who has been kidnapped by Don Reba, the tyrannical prime minister of Arkanar. Reba's militia, referred to as "the Greys", are responsible for the murder of many intellectuals, including scientists and writers. During his travels, Rumata witnesses the backward ways of the locals and becomes increasingly frustrated with them. Slavery is rife, and the influence of Reba's Greys turns Arkanar into a police state. One night, while guarding the prince, the Greys besiege the castle and attempt to arrest Rumata. Rumata attempts to escape, but is ambushed and taken before his rival, Don Reba. Reba does not trust Rumata and claims he is an impostor. Rumata reasons with Reba and is freed, along with Budakh.
Later, Rumata meets his friend Pampa, a drunken and washed-up baron. Rumata teaches Pampa his famed signature sword-fighting technique. When Rumata returns to his castle, he finds the local area has been taken over by religious zealots in his absence, called "the Blacks", who prove to be just as oppressive as the Greys. Rumata discovers that Budakh is an impostor, and that the real Budakh is still imprisoned at Don Reba's castle. He returns to Reba on peaceful terms and searches the sewers of the castle for Budakh. He eventually finds him, as well as Baron Pampa, who has been tortured by Reba's men. Rumata, Pampa and Budakh escape Reba's castle, but Pampa is shot by archers and killed.
Upon returning to his village, Rumata becomes annoyed when he discovers that Budakh, apparently a great doctor and intellectual, is actually a bumbling fool who is unable to even urinate properly. He sends Budakh away and retires to his castle. The next day, the Greys attack the castle and kill Ari. Enraged, Rumata butchers their leader.
The next morning, a group of travelers investigates the aftermath of the ensuing battle, which has cost the lives of most of Arkanar's inhabitants. Among the dead civilians and soldiers, they find a lone survivor, Don Rumata. The leader of the travelers, another incognito scientist from Earth, offers to take Rumata back to Earth, but Rumata refuses. He instead gives the fellow scientist advice - that it is "hard to be a God". Months later, during the winter, Rumata is shown traveling away from Arkanar. | murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0181836 | The Specials | The superhero team the Specials has never achieved great popularity or prestige, partially because unlike other super teams it is not corporation-friendly and has been unable to secure merchandising deals. Without the corporate or private financial resources of more well-established teams, the Specials often get underrated villains, small disasters, and the occasional alien invasion to repel — all of which are deemed too low-priority for other superhero teams. Even the members with formidable powers have shortcomings that prevented a transition for the team as a whole. Because team-members such as the Strobe, Ms. Indestructible, The Weevil, Deadly Girl, Power Chick, Amok, Alien Orphan, and Eight all possess various social dysfunctions, they've never quite broken through the superhero glass ceiling.
The team welcomes Nightbird (Jordan Ladd), the group's newest member, a teenage girl with "bird powers." Nightbird, who idolizes the Specials, soon realizes that her heroes do not function as a harmonious team but like a dysfunctional family. One of the two greatest points of stress in the team is the slowly fracturing relationship between the Strobe (Thomas Haden Church) and Ms. Indestructible (Paget Brewster), a married couple at the core of the team. Also problematic is that the Weevil is trying to negotiate an exit into a more high-profile superhero team, playing both on his own popularity and his legacy status from following in his father's footsteps.
The cracks begin to show as they prepare to attend a dinner in their honor thrown by Kosgrov Toys, which is releasing a line of action figures based upon the group. The event is a travesty. It becomes quickly apparent that Kosgrov did little research on the Specials, and low-balled the production by utilizing cheap accessories and recycled parts. Worse yet, the leader of the Specials, the Strobe, discovers that his wife, Ms. Indestructible, is cheating on him with the most popular member of the group, The Weevil (Rob Lowe). In a fit of anger, the Strobe disbands the group, and the members go their own ways.
The Strobe goes to Zip Boy's (Barry Del Sherman) house and asks for a job at New Standards Inc., a plastics company in Detroit, denying there's a problem by saying that he's great, now that he has "a great new job as a welding asshole." Ms. Indestructible spends the night watching her old wedding video and crying over a glass of wine. The Strobe's brother, Minute Man (James Gunn), who had had a crush on the new girl, Nightbird, ultimately falls into the arms of Deadly Girl (Judy Greer), who was hurt to learn about Weevil and Ms. Indestructible. Meanwhile, Amok (Jamie Kennedy), Power Chick (Kelly Coffield), Alien Orphan (Sean Gunn), and Mr. Smart (Jim Zulevic) indulge in a night of drinking and dancing.
During the disbandment, the Weevil finalizes his transfer to another superhero team, only to find that his negative press from the Specials still follows him. Reporters focus more on his controversy than his ability to apprehend villains, and the Weevil finds he has gone from being the top dog in a small team to the team runt in the larger one. The Strobe and Ms. Indestructible reconcile, and the Strobe renews his passion for justice instead of image. The team are immediately called back into action and the heroes resolve to do the right thing not because it will bring popularity or glory, but because as misfits, they've become the champions of society's underdogs. They exit to face down another crisis. | cult, satire | train | wikipedia | Nifty low-budget variant on MYSTERY MEN, with a script that's about four times as good.
And there is a lovely scene--not really funny, but you can feel the audience beaming at it--in which a mongoloid "space orphan," dandled like a pinhead mascot through most of the movie, takes the stage at a techno nightclub and breakdances to "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me).".
The conceit of this film is pure genius: make a superhero movie in which there are no battles, and nobody uses their powers; just focus on their personal lives and interpersonal conflicts, and play it mostly for laughs.
Those of you who are able to see the potential in the concept are in for a treat.Going in, I'd only heard of Rob Lowe and Thomas Haden Church, both of whom are excellent.
This Film is a great example of the fact that you don't need a budget to be a great movie.
while the film leans more towards the fans of the comic book genre with humor more in tune with that vein, which is why it was so good, it wasn't trying to be a movie for everyone...
mystery men is the closest comparison i can think of, but mystery men tried to hard and lacked the small charm and witty profanity ridden dialogue of the specials, and while mystery men had its moments, it just seemed to rely on visual humor which i found works more for kids like it says in the Specials...
This is a movie for people who want to see interesting characters and personal interactions.
And a can of beer).A mockumentary on a mediocre superhero team, the Specials is great 'cause the fight scenes are verbal.
It's absolutely cheeky and self-deprecatory, and shows that superheros are like ordinary people.
Follow Nightbird, the newest member of The Specials as she fulfils a lifelong dream to become a superhero.Don't expect a lot of battles in this movie.
The Strobe and Ms. Indestructable are having marriage problems, Mr. Smart has some equipment malfunction, Kosgrove Toys really messes up the new Action Figure line, and poor Stretchy Boy, well let's just say, he's not grinning anymore.I found myself really liking this movie.
The Specials are listed as the sixth greatest superhero team in America and when they are not battling bad guys, recruiting new members, or trying to work on their public image, they are one big happy family or so it would seem.
The Specials are lead by The Strobe (Thomas Haden Church) as he strives to set a good example in the community and fight crime on all levels.
There is The Weevil (Rob Lowe) Deadly Girl (Judy Greer), Minute Man (James Gunn), and Amok (Jamie Kennedy).
Attempting to improve what looks to be a sinking ship, The Strobe announces that he has come to terms with a toy manufacturer for a line of action figures based on the Specials.
I for one would liked to have seen more and hope that the film will find an audience on DVD and we may yet hear more from `The Specials' as there is still more of their story to tell.
It's a funny superhero movie with a dance number and no displays of superpowers.
This low-budget improvement on Mystery Men is about real people with slightly unreal abilities that don't save them from personal problems you'll recognize.
(The trailer on the DVD lists Melissa Joan Hart 4th, despite the fact that she appears in exactly one scene.) On top of the cast issues, the plot sounds similar to Mystery Men, which had bombed a year earlier.Now, Lowe is respected again, Kennedy is an above the title star (nevermind the quality of the titles), and Hayden-Church is an Oscar nominee.
Unlike Mystery Men, which depended too much on special effects, this film has virtually NO action.
Few movies on T.V. are so bad that they make the commercials look good, but The Specials wins this prize.
Rob Lowe, on the other hand, saw through this invisible script from the first line and managed to avoid acting for the entire film.
Lowe, along with the rest of the cast, recognize that the lack of subtext and emotion and meaning and point to their lines of dialog mean the writer did less work than the guy who makes the coffee.
Rob Lowe, Jamie Kennedy, and Thomas Hayden Church lead us through a fun ride as the 7th or 8th greatest super hero team in the world.
The fact that the movie is focused on the personal life of the group and not about fighting evil just adds to the great story!.
I really like the satirical "grounded" superhero style found in movies like The Specials and Mystery Men.
Many people compare this to "Mystery Men" but say that the script was better...
I think it was worse - I actually liked mystery men - I though it was more polished than this one...
The Specials, the sixth or seventh greatest superhero group in the world, count the geeks and the oddballs among their fans.
There's the Weevil (Rob Lowe), the most popular member and the one pursued by other teams; the blue-skinned, foul-mouthed Amok; Minute (My-noot) Man, who is sensitive about his oft-mispronounced name; the ever-sneering Deadly Girl; the naive and boyish U.S. Bill; the Strobe, the leader of the team; the Strobe's wife, Ms. Indestructible, who is having an affair with the Weevil; the irritatingly perky Power Chick; the green-skinned weirdo, Alien Orphan; the fat and pompous Mr. Smart; and Eight, who has eight different bodies.
The company's disastrous press conference could mean the end to this cut-rate super-group."The Specials" is a comedy about superheroes that, thanks to a tiny budget, has no special effects and no scenes where the heroes demonstrate their powers (until the very end).
The gags are paramount, and the gags aren't even funny.The movie earns a certain perverse admiration from us for studiously avoiding the inevitable; and then it ruins even that with a brief, godawful special effects scene at the end that isn't even enjoyably cheesy; it's just bad.
While I'm not familiar with the X-statix comics,I have a feeling I'd probably derive more satisfaction out of those than this movie,which had some very neat things going for it,but was so laid-back and low-energy that it was difficult to keep an active interest in the movie.It's tempting to really beat up this flick because of its lack kineticism,but the characters are fairly engaging.In fact,I think this might be,in earnest,the REAL problem with this film.
Great comic book/geek movie!.
"MAKE HIM STOP!")If you are looking for a movie with great action scenes, lots o' sfx..
The fact that this and Mystery Men failed so miserably with basically the same premise/conflict set up makes me want to write the same movie only MAKE IT FUNNY THIS TIME.
With a good script I think it would have been possible to make a really low-budget movie that could entertain.
It amazes me that so many people equate a good movie with the amount of money in the action and special effects budget.
(But then again...Men In Black made a lot of money, and that's all it had going for it.) I think it's a funny thing that the characters' makeup was poorly and inconsistently applied and that most of the movie takes place in an average house.
The whole idea of them is ridiculous, but the characters take them seriously.) The fact that the superheroes take everything so seriously is the source of a lot of the movie's humor.I think the writing and the acting in this movie are both superb.
Thomas Haden Church, Jamie Kennedy, and James Gunn (the latter of which also wrote the movie) all played their roles perfectly.
Fight scenes get boring when you try to watch them more than once, but The Specials is interesting from start to finish.I apologize if I offended any fans of The Cutting Edge, Men In Black, and Mystery Men.
I was hoping for something funny and maybe in a different direction than "Mystery Men" (which I liked).
If "The Specials" would have been a big studio picture it may have been as good or better than 1999's "Mystery Men" The movie is very well written comedy about a group of has-been super heroes trying to cope with everyday superhero life.
THE SPECIALS is one of those films that, if you're a creative person, inspires you...the way mediocrity inspires creativity.
The idea of a bunch of lesser-powered superheroes on their downtime is a good one, and one can see that writer James Gunn is a comic book reader, but the movie just doesn't pull off the concept.The script just isn't funny.
I was wondering when I would ever get to see these special powers the characters kept going on about, well you do see them for about 2 seconds at the very end of the film.
James Gunn's brilliant and witty script was not written for the beautiful people of the world, it was created for "the oddball, the rebel, the outcast, and the geek." This is the kind of fresh, outlandish script you find yourself quoting to your friends days later.Director Crain Mazin, working on a remarkably small shoe-string budget (that is revealed on the DVD), delivers an enjoyable film that has the courage to turn the focus away from special effects and back onto character.
Thomas Haden Church delivers an incredible performance as "The Great Strobe" that should be required viewing for any student of acting.I think this fim will develop a cult following like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." If it's shown at midnight movies the audience will begin to dress-up like the characters and dance in the aisles when the song "Life is a Rock" pops up on the soundtrack..
If you like offbeat movies this is a good one..
Now, from me that means something since I can't usually find a way to like comedies because I've got a specialized sense of humor.
On that note, this movie I really liked; it's campy, it strange, but who cares, the actors and the script are great.
This movie works a lot like Mystery Men, but the difference is like Battlefield Earth and American Beauty.
The movie really never stops being funny, and you laugh at how retarded this "superheros" really are.
This is the anti super hero flick - no action, no special effects, no over the top story, lots of dialogue and it is played straight.
It is good because it is very very funny - but it's humour springs directly from satirising super hero comic books and films.
If people don't like it, screw that, I also loved Mars Attacks and Mystery Men. I still do!.
The idea is great: focus on a team of superheroes, completely throwing out battle scenes and action scenes, and look instead on their interactions.
Many of the allegedly witty one liners are predictable and stale, and the little bits with the characters talking directly to the camera are distracting and never explained in context.On the other hand, the action figure commercial is dead-on hilarious, *sometimes* the attempted cleverness of the dialogue works, and if you find stupid humor funny, you'll enjoy both US Bill and Alien Orphan Doug.I'd wait to rent this after it's moved off the "new release" shelf.
It could have been halfway decent in that format and it is a lot easier to sell the superhero stuff in comics than it is in a film without money for special effects.My feeling is you can't make a superhero movie for a mil, I don't care how you're doing it.
I think it would've made a huge difference if they had shown one or two shots of members of the Specials using their powers early on to establish their cred as heroes, but they don't and it's impossible for the cast to simulate superpowers, no matter how good they are as actors.The annoying thing about this is that you give $1 million bucks and 18 days to a number of directors, they could turn out something pretty special.
Kevin Smith made Clerks for $20K for crissakes, and even considering inflation that would've been maybe $60K in 2000, when this was made.Instead, director Craig Mazin and writer Gunn have given us another bottom-of-the-barrel superhero movie, as if we needed another one of those.It just goes to show how bass ackwards Hollywood can be--if these guys worked in any other business and this was the work they produced, they would be abruptly fired and unable to ever work again in that industry.
But the movie business doesn't seem to care whether their products are any good, hence Mazin is directing the upcoming "Superhero!" and Gunn is writing other gems like Scooby Doo 2.
I like this movie a lot.
You might have to be a comic book geek to really enjoy the movie, but if you do, I really recommend it.
I like Mystery Men and I like the Specials a lot more.Someone compared it to This is Spinal Tap, but for superhero groups - a comparison I agree with, though the Specials is ever so slightly more subtle and I enjoy it more.
You'll want to be a Special too after seeing this movie!.
Not only is the movie itself great fun, the DVD also comes with a good amount of extras - no commentary track, though, which is a bummer.
If you like action, this is not the movie for you.
It reminds me of Kevin Smith's movies, which I love and it's also like a more hardcore version of Mystery Men without the special effects or action but with more human characters whose flaws and foibles are painfully displayed.
Overall a great movie and the fact that they splurged a little to actually show their powers at the end was a nice touch..
Personally, I liked Mystery Men better.
Dialogue is kinda goofily-fun, but the use of profanity (which, generally, I have nothing against) I think was too excessive for this genre of film, to the point where it detracted from the movie.
In fact, it almost gave it a "dark comedy" feel which I don't think works for a superhero movie.
I think moreover, that there were just too many unsympathetic characters in this film, especially the adulterous Ms. Indestructible (I REALLY did not like her).
The costumes and visual effects were very nice -- lots that jumped out at you.Still, this could not make up for the fact that, to me, this movie just wasn't that funny.
Nice try, but nothing "special."My Grade: C-/D+ (See Mystery Men instead).
The movie is basically a spoof on the hero films of yore but add in a lot less actions and a good deal more curse words.
The humor definitely isn't main stream and is more subtle, but if you like that sort of thing or are a fan of any member of the cast then SEE THIS MOVIE!
Mystery Men was based on actual characters from a comic called "The Flaming Carrot" which is in its own right an amazing piece of work.
On the other hand "The Specials" was completely fabricated.Also if you want to see this because you liked "Spiderman" or "X- Men", yet have never read any comics, you probably won't get it.The entire premise of the movie is to show what the members of a team of superheroes do on their day off.
It tries to say "Superheroes are people too", and it does this beautifully.I loved both Mystery Men and The Specials, but would never try to compare the two.
This movie was way ahead of it's time, even though it was released around the same time as the similar Mystery Men. Why was it was ahead of it's time is that everything that Mystery Men did wrong The Specials did right.My only complaint is that the DVD doesn't come with the TV cut on it.
I could see the irony the makers of this film were trying to get across, but it could have done with having just a little bit more super-hero action injected into the proceedings.As a biting satire on the super-hero/comic book industry, the "Mystery Men" movie was far more entertaining, and had far more action.
Very good.Just dont go looking for a lot of action, this movie is built more around personal drama and comedy.
Again hollywood makes a movie out of superheroes, when are these guys gonna learn.
What makes it so funny: superheroes that aren't too super and the way it shows how difficult it is to be a little different.
Alien Orphan alone is a reason to watch the film, but all of the "superheroes" are great in this.
The specials, like Mystery Men, could have been a truly great cult classic.
Definitely what to expect from a Rob Lowe Superhero.
If you have watched "Superhero Movie" and "The Specials" side by side, "Superhero Movie" would look like a blockbuster movie.
James Gunn gave us a purposely bad movie to show us how not to do a superhero movie, such as not getting Rob Lowe, but it might as well of been Kevin Smith directing the movie.
Had it been a little more serious than it was we could have probably had the superhero craze at least 5 years earlier and may of had a better script for such movies like "Daredevil", the first "X- Men" and "Superman Returns" just to list a few.
But the movies' existence may have stopped some writers in writing these better scripts for fear of "This is what the masses will expect." We may never know but its just my theory.
But what really makes this movie so funny and enjoyable are the spirited and engaging performances from the uniformly excellent cast. |
tt1740047 | The Trip | Paul Groves (Peter Fonda), a television commercial director, takes his first dose of LSD while experiencing the heartbreak and ambivalence of divorce from his beautiful but adulterous wife (Susan Strasberg). He starts his trip with a "guide," John (Bruce Dern), but runs away and abandons him out of fear.
Experiencing repetitive visions of pursuit by dark hooded figures mounted on black horses, Paul sees himself running across a beach.
As Paul experiences his trip, he wanders around the Sunset Strip, into nightclubs, and the homes of strangers and acquaintances. Paul considers the roles played by commercialism, sex, the role of women in his life. He meets a young woman, Glenn (Salli Sachse), who is interested in people who take LSD. Having learned from Paul recently that he would be taking LSD, she has been looking out for him. Max (Dennis Hopper) plays a role as another friendly guide to his trip.
Glenn drives Paul to her Malibu beach house, where they make erotic love, interspersed in his mind with a kaleidoscopic riot of abstract images intercut with visions of pursuit on a beach, a scene that is a sly homage to Bergman's, The Seventh Seal. Driven into the surf by his pursuers, Paul turns and faces both of them, and they reveal themselves to be his wife and Glenn.
As the sun rises, Paul returns to his normal state of consciousness now transformed by the trip and steps out to the balcony to get some fresh air. Glenn asks him whether his first LSD experience was constructive. Paul defers his answer to "tomorrow." His face is frozen in close-up, and his image cracks like glass through an animation special effect. | comedy, dark, psychedelic, entertaining | train | wikipedia | The Trip, the television program, is a poignant, rambling, beautiful little series, starring comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictionalized versions of themselves.The Trip, the film, which I was able to catch at a packed SIFF screening, is an edited version of the television show.
The film does often get those laughs (Coogan and Brydon, in their largely improvised conversations, are very humorous), but it fails to really make much impact beyond providing entertainment.
The more melancholy scenes retained from the television series often feel tacked-on, and the transition between jokes and sentiment clunky, with quiet moments and breathing time largely cut out.Audiences looking for droll popcorn fare will not be disappointed, but those wanting to be genuinely moved should skip the flick and instead seek out the superlative television series, using whatever means they can..
As explained in the first 10 seconds of the film, it's simply about Steve Coogan (played by Steve Coogan) who reluctantly invites his quasi-friend Rob Brydon (played by Rob Brydon) in on an assignment reviewing restaurants in northern UK.What follows is 172 minutes of bizarre, awkward and painful humour which, like in the "Michael Caine" clip, centers around the 2 quirky characters and their polite antagonism of each other.
Coogan plays the somewhat superior egotist while Brydon plays the clown (who always gets the better of his counterpart)."The Trip" was originally a 6-part series that aired on BBC in 2010, strung into a feature film released in 2011.
I was extremely impressed that director Michael Winterbottom could make such a funny film within such a bleak premise.Watch it closely and you'll be both entertained and affected.
It is a hilarious talkie-talk film made for an intelligently critical, foodie-obsessed, British humor-junkie like me!I admit/know that many WILL hate watching this film about two British comedians (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing "loose" versions of themselves by reprising their "characters" from the earlier film Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story) driving around the North Country (of England) eating in pubs and fine-dining restaurants while making fun of wine, food and culture snobs with little witticisms, bon mots and uncanny impersonations of some of Britian's top exports.
There is also a lot of film and pop culture references to go along with the literary history thrown-about as the pair trek the highlands of some of Britian's late-greats (poets, writers, historians) and explore castles, manors and northern Moors.The "story" is that Coogan has been tasked by The Observer (a British magazine) to travel the northern portions of England and write a food/wine/travel piece about his experience.
What a winning combination can be found in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in Michael Winterbottom's comedy The Trip.
Utilizing every inch of British humor that they can, Coogan and Brydon take the witty script even further, making real characters out of themselves and playing it straight, whether it's hilarious or a little heartbreaking.
Unable to take his girlfriend, he ends up taking his actor best friend Rob Brydon (also playing himself), and the two must endure the trip together, which becomes quite a challenge for Steve and Rob. They make quite the pair from there, often feeding into one another's humor brilliantly and in only a classy way, as they try to pass the time.
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing themselves, take off on a road trip to northern England's finer restaurants.
The Trip does not rise to that Tristram Shandy's level, but there are plenty of moments to enjoy here, especially if you are at all familiar with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.
The Trip is a delightful little road movie unlike any other film you are likely to have seen before.Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon travel the English countryside trying the best hotels and cuisine on offer and on they way they not only try to out do themselves on the impersonation stakes they also try to keep their friendship going when quite obviously they see themselves as rivals.Most of this film is improvised and it's so much better for it although there is an underlying story in the film about Steve Coogan's relationship with his girlfriend but it's more a distraction than a help to the movie.
Without doubt , the conversations the two men have ( mostly in other famous peoples voices ) are the highlights of the film.Brydon comes out of the film as the most likable , if not a little irritating , and Coogan seems a little irritable at times .
It's never clear whether they are trying to be themselves or they are meaning to come across this way.The Trip is a very British film that i doubt would appeal to a foreign market but i liked it a lot..
One is the comedy of "Steve Coogan" and "Rob Brydon" exchanging barbs and doing impressions and making witty observations.
The other film involves the contrast between these people/characters: Steve, trying to bolster his acting career and struggling with a relationship that's starting to crack, and Rob the less successful but content family man.
While the film isn't as post-modern as the previous collaborations (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE and TRISTRAM SHANDY, both of which seem to get minor callbacks in the first episode, though it may be merely coincidence) it still maintains an unconventionality.8/10(REVIEW FOR FILM) I'm very glad I watched the series before the movie.
Rob Bryden might be well known for his impressions, but with multiple impersonations of Michael Caine, Sean Connery as James Bond and Woody Allen leaves you feeling like he has a repertoire of 3.
The rest of the movie was mildly interesting in terms of the food preparation in the kitchens and nice scenery, but it was obviously populated with actors while pretending to be a real life foodie road trip.
Nothing much more there.Watching this movie was much like suffering through an incredibly boring dinner party, where incredibly boring guests bore you with incredibly boring stories about their incredibly boring and self involved lives.I am normally not so harsh in my opinions of another's art but this was just awful and I want my time back.
The Trip is about British actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, here playing themselves, who go on a trip to the English countryside to try out some of the best restaurants, so later Steve can review the food for a newspaper.
I have basically been a fan of Steve Coogan since I saw his wonderful performance in the film 24 Hour Party People.
This one will give you a lot of food for thought and with the great performances on display here this film is a complete and utter masterpiece that I am sure hoping gets recognized at awards time and I would call it my favourite film so far this year and I doubt there will be a better comedy, or reflection film this year.
The fact that Coogan was obsessed with going to Hollywood made sense because that's where he will fit in with many others who have big egos and low intelligence.If your sense of humor is at the level of a little boy between the ages of approximately 8-12, then you might enjoy this film.
I love road trip films, it's a unique genre which allows good character studies in light of a changing backdrop of places and people.
but you cannot fuel a movie with cheesy imitations of Michael Caine, nice (but average after all) landscapes, and incoherent scenes of people eating and cooking; the only aspect that I found interesting was the depiction of the decadence of Coogan as it was matching melancholy of the scenery; but again, this does not make it entertaining or worth watching; there is an overflow of arrogance and a smell of moth in this humor that only can be enjoyed if you are of the same class, but guys, the rest of the world has moved on decades ago while you stand still watching it from the perspective of the metropolis versus the colonies, this humor has no future, fortunately for us, and it is rarely enjoyed outside of England or Britain, thank God..
This film strikes the viewer with its captivating simplicity ,from start to finish you can hardly believe that the people in the movie were actually acting ,the brilliant performances by Coogan and Brydon augments the already witty and well written dialogue that came off very naturally as an everyday conversation of two friends eating in a restaurant ,with hardly any impression of "synthetic" dialogue, but nonetheless keeping it fun and interesting to watch ,with enough jokes to keep you smiling for a good part of the movie.
The understated Rob Brydon may be the perfect foil for the brash, borderline-obnoxious Steve Coogan, but listening to their improv'd table talk on this (imaginary) gourmet junket around the north of England was a bit like scrolling through the smartass comments on the Onion AV Club website, amusing for a few minutes, then just numbing and annoying.
Furthermore the film is a highlight reel of a BBC miniseries of the same name therefore guaranteeing that unless you're the kind of person who wonders into a movie blind, you'll probably walk in being a fan of the series and therefore you'll automatically enjoy it.But to the rest of us, The Trip runs the risk of being insufferable.
Usually I like Steve Coogan's work but this time round I am left disappointed with a slight feeling of being conned that I assumed I was watching a comedy.
I am of the understanding that most of this movie was ad-libbed with a loose plot of the road trip and food review(for a magazine) but to be honest, it showed.
Britain's "The Trip" is what those movies would be if they were somewhat realistic, and it's no less funny – depending on your tastes, of course.Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play fictional versions of themselves who go on a foodie tour of northern England for an article Steve's writing, as told by their "Tristam Shandy" director, Michael Winterbottom.
There's a rhythm and formula to each day: Steve and Rob drive down winding northern roads with beautiful landscapes behind them; they arrive at modest inns where a friendly woman shows them around; they sit in quaint dining rooms and eat exquisite-looking food that Winterbottom loves to show being plated; they do impressions of famous actors ad nauseam; they discuss their careers; they make phone calls to a consistent assortment of people, often out in fields where to get cell phone reception; they recite poetry.
The dueling Michael Caine impressions (and "she was only 15 years old" bit), "Gentleman, to Bed," James Bond villains and singing "The Winner Takes It All" are some of the highlights that can be enjoyed without any context yet definitively add something to the film when experienced as part of the whole."The Trip" feels about as close to real life as a comedy can get without losing all its funniness.
Most real-life friends aren't as funny as these two, and that's the secret as to why not just anyone can go on a food tour of northern England, bring a camera along and make a good movie.
Coogan and Brydon are exemplifying great improvisational chemistry while staying grounded in their characters enough that "The Trip" retains the feel of a documentary.Even Americans or others who self-identify as fans British humor will find "The Trip" to be a different sort of animal that maybe wasn't what they expected.
Like the characters, I also want to go home at some point and the movie is probably a bit too long..
It is along the lines of a "My Dinner with Andre", so watchable, so funny, so warm, I just love it.I really like road trip films, and these two buddies are so fun to watch.
The first time I saw it , I was so sad to see it end.Steve Coogan plays (himself?) a successful actor and his sidekick is his second-choice companion on an English road trip full of meals, flirting, historic landmarks, and quirky small village accommodations.Hilarity ensues with much singing of Abba songs, impersonations of Sir Anthony Hopkins, and more.Give it a go...
"Death is but a moment, cowardice is a lifetime of affliction."Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play somewhat alternate versions of themselves in this film based on their TV series of the same name which was also directed by Michael Winterbottom.
The Trip is a fun ride which banks on the strong chemistry between Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon while also exploiting the gorgeous landscape of Northern England.
The plot revolves almost entirely on both actors conversing with each other as they are driving through the beautiful landscape or eating at elegant restaurants, and as boring as the premise sounds, the film works nonetheless thanks to their chemistry.
Perhaps the greatest critique I might have towards this film is that Coogan is supposed to be touring through Northern England to write about the food served at these elegant restaurants, but there is almost no discussion about it.
The film looks amazing because of the wonderful locations and the great food, but it is only an excuse to get these two actors together on a road trip.
Coogan was actually supposed to tour the country with his girlfriend, but she had to return to America so he is forced to travel with Rob. The Trip does focus on Steve's fading relationship with her and due to the terrible reception in every inn they stay at, he is forced to make the calls out in the open with the gorgeous backdrop which elevates the film even more.
A double-bill of the film versions of BBC series THE TRIP, the first season is in 2010, Steve Coogan is asked by The Observer to tour Northern England's finest restaurants, but his then girlfriend Mischa (Stilley) back-pedals in the last minute, so Coogan asks his friend, the comedian and impressionist Rob Brydon to come with him instead.
Treading on the similar (and successful) territory of Richard Linklater's BEFORE trilogy, the films almost inclusively rely on the interminable chattering between Coogan and Brydon, but since the casual conversation between two heterosexual middle-aged male is a bore, so to a lesser degree, the films opt for their celebrity impressions (mainly from Brydon, the personae are running from local staples to international names like Michael Caine, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, various 007, to the latest Batman stars Tom Hardy and Christine Bale) to entertain viewers, which is a successful gag at first, but when it has been stretched into two films, sooner or later the laughter would freeze into a state of insensibility (one exception is Rob's man-in-the-box mimicry in Pompeii.
This was truly an awful movie.The two leads were sad, obnoxious characters who drive around the north of England for an all expenses paid trip, reviewing meals.
As a result, these parts of the movie were mostly lost upon me, contrary to others in the audience who apparently and loudly enjoyed themselves, probably while they were better able to spot actors and texts than I could.Notwithstanding the two main characters having an obvious leading role in the story, their friends and colleagues also took part, albeit on a distance (via their mobile phones) or confined to some scenes (e.g. the photo shoot for a magazine).
This film tells the story of a famous entertainer going to restaurants in different parts of England to write a culinary review.
I am not a fan of Steve Coogan, but I found myself actually laughing at some of the scenes in the film.
Think of it as a buddy trip film, with funny moments that feel very real..
The Trip is Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's vacation sitcom that is basically the two comedians going to different restaurants in the North of Britain.
I'm dying to see something different, but all I'm getting is the same stuff over and over again!If you watched the Trailers it looks like it was going to be a hilarious movie full of comedy and food.
It looks exactly like a comedy but it doesn't do anything to be different!Maybe if I watched the uncut series, I would have liked it better, but I am reviewing a film.
This is a fictional story but actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are playing themselves on a road trip across the North of England.
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are back once again playing a fictionalized version of themselves in "The Trip".
In one of their previous films, "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story" which I have not seen yet, but have heard great things, Coogan and Brydon play the same characters.
The whole film is Coogan and Brydon either driving, or eating a meal, and in which they bicker at each other and do famous celebrity impersonations.
"The Trip" is a variant of the 'Buddy Film' with Steve Coogan as the lonely and overcompensating single guy against the stable and happy family guy, Rob Brydon.
Brydon mostly wins in a road film that never leaves second gear.Culled from a six part BBC series, "The Trip" has precious few moments of high hilarity - an impression 'Bond/Scaramanga-Off' between the comics is one of them - but there are many miles of improvisation that are neither funny nor engaging.Then there's the dour Coogan who, at the top of his game career-wise, is depressed and moody.
I liked that this movie was intelligent and funny, while at the same time it didn't try too hard to be either.
But it is a good film, tender in some moments, ridiculous in others.I enjoyed Steve Coogan very much.
Playing loose versions of themselves, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon reprise their hilariously fictionalized roles from Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story and reunite with acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom for an acerbically witty, largely improvised ride through the English countryside. |
tt0071240 | Born Innocent | Christine 'Chris' Parker (Linda Blair) is a 14-year-old runaway who, after getting arrested one too many times, is sentenced to do time in a girls' juvenile detention center, which doubles as a reform school for the girls. It is slowly revealed that Christine Parker comes from an abusive home; her father (Richard Jaeckel) would beat her on a regular basis, which caused Chris to run away many times. Her mother (Kim Hunter) is just as troubled as Chris is; unfeeling, sitting in her recliner, watching television and smoking cigarettes all day, and in complete denial as to what her husband is doing. Only Chris' older brother Tom (Mitch Vogel) is aware of the abuse, but he is powerless to help Chris out, as he has his own family to care about and look after. While the movie had a morality play tone, calling attention to the harsh conditions of juvenile detention centers, it also blames society for Christine's downfall.
Throughout the movie, Chris' social worker Emma Lasko (Allyn Ann McLerie) never realizes that her dysfunctional parents caused her to run away and the juvenile justice system focused all the blame and punishment on Christine for her bad behavior. With the exception of one dedicated counselor, named Barbara Clark (Joanna Miles), the reform school personnel were mostly apathetic and allowed an unhealthy, destructive culture to fester in the school. Despite Barbara's attempts to help Christine talk about her problems, she is powerless as Chris refuses to open up to her or anyone else about her problems at home.
After Chris is investigated for starting a riot at the reform school after a pregnant detainee miscarried due to the abuse by the staff, she calmly maintains that she had nothing to do with any of the events that happened. In the final shot, Barbara looks on helplessly as she sees Chris, an innocent, intelligent, decent girl, now fully transformed into a violent, pathological, manipulative, vengeful and cold person, no longer having any guilt or remorse for her actions, who will most likely become an adult criminal when released upon turning legal age. | melodrama | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0330229 | Dolls | The film features three primary sets of characters, each within their own distinct story:
A young man (Matsumoto, played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) who rejects his engagement to his fiancée (Sawako, played by Miho Kanno) to marry the daughter of his company's president. When his former fiancée attempts suicide and ends up in a semi-vegetative state, he takes her out of the hospital and they run away.
Another young man (Nukui, played by Tsutomu Takeshige) is obsessed with the pop-star Haruna (played by Kyoko Fukada); he blinds himself when she is involved in a disfiguring car accident.
An aged yakuza (Hiro, played by Tatsuya Mihashi), who tries to meet a girlfriend from his youth (played by Chieko Matsubara).
These stories do have some incidental visual cross-over with each other in the film, but are mostly separate. The first story is the one on which the film centers. The film leads into it by opening with a performance of Bunraku theatre, and closes with a shot of dolls from the same. The performance is that of "The Courier for Hell" by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and it alludes to themes that reappear later in the film. Because the rest of the film itself (as Kitano himself has said) can be treated as Bunraku in film form, the film is quite symbolic. In some cases, it is not clear whether a particular scene is meant to be taken literally. The film is also not in strict chronological order, but there is a strong visual emphasis on the changing of the seasons and the bonds of love over the progression of time (Matsumoto and Sawako spend most of the film physically connected by a red rope). | romantic, psychedelic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0054821 | Le doulos | Maurice Faugel, just released from prison after serving a six-year sentence, meets a friend, Gilbert, who is appraising the value of jewels from a recent heist. Maurice is planning a robbery the next day with two accomplices, Silien and Rémy. Maurice kills Gilbert with Gilbert's own gun and steals the jewels as well as a large sum of money. It is later revealed that Gilbert killed Maurice's girlfriend Arlette to keep her from informing the police when Maurice was sent to prison six years prior. Maurice leaves the house just as Nuttheccio and Armand, prominent gangsters, arrive to collect the loot. Maurice buries the jewels, money, and gun under a lamppost.
Maurice spends the evening at his girlfriend Thérèse's apartment. Silien arrives the next day with Maurice's friend Jean to deliver equipment for the robbery that evening. When Silien leaves, he uses a payphone to call Inspector Salignari.
That evening, Maurice and Rémy leave to rob a home in affluent Neuilly. Meanwhile, Silien comes to Thérèse's apartment, then beats her and ties her to a wall radiator, demanding to know the address of the robbery. The police arrive at the robbery. Inspector Salignari corners Maurice and Rémy, fatally shooting Rémy. Maurice and Salignari shoot at one another; Maurice is hit in the shoulder, and Salignari is killed. Maurice leaves the gun in Rémy's hand and continues to run away. He passes out just before a car pulls up to the curb.
Maurice wakes up in Jean's apartment, but neither Maurice nor Jean's wife Anita know who brought him there. Maurice resolves to find Silien, who he believes informed the police. He leaves Anita with a diagram showing where he buried the jewels, money, and gun, telling her to give it to Jean if something happens to him.
Because the police know that Silien called Salignari, they assume he has information on the botched robbery. They question him, hoping to get the name of Rémy's accomplice, but Silien tells them he wasn't the informant. He mentions that he hopes to get out of the criminal underworld and live in a house he has built in Ponthierry. It is revealed that the car that rescued Maurice has been found wrecked, with Thérèse's body inside.
The police also suspect Maurice for the murder of Gilbert. They threaten to falsely implicate Silien in a drug case unless he helps them find Maurice. Silien complies and Maurice is found. Maurice claims that Gilbert was killed while Maurice was in another room of the house. The police offer to let him go if he has information on the robbery in Neuilly, but Maurice claims he has no information. He is jailed, where he meets a prisoner named Kern.
Silien finds the buried jewels, money, and gun beneath the lamppost. He visits Nuttheccio's club and speaks to Fabienne, a former girlfriend. He offers to get her out of her relationship with Nuttheccio if she will testify that Nuttheccio and Armand killed Gilbert. She agrees. Silien kills Nuttheccio and plants the jewels in his safe, while Fabienne calls Armand to tell him Nuttheccio has found the stolen jewels and wants to see him. When Armand arrives, Silien kills him, staging the scene to make it look like they killed one another.
With Nuttheccio and Armand dead and framed for Gilbert's murder, Maurice is released from prison. He still believes that Silien informed on him, so Jean and Silien reveal that Silien was not the informant and had in fact been maneuvering to get Maurice out of prison. Though Silien was a friend of Salignari, he did not inform him of the robbery. However, he recognized Thérèse as one of Salignari's informants. The night of the robbery, Silien called Salignari to invite him to dinner, and Salignari revealed that he would be arresting two burglars in Neuilly. Silien got the address from Thérèse and went to Neuilly to avert a disaster. He arrived in time to pick up Maurice and take him to Jean's apartment.
Silien announces that he will be moving in with Fabienne at his home in Ponthierry, and that he is going there now. However, while in prison, Maurice arranged for his cellmate Kern to kill Silien, promising the money he stole from Gilbert in exchange. Kern is waiting at Silien's home, and Maurice rushes there to tell him that the hit is off.
Maurice manages to arrive in Ponthierry before Silien but Kern shoots him, apparently mistaking him for Silien. When Silien arrives, he sees Maurice's body on the ground. With his dying breath, Maurice warns him that someone is waiting behind a partition. Silien shoots at the screen, killing Kern, but Silien is also fatally shot. | revenge, neo noir, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | DOULOS: THE FINGER MAN (Jean-Pierre Melville - France/Italy 1962).Jean-Paul Belmondo is the duplicitous Silien, underworld criminal and police informer and Serge Reggianni as the dogged villain Faugel.
That's probably why Alain Delon became Melville's first choice in his later films, because Delon naturally had a much more restrained performance.Based on a novel from the famous série noire crime series, he made a film what he called 'my first real policier'.
By Melville standards, it still has quite a competent plot and does make sense but there's not really a central character like Bob in BOB LE FLAMBEUR or Jeff Costello in LE SAMOURAI to root for.Melville very much belonged to the Parisian post-war intelligentsia who were infatuated with American literature, music and above all, film.
They drive American cars (and the occasional cool Citroën), behave like gangsters in American crime films of the '40s and Melville loves to use newspaper headlines to heighten some of plot elements, just like Godard famously did in AU BOUT DE Soufflé.
("Doulos" means informer or Finger Man, which is the title in English.) Reggiani plays Maurice, who has just gotten out of prison and is getting involved with another robbery attempt.
The black and white photography by Nicholas Hayer - who also did Cocteau's Orphée and Clouzot's Le Corbeau - is superb, from the wonderfully atmospheric opening sequence (Melville may be THE master of opening sequences) to the stunning, Cocteau-like shot of a man staring into a mirror that closes the film.
Whatever his failings as a director, Melville definitely knew how to create a great atmosphere.Le Doulos is definitely worth checking out, especially by fans of film noir, Melville or Belmondo..
Jean-Pierre Melville's direction is a glorious tribute to classic American crime films of the 1940's and early 50's but has also a strong touch of originality.
It's a Hollywood film-noir underworld, where men constantly wear hats and trench coats like Humbrey Bogart, brandishing revolvers, drinking bourbon or scotch and driving big American cars, that look like tanks compared to small ordinary European vehicles around.
The overall mood is dark and threatening and with the right kind of lightning and photography many scenes seem like epitomes of the best stuff the genre has ever offered.Compared to its predecessors The Fingerman gives some new shine to the term 'hard boiled'.
Fate still has its usual final word, as anyone familiar with characteristics of the genre well knows.The plot with several flashbacks and changes of time and place may feel a little complex at the beginning, but opens up to be a very rewarding movie experience towards the end.
Gangster films rarely manage to surprise their audience with the plot (unless they sacrifice logic as so often in Raymond Chandler's stories), but here we have an exception.
This is not the case with Jean-Pierre Melville, whose Bob le Flambeur is a powerful tale of a compulsive gambler who attempts to right his own life and the lives of those he cares for.
In Le Doulos, the story focuses on a gangster, Maurice, just released from prison who immediately gets back on the other side of the law and begins to get involved in the ever-constant struggle between French police and organized crime.
This film obviously owes a great deal to early American gangster films, as so much of Melville does, but what makes it slightly different is the complexity of character and plot Melville injects into the story.
Yet, it is never too confusing and never dull to watch as Melville invites us to explore closer the beautiful fluid camera work and the stunning and stark cinematography.The acting is also quite effective, especially Serge Reggiani as the world-worn Maurice whose face says more than anything else, and French cinema legend Jean-Paul Belmondo as the too cool for his own good Silien.
But it is a kind of "lost" classic in some ways, harder to find than Jean-Pierre Melville's films on Criterion DVD (Le Cercle Rouge, Bob le Flabeur, and Le Samourai), but still as rich in his own style than with his other films.
But Melville still instills his distinctive flair at making old-fashioned crime stories involving criminals with codes of honor, police with some level of respect and intelligence, and a perfection of dead-pan dialog and silences.The film also includes a star of the times- Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Silien, a sort of smooth operator of underdog criminals, who is friends with Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani, a man with soul in his face if that makes sense).
Faugel, at the start of the film, does something that may or may not have been the right thing, but he still has to hide it, in the midst of gearing up for a heist (again, this IS Melville).
I hesitate to describe much else of the story; on a first viewing one may think there is too much exposition at times (in particular when Silien reveals some of the details later in the film to Faugel, with fades to flashbacks and so forth), and the double-crossings that occur make the story very twisty, in the perfunctory crime-novel sense of course.
In some ways it's a little more novelistic in the storytelling than a film like Le Cercle Rouge.The style of Le Doulos is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and senses.
Like all his other crime films, he's working in a framework akin to the American genre pictures of the late 30's and 40's- tough guys almost always shielding their emotions, kind to most women but not all (there's an interrogation scene by Silien with a woman that is effective, and rather disturbing in just the set-up of the woman), and a kind of fate that is and isn't expected with the characters.
One might even try and make naturalistic comparisons with the story; Faugel with his own problems, Silien with his lonely but loyal life to his few friends, the police's professionalism.But what really catches me with Le Doulos, like the best moments in Melville's films, is how he subverts the kind of expectations of the classic style of the 40's American crime films - dark shadows in the background coming into the foreground, creeping in on the characters, and usually basic camera moments - with the 'new-wave' sensibilities.
The Silien scene I mentioned is one, but also note the hand-held use as the robbers run away from the cops after the heist; the extraordinary long-take in the police investigation (you almost forget that there isn't a cut); the occasionally very unusual angles put onto characters to add a certain 'kick' to the feeling behind it.Despite the straightforward attitude of the characters, there is emotion behind the style.
But the coolness outranks everything else; Belmondo, by the way, is so cool in this film, so unflinchingly so at times (even if in sometimes a little ineffectual), it makes his performance in Breathless seem amateurish.
In films like Le Doulos(1961), things such as expressionism become an essential part of Melville's cannon of films.
In a way the Silen character played by the actor can be seen as Michel of Breathless(1960) if Michel had lived and became an informer.
The plot twists of Le Doulos(1961) are examples of what was one of many big trademarks in the French gangster picture.
In many of Melville's main characters from films such as Le Doulos(1961) and Le Samurai(1967) there is a narcissistic feeling that compensates for the emptyness that surrounds their inner body.
Jean Paul Belmondo exhibits his strength as an actor in playing the informer, Silen.
Serge Reggiani as Maurice Faugel plays his character with a dogged tiredness that is reminicent of Jean Servais's performance in Rififi(1955).
Le Doulos(1961) has many themes that Jean Pierre Melville return over and over again in his crime films.
Le Doulos's direction gets some terrific visual ques from Melville as well as a tight execution of plotting.
Jean Paul Belmondo was Jean Pierre Melville's second alter ego after Alain Delon which helped make them into a great actor-director combo.
Every character in the film is looking to double-cross someone, but in the end only the audience is successfully hoodwinked, fooled into attempting to unravel a confusing tangle of unexplained and seemingly unmotivated events, before the jigsaw scenario is cleverly assembled in retrospect.
The informer here is Jean-Paul Belmondo and he seems to be playing one side against the other, police and crooks, but to what end?
The movie is tortuously plotted until it's all very neatly and beautifully tied up at the end and it pays homage, not just to the great Hollywood gangster movies, but to such classically poetic French films of the thirties such as "Le Jour se Leve" and "Les Quai Des Brumes".
Le Doulos is a very good gangster noir from Jean-Pierre Melville.
Like his other crime films its American influenced but with French style.
Despite the time period, all of the actors look, act and dress like characters out of a hard-boiled movie from the 1940's.
This was seemingly something that Jean-Paul Belmondo found very unsatisfying, not surprising from an actor famed for working with Jean-Luc Godard whose style was extremely loose and off-the-cuff by comparison.Like noir, this one has a cast of characters where none are good in the traditional sense.
But Silien is a police informer...American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino cited the screenplay for "Le Doulos" as being his personal favorite and being a large influence on his debut picture "Reservoir Dogs".
Luckily, he did it right and influenced one of the greatest crime films of the 1990s.What I love about Melville more than the story-telling or characters is actually the use of color.
An interesting film noir that has all the elements one would expect of the gems of the 40s and 50s made in Hollywood: trench coat, hat, and gun.Serge Reggiani is Maurice.
Just released from prison, it is not long before he is set up by his supposed friend Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo).The cops are looking for who shot one of their own and who shot a fence.
The big cars, the scenes, the great music: it all works to make for an excellent noir experience.The ending really surprises in a way I did not expect.
The plot concerns a petty thief (Jean Paul Belmondo)who did a hitch in prison for theft, gets involved in another caper right straight away.
Jean Pierre Melville (who directed such noir fare as Army Of Shadows) shows a fine hand for dealing with the dregs of society in a film that is handsomely shot in atmospheric black & white.
40 years ago very young Belmondo plays the police informer Silien who is about to retire as a crook and gets involved in a fatal affair of friendship and betrayal.
His trench coat catches a hole in the back and the last thing Silien thinks of is to cancel his last appointment with his girl friend.(Melville originally wanted another ending: Silien calling the police) Silien looks into the mirror of death, and soon doesn't see anything at all anymore.
There are not so many films of this make to come, only director J.P.Melville returned a few times to the subject: The story of a loner on his way down the drain.Nicolas Hayer (Orphée) behind the camera looks at Paris in a very winterly mood, we meet a few extremely corrupt characters in the shadow at the edge of nowhere, underworld pure.
Whatever they are discussing, one is fascinated by the almost 10 minutes of uninterrupted film shooting, or the great lighting job at the end, when Silien drives in his American convertible (rain is falling in the studios Rue Jenner)and walks along the gray bushes toward his mansion where he finds the already deadly wounded Reggiani who warns him of the hired killer behind the paper wall.
Showdown at Siliens villa.Looking at the strange doing of Belmondo and Reggiani and Piccoli andJean Desailly and Fabienne Dali and Aime de March you soon lose the interest in understanding what is going on and why, you plainly watch strange actions in the very backyard of Paris and you feel a little sad they dont make films like that any more.
He is the better or rather at that time more experienced actor (and the better singer his life long).) But in this film he shoots a friend,and walks away.
Jean Paul Belmondo shows in Le Doulos(1961) why he was one of the coolest actors in the French cinema besides Alain Delon during the 1960s.
'Doulos' means both 'hat' and 'informer' on French streets and given the subject matter plus the trade of the leading character it is well named.
Jean-Pierre Melville was, of course, both a specialist and master of American-style French gangster films and here he does both himself and his American Masters proud.
At this time he was still shooting in Black and White which enhanced the resemblance and homage to such U.S. titles as 'The Asphalt Jungle', Melville's personal favorite, though when he DID go with color he turned out two masterpieces in 'Le Samourai' and 'Le Cercle Rouge'.
He tended to work with actors repeatedly, specifically Alain Delon - Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Un Flic - and Jean-Paul Belmondo, who even played a priest for Melville in Leon Morin, prete.
The movie strings out the ambiguity almost until the end, leaving Belmondo's actions (double-crosser or not?) highly confusing; when this is resolved in an expository sequence, one's thoughts might be to the effect of "so what," unless you like ambiguity for its own sake.
At the end, looking back over the somewhat self-conscious and over-deliberate machinations, you realize the film's impressive form and control, but I find it hard to place much value on this kind of thing - character is pretty much jettisoned, and it becomes like moving chess pieces; the intellect is obvious, but it's a closed system, extremely limited by genre and the lonely path it's chosen to tread..
The only real problems I had with the film is that the plot was a little confusing (probably less so if you are French) and there are many earlier, American Film Noir pictures that are simply better.
Gilbert is obviously an old friend, warning Maurice about one of his acquaintances : a man named Silien, he offers him food, advice, and even a gun
what follows introduces us the duplicitous relationships prevailing in the underworld.There starts a mind-blowing masterpiece of deliberate confusion, as the fundamental element on which survival is based.
This ability to lie is vital for le Doulos, literally, the man with the hat ('le Doul' in French slang), the cop informer, Silien, portrayed with the perfect mix of detached elegance and methodical professionalism, by a young Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Silien's plans feature a big house in Province, a beautiful woman, and a nice retirement for his friend, Maurice.Friendship and loyalty are recurring themes in Melville's filmography, even in a world of thugs and murderers.
And if Silien's actions and involvement with the police inspire our suspicion, a long flash-back sequence debriefs us about Silien's true motives : Melville 'got us'."Le Doulos" contains all the classic Melvillian codes.
The first scene itself is an expressionist masterpiece in the way light reveals Maurice's duplicity with only half of his face visible, an ambiguity illustrated by the swinging lamp's dizzying effect.Melville's genius is in the way he manipulates us, our regards toward the characters' motives are altered all through the film, and no conclusion is to be taken for granted, a reminiscence of the Occupation years when anyone could be a resistant or a collaborator, a friend or a traitor.
And even our perceptions change, we all see Silien as a vicious individual in the beginning, but when he takes off his hat, he's a vulnerable kid, an innocence confirmed by his smiling expression when we walks in the last scene, mirroring the first one with a sad premonition, subtly hinted by an allusion to "The Asphalt Jungle"'s ending, the theme of failure was also particularly cherished by John Huston.John Huston, William Wyler, Robert Wise
Melville, who took his name from the novelist Herman Melville, was a vivid admirer of the great American gangster films.
Near the end of Le Doulos Belmondo sits in a bar and explains the entire plot of the film to Reggiano.
Melville has captured all the surface qualities of film noir.
It makes for unengaging watching.Maybe this is a world Melville wanted to depict, but in the end Le Doulos is a tiresome whodunnit.
Jean for instance.The movie was great until suddenly Silien (Belmondo) turns into a "good" gangster...then it loses steam and credibility which all comes down to over twisting the plot without credibility.The last twist was totally unneeded and ruins the ending...the "good" bad guys kill each other...it also makes it seem squirrelly some how..
Le Doulos tells us about Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani), a tired gangster just out of prison who knows someone informed on him.
He plans a burglary, using his girl to check the place out and a friend, Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo), to loan him the safe-cracking equipment.
It's a fine example of Melville's technical mastery of his craft and his fascination with film gangsters and the self-imagined world he places them in.
Belmondo, the only familiar face, who plays the multiple treble-crosser, Silien, seemed very different from the character in "Breathless", although that film was made only two years earlier.
No full answers are ever given which leads the viewer to create their own conclusions.Jean Pierre Melville has created a wonderful film which has references to the classic American film noir of the 1950's but also creates a wonderfully fresh French example of the deconstruction of the gangster image and masculinity itself.Jean Paul Belmondo is wonderful, sexy and exiting in his depiction of Silien and Serge Reggiani plays Maurice perfectly by brooding his way through the entire film.This film is a must see for all fans of the gangster genre. |
tt0024069 | Gold Diggers of 1933 | The "gold diggers" are four aspiring actresses: Polly (Ruby Keeler), an ingenue; Carol (Joan Blondell), a torch singer; Trixie (Aline MacMahon), a comedian; and Fay (Ginger Rogers), a glamour puss.
The film was made in 1933, during the Great Depression and contains numerous direct references to it. It begins with a rehearsal for a stage show, which is interrupted by the producer's creditors who close down the show because of unpaid bills.
At the unglamorous apartment shared by three of the four actresses (Polly, Carol, and Trixie), the producer, Barney Hopkins (Ned Sparks), is in despair because he has everything he needs to put on a show, except money. He hears Brad Roberts (Dick Powell), the girls' neighbor and Polly's boyfriend, playing the piano. Brad is a brilliant songwriter and singer who not only has written the music for a show, but also offers Hopkins $15,000 in cash to back the production. Of course, they all think he is kidding, but he insists that he is serious – he offers to back the show, but refuses to perform in it, despite his talent and voice.
Brad comes through with the money and the show goes into production, but the girls are suspicious that he must be a criminal since he is cagey about his past and will not appear in the show, even though he is clearly more talented than the aging juvenile lead (Clarence Nordstrom) they have hired. It turns out, however, that Brad is in fact a millionaire's son whose family does not want him associating with the theatre. On opening night, in order to save the show when the juvenile cannot perform (due to his lumbago acting up), Brad is forced to play the lead role.
With the resulting publicity, Brad's brother J. Lawrence Bradford (Warren William) and family lawyer Fanuel H. Peabody (Guy Kibbee) discover what he is doing and go to New York to save him from being seduced by a "gold digger".
Lawrence mistakes Carol for Polly, and his heavy-handed effort to dissuade the "cheap and vulgar" showgirl from marrying Brad by buying her off annoys her so much that she plays along, but the two fall in love. Meanwhile, Trixie targets "Fanny" the lawyer as the perfect rich sap ripe for exploitation. When Lawrence finds out that Brad and Polly have wed, he threatens to have the marriage annulled, but relents when Carol refuses to marry him if he does. Trixie marries Fanuel. All the "gold diggers" (except Fay) end up with wealthy men. | depressing | train | wikipedia | His choreography for the big production numbers is one of the most impressive thing he did for the movies.The film is a sweet story about young hopefuls in New York trying to make it in the musical theater.
In fact, this film, as well as others of that era, served as an excuse for people that were facing a hard time making ends meet for escaping it all when watching a movie like this one.The cast is excellent.
Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline McMahon, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Ned Sparks, Ginger Rogers, and Guy Kibbee giving performances that endeared them to the American public of the time.The production number of "Shadow Waltz" has to be one of the best ones in this musical genre ever produced.
It also help the chorus girls were dressed by Orry-Kelly and the music was by Harry Warren and Al Dubin."Golddiggers of 1933" is one of the best movies to come out of the Hollywood of those years..
This film is also a classic example of the PRE-CODE stuff that was slipping by---the leering "midget baby" (Billy Barty), the naked girls in silhouette changing into their "armor," the non-stop flashing of underwear or lack of underwear, Ginger Rogers having her large coin torn off by the sheriff's office mug so she's essentially standing there in panties, and so forth.A good comparison of before and after the code would be to examine this picture and "Gold Diggers of 1935." The latter is so much more chaste, discreet, and less fascinating except for the numbers.
It is one of the cleverest vocal interludes I've ever seen and heard.) But the three girls implied in the film's title- Ruby Keeler, Aline McMahon, and especially the sharp, smart, and gorgeous Joan Blondell- are the best things in the movie.
It's the kind of entertainment that kept audiences happy for a few hours during the dark days of economic despair in the early 1930's.The cast is first-rate: brassy Joan Blondell; cynical Aline MacMahon; innocent Ruby Keeler & on-the-make Ginger Rogers.
The film's emotional punch comes at the end, with Blondell's tempestuous rendition of `Remember My Forgotten Man' - with its endless marching men, a blues wail for the doughboys of the Great War, ruined by the Depression.
Many great musical numbers highlight this film including "We're in the Money" in which a then unknown, Ginger Rogers sings in Pig Latin.
Great musical numbers including the opening "We're in the Money," the terrific finale "Forgotten Man" with Blondell and Etta Moten (singing in the window); "Petting in the Park" and "In a Shadow"---Powell and Keeler....
Girls strip naked in silhouette, Ginger sings and dances all but nude for "We're In The Money", and metal chastity bodices are breached using can openers.Ruby Murray and Dick Powell once again team up as the ingenue lovers, this time playing Brad and Polly - "a knockout for the mush interest".
It's one of the few 1930s musicals that can still be seen and appreciated today, thanks to choreographer Busby Berkeley's genius of inventing such remarkable production numbers, and director Mervyn LeRoy's fast-paced story-line.The plot can be categorized in two parts.
PART I: Roommate show girls, Carol (Joan Blondell), Trixie (Aline MacMahon), Polly (Ruby Keeler) and Fay (Ginger Rogers), give up their present jobs in order to appear in Barney Hopkins' (Ned Sparks) latest musical revue, FORGOTTEN MELODY.
Beginning and ending with production numbers, the movie opens with "We're in the Money" sung by Ginger Rogers both in English and in Pig Latin; followed by Dick Powell crooning "The Shadow Waltz" to Ruby Keeler from across her apartment window.
The stage shows include the lively and racy "Pettin' in the Park," followed by chorus girls in hoop skirts playing neon violins to "The Shadow Waltz," ending with the Depression theme, "Remember My Forgotten Man" a dark and moody number with Joan Blondell (wearing tight blouse and skirt)/sung by black singer Etta Moten, underscored in serious tone presenting dough-boy soldiers fighting at the front during World War I, and returning home to the states finding themselves hit by the Depression, becoming homeless and unemployed.
Aline MacMahon and Guy Kibbee make an excellent "odd couple." Powell and Keeler continue to delight with their innocent charm, while sassy Blondell and no nonsense William make go with their love/hate relationship.While musicals have a reputation for having thin plots and strong production numbers, or visa versa, GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 is strong on both counts and entertains throughout its full 96 minutes.
All the Busby Berkeley musicals paid lip service to the Great Depression, but this one goes much further, as "My Forgotten Man" was the last, most enduring image of the film, and the one that audiences left the theatre with.
When you have Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, and Ginger Rogers in the cast, the music of Harry Warren and Al Dubin, AND the choreography of Busby Berkley at his best, how can it be otherwise.Okay, so Ruby Keeler still can't sing on key and her stomping dance style leaves many cold.
However the depression rears it's ugly head when the police have to interrupt the rehearsal and shutdown production due to debt."Pettin in the Park" is a racy number by 1933 standards (you can definitely tell this movie is pre-code Hollywood), featuring Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler this song preaches that getting affectionate with your loved one in public ain't so bad."The Shadow Waltz" is a visually pleasing masterpiece to say the least.
Featuring Powell and Keeler again and a countless number of chorines with neon violins, it is more spectacular then anything modern day special effects can produce."Remember my Forgotten Man" with the lovely Joan Blondell is a change of pace.
More serious, more subdued it is a powerful reminder of how important our dough boys were just 15 years or so earlier.Featuring an all star cast, a capable director and the genius of Busby Berkeley Gold Diggers of 1933 is one of the best musicals to come out of Hollywood during the 1930's..
It is a bitter counterpoint to "We're in the Money" and its impact is utterly devastating.Gold Diggers of 1933 is not only the finest of the Busby Berkely musicals, not only the pinnacle of Warner Brothers' pre-code licentiousness, it is the very heart of depression-era America.
Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Warren William, Ginger Rogers, and then some ...
Though my favorite Busby Berkeley film is Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933 certainly has a lot to recommend it even for audiences today.The Goldiggers in this case are three female room mates, Aline McMahon, Joan Blondell, and Ruby Keeler.
But he refuses to sing and star in the show as well.Come opening night and unlike 42nd Street where Ruby Keeler had to step in for an injured star, here it's Powell who reluctantly steps in on opening night after getting a lecture from Joan Blondell about what it means to all the company who will be once again out of work during the Great Depression.Poverty isn't something that Powell readily grasps.
That imagery conveyed by Busby Berkeley of those marching men going clockwise and counterclockwise in a kaleidoscope is riveting today, I can only imagine what it was like for contemporary audiences.Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote a fine score with Remember My Forgotten Man sung by Joan Blondell, WE're in the Money sung by Ginger Rogers and a female chorus and Dick Powell singing I've Got to Sing a Torch Song, Shadow Waltz and Pettin' in the Park the last two with Ruby Keeler.Powell also made records of his songs and We're in the Money.
Ginger Rogers in particular has seldom if ever looked so scrumptious.Early in the proceedings there is a scene in the golddiggers' apartment where dour, penniless producer Ned Sparks launches into a speech about the necessity of producing a whole musical show about the Depression, focusing on the "forgotten men," down-and-out World War I veterans who had made headlines in the summer of 1932 when they marched on Washington demanding early payment of government bonuses previously pledged to them.
may well have been inspired to tackle this issue in a musical by AMERICANA, a Broadway revue that ran in late 1932 (several months before this film was made) and featured the E.Y. Harburg-Jay Gorney ballad "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" which became a mega-hit and in fact is now considered "the anthem of the Depression." "Dime" and the revue that spawned it were openly focused on "the forgotten man." In this film, the Dick Powell character - the composer/lyricist who writes "My Forgotten Man" - explains that he got the idea from walking past the breadlines in Times Square.
With the success of "42nd Street," Warner Brothers wasted no time adding Busby Berkeley musical numbers to "Gold Diggers of 1933." Starring Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, this musical also has some of the same Depression darkness that permeated "42nd Street." "It's the Depression, dearie," Ginger Rogers says as the show she and her fellow chorines are laboring in closes in rehearsal due to lack of funding.
Polly's roommates Trixie and Carol (Joan Blondell and Aline MacMahon) go to work on the two immediately.Though the film has some fantastic numbers - "We're in the Money," "The Shadow Waltz," "Pettin' in the Park," and great Busby Berkeley choreography, the middle section has no music and drags on as the gals meet the men, get them to pay for expensive hats, etc.
Powell is in gorgeous voice in all the numbers, but "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song" is a high point.It's easy to watch the dancing, the beautiful women in their costumes, and listen to the singing and forget what in fact was going on in the '30s - after all, that's why these films were made.
Especially Ned Sparks as the producer, Ginger Rogers as Fay Fortune, Guy Kibbee as "Fanny", and Joan Blondell, who looks very sexy during the finale, "The Forgotten Man".And the score by Warren and Dubin(who is not credited for some reason) is perfect.
"The Forgotten Man"(a "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime" knockoff), "We're In The Money", "Got To Sing A Torch Song", and one of my favorites, "Shadow Waltz".Yes, it's a musical.
Barney also needs a lot of money to fund, something that Brad is happy to pay in case, much to the girls' suspicion.It comes across as a film with two halves - the first focusing on the development of the musical, the relationship between Brad and dancer Polly (Ruby Keeler), and the confusion surrounding the shady Brad's situation.
It's the kind of thing that Sex And The City wishes it could pull off when it isn't being so materialistic and soulless.When you think it's over it pulls off one last masterstroke in the highly effective 'Remember My Forgotten Man' musical number, as Joan Blondell sings about how her man fought for her country and now begs for food and resorts to picking up discarded cigarette butts, as bloody soldiers march through the street.
While "42nd Street" gets most of the acclaim today I think that "Gold Diggers of 1933" may be the best all-around effort among the Busby Berkeley musicals.
A number of the actors are "42nd Street" alumni, including Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks & Ginger Rogers.
Warren William, Joan Blondell & Aline MacMahon join them to make up an enviable cast.Mervyn LeRoy was in the director's chair and he did a pretty good job but the obvious attraction here is Busby Berkeley's peerless musical numbers featuring the music of Warren & Dubin.
However, I question the use of "Remember My Forgotten Man" as the closer since I consider it the weakest and least 'fun' of the numbers.Minor complaints aside, "Gold Diggers of 1933" is an entertaining musical containing some stellar work from Busby Berkeley along with catchy songs from Warren & Dubin.
The Gold Diggers of 1933 is a great pre-code film with Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, and Ginger Rogers.
The story lines were secondary, it was the production numbers that made the film, Ginger Rogers(We're in the money), Joan Blondell (The forgotten man) and the chorus girls (Shadow Waltz) I was very young when I saw this movie, I guess I remember Joan Blondell and the "Forgotten Man" number the most.
Why, 42nd St had marvellous songs while Gold Diggers Of 1933 had magnificent songs.Mysterious song composer, singer, actor Dick Powell mysteriously bankrolls a stage musical, with his girl Ruby Keeler starring.
And Busby Berkeley excelled himself in the production of that one too, the number seems to get more amazing as the years pass when you remember the technical limitations they had to put up with in 1933 with such fine results.All in all one of the best musicals produced, with so many memorable bits, from pre-Code sassiness to gloriously romantic tunes.
The second Berkeley film in the Warner series of musicals starts off with Ginger Rogers singing "We're in the Money" in an outrageous number in which the chorus girls are all dressed in over-sized coins.
And that's where the fun starts.There's some great pre-code comedy here particularly from Joan Blondell, not to mention her stirring performance of "Forgotten Man" about World War I soldiers who are now marching in Depression Era bread lines.
The musical numbers are simply amazing and like lots of reviewers already wrote, the "Remember my forgotten man" number is a significant moment in the history of 30's American cinema.It is also a joy to watch Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell at the top of their game.
Though at the same time, the Depression is more constantly present in "Gold Diggers" than it was in "42nd Street," and the film culminates (and ends rather abruptly) with a dark and critical social comment.Present again are the elaborate and bizarre choreographic creations of Busby Berkeley, designed to showcase lots of female skin.
Ginger Rogers, tremendous screen presence aside, has only a couple of scenes and is pretty much wasted again, though she inexplicably gets to sing some bars of "We're in the Money" in Pig Latin and extreme close-up.A film center in my home city of Chicago is having a Busby Berkeley retrospective, so I've been able to see these two early thirties movies in sequence and note how the art form of musical comedy evolved from one film to the next.
The cast reads like a who's who of early 1930s Hollywood: Joan Blondell, Ginger Rogers, Warren William, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell to name a few.
I'm not a huge Dick Powell or Ruby Keeler fan, but they are pretty endearing here, and Powell's vocals really take us back to the 1930's, and a completely different style.The plot, which has three chorus girls (Blondell, Keeler, and Aline MacMahon) pairing up with three affluent guys (William, Powell, and Guy Kibbee), while trying to squeeze another (Ginger Rogers) out of the equation, isn't amazing or anything, but the dialogue is entertaining and while we see some prancing around in lingerie, the female characters are all more than cardboard characters or simple 'gold diggers'.
But having said that, there are definite drawbacks to these kind of Depression-era musicals--namely, RUBY KEELER, who admits herself that she "couldn't sing, dance or act." She does manage to get by on sheer charm but her skills are, truthfully, decidedly limited.DICK POWELL was still playing the juvenile lead in these sort of musicals, usually with someone like JOAN BLONDELL exchanging some salty wisecracks with him or giving out with her own songs when he wasn't crooning a couple of ditties.The hard times aspect of the story is easy to discern with the four showgirls sharing a tenement flat and subsiding on stolen goods like a bottle of milk from their neighbors.
Very dated stuff.But Busby Berkeley's musical interludes make up for some of the slow going in the familiar plot line which has them trying to scrape together enough money for a Broadway show and then fortunate enough to latch onto Dick Powell, who comes from a monied family and also happens to sing, dance and act.
Probably a unique structure and not entirely successful, but the parts of this structure rarely descend below the marvelous.Maybe only 'We're In The Money' (really titled 'The Gold Digger's Song') can stand alone from the film's score, but Warren and Dubin's other efforts all work perfectly within Berkeley's inspired production numbers.
(Another film about the backstage lives of actresses will follow in 1937--"Stage Door", also starring Ginger Rogers, is a better film, but both are worth watching.)The three women are played by Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell, and Aline MacMahon.
Gold Diggers of 1933 would be an inconsequential movie, and almost surely a forgotten one, were it not for the Busby Berkeley production numbers, which are among the most imaginative, bizarre, giddily entertaining sequences in all musical-comedy history.
This is the best musical made about the depression, focusing on chorus girls MacMahon, Rogers, Joan Blondell and Ruby Keeler, all unemployed after Sparks' previous show closed before opening, and the hope that his new show (with the help of mysterious songwriter Dick Powell) will actually open.
And when Joan Blondell (who did a few musicals on-stage) gets to talk/sing the final, "My Forgotten Man", she sums up what the entire film has been all about.
While the film stars Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell, on hand are also Joan Blondell, Warren William, Guy Kibbee and Aline MacMahon.
Blondell decides to play along to teach William a lesson and by the end of the picture, everything seems to (naturally) work itself out for everyone.The film has some decent song and dance numbers choreographed by director Busby Berkeley and they are pretty typical of his style.
Basically the "gold diggers" are four aspiring stage performers: actress Polly Parker (Ruby Keeler), singer Carol King (Joan Blondell), comedian Trixie Lorraine (Aline MacMahon), and the glamorous Fay Fortune (Ginger Rogers). |
tt0061081 | The Texican | The town of Rimrock, Arizona is run by political boss Luke Starr (Broderick Crawford). When one of Starr’s henchmen wishes to escape from Starr he meets with the editor of the town newspaper, Roy Carlin (Víctor Vilanova) to ask his help. Starr discovers the meeting and he and his loyal henchmen shoot the both of them; spreading the story that the two killed each other in a gunfight.
Roy Carlin’s brother Jess (Audie Murphy) is a former Texas sheriff now living in semi-retirement with his girlfriend in Mexico. He has a price on his head for unstated crimes done in the United States but earns income and beats the boredom of his quiet life by capturing fugitive American criminals and turning them over to American lawmen who return them across the border.
When Jess finds out the story of his brother he throws the quiet life away to bring his brother’s killer to justice as he knows Roy never carried a firearm. On the way he is unsuccessfully ambushed by bounty hunters and has to escape without his saddle.
Stopping off at a ranch he thinks is vacant, he leaves money for a saddle but is held at gunpoint by the ranch owner Sandy (Luz Márquez). Sandy changes her opinion on Jess when she discovers he has left money that is four times the value of the saddle.
Riding into Rimrock, Jess unsuccessfully tries to find out information on his brother’s death. The new editor of the paper asks Jess to stay to eliminate Luke Starr and his band. Jess explains that in the past when he was a sheriff in the same town where his brother was a newspaper editor they cleaned up the town but found out the hard way that the men who replaced those they got rid of were much worse.
After fist and gun fights, Jess is finally able to establish proof of Luke’s involvement when he finds a decorative concho that leather worker Sandy is able to identify as one that came off Luke’s gunbelt. | western, revenge, violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0045316 | Way of a Gaucho | In 1875 Argentina, a young gaucho kills another man in a duel. His prison sentence is commuted to join the army. He serves under the tough Major Salinas, but soon grows tired of military life and deserts. He becomes Val Verde and leads a band of gauchos to resist the increasing encroachment of railroad agents into the Pampas. In the meantime Salinas quits the army and becomes chief of police, so he can continue his vendetta against him. After falling in love with an aristocratic woman, Martin decides to escape with her to Chile, crossing the Andes on horseback. On the way Teresa tells him that she is pregnant, so they decide to return and get married instead, because of her safety and that for them is inconceivable for the child to be raised without a legitimate last name. When they arrive at the Cathedral, the police follows them so Martin has to escape again, leaving Teresa in the care of Father Fernandez. That night Miguel talks with Teresa about a deal he reached with the Governor, in which Martin voluntarily turns himself in, in exchange for a 3 year prison sentence and a clean slate. Teresa tells Miguel where Martin is hiding, but Salinas also follows, prompting a horse chase through a cattle run, that causes Miguel to fall from his horse and be trampled to death by the herd of cows. That same night, Martin returns filled with guilt to meet Teresa and while she offers to escape to Brazil or Europe, he declines and tells her to meet him at noon at the Cathedral. The next day Father Fernandez arranges a meeting alone with Salinas, where Martin agrees to turn himself in and face the consequences of his actions, as long as he can first marry Teresa as a free man. | violence | train | wikipedia | Twentieth-Century Fox put together this unusual little adventure story, filmed almost entirely on location on the Argentinian Pampas.
It's the tale of a proud young Gaucho and his long struggle against injustice.
Rory Calhoun never quite made it as a big star, but he carries this one ably enough, though I found his unrelenting surliness a little wearying.
A young Richard Boone is excellent as (what else?) the villain.
His character, Major Salinas, bullies Martin (Calhoun) when the latter is forced to join the Argentinian Army.
Martin deserts and becomes Val Verde, the brigand king.
Salinas quits the Army and becomes chief of police, and is thus able to continue his vendetta against the Gaucho.
What puzzled me is, if Calhoun can change names so easily, how come Boone has to wear the same uniform in two different jobs?
Gene Tierney, Fox's specialist film noir love interest, appears in this one as Teresa, the respectable woman who falls for the Gaucho outlaw.
Tierney is great, affecting a softer, more natural look than in her urban crime movies and (unusually for her) hitting the screen in colour.
Jacques Tourneur directs with proficiency, capturing both the glorious freedom of the Pampas and the imposing beauty of the Andes.
Val Verde knows that the Gauchos, the semi-wild ethnic group of the Pampas, are heading for oblivion.
His elemental heroism, and the urbane malice of Salinas, make this little picture worth watching..
The fantastic beauty of wild Argentina and the splendor of Gene Tierney.
"Way of a Gaucho" was filmed in the wild Argentina of 1950.
The beauty of the locations is fantastic and alone makes the movie worth a view.
Not only the endless Pampas and the awesome Andes are breathtaking, also the towns and farms, with their ancient, decadent, cracking Spanish-style buildings and churches are incredibly evocative.The photography is accurate, the colors are magnificent.
The characters of Martin - Rory Calhoun and Salinas - Richard Boone are not fully realistic: one is too sullen and gruffy to be a youngster, the other is over-bad.Then, of course, there is Gene Tierney, as Teresa.
Her unparalleled splendor wins the beauty of Argentine landscapes (I admit I'm not a fair judge in this matter).
How I like these old-fashioned, good-taste erotic touches!
Follows a long ride together in the Pampas, with a pair of my most favorite romantic scenes: Gene sleeping on the high grass, close to a pond with exotic birds, then waking up and looking for her rescuer, with a dreaming look; later, at sunset, Gene resting in the shade of one of those lonely, huge, marvellous trees of the Pampas, silently contemplating Miguel.
Love is sprouting: how beautifully romantic.Let me remark a theme of the movie, much creditable in rendering the climate of the 19th century.
Teresa is pregnant, and Miguel repeatedly endangers his life to get to a church, trying to marry her, in order that the coming child could have a "real, legitimate father".
The necessity to face death, to get a legal wedding, for both Teresa and Miguel is utter matter-of-factness: another option is inconceivable.
This was the actual way people were in the 19th century!
By contrast, how preposterous is the show of anachronistic feelings (such as feminist ideology, dislike for religion etc.) in many current movies placed at that epoch."Way of a Gaucho" is a good way of spending 90 minutes for everybody, and, of course, a must-see for Gene Tierney's fans..
Way of a Gaucho is directed by Jacques Tourneur and adapted to screenplay by Philip Dunne from the Herbert Childs novel.
It stars Rory Calhoun, Gene Tierney, Richard Boone, Hugh Marlowe, Everett Sloane and Enrique Chaico.
Music is by Sol Kaplan and cinematography by Harry Jackson.1875 Argentina, and after killing a man, gaucho Martin Penalosa (Calhoun) is sentenced to serve army duty.
Not one to be conformist, Martin deserts and becomes a leader of bandits.A most pleasing Oater filmed predominantly out of Argentina and in Technicolor, story essentially revolves around Penalosa's refusal to accept progress, where his beloved Pampas is set to see its landscape changed.
But he has many other things to contemplate, not least the appearance in his life if the delectable Teresa Chavez (Tierney), and that he is a very wanted man, particularly by Major Salinas (Boone), who has taken umbrage at Penalosa's desertion from his army.Charge him with a wilful misunderstanding of history.With some high grade locations photographed superbly, and a rousing musical score that sticks in your head for hours afterwards, tech credits are impressive.
The best portions of the pic - as per characterisations - comes via the Calhoun/Boone series of confrontations, both characters having a grudging respect for each other.
Their moral compasses differ greatly, as does their goals in life, but it's two men who are chipped from the same granite stone and both brought vividly to life by two great character actors.He's a fool, but very gaucho.Tourneur's CV shows him to have been at times an outstanding director, and even though this pic is more a case of being a passable mark for him, there's nice framing touches on show to showcase his keen eye for detail.
He also plays a good hand with the action, with plenty of exciting scenes involving the Gaucho's and their trusty steeds.
He gets a more than competent turn out of a radiant Tierney, whilst Enrique Chaico is most memorable, his director letting him hold court as a very important religious character.The moral of the story is nothing new, and in truth from a narrative viewpoint it could have been bolder with its telling of the last days of the Pampas - as the Gaucho's knew it - and one crude imposed projection shot dampens ever so slightly an otherwise great action sequence.
Tyrone Power was probably right to bow out of doing Way Of A Gaucho.
This would have been a great part for him ten years earlier, but by 1952 Power was 38 years old would not have been all that convincing any more as one wild and woolly gaucho who prizes freedom above all things.
So 30 year old Rory Calhoun got the part and he looked even younger than that.
Calhoun plays a young man who was taken in by a large estancia owner and raised as a stepson along with his real son Hugh Marlowe.
The film opens with Marlowe returning from getting a European education in Spain and Marlowe has adopted European ways.Civilization is coming to the Pampas, a fact that a lot of the gauchos resent, none more so than Calhoun.
When he kills a man in a brawl, he's arrested, but Marlowe goes to bat for him and he gets army service with Richard Boone trying to make a soldier out of him.
Naturally Calhoun doesn't take to that kind of discipline and he deserts and becomes the notorious bandit leader Valverde.
Along the way he meets Gene Tierney and the two of them get something going.20th Century Fox starting in the early Forties did a whole slew of films with a Latin American setting, the idea being to promote a Good Neighbor policy with Latin American countries who all declared war on the Axis powers after December 7.
In fact Argentina was the only country not to declare war, at least until 1945.
Because of that the Juan Peron government had few post war friends outside of Franco's Spain.So with that in mind they no doubt welcomed 20th Century Fox to do a film with a real Latin American location.
The cinematography of the Pampas is first rate and the American players who also included Everett Sloane as Calhoun's sidekick blend nicely in with the Argentine cast.
The first lady of Argentina Eva Peron who was a film star before she married Juan took a personal interest in this project even though she was dying during the shooting of Way Of A Gaucho.For its exotic location and good performances Way Of A Gaucho is definitely worth your time for a look..
Unusual western of life in the pampas.
Gorgeous location photography of Argentina and the subtle, lyrical direction of Jacques Tourneur are the main reasons for watching this story of a gaucho who becomes first outlaw and then revolutionary, in an attempt to preserve his way of life from encroaching foreign influences and money.
The acting is somewhat uneven - Calhoun and especially Tierney are somewhat miscast, though Richard Boone and others in smaller roles come off as more authentic..
Another Jacques Tourneur Beauty.
Jacques Tourneur makes very stylish Westerns, from CANYON PASSAGE before to WICHITA after, and WAY OF A GAUCHO is about the "original cowboys," the titular Spanish Argentine bandits who "Go with God" and are as patriotic as they come, and go: Making the famous "last refuge of a scoundrel" quote more pro than con, at least for one in particular who rides in the glory of the Old Days...That we never really learn about so we can only follow the intrepid horse-clopping footsteps of Rory Calhoun's "condor eyed" Martin Penalosa as the best scenes have our anti-hero breaking the law, sent under Richard Boone's harsh military command and eventually finding his own way...
This is where things slowly collapse upon an overly grandiose soundtrack and a maze of plotlines marring what should've been a more simple, honest Western that Tourneur's good at.
Painted with broad strokes, the surrounding countrysides feel like another world entirely, so there's a Fantasy element underneath the deep brown saddles and painted red scarves, as if Penalosa's more a lean Barbarian than maverick horseman, and with Tourneur, a Gothic undertone lurks as well...
But our man needed more of a goal, an urgency, than to ride along (with forced ingenue Gene Tierney when guitar-strumming Everette Sloane would've made a terrific sidekick) full of stubborn, woeful pride.
This GAUCHO looks terrific though..
"He's a fool, but very gaucho".
Way of a Gaucho is a sort of a western displaced to South America, namely to XIXth century's Argentinian pampa.
The main character: Martin (Rory Calhoun) is a gaucho (a sort of a cowboy) who accidentally kills a man in a fight and in order to avoid trial enlists in the army.
After some time he deserts and while on the run meets a beautiful young woman Teresa (Gene Tierney) who was recently kidnapped by the Indians, very soon they fall in love with each other.
Later he forms a gang of outlaws with the intent to fight oncoming civilization that threatens gaucho's way of life.
But gradually Martin starts loosing faith in a cause they are fighting for and wants to settle down, marry Teresa and lead a peaceful life but it seems very unreal when a good half of the Argentinian army and police is after him as a most dangerous criminal.A Way of Gaucho was first supposed to be directed by Henry King, but his wife got sick and the opportunity to direct was given to Jacques Tourneur.
The cast and crew moved to Argentina in order to shoot on real locations, where filmmakers found themselves under considerable pressure from the Argentinian authorities, let's not forget that at the time Argentina was under dictator's rule of general Peron.
Probably it served for better as characters, dialogs and all the atmosphere of the film looks authentically Argentinian.
Zanuck asked to add a few more sequences to accentuate the heroic side of the main character.
But those sequences were directed by Henry Levine, cause Tourneur was already completely out of work at Fox mainly due to his drinking problem.Overall Way of a Gaucho is a good movie with beautiful sequences filmed in Technicolor on real locations in Argentinian pampa and the Andes and the story concerning the idea of freedom, of sacrificing it for the benefit of the group and final realization of impossibility of "building our freedom on ruins of other people's lives." 7/10.
Gauchos and Indians in conflict with Argentine army and encroaching agribusiness..
The story is that Fox studios had earned some money in Argentina, and the Peron government wouldn't let them take it out of the country.
Thus, they came up with this book-based script, closely monitored by the Peron government, shot in various parts of Argentina, utilizing Argentine actors for subsidiary roles and mostly Hollywood actors for the major roles, of which I identify 5.
Martin(Roy Calhoun), the lead rebellious gaucho, who resists the soon-to-be transformation of the pampas from an open range, roadless, railless, vast sea of grass into fenced haciendas, traversed by occasional roads and railways and 'city' ideas of formal law, rather than the traditional informal gaucho tradition of each man serving out his own idea of justice for perceived transgressions against him, with the approval of his comrades or patron.Miguel(Hugh Marlowe) was raised with Martin, although not his biological brother, and has since become an important government official, as well as now the owner of his recently deceased father's large cattle empire.
He tries to reason with Martin that he cannot long hold back the encroachment of civilization into his life, and tries to protect Martin from the severe consequences of his rebellion against 'the system'.
Eventually, he would pay with his life in trying to aid Martin in escaping from his recapture as a(twice) army deserter.Teresa(Gene Tierney)is an elegant gorgeous ethereal city girl, who is invited to spend a vacation at Miguel's hacienda, foolishly goes horseback riding alone in the pampas, is abducted by Indians, serendipitously rescued by the fleeing deserter Martin, and eventually becomes his lover and wife.
She sympathizes with Martin's lament of the impending changes to his lifestyle, and feels guilty that he twice was recaptured because of putting her wellbeing above his own escape plans.
Gene's acting is quite wooden, as usual.Major Salinas(Richard Boone) is the main antagonist, being Martin's commanding officer during his two brief stints in the army, as punishment for killing another gaucho in a knife fight instigated by the deceased.
Miguel engineered the transfer of Martin from jail, awaiting execution, to the army.
However, he should have known that Martin would rebel against Salinas's determination to remake him into an obedient soldier.
Salinas sensed that Martin would make a superior soldier if he could change his attitude.
This proved impossible, as Martin badly slashed Salinas's arm in his second desertion attempt, necessitating its amputation.
As a result of this injury, Salinas was retired from the army, becoming police commissioner for this region, thus enabling him to resume his hunt for the fleeing Martin.Father Fernandez(Enrique Chaico) is the final main character.
He serves as Teresa's protector while Martin is running from the Salinas-led police posse, having known Martin since he was a boy.
Later, after Miguel is killed in a cattle stampede, he brokers the deal previously arranged between Miguel and the governor where Martin surrenders to Salinas, to serve a 3 year jail sentence for all his several serious transgressions, after finally being married to Teresa by the Father.
Yes, Martin was very very lucky to get off so lightly, thanks to Miguel's unflagging devotion to using his political influence to counter Martin's transgressions.
Very interestingly, as a late teen, Roy Calhoun spent 3 years in a federal reformatory, for various robberies.
This is the same amount of prison time Martin is given at story's end!
I thought Calhoun was OK as the main character, being tall and handsome, although I would have preferred Burt Lancaster.After his second army desertion, Martin reinvents himself as Val Verde(green valley), leader of a sizable gang of gauchos bent on sabotaging efforts to build a railway into the pampas.
Later, they capture Salinas, pursuing Martin.
Martin decides to spare his life, saying he is more of a man than any of them.
Thus, the grudging respect of the two, officially with opposite goals, but reluctant to kill the other.
Rather reminds me of the relationship between the Boone and Scott characters in "The Tall T".
We get a sampling of various ecological regions of Argentina , from the flat wet Pampas grasslands nearest the coast, to progressively drier lands, often hilly or mountainous, to the west, and finally to the mighty Andes, which Martin and Teresa attempt to cross to anticipated freedom in Chile.
However, Martin decides they must turn back, as Teresa faints, probably from a combination of fatigue, her pregnancy, and altitude sickness.
One of the few light sequences in the film occurs when Martin and Teresa spend a couple days riding back to the hacienda after Martin rescued her.
Gene looks beautiful and seductive, with her torn blouse, reveling in the picturesque pampas wilderness.
We see a couple of fleeing rheas and their egg, which Martin locates.
Before the introduction of cattle and sheep, rheas largely ruled the pampas, and were the main food of the Native Americans.
During this period, the army went on rhea extermination campaigns, similar to the bison extermination policy of the US government, as part of its Native American subjugation program.Check out the later "Savage Pampas", which deals with the same basic subject, although mostly filmed in Spain..
unforgettable visual beauty, a western in Argentina..
There is a certain sadness in the story of Martin, the gaucho, his macho rules, and the fact that the incoming civilization is going to make the gauchos vanish, makes him doomed from the beginning.
But what is impressive in this film is the beautiful cinematography, the pampas, the mountains covered with snow, the gauchos with their characteristic costumes, thousands galloping in the wilderness.
Something one will never forget in this western, yes, it is definitely a western, in a different location, directed by Jacques Tourneur (Wichita, Stranger on Horseback, Stars in my Crown).
Also western stars Rory Calhoun and Richard Boone.
Gene Tierney was familiar with the genre (Belle Starr,The Return of Frank James) and is a convincing Teresa.
Way of a Gaucho belongs up there with the top films of the western genre, it should be more known. |
tt0434124 | Kinky Boots | In the town of Northampton, in the East Midlands of England, Charlie Price is attempting to save the family shoe factory, which has been floundering since his father died. While on a business trip to London to sell the company's extra stock, Charlie encounters a woman being harassed by drunken hoodlums and intervenes to his detriment. He wakes up backstage, in the dressing room of Lola, a drag queen performer and alter ego of Simon. Charlie is intrigued when he sees that drag queens' high heels snap easily since they have only women's shoes to wear, rather than those that can support the weight of a larger male body frame. Back in Northampton, while in the process of making his workers redundant, one employee, Lauren, gives Charlie the idea of looking for a niche market product to save the business. Charlie then recruits Lauren to assist him in designing a high-heeled boot for Lola, initially as a thank-you, but later as a means of finding a niche to save the factory.
When their initial designs are met with scorn by Lola, Charlie and Lauren bring her on as a consultant. The road is initially bumpy: many of the male employees are uncomfortable with Lola's presence and the new direction, and Charlie's relationship with his fiancée, Nicola, begins to deteriorate as she encourages him to sell the company. Although things improve when Lola tones down her personality and starts making friends, matters take a turn for the worse when Charlie is invited to showcase the new boots in Milan; the strain he puts on his employees causes most of them, including Lola, to walk out.
Charlie's fiancée arrives at the factory, furious that he took out a second mortgage on their house to save the company. Nicola insists that he sell the company, but Charlie is determined to save it and the jobs of his employees. The argument (which ends with Nicola leaving Charlie) is broadcast on the factory's PA system, which is overheard by Lauren and Lola's bitterest opponent at the factory, Don, a chauvinistic male worker. Don turns over a new leaf after Lola had graciously allowed him to win the arm wrestling match he was the champion in, and rallies the factory workers to make the boots in time for Charlie and Lauren to get to Milan. After arriving in Milan with no one to model the boots, Charlie is forced to go onstage and model the boots himself as the ultimate symbol of his dedication to his workers and his acceptance of Lola. After tripping and ultimately falling flat on his face, Lola and her posse of drag queens arrive, put on a spectacular runway show, and save the day.
In the film's denouement, Lola headlines her own show and sings a song in honor of the "kinky boots factory" of Northampton. Most of the key workers are in attendance and enjoying themselves, including Charlie and Lauren, who have become a couple. | queer, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0079915 | Skullduggery | The film follows a group of young adults who come together to play a fantasy role playing game, while working at a costume rental store. One of the players is a young man named Adam (Thom Haverstock) who is the descendent of a long line of men who are all cursed by the devil. While working at the community college theater performance a strange magician appears and puts a curse on Adam, forcing him to remember the fate of his ancestors and to make him believe that he really is a warlock.
Increasingly Adam is unable to determine the difference between fantasy and reality and believes that, as a warlock, he is on a quest to kill various people. As the bodies pile up, the local police are baffled and no one suspects that Adam is a deranged serial killer being commanded to kill by the devil.
After playing the role playing game with instructions to kill all the members of the Apostles of Hell before they kill him, Adam attends a costume party hosted by a man named Dr. Evil, who wants Adam to join his cult and also kill most of the party guests. When the police figure out that Adam is the killer, they corner and shoot him in a factory, but his body disappears and leaving a puppet in its place.
At the end of the film, the surviving players are playing a game with a suit of knight's armor seated in Adam's place. The armor comes to life and kills their dungeon master. Upon looking at the body, they learn that their dungeon master was Dr. Evil, and by extension, the devil. | paranormal, murder | train | wikipedia | Oh, Skullduggery, you horrible little cow patty of a film.
Your actors are stiff and couldn't read the dialogue for an Ovaltine commercial with a sense of conviction, your plot is incomprehensible and filled to the brim with pompous symbolism no one buts its filmmakers could explain, and in the end, you just plain stink.
But gosh darn it if I don't feel proud to have you in my collection of films.
And honestly, even though you still provide tons of laughs and potential riffing, one aspect of you keeps me coming back for more: your theme song!
I have no idea who was crazy enough to write the lyrics and put it to one of the worst tunes to come out of the '80s, but if I ever meet them, I will be sure to shake their hand (or tentacle) and say, "Thank you.
Feeling just ahead (??) Killer's smile, now I understand SKULLDUGGERY!
The guy making the puzzle (I mean, what the heck does that prove?) This movie makes me want to puke whenever I see it and for some reason I see it often.
The edges of this guy's mouth are turned down so far, that even when he smiles it looks like he's frowning.
Basically, the whole movie is like a bad high school play, and obviously had the budget of one.
All in all, I recommend this movie to fans of truly horrible cinema.
This was probably the worst movie I've ever seen.
This movie was pure crap.
Ugh...I can't even keep writing this, since thinking about the movie makes me want to vomit all over my keyboard.I would never force this movie upon even my most hated enemy.
I cannot conceive how this man wrote this movie, and thought that it was good enough to be directed and produced.
I cannot conceive how any self-respecting actor would read the script and actually take on one of the roles.
It was like a train-wreck in slow motion, so bad that one can't look away, even with the vile hatred of Ota Strichter or whatever his name is building up within one's self.
Seriously folks: This review has horrible grammar and structure because the sucktitude (a word I just made up because there is no word in the English language to describe such drivel) has me in a complete fluster.Do yourself a favour, instead of watching this movie, do something a lot more entertaining than watching this horrendous piece of junk movie, such as gnawing of each of your digits one by one, or, say, slamming your head as hard as you can into a the frame of a car door and then subsequently closing the door on your head as hard as you can over and over.If you'll excuse me though, I have to go shove a burning ember into my nose in the hopes that it will reach my brain and burn the memories of it from my mind..
Pick up stock footage, assemble it at random, and release it as a feature film, and you'll have something easily better than this.So bad, it's not even funny.
The only thing funny is that I watched it, and you can laugh at that..
I loved this film, I am a weirdo.
I rented this film about a dozen times in the late eighties before my video store got rid of it.
No. This film is so outrageously bad, even by bad movie standards.
It's not bad like other bad films.
After reading other reviews, positive and negative, I suspect that a lot of the people who watched it were too stunned to even remember how messed up the continuity was.
This is like three bad films in one (at least parts of three bad films, randomly cut together) As far as I remember, it starts off with the story of the friends roll-playing, then they start to die, before anyone figures out what is happening- Adam starts killing some other people, for no apparent reason, then he goes to a party.
I won't give away the ending, which comes rather out of left field.
(I too used to inflict this film on others, watching it is like picking at a scab.) I can't cast a vote, it's awful and great.
This movie is pure, concentrated evil.I acquired my copy from the dusty back bins of a video store which was going out of business back in 1987.
As a gamer, I tend to collect movies in the "Roleplayer Goes Crazy" genre.
Most of them are pretty bad...but this one has them all beat, in terms of sheer deep hurting.Nevermind the blatant anachronisms--such as the opening scene, set in 14th century England in an 18th century manor house where a 16th century nobleman is killed by a guy in a cheesy 1980's wizard costume.
Nevermind the fact that the lead actor looks for all the world like he's dead, and was animated by black magic just for this movie.
Nevermind the fact that the best actor in the entire movie is a puppet who just hangs there and doesn't do anything.
Even without all of those factors, the movie would just be painful.And yet, it holds a kind of sick fascination, not unlike a car wreck---you want to look away, but you can't.
Do not, do not, do NOT watch this movie and Mazes and Monsters back to back.
You understand, this isn't "so bad it's good" (Criminally Insane), or even "so bad it's mind-blowing" (Troll 2).
I don't care how far into the B-movie universe you've gone.
Please, for the love of God, let this one be.I sat there and observed the entire duration of this film.
There are a lot of bizarre films out there that people joke about the director being on acid, or something similar (Horror House On Highway 5), but really, this is probably it.
If someone was heavily into such a drug, and they just happened to get the idea that making a movie would be a swell idea, then I would imagine that their first attempt at art would turn out something like...
Skullduggery ain't ahead of its time, nor is it too deep to grasp.
it's like watching Nascar, or C-SPAN.
And really, how typical is it that this movie would be released on DVD by Substance.
Hopefully, someday, I will learn to leave well enough alone when it comes to the unwatchables, but you will always be Skullduggery, and nothing will ever change that.
And believe me when I say that I will forever warn other over-confident B-movie enthusiasts of your mind-numbing worthlessness.
One of the strangest movie ever made, probably, an unbelievable mixture of horror and fantasy, with really cheap special effects, bad acting and a terrible scenario.
A few of the deaths are creative, at least, but nothing can save this movie from the depths of the charts, as it is too full of crap to be taken seriously, even simply as a late addiction to the slasher flu that took the horror scene like a tide in the first half of the Eighties.
A movie so bad....
The main character wanders around killing people, but nobody in town seems to notice or care.
The killings have some connection with an ancient curse and/or the "Dungeons & Dragons"-like game he plays.
At least, that's what the blurb on the back of the box claims - I suspected we were cutting away to scenes from another movie at random..
I've seen my share of awful
crappy
utterly trashy films already but this 'Skullduggery' beats them all.
Unfortunately, the disastrousness doesn't stop there
every tiny little aspect about this film is just downright horrible.
It looks like it tries to be a horror comedy
only it's not funny
or scary.
Skullduggery is a mess and it hurts even more to say it's got some potential.
Even though the plot isn't really clear to me (or to anyone, I suppose) it seems to handle about a guy whose actions are controlled by the devil, because there's an ancient curse on his bloodline.
When he's playing a sorcerers-and-witches board game with some pals, he loses all sense of reality
I think.
I have never seen a worst movie.
You will NEVER find a more incoherent, absurd, stupid, and mind-numbing movie than this one!
Our friend picked it up at a video store, and gave it to us after he watched it.
It was like having a root canal for the whole movie, but we sat through it and gave it all we had.We have seen the worst mankind has to offer.
Though the fake 'D&D' sessions make any real gamer laugh, there's nothing to laugh at in this movie.AvP looks like Hamlet compared to this piece of filth..
Yet, I love this movie, not as much as 'Big Trouble in Little China' or 'Trekkies,' but I love 'Skullduggery' all the same.
The entire movie reeks of low budget "student film" and there are more than enough odd characters, stilted dialog and bad acting to make any bad movie fan giddy with delight.
Plus they filmed the entire thing in Toronto, one of my favorite cities.This would have been a perfect movie for MST3K.
I hope that years and years from now, when all the old msties get together and lament the movies that never got the MST3K treatment, this movie will rank at the top.Mind you I don't recommend that you watch this movie in conjunction with any other 'gamer goes crazy' movie, as the consequences for you can be dire.
Yes, I was the one who watched 'Skullduggery' and 'Mazes and Monsters' back to back, and what happened?
You have been warned.Still if you are looking for a movie to 'MSTify' alone or with friends, you can't beat this movie..
I unfortunately own a copy of this movie, and I spring it on people when I'm feeling particularly evil.
;But seriously, the flick looks like the director gave up on it 5 minutes into the movie, and his replacement tried to put as much artsy-fartsy, has nothing whatsoever to do with the movie symbolism as he could.
(although watch for the "Tic-Tac-Toe bathrobe guy, not only is it the director, he always gets cheered at the mass showings).
You know a movie is bad when you have to dub an English speaking actress into English.This movie is prime MST3K fodder!
Just kill me now -- this film was so awful that I don't know how I even managed to sit through it.
Even I (on a bad day) could make a better film than this!
I'm surprised this film even made it off the cutting room floor and onto video..
There's a lot of thins in this movie that could have come straight out of a David Lynch project- constant shots of a creepy puppet, a mysterious man putting together a puzzle, the director walking through dressed as some sort of a technician with a tic-tac-toe board on his bak....
I think that most of the comments on here are negative because no one even bothers to try and figure out what the hell is going on in this strange film.
The acting is really not great, but there's always something interesting to look at (try to figure out how the tic-tac-toe game is being played) and despite what others have said, the music is great.
If you do watch it, I urge you to take your time and actually try to figure the imagery out; there's a good bit of symbolism at work here and I don't think one should simply write this movie off as awfull without at least thinking it over for a while.
Let's get Skullduggery *riffed*!!!.
To all those on the comment boards who were sad that MST3k never got a chance to riff this movie, take heart -- the MST3k guys are back with RiffTrax, at RiffTrax.com, that riffs B movies *and* blockbusters.
What you need to do is create an account at RiffTrax.com (very easy to do, no CC needed), then go to: http://ideas.rifftrax.com, search for "Skullduggery (1983)" in the search box without quotes; 2 hits should come up; VOTE EITHER ONE UP!
I need to see this movie riffed by the best riffers of all-time.
So head on over to ideas.rifftrax.com and LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN..
So I watched this film for probably the third time last night, and there was, of course, no shortage of laughing, MST-style mocking, and general merriment.
This is certainly one of the absolute strangest movies I have in my bad movie collection (which is large).
At the same time, the more I see this film, the more I'm convinced that there is something more going on here than is detectable prima facie.
But I think there are some clues if we look closely.To me I think we need to look at the film as engaging with multiple cultural time periods (as hinted at by the pseudo-philosophical conversation had by the enigmatic might-be-brothers early on at the part).
The notion of reality blending into fantasy (and more importantly, a game) is very interesting and something that I think is still very relevant in our society (e.g. people committing suicide over "relationship" problems in Everquest, the loss of a sense of the outside world (e.g. neglecting children, etc) with similar games).
The fact that the Tic-Tac-Toe man (one of the most interesting and baffling characters in any film I have ever seen) is constantly wandering through the scenes, reminding us that the line between reality and non-reality has been crossed.
Really the whole film deals with this line.I also think that the image on the puzzle that is being put together over the course of the film is interesting.
The image of Adam and Eve is one that is repeated a couple times throughout the film (during the play, on the puzzle, etc.) and so we might ask about what the significance of this is.
Who knows.There is probably more to say here (especially about the Tic-Tac-Toe man, the weirdo magician and the party), but I'll leave it to others to say it.
I don't know that a rating would help anybody with this movie.
It's a freaky, freaky movie, and you ought to check it out.
Watch it to laugh and mock sure, but also try to open yourself to this other layer that may or may not be there..
Remember kids: If you play D&D games, Satan will turn you into a serial killer..
A group of college students get together to play a D&D board game led by an older gentleman (who turns out to be the devil).One of these players - Adam - comes from a long line of cursed men (starting with a king who betrayed the devil).
While Adam is helping out at a community college talent show, he remembers his ancestral curse and starts killing people.Adam seems to think that some of his victims are villains fron the D&D game, but other times its seems that Adam is under a demonic spell, or mentally ill or something else.Sometimes Adam seems to have command of several different magical powers, while other times he seems like a helpess puppet.He frequency changes into different costumes, can tranform theatre props into real weapons and women seem to instantly want to have sex (sometimes very kinky sex) with him.The devil - pretending to be two different men (a older D&D gamer and a rich man named, Dr. Evil) - seems confused about what he wants Adam to do.He wants Adam to kill people, he wants Adam to join some sort of Satantic cult, and he also wants Adam to kill most of cult members...for...some reason....The film lets us watch a large chunk of the talent show (a weird show...
lacking in talent) and the party hosted by Dr. Evil (an even weirder event that seems to suggest the devil likes to hang with geeks, nerds, stoners, and wanna-be young intellectuals.I suspect that the director and writer thought that they were making a clever, avent garde film with a topical, supernatural twist.Mostly, the film is hard to follow, with lots of weird characters and scenes that don't really seem to make sense.When the film pauses to make a point, its either too University pretentious to be taken seriously, or the film tries to make a joke that ain't really funny.One of the D&D players makes so many lame sexual innuendo jokes, he comes off as more shallow then a certain character from the Family Guy series.The local hospital has a doctor who has sex with nurses, while dressed in a Gorilla costume.
Why?The film pauses backstage during the talent show to show us two effemiate gay characters who exist as a "arent them gay people funny" joke.Later on, at the party, two gay characters act as door bouncers who (for some reason) try to rape a woman in a threeway.
Granted, Adam becomes an effective killer (it helps when the police are mostly inept, and people leave dangerous weapons lying around or hanging up on walls).What else is good in the film?The music is actually pretty good (albeit often out of place).
Skullduggery will probably be enjoyed by people who want to "riff" it.
SKULLDUGGERY is a comedy horror from Canada, made on an independent budget and with no discernable sense or storyline to it.
It's one of the cheapest and dumbest films I've seen in a long time, a film which flirts with the then Dungeons & Dragons craze for a while but which mostly makes no sense whatsoever.
A guy goes on a killing spree for some reason or another, but the picture quality is incredibly bad, so bad that you can't even make out what's going on.
The film is dull-witted and inane, and a definite chore to sit through. |
tt0418096 | Rakht | The story is about a young widow named Drishti Nair (Bipasha Basu). She is a psychic and has the gift of seeing into the future of anybody. After her break up with boyfriend Manav (Abhishek Bachchan) who truly loved her but had to move away to a different city, Drishti moves to a small remote village, where she meets Mohit (Sunil Shetty), an eccentric car mechanic who needs psychiatric treatment due to years of abuse at the hands of his father. Mohit has a crush on Drishti, which Drishti is unaware of. She performs the job of Tarot card reading to locals, one of her customers being Rhea Trehan (Neha Dhupia). Rhea is a young woman who is repeatedly beaten up by her husband Sunny (Dino Morea). Rhea pleads for help to Drishti, when Drishti agrees to help her. Until, Drishti's son coming home from school one day and is harassed by Sunny, who calls Drishti a witch. Sunny tells her son to stay away from his mother.
Sunny also breaks into their house and threatens Drishti to stay out of Rhea's life. When Mohit investigates that Drishti is being troubled by Sunny, the two enter a violent confrontation. After the brawl, Sunny is seen nowhere near Drishti. Drishti is living happily, until one day, the daughter of Mayor Raja Bahadur Singh (Sharat Saxena), Natasha (Amrita Arora), suddenly goes missing. Her fiancé Rahul (Sanjay Dutt) comes to Drishti and asks her for her help to find Natasha. Since Rahul is Drishti's son's school principal, she accepts. Soon enough, Drishti sees a vision of Natasha hung to her death opposite a river. Drishti informs Rahul, and the police finally find Natasha's dead body.
On top of this, it turns out that Sunny owns the river opposite to Natasha's death place. Sunny is then arrested, and the case of Natasha's murder is handed to ACP Ranbir Singh (Rajat Bedi) who does not believe in Drishti's gift, and also believes that Sunny is innocent, and the actual murderer is still free. And finally it is known that Rahul is the real murderer. | paranormal, violence, murder | train | wikipedia | Night Shyamalan Indian Style.
Bipasha Basu is caked with so much makeup t'would make Barbie squirm.
Oof. Her acting talents leave a lot to be desired, her Hindustani diction sucks and frankly I do not see her going places in films; at least films with any substance.
Sanjay Dutt gives another wooden performance and Suniel Shetty bores with his mentally handicapped style and dialogue deliverance.
Moraes does come across as a viable villain and is the most believable in this rather predictable and flat film on communication from the beyond.
The most annoying feature of the DVD was the sound that jumped into deafening sound effects and then dropped to very low on dialogue.
A horror film it is not.
The only thing that made me jump was the sound effects which are jarring..
eRakht.
Saw this movie starring some of my favorite stars: Bips, Sanjay Dutt & Suneil Shetty.Medium: VHS @ Home Noticeable: Perfect remake of English movie "Gift".Wonderful depiction and performance from Bips.
The others were fairly standard in their character portrayal.
Catchy locales and opening!
The suspense was very nicely built up for a Bollywood movie.There could have been some better songs and some good sequences but I think the producers decided to keep it a faithful remake of the Gift.
The name, Dhristi was awesome!What's new: Pretty much nothing!
Overall: Great Thriller!
Good climax..
If only I were the director of this movie.
The first thing that I am willing to say is that I wish I were the director of this movie.
Good direction can convert an average script into an admirable movie and poor direction can spoil even the greatest script.
And that's what exactly happened to this flick produced by the liquor-cum-aviation baron, Vijay Mallya; whose plot has been lifted straightaway from a Hollywood movie - The Gift (2000).There is an ancient Indian maxim - JISKA KAAM USI KO SAAJE, AUR KARRE TO PAAGAL BAAJE (one should do that job only which suits him or in which he is skilled; if he does someone else' job, he will be considered mad because he will fail miserably at that).
And that's what I am willing to convey to Mahesh Manjrekar, the director of hard-hitting, realistic and touching movies like - Vaastav, Tera Mera Saath Rahe, Nidaan, Ehsaas, City of Gold etc.
Making a good suspense-thriller is not anybody's cup of tea.
There was a time in Bollywood when brilliant suspense-thriller specialists like Raj Khosla, Raja Nawathe, Shankar Mukherjee, Biren Nag, Raghunath Jhalani and even B.R. Chopra were active in the field who gave us memorable suspense-thrillers like Humraaz, Mera Saaya, Woh Kaun Thi, Gumnaam, Mahal, Kohra, Anamika, Uljhan, Kanoon, Dhund etc.
Now there are no such directors with the exception of Abbas-Mustan.
Mahesh Manjrekar made an attempt to do their job, falling flat on his face.
He could not just handle the brilliant script stolen from The Gift in his inexperienced hands (for this type of movie).
Had Raj Khosla made this movie during the sixties or the seventies, it could have been a classic.It's a murder-mystery with insertion of supernatural element through the God-given capability of the main protagonist (Bipasha Basu) to foresee future events.
She is a single mother (widow) of an eight years old son, other than being a tarot card reader and an astrologer by her profession.
The mystery is of the murder of Amrita Arora who first goes missing and then is found murdered with her dead body lying in a lake.
There are many characters associated with the life of the central character of the movie, i.e., Bipasha, viz.
Sanjay Dutt who is the principal of her son's school, Payal Rohatgi who is her friend, Neha Dhupia who is her another friend, Dino Morea who is a rowdy and Neha's wife-beater husband, Sunil Shetty who is a crazy motor-mechanic and considers Bipasha as his good friend, Shashikala who is her granny and whose spirit comes to bless her after death (Bipasha doesn't know by that time that her granny is no more), Himanshu Mallik who was Amrita's secret lover, Abhishek Bachchan who is her ex-beau etc.
Finally the face of the murderer is revealed, bringing an end to the suspense after many scenes which involve the police activity and the court-room arguments of the lawyers involved too.The treatment of this excellent plot is not at all coherent and impressive and the only face-saving grace is the outstanding performance of Bipasha alongwith some really good scenes (the best one, in my opinion, is the scene in which the spirit of Bipasha's granny, Shashikala gets evaporated into the air in front of her eyes).
Due to poor direction, the movie which could have become an excellent one on overall basis, has been reduced to an assembly of some good and some bad scenes.
It was promoted as a spine-chilling thriller but there is neither any chill for the viewer's spine, nor any good suspense (most of the viewers can guess the real murderer with relative ease), nor any momentum to keep the viewer continuously on the edge of his seat.
The script of a good suspense-thriller should be well-knit and all the incidents being shown on the screen should have a logical association among them whereas the narrative of Rakht seems to be scattering here and there amidst the scenes which have not been sensibly linked and kept in proper sequence.Anand Raj Anand's music is passable.
Two songs are good though.
However these songs as well as the flash-back entry of Abhishek Bachchan only block the flow of the narrative.
Had I directed this movie, either I would have made it sans any songs or would have made the music team prepare at least one good mystery song (in terms of words and composition) deepening the mist in the story.I am a die-hard fan of Bipasha Basu and hence my opinion towards her performance may be biased.
Still the viewers will agree that she is the pivotal character of the story around whom the other ones move in a circle.
And it's her only who keeps the viewer's interest alive in the movie.
Though performers like Sunil Shetty, Dino Morea, Sanjay Dutt, Neha Dhupia etc.
have tried their best to do justice to their assigned roles, the problem is that their characters have not been properly developed in the movie.
They are sketchy and therefore, fail to leave a mark.Cinematography and technical aspects of the movie are more or less OK.
Background score is also OK though I have already mentioned that the movie fails to scare despite the tall claims of its makers.
Besides, it's not a horror movie; it's a suspense movie.Still, I recommend this movie to the fans of Bipasha Basu as well as those who like mysteries very much because though it's not well made, the story is pretty good.
The mystery-fans who have not watched the Hollywood movie - The Gift, may like it as a one time watch.
My overall rating for the movie is 2.5 stars.
It could have become a movie worth the rating of 4 or 5 stars, had it been directed by Jitendra Mathur instead of Mahesh Manjrekar..
If I can see the future?.
God only knows why a director such as Mahesh Manjrekar would make such a movie.
It starts of slightly original and ends up being a direct "rip off" of "The Gift", which stars Keanu Reeves and Cate Blanchett, lifted scene-for-scene.Mahesh is usually a great director doing original material, and this movie makes you wonder why he has gone down this route.
Bollywood needs to steer clear of doing direct rip-off movies, such as Hum Kaun Hai (2004) which is "The Others" with Nicole Kidman.
If they do copy the idea, they should significantly change it.If you have seen "The Gift", a great movie by Sam Raimi, steer clear of this one, but if you haven't, you may like it.
If you do watch it, it'll be for Bipasha Basu (wow) who is always a pleasure to watch, for her beauty and her acting.
There's and a good performance from Sunil Shetty (not playing the tough guy for once).Sadly, 3/10.
So what if it's a remake?.
I don't understand why so many people get bent over if a movie is a remake or not.
If the movie just remake everything right then it'll be enjoyable.Sure the movie is a remake of Hollywood's The Gift.
Even Hollywood movies had been remade before.
No big deal.While watching the film, flashback of the original movie The Gift kept popping in my mind.
It didn't bother me.
I just like to see how Bollywood would pull this off.I loved Rakht.
Bips is a natural and is the best.
Everyone in the film fitted perfectly.
Some argued that Suniel's character was strange but not me.
He was awesome.
The only person I was disappointed in is Yana Gupta!
Yes, she's there for an item number but I felt her item number was overrated.
Give me "One Love" any day!This is a Bollywood style movie so that's why it has a "happy" ending..
Rakht-Bloody bore.
A lot has been expected from this suppose to be a bone-chilling super-natural thriller, especially when it is a product from Mahesh V.
Manjrekar's stable but alas it proved to be a dud.
The only interesting thing in this film is with each happening, you can put a how or why and look for answers till the end.
A mother -cum-widow-cum-tarot card reader-cum-astrologer (Bipasha Basu) not just predict the mishaps of the future but also occasionally helped by souls of dead people.
It's been told that her livelihood is only husband's insurance and people's charity but still she manages to live in a lavish bungalow alone with no servant.
So that whenever she had a nightmare she can shiver alone and cannot run anywhere else for help.
One of the most noisiest sound track (heightened effects) of recent times and a narration is as slow as a snail, what else can be said about this pathetic piece of work.
It makes your blood boil..
I give it an 8 just based on the songs!.
It's an annoying remake of the better film 'The Gift' but the only saving grace for 'Rakht' is the really nice songs that are included.
Especially 'One Love' which is one of the best commercial songs I have ever seen in a bollywood film.
The video for it is nice as well, with Abhishek Bachchan (who is shamefully wasted and exploited in the film) and Bipasha Basu (playing the Cate Blanchett role) picturing the wonderful song with such playful flirtation, it's inspiring!
If the directors were not so preoccupied with doing a scene by scene copy of the former, maybe they would have been able to add some spice to their remake.
My 8 out of 10 stars vote is strictly for the song and dance numbers which are a really nice addition to the film.
The script (however copied and executed) gets a 4 at best!.
Disappointing.
Mahesh Manjerekar has made several films like VAASTAV, ASTITVA after which his films failed to click at the BO yet many got critical acclaim RAKHT made him try horror for the first time and he signed his fav Sanjay Dutt, Suneil Shetty alongwith Dino, Himanshu.etc He cast Bipasha in the main role The film is inspired from THE GIFT however it also is similar to 100 Days(1991) a Hindi film which itself was remade from some Hollywood film.
The film however could've been interesting fails overall.
The start of the film is good, slowly Mahesh introduces half a dozen subplots and all seems well.
They are some interesting characters like Dino, Suneil Shetty.
even Amrita Arora's character keeps you guessing.
One joke is that in the film Bipasha can foresee other people's future but cant help herself.
The film also gets slow paced and the audience gets fidgety.
Even Abhishek's character(was added much later in the film after half the shooting was over) seems like an add-on.
The climax is a downer, with all of a sudden things sorted out in typical Bollywood manner.
There are several scenes hard to digest tooDirection by Mahesh Manjerekar could be better though some scenes are well handled Music is good, Quero is good, One Love is well adapted though not as good as the original, the best song is Jannat hai Yeh ZameenAmongst actors Bipasha in the main role does her role well and suits the part.
Sanjay Dutt is restrained, Suneil Shetty is superb in an unusual role Dino Morea surprises with an excellent performance(kudos to Mahesh) Amrita Arora is superb, Neha Dhupia is okay, Payal Rohatgi is alright Himanshu Malik is not too convincing, he never impressed as an actor otherwise too Rajat Bedi, Sharat Saxena, Shashikala, Shivaji Satham are okay |
tt3908142 | The Love Witch | The film opens with Elaine, a beautiful young witch, driving to Arcata, California to start a new life after the death of her husband Jerry. It is heavily implied that Elaine murdered him. Once there she rents a room in a Victorian home owned by Elaine's mentor Barbara and kept up by its interior decorator, Trish Manning. In an attempt to befriend the young woman Trish takes Elaine to a teahouse, where she's met by her husband Richard, who is instantly besotted with Elaine after meeting her gaze. Hoping to find a new lover, Elaine performs a ritual to find a new man and soon meets Wayne, a literature teacher at the local college.
The two travel to Wayne's cabin, where she gets him to drink a concoction containing hallucinogens. The two have sex, after which Wayne becomes emotional and clingy, which proves to be a turnoff for Elaine. He dies the next day and Elaine buries his body along with a witch bottle. She decides that the next man she will try to seduce will be Richard. While Trish is away, Elaine invites him over to her apartment, where she also serves him a concoction. Afterwards Richard becomes obsessed with Elaine, causing her to break up with him.
Unbeknownst to Elaine, one of Wayne's colleagues has reported him missing, leading to police officer Griff to investigate and discover Wayne's body and Elaine's witch bottle. He traces it to Elaine but falls in love with her and initially refuses to believe that she would be capable of murder, much to the ire of his partner Steve. Elaine shares his love and believes him to be the man of her dreams, even going so far as to hold a mock wedding with her coven at a renaissance faire.
Meanwhile Richard, morose, kills himself in his bathtub, where he's discovered by Trish. Despondent, Trish invites Elaine to tea again and tries on a ring that Griff gave Elaine during their mock wedding, only to forget to return the ring to Elaine. Trish decides to leave the ring inside Elaine's apartment but in doing so discovers a shrine to Elaine's dead lovers—and that her husband was one of them. She's discovered by Elaine and the two fight before Trish leaves the apartment. Elaine then goes to the cabaret to meet Griff, who confronts her over the deaths of Wayne and Richard. He tells her that she is tied to both of them by DNA evidence left in Wayne's witch bottle and that the items Trish gave him implicate her in Richard's suicide. Despite his earlier love, Griff is unwilling to let Elaine go unpunished. Their conversation is overheard by the cabaret patrons who are prejudiced towards witches and try to harm Elaine. Griff helps her escape, and the two return to her apartment where she stabs him to death. | romantic, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | With it fresh in my memory, I was looking forward to seeing 2016's "The Love Witch" - directed by Anna Biller - which seemed like a perfect companion piece.
And she isn't afraid to use all the witchery in the book to get him, but things just seem to keep going wrong, and the men usually end up dead.On its surface, "The Love Witch" is a throwback to those bright technicolor melodramas of the 60's and 70's with occult themes like those in Romero's film.
I'm not familiar with her previous work, but one look at Biller's filmography shows that she's made a habit of paying tribute to exploitation fare of the past, and visually she nails it.Shot on glorious 35mm, "The Love Witch" makes one hell of a first impression.
The set design is wonderfully garish and when you realize that Biller herself did just about everything - from directing to writing, costumes to makeup, production design to editing - it's hard not to be impressed.I was totally on board at the beginning of the film.
Everything creaks to a halt as we watch and listen to flatly shot, mundanely written yammering that means absolutely nothing to the story as a whole.I wanted to get my scissors out and trim this film for Biller.
Her stilted, sedate line delivery and bemused look are frustrating to the point of disbelief, and the people around her wander through scenes like denizens of a poorly acted dream.Ostensibly, the film is about the hold that women have over men with their sexuality...
It's like eating too much candy - the first few bites are great, but after indulging too selfishly, you end up with a stomach ache, which is usually followed by projectile vomiting and violent diarrhea.About 20 minutes from the end, when you feel like the movie MUST be wrapping up soon, you're subjected to another long, tensionless dialogue scene, and it hammers home just how much time you've wasted watching this thing.
A modern-day witch (Samantha Robinson) uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her, in a tribute to 1960s pulp novels and Technicolor melodramas.Making its Canadian premiere at Fantasia on July 16, "The Love Witch" swooped in to Montreal with high recommendations.
Perhaps, this was a budget constraint cleverly used by Biller to the movie's advantage, as self-reflexive moments like these seem to serve as reminders of the artifice of cinema and cultural style.Although The Love Witch is a 'feminist' movie, it's not polemically scathing or mean-spirited.
It´s absolutely drowning in estrogen.The question is, if "The Love Witch" was actually a late 60s film would it be any good?
It might be too long and slow, I´d recommend watching it in the morning, not a popular time to watch movies but a lot films work better that way, and this is definitely one of them..
The first thing I have to say about The Love Witch is that it is one of the most beautiful looking new films I have seen for quite some time.
Director Anna Biller – who also impressively wrote and produced this as well as scored some of it and made a lot of the great outfits – says that the film is supposed to be set in contemporary times but to be honest it never feels this way!
These stylish pulp thrillers hit their peak in the early 70's and much of the visual feel of The Love Witch felt like it was at least partially a homage to the delirious colourful approach these movies embraced back in the day.The story is about an urban witch whose ultimate aim is to get the perfect man.
Biller made the quite valid point that if you want men to listen to feminist ideas in a movie then you really have to include them in a film that they are liable to pitch up to in the first place.
To this end we have a film featuring, on the one hand, a gorgeous seductive sensual witch, while at the same time, some feminist theory added to the mix – so everyone's a winner basically.It could probably be argued that at two hours it's a bit overlong.
into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: first and foremost, this movie is nothing short of a labor of love from Anna Biller, who previously brought us "Viva".
Bottom line: I can honestly tell you that this movie is one of the more unique films I've seen this year, but "The Love Witch" delivers, and then some.I had seen the trailer for this, and recently "The Love Witch" opened at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati.
Anna Biller not only directed this film, but wrote the screenplay, designed costumes, painted set pieces, recorded music, and even wove a pentagram RUG!
Will Griff resist to Elaine's spell?"The Love Witch" is an overrated, unfunny, tacky and annoying film by the unknown Anna Biller that tells the story of the nymphomaniac witch Elaine.
If you happen to pick up this movie, you definitely owe it to yourself to take the time and sit down to watch it.So "The Love Witch" is set in a modern age, yet there is something very 1970's about it, from the way that people dress, the make-up and the hairstyles.
This was the first time that I got acquainted with Samantha Robinson and her talent, and she definitely seems like she could be very well on her way for bigger and greater things in Hollywood.The cast in "The Love Witch" was actually quite good, and it was especially Samantha Robinson who carried the movie.
But the cast in general were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, and the talented performers were nicely cast for these characters."The Love Witch" has an alluring and very fitting music score that really accompanies the movie quite well.Writer and director Anna Biller really had managed to conjure up something quite magical here with what she did with "The Love Witch".
Ranging from dialogue and characters to mood and atmosphere, then it was all a great combination that definitely had been put a lot of thought and effort into.The visuals effects in the movie were also very 1970's, having a very psychedelic feel to it, it terms of color, appearance and function.
I guess this comes down to taste and preferences, but in my view the amount of love and care that has gone into the making of this film comes across very clearly in almost all aspects and I'm sure that Anna Biller and Samantha Robinson must be very proud of the result.
My first gripe and probably the major one, with the way the movie looked and felt, if you're going to make a film so overpowered with a 60s/70s feel then set it in the 60s/70s.
Which reminds me, there is nudity in the film; really not sure why some people are making a bit deal about it, it's pretty innocuous.The overall theme is suffocating love, embodied in the glamorous form of Samantha Robinson, pitch-perfect as the horribly self-involved witch of the title, living in her insane fantasy life.
She is ably supported in this by all the main actors and the director herself, who created the costumes, the amazing rug, the spell book and so much of the background.Maybe 2 hours is a little too long, but I really enjoyed this film and look forward to more from this director..
Shot in gorgeous 35mm (who does that on a small budget these days?) with a wildly delirious color palette and painstaking attention to detail (well, there are a few modern cars in a few shots, but I forgave that against the rest of the film's visual perfection), this is sure to be one of the most talked about cinematography achievements of the year.
Watching this homage to 1970s horror thrillers is very much like turning on a made for TV movie in 1974 or so: the pacing, the acting styles (somewhat stiff and arbitrary), the camera shots, the music, and the only anachronism I noticed apart from the cars was one character's use of a smartphone.
The Love Witch, by writer, director, editor, composer and designer Anna Biller will be the most unusual and exciting film you will be lucky to see this Summer.
There are things in this movie that today's audiences are not used to seeing, everything from older lighting and acting styles, to rear projection, (special mention should be made of David Mullen, the cinematographer, who crafts a visual style that apparently has not been used in decades!) to carefully story boarded shots.
A truly independent film in every sense, The Love Witch, though it does have humor and eroticism in it, is in the end a kind of tragic drama, whose intent seems to be to get we in the audience to think more for ourselves about matters of consequence.
Elaine, a young witch, uses love spells on men in this satire/homage of mid-century melodramas and Gothic romance fiction.
The technicolor is interesting but I don't think it's enough to warrant some of the 10/10 ratings I've seen.....the look and acting style is well done if this film is the parody of the type of film I think it's aiming for but at the end of the day they are copying those old bad movies and that's the end result.....
The producers/director of this film wrongfully thought that by creating a movie that is unconventional but has no plot, moral or script will be pleasing to the audience - boy did they get it wrong or what.
The Love Witch is Anna Biller's second feature film and my first time watching any of her works.
The film really looks and feels like a complete camp 70s throwback and that's absolutely due to the behind the scenes care Biller but into her masterwork.
The film's titular Love Witch is Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a young woman who mysteriously departs San Francisco after her husband Jerry "left" her (the film reveals in flashback that Jerry actually died).
If I could have any production wish for this movie granted, however, I'd love to see it shot on technicolor film..
Biller's love for art is clear here presenting her main character Elaine (Samantha Robinson), whose favourite colour is red driving down the freeway in her red convertible, talking about her life and love in a timely narration giving the audience an unblinking eye.
Her story is simple yet exceptional, we learn within the first few minutes' film that she had a husband who adored her, but after his death she was resurrected as a love witch.
The film's concept sounds simple enough, and it is, but there is a bigger picture as Elaine soon finds out that love cannot be forced or going by the soundtrack which Biller wrote "Love is a beautiful thing." Sure there is a lot to take in but each scene is exceptionally lavish, each moment is pulled through an excellent degree of goodness yes; it's weird but with something this good there's just no turning away.However The Love Witch isn't perfect, there is a flaw, there is a beautiful pictured mock medieval wedding scene that outstays it's welcome, but other than that it's fair to say that this film couldn't be timelier and what a time to come out.VERDICT: Aesthetically colourful, beautifully presented and artfully mastered.
The Love Witch is, for me, a step above anything else in recent memory when it comes to independent genre film, and it cements Anna Biller's place as one of the most distinctive and fiercely original filmmakers working today.
If you appreciate good artistic cinema and love a good story along with beautiful sets and designs and amazing actors I recommend this film it's definitely a breath of fresh air..
The acting comes of for the most parts as awkward, except the star of this movie the love hungry witch Samantha Robinson she absolutely nails it in this femmen fatale role.
And Elaine won't be able to help herself in regard to her new guy.The Love Witch does have the look and feel of a late 60s early 70s movie.
Director Anna Biller utilizes every creative tool in her repertoire as a filmmaker and artist to craft a purposeful, stylistic, visual symphony that serves to enhance the heart-breaking story about a woman who tries everything within her means to get what eludes her the most, true love, in a man's world.Absolutely recommended..
Regarding the previously mentioned "erotic horror", The Love Witch includes some sex scenes, but they are never as explicit as the ones from the films it emulates; and besides, their semi-humorous context makes them seem almost innocent.
I feel like that is something that applies here.Anna Biller calls back to the 60's with films of the Technicolor era.
Everything from the camera techniques, picture quality, costume design, background music, and even the acting make you feel like you are watching a B grade campy, erotic, horror film.
However, if you are a film lover like me I think you will appreciate the sexy look of erotic B-movie madness on display.7.5/10.
this movie wants to be so many things that it's hard not to get annoyed.I feel like drive (2011) maybe was an inspiration, but where as drive knew exactly what it was and kept things in just the right amount to be entertaining and well paced the love witch dragged for way too long and wanted to ad so much more that it just became a bore.
And for the first 15 minutes, till the movie got me, I didn't know what I watched, what I should expect.The Love Witch I guess will split most of the audience into two groups - one group will find the movie extraordinary and genius, the other group will be bored or will maybe feel that the movie is too artificial.
And the 70s style of Technicolor-coloring is really an eye balm and a very hypnotic experience (I don't understand why it isn't used anymore, looks far better at least for certain genres as the modern, digital stuff) and well supported by a fantastic and strange soundtrack.And like the almighty Arnold once stated: "I don't play Conan, I am Conan", for me Samantha Robinson is the perfect Love Witch.Last words: if the movie making industry would deliver more of such experimental and daring movies, that would be just fantastic.
The Love Witch is about Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a gorgeous young psychopath who uses sex magic and witchcraft to find romance, but reaps tragic consequences.
Once again, Anna shot the feature on 35mm film, and the love shows
it's gorgeous, almost Technicolor like.
(Note: The Love Witch is not like those movies in plot, but it's in the same style and spirit.).
The love witch is far too long, but kept me watching the whole way through.
The Love Witch is a little old film where ....
Elaine (played by Samantha Robinson) is a beautiful witch who is obsessed with her own bizarre take on the concept of Love.
The thing to keep in mind about this film is that it might be entirely satire, like Black Dynamite, where the acting/writing/directing/story and effects are all bad purposefully as a homage to the cheap grindhouse movies they are styled after.
I imagine much of it is intended to be a tongue-in-cheek fantasy film but almost all of these intentions fell quite flat, in my opinion.Samantha Robinson stars here as Elaine, who after a troubled marriage becomes a witch and begins to utilize erotic potions on men in the hopes of finding true love, but all it leads to is disastrous consequences.
There's tons of nudity in the film, an explicit sex scene, various erotic seductions, plus a couple of rather gruesome bloody scenes as well.Overall, the movie, written and directed by Anna Biller, can be sumptuous to look at but it never came together for me as anything more than that..
Total crap.I tell you what, the lead female Samantha summarized the whole story for this movie making in her scene with her friend's husband: She is the love witch that seduced all those critics into high-scoring this porn-failure, managed to get many others to share this deed with her and to get away with a 6.4 IMDb false rating.
With director Anna Biller referencing Hitchcock, she brings to attention the realisation that we are about to watch a 'film'.After arriving at a wonderfully creepy looking mansion and being greeted by Trish, played brilliantly by Laura Waddell, Elaine settles into her garishly decorated apartment.
After meeting detective Griff does she finally feel she has met the man of her dreams.Shot on 35mm film, The Love Witch looks glorious with it's eye popping colours shot by cinematographer by M.
We see Elaine led away by her prince on a white horse, the sadness in her face a reminder that her story is stuck in tragic dreamy limbo.If art is an expression of the artist then depending on how personal The Love Witch is to Anna Biller then incorrect criticisms and dismissal of the film's important themes could be viewed as a personal attack on the director herself and not the actual film!
Things fall apart in The Love Witch from the perspective of the characters, but that is simply the action of the other reality manifesting on screen.The movie uses this device often to deconstruct the many themes it explores.
Well i loved Samantha Robinson's acting, it had like this deep feeling and the nice 60s vibe. |
tt0041210 | Brimstone | Revelation
Dakota Fanning plays Liz, who lives with her husband and two children (one is a 14 yr old boy from her husband's prior marriage, the other is a young girl) in the old west. She is a midwife, but is mute and communicates through sign language. A new reverend (Guy Pearce) comes to their church. The moment Liz hears his voice she is terrified. She is convinced the man is dangerous. Eli, her husband does not believe her. Slowly it becomes clear she is right as strange and nasty things start to happen, even though her husband thinks it is done by Nathan, a man whose newborn baby died during labor and blames Liz who delivered it. Liz decides she is going to murder him and sneaks off at night. When she finds her daughter's doll in the bed of The Reverend instead of him, she understands her family is in danger. As she is rushing back her husband Eli gets knifed by The Reverend, and left to die as she returns. Her husband's final request is for his son to take them up in the mountains where grandpa (his father) lives. With a horse and carriage, Liz and her two children manage to flee from The Reverend as he sets the farm on fire.
Exodus
A young girl named Joanna (played by Emilia Jones) walks exhausted through the desert and is picked up by a Chinese family. She's sold in a bar/brothel, in the mining town Bismuth, owned by Frank (Paul Anderson). A prostitute named Sally takes care of her and makes sure Frank and other men do not sexually abuse her. But when Sally shoots a violent customer she is hanged, leaving Joanna behind. Frank has sex with her. A few years later Joanna works in 'Frank's Inferno' as a prostitute and is now played by Fanning, revealing that Joanna and Liz are the same person. However, she can talk. Her friend is another prostitute, named Elizabeth. One day, she bites the tongue of an abusive customer, for which Frank cuts off her tongue as punishment. Now being a mute, Joanna teaches her sign language from a book the doctor gave her. Elizabeth plans to sneak out of Bismuth and makes arrangements through a marriage broker. On a photograph we see Eli and his son. As Joanna is helping Elizabeth preparing to leave, The Reverend shows up in the brothel. He pays to take Joanna to a room where things get violent and Elizabeth runs in with a knife to save her. She saves her from being whipped, but she is killed by The Reverend. Joanna proceeds to grab the knife and slashes the throat of The Reverend. Joanna takes Liz's clothes and identity, and cuts out her own tongue in order to be able go to Eli, who has never seen Elizabeth, and marry him.
Genesis
In the desert a couple of dead bodies are lying around. It is the aftermath of some violent dispute over stolen gold. Two men are alive, Samuel (played by Kit Harington) and Wolf (Jack Roth) are badly wounded. Young Joanna (again played by Emilia Jones) lives with her mother (Anna, played by Carice van Houten) and father, who is revealed to be The Reverend. They are part of a Dutch community who came over from The Netherlands to establish a purer form of Christianity. Anna does not want to go to bed with her husband which infuriates him. As he is preaching in church, he humiliates her in front of the whole congregation and at night he chastises her with a cat o' nine tails. Joanna gets her first period and her father tells her she's become a woman. Samuel and Wolf arrive at the farm and without telling her parents, she hides the outlaws and takes care of them. The Reverend's sexual interests are shifting more and more towards his daughter, who is a full grown woman in his eyes. To prove that to God, he allows her to slaughter a pig. When Samuel gets the chance he murders Wolf, and Joanna sees him strangling him. The outlaw explains Wolf would have done it to him, if he hadn't killed him. He urges Joanna to not be like her mother, who will always turn the other cheek. When Anna confronts The Reverend with his intentions toward their daughter, he beats her up and has a scold's bridle made for her. Anna commits suicide in church in front of the whole congregation by hanging herself. That night Joanna offers herself to Samuel, but he declines. The next day The Reverend takes Joanna to church and starts to perform a wedding ceremony between himself and his daughter. Samuel comes in to rescue her, but The Reverend kills him. Angry she has hidden this man from him The Reverend drags her towards their house through the mud. She screams that she loves Samuel and enrages her father when she admits she lusted after him. After The Reverend whips Joanna, he rapes her. In the morning she runs off, away from her sleeping father.
Retribution
The story returns to Liz (Dakota Fanning). With her children, Sam and Matthew, she is plowing through the snow to go to the home of Eli's father, up in the mountains. When they cross a frozen lake, Matthew is shot by The Reverend and dies. Liz and Sam reach their destination. As Liz is guarding the house, The Reverend shows up again. He tells her that God has provided him with an alternative again and that he will do exactly to her daughter what he did to Liz. When Liz runs in to protect Sam, she finds Eli's father dead; The Reverend already killed him. Liz and Sam try to escape The Reverend yet again, but he catches them. He ties Liz up and whips her daughter. As he is undressing to rape her daughter, Liz manages to break free and set fire to him. With a rifle she shoots him out of the window.
Quite a while later Liz has turned Eli's place into a saw mill where she lives with her young daughter. But Nathan turns up to arrest her. He tells her that it was The Reverend who instructed him to go to Bismuth to start a new life. He became a deputy and when the old sheriff died, the town chose him as the new one. He then found the 'Wanted Poster' of Elizabeth Brundy, a woman without a tongue. It turns out the original Elizabeth killed Frank, just before she turned up to save Liz/Joanna and Nathan is coming to take her back and hang her. As Nathan is escorting her off on a ferry, Liz looks at the unknowing Sam, who seems to be doing fine without her. Not wanting to be subjugated to the will of another once more, Liz decides to throw herself in the lake and drown. When Sam is a grown woman with a child of her own, she thinks of her mother. She has always felt her presence, as though she was watching over her. As she is walking towards the house, it seems somebody watches her from the trees. Sam seems to feel it, looks towards the trees and smiles. She and her daughter go in. | violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0075232 | The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella | Prince Edward of Euphrania returns home after being sent to meet the princess Selena of Carolsveld, whom his parents have arranged for him to marry. However, The Prince reveals he did not propose to the princess he was visiting, and angrily denounces arranged marriages ("Why Can't I Be Two People?"). Edward decides to tell his parents that he wants to marry for love. They, however, are more interested in the political side ("What Has Love Got to Do with Being Married?"). They fail to sway the prince, however.
Meanwhile, Cinderella, on the same day that her father was buried, is banished to the cellar and made to work as a servant to her cold-hearted stepmother and her two vindictive daughters, Isobella and Palatine, who treat her harshly and cruelly. Cinderella finds some comfort in remembering happier times ("Once I Was Loved"). Whilst putting flowers by her parents' grave, she inadvertently stumbles upon the prince, and his friend and bodyguard John, who are visiting the Royal crypt. The Prince sardonically talks about his dead ancestors, with whom he will one day be buried ("What a Comforting Thing to Know").
Back at the castle, the King of Euphrania is advised that a marriage between Edward and a Princess from one of Euphrania's neighboring countries (and thus potential enemies) would help prevent war. A ball is seen as the perfect way to help Edward choose his bride ("Protocolligorically Correct"). The Prince hates the idea, though his cousin Montague is delighted ("Bride-finding Ball"). When news arrives that Carolsveld intends to make war on Euphrania, Edward has no choice but to accept. However, fewer than half the princesses accept the invitation, so the local nobility, including Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters, are invited.
Because of the lack of dresses at the dressmakers, the stepmother and stepsisters demand that Cinderella sew all three of them elegant gowns for the ball from the fabric of their old dresses. Cinderella has no idea what to do. As luck would have it a fairy godmother, who has a talent for sensing the wishes of those who are pure in heart, arrives and creates three beautiful gowns while Cinderella rests. That night, the stepmother and stepsisters depart for the ball leaving Cinderella alone. Cinderella's fairy godmother returns and informs Cinderella that she too can go to the ball. She transforms Cinderella's shabby dress into a lovely gown, arranges her hair in the period fashion, and a coach and horses are magically prepared. Cinderella is sent off to the ball with a warning that the magic can only last until midnight ("Suddenly It Happens"). It is love at first sight when Cinderella and Edward meet at the ball ("Secret Kingdom"). As the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella races away, leaving only behind her glass slipper ("He / She Danced With Me").
Edward sends his servants out far and wide in search of the woman who fits the glass slipper. The search turns out empty-handed. Edward builds a monument for the slipper and hopes that one day his lost love will turn up. John is also suffering as a result of love: he is in love with a noblewoman, but his position forbids them to be together ("Position and Positioning"). He Knights John, so John can pursue his romance with Lady Caroline. Finally, frustrated by his fruitless search, Edward breaks the monument, tossing the slipper into the woods where Cinderella finds and starts to dance with it, which catches John's attention and he rushes off to inform the Prince.
Cinderella and Edward are reunited and greeted by her stepmother and stepsisters. Edward asks the permission of the stepmother to marry Cinderella and she gives full permission, if only to get Cinderella off her hands. Cinderella tells her stepmother and stepsisters that she forgives them for their abuse. In the throne room, Edward and Cinderella go before the King and Queen. Whilst the King and Queen find Cinderella to be charming, something seems to be troubling the King. He takes the Lord Chamberlain aside and tells him that there is no way his son and Cinderella, a non-royal, can be married. The Lord Chamberlain conveys this to Cinderella, explaining also that a military alliance through marriage must be established with one of the neighboring kingdoms to protect them against war and to secure the safety and future existence of Euphrania. Along with this disheartening news, it is also explained that she will have to be exiled that very night. Brokenhearted, Cinderella asks the Lord Chamberlain to tell Edward that she never loved him, because she knows that Edward will try to find her because of his love for her ("Tell Him").
Edward, knowing he's fighting a losing battle, agrees to marry whomever the King and Queen choose, but says that his marital duties will go no further than the altar. Cinderella, living peacefully in exile, still thinks of Edward ("I Can't Forget the Melody"). Her fairy godmother arrives and asks Cinderella why she isn't at the castle as Edward is getting married that day. Cinderella, surprised, asks who Edward is marrying. The fairy godmother doesn't know, as it's most certainly the wrong woman, but plans to set things right--again.
Back at the castle, as the wedding is taking place, everyone is surprised when Cinderella shows up in a wedding gown. The King interrupts the wedding and he and his council meet in private. The fairy godmother joins the discussion and convinces the king to change the law, so that Edward can marry the girl of his choice. In a surprising twist, Edward's cousin and the chosen bride fall in love at first sight, and marry, thus fulfilling the alliance after all. Cinderella and Edward live happily ever after. | romantic, fantasy, historical fiction | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0021015 | Juno and the Paycock | === Act I ===
Juno and the Paycock takes place in the tenements of Dublin in 1922, just after the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, and revolves around the misfortunes of the dysfunctional Boyle family. The father, "Captain" Jack (so called because of his propensity for telling greatly exaggerated stories of his short career as a merchant sailor), is a loafer who claims to be unable to work because of pains in his legs, which mysteriously appear whenever someone mentions work to him. Despite his family's poverty, Jack spends all his time and money at the pub with Joxer Daly, his ne'er-do-well "butty," instead of looking for a job. The mother, Juno (so called because all of the important events in her life took place in June), is the only member of the family currently working, as daughter Mary is on strike and son Johnny is disabled, having lost his arm in the War of Independence. Mary feels guilty about dumping her boyfriend and fellow striker, Jerry Devine, who feels more strongly for her than she does for him. Meanwhile, Johnny agonises over his betrayal of his friend Robbie Tancred, a neighbour and former comrade in the IRA, who was subsequently murdered by Free State supporters; Johnny is terrified that the IRA will execute him as punishment for being an informant. Near the end of the act, one of Jack's relatives dies, and a solicitor, Charles Bentham, brings news that the Boyles have come into a large inheritance; Bentham notes aloud that the will names "John Boyle, [my] first cousin, of Dublin" as one of the beneficiaries. Overjoyed with the news, Jack vows to Juno to end his friendship with Joxer and change his ways.
=== Act II ===
A mere two days after receiving Mr Bentham's news, Jack has already begun flaunting his newfound wealth by purchasing a new suit, new furniture, a gramophone, and other luxuries on credit, in anticipation of receiving the inheritance. The Boyles throw a party and invite Bentham, who is courting Mary. Joxer is present, Jack having already forgotten his vow to break off contact with him, and Mrs Maisie Madigan, a neighbour to whom Jack owes money, shows up after having been invited in Act I. During the party, Robbie Tancred's funeral procession passes the tenement, but the Boyles and their guests halt their carousing only when Tancred's grieving mother stops at their door. Juno goes out to offer support to Mrs Tancred, who delivers a monologue mourning the loss of her son and praying for an end to the war, but Jack selfishly ignores her suffering.
=== Act III ===
Two months later, Mr Bentham abruptly ceases all contact with the family and abandons Mary, who, it is revealed, is secretly carrying his child out of wedlock. While Jack is sleeping, Juno takes Mary to the doctor. Soon after they leave, Needle Nugent, the local tailor, storms into the flat and repossesses Jack's suit. Then Mrs Madigan arrives, demanding repayment of the loan she gave Jack; when he refuses to pay, she takes the gramophone as recompense. Joxer (who was present for both incidents, and did nothing to help) needles Jack about rumours that the inheritance is not forthcoming; this soon devolves into an argument during which Joxer openly mocks Jack's fortune as fraudulent. While Johnny upbraids his father for embarrassing the family, Juno returns alone and delivers the news of Mary's pregnancy. As Juno pleads with Jack to use the leftover money from the inheritance to move the family to a different city, he angrily reveals that they will receive nothing due to an error Bentham made while drafting the will (he failed to include the beneficiaries' names, referring to Jack only as "[my] first cousin"). As a result, numerous relations are claiming the inheritance, which is rapidly being eaten up by legal costs; to make matters worse, Bentham has apparently fled the country out of shame. Johnny berates his father for his shortsightedness and avarice. Unable to cope with the stress of the situation, Jack disowns Mary and retreats to the pub to drink with Joxer. Johnny persuades Juno to follow Jack and beg him to come home. Mary returns, and Johnny disowns her as well. Jerry Devine shows up to patch things up with Mary, but he too renounces her when he learns of her pregnancy. As the last of Jack's fancy new furniture is being repossessed, several IRA men arrive and drag Johnny away; Juno later hears from Mrs Madigan that a body resembling Johnny's has been found on a country road, riddled with bullets. Juno decides that Jack will never take on his responsibilities as a father and breadwinner, so she leaves to make a better life for herself and Mary. She sends Mary to live with a relative and, before going to the police station to identify Johnny's body, delivers a monologue that echoes Mrs Tancred's in Act II. Some time later, Jack stumbles home from the pub with Joxer, extremely drunk and unaware that his son is dead or that his wife and daughter have left him. After a brief conversation, Jack accidentally drops his last sixpence on the floor; he drunkenly mourns that "the whole world is in a terrible state o' chassis" before passing out. | boring | train | wikipedia | Most people don't like this film, not realizing that a) it's one of Hitchcock's very first British films, on a low budget; and b) that it's not a thriller or suspense film, but based on a masterfully written comic tragedy by Irish playwright Sean O'Casey.
Though most seem to think Sara Allgood is the standout as Juno, I particularly like Sidney Morgan's wonderful portrayal as Joxer, and Edward Chapman's performance as Captain Boyle is also very good,But writing and acting aside, this film is not without its flaws.
Obviously on a tight and tiny budget, the quality of film and sound are fairly awful, and Hitchcock's direction and cinematography is less than stellar, with a rash of low shots and cut-off heads.Still, the poor quality of film and filming can be excused for budgetary constraints, and the fact that this is such an early Hitchcock film.
Having been a Hitchcock fan for forty years I have not been able to see this until now, thanks to a very cheap and poor quality DVD.This straightforward fill of Sean O'Casey's play turns out to be a powerful piece of admittedly primitive early film-making.
This is from a time when sound editing was impossible - scenes had to be taken in long takes with four cameras and cut ins added in - very much like studio TV.I am shocked that one reviewer refers to bad photography with heads cut off.
There are camera shots and editing cuts that tell more of the story than any of O'Casey's dialog.Still, I would not recommend this film for anyone who is new to the work of Alfred Hitchcock.
Yes, it's "talky." Possibly because it's a film version of Sean O'Casey's seminal stage play about poverty, class, betrayal and death in the slums of Dublin during the Irish Civil War." Dull?" This film is taut enough that a common votive light becomes as frightening as the appearance of a ghost.
Juno and the Paycock is very much like Sean O'Casey's other filmed work, The Plough and the Stars.
Plough and the Stars takes place during the Easter Rebellion and Juno and the Paycock takes place during the Civil War after the British leave everything but Ulster.The Boyle family who are the protagonists are not the noblest clan ever put on film, but I think a lot of us would recognize ourselves more than we care to admit.
Sara Allgood is mother Boyle, nicknamed Juno who bears all kinds of tribulations for the 90 minutes of the film.
She has one useless husband who'd spend all his time in the pub if he could, a son who's an amputee lost in the fighting, and a daughter who gets taken in my an English solicitor who brings news of an inheritance and then takes advantage of the daughter.Sean O'Casey got good and slammed after these two plays were produced, showing a side of Irish life that wasn't pleasant.
This was one of Alfred Hitchcock's earliest sound features, but it really is a photographed stage play for the most part.
When John Ford did The Plough and the Stars he very cleverly cut in a lot of newsreel footage from the Easter Rebellion giving a real feeling for the times.What Ford did and what Hitchcock didn't do was inject typical John Ford touches in the film so it is more Ford and O'Casey.
It is, like other botched, cheapo versions of Hitchcock's early films, a disgraceful transfer from poor quality source.
Slightly theatrical acting by some actors as they ARE theatrical actors, not used to screen acting which had previously been silent.This is clearly a film of a play and therefore Hitchcock himself wasn't fond of it but he did a superb job as did most of the cast.
Hitchcock's second sound feature is a well done film though it isn't Hitch's usual genre.
Juno and the Paycock is another less than stellar early film from Alfred Hitchcock.
The story is actually quite interesting, revolving around a poor Irish family who begin putting on airs when they think they are about to inherit a fortune.
Sara Allgood and Edward Chapman head up a good ensemble cast as the long suffering wife and lazy, drunkard husband, respectively.
The spars camera work makes the movie seem like little more than a filmed recording of the stage play it was adapted from.
Sean O'Casey's controversial stage play about a shanty Irish family caught up in the times of Ireland's fight for independence get's a rough going over in this Alfred Hitchcock screen adaptation.
Master of suspense Hitchcock seems content to just film the stage play with about half a dozen set ups and few camera movements.
Trained to reach the audience in the rear of the balcony the players are ill suited to the nuance required in this new art form and they remain over the top from start to finish.Hitch does display flashes of brilliance with the new medium of sound in a couple of scenes involving the informer family member wracked with guilt and paranoia but for the most part he plays it safe, allowing his thespians to recite O'Casey's lyrical dialogue which technical bugs trample.Dated as it may be Juno and the Paycock performed on stage can be a powerful theatre going experience with its memorable characters and well balanced tragi-comic theme that rails against social hypocrisy.
I'm not sure a "sophisticated" film version today would do the play the justice that it receives's within the intimacy of the stage where one gets the feeling your sitting in the Boyles parlor.
The movie is based on Irish playwright Sean O'Casey's play of the same name about an Irish family named the Boyles.
Still the cast are members of the Irish Abbey Theatre Company and have performed the play on stage together hundred times.
The film is unlike Hitchcock's other films but yet it is worth watching an early stage to screen adaptation with the original cast of players who originated their roles on stage.
Furthermore I also like the fact that this film is completely different than anything Hitchcock would go on later to do as far as story and style wise in his films.
Early in Kubrick's career, Kubrick did some different styles than his usual signature stuff, and Hitchcock did something completely different than his norm with this film here.
And I want my money back.Maybe this feeling comes from a true disapointment, since the day before I saw Number Seventeen, which starts with an incredibly dull pace, and then turns into a quickly edited fast-paced ending.I was expecting something like that.Instead I got a short length movie that seems more a stage production than a film itself, but with a lack of charm, charisma or its director´s suspense trademark.No to mention the annoying accent of the Paycock.
The worst part with this would have to be the few sections in the film where characters attempt to sing which is truly some of the worst sounds that I have ever heard coming from anything at any time.In conclusion, this is one of the worst films that I have ever seen in my entire life and there isn't a single redeemable quality in it.
Even taking exception for budget and circumstances that would have obligated him to take on this film as an early sound project, "Juno and The Paycock" does little to distinguish the work of Sean O'Casey and even less for Hitchcock.
I don't mind talky films, and I really enjoy good dialogue that was occasionally present in this movie (He can't climb a ladder but he can skip into a bar.), but there were too many (and too long) empty pauses between.You may want to watch 'Juno and the Paycock' only if you need to see all the Hitchcock's movies, or if you are interested how boring movie one of the most interesting directors managed to turn out..
I do say this with a heavy heart, and I love Hitchcock and a vast majority of his films and consider him my all-time favourite director.
Seeing Juno and the Paycock for the first time, as a Hitchcock completest and to see whether it was as bad as I'd heard, unfortunately this was another film of his I didn't care for.
Sara Allgood's performance is the best thing about Juno and the Paycock, commanding and formidable, and she is supported well by a wonderfully outlandish Sydney Morgan and a suitably gruff Edward Chapman.
I was disappointed in Hitchcock's direction here, apparently he was an admirer of the source material(a stage play by Sean O'Casey) but that didn't come across.
While competently directed, the movie is too obviously a photographed stage play (thought Hitchcock tried to open it up).
Juno and the Paycock belongs to Hitchcocks early times when he had no choice for scripts he would get.
This time the master director to come got a great play to shoot for the screen but as Hitchcock knew himself this one didn't get anywhere.The biggest problem is the forced comical features which spoiled also many other tragedies and thrillers on the genius' way to the top.
It's not clear was that the producers demand or just a mistake of young Hitchcock but as it is Juno and the Paycock fades to history as a bad example of movie directing..
You would never imagine that Alfred Hitchcock, of all people, had directed this film of the classic Irish play by Sean O'Casey (1880-1964), JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK (first performed onstage, 1924), set in Dublin during the Troubles.
The cast partially consists of some of the famous Abbey Players from Dublin who originated the play on stage three years before, and the star is the amazing Sara Allgood, who plays the character Juno.
Sara Allgood was a star of Dublin's Abbey Theatre in its grandest days, when the plays of Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, Shaw, and the other leading Irish playwrights were all being performed and attracting the attention of the entire theatrical world.
I had never heard of her before and it has taken me all these years finally to see a film in which she plays one of her most famous dramatic lead roles with great power and magnificence.
His film did real justice to O'Casey's play and captures the very essence of the Irish, with their capacity for deep emotion, bawdy humour, wailing tragedy, poetic way of talking, sheer blarney, and their raw but courageous existences in those days.
As one of the earliest sound films, it is difficult to think of this version of O'Casey's play being surpassed.
At least that's the take offered in this simplistically annoying play by Irish nationalist turned expatriate Sean O'Casey, in a film adaptation by a young Alfred Hitchcock.Escaping from gunfire on a Dublin streetcorner, "Captain" Boyle (Edward Chapman) and pal Joxer (Sidney Morgan) enjoy lives of irresponsibility, Boyle sponging off his wife Juno (Sara Allgood) and daughter Mary (Kathleen O'Regan), Joxer sponging off Boyle.
But the film version feels dated beyond its years, sickly sentimental, cheap, and mean.Hitchcock fans, along with Irish history buffs the only ones with an interest in this production, will find little to chew on here.
Presenting such unsympathetic people and then asking us to care about them is one of "Juno And The Paycock's" two great failures, the other being O'Casey's heavy hand when it comes to dramatic reversals."Take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh" is a repeated phrase in this film.
Juno and the Paycock (1930) * 1/2 (out of 4) Hitchcock adapted Sean O'Casey's play but the end results are fairly poor.
Outside of some great performances we're left with a pretty bland and forgettable film that certainly wasn't what Hitchcock needed.
I'm really not sure what Hitchcock was trying to do with the film because the story is so dull and lifeless.
The technical side of things is also quite messy as the cinematography is poor and it appears they were trying to make the film look like a play but this certainly doesn't help things.
Talky dull filmed stage play....
Despite being directed by Alfred Hitchcock, little is done to make it interesting as a film.
Their children, one-armed John Laurie (as Johnny) and pregnant Kathleen O'Regan (as Mary), are left holding the dramatic potential.*** Juno and the Paycock (6/29/30) Alfred Hitchcock ~ Sara Allgood, Edward Chapman, Kathleen O'Regan, John Laurie.
O'Casey's JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK, considered one of his greatest works, could and should have been a better, more mobile dramatic film under the hand of Alfred Hitchcock who had already produced THE LODGER and BLACKMAIL -- early masterpieces of suspense -- but it seems as though the Director did not really know the material or did not know how to approach such a story in a visual way.
What saves the film from total oblivion is the very theatrical performance of Sara Allgood as Juno Boyle: she carries the emotional weight of the drama that plays itself out, and her outcry at the end is very potent.
Hitchcock would only direct another similarly themed movie called THE SKIN GAME two years later, but it's clear that at this point of his career he was experimenting with sound and would move on to much better films as the Thirties progressed..
"Juno and the Peacock" (or Paycock) is not a movie that most Alfred Hitchcock fans will enjoy, being rather stagey, downbeat and slow- moving, but it does preserve the fine, stagey performances by Edward Chapman (as the Paycock, unrecognizable here in his film debut), Sidney Morgan (the Abbey player, NOT the director as IMDb once contended - I assume they have now corrected this error), Kathleen O'Regan, John Laurie (movie debut), and Sara Allgood.
Although filmed for the most part in long takes, Hitch has opened the play up a bit, which certainly helps the pace.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and written by Sean O'Casey with scenario by Hitch's wife Alma Reville, this successful O'Casey play did not translate well to the silver screen.
Instead, it's a plodding mess, though it does serve as a rather inauspicious (talkie) film debut for the Irish character actor, and future Oscar winner, Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way (1944)).Ignoring the fact that this drama's story is nothing like the director's later works, the film is still completely lacking any evidence of his technique or mastery of the camera (unlike many of his other early films).
The film does precede and resemble in many ways director John Ford's The Informer (1935), but the plot's main thrust is how a poor Irish family's prospects change when they learn they are to receive a substantial windfall.An orator (Fitzgerald) sets the Dublin scene: hard times have befallen this Irish community, but everyone is urged to buck up and pull together before gunshots ring out and the crowd has to scatter.
Former sea Captain Boyle (Edward Chapman) is now the loafer patriarch of one of these families, but his wife Juno (Sara Allgood, reprising her role from the O'Casey play) "wears the pants", though occasionally (e.g. in front of non- family members) she lets him think he does.
The Boyles have a son, Johnny, who walks with a bad hip and is missing an arm from his freedom fighting days.However, the director makes no secret of the fact that it was Johnny who ratted out a compatriot (though apparently not for money, as Victor McLaglen's character does in the aforementioned Ford film).
In his second sound film, Hitchcock forgets everything silent film taught him and simply photographs a depressing, static, one set stage play.
This is not to discount Hitchcock's contribution but the Master had his three-decade streak coming so this can be seen as an early warm-up with the then-rising sound technology, but the film is as close to Hitch' universe as Walt Disney is to Russ Meyer.The story is about a dysfunctional family, the Boyles, the father is a loafer who spends time drinking with his friend (and efficient comic-relief) Joxer and talking about his 'glorious' naval past (he's nicknamed Captain, but his tendency to exaggerate his stories doesn't fool anyone).
Sean O'Casey makes a play of high sociological value, setting the story in one of these brownish tenements our memories usually borrow from Jim Sheridan's movie or sketches about Irish community.
And the dysfunctional aspect of the family, that slap in the face, also extends to the Irish context.The film is set in the midst of the Civil War and it's not just a colorful detail as it opens with a long oration from Barry Fitzgerald praising the people's courage.
It has nothing to do with Hitch' canon yet the fact that it is associated with Hitchcock's name is the film's ironic blessing because this is exactly why most movie buffs will be curious enough to discover one of 'Hitchcock's earlier films, so maybe apart from Irish or British people, thanks to Hitchcock, the work of Sean O'Casey will never totally sink into oblivion..
Before I begin the review, I would like to point out that watching this film isn't easy--particularly for people aren't used to the strong accents.
So the fact that JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK might seem nothing like a Hitchcock film is simply because there was no "Hitchcock Style" yet.JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK is a look at an Irish family and their rather ordinary and stereotypical lives.
The wife, Juno (Sara Algood), is a long-suffering woman who tries to make good with what they've got--which isn't much.
There's the solid mother, Juno Boyle (Sara Allgood); the blowhard father (Edward Chapman), the impulsive and love-stricken daughter (Kathleen O'Regan), and the brooding son who has lost an arm in the service of the Irish Republican Army (John Laurie).Times are hard.
There's only faith itself.I know this is supposed to be good because, after all, it combines Alfred Hitchcock with Sean O'Casey. |
tt0220008 | RoboCop: Prime Directives | Thirteen years after the events of RoboCop, RoboCop has become outdated and tired. Delta City (formerly Detroit) is now considered the safest place on Earth, and he is no longer viewed as particularly necessary.
The first half of the series focuses on Alex Murphy's former partner, John T. Cable, who is slain by RoboCop after his system is hacked to program him to terminate Cable. Cable is then resurrected as a cyborg in most aspects identical to the RoboCop model, save for color and the addition of a second sidearm. "RoboCable" is sent to destroy RoboCop, but after several battles, Cable is convinced to join Murphy. Meanwhile, OCP (on the verge of bankruptcy) is taken over by a scheming executive, Damian Lowe, who manages to murder the entire board of directors. To bring OCP back, he plans to use an artificial intelligence called SAINT to automate the entire city.
The second half of the series introduces Dr. David Kaydick, who plans to introduce a "bio-tech" virus called "Legion" to wipe out not only Delta City but all life on the planet, infecting computers and people alike. He takes control of RoboCable by planting a chip in him that causes him pain or death, at Kaydick's discretion. RoboCop receives aid from a group of tech thieves led by Ann R. Key, who are determined to stop Kaydick, and RoboCop's own son, James – now fully grown and aware of his father's fate. RoboCop and his rag-tag band race to stop Kaydick from infiltrating OCP tower and activating SAINT, which would presumably kill almost all humans. During the confrontation, RoboCop and James reconcile with each other, and manage to rekindle RoboCable's previous personality. Key and Kaydick both die during a confrontation with each other. Utilizing James's EMP device, and having shut down RoboCop, RoboCable and Legion are terminated. RoboCop gets rebooted without his previous OCP restriction programming (as well as restoring his identity as "Alex Murphy" as opposed to an OCP product number) or his prime directives. After viewing a goodbye message left by Cable, Murphy returns to active duty to stop the resultant crime in Delta City due to the EMP pulse blacking out the city, deciding by his own that he will follow his three prime directives: Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law.
In the epilogue, Murphy and his allies form the Prime Directives foundation while OCP is disgraced publicly and facing thousands of indictments and multi-trillion dollar class action lawsuit. | good versus evil, violence, murder, sci-fi | train | wikipedia | At one point, when RoboCop visits his own gravesite, the suit's chin-guard seems to be floating independently from the rest of the RoboHelmet, careening away from Fletcher's jaw by several maddening inches.Furthermore, those who are familiar with Julian Grant's decidedly unimpressive B-movie oeuvre (most especially the utterly dreadful direct-to-video "Airborne") know all too well his pronounced limitations as an action filmmaker.
An uber-cheap, live-action TV-series came and went within a single season and yet another animated show 1998 (selling RoboCop to the kids is like making Bratz dolls based on House of 1000 Corpses!) and one of the worst video-games ever in 2003.
It stomps what's left of Robo right into the maggot-infested mud.The story is hardly worth mentioning but if you're that interested it involves Robo feeling old and obsolete, Delta City politics (now located in Canada, a poor substitute for the real Detroit) and some crazed employee at OCP (the company went out of business in RoboCop 3!) trying to take over with his ultimate doomsday device.
Robo's kid is now a fully-grown exec and his ex-partner (a man with a very, very dodgy moustache) has been killed and made into a new RoboCop. They drag this crap out over 375 minutes and you feel every precious second of it.I could forgive the cheapness if the makers were enthusiastic or spirited or if the actors weren't so bored they are about to keel over and die.
The nobody playing him makes Robert John Burke's performance in RoboCop 3 look Oscar-worthy.
Three movies, a live action TV series and two cartoons later, ROBOCOP returns with a made-for-TV miniseries "ROBOCOP: PRIME DIRECTIVES".
For all intents and purposes, what we have is an ambitious project limited by lack of budget and inexperience of the creative team.Our story begins 10 years after the first movie (ignoring the continuity of the other movies and TV series).
He very visibly pants when tired, swallows hard when scared, he even sweats.So a crappy Robocop headlines 4 made-for-TV movie length episodes of the miniseries.
James must come to terms with the discovery of his father's identity as Robocop as father slowly reunites with son.The overall story is good for its drama.
A huge plus is the miniseries return to R-Rated violence rather than the kid friendly style of fighting in the TV series and Robocop 3.Sadly the execution is less than sub-par.
During action scenes, they come apart at the seams letting you clearly see the black leotard underneath.With this, Prime Directives sounded the death knell of the classic Robocop franchise.
Perhaps in this new century of movies with fast kicking kung fu combat, high tech special effects and tighter narratives, the concept of classic Robocop as a walking tank is in itself obsolete.
Obviously there were fans of the original 2 movies involved, so I'll give them credit for that as well.I do believe, though, that this would have worked much better as a 2-hour movie, with better casting & visuals instead of standardised TV series fare..
If Basil's music could somehow be edited into this movie, I think people would be amazed at the improvement.Robocop 3 was almost as good as Robocop 2 (seeing a trend here?).
However, the movie does have some moving moments, and on the whole did feel like "Robocop."Robocop: The Series was geared towards a younger audience.
Yes, it was juvenile, but it had heart and it still felt like "Robocop." The show's opening music theme was particularly good, an expansion on Basil's original theme.Robocop: Prime Directives was very, very sad for me.
I'd kept up with production on their website, and had heard that the folks involved were big Robocop fans.I was VERY disappointed.As many have mentioned before, Page Fletcher was totally miscast.
Sure those movies and the TV series had their faults, but ALL of them were superior to Prime Directives.
In the first part we have BONE MACHINE, who looks like an old HE-MAN action figure.
This tv-movie is as bad as ROBOCOP 3 - only that it looks cheaper.
Now, they have tried it all: 2 movie sequels, a childish tv-series, 2 animated series and finaly PRIME DIRECTIVES, a mini series, that is quite dark, which is not bad.
The usual Robocop themes of family and greed are here but they throw in some plot points about obsoletion as well which I found very cool.This is a TV production so don't expect any great special effects here but the cinematography is top notch and very moody and it's all absorbing enough to hook you in.Now it has some bad points and most of that comes from the acting.
Page Fletcher looks like a poor man's Dennis Hopper and far too short to be Robocop in the first place.
The 6 hour running time means that the story and plots can really breathe and be fleshed out quite a bit so this adds tremendously to the connection between audience and program.I honestly think that some people watch this and expect the same quality as the films and that just isn't going to happen.Regardless aside from some bad acting and Robo himself being somewhat miscast this is a great pieces of quality entertainment that lasts a good while and there is PLENTY to enjoy here believe me so give it all of it) a shot and if you keep in mind it's production you shouldn't be disappointed.Terrific for tearing into on a binge after the first three films..
I was like 6 years old when I saw the first, and I thought it was one of the best movies I had ever seen, Not the kind of movie that can make another that is as good or even better, but part two stands next to it flawless in every way!!
But as I watched it the first time I started off not knowing what to think, then I heard him speak, they computered over his voice a little too much but I could tell he was even more of a fan of robo than I.
And now I find myself with the thought that I will never see another big budget full production live action feature film with the name Robocop ever again, so these 4 DVD's have to do..
Sure, it's not as violent as the original Robocop and the cast is mostly made up of no-name actors, but dammit, it's so good you wouldn't even care..
The story line is around RoboCop AKA Alex Murphy and his old friend John Cable.
Well, being a Robocop fan is tough: after the first movie you have to deal with the insanity and cruelity of 2 and the silliness and goofiness of 3, then the various cartoons (?) and TV series.
I expected it to be ripe cheese and my only expectation was that it was better then "Black Scorpion." And it was.And unlike every sequel before it, it was GOOD.It takes a while but Page Fletcher does a good Robocop despite being a bit short for the role and having some bad makeup, but with the mask on he plays the part to the hilt.
RoboCop has always seemed like a series ripe to be bad.
All the pacing and excitement of RoboCop 3, but this time with daytime soap actors!Ugh. I'd like to be more in depth, but this show wasn't worth the amount of time it took me to type this, let alone watch it.Steer clear..
After the abysmal critical and popular performance of Robocop 3 and the watered down TV series, it seemed like poor old Robo was out of breath which is probably why a Canadian production company was able to get the rights and made big promises to return the character to it's serious, satirical, blood-soaked roots.On paper, this should've been good; it's now been over ten years since the original film and Robocop is aging, both in his organic and mechanical components.
Delta City is no longer just a dream, but OCP has committed serious managerial errors, imposing a non-lethal crimefighting policy, just in time for a new, very much lethal supervillain named Bone Machine to make his appearance, all while a sinister cabal named Trust is formed within the ranks of the OCP.Problem is that the production falls flat straight out of the gate as Page Fletcher is far too small of stature to fill the Robocop shoes.
The new, second Robocop's costume fits slightly better on the person wearing it, but still doesn't look quite right, thanks to his lips practically bursting through the prosthetics.
Suddenly there's a new villain with a new plan, the cabal within the OCP is almost completely sidelined, and the only plot thread carried through all four mini-movies to the end to any kind of a satisfying conclusion is the James Murphy subplot.I never saw this series on it's broadcast, largely because I don't think it was ever actually broadcast here.
It also never really seems to come up when discussing the character; at most people mention the third movie or the TV series saying "oh yeah that was bad", but this never seems to crop up.
I bought the DVD many years ago and despite having watched it then, I realized I remembered almost nothing about it on my re-watch, but I can now see why that was the case; the story is such a mess and the production values so bad, that to be quite honest, if I had to recommend anybody either this or the earlier TV series, I'd probably go with the latter.
The Only gripes I Have with This Is One, The Robocop Suit Appearntly Doesn't Fit Fletcher Page (His Chin doesn't Fill Out the Helmet's Lower Part,And The Hands Look More like Gloves) And,The Story Is a Little too long; However,If You Can Get Past That And Follow the Story Closely, It's Pretty good!I Liked The Part Of 'ROBOCABLE' Which I Think Really Gave Robocop A Capable Partner; And, It was Smart Thinking For Murphy To Be Able to Re-Connect With His Son; The 'Stealth Accelerator' Mode Used by the Rebels Was a Little Cheesy; Cable's Ex-Wife Was devious, But Oh,So Smoking HOT!I Think It Does deserve a Place In The History Of This Sci-Fi Icon; GO ROBO!.
Shockingly Bad. I watched RoboCop 1 and 2 and they may have been violent, but they were good.
The casting, acting, directing, and writing in this make me want to wish I wasn't a Robocop fan, although I am.
He's shorter than just about everyone in the film, so he looks pretty pathetic.I don't know, maybe it gets better in the second half of the mini, but I don't know if I'll push myself to check it out when it comes on video.
I think, unlike some people that this TV series is good in its category: low budget TV film with more or less unknown actors and actresses, who are not absolutely bad here.
I saw these last installments of the Robocop movies, 1st off it was poor casting, that they heck where they thinking casting a guy was 5'7, Peter Weller was 6'0 and the next actor in Robo 3 was 6'2.
The best past of this line was the character of cable; he made a far better Robocop than the actor they cast.
The story was better than Robocop 3 and the TV series.
Well that's almost correct, try Hollywood North.I'm speaking of the new mini series Robocop: Prime Directives made by Julian Grant and written by Brad Abraham and Joseph O'Brien.I had the pleasure and privilege to attend the theatrical showing of the entire series on Sunday afternoon and it was time well spent.
Along with Grant, some of the other cast and crew were on hand to watch it with us as well, writers Brad and Joeseph, RoboCop himself Page Fletcher, along with Maurice Dean Wint as John Cable and actress Leslie Coles as Ashley St. John-Smythe the MediaNet anchor.The series has it all, action, drama, a bit of horror and the outrageous humour that was born with the original.
Joe and Brad put some more human emotion into RoboCop that I quite liked, it makes you really feel for the character.
I feel sorry for the folks that have to watch it over 4 days, I had to know what was going to happen next right then and there.The special effects were well done, you don't feel like you are watching some cheap quickly shot B-movie.
RoboCop looks used and abused and it goes well with the storyline because they mention that many of his parts are outdated and not even produced anymore, it's 10 years after the first movie.
You can tell that the people involved were fans of RoboCop as they stay true to the feel of the original movie.
Try going into viewing this series in a positive frame of mind, it's *GOOD*.Congrats and best of luck to all who worked on the series!Ed. I'd be lying if I claimed I didn't like and enjoy, if not necessarily all, then definitely parts, of this.
I watched the TV series only because it was Robocop and he's one of my all-time favorite heroes.
It's a shame that people in Old Detroit make so many bad decisions that they end up looking like middle school dropouts who were given positions in power.
Thank God that Page Fletcher wasn't the original Robocop otherwise we might not even of had the next two (the only ones worth watching).
1) the acting is terrible, at first I thought this was just the bad guys, but eventually it turned out that all the actors were terrible 2) the script was awful, it was like someone took a dump, Called it a Robocop sequel and then filmed said excrement.
Murphy regains his humanity once again (a plot thread that was always ignored in each Robocop movie) and establishes ties to his son and walks into the sunset.
This is the best robocop film i've ever seen.Part 1 is a load of rubbish but part 2 was ace.U just have to watch the all to find out who lives and who dies it's grate fun.I find this seires of robos the best plus the spesial efects are the best by far like the seires of 4 films i guarantee that u will love it.
As with RoboCop 3 the violence was toned down to be more family friendly and the character was aimed to appeal with children.In 2000 Fireworks Entertainment wanted to make good use of the rights to RoboCop before they would expire so they decided to make RoboCop: Prime Directives and return the franchise to it's roots by making it dark, violent and satirical like the original 1987 Sci-fi classic.The 4 part mini-series is a mixed bag, it's got it's good points and bad points.
One of the good points is that the RoboCop franchise is back to it's old roots again meaning that the violence and satire isn't toned down.Another thing I liked about RoboCop: Prime Directives was RoboCable, I thought the character was great.
It was interesting to see RoboCop meeting his match.The action was pretty good, it was violent and gritty like RoboCop and RoboCop 2.The acting was okay, it's what you'd expect with a made for TV movie.The music was okay but at times it didn't fit in with RoboCop, the overture theme is definitely catchy and I do like it but it feels like it belongs in a Western and not a Sci-fi.One of the main problems with RoboCop: Prime Directives is the low budget, because of it the RoboCop suit does look like kind of rubbery.
Overall:RoboCop: Prime Directives has it's flaws but it's still an alright mini-series.
I love the franchise, and even found Robocop 2 and 3 somewhat enjoying because of this (though I liked 2 more than 3).
It was also a treat to see his son, fully grown, though I was a bit confused about his story of his past (don't want to include too many spoilers here).Cons: The actor playing Robocop is considerably older than Peter Weller or the guy that played Robo in RC 3.
Lastly, Page Fletcher looks nothing like RoboCop. He is short and has an annoyingly shaped mouth and chin (seeing as that's the only part of Robo's skin that you see, you'd think they'd find an actor with a 'handsome' chin).
He also speaks more like Microsoft Sam then RoboCop. His performance would not have been so bad if the storyline did not keep throwing 'Murphy Memories' at us.
Page Fletcher looks more like an average cop then the cool, sophisticated but compassionate Murphy that Peter Weller delivered to us all those years ago.
This was a good move.Second of all was the unique comic-book plot the four movies delivered.**SPOILERS** In the first movie, Robo has to deal with the villainous Bone Machine (who looks a bit campy but anyway).
But I think I've said enough about the abysmal special effects and Page Fletcher's casting.In the second movie, wouldn't you know it, Cable is now RoboCop 2 (or RoboCable).
On a more negative note however, a lot of focus is put on the 'Cable' character, leading me to believe that the series on a whole has got more to do with him than to do with RoboCop.'Resurrection' was easily my favourite of the four TV movies.
We even see that famous Clarence Boddicker mutilation shot (which has appeared in every live-action RoboCop series or movie ever made).
This is another RoboCop 3-style attempt at making something stupid look like something cool.
It was still more or less enjoyable however, what with RoboCop's grown up son James Murphy now one of the good guys.
It showed us how things ended with Murphy, and they ended on a happy note, which is good.'RoboCop: Prime Directives' is a must for fans of Murphy's plight.
There a lot of bad slow motion action scenes used for "effect" really cheese up the movie even more. |
tt0041085 | Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff | Prominent criminal attorney Amos Strickland (Nicholas Joy) checks into the Lost Caverns Resort Hotel. His murdered body is later discovered by the bellboy, Freddie Phillips (Lou Costello), who is implicated in the crime. Casey Edwards (Bud Abbott), the house detective, tries to clear Freddie, but Inspector Wellman (James Flavin) and Sgt. Stone (Mikel Conrad) keep him in custody.
Seven of Strickland's former clients happen to be at the resort, and they are all suspects. These former clients are Swami Talpur (Boris Karloff), Angela Gordon (Lenore Aubert), Mrs. Hargreave (Victoria Horne), T. Hanley Brooks (Roland Winters), Lawrence Crandall (Harry Hayden), Mrs. Grimsby (Claire DuBrey) and Mike Relia (Vincent Renno). They gather for a meeting and decide that they must conceal their pasts and that Freddie must take the blame for Strickland's murder. They try unsuccessfully to get Freddie to sign a confession: Angela tries to seduce him, but the police stop her when they fear she's poisoned the champagne, then the Swami attempts to hypnotize him into committing suicide but his stupidity saves him.
Freddie and the two police officers, in an attempt to draw out the real killer, inform everyone that Freddie is in possession of a blood-stained handkerchief found at the murder scene. Soon afterwards, several attempts to kill Freddie are made, including gunshots at the window of his booby-trapped room, and locking him in a steam cabinet. Eventually Freddie hears a voice that calls him to bring the handkerchief to the Lost Cavern. There he meets up with a masked figure who offers to save him from the hole he has just fallen into in exchange for the handkerchief. Freddie makes the mistake of telling the mysterious figure that he left it in his room. He is left in the hole, but is eventually rescued by the two police officers.
Back at the hotel, everyone has gathered together and Sgt. Stone returns with some muddy shoes that belong to Melton (Alan Mowbray), the hotel manager, which proves that he was the one in the caverns with Freddie. His motive for the murder was that he, Relia and Millford, Strickland's secretary, were blackmailing the owner, Mr. Crandell. When Strickland found out he came to investigate, so Melton killed him. Millford then sent down the former clients to use as decoys for the police, but Melton killed Relia and Millford to cover it all up. He attempts to escape through a window, but is caught by a booby trap previously set by Freddie. | mystery, murder | train | wikipedia | Much of Abbott and Costello's late 40s/early 50s output put them in parodies of various film genres--this one is a parody of murder mysteries.
We have here the excellent slapstick performances of straight man Bud Abbott and comic genius Lou Costello,combined with the always menacing Boris Karloff,though here he is much more lighthearted of course.Freddy Phillips(Costello)is suspected of murder.Of course we all know he didn't do it,and the hilarious journey to the real killer begins from there.
While this is not Abbott and Costello's greatest effort,it is certainly good enough,and it is a great combination of murder mystery and comedy.
Today's comedy writers and performers could learn a lot from A and C, as well as many others from their era.If you want to know what real comedy is all about,the films of Abbott and Costello are the way to go.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello could probably have done anything, but I'm glad they turned to comedy.
One of my favourite Abbott and Costello films, Abbott and Costello Meets the Killer tells about a series of murders that take place in a ski hotel near a large lost caverns.
The impossible bellboy, played by Lou, is suspected of murder, and the house dick, played by Bud, is his friend and sometimes character reference.
A woman who poisoned her lovers, deftly played by the sultry Lenore Aubert of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein fame, and a phony swami played by the ever affable but eerie Boris Karloff lead the cast of irregulars.
Murder evidence points to Freddie Phillips(Lou Costello), a bellhop.
Because of the great success of "Abbott & Costello" Meet Frankenstein the year before, Universal decided to team their former horror star, Karloff with their top comics.
Boris Karloff played himself perfectly and with the great talents of Bud & Lou, it is a must see Classic Comedy.
Entitled ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF, some purists sniff that as Karloff is not the killer in the film, the title is as misleading as the later ABBOTT & COSTELLO GO TO MARS (wherein they actually go to Venus).
Not only does he attempt to hypnotize Lou into committing suicide (which would enable the police to drop an investigation at a hotel where Karloff is stuck in), but he is also a former homicide case defendant who was acquitted thanks to his lawyer Amos Strickland (Nicholas Joy).
it is a murder mystery comedy, but here the suspicion against Lou (an incompetent bellhop) is more realistic than in the earlier film.
All of them happen to be at the resort too, so they are also suspects.The film has some nice set pieces in it, mostly handled adroitly by Costello - such as a drag sequence where he attracts an admirer, and has to play cards with a corpse.
It turns out that this film is included in Volume 3 of the Best of Abbott and Costello DVD set.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello star in this classic "who done it" movie.
Fans of ABBOTT and COSTELLO should enjoy this entry, even if the title is a bit misleading--and even if BORIS KARLOFF doesn't get to be quite as menacing as you might want him to be.
Suspicion points to bellboy COSTELLO, and in a script that has ABBOTT as a house detective, you can see that poor Lou is gonna have a hard time proving his innocence...especially when dead bodies keep popping up everywhere wherever he goes.It's not as funny as WHO DONE IT?
Also stars Boris Karloff who sided out playing the Frankinstien monster in Abbott and Costello meet Frankinstein10/10, highly recomended..
Be it Freddie (Costello) being too stupid to be hypnotised by the shifty Swami (Boris Karloff), or a wonderful sequence of events down in the creepy caverns, it's fun and very diverting.
Abbott and Costello are one of the best comedy duos on film, and there are some great entries of theirs, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein being a contender for their best.
The gags are well-timed and funny though, especially the dressing up in drag, Costello being hypnotised by Karloff and playing cards with a corpse.
There is a very nice mix of zany comedy and suspenseful mystery elements, the dialogue is snappily written, the film looks good and is directed in a way that allows the stars to have fun and the story to breathe while not leaving things out of control.
Overall, not among the greats with Abbott and Costello but makes for good fun regardless.
This is another awesome bud Abbott and Lou Costello film and because of all the same reasons it has great comedy in it the acting is good in it the actors are good in it it has a good story line to it.
Boris Karloff does a great villain in this bud Abbott and Lou Costello film everything is good about this movie.
so i'm sure you will not be disappointed with bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet the killer.
I'm only slightly familiar with Abbott and Costello, but I enjoy seeing their movies from time to time, particularly those involving Universal horror film stars like Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., and - in this case - Boris Karloff.But, as other reviewers have noted, Karloff has only a glorified cameo in this movie.
There are simply tons of characters who drift in for a scene or two and then disappear...it's most disconcerting.But I suppose all that stuff doesn't really matter, since Costello is funny and cute and Abbott makes a good straight man.
Some of the gags are quite good, and the chase sequence in the caverns boasts some great sets and funny slapstick moments.So it ain't no classic in the final analysis, but I've passed dull evenings with plenty of worse movies..
I love the part when Swami Talpur (Boris Karloff) tries to get Freddie (Costello) to commit suicide while under hypnosis.
Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949) **.
As a major fan of Bud, Lou and Boris, I have tried to enjoy this film on numerous occasions over my lifetime.
It's not the worst thing Abbott & Costello ever did, but it's certainly not one of their best; and it's easily one of Karloff's least if you're interested in catching it just for him.Abbott plays a detective in a hotel who investigates dimwitted bellboy Costello, who gets tangled up in a murderous web of events.
The story is too hotel-bound most of the time and the laughs are not plentiful, especially when the favored "gag" of the picture is repeated so many times that it quickly becomes monotonous: Lou keeps finding dead people popping up all over the place.
When famous criminal lawyer Amos Strickland (Nicholas Joy) turns up dead at Crandall's Lost Caverns Hotel, bumbling busboy Freddie Phillips (Lou Costello) finds himself chief suspect, having earlier threatened the victim for getting him sacked.
With the help of hotel detective Casey Edwards (Bud Abbott), Freddie tries to prove his innocence, but finds himself getting even deeper in trouble, dead bodies turning up wherever he goes.Comedy duo Abbott and Costello go through their usual broad comedy routine, Bud playing straight man to foolish funny man Lou. If you like their schtick, you'll probably have a whale of a time with this caper, but I found it all a bit repetitive, much of the humour revolving around the dead bodies repeatedly turning up in unexpected places, with Costello struggling to remain calm.
Amusing the first time, perhaps, but wearing extremely thin after an hour of the same thing over and over again.A change of scenery for the final act is very welcome, as Costello goes to the Lost Caverns to meet the killer (who is keen to get his hands on a vital piece of evidence), but it doesn't make up for the monotony of what has gone before.
It says a lot that Universal horror star Boris Karloff, as a sinister swami, is funnier than the leading men, uttering the best line of the whole film with a marvellous deadpan delivery: "You're going to commit suicide if it's the last thing you do"..
Sixty Years Later And Still Plenty of Fun. Costello plays a bellhop who gets himself caught up in a murder and soon becomes the number one suspect.
He was the one thing missing in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, so it's nice that the boys could finally do a movie with him.
Abbott's the hotel detective and Costello's a bellboy who keeps getting into trouble.
Suddenly dead bodies are popping up all over the hotel and all clues point to poor dumb Lou. Very funny comedy murder mystery.
ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER (Universal-International, 1949), directed by Charles T.
(1942), this edition borrows heavily on their recent comedy thriller, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948), but not to the same results.
Even though the complete title is often labeled, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF, Karloff's name, which forms together through drips of blood on the screen far beyond the title, cannot really be regarded as part of that title, at least in my point of view.
Regardless of the setup, Karloff, looking more sinister than usual, does get his first of two opportunities in an Abbott and Costello comedy, where his scenes, mostly with Costello, come ever so briefly.In true horror-like fashion, the story starts off in the dark of night during a heavy thunderstorm.
He encounters Casey Edwards (Bud Abbott), a hotel detective, and his cousin, Freddie Phillips (Lou Costello), a bumbling bellboy at the front desk.
With such an interesting premise, and perfect casting of Abbott as the cigar smoking detective and Costello the accident prone bellboy, this should have developed into a great comedy mystery.
Further moments of "black humor" occur as Karloff's turban wearing Swami attempting to have Freddie commit suicide through hypnotism; and Aubert's Angela, a reputed husband killer, tricking Freddie into signing a murderous confession by getting him drunk on what might possibly be poisoned cocktail.While the first portion of the film has its share of laugh-out-loud scenes, the second half disappoints as Costello's character becomes sillier, straining for laughs.
One funny line, "We don't permit murders in this hotel!" sounds more like Abbott but goes to Alan Mowbray.
The set up booby traps and Costello disguised as a chambermaid and being flirted by character-type Abernathy (Percy Helton) are amusing enough for an honorable mention here.As with all Abbott and Costello comedies, MEET THE KILLER has become available on both video and DVD.
THE WHITE RABBIT'S REVIEW OF ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF.
Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff- **1/2Although occasionally funny at times, this Abbott and Costello movies seems to get really slow and boring.
Given his actual role in the movie--a role by some reports that was originally supposed to be played by a woman--it's kind of hard to argue that point.Karloff is only a minor player in the overall scheme of things--and perhaps Boris' reasons for taking the part was his way of trying to make up for not playing the part of the "Frankenstein Monster" in Abbott and Costello's legendary first "Meet" picture.In any event, as I've said elsewhere, this film was produced during that time period when A & C's feature films were becoming very hit or miss.
There are some funny scenes--particularly amusing was when the cops & Bud think Lou has been poisoned & Bud proceeds to pour a whole bunch of solutions down Costello's throat.Still, this film is very heavy on plot & seemingly light on Abbott and Costello action.
Now that I think about it, most of the "Meet" pictures, aside from the first were pretty underwhelming & this is coming from a longtime Abbott and Costello fan.5 stars.
Abbott & Costello play Casey Edwards(the hotel detective) & Freddie Phillips(the hotel bellhop) who get mixed up in murder as someone has murdered the boss, Mr. Strickland, and Freddie is the prime suspect because he had just been fired, and publicly threatened him.
Now forced to prove his innocence, he and Casey investigate the crime, which has many suspects, including Lenore Aubert and Boris Karloff(of course) who plays a swami trying to convince Freddie to kill himself, in order to stop the police from investigating.
This fails, and the real killer is pursued to a dangerous cavern in the film's spooky climax, which is really the best thing about this haphazardly structured comedy thriller.
Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949) ** 1/2 (out of 4) A man at a hotel gets Costello fired from his job so Costello threatens him, which doesn't sit well later when that man turns up dead.
Even though there are many strange characters at the hotel, including a swami (Boris Karloff), all the blame gets thrown towards the little fat guy.
Apparently this film was intended to be a Bob Hope comedy but after the success of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein the studio wanted another "meet" movie.
There are some very funny sequences including one where Costello has to play cards with a dead guy and another sequence where Bud and Lou must try to hide a body but things keep getting in their way.
Other scenes, like the one where Karloff tries to get Costello to kill himself, doesn't work as well as it should.
A truly diabolical "caper" with Abbott and Costello who have to be the two unfunniest men who have walked the face of the earth.Karloff plays a "swami" type and is subjected to all the obvious "are you" and "dosent he look like" jokes from the fat one.No further explanation is needed and if you are into these two outdated borish men then there is no help for you ...if you are interested in Karloff go and find a better film with him in...there are much better things to do in life than subject yourself to this claptrap like having your eyes removed with a wooden spoon and drinking sand..
Despite the title being 100% misleading, this is among Abbott and Costello's better films.
No, Boris Karloff is NOT the killer and he is only a supporting character and so putting his name on the title (as was done in many cases) was deceptive and makes this appear to be a horror flick, while it's actually a murder mystery.
As if its reputation wasn't bad enough with the help they hire there, mainly Abbott&Costello.Bud's the house detective and Lou's a bellboy.
People are always doing that to Costello, but later Joy is the first one who winds up dead.Joy was a high powered criminal defense attorney and as it happens in all these murder mysteries there's a hotel full of suspects who might have a better motive and more upstairs to plan things better than the hapless Lou. But Lou being the patsy he always is gets the attention of police detective James Flavin.
If he's not the guilty party which he isn't, than why do it?I really did like the cavern set where Lou has an extended scene with the masked murderer who is trying to get a tell tale clue from Costello.
Still Abbott and Costello Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff is not a bad one for the guys..
The movie was a little disappointing for this fan of both Abbott and Costello and Boris Karloff.
The Swami is at his best in that sequence where he tries to get Freddie Phillips (Costello) to commit suicide, but as literal as Lou's character is, things just never work out.
The story, taking place at an out of the way hotel, is loaded with murder victims and even more suspects, a lot like the Charlie Chan films of an earlier era.
Bud Abbott plays the hotel detective Casey Edwards here, and isn't nearly as antagonistic to Lou as he'd been in other movies.
Then, they play a card game with them, later dumping them on the elevator.For some reason(?), all the former clients of Mr. Strickland who have gathered at the hotel(why?)want Lou dead, even though none of them is the murderer.
Two things I just love - old murder mystery movies and Boris Karloff.
Can Bud and Lou find the killer before they're killed themselves?This isn't deep - it's just good old-fashioned fun.
One of my favorite moments has to be watching the great Boris Karloff working with Costello in the hypnosis scene.
It's hard not to like an Abbott and Costello film but this one has a rough time balancing it's themes.
For starters the film doesn't feel like Abbott and Costello were meant to be in it.
This film actually thinks people pay attention to this stuff and so Bud and Lou spend a fair amount of time talking about evidence and police work.
Good comedy needs no intricate explanation and this is the only Abbott and Costello film that really does this.
I don't really care about anyone but Bud and Lou. The film can't have it both ways.
I compare this film to 'Meets Frankenstein' in that Lou while being funny does generally look terrified.
It's hard to dislike an 'Abbott and Costello' film too much because they are so funny and deliver so much into their comedy.
Boris Karloff mention in the title play a swami and may or may not be the murderer.All sorts of other wacky characters appear in and out of the action, before me to highlight of this scene between Loul, in drag, and flirtatious hotel guest Percy Helton who won't take no for an answer and tries to interfere in a card game between Lou and four murdered men.
Yes there are some good laughs, but it's all pretty unbelievable.Lenore Aubert, who played the van in the previous years Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, is back for a second go around. |
tt0037509 | Along the Navajo Trail | Deputy U.S. Marshal Roy Rogers poses as a wandering poet, finding and defeating a group of bad guys who, for reasons they keep to themselves, are trying to oust a girl and her father from their ranch. As the plot develops, it is revealed that they want the ranch so they can sell it to a company that wants to run an oil pipeline through a mountain pass at the edge of the property.
Roy comes to the town of Padre Wells, leaving his guns at his squatter's camp on the Ladder-A ranch. He gets into a fistfight with Rusty Channing, a cowboy from the Bridle-Bit ranch who is harassing a gypsy girl and her boyfriend. After defeating Channing, Bridle-Bit owner J. Richard Bentley advises Roy to bring his guns the next time he shows up. Roy returns to the Ladder-A, where he forms a relationship with the owner's daughter Lorrie Alastair, and moves into the bunkhouse. Lorrie's father has been shot in the arm by the bad guys who are after his ranch. A range war ensues, with Roy, the Ladder-A group and the gypsies on one side, and the Bridle-Bit gang and bad guys from the Santa Fe Oil Company on the other. The gypsy girl briefly has a crush on Roy, but his heart belongs to Lorrie. Ultimately there is a showdown at the Bridle-Bit, with the bad guys having the upper hand until the gypsies race in and save the day. Roy and Lorrie openly fall in love and live happily ever after. | murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt1440129 | Battleship | In 2005, scientists discover in the Gliese system an extrasolar planet, which is named Planet G, believed to be the closest planet to Earth having conditions nearly identical to Earth. In 2006, NASA completes the construction of a transmission device in Hawaii that is five times more powerful than any before it, and a program to contact the planet, known as The Beacon Project, begins.
Meanwhile, slacker Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) gets arrested while attempting to impress Sam Shane (Brooklyn Decker), daughter of U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Terrance Shane (Liam Neeson). Infuriated at Alex's lack of motivation to better himself, Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård), Alex's elder brother and a naval officer, forces him to also sign up for the U.S. Navy.
In 2012, Alex is a hothead and disrespectful lieutenant and Tactical Action Officer aboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS John Paul Jones, while Stone holds the rank of commander and the Commanding Officer of USS Sampson. Alex is in a relationship with Sam and is in danger of receiving a disciplinary discharge from the Navy. Their ships join the 2012 Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) in Hawaii.
During the exercises, five alien spacecraft arrive in response to the NASA signal. Their communications ship collides with a satellite and crashes in Hong Kong, causing heavy casualties and damage while the other four (a mothership and three alien warships) land in the water near the coast of Hawaii. Sampson, John Paul Jones, and the JMSDF Kongō-class destroyer Myōkō are ordered to investigate. Upon arrival at the indicated location, they discover a massive floating structure. Alex and two crew members, Raikes (Rihanna) and Beast (John Tui), are sent to approach the structure in an armed Zodiac.
When Alex touches the structure, it knocks him away, and generates a massive force field that encloses the Hawaiian Islands, separating the Navy ships from the RIMPAC fleet. Then, the alien warships appear from underwater and face the three Navy ships in a defensive posture. Under Stone's orders, Sampson issues a blast from its foghorn, but one of the alien warships answers it with a damaging sonic blast, forcing Stone to order the John Paul Jones to fire a warning shot. This causes the alien warship monitors to reevaluate the Earth ships' friend or foe status, changing the color for the Navy ships from green to red and the alien ships respond with shots of their own. In the ensuing engagement, both the Sampson and the Myōkō are destroyed and sunk, and the John Paul Jones is badly damaged. In the ensuing crossfire, the Captain, the Commanding and the Executive Officers of the John Paul Jones are all killed.
From the Zodiac, Alex sees his brother die in the explosion aboard the Sampson and returns to his ship. Being the most senior officer left on the ship, he is forced to take command, to his own disbelief and the disbelief of the crew. Now seeking revenge for his brother's death, Alex angrily orders an attack, but Beast manages to dissuade him. They recover the survivors from Myōkō, including Captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) with whom Alex is in a rivalry. The structure launches shredder-drones towards Hawaii, which attack and destroy military and civilian infrastructure installations on the island of Oahu.
In Oahu, Sam, a physical therapist, is accompanying retired U.S. Army Colonel and double amputee Mick Canales (Gregory D. Gadson), on a mountain hike to help him adapt to his prosthetic legs. Sam and Mick run into some police officers who order them to get off the mountain. The officers head up the mountain but they are ambushed and killed by the aliens. Later, Sam and Mick run into scientist Cal Zapata (Hamish Linklater), who works at the communications array and informs them that the aliens have killed his grad student and taken over the communications array. They then realize that the aliens are modifying it to reestablish communications with their home planet; their shredder drones' attacks on the island's infrastructure was intended to prevent the military stationed on the island from responding.
On the John Paul Jones, naval personnel capture a semi-unconscious alien from the communications ship. The alien attacks Alex when startled by a bright light in its eye and forms a brief telepathic link with him, showing him that they have successfully attacked and conquered other planets. Other aliens arrive to rescue their captured comrade. One alien stays onboard, intending to sabotage the ship, and Alex kills it by tricking it into the firing line of a 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 gun. Investigating the captured alien's helmet, Ordy (Jesse Plemons) is able to determine that the aliens are sensitive to sunlight.
Ashore, Zapata recovers his spectrum analyzer from the aliens. He is confronted by one in the process, but his lack of action from fear causes it to not consider him to be a threat and lets him go. Using it, Sam and Mick contact the John Paul Jones crew and inform them that in four hours, the aliens will be able to contact their planet.
Now under Lieutenant Hopper's command, the John Paul Jones prepares to retaliate. As the force field has disabled their radar functions, Captain Nagata suggests using NOAA's tsunami warning buoys around Hawaii to track the alien warships. Using this strategy, the John Paul Jones destroys and sinks two of the alien warships using standard missile, but are unable to hit the evasively maneuvering third warship. At dawn, they manage to make the third warship face East, where Alex and Nagata shoot out its bridge windows. Blinded by sunlight, the warship's crew is disorganized. Seizing the chance, the John Paul Jones successfully destroys it with its full arsenal, but the ship becomes targeted by shredder-drones. The crew abandons the John Paul Jones, which is rapidly destroyed by the shredder-drones and is sunk.
Alex, along with the survivors of the John Paul Jones and Myōkō return to Pearl Harbor and commandeer the USS Missouri, a decommissioned battleship turned into a museum ship. They reactivate the battleship with the aid of the retired veterans preserving her, and confront the massive floating structure, which is revealed to be a part of the submerged Mothership. In the ensuing battle, the Missouri's 16-inch main guns severely damage the mothership, disabling the force field in the process. Meanwhile, Sam, Mick and Zapata attempt to stall the aliens at the communications array. The Mothership reactivates, and prepares to fire shredder-drones. Instead of shooting the Mothership, Alex uses the last shell to destroy the communications array, cutting the aliens' contact with their home planet. Before the Missouri is destroyed, Australian F/A-18 fighters from the RIMPAC fleet arrive and destroy the shredder-drones and the mothership, eliminating the alien threat.
A ceremony is held by Admiral Shane to honour the military personnel, where Alex is promoted to lieutenant commander, and presented with a Silver Star and his brother's posthumous Navy Cross. After the ceremony, Alex is given an offer to become a Navy SEAL. He then asks Admiral Shane for his daughter's hand in marriage. The admiral initially refuses, but then invites Alex to lunch to discuss the matter, referencing how Alex and Sam met.
In a post-credits scene, three teenagers and a handyman in Scotland discover a crashed alien pod. When they open it, an alien hand reaches out, and they run off in terror. | good versus evil, violence | train | wikipedia | Nothing slows down a good action flick like a damn love story in the background, or the hero dealing with his feelings or, worse still, putting brats in the line of fire.
1. I came in with low expectations - I was expecting something horrible, boring, long and pointless, but despite myself I liked it, I laughed at the jokes, I connected with the actors (yes, Rihanna too), I was excited by the action and while clichés the plot held my interest 2.
So in conclusion, "Battleship" is a fun, corny, typical summer movie that I like but as you see a lot of people didn't.
Even the idea that the movie is based on Hasbro's classic board game of the same name is rather disingenuous: yes, there is a battleship involved in the action, almost all of which takes place at sea, but other than that any resemblance to the game we all grew up playing seems purely coincidental.
Taylor Kitsch, who stars as Lt. Alex Hopper, is an empathetic hero whose struggle to overcome his personal weaknesses is ultimately played out with the fate of the world at stake when he finds himself and the crew of his Navy destroyer in the wrong place at the wrong time—and smack in the middle of an amphibious alien invasion.
One can only hope that if Rihanna pursues further acting roles, she'll improve
a lot.The plot isn't deep, but it does have some positive aspects, incorporating elements of personal redemption, self-empowerment, and self-sacrifice, all concepts that more movies would be well-advised to advance.
In reality, Neeson has almost a bit part (in fact you see most of it in the promotional adverts), clearly there to increase sales of the movie; with the bulk of the 'acting' coming from Taylor Kitsch.A ludicrous start with Kitsch playing a 27 year loser who, on the recommendation of his brother (Alexander Scarsgard) joins the Navy, suddenly to become at Lt Cdr - The script is clearly written by someone with no military knowledge or experience and that the actions, demeanour and interaction with all that are supposed to be military personnel, is a non sense.
However, it gets worse;with aliens that have made there way to earth with great looking craft,that impressively rise from the ocean (great CGG) - you see it on the commercials for the movie, the only weapon they possess are melee type Armour - pretty ridiculousreally and by this point the movie has lost any form of credibility.
I also liked how they used real military and vets for this film..they can't act very well but you'll find it in your heart to forgive that..too many "SH*T" bombs in the movie..I think if you make a movie about "SH*T" then you can say it...other wise leave out all the bad language, same goes for "F**K": they call that porn..ha..
Story is the least important element here, so lets just say that in between all the sweeping helicopter shots and blinding lens flare, an international Naval war games exercise is interrupted by alien invaders, and it's up to reckless officer Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) to save the day.
BATTLESHIP's strange juxtaposition of bombastic special effects framing ancient board game mechanics simply doesn't sit right, and it's hard to imagine the teen audience, so crucial for success at the summer box-office, tearing themselves away from the latest CALL OF DUTY to embrace the turn-based 'excitement' of this ridiculous film.
But this one has aliens which were strangely absent in the original source material.Ridiculous as it sounds on paper, BATTLESHIP was made and here we have a passable summer time killer.The special effects in the movie are impressive; I watched a regular screening so I can't say much for the 3D.
The editing in the action scenes was a bit choppy but thankfully this does little to hinder the fact that they're nice to look at.The movie wasn't advertised as having a thought provoking story or anything serious; the crew behind the movie knew that they made it to be nothing more than a popcorn movie that doesn't take itself seriously which is why unlike CLASH OF THE TITANS the special effects don't seem to be a hindrance to the simple story.
Though I just wish someone took the time to improve the alien design which looked like it was cheaply ripped off from a video game.But the story itself isn't even worth mentioning; sure, it's a simple alien invasion but that's about all it is, there's nothing more to it.
Even for a simple alien invasion movie the dialogue the characters said seemed forced; never do they connect to the audience in some way so when someone goes down or when someone's in danger, you don't feel anything.
The script is just bad; it looks like it was written by a kid who thought that the "cool stuff" (video game looking aliens, cheesy dialogue meant to sound deep, witty one-liners, etc.) should be added into the movie and that's why those were there.
Cheap and cheesy dialogue makes the already flat cast of characters even more uninteresting; try not to groan while watching any of the "romantic" scenes or the obligatory patriotic scenes as seen in any movie made involving the military.
It simply was not as bad as everyone says it is.I liked the choice of actors even the two from Friday Night Lights.The guy who played the injured sailor was pretty funny.And what's a movie without your resident geek.
If you are looking for something like that then watch "On Golden Pond" or "Eat Pray Love", not a movie about battleships and aliens......
This is my only recommendation after wasting 2 hours and $130 in the Cinema with familyIf you have seen the trailers that's all the action you will see in this poorly written and directed movie..Seems like 90% of the money has been spent on making the trailers and marketing to dupe in the audience.
It does not get better until you walk out of the cinema scratching your head and scream at someoneDon't expect any more action other than what's in the trailers -that's about 30 minutes in this two hour dragyou can sleep through the whole movie and won't miss a thing.
To be honest, when I saw the first trailer for this movie I wasn't excited about it all, it just seemed like another terrible Transformers sequel, but some friends dragged me along and somehow convinced me to watch it and I'm totally glad that they did because it was actually a pretty decent summer blockbuster!
It shows both sides of the story, not just the Humans but the Aliens' point of view too, this is what was quite unique about it and makes it different to all the other crappy action films out there e.g Transformers 2 and 3.
All in all I think that Battleship isn't as original as a film like Inception but it's still a great summer blockbuster and it's definitely worth watching on the big screen.
I'll end saying that it a complete waste of your time seeing this movie but still, if you want to get angry and don't know how it's a good therapy.
Peter Berg and Universal execs probably envious of big box office profits of latest trend of Michael Bay Aliens vs US Army , decided to adapt another of Hasbro titles , old "Battleship" game into a movie.
Taylor Kitsch was not too bad in John Carter but in Battleship his character is worst kind of stereotype , suffering from Captain Kirk syndrome) but like in GI Joe it does not help.
But a year from now I doubt anyone who watched Battleship , basically Independence Day made for 2012 season ( come to think of it Roland Emmerich could also direct this ) , will remember that they paid cash to see it without embarrassing themselves.Universal just expanded 200+ million dollars for a bad militaristic seasonal product.
Overall, average actings from all the casts.The highlights of the movie is not the special effects but the 'tactical art of navy war' skills that the crews of the battleship is showcasing.
Next we switch to him joining the navy to fight aliens – now she is impressed.Funny thing is that my experience with girls who look this good is that they don't hang around bars alone - there is generally an ape of a boyfriend watching her every move from the far side of the room.Script was predictable junk and the main players were devoid of any character - yawn.Maybe Hollywood script writers should read some Philip K Dick, Azimov or Pohl and (unlike I robot,)actually stick to the story..
Not going to spoil anything but if you're a fan of a good action/adventure like Transformers (the first one), Terminator, I,Robot etc then you'll find this quite the enjoyable movie.
2 Hours of my life waisted watching this, The acting was hammy, It was just pure crap, Taylor Kitsch must feel, the visual effects are done quite well, Liam Neeson can't even save the movie although I'm sure he is walking away with a cheeky grin and a few million for his appearance in this car crash, the casting of Rihanna was a mistake (well we all knew that from the get-go) The so called 'humour' scenes were unbelievably cringey and you just could not help but shake your head while witnessing it.
and especially the addition of the 'cool' f**k yeah this is America soundtrack, Creedence at the end and AC/DC in there tooI had a lot of sympathy for Taylor Kitsch especially since this was going to be a big year for him as Hollywood actor after John Carter bombed, but in this you can tell the guy is as wooden as a desk.I'm ashamed of myself after seeing this movie and even more ashamed I didn't walk out..
The way the alien technology worked doesn't make sense, so tonnes of plot holes in the storyline as well but I suppose you could say that about a lot of big budget films...
The casting of this film was awful, Taylor Kitch I did not mind in his previous John Carter, but he did not seem the same in this, Alexander Skarsgård played his half brother who looked absolutely nothing like him, if they made a big budget only fools and horses, here are Del-boy and Rodney...The film has some great effects but I did not like any of the macho Navy seals and the love story was dull with no chemistry between them..I think I wanted the Aliens to win about half way through to I could go home.
The Special effects are good and it has some enjoyable moments but they are few and far between..Give me Transformers any day of the week, a lot better then this drivel..One good thing, Rhianna was good in it, hope to see more of her in movies, best thing in it by a mile..If your still single love, look me up ;-) otherall..A generous 2 out of 10 because the special effects where great, pity about the actors and the story, but at least America saved the world again..Yawn.
I agree with the review of perkypops who writes:'Take a lot of CGI, a plethora of big names, throw in some awful acting, a very poor script, a collection of forgettable characters, and a couple of hours you want to throw away, and you have "Battleship".' That says it all.This film is a load of cr*p.
The lead actor is a joke; a blond bimbo is just as bad.Rihanna should stick to singing and Liam Neeson is a tw*t who is there to pick up a fat pay check.He is the same character in all his ham movie performances.Talk about getting millions for being dreadful.The only reason I give it one above the minimum is that somehow I was able to get to the end, plus a few half decent special effects.2/10.
Taylor Kitsch had a bad acting entire movie, plus cliché of "no aliens can conquer us" films.
But if you are looking for an action movie for a night in with a someone than this could be a good choice.I went in thinking it would be silly but I did not know it was supposed to be based on the board game until the movie was over.
He has twisted this concept idea adding rubbish cgi aliens basically look deformed transformers on steroids with a hint of Micheal bay explosions syndrome trust me my mind has turn into jelly!omg did this director in particular ever proof read the script with his team to clarify his stupid mindset which is a insult to our intelligence, for instants here is the stupidest line in the history of film making.this guy called Stone Hopper & his brother Alex Hopper talk about their goals in life, so suddenly Stone Hopper strikes a glance at this blonde girl walking past him wanting a chicken burrito at the bar, so Stone Hopper says "whats your name?" and the blonde girl response was "i am hungry" lolavoid this movie like the plaque trust me cinema goers Worst movie of 2012!.
Although Liam Neeson wasn't in as many scenes as perhaps people wanted, he was a very dominant character and was definitely present all the way through.I had a great time watching this movie and would recommend it to anyone..
This film is so bad i don't know where to start.The first 30 minutes are pointless and should have been cut.The acting is non existent,Rhiania is laughable,in fact after 40 minutes i thought it was a comedy and was expecting Leslie Neilsen to be the captain of the US fleet.It reminded me of the film Aeroplane,i did laugh out loud at Rhiania walking around trying to shout orders,but it was more of a squeaking mouse.The high ranking crew of the ship are aged 25-30,which looks wrong,there is 80"s top gun music all the time which is really annoying,How 200 million was spent on this garbage is anyones guess.I looks at what awards the film has got before viewing it,IMDb says 11,i thought that cant be right after seeing the bad reviews,and wondered if it was for razzes,sure enough,nominated nearly every award.If you like rubbish like Transformers then Battleship is for you,but if you are over 10 years old watch any over movie except this it would have to be better.
i went to watch this movie thinking i will get the same feeling as watching the first transformers but i was bitterly disappointed.at the beginning of the film you might think that you are watching a chick-flick or a ROM-com.the acting was so lame.the special effects are damn good but it was too cheesy.there is no real flow between the scenes and a lot to leave you confuse.all in all it was a show-off of the US Navy ships.
We have, for example, an alien life form that is supposed to be SO far advanced as to have ships that can travel light years through space, hide in plain sight on Earth, not getting picked up by radar, and destroying the world instantaneously and yet the are so easily destroyed by 80 year old WW2 veterans on seriously outdated and old ships built in the 1930's and 40's Now, I am in no way trying to downplay the war veterans, but this movie was stupid and pointless.
It is a pity those guilty of making this entertaining joke of a film forgot to redact their names from the credits.Take a lot of CGI, a plethora of big names, throw in some awful acting, a very poor script, a collection of forgettable characters, and a couple of hours you want to throw away, and you have "Battleship".
I had half wanted it to turn into a Hawaii travelogue but by then I didn't care.If you like to laugh out loud in all the wrong places this film will do you a lot of good and is recommended to see just to prove singers cannot act, and the movie business has no taste..
It's just a bad storyline, but the movie has great special effects and a lot of action.
It is a noisy, clichéd and unbearable piece of trash that exploits the work of CG artists and paying customers who just want to be entertained.A simple way to describe Battleship, is that it's basically a $200 million naval recruitment video that was made by a schizophrenic 8 year old who likes video games and things going Ka-Boom.The main heroes in this movie are indeed American navy sailors, but the one thing the film-makers really failed at is making these people likable and realistic.
I think it's actually pretty plain awesome!- and how they worked the BATTLESHIP game into the movie is pretty cool.The man who lost his legs gets the chance to fight again & be the hero, the 90 year old retired vets get a chance to save the day, the story between the main character and his girl is actually pretty cool- and when Liam neeson says NO when he asks for permission...
I didn't go in with any expectations on the acting, the characters or the story all i was hoping for was a good action loaded movie with cool effects that you just could just turn of your brain to and enjoy.
I don't know, so my conclusion (becuse the movie is based on a board game...) is that they just went to earth to play a real match in battleship...and then we have the characters.
At first sight, it just seems like another brainless Transformers movie, but when you're given the creative and complex story of Battleship and the battles that do take place, you are watching something new.
The 70 year old battle ship at the museum they had to use replacing there battleship that was destroyed had more gun power??Finally it was very poor acting from all character's.This film should have not hit the cinema's.. |
tt0026752 | Mutiny on the Bounty | One night in Portsmouth, England in 1787, a press gang breaks into a local tavern and presses all of the men drinking there into naval service. One of the men inquires as to what ship they will sail on, and the press gang leader informs him that it is the HMS Bounty. Upon inquiring as to who the captain is, another of the men is told the captain is William Bligh (Charles Laughton), and attempts to escape, as Bligh is a brutal tyrant who routinely administers harsh punishment to officers and crew alike who lack discipline, cause any infraction on board the ship, or in any manner defy his authority. The Bounty leaves England several days later on a two-year voyage over the Pacific Ocean. Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable), the ship's lieutenant, is a formidable yet compassionate man who disapproves of Bligh's treatment of the crew. Roger Byam (Franchot Tone) is an idealistic midshipman who is divided between his loyalty to Bligh, owing to his family's naval tradition, and his friendship with Christian.
During the voyage, the enmity between Christian and Bligh grows after Christian openly challenges Bligh's unjust practices aboard the ship. When the ship arrives at the island of Tahiti, where the crew acquires breadfruit plants to take home, Bligh punishes Christian by refusing to let him leave the ship during their stay. Byam, meanwhile, sets up residency on the island, living with the island chief, Hitihiti (William Bambridge), and his daughter, Tehani (Movita Castaneda), and compiling an English dictionary of the Tahitian language. Hitihiti persuades Bligh to allow Christian a day pass on the island. Bligh agrees but quickly repeals the pass out of spite. Christian disregards the order and spends his one-day off the ship romancing a Tahitian girl, Maimiti (Mamo Clark). Christian promises her he will be back someday.
After leaving Tahiti the crew begins to talk of mutiny after Bligh's harsh discipline leads to the death of the ship's beloved surgeon, Mr. Bacchus (Dudley Digges), and Bligh cuts water rationing to the crew in favor of providing water for the breadfruit plants. Christian, although initially opposing the idea, decides he can no longer tolerate Bligh's brutality when he witnesses crew members shackled in iron chains, and he approves the mutiny. The crew raids the weapons cabinet and seizes the ship. Bligh and his loyalists are cast into a boat and set adrift at sea with a map and rations to ensure their survival. Due to Bligh's steady leadership, they are able to find their way back to land.
Meanwhile, Christian orders that Bounty return to Tahiti. Byam, who was in his cabin during the mutiny, disapproves of what Christian has done and decides the two can no longer be friends. Months later, Byam is married to Tehani and Christian has married Maimiti and has a child with her, while the rest of the crew are enjoying their freedom on the island. After a long estrangement, Byam and Christian reconcile their friendship. However, when the British ship HMS Pandora is spotted approaching, Byam and Christian decide they must part ways. Byam and several crew members remain on the island for the ship to take them back to England, while Christian leads the remaining crew, his wife and several Tahitian men and women back on board Bounty in search of a new island on which to seek refuge.
Byam boards the Pandora and, much to his surprise, discovers that Bligh is the captain. Bligh, who suspects that Byam was complicit in the mutiny, has him imprisoned for the remainder of the journey across the sea. Back in England Byam is court-martialed and found guilty of mutiny. Before the court condemns him, Byam speaks of Bligh's cruel, dehumanising conduct aboard Bounty. Due to the intervention of his friend Sir Joseph Banks (Henry Stephenson) and Lord Hood (David Torrence), Byam is pardoned by King George III and allowed to resume his naval career at sea.
Meanwhile, Christian has found Pitcairn, an uninhabited yet sustainable island that he believes will provide adequate refuge from the reach of the Royal Navy. After Bounty crashes on the rocks, Christian orders her to be burned. | action | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0087682 | Maria's Lovers | In the spring of 1946, Ivan, an American soldier, returns home psychologically scarred after spending some time in a Japanese prison camp during World War II. Once back in his small Pennsylvania town, Ivan settles in, trying to put his life back together while living with his stoic peasant father.
Shortly after his arrival, Ivan looks for his childhood sweetheart, Maria, a beautiful woman who is taking care of her old deaf grandmother. However, he is disappointed to find Maria in the arms of Al, a captain. Ivan's father thinks that Maria is too good for his son, but perhaps good enough for himself. He pairs his son with Mrs Wynic, a flirty neighbor. Ivan has sex with her, but he is tormented by the traumas of the war. He tells her that it was his dreams about Maria that allowed him to survive the prison camp.
Ivan is given a hero's welcoming by his community, formed by immigrants from Yugoslavia. During the celebrations, when Al goes to dance with one of Maria's friends, Ivan grabs the opportunity to get close to her. Together they leave the party in his motorbike, heading for their favorite spot of years ago. He gives her a pair of earrings that he planted there for her, before leaving for the war. The next morning, Al is furious and breaks his relationship with Maria. Ivan's goal is fulfilled and he marries Maria in an orthodox ceremony, but his dream of a happiness shared with Maria is soon broken. Having adored Maria for so long from afar, now that they are together, Ivan is unable to consummate their marriage, disturbing their happiness.
Maria works as a nurse and would like to have children. Deeply in love with Ivan, she has to deal with her increasing sexual frustration. On the advice of Clarence, a drifter singer passing by the town, Ivan reaffirms his sense of manliness with Mrs Wynic, with whom he is not impotent. Maria discovers Ivan's infidelity, and a terrible argument ensues between them. Al invites the couple to his engagement party to Maria's girlfriend. In the middle of this gathering, Al breaks off his engagement, realizing that he is still in love with Maria. Al and Ivan have a confrontation. Ivan offers to let Al have Maria, but to demonstrate his own love for Maria, he puts his hand in a burning stove. Maria, very much in love with Ivan, tells Al that she does not love him.
Maria heals Ivan's hand, but the unhappiness between them increases further. She is pursued by Clarence who tries to seduce her, but she remains faithful to Ivan and resist Clarence's advances. One day, unexpectedly, Ivan ups and leaves town by train. Moving to a new city, he starts work in a slaughter house, making new friends. Left to her own devices, Maria finally succumbs to Clarence's advances, but immediately vehemently rejects him, consequently getting pregnant. Maria searches out Ivan and tells him of her pregnancy and of the death of her grandmother, but Ivan is now cruelly indifferent towards her.
Whilst out with his friends one night, Ivan meets up with Clarence. Clarence does not remember him and tells the story of how he seduced Maria, and that she later refused to have anything further to do with him. Furious, Ivan hits a still incredulous Clarence.
Ivan, still tormented by nightmares of his war experiences, is visited by his father, who tells Ivan that he is dying and that he must come back to Maria. Ivan returns home, admitting to Maria that he loves her baby. Now that Maria's chaste image has vanished, she and Ivan are able to make love for the first time. | romantic | train | wikipedia | A signature Nastassja Kinski film..
Set in the immediate post World War II in the small rural picturesque American town of Brownsville, Pennsylvania among Yugoslavian immigrants, `Maria's Lovers' follows a young soldier with the name of Ivan Bibec, played by John Savage, who has been discharged from the Army, into his home town.
The film seems to unfold slowly upon first viewing, but that is misleading because it has been very tightly edited and one can only pick up some of the nuances of the film by watching it a second and/or a third time.
Nastassja Kinski is Maria Bosic and is the central character in the film.
The supporting cast is first rate with Anita Morris, Robert Mitchum and Keith Carradine.
The film has a European feel to it because of the direction of Andrei Konchalovsky, meaning that it is sparse and compact, yet exquisitely framed.
Early on, Ivan marries his sweetheart, Maria, and the rest of the film deals with love and infidelity and how it impacts the two main characters and their marriage.1984 found Nastassja Kinski in four film releases: `Unfaithfully Yours' a nice light comedy, `The Hotel New Hampshire' (a Nastassja disaster in which she initially appears in a bear costume and is so happy to escape it that she does one cartwheel at the end of the film), the Wim Wenders' legendary `Paris, Texas' in which she appears in the last part of the film, and then there was `Maria's Lovers' in which she was the featured and marquee performer.
In `Maria's Lovers,' Nastassja has to carry the film in a very difficult role that would stretch any actress's abilities and skills.
Of the forty plus Nastassja movies that I have seen, this is probably her best role and performance.
Nastassja's Maria is textured and rich with innocence, shyness, passion, vulnerability, and character strength.
If anything, Nastassja Kinski is chameleon like because she so easily blends into the film and yet her character is quite distinctive with depth, dealing with the irrationalities of love, intimacy, and infidelity.
In a sense, `Maria's Lovers' is an end point for Nastassja because she was finally able to integrate everything into one performance.
There is little question that Nastassja Kinski is foremost a dramatic actress of unparalleled skills that can be subtle or dynamic or anything in between when on the screen.
Coupled with her singular striking beauty and expressive eyes, she is a package that very few actresses can ever hope to equal.
Nastassja intuitively knows how to move on screen, have the proper inflections in her voice, use her face and eyes as an ever changing canvas, project intelligence and sensuality, and be charismatic with great screen presence.
This was nothing less than a superb performance..
Beautiful film nobody know s about ----.
Saw this film long ago and thought it was beautiful and moving.
It was imperative to understanding this film to know that during the time the husband was imprisoned, Maria's picture had become a religious icon for him.
SHe had become a saint in his mind, and therefore the problems resulting with him unable to treat Maria as a real woman after his return from the war.
It is important to know that Orthodox religions pray through the Saints.
Her picture was the only thing he had to keep sane during his prisoner of war years, so it was of immense importance.
THe short black and white war scene at the beginning of the film had to be considered very carefully before one could understand the horrors this man had endured.
It is important to realise, especially today, that men come back from war changed, although we stay the same..
Savage Love.
One reason to want to watch this movie is to see perform one of the most talented actresses of her generation, Nastassja Kinski.
Others: Her traumatized husband coming back from WWII, a perfectly suited role for Mr John Savage.
The plot is simple and misleading, The scenes full of suspense yet stealing our breath at the least expecting moment.
This movie reminds us of what acting used to be and how subtlety creates miracles.
Simple and excellent..
You dreamed about her too long..
"Maria's Lovers" is, first of all, a beautiful-looking film.
Juan Ruiz Anchía does a fantastic job photographing the film, making wonderful use of light.
Scene after scene is brilliantly framed and shot, at times feeling like a series of photographs.
Anchía and director Andrei Konchalovsky make a great team.
But this is essential to make a film such as this watchable, because the general attitude of virtually every character is endlessly frustrating.
Most are motivated by sex, some by fear, some by greed, some by possessiveness, some by misguided innocence.There are no particular flaws in any of the performances.
Kinski, Savage, Mitchum and Carradine create characters of real depth.
There are times when "Maria's Lovers" has the overpowering sense of being made in the mold of the great classic tragedies.
Which is to say, everyone is more miserable more often than is entirely likely in real life.
But I could be wrong, and perhaps there are lives which very closely parallel those shown here.
Either way, it is a supremely difficult, painful, intense, and ultimately believable picture.
To the right audience, it could very nearly be considered perfect.
It's a clean, true, human depiction..
Love, sex and the distance between.
I haven't seen this since it came out but I still talk about it when discussing the nature of love.
It deals well with an issue I believe many people can relate to: the fine line between love and hate.
The whole point [I believe] of the movie is to illustrate how John Savage's inability to make love to his wife is because he loves her too purely and only once that innocent worship has been tarnished can he consummate his marriage and love his wife completely.If you've ever wondered why your best sexual memories are of people you didn't love then this movie is for you..
Anguished and moving story.
A World War II soldier (Savage) returns to marry his old lover (Kinski) but his inability to father a child leads to the destruction of their marriage.
The couple goes through a series of tribulations before coming together again.
Savage gives a so-so performance as the tormented husband who loses the will to commit to the sanctity of the marriage bond.
Kinski gives her most versatile and inspired performance ever as the anguished wife.
If anything, watch her.
The director, Andrei Konchalovsky, is actually Russian.
The movie is a pastiche of styles from American and European film-making.
Strong powerful storytelling through the chronology of time tinged with the emotional pathos that is typical of most European films.
In the end, the mix is a bit jagged and mismatched, but this doesn't stray from an otherwise strong and moving movie..
An Obscure Treasure.
Nastassja Kinski evokes something in the viewer.
In Maria's Lovers, she is able to transform from an adolescent sexual lolita to a captivating experienced woman.
I viewed the film in a foreign language so I just examined the characters, pacing, lighting, and what I witnessed was an obscure treasure from the 1980's.
Nastassja Kinski was in her prime in 1984.
She was an eccentric actor to the American audience, ravishing, spell binding, odd.
Maria's Lovers is beautiful and lyrical, a film that lingers in the mind, asking questions and relating to moments of lovers.
A fascinating study.
The directing and cinematography are graceful.
I love when we see Maria for the first time.
She is so captivating and yet, something else...not sure what...something cool and refreshing.
A Film for the Registry..
Of eyes, rats and a chair that survives time in an empty field!.
What an underrated film!Symbols: a chair in an open field that survives years, the lure of eyes of a woman/wife, and a bleeding, pregnant rat!This is a film about love between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife--and how it lasts for ever.This is also a film about a dying father and son, of a mute elderly mother and a daughter.The chair, the eyes, and the rat are all essential to the film.
The chair is repeatedly shown.
Eyes are mentioned by Ivan's father about Ivan's dead mother.
Eyes are essential to the song sung twice by Keith Carradine's character.
Rats are symbolic of past, present and future of Ivan's sexual life.Into the film, perceptive viewers could compare and contrast the two different reactions of Ivan when two Maria's lovers taunt him.
Yet the film is more about Maria and less about Ivan.
Very Russian, very European, though the settings are American.
The soul of Russian literary giants permeate through the film.
A lovely shot towards the end is the silhouette of father (Mitchum) and son (Savage).
You can get the feel of Tarkovsky's friend and colleague at work.
It is sad the film has not been noticed/applauded better..
Someone call Leslie Bricusse.
The director is credited with the song "Maria's Eyes", but having just seen a theater version of Dr. Dolittle, I heard a song that sounded too similar for coincidence: "When I Look in Your Eyes", written by Leslie Bricusse.
However, I'll grant that the original lacks something by being sung to a seal instead of Natassja Kinksi.Aside from the musical borrowing, you have to admire Konchalovsky for wanting to tackle the material, revolving around small-town characters and impotence; he really brings out the dignified melancholy of a rust-belt town with steep streets, passing freight trains, weak sunlight and beautiful countryside.
The movie is uneven in places, mostly from the performances: Kinski seems unsure whether to play her character modestly or with sashaying allure; Savage has a tough job playing an unsympathetic character, but sometimes makes it worse with explosive histrionics; Mitchum is stuck with bad dialog ("those eyes").
Raising the movie above these problems is a good basic story, affecting shots and images, and the majority of Kinski and Savage's scenes together..
Do Or Divorce.
Maria's Lovers casts Natassia Kinski and John Savage as a pair of young Slavic second generation Americans in Western Pennsylvania who get married after World War II and presumably like most will live the American dream happily ever after.Not quite so happily though because Savage has some real issues and who wouldn't after surviving a Japanese prison camp.
In fact his well meaning but quite fatuous father Robert Mitchum asks Savage why didn't he try and escape.
This was obviously a man who had seen too many American gangster flicks where Cagney/Bogart/Raft are always crashing out of the big house.Mitchum is fatuous about that, but he does say to Savage not to rush into things.
As well he shouldn't with his issues.
Wedding night comes and he can't do the deed.
Which leaves Kinski looking for a little love in all the wrong places.
And charming itinerant entertainer Keith Carradine picks up on it.The issue of impotence and its infinite number of causes was dealt with a lot better in the British classic film, The Family Way. It's not as simple as it is made out here where Savage's very manhood is called into question and it's a do or divorce situation.
Best in the film is Keith Carradine who is really quite amoral.
Makes his character from Nashville look like an Eagle Scout.
And of course Robert Mitchum always adds something to any film he's in.I have to say though I was left as unfulfilled as Natassia on her wedding night..
Too distant to get involved.
The term "Cannon art film" may seem like a kind of oxymoron if you are familiar with the typical product producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus made when they ran the Cannon studio.
But they did make a few dabs towards artistic productions, this being one of them.
And there are some good things to say about this movie.
Despite being a low budget movie, the period detail is pretty good, and so are the rest of the production values.
The acting by everyone involved is also good, with Keith Carradine the actor who steals the show.Unfortunately, I could not get involved in the central story involving the Kinski and Savage characters, mainly because we are kept at a distance from them.
We never really get to see what makes them tick inside their heads.
Also, the movie is stretched out far too long (the running time is 109 minutes) - a somewhat shorter running time would have made the movie better.Don't get me wrong - this isn't a BAD movie.
It never became boring, for one thing.
But it does end up being somewhat of a disappointment..
the old country.
Maria's comment about meeting Ivan as a little girl when her family immigrated to USA from "Yugoslovia" can not be accurate; as the time-line for the scene is Spring 1946 and "Yugoslovia" as she describes it was initiated 29 November 1945.Remarkably well done cinematography.I gave this flick a "thumbs-up."It is a highly visual story.And, I think it was quite a departure for Robert Mitchum to play the elder "lover." And, I don't think enough stories have been told about how many folks utilized mood alteration as a survival technique.I'm glad Ivan, aka, John Savage's character, survives..
..you saw her once..
you never would forget her...
Anita Morris was born the year before me..
and unbelievably she's been gone for almost a quarter century now.
I'll never forget seeing her in a play on Broadway.
And I have absolutely no idea what the name of the production was..
but I will never forget her, at one point sitting on the edge of the stage, performing in one of the many dance numbers.
She was an incendiary personality, just like the color of that magnificent head of hair.
For young men (and boys) to be seeing her for the first time, there was just this instant attraction.
She left the world oh too soon, as many dynamic and enthralling personalities through the years have a proclivity to do.
But now, here she is being remembered by one of her longtime admiring fans.
Seriously, name another that has in fact even come close to replacing her..
Passive characters make the film feel tedious.
Beautifully shot – almost too beautifully given the mundane storyline – and unevenly acted, the film deserves kudos for an intelligent rendering of an adult problem: the post-traumatic stress of a returning WW2 vet, and the miseries it puts him and his wife through.The dramatic thrust of the film – erroneously labeled European by some viewers – is hampered, not by its slow unfolding, but by passive characters.
John Savage is sometimes strong and sometimes not in his portrayal, but he's been stymied by a script that has him only desultorily going after various goals.
Maria, a far better if still uneven performance by Nastassja Kinski (whose talent is strong; the inconsistency is clearly the director's fault), also only gradually commits to her husband.
That's fine and real but with only minor characters (Vincent Spano, Keith Caradine) strongly after an objective, the movie is moribund at its center for much of its running time.
(Robert Mitchum's character and performance are both dismal.) The film gathers some tension once Nastassja is mit Kind, and Savage's predicament reaches the breaking point.
The resolution is somewhat satisfying though not entirely credible (Savage feels more like a life-long alcoholic at this point) and comes about through his chance meeting with Caradine's philanderer.
More literary than filmic in its construction, the movie's best feature is Nastassja's performance.
But because her life, like her husband's, feels more acted upon than really lived, the movie just lumbers. |
tt2244901 | I Give It a Year | Ambitious high-flyer Nat (Rose Byrne) and struggling writer Josh (Rafe Spall) fall in love at first sight at a party. After seven months together they decide to marry. The film highlights their struggles during their first year of marriage, switching back and forth from flashbacks of the year's action to a marriage-guidance counselor's office. Their wedding goes as planned despite many friends' comments that the marriage will not last, an embarrassing best-man's speech, and a coughing priest.
When Nat returns to work after the honeymoon, she's embarrassed when Josh calls her in the office - on speakerphone in front of her colleagues - to tell her she is sexy and that he misses her, causing her to abruptly hang up on him. Later, the two meet with their solicitor to discuss how to handle medical crises (last wishes). Nat becomes annoyed when Josh, knowing she would be late, admitted that he deliberately told her the wrong time, causing her to turn up early.
The couple throw a dinner party to use their wedding gifts. Some of their differences are highlighted when they talk about their honeymoon in Morocco: Nat didn't enjoy the leather museum; Josh remembers it as interesting. When the topic changes to Josh's former flame, Chloe (Anna Faris), Nat discovers that the two never officially broke up when Chloe departed to Africa for four years. In the kitchen Chloe apologizes to Nat for not realising she didn't know. The women talk about the constrictions of marriage. Nat's sister Naomi has issues with her own husband's annoying habits. Josh's best man Danny asks Chloe out but is rebuffed.
The following day, Nat and her work-colleagues make fun of their new client, Guy Harrap (Simon Baker), the new owner of a bleach company. They believe he will be a stereotypical American who thinks the British are "quaint". They do not realize that their client has been sitting right there in the same café. Before the meeting, one colleague steals Nat's wedding ring, believing that the account will have a better chance of success if she appears single. During the meeting, Guy deliberately fulfils their expectations of him: speaking in a brash American way, asking for high-fives and casual fist-bumps, asking Nat to repeat certain words he finds amusing and doing a crude Austin Powers impression. Then when they focus on business talk, he switches to his true self, embarrassing the women for their earlier stereotyping. As he and Nat exit the boardroom, she apologizes for their misjudgment of him, and he says they should get better acquainted for the sake of the account. Feeling the attraction between them, she struggles with telling him she's married, then ends up leaving without telling him.
Josh talks to Chloe about his book while she's working at a charity office. He invites her to dinner because Nat's going to a work party that night. Chloe declines, saying she's going out with her work-colleague Charlie, whom she's been dating.
The scene returns to the marriage-guidance counsellor's office as the two explain that the realities of marriage do not live up to the fairytale expectation they both had.
Unable to focus on his writing, Josh sits at home watching television while Nat's out jogging. At work, Nat receives a large bouquet of roses from Guy. The couple bicker over domestic issues; Josh leaving the toilet seat up, Nat's inability to sing the right words to popular songs and their different definitions of the rubbish bin being full.
Guy shows Nat around one of the factories he owns, where one of his longest-serving workers expresses approval of her as a potential wife for him. Guy explains that he basically grew up in the factory during his childhood summers. Nat comments that she's not the marrying type, still unable to tell Guy she's married.
Nat tries to discourage Josh from accompanying her to a work party, but he is determined, irritating her. At the party, he makes a fool of himself with embarrassing dancing and standing next to a poster he can joke about during the night. When he approaches Nat while she's talking with Guy, she still doesn't reveal that he is her husband and Guy attempts to shake him off, assuming he's an unwanted menace. Guy asks her to dinner and Nat declines. Incredibly annoyed at Josh for embarrassing her at the party, she heads home without him.
Meanwhile, Chloe and Charlie attend a boring dinner party, then leave early to adjourn to Charlie's apartment. As they kiss on the bed, Chloe's colleague Alexandra joins them and Chloe finds herself in an awkward threesome. Feeling too silly to continue, Chloe eventually leaves. The next morning she calls Josh to tell him about it, and he soon turns up at her apartment with coffee and her favourite sweets to cheer her up.
Chloe and Josh then go Christmas-shopping. Josh wants to get casserole dishes for Nat but Chloe laughs that this is not a present for a wife and she must help him; they end up at a lingerie shop with Josh uncomfortably trying to make conversation with the shop assistant amongst the shop's expensive contents. Chloe tries on a lingerie set, and asks Josh what he thinks of it. They end up kissing in the dressing room, although both are embarrassed about it afterwards. Josh ends up buying the lingerie.
When Nat meets with Guy at his hotel to discuss their business deal, she rebuffs his attempts to get her into his room. He mentions that he has booked a conference room down the hall, but when Nat enters she finds a romantic dinner complete with doves and a violinist. When Guy makes advances, she finally blurts out that she's married and can't leave her husband because it would destroy him, and finally storms out.
Guy chases after Nat and they bump into Chloe and Josh on the street. After some initial awkward exchanges, Josh suggests that Chloe and Guy get together and they agree on a double date.
Back to the present in the counsellor's office: Nat explains that they hit a low point around the Christmas period, commenting that her husband's family are weird - in particular his mother. Josh retaliates that Nat's family were not overly friendly towards him.
The scene shifts to a Christmas family reunion at Nat's parents', where a series of embarrassing incidents revolving around Josh occur. Josh unwittingly but clumsily offends Nat's grandmother during a game of charades, Nat's father makes him sleep on the upper deck of a bunk bed of a young female relative, and Nat's parents giving Josh a pair of books titled "How to be a Successful Writer" and "How to Stop Wasting Your Life". At the end of the visit, while leaving her parents' house, Nat confronts Naomi about why she stays with her husband as they clearly hate each other. Naomi says that they both "embrace the hatred" and that's what marriage is about. Even though she admits there could be something better out there for her, she ultimately loves her husband.
Nat and Josh have a conversation about his suggestion of Chloe dating Guy. The two talk about the prospects of both of them as romantic interests. The four meet for dinner, and spend the evening playing pool. Chloe and Guy seem to hit it off, happily competing against Nat and Josh. Nat becomes more frustrated with Josh's clumsy and patronising attempt to teach her how to play properly, as well as with her growing jealousy towards Chloe, who can play well. They leave the bar, and Nat asks Guy to talk about packaging details, intending to meet Josh back at their flat afterwards. Chloe and Josh depart together, while Nat and Guy go the other direction. After a moment, Nat passionately kisses Guy, resulting in the ripping of the underwear bought for her by Josh.
Meanwhile, Josh attempts to discourage Chloe's attraction to Guy, and she admits she is and has always been still in love with him, lamenting that Josh never stopped her from leaving and insisting that their current circumstances are impossible, that they cannot see each other anymore.
When Nat returns home, she and Josh talk about their relationship. After nine months they decide to get help instead of giving up on their marriage. This leads us back to the counsellor's office, who ultimately advises them to try to make it to the one-year marker.
The couple then put up with each other's quirks over the next few months, eventually making it to their anniversary. Nat brings out the same expensive lingerie for the special occasion, and struggles to do it up because of two broken hooks, remembering the circumstances in which they were broken - her with Guy. Josh meanwhile leaves the flat, telling Nat he's remembered he has to do something and that he will meet her at the restaurant. He races to Chloe's apartment, only to find that she is heading off in a cab with Guy, whom she embraces lovingly. Nat contemplates phoning Guy, but then decides to go to the restaurant, where her friends and family are there waiting to surprise the couple. After failing to contact Josh, Nat sits down. She discovers that their friends didn't think her marriage would last.
Josh makes it to the restaurant party, and tells Nat that he thinks she is the perfect wife, just not for him. He asks her for a divorce and she immediately and delightedly agrees. The couple rejoice at the situation, and immediately leave the party one after the other.
Meanwhile, Guy and Chloe are at the railway station waiting to go to Paris on a romantic trip. Josh finds them and professes his love for Chloe. When it's discovered that he split up with Nat, the two are shocked. Nat appears behind Josh, who awkwardly assumed he is the one she wants to speak to, but it turns out she was there for Guy. After a short exchange they happily discuss how perfect Guy and Chloe are for them. In the end, Chloe and Guy mutually break up. Nat ends up kissing Guy and Chloe shares a kiss with Josh. | comedy, adult comedy | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0053502 | The Flintstones | In Bedrock, Slate and Co. executive vice-president Cliff Vandercave and secretary Miss Sharon Stone discuss their plan to swindle the company of its vast fortune and flee, and that they need one of their employees to be responsible for it. Fred Flintstone loans his best friend and neighbor Barney Rubble money so that he and his wife Betty can adopt a child named Bamm-Bamm, who can only pronounce his own name. Although the child is initially difficult to control due to being raised by mastodons, as well as having super strength, he eventually warms up to his new family. Barney vows to repay his friend. Despite his mother-in-law Pearl Slaghoople's objections, Fred's wife Wilma remains supportive of his decision.
Cliff holds an aptitude test, where the worker with the highest mark will become the new vice president of the company. Barney gets the highest score but he switches his paper with Fred, who he knows will fail. Fred receives the promotion, but his first order is to dismiss Barney, since Barney now effectively has the lowest score. Fred accepts, but does his best to help Barney support his family, even inviting the Rubbles to live with them so that they can rent out their home. However, Fred's job and newfound wealth put a strain on his relationships with Wilma and the Rubbles. Cliff eventually tricks Fred into dismissing the workers, over the objections of his office Dictabird. Later, Barney confronts Fred after seeing worker riots on the news revealing that he switched tests with Fred and the Rubbles move out, despite having nowhere to live. Wilma and Pebbles also move out to her mother's house, leaving Fred behind.
Fred goes to the quarry and realizes his mistake and Cliff's plan, but also finds out that Cliff has manipulated events to make it look as if Fred stole the money, and has reported it to the police. A manhunt for Fred ensues by the police and the workers. Wilma and Betty see this on the news, and break into Slate and Co. to get the Dictabird, the only witness who can clear Fred's name, unaware that Cliff saw them from his office window. As Fred attempts to enter a cave where the workers are seeking refuge, they see through his disguise and attempt to hang him. Barney is almost hanged as well after he admits his part. Fred and Barney reconcile, but before they can be hanged, Wilma and Betty arrive with the Dictabird, who tells them the true story. The workers release Fred and Barney after realizing that Cliff was the one who fired them.
Cliff kidnaps Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm and demands the Dictabird in exchange for the children's safe return. Fred and Barney confront Cliff at the quarry, where Cliff has tied Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm to a huge machine. Though they hand him the Dictabird, Cliff activates the machine to stall them. Barney rescues the children while Fred destroys the machine. The Dictabird escapes from Cliff and lures him back to the quarry, where Miss Stone knocks him out, having had a change of heart after learning that Cliff was planning to betray her. The police arrive and Cliff attempts to flee, but he is petrified by a substance falling from the machine.
With the Dictabird's help, all charges against Fred are dropped, while Miss Stone is arrested as Cliff's accomplice, though Fred is confident she will be granted leniency for helping them stop Cliff. Impressed with the substance that Fred inadvertently created by destroying the machine, Mr. Slate dubs the substance "concrete" and makes plans to produce it with Fred as the president of its division, thus ending the Stone Age. Having realized the negatives of his wealth and status as a vice president, Fred declines and asks that the workers be rehired and given the job benefits he initially set out to achieve, which is granted. As the Flintstones and Rubbles have finally made amends, Fred and Barney get into a humorous quarrel when Fred once again asks Barney for a small amount of money for breakfast. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | The characters here (Fred, Barney, Wilma, Betty, Dino, Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm, Mr. Slate, Mrs. Slaghoople, etc.) have expressions and personalities which are instantly recognizable to an audience.
I don't know why the Hanna-Barbera team weren't able to duplicate the quality of this show in terms of its writing and voice-casting (perhaps it was all a fluke?), but "The Flintstones" has it all: great writing and voices which bring one-dimensional drawings to life, terrific plots, fantastic music by Hoyt Curtin.
Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty are all people everyone can relate to even though the show is set in the stone age.
A lot of people don't remember that The Flintstones was the first prime time cartoon series, and what a success it was.I think the fact that it was written for prime time, with writing meant to appeal to old and young alike, is why the series holds up so well into these times.
Fred is obviously not a character to pattern your life after, and this is another important lesson.Lessons aside, the shows are uniformly amusing, and the clever turns of names into stone age words, and modern conveniences into useful animals, is always clever and will bring chuckles when first you see them..
For those who aren't familiar with this show (which I'll be shocked with if there are.) The shows premise is about a blue collar, dino crane operator in Fred Flintstone, who in each episode had a wacky situation along with his wife Wilma, and his neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble.
Sadly the show left the airwaves in 1966, but Hanna-Barbera began to beat the show to the ground in the 1970's with debacles like "The Pebbles and Bam-Bamm Show" (Possibly the WORST Hanna-Barbera spinoff show ever!), and the shows where Fred and Barney met the Thing, and that blob called "The Shmoo" (Both of these shows were CRAP!!!) were just bad.
Joseph Barbera and the late William Hanna are responsible for giving us many many hours of cartoon fun over the years with fantastic shows such as The Flinstones, The Jetsons, Top Cat, Penelope Pitstop and Scooby Doo. The Flinstones is my favourite along with Scooby-Doo.For starters, who can forget the theme song?
I've never ever been able to get it out of my head-it will stick with me for a long time.The premise itself is interesting-a comedy series about a stone age family who lead simple and carefree lives.
The funniest thing was how the Flinstones used to use animals as everyday objects.Who can forget the chemistry between Fred and Barney Rubble?
The two kids were total brats, screaming, spoilt, mashed potato slam-dunked over the wallpaper...but I didn't care, I was watching Fred and Barney live out there lives of near-perfection in a world that was starting to move away from near perfection!
"Yabba Dabba Doo" must surely be one of the most recognizable cries on earth - WHO would not know its origins from 4 to 90?The success of this animated icon probably lies in the simplicity of the Flintstone and Rubble clans.
I spent my whole life watching this show and now that the first season is about to be released on DVD, theres no better time to talk about why i like 'The Flintstones' so much.
For example one episode will tell us that Fred and Wilma had their honeymoon in Boulder Beach, another will tell you it was Bedrock Races and another at the Rock Mountain Inn. Also do The Flintstones live on Cobblestone Lane, Stonecanyon Way or Gravelpit Terrace?
William Hanna and Joseph Barbera have given us some fantastic cartoons that have stood the test of time and 'The Flintstones' is my favourite out of all of them..
His wife Wilma and his neighbours Betty and Barney Rubble were the most loyal and helpful people in his life and Fred took advantage of that in every way he could.Although what I have just written makes Fred look like the ultimate beast you couldn't write a character like this without him having redeemable qualities as well.
glamorous clothes though the most times she has to return them.As the series evolved so did the characters so Fred, Wilma, Betty and Barney all became parents.
She tried to become something other than a housewife and Fred didn't like it one bit at first, but those were the breaks and he had to.I think the earliest episodes of the Flintstones were the best but not because the character of Fred was more mean spirited and chauvinistic (a caveman if you will) but when Betty got a new voice (Gerry Johnson) she lost all appeal.
The early episode saw Betty and Barney actually standing up to Fred on a number of occasions and that was the morale of the show that you couldn't let Fred get away with his selfishness all the time.I will not compare this show to the other more successful show the Simpsons of today because I think they are in entirely different leagues.
Created by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in 1960, there are many good things to recommend about The Flintstones.
Head of Household (or so he thought) Fred Flintsone, his wife Wilma (what a woman's libber for the stone age!), their child Pebbles...and their very close neighbors and friends Barney (Fred's hanging buddy and partner in crime), Betty (Wilma's partner in crime!)and adopted son Bam-Bam (what a concept!), the dead end job with the egotistical boss (Mr. Slate...of late!)all set back in the 'stone age'...which I always thought was a personal Hanna Barbera joke due to many of Fred's views and the things that went on around his life...well, this cartoon is the grand-daddy of all cartoons.As I remember correctly, The Flintstones was patterned after the live show "The Honeymooners".
And in watching the Flintstones, it was imagination beyond belief - Stone Aged Dinosaurs tamed and used as building machinery, pelicans used to mix concrete, Fred smacking Barney so many times he should be in a hospital, cars run by foot power and also your feet as the breaks against the hard stone ground...OF COURSE THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE!
I love the fact that this cartoon featured modern day gadgets such as the intercom, telephone, vacuum cleaner, phonograph and the car of course (Fred and Barney's feet sure must have hurt while putting on the brakes!!!!!) Mind you this takes place in the stone age.
After being remembered as TV longest running animated sitcom for six seasons during its run,Fred and Wilma Flintstone are still at it in re-runs(still in syndication after more than 30 years after the show went off the air) along with their neighbors Betty and Barney Rubble and the family's pet dinosaur Dino and later on during the series run a new addition was added to the Flintstone family,the birth of Peebles and also gave the Rubbles a child of their own too,Bamm-Bamm.
Other characters included Wilma's mother-in-law,Fred's feuding cousins The Flintrocks,and there gruesome neighbors The Gruesomes,Fred's boss at the Slate Gravel Company,Mister Slate(where did Fred's best friend Barney worked?)not to mention that repulsive alien from another planet,Kuzoo...why was he needed on there anyway which killed the show.
Where can you find good family values and still provide laughs while at the same time keep the kids tuned in to see what Fred and Barney would come up with next?
Catch the classic re-runs on either Cartoon Network,Boomerang,several local stations and on Superstation TBS.The original "Flintstones" series ran on ABC-TV from 1960-1966.
The series produced an astounding 166 episodes during its entire run on the air with superior production values and the vocal talents of the great Alan Reed as Fred Flintstone,Jean Vanderpyl as Wilma,and the great Mel Blanc as Fred's best friend and bosom buddy Barney.
The vocal talents for the character of Betty(Wilma's best friend and Barney lovely wife)were done by the great Bea Benederet of "Burns and Allen","The Beverly Hillbillies",and "Petticoat Junction" fame.
When the animated series,"The Flintstones",premiered on ABC-TV in September of 1960,the show was aimed toward an adult audience,but instead was more focus on adult situations since there were scenes where Fred or Barney for that manner are smoking a cigarette.
The sponsors were at the time Winston cigarettes since there was a commercial for Winston and Salem cigarettes that featured Fred and Barney smoking continuously along with Wilma and Betty.NOTE: There were several spinoffs of the Flintstone trilogy that succeeded very well,including the cartoons "Peebles and Bamm-Bamm"(1971) "Flintstone Comedy Hour",which featured the Frankenstones and the lovable Schmoo(1979),and three theatrical features including their first feature length cartoon"A Man Called Flintstone"(1966),and the live-action versions of The Flintstones(1998),and "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas"(2000)..
Everyone knows "The Flintstones": Fred, Wilma and Pebbles Flintstone are a typical suburban family transposed to the Stone Age. Their neighbors are Barney, Betty and Bam-Bam Rubble.
Of course the premise is the life of blue-collared, dino-crane operator Fred Flintstone and his wacky adventures with his wife Wilma and his neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble.
"The Flintstones" is basically "The Honeymooners" turned animated, but the creativity of the series makes it stand out from most other television shows.
Plus the Great Gazoo in which Fred and Barney run into as they drove on a episode from the sixth and final season.
The show was busy making subtle and not so subtle satiric points.In one episode, they poked fun of ratings, unrealistic TV shows, placement of station breaks and people who live vicariously through television.In, the Beauty Contest, Fred and Barney waxed nostalgic over when they were single and longed to hear a woman's voice.
It still is.I should also mention the great Alan Reed, the quintessential everyman, incomparable Mel Blanc and real life best friends Jean Vander Pyl and Bea Benaderet playing best friends and wives Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble.I could mention Paula Winslowe's portrayal of Greta Gravel in an episode with an important message about marriage.
When you're with the Flinstones, have a yabba dabba doo time, a dabba doo time...»While it was never really one of my favorite animated TV shows (not even as a kid), it was okay, original and a funny way to look at the Stone Age. Fred, Barney and the dinosaurs are the characters I remember better.
I am not much of a cartoon watcher, but the Flintstones and Bugs Bunny are still very funny and enjoyable to watch.I always realized the great friendship between Fred and Barney, Wilma and Betty.
I think the 4 main voices on that show, Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty were all done by extraordinary individuals.
The loudmouth worked at a job that involved a big piece of machinery (Ralph Kramden drove a bus; Fred Flintstone operated a dino-steam shovel), was at odds with his boss, didn't get along with his mother-in-law, belonged to a lodge named after a mammal, always had a get-rich-quick scheme and liked to go bowling and shoot pool.
(The Flintstones franchise was never the same after Alan Reed, the original voice of Fred Flintstone, died in 1977.)Also, in watching every episode more than once, I detected a consistently common-sense approach in how writers viewed modern society (transplanted to a mythical "stone age," of course.) It somehow seems rooted in the WWII generation ethos -- heroes get their due, charlatans get their comeuppance, and life, though unfair, is still inspiring.
There were classic episodes with "Hot Lips Hannigan", "Uncle Giggles", "Ann-Margarock" and, of course, who can forget Fred, Barney, Wilma, Betty, Pebbles, Bam-Bam and Dino.
Boy oh boy was I in for a Yabba Dabba treat!Set in the stone age, The Flintstones is a show that centres around the antics of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, with their respective wives having to deal with the ensuing fallout.
Making everyday tools, such as TV remotes, garbage disposals and even showers have a stone age twist to explain how they work in such a time period is brilliant!Aside from their plots, the episodes were greatly enhanced by what was going on in the background.
In my opinion, these jokes are still funny but not for their punchline, but for how outrageous they are!All in all, The Flintstones is a true Hanna-Barbera classic.
Overall, a classic superb show.This was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid, I used to watch it all the time, then later when I discovered Cartoon Network, I got to watch it more often, but now I watch it on Boomerang and on DVD.Each season offered something special and I know of this series having so many specials and movies that I can't keep track.
But sometimes it is simple animation to make a great show, I don't think I would like this show as much if it had better animation in place of the animation it had when it was made, One episode that confuses me however is the episode "The Snorkasaurus Hunter" While it explains how Dino came, he was really smart in that one and spoke, I wish I knew why that changed but oh well.I like many of the episodes that feature mainly Fred and Barney together because for me it had the most laughs.I loved every episode, every special, and every movie of this great series from the sixties and hope some day they all come out on DVD so I can have the whole bunch.
And even after all that, The Flintstones have continued to go on with their popular cereal commercials "Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles" with while about 30 seconds, some nice laughs.I would recommend this show to many kids and many adults who love humor and a spin on a interesting vision of the past, It makes you think if the Stone Age really was modern, how life would be for you back then..
Hanna Barbera made several animated series but the Fintstones was about a family in the stone age literally living in stone huts, driving stone cars, and being themselves.
I loved Fred and his wife, Wilma Flintstones, and their daughter, Pebbles, and their dong, Dino.
This was a funny Hanna-Barbera cartoon that was really famous just like Scooby-Doo and The Jetsons!
This series is about a stone-aged family called The Flinstones that live in a town called Bedrock.
I met the creators of this cartoon and the other Hanna-Barbera cartoons.My favorite episode of The Flinstones is the one where they have these aliens from outer space that look like Fred Flinstone and all the aliens ever say is "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!" and they were causing chaos all ever Bedrock.
I think Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble were my favorite characters on this Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
In 1960 Hanna-Barbera along side the voice talents of Alan Reed and the wonderful Mel Blanc, among others went their way to make a show about a stone-age family inspired by the Honeymooners and the result was a CLASSIC!
For six whole seasons this show made one great episode after another and it remains one of my favorites!"HAVE A YABBA-DO TIME!
This is definitely a classic Hanna Barbera cartoon that holds up well throughout the times.
Fred, Barney, Wilma, Betty, Dino, Pebbles, and Bamm-Bamm were all memorable characters that will be recognized everywhere and it's a show that will have iconic status for generations to come.
Their neighbors were the Rubbles: Barney, Fred's friend that works at the quarry with him, Betty, Wilma's friend and Barney's wife, and Bamm-Bamm, their strong son that the Rubbles adopted.This was one of the best shows and it still is.
Their neighbors were the Rubbles: Barney, Fred's friend that works at the quarry with him, Betty, Wilma's friend and Barney's wife, and Bamm-Bamm, their strong son that the Rubbles adopted.This was one of the best shows and it still is.
The plot is relatively simple, it deals with neighbours and best friends, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble and their wives, Wilma and Betty.
By the early 1970s, The Flintstones were back with enough new episodes to last a few more years, only this time, Pebbles and Bam Bam would be teenagers.
"The Flintstones" is one of my favorite TV series from Hanna/Barbera and I have seventy-six favorite episodes.
Of course throughout the six seasons that had aired, the series is now loved by kids as well as with adults.My favorite characters from the show are Wilma, Betty, Hopparoo (Hoppy), little Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm.
After I had re-watch my Flintstone box-sets, Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm are my favorite Hanna/Barbera couple.
Like Scooby Doo, "The Flintstones" had gained popularity that the studio had made spin-offs series and movies too - live action as well as animated.
So I have recollected all the wonderful memories of my childhood.The cartoon itself is based on a citizen of Bedrock named Fred Flintstone who we follow through the endless adventures that he has with friend Barney Gumble.
The Flinstones is a fantastic cartoon made from the genius minds of Hanna Barbera and this is them at their very best.Its about the Prehistoric adventures of Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble as they get up to their usual schemes and try to keep it a secret from their wives Wilma Flinstone and Betty Rubble,they also have a pet dinosaur called Dino and in later episodes of the series Fred and Wilma have a baby called Pebbles and Barney and Betty have a baby called BAM-BAM!
The Flinstones is a fantastic cartoon and its without a doubt Hanna Barbera at their best.*****5/5 STARS..
Fred Flintstone is Everyman, a lovable loser to a degree, with Wilma, a long-suffering wife who loves him and their best friends, Barney and Betty Rubble.
The show is about the trials and tribulations, the joys and happiness of their lives.Over the course of the series, both couples become parents, with Fred and Wilma having a daughter, Pebbles, and Barney and Betty adopting Bam-Bam, the world's strongest boy.
When I was younger I used to like any Hanna-Barbera cartoons, this was one of them.
The Flintstones are the Dad and husband Fred, the Mum and wife Wilma, and their daughter (not seen a lot - Pebbles). |
tt0159401 | The Debt Collector | The film opens in late 1970s Edinburgh; Nicky Dryden (Billy Connolly) is arrested by Gary Keltie (Ken Stott) for his part in enforcing the collection of money owed to a loan shark.
Soon the film moves into the present time. Dryden has left prison and changed his ways. He is now a feted sculptor married to journalist Val Dryden (Francesca Annis) displaying his first show. The show is interrupted by Keltie who is disgusted by Dryden's new-found respectability, and claims that he hasn't paid his debt to society. Dryden wishes to move on from his past crimes, but Keltie is determined not to let him forget his past.
At the same time a young wannabe gangster Flipper (Iain Robertson) is obsessed by Dryden's dark past and wishes to emulate him. He takes part in low level crime, which escalates in a murder of a security guard at a swimming pool (played by Ford Kiernan).
Keltie continues to harass Dryden and his family, including disrupting a family wedding. When Dryden's stepson is murdered and Keltie shows up at the funeral, Dryden seeks revenge. He contacts one of his old underworld colleagues who arranges for Flipper to attack Keltie. Flipper, however, viciously attacks Keltie's mother (played by Annette Crosbie). Flipper makes contact with Dryden and boasts about his crime to Dryden. Disgusted by the attack on an old woman, Dryden himself brutally attacks Flipper, killing him in the end.
Extremely distraught over the attack upon his mother, Keltie breaks into Dryden's home to attack Dryden. Dryden is however at the Edinburgh Tattoo at the time, and Keltie instead takes his vengeance on Dryden by raping his wife.
Keltie eventually meets up with Dryden, and in a fight outside Edinburgh Castle ends up being killed by Dryden.
The film ends with Dryden being acquitted of the murder of Keltie, but he is a broken man, disabled by the attack, his marriage has broken up and he is once again estranged by polite society. Finally, Keltie's mother is placed in a nursing home to reflect on the loss she has endured. | revenge, murder, violence | train | wikipedia | I found that the words of the Greeks came back to me as I was watching The Debt Collector.
All the male lead characters were capable of violence, and it made me wonder how close we all are from such displays.The Debt Collector is a story of hatred gone to extremes.
and how it is much more important, if difficult to forgive those who have harmed you, and not to live in the past.This movie is not for everyone, but if you are interested in tragedy, then you should see this film..
Billy Connolly's and Ken Stott's performances contrast pleasingly, the former underplaying his hopefully-reformed murderer, and the latter foaming at the mouth with the sheer excesses of his anger.The film touches on themes of forgiveness, justice and obsession, but lays no claim to easy solutions, instead trying its hardest to give a hard time to all involved.
At times saddening, at others horrifically disturbing, The Debt Collector never manages to build enough empathy to be truly touching..
The Debt Collector is a brilliant study of one man's attempt to escape his past without fully paying for his sins and one man's obsession which eventually takes over his life.
Nicky Dryden (Billy Connelly) is the man with the past, a vicious debt collector.
Keltie (Ken Stott) is the cop who ensnares him and puts him away.
When Keltie seeks revenge on Dryden on behalf of all his victims it becomes an obsession.
Then Flipper (Iain Robertson) a young thug who hero-worships Dryden, becomes the catalyst for tragic events to unfold and nobodies life is untouched.
The men in Debt Collector both have responsibilities toward family and that is the source of the tragedy in the film.
The performances are brilliant, Connelly, Stott, Robertson and Annis are perfect, with Stott deserving a special mention for creating one of the most complicated characters in Scottish Screen History.
Some good sights of Edinburgh and the iconic Forth Rail Bridge.A tale of a violent man struggling to shake off his past, though it seems far behind him.
When a contemporary from that past makes it all the more difficult to forget the haunting truth of 'another' life.
Nick Dryden ,convicted gangster and man of violence emerges from prison a respected sculptor and marries a middle class journalist.Francesca Annis for me took the acting honours though all the male roles were almost equally well performed.Stott and Connolly both excel.As someone said already 'a debt well worth collecting', see it soon if you haven't already.
The performances by Billy Connolly and Ken Stott deserve accolades,Connolly is just as good as he was in Mrs.Brown,playing a man who after spending years in jail is determined to go straight.
Newcomer Iain Robertson also gives a very good performance as a gangster wannabee.
This film is a must see movie for Connolly fans,and just for people who like to watch a good quality movie..
Ken Stott who is the policeman who just keeps on hounding Billy Connolly an ex-con, even after the latter has served his sentence, puts in a really brilliant performance.
Francesca Annis as Connolly's wife is very good as well.
Well paced and riveting throughout this film is well worth seeing when one is sick of all the bang-wham of the big American movies..
An excellent film, though what a bleak view of human nature.
Connolly's character is trying to live a good life and the psychotic policeman is determined that it won't happen.Real Shakespearian tragedy, the wilful misunderstanding of the others characters motives by virtually everyone in the film made the outcome inevitable.
To date this remains the only film Anthony Neilson has directed, in fact, he also wrote it and his writing credits can also be counted on one hand.
This is a crime, for The Debt Collector is a powerhouse film, a grim and grungy piece of British miserablism that serves to gnaw away at your senses.Billy Connolly stars as ex-con Nickie Dryden, who after release from prison marries and tries to start afresh as an artist.
But there is a vengeful policeman on his tail, Gary Keltie (Ken Stott), who believes nobody should ever forget the crimes that Dryden perpetrated.Stripping it down it's a tale of repercussions of actions, of perceived retribution and of off-kilter hero worship.
Right from the off you know this is a tragedy piece, something Shakespearian like, clearly we are not in this part of Edinburgh to be cheered up!
The colour photography (Dick Pope) is beautiful and belies the harsh nature of the story, while Neilson shows some splendid flighty camera work that gracefully marries up with the great performances of his two lead actors.It's a punch in the face movie, attention grabbing for sure, but it also taxes the brain.
An unjustly neglected film that deserves to be sought out by more lovers of gritty British cinema.
It's a fact of life that most people would like to be the tough, bad guy and this seems to be where this movie gets it's ideas.
A life time on stage has prepared Connolly well.
I don't want to spoil this for anyone thinking of watching it, so I'll just say the "assualt" scene is particularly real and horrifically scary, as is the fight scene.
If you like Connolly, check it out.
If you like movies at all, there's no reason not to have a peek..
Certainly no evidence of soft, sweet Edinburgh Rock here, instead a hard, boiled "soor ploom" of a film.
A film that is difficult to watch..
This a gritty , violent movie that i found quite hard to watch.
The film is about a ex debt collector(Billy Connolly) who has done his time for murder and the Policeman (Kenn Stott) who sent him down , who cannot still find it in himself to forgive him for the terrible things he did even though he was a changed man.
The language is about as blue as i have ever heard in a film and the violence is pretty bad too.
Check out the actor who plays flipper, he looks like he fell out of the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down.
This was a good film, with excellent performances.
This was a good film, with excellent performances.
Billy Connolly adds yet another great performance to his growing list of acting achievements.
Violent movie, but very realistic, at points in the movie we had sympathies for main male characters, however that does not last until the end of the film, by which time we came to despise them both.Very much reminded me of the Jimmy Boyle story, for those of you who know of & about him, with Connolly performing that role, indeed I believe he spoke with Boyle prior to filming.Not a good advert for Edinburgh though!.
This film cleverly leaves you in limbo, is this vendetta the fault of the cop activity in the present or the past conduct of the criminal.
This is a deeply powerful and real film, wonderfully portraying the rage and madness which results from festering anger and resentment left unchecked.
Billy Connolly plays a reformed thug living a new life as a respectable artist who is dragged back into the cycle of violence and revenge by Ken Stott's character, the policeman who originally caught him.I loved the realism of the relationships between the people.
Nothing was left to the imagination and nothing was exaggerated, leaving bare the anger, fear, pain and regret which rules the characters during this horrible time in their lives.If you like Billy Connolly, watch this film.
If you like gritty Scottish films, watch it.
If you like good films which will play with your emotions, this is one to watch..
This could have been a great film as the four protagonists each put in a strong performance especially Francesca Annis who is brilliant.It attempts to be a serious examination about whether a man's abhorrent violent past can ever be forgiven by his victims and whether those who take their duty to serve to protect seriously, like the police officer Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott) (who had been instrumental in taking him off the streets some 18 years ago) who don't believe Nickie Dryden (Billy Connolly) is a changed man.
Haunting all those directly involved are the harrowing past images of the torture and mayhem he inflicted on his victims.The film makes a well made contrast between those who can easily forgive because it is but a remote experience which happened to others of which they know little and those who have suffered either as victims or as those who were emotionally related to those victims.
To the Edinburgh arty literati he had paid his price according to the official judicial system by serving a long jail sentence for murder and by appearing reformed through his talent developed in prison which squares his past and placates their easy conscience to forgive.
Their easy forgiveness is contrasted to those who actually suffered whose still open wounds are articulated by the police detective Keltie character.
The scepticism and disbelief of these silent witnesses is passionately articulated by the Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott)character.It is unusual for a film to show so clearly this demarcation and divergence between the two views depending on where you are standing.
Objectivity and forgiveness is easy if you are not a victim yourself and this is wonderfully brought out later in the film when one of those to whom he is now close but to whom past is another country has to live through the same torments when someone dear to them is murdered in a similarly bloody and brutal way to that by which Nickie Dryden had dispatched his earlier victim for which he had served his 18 years.
Despite all the fancy surroundings which Dryden's talent and infamy combined have brought him, including his very "uptown girl" writer wife Val, played by Francesca Annis (who Keltie believes is partly attracted by the aura of his past infamy) Keltie believes him to be a fake: as also interestingly does the wannabe thug Flipper (Iain Robertson) who hero worships Dryden's past image.If it had stuck to portraying in a more realistic way the central theme of which, if either, of the 3 views (1) whether or not Dryden's debt "to society" is repaid by serving the officially sanctioned sentence and coming out a seemingly reformed character and accepted in official society or (2) whether he really is faking at being a changed man and (3) whether his debt can ever repaid and forgiven by his real victims (or those close to them) and those whose job it is to protect them, then this would have been a great film.As it is where it all falls apart into disbelief are several volcanic graphic, outrageous, completely over the top scenes, where the Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott) character himself commits violent acts which go way beyond angst and disbelief over demonstrating to himself and those he seeks to protect, that Nickie Dryden (Billy Connolly) can ever be anything but the psychopath he knew and put away.
The only purpose of two of these scenes, the one at the art gallery and the other at a wedding that I can think of is that it contrasts the real difficulty which those who were or witnessed at 1st hand his victims suffering have in forgiving someone who harmed them with those to whom the remote experience of his perpetrated violence means very little.
The 3rd scene is just so ridiculous and outrageous as it descends from an advocacy by Keltie by public challenges to the legitimacy of official forgiveness to that of private and personal revenge thereby descending to the similar level of depravity as the criminals whose behaviour he hates so much.The script seems to be saying that by Keltie being unable to contemplate a reformed perpetrator he sets in motion his own destruction being unable to shake off his "lifer" grudge against Dryden.I find it difficult for even the most conscientious detective, 18 years on, to be so obsessed to the point of near insanity with one particular past criminal given the number of hard cases he would have come across in the meantime especially one who is no longer trying to reestablish himself on old stomping grounds (literally) that he would jeopardise not only his career but put his life on the line to pursue a current non-criminal even if he is completely convinced that Nickie Dryden is a fraud..
(Now is not the time for the censorship debate.) His choice was probably affected by the Billy Connolly star billing.
Still, all in all, I like Billy.
The Debt Collector is a whole hod of hard bricks without a soft edge amongst them, cemented into one big wall.
I recently saw this film on London Live.It and I could barely understand what was being said.So I lost the thread of the plot.I had no idea why young Dryden was killed.I felt that Ken Stotts policeman was truly unbelievable.
I have to say that I am glad that I did not see this film in the cinema.It merely seems to glamourise violence.
I really can't believe how highly rated this film is on these pages.
The plot seemed to be unnecessarily full of very obvious twists (who actually thought that the policeman had killed Dryden's son?) The climactic stabbing scene was too awful to watch apart from on fast forward, and the attempt at a happy ending just lodged in the throat.
This movie really jumps away from your usual good guy bad guy characters for this genre of film.
It places Nickie Dryden's character in a position where the viewer doesn't know weather to like him or not.
The movie can be a little disturbing at times, but the performances by the main actors are marvelous.
Billy Connely really sets a standard of good acting in this piece, and it demonstrates how broad his profile really is, ranging from brilliant comidian to this sometimes dark and un-questionable character in The Debt Collector..
I sought this film out when it came up in conversation recently and I mentioned I had never heard of it.
Billy Connolly is Nickie Dryden, a poorly-disguised Jimmy Boyle, a notorious ex-con who has re-invented himself as a sculptor and married a classy, educated beauty, a woman who society suspects is indulging in a bit of rough.
As Dryden's artistic career peaks, the cop who put him away emerges looking for vengeance.
Ken Stott as the righteous police officer Keltie is mis-cast, lacking the physical menace or darker shades the character's descent into madness requires.
Connolly looks uncomfortable in every scene, most of all in a bizarre climax at the Tattoo where he has a staring contest with a little girl.
At this point Dryden is supposedly filled with angst after giving in to his long suppressed rage, but Connolly looks like he has just told a particularly good joke on Parkinson.
Francesca Annis tries hard, but her character's dilemma, that she only now realises the vicious thug she married was, in fact, once a vicious thug, makes no sense.
Iain Robertson does a wonderful job as Flipper, a psychopath ned who is a wannabe Dryden, but the script and direction overpower his efforts with their mediocrity.
Scores highly despite Connolly's lacklustre performance.
Great character story.
Connolly did not give a great performance and in many scenes where others might survive a close-up we see his head drop out of view (what's he hiding - lack of ability perhaps?).
Deciding whose side you're on whilst watching The Debt Collector isn't easy.
Hicky Dryden (Billy Connolly) is certainly a low-life ex- criminal who has left scars on many people during his career as a collector for the shadier side of loan sharking but, in his older years, he is a changed man (well, until aggravated).
He is married to a lovely wife (Francesca Annis) who isn't totally aware of his past - although she knows a bit - but takes him as she has him now.Unfortunately, there is a cop, Gary Keltie (Ken Stott) who has a very long memory and a somewhat over-zealous desire to see justice done for many of Nicky's victims.
There are times when you sympathise with Keltie and want to see Nicky get his and then there are times when you want him to fail.Good luck understanding some of the Scottish brogue during this movie (you may need subtitles) although the language of the underworld is pretty universal.
A Quare Film But Pretty Good.
Billy Connolly is an enforcer who is "tired of bein' the headbangers' William Wallace" (great quote), who can't beat a vendetta from a cop who convicted him, who is nevertheless off his nut (or some other expression, better from Scotland).
If you're not thrown off by the Scottish slang -- and some of these 90's films from Scotland are incomprehensible -- It's good to see a familiar cast do their thing.
The point of this film is that Scotland is a politically correct society that tends to whitewash bad morality with respectable dudgeon for 'what's good for humanity'.
Time to send in Connolly to find out..
Raw. Dynamic, Good British Film Making.
I rated this film a 6 due to the fact I only seen it ten years after its release.
The raw story of a reformed former debt collector (Billy Connolly) and obsessive police officer(Ken Stott)who wants to give the now successful former villain a hard time.
There is some good hardcore violence scenes in this movie which could have been worked more.
Connolly and Stott play two excellent roles and the casting is well suited for the characters.This movie is without a doubt worth a watch if you like the Lock Stock violent type of movie.It is a raw film but for me I would of liked to see more of the rawness come through.Give it a go. |
tt1723124 | Inbred | Four young offenders: Tim, Sam, Dwight, Zeb and their caretakers: Kate and Jeff travel to a Yorkshirian village called Mortlake to do community service, staying in a little cottage. On their first day they decide to have a drink at the local pub where they meet Jim: the bartender. The next day they go salvage abandoned trains where Tim and Sam are attacked by 3 inbreds. Jeff tries to scare them away but falls on a metal shard, cutting open his femoral artery.
They go back to the pub to get help, but Jim chops Jeff's head off with a cleaver and trap the others in the cellar. The inbreds take Zeb away and pin him to the ground in a barn. It turns out he's being used for a show for the Mortlakers. They bring in a horse and have it walk around Zeb while the others pick the lock off the cellar door and escape. The horse then crushes Zeb's head killing him. The others escape but Dwight gets recaptured and used for another show. Dwight gets tied to a chair and has fecal matter pumped inside his body, popping his eyes and blowing up his stomach. The others get back to the cottage where they're staying.
Kate goes to check the shed but when she opens the door Jim is there. She locks the door but he shoots the lock and her fingers off. Later, Kate runs outside to distract them and save Tim and Sam. She tries to run away but hits a beartrap, one of the inbreds then saws her leg off. She tries to crawl away but Jim shoots her dead. Tim checks the basement and finds a lot of booze, he tries to lure the inbreds down into the basement while Sam runs away. The inbreds go down and find Tim holding a molotov cocktail. He tries to light it but Jim tells him that the alcohol isn't strong enough to burn and they kill him. When they find Sam running away outside they bet on how she'll die, she steps on a landmine and tries not to move, but a ferret crawls up her pant leg and makes her move, blowing her up.
The film ends with the inbreds walking back to the pub for a pint | murder | train | wikipedia | The acting and production values are first class, the story is great and the dark humour running throughout the film is very entertaining.
(I hesitate to use the term "black humour" in case the reviewer who thought this film was racist is offended - eee- by-gum, talk about missing the point!).
Gory 'film-within-a-film' opening scene aside, Inbred takes a bloody age to get to the good stuff and could never be accused of being all that original, the 'city-folk falling foul of rural maniacs' plot-line borrowing heavily from many sources: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The League of Gentlemen, 2000 Maniacs, Hostel, Wrong Turn, and Straw Dogs, to name just a few.However, it's all well worth the wait, Chandon finally opening the violence valves and lifting the splatter sluice gates after forty-five minutes to transform proceedings into a gloriously demented, blood-drenched piece of xenophobic craziness that more than lives up to the gory hype.
True, some of the CGI is less than perfect, but with the level of nastiness set so high, it really doesn't matter: it's easy to ignore the occasional dodgy effect when people are being hideously mutilated with such regularity, enthusiasm and imagination.Chandon pulls out the stops to entertain in the worst possible taste, with amazingly twisted characters and a catalogue of carnage that is truly staggering, including a fantastic beheading with a meat cleaver, numerous shot gun blasts to the head and torso, a horse stomping a skull, chainsaw dismemberment, and a really disgusting 'slurry pump body explosion'.
Inbred got into my head, as all good horror films should.
It's been over 10 years since I last saw a film by Alex Chandon "Cradle of Fear" was patchy but showed promise, I missed the next one, now we have Inbred.
I am a massive horror fan and this film goes to prove that independent movies are where all the hidden gems are, this is one of the best of it's kind.
Inbred goes all out, using a combination of practical effects enhanced by CGI these guys have outdone pretty much anything I've seen outside of the most top budget gore films such as the Romero Zombie movies.
At times the rituals of the yokels get really twisted and weird and because the effects are gut wrenchingly disturbing I actually did start to feel a few twinges of dread at a couple of points at the thought of what I might be about to see, especially when they suddenly brought phallic vegetables and a horse into the equation.
I'm not trying to tell you what to think of it, but I hope you got the mood the movie does live by and can decide for yourself, if that is worth your time.
This is a low budget British film that delivers the goods big time!
The effects alone are old school and much better than some of the big budget Hollywood horror films of late.
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie as it was great to watch, and the story (although nothing too original) is well done from start to finish.
The kill scenes were very well done and had me cringing each time, and you get to see the over-the-top blood squirting each time too, which for me takes me back to the 80's 'B' horror movies.
Not bad at all, don't think to see a flick with a great story like Kill List (2011) but a pure delight for gorehounds.
There are some things in the movie that happen and you are like "no one in their right mind would ever do that" but that's part of why it IS funny.
Following a visit to the local pub, "The Dirty Hole", gory mayhem of imaginative design and impeccable execution ensues, with the most sinister array of root vegetables I've ever witnessed.Funniest horror I've seen in a long time, but not for the faint hearted.
But now after watching this I think I might have ate human flesh a couple of times.Four annoying teenagers and two social workers head off to some backward town in Yorkshire for some reason and quickly realise that the residents are a bit Royston Vasey (the League of Gentleman is a BIG influence on this film).
So what started out as a group exercise quickly turns into a total gore fest as our non-locals try to escape being forced into one of the sickest 'shows' you'll ever see.Honestly, this is one of those 'folks being carved up by locals' films, but with a healthy does of British sarcasm!
This is an hilarious and twisted film with lots of gore and plenty of laughs.
they either don't get it or are offended by it but I personally found this film to be hilarious and trust me its not very often that i find a comedy genuinely funny but I did this film.I highly recommend this film it's one epically surreal and deranged movie.
I'm of course to young to have experienced real Grand Guignol, but I'm sure Inbred is pretty close to that once was the hottest entertainment in Le Gay Paris.Every good movie lives its life because of good characters, and Inbred has a phenomenal cast.
Set In North Yorkshire, a small group of troubled teenagers who have been In local authority care are taken on a country break by two social workers to a run-down cottage on the outskirts of a village Inhabited by strange, Inbred yokels with a taste for using outside visitors as their sole source of bloodthirsty entertainment.
Refreshingly different and with more than a little bloody violence(but with tongues firmly In cheeks)this Is an entertaining film with plenty of laughs mixed In with the horror that the villagers apparently consider a normal part of their everyday lives.
A host of weird and wonderful characters are as frightening as they are funny, with Jim - the Landlord of the villages only Pub, the "Dirty Hole" - keeping everyone In check as both a father figure and, It seems, father In the literal sense of at least several of the strange-looking Inhabitants.
To show the best of the film in the trailer would spoil the plot, so it seems to just set the mood instead.Encountering this film on the late night horror channel - which usually shows some pretty dismal stuff I wasn't expecting much but i got a surprise.
UK watchers will notice a few well known faces playing characters that are really outside their usual roles, which may make the film more entertaining to a British audience than an American one but I think the scenes of camp gore and torture would satisfy anybody who claims to be a horror fan.There are some great moments, some shocking moments and certainly some surprises.
Don't expect a cerebral plot or an exercise in deep meaning, but do expect some great tributes to classic horror, some genuinely entertaining performances and a slick little production that proves just how good British film making can still be..
The woman, who plays the role of the female social worker, did indeed have time to develop a little bit her character,and could get a point more.
Being a fan of those movies that detail the clashes of culture, the backwoods inbred tortuous heathens vs the clean cut/city folk on vacation who always just fall right into the hands of their captors, i was right away interested to see this film.
One thing the film does have going for it are some exceptionally great kill scenes.
I watched it at Frightfest too (as other reviewers here) and though the reviews have been mostly positive, the reaction of the crowd was split down the middle.It's always like this with a movie that dares to be different and does not care about political correctness.
I watched it at Frightfest too (as other reviewers here) and though the reviews have been mostly positive, the reaction of the crowd was split down the middle.It's always like this with a movie that dares to be different and does not care about political correctness.
I'm not trying to tell you what to think of it, but I hope you got the mood the movie does live by and can decide for yourself, if that is worth your time"and I agree with these thoughts.
I wasn't expecting a grand Hollywood production but was expecting a better effort then this'If you have read the reviews listed here you will know the storyline but only watch if you have a few hours to spare and a six pack to dull the senses.
Anyhoo, it was funny in places, it was well shot and most of the acting was OK.But if I was from the North of England (I am a southerner that spent a few years living in Manchester) I might be a little offended by this film.If I had watched the original version I reckon this would be a solid 5 out of 10..
Inbred is a UK film about a group of youth offenders sent to do community service in a remote village.
The film felt nasty, tawdry and gratuitous, which is not always a damning problem for a horror movie.
Anytime you see a low budget film with ratings higher than around 7-8 it's more than likely false ratings given by friends and family of the movie i was being really generous with 2 stars...
I dated a girl from North Yorkshire for a while and, let me tell you, the alleged local characters in this film are a lot more civilized and sophisticated than the real inhabitants of that region!
"Inbred" is the type of film that exactly does what it promises on the tin, and in case you expected anything more, else or better, you only have yourself to blame.
The film still starts off rather slow and tedious, with overlong and too detailed introductions of lead characters you know are going to die violently anyways, but once around the 45' mark, "Inbred" is an unrelentingly engrossing and trashy splatter flick.
Most of the main characters overacted and made obvious dumb decisions just like in many other horror movies.
If you expect a brilliant, creative horror movie with a great ending, it will disappoint you but it is worth watching..
A group of delinquents including a girl are taken out into the country by two care workers as part of their rehabilitation process, but things don't turn out like that.
While most horror buffs will notice the cultural reference to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", how many will have caught the Monty Python one, the naked organist?Where "Inbred" differs from say the Bunnyman films is that there is nothing the slightest bit amusing in simply watching people killed in gruesome fashion, but this film is so far over the top it is difficult not to laugh.
First off, I'd like to say that all those hating this movie shouldn't be watching horrors in the first place, and you are mostly missing quite a bit of intelligence.
I'm going to review it like an average intelligence bloke from the pub.So I was very pleasantly surprised to find an excellently acted, pretty decently scripted, cheap horror for a change.
The 5.1/10 or whatever it is doesn't do it justice whatsoever when you compare it with all those higher rated classic jobs from the 70's/80's by Italian gore maestros who's scripts, plots, acting and dubbing is hilariously tragic compared with talented films like this one.
It's not too bad the chemistry of the characters, but certainly not the best, it does the job to keep the plot watchable until the real stuff we came to watch starts.Anyways those characters encounter some problems, you've seen it in countless other movies - GPS loses their location (which was realistic because I had a similar experience the one time I visited the UK and had to drive slightly out of London) - phones get lost somewhere, the locals are sketchy.
And I tell ya, there's quite a few laughs in that movie, the ending part made it worth watching trough all the boring stuff - no question about it.
INBRED is one in a sub-genre of recent British splatter movies that celebrate their low budgets by throwing copious comedy gore into the mix.
If you like this, then be sure to check out others like DOGHOUSE or THE COTTAGE.INBRED is a film that celebrates Yorkshire culture with a storyline that has unfortunately been done to death a million times (see WILDERNESS and the like).
Later the film turns into a gory action movie as members of the group struggle to escape from various inbred hillbillies.
I hated some parts (the drawn-out arena deaths and the general crudity) but in other areas the suspense is well handled and the effects are good.This film's directed by gore king Alex Chandon, who brings little wit or insight to the production, but if you like gore then it's not so bad.
The version I saw may have been cut in at least two of the gorier places, but even this couldn't dampen my enthusiasm for this excellent gem of a film.The acting was top notch with a real stand out performance from Seamus O'Neill in particular.Superb film, best horror movie I've seen for years.More please?.
However, if you like blood and entrails being hurled around, you may like to know that the gore is pretty well done (especially on its low budget), plus the inbred yokels are pretty damn evil (in a good way that will have you almost rooting for them over the pretty unlikeable criminal teenagers who spend much of their time screaming and running in the wrong direction).It's also pretty tongue-in-cheek.
It's not really meant to be taken that seriously, so hopefully you'll forgive the 'heroes' when they run straight back into dangerous situations instead of simply getting the hell out of there.If you like daft, low-budget horror, then there are worse ways you can spend an hour and a half of your film-viewing life.I'm just glad I live in the south of England and no one who lives near me feels the need to wear a pig mask and clap rocks together in a show of appreciation..
No, Inbred is not a documentary about the Royal Family; it's the first film in ten years by British director Alex Chandon (Cradle Of Fear).
Soon the locals have turned against them, and from then on the group's quest for self-improvement turns into a quest for self-preservation as they desperately fight for their survival.Inbred begins with a trusty old film within a film opening, one that features cult British horror chick Emily Booth in a cameo.
Usually, when a film is as outrageously violent as Inbred, the performances of the actors playing the victims, and their characters, are jokey and tongue in cheek, making us care less when they're gruesomely dispatched with.
In this film however, the victims are all played completely straight, as straight as the performances in films like Eden Lake, which makes the experience of watching the film much more disturbing.Most of the film's flaws come from the bad decisions that some of the characters make, a common complaint levelled at even the best of Horror films.
These questions popped into my mind a few times while watching the film, but not nearly enough to ruin my enjoyment of what was otherwise a gripping and powerful little shocker.Inbred is guilty of all the criticisms that have been thrown its way.
The film is a well acted but ,at times dark and disturbing if not also light hearted and funny .
This is not a bad thing.Not so good stuff: Horror movies used to be morality plays.
Sometimes in horror movies the bad guys won, but not very often.Things gradually changed with movies like THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN and Friday THE 13TH.
No prizes for guessing which in this type of film where normal human logic is an alien concept.Yes, I know, behaviour in horror movies is often arbitrarily illogical to advance the plot.
It's a horror film with no real scares but plenty of blood and guts.
The gore was okay, acting below average, sets good for a indie film.
I couldn't help be reminded of the family show in House of 1000 Corpses and how that sequence dragged down the pacing just like the show here (although there's a very excellent bizarre kill in the first "act").We finally get through this part of the film and things move on quickly for a bit of survival horror with some decent gore and dark humor but by then it was a case of too little too late for me.
I liked the main group of good guys and there was some effective gore but I spent too much time being bored and not enough being entertained..
The locals aren't as friendly and welcoming as they thought.....If you mix The Hills Have Eyes with the BBCs League Of Gentleman, you get this little twisted, but fun horror film.It starts off as you'd expect, we meet the group of people, some who are nice, some you cannot wait to get killed, and then we go to the village and its obvious to the trained eye what is going on.There is always a project in these sorts of films, and the leaders always go first.
But the best thing about this film, is that despite it being hilarious in parts, the makers have the courage to kill off all the heroes, leaving a nasty taste in your mouth come the end.It's not for everyone, but those who enjoy a good left field horror, will enjoy this.It's a shame it'll be overlooked by so many though..
Its not an Oscar winner, its not even a remotely new concept and I don't think its afraid to be the twin cousin of other horror films just like it. |
tt0040758 | Saraband for Dead Lovers | The film is structured around ten acts with a prologue and epilogue.
It opens with the camera on Marianne standing by a table covered with photographs. It is a well-lit room, and she addresses the viewer. She picks one picture up after another; they are in no particular order, being just heaped all over the table. Some make her smile, or elicit a comment or a sigh. But then she picks up a photograph of her husband, prompting her to reminisce about how they had been more or less happy, and how they'd broken up. She goes on to recall how his second marriage failed, while she was already married to a second husband herself, and then when her second husband died (by flying a glider off somewhere and disappearing), she reflects that it would be nice to see her first husband again.
Marianne travels into the country to the home of her ex-husband, and father of her daughters Martha and Sara, Johan. Johan is undergoing a family crisis with his insolvent and needy son, Henrik, and granddaughter, Karin. Karin is 19, and Henrik asks Johan for an advance on his inheritance so that Henrik can buy Karin an old Fagnola cello, to make a better impression at the audition for the European music conservatory. The elderly Johan decides to consider the offer and to contact the cello dealer himself. While Henrik is away tending to the orchestra he conducts in Uppsala, Johan has a private meeting with Karin, informing her of a proposal from Ivan Chablov, head conductor in the St. Petersburg orchestra and an old friend of Johan, that Karin join him at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
While considering this offer Karin also finds an old letter from her departed mother Anna written to Henrik a week before her death. In the letter, Anna asks Henrik to relieve Karin of the unhealthy control he holds over her as her cello teacher. When Henrik encounters Karin again upon his return from Uppsala, where he no longer holds a position as concertmaster, he attempts to convince Karin into performing a concert of Bach's Cello Suites with him. She finally confronts him about his control over her and tells him of her decision to take an opportunity to study with her friend Emma in Hamburg under Claudio Abbado. The final request by Henrik is that Karin play the sarabande from Bach's 5th Cello Suite, which she already knows.
We encounter Marianne and Johan some time later, after Karin has already left for Hamburg. Marianne receives a phone call stating that Henrik has been found in the hospital having attempted suicide with pills and by cutting his wrists and throat. In the next scene a pained Johan suffering from a sort of anxiety attack seeks out Marianne and eventually disrobes along with her and joins her in bed. Next, Marianne is holding a still of the couple in bed and explaining what happened after that episode. She explains how she and Johan had kept in contact until one day she was no longer able to reach him. She thinks again of the departed Anna and recollects a visit to her ill daughter Martha who is in a sanatarium. She explains the contact she shared with her daughter and how she had never really been able to touch her before this moment. | romantic | train | wikipedia | This film is about a scandal that almost changed history.
Unless you study geneology, you probably are unaware of the exact line of descent of the present Royal Family of England.
Most people don't really think about it but the House of Windsor has only had that name since 1917 (when it's German name was changed in World War I).
Prior to 1901 (when Edward VII inherited the British throne) the Royal Family was known as the House of Hanover.
But prior to 1714, the Royal Family were the Scottish based Stuarts (who ruled, with one eleven year gap, from 1603 - 1714).
It's confusing, but much political turmoil is involved in the change from Stuarts to Hanovarians.The Stuarts were cousins of the Tudors, and when the great Elizabeth I died in 1603 she was without Tudor heirs.
James VI of Scotland (son of Elizabeth's rival and cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots) became James I of England.
The daughter, Elizabeth, married a German Protestant prince, the Elector of the Palatinate (now part of the Czech Republic).
Her descendants included Prince Rupert, the brilliant cavalry general for his uncle King Charles I in the Civil Wars of the 1640s.
One of the descendants of Elizabeth Stuart was Princess Sophia, the wife of the Elector of Hanover.
In the 1690s, the elderly Princess found that (except for Princess Anne of England, and her son William, Duke of Gloucester - a sickly youth who would die in 1701) she was next in line to the British throne if anything happened to King William III and his wife Queen Mary II.
If anything happened to Princess Sophia, her son Prince George inherited her claim to the British throne.
Sorry for this confusion of inherited titles presumptive, but that is how it went.Prince George was not a loveable person.
He had married a cousin named Sophia Dorothea of Celle for her inheritance (needed to beef up his German territories around Hanover).
George's father (the Elector of Hanover) had a mistress, Countess von Platen, who wielded great influence in the German state.
This Countess introduced a young Swedish aristocrat, Count Philippe Koeningsmarck, to the court.
His second mistake was that he and Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle met and became too chummy.
It angered Prince George, who (while he had many mistresses) did not like the snickers of people thinking him a cuckold.
Platen (most likely) decoyed the Swede, and had him assassinated - she found her influence in court dead after that, and in her last years was thought to be plagued by Koeningsmarck's ghost.
In European circles the scandal spread, especially as it affected the way Englishmen viewed the prospected Protestant heirs to the throne.
Her half-brother, James the Old Pretender (father of Bonnie Prince Charlie)was a Catholic who supported his cousin Louis XIV in the war.
Prince George, despite the scandal, became King George I in 1714.
And his descendants have ruled Britain ever since.Poor Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle never was Queen.
George did not divorce her, but he had her imprisoned in her castle at Celle until she died in 1726.
Her son and daughter by George never forgave him, and the boy (the future King George II) made life very difficult for his father as a result.
There is a story (which one would like to believe) that while visiting Hanover shortly after his wife's death, a note was thrown into his carriage from a crowd.
The note was from Sophia Dorothea, and it cursed George for his bullying and cruelty to her and others.
George, reportedly, had a seizure reading this vitriolic message from the dead, and was paralyzed as a result until he died.
Unfortunately this story seems to be false.The film is pretty close to the actual tale, though it makes the relationship between the Princess of Celle and Koeningsmarck seem more of a love affair than it may have been.
Stewart Granger is fine as the Swedish Count, and Joan Greenwood (she of the plummy toned voice) is equally good as the Princess.
Peter Bull, that splendid British heavy, does a good Prince George, bullying his wife and servants, but capable of sly viciousness when he wants to retaliate against Koeningsmarck.
And Flora Robson shows the inner demons driving her to destroy the young protegee who can't reciprocate a love he never had in the first place.
Anthony Quayle, as one of the rivals of Koeningsmarck at the little royal court, is as good as he usually is, and lives up to the warning of never turning your back on Quayle in a duel!Oddly enough, the Koeningsmarck family left a larger shadow on European history than this film suggests.
At one point in the script, Philippe mentions that his younger brother (Count Karl von Koeningsmarck) was tried for murder.
The three thugs were found guilty of the murder and executed, but the Count (due to influence from King Charles II) was acqitted.
However, Count Karl died a few years afterwards.
Marachel Saxe was known to be particularly rough in leading his men against armies led by members of the Hanovarian royal family in the wars of this period.
Look out for simply stunning performances from Peter Bull as the heir presumptive to the British throne and, above all, Flora Robson as Countess Platen.
Stewart Granger (Konigsmark) is in top form and Francoise Rosay as the Electress Sophia is unforgettable.
The only area of weakness is Joan Greenwood's Sophie Dorothea, but she is supposed to be playing a tragic victim and maybe that's why critics wrote her off as a wet lettuce.
Terrific performances, excellent production values and superb color cinematography highlight this tale of court intrigue, forbidden love and murder.
Saraband for Dead Lovers was mentioned by Stewart Granger as one of the few films of his that he was truly proud of, and it's plain to see why.
In fact, if you liked that film, you'll probably love this one.
All the supporting cast are very good, especially Peter Bull and Anthony Quayle.
SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS (Basil Dearden, 1948) ***1/2.
I have always wondered why this movie – which is generally accorded the rank of a minor classic by film critics and historians – is not better known today and more widely discussed; having now watched it for myself, while I would readily proclaim it a near-masterpiece, I can perhaps also pinpoint the reason behind its relative neglect: the thing is that its production company Ealing Studios (whose first color production – and, in hindsight, its costliest flop – it was) is more associated with its celebrated run of droll comedies than with tragic historical romances.
Although SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS may initially seem to pertain to the "Gainsborough school" of costumers then in fashion in British cinema that were spearheaded by the box-office popularity of THE MAN IN GREY (1943), the film was clearly intended from the outset to be on a higher artistic plane altogether.
Co-written by the great Alexander Mackendrick (who would soon go on to direct some of Ealing's finest comedies), the film greatly benefits from Michael Relph's sumptuous décor, Douglas Slocombe's gleaming Technicolor cinematography (that indeed makes one bemoan the fact that Optimum's far from optimally restored R2 DVD does not really do it justice!) and Alan Rawsthorne's majestic score; on top of it all, we have masterful direction (undeniably one of the finest showcases for the distinguished Basil Dearden) and impeccable acting from a splendid roster of actors: Stewart Granger (as the dashing but ill-fated Swedish soldier Konigsmark, SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS was reportedly the one film of his he liked best!), Joan Greenwood (a very moving performance as the doomed Princess Sophie Dorothea), Flora Robson (excellent as an unlikely courtesan/king-maker with her own designs on Granger), Francoise Rosay (as the formidably inflexible matriarch), Peter Bull (typically loathsome as the future King George I), Michael Gough (as his martyred younger brother), Frederick Valk (as one of Robson's 'conquests' and Rosay's kin), Anthony Quayle (as Robson's reptilian spy), Megs Jenkins (as Greenwood's empathizing maid), Guy Rolfe (appearing in the opening sequences as one of Greenwood's wardens) – and, allegedly in bit parts, even Peter Arne, John Gregson and Christopher Lee!!
Among the various impressively-staged sequences in the film, two particular highlights stand out: a masked Greenwood's panic-stricken passage through a crowd of Carnival revelers being terminated by the sudden appearance of a facially uncovered Granger; and the climactic swordfight in a darkened hall which depicts a wounded Quayle mortally knifing Granger in the back, followed by the latter (having just uttered the name of his beloved Sophie Dorothea with his dying breath) being stomped in the face by a vindictive Robson!.
Beautiful love story.
It's a disturbing tale especially when you realize how many women in history must have felt as repressed and lonely as our heroine Sophie Dorothea.
Stewart Granger of course is always dashing in a costume drama.
At a time when Britain was supposed to be flat broke and ordinary people were seemingly as monochrome as the movies they watched, Ealing Studios was churning out classics of all kinds.
In this case a beautifully crafted and intelligent Mills & Boon in Technicolor and, with my thanks to the knowledgeable commentary of theowinthrop written earlier, the added frisson of apparently being (almost) perfectly true.Amidst the political machinations of the House of Hanover in its striving for the throne of England 300 years ago, a young and beautiful woman forced to be the wife of the boorish future King falls for a young and dashing Swedish nobleman, and vice versa.
While a powerful lady of the court is also passionately in love with the soldier.
Although initially it may take a few minutes to get into the politics of another world, it's a mesmerizingly told tale with solid emotional acting moving through some colourful luxurious sets and alternating between intense romance and somber intrigue, even a little swash.
Of the main stars Stewart Granger was seldom more er masculine and although Joan Greenwood was even more wishy washy than usual it was perfectly played and believable.
One thing: did Sophia's letter to her son ever get delivered?It might be more of a hit with the ladies, but gents too should enjoy it, with or without hankies..
Saraband for Dead Lovers tells the tragic story of Princess Sophia Dorothea of Celle who married Prince George Louis of Hanover most unhappily.
Her's is one of the saddest stories concerning royalty ever.This may have been Joan Greenwood's finest performance on screen.
For reasons of politics, she's rushed into a marriage with George Louis and has two children by him, a boy and girl.
At the time this is all taking place in the 1680s, there's no reason to suspect that these kids will be nothing more than the Electoral Princes of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire.But through their grandmother, played here by the indomitable French actress Francoise Rosay, they are descended from James I, the first king of the United Kingdoms of Scotland and England.
Actually in fact a whole lot of people in 1689 would have to clear out of the way for Peter to become King of Great Britain.
One thing the Hanover clan had going for them, they were firm Protestants and at that point there were too many people in Great Britain who had a vested interest in an unquestioned Protestant succession.
It was the Hanoverian ace in the hole.But before all these events occur Joan Greenwood falls head over heels for the dashing Swedish Count Philip of Konigsmarck as played by Stewart Granger.
Granger probably plays Konigsmarck a lot better than he actually was, which was a military man who was not above a little bedroom politics to get what he wanted.
Before becoming involved with the younger and more attractive Greenwood, Granger was providing a little nookie on the side to Flora Robson.
Robson was the old mistress of the Duke Ernest Augustus played here by Frederick Valk, but the old girl wanted something a little livelier which Granger provided for a few favorable mentions.
As in real life Granger moved away when he found something better and Flora reacted with the fury of a woman scorned.Some of you might recognize a bit of Anna Karennina in this story and I wouldn't be surprised if Count Tolstoy took this story as inspiration when he wrote his epic classic.Peter Bull and Joan Greenwood are the direct ancestors of the present monarch of the United Kingdom and her family.
In 1715 Peter Bull became George I of Great Britain and distinguished himself by never learning to speak one drop of English.
But the little boy in this film grew up to be George II and so on and so on until Elizabeth II.For what happens to lovers Granger and Greenwood you have to watch the film for.
It's a story that the royals aren't exactly proud of..
Long before the film was made, I read the book it is based on, namely Konigsmark by A.E.W.Mason.
I found the book enthralling and was more than eager to see the film, which turned out to be equally magical, exciting and romantic.
To my mind the actors were superbly cast and the sets and costumes so beautifully designed that I felt I was living the events myself and the book and the historical period came vividly to life.
I do hope that copies of the film have not been lost and that one day it will reappear perhaps in a remastered form.
It is one of the gems of forties' British film-making and deserves to be seen by a present-day audience..
Buried in the middle of this film is a five minute beautiful example of a montage by rhythm as Joan Greenwood tries to make her way through a chaotic masque ball in order to meet her lover.
The cuts and flash pans are edited rhythmically with the music and make for a wonderful example of a well-executed montage sequence.
Show just this sequence to film students..
I had a devil of a time finding this film, as of 2019 the only option open to me was a cheap for sale VHS, and thanks to my husband for keeping old equipment.
Stewart Granger sited this film as the only one he found worthy of his efforts, so as fan I was motivated to locate it.
There are no free streams anywhere, and Youtube has only a short black and white clip.Without having had the historical background for this film (well written here by theowinthrop), I struggled to understand what was going on, as the sound editing for this film was less than the best and dialogue fast clipped.
The general public would also not be familiar on this side of the Atlantic with German/British titled history, which explains why it bombed at the box office.
The acting was excellent, however, particularly by Dame Flora Robson and Stewart Granger.What the film did, however, was motivate me to do some historical research of the period, and to read the historical novel from which this movie was intimately faithful: "Saraband for Dead Lovers", by Helen de guerry Simpson, written in 1935.
If the film was abstruse, the book was in concert.
However, despite that, I do not think that the original production brought out the best in this story, notwithstanding the excellent acting.
One definitely should not approach viewing the film without consulting some English/German monarchal history first..
After 40 minutes of this film, I still had no idea what was going on.
No wonder the film is forgotten - it's just not at all engaging.
This is a terrible shame, especially as the story deals with the ancestors of the current royal family at the time when their ancestry was about to switch to the German lineage.
I feel the film-makers have done a huge dis-service to what should have been a fascinating story.
The worst offender is Joan Greenwood as Sophie Dorothea.
The film is basically about a doomed love affair.
I suggest you read that for all the interest and knowledge surrounding this topic and forget about this film.
Stunning Ealing film....a tragedy that it is not better known....
Amazing, amazing film that, sadly, virtually no one knows about.
This Ealing historical romance, filmed in muted Technicolour tones, is just stunning.
If you are one of the "Stewart Granger was a smarmy bastard who can't act" club, you obviously haven't seen this film.
Granger and Joan Greenwood play the doomed lovers of the title to perfection.
Flora Robson should have been nominated, and won, the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her excellent performance.
This film contains many visual delights, not least a five minute montage where Greenwood tries to make her way through a masked crowd of revelers to meet her lover.
This is a big statement, but the film should be as well known and widely seen as other great British films of it's vintage, such as Lean's Great Expectations and Reed's Odd Man Out. Seek this one out at every opportunity!
"Charabancs for dead lovers -what's that all about?"......
.....demanded my slightly deaf Uncle Charlie when my aunt read out the local cinema guide.
Not charabancs,saraband - it's a dance",she replied with all the authority of a woman who ran Ballet and Tap classes from her parlour for 30 years.
There was a film about parachutists next week,maybe we could go and see that.
"Saraband for dead lovers" was a huge flop with picture goers in its time.
Despite good production values and sterling performances its subject matter -
an obscure European aristocrat mostly unknown to an audience who were generally strongly opposed to anything even vaguely Germanic three years after the end of World War 2.
beautifully produced piece of work,an early example of exquisite use of colour in a British picture. |
tt2963076 | Remember Me | In 1991 in New York City, Alyssa "Ally" Craig is waiting with her mother for the subway when they are mugged by two young men who shoot her mother after boarding the train.
Ten years later, Ally is a student at New York University and lives with her father, Neil, a New York Police Department detective. Tyler Hawkins audits classes at NYU and works at the university bookstore. He has a strained relationship with his businessman father, Charles, because his older brother, Michael, committed suicide years before. Charles ignores his youngest child, Caroline, of whom Tyler is protective.
One night with his roommate, Aidan, Tyler gets involved in somebody else's fight and is arrested by Neil. Aidan calls Charles to bail Tyler out, but he does not stick around to have a conversation with his father. Aidan sees Neil dropping Ally off, realizing that she is his daughter. He approaches Tyler with the idea to get back at the detective by persuading him to sleep with and dump Ally. Tyler and Ally go to dinner, kiss at the end of the night, and continue seeing one another. While at Tyler's apartment, Aidan convinces the pair to go to a party, after which Ally is very drunk and ends up crashing there. The following day she and her father argue. Neil slaps her and Ally flees to Tyler's apartment.
Caroline, a budding artist, is featured in an art show and Tyler asks his father to attend the show. When he fails to show up, Tyler confronts him in a board room filled with people, which causes his father to explode. Neil's partner recognizes Tyler with Ally on a train, so Neil breaks into Tyler's apartment and confronts him. Tyler provokes Neil by confessing to Aidan's plan and his initial reason for meeting Ally, which forces Tyler to confess to Ally. She leaves and returns home. Aidan visits Ally at her father's home to explain that he is to blame and Tyler is in love with her.
Caroline is bullied by classmates at a birthday party where they cut her hair off. Ally and Aidan visit Tyler's mother's apartment where Caroline is sobbing. Tyler accompanies his sister back to school and when her classmates tease her for her new haircut, Tyler turns violent and ends up in jail. Charles is impressed that Tyler stood up for his sister, and they connect. Charles asks Tyler to meet with the lawyers at his office.
Tyler spends the night with Ally and they reveal they love each other after making love. Charles takes Caroline to school. He calls Tyler to let him know this and tell him he'll be late. Tyler is happy his father is spending time with Caroline. He tells Charles he will wait in his office, He sees on Charles's computer, a slideshow of pictures of Tyler, Michael and Caroline when they were younger.
After Charles drops Caroline off at school, she sits in her classroom, where the teacher writes the date on the blackboard as September 11, 2001. Tyler looks out the window of his father's office—which is revealed to be located on the 101st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Once the 9/11 terrorist attacks begin, the rest of the family, Aidan and Ally look at the towers before the camera pans over the rubble, showing Tyler's diary. In a voice-over of his diary, Tyler reveals to Michael that he loves him, and he forgives him for killing himself. Tyler is buried next to Michael.
Some time later, Caroline and Charles seem to have a healthy father-daughter relationship. Aidan, who has since gotten a tattoo of Tyler's name on his arm, is working hard in school and Ally gets on the subway at the same spot where her mother was killed. | sci-fi | train | wikipedia | null |
tt2950850 | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows | A year after their battle with Shredder, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, still live beneath the sewers of New York City, having allowed Vern Fenwick to take the credit for Shredder's defeat. At Grand Central Station, April O'Neil discovers and informs the turtles that scientist Baxter Stockman is working for Shredder and plans to bust him out of prison. As Shredder is transferred between prisons alongside criminals Bebop and Rocksteady by corrections officer Casey Jones, the Foot Clan attack the convoy transporting them. Despite the turtles' interference, Shredder escapes when Stockman uses a teleportation device. Shredder is hijacked mid-teleport, winds up in another dimension, and meets the alien warlord Krang, who reveals his plans to invade Earth. He gives Shredder a purple mutagenic compound in exchange for his promise to find three components of a machine that Krang sent to Earth long ago which will open a portal to his dimension when united, knowing that Shredder and Stockman have the first piece. Casey tells NYPD chief Rebecca Vincent what happened to Shredder but is met with disbelief, and decides to go out on his own.
Shredder returns to NY, recruits Bebop and Rocksteady, who also escaped, and has Stockman use Krang's mutagen to transform them into powerful animal mutants—a humanoid warthog and rhinoceros. April witnesses their transformation and is able to steal the mutagen vial. Pursued by the Foot, she is rescued by Casey, who uses hockey gear. In the ensuing battle, the vial is taken into police custody. April then introduces Casey to the turtles, and Raphael and Michelangelo make fun of and pull pranks on him. In the lair, Donatello deduces that the mutagen could be used to turn the turtles into humans, enabling them to live normal lives above ground, but Leonardo refuses and insists on keeping it a secret from the others. However, Michelangelo overhears their conversation and tells Raphael, which enrages Raphael and leads to a fierce argument between the brothers. Leonardo benches Raphael and takes Michelangelo off the mission. In the Natural History Museum, Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady are able to find the second piece and steal it before Leonardo and Donatello arrive. Still furious, Raphael recruits Michelangelo, April, Casey, and Vern to break into the NYPD headquarters and retrieve the mutagen. Vern distracts the police while April and Casey retrieve the mutagen, but the Foot arrive ahead of them. In the ensuing battle, the turtles' existence is revealed to the police, who react with fear and hatred. April and Casey help the brothers escape with the mutagen, but are arrested in the process. Vincent also sees on TCRI's cameras that April stole the mutagen, but Stockman had edited the tape so only April is seen.
The turtles track Bebop and Rocksteady as they recover the final piece of the device in the rainforests of Manaus, Brazil, and board Rocksteady and Bebop's jet in midair. In the resulting battle, the jet is critically damaged after Rocksteady fires a tank-mounted machine gun in the cargo hold, and crashes into a river. As the Turtles battle with Bebop in the river for control of the piece, Rocksteady emerges in the tank and helps Bebop escape with the piece. The turtles return to NY as Shredder and Stockman complete the device and open a portal to Krang's dimension through which his modular war machine, the Technodrome, begins to emerge. Shredder betrays Stockman and his men take him to their headquarters in Tokyo. When entering the Technodrome, Krang likewise betrays Shredder, freezing him and locking him with his collection of other defeated foes.
Seeing no way to reach the Technodrome as the police pursue them, the turtles debate over taking the mutagen to become human and fight openly. While Leonardo agrees, Raphael shatters the vial, realizing they must accept who they are. Upon April's request, Vern recovers the security footage from a hidden TCRI camera that proves Stockman and Shredder's collaboration and secures April and Casey's release. April arranges a meeting between the turtles and Vincent, and convinces her that they are not enemies and were the ones who defeated Shredder in the first place. With the help of the police, the turtles are able to jump from the Chrysler Building and confront Krang aboard the still-assembling Technodrome. Although Krang is able to overpower all four turtles easily, they defeat him when Donatello short circuits Krang's robotics body. April, Casey and Vern raid the Foot Clan facility, defeat Bebop, Rocksteady and Shredder's lieutenant Karai and take control of the device. The turtles are able to hurl the beacon back through the portal, taking Krang and the rest of the Technodrome with it, as April, Casey, and Vern shut the portal down. As he disappears, Krang swears that he will return stronger for revenge.
A week later, Bebop and Rocksteady are back in custody, while Stockman remains at large. At night, the Turtles are honored by Vincent and the NYPD along with April, Casey, and Vern, and given golden keys to the city. Vincent offers to introduce the turtles to the public, allowing them to lead normal lives, but the turtles opt to keep their existence a secret while still helping as they always have. On top of the Statue of Liberty, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles celebrate their victory over the vanquished Krang. | violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0070351 | The MacKintosh Man | Joseph Rearden, a British Intelligence agent, arrives in London and makes a rendezvous with MacKintosh, the head of his organisation, in a discreet office located just off Trafalgar Square. MacKintosh and his deputy, Mrs Smith, inform him of a simple way to steal diamonds which are transported via the postal service to avoid attention. This he does, apparently getting successfully away after punching a postman, and making off with the diamond-filled parcel. However, that evening, in his hotel room he is paid a visit by two Metropolitan Police Service detectives who have received an anonymous phone call advising them about the robbery. They are unconvinced by Rearden's pretence to be an innocent Australian who had recently arrived in London.
The judge at his trial is angered by the failure to recover the stolen diamonds from Rearden, who he believes has stashed them away somewhere, and sentences him to twenty years in jail. Rearden is shipped off to HM Prison Chelmsford. He slowly begins to blend in with the other prisoners, and is assigned to laundry-washing duties. A few days after entering he encounters Slade, a former British intelligence officer kept in high security after having been exposed as a KGB mole. He makes innocent enquiries of his fellow inmates about Slade, but not a great deal is known about him.
A few weeks later, he is approached by a well-spoken inmate who offers to act as a go-between with an organisation which can spring him from the prison in exchange for a large cut of the stolen diamonds. They are used to helping prisoners escape, and have another exit planned shortly, which he can join, if he is prepared to put up the money, to which he agrees. Two days later a diversion is arranged, and smoke bombs are hurled over the walls. Using the smoke screen Rearden and a fellow prisoner, who turns out to be Slade, are lifted over the walls by a cargo net and driven away at high speed. They are then drugged by injection, and taken to a secret location, somewhere in wild, deserted countryside. When Slade and Rearden awake, they are told they will be kept there for a week until hunt for them dies down.
In London, MacKintosh discreetly monitors the progress of Rearden. His entry into prison has been a planned sting operation to smoke out the organisation. It is now intended they will be raided, rounded up and Slade returned to prison. Following a speech attacking the handling of the Slade escape by an old friend and war comrade, Sir George Wheeler MP in the House of Commons, MacKintosh approaches him and advises him it would be better to remain silent or risk embarrassing himself. Wheeler, however, despite masquerading as a staunchly patriotic right-winger, is actually a Communist and an agent of the KGB. He immediately tips off the head of the organisation where Rearden is being held. MacKintosh had suspected Wheeler and had used their meeting to try to flush him out. Before MacKintosh can act, he is run down by a car and dies soon afterwards.
In the meantime, Rearden falls under suspicion by the escape organisation. Doubting his claims to be an Australian criminal, they beat him violently and savage him with a guard dog. Eventually, he manages to fight back and escape the building, setting it on fire. He makes out across country, pursued by his guards and the dog. He is finally forced to drown the dog in a stream to throw his assailants off the scent. He then makes it to a nearby town, where he discovers he is on the west coast of Ireland and has apparently been staying on the estate of a close friend of Sir George Wheeler. He contacts Mrs Smith in London, who flies to meet him in Galway. Realising that Slade has been smuggled out of Ireland on the private yacht of Wheeler, they now head to Valletta, Malta, where Wheeler is heading.
Once in Malta, they try to infiltrate one of Wheeler's parties and discover the whereabouts of Slade. Wheeler soon recognises Mrs Smith — the daughter of his old friend MacKintosh — drugs her, and takes her aboard his yacht. Rearden tries to get the Maltese police to raid the boat, but they refuse to believe that a respected man as Wheeler can be involved in kidnapping and treason, so instead they move to arrest Rearden, who is still a wanted man for his earlier faked diamond robbery. So, Rearden is again forced to flee, but manages to follow Wheeler to a church where he and Slade are holding Mrs Smith. He pulls a gun on them, and orders them to hand over Mrs Smith. Presented with a Mexican standoff, Wheeler and Slade try to persuade Rearden to let them go unharmed, in return for which they will also spare him and Mrs Smith. Reluctantly Rearden agrees, but Mrs Smith takes up a gun and shoots Slade and Wheeler, avenging the murder of her father. She has fulfilled her orders and bitterly abandons Rearden, angry at the way he has not followed his own orders. | humor, action, sadist | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0286594 | Doctor Sleep | Following the events of The Shining, after receiving a settlement from the owners of the Overlook Hotel, Danny Torrance remains psychologically traumatized as his mother Wendy slowly recovers from her injuries. Angry ghosts from the Overlook still want to consume Danny to inherit his phenomenal "shining" power and eventually find him, including the woman from Room 217. Dick Hallorann, the Overlook's chef, teaches Danny to create lockboxes in his mind to contain the ghosts, including that of former Overlook owner Horace Derwent.
As an adult, Danny (now going by Dan) takes up his father's legacy of anger and alcoholism. Dan spends years drifting across the country, but eventually makes his way to New Hampshire and decides to give up drinking. He settles in the small town of Frazier, working first at a tourist attraction and then at a hospice, and attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. His psychic abilities, long suppressed by his drinking, re-emerge and allow him to provide comfort to dying patients. Aided by a cat who can sense when someone is about to die, Dan acquires the nickname Doctor Sleep.
In the meantime, Abra Stone, a baby girl born in 2001, begins to manifest psychic powers of her own when she seemingly predicts the September 11 terrorist attacks. She slowly and unintentionally establishes a telepathic bond with Dan; as she grows, the contact becomes more conscious and voluntary and her shining grows stronger than his. One night, Abra psychically witnesses the ritual torture and murder of a boy by the True Knot, a group of quasi-immortals (many of which possesses their own Shine abilities) who wander across America and periodically feed on steam, a psychic essence produced when the people who possess the shining die in pain. The True Knot's leader, Rose the Hat, becomes aware of Abra's existence and formulates a plan to kidnap Abra and keep her alive so she can produce a limitless supply of steam.
The True Knot begin to die off from measles contracted from their last victim; they believe that Abra's steam can cure them. Abra asks for Dan's help, and he reveals his connection with Abra to her father David and their family doctor, John Dalton. Angry and skeptical at first, David starts to believe Dan and agrees to go along with his plan to save Abra. With the help of Billy Freeman, one of Dan's friends, they foil and kill a raiding party sent by Rose, led by Rose's lover Crow Daddy; however, Dan realizes that Rose will relentlessly hunt Abra for revenge. He visits Abra's great-grandmother Concetta, who is dying of cancer, and telepathically learns from her that he and Abra's mother Lucy are half-siblings with the same father. As Concetta dies, Dan takes her diseased steam into himself. Meanwhile, dissention in the ranks of The True Knot, along with Rose's obsession with Abra, leads to the group splitting up, leaving Rose with even fewer followers.
Following another kidnapping attempt that Abra foils with Dan's telepathic help, she baits Rose into confronting her at the location where the Overlook Hotel once stood in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, now home to a campsite owned by the True Knot. Dan and Billy travel to the site, while Abra helps them by using her astral projection. Dan releases the steam collected from Concetta to the remaining group of True Knot members lying in wait, killing all of them. He frees the ghost of Horace Derwent to kill the last member, Silent Sarey, waiting to ambush him and Abra, and the two fight Rose in a long psychic struggle. With help from Billy and the ghost of Dan's father, Jack Torrance, they push Rose off an observation platform to her death. Before leaving the campsite, Dan makes peace with his father.
In the epilogue, Dan celebrates fifteen years of sobriety and attends Abra's fifteenth birthday party. He tells her about the patterns of alcoholism and violent behavior that run in his family, and warns her not to repeat them by starting to drink or submitting to rage. Abra agrees that she will behave, but before they can finish the conversation, Dan is called back to his hospice, where he comforts a dying colleague who had antagonized him in the past. | suspenseful, cult, philosophical, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt3186880 | The Wolf Among Us | === Setting ===
The Wolf Among Us is set in the year 1986, nearly twenty years before the events of Fables. For years, many of the magical lands described in myth, legend, and folklore (known as The Homelands) have been occupied by an enigmatic tyrant known as the Adversary. To escape the Adversary's totalitarian regime, many of The Homelands inhabitants fled to colonial America, and created an enclave known as Fabletown, now located in modern-day Manhattan. To mask their presence from the native humans, all non-human fables have to purchase an enchantment known as a "glamour" which allows them to appear human, or be relocated to a rural community known as "The Farm".
=== Characters ===
The player-protagonist of The Wolf Among Us is Bigby Wolf (Adam Harrington), formerly the Big Bad Wolf. He is the sheriff of Fabletown, currently working at the "Business Office" under interim mayor Ichabod Crane (Roger L. Jackson), aided by Snow White (Erin Yvette) and her Magic Mirror (Gavin Hammon) in his investigation along with the help of Bufkin the winged monkey (Chuck Kourouklis) that manages Fabletown's records. Bluebeard (Dave Fennoy) also works at the Office though his motives are unclear. Bigby resides at the Woodlands apartments, where he is currently allowing Colin (Brian Sommer), one of the Three Little Pigs, to stay with him after blowing down the pig's home. Beauty and the Beast (Melissa Hutchison and Gavin Hammon) are also residents of Woodlands, though currently struggling with a troubled marriage. One of the Fables that Bigby frequently contacts is Mr. Toad (Chuck Kourouklis) and his son TJ (Toad Jr.) (Melissa Hutchison), who live in a run-down apartment building nearby.
As the game opens, the player is introduced to the The Woodsman (Adam Harrington) who lives in the same building as Mr. Toad, and Faith (Cia Court) and Prince Lawrence (Anthony Lam), characters from the Allerleirauh/Donkeyskin fables. Standing in Bigby's way are Dee and Dum Tweedle (Gavin Hammon), twin thugs working for an unknown agent. Bigby also encounters Holly (Janet Lipsey), a Troll that runs the Trip Trap bar, and Grendel (Kid Beyond), a barfly there. The second episode introduces Georgie Porgie (Kevin Howarth), the owner of the Pudding and Pie strip club and Faith's pimp, along with two of his dancers, Nerissa (Molly Benson) the former Little Mermaid and Vivian (Sandy Delonga), and Clever Hans (Ben Knoll), the club's bouncer. The third episode introduces Bloody Mary (Kathryn Cressida) as an agent of the Crooked Man (Philip Banks) and Aunty Greenleaf (Laura Bailey), a rogue witch who illegally sells cheap black-market glamours to Fables who cannot afford the glamours in the 13th Floor. The fourth episode introduces the Jersey Devil (Bobby Vickers), the manager of the Lucky Pawn shop and Johann the butcher (Terry McGovern), the former owner of the Cut Above butcher shop and has since been forced out by the Crooked Man's henchmen.
=== Plot ===
This is a broad overview of the plot. Certain decisions made by the player will alter details of specific events.
Bigby Wolf, formerly the Big Bad Wolf, is the Sheriff of Fabletown, a hidden community of fairytale characters located in 1980s New York City. Receiving a call from Mr. Toad, Bigby manages to save a prostitute from an intoxicated Woodsman. He escorts her to safety and before she departs, she tells him he is not as bad as everyone says he is.
Later that night, Bigby is shocked to find the woman's head left on the Woodlands doorstep. Clues left with the head identify her as Faith, a Fable from Allerleirauh. Deputy Mayor Ichabod Crane orders him and Snow White to investigate her death. They head to the apartment she shared with her husband Prince Lawrence and find the Tweedles, Dee and Dum, snooping through it. They learn from Lawrence that they struggled to make ends meet and Faith took up prostitution to help pay the bills. Bigby leaves Snow at the Woodlands while he continues to trace leads. When he returns, he finds the Woodlands surrounded by police, Snow's head sitting on the building's steps.
Bigby is taken in for questioning, but Crane uses a spell to wipe the incident from the police's minds. When they return, they are surprised to find Snow still alive; the head is shown to be disguised by a black-market glamour, a spell that Fables use to look human, and belongs to a troll named Lily. Bigby tracks Lily's connections to a strip club run by Georgie Porgie, but Georgie claims innocence. One of his other prostitutes, Nerissa, cryptically directs Bigby to a nearby hotel room. There he finds Lily's blood on the bed, and photographic evidence of Crane engaging in sexual acts with Lily glamoured to look like Snow. He informs Snow of this, and they race back to the Woodlands to find Crane gone, and the Magic Mirror, which could have revealed his location, shattered with one shard missing.
Bigby follows a trail of clues to Crane's whereabouts to the apartment of Aunty Greenleaf, one of the witches that makes the black-market glamours. Along the way, Bigby discovers that Crane has been embezzling money from Fabletown over the years to pay off a loan shark known as the Crooked Man. When Bigby and Snow threaten to destroy the tree she needs to make them, Greenleaf begs forgiveness and points the two back to Georgie's club. Storming the club, they find Crane trying to hide in the back. Snow realizes Crane's actions are not that of a murderer, and the two convince Crane to return for questioning. En route, they are stopped by the Crooked Man and his agents, the Tweedles and Bloody Mary. Mary and the Tweedles goad Bigby into his werewolf form, and a fight breaks out. When Mary wounds Bigby with a silver bullet, Snow steps in to stop the fight and willingly gives up Crane.
Back at Woodlands, Bigby is healed, and is struggling to find clues when Nerissa appears. He realizes the ribbon she wears prevents her from speaking the truth, that Faith wore an identical ribbon, and that Faith died when the ribbon was removed. He follows another trail of clues, and finds evidence of the black-market glamour ring in the Cut Above butcher shop, a pawn shop called the Lucky Pawn where the Crooked Man distributes his loans to Fables owned by Jersey Devil, another henchman of the Crooked Man, and Crane's presence, as well as the missing Mirror shard. The Mirror reveals Mary putting Crane onto an overseas flight to keep him from talking, as well as the next location of the door to the Crooked Man's realm, which moves around the city.
Bigby enters the Crooked Man's realm alone, meeting him and his agents. The Crooked Man explains that the situation is all a misunderstanding by Georgie, who had only been asked to deal with an internal problem, but Georgie asserts the Crooked Man told him to kill the women. A fight ensues, and ends with the Crooked Man escaping, and a fatally slashed Georgie fleeing with Vivian. When Bigby tracks Vivian to the Club, she explains that the Crooked Man and Georgie were acting to stop a plot spearheaded by Faith with the other prostitutes. Vivian is revealed to be the girl with the ribbon around her neck and, having made copies of her ribbon, trapped women like Faith, Lily, and Nerissa for Georgie whilst guaranteeing their silence. Regretting her actions, Vivian undoes her ribbon, breaking the spell but severing her head.
Bigby then finds the Crooked Man's hideout and corners him in an office, where he demands a fair trial at the Woodlands. Bigby returns to the Witching Well at the Business Office to recount events to the assembled Fables of Woodlands, where he and Snow are forced to defend their actions against claims from the Fables. Bigby recounts Vivian's and Georgie's confessions regarding the Crooked Man's involvement, but his word is deemed untrustworthy. Nerissa appears and testifies that she and five other women heard the Crooked Man order the murders. Their testimonies are considered sufficient to believe what Bigby did was right.
In the epilogue, Snow and Bluebeard deal with the fallout of the Crooked Man's actions, while Bigby sees off those Fables being taken back to the Farm. Afterward, he encounters Nerissa, who is moving on with her life. She admits that Faith concocted a plan with Lily, Nerissa, and the other prostitutes to blackmail Georgie and the Crooked Man for their freedom, using a picture of Lily and Crane together, but Georgie killed Faith when he discovered their plot. Nerissa left Faith's head at the Woodlands to get Bigby involved, and gave false testimony to have the Crooked Man punished, knowing that he was the one who ordered their deaths. Leaving, she comments Bigby is not as bad everyone says he is, causing Bigby to recall Faith said the same before her death. Several past conversations with Faith and Nerissa, regarding the use of glamours play out in Bigby's head, leading him to question the true identity of Nerissa. | fantasy | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0323120 | Loving Annabelle | Annabelle Tillman, the daughter of a senator, is sent to a Catholic boarding school after being expelled from two of her previous schools. Simone Bradley, a poetry teacher at the school, is in charge of her dormitory. Annabelle shares the dormitory with an amiable classmate, Kristen. She also shares a room with Katherine, who tends to bully people, and Colins, a student with a nervous disposition.
Simone is a dependable and respectable teacher who occasionally bends the rules out of concern for her students. Her personal life is synonymous with abiding by the conventions of society and religion. Annabelle is her antiagent – with unrestrained behavior, unconventional choices and outright defiance for authority.
Annabelle receives a stern rebuke from the principal, Mother Immaculata, for audaciously flaunting her Buddhist prayer beads. Simone is given the responsibility of controlling her. At first, Simone requests that the principal move Annabelle to another dormitory but soon notices her maturity and sensitivity and convinces her to comply with the school regulations. In the process Annabelle falls in love with Simone.
Simone resists Annabelle’s delicate overtures until they are left alone at the school during spring break. Simone drives Annabelle to her beach house where Annabelle discovers painful personal details about Simone’s past. Annabelle holds Simone tightly in her arms as Simone breaks down. A deep emotional connection is established between the two.
Simone fights a hard battle with herself but is eventually overpowered by Annabelle’s relentless pursuit. At the annual school dance, Annabelle goes up on stage with her guitar and sings a song for Simone. Simone, who is confused, runs outside, but Annabelle catches up with her. They kiss and return to Simone's room to make love.
The next morning, Mother Immaculata walks in on them getting dressed and demands to see Simone in her office immediately. On being questioned if she did the right thing Simone admits that she loves Annabelle. Government officials arrest Simone, and just as she is leaving, Annabelle places her most prized possession – the Buddhist prayer beads – in her hands.
Annabelle tearfully looks at her pictures taken by Simone at the beach house while Simone is driven away. The movie ends with the following quote – ‘For one human being to love another that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks…the work for which all other work is but preparation.’ | romantic | train | wikipedia | Putting aside the inner struggle Simone was fighting of wanting to show her love for Annabelle along with the conflict of the student, teacher, relationship that would definitely have legal ramifications, who would want to have to face the grave consequences of making such a professional and moral choice...which struggle only added to the intensity of all the feeling that was unleashed during the consummation and sharing of their deep feelings of love and intimacy one for the other.It all made me start to think about what it is to really love someone.
The "unconventional" love story turns many notions on their heads: student-teacher sexual relations; the possible effects of a Catholic school upbringing or environment on an individual; and same-sex love, if anyone out there is still bigoted enough to take offense to that.What I liked about the film was that it was character-driven, and not plot-driven.
I totally identified with the main characters and cared about them (individually) very deeply besides my interest in whether or not they would get together.The look of the film, the quality of the story, and the TERRIFIC acting (both Annabelle and Simone are perfectly cast) give Loving Annabelle the depth and sheen of a much higher-budget film.
My initial reaction after watching was....they finally got it right, more specifically, writer Katherine Brooks got it right.I've never really been a fan of "lesbian" movies because I could never get into the story lines or characters; they've all seemed a bit over the top.
I give this movie 2 thumbs way up for giving me something I can relate to, for being such a straightforward story about love, letting go, putting happiness first, etc.Now as an added bonus, since it was the premiere I was able to nervously chat with writer/director Katherine Brooks and the 2 leads (ALL HOT by the way) and they were all so super cool so it makes the movie that much more enjoyable.
After having watched so many lesbian films and being utterly disappointed with the majority of them, it was a relief to sit through "Loving Annabelle." The story touches the heart and is an incredible intro for Katherine Brooks into what I hope will be a long, fruitful career as a Writer/Director for feature films.
I will end with a cliché but very appropriate for this movie: If Loving Annabelle didn't exist, someone would have to invent it.
Because of this rushed feeling to the movie, I never got to know the supporting characters, who had plenty of potential for further development.The one thing I find redeeming about this film is the tension that builds between the two leads.
"Loving Annabelle" (2006), co-written and directed by Katherine Brooks, is an attractive film with attractive leads.
Basically it's a love story between a student at a Catholic school and her female teacher.The basic concept of the movie is forbidden love.
(Erin Kelly as Annabelle looks like a young Jane Fonda.) Diane Gaidry as Simone looked right for the part and acted it well.
Ms. Gaidry was gracious enough to come to the screening of the movie, which played at ImageOut, the Rochester Gay and Lesbian film festivalFinally, in Rochester, almost the entire audience consisted of lesbian couples.
To faint-hearted US citizens - who tend to pass out or cry havoc at the mere sight of a female nipple - this decidedly tepid tale of a 17-year-old lesbian girl falling in love with her 40-ish teacher and dragging her into bed might have SCANDAL written all over it; to more enlightened people, it's simply shallow and, even at its b-movie running time of 76 minutes, immensely boring.
And while the acting is okay, some scenes - such as the kissing-in-the-swimming-pool bit - look as cheesy as if they were lifted straight from "The L Word" or a soft-core lesbian sex flick; how director Katherine Brooks managed to hire people like Elizabeth Shue, Will Patton and the ever-magnificent Frances Conroy for her latest effort ("Waking Madison") is beyond me.
Finally, the climactic (no pun intended) sex scene is actually very tame and never goes beyond European prime-time TV standards, so, dear kids and guardians of public morals, there's really nothing to worry about.Contrary to some of the comments here, the film doesn't encourage, let alone propagate "pedophilia" (which generally stands for the sexual abuse of a child, a category a sexually active and aggressive 17-year-old hardly qualifies for in my book) but mostly plays like a chin-up movie for young lesbians about to come out..
It felt like a student movie about lesbian relationships in catholic schools.
The only way you could possibly enjoy this is if the film relates to a personal story of a similar category, like a crush on a teacher or some forbidden girl love episode.
Loving Annabelle has inspired me to come out, it has inspired me so much so that i'm left thinking, why the hell was I so worried about everyone knowing i'm a lesbian.
Katherine Brooks is amazing for creating such an outstanding film, she has really been able to connect with the audience, connect with something in me and i am just so grateful to her.Watching Loving Annabelle, i was constantly glued to the screen, allot of films out there i often find myself thinking 'oh my gosh, can i fast forward, this is really boring' but not this time.
i am straight when it comes to sexual orientation but i do not condemn or judge people who belong to the third sex...and i watch any kind of sensible movies, and LOVING ANNABELLE is just one of those.
i mean, when i was watching those movies i was like "yucky!!!" because the actors were kissing without passion or emotions.in LA, the way erin and dianne looked at each other let me feel the force of a magnet..!...
Maybe this is how it works, but I find it hard to believe that a teacher who says "NO" as many times as Simone did in this film would risk her freedom and her career for this particular student.
And the actress that played Annabelle, well, I hope she makes better career choices in the future because this film wasn't worth watching..
The movie makes you want to watch it to the end, and relate with its content, as well as wish all of the characters luck in their future.
From a cinematographic point, while the main part of the movie is not outstanding, the small segues between scenes are characteristically made, with amazing shots and good, calm music, and give this movie a characteristic look and feel that makes you want to return to it.
The movie loving Annabelle is a great tear jerker , very heart touching , highly emotional and only meant for those who really believe in love .
'Loving Annabelle' is a lesbian 'love-story' (I use quotation marks, because it is a love story in the loosest sense) between teacher, Simone (Diane Gaidry) and student, Annabelle (Erin Kelly) at a Catholic boarding school.I expected more from 'Loving Annabelle' based on it's rather decent 6.7 star rating, and was underwhelmed after finishing it.
There is nothing engaging or touching about 'Loving Annabelle', and out of the many romantic films I've watched over the years it is probably the flattest love-story I've ever seen.
I'm not averse to slow burn love stories (in fact, I'm a fan of them), but the agonising pace at which the relationship develops between Simone and Annabelle is almost unbearable.
This wouldn't have been such an issue if the relationship between Simone and Annabelle actually had depth and substance but it doesn't.Unfortunately, the performances from both actresses were average at best and their chemistry was non-existent.
Annabelle is a character based entirely upon 'bad girl' stereotypes and becomes inappropriately obsessed with Simone over-night, resorting to stalker behaviours which are rather uncomfortable to watch.
Her supposed struggle with her attraction to Annabelle is short-lived and she doesn't take any action to end the inappropriate relationship that is about to unfold between her and Annabelle.I believe 'Loving Annabelle' was supposed to tell a story of two young women who were unfulfilled in their lives and searching for a connection that they found with each other regardless of age or gender.
They collaborate again in this feature length drama about a Catholic school teacher who falls in love with a girl in one of her classes.Erin Kelly stars as Annabelle, a rebellious teenage girl who is forced to live and attend a strict Catholic school for girls.
Cat (Fudickar) is the bad seed, unable to resist the urge to say the things that need not be said.Annabelle's poetry teacher is Simone, a former student of the school and niece to Mother Immaculata, the headmistress.
Breckenridge, Horn and Fudickar are the perfect supporting cast, each able to complement and play off the others."Loving Annabelle" is a special film that deserves so much more attention than it will get.
The chemistry between the actresses was fantastic -- Erin and Diane made you wish for nothing less than a happy ending and while some of the script was textbook, their acting made you forgive the minor script shortcomings.Lets face it, Erin and Diane are two beautiful women you find yourself rooting for throughout the entire movie.
Therefore, watch the film, and decide for yourself, what you can discover, from Loving Annabelle..
You'll want to keep an eye out for other films by Katherine Brooks, as well as the lead actors (Erin Kelly and Diane Gaidry).
Loving Annabelle has to be one of the most honest and heart-wrenching films that i have seen in a long time.
i liked the alternate ending..and i wish it could be true...a nicely acted characters made it a real touchy story..i saw it several time minutely repeating each of its scenes..a perfect one.
after the world unseen by shamim sarif this appears to be a great watch...and yes this movie is a great support to the statement that 'LOVE can happen to any one with any one' what matters is the intensity for love...i just loved Simone Bradley perfections....she is awesome with the title girl...Erin Kelly...much they have talked about but everything was in their eyes..the attraction.passion and madness they created is just mind blowing.i think the director can go with the next part of the same movie as it leaves clues with it and do believe again it will click..
Loving Annabelle is a great movie!
If I'm going to like a romance movie, it really needs to have a twist; and while this film does follow a set formula and it's always clear where it's going; the fact that the two leads are female, as well as the fact that their romance is forbidden due to their 'professional' relationship and not to mention the religious themes means that director Katherine Brooks' debut feature has just about enough to distance itself from the mainstream.
The film takes place in a Catholic school and the story begins with the arrival of new student Annabelle.
Once it becomes clear that they have chemistry, the younger girl then proceeds to pursue the older until the inevitable dramatic conclusion.I cant say that this film is perfect; a plot like this is always going to rely a lot on coincidence and the way that the characters are laid out is not particularly inventive and the role each of the main players is going to play is as obvious as where the plot is going from the outset.
The director has a history of directing stuff for MTV, so unsurprisingly this film is a rather glossy affair, although it is well acted and well directed with lead actresses Erin Kelly and Diane Gaidry making an impression.
I don't look at this as a lesbian film, although it is, but as a film about love.The entire movie was a set up to the last 10 minutes.
Even though Simone fought it because of her position, it was apparent that it was going to be a losing battle, as Annabelle was just too strong and too convinced that her feeling were the real thing.Love.
Makes you wonder with all the stories you read in the news about female teachers having sex with their students, whether Katherine Brooks is some sort of a visionary!
Erin Kelly is stunningly beautiful and Diane Gaidry is charming in this lesbian love story.
If ever I get into the movies, I would want to be in a film similar to Loving Annabelle.
Created with a suited music score and I think a soundtrack is due already, impeccable direction by Katherine Brooks, believable performances and real chemistry between Diane Gaidry and Erin Kelly, it can't get better than that, and simply a story that doesn't fail to provoke different reactions because there's a lot involved, teacher-student conflicts, old love ties, Catholic morals and clashes, jealousy, even politics.
But I simply could not believe that Simone would fall for Annabelle who, to me, seemed like a self-important, immature teenage girl who would not be worth the risk of getting involved with.
The always controversial, taboo subject of a teacher-student relationship is depicted with grace, honesty, sensitivity (& not without a pinch of humor, too, might I add!) by 1st time feature director, Katherine Brooks, and her principle cast, Diane Gaidry & Erin Kelly.
One magic that makes this story so believable and convincing, apart from Brooks' brilliant writing/directing, has to be the actors' performance, particularly Gaidry's superb portrayal of her character's hopeless vulnerability, from the denial of her own true feelings in the beginning, which slowly turns into a heartbreaking struggle to fight the inevitability of love on her own (no dialogue is needed - you can capture everything that she feels inside through her eyes, body language, the facial emotions, without her having to utter a word.
Well, I'm usually not the one to write reviews, but for this particular movie, I felt, I just had to put my opinion into words.My overall impression is that it's like a strictly religious Christian writing a gay story: the moment they find each other, they met instant retribution.I watched "Loving Annabelle", because of the lesbian relationship the story revolves around, and I was mostly disappointed with it.
All the relationships are determined by the "role" of the character, and they doesn't even felt real, except for the one between Annabelle and Simone.Now let's talk about the most disappointing part, I'm talking about the ending, of course.
This movie consist of a beginning, an overly long first part, where Annabelle tries to seduce Simone, and an ending.
It's got excellent production values, a story that makes sense and reasonable character development - which already puts it way in front of most lesbian movies out there.
The main tension of the movie - that of a student-teacher dynamic - was completely rushed over, and at the end, I didn't sympathize with either Simone nor Annabelle - their romance didn't really make sense to me at all at that point.All-in-all, I'd say you're not missing much by skipping the movie.
After hearing rave reviews of Loving Annabelle, I rented the film without realizing the plot involved a teacher and an under-aged teenage girl.
It's not believable that a woman like Simone would be even mildly interested in Annabelle, much-less risk that much for the stupid little girl.
She doesn't even seem to be that interested in her, she seems more like a victim in their "relationship".The sex scene was probably the only well done thing in the entire movie, but with the rest of the plot, you didn't even want to see them have sex.
Loving Annabelle is like a poem its beauty is in the details (as Simone herself puts it).
I always thought it was impossible to create a movie that is interesting right from the first moment but Loving Annabelle is not like any movie I have ever seen
You are hooked from the first moment and find yourself inside the characters experiencing their struggles and identifying with their feelings and needs.
If Annabel's character was different I don't think that the film would have been as good.
Also, although I was rooting for the relationship between the teacher/student to become blurred, in reality the situation would make me feel uncomfortable and so watching the interaction between Simone and Annabelle was difficult without wanting to shout at the screen "what the HELL are you doing woman?" All in all just an average film to add to a terrible collection.
I've watched this film so many times now and i never get bored of it,The reason i like it is because firstly the story is amazing, well lesbian teacher-student affair << you have to love it (: (Don't tell me none of you have thought about it) Secondly The film itself is great, the acting is spot on and the actresses are hot (Which is always a bonus) I believe it is one of the best lesbian films out there i recommend this film to everyone because it's so sweet and loving and i truly believe you will all love it!
This week I've been watching movies about lesbian stories and I liked each one I saw, and well, Loving Anabelle wasn't the exception, but I didn't like it as much at the others.
maybe I can imagine or guess, but I would've loved to see what happened with their lives, whether it was a happy or sad end.Besides, it shows a real school-life, tell life of a student in love with a teacher, and even thought I've never been in a situation like that, I know people who has, and I guess there are plenty persons who have been through that..
What I found really believable about this film was the attraction between Annabelle and Simone.
(Maybe alliteration is out of fashion this year...) We can't tell if Simone really loves Annabelle by the end.
Loving Annabelle is my favorite movie. |
tt0109518 | Cyborg Cop II | Crime boss Jesse Starkraven leads his gang in an attack on a drug den not cooperating with Starkraven's demands; the assault quickly turns into a hostage situation when police arrive. Renegade DEA agent Jack Ryan arrives and attempts to negotiate with Starkraven, however this fails when Starkraven recognizes Ryan as the officer who killed his brother Harlan during a crime some time prior. Starkraven kills several hostages including Ryan's partner before he is finally captured. Subsequently, Starkraven is convinced of killing a cop and sentenced to death.
While awaiting his sentence on death row, Starkraven is kidnapped by government agents under the guise of a prison transfer. He is taken into the custody of the "Anti-Terrorism Group" and converted into a cyborg alongside several other test subjects. Now dubbed "Spartacus" by the scientists, he is meant to lead the army of cyborg soldiers. Meanwhile, Ryan learns of Starkraven's apparent escape and begins conducting an investigation to find him against the orders of his boss, Captain Salerno. He collaborates with former sheriff Sam Pickens, who is still well respected in the community even after being removed from office for looking too far into the ATG's activity.
During a party to celebrate the success of the project, head scientist Dr. Owns takes a woman into the room where Spartacus and the other cyborgs are awaiting activation. While they have a romantic encounter, Spartacus suddenly awakens and attacks them, killing the woman while taking Owns hostage. Spartacus seizes and destroys all but one control bracelet, which he keeps for himself to give himself control over the other cyborgs. He has the other cyborgs kill everyone at the party by burning down the building before leaving in a truck with Owns held hostage for a second facility, where more cyborgs are being created.
ATG project leader Liz McDowell arrives the next day to review the incident and attempts to track down Spartacus quietly. However, Ryan's investigation brings him to her attention. She sends agents to follow him, but he swiftly dispatches them. Later, he breaks into an ATG office to gather information. He is detected by dogs and confronted by security guards, but escapes after discovering proof that Starkraven was taken by the ATG for conversion into a cyborg. Meanwhile, Spartacus and some of the other cyborgs travel to a gas station to steal fuel for their recharging generators. Ryan arrives and saves a woman and young boy from them, but is defeated by Spartacus and nearly killed, but he survives when authorities arrive and critically damage Spartacus, forcing the cyborgs to retreat. Ryan is arrested and brought before McDowell, who warns him not to interfere with the ATG. He subsequently escapes from her men and travels to Pickens' home in order to prepare for an assault on Spartacus's headquarters.
Spartacus announces his intention to conquer cities and convert all humans into cyborgs, establishing an empire with himself as the leader, and dispatches two cyborgs to kill Ryan. Ryan manages to defeat and destroy them, but not before they kill Pickens. McDowell arrives and is convinced by Ryan to team up with him, providing the weaponry necessary to destroy Spartacus. The two arm themselves and travel to the facility where the cyborgs are hiding, destroying a number of them on their way to the lab. Once they get there, Spartacus appears on a video screen and reveals that he has taken Ryan's son hostage. The cyborgs bring Ryan and McDowell before Spartacus, who tells them he will turn Ryan's son into a cyborg before converting them as well. Ryan overpowers the cyborgs, frees his son and fights Spartacus, managing to steal the control bracelet and deactivate the other cyborgs. Spartacus is dropped into electric cables by a magnet, and is killed when Ryan pours liquid onto him, electrocuting him. Ryan, his son and McDowell flee the facility before bombs they set earlier detonate, destroying it. | violence | train | wikipedia | Over the top B-grade action silliness which turns out surprisingly fun!.
With a misleading title (there is no Cyborg Cop, only a criminal "converted" to a Cyborg who escapes and goes on a rampage), a director who doesn't exactly have a clean track record, filmed in a foreign country trying to pass off as USA and a rather low rating on IMDb (although I always prefer to judge for myself), this had all the makings of being completely awful.
I did however decide to check it out as the DVD was cheap and it was by NuImage who did an excellent straight to video movie titled Hard Justice the following year.
And to my huge surprise, I actually found this to be an enjoyable little cheesefest.Sure it's campy, it's clichéd and doesn't exactly score high in terms of acting, plot or originality but it's well aware of all those, and with those all taken into account, makes the best of them and comes out smiling.
David Bradley, who I've considered to be one of the better "actors" in the B-action genre provides a fun performance.
He's well aware of the movie he's in, and makes the most of it.
Morgan Hunter as the mobster turned cyborg provides a suitably over the top performance that's a lot of fun to watch.Certainly, it doesn't let down in terms of action.
You'll get plenty of explosions and our hero flying through the air with a pistol in each hand numerous times.
Opening with a huge warehouse shootout with a large bodycount and an especially huge explosive scene at a Gas station.
It doesn't appear that producers have ever said "No" at any point to what director Sam Firstenberg has asked for, as you'll get several big scale action scenes with tons of stunts and explosions which is rather impressive for such a little known and obviously low budget movie.
Embarrassingly, there isn't actually a huge amount which Universal Soldier for example does which this doesn't, which either says a lot of bad things about it or a lot of good things about this, depending on your point of view.One thing I did notice however was that while the movie is set in the USA, it is quite obviously not filmed there.
Where it is I'm not sure, but if you know a thing or two about cars, you'll notice a LOT which aren't sold in the USA such as Fiat's and an exploding Ford Sierra at the gas station scene.Like a James Bond movie, Cyborg Cop 2 provides the familiar ingredients that fans of B-action movies like to see time and time again.
Turn off your brain, grab a few beers and watch and by the end you'll probably have the overblown organ music stuck on your mind for a few days.
Anyone who puts this down as a bad movie, has NO sense of humour!.
This is a really fun action movie!
Sure the plot is stupid, the acting is bad, and the special effects arn't special, but it's all done in such a superbly bad way!
David Bradley is great at playing the cliche renegade cop out for revenge!
In fact he is the best actor in the movie and the best at kicking a**!
You just can't stop laughing at the texan who lapses into cockney, the hobbling cyborgs with one leg bigger that the other, the over the top heroics of Jack giving it to the cyborgs with both barrels!
It's tough to judge which is better Cyborg Cop or Cyborg Cop II, they are just both so chock a block with cliches and hilarious.9/10.
Awful sequel to a reasonably entertaining movie.
I am still undecided of whether I like or dislike the first Cyborg Cop, it was reasonably entertaining sure but I was somewhat neutral at the end of the day.
This sequel is awful though, the only reason(s) I don't rate it any lower is that the ending here is a little less stupid than the first one and also that I have seen worse movies.
On the other hand, it is choppily edited with rather poor effects and locations that didn't really give a sense of interest or engagement.
The script in the first Cyborg Cop did have some cheesy moments but also some fun, witty ones.
The story is derivative and predictable like the first, but unlike the first it also made the mistake of being dull with unexciting action sequences, and the characters are stock with no tension or empathy whatsoever elicited towards the hero.
Cyborg Cop II also has a misleading title and seemingly has no connection to the first, not even the annoying reporter from the first film.
The acting fares little better, David Bradley is made to do arrogant and chauvinistic and he seems uncomfortable doing it and Morgan Hunter is hammy and not very menacing(John Rhys Davies, one of the best assets about the first, is missed here).
All in all, the first Cyborg Cop was not bad, the sequel is, to me.
And no, I don't need somebody, who clearly doesn't know the meaning of the word opinion let alone spell it, to tell me I have no sense of humour, thank you very much!
Ahhh, those lovely 90s
especially the beginning of the 90s
when we had those low budget, simple and somewhat likable movies
OK, when it comes to this one
it's low budget, simple
but not likable.
This is one of those movies
during which you basically turn off your brain and enjoy it.
We have a solidly fun action scenes and that's all.
David Bradley is back, with his usual appearance just like in the first film
dark clothes, white athletic shirt, unshaved, waist bag, husky, quiet (badass) voice and of course
martial arts skills, the only thing that actually appreciate for Bradley.
He is Jack Ryan (a usual hero name), a DEA that captures a dangerous criminal Starkraven (pretty generic and usual name for a villain), and to increase the plot intensity, Ryan killed Starkraven's brother
so, the movie didn't even begin properly and we already have personal story
Shortly after arresting Starkraven, he is sent to a scientific facility where he's turned into a cyborg
a little naive I feel
always picking those evil villains to be a proud solution of scientists who made some miscalculations
To add that actor who played Starkraven (Morgan Hunter), is nothing special
he was picked for a part, definitely because of his bald, menacing looks.
When he becomes a cyborg, his voice changes, and it's ridiculously enhanced.
The cyborg make up is
funny
you can clearly see that their feet, hands and some other body parts are in rubber, all cyborg units look stuffed
like they suffered some taxidermy syndrome.
So, Jack finds out that Starkraven is a cyborg, and he went on to stop him.
And Jack pops cyborgs like a candy
just like we saw in the first film, so this means that Jack is using his experience with cyborgs pretty good.
So
overall, a dumb, but enjoyable low budget film, to also mention that it contains a scene that is stolen from Terminator 2
he he he
Enjoy it, if you want..
B-movie gem.
By all rights, CYBORG COP 2 should be a piece of trash and by all rights, it is.
A cheap and cheerful rip-off of better sci-fi films (in particular TERMINATOR 2, with which it shares many stylistic similarities), it's made without an ounce of originality and yet plenty of enthusiasm, to the degree that it actually turns out to be entertaining to watch.
Yes, it's a piece of trash through and through, but it's entertaining trash – and I'll take entertaining trash over a boring blockbuster any day of the week.The plot is unconnected to the first film, and one again there are no cybernetic cops, although we do get low-rent action man David Bradley returning as the hero.
This time around he's up against a villain clearly influenced by ROBOCOP's Clarence Boddiker, and there's an absolute ton of action thrown in along the way as he battles an army of unstoppable cyborgs.
I don't know where Firstenberg got his budget, but the movie is chock full of cheesy fight scenes and endless explosions; barely a minute goes by without extras being gunned down in slow motion by the robotic army.Some aspects of the production are intensely irritating, like the endless and moronic musical score, played on an organ for the most part, which really saps life from many of the scenes.
The editing is pretty dodgy too with a couple of shots transposed and most of the action filmed in a repetitive way.
Bradley's acting is terrible as is that of the rest of the cast, although I did gain enjoyment from Morgan Hunter's ultra-hammy bad guy.
But this is a movie for trash fans all the way..
David Bradley stars as Jack Ryan (No relation obviously to Harrison Ford or Alec Baldwin's character from Patriot Games and Hunt For Red October) who takes on the crook he killed, after the scientists automate him (Why?) Naturally this leads to lots of shooting and stilted action which makes no sense and for the most part comes off as a bore.
David Bradley has to be the worst action star ever, every movie he makes seems worse than the other and Cyborg Cop II is a lame title since there is no cop that is cybernetic.
Also if memory serves me, this has little relation with the first, which was indescribably better.
This is as lame as Robocop rip offs get and really unless you suffer from insomnia (Like I do, which explains why I sat through American Ninja 5, American Samurai, this and more on Spike TV) this is hardly worth watching.1/5 Matt Bronson Review brought to you courtesy of Spike TV and their midnight airing..
Other than the same lead(and both sorta being revenge flicks), this isn't particularly connected to the first one(and no, the reporter doesn't return, nor is she referred to...
Yes, our motorcycling renegade DEA officer is back(and he's gotten less subtle about ripping off Terminator 2: Judgment Day).
He takes down a terrorist(...I think), a man who takes no less than two separate hostages when they meet.
Ah, but then the guy is taken away from death row because someone wants to make him into a cyborg(and no, there's still no "cop", the title remains a lie...
and it ain't) and a gatling gun), meaning combine his flesh with obvious rubber suits...
I mean, metal, and they call him Spartacus, because they failed history class and the writer/director(who did the original, and some of the American Ninja movies) thinks that it's clever.
He and the others turn on their masters, leading us to believe that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't smart to arm the crap out of criminals.
Meh. Watching RoboCop 2 could have told them that(and no, the similarities couldn't be by chance).
And we get some odd cuts, like no explosion(of which there are plenty in this) from a grenade launcher, yet one from a shotgun literally a second later.
We get physical fights(one of them ought to be referred to as the "stop hitting yourself and your buddies" match) and shootouts again.
The acting is hammy and poor.
There's a new kid, I think, and he delivers about as bad a performance.
I recommend this to fans of B-movies.
Two stars for the flick ten if you watch with the rifftrax guys.
This is one of those films that gets better as you drink more beer.
Great movie to watch with your pack of snarky friends.
It isn't great cinema but it has high fun potential..
you surely will laugh with the dummies used in effects.
Second attempt by the director Sam Firstenberg to pick in on the cyborg flicks but as the first entry failed due it's cheapness this goes a bit further into that era.
David Bradley came back as Jack Ryan and still does what he can do best, fighting.
This time there are a bunch of Cyborgs to destroy but again they all looked cheap and the voice effects used was a bit stupid.
But the cyborg this time didn't walk like a wooden doll, he was played by Morgan Hunter and he did better than the first cyborg.
Like in the original one it did have some gratuitous nudity again in a fabric were girls are working topless.
But one girl really couldn't act, sadly she had a bit of main role, Liz played by Jill Pierce was as wooden as it could be.
But this time I guess that the money was really nothing at all because they weren't ashamed to edit stupid mistakes in their flick.
Cyborg Slop Too....
David Bradley has his second go around as Jack Ryan, an FBI agent or something who takes on a cybernetic terrorist, who is turned made into a robot for some reason.
Cyborg Soldier is one of those movies that sort of just happens as you watch it.
Basically, it's Robocop, Terminator, Universal Soldier and Nemesis rolled into one.
I loved the first two movies I mentioned, I liked the third and found some merit in the last, so you would think a movie that could mix and match elements from each would be a winner.
David Bradley is blah in the lead role although the best thing about the movie, he's not nearly as terrible of a presence of say Lorenzo Lamas or Don "The Dragon" Wilson, but he definitely has less charisma than your Van Dammes, Seagals,Lundgrens and Dudikoffs.
None of the action crackles, it should as the choreography is pretty good, there looks to be somewhat of a budget given the numerous explosions and yet nothing rises above the uninspired.
Cyborg Cop wasn't very good either, but that one had a sort of distinctive B.movie charm, this sequel lacks even that and the film is dreary and unexciting.
Die hard fans of 90s B.movies may find something worthwhile here, but for me, I found it dreary and unexciting.
A mindless thing to watch on TV when you can't fall asleep, I still recommend sleeping pills.
I just watched this movie 2 days ago and i was tempted to see the reviews.
In a nutshell, this movie sucks.
The voice of the cyborgs are beyond ridiculous and the special effects the product of what you'd learn in a semester at Heald College.The whole film was laced with unreal fights and the worst dialogue i have ever seen in a movie...
The writer/director obviously made a pathetic attempt to add some intellectual value to the movie by having a scientist explain the anatomy of the cyborg "Spraticus" in one seen, but all it did was make me laugh even more.The "key" scene in this movie was when the good cop, called out Sparticus for a fight.
It was a pathetic attempt at a serious dramatic scene.
The last fight was ridiculous beyond belief when i saw the cyborg jump 30 feet in the air...
Then i knew the movie had just gone too far.Did the cast and crew of this movie actually think it was going to be a success?
You want cyborgs?
Watch Jean Clause Van Dammes movie "Cyborg"..
I've seen some SERIOUSLY bad movies in my time...
As a self-proclaimed connoisseur of b-movies, I don't know that I can really say it earned my generous 8/10...
While the movie was definitely something during which I spent a lot of time laughing, it was also one during which I spent numerous moments exclaiming comments like, "Oh now they're just being silly." I appreciate bad movies as much as the next person.
I'd think they'd have been given a better targeting system, consider they fired an total of 7,500 rounds of ammo they only killed one human directly.
Amazingly enough, Starkraven (oh there's something I'll get to later) was a better shot as a human!
I could write a cliché dictionary from this movie.
The top of the list was when Ryan was referred to as a "loose cannon" 5) Did anyone notice that at one scene towards the end Ryan managed to ignite a liquid CLEARLY marked as INFLAMMABLE?
This alone made me laugh so hard I nearly shot milk out my nose...
I'm really picking on this one, but I would have probably enjoyed this movie a little better if the soundtrack had changed once in a while, other than changing tempo.
But no, 2 hours of the same darned song...7) And while I'm thinking about it, in the gas station scene..
So you're trying to tell me these cyborgs are so powerful they can withstand a pointblank shotgun blast to the chest without so much as a backwards step, but a "loose cannon" cop driving by on his motorcycle can knock one over by kicking him in the belly?
And one to grow on 8) I just think really bad child actors need to be fired out of principle and shipped off to Saturn before they're allowed to grow up and grow worse...Ultimately, the best two uses for this movie: a) when you're really feeling down (let's say you just made a movie and someone said it was bad, watch this movie and then you'll really understand what a bad movie is) b) when you have a date and you have no intention of watching it, but be prepared it will draw your attention back in (in that you will glance back up at the screen with a confused "Excuse me?" expression) Still I give it 8/10 just because I haven't laughed this hard at what I felt was a POORLY executed attempt at a serious movie.
I didn't see any REAL attempts at being campy, and yet, 2 hours of one seriously campy movie... |
tt0119196 | The Gingerbread Man | Rick Magruder (Kenneth Branagh) is a divorced lawyer with a reputation for underhanded dealings and protecting criminals. After another successful trial, Magruder celebrates at a party hosted by his firm, becoming increasingly drunk. As he stumbles out of the party, he has a chance meeting with a woman named Mallory Doss (Embeth Davidtz), a waitress at the party who seems to have lost her car. Rick drives the woman to her home, where her car has been already parked, seemingly by her father, Dixon Doss (Robert Duvall). Rick and Mallory walk into the house arguing about her abusive father. Mallory carelessly undresses in front of him, after which they spend the night together.
The next day, Mallory asks him to file suit against her father because of his dangerous behavior. Having started a relationship with Mallory, Rick agrees and is successful in having Dixon put on trial thanks to favors from his staff, including his investigator, Clyde Pell (Robert Downey, Jr.). Mallory's ex-husband, Pete Randle (Tom Berenger) also takes the stand, to testify about his former father-in-law's erratic behavior. Dixon appeals to the judge, claiming that the charges against him are fabricated and exaggerated, but the judge sentences him to a mental institution. Upon being taken away, Dixon attempts to attack Magruder, vowing revenge. With her father institutionalized, Magruder and Mallory continue their relationship, but not long after, Dixon is able to escape from the institution. Scared of retaliation, Magruder assigns Pell to guard Mallory while he attempts to gain support from the police to apprehend Dixon. The police are unhelpful, even after Dixon and his friends set Mallory's car on fire, due to the many cases Magruder has won against them.
A short time later, Magruder receives an unmarked letter containing pictures of his children with their faces cut out of them. Worried for his children, he decides to take them out of school, despite not having full custody of his children and needing his wife's permission to take them. Over the objections of the teachers, Magruder escapes with his children, after assaulting a school employee. Magruder calls Pell, impelling him to find Dixon Doss. Pell informs Magruder there is now a warrant out for his arrest. Magruder takes the children to a motel. He goes outside the room to call his wife (Famke Janssen) to assure her that he has done what he has for their safety, but during the call, Magruder's children are apparently taken by Dixon's crew, and he is forced to rendezvous with Mallory so that she can lead him to her father's house. After they arrive, Magruder forces Dixon into a standoff where the older man is killed with a shot through the throat. Mallory then yells that Dixon's men are escaping with Magruder's children, and he is forced to give chase. However, upon catching them, his children are not with them, having been turned into the police office hours earlier. Magruder is arrested by the police and Mallory is picked up back at her father's house, which is now in flames.
In the aftermath, Magruder is charged with murder and is threatened with disbarment. Realizing that he has been set up, Magruder has Clyde look into Mallory's background, suspicious that she might have something to gain from her father's death. The search reveals that Dixon's land isn't worth much, but the timber (black walnut) on it is worth millions, and on top of that, Mallory had never actually divorced Pete Randle. With no will found, Mallory, and by relation, Randle, are granted ownership of Dixon's estate. Suspicious of Randle, Clyde and Magruder track the man down. Clyde is killed by Randle, and Magruder is forced into a desperate struggle in the middle of a violent hurricane. While the two grapple with one another, Mallory arrives and shoots Randle in the back with a flare gun. Her husband falls into the flood waters below, dead. Mallory claims that she had no idea about her husband's plans, but Magruder is still suspicious. He removes another flare from her flare gun, and when he returns it to her, she attempts to kill Magruder with it. Realizing that Mallory and Randle were working together, Magruder signals the police, who arrest Mallory. As the film concludes, Magruder decides not to fight the charges against him, accepting a plea deal that involves community service. In the courtroom, he spies Mallory being led away in handcuffs, who gives him a knowing look. | fantasy, neo noir, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0119484 | Kull the Conqueror | Kull battles for the right to join Valusia's elite Dragon Legion until he told General Taligaro that he is a barbarian from Atlantis, the general explaining that only 'noble blood' is accepted. Taligaro then learns that the Valusian King Borna has gone mad and is slaughtering his heirs, riding to Valusia with Kull following. The confrontation that followed ends with Kull mortally wounding Borna, whose final act was naming Kull his successor at dismay of Taligaro and his cousin. Soon after, Kull meets his harem and recognizes the foreseeker Zareta who foretold his kingship. Kull summons her to his chambers and learns from her fortune telling that the fate of his kingdom would depend on a kiss, attempting to kiss Zareta before dismissing her when she reminds him that she is a slave and acts only out of command.
The next day, Kull attempts to free his slaves before finding that his rulings are hampered by the stone tablet detailing the laws of Valusia. Furthermore, Taligaro and his cousin secretly attempted to assassinate Kull during his crowning ceremony. Taligaro and his conspirators are then summoned the following night by the necromancer Enaros who offers to aid them by resurrecting Akivasha, the Sorceress Queen of the ancient Acheron Empire which the god Valka destroyed ages before Valusia was built on its remains. Using Taligaro's group to suit her ends to gain power and restore Acheron, Akivasha uses her magic to enchant Kull and become his queen. Akivasha then placed Kull in a death-like slumber, framing Zareta of "regicide" while taking Kull to her abode to keep as plaything.
But Kull escapes and with the help of the Valkan priest Ascalante, Zareta's brother, frees Zareta as the trio head north via the ship of Kull's untrusting associate Juba to obtain the Breath of Valka to stop Akivasha from regaining her full power. But Akivasha sends Taligaro after them, the general killing Ascalante while leaving Kull to die as he spirits away Zareta. As Zareta took in the Breath of Valka, Taligaro intended to use her to betray Akivasha and take the Topaz Throne. On the day of the eclipse, Kull returns to Valusia as Akivasha gradually begins assuming her true demonic form despite Taligaro's attempt to kill her with Zareta. After Kull wounded Taligaro and killed Enaros, he checks on Zareta and she kisses him. This passes the Breath of Valka to Kull, who kisses Akivasha to transmit Valka's breath and extinguish her flame. Kull then kills Taligaro when he attempts to take Zareta hostage, removing the last opposition to his rule. After being reinstated as king, Kull smashes with his ax against the Tablets of the Law, abolishing slavery in Valusia while naming Zareta his queen. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | The screenplay writer must have read Howard's book, since there are literal quotes like `By this axe I rule!', which Kull exclaims during the coronation, yet again, this movie is no serious attempt to capture the raw, barbarian spirit of Howard's heroes.
Never having bothered with Xena, Hercules or any of these modern swords and sorcery television series and movies that tend to clutter some cable stations in the UK because they all seemed of very low quality to me, but I still decided to watch this anyway.
Perhaps it is because the lack of development and character isn't a major problem for me over 90 minutes whereas it is over a 22 week long series but I actually did enjoy this even if it just plays like an extended version of one of these shows all rock music and modern humour.The plot is very simple but is enough to allow for the basic fighting and swaggering that the audience would demand.
None of them are great but at least they make the film seem like a bit more fun.Overall this is not the film to come to if you don't like the genre or have standards higher that daytime television (Hercules is now a kids TV filler on channel 5 here) but if you like that sort of thing then this does just about enough to be an entertaining little bit of modern sword and sorcery in the mould of, well, everything else Sorbo has been in!.
Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo plays Kull, a warrior in search of a kingdom in a time long forgotten, in a breezy, off-handed manner -- and his refusal to take his character too seriously works in favor of this low-budget quickie.
Kevin Sorbo goes from TV's legendary Hércules to Sword-witchery hero Kull the conqueror , a warrior who becomes king of a mythic land , Valusia .
Stars the hunk Kevin Sorbo who battles warlords in animal skins , wizards, sorceress and fantastic gods in this dumb-but -fun Sword and Witchery film .
Acceptable film , although the PG-13 rating keeps some the mayhem and violent fights less bloody than might be expected for this popular sub-genre : ¨Sword and Witchery¨ that had splendor in the 80s .¨Kull the Conqueror" is based on the 30s character created by pulp writer Robert E Howard who also originated Conan the Barbarian .
On the scale of sword and sorcery flicks, this ranks below 'Conan The Barbarian', above the dreary 'Red Sonja', about on par with 'Conan The Destroyer'; which is to say that it's an energetic fantasy film that doesn't take itself seriously and can be a lot of fun if you let it be.Kull of Atlantis seeks to join the army of Velusia, but instead, through an unexpected turn of events, he finds himself proclaimed king of the empire instead.
Holding onto his new throne will be much harder than taking it, as the blood heirs to the empire make a deal with a wizard to revive a 3000 year-old demon who seeks to kill King Kull and claim the empire for herself.'Kull the Conqueror' originally started out as 'Conan the Conqueror', but after Arnold refused to reprise the role, the script was changed to accommodate Howard's other barbarian hero, Kull.
A little bit of irony for you.As for the film itself, it does enough things right to entertain; Sorbo fits Kull role perfectly (actually truer to the source character than Arnold ever was), Griffith is an effectively grim villain and Tia Carrere hams it up nicely as the evil Akiavasia.
Lastly, the script is a little lean for an epic adventure film, clocking in at just 90 minutes, almost no time is spent getting to know the characters any better than is necessary to drive the plot.All told, this is a fun, fast, fantasy film meant to be enjoyed rather than analyzed.
It makes a decent entry in the Howard film canon (the best way to watch it is part 4 of a Howard marathon; Conan 1 & 2, Red Sonja, Kull).
The film made no money in theaters, which is too bad, as we aren't likely to see any more of these any time soon.Energetic, humorous, and full of action (though not without some issues), a solid sword and sorcery flick.7/10.
So much for anyone who knows anything...*raises eyebrow*Anyway, Sorba is pretty much what I imagined Kull to be; not as muscled as Conan, much more wiry, and a little less "Me hit thing hard with big sword" (OK, Conan not think but...you get the general idea...).
OK not as much sex involved, and certainly a lot less violence and misogyny (to a certain extent), but it stil makes for a great brainless piece of fun, much like Conan The Barbarian (I try and forget Destroyer and Red Sonja...definitely not up to scratch).
It's one of those lazy afternoon films when there's not a lot on and you simply want to rest watching a silly film - but you'd have to like sword and sorcery films to even begin to enjoy this movie.Acting is mediocre at best.
Unlike the "Conan" movies of the 1980's which were MEANT to be taken seriously at every turn and were UNINTENTIONALLY funny, "Kull" never attempts to be more than what it is: an action film with a healthy dose of humor, nice effects and nicely choreographed action sequences.This isn't "King Lear" and it isn't meant to be.
Kevin Sorbo, who has not exactly become a household name among movie actors, shows why as he plays "Kull." He doesn't look and he doesn't sound like a man from the medieval ages.
Instead we get Howard's backup hero (Kull) who takes the throne at the beginning of the film in an un-stirring, non-epic little battle and then loses it quickly to Witch Demon Akivasha (played to the hilt by Tia Carrere who obviously had rare fun as a bad girl).
Kull then kills an hour on a very routine quest-to-find-his-right-to-rule and finally returns for the classic Howard showdown between good brawn and evil sorcery.
The main problem is Kevin Sorbo, who got so good at playing Hercules in self-spoofing post-modern fashion that he simply doesn't resonate with the necessary authentic bronze age thuggishness of a Howard hero.
Howard, and reading the original Kull stories, I decided to check it out.Dare I say it, I liked it better than the John Milius Conan the Barbarian.
Kevin is the real person for this role and suites him well, he is more savage type than Arnold and if U read the Howard's Kull stories U can know that he is savage and strong, which doesn't mean that he has to be Mr. Olympia.
The other actors were quite good for a B-film, but were just playing background to Kevin Sorbos character..
This movie is based in one of the Howard's most famous heroes along with Conan: Kull, the mighty Barbarian who rules over Atlantis.
From the cheesey rock music sound track at the opening credits you realize they are not going to give the genre any respect..and great movies like Army of Darkness..can make fun of the genre while still respecting it.Kull is nearly devoid of any intentional humor.
I think this is also a film that clearly had no art direction and it offends the chronological senses even worse than Hercules and Xena to the point at which you began to think the entire thing took place in a world of cheesey movie sets instead of some time in our distant past.No effort is made to build any characters or make us care about anyone..and no one is likeable or cool enough to care about them at first sight.I'm not even sure this would be good WITH the MST3K crew riffing on it.
Howard stories, made in the same vein as and to appeal to the same fans of HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS, a long-running '90s TV series which saw Kevin Sorbo as the muscle-bound hero, fighting off bad guys with plenty of humour and a distinct lack of edge.
Although Sorbo actually kills people in this film, it's nevertheless a bloodless affair, packed with cheesy special effects, lots of light action, and an incredibly annoying wah-wah guitar playing over the soundtrack that destroys any mock medieval mood they might have been aiming for straight away.The low budget is evident from the absolutely cheesy effects they use, from dodgy mutant makeup to a fiery demon at the climax, which I actually quite liked in terms of its design.
While this movie is no "Conan", it still was rather entertaining, and even more so if you enjoy the fantasy adventure genre.Story-wise, then the movie was quite stereotypical; a conflict of good versus evil, an underdog that will rise to be king against every possible odd.The story is about Kull, a former pirate slave, who happens to earn the throne and Crown to the Kingdom of Valusia.
To save the kingdom, Kull embarks upon a treacherous quest to the frozen north.The costumes and props were quite good in the movie, and really helped to bring the fantasy world to life.
But there were times where the music took on a heavy metal twist, which was really awkward and misplaced.As for the cast, then I will admit that they actually put together a good ensemble of acting talents for the movie.
But Tia Carrere really brought something good to the movie with her usual charm and also with her portrayal of Akivasha.If you enjoy sword and sorcery and the fantasy genre, then you should sit down to watch "Kull the Conqueror", because it is an entertaining movie..
(Ironically, the Conan movie with Jason Mamoa (2011) uses the same villainess and a similar plot of resurrecting her.) Thomas Ian Griffith as Taligaro also does a good job as Kull's warrior nemesis.
If you're in to the whole barbarian genre, or you just like watching bad movies for fun, you'll love it, and have fun watching it (great special effects).
I think Kevin Sorbo had some pretty good comedic timing and Tia Carrera seems to have inherited her mother's talent for playing the sadist type with humor, as in Never Say Never, Again.
I dont understand such bad reviews of this movie.I rented it a few days ago just to see how bad it was and i was surprised.Nothing worth mentioning,but nothing worth butchering either.I think Sorbo is a good enough actor for his kind of films and Tia Carrere...well she's worth watching even if she isnt among the best actresses today.She looks interesting with light hair.So,i would say this deserves at least 4 out of 10.If you are absolutely bored,this cant hurt to watch.Didnt hurt me..
I think it had beautiful sets, lighting, music (if you are into big, orchestral powermetal) and special effects, and a plot good enough for this genre of movies (i.e. not too complicated).
Well, the truth is that despite the many bad reviews that this film has received since its premiere, I must say that the movie is surprisingly effective in its purpose of entertaining.Yes, I am aware that altogether it is a very bad movie, with a poor production design more typical of the television series, Hercules, the legendary journeys, with which the same protagonist shares, the stony Kevin Sorbo, with the worst band sound never composed for a heroic fantasy film and sword fights that provoke more laughter than anything else.But despite all this the film has positive aspects.The story, although topical and uninspired, is elaborate enough to maintain interest.Likewise, the film has a good narrative rhythm and does not become heavy or boring at any time, which is a great achievement, the few special effects are quite acceptable and the villain of the story interpreted by the very beautiful Tia Carrere is sensational, the best of the film.In short, Kull the Conqueror is a bad movie, but many of us have certainly seen much worse movies and much less entertaining than this one.Insurance!!!.
An Atlantean barbarian (Kevin Sorbo) takes the throne of Valusia when he defeats King Borna (Sven-Ole Thorsen) and so General Taligaro (Thomas Ian Griffith) & assorted "noble-blooded" men conspire to overthrow Kull by resurrecting the wicked Acheron sorceress Akivasha (Tia Carrere).
Nevertheless, Sorbo is well cast and one of the film's highlights.The score by Joel Goldsmith is quite good, except for a couple of semi-cheesy metal riffs, like the eye-rolling riff near the beginning and another one much later during the fight at the ice cave, which isn't as bad.
These wannabe metal rhythms were rather lame in 1997, let alone today.Another flaw is that the opening of the movie is weak with Kull's dealings with the Dragon Legion and his fiery sword fight with Taligaro.
I should add that Tia looks great as a green-eyed redhead and the fiery demon F/X at the close are quite effective.IF you can handle its obvious shortcomings, "Kull the Conqueror" is an entertaining S&S flick that should be enjoyed by fans of Conan, Sinbad and the like.
Kull the Conqueror (1997) Starring: Kevin Sorbo, Tia Carrere, Thomas Ian Griffith, Litefoot, Roy Brocksmith, Harvey Fierstein, Karina Lombard, Edward Tudor-Pole, Douglas Henshall, Joe Shaw, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Terry O'Neill, Pat Roach, John Hallam, and Peter Petruna Directed By: John Nicolella Review COURAGE CONQUERS ALL.
It makes sense considering the most financially successful sword/sorcery film was Conan another one of Robert's characters.
The sword and sorcery genre was even making a comeback but mostly on television with Xena and a Hercules show with Kevin Sorbo as Hercules who would be Kull in this movie.
Around this time Kevin Sorbo was starring in the fashionably popular TV series "Hercules", so I guess it was only natural that he would go on to find himself starring in this sword-and-sorcery romp that's a cheesy, water-down version of "Conan the Barbarian" that felt like it was made for straight-to-TV.
There is even this feeling the actors knew how cheesy this whole thing is, and played along with it, which makes it more fun.They have Kevin Sorbo in that movie, who is perfect for charikaturs of honorable heroes in the ages of swords and dragons.The chicks are awesomely how.Overall a 5/10, for the undeniable mind-hurt of stupidity and fun.
Maybe it's because Tia Carrera looks sexier than she's ever been, but the script and plot are a bit hard to follow and Kull seems to be more of a big budget Hercules.
Sorbo has been playing a good guy so much he can't really pull off Kull without thinking he's really Hercules.
Television's Hercules (Kevin Sorbo), makes his feature film debut in Kull The Conqueror.
Jealously brews through the kings real heirs, and they invoke the evil demon queen (played by Tia Carrere), to help them get rid of the barbarian king.I have always been a fan of fantasy films and stories, however, this one is just plain bad.
i wasn't too impressed with this movie.it is in the style of both the Conan movies,but i didn't like it anywhere near as much.there was lots of action,but i still found it to be slow and boring.it becomes a bit more interesting from the halfway point on,but barely.i didn't find the acting very good,although Kevin Sorbo was good as the title character.but it was Tia Carrere who i thought was very impressive as the evil Queen.however,the only real reason i stuck it out was i noticed that the beginning credits listed Harvey Fierstein in the movie.he doesn't show up until about halfway through,but i liked him in his role.otherwise,the movie is tedious and very hard to get through.for me,Kull the Conqueror is a 4/10..
While I've seen just about every fantasy, action, and sci-fi movie ever made, and I realize this is just a rehashing of plot from a dozen or so other films(including Conan the barbarian), I still found it quite enjoyable.
It's totally a brute force type movie with tiny bits of emotion, and Kevin Sorbo is not a great actor, he's just strong and has a good voice.
The music heard in this movie belongs at a mid 80s rock concert and is really quite intrusive Despite the drawbacks ( Perhaps I'm taking things too seriously ) the story is a familiar one of " Commoner is made king and his pure bred rivals want the throne " and is entertaining enough though perhaps a little too episodic for its own good .
I never had such a good time making fun of a movie until this feature-length Hercules episode came along.
Like most reviews in this file I agree that this film is basically Hercules with Sorbo using another name but not really changing the character.
If you're looking for something to make fun of on a dull night, this one's for you!Kevin Sorbo plays Hercules, only they keep calling him Kull.
Kevin Sorbo plays Kull a barbarian from Atlantis.
When the threat of an evil demon queen comes knocking, Kull takes one last adventure to destroy the queen who is trying to take his kingdom, while also falling in love along the way.Kull the Conqueror was actually meant to be Conan 3 (Conan the Conqueror, and was based on the first Conan story "The Phoenix on the sword"), but due to Arnie not wanting to reprise his role and Kevin not wanting to redo a character already played.
Kull the Conqueror (1997): Dir: John Nicolella / Cast: Kevin Sorbo, Tia Carrere, Litefoot, Thomas Ian Griffith, Roy Brocksmith: Pathetic fantasy about overcoming trials, although viewers may find the trial of sitting through this embarrassing film difficult to overcome.
Well, I thought you'd have to motor in order to come up with anything cheesier than Arnie's 3 sword and sorcery outings (2 Conans and a Red Sonja), but Kevin Sorbo's Kull the Conqueror manages to do so with a minimum of trouble.To be fair, the sets and costumes are OK, and the cast give it their all. |
tt0243152 | Black Orchid | Rose Bianco (Sophia Loren) a florist widowed by a famous gangster, looks for happiness with widower Frank Valente (Anthony Quinn). Rose is dealing with her son Ralph in a work farm for troubled boys, while for Frank, his grown up daughter Mary (Ina Balin) takes care of everything for him. Noble and Mary love each other and are engaged, but Mary refuses to marry him because she worries about who will take care of her father. She asks Noble to marry her and stay with her in her father’s house. At the same time, however, she refuses to accept Rose as her stepmother and allow her to join the family. Before Frank’s wedding day Mary irons Frank’s clothes, cooks all the food and locks herself in her room. This leads Rose and Frank to call everything off, devastating them both.
When Rose’s son finds out, he disappointedly runs away from the work farm, leading the police to come and search for him in the house. The next day, Noble comes and sees Frank is sleeping in his chair and Mary has still confined herself in upstairs. He asks her to come out, but there is no answer. Noble decides he will drop Frank off at Rose’s house and will wait at the church for him. Frank finds out that Rose is waiting beside the telephone for news about Ralph and reveals how miserable he is, torn between her and his daughter.
Frank leaves and joins Noble in the church and Rose heads for Frank’s house to confront Mary. Her son comes to the church, hoping to see his mother one last time before they send him to reform school. Frank and Noble bring him back to the farm and manage an agreement with the boarding manager, Mr. Harmon. On the other hand, thinking herself alone in the house, Mary unlocks the door and comes out of the room. There she meets Rose, who has decided to try to help Frank find happiness, even if it is not with her. Rose argues her point with Mary and makes her understand Rose's love for her father, and finally Mary accepts her, asking her to stay for coffee. Frank, Rose, Noble, and Mary have breakfast together. In the end, Rose and Frank take Ralph out of the work farm and the three happily walk toward the horizon. | revenge, murder | train | wikipedia | This one comes on the ABC often, and almost every time it does I manage to catch it either watching it or setting tape to record it.
It's a great little film.
It's a great little film.
Just sits around the hour mark but for that hour you have a lot of stuff packed in.The leads were believable despite the short run time and I liked the whole mystery aspect of it.
I found that enjoyable despite the fact I've seen the film like a gazillion time in repeats and it's one of those little gems, that if you blink you will miss so to speak.
Again I'd recommend this movie to anyone looking for a nice mystery to watch.6/10 from me..
A smart seductive wife and girl-next-door lab assistant--and he goes for the assistant.
Black Orchid (1953)A smart, crisp, and very British kind of drama with a touch of murder thrown in.
It has a flavor of a classic whodunit, but it's never quite seen from the point of view of someone who has to solve the crime.
Rather, we are wrapped up in this upper class world (at one point a woman says, as an apology, that she has just one gardener), and the crossed loves of two or three or maybe four of the characters becomes the meat of it.
It is a deceptively noir titled movie, directed by British workaday director Charles Saunders, but it's not a noir one bit.For movie buffs there is the wonderful Leslie Howard's son, Ronald, who has an amazing resemblance (and something less of a presence) on the screen.
Ronald Howard had a middling career, and many less than stellar performances on stage, and then screen, and then lots of telly, including a series of 39 episodes as Sherlock Holmes.
More impressive by far is his wife, played by Mary Laura Wood, an even lesser known actress of mostly 50s era dramas and some t.v. Here she is sharp and alive, so taut you are never sure what she's about to do or say next.
There are several good secondary performances, as well, and indeed, if anything lifts this movie up a bit, it's the committed, convincing acting all around.And the clever, if formulaic, plot..
Rather good film.
I caught this film late one night on the ABC and was pleasantly surprised to find Ronald Howard - best known for his role as Sherlock Holmes in the 1954 television series - playing the main character Dr.John Winnington, a kind hearted doctor who has the misfortune to stuck in a loveless marriage to a selfish woman, more interested in dinner parties than his work in curing disease.I thought Black Orchid was a rather good film, short and sweet (running a little less than one hour).
A neat little murder mystery in a who-dunnit structure.
The audience is able to participate in attempting to pick who the "real" killer is, following Christine and John's friend Eric as they desperately try to clear Winnington's name and find her sister's "real" murderer, whoever that may be...4 out of 5 stars..
More like a TV mystery than a feature film.
This short, engaging mystery has more in common with television episodes than it does with full-fledged, intricate movie mysteries.
There are a couple of red herrings along the way before the true killer is revealed at the end.It's the usual made-for-TV plot: man is torn between shrewish, manipulative wife and her cute, kindly sister.
Wife is killed, husband is blamed; sister and best friend must find the killer because the police won't look beyond the most obvious evidence.Interesting trivia note: the "best friend" is an author named Eric Blair.
"Eric Blair" was the real name of the author we know as George Orwell..
formula film from England.
Ronald Howard stars in "Black Orchid," also starring Olga Edwards, Mary Laura Wood, and Sheila Burrell.
Howard is a successful doctor in an unhappy marriage who wants to divorce his wife and marry her sister.
Under British law, this is not possible unless his wife happens to be dead.
You can guess the rest.Howard at some angles and certainly in his mannerisms resembles his famous father.
The meatier roles go to Sheila Burrell as his wife's loyal maid, and Mary Laura Wood as the cold wife.This is one of those short British cheapies, which I happen to like for some reason.
They're always very familiar, and it's like sitting down with an old friend.
And I did want to see Ronald Howard, best known for his Sherlock Holmes.These movies, and there are hundreds of them, are all of a piece.
Plot's key = a man cannot marry his wife's sister while wife still alive.
Dedicated research doctor has unhappy selfish wife.
Sister of wife comes to visit and her and doctor were fated for each other.
Wife gets divorce --and the plot's key is revealed : there is a law where a man cannot marry a wife's sister while wife still alive.Wife is poisoned husband accused and condemned to death.
Sister and husband's friend solve the murder.Mind you all this happens in less than an hour so the action is fast.The wife is far prettier than the sister thus seems somewhat miscast.
You find yourself wanting to see more of her and less of the sister.One reviewer called it a quota film....sounds reasonable.
Grade B on the Hollywood scale...maybe even a C.Still OK, if you are bored with little time.RECOMMEND.
Murder mystery.
John and Sophie Winnington are trapped in a loveless marriage.
He is a doctor and she feels he neglects her for his patients, yet won't give him a divorce.
In comes Sophie's younger sister, Chris, who immediately clicks with John and, all in the space of a few minutes of screen time, Sophie has found out about their affair, given John a divorce, and left with the revelation that he may be free of her now, but the law prevents him from marrying Chris as she is his ex-wife's sister.
He checks this out and finds it is so, and the only way he could marry Chris legally is if Sophie were dead....
Stanley Lord and Tucker McGuire as The Unsinkable Molly Brown the latter credited in "Black Orchid"(1953) as "American Woman" in the travel agency - (blink and you will miss her).And to clear up an above user who commented that at one point a woman apologized she "had only one gardener", well it was the wife of the publisher of "Eric Blair" literary joke ha ha, played by Patrick Barr.The latter being miscast as he normally played professional honest roles like "Mutt" Summers in "The Dam Busters" (1955).Whenever a character has his car tampered with by the murderer sawing through brake pipes in a downhill ride, I find myself screaming at the screen "Turn off the ignition and change down gears and use the side of the road to brake your speed".I accept compulsory safety belts were some time off into the future.Another annoying trait occurred when a complete stranger (nice Christine) knocks at the door and a maid lets her in unmonitored even saying she will be going off duty leaving the house apparently unoccupied.Another stupid mistake in films occurs when the murderer insists on acknowledging his crime and explaining his motive unbidden to a stranger.I suspected the maid Annette had lesbian leanings for Sophie her boss, the estranged wife of Dr.John Winnington (Ronald Howard) but of course film producers could not deal with same sex love on screen in 1953.Anyway it kept my attention for an hour so I awarded it 6/10..
Marvelous isn't it how some bad old movies simply refuse to lie down and die?
"Black Orchid" is a British quota quickie that will not surrender.
Maybe because it has such a short running time, plus an intriguing title, plus Ronald Howard (whose Sherlock Holmes has a following), it has been a favorite on my local TV station.
It's a thoroughly boring movie with absolutely nothing to offer.
With the exceptions of Sheila Burrell's fawningly vicious Annette and Mary Laura Wood's preening socialite, the players are a lackluster lot.
John Bentley is especially glum and even ever-reliable Russell Napier seems to be playing at half-steam..
A British quickie that should have been better..
This is a B-movie from the UK.
Like a typical B, it clocks in at about an hour and has a breezy pace from start to finish.
The story idea's pretty good but some sloppy writing here and there prevent this from being better.Dr.John Winnington (Ronald Howard) is a doctor married to a horrible woman.
Sophie Winnington (Mary Laura Wood) is very demanding and selfish and doesn't do well being at home when her husband sees his patients.
So, she runs around on him and goes to parties--and has a very, very strained relationship with her husband.
Sophie's sister, Christine (Olga Edwardes), comes to live with them.
She also starts working for John on his research.
Soon Sophie announces that John is boring and she wants a divorce--something John has been begging her for years.
Later, when Sophie comes back to get her things after the divorce, she announces she's leaving with another man AND if John and Christine want to marry because apparently the law says you cannot marry your sister-in-law if your wife is still alive.
This is an obviously telegraphed plot point--and soon the wife is dead.
The police assume the husband did it in order to marry Christine--but Christine and her friend decide to investigate the case for themselves.Quite a bit of the film makes little sense and shows shoddy writing--like the script was hurriedly slapped together.
When the pair are investigating the crime, then man they think is responsible for the murder leaves them alone with his wife for a while.
Then, as they leave, he recommends they go back to London by a shortcut--down a bit hill.
IMMEDIATELY, I thought 'he's cut the brakes--don't go that way'.
Later, after this car crashes, the man is shaken up and taken to the hospital.
Yup, she goes back to investigate the man's house...ALONE.
And, when the guy wakes up and calls for the nurse to bring the police, he tells the copper that Christine is in danger and might be killed and he tells them who the murderer is.
The policeman and the nurse AND the people at the local police station announce that he is crazy and refuse to investigate!!!
I would sure as h#&& think that if a person woke up after an accident that MIGHT have been caused by sabotage AND the person says a murder is about to be committed, I would have reacted!!!
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy--and a bit of common sense would have make the film better..
Quick UK tale of Murder.
BLACK ORCHID 1953A fast moving murder mystery played out like a 1930's whodunit.
The film stars Leslie Howard's son, Ronald.
Ronald Howard is a top end medical type married to, Mary Laura Wood.
Wood is not amused with how Howard seems more interested in his work than him.
Wood is stepping out with other "gentlemen" behind Howard's back.
Olga Edwardes is now introduced to the plot.
Miss Edwardes is the younger sister of Wood.
Edwardes is also a medical type and she and Howard strike it off.
Howard tells Edwardes that he had asked his wife, Wood, for a divorce but the cow refused.
Also in the mix is Wood's maid, Sheila Burrell, novelist, John Bentley and his publisher, Patrick Barr.
Howard and Edwardes are in love and wish to marry.
The only thing in their way is Wood.
Wood suddenly decides she is moving home to South Africa.
She is also willing to grant Howard a divorce.
Wood tells Howard that there is a UK law that forbids a man to marry the sister of his ex.
Next thing you know, Miss Wood is creamed by a handy passing truck and killed.
Now Edwardes and Howard are free to wed.
That is till the coroner says Wood had been poisoned before the truck got her.
Wood's maid, Sheila Burrell, never liked Howard and put a bee in the Police's bonnet about him as a suspect.
The Police gobble up Howard when they find that the poison used, is the same substance Howard is experimenting with.
Miss Edwardes, along with Howard's pal, writer, John Bentley, do a bit of detective work of their own.
They turn up evidence of Wood's affair with another man.
And what a surprise they get when they discover that the man is Bentley's own publisher, Patrick Barr.
(This is pushing it a bit story wise)Barr is not happy with being outed and now tries to eliminate Edwardes and Bentley.
A spot of sabotage on the brakes of Bentley's car damn near works when Bentley and Edwardes crash.
Bentley is hauled in for a bit of repair work at the emergency ward.
Edwardes, silly girl that she is, tries to tackle Barr by herself.
She ends up at the wrong end of a choking and is only saved by maid Burrell arriving with a pistol.
(Another stretch, story wise) Howard is now released from jail and into Edwardes' arms.
The Black Orchid of the title is how Barr had poisoned Miss Woods.
He had covered the flowers he sent Woods with poison.
The film moves right along and at only 58 minutes, it does not over stay its welcome.The director was Charles Sanders.
Sanders made quite a few mystery, crime and noir during his 30 plus years directing.
A dandy little murder mystery.
John Wittington is a dedicated physician married to a beautiful but unhappy woman, Sophie.
Clearly all of our sympathy is meant to be for the good doctor but the disgruntled, self- centered Sophie does have a point.
He tells her that she knew from the beginning of their marriage that his work was the most important thing in his life.
Here are two people who never should have married.
Then enters Sophie's sister, Christine.
She takes a great interest in his work and clearly admires him.
In about two minutes they fall in love.
Sophie agrees to a divorce.
As she's leaving their house she, with a wicked grin, tells her now ex- husband that he will never be able to marry Christine because it is illegal for a man to marry his ex- wife's sister.
Of course, if the ex- wife is dead, this problem goes away.
Well, she does end up dead and the doctor is arrested and convicted of her murder.
Fortunately, Christine and the doctor's good friend Eric don't believe he did it and investigate on their own.
The movie is well paced and entertaining.
It was nice seeing Ronald Howard as the doctor; I had only previously seen him in the Sherlock Homes television series.
The entire cast was very good but special kudos go to the actress playing Sophie.
Recommended as an enjoyable way to spend an hour..
***SPOILERS*** British Murder mystery where the murder weapon is of all things a rare black orchid that kills without leaving a trace but the smell of nicotine on it's victim.
The victim of this fatal flower is the vindictive Sophie Winnington, Mary Laura Wood, who after catching her doctor husband Dr. John, Roland "Son of Leslie" Howard, making eyes on her kid sister Christine Shaw,Olga Edwards,who came to visit her from far off South Africa.
Unable to wed Christine because of a British law that forbids a man, that's Dr. John, to marry his wife's sister unless she dies.
And that's exactly what happens as Sophie suddenly drops dead on her way to her lawyer's office to file divorce papers against John that will have him leave one third of his money and property to her.With the police arresting Dr. John as the #1 suspect in his wife's murder the poor schmuck makes no attempt to defend himself in him feeling that he's a born loser and more then willing to meet his fate, the gallows, that's until both Christine and her friend Eric Blair, John Bentley, comes to his rescue.
The fact that Dr. John was resigned to his sorry fate didn't discourage both Christine and Eric from going out to bat and all tilt to help him and save his life.***SPOILERS***It soon became evident that it was a deadly black orchid that did Sophie in and even more shocking the person who used the flower to do his dirty work was one of her many lovers whom like her husband Dr. John she treated like dirt.
Caught by Christine with his pants down in his private green house the killer lost his cool and went all out to strangle her to death only to have Eric and the local police break through the glass before he could finish his job.
It was Sophie's killer's love of flowers that gave him away that left a valuable clue, a whiff of the black orchid's nicotine,to his true identity..
British mystery.
Did the doctor really do it?.
BLACK ORCHID is a quickie of a British mystery running almost an hour.
Dr. John Winnington(Ronald Howard)seems very trapped in a loveless marriage.
His wife(Mary Laura Wood)feels he is more interested in dinner parties than his duties at the hospital.
And he seems to ignore and neglect his wife with no shame.
Mrs. Winnington's younger sister Christine(Olga Edwardes)comes into the picture and flirtation and lust commences.
The doc's wife is wise to the attraction and has enough; she leaves him with a sly warning that British law will not let him marry her sister...that is as long as she is alive.
Winnington will soon become the prime suspect in his wife's tragic murder.
Christine and John's best friend Eric(John Bentley)will set out to clear his name.This Black & White film is short and sustainable.
The best acting comes from Wood.
Other players: Sheila Burrell, Russell Napier, Patrick Barr and Mary Jones. |
tt0251110 | Gypsy 83 | 25-year-old Gypsy Vale (Sara Rue) and 18-year-old Clive Webb (Kett Turton) are two goths living in Sandusky, Ohio. Gypsy's parents, Ray (John Doe) and Velvet Marlene Wallace, once were in a band together, and Gypsy now aspires to be a famous singer, like her idol, Stevie Nicks. She is hesitant, because of the disappearance of her mother, to leave her father alone in Sandusky to pursue her dreams.
While checking updates on a Stevie Nicks fansite, Clive discovers the Night of a Thousand Stevies event in New York. After a long and heated discussion with Gypsy, her father reveals that her mother didn't just disappear, or die: she left to follow her dream of becoming a famous singer. Despite this, Clive finally convinces Gypsy to go to New York.
Along the way, Gypsy and Clive encounter a diverse host of characters and obstacles. They pick up a hitchhiker named Zechariah, who claims he is running away from the Amish life. Together, the three decide to stop and spend the night at a rest stop. While there, Clive expresses his attraction for Zechariah, but Zechariah says that he's attracted to Gypsy. Clive is embarrassed and runs away. Gypsy is surprised and flattered and as a result, she and Zechariah end up sleeping together. Afterward, Zechariah says that he's made a mistake and needs to return home. Enraged, Gypsy throws him out of the bathroom where she is staying at the rest stop. Meanwhile, Clive is accosted in secret by Troy, who's also spending the night at the rest stop with his fraternity brothers, and the two have a sexual encounter. The next morning, while Gypsy and Clive are trying to console each other and make sense out of the events of the previous night, the two are egged and mocked by the fraternity brothers as they leave the rest area while Troy sits silently.
They miss the auditions for the Night of a Thousand Stevies, and Gypsy learns that her mother committed suicide four years earlier. The sympathetic Mistress of Ceremonies, also her mother's best friend when she was in New York, allows Gypsy to perform a song she wrote for her mother at the end of the show.
In the end, Gypsy stays in New York to pursue her musical aspirations like her mother, and Clive returns to Sandusky to finish high school but plans to come back to New York after he graduates. | gothic | train | wikipedia | Gypsy (Sara Rue) is a 20-something girl working a dead-end job in an Ohio suburb, where she lives with her clueless but loving father (John Doe, of seminal punk band X).
Her best friend, Clive (Kett Turton), is a creative gothy teen in the process of coming-out.
When they find out about NYC's "Night of 1,000 Stevies" they decide to put their lives on hold, skip town, and road-trip it so Gypsy can compete in the karaoke contest and maybe meet her musician mother.The trailer for this movie was lame, and I'll admit I only rented it because I'm a Stevie fan and I always wanted to check out Night of 1000 Stevies.
In fact, "Gypsy 83" ended up being the most original, heartfelt, and well-scripted coming-of-age movies since 1997's "All Over Me."The characterization is nothing short of brilliant.
The story revolves partly around their relationship, and it is an honest portrayal of a "straight-girl/gay-boy" relationship that goes beyond the sexist and homophobic notion of the "faghag." On their trip, they bump into a handful of colorful characters that are catalysts for the personal growth of the leads.
Gypsy's tough-as-nails comebacks ("try being a freak in the real world, you catty c*nts!" to a bunch of gay goth boys in NYC) make her an admirable character that is easy to root for.
But this is forgiven as it is a set-up for two very sensitive and well-written scenes.Music is also a key element used to illustrate Gypsy's coming-of-age.
We later learn that Gypsy's mother, Velvet, taught her to play and sing Stevie Nicks songs when she was a little girl.
Likely due to copyright issues, all we get are remixes and karaoke renditions of "Talk to Me." There are classic songs by The Cure, a sexy siren song sung by Karen Black, and an achingly gorgeous original by Sara Rue (who rather sounds like a young Stevie but has a voice all her own).Like the equally brilliant "All Over Me" before it, the lead characters face brutal situations, as well as amazingly happy situations.
While not as bleak as that movie, "Gypsy 83" is a beautiful film about accepting and loving yourself and coming to terms with tragic events from your past.
The acting is in top form, all the actors did a wonderful job bringing a realness to their character.I feel Stevie's management made a big mistake by not allowing ANY of her songs in the film.
It would've added a little bit more to this otherwise perfect tale.I bought the DVD yesterday and watched the extra features, I especially loved the "Battle of the Stevies" (although, there is no audio), it brought back memories when I went to "The Night of 1000 Stevies" several years ago.
It's sort of a coming-of-age film which covers love, loss and sexuality.
I recommend watching the deleted scenes as they showcase more of Clive's back-story and Kett's acting skills.
I could relate with their behavior in their situation, unlike a lot of young-adult characters, they didn't make decisions ridiculous and stupid enough to make me hate them (the actions of teens in main-stream films such as How To Deal and the likes are so stupid they anger me if I am ever forced to watch them).
This is a road movie that traces the emotional growth of two unlikely best friends: A brazen and outspoken girl in her early 20's who calls herself "Gypsy 83" and her just-about-to come-out-of-the-closet male best friend named Clive, as they travel from Sandusky, Ohio to New York City to attend the NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STEVIES competition---a showcase dedicated to obsessed fans of musical superstar Stevie Nicks.
The first thirty minutes of the film are deceptively low-key, and then, just as you're ready to predict the rest of the plot, Karen Black arrives as a washed-up Karaoke lounge lizard, and---WHAM!---we're off in a different direction.
By the time that Gypsy and Clive pick-up an Amish hitchhiker in Pennsylvania, who's running away from home, and who may or may not be gay, you know you're in a for quite a treat.
And when Gypsy and Clive finally do arrive in NYC, the last 40 minutes or so of the film are so relevatory, so heart-warming, and so well-acted...
GYPSY 83 is a film for goth audiences, for male and female audiences of all ages, for gay and straight audiences, and for anyone who's ever been a fan of 70's music..
We get to watch the young people in this film go for their dreams, then the disappointment they have to live with when their dreams hit a bump in the road of life.
I still enjoy it to this day, though I am a bit long in the tooth for vinyl and leather.Having made those disclaimers, I encourage anyone who takes a look at this in a video store but isn't sure that it is good, to pick it up, take it home, and get an excellent look at what it means to be young and outcast in a community that just doesn't understand you, nor cares to try.
This film is a very strong and unforgiving look at the lives of two very realistic characters and their attempts to find somewhere they can be happy.It is wonderfully acted by Sara Rue (whom I never saw as a dramatic actress or solid romantic lead until this film) with strong performances from John Doe and Kett Turton.
I haven't seen the majority of his body of work, I will make a concerted effort now to do so.There is a lot of commenting on Sara's appearance in this film.
She has the talent and skill to carry off most any role, and it is past time that members of the entertainment industry recognize that a woman with more than the optimum weight can still be quite appealing to the eye.I don't know if the director, Mr Stepens, intends to continue making films, but I do hope he continues.
It is not going to change the way LA or New York do business, but whoever said those are the only places for movies to come from..
Sara Rue and Kett Turton--with a little help from Karen Black, John Doe, and Anson Scoville ( as the sexiest Amish man since Harrison Ford)--make being different ( Goth, fat, gay, whatever)seem like redemption.A little road picture becomes, with good writing, direction, and superb performances, a modern-day Canterbury Tales, where the "Night of a 1000 Stevies" is as important a destination as St Thomas Becket's grave.The journey is itself the important part of the story, and each character that Gypsy ( Rue) and Clive (Turton) meet helps to change them as they, in turn, alter the lives of those they meet.Do not expect true love and happy endings because like all journeys of self discovery, nothing is perfect and believing, opposite from the adage, is finally seeing.Rent this DVD; see this movie.
EDGE OF SEVENTEEN was far from being just another teen movie, just another GAY teen movie; so GYPSY 83, too, is far from being another coming of age film.
I think it says that we are all essential: frat boys, rednecks, broken-down karaoke singers, Stevie Nicks impersonators, fat girls, hunky Amish farmers, Mary Kay sales queens, and Foto Hut booth girls.Sandusky, Ohio IS Oz. Todd Stephens knows it.Oh, and don't miss Karen Black's incredible sultry jazz singing.
Don't listen to that naysayer above, she obviously has no taste.If you want to see a great film that has gay themes, coming of age themes, Goth themes, or are a fan of the great Stevie Nicks, then this is a terrific movie to see.While there are two scenes of "sex" it's nothing more than you would see if you watched Desperate Housewives.Karen Black, heroine of the great 70's disaster films, also has a small role in the film, in which she's superb.
And referring to people as "fat" girls is utterly rude.Now as for the movie...I actually liked this one quite a bit.
While this may not be the best movie on the planet, it's always just a good watch..
First of all - I come from Poland and English language isn't my common language (so I'm sorry for all my grammar mistakes).I just watched this movie because my favourite actress Sara Rue plays in it.
I fell in love with this movie and with both main characters (Gypsy and Clive) - they are so amazing!
You will really like charming Clive.You don't need gigantic budget, tons of props and radical scenario for making a really good movie.I recommend this movie especially for all young rock and goth people!.
I even remember when they were inviting extras to come to New York City to be in the club for filming (of course I couldn't go at the time).
I was bummed that they couldn't get the rights to use Stevie's music for this movie...I think that would have made a slight difference.
I think the two main characters tho, Gypsy and Clive, gave a really good performance in this.
When the lead character, 18-year-old goth boy Clive, comments that he doesn't identify with gay people because he could care less about Judy Garland and Stonewall--ouch!
We were the guys who took the lumps so that kids like Clive could say exactly that--that Stonewall is irrelevant to THEIR gay lives.Nevertheless, I liked this movie; it's a companion piece to the director's excellent Edge of Seventeen.
I love Gypsy83, I told my friend about this movie and she wanted to see it right then..
I especially loved Kett Turton's role, because he made the character come alive so well, and even though he played a gay part, I could still relate to what he was feeling and going through.
All the things the characters go through really happens to young people (in a sense), and can be felt so well through their roles in the movie.
And even if you don't like the idea of goths you'll still love this movie because it's just a couple of teenage kids going out in search of their dreams.
They are real and genuine but still likable enough that they seem to become your friends through the course of watching the movie.
The scenarios depicted could actually happen but I was still just as surprised as the characters were to watch the plot unfold.
This is the first "Goth" movie I have ever seen that has accurately portrayed the culture and one that I could actually identify with.
"Gypsy 83" is the story of two goths: a gorgeous gay guy and a stunning bbw (big beautiful woman) who are best friends.
Stuck in a small US town, they try to make their lives less boring: Gypsy by singing with her dad's band and Clive through photography.
Two misfits from modern-day Ohio (25-year old Gypsy, who longs to be a songwriter but works at the Foto Hut, and Clive, only 18 but into Goth bands and Edward Scissorhands outfits) drive to New York City to find fame in the entertainment world.
Flimsy, low-budget movie built on the perception that audiences will be able to identify with these kids but, as played by Sara Rue and Kett Turton, they are twin terribles, selfish people who take a journey of self-discovery, only to realize they are indeed selfish.
The sloppy continuity and sketchy narrative aside, the movie tries to work in romantic complications and character-driven matters of the heart, but Rue (who looks like she's scowling even when she's smiling) approaches every scene the same way, with abject impatience.
Turton, playing gay, continually rolls his eyes and fingers his black lips, but there's no reason these two would be friends--they don't even like the same type of music.
Karen Black gives it a momentary boost with an interesting supporting bit (and we get just enough of her before director Todd Stephens moves on), but even for a fluffball comedy-drama, "Gypsy 83" is full of problems--not the least of which is the fact Rue's character adores Stevie Nicks, yet the only song she seems to know is "Talk to Me", which Nicks did not write.
I have always like Stevie Nicks because my Dad listened to FleetWood Mac a lot when I was growing up.I also liked The Cure when I was a little kid in the 80's.The score, or whatever you want to call it for this movie was really good.
The piano music at the beginning of the DVD is what first caught my attention.Now, call me "old fashion" if you want, but I could have lived with out the sex scenes, but other than that, this movie was surprisingly good.I wonder why it didn't come out on DVD earlier?
As previously commented, beware of a rather disturbing and drawn out sex scene during the film, you may want to fast forward.
Definitely could have gone through my life without seeing THAT!I also expected Stevie Nicks music given the main character's obsession with the artist and the fact that they were on their way to a Night of 1000 Stevies.
This was a movie I watched only because I was curious how to pull of a goth road film.
Nothing in the description beyond that appealed to me (I am a particular fan of road films).On paper, this movie should have been irksome beginning to end.
Heavily sentimental at times, Stevie Nicks obsessed girl with gay goth friend struggling with sexuality on their way to New York City...this is just not my world.
Largely on the strength of the alienation theme, but also, I have to say, in the way these actors nailed the parts, well...I mean to say, I really liked this movie.
I will probably watch it again.In The Razor's Edge (Bill Murray version), there is an excellent line I have never forgotten, which is, "It's easy to be a holy man on top of a mountain," and somehow this film has makes an equally quotable counterpoint when Gypsy says, "Try being a freak in the real world" to a bunch of mocking, catty, obnoxious goths.Anyway, uncle.
I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good coming-out movie, or just one of the better gay subject matter films of the past few years.
Mainly because they were free of cliché or being contrived.See or rent the film if you like Sara Rue, stories of young gay men, or the Goth subculture..
There is a love scene between Gypsy (Sara Rue) and a very a handsome fella named Zachariah(a rebel Amish).
Also a gay love scene between Clyde(Gypsy's best friend) and Troy(typical frat guy in denial.
In fact, the sex itself portrays the characters vulnerability and desire more so than anything.But this film was so much more than the love scenes.
I'm a sucker for a good coming of age tale that truthfully and poignantly describes: What it's like to face the realization of your own identity and the unfair twists in life.Sara Rue does her own singing and her voice is splendid!
10 minutes in and I was already hooked.Gypsy 83 is one of the most original and amazing movies I've ever seen.
The trailer simply didn't do it justice, which proves that you should NEVER judge a movie by it's trailer.Gypsy 83 is basically a story about two good friends, Gypsy and Clive, and their friendship.
The chemistry between them is amazing and it feels like they really are the characters they're playing.
They show great enthusiasm and they're actually doing they're best to portray the characters and they're doing it right.The plot of this movie is as original as it gets, and it's a heartwarming, but predictable (in a good way) plot.
It's not a very fast movie in the beginning and while that is a good thing to me, some people may find it hard to catch interest to the story.
I am so in love with Gypsy and Clive!
Like c'mon any movie should involve characters to form a friendship among each other.
Because it was that show that made me a fan after seeing her on screen elsewhere since she was a kid, yet I'm a straight man so I normally don't have any interest in gay cinema, but I don't mind independent films even if I don't get the chance to see as many as I'd like, just as I do with every other movie.Gypsy Vale(Sara Rue) is a 25-year-old fat goth girl who works in a Foto-Mat in Sandusky, Ohio, who's dreams of being the next Stevie Nicks have been put on hold.
Her only friend is Clive Webb(Kett Turton), another goth boy who's still in high school and is "Queer with a capital Q." Through the web they learn that a Stevie Nicks-themed karaoke contest is being held in New York City.
The backdrop of New York City, which includes the World Trade Center still standing as if nothing was going to happen to it at the end of the summer should be a clue to this, as should the fact that Rue has lost a lot of weight since then.All I'm going to say is that you won't find a happy ending, but Rue does bring down the house, and the movie with her performance of "Voice So Sweet"(or something like that), which is the only original song.
The main thing that is missing is the character development upon which to hang the rest of the movie's plot.
Big mistake - the film needs those scenes most importantly for the Clive character to fully develop.And about the time period thing again, the use of the Internet in the movie suggests to me that these characters would not have felt as disconnected as they seem to feel.
These two characters are looking for a way to fit in and to that extent I think the story rings a little hollow for many members of the Goth subculture. |
tt0119304 | Home Fries | The film opens at Burger-Matic, where Henry Lever (Chris Ellis) orders a milkshake at the drive-thru. At the window, he tells the attendant, Sally Jackson (Drew Barrymore), that his wife knows about their affair. She asks him if he has also told his wife about her pregnancy. On his way home, he encounters a ferocious wind. It turns out to be an attack helicopter, which runs him off the road. In a panic, he flees through the woods and drops his heart medication. At an outdoor chapel, he sits on a bench as the helicopter hovers in front of him. The pilot, Angus Montier (Jake Busey), shoots at the ground near him despite the protests of his copilot and brother, Dorian (Luke Wilson). The shots scare him enough to cause a fatal heart attack.
Throughout their attack, Dorian and Angus can hear the chatter of Sally and her coworkers. Likewise, they can hear the helicopter pilots on their headsets. The next day, the police inform Beatrice Lever (Catherine O'Hara) that Henry has died. She appears shocked and crestfallen, when Dorian and Angus arrive. It quickly becomes clear that she encouraged her sons to scare him to death. She is also furious about his affair, and wants revenge on his mistress. Angus and Dorian are worried that the people they heard on the radio might have overheard enough to connect them to his death. They quickly deduce that Burger-Matic is the only location close enough to have been on the same frequency. Angus goads Dorian into getting a job there to ensure that no one is wise to their crime.
Sally is heartbroken at the news about Henry. At work, Dorian bonds with her quickly. He gives her a model helicopter for her baby, and he explains that he and Angus fly them as reservists for the National Guard. She asks him to accompany her to lamaze class, since she doesn't have a partner. Eventually, he takes her to the base to see the helicopter that he flies. As she sits in the cockpit, she tells him about Henry.
Knowing that his mother is still furious about Henry's affair and that Angus would hurt Sally if he knew her identity, Dorian frantically tries to keep the truth from his family. When Angus discovers Sally's identity, Beatrice visits her under the pretense of making amends. Dorian is terrified of what Angus might do out of a misplaced loyalty to their crazy mother. Sure enough, he arrives at Sally's house in the attack helicopter. She, Dorian, and Beatrice escape in a truck. He eventually forces them to stop on the road. Beatrice pretends to be unaware of what is going on and leaves the truck. Dorian gradually convinces Angus to stop his attack.
The stress of the chase triggers Sally's labor, and Dorian drives her to the hospital. After she has a boy, he talks to him. He struggles to explain how they are related, and he tells him that he is lucky to have the best mother in the world. | comedy, murder | train | wikipedia | I remember seeing the adverts for it and thinking it looked mildly interesting, but that it was a piece of romantic comedy fluff that I could wait and rent or something and watch at home without inflicting $20 in movie tickets and an evening of "Chick Flick" on my Husband.
The Marketing Department, apparently didn't watch the movie, they sold it all wrong.I have noticed an increasing trend in that direction, I've skipped some because the marketing made them look AWFUL only to find out they were real gems.If you are in the mood for skillful mix of mystery, romantic comedy, and dark humour then I strongly recommend you rent this movie, or catch it on Cable..
This looks like a case of a classic schizophrenic Hollywood movie--too dark-humored for fans of romantic comedy, not nearly outrageous enough for those looking for that quality.
I was disappointed that Catherine O'Hara's part wasn't any better--she could have really livened the movie up if her character had been a little more forceful.Despite all the problems, there was still something left to like here, and I would give it a positive recommendation, but just barely.
This was a black comedy that unfolded over the first 30 minutes of the film, revealing one surprise relationship after another, until you realize that all the major characters are related in surprising ways.
Luke Wilson did a great job as the moony eyed helicopter pilot who falls for Drew's character.
(during one funny scene, the older boy asks her if it's true that she liked the other son better..."I love you both, she says, but the difference is only this (puts her fingers an inch apart) much!LOL!!!) If you don't enjoy dark humor, this will not amuse you.
I had gone to see this movie because I really enjoy Drew Barrymore's acting.
This movie with Luke Wilson (brother of Owen Wilson) & Drew Barrymore is very enjoyable.
But overall...well, I occasionally get the urge to watch it again (because I like strange movies, and "Home Fries" is possessed of a strangeness I've never quite seen before,) but it certainly won't wear out before most of my other tapes.
Drew Barrymore is cute and she has her loyal fans but, man, this woman makes so many lame movies.
To her credit, some of her movies, like "Ever After," are nice films - no language problems and a film the family could safely watch which certainly is opposite of her wild, earlier days when she was exposing herself on the David Letterman show, and other incidents.
It's not exactly the sweet romance story you might think.What hurt this movie, in my opinion, wasn't Barrymore so much as it was Luke Wilson.
I know that movies are supposed to ask you to suspend disbelief, but when you are sitting in the theater and you end up groaning more than ten or twenty times at the absurdity of the film and what it asks you to believe, then suspension of disbelief is a foreign phrase, I have no idea what it means because I do not care about the movie or it's characters.
She's finally proved that she's capable of more than what we expect of her and that she doesn't need to ride the coattails of washed-up Saturday Night Live actors.Hollywood ran amok with the whole "romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore" angle when this movie was promoted.
She looks great in all these movies!!Luke Wilson (didn't know he was brother of Owen!) is handsome and has much potential for an actor!!
I have friends who take me as I am; who can laugh with my sense of humour and my language knowledge has lead me through difficult holiday travels (this year I go to Warsaw in Poland; I can easily understand English and speak German at a good level; Polish not!!)!!"Home Fries" is a splendid movie to me!!!.
The humor was definitely dark (kind of like Heathers) and this will turn a lot of people off, especially since it was purported to be light.Although I was reluctant to rent this movie (the first 10 minutes made me think it was going to be really dumb, like it was trying to do more than it should for this type of movie), I was soon swayed by the quirks, the smart dialogue and the interwoven plot.
There's a cute visual introduction to Drew Barrymore's pregnant character in "Home Fries": shot from above, while walking to work, Barrymore's enlarged tummy leads the way.
Drew Barrymore gives a winning performance - she co-stars here with her real-life boyfriend Luke Wilson , who has great charm and I predict will eventually become a big time leading man.
(If he chooses to go that way - from the IMDB registry though it looks like he is choosing to stick with indies) Although these are two very good performances the movie is STOLEN by Catherine O'Hara as the mother of Luke's character.
If you saw the trailers or commercials, you'd have thought the movie was a romantic comedy.
The relationship between Luke Wilson and Drew Barrymore's characters plays only a small part in plot, and even then it's not the type of interaction you'd see in a romantic comedy.This flick is pure dark humor.
However, the show was stolen by Luke Wilson (Bottle Rocket), who inadvertently falls in love with the girl who his stepfather had an affair with."Home Fries" blends romance and dark comedy in a way that results in a very entertaining film.
This has got to be the most horrible movie Drew has ever done, the plot was so bad I had to turn it off after 45 mins.
Luke Wilson plays a lovably confused character in the middle of a family crisis including a dead, cheating step-father; a manipulating mother; a jealous, psychotic brother; and the sweet, well-meaning (pregnant) mistress of the step-father.
This movie is not like The Wedding Singer (which I loved) but personally I'm happy to see a romantic comedy with a dark, murderous and twisted plot.
I watched it with little expectation, but when in the first 5 minutes you see a guy being confronted with his soon-to-be-born illegitimate child, then being chased down by an attack chopper, getting a heartattack, dying, the pilots radios are being overheard by employees of some burger joint and afterwards the police finds the dead guy still sitting up straight (rigor mortis squared or something), I was really starting to think the writers are desperately trying to create a strange situation that in itself warrants laughter without anything actually humourous in there.Anyway - don't think I've given a lot away with the above, this only covers the first 5 minutes.
When I first saw previews for this movie, I thought it would be a nice romantic comedy.
Moreover, Angus and Dorian (the male lead) get away with attempted murder and probably manslaughter, which is IMHO a little too strong for a movie that is supposed to be a romantic comedy.
Nothing at all like the trailer suggests (which is EXTREMELY rare nowadays) Go see it, Drew Barrymore and Luke Wilson are great..
One of the worst films I've ever seen.I believe this was probably one of the only movies I've gone to where I actually got up and left.
It's like someone dropped a script (wrapped in roll of twenties) off in the middle of a cow pasture, and dared the townfolk to create a feature film.Drew, you're a cutie, but the director had no intention of making you look the least flattering as a trailer trash pregnant burger flipper.Luke, you got to stop getting acting lessons from David Arquette, it's starting to wear on ya.This freakshow was scarier than psycho.....
Let us now meditate on this thing known as "the crappy movie." We'll just skip the "medium-crappy-movie," which Hollywood provides every week, in deference to its big brother "the seriously, atrociously crappy movie"; the kind of movie that leaves you in a state of wonderment, which then becomes the bewildered lobby conversation that follows the question, "What the hell were they thinking?" as you walk numb to your car.To find some way to pay this heinous movie a compliment, it IS amazing that something can issue from Hollywood that hasn't been written by a machine and measured against a checklist for absolute genre conformity, however...House Fries is an awesomely terrible movie.
Although the preview suggested a romantic comedy, you'll be damned if you can actually name what this baroque, convoluted excresence is.Catherine O'Hara has her two military helicopter-pilot sons buzz her cheating husband to scare him, for cheating on her with Drew Barrymore.
This movie may actually dethrone "Nothing But Trouble" in the bad movie category as the worst thing ever committed to film.Catherine O'Hara or Jake Busey get my vote as the most awful of many heinous elements in the movie.
"Home Fries" (1998) is an offbeat romcom about a pregnant girl (Drew Barrymore) who has two National Guardsmen after her – one wants to romance her (Luke Wilson ) and the other wants to murder her (Jake Busey).
This alleged comedy-drama-romance movie has Drew Barrymore playing a pregnant Sally Jackson, who falls for Dorian Montier (Luke Wilson), the stepson of the unborn baby's deceased father.
Only one word can describe how I feel after watching this movie.That word is awful."Home Fries" isn't comedy because in real comedy people smile.It was nothing funny in this one,it only gives you reasons to cry.I'm sad to see Drew Barrymore in this role.She is so annoying like her partner(Luke Wilson).Only positive thing is acting of Catherine O'Hara but that is even not enough to give this movie grade 2.Plot of this movie doesn't make any sense.Why would two sons listen to their crazy mother and chase their stepfather in a helicopter?After that chase poor man dies of heart and that is not enough because then they must kill a girl who is carrying that poor man's child,in order to please their mother.But wait,one of those brothers starts to like pregnant girl.How realistic is that?Judge it yourself.WARNING:Don't watch this movie unless someone is pointing gun in your head..
It's just an ugly waste of time.What can you say about a film that somehow manages to make Drew Barrymore's pathetic attempt at acting and trying not to go down the Madonna Road of Not Knowing When To Quit?
We were expecting a nice, cute Drew Barrymore romantic comedy and instead there was this whole crazy story about a nutso homicidal family that wants to kill Drew's character.
HOME FRIES is an anemic romantic comedy/murder mystery that a pretty good cast can't salvage..
Although this movie was marketed as a cute looking romantic comedy, it came off as being a mindless, reality-inept stuper of a film, that led me to the conclusion that it was probably written in about a week's time.
This is an off-beat comedy with a slightly ridiculous plot that is saved by the fine acting of several actors such as Drew Barrymore as the FastFood countergirl who unwittingly lets herself get taken advantage of, and Catherine O'Hara as the betrayed and psychotic wife out to gain revenge on her cheating husband.
Yes, it's true that(1) The trailer is carefully crafted to attract viewers who will not like the film and to discourage viewers who might enjoy it.(2) The movie jerks back and forth between romance and black comedy.
(The sound track consists of two riffs: an edgy guitar line to identify the black comedy scenes and a cloying instrumental phrase repeated over and over--and over--during the romantic scenes.)(3) The plot is an affront to logic in general and the Air National Guard in particular.(4) None of the main characters in the story are likable, well-developed or even plausible (especially including Drew Barrymore's character).But all that doesn't stop Home Fries from being delightful at the detail level.
After Hours).(2) Shelley Duvall playing the white trash mom to perfection.(3) Even the thankless role of the unfaithful stepfather was played with some nice touches; I loved the way he takes a sip from his milkshake as he pulls away from the drive through after being castigated by Sally.(4) There were countless other small touches: the son being invited to take a few packs of cigarettes "on the house" when he visits his dead step-father's office at the cigarette factory, the lecherous helicopter mechanic receiving his just reward with the machine-gun turret.In short, the plot made no sense and most of the major characters weren't worth watching, but there were several great minor characters and some interesting dialog that make this movie worth seeing..
We love Drew Barrymore, the premise of the movie is kinda cute.
The movie tried to intertwine comedy and drama which in this film did not work out at all.
It was marketed and promoted as a romantic comedy, but turned out to be a very dark movie.
If you're looking for a truly good dark comedy, rent "Cable Guy" or "In The Company Of Men." I give Home Fries 2 out of 4 stars......
The director, the writer, and the entire primary cast (Drew, Luke Wilson, Jake Busey, and Catherine O'Hara) were all present, introduced on stage prior to the film after about a twenty-minute delay.
(I heard considerably more sustained laughter and genuine applause at the screening of a comedy from the Philippines during the festival, to give you some idea as to how well this film went over with a most receptive audience.)I had a considerably better time chatting about movies and computers with two people sitting beside me while waiting for Drew to make her late entrance than I did actually watching the movie.
I look forward to seeing Luke in other, better, roles.Jake Busey, the spittin' image of his father Gary, does a fine job with a one-note character.Having noted all the above performers, let me say that their performances were the only thing I enjoyed about this movie.
One shining light is Jake Busey, who steals most of the scenes he has, and the crazy thing is that he's stealing them from actors like Luke Wilson and Catherine O'Hara.The writing, dialogue and costumes were another highlight of the movie.
Drew Barrymore is one of my favourite actresses, and I love Luke Wilson, but they both REALLY let me down in this movie.
Romance can add to a film, but with some black comedies(including this one) the plot is too far-fetched for you to really care about the characters, and romance in a movie is empty if you have no one to care for.
I liked Drew Barrymore here, better than her performance in "The Wedding Singer." Luke Wilson, of "Bottle Rocket" and "Scream 2," was very strange throughout the movie.
I would like to see him in a movie side-by-side with David Arquette, not counting "Scream 2." Catherine O'Hara seemed to have fun with her role in another great part.
"Home Fries" has an intriguing cast, with such talents as the always charming Drew Barrymore and her real-life love interest Luke Wilson, Catherine O'Hara from "Home Alone," Jake Busey and Shelley Duvall.
But most of the movies comic elements are original, but too dark to laugh at.I really liked the characters in "Home Fries," that were colorful and entertaining.
I, like most people, saw the trailer for this movie and thought "romantic comedy, looks good"...well, I was wrong.
what a boring movie, this was probably, actually yes it was the worst drew barrymore movie i have ever seen, it was so poorly acted and predictable and just boring in every which way possible, i hated this movie and i hope none of you have to go through the pain i did of watching this movie.
Drew Barrymore, Catherine O'Hara, Luke Wilson, and Shelley Duvall were all great.
Home Fries stars one of my favourite actress' Drew Barrymore, but not even she can save this boring movie.
Still, as usual Drew Barrymore does a good job, so she made the movie at least a little bit enjoyable.
Drew Barrymore is sickening and I normally find something to enjoy in her performances and the movies she is in.
the trailer sets it up as a romantic comedy in which luke wilson sees drew barymore at a drive thru and wants to get a job there in order to meet her..
Home Fries (1998): Dir: Dean Parisot / Cast: Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson, Jake Busey, Catherine O'Hara, Shelley Duvall: Intriguing satire that exaggerates in its conclusion.
Things become complicated when one of the brothers (Luke Wilson) falls for a girl (Drew Barrymore) that his mother does not approve of.
Just the wonderful scene where Drew looks at Luke with total sweetness and trust and all smiles is worth seeing for it's charm--but you, the viewer, know the back story and secrets.
Her performance is as good as usual.Luke Wilson is handsome and likable enough but it is not at all believable that his character would suddenly fall in love with the poor pregnant girl who works at the local Burger-Matic - especially given all the circumstances of the plot.
The film is pointless with at least three dark, twisted and very unsympathetic characters."Home Fries" is no better than a student film project with a much bigger budget and access to a military helicopter.When it's over, you're likely to ask yourself as I did - Why did I waste 1 1/2 hours watching this lousy movie?.
I love films with the likeable Drew Barrymore.
What you think it is going to be about is not what it actually is.I enjoyed Drew Barrymore in this role tremendously though even if I really didn't like the overall movie to much.
Unknowingly one the man's step-sons(Luke Wilson) falls in love with her, while his brother(Jake Busey) is ordered by their mother(Catherine O'Hara) to murder her. |
tt0106080 | The Nanny | Jewish-American Fran Fine turns up on the doorstep of British Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) to sell cosmetics after having been both dumped and fired by her boyfriend and employer Danny Imperialli. Instead, she finds herself the nanny of Maxwell's three children, Maggie, Brighton, and Grace. Maxwell Sheffield is unhappy about it at first, but Fran turns out to be just what he and his family needed.
While Fran Fine manages the children, butler Niles (Daniel Davis) manages the household and watches all the events that unfold with Fran as the new nanny. Niles, recognizing Fran's gift for bringing warmth back to the family, does his best to undermine Maxwell's business partner C.C. Babcock (Lauren Lane) who has her eyes on the very available Maxwell Sheffield. Niles is often seen making witty comments directed towards C.C with C.C often replying with a comment of her own in their ongoing game of one-upmanship.
As the series progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that Maxwell is smitten with Fran even though he won't admit it, and Fran is smitten with him. The show teases the viewers with their closeness and "near misses" as well as with an engagement. Towards the later seasons, they finally marry and expand their family by having fraternal twins. By the end of the series, it's also clear that Niles and C.C.'s constant sharp barbs are their bizarre form of flirtation and after a few false starts (including multiple impulsive and failed proposals from Niles) the pair marry in the series finale.
=== Episodes ===
=== Main characters ===
Fran Fine is the nasal voiced, outgoing protagonist of the series who stumbles upon the Sheffields' doorstep and winds up as the nanny to Mr. Sheffield's three children: Maggie, Brighton, and Grace. She starts off working for her boyfriend Danny Imperialli in a bridal shop but is dumped and fired not long after by that same boyfriend. She ends up meeting Maxwell Sheffield and his family while going door to door to sell cosmetics. Her character has an outgoing and humorous personality. Fran, as a result of her mother's overbearing personality, often feels the need to date and is compelled to get married as well. She is usually seen getting into trouble and having to solve those problems through using her street smarts.
Maxwell Sheffield is the male protagonist who ends up hiring Fran Fine to watch over his three children, Maggie, Brighton, and Grace. He is a widowed Broadway producer, having lost his wife Sara four years before the start of the series. While he does have some success as a Broadway producer, he remains constantly in the shadow of his rival Andrew Lloyd Webber, who always seems to have the upper hand. He does not spend a lot of time with his children due to his busy schedule, hence he ends up hiring Fran Fine as the children's nanny. Despite his mutual attraction to Fran, he tries to keep their relationship professional for fear of commitment.
Margaret Sheffield is the eldest child of Maxwell Sheffield. She is constantly seen bickering with her brother, Brighton, who views her as a nerd. While she is constantly fighting with Brighton, her relationship with her sister, Grace, is more one of mentorship. Towards the beginning of the series, Maggie is shy and awkward but, with Fran's influence, she becomes a somewhat popular young woman. Upon meeting Fran Fine, the two bond almost instantly.
Brighton Sheffield is the middle child of the family and the only son of Maxwell Sheffield. Due to being the only son, he often feels left out. This causes him to purposely bring about trouble for his two sisters. He doesn't bond with Fran Fine at first, having disliked all his previous nannies, but eventually becomes close with her as well. He plans to become a Broadway producer, like his father.
Grace Sheffield is the youngest child in the Sheffield family. She has a habit of naming medical conditions and complicated words. When Fran first became her nanny, Grace was in therapy. But, under Fran Fine's influence and guidance, she eventually doesn't need therapy any more. As the two became close to one another Grace started picking up some of Fran's Jewish slang and dressing habits, eventually thinking of Fran as a mother to her.
C.C. Babcock is the egocentric business partner of Maxwell Sheffield, with whom she has been working for almost 20 years. She clearly wants him as more than a business partner. Maxwell, however, appears oblivious and Babcock has yet to make a serious move on him. She never seems to be able to remember the names of Maxwell's three children. From her first meeting with Fran Fine, she accurately views the newly hired nanny as a threat and tries to undermine her. Fran is not C.C.'s only enemy in the Sheffield house, as she has an even more contentious relationship with his longtime butler Niles (who hates her just as much as she hates him).
Niles is the loyal butler and chauffeur for the Sheffield family. He and Maxwell have known each other their whole lives. He bonds with Fran Fine immediately, viewing her as the breath of fresh air that the Sheffield family needs. Niles is known as the household snoop as he is constantly seen listening in on conversations via intercoms, keyholes, and even in the very rooms where the conversations are taking place. He tends to manipulate events in Fran's favor to undermine C.C., his nemesis. In spite of this, over time it becomes clear that Niles has himself fallen for C.C. and their contentious relationship is a cover for mutual lust. | humor | train | wikipedia | Fran Drescher does an outstanding job as Fran, and the rest of the cast are equally good, especially Daniel Davis and Lauren Lane, As Niles and CC.
For some reason, her character was the worst of the lot.Renee Taylor was especially funny, as it seemed Sylvia was always eating or thinking about food and Ann Morgan Guibert was superb as Yetta.
A make-up seller ends up at the door of a Broadway producer and becomes the nanny for his 3 children.The English producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessey, Days Of Our Lives) hates Andrew Llyodd Webber, and is known to say "I love you" before taking it straight back, again.He has his faithful butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), and his arch-enemy and Maxwell's associate, Chastity-Claire Babcock (Lauren Lane) - these two are known for their sniping remarks and catty coments.Fran helps the three kids Maggie, Brighton and Gracie (Nicole Tom, Beethoven; Benjamin Salisbury and Madeline Zima, Mr. Nanny) through boyfriends, girlfriends and the usual teenage stuff.Adding to the mix is Fran's food-loving mother, Sylvia.
Syvia's mom, Yetta and Fran's best friend, Val (Rachel Chaggal).For 6 years, 'The Nanny' was a hilarious sitcom that never stopped being funny.
Fran Dresher is a very nice person and a very funny and talented actress, she made us laugh for six years and I think she should stay with us for much time.
Everything about the show is great, the cast is very talented, the story-lines are never repetitive and always funny, they left us in 1999 and after six years of the beginning it was still a hit.
Fran isn't afraid to fall on her face (her physical comedy is hilarious!) or let others have funny lines.
Fran Drescher stars as Fran Fine in this beloved series about a lady from Flushing, Queens, who becomes the Nanny for a wealthy Manhattan Broadway producer, Mr. Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaunessy).
I used to watch it on TV quite a few years ago but when I returned to it lately I enjoyed it just as much and I have to say it's still one of the best comedy series I have ever seen.
One of the best things about the show is the relationship between supporting characters CC and Niles - the dynamics is perfect and the jokes are fantastic, they always catch me unprepared and make me laugh like crazy :) Much better that most of shows you find on TV today, you just have to have a certain amount of nostalgia in yourself to fully enjoy it.
The Nanny is the story of Fran Fine, an irritating whiney New Yorker who possesses perhaps the most annoying voice in television.
She had style, she had class that's why she became the Nanny.Something like that was the tune that began this hilarious comedy show.It was really the mixing up of 2 distinct cultures- Max Sheffield, a Broadway luminary desperately looking to make his first hit on the great white way and Fran Drescher, Renee Taylor, and Ann Guilbert, who epitomized Judaism at its funniest.
Love seems to transcend cultural differences as this show proved.Lauren Lane was phenomenal as Max's business partner and rival to Fran, even when Fran wed Max. Marilyn Zima, Nicolle Tom and Ben Salisbury rounded out the marvelous cast as the 3 precocious children caught up in this hilarity.A totally wonderful show to remember!.
I would place "The Nanny" on the level of "Full House" or even '60s dreck like "The Beverly Hillbillies." Trying to think of something good about this show...well, the characters did live in a nice apartment..
And Fran is just amazing and adorable, i loved every episode and it had a great ending.
Taking more than a few cues from Lucille Ball and more than a little inspiration from "I Love Lucy", Drescher is just a delight as Fran Fine (or is that "Fein"?
Fran's voice some people find annoying - I think it's great!
Fran as the nanny who is always screwing up but you can't help but love her.
Daniel Davis was flawless in his role as the wise-cracking butler and his relationship with Ms. Babcock was more believable than that of Fran and Maxwell.Ann Guilbert as the senile grandmother made this show and it is hard to believe that she was only 5 years older than the actress who played Sylvia,her daughter on the show.
Now,the things I disliked about this show:a)It got boring and very predictable after a whileb)It seemed like a recycled version of "I Love Lucy!"(as funny as Fran was,she shouldn't have tried to be like Lucy because she didn't even come close to the great Lucille Ball-her timing wasn't always spot-on and as far as psysical comedy is concerned.."Oy!")c)There was absolutely no chemistry between Fran and Charles Shaughnessy.
I mean,I know this is supposed to be a comedy show,but there were no really serious moments in which they showed they really cared for each other.Thus,when they got together,I was not impressed.d)The guest stars.They had some brilliant actors and actresses on this show(my favourites being Donald O'Connor and Rich Little,the impressionist) that got very small and dull parts.They got no good jokes and everything revolved around Miss Fine.In my opinion,if you have the opportunity to work with such great people,you'd better come up with something damn funny!e)Sylvia Fine.She was probably the most annoying thing on the show.We get it,guys-she loved food,but do you always have to make fun of it?It was fine for like the first two seasons,but after that,it was over.f)If you take all the episodes in which Fran screwed up with celebrities and compare them with the forth and fifth seasons of "I Love Lucy!",you'll find little difference,except that "I Love Lucy!" was obviously funnier.In conclusion,this,for me is not a very important sitcom,like "Friends","Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Frasier",all of which aired during the same time,because it has all been done before.I do,however,love most of the characters and Fran is quite funny.I would recommend you don't watch this all at once,because it will just get annoying..
i watched another episode and instantly picked up on the tension between fran and max and was like PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY MAKEOUT!!
Yes, this series is hilarious but I truly believe the best lines and comedic routines were held by the supporting cast of the likes of Daniel Davis and Renee Taylor.
I especially loved Yetta and every scene that she was in was superb.Other than that, I am more than convinced that this show is just a vanity project for Fran Drescher so she could prance around in her awful costumes whilst pursuing the man of her dreams who ignored her for 5 whole years.
Furthermore, I didn't see any sexual chemistry between the nanny and Maxwell Sheffield and there was more between Niles and CC but even they got married in the end and it was such an anti-climax.This is very slapstick humour and though it was fun at times, it got really bad towards the end when they all fulfilled their characters' ambitions for the show.
short, a comfortable series , far to be unique or great but interesting for the games of stereotypes and jokes and the brilliant manner of Fran Drescher to be the perfect spice for a nice story about family, children, dreams of a nanny and her army of relatives, a special butler and a young woman who has few more years.
i cannot believe how long The Nanny actually lasted, Fran Drescher is a good actress but this show is really bad, you know when the jokes are coming and what jokes they're going to be and the situations are very predictable, Suddenly Susan is a alot better show than this-even though SS only made 4 seasons, of course yeah The Nanny is watchable (when there's nothing else worth watching) but its not one of those shows where you want to go crazy and buy all the merchandise....
But one major factor kind of put a slight dent on the show.It never really focused on the kids and thus you really never got to know the three talented stars, Nicholle Tom, Ben Salisbury and Madeline Zima(the latter who has made a name for herself as a more popular actress in movies)with any real character development.Still, the show was infectious, especially with Renee Taylor who nearly stole many scenes as the Fran's food crazy mom Sylvia and Lauren Lane got funnier and more appealing as the show went on as the conniving but sometimes sensitive C.C.Great show to watch in the world of syndication..
Fran is sweet and funny, her mother who's always eating is awesome, the fights between C.C. and Niles are hilarious...
I love the nanny fran drescher made the show so funny.
the kids loved her and c.c babcock hates her.and niles liked fran always on her side.
Fran Drescher plays a wedding specialist who was hired as a nanny to a British Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (played by Charles Shaughnessy).
the humor - Jewish in the best form -, Fran Drescher , the script, the dialogs and , in fact, entire cast are basic pillars for a comedy who seems be out of limits.
I was just a kid when this show aired and it was extremely popular.Fran Fine was the unconventional nanny that everybody wished for.At least,I know I did.
As a kid, I loved this show because it was about family first of all, it was very funny and also a delight to see a colorful dressed nanny with an amusing voice.When I rewatch it now I realise that the jokes on this sitcom never get old because they are still very clever.
The butler was one of the best characters in the show, because he knew everything that happened in the house and always made fun of Mr.Sheffield's business partner C.C. Put this all together and add three cute kids and Fran's funny family and it's a success.
The best part of it was that you could watch it with the entire family,because they had situations for every age.All I know is that I wish they would still do shows like this one..
I grew up watching this show on Saturdays, being a young boy at the time i never understood the adult humor in the show nevertheless i would always be saying at 6:30 every Saturday "mum the nanny is on change the channel" Now in my 20's I've gone back to re watch it from the start and i enjoy it as much today as i did then maybe even more so, the chemistry between all the characters is sensational and the shear fun of it all keeps you wanting to see more in my opinion 6 seasons was not enough to do justice to a very special comedy sitcom, but sadly all good things do come to an end can always hope that another reunion special will be made or maybe a TV movie, doubtful but is a nice thought.
One could see the jokes coming a mile away, I always wanted CC to deck Niles, and I just wished Maxwell and Fran would make their bloody minds up about whether or not they would get together and get on with it.I liked it towards the end of the show's long run when Niles confesses that he's been in love with CC all along.
This show is a cross between "I Love Lucy" and "The Sound of Music." The best aspect of the show, by far, is the "will-they/won't they" relationship between Fran and her boss Mr. Sheffield.
All throughout the series, the audience was given subtle and not-so-subtle hints that they were right for each other, but the writers wisely strung it out and kept us on the edge of our seats.Other characters to watch are Niles, the hilarious butler and the self-centered C.C. Babcock.
In a lot of ways, I think he spoke what the audience wanted to say as far as that relationship goes.To anyone who is put off by Fran's voice, I say to give it a chance.
The best characters are Fran (The Nanny), the butler(Niles), C.C Babcock and Val.
It wasn't that he wanted to play the field, they both knew they loved each other, but he was afraid of losing another wife.This is a GREAT sitcom and if you're lucky enough to catch it on reruns somewhere (here in the states you can watch it several times a day on the cable channel Lifetime), great!.
Fran Fine met Fran Dresher in a hotel lounge.That list may seem like a fan bragging but I honestly believe that list is pretty impressive!!The Nanny is a tv shows that was slaughtered by critics (proved by Fran being on Peoples Worst Dressed List) but one that the tv viewing public throughly enjoyed.
This show is very funny.The cast is great and seem to work well with each other.Fran is perfect for the role of the nanny.She can be funny,serious,and caring all at the same time.C.C and Niles are my favorite of all.The insults and wise cracks that they make to each other are very funny.This show gets ****1/2 out of 5..
You just have to love each character and the funny things they bring to this show.I cant imagine any one else playing Niles and CC.
You saw them fight but you also wanted to see them get into a romantic relationship too and even when they did, they still fought with one another and you couldn't help but love it!Sylvia was hysterical, she too had the facial expressions that could make the joke even funnier!Also no one could turn words around like Fran nor make the funny faces that she would make sometimes.
I cried during the last episode simply because this was it, there would never be another Nanny episode, greatness was ending.Fifty years from now when its being shown daily like I Love Lucy is; it will still be funny no matter what generation is watching it.
Fran Drescher always looked stunning in a fashionably-risky sort of way and her character will definitely be missed after the 1999 series finale..
When Fran Fine (Fran Drescher),a Jewish nasal-voiced woman(who has a passion for the Streisand herself),is fired from her job at a bridal shop she goes from door-to-door selling cosmetics.However,she stumbles on the home of broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield(Charles Shaughnessy) who is looking for a nanny.When Fran is hired,she becomes nanny to Maxwell's children-Maggie,Brighton and Gracie(Nicholle Tom,Benjamin Salisbury and Madeline Zima).
We meet Maxwell's assistant C.C.Babcock (Lauren Lane) and butler Niles (Daniel Davis) who are at constant war.Then there's Fran's food-obsessed mother Sylvia (Renee Taylor),grandma Yetta (Ann Guilbert) and best friend Val(Rachel Chagall).
Fran Drescher is a natural and the support she gets from Charles Shaughnessy, Renee Taylor, Ann Guilbert, Daniel Davis and Lauren Lane adds to the humor significantly.
The kids are OK, but the true stars of the show are Fran, Sylvia, Niles, and C.C. Maxwell is OK, but he just doesn't make me laugh as much as the others.
I think the show was great, Fran was awesome, and the cast was all suitable for each character.
I have really enjoyed The Nanny for years and for anyone who has not seen it before I suggest they should watch it some time.
when i first watched the nanny i thought it was very funny.
i think once they watch it they will love it just like me.
From episode 1 to now midway into the 5th season of The Nanny, I've watched, loved and cried with laughter at the show.
The cast are excellent, the jokes are superb and Fran Drescher - well I just bow down to her comedic geniusness.I now consider The Nanny as one of my all time favourites, as in my opinion it truly is a classic sitcom and ranks highly against all those sitcoms in the days gone by, not the typical "I'm too smart for a sitcom" shows on TV these days..
The characters are the best and most real, especially Niles, Fran, Maxwell, CC Babcock, Sylvia and Brighton.
The Nanny was a really funny show, it had the great characters Fran the Nanny, Maxwell Sheffield, Niles the Butler, CC Babcock and the kids of course.
Most people hate Fran's voice 'cause it sound a little whiny, but I think it's funny.
one of the rare shows where you can watch an episode over and over again and laugh like its the first time you saw it.i am actually laughing while typing this out.
Unlike most people, to me the best thing abt The Nanny was actually Fran's supporting cast.
"The Nanny" also has quite a few guest stars on it like Jason Alexander (who played a blind man who Fran temporarily dated) and Elizabeth Taylor.
No offense to all the fans of this show but its just doesn't do it for me 1st of all i get a headache every time she talks, and the jokes they make about her voice are obnoxious (although i think its intended to be so) also i feel that Daniel Davis' talents were wasted on his show hes simply too good to play a butler that pops one liners every 5 seconds when he has the talent for more intellectual roles that actually have decent lines.
The character who played Grace tried hard not to laugh because it was just too funny, and I can't blame her.I love Fran Fine's voice.
Sometimes his character is hilarious and other times it's serious when it's supposed to be.Sometimes the acting isn't the best, like in the pilot episode or the first time Max says he loves Fran, but the show is still really good.Niles, played by Daniel Davis, is also excellent in the show.
This show was a good one but watching back to back episodes got a bit tiring on my ears with Fran Drescher's voice grating in my ears.
(the lovely Lauren Lane) and his sardonic butler, Niles (Daniel Davis) who only had a first name, "Like Cher", he explained. |
tt5371446 | Final Score | The film focuses on Suwikrom "Per" Amaranon, a middle class Thai student in his senior year at Suankularb Wittayalai School in Bangkok, and his three friends, Big Show, Lung and Boat. They are depicted as average students, not especially studious but are still obedient of their parents and are hopeful of their prospects for getting into a university in Thailand.
The film follows the boys through one year, from May 2005 to May 2006. Documentarian Soraya Nagasuwan is never heard asking the boys questions, simply letting her camera crew follow the boys through their days at school, at home with their families or enjoying time off school while on a visit to the beach and attending a rock music festival.
In order to qualify for admission to a university faculty, students must take standardized tests. In Thailand these tests are the O-Net/A-Net exams. Minimum scores are needed in order to be admitted to certain universities and university faculties.
Coincidentally, the February 2006 exams that the boys took were hit with a scandal after the results were incorrectly reported. Approximately 300,000 students were affected by error, with many puzzled over receiving test results when they had not even taken the tests.
The boys weather the pressure of taking the exams and the erroneous reporting of the scores, however, and ultimately win their choice of disciplines and universities. | non fiction | train | wikipedia | null |
tt1606392 | Win Win | Small-town New Providence, New Jersey, attorney Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) moonlights as a wrestling coach and struggles to keep his practice solvent, while shielding his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) and their two young girls, Abby and Stella, from the extent of the problem. When his court-appointed client, Leo Poplar (Burt Young), who is suffering from early dementia, turns out to have no locatable relatives, he persuades a judge to appoint him as guardian, for which he will receive a stipend of $1,508 per month. Mike, however, has no intention of taking care of Leo and moves him to a senior care facility while he continues to get paid for guardianship.
When Leo's troubled teenage grandson, Kyle (Alex Shaffer) shows up from Columbus, Ohio, looking to live with him, Mike and Jackie let him stay with them instead. Kyle tries to break into Leo's old house, and when Mike and Jackie question him about it, he reveals his troubled family life: His mom is in rehab, she lives with her boyfriend, and he doesn't want to go back. Upon hearing this, Jackie refuses to allow Kyle to return home and lets him stay in their household. After Kyle sits in on practice, they discover that he is a talented wrestler and enroll him at Mike's high school, where he can resume his education and wrestle on Mike's losing team, helping to make them viable contenders in their league.
This "everyone benefits" setup is disrupted when Kyle's mother Cindy (Melanie Lynskey) shows up, fresh out of rehab. Cindy attempts to gain custody of her father and her son, and with them her father's substantial estate. However, Mike explains to Cindy and her lawyer that Leo had disinherited her from his will, causing her to become furious. Later, Cindy calls Kyle to her hotel room to show him court documents proving that Mike is supposed to keep Leo at home and not at the elderly home. Kyle reacts violently towards his mother before running away.
Upon learning the truth about Mike, the boy rejects him as a money-seeking opportunist no better than his mother. Realizing the mistake of his earlier actions, and seeking instead to do what's best for both Leo and Kyle, Mike offers Cindy the monthly stipend in exchange for leaving them in his care. He and Jackie take Kyle into their home permanently and return Leo to his, with Mike instead taking a job as a bartender to address his financial problems. | entertaining | train | wikipedia | Paul Giamatti – a true everyman actor – delivers a wonderful performance as a lawyer and wrestling coach struggling with the challenges of family and money in New Jersey.
One thing we learn early on is that Mike intentionally misled the judge in Leo's case, giving the impression that he would be actively taking care of Leo. But things really get going when Kyle's druggie mom (Melanie Lynskey) shows up to bring her boy back – and to take over as Leo's guardian.Too often, Giamatti has played real sad-sack characters, guys who just can't seem to catch a break, guys who suffer at the hands of fickle fate.
What makes it work are all of the truly sincere, dead-on performances: by Giamatti, Ryan, Shaffer, Lynskey, Bobby Cannavale, and even Jeffrey Tambor as one of Mike's wrestling assistant coaches.
Actor-turned-director Tom McCarthy has put together a fine third feature in Win Win. All of his films tend to have compact stories that are small in scope but feature a very focused lens on the lives of their characters.One might say that Win Win is perhaps his most conventional dramedy, as it features a normal suburban family with normal suburban problems.
Since his grandfather is living in a retirement home, Kyle ends up staying with Mike and Jackie, who feel compelled to help the kid out.The film is funny and sweet and paints a really true-to-life portrait of its characters.
In that way, the film will strike a nice honest chord with most of its audience.Paul Giamatti is great in this, giving a much lower key performance than some of his previous works like American Splendor, Sideways, and even "John Adams." He falls into the suburban dad character very well and wears the character's skin rather nicely.
Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor are fun to watch as well, but serve generally to provide comedic relief (which they do in abundance) and their characters aren't nearly as well painted as Mike or Kyle.Alex Shaffer, in his very first role, holds his own among some heavyweight actors.
So of course Win Win is the next on the list on his impressive resume, the story was surprisingly quite complex but not difficult to keep track of which is the work of a great director.The character of Jack is very reminiscent of Giamatti's character from Storytelling, a guy somewhat down on his luck who just can't seem to get ahead or on top of things, of course these films are very different but the similarities are definitely there.Amy Ryan impressed me a lot, I've never seen her in anything before but after seeing this I look forward to catching other films with her, she has a great presence in screen and her and Giamatti work excellently together...
Instead, it has many humorous moments which keep the tone quite light, even as the film raises some darker problems.The first dilemma concerns the subterfuge that lawyer Mike Flaherty (Paul Giametti) employs to win the maintenance award for looking after his elderly client Leo who suffers from Alzheimers disease.
Mike (Paul Giamatti) has a failing law practice, moonlights as a high school wrestling coach, and now becomes custodian of elderly Leo Poplar (Burt Young) because Mike needs the $1500 a month.
Because the central characters are loving and largely benign, the film has an easy, unforced quality.Terry (Bobby Cannavale) is especially likable as Mike's old wrestling buddy, recently split from his wife, and full of energy to channel as assistant coach helping with their new wrestling star.
The characters become more dear, the laughs get louder and the plot thickens.Writer, director Thomas McCarthy (who also wrote and directed one of my all time favorite movies, "The Station Agent") has created a group of characters as strange and wonderful as real people, but with better lines.
Not at all, despite the terribly stereo-typical, shallow, cringe-inducing, comic-relief character played by Bobby Cannavale.If you as a filmmaker are going to have this much of a disregard for the way people really act, speak and think then for god's sake, have someone in your film pull a gun out so at least I won't be bored.Suck Suck..
Win Win is the third film from talented writer/director Thomas McCarthy, and like his past indie gems The Visitor & The Station Agent he finds a way to bring out an unexpected humor from the scenes in unique ways.
Although his third film isn't necessarily a step up from his past endeavors, it's obvious McCarthy knows how to tell a good story.Win Win is blessed with a talented cast, and although there isn't any major stretches or performances to be blown away by, it's a talented cast from top to bottom who are very comfortable bringing these characters to life.
From her bit roles in Up in the Air, The Informant & Away We Go
it's only a matter of time before she gets her shot at some starring roles.Although Win Win isn't as deep as McCarthy's past films, and didn't leave a lasting impression and keep me thinking about the movie long after the credits rolled, it found a way to accomplish something most films don't.
The story exposes us to Mike Flaherty played by Paul Giamatti a small time lawyer and his family and friends.
Here writer and director Tom McCarthy provides Giamatti with an appealing role as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer in a small New Jersey town who is facing a hard time financially and makes a wrong decision that nevertheless ultimately has some welcome consequences.The decision and the consequences revolve around the aged Leo (Burt Young) who is in the early stages of dementia and his weird teenage grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer).
In Win Win he has just that: an excellent cast, beginning with a superb leading performance from Paul Giamatti, and a great supporting cast which include the always reliable Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Tambor, Bobby Cannavale, Melanie Lynskey, and Burt Young, plus a memorable performance from newcomer Alex Shaffer who is the heart and motor of the story.
The mystery about his past and the way he interacts with Giamatti and Ryan are the soul of this drama, while Cannavale and Tambor's performance work more as the comedic relief.Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is a lawyer and father of two young daughters living with his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) in a New Jersey superb.
Each of these two actors becomes the character and then builds upon their respective roles with powerful acting skills.This film acted like one that was badly edited and/or one that richly deserved to go back into post-production so that it could be allowed a more well-developed ending.I thought that the role of Bobby was more of a distraction than a help.And yet there were moments of greatness in this film, very heart-warming scenes in which good story, good writing and good acting all dove-tailed.I would truly like to watch the director's cut of this one.Alex Shaffer will be heard from again.
The films pacing was perfect too with a tone that goes seamlessly from dramatic to comedic.The story follows a struggling small time lawyer and moon-lighting wrestling coach who makes an unethical decision to earn some extra money by becoming the guardian to an elderly client (Burt Young) suffering from dementia.
Tom McCarthy's "Win Win" sees Paul Giamatti star as Mike Flaherty, a struggling lawyer and part-time high school wrestling coach.
Amy Ryan as the hard-nosed mother, Jeffrey Tambor and Terry Delfino as assistant wrestling coaches with two completely different styles, Burt Young as the grandfather who just wants to go home, and Melanie Lynskey as Kyle's mother who has returned purely for the money--these performers are very good.
An appealing film that manages to be feel-good while still allowing its audience to respect itself in the morning.Paul Giamatti plays a down-on-his-luck lawyer who takes under his wing the grandson of a mentally incompetent man (Burt Young) for whom he's become legal guardian.
I recently lent my attention to Win Win, Tom McCarthy's directorial follow up to his 2008 film The Visitor.The movie features some interesting themes, a lot of funny jokes, a great sense of drama, and interesting characters.
With his "everyman" look, he can deliver an average character in which most middle-aged audience members can relate."Win Win" is the latest independent story from director Thomas McCarthy featuring Giamatti as Mike Flaherty, a local attorney in a small town in New Jersey (although, this small town could have been anywhere in the United States).
Mike is a good person with good intentions, but like the rest of the working class folks, he has the common desire to provide for his family.After Mike puts Leo in his nursing home, we are introduced to Kyle (played by Alex Shaffer, in his only film role to date).
The next day the grandson of the wealthy elderly mans shows up and Mike and his wife (Amy Ryan) are forced to take care of the kid, Kyle (Alex Shaffer).
Win Win tackles this subject with excellent results.Here Kyle (Alex Shaffer) is a troubled teenager and is put into an alternative family billet home of Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) after running away to New Jersey to his grandfather Leo (Burt Young).
Usually a type of mish- mash of things like this in a movie is not good but here it works.Similar to Hailee Steinfeld who was an unknown teenager casted in the 2010 movie True Grit, Win Win puts Alex Shaffer in the lead role as the troubled teen.
The rest of the cast which includes Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale and Burt Young is solid and works in every way.Many films stood out in 2011, but I think Win Win bettered all of them.
All three films feature the reactions and adaptations when strangers collide and a family-like atmosphere is created.In this film, Paul Giamatti plays a struggling lawyer who also coaches the local high school wrestling team.
Those are the words that come to mind watching Paul Giamatti struggling in "Win Win".It is certainly not a walt disney family film, but young, old and everything in between will find recognition in this story about 2 families who accidentally learn to take care of each other the best way they can.
"Win Win" is not that kind of film; instead choosing to revel in the struggles of day-to-day life and work through them.For a basic plot summary, "Win Win" sees Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) struggling to make a living for himself and his family.
Win Win Genre: drama Movie length: 106 minutes The stars: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Tonnale, and Jeffery Tambor Plot: the movie as about a boy with a talent in wrestling but his past comes back to haunt him.
WIN-WINThe genre of the movie is Drama/Comedy; the length of the movie is 106 minutes long.The story is about a lawyer who needs money so he takes in a old man so each week the lawyer gets 1.500$ per week and then there is a kid that shows up one day and the lawyer takes in the kid as a son and puts him in the wrestling team.The main characters are Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor.
When he learns of a way he can earn money by claiming guardianship of one of his clients with dementia and placing him in an assisted living facility, he pulls the trigger despite knowing the old man (Burt Young) would prefer to live on his own.The decision proves a real win-win — until teenager Kyle (Alex Shaffer) enters the picture.
However the casters must have seen that they had a win win with him because he does an excellent job acting the kid we both don't want hanging around in our neighborhood, but once we get to know him are charmed by the person he is.This movie has something for almost everyone; enough family drama and feelings for a chick flick, but enough testosterone and sports for the guys.
Kyle's homelife is found later to be dreadful, and begins to shake up Mike's simple life as he tries to manage him while care for his loving wife and two kids.The supporting cast of Win Win is pitch-perfect packed with character actors like Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor.
Win Win isn't perfect, but it's above-average, which I'll take over cliché and fair any day.Starring: Paul Giamatti, Alex Schaffer, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young, and Amy Ryan.
All the supporting cast is great (Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young) and Alex Shaffer does a real nice job in his debut as Kyle.Directing/Cinematography/Technical: 7.5* - A tremendous job directing a movie that could have easily been directed into boredom.
The wrestle game is another high-light in the film, quirky but really funny (I do prefer wrestle to football).Paul Giamatti is never being better and Amy Ryan is wholeheartedly lovable to be cast against her stereotyped tough roles, Bobby Cannavale and the novice Alex Shaffer are amazing as well, plus a typically underrated Melanie Lynskey whose capacity is no less than her co-star in HEAVENLY CREATURES, Kate Winslet.
Win Win is the third and most accessible of McCarthy's humanistic films, and like his previous films, it focuses on a conflicted central character who is forced to mesh with other equally troubled characters and despite differences manage to create makeshift families all for the sake of human connection.In this case, the central character is played by Paul Giamatti, a lawyer who also volunteers as the local high school wrestling coach.
Also making the best of their parts are Amy Ryan as Giamatti's watchful wife and Melanie Lynskey as Kyle's drug-addled mom.My only real criticism is the film tends to be predictable.
Likewise Kyle's induction to the wrestling team gives the film a feel-good sports movie vibe that can annoy jaded viewers.Still its hard not to like this film for its great, well developed, three-dimensional characters and its sober humanism.
The film has a pretty silly setup; Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is a lawyer who, through a series of far-fetched events, ends up taking care of Kyle (Alex Shaffer), the grandson of one of his clients.
We really should not be surprised anymore when Paul Giamatti delivers another winning performance in a movie that nobody has heard of, the man is a class act and elicits a heartfelt and tender reaction from his audience, whether he is at the centre of an insightful family drama such as this excellent story from Thomas McCarthy (first time director of the excellent Station Agent) or chewing up the scenery in his cameo in The Hangover Pt.II, where he was a welcome touch of class (and I enjoyed H pt.
One day, Leo's grandson Kyle (played by Alex Shaffer) shows up and changes the life of the Flahertys."Win Win" really tells a great story with really well-played characters, and both plot and characters are really detailed and comes off a very realistic and believable.
Writer-Director Thomas McCarthy has done it again, his first two movies "The Station Agent" and "The Visitor" were brilliant, and he delivers the same authentic character development and storyline as those films into the "Win Win".
Mike is struggling with finding work as a lawyer and takes on the guardianship of one of his elderly clients Leo(Burt Young, Paulie in the 'Rocky' films) who is in the early stages of dementia in order to make a bit of needed money and places him in a home.
In depicting the eligibility of a critic's response to any film, published critic John Simon states that it "may be entertaining only for those who, by a native endowment of intelligence and sensitivity, or by education, training and experience, possess the wherewithal for being entertained by it." With Win Win, it's the viewer's exposure to the complexities of modern family life that makes the film not only entertaining, but entirely engaging and refreshing as well.Paul Giamatti plays Mike Flaherty, a family man balancing a struggling career as a small- practice attorney and his role as the local high school wrestling coach.
'WIN WIN': Four Stars (Out of Five) Another sweet hearted character study from actor turned writer/director Thomas McCarthy (who also performed the same duties on the popular indie films 'THE STATION AGENT' and 'THE VISITOR').
Paul Giamatti stars as the attorney / coach and ex high school wrestler Alex Shaffer makes his film debut as the hopeful talent.
Then when Leo's grandson Kyle shows up at Leo's door, on the run from his drug addicted mother (Lynskey) and her abusive boyfriend, he sees an inspiring new addition to his wrestling team, due to Kyle's former championship experience at his old school.The film is very funny at times but it never seems forced, it feels like real humor coming from real people.
A Nutshell Review: Win Win. Thomas McCarthy is fast becoming one of my favourite filmmakers, having wrote and directed The Visitor which I had enjoyed, and following that up with another powerful gem of a film here in Win Win, complete with wonderfully crafted characters, great performances all round, and a story that deals with how we deal with challenges placed in front of us, whether we lapse and opt for the short cut out, or in some cases, stick to our guns and do what's morally correct, keeping our integrity and reputation intact.Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty, a decent family man and a community lawyer whose business isn't thriving, and is soon running into debt if the lack of meaningful work continues.
"They don't know who you are" is a line delivered in WIN WIN by Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) directed by Thomas McCarthy to his star high school wrestler Kyle (Alex Shaffer).
Lawyer and part time wrestling coach Mike (Paul Giamatti) says this to his star young player, Kyle (Alex Shaffer). |
tt0039482 | I Walk Alone | Frankie Madison (Burt Lancaster) and Noll "Dink" Turner (Kirk Douglas) are rum-running partners during Prohibition. They get into a shootout with some would-be hijackers after their liquor, attracting the attention of the police. The two men split up, but not before making a bargain that if one is caught, he will still get an equal share when he gets out of jail. Frankie is sent to prison for 14 years. When he is finally set free, he goes to see Noll.
In the interim, Noll has built up a swanky nightclub. When the impatient Frankie shows up there, Noll stalls, sending him to dinner with his singer girlfriend Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott). Noll instructs Kay to find out what Frankie is after. He learns that Frankie expects him to honor their old bargain. He tells his old partner that the deal only applied to their old nightclub, which shut down years ago. Dave (Wendell Corey), the only member of the old gang Frankie trusted, had him sign legal papers to that effect some time ago. Frankie's share by Noll's reckoning is less than $3000. Furious, Frankie slugs Noll and leaves to recruit men to take what he figures he is owed. However, Noll had Dave tie up ownership of the nightclub between several corporations, with bylaws that make it impossible for him to hand over anything. Furthermore, the men supposedly backing Frankie actually work for Noll. Frankie is beaten up and left in the alley.
Meanwhile, Noll informs Kay that he intends to marry wealthy socialite Alexis Richardson (Kristine Miller), explaining that he is doing so to ensure the success of the nightclub with which he has become increasingly obsessed. He sees no reason they cannot continue their relationship. Repulsed by the idea and strongly attracted to Frankie, Kay quits and, overcoming Frankie's suspicions, joins his side.
Dave, aghast at how Frankie has been treated, tells him that he is willing to pass along what he knows, which is enough to bring Noll down. However, he foolishly tells Noll what he intends to do, and is killed by Noll's henchman. The murder is pinned on Frankie.
Evading a police manhunt, Frankie and Kay go to Noll's mansion. Though Noll is waiting with a loaded gun, Frankie manages to take it away from him. The three drive to the nightclub. By threatening Noll, Frankie extracts a written confession from him, which he gives to the police when they show up. Noll is taken away, but gets free and goes gunning for Frankie. He is shot dead by a policeman. | murder | train | wikipedia | I suspect the screenplay was tailored to showcase producer Wallis's top 3 new stars, especially Scott who gets a lot of romantic dialog along with sultry screen time.
It's the kind of movie where the stars are more memorable than the story.Scott and Douglas, for example, really shine.
For his part, Lancaster does well enough with his distinctive looks, but Frankie is a less showy role than the other two.Anyway, one thing for sure—producer Wallis certainly had an eagle eye for new talent, as this movie more than demonstrates..
Three of the stars from DESERT FURY (1947) – Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott and Wendell Corey – were reunited in another, marginally superior noir that is most notable today for marking the first of seven screen pairings between Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.
Although it was still very early in their careers, they had already become typecast as, respectively, the jilted, ex-con hero and the suave, slimy villain and this film has them reprising those characterizations – albeit less effectively than their prototype seen earlier in THE KILLERS (1946) and OUT OF THE PAST (1947); the same goes for Scott and Corey who both share a divided loyalty towards the two male leads.
I WALK ALONE can also be said to have kick-started the directorial career of former technician Byron Haskin which lasted for twenty versatile years; unfortunately, that fact is borne out by the surprising lack of pace (which makes the film seem longer than its 98-minute running-time) and a rather weak climactic confrontation.
Even so, the film is most interesting in the way it depicts the change in crime syndication (from streetwise toughness in the bootlegging Depression days to business acumen in the capitalist post-WWII era) that occurred during the fourteen years Lancaster spent behind bars: this is highlighted in a sharply amusing sequence when accountant Corey wrecks Lancaster's dream of owning half of Douglas' business empire (as they had verbally agreed on all those years before) by disclosing in "double-talk" the complex legal relationship that exists between the various companies owned by Douglas!.
Burt Lancaster has been in prison since the days of Al Capone, and when released he sets out to claim his share of ill-gotten gains from his former partner, Kirk Douglas.
Kirk is pleasant at first, lulling Burt with wine, gourmet food, and the company of his mistress Lizbeth Scott, but he has no intention of sharing anything.
What starts out as a buddy relationship becomes a battle of wits and wills as the two fight for control of Kirk's nightclub, lots of money, and Lizbeth.This is no "Double Indemnity", but the two main characters are written and acted well enough to hold our interest.
Lancaster has a more violent, less sympathetic character, but has fun playing a brute who's forced to actually think for the first time in his life.Not a great film, but an enjoyable one.
Two young hoodlums (Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas) are running illegal booze into another county during prohibition and get chased by the cops.
14 years later, Lancaster is out and finds that Douglas has gone legit and is the owner of a major nightclub and doing quite well.
Part of Douglas's plans include using his own mistress (Lizabeth Scott) to lead Lancaster on.
Frankie (Burt Lancaster) is released after 14 years in prison and is met by old friend Dave (Wendell Corey) who sets him up with a place to stay.
He senses that Dave is uneasy with him and discovers that Dave is working for his old partner in crime, Noll (Kirk Douglas), who is now running a successful nightclub.
Kay switches allegiance when she hears of Noll's intention to marry Mrs Richardson (Kristine Miller) and Dave also has 2nd thoughts about Noll....The film is well-acted but Lizabeth Scott seems slightly out of place as a world-weary nightclub singer.
The acting honours go to Kirk Douglas and Wendell Corey.
My favourite part of the film is the sequence where Frankie confronts Noll with a team of heavies in order to get what he feels is his share of the nightclub.
What was interesting to see unfold (in this almost 60 year old film) was how challenging the crime corporations are in pinpointing the vastness of what exactly they own.
The screenplay and the directing may seem a bit hackneyed to some,but Lancaster's problems,trapped in the mystery of economics and club management are rather intriguing.The essential lies elsewhere:watching the Lancaster/Douglas team is enough to satisfy the cine buff;they are so good than even when they work with inferior material,they are still better than most of the rest.
Douglas is icily suave,treating his old pal to a meal of canard à l'orange with vintage Champagne.But if looks could kill,his certainly would.Lancaster is a mistreated,thrown into jail (14 years!),cheated good guy ,but who will play fair game till the end.Between these two men ,there's of course a woman:unlike today's female parts,this one is not sacrificed .Lizabeth Scott's performance is first-class and on a par with the two male parts.Too bad her career should have ended so prematurely.She easily equals Laureen Bacall,she's even more human.It's strange how Douglas 's first parts were often villains (this movie,the loves of Martha Ivers) which culminated with Billy Wilder's highly superior "the big carnival".This movie proves that three good leads can give a banal plot substance..
After fourteen years in prison for bootlegging, Frankie Madison (Burt Lancaster) is released and returns To New York to meet his friend and partner Noll "Dink" Turner (Kirk Douglas).
Dink uses his mistress Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott) to learn what Madison´s real intention are and his friend Dave (Wendell Corey) to explain that he has the right of less than US$ 3,000,00.
Madison is not convinced and when Dink decides to get married to Mrs. Alexis Richardson (Kristine Miller), Kay teams up with Madison to retrieve his share."I Walk Alone" is a film-noir with Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott and Kirk Douglas in the lead roles.
But Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott with her beauty ahead of time and the female fatale of this film, and the ambitious scum character performed by Kirk Douglas make this film engaging.
Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas alone make a great combination.
Throw in Lizabeth Scott, who practically owns the archetype of a film noir leading woman (which isn't to say she's the best at it, for sure).
In fact, they work a time warp into the story by having Lancaster play bootlegger who was jailed in the early 1930s, and just got out in 1947.
I Walk Alone (1948) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Frankie Madison (Burt Lancaster) gets out of prison after fourteen years and heads to see his old partner Dink Turner (Kirk Douglas).
The story itself really isn't anything original and it doesn't take long for you to realize that Lancaster isn't going to be getting what's coming to him and the film takes way too long for this obvious set-up to take place.
It's rather amazing to see how well they play off one another in their film film but Lancaster was always terrific at playing the wronged tough guy and Douglas is just so snake like that you can't help but love to hate him.
Lizabeth Scott is good in her role as the woman in love with Douglas but who quickly starts to fall for Lancaster.
As one would expect, Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster manage to be somewhat entertaining, but they are greatly hampered by a lackluster and painfully predictable script, perfunctory direction, and a leading lady who isn't capable of creating the type of tension and chemistry which her role requires..
Burt Lancaster and Lizabeth Scott continue to make a great couple, as they found each other in "Desert Fury".
The great scene in the film is his scene, when Kirk forces him to lecture Burt on bureaucracy leading up to the crisis of Burt's own character and integrity assassination.
As a singer she was worse than Ida Lupino.It's neither Burt's nor Kirk's best film, but both are excellent as former gangsters trying to resettle after the second world war, Burt after 14 years in prison and Kirk firmly established as a syndicate mobster.
It just can't end well when the two meet again after 14 years when one let the other down.It was probably his performance here that gave Wendell Corey his only significant lead in a noir a few years later, ("The File on Thelma jordan",) but he was best as a supporting actor and will be remembered best as such - while both Burt and Kirk never stopped rising as stars..
Often on every friday or saturday night I' have to watch a noir movie, never on working days, my choice is easy explained which these specific days matches with the noir atmosphere offered in such genre, the clash between the two true legends of the high path of Hollywood, Lancaster plays a tough guy who after to serve a sentence of the fourteen years on prision is back to this old partner where he has 50 per cent of the famous Regent nightclub, in other hand Kirk Douglas already a rich socialite is no longer wants to carry on with old pal which hasn't a proper profile, to offer to high society, the time changes, Burt Lancaster was made for this role almost as early character Sweede on The Killers Lizabeth Scott has an average singer in an unconvincing acting on real and boring old songs, unlike Wendell Corey in an outstanding another great performance as skillful bookeeper, highly underrated noir!!!resume:First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.
Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster.
It feels as though Burt Lancaster is the tougher man in this film as he gets to punch Kirk Douglas and win.
There is tension between Lancaster and Douglas but their scenes together are just talking heads.
It's a shame, as with a few minor changes, this one easily could have earned an 8 or possibly a 9.After 15 years in prison, Frankie (Burt Lancaster) is released and he beats a path to the nightclub run by Noll (Kirk Douglas).
However, despite having a very successful club and lots of dough, Noll isn't about to give half of his fortune to Frankie--no matter what they agreed to.
There's quite a bit more to the film than this--including a third guy, Dave (Wendell Corey) whose loyalties seem all over the place as well as a dame (there's always a dame...played by Lizbeth Scott).There's a lot to like in the film--particularly the acting.
When he is released from prison, Dave , a mutual friend who now works for Turner is sent to meet the ex-con and help him settle down.Frankie, who wants to be paid for the time he spent in jail, has a lot to square away with his former friend.
"I Walk Alone", directed by Byron Haskin, is a good example of those films that came out after WWII.
"I Walk Alone" marks the first time Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas appeared together in movies.
The story here overtly bridges the gap between the 1930s gangster film and the new post-war noirs.
Neat idea.Particularly clever and effective is a tense confrontation between stoolie Lancaster and Douglas in ascent, which underscores just how corporate and despicable gang activity had become in the intervening years.
Condescending Kirk Douglas and Wendell Corey explain it to him point by point, humiliating him and gaining the upper hand.
But in a distinctly non-noir angle, Lancaster never gets the jump on anyone, and requires the pity of a doting, supportive woman (Lizbeth Scott) for the entirety of the movie.
Both Lancaster and Douglas, who co-starred in a number of films over the next two decades, were famous for tough exteriors hiding sensitive natures
Lizabeth Scott, who appeared in films with one or the other, though never again with both together, was less versatile
Like Lauren Bacall and Ella Raines (other actresses in the Veronica Lake mold), her career revolved on the archetypal vamp foundations: a bone, a rag, a hank of hair, and a voice that sounded as if it had been buried somewhere deep and was trying to claw its way out
The film's plot had ex-convict Lancaster seeking revenge on nightclub owner Douglas who had cheated him, while Miss Scott was a singer whose song 'Don't Call It Love' pretty well stated her case as one who felt misunderstood and left out
The physical similarities of the three made the roles interchangeable and the plot hard to follow which perhaps is why it has become a classic of the film noir.
It is also one of the first pairings of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster in film.
Douglas and Lancaster were so well balanced in their movies that they were interchangeable.
His partner Burt got caught, and was sent to prison for 14 years (actually rather lucky for him - a cop was killed).
One of the best moments early in the film is when Lancaster sees newspapers and magazines that show Douglas swanning with the swells (even wearing top hat and overcoat in a rotogravure shot).
Not quite like the good old Dillinger days, or even Al Capone.Other films had touched upon the "legitimization" of mob money as time passed.
But even he tries to pick up a better public image - you see him practicing his putting in his office at one point.Lancaster confronts Douglas in his nightclub, only to be brought into the modern world of organized crime.
Lancaster is left without cash, and led a chase as well by Douglas using Lizbeth Scott as femme fatale bait.
He is ably matched by Burt Lancaster, his pal, who took the wrap for both of them and as a result served 14 years in prison.
During those years prohibition ended and Lancaster returns thinking he'll have part of Douglas's lucrative lounge business with Lizabeth Scott, whose career suffered from the rumors that she was a lesbian.Lancaster didn't realize the intricate corporate set-up that Douglas had established to keep him out.Douglas resorted to thievery, viciousness and ultimate murder along with framing Lancaster for the murder of the quiet, soft-spoken bookkeeper, played very well by Wendell Corey.This is a wonderful crime drama film and your interest shall be sustained until the very end..
Lancaster is "old technology" coming back from 13 years in prison.
I Walk Alone takes the plot premise of Warner Brothers Angels With Dirty Faces and refines it quite a bit with far more character development than James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart were allowed to do with their characters in that other film.This was the first co-starring film of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in the salad days as Paramount contract players.
Of course they would do better collaborative films in the future, but I Walk Alone was a pretty good way to start the team identification.
Lancaster is an old time prohibition bootlegger who has just finished a fourteen year stretch in prison.
Like Cagney he took the fall and like Cagney he wants his share of the business just like he left off.But in the intervening years which also included the Great Depression and World War II, Kirk Douglas in the Bogart part no longer runs a cheap speakeasy.
He's the proprietor of a successful Stork Club like nightclub with Lizabeth Scott singing there nightly.
The film really belongs to Kirk Douglas.
Kirk just thinks he's the smartest guy around and everyone else is dumb, that's his downfall.I Walk Alone is a nice noir thriller from Paramount and the beginning of the partnership of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas of whom columnist Hedda Hopper labeled the Terrible Twins..
Having spent 14 years in prison for crimes during prohibition, the melancholy Burt Lancaster has returned home to try to muscle in on what he rightfully believes is partially his, now controlled by old pal Kirk Douglas who has turned their previous illegal enterprise into a corporation.
Lancaster takes it into his own hands to try to force his way in, but as Douglas charmingly tells him, only the board of directors can approve such changes.
Sudden betrayal leads to Lancaster being accused of murder, and along with Scott, Lancaster must find a way of clearing his name and see justice finally served, in this case, a cold dish as justice through revenge is normally presented.Along with "The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers", "Desert Fury" and many others, this is a series of Hal B.
Douglas, smiling and sly, is a great villain, while Corey is appropriately stone cold as a character barely living whom Lancaster notices seems older than him even though he's younger.
Unfortunately, her role is underdeveloped, and she pretty much disappears from the second half of the film.Having seen Lancaster (in a good guy role), Scott (in a very similar part) and Corey (in a supporting role with homosexual overtones) in the color film noir "Desert Fury", I wanted to see how this would compare, and found it to be even better.
97 minutes.SYNOPSIS: After serving time in jail, Frankie Madison demands a half-share in a nightclub from his old partner, Noll Turner.NOTES: The stage play opened on Broadway at the Coronet on 27 October 1945, closing after only 25 performances.
COMMENT: The writers have come up with a few fascinating new angles on the classic convict-seeks-revenge plot, turning what could have been merely another gangster story into an engrossing film noir that rivets the attention from start to finish.
Even the usually insipid Lizbeth Scott turns in a half-decent performance and if Wendell Corey is as wooden as ever at least he is a pleasant walnut burr.
This was the first of seven teamings for Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster and they started as they meant to go on, Kirk the smooth schemer and Burt the starry-eyed bruiser and a good time is had by all not least the audience. |
tt0430484 | The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear | === Part 1. "Baby It's Cold Outside" ===
The first part of the series explains the origins of Islamism and neoconservatism. It shows Egyptian civil servant Sayyid Qutb, depicted as the founder of modern Islamist thinking, visiting the U.S. to learn about its education system, then becoming disgusted at what he judged as the corruption of morals and virtues in western society through individualism. When he returns to Egypt, he is disturbed by westernisation under Gamal Abdel Nasser and becomes convinced that in order to save his own society, it must be completely restructured along the lines of Islamic law while still using western technology. He then becomes convinced that his vision can only be accomplished through use of an elite "vanguard" to lead a revolution against the established order. Qutb becomes a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and, after being tortured in one of Nasser's jails, comes to believe that western-influenced leaders can be justifiably killed to remove their corruption. Qutb is executed in 1966, but he influences Ayman al-Zawahiri, the future mentor of Osama bin Laden, to start his own secret Islamist group. Inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution, Zawahiri and his allies assassinate Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat in 1981 in the hopes of starting their own revolution. However, the revolution does not materialise, and Zawahiri comes to believe that a majority of Muslims have been corrupted, not only by their western-inspired leaders, but Muslims themselves have been affected by jahilliyah and thus may be legitimate targets of violence if they refuse to join his cause. They continued to believe that a vanguard was necessary to rise up and overthrow the corrupt regime and replace it with a 'pure' Islamist state.
At the same time in the United States, a group of disillusioned liberals, including Irving Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz, look to the political thinking of Leo Strauss after the perceived failure of President Johnson's "Great Society". They conclude that an emphasis on individual liberty was the undoing of Johnson's plans. They envisioned restructuring America by uniting the American people against a common evil, and set about creating a mythical enemy. These factions, the neoconservatives, came to power during the 1980s under the Reagan administration, with their allies Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. They alleged that the Soviet Union was not following the terms of a disarmament treaty between the two countries, and together with the outcomes of "Team B", they built a case using dubious evidence and methods to prove it to Ronald Reagan.
=== Part 2. "The Phantom Victory" ===
In the second part, Islamist factions, rapidly falling under the more radical influence of Zawahiri and his rich Saudi acolyte Osama bin Laden, join the neoconservative-influenced Reagan administration to combat the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. When the Soviets eventually pull out of Afghanistan, and when the Eastern Bloc begins to collapse in 1989, both the Islamists and the neoconservatives believe they are the primary architects of the "Evil Empire's" defeat. Curtis argues that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapsing anyway. However, the Islamists see it quite differently. In their triumph, they believe they have the power to create 'pure' Islamic states in Egypt and Algeria. Attempts to create such Islamic states are blocked by force. The Islamists then try to foment revolutions in Egypt and Algeria by using terrorism to scare the people into rising up against their leaders. But the people are terrified by the violence, and the Algerian government exploits that fear as a way to hang on to power. In the end, the Islamists declare the entire populations of the countries to be thoroughly contaminated by western values. Finally, in Algeria, they begin to turn on each other, each believing that members of other terrorist groups are not true Muslims.
In America, neoconservative aspirations to use the United States' military power to further destroy evildoers are thrown off track by the election of George H. W. Bush to the presidency, followed by the election in 1992 of Bill Clinton which left them totally out of power. The neoconservatives, along with their conservative Christian allies, attempt to demonize Clinton throughout his presidency with various real and fabricated stories of corruption and immorality. To their disappointment, the American people do not turn against Clinton. Meanwhile, Islamist attempts at revolution end in massive bloodshed, leaving the Islamists without popular support. Zawahiri and bin Laden flee to the relative safety of Afghanistan and declare a new strategy. To fight Western-inspired moral decay, they must deal a blow to its source: the United States.
=== Part 3. "The Shadows in the Cave" ===
The final part addresses the actual rise of al-Qaeda. Curtis argues that, after their failed revolutions, bin Laden and Zawahiri had little or no popular support, let alone a serious complex organisation of terrorists, and were dependent on independent operatives to carry out their new call for jihad. However, the film argues that in order to prosecute bin Laden in absentia for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, U.S. prosecutors had to prove that he is the head of a criminal organisation responsible for the bombings. They find a former associate of bin Laden, Jamal al-Fadl, and pay him to testify that bin Laden is the head of a massive terrorist organisation called "al-Qaeda". With the September 11 attacks, neoconservatives in the new Republican administration of George W. Bush use this invented concept of an organisation to justify another crusade against a new enemy, culminating in the launch of the War on Terror.
After the American invasion of Afghanistan fails to uproot the alleged terrorist organisation, the Bush administration focuses inwards, searching unsuccessfully for terrorist sleeper cells in America. In 2003, they extend the War on Terror to a war on general perceived evils with the invasion of Iraq. The ideas and tactics also spread to the United Kingdom, where Tony Blair uses the threat of terrorism to give him a new moral authority. The repercussions of the neoconservative strategy are also explored, with an investigation of indefinitely-detained terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, many allegedly taken on the word of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance without actual investigation on the part of the United States military, and other forms of "preemption" against non-existent and unlikely threats made simply on the grounds that the parties involved had the potential to become a threat. Curtis specifically attempts to allay fears of a dirty bomb attack, and concludes by reassuring viewers that politicians will eventually have to concede that some threats are exaggerated and others have no foundation in reality. He says, "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power." | murder | train | wikipedia | If not, it's even more essential viewing.'The Power of Nightmares' is a brave piece of television that runs completely against the grain of most media representation of the state of our world.
It's quite chilling to see how much of the prism through which we view the world is a construct of frankly mad idealogues (and I don't just mean Osama, although the similarities of the origins of Muslim fundamentalism and neo-Conservatism are just one illuminating lesson to be drawn from this series).Adam Curtis lets his interviewees provide his argument for him, but it's cleverly stitched together and his use of archive footage and music is perfect.
Adam Curtis chronicles the rise of neo-conservatism and the resulting change in the world's political agenda orchestrated by those who place their trust in the philosophical ideal of the necessity of evil to unite a country.
These insights are parred with concrete, startling facts and the result is a program that manages to shake us awake making us aware of a far more realistic terror threat namely that of psychological warfare carried out by the powers that be, accompanied by a sensationalist media frenzy.
This is a highly intelligent, informative, sometimes humorous and superbly edited series of programmes that look at two types of dominant fundamentalist groups that exist in the Twenty First Century.
On the one side we have the Neo-Conservatavists, mostly all white, affluent Christian men (believers in Creationism mostly), who Western society is obviously supposed to value highly compared to the dark, foreign 'others' that make up the 'terrorists' from 'un-civilised' lands.
The programmes chart the historic roots of these two fundamentalist groups, and reveal that they both came about from a belief in the corrupt and morally unsound nature of Western society after the threat of the Cold War dissolved.
The programmes look at the the War on Terror and Curtis clearly presents the way that 'Nightmares' about terrorism can coerce and manipulate the 'big beast' that is society.
Through propaganda, the media becomes a tool where lies are peddled and fear is stoked up to tame and create (un)believable truths in the mind of the general populace.
This has been shown as a complete fabrication among many supposed truths presented to the general public.The series is principally excellent in enlightening us with 'facts' but also the way in which music and editing is used to bring the message across.
For example a plethora of clips from the film 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves' and the use of traditional American music with images of Al Qaeda.
George W Bush is a terrorist of the worst kind, who through repeating lies long enough and hard enough to his scared citizens can manipulate them into believing ,for example, that an unprovoked and illegal war is justified.
This idea of good versus evil is a dominant myth within Western societies, and George W Bush et al know that through creating this 'other' evil and building it up continouously, whether it exists or not one can win people on your side.
A great series I hope Curtis and his team make many more enlightening and technically competent documentaries..
The parallels between the devious agendas of the American Neo-Conservatives and the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists are uncanny: same logic, same malevolent means, same reliance on fear instead of reason.I can't understand, though, how Michael Moore' s sentimental and illogical hogwash documentaries get such a large release when a film like this one, which involves much more hard work and intelligence never gets to be shown where it could do the most good: in America..
Why do the American neo-conservatists want the public to believe in a world wide conspiracy of evil, operating from vast underground complexes that look like a James Bond film set?
Viewing the BBC's link above will give some add'l info.) Few can claimto know about the clash of the US/west versus Muslim fundamentalism andthe interaction of US politics in that clash without seeing this video-- it's that good!.
This remarkable documentary, well written, researched, and articulate, traces the odd, parallel paths of the rise and failures of the Islamist movement and the movement of the American neoconservatives.
What makes this documentary so outstanding is not just that it clearly exposes many of the myths of the so-called "War on Terror," but the fact that it places the power of these myths in a larger and very important context.
This film's position is clearly that it is the failure of belief and of ideology in Western societies that has allowed neoconservative extremists to fill the gap with nightmares in order to assert power and influence.
Having come of age during the War on Terror and the Bush Doctrine, it has become particularly easy for me to grow detached from political voices and accept as true that left and right views have forever been at odds.
Most significantly, what drives them to intractably push forth on the things they did in those eight whirlwind years?The Power of Nightmares is a documentary with connotations and conclusions that are very far-reaching and extremely edgy.
Even if the film were not true, had not gathered interviews with insiders and highly educated experts, had not compiled three hours of stock footage, it is all I've found that gets the heart of one's inquiring mind.Its three one-hour parts are composed chiefly of a montage of archive footage with the director, British TV journalist Adam Curtis's, narration, contrasting the augmentation of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, confronting comparisons with their inceptions and examining congruity between the two.
Even more contented, it asserts that the menace of radical Islamism as a monumental, calculatedly systemized legion of annihilation, expressly in the embodiment of al-Qaeda, is an embellishment carried out by politicians in many countries, principally American Neo- Conservatives, in an effort to unify and urge their people following the collapse of earlier, more abstract nationalist ideas.The Power of Nightmares is a flowing cinematic dissertation, embedded in strenuously amassed affirmation, data and testimony, that magnifies and clarifies one's understanding and knowledge.
Even if you are in the "neo-conservative" camp, you should watch this documentary to realize what kind of harm their ideas have done: By making the "enemy" look larger and more important than what it is, they both make us fear of a not so organized enemy and also make the enemy more self-confident for launching suicide attacks on us.Starting from the 1950's, this documentary tries to explain the changes the western (Christian) and Islamic societies have undergone in the last 50 years.
Although it has nothing in common with this documentary, you can see in the end of the movie that the "politics of fear" was always an instrument for controlling and manipulating the masses and unfortunately religion is one of the helping tools.This documentary is highly recommended..
The history of the salmon has given way to Michael Mooreish rants.The Power of Nightmares is a rarity; a non-fiction expose on the current state of the world which manages to convey its message articulately and without emotion.
Over the course of three 1-hour episodes, director Adam Curtis explores in depth American neoconservatism and radical Islamism; two amazingly similar groups who define politics today.
In gross oversimplification, Curtis argues that both organizations create elaborate myths to enhance their own positions.Academics, statesmen and journalists mostly comprise the wide range of characters who are interviewed, creating a multifaceted examination that attempts to analyze the motivations of these two movements.Viewing all three parts of the series will undoubtedly change ones world view.
Of course it has a political color, but as you can see in the documentary 'outfoxed' so does the mainstream media.If you are interested in the world and why it's going the way it is.
Stay aware, stay informed, but don't believe anyone is saying at once, use your own mind, you have one, so why not.You can freely download it, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares, there is a link at the bottom under 'Video' where you can download the video.Peace Demian.
Very few people are really saying that the US was wrong, or that the neo-conservatives in power made everything up, it's just simply vanished.
Leo Strauss was a philosopher who came up with these ideas and taught them to students such as Paul Wolfowitz who applied them later to US policy with Reagan and Bush (II).The movie also explores the fundamentalist Islamic revolution which never really swept through the middle-east and was limited to a small group of bandits who took hold in Afghanistan.
With all the other information in the movie about the false sleeper cells and bogus security, it wouldn't have been a stretch to acknowledge that maybe 9/11 was an inside job.Comparing the neo-conservatives in the US with the Islamic fundamentalists in the middle-east isn't a new idea.
The filmmakers speculate that several of the men in these groups may have played into the hands of the US myth by giving them false information about planned bombings of the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty.This is a very effective documentary for anyone interested in the terrorist myth as created by America.
In a society that is shifting to the right swiftly, it is far more important to analyse the present than to distract people's attention from it by pointing to the past.
In short, the third film is far less powerful than the first two, and I found that a bit disappointing, since there are more than enough things to say...2.This didn't happen by coincidence though, and neither did it happen only because it's just harder to do it about the present, but it has to do with the director's view on current politics.
Not only has the documentary never been aired on American TV - the film seems to have been very thoroughly and effectively suppressed - something to think about the next time you use the phrase "free country.".
This strong political analysis about two major movements in contemporary history, Islamic fundamentalists and the Neo-conservatives feels like a thriller.
The storyline of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the Neo-conservatives as almost similar political movements of machines of fear is in my opinion interesting and plausible but too much constructed as a simple story of cowboys and Indians.
I recently watched all three episodes of 'the power of nightmares' and found it to be the most important and eye opening documentary of recent years.
Like his recent documentary (the trap), Curtis has produced a series that goes beyond the one way system of daily news reporting to something that strips away what we perceive as a threat to our world and our civilization and to look at its origins and its truthful existence.
'The power...' focuses on two movements, the Islamic movement and the American Neo-conservative movement, there origins, there battles to overthrow and instill there ideology in positions of power and to eventually the confrontation between both movements, set off by the events of 9/11.
Curtis inter-cuts the interviews with key figures from both sides and also analysts on the subjects, with archival footage from films and news reports, to show how both movements started off on ideology's that would eventually agree with each other particularly during the Russian Afghanistan war of the 1980's.
Yet a small group of extreme Islamist funded by Bin Laden, eventually broke off, with no enemy to fight or revolution to instill, they declared a war on America, eventually leading to the attacks on New York, September 11th 2001.
Curtis comes to the conclusion that the threat of Al Quieda, has become a fantasy, enforced by the Neo cons and also taken on board by the British government, to instill a purpose for there selected governments, rather than being leaders who promise a bright future, they become leaders who will lead against the rise and threat of terrorism to there people and to there way of life, even though the threat is non-existent and becomes a phantom enemy.
Curtis' series is well written, researched and engaging in showing you the true and stark picture behind the disinformation regularly given in the daily news and television media.
Check out Curtis' later documentary 'THE TRAP: WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR DREAMS OF FREEDOM,' again another insightful series.
The Power of Nightmares is a controversial documentary by Adam Curtis.
It follows the rise of neo-conservatism and the consequences that it has on the present "War on Terror".
But other than that, its a powerful documentary that is important to see..
It describes HOW we got to the current situation of fighting the war on terror, how the islamists got their ideas, how incredibly similar the mindsets of extremists on both sides are, etc.It shows stuff like how Christian extremists got to power in the US on the belief that there is a global terrorist movement "out there", idea that was invented by the CIA a few years ago to smear the soviets!
The first sections simply explained how both Islamic fundamentalists and neo cons (Christian fundamentalists) rose to power.
It became less a documentary and more a speculation making the war on terror seem like a weak conspiracy theory.
Overall the documentary was still tactful and intelligent and I learned a great deal from it.PS it might be noted that part of my dislike for the final part of the film is that I am a moderate.
The Power of Nightmares is a fascinating look at the war on terror.
It's central thesis is that Western politicians have effectively manufactured the war on terror in order to make themselves needed and relevant to the general public.
In support of this thesis, the film makers present a range of experts, including many former CIA operatives, who all confirm that: (1) the islamist terrorists were generally poorly organised and lacked an an overarching structure and (2) that Western leaders, particularly Bush and Blair, knew that the Islamic terrorists operated in an ad hoc and fairly chaotic manner but nonetheless have been trying to convince the public that there was a well-organised and centrally controlled global terrorist organisationSome of the interviews with the neo-conservatives are very amusing, particularly Professor Pipes who headed up a committee during the Cold War to examine Soviet military capabilities.
My gratefulness to the BBC.At a time when TV news programs carry just about everything except news, at a time when hypocrisy and lies are what the media delivers basically, viewing this film is a rewarding experience to see this documentary which is just the opposite.This documentary is an essay on how some governments lie to the people and about how they present as fact events and characters that are merely fictional.Where can I buy it on DVD?
THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES is a heavily hyped documentary series by the BBC in three parts pointing out that America neo conservatives and Islamic terrorists are partners in arms with one needing the other in order to survive .
It goes beyond shoehorning facts and ends up trying to out Moore the ridiculous style of Michael Moore with half truths and " facts " which aren't facts at all The series comes in three parts Part 1 - Baby It's Cold Outside Part 2 - The Phantom Victory Part 3 - The Shadows In The Cave I only caught some of the first part but the programme makes the very subjective point that the rise of Islam came about when a young Egyptian student studied in America and came to the conclusion that Western society was decadent , corrupt and meaningless and it was this that caused the culture clash .
The neo conservatives at the time also thought there was too much decadence and corruption and meaningless in Western culture .
You might like to type in " Robert Fisk interview with Osama Bin Laden " and you'll see the last interview he gave to a Western reporter where he states he had no help from the Americans .
One last point is the suggestion that a " Dirty bomb " is used by Neo Cons in order to make the terrorists seem a bigger threat than they really are but this fear is actually driven by the media not governments .
'The Power of Nightmares' is not only an amazing documentary, it is a fantastic piece of entertainment and an example of how to make something truly watchable and informative.
The program documents the rise of both the Al-Quida and the Neo-Conservatives and draws worrying and powerful comparisons between the two.
The interview when a US intelligence officer admits that he truly believes that having no evidence of Soviet weapons was evidence in itself is easily one of the most disturbing things to come out of this documentary.No program is perfect however, large portions of the story appear to have deliberately sliced out to keep the pace and length down, the Arab-Israeli conflict is totally omitted and the facts start to become a bit too speculative towards the ending, with predictions taking the place of narrative.Overall this is one of the best political documentaries ever commissioned, I urge you to see it, even if you view it as a piece of propaganda the productions alone are well worth enjoying, as is the superb soundtrack and use of some brilliant stock footage..
The film shows how the rise of fundamentalist Islam began at the same time as the birth of the neo-conservative movement and how the two are variations of the same theme (you understand why this won't play in Peoria).
the film suggests that both groups want to gain power by creating a world view that will allow them to rule by fear.
It also supposes that the grand terrorist network isn't there and that the Islamic we fear isn't going to happen.Enlightening, frightening and the sort of thing that gets the little grey cells going this is an interesting historical look at the way things are and why we are in the situation we're in. |
tt1444258 | Demonic Toys: Personal Demons | Appeared to take place right after the events of Demonic Toys, an unknown stranger with a pair of gloved hands picks up the pieces of the destroyed toys and starts stitching them together. The only toys the perpetrator could fix correctly were Baby oopsie daisy and Jack Attack. The unidentified man then puts the toys in a crate, and is handed over a suitcase full of cash by another man, who then leaves with the toys. Also with Dr. Lorca is his sweetheart Lauraline and her stepson David, and a little woman named Lillith, who is a psychic of some sorts. Dr. Lorca's driver, Eric accidentally drops a crate that Dr. Lorca wants brought into the house, revealing the Demonic Toys inside it. It is revealed that Dr. Lorca is still collecting oddity toys. He's arrived because Caitlin called and told him about an oddity toy she found within the castle that's able to move. The castle's current owners seldom come there, meaning they're superstitious of everything that's happened in there. The owners decided to empty and sell it to Italian government to make it a historical landmark and keep it open for the public. Caitlin takes them inside the castle and gives them its history. The doll itself was hand carved out of wood with a mixture of fabric elements. Caitlin opens the box and shows them the doll Divoletto. Mr. Butterfield examines the toy and claims it is the oldest toy he's ever seen, made possibly in the 14th century. Caitlin then shows them how it moves. Just tap a wand on the side of the box a couple of times and then it will come to life. After a while, the toy finally moves. Caitlin believes that there are magnets in the wand and when the box is tapped, it sets off the springs and mechanisms inside of Divoletto. However, Lillith thinks differently. Eric suddenly runs in the room and tells them that their cars are gone. Since everything is closed and have no transportation to get back to Rome, Caitlin suggests that they stay at the castle for the night. Meanwhile, Lillith examines Divoletto to catch a vision of some sorts, and sees a vision of the future where Divoletto's killing them all.
David then smashes Divoletto's head with a shovel, but it's revealed that Divoletto was one of Fiora's personal demons. The demon then sucks Fiora's spirit out of Lillith and brings her through the portal back to hell. The demonic toys then attack them and David cuts their heads off with the shovel, killing them. The next day, David, Caitlin and a spooked out Lillith leave the castle, with the demonic toys remains so no one else can find them, along with the clay vessels containing Fiora's personal demons. The sound of glass shatter is heard, and the painting of Fiora at the castle starts whispering, implying that Fiora's revenge personal demon has been released. | paranormal | train | wikipedia | Good horror B-Movie.
The evil toys totally make this movie, there is something about them I really really like.
If you don't like horror movies, b-movies and all that, then why you watching this movie?
Of course you wont like it.
However, this was a decently made low-budget movie.Other makers of low budget horror should really take note, this is how its done.
A small cast, with actual characters, gore, one setting (the Italian castle).The acting wasn't that great, but what do you expect?
This was a fun movie, and the plot with Devotello or whatever it was called, was cool.
That and I just loved that killer baby!.
It's not bad...it's not good....
I'm a big Full Moon fan!
I loved just about everything Band put out in the 90's ..especially Demonic Toys.
Don't get me wrong I hold a very special place in my heart for the Puppet Master series, but I've always felt that Demonic Toys just had that edgy, risky, guilty pleasure feel to it.
This particular installment to the series, which I could not wait to see, simply enough falls short of its predecessor in a number of ways...I mean I could pick at a movie's flaws all day, but being a hard core fan of the original I'll try to be brief...There are some people out there that say the story line was a little weak, but I'm not going to judge a low budget horror film sequel too hard...I mean it's called "Demonic Toys 2" ..I can only hope that you rent this movie knowing that it's not going to be up for any awards.
A bigger problem I had with the movie was that it didn't really try to be unique away from the original...they only play the theme song from the original about every second of the movie and it just gets ruined and annoying.
The acting in the movie is OK...the characters themselves leave a little more to be desired.
There is a lot of computer generated blood which really detracts from the movie.....the first movie had blood, guts, and eye balls out the yin yang....just get some corn syrup and goop it up 90's style.
My biggest complaint about this movie is the puppets.
The baby doll and jack attack are all well and good, but what about Mr. Static and Grizzly???
Fans would have gone even more crazy about this movie if they were included.
No...instead we're given some new old toy called Divoletto...and in my opinion he really does nothing in this movie.
I did find it to be entertaining, but that might be me being bias because I love the demonic toys.
This could have been a great addition to the franchise, but it just tried to sell off of the success and popularity of the original.
What a shame...all it needed was a few more puppets ...a couple gallons of blood ...and a little more care..
Not really worth the effort.
Having seen movies like the "Puppet Master" series and "Doll Graveyard", I had little expectations to this movie, but I must say that I was disappointed."Demonic Toys 2" does not really manage to get up to the level of the previous work that Charles Band have made.
There is just something about this movie that makes it impossible to really get into the groove of the movie.Perhaps it is the thin storyline or the effects.
Or it could be the lack of new thinking to this movie.Now, the good parts of "Demonic Toys 2" were the characters in the movie.
There was a variety of interesting characters, that sadly were not given enough time (or chance) to fully shine through on the screen.
The actors and actresses portraying them did a fairly good job.The dolls were cool to look at, if you can overcome the fake way of their movements and the way they kill people.
There is something very grimy and gritty to the dolls, and it works well.
It gives them a dark and sinister appearance.
Well, I have always liked the dolls in Band's movies.The effects were below average, and most often hilarious to look at.If Band went for the early 90's feel to this movie intentionally, then hats off to him, then he really managed to pull it off.
This whole movie reeks of early 90's horror movies.
From the way it was shot, to the storyline (or lack thereof), to the dialogue and to the location in which it was shot (you just got to love the purple sky).The movie just didn't really appeal that much to me.
There was something important lacking from it, and I think this movie might actually have been scary (or somewhat scary) had it been released in the late 80's or early 90's.If you are a fan of the "Puppet Master" series and such similar movies, you should sit down to watch this one, but do not go into this experience with high expectations.
More like Moronic Toys, if you ask me..
I quite enjoyed the first Demonic Toys movie for what it was: a knowingly silly horror romp in which the titular terrors go on a rampage, killing people trapped in a toy warehouse.
This sequel (number four in the series, but a direct follow-on from the first movie) sees the return of Jack-in-a-box clown Jack Attack and demonic doll Baby Whoopsie, who are joined by Divoletto, an ugly, evil clockwork figure sought after by collector Dr. Lorca (apparently a character from Charles Band's Hideous!, which I have yet to see).Demonic Toys: Personal Demons is nowhere near as much fun as the original film: it's as though the makers found their location first (an old Italian castle), dusted off their dolls, hired a cast desperate enough to appear in such trash, and - lastly - tried (not too hard) to come up with something remotely resembling a story.
A coherent plot definitely wasn't high on the priority list: it's a load of stuff and nonsense that features, among others, demonic possession, a seance, a haunted painting, and a gateway to hell - a grab-bag of clichés clumsily thrown together by writer/director William Butler.An unconvincing CGI decapitation is, disappointingly, the best moment; the low points are many, but the possession of a psychic midget is possibly the worst.N.B. Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's provided the voice for Baby Whoopsie..
Flawed if still rather fun.
Arriving at an ancient Italian castle, a professor and his staff attempting to document the findings with a group of antiquities experts finds they have released a series of dolls possessed by an evil, demonic energy and must race to find a way out alive.This here was a decent enough if slightly flawed effort.
One of the main elements going for this one is the fact that there's quite a large amount of Gothic atmosphere found here in the main location as this one really lets the castle location come through quite nicely.
This features all the usual grand set-pieces and designs that come about here through the location taking place here, from the scenes of them wandering about the castle going for the various rooms and settings featured here while taking full advantage of material that can be attempted here with the elaborate, ornate decorations, candelabra- lit rooms, secret passageways and much more that makes this one quite a bit more fun than it really should be putting the Gothic set-pieces into the hunting grounds for the toys.
With the discovery of the different rooms featured within here, especially the torture chamber and the exorcism vault that are found here, they make for a great place here which gives the dolls a spectacular place to hunt, generating the great stalking scenes in the basement where they take out the cheating couple or in the big bedroom against the one unaware loner who gets tormented beforehand with all the various sights and sounds of them appearing before the final kill which is quite impressive and enjoyable.
Once they finally reveal themselves here which comes at the end of the big seance sequence which itself is a fantastic highlight offering with the flashing lights, demonic voices and the overall resolution of the main plot line being revealed to them, this one readily picks up the action and becomes a thrilling, suspenseful series of chasing through the bowels of the castle trying to fight them off in order to get away which makes for a fine finish here.
These here make this one quite fun and enjoyable, though it does have a few quite detrimental issues.
The main one here is the fact that the film's rather long periods of time here without the dolls being a part of the film, letting the exploration of the castle and their eccentricities take over the large portion of time here in the first half so they don't get really unleashed to knock people off until the later half.
That it all for the better here, with the doll effects being quite substandard and really silly looking, barely featuring enough here to look like they're committing the crimes and just making it very obvious they're dolls.
It's the biggest thing that holds this one back, alongside the bland pacing.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence..
This a great horror movie..
This is one of the scariest movies I have seen.
3.9 is underrating it.
Demonic Toys is a little scarier.
I do not know why people do like it.
I do not care that people do not like it.
They do not have to like it.
But I do not agree.
If you like really scary movies you should see this movie.
If it does not scary you no movie will.
If it does not scary you no movie will.
If it does not scary you no movie will.
This is very scary.
It has a great story line.
It also has great acting.
It also has good special effects.
I have to say I do not see anything wrong with this movie.
Other then it is not really better then Demonic toys.
But I do not think it is possible to top Demonic toys.
This is a great movie see it..
Doesn't live up to the original.
Okay, I'm a fan of Charles Band and his company Full Moon, my favorite is Puppet Master and Demonic Toys so I was more than happy to check this one out.
So me and my younger brothers which are also fans of the original decided to check this out last night, but sadly we were disappointed.
This movie was awful but not in a good way.
The original Demonic toys was a low budget cheesy movie but it delivered a good amount of fun and really kept you entertained despite the bad acting n lack of plot.
This movie on the other hand it didn't quite deliver the fun, all this movie seem to deliver to me, is a good amount of boredom.
I literally found myself doing something else than watching the movie.
But i really think that's the fault of the pacing of the movie because it's really slow, we really seem to spend more time with the Human characters of the movie, that's never really a bad thing but they don't add anything to the movie except wonder around a castle for what seems like forever.
So when finally get to the demonic toys they aren't anything special because compared to the original they really cheap and the voice of Baby Oopsite Daisy gets annoying after a while.
So as a Demonic toys fan like I stated above it was a big disappointment I'm actually really ashamed of myself for buying the DVD.
Decent sequel.
Since I first watched demonic toys, I've really wanted to see a sequel for a very long time, that freaking killer jack in the box is just too damn awesome to not get a reappearance.
Honestly it's about time, even though the plot needed some work and yeah they could've had more killer toys.
But hey, it's a low-budget film, so you really shouldn't expect that much if you want to enjoy it.
It's stupid, the acting is mediocre, and not scary, but hey it's pretty damn cool to just sit down and watch a killer baby doll slash someone's head off.
Would recommend if you have one of those days where you can't decide what to watch..
Entertaining Grade B low-budget horror quickie.
A motley assortment of folks gather together to inspect an ancient evil puppet at a rundown castle.
Naturally, said puppet and two other equally wicked toys come to murderous life.
Writer/director William Butler relates the fun story at a swift pace, makes the most out of the sprawling old castle location, and delivers a generous sprinkling of graphic gore.
The freaky dolls are genuinely grotesque and amusing, with the foul-mouthed Baby Whoopsie (voiced with cheerfully profane aplomb by Jane Wiedlan of the Go-Gos fame!) a total nasty and vulgar hoot throughout.
A spooky séance set piece provides a definite highlight while the special effects are funky and colorful.
The cast have a ball with the blithely trashy material: the fetching Alli Kinzel gives a charming and spirited turn the sweet and chipper Caitlin, Michael Citriniti slimes it up nicely as sleazy creep Dr. Lorca, the gorgeous Elizabeth Bell bitches it up delightfully as the sexy, but snippy Lauraline, and Leslie Jordan is a whiny riot as the effeminate Professor Butterfield.
Terrance Reicher's slick cinematography gives the picture a pleasing glossy look.
The shivery score by Richard Band and Kenny Meriedeth hits the spine-tingling spot.
An enjoyable little item..
Massively lacklustre.
DEMONIC TOYS 2 is a massively lacklustre B-movie sequel from Full Moon Pictures.
It was shot in Italy as a belated sequel to the original movie, but it makes even the Full Moon flicks of the 1990s look good by comparison.
The story is hackneyed and long-winded, involving a bunch of random and boring bad actors assembling in an old castle, where once again they're stalked and slashed by a bunch of rather uninteresting living dolls.
The production values are rock bottom here and the calibre of the effects is reminiscent of the 1980s, except not as good.
Give it a miss. |
tt0000225 | La belle et la bête | A widower merchant lives in a mansion with his six children, three sons and three daughters. All his daughters are very beautiful, but the youngest, Beauty, is the most lovely, as well as kind, well-read, and pure of heart; while the two elder sisters, in contrast, are wicked, selfish, vain, and spoiled. They secretly taunt Beauty and treat her more like a servant than a sister. The merchant eventually loses all of his wealth in a tempest at sea which sinks most of his merchant fleet. He and his children are consequently forced to live in a small farmhouse and work for their living.
Some years later, the merchant hears that one of the trade ships he had sent off has arrived back in port, having escaped the destruction of its compatriots. Before leaving, he asks his children if they wish for him to bring any gifts back for them. The sons ask for weaponry and horses to hunt with, whereas his oldest daughters ask for clothing, jewels, and the finest dresses possible as they think his wealth has returned. Beauty is satisfied with the promise of a rose as none grow in their part of the country. The merchant, to his dismay, finds that his ship's cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him penniless and unable to buy his children's presents.
During his return, the merchant becomes lost during a storm. Seeking shelter, he enters a dazzling palace. A hidden figure opens the giant doors and silently invites him in. The merchant finds tables inside laden with food and drink, which seem to have been left for him by the palace's invisible owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night there. The next morning, as the merchant is about to leave, he sees a rose garden and recalls that Beauty had desired a rose. Upon picking the loveliest rose he can find, the merchant is confronted by a hideous "Beast" which tells him that for taking his most precious possession after accepting his hospitality, the merchant must die. The merchant begs to be set free, arguing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him give the rose to Beauty, but only if the merchant or one of his daughters will return.
The merchant is upset but accepts this condition. The Beast sends him on his way, with wealth, jewels and fine clothes for his sons and daughters, and stresses that Beauty must never know about his deal. The merchant, upon arriving home, tries to hide the secret from Beauty, but she pries it from him. Her brothers say they will go to the castle and fight the Beast, but the merchant dissuades them, saying they will stand no chance against the monster. Beauty then agrees to go to the Beast's castle. The Beast receives her graciously and informs her that she is now mistress of the castle, and he is her servant. He gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her. Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to marry him, only to be refused each time. After each refusal, Beauty dreams of a handsome prince who pleads with her to answer why she keeps refusing him, to which she replies that she cannot marry the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. Beauty does not make the connection between the handsome prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the prince captive somewhere in the castle. She searches and discovers multiple enchanted rooms, but never the prince from her dreams.
For several months, Beauty lives a life of luxury at the Beast's palace, having every whim catered to by invisible servants, with no end of riches to amuse her and an endless supply of exquisite finery to wear. Eventually, she becomes homesick and begs the Beast to allow her to go see her family. He allows it on the condition that she returns exactly a week later. Beauty agrees to this and sets off for home with an enchanted mirror and ring. The mirror allows her to see what is going on back at the Beast's castle, and the ring allows her to return to the castle in an instant when turned three times around her finger. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well fed and dressed in finery. Beauty tries to share the magnificent gowns and jewels the Beast gave her with her sisters, but they turn into rags at her sisters' touch, and are restored to their splendour when returned to Beauty, as the Beast meant them only for her. Her sisters are envious when they hear of her happy life at the castle, and, hearing that she must return to the Beast on a certain day, beg her to stay another day, even putting onion in their eyes to make it appear as though they are weeping. They hope that the Beast will be angry with Beauty for breaking her promise and eat her alive. Beauty's heart is moved by her sisters' false show of love, and she agrees to stay.
Beauty begins to feel guilty about breaking her promise to the Beast and uses the mirror to see him back at the castle. She is horrified to discover that the Beast is lying half-dead from heartbreak near the rose bushes from which her father plucked the rose, and she immediately uses the ring to return to the Beast.
Beauty weeps over the Beast, saying that she loves him. When her tears strike him, the Beast is transformed into the handsome prince from Beauty's dreams. The Prince informs her that long ago a fairy turned him into a hideous beast after he refused to let her in from the rain and that only by finding true love, despite his ugliness, could the curse be broken. He and Beauty are married and they live happily ever after together. | fantasy | train | wikipedia | null |
tt5377564 | U Turn | Rachana (Shraddha Srinath), an intern, with The Indian Express, a daily newspaper, is working on an article on the incidents at a Bangalore flyover. She also has a crush on the crime reporter Aditya, whose help she seeks for research material on accidents on the flyover. She finds that each day some motorists move the concrete blocks that partition the road just to take a quick U-turn and avoid the traffic. They don’t move them back and the blocks are left to lie randomly on the road leading to many accidents. A homeless man sitting on the flyover notes down the vehicle numbers of commuters who violate the rule to take the U-turn and gives the list to Rachana. She obtains the details of the culprits using her contact in the traffic department, with the intention of confronting them for their "short-cut" and writing an article for the paper. Her attempt to meet the first person on the list goes in vain. Later the same day, the police take her into custody and accuse her of killing the same person she wanted to meet. She is shocked and tells her side of the story. Though the senior police officer rejects it, sub-inspector Nayak, finds it believable and does some investigation. It is revealed that all the persons Rachana has on her list have committed suicide. They also noticed that they have committed suicide the same day they took the wrong "u-turn". Rachana and Nayak find another number has been noted by the homeless man which is to be delivered to Rachana the next day. The duo trace the address and try to rescue the man, a lawyer, who has taken the u-turn on the same day. As nothing seems suspicious, both leave only to encounter the very death of the lawyer whom they came to rescue.
Later Rachana tries to confront the homeless man for the injuries in the fly-over. Meanwhile, she see two young men violate the U-Turn and reports it to Nayak. Nayak locks them up in an old Police lockup to save them. But they start fighting and eventually die under the nose of the police.
With no way of finding the real cause of the death of the culprits, Rachana herself takes the wrong u-turn and waits for something to happen. The one who has been killing the culprits is a woman named Maya, because she and her daughter Aarna died in an accident due to the concrete road blocks that were moved by the culprits in order to make way for their u-turn. Using her supernatural powers, Maya tries to kill Rachana as well. But Rachana promises to find the person who was responsible for Maya's death. Maya agrees. Rachana, with the help of Nayak, tries to find the person who moved the blocks on the day of Maya's accident. They find out the phone number and address of the guy who moved the block. Rachana writes this on a balloon and leaves it on the flyover for Maya to find. She then invites her boyfriend Aditya for dinner. During dinner she tries to call the number she found out earlier. It turns out to be Aditya's work mobile number. Devastated she confronts Aditya and informs him that due to his negligence a mother and daughter lost their lives. Aditya says it was not him who made the U turn. He merely exchanged his bike with his friend. In the final twist, it is revealed that the guy who moved the block was Maya's own husband. Maya's ghost is waiting in Aditya's house to kill him, when Maya's husband whom Rachna has informed about the events turns up and explains to Maya that it was because of him that they lost their lives. He then tries to commit suicide by jumping from the balcony. Maya's ghost saves him and tells him that his punishment is to suffer in this world without his wife and daughter. | suspenseful | train | wikipedia | 8/10..Thanks Pawan Kumar for bringing the much-needed road-safety message hard-hittingly and convincingly in a very innovative way from your movie 'U-Turn'.
Being a Kannadiga, I am ashamed to say that when driving on roads and following traffic rules, Bengalureans behavior is most inhumane, indiscipline, inconsiderate and insensitively rash especially bikers then cabs, small trucks, buses...And this rhetoric is coming from who have experience living in top metro cities across world.
Bengaluru 'Adjust Madi' attitude on roads is wiping out people mainly youth.About 'U-Turn' movie qualities, it is good but not up to expectations of 'RangiTaranga', 'KendaSampige' or even Pawan Kumar's own 'Lucia'.Pros -1.
Good road-safety message delivered to society especially the much needed one for Bengalureans.2.
Technically decent - sleek direction, good screenplay, decent background score and editing.4.
I personally felt the climax is good, contrary to popular verdict, as I have experienced and heard about similar paranormal happenings in life.
Movie felt predictable with mystery elements given away with unnecessary special effects before murders.2.
Some scenes were not convincing e.g. a beggar residing on flyover and that too watching over people whole time looks filmy.6.
Despite the flaws, 'U-Turn' should be watched by everyone for its innovative storytelling and convincing social message on road safety..
When you talk proudly about Kannada films in the recent times you can hardly miss mentioning Pawan Kumar's "Lucia" .
After a gap of more than two years Pawan is back with his new project / film "U turn".
The title is catchy for sure and the trailer does tempt you to watch as soon as it hits the screen.Unlike Lucia, this is not a mind-bending, twisty or a clever script.
As revealed in the trailer its a story about the mysterious events that occur on a flyover.
Even though the narrative scopes itself to Bangalore, it kind of works for any metropolitan city where time, traffic, chaos take precedence.
The film starts with some heavy conversational scene which is rather unconnected to the main plot.
"U Turn" is not those "dont miss the beginning" films.
Having the lucid Lucia experience there are high chances that you could have expected it to go to wow you but the narrative chooses to be straight and more importantly delivers what it has to.
We Indians are kind of fond of message oriented films.
U-turn too does not force any message but does bring out the aspect of civic sense and responsibilities.
Lets not just limit ourselves to put on some FB post stating "I will not take this or that turn #uturn".There is shift in genre from romance, thriller, mystery, horror.
Many might feel that her Kannada could have been better but w.r.t the character she plays it is quite OK.
There is one actor who keeps on coming to your mind while you watch the film but never comes on screen.
The sound-scape especially for a city like Bangalore seems very effective.No big producers, no big stars yet Pawan and his team manage to pull out a film that engages you for about two hours.
Agreed that its of a different experience than Lucia but how many films like U-turn gets written, executed and delivered?
We see umpteen traffic breaks on b'lore roads everyday – but have you seen a U-Turn which went wrong big time ?
Pawan Kumar (of 'Lucia' fame) narrates a gripping tale of Double-road flyover in his style.
The story & screenplay is well-crafted and engaging, especially, the 1st half keeps the suspense intact and audience guessing (similar to the movie's trailer).
Verdict: A lesson well-conveyed through a mysterious tale – a suspense thriller not to be missed by the Bengalureans !!.
i couldn't wait for the film to be released as i was confident that this is going to be one of the best movie of the year as there was an immense trust on new poster boy of Kannada movie industry "Mr. Pawan Kumar"When i started watching the movie , the first scene itself was a huge let down.
If it was a "horror thriller" then it feels it was directed by someone else and not pawan kumar.
The script was so weak that we were making fun of the film scenes, and turns out its not just us, it was half the theatre.How can the director who narrated the story of Lucia , is capable of writing and directing U turn.
It has been successful in preserving the audience's attention and interest till the very end.People who do not fancy the idea of existence of supernatural force might find very few parts of the movie irksome.What is more commendable is how the director has tapped into new talent.The impeccable quality simply reflects on the efforts gone into its making.
This movie will certainly garner more appraisals.To sum it all up, a highly recommended thriller you can't afford to miss..
'Lucia' Director Pawan Kumar is back with new mystery thriller.
'Lucia' Director Pawan Kumar is back with new mystery thriller cinema 'U-Turn', with its surpassing trailer and regular updates in social networking sites created good expectations among audience, Pawan Kumar is well known for creating lively characters with no much strain involved, including this new release and his previous movies he proved again that he is an expert screenplay writer, with neat presentation and edge of the seat thriller 'U-Turn' marks as the must watch movie of this month.The best part of 'U-Turn' is its timely and funky BGMs, music given by Poornachandra Tejaswi carries the audience in the proper tone and succeeds in holding the audience in its phase, and cinematography team did the tremendous job, including Siddarth Nuni who previously held camera in Lucia along with Satya Hegde, Advaith Gurmurthy, especially the oner or the long take taken in the police station is handled very perfectly and neatly crisped later on the desk, Pawan Kumar's poetic and metaphorical usage is the plus point to the movie flow, that enhances the intensity of the character and the plot, U-Turn is one technically excellent movie among some recent releases, Pawan Kumar and team is an inspiration in making a quality movie in a very modest budget.
Shraddha Srinath performed very well who in preparing an article for a newspaper get entailed in series of murder mystery, Dilip Raj rendered his modest performance, Roger Narayan is a person who deserves appreciation for his finest acting, his screen presence and dialogue presenting are very unique, Radhika Chetan has improved very well in her performance compared to her previous work, as the mystery unlocks excitement on the plot also exceeds its height, Pawan Kumar is a new David Fincher in presenting such mystery thrillers in very effective manner and an unconventional film maker who dares to give a try in presenting story in a different way..
A story that revolves around mysterious events occurring on the double-road flyover..
The director Pawan Kumar has proved his mettle yet again with his direction and story.The story is fresh, the actors Shraddha, Dileep Raj, Roger Narayan are natural and the background score by Poornachandra Tejaswi is wonderful.
The movie keeps you wondering about might have happened, throughout.The movie begins on a light note, but as the story progresses it starts getting more serious and mysterious with each scene, drawing you into it completely.The movie should have retained this element till the end.I say this because, the ending of the movie is a bit unconventional and might not go well with most viewers.
Trailer is very Twisty & Suspense thriller, I gonna recommend you to watch this movie, good come back from Lucia Director Pawan.
Three years after his much-acclaimed micro-budget sci-fi romance, "Lucia", director Pawan Kumar returns with his Kannada film "U Turn", which is subtitled in English.
Released under the Drishyam Films banner, this is a conveniently woven, head-scratching, super- natural thriller based on true events.The tone of the narration is set by the inverted shot of a busy road in blue hue with the song "Karma" reverberating in the background.
It is interesting as well as arresting.Set in Bengaluru, the narration follows Rachna (Shraddha Srinath), a trainee journalist who is chasing a story related to motorists, who with scant respect for civic issues, shift the road dividers to take a "short-cut" U-turn on a busy bridge.Suspense thriller, I gonna recommend you to watch this movie, good come back from Lucia Director Pawan..
The film revolves around the double road flyover in Bangalore where bikers are taking an illegal U Turn.
It is a poorly executed film only with the intention to make money from Multiplex by promoting it on social media and pro kannada sentiment.
waste film expected more actingwise all good..
Samantha's acting was very good ....everyone in the family should watch this movie ...
Movie is so good me and my friends Loved.
My first foray into Kannada movies and I'm not disappointed.
U-Turn is a movie in the horror/mystery genre that shows the brilliance of simple story-telling and the right casting.
Cheers to Pawan Kumar, the director-cum-writer.The movie revolves around a journalism intern, Rachna (Shraddha Shrinath), who is working on a story about people jumping a divider with their bikes on Bangalore's Double Road flyover, by moving loose blocks of concrete.
From there on, prepare to be hooked into a world of mystery and intrigue.Read the full review: http://www.ergophobist.com/2017/06/movie-review-u-turn-kannada.html.
Brilliant Mystery thriller and one of the best movie's of 2016.
"It may not be the best from Pawan(director of lucia) but his making style is really good and message was rightly portrayed which makes it a good horror mystery thriller film with social message.'U-Turn' should be watched by everyone for its innovative storytelling and convincing social message on road safety"Positives- 1.)Direction and script- Pawan who earlier directed lucia was excellent movie which i rated 5 out of 5 but if i compare with this film then it may not be that great.
He was trying to add horror thriller to a social message driven film which may have its flaws but he did a different attempt and i must appreciate him for that.
Script was engaging along with direction.2.)Shradda srinath , roger narayan and dilip raj- These 3 actors portrayed their roles properly and out of them shradda was outstanding and she was able to bring out those emotions perfectly without any flaws.
Dilip raj was fine.3.)cinematography and edits 4.)Bg score 5.)Message about road safety was rightly conveyed.Negatives- 1.)Cliches in second half - First half went with introduction of characters and that was fine.
But second half the director's vision of portraying certain elements had flaws and it disturbed the experience.
Director could have taken care of that to avoid this type of mistakes.2.)Predictability- Because of certain cliché'd scenes it was predictable for audience which spoiled the experience of mystery thriller.Is it a must watch?
Yes it is a must watch film and it has a great social message.
It is a innovative movie on road safety.Overall- Despite flaws Its a good film if you check the overall aspect.
It tells about the mysterious events that occur on the double road flyover with great social message added to it.
I recommend you to watch it but without much expectations.My rating- 4/5(Brilliant Mystery Thriller and one of the best movie's of 2016).
Best Kannada Movie of All Time.
Arguably one of the best movies to grace the Kannada film industry.
She is trapped around by authority as she is suspected for multiple co-incidental happenings around Bangalore.U-Turn (which is based on true events) is a journey to be lived with the characters to embrace the brutally true corrupt nature of modern India.
On how police are willing to dismiss even the most obvious of evidence just to lower their workload.This is a must watch, which i personally think is the best Kannada movie of all time; Pawan Kumar is on a role with Lucia and U-Turn being big super hits and cooking C10H15N2 in the kitchen..
The movie just basks on pro-kannada sentiment.
Apart from the social message and fantastic work by Roger Narayan and Shradda there is nothing to take away from this movie.
I hope Pawan make good movies in future..
Movie reviews U Turn Rating 5/5Wow the beautiful 🎥..
The movie 🎥 concept is to educate everyone to follow up rules and it's shown so well..
The suspense in the movie is director's play, can feel it in each and every scene..Overall it is a great movie 🎥 and a must watch movie 🎥..
Movie 🎥 can be seen again and again..Personal TouchThe best 🎥 in the recent time..
A very simple concept and holding audience till the end of the movie 🎥 is amazing...
Expected a lot more from Pawan Kumar.
The story is so predictable that it feels like some new writer is trying his hand at a horror story.
I read better plots in some other short story websites.Pros: The female protagonist is good.3 starts only for Inspector Nayak (watch this movie for him).Cons: Very slow movie, nothing happens in the first half, does not even feel like a build-up.Poor script.Predictable story.Seems more like a documentary on road safety..
U Turn is one of the most unique ideas in recent times and on of the best movies of 2016.Brilliant mystery thriller...
U Turn (2016): Pawan Kumar is the most discussed film maker in Indian Cinema during 2013 because of his masterpiece Lucia which set a new benchmark for Indian Cinema.Indian film Industry has never seen a movie like Lucia and when it was released it is appreciated by lot of celebrities like Anurag Kashyap,Amir Khan etc...So his next movie U Turn which is a mystery thriller with horror touch,has raised a lot of expectations and even its trailer is so promising and showed that it is going to be unique.So how is U Turn??Plot: This movie is based on a famous double flyover bridge in Bangalore where the divider blocks are misplaced so that motorists can take a quick U Turn to avoid traffic.They don't move them back and the blocks are left to lie randomly on the road leading to many accidents.Rachana (Shraddha Srinath),an intern in Indian express prepares to confront those who break rules with the help of a homeless man who resides near flyover and notes those vehicle's number and gives it to her.When she tried to confront her first guy,an unexpected event occurs which leads to unbelievable mass suicide where all the culprits she noted have died in mysterious circumstances and Rachana becomes main suspect.With the help of Inspector Nayak (Roger Narayan) Rachana starts investigating this mystery.Plus Points:1)Story Screenplay & Direction: U Turn is one of the most unique ideas in recent times.A horror thriller with a social message are very rare and U Turn needs a wide applause for its uniqueness.Pawan Kumar's direction is brilliant and he never failed even in minute details.His creativity and making is award winning work.Screenplay is racy and thrilling.2)Performances: Performances are mostly natural.Shradha may not have great looks but her performance is very good.Narayan as Inspector Nayak is the best performer in U Turn.Each and every actor gave decent performances.3)Music: BGM is brilliant and suits the mood of the movie.Poornachandra Tejaswi did splendid job.4)Cinematography: Advaitha Gurumurthy's cinematography is natural and best.There are no extra effects in lighting and used mostly natural light.5)Duration: U Turn is just 2hr long which helped it a lot with no dragging scenes and edge of the seat thriller.Minus Points: None..So,U Turn is one of the most unique ideas in recent times and one of the best movies of 2016.Brilliant mystery thriller..My rating 9/10.
Each scene is so strongly tied to the predecessor and successor.A suspense thriller packed with a wonderful message is what you can expect from the beloved director Pawan Kumar.
Just as Lucia, this is another masterpiece, which is not a typical hero-oriented movie, but a subjective one.A modern girl, her boy friend, their beliefs about super-natural powers, traffic violations, sincere cops - These are some of the key words that hit ones mind when they watch this movie.It is definitely a must-watch for people who think it is OK not to obey traffic rules..
Straight narration of story, full of suspense till the end..
Good message for us, to follow traffic rules..Even our friends and family may get suffer if we don't follow traffic rule..First half of movie the movie revolve around unknown forces..
We think the story in many angles, but in climax we feel its very simple story and has good message..
But I liked the movie..
Take a U-Turn and watch this movie...
In the recent time of Kannada movie this is also one of the great movie.The Great talent Pawan kumar directed this movie after Lucia.
wonderful direction and screenplay.Pawan took real event and he so carefully maintained the story narrating not at all boring movie.i Liked the screenplay,camera work,Direction.All actors did perfect acting for they role..BGM is super it's feel interesting.There is no song in film and it's not necessary also because movie screenplay is so beautiful.narration also good.
first half is very interesting and second half little bit dragged but everyone will wait for climax..everyone expectation will take uturn..climax is clean and cool but as compare to story speed and narration climax can will be do more better.
as total movie is good worth to watch in theater.
please go watch in theater and support Kannada movies..
Expected more from Lucia director.
But, the film lacks something that was a part of Lucia.
I love suspense thrillers but this movie they basically spoon feed you all the details of the 'suspense', and when the final reveal comes, its not really a shock.
U Turn: Ridiculous plot holes in otherwise OK thriller.
That is original!One time watch, without putting any thinking caps....
Direction 5 on 5 - Pawan Kumar is just that Ideal director one wishes to be.
Story 4 on 5 - Needed a better conclusion.
And best of all the movie carries a sure shot message for Indians. |
tt0814077 | Devil Girl | Devil Girl follows the story of Fay on her trip across Route 66 after the death of her father, who happened to be a mechanic. Fay takes her father's muscle car and his wedding ring, and departs from her home after saying her farewells to her sister.
The story simultaneously follows the events of an overly medicated, nonsense-spewing young man in clown makeup, who appears to be dodging authorities whilst hopping from vehicle to vehicle along his travels. The clown stops at a gas station to steal a new ride; however, there is no vehicle to be found. The clown knocks out the cashier and steals the handy supply of drugs and junk food while a woman (the cowgirl) stops for gas. The clown then ties the woman up while Fay stops for gas. As Fay searches the station for a clerk the clown rummages through her car, stealing her wallet, and then leaves in the cowgirl's truck, which later breaks down.
After the clown takes a mysterious ride in the Devil Girl's flying vehicle, and Fay's car breaks down, both stop separately in an eerie, highly religious, nearby town. Fay takes a room in the local motel, using her father's ring as collateral, as her wallet was stolen earlier. The clown meets Fay and is speechlessly smitten by her. In an attempt to pay back her debts, Fay dances at the town's strip club. The local mechanic tells Fay that the part required to fix her car should be available after a week.
One night the clown decides to enter the strip joint and witnesses hallucinations, including a dance by the Devil Girl, before seeing Fay dance and being thrown out of the club. After being driven back to the motel by an interested young man, Fay is raped in her room by a masked man and assumes it was the clown, due to the fact that she saw him outside of her window. The next night, the clown is back at the strip club, only to be kicked in the face by Fay and once again thrown out. Fay leaves in a rage to be picked up by the Devil Girl, and the two partake in sexual activities.
The Devil Girl then confronts the local preacher and accuses him of being a pervert by nature, which is later revealed to be true when Fay attempts to retrieve her ring from the preacher, whom she was told by the motel owner was in possession of. Fay finds a young, naked man trapped in a cage below the church, and is then attacked from behind by the preacher, who is revealed to be her rapist, his identity betrayed by his mask. Fay stabs the preacher with a screwdriver and beats him with a two-by-four. She then frees the young man, and together they escape.
The motel owner is shown to have been in leagues with the preacher and takes off searching for Fay after discovering the preacher's body. The young man is picked up by a police officer while Fay takes off with the clown on a motorcycle. The clown brings Fay to her car, where she finds the keys in the ignition, and prepares to leave while the clown tries to explain his feelings, and the motel owner is gaining ground. Fay drives off with the motel owner in pursuit with a pistol in his hand. As the motel owner takes aim at Fay, the clown pulls up between the two and smacks the gun away.
As the vehicles are about to collide with a tractor tailor, it is revealed that all the events of the movie were actually a drug-induced hallucination, imagined by an overly medicated, soon to be released mental patient named Donald, who fantasized himself as the clown and his nurse Fay as his alter-ego's love interest. However, in the end the Devil Girl is shown to be real, and had actually killed the crooked preacher. | psychedelic, flashback | train | wikipedia | awesome cult movie!. In a world where teenage vampires are the pop norm, "Devil Girl" is a welcome breath of fresh air. An aggressive soundtrack, creepy, surreal imagery and a fast paced mind f@%! of a story makes for a really unique counter culture film.While admittedly the story is far from typical,(and frankly, oddly amorphous)it is fun feeling that at any moment, that which seems to be reality might be revealed as yet another head trip fantasy. With its fast cars, sexy girls and psychedelic drugged out visuals, this is a flick for fans of movies like "Natural Born Killers" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Some folks just aren't going to get it, but for others, it is cult dynamite.. How do you screw up a human/demon lesbian sex scene? These filmmakers found a way.. This is an 80something minute long version of a Rob Zombie music video, but with not nearly enough nudity, violence and general depravity to justify its existence. There's enough interesting and provocative imagery here to sustain about 4 minutes of screen time. The rest of Devil Girl is an extended demonstration of how these filmmakers don't know what the hell they're doing.The feeble excuse for a story concerns Fay (Jessica Graham), a young woman who decides to journey along historic Route 66 after the death of he mechanic father, and a guy wearing clown make-up (Joe Wanjai Ross) who pops pills, babbles a lot and is apparently on some sort of crime spree. Fay and the Clown wind up stuck in the same worthless dessert town, where Fay has to take a job as a stripper and winds up dry humped in her motel room by a guy in a leather mask and the Clown just sort of wanders around. Fay and the Clown both encounter or hallucinate a red-skinned Devil Girl (Vanessa Kay), complete with horns and a pointy tail. Devil Girl strips for the Clown, has sex with Fay and confronts the town preacher (C. J. Baker). After implying that what's going on is real, a medically induced fantasy and some sort of purgatory, the film ends with one of those fake-outs that are supposed to blow your mind but only prove that nobody involved with this production had a clue as to what sort of story they were telling or why.Aside from a few decent visuals like Devil Girl herself, Jessica Graham turns in a nice and believable performance. There's also some female nudity here, though the movie goes long stretches without it. Um
that's about it for the positives of Devil Girl.The negatives? Well, this movie lists the bands on the soundtrack in the opening credits, so I knew right away there were going to be a lot of problems. I mean, who puts soundtrack contributors in the opening credits of their movie? Devil Girl has only the vestigial remains of a plot, dialog that ranges from the mundane to the banal and acting that would just barely cut the mustard at most community theaters, but I think I can sum up the plain and simple lameness of this film by looking at just one scene.You'd think that when Fay and Devil Girl have sex, it would at least be some cheap titillating fun. Jessica Graham and Vanessa Kay are both quite attractive and how can you go wrong with a human-demon lesbian tryst? Well, filmmakers Tracy Wilcox and Howie Askins found a way. To start with, most of the scene happens in shadow and what we can see is illuminated in red light. That means you can't see the contrast between the flesh of Fay and Devil Girl. Then it's all edited together in such a quick and random manner that it is impossible to tell what's being done and who is doing it to whom. The only purpose of the scene is to satisfy a little prurient interest and Wilcox and Askins can't get out of their own way enough to do it.The bottom line on Devil Girl is that it's too dull and pointless to make it as an ordinary film, yet also lacks the excessive gore, sex and otherwise shocking material to qualify as some sort of out-there, taboo breaking experience. Skip it.. Devil Girl. Pill-popping, evil-grinning psycho in clownface, often spouting gibberish, whose stolen vehicles always go dead on the highway. Female drifter running away from her past. Perverted preacher with secrets. A sleazy motel owner who offers suggestive remarks to our heroine as she woefully awaits her opportunity to clear out of this godforsaken place. A "Devil girl" who pops up at random to greet each character.This snoozefest lured me in with quite the seductive poster. The titular character is barely a factor at all, seemingly present as a means to draw viewers to rent the movie. Spent a lot of energy trying to keep from dosing off. These guys couldn't even deliver a good lesbian scene, for my troubles. Hard metal soundtrack loudly erupts often during the film to give it an "edge." Strip club sequences featuring Fay are much lighter than they should've been under the circumstances, although she looks quite enticing in her dominatrix outfit.Fay, whose sweet ride needs a fuel pump, must endure stripping at a dust-bowl desert town's strip club and renting a ratty dump of a motel room while waiting for the part to come in so she can get out of dodge. She's haunted by loss, among other things, and was unknowingly looted by the loony clown, all the money(..and wallet to boot)in her possession, stolen out from under her nose while seeking gasoline to continue to the uncertain future she had charted herself.The film has one of those "gotcha" twists at the end that is positively groan-inducing, and seems to be put here just for the hell of it. Jessica Graham is quite a sexy lead and not that bad an actress actually. Vanessa Kay is costumed and body-painted completely red, even given a tail to choke, whip, and spank if she so feels like it. The California setting is appropriately depressing..you do not want to wind up stuck in a place like this.. Who knew road trips could be this boring?. DEVIL GIRL is an awful little indie thriller that tries to be an edgy road movie and fails at every step. It involves a maladjusted young woman interacting with various weird characters she meets en route to her destination (to nowhere), chiefly a kooky guy in clown make-up who shows up to irritate the viewer at regular intervals. The supporting cast seems to be entirely made up of creeps and weirdos, while our underacting protagonist hides out in motel rooms and cries a lot. It's extremely lame. |
tt0037457 | What's Cookin' Doc? | The plot centers on the Academy Awards presentation. The action begins with actual color film footage of various Hollywood scenes (edited from A Star Is Born), narrated by Robert C. Bruce. It leads up to the Big Question of the evening: Who will win "the" Oscar? The film shows the stereotypical red carpet arrivals of stars, as well as a human emcee starting to introduce the Oscar show.
At this point the film switches to animation, with the shadow of a now-animated emcee (and now voiced by Mel Blanc) continuing to introduce the Oscar, and Bugs (also Mel Blanc's voice, as usual) assuring the viewer that "it's in da bag; I'm a cinch to win". Bugs is stunned when the award goes instead to James Cagney (who had actually won in the previous year's ceremony, for Warner's Yankee Doodle Dandy). Shock turns to anger as Bugs declares the results to be "sa-bo-TAH-gee" and demands a recount.
Bugs then tries to make his case by showing clips from Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (which includes clip of Hiawatha attempting to "cook" the rabbit) as proof of his allegedly superior acting (an inside joke, as the cartoon had actually been nominated for an Oscar and lost). He hurls a set of film cans off-screen and tells someone named "Smokey" to "roll 'em!" Bugs tells the audience that these are some of his "best scenes". Immediately a "stag reel" (with the title card depicting a grinning stag) starts to roll, and the startled Bugs quickly stops it and switches to the right film.
Finally, he pleads with the audience, "What do you say, folks? Do I get it? Or do I get it?" (echoing Fredric March's drunken appeal to the Academy Award banquet audience in A Star Is Born). The emcee asks the audience (in an affected nasal voice), "Shall we give it to him, folks?" and they yell, "Yeah, let's give it to him!" whereupon they shower Bugs with fruits and vegetables (enabling him to briefly do a Carmen Miranda impression)... and an ersatz Oscar labeled "booby prize", which is actually a gold-plated rabbit statue. Bugs is so pleased at winning it, he remarks, "I'll even take youse to bed wit' me every night!" The statue suddenly comes alive, asks in a voice like that of radio character, Bert Gordon, "Do you mean it?", smooches the startled bunny, and takes on an effeminate, hip-swiveling pose. The screen fades out, Clampett's famous vocalized "Bay-woop!" is heard, and the "That's all, Folks!" card appears. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | I've seen other things just as racist as this and they are not banned..
This is a very good Bugs Bunny episode which is banned because it has some racial references to Native Americans.
I have seen this in other things which have not been banned, so I personally think it was rather silly to ban this.
And anyway, in those days, people did not realise it was racist, they thought it was all right, but now we realize that shorts like this (which include a great deal of others which are way more racist) can insult other cultures.
Personally I am very much agaisnt rascism, but I can watch it in an old cartoon.Aside from all this chatter, "What's Cookin' Doc" is a clever, hilarious and well-animated episode.
It also includes some old live-action clips of Hollywood (because of this I recommend this short to people who are interested in history).
A voice announces the viewers to enter the place where Oscars will be awarded.
We go in and the scene turns to cartoon.
Bugs Bunny waits excitedly behind a curtain, absolutely certain that he will win the Oscar.
When it is awarded to James Cagney, Bugs Bunny is shocked and insulted.
He immediately shows the watching crowd something he has starred in, which is a short short film about him and Hiawatha (the racist part).
What I find very interesting is that the rabbit we meet first has more modern animation, the type in Robert Clampett Bugs Bunny shorts and in the short film with Hiawatha, Bugs Bunny is done in his older animation.
Personally I prefer the first style of animation to Bugs.
Will Bugs win the Oscar..?I recommend this to anyone who does not mind rascism (at all) in a cartoon and people who love Bugs Bunny.
Enjoy "What's Cookin' Doc?"!
What idiot insisted on banning this fine cartoon?.
I found this cartoon under the heading "banned cartoons" on Youtube.
Now if it's true that Warner Brothers DID pull this from circulation because it might be seen as culturally insensitive, then the people responsible for this are total idiots.
While SOME older cartoons are truly insulting and awful in how they depict minorities (particularly awful films featuring the character "Black Sambo"), this one can only be seen as insulting to someone so devoid of a sense of humor and so politically correct that practically nothing is funny to them and everything is offensive.
Sure, this is an Indian (the American-type, not the Apu-type) in the cartoon, but he's the basic Bugs Bunny foil--nothing more and nothing less.
Does this mean that ANY depiction of Indians is forbidden in cartoons unless they are Earth-loving and noble like the film POCAHONTAS--which, by the way, was highly inaccurate and silly in how it portrayed the natives.As for the cartoon itself, I saw this one several times over the years and it's a darn clever one that features an obnoxious Bugs Bunny trying to convince the Oscar people (A.M.P.A.S., by the way) to give him the award for Best Actor.
While I wasn't thrilled with its use of a clip from a previous film, the odd style where Bugs appears in the real world with real people is pretty interesting and worth a look.Don't believe the hypersensitive.
This is a good cartoon and it probably won't offend the average sane viewer..
Plus ca change....
One of the most famous of all Bugs Bunnies, in which our hero believes he's a shoo-in for a Best Actor Oscar.
Behind the comedy is a laceratingly cruel satire.The film opens with a traditional Voice of God introduction to the Oscars, as our narrator shows us the Hollywood sights before showing us the hotel where the event will take place, the crowds awaiting their favourite stars.
Already Hollywood, the entity, the myth is reduced to a series of recognisable signs - the Hollywood Bowl, the Troccadero, the Chinese Restaurant etc.; the stars who exist only as their popular image, cemented in a ghostly pair of feet on some footpath.Bugs is convinced that he will win because he can do impressions of all the stars.
This is a stunningly versatile monologue as Bugs mocks everyone from Jimmy Cagney to Bing Crosby, but surely it's an insolence to think that mere mimicry can be as worthy as a great performance?
But Bugs' point is precisely this - the Awards pretentiously think that they are rewarding high art, when these great actors are locked in stereotype and received image.
They are the sums of their persona.
Bugs IS greater than them because he can do an impression of Cagney AND Crosby; they can only do impressions of themselves.
A list of Oscar winners from the period proves Bugs unerringly right (MRS.
MINIVER, according to Oscar, is a far greater film than CITIZEN KANE.)As a further treat we are shown a clip from Bugs' LITTLE HAIWATHA, in which a bathing Bugs realises that he is about to become rabbit-meat for a placid Indian/Elmer Fudd.
This remarkable clip, stunningly self-reflexive about Hollywood ideology and racism, reveals Bugs' true worth, but for the Academy to reward him would be to admit their own worthlessness and fraudulence.
So they stone him.
He is awarded, however, the first Raspberry, moulded in his own image, which comes to life and kisses him.
This is Hollywood's ultimate insult, but it's eventual proof of Bugs' superiority, his versatility, his embracing of fragmentation and metamorphosis at the expense of rigid, conservative, stereotypical, wholeness.As animation, the short isn't as fleet-footed, violent or versatile as the great Tex Avery masterpieces, but there's a belligerent gaudiness of colour that suits the subject admirably..
Nice Bugs Bunny.
'What's Cookin' Doc' is partly cartoon, partly live action.
First we get a live action introduction to the Academy Awards.
Then we go inside and meet Bugs Bunny who thinks he is up for the Best Actor award.
When the winner is revealed it is not Bugs but James Cagney who takes the honors.
Then we see Bugs explaining why he should have win the award.
To make his point he shows a piece from a cartoon he starred in.I liked this short film, although there were no real laughs.
A lot of smiles and chuckles, especially in how Bugs is mocking the Academy.
There is quite some truth in what is said.
The cartoon is one of the censored (which basically means banned) cartoons since it depicts Native Americans in an offensive way.
I understand why that is, but on the other hand it is quite innocent.
Judge for yourself..
Well, I loved it.
is one of Bugs Bunny's best cartoons overall I am not sure.
But for me it was an interesting and hilarious one.
I personally didn't see anything that offensive in the Hiawatha clip shown or in the overall cartoon(the portrayal of Indians was stereotypical but in my mind it wasn't racist), then again there have been times where it was probably back then but is actually not that bad now, and that was the case for me with What's Cookin' Doc. Not to mention there have been far more blatant cases of this in animation.
The animation is beautifully done, it is very colourful and detailed and Bugs is drawn brilliantly.
The music is full of energy, as is the pacing.
The dialogue is deliciously witty especially with Bugs' mocking, which is unrelenting but funny and somewhat true, and the gags and caricatures(Carmen Miranda is always fun to spot) are imaginative.
Bugs is spot on being arrogant and intelligent(one of the cartoon's funniest moments was his scream), and Mel Blanc's vocals superlative.
In conclusion, I loved What's Cookin' Doc. 9/10 Bethany Cox. Bugs at the oscars.
Bugs Bunny thinks he's gonna win the 'best actor' oscar but is snubbed in favor of James Cagney.
He tries to convince the audience of his point while doing some impressions and showing a clip from Haiwatha's Rabbit Hunt.Self-indulgent to the extend and not a funny moment in this 8 minute short.
It may try to make some points on Hollywood and the Oscars, as a previous reviewer stated, but what it really tries to say is unclear.The movie is banned from tv nowadays because of some racist-related links and impressions, but nothing to get too excited about.Dull.
A great one-bunny show which is unfortunately marred by a poorly chosen Friz Freleng excerpt.
Bob Clampett's 'What's Cookin', Doc?' is a brilliant cartoon with one major flaw.
The premise here is that Bugs Bunny is attending the Oscars, confident that he will win a statuette for best performance.
When the honour is instead bestowed upon James Cagney, Bugs blows his top and attempts to convince the voters to change their mind by showing a clip of one of his previous performances.
This is where the problem comes in.
Up to this point, 'What's Cookin', Doc?' has been a cartoon bursting with Clampett's trademark energy.
The clip Bugs shows to the audience, however, is a poorly chosen extract from Friz Freleng's 'Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt' in which very little happens.
While this perverse choice was likely an in-joke of some kind, the segment from Freleng's cartoon severely slows 'What's Cookin', Doc?' down.This little niggle aside, 'What's Cookin', Doc?' is a marvellous short.
After the success of Chuck Jones's one character Daffy Duck cartoon 'Duck Amuck', a few attempts were made to create a solo vehicle for Bugs, resulting in the lacklustre 'Rabbit Rampage' and 'Baton Bunny'.
This was entirely unnecessary since Clampett had already made the great one-bunny show with 'What's Cookin', Doc?'.
While other characters are seen in silhouette or heard off screen, Bugs carries the bulk of 'What's Cookin', Doc?' entirely by himself with a remarkably energetic, shape-shifting performance.
He impersonates Hollywood stars and pantomimes various acting styles, he shifts from smug, laidback nonchalance to disbelieving, ego-driven frenzy.
Clampett makes this all characteristically beautiful.
Bugs looks amazing here and snaps from one pose to another with breathtaking smoothness.
Clampett tosses in a few of his trademark dirty gags too, one of which is the closing joke of the cartoon.
'What's Cookin', Doc?' is, in part, a masterpiece but its partial brilliance makes the unfortunate interruption from Freleng's uneventful excerpt positively infuriating..
And the Winner Is.....
(1944) *** (out of 4)Entertaining short has Warner Brothers spoofing the Oscars as Bugs Bunny shows up to the award ceremony to pick up a trophy but instead he's beaten by James Cagney.
After losing he demands a re-count and shows a clip from his film HIAWATHA'S RABBIT HUNT.
Overall this is a nice little film, although there's no doubt that it's far from a classic and doesn't rank as one of the best Bugs shorts.
I say that because the film shown within this film is actually so much better and we only get one brief clip from it.
With that said, Bugs does give a good impersonation of a few legends like Edward G.
Robinson and that alone makes this worth watching..
funny and unpleasant to watch.
"What's Cookin' Doc?" probably looked a lot funnier when they first created it, but the racist portrayal of Indians will probably make most people cringe in the 21st century.
Aside from that, there's some pretty funny stuff, as Bugs Bunny hopes to win an Oscar but loses to James Cagney, and tries to make the audience change their mind by showing a short movie starring himself.Watching this cartoon nowadays, I realize that they mentioned people like Edward G.
Robinson.
I don't know whether or not any six-year-old children would have recognized that name in 1944, but I can guarantee that as a six-year-old I wouldn't have recognized that name.Anyway, pretty interesting, but just be sure that you understand the racist portrayal of Indians..
"OK, Smokey, roll 'em!".
"What's Cookin' Doc?" is a good Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Robert Clampett.
It's Oscar night, folks!
The severely cocky Bugs Bunny is confident that he will win that treasured golden statuette.
When he doesn't, he nearly hits the roof!
Trying to prove that he deserves a recount, he brings along some footage of one of his earlier pictures (1941's "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt", directed by Friz Freleng).My favorite moments from "What's Cookin' Doc?" include the following.
Bugs tries out various caricatures at his dinner table and later onstage as the Oscar presenter makes a speech.
Bugs does a hilarious scream when the projectionist screens the wrong film.
And Bugs poses as Carmen Miranda (with some appropriate musical accompaniment) when he receives a barrage of fruit.Those of you "old movie" buffs will appreciate the live-action shots of some famous Hollywood hangouts at the beginning of "What's Cookin' Doc?" No, it's not one of the more outstanding Bugs Bunny films, and the stock footage Bugs chose was not his funniest work.
But it's still worth watching..
Bugs Bunny pulls a "Kanye West" at the Oscars .
. on his own behalf, demanding a "recount" when James Cagney's YANKEE DOODLE DANDY beats him out of the statuette he thought he was a cinch to win.
Poor Bugs.
He had no idea how "politically correct" Oscar voting tends to be.
To illustrate his body of work, Bugs shows the gathered Academy Awards voters a clip from LITTLE HIAWATHA, widely denounced as a defilement of Native Americans from the get-go.
Bugs tries for the Big Tobacco voting bloc by following this with the distribution of Cuban cigars.
He even anticipates WHIPLASH to drum up support.
Despite his pains, the animated rabbit gets pelted with rotten vegetables prior to receiving the very first Raspberry Award.
probably came out during an animator's strike, since about half of it is (pretty boring) live action footage, and half of the rest is recycled material.
But since Bugs and Cagney are about the same height, and equally perceived as vocally abrasive, a one-on-one popularity contest between hare and leprechaun would have proved interesting..
Excellent, stunning, magnificent!.
Bugs waits for the award but it goes to a man named James Cagney.
He tells the audience that he should be the star by showing Academy Award Nominee Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt, directed by Friz Freleng.
It shows the Elmer Fudd Hiawatha cooking him in soup, but Bugs manages to jump out of the pot when he realizes he was the rabbit.Of course, James Cagney gives his Oscar to Bugs and it comes to life, kissing Bugs as the cartoon ends.The cartoon was the final one to use the 1942-43 rings, as the next cartoon had a new set of rings and the finalized MERRIE MELODIES logo on opening titles and ending titles.The 1995 Turner "dubbed version" with the altered 1938 end card is available via Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, via Bugs Bunny: Superstar, along with 8 other cartoons, all in their dubbed versions, except I think 1 which has an unrestored AAP print.
Also, the "dubbed version" is available on Warner Bros.
Home Entertainment Academy Award Animation Collection with other Looney Tunes cartoon.
The cartoon is restored for such DVD releases.The MGM print is available via DailyMotion with red borders on opening and ending rings, as the "dubbed version" had no borders..
WHAT'S COOKIN' DOC?
WHAT'S COOKIN' DOC?
WHAT'S COOKIN' DOC?
WHAT'S COOKIN' DOC?
simply illustrates the recipe for disaster .
. that Warner Bros.' uncanny Looney Tunes prognosticators sniffed out 72 years before the event itself.
Savvy viewers will see at a glance that the rabbit-shaped statuette thrown at Bugs Bunny (along with a generous heap of fruit and vegetables) at the close of DOC, engraved as a "booby prize," denotes the Elephant Party's nomination for U.S. President, Class of 2016.
When James Cagney is announced as the winner of the Main Event here, Bugs immediately screams, "I demand a recount!!" Though the miffed hare had impersonated Edward G.
Robinson and Bing Crosby (among others) earlier, he's never more spot on than in channeling Donald Trump's main quotation from the upcoming Pachyderm Convention in Cleveland.
Trump might be practicing thumping a bass drum right now, as this is Bugs' Step Two in drumming up a riot from his presumed legion of angry supporters.
However, this only elicits the aforementioned produce barrage and booby prize for Bugs in DOC.
Now that we've completed 99%-plus of the journey from DOC to the Tuskers Confab, even lay people can decipher Warner's handwriting on the wall (and it's NOT in Mexico!). |
tt0093780 | The Principal | Rick Latimer (Jim Belushi) is a high-school teacher with a drinking problem. Spotting his ex-wife Kimberly (Sharon Thomas Cain) in a bar one night, Rick gets into a fight with the man she's with, culminating in his beating the hapless man's car with a baseball bat.
The board of education finds that Rick's behavior is reflecting poorly on the school district's image. They unanimously decide to transfer him to another school, in another district: Brandel High, a crime-ridden and gang-dominated institution, where he is made the new principal.
Believing he can repair his image by cleaning up the school, Rick attempts to have an assembly to declare his intentions: "No more." No more drugs, running in the hallways or being late to class. While he's giving his speech, Victor Duncan (Michael Wright), the leader of the main gang in the school, walks in, derides Rick in front of everyone, then walks out, which eventually results in a small riot, which earns Rick the enmity of not only the teachers but also school head of security Jake (Lou Gossett Jr.).
Eventually, Rick manages to enforce his policy of getting rid of the drugs being dealt in the bathrooms and clearing out the hallways — but not always with success. Because the students are now forced to go to class, some of the more unruly students become increasingly disruptive, including White Zac (J.J. Cohen), who eventually attempts to rape one of the teachers, Ms. Orozco (Rae Dawn Chong), with whom Rick is beginning to form a close friendship.
Victor, meanwhile, continues to assert his influence on the school, going so far as to brutally beat a former member of his gang and hang him by his ankles when the member warms to Rick and actually starts learning. The clash between Rick and Victor eventually leads to a showdown in the school halls, where Jake is temporarily locked inside a supply closet while Victor and his gang hunt Rick down. In the end, Victor and Rick fight each other with their fists, with Victor seemingly having the upper hand until Rick overpowers him.
Rick beats Victor, much to the shock of the rest of the school who witness the beating. Several students cheer Rick on, much to the chagrin of Victor's gang members. After a small fight breaks out Rick again declares, "No more!" Victor is taken away in a police car, and as a student derisively asks, "Hey man, who the hell do you think you are?", Rick responds "I'm the principal, man!" and rides away on his motorcycle. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | 'The Principal' is one of those films where Belushi could have been nominated for Best Actor, and Louis Gossett Jr. for Best Supporting Actor...The film has some great scenes, a good story and character development, and a decent soundtrack...The film is pretty hard-edged, though has elements of comedy...overall - an under-rated film (ones which I love to review) worth seeing...[7/10].
Belushi takes a job as a principal at a tough inner city high school where he must contend with many problems there.
The film is filled with a lot of the minor stars of this era such as Lou Gossett Jr., Rae Dawn Chong, Esai Morales and Kelly Jo Minter to name a few.J.B.stars as a washed out High School Prep teacher who's personal life begins to fall apart.
Let me just start by saying James Belushi totally kicks a$$ as Rick Latimer, a city school teacher, who one night, after drinking a few shots of alcohol, gets a bat and smashes up the car of the lawyer who is dating his wife, who represented her at their divorce trial.
At the assembly, Rick announces that he will enforce a new and painfully simple rule of, "No More." Rick says,"This means no more skipping class, dealing drugs, or whatever the hell it is you've been majoring in here, No More!" He is able to enforce this rule by forming a mediocre security team with the help of a janitor (Louis Gossett, Jr.) to help bring back order to the school.
He begins making threats to Rick, telling to get out of the school while he still has a chance.James Belushi is what makes this movie worth watching.
Similar films like Dangerous Minds (1995), The Substitute (1996), 187 (1997), and High School High (1996), but The Principal, I think is the one that started it all.
Rick Latimer (James Belushi) is a high-school teacher with some social issues.
But with only Security guard Jake Phillips (Louis Gossett Jr) as an ally and the thuggish school kingpin Victor Duncan (Michael Wright) after his blood, Latimer will do well to just survive the first week.The formula of such movies like The Principal is now seen as old hat, post the release of Christopher Cain's movie you can trace a line from Lean On Me in 1989, to The Substitute 1996 and on to One Eight Seven the following year.
So plenty of films, and similar types like Stand And Deliver, from which to choose should you require a night in with a teacher intent on straightening out those ruffians; whilst ensuring the good kids get the education they deserve.
So why choose The Principal then?Well James Belushi's fans don't need much convincing here, an always likable star who knows the limits of his talents, the film gives him the chance to mix serious drama with his comedy bent.
Belushi is admirably supported by Gossett Jr, a believable tough security guard if ever there was one, while a lot of the film's strength is drawn from the developing relationship between the two men.
The style is unmistakably Eighties (I think in an endearing way) and James Belushi's charisma and drama chops carry the story- which occasionally gets silly (also endearingly).
The school teacher Rick Latimer (James Belushi) is drinking with friends in a bar when he sees his former wife dating her lawyer responsible for their divorce.
The chief of the security Jake Phillips (Louis Gossett Jr.) believes Rick is crazy but soon he supports the principal attitudes.
But the drug lord Victor Duncan (Michael Wright) is not happy with the new principal and promises to kill him."The Principal" is that type of movie for fans of films like "To Sir with Love", "Class of 1984" and "Dangerous Minds", where a teacher faces difficulties in a problematic high-school with the students dominated by gangs.
James Belushi performs one of his best roles as Rick Latimer, a school teacher that has destroyed all opportunities in life and now has no other option but stay at the notorious Brandel High School.
This is a great 80's film - James Belushi and Louis Gossett, Jr. are excellent and you're with them all the way as they're so likeable.Rick Latimer (Belushi) is great; he starts off as being a kind-of drunken, violent loser (but he's funny so we let him off) and then becomes a reluctant hero who realises why he's a teacher in the first place and makes an effort to SORT THINGS OUT.This film is full of COOL bits; every scene with Latimer on his motorcycle ("Disneyland!" or 'El Principal'), the scene where the makeshift security team crack down ("...set it off on the left, y'all, set it off on the right..."), the assembly scene ("NO MORE!")...all great.
James Belushi stars as a teacher with a short fuse who gets to become the principal of the roughest high school in the city.
Belushi is solid here and so is high school security guard Louis Gossett, Jr. in a supporting role.
Public schools could probably learn a lot from this feature.Of the many comedians of early Saturday Night Live who have gone on to movies, Belushi appears to be the one who has most successfully transcended the comedian stereotype.
While Bill Murrey may do well as a comic role being serious, the few pictures I've seen James Belushi in suggest that he's more like a serious actor who's also funny.Good feature for those of us who are tired of irresponsible youth getting a free pass..
James Belushi and Louis Gossett Jr. make a great duo and JJ Cohen as White Zac is also very well casted (he is nothing like the parts he plays).
The movie is your typical run down drunken teacher sent to a run down typical gang infested school to be the principal but what is not typical is how two words "No More!" Echo and it seems to drive the line between those who want to try and those who want to hurt.This movie is not a typical 80's but is a drama in away and a action flick in a way but it keeps you watching.
"The Principal" may be a bit beyond what goes on in inner city or ghetto schools but most movies do that in other situations too.
This is a pretty good '80s vehicle for James Belushi, who gets to show off both comedic and dramatic chops as Rick Latimer, a teacher who, in a drunken state one night, flies into a rage upon seeing his ex-wife with another man (her attorney, no less).
"The Principal" does score high marks for good intentions, even as it recalls earlier films such as "The Blackboard Jungle" and "Class of 1984" (other films in this genre, of course, include "Stand and Deliver", "Lean On Me", and "Dangerous Minds").
Many people have probably not seen this movie, but it brings a satisfactory chemistry between both Belushi and Gossett Jr. in which they fight off punk teen gangs at their school.
James Belushi is very good in the suffisticated personality as the angry principal who is gonna teach the kids to cherish their values.
Belushi gets tough as a school principal.
James Belushi socks it to em' and gives a creditable performance as a high school teacher going through a difficult time.
Plot is akin to Michelle Pfeiffer's Dangerous Minds but in this case, Belushi is the hard-case Principal determined to make a real change of his life and his students.
Divorced teacher Rick Latimer (Jim Belushi) gets into a bar fight with his ex-wife's boyfriend and arrested.
He has to battle student gang leader Victor Duncan (Michael Wright) and get single mom Treena Lester (Kelly Jo Minter) to return to school.This is a white savior movie.
The basic story was told (and much more effectively, I might add - perhaps because it was based on real people and events) a couple of years later in "Lean On Me." This movie is a fictional account of roughly the same chain of events - a teacher gets assigned as principal to an inner city school that's become a haven for gangs and drug-dealing and he sets himself to the task of cleaning it up.
He played Rick Latimer - the down and out teacher who gets assigned to Brandel High School because there's no one else to go there and basically the Board of Education is throwing him away.
Latimer's "my turn" after Victor gives him a pretty good beating made me chuckle a bit.It's not a bad movie.
John Belushi (an effectively imposing turn balancing the dry humour with a serious side) stars as a teacher Rick Latimer who's life is falling apart and an brutal act involving his ex-wife and new lover, sees him being offered (though there's no real choice to it) a new position as principal at a school that's over-run by drugs, violence and gangs who don't have education on their minds.
But Latimer doesn't cave in and soon finds an ally in janitor Jake Phillips (a tough performance by Lou Gossett Jr.) The formulaic story (which at times can get preachy) seems to be fuelled by such topics as crime, racism and talent untapped in what Belushi's strong-minded character transforms, as he might be in over his head however his got nothing to lose.
James Belushi is at his very best in the gritty urban action classic The Principal.
Brandel is an alternative high school where all the bad kids who get kicked out of their prospective schools are sent and is much like a prison and is a breeding ground of drugs, gangs and violence.
Jim Belushi best role and a good way to relax and enjoy an action packed entertaining movie..
"The principal" is one of many movies dealing with violence in school .
Other movies about this subject are "Blackboard jungle" (1955) , "Class of 1984" (1984) , "Stand and deliver" (1988) ,"Lean on me" (1989) , "Dangerous Minds" (1995) , "The Substitute" (1996) , High School High (1996) ,"187" (1997).The best way to look at this movie is to look at it as unusual western.
Most of the kids in this movie isn't portrayed as bad , they just apathetic and the same goes for almost every teacher in Brandel.James Belushi ("Red heat") fits the main role of Rick Latimer incredibly well.
His latest incident, that has him exploding when seeing his ex with another guy, who just happens to be a lawyer, I think, puts him on the bad end of the faculty, where he's demoted and made a principal, of one of the worst high schools, in L.A- Brandell.
We see a man beaten by the odds, about to rebuild his life, and turn this wayward school around, if it means getting rid of the chief hood, Victor, permanently (a frightening and menacing performance by a fine black actor, Michael Wright, him and Belushi reteamed in 1994'S, Race The Sun).
This is a great, popcorn, bubblegum, high school flick, with action, thrills, and a nice re paint job on Belushi's reconstructed bike, as it was dismantled, by Victor and his boys.
This movie is about a simple guy that become principal in a tough school.
James Belushi is the perfect choice in this movie, he was very young at that time in 1987, he was like 32 years old.
If you enjoyed Dangerous Minds, 187, High School High, Lean on Me, or any other movie of its ilk, I highly recommend "The Principal".
The aforementioned movies are pretty good, but what I enjoyed about this one is that, thanks to the talent of James Belushi, is never dull.
The beauty part of Jim Belushi is, if you didn't know he was John's brother, you wouldn't figure it out very quickly if at all.This film doesn't even seem like an 80s movie, so that's why you see it on TV a lot.
Newly divorced High School teacher Rick Latimer(James Belushi) has been reassigned, he is now the Principal of Brandel High School, this inner city school is the physical embodiment of hell, students run amok, smoke dope, drink, and fight (and boy do they FIGHT).
Latimer takes it upon himself to clean up the school, along with security guard Jake Phillips(Louis Gossett Jr.) take on crime and troublesome students.
I think my review title says it all about the James Belushi starring film, The Principal.
It's yet another of those Blackboard Jungle inspired films now updated to the Reagan Era.Belushi's a teacher with a really lousy personal life and after beating up on his ex-wife's boyfriend and trashing the car of same, he gets to spend a night in the clink.
So Belushi's off to Brandel High School which is run by drug dealer Michael Wright and he's only got school custodian Lou Gossett, Jr. as an ally.
My favorite however is Jacob Vargas, a kid that both Chong and Belushi take an interest in.The Principal is in a long line of similarly themed films from The Blackboard Jungle to Dangerous Minds.
this movie is about a man who ends up being principal of one of the worst schools in the country.the school is pretty much run by a drug lord/gang banger and his cronies.the teachers have given up hope on the kids and stopped teaching them.Rick Latimer (James Belushi)is Latimer,who finds himself in over his head,but won't quit.this is more of an action movie than an inspirational one.it's sorta like The Substitute and other similar movies.i don't think there's any real deep message here.and maybe that wasn't the intent of the filmmakers.maybe they just set out to making an entertaining action movie.if so,they succeeded.i found it entertaining.for me,The Principal is a 7/10.
High School Teacher Rick Latimer (James Belushi) is been transfer to other High School in the urban part of the city.
The energy that the movie pramolgate is infinity.After that you see "The Principal" you feel a great sense of revolution to your problem.In your mind the disharge of adrenalin is too hard that seems a thunder,but also if you can't fallow this feeling,it's anyway a good sensation for realize you that in life the bestest thing that you can do it's fight till to end.the actors are superb:James Belushi in the character of hungry Principal is in one of his best performance,nothing else can do this role so conviction,becausealso in the real life Belushi is "Rick Latimer".Louis Grosset jr.is very good and Rae down Chong convictedme in this character..
I dunno, maybe I didn't realize it was an action film and not a drama, which is what I expected, but I was personally hoping for a better dealing with issues in this movie, like a young teenage mother, and the community in which this school is in.
This is the best teacher-like movie that I have ever seen.Basically Ladimer (Belushi) was assigned to a principal job at the absolute worst school in the whole state, Brandel, and it became his job to try and change the kids from convicts to students.
Although it seems that pretty much everyone Ladimer tries to help, ends up the worse for wear, he is determined to make a change in the school, and make everyone understand two words..NO MORE.I highly recommend this movie if you're like for an 80s movie filled with its fair share of action, almost dark comedy, and a good drama..
I've always liked James Belushi but hadn't figured out why until I first saw The Principal.
With the help of a crusty school security head (Louis Gosset Jr.), and a young teacher who cares, plus a growing group of kids who see the light, Latimer takes on the resident student kingpin, a very unlikable young man who deals drugs openly and believes he is in charge.
Then at the 1980s we came back to school in (The Principal) yet in a whole different way.This movie approaches the case through an angle that gathers between the commercial look (war with crime, action scenes, comic remarks) and the rule of meet violence with violence; which was – and still is – a pretty bold matter in movies of that kind.
While it provides a swamp of a school, classic situation for its stubborn idealistic lead to face, rather to fight, many examples for the poor underachievers (single underage mom, a bright yet gangster student, Latino delayed in reading..) and frank criminals (a drug dealer, a rapist..), even loyal assistants (a tough janitor, a nice teacher..), it – in the same time – shows and handles everything and everyone as just a thrilling B-movie fare.All the characters are underdeveloped.
Hollywood soon resurrected the "well-meaning teacher confronts the urban dilemma" movie, and "The Principal" was one of them.Starring Saturday Night Live alumnus Jim Belushi, in this film he plays Rick Latimer.
It is decided that he won't be fired, but instead he'll be promoted: only he'll also transferred to Brandel: An inner-city high school that has seen its better days.Now the principal of Brandel, Rick shows up on his motorcycle to see gang attacks, kids wandering graffiti-tagged hallways, drug commerce and other vices taking place out in the open.
Lean On Me is a better movie, but The Principal manages to be what it set out to be, a rough little slice of inner city justice.P.S. I still think this and K-9, while giving James Belushi something to proud of, still can't match The Blues Brothers and Animal House..
James Belushi, Louis Gossett Jr., Rae Dawn Chong and Michael Wright star in this 1987 drama.
A teacher is sent to be principal of a drug-infested high school.
Rick Latimer (Belushi) is a school teacher who gets himself in trouble and is asked to be principal of drug-infested high school, Brandel.
I've always liked this film and think it's one of Belushi's best.
A man named Rick has to become a principal at Brandel high school. |
tt0053941 | Im weißen Rößl | It is summertime at the Wolfgangsee. Josepha Vogelhuber, the young, attractive but resolute owner of the White Horse Inn, has been courted for some time by her head waiter, Leopold Brandmeyer. While appreciating his aptness for the job, she mistrusts all men as potential gold-diggers, rejects Leopold's advances and longingly waits for the arrival of Dr Siedler, a lawyer who has been one of her regular guests for many years. This year, Josepha hopes, Siedler might eventually propose to her.
When Siedler arrives, he finds himself in the very same place with Wilhelm Giesecke, his client Sülzheimer's business rival, and immediately falls in love with Giesecke's beautiful daughter Ottilie. As it happens, Sülzheimer's son Sigismund, a would-be beau, also arrives at the White Horse Inn. Angry at first about that person's presence at the same inn, Giesecke soon has the idea of marrying off his daughter to Sigismund Sülzheimer, thus turning a pending lawsuit into an advantageous business merger. However, Siedler's love is reciprocated by Ottilie, who adamantly refuses to marry Sigismund, while Sigismund himself has fallen for Klärchen Hinzelmann, a naive beauty who accompanies her professorial father on a tour through the Salzkammergut.
Seeing all this, Leopold Brandmeyer decides that he has had enough and quits his job. Josepha has also done a lot of thinking in the meantime, reconsiders her head waiter's proposal of marriage, and can persuade him to stay—not just as an employee but also as boss. Love gets its way with the other two couples as well, and the play ends with the prospect of a triple marriage. | romantic | train | wikipedia | Childhood''s memories. I saw this when I was a child and even today I can remember the title track and "Was Kann Des Sigismund Dafür, Daß Er so Schön Ist ?" which was translated into French as "On A Le Béguin Pour Célestin" .I can remember Josepha the inn's owner and her butler ,Leopold ,in love with her.Then the guests' arrival and love is around the corner;the plot is made of lovers' to-ings and fro-ings.Everything can happen in that inn ,even the emperor Frances -Josef can come ;this chocolate box Austria with its Agfacolor (like in the Sissi saga ,another dear memory) is as kitsch and as charming as the old Christmas cards.I wish I could see it again!. A great example of cinematic. A great film which I love to see over and over again. It trumps with great actors, a nice scenery and beautiful songs.Some may think them to be out of date but if you give this film a chance - by not expecting a film where violence and sex scenes alternate, but good, solid acting and great songs - you won't be disappointed. Of course, it is slight fare but it doesn't pretend otherwise and provides good entertainment. It is always nice to see films with Peter Alexander, Waltraut Haas and Gunter Philipp (etc); the quality in acting is great. One can't help but like these actors and believe what the stories they're 'telling'.Personally, I can't resist the voice of Peter Alexander and love his songs.. An ill-judged adaptation. The original stage musical "Im weissen Rössl" was a huge international hit in the early 1930s. It probably enjoyed success beyond its merits, but it did have certain factors in its favour. First, amid the turmoil of the Great Depression, it harked back nostalgically to the 'good old days' of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Secondly, it was a spectacle, with fancy stage effects, a large chorus, and elaborate choreography. Thirdly, its music appealed to a wide audience by mixing traditional Viennese operetta with Broadway styles.Strangely, the makers of this 1960 film adaptation, while basically retaining the original plot, dispensed with most of the show's advantages. For a start, they opted for a modern setting: the girls wear bikinis, and Sigismund arrives by helicopter. The Emperor Franz Josef does not appear in this production! True, the natural scenery of the Wolfgangsee is more spectacular than any stage set, but there is little ensemble singing and dancing. As for the music, they simply ditched the majority of it and appointed a largely non-singing cast. Only six or seven songs remain, and they are nearly all shortened and assigned to Leopold (Peter Alexander). The leading lady (Josefa), with nothing to sing, makes very little impression. In the absence of songs, the backing track keeps repeating a couple of the main melodies in jazzy re-arrangements under the dialogue.Take the music out of a musical, and you are left with very thin fare. The main substitute here is slapstick in the style of Norman Wisdom, e.g., the accidental water-skiing scene and the business with the fire-hose and the toupée. Peter Alexander, apparently a star in Austria, clowns his way through the film energetically, but it isn't enough.Visually, the film is striking. The very bright colours are those of picture postcards and holiday brochures, which is apt for a story set in the tourism industry. Of course, IMDb's inclusion of 'Kitsch' as a keyword is absolutely justified. Unfortunately, "The White Horse Inn" (1960) lacks the charm that might have redeemed it.. Boring and far too long. "Im weißen Rößl" or "The White Horse Inn" is an Austrian / West German German-language co-production from 1960, so this 100-minute film had its 55th anniversary last year. The director is Werner Jacobs and he was quite successful back then. Same can be said about some of the cast members such as lead actor Peter Alexander and Adrian Hoven as well as Karin Dor from the supporting cast. The latter two you usually find in serious, sometimes scary, films, but the fact that Alexander is in here tells us that this is a comedy and one with lots of romance too. In the end basically everybody has fallen in love. And one of the worst aspects about this film is how predictable it all was and how uninspired it was in moving towards the happy endings for everybody, something you could already predict very early in the film. And when they simply weren't able anymore pretty early on already to elaborate on the two protagonists, they kept including more and more characters and just revolved the story around them. A pretty bad example of quantity over quality. This is also true looking at how many writers worked on this garbage film. I must say the first 30-45 minutes were still somewhat okay as Alexander carried the film nicely, but the longer it went the messier and messier it became. I personally cared for almost none of the characters in this movie and that's always a deal-breaker. This may partially have to do with my lack of interest, but partially also with the filmmaker's failure to get the audience involved emotionally. 4/10 is still very generous here. The second half was even weaker, but Alexander saved it from becoming a massive failure. But he alone also can not make it a good watch. Stay away, I say. |
tt0255702 | Wishcraft | A high school student named Brett Bumpers (Weston) receives a mysterious package one day. It contains a bull penis totem with a note explaining that it will grant him three wishes. His first wish is for Samantha (Alexandra Holden) to go with him to a spring dance. The next day, Samantha invites him to the dance, and he suspects that his wish has come true. Samantha's boyfriend Cody is the star jock at the school, and he is humiliated by Samantha's decision.
After the dance, one of Cody's buddies is murdered by a cloaked figure with a grotesquely disfigured face. When Brett drops Samantha off at home, she suggests that they should return to just being friends. Heartbroken, Brett makes his second wish that Samantha would become his girlfriend and actually fall in love with him. The next day, Samantha breaks up with Cody and initiates a relationship with Brett. Meanwhile, the cloaked figure continues to kill students at the high school.
Feeling guilty about wishing Samantha into a relationship, Brett confesses the truth to her. As Samantha is coming to grips with the truth, the cloaked figure attacks the pair. He lures Brett away from Samantha and then reveals himself to be Brett's history teacher, Mr. Turner (Austin Pendleton). Mr. Turner explains that he bought the totem and discovered that it actually granted wishes. He wished his wife dead, to avoid divorcing her. Then he wished for "Fuck-you-money", and he promptly got $100 million which he hid in a Swiss bank account. Mr. Turner confessed that he also wished for supernatural strength, because he decided to kill problem students at the school. As he was killing the students on his list, he sent the totem to Brett because he was an exemplary student. If the totem is given to another person, that person can also make three wishes.
Mr. Turner then reveals that Samantha is the last name on his list. Just as he is about to kill Samantha, Brett makes his third wish, asking for more strength and agility than Mr. Turner. The two struggle, and eventually, Brett kills Mr. Turner with a samurai sword. Brett gives the totem to Samantha so that she is not forced to love him against her will. She uses the totem to begin their relationship again, but this time, on her own terms. | murder | train | wikipedia | This movie plays out better than "Cherry Falls" in the long run (CF peeters out and turns into a predictable slasher film in the end; this film does not).Also, the chemistry between the leads is good and the movie doesn't overextend itself and play up the supernatural too much with cheesy special effects they probably couldn't afford anyway.
Once the dance is over, the spell is over and she tells him that 'no hard feelings but our relationship is over'.The girl goes back to her boyfriend and things back to normal BUT he wants this girl to be his girlfriend, so he uses his second wish to make the girl be his girlfriend and love him forever.
This is played out perfectly, providing the viewer to witness what she's going through - providing us her pov.Like every HORROR movie there's someone killing students and because giving the ending away would ruin the movie - lets say that the ending and the actions are very appropriate...
The entirely natural relationships and deft avoidance of so many easy cliches makes this one of the best 'B' movies I've seen, and a lesson for directors & writers with much bigger budgets."Horror" seems a bit strong in describing Wishcraft.
The end itself (which can ruin a film) is pretty good too.It's difficult to say more without revealing the movie, and I recommend you see this the same way I did - optimistically, and with a vague hope that it's better than Wishmaster (which it so is).In fact, if they pumped up the soundtrack and had more famous faces, this film would easily be in the same league as Scream, Swimfan and (dare I say it) an average episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer..
A brilliant blend of different genre's, with the end result being a superb horror/teen slasher flick!.
What starts off as a stereotypical teen-angst story of a nerd being in love with the prom queen quickly and furiously mutates into a horror film about a boy with three wishes, and how he chooses to use that power.The ending is great, and truly a surprise.
What is the biggest surprise is the fact that no one saw it coming - when you think the film is headed in one direction, it is actually going in another!
A better than average horror movie which has some elements of teen slasher movies, sinister magic practices, and a mystery killer that is stalking a small town.Some of the conventions of these kind of stories are tossed in as familiar clichés: teacher's pet nerd who likes popular cheerleader, loudmouth idiot jock, smart alek classmates, frustrated science teacher, useless bureaucrats, and other familiar personality types.
At the same time, vicious murders of some students commence, and follow the usual teen slasher flick methods.The movie introduces too few characters to effectively conceal the identity of the killer, and also betrays the identity with too many clues.
Just a good old scary story of teenagers getting killed by a strange and very strong killer.
But the bodycount starts getting bigger all around the campus and seems closely related to the (fake?) totem.Having a nerd playing the hero is a pretty good idea (and the film does have very good ideas for itself as the killer really knows how to scare and kill its victims).
Murders scenes are ingenious and originals which in this genre is quite a tour de force.In conclusion, a very forgettable movie but competent and fun to watch.Superwonderscope says 6.
On this movie you cannot comment in ways like "eeew, another bad teen movie", because in my opinion there is much more in it than just the things you can easily be seen.When I watched the first minutes of that movie, I wondered what this film would be about, because I was awaiting a horror movie.
But with some more minutes passing by, I started to like this one - and then I got my horror.Well, I think the main disadvantage of that movie is, to choose a totem which is a bull's penis.
And there also is a hidden moral, if you read between the lines.Brett wishes a relationship with Samantha, but after some time he realizes that you cannot force feelings like he did with his wish.
The violence is more in line with a PG-13 horror movie, and I think Wishcraft got its R rating mostly from a few choice profanities uttered merely to avoid a PG-13.If you like campy and quirky horror movies, you'll probably enjoy Wishcraft.
Instead, it seems to be more of a teen thriller, influenced by slasher movies.The story was better than I was expecting, though the ending kind of came out of nowhere.
Some people will find it a bit too inhibited (especially for an R-rated horror movie) or boring (much of the movie is spent developing the romance between the protagonist and his girlfriend), but I thought it was enjoyable..
This teen slasher obviously lacks a decent amount of story, since i dropped in halfway & still managed to reconstruct the whole story ( not in the least because all of it was retold in the form of a confession that the Nerd is making to the Pretty Girlfriend ).
In order to sit through it, these are the good elements : - Alexandra Holden - a girl being hung by use of a traffic light - a guy being crushed with a bowling ball - a cool killer outfit - a katana - Viking dart - a teacher handing us our comeuppance.
A nerd gets a bull penis in the mail one day, which grants him three wishes.
Meatloaf seems to make REALLY good movie role choices (Fight Club, Rocky Horror, Wayne's World, etc..) or pretty bad ones (pretty much any other movie, including this one)My Grade: C- Where i saw it: Cinemax.
A high school student (Brett) receives a mysterious package in the mail that holds some kind of mutilated animal genitalia and states it grants three wishes.
After initially throwing it straight in the bin Brett has a change of heart as the school dance looms and digs it out again.Making wishes triggers a string of 'Scream-like' murders by a cloaked figure, which come across as somewhat supernatural, on other students.
At Edinburgh's Dead by Dawn horror festival, I had the dubious pleasure of watching Wishcraft, in which a 20-something `teen' cast get killed by some nasty demon-looking creature, after one receives a mysterious bulls penis in the post which grants wishes.
Yup, it's the old teen slasher at it again, although in it's defence, Wishcraft does feature a couple of daftly inventive deaths, such as the bowling ball sequence.
Sadly, it gets far too bogged down in the teen angst angle, as our geeky `hero' Brett (Michael Weston) wishes for the most beautiful blonde in the school be his girlfriend.
So bad it makes other bad teen slasher "Cherry Falls" seem like a good movie....
Wishcraft is another bad teen horror movie.
Sometimes seems like the movie tries to be funny, but the jokes...(argh!)The main character gets a "wishing device" which is bull´s penis...
I usually don't enjoy the teen slasher flick genre, but this one makes all those I know What you did last summers, and Urban Myth movies look great.
The geek gets the girl after being granted three wishes.The movie is very standard feature, with some interesting blood and gore scenes.
The love-story is much better, and there are some humoristic scenes that are worth watching.If you want an interesting sci-fi movie about getting wishes granted, «Wishmaster» is better.5/10.
The main character Brett gets a bull's penis in the mail.
later he decides he has nothing to lose and takes the bull's penis out of the trash and makes a wish that the popular cheerleader named Samantha will asked him to the spring dance.
Brett decides to make a second wish asking for Samantha to be his girlfriend forever.
This seems to be a dream come true for Brett until he gets to know Samantha and actually starts to feel guilty.
Give this film a chance if you like a good slasher flick!
This is one of my favorite teen Slasher movies, that's extremely entertaining, with a really creative story, and fantastic performances!.
This is one of my favorite teen Slasher movies, that's extremely entertaining, with a really creative story, and fantastic performances!.
A.J. Buckley is very funny as Brett's best friend, and I found the plot to be fascinating, plus you care for the two leads in Weston and Holden because there so likable.
Some of the movie's best scenes came when Brett's wishes were coming true, and Alexandra Hodlen is also incredible eye candy!
Meat Loaf is pretty bad though(could have been worse though), and one part that made me laugh a lot was when Howie (A.J Buckley), wishes to become a bad ass like Steven Seagal, and ends up getting his ass kicked, and the ending always puts a huge smile on my face, plus one of the main reasons I was able to care for Brett's character is because in a way I'm very much like him.
This is one of my favorite teen Slasher movies, that's extremely entertaining, with a really creative story, and fantastic performance, and if you haven't seen it give it a chance, you might end up loving it as much as I did, but not everyone will.The Direction is wonderful!.
job here with fantastic camera work, awesome angles, adding some creepy atmosphere at times, and just keeping the film at an extremely fast pace.There is a little bit of gore, lot of off screen stuff(mostly).
Michael Weston is amazing here, he is extremely likable, reminded me a lot of myself, had outstanding chemistry with Alexandra Holden, was charismatic, had a geeky charm, and showed tons of potential, I hope he makes it big, because he's certainly got the talent!
Alexandra Holden is also amazing here, she is incredibly gorgeous, extremely sexy, had outstanding chemistry with Weston, was extremely likable, showed that she could be a fantastic scream queen, and had a really cool character, I loved her!
A.J. Buckley is hilarious as the best friend,he was childish but in a lovable way, he had great chemistry with Weston I loved him!.
Hi-school nerd Brett Bumper (Michael Weston) has got a crush on the school beauty, Samantha (Alexandra Holden).
As his relationship with his sweetheart deepens, the murders begin getting closer to home until Brett realises that Sam could be next on the killer's list
.Unlike most of the z-grade genre pieces that have been slowly fading from store shelves, Wishcraft looks neatly produced and fairly well budgeted.
There's a little bit of romantic comedy, a few teen movie ingredients and for the main course, a dose of horror.
The previous reviewers had it right when they said this movie is a crappy combination of two far superior horror movies - "Wishmaster" and "Scream".The movie is funny in terms of how awful it is, for instance the lead male character is supposed to be a high school boy, but he looks like he is in his late 20's or even early 30's!
And most of the other supposed high school "kids" are also way older than they are supposed to be.There is nothing more jarring and breaking of realism in a movie than characters where the actors don't fit the roles they are supposed to be playing.
Also, the movie doesn't know what it wants to be, a cutesy teen romance or a violent slasher movie.Note to horror fans, the kills are not good, there are very few of them, the gore is wanting, and a lot of the movie consists of silly dialogue and no action.Even the basic premise is a rip off of the movie "Wishmaster", where the characters get three wishes.
ENDING SPOILER The main villain turns out to be not supernatural at all, but an old washed up history teacher at the high school.The only bright spot is Alexandra Holden, who plays the hot cheerleader and the prettiest girl in the school who the male character lusts after.
Rubbishy horror film that offers nothing new, you know your in trouble when even Meat Loaf uses a pseudonym!
Great, I thought, thinking this was a perfect opportunity to watch a good horror & soak up the atmosphere it being a dark, stormy, rainy night.
Unfortunately instead of a good horror I ended up watching the abysmal Wishcraft...
Brett tells his best, & only, friend Howie (A.J. Buckley) who convinces him to give it a try & make a wish.
Brett wishes that a blonde babe named Samantha Warren (Alexanda Holden), whom he has a crush on, would ask him to go to an upcoming school dance.
The next day at school Samantha does indeed ask Brett to the dance which annoys her stud boyfriend Cody (Huntley Ritter).
Brett uses his second wish to make Samantha fall in love with him which antagonises Cody even more & puts a strain on his friendship with Howie as Brett's life starts to spiral out of control, & the small matter of a psycho killer running around keeps rearing it's ugly head as more of Brett's classmates die & Detective Sparky Shaw (Meat Loaf as Micheal Aday) is determined to catch those responsible...Directed by Danny Graves & Richard Wenk I thought Wishcraft was a pretty awful film.
The friends who keep splitting up, a killer who is not as they first appear & all the good guys live to see a sickeningly happy ending while all the bad ones die, yawn.
At first Wishcraft tries to convince the viewer that a demon of some sort is responsible for the killings but is revealed not to be the case during the incredibly lame 'twist' ending, the killers motives are worthless, bland & mean absolutely nothing in the sense that the killer more or less just 'felt' like killing some random teenagers as they have no real connection to anyone else for the majority of the film.
The plot devices which connect the Bull's penis, the three wishes, the killer & Brett together are tenuous & very simplistic.
At the end I felt that the supernatural elements just didn't work alongside the bog-standard teen slasher themes, they never really gel that well.
I also have to mention the endings, first the 'exciting' climax when the killer is unmasked & the hero saves the day which is really bad & seemingly had very little thought put into it & the second 'true love conquers all' happy ending afterwards which goes on for a full five minutes, yuck.
Wishcraft is also really slow & boring spending far too much time on Brett's magical relationship with Samantha, during these scenes I swore I could have been watch a Disney film as the school nerd gets to date the best looking blonde around & not quite know how to handle it.
Director's Graves & Wenk fail to create any atmosphere, tension, scares, surprises or shocks & Wishcraft ends up having the look & feel of a TV film.
"Wishcraft" is a decent slasher but nothing special.**SPOILERS**Trying to win Samantha Warren, (Alexandra Holden) the girl of his dreams, Brett Bumpers, (Michael Weston) receives a strange package in the mail that grants wishes.
As the killer turns to Brett, Samantha and their friend Howie, (A.J. Buckley) with the police on their trail, a secret about who sent the packages and why they're killing the students leads to a final showdown in the woods.The Good News: This is a really competent slasher film with some rather nice examples of the genre.
Coupled with the different kills committed during the film, it's the definition of a great killer.
Watching those scenes are a pain, and feel a little out-of-place in a slasher film.
It could've been fixed, and makes it all the more likely that it would've been decent.The Final Verdict: When it's a slasher film, this really work ad works well, but it's interrupted by moments of boredom when the teen angle side is pursued.
Seemed he could care less about those who died, and probably wouldn't have cared until the killer made it clear he would go after main char's beloved Sam. Which brings me to the end of the movie.Couldn't Whiner have wished himself back in time, or that the totem never was found in the first place?
Horror/comedy movie or not, I will not root for a guy that has sex with a girl when she's under a love spell of his (no matter how big jerks the rest of the ensemble turns out to be), and then gets her in the end.
Killer dealt with, love spell revoked, new wishes to manipulate people being made.
But alas, my wish wasn't granted.If you like horror movies, save yourself the trouble, and wish for a better movie to enjoy.
But if you can handle bad "horror" movies, go ahead and watch it.
Quite mesmerizing, it gives the impression of someone who was wearing a surgical mask while he was getting a tan.Second, as usual, people who receive three wishes are SO unimaginative in using them, and the main character is equally clueless in this movie.
A worthy take on the teen Horror genre, but perhaps a bit too light for some..
It's a slick well made movie that will appeal greatly to anyone in to teen Horrors.
I saw 30 seconds of this on Sci-Fi one night, which was enough to make me check it out, and as a movie I enjoyed it greatly, but I felt the horror element was way too light to really think of it as much more than a teen comedy with horror elements. |
tt0343095 | This Girl's Life | Moon (Juliette Marquis) is a down-to-earth young woman who happens to be one of the most popular adult film stars. She finds no fault in using her sexuality as a means of profit. While she is in the process of renewing her contract, her personal life remains a delicate issue as her father (James Woods) suffers from Parkinson's disease and a blind date (Kip Pardue) remains hesitant to get close to Moon after learning of her profession.
Moon's friend Jessie hires her to fidelity test her boyfriend, Moon agrees and decides to offer the same to other women. One of the women hires her to test her husband and Moon goes in to pretend to buy a car from the husband, a man named Terry (Michael Rapaport), and offers sex for a deal on the car. When he agrees to it, they start fooling around and she excuses herself to the bathroom, and sneaks out the bathroom window. Terry catches her before she drives off. When asking why she left she inadvertently reveals she was hired to test him by his wife. Terry gets angry, begging her not to tell his wife, saying he'll pay more. When she does not agree to remain quiet he repeatedly violently hits her car with a pipe, and threatening her.
The film cuts to scenes of a younger Moon starting out in the business. Moon starts to re-evaluate her life with the idea of starting over afresh and tells Aronson, who was interviewing two new potential porn stars, that she's an adult now and has to make better choices with herself and life. Aronson wishes her well.
After Moon leaves Aronson's place she is approached by Terry who is obviously angry that Moon told his wife about his infidelity. He attacks and threatens her with a knife saying she owes him, that she ruined his life and she needs to make it up to him. Moon tells him she quit the business. He throws her to the ground and forces himself on her. When she fights him, Terry tells her he followed her and he knows all about her. He threatens her father's safety, telling her to stop fighting him. He tries to rape her but Moon headbutts him breaking his nose and throwing him off of her. She runs out and as the film ends she goes over to see Kip. | pornographic, violence | train | wikipedia | I also heard James Woods gave a great performance in this film not to mention the thought that I may get to see some very attractive eye candy.
James Woods does a knock out job in this movie and yes you get to see some very attractive naked girls.
I know it sounds like a cheesy two bit soft core film, but the story moves fast and the portrayal of a porn star is shown with insight and strength.
Where many films have attempted this, this movie that no one has seen or heard of, did a great job with handling this subject.
This is the story of Moon, played by a positively ravishing Juliette Marquis.Moon's mother died in a car accident when she was young and takes care of her father who has Parkinson's Disease and is willing to drop anything she is doing if he needs her.
She just happens to be a porn star.There are hardly any negative characters in this movie.
Moon shows no attitude of being a successful porn star and even her boss, Aronson (played by Tomas Arana) was a likable guy.
Later in the movie, a friend of Moon's asks her to hit on her boyfriend to see if he would cheat on her if given the opportunity and you get a few unlikeable characters once this happens (good job by Michael Rapaport).
This is also where the movie takes a bit of a darker turn, but nothing huge.Juliette Marquis is a very good actress who has the looks and talent to become the next big thing in Hollywood.
I truly hope to see big things come of her.James Woods was Pops, the Parkison's ridden father, who played that part to a tee.
This was an interesting film in that it portrayed a likable individual with some good (but often indirect) character development as the porn star.
I have not seen any other films depicting the porn industry and its stars that I can think of, so I can't compare it to "the competition." I actually know a few people who have worked in this industry, and felt the characters depicted were consistent with the people I know.The lead actress did give a credible performance.
In fact, "This Girl's Life" seems to be two movies: first, it works over the relationships of internet pornstar Moon and the world around her - this part is truly great, with very well-constructed characters (specially Moon herself and her ill father, played by James Woods) and cleverly avoiding making judgements about anything; the second, which comes up on the final third of the movie, is clearly weaker, more moralist and somehow desconstructing the characters so wonderfully built on the first part.All in all, a movie that deserves to be seen...
I liked this film, mainly because of it's "real life" feeling.
I think Ebert says all about this film in just one phrase: '"This Girl's Life" is an imperfect movie with so many moments of truth that you forgive its stumbles.'That's about it, this is a very realistic, believable film with a couple of excellent performances by Juliette Marquis and James Woods.
The usual trajectory for ripoffs would be more sex and less character.I suppose in some ways, we wouldn't have "This Girl's Life" if we hadn't had "Boogie Nights," but this film is actually pretty good.
She's not exactly beautiful but she is sexy and exotic and has a nasal voice that sometimes drops into the lower register.But Marquis gets surprisingly good support from such mainstream players as Rosario Dawson, and adequate support from Cheyenne Silver, a genuine star of sex films who has a fresh-faced attractiveness that suggests she grew up on a farm and fed on nothing but cream and ripe strawberries.
Anyone who wants to see what she looks like all over can easily have his curiosity satisfied with a bit of effort.James Woods is super as Pops, Marquis' father who is stricken with Parksinson's disease.
The only investment of ego on display is his talent.If "Boogie Nights" showed us that the sex movie industry of the 1970s was like a family, "This Girl's Life" demonstrates that the family is not entirely functional these days.
His case seems to be hanging in the air at the end when, after a violent encounter with a man whose life Marquis has just professionally put an end to, she takes off with her naive young monogamous lover.I assume -- I HOPE -- that she finally got back to taking care of Pops, because his disorder is rather advanced and it would take him an hour to peel a banana.In any case, the very amateurishness of some of the performances contributes to the documentary feel of the film, but it's a documentary that is emotionally charged.A surprise, well worth watching..
The porn star Moon (Juliette Marquis) spends her time working, nursing her widowed father (James Woods) that has Parkinson disease and with her friends Jessie (Kam Heskin) and Martine (Rosario Dawson).
But when she meets the dangerous Terry (Michael Rapaport), she reevaluates her life and her relationship with Skip."This Girl's Life" is an underrated movie that follows the pattern of Ken Russell's "Whore", with the lead actress talking to the camera like in a documentary.
This is the first work that I have seen from the director Ash and the gorgeous actress Juliette Marquis and I liked what I have seen.
James Woods proves again that he is one of the most underrated actor in Hollywood, with an amazing performance of a man with Parkinson disease.
But the star of this movie is the unknown and extremely sexy and gorgeous Juliette Marquis that has a magnificent performance in the role of a porn star.
I like James Woods, and I thought his performance in this film as a father with Parkinson's was outstanding.
I was really touched watching her stop her life at times to care for her father, ass-wiping and all.Rosario Dawson made a couple of brief appearances talking about the porn life, and gave some brilliant comments.This is not really a "porn" movie, but a drama shot in documentary style showing the life of someone in the internet porn business.
it not that type of movie that i thought.it is different like one of my favorite movie "Boogie Nights".the story line of this movie is about a porn star named "moon"(Juliette marques).from her own point of view, we enter the inner side of porn industry, her relations with so-called modern society, her own father, friends and her values.the script, music, direction and acting are brilliant.especially i want to mention the character "moon" in which plays a brilliant new comer actress Juliette marques.
and i like James woods also for playing the character "pops".finally, i also want to give thanks to director ash for making such a brilliant adult drama.i would like to rate this movie: 8 out of 10..
With her beauty and intelligence it should be easy for Moon (Juliette Marquis) to enjoy a successful career, have plenty of friends and find true love, even if she is burdened by her handicapped father.
James Woods (Pops) adds a fair dose of slapstick comedy and vulgar humor.I gave this movie a 7.
James Woods does an impressive impersonation of a Parkinson's patient, and the supporting actors are good enough to sell what to me is a relatively novel story that is a little too far fetched and biased.The take home message seems to be that women are honest and hardworking, while men get what they want by lying, cheating and, if need be, through brute force.
But it really shocked me to find all those hot actors and actresses playing along.James Woods,Isaiah Washington, and especially my favorite Rosario Dawson!
She tells about her life as a porn star and how it affects her while caring for her ill fated father,James Woods.Not to mention some other problems that begin to develop in the process.
A 'slice of life' of a web-porn star who acts like so has it all together.
She juggles a career in porn, caring for her Parkinson stricken father, and later a side job as a sex investigator.
I really do think all the people who absolutely fawn over this film are blinded by Juliette Marquis's beauty (I admit she IS stunning), but that is hardly enough to life this made for cable flick up from the mediocrity of being merely average..
James Woods did really good job as Moon's father and i was kinda suprised he even played in the movie 'cause it seemed to me as really small indie movie.
before the screening the director Ash came and said few words about the movie and after there was debate with him and Juliette Marquis the actress who played Moon.
in the debate there was question about censors in US 'cause of the nudity but i don't think you can do movie about porn star and have no nudity in it, so if censors will give the movie some harsh rating 'cause of it i think a lot of younger people will miss one of best movies i've seen this year..
I liked it & James Woods was great!.
I thought this was one of James Woods best performances.
The movie has no really interesting or even surprising turning points, no good acting or thrilling music.
Porn's pumping "erotic"-level most of the time would be like, -10, whereas This Girl's Life is at 8 of 10, seriously, great subtle stuff.
With regard to that there's a nice running gag too, with Pops "disturbing" always at the worst moments.With regard to thought, one big thing I don't understand is why a lot of people think of it being very evaluative in the end, stating the good ol' cliché "porn's industry's no good".
I give him a chance because he went to medical school before turning to acting, so he ain't dumb, but I just don't like him much.The standout performance in this movie was clearly from Michael Rappaport as the car dealer.
Yup, you're one hell of an actor, Michael, you frigging nutjob!I liked the way the porn producer turned out to be a real scumbag.
It probably wasn't a coincidence that the car dealer found and attacked her right outside his studio a few moments after she quit.I found the comments about the movie and the porn industry made by Rosario Dawson to be very interesting.
How do these people get to have James Woods (who was the only person worth watching in this film, playing a man with Parkinson's), Rosario Dawson in this film?
But the movie is bold in tackling a subject like that and the actors (some of them well known, like James Woods) too.The leading actress who's more than mesmerizing in this one, seems to have gone out of the industry and if her twitter is correct, she wants to evolve to a filmmaker.
It's the industry, it's her personal life (family issues) and of course a maybe bad choice in secondary career besides the films she did.There are quite a few interesting ideas thrown around and a lot of nice but also horrible things that are happening.
'This Girl's Life' is a "Slice of life" take on life of international porn celebrity, Moon, and her musings on modern life, love and loss.'This Girl's Life' is a depressing & brutal film, but its pretty effective.
Woods has NEVER been this good.I strongly recommend 'This Girl's Life'.
This movie is veritable house of cards constructed of candid "insights" on life (analogies aplenty) and held together by watered down attempts at graphic shock value...also there are some cards.James Woods' actual talent only serves to accentuate the bear-wearing-a-funny-hat that is the rest of the movie.Also, this movie offers a rare chance to see Michael Rapaport rape someone on screen (that is, outside of a courtroom environment.) In conclusion, directors should make better movies than this and have two names..
James Woods' portrayal as leading character's-Moon-father afflicted with Parkinson's, Michael Rappaport, Tomas Arana, etc.?
The film was about a woman's journey through her brief career of porn, but the real story was the great interaction between her and her father, whom she really has a love and compassion for.
And I love it when actors portray characters who are given their same name in the movie, like he was-how embarrassing!
The life and times of a porn star are chronicled in this B grade movie, featuring a number of notable actors.
While not beautiful, newcomer Marquis (shades of Angelina Jolie) is a competent actress and an alluring presence as Moon, the porn star.
Woods plays her father, a man suffering from Parkinson's disease, and this character becomes rather tiresome after a while.
That's how Moon (Juliette Marquis) tells it; the character that carries with the plot of the movie, and is the "Mohammed Ali" of porn.
So the cell phone rings; it's Pops (James Woods), who has Parkinson's, and Moon lives for him.The latter mentioned conversation and other peculiar situations are showings of the good screenplay that Ash has constructed.
James Woods is lucid and intense in a role that is easy to play; but he doesn't care if it is easy
He takes it to its highest level.The rest of the cast includes fine performances all the way from Rosario Dawson (Martine), Michael Rapaport (Terry), Ioan Gruffudd (Daniel), Cheyenne Silver (Cheyenne), Isaiah Washington (Shane), Kam Heskin (Jessie) and many more.Surprises are also included; and I wonder: What will be the next thing to come out from this twisted or maybe brilliant mind?.
There's an interesting movie to be made about a woman who chooses to work in the adult film industry, not because she's emotionally damaged, but because she likes the money and community she finds there.
(These moments involving her father and her friends do raise the question of how this movie managed to get James Woods and Rosario Dawson to sign on.) The scenes where the lead character works as a professional entrapper, for lack of a better term, do nothing other than make her look like a fool.
One of the first things she says at the beginning of the movie is she wasn't abused like you usually think people in the sex industry were but it doesn't have to be abuse; a trauma is a trauma regardless of abuse and her mother committed suicide when she was a child that is a major trauma.
The supporting cast is solid and Woods acts his sock off as the Parkinsons afflicted father subtly dealing with the awareness that his daughter is supporting him by working in the sex industry.
This is an intriguing film that takes a sincere, albeit somewhat convoluted, look at one woman's odyssey in the Internet porn world.It may seem voyeuristic, but I find it dead-on informative in a slice-of-life manner (such as the scene where Moon is judging the potential men to sleep with and commenting on their ...
Ultimately it's about human relationships and the kind of relationships Moon (played by Juliette Marquis, who should rightfully be a star someday) wants and needs in her life.
Where the movie fails is the half-hearted moralistic turn it takes about halfway through the film, though it's honest and necessary to capture the seamier side of the industry.
It is the story of Moon, a veteran porn star who is becoming well known after 5 years of movie and Internet fame, and her life which is more than being a porn star.There are many scenes of the porn industry presented in a matter of fact fashion.
Viewers may have different moral or ethical judgments or opinions about character motivations.James Woods plays Moon's "Pop" suffering from Parkinson's in an excellent portrayal.
Juliette Marquis is excellent and beautiful.Recommended for mature adult and broad minded viewers.SPOILERS.....A theme brought up in the beginning of the movie of the difference between men and women is explored in the later half of the movie as she starts a sexual infidelity investigation service.The basic question toward the end of the movie is rather she should continue her porn career when a boyfriend and the other career opportunity offer alternatives..
Juliette Marquis Is Impressive In Her First Film.
This Girl's Life is a film narrative that revolves around the life of Moon,a porn star that was portrayed by Juliette Marquis in her movie debut.
James Woods, Michael Rapaport, Rosario Dawson and Kip Pardue play supporting roles.It was written and directed by Ash.The story examines the world of a young internet porn superstar named Moon.The drama focuses on Moon's relationships with her father,who is suffering from Parkinson's Disease; her best friend; a potential boyfriend; and her porn producer.
Told from her, a new guilt-free, voyeuristic sexuality is explored as the young sex star's world slowly unravels as she tests the boundaries of herself and those closest to her.This is a good movie that tells the truth.Despite of its many flaws,one can still fully appreciate this film as we get to know the human side of a porn superstar with regards to her relationships,trials,tribulations and the other experiences that she has had.Also,it has great performances from James Woods and Juliette Marquis,who was quite impressive considering its her first movie role..
Filmed in a pseudo documentary style, this Indie drama looks at porn star Moon(Juliette Marquis)and her rise to fame and her tribulations to leave the business.
She loves sex, and uses most of her earnings doing porn to take care of her father(James Woods), who suffers Parkinson's.
It looks like a soft porn film with a fantastic looking-star, opens with a tease of a sex scene, and then deteriorates into a soft porn story-line with VERY little pay-off.
Hey, it's got some kinda famous porn stars in it, and the lead character is better looking than any of them, so you might get your hopes up: don't.
This would work better as a real porn movie or if it were about a real porn star's life. |
tt0112255 | 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up | Rocky (Michael Treanor), Colt (Max Elliott Slade), Tum Tum (Chad Power) defend "Truth, Justice and the American Way", once more - this time, protecting a Native American village and the rest of society against a Toxic Waste Company.
During a summer the boys are staying with Grandpa Mori when they encounter a group assaulting a girl named Jo at a pizza parlour. After fending off the men, they are praised for their martial arts techniques which gives them big heads. Despite their efforts, they are put to work by Mori and the pizza owner to work off damages. Mori tries to teach them a lesson in humility, but the reference of a flower blooming goes over their heads. Jo comes to the boys later and explains that the men are under the employ of Jack Harding, an industrialist who is illegally dumping toxic contents into the reserve. Without proof, they can do nothing. Jo's father had gone to investigate but had not returned. Colt, who is seemingly attracted to Jo, says that they will help, and they mount an escape plan for her father that night, which is successful. They spend the night celebrating with the tribe and getting thanks for helping them. Jo's father appeals for a court date with significant evidence to put Jack out of business for good, undeterred. Jack arranges to have Jo kidnapped and convince her father to falsify his evidence, which he has no other choice.
Rocky and the others get information to where Jo is being held and drive out to free her and return before the court case is dismissed and all of her father's hard work accounts for nothing. After working through a small band of armed men, they find Jo and return her to the court house just before her father turns the real evidence over to Jack. He admits his mistake and hands the evidence to the judge who deems the case and shuts down the company producing the waste. Jo looks around for the 'heroes' of the day, but they are nowhere to be found. Rocky realizes the point of Mori's earlier lesson: that a flower is content to bloom quietly, without clamoring for attention.The film ends with Grandpa Mori and the boys somersaulting into the air in victory. | cult, violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0129290 | Patch Adams | A suicidal Hunter "Patch" Adams (Robin Williams) commits himself into a mental institution. Once there, he finds that using humor, as opposed to the indifferent sessions provided by their doctor, to help his fellow patients gives him a purpose in life. Because of this he wants to become a medical doctor and two years later enrolls at the Medical College of Virginia (now known as VCU School of Medicine) as the oldest first year student. He questions the school's soulless approach to medical care and clashes with the school's Dean Walcott (Bob Gunton), who believes that doctors must treat patients as patients and not bond with them as people. Because of this and incidents such as setting up a giant pair of legs during an obstetric conference, he is expelled from the medical school, although he is later reinstated due to his methods actually helping patients improve. Adams encourages medical students to work closely with nurses, learn interviewing skills early, and argues that death should be treated with dignity and sometimes even humor.
Adams begins a friendship with fellow student Carin Fisher (Monica Potter), and develops his idea for a medical clinic built around his philosophy of treating patients using humor and compassion. With the help of Arthur Mendelson (Harold Gould), a wealthy man who was a patient whom Patch met while in the mental hospital, he purchases 105 acres (425,000 m²) in West Virginia to construct the future Gesundheit! Institute. Together with Carin, medical student Truman Schiff (Daniel London), and some old friends, he renovates an old cottage into a clinic. When they get the clinic running, they treat patients without medical insurance and perform comedy sketches for them.
Carin and Patch's friendship soon turns into romance. When she tells him that she had been molested as a child, Patch comforts her and reassures her that she can overcome her pain by helping others. Encouraged, Carin wants to help a disturbed patient, Lawrence "Larry" Silver (Douglas Roberts). However, Larry murders Carin then commits suicide. Patch is devastated and guilt-ridden by Carin's death, and begins to question the goodness in humanity. Standing on a cliff, he contemplates suicide once again and questions God about what happened. He then sees a butterfly which reminds him of Carin's telling him earlier how she always wished she was a caterpillar that could someday transform itself and fly away. The butterfly lands on his medical bag and on his shirt before flying away. This reminds Patch of Carin and revives his spirits, and he decides to continue his work in her honor.
He is expelled from medical school a second time for running a clinic and practicing medicine without a license and because of complaints that he has made his patients uncomfortable (which is obviously not true). He files a grievance with the state medical board at the advice of his former medical school roommate, uptight Mitch Roman (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Patch is able to convince the board that he did his best to help the people that came to him, and as a doctor it is his responsibility to treat the spirit as well as the body. The board accepts Patch's methods and decides to allow him to graduate. He receives a standing ovation from the packed hearing room.
At graduation, Patch receives his diploma and bows to the professors and the audience, revealing that he is not wearing anything under his gown. | avant garde, dramatic, cult, suicidal, psychedelic, humor, inspiring, romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0072954 | L'esorciccio | Lankester Merrin is a veteran Catholic priest and exorcist who is on an archaeological dig in Iraq. There he finds an amulet that resembles the statue of Pazuzu, a demon whom Merrin had defeated years before. Merrin then realizes the demon has returned to seek revenge.
Meanwhile, in Georgetown, actress Chris MacNeil is living on location with her 12-year-old daughter Regan, where Chris has just wrapped the final scene of a film about student activism directed by her friend and associate Burke Dennings. After playing with a Ouija board and contacting a supposedly imaginary friend whom she calls Captain Howdy, Regan begins acting strangely, including making mysterious noises, stealing, constantly using obscene language, and exhibiting abnormal strength. Chris hosts a party, only for Regan to come downstairs unannounced, telling one of the guests, who is an astronaut, "You're gonna die up there", and then urinating on the floor. Regan's bed also begins to shake violently, much to her and her mother's horror. Chris consults multiple physicians, but Dr. Klein and his associates find nothing medically wrong with her daughter, despite Regan undergoing a battery of diagnostic tests.
One night when Chris is out, Burke Dennings is babysitting Regan, only for Chris to come home to hear he has died falling out the window. Although this is assumed to have been an accident, given Burke's history of heavy drinking, his death is investigated by Lieutenant William Kinderman, who interviews Chris, as well as priest and psychiatrist Father Damien Karras, who has had his faith in God severely weakened and left badly shaken after the death of his frail mother.
The doctors, thinking that Regan only believes she is possessed, recommend an exorcism to be performed. Chris arranges a meeting with Karras. After recording Regan speaking backwards and witnessing the etching of the words "Help Me" on her stomach, Karras is convinced Regan is possessed. Believing her soul is in danger, he decides to perform an exorcism. The experienced Merrin is selected to do so instead, with Karras present to assist.
Both priests witness Regan perform a series of bizarre, vulgar acts, and confine her to her bedroom. They attempt to exorcise the demon, but a stubborn Pazuzu toys with them, especially Karras. Karras shows weakness, and is dismissed by Merrin, who attempts the exorcism alone. Karras enters the room and discovers Merrin has died of a heart attack. After failing to revive Merrin, the enraged Karras confronts the mocking, laughing spirit of Pazuzu, tackling the demon to the ground. At Karras's furious demand, Pazuzu then possesses Karras, leaving Regan's body. In a moment of self-sacrifice, the priest throws himself out of the window without allowing Pazuzu to compel him to harm Regan, and is himself mortally injured. Father Dyer, an old friend of Karras, happens upon the scene and administers the last rites to his friend.
A few days later Regan, who is now back to her normal self, prepares to leave for Los Angeles with her mother. Although Regan has no apparent recollection of her possession, she gives Father Dyer a kiss, a likely hint at posthumous thanks to Father Merrin and Father Karras. Kinderman, who narrowly misses their departure, befriends Father Dyer as he investigates Karras's death. | cult | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0107012 | Il giovane Mussolini | The movie starts off with Mussolini arriving in a small town in 1901 and getting a job as a school teacher; he is subsequently fired for having sex with the headmaster's daughter. This would be a common theme throughout the movie. After giving up on teaching, he works as a builder on the new University of Geneva campus building, and where a lover persuades him to become a student. This is also where he organizes his first protest after the death of a worker he knew. For this, he is nearly deported but is saved by Angelica's intervention. After getting run out of then-Austro-Hungarian Trieste, he goes back to his hometown of Forlì, where he marries Rachele. Soon he is at the forefront of the Socialist movement when he becomes the editor-in-chief of Avanti!. At this point Mussolini unites the "reds," the Socialists, with the "yellows," the Republicans in an anti-war movement. This marks the peak of his power, with the Italian left-wing politics under his control. However, he gradually loses his anti-war fervor and splits from the Socialist party altogether, turning all his allies into enemies. | violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0099316 | Crazy People | Emory Leeson is an advertising executive who experiences a nervous breakdown. He designs a series of "truthful" advertisements, blunt and bawdy and of no use to his boss Drucker's firm.
One of his colleagues, Stephen Bachman, checks him into a psychiatric hospital. Emory goes into group therapy under the care of Dr. Liz Baylor and meets other voluntary patients, such as the lovely and vulnerable Kathy Burgess. There is also George, who can speak only one word: "Hello."
By mistake, Emory's advertisements get printed and the new campaign turns out to be a tremendous success. Campaigns like: "Jaguar — For men who'd like hand-jobs from beautiful women they hardly know." and "Volvo — they're boxy but they're good."
Drucker grabs credit for the ads. He assigns Stephen and the rest of his employees to design similar new ad campaigns featuring so-called honesty in advertising, but nothing works.
Emory is approached in the sanitarium about creating new ads himself. He insists that his fellow mental patients also be involved and suitably rewarded for their work, transforming the sanitarium into a branch of the advertising industry.
They come up with wild advertising slogans, like one for a Greek travel agency that goes: "Forget Paris. The French can be annoying. Come to Greece. We're nicer." And another one called "Come… IN the Bahamas" for the islands' national tourism board.
The patients experience happiness at being needed and improve from their various illnesses. The evil Drucker and the doctor in charge of the hospital get greedy and try to separate the team. But it doesn't work. Dr. Baylor defies her boss and Emory negotiates to get new automobiles for all of the patients. Emory and Kathy, who have fallen in love, leave the hospital in an army helicopter piloted by Kathy's long-lost brother. | insanity | train | wikipedia | Nor is it the most believable plot - but it is funny, whimsical and charming, and occasionally surreal.
If you want a film to brighten up your life, this fits the bill just nicely.
The supporting cast are also very engaging, being far more than just a backdrop to Moore and Hannah.
I saw this movie back when it was in theatres, and busted up laughing when I saw it, it can make an excellent addition to your home video collection.
It makes you wonder whether advertisers in real life should start acting like the ones in the film...
This movie won't just make you laugh, it'll make you stop breathing and die..
The first time I saw Crazy People, I thought it was a work of comic genius.
Now, several years later, I still do.Emory and Steve (Dudley Moore and Paul Reiser) are ad executives who need to come up with new advertisements in a hurry.
When Emory's relationship falls apart, he becomes disillusioned with the whole business of lying and makes up some honest ads.
People everywhere are told that they should fly United Airlines because, quote, "Most of our passengers get there alive." This is just one of the hilarious and truthful ads we get to see in the film.When the honest ads become wildly popular, the head of the ad agency wants Emory to come back to work.
He doesn't want to leave the hospital, so the members of his group therapy group become ad writers to help him.
As it turns out, the lunatics are very good at writing honest commercials.
Ad #1 told us that "It's not as filthy as you think," whereas Ad #2 assured us that "There were fewer murders last year."There is a bit of tension in the middle of the movie, but I'm not going to spoil that for those people who haven't seen it yet.
If you're looking for a good laugh, get ahold of this movie.
If you're looking for intelligent discourse on the subject of dishonesty in society or mankind's relative dishonesty with himself or others, rent something else along with this movie.One more ad, in case you're not totally convinced yet: "Metamucil: It helps you go to the toilet.
This is in my opinion Dudley Moore's funniest movie.
However, the cast of characters in this movie also aid in helping with the laugh's.
Of course the advertisement's (Designed to be brutally honest about products/services) that are created by these members of a mental hospital are the highlight of this film.
Even though the advertisement's probably would not work in real life and would probably cause consumer outrage in this politically correct society we live in today,(e.g., Visit New York it's not as filthy as you think), it makes for some good laughs.
I highly recommend this movie for those that enjoy a good comedy..
Half of this movie is the most hilarious I have seen this decade, the other half I could very well have lived without."Crazy People" talks about two types of nut cases: ones that are committed to institutions and the others who think they are normal and live on the other side of the wall.
Of course, the main crux of the story is when Moore's life takes a nose-dive and he cracks, writing brutally savage ads for some very well-known products ("Quaker Oats - How does it taste?
His bosses put him away and then, when his printed ads catch fire and turn advertising on its ear, they recruit him to write more.
Only this time, he gets the others in the asylum with him to write ads, too.Now, this part is funny.
What isn't funny is when they start to take the story seriously and try to shoehorn drama into parts where it doesn't make every single person out as some level of wacko.
Drama has its place but not in a movie that takes potshots at Metamucil.Moore is really great, this is his last really funny role since "Arthur".
Reiser has some good scenes as does Hannah, Walsh, Paymer and Ruehl and then there's the ads.
Not since "Mad Magazine", really."Crazy People" is at least half great; the craziest things in it, though, are the people who thought it should have serious parts.Five stars for "Crazy People" - watch it for the ads..
No, it's not the slickest film and the performances are just a bit flat, but there's a lot of good material to work with.
here's a slogan for Hollywood screenwriters: "We're really stupid dullards, but we say 'F---' a lot so you'll think we're smart!"), but if you can stand it, this movie has a lot of funny moments.
Darryl Hannah playes a cute dysfunctional inmate who falls for a stressed-out and temporarily committed Dudley Moore - there's a lot stolen from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" here, but it's entertaining enough that you shouldn't mind.
We sometimes enjoy watching stupid movies just for the hell of it and thought thats what it was going to turn out to be.
Take out the throughly unnecessary love story and this movie could be an hour shorter and would probably get a much higher rating.
It's the kind of movie that you get excited about showing friends, and glow with pride at finding such a great movie for a good part of but then sit around uncomfortably for stretches of it because you know they are inexcusably boring..
"Crazy People" is about an advertising executive who goes nuts and starts writing "honest" television commercials, as opposed to the puffery and outright lies we have come to know and expect.
But, lo and behold, the honest approach actually works, so the agency enlists the help of the entire population of the mental hospital to write ads.The ads themselves are hilarious, as are some of the scenes.
There is one very funny scene in which calloused and savvy advertising execs try to write honest ads, but find they are too jaded.The film could have done without a subplot involving a romance between Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah.
Emory Leeson (Dudley Moore) and Stephen Bachman (Paul Reiser) are writing partners in a New York ad agency.
He's tired of lying and his painfully honest ads infuriate their boss Drucker (J.T. Walsh).
The execution has some fun moments with the crazy people group.
The first 20 minutes are easily the film's strongest, taking on the status quo and delivering a hydrogen truth-bomb right on top of Madison Avenue's best and brightest.The main criticism of Crazy People - the unnecessary romantic sub-plot - can easily be overlooked when compared to how solid it is at its core.
There is real value to be found here, which is not something that can be said for most pieces of entertainment.Roger Ebert said it "has more really big laughs in it than any other unsuccessful comedy I've seen." Entertainment Weekly gave it a "D-" calling it out for "unintentionally celebrating" advertising.
(Whatever, Vince - if you wanted to see people eating their own poop in the quest for realistic depictions of asylums, you were squarely in the minority.) I feel that Variety hit the nail on the head with their brief synopsis: "Crazy People combines a hilarious dissection of advertising with a warm view of so-called insanity." Hollywood's daily V-rag also noted that two weeks into shooting, two big changes were made: Dudley Moore replaced John Malkovich, and writer/director Mitch Markowitz lost the directing gig to Tony Bill.
"Crazy People" takes an amusing look at the Advertising Industry.
How I wish the hilarious commercials and billboards in this film were real!
The basic premise of this film is that an advertising executive, Emery (played by Dudley Moore), decides that he wants to be honest and stop lying to the public.
The CEO of the advertisement company decides that Emery is an advertising genius and the fun begins, as Emery and his fellow mental patients write the most hilarious commercials you can imagine.
There are some silly parts to this film, but you will not be able to stop laughing at the ads written by the crazy people.
Darryl Hannah also stars in this film.
In addition, there is a great character in this film that is a particular favorite of mine.
He is one of the mental patients who writes commercials.
For anyone who is in the marketing or advertising business, it's hysterical - the fact that mental asylum residents can produce more effective ads than most of the art directors at the agency is a riot.
This movie is full of fun, and will have you remembering a few clever lines.
I enjoyed this movie for its advertisements which show the power of truth.
Even if this light film falls out of your head, the sympathy given the "crazy people" will stick with you about as long as the catchy ideas they dream up.Overall rating: 8 out of 10..
This movie is incredibly funny when the Hello song is verbalized (and it is never done enough times for me:-) I like the plot and all the characters!
I believe (unlike most people who have not seen it or have no sense of humor or emotion) this movie should be rated as a classic comedy!
However it is not shown more than once a decade on the all of the 129 movie channels I am able to view!!
I love this movie...
If you miss this movie tomorrow you won't see it for nearly a decade.
looking to purchase this movie in Oklahoma city.
I would just like to know where to buy this movie, without having to purchase it online.
I have looked everywhere for this movie to purchase but a lot of people have never heard of it.
I bet I come up with and use lines from this movie at least once or twice a week.
Working for a telephone answering service fits right in with the Hello song!
I ask a lot of people about this movie and they look at me as if I'm crazy!
I would love to buy this movie, I just don't have the luxury of purchasing things online.
This is definitely one of the movies that portrays the best the way advertising should be...
It's a very witty, gentle film with some great actors in support and Dudley Moore at his relaxed best.
Best of all are the advertising slogans: 'Buy Volvo: they're boxy.' Wonderful..
I picked up this movie some years ago and watched it twice, just to get all of the gags.
The ads are a great part of the show, but the characters are (almost) representative of the ad biz.
Dudley Moore, a man, left short again.
Unfortunately for Dud, the writers didn't lose much sleep drafting some of the patchy story lines, in this average advertising/mental home comedy romp (is it still safe to say that?
The man who has said nothing but Hello since 1977, comes alive in what is without question, the funniest 'crazy' character to come out of the silver screen, .er...ever.
This film is worth watching for one reason and one reason only.
George Cartelli, a man who hasn't said anything but hello since 1977.
Usually, for me at least, Dudley Moore would make a good second reason, but he's lumbered with a decidedly saggy script, and is inevitably outdone by George.
Delightful as it is to see a movie featuring a tall woman and a short man, Crazy People sacrificed much of its potential hilarity for a schmultzy ending.
While the outlandish advertisements were funny, and still make for great interjections today, Dudley Moore's English exasperation wore thin faster than Daryl Hannah's croaky optimism.
The antics of the other mental patients were occasionally funny, but there could have been a lot more character development on their part.
I guess Crazy People was intended to be taken lightly, and - at times - it is an amusing satire on advertising (but unfortunately does not even attempt to make fun of psychological institutions).
This film analyzes the creative impulse for advertising & finds it in a asylum...Don't worry: it is not a psychological study but a comedy.
The only problem is that I don't laugh often: maybe with the taglines of the ads, the performance of David "Hello" Paymer...How much the leading actor (Dudley Moore), the endless casting of J.T. Walsh as a bad guy, or a bad script (I didn't see much insanity from the patients) have to do with my dozing, it's hard to tell.In conclusion, an average movie where the only flavors are its 80's spirit in America and Hannah in a romantic character..
This is an overall dull comedy that contains some funny moments.
Most notable are the print advertisements of which some are hilarious.
The "hello" bit is also funny as well..
i wanted to like this movie,and i really tied.but in the end,i just couldn't justify it.it's billed as a comedy,except it's not funny.or even amusing.i will say that the two lead actors,Daryl Hannah and Dudley Moore are appealing,as are their characters.but the movie is just too slow and talky for my tastes.and there's also too much swearing for no good reason.it doesn't add anything to the movie,and it doesn't really have any relevance.the movie has an ensemble cast of well knowns from the time period(in this case,1990),but they can't save this movie.it's not quite horrible,but it certainly isn't very good,either.for me,Crazy people is a 3.5/10.
Top-notch advertiser Dudley Moore is committed to an insane asylum after he comes up with some whacked campaigns for famous products.
However his work is accidently exposed and everyone loves the new advertisements.
Thus the agency convinces Moore to come up with more ideas with the help of the other patients at the institution.
Daryl Hannah, J.T. Walsh and Paul Reiser are good in supporting turns.
The film is a hit-and-miss comedy that has some really great moments, but in the end there is just nothing really above average when all is completed.
[Possible spoilers] The general plot is that an advertiser, Emory (Dudley Moore), is sent to a lunatic asylum.
His work is exposed and everyone loves the advertisements, so he does his work with the other patients inside the asylum and is a hit.
Crazy People was a really funny movie.
Dudley Moore plays a man who works at an advertising agency and it is his job to come up with ads for companies to run.
The problem is that he starts to go nuts and has a huge breakdown because he wrestles with the morals of what he is doing, that is to say he gets tired of lying to everyone through his ads and starts telling the truth.
A lot of the ads he makes are really funny and they end up going into magazines and onto television without his bosses knowing, so that when they are discovered he gets fired and sent to live in an insane asylum because they assume he's crazy.
While living there he meets Daryl Hannah who he falls for and a lot of other nice people with mental problems, and when his ads are surprisingly a huge hit his company wants him to come back to work, but he wants to take all his new friends along for the ride.
"Who here wants to be a fire truck?" Big laughs in this movie!.
The premise of this movie is simple and hilarious.
Moore play an advertising executive who experiences a minor nervous breakdown.
He begins composing advertisements that tell the truth.And this is where the comedy really takes off.
Moore's character is confined to an institution, but in the meantime his spoof adverts are accidentally sent to press.
A romantic sub-plot is farcically attempted by the introduction Of Darly Hannah as a love interest for Moore.
Dudley Moore was 55 by the time he worked this movie, and much too old to play a romantic lead with a 20-something inmate.
Unless you're a fan of Ms Hannah's physical charms, that is.This was pretty well Dudley Moore's last Hollywood outing.
But the studios needed a younger vulnerable-funny-guy, and Tom Hanks seems to have been Moore's natural successor.
This movie is pretty dated but it is still funny.
It's about a guy who kind of goes nuts because he has to lie all the time in his job as an advertising executive.
He suddenly starts only making ads that tell the truth, and they're hilarious and the public really responds to them, because they're sick of the lies too.
Unfortunately he has been sent off to a funny farm, where he befriends other crazies (like Doc Brown from Back to the Future) and he wants them to write ads with him too.
Pretty silly but a very funny film with some really great parodies in it..
Emory works in advertising, and is beginning to crack-up.
Meanwhile, back at the office, Emory's work is accidentally sent to the printers.
But now Emory has fallen for Kathy (another patient) and so doesn't want to leave.....This is one of those simple movies, that disappeared without a trace, but is funny and endearing, thanks to the characters and some of the ads on display.The story is simple, it's good versus bad, the rich versus the insane, and just when you think they are all on a par, the rich people take all the credit and leave the insane, well, sane.But then it all goes well at the end.
Films like this are ten a penny, but thanks to Moore and the writers, this film is very witty, occasionally verging on silly with the use of profanity (there was really no need for it).
The only problem with this, and it is a big problem, the relationship with him and Hannah is boring and pointless, and slows the whole film down.But if you want a laugh at genius ads, and random lines, you can do a lot worse.Plus J.T Walsh is brilliant. |
tt0060558 | Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter | Sometime in the early 1880s, Dr Frankenstein’s evil granddaughter Maria has moved to the American West with her brother Rudolph, in order to use the prairie lightning storms in her experiments on immigrant children snatched from a dying town. Maria is very much in charge, killing the children and replacing their brains with artificial ones, intending to revive them as her slaves. Rudolph however, is reluctant to help his sister, but is too afraid of her to do otherwise. After a number of failures (owing to Rudolph secretly poisoning the victims as soon as his sister revives them), they are finding it increasingly difficult to hide the trail of bodies. Down the road, Mañuel Lopez and his wife Nina decide to leave town with their daughter Juanita because of the frequent disappearances, the latest of which is that of their son.
Two gunslingers come to town, Jesse James, the infamous outlaw, who has actually survived his reported killing on April 3, 1882, and Hank Tracy, a dimwitted brute that Jesse uses as his henchman. Meeting up with Butch Curry, the head of a local gang called The Wild Bunch, they join up with the intention of stealing $100,000 from the next stagecoach. However, a member of the gang, Butch's own brother Lonny, decides to go to the sheriff and let him know about the plot in exchange for becoming his deputy and claiming the reward for James' capture. As the robbery begins, the sheriff and his men shoot the two remaining members of the Wild Bunch and seriously wound Hank.
Jesse and Hank escape and stop at the Lopez's campout to tend to Hank's wound and sleep until the morning. During the middle of the night, Juanita wakes up Jesse and Hank and leads them back to town to the Frankensteins' house to fix up Hank despite her parents forbidding her to back there. Maria agrees to help, and even covers for her guests when the sheriff and Lonny come around looking for them, but her actual plan is to use Hank as another one of her experiments. After a failed attempt to seduce Jesse, Maria sends him to the town pharmacist with a note, then begins operating on Hank, giving him an artificial new brain and bringing him back to life. Rudolph tries to poison Hank, now called Igor, but Maria this time catches him and orders her new monster to strangle her brother.
Jesse gives the pharmacist the note from Maria, which actually reveals his identity, prompting the pharmacist to call the sheriff. The sheriff is out, but deputy Lonny decides to take on Jesse for the reward on his head. Jesse manages to escape, killing Lonny in the process. When he returns to the Frankensteins' house, Igor incapacitates him and ties him up.
Realizing Jesse is in trouble, Juanita sends the sheriff to the house, where he finds Jesse and prepares to take him in. But Maria sends Igor to crush the sheriff. During the scuffle, Juanita frees Jesse and tries to escape. Maria orders Igor to go kill Juanita, but he strangles Maria instead and goes after Jesse. Juanita gets Jesse's gun and kills Igor.
The next morning, as Jesse buries Hank, Juanita pleads with him to stay and live with her, but Jesse, knowing that he's a fugitive, rides off with the sheriff, who wasn't killed by Igor. | cult | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0115781 | Bullet | Nearing retirement, maverick Los Angeles-based detective Frank "Bullet" Marasco is assigned to hunt down the notorious drug baron Carlito Kane, following a tipoff from Leroy, who is later whacked to death with a golf club due to interrupting Kane's golf game. Bullet and his team storm one of Kane's hideouts but fail to capture him.
The plot thickens when Governor Johnson's daughter is kidnapped by Kane along with her boyfriend, in a bid to save his son Manuel from execution via lethal injection. Kane streams the execution of the boyfriend on a phone to the Governor and says that his daughter is next if they don't stop the execution of his son. Thereafter, Bullet send his grandson Mario to a community park where Kane exacts revenge on Bullet by kidnapping his grandson. Eventually Bullet himself is abducted too, but only for a brief period of time, as he is able to escape. After a lengthy car chase, Bullet successfully evades Kane and his men but gets ambushed by them once again the next day.
Finally, Bullet calls it quits as a civil servant and resigns, secretly becoming a vigilante and goes to his cousin for weaponry to take Kane down. He proceeds to interrogate one of Kane's aides, killing her in her bathtub after she fails to fully cooperate. Panicking, Kane and his closest subordinates retreat to a desert where Bullet starts to kill Kane's henchmen one by one, including his grandson's four kidnappers. The final showdown between Kane and Bullet has the latter emerge as victor. Bullet reunites with his grandson and rescues Johnson's daughter. The victory is sweetened when Manuel Kane is publicly executed. Bullet, his daughter and his grandson savour the evening at the beach, just as the credits begin to roll. | cult, violence | train | wikipedia | It's a pity that the grittiness of this film made it unacceptable to so many, but for those of us who have known people stuck in the quicksand of inner-city life despite their best instincts (and loved them in spite of their mistakes), "Bullet" rings so sadly true.
Rourke, Adrien Brody, and particularly Ted Levine elevate a depressing little gangland story to the level of an epic commentary on the degredation of life at the end of the 20th century.
Bullet, superbly directed and acted out with a profundity which we rarely witness in movies of this genre, had been treated with utter injustice for it was released directly to video.
If you, like myself, don't think too highly of it, then consider this your first boarding call.The "Bullet" spoken of in the title is the film's central character, a 35-year-old Brooklyn heroin junkie (Mickey Rourke).
The film begins with his release from the pen after serving an eight-year sentence, and then proceeds to closely follow the lives of him and those around him -- the parents, an eccentric little brother, a completely shell-shocked headcase of a big brother (Ted Levine, creating yet another standout psychotic), as well as various players in the substance supply industry (Tupac Shakur makes his last screen appearance as the druglord Tank, and does a decent job in a rather thankless role).
I'd summarize the plot more clearly if I could, but the fact is, these people's lives just aren't that simple."Bullet" is one of those rare movies which somehow leak through the cracks and make it into production with their soul (or lack thereof) intact.
The "uncool" dregs which are far less likely to break out the one-liners after offing someone then they are to strip the corpse of all valuables and sell them for drug money."Bullet" wastes no time whatsoever on making it's characters presentable.
I saw Bullet about a year ago after really getting into Mickey Rourke films and i have to say i really liked it a lot.
I can see why some critics flushed it, yet not all of them the film is very different from Rourke's usual work and nothing like other ghetto greats like 'Boyz n the hood' and 'Above the rim'the film has a kind of quirky way about it especially since it's story centres around a Brooklyn born Jewish junkie(instead of African-American)and his rivalry with drug dealer Tank (a small yet great cameo from Tupac Shakur)and also his social problems with friends Lester (who he thinks might be gay) and his two brothers Ruby (Adrien Brody)a painter who is looking for a way to get out of the whole street life and Louis (amazingly played by Ted Levine) who is a freaked out ex-soldier who still thinks the war rages on.
Sometimes I wonder how many people who watch these movies, (gritty street, criminal activity types), know what they are seeing?
This film has a feel of a home movie mixed with real actors.
However there is an added component of the family being Jewish, and honestly, this is the first time I remember seeing a Jewish family being portrayed in middle-class, "street" style (if anyone has suggestions for other examples, email me).By the time it's over you feel like you know the characters, or that you've met people exactly like them if you've ever lived in a moderate to large sized city.
Mickey Rourke as Bullet is great, as usual.
who knows maybe heroin houses are the forerunners to crackhouses and I just don't know it.) Lots of sad junkies doing their various things (shooting up, giving blowjobs for drugs, buying, selling, ODing.) Weaknesses in the film have less to do with the plot and the actors as it does with what seems to be sh*tty editing.
That's a shame too, as Bullet (1996) has many elements that could have turned it into a classic.I decided to watch Bullet for 2 reasons: 1) Mickey Rourke; and 2) it was going to be on HBO at a time when I was looking for a movie to watch.
Not long ago I saw Sin City, and I was crazy about Mickey Rourke's character Marv.
This character was actually a comic book monster (with a heart), and since I loved Marv so much I have sought out other Rourke films.
He plays Butch or Bullet who has been in prison for eight years for a crime he didn't commit (he kept his mouth shut and suffered for a friend).
The way the revenge plays out reminds me of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, especially when Rourke says to Shakur, "You want your pound of flesh...your business is with me." (Not a direct quote) I thought this film would be like a Die Hard type film, but I was very surprised.
Ted Levine and Adrien Brody play Bullet's brothers: Levine's character could rival his Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.
mickey rourke plays butch "bullet" a dope fiend just released from prison after doing a seven year bid for something he didn't do but did take the blame of.
it is very real of how the streets back then realt were about and how getting out of prison really messes with ur mind and it teaches us a valuable lesson at the end of the movie!!
great acting especially by rourke and the nut who plays rourkes older brother in the movie lol.
tupac dissapointed me actually, even tho im a huge fan of his music, but mickey rourke was looking real good.
I wouldnt recomend it for the family or young kids, but this was a really good movie, full of alot of truth if youve ever lived in the city, the bad section, you will know exactly whats goin down.
since i watched the wrestler i've been on a kick of renting mickey rourke movies and aside from the wrestler i'd say this is his best performance i've seen so far.
i think the main intention of the movie was to show kids what street life can do to people (which of course had been done before in other films but its still good).anyway...
they say that this one of mickey rourke's few good moments in that point of his acting career and i would definitely encourage people to check it out..
No other movie in my life has given me such amusement and I haven't even seen it in like 3 years--but there is no need I think we have memorized the entire script.
At first I drifted through this one 'cause it was just there but when I really sat down and watched, they really went in-depth about Bullet(Rourke) and his family.
So that explains why this movie never got the respect it deserved as most people like to avoid these films as these stories of dysfunctional family's ,gang wars etc make the news everyday in our lives,except we only see the headlines and a brief story ,but with 'Bullet' we see the full 99min unrated story of a broken family and street life.This movie in my view is a 'masterpiece' like many other movies out there ,but this never got enough attention, but now its gaining more attention and becoming a classic gem.
The direction in this movie is excellent,some great arty shots of the streets in Brooklyn's and flashbacks from bullet himself...
This is 'Tank' played by Tu Pac ,this has to be one of the best ruthless thug characters i have seen played on screen since the 80s.Rourke is amazing as the bullet,he roams around the streets with his bad addiction.....taking one day at a time, he looks cool in this movie,their's so much i could say for his character,but id be here typing for weeks ,so just watch him for yourself....
also 'Ted Levine' plays a superb role.I seen this film in 96, i loved it then ,but didn't understand it as much then,i just loved the characters.
This movie tells the story of the street thug and all that comes with it like no other,forget menace to society etc...this is the 'real' deal....'You ain't gonna make it out there,take long hard look in the mirror'- Butch Stein (bullet).
The sinister, dark atmosphere only amplifies this spiral "not getting anywhere" except for the places where he has already been.I must say it's a very good movie about life.
Just like a life of a criminal really is.I recommend this movie to European fans as it is very European, even though it was made in USA.
Great dark movie starring Mickey Rourke!.
I really enjoyed this dark movie which follows the life of Butch 'Bullet' Stein played by Mickey Rourke.
The movie shows you the life of 'Bullet' from when he first gets out prison and the events that follow.
Pitting 'Bullet' against 'Tank' played by Tupac Shakur worked perfectly.
Even at the beginning of the movie when they pan the upstate New York setting as John Enos and his brother come to pick him up from the penn, the music goes from classical to hip hop beautifully with the change of seasons and finishes with Barry White.
The film does have a dark, gritty feel to it and Mickey Rourke really does a good job in this film as well as 2pac as the villain.
This movie may seem like an action film, but its more a crime Drama as it has some depth and seriousness to it in terms of plot and characters.for what it is it's a good straight to video flick with a great cast (notice a young adrien brody and Donnie Wahlberg).Its definitely worth a watch.Overall : 7/10.
I've seen worse movies and this is really not that bad and Tupac put in a decent performance as the main villain.
This is a film that shows how good a b-movie can be.
I think you have to clear your mind from all prejudice before you see it.Best actor and character: Ted Levine as Louis.
We have a very popular web site in Russia- 'vkontakte'- one of the topics there is a 'Bullet', People who sent their comments there know every word from this film, every move, i like this film very much too, but when i started to read what they write there, i realized, i'm not SO 'crazy' to write something new to this topic EVERY DAY.
Micky is going to have a role in Russia, in Moscow, this is so cool, my favourite actor through 13 years of doing nothing plays in big movie again, in my country, and all this time i believed he is the best, it's a great feeling.
But he sad something like 'i think the wrestler is my best role' he was wrong, Bullet is the best..
I feel that "Bullet" was a good movie.
He was basically being the "bigger brother", and teaching whomever was paying attention to keep your life straight, do what your good at, make something better of yourself, don't put yourself in a bad situation, take care of friends and family, and be a role model and pass this GOOD stuff on.I don't feel that it is your average gangsta-thuggin'-violence 'n druggin' movie.
Not sure if this one of Tupac Shakur's last films, I believe Gang Related was one of them, but he proves he can act, as well as be a gifted poet in this movie.
I Haven't seen Mickey Rourke in anything lately, but I felt his family members and the supporting actors in this came through beside him and he didn't look like he was in a B movie..
classic in in the ganster way, easy to follow plot ,mickey plays the Quintessential white /gansta come Brother, son, with a love-hate of himselfi purchased the movie from amazon in jan 2004 for my collection, only to discover the production company had cut 10 mins from the opening , thus missing that classic drive through upstate new york ,carried along by the sounds of barry whites " Never Gonna Give You Up" .
Mickey Rourke (who also co-wrote) stars as Butch "Bullet" Stein, a Barry White loving, Jewish racist, just getting out of prison after spending the last 8 years there and trying to get reacquainted into his life as a violent junkie goon.
Worth watching, if only for Rourkes great performance as a going nowhere dead-end loser piece of human excrement.
Great characters and gritty "street life" scenes.
The main characters are very unique and some times funny, for example I thought that Ted Levine was great as a psycho Vietnam vet, whether or not I was supposed to laugh at him i don't know.
Some famous names that appear in the film are Adrien Brody of The Pianist, Tupac Shakur, and even Donnie Wahlberg, (Mark's brother...new kids on the block) as a thug.
Rourke really did great job - his acting skills are fantastically used in this film.
Unfortunately, they probably won't because 98% of the movie fans don't know this film!!!.
Bullet wasn't Tupac's best movie role but it's a decent movie.
The film has some decent cinematography and a chilling performance from Ted Levine as Rourke's brother.
Mickey Rourke is excellent as Butch Stein, a pathetic yet somehow endearing Jewish American hoodlum locked in a personal war with local drug dealer and gangster Tank (Tupac Shakur).
Tupac's role is somewhat underwritten, which isn't quite fair to the guy, because he has more acting talent than pretty much any other rapper I've seen in film.
I've made it a goal to watch every Rourke film that COULD be good.
Rourke turns in a mesmerizing performance as Bullet, a heroin addict who gets released from prison after serving time for a crime he did not commit.
One of Rourke's best films..
The music from the movie, the acting from, Mark Wahlberg, Adrien Brody, Tupac, and Mickey Rourke make this movie a favorite, even in re-runs on cable.
A great movie, before Mickey Rourke went to Patrick Swyaze's and Kenny Roger's plastic surgeon.
Apparently, Rourke helped write the screen play, and you know, he has a great movie on his hands.
I love this movie from the first day it came out I mean I may have been young when I first saw it but Mickey Rourke is so hotttt even as a bad azzzz gangster he is hot.
And isn't that what director Rourke intended...?Overall, I'd say ---- with all the incredibly weak screenplays, seemingly written by ten-year- olds, that end up on the big screen every day --- his film is surprisingly well-crafted and under-rated, and definitely worth a look..
Extra selected team, superb acting, great comedy, the film does not have a lot of extravagant make-up, no annoying characters who revolve millions, but an ordinary team off the street who makes a mess, all recommendations for this movie....
Extra selected team, superb acting, great comedy, the film does not have a lot of extravagant make-up, no annoying characters who revolve millions, but an ordinary team off the street who makes a mess, all recommendations for this movie....
Extra selected team, superb acting, great comedy, the film does not have a lot of extravagant make-up, no annoying characters who revolve millions, but an ordinary team off the street who makes a mess, all recommendations for this movie....
i don't know why the critics have to be so cruel with multi-talented people like mickey Rourke.
the film had a great acting ensemble with Adrien Brody, John Enos III, Mathew Powers, Jerry Dean with a cameo from Tupac as the villain and especially Ted Levine who is a scene stealer in this film.
besides the script focuses on a lot of things like family friends brotherhood and redemption furthermore the movie has a powerful message for every drug addict in the world.
so the conclusion is that this is one of the most realistic crime movies ever made with great photography and performances so anyone who was afraid to watch this film because of the *beep* critics, just give it a try and you won't regret it..
Here, this film proves time and time again, why Mickey Rourke is one of the all time acting greats.
Bullet's different, as to the interesting and funny characters is Rourke's family.
Now we get to the real character of the family, the much older brother Lewis (great character Ted Levine) classic who's room like Lebanon, a war nut, a psychiatric case, who keeps two pit bulls in his room, and hardly washes his underwear.
He plays Bullet's enemy and bad guy Tank, in an impressive piece of acting, almost stealing Rourke of this movie, or surpassing his performance.
A good satisfier but very funny too, fans of drug movies will get a kick out of this one, I've viewed a few times.
Fresh from prison Butch 'Bullet' Stein (Mickey Rourke), a Jewish ex-convict with sticky fingers and some nasty drug habits, moves back in with his parents and two brothers.
Kind of like a college kid's first attempt at film-making.Rourke is indeed an interesting, though flawed actor, and he stays in good shape for an older guy..
don't give me wrong,I like 2pac.I've seen one of his other movies and they were great.But this was not really my taste.The story line was good,The performence of tupac and Mickey Rourke were amaizing,but it did'nt seem to be very interesting.This is probably one of the worst crime movie I ever saw..
I think bullet was one of the best movies I have seen.
He truly loves his family and brother and that shows in the final few clips of the movie.
Tupac could have killed Bullet multiple times in the movie, but toys with him to "torture" him and get revenge.
They attempted to build suspense but it led nowhere.Tupac's performance was not as good as some of his other movies, and it was a really cliché type of character anyway.
Mickey Rourke was good as usual. |
tt0025680 | Private Lessons | Philip "Philly" Fillmore (Eric Brown) is a 15-year-old high school student and the son of a rich businessman in Albuquerque who has left town on an extended trip during summer break, leaving the young man in the passing care of Nicole Mallow (Sylvia Kristel), a sexy French housekeeper, and Lester Lewis (Howard Hesseman), the family's chauffeur.
Philly's character becomes infatuated with Nicole. When she spots him peeping into her room, she tells him to close her door. To Philly's utter shock, she means for him to close her door from the inside and then watch her undress. However, it is too much for him when a topless Nicole asks him to touch her breasts. When he objects, she steps back and instead takes off her panties. Philly panics and leaves.
Later on, he is surprised to find her in his father's bathtub. Once again to his amazement, she asks him to join her. At first he objects, but instead she keeps sweet-talking him until he finally gives in. However, he decides to wear swimming trunks. Once in the bathtub, she spoons and kisses him from behind. When she tries to take off his swimming trunks from behind, he insists that she turn off the lights first. But once she reaches for his private area, he again panics and rushes out. She follows him to apologize, kisses him and directly invites him to sleep with her, the sexual element of which he fails to comprehend at first. After they flirt in a movie theater the following day, he gives in but backs down when she reacts without fondness to the notion of marrying him. One day later, she tells him she guesses they can at least date for a while. After they flirt during their first date in a restaurant, they return home and have sex.
Nicole is revealed as an illegal alien; Lester is using this secret to blackmail her into helping him in a larger blackmail scheme against Philly. Lester intends that Nicole seduce Philly then fake her own death during intercourse. Lester then "helps" the panicked Philly to secretly bury Nicole. Her body later disappears, and a note orders Philly to steal $10,000 from his father to prevent exposure of his role in Nicole's "death".
When Nicole has second thoughts, Lester threatens to also expose her as a child molester. Nicole has truly fallen in love with Philly, and she reveals the truth to him. Philly convinces his tennis coach (Ed Begley, Jr.) to pose as a police detective and intimidate Lester with questions about Nicole's disappearance. Lester panics but is caught with the money before he can flee the country. Nicole and Philly return the money to the safe, but they decide not to expose Lester's treachery. In turn, he reluctantly decides not to expose Nicole's illegal alien status nor her acts of child molestation knowing that Philly could easily expose his attempted embezzlement scheme to his father and the police, and as a result, he keeps his job.
Nicole fears that Philly's father will eventually discover their affair, and decides to leave. Before she does, she and Philly have intercourse one last time. Summer Vacation ends and Philly returns to high school, thanks his teacher for advising him to pursue girls whose age is more appropriate for him, and successfully asks her out to dinner. | romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt2097331 | The Family Fang | Annie and Buster Fang are the children of famous performance artists who, in the late 80s and early 90s, perform public interactive pieces with audiences who are unaware that they are performers and whose acts typically involve their children whom they film and credit as child A (Annie) and child B (Buster).
Annie grows up to be a highly successful actress who has been nominated for an Academy Award while Buster becomes a mediocre novelist who must supplement his work with freelance journalism. However, after being told by the director of her latest movie to appear nude in a scene, Annie begins to experience a nervous breakdown, appearing unstable to the media. Meanwhile, whilst on assignment in Nebraska covering a pair of war veterans who build spud guns, Buster is shot in the face and hospitalized. With limited funds and mounting medical debt he returns to his parents' home.
After being dumped by her publicist, Annie learns that her ex-boyfriend, who is a screenwriter, has been hired to write Annie out of the third installment of the franchise that made her a star. She consents to go with him on a trip to Wyoming. However, after he threatens to destroy her, she runs away from him at the airport and goes to see Buster. Immediately, Caleb and Camille attempt to force Annie and Buster to participate in one of their performance art pieces which involves handing out free coupons for chicken sandwiches and then watching as the crowd goes mad after the sandwiches are denied to them. Nonetheless, the stunt goes terribly wrong when Annie and Buster refuse to participate. Camille and Caleb are unable to hand out more than a few coupons and the people at the sandwich shop mistakenly believe that the coupons are valid and hand out sandwiches.
For a while Annie and Buster stay in their parents house feeling aimless. Annie discovers nearly a hundred paintings in her closet which her mother claims as her own, saying that she was a painter before she was a conceptual artist and had been slowly returning to that medium. She gives a painting each to Annie and Buster.
Buster receives a phone call from a local creative writing professor and, with Annie's support, speaks coherently to the creative writing class. After the class he is handed a stack of short stories by the professor and immediately connects to one written by a woman named Suzanne Crosby who he gives his number to in the hopes she will contact him with more of her work. Upon returning home he and Annie discover a note by their parents informing them they have gone to North Carolina. Freed from their parents, Annie and Buster go about dealing with their issues, including Buster's medical debt, which Annie decides to pay, and Annie's alcoholism, which Buster says she must wean herself off of. They later receive a call from a police officer claiming their parents are missing and possibly dead. Annie immediately believes this is part of a performance art piece while Buster suspects it is real. Annie resolves to go looking for her parents in order to prove they are still alive.
Annie and Buster go to visit Caleb's mentor Hobart Waxman. Hobart agrees with Annie that the Fangs are likely alive but tells them they have been given a gift and they should continue their lives without their parents. Annie refuses to accept this. Annie and Buster decide that the best way to lure their parents out of hiding is to put on an exhibition of Camille's portraits. However, the exhibition is a failure. Camille and Caleb do not appear and Annie and Buster decide to accept the fact that their parents are dead. They slowly begin to put their lives back together. Buster begins working on a novel and decides to move in with Suzanne while Annie accepts a role from the writer/director who directed her to an Academy Award nomination, Lucy Wayne. Before the siblings can fully move on with their lives, Suzanne gives Buster a heavy metal CD made by twin prodigies. Buster and Annie recognize the lyrics to their song Kill All Parents as a song their parents forced them to perform as children for a piece that was not recorded and therefore unavailable to the public. Pretending to be a music journalist, Buster contacts the twins for an interview and is able to get them to admit that the song was written by their father. The twins' mother then goes on the phone and asks them to leave their father alone.
Annie and Buster travel to North Dakota where they find their father living under the name Jim Baltz. He contacts their mother, who is living under the name Patricia Howlett and the four Fangs meet in the food court of an abandoned mall. Caleb admits that the two began to plan their disappearance approximately ten years earlier when Annie left home to become an actress. They plan to reveal themselves as living after they are legally declared dead in 7 years. Annie agrees not to blow their cover in exchange for never seeing them again. The parents readily agree and the Fangs part.
Ultimately Annie finds creative success on the set of Lucy's new movie and contemplates starting a romantic relationship with her. She realizes that Buster has surpassed her in managing to achieve peace and contentment and hopes to find the same. | flashback | train | wikipedia | It is a portrait of psychological abuse conducted by parents in the name of art with sinister undercurrents always beneath the surface.Internationally renowned Caleb Fang (Christopher Walken) and his wife Camille (Maryanne Plunkett) are performance artists dedicated to disrupting the conventions of normality.
Their children Annie (Nicole Kidman) and Baxter (Jason Bateman) have been used as performance props since they were born and their adult lives bear the scars of parenting based on artifice and deception.
When the siblings question the value of the performances the reaction is pure menace.This is a dysfunctional family in both obvious and implied ways, and the film keeps us guessing whether the knotted ball can ever be untangled.
The four characters are well defined with strong and believable performances, and the conflicts between young and old are frighteningly recognisable as the kind of things that happen in both normal and transgressive families.
Based on the 2011 best-selling American novel of the same name, The Family Fang tells the story of an unconventional family and the public pranks they pass off as performance art which is fun for them but shocking to the unsuspecting participants.
The talents of Nicole Kidman, Jason Bateman, Kathryn Hahn and Christopher Walken are all wasted here on a wishy-washy script that probably sounded fine in a read-through, but just didn't translate well to the screen at all..
This is a very good work of fiction, well represented on the screen by Jason Bateman (who starred and directed it) and his stellar cast.
Based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Kevin Wilson, 'The Family Fang' by Jason Bateman, is a wonder of a film.
This One's A Near-Perfect Comedy-Drama!'The Family Fang' Synopsis: A brother and sister return to their family home in search of their world famous parents who have disappeared.'The Family Fang' is a quietly devastating film, on how important it is to be a good parent, in order to raise their children sane.
In here, the unsettled protagonists (Bateman, Nicole Kidman, in Pure Oscar Peak Form), are a victim of unusual parents (Christopher Walken & Maryann Plunkett, both brilliant).
The idea isn't all that original, but the casting of Bateman, Kidman and Walken really make the movie better than it is.
They are artists, this is all a performance." Baxter (Bateman) and Annie (Kidman) Baxter are brother and sister who have tried their best to put their past behind them.
The idea isn't all that original, but the cast of Bateman, Kidman and Walken really make the movie better than it is and makes it worth watching for that reason if nothing else.
Another dysfunctional family movie that is really missing something to make you connect to the characters, but the actors did all they could.
'THE FAMILY FANG': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)A dark comedy-drama flick, about the two adult children of a very controversial 'conceptual performance art' couple.
The siblings blame their mother and father for all of their current problems in life; and when their parents go missing, the sister is sure it's just another disturbing art project.
The film was directed by Jason Bateman, who also co-stars in it, and it was written by David Lindsay-Abaire.
The movie also co-stars Nicole Kidman (who co-produced the flick too), Christopher Walken, Maryann Plunkett, Kathryn Hahn (who also costarred in 'BAD WORDS'; which Bateman also directed and starred in) and Jason Butler Harner.
I enjoyed the film immensely.Baxter and Annie Fang (Bateman and Kidman) had a very bizarre, and highly unconventional, upbringing.
Their parents are world famous 'conceptual performance artists', named Caleb and Camille Fang (Walken and Plunkett), and they incorporated Baxter and Annie into most of their projects (when they were young).
When their mother and father go missing, and are presumed dead by authorities, Annie becomes obsessed with proving it's another art trick.I really like the story for this movie; it poses a lot of great questions about what makes great art.
I'm a big fan of performance art (I experience with it a lot on social media), so this film is very interesting to me.
I agree with Christopher Walken's character, on his opinions about art, but I think he took it too far, by involving his kids (I can see how that could do a lot of psychological damage to them).
This film deals not only with a dysfunctional family, a concept that has fascinated American cinema ever since American Beauty, but also with the relation between art and life.
Thematically, the family ensemble has been portrayed more incisively in the recent past (The Squid and the Whale, to name just one example with a similar character ratio), but the manner in which relationships are blurred and redefined here gives Fang a captivating spin.We are presented with two seemingly wayward, middle-aged siblings who, it turns out, grew up in a tradition of 'intempestive art'.
As an accident reunites the family, which had drifted apart in the mean time, tensions persist, culminating when the parents disappear and the obvious question is asked: is this just another hoax?
The story works primarily because Kidman (Annie) and Bateman (Baxter), child A and child B, as their parents called them, convey an understanding that does not require explanations.
Inevitability is usually a good thing to have in an ending, especially in one dealing with the nature of art.
Many of the dialogues in this movie I did watch over and over, the choice of words, the setting and acting were simply great.
It takes us into the mind of a celebrity and how they stage things and work their way to do anything to make art/acting look so real.
It was was beautifully done, but definitely not for the faint of heart.Directed by Jason Bateman and starring Jason Bateman, Nicole Kidman, Christopher Walken and Maryann Plunkett.
Jason Bateman's directing and even acting gets better by each movie.
Sadness so absolute it is punishing.This is the best way I can describe what watching the inexorably depressing drama "The Family Fang" feels like virtually from start to finish.
Jason Bateman is quite good in his role as we have become accustomed to seeing from the gifted actor.
And I've seen her perform a lot.Regrettably, none of this outstanding work can rescue "The Family Fang" from the chokehold of despondency which this wretched story relentlessly strangles us with.
Ultimately what we are saddled with is a misery-drenched tale of two parents (Christopher Walken and Maryann Plunkett) who regard their young children as little more than compliant pawns in a twisted game of self-aggrandizement and perverse gratification.
I do not know the book on which it is based but all the story of this film seems to me an undeniable success, both in the type of characters, outsiders creators, and the plot -strange and twisted-, with a touch of humor, also with many moments of deep reflection on performance art, action-art, and the limit of consequences lead to (as did the performers of the 70s and no doubt inspired by them).
Very interesting, and ironic, the critical commentary to one of this movement's leaders, Chris Burden.The direction of the film (the first of Jason Bateman as director) is firm and convincing and the exquisite sobriety of interpretations, especially Kidman, Bateman and Walken, transform it into a film that it's almost certainly going to have a long run, especially in these times of artistic misery and cheap creative ideas..
Wow. This film tells the story of two siblings of behavioural artists Caleb and Camille, who have to play along to their parents cruel and traumatic pranks.
Jason Bateman directs this little jewel of a film based on the novel of the same name by Kevin Wilson and adapted for the screen by David Lindsay-Abaire.
Bateman also stars in the film as an integral part of a sterling cast of actors.
Bateman is a deft director and brings all the subtleties as well as the well-timed humor and dysfunctional family strains together for an educational as well as an entertaining movie.Annie (Nicole Kidman) and Baxter (Jason Bateman) Fang, the adult children of the controversial husband and wife conceptual performance art couple famous for their quirky macabre public performances (Maryann Plunkett and Christopher Walken), have never got over the fact that their parents kept using them during their childhood in their often gory and disturbing satirical public performances (Annie and Baxter as children are played by Mackenzie Brooke Smith and Jack McCarthy and as teenagers by Taylor Rose and Kyle Donnery).
Christopher Walken is so engrossed in his role you almost believe he isn't acting at all.Really good film that everyone should give a fair go..
Christopher Walken did a grate job playing the farther figure and Jason Bateman did a grate job throw most of the movie..
Baxter (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Nicole Kidman) Fang are siblings of a very special family who made fame for themselves in the kids' youth as for their public performances of vanguard art which consisted in a rupture of social and everyday standards.
The whole family comes back together and Annie and Baxter and to confront their parents and their unusual past to figure out their now unbalanced life.I am a deep lover of cinema, every time I go to the theater I genuinely go there, no matter what the movie, to appreciate cinema and even when watching bad films I always try to get something out of it.
"The Family Fang" is simply a deeply disorienting film from tone to script to editing to, even if I don't like to talk about elements that are not part of the film, its poster.What basically makes this film unsettlingly weird from the start and on which the rest it builds on is the basic premise.
The film repeatedly reflects this sentiment the audience will probably feel with extras in it, but this doesn't suddenly make it tangible and understandable, least of all it does give it the sense it desperately needs.You are led to believe that offending two kids in public, making them kiss through a play despite the fact that they are siblings or assaulting a chicken sandwich stand should be these great polarizing pieces of vanguard-modern art.
The film asks you to believe that there is a conflict there, that this has an effect on the world and on our characters, but since the dynamic is never nor convincing nor interesting it simply has no effect whatsoever on the film.So then you are guided through a journey into a dysfunctional family where you feel absolutely lost and the film's style certainly doesn't help.
The plot turns are the only thing that apparently come close to feeling exciting, then what is truly under them is unveiled and I frowned deeper into my seat for that."The Family Fang" is a film that really got on the wrong side of me.
He doesn't always nail it, and requires the right script and fellow actors to make it work, but when it does come of it's a special thing to watch and makes for a great movie.
The sad thing is though, that if the films he appears in are as poor as this, he's never going to make it in the serious genres.I don't really know how to describe what's wrong with 'The Family Fang'.
Bateman, Nicole Kidman and Christopher Walken are all great actors, yet none of them exactly shine here.
Walken comes the closest, but if you're familiar with his work then you'd know he's capable of much better than what he puts forward here.The only element of the film I mildly enjoyed was the mystery side of things.
I'm told the novel which this is based on is actually quite funny, which surprised me because I didn't even come close to laughing once in this film, nor did it feel like they were ever trying to make me laugh.
I watched it over a period of three nights and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.Nicole Kidman does a convincing job of playing a struggling movie star who isn't recognized easily by the public.
Maryann Plunkett plays the mother's role very well as she is torn between her life as it is and as it could have been.Lots of other actors also play these characters in flashbacks which tie the story together.
the basic virtue - it is an ambitious, interesting and original film by Jason Bateman.and, for him, it is a real good point.
not the last, the good performances( especially the reasonable younger Caleb of Jason Butler Harner).the sin - fragile balance for define the art as pretext for control of life of family.the roles are straitjackets.
the thin line between comedy and drama.the sketches of immaturity, credible but not convincing.short, a good film.
Disappearing Act. The Fangs are a family of artists and their lives are filled with drama, mysteries, and a web of lies.
Daughter, Annie (Nicole Kidman), son, Baxter (Jason Bateman), and their parents, performing artists Caleb (Christopher Walken) and Camille (Kathryn Hahn) all return to the family home after Baxter has an accident that lands him in the hospital.
Annie Fang (Nicole Kidman) is struggling in her acting career and pushed into a topless scene.
As young kids, their artistic parents (Jason Butler Harner, Kathryn Hahn) would perform surprise pranks on the public with them.
Suddenly, their parents go missing and the siblings go in search for them.The present-day scenes have some big names but I kept wondering if the movie would function better as a coming-of-age story with the kids and two outrageous parents.
Sadly, The Family Fang, Bateman (doubling as director)'s adaptation of Kevin Wilson's ode to the emotional alienation of a dysfunctional family unable to extricate life from pretentious, avant garde performance art, has nothing so unconventional on its mind.
This isn't to say The Family Fang is an overall poor film – it's capably written and shot, well-paced, including a couple of well-orchestrated twists along the way as the film flirts with the murder mystery genre in its second act, and a good bit with a crossbow.
And it's pretty clear that when Walken's Caleb Fang relentlessly pontificates on 'great art should make you feel things,' glum and restless was not what he had in mind.As the two children desperately trying to siphon through their baggage to carve out their own artistic careers (and functional lives) amidst their parents' warped shadows, Nicole Kidman and Bateman himself do give strong performances, Kidman's peppery indignation making a good foil against Bateman's timidly sarcastic resignation.
Similarly, no one could be perfectly cast as the kooky but emotionally abusive Caleb Fang than Christopher Walken, but he's used so sparingly, and plays so caustically bitter the whole time, that his weirdness is too acidic to enjoy.
It was adapted from the book of the same name that tells the story of a brother and sister who begin to investigate their mysteriously disappeared parents.
With some flashbacks, which reveals how these two grew up with their famous prank artist parents.When I saw the opening scene, I was really excited and thought the film would be like this throughout.
Like maybe some smart twist or the edgy scenes before concluding would have done good.Jason Bateman and Nicole Kidman with their multiple roles like actors, producers et cetera should have been the hefty load, but I think they managed well.
The southern culture and the unspoken but very present Bible Belt offer an important counterpoint to the parents' commitment to art and ability to tune out or reject anything that is not in their definition of art.Bateman and Kidman were much older than the characters and while Christopher Walken was the perfect choice, the weird comedic genius he brought was not utilized in the film at all.
And I wouldn't say it's put together successfully: too much empty talk and too little character development or concentrating on family dynamics.But it does raise interesting questions about how or why parents are to blame for shortfalls in their offsprings' later independent life.
At least it did for me.The story is about adult brother and sister (Nicole Kidman, Jason Bateman) not enjoying their adult existence and blaming parents for not raising them the proper way.
But the latter (Christopher Walken, Maryann Plunkett) are lifelong controversial performance artists who claim that true art is more important than being like everybody else.I haven't read the successful 2011's novel by Kevin Wilson the movie is based on but Bateman, also directing, seemed to be struggling with the adaptation.
bateman and kidman are the adult children of performance artists.
bateman directed, great job; kidman was really good.
The Family Fang consists of two siblings who believe their dysfunctional upbringing has created most of the problems that they are currently experiencing and two parents who believe the extreme but functional artistic upbringing of their children has created two wonderful adults.
An accident brings the family together at the time of great upheaval, artistic block and unhappiness in the (now adult) sibling's lives.
It begs the question "what is art" but, more importantly, why are people so stupid that they don't get it?Nicole Kidman could be playing an exact parody of her own life.
Jason Bateman's stars and his second toe in the director's pond is a surprising and cruelly compassionate comment on art vs family.
this is the worst of all child abuse ever.I hated the movie,I hated the idea and I think that nobody should spent a minute of their life watching this piece of number two,not art at all..
Contrary to what you might think, it manages to correct the lives of the two main characters who finally can succeed in both their careers and life.It simply lacks complexity and the actors don't manage to do anything in making better. |
tt0062819 | Commandos | It is the middle of World War II, and in the deserts of Africa, Sgt. Sullivan (Lee Van Cleef) puts together a group of Italian-Americans into disguise as Italian soldiers in order to infiltrate a North African camp held by the Italians. Sullivan, along with Dino (Romano Puppo), was one of three that survived from the Pacific War against the Japanese, although Lieutenant Freeman was killed in his last mission. Their Captain in charge of the mission, Captain Valli (Jack Kelly), has a bunch of soldiers with special training. They have recruited Italian-Americans for the mission to host as the enemy. The team includes Corbi (Pier Paolo Capponi), Rodolfo (Ivano Staccioll) the teams radiomen, Riccio (Pier Luigi Anchisi), Aldo (Giampiero Albertini), Marco (Gianni Brezza), Bruno (Dullio Del Prete), Antonio (Emilio Marchesini) Carmeio (Blagio Peligra); however, Valli doubtfully has his issues for Sullivan, and the unit of his men. However, though Sullivan has his worries for Valli that he will put all the men at risk, the mission is to the Oasis, the drop zone, as it is two miles from the objective, the plan is to reach the objective and capture the Italian base to learn of the plans, also no prisoners, as the objective is to think Italian not American, as the German would be the close ally to Italian to learn of the truths.
After taking an airplane to North Africa, they jump out of the plane and parachute into North Africa and land in the desert during night hour and also bury the parachutes in the sand so as to leave no evidence. After receiving a distress signal from a fellow soldier they quickly head on task all the commandos join up for the capture of the Italian base. However, after fewer of the men regroup including Dino regroup, after however reaching the Italian base, many of the unit splits into two sections or teams, they take out the guards, and they capture the radio operator as well, but after an elderly watchmen spots that a man was killed he has alerted the guards, but however this results in a huge battle, however in the battle that follows, Valli sees that he will use the prisoners as bate but as Sullivan kills few of them, Valli clashes with Sullivan and tells him they would be needed as bait for the plan, while outside they're is no time for waiting around as It could get close to daylight so they have to use explosives to quickly do the trick, Riccio joins them to tell Valli and Sullivan they're is another way in, but however in the battle several of the Italian-American commandos are killed as a result of too much gunfire; however, Sullivan takes a squad to take out the machine gunner, Dino clears the gunner out,
After the soldiers have killed the Italians in their beds, they find a hooker living at the camp. Sullivan's commandos are to hold this camp and its weaponry until an American battalion arrives; however, though an Italian Hooker named Adriana (Marilù Tolo) however is a stool away in the camp, Valli tells a fellow soldier all men stay clear of the room away from Adriana, among the prisoners Italian Lieutenant Tommassini (Marino Mase) however Sullivan angrily threatens Tommassini, as why they was three Germans in the camp, later Tommassini is interrogated for information by Valli about why they was few Germans in the camp as he tells Valli, the Germans where he to mine the wells, and where meant to leave that morning, however meanwhile a German Professor named Oberieutnant Heitzel Agen (Joachim Fuchsberger) however is planning an invasion that will spark the end of allied lines for good, later on at the Italian base, Italian Mortar Trucks are coming to the Italian Oasis base, they attempt to use Tommassini as a decoy which they end up doing, as it is made to look like everyone is around camp stationed and doing fun, Aldo however kicks a ball at the Italian Truck Driver but however Aldo says he is sorry which the Driver agrees to, later on Aldo however asks what one of the men is doing with the fuel truck but he tells him he needs is a wrench and wire to which Aldo agrees to, but what they don't realize is one of the men who is the Elderly Guard, is still alive and has survived, however Aldo accompanies the man to the warehouse for wire, but he tells him it is to be used for carburetor, however though later on Tommassini is told that he will however have to play the dangerous game when convoys come everyday by Valli and Sullivan's words, however while Tommassini is locked up he makes a plan with his fellow men.
Later after receiving a call from the German's a guest named Professor Agen is coming to the Italian Camp for a meal, later in the dining room where however they use Tommassini and tell how the dining tables are set up, preparations are in full swing, when the German's arrive for the meeting and the night meals, while getting to know the Germans, the Italian-American's however get to know however all of the men while in the bar, however one of the men Oberieutnant Rudi (Götz George) starts to worry about the four men sent to the camp, but Agen tells him to not worry about it, however Rudi is off to check around the camp to see what his boys did, but while Sullivan witnessed it, he orders Dino to check it out, however when Rudi goes to see that a cable was detached it turns out it was to avoid a certain disaster, later Dino returns telling Sullivan that however everything is back in good control, meanwhile one of the German men, Offizier Hans (Heinz Reincke) goes to see Adriana but finds she is too sleepy and drunken although Hans insists to speak to Adriana, Sullivan listens from the room but as Hans exits the door, Sullivan speaks to Hans and tells him they were up late last night which Hans agrees to, meanwhile in the dining area Professor Agen asks if he should have the last wine, but Valli agrees to let Agen have it, however meanwhile outside the two Italian-Americans who are guarding do not realize that the Elderly German Soldier is about to sneak up on one of the men, although the other went for a bottle of champagne, however though Sullivan sees they might be trouble going on but hopes to stop it, meanwhile one of the Italian-American commandos is however knocked unconscious, in the dining room, Agen hopes to give Sullivan a drink of wine but he rejects the offer but it is given to him anyway, meanwhile as the men singing in the dining room occurs, Sullivan starts to suffer from past events happened in the Pacific War fighting the Japanese, meanwhile one of men sees Sullivan who wants air but while on duty the elderly German attacks Sullivan. As a result, the elderly German soldier fires his gunshots as Sullivan quickly strangles the German who attacked him to death, but this however alerts the Germans and the men around the base, Valli demands to know who fired the shot, but however one of the men says it was a jackle however, though Professor Agen tells Valli they would have been attacked by commandos but although it does seem it wasn't a commando attack at all, after Dino congratulates Sullivan, they clear the dead Elderly German soldier out of the way, but as Sullivan soon gets a flashback of Japanese soldiers attacking Sullivan, and how the death of Freeman occurred, however Dino tells the story to Corbi about the time Sullivan's attack in the Pacific occurred how the Japs attacked him and killed Lieutenant Freeman, but explains that Dino, Sullivan and a third man survived back in the Pacific, but as Corbi soon realizes the shocking truth that he has it against Valli, Corbi tells Dino who he has found, however Dino goes to see his close friend Sullivan and asks what is bothering him, but Dino tells Sullivan to try not think about his past back in the Pacific and that its past and gone, however as Sullivan tells Dino how he got the medal in hospital for his bravery,
Later on it is time for Professor Agen, Rudi, Braumann and Hans to return to the German lines, they thank the Italian's really Americans for the night event and wish them good luck, however Tommassini goes finds a way to wonder off but Valli and his men stop him, but Tommassini ensures him he wasn't and Valli agrees, Tommassini is escorted to the brig with the remaining prisoners, but meanwhile during the night the prisoners break free from the cell, however one of the men fakes being ill and cuts the power and takes out the guards which Tommassini and his men escape, Tommassini and the men however soon take out a few of Valli's men, but not before one of the guards finds few of the men dead and soon a fight ensures, but however Tommassini and the men soon hijack a truck in the process and get away, as such Sullivan realizes they are out of range so the men must pursue them in a truck, meanwhile in the desert the truck containing Tommassini and his men stalls in the sand while trying to get away from Sullivan's patrol, Valli goes to follow the trail they went as it left tracks in the sand, but while Tommassini and his men try to get the truck out of the sand, they use their jackets to get the wheels to work but while Tommassini and the men get aboard onto the truck, Sullivan, Valli, Dino, Aldo, Corbi and several others has caught up with the stolen truck, but while it drives through the desert, most of Tommassini's men are both killed in the back of the truck, but while Sullivan's men kill many of Tommassini's men in the shootout, Dino is mortally wounded, but neither does Tommassini know he is taking the truck into a minefield where disaster is to strike, Valli realizes they have won the round and return to base soon after, but neither do they know Tommassini has secretly survived the explosion of the truck accident, meanwhile at German lines, Braumann and Miller decide on what is bout to happen which the Germans plan an invasion which will spell disaster for the Americans, but Professor Agen, and Rudi, Braumann and Miller plan to return to the Italian camp to say goodbye to them,
Meanwhile, as the men return to the base, it is too late and Dino sadly dies in Sullivan's arms from his wounds, however though Sullivan makes an effort for his dead comrade and friend to bury his body in the sand, Aldo sees in his heart how sorro he feels for Sullivan's mate Dino, but meanwhile on a Tank patrol two of them on watch on a tank spot Lieutenant Tommassini who has been saved by friendly Germans, but back at the Italian base Sullivan however does the honor of burying his dead friend Dino alone, meanwhile a friendly airplane drops a supply into the Italian base, however the new orders as Valli read was to leave out of the base immediately, and Operation Torch is to be abandoned, later Valli orders Rodolfo to make radio contact, but however Sullivan stops him in time, Sullivan soon comes face to face with Valli and torments him over arrogance for the losses of the men like what happened to Dino back their, Valli soon realizes that Sullivan is bluffing and will have him court marshalled for the crime of assaulting Valli, and despite the losses of six men that died due to Valli's arrogance and the plan he did for Operation Torch, however Corbi tells Sullivan what happened but Sullivan doesn't want to hear it out of Corbi's words, realizing Valli might get everyone killed in this mission, Valli soon will see Sullivan shot for this, but before Sullivan is able to shoot Valli, one of the men reports vehicle's are approaching, it is Professor Agen and the Germans to say goodbye to the Italians before they leave, Agen however thanks Valli for the effort, however though Agen asks about the American landings that might have upset him but as a result Agen asks what happened to Tommassini but although Valli tells that he was about to get out of their alive as Tommassini has gone to headquarters, (in reality he was already still alive and will soon be telling Agen about this on radio) as Agen is to report onto the radio, Valli accompanies Agen to the radio, as Agen reports to the radio that the Italian's are actually Italian-American commandos, but Agen however sees Valli smiling and Agen although sees good in Valli as a friend, however though Sullivan suspects Tommassini has warned them and will soon be in grave anger, however the man Hazel he talks to is to bring a column of his tanks to attack, but eventually Agen realizes the men will arrive as fast as they can to stop them, however Agen asks about Tommassini he did want to see him but realizes it was too bad he wasn't their, Valli tells to Agen that he said his goodbyes for him, however Agen and his friend Valli drink to the alliance they made and friendship they made, however Agen and Valli respect the friendship, however meanwhile Sullivan asks Corbi how much time they have got, but Sullivan orders Corbi to get the guns ready before something is about to happen, however Agen sees Sullivan again and asks him for a drink but he tells it is a special moment but an order he should obey, but as a result Sullivan refuses to drink and drops it, Valli tells Agen not to do this but Sullivan however despite his arrogance starts a huge fight against the Germans,
Sullivan wounds Agen and the a huge battle however costs many lives, Agen, Rudi, Hans try to escape in the car but they are cut off, Sullivan and Corbi destroy the wells, Hans asks Agen what are the wells about but Agen tells he doesn't know what they are as they maybe machines made to pump water, as Rudi drives away two of the Italian-American's take out Rudi's car with a bazooka, but the battle becomes costly and lots of Italian-American's are killed as well as Germans in the battle, however several of the Italian-American's escape to a truck but although too late it is destroyed by Germans, Valli witnesses in horror few burning men, as Sullivan and Corbi take out the German truck with the machine gun, but as Tanks arrive, many are killed and although Aldo comments 'Someone should tell them our mission is scratched that we don't need the dam war?" to Valli, however the firepower from the tanks blows up barracks and also an Italian flag, meanwhile Agen takes his troops with him to take out the remaining Italian-Americans, Aldo also warns Valli of a incoming German Tiger Panzer Tank, however as incoming tanks arrive, Valli tells Aldo they have to go around, bur as they blow up more stuff two more Italian-American's are both killed by tank machine gun firepower and fewer more are, however the truck arrives and it to their surprise is Tommassini whom has returned to get his revenge, Tommassini sees a fuel truck and attempts to destroy it but however Aldo sees him and shoots him mortally wounding him as he reaches for the TNT, as he attempts to use it, Aldo guns Tommassini down saying his final words, "Wells, the world," as he hits the TNT which blows up the wells, only few Italian-American's are left, Valli, Sullivan, Aldo and Corbi, but however Agen kills Corbi and the other Italian-American in the process, Agen soon panics in the attack but at point range, Agen is about to shoot Valli but realizing he is a good kind friend, he screams, "No, Valli I can't, VALLI!" as Valli witnesses him and understands this, Sullivan all too well kills Agen and shoots him in the back, however Sullivan sees the dead body of Corbi on the ground and takes the bazooka to avenge for his death, Valli however tells Sullivan what is going to happen now, but Sullivan tells Valli he will carry out the plan, just as Sullivan attempts to take out the Panzer he successfully takes it out, but as he goes and makes a breakthrough to the second, Valli calls out, "Sullivan look out!" but as a result the tank fires at Sullivan mortally wounding him as Sullivan attempts to use a grenade the last thing he ever does is throw it into the caterpillars and the explosion impacts Sullivan and before Sullivan dies, he gets a last look at his memories back in the Pacific before dying from his wounds.
The only survivors are Valli and Aldo, but as Valli and Aldo finish off the remaining Germans from the Panzer Tank, Sullivan has just destroyed, Valli and Aldo look at the now dead Sullivan and understand what he died for, but suddenly Valli is shot in the back and killed by a German soldier from nowhere, allowing Aldo now the sole-surviving Italian-American commando of the mission to react, Aldo sees many dead Germans and Italian-American's that where people he knew now gone, all too silent everything seems quiet and now he is all by himself, but not before Hans, the last of Professor Agen's Junior NCO's survived the battle by himself, he nearly attempts to kill Aldo, but he sees in his heart the truth and he begins to understand Aldo's feelings and looks back the time he first met at the dining room, then seeing the truth Aldo and Hans agree a truce and they lay down their guns allowing a truce after realizing they have all their dead friends they have to bury now into graves, Aldo and Hans agree to help, together like friends they now help bury the dead soldiers including Sullivan and many others, and Agen as well, as all are lined up, Aldo and Hans now complete the dead in place and together they now await for allied Americans to come find them, | violence, flashback | train | wikipedia | This is one of the easiest to find Italian war films, and it's really not too shabby, either
On the eve of the American landings in North Africa, a band of Italian-American soldiers are recruited for a special mission behind the enemy lines.
The main conflict is between Sergeant Sullivan (Lee Van Cleef, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly") and Captain Valli (Jack Kelly, "To Hell and Back").
It's very nice to see a late-1960s war film in which a German character has a sympathetic role, rather than a clichéd "evil Nazi" part which was so common in other action films produced during the era.
The Germans and Americans discuss culture and politics over dinner in one long scene, and this makes their face-to-face encounter during the final battle all the more moving.
The American takeover of the Italian garrison is excellently shot and finely edited, and the climactic tank battle in the oasis is purely awesome.
"Commandos" is a well-written, well-shot and action-packed war drama with a fine supporting cast and some nail-biting combat sequences, which put it a notch above many other Italian war productions in the same vein.
Lee Van Cleef leads a small special force into North Africa to take a Italian/German camp.
Decent Italian/German co-production with enough action and dramatic events to make it worth looking in on .
It deals with the inexperienced but stalwart Lieutenant Valli (Jack Kelly) who puts together a group of Italian-Americans (Giampiero Albertini , Pier Paolo Capponi , Ivano Staccioli) led by a tough sergeant (Lee Van Cleef) .
But there is a hidden man (Helmut Smith) on the fort , and problems emerge and things go awry.It follows the commando-sub-genre with familiar plot and cliché-filled, as an expert group of soldiers into disguise as Italian soldiers in order to infiltrate a North African camp held by the Italians and often hosting the enemy , but things go terribly wrong after that .It displays thrills, noisy action, extreme violence, fatalism and impressive final battle .
Nice acting by Lee Van Cleef as unsettling sergeant who has a war trauma and constantly argues with his superior and fine performance from Jack Kelly as a green by-the-book officer .
Support cast is frankly excellent , full of secondaries usual in co- productions (Spaghetti , Eurospy , Peplum) such as Giampiero Albertini , Marino Masé , Götz George , Pier Paolo Capponi , Duilio Del Prete, Ivano Staccioli , Marilù Tolo , and Joachim Fuchsberger from Edward Wallace series , among others .Evocative and atmospheric cinematography in Cromoscope, being shot during July , August 1968 in Cerdeña.Enjoyable and adequate musical score by Mario Nascinbene.The motion picture was well directed by Armando Crispino .
As for all the nay sayers on this site, it doesn't sound like they actually saw the movie or watched it all the way through.If you love WWII films or action films, make this a must see.
Lee Van Cleef leads a band of New York Italian American paratroopers whom must raid and hold an Axis water supply depot.
Most importantly they must be about to pass for Italian solders in order to fool their German comrades.The oasis depot proves to be a very elaborate but well fortified Axis hotel.
Their Italian prisoners escape, more and more German squads keep visiting and worse yet Van Cleef himself is a deranged and unstable veteran of Bataan who hates all superior officers as glory hounds carelessly putting his men at risk.The final scene is a really great one.
Even if they are the main characters.Unlike neutered German WWII films like 'Stalingrad.' The Italians got it right.
No drama or romance, just guts and glory.'Desert Commandos' is a perfect companion piece to this film..
Who would of thought that a low budget Italian/U.S. war drama with no big stars would be one of the best films of 1968?
In an era of glamourized war films (The syrupy "McConnell Story" and ludricous "Sands of Iwo Jima" come to mind), a gritty film like "Commandos" is a real pleasure indeed.It stars Lee Van Cleef, who you may remember from "A Few Dollars More" and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." He was sort of the Harvey Keitel of that time, an actor who took risks and made unconventional films for the time.
What makes "Commandos" special is its' focus on two things: mind boggling action sequences and characterizations.I would like to make everyone aware that for a budget video copy, the video transfer is excellent.
Intense not so covert war action with good drama between characters and a few twists in the plot.
Sergeant Sullivan (Lee Van Cleef) shows scares from previous conflicts, illustrating the personal side that never is far away from the professional.
The personal conflict and struggle between Sergeant Sullivan and Captain Valli (Jack Kelly) is constantly simmering and sometimes boiling over.
Another fantastic slice of war drama from the Italians, who were at their best filming on a tight budget in the middle of the African desert and blowing up shedloads of jeeps and tanks along the way.
Following in the footsteps of dozens of similar offerings post-DIRTY DOZEN, the simplistic plot line tells of a small group of American soldiers who capture an Italian base in the middle of the desert (what for is never quite explained) and then who have to pretend to be Italians when the Germans show up looking for a good time.
An excellent script with full-on characterisation, a few moral messages about the nature of war and comradeship, and heapings of suspense (realised through a monotonous but effective chordal note on the soundtrack) make for one heck of a film.The film is based on a short story by notorious exploitation producer Menahem Golan, with the script co-written (with three others) by none other than Dario Argento, who later found fame as the "Italian Hitchcock".
Lee Van Cleef handles the part of his tough sergeant as well as you would expect, and as a bonus gets extra psychological torment via some Filipino flashbacks.
The action sequences are mostly saved for the finale, but what a finale it is: packed with gunfire, explosions, destruction, mayhem and death, this easily rivals much more lavish productions and is the best battle I've seen in a long time.
It might be because this is more or less a straight-up war movie that happened to be made by Italians rather than a Spaghetti Western with tanks instead of horses.
The film seems to be lacking in the "fun" department too, with a heavy handed musical score, shameless overacting by the usually more low-keyed Lee Van Cleef, a cast of hundreds of nobody's rather than just a dozen or so, and a brooding sense of doom that builds into an over-the-top final battle scene where everyone of importance to the movie dies horribly.
Thank God. Even the funky desert goggles couldn't liven things up, might as well kill everybody.War Is Hell and of course it shouldn't be fun, so fans of mainstream war films will perhaps enjoy this more than the cultists -- and they got the stupid machine guns + uniforms etc right for once, thank freakin' God for that ...
Look for Singing German scenes in HELL IN NORMANDY, CHURCHILL'S LEOPARDS and BATTLE OF THE LAST PANZER for more information.COMMANDOS does have a great sequence where the captured Italian officers break out of their jail cell to fight their American commando captors, and like with Umberto Lenzi's DESERT COMMANDOS this movie sort of tricks you into rooting for the Axis soldiers, including a sympathetic German officer who comes off as rather a decent chap.
Lee Van Cleef on the other hand comes across as a sweaty faced, sneering, jittery psychopath barely able to contain his homicidal rage, and the best image of the film has him staring into the eyes of a dead man he killed with his bare hands, reliving a flashback to a disastrous raid gone bad from his days fighting in the Pacific.
Welcome to the world of public domain genre films, where the point is to rip off the best version possible, undercut the original releases with a ridiculously/suspiciously low price, and as such de-value a rugged little distinctive movie into a bit of garbage on sale for $.49 cents in the store where people go to buy things like forks, mutated Doritos or cheap party decorations.
Standard low budget war movie.
The movie itself was decent...acting a bit over the top from some of the players, the plot very predictable, and the ending a bit smarmy, intent on teaching us a nice lesson about the horrors of war.The worst part of the film were the technical details.
The obvious use of the 1944 M3 Grease Gun as the weapon of choice for the commandos, a weapon which didn't even see North Africa, let alone North Africa in 1942, the year before it made it to Army usage.One can forgive the use of US Chaffee and Walker Bulldog tanks repainted in German Afrika Tan (after all, Patton did too), but too many errors upon errors crept into the movie to make it truly enjoyable.
Lee Van Cleef and Jack Kelly are the two American stars of this European made war film with an Italian and German cast.
Van Cleef is a combat veteran of the Pacific and Kelly is a Captain in his first mission.
That mission is a gem.Kelly and Van Cleef head a team of picked Commandos all of whom have an Italian background and speak fluent Italian.
In the meantime the group is to kill all the Italian soldiers and take over their command like a relief unit and keep their cover under the watchful eyes of the Germans.
Lee Van Cleef can really frighten the audience while maintaining a good guy innocence at the same time.
An entirely different description of Commandos was listed, so imagine my surprise when I saw it was the old Lee Van Cleef movie!
There's no historic accuracy to it at all, other than the Germans and Italians were fighting in North Africa (or the Western Desert, for our British friends).
surprisingly good war film for under 50 cent !.
for this jarring start to the movie one would suspect the film to be "el cheap-o", but one look at the mean ass sgt.
then the opening credits roll and that old school, Italian movie masterpiece symphony music comes on and grips any real hard core war flick fan by the nads!
though the mission the "commandos" are on may seem to be absolutely impossible, for some reason this film makes it all seam possible and looks rather realistic, especially for its 1968 release.
and anybody who is a fan of tanks and tank crews in film, such as "the beast", will love the presence of the Germans in their panzer units, riding and fighting threw the desserts of Africa.
Gritty World War II Secret Mission Thriller with Lee Van Cleef.
"Autopsy" director Armando Crispino's historically inaccurate but nevertheless gripping World War II behind-enemy-lines, secret-mission thriller "Commandos" qualifies as a rugged, gritty, suspenseful combat epic.
Lee Van Cleef delivers a riveting performance as a belligerent, battle-scarred Bataan hero who survived, along with two other companions, a death-defying ordeal.
Interestingly, she points out that she can earn more money in the army camp than back home.The conceit of "Commandos" is that our heroes are descendants of genuine Italians and Sergeant Sullivan and his right-hand man Dino (Romano Puppo of "Death Rides A Horse") have spent a month training them for the mission.
Sullivan has little regard for most of them, but he has nothing but sheer contempt for his superior officer, Captain Valli (Jack Kelly of "To Hell & Back") who has never baptized in combat.
"You got a lot of bright ideas, Captain, but do you know what killing is—exactly—with these (makes gestures with his hands) and (brandishing a bayonet) this?" Later, Valli explains that they will parachute near their destination.
Captain Valli refuses to watch Sullivan turn the raid into a massacre, and he spares the lives of Italian Lt. Tomassini (Marino Mase of "The Five Man Army") and many of his troops.
No sooner do the Germans leave than the Italian hatch a plan of escape.The themes of "Commandos" include the inhumanity of war, experienced versus inexperienced combatants, battlefield shock, and the duty that an officer has both to his men and the mission.
The irony is that the Germans and the Italians are depicted with greater sympathy than the tough guy Americans.
The German soldiers get along with each other as do the Italians, but the Americans clash, principally Sullivan and Valli.
Consequently, "Commandos" concludes with the Americans exploding the water holes and fighting the Germans with tragic results for both Sullivan and Valli.Mind you, the authenticity of the action doesn't bear close scrutiny.
Instead, they are repainted U.S. Army Chaffee and Walker Bulldog tanks with German insignia, and the M3A1 submachine guns that the Americans tote weren't available for another year.
Allowances must be made, however, and the Cold War tanks overlooked since the German tanks were long since kaput, while the "Dirty Dozen" machine guns look cool.
The sun-scorched widescreen photography of "Taste of Death" lenser Benito Frattari makes this desert-locked minor war film look sprawling and the nocturnal actions scenes have a perilous, primitive quality.
The strident music of composer Mario Nascimbene enhances the suspense, especially when Sullivan and his men search for a wounded German engineer who remains at large in the compound.
Sergeant Sullivan summarizes it succinctly to Captain Valli in an earlier scene.
Drama of World War II in North Africa from the Italian Point of View.
In North Africa the German-Italian Axis forces under Field Marshal Rommel are at El-Alamein.
Italian-American commandos, led by a humane Captain Valli and a tense Sergeant Sullivan, have the mission of taking an oasis held by Italians in preparation for Operation Torch, the planned American invasion of Africa in November 1942.
Without going into details, the movie focuses on the escapades of the commando unit as they first take on the Italians, then pose as the "regular" Italians in deceiving the Germans, and then battle the Germans in a lengthy and exciting action sequence (only to face a bitter irony revealed during the denouement).The movie was not cliché-filled as Leonard Maltin has written in his Movie Guide.
Instead the ending is a complete surprise
BIG TIME SPOILER ALERT
as only one Italian-American (not a lead character) and a German (a jovial sort of fellow) are left.
A group of American commandos, disguised as Italian solders, must infiltrate North Africa and take of an Italian outpost.
This may prove to be the biggest hurdle that the American solders face.Commandos has a lot to recommend - action, suspense, cast, and locations.
The final battle scene is a thing of beauty and far exceeded my expectations given the films obviously limited budget.
Chief among them are Marino Mase (the Italian officer who must work with the Americans to save his men) and Joachim Fuchsberger (the German officer who would rather be at home than fighting a war).
You can look far and wide but I doubt you'll find anyone who overacts and chews the scenery quite like Van Cleef does in this movie.
I just can't imagine a real solder questioning a superior officer quite like Sullivan does in Commandos.
A more realistic disagreement between the two solders would have made the movie much better.There are several budget companies that specialize in public domain films that have released Commandos.
I'm another one who got in the bargain bin at wal-mart in an 8 "Classic War Movie" package for $5.50.It was enjoyable, especially the battle sequences.
There are some technical problems here and there with weaponry and the producers/scriptwriters' love of submachine guns.It surprised me how halfway through the movie I realized that the Italians and Germans were the ones portrayed sympathetically and the Americans weren't.The Germans are very well portrayed with accurate Afrika Korps uniforms (down to such details as pink piping and skull collar insignia for tankers) as are the Italians.
Conversely the American details are off, from the postwar M3A1 submachine guns to the late war "Ike" jackets.The use of US tanks is always excusable for me because where were you going to get real German WW2 tanks in 1970?
It ain't a classic but it ain't bad and the little uniform details and sympathetic portrayal of the Germans/Italians made it worth while for me..
The 89-minute version is most strictly adults only.COMMENT: "Commandos" suffers from a director who insists on getting far too close to the action.
My experience with Italian war movies are that most made in the 60's (well just about all) are comic book with the exception of the one about the Naples uprising and the one about the Battle Of El Alemain, both are good for a couple of viewings before you see some pretty bad flaws with the acting.
I had low aspirations for Commandos but the print on this public domain set was so good, and Lee Van Cleef is so warped that I started to get into it and was ready to give this a 8 star review.
Its a shame too because this film print is really decent and a really wide format wide screen, plus you've got two actors you will recognize, Van Cleef and the German guy who flew the fighter plane over Omaha beach in The Longest Day movie (among other recognizable roles he has played to American audiences).
The story curiously enough was written by someone with a Jewish sounding name, I find that curious since it's a joint Italian/German production and clearly puts both of their armies in a good light were as the Americans kind of stink.
5 of 10 only for hard core war film buffs. |
tt0265998 | Baiorensu jakku: herusuuindo hen | The series takes place in the ruins of the Kanto region, after a massive earthquake (which in the OVAs was triggered by a Comet strike) dubbed 'The Great Kanto Hellquake'. Cut off from the rest of the world, The survivors of the disaster are divided between the strong and the weak. Violence Jack is uncovered amongst the rubble and demolished granite by the inhabitants of a ruined city, asking him to help the weak people and helping them destroy what, in most cases, are the strong groups commanded by killers and rapists (this is the story line of "Violence Jack: Evil Town"). In the three OVAs, Jack is requested to help different groups, such as the Zone A (later he ends up helping Zone C women) or a small town, as shown in "Hell's Wind". As for the manga, the stories change drastically, the first being the story Violence Jack helping a group of female models in a tropical forest in Kanto by possessing a boy living in said forest in order to fight off a roving tribe of bandits. Even though Jack contains the figure of a ruthless, evil character, he always helps the weak section of people, in trade for nothing.
When it was originally published there were several hints that pointed out the relationship between Devilman and Violence Jack. The final chapter reveals that the apocalyptic world in Violence Jack is in a world re-created by God. Satan (Ryo Asuka) is punished by being constantly humiliated by Slum King (Zenon). Jack is actually Akira Fudo, and is one of three parts that form Devilman, the others being a child Jack and woman Jack, both of which were normally seen as birds around Jack from time to time. They merge in order to stop the recently awakened Satan. This time Devilman manages to stop Satan. | violence | train | wikipedia | Violence Jack 3: why me?. Violence Jack 3: why me? This is the third time I'm putting my mental health at risk to review this for you all, so I hope you get something out of it.Overview: At this point, I don't think Violence Jack needs much of an introduction. If you're one of those backwards people who like to watch movies in reverse order or something (Star Wars), here's your tiny preface: post apocalyptic tale of wanton violence, with a healthy dose of stabbing, ripping, evisceration, and angst. Story: 7A lonely jeep rumbles across the ruined landscape, assaulted by a gang of bikers. The occupants, a man and woman, are quickly rounded up, the man cruelly murdered, and the woman is sexually assaulted, lacerated, and left to die. This is Violence Jack afterall, what did you expect?This time around, we get a cohesive story. We have two narratives going; one of this kid who lives in post-earthquake Hope Town, and one of this woman out for vengeance for the death of her loved one, and her own brutal mistreatment at the hands of this biker gang, known as Hell's Wind. Violence Jack awakens.A sadistic tale of the psychopathic Hell's Wind gang, led by Dante (symbolism intact), who exist purely to terrorize the desolate Kanto region: rape, murder, and torture are the MO, the denizens of Hope Town soon find themselves beset upon by vile fiends. The woman takes it upon herself to administer some sweet, sweet justice on them-and very nearly succeeds, but finds that despite all her rage, she is still just a rat in a cage. After a beloved teacher is captured in a raid from Hell's Wind, the aforementioned boy, the woman out for vengeance, and Violence Jack team up to reach the ferocious conclusion.Who lives? who walks free? With a name like Violence Jack, I can assure you nobody does.Art: 7As the Violence Jack saga has progressed, the art style has definitely improved. Totally watchable, with some minor discrepancies with character design- nothing major. Viscera show up in their bloody, pink and red glory, and the fire looks pretty nice.Sound: 7Sound jumped up a lot from the previous films. We have some decent 80s-y action riffs, and it picks up at the high points to add a bit of dramatic tension. Definite improvementCharacters: 6A little more heartfelt this time, since we have a more coherent story, and not just clips of the ultraviolent nature. A strong female side character is also a nice change from previous entries. Overall fine, still what you'd expect from Violence JackEnjoyment: 6+1This film was definitely the best of the three. I enjoyed there being an actual story, the violence was satisfying also. A few missteps with continuity, but ah, who cares? A few key ultraviolent moments: Chainsaw scene (9/10 brutality) Man ripped in half by motorcycles (8/10 brutality) Flaming Curb stomp (10/10 brutality)[27/30 brutality points, enjoyment gets +1]Overall: 7As I reach the end of this Saga, i realize Violence Jack taught me something. One _can_ make violence for the sake of violence a plot point, but you really have to follow through, and Jack did this. They set up the standard for viciousness in Jack 1, upped the ante with 2, and culminated it in this. Edit: Just watched Mad Max again, and this OVA definitely pays a lot of homage to it, which is a good thing. The biker gang, killing for fun, and a character out for revenge of his lost ones makes for a decent copyjob.I need to go wash my eyes and scrub my brain with clorox now.. a steaming pile of justice. This was my first and last foray into anime. I bought this film but I just can't bring my self to display it on my DVD shelf. I have pretty gory stuff like event horizon and evil dead. I like a good blood and guts exploitation if its done right but Violence Jack doesn't do it right or indeed anything right. It says 1990 but this looks like it was made in the early seventies you know that period where everyone was really miserable and sometimes naked. This is a grotty clammy cheesy sh*t-fest from start to finish. Also its got lots of r*pe which is messed up. All the men are hairy r*pe ogres and all the women victimy infants apart from the lesbians who are of course evil. I know not all anime is like this but this pile of turds has put me off the genre for a while. I'm giving the film two points because when asked for his name the giant of the title sticks a massive jack knife into the table and says:"I have no name but this does. Call me Jack, call me Violence Jack." You gotta love that. |
tt0022827 | Doctor X | Reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) is investigating a series of pathological murders that have taken place over a series of months in New York City. The murders always take place at night, under the light of a full moon (the newspapers dubbing them the "Moon Killer Murders"). Furthermore, each body has been cannibalized after the murder has taken place. Witnesses to the events describe a horribly disfigured "monster" as the killer.
Doctor Xavier (Lionel Atwill) is called in for his medical opinion, but it is learned through meeting with the police that the ulterior motive behind this is to begin an investigation of Xavier's medical academy, as the scalpel used to cannibalize the bodies of the victims was exclusive to that institution. Aside from Xavier, the other suspects are: Wells (Preston Foster), an amputee who has made a study of cannibalism; Haines (John Wray), who displays a sexual perversion with voyeurism; Duke (Harry Beresford), a grouchy loudmouth cripple; and Rowitz (Arthur Edmund Carewe), who is conducting studies of the psychological effects of the moon (Rowitz also displays a notable scar on one side of his face). It is learned that Haines and Rowitz were stranded in a boat with another man, and that while they claimed he had died and they had thrown him overboard, it was suspected that they had, in fact, cannibalized him.
The police give Xavier 48 hours to apprehend the killer in his own way. During this time, Taylor investigates the doctor's intentions and in the process, meets Joan Xavier (Fay Wray), the doctor's daughter. Joan is exceedingly cold to Taylor, particularly after finding out that it was his story that pointed a finger at her father and ruined his first attempt at locating the killer. Taylor, however, manages to find a romantic interest in Joan before being escorted out. He is then walking out of the house as the maid dumps ice water on him.
The setting switches to Xavier's beach-side estate on Long Island. There, all of the suspects are brought in for an unorthodox examination of their guilt: each member (excluding Wells, because it is known that the killer has two hands and he has but one) is connected to an electrical system that records their heart rate. When a re-enactment of the murder of a cleaning woman appears before them, the detector will expose the guilty man who will have no choice but to confess. Dr. Xavier's butler and maid, Otto (George Rosener) and Mamie (Leila Bennett), carry out the reenactment.
Things go awry, however, when a number of events inhibit the experiment. First, Taylor breaks into the home and hides in a storage closet, but is rendered unconscious by gas that the killer puts in the room. During the experiment, a blackout occurs. Wells, in another room controlling the equipment, appears to fall through a glass door. When power is regained, it is discovered that Rowitz, whose monitor supposedly revealed him as the guilty party just before the blackout, has been murdered, a victim of a scalpel to the base of the brain.
Taylor is discovered by the staff and Xavier has no choice but to keep him there until the investigation is over, lest he report back to his paper. Joan decides to be friendly to Taylor, as she sees that he is the only one with enough intuition to solve the crime. Later that night, it is discovered that during these hours, Rowitz's body has been cannibalized.
The following evening, the police allow Xavier an extension till midnight to apprehend the killer. Xavier again asks Otto and Mamie to re-enact another of the murders. Mamie is too frightened and ill to play her part, so Joan takes Mamie's place. All of the men, save for Wells, are this time handcuffed to their seats. It is during this that we find out that it is, in fact, Wells who is the killer. As his "guests" are all handcuffed and helpless, he is free to explain. Through a "synthetic flesh" composition that he himself has created, Wells has been creating artificial limbs and a horrific mask to carry out his crimes in order to collect living samples of human flesh for his experiments. It turns out at first for years he had been searching for a secret manufactured flesh and eventually finds it; so, he went to Africa one time, not to study cannibalism, but to get samples of the human flesh the natives eat. To collect his final victim, Wells sneaks up on Otto and strangles him. Then, he proceeds to reveal himself and his intentions for collecting Joan as his specimen in front of everyone.
Just as Wells is about to strangle Joan, Taylor — posing as one of a series of wax figures representing the killer's victims — jumps Wells and the two men get into a scuffle. As Wells lunges towards Taylor, Taylor grabs a kerosene lamp and hurls it at Wells. Set on fire, Wells stumbles and crashes out a window and falls down a cliff into the ocean. Reporting his story into the paper, Taylor tells his editor to make space in the marriage section for Joan and himself. | murder, atmospheric | train | wikipedia | Doctor X combines a spooky old house with a mad scientist horror story, and as directed by Michael Curtiz in early two-strip Technicolor, it's a quite good show even by today's standards.Lionel Atwill's Doctor X is a scientist who runs a medical research institute in New York City near where a series of grisly murders have recently occurred.
Well, sort of......only two colors, but they look great.I only got this because I saw it at the library as part of a two-pack with "The Return Of Dr. X." It is part of a Hollywood "Legends Of Horror" package that includes several other films I am familiar with and think highly of, so I can see a possible future purchase.Anyway, the first thing that struck me watching this was that fantastic two-strip Technicolor.
DOCTOR X is one of those heartbreaking films to watch for a fan of old horror movies, because it has so many wonderful things going for it yet just narrowly misses the mark of being really good due to a liability or two which could have been avoided.
Dr. Xavier (the always enjoyable Lionel Atwill) heads a group of doctors who are all suspects up for scrutiny, and though we have to deal with the frequent lapses into silliness from Mr. Tracy, this old chestnut is interesting and gripping a fair amount of its running time.
There's a completely out of place beach scene with Wray and Tracy that will leave you wondering who thought it shouldn't be left on the cutting room floor (perhaps it was an excuse to get a pantie shot of Fay as she sunbathes under her big beach umbrella).The film's strongest moment comes in a revelation sequence late in the movie where we finally get to see who the crazed murderer is, and it's still chilling even now to watch him go through his insane routine.
When you think of it, everything about this film is strictly synthetic...the plot, the hokey comic relief, the occasional ham acting--but the atmosphere photographed in crisp looking two-strip Technicolor is fully charged and the taut direction of Michael Curtiz (long before he did another more polished noir called THE UNSUSPECTED), makes this a very watchable early horror film from Warner Bros.The Anton Grot sets in early color will keep the viewer totally enhanced even when the plot holes become too obvious.
The storyline concerns a killer known for striking when there's a full moon and Lionel Atwill is the doctor who thinks he can solve the crime by some scientific detective work of his own.It's the sort of film that became a staple of the "old dark house" mysteries audiences loved in the '20s and '30s--and even into the '40s with films like THE CAT AND THE CANARY.
None of it seems quite as compelling as some of the better known fright films (including MURDER IN THE WAX MUSEUM), but we do get a chance to hear some first rate screams from Fay Wray (who looks very attractive in close-ups even though the Max Factor make-up is a little too extreme), and the capable cast includes such sturdy performers as Lionel Atwill and Preston Foster.Trivia note: The killer's synthetic flesh make-up is very effective when he's in full mode on the kill.
Xavier's daughter Joan teams up with annoying reporter Lee Taylor to find clues to the murders, but they have to act quickly when one of the doctors is killed and the next victim will be Joan, and no one in the academy will be able to stop him.
And both elements are enhanced because this was one of the first movies to be shot in two-strip Technicolor.Lee Tracy, one of the most enjoyable actors of the early 1930's, plays another in his long line of fast-talking wise-crackers - this time a newspaperman out to get a big story.
Among those films was the 1932 tale of horror and mystery, "Doctor X", directed by Michael Curtiz, who in those years was still one of the many studio directors at Warner.
The Academy's director, Dr. Jerry Xavier (Lionel Atwill), decides that in order to avoid any bad reputation for the Academy, he must find who the killer is among the suspects, and asks the Police Commisoner for time to carry on an experiment.
At the same time, a wisecracking reporter named Lee (Lee Tracy) finds himself trying to discover what's the mystery at Xavier's Mansion.The screenplay for "Doctor X" was written by Robert Tasker and Earl Baldwin as an adaptation of a moderately successful three-act play by Howard W.
While the plot is indeed more focused on horror (including detailed, although not graphic, descriptions of rape and cannibalism), the story remains true to its origins as a play with the inclusion of lighthearted comedy in the shape of Lee, the wisecracking reporter, whose comedic exploits serve to break the tension at several points of the film.
While nothing really amazing by today's standards, the story still works very well, with some cleverly written twists and unexpected surprises that spice up the plot.While the plot sounds definitely like another of those "old dark house" thrillers that were so popular in the 30s, the execution of the film is what truly sets it apart from the rest.
As a director, Curtiz was still far from becoming the master who directed "Casablanca", but his classy style can already be seen raw in this movie.Another of the high points in the film is the casting, starting with Lionel Atwill as Dr. Xavier.
Preston Foster, John Wray, Harry Beresford and Edmund Carewe are pleasant surprises, each giving their own quirky character a distinct look, and like Atwill, make very believable suspects of the heinous crimes.
Finally, George Rosener and Leila Bennett have small, yet very funny scenes that add a lot to the black comedy aspect of the film, and personally, I found them infinitely better than Fay Wray and Lee Tracy."Doctor X" is a film that has aged badly, showing a style of mystery stories that is not popular anymore after countless of imitations and variations on the same subject.
Lee Tracy's comedic performance is also another of the film's details that nowadays look silly and out of place ( Glenda Farrell would do a better work in a similar role in "Mystery of the Wax Museum", the following year), although then again, this kind of over-the-top performances were the standard of comedy/horrors of those years.
Rather than use older, more costly period piece backdrops for their horror movie stories, Warner Brothers innovatively(and frugally I might add) decided to use modern settings and modern "monsters." Doctor X is a fast-paced thriller about a moon killer that strangles his victims and uses a very sharp surgical instrument to dissect them for...let's just say its seems for a late midnight snack.
Lionel Atwill, the oily/suave-British-character actor stalwart, plays Doctor X, a man who tries to find the moon killer from his scientific institution rather than have the police bring the school's name in the mud.
He meets up with Fay Wray who is Atwill's daughter, but even she doesn't deter him from his mission.Horror stories were not the Warner Brothers specialty and when you consider what was coming out of Universal at the time, Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy, Doctor X looks pretty second rate besides them.
While the title DOCTOR X indicates a "mad doctor" theme, especially with Lionel Atwill heading the cast, in true essence is a mystery-comedy with horror elements and science fiction thrown in along with Fay Wray belting out a few screams for good measure.Plot summary: Six brutal killings have taken place at night only when the moon is full.
Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy), an inquisitive reporter for New York's Daily Record, enters the scene on the waterfront where he witnesses Doctor Xavier (Lionel Atwill), escorted by O'Halloran (Willard Robertson) and Police Commissioner Stevens (Robert Warwick), entering the Mott Street Morgue to examine the body.
With Taylor constantly snooping around Long Island's Blackstone Shoals estate where the investigations are to take place, Xavier has his beautiful daughter, Joanne (Fay Wray) attract his attention while having his medical staff handcuffed on chairs bound to the floor while staging a re-enactment of the crimes in hope that the mechanism they are connected to (an early indication of a lie detector) will reveal the killer through his heart beat reactions.
It is soon discovered there is a killer among them when one of the members participating in the reenactment was murdered during a sudden blackout.In the supporting cast are Preston Foster (Professor Ben Welles, a one-armed medical student); John Wray (Doctor Haines); Arthur Edmund Carewe (Doctor Rowitz); Harry Beresford (the wheelchair bound Professor Duke); Leila Bennett (Mamie, the frightful maid); George Rosener (Otto, the mysterious butler); Mae Busch (appearing briefly as a boarding house Madame); and Thomas E.
Jackson (The Newspaper Editor).The weakness of DOCTOR X is often accredited to the silly antics provided by Lee Tracy, typically cast as a wisecracking reporter who uses a buzzer placed onto his palm to shock an unsuspecting victims as Mike the Cop (Harry Holman) and Xavier's daughter (Wray) by placing the buzzard onto her bottom; along with he hiding in a slab of the morgue with a name tag placed on his toe, followed by him roaming the laboratory surrounded with dangling skeletons.
The strong point of the story, however, is the way the mystery and suspense is handled, from hideous figure lurking about in a dark cloak with hands with long finger nails seen slowly clutching the throat of intended victims to a mysterious eye peeking through the hole on the door; climaxed by the killer's horrific transformation through the use of "synthetic flesh," one of the greatest, yet gruesome moments captured on film, even more effective in color.During the days of commercial television, DOCTOR X aired in black and white.
A perennial favorite on New York City's "Chiller Theater" on WPIX, Channel 11, from the 1960s to 1977, it would be another decade before DOCTOR X turned up on the airwaves again, this time with early Technicolor prints acquired from UCLA Film Archives, on cable TV's Turner Network Television (1988-1993), Turner Classic Movies (1994-present), and further availability on video cassette in the 1990s and then DVD.
Fortunately, DOCTOR X has survived in Technicolor, make this a worth while event, thanks to interesting make-up effects by the Max Factor Corporation, lavish sets by Anton Grot, a chance seeing classic film actors usually not associated in Technicolor, notably Fay Wray and her reddish brown hair.With the obvious success by 1932 standards of DOCTOR X, Atwill and Wray would work together again in more of the same with 1933 releases of THE VAMPIRE BAT (Majestic) and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (Warner Brothers).
Instead of bringing back Tracy, Wray and Atwill, the new leads were enacted by Wayne Morris as the comical reporter, Rosemary Lane the heroine, and Humphrey Bogart (!) as a zombie, formerly Doctor Maurice Xavier brought back to life not through the use of synthetic flesh, but by synthetic blood.
James Whale took this concept as far as possible with Bride of Frankenstein; but Dr. X goes a little farther than it should, and so you have this uneven feel, with one foot in the world of comedy, and one foot in the world of horror.On the plus side, there is Lionel Atwill, one of the greatest villains of the classic period of the movies, and you have Fay Wray, who was always a pleasure to watch.
"Doctor X" is probably best remembered as an early two strip Technicolor movie (it was also filmed simultaneously in B & W) rather than as the horror/comedy its supposed to be.
One is identified as an expert in the the area of cannibalism so its not too difficult to identify the killer early on.Thrown in with the horror element is comedy relief, provided by Lee Tracy as Reporter Lee Taylor and Leila Bennet as the Xavier's maid.
But Lionel Atwill got a solid presence as Doctor Xavier, Fay Wray (before King Kong fame) as his daughter is delicious, and the rest of the cast is in top form.
The actors are all on top form, with Atwill (MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM) giving a super-duper performance as a distinguished yet slightly mad doctor, while all of the suspects are slightly weird and fun to watch, especially the banter between them.Typically with these sort of films, there's a wisecracking journalist involved in the proceedings, whose repeated use of a hand buzzer soon becomes tiring and makes one wish he would just buzz off.
A wisecracking New York reporter (Lee Tracy) intrudes on a research scientist's quest to unmask The Moon Killer.This film has it all: a monster composed of "synthetic flesh", a murder mystery, an investigative reporter who could be Abbott or Costello.
Lionel Atwill stars as Dr. Jerry Xavier, head of a surgical academy that has come under suspicion when a gruesome series of murders committed by the "moon killer" are traced there.
Just a year later, she and Lionel Atwill (who is always excellent) once again appeared in a horror film together (THE MYSTERY OF THE HOUSE OF WAX).
Lionel Atwill,Fay Wray and Lee Tracy are Dr X ,Joanne Xavier and Lee Taylor are the main characters who really show that a movie released in 1932 has a good as acting as now.
Since Universal's horror movies were great hits at the time, they decided to make their color movie a horror movie as well; but not the good old-fashioned vampire superstition Gothic horror, but a NEW kind of horror in every sense of the word: the 'scientific' horror - and of course, there's a big potential of horror in that field as well...For some time, dreadful "Moon Murders" have been going on, where the victims are all literally being cannibalized and pieces of flesh cut out of their bodies with surgery instruments - and they all happen near the isolated house of Dr. Xavier, who has turned it into a laboratory where he and his colleagues work on various strange experiments...
And cheeky (or at least, seemingly cheeky) young reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy, who's setting the standards here for the typical 30s' movie reporters whom we all know and love so well) is determined to investigate in that curious 'lion's den' with skeletons, bubbling chemical substances and a bunch of weird scientists...At the same time, he still finds an opportunity to flirt with Xavier's pretty daughter Joanne (Fay Wray, who would co-star with her 'father' Lionel Atwill in another two very successful horror movies, "The Mystery of the Wax Museum" and "The Vampire Bat") - and eventually, when during a criminological experiment that Doctor X.
arranges in order to find the murderer she gets into mortal danger, he gets the chance to prove his 'heroism'; but will he really be able to do so??This 'new' kind of horror proved VERY successful as a movie, highly suspenseful and yet at the same time entertaining, particularly well directed by Michael Curtiz, with a superb cast - and of course those fantastic colors that must have seemed like a miracle to the audience back then.
A series of grisly killings that take place in the full moon(which may or, may not involve cannibalism) which the police determine could have only been committed using a certain kind of scalpel found exclusively at a currently closed university run by Doctor Xavier(Lionel Atwill); it seems all the doctors are likely suspects, but at the same time each has a plausible alibi, Xavier is given 48 hours to determine which of his faculty is the killer.
Meanwhile, a wisecracking reporter(Lee Tracy)is hot on the trail not only of the killer, but of Xavier's daughter(Fay Wray, a year away from the role that would make her famous in 'King Kong').
His role is intended to be comic relief anyway.Doctor X has an excellent cast with horror regulars Lionel Atwill (House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula) as Doctor Xavier and a pre King Kong Fay Wray as his daughter.
The cast also includes Preston Foster, John Wray (no relation to Fay as I am aware of) and Lee Tracy as the journalist.Doctor X is a must for all horror collectors.
Legendary director Michael Curtiz, responsible for such classics as Casablanca and Angels With Dirty Faces, never lets the action stop and gives us a marvellous experiment scene, with Xavier trying to uncover the murderer's identity by having the chief suspects watch a re-enactment of the killer's crimes.Of course the solution to the mystery is absurd, but this is a fantasy-horror and it works well within the context of the film.
This bizarre horror film is best seen in the original two strip Technicolor if only to see how effective that early foray into color worked at the time.
Yet, he can not overcome a very slow-moving plot, Fay Wray's annoying screaming for no reason, Lee Tracy's very dated and boring comic interludes, and hammy overacting.I think the most intriguing and chilling portion of the film come at the end when we are introduced to the killer for the first time when shapes himself as a beast through synthetic flesh..
This movie was the archetype for the dark old house films of this era, with classic horror actors Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill in the starring roles.
Either way, the creepiness factor is evident enough in this tale of murder and cannibalism, a subject I thought would have been taboo this early in film history.The always reliable Lionel Atwill is the Dr. X of the title, short for Xavier, and head of the Academy of Surgical Research.
Fay Wray is on hand as Madame X, that is, Dr. Xavier's daughter, getting a chance to audition her scream for the following year's memorable "King Kong".What I like the most about these period horror films is the great use of pseudo-scientific jargon that supports the story line. |
tt0061995 | La morte non conta i dollari | Lawrence White returns to his hometown and reopens the investigation about the murder of his father. At the same time arrives Boyd, who frequently gets into fights. Doc Lester, who is the one behind the murder, hires Boyd and makes him the sheriff to stop White. However, it turns out that "Boyd" is the real Lawrence White, while ”White” is a friend of his.
Rustlers kill Major White, and a witness who reports to the sheriff is later shot and has his tongue cut out. Many years later the son of major White returns in a stagecoach. It is stopped by some military, but another passenger, Boyd, discloses them as false, and they ride off. When White arrives people say that this will mean trouble for major Lester. White now tries to reopen the murder case of his father and gets into a fight with Lester's men. White’s sister, on the other hand, advocates vengeance.
Boyd gets into several fights and is recruited by Lester, who has him appointed the new sheriff when the old one is killed. Elisabeth, a girl he has acquainted, now rejects him and asks him to find the murderer of her father, who has been killed by men of Lester, because he intended to help White.
When he visits the widow of the former land officer, White is caught in a trap by Lester's men. She explains that they would have tortured her otherwise. Lester sends Boyd to make White confess to murder, but instead he unties White. Some Lester men now appear saying that Lester did right to check him. They start beating Boyd when the widow appears with a rifle. She is shot but Boyd gets a gun and kills them. We now learn that Boyd is the real son of major White, while "White" is his friend, a federal lawyer from Washington.
White follows a lead and finds judge Warren’s daughter as a prostitute in Mexico. He now can convince the judge top reopen the case.
Lester's gang ambush White, but the stage is manned with dolls and explodes, and the rest of the gang is killed in the ensuing gunfight. Lester is arrested.
White stays on as sheriff united with Elisabeth, while his friend leaves with White’s sister. | western, revenge, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0412798 | Half Light | Rachel Carlson (Moore) is a successful American murder mystery author living in London with her five-year-old son, Thomas (Balawi) and her second husband, Brian (Cusick), a successful book editor that has been unable to get any of his own works published. His mother being too busy working on her latest novel to play with him, Thomas goes outside to play outside their canalside home, only to accidentally drown, devastating Rachel and putting a tailspin on her marriage and her ability to finish her latest novel.
Several months later, Rachel still blames herself for the death of her son, and is not only unable to finish her book but is also a simple signature away from formally being divorced from her husband. In an effort to finish her novel and find some emotional peace, Rachel moves away to a remote cottage on the Scottish coast. However, she soon starts to see the ghost of her late son, who at one point drags her into the waters and at another point moves a set of magnets on the refrigerator. A local town psychic informs Rachel that the spirit of her son is trying to tell her something, but the rest of the locals warn Rachel that the psychic is just a troubled woman.
Troubled by the possibility that her son has returned from the grave, Rachel shares her troubles with a young and handsome lighthouse keeper named Angus (Matheson) and the two spark a romance that suddenly goes awry when she learns that Angus died seven years ago by committing suicide after murdering his wife and her lover in the lighthouse. Rachel fears that she may be going insane and her efforts to prove otherwise, and learn more about the suicide-murder of Angus, falter when the news articles about the tragedy have gone missing from the local library, and Sharon Winton, her best friend and writer for a British tabloid journal, goes missing after Rachel saw her killed by Angus in the lighthouse.
It eventually comes to light that her soon to be ex-husband has been having an affair with her best friend, and that they paid a man, Patrick, to pose as Angus in order to cause an already emotionally unstable Rachel to act crazy enough in public that, when they make her murder look like a suicide, no one will suspect foul play. Just as Rachel is about to leave town, convinced that her dead son is trying to warn her that her life is in danger, she is drugged and dumped into the sea, only to be saved when the keys to the chains she has been put into suddenly fall into the water and thus allow her to free herself and make her way to the lighthouse in an effort to seek some revenge. (It was previously written on a slate, "don't forget, look behind you" and Rachel heard her son repeating those lines in water).
However, after a brief fight at the lighthouse, Sharon hits her head and is killed in the kitchen, and Brian is murdered by Patrick, possessed by the spirit of Angus, in much the same way that Angus's wife and lover died seven years previously. Patrick then jumps from the tower, as Angus had done. Rachel leaves town, with the promise that the house that she rented is kept empty so that Angus's spirit can finally rest. She returns to her home in London, where her son died, having decided to celebrate his life instead of mourning his death. | violence, horror, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | There are enough twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing, even if you think you have it worked out within the first half, as we both did, you'll doubt yourself from then on in.My one criticism is the start of the film.
It feels somewhat piecemeal and directionless, perhaps on purpose to mirror the main characters state of mind, but it just doesn't seem to gel, and the scoring feels the same, however don't let that stop you watching this film as once past the first few scenes you will be tripping over yourself trying to figure it out.All told this was a well produced, well filmed, well acted movie, and don't believe any of the 'horror' tags, it's more suspense/thriller, and very good to boot!.
The film is about a writer, Rachel Carson (Demi Moore) who tragically loses her young son when he drowns by the dock near their house in England.
Real life terror and supernatural events drive Rachel into hysteria from there, as she tries to unravel a complex mystery.This was a surprisingly chilling little thriller film, the atmosphere of the whole secluded ocean village was unique and neat, the little village set itself sitting right on the sandy beach.
Overall, "Half Light" is a good little thriller film that caught me off guard, I was expecting something along the lines of cheap straight-to-video garbage.
I enjoyed this movie a lot since I love horror/mystery/thriller/ghost stories.
This movie is good, well acted, well scripted, well directed, and above all, it will keep you guessing to the end, I do not know enough about "The Technical Side" of movie making to comment, all i know is, if i see a film i like, or for that matter dislike, then i will make a comment on it, after all its only entertainment.
Too many times you read about the, ins and outs of film making, and all the back stage stuff, when really all you want to know is, will i enjoy this film, and the answer to Half Light is yes, no swearing, very little sex content,just a nice put together thriller, enough twists and turns to keep the momentum going.
i am trying to find something to moan about in this movie, and to be quite honest there is nothing, Demi Moore is very good in the lead role, and the mainly British cast is excellent Go see it, judge for yourself, i do not think you will be disappointed..
Writer Rachel Carlson played by Demi Moore is left unable to write after the tragic death of her son.In a hope to remove her writers block she moves to a remote island off Scotland.
There is an unfortunate plot stopper 3/4 of the way in the film where a conversation opens out the plot to a point you may think why continue watching, but there is still a twist in the end.R17 rating but no profanity or nudity (but did have short above the shoulders tasteful sex scene).
Demi Moore was excellent, but i felt like Hans Matheson really was the top performer in this movie.
The ending falls short, but the rest of the film is well planned.Moore is an odd choice for the lead, but she turns out pretty good - despite a general unbelievable reaction to later events in the story ( but this is more script ).some beautiful cinematography and settings, and a few creepy moments.
From a murder in the past to a mystery in the present, a dead child, a mystery writer trying to recover -- to a handsome, no, sexy lighthouse keeper and strange village folks nestled away in a small Scottish fishing village on the coast of the North Sea -- this movie was wonderful to watch.I don't understand why it wasn't at the movies when crappier movies are released weekly.
I think this movie was excellent...i really enjoyed watching it and the plot was extraordinary....this is a must see thriller...:)Demi Moore always gives it her best.
This movie had me surprised towards the end........but i wont say how u will have to see it to find out.....This is something different for her....she usually plays a role in a movie as a seductive person,but here she played as a loving,committed,,stressful mother who feels like she is guilty for the death of her son.
I love a good old-fashioned mystery / thriller and Half Light deliciously qualifies as one, with a generous touch of the supernatural thrown in.
There are some good, shocking moments as events unfold, and, all in all, it's a satisfying tale.The acting, scenery, music, and general mood of the film are what raise it to a level higher than the run-of-the-mill effort in this genre.Demi Moore plays a Rachel with whom it's easy to identify.
All of the actors in the film must have benefited from excellent direction so as to keep the story in the realm of reality.Probably, for me, the most outstanding features of Half Light are the scenery and locations.
I do know that Demi Moore caused me to believe Rachel and all that happens to her in contrast to the response that often comes when we see women in films of this sort shown as almost insane and hysterical.
Demi Moore,(Rachel Carlson), a successful author of mystery novels wants to have a different location away from everyone and finds this very spiritual place, or you could say a purgatory for the living dead.
From Soundtrack and Direction, to performance and screenplay; Rarely does a film come together with every element tucked so perfectly in place.After not Seeing Demi Moore in anything I'd really liked since...
But when we judge a movie, we need to look at it for what it is, every single part of it, not just how much it surprises us.Half-light has a beautiful soundtrack, and the scenery was spectacular as well.
Except that isn't: it's Half Light, with Demi Moore, and some bloke off the telly.But I'm sorry to have to tell the Director, Craig Rosenberg: Nicholas Roeg, you're not.And so the film goes on, a bit of this and a bit of that, a bit of Les Diaboliques, a bit more of Don't Look Now (fey psychic women), a bit of the Shining (writer's block), a bit of the Wicker Man, and none of it quite as good as the original.And I'm sorry, but while I'm being rude - the music.
The movie looks beautiful and the story has great surprises and twists, and it's just scary/spooky enough to keep you interested, but not enough to keep you awake at night.
When her son drowns in an accident, novelist Rachel Carlson (Demi Moore) moves to a small Scottish town where she hopes to pick up the pieces of her life.
Her dead son begins to send her messages from beyond the grave, the local medium starts to act strangely around her and then Rachel discovers something shocking about Angus....I hadn't really known that much about this movie before I picked it up at my local rental store.
The two main leads have a good chemistry allowing you to believe that they could fall in love and, about three quarters of the way into the movie, there is a nice twist which turns things on its head in a way that I didn't see coming.Demi Moore offers a very good performance here.
It's really fantastic all this natural beauty, and it's also a great place to be alone
When I decided to watch the movie I was expecting a ghost story, a "typical one", and for many minutes, it really seems like one; calm, monotonous, where the main character "see" things that other people can't see
but then something happened
it was a twist that didn't "ruin" the ghost story, but gave it a lot more of suspense and also something new/refreshing
I guess I did like the movie even more because of that twist
(which I won't spoil, of course!) The soundtrack is also great.
Written and directed by Craig Rosenberg (Hotel de Love) the story challenges the viewer to enter the strange world of afterlife and consider the fine differences between illusion and credibility.Rachel Carson (Demi Moore in a fine performance) is a successful writer living in London with her disillusioned editor husband Brian (Henry Ian Cusick) and her young son Thomas (Beans El-Balawi).
HALF LIGHT is a solid movie, filled with suspense and well-written story and character development and deserves far more attention than it received in the theaters.
It is a mystery of sorts, and yes, we may have seen it before, but I don't agree with many of the negative reviews.Demi Moore is believable as an American author, living in London, who loses her son to a tragic accident.
At first there are a few strange happenings, Rachel (Moore) thinks she sees her son, she is warned by a local psychic that she is being followed by a ghost.The scenes of the ocean, and the soundtrack are beautiful and escapist.
A beautiful and terrifying film with sublime arrangement, directing and acting that would grace the highest order, The plot as old as it is, is brought to life with a perfect and harmonious amalgamation of love to fear and back again.I believe that the loving false sense of security that is given to you by the behaviour of the film is as gripping as the sharp change in mood to the frightening.A film in which i could watch over and over again and still be intrigued and entertained, A masterful film that ultimately does everything right.
The film starts like a sweet idyll, a famous writer and her family enjoy life, everything goes on well, then, suddenly, the main heroine's son gets drowned, she is devastated, goes far away to the sea coast, to live her grief alone, and then the strange, mystical events start to pile up.
My husband and I rented this movie because I'm a Demi Moore fan.We didn't know what to expect but we were not disappointed.
We like good supernatural mysteries such as 'The Village' or 'Don't Look Now', but this is something altogether different.Ms. Moore sits in her Sunday Supplement house at a glass table, writing on an old manual typewriter.
Soon she's seeing her son's ghost and goodness knows what else.The shots of her driving up to the Highlands look like one of those car adverts on TV - designed to make people think that 'driving' involves speeding along a country lane with the sun shining, and not another car in sight.The first half of the film is simply terrible, and the second half not much better.
'Half Light' makes Neil La Bute's remake of 'The Wicker Man' look like the work of a Lean or a Scorsese.Favourite things I admire about this film: 1) The way the weather is either 'car advert' sunny OR 'horror movie' thunderous.
You can see that this man is no more a psychiatrist (and certainly not an NHS one) than Rachel is a 'writer.' 4) Rachel has her 'novel' all sketched out on little index cards which remind her things such as 'Character', 'Structure', and 'Tie up story ending.' Perhaps some people do write like this (Jeffrey Archer), but when we actually hear a few lines of one of her books it sounds like excerpts from Count Arthur Strong's pastiche of Raymond Chandler.'Half Light' is half dead (and that's a compliment), but it isn't half funny..
Having heard most of the critics take the life out of Demi Moore's new attempt, I couldn't help but wonder if this film really was that bad.
Demi Moore simply can't act and she must have been botoxed to near mummification because she had the same expression throughout.The plot was telegraphed and the 'twists' may as well have had Bendy Road Ahead signs put up as it was so obvious what was going to happen.Good points: The scenery - magnificent The story was actually good but ruined by the...Bad Points ...the acting and...
Half detective story and half fantasy and horror stuff,"Half Light" spares us the special effects and is thus a commendable work.Demi Moore has a decent part for once and the magnificent landscapes add to the pleasure.Not that the story is that new.The story borrows from Daphné du Maurier ("Don't look now" filmed by Nicholas Roeg) ,from Boileau-Narcejac ("Celle Qui N'Etait Plus" filmed by Clouzot as "Diaboliques" ) as well as Richard Loncraine's "Full circle " an obscure film featuring Mia Farrow .But the results are enjoyable,suspenseful.The director mixes supernatural and real life with talent.Another proof of the director's good taste as far cinema is concerned: the old couple is watching TV which screens the extraordinary movie made of sketches "Dead of Night" (1945).We can see a short extract of its best segment ,the ventriloquist one which inspired Richard Attenborough's "Magic" (1978)..
High on production values and low on any originality, plausibility or psychological authenticity - Half Light wheels out every Scottish/Celtic cliché amidst a plot as unlikely and half-witted as they come.Demi Moore does a tolerable turn with some pretty awful material, but that is as far as it goes.
Demi Moore was impressive in the movie especially since the director wisely concentrated a lot on her talents.The class that comes with age only adds to the charm that has always been associated with this beautiful actress.Although one does get the impression that she overacted during this particular film,but I attribute that to all that was lacking in the script.Something I really like about the movie-the music.Very well done,beautiful harmonies throughout the movie,celtic in nature and even irish at points.Very subtle mood changes,some interesting changes from major to minors and of course the entry of the b5 to signal the oncoming scene.NO blaringly obvious 'evil dead'-ish themes.Overall a good job.Something that really irked me was the 'cheap tricks' used to build up a scare.You will know once you watch it...scares that have absolutely no relation to the plot,the absolute proof of a lacking script.Overall,nothing great...no particularly memorable scenes...considering the remorse value..maybe a lil 'touching'..prolly more so if you go with ur girl!!.
I think this movie is an underdog and should be rated higher than it is right now.Good work, and I hope that Mrs Moore comes back to the big screen with such beauty, femininity and good acting.
recreation of atmosphere, fragile connection between death and life, delicate love story and nice performance of Demi Moore are good points.
The terrain of the movie "Half Light", looked so much like that beautiful and haunting place.
Not really a Demi Moore fan but this was the only thing that looked half decent in the video shop so I got it, and thought it would be rubbish but it actually wasn't bad at all.
It really has that feeling when you watch it when you see all that scenery of parts of Scotland (or its meant to be).Demi stars as Rachel Carlson, a successful novelist who lives in London with her husband and son Thomas.
The scenery does add a layer to the film and gives it atmosphere, but the second half of the film takes a stumble as it ends up becoming this investigatory mystery.One thing I liked a lot about this was the music - it has a very celtic feel to it and is something to relax to.
The scenery adds to the spookiness of the film, as not only is it beautiful but you can see how it has the potential to be mysterious and scary in this genre.But in the end, this is a movie that you would probably watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon and as one of the characters says 'eating scones'..
Actually the whole movie is very predictable.This is a light-weight, underwhelming, way below average "thriller" which didn't satisfy or "thrill" on any level.The only mystery in this movie is actually how Demi Moore manages it to look really good for her age.If you want to see this movie, rather rent or borrow..
Demi plays it pretty down the line - blandly, like the movie.One of the special effects during the film (zooming out from the top of the light house) was so poor quality it was laughable.
I really loved Harrison Ford's "What Lies Beneath" and was pretty disappointed with Kevin Costner's "The New Daughter", and now I had the chance to watch Demi Moore in Half Light.The build up and background story were both great, though seemed unoriginal...
I love Demi Moore but sorry honey we cannot watch repeated formulas of movie script.
I bought the DVD because I'm someone who used to dislike Demi intensely until "Passion of Mind" turned me into a super-fan, but the odds are that you probably won't do a lot of "repeat viewing" of this movie unless you really want to study Demi's performance, because once you know the ending the story itself might fall a little flat on a second viewing.But then, you probably wouldn't be watching "Half Light" in the first place if you weren't interested in Demi..
It's hard for me to be critical of any of Demi Moore's movies since I have been a long time fan.
Their romance forms the first half of the story which comes to a halt after she makes a shocking discovery.The troubled woman (Demi Moore in a very effective performance) finds kinship in another lost soul and this part of the film is touching and real.
Overall, Demi Moore is pretty solid in this, in fact made every bit to look like the wild Celtic woman she isn't.This is an average film really.
Even without the sound the scenery is BEAUTIFUL!I understand from other people who watched Half Light that it was a truly good movie and I would love to see it.
I'll continue to look.I understand Demi Moore is great in this one and always enjoy her movies..
Demi Moore gives credibility to her grieving character and in the end this movie is above average and a good entertainment. |
tt0195685 | Erin Brockovich | In 1993, Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is an unemployed single mother of three children, who has recently been injured in a traffic accident with a doctor and is suing him. Her lawyer, Ed Masry (Albert Finney), expects to win, but Erin's explosive courtroom behavior under cross-examination loses her the case, and Ed will not return her phone calls afterwards. One day, he arrives at work to find her in the office, apparently working. She says that he told her things would work out and they did not, and that she needed a job. Ed takes pity on Erin, and she gets a paid job at the office.
Erin is given files for a real estate case where the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is offering to purchase the home of Donna Jensen, a resident of Hinkley, California. Erin is surprised to see medical records in the file and visits Donna, who explains that she had simply kept all her PG&E correspondence together. Donna appreciates PG&E's help: she has had several tumors and her husband has Hodgkin's lymphoma, but PG&E has always supplied a doctor at their own expense. Erin asks why they would do that, and Donna replies, "because of the chromium". Erin begins digging into the case and finds evidence that the groundwater in Hinkley is seriously contaminated with carcinogenic hexavalent chromium, but PG&E has been telling Hinkley residents that they use a safer form of chromium. After several days away from the office doing this research, she is fired by Ed until he realizes that she was working all the time, and sees what she has found out.
Rehired, she continues her research, and over time, visits many Hinkley residents and wins their trust. She finds many cases of tumors and other medical problems in Hinkley. Everyone has been treated by PG&E's doctors and thinks the cluster of cases is just a coincidence, unrelated to the "safe" chromium. The Jensens' claim for compensation grows into a major class action lawsuit, but the direct evidence only relates to PG&E's Hinkley plant, not to the senior management.
Knowing that PG&E could slow any settlement for years through delays and appeals, Ed takes the opportunity to arrange for disposition by binding arbitration, but a large majority of the plaintiffs must agree to this. Erin returns to Hinkley and persuades all 634 plaintiffs to go along. While she is there, a man named Charles Embry approaches her to say that he and his cousin were PG&E employees, but his cousin recently died from the poison. The man says he was tasked with destroying documents at PG&E, but, "as it turns out," he "wasn't a very good employee".
Embry gives Erin the documents, which include a 1966 memo proving corporate headquarters knew the water was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, did nothing about it, and advised the Hinkley operation to keep this secret. The judge orders PG&E to pay a settlement amount of $333 million to be distributed among the plaintiffs.
In the aftermath, Ed hands Erin her bonus payment for the case but warns her he has changed the amount. She explodes into a complaint that she deserves more respect, but is astonished to find that he has increased it—to $2 million. | dramatic, inspiring | train | wikipedia | If I didn't know it was based on a "true" story I might have dismissed this movie as "unrealistic", particularly in the first half hour or so when it started off like another Julia Roberts comedy.
The only thing bigger than Julia Roberts' chest in "Erin Brockovich" is the heart this film has.
Nothing bad actually happens in this movie, at all, but it's the complications, the setbacks the moral struggles along the way that make it shine."Erin Brockovich" stars Julia Roberts in the title role in a film based on the true story of a twice-married mother of three who is desperate to find a way to make a living and provide for her family.
Struggling outspoken single mom, Erin (the Oscar winning performance by Julie Roberts proving irrevocably that she is more than just tits and teeth), gets on with a law firm run by Ed Masry (Albert Finney in a justifiably nominated supporting role)just in time to break open the biggest direct action corporate lawsuit in american history.
Erin works her tail off, polishes her own too harsh rough edges and ultimately wins a richly deserved reward (just the film itself was so amply rewarded.)It's a story that inspires americans to believe in the system and fight against corporate injustice on their own personal level.
However, thanks to a pair of utterly smashing performances by Julia Roberts and Albert Finney and a beautifully well-rounded portrait of a real-life heroine, this Steven Soderbergh film emerges as a true crowd-pleasing triumph.
Dressed more like a fashion devotee of Roberts' `Pretty Woman' call girl character than a serious legal executive, Erin often launches into unrestrained, obscenity-laced tirades at her boss, her loving boyfriend, even the corporate lawyer bigwigs sent to help her when the case she is making comes close to completion.
But she did an excellent job in this story, seemingly portraying the real Erin Brockovich with perfection.Great story, maybe a little hard to believe though if you didn't know it was true.
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)Julia Roberts stars as an unrelentingly tactless, thoroughly tasteless, charm-school dropout twice divorced, the mother of three who dresses like a Las Vegas whore.
That's her gift.A significant part of the success of Erin Brockovich of course is in the compelling (and substantially true) story of David versus Goliath ("and all his relatives," as Finney quips), of good versus evil, of the "little guy" versus the corporate behemoth.
I am also looking forward to the Academy Awards presentations because I suspect the Academy is going to reward both Julia Roberts and Soderbergh by making Erin Brockovich the Best Picture of the year 2000..
A tenacious file clerk for a small law firm, curious about some information included in the file of a pro bono case, purses it and ultimately becomes a major player in a huge lawsuit involving hundreds of people in `Erin Brockovich,' a movie based on actual events, directed by Steven Soderbergh.
When Erin (Julia Roberts) questions why medical records are included in the file of a simple real estate transaction between a public utilities company and some homeowners in the town of Hinckley, California, she uncovers information that PG&E may have been responsible for water pollution that may have caused widespread illness and even death among the citizens of Hinckley.
Julia Roberts gives one of the best performances of her career in this film, as the sassy, brazen Brockovich, who tells it like it is and won't take `no' for an answer.
One of the best movies of the year, `Erin Brockovich' is a well made, absorbing and entertaining drama, well directed and superbly acted, especially by Roberts and Finney; it's theme of the underdog fighting for justice has a universal appeal that will get the adrenaline pumping and engage you emotionally.
"Erin Brockovich" is simply a "lawsuits are really your friend" feel-good Hollywood fluff movie that has little basis in fact.
In real-life, an attorney that was retained by Hinkley residents to sue Brockovich and Masry after they took the money and ran, was quoted as saying "I read the script; the only true part was Erin Brockovich's name."Julia Robert's performance was decent, but hardly Oscar material.
Albert Finney was good as the in-over-his-head Lawyer trying to do what is right for the residents of Hinkley, but he was much much better in "Traffic".I highly recommend that anybody who watches "Erin Brockovich" (and especially if you get up and cheer at the end) takes the time to do cursory research on the real-life Hinkley case.
I regard her as little more than a Barbie doll who pretends to be the world's biggest genius, and whose movies appear to have been written by ten monkeys working with ten typewriters for ten days/years.So how then, you may ask, could I like "Erin Brockovich"?
The movie is also helped by good support from Albert Finney as Erin's boss Ed Masry.So, in conclusion, even though I generally consider Julia Roberts pretty worthless, I do agree that her Oscar win for this movie was well deserved..
Julia Roberts did a fantastic job in portraying Erin Brockovich, which was quite different from her usual comedy romance style of acting.
A film written by Susannah Grant and directed by Steven Soderbergh, this is an Oscar-winning biographical drama that is based on a portion of the life of Erin Brockovich, a woman that has dealt with unemployment, poverty, and just plain bad luck.
Erin gains the trust of the community to mount legal action and strong-arms Ed to put together a case that would win the largest direct claim settlement in American history, even as her personal life is threatened by her devotion to the case.Steven Soderbergh tests Erin's limits of likability numerous times throughout the movie.
Julia Roberts did an excellent job of Erin Brockovich which is true story about a woman trying to make a difference in the water-pollution that takes place in a certain town.
"Erin Brockovich" is an emotional, funny drama based on a true story about a single, twice-divorced, single mother of 3 (Julia Roberts) who, after landing a job at a small legal firm, helps residents of a small town hurt by water pollution to win over $300 million in a lawsuit.
Like these latter films, Erin Brockovich is based on a real character and a real-life incident.Erin Brockovich is a twice-divorced mother with kids who finagles her way into a job working for the lawyer who lost her case in a civil trial.
The film ERIN BROCKOVICH is based on a single mother who with the help of a small law firm fights against a huge company for polluting the water resources in it's surrounding area for which people living over there were falling sick and were dying.The film has a strong script and has been edited perfectly.
Albert Finney too gave a lovely performance and so did the rest of the cast.Last but not the least I would like to say that according to me this film is a "MUST WATCH" just for three reasons- JULIA ROBERTS PERFORMANCE, STEVEN SODERBERGH'S DIRECTION and THE EXCELLENT SCRIPT..
I have seen it so many times that I am actually afraid to take away the excitement of the movie trying to give a plot summary.The basic story line is (based on true events) a young, single mom of three is struggling to survive life, pay the bills and just find her lot in life.
This movie tries to illustrate Erin Brockovich as a kind person with a good heart and will stop at nothing to help people and to make things right.
Not to mention the fact that Burstyn went through hell for her part, and still few gave her the recognition she deserves because they felt Julia should've won everything because she's younger, prettier(well, not really), and more people like her movies (yeah, sure: remember, Burstyn was the lead in THE EXORCIST [one of the most influential, scariest, and most talked about movies of all time in which she gave one of her best performances], not to mention her great performances in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE [for which the academy awarded her], and SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR just to name a few.)Overall, I give this an imdb rating of 1/10.
In real life ,the main character was arguably an admirable woman;in the movie,the character is given a treatment which is by no means convincing.First of all,Julia Roberts overplays :the rest of the cast is completely wasted,and serves as a foil to her;look at paunchy aging Finney:he has become his own caricature;Peter Coyote's part is scarcely more than a walk-on and what can we say about his female counterpart,a sexually repressed(?) earnest educated woman?Roberts' long-haired partner barely dares to say a word as well.The intentions are very dubious ;sometimes,it seems that Roberts is not at all some Florence Nightingale,but rather a go-getter who wants to do her walk of life:the last scene ,focussing on money ,is sheer bad taste .We're supposed to find her likable because she's always swearing like a trouper.But her swagger is in direct contrast to that:wherever and whenever she moves, pursuing cockroaches or meeting chic people,she seems to go out of a beauty parlor.Directing is undistinguished,recalling made-for-TV quality.Word to the wise:(if there's any of us left)try "Silkwood " instead:Meryl Streep is a much better thespian than Roberts,and the woman she plays did not fight for money but for dear life,because,unlike Erin,she was a victim from the start..
"Erin Brockovich", with Julia Roberts in the title role, is a not-too-serious and entertaining film based on a true story.
ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000) ***1/2 Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart, Marg Helgenberger, Peter Coyote, Cherry Jones, Tracy Walter.
'Norma Rae' meets 'A Civil Action' by way of 'Pretty Woman' easily could have been the pitch for this based on a true story account of a feisty former Miss Wichita runner up/twice divorced mother of three (Roberts is superb as the eponymous character in arguably her finest acting to date) who struggles to make ends meet in a rural California town and after vehemently lobbying for a job as a legal clerk (with no prior experience) she unwittingly discovers a paper trail of immense proportions involving the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and its murky dealings with water contamination.
The linear storytelling is excellent thanks largely to a smart straight ahead screenplay by Susannah Grant, a great ensemble cast including the gruff yet lovable Finney who gives a memorable performance as small-time lawyer Edward Masry whose paternal love for his plucky /sexy/tacky do-gooder is only exemplified as the case progresses to (seemingly) impossible odds in a modern day David Vs. Goliath lawsuit involving hundreds of infected people against a malevolent corporation.
Julia Roberts plays Erin Brockovich in one of the the most touching and inspiring movies made about a small law firm bringing a huge, multi-million dollar company down.
I would highly recommend this movie to anyone that loves Julia Roberts and/or Albert Finney as their performances are stunning..
I felt like Julia Roberts deserved the Oscar she received for this film, as she played a single mom who almost single-handedly exposes a plant contaminating a town's water supply to its knees.
What a waste of Miss Roberts excellent acting talents, the story is great but I found that all Julia had to do was show cleavage and swear, and for this she received an Oscar.
However, as I watched this film, I found myself wondering why Julia Roberts got an Oscar for best actress.
She was simply fantastic and my opinion of her has elevated dramatically.The film itself is very well directed and extremely well cast, all the main characters are portrayed brilliantly.The film is based on a true story and i feel that the producers dramatised the events in a powerful and touching way.I would definitely recommend this movie to everyone, it is great.9/10.
"Erin Brockovich" will likely be remembered as director Steven Soderbergh's other film from the year 2000 ("Traffic") and of course for Julia Roberts' Oscar-winning performance.
Erin, as splendidly played by Julia Roberts, is a dynamic personality, and the film is a detective story with suspense, excitement and humor.
Erin Brockovich is one of the most overrated films ever.Something that really infuriated me is the following thing:at the 73rd Academy Awards,Julia Roberts was nominated(I do not know how,because her performance on this movie was pretty mediocre)as best actress in a leading role and one of her competitors was Ellen Burstyn,nominated for her amazing performance on Requiem for a dream.But the winner was Julia Roberts.The Academy Awards are pathetic and that represented an insult for Ellen Burstyn.Julia Roberts is disguised as Erin Brockovich and that thing made the performance mediocre.Steven Soderbergh has a very irregular career:he made excellent movies like Kafka,Traffic or Sex,lies and videotape and craps like this movie or Ocean's twelve.The only good thing I found on this bad movie is the performance of the great Albert Finney.This movie bored the hell out of me and it's pretty slow.Erin Brockovich is an extremely overrated movie and pretty boring.I do not recommend it..
So, Brokovich investigates and takes the evil organization to court, pretty much.The film, directed by up-and-coming Steven Soderbergh, whose work on "Traffic" and "Ocean's Eleven" was amazing, is not really a great movie, but it is a definite must-see.
One thing I like about Soderbergh's film is that most of the time you can expect something: The orange tint and a heck of a good movie.While "Erin Brokovich" is in no way a GREAT movie, it is good, and quite possibly Julia Roberts' best performance to date.4/5 stars -John Ulmer.
If you like movies and you are more than fourteen, regardless the `based on actual events', you will have the feeling of having watched this film two hundred times before, it is the same old story, absolutely predictable, a bad drag of `trial, lawsuit, lawyer, investigacion,
', very very already seen and boring.
To me, Julia's portrayal of Erin was basically the same character she used in Pretty Woman and another rags to riches story that I am really tired of from MS Roberts.
The movie pits Julia Roberts in the role of Erin Brockovich, an unlikable and unemployed single mother of three kids who is involved in a car collision while passing through an intersection.
The cast make admirable appearances on screen in this true story-based film written by Steven Soderbergh that captures true emotion without the temptation of manipulating it with overly sentimental tone, and makes an honest sense of the events that took place leading the title character into a major court case Erin had a very high chance of losing in trial.
Erin Brockovich is an endearing biographical drama that leaves a landmark on both Julia Roberts and director Steven Soderbergh's career.
Erin Brockovich is very interesting film, account story of a strong and determined woman , the cast is good, Julia Roberts makes a great performance , surely top 5 of his career , the script is competent , even with flaws , the direction is good, rhythm is a negative point , the film can be tiring for the viewer , have defining moments , interesting characters , the film begins more or less and will improve over time, so if you are not patient , you may be disappointed with the first act , Erin Brockovich was nominated for best film, in my view, is no film to compete , let alone win (which was not the case in this film ) , Erin Brockovich is a good film, worth being seen .
The movie Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is based on a real story and gives the audience a heroine version of David and Goliath.
Erin Brockovich is a movie based on a true story.
Almost unrecognizable as the nice guy biker boyfriend/babysitter.Roberts plays an outspoken, somewhat trashy single mother in her Oscar winning role, who after browbeating her lawyer into giving her a job almost singlehandedly brings down a California power company accused of contaminating a towns water supply -to the tune of 333 million dollar settlement.This is just a brilliant movie, funny, frustrating (scary regarding the big cooperation) filled with great characters and I just love seeing the little guy win for a change.
Julia Robert's is great in what I think is her finest performance yet as the true to life law clerk Erin Brockovich.
And the big payoff is that Julia Roberts gives a performance that's equally movie-star-like and conscientious about keeping it real.
Raising three children on her own, having less than $100 in the bank, no job, and just having been in a serious car accident, she basically bullies her way into a position at a law firm to work for the lawyer who had been representing her in the law suit she had just lost for said car accident.Julia Roberts' portrayal of Erin is spirited, real, courageous, and best of all entertaining as all heck to watch!
That person you are thinking of is your 'Erin Brockovich.' If you see the highly entertaining new Steven Soderbergh film named for her, you'll see my point.Hollywood does love the underdog.
The marvelous interaction of Julia Roberts, as the flamboyant real-life Erin Brockovich....and Albert Finney as her foil in the role of her boss, great story-telling and direction by Soderbergh, this is a must-see.
Julia Roberts's best film to date also features her finest performance, as well as great supporting work by Albert Finney, Marg Helgenberger, and Aaron Eckhardt, and a stalwart cast from top to bottom.
Soderbergh's newest film is ERIN BROCKOVICH, which is based on a true story.
The real life story has the title character (Julia Roberts) who is a single mother of three, who is looking for a job.
I was very impressed with Julia Roberts performance in ERIN BROCKOVICH. |
tt0209440 | The Turn of the Screw | An unnamed narrator listens to Douglas, a friend, read a manuscript written by a former governess whom Douglas claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London and is uninterested in raising the children.
The boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school, while his younger sister, Flora, is living at a summer country house in Essex. She is currently being cared for by Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper. Miles and Flora's uncle, the governess' new employer, gives her full charge of the children and explicitly states that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to her new employer's country house, Bly, and begins her duties.
Miles soon returns from school for the summer just after a letter arrives from the headmaster stating that he has been expelled. Miles never speaks of the matter, and the governess is hesitant to raise the issue. She fears there is some horrible secret behind the expulsion but is too charmed by the adorable young boy to want to press the issue. Soon thereafter, around the grounds of the estate, the governess begins to see the figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. These figures come and go at will without ever being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to the governess to be supernatural. She learns from Mrs. Grose that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint, had a sexual relationship. Before their deaths, Jessel and Quint spent much of their time with Flora and Miles, and this fact has grim significance for the governess when she becomes convinced that the two children are secretly aware of the ghosts' presence.
Later, without permission, Flora leaves the house while Miles is playing music for the governess. The governess notices Flora's absence and goes with Mrs. Grose in search of her. They find her in a clearing in the wood, and the governess is convinced that Flora has been talking to the ghost of Miss Jessel. When the governess finally confronts Flora, the girl denies seeing Miss Jessel and demands never to see the governess again. At the governess' suggestion, Mrs. Grose takes Flora away to her uncle, leaving the governess with Miles, who that night at last talks to her about his expulsion; the ghost of Quint appears to the governess at the window. The governess shields Miles, who attempts to see the ghost. The governess tells Miles he is no longer controlled by the ghost and then finds that Miles has died in her arms, and the ghost has gone. | insanity, haunting | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0081182 | La mort en direct | The film is set in a future where death from illness has become extremely unusual. When Katherine Mortenhoe (Romy Schneider) is diagnosed as having an incurable disease, she becomes a celebrity and is besieged by journalists. The television company NTV (headed by Vincent Ferriman) offers her a large sum of money if she will allow her last days to be filmed and made into a reality television show – they have already spied on her as she is told of her diagnosis (her doctor is colluding with them) and prepared posters for the show which show her face (to her annoyance when she sees the posters on display before they have contacted her).
Katherine pretends to agree but evades NTV's employees and goes on the run with the assistance of a casual acquaintance called Roddy (Harvey Keitel). The audience knows – but she does not – that Roddy is, in fact, a senior NTV cameraman who has undergone an experimental surgical procedure which implants cameras and transmitters behind his eyes, so that everything he sees is relayed back to NTV, who use it as the basis for their reality show. Roddy has done this mainly for money to give his estranged wife and their son. A side-effect of the procedure is that he will go blind if he experiences more than a short period of darkness; he uses drugs to keep awake, has learned to sleep for brief periods with his eyes open, and carries a flashlight which he shines on his eyes at night. Meanwhile, Katherine's doctor has discovered that she is not actually dying and he informs NTV who tell no one and continue with the show, broadcasting an edited version of Roddy's feed.
Continuing on the lam, Katherine asks Roddy to take her to Land's End. The two arrive and sit on the beach and have a long talk. Katherine then asks Roddy to take her to town and buy her some lipstick. He persuades her to stay by the beach knowing that she will be recognized if she goes with him. In town, Roddy sees "Death Watch" playing in a pub and begins to cry. He returns to the beach as night is falling and has an emotional breakdown, losing his flashlight. Katherine comes to him and he asks her to help him. She finds the flashlight and shines it in his eyes, but he has already gone blind. Roddy admits who he is, and what he is doing, to her.
As the feed has ended to NTV due to Roddy's blindness, they send a helicopter to Land's End with a film crew to finally reveal to Katherine that she is not dying. However, Roddy and Katherine leave undetected as the helicopter arrives. Katherine takes Roddy to her husband's (Von Sydow) home in the country nearby. She has not seen her husband Gerald in 6 years. After the two stay overnight, Katherine and Gerald talk about their relationship as Roddy sleeps in a chair outside. NTV calls Gerald's home and after he speaks with them, he tells Katherine they are coming and that she is not dying and needs to stop taking the medicine she was given. Instead, Katherine takes all of it. Gerald is angry at first but finally accepts her decision. Roddy awakens and Gerald informs him that Katherine has died. NTV arrives by helicopter with producer Vincent and Roddy's wife in tow. Roddy and Gerald threaten to kill Vincent and he and the rest of the NTV crew leave with Roddy's wife staying behind. Roddy reconciles with his wife and introduces her to Gerald. | tragedy | train | wikipedia | Bertrand Tavernier's tale of a critically ill woman hounded by a television network for its popular show 'Deathwatch' could be looked back in 1980 as almost a premonition in these times of reality TV and their popularity with today's viewing public.A strong cast portrays a simple, if at times ponderous story dealing the acceptance of death and those out to prosper from it, with Harvey Keitel putting in a passionate driving performance as the TV company's 'virtual camera', a point in the film which adds a certain element of fantasy to the whole proceedings, along with vague decrepit industrial towns and eerie bays as the backdrop for the main characters to drift through.
However, despite strong performances all round, the journey the film takes never seems to reach a definitive destination, rather slows, bogs down and then finally stops, and despite keeping the viewer intrigued throughout never seems to deliver anything more than the inevitable.There is no doubt 'Deathwatch' is an original, eerie and at times beautiful film but one that does not necessarily make sense, just like Max von Sydow's eloquent line in the film that 'Events that have no significance like the flight of a bird, do not have to mean something.'.
Great flick, Romy Schneider's last film and Harvey Keitel is wonderful..
I saw this film in May 1980, loved it, and immediately became a Harvey Keitel and Romy Schneider fan.
This was haunting -- especially since in this film she plays a woman who is dying and just wants to be left alone.
Harvey Keitel plays a reporter working for a TV station who wants to up their ratings by filming raw drama.
When I saw the Truman Show, it reminded me of this film from so long ago whose treatment of the subject matter (filming someone's life who is unaware of the fact) was such a new and exciting concept.
Our local arthouse cinema, the Glasgow Film Theatre, screened a one off presentation of what was alleged to be the last print in existence.
Harvey Keitel is excellent as the human camera that allows society the ultimate act of voyeurism - watching someone die on TV.
Prescient dark film - how long 'til we're watching "Deathwatch"?.
Romy Schneider's last film, ironically enough, and an excellent very real performance in a fairly artsy 70s vein.
I should note I saw this in Glasgow some years ago, and it was the European cut, not what sounds to be a bowdlerized American version which misses some of the point..
In what is said to be a tragically prophetic role, Romy Schneider gives a superb performance as a dying woman at the mercy of a voyeuristic society presided over by a greedy television executive (coldly played by the brilliant Harry Dean Stanton).
Science fiction films in recent years have been noticeably lacking both credible science and original fiction, but this multi-national production is a startling exception, presenting a complex tale of emotional manipulation that engages the imagination without the crutch of special effects.
The intriguing plot, set in a recognizable near future where medical advances have completely eliminated the threat of natural death, follows a young volunteer (Harvey Keitel) who after having experimental micro-cameras implanted into his eyes agrees to follow a woman known to have a rare, incurable disease, in order to record on video her final days for the entertainment of a desensitized and nostalgic TV audience.
Despite the morbid premise (anticipating by two decades the current glut of tacky, ersatz 'reality TV' programming) it's a surprisingly life-affirming movie, maintaining a mood of cautious optimism even while prophesying dark days just around the corner..
I don't know if it is on video, but I wish I could watch this film again, after 20 years the idea still feels fresh and alive.
Today, I have told a writer who is working on a cyberfilm script, to go watch this film first.
One of Romy Schneider's greatest films..
From that moment on, Death Watch (La Mort en Direct) has been one of my favourite films.
Although there are some weaker moments (a dull voice-over from a supporting actress, a climax that does not really hit the spot, French opening titles) the acting, the dialogues, haunting soundtrack and the charisma of Schneider and Keitel make watching this film a very good experience.
Credit also to the director of photography and his camera crew, whose wonderful style may remind you of Dean Cundey's work on Halloween (1978)..
A great film, and quite scary, specially for Tavernier's view over the media (television here, but just replace that word, and nothing will be different), in a not so far future.
Sad, because was Romy Schneider's last film.
She, and Harvey Keitel, are in the leading roles, under Tavernier's direction the two in top form.
In a way, this was ahead of other future "prophecy films", sure one of the best..
I just finished watching this movie in a pitch black room and boy was it dark.Several sequences bordered on the invisible as Harvey Keitel descends into a cameraman´s room 101.
Excellent shift of pace as Max von Sydow enters to fulfill Romy Schneiders dreams.
The world is so infatuating, troubled and desperate that the only way we can care about it is to run away from our troubles by seeing others in distress, dying or getting killed by the thousands each day on the news or in fictionalized accounts as we get ourselves fed in what is called "entertainment".
In the world of "Deathwatch", the latest advance in satisfying bored beings (won't call them human since most of them here are mere walking robots) is to follow a reality TV show whose main star is a terminal patient who is about to die at any moment.
A show like this would be considered an outrageous act, a new low yet all sides of the issue whether being regular viewers or righteous souls opposed to it, they all watch it.
Well, we have Roddy (Harvey Keitel), a volunteer on a new experience where he has a camera implanted on his brain which records everything he sees, his eyes are the intrepid lenses who follow the poor Katherine (Romy Schnieder) recently diagnosed with an incurable disease.
They want to be there, they wanna be present in those moments thinking they won't let her die alone.
George Orwell's "1984", Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" all worked in giving us frightening visions of a future that already was somewhat happening in the time these authors were living.
It throws that mass consumerism and media are evil forces but it never gives them a proper face: the audience who watches the reality show all look simple people, compelled by the woman's tragedy; the master behind the curtains (Harry Dean Stanton) seems too good despite his ways of getting what he wants, always hiding himself from anything until he realizes there's no other way than show up and face the problem.
All I know is that as long as it kept feeding me with ideas, new paths of thinking the unthinkable or the less shown on other films it kept me captivated, fully immersed in its story.
Luckily, the movie didn't mirrored its characters in the sense of us watching something dying slowly in front of our eyes.
The final result is an interesting piece about mortality and how powerless humans are in face of many obstacles (and this is all sides of the issue, when it comes to Roddy's own problems while filming this project).
Bertrand Tavernier makes an artistic, different and beautiful film over a delicate and rarely touched upon theme with efficiency which is death and everything surround it.Here's a quite innovative sci-fi film, more human, down to earth and less imaginative and technical as those films tend to be, "Deathwatch" is a thoughtful experience with pleasant and powerful performances by Schneider, Keitel and Max von Sydow playing Katherine's first husband.
I had been wanting to watch Deathwatch for years mainly to see Keitel and Stanton on screen together in something other than The Last Temptation Of Christ.
Intelligent script, beautiful direction and photography, and faultless acting from Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel in particular.
PLEASE try and see this haunting and increasingly more pertinent film, it will resonate with you for a long time..
Romy, Keitel, great script-- but movie doesn't live up to its potential.
This is not her best film and she was a bit past her prime at this point, but anything with Romy is worth seeing.
The film itself is highly flawed, which is a shame because it had all the right elements-- great director, brilliant cast, fascinating script.
but more likely they'd give it to a Hollywood director who would cast Meg Ryan in the Romy Schneider part.
So, they use their newest invention to follow her surreptitiously...a camera embedded into a reporter's skull (Harvey Keitel).
So, what he sees, the world sees as well.In some ways, the film is very prescient.
After all, in this future, reality television is king...just like it is today.
I think this film is worth watching.
In "Death Watch", Roddy (Harvey Keitel) takes journalism to a whole new level.
The person of interest is a woman named Katherine(Romy Schneider, 1938-82) who has a terminal illness.
In a future that looks like 1979 Scotland, a TV show wants to chronicle a dying woman's final days because death is now rare among all but the elderly thanks to modern medicine (we used to have faith in that).
Besides the eye cameras in Harvey Kietel's eyes and a computer the heroine uses to co-write trashy novels, not much of the future is seen on screen.
This European science fiction story reminded me in many ways of Fassbinder's "World on a Wire," the starkness, the deliberate pacing, and the art house pretensions all within a clever sci-fi premise.
The story here has TV producer Harry Dead Stanton sending reporter Harvey Keitel (who has camera implants in his eyes with special x-ray properties) to interview a dying writer, Romy Schneider.
Unfortunately, the film moves as a leadened pace and is populated with uninvolving characters, despite three strong actors in the leads, along with Max Von Sydow in a supporting role.
I love this film, and have seen it several times on video and even once at a repertory cinema in Vancouver.
Here's a shock -- the version of the film available here has some significant DIFFERENCES from the North American in print.
American version, or Romy Schneider telling Max von Sydow how she loves to see the moon come out during the day.
But there's also a significant plot point that differs, too -- conveyed by a few brief scenes and lines that are NOT in the American version (WARNING: spoilers follow).
(I mean, it HAS been years since the last time I saw it, so maybe I've just forgotten the film, but I really don't think so).
KATHERINE IS NOT ACTUALLY DYING, in the movie; she has been deceived by the doctors and the TV crew.
The doctors reveal this shortly after Keitel blinds himself -- they have a conversation that goes like, "Do you think he should have been told that she's not really dying?" It's the medicine she's been prescribed; IT is making her sick.
Maybe it was felt North American audiences couldn't handle it?If any of you can confirm that I'm not nuts here, and that the film I've just described is quite DIFFERENT from the US version, PLEASE e-mail me.
A superb & somber futuristic thinking man's science fiction film.
In a bland, sterile, heavily automated future where dying from terminal illness has become virtually obsolete, the fact that best-selling writer Katherine Mortenhoe (a fabulously fiery, feisty turn by Romy Schneider) has a rare mortal sickness that will bring about her untimely demise makes her a prime subject for a tasteless mondo-style live atrocity TV show.
So amoral, opportunistic director Vincent (a sleazily appealing Harry Dean Stanton), the man responsible for the lurid, top-rated "Death Watch" series, has cameras implanted behind the eyes of eager beaver reporter Roddy (the one and only Harvey Keitel, who's excellent as usual).
Roddy befriends the unsuspecting Katherine and secretly records her final days in all their ghastly intimacy.Directed in a crisp, low-key, thoughtful manner by Bertrand Taverneir, with a lucid, intelligent, provocative script by Taverneir and David Rayfiel, sumptuous, prowling, appropriately voyeuristic cinematography by Pierre William Glenn, a beautifully melancholy tone, a frantic screaming violins classical music score by Antoine Duhamel, a deliberately gradual pace, and a lovely cameo by Max Von Sydow as Katherine's wise, reclusive schoolteacher father, this eerily prophetic and gravely philosophical film ruminates on a compelling variety of very timely and topical post-modern issues: technological advancements making it easier to invade a person's privacy and causing creativity to stagnate (Katherine's novels are actually written by a computer that she strictly programs ideas into), technology overwhelming mankind so greatly that it causes people to become unfeeling, dispassionate automatons, the morbidly irresistible allure of real life tragedy, man's denial of his own mortality, journalistic ethics, dying with your dignity intact, even fate vs.
Spoiler?: (Harvey catching sightof the intimate moments he's filmed in a grocery store and realizing the betrayal of trust he has engineered.) The brief soliloquoy by Max Von Sydow on the lack of 'meaning' in life- which somehow is comforting!
The version that another commentor mentions wherein Romy (and without youother cineastes I wouldn't know that this was Romy's last film- what a waste!) is not dying- is just being set up- that would make perfect sense.
(In these ways, it reminds me of the recent "Children of Men" by Alfonso Cuaron.)The idea of video cameras being implanted in someone's eyes is brilliant and full of narrative possibilities.
The portrayal of the reality TV show producer as being callous and only interested in ratings - with his firm belief that everyone/viewers have a "right to know" pushes the story into the opposites: "If everything is of interest, nothing is important", says the dying woman in a society where there is no natural death.Sight as knowing and the eyes as technology opens up many theoretical discussions, especially because of the Oedipal-like scene where Roddy blinds himself for "knowing" too much....
(Yet as Hitchcock showed us again and again, sight is unreliable.) Reading in another user's comment that the original film's story had Katherine's death a falsity set up by the producers in order to set their show in motion made me gasp, for that makes all of the film's meanings even more powerful and painful.
If Harvey Keitel with camera eyes doesn't creep you out, then the concept of "deathwatching", a reality show premise if there ever was one, certainly will.
You could argue that Katherine signed off on it, as all of today's reality-show contestants do, but we're not seeing the most watchable scenes as we do on a reality show, instead this film shows long, boring stretches of time, self-reflection, bickering, and routine mundane details such as sleeping in a hostel or riding on a bus, intended to convey a sense of impending doom I suppose.
Max von Sydow is wonderful, as he is in everything he does, and here he makes the most of a small but important role as he tries to give Katherine some dignity.
***SPOILERS*** Futuristic movie about this TV reality show that has a person die live on TV from some unknown and incurable disease who's ratings have been going through the roof.
It's up to the shows producer Vincent Ferreiman, Harry Dean Stanton,to get new contestants who are about to die on the show for a fee of $500,000.00 to $600,000.00 and let them do the dying for him live on TV!
The latest contestant Kathy Graves, Romy Schneider, has been told by her quack doctor who works for the reality show a Dr.Mason, William Russell,that she's got not more then two months to live.
Kathy soon gets a bit fed up in becoming a TV star by dying live on the air and goes into hiding in the slummy section of Glasgow Scotland at a church run flop house for the homeless.
It's later that reporter Roddy,Harvey Keitel, is hired by the TV studio NTV to track Kathy down with a TV video camera implanted in his head.
It's then that Roddy like Gregory Peck in the 1969 film "The Chairman" can record Kathy's every movement up until the moment she dies of her fatal disease which will be broadcast live on NTV!As Roddy gets to know Kathy his opinions about her suddenly change in that she's not only some hot dish, in the cold dreary and drizzling Gasgow surroundings, but he suspects that she's nowhere as sick or dying of an incurable disease as he's been told by his boss TV producer Ferriman.
In fact later Roddy's build in his skull video camera malfunctions that also provided him, who lost his sight by being a POW in some unmanned past war, with the ability to see.***SPOILER ALERT*** Joining sides with Kathy, who's now his both eyes and ears, that blind and clueless Ruddy gets to her, with Kathy's directions, first husband Gerald Mortenhoe's, Max Von Sydon, house on the Scottish coast who for the last six years has been writing classical music and getting drunk on 12 to 25 year old bottles of scotch whiskey.
It's then that the truth comes out about Kathy's so-called fatal illness which is not only not fatal but had been made up by Ferriman and quack doctor Mason just to have her as a contestant on his top rated TV show "Death Watch"!
The best part about all that was that Ferriman had no way of getting Kathy's last moments on earth broadcast on his show since his cameraman Roddy, with his head installed TV video camera out of commission, had no way of recording it. |
tt0770739 | Dead & Deader | After communications to a small medical outpost in Cambodia was cut off, a U.S. special-forces squad was sent to investigate. After they failed to report back, a second squad is sent. As they approach the outpost, they are attacked by zombies. After killing the zombies, they are attacked by an infected researcher who commits suicide with a grenade. Second-in-command Lieutenant Bobby Quinn survives with heavy injuries. He radios for a medivac airlift, then falls unconscious.
Quinn wakes up on an exam table at Ft. Preston Army Base. The shocked coroner, Dr, Flutie, explains that he arrived in a body-bag the previous evening and had been pronounced DOA, as he has no vital signs. Quinn learns that the rest of his squad is dead. Suddenly feeling a pain in his right arm, Quinn grabs a scalpel and cut it open. Gushing out of the wound is green blood and a strange scorpion, which he crushes. The incision then rapidly heals. Quinn and Flutie relate their findings to Dr. Boyce, who keeps Quinn quarantined. Quinn, determined to find out what happened to himself and his squad, resists her directives. Boyce fails to sedate Quinn, and finds that he now possesses superhuman strength. She eventually reveals that another members of his squad, Sergeant Cruz, is in the morgue scheduled for cremation, and the other bodies were being taken elsewhere. Quinn demands to see Cruz, and Boyce takes him to Dr. Langdon's office, where they learn that Cruz is missing. The three tracks Cruz to the kitchen, where he is attacking the cook, Judson. As they try to intervene, Cruz infects Boyce and Langdon, forcing Quinn and Judson to destroy all three. Quinn begins feeling intense hunger that can only be dulled by ingesting raw, red meat. Quinn and Judson are then taken into custody by Major Bascom, who refuses to believe Quinn's story.
Quinn and Judson escape, determined to track down the remaining squad-members. They locate the truck used to transport the bodies, but find it wrecked and covered in blood. While following the trail, they stop at a small road-side bar, where they meet Holly, a part-time bartender. The local news has already aired a report about the killings at Fort Preston, labeling Quinn and Judson suspects. The bar patrons lock them inside the cooler. Afterwards, Quinn's infected squadmates attack the bar and infect the patrons. Holly free the two soldiers, and the three fight their way out. They hijack a police vehicle (having arrived to arrest Quinn and Judson) and drive away. Quinn realizes that one member of his squad, Bill Sanderson, hasn't shown up. After changing their clothes, the trio go to his house in Los Angeles. At the house, Quinn is stricken by another wave of hunger and eats some food from the fridge. The neighbor next door, Mrs. Wisteria, enters the house. They learn from her that Sanderson was taken to a funeral home. She then drives them to the place, but the funeral director tells them the body had already been claimed the previous evening. Frustrated, the group prepares to leave, but a van pulls up and the occupants stop them at gunpoint.
Their captors are mercenaries hired by a Dr. Scott and his partner Dr. Adams. In their lab, Quinn sees Sanderson chained up. Scott reveals that he learned of the "jindu", the Cambodian scorpion-like creatures and how their venom can revive dead tissues. He plans to use it for profit, and to cure his own cancer. Scott brings Mrs. Wisteria closer to Sanderson, who bites her and she soon transforms into a zombie. Scott confirms that the "second-generation" zombies are mindless killers. Only those stung by the jindu can retain their personalities, as long as the creature does not reach their hearts. A mercenary kills Wisteria, and an enraged Quinn kills Sanderson before being knocked out.
When Quinn awakens, Scott and Adams prepare to leave for Fort Preston. They lock him up with Holly and take Judson with them. Quinn, overcome by hunger, attacks Holly. He leaps at her and misses, shattering the two-way mirror that leads into Adams' lab. Inside, he finds a mini-fridge, devours the raw meat inside and comes back to his senses. Scott's group reaches Fort Preston, now overrun with zombies (presumably from a body of the first squad's member). Scott plans to capture this zombie and acquire the jindu inside. They fight their way in, unaware that Quinn and Holly have caught up with them. Scott takes Judson's security keycard and leaves him to the zombies. They enter the morgue containing the original zombie, and lock themselves inside while a mass of undead hammer at the door. Scott cuts into the zombie's chest. As he extracts the jindu, the zombies breaks down the morgue's door. The two mercenaries with Scott are killed and Adams is wounded. As Quinn and Holly burst inside the morgue, Scott drops the jindu and Quinn crushes it. Two zombie soldiers rip off Scott's arms before Quinn and Holly shoot them down. After killing all the zombies in the morgue, Holly shoots Adams before she transforms. Quin and Holly then leave.
Outside, they find that Judson is still alive by hiding in a trash chute. Quinn takes explosives from the armory, and set it up near the ammunition storage to destroy the entire base. As Quinn looks for an escape vehicle, Judson and Holly lure the zombie to approach the ammunition storage. They narrowly escape as the base goes up in flames. After making sure no zombies survive, they walk away together. | violence | train | wikipedia | One thing I've always liked about Sci-Fi channel is their fun movies they like to produce themselves.
Army Lt. Bobby Quinn (Dean Cain) and his platoon are assigned to a special trip to Cambodia to find out why a secret scientific lab stopped sending communications to the United States, and upon arriving at the secret lab, they are confronted with dead soldiers and scientists who are zombies infected by a mysterious mutated species of insects that the lab was working on.
Although Lt. Cain was bitten and infected and died like his platoon, for some reason, he doesn't completely die and turn into a flesh eating monster like the other soldiers.
Seems that he has something in his blood that limits his zombie traits although he does take on some of the characteristics of the zombies like needing to eat raw meat.
He is told that he has to stay on the compound but Cain's platoon, now flesh eating zombies, start waking up and killing the military and scientific staff at the compound.
During the confusion Lt. Cain escapes the military compound with the help of his new friend, army cook Hieronymous Judson (Guy Torry) who, by the way is very comedic.
Judson, Cain's new sidekick, is very funny and provides plenty of comic relief throughout the movie.
In a bar where Cain and Judson stop for a bite to eat (ha ha) he meets a saucy bartender named Holly (Susan Ward), a beautiful but independent heroine that is typical modern American woman: she can beat you up while looking beautiful.
When Cain is caught by local authorities to take him back to the military compound where he's accused of murder, Holly steps in and rescues him, and gets caught up in the crusade after she sees friends at the bar die at the hand of hungry munching zombies.
As these three go from location to location looking to destroy the source of the infections, and kill zombies, they encounter bad guys and plenty of hungry zombies who love a good fight.
There's lots of humor and flirting going on between Cain and Holly, and lots of good fun and cheesy zombie effects.
So people, when you watch a Sci-Fi movie like this, be glad that they choose to carry on the great tradition of weekend horror movies that provide light entertainment and enjoy them for what they are: fun times and some good scares and laughs.
Back to topic: this film is for a TV-Production well done and if you are not the one, who aspects million dollars special-effects, but some that are compared to other zombie films very well done, it will be fun to you.
Like i just wrote i just finished the film and during writing this i smile all the time for the gags that pass my mind.
Dean Cain added some humor.Not wanting to give away the plot let's just say this is the standard comedy with zombiesque "movie of the week" qualities.Mad scientist, Army men(Douglas Tait,) hot babes(Susan Ward,) One black Eddie Murphy type character(Guy Torry,)etc.
Even though the formula was stale "Dead and Deader" is better than some of SF-C's movies.
Good movie with graphic violence which tends to keep people watching whether they want to admit it or not.
Caine always has something cocky to say after achieving something further in the story like killing a zombie.
It surely doesn't compare to Dawn Of The Dead or like 28 days later, but it's still worth the watch.
One thing I found interesting was they never used a whole load of CGI graphics like most TV movies do(excessively).
I gave this movie a 8/10 just cuz they show it on scifi and kept a lot of the bloody scenes in...most of the time...well if you've ever seen a horror movie on A&E for example or late at night on TBS...you know what i mean.
But the special effects aren't amazing...but they are great for a low budget movie.
I didn't even know she was in it...but i'd recommend seeing this cuz its just fun for being on a scifi and not the big screen...heck i'm gonna buy it on DVD if i can find it :) p.s. not everything in movies has to make sense to be enjoyable...sometimes its just gotta be fun to watch!.
Although this film takes a slight turn: a few of the infected have black blood; I guess the evil scientist and his scorpion minions had a hand in that.
Bobby Quint (Dean Cain), the most human of the team, decides to stop the rest of the soldiers before they infect the whole world with their zombie illness.There should be some discussion about what this film is, and what it isn't.
While the film is funny to a point (or at least it doesn't take itself seriously), Fangoria's assertion it's a "zom-edy" like "48 Hours" is overstating this more than just a little.
I enjoyed this film, but certainly didn't think it was really laugh-out-loud funny (for that, rent "Shaun of the Dead").What this isn't is a high budget film with professional quality.
and considering it is made by a first time director, I was quite impressed with what they accomplished (calling in an all-star cast and Greg Nicotero for makeup was a good idea).Also, this probably isn't a film for the general public.
They might enjoy it, but I will say this: my number one reason for liking this film (besides the sexy Susan Ward) was the constant barrage of references to other films ("Dawn of the Dead", various James Bond films, "Bullet", etc.).
The rip on Michael Bay was the bait for me, and the hook came with the lengthy analysis of "Dawn of the Dead" versus the remake (which correctly, in my opinion, pointed out the key differences including the consumerism aspect and Ken Foree's role in both films).Much of the plot doesn't really make sense if you think about it and plot holes are more common here than one might like (and we are left with questions such as the sexual ability of zombies).
Dead and Deader is about some insects that infect humans who then become flesh eating zombies.
I expected the film to be a real bomb, but it wasn't too bad for a cheap TV movie.
His friends seem to have come off worse, waking up as more traditional people chomping zombies.At first the situation seems quite interesting and you go along with it but the crappy Pulp Fiction style popular culture chats about movies and suchlike between the main character and the black sidekick quickly get very tedious.I've got to give it a four out of fairness because it's watchable, but I didn't find it funny or really that interesting after the first half hour.
Most people seem to have liked this one but I think that says more about the ever decreasing expectations of the audience than the quality of this movie.
Quinn replies, "I don't HAVE heat vision." (obvious reference to Lois & Clark, where Cain played Superman) Pretty good movie to entertain you for a few hours, just don't expect the grand settings and effects that come with a big budget zombie flick.
It's a good laugh movie for people who like dumb zombie flicks.
Ill keep it simple this film should have been good, the idea was great it really makes me want to see a live action Deadman film (comic book character) but the big problems with the film are awful support actors awful script really really bad direction bad make up and Ha!
Special effects, seriously I've seen better in the hammer horror films.
must say though i kind of enjoyed it, its one of those few films thats so bad its good and it really is good its fun like a blow job ya can just sit down and enjoy it non of that thinking or doing any work just enjoying it and it'll keep ya happy until Romero or who ever does another good big budget zombie flick.
Dead and deader was a bit of fresh air to me, finally i saw a recent low budget zombie movie that was decent even though it was a made for TV movie.
The story was fairly good, not that believable but hey this was a sci-fi horror movie so it didn't need to be.
At least quite a few zombies deaths that made me say "cool" a few times and some great characterisations from Dean Cain, Guy Torry and Susan Ward.
Guy Torry's character the army chef Judson had me in stitches, he would have rather faced off against Gordon Ramsey than be in that army kitchen.There were a few good quotes and even a dawn of the dead eulogy comparing the original to the remake during one of the fights which i thought was cool.
Kinder like From Dusk till Dawn, Dead and Deader starts off as an action movie then turns into a zombie horror.
Having grown up with the lighter side of the zombie horror genre finding this film while channel hoping was fantastic!
A very slight twist on the regular zombie flick (scorpians feature in a random way) there is plenty of green gore, explosions and cheesy one liners.
While I'm not sure I really needed to see a slightly less buff then I remember Dean Cain's man boobs this was an incredibly enjoyable film.
I liked that the zombie infection was mixed up with Cambodian scorpions called "Jindoo" (great name).No matter how disgusting and threatening the surroundings, that fine triumvirate of Bobby, Judson, and Holly actually seem to be enjoying themselves more than they are terrified of the experience.
I thought the straight-to-TV enterprise "Dead and Deader" did a good job making these elements gel in something that was outrageous in the thrills with moments of grisly gore, but also amusing in its gags.
The snappy script really did like to play up trivial movie references (where it even takes a dig at film-maker Michael Bay) and acknowledge its influences, thanks mainly to Susan Ward's stunning looking film geek character.
Along for the on-the-run, buddy formula is Dean Cain (who's quite likable) as a walking dead solider and Guy Torry as the token smart talking army cook as they race against time to stop a zombie plague which could wipe out the entire nation.
From that line of the movie,you're probably guessing that there's plenty of humor in this movie.Well,you're right.But there's more comedy and action than horror in 'Dead & Deader'.
In fact,it isn't scary or suspenseful.But that doesn't mean that this movie doesn't deliver.This movie movie definitely delivers,and in this case,it delivers buckets of gore and entertainment that almost reaches 'Dawn of the Dead'.We should all give Dean Cain a big round of applause,because if he wasn't in this movie,then it wouldn't be as good as I'm describing it right now.So there's good news for all of you people who enjoy extremely gory and funny mayhem that make a movie as good as 'Dead & Deader'..
Much to my delight I found it for £3 online so I happily added it to my zombie collection.The story revolves around Dean Cain who is dead, a zombie but not quite the evil kind unless he gets hungry (good idea to carry a bag of steaks around in his presence).
He wants to get to the bottom of why he's dead yet alive.There are some incredibly silly parts including the fact Dean Cain heals instantly every time he is hurt.
If you want a lighthearted look at the living dead with some nice green splatter special effects and Dean Cain flashing his man-boobs then this is exactly what you need.A slightly above average 6 out of 10..
I enjoy zombie flicks as much as the next person, and cheesy special effects are always good for a laugh, but this vehicle did not use those elements to good effect.
Obviously a parody of other zombie films (with dialog comparing the original "Night of the Living Dead" with the remake), it brings nothing new or funny to the genre.
Then proceed into the realms of utter nonsense?Yes the internet may be contributing to the demise of fine feature films but drivel like this being made and then being reviewed as "Great", "Excellent movie" and "Better than expected." can't be helping.
Films like this a lowering the quality bar.There will always be an audience for this type of terrible movie and they'll always claim:-"It's a great movie, best zombie flick ever" - What other zombie films have you seen exactly?"Ideal for Saturday night fun!" You really should get out more if you think Saturday night would be improved by this."Better than expected" That says it all, you thought it'd be a bad movie before you watched it.......so why did you watch it?
GUY TORRY RULES in this slightly unique Zombie Flick.
For a low budget "B" made for T.V. movie, it was the best zombie movie this year!What made this one slightly different than the others 1#)is that an ancient Cambodian scorpion infects humans thus turning them into flesh eating zombies.
2#) dean Cain's character was infected but he cuts out the Bug in time so the virus does not reach his heart,in-turn gives him extra abilities, but he is not a full blown zombie!
Susan ward(Malibu Shores & Shallow Hal) was surprisingly good in this movie as a tough bartender caught in the middle of this zombie mess resulting in her teaming up with dean and guy.But what makes this movie a 100x better than the others is Guy Torry!
Yes, by all means, let's add DEAD AND DEADER to that long list of tired, played-out, low budgeted zombie flicks.
A 2006 Sci-Fi Channel original movie (something the film shouldn't really take pride in), this one offers nothing new but still isn't all that bad as far as horror cinema goes.
The rest of the negligible plot involves Quinn, a wisecracking mess cook (Guy Torry), and a feisty bartender honey (Susan Ward) battling the undead as they strive to curtail the spreading zombie infection.There isn't one original note here, not one.
Surprisingly good little zombie film..
Dead & Deader starts 'Somewhere in Cambodia...' as a five man special ops team try to establish contact with a medical team, however things don't go according to plan & they are attacked by flesh eating zombies.
Elsewhere his special ops buddies also return to life but they come back as ravenous flesh eating zombies unlike Quinn who is relatively normal & considerably more sociable.
People have a hard time believing he is one of the walking dead & that a virus is being spread that turns the infected into flesh eating zombies, Quinn decides he has to go it alone & stop the ever growing zombie hordes...Originally made for cable TV & directed by Patrick Dinhut I was extremely surprised to discover that Dead & Deader is a highly entertaining light hearted comedy horror that delivers on both counts.
There are also lots of self referential dialogue & some really amusing references to other films, I loved the discussion Quinn has with Holly where they debate which version of Dawn of the Dead is better & Holly's passioned speech about why the original is!
Having said that I was impressed, I mean when I knew this was had been made for cable & starred Dead Cain who would probably attend the opening of an envelope for money these days I feared the worse but maybe it's because I had such low expectations that I liked it so much?Director Dinhut does OK, he keeps things moving along & the action scenes are pretty well handled.
There's some gore including a hand in a mincer, various gunshot wounds, someone head is sliced in a ceiling fan, there are bitten throats, decapitation by meat cleaver, there a few zombie scenes where they feast upon various severed limbs & a decent amount of blood splattered around the place.Technically the film is pretty good, it certainly looks a lot better than a lot of cheap made for cable offerings.
The acting is good, Susan Ward makes for good eye candy for the boys & Cain will provide the same for the girls.Dead & Deader far exceeded my expectations which were admittedly none existent, I really liked this humorous fun little zombie film & would definitely recommend it if not for the fact there are already plenty of reviews that totally slate it so maybe I'm in the minority when I reckon it's a great film.
"Dead and Deader" is one of more fun zombie entries out there.**SPOILERS**After a mission in Cambodia, Lt. Bobby Quinn, (Dean Cain) arrives back in the US pronounced dead, though he is still alive.
After learning that he became infected through a mythical Cambodian scorpion that turns it's victims into flesh-eating zombies, they race to stop it before it gets out and infects others around them.The Good News: This was one of the most impressive zombie films around.
Among the better features from that is the film is incredibly action-packed, having a ton of it here that is just fun to watch on any level.
What's even better about it is that, along with the rest of the film, there's some really nice humor in this.
Overall, these were the film's good points.The Bad News: There wasn't much wrong here.
These, though, are the film's only flaws.The Final Verdict: An incredibly impressive zombie film that has a lot going for it and only marginal flaws, giving this one a really great feel and appearance.
Definitely give it a watch if you're into the genre at all, a fan of the Sci-Fi Channel Creature Features or the plain interested, otherwise there's not a whole lot who won't like it.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.
Bobby Quin(Dean Caine)is a Special Forces soldier who dies in a secret mission in Cambodia. |
tt0073326 | Ma Ge Bo Luo | Marcus Nang (Will Yun Lee), an ace hitman in the underworld was summoned to meet with three professional colleagues in a luxury hotel suite after completing a recent contract. The first to arrive are Cordelia Leigh (Mercedes Renard) and Chase (Oliver Williams). The sexy Cordelia is Marcus’s ex-girlfriend and an equally deadly killer. Chase, a brutal French assassin, is looking to make inroads into the business. The last to arrive is Eli (Miguel Ferrer), an aging gentleman who has been in the trade longer than he cares to remember. Mentor to both Marcus and Cordelia, it’s been years since Eli last saw the two. The situation takes on the air of a family reunion. Friendships are renewed. Past exploits are remembered. Except for Chase, an outsider who becomes fed up with the nostalgia and demands to get to the heart of the matter. Tension mounts, as Eli demands to know what went wrong with the kill. Marcus insists that it all went perfectly and that there’s nothing to worry about. Eli pressures him further; revealing that one of the two bodies is missing. Marcus remains adamant that he completed the job. But clearly, something is wrong. It becomes apparent that Cordelia has never forgiven Marcus for a dark deed in the past. Eli wants answers while Chase is driven to find the missing “body” and complete the hit. Tempers flare. Accusations fly. And cat-and-mouse game escalates. Each assassin harbors their own agenda and each is willing to sacrifice the others to fulfill it. Marcus’s life is in grave danger as the situation further deteriorates. And blood begins to flow. Various lies are peeled away. Marcus is indeed hiding something. What might he be hiding? How does it relate to the missing body? And why? The dark mystery unravels, leading to an explosive and deadly showdown where no one can be trusted. | revenge | train | wikipedia | Marco Polo joined by powerhouse kung fu cast in HK costume epic.
THE FOUR ASSASSINS (aka MARCO POLO, 1975) is that rare Hong Kong kung fu film which features a westerner in a pivotal, heroic role.
Set at the time of Italian explorer Marco Polo's historic expedition to China, during the reign of Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, it stars American actor Richard Harrison as Polo.
Taking considerable liberties with the historic record, the film has Polo turning up as an Imperial Inspector assigned to root out Chinese rebels in the south, but eventually being won over to their cause.
As such, it relies on the formula commonly used in kung fu films to depict a much later period of conflict, that of Qing-era Manchu conquerors vs.
Ming loyalists.The film boasts a large cast of formidable kung fu players, including, as three of the four heroes of the title, Alexander Fu Sheng, Chi Kuan-Chun, and, in his first film role, Kuo Chui (Philip Kwok, better known as one of the Five Venoms).
The villains are portrayed by Wang Lung-Wei, Leung Kar Yan and the normally heroic Gordon Liu. These six actor-fighters are among the top names of 1970s Hong Kong kung fu cinema and any film with such a top-ranked cast involved in such a dazzling array of matches belongs at the top of any kung fu fan's must-see list.
Also on hand are Billy Tang as the fourth assassin of the title and Carter Wong as an ill-fated would-be assassin.The film's one serious structural flaw is that it introduces the villains first and follows them around as they are assigned to accompany Polo on his travels and tour of inspection.
The four heroes make comparatively little impact because we don't meet them until nearly half-way into the film and then have to wait during their period of training (at mundane tasks designed to mask their outlawed kung fu practice) before the spectacular final series of matches with the villains.
Action director Lau Kar Leung ended his association with director Chang Cheh during the shooting of FOUR ASSASSINS (in Taiwan) and thereafter struck out on his own as a director.Marco Polo is played by American actor Richard Harrison, who starred in many Italian films in the 1960s, including spaghetti westerns and sword 'n' sandal adventures (GUNFIGHT AT RED SANDS, GLADIATORS SEVEN).
He doesn't participate in any of the fighting here but simply gets to hang around the margins of the action and, ultimately, give advice to the heroes on how best to beat their opponents.
Harrison appeared the following year in another historical kung fu film, BOXER REBELLION (1976, aka BLOODY AVENGERS), as a German officer in Peking who is confronted by three of this film's stars.
I've also reviewed that film on IMDb and I recommend it highly.ADDENDUM (6/14/11): In October 2005, I acquired the Celestial Pictures Region 3 DVD of this film, under its original title, MARCO POLO, which is both letter-boxed and in Mandarin with English subtitles, two things I couldn't say about the TV broadcast I originally watched for this review.
Also, I feel terribly remiss for not having cited in my review the female lead, Shih Szu. I may not have been very familiar with her when I first watched this.
I've since watched her in many films and reviewed several of them here (e.g. LADY HERMIT, THE RESCUE).
She doesn't have any fight scenes in this film, though, but she gives quite a stirring performance as the widow of a slain rebel and has some touching scenes with Harrison.
I'm also impressed with the sympathetic way that Harrison's character, Marco Polo, is handled, He's actually working for the bad guys, the "Tartars," throughout, yet in spite of that, he shows respect for the rebels and they return it.
This is one of the more exciting Kung Fu movies.
There is plenty of surreal (obviously unbelievable) action, and good directing.
It takes a few twists, including the changing over of point of view in the process of the movie.
This means we begin with one character, token Western character Marco Polo, and then later shifting to the viewpoints of four rebels against Khan.
As in most Kung Fu movies, the fighting is comically surreal, but in this case the four assassins are obviously personifications of different types of a suppressed people.
Another Shaw Brothers Classic: Ming Rebels against Mongol Fighters.
During the Mongol reign of China in the 13th century, six sworn brothers of the oppressed Ming loyalists plan a rebellion against the tyranny.
When two of them are brutally killed in their daring attempt to assassinate the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, the remaining four fighters band together to take revenge.
But they do not have the upper hand since the Emperor is surrounded by three of his best fighters: Daidalu (played by Liang Chia-jen or popularly known as "Beardy"), who possesses the Fiery Palm technique that instantly kills any opponent who sustains his swift blow, a double-sword wielding fighter who kills by dismembering his opponent's armpits named Abulabha (Gordon Liu) and the arm-locking and waist-breaking wrestler Duilitan (Johnny Wang Lung Wei).
Before the four rebels can execute their plan to defeat their much-skilled rivals, they decide to undergo arduous training in special kungfu techniques: Fu Sheng with the Iron Palm technique - which makes him able to release fatal blows through his inner strength, Kuo Chui with the Leaping Kick technique - which makes him able to somersault in the air and land mortal kicks, Yen-tsan Tang with the Super Strength technique - which makes him able to release extraordinary strength to defeat his opponents, and Chi Kuan-chin with the Bamboo Twisting technique - which makes him invulnerable to sword attacks and arrow shots but for one weak spot.
Since the Mongols have banned all sorts of kungfu training throughout the country, the four rebels have no other option but to practice secretively under their teacher's guidance only in the small hours for months.
Marco Polo, who has been assigned as a viceroy by the Mongol emperor with a priority to thwart these Chinese rebels, eventually sides with the rebellion.
When the three Mongol fighters and their troops, with Polo's lead, have located and surrounded the rebels' hideout, they realize that they are facing a fearful four-man army who is prepared for anything that comes their way.
The inevitable one-on-one blood-for-blood duel ensues, culminating in a life-and-death showdown that would decide the fate of the four heroes and their force of rebellion.This is not a biopic of the famous Italian explorer.
This is a 1975 Shaw Brothers mega-production that incorporates few facts but a lot of fiction into an exciting kungfu extravaganza, which was meant to attract wider international audience by casting American actor Richard Harrison as the title character.
Those expecting to see a film on Marco Polo that is historically accurate will be sorely disappointed.
The title itself, in my opinion, is rather misleading as the film does not portray the life of Marco Polo himself.
A more appropriate title should be: THE FOUR ASSASSINS, which is actually the alternate title, MARCO POLO AND THE FOUR ASSASSINS, or MARCO POLO AND THE FOUR REBELS.Despite that, if you are familiar with a Shaw Brothers film, you will see exciting kungfu training and fighting of the four characters.
Unlike the weak fight sequences in HEROES TWO (1974), those seen here are surprisingly well-choreographed, which elevate the tension during the climactic fights.All in all, THE FOUR ASSASSINS comes recommended for those who enjoy watching solid kungfu flicks of the 70's - Shaw Brothers style!.
MARCO POLO gets off to a good start (as one might well expect, this being a Chang Cheh epic), with several martial arts bouts conducted for the amusement of the Italian explorer.
Among the fighters is Gordon Liu, wielding a pair of swords.
The festivities are interrupted by a pair of "assassins" who include Carter Wong.
The interruption proves short-lived, as Harrison as Polo leads the government goons after Wong and family.
Wong and his young brother are killed.
Enter our heroes, led by Alexander Fu Sheng and a baby-faced Kuo Chui (who's "introduced" in this film).
Our four heroes (referred to throughout as "assassins") are sent off to train separately (Kuo Chui, as the new kid, gets the short end of the stick: he trains in a pit of feces).
(For some reason, some of the fighters are referred to as "pugilists," although none of them practice traditional pugilism.) The direction is top-notch and the action brilliant throughout.
I do like watching these early 1970's Shaw Brothers Productions.
I don't understand why Marco Polo gets top billing.
He's just an observer throughout the film.
The movie begins with Monguls showing off for Kubla Khan.
Abulahua (Gordon Liu Chia-Hui) shows incredible skill with blades.
Caldalu (Leung Kar-Yan) has the Iron Palm down pat.
Then there's Dulldan (Johnny Wang Lung-Wei) who is quite skilled at hand to hand.
I did not like Marco Polo (Richard Harrison) at the beginning of the film.
I loathe sycophants.Zu Jianmin (Carter Wong Ka-Tat) and companion make an attempt on Khan's life.
Good fight scene though.
Marco Polo is merely an observer during all the action.
When Zu Jianmin manages to escape Khan's palace, he is followed by Khan's top three and Polo.
They corner Zu, Mrs. Zu (Shih Szu) and Zu's younger brother, (Ting Wa-Chung) at his home.
Zu and Ting are killed and his wife becomes a captive, after Polo stops her from attempting to kill herself.Polo and his cohorts are traveling along a road with Mrs. Zu bound and being dragged along by a guard, when they encounter Zu'z blood brothers, Li Xiongfeng (Alexander Fu Sheng), Zhou Xingzheng (Chi Kuan-Chun), Huang Zonghan (Bruce Tong Yim-Chaan) and Chen Jie (Phillip Kwok Chun-Fung), who are all pushing carts loaded with salt bags.
Dulldan harasses Li, who after a stern look fro Zhou, feigns not knowing Kung Fu to protect himself.
The four are ordered to carry Mrs. Zu on one of the wagons.There is a scene at the inn where Polo, his entourage and the 4 heroes stay that involves Li peeing the soup prepared for Polo et al.
Polo uses Mrs. Zu as a decoy to find out where the heroes are staying and learn of their plans regarding another attempt on Khan's life.
The four heroes follow Mrs. Zu to her home, where her father, Chief Wang (Lo Dik) indirectly teaches them Kung Fu. You cannot teach civilians Kung Fu, nor are you allowed to have anything that can be used as a weapon per the Ruling Dynasty edicts.
Li learns Iron Palm by strengthening his hands and arms through milling beans.
Zhou learns the same style Zu knew, which I know as Iron Skin from other Shaw movies.
Chen improves his acrobatics by, uhm, jumping in and out of deep manure puddles.Polo decides he wants to check out Chief Wang's house for the 4 men and Mrs. Zu.
He sees nothing out of the ordinary, mainly because Chief Wang ensured he wouldn't.
Polo sees Chen, from the back.
Polo plots to return at night to see what's really going on.
Wang does his best to keep up appearances in expectation of a return visit.Polo receives an edict to eliminate the 4 heroes and everyone at Wang's estate.
He devices a plan with Dulldan, Caldalu and Abulahua to take out the heroes.
Polo sees Huang crushing rocks with his bare hands with ease and Chen somersaulting all over the puddles.
He sees Li splitting firewood with his bare hands.
Polo is lectured on customs and the way of the world by Wang.
Polo is asked if he would stand by as another country swooped in to take over Italy or would he fight.
Polo admits he would fight.
Fighting for what is theirs.Polo decides to help the heroes by giving them information on Khan's top 3 fighters.
He informs the heroes who should battle each of the three.
Polo is then bound and lead away from the estate.
A rouse to bring Abulahua into the open for Zhou to fight.
The fight scene between Chen and Dulldan is more acrobatics than fighting.
Chen finally gains the upper hand and kills Dulldan.
I love watching Fu Sheng fight scenes.
When the dust settles and he is of course dying from his wounds (I've only seen two movies where one of Bruce's characters survives), he jokingly tells Li and Chen that one man against all those Tartans was fun.The fight between Zhou and Abulahua was impressive.
The only flaw was Zhou had his sash tied to cover the one spot of his body he couldn't protect with Iron Skin.
Once more, Polo merely stands there, watching the action.
He actually has the gall to walk up to a dying Zhou and shake his hand.
Zhou wipes the blood off before shaking Polo's hand.
You could have helped Zhou, but you just shake his hand and walk away?The movie ends with Li and Chen walking off with Wang and his staff while Polo watches them.
I gave it an 8 for the Hans who id battle against Polo and his henchmen.
Personally, there was no need for Polo to even be in this film.
Despite having a clichéd and overly simplistic plot (four brothers avenge the deaths of their three other brothers) which I believe has been the basis for literally hundreds of Hong Kong kung fu flicks, MARCO POLO is a lot of fun, an action-packed and epic tale which is literally breathtaking in places.
I'm still a relative newcomer to the whole martial arts genre but if the majority of the films waiting to be seen out there are like this then I'll be a happy man.
Although it runs for approximately one hour and forty-five minutes, MARCO POLO is never boring, instead alternating between frantic scenes of action and lots of unintentionally hilarious plot development.The film begins somewhat bizarrely with the arrival of Marco Polo, who is played by no less than peplum legend and all-round action hero Richard Harrison.
Harrison immediately befriends the Mongol leader and becomes one of his officers.
The bizarre thing is that Marco Polo doesn't actually have anything to do with this movie.
For the majority of the film, although he's on the side of the bad guys, he remains an ambivalent character before revealing his true colours as a force of good at the end of the movie.
Now, this double-sided role could have made quite a good character study of a man torn between two sides, but the film doesn't work like that.
What's more likely is that Polo's character was simply shoehorned into the plot to a) introduce a Western character to appeal to Western audiences, and b) convince people that the film was some kind of historical epic, which it isn't.
Whatever the reason, Polo's out-of-place position in the movie is one of the strangest and puzzling things I've seen in a long time.The Mongol leader needs to pick three new men to lead his guard, so devises a ceremony in which various talented fighters battle each other to find out who the most victorious are (of course, the battle tournament stuff would later be ripped off by Van Damme and all sorts of no-budget straight-to-video action producers in the '90s).
After a lengthy display of martial arts combat, the palace is attacked by a pair of assassins out to kill the leader.
One of them is bloodily killed outright (run through with a sword) while the other, played by genre mainstay Carter Wong, manages to leap to safety.
Well, he's a pugilist, apparently.Well, the guard (led by Harrison and including Gordon Liu and the beloved Beardy) quickly chase the escapee and manage to kill him (he was a novice, you see).
Along their journey they meet four peasants who are in reality the brothers of the dead assassins.
The men journey together for some time before revealing their true identities and escaping into the night, or rather into a small village where they take up training in the art of pugilism.
Their work is made more difficult as no weapons or tools are allowed in the village, so they have to do all the work using only their hands and bodies.After lots of this training (which does become a bit repetitive, but luckily it's pretty funny to watch so doesn't become boring), the Mongol hordes (consisting of about a hundred soldiers) storm the village, and must face the fight of the four men only.
Cue lots of large-scale martial arts battles, as our heroes firstly face down the trio of killer guards in bloody one-on-one combat, and then battle the full force of the army single-handedly.
Things get really over-the-top at the end which is extremely exciting and well worth waiting for, with tons of guards getting brutally killed and bodies falling everywhere.
Two characters punch so hard that skin is left behind and hand prints appear on bodies!
It's the "iron palm" trick apparently.My jaw was dropping when two of the leading characters get repeatedly impaled and shot through the stomach with arrows, yet still manage to fight on with determination as the blood courses down their bodies and their lives ebb away.
The film is pretty violent of course, with lots of blood spurting from mouths and bones getting broken all in the best possible taste, and this just adds to the over-the-top look and feel.
Along with all this, the acting isn't bad either, with the four leads including Alexander Fu Sheng making their characters unique and likable.
Richard Harrison is always good value too, although he doesn't really have much to do here other than to stand around and look dashing in his moustache.
The spectacularly violent action and hell-raising stunts and impossible actions more than make up for any minor deficiencies, so MARCO POLO gets my thumbs up as a thoroughly entertaining slice of kung fu madness. |
tt0109035 | Above the Rim | Kyle Watson (Duane Martin) is a talented basketball player who is about to graduate from high school. While he waits to find out if he will receive a scholarship to Georgetown University, he finds himself in a difficult dilemma over a playground basketball tournament. He must decide whether to play for and follow his widely beloved basketball coach or Birdie (Tupac Shakur), a local thug in the neighborhood. Thomas "Shep" Sheppard (Leon Robinson), a former standout player himself, now works as a high school security guard. Kyle feels resentment towards the security guard, because Kyle's own mother is falling in love with Shep.
Coincidentally, Kyle's coach also wants Shep to coach his team when he feels it is time for him to retire. It is later revealed to Kyle that Shep is Birdie's older brother. Kyle makes a decision to run with Birdie's team until he decided to come back to his old team, because of Birdie's wrongful actions against Flip (Bernie Mac) and Kyle's friend Bugaloo (Marlon Wayans). In the tournament, both Kyle's and Birdie's teams march to the finals, with Kyle's team playing solid team basketball, while Birdie's team plays a very thuggish style. Before the finals, Birdie threatens Kyle, demanding Kyle to throw away the game, so that Birdie's team would win. Kyle is brutalized throughout the game, with Birdie's team having a solid lead, and is injured. Shep, unable to watch anymore, steps in the game in Kyle's place - despite being aggressively attacked throughout, Shep helps the team come back, and in the final seconds, passes the ball to Kyle, who hits the game winner. After the loss, Birdie orders Motaw (Wood Harris), his star player and gang member, to kill Kyle. Shep protects Kyle and is shot, while Motaw is shot dead by security. Birdie is later killed by Bugaloo as revenge for previous humiliations. In the end, Kyle is revealed to have gotten the scholarship to Georgetown University - during a televised game, Kyle hits the game winner, while a recovered Shep watches with a smile. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | This movie had an all star cast as the up and coming Marlon Wayans,Tupac Shakur,Leon,Duane Martin,Henry Simmons,Bernie Mac,and the lovely Tonya Pinkins.
The beginning was a little off when Leon dreamed of his best friend's death and then focused mainly on Duane Martin's basketball skills,and him trying to get into Georgetown University.
Tupac was the ruthless street hustler and the coach of a dirty playing basketball team.
To wrap it up in a nutshell Above the rim to me is one of the most memorable urban basketball movies I've ever saw..
Here you have a star studded cast which features Duane Martin, Tonya Pinkins,Marlon Wayans,Bernie Mac,Leon and the late great rapper/actor Tupac Shakur(2Pac).
Here you can see why Tupac was highly respected not only as a celebrated gangsta rapper,but also a great actor with an impaccable skill and broad range and here in this movie you see why.
This movie has a real street feel to it,and it shows the meaning of true friends and how difficult some kids have growing up in world with drugs and crime.
It was a movie set in the East Coast, but Tupac was a stand out star, and the entire soundtrack was done by Death Row. Shakur gave a great performance through out, along with Dwayne Martin.
I was expecting it to be a basketball movie set that just happens to be in the hood, but no.
Should be a good watch for fans of hood movies, fans of basketball, or both..
The cast, the plot, the basketball all come 2getha 4 an absolute stunner of a film.
The Medina/Pollack influence is clear (Fresh Prince), the film offers a realistic portrayal of life in the hood.Wayans is on a mental one the entire film, while Leon gives a far more sombre, dark performance as the traumatised player who could have had it all.Tupac......Tupac is Tupac and it don't get any better (or realer) than that.
The film is a bout a young basketball player who goes through a lot of trouble in his last year as a high school star point guard.
Its a good screenplay, directed well, with great basketball scenes as well.
The film, Above The Rim is no Star Wars, It's just a darker version of "White Men Can't Jump" with more creativity on the well developed basketball dribbling and dunks visuals.
The subtle use of basketball as a view into the street culture of America, is unique and original to this movie.
Kyle Lee Watson (Duane Martin) is the star basketball player at his high school, but his overly developed ego limits him from reaching his full potential.
However via trials and tribulations he slowly starts finding the right path, in some part thanks to an unwilling mentor in the form of the school security guard Shep (Leon), who used to be NBA material, until one day tragically (and unintentionally comically) his best friend plummets to his death after trying to dunk.
His brother on the other hand is local badboy Birdie (Tupac Shakur), who took to crime after Shep bailed out on the family.Despite B-movie credentials the presence of Tupac Shakur seems to have torpedoed the popularity of "Above the Rim".
this was one of tupac's best movie ever.The story line was great and so was his peformence.I enjoy basketball and for those of you who are a huge fan of the sport or watching ghetto movies.Go to the video store and rent,you will like this movie so much that you would want to see it over and over again..
Kyle Lee Watson is a cocky high school basketball star.
Kyle falls under Birdie's influence.This movie starts with a ridiculous scene.
One of the better urban basketball movies....
Duane Martin does a nice job of portraying Kyle Lee Watson, a highly recruited high school basketball player, and Tupac Shakur (as Birdie) is as stellar as he always was.
The end basketball sequence is a very good one, having many actual New York City Playground Legends come in and just show their stuff for the movie.
Yo was sup I'm telling u man I saw watched this movie about 3 times on the day I got it- Christmas 2005 and the only reason I would have done that is because it is the best movie on planet earth, yeah I'm prepared to make that statement, damn man this movie is tight man and it stars the late Tupac who is a better actor than I would have expected man I seriously think the guys in this movie must have played basketball at a high level cause you ain't gonna teach actors to play ball THAT GOOD.
They definitely did a good job at making this movie and I would advise all Basketball lovers to watch this movie trust me you will absolutely love this movie and not to mention the gangsterous soundtrack which completely sets the mood for many of the scenes, it's a shame that Pain by 2pac is unreleased and is only on the casette version of the soundtrack as it is a GREAT song.
Good basketball movie.
Rated R for Language and Some Violence Above The Rim is one of the few films rapper Tupac Shakur was featured in.This is the second film of his that I have seen, the other being Juice which was also a great film.Not many rappers are good actors(look at 50 Cent in Get Rich Or Die Trying, even though I liked the film, 50 Cent wasn't a very good actor).But Tupac is a great actor in both films and probably in all the other films he was featured in.Above The Rim is a basketball film about a young promising basketball star who meets this security guard who used to be an all star on the team he was in.The man's brother(Tupac) is a drug dealer.The film basically shows his relationship with the two and how the security guard is dating his mother.Because of this and other reasons, he dislikes him at first but then starts liking him.The film also stars Marlon Wayans who provides the comic relief in this film and Bernie Mac as a bum who knew the security guard.Above The Rim has good performances and is overall a good film.I would say just as good as "Juice"..
Above the Rim (1994) ** (out of 4)Kyle (Duane Martin) is an intelligent black kid who is growing up in a rough neighborhood but he might have a way out when he gets some interest from various college scouts.
Kyle's friend gets him involved with a drug dealer named Birdie (Tupac Shakur) who offers him some great stuff but he doesn't realize what might be connected to it.When you look back at the early 90s, Hollywood was cranking out a lot of urban dramas thanks in large part to the sucess of BOYZ N THE HOOD.
These urban dramas look at a variety of situations so it was only a matter of time before the basketball courts became the plot and the end result is ABOVE THE RIM.I don't think there's any doubt that the filmmakers had their hearts in the right place but the movie just doesn't work as well as it should have.
The film and the characters basically play out as you'd expect them to so there's really nothing here that keeps the drama up.The one saving grace are the performances, which include nice work from Martin, Leon and Marlon Wayans.
This movie revolved around two people, a kid in high school who's dream is to play in the NCAA for the Georgetown Hoyas, and an older adult who was on his way to the NBA, but now refuses to pick up a basketball and is in deep depression due to a past event (that you will see right at the beginning of the movie).
but everything pieces itself together at the end.I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes basketball, dramas or 'hoodtales..
In this one, Shep (Leon) has nightmares of the time his buddy Nutso (Matthew Guletz) was killed when they played basketball on the roof of an apartment.
Several years later, he becomes a guard for various high school basketball games in which one Kyle Lee Watson (Duane Martin) is the star player who's in danger of becoming too arrogant for his own good to the chagrin of his coach Rollins (David Bailey) and his mother Mailika (Tonya Pinkins).
In addition, he and his friend Bugaloo (Marlon Wayans) are hangin' with a drug dealer named Birdie (Tupac Shakur) who we find out is Shep's brother.
I'll stop there and just say this was quite a compelling drama with some humorous scenes involving both Mac and Marlon, not to mention Iris Little Thomas as a waitress who tries to come on to Shep.
I watched this movie while working out on the treadmill, and it's great for that.Tupac's performance wasn't quite up to what I expected, I'm sorry to say.
Perhaps I would have felt differently if I had seen the movie at the time of its original release, or at least before seeing the wonderful Tupac Resurrection.
A good movie for any basketball fan.
this is a good movie.i saw it first back round 95' and i have seen it over 10 times since.
im personaly strugglin tryin to get a basketball scholarship and this movie gives u a real life view of what the road to get there is like.
even if u dont like basketball this movie is still a good 7 or 8.
the best part of this movie is hearing about birdies brother who had a real shot of going somewhere with basketball when a childhood accident distroys everything.
if you like this movie and like basketball you will love "HOOP DREAMS".these are my 2 favorite movies of all time and i think youll like em 2.
for one it's a good story about talent being corrupted by the street game, nicely directed good performances from Duane Martin, Leon, Bernie Mac, Wood Harris and the late Tupac Shakur.
Marlon Wayans is used in a good way in this movie, he was pretty interesting.
Jeff Pollack knew what he was doing directing the basketball scenes.Great movie.
This has to be one of my favourite films of all time,2pac,Marlon Wayans,Duane Martin show their acting ability's in this film and would recommend it to any one that is a fan of Pac, Marlon,Duane and basket ball or just wants to watch a real good movie.
I can watch this 5 times in one day and it will still be as good as the first time i ever saw it.its a comedy/drama some serious and funny moments in this movie and is good from start to finish,it keeps you thinking and unpredictable to what might happen next and thats how good it is...the movie is about a teenager who can have a basket ball scholarship to collage but ends up throwing' it all away for money cars,and woman promised by birdy(2pac) a gangster leader but it ends it bad results.the soundtrack is as good as the movie i recommend you buy it,You can purchase it on ebay or most music stores in city's..recommend it 100% !!!!!!.
One of the best Basketball movies.
I mean a real basketball player can tell when someone is playing or pretending to play and this movie did a pretty good job on that element.
An overall good movie to watch..
Is a street movie, integrated with the hoop dreams of high-school phenom.
Pac, in the movie plays the main bad guy in the movie Birdie, a very manipulative character, with a very dark side, dude slashes a bum to death with a razor from this tongue, played by Bernie Mac, for talking smack about him.
The hoops in the movie is raw, some real ballers, not some white men old man that can't even ball, and disgraces the game of basketball.
Kyle Watson on the other hand is a high school basket baller that if he plays his cards right will avoid the same fate as Tommy Shepard.Recognizable cast as well.
This is perhaps Duane Martins and Leons best performance ever..
Above the Rim. There was a time (the 90's) when films like this were all the rage.
These films were seen as hardcore, edgy, brutal, gritty etc...They exposed the real urban experience of what life was like 'in da hood'.
Having lived most of my young life in entirely white populated areas throughout the 80's, when the 90's hit with movies like this it was indeed a real eye-opener for me.
It follows the young high school basketball star Kyle (Duane Martin) as he trains and plays his balls off to try and make it to Georgetown University on a scholarship.
In the meantime there is a small local streetball tournament coming up and he must choose between playing for his coaches team or his so-called friend (and gangster) Birdie (Tupac Shakur).So basically what you have here is the local high school sports star, the golden boy, facing a tough moral decision whether to play for his aging (white) coach; or increase his street cred and play for the local gangster (who has his own streetball team).
In the middle is the high school security guard Thomas 'Shep' Sheppard (Leon) who just happens to be the high school's old basketball star from back in the day but got jailed for accidentally killing his best friend (in a really ridiculous way I might add).
Kyle getting slowly lured to the dark side by Birdie as he tries to get him to play for his baddie team.
Kyle's high school coach pisses him off so he decides to play for the evil Birdie.
Kyle shocked by Birdie decides to return to his coaches school team.
This is all explained in one scene which is pretty much the highlight of Shakur's performance amidst lots of stereotypical gangsta acting.Alas the rest of the plot is a bit light and at times daft.
I guess Birdie has his own streetball team because he likes basketball?
The worst offender is Leon who's character is supposed to be a bitter, introverted and somewhat sullen man; but often comes across like an actor desperately trying not to smile in his scenes.
The corny dialog doesn't help things either.I think the worst thing about this film is the horrendously cringeworthy moment when Shep heroically strides onto the court in the tournament final to play against Birdie's team when the good guys are on the brink of defeat.
The entire movie wrapped up in the perfect little bow of good morals.The film is obviously of its time.
Above the Rim tells a story of a promising basketball player in high school who is torn between his relationships that could ultimately affect his decision in the future especially when there is a great possibility of slipping into crime.It stars Duane Martin,Leon Robinson,Tupac Shakur,Bernie Mac,Tonya Pinkins,David Bailey and Marlon Wayans.The screenplay was written and directed by Jeff Pollack with Barry Michael Cooper and Benny Medina acting as co- writers.Kyle Watson is a talented basketball player who is about to graduate from high school.
While waiting for the decision of whether Georgetown University will provide him a full scholarship or not,he gets into difficult dilemma in a playground basketball tournament.He is conflicted by a decision as to whether play or not for his beloved coach Birdie,who happens to have great influence on his life and is known as a thug in the neighborhood who is pressuring him to join his gang.Also,he gets into deep resentment towards Thomas "Shep" Shepherd,a failed star basketball player as he ended up as a security guard at a high school where Kyle is studying.As the movie progresses,we learn not only of Kyle but also about the characters that surround him.While the story can be considered both formulaic and melodramatic,it would definitely be a threat for basketball fans as it contains a lot of great basketball action scenes.Also,the characters in the story are considered compelling and interesting enough as the cast were able to provide great performances that provides depth to them that somehow overcomes average script.Special mention should be given to the late Tupac Shakur,who definitely is a wonderful actor.And who can forget the soundtrack especially those whoa re fan of rap music?Overall,it is one of the 90's movies that one would surely enjoy at present while this review is being written..
Above the Rim. Very clichéd and dated gangster/basketball flick set in NY as a young black teen tries to get a basketball scholarship whilst battling against a local thug and his former basketball star brother who is now a security guard at their high school.Everyone in this film is a walking cliché.
Shakur is yet another gangster (he couldn't do anything else...useless), Wayans is annoying and camp as usual, Duane Martin is the annoying loud mouth cocky star player and Leon is the quiet dark horse and probably the best thing in the film.
Thing is back in the day these movies were popular and deemed fresh gritty realistic stories from the hood, showing the middle/rich classes life on the street and how blacks youths were badly treated.
But hey that's just my thoughts, maybe I'm a bit out of touch too.The only decent thing in the whole film is the small segments of basketball and the competition at the finale which does show some good genuine skills.
To be honest I think one of the reasons this movie gets a bad rap is bcz of its lead character, Leon as "Shep".
Kyle AND his mom, coach, Bobby,OF COURSE Tupac, Motaw (I'm a soldier.....a SOLDIER!!), Bugaloo (u need a role model...), and TOTALLY UNSUNG in the movie is Bernie Mac as Flip (daffy duck with his beak blown off).
Then I thought Shep wouldn't make it...I was wrong on both accounts.Anyways great movie...I like Leon, I just think maybe he's too confident himself as a person to play someone who's supposed to be WEAK (at first at least). |
tt0054483 | The World of Suzie Wong | Robert Lomax is a young Englishman who, after completing his National Service, goes to work on a plantation in British Malaya. During his time in Malaya, Lomax decides to pursue a new career as an artist for a year.
Lomax visits Hong Kong in search of inspiration for his paintings. He checks into the Nam Kok Hotel, not realizing at first that it is a brothel catering mainly to British and American sailors. However, this only makes the hotel more charming in Lomax's eyes, and a better source of subject matter for his paintings.
Lomax quickly befriends most of the hotel's bargirls, but is fascinated by the archetypal "hooker with a heart of gold", Suzie Wong. Wong previously introduced herself to him as Wong Mee-ling, a rich virgin whose father owns four houses and more cars than she can count, and who later pretends not to recognize him at the hotel. Lomax had originally decided that he would not have sex with any of the bargirls at the hotel because he lacks the funds to pay for their services. However, it soon emerges that Suzie Wong is interested in him not as a customer but as a serious love interest. Although Wong becomes the kept woman of two other men, and Robert Lomax briefly becomes attracted to a young British nurse, Lomax and Wong are eventually united and the novel ends happily with them marrying. | tragedy | train | wikipedia | The setting is Hong Kong in the late fifties
The film tells the story of a bittersweet love affair between an American architect who has decided to try painting and a wonderful Asian girl who uses with vigor and diligence her essentially dirty trade in a turmoil of mischievous fantasy
Suzie Wong (Nancy Kwan), attracted to Robert Lomax (Holden), offers to be his "steady girlfriend," but a world-weary Lomax informs her that he has had enough of love and wants only to paint
Paint he does, and the irresistible hooker, appointed as a model, appears in his work in a variety of poses
A compassionate Lomax suddenly realizes he loves her and takes her as his mistress
There are comic moments in Richard Quine's movie concerning the lies Suzie relates to win the respect of her prostitute friends and her drunken admirer, Ben (Michael Wilding).
Today there are many "chick flicks." The World of Suzie Wong is the quintessential "romance for guys."There are two parallel themes in this film: 1) the "Pygmalion" theme, which was old when George Bernard Shaw's play first appeared in 1913.
The object of Robert Lomax's love is Susie Wong for who she is as a woman and how she makes him feel, and he gladly, even cynically disregards the disparagements of those who do not approve.2) Theme number two is the enchantment of the East.
This mixture of desire and fascination is more likely to stormily seize a man's heart, but "Robert meets Suzie-falls crazy in love-marries Suzie" would make for a ten-minute film, and that just wouldn't do, would it?It's also an interesting commentary on the film makers of the fifties that when they wanted to tell the story of interracial romance they had to attenuate the effect.
I remember watching this movie years ago on TV one night and absolutely being mesmerized by the lovely Nancy Kwan..When I noticed it was available on DVD I rented it one evening and was again totally captivated by Nancy..Back in the sixties, Nancy Kwan was the biggest Asian star around!
American William Holden, as former architect turned struggling artist, Robert Lomax, a cynic who's "pushing forty," arrives in 1960 Hong Kong to make a valiant effort for his art.
His journey to the seedy hotel where he sets up shop as artist would be one of the highlights of the film: Robert's amazement and confusion at the bustling, vibrant city that has become his new home come across nicely.
In many ways, the brilliant cinematography and camera work turn the city of Hong Kong itself into the unacknowledged third star of the film.
However, it's a very different Hong Kong than now: very much a British colonial post, and, in segments of the neighborhoods, almost a Third World city.Unfortunately, once Robert reaches the hotel, the movie loses much realism, and we've plainly entered a 1950's Hollywood set version of Hong Kong, complete with cartoonish prostitutes and Brit sailors on leave.
There are some very dated scenes that follow, although actress Jacqui Chan's charming in an off kilter way as bar girl Gwennie Lee. Nancy Kwan vamps and spouts much pidgin English and says "for goodness' sake" about 500 times in a row.
Fortunately, Robert, Suzie, and the camera eventually hit the streets of actual Hong Kong again.Then, something odd happens with this film, bit by bit.
Suzie also benefits from her love for Robert and shows some real emotion for him rather than her usual play acting.This is where I find the movie interesting, as it depicts, much more realistically than one might expect in 1960, the dimensions of a biracial, bicultural couple's life together.
As someone involved in such a relationship for many years, I found myself giving the film an extra star for this "rightness" alone.Plus, if nothing else, this movie's a terrific time capsule/travelogue of Hong Kong, as it was never so brilliantly captured elsewhere on screen in that era..
It is a shame that it takes an outsider (Hollywood) to capture the exotic beauty of the old-time Hong Kong.
I love her chemistry with William Holden..yet another favorite of mine...Hong Kong is blessed to be immortalized by this exquisite romance..
When Nancy Kwan turned her beguiling eyes on William Holden in this 1960 [risque for the time] movie I felt weak in the knees.
[Her spectacular performance kept me spellbound throughout the movie and I knew THEN that girls must be much more complex than my heretofore 13 year old male pysche could imagine.] The obvious age difference between William Holden and Kwan was a hurdle few professional actors and actresses at the time could have so skillfully surmounted, they were superb, they sizzled then they were tender, then they were angry.
It was a time when broad appeal movies like `The World of Suzie Wong' flourished on TV-start with a basic romance, add exotic settings and just a hint of comedy.William Holden was never more a leading man than in this film.
There had been a bunch of movies set in Hong Kong, when The World of Suzie Wong came out.
"The World of Suzie Wong" was the second film in which William Holden plays an American who travels to Hong Kong and falls in love with a local girl; the first was "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" from five years earlier.
(To soften the blow somewhat the character was played by a white actress, Jennifer Jones).Here Holden plays Robert Lomax, a middle-aged American architect who gives up his job and moves to Hong Kong in order to pursue his ambition to become a painter.
His love interest is Mee Ling, alias Suzie Wong, a twenty-year-old prostitute from the notorious Wan Chai district.
Unlike Han Suyin, Suzie is supposed to be of pure Chinese blood, although a mixed-race actress, Nancy Kwan, was cast in the role.
The film deals with the problems posed to their relationship not only by differences in nationality but also by issues not explored in "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", namely differences in age, in social class and (most importantly) outlook.This was Nancy Kwan's first film, and she makes a ravishingly beautiful and tender heroine.
Holden is better here than he was in "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", in which he made a rather uncharismatic hero.The film was of course highly controversial in 1960, and remains so today, although for different reasons.
"The World of Suzie Wong" has, however, been criticised for allegedly perpetuating the racist stereotype of the meek, submissive Oriental woman.This is not, however, a criticism I would accept.
To point out, as this film does, that some women in poor countries- and Hong Kong certainly counted as such in 1960- regard the idea of becoming the wife or mistress of a wealthy foreigner as the best way out of poverty is not a patronising racist stereotype but a regrettable statement of the economic facts of life.
In the long run, of course, it was the entrepreneurial skills brought by these refugees which were to be responsible for Hong Kong's transformation into a dynamic, prosperous trading centre, but in the short run they added to the city's problems of poverty and overcrowding, shown in this film by the shanty-town in which Suzie is forced to live.Much of the interest of "The World of Suzie Wong" is today historical, although it is still highly watchable as a moving love story between two people of very different backgrounds.
It isn't so much about the the world or Hong Kong, but about two individual people.The Holden character was unique -- someone pushing 40, conventionally moral, unsure what would become of him professionally and geographically, suffered some bad romances in the past, couldn't afford to "keep" Suzie, and --though attracted to her-- couldn't bear the thought of her having to consort with other clients.
My mom, who had a crush on William Holden, game me a copy of this movie, a beautiful interracial romance set in Hong Kong.
William Holden was very good as the struggling American artist Robert who must overcome British prejudice and his own traditional concepts of morality to realize his love for Susie.
It was a rare early example of a Chinese actress in a sympathetic role in a major western film, and my mom said people were very excited at the time to see a "local girl" make it big..
The point is to show the straightforward and powerful interplay and juxtaposition of love, morality, situational ethics and plain old-fashioned fate and tragedy.There are amazing characters in this movie, acting that is rarely equaled by today's performers.An innocence of story and character and setting is captured here that is worthy of the label "Classic." Holden is only "strolling" through this roll because it is that kind of roll.
Jimmy Stewart with a bit more grit.Nancy Kwan is inspired and a truly lovely and under appreciated classic beauty.Her performance brings across a range of emotion that is rarely seen- perhaps lately in some of the more popular Chinese and Indian Films.Iif this movie doesn't touch your heart and stir your mind to question its priorities, then you may not have one!.
The world of Hong Kong through the eyes of a beautiful prostitute.
I first saw this film when I was 12 years old at my granny's house, just after I got back from living in Hong Kong with my parents for 3 months.
This is an enchanting film about the trials and tribulations of a young beautiful Chinese prostitute and how her life changes when she meets an older white American painter.
How could a successful American give up his whole life for the love of a Hong Kong prostitute.
The World of Suzie Wong shows what happend to a basic "good girl" in Hong Kong, The strict, unyielding, traditional attitude of the British subject, An a American sense of right that a person is allowed to fall in love with anyone of their choosing.William Holden, Nancy Kwan showed a joint charisma as they fought tradition to fall in love.
Western man arrives in late 50s Hong Kong and from the outset mixes in with the locals after encountering the bewitching yet mystifying charms of Suzie Wong.
1959 was the year of "never on Sunday" a Jules Dassin's comedy with Melina Mercouri : an intellectual named Homer (sic) trying to redeem a prostitute in Greece.This movie has become unbearable nowadays,at least IMHO and only Hadjidakis' song remains.1960 was the year of "the world of Suzie Wong": an artist(Holden) in love with a prostitute(Kwan) in Hong-Kong.Unlike Dassin's lousy work,Quine's film retains some of its charms.Its main flaw is its length:over 120 minutes is far too much and a lot of footage should have been edited out.Nancy Kwan's character is an endearing one,with her pidgin English ,her "for goodness' sake " and her mythomania (When W.Holden meets her on the boat,it seems she was born silver spoon in hand).She wonders at a sentence the artist writes on his envelopes "to whom it may concern".This sentence will come back at the end of the movie,to moving results.
One absolutely lovely gal is Suzie Wong (Nancy Kwan) who catches Robert's eye and visa versa.
As the two principals, Holden and Kwan make for a great couple while the scenery, costumes, and photography from Hong Kong are also a treat.
In this adorable, sad, dated, accessible romance, Nancy Kwan and William Holden shine.
I don't usually like William Holden, but I loved his passion and depth of feeling in this movie.
This was Nancy Kwan's first film, and with no previous acting experience, it's amazing how she owns the role and commands attention on the screen.William Holden, a starving artist, meets the prim and proper, beautiful Nancy Kwan while on a ferry boat to Hong Kong.
Especially so now that China is an emerging super power, and the fact that if you go to a hospital in my city, Sydney, your life is very likely to be saved by a Tan, a Chan or a Wong.But this film is a time capsule of the way things were.
Even though the bar girls at the centre of the story are prostitutes, they are presented as worthwhile people and given a certain dignity although I can't imagine Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn swapping places with Nancy Kwan when William Holden tears off her dress.As an artist, I enjoy the art aspect of the story.
He goes to Hong Kong to pursue his dream and gets in with Nancy Kwan as Suzie Wong.
William Holden gives one of his weaker performances as an American artist who woos the illicit Suzie Wong, very nicely played by a shimmering Nancy Kwan.
Except for one politically incorrect scene, Me and Mom loved The World of Suzie Wong.
When I heard Nancy Kwan mention her work in her debut feature on the commentary track of Flower Drum Song, I knew I had to see The World of Suzie Wong sooner rather than later.
We marveled at the Hong Kong locations, the impossibly blossoming romance between William Holden and Ms. Kwan, and the drama of some of the sequences of the crowded tenements which my mom recounted experiencing when visiting the country several years back.
Other than that scene, we both loved The World of Suzie Wong especially the touching ending.
When William Holden and Jennifer Jones scored well in Love Is A Many Splendored Thing about an interracial romance set in Hong Kong on a loan out to 20th Century Fox, the folks at Holden's home studio at Paramount figured that the long running Broadway play, The World of Suzie Wong was a natural for Bill.
So big it kind of dwarfs the tender love story.But the worst part of Suzie Wong is that Bill Holden is so terribly miscast.
Also well cast was Sylvia Sims who's carrying a torch for Holden as the banker's daughter trying to help him in art circles and Michael Wilding the two timing cad who enjoys Kwan's favors as a prostitute and would like to make the arrangement semi-permanent.Love Is A Many Splendored Thing made a lot more sense because Holden was romancing a professional woman his own age in Jennifer Jones.
He comes off more a like a dirty old man in this film.Jen and Bill have their high windy hill in that other film and in The World of Suzie Wong there's another hill where Suzie lives part time and which sustains a mudslide after the monsoon.
Let's just say it's not something to write a romantic hit song about.The World of Suzie Wong does have some nice location photography of Cold War Hong Kong.
William Holden plays Robert, an artist whose plan is to go to Hong Kong for a year to paint portraits.
He meets Susie Wong, a hostess girl played by Nancy Kwan.
Its a good film about a relationship between two cultures, and probably depicts a way of life at that time in Hong Kong, but it still doesn't feel wholly authentic somehow to me.
Michael Wilding, as the pathetic English businessman, says he was "grateful" when his wife allowed him to make love to her for the first time in a year.In viewing The World of Suzy Wong, one must keep in mind that it was made at a time when the ethos of the wife was different from that of the prostitute only in that she would limit herself to one man.
Suzy's belief that a man who really loves his woman will beat her is treated as comic, but at the time the picture was made this was indeed the belief of many women, and not just in the Orient.
The other comments made me want to write a comment for a couple reasons: Suzie Wong is not a culturally condescending movie, indeed for its time it must have been scandalous--showing real poverty, colonialism, racism and the sad world of people trapped in desperation.
It is a good drama and a realistic love story with some tragedy but still happy and fitting consequences.A man in a trench coat ("Robert" played by William Holden) boards a ferry for Hong Kong, an excited tourist.
He takes out a sketchpad and draws others on a ferry, notably a young Chinese woman ("Suzie Wong" played by Nancy Kwan), also in a trench coat.
She presents herself as a haughty "virgin" rich girl called Mei Ling, and he's a visiting artist, in Hong Kong for the first time.Later, Robert, who wants to get immersed in his surroundings gets lodging in a hotel in the Wan Chai district, a poor part of town where "Chinese" live.
Robert realizes that he is in a bar of escorts, and the clientèle are largely the military men docked in Hong Kong.Suzie is fascinating to Robert, but he still sees her differently than his first meeting, though she is no less beautiful.
Suzie feels jealous & desperate, maybe for both love and money, and agrees to be the "permanent girlfriend" of a wealthy usually drunk businessman played with hilarity by Michael Wilding (he is superb).After many misunderstandings and a tragedy, Suzie and a much changed Robert are able to have future together.This movie doesn't shy away from showing poverty--if anything it is discussed openly "you never have to do a dirty job like me" and "many hungry people in Hong Kong" and we find out that Suzie is illiterate in both English and Chinese.
(Chinese speakers have no problem in pronouncing r's~~ as in Run Run Shaw and Runwe Shaw, for starters...) For a moment I will imagine the racist and sexist issues do not exist (Interestingly enough, Shaw Brothers made a movie a few years later entitled, "My Name Ain't Suzie".)~~William Holden looks too old for this role.
"The World of Suzie Wong" is the inspiring tale of a Hong Kong prostitute and her American sugar daddy. |
tt0038964 | Solid Serenade | Near a house is a doghouse labeled "Killer" with a dog (Spike) in it. Tom pokes his head over the wall and spots a female cat (Toodles Galore) in the window. Tom brings along his string instrument (possibly a double bass or cello), then wakes up Spike and neutralizes him by whacking him in the head with a mallet and tying him up. Tom uses his instrument as a pogo stick to hop over to the window, stopping halfway to taunt Spike along the way.
Tom plays "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby"; the sound waves from the instrument shake Jerry's mousehole, bouncing Jerry off the bed, then under the table, and Jerry's head is hit by a vase that falls off the table when the mouse comes out the other side. Having had enough, the mouse gets his revenge by going into the kitchen and hurling a pie with an iron stuffed inside; the cat is angered, but continues with a few more bars. Seconds later, he is hit in the face again – this time with a pie covered in whipped cream. Spotting Jerry, Tom chases him through the house.
Both animals dive off an ironing board; with Jerry ahead of Tom, Jerry drains the kitchen sink he landed in, leaving Tom to crash into the crockery. Tom follows Jerry through the open window, but Jerry pulls the window stop out of the window. The window falls on Tom's neck, and Tom shrieks in pain. Jerry then runs out and unties Spike, and the dog lets out a loud bull roar(similar like the roar in Puttin' on the Dog), which starts a new chase. Spike swaps his small teeth for "heavy-duty" ones, blows off some pent-up steam, and goes after Tom.
Tom ducks as Spike's teeth come at him, which instead get lodged in a tree trunk. Tom then barely avoids getting his tail bitten and hides behind a wall, holding a brick up ready to attack. Spike sees the brick and investigates, but gets knocked on the head with it. With his ally eliminated, Jerry revives Spike by hitting him with a wooden plank. After slamming Spike, Spike leaps high in the air screaming in pain just as Jerry hands off the board to Tom, framing the cat.
Knowing he is in trouble, Tom tricks Spike into believing the board is a bone by playing "fetch". Spike obliges and fetches but realises he's been tricked. Tom and Spike then begin a back and forth chase with Toodles Galore watching on. Tom stops periodically to kiss the cat. Catching on to this habit, Spike substitutes himself on the third pass, and gets wooed in a Charles Boyer voice (his lines recycled from The Zoot Cat). Tom stops his speech abruptly when he sees the female cat and, realizing his mistake, drops Spike onto the floor. Tom hides from Spike's rampage until Jerry walks around the corner; he chases Jerry to Spike's house, which Jerry immediately hides in. Tom then sneaks into the doghouse with a murderous Dracula laugh while closing the door, indicating that something most foul is going to occur. A second later, the door opens and Spike pokes his head out, helps Jerry out of his house and laughs even more evilly as he withdraws inside to. The entire dog house thrashes about as Spike beats up Tom, who at one point quickly writes his will before being wrenched back in and beaten to within an inch of his life. At the end, Toodles Galore watches Spike strum Tom, who had replaced the strings on his instrument, while Jerry plays a quick riff on Tom's whiskers. | comic | train | wikipedia | Hep-Cat Tom Gets It On, Musically.
Tom gets to do some picking early on as he torments and then ties up "Killer" the watchdog.
Tom wants to serenade some cat-beauty in the window and needs the dog out of the way.
Tom then shows us his musical talent - and it's hilarious - as he sings Cab Calloway-swing-style and plays the bass with the toes!
That number - "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?" is a lot of fun to see and hear.Jerry, sleeping contently in his sardine can, is woken by the music, hates it and baits Tom into chasing him at his place nearby.
That's the second half of this story and there is more funny and clever material, especially when Jerry frees "Killer " and sicks him on the poor cat.We also get to hear Tom's French imitation of Charles Boyer, which is really a hoot.This is one excellent cartoon - really good stuff..
My absolute favorite Tom and Jerry.
Just to hear Tom slapping that bass and singing, "Is You Is, or Is You Ain't, My Baby?" makes this one priceless!
All the action flows from that serenade.
Jerry either needs his sleep or is making an editorial comment on Tom's musical talents when he frees the bulldog.
There is also a very important object lesson here: be very careful when closing your eyes in a romantic interlude!
There was general merriment and joy overflowed the main environs and flooded surrounding areas!
Highly recommended..
Is you is or is you ain't?.
Spike the dog (here called Killer, in later cartoons he'd be called Butch) is tied up by Tom the cat so he can serenade the lady he has his eye on with the song "Is you is or is you ain't my baby".
He wakes up Jerry the mouse, who tortures him for his act of love by throwing stuff at him.
This prompts Tom to grow aggravated and the game of cat and mouse is on.
Jerry unties Butch (Killer) to let the dog get into the action.
This is a great Tom and Jerry cartoon and Tom's singing is classic stuff.
This hilarious cartoon short can be found on disc one of the Spotlight collection DVD of "Tom & Jerry" My Grade: A.
What if I sing to you?.
Tom sneaks into a well protected garden to serenade a gorgeous female kitty.
But first he has to tie up Spike (here called 'Killer').
His chosen song is actually 'Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?', which is actually very cool song.Too bad Jerry doesn't share the same sentiments.
Tom's crooning is keeping him awake in his letterbox/bedroom and he just wants him to shut the hell up.Jerry actually only gets to torment Tom a couple of times in this cartoon.
Most of the pain is dished out by Spike.
And it is very, very funny, with great visual jokes and humor..
Once again, a Tom and Jerry cartoon that is truly excellent!.
My brother, sisters and I have loved Tom and Jerry since a very young age.
Solid Serenade is one of my favourite cartoons of their, not my absolute favourite though.
It is I agree quite violent especially the ending but it is certainly not the most violent, nor a cartoon that is so violent it's unwatchable.
Plus the visual gags are funny and inventive.
Also helping enormously are the lovely animation and the superb music, the song that Tom sings is really beautiful and romantic.
The vocals weren't half bad either.
The characters are fine as well, Spike(or Killer as he is known here) isn't given as much to do but he can be quite savage here, while Tom is both charming and dastardly and Jerry sweet and clever.
Plus the female cat is a stunner!
Overall, if you love Tom and Jerry this is a must see!
10/10 Bethany Cox. A return to form for T & J..
After quite a few less than impressive adventures (Trap Happy, The Milky Waif, Springtime for Thomas, Quiet Please!, and Flirty Birdy), it's great to see the cat and mouse duo back on form in Solid Serenade, which sees Tom attempting to woo a tasty white female cat by performing a rendition of "Is You Is, or Is You Ain't, My Baby?".Unfortunately, the cat's romantic musical gesture isn't appreciated by Jerry, who is desperately struggling to catch some z's.
In order to get some peace (and a little revenge, of course), the mouse sets about trying to ruin Tom's chances with the sexy feline.
The result is a hilarious succession of brilliant slapstick moments and violent visual gags, with some particularly memorable moments: Jerry bouncing around his home as Tom slaps his bass; Tom 'playing' the lips of a bulldog named Killer (who looks suspiciously like Spike); Killer swapping his standard huge gnashers for a even larger set of fangs; and Tom receiving a sash window on his neck (ouch!).Throw in some terrific comic facial expressions (including Tom's priceless look of sudden realisation), and you have an unmissable episode that is full of fun from start to finish..
It's Tom & Jerry from 1946---and that's reason enough to see this one..
The title of this Tom & Jerry short refers to Tom--who does something VERY uncharacteristic--you hear him sing.
He serenades a cute lady cat with his rendition of "Is You Is or Is You Ain't".
While he was careful to tie up Butch when the cartoon begins, he didn't anticipate the troubles he'd have with Jerry--who is MORE than willing to destroy Tom's good time--and untie Butch.
Most of the film consist of Tom trying to stop Butch from killing him.If you are familiar with the Tom & Jerry cartoons of this era, then it's no surprise that artistically it's among the best cartoon shorts you can find...period.
While Tom & Jerry are quite predictable, these cartoons during their glory years of the 1940s cannot be matched even by Disney or Looney Tunes when it comes to the art.
I always am amazed by the gorgeous backgrounds and colors--and this one is no exception.
Overall, this is yet another marvelous Tom & Jerry cartoon.
Not among the very best--but awfully good..
Who'd have thought Tom could sing so well?!.
This short opens with Tom heading over to serenade Toodles.
After hitting Spike over the head with a mallet and tying him up Tom sings 'Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby' while playing the double bass.
She enjoys the music but Jerry doesn't; he is trying to sleep but the noise is bouncing him around his room.
Eventually he can stand it no longer and ends Tom's performance with a pie (containing an iron) to the face!
Not happy at the intrusion Tom chases after him only to see Jerry undoing the ropes that he'd used to tie up Spike...
a quick about turn and Tom is fleeing for his life.
We get the usual to and fro as Tom and Spike fight with the expected interference from Jerry.
Even with all the fighting Tom doesn't forget he is there to woo Toodles...
pity he accidentally kisses Spike!This is a really good entry into the 'Tom and Jerry' series; I was expecting Jerry to disrupt Tom's performance but thankfully he waited till it was just about over as I was really enjoying it; using a well known song reminded me of some early 'Betty Boop' shorts.
Once the action starts it is the sort of violence one expects; gratuitous and funny; the best joke isn't violent at all though; it is when Tom goes to kiss Toodles with his eyes closed but ends up kissing Spike and saying how much he loves her (him)...
then realises his mistake!
The animation is really good; typical of the period and much better than some of the later efforts; I loved the little details such as Jerry's sardine tin bed and table with matches for legs..
A bit of a different T&J clip, but still entertaining.
"Solid Serenade" is a little cartoon movie from 1946, so this one is already over 70 years old.
It is by Hanna Barbera and as such of course another Tom & Jerry cartoon and it runs the usual slightly over 7 minutes for these.
With the "unusual" in my title I mean that this one includes a bigger deal of music than they usually do as Tom is serenading his (potential girlfriend) for almost the entirety of the first half of the film.
But afterward the usual chase scenes follow.
Spike behind Tom. Tom behind Jerry.
I think the music here is good and so are comedy as well as animation.
You can see this is from the Golden Age of Animation.
And even if this is one of the more known T&J films that did not manage to score an Oscar nomination, it is still a fairly good watch, almost a must see for cartoon lovers.
Go check it out. |
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