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tt0212338 | Meet the Parents | Gaylord "Greg" Focker is a male nurse living in Chicago. He intends to propose to his girlfriend Pam Byrnes, but his plan is disrupted when he learns that Pam's sister, Debbie's fiance had asked Pam's father for permission before proposing. Greg and Pam travel to Pam's parents' house to attend Pam's sister's wedding. Greg hopes to propose to Pam in front of her family after receiving her father's permission. But this plan is put on hold when the airline loses his luggage, including the engagement ring.
At the Byrnes' home, Greg meets Pam's overbearing father Jack, mother Dina and their cat, Jinxy, a seal-point peke-faced Himalayan with an all-black tail. Jack takes an instant dislike to Greg and openly criticizes him for his choice of career as a male nurse and whatever else he sees as a difference between Greg and the Byrnes family. Greg tries to impress Jack, but his efforts fail after he recites the lyrics to "Day by Day" from "Godspell" when asked to say grace at dinner (as he is Jewish), making up a story of milking a cat, finding out Pam was engaged and accidentally breaking an urn holding the remains of Jack's mother which Jinx then urinates in. Greg becomes even more uncomfortable after he receives an impromptu lie detector test from Jack and later learns from Pam that her father is a retired CIA counterintelligence officer.
Meeting the rest of Pam's family and friends, Greg still feels like an outsider. Despite efforts to impress the family, Greg's inadvertent actions make him an easy target for ridicule, disdain and anger: He accidentally breaks Debbie's nose during a volleyball mishap; uses a malfunctioning toilet that floods the Byrnes' back yard with sewage; sets the wedding altar on fire and inadvertently leads Jack to think he is a marijuana user. He also feels inferior to Kevin, Pam's ex-fiance who, unlike him, receives nothing but warmth and friendliness from Jack. Later, Greg loses Jinx and replaces him with a feral cat whose tail he spray paints to make him look like Mr. Jinx while desperately seeking Jack's approval.
After a failed attempt to beat Jack home from a restaurant to hide the evidence, (and the feral cat destroyed the living room) the entire Byrnes family, including Pam, agrees that it is best for Greg to leave. Unwillingly, Greg goes to the airport where he is detained by airport security for making a scene on the plane while trying to stow his recently-found bag into the overhead storage hold (and for saying "bomb"). Back at the Byrnes household, Jack tries to convince his wife and Pam that Greg would be an unsuitable husband. But he receives retribution from both Pam and Dina, who reminds him that he is only caring about himself, not Pam's happiness, and that he was also equally vicious to Kevin until Pam ended her relationship with him. Jack realizes that Pam truly loves Greg. Jack rushes to the airport, convinces airport security to release Greg and brings him back to the Byrnes household.
Greg proposes to Pam. She accepts, and her parents agree that they should now meet Greg's parents. After Debbie's wedding, Jack views footage of Greg recorded by hidden cameras that he had placed strategically around their house. | bleak, comedy, humor, entertaining, stupid | train | wikipedia | Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is a male nurse, poised to propose to the woman he loves, Pam (Teri Polo) but the right thing to do would be to ask her father's permission first.
Her father (Robert De Niro) isn't quite what Greg has been led to believe, and right from the start he seems to have it in for his daughter's partner.De Niro and Stiller play off each other brilliantly, and both of them give fine comic performances, with a surprising level of depth for comedy characters.
Pam's parents, Jack and Dina Byrnes (Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner) learn about Greg's unusual last name, that he does not like cats, and is a male nurse, all facts that do not settle well with Pam's father.
The movie does not completely develop romantic chemistry between Ben Stiller and Teri Polo, thus there were times when I simply did not believe the two were really in love.
Robert De Niro is perfect in a role he was born to play, with serious attitude that results in the main portion of the film's funny moments.
Our story begins when a male nurse named Greg Focker (Stiller) is about to propose to his girlfriend, Pam (Teri Polo); unfortunately, things come to worst and before Greg can say, "Will you marry me?" he finds out that Pam's father, Jack (Robert De Niro) approved of Pam's sister's fiancé because he asked Jack's permission to marry her first.
People are yelling at Greg to do something, and when he finally does it, it backfires and everyone looks at him like he's stupid, even though he did exactly what he was told.That's the kind of thing that makes this movie so great--not only is it extremely funny, but we can easily identify with the main character countless times throughout the film.
Full of classic lines that my wife and I constantly use on daily bases, like "if it has teat then you can milk it, puff the magical dragon, the circle of trust and so on..." Meet The Parents is full of those phrases that makes me laugh every time I think about it.
In Meet The Parents the whole story is basically about the relation between Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro.
Co-writers Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke, along with director Jay Roach, have managed to make a film that is often laugh-out-loud hilarious without ever becoming overbearing or obnoxious, the style of choice for far too many other comedies made in this day and age.
Part of the reason is that we feel so much empathy for Greg, the best Everyman character I have seen in a movie in a long time.
Their moments together are genuinely touching at times, particularly in the film's closing stretches.Kudos go out to everyone involved for making `Meet the Parents' one of the slyest, wittiest and flat-out funniest movies to come our way in a long, long time..
Most of the funny moments in 'Meet the Parents' involve painful scenes with Ben Stiller.
Most of this movie is wonderfully predictable, and aside from a few deliberately clumsy drug references and maybe a sexual innuendo or two, it was good clean fun from start to finish.Most of all, I'd say it's a good date flick to prepare yourself for the inevitable agony of meeting your own boyfriend/girlfriend's parents.
While there are plenty of funny gags to go round, they are really just dressing on an already funny premise: the story of an underdog who just cannot fit in to a judgmental bourgeois family no matter how hard (and usually because of how hard) he tries.Ben Stiller shows his acting diversity (while on a different movie set playing the terminally airheaded Zoolander) as a dorky protagonist whose best intentions are always poorly timed or received completely the wrong way.The antagonists, in this case, everybody else in the movie, tread the fine line of comedy and irritation.
Like I said earlier, Robert De Niro is the anchor that makes this possible, and any casting short of him (well, or maybe Christopher Walken) would have resulted in the film falling apart due to the demands it puts on our willingness to accept a complete jerk like the character he plays.
Other similar films focusing on severely dysfunctional families trying to act normally include De Niro & Billy Crystal in "Analyze This", a great Andy Garcia movie called "City Island" and--this may be a stretch but--I think fans of "Meet the Parents" would really enjoy the original British "Death at a Funeral" (2007).
Well scripted and maintained through out the entire story, this one with Owen Wilson was a spectacle to look and laugh and cringe at all at the same time while feeling awkward and gawky and nervously smiling with the rest of the nervous fiancée's out there.This was a one of a kind fun-filled slightly bend out of shape picture with an original feel, that makes it not equal to all the other cinema fare out there that 'comes and goes' with little staying power.Jay Roach is a cool and talented director.
Rating-7/10 Meet the Parents is a comedy and almost kind of romance movie that boats a stellar cast and some funny lines.
Teri Polo as Pam, Greg's finance, is well cast and so even is Blythe Danner including people like Owen Wilson too to create a first rate bunch of characters.
Now Meet the Parents isn't the funniest film you will ever see, if it is then there is much else out you need to see, but it does stand tall when it comes to comedy, and laughs can be had a plenty everywhere.
I think although it is a typical comedy type plot, the jokes and the cast involved+ some memorable scenes create a movie that is new when it comes to jokes and even maybe creates a new type of Rom-Com.On the jokes side again, pretty much any scene where it goes wrong for Greg is funny, whether he is hurt, hurts somebody or basically does something to destroy something, It makes not only Stiller's reactions funnier, but also how the cast react, just hilarious on that side of things.
Nevertheless I can't recommend this more, whether you like Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro or any of the cast involved, your sure to have a great time and laugh a lot along the way..
"Meet the Parents" is a hilarious movie which has to do with a male nurse who is getting to know the parents of his girlfriend and there his nightmare begins because her father is a very suspicious man who wants the best for his daughter.
I also liked it because of the interpretation of Ben Stiller who plays as Gaylord 'Greg' Focker (boyfriend of Pam) and I believe that he made one of his best interpretations.
Another good interpretations made by Robert De Niro's who plays as Jack Byrnes (suspicious father) and he was simply outstanding, Teri Polo's who plays as Pam Byrnes (daughter of Jack) and of course Owen Wilson who plays as Kevin Rawley an old boyfriend of Pam.Lastly I have to tell you that "Meet the Parents" is one of the best comedy and romance movies which is really hilarious and I believe that everyone have to watch it because it's really worth seeing..
Meet The Parents is a brilliant movie with a terrific storyline,cast,characters,plenty of cringe moments and some very funny scenes that make this such a great movie,and some of Ben Stillers finest.There where two more sequels so far,Meet The Fockers and Little Fockers,a lot of critics feel they didn't live up to the original,but I think there all great and that they continue to make more.Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is going to meet his girlfriend Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo) parents.He is prepared for her sisters wedding and just know her parents will like him,however he didn't expect her to have a father like Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro),and things don't go exactly as planned for Greg..
Meet The Parents is a comedy.Now, keep telling yourself this while you sit through the film, otherwise it can become very easy to forget that you're supposed to be laughing and not slipping in and out of consciousness.The plot could be written on the back of a postage stamp (as could the details of every successful joke), the acting quite frankly ain't upto much and the script could have been written by an 8 year old.The only positive comment I could possibly make about this film is that it was quite short.0 out of 10..
But then again, 'Meet the Parents' is about the tension between Greg and Jack and both De Niro and Stiller do well with their comic abilities.
But, in spite of the flaws there are a few genuine funny moments and I liked the 'race' scene towards the end, Greg's problems with the flight attendant, and Greg's attempt to propose to Pam at the beginning of the movie.
I hate to see the "hero" of a movie being a character who is chronic liar (Stiller's "Greg Focker") but that's not unusual in the world of films.
Meet the Parents (2000) Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Nicole DeHuff, Jon Abrahams, James Rebhorn, Phyllis George, Owen Wilson, D: Jay Roach.
The casting is pretty standard having Stiller (who is very hit and miss in a lot of his films) as our main guy with Robert De Niro who continues to destroy his once gracious career as the spiteful father.
Meet the Parents is a good movie.Directed by Jay Roach.And the actors for the movie are perfectly picked.Everybody fits in his own character.It is a story about the love but this love is a tough job.The main character is Greg Focker.He is a nurse in the literally meaning of the word.His girlfriend is Pam who is a teacher of little children.They are both in love.The problem is that Greg has to live in Pam's family's house.And her family is not that good.Actually her mother is very nice woman who just want to help for the happiness of her daughter.The problem is Jack.Her father.He is a man of his word.He loves his daughter and he can kill if somebody hurt her.The meeting begins good but the first mistake that Greg makes is that he says,he doesn't like cats and then a fluffy little cat goes in the hands of Jack.There are many jokes and fun.Even some intensive moments.The movie is one great big fun.Robert De Niro himself is the strict father and Ben Stiller is Greg.I give this movie 8 cause it is really a classic in the comedy genre.Enjoy..
Most of the jokes and situations are predictable but they are executed so well that it's funny nevertheless.The key element of the movie are the two male lead characters played by Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro.
Also Greg's run-in with the flight attendant is great.Maybe the thing that really did it for me in this movie is that, despite their weirdness, Pam's family is completely believable and real.
Actually, that's not strictly true - the plot is actually realized pretty well; it's the supposed timing and unrelenting nature of the events that, for me, make this film no better than mediocre.The premise is simple: About to propose to Pam (Teri Polo), his girlfriend, Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) realises he's expected to ask her father's permission first.
well i will keep my review simple as i am not very good in written English.Meet the parents is a wonderful movie and it can be regarded as a classic as i have watched it in 2011 after 11 years of release.the cast is beautiful especially Ben Stiller,Robert De Niro and Teri Polo.Teri Polo is a beautiful actress and i am surprised that i haven't seen much of her in other movies.it was really great to see Robert De Niro in a comedy and it has been proved that he can act in a any role and will produce a masterpiece.Owen Wilson has a very short role but as always he was a wonderful addition to the movie.it's really difficult to express your exact thoughts in words but Meet the Parents is a kind of movie which you will enjoy every time you want to see a comedy with a beautiful touch of romance..
This is a film that takes misunderstandings and awkwardness to new levels with a Jewish male nurse named Greg Focker (Stiller) visiting his girlfriend's parents' house during a wedding about to take place for her sister.
He attempts to fit in to the social circle of this traditional family, who has their own set of rules and specific ways of living that keeps him thinking on his toes and attempting to fake it till he makes it.Greg tries to make an impression with the overly protective father, Jack Byrnes, played by Robert De Niro, who has a clandestine past and is growing suspicious due to mix-ups that put Greg in a negative light for being the right man for his prized daughter.
Great Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro Comedy.
Greg "Gaylord" Focker played by Ben Stiller is a male nurse who is invited to meet is fiancé to be Pam's parents so that he can get their permission.
Ben Stiller (There's something about Mary) stars as Greg Focker, a simple nervous soul put in a vulnerable position when his girlfriend takes him to meet her parents.
I often felt embarrassed for the characters as this film has plenty of those 'awkward' silence moments none of us want to be involved in when meeting the parents but the fact that this conforms to every person's nightmare by the central character Stiller making a complete hash of everything is comic genius.
Synopsis.Meet the parents conforms to the comedy genre brilliantly and through the sensationally stereotyped Robert De Niro as the dominant intimidating father the film is a joy to watch.
Best Film Of The Decade So Far. This so far is the greatest film of the decade, it is great.Robert De Niro I personally would of thought he would have been too serious an actor for this film but was a great person to have as Jack Byrnes.Ben Stiller also was a great asset to the film although the name Gay Lord Focker is a bit over the top because i assume very few people would in their right mind would call their child Gay Lord and those few have a very small chance of being blessed with the surname Focker that was the only thing i could find wrong with the movie.The supporting cast did a very good job as well Teri Polo as Pamela Martha Byrnes soon to be Focker(ha ha) Blythe Danner as Dina Byrnes, Owen Wilson as Kevin(Pam's ex but what seems to be like Jacks best pal)and many more make up a good cast for an even better film!!!.
The only thing that made me believe this one was better, was because my friends didn't like the sequel all that much either.In this movie we see Gaylord 'Greg' Focker (Ben Stiller) who wants to ask his girlfriend (Teri Polo) to marry him.
Normally meeting the parents of your fiancée shouldn't be too bad, but Jack Byrnes is a former CIA agent who never has liked any of his daughter's boyfriends and Greg Focker won't be an exception to that rule.
Even though I'm not a big Ben Stiller fan (I hated "Zoolander" and wasn't all too keen on "Duplex" and "Meet the Fockers"), I must say that he did a great job in this movie.
Anything that can go wrong goes wrong when Greg Fokker (Ben Stiller) meets his father in law (Robert De Niro).
Ben Stiller plays the unfortunately named Greg Focker, who is on his way to meet the parents of the woman he loves.
Greg is desperate to make a good impression on his girlfriend's parents and his general anxiety turns into full-blown terror when he meets Pam's father, Jack Byrnes.
Meet the parents is a movie about a male nurse named Greg Focker who wants to propose to his girlfriend.
The story is about a man, Greg Focker played by Ben Stiller, who sets out to gain approval to wed from the father of his girlfriend, Pam Byrnes played by Teri Polo.
Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is a happy male nurse who has a great girlfriend Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo).
This film was great but I needed some time to get use to idea that Robert De Niro is playing in comedy.
Meet the Parents is the original of the two movies that deal with the relationship of Gaylord 'Greg' Focker (Ben Stiller) and Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo).
Robert De Niro is normally known as a serious actor and even though he may come off as a little serious in this movie, he definitely is funny as hell when he plays Jack Byrnes.
Ben plays Greg Focker, a male nurse who after becoming engaged to a schoolteacher (Teri Polo) nervously agrees to accompany her to her sister's wedding in order to meet his future father-in-law (DeNiro).
Anyway, Gaylord "Greg" Focker(Stiller) is a nurse that wants to propose to his girlfriend Pam Byrnes(Polo) but first must meet her parents.
Don't get me wrong; some parts of "Meet the Parents" were very funny, but the movie as a whole seemed like a slow train wreck.I was waiting throughout the movie for Ben Stiller to be a man and stand up for himself while all of his girlfriend's family dumped on him.
it's not funny at all and ben stiller is so annoying in it...come on i can't believe people actually liked this movie.
Ben Stiller is about to meet the parents of his girlfriend for the very first time and he is about to ask permission to marry the daughter of de Niro. |
tt0082861 | Othello | === Act I ===
Roderigo, a poor and dissolute gentleman, complains to his friend Iago, an ensign, that Iago has not told him about the secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of a Senator named Brabantio, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. Roderigo is upset because he loves Desdemona and had asked her father for her hand in marriage.
Iago hates Othello for promoting a younger man named Cassio above him, whom Iago considers less capable a soldier than himself, and tells Roderigo that he plans to use Othello for his own advantage. Iago convinces Roderigo to wake Brabantio and tell him about his daughter's elopement. Meanwhile, Iago sneaks away to find Othello and warns him that Brabantio is coming for him.
Brabantio, provoked by Roderigo, is enraged and will not rest until he has beheaded Othello, but he finds Othello's residence full of the Duke of Venice's guards, who prevent violence. News has arrived in Venice that the Turks are going to attack Cyprus; therefore Othello is summoned to advise the senators. Brabantio has no option but to accompany Othello to the Duke's residence, where he accuses Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft.
Othello defends himself before the Duke of Venice, Brabantio's kinsmen Lodovico and Gratiano, and various senators. Othello explains that Desdemona became enamoured of him for the sad and compelling stories he told of his life before Venice, not because of any witchcraft. The senate is satisfied, once Desdemona confirms that she loves Othello, but Brabantio leaves saying that Desdemona will betray Othello: "Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:/She has deceived her father, and may thee." Iago, still in the room, takes note of Brabantio's remark. By order of the Duke, Othello leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against invading Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife, his new lieutenant Cassio, his ensign Iago, and Iago's wife, Emilia, as Desdemona's attendant.
=== Act II ===
The party arrives in Cyprus to find that a storm has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Othello orders a general celebration and leaves to consummate his marriage with Desdemona. In his absence, Iago gets Cassio drunk, and then persuades Roderigo to draw Cassio into a fight. Montano tries to calm an angry and drunk Cassio down, but end up fighting one another. Montano is injured in the fight. Othello reenters and questions the men as to what happened. Othello blames Cassio for the disturbance and strips him of his rank. Cassio is distraught. Iago persuades Cassio to importune Desdemona to convince her husband to reinstate Cassio.
=== Act III ===
Iago now persuades Othello to be suspicious of Cassio and Desdemona. When Desdemona drops a handkerchief (the first gift given to her by Othello), Emilia finds it, and gives it to her husband Iago, at his request, unaware of what he plans to do with it. Othello reenters and vows with Iago for the death of Desdemona and Cassio, after which he makes Iago his lieutenant. Act III, scene iii, is considered to be the turning point of the play as it is the scene in which Iago successfully sows the seeds of doubt in Othello's mind, inevitably sealing Othello's fate.
=== Act IV ===
Iago plants the handkerchief in Cassio's lodgings, then tells Othello to watch Cassio's reactions while Iago questions him. Iago goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with Bianca, a local courtesan, but whispers her name so quietly that Othello believes the two men are talking about Desdemona. Later, Bianca accuses Cassio of giving her a second-hand gift which he had received from another lover. Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio received the handkerchief from Desdemona.
Enraged and hurt, Othello resolves to kill his wife and asks Iago to kill Cassio. Othello proceeds to make Desdemona's life miserable, hitting her in front of visiting Venetian nobles. Meanwhile, Roderigo complains that he has received no results from Iago in return for his money and efforts to win Desdemona, but Iago convinces him to kill Cassio.
=== Act V ===
Roderigo attacks Cassio in the street after Cassio leaves Bianca's lodgings. Cassio wounds Roderigo. During the scuffle, Iago comes from behind Cassio and badly cuts his leg. In the darkness, Iago manages to hide his identity, and when Lodovico and Gratiano hear Cassio's cries for help, Iago joins them. When Cassio identifies Roderigo as one of his attackers, Iago secretly stabs Roderigo to stop him revealing the plot. Iago then accuses Bianca of the failed conspiracy to kill Cassio.
Othello confronts Desdemona, and then strangles her to death in their bed. When Emilia arrives, Othello accuses Desdemona of adultery. Emilia calls for help. The former governor Montano arrives, with Gratiano and Iago. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what her husband Iago has done, and she exposes him, whereupon he kills her. Othello, belatedly realising Desdemona's innocence, stabs Iago but not fatally, saying that he would rather have Iago live the rest of his life in pain.
Iago refuses to explain his motives, vowing to remain silent from that moment on. Lodovico apprehends both Iago and Othello for the murders of Roderigo and Emilia, but Othello commits suicide. Lodovico appoints Gratiano Othello's successor and exhorts Cassio to punish Iago justly. | tragedy, romantic | train | wikipedia | I'd studied the play in school, of course (seems to have been mandatory in my day), and I'd seen the usual versions (Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, etc.), yet always this one nagging question kept gnawing at me, kept me from fully appreciating this play .
..How in hell could Othello ever let himself be taken in by so obvious a viper as Iago?Enter the BBC with its production of "William Shakespeare's Othello," with a particularly brilliant bit of casting: Bob Hoskins as Iago.
Roly-poly, giggling, everybody's friend and more than a bit of a buffoon, to boot -- until, that is, he's by himself and you suddenly understand the true nature of evil.And suddenly, I gained a true appreciation of the play.
Simply because some casting director stretched himself (or herself) beyond the tried-and-true glowering serpentine approaches (a la Frank Finlayson in the Olivier production, etc.) which had been the norm.It also helps, of course, that Hoskins is one truly fine actor..
A most excellent production of one of the Bard's more difficult plays mainly because of the controversy in these politically correct times of a white actor blacking up to play the lead.
Anthony Hopkins gives a masterful performance as the Moor, one of the best I have seen comparable only with Placido Domingo in the opera Otello.
His gradual change of character from gentle loving husband to insane jealousy is extremely well done and his way with the verse gives full meaning to Shakespeare's words.
For me the only jarring note was Bob Hoskins portrayal of Iago, so obviously a nasty piece of work that one wonders how Othello would be taken in by such an overt villain.
His giggling also becomes irritating, definitely not the best Iago I have seen.
One thing is sure, this production emphasises what a great Shakespearean actor the stage lost when Hopkins left for Hollywood.
Anyone who values real Shakespearean acting should not miss this production..
A Really Great Star Performance, but the Othello is a Problem.
I believe it was Laurence Olivier who theorized that William Shakespeare and his lead actor Richard Burbage were bending elbows one night when Burbage drunkenly taunted, "I can play any role you can write." And Shakespeare said, "Oh yeah?" and wrote Othello.The play is indeed entitled "Othello," but the focus is almost always stolen by the villain.
Bob Hoskins here is a brilliant Iago, character motivations for once crystal clear, his accent emphasizing class conflict, his ready laughter only occasionally too much.
You will not find a better Iago anywhere.We know that James Earl Jones was the first choice to star in this production, and that British Equity threatened to close down not just the one show but the whole BBC Shakespeare series if a single non-British actor was hired.However, when James Earl Jones played Othello on Broadway, it was common wisdom that Christopher Plummer's Iago stole the show from him.
So we shouldn't fantasize too much that Jones's presence here might have changed everything.Anthony Hopkins begins as a very confident character.
Hopkins doesn't look like a general, just like an earnest actor trying to solve problems.
After that, the performance goes downhill, and some of his choices undermine the later scenes.Is it miscasting, or just a play where the gargantuan scale of emotions defies reduction to television scale?
The Welles and Olivier productions were designed for large screens, not a small one.The much-loved Penelope Wilton here is the most "English" Desdemona I've ever seen.
The rest of the cast is excellent, with an overall energy level higher than the norm in this series.Jonathan Miller's direction concentrates on the domestic side of the drama, downplaying the public aspects, and bringing his background as a neurologist to the various varieties of mental illness on display.
If you want to see Othello with the thunder Shakespeare implied, go instead to Verdi's opera "Otello," which concentrates on the core of the conflict and distills sheer dynamite.
All the performers in this BBC production, directed by the brilliant Shakespeare director Jonathan Miller, are superb.
The fact that Anthony Hopkins is not literally a black man should be irrelevant.
Obviously, many white men have successfully performed the title role in this play since it was first written by Shakespeare and performed in Elizabethan England.
Hopkins is wonderful in the role, as is Bob Hoskins as Othello's nemesis Iago.
I have seen many performances of this play, live and on film, and this remains one of my favorites..
Both Anthony Hopkins and Bob Hoskins give thrilling performances.
The quiet subtlety of Hopkins interpretation sets the viewer up for a shock when Othello's enormous brutality is revealed.
Penelope Hilton's work as Desdemona is equally impressive to that of Hopkins and Hoskins.
This is an impressive and unrelievedly grim production that omits most of the light-hearted bits of Shakespeare's play -- light-hearted bits that are few and brief in any event.Because the acting by Penelope Wilton is so excellent, we forget that she is not quite young enough and not quite attractive enough to be fully suitable for the role of Desdemona.
Wilton vividly conveys the bewilderment and desolation that Desdemona experiences as her beloved husband turns against her.Bob Hoskins is superb as Iago.
Precisely because Iago as played by Hoskins is highly likable on a superficial level, his merciless and devious psychopathy is truly chilling.
Hoskins displays his skill as an actor when he adopts an upper-crust accent in his summoning of Brabantio and in his gloating over the supine Othello.
He thereby signals one of the motivations behind Iago's crimes (without obscuring the fact that the crimes are driven partly by a love of evil for its own sake).Anthony Hopkins is not quite as successful in the role of Othello, but his performance is generally very good.
His slapping of Desdemona is jolting, and his final speech is both poignant and devastating.Most of the supporting actors are fine.
David Yelland is good in the difficult role of Cassio, and Anthony Pedley gives a splendid performance as the foppish Roderigo.
(Because her performance is so good, however, it highlights one of the problematic features of Shakespeare's play: namely, the implausibility of the fact that Emilia waits until the end to disclose why Desdemona's handkerchief has gone missing.).
So often Shakespeare contains such a morass of preconceived notions and line readings that it becomes a play containing characters and plot no longer,but a contest- delivering 'Ye Old English' lines in a pompous overblown manner.
Anthony Hopkins' performance (despite the alleged 'make-up' which I honestly didn't notice) was very good, and Bob Hoskins' interpretation of Diago was absolutely ingenious.
You may not like this version if you suffer from puerile preconceived notions on how Shakespeare 'must' be played, but if you want to see a good play that just happens to be Shakespeare, I highly recommend it!.
There is controversy here about the performances of Hopkins and Hoskins as the two major protagonists, and controversy about the nature of the production.That there is controversy is understandable - it's a very schizophrenic production, careful and understated and clipped and British for the most part, excellently acted by a tasteful cast, Penelope Wilton and Rosemary Leach outstanding.
Yet the two principals are given free rein.Hoskins' Iago is the more successful of the two, scintillating in monologue, focusing on the evil of the character, trying to convey his plausibility via his rough charm.
Hard to imagine the stiff-upper- lip types of Jonathan Miller's Venice being taken in by such a fellow, entertain them though he might.But there is more than one letter's difference between Hoskins and Hopkins.
Hopkins' performance is, as some of the reviewers have pointed out, as ripe a piece of eye-rolling ham as one is likely to see.
Despite other reviewers' valiant attempts, it is really not a defensible performance, rising so rapidly from suave control to chewing the scenery, persuaded far too easily by an Iago who is obviously on the make.The exaggerations help provide a context for his tense scenes with Desdemona - we certainly know how much he is holding back.
But when he lets rip, the acting style gets closer to Chongo out of the Banana Splits than any more accomplished thespian.The effect is not at all helped by Hopkins sporting the most extraordinary pair of trousers I have ever seen, designed by Richard Hughes.
The bizarre codpiece looks like Hopkins has had a painful accident with a stapler, and his stature is seriously compromised by odd curving stripes down the legs.
Anthony Hopkins is a horrendous over-actor at the best of times but he out does even Richard Burton in this one.
People who feel this is a 'good' version of Othello have likely never read Shakespeare nor seen any of his plays performed live.
This is version is a travesty for one obvious reason: Anthony Hopkins.
First of all, anyone who looks at Anthony Hopkins with the "black face" make-up (he is supposed to be a Moor not a Chris Rock joke from "Bamboozled") and doesn't burst out laughing is either blind or well...
Secondly, Anthony Hopkins plays Othello like a spastic, grunting ape-man.
Bob Hoskins Is The Best Iago Ever!!!.
While I agree with a lot of the other reviewers that Anthony Hopkins is a fairly disappointing Othello, Bob Hoskins as Iago is nothing short of spectacular.
He has a cultured voice and reads the lines beautifully, but whenever he has to show passion or emotion he just starts shouting and waving his arms wildly, looking more like the Wolf Man than the Moor of Venice.
It doesn't help matters that the lady playing Desdemona is more of a stately spinster than nubile ingenue.
Personally, I always pictured Audrey Hepburn as the ultimate Desdemona!One final note: I've never heard of Anthony Pedley, but I really loved how he played poor Rodrigo, a guy who just never has a chance.
Poor Othello, but still a great cast and a great play!.
I have to say, when my class started studying this film version of 'Othello', I looked forward to seeing Hopkins and Hoskins face off.
Instead, I viewed one of the most horrible performances of Shakespeare I have ever seen.
It was amazing; Hoskins plays Iago as a giggling, demonaical child with no more motivation than a teen movie prankster--in fact, even less.
Desdemona was a pure ice queen; she simply did not seem like the kind of woman that would leave her father and everything she knows for a mysterious foreigner.
Anthony Hopkins must have been under the guidance of the most inept idiot of a director, because this was the worst performance of his career!
I never thought I'd live to see the day when Othello would bark, growl, and shake his tongue like a hideously mad dog--after showing no hint whatsoever of anything like passion or love towards Desdemona, unless passing, pettish attraction is to be called the kind of desire and chemistry that existed between the lovers.
I have seen a few videos of this BBC series as part of my class, and most are pretty bad, even though they have really excellent actors in them.
Even if this film does not meet expectations of what 'Othello' should be, keep in mind that it is a BBC production, and that even though some of the production values are not up to scratch, it follows Shakespeare's original script.
Anyone looking to study Othello for any purposes should not give this one a miss.
Despite mixed reviews on the acting by Hopkins and Hoskins, we must respect the fact that when an actor plays a role in a Shakespeare play, they will play that character however they see fit.
Lawrence Oliver, for example, in a 1938 stage production, played Iago in a very homosexual manner, while Kenneth Branagh, in Parker's 1995 adaptation, shows Iago as a malicious psychopath.
So when you think that Hopkins doesn't live up to his reputation in portraying Othello, or Hoskins plays the part like a gnome on speed, just remember that they are professionals who play the part how they see fit..
You cannot deviate too much from the stage conventions that 19th century performers imposed on the plays.
The producers would lose their core audience: high school teachers.This play is particularly challenging because it hits a weak spot in film today: the tension between what actors and directors think is essential in the play (and life).
Of all the plays, this one presents the greatest opportunity for the actors to hijack the enterprise at the cost of the valuable sense of the thing.It's ironic because the main motion in the play's structure is just this idea of how the order of the environment fights the action of willful individuals within.I think the writer at this stage in his life worked from the outside in, focusing on the forces that are unloosed in the world, then forming images and analogies that finally can map to some story he finds.
So though schoolkids assiduously write about the "themes" of this, it is instead rooted in something more abstract and powerful.A good actor, a smart one, will know this and work hard with the director to create not a character but a world that buffets a character.
A good actor-director like Welles will have devised some cinematic devices to make this work.
Welles used cinematic architecture — by this I mean physical walls and spaces — in what still seems to be the highest achievement of that approach.A bad actor, and actor that ONLY knows acting, will jump on these lines and think they have to do with defining a man and his urges.
He will ignore the very notion of tragedy, the inevitability of the end because of the world, not the man.Hopkins is a bad actor.
At 205 minutes, this adaptation of Shakespeare's "Othello" is no TV dinner but demands attention as it is a complex tale of jealousy, intrigue and tragedy.Returning from war, Othello (Anthony Hopkins, in a role originally intended for James Earl Jones) wins the respect of the people and marries his beloved Desdemona (Penelope Wilton).
David Yelland and Anthony Pedley are fine as his dupes Cassio and Roderigo, and Penelope Wilton as serene and innocent as Desdemona.I profoundly disagree with British Equity not allowing James Earl Jones to take the role of Othello, an idiotic decision at the time that would probably not happen now.But this takes nothing away from Anthony Hopkins, at least ten years before his star-making turn in "Silence of the Lambs" and giving Othello the full breadth of nobility, vicious jealousy and eventually overpowering guilt.
It's a great performance.Some of the performances are muffled by the poor volume levels on the DVDs, and many good lines and speeches lose some of their power as a result.Nevertheless, despite it's length, this is still great Shakespeare..
The play is so beautiful the actors are like stars in a Milky Way of horror.
Othello, the Moor, is a general for the Republic of Venice stationed in Cyprus and defending the island against the constant pressure from the Turks.
A pair that is clearly set up as the two perfect antagonistic characters with one being the predator and the other the pray, in that order.The objective of Iago is to become the lieutenant at first and then the general himself if possible.
He uses all kinds of plotting devices and he succeeds marvelously: planting jealousy in Othello's heart about Desdemona and Cassio gives him a first victory against Cassio who is eliminated from his lieutenant position and replaced by Iago, but the Duke a Venice arrives with orders from the Senate: Othello is to go back to Venice and Cassio is to take his place in Cyprus.
A full defeat for Iago.Then Iago speeds up the machine to eliminate Cassio by having him killed or at least incapacitated, and by heating the cauldron of Othello's jealousy till it may explode, and explode it does.
Othello tries to choke and strangle Desdemona and nearly succeeds but before dying she speaks a few words to her chambermaid, Iago's wife.
Then two letters are brought that were found on the body of Roderigo, the man Iago had used to assault Cassio, a man he had killed for him not to speak after his failure.
The two letters reveal the role of Iago in the plot.
The play closes on the squaring of the dead victims with the suicide of Othello on the body of his wife.
That's the whole play in one pattern: two women dead, two men dead, but on the stage only the two women and Othello.
Othello has expressed that pattern and the doom that was coming when he said in the second scene of the fifth act: OTHELLO: If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife: My wife!
But I must admit Anthony Hopkins in Othello is outstandingly provocative.
Othello was the role Hopkins always wanted to play.
But Hopkins is the actor Shakespeare had dreamed of (being?) all his life.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU.
This is the kind of production that turns people off to Shakespeare for life.
Anthony Hopkins is a great actor, but he gave the worse acting performance in the history of the art as Othello; he wasn't helped any by the horrific hair and make-up job that made him look like a Klingon werewolf.
Bob Hoskins on the other hand was a brilliant Iago; even the notoriously hard-to-please critic Harold Bloom thought he was the best Iago he'd ever seen.
Jonathan Miller's dry, academic direction typifies what was wrong with the 1980s BBC productions of Shakespeare, particularly the pedantic insistence on giving everything an Elizabethan English setting.
"Othello" takes place in Venice and Cyprus; it's a Mediterranean story that cries out for a Mediterranean setting, as Orson Welles demonstrated in his masterful 1952 version of "Othello," which is everything this movie isn't.
Also, why couldn't they have gotten a black man to play Othello? |
tt0120053 | The Saint | At the Saint Ignatius Orphanage, a rebellious boy named John Rossi refers to himself as "Simon Templar" and leads a group of fellow orphans as they attempt to run away to escape their harsh treatment. Just as Simon is caught by the head priest, he witnesses the tragic death of a girl he had taken a liking to when she accidentally falls from a balcony.
As an adult, Simon (Val Kilmer)—now a professional thief dubbed "The Saint" for using the names of Catholic saints as aliases—steals a valuable microchip belonging to a Russian oil company. Simon stages the burglary during a political rally held for the company's owner, Ivan Tretiak (Rade Šerbedžija). Tretiak is a former Communist party boss and a billionaire oil and gas oligarch who is rallying support against the Russian President. Simon is caught in the act by Tretiak's son Ilya (Valery Nikolaev) but escapes with the microchip. After learning of the heist, Tretiak contacts Simon and hires him to steal a revolutionary cold fusion formula discovered by American electrochemist Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue). He wishes to acquire Emma's formula—which creates clean, inexpensive energy—so he can monopolize the energy market during a severe oil shortage in Russia.
Using the alias "Thomas More", Simon poses as a South African traveller and steals the formula after having a one night stand with Emma. Tretiak learns Emma's formula is incomplete and orders his henchmen, led by Ilya, to kill Simon and kidnap Emma in order to obtain the remaining information. Heartbroken, Emma reports the theft to Inspector Teal (Alun Armstrong) and Inspector Rabineau (Charlotte Cornwell) of Scotland Yard, who inform her Simon is a wanted international thief. Emma tracks down Simon to a hotel in Moscow and confronts him about the theft and his betrayal. The Russian police, loyal to Tretiak, arrest Simon and Emma. However, they manage to escape from the police van as they are being brought to Tretiak's mansion.
As they flee through the suburbs, Simon and Emma are helped by a prostitute and her family who shelter them in a hidden room in their home. Later, they meet "Frankie" (Irina Apeksimova), a fence who sells them the directions through an underground sewer system that lead to the American embassy. Simon and Emma exit the sewer tunnel only to find Ilya and his men waiting for them among a gathering of protestors outside the embassy's front gates. Emma safely makes it to the embassy for political asylum, while Simon allows himself to be caught by Ilya as a distraction. He escapes after rigging a car bomb that severely burns Ilya.
Simon plants a listening device in Tretiak's office and learns he plans to perform a coup d'état by selling the cold fusion formula to Russian President Karpov to frame him for wasting billions on useless technology. Tretiak then plans to use the political fallout to install himself as President. Emma finishes the equations to complete the formula, and Simon delivers the information to Tretiak's physicist, Dr. Lev Botkin (Henry Goodman), who builds an apparatus which proves the formula works. Simon infiltrates the President's Kremlin residence and informs him of Tretiak's conspiracy just before Tretiak loyalists detain him. In front of a massive gathering in Red Square, Tretiak makes public accusations against President Karpov, but when the cold fusion reactor is successfully initiated, Tretiak is exposed as a fraud and arrested. He is also revealed to have caused the heating oil shortage in Moscow by illegally stockpiling vast amounts of heating oil underneath his mansion.
Sometime later, at a news conference at the University of Oxford, Emma presents her cold fusion formula to the world. Simon attends the conference in disguise and once again avoids being captured by Inspectors Teal and Rabineau when they spot him in the crowd. As he drives away, he listens to a news radio broadcast (voiced by Roger Moore) reporting that $3 billion was recently donated to the Red Cross, Salvation Army and the United Nations Children's Fund. It is implied that Simon, who had access to Tretiak's accounts, donated the money anonymously. Furthermore, a non-profit foundation led by Dr. Botkin is being established to develop the cold fusion technology. | suspenseful, boring, psychedelic, violence | train | wikipedia | Val Kilmer bears nothing in him that even gets close to Roger Moore's character - but if you look away from that and try to see it as an ordinary film, it's really good.First of all, Val Kilmer performs fairly well, despite his weird accents.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film and not just because of Val Kilmer's accomplishment at successfully being eye-candy, but also because of the amazing personality transformations his character goes through in front of the mirror.
I don't know if the theory actually works, but after watching the film I don't really care - that isn't the point of the movie.The thing that surprised me the most though was the leading female scientist, played by Elisabeth Shue.
But that's the very thing that makes them ideal for each other, they might just be able to help each other with their character flaws and so you root for them both on a rather grand scale.I was vaguely baffled by the inclusion of random, suffering Russian civilians towards the latter half of the film, but considering that they were a film device to make the baddie look bad, the goodie look good and the 'common people trapped in the middle' look down right fantastic, they do their job rather well (apart from one woman who rats out our hero).
I still think that the film's main achievement is putting Val Kilmer in an interesting role that shows off just how good he can be; he's observant, yet unobservable; seductive, yet not a cad; confident but riddled with insecurities.
If you're one of those people, maybe you should stay away, but if you want a good entertaining popcorn movie it's worth a watch..
They agree Simon Templar ( Val Kilmer ) , -master of disguises and great international criminal- , and send him to Oxford to steal a secret formula for cold fusion from U.S. scientist Emma Russell ( Elisabeth Shue ) who cooked up the recipe .
The Saint starring Val Kilmer is one of my all time favourites I can watch it again and again and again!The Saint is hired by Russian gangsters to get a secret cold fusion formula from a brilliant, beautiful and young scientist played by Elisabeth Shue.
Anyway he falls in love and has to outwit the dangerous gangsters.Val Kilmer plays the eccentric master thief the Saint who has a dark past and an impressive talent for disguise.
I personally like heroes with a dark past who aren't perfect and have suffered to become who they are today.The chemistry on screen between Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue is excellent - and well Elisabeth Shue is beautiful!
This is such a fun feel good film (although it does have dark elements to it) that gets better every time I watch it and personally I do find some characters touching especially the Saint himself who Val Kilmer plays perfectly.This film has a bit of everything - romance, comedy, drama, suspense and action and is definitely worth renting and is definitely in my collection!.
This film upon first viewing might not bowl you over as I thought it only o.k however after watching it many times I began to see just how good a movie it really was.
Firstly you have fantastic locations which I must admit generally don't draw the out the movie going public out in huge droves but do help the movie in my eyes, then you have the cast, Val kilmer makes a fantastic Simon Templer although I was'nt the biggest fan of the tv series upon which the movie is based so have no basis for comparison, which is probably a good thing as comparing actors again'st other actors who once filled the role can make the viewers decide its going to be awful before even giving it a chance....
good plot, great cast especially Val Kilmer pulling off the cool, dark and secretive character he portrays and last of all excellent locations all I can say is view it as a new movie and not a modern remake and see what you think..
A thoroughly enjoyable Saturday evening viewing with a stylish Val Kilmer (an actor I'm not familiar with) who combined the Templar characteristics with James Bond finesse very well, and a cute Elizabeth Shue playing her part in the manner of the unlikely earlier Saint female leads (I've never seen a mini-skirted, sexy blonde scientific genius in all my years spent in Oxford!) but adding her own feisty zest to the proceedings.I particularly liked tongue-in-cheek references such as the repeat use of the first bars of the original Saint theme tune interrupting the background music, and the stick-pin Emma produces at the end which mimics the original Saint logo, and the voice of Roger Moore on the final voice-over car radio.
I think that as a one off movie spin off from the original series it does brilliantly.The array of disguises that Val Kilmer goes through is the face enjoyment but past that I found that most of my enjoyment came from not so much a relation to Val Kilmer's character but just strangely wanting him to succeed.
Along the same lines as when I watch a Bond movie, for all the same reasons due to many similarities between the two.Although some parts of the film (the intro and ending) are maybe brief I think they do well to set up what we want to know and see and leave the main focus of the movie on the central plot.Overall a good fun movie and a happy DVD purchase :).
Val Kilmer, as Simon, and Elisabeth Shue, as Emma, give to their characters their very own souls.
Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue fall in love on film.
I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes Elisabeth, Val, action, romance and comedy, its truly amazing..
Thank goodness for Kilmer he decided to make this film instead of continuing as Batman in the horrible Batman & Robin which came out the same year as The Saint.
Of course, this last job will be a doozie and have him choosing between his professionalism to complete the job or to side with his newfound love interest and follow his heart to what could be his true soulmate for his life to come.Val Kilmer is The Saint, the thief, and at his best in a character you can't help but love.
Kilmer's pursuit of Shue's secret, their mutual escape attempts and the bond they make for a possible future bring the audience into a wonderful and exciting story of a lonely man's discovery of love lost many years ago.This movie has fabulous writing, plot line, acting, scenery, technology, action, camera-work, etc.
I cannot remember a movie that was as captivating and sweet as this was in showing the dynamics of individuals falling in love.Beyond this, Val Kilmer is so entertaining in his many disguises; it makes for many funny elements.Although there are some flaws with execution and details, for those of us who want movies that reveal the depth of characters and story lines beyond the action (although this movie does bring that element in), this is immensely satisfying..
Great action film and the best acting Val Kilmer ever formed.
I thought this movie was great..Elizabeth Shue is a babe, and Val Kilmer rocked in it.
I personally enjoy the TV series, but I believe that this Saint more closely resembles the character Leslie Charteris had in mind when he wrote his novels and stories.
I just finished watching the Saint again, it's the sort of movie you remember seeing a few years back and when you get home after a long day at work your glad it's being re-run on TV.
Simon Templar (Val Kilmer) is a big time con-artist/thief who operates to further his own financial position, charm some very attractive ladies and buy himself a Volvo that actually looks good.
The romance between Elisabeth Shue's character and Kilmer's isn't bad either, they're both convincing in their own way and there are some nice moments for sentimental folk like me.
As far as I'm concerned, this is an accomplished, rousing and satisfyingly complex espionage thriller.The plot finds a master of disguise/super-thief, Simon Templar (Kilmer), being hired to track down and steal a brilliant energy-saving formula.
Oh yes, then there's the small problem of the swarm of Russian agents who also want the formula....Kilmer is OK as Templar, but the character was better portrayed in previous incarnations by Ian Ogilvy and Roger Moore.
The action scenes in the film are well done, but this is no surprise since the director Phillip Noyce is a dab hand at this kind of thing thanks to his work on a couple of the Jack Ryan movies, not to mention the unbearably taut Dead Calm.If you've never seen The Saint, I would encourage you to do so.
performance of Kilmer, it has a less abrasive edge.The plot, acting and dialogue probably won't stand up to close inspection, but then this isn't the sort of film you're going to watch more than once.
Simon Templar is more than just a "saint", he's a chameleon in the process.Elisabeth Shue, is great, I remembered her from "The Karate Kid" and "Leaving Las Vegas", did very well playing Emma, she looked great throughout the movie.
I give it 10 out of 10.The Saint will keep you entertained for an hour and a half.This movie has fabulous writing, plot line, acting, scenery, technology, action, camera-work, etc.
This is one of the best movies i have ever seen...i don't know why but i love it...i think i watch it 15 times a year...characters are great,scenario is great,film is GREAT!i don't think there's something missing in the film,humor,romance,action it has everything in it.
Like 'Mission Impossible' (the movie), it bears no such resemblance to previous 'Saint' films.On the other hand, it's an interesting espionage tale with the usual heroics and mixes of suspense and humor when Kilmer changes his identity to suit his purpose.
Val Kilmer makes the perfect action hero in this surprisingly entertaining movie that was not given as much hype as it deserved upon release.
I could list all the holes, but it would waste yet more of my time than the film did and you might not read this warning if I had to tick the 'Contains Spoiler' box.It is like watching a Bond movie directed by a first time director.
Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue show some really good acting and portray strong characters.
Cloak and Dagger, espionage thriller is what this story is, with Elisabeth Shue as an essential love-interest character for Kilmer's Templar.
It was obvious from the moment he met Dr Russell that he would fall in love with her, although there was a bit too much kissing and sloppy stuff.The best thing about the film I think was the many characters Val managed to do.
But I was proved wrong in "The Saint", which pushes acting to the limit with Kilmer playing a variety of characters very well, and also having romantic and action scenes."The Saint" features Simon Templar, aka The Human Fly (Kilmer), who travels the world in disguise to steal and sell whatever he can for the highest price.
Elizabeth Shue and Val Kilmer had such amazing chemistry in this movie and I hope that some day they make a sequel..
Quality Rating: *** out of ***** (three stars out of five) The Saint is a good, above the average action movie.
Kilmer does a good job as an action hero, he plays the saint with humor and creates a likeable character, it's impossible to stop cheering for him.I recommend this great movie!.
Throw in a troupe of British character actors for the minor roles and what we have is an adventure film with a flimsy plot in which Val Kilmer displays all the personality of a plank of word whilst donning a range of silly disguises which do not work.
As an industrial espionage thriller, The Saint is fairly predictable, but Val Kilmer has fun with his character's master-of-disguise shtick playing several neat cameos within the film that re-defined gentleman adventurer Simon Templar for the 90s.
The saint starring Val Kilmer is a terrific political thriller based on the Russian government.A man who takes the name of Saints is about to unravel a conspiracy being developed to overthrow the Russian Government.The movie revolves on a scientific experiment called Cold Fusion.The saint portrayed by Van Kilmer has given a good performance.His acting is very good.Elisabeth Shue(Dr.Emma) has also given a decent enough performance.This is a decent enough political thriller.You would love to watch it again after you have seen this.Good direction with a thrilling plot & good enough performances will keep you on your toes.Not the perfect but still very good.I give it 7/10.Must watch for all those,who believe in the cold fusion mambo-jumbo..
Fun, and good looking (as only Val Kilmer can be), but he's not the same character.
So let's just some up by saying that it's a fun adventure film but Val Kilmer is no Saint..
It's a movie that's difficult to watch because of the contrast between Roger Moore and the seriously miscast Kilmer who even has an American bowery-type accent when "being himself" yet the Saint is English.
They had all the 30's charm and the movie could have been fashionably period, there was the tragedy of Norman Kent to pull at the heart strings (just compare it with the tedious romance in Kilmer's film tho' the actors did their best admittedly), and the entertaining story that starts in Germany - Getaway - to give a European setting.
The less said about the U.S. remakes of "The Italian Job" and "The Avengers", the better and sadly, the trend continues with "The Saint" where a half-forgotten TV character from the Sixties is brought back to life and promptly crapped on.Val Kilmer takes the unlikely role of Simon Templar, an English public-schoolboy who grows up to be an international thief and mercenary for hire.
Well, if you wanna give me some bad time then let me watch a movie with Val Kilmer as this good-looking dude must be the dullest actor I have ever seen and that's the biggest problem I have with this movie...
It's dead complicated but in essence it's just The Saint (Val Kilmer) who has to get back a stolen formula from some student (Elisabeth Shue, beautiful babe who can't act).
International super thief for hire Simon Templar (Val Kilmer) is in for a challenge of conscience when he's hired by leading Russian business mafia figurehead/oil magnate Ivan Tretiak (Rade Serbedzija), who has designs on becoming the Russian president, to steal the secrets of cold fusion from a brilliant young scientist named Dr. Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue), something which will ensure Tretiak his reign of power in Russia.
not bond but it was a good movie enjoyed it but not somthing i will watch 100 times val was as good as he could be with the script given shue looked great on the screen some of the humur wasnt there and some of what got lost by not being filmed right 6 out of 10.
But perhaps the worst thing about watching this version of THE SAINT is that it's like watching a sub standard Bond movie , director Phillip Noyce and the screenwriters don't really have a standard bearing as to where the movie is going so keep switching locations with little rhyme and reason , one minute we're having a talky scene in Moscow then there's a fast paced shoot out in London then we're back in Russia with Val Kilmer in yet another goofy disguise with Dr Emma Russell there as an unconvincing plot device/love interest .
Val Kilmer, who I think has probably the best head of hair in Hollywood, puts out a good performance as "Simon Templar" and enthrals the audience with his characters, and use of disguises...
It has some good suspense and action scenes and there is nothing wrong with Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue as the leading actors.True, it wasn't as smooth or even believable as MI but it's still entertaining and worthwhile watching strictly for the adventure.
Extra information, but more than that just cheesy stuff that you would see in a bad 'B' movie.Val Kilmer was a great choice for the role that he played.
It just shows how good a character actor he can actually be and still play the handsome love-interest.But, I was most impressed with Elisabeth Shue's performance.
I think even as a lighter drama, this could have been such a better movie than it turned out.However, it is quite entertaining and one of the only films I actually like Val Kilmer in.
Val Kilmer makes a good thief who would go from several disguises (he even played a gay), to using names of saints, to helping Elizabeth Shue reach the embassy, telling a professor to make a certain formula work, and the list goes on!
Elizabeth Shue makes a good lead lady as well and she really got me surprised.After watching many kinds of spy or action or adventure films, The Saint is a refreshing experience.
I liked the movie for what it is to me: an action film about a thief, who has to steal the formula for cold fusion.
I have not read the books so I do not know how well the movie actually relates to the books but I have to say that I was a little disappointed to see a Simon Templar that was not really
him.I have never really been a huge fan of Val Kilmer and I do not really think he is the best match for the role.
Although the location work is great and both Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue are actors who do very well with the right material, they don't do well here. |
tt1462054 | Letters to God | Tyler Doherty (Tanner Maguire) is an 8 year-old suffering from cancer who has a love for writing and sending letters to Jesus. His local postman, Walter Finley (Christopher Schmidt), takes them to his office after work. His boss sees them and instructs Walter to take care of them.
Later Mr. Finley goes on an extended vacation, causing an alcoholic named Brady McDaniels (Jeffrey Johnson) to replace him temporarily. Brady is a regular at the "Bar and Grill" and close to the bartender, Jack, his former commanding officer in the military. On his first day of work, Brady is chased and bit by Mrs. Baker's dog, "Rooster," and is confused by the "Letters to God" that he picks up from the Doherty house.
That same day Tyler returns to school after two months of brain tumor surgery, MRIs and radiation. The Doherty family has been through a lot; in addition to Tyler's cancer, they have also lost Patrick Doherty, Tyler's father. Tyler's first day of school starts off with Alex, who makes fun of Tyler for being bald and having little eyebrows. In response to one episode of this, Tyler's friend Samantha Perryfield (Bailey Madison), pushes Alex's face in his mashed potatoes, causing them to be sent to the principal's office. In response to kids making fun of Tyler, Samantha takes him to her grandfather, Cornelius Perryfield (Ralph Waite), who tells him that he has been picked by God for a special mission.
Tyler sends more letters to God, with Brady picking them up each day. Brady initially wants to give them to a church, but the pastor says that Brady should keep them. Brady reads some of them, and they inspire him to be a better person. Brady develops a close relationship to the Dohertys and to Mrs. Doherty, Maddie (Robyn Lively) in particular. Ben (Michael Bolten), Tyler's older brother, became upset at how life at the house revolves around Tyler, who hearing his words threatens to jump off a second-story porch roof in response. Ben then tells Tyler that he is not mad at him, but misses the fun times they had together when Tyler was healthy, and is afraid of losing him. In response Tyler has Ben write his own letter to God.
Maddie later reads Ben letter that inspires her to be a better mother and takes goes Ben to get his driver's license. Later, Tyler finishes getting chemotherapy and is released. The nurses remind Maddie that Tyler's body is not very fit yet. Brady and Tyler both plead with Maddie to let Tyler's play on his soccer team. During the game, the soccer coach, accedes to Tyler's plea to play goalkeeper. His team wins, but Tyler then faints and is taken to the hospital. Brady is angrily blamed by Mrs. Doherty for encouraging Tyler to play, but she later apologizes. It was shown later that Brady had been in jail for DUI, and that his son, Justin, was taken away from him by his wife. He turns away from his old life, and throws away his whiskey, and later thanks God for giving His Son to for giving him (Brady) his own son back. At a talent show, Ben sings and Brady and postal workers bring in bags and bags of letters to God, including those from others that Tyler inspired. Brady also shares how Tyler impacted his life, enabling him to find faith in God. Tyler later succumbs to his illness, and passes away at home. Samantha dedicates a mailbox for letters to God, saying that "His life was a letter to God."
The film closes with snippets of others of faith who battled and sometimes beat cancer, | romantic, christian film | train | wikipedia | This was like a bad b movie without the 80's charm.It's a shame really, because the real story it is based on, is one worth telling..
written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." Those words - which are featured in the closing caption of the movie - are from 2 Corinthians 3:3, and really serve as the basis for this entire project.
It's the story of young Tyler, suffering from an incurable type of brain cancer, who deals with his affliction by writing letters to God - letters which end up transforming the lives of virtually everyone he knows and many people he doesn't know.
Tyler becomes - in the words of Mr. Perryfield (who's played by Ralph Waite, who may be the only actor in this I was familiar with) - "God's warrior." I may not like that particular imagery, but I understand the sentiment, and the movie makes the point that a little faith can go a long way.
I think that people are going to end up judging this on the basis of their own belief or lack of belief in God rather than on the actual quality of the movie.
Tyler's story is great - at least according to this he faced his death with great courage - but I wondered about the decision to end the movie with stories of people of faith who've recovered from cancer and are going on with life.
I fear that in the end those stories tended to blur the memory of Tyler's story, which to me offered a far more powerful witness to the importance of faith - that faith could give a young boy the courage to face his own death and still keep the needs of others first and foremost in his thoughts (because many of the letters he wrote to God were intercessions for others.) To me, that was far more important than the stories of the cancer survivors at the end of the movie.
I understand that it was a way of showcasing Tyler's faith and his impact on people, but it seemed to move the spotlight on to Brady at that moment - which was not where it should have been!But there was a lot here I liked as well.
I can never understand why people are not offended or embarrassed by graphic violence, derogatory humor, sexual content in movies, but mention God or prayer and people feel they need to apologize...why???
If you believe in God and the power of prayer, however, I don't see how you can come away from this movie not being moved.
I believe the best movies are those that make us think, reflect on our lives, and inspire us to do more.
Spend a few hours at a Children's hospital and you will see the THOUSANDS of family members affected by any terminal illness not to mention their friends at school, co-workers/friends/neighbors of their parents, relatives.My son never cried in the movie, he wasn't afraid, he was proud to see another with a large scar, going through similar things he has, being called God's Warrior in the movie gave him the biggest smile.
Therefore, no one has any logical support to back up there reason for a 1 star rating, probably because they haven't even SEEN the movie they just decide "hey, what I believe is right and I don't believe there is a God so I'm just going to lowly rate this in some attempt to demean or put down all who do believe in him." People are so stupid and you just can't trust what you see nowadays.I'm not even a Christian and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
Most Christians don't try to prove anything to non-Christians, we let it go that a lot of the world doesn't believe in God. That's totally fine.
However, after watching this movie, it left me feeling like I wanted to say more on the story.
Watch this movie, learn from it, and live a full life, as you don't know whats around the corner....
A young boy courageously faces cancer by writing prayers as Letters to God. Excellent movie that will challenge and inspire you.
Takes on the difficult issues of life threatening health issues and how your faith can be challenged and possibly increased by facing the unfacable.The production quality, music and acting is dramatically improved relative to movies like Facing the Giants, which was produced by the same people for about 1/10th the budget.
Other music was done by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.As Tyler, an eight year old boy, faces his cancer, he mostly courageously smiles and encourages those around him.
The second half of the movie really picks up the pace as several of the characters come face to face with their own issues and Tyler and his Letters (prayers) to God serve as lightning rods of Hope.
I would suggest you bring some Kleenex and invite everyone you know who's family has been affected by cancer to see the movie.
While the writers and director of "Letters to God" no doubt had good intentions, this movie disappoints and embarrasses in so many ways.
A few professional actors try to pull this one off but a terribly written script won't let them.Christians need to start doing better with compelling writing, quality acting and stories that are real and not out of a dated formula that never worked in the first place.Don't waste your time on this one.
This is a great movie about the trials and tribulations of dealing with cancer and death and our struggle as humans on the topic of a higher power.
The emphasis on devotion to family is something that should be cherished by all people and this film delivers the true meaning of love and loss, and the fluctuating path life often takes.
What amounts to unrealistic character development is used to tell the true tale of a family and a young man struggling to battle cancer and struggling to comprehend God's role in their lives.
The overall message of "finding truth" and illustrating how each of our lives can be a testament (or letter) itself to God is a great analogy.
If viewed with an open mind and a hopeful heart, this movie will make you think and will move you to tears.
It's based on a true story of a boy fighting cancer and his effect on the lives of the people around him.
An awkwardness in Christian movies--one that this film cannot overcome--is the need to highlight prayer as an action.
That's okay, but it seems the great amount of talent, effort, and money used will ultimately result in a movie that sits on the library shelves of churches across the country.Bottom line: "Letters to God" is a good movie that I can't recommend to my non-Christian friends..
You can't go into this type of movie expecting the best acting and producing Hollywood has to offer, but I feel that they did a good job given their resources.
To Save a Life is making a stir in the market, and Letters to God is supposed to be the most widely opened Christian movie since Passion.
If you're interested in a great heartfelt story that will make you appreciate your life and put this life in perspective, then go check out Letters to God and support the Christian film market..
The real-life Patrick Tyler Doughtie (renamed Tyler Doherty in this movie) and his battle with cancer is very well portrayed by young actor Tanner Maguire .
However, due to the fact that there is a lot of prayer and a lot of mentioning God's name and a lot of receiving Jesus into your life throughout this movie, I know that it will be loved by Believers and probably either disliked or merely tolerated (and misunderstood) by Unbelievers.
This is a great Christian movie to watch and it will have you leaving the theaters 'renewed' in spirit!
He writes letters to God. Talking about his feelings and things he hope God will do for his family, friends and neighbors.
Yes this movie has to do with God, the name says so, so i seriously wonder why anyone is shocked to see the references, it is not blatant and in your face, but it does have to do with Christianity, if that is a problem, then don't watch it, don't complain and act like you couldn't have possibly known.
When an 8 year old boy battling cancer starts writing letters to God some amazing things start happening.
The emotions they must go through each day and the strength they all have inside.This movie deals with life and death and the love and inspiration we leave behind.
I feel that anyone that watches this and only sees it as the writer trying to push a religion in their face has really missed a lot, besides it is in fact called "Letters to God"..
While the movie had a Christian message, it is based on a true story about the life of a Christian boy and how he impacted others.
I have a friend who is going through the very same situation with her little boy right now and they are holding fast to their faith in God and the fact that HE is in control and His will is perfect.
This movie is based on a true story about an 8 year old named Tyler Doughtie who fought cancer.
It shows the way he dealt with cancer and how others that entered his life dealt with it and were touched by Tyler.It is a Christian movie and it shouldn't stop people from seeing this movie.
He shows us a glimpse into a heart filled with hope and trust in God. He makes you think.
Those of us who have watched a loved one fight cancer can relate to Tyler's family and it is nice to know that others feel the same way and that even in the darkest of times, God is there and He is using your struggle to witness to others that need to hear the message.
Well I do not believe in god but I decided to watch this movie and I will give it a review and rating on its merits, not my beliefs.
It brought tears to my eyes and if you have half a heart it will do the same to you.While I may not believe in god, I do have faith in human beings, and hope someday we can all work together regardless of our beliefs.
There are so many like the child and family depicted in this movie that are struggling with trusting God when life seems hopeless.
Christian or not this movie has a great story line as well as it rings true to the experience of those battling cancer..
People Who Don't Know and Are Afraid of God. The movie was outstanding, no doubt about it.
This movie shows that the young man made his choice to stand on the side of truth, and not on the side of the world which alienates itself from its Creator, God Almighty Himself.
I urge everyone to try and see this film with an open mind and, then talk to God about where you are headed in your life and when you die..
This time it is a boy possibly facing death & he writes letters to his god hoping he will read them.
I am sure this movie could have done a lot better at the box office if it had been toned down into a proper film & not made to look like a recruiting video for you know who!.
The movie did make me feel sad but along with that it gave me a message of hope and courage to move on.
Letters to God was such a great movie!
Now the story, well, that's something else, if you're looking for an inspiring not great acted movie, this is for you, since this is a true story, you're in for a "great, trip of emotions" and at the end you should be able to make sense to it.
Beautiful character, great faith and trusting God are marks of this big little boy.
But then again, this movie can deliver the touching story so fine that it inspired an Indonesian movie "Surat Kecil Untuk Tuhan", literally translating to Small Letters To God, which had less Christian theme and, on the contrary, gets very sad..
Right off the bat, you have your case studies for a wholesome, family-friendly Christian film.The wholesome film in question is Letters to God, which takes two real-life, relatable stories and degrades them with the kind of weepy, melodramatic screen writing that feels less like an emotional experience and more like a forceful extraction of tears from your tearducts.
Madison works to steal every scene she's in, with her ample amounts of energy, her illuminating smile, and her ability to add the most passable emotional leverage to a film already soaked to the marrow in dreary simplification and cheap, emotional manipulation.Letters to God caters to the demographic I've long wrote about when discussing contemporary Christian cinema, which is the kind of people that seek out these films and will love them no matter how abysmal the story, how incredulous the situational drama, or how ridiculous the dialog.
Not to mention, it's one of the only moments in the film where God isn't given a shoutout at least once every sentence.Reading this review, you may think I loathe Christian cinema and detest every product it has produced in recent years.
Great movie of friendship, faith and family.
Thank the film for not compromising the message of God's love with hope and renewed faith for all..
Refreshingly Innocent in this Jaded and Filth-filled Age. It is amazing that there are people still showing faith that God's love for His children is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago.
Watch this movie and follow the lives of people where a loved one is dying of cancer.
"Letters to God" avoids these mistakes.God is not really the subject of the story, we can watch the movie from an atheistic point of view : The letters are a medium to communicate with everybody and to make psychological analysis on self.The life or death of the little boy is not either the subject.
But yes, it was a great movie, a bit depressing because I hate watching sick people, but yet awesome throughout another movie I recommend that has been shot down in ratings by atheist on IMDb is The book of Eli. Wish religious people and all people happiness and Love for the rest of their life.
This movie was about a courageous young boy who had cancer.
He wrote prayers in the form of letters to God. His faith moved those around him, including a mailman who had troubles of his own.At first, I didn't know what to expect.
This helps people believe that God is merciful Where is the hope?
For a child to love like this, despite what he was going through is amazing.It was sad but you know people face these types of emotions and the Mom was simply being real.
The film had a great message showed a tenderness and vulnerability in men (and women and children) struggling with real hardship, and life-and-death issues.
To know that the love of a young child for God actually made a difference!
Good movie, with a theme of Christian belief and the power of prayer..
As part of his faith he writes letters to God, sometimes more than one a day.
The new mail man is eventually influenced by Tyler and his letters to God.Yes, this is a worthwhile movie for the message..
Letters to God are the inspiring words of a child with cancer..
SPOILER ALERT I just fell in love with these characters and wanted that boy to get better, that would have really been an awesome message, but what we had was one of the longest death watches I've ever seen in a movie, thats my only complaint.
Sometimes we feel like there's no hope in life and we try to find happiness in different ways but there an absolute truth that you can only find happiness through God. I'm sure everyone in us is experiencing difficult times in our life and ask why is this happening to me.
"Letters to God" is a film that everyone should go and see.
Tyler has good days and bad which take on great meaning in the film because this is what cancer patients constantly face on a daily basis.Tyler's letters are picked up by Brady McDaniels, the postman.
It is Tyler's inspiration through his letters to God that transforms Brady's heart.
If you liked "Facing The Giants" and "Fireproof" take a look at "Letters to God".
An amazing movie of a young 10 year old boys courage in a fight against Cancer, and his letters to God that changed a whole community and still is affecting the world.
Sure, as a Christian, I may be biased towards liking this movie.
I would love to own this movie and watch it all the time, even though I don't know where to get a copy.
I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a very serious drama movie to watch that even Christians can agree on liking.
If you aren't one, I still recommend it in case you have ever lost someone close to you in your life, much like the characters do at the end of the movie..
Okay, I realize that this was probably a bad choice for people who do not believe the Christianity bologna, but based on the previews I thought this was just going to be a cute movie.
I think this movie serves for a market of believers and can move those whose lives have been touched by cancer. |
tt0115940 | Conte d'été | Gaspard, the main character, arrives on holiday in Dinard, a small Breton seaside resort. He awaits his girlfriend, Lena, who does not arrive. Only a short while after this, he crosses paths with the waitress Margot, and they develop a strong friendship; Gaspard also has a fling with Solène, Margot's adventure-seeking friend. Lena eventually does turn up, and by this time, Gaspard has become attached to all three women.
Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) is a young mathematician/musician vacationing by the seaside in Brittany, France before starting a new job. The film covers roughly three weeks in his life and introduces us to the trio of women he encounters during that time. First is Margot (Amanda Langlet), a cheerful waitress who enjoys spending time with Gaspard, but isn't interested in more than a friendship. Solene (Gwenaëlle Simon) is more affectionate and sensual - she's willing to have a relationship with Gaspard if he will commit to only her. Then there's Lena (Aurelia Nolin), Gaspard's longtime semi-girlfriend whose ambiguous romantic attitude towards him keeps him in a state of permanent consternation. As the summer wears on, Gaspard finds himself increasingly torn between the three women, finding each the most appealing when he's with her, and recognizing that the day is fast approaching when he will have to choose. | romantic | train | wikipedia | I love the way Rohmer slowly guides the audience into the film, without a need for narration, only the sights and sounds of Brittany.
"I don't want to plan my life around money", Gaspard tells Margot, and you see him go through a process of writing his sea shantey, a really great little piece of music if you ask me.
On paper, his stories and his characters don't really seem that interesting, but he adds something to them that make them resonate so deeply in me, and I am almost awestruck when it happens.The great thing is that I can say that for almost all of Rohmer's films, especially those that make up the "Tales of the Four Seasons" I can't say I have a favorite because things like favorite or top films just go against the grain of what Rohmer is doing.
and yet, each character he's given us, Jeanne, Natascha and Igor from Spring, Gaspard and Margot from Summer, Isabelle, Magali, Gerard and Rosine from Autumn, and Felicie and Charles from Winter, are drawn so vividly that I sometimes forget that they are only characters and not people I call as personal friends.
In addition, I'd like to add that Amanda Langlet's characters seem to be the only "pure" characters in any of Rohmer's films, both as Pauline and Margot, She is beautiful, kind, intelligent, honest.....whereas his other characters, though likable and sympathetic, all have certain flaws.., some tell lies, some are neurotic, some judgemental, deceitful..self-indulgent, capricious.., so forth..
A beautiful setting, good acting (Amanda Langlet is brilliant and deserves more roles than just the two Rohmer-films she was in) and a teasing simple tale of a young man who should enjoy a calm summer holiday but instead makes things difficult by not making his mind up about which girl he will choose.
When he realises the girls are in charge, he leaves the stage.Conte d'été is certainly one of the best Rohmer movies..
Lots of people suffer problems of integration and self-achievement next to others and these have been thoroughly dealt with in the film.Its main problems are how much is worth a summer romance next to a sincere friendship, and the importance of knowing exactly one's feelings and purposes (do I love her, or do I not ?
Am I merely trying to have fun?).In the end, we are faced with a line addressed to the main character that we can take for ourselves: "it was your own choice, think about it".That's the main message: the director presents a problem, the dialogues delve deeply in several of its aspects but the conclusion of why things turned out as they did is left to us.
Overall, a beautiful little gem that also manages to pose a barrage of questions about love, without ever telling the audience what to think.I need to watch more Rohmer movies..
In A Tale of Summer, Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) acts like a grown up teenager who likes to play at love but is unwilling to make commitments, finding himself unable to honestly express his feelings to three women he meets at a seaside resort.
Like so many Rohmer films, the story takes place at a time when the characters have nothing to do but meet and talk and idle the days away, and you can be certain there is plenty of talk.
Gaspar is a tall, slender young guitar player who comes to Brittany on vacation from his job as a mathematician and spends time by himself composing and playing music.Pausing long enough to get out and see the town, Gaspar meets Margot (Amanda Langlet) an ethnologist working in a local restaurant.
He develops a relationship with Margot but it is all very platonic as Margot is waiting for her boyfriend to return from the Peace Corps and Gaspard says that he is waiting for the arrival of his girl friend Lena, vacationing with her cousins in Spain.
Margot and Gaspard take long walks in the French countryside and engage in witty and intelligent conversation about relationships, jealousy, and sex and they seem well suited for each other but each avoids an emotional connection.
At Margot's suggestion Gaspar meets another girl, Solene (Gwenaelle Simon), at a disco and they share a love for music but Solene becomes demanding when Gaspar is reluctant to make a commitment to take her on a trip to a nearby island.His ego is strengthened by Solene's attraction to him, but when Lena finally shows up, he must deal with her mercurial temperament, especially when she tells him that he is not worthy of her.
A Tale of Summer is one of Rohmer's lighter films and I found it to be a lovely and engaging way to spend two hours.
If in a Hollywood movie a character has merely two motivations acting on him this is already interpreted as a "highly complex personality".
So the common movie shows characters with a 1D psyche which contradicts the many facets of Self and the elusive, fuzzy nature of personality that one usually has or experiences.
It's presented in a diary-like way with the protagonist either on his own or in company of one of the girls he is in love with.
Yet throughout the movie one can see quite rapid changes going on which, just as in real life are not completely directed at a specific goal (IMO linear character development only takes place in bad short stories).
The dialogues are extremely lifelike- with all the mechanisms of exaggerating, rationalizing, white lies, etc.What makes this movie a piece of art instead of just a diary film adaption is the timelessness with which it is presented.
Despite having an elaborate personality the characters at the same time remain general (archetypical, if you will) and personally I find it very easy to identify friends with these characters- which IMO is intended.To sum it up, I see this movie as an evocative exercise in applied psychology reflecting or focusing life towards the audience.
While there are some recurring commentaries the film is for the most part free of moral judgement.There are two points of negative critic: - the otherwise excellent acting (which does not look like acting) is limited by the somewhat uninspired gestures of the main actor (Melvil Poupaud).
There are no hard or harsh cuts; no need for welding goggles to sit through this movie !This is a small yet honest tale: the protagonists talk, rather than babble or throw comic book lines at each other.A SUMMER'S TALE is not an epic, nor depicting a world changing event or some bigger than life humdrum.
Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) takes a month long vacation to a beach in Normandy, waiting for his more or less official girlfriend, the somewhat snotty Lena (Aurelia Nolin), to come.
Rohmer would want us to think that Margot would be the best choice, and is difficult to disagree, since she's so charming and so willing to listen to him and even put up with him.
It's amazing how Rohmer (who was in his late 70s when he directed this) is able to portray realistically how young people talk and interact.
There's absolutely nothing happening that makes you wonder: "What the hell is going on now" It could be the real holiday story somebody tells his good friends.
It's just pure life, there are real dialogues not this awful kind of small talks and pseudo intellectual nonsense which we know too good from Hollywood movies.
A Summer's Tale – Pretty solid movie by Eric Rohmer.
In this movie Rohmer studies a couple of weeks in a life of a young man traveling on vacation before starting his new job.
Like a lot of Rohmer's movies, it examines relationships which the characters develop, their perceptions of one another and how that perception changes over time.
The way Rohmer gives insights through dialogue is pretty interesting, it often leaves the viewer to determine for themselves why a character said this or that and what it reveals about them.
The movie looks very carefully crafted and Rohmer is very particular about what he wants the viewer to see, often depicting relatively minor events or ending some scenes abruptly.
Rohmer's characters love to yak on about ideas, art, and their feelings.
The talk, on the most literal level, is generally unpersuasive, but relationships are formed through enjoyment of conversation, and character (not limited to vanity) is revealed via defensiveness and posturing."A Summer's Tale" follows twenty-something Gaspard during his summer vacation at a seaside resort town in Brittany.
The people in the movie have fewer blind spots than most Rohmer characters, but not fewer difficulties.
But "A Summer's Tale" moves at a good pace, turns in the story feel natural and mostly not inevitable, and the whole is affecting and memorable..
Gaspard, a young mathematics graduate comes to a beautiful island beach resort in Brittany, there to meet up with his girl friend Leon.
The format of the film is much like a personal diary with the day to day events moving the story to its inevitable conclusion.
Each of the three girls interrogate Gaspard about his attitudes to love, friendship and women in general.
Eric Rohmer has a keen eye as he reveals all the hopes and disappointments of people searching for love.
Gaspard, played by Melvil Poupaud, is a song writer, a good-looking butdull young man, a gauche loner with a flat voice and an inexpressiveface who comes to this delightful holiday island of Dinard off theBrittany coast to await the arrival of his `sort-of' girl friend, whodemonstrates how much she loves him by keeping him waiting for twoweeks.
Obviously such a brightand intelligent girl could not be merely working-class!Amanda Langlet, who plays Margot and who appeared ten years earlier inRohmer's `Pauline at the Beach.' is clearly the star of this film.
Muchof the enjoyment of the film is derived from being in the company ofthis vivacious girl and being allowed to eavesdrop on her talk withGaspard about love and relationships as they roam in the bright sunlightaround this lovely French sea-side resort and the countryside beyond.She is such a very warm and sympathetic listener that it is difficult tounderstand why he doesn't fall in love with her.
(you ask yourself; is this man avery good actor or a very bad one?) He makes a couple of inept attemptsto move the relationship forward but is repulsed; she wants onlyfriendship - and you feel he is lucky to get that - while she awaits thereturn of her Anthropologist boy-friend who is away in South America.Gaspard's dullness is made obvious when she takes him to hear an oldsailor sing sea-shanties; her face so eager and enrapt as she listensintently; his face, alongside, so lifeless.She encourages him to take up with Solene, played by Gwenaelle Simon inher first film, a friend of her's who they meet at a dance, but when hedoes, she is jealous, jealous of their friendship she says but secretlyhurt that he now thinks of her as only a friend.His relationship with Solene seems idyllic at first, they seemmarvelously happy and well suited to each other.
All the while he constantly moons over the awaited figure of Lena, who maybe his girlfriend, or just a friend-who's-a-girl(even when she arrives, very late in the day, it's hard to tell!) Along the way Margot encourages him to date the flirty Solene, who's almost as ambiguous in her view of relationships as him, although, for a while it seems as if they are making progress as a couple.
Much of the appeal of this movie comes from the performance and personality of Amanda Langlet as Margot.
As with all the Rohmer films I've seen this is not a movie that's filled with high drama or visual pyrotechnics but it does have an appealing reality.
In this slight but engaging tale, Rohmer follows the actions of Gaspard, a sullen-faced Frenchman whose hair resembles the curls of the late Michael Hutchence of INXS, but whose love life is all awry.
many of the french films I have seen have been dark and depressing, but this was a really funny, pleasant little movie.the "geek"-like main character is in britanny for the summer.
there's not much excitement, but it's not that kind of a movie.well, it's highly recommended if you want to see a charming funny film and don't mind reading subtitles.
This is the third Eric Rohmer film I have seen (the others being "Summer" and "Claire's Knee") and I thought those were quite entertaining, too.
The one thing I like about Rohmer is it feels like he just took a camera and filmed real people.
The French film Conte d'été was shown in the U.S. with the title A Summer's Tale (1996).
It was written and directed by Eric Rohmer.Melvil Poupaud plays Gaspard, an intelligent young man who has just graduated from college, and is taking a vacation in Brittany.
In view of this situation, Margot and Gaspard decide to be just good friends, but not lovers.
Things happen in the movie--Gaspard meets a local young woman to whom he is attracted, he and Margot go for long walks on the beach, he composes a sea chantey.
(Hard to explain, but it makes sense in the movie.)However, what mostly happens in this movie is what mostly happens in other Rohmer movies--people talk about relationships.
However, when Rohmer's characters talk, they often have interesting things to say, so the film worked for me at that level.The only problem I had with the movie is that Margot was obviously the perfect match for Gaspard.
The young man befriends a cute waitress Margot who secretly likes him but keeps things platonic as he is hoping to meet his love interest Lena.
The ending is a nice little twist which makes you smile and I sure hope you sit down with this film when you feel like a little summer vacation on the couch.
This film made me feel young again and it reminded me that a story can be engaging without being intense or in your face.
It may be understand as love-story, comedy or french movie who describe nothing with a rain of words.
Great story about a shy young man immersed in his music and not very happy with girls, who suddenly finds himself being courted by three women at once.
The film is slow and seemingly unpretentious giving the viewer just a couple of bits of information but the sincere acting and nice, true-to-life dialogs make you immediately forget this.
Another gem from Eric Rohmer who made his Four Seasons as tales of love at various ages and in various circumstances such a hit.
Gaspard is vacationing by the sea before starting his new engineer job, and he hopes to meet up with the girl he had known before.
And yet, some things remain the same...In Éric Rohmer's "A Summer's Tale," Gaspard has just completed a graduate degree in mathematics and during the short end-of-summer weeks before he is to start his new job, he heads to a small village on the northern coast of Brittany with a mutually-agreed but vague plan to meet the object of his infatuation, Léna.
Later Margot spots Gaspard on the beach and flirtatiously engages him in conversation, which is the start of a series of get-togethers during which the two talk about past, current and unrequited loves.
There is little in the setting to seduce the eye, the film feels low budget, and in fact, it likely could have been filmed anywhere scenic to similar effect, a credit to the script and acting.The principal shortcoming is that the moping Gaspard is an uncompelling figure and so too are the women, two of whom are self-centered and manipulative.
It is a struggle to care what happens to any of the characters or how the story resolves itself.Also, there are brief moments in two or three scenes in which direction of the actors seems apparent--one, for example, when Léna meets Gaspard on the beach before she castigates him and her body is nearly fully turned toward camera versus more partly to him, never mind the nonverbal language of dismissive rejection, and another during the all close-up footage of her and Gaspard playing volleyball.In sum, a well-acted, well-scripted film, recommended for those who might have liked Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" and its two sequels..
A thoroughly self-absorbed French boy wonders why three lovely women aren't quite meeting all of his expectations.
Eric Rohmer has made some very sweet and intimate films but in this one he over analyzed young love until my head hurt.
I suppose the director wanted to do a movie about the confused feelings of some young people of today.
Most of the film sees our young hero involved in long walks and talks as he explores the moral issues of who to love and who to leave.
If a better lead had been cast to play Gaspard, I think this film could have been much, much better.
Some people wrote enthusiastic comments on this movie:"In all its subtlety and sincerity it is something that could happen to all of us" "What has impressed me about this movie is the realistic way the characters are portrayed" "The dialogues are extremely lifelike" "I sometimes forget that they are only characters and not people I call as personal friends"I don't think a Rohmer's movie is "just like life".
But, in a few occasions, I have met some people who believe that life is something like a Rohmer's movie and act so!Anyway, this is my humble opinion: if you enjoy long dialogues, long and significant silences, solipsist attitudes, and tons of deep-but-subtle-charming-interesting-mega-wonderful-but-common French human beings, "Conte d'ètè" is YOUR movie.P.D. Rohmer is celebrated as a director who never uses music in his movies.
*** MINOR SPOILER ABOUT A PREDICTABLE EVENT ***Hugely charming film that saw me fall for Amanda Langlet (Margot) within two minutes of her first appearance. |
tt0069822 | Breezy | The first scene begins with a young couple awakening in bed, after a one-night stand. An older teen, Edith Alice “Breezy” Breezerman (Kay Lenz) hops out of bed, gets dressed, and steps into the daylight. Breezy lost her parents years before in an auto accident, and has taken the lifestyle of a homeless free-spirited hippie in California.
That same morning, Frank Harmon (William Holden) is bidding farewell to his overnight guest, a very beautiful blonde that openly shows interest in him. He is only humoring her as she leaves, and the audience gets the first sense of how detached he is emotionally. Middle-aged, divorced and wealthy from his work in real estate, Frank lacks for nothing material. His beautiful post-modern home is the setting for much of the movie.
After escaping a bad hitchhiked ride with an unstable stranger, Breezy loiters near Frank’s home, and runs to him as he’s leaving for work. She invites herself into his car and happily insists that he give her a ride to her destination. Again, we see the never-smiling Frank who is now annoyed by the insistence of this young and loquacious girl. Carefree and true to her name, Breezy steals the show with both her charm and her lack of self-awareness.
The next scenes develop their friendship, showing Frank’s jaded personality as he becomes slowly more loving toward Breezy. He takes a fatherly approach and gives her room/board, but never acts on sexual opportunities. In a separate side story, he’s conflicted about love lost: a woman named Betty Tobin (Marj Dusay). There is no formal backstory, but it’s clear that they have a history romantically. Betty seems to gently explain she is getting married to a man she very much loves, and Frank pensively accepts this news. There are discussions at their business lunch of how she has made certain life realizations, with an unsaid declaration that Frank is stunted emotionally. As Betty puts it, he’s “lost”. They part as friends, clearly showing that they have mutual respect.
Frank and Breezy’s relationship continues to strengthen platonically, and he protects her from trouble. He introduces her to the finer things in life, while Breezy stays true to her humility and charm. On a side note, Frank’s friend and workout buddy Bob Henderson (Roger C. Carmel) is grappling with his own mid-life crisis. He’s not able to end his devoid marriage, which could be perceived as proof that a constrained life is no life at all. Frank takes this into consideration, while still growing closer to Breezy. They consummate their relationship at his home, which is now the protective fortress that allows them to freely express their relationship.
Some of the conflicts in this plot are that Breezy maintains friendships with her own peers who are starkly opposite of Frank; they are hippies and carefree, “unwashed” as referenced by Frank. Frank’s friends are established and successful, and while they never seem to question his relationship with her, the imploring question of guilt is rampant in Frank’s mind. He cannot abide that he, at approximate age 50, is in a relationship with a teenager.
These conflicts eventually break him, after a sobering discussion with Bob in a sauna. Bob reveals that there is no way he himself could embark on such a relationship, as he might feel like a “child molester”. He has no intention of being insulting, and is in fact admiring Frank, but Frank’s facial expressions convey his own self-loathing. All of his shared joys with Breezy, such as their adopted stray dog and “us against the world” mentality, don’t stop them from parting ways. Frank simply cannot cope with the age issue.
Time goes on, and the final dramatic twist involves a death. It is this experience that brings Frank to an epiphany: life is short, and his own projected insecurities are his true enemies. He finds Breezy at a park, where they reunite and start their new life together. | melodrama | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0323033 | Laws of Attraction | High-powered divorce attorneys Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) and Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) have seen love go wrong in many scenarios—so, how good could their own chances be? As two of the top divorce lawyers in New York, Audrey and Daniel are a study in opposites. She practises law strictly by the book; he seems to win by the seat of his pants, or by "cheap theatrics," as Audrey says in one scene.
Soon the two lawyers are pitted against one other in several high-profile divorce cases, including a nasty public split between rock star Thorne Jamison (Michael Sheen) and his dress-designer wife, Serena (Parker Posey). The settlement hinges on an Irish castle, Caisleán Cloiche, or "Rock Castle," that each spouse wants. Audrey and Daniel travel to Ireland to chase down depositions, and both stay in the castle; although Audrey, at least, is reluctant to acknowledge their mutual attraction, they find themselves attending a romantic Irish festival together. After a night of wild celebration, they wake up the next morning to discover they have wed. Audrey is shocked, though Daniel takes their apparent marriage in his stride.
The pair return to New York and find news of their wedding printed on Page 6 of the New York Post the following day. Audrey suggests that the two maintain the semblance of a marriage for the sake of their careers, and Daniel moves into the guest room of Audrey’s apartment. Although in the courtroom they continue to fight the Jamisons’ high-profile divorce case with the gusto they have always shown, at home they settle into domestic life together. While disposing of garbage one day, Daniel accidentally discovers some sensitive information about Audrey's client, Thorne Jamison, which he reveals in the next day's court proceedings. Audrey feels betrayed and asks for a divorce, which Daniel agrees to give, citing his love for her.
Next, their famous clients each return to the castle in Ireland, even though they are not permitted to be there pending division of assets. Judge Abramovitz (Nora Dunn) sends their respective counsellors to Ireland to inform them of this, but on arrival they discover that the celebrity couple has reunited on the anniversary of their wedding. Audrey and Daniel then learn that the “priest" who performed their own marriage ceremony is in fact the Jamisons' butler, and the “weddings" he presided over at the festival were simply romantic celebrations.
Daniel returns immediately to New York, alone, but with Audrey fast on his heels, as she realizes that she has fallen in love with him. Confronting him in the grocery store below Daniel’s Chinatown office, Audrey asks Daniel if he is willing to fight to save their relationship. In the romantic final scenes, the couple are married in a private ceremony in Judge Abramovitz’s chambers, with Audrey's mother as the sole witness. | comedy, romantic | train | wikipedia | Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) and Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) are New Yorks finest divorce attorneys, but when celebrity Couple (Parker Posey and Michael Sheen) raise the stakes in their divorce, Audrey and Daniel set out to make their cases and end up getting hitched themselves.
For the sake of their reputations they must pretend that they are really in love.Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan have a very good on-screen chemistry, and they are helped by some nice direction and a good script; there's plenty of laughs in this romantic comedy, but it's not a real tearjerker like some others in the genre.7/10 A fine effort.
Pierce Brosnan is great, in some scenes even better then Moore, reminds me of Cary Grant, James Stewart in their best work (Bringing up Baby, The Philadelphia Story...).
Julianne Moore is wonderful as usual, playing the rather uptight divorce lawyer, impressed despite herself with Brosnan's physical attractions.
Frances Fisher almost steals the film with her over-the-top, much-married, society fashion character, distinctly contrasting with Julianne Moore's more stuffy persona (reminiscences of Edina and Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous?).I cringed at the scenes in Ireland, but this film does not pretend to be anything other than a sweet-thing romantic comedy of deliberate game-playing.
Sarah Jessica Parker and her sex-mad cronies aren't (thankfully!) in this, but Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore are.Every now and then, they make a lightweight comedy romance with English actor Hugh Grant, and someone like Jennifer Lopez or Sandra Bullock, and it falls apart because Grant can't act.
Well, this one boldly casts Irish-born Bond actor Brosnan with stage-actress Moore.It's not a "wet hanky" romance (as some reviewers were evidently expecting) but a tale of one-upmanship between two rival lawyers in Manhattan, both immediately likable characters, with romance, spy cameras and Irish dancing thrown in.
However outside of the court, the couple find a certain chemistry growing between them but surrounded by so many divorces and arguments how could anything good come of it?Billed as a big name romantic comedy in the mould of sparky screwball romances of the forties and fifties this comedy at times is great fun but at others falls terribly flat.
It is strange that McKenna's script is so slick when it is in the "banter" stage but so heavy with syrup and silly cliché towards the end, almost like all the talent was put into the first half, leaving nothing for the latter stages.Brosnan and Moore do try hard to make it work and mostly they succeed, but the material does gradually leave them out in the open.
Brosnan does well for the majority as he charms his way through but Moore can't seem to slide between the film's levels she works with the snappy comedy stuff but when the emotional stuff comes she seems to drift between rom-com level acting and trying to go deeper.
Instead, it simply takes stereotype rogue A (Pierce Brosnan, disheveled and charming), stereotype career woman B (Julianne Moore, neurotic and uptight), throws them together as opposites who'll inevitably attract in stereotype situation C (they're New York's best divorce lawyers on opposite ends of the same cases) and adds a perky sheen of class with stereotype soundtrack D (it's New York, it's quirky so it's got to be cod-Gershwin, right?).
This film, about two opposing divorce counsels, played by Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore, had no merits to speak about.
Only Frances Fisher, as Ms. Moore's mother, managed to redeem a tiny piece of this ghastly film.When I had initially heard that Julianne Moore received bad marks for her "comedic" talents, I thought surely, the critics must be being a bit unfair to this very fine actress.
Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan freshly pair up in McKenna's splendid 'Laws of Attraction'.
The banter exchanged between Brosnan and Moore is the reason why this movie can pass as a comedy.
Pierce Brosnan is witty, charming, cute "as per Frances Fisher in the film", and above all, incredibly gifted in this role.
But the courtroom scenes are unpleasant, and the two leads (Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore) both seem uncomfortable in their roles.
In New York, the efficient, insecure and single divorce lawyer Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) faces the charming, unethical but also efficient divorce lawyer Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) in a litigation case.
When they wake up in the next morning, they have to face the new reality of husband and wife."Laws of Attraction" is a charming and delightful romantic comedy, mostly supported by the gorgeous and sweet Julianne Moore, and the handsome and charming Pierce Brosnan.
Julianne Moore plays her role well as does Pierce Brosnan and they manage to carry the film but their isn't a whole lot of chemistry between them.
Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore go the Tracy-Hepburn route in "Laws of Attraction," a romantic comedy that, unlike the films of that earlier pair, rarely rises to the level of its two notable stars.
The couple bicker, squabble and wrangle over issues both personal and professional - all the while falling madly in love with each other.Though bright and humorous at times, "Laws of Attraction" can't overcome the trite predictability of its storyline or the stereotypical nature of its characters.
Brosnan and Moore are both attractive and energetic performers, but the screenplay lacks the kind of madcap sophistication that was the defining trait of those films of the '40's that this movie wants so desperately to emulate.
Peter Howitt's "Laws of Attraction" is an excuse to present two attractive actors in a light comedy that should have been much better than what one sees on the screen.Julianne Moore is one of the great actresses working in the American cinema these days.
The characters and plot in this movie are entirely believable, all the actors are a delight to watch, the dialog is witty, and the Irish setting adds a nice touch.
Julianne Moore is wonderful and so is Pierce Brosnan and I don't even like him very much.
As a self-confessed adorer of the divine Julianne Moore, and an armchair admirer of Mr Brosnan (Grrr ladies!!) I did have high hopes!I don't think LAWS OF ATTRACTION is an out and out failure.
I know comedy deals often in stereotypes, but really - the Ireland sections of the film seem to me 'Ireland for America' - parts that are so cliched one expects three leprechauns to dance across the screen.If you love Julianne and/or Pierce, you might just get something from this.
Overall, the movie is cute.Pierce Brosnan is handsome and can act some.Julianne Moore does her job well, but it's not a very hard job to begin with.
"Laws of Attraction" is a highly derivative comedy starring Pierce Brosnan, Julianne Moore, and Francis Fisher.
Brosnan and Moore play two aggressive New York attorneys who fight bitterly through divorce cases but an attraction keeps getting in their way.I wouldn't have wanted to pay $10.00 to see this in the theater, though I like the actors in it very much.
Personally, i had always thought Pierce Brosnan was a good actor but i had never observed Julianne Moore closely before so i was joyful when i watched the movie.In fact, films about advocate usually have a general context which is based on affairs of the advocates who had met because of their clients but the performances and story had made this movie different and better than the others.
I absolutely loved this movie, Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore are the perfect on-screen couple!
I do like the subgenre of "screwball comedies" like the films from the 30's/40's that others have referenced.This movie although it had beautiful/talented lead actors with good chemistry & lovely scenery failed to meet my standards in plot/dialogue/character.The biggest problem was Moore's character who was the ultimate stereotype of successful woman who is actually insecure, needs a man, and has to gorge on junk food secretly to bolster her self-confidence etc.
This light little confection features Pierce Bronsan and Julianne Moore doing very likable work as two top-flight New York divorce attorneys who find themselves opposing each other in court, but quite compatible in their personal lives.
In "Laws of Attraction", it is the lead actress, Julianne Moore, who plays the straight man (as it were) to her male counterpart, Pierce Brosnan.Brosnan can do this kind of comic repartee in his sleep, from long experience as Remington Steele on TV and James Bond on film.
After all, the film was produced by his own company, Irish Dreamtime.The repartee and the chemistry between Brosnan and Moore is the best thing about this movie.
Laws of Attraction (2004) ** (out of 4) Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) is a very successful divorce attorney who spends most of her nights alone in her apartment eating junk food.
Audrey swears up and down that she isn't afraid of relationships but instead just can't get involved because she's too busy with her clients' needs.While taking on a major divorce case she meets her new opposing attorney, the very handsome Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) who has yet to lose a case.
She brought nothing new to her character and didn't have half the charm of Brosnan.With the all too familiar story and the lack of any real chemistry between the stars there really isn't much left in the film.
When the movie starts and we get out first glimpse of Juliane Moore's character I have to say I was not looking forward to the rest of the film.
You must see this film if you like Brosnan (He's so cute !), comedy and romantic films..
"Laws of Attraction" is a predictable, formulaic romantic comedy which pits Brosnan and Moore against each other as top divorce attorneys of very opposite dispositions and personalities both in the courtroom and out.
Brosnan and Moore had great on-screen chemistry and it instantly made you like their great characters.Though the storyline may resemble many other romance/comedy films the cast brings something different to the table that makes you fall in love with the film.
The three best features of this commendable way to spend an evening are (1) the storyline and script (which is clever) (2) The acting and the chemistry between Brosnan and Moore (which makes it almost believable) and the cinematography, which, particularly for the scenes in Ireland, is well done.In my opinion, one of the features of a good romantic comedy is that it engages the viewer in a story that makes them imagine or daydream about the wonderful magic of romantic love.
Brosnan and Moore have a chemistry that makes this happen.One test of a good film is an affirmative answer to the questions: Would you like to see this again?
From the trailers, it makes you think this is what the whole movie is about.I thought Moore and Bronson were good together and had some cute scenes.FINAL VERDICT: This is nothing original.
"Laws of Attraction" is the story of two high-powered New York divorce attorneys, Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) and Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) who are on opposite sides of a case involving a punk rocker and his estranged wife.
He fits right in.Although Juliana Moore is less convincing, it is easy to become immersed in Brosnan's character, as he has a way of "becoming" the person he is playing.Most of all, however, I was won by the secondary theme of the movie -- which was that something worth having is worth fighting for...
Laws of Attraction (2004) Pierce Brosnan, Julianne Moore, Parker Posey, Michael Sheen, Nora Dunn, Frances Fisher, D: Peter Howitt.
Attractive star-couple has effortless delivery and good looks to bolster this serviceable if good-fun screwball-romance, but the moronic script makes Moore, who at least tries, an inconsistent character and comedy is surely not her main knack.
To say I was disappointed is understating the hours of sheer wasted time!Set in New York, the principle figures, Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan are suave and sophisticated, kind of young and intelligent looking opposing- lawyers.
Pierce Brosnan plays Daniel Rafferty, an opposing attorney who is masculine and good-looking, yet sensitive and caring toward Audrey, who starts out with a negative outlook on love.
Audrey (Julianne Moore) and Daniel (Pierce Brosnan) see the worst part of failed marriages.
I'd also like to meet the casting director who thought that Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore would make a great match.
Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore have excellent on screen chemistry.
I have been a fan of Pierce Brosnan since "Remington Steele" and I really liked Julianne Moore in "Forgotten" so I thought I would give this movie a try.
Laws of Attraction could have been a really good romantic comedy--it's well-directed and has an excellent cast, plus fabulous outfits and sets and a gorgeously filmed sequence set in Ireland (the NYC scenes also look good).
While not a total washout, thanks to the winning performances of the leads, "Laws of Attraction" is full of too many tired, worn out ideas that have worked better in a half dozen other films.Watching this movie will bring to mind, right off the top of your head, "Broadcast News"(opposites attract), "Adam's Rib" (courtroom comedy) and "Intolerable Cruelty" (divorce attorneys).
All of which are funnier, have more interesting characters, and better stories."Laws of Attraction" has good performances from Julianne Moore as an uptight, by the book, divorce attorney who believes that love marriage = divorce = pain.
Pierce Brosnan is her unorthodox opponent in the courtroom, who for some unexplained reason pursues her.Frances Fisher steals the film as Moore's hip, beautiful, swinging, oft-married mother.The movie has a few moments of laughs, but because of it has been done and seen so many times before, the film just limps along through all of its predictable scenes.
Laws of attraction is just the kind of movie one has to see when there is nothing else to do or watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon.It's definitely not a masterpiece like Lost in Translation or As good as it gets,but it can be a good way of entertainment.this film once again makes me think that there should be more in a movie than just good actors.Though Julian Moore and Brosnan were brilliant and convincing,the story was far from original.So,when you walk out of the movie thetre or when you press the stop button on your remote control,you feel a bit disappointed,maybe even tricked,because you had such high ezpectations...But still,when you have nothing else to watch or do on a lazy Sunday afternoon,you may well just see it again and laugh heartily at Pierce Brosnan reading from Moore's panties.:).
THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION (2004) ** Julianne Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Frances Fisher, Parker Posey, Michael Sheen, Nora Dunn.
This should have been great: nice couple of actors, a fun premise: two divorce lawyers falling for each others.While not a bad movie per se, Laws of Attraction is not a good one.The word that springs to mind is insipid - it is all just borderline OK - nothing sparkles, all the clichés don't work, and most noticeably its charm is too manufactured.It is hard to pinpoint why the film falls so flat: script, chemistry take your pick....It's all rather well just not very rom-com more hum-drum...You can watch but you won't love it.....
I think the reason this movie just doesn't quite make it is the LACK of chemistry between Brosnan and Moore.
If only there were better chemistry between Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore.
Brosnan - well, he's a terrific Bond and was an alluring Thomas Crown, but he doesn't pull off romantic comedy all that well.When the story gets into a rut, the characters are shipped off to Ireland, where we get to see the customary Irish moments that are fast losing their novelty in movies.Moore deserves much better material than this.
Good film, well done for it's type.If you don't like Romantic Comedy, don't go here -- this one is perfectly what it is!.
Is it because they don't have confidence in the script and are floundering around trying to get a cheap laugh or two?Well, I can see why Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore might have felt desperate in "Laws Of Attraction".
I don't know what really came over me other than the fact that I found the romance of the film to have wit and a real sense of tenderness to it.Pierce Brosnan and Juliane Moore play opposing divorce attorneys who bicker over every case.
SPOILERS THROUGHOUT: Laws of Attraction is a romantic comedy about two lawyers who fall in love.
While there was nothing wrong with the supporting cast, the movie seems to lose it's focus there and then becomes really hard to watch.The one good thing it had going for it was the power of Moore and Broznan, two tremendously charismatic people who truly seem like their having fun and getting into the roles.
Two rival divorce attorneys (Piercw Brosnan and Julianne Moore) start off their love/hate professional relationship on a Tracy/Hepburn like "Woman of the Year" style comedy.
Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan play rival lawyers in a divorce case who fly to Ireland to gather evidence against each others' clients.
After a wild night at an Irish festival, they wake up married and with a distinct conflict of interest in this film entitled,Laws Of Attraction.This was based on a story by Aline Brosh McKenna and it was directed by Peter Howitt.The movie was simply a standard opposites-attract romantic comedy.Too bad that aside from being formulaic and clichéd,it was painfully predictable, full of implausibilities, and crowded with supporting characters that are underdeveloped and overplayed.The only thing good about it is that Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan create just enough chemistry to carry the movie.It adds nothing to its type of movie genre and it rather forgettable..
Parker Posey actually steals some major money scenes as the designer wife of a philandering rock star in this quick witted comedy that pits two of Newyork's high profile divorce lawyers (Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore) at each other wits. |
tt0093509 | Matewan | It was 1920 in the southwest West Virginia coal fields, and, as the narrator recalls, "things were tough." In response to efforts by miners to organize into a labor union, the Stone Mountain Coal Company announces it will cut the pay miners receive, and will be importing replacement workers into town to replace those who join the union. The new workers are African Americans from Alabama and are coming in on the train, but the train is stopped outside town and the black men are told to get off. Derided as "scabs", they are then attacked by the local miners, but manage to get back on the train and continue their journey.
Witnessing the attack is Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a passenger on the train and an organizer for the United Mine Workers. He arrives in Matewan and takes up residence at a boarding house run by a coal miner's widow, Elma Radnor (Mary McDonnell), and her 15-year-old son, Danny (Will Oldham), who is also a miner and a budding Baptist preacher.
Kenehan and the local leader, Sephus, then go around to meet the rest of the black miners as well as a contingent of Italians to try to bring them into the union, and are met with reluctance. But later, caught between the company's guns and the local miners, the blacks and the Italians throw down their coal shovels and take up the union cause. C. E. Lively, an agent provocateur for the coal company who has infiltrated the union, tries to goad the miners towards violence, which Kenehan says will only weaken their cause. The infiltrator also pens a note to the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency, which provides armed agents as strike breakers to the coal company, saying there is a "Red" organizer in town.
The next day, two Baldwin–Felts men, Hickey and Griggs, show up in town and take up residence at the Radnor boarding house. Danny at first refuses to give rooms to Hickey and Griggs, but Kenehan voluntarily moves to the hotel, freeing up a room for the two men and averting trouble for Mrs. Radnor. Hickey and Griggs then start their campaign against the union by forcibly evicting miners from company-owned houses in town. Mayor Testerman and Police Chief Sid Hatfield refuse to let them be evicted without eviction writs from Charleston. Hatfield deputizes all the men in town and tells them to go home and come back with their guns.
The Baldwin–Felts men then turn their attention on the strikers' camp outside town, where the miners and their families are living in tents. At night, the armed strikebreakers fire shots into the camp, injuring some strikers. The next day, they enter the camp to demand that all food and clothing purchased at the company store with scrip be turned over to them. But then some armed foothill people, whose land was taken by the coal company, enter the camp. Expressing disdain for the noise caused by the gunmen's automobile the night before, their presence and sympathy for the miners compels the Baldwin–Felts men to leave empty-handed. One of the hill people is carrying a caplock rifle and when asked mockingly by a departing Baldwin–Felts agent if it was a relic from the Spanish–American War, he replied, "Nope, War Between the States".
The slow arrival of the union's thinly stretched strike funds tests the patience of Danny Radnor and other miners who become disillusioned and turn to violence in spite of Kenehan's warnings. The miners are involved in a night-time shootout with the agents and Sephus is wounded. He is rescued by some hill people but not before he recognizes Lively as the infiltrator.
Lively tries to drive a wedge between Kenehan and the miners by convincing a young widow, Bridey Mae Tolliver, to falsely accuse Kenehan of sexual assault, and he plants a letter which makes Kenehan appear to be the infiltrator. Danny Radnor overhears Hickey and Griggs talking about the scheme but is caught and held by the two men. The agents intend to keep a watchful eye on Danny, but become drunk and are not paying attention that night when Danny, while preaching at the Freewill church, relates a parable about Joseph that convinces the miners that they have been deceived by a false story. One of the miners hurries to the camp to find Few Clothes (James Earl Jones), who had drawn the short straw for who would kill Kenehan for his assumed treachery. Few Clothes tells Kenehan he is there to guard him when he comments on the gun the black miner has. Asked whether he knows how to use it, Few Clothes says yes, that he was in the Spanish–American War of 1898. Kenehan tells him that he was in Fort Leavenworth Military Penitentiary in 1917, and saw Mennonites imprisoned for refusing to bear arms passively resist having their beards shaved and rip the buttons off their prison clothes, since all these were against their religion. They were punished by being handcuffed to cell bars for eight hours per day, until the cuffs had cut into their wrists and caused gangrene. Despite it all, they ripped off re-sewn buttons with their teeth, not one giving up. Kenehan says he never saw braver men, and ironically they were in there for refusing to fight. This tale of bravery and injustice leaves Few Clothes conflicted and unsure about his mission to execute Kenehan. Another miner arrives and tells Few Clothes the truth and Kenehan's execution is called off just in time. Meanwhile, Sephus has made his way back to town and informed the others of Lively's betrayal, furiously burning down his restaurant. Lively flees town by swimming across the Tug Fork River.
Later, Hillard Elkins, a young man and a friend of Danny, is kidnapped by the Baldwin–Felts agents. Elkins is tortured and promised freedom if he gives up the names of five union miners. Elkins instead gives the names of five men buried in a nearby cemetery who perished in the coal mines and the agents kill Elkins by cutting his throat. Lively, who has rejoined the Baldwin–Felts agents, recognizes the names as those of men who had died in a mine five years earlier.
The situation between the Baldwin–Felts men and Chief Hatfield reaches a boiling point with the arrival of reinforcements with orders to carry out the evictions. The mayor tries to negotiate as Kenehan comes running to try to stop the fight. The sudden movement sets off a climactic gunfight between the exposed mercenaries and the armed townspeople firing from barricades and rooftops. Hatfield shoots two men and survives the battle, but Kenehan is killed and the mayor is shot in the stomach. Griggs is brought down, while Hickey escapes to Elma Radnor's boarding house, where he is shot and killed by Elma Radnor. Seven Baldwin–Felts men and two townspeople are ultimately killed.
In the epilogue, the narrator (revealed to be an elderly Danny recalling those days in "Bloody Mingo") recounts that Mayor Testerman succumbed to his wounds and the mayor's wife married Chief Sid Hatfield. But Hatfield was later gunned down in broad daylight on the steps of the McDowell County Courthouse in Welch, with Lively stepping up to deliver the coup de grâce. | historical, murder, atmospheric | train | wikipedia | Director Sayles masterfully documents the nuances of the ageless conflict between those that would control others for profit and those that would not let themselves be controlled and thereby captures the essence of a battle that still rages between the American ideals of freedom and free enterprise.Historically, the film documents a victory (some say massacre) by the miners over the power brokers and thugs of the early 20th century coal mining industry.
Taken in the overall context of the history of Appalachian coal mining, however, what it truly documents is one battle in a war that was eventually lost when the government once again came down on the side of commerce as opposed to human dignity at the battle of Blair Mountain.Fortunately for us, Mr. Sayles seems all too keenly aware of the tremendously important under-currents of this historical event.
Even when his films may vary in overall quality, from merely good to great, they are each interesting and arresting.My mother was an organizer in the southwest coal counties of West Virginia, arriving there in 1926 (having left college), near the end of the coal wars.
The murder of Sid Hatfield, the town sheriff of Matewan, in the year following the year portrayed in the film, in broad daylight on the McDowell County courthouse steps precipitated the largest insurrection in the U.S. since the Civil War. More than 10,000 armed miners from the six coal counties, descended on the court house looking for the private detectives and law "enforcement" officers who were the assassins.
Is the Academy afraid of John Sayles?See Matewan for its wonderful portrayal of the events that occurred in West Virginia in the 1920's.
By "owning" the stores, controlling employment, threatening the physical well-being of its employees, and hiring of thugs to intimidate individuals and their ability to implement any organized mutual assistance, these wealthy and powerful companies sought to (and succeeded in ) maximizing their profits by using the labor of the poor and impotent at almost no cost to the company.One needs to search intensely to finally reveal the true history of our period of industrialization.
It is of great credit to the producer's and director's of such films as "Matewan" that we can see clearly the history and ongoing great struggle between the working class and the wealthy elite to obtain their proper share of "profits."This is a film where one enters a theater to be "entertained", but leaves having the stirrings of compassion and outrage raised in their hearts.
This 1987 film aims to document real events that concerned a small coal mining community (called Matewan) in West Virginia in 1920.
All of the acting is great, including, in the starring role, Chris Cooper, (the Kansas City native who was the abusive father from American Beauty and who starred in another fantastic Sayles film from 1996, Lonestar), David Strathairn as the good-natured but stern police chief, and, in his only theatrical movie role ever (here at 14 years old), indie-folk legend Will Oldham, of Palace Music and Bonnie Prince Billie fame.
You're confidant that Sayles is giving you the truth here, as best he can, through his visual style, restrained, natural dialogue and engaging historic atmosphere.It's movies like this that renew my faith in period pieces.
Important historical films at their best are able to capture a period and bring the audience as close as possible to experiencing the 'feel' of that time--I guess that kinda goes without saying though..
Matewan tells the tale of just one of the battles fought in the coal mining wars of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century.Chris Cooper, as Joe Menehan, plays a union organizer intent upon bringing the miners of Matewan out from underneath the heel of the coal mine owners.
When the scabs join the strikers the mine operators resort to all-out warfare against the unionized miners.David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell - everyone on the cast delivers a believable, wonderful performance.
Everything in this movie makes you feel as if you were really there and depicts this often overlooked event in American history with a stark realism that will leave you thinking about it over and over for a very long time.Such is the impact of the direction, acting, and writing of this movie that when I saw this movie on video about a week ago, it was still as fresh in my mind as when I saw it last on the big screen on opening day.10 out of 10.
This movie is based on the Battle of Matewan that took place in Matewan, West Virginia in 1920.The conditions these workers faced were brutal.
James Earl Jones is terrific as a black miner who is signed up as a scab but he's actually a union sympathizer who encourages the black scabs to strike with the West Virginia workers.Chris Cooper is also great as a union organizer.
I think that was due to his role as the warden in The Shawshank Redemption where he just let it all out.I liked one scene in particular early in the film where the union men on strike try to weed out Cooper by finding out how much he knows about union history.
"Matewan" shows these sorts of things in the early 20th century, when miners led by Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) went on strike against a mining company in West Virginia.
Matewan is a somewhat over-earnest depiction of a coal strike in 1920s West Virginia that is carried by some outstanding acting and fine cinematography.
I suppose I could go on and on but I will just leave it with this thought: "Matewan" is an American film-making masterpiece and Mr. Sayles is it's greatest director..
With Lone Star I bemoaned the lack of a visual imagination, but coming to a Sayles film for a narrative like I did with Matewan, I leave completely satisfied.
The man excels in telling us stories with scope and values of importance.What a lovely world he creates here, among the derelict shacks and cabins of the Pennsylvania foothills of Matewan a moral struggle is fought, flawed characters with faces blackened by coaldust fumble with great ideals and big hopes for a better future, and the one thing that stands between them and justice is their own prejudice.
John Sayles is a leftist and this comes across loud and clear in Matewan, but unlike a Godard film like Week End, Sayles doesn't call for blood, he calls for social justice.The narrative here sprawls in and out of log cabins where sullen faces plot strikes and discuss ideals, in and out of makeshift tents and muddy town streets where coalminers live and die and sing, now a fiddle or harmonica is calling out from the dark the sad tune of a life of suffering, and the finale is sealed with a shootout filled with tragedy and hope.
Sayles' camera doesn't intrude in any of this, rather it's invited in and hankers down out of way to quietly listen or conspire.Matewan makes a great doublebill with Martin Ritt's The Molly Maguires, another forlorn drama of the oppressed that speaks of moral devastation in the Pennsylvania coal fields, but more, it stands by itself as one of the great American narratives of the 80's..
Matewan is Chris Cooper's first of two films with a West Virgina coal mining town as the backdrop.
Beautifully photographed in shades of brown and sepias, this movie tells a uniquely American tale of coal miners fighting for their rights in rural West Virginia in the early part of the 20th century.
Orginally born and raised in West Virginia in the Logan County area my parents knew of the coal mining thugs and credit this film as being 100% an accurate protrayel of the harsh times of the 20's, My Faviorite part of the film was the moment Sid Hatifield expresses how he feels about Mr Felts ( I would'nt pee on him if his heart was on fire)but he deputizes the men to go home and get there Gun's ( what a great guy) he did'nt ask them if it was registered ( I am anti gun-control) and pro 2d Ammendment.
Having grown up in the southern coalfields of West Virginia I heard the stories of the way things were from many people who lived during those years.
Many of the scenes in this movie are very accurate: the Baldwin-Felts agents were ruthless in carrying out the mine owners orders and yes that was a machine gun gaurding the mines in the movie, the working conditions for the miners during those years were terrible as the company literally owned the miners and everything around them, evictions were common, tent camps were everywhere.
This film really depicts life in southern West Virginia during those years with all of its elements, including the 'hill people' towards the end of the movie.
Enjoy!My review for the teachers of US History courses: The film Matewan exemplifies the dynamics between the corporate capitalist class of super rich company owners, and the lower class of workers.
While the movie is slightly biased in favor of the mistreated strikers (as is natural), it portrays an accurate picture of the events that occurred in Matewan as well as other mining towns in the early 1900's of West Virginia.
By making the miners work for the company, live in a company owned home and by not paying those cash, but instead making them buy their goods at the company store on company credit was like slavery.
In today's world, we still see injustice arising like those of early twentieth century America, but in third world countries such as those in Africa.The best part of the film was the ending when the union workers and the mine owners face off in a confrontational shootout in the streets of town.
For all those whose populist instincts come to the fore whenever they re-watch "Matewan," I have to recommend the book that this movie was based on, Lon Savage's "Thunder in the Mountains." That excellent opus tells the true story of the West Virginia coal mining wars of the early 1920's and focuses on the real Sid Hatfield.
John Sayles consistently makes intelligent, meaningful films that also happen to be compelling and Matewan is one of his best.
The acting is superb with Chris Cooper, surely one of America's most underrated actors (brilliant in 'American Beauty'), James Earl Jones, David Strahairn and a wonderful supporting ensemble.
A Truly Great American Film, says so much about the human predicament while never forgetting this great, tight little story of simple people..
Although not quite historically accurate, the film captures the feel and the times of the West Virginia coal wars.
The story of labor strife in Matewan, West Virginia unfolds in such an unassuming fashion, you don't realize until the very end how involved you have become in the lives of the characters.My only criticism is that good and evil is drawn too clearly.
When the mining company muscle comes to town to frighten the workers they are so unrelentingly BAD that their fate, as well as those on the GOOD side of the battle, is all too predictable leaving us with a hollow resolution.But the cast is impeccable, as is the setting and attention to historical detail.
The main character, Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) is a pacifist union man sent to Matewan to try to organize the workers to form a union to fight for better conditions.
I understand "Matewan" is a historical fiction drama that uses actual events as a way to convey a fictional story, but it nonetheless evokes a real time in American history that is seldom ever discussed in the popular media, mostly because the issues of that time speak ill of American technological and social evolution rather than anything that one could feel patriotic about.
In this sense, a quality movie like "Matewan" is an exception rather than the rule with regards to period dramas related to important events in American history.
The sensitive and poignant way by which John Sayles tells the story of West Virginia coal miners and a labor strike which culminated in bloodshed make the audience engaged in the plot and, by extension, the real life events described in the movie.The film itself is seldom boring, and the protagonist characters (Chris Cooper, Mary McDonnell, and Will Oldham) are sympathetically credibly portrayed.
There are few shades of grey in Sayles' movie: the miners are the good guys, and the mine owners and their hired thugs are the bad guys.
While "Matewan" ultimately comes across as a polemic film with an obvious message about the struggles of the working man, it is still a powerful and well-made drama that viewers will find involving.
The real Battle of Matewan and the West Virginia Miners' Strike of the early 1920s are obscure events in American history, but are nevertheless important as part of the greater trend of social unrest inherent in America's Industrial Revolution.
John Sayles shows courage by making a film about a seldom-mentioned and uncomfortable part of America's history.
John Sayles is always very good to excellent (Lone Star, City of Hope and Limbo stand out as my other Sayles favorites), but he outdid himself with Matewan.As an informational note, the final scene of this movie was filmed in Thurmond, West Virginia.
Virginia, this film follows the story of a teen-aged preacher and a (presumed) Wobbly (I.W.W) organizer who strive to organize coal miners in order to throw off the heavy shackles of fascistic company management.
I happened to rent it on a gamble, knowing of Sayles, but not really having much of an interest in movies taking place in the Hills of West Virginia.
A labor union organizer (Chris Cooper) comes to an embattled mining community brutally and violently dominated and harassed by the mining company.The problem with a union movie is that today (2016) the union movement is more controversial than ever.
If anyone needed a union, it was the coal miners of West Virginia who were literally dying on the job.
John Sayles tackles a union struggle from 1920 in West Virginia where coal miners seeking a better pay and working conditions organize against a company who use race to divide the workers, making it a wedge between black and white workers.This was the era of the company store when the mining company owned the people doing all the back breaking work.
Writer director John Sayles turns the pages of history back to West Virginia circa 1920, where overworked and underpaid employees of the Stone Mountain Coal Company attempt to unionize the mines, touching off a violent confrontation with company strikebreakers.
This movie takes place at a time and place in our history when men literally spilled their blood and lost their lives to fight for the right to unionize, especially in the coal mining industry, where miners were often paid in company script instead of money which could only be used to purchase overpriced goods in company owned stores and the company held the title on their rented homes, so they could evict any "troublemaker" at any time for any reason.
At first it looks like Chris Cooper's union organizer character will have that role, but the film loses interest in him midway, spreading it's concentration willy-nilly among a variety of people.
It also doesn't help that the wonderful David Strathairn - who plays Hatfield - is forced to wear this hat that makes him look goofy, rather like a comic Walter Brennan character from a John Ford Western.There are fine individual performances: Strathairn, Cooper, James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell, Will Oldham, and others.
Thought Matewan was an early film in Chris Cooper's career, and the fact that I had seen some of his later impressive picture, I could see the power ChrisCooper had in his ability to bring his character to life.
> The movie never really takes off - it's evocative and reasonably > engrossing, > but seems too narrow in its scope; the final set-piece of the company > men > versus the miners, staged around the railway tracks with such > watered-down > Peckinpahisms as McDonnell shooting a villain through the white > sheets > hanging on the clothes line, is a straightforward good vs.
> Key plot devices like the conspiracy to discredit union man > Cooper, > foiled only at the last minute, may or may not have some basis in fact, > but > indicate the surprising simplicity of the storytelling - very few > characters > are allowed to attain much complexity, and Sayles' treatment of the black > and > Italian factions seems a bit too dutiful.
In its favour is the handsome, > dark > cinematography; some effective rabble-rousing here and there (Sayles > gives > the most striking performance as a fire and brimstone preacher), the > director's > usual smoothness and literacy - actually maybe a less traditionally > competent > movie would have worked better here..
It was based during the 1920 in the life of coal workers in West Virginia going on strike.
This is "based on a true story" of the shoot out in the coal-mining town of Matewan, West Virginia, in 1920.
The workers themselves, laboring under dismal and dangerous conditions, must pay for everything a la carte, including their work tools.The miners don't care for the arrangement, nor for the "scab" laborers -- blacks and Italian immigrants -- that the company brings in.Enter the union man Chris Cooper, a Christ-like figure preaching brotherhood and non-violence.
The film tells the story of an early effort to unionise West Virginian coalfields, and takes place in an isolated town where coal miners are bullied by various mining corporations and their gun-toting thugs.
Matewan (1987): Dir: John Sayles / Cast: Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones, Will Oldham: Effective look into the black slave situation in the 1920's.
Set in West Virginia 1920 where coal miners fight for their jobs.
It tells the true story of the labor conflict of coal miners in Virginia around 1920. |
tt0173682 | Sky High | Will Stronghold begins ninth grade at Sky High, a high school that exclusively teaches teenagers with superpowers. Will's parents are The Commander and Jetstream, some of the world's most famous superheroes. Will's best friend, Layla, who happens to have a crush on him, has the power to manipulate plant life. Will is anxious about attending Sky High, located on a floating campus reached by a flying school bus, because, unbeknownst to his parents, he has not developed any super powers. On the first day, he and the other ninth graders are harassed by a trio of bullies: Speed, a burly senior with super speed, Lash, a skinny senior with extreme flexibility, and Penny, a senior cheerleader who can clone herself. Because of his lack of powers, Will is slated to enter a curriculum for "Hero Support" and becomes a sidekick. His classmates include Ethan, who melts into a fluid; Zach, who glows in the dark; Magenta, who transforms into a guinea pig; and Layla, who joins the class in protest against the two-track nature of the school's education system. The class is taught by The Commander's former sidekick, "All American Boy."
Will learns that not everybody gets powers, and there are such cases of those who have two superpower parents do not get any superpowers, such as the Bus driver Ron Wilson. The Commander is unaware that his son has been relegated to Hero Support, and shows Will his hidden trophy room. He is particularly proud of the mysterious weapon, "The Pacifier", which he took from his science-themed nemesis, Royal Pain, years ago. Unknown to either of them, Royal Pain, who had been presumed dead, watches the exchange from a hidden camera in one of the other trophies. As Will settles into Sky High and makes friends with the other sidekicks, he comes into conflict with pyrokinetic student, Warren Peace, whose supervillain father had been imprisoned by The Commander. During a fight between the two, Will demonstrates super strength, impressing Gwen Grayson, a beautiful and popular "technopath" who controls machines with her mind. Will is subsequently transferred to the "Hero" track and begins spending more time with Gwen and her clique of friends, ignoring the sidekicks and Layla, who reveals to Warren that she has loved Will for a long time. On the day before the dance, Gwen tricks Will into throwing a party at his house, and uses Speed to steal the Pacifier when she seduces Will into showing her the Secret Sanctum. After Gwen lies to Layla, who shows up to investigate the noise and believes the lie, Will breaks up with Gwen, refusing to attend the dance, even though his parents were invited as honored guests. Later, he looks through his father's old yearbook and sees a student who resembles Gwen. Believing that the student is Royal Pain and that Gwen is her daughter, he rushes to the dance.
At the dance party, Gwen reveals that she is actually Royal Pain. During her previous confrontation with the Commander, the Pacifier, which is meant to turn its target into an infant, had malfunctioned, turning her into a baby instead, thus faking her suspected death. She has since waited sixteen years for revenge. With the help of Speed, Lash, and Penny, she takes over the school and uses the Pacifier to turn the faculty and students into infants. After returning to school, Will apologizes to Layla, and teams up with Warren, the sidekicks and Ron Wilson to try to save the day. The sidekicks demonstrate their heroism after Royal Pain sabotages the school's anti-gravity drive and their powers come in handy restarting it. Meanwhile, Will discovers that he has Jetstream's powers of flight when he is thrown off the edge of the school grounds and prevents the campus from falling using his two abilities. Gwen and her henchmen are defeated and arrested and the faculty and students are returned to their proper ages. Will and Layla kiss, and a voiceover at the end reveals that they become a couple, he and Warren became best friends, and Ron Wilson gained superhuman powers after falling into a vat of toxic waste, thus becoming a superhero. | murder | train | wikipedia | SHOULD BE PASSED OVER.. Director Nico Mastorakis is responsible for some fairly well-crafted linear output, but with this piece it is obvious that he lacks a point of view as to the nature of the type of film he wishes to create, with a result being an inordinately silly affair that is opposed to constraints of taste or the merest intelligence. The storyline wanders in all sorts of directions, beginning with a scene of suspense, then abruptly shifting into being after a teenage sex farce, all the while touching upon themes of what could have been, if handled appropriately, mystery and romantic love, with ancillary liaisons to slapstick, psychedelic music videos, and entirely too much else. A chaotic plot outlines antics of three male U.C.L.A. students who have taken a year off from school to gambol about in Greece but, instead of just chasing young women, they also find themselves prey for what may be C.I.A. operatives, since it is believed that the collegiate trio has by chance come to possess an astounding audio visual tape that may destroy civilization. This is rather stupidly presented and is exacerbated by some atrocious acting, largely by tyros who seemingly receive little directoral supervision, although veteran supporting player John Lawrence adds needed ballast. The self-indulgent director is responsible for having organized digital effects design and trite sound FX, as evidenced in tiresome scenes mindful of MTV, and also offers meaningless voyeuristic shots of topless beach bathers. As in many films lacking coherence, a goodly amount of footage is of scenery, in this case featuring the beautiful Greek islands of Rhodes, Santorini and, especially, of Mykonos, where most of the sunlit action is to be found. As some of the locations are responsible for backing of this puerile effort, camera eye roving of the picturesque is understandable on that account, but no rationale can be found for the greatest portion of a film that one avoids, to one's advantage.. Travelogue Masquerading as Thriller in Sunny Greece. This tame account of three single, male, UCLA students on vacation in sunny Greece is a travelogue masquerading as a thriller. Director Nico Mastorakis stages the action against some of the most breathtaking scenery in the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately, the scenery is more interesting than this lame spy thriller about a Russian who gives a top secret formula to a nerdy kid while visiting the Acropolis of Athens. The drug works on the central nervous system like no other drug imaginable at that time. This mysterious drug is the best thing about this forgettable nail-biter. The KGB stalk Lester (Daniel Hirsch of "My Chauffeur"), Bobby (Clayton Norcross of "Defending Your Life"), and Mick (Frank Schultz) across the Aegean in an effort to get their hands on the secret formula. Along the way, our misfit heroes run into a bevy of beautiful babes, and we are treated to lots of topless shots of women strewn out on the beach. Mastorakis conjures up marginal suspense. The best action scene involves a "From Russia With Love" style helicopter shoot'em up where a major supporting character, a CIA agent Boswell (John Lawrence of "Hot Summer Week"), who has been running interference for them for about two-thirds of the movie, dies from three bullet wounds to the chest. The three leads are leaden lugs and their acting is abysmal. Les is the be-spectacled computer nerd who is drawn out of his corner and given a make-over. Les is also the one who has the drug thrust upon him before they pile aboard a cruise ship with two sinister KGB agents tailing them. Les throws the drug that was recorded onto audiotape into the sea. Evidently, the drug when it is encoded into a tape puts out a sound that stops people dead in their tracks so you can walk around them without them seeing you. The dumbest scene has Bobby and Mick fleeing across white-washed roof-tops with the KGB hot on their heels and then leaping off the roof and landing without injury onto a vehicle loaded with eggs. Talk about far-fetched nonsense. As one KGB agent pursues them, they hurl eggs at him. Eggs! The major revelation that comes with a quarter-hour left to go contains a couple of surprises, but these reversals don't compensate for the lackluster thrills and chills. Incidentally, the title of the movie is the name of the mysterious drug that gives everything an hallucinatory experience.. this is so bad it's almost good. You never really quite know what's going on, and some of the acting is unspeakably terrible, amongst the worst I've ever seen. The plot is not so much full of holes as gaping bottomless-pitted crevasses. Nevertheless I can't give it a 1/10, there is something about it that makes it riveting viewing, just to see the next mind-bogglingly acted scene or twist in the "plot". I have to also give it marks for originality as well, and the rickshaw-chase scene with the two heroes throwing eggs at the villain was a camp masterpiece that had me in stitches. I mean, it's so frightening it's almost good! Remembering that it was filmed in 1985 in the middle of cold war hysteria, it does look a little bit dated now with the KGB and all, but it was certainly a reasonable idea that could have been executed better, although that might have taken it out of the realm of the truly pathetic and into the humdrum of the forgettable. |
tt0471020 | The Man Who Walked Between the Towers | The Man Who Walked Between The Towers follows the French street performer Philippe Petit in an illustrated children's book made by author Mordicai Gerstein. Philippe Petit had an idea to walk a wire between the twin towers and acted upon it with much planning and setting up. He had once walked a wire on the Notre Dame where he lived in Paris, France. Early on an August morning, since the towers were not quite finished, Philippe Petit and his friend dressed up as a construction worker and went up the south tower. They got a 440 lbs of cable into the elevator. Took it to the top 10 floors and waited until nightfall. Then they carried everything up 180 stairs into the roof. At midnight, two more friends came to help and tied a line through an arrow and shot it across to Philippe 140 feet away. It missed and landed on a ledge who crawled down the ledge of the tower to get the arrow. To the line he attached a stronger line, whom his friends pulled back and he tied it to a cable that was 5/8 of an inch thick. The cable was so heavy that it took them 3 hours to secure the line from across the two towers. By past dawn of August 7, 1974, they had tightened it between the towers. Philippe then put on his black shirt and tights and picked up his 28-foot balancing pole and started walking on the wire. He felt, "Alone and absolutely free", as author Mordecai Gerstein writes. The bystanders notice someone walking between the two towers and quickly notify the police. Officers rushed to the roof of the towers and yelled to Philippe, "You're under arrest!" For almost an hour Philippe walked, danced, and leaped back and forth between the wire. He even laid down to rest. When he felt completely satisfied, he walked towards the tower and held out his wrists towards the handcuffs. They brought Philippe to court and the judge sentenced him to perform in the park for the children of the city. This he did happily. Though during his performance some kids jerked his wire and Philippe fell but caught himself. Now the towers are gone but the memory remains of August 7, 1974 when a man walked between the towers. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | OK, but not really my thing.. I'll immediately put up my hand and admit I only watched this because Jake Gyllenhaal narrated it. To be honest, if he hadn't and I could turn back time, I wouldn't have chosen to see it. Jake manages to put emotion and a sense of "awesome!!" into what Phillipe tries to do, but this is essentially a cartoon, and the animation ain't all that. I guess as someone brought up on Pixar I would say this, but while this style of drawing would look brilliant in a book, on film it...doesn't. However, the plot, based on the true story of someone who attempted to walk between the Twin Towers, is short but sweet. Jake's breathless will-he-won't-he attitude actually had me wanting to know whether he WOULD or not. If Jake ever gets bored with acting, he should take up voice-overs, or narrate children's books or something because he has a very radio-friendly voice. I would suggest people watch for Jake, but otherwise, only if you REALLY want to watch a French dude tight-rope walk.. Nice Way to Introduce Kids to the Event. The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (2005) *** (out of 4) The title here is the same title to the children's book, which discusses Philippe Petit's historic and now legendary walk between the two Twin Towers.This animated film lasts under ten minutes and it basically has someone reading the book to you while we get animated shots from the book. I must admit that this isn't the greatest thing ever made but I do think it would be the perfect way to introduce a kid to the events of that day. Both MAN ON WIRE and THE WALK wouldn't entertain young kids so this animated short would be perfect for them. The animation itself is rather raw but I liked that about it. It seems there are a couple versions of this out there with different narrators. Jake Gyllenhaal narrated one version but the one I've got has someone else.. A Walk to Remember. "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers" is a an animated short film from 10 years ago. The director is Oscar nominee Michael Sporn and he made this one already during the later stages of his career. He died last year. It is based on a book by Mordicai Gerstein, but even more based on actual events. Philippe Petit made this daring back in the 1970s and he we are told what it was exactly that he did and how police came to get him. I must say the animation looks certainly a lot older than 21st century. If you have a further interest in the story, you may want to check out the Oscar-winning documentary "Man on Wire" or wait for Robert Zemeckis' 2015 movie "The Walk", in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Petit. In any case the fact that the Towers do not exist today anymore made this walk an even more memorable achievement back then. No greatness here, but a solid cartoon that is mostly worth the watch because it's not fiction and I recommend it. Especially to fans of the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who narrates this story here the very year he scored an Academy Award nomination for "Brokeback Mountain".. A "Welcome to the skyline" performance. (Warning: contains spoilers. Do not read if you haven't seen the film/read the book yet.)When I first heard about this story/cartoon, I wasn't so sure about it at first. But then I watched it on youtube, and wow... It was absolutely fantastic. The plot involves a real historical event with Philippe Petit and is plan to stretch a tightrope between the Twin Towers, and walk across them. He stuns people in the city below in a positive matter. But the stupid police tried to get him off, but Philippe stayed on for a full hour, until he felt completely satisfied. He was taken to court, and thankfully his only sentence was a free performance in the park, which tried to end things on a positive note. The narrator gives an excellent job of telling the story, and it gave me that sort of suspense I never thought I'd have from a children's book. It was a stunning performance, and I think it really gave the Twin Towers a good beginning to their existence. However, the only thing I'd wished was that the actual Twin Towers would've been drawn a bit better. Regardless, the story was fantastic, most of the illustrations looked nice, the narration was excellent, and it gave me some extra information on the actual event I never knew. Overall, I give it a 9 out of 10. |
tt0083296 | Visiting Hours | Deborah Ballin (Grant), a feminist activist, inspires the wrath of misogynistic psychopath and serial killer Colt Hawker (Ironside) on a TV talk show. He attacks her, but she survives and is sent to County General Hospital.
Hawker begins stalking her. Deborah befriends nurse Sheila Munroe (Purl), who admires her devotion to women's rights. Hawker murders an elderly patient and a nurse. He overhears Sheila's opinions on Deborah and "that bastard" who attacked her. Hawker decides to focus his attention on Sheila, stalking her and her children at home.
Hawker courts a young punk girl named Lisa (Zann), then brutally beats, tortures, and rapes her. The next day, Deborah discovers that the patient and nurse have been killed, so she suspects her attacker is back to finish the job. She tries to convince her boss, Gary Baylor (Shatner), and Sheila that she is not safe, but both think she is simply paranoid.
Hawker visits his father, who was disfigured years ago by his mother, explaining his hatred for self-defending women. Soon he tries again to kill Deborah, but is thwarted by her security. A frantic Sheila is paged and finds Lisa (whose wounds she had treated) waiting for her. Lisa says she knows the identity of Deborah's attacker, and where he lives.
Before she can alert anyone, Sheila gets an ominous phone call from Hawker, warning her that he is in her house with her young daughter and babysitter. She sends Lisa to warn Deborah, then rushes home, only to find her daughter and babysitter safe in bed. She places a call to Deborah, but a hidden Hawker springs forth, stabs Sheila in the stomach and pushes her to the ground, phone to her ear, torturing her for Deborah to hear. He moves toward Sheila's young daughter. Sheila can only scream in terror. At the last second, he walks out, leaving Sheila to die.
Hawker goes home, where he devises one last plan to get to Deborah. He busts a beer bottle underneath his arm, wounding himself badly. Gary and Deborah have an ambulance sent to Sheila's house. Still alive, but badly wounded, she is rushed to the hospital. Gary accompanies the police to Hawker's apartment, where they discover photos of Hawker's previous victims, as well as of Deborah and Sheila. They also learn that the wounded Hawker has been taken to County General.
Just as Sheila is taken into the emergency room, Hawker is wheeled in. After being bandaged and medicated, Hawker sneaks away to find Deborah and attacks her. She flees to an elevator. In the basement, she goes into a radiography room, finding a helpless Sheila, all alone, waiting for X-rays.
Realizing she must lure Hawker away to protect Sheila, Deborah leaves and deliberately gives her location away. As Hawker approaches the curtain she is hiding behind, Deborah stabs hims with a switchblade, killing him. Sheila is wheeled to safety, while Gary comforts Deborah, who faints at the sight of what she has done. | cruelty, grindhouse film, murder, cult, violence, flashback, sadist | train | wikipedia | Some of the acting in minor roles (notably the nurses) is weak, but Zann does a pretty decent job as a slutty date of Ironside's and the leads hold the film together (as much as they can with the somewhat contrived script.) Grant's conviction to her role and Ironside's steely determination go a long way to saving the movie..
One of the better Canadian killer-thrillers of the 80's is this solid shocker.TV journalist is attacked by a maniac and taken to the hospital, now the obsessive creep is determined to make sure she doesn't get well soon!Visiting Hours is a film that, like most slasher films of the 80's, has gotten a bad reputation from critics.
It seems in getting fixated on the (in my view, non-existent) laughs from Shatner, viewers seem to have a blind spot to a lot of good things that VISITING HOURS achieves.Ironside is strong as the killer (Colt Hawker), whose desire to kill comes from a terrible childhood and an abusive father.
"Visiting Hours" is a forgotten slasher film which stars Michael Ironside as a murderer stalking TV journalist Lee Grant.The film is pretty slow,but there is enough violence to satisfy fans of horror cinema.Ironside is pretty believable as a misogynistic serial killer,the rest of the cast is also impressive.The film is pretty scary and suspenseful,so fans of slasher movies won't be disappointed.It was made the same year as similar "Halloween 2".Overall,I enjoyed this one and you should too,especially if you like slasher movies.My rating:8 out of 10..
i really enjoyed this movie.the pace is frantic at times(in a good way)there's lots of suspense.the villain is definitely menacing,to say the least.even better is the fact that this movie contains no stoned or drunk, easy target teenagers.the victims are all adults and the killer is not just some faceless murdering machine.he has a personality(not a good personality,but at least he has 1)the other thing i liked is that we are shown some insight into why this particular psycho kills women.this is a Canadian movie,which may surprise some people,given how good the movie is.William Shatner is in this movie,but thankfully his role is small enough not to torpedo the movie.others in the movie include Michael Ironside,Lee Grant and Linda purl.1 other thing i should say is that "Visiting Hours"is a "smart" horror flick.easily 8*/10.
"Visiting Hours" has Lee Grant as an outspoken and controversial feminist journalist who becomes the prime target of women-hating serial killer Colt Hawker (Michael Ironside).
Unfortunately, that's the least of her worries, because Hawker hasn't let her go as prey, and she can't leave the hospital.Underrated as a thriller and overblown as a "slasher," "Visiting Hours" is one of the stronger and lesser-seen killer thrillers of the 1980s, but there is plenty in it to be admired.
Thrown into the mix is a confused albeit interesting social commentary angle on non-violence, and Grant's moxie-filled character punctuates the film's time period and the social landscape of second wave feminism.Overall, "Visiting Hours" is one of the classier horror films of the early '80s, and has a much more mature feel to it.
I was a kid when it came out on video, and I thought the picture of the hospital at night with the image of a skull appearing in the matrix of the lighted rooms was just the coolest thing I'd ever seen.When I finally got around to renting it this past weekend, I was quite disappointed.The basic plot is that an outspoken tv host (Lee Grant) criticizes a guest on her show because he defended a known criminal in court.
This is an interesting change from most slasher films that either don't explain a killer's motives, or do it by exchanging dialogue between other characters.William Shatner has a small role as the producer of the tv show that Grant works on.
Furthermore, neither the psychopath nor any of his victims are elevated above the very basic level of characterisation needed for this sort of film, and since this plot was done to (slightly) better effect a year earlier with Halloween 2, there really isn't a lot of reason to bother with this hospital slasher.
Of course, the film did feature on the DPP 'Video Nasty' list back in the eighties, so it will always have something of a fan base as well as a list of people wanting to see it; but even as a Video Nasty, it isn't all that good as the scenes of gore mostly feel rushed and in true Halloween style, the murders aren't exactly imaginative.The hospital setting ensures that the film stands out as hospitals are traditionally 'safe' places where the sick get better; whereas here we've got someone bumping off the patients.
Linda Purl and Lee Grant both give typical performances as typical female victims (although the film features no nudity) and William Shatner also has a small role.
The problem is that none of the characters except the villain come off as plausible or interesting.I usually like Lee Grant but I found her performance here to be so wooden, strident, and annoying that I was actually hoping for Ironside to finish her off in the end.
And as interesting as Ironside's character is he is given little to work with in terms of back story and NOTHING in terms of dialog (are all psychos mute or illiterate....apparently).Linda Purl is out of her league on film (as usual) and Bill Shatner is just there, as pretty much usual --- this is way before they were allowing him to have a personality....too bad.
It's no surprise that he went on to become a fairly well-known star after his great performance here.To sum up, "Visiting Hours" is flawed and no classic, but as an example of the slasher film genre, it's definitely above average, and a must watch if you are a fan of this genre..
Visiting Hours has a fairly typical slasher premise, with an insane killer stalking a woman confined to the hospital after one of his attacks.
He brings his character, a misogynistic murderer, a depth and menace most slasher villains did not achieve, particular in 1982, when most were Michael Myers clones.The film also engages with serious themes of misogyny, framing the killer's violence in terms of his hatred of women.
Although many slasher movies deal in this theme, Visiting Hours brings it to the surface, making Lee Grant's protagonist an ardent feminist and featuring several strong female characters.
He's in, he's out!" And she's right!Michael Ironside as Colt Hawker might as well be stomping about wearing a T-shirt with "PSYCHOTIC LONER" printed in capitals on it, but throughout the film has the run of the place without ever attracting attention despite making no attempt to put those around him off their guard by at least attempting a passable impersonation of a normal human being.More and more police pile into the building, but Hawker is never short of deserted corridors down which to skulk; and the only time the cops ever seem to stir themselves out of their torpor is to obstruct people who are genuinely trying to help.
But the twisted killer has returned to finish the job and Deborah doesn't stand a chance.Co-starring the likes of William Shatner, Linda Purl and perennial heavy Michael Ironside, 'Visiting Hours' is a way out-of-date slasher.
After a vicious knife attack by misogynistic psycho Colt Hawker (Michael Ironside), feminist TV reporter Deborah Ballin (Lee Grant) is taken to hospital where the maniac repeatedly tries to finish the job by posing as members of staff.I vividly remember this film's cinematic release back in '82; the advert was on TV at the same time as I was in hospital with a broken leg and, rather unsurprisingly, it struck a nerve.
The film clearly struck a nerve with the BBFC as well, the censors later adding it to the UK official video nasty list thanks to the killer's disturbing brand of misogyny and sadistic violence: as slasher villains go, Ironside's Hawker is particularly cruel, the character primarily targeting females, delighting in their fear and pain, teasing them with his switchblade and taking photos of them as they die.However, as memorably nasty as Ironside's psycho undoubtedly is, the film doesn't quite live up to its potential; there is a notable lack of gore (a mainstay of the genre), and the pacing is rather weak, with matters tending to drag after Hawker's initial assault on Ballin.
We also get pointless filler in the form of William Shatner's concerned TV producer, who does nothing to further the plot, Linda Purl's single parent nurse, whose primary job is to look cute in her uniform, and lots of cheap scares (including one from a parrot!).With more grisly killings and tighter pacing, this could have been one of the genuinely great slashers of the 80s, especially given the intensity of Ironside's performance; sadly, it only qualifies as essential viewing to those determined to see all of the video nasties..
A lot of the times the censors banned films like Day of the Woman (I Spit on Your Grave) and The Witch Who Came From the Sea because of graphic content while totally ignoring the artistic value and symbolism behind the brutality and just labeling them as cheap exploitation but with Visiting Hours its the exact opposite.The story is pretty much what it seems like and there isn't much going on in the background.
"Visiting Hours" was actually kind of scary.Lee Grant plays Deborah Ballin, a TV reporter who has caught the attention of serial killed Colt Hawker (Michael Ironside), who has a deep hatred for women.
It will scare you senseless and at the same time make you wonder why you wasted 105 minutes of your life on something that reeks of bad acting (not in Shatner's case)and low budget horror gimmicks that have been used more than your fridge on a NIGHT OF THE MUNCHIES (that could be a good s**t film title,like this one) Finally if you have the urge to watch this for some odd reason then do, take your self back to the early 80's and listen to Wham afterwards.
This video nasty was initially banned in Britain, but released with 2 minutes cut in 1896.It is a good tale of suspense with a professional, misogynistic slasher, Michael Ironside (Scanners), stalking a woman (Lee Grant) and anyone who gets in the way.The music was really good and added to the suspense.
Instead of b-actors that don't know what they're doing, this cast is made up of some pretty good actors such as Academy-Award winner Lee Grant, William Shatner, the ever-creepy Michael Ironside, and Linda Purl.
Nurse Sheila Munroe also finds herself involved in this terrifying affair, as Hawker sees as her as the next possible victim.What might seem like a basic run-of-a-mill early 80's slasher entry, happens to be better then expected, because of a sterling cast with confident performances and there being a little more weight to the premise's chilling set-up.
Lenore Zann is bitingly good in her minor part and William Shatner sticks pretty close to the sidelines, seeing very little of the action with his timid role.An unsettlingly above-average slasher with few effective heart pounding scenes and strong-willed performances.
A not bad slasher flick that came before the tidal wave of badness overcame the genre.This one is worth a look for the name stars.Seeing Oscar winner Lee Grant and William "Star Trek" Shatner play in this type of film was a bit of a trip.
Granted, no new ground was broken in this little venture but a moody performance by MICHAEL IRONSIDE as a woman killing psycho and mostly good performances and production values makes this an addaquite venture into this horror sub-sub-genre.
There are some pretty suspenseful scenes (particularly in the beginning, in Grant's home), and Ironside -- the mean-looking villain from "Scanners" and "Total Recall" -- was born to play at least one psycho slasher in his career, but much of the plotting and the killer's motivations were baffling to me, and it's a wonder some of the characters didn't fall into one of the several plot holes scattered all over the place.
Still, there's more insight into the killer's character (who doesn't speak his first line of dialogue until about forty minutes into the movie) than you usually get in an early-'80s slasher, and you also get William Shatner as Grant's encouraging boss.
Also stars Linda Purl as a pretty nurse who the killer, for some reason, starts stalking for a big part of the movie.HIGHLIGHT: The first time we see Ironside, he jumps out naked from Grant's closet wearing all of her jewelry on his face.
Seriously, why shouldn't you like and enjoy this movie, especially when you are into the genre.Part of the reason why the movie really works out as an effective one is because of the fact that it's almost entirely being set inside an hospital, which is always a great and creepy environment for a movie of this sort.You could say that the movie its story is lacking at times and the killer's motivations are a bit unlikely perhaps, as are some of the other character's reactions to certain things but when watching a movie like this you always already have to take certain things like this for granted.
It's hard to understand how HALLOWEEN and Friday THE 13TH managed to spawn so many knock-offs because most were pointless garbage and never made any cash at the box office, anyway.This Canadian-lensed slasher, set in a hospital, is so slight and slow it's barely a horror movie.Michael Ironside, fresh off SCANNERS, is a troubled nutbag who finds a reason to hate and hurt Lee Grant.
Visiting Hours (1982) 1/2 (out of 4) Incredibly silly horror film from Canada about a woman-hating psycho (Michael Ironside) who gets upset with a news reporter (Lee Grant) doing a story on an abused woman so he decides to break into her home and kill her.
A crazed, women-hating killer (Michael Ironside) attacks journalist Deborah Ballin (Lee Grant).
It has it's moments of suspense, a relentless killer well played by Michael Ironside, a couple effective jump scares, a script that upgrades the slasher genre by cleverly including some character development, and all of the above I like.
Unfortunately offsetting the good is a very unsympathetic, unlikable heroine news reporter played by Lee Grant, at least a bunch of logic sinkholes that swallow all believability, William Shatner appearing in a non essential supporting role that goes absolutely nowhere, and an overlong run time for such an obvious story.
In these type of films, the movie only works if the villain is good enough, thankfully the horrifying subdued performance of the great Ironside makes this slasher flick rise above the more mediocre ones.
It must be hard to find a movie more incoherent than this one.The killer,-M.Ironside ,aping Jack Nicholson in "shining"-seems to be everywhere at once.Although the hospital is full of cops,anyone can just walk right in.And how comic Lee Grant's horror scenes are!Every time she screams ,her eyes popping out of her head,she makes the movie seem like a spoof.But it's not!It's serious.Short flashbacks "explain" the killer's behavior:his father treated her wife so bad that she scalded him (with the French fries oil).The killer takes photographs of dying people .This "peeping tom" rip-off is a regression :in 1960,the killer filmed his victims' death!Avoid at any cost..
One of the good things is the killer, Colt Hawker, played by the ever cool Michael Ironside, who is out to silence a very opinionated TV Journalist Deborah Ballin (ballin he he) from spreading her feelings all over TV about a self defense case involving a woman who was abused by her spouse.Ironside's character hates woman all because of an incident he watched as a child of his father being burned by hot water that his mother throw at him to keep him from getting his drunk hands all over her.
Vicious misogynistic psycho par excellence Colt Hawker (a truly chilling and convincing portrayal of seething brutality by the always intense and effective Michael Ironside, who's positively terrifying in a substantial full-blown villain role) assaults feisty and outspoken feminist TV reporter Deborah Ballin (a fine Lee Grant) in her home after she delivers a scathing put-down of male chauvinism on live television.
Lee Grant enrages misogynist serial killer Michael Ironside because of her strong views on women's rights.
Ironside is good and creepy as the killer which is what a slasher film really needs to work, but Grant does seem to stretch the hysteria bit too much at times.
Good "killer psycho loose in the hospital" movie with a very intense Michael Ironside..
Michael Ironside, Lee Grant, Linda Purl, Lenore Zann and William Shatner star in this 1982 horror film.
****SPOILERS***** First off this film has a great cast and decent acting but when Lee Grant is being stalked at the end of the film BY THE always awesome Michael Ironside, where the hell is everyone in the hospital?
She ends up in the local hospital for surgery, and with the realization that she's doing better and still plans to do the interview, the crazed man returns to finish what he started.The beginning of this movie really has you hooked as it's created more on suspense than actual murders or cheesy slasher movie going on's, because we have a long sequence where Michael Ironside is attacking Lee Grant at her home, (Don't worry I haven't given away the killer's idenity as it's revealed almost straight away).
The movie ends with a long long list of credits of the people in the movie, on and off the screen, about the size of the Montreal White Pages.Better then you would expect slasher film only because of Michael Ironside's creepy performance as Colt Hawker who comes across as someone who just doesn't give up.
The film had Michael Ironside as the villain, William Shatner as a potential hero, and the always creepy hospital setting. |
tt0083390 | Brideshead Revisited | In 1923, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, an undergraduate studying history at a college very like Hertford College, Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the aristocratic Lord Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric and aesthetic friends, including the haughty and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes Charles to his family's palatial mansion, Brideshead Castle, in Wiltshire where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family, including his sister Julia.
During the long summer holiday Charles returns home to London, where he lives with his widowed father, Edward Ryder. The conversations there between Charles and Edward provide some of the best-known comic scenes in the novel. Charles is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the holiday together.
Sebastian's family are Roman Catholic, which influences the Flytes' lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always assumed Christianity was "without substance or merit". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his marriage and his new religion, and moved to Venice, Italy. Left alone, Lady Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also enthusiastically espoused by her eldest son, Lord Brideshead ("Bridey"), and by her youngest daughter, Cordelia.
Sebastian, a troubled young man, descends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object of charity at a Catholic monastery in Tunisia.
Sebastian's drifting leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Flytes. Charles marries and fathers two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife, and she is unfaithful to him. He eventually forms a relationship with Sebastian's younger sister Julia. Julia has married but separated from the rich but unsophisticated Canadian businessman Rex Mottram. This marriage caused great sorrow to her mother, because Rex, though initially planning to convert to Roman Catholicism, turns out to have divorced a previous wife in Canada, so he and Julia ended up marrying without fanfare in an Anglican church that accepts divorced people.
Charles and Julia plan to divorce their respective spouses so that they can marry each other. On the eve of the Second World War, the ageing Lord Marchmain, terminally ill, returns to Brideshead to die in his ancestral home. Appalled by the marriage of his eldest son Brideshead to a middle-class widow past childbearing age, he names Julia heir to the estate, which prospectively offers Charles marital ownership of the house. However, Lord Marchmain's return to the faith on his deathbed changes the situation: Julia decides she cannot enter a sinful marriage with Charles, who has also been moved by Lord Marchmain's reception of the sacraments.
The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 – the date is disputed). Charles is "homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless". He has become an army officer, after establishing a career as an architectural artist, and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers' worship. It occurs to him that the efforts of the builders – and, by extension, God's efforts – were not in vain, although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been frustrated. | philosophical, flashback | train | wikipedia | Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited' is, I think, the quintessential and the finest novel of the twentieth century - English literature at its highest form.
And Nickolas Grace plays to the hilt the sybaritic, viper-tongued Anthony Blanche.Jeremy Irons does sterling service as the narrator, Charles Ryder, who is, after all, Waugh's observant eye and eloquent tongue; Irons depicts poignantly Ryder's "conversion to the Baroque" crashing to bits against the cold gracelessness of "The Age of Hooper".
As the rapidly dissolving Lord Sebastian Flyte Anthony Andrews is memorable - should Waugh's book ever again be adapted for the screen the lot of the actor cast as Sebastian will not be enviable.Claire Bloom's Lady Marchmain is a study in quiet dignity upheld vainly in the face of the twentieth century's ravaging of her character's world and sensibilities.
Sir Laurence Olivier's Lord Marchmain is letter-perfect; and in the deathbed sequences Olivier's performance is tenderly, expertly nuanced.Diana Quick was a bit too old to play convincingly the debutante Lady Julia of the early episodes, but in the later ones Quick hits perfectly every disillusioned, jaded, repentant note.
John Gielgud steals every scene as Charles's father Edward, brilliantly interpreting of one of Waugh's most delicious, yet indigestible characters.There are rich offerings, too, from character actors: Stephane Audran glows warmly as Clara, Lord Marchmain's insightful, intuitive, down-to-earth mistress; John LeMesurier leaves us suitably agape as the Jesuit Father Mowbray baffled and dismayed by Rex's utilitarian approach to his conversion to Catholicism; Jeremy Sinden sails naively along as the indefatigable yet ever-dimwitted and clueless Boy Mulcaster; Ronald Fraser stirs just the right sloshing of queasiness as the peculiar, opportunistic shipboard cocktail party guest; Jonathan Coy, as the parlous, seedy Kurt, is perfectly repellent; Jane Asher tiptoes delicately through Celia Ryder's conventional, porcelain sensibilities; and Mona Washbourne knits a thoughtful, lovely portrait of Nanny Hawkins.Throughout 'Brideshead Revisited' the photography is lush, meticulous, yet tasteful.
I bought the DVD version of this series and, though occasional bits of the image transfer are a trifle fuzzy and the sound re-recording is sometimes uneven, the nicely boxed set of discs pleased - and goes on pleasing - me greatly.In the early third millennium, a time of evermore immature programming and production executives - a dismal age of TV's Hoopers, I have to suspect sadly that television will never again attain the heights to which 'Brideshead Revisited' vaulted.
Brilliantly adapted by John Mortimer from Evelyn Waugh's celebrated novel of England between the first and second World Wars, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED may be the best miniseries ever made.
Smoothly and subtly directed by Charles Sturridge and Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the twelve hour program is beautiful to look at, the cast is remarkable, and the story has amazing impact.The miniseries follows the novel closely, beginning near the end of World War II as Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons) grows disdainful of military life, which he finds a study in futility--and then flashes back twenty years as Ryder recalls his relationship with the aristocratic Marchmain family, a relationship that begins when he becomes friendly with Marchmain son Sebastian Flyte (Anthony Andrews) while the two are students at Oxford.The miniseries captures perfectly a golden moment of youth--and then the gradual disillusionment brought by the passage of time.
Like all great works, BRIDESHEAD REVISITED--both book and film--touches on a great many themes, most specifically an innocent type of homoeroticism, loss of innocence, alcoholism, adultery, and changing society; ultimately, however, the story is about spiritual values and how they survive in even the most unlikely of circumstances--and how God works through individuals in the most unexpected ways.The performances here are truly fine beyond description.
Jeremy Irons has seldom surpassed his work here, and neither Anthony Andrews nor Dianna Quick (as Julia, Sebastian's sister) have ever bested their performances in this film.
I first read the book and viewed the series as a teenager and it affected me much more then "Catcher in the Rye".It is probably one of the finest adaptations of a novel put to film.
You watch as the reckless innocent fun of youth is slowly taken away and replaced by sad old cynicism.It captures the feeling of the stolen season of peace between the world wars and the cool observant eye of Waugh who before hand always wrote detached speedy amoral stories.
Everyone is of course entitled to an opinion about matters such as this, but how anyone can rate this series as anything less than a great milestone in television is, to my mind at least, quite difficult to understand.I recently re-read Evelyn Waugh's wonderful novel and was, consequently, inspired to watch the series for the fourth time, on DVD on this occasion.
In that respect, the DVD set can be seen to be somewhat lacking.However, the acting, direction, costume design, sets and John Mortimer's brilliant adaptation of the novel for television make this one of the greatest achievements in television and a demonstration of what can be accomplished in that medium with a great deal of care for detail.What I find particularly heart-rending is the transition from the light and airy early scenes to the darker ending of the series.
I am really not sure whether this comment contravenes the "spoiler" guidelines but I suspect that I'm on reasonable safe ground in that regard.I would go so far as to suggest that "Brideshead Revisited" lives up to the comments which were made about it at the time of its release in the early '80s that it is one of the greatest television series ever produced and it is hardly surprising to me at least that a series of such enduring quality emanated from the UK.10 out of 10 from me.
On the contrary, with one of the best casts ever assembled for a television production and with a splendid script by John Mortimer, it was thrilling.Its hero is Charles Ryder, a somewhat vacuous young man whose sole purpose in life seems to be a 'hanger-on', primarily to the Marchmain family and, despite a few sojourns into the wilderness, if he isn't within their radar he seems not to exist at all.
Olivier is a magisterial Lord Marchmain while Claire Bloom has seldom been better than as Lady Marchmain and, given time to fully develop their characters, Diana Quick, (Julia), Simon Jones, (Brideshead), and Phoebe Nichols, (Cordelia), are superbly cast as other members of the family.
John Gielgud is a wonderfully comic foil as Iron's supercilious father; John Grillo is properly oily as the toadying Mr Samgrass, (he is like the snake in the Garden of Eden); Stephane Audran is an oasis of calm sensuality as Cara, Lord Marchmain's mistress and Nickolas Grace is magnificent as Anthony Blanche, Sebastian's flamboyant, outré gay friend at Oxford.
I doubt that anyone will be able to imagine anyone other than Anthony Andrews as Sebastian or Nikolas Grace as Anthony Blanche; Jeremy Irons gives a well-rounded performance, Diana Quick is suitably gorgeous and a host of great English actors (Gielgud, Olivier et al) lend support to a fantastic script and excellent direction.
There is no concession here to change the story in order to make it easier to understand, no letting out some of the characters, no letting out some of the issues (e.g. Catholicism), no letting out Evelyn Waugh's wonderful narrative passages
There is supposed to be a law when making a literary adaptation: do not use voice-overs, unless you want to bore the audience to tears.
The story of Charles and Sebastian and their families (and Sebastian's teddy bear) opens out Evelyn Waugh's slow-paced novel and instead of rushing through it in a couple of hours takes time to work with it and present the story at a leisurely pace, taking stock of some of the UK's greatest scenery.Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews play the leads, who meet at University and become lifelong friends.
The highbrow language, the love affair of two men in an aristocratic old charm catholic environment, the wonderful story, excellent casting, gorgeous locations & sheer beauty of it all makes this the best TV-serie I have ever seen in my entire life.
If scale would be 1 to 100 in stead of 1 to 10 I would still give it a full 100, since this is simply the best series you can or will come across, if you like British acting (who wouldn't), the Golden Years of pre-WW2, and a moving story.
Knock-out performances by the incomparable Laurence Olivier, Jeremy Irons and last but not least in my opinion the best character ever put down on film: Sebastian by Anthony Andrews.
And that might be true in a general sense: once seen it is hard to come to terms with it, first that this series is finite, and second the tragic fate of indeed the most charming person on screen yet, Sebastian, that sort of friend that we are all looking for, but who is so hard to find!.
The series not only preserved the story to the point of almost maintaining all the book's original dialogues but the aesthetic beauty of the images is beyond reproach.I strongly recommend this work for all who enjoy art in general and Evelyn Waugh in particular..
Jeremy Irons' performance, like a finely tuned instrument, has subtlety and passion in the same degree and Anthony Andrews' Sebastian is a study in charm and self-destruction that enthralls and saddens by its intensity.
Majestic it certainly is from the fabulous locations - Venice - Castle Howard, the superb acting - Lawerence Olivier, Nikolas Grace, Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, Diana Quick, Mona Washbourne and Cordelia (apologies I can't remember her name) all wonderful and, finally, to the captivating music of Geofrey Burgeon - it is TV at its very best.PS Apologies if any name misspelled..
Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews are exquisite as the reflective Charles Ryder and the self-destructive Sebastian Flyte, and the all star cast flame with colour and exuberance.
A remarkable adaption of one of the best novels of all time; Brideshead Revisited is a complex and subtle story about growing into adulthood set amid the cross-currents of Catholicism, modernity, aristocracy, homosexuality and war.
Brideshead Revisited - I have seen the full series several times, I have read the book and I also saw the TV-series on Danish Television, when it was first shown in the early 80's.
I am not sure, whether book-critics regard Brideshead Revisited as the author's main work, or it just happened to be well suited for filming; but the final TV production is of a quality, which makes all this irrelevant.
It is a beautiful and faithful adaption of a great book, the acting of the stellar cast is superb, the production values could not be higher and the direction and photography is immaculate.John Mortimer's adaption is wonderfully well written but it really scores by not only staying close to Evelyn Waugh's plot but also his language with much of the dialogue coming straight from the novel.
We also have sublime acting from the, then, lesser known actors such as Jeremy Irons, Diana Quick, Phoebe Nicholls, Simon Jones and Anthony Andrews deeply moving portrayal of Sebatian Flyte's descent into alcoholism.Every scene and location looks absolutely 'right' and having watched this series several times since it came out it still looks like it is set in the 1920s and 30s.
Excellent cast with wonderful performances by Jeremy Irons, Nickolas Grace, Phoebe Cates, Claire Bloom, Lord Olivier, Jeremy Sinden and Anthony Andrews.
"Brideshead Revisited" is an 11x50 minute (approx) TV miniseries which takes the viewer into the lives of the residents of a magnificent English country house and sprawling estate called Brideshead, the ultra-rich Flyte family of Lord and Lady Marchmain, and a much welcomed interloper, Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons), of a somewhat lesser class.
A peerless, critically lauded, and award winning series featuring a superb cast including such notables as John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, "Brideshead Revisited" should play very well with anyone into the many popular Victorian films and similar fare featuring the pomp, pith, vigor, and vanity of the English aristocracy.
Did Evelyn Waugh know a family like the Marchmains...was it all based on a true story?
I also think anyone who hasn't yet seen the 2008 film with Ben Whishaw, Greta Scacchi and Matthew Goode and are a fan of the book as well should think of avoiding it, as it doesn't do any justice to this wonderful story and has several disappointments on its own terms.The mini-series of Brideshead Revisited does however do justice to the book, as it is remarkably faithful in spirit and in the details.
Jeremy Irons gives my personal favourite performance of this splendid cast, his narration, delivery and portrayal of Charles Ryder is simply masterly.All in all, a real jewel of a series and a must watch for fans of the book, period dramas or any of these fine actors that play their parts so amazingly here.
I realized that they followed the book very closely, which I found pleasant.Due to holiday I missed the part of the series after Julia narrates to Ryder her marriage to Rex Mortram, coming back just to see the last two episodes.
The cast is strikingly good, Irons apart, John Gielgud (in his few comical minutes as Charles Ryder's father) standing out as the best of many fine actors, in a series of beautifully written character roles..
My jaw dropped at its expense and ambition, being an almost-complete filming of the famed wartime novel by Waugh, in the light of other TV productions from the late 1970's and early 1980's, with their cardboard sets and stagy (not to mention stodgy) direction.Charles Ryder is a single child from a small conservative, Anglican middle class family, consisting only of himself and his oddball father, the elder Ryder.
In amidst wonderful performances by the stellar cast (as well as younger actors such as Diana Quick, Phoebe Nicholls, Nickolas Grace, Simon Jones and Anthony Andrews) Jeremy Irons, in the central role, evinces a wonderful subtlety, perfectly suited to the restrained but passionate Ryder, and also narrates superbly, in character, the restrained but passionate story.Brideshead Revisited has a fey, conservative reputation that it does not wholly deserve.
It is true that this TV adaptation does not correct the novel's middle class obsequiousness in its view of the decline of the English aristocracy, and at times it is too reserved in its view of the sexual relationship between Charles and Sebastian, which seems coy and a little elusive.
No, but the subtlety is what writers of Waugh's standing sought - it was after all based on an affair in his own life.Jeremy Irons is superb, conveying with great subtlety and often few words the poetry, the sadness, the regret, the loss of innocence, while Anthony Andrews is equally superb, haughty, childlike, trusting yet betrayed, aristocratic.
From Jeremy Irons' slightly unsure Charles Ryder (his slow, even narration is superb) to the hugely likable, but sadly doomed, Anthony Andrews as Sebastian Flyte.
The series doesn't exactly rush on as it is, and with Irons slowing everything to a crawl this became one of those viewing-experiences where i looked at the watch many times every episode.
My wife was reading the book, Brideshead Revisited, for her book club and wanted to simultaneously watch the Jeremy Irons television mini- series.
11 hours long TV miniseries "Brideshead Revisited", based on Evelyn Waugh's eponymous classic novel, has been one of the most pleasurable watching experiences I can think of.
Both, Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier, contributed to these scenes as well as Nickolas Grace as Anthony Blanche, decadent and flamboyant but sharp and observant acquaintance of both main characters, Charles Rydes and Sebastian Flyte.
The most important aspect of Brideshead Revisited, is, without doubt, Evelyn Waugh's language, and Jeremy Irons, as Charles Rydes, the film protagonist, was born to narrate the pages of the beautiful prose that sounds like an exciting melody of the times passed but not faded.
For the sake of continuity, this necessitated a monotone in his voice-over commentary which tended to grate.I remember reading, at the time the series was first broadcast, that at a very late stage Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews agreed to swap their roles.
After all, if Irons had played the part of Sebastian Flyte at least he would have looked like the other members of the family; and Anthony Andrews as Charles Ryder would have embodied the outsider.
One of the points that Waugh underlines in the novel is that Charles Ryder falls in love with Julia because of her resemblance to her brother, Sebastian, and the change in roles makes a nonsense of this.Still with me?
"Brideshead Revisited" is a superb mini-series production for British television of Evelyn Waugh's famous novel.
The full title of the book is, "Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder." Waugh's 1945 book is considered a superb novel and example of English literature.
Granada Television did justice to the story in its nearly 11 hours of film for the TV series.The story is a complex one about relationships, friendships, family, faith, infidelity, unhappiness, depression, alcoholism, and more.
in fact- a magic meeting between great actors and one of seductive performances for Jeremy Irons, a splendid Sebastian by Anthony Andrews and the impression to be part of story for viewer.
This piece of fiction is little more than an neo-Renaissance anti-Catholic vitriolic morality play diatribe thinly disguised as literature.Although told from the viewpoint of innocent Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder, the plot revolves around Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain and how her disingenuous religion destroys her family and friends.
John Mortimer has done a wonderful job of adapting Evelyn Waugh's masterpiece, "Brideshead Revisited." None of the plot from the novel is left out, and all the characters retain their original qualities.
The character in the book is supposed to be extremely beautiful and look just like Sebastian.
He steals his scenes.Thus, "Brideshead Revisited" is an excellent drama, and perhaps the finest mini-series ever made.. |
tt0090948 | The Dirt Bike Kid | Jack Simmons (Peter Billingsley) is a lazy boy who lives with his widowed mother (Anne Bloom) who is struggling to support herself and her son since the death of her husband. One day, Mrs. Simmons orders Jack to buy groceries with her last $50 bill she has in her savings, but Jack is distracted by a dirt bike race and uses the $50 to buy a dirt bike from a local bully named Max (Gavin Allen). When Jack has the bike, he learns it is alive, or possibly occupied by a friendly spirit, and does things to help out Jack. Mrs. Simmons is furious that Jack spent her money on a dirt bike, and promptly confiscates the bike and sells it to a local shop owner, Mr. Zak (Al Evans), thus recouping her $50. However, the bike returns in the middle of the night to visit Jack. Jack tells this to Mr. Zak, who says Jack can work off his debt by having himself and the bike make deliveries for him.
Jack also plays on a Little League team sponsored by the Doghouse, a hot dog joint owned by Mike (Patrick Collins), who was a lifetime friend of Jack's father and is trying to look out for Jack in the wake of his father's death. The Doghouse is experiencing serious financial problems and is being sought to be demolished by the town's banker Mr. Hodgkins (Stuart Pankin) in order to make way for a second Hodgkins Bank. One of his tellers is Mazie Clavell (Sage Parker) who is also a coach of the rival Little League team. She later quits when she sees Hodgkins as a ruthless businessman who advocates getting ahead at all costs, and begins dating Mike, whom she sees as an honest business owner who faces adversity squarely. Jack and his friend Bo use the bike to help uncover why Hodgkins is after the Doghouse, especially after hacking into the bank's computer they learn that the Doghouse's land would not make a very good location for Hodgkins' bank and that Mr. Hodgkins' personal account is not as sizable as the community is led to believe. Hodgkins learns of Jack's attempt to save the Doghouse, and enlists the aid of Max (who is a player on his Little League team) who brings in a biker named Big Slime (Weasel Forshaw).
When Mr. Hodgkins converses on Jack's house, Mr. Hodgkins calls in Police Chief Salt (John William Galt) of the local force. Chief Salt orders his men to impound the dirt bike in exchange for Hodgkins not foreclosing on Salt's overextended mortgage at Hodgkins' Bank. However, Mazie and Mike come to Jack's aid by paying the impoundment fee for Jack to get his dirt bike back.
When the groundbreaking ceremony on the bank's construction is set to begin by having a bulldozer raze the Doghouse, Jack shows up with his Little League team, who disrupts the event by getting into a pie fight with Max, Hodgkins, and Big Slime's bikers. The dirt bike then takes away a shocked Hodgkins while Jack is driving it, where Jack tells Hodgkins that he is aware of Hodgkins' and Mike's financial problems, and has an idea where all can benefit.
One year later, Hodgkins shows up in a goofy hot dog suit to commemorate the opening of a shopping mall that features a renovated Doghouse and the new Hodgkins Bank, now fully constructed. Bo, once unpopular with girls, is now admired by pretty girls. Jack's mom has found gainful employment, Mike and Mazie are now married and expecting their first baby. Chief Salt now works as a security guard in the bank after having been presumably fired from his job as police chief by the town council for corruption. Big Slime (who is now wearing a shirt and tie and admits his true name is Arthur) has dissolved his biker gang and taken a job as a bank teller in the new Hodgkins Bank. With the community lifted, the dirt bike's magic stops working for Jack, whose mother tells him it may have been magic for Jack only to help him out. Jack gives the bike to another little boy, and it appears the magic returns once again for another child. | comedy, fantasy | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0178149 | Lexx | The main characters of the series are the Lexx and its crew. The crew consists of the captain of the Lexx, Stanley H. Tweedle, the love slave Zev/Xev, the undead former assassin Kai, last of the Brunnen-G, and the love-crazed robot head 790. Together they are looking for a new home. The background conflict of the series is the war between Mankind and the Insect Civilization, in which each side seeks the annihilation of the other. It was foretold to Kai that one day he will destroy the last remnant of the Insect Civilization.
The plot unfolds across a time span of over 6,000 years. Kai's death (or undeath) occurs 2,008 years before the beginning of the events of the series. For the first two seasons, each episode is focused on space travel and usually one different planet. Each of the last two seasons has a single location for all episodes. At the beginning of Season 3 the crew spends about 4,000 years in cryostats before arriving at the twin planets of Fire and Water. In Season 4, the Lexx reaches our Earth in the present.
=== First season ===
Stan, Zev and Kai accidentally steal the Lexx, the most powerful destructive weapon in the two universes. After successfully fleeing from the Cluster, the main planet of the League of the 20,000 Planets, they are looking for a new home.
Kai needs protoblood to live outside of his cryochamber. Looking for protoblood, the Lexx returns to the Cluster to learn that a huge insect survived. This insect had controlled The Divine Order and His Divine Shadow in order to eat all human inhabitants of the 20,000 planets. The insect then begins a metamorphosis into the Gigashadow. Gigashadow produces protoblood. With the help of Zev, Kai manages to fill up his store of protoblood. Kai places the cluster lizard Squish in the brain of the insect and thus is able to destroy it.
=== Second season ===
The main conflict of the second season is the fight against Mantrid, the former Bio-Vizier of His Divine Shadow. The crew had inadvertently helped him transfer his mind into a machine in the first episode of the season while accidentally fusing it with a remnant of His Shadow. Mantrid's goal is to transform all matter in the Light Universe into Mantrid Drones.
In the meantime the crew keeps getting into difficult situations and is usually rescued by Kai. At the end of the season they destroy Mantrid. Unfortunately, the Light Universe is also destroyed. The crew flees into the Dark Zone.
=== Third season ===
The Lexx is running out of food and must fly slowly to conserve energy. 790 computes that it might take thousands of years to reach an inhabited planet. The crew enters cryostasis to survive the voyage. After 4,000 years in cryostasis, they reach the twin planets Fire and Water. The entire third season takes place on these two planets.
The crew meets people they knew from the Light Universe. These survivors cannot remember their past in the parallel universe, though their personalities are still the same. Fire is ruled by the charismatic Prince. Water doesn't seem to have a ruler. The inhabitants of both planets live in isolated towns. On Water they live on islands in a huge ocean and on Fire there are big towers separated by desert.
Prince wants to win the crew over to his side, especially Xev. He tests their sense of morality through various temptations. The crew members are frequently separated, forcing them to act individually. After jumping from the Lexx to the surface of Water, Kai has trouble functioning normally without the other crew members. On Water, deep beneath its surface, Kai encounters his soul essence, which awaits rebirth. Stanley dies and a trial is held over the destination of his soul. All his bad decisions are weighted against his good deeds and he is sentenced to eternal punishment on Fire.
At the end of the season both planets, Fire and Water, are destroyed. Stan's soul is set free, and is able to return into his body, though he cannot remember what happened to him on Fire. The souls of all inhabitants of Fire and Water are also released, then travel to a planet that looks like Earth.
=== Fourth and final season ===
The Lexx travels to Earth looking for food. It is located in the very center of the Dark Universe and the crew assumes that it must be a very dangerous place. The crew again meet people they knew from the Light Universe, and from Fire and Water. Only Prince and Priest are able to remember their lives on Fire (though presumably Priest can do this only because Prince allows him to).
Kai's soul is stuck because he is undead, and he decides to die to release his soul. To do this, he must regain his mortality. He plays chess with Prince to regain mortality and wins, but remains undead.
The Earth is threatened by a being who resembles Lyekka. The crew finds out that the fake "Lyekka" destroyed all human life on her way through the Dark Zone. Kai decides to destroy the asteroid that is the source of the entity. Prince keeps his promise and restores Kai's mortality. Minutes later, Kai finally dies destroying the asteroid, saving all inhabitants of the Dark Zone. 790 destroys the Earth using the senile and dying Lexx. Prince, Priest, and Bunny escape on a rocket filled with Catholic schoolgirls, and Xev and Stan fly off together on the Lexx's offspring, "Little Lexx" to find a new home. | cult, comedy, humor | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0137922 | Luther | The film begins during a thunderstorm in 1505, as Luther is returning to his home. For fear of losing his life in the storm, Luther commits his life to God and becomes an Augustinian monk.
In the next scene, it is 1507 and Luther is a monk in Erfurt. During his time at the monastery, he is constantly troubled by viewing God as a God of hate and vengeance. Martin is encouraged by Johann von Staupitz, an older monk who is his supervisor and mentor. Staupitz tells Luther to look to Christ instead of himself.
Later Luther delivers a letter for Staupitz to Rome, where he becomes troubled by the wicked lifestyles of those in the city. He also views the skull believed to be that of John the Baptist and purchases an indulgence. It is during this time that Luther begins to question the veracity of indulgences.
Returning to Germany, Luther is sent to Wittenberg, where he begins to teach his congregation that God is not a God of hate, but a God of love. Luther begins to emphasize the love of God instead of his judgment.
John Tetzel then comes close to Luther's town, where he scares the people into buying indulgences. (The proceeds will be used to build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and to recover the Hohenzollern bribes to the Holy See, advanced by Fugger, for the investiture of Archbishop Albert of Mainz and Magdeburg). In his church, Luther denounces the indulgences, calling them "just a piece of paper." He then posts his 95 theses on the door of the church, calling for an open debate regarding the indulgences. For this act, Luther is called to Augsburg, where he is questioned by church officials.
After his excommunication, Pope Leo X orders Luther to be delivered to Rome, but Prince-elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony protects him by moving him into Wartburg Castle. Frederick and Charles V decide that Luther will be tried at the diet of Worms.
After his trial at Worms, Luther is forced into hiding by Frederick the Wise at the Wartburg, while his former professor, Andreas Karlstadt, encourages the Great Peasants' Revolt against the oppressive nobles. Luther, shocked by the revolts, encourages the princes to put them down. Meanwhile, Luther translates the Bible into German.
After Luther marries Katharina von Bora, a former nun, Charles V summons the evangelical Princes of the Holy Roman Empire to the Diet of Augsburg, so he can force them to outlaw Protestantism and the German Bible. The nobles refuse, and Charles is forced to allow the nobles to read their Augsburg Confession.
The film ends with the following words:
What happened at Augsburg pushed open the door of religious freedom. Martin Luther lived for another 16 years, preaching and teaching the Word. He and Katharina von Bora enjoyed a happy marriage and six children. Luther's influence extended into economics, politics, education and music, and his translation of the Bible became a foundation stone of the German language.
Today over 540 million people worship in churches inspired by his Reformation. | christian film | train | wikipedia | Hagiography About The Life Of Herr Martin Luther. Herr Hans Kyser was a reputable German scriptwriter who worked with the most important German directors of his time such as F. W. Murnau, G. W. Pabst, Karl Grune and Arthur Robison. Herr Kyser had also a predilection for film adaptations of stories from literary or historical materials. Due to Herr Kyser's likes, his first and only film as a director was a kind of hagiography about the life of Herr Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation.Herr Luther was famous in those ancient times for being against long established institutions like the Catholic Church. He was a leader of an important religious reformation, putting in this way an end, among others matters, the misfortunes of poor people. Such is nonsense, certainly because as some Italian Count said sometime ago, the longhaired would like to change everything, changing nothing
anyway. Herr Luther knew very well his reforms and duties in those old times (for example, whipping himself when he was a monk, due the fact that he was a servant
of God, but a servant anyway). The film directed by Herr Kyser depicted in detail those impious German times as an important German film production with a sizeable budget.The most important aspect of the film is the artistic direction, a powerful display of decors, customs and visual effects. Herr Kyser considered this necessary in order to depict Herr Luther and the German tribulations of those times and above putting more attention towards the actors' direction. In many cases they overacted or were as inexpressive as wax figures. Ultimately the film (and that's an incredible contradiction of terms) is a perfect film in atmosphere and technical aspects but monotonous and soul-destroying.It seems that the Herr Luther's reforms affected the copy, which was a bizarre film restoration that this German Count saw of Herr Kyser's "Luther". It was perfect in technical aspects but longhaired in its display; the film has subtitles instead intertitles. Also an Amerikan voice-over during the whole film described the aspects of Luther's life, embellishing the images into was is not a silent film after all, certainly
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must do some reforms too in the Schloss North wing. |
tt2515034 | The Gunman | Jim Terrier (Sean Penn) is a former special forces soldier who, in his 50s, has become a black-ops mercenary. He is part of a team deployed by a corporation in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, under the cover of providing security to local projects. He falls in love with Annie (Jasmine Trinca), a fellow expat working as an NGO doctor in a local hospital. During this period, even though civil war has wreaked havoc on the country, large multinational mining companies continue to profit from the country's mining industry. After the Minister of Mining announces his plans to declare contracts with the mining companies unjust and renegotiate the terms, the mining companies hire Terrier's team to assassinate the Minister, to ensure their access to the rich mineral resources. Terrier delivers the fatal shot from a sniper rifle and flees from Africa, leaving Annie behind. After that, Terrier retires from his mercenary career.
Eight years later he returns to DRC as a charity worker to build wells. One day he is brutally assaulted by a local hit squad, but he manages to kill them all. While searching the attackers' bodies, he finds signs that the attack was not random and that he was the target. Scared and suspicious, he flees to London to meet an ex-mercenary colleague, who reveals that Cox, their ex-boss in the Congo assassination, has formed a large international security firm offering its services to major clients, such as the Pentagon. The firm's head wants to eliminate all of the former members of the assassination squad, as revelations of their former activities could hinder the development of the new firm, so the firm's hit teams chase Terrier around the clock, meanwhile killing his friends and kidnapping Annie.
However, Terrier still keeps highly compromising materials that can reveal Cox's role in the Congo assassination and uses it to lure Cox and his team to a bullfight in Spain, threatening to expose their complicity unless they trade Annie for the evidence. Unknown to them, Terrier makes a deal with Interpol to deliver them and provide evidence to aid their ongoing investigation. Despite battling severe head trauma suffered from his violent past, Terrier defeats the mercenaries sent to kill him. As he struggles to help Annie escape to safety, Cox discovers them. Terrier is wounded but manages to shoot Cox, who is then gored by a loose bull. Interpol arrive and take Terrier into custody, though Agent Barnes promises to do what he can to help Terrier avoid doing more jail time than necessary.
The film ends with Terrier, recovered and released from prison, reuniting with Annie in the DRC. | revenge, murder, violence, flashback | train | wikipedia | If you are looking for a fairly low commitment to a 'smart' action movie, then you can do worse.In 2006, Terrier (Penn) works for a global corporation (that might as well be called Umbrella Corporation) and is asked to kill a high ranking diplomat.
Unfortunately, Elba who gets second billing is in the movie for 2 scenes total and less than 3 minutes screen time, a role that has so little to it that I might as well have played the character.
To my way of thinking, his best performance up until this movie was as Bradford Whitewood, Jr. in "At Close Range," but right now, after just having watched The Gunman, I've got to say, "Wow..." I never thought of Sean Penn as any sort of "action" star and I certainly never imagined him doing a film like this.
While the action has sharpness to it, the thriller aspect doesn't entirely work.'The Gunman' Synopsis: A sniper on a mercenary assassination team, kills the minister of mines of the Congo.
Sean Penn's physique in the film is impressive and we are constantly reminded how much the actor got in shape for the role considering how much screen time his giant biceps earn.
Oh what a waste of good film..The Gunman is not the movie I expected it to be, and despite the assembled cast of actors, the potential is lost to fast production.
He simply doesn't come across as a very likable guy, and certainly not someone we can root for.Based on the novel of Jean-Patrick Manchette, the movie starts out in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Penn is a mercenary disguised as part of a mining security detail.
A sure sign of a weak script is a film that is bookended by "newscasts" to explain both what is going to happen as well as what just happened.Pierre Morel directed the first Taken movie, and his cast is stellar: Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, and Mark Rylance.
Hit man Jim Terrier (Sean Penn) assassinates the Congo's Minister of Mines, leaves the country for 8-years, comes back to dig wells for the people and then he's targeted.
I don't think I ever saw Sean Penn do an action movie.Not sure if he's at that point in his career were he does not care or he just feels he can't be a well diverse actor without having this on his resume.Either way he does a good performance as one, and was impressively built but not overdone for the role.The movie does go over some political satire with his character playing a Metaphor of the guilt we all should all feel about our own involvement in what's going on in the Congo.Guess he felt this will be a better way to spread his word to the masses.
Since then he wobbled a bit with FROM Paris WITH LOVE with its silly, jokey storyline, but he's back on form with this deadly serious international thriller that has much in common with the modern-day likes of the Swedish HAMILTON films.The story is clichéd and predictable but the film delivers more than adequate thrills and some great action sequences.
And Javier Bardem has a lot of fun with the role, though at times his acting is more theatrical, and seems like it should be in a different movie.
At first I hated a certain plot point concerning a certain character's head trauma, but it ended up making for a more interesting movie as it helped make a character less invincible and also has a vital affect on the story.The action is well done, with it being pretty easy to follow and nice to look at.
Egotistical Penn all he does during the movie is show off......how he beats up a whole group of African mercenaries that wanted to kill him (a yeah right....important subject) .......and that is what the movie is about.....he beats up everybody that crosses his path.....is a "Rocky/Rambo" wannabe......to late to jump in that van wagon.....he shows off his steroids like built arms.....he even shows himself surfing (lame).....at the end he even gets the girl (that he couldn't in real life)....it seems like a corny commercial to sell a worn product (himself)....very sad!.....he is almost sixty.....and think he is going to fool anybody......big mistake....worst movie.....and insult to the movie aficionado.....even a regular "Joe", can't be that gullible......
I miss the old Sean Penn who took roles displaying his raw talent over these emotionally enriched character development stories which quite frankly come off as emotionally supercharged in my book.The film has some good shootout sequences and Javier Bardem is a joy to watch but the story just isn't there for any kind of connection to the rest of the characters, I'm kind of surprised this emo-fest wasn't the brainchild of Clint Eastwood to begin with.What action sequences there are well done but there are far too few for a movie called "The Gunman"..
Worst of all, the film feels so much like a cut and paste effort to please studio executives with another beginning-of-the-year action release, made up of odds and ends men in suits think we'd like to see over what we'd actually like to see, that it's as if we're watching a film nobody asked for.One of the few positives of "The Gunman" is that it gives Liam Neeson time to take a hot bath and lather his entire body with Icy Hot. Sean Penn, the latest candidate in this exhausting line of aging action heroes proving they can keep up with guys half their age, steps up to the plate here, playing Jim Terrier, an ex-soldier living in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Following the event, we pick up eight years later where Jim's wife (Jasmine Trinca) is now his ex-wife, married to his former coworker Felix (Javier Bardem in perhaps his weakest role yet), his health is greatly deteriorating with chronic headaches and fainting, and goons out to make him repay for his assassination in the Congo.Penn is almost always the center of attention in "The Gunman," which is fine, as Penn has proved through diverse roles he's capable of carrying a movie, but the talent on display here is really cut short and given stupid, half-baked roles to fill.
Bardem is laughable, as he spends some of his desperately little screen time drugged out of his mind, Idris Elba shows up just when you think the studios forgot to erase his name off the poster for less then eight minutes, and Ray Winstone, who plays Terrier's longtime friend, isn't given enough time on screen either, even though every time he appears he gives "The Gunman" some sort of life and drive.
"The Gunman," in a way, feels like a direct replica of the Kevin Costner aging action hero vehicle "3 Days to Kill" that simmered in publicity before anyone got a chance to buy a ticket (though it's one of the few of the genre very much worth seeing, more so than any "Taken" installment).
The "aging action hero" concept has prevented the early retirements and the wealth of endorsement possibilities for people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Liam Neeson, Kevin Costner, and now Sean Penn, as a means to make a living, but it's a concept as worn as the joints on all those men.I feel like erasing my entire review of "The Gunman" and replacing it with Leonard Maltin's review of "Scooby Doo 2: Monster's Unleashed," which ranks as one of the shortest film reviews ever written.
If you don't believe me, go ahead and watch The Gunman, and put this in your pocket for later: "I told you so."Javier Bardem uses this stinker as an opportunity to teach us the art of overacting in a second language.The woman in the film, whose name I don't want to know, is probably the only actress in the world who could match Sean Penn in boringness and lack of on-screen personality.
She does a great job of making sure you don't suddenly wake up during the film.Despite all the above big-money actors doing their best to compete against each other and completely forget the fact that there's a camera in the room with them, this movie can't save itself from its own infestation of story lines.
Sean Penn plays Terrier a former security contractor and hit-man working in the Congo who assistants a government minister and this catches up with him a few years down the line as a corporate company seeks to liquidate him .
Lots of things happen when Terrier gets there , usually the same thing involving guns and people getting killed and the audience have probably become completely bored by the halfway point as one set-piece crashes in to another THE GUNMAN is an example of if you have a good cast this won't mean a single thing unless you've given them material to work with via a screenplay .
This movie is so boring(yawn) that we've seen these scenes so many times before.1% inspiration 99% perspiration.Why was this piece of dreck even made and whose decision was it to cast a anti-gun commie/socialist like Penn to begin with!
This film feels like it's trying to reincarnate the Liam Neeson style of action movie and it falls flat on its face.
It has Sean Penn in a Liam Neeson-type veteran badass role with Javier Bardem and Idris Elba as supporting characters, which sounds great.
The story is Sean Penn's character and some other guys get together for a contract killing or something like that, then years later people from the job start getting killed off and Penn has to figure out what's going on.
The Gunman is a movie that can easily be skipped.Full Review:The Gunman, from the director of the first Taken starring Sean Penn and Javier Bardem.
Soon after, Morel graduated to director, helming the original "Taken" (2008), the movie which reinvented Liam Neeson as an action film star, followed that with John Travolta's "From Paris with Love" (2010) and then "The Gunman".
That's a very good resume – and "The Gunman" is a very good film!Morel's latest globe-trotting actioner stars Sean Penn (in his first major big screen role in two years) as Jim Terrier, an ex-special forces soldier.
(I personally know someone who saw Penn walking the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the weeks following that country's devastating 2010 earthquake.) While the action's backdrop makes the story a little political, it also allows for an interesting variety of characters and locales to parade across the big screen.
Since the director of the first Taken film directed this movie, you should know the action scenes will be great.
With some well written characters the story is solid, and an all around good effort.The Gunman was directed by Pierre Morel, who as I mentioned in my opening paragraph directed the first Taken film, he also directed From Paris with Love, and did some work on the Transporter series.
The film stars Sean Penn with other actors like Javier Bardem, Ray Winstone, and Idris Elba popping in throughout the film as well.
The problem is not that I don't like this film, it is a question of personal taste, or that it is full of bloopers, it is just the way we can see that the makers simply didn't put the amount of effort, work and thinking into their own work so that they at least would create a category B action movie, as the story itself would anyhow predestine this.
Someone is killing those involved with the mission 8 years ago and Penn needs to find out who and why before he gets killed.The first half of the movie - once the prologue is over - is overly long and lacks any real action.
This is particularly disappointing as the director of this film, Pierre Morel, was the Cinematographer of the first two TRANSPORTER films and is the director of the first TAKEN film, so I thought he'd have the tone of these types of movies down.I see that Penn has a writing credit on this film, so I have got to believe that the over-serious tone of this movie has come from him.Penn , as stated above, is overly-serious in his portrayal of Terrier, while Rylance and Bardem seem to be having a little less serious time with their characters.
'THE GUNMAN': Four Stars (Out of Five)Another respectable (and very serious) A-list actor turns to B- action movies, very late in his career (and at over 50-years of age); following the likes of stars like Liam Neeson.
I think it's a blast and a lot of fun though; if you like B-action movies!Penn plays Jim Terrier; a highly skilled mercenary assassin, working for an unnamed employer.
Terrier then goes on a deadly mission; to find out who was behind the attempt on his life, and save his ex- girlfriend.Sean Penn is in amazing shape, in this movie, especially at 54- years-old!
That's why this got mostly bad reviews, I think, and didn't do really well at the Box Office; Penn isn't an action movie star (that's for sure).
While the collective acting prowess is barely able to keep the film interesting, these experienced actors surprisingly don't perform consistently enough to fully maximize their potential.Story follows Terrier (Sean Penn), a secret operative who fled an African country after an assassination.
Idris Elba is always engaging, but he only makes brief appearance, even shorter than Bardem.The bulk of the film rests on Sean Penn, who is undeniably a good actor and looking physically fit for this role, although he doesn't seem to be comfortable here.
What a wonderful movie, never seen action movie like this, we love "sean Penn" since "state of grace" bravo "Penn", hopefully this movie become the greatest ever, watch this movie and you don't want left your chair, and expected many times will see this movie again, let's go together going to your nearest cinema and feel the spirit of bravery, every man in this world want to see this movie.
Based on the novel "The Prone Gunman" by Jean-Patrick Manchette, "The Gunman" is a conventional action-movie potboiler featuring a roided- out Sean Penn as an ex-special ops agent and professional assassin whose violent past is coming back to haunt him.
In the film Sean Penn plays a guy working in the African mining trade, he did some bad things now he is on the run.
For an actor like Sean penn , I think this is a role we have not seen him play, I totally admire him trying to be a better artist, I am not going to knock him for that, but to me it just didn't work.
Sure pretty much, but still a good watch.To all those who say Penn is too old for action movies, he is 54.
The cast is stellar, Sean Penn is in great form in a movie that is, sadly, his first leading role since his Academy Award winning performance in Milk, he certainly seems interested and invested in the character, as does Jasmine Trinca and Javier Bardem, also Idris Elba's scenes are some of the films finest and I was pleasantly surprised to see him in this, but this cast aren't enough to make up for the formulaic and predictable plot that never goes in a direction that captivates its audience.
The film desperately tries to begin a franchise here, you can feel it constantly, they're not trying hard enough to tell a good story in two hours, but go for setting the movie up for sequels instead, it wanted to revive Sean Penn's career by making him an aging action star, similar to what Taken did successfully for Liam Neeson, but for someone who's given us outstanding performances from the likes of Mystic River and Carlito's Way, it saddens me to see such a talented actor trying to renew his fame with a boring action film that he also has a writing and producing credit on.
Returning to the Congo years later, he becomes the target of a hit squad himself.The Gunman stars Sean Penn and is brought to you by Pierre Morel, director of the very first and still best Taken film.
The film's best scene is actually its opening one, when Sean Penn's character gets to do some sniper things; but he spends most of the rest of the movie, looking at his ex-girlfriend, looking very sad and having conversation why their relationship didn't work out in the first place.
Plus, Sean Penn doesn't work out as an action star despite his great looking body.
But I get that people might have expected something with more action set pieces, especially with a title like that (and I'm pretty sure the trailer might have suggested that as well too).But the movie is really good and I'm surprised at the shape Sean Penn is in (or was in for the movie).
Besides, in the supporting cast, there are unexpectedly bad performances from usually solid actors such as Idris Elba, Ray Winstone and Javier Bardem; I guess they participated in this movie for the money, and not because they liked the screenplay (something ironic, considering the fact that the main character of the film is a mercenary).
At first it is hard to imagine Sean Penn in an action film and harder in a lead marksman role, but then I watched this .
A good character / action role for Sean Penn in a complex movie.
Good Penn Action Film.
But I am a (good) action film junkie, and I liked this unlike other reviewers who basically placed it in the movie trash bin.
Its just 2 hours of watching Sean Penn on the run with his girlfriend, with a bit of action along the way. |
tt0156812 | My Dog Skip | Willie Morris as an adult is looking back on his childhood in the early 1940s and how it was colored by his dearly beloved dog, a Jack Russell Terrier whom he had named Skip (Enzo). In the beginning, Willie (Frankie Muniz) is a lonely 9-year old child with a gruff, proud father (Kevin Bacon), a Spanish Civil War veteran, and a charismatic, talkative mother (Diane Lane), a housewife, but he is an only child and small for his age with few friends. His one companion is a young man who lives next door, Dink Jenkins (Luke Wilson), who is the local sports hero in Mississippi. However, when Dink is drafted to go to war, Willie's mother decides to buy him a dog, against his father's wishes, in order that he should have some company.
Willie and Skip become firm friends very quickly. However, Willie gets bullied at school by Big Boy Wilkinson, Henjie Henick, and Spit McGee, until Dink sends him a German helmet and belt from the front line. The other boys demand he play ball in order to win back his belongings. Skip leaps in to help him. That same day, the three boys talk Willie into spending the night in a graveyard, where they claim a witch is buried. If he stays there, he gets to join their gang and also keep the ball Dink Jenkins signed for them, and if not, he has to give them his German helmet. Willie stays there for a number of hours, until he hears two moonshiners who are loading crates into a crypt. Skip jumps on Millard, one the moonshiners, until the second one, Junior, comes at her with a spade. Willie uses a slingshot to hit Junior in the nose with an acorn and attempts to escape the graveyard with Skip. They are soon captured by Junior. He tells Willie not to move before sunrise or he will kill Skip. Then the two men leave. The three boys return in the morning and accept Willie into their group for spending the night in the graveyard.
The narrator then goes on to explain various changes in his life. Skip, having always been a friendly dog, is known by everyone in the town, including black people, significant because Mississippi was still segregated at the time. Skip leads Willie through the best parts of his life; his boyhood days. Thanks to Skip, Willie now has three friends, and a girlfriend, Rivers Ginny Grey.
Skip is there for him when Dink gets home, shell-shocked and a drunkard since discharged from the army. However, when Willie’s first ball game comes along, Skip and Willie have their first falling out.
Dink promised to come along but does not bother. Since the war he has found competitions do not matter to him anymore, and Willie is so upset by this that his game is ruined. Skip, wanting to cheer him up, runs onto the field and sits wagging her tail, refusing to leave. Becoming increasingly frustrated, Willie hits her across the muzzle and she runs away.
After the game, a devastated and tearful Willie is unable to find his dog. Unbeknownst to him, Skip had returned to the crypt, and been accidentally shut in the grave where moonshine alcohol was being stored. Dink, however, after explaining that he had been scarred by having to kill in the war, tells Willie nothing is ever lost for good and goes out to help him find Skip. As Willie searches in the graveyard, he hears Skip's barks, and can see that Junior is about to strike Skip with a spade. He runs to save her, but there is a thump and a whimper. Dink arrives, and manages to eject the two moonshiners, telling Junior that he'd better hope that Skip lives, but it is uncertain as to whether Skip will survive.
As the family and friends gather in solemnity in the vet's waiting room, Willie weeps over his dog’s vet bed, telling him everything he ever should have done; that he will never have a true friend more dear like him again. Skip awakens, licking his hands and face.
The film concludes with Willie explaining his friendship with Skip, that he had been an only child and Skip an only dog. When Willie leaves to go to Oxford University in the United Kingdom, Skip remains with Willie's parents, sleeping in Willie's old room, and finally dies, being buried under the elm tree. The closing line adds, "That wasn't totally true. For she really laid buried...in my heart". | flashback | train | wikipedia | This is an absolutely wonderful movie that's aimed for children, but will probably be even more loved by adults.In 1942, a 10-year-old boy who is more intellectual than athletic and is constantly teased by others finds solace in the puppy given to him on his birthday.
The acting all around is excellent, but special credit must be given to Frankie Munoz (as the boy) and Moose, the dog from "Frasier" as...the dog."My Dog Skip" does a wonderful job of showing all of the joys and agonies of changing from a child into a young adult.
There have been many movies about a person's relationship with an animal, but "My Dog Skip" is one of the best that I have ever seen.
He and his dog Skip have a unique friendship that becomes unmatched by anything else.While this movie's target audience are kids half my age, it is perfect for everyone.
Even if you're not a dog fan, you shouldn't look past this movie.The cast is excellent, especially Frankie Muniz, who's now known as Malcolm from Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle." He exudes boyhood innocence and bonds with his pet better than he does with humans.
Rounding out the major cast is Luke Wilson, as Willie's changed-by-war neighbor Dink."My Dog Skip" is funny and heartwarming.
MY DOG SKIP / (2000) *** Starring: Frankie Muniz, Kevin Bacon, Luke Wilson, and Diane Lane Directed by Jay Russell.
The film, directed by Jay Russell, based on a writing by Willie Morris, works well because it proves two theories: 1) The war affected not only the soldiers in battle, but also normal families in minor but critical methods, and 2) Childhood can be best remembered by our fond memories with the family's dog.
Most of "My Dog Skip" is gentle-hearted, however, and provides the lovable atmosphere that starving audiences are searching for, along with high quality and entertaining situations, in family based movies.
If this description fits you, regardless of age, this is the movie you are looking for."My Dog Skip" is brought to you by Warner Bros..
In the end when Willie goes away to college and the dog is waiting at the bus stop for him, there is a permeating sadness that I occasionally feel when I think of things I loved that no longer exist.
Rounding out this cast is Diane Lane and Luke Wilson.As Haley Joel Osment did with his performance last year in "The Sixth Sense," Frankie Muniz stole the show this year with his in "My Dog Skip."This may not be an original idea but it is presented in such a way that works.
I really enjoyed this movie from start to finish.I recommend that everyone watch "MY DOG SKIP.".
In 1942, in Yazoo, Mississippi, the lonely and outcast boy Willie Morris (Frankie Muniz) is the only son of the harsh war veteran Jack Morris (Kevin Bacon), who lost his leg in Spain, and the housewife and lovely mother Ellen Morris (Diane Lane).
"My Dog Skip" is a wonderful film for the whole family and I only regret that it took me fifteen years to see this movie.
Being that magazine is pretty Liberal, you get Liberal slants in the movie (racial and anti-war sentiments) but nothing heavy-handed.As a good story does, it makes you care about the characters, especially the lead one.
Superb, emotional film (with some comedic moments) about a lonely boy whose dog changes his life.
the female was so spoiled very fufu, were the male was just like WHATEVER DUDE,Also of my parents, mostly my Father, he was in WWII, A nose gunner in a B-24 fighting the Japanese, as I look back and the story's he told about being a kid also the old homes, my parents were from Worcester Mass, this movie really moved me.
The true story of Willie Morris, who grew up in the 1940s as a painfully shy boy whose best friend was the local baseball hero who lived next door.
That moment was the turning point in Willie Morris's life.The movie "My Dog Skip" is a beautiful dramatization of an entirely involving story.
The father's initial reluctance to allowing his boy to take on the responsibility of pet - and having some of his fears come true - was a great touch, but the movie does not make the foolish mistake of over-blowing it to the point where we'd dislike the father.
These are two people who deeply love each other and deeply love their child and want to see the best for him.Maybe the subplot with the obligatory puppy-kicking curmudgeons (this time moonshiners working in a cemetery) has some factual basis (I've never read Willie Morris's autobiography, so I can't be sure) but it was the least interesting and most mechanical element in the movie and it seemed, until a crucial point, to sort of stop the picture.
He was probably wondering why he had been woken up at one in the morning after several hours of peaceful slumber, but it was sort of necessary at the time.That's what makes movies like "My Dog Skip" so great.
Seeing the movie again for the first time in ten years reassured my respect for my own dog and thankfulness that having him as a loyal friend changed the course of my life..
The last twenty-five minutes are pure gold BUT the boy/young man leaves his dog for three years to go abroad to school (the film does not make clear if he returned for visits) and Skip died (and no doubt spent these years mournng his departed friend) while the young man was away.
Frankie Muniz (who I think is one of the most natural young actors around), Kevin Bacon, and Diane Lane, and the guy who played the fallen football hero (don't know the actor's name) were fantastic, but the real star of the movie was "Skip"!
I dare anyone who's had dear friends that are pets to watch this show and not have some wet in their eyes.Writer Willie Morris was but a boy during World War II and a lonely only child.
The dog,Skip,a well-tempered terrier(Jack Russell?)and Willie bond much better than anyone could've imagined,and the boy learns life lessons and discovers that he had more courage and integrity than he once imagined.
Lane and Bacon make warm,unsentimental yet true parents,and a supporting cast that includes Caitlin Wachs(As one of Willie's schoolmates)and Luke Wilson(As a local WAr Hero who may not be what he was made out to be),this film has an unforced warmth and humanity that most who have any interest in "lesson movies" will value greatly.
Based upon the memoirs of writer Willie Morris, `My Dog Skip' stars the wonderful child actor Frankie Muniz (the delightful star of TV's `Malcolm in the Middle') as a friendless nine-year-old misfit whose mother buys him a puppy for his birthday to help assuage his loneliness.
The cast of characters also includes Willie's well meaning but overprotective war hero father (sensitively played by Kevin Bacon), his loving and supportive mother (the fine actress Diane Lane), the boy-next-door town hero (Luke Wilson) who turns out to be less than one on the battlefield, and a band of moon shiners who figure into the climactic activities of the film's final half.`My Dog Skip' is less noteworthy for its plotting which often seems forced, obvious and melodramatic than for its overall tone of laid back charm.
`My Dog Skip' needs to be viewed on two levels as a beautifully acted but unsurprising version of a tale adults have seen countless times before and as a sweet, heartwarming and edifying film for young children who will be able to identify with many of the simple themes found in the narrative.
This could have been a sensational film about friendship during the troubled years of America (i.e. the War and apparent racism in Mississippi), but instead Russell skirted around the issues and penetrated our hearts with a cute Muniz and a dog that was prepped for the camera.
Morris (1934-1999) came from Jackson, Mississippi, and wrote two books of childhood memoirs, MY DOG SKIP and GOOD OLD BOY: A DELTA BOYHOOD.
The little boy Frankie Muniz plays Willie Morris with perfect charm, and is just right.
Thank goodness the people who made this film never got their hands on Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."Willie Morris wrote a wonderful book about growing up in a small town in Mississippi.
Skip runs away and gets into trouble with the moonshiners.This is generally a touching kid with dog movie.
And they're also very intelligent dogs.The story is sentimental/touching and the movie has appealing settings.
The ending is one of the most emotional in "doggie" films: the part when Skip is nearly dying but survives and Willie is crying and shows remorse on what he did in a moment of anger and the ending itself when years later the dog dies old and ill.This movie is based on a real story and was released in 1999 or 2000, but when was it filmed?
Anyway, the boy does a fine portrayal in the movie.Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane do a good job as Willie's parents, without forgetting that Diane Lane looks gorgeous in this..
My JRT looks so much like skip and i love that the movie is more about the dogs life than anything else.
The story takes place at the time of World War II, and it is not only the best movie that Frankie has played in, it's also one of Warner Bros.
My Dog Skip tells the story of a young nerd growing up in the southern US during World War II.
My Dog Skip' is a movie that teaches all movie-goers why we have pets, to be great friends, and help us through the tough times in our lives.
But the great parts about this script are its emotional and very human side', which I know I will not forget for along time to come Willie Morris (played by a very young Frankie Muniz) was perfectly casted in his role.
If loosely means that the story is about a boy and his dog in Mississippi during and after WWII, then that is an apt description, because the rest is fabricated by Hollywood.Skip was a Smooth Fox Terrier, a different breed than the Jack Russell.
The Jack Russell is a great little dog, but it wasn't Skip.All the drama with the neighbor being a deserter and the father a war hero wasn't mentioned in the book.
Having lost my cat only a week ago, this was the most perfect film I could have watched.I have never seen a film touch on the bond between a human and animal so well as My Dog Skip.
I can see why he said that-- the amazing grace of love, loyalty, and even evolution that only animal lovers can know is amply and magnificently portrayed in "My Dog Skip."To answer Roger Ebert on another point-- he said that it seems unlikely that a 9 or 10 year old boy would volunteer to have his dog shipped off to the army, and thus off to war (the movie takes place during world war two).
But as I watched the movie, I totally bought that behavior-- thinking that such a devoted boy during those times would have taken his beloved dog friend down to enlist in the war for the same reason millions of boys all over the world happily trotted themselves down to the various countries' recruiting stations-- he had no idea of what it really meant.
We see top performances from Kevin Bacon, Diane Lane and Luke Wilson but you have to hand it to young Frankie Muniz for his portrayal of Willie Morris.
The movie is about a young boy, about 10 years old, and how the unconditional love of his dog helps him transition from childhood to boyhood, then into young-manhood.
Frankie Muniz (from "Malcolm in the Middle) is wonderfully sweet as the boy and Moose the dog, the Jack Russell Terrier seen on "Frasier" and "The Mask", is as expressive an actor as any human.
I just got my first dog in 27 years- this movie though meant for children really impressed me- Frank Muniz is excellent as the young Willie Morris, Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane round out a good movie for the whole family.
Sure, you might think the "boy and his dog" thing has been done to death, but "Skip" dares to go into such emotional territory that if its simple story fails to move you, I simply don't know what will.
For anyone who had a dog for their friend as a child, this is a must see film.In Willie Morris' remembrance of his boyhood friend Skip, strong performances are given by Frankie Muniz as Morris, Luke Wilson as Dink Jenkins and Diane Lane as Willie's mom, Ellen.
And in a surprisingly different role for Kevin Bacon as Willie's dad, Jack Morris, Mr. Bacon's versatility as an actor truly shines.The trials and tribulations of a young boy growing up in the Mississippi during World War II, My Dog Skip will let you remember, make you laugh, and probably have you shed a tear or two in the end..
My Dog Skip was the most incredible movie that I've seen all year.
Why in the world Hollywood can't make more movies like this one is beyond me.My 9 year-old son loved it.
Frankie Muniz's new film "My Dog Skip" is a wonderful look at the relationship of a boy and his dog.
A Beautifully Told Story About A Boy And His Childhood Dog. This is the finest family film I've seen in years.
Frankie Muniz is simply great as Willie Morris and there are fine performances from Diane Lane and Kevin Bacon who play the boy's parents.
I liked this film because it focuses on a boy and his dog, and also because it is based on a true story.
With so few movies out there to take the family to for a nice afternoon, I was overwhelmed to find "My Dog Skip".
Kevin Bacon put in a performance like nothing I have ever seen him do.This movie is not to be missed at any age!.
However, once in a while a film comes along like A Christmas Story, The Sandlot, or My Dog Skip that puts the others to shame.
This movie has no real weakness...the script is based on a true story, and is both literate and engaging; the acting is solid in every department - Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane deserve special kudos for being both realistic and heartwarming; ALL the child actors are believable and winning.
I was fortunate enough to be cast in the movie "My Dog Skip" as Older Big Boy.
My Dog Skip is a very good, wholesome, family movie.
I wanted so much to like this movie, being a dog person and having seen the trailer and so many good reviews.
Kevin Bacon's character was so uplifting in an offbeat way Not giving My Dog Skip ten stars would be like saying Citizen Kane was good!!!!.
It's a cute story, but Kevin Bacon is the only actor in this film that can act.
By the end of the film, the only character we really know anything about are Willie (Frankie Muniz) and his dad (Kevin Bacon).
After a promising start, this simple and seemingly good natured story about a boy and his beloved dog turns into another depressing and often mean spirited movie.
It's full of cliches, it's true, andsome of the acting is stiff, but who can resist this kind of story?Although I think The Yearling is a better film, this is right up there,if you like dogs.
This film is captivating , touching and wonderfully served by the great Frankie Muniz (Being 13 and playing a 8-9year old boy you need to give him credits for that!!) who is well know for Malcom in the middle.
Cute little World War II film about a young boy (Frankie Muniz) and his devoted relationship to his adorable dog.
My Dog Skip is a great movie about friendship and love.
The movie, based on writer Willie Morris' memories of growing up during World War II in Mississippi, portrays a smart little boy who has no friends (except the athlete who lives next story who's about to ship out to Europe).
As a sucker for a good dog movie, this is one of the sweetest I've seen in a long time.
The movie nicely captures the flavor of World War II America and the difficulties of childhood for someone who's not like all the other kids.My Dog Skip is a poignant celebration of childhood, friendship, family, and most important, the unique relationship between a boy and his dog.
My Dog Skip is a great movie with great acting.
"My Dog Skip" reminded me a lot of a 1998 movie called "Simon Birch" from the narrator to the feeling I got inside while watching both films.I was also thrilled to learn that Kevin Bacon was a part of this cast because he is an actor that has presence.
"My Dog Skip" reminded me a lot of a 1998 movie called "Simon Birch" from the narrator to the feeling I got inside while watching both films.I was also thrilled to learn that Kevin Bacon was a part of this cast because he is an actor that has presence.
Great performances by veteran actors Diane Lane and Kevin Bacon, as well as a genuinely excellent job done by Frankie Muniz, Skip's owner.
If you do get a Jack, you will have a friend for life(a long life often, they can live 15-20 years).If you want to see a wonderful movie which will evoke warm emotions and fond memories, go see this film.Love you Maddie, miss you very much..
I have to say, My Dog Skip is one of the best movies I have seen in a loooooong while.
I have seen many films like this before, it's basically another coming of age drama only this time with a dog. |
tt0177822 | Grim Fandango | === Setting ===
Grim Fandango takes place in the Land of the Dead (the Eighth Underworld), where recently departed souls aim to make their way to the Land of Eternal Rest (the Ninth Underworld). Good deeds in life are rewarded by access to better travel packages to assist in making the journey of the soul, the best of which is the Number Nine, a train that takes four minutes to reach the gate to the Ninth Underworld. Souls who did not lead a kind life are left to travel through the Land of the Dead on foot, which would take around four years. Such souls often lose faith in the existence of the Ninth Underworld and instead find jobs in the Land of the Dead. The travel agents of the Department of Death act as the Grim Reaper to escort the souls from the mortal world to the Land of the Dead, and then determine which mode of transport the soul has merited. Each year on the Day of the Dead, these souls are allowed to visit their families in the Land of the Living.
The souls in the Land of the Dead appear as skeletal calaca figures. Alongside them are demons that have been summoned to help with the more mundane tasks of day-to-day life, such as vehicle maintenance. The souls themselves can suffer death-within-death by being "sprouted", the result of being shot with "sproutella"-filled darts that cause flowers to grow out through the bones. Many of the characters are Mexican and occasional Spanish words are interspersed into the English dialog, resulting in Spanglish. Many of the characters smoke, following a film noir tradition; the manual asks players to consider that every smoker in the game is dead.
=== Plot ===
The game is divided into four acts, each taking place on November 2 on four consecutive years. Manuel "Manny" Calavera is a travel agent at the Department of Death in the city of El Marrow, forced into his job to work off a debt "to the powers that be". Manny is frustrated with being assigned clients that must take the four-year journey and is threatened to be fired by his boss, Don Copal, if he does not come up with better clients. Manny steals a client, Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, from his co-worker Domino Hurley. The Department computers assign Meche to the four-year journey even though Manny believes she should have a guaranteed spot on the "Number Nine" luxury express train due to her pureness of heart in her life. After setting Meche on her way, Manny investigates further and finds that Domino and Don have been rigging the system to deny many clients Double N tickets, hoarding them for the boss of the criminal underworld, Hector LeMans. LeMans then sells the tickets at an exorbitant price to those that can afford it. Manny recognizes that he cannot stop Hector at present and instead, with the help of his driver and speed demon Glottis, he tries to find Meche on her journey in the nearby Petrified Forest. During the trip Manny encounters Salvador "Sal" Limones, the leader of the small underground organization Lost Souls Alliance (LSA), who is aware of Hector's plans and recruits Manny to help. Manny arrives at the small port city of Rubacava and finds that he has beaten Meche there, and waits for her to show up.
A year passes, and the city of Rubacava has grown. Manny now runs his own nightclub off a converted automat near the edge of the Forest. Manny learns from Olivia Ofrenda that Don has been "sprouted" for letting the scandal be known and that Meche was recently seen with Domino leaving the port. Manny gives chase and a year later tracks them to a coral mining plant on the Edge of the World. Domino has been holding Meche there as a trap to lure Manny. All of Domino's clients who had their tickets stolen are also being held there and used as slave labor, both to make a profit with the coral mining and as a way to keep Hector's scandal quiet. Domino tries to convince Manny to take over his position in the plant seeing as he has no alternative and can spend the rest of eternity with Meche but he refuses. After rescuing Meche, Manny defeats Domino by causing him to fall into a rock crusher. Manny, along with Meche, Glottis and all the souls being held at the plant then escape from the Edge of the World.
The three travel for another year until they reach the terminus for the Number Nine train before the Ninth Underworld. Unfortunately, the Gate Keeper to the Ninth Underworld won't let the souls progress without their tickets, mistakenly believing they have sold them. Meanwhile, Glottis has fallen deathly ill. Manny learns from demons stationed at the terminus that the only way to revive Glottis is to travel at high speeds to restore Glottis' purpose for being summoned. Manny and the others devise a makeshift fuel source to create a "rocket" train cart, quickly taking Manny and Meche back to Rubacava and saving Glottis' life. The three return to El Marrow, now found to be fully in Hector's control and renamed as Nuevo Marrow. Manny regroups with Sal and his expanded LSA and with the help of Olivia, who volunteered to join the gang earlier in Rubacava, and is able to learn about Hector's current activities. Further investigation reveals that Hector not only has been hoarding the Number Nine tickets, but has created counterfeit versions that he has sold to others. Manny tries to confront Hector but is lured into another trap by Olivia, who has also captured Sal, and is taken to Hector's greenhouse to be sprouted. Manny is able to defeat Hector after Sal sacrifices himself to prevent Olivia from interfering. Manny and Meche are able to find the real Double N tickets, including the one that Meche should have received. Manny makes sure the rest of the tickets are given to their rightful owners; in turn, he is granted his own for his good deeds. Together, Manny and Meche board the Number Nine for their happy journey to the Ninth Underworld while Glottis who can't join them waves tearfully goodbye. | comedy, dark, neo noir, murder, romantic | train | wikipedia | They don't make 'em like Grim Fandango anymore.
Put simply, this is one of those games you have to play before you die.Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts is one of those studios that has a well-deserved and rabid cult following even years after it has ceased to support its classic titles, and Grim Fandango is perhaps their greatest achievement.
It's Monkey Island with heart, Full Throttle with depth.Although Grim Fandango has its share of one-off gags and one-liners, its humor is more situational and cumulative than typical humor titles, which gives the entire storyline a kind of cohesiveness that is supposed to happen only in the movies.
Seeing characters at the end of the game and finding out what they've gotten up to in the two years since you last ran into them is unexpected and satisfying.
The voice acting is superb, and the puzzles are, for the most part, refreshingly intuitive and sensible.The Latin American film noir setting is entirely original, a selling point which cannot be understated.
It's absolutely nothing you've ever seen before and nothing you're likely to see again, and for most PC gamers it's a cross-cultural experience that is unique in the realm of PC gaming.
You'll learn, you'll feel, you'll laugh, you'll hope, you'll cheer.Without a doubt one of the best PC games ever released..
A great representation of the film noir genre..
Grim Fandango is one of the best games in its genre.
One of the last great adventure-games.
Of course, the greatest thing about this game is the story; it is an epic tale of a man's redemption after his death, delightfully free of usual American sentimentality and with numerous references to film noir.
The narrative style is highly cinematic and the excellent voice action, along with great music, helps convey the atmosphere beautifully.
This game represents everything that makes this genre great, I can't recommend it enough.
Grim Fandango is most definitely the best title of its Genre EVER!
You play the part of Manny Calavera a travel agent of death selling nothing but poor travel packages for the long journey to the 9th underground to his recently passed away clients, but Manny senses crime and corruption in the department of death when he find that his associate Domino gets all the good clients and Manny is stuck with all the poor clients.
In my honest opinion Grim Fandango is the best title of its genre.
Of course there are downsides like the long loading times between scenes and controlling Manny can be difficult at times but it doesn't get in the way of it's great storyline..
With a risk of sounding necromantic I must say that I'm in love with Grim Fandango.
This game is shockful of references to movies, from the "Glengarry Glen Ross" style opening were Manny doesn't get access to the best clients to the Casablancaesque police officer and the film noir feeling of it all.
The cut scenes are beautiful, the voiceovers are the best of this world, the puzzles are also ace, it's all so good that it's really hard to describe.
If you're familiar with the lucas arts type off games then you'll know what I mean.
If you're don't familiar with the lucas arts games, try one.This time it's about corruption in the land of the dead.
He is a salesman trying to sell good trips to the dead people so they can travel to the next life or something.
He finds out that the good people all have to walk to the dangerous land of the dead he knows that there must be a plot.
First Manny is a salesman then his adventure goes further in the woods with his henchmen Glottis (he is very funny guy, if you like happily ever after (the bunny) then you'll like this fellow to).
As you can read there is a great variety in the game that causes no boring moments.The game is directed just like a movie.
The sounds are also very clear en full with detail.When I played the game I wasn't bored for one moment.
If you like adventuregames, great plots en bones and stuff ...
Grim Fandango was one of the top games of 1998.
It's made by LucasArts the people behind the Star Wars and Lucasfilms related games.This game is taken place in the land of the dead.
Only it's different from what you would expect the "Afterlife" to be.In this universe you are first met by a Grim Reeper who'll be introducing you to your new living style in the land of the Dead.
Grim Reepers are more like Travel agents who'll give you a good profit.If you lived a good life you'll receive the good profits like a car, be on a boat cruise line and if you lived a great life you'll get a ticket for the 009 Express which leads to the 9th Underworld where you can live peacefully for eternity.
And if you lived a bad life you don't get either of these opportunities.Mandy Calavara is a Grim Reeper working for the D.O.D.(Department of Dead).
And he's wondering why other Salesmen get good clients while he doesn't.Through out the game you control Mandy who'll be solving the mystery and finding out the secret of who's really behind the scheme of taking all the 009 tickets.You get to collect items and figure out puzzles and solutions.
And interact with several mysterious and random characters.The have nice 3-D background and great voice acting.
CGI is a little old but it's still well done.I recommend this game to those who like to play a game that does rule..
Thanks again to those guys at LucasArts for making a wonderful game.
The game felt immensely satisfying both intellectually and aesthetically.The story follows Manny Calavera in his four year journey of the soul through the land of the dead, as he searches for a woman he believes that he cheated.
At the same time, the game never loses its sense of hope, and never loses its razor-sharp wit.
In short, this plot is as good as many of the movies out there.As for the puzzles, they are extremely challenging.
If you have played Lucas Arts adventure games before, you would know the formula.
Most of the time, I found I had all the tools I needed to solve the puzzle on hand, which was very useful.
One of the best games I've ever played....
you know, every once in a while a great game is being created...
the game is so unique and that it just steals your heart and makes playing it an unforgettable experience..
and in this game, "grim fandango", you have so much of them both that just looking at the environment of the game melts you...
now i have played a lot of games from all kinds, and there were some games that made me feel this way, games like monkey island, neverhood, oddworld and many more games that are all very good.
but never, ever, a game so good with such a great plot and art directions has been created, and to create a game like this takes a gigantic Passion for games, intelligence and a really large heart.
this fantastic Mexican film noir style game can be played over and over as a game, as a movie, or even just to remember the great characters on it such as many calavera, the hero or glottis his friend, that are so hard to say goodbye when the game ends...
there is no reason in the world why this game should not be voted 10, and it can be described in 3 words: best - game - ever.
because only when you play it you understand the greatness of it....
The medium of "adventure game" is always grappling with the central problem: the necessity of making puzzle-solving fun.
Great Game.
Why, because this game has a great plot and the actors doing the voices were great.
My favorite character was Manny because he is cool and he does funny stuff sometimes.
I really wish LucasArts would make a Grim Fandango 2 because I loved this game and I enjoyed playing it.10 out of 10.
Grim Fandango is a brilliant, well paced game, with a snazzy soundtrack, witty exchanges and imaginative characters that bring the art-deco world alive.You play as Manny Calavera, an effective travel agent, who's trying to work off his debt so he can leave El Marrow and travel to the Ninth Underworld.
Check out Olivia's poetry in the Blue Casket- it sucks, but is a good laugh nonetheless.Background detail and in-jokes are scattered inside en mass, just adding to the richness of the world (based on Mexican mythology), and with the excellent graphics (even in 1998), the designs are so individual you won't find much to top them.My only regret is that, adventure games not selling awfully well, LucasArts seem to have abandoned games of this type to continue with Star Wars take-offs, and the creator, Tim Schaffer, has now got his own company: Double Fine, I believe.
If you liked Grim Fandango, I'd suggest Psychonauts (a PS2 game), which is just as good..
***Grim Fandango***Grim Fandango is about a man named Manny who as a normal job as a travel agent and lately he has been getting the worse cases possible,oh yeah did I mention he is a talking skeleton that lives in a after-life place called the land of the dead.
Like I was saying though lately he has been getting very bad cases that don't qualify for anything good it's always walking sticks for the journey for eternal rest.
But the journey that he takes is a long 4 year journey with bumps and hardships.This is a great game with great puzzles.
with great voices and colorful characters.
For gamers who love the linear, story-based video game, Grim Fandango is a visual feast.
Rich with cultural back-story and excellent graphics, the game is a delight to play.I would recommend this game for others who have enjoyed linear, story based games such as: Gabriel Knight and Phantasmagoria..
Grim Fandango is one of the best games of all time.
If ever a game simply YEARNED to translated into a big screen CG movie, it's this one.
With amazing graphics, great puzzles, outstanding voice-acting, brilliant dialogue and storyline, Grim Fandango is a testament to what the human mind can produce.
If you have not played this game yet, I highly recommend you go out to purchase it today, or order it from Lucasart's website.
Your first time playing Grim Fandango is a pleasure you'll never forget.
Quite Possibly the Best Computer Game Ever.
Grim Fandango has a creative story, great voice acting, beautiful locations, incredible music and insanely good puzzles.
The folks at Lucasarts make the best adventure games around and with this wonder they out did theirselves.
Grim Fandango not only boasts great visuals, but it provides unsurpassed vocal talent speaking the best dialogue found any game, period.
Manny becomes wrapped up in a revolution, owns his own casino, and captains a ship, just to name a few of the adventures (only to avoid spoiling the beauty of this game).
The gameplayer navigates Manny through bizarre plot twists, hilarious dialogue, and puzzles intelligently woven into the story.
The game feels more like a great book or movie, where the only disappointment is that it has to end.
Forget all those Star Wars games, Lucas Arts has set the standard in game quality in Grim Fandango.
Following Manny through the Mexican Land of the Dead was one of the most intriguing and rewarding experiences I've ever had in a game or most movies.
When the game was finally done, I felt like I had lost some old friends.
There are parts of the game that might move a tad faster, but for the most part, the adventure part of it makes sense.
I just wanted to recommend it to anyone who likes film, good graphics, inspiring environments and has a sense of humour...
One of the BEST and most rewarding games out there!.
Grim Fandango is worth every cent and hour you spend on it!
This game is wonderful if you're great at solving puzzles, but it is not for the novice player.
However, time flies as you help Manny, and you will find yourself laughing all along the way.
The references to the culture and death traditions just proves that the creators put their blood, sweat, and tears into making such an incredible, and accurate, game.
Best adventure game ever!.
This is probably the most enjoyable game I've ever played.
Stylistic it's a mix of Art Deco and Azthec, and the whole game has a nice nostalgic Film Noir feel to it.
Grim Fandango is an absolutely breath taking game.
The story line is fantastic, as is the game play and characters.
It's a breath of fresh air to play a game like this, I'd definately recommend it to anyone!.
A computer game that merges the best of film noir, art deco, art nouveau, Mexican folk traditions, Mayan and Aztec architecture, jazz, bebop, mariachi, beatnik poetry, fashion from 1920's, cars from 1950's and heaven knows what else.
The adventure game genre has been said to be dead a 1,000 times.
"Grim Fandango" proves them wrong.
It shows everyone else the way adventure games should look and feel like at the end of the 90s.
While his previous work "Day of the Tentacle" is still first choice for wacky humor and hilarious plot twists, "Grim Fandango" is LucasArts' most mature game to date.
That's not to say it isn't funny: It's film noir story about a man's four-year-journey through the "Land of the Dead", inspired by Mexican folklore and Aztec culture, succeeds at merging comedy, thriller, drama and even horror, plus lots of references to old movies (it has "Hitchcock" printed all over it).
Grim Fandango's look and atmosphere will capture you from the very first minute.
It is LucasArts first 3D adventure game, and also the first one to drop the well-known mouse interface for a keyboard control, which works very well once you get used to it.
I highly recommend this game to anyone with a love for great storytelling and visual style.
If I had a rating scale, "Grim Fandango" is a definite 10 out of 10..
It's funny how the same themes worm their way from Full Throttle (1995) (VG) to Grim Fandango.
Aside from Schafer's obsession with hot rods and decals, the doomed love story makes its way into Fandango.Yes, Manny and Meche are united at the end, but there is a great deal of unsurety about whether they'll meet again "on the other side".
Manny's final words that there's no way to know what's at the end of the line, and to enjoy the ride there, are classic, but in a different way than one might think.
Grim Fandango is a stunningly exciting saga that stretches four years and takes us on a trip across the Land of The Dead.Released in 1998, you assume the role of Manuel Calavera, travel agent at the Department of Death.
This leads to an epic adventure spanning four years and a virtual army of backup characters and odd locations, he gets a loyal sidekick, a driving demon named Glottis who helps you chase after Manny's love interest, Mercedes Colomar, while maintaining his secret position in the revolutionary group "The Lost Soul's Alliance", lead by the mysterious Salvador Lemonez.Let's get it out there right away: Grim Fandango is possibly the greatest game of all times.
Film Noir in a mythical underworld with intrigues, love stories, crime drama and action.
The plot is bizarre, weird, funny and completely insane, and yet it makes absolute perfect sense all the time.
Grim Fandango is simply a perfect mix of everything in it, and there is nothing that should have been done differently.The acting is, as far as computer games go, the greatest I've ever seen.
Tony Plana plays Manny Calavera with gusto, and the entire other ensemble does an amazing job.
The first year feels like a perfect "Brazil"-knockoff, whereas the second year feels like an absolutely amazing film noir, "Casablanca"-style movie.
It is the coolest place ever created, and the game is worth playing just to see that place alone.
The music is fantastic, and though short it always suits the mood of the scene.I daresay that Grim Fandango is a game for everyone, regardless of your tastes in games, or even if you don't play computer games at all.
It is a lot like Dr Strangelove in the sense that even if you don't like black-and white movies, comedy movies or political satire you should still see it, and even if you don't like computer games you should play Grim Fandango, as it is an experience in itself, and represents what the medium can be in its best form.
This was the first real RPG game I ever played and it firmly established it as my favourite genre.Grim Fandango is set in the land of the dead where Manuel "Manny" Calavera works as a travel agent in order to pay of debt left from when he was alive.
It keeps you glued to the screen from beginning to end and portrays the characters in such a way that you really do care about them and want them to survive through the land of the dead.The graphics are absolutely stunning and the Mexican soundtrack is a very neat touch.This game should have been massive and it kills me that very few people have played it and even fewer have heard of it.
Grim Fandango is my all time favourite game and it will take a true masterpiece to topple it.The one bad thing I will say about the game is it is too short.
The script gets you so emotionally involved with the characters that when it is time for you to leave the world of Grim Fandango you won't want to. |
tt0064747 | The Oblong Box | The film takes place in England in 1865. Having been grotesquely disfigured in an African voodoo ceremony for a transgression against the native populace, Sir Edward Markham (Alister Williamson) is kept locked in his room by his guilt-ridden brother, Julian (Vincent Price). Tiring of his captivity, Sir Edward plots to escape by faking his death. With the help of the crooked family lawyer, Trench (Peter Arne), they hire witchdoctor N'Galo (Harry Baird) to concoct a drug to put Sir Edward into a deathlike trance. Before Trench has time to act, Julian finds his "dead" brother and puts him in a coffin (the title's "oblong box"). Embarrassed by his brother's appearance, Julian asks Trench to find a proxy body for Sir Edward's lying in state. Trench and N'Galo murder landlord Tom Hacket (Maxwell Shaw) and offer his corpse to Julian. After the wake, Trench and his young companion Norton (Carl Rigg), dispose of Hacket's body in a nearby river, while Julian has Sir Edward buried. Now free of his brother, Julian marries his young fiancée, Elizabeth (Hilary Dwyer), while Trench, Norton and N'Galo go their separate ways.
Sir Edward is left buried alive until he is dug up by graverobbers and delivered to Dr. Newhartt (Christopher Lee). Newhartt opens the coffin and is confronted by the resurrected Sir Edward. With his first-hand knowledge of Newhartt's illegal activities, Sir Edward blackmails the doctor into sheltering him. Sir Edward then conceals his face behind a crimson hood and embarks on a vengeful killing spree.
Norton is first on Sir Edward's list and has his throat slit. In between killings, Sir Edward finds time to romance Newhartt's maid Sally (Sally Geeson), but when Newhartt finds out about their affair, he discharges Sally and she goes to work for Julian. While searching for Trench, he is sidetracked by a couple of drunks who drag him into a nearby tavern. Here he ends up with prostitute Heidi (Uta Levka), who tries to roll him for his money, only to be killed by Sir Edward's knife. The police get involved, and the hunt is on for a killer in a crimson hood.
Meanwhile, Julian has become suspicious about the body which Trench supplied to him, after his friend Kemp (Rupert Davies) finds it washed up on a riverbank. Julian confronts Trench, who tells him the truth about Sir Edward's "death". Soon after, Trench is dispatched by Sir Edward, but not before he tells him the whereabouts of N'Galo. Hoping he will cure him of his disfigurement, Sir Edward asks N'Galo for his help. Here Sir Edward learns the truth about his time in Africa: in a case of mistaken identity he was punished for his brother's crime of killing an African child. N'Galo fails to cure Sir Edward, and they fight; N'Galo stabs Sir Edward and is rewarded with a face full of hot tar. Sir Edward returns to Newhartt's home, where Newhartt tends to his wound. Mistrusting Newhartt's medical treatment, Sir Edward fatally wounds him and sets off to confront his brother.
Back at the Markham ancestral home, Julian learns the whereabouts of his brother from Sally and leaves for Dr. Newhartt's home, only to find him near death. Meanwhile, Sir Edward arrives back home to find Sally, who is repulsed by her former lover's killing. Sir Edward drags her out onto the grounds of the house, pleading for her love. Julian arrives back home and gives chase with a shotgun. Out on the grounds, Sally snatches Sir Edward's hood from him and his deformed face is revealed for the first time. Julian catches up and Sir Edward confronts him about his crime. As Sir Edward lurches forward, Julian shoots him. Cradling the dying Sir Edward in his arms, Julian is bitten by him.
Once again in his "oblong box", Sir Edward is resurrected by a vengeful N'Galo, but this time he is six feet under with no hope of escape. While back at the Markham mansion, Julian is occupying his brother's old room, where he is beginning to show the first signs of the voodoo curse. His wife Elizabeth learns this when she tells him about his brother's room: Julian then says, "It is now my room". She is flushed with fear of his disfigurment and the film (with credits) closes with a close up of her widened eyes. | revenge, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | There's some violence (although I wouldn't call it gore) and no shortage of women with bug-eyed, frightened looks on their faces.As with the other 1960s horror flicks based on Edgar Allan Poe stories -- although this one is not part of Roger Corman's series -- the movie only uses the title and is otherwise unrelated to the original story.
There's certainly nothing special about the movie, except that it was the first pairing of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Otherwise, Corman's movies are the ones that I recommend.Also starring Rupert Davies, Peter Arne, Sally Geeson and Hilary Dwyer..
Sir Julian Markham (Vincent Price) is an aristocrat of the late 19th century that keeps his disturbed brother Edward locked up in a tower of his manor; the man has been disfigured by natives in Africa when blamed for the accidental killing of a child.
But Edward manages to escape and seeks revenge against Julian.Director Gordon Hessler -not a top one at all if you see his filmography- gets a sort of morbid and languid atmosphere and settings that help the picture; but too many turns and items in the plot (voo-doo, madness, revenge, killings, treason, body snatching, romance and else- sort of disperse the focus in the main events -to put it somehow- and the final product comes out just standard.Vincent Price and Cristopher Lee as a doctor that steals corpses for experiments are at their usual level and in some way save the picture (without them "The Oblong Box" would have been a complete failure).Perhaps the main flaw is the character of Edward that appears too light for a villain or monster and even lacks impact when his ruined face is shown at the end; in fact you feel sorry for the guy since he's not scary at all.Fans of Price, Lee and Gothic horror won't probably be disappointed but even then just one watch is enough.
Due to several unfortunate events, the plan goes wrong and Sir Edward's supposedly dead body ends up in the laboratory of morbid scientist Christopher Lee (another man I love!) The entire film carries some sort of unnameable eeriness.
All this, together with an intriguing and complex screenplay makes this movie yet another highlight in the careers of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Both icons of horror give away amazing performances and it's actually a damn shame they don't share many sequences together.
This 1969 film heralded the first on-screen teaming of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee - shamefully, they only get one scene together (why couldn't the film-makers of the time put the horror masters together in a film successfully?).Despite being beseiged by production problems - the writer Lawrence Huntington died shortly after completing the script and the original director, Michael Reeves was replaced by Gordon Hesler, due to his dependence on drugs and suicidal tendencies (he actually committed suicide in February 1969) - the film has a very eerie and atmospheric feel to it.The plot is guilty of becoming too involved for its own good, but given there is always a general understanding of what is going on, the film does not suffer.
Indeed, the period atmosphere is well-maintained and is supplemented by plenty of suspense and shock, not least due to the large content of scenes taking place during nightfall.We are also cleverly kept guessing as to what Edward Markham's face is really like under the scarlet hood, and since this naturally becomes a preoccupation with the viewer, one is entitled to expect a horrific revelation at the end.
It does come and depending on what you pre-judge his face to look like, I was not particularly disappointed!Vincent Price and Christopher Lee's characterisations are not that pivotal and their performances tend to be just enough to carry the film through - they are really secondary, in a film stolen by Alister Williamson as the revenge killer.Nevertheless, this film is well-worth a look, mainly due to it's originality and ambition..
When he finally meets N'Galo, he finds why the natives have deformed him and he seeks revenge."The Oblong Box" is a dark horror movie based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. The screenplay keeps the story interesting until the end and the cast has two icons of the genre - Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. The sets and the atmosphere are stylish and adequate for the story.
Edward escapes by faking his death, but in a twisted turn of events, his "dead" body is unearthed and taken to unscrupulous doctor Newhartt (Sir Christopher Lee).
Donning a crimson mask to hide his visage, Edward goes about seeking his own revenge, occasionally slitting some unfortunate persons' throat, while demanding that Newhartt keep him hidden.Based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe, this is certainly a decent horror flick, but it doesn't carry as much weight as one might like.
The opening is very striking, and there are restrained doses of blood, and provocative costumes on some of the ladies.Price is solid as usual, but it's the Sir Christopher Lee portions of the story that worked more strongly for this viewer, with an interesting relationship developing between the crazed Edward and the "good" doctor.
Uta Levka, Sally Geeson, and Hilary Heath are all absolutely lovely.Producer / director Gordon Hessler and company are wise to keep Edwards' supposedly hideous face hidden until the very end, but when we do finally see it, the makeup effects are underwhelming and the result is disappointment.Fans of Price and Sir Christopher will want to see it for sure; they reunited the same year for "Scream and Scream Again", but after that, wouldn't work together again until "House of Long Shadows" in 1983.Six out of 10..
Film looks like a low-key, photographed stageplay, a well-dressed period piece having little to do with Poe's short story, besides the title box.
This is one of those films to watch primarily to enjoy the cast, lush settings and photography, hooded killers, throat-slicings, and a couple of good scares along the way, even if it has little if anything to do with Poe, just don't get one's hopes too high up.
However, I did enjoy how the movie played out as Vincent Price was good as was Christopher Lee.
He ends up being buried alive but his coffin is stolen by grave robbers and sold to a local doctor for experiment, played by Christopher Lee. He winds up hiding out at Lee's house while he enacts revenge on whoever he feels wronged him - taking a few breaks for sex with housemaids and hookers - all while keeping his face covered with a Crimson Mask.
Still, it has enough good points to make it a film to look forward to again in future, perhaps for a better appreciation.Actually, the film was quite enjoyable initially as I've already mentioned, thanks in great part to Hessler's elegant direction which clearly delineates setting (where John Coquillon's photography is particularly notable) and characterization (especially Vincent Price and his ambiguous relationship with both his brother Alistair Williamson and the shady 'body snatcher' played by Peter Arne).
His brief scene with Price is basically a throwaway, which results in a major disappointment!But when the film should have turned more interesting - after Sir Edward (the disfigured brother) goes on the rampage it becomes just plain silly instead, and never recovers.
The (predictable) twist ending, then, arrives too abruptly as if the makers were in a hurry to wrap things up; it's appropriate for all that, but not particularly striking.As I have said, THE OBLONG BOX is a good-looking film that is very watchable in an unassuming way.
Gordon Hessler's "The Oblong Box" of 1969 starring the great Vincent Price is a creepy, and excellent Horror tale with a great atmosphere.
The movie, whose cast also includes another great horror icon, Christopher Lee, is only loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name, a fact that, in my opinion, does not downsize the quality of this eerie and obscure film.
"The Oblong Box" combines all kinds of elements a fan of Gothic Horror cinema could desire: Voodoo, disfigurement, premature burial, and of course a constant eerie atmosphere and a bunch of bloody murders.In 18th century England, Sir Julian Markham (Vincent Price) keeps his brother Edward (Aliester Williamson) locked in a chamber in the tower of his mansion.
The cast furthermore includes the beautiful Hillary Dwyer, who had already starred besides Price in Michael Reeves' masterpiece "Witchfinder General" in 1968, and who would play besides Price again in 1970, in "Cry Of The Banshee", also directed by Gordon Hessler, in the female lead.An excellently written and directed and superbly acted movie, "The Oblong Box" is a film which fans of Gothic Horror can't afford to miss.
Dull horror tale about Vincent Price keeping his disfigured brother locked in an attic.
The costumes and sets are decent and help to create a good atmosphere and the amount of blood and graphic images is surprisingly high.The story is dragging at too many points and the story is told a bit too often unnecessarily difficult, which doesn't make "The Oblong Box" the easiest or most enjoyable 'old' horror movie to watch.It's certainly a watchable movie and true fans of the genre will most likely find some joy in this movie but its too average all to really make a lasting or great impression.
In this Poe tale, Vincent Price's brother, Alister Williamson, is buried alive, and then reappears wearing a red mask, exacting his bloody revenge.
But the ugly brother is very lucky that this movie hasn't just Vincent Price in it, but also Christopher Lee as a surgeon.
Starring two of the genre's great legends - Vincent Price and Christopher Lee and (albeit loosely) based on a story penned by the master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe, could it be anything but an immense slice of horror entertainment?
An English aristocrat(Vincent Price)tries to hide his disfigured brother(Alister Williamson), who escapes and blackmails a doctor(Christopher Lee)in hiding him and allowing him to seek revenge and commit murder before being killed.Very tangled story line and not enough terror to make it to a favorites list.
a bit too slow moving for my liking though a good performances by Vincent Price and Christopher Lee this is just too dull to really work and i was in a state of confusion throughout the dialog is snappy and it is atmospheric and it has very good acting but i was having trouble staying awake because the story is boring and the plot gets too complicated for it's own good this had potential to be a classic but once again too B O R I N G it was interesting in parts but this is only for insomniacs hey i love old horror movies but this one just don't cut it folks avoid it only worth a rent if you can't sleep so avoid please *1/2 out of 5.
Believing him to be guilty of accidentally killing a local boy, natives at an African plantation grab Sir Edward Markham (Alister Williamson), nail him to a wooden cross, and use witchcraft to leave him hideously scarred and struggling with his sanity.Back in England, and locked in a room by his brother Julian (Vincent Price), Sir Edward devises a desperate plan to escape and reverse his disfigurement: he swallows a special tablet that makes it seem as though he is dead.
Once interred, he is to be secretly dug up and taken to a witch doctor who will hopefully cure his malady.Unfortunately, things don't go as well as planned, and Sir Edward is left buried alive—at least until a body-snatcher unearths him and takes him to the home of surgeon Dr. Newhartt (Christopher Lee).
Coming out of his self-induced death state as the doctor prises open his coffin, Sir Edward blackmails Newhartt into keeping his existence a secret while he seeks revenge on those who left him for dead.Other than the title, The Oblong Box has very little in common with Edgar Allen Poe's short story, but it matters not: the first film to star both Price and Lee, this ghoulish tale of vengeance benefits from a compelling screenplay, stylish direction, and great performances, not just from its leading duo of horror icons (who sadly share little screen-time together), but also from a fine supporting cast, including the lovely Hilary Heath as Sir Julian's wife Elizabeth, and extremely cute Carry On star Sally Geeson as maid Sally.Also adding to the fun are some mean-spirited murders (albeit wholly unconvincing, with bright red paint for blood), some fleeting nudity, a midget whore, and a rousing bar-room brawl.
When Edward escapes he ends up in the home of Dr. Newhartt (Lee) and begins to wear a red mask to hide is disfigured face.
Edward wants answers as to why he was the victim of witchcraft and becomes vengeful in doing so.I do recommend this film for those that enjoy Poe, Price, Lee and classic horror, mysteries and thrillers.8/10.
Horror icons Vincent Price and Christopher Lee star.The story involves a man who is kept locked in his room.
After a short prologue featuring an African tribal sacrifice, the story begins in England with Vincent Price as Sir Julian Markham, looking after his disfigured brother, Edward.Edward is a chained up madman, the film using similar ideas to 'The Ghoul' (1975), which also had the story element of colonialism bringing its darker elements back to the English shore.
After various rather confusing plot twists Edward ends up buried alive, then exhumed by body snatchers and waking to find himself in the house of Christopher Lee's Dr Neuhart.Based, somewhat sketchily, on an Edgar Allan Poe story, the film retains a dark mood throughout and uses it's period setting effectively.
This, combined with a script which went through rewrites, results in a disjointed and frustrating effort.Film has a multitude of themes and characters, which tend to trip over each other but always maintain interest - as well as the colonial element, premature burial and body-snatching, we also have a Jack the Ripper-like hooded throat-slashing killer, a family curse, an evil Doctor, a buxom maid and a splendid Hammer-inspired pub/brothel scene with groping hordes of lecherous men pawing at a multitude of drunken wenches.Despite the plot devices which avid horror fans will appreciate, 'The Oblong Box' is flawed, has continuity problems, and will offer little worthwhile for the average film fan.
However, directing "The Oblong Box" seemed clumsy, uninspired, the story obstructed by needless subplots and awkwardly put together – all evidence of a director too young who has bit off more than he could chew.Let's talk about the good things first: we get classic Hammer-atmosphere, camera-work and colour and an interesting story – for the first half of the movie, that is.
The acting is a good as expected by the cast It's always a joy to see beautiful Hilary Dwyer (and a shame that she quit acting in the mid-70ies) and Sir Christopher and Lee Vincent Price together in one film is always an event.
Through the second part of the film, Lee and Price are degraded to nothing more than overpaid extras, the story shifts attention to Alister Williamson, the cursed Sir Edward Markham.
OBLONG BOX was the first of Hessler's Poe movies, and it's also the least of them.After an effectively creepy opening scene involving a Voodoo ritual, the story then turns to Vincent Price, a wealthy land owner, who keeps his disfigured and insane brother (the result of said Voodoo) chained in an upstairs room.
'The Oblong Box' was one of a string of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations churned out by American International in the '50's/'60's, usually with Vincent Price in the leading role.
Though economically made, these pictures, such as 'House Of Usher' ( 1960 ) and 'The Masque Of The Red Death' ( 1964 ) looked more expensive than they actually were.This entry opens in Africa where Julian Markway ( Price ) discovers the local witch doctor has punished his brother Sir Edward ( Alister Wiliamson ) for some unknown terrible deed ( we don't find out what it is until the end ) by making him permanently disfigured.
Opening the coffin, however, he finds the disfigured Markham still very much alive...'The Oblong Box' lacks the baroque feel of the Corman films, coming across instead as a low grade Hammer-type effort.
From this new hideout, Edward spends much of the movie exacting revenge on those who wronged him.The plot is interesting, though if you are looking for magic from Price or Lee, don't bother.
"Special guest star" Christopher Lee (in a gray wig) is Dr. Neuhart, a surgeon who is aided by grave-robbers for his experiments and is subsequently blackmailed by Edward to provide him a place to hide out in exchange for some additional raw material.Based loosely on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Premature Burial," as well as several other stories from the author, I've often seen this one written off as dull and too-familiar, which it is at times.
Instead we get Vincent Price in his worst role, Christopher Lee as a dull and deranged doctor, and a man in a comical "crimson mask" that could have been played by anyone since we never really get to see him.
Wealthy plantation owner Julian Markham (a fine and restrained performance by Vincent Price) keeps his horribly disfigured brother Edward (a sympathetic portrayal by Alister Williamson) locked up in a tower in his mansion.
The Oblong Box. Julian Markham's brother, Edward, is cursed by an African tribe with voodoo via hideous visage and he is held prisoner for his own good inside the family mansion.
That probably has to do with the portrayals of Vincent Price and Christopher Lee, neither of which is particularly scary this time around, and the occasional splatter of bright red blood, courtesy of Sir Edward's murder victims.The best thing this story did for me was as a reminder of a host of expressions that arose from the idea of people mistakenly buried alive. |
tt0084453 | Otelo (Comando negro) | === Act I ===
Roderigo, a poor and dissolute gentleman, complains to his friend Iago, an ensign, that Iago has not told him about the secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of a Senator named Brabantio, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. Roderigo is upset because he loves Desdemona and had asked her father for her hand in marriage.
Iago hates Othello for promoting a younger man named Cassio above him, whom Iago considers less capable a soldier than himself, and tells Roderigo that he plans to use Othello for his own advantage. Iago convinces Roderigo to wake Brabantio and tell him about his daughter's elopement. Meanwhile, Iago sneaks away to find Othello and warns him that Brabantio is coming for him.
Brabantio, provoked by Roderigo, is enraged and will not rest until he has beheaded Othello, but he finds Othello's residence full of the Duke of Venice's guards, who prevent violence. News has arrived in Venice that the Turks are going to attack Cyprus; therefore Othello is summoned to advise the senators. Brabantio has no option but to accompany Othello to the Duke's residence, where he accuses Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft.
Othello defends himself before the Duke of Venice, Brabantio's kinsmen Lodovico and Gratiano, and various senators. Othello explains that Desdemona became enamoured of him for the sad and compelling stories he told of his life before Venice, not because of any witchcraft. The senate is satisfied, once Desdemona confirms that she loves Othello, but Brabantio leaves saying that Desdemona will betray Othello: "Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:/She has deceived her father, and may thee." Iago, still in the room, takes note of Brabantio's remark. By order of the Duke, Othello leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against invading Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife, his new lieutenant Cassio, his ensign Iago, and Iago's wife, Emilia, as Desdemona's attendant.
=== Act II ===
The party arrives in Cyprus to find that a storm has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Othello orders a general celebration and leaves to consummate his marriage with Desdemona. In his absence, Iago gets Cassio drunk, and then persuades Roderigo to draw Cassio into a fight. Montano tries to calm an angry and drunk Cassio down, but end up fighting one another. Montano is injured in the fight. Othello reenters and questions the men as to what happened. Othello blames Cassio for the disturbance and strips him of his rank. Cassio is distraught. Iago persuades Cassio to importune Desdemona to convince her husband to reinstate Cassio.
=== Act III ===
Iago now persuades Othello to be suspicious of Cassio and Desdemona. When Desdemona drops a handkerchief (the first gift given to her by Othello), Emilia finds it, and gives it to her husband Iago, at his request, unaware of what he plans to do with it. Othello reenters and vows with Iago for the death of Desdemona and Cassio, after which he makes Iago his lieutenant. Act III, scene iii, is considered to be the turning point of the play as it is the scene in which Iago successfully sows the seeds of doubt in Othello's mind, inevitably sealing Othello's fate.
=== Act IV ===
Iago plants the handkerchief in Cassio's lodgings, then tells Othello to watch Cassio's reactions while Iago questions him. Iago goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with Bianca, a local courtesan, but whispers her name so quietly that Othello believes the two men are talking about Desdemona. Later, Bianca accuses Cassio of giving her a second-hand gift which he had received from another lover. Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio received the handkerchief from Desdemona.
Enraged and hurt, Othello resolves to kill his wife and asks Iago to kill Cassio. Othello proceeds to make Desdemona's life miserable, hitting her in front of visiting Venetian nobles. Meanwhile, Roderigo complains that he has received no results from Iago in return for his money and efforts to win Desdemona, but Iago convinces him to kill Cassio.
=== Act V ===
Roderigo attacks Cassio in the street after Cassio leaves Bianca's lodgings. Cassio wounds Roderigo. During the scuffle, Iago comes from behind Cassio and badly cuts his leg. In the darkness, Iago manages to hide his identity, and when Lodovico and Gratiano hear Cassio's cries for help, Iago joins them. When Cassio identifies Roderigo as one of his attackers, Iago secretly stabs Roderigo to stop him revealing the plot. Iago then accuses Bianca of the failed conspiracy to kill Cassio.
Othello confronts Desdemona, and then strangles her to death in their bed. When Emilia arrives, Othello accuses Desdemona of adultery. Emilia calls for help. The former governor Montano arrives, with Gratiano and Iago. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what her husband Iago has done, and she exposes him, whereupon he kills her. Othello, belatedly realising Desdemona's innocence, stabs Iago but not fatally, saying that he would rather have Iago live the rest of his life in pain.
Iago refuses to explain his motives, vowing to remain silent from that moment on. Lodovico apprehends both Iago and Othello for the murders of Roderigo and Emilia, but Othello commits suicide. Lodovico appoints Gratiano Othello's successor and exhorts Cassio to punish Iago justly. | tragedy, romantic, blaxploitation | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0102130 | Isabelle Eberhardt | Isabelle Eberhardt (Mathilda May) travels from North Africa to be with her father, who is dying in Geneva. Shortly after Eberhardt euthanises him, the wife of Marquis de Mores summons her to Paris. de Mores has disappeared in North Africa, and his wife wished to hire Eberhardt to track him down, as she is familiar with the region. Eberhardt arrives in Algiers, where she approaches newspaper publisher Victor Barrucand (Claude Villers). He is interested in her writing for his newspaper, though advises her to abandon the search for de Mores on the grounds it is hopeless. The French authorities are threatened by her search efforts and confront her about them. Despite that she has already come to the conclusion that de Mores is dead, the French garrison forbid her from traveling further from Algiers. Eberhardt falls in love with Slimene (Tchéky Karyo), a French Foreign Legion soldier, who arranges for her to travel out in secret.
Eberhardt is captured by a French patrol after witnessing them execute an Arab prisoner. A French military officer, Comte (Richard Moire), imprisons and abuses her. Eberhardt befriends an Arab prisoner named Sayed, who is later executed. Slimene reveals that Comte executed Sayed in the hopes of provoking a war. Eberhardt writes to Barracund telling him everything; her story is printed as front page news. Shortly thereafter Eberhardt is viciously attacked and wounded by an Arab swordsman. Eberhardt believes that Comte is responsible for the attack. At the conclusion of the sentencing of her attacker to life imprisonment, the French authorities deport Eberhardt. She moves to Marseille, where she is accompanied by Slimene the following year. The two become married, which allows Eberhardt to return to Algiers.
Eberhardt recommences working as a journalist for Barracund. Her marriage begins to break down as Slimene does not want her travel away from him. After reaching the outpost at Aïn Séfra, Eberhardt meets a French officer, Major Hubert Lyautey (Peter O'Toole). Despite their differences, the two respect each-other and soon become friends. Lyautey requests Eberhardt travel to Morocco to ask a marabout for permission to pursue a bandit into his territory. Eberhardt is conflicted about working for the French, though agrees to do it. After arriving in Morocco, however, she finds the marabout unwilling to make time to see her, and she becomes sick with malaria while waiting. Eberhardt is taken to a military hospital back in Aïn Séfra. Slimene vists her, and Eberhardt asks him to take her with him. Slimene takes her back to his small hut, and returns in the heavy rain to get medicine for her. While he is out he realises Eberhardt will be in danger from the growing amount of water, but he does not make it back to the hut in time to save her. Inside her hut, Eberhardt realises she is in danger when it is too late and declares she wants to live an instant before a wall of water caves in the house, killing her. Eberhardt reads the final paragraph from her short story "The Breath of Night" in a voice over, as images of the desert and water appear on screen. | romantic, violence | train | wikipedia | The Anarchist's Daughter. The story of the brief life (1877-1904) of French-Russian-Swiss traveler and writer Isabelle Eberhardt, this dark little film is almost impossible to find. I saw it years ago on IFC a couple of times, but haven't been able to find it in any other format.This movie is wildly uneven in style, but does manage to touch on many of the salient points of Isabelle's life, including her relationship with the French military governor of Morocco, Lyautey, who is played here by Peter O'Toole in a clever bit of casting. We all associate O'Toole with the desert and Lawrence of Arabia, and the scenes here of the two of them walking together, she in her stylish new Arab threads, seems to be almost a passing of the torch. The fact that the real Isabelle died long before Lawrence ever set foot in Arabia is irrelevant. This is purely a gesture of cinematic homage.I also like the way the film drives home the desperation of Isabelle's poverty throughout life, and the way that she and her fellow souls are constantly pushed to the margins by the need to keep sickness and starvation at bay. Paul Schutze's moody film score helps these scenes immensely.This movie is a minor gem, imperfectly realized, maybe, but unique. I wish somebody would see fit to release it on DVD.. Slow but interesting true story of a woman, a convert to Islam, whose several books about colonial Algeria became legendary.. Watching this slow French-Australian production is interesting if only to learn about the true story of a woman whose several books about colonial Algerian became legendary. Even the story of how the books came to be published is interesting.Per a website entry by © Robert Bononno 1988, Isabelle Eberhardt was the child of an aristocratic German mother and a Russian father, a former priest in the Russian Orthodox church, a friend of Bakunin, a "philosopher, scholar and polyglot." (Eberhardt is claimed to have been Rimbaud's daughter). She converted to Sufi Islam and was fluent in many languages.The movie is a little pedantic about justice and colonial oppression, and the character development is a not clear. However, this fictionalized snapshot of a period not widely known by American audiences is worthwhile.A small role by Peter O'Toole is welcome.. interesting despite slow-moving pace and unsure evolution. I was thinking about the people who have moved me in some way in my life and I remembered this little film, which didn't leave much of an impression here in Sydney unfortunately. Nevertheless, it is a representation of a real person, and what a life she lived! Most of us haven't the courage or daring to be one's true self in the way that Isabelle was. Thank God for a few brave souls to pave some less-travelled roads. Yes the film may have been slow-moving and a bit vague at times but I believe that it in some way reflected the mind of Isabelle herself, for things were not so clear cut for her, and she must have felt the irony of being able to be passed off as both genders at a time when roles were clearly defined. No, I was very glad to see a film such as this made. They number too few! (7/10) |
tt0098802 | Get a Life | Chris Peterson is a carefree, childlike bachelor who refuses to live the life of an adult. At the age of 30, Chris still lives with his parents and maintains a career delivering the St. Paul Pioneer Press; a job that he has held since his youth. He has no driver's license (instead, riding his bicycle wherever he goes). He is depicted as being childish, naive, gullible, foolish, occasionally irresponsible, and extremely dimwitted. His lack of intelligence is exaggerated to absurd levels: at one point, he tries to leave his parents' house but is unable to operate the front door. He also fell out of an airplane after opening the plane's airlock, believing that the "EXIT" sign was a restroom.
Chris' parents (Fred and Gladys Peterson) are a vapid middle-aged couple who are almost always seen in their pajamas and robes (even when they leave the house). They are often shown doing something abnormal like polishing handguns, or trying to shoot the deer that ate the flowerbulbs out of their garden. Gladys (Elinor Donahue) is a smiling, caring mother who doted over Chris, though often makes cynical, passive-aggressive comments about him and his lifestyle. Fred (Bob Elliott) is a much more blunt, wise-cracking old man, who is constantly exasperated by his son, and seems to have a reckless disregard for Chris' well-being (on one occasion, Chris demonstrated how his father taught him to use a shotgun by placing the barrel in his mouth).
In the early episodes, Chris wanted little more than to spend his days reliving his childhood with his father and his best friend, Larry (Sam Robards). Larry was Chris' friend since childhood, but unlike Chris, Larry has since "grown up", owns a house, works a dead-end job as an accountant, and has two children and a wife, Sharon (Robin Riker). Sharon is an overbearing housewife who does not want her husband associating with Chris, preferring instead that he make friends with more sophisticated socialites that better befits their image. Sharon despises Chris, and Chris takes any opportunity to irritate her. Larry is envious of Chris' carefree lifestyle, and is often coerced by Chris into joining him in his adventures, despite his wife's wishes. To Chris' dismay, Larry eventually heeds his advice and leaves his wife and children at the beginning of the second season. This leaves Sharon traumatized, and she becomes more and more obsessed with killing Chris in revenge.
In a defiant nod to Fox Network demands that his character "be more independent", Chris Peterson was moved out of his parents' house at the beginning of the second season, much to his parents' amazement and joy, and into the garage of ex-cop Gus Borden, played by Brian Doyle-Murray, who had been fired from the police force for urinating on his boss. He is a gruff, demeaning sociopath with minimal tolerance for Chris' antics, which Chris seems to be oblivious to, while looking up to Gus as a sort of paternal figure. For that reason, Gus serves as Chris' comic foil throughout the second season.
One of the more controversial episodes featured a character named Spewey the Alien (a parody of the films Mac and Me and E.T.), an extraterrestrial who secretes mucus from under his scales (which Chris proceeds to drink and call the "nectar of the Gods") and projectile vomits when he becomes emotionally overwrought. At the end of the episode, Peterson and Gus barbecued and ate Spewey, although the creature was resurrected inside their refrigerator. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | If you've seen "Cabin Boy", you'll love Chris Elliott in this show.When "There's Something About Mary" came out, I saw it and was reminded instantly of the sort of outlandish humor both that and "Get a Life" used.My favorite episode is definitely the one where Chris is mutated by nuclear material and becomes a spelling bee wizard before it wears off and he badly misspells the word "pants".If you haven't seen it, check it out..
Nutso, schizo, and totally hilarious, the ultimate Chris Elliot vehicle.
It's been over a decade, and many of us still double-over with laughter just thinking about episodes of this insane sitcom, a Hellzapopin revue for the goofy, mannered talents of Chris Elliot.
There aren't many absolutes in life, but this is one of them: You'll either love or hate this show (and your feelings will be inextricably tied to how much you like Chris Elliot).
And in a plain vanilla world of network television, that's a good thing!For me, my life is always a whole lot better when I think about "Spewey the Alien," "Zoo Animals on Wheels," and the "Toolbelt Wars." Those episodes are as fresh today as they were in the day.
The trouble with Chris Elliot, I think, is that he has such a bizarre, almost off-putting sense of humor that a little of him goes a long way.
Chris Elliot is Chris Peterson, a thirty year old newspaper delivery boy who still lives with his parents.This show should be resurrected.
My favorite episode is when Chris orders a submarine via the mail and he builds it in his bathtub.
To look at Chris and Bob Elliott you'd never know that the two were even related.
I really enjoyed Get A Life but it's just too bad that the show was canceled after only 2 seasons.The people who were in Get A Life were funny and witty but there was just something about the chemistry between Bob and Chris that really appealed to me.
A lot of television humor is recycled from past shows, or just the same theme over and over again.
This show, however, was original and showed the world that Chris Elliot is a brilliant comedian.
Does anyone remember that Elliot got his start on "David Letterman" on NBC as the "Conspiracy guy", who would stand up in the audience, interrupt the show, and accuse Letterman of some "cover-up" involving missing files and Connie Chung?
"Get a Life" was very funny and quite original.
I guess my favorite episode was the one where the alien Chris found would ooze out some vile, and disgusting stuff out of his body, and Chris ate it.
I really liked this show and I wish Fox had kept it on longer..
Half the episodes didn't make any kind of point, but it was funny just the same.
The show was basically about a middle aged boy named Chris Peterson who had a paper route and lived with his parents, at least in the 1st season and above all else, HAD NO LIFE!
During the 2nd season Chris moves out of his parents house and into the basement of retired police officer, Gus who was his landlord-friend.
Why FOX didn't keep the series on longer I don't understand because the show had many amusing episodes, corny but funny.
I do miss this show I look back and remembered laughing my self silly watching this show every week.
But, as usual FOX always cancels the good TV Shows..
I think the humor was ahead of it's time.
My favorite episode was when the construction workers were doing some work in Chris' parent's kitchen, and they taught Chris how to yell out catcalls to women as they passed by.
Yeah, you have a very nice skirt on today." I hope Rhino comes out with more episodes on DVD..
The episodes are like a cartoon; anything can happen and it is not bound by normal rules.
It only has four episodes but they are great no matter how many times I watch them.
My favorite episode is when Chris finds a dead rat in his milk carton and decides to become a food inspector.
One of those things where a bunch of guys sit around eating those long sandwiches?" Then he laughs like an idiot.
One of my favorite episodes was the satire of the musical "Cats." Chris Elliot's parents were particularly good and if you like Chris's style / humor, you can't help but enjoy the show.
This is one of the funniest series i've ever seen, even though or probably because the stories are so tremendously bizarre (or stupid, for people who don't see what's so funny about a 30 year old guy who still lives with his parents) If you like the humor of There's Something About Mary, you should see one of the episodes of these series..
Somewhere in the early nineties a Dutch TV station bought a dozen of episodes of Get a Life and it was one of the funniest, if not THE funniest thing I have ever seen.
The funny thing is though, that the good friends I have had, when I mentioned Get a Life, they have freaked out; they say it's one of the best things they ever saw!
Everybody should watch it at least once when given the chance cos it's quite unique and if it IS your kind of thing, you probably will never see anything funnier..
There are only three shows that guaranteed a good laugh any time you watched them: Married with Children, Nightstand, and Get a life.
One episode, Chris got a wheel-barrow full of spoiled shrimp and served it to his friends.
They didn't die, but fell into a trance-like condition which Chris exploited.
At the end of the show he found a label warning him, "do not hypnotize friends if they eat the shrimp." The episode ended ala "Night of the Living Dead." Just one of the many shows.
There was one episode that he built a submarine in his parents bathroom I mean how many children wished they could?
Even with his bitingly sarcastic father constantly trying to slap him in the face with reality, Chris's character maintains his hilarious naiveté, to such an extent that he often convinces the world to join him in it and bend to his will.Anyone who remembers their childhood and what it was like dreaming mail-order dreams that fail when the postman finally arrives cannot help but admire and envy Chris's tenacity in holding onto those dreams forever.
Even now, more than a decade later, just the thought of Chris the infantile adult ordering a submarine kit through the mail then building and using it in his bathtub/shower has me laughing to the point of tears..
I wish they would release this whole series on dvd.
My favorite episodes were the father/son american gladiators, the toolbelt wars, and handsome boy modeling school..
Others remember the show as extremely funny and original.
I choose the latter.Chris Elliott, Adam Resnick and Dave Mirkin created perhaps single most disturbing sitcom to ever grace the FOX Fall lineup.
They had the greatest show in the history of mankind, "Married...with Children," and several other favorites such as "The Ben Stiller Show," "Drexell's Class," "Herman's Head," "In Living Color," "Martin," "Roc" and "The Simpsons" when it was still laugh out loud hilarious, or decent for that matter.
In my mind, with the exception of "Married," "Get a Life" was their best show, and as you can tell, it had quite a bit of competition with the previously mentioned sitcoms and dramas such as "Beverly Hills, 90210," "Melrose Place" and the network's eventual saving grace, "The X-Files."Look for "Get a Life" on DVD.
Rhino has not released individual seasons (both seasons) of the series, but you can find best of volumes everywhere from Media Play to Circuit City."Get a Life" was righteously excellent.***1/2 out of ****..
The adventures of a 30-year-old paperboy getting into wacky and stupid situations is sometimes odd, sometimes weird, and nearly all the time funnier than hell.
And the man behind it, David Merkin, also deserves a lot of the credit (you can see where this show and it's short-lived successor, 'The Edge,' meet on the comedy axis).
I haven't seen this show in over 8 years but I can still remember the episode where all the paperboys were fired.
It was so funny,and every week our hero a 30 year old paperboy found some way to get himself killed(South Park rippped it off) Chris would die of eating poison fish, or one of the others would rip off his head, and kick it around like a soccer ball.
I used to laugh until i was on the floor every week, and i hated Fox for canceling this show.
I had the opportunity to work on the TV series "Get A Life" over at Sunset-Gower Studios as a Production Assistant to the Cinematographer in the first season.
Chris is a great person to work with and his Dad is very funny and the nicest guy you could meet!
If you've seen the show you probably remember that Sam Robards's played Chris's best friend on the show.
I remember he was living in Colorado at the time and would fly in every week for filming.
Sam, like everyone else (cast and crew), was also a bright, funny guy.
FOX television,while a fairly savvy network through much of its run since 1990,seemed to be un-in-love with this show from about the first three or four episodes on and it could be seen as a minor miracle that they even bothered to retain it for a second year!
Needless to say,the ratings would drop and it gave FOX all the excuse it needed to officially dump the show at last.Chris Elliott's charm(or lack thereof)and grotesque goofiness was honed on David Letterman's NBC show through the 1980s,and is plugged into this wildly drawn premise of an overgrown paperboy.
Great supporting turns by(among others)Bob Elliott(Chris' dad and accomplished comedian in his own right),Elinor Donahue,Robin Riker and Brian Doyle-Murray made this show fitfully funny and completely lacking sentimentality or schmaltz.I hope this show makes it to DVD(preferably sooner than later),assuming it hasn't already.
I only taped 2 episodes, which I have dubbed to DVD, and watched a million time....
I only taped 2 episodes, which I have dubbed to DVD, and watched a million time....
A 30-year-old paperboy who still lived at home and never quite grew up, acting like a child, was the main focus of the show and well-played by Chris Elliott.
The episodes themselves were unpredictable and often times bizarre.
Chris Elliot is an underrated genius!!!.
Chris Elliot is an underrated genius!!!He's at his finest as the paperboy Chris Peterson in this hilarious "sitcom".
Probably the best slapstick tv show of its time.
Too bad it had to go away.Also notable is the presence of his real life father, Bob Elliot, who's also extremely funny as Fred Peterson, Chris' sarcastic father.
It was like a live action cartoon and way funnier than that crap Family Guy!
Chris Elliot and Brian Doyle Murray made one helluva comedy duo.My favorite episode was when Chris discovered the alien in his yard and they ended up eating it!
Whenever I bring up Get a Life, that's always the first episode discussed.Another favorite was the episode where Chris makes his own time travel drink to stop Gus from urinating on his boss!I wish someone would release the whole series on DVD instead of making everyone have to deal with the internet extortionists wanting an arm and a leg for two out of print volumes..
He, along with the fact the writers ran out of good ideas, after season one, ruined the series.
I do not know why Elliot, and the other writers, retooled the series after its first year.
I hope Elliot has another series in him..
I remember at the time arguing with my dad about what was funnier this show or Cosby and I liked both shows but this was more my or a younger sense of humour but my dad could not understand me liking this show at all.
It was so different and Chris Elliott was great as the useless loser 40 year old who still had a paper route and lived with his parents, who were always sitting around in their housecoats and didn't even like him.
No way to really describe the show other than that, you have to see it and love it or hate it you have to admit it is a great show as far as being different from anything else on TV at the time.
It had an early "greatest hits" type release about a decade ago, but then finally got a complete series release with a good amount of extras in 2012.
I wouldn't exactly say it's a great series, mostly because it takes a season and a half to work out some kinks and then it got canceled shortly thereafter.
Chris Elliott stars as a 30 year-old paperboy who lives with his parents.
The show really picks up when Chris moves from his parents' house to the garage of a retired cop (Brian Doyle-Murray).
Doyle-Murray, Bill Murray's brother, is hysterical and, for a long time, was my favorite of the Murray brothers because of this series.
"GET A LIFE," in my opinion, is an absolute FOX classic!
I don't think I've seen every episode, but I still enjoyed it.
It's hard to say which episode was my favorite.
Despite the fact that it was a short-lived series, it would have been nice if all the main characters had stayed with the show throughout its entire run.
Like most innovative and smart TV comedies it died way, way ahead of its time, as well.
There are two Rhino DVDs with 4 episodes each on them, but that isn't enough!
To think that there are episodes of this amazing show sitting on a shelf somewhere, not being laughed at by the public is a damn shame.
I remember this show being a cult classic when it was on, and I was only ten years old!
Chris Elliot is a comic genius and this show is his masterpiece.
After all, I loved this show and watched every episode when it first aired.
I also think that MANY people have a hard time suspending disbelief and just didn't know what to think about these rather surreal episodes.
I loved ZOO ANIMALS ON WHEELS, Chris going in search of his REAL Amish parents or the automated newspaper delivery machine that nearly put this 30 year-old newspaper boy out of business!
What a show--too bad it was canceled and too bad only selected episodes are available on DVD.UPDATE: The show has finally been released on DVD.
You will most likely notice that season one was MUCH better.
Chris Elliot is god..
i've only seen a few episodes but i can tell this is one of the greatest things ever to come out of the 1990s.
it's about a 30 year old paperboy and his extremely insane adventures.
i love the episode where they are both stuck in the roller coaster.
Get A Life is one of the funniest shows ever.That's why it got cancelled.The average person would rather watch a bunch of fools learning important life lessons.That's their idea of comedy.Not only was this show extremely funny, they made very weird story choices that always worked.The show starts off being about a 30 year old paperboy, his parents and his best friend.In early episodes they try to give Chris other paperboy friends but they quickly disappear.Almost every episode contains a ridiculous musical montage and it never gets old.At one point in the first season they start having Chris die in most episodes and every time it's funny.For the second season,Chris moved into the garage of Bill Murray's brother and his parents only make a couple appearances after that.But the weirdest change they made is when Chris' best friend leaves his wife and she becomes the co-star of the series, even though her and Chris hate each other and she was barely in the first season.And it worked!This is by far one of the best TV shows ever.If you read this go find everything by Chris, Eagleheart, Cabin Boy, old Letterman clips, whatever you can find.You won't regret it..
A truly original, fresh, and creative television series starring Chris Elliot.
This is one of the genuinely funny and touching shows ever produced and at times is absolutely brilliant.
Chris Elliot is admittedly an acquired taste but here he's superb even when he's at his most irritating.
Chris's real life father Bob Elliot is amazing in the program and his dry delivery of lines stunningly hilarious.
Sadly, this series was short lived and wasn't given the chance it deserved.
However, it remains a bright spot in the early days of Fox and a high point in television comedy history..
It's about a bald old man in his 30's-40's who lives in his parents house still, played by Chris Elliot who was famous from his days on David Letterman.He is still a paper boy and everyone teases and makes fun of him, but he thinks he is awesome.
He gets into all kinds of weird situations like he makes his only friend from next door skip work and go to a theme park then they get stuck on the roller coaster upside down and put on the TV news.Watch it it's very funny!.
Get a Life on DVD/ Blu-ray Now!.
There is only one TV series that I truly wish to own on DVD and it's Chris Elliott's Get a Life!
Unfortunately, Get a Life is the only series out of seemingly thousands that is not available in its entirety on DVD.
In several interviews, Elliott has blamed the "suits at Sony" for not releasing a Get a Life complete DVD set. |
tt0102217 | The King of the Kickboxers | Jake Donahue and his older brother Sean are in Thailand. Jake's brother is fighting for the kickboxing championship of Thailand and wins his bout. Jake and Sean leave the arena victorious and are soon attacked by Khan and his henchmen. Khan takes Sean on in a fight and subsequently kills him. He then attacks Jake and leaves him scarred for life.
Ten years later, Jake is a police officer, fighting crime in New York city. Jake is given a special assignment by his commanding officer Captain O'Day (played by Richard Jaeckel). His Captain tells him that there are filmmakers in Thailand who kill the actors on the set of their films. Jake is to travel to Thailand to stop them. Jake refuses but changes his mind when he later finds out that Khan is involved.
Jake travels to Thailand and meets a kickboxer who convinces Jake that he is no match for Khan. He tells him about Prang, a man who may be able to help him. Prang was once one of Thailand's top fighters but now lives a recluse in the wilderness. Jake finds Prang and Prang agrees to train Jake.
Khan tries to rape a young lady called Molly (played by Sherrie Rose). She escapes but is chased by some of Khan's thugs. Jake witnesses the chase and saves Molly. Jake then befriends Molly.
Jake continues to train with Prang and perfects his skills. He develops an intimate relationship with Molly. Jake attracts the attention of the filmmakers he is supposed to be investigating and scores a role in a film.
Jake leaves Prang's abode and heads for the film set. This gives Khan and his thugs a chance to kill Prang and kidnap Molly. Jake arrives on the film set and goes through several scenes before Khan appears. Khan throws Prang's lifeless body into the water below and throws Molly into a net and traps her.
The final fight then takes place between Jake and Khan. Jake defeats Khan and subsequently kills him. He rescues Molly and the police move in to arrest the corrupt film makers. | revenge | train | wikipedia | null |
tt1180583 | Vaaranam Aayiram | The film begins with elderly Krishnan (krishnan) returning home after a haircut. Once he reaches home, he vomits profuse amounts of blood and is kept to rest. After the doctor checks him, he is reported dead after a few moments of grief with his wife Malini (Simran), daughter Shreya, and daughter-in-law Priya (Divya Spandana). This news is informed to his son Surya (Suriya), who is on his way to Kashmir on a military mission traveling in a helicopter to rescue a kidnapped journalist from terrorists. He begins to shed tears and starts to think about his memorable moments with his father and the story of how his parents loved each other during their college days.
Krishnan is a student in Madras Christian College, the same college where Malini studies. They fall in love and get married. They soon have a son, Surya. He grows up as a friend to his father. He joins an engineering college near Tiruchi and parts from his family. There, he takes part in cultural activities and develops his guitar skills. When he is on a train back home after completion of college, he meets Meghna (Sameera Reddy), who is doing Computer Science in National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli(Regional College of Engineering,Tiruchirapalli). Instantly smitten by her, he soon proposes to her. She rejects him, saying that they have known each other for a very short period and it's not possible to fall in love without taking time to understand him. Surya then tells her that wherever she goes, he will be able to find her.
Surya is disturbed constantly by Meghna's thoughts and consequently ends up going to her house. There she reveals to him that she is going to University of California, Berkeley in a week to do her Masters in Computer Science. Then, Surya bids adieu to her. After that, Krishnan, gets his first mild heart attack and is admitted to a hospital. Surya feels that he needs to resolve the financial constraints in his family, and so starts an office with his friends and does concerts for money and succeeds.
A few months later, Surya goes to the United States, with the acceptance of his father, and meets Meghna in San Francisco. Though shocked by his presence, Meghna feels relieved to find someone she knows in California. They have the time of their lives there. Meghna is convinced that he is the right person and that he will be accepted by her father, so she proposes to him, much to delight to Surya and his parents. Their happiness does not last long when she goes to Oklahoma City for a project. Surya joins her later traveling by the Greyhound Lines. When he reaches there, he witnesses the Oklahoma City bombing and realizes that Meghna is amongst those injured. She dies on her way to the hospital. He meets Shankar Menon at the airport who tries to console him with words and offers him encouragement. A heartbroken Surya returns to India.
A few days later, Surya still cannot take the situation. He starts hanging out with his friends to get over his loss. He meets Priya, his sister's friend. However, the thoughts of losing Meghna still haunt him, and he resorts to taking drugs. Surya's parents try to get him to break the habit by locking him up in his room and removing him from all external contact. Once they detect his withdrawal symptoms, they ask him to take a long break to rejuvenate himself. Subsequently, he takes a leisure trip to Kashmir. There he learns that Aditya, the son of Shankar Menon, the person who inspired him in the airport was kidnapped. He visits them in Delhi. On seeing the lethargic attitude of the police, he takes matters into his own hands and goes in search of the kidnappers. After days of roaming streets and gathering information, he locates the kidnapper Asad (Babloo Prithiveeraj) and the place where Aditya is kept. He battles the kidnappers single-handedly, overpowers them and rescues Aditya.
Back home, Surya starts to go out with Priya. One day Priya proposes to him, but he does not respond. Surya decides that the only way to forget the pain in his body is to prepare it for bigger things. He goes on a strict workout training and joins the army. After six years, Priya comes to the Indian Military Academy where she is posted along him and proposes again; this time he accepts. They marry and have a son. Suddenly, Krishnan is diagnosed with throat cancer and is operated on. After some days, Surya is called upon to go on a mission to rescue a journalist, which brings the scene back to the present day.
After completing the military mission with the help of a masked man (Gautham Vasudev Menon) who tells them where the culprits were, Surya returns home to see his dead father. Surya, his sister Shriya, Malini and Priya let go his father's ashes in the sea and Malini relates her husband's life to Surya by uttering a verse from a prayer. The film ends on a happy note as the four walk away smiling, conveying the message that "Whatever happens, life has to go on." | romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | First of all its a Gautham Menon film,lot of ups and downs,twist and turns yet its totally different from all the other movies its a Masterpiece given by him,the story deals with a simple relationship between father and son,but said in a extraordinary way.
Its a visual treat for audience gave by Surya and Sameera Reddy on one half- The brighter part of the film deals with the childhood days with his dad and most beautiful part of the film his love with Megnha ,and the movie turns dark when Megnha dies,and Surya goes mad couldn't bare her loss,he goes on 2 drugs,then once again his hero-Dad comes in his life changes everything around him,turns his negatives into positives creating him a major in the Indian ARMY.The best of the film are is memories with his father...THANK u Gautham Menon for giving this film its not just a film its a fragment of my heart...
Overall, this movie had a little bit of everything: love, violence, adventure, music and it is a definite must watch..
As a teenager, lover, loser, commando, aged man his performance is top class...His body language and voice modulation all are excellent...I can say..now he is in big league with the finest actors of our country...Coming to the film....itz an autobiographical one...so we cant blame the pace of the movie...Even though the narration is racy in first half.
In second half there are lot of incidents...(transition from a loser to a good individual..) Surya-Sameera reddy love track is minty cool..n Surya-Divya track is also OK...Then the Delhi episode...IMO itz a refreshing idea frm Goutham..(To overcome the loss of tragic event in Hero's life..)Someone may not agree that...After that the army scenes...surya really looks like an army man...And the final dialogue from simran is also touching...Performancewise Surya...His career best performance till date....Next comes Simran...Matured performance ..Both Sameera and Divya are apt for the roles...No gimmicks in Cinematography and Editing...BGM and music is beautifully synchronised with the mood of the film....If you are looking for a masala entertainer, then stay away from here...Overall, itz a must watch .....
The real magic in this movie is definitely Surya's acting.
At first I was wondering why is he casted again as a double role acting, he has done that several times like the one in Vel. However, I was amazed at his abilities in creating distinctive traits to each of these character; the father and son.
In short, you don't need to create 10 characters (rings the bell) to portray your talents in acting, the important things is to be the role itself and how the audiences are impacted.The songs are superb.
Not forgetting cinematography, you don't get much of boring static shots; it's either dramatic, or simply keeps you wanting to know more about the next scene.Though a little draggy ( the flaw ) , overall this a Tamil movie you shouldn't miss.
Every single character has brought out their role well, Simran as Surya's mum played her character too neatly and well, leaving you praising her performance at the end of the movie.After watching this movie, it won't really leave you for a few days most a week.
That much impact.Watch it, you may find the usual Tamil movie clichés, but it will leave you satisfied as you step out the theater or living room..
I walked out of the cinema telling myself, that I had just watched a beautiful Tamil movie.
Sameera and Divya were both at the best and no one can say they are mediocre performers or just plain dumb blonds after this movie.
'Vaaranam Aayiram' tells the story about the life journey of a son who is positively motivated by his father and how he goes through emotions like love,passion,success and failure and how he is driven to search for himself in this challenging world.....
the movie seems to have lot of similarities with the Tom Hanks starring Hollywood movie 'Forrest Gump' which is definitely and obviously a better version of 'Vaaranam Aayiram'....but,it is definitely considered as a very good attempt from the viewpoint of Tamil cinema as the music and cinematography of the movie takes Tamil cinema to the next level.....Surya's performance in the dual role as both father and son is mind blowing as he has delivered a complete performance.....Gautham Menon's smart direction, Harris Jayaraj's superb songs and background scores,Rathnavelu's brilliant cinematography are giant pillars carrying the movie in their shoulders.....a great story about the relationship between a father and a son.....'Vaaranam Aayiram' could have been more of a classic if the makers could have avoided compromise in certain aspects of the movie......
The treatment and narration are purely autobiographical with most of it taken from real life incidents laced with cinematic liberties.In a nutshell, the film is personal and deals with the deep bonding between a loving and devoted father and his son who is trying to discover himself.
Vaaranam Aayiram is an Amazing Movie and I can't even find words to praise the entire crew for such a marvelous performance in every moment of this film..The way Surya is acting as a 15 year old Student or a Father role or a Military Major or a College Student is amazing and worthy and he proves that he is a good actor in the Tamil Film Industry.Sameera is simply superb and performed well.
Also the way Surya is proposing to Sameera in that Train is great to watch.Divya is doing her best.
Simran is too good for this Mother Character.Sameera's proposal of her love to Surya is superb.
Overall Vaaranam Aayiram is worthy for Tamil Movie Industry.Hats off to Gowtham Vasudev Menon, the Director of this movie.
Gautam's conception of the Train scenes between Surya and Sameera Reddy is extremely refreshing.
One of the Best Movie of Suriya Sivakumar with excellent songs and bgm.
Surya plays a duel role like in Vikraman movies and the sad part is Surya tries to make a mediocre screen play into a Balas movie and he must understand Menon is a run of the mill Tamil movie director.
Surya plays a duel role like in Vikraman movies and the sad part is Surya tries to make a mediocre screen play into a Balas movie and he must understand Menon is a run of the mill Tamil movie director.
The movie Vaaranam Aayiram is very slow and not reached up to the expected level of the people.The movie is very slow and irritating.The first half of the movie is OK but after interval second is too boring.I got slept for few times due to boring conversations between father and son.Only songs are good only up to the level.Because all Harish Jairaj songs are similar to one another from his previously played songs.He doing the same formula for this film also.Suriya played his role well but story line is poor and very slow .All the actresses played well and over all the movie is waste for the viewers and please save your money.The movie is almost a copy of "autograph" movie of Cheran thats it friends.
Hello friendsThe movie Vaaranam Aayiram is not reached up to the expected level of the people.The movie is very slow and irritating.The first half of the movie is OK but after interval second is too boring.I got slept for few times due to boring conversations between father and son.Only songs are good only up to the level.Because all Harish Jairaj songs are similar to one another from his previously played songs.He doing the same formula for this film also.Suriya played his role well but story line is poor and very slow .All the four actresses played well and over all the movie is waste for the viewers and please save your money.The movie is almost a copy of "autograph" movie of Cheran thats it friends.
the movie succeed in only giving some good melody songs thats it and nothing more in the movie.Suriya played his role well but second half of the story is boring...
"Whatever happens life has to go on
" an important phrase in the film Vaaram Aayiram written and directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon.
I like Suriya because of his willingness to perform challenging roles than the action movies.
A romantic drama movie well executed by Gautham Menon with a soothing music from Harris Jayaraj.
I especially love the sequences with Suriya and Sameera in the United States which makes me watch it again and again.
Verdict: Milestone movie of Suriya in his career which proves his talent as an actor which is a must watch.
This movie is definitely a justified triumph for Surya and Gautham Menon.
How do you guys even like this film let alone give it 7.5?The film is supposed to be about a father son relationship.But the only thing that Surya gets inspired from his father in the film seems to be his love.I almost killed myself trying to watch the first half.I thought that Tamil cinema was done with all those stupid 'love at first sight'stuff.Though I admit that there wasn't nothing wrong with the acting it isn't worth mentioning.This must be Gautham Menon's worst film up to date.He had a good story but unfortunately he killed it.He seemed to have had half his mind which tried to make a good meaningful movie and the other half which tried to make a commercial movie.The result is disastrous.My verdict:don't watch the film unless you are a die hard Surya fan..
gautham's confusion shine's through for the entire 3 hours and extremely painful to watch...ya we all got the point he loved his father, but would have been better had he expressed it someother way than dishing out such mindless stuff...felt i was a watching a mega-serial at home..surya and for all people out there in tamil cinema who think that changing appearances is acting, i have 1 word for u guys "PATHETIC"..Harris its time to retire.....feel like like spending 100 bucks get a beer or two,but skip this one for ur own sake.....
Its one of those movies which cannot be termed as a flop or hit...but to say the fact ,this film is a dragger,Gautam wants to tell about father-son relationship,but he has not made that clear in the movie..he seems to have lost the plot and the father Suriya's character could have been more inspirational.The film is nearly 3 hours.in a film which goes for this long u should have a tight screenplay.but the screenplay from Gautam is so loose that u would want to leave the Cinema hall before the film has finished.Music by Harris Jeyaraj is one major plus for the film,although background music is lagging.Sameera reddy looks stunning during her short stay.Divya is apt for the character given to her.Simran also have given a stunning performance after a long gap.Suriya, of course.
The hurt rage in the underdog schoolboy's eyes; the gleam of love and enthusiasm in the young lover's gaze; the intolerable pain of separation and solace found in hallucinogens; the torturous path back to normalcy; the newfound sense of purpose and meaning; the rekindling of love and passions this time, mature and lifelong; the closure of life's cycle (which is also the beginning of the same cycle for another)
all these emotions and nuances have been brilliant portrayed with his eyes and body language; so much so that even if this movie doesn't go on to become a box-office success, his work will be critically acclaimed for a long time to come.Having all these wonderful performance,Gautam could have used well with a strong story and screenplay.Its seems that he is more confused whether to make this film as a drama or a entertainer.Its very tough even to see the movie once..
The initial feel when one gets on seeing the narrative style and the 'Self' positioned camera is that you are in for a good fare..but repeating the father-son sentiment throughout the whole looooooooooong movie became a drag.Some songs are good but most of them would have been forgotten by the music director itself.Watch it of Suriya, if you must and if you have nothing else in life to do.M$ Mukundhan Sampath.
The only consolation to audience is Surya.He fits perfectly to the dual role though the movie portrays much more of him.
The movie Vaaranam Aayiram is not reached up to the expected level of the people.The movie is very slow and irritating.The first half of the movie is OK but after interval second is too boring.I got slept for few times due to boring conversations between father and son.Only songs are good only up to the level.Because all Harish Jairaj songs are similar to one another from his previously played songs.He doing the same formula for this film also.Suriya played his role well but story line is poor and very slow .All the four actresses played well and over all the movie is waste for the viewers and please save your money.The movie is almost a copy of "autograph" movie of Cheran thats it friends.
Gautham's Vaaaranam Aayiram may not be a masterpiece in overall, but the very fact the film dishes out few of the most momentous scenes i have ever seen in cinema justifies this rating.
Gautham directs the movie superbly in parts and complacently in parts, but Surya is the order of the day, as his performance as both father and son keeps the movie going, even in the parts where Gautham obviously could have done better.
As a doting grandfather unable to tell stories to his grandchild, as a cancer patient meeting his end days, as a young man who is head over heels in love, as a naughty college student, as a lover struggling to get over his lover's death, a young man who's life taken over by drugs, as a man searching for himself in the mountains, as the re-discovered man who saves an abducted child, as a major, and as a son who struggles to see his daddy's sufferings, Surya is a class act in this movie.
Good movie for Surya.
Especially 'Adiye Kolluthey' is getting a new and fresh look on San Francisco, no one showed both the city and Surya and sameera reddy as beautiful this.
The story is more sentimental in most of the situations, I think no one can do the role better than Surya in this movie, but Divya can be given more chance to act, her presence made to less by the beauty and importance of role given to Sameera Reddy.
On the whole term this movie is best to watch Surya for his performance and Sammera Reddy for her beauty..
this movie to start with a pleasant,very lovable story where director played a awesome role in guiding Surya in 2 type of character.a father and a son..every scene in the movie is very good and sensible n touched my heart...a very gripping movie.to tell about songs all songs are A-class(superb).i went to movie without expectation,for me its a very good movie and for all kind of age.i recommend yo to watch if yo really want to enjoy the essence of life,Father son relationship.every scene in this movie really related my life.
i have seen many movies and remembered many things but the impact this movie gave to me was uncompromisable screenplay was very good heroine played their role in a decent way.OVERALL 10/10.
Gautham Menon and Surya team up again to render not a mass action entertainer but an autobiography.The Harris-Goutham combo has become a stupendous success in VA with Adiye Kollude,Nenjukkul Peithidum and Mundhinam Parthene emerging as chart-busters while on the whole the musical boasts of 7 great songs.Thamarai's lyrics add value to the songs.Ratnavel has handled the lens fantastically......No wonder why Shankar chose him for Enthiran.......Sameera Reddy and Divya Spandana have a great future in Kollywood while Simran has tried her mettle as an affectionate mother..Finally,Surya...........No word to say....
His slow but painful death is informed to his army son (Again Surya) who is in the middle of a rescue mission.The story is then told in flash-back with a voice-over from the mourning son - its starts from the early life of his father and continues onto his life - childhood, adolescence, Love, loss, drugs, rehab, and finally in the army.His love for his father is told time and again in the way he says "Daddy".The movie has no great depth in plot, but the sentimental factor is on a high.
I could see most of the women in the hall, weeping bitterly.Love in all forms is expressed in a very subtle but warm manner.If you want to know the trophy of the movie.....its got to be Surya....This must be one of his finest performances....Be it the father, as a total cool-head or his son, as a clichéd young blood.Also the six-pack would make all the girls scream their hearts out.The gracefully older looking Simran too puts up a fine act...Sameera surprisingly looks pretty and Ramya is wasted...Music is a fine blend - another great composition from Harris.
Except that 7 songs makes the already 3+ hours of runtime seem much longer.Reco: Movie of a plain-types, but definitely worth a watch, if you can afford to ignore some, out of the place action scenes; like that of a kidnap and rescue et al..
Vaaranam Aayiram is a movie with can relate with every audience.
At every stage of his life Surya is fueled with inspiration by his father.
Surya falls in love with Megna (Sameera Reddy) head over heels.
Enchanted by Surya's crazy love (like father like son), she falls for him.
"No matter what happens, Life has to move on
" advices the father Surya.The movie is Surya Sivakumar all the way.
If he had adored his father, he must have expressed his love while he was alive which many of us (including me) never do.And finally why the name "Vaaranam Aayiram"? |
tt0043341 | Big Top Bunny | At Colonel Korny's World Famous Circus, Bruno the "Slobokian Acrobatic Bear" is the star of the show. But when the Colonel gets a phone call about Bugs Bunny's talents, he agrees to put him on stage with Bruno - which Bruno shows his disgust for by spitting into a corner.
When Bugs is introduced along with Bruno, Bruno can't help but smack Bugs around a little. Bruno tries to get the better of Bugs - either by placing an anvil on top of a series of targets so Bugs can hit his head, or by not catching Bugs during a trapeze act. However, Bugs soon starts getting the better of Bruno, which includes turning the tables on the bear by letting him fall from the trapeze into the band section (twice).
After telling Bruno he's "too clumsy", Bugs then starts playing up the idea that he's going to be the sole star of the show, and to prove it, he'll take a 200-foot dive off a platform into a tank of water. Bruno gets on an adjacent platform, and challenges Bugs to an even higher heights and diving into smaller amounts of water. Eventually, Bruno comes up with the challenge of diving 1,000 feet (305 m) off the platform into a block of cement ("On my head, yet!"). Bugs accepts the challenge and starts to do the stunt, but Bruno forces his way into going first. When Bruno lands flat on the cement block, Bugs leads the dazed bear around, telling him that he's going on a 'trip' . Cutting a rope, Bugs starts a series of thoroughly timed "accidents" that initially sends the bear flying across the tent. Bruno then gets whacked around by various stronger performers of the circus until finally landing in a cannon, which Bugs uses to shoot him out of the tent. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | Bugs Battles Bruno.
"Colonel Korny's World Famous Circus" is in town, featuring "Bruno, the Skobokian Acrobatic Bear." The colonel gets a phone call informing him of a talented rabbit and the boss says, okay, tell him to come down and I'll have him perform with Bruno.
The big bear, overhearing this, is not happy.
"Nobody shares the spotlight with Bruno The Magnificent," he tells us (the viewers), "especially a stinking little rabbit."Anyway, the act starts that night and immediately, Bruno starts sabotaging Bugs, trying to ruin him.
After Bugs takes some big-time licks, he catches on and the tables are turned.
The two go at it the rest of the night and you know who will wind up the big winner.
How Bugs brutalizes the beast is pretty funny with some clever ideas.
The sight gags were good, too, such as Bugs "pedaling" a bicycle in midair.
The movie ends with a bang, literally.This is prime Bugs Bunny humor..
A tedious and unfunny cartoon with an ugly, distressing one-shot villain.
I've never been a fan of Robert McKimson's 'Big Top Bunny' and the main reason for that is its villain, Bruno the Slobokian Bear.
Aside from his tiresome accent and general lack of charisma, Bruno is so unappealingly designed.
A big, ugly brown and white lump, Bruno used to freak me out as a child.
I first encountered him on my old Viewmaster which had a single frame from this cartoon, an image of Bugs Bunny flying through the air towards Bruno.
I could recognise Bugs instantly of course, but the other character was indistinguishable and disturbing to me.
I couldn't tell who or what it was and I used to peer at it through the two eyepieces of the Viewmaster with a mixture of intrigue and genuine unease.All these years later, I have encountered Bruno on screen several times and my unease has melted into disinterest.
Thankfully, this tedious character was never used again after 'Big Top Bunny' and it's not hard to see why.
Writer Tedd Pierce struggles to find an enjoyable way to use such a lumpy character and, as a result, Bruno poses so little threat to Bugs that the rabbit doesn't even seem to be trying, resorting in some very feeble clowning.
There are a couple of exceptions: an inventive gag involving a pocket watch and the finale in which Bruno and Bugs attempt to one-up each other by threatening to jump off ever higher platforms into diminishing amounts of water, resulting in the deeply satisfying image of Bruno slamming his frightening face into solid cement!
Apart from those brief moments of respite, 'Big Top Bunny' is a massive let-down right down to Bugs' off-form final comment to camera..
Unfunny bunny.
Bugs has been much better elsewhere.
Though the big top has great potential, as does the villainous Bruno, it's all too familiar, with most of the gags and wisecracks coming off as average at best.
But what else can you expect from McKimson?.
It isn't awful, but it it was pretty weak even for Bugs Bunny.
I love Bugs Bunny and I love Looney Tunes, but I am sorry to say I am not a fan of Big Top Bunny.
It definitely wasn't awful, but it is one of my least favourite Bugs Bunny cartoons.Starting with the good things, I did like the animation in general.
The colours are great, as are the backgrounds and Bugs looks fine.
The music has its usual energy and quirkiness, while the dialogue is reasonably amusing and the sight gags while slightly lacking in originality are decent especially with the idea with the heights.
And as always Mel Blanc's voice work is superb.However, there are things that make Big Top Bunny somewhat decidedly lacklustre.
The story is incredibly predictable and offers little to no surprises, while the pacing is uneven, it starts off slow and then it suddenly feels as though a bomb has hit it and it doesn't slow down.
My main problem with Big Top Bunny is the character of Bruno.
I do not like him...
In this cartoon, Bruno's character design is the only one I don't care for, it is ugly and I think inconsistent too, while the voice was rather tiresome and some of his dialogue did little for me either.Overall, not terrible but sadly not particularly good either.
6/10 Bethany Cox. Robert McKimson delivers a picture that's better than his usual; character animation and Mel Blanc's voice work are particularly strong.
Bruno, a Slobokian bear (whatever that is) and a circus acrobat, does not take kindly to having Bugs Bunny join his previously solo act at Colonel Korny's World Famous Circus.
Somehow, during a performance, an anvil ends up where Bugs's head should go.
Fool him once, shame on the Slobokian bear.
But Bugs won't be fooled twice.
He's ready for Bruno's dirty tricks throughout the rest of the act and has a few tricks of his own.
Somehow Bruno ends up taking several falls into a bass drum before finding himself competing with Bugs in a high diving act.
Will Bugs or Bruno take the dip?Robert McKimson, a flaccid director, does a better-than-average job here.
Bruno is a funny creation, thanks in large part to Mel Blanc doing the Russian-accented voice.
The character animation is particularly strong; the gags are reasonably funny; and we're made particularly eager to see Bugs triumph over this bullying jerk.
This is a good cartoon: no more, no less.This cartoon is available on the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One," Disc 1..
Enjoyable cartoon, with Bruno the Bear the comic attraction.
Bugs Bunny always works best when he has a suitably obnoxious opponent and he has one here in Bruno the Magnificent, a vain and egotistical bear who most definitely wants the spotlight all to himself.
Enter our hero, stage left, and a series of standard sight gags and some good lines.
I loved this cartoon growing up and I'm glad it's in print.
Cute short that's worth looking for.
Recommended..
"Am I not magnificent?" No, Bruno.
Now go away..
Bugs joins a circus and is paired with an acrobatic bear named Bruno.
Bruno doesn't like having Bugs forced upon him so he does what he can to make life miserable for the rabbit.
Bugs, as you probably expect, doesn't take kindly to Bruno's antagonism.
A middling effort from Robert McKimson.
The animation is fine and the colors are nice.
The music is lively and whimsical.
The voice work from Mel Blanc is good, as always.
The problem is the short is very predictable with no gags that really stand out.
The bear Bruno is unlikable and, frankly, a lazy character.
Bugs is only as good as his antagonists and here he's saddled with an unremarkable villain with a corny accent.
Not to mention he's drawn rather unimaginatively, too.
Anyway, it's not the worst Bugs short by far but it doesn't hold up to the high standards his cartoons usually had in the 1950s..
Big Top Bunny is a pretty entertaining Robert McKimson Bugs Bunny.
When the circus hires Bugs Bunny as an attraction, Bruno-an Eastern European bear, gets jealous and tries to sabotage him.
He succeeds the first time but the rabbit catches on.
The gag where Bruno ends up in the band's kettle drum isn't funny but everything else is.
I especially liked the one when Bugs, after being given a handle with bear hands by Bruno on his trapeze, uses that handle and "peddles" his way back to the bear's starting base.
Robert McKimson didn't make the greatest Warner Bros.
cartoons compared to Chuck Jones, Friz Freling, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, or Frank Tashlin but because of all that talent that surrounded him, he could still make good animated shorts that can be entertaining in themselves.
Big Top Bunny is one of them..
I'm not sure what to make of this cartoon..
"Big Top Bunny" is an odd (in a negative way) Bugs Bunny cartoon - and I'm sure many people think the reason is because Robert McKimson directed it.
Personally, I think that theory is ridiculous.
All the other Looney Tunes directors have produced equally odd (in a negative way) cartoons sometime or other.
Robert McKimson is a very good Looney Tunes director, but personally I think this is one of his weaker cartoons (his second weakest, in my opinion).Despite its oddities (which I will list later), "Big Top Bunny" is still a cartoon worth watching, even if only once.
Bugs Bunny is a good character here, not disappointing and as likable as ever.
The animation is reasonable as well, but not something to rant on about (just a good quality).
Parts of the humour are laughable, but overall, this cartoon is not the funniest Looney Tune ever.The oddities of the cartoon are Bug's side character (who is a rather annoying, drawling circus bear), the length of the cartoon (it feels too short even though it is average Looney Tune length) and a deal of the jokes are also unfunny and odd as well.In this cartoon, Bruno the bear, a circus bear, is complimenting his lovely circus life, when he hears that there will be a new animal in the ring - an acrobatic rabbit.
Bruno is furious that he should be paired alongside a "leetle rabbit" and bears a grudge against Bugs Bunny when they first meet.
Bugs Bunny is determined to earn his revenge against this annoying bear...I recommend this cartoon to people who enjoy the repetitive, slapsticky side of Looney Tunes and to people who like annoying side characters to make things "interesting." Enjoy "Big Top Bunny"!
Seen it already..
In this short Bugs Bunny joins the circus as an acrobatic bunny and enrages Bruno the Bear, the circus' main attraction.
Bruno proceeds to humiliate Bugs, opening Pandora's box.
Because you do NOT mess with Bugs.Much like the earlier High Diving Hare, the laughs in this short come from the various ways Bugs can make Bruno fall from high heights by outsmarting him.
It's a bit too much of a deja vu.Plus Bruno the Bear isn't really a formidable adversary and Bugs all too easily tricks him into stupidness.
Bugs has been funnier than this..
Minor Bugs.
Big Top Bunny (1951) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Minor Looney Tunes has Bugs Bunny becoming partners with Bruno, the Slobokian Bear who isn't happy about having to share the spotlight.
During their carnival act Bruno tries to destroy Bugs but things end up working out the opposite.
This isn't a classic short or even a very good one but it does manage to get a few laughs, which make it worth watching.
The best joke is during the finale where the two argue as to which one will jump hundreds of feet into some cement.
One of the biggest problems with this short is the bear, which just comes off as a rather weak character.
I really didn't care too much for his look, talk or any of his actions.
Bugs is his typical classic self though..
Nobody give Slovakia bad reputation!.
Sorry if I find it a little hokey when they make Eastern Europeans the antagonists in movies; they do that in "Big Top Bunny", as Bugs Bunny ends up in the circus and gets paired with a jealous Slovak bear.
Bugs plays some funny tricks on the big guy - hell, with this big doofus, it's a cinch - but I would like to see a movie or cartoon in which Eastern Europeans are not the antagonists.
I know that this cartoon was produced only a few years into the Cold War, when we were supposed to view the Soviet bloc as the evilest place of all time, but it just seems dated (particularly to someone like me, a student of Russian).
Otherwise, it's a pretty funny cartoon, especially the diving scene..
McKimson strikes again.
Let's get this out of the way first, I love Loony Tunes, but I don't care for the Robert McKimson directed shorts so bear that in mind when reading this review.
Bruno the bear gets jealous that Bugs is getting to be the star attraction.
So what follows next is a battle of wits.
It's not much of a battle as Bruno is one of Bug's most stupid opponents and that makes the short a bit less engaging.
It's very possible that in more capable hands that this short could've been much better.
But sadly the mediocre Robert McKimson strikes again.
This cartoon is on Disk 1 of the "Loony Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1" and has it's own commentary trackMy Grade: C.
Standard Warner Brothers fare--nothing special about this cartoon..
Though fairly good and worth some good laughs, this cartoon comes across as weak, basically.
There is no real story development at all except for the introduction and the ending.
Average animation--typically McKimson--that doesn't really hit you as all that exceptional.
Bugs is often very good against a more muscular enemy--normally a one-shot--but this is NOT the prime example.
The ending--comprised of one long sequence--is funny, though the McKimson booby trap has appeared far too many times and isn't all that ingenious to stay hilarious.
Still worth a laugh though.
It's supposedly the main feature in a video chock-full of classic masterpieces mainly by Chuck Jones!
Rabbit Rampage could have earned the title, since it might not even imply that the cartoon is the feature.
Plenty of cartoons were made on the theme of brain vs.
brawn, but this is not the best of them.
Worth some laughs when you're bored, regardless.
Worth watching if you like cliche..
Bugs vs.
Bruno at the Circus.
This is a 7-minute Warner Bros.
cartoon from almost 65 years ago.
Bugs Bunny is the star again this time and he joins a circus where he meets a jealous bear who is not willing to share being the top attraction.
Early on, Bugs does everything right basically, but the bear starts bullying him and that's never a good idea with Bugs.
At the latest when he asks you "What's Up Dawg", you know that you are in deep trouble.
Director McKimson and writer Pierce have worked on so many Looney Tunes that they knew exactly what they were doing.
And here they include basically all the circus equipment and references you can think of to make this an enjoyable watch.
One of the better Looney Tunes from the 1950s and it is actually a bit of a pity that Bruno did not appear in further films.
Good stuff and I recommend it..
BIG TOP BUNNY seems to be Warner Bros.' way of anticipating .
. current Russian President "Mad Dog" Putin.
Displaying their usual Nostradamus-besting prophetic gifts, the folks behind the Looney Tunes animated shorts of the 1950s picture "Bruno the Slobokian Acrobatic Bear" as someone who says they're doing one thing while they're actually committing something entirely different.
For instance, Putin will say he's "protecting" the one ethnic Russian guy in a seaport two thousand miles from Russia when he's actually forcibly annexing that city, and carrying out genocide against its 400,000 Non-Russian natives in order to construct a deep-water naval port for a Russian surface and\or submarine fleet.
Two or three years later Putin might let slip out (over cocktails at the United Nations), "Oh, by the way, I just noticed that someone actually DID build one of our Russian naval bases over there in the Ukraine, or Syria, or wherever, but it was surely in self-defense." During BIG TOP BUNNY, Bruno (the Putin stand-in) promises to "save" Bugs from numerous circus perils, all the while setting Bugs up for certain death.
Bugs finally makes the world safe from Putin (or Bruno) by nuking the Russian-accented bear out of the Looney Tunes Universe, which America will need to do with Mad Dog in Real Life (hopefully, sooner rather than later)..
"I don't know how you do this, but if YOU could do it, BRUNO could do it better!".
"Big Top Bunny" is an excellent Bugs Bunny cartoon that teams him up with Bruno the Slobokian Acrobatic Bear.
The arrogant Bruno becomes insanely jealous about having Bugs horn in on his circus act.
There is absolutely no way in hell Bruno is going to allow himself to be upstaged by a little gray rabbit!
My favorite scenes from "Big Top Bunny" include the following (DO NOT read any further if you have not yet seen this cartoon).
Bruno is quite funny even in his first scene as he expresses his disgust (with a humorously thick accent that could only be voiced by Mel Blanc) about having to share the spotlight with Bugs.
During a fall, Bruno lands inside a tuba, which blasts him out onto a kettledrum, where he gets struck with a pair of mallets.
The scene that probably makes me laugh the most is that of Bugs and Bruno continually elevating their heights above the ground and arguing about who will jump first - into a block of cement!
Please, oh PLEASE, let us not overlook composer/arranger Carl W.
Stalling's contribution to "Big Top Bunny".
The fact that he could quote a Sousa march one moment and a popular song the next is a testament of his true genius.
Animation historian Michael Barrier's audio commentary for the DVD (the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1 Disc 1) is essentially a kind tribute to Maestro Stalling. |
tt0114272 | Restoration | The film concerns a small furniture-restoration business in downtown Tel Aviv, Malamud & Fidelman. As the film begins, one of the partners (Malamud, played by Rami Danon) has died, and bequeathed his share in the business not to his longtime partner Yaakov Fidelman (Sasson Gabai), but to Yaakov's son Noah Fidelman (Nevo Kimhi).
The aging Yaakov is a skilled craftsman, who loves his work and keeps exacting standards. However, he has little sense for financial issues, which had always been taken care of by his dead partner. The business is going down, demand for Yaakov's services is falling off and banks refuse to give him loans. Noah, who had refused to follow in his father's footsteps and became a successful lawyer, is pressing Yaakov to retire and sell off the workshop – which could bring a lucrative profit as the area is undergoing a real-estate boom.
Yaakov is on the verge of reluctantly giving in when a mysterious young man named Anton (Henry David) gets a job in the workshop, and becomes Yaakov's apprentice, exhibiting considerable aptitude for and skill in the work. Little is revealed of Anton's antecedents; he had broken off relations with his family, for unknown reasons, and hides when his brother comes by seeking him. Anton comes up with a way of saving the failing business, or at least giving it a breathing spell: a broken down 19th Century German Steinway piano, which Anton discovered among old junk in the workshop, can be repaired and sold for a considerable sum.
Anton – who is also a gifted pianist – throws himself into the repair job, so determined to succeed that he resorts to stealing people's wallets in the street to gain money needed to buy materials. In effect, he stakes a claim to being Yaakov Fidelman's true son and heir, the one who continues the old man's lifework which his biological son had cast aside. As work on the piano progresses, the frustrated Noah steals into the workshop, but cannot bring himself to smash the piano.
The stakes in this rivalry are raised higher when Anton starts an affair with Noah's wife, Hava (Sarah Adler) – a sensitive and artistic young woman who is neglected by her busy husband, and who is heavily pregnant with Noah's child, Yaakov's grandchild.
Eventually, it is Yaakov Fidelman who must make the crucial choice between Anton's piano project and Noah's real-estate deal – and in effect, which of them does he recognize as his true son. | historical | train | wikipedia | The only truly unfortunate aspect of the film was the casting of Meg Ryan...just Plumb Awful(as they say)in the role of Dr Merivil's asylum inmate lover....who was by the way, miraculously cured of her insanity by his physical attentions.
Robert Downey gives a highly respectable performance as Merivel (and has an excellent British accent), but Meg Ryan is totally mis-cast, seeming very lost in some scenes.
'Restoration' was filmed during 1994, and was delayed for release amid rumours of re-shooting scenes with Meg Ryan, and probable cold feet after the box-office difficulties with 'The Red Letter'.This movie has not been given the credits it truly deserves, and is an excellent illustration of Court life and marriage politics during the reign of Britain's sexiest Monarch!.
In many ways, 1600s England was a transitional time reflecting the growth of England toward a modern sensibility while still being hindered by the traditions and outlooks of the past, primarily the hold of Medieval thought which held to a strict hierarchical strata while discouraging and even destroying the pursuit of knowledge and truth.Robert Downey Jr. does a tremendous job as a character that appears to be a fore-runner of the coming Enlightenment.
However, through a serendipitous and at first fortuitous run-in with King Charles II, the Restoration monarch (played brilliantly by Sam Neill), Downey loses his way and becomes a willing pawn in the king's sexual chess games.
The only stipulation that is placed upon him: He cannot touch his own wife--she ultimately belongs to the King as one of his many mistresses.In this way, Charles II is still a monarch enacting a role that was first prescribed in the Middle Ages: that of the absolute ruler with absolute authority that can use his subjects for his own whims, and he can also discard those that are no longer useful.
Charles II continues the enterprises begun by Cromwell and becomes a transitional monarch who has aspects that reflect both the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment.In many ways, Restoration is about these two worlds, and how Downey lives in both of them, from the luxurious life of a nobleman to the humble physician working with Quakers in an insane asylum.
In an interesting scene, Downey enters a kind of laboratory in which knowledge, research, and discovery are are being supported by the king who presides over the work of many scholars.
Later, we learn that Downey is also an amateur astronomer, gazing at the stars in the heavens with a telescope.Through his adventures in and out of these worlds, Downey sees the light and dark of both and becomes something greater than he had before, particularly through an episode in which he falls in love with one of the patients (Meg Ryan) at the insane asylum.
While Meg Ryan's character as an insane Irish girl was perhaps a bit overwrought, I found little to fault in the movie.
The transition of Robert Downey's character was also wonderfully done - we watch him go from boyishness to maturity in a slow change throughout the film, it's not just randomly done because of one event, but of a series of events.
After watching this film, I felt my faith in humanity had been (somewhat) restored, and not for the squishy, feel-good reasons either.
Instead, I felt that filmmakers can often demonstrate truly wondrous, creative talents; Try not to think of all those sumptuous 18th Century European paintings that feature either the rich or the starving, while taking in the cinematic beauty of Hoffman's 'Restoration.'So what if Meg Ryan has a role in this one, I still enjoyed it.
Zannetti went on to 'architecturally' design the central, Rococo menace in "The Haunting" (1999).Downey Jr's performance (as a doctor) is Raphaelesque, a walking representation of the period in which this story takes place (the anguish and hope he must undergo and have is thespian splendor).
Robert Downey, Jr. stars as a physician at the beck and call of the royal court in 17th Century England, and serves as our guide through an overstuffed story that includes lunatics, fires and the plague.
The jaw-dropping production and costume design is alone worth sitting through the movie for.With Sam Neill as a king and Meg Ryan as one of the lunatics.Grade: A-.
I'm not sure we saw the same movie and I'm puzzled.This is a tremendously rich, emotional film, very true to Rose Tremain's novel, and just wonderful.The casting is divine, and I thought Meg Ryan was fine as Catherine.Charles II is my favorite English monarch and Sam Neill portrayed him just as I pictured him.Robert Downey was Marivel to a T, as was David Thewliss as Pierce.The costumes and scenery were magnificent -- from the palace to the countryside and back -- and those fabulous Spaniels running through the palace and environs was just how I'd pictured England's most enlightened monarch's place to be!How anyone can find this movie to be anything less than a gem is beyond me..
As the shallow court doctor, Robert Downey Jr's performance makes one cry for the habits that have kept him away from so many productions.
David Thewliss is also convincing as a Quaker doctor who helps lead Downey's character away from the excess of the royal court.Now, here's the inclusion part.
Meg Ryan plays a psychiatric patient that Downey's character seems to cure in a manner not recommended by most Colleges of Physicians.
A sweeping film about fate and redemption during one of England's most dynamic reigns, Restoration is worth getting as a DVD because it really does improve with more than one viewing..
I don't think this movie was marketed well, the notes on the case make it look like a silly bedroom farce, which, indeed, it is not.Robert Downey Jr is a revelation, as much as he was in Chaplin.Sam Neill makes Charles such a lovable scallywag that you can't disapprove of the randy King.
I don't even mind meg Ryan.This film is so beautiful to look at, but don't watch it with a rowdy crowd.
I really enjoyed this movie set in King Charles glorious days.
The scenery,acting and story were all great and Meg Ryan put on a passable Irish accent.I suppose that there will always be nit pickers like myself,and although Purcells great music was played throughout the movie,he would have only been five years old when these events took place.Still,I recommend this one and if you enjoy it try and also view'England my England'which is set during the same period..
Mainly a biography of a lustful doctor, "Robert Merivel ," (Robert Downey) who has his way in the king's palace for the first half of the film and then helps out the downtrodden in the second half, mainly "Katharine" (Meg Ryan).The GOOD - Fantastic set decoration (i.e. the lush king's palace) and costuming make this a visual treat.
Ian McKellen and Hugh Grant provide interesting support.The BAD - After 50-60 minutes, this movie simply gets too boring.
The rest of the cast is very good, Meg Ryan's hair is funky, straw like, and needs conditioning, thats a joke.
The main character is a delight, it's so easy to like him (I guess Robert Downey Jr has a very "likable" face anyway), and you are emotionally bound to him from his first appearance to the last fade out which is, in my humble opinion, what makes a good movie.
The post Cromwell revolution England is a place full of contrasting people and ideals, and the movie explores the differences between nobility and the ordinary men with the sad looking puritans and the ostensible royal doctor.
Robert Downey, Jr. was terrific as always in Restoration.When I give reviews on films or when I tell family or friends about films, I like to go into detail of why I liked each character, the writing, the actors' performance, etc...With "Restoration", I can't do that here.
Great sets and costumes, but despite a good cast, it doesn't really click completely.
This movie has a great deal going for it-beautiful sets and costumes, a fine cast (although Downey's performance is uneven and Neill is largely underused) and a decent story.
This could have been better than it was, but is worth watching, particularly if you like costuming and lavish sets.
- that become transformed into a whole; there are metaphysical conceits (all the play with the stars), especially the fundamental structure of the four elements - air, water, fire, earth, which play such a vital role in the plot.The title itself is a bookish pun, signifying not only the restoration of the Monarchy after eleven years, as the inter-titles tell us, of 'bleak Puritan rule'; but also the restoration of its hero's humanity, decency and maturity; the restoration of London after the Plague and the Great Fire of London.All of this is imported directly into the film, which is divided neatly in two, from the dazzling splendour of Charles II's court, and riverside aristocratic estates, to the austerity and misery of Quakers, medicine, madness, childbirth, death, plague, the Great Fire.
The sets quite literally swamp the story, from which it never recovers, and who can blame us when the characters are so unreal (a wonderfully camp Hugh Grant and moving Ian MacKellan excepted), while the buildings, the gardens, the vast halls, the statuary, the bric-a-brac, the drapery, the costumes, the colour seem so alive.Merivel claims he is sick of death and wants colour, and who can blame him?
Unfortunately, the film takes the opposite route and follows Merivel into abstention via some very queasy morality verging not only on pro-life, but in dispensing with women, mothers and sex altogether, as well as suggesting that the King's caprice was actually a very sophisticated moral test.So the first half of the film is like wandering dazed through a very elaborate museum.
If sets and costumes were all it took to make a movie, "Restoration" would certainly be considered an all-time great.
And yet the stolid camerawork makes things feel rather slow."Restoration" also features the most bizarre casting of any English period drama I've ever seen.
Instead we have Sam Neill, who's clueless in the role of King Charles; you'll wonder, how exactly did this wooden, charmless man seduce all those women?
Robert Downey Jr. as the hero manages an amusingly off-beat performance, but the script puts him through such extremes of emotion in such short periods of time that he's forced to underplay.
I can't argue with its Academy Awards for costumes and art direction, but as a movie, "Restoration" is the equivalent of an expensive wig..
Robert Downey Jr. is a doctor to a king, who marries Meg to save her, but begins to fall in love with her.
The fact that their love story differs from most makes this movie even better.
But I will warn you of the nudity, Robert Downey Jr. and minor female characters are nude in certain parts of the movie.
Lavish sets and costumes; debauchery and intrigue set Restoration moving at a terrific pace and the film threatens to be a classic.
Sam Neill excels as the King; and Hugh Grant displays real acting talent as a manipulative court painter.
It's worth watching, if only for the first hour or so; but you will be left wondering what might have been had enough time and effort been given to character development, plot or history that is needed in order for it to become the historical epic that it trys to be.
This movie is visually stunning--the spectacular sets (the floating wedding scene), the sumptuous costumes.But it's much deeper than the glorious surface would suggest--it's not just a costume drama--the story is about someone and something--one man's life from selfishness to selflessness.Downey's acting is superb, he's always been a wonderful actor, and here he's both subtle and broad and always believable.
Meg Ryan is so different here from her normal cute roles that you might not even recognize her.The script, direction, acting, editing, and beautiful score combine to make this a rich, emotionally moving experience..
The greatest surprise of the film is Robert Donwey Jr. himself who pulls off a great performance with a very convincing British accent.
And unlike other reviewers I truly did not mind Meg Ryan in this role, in fact it was good to see her as something other than the ditsy leading lady in a rom-com and I was surprised to see her do a fair Irish accent.
Apart from the over the top (and yet brilliant) sets, this film is moderate in tone and pace - there are no action sequences aside from a bit of action through the fire scene and no over the top romance or drama - and this is what makes the film so enjoyable and realisticI highly recommend watching this Restoration to anyone that wants to be swept away to another period in history and to anyone who wants to see Robert Downey Jr's true acting talent..
This movie is visually enchanting replete with lavish costumes and is therefore not surprising to know that this movie had won 2 Oscars – Art direction & Costume Design.Restoration focuses on the gloomy aspects of the era life poverty, illness, medicine and the way of living during those times.
The story revolves around Robert Merivel, (Robert Downey Jr) who is a doctor during the reign of King Charles II (Sam Neil).
And Ian McKellan, that guy could act in a comic book movie and turn in a great performance (which he did in the X Men).
Robert Downey Jr. in a 17th century wig and dress was enough to make me shudder, but I couldn't believe a great actor like Sam Neill actually took a part in this movie.
Director Michael Hoffman presents us with a lush period piece of 1660's England during the reign of Charles II after the restoration of the monarchy.
Robert Downey Jr. plays a young doctor who is driven to find his calling through circumstances and women, and the king himself, who drive him.
Robert Downey and Meg Ryan could not have been poorer choices for the leads.
Restoration is the story of a doctor - Robert Merivel (Robert Downey Jr.) who finds himself living amid the chaos of the interregnum - the brief period during the mid 17th century when England did not have a monarch.
Her Irish accent is like the Quasimodo of accents - you're horrified, but you can't turn away.King Charles II (Sam Neill) and Merivel's chemistry here is hilarious.
They said it was a hugely disappointing role for Robert Downey, Jr. Although, this movie was not superb, it was at least decent.
Downey's Sir Robert is, of course, a man who chases after women, and when he falls in love with her, a spy (played by Hugh Grant) discovers it, reports it to the king, and Sir Robert is banished.
Spanning the reign of Charles II, the great fire, the plague, ad nauseum, the "restoration" refers to, not only the period, but the human condition.
Shot in England and Wales, and winning Academy Awards for Art Direction and Costumes, the script involves a promising young doctor, Jack Merivel (Downey), whose gifts attract the attention of the King.
The second half deals with Merivel's quest for redemption not from the King, but from himself and God. It involves his daughter by the Meg Ryan character, and this is where the story changes from costume drama to social commentary.
Downey does a wonderful job displaying the naive, hormonally driven young doctor who, in itself, restores his identity throughout the film.
She dies giving birth and redemption follows upon good works before the Lord under his Quaker friend's name.The title reveals much more than if the movie were, Robert Downey Junior's Adventures in England.
This takes place during the reign of the great restoration king Charles II of England and Great Britain, a ruler whose life had been part of "Forever Amber" and later the lengthy cable continuing series "The Stuarts", a major part of the often filmed "Nell Gwynn", and as notorious a ladies man as his distant cousin of a century before, Henry VIII.
Sam Neill looks the part in the most commanding if ways, subtle in his nobility, yet flamboyant in his excesses.The era was a great time of change in England, and this story focuses on one particularly complex man.
Robert Downey Jr. proves once again his great versatility as a great doctor, hired for the king's court, who looses his gift for medicine from an unrequited love for Polly Walker, part of an arranged marriage set up by the king.
Downey is dismissed, goes off to treat those suffering from a plague, falls in love once more (with peasant girl Meg Ryan) and proves his strength as a doctor, even under the most tragic circumstances of his own life.
However, the film itself has been relatively forgotten.The plot: In 1663 England, young Dr. Robert Merivel (Robert Downey, Jr.) works alongside his colleague and friend, Dr. John Pearce (David Thewlis), in an overcrowded, underfunded, and run-down London hospital.
Yet, a chance encounter with the restored king, Charles II (Sam Neil), leads to Merivel being swept away to that Merry Monarch's court where seemingly all of his dreams of having luxurious, decadent life free from stress and suffering come true.
His courage and skill as a physician is tested and proved by the 1665 Great Plague of London and once again captures the attention of Charles II...."Restoration" works as a film because of the terrific performance of Robert Downey, Jr. who brilliantly and believably portrays Merivel's rather stunning transformation from boy to man.
However, Downey's rather worn-down appearance actually fits Merivel's dissolute character very well.He's joined by a terrific Sam Neill as Charles II.
One he saves there is Meg Ryan as Katharine, thought my most to be insane but she just had deep fears motivating her strange behavior.This is an old movie, Downey Jr. was not even 30 yet when it was filmed. |
tt0414215 | The Lawnmower Man | Dr. Lawrence Angelo works for Virtual Space Industries, running experiments in increasing the intelligence of chimpanzees using drugs and virtual reality. One of the chimps escapes using the warfare tactics he was being trained for. Dr. Angelo is generally a pacifist, who would rather explore the intelligence-enhancing potential of his research without applying it for military purposes. His wife Caroline is unhappy with the way he is ignoring her to focus on this project.
Jobe Smith, a local greenskeeper with an intellectual disability, lives in the garden shed owned by the local priest, Father Francis McKeen. McKeen's brother, Terry, is a local landscape gardener and employs Jobe to help him with odd jobs. Father McKeen punishes the challenged Jobe with a belt whenever he fails to complete his chores.
Dr. Angelo realizes he needs a human subject to work with, and he spots Jobe mowing his lawn. Peter Parkette, Dr. Angelo's young neighbor, is friends with Jobe. Dr. Angelo invites both of them over to play some virtual reality games. Learning more about Jobe, Angelo persuades him to participate in his experiments, letting him know it will make him smarter. Jobe agrees and begins the program. Dr. Angelo makes it a point to redesign all the intelligence-boosting treatments without the "aggression factors" used in the chimpanzee experiments.
Jobe soon becomes smarter, for example, learning Latin in only two hours. Meanwhile, Jobe also begins a sexual relationship with a young rich widow, Marnie. However, Jobe begins to display telepathic abilities and has hallucinations. He continues training at the lab, until an accident makes Dr. Angelo shut the program down. The project director, Sebastian Timms, employed by a mysterious agency known as The Shop, keeps tabs on the progress of the experiment, and discreetly swaps Dr. Angelo's new medications with the old Project 5 supply (reintroducing the "aggression factors" into the treatment).
Jobe develops telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers and takes Marnie to the lab to make love to her while in virtual reality. Something goes wrong in the simulation when Jobe's virtual avatar becomes violent, attacking her mind directly; Marnie is driven insane, laughing endlessly at nothing.
Jobe's powers continue to grow, but the treatments are also affecting his mental stability, and he decides to exact revenge on those who abused him when he was "dumb": Father McKeen is engulfed in flames, a bully named Jake is put into a catatonic state by a mental "lawnmower man" continually mowing his brain, and a lawnmower invention of Jobe's runs down Harold, Peter's abusive father. Jobe uses his telepathic abilities to make the investigating police attribute it all to "bizarre accidents" in front of Dr. Angelo.
Jobe believes his final stage of evolution is to become "pure energy" in the VSI computer mainframe, and from there reach into all the systems of the world. He promises his "birth" will be signaled by every telephone on the planet ringing simultaneously. The Shop sends a team to capture Jobe, but they are ineffective against his abilities and he scatters their molecules. Jobe uses the lab equipment to enter the mainframe computer, abandoning his body to become a wholly virtual being, leaving his body behind like a husk.
Dr. Angelo remotely infects the VSI computer, encrypting all of the links to the outside world, trapping Jobe in the mainframe. As Jobe searches for an unencrypted network connection, Dr. Angelo primes bombs to destroy the building. Feeling responsible for what has happened to Jobe, Angelo then joins him in virtual reality to try to reason with him. Jobe overpowers and crucifies him, then continues to search for a network connection. Peter runs into the building; Jobe still cares for him and allows Dr. Angelo to go free in order to rescue Peter. Jobe forces a computer-connected lock to open, allowing Peter and Dr. Angelo to escape. Jobe escapes through a back door before the building is destroyed in multiple explosions.
Back at home with Peter, Dr. Angelo and Peter's mother Carla (who has become a romantic interest) are about to leave when their telephone rings, followed by the noise of a second, and then hundreds of telephones ring, all around the globe. | comedy | train | wikipedia | Barely watchable. Written by Michael De Luca as an adaptation of Stephen King's story, but as much as these names are big, that much this short movie is bad. Although it lasts just 12 minutes it was torture to endure to the end.2/10. This is scary. If this does not scary you no movie will. This is one of the scariest movies ever. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. If like good horror stories you should see this movie.. Weak and amateurish for the most part. "The Lawnmower Man" is a 12-minute live action short film from 1987, so this one has its 30th anniversary this year. Make sure you don't mistake it for the full feature film from 5 years afterward that has Pierce Brosnan in it. Well.. this one here has Helen Hunt, oh wait no it is Helen Hanft actually. So yeah with one exception you won't find any known names attached to this project here that is horror actually, but really more on the comedy side eventually with how cheap it looks. And the exception I mentioned is writer Michael De Luca who scored 3 Oscar nominations for producing in this decade. Certainly something nobody could gave expected when seeing this little film we have here. Good decision to stop writing and start producing. He was in his early 20s when this was made. Director James Gonis can only dream of such a career turn and same applies to the actors here. This film really would be totally forgotten if it wasn't a Stephen King adaptation. Nothing good here, no guilty pleasure potential either. 4 stars out of 10 is still very much on the generous side. Don't watch. |
tt0049629 | Wicked as They Come | Poor girl from the slums Katherine Allenbourg trades on her looks. She enters a beauty contest, then charms the elderly gentleman running it, Sam Lewis, into fixing it so she will win first prize, a trip to Europe. She promptly abandons Sam.
Changing her name to Kathy Allen, she is attracted to Tim O'Bannion, a passenger on the plane to London who works for an ad agency. But she's determined to land someone wealthier and photographer Larry Buckham fills the bill. Invited to use his charge account at a department store for a wedding dress, Kathy makes many purchases, pawns the merchandise and leaves Larry without a word.
She gets a job at Tim's advertising firm and seduces the married Stephen Collins, who runs it. Tim arouses more passion in her, but Kathy's strictly out for herself. She demands Collins divorce his wife Virginia, whose father John Dowling owns the agency. Virginia tries to pay her off, but Kathy requests a transfer to the agency's Paris headquarters, where she immediately uses her wiles to get Dowling to marry her.
Anonymous threats begin by mail and phone. Someone in the shadows begins stalking her. Kathy picks up a gun and shoots, killing her husband instead. No one believes her tale of a prowler and Kathy is tried, convicted and sentenced to die.
Tim realizes that it is Larry who is behind all this. He reveals an explanation for Kathy's cruel treatment of men, the fact that she was brutally assaulted as a girl. Larry has a change of heart and confesses to stalking her. Kathy's prison sentence is reduced, and she hopes Tim will give her another chance once she gets out. | revenge, murder | train | wikipedia | Arlene Dahl is "Wicked as They Come" in this 1956 film also starring Philip Carey.
Soap fans may know Carey as Asa Buchanan in "One Life to Live," the soap opera from which the 82-year-old actor recently retired, having been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006.
Herbert Marshall also stars.A Hollywood insider once told me that the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in person - and he had seen them all - was Arlene Dahl.
So she's a great choice to play a man-hating, gold-digging femme fatale in this British drama.
Her character, Kathy, suffered some sort of trauma which has caused her to turn on men.
Case in point is Kathy's romance with her boss, Stephen (Herbert Marshall).
That took guts.Dahl, despite her beauty, was never really given a chance to show what she could do in Hollywood acting-wise, and here, she's good.
As a post-war actress with the studios on the verge of breaking up, she really didn't, and while another redhead, Rhonda Fleming, had a slightly better career, neither achieved the stardom they might have.Recommended for beautiful Arlene, handsome Phil, a pretty old Herbert Marshall and some beautiful fashions..
Arlene Dahl as wicked femme fatale in one of her better roles....
The opening scenes of this grim melodrama are reminiscent of the Barbara Stanwyck oldie, BABY FACE, about a girl's rise up the ladder of success by stepping on the men in her life as she seduces her way to the top.
It's an old tale, done before in many films, and it gets fairly good treatment here.ARLENE DAHL is convincing enough as the femme fatale every man is a sucker for, scheming her way to the top by doing whatever it is she can to pull the strings and push the right buttons.
PHILIP CAREY is the one man who sees through all her manipulative ways, acting more or less as the woman's conscience by reminding her until the end of the story of the sins she commits.Seems that she was badly abused in her youth in a gang rape situation and has never been able to love men since.
Dahl plays the role in a gutsy way and it's probably one of her best acting jobs in an offbeat dramatic role.Made at Columbia, in England, after she left MGM, it demonstrates that she has a range that was never tapped by her home studio.
It stars Arlene Dahl, Philip Carey, Herbert Marshall, Michael Goodlife and Ralph Truman.
Ballinger novel, story has Dahl as a poor but beautiful girl who realises that her sexuality will get her all the finer things in life - at whatever cost.Efficient little British Noirer that makes up for a lack of originality with some strong psychological smarts.We are all guilty of it, film fans and critics that is, in how we often compare a film recently viewed with something of a similar ilk that is far better.
One such case is Wicked as They Come, a piece coming late in the original film noir cycle that sticks a major league femme fatale out there front and centre.
Dahl's Kathy Allen (nee Allenbourg) is hot to trot, a viper of the highest order, her beauty and sexuality is stunning, thus men line up to eat out of her hands.
Where once was sane and astute business men, now sit lap dogs soon ready to fall into the vipers nest.If that sounds familiar then of course it is, even from the pre code days there were film makers exploring the sex as a weapon angle, toying with bad girl persona's as a course of cinematic titillation.
Ken Hughes knows his draw card is Dahl, who even in black and white is heart achingly gorgeous, a smouldering vixen to literally die for.
The story trajectory is nothing new, Kathy tramples on every man she can to feather her own nest, but sooner or later things have to come to a head, where the reason for the distorted psyche will out and the crossroads of life ominously appears at film's closure.Better films out there that deal with the same themes?
The strange case of a woman who got all men but wanted none..
This is an amazing film for its very dense direction bringing the best out of a rather cheap story and some totally unknown B-actors, Herbert Marshall being the only film star among them and playing the shabbiest role.
Arlene Dahl in the lead reminds very much of Kim Novak in films like "Vertigo" , the same kind of superior beauty with something wrong about her, while Michael Goodliffe, somewhat reminding of Trevor Howard, stands for the passion that turns on the drama.
Philip Carey as the male lead succeeds in makíng a very complicated part and character quite convincing and likeable, the one who saves some human dignity in a pit of human pitfalls.It's as a psychological drama that the film is highly interesting, modern and timeless.
Almost everyone sees that there is something wrong about Kathy in her cruel disdain of men while at the same time everyone must fall for her, but no one can understand what the trouble is, least of all herself, or if she does, she keeps a splendid poker face and never loses her control, although, as it proves, she is constantly walking on a razor's edge by an abyss.
Ken Hughes later made other excellent films, especially "The Trials of Oscar Wilde", and this is no less impressing in its extremely smooth psychological direction where nothing is out of the context, like a perfect jig-saw puzzle with no pieces missing and all fitting perfectly..
Arlene Dahl was a beautiful woman.
The character seems to be icy physically, too: She likes what men can get her but romance and sex do not appear to be among her interests.Herbert Marshall, for decades a leading man, ends up in this too.
He plays one of the men she uses.There are similarities between this and "Baby Face" with Barbara Stanwyck.
Better Than Average Soap - Wicked as They Come.
Arlene Dahl does a nice turn as a cold, manipulative woman, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Fab 50s fashions are the best thing this film has to offer with its story of a woman who works at some shirtwaist dress company who manipulates her way out of the "hoodlum" infested neighborhood in NY she comes from, claiming to be from tonier Boston!
As is Arlene Dahl - gorgeous - but I kind of find her even more remarkable later in her life on the game show circuit.
Well, I haven't seen any of her others but either they were pretty bad or her taste in hotties is better than her taste in pictures!Anyway, the mitigating finale of the film is kind of a disappointment, as is the general low level of her wickedness throughout.
Sure, she's "cheap and horrible" as Mildred Pierce said of Veda, but the whole story is told in more amusing pointed and flat out woman hatingly in some of those Hollywood precode films like "Babyface" with Babs Stanwyck (who never married any hotties).
This film almost gets to the finish line but for it's final minute.
Kathy (Arlene Dahl) is a conniving woman.
However, the film calls her 'wicked' and I see her much more as scheming and a cold-hearted woman with a plan.
Wicked conjures up images of a great Bette Davis character--like you'd find in "Jezebel" or "Of Human Bondage".
And, we only see more near the very end of the film...and it was long time coming!
It's a shame...as I was assuming I'd see Dahl playing more of a femme fatale than this lady..
According to Louella Parsons (around 1950) Arlene Dahl and Elizabeth Taylor were the only two Hollywood stars who could face the camera without makeup with complete confidence.
Aside from "Wicked As They Come", her next film was "Fortune Is a Woman" (aka "She Played With Fire").
I haven't seen that one but I have read the book and it is a super "old time" thriller about arson and insurance agents written by Winston Graham, who wrote "Marnie".Arlene Dahl's beauty really stands out in this movie, set in industrial England - but what's this!!
Entering the Stylewear beauty contest, she is determined to win and starts to work her charm on the boss (David Kossoff).
Of course when she wins, the boss and his son, who had been the original "object of her affection", go by the wayside.Kathy goes to London to start a new life and instantly meets Larry, a moody and extremely jealous sort, who wants to marry her but Kathy is determined to better herself and starts a typing course.
She goes on a spending spree and when Larry comes back from a Paris business trip, she is long gone.
Larry does get to know of her stay in Paris and starts sending her threatening letters and Kathy, now married to Collin's father in law is scared!!
Phillip Carey is on hand as the guy who really understands her and is there to pick up the pieces.I thought this was a good "rainy day" movie - you have to scratch your head as to why the first part was set in New York when the scenery was so very Northern industrial England, in fact it would have added a realistic touch.
Arlene Dahl is probably one of the only Hollywood beauties who never sat at home waiting for the phone to ring.
As Good As Arlene Dahl Gets.
Arlene Dahl is currently working at her 9 to 5 job but is also working it – on the men around her, that is.
Using the guy who likes her and his father who is the head of the committee, she surprisingly wins and gets a one-way trip out of there.
She meets one man after another, like Phil Carey who she honestly likes until she gets into a position she really wants.
It's all explained in the end, but not before she meets Herbert Marshall and gets him into a compromising situation forcing her hand and landing her in the catbird seat, for a while.
"Wicked as They Come" is an absorbing well-paced little film, reminiscent of Barbara Stanwyck's "Baby Face;" in fact, it seems to be a remake of sorts, with many similarities in plot.
"Wicked as They Come" gives the beautiful Arlene Dahl a three-dimensional and interesting role and may be one of her best movies with her as the sole lead.
If you like movies like "Baby Face," you'll love the duplicitous Arlene Dahl as she is as "Wicked as They Come.".
"Wicked as They Come" (1956) is an excellent drama which combines film noir, melodrama and psychological elements.
Arlene Dahl gives a superb performance as Kathy, a complex character.
Kathy is a beautiful and wicked woman who hates men.
Kathy wins a beauty contest by flirting with the judges, and receives stylish clothing and a trip to Europe.
Kathy obtains a secretarial job at a large advertising agency in London, and uses her feminine allure with the much older and married executive Stephan Collins (Herbert Marshall) to gain money and status.There is a classic bad girl confrontation scene between Collins' wife Virginia and Kathy.
Virginia opens her checkbook and offers to pay Kathy to stop seeing her husband.Kathy is disdainful of most men.
At this point the movie shifts from melodrama to film noir, with a mysterious prowler hiding in the shadows.Kathy's fashions are gorgeous.
Fashion is important for bad girls, because Kathy's glamorous clothes help her attract wealthy men.The movie was filmed in England, with sets of Paris.
"Wicked As They Come" (1956) is strictly for Arlene Dahl fans.
Dahl was in her late 20's when this was filmed and already on the downside of her career; something that tends to happen to hot young starlets when they begin to show a little mileage.
Dahl was still very beautiful but the Kathy Allenborg character is really a part for someone 18-19 years old.
Early in her career Dahl was one of the latter, which just compounds the miscasting problem.So the wheels pretty much fall off this thing right out of the gate (literally true as the movie opens with the overage Kathy walking though the gate of a factory); but there are still 94 minutes of running time to sit through.
Since neither the storyline nor the supporting performances are convincing, the best that can be said for "Wicked As They Come" is that there is a sort of unity of non-authenticity to the production.
She wins a third rate beauty contest by coming onto the sponsor (David Kossoff), then dumps him when he is no longer useful to her.
Kathy finally falls in love, accidentally kills her husband, is outed as a gold-digger, is sentenced to death, goes to jail, and is reprieved when the death is determined to be accidental.
"Wicked As They Come" is shot in black and white; there are probably some film noir elements and themes in the unconvincing script, but I doubt that anyone will cite it as an effective example of the genre.
Once again I could not stop watching the infernal thing....But I mean at every turn every single scene every single moment was filled with ire and angst and some type of invisible self-righteous indignation , every scene imbued with this until erelong there the atmosphere of everything is engulfed in some terrible mire - it was perfectly awful and yet...there is something hauntingly interesting about this gem here, something out of the ordinary - for one thing, even when she finally got everything she loves , she is yet not gratified, she wants more , sort of mirrors her swains rich or not...The whole thing is so creepy, and the ending actually killed love it seems, if there was ever any....What a strange universe, she can make any man fall in love with her but she is never satisfied , what the hell does this wicked beast need?
While fully appreciating that Wicked as They Come, was released in 1958, the film falls short, of delivering a plausible and interesting story.
The acting, direction, cinematography, etc., are all strong, and the film could have been very good, with the lead role cast to someone of a more suitable age.Arlene Dahl is very beautiful.
It is implied that she was "abused" as a child, and then somehow decides to exact her revenge on all men - two decades later.Miscasting of this sort, seems commonplace, when looking back at movies form this period, but this doesn't lesson the feeling that the movie would have been much more believable, and interesting, if they had cast someone young in the lead role.Wicked as They Come remains watchable, but not recommended - unless you've simply nothing else to do..
***SPOILERS*** Poor girl from the slums of Philadelphia Kathy Allenbourg later known as Kathy Allen played by the beautiful and classy Arlene Dahl gets her big brake in life winning a local beauty contest after putting out to the person who runs it Sam Lewis, David Kossoff.
Not long after landing in London Kathy charms and captivate big time photographer Larry "Big Bucks" Buckham, Michael Goodliffe,who after he gave her his credit or business charge card to buy herself a wedding dress Kathy runs it up to the limit and then pawns all the merchandise she bought with it then checking out on him!
This act on Kathy's part has Larry flip his lid and after being told he's on the dead beat sh*t list by his boss is arrested for assault, in him knocking out cold his both boss and one of the investigators an then locked away in a institution for the criminal insane.Kathy now on a roll gets involved with her new boss Stephen Colliins, Harbert Marshall, who's not only old enough to be her great-great grandfather but is also happily married to his wife Virginia, Faith Brooks, who's father is the CEO of the firm that she works for.
While all this is going on it's an not so old flame of Kathy's, whom she met on the flight to London, TV producer Tim O'Bannion, Philip Carey, who tries to strike up a relationship with her knowing that all she's after is Collins' money and may ends up, in having him engage in rough and exhausting sex with her, drop dead of a heart attack long before his time is up.
It's a ghost from Kathy's past that ends up doing in old man Collins with her, in shooting him, getting indited for his murder!***SPOILERS*** It turns out that Larry Buckham just released from the mental institution had been stalking Kathy and driving her insane with fear-with anonymous phone calls and unsigned notes-that lead to her shooting her husband mistaking him for a prowler out to get her.
It's an open and shut case for the prosecution with Kathy getting convicted and sent to the gallows but it's Tim, whom she dumped, who ends up coming to her rescue.
It soon turns out that Kathy had developed a hatred of men when she was assaulted by a local Philly street gang back in 1939 when she was 14.
It's Tim who finally gets Larry to admit that it was him that's been stalking and threatening Kathy that had her mistakenly kill her husband to get the murder charge dropped and have her only get convicted for 2nd degree homicide.
It was also Tim that restored Kathy's ability to see men as individuals not the street gang of thugs that assaulted and raped her back in Philly so many years ago in 1939.
And with that Kathy promised Tim to renew their relationship, that was on the rocks, as soon as she gets out of prison! |
tt0114537 | Steel Frontier | In the year 2019, a gang of bandits called the "United Regime" invade the town of New Hope. They are led by General Quantrill (Brion James), a descendent of Confederate cavalry officer William Quantrill. A mysterious motorcycle riding gunslinger named Yuma (Joe Lara) arrives in town and joins the gang, but actually plays the thugs against each other, causing the drunken riders to shoot each other. The next morning Yuma's girlfriend Sarah kills two other gangmembers, but the Regime believes Yuma is responsible. Yuma tracks down his accusers and shoots six. He is chased by the rest of the gang to the tire refinery, but kills them all, including Quantrill's son.
The sole survivor, Ackett (Bo Svenson) escapes to warn Quantrill. Most of the townsfolk flee but Sarah stays to help Yuma. Quantrill descends on the town with his entire army, only to find the road blocked by coffins filled with the bodies of his son and troops. Enraged, he shoots Ackett with a shotgun and enters the town, only to find it empty. The buildings, rigged with explosives, are detonated and most of Quantrill's army is destroyed. The remaining thugs converge on the town center and are attacked by armed townsfolk. Quantrill spots Yuma in a tower and sends his men after him. When they enter the tower Yuma abseils down and detonates a bomb hidden inside.
Meanwhile, Sarah's son hides in an armored school bus which is later hijacked by Quantrill and chased by Yuma and Sarah. Yuma climbs into the bus and crashes it into a wrecked car. Quantrill and Yuma lie on the injured road, both within reach of their guns. Yuma draws first and kills Quantrill. Yuma loads Quantrill's corpse onto his bike and reveals he was a bounty hunter tasked with capturing Quantrill, before riding off into the sunset. | violence, revenge, neo noir, murder, sadist | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0038979 | Stagecoach to Denver | Red is working as a stagecoach driver with one of his passengers being Dickie, a recently orphaned young child travelling on his own. Red puts him on the inaugural stagecoach from Elkhorn to Denver, Colorado where he will meet his only surviving relative, an Aunt that he has never met. Dickie is riding with the Land Commissioner on his way to Denver to report the dishonest dealings of the town's boss Big Bill Lambert. Lambert owns the new Denver stagecoach line so he can control communications as the telegraph line to Denver has not been opened, and wants to ensure that the Land Commissioner does not make it to Denver.
One of Big Bill's henchmen stops the stage on the excuse that the driver forgot a bag of US Mail. Once the driver places the bag of mail with the other mail sacks the henchman sabotages the horse harness that leads to the stagecoach going off a cliff killing the driver and commissioner but leaving Dickie paralysed. The town Doctor's diagnosis is that Dickie's only chance to walk again would be a risky operation that can only be approved by Dickie's next of kin, the aunt in Denver. Red has the idea to use the telegraph at a mine that has a connection with a mine near Denver where the news requiring Dickie's Aunt and a new Land Commissioner to come to Elkhorn can be relayed. Worried about the Commissioner's message, Big Bill sends some henchmen to stop Red from sending his message but fail miserably.
In Denver, Big Bill's associates have the idea to waylay the stagecoach carrying the real replacement Land Commissioner and Aunt and replace them with an impersonator to masquerade as a Land Commissioner and to establish his veracity, sends a tough woman in the gang to impersonate the Aunt. Once in town the phony Commissioner follows Big Bill's orders to resurvey the lands of the area for Big Bill's benefit, but the woman impersonating the Aunt is touched and reformed by Dickie and endangers herself when she won't go along with Big Bill's schemes and stands up to him. | murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0979847 | 881 | A talented student from a broken home and an orphan who lost both of her parents at a young age, Big Papaya and Little Papaya grow up idolizing Chen Jin Lang, the King of Hokkien Getai, and dream of becoming Getai singers themselves.
After a chance meeting at a Chen Jin Lang concert and coached by their seamstress, Little Papaya's Aunt, Ling Yi (Aunt Ling), the Papaya sisters struggle at first because they have no “feel” in their voices. As a last resort, they appeal to Aunt Ling’s estranged twin sister, the Goddess of Getai, for help. She grants them their wish, but warns them the price will be high, especially if they do not obey the rules of Getai. One of the rules states that they shall not love or be loved by any man.
The Papaya sisters hit the Getai circuit and sing their hearts out with their newfound “feel”. Big Papaya is pursuing her dream in spite of strong parental objections, to the point of being kicked out of her house and is now living with Aunt Ling and Little Papaya. Little Papaya, being an orphan, is in a personal race against time to realize her potential. Like her deceased parents, Little Papaya suffers from cancer and has little time left. Through their perseverance, hard work and Aunt Ling’s amazing costumes, the Papayas become the most popular sister act in town. They use their fame to help raise funds to help Chen Jin Lang, who is also suffering from cancer. But they are soon devastated by the death of their idol. While Little Papaya grieves, Big Papaya finds solace in the arms of Guan Yin, Aunt Ling's mute son and their driver.
Unknown to them, rival sister group Durian Sisters have become intensely jealous of the Papayas' success, and are determined to trip them up by messing up their schedule. With the help of their gangster Godfather, the Durians succeed in shutting the Papayas out of many Getai. They are ruthless in their underhand attacks on the Papayas, using magical darts to hurt their rivals. Guan Yin cannot defend them, and even the Goddess is appalled by the tactics employed by the Durians. Although she grants the Papayas whatever celestial powers she can bestow, she warns them that there is a limit to what she can do.
At a confrontation, the Durians challenge the Papayas to a showdown. The stakes are high: whoever loses will leave the getai scene for good. The Papayas accept, and start preparing for the big day – new costumes, new songs, new dances. The movie climaxes with a dramatic musical battle. Both sides pull out all the stops to win over the audience. Eventually Little Papaya collapses from the strain.
Distraught, Big Papaya begs the Goddess of Getai for assistance but receives none, as she has broken the rule by being with Guan Yin. Little Papaya wastes away and eventually dies.
Years later, Big Papaya is still performing Getai. Guan Yin mentions that he looks forward to the Seventh Month more, as that is the only time they can all be together | magical realism, melodrama | train | wikipedia | null |
tt3672742 | Turbo Kid | In an alternate 1997, a post-apocalyptic society lives in a land nicknamed "The Wasteland" that is littered with trash and ruled by a sadistic and tyrannical overlord named Zeus, who uses a device to grind captives into water. The Kid, a teenage comic book fan, scavenges the wastes on his BMX bike to trade with junk dealer Bagu. After trading for water and his favorite comic book Turbo Rider, The Kid runs into Apple, a mysterious, free-spirited young woman. Frightened by her quirky personality and aggressive attempts to befriend him, he flees to his bunker, only to find she has followed him. When she hands him the comic book that he dropped, he reluctantly allows her to stay with him.
As The Kid teaches Apple his rules on how to survive in the Wasteland, they grow closer, and The Kid develops a crush on her. When one of Zeus' henchmen kidnaps Apple, she urges him to flee. He narrowly avoids capture when he accidentally discovers the remains of the real Turbo Rider. After taking Turbo Rider's armor and wrist weapon, he sets off to rescue Apple. At the same time, Frederic, a champion arm-wrestling cowboy, is captured while attempting to rescue his brother. After cutting off Frederick's right hand, Zeus throws him into an arena with Apple. The Kid arrives to intervene, but his wrist weapon fails to fire due to a low charge. He is then captured and thrown into the arena, where he, Frederic, and Apple defeat Zeus' warriors and escape.
The Kid discovers that Apple is a robot after seeing her survive a gunshot during their escape. She tells him that she is a friendship model. Because of damage to her circuitry, they contact Bagu, who directs them to the robot graveyard, where they can find spare parts. When Bagu is captured and tortured to death, he reveals their location to Zeus, who sends his henchmen. The Kid and Apple evade capture during the chase, but Apple is decapitated by Skeletron, Zeus' lead henchman. The Kid attaches Apple's head to a new robot body and falls unconscious to the graveyard's toxic fumes. He later wakes to find that Frederic, who now has a robotic hand, has rescued him; Frederick says Apple could not be reactivated. They return to Zeus' camp to kill him.
The Kid reveals that Zeus killed his parents for their water when he was a child. Although Frederic and The Kid defeat many of Zeus' henchmen, The Kid is about to be killed when Apple shows up and rescues him. Upset at his men's incompetence, Zeus shoots The Kid, Apple, and Frederic. The Kid is saved by a tin case of View-Master discs he keeps under Turbo Rider's armor. Using the wrist weapon, he blasts Zeus and his remaining henchmen. However, Zeus rises and reveals himself also to be a robot, a corporate model designed to ruthlessly conquer all competition. The Kid blows him up by shooting explosives that Frederic brought along with them. Apple dies while protecting The Kid from the blast. The explosion reveals a fresh water source underneath the site.
After The Kid buries Apple, Frederic invites him to stay and help him deliver water to the people of the Wasteland. The Kid declines and rides off to explore the wastelands. | psychedelic, alternate history | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0164114 | Drive Me Crazy | Nicole Maris (Melissa Joan Hart) and Chase Hammond (Adrian Grenier) live next door to each other. Nicole lives with her divorced mother and Chase's mother died of cancer, making them two teens living with their single parents. However, they are worlds apart. Nicole is a popular socialite up on the latest fashions; Chase is an unpopular activist and trouble-maker on the latest protest. Nicole wouldn't miss a pep rally or basketball game with her scheming socialite friends. Chase can usually be found in a dark coffee room with his friends.
Nicole wants a dream date with the star basketball player for their school's senior prom, but right before it was certain they were going together, he falls in love with a cheerleader. Meanwhile, Chase's "non-conformist" girlfriend, Dulcie (Ali Larter) dumps him for not joining her in animal rights activism. Now that they have something in common, Nicole and Chase reluctantly join forces to navigate the land mines of high school love.
Nicole and Chase's scheme is to publicly date each other to attract the interest and jealousy of their respective romantic prey. Chase allows Nicole to do a makeover of himself to make himself more handsome and presentable to the other social circles at the school. At first, their scheme works: they both get the person they wanted. But in the midst of planning a gala centennial celebration for prom, Nicole and Chase find that the one they always wanted is closer than they ever realized. Finally, they dump their original dates and fall in love with each other.
There is still one big twist that could ruin their relationship forever in the end. After the celebration ends, they go back home only to find out that their parents have fallen in love and will move in together, which would make them step-siblings. However, the movie ends with the feeling that they aren't going to let that fact stop their relationship. | romantic, prank | train | wikipedia | Sit down and watch it and leave the cliff's notes at school.The actors were great (It's nice to see that Melissa can play something besides Sabrina).
Get the CD: (You Drive Me) Crazy, Unforgetful You, I Want It That Way, It's All Been Done, Stranded, Faith in You, Is This Really Happening To Me, Steps, Hammer To The Heart, One For Sorrow, Sugar, Regret, Original, Help Me Save The Youth of America from Exploding, and we can't forget "Keep on Loving You" by the teen girl rocker group "The Donnas".You can get this movie for $5.88 at Wal-Mart!.
I expected Melissa Joan Hart to turn in a mannered, 'Clueless'-type performance, a pastiche of popular girl gets a heart.
The dialogue is witty, the theme is good-spirited, and, as in every teen movie, the soundtrack is great.The film has its flaws, however, particularly in Melissa Joan Hart, one of the worst actresses of our time.
His looks and intelligent delivery make the entire film worth seeing.Overall, a cute and cheery romance that does not feature the head cheerleader nor the lowest of the low geek- it presents it's characters and storyline in a fun, believable way, and it'll leave you loving every minute of it..
Another interesting bit of symbolism is the MTV-like video showing the zombie-like behavior of the high school in-crowd compared to images of animals and Nazi rallies.Yes, it's a teen romantic comedy, but it actually has some real thought in it, and the talented cast play characters that show some depth.
Its typical teen comedy/drama in the same vein as `TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU' and `SHE'S ALL THAT' but if you like that kind of film then this will in no way disappoint you.
I think the story of it all is fresh and natural- like what you'd see at my high school, and it teaches you (yes I actually learned something from this movie) that the right person for you may have always been there to begin with, even with all of his imperfections.
:) Melissa Joan Hart's character (Nicole) starts out shallow but eventually grows a heart bigger than her high school ego.
This movie altogether isn't necessarily the best movie ever made, but it is a funny and serious romp through the final days of high school (love, crushes, the final school dance, peer pressure)- harmless but sweet and full of characters that are likeable and might remind you of people you once knew..
There really isn't a whole lot of comedy in the film, so I'd be much more inclined to classify this film as a teen drama, so don't watch this film expecting a hilarious movie.The cast is surprisingly good in the film.
Melissa Joan Hart does a great job in her first starring role and puts on a pretty good show for the most part.
The other main character, Chase, played by Adrian Grenier is a new face to me, but does a good job with his role.
The character, Brad, was the most important jock-character and he wasn't made out to be a bad person or unlikeable person at all, just a guy that Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart) was head over heels for...and then wasn't.Another thing this film really had going for it was that it stayed away from all the gross-out, stupid comedy that is so abundant in most teen movies these days.
Often when a teenage actress reaches her twenties she's anxious to leave off the schoolgirl roles and try something different, so one might have thought it would take something special to get Melissa Joan Hart ("Sabrina...," "Clarissa...") back in the classroom again.
It appears to be an attempt at the "sophisticated" style of teen dramedy made popular by movies like "Clueless" and "Cruel Intentions" and TV shows like "Dawson's Creek," but this film is clearly not in the same league with those, mostly because of a listless script.
For once the leading lady was not head cheerleader/prom queen but an average girl with a good intelligence.There were some divisions in pupils, but there were no spotty nerd characters who did nothing but play with computers and watch Star Trek.
The subtle conniving women were enjoyable to watch.I was expecting a really poor and tacky American High School comedy, but found a quite refreshing change from all the other movies that have been listed in these reviews.And a word of advice...
Then again, if you like mindless, charming, paint-by-numbers teen movies, this is probably the film for you.
Drive Me Crazy wasn't as bad as other teen films I've seen in the past.
No actually, I hate film-makers who think that "teen movies" like this one and "Can't Hardly Wait" and "Bring It On" and "She's All That" and "Save the Last Dance" and "I Am A Cheerleader And I Date The Most Popular Guy At School But Oops He Dumped Me What Am I To Do" will appeal to every teenager that walk on the Earth's surface.
What an accomplishment!Now, I was forced to watch this sorry excuse for a film by my friends, who sadly, actually enjoy movies like this one.
Drive me Crazy was exactly what I expected: an American teen movie with average acting and a predictable story line.
Adrian Grenier was surprisingly believable and well presented, adding a small amount of substance (which was then demolished by Melissa Joan Hart) to the movie - pity about the script.
Melissa Joan Hart does have talent but she could've picked a better movie.
Adrian Grenier did a great job playing the protest loving teen who gets a make over from Melissa.
If anyone has seen Jaws ( 1975 ) and then watched Jaws IV The Revenge, they can compare what Drive Me Crazy is like to a film like Fast Times and American Pie or even Porky's.
The writing has some good lines and the romance between Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart) and Chase (Adrian Grenier) works well.
By the same token, Nicole (an overly perky, but still Enjoyable Melissa Joan Hart) plays that rare breed of popular girl who defends her friends, regardless of social status.
And they might just realise what true love is, who knows?I'm a fan of Melissa Joan Hart, so it comes as a forgone conclusion that I'll enjoy this film.
Nicole Maris (Melissa Joan Hart) is the popular girl in school.
Drive Me Crazy is the new Comdedy Romance film directed by John Schultz its about popular high school student Nicole Maris (Melissa Joan Hart) who plays a charade with grungy nextdoor neighbour Chase Hammond (Adrian Grenier) after being dumped for the prom, there charade fast turns to a love that neither expected, also starring Susan May Pratt and Ali Larter.Drive Me Crazy actually wasn't a bad film for your typical high school romance movie, it did have good and believable acting in it.
Melissa Joan Hart still seems like that young girl from Clarissa Explains It All. I have always been a fan of Ali Larter and she played a good role as the bad girl, the only reason it wasn't great is because I have seen better of this type of film its all be done before..
Hoping to make their ex-loves a little jealous, the two decide to pose as a couple, but complications arise when they discover they may actually have feelings for each other.DRIVE ME CRAZY tries hard to be another comedy that follows in the footsteps of 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU and SHE'S ALL THAT.
It was simply...awful.Sabrina The Teenage Witch star Melissa Joan Hart plays Nicole Maris, an ultra-popular high school senior who yeams for a date with the star basketball player.
One of the absolute worst movies ever made, this trash stars the ugly Melissa Joan Hart, who should stick to tv where the expectations aren't as high.
I was really looking forward to seeing Drive Me Crazy, it looked like a cool teen movie.
Drive Me Crazy is a movie that at the end your thinking "What was the point?" and "They were joking, right?".
The story could of been so much more and the actors can do better...I think.Drive Me Crazy is not a movie that will ruin your life, but it is still a slimy and cheesy film that I don't recommend at all.Rating: 4.
If you would rather rent some teen movie however, rent "Never Been Kissed" which has a more original plot and by far better acting.
In this story, Nicole loses her crush, Chase loses his girl, and Nicole then devises a plot where Chase will escort her to the school "Centennial Gala." Nicole transforms him, they fall in love, etc.....I practically fell asleep, and as a teen myself, I thought I would enjoy this but was proven wrong..
Melissa Joan Hart and Adam Grenier acquit themselves very well and convince as a couple, so it's a little surprising to find that their entire relationship is just a set-up so that (convincing, this) they can attempt to win back the hearts of their respective loved ones.Except, of course, it doesn't work out like that.
Yes, it's another we're-so-cool-it-hurts-but-we-fall-in-love-just-like-any-other-kids high-school comedies of which you can guess the entire plot in under 10 minutes.
'Drive Me Crazy' ransacks just about every other American-rich-kids movie that you can think of in recent years - 10 Things I Hate About You and American Pie especially.
Problem is that the latter two films were witty, erudite and convincing.'Drive Me Crazy' rams home just about every high-school cliche you can think of, has a rather boring script and unconvincingly changeable characters, but nonetheless is passable entertainment with good performances..
Actually, where practically no other movies have succeeded, which is all the more reason why one wonders who decided to finance this turkey.It is aimed at Melissa Joan Hart (MJH) fans, and, while I'm sure both of them enjoyed this movie immensely, the thousands of poor slobs that suffered through this who don't get wood at the sight of the Teenage Wench must have felt like the cinema people ought to have laced the popcorn with strychnine to make the ending more pleasurable.There is no excuse for a movie in which the main characters actually believe that 'pretending' to go out together to make their ex's jealous won't eventually lead to 'actually going out'.
I mean, haven't they seen a Corey Haim movie?The film was mostly shot in Utah, which is completely irrelevant, except that the film makers obviously wanted to pay tribute to their hosts' Mormonic lack of caffeine and alcohol by ensuring that their film lacked any credibility or humour.If you want to see a decent teen flick, then see 10 Things I Hate About You, and if you want to see some teeny-pop culture, then buy the Britney Spears video which probably has the 'Crazy' film clip on it which has MJH in it, doing her best to prove that not only can't she act, she can't dance either..
None of the newcomers manage to make much of a show for themselves, and Melissa Joan Hart, of "Sabrina" fame, proves that squinting eye expressions cause a more harmful movie going experience than no acting ability at all.Whatever its problems clouding a completely enjoyable, the movie is a cute movie for those simply looking to have a good time, but those with a higher brain capacity should definitely be looking elsewhere for entertainment.With an overhyped soundtrack, featuring Britney Spears to entice the need for painkillers, "Drive Me Crazy" just proves to be a below average teen movie, with sporadic amusements.
The movie is OK,the plot pretty predictable,Melissa Joan Hart is an 'OK' actress,the way she acts doesn't show much difference from her Sabrina character on 'sabrina:the teenage witch' shown on tv,and it has the basic elements of stereotyped people (jocks with popular chicks,bla bla).so why am i watching this movie????Because of the actor,Adrian Grenier!!!!what an awesome dude!if you're a big fan of tasty good looking guys,watch this movie!you won't be disappointed!hehe!.
She was so much better in the TV movies that she did before this movie, especially "Silencing Mary", which is actually a very good movie mostly because of Melissa Joan Hart's performance in that particular movie.But her acting is so fake in "Drive Me Crazy".
Melissa Joan Hart looks too old to be playing a teenager but Adrian Grenier is very good as Chase Hammond, he brings character and depth into his character and is very convincing.No other teen movies are very much like this anymore, Cinderella Story, How to Deal, Raise your voice don't even compare to this movie.
The plot and the story is a good one to see.What more, with Britney Spears's song 'Drive Me Crazy' its Soundtrack gets to be cool.
This movie tells the story of Nicole, a popular girl in school.
Melissa Joan Hart plays the role great and so does everyone else in this movie.
The story of this movie is pretty good but the final product is a really boring and no funny movie.Melissa Joan Hart is not a good actress, she is always doing the same role and in this case her character is totally unbelieable.
The best one is the first at the opening credits.Please, take a good look to the best teens movie of the history: "10 things i hate about you", with awesome and cool actors/actresses, smart and funny script, great story, locations and fantastic soundtrack.I think worthwhile to take a look on Adrian Grenier in the future..
A teen movie that actually touches you, makes you laugh + feel good within your belly, while being intelligent doing so..
It is like all Romantic comedies of course - and generally I am not a fan - but Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the teenage witch) does a really good job portraying the romance.
Ok, maybe it's because I love Melissa Joan Hart, but I really like this movie.
The list is too numerous to belabour, and save for a few diamonds in the rough such as the progenitor American Pie, even attempts at Black Comedy failed miserably to create any sense of real humanity or a break from the cenvention.Enter Drive Me Crazy into the mix, starring a teen idol with dubious serious acting credentials in Melissa Joan Hart...
What does this movie possibly offer that differs positively from the norm as a youthful fish out of water romantic comedy?For one, even though both principal characters predictably enter each other's worlds and are forced to adapt to new styles, BUT they still keep their good hearts intact -- For instance, the ordinary teen flick would have had an obligatory scene where Chase perhaps humiliates his old geekier friends over for the sake of popularity.
In fact, occasionally, I was even impressed.Although none of these teen movies really present an accurate view of high school life, as far as I'm concerned, this one at least faced the fact that sometimes 'cliques' aren't as rigid as they are often presented, that 'popular' people aren't all jerks (and they aren't even happy, much of the time), and that the biggest barrier to enjoying other things is usually the fear of trying something new, not the activity itself.The biggest problem with the movie was not the storyline or the acting - I just didn't feel like I got to know the characters very well.
At the end of most romantic 'teen' movies, I feel really happy for one or both of the main characters, but not so much this time.
I think they're good movies because this is where some teen actors are discovered.
This movie is way better than your average high school flicks like Ten Things I Hate About You and Can't Hardly Wait.
Still, this movie is way better than most of the annoying, romantic teen comedies out there today....check it out if that genre appeals to you and even if it doesn't.
When i first saw the trailer for the movie I thought it looked pretty good so I went to see "Drive Me Crazy" opening night.
The film is the first to put Melissa Joan Hart (Clarissa Explains It All, Sabrina the Teenage Witch) off the small screen and onto the big screen in a starring role.
If you want a good teen comedy then get "Drive Me Crazy"!.
I usually *hate* teenmovies, especially ones like, "She's All That" and "Never Been Kissed".Adrein Grenier and Melissa Joan Hart were good together as a couple, andprobably saved the movie from being another bad teen chick flick.6/10.
Backed up by a great supporting cast (C'mon you all know you loved Designated Dave!!!) and a cool soundtrack, I think "Drive Me Crazy" is a great teen flick that was a tad under appreciated.
good attempt at another teen movie.
Actress Melissa Joan Hart does a fine job portraying the role of "Nicole Maris" a popular high school student.
Actually, I saw this movie because I was in the mood for a teen film, which unfortunately have a habit of not living up even to my worst expectations.
"Drive Me Crazy" is the latest attempt in Melissa Joan Hart's career to establish herself a firm foothold in the movie business.
Melissa Joan Hart is likeable and fun to watch, and her leading man, Adrian Grenier makes a good rebel turned "in kid".Most of the supporting cast is good and believable in their roles, the only problem I had was Ali Larter's Dulcie....she was clearly too "grown up" to be a believable high school student.
Nicole, played by Melissa Joan Hart, isn't a stereotypical teen female lead character; she's got a bit of an edge and a few unexpected facets (perhaps due partly to the fact that Hart was in her early 20s when this movie was filmed).
Finally, this movie is exactly what it looks like: a lightweight teen flick.
Melissa Joan Hart plays Nicole Maris in Drive Me Crazy - and she rocks! |
tt0298052 | Super Mario Sunshine | The game takes place on the tropical resort of Isle Delfino, which is shaped like a dolphin and comprises ten primary locations. The island is mainly inhabited by the races of the Piantas and Nokis. All the levels either have Piantas, Nokis or both. Delfino Plaza is Isle Delfino's largest city and the game's main hub.
Mario sets out for Isle Delfino for a vacation with Princess Peach, and her long-time steward Toadsworth. Upon a rough plane landing at the island's airstrip, they find that the once-pristine island has been polluted and plastered with graffiti. As a result of this pollution, sun-shaped objects called "Shine Sprites", the island's sources of power, have disappeared, and the island is covered in a perpetual shadow. The culprit seen spreading the graffiti is disguised as Mario, who is named "Shadow Mario". To help with cleaning the airstrip, Mario finds a Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device or F.L.U.D.D., a powerful water cannon which is toted like a backpack and is also created by Professor E. Gadd. Mario defeats a giant slime covered Piranha Plant and restores the airstrip, but he is subsequently arrested by two Pianta police officers who accuse him of vandalizing Isle Delfino with graffiti, despite the fact that he has only just arrived. He is put on trial, which turns out to be a mere kangaroo court where the judge immediately finds Mario guilty and orders him to clean up the graffiti and recover the Shine Sprites, in spite of Princess Peach's objection to the ruling. He is forbidden from leaving the island until he does so. The next day, after spending the night in a cell, Mario begins his adventure to find a way to clear his name and locate the real criminal, while restoring tranquility and order to Isle Delfino.
After defeating another slime-covered Piranha Plant and a sunken statue rises from the ground, they see Shadow Mario on top of the statue for the first time. He jumps off the statue, grabs Peach, and runs off with her. Mario chases him and takes him down by spraying him with water from FLUDD. Shadow Mario immediately creates a graffiti portal on the restored statue and escapes through it. Mario follows him through the portal that leads to Bianco Hills, one of the other areas of Isle Delfino where he defeats another slime-covered Piranha Plant and a hill, some trees and a section of wall rise up from the ground. After defeating two more slime-covered Piranha Plants and restoring the disappeared boathouse and lighthouse that unlock portals from Delfino Plaza to two of Isle Delfino's other locations, Mario follows Shadow Mario, who has kidnapped Princess Peach once again, towards Pinna Island, home of Isle Delfino's theme park. There, Mario defeats a huge Bowser robot being controlled by Shadow Mario (titled Mecha Bowser) by firing water rockets at it on the roller coaster, while also shooting down the Bullet Bills that Mecha Bowswer fires. It is then revealed that Shadow Mario's real identity is Bowser Jr., the youngest son of Bowser who wields a magic brush that creates graffiti which, like FLUDD, was also created by E. Gadd. Bowser Jr. turns the remains of Mecha Bowser into a hot air balloon and escapes again with Princess Peach, having been told by Bowser that Peach is his mother. When learning the truth, Peach is visually upset for a second. He is last seen heading for Corona Mountain, a volcano where Bowser is holding a family vacation of his own. After Mario beats Bowser Jr. in all nine areas (not including the Delfino airstrip), a flood falls upon Delfino Plaza, opening up a cave that leads into Corona Mountain that Shadow Mario disappears into. While most levels are restricted by this flood, the flood disappears after the player has entered Corona Mountain. Mario enters the volcano, and after getting through the volcano's inner cave, defeats Bowser and Bowser Jr. by flipping over the hot tub they are in using the Rocket Nozzle and super ground pound, rescuing the princess. Mario and the princess fall from the sky while Bowser and Bowser Jr. are falling onto platforms in the ocean. While the others are plummeting down, Princess Peach opens her parasol, and lands on an island beside Delfino Plaza on her feet, but on the same island, Mario gets his head stuck in the sand, but gets out. However, FLUDD becomes damaged during the landing, supposedly beyond repair. The Shine Gate's power is restored and the Toads repair FLUDD shortly afterward and Mario, Princess Peach and the others resume their vacation. Meanwhile, Bowser admits to his son that Princess Peach was not really his mother—but Bowser Jr. responds that he already knows and that he would like to battle Mario again when he is older, making his father proud.
After the credits, if the player has collected less than all 120 shine sprites, a picture shows Il Piantissimo, a sprinter that Mario raced during the game, finding the brush that Bowser Jr. used to vandalize Isle Delfino. However, if the player has collected all 120 shine sprites, a picture of the entire cast with the words "Have a relaxing vacation" is displayed instead. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | Super Mario Sunshine lives on the classic Mario, but takes it another level with even less side-scrolling than Super Mario 64, and a whole lot more sense of freedom.
The boss fights are fun instead of frustrating, the levels create more and more challenge, and the controls, despite the Side Somersault, are easy to master.Mario, Peach, and Toads head for a nice Hawaii plus Disney World vacation to Isle Delfino(watch for the inside joke on the GameCube's old working name "Dolphin") when Mario is accused for polluting the island with slimy graffiti, taking away Sunshine and the Shine Sprites, which have vanished, and making everywhere an unhealthy, dangerous, depressing-looking place.
The real culprit is someone who we all know, but has dressed up to look like Mario.
Mario must now use the new F.L.U.D.D.(Flash Liquid Ultra Dousing Device, watch for the bottom left corner of the screen when it analyzes Mario)water pumping backpack, which gameplay is based on, to defeat enemies, triumph over obstacles and solve the mystery of Who, Why and What happened?
As he collects Shine Sprites from missions, Sunshine will return to the darkened island.The music is great!
I love the mysterious and remixed tunes that appears in the Shadow Mario scenes, plus the obstacle courses, though some of the sunny, bright music doesn't fit the mood even if it fits the setting.Nintendo is starting to regain its' reputation to not have the best possible graphics, but having original gameplay that's fun and smooth.The variety of activities that you are aloud to do it great, and the ways to collect Shine Sprites are numerous.
The voices are fantastic and never boring, the graphics are as good as the many computer-generated images of Mario you see in video game magazines, and the cut-scenes are great and hilarious!
The perfect blue skies, glorious sunshine and beautiful water effects make you just want to pass through the screen and into the Isle of Delfino in the game itself.
So now it's up to him to clean it up across the various levels and worlds.It's one of those games that you can just keep on playing over the years and even put aside for a while before going back to it.
It makes for perfect escapism.However, the designers have simply tried to cram in too many controls on the Gamecube pad and, as a result, it's a very hard game to control.
Had it not been for this, I would probably have stuck with SMS to the end, but I had to just be done with it once and for all, otherwise I would have chucked my Gamecube at the wall.Graphics A Sound A Gameplay C Lasting Appeal B.
Nintendo finally delivers what it's always been known for: stunning graphics and addictive gameplay.
Nintendo finally delivers what it's always been known for: stunning graphics and addictive gameplay.
Few gaming icons are even half as recognized as Mario.
So when a new Mario game comes out, it should come as no surprise that there is a good deal of hype surrounding that game.
Super Mario Sunshine isn't groundbreaking or breathtaking, but it is a solid adventure game that no GameCube owner should be without.
Super Mario Sunshine begins with a plane trip to an exotic island, with fun, sun, and plenty of water.
Well on this particular adventure, Mario is framed by a clone who takes on a mercury-type shape shifting appearance, much like T-1000 from Terminator 2.
This clone looks incredible, from a graphical standpoint, but he hardly looks like Mario.
Super Mario Sunshine has some horrible voice acting, when you can actually hear it.
In the case of Super Mario Sunshine, though, that could be a good thing.
Away from your ears and onto your eyes, Super Mario Sunshine is quite a sight to see.
Each level is filled with interactive scenery, an incredible number of moving objects, and the best water effects ever seen on a video game.
Graphically, it's just amazing that the levels are so nice to look at, and so large.
The textures could use some work, but the water (which is truly astounding) and other great effects clearly overshadow the small graphic problems.
Super Mario Sunshine is visually stunning.
Throughout these huge levels, you'll be controlling a new and improved Mario.
Mario's goals include finding red coins, killing (and re-killing, as you'll see) bosses, locating certain items, or trying his hand some old-school platforming action.
Throughout each level, Mario will `accidentally' have his new jetpack stolen by the same fiend who framed him in the first place.
Without his new jetpack, you'll be forced to complete an obstacle course using only the old-school Mario techniques, like walk kicks and triple jumps.
Mario will work his way through a handful of unique worlds, scouring each world for hidden `shines', exactly in the same manner as he did looking for stars in Super Mario 64.
The camera might bug you in the beginning, but you'll find it to be one of the best cameras in any video game, ever, once you get used to how it controls.
Super Mario Sunshine is not your standard platform game.
They've also added a new graffiti system that fits nicely with the game.
The game is seen as `clean up the environment' from commercials and previews, and from the beginning, you might actually think that's the case.
An hour into the game, the entire `clean up that graffiti' act is practically gone, and you're back to good old Mario platforming fun.
Super Mario Sunshine's biggest achievement is its lack of gameplay flaws and its stunning graphics.
Most adventure/platform games have glaring gameplay problems, but Super Mario Sunshine has none.
Aside from some poor audio, there is nothing wrong with Mario Sunshine, and there is no reason that you shouldn't own this game.
Nowhere near as good as Luigi's Mansion, the game's puzzles are so repetitive and frustrating much of the game's fun is taken away.
Spraying off graffiti, hanging on hooks that are nearly impossible to grab onto, balancing on tightropes, talking to Delfino residents and some of them punching you all the way across the town, a bunch of new, useless moves and even the music is pretty annoying after a while.
Granted, the game is not entirely bad, it never gets boring just very, very frustrating.
Maybe it's just me but I think Nintendo didn't put as much effort and thought into this game as they have with so many others.Overall rating: 4/10.
The Sun truly shines in Super Mario Sunshine..
Super Mario Sunshine is most definitely the best Mario game out there.
Great graphics, Storyline, gameplay, and even replay value combine to make Super Mario Sunshine One of Miyamoto's best works, I would have to say.
This is the perfect sequel of Mario games, and with a few flaws, this game will be enjoyed to people of ages..
Throughout the years, Nintendo has christened, defined and set the standard with the release of a Mario title in the beginning of their console's five to six year run: Mario Bros.
Mario's first solo incarnation on the Gamecube, Super Mario Sunshine, released more than a year after the Gamecube itself came out, is an effort worthy to be deemed a Nintendo and Mario title, but it lacks the groundbreaking and definitive qualities that its predecessors had, most notably Super Mario 64 when it debuted on the N64 six years prior.By groundbreaking and definitive, I mean that Mario 64 introduced to the world of gaming the sheer potential of three-dimensional gameplay.
SM64 represented a paradigm shift in gaming, a changing of the guard, from 2-D to 3-D, from pre-rendered to real-time, bringing with it the glorious potential for innovation and interaction.
Helmed by the great Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario 64 dazzled gamers and critics alike, sold countless N64s, and most importantly it emphasized the most vital aspect a game can have--gameplay.Fast forward six years to the year 2002.
Super Mario Sunshine has just come out.
I play it and realize that there's just something not quite right with the game.
Two, games before Sunshine have rehashed some of the gameplay mechanics introduced by SM64, adding to the wear and tear of that general formula.
And three, Sunshine feels like a prettier yet restricted version of SM64.In Sunshine, you collect Shine Sprites, similar to the stars found in SM64.
Donkey Kong 64, a game I think was a letdown in many ways, uses this gameplay formula, as does the lovable Banjo Kazooie and its sequel.
Where Sunshine doesn't shine as brightly as its predecessor, however, is in its control mechanics and some aspects of its gameplay design.
Mario controls well enough, and your ability to manipulate the camera is improved, but in the end, this compromises--along with the way the levels and objectives are designed--the sense of freedom Mario 64 had.
Through the open-air level design of Mario 64, the developers utilized the full potential of 3-d gameplay.
Mario could launch out of cannons across whole levels, take to the sky with the wing cap and touch the heavens.
Sunshine takes that away with the exclusion of things that allow the player to improvise, and with the inclusion and reliance on the water cannon, the way the objectives are designed, and the restricted scope and design of the levels you play in.The premise of the game involves Mario, the Princess and her court going on vacation away from the Mushroom Kingdom to an island called "Isle Delfino." Upon arrival, a crisis has broken out: the airstrip where they have landed is covered in a mysterious goop, and there is so much pollution that the sun is being blotted out.
The locals accuse Mario of these crimes and he is sentenced to mandatory labor to clean up the area with the help of a new gameplay device, FLUDD, a sentient water cannon with interchangeable nozzles.
These nozzles allow Mario to manipulate water in various ways, giving him the ability to move through his environment, clean up goop, fight enemies, and solve puzzles.
These levels are equally as exotic and sunny as the rest of the game, from the rolling, green Bianco Hills, to the massively mycological and tribal Pianta Village.
Each level feels sharply distinct in its design and detail, right down to the musical themes that play, which conform to the personality and atmosphere.
In our real world, gravity holds us back: we can't jump as high as Mario, we can't leap off a mountain and watch ourselves and hope we land on the huge mushroom with the star on it, moreover survive.
In a virtual world, gravity's not necessary, and especially with a 3-d Mario game, its full effects aren't necessarily desired..
Mario Sunshine i think is a fantastic game to play for the Nintendo Game Cube.
This was Mario's 2nd game for the Nintendo Gamecube as Mario Party 4 was released before this game.
A Great Mario Game!.
While this may debate-ably fall slightly short of later outings like Super Mario Galaxy, this game seemed to make for bigger and better things in the 3D Mario gaming sector.
It's amazing that Mario Sunshine managed to sell over 6 million units worldwide, because this game is one of the best Mario games in the character's 32 years of history.
Even an under-performing console doesn't keep quality games down from getting the attention they deserve.This game was effectively the true successor to Mario 64, and it shares a lot of the same sound effects, jumping mechanics and feels like what would have happened if that game got polished up and thrown into a different environment to the Castle.
In this case Mario is at Isle Delfino and the setting is an emphasized tropical and sunny paradise that feels like everything basically takes place at, or near the beach.
The only time the beach aesthetic doesn't come into play is when you enter the areas where Shadow Mario takes your squirt nozzle away.
Some of the time those levels feel like they could be outside the world of the game itself, like in the far reaches of space.Taking everything into account, Mario Sunshine is a fine piece from Nintendo's massive gaming library.
I had fun at first, but after awhile I noticed that there were two types of levels:1) Those that are extremely easy (though it might take awhile to figure out what you need to do).
Almost all of the obstacle course levels are like this.It's one of those games that derives almost all of its difficulty from the fact that you're trying to control a 3-D environment with a 2-D interface.
Most gamers would call that poor design.Probably the most annoying thing about the gameplay is the backward-loop high jump.
After you've spent 10 minutes climbing a wall, and you fall all the way down to the bottom again simply because Mario decided he didn't want to do a backward high-jump this time, you just feel like turning it off.
It never did.I found myself saying after just about every level: "I'm glad I'll never have to do that level again."Except for the gameplay, this game is excellent.
Yes folks, it's Mario, and don't get me wrong, I like Mario games (the best ones are Mario 3, Mario World, and Mario 64), but Sunshine SUCKS!!
In the game, Mario goes to a tropical island paradise but gets accused of vandalizing the place and Mario must clean it up.
Yes, the developers experiment with different concepts in Mario games, but these ones are horrible.
First, you like it, but then the repetition of the gameplay prevents you from liking it anymore.BOTTOM LINE: Not as good as the other Marios (I played the new Mario and Luigi game for Game Boy, and it was pretty good).
Skip this Mario game..
The Super Mario series were among the funnest I ever played.
I enjoyed all three of the original NES's Mario games.
It was the only Mario game I haven't beaten.
It was more frustrating than fun.The game is fairly repetitive and you see the same scenery over and over again - the only difference is that they add more and more enemies and more difficult tasks.
This is far from one of Mario's greatest games.
The game-play is even worse.
This game is WAY too challenging, and is almost unplayable.
Spraying the gooey plant things takes forever, and you lose tons of health also, you don't know where you're even supposed to be most of the time, and levels are unbeatable, and not in the good way.
Therefore, if you expect a nice solid Mario game, look elsewhere, because this is certainly a frustrating so called "fun new Mario game." 1/10 or: D-.
I absolutely love Super Mario Sunshine, this is one of the best super mario games i have played in my life, i also like Super Mario 64 that was from Nitendo 64.
Super Mario Sunshine is out to buy for the nintendo gamecube.
There are other super mario games for all networks, including, Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario: the lost levels, super mario sunshine, super mario kart, super mario kart 64, mario 64, smash bros etc: Super Mario has been out for many many years, since the 1980's as far i can remember.
I remember the games for the nitendo and the super nintendo.
I also remember the movie which was super mario bros released in 1993, starring Bob Hoskins, Dennis Hopper and other actors who i can't name.
I give super mario sunshine 10 out of 10..
My son was very excited to see the new worlds and challenges of Mario Sunshine.
One of the Worst Mario Adventure games.
I don't know why the "also known as" thing has "Super Mario 64 II" there because this was NOT a sequel to Mario 64 in any way and will never be worthy of being one.
Mario Sunshine was just downright frustrating, it's not that it's too hard, it's just not fun.
Not like Mario Galaxy where everything was fun, and challenging at the same time, it only felt easy because I had such a great time playing it, but this?
I advise you to skip this Mario game like one of the comments said, first of all they added all of these dumb characters, like the Piantas which have like huge noses and then a tree growing out from their head (what's up with that???) and then they added almost NONE of the older Nintendo characters like Goombas, Koopas, they added all these new enemies.
Then you have this guy named FLUDD who is your helper the entire game which is like this water backpack and he's so annoying.
All of this new stuff is just crap man...this game is just a big disappointment, and doesn't deserve good ratings like some of the comments below me.
Now not everything in the game is terrible, the music is cool, but not any memorable tunes, and then of course, in these platform levels, the Mario Theme will be playing which I thought was cool, the graphics are really nice, and SOME of the challenges in the game are fun, that's...in the beginning of course, the game just gets too repetitive, collecting EVERY single blue coin just to get all the Shine Sprites?
Why can't it just be more simple like Super Mario 64?
Oh and also being repetitive are all the levels, they're all the same kind of theme, island theme...you know, on a beach, on the sand, tropical setting, but I mean, even though it all takes place on an island, they could've added like...you know, a Cave level maybe?
I mean come on, not JUST some island theme levels.
So yeah, this game is not good.4/10 PoorIf you want a Mario game, get a Wii and get Mario 64 on the virtual console, or get Super Mario Bros.
Just get anything BUT Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Bros. |
tt0202559 | A Room for Romeo Brass | 12-year-old boys Romeo Brass and Gavin Woolley have been best friends and neighbors for the majority of their lives. Gavin suffers from injuries to his back to subject him to bullying from other local boys to which Romeo quickly steps to defend him. On one particular day two boys confront Gavin and once again Romeo steps in and things turn violent, and since Gavin's injury prevents him from fighting he can't assist his friend. During the fight Gavin spots Morell and calls for him to help and Morell chases the two boys off and then drives Romeo and Gavin home. Upon meeting Morell Romeo's family quickly deduce his behavior as peculiar. Morell quickly develops an immediate attraction to Romeo's sister Ladine and seeks Romeo's advice to go out with her, Gavin takes the opportunity to play a trick on Morell that would result in him humiliating himself. Morell returns to the shop where Ladine works to apologise and ask her out again to which she accepts out of pity.
Morell encourages the boys to miss school one day and accompany him to the beach. When Romeo goes off to buy ice cream, Morell confronts Gavin about the prank and viciously threatens him if he ever tries to do it again. Romeo continues to spend time with Morell which distances him from Gavin who goes in for an operation to his back and distances himself from Morell's antics. Romeo also looks to Morell as a new father figure after his violent, estranged father Joe turns up back in his life which infuriates him. Morell begins to influence Romeo to behave more violently and convinces him to stay away from Gavin whilst continues to pursue Ladine who is greatly disturbed by his eccentric behaviour. Whilst on a date Ladine sits in Morell's flat and makes a pass at her which she rebuffs. Angry and rejected, Morell tries to force Ladine to at least fool around with him after which she storms out.
Morell takes his frustrations out on Romeo displaying his bullying antics to him now and forces him out of his flat. The next day Morell forces Romeo into his van to follow Ladine and Morell beats a customer Ladine was flirting with close to death in front of Romeo and he runs away. Upset by Morell's actions Romeo goes to Gavin's house where he is comforted by Gavin's parents. Morell follows Romeo back to the Woolley's and starts to bully Gavin's dad Bill. Witnessing this Joe steps in to defend Bill and attacks Morell and forces him away. Romeo and Gavin reconcile their friendship and restore the lives back to normal. | violence, prank | train | wikipedia | This is a truly great film, not seen by enough people in my opinion, Shane Meadows is a breath of fresh air for the British film industry, and I won't hesitate to go and see his next film, on the strength, of his last two ( twentyfourseven, romeo brass ) While most british audiences are somewhat ignorant to quality films like this, and would rather watch overrated films like 'Lock Stock...' there is always a hardcore of fans for films like this.
Shane Meadows is inspired by the likes of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, possibly Britain's best independent directors, but Meadows adds a bit more 'cheer' to this film, who says its uncool to have a happy ending?
Romeo and Gavin are twelve year old pals, who have a great understanding of each other, and their surroundings, but then their friendship is tested when Morrel ( Paddy Considine ) enters their life, at first he is a pal, but why is a grown man hanging around with two boys?
Whether Meadows will ever break out and be a hit outside of the British Isles is highly debatable, his Dead Man's Shoes from 2004 was well received away from his home shores, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone in American multiplexes (for example purposes only) who could tell you who he is, which for a director who has his finger firmly on the pulse of characterisation, that is a crying shame.A Room For Romeo Brass is the tale of two teenage boys who during a fight with some bullies meet gangly loner Morell, as Morell starts to take an unhealthy obsession with Romeo's sister, their friendship is pulled apart, but this is merely the start of Morell's impact as he is about to explode into both of the boys already fractured families.That's all you need to know really, for there is no more to tell, and this is one of Meadows's main strengths, there are no hidden agendas, no allegories of wars, this is just an everyday English housing estate with two families awash with everyday characters.
Well it may be best not to find out eh?Paddy Considine makes his film debut here (thankfully he is now a name across the waters), and his turn as Morell is as scary as it is sad.
I must mention big Frankie Harper (Dog in Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels), playing Romeo's estranged father, he gets it absolutely note perfect and I was delighted to see Meadows give him the film's crowning moment.A film that opens with The Specials and closes with The Stone Roses should always appeal to an English heart, but lets get Shane Meadows' work out there to the masses, for here is a man who even gives an end credit mention for the man who turned on the generators, a man making films for the people, about the people in our midsts.
Shane Meadows seems to improve with every picture, following up the raw promise of 'Small Time' and the almost great 'TwentyFourSeven' with this priceless jewel, which is proof that Meadows alone carries the torch of the British film industry forward amidst the Guy Ritchie pap we churn out on a regular basis.Although the acting from some of the minor characters was a bit on the dodgy side, Paddy Considine shone as the socially inadequate Morrell and the two lads (and their fathers in a memorably frightening final scene) did a solid job.
The usual 'working class' signifiers (a guest appearance by Kathy Burke, or chain smoking as a character trait) were thankfully missing.'A Room For Romeo Brass' was an excellent piece of observation.
In this film, Meadows' love is obviously directed at the valiant and caring mothers, but he allows the fathers of the boys, who appear never to get it right, to finally redeem themselves, each in his own way.In talking with Shane Meadows, I learned that he recruits his actors from the 6 - 20 year old group of actors in his town, and that he is very proud of the fact that, by this means, he can help them take a step toward extricating themselves from their hard lot in life.
The several tone shifts within the film are the result of steady direction rather than shoddy plotting, and Paddy Considine's remarkable performance as "Morell" more than compensates for some shaky rendering by a few of his co-stars.Meadows here creates characters who are unfailingly interesting and rarely easy to predict.
Adults tend to find that a lot harder to do.I watched this film without knowing anything about it, so perhaps I found the scenes where Morell threatens the two boys on different occasions to be extremely shocking (incidentally, the swearing which is almost constantly present in the film is NOT shocking in the slightest).The main thing that I got from the film was concerned with how masculinity is defined - Morell tries to teach Romeo Brass how to be a "man" via weird survivalist techniques - violence, macho posturing, being able to take care of yourself seem to be the ways that masculinity is mediated.
It was interesting that Knock-Knock's father and Morell were both wearing almost identical shell-suits in the violent climax scene.While this was technically a good film, I found it to be much more disturbing than Zombie Flesheaters or whatever, because of its realism..
In fact, support any film that has a DECENT story to tell and something to say.Besides being a funny musing on friendships - Romeo and Gavin are best of mates, yet rarely say anything 'nice' to each other - in the best of British humour, it also contains perhaps one of the most frightening characters to be seen in a film in a very long time.
FANTASTIC!While Meadows is prone to indulge in the good old "finger-picking-guitar-music-over-shots-of-sombre-people" method of setting a mood, and does it fairly often, he can be excused EASILY by the power of this film, blending a PERFECT mix of humour and drama.In my view, I'd pay 5-times the admission price for the climax alone.
On one level the majority of the cast played their parts with the provincial rudiments of a Mike Leigh social drama, but intersecting this plateau was the brilliant unfolding of the Morell character, (Paddy Considine), a splendid mixture of Bez and Ewen Bremner, and my vote for the most memorable performance at 2000 at this early stage.
'A Room For Romeo Brass' is the best British film I've seen in years, if that doesn't sound like too much of a cliche.
It's almost completely undefinable- just when you think that it's a real-life type of comedy, it switches to being extremely disturbing, and you don't quite know where you are for the rest of the movie (in the best possible way, believe me).
Like all of Shane Meadows films, it takes a look at the working-class world of his youth, but is unique amongst this type of British film because it's funny without being sentimental or condescending, and dark without being depressing.
Morell takes a shine to Romeo's sister and starts hanging around with the boys but he is slightly unhinged and his friendship with Romeo threatens to split the friendship of the two boys.I watched This is England recently and it encouraged me to look back across other Shane Meadows films that I hadn't seen either for years or at all.
The two characters of Romeo and Gavin are both well written and convincing and mostly they move the film along, even though I wasn't totally convinced that Morell would be able to get the type of relationships he got before everyone realised what he was about.
Other than this slight issue though, the film does engage and it is mainly thanks to the acting.Meadows directs his cast well while also making good use of music and the movement of the camera.
If your looking for a flick with a stylistic soundtrack and the complete "laugh and cry" package A Room for Romeo Brass is your film.
Paddy Considine at his best Shane Meadows is our generations leading writer and director in the dark and the sublime.
It feels like a home movie, in a good way and I look forward to watching more of Meadows' work, he is definitely one of the UK's best.
When he arrives home he hands his mother and sister two small packets of whatever he hasn't eaten.Shane Meadows, the director, and co-writer of this surprising small film knows a thing, or two, about young boys and the way they act toward one another.
In pursuing the girl, Morrell is instrumental in separating the two friends.The main reason for watching this film is Paddy Considine's work in it.
The 2006 film, which was a critical and award winning success, was a development of the themes, characters and style introduced here in 'A Room for Romeo Brass'.Through an endearing prologue starring a bag of chips we are introduced to Romeo (Andrew Shim) and his best friend 'Knocks' (Ben Marshall), two midlands boys on the verge of adolescence, representative of a young Meadows and his co-writer, Paul Fraser.
Morell is 'overcome with love' when he meets Romeo's sister Ladine (Vicky McClure, who would later play Shim's love interest 'Lol' in the 'This is England' film and series).
It is not long though before the laughing stops, as Knocks is left alone for just a few moments with Morell's darker side.The gripping layered performance of Morell by Considine makes it difficult to believe that this was the actor's first movie role.
The plot centres around the main leads; Romeo and Gavin,('Knocks')telling us of the jumps and bumps of their friendship.Meadows works with these simple elements producing a finished product that is cinematic treasure; Wryly observed, it's full of the sorts of spot-on observations often lost when adults try to recreate the escapades of children.
Therefore, when I was told I would be watching A Room For Romeo Brass, which was also directed by Meadows, I thought it might be enjoyable to say the least.What starts out as an upbeat comedy-drama about the friendship between two young boys is extremely enjoyable.
As he's finished "evening them out"(!) he looks at the portions, exclaiming "I don't believe it, why have I done it again???", Gavin just tells him as simply as he can (and as an honest friend would) "Because you're fat!"Through a chance encounter the boys meet and befriend a stranger who is more than 10 years older than them, a certain Morell, who is eager to date Romeo's sister.
As his advances on Romeo's sister slowly but surely turn into obsession, the boys' friendship is tested as he drives them apart...All of the acting is tremendous, with all of the characters being written and portrayed as realistically as possible, with a nice little cameo appearance by Bob Hoskins as Gavin's dedicated teacher.
The camerawork is also done very well, and the soundtrack fits the mood of the upbeat but slightly disturbing progression and finale of this great movie.As for irony, I'll let you work it out yourself from the film (and the other reviews on this page which I've read!), such as who is dependent on who, and when and why...
The two young lads are brilliantly played and Paddy Considine as the older and disturbing Morel is excellent.
At first we take to Morel as being a loveable but hapless innocent and it's a long time into the film before we, the audience, realise that he is not quite all there.Shane Meadows portrays ordinary working class people in an honest and truthful light and he does not use them to make social points.
just sitting here watching this and ...wow...Paddy Considine what a great job he does starts of all nice and shy then starts to turn....and man does he turn .....mind you ....whats up with the dad (bill) ...wheres ya balls ....I do like the way Paddy delivers his performance on this on e and think i will try and find out more about his work!
The realist style and working-class setting are familiar from the films of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach, but this movie - to its great credit - doesn't have any of the stereotyped characters or heavy-handed social comment that occasionally mar the output of those directors.The acting is perfect - natural, unforced and totally convincing.
Paddy Considine as Morell - the odd character who befriends the boys, and whose increasingly erratic behaviour forces confrontations in both their families - gives an especially subtle performance, inspiring our laughs, sympathy, toe-curling embarrassment and - ultimately - our horror.
I bought this film, knowing that Shane Meadows had made This Is England and Dead Man's Shoes, and knowing that Paddy Considine was electric in everything in which I've seen him.I cannot say that I was disappointed in this film.
romeo and knocks are best friends until the former befriends an interesting character called morell who leads the boys down a dark and violent path in his quest to date romeos sister all the while pushing the previously inseparable boys friendship to the test.
great characters all round especially from knocks comical dad and a simultaneously hilarious and disturbing performance from paddy considine - who i first saw in 'stoned' - check both out!
A Room for Romeo Brass is a good film, but not great.
I used to visit the fish and chip shop, the park and some of the same streets on my way to school (Oldfield(?) School shown in the film isn't in Calverton).I enjoyed Twenty-four Seven and like Shane Meadow's use of non-actors.
The two boys and Paddy Considine were great but Romeo's mother and sister were disappointing in comparison.
Paddy Considine made his name as weirdo loser Morell, a character the film treats with sympathy even though he is evidently a danger to its child heroes: a welcome contrast to the Hollywood world where oddballs are either really all right (and actually not that odd), or pure evil.
What really stands out in this super film are the odd, unglorified moments that completely shift one's perception of what is going on; such as the first indications of Morell's manipulativeness; the moment when Romeo, not usually the most adult of teenagers, grows instantaneously into the role of man of the house on the reappearance of his own, unwanted father; and, near the end, when his friend's dad, who until this point has appeared a man of no qualities whatsoever, offers himself as sacrifice in order to protect the boys.
I had seen some of Shane Meadow's earlier work (Twenty Four Seven, Smalltime, and Where's The Money Ronny?) and been very impressed by it but Romeo Brass is so far ahead of anything the director had done before that it knocked me sideways.
This moment is handled so well and one of the film's chief assets is the stunning performance by Paddy Considine (Romeo Brass is, amazingly, his debut).
Made in 1999 by the talented Shane Meadows, A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS is a comedy drama about a pair of middle school best friends and a stranger that rumbles his way into their lives.While fending off a couple, older soccer bullies, Romeo and Gavin are assisted by a stranger named Morell, a lanky twenty-something who though initially seems nice enough, has some serious deep seated issues.
It isn't until Morell asks to meet Romeo's sister do things suddenly change for the worse, and a simple prank by Gavin has the sensitive Morell pushing the friends apart.Through intimidation does Morell succeed, and as you continue to watch his character, it's quite obvious that despite his age, Morell emulates his younger friends, only worse; bullying the boys, and inevitably, everyone in his path too cowardly to stand up for themselves.The film is a great character study of friends growing apart, family change, adult responsibilities in a child's world, and where your allegiances will always lie.Paddy Considine is a tour de force as Morell.
I was really looking forward to this one, after thoroughly enjoying Dead man shoes, which was a great film....The movie starts and the intro segments begin to play, introducing the two boys Romeo and Gavin.
Morell (Paddy Considine) had been introduced and had appeared to have developed a strange relationship with the boys, and i was left wondering why the boys parents would even let their boys be associated with this strange man, who appeared to be 'not quite the full ticket' in the first place.The scene in the clothes shop where Morell was dressed in a shell suit delivering gifts to Romeo's sister was cringe worthy, and there was no way in hell that his sister would have had anything to do with this weirdo after that performance, which makes the film seem even more unrealistic when she agrees to go on a date with him...The kissing scene was even more far fetched, and this just wouldn't happen in the real world, even if she did feel slightly sorry for him...The film takes a sinister turn shortly after this and provides the first bit of action...My heart skipped a beat when Morell pulls out a knife on Gavin, and it was a quite a random shock.
Shane Meadows offers some interesting observations on society, but it's Paddy Considine's magnificent performance that really makes this worth watching.
Romeo (Andrew Shim) and Knock Knock (Ben Marshall) are best friends at the start and as the film progresses they slowly begin to drift apart when Morell (Paddy Considine) arrives on the scene.
This is one thing that Shane Meadows excels at and once again I'm prepared to take my hat off to him.Of course the real reason to watch this film is for Paddy Considine's performance.
It's not quite as good as Meadows other films such as Dead Man's Shoes and This Is England.
However, it does have some strong characters and a gritty realism about it, but as mentioned Paddy Considine is what really makes this film worthy of your time. |
tt0071400 | Death Sentence | Nick Hume, his wife Helen and their two sons, Brendan and Lucas, watch Brendan's hockey game. While Nick and Brendan are driving home, they talk about the latter's potential future as a professional hockey player. They stop at a gas station in a bad part of town and during a robbery of the gas station, Joe Darley, a new gang member, slices Brendan's throat with a machete. Nick ambushes the thugs, pulls off Joe's mask and sees his face, but Joe escapes to get hit by a car. Nick rushes Brendan to the hospital, but Brendan dies.
Nick identifies Joe in a line-up, but while meeting with the district attorney, he becomes angry when the DA presents a case that the defense will cut a deal for three to five years of jail time. The DA explains that Nick is the only witness, there were no surveillance cameras and the defense could gain sympathy for Darley. At a pre-trial hearing, Nick recants his identification so Joe will go free. He follows the gang to their hide out, returning later and stabbing Joe while he is alone. The gang leader, Billy, wants revenge. One of the gang members says his sister saw a man in a suit. Confirming it was Nick from a newspaper picture, they ambush him on the street. After chasing, they stop at the top of a multi-story parking garage where Nick gets into a fight with one of the members and traps him in a car and sends him over the edge of the lot.
One of the gang members arrives at the office where Nick works to deliver his suitcase that he dropped during the chase. Nick calls a phone number found in the case, which belongs to Billy. Billy warns that Nick has bought a "death sentence" for his family, and reveals that Joe Darley was his brother. Nick immediately calls the police detective assigned to Brendan's case, Jessica Wallis, who is already aware of what Nick started, grants Nick's family police protection and issues APBs on Billy and his gang. That night, the officers at Nick's house are stealthily killed, but by the time Nick realizes, he finds the gang members are in the house. They attack and subdue Nick, then drag Helen and Luke downstairs to shoot them and Helen dies.
After Detective Wallis gives a speech that wars are never settled, she lets Nick pay a visit to a comatose Lucas, where he apologizes for not being a better father. Nick escapes from the hospital to go after the remaining gang members, obtaining guns from a black market gun dealer Bones, who is also Billy's father. Nick tracks down Heco, a member of the gang, and interrogates him about where the other members are, learning their lair is an abandoned mental hospital they call "The Office." He forces Heco at gunpoint to call Billy's cell phone, and executes Heco while Billy is listening. Bones confronts Billy and criticizes him, but Billy kills him. Nick heads to "The Office" to kill the remainder of the gang. After a shootout, he and Billy encounter and seriously wound each other in the hospital chapel. Sitting on the same pew, Billy claims that he turned Nick into a vicious cold-blooded killer, just like him. Nick pulls out one of his guns and kills Billy.
With his family now avenged, Nick returns home, watches home movies and awaits his inevitable arrest. Detective Wallis comes to arrest Nick, but informs him that Lucas has moved and will now live. Nick becomes relieved and looks at the television, which shows the family singing on the couch. Nick's final fate remains unknown. In the extended version of the film, Nick succumbs to his injuries. | murder | train | wikipedia | One out of dozens and dozens of tightly constructed TV movies of the 1970's (some hilariously bad, some unforgettably distinctive, most - sadly - missing in action!) Hincks is a clinging mistress, desperate to hang on to her married lover (Luckinbill) despite her own good-looking, but hard-drinking husband (Nolte.) When she pushes too far, Luckinbill does her in, but lets Nolte take the rap.
Leachman plays a sincere and naive jurist at the trial who begins to doubt Nolte's guilt despite everyone else's sense that he killed her.
When she begins to put the pieces together, she finds that she may have imposed a death sentence on herself!
Made when Leachman was still knocking them dead on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and about to embark on "Phyllis", she clearly tries to downplay her glamor and attractiveness for this "serious" role.
With mousy hair parted in the center, no make-up and some really ugly glasses, she spends the entire movie with the same pinched, unappealing expression on her face.
Her character is dippy to begin with, but she adds extra hilarity through her wooden reactions to the events around her until she is forced to confront the killer personally, at which point the film soars into the comic stratosphere.
Sopping wet, wearing ugly cream-colored heels and with her glasses all smeared, she creates the most abhorrent expressions paired with the zaniest physical manifestations.
She flails around at the end like someone who's being zapped with a cattle prod!
All this work and her name isn't even printed on the DVD case!
Luckinbill gives a decent double-edged performance.
Nolte, at the very start of his career, has almost nothing to do (and his case is never properly resolved.) Various familiar TV actors dot the cast such as Oppenheimer and Schallert as lawyers and Lang (famous for her hysterical turn in "The Birds") as the victim's devastated and opinionated mother.
As loony as it is (and there is one twist to the tale not divulged here), it's great to see some of these old films turning up as they are too enjoyable (for either the right or the wrong reasons) to stay buried in a vault somewhere..
Death Sentence adequate for title.
I bought this DVD for $.88 and has Nick Nolte larger on the cover than Cloris Leachman.
The mistress' acting in this movie was so bad I was delighted she was offed quickly.
During the court scenes I kept hoping to maybe see a flashback or two of Nolte and his relationship with the deceased, but nope ..
then again as I said, her acting was so bad anyway, I gave up caring.
What little lines they handed out for Nolte were disappointing.
Cloris Leachman appeared pained in struggling to give each and every one of her lines as if to say, "Nobody could be this dimwitted."When Lawrence Luckinbill, Leachman's husband in the movie was preparing to strangle her, I was almost hoping the movie was going to improve.
What little of Nolte was in this movie, the only thing that was on my mind was if he was wearing a wig or not since the hair didn't move when his forehead moved.
it is so bad it qualifies for its' own death sentence..
Good actors,awful scenario..
Seeing the name 'Nick Nolte' prominently displayed on the DVD jacket made me buy this film.
Nolte has no more than a few lines to say.
The other actors are *all* great.
The problem is the scenario, which is full of holes.
This, in a judicial suspense drama, is fatal.
I suspect that my DVD only has a shortened version (74 minutes) of a longer film (90 minutes according to your database) that might explain the glaring holes.
On my DVD, the picture quality is *worse* that what you would expect from a standard-resolution TV picture.
The scenario-writer is billed as 'John Nuefield' instead of 'John Neufeld'.
Is this a spelling mistake ?
The year in the copyright notice at the ending credits states '1972' instead of '1974'.
In any case, it is certainly a Spelling mistake as Aaron Spelling produced this El-Cheapo picture.
Nolte has a very small role in this one..
This is a TV movie that has Nick Nolte in a minor role.
He does not have many lines in this one.
If I remember right, Chloris Leachman is actually the star of this film which is a predictable court room drama and is not indicative of Nolte's acting talents at all.The box for this film has Nolte pictured on it but he is very seldom seen in this film..
Cloris Leachman plays a wife and mother about to go on vacation with her husband when she's picked for jury duty on a murder trial; naturally, she's eager to be a good citizen, becoming emotionally (and personally) involved in the legal proceedings.
Aaron Spelling-Leonard Goldberg production for TV isn't a flashy vehicle for the leading actress, but it doesn't need to be.
Leachman is an appealing 'ordinary' woman, a good listener with a compassionate nature, and both her home life and her dedication to finding the truth in the murder case are engaging.
Nick Nolte has an early role as the accused killer, and Laurence Luckinbill is appropriately smug as Leachman's spouse.
The plot, adapted from the novel "After the Trial" by Eric Roman, is far-fetched, but waiting to see how writer John Neufeld and director E.W. Swackhamer work out all the angles is entertaining..
This "movie" was incredibly painful to watch.
Stilted, wooden dialogue, utterly predictable plot, lousy directing and bad camera work - in short, this thing's a train wreck.The film possesses a strange juxtaposition of talented-but-wasted well-known actors (Leachman, Nolte, Luckinbill, Schallert) and eager-but-untalented relative unknowns.
That the director approved this atrocity and that TV network executives allowed it to be aired is incredible.
And now it's available on DVD - but why???The talents of Ms. Leachman and Mr. Nolte are completely wasted.
At least Ms. Leachman redeemed herself later that year (1974) in Young Frankenstein..
Taunt and Skillfully Made Movie of the Week type Thriller.
This is a well-acted, well-written, well-directed little murder-suspense piece that is still quite watchable and entertaining.Unfortunately, this is being promoted as a Nick Nolte movie on DVD.
He is only in about four scenes for about ten minutes.
The stars here are Cloris Leachman, Laurence Luckinbill, and William Schallert.
Cloris Leachman is best known for her role on the "Mary Tyler Moore" television Show, but she was in 80 television shows before that and has been in about 80 television shows and movies since then.
In films, she is best known for her role in Mel Brooks "Young Frankenstein" movie.
Fewer people remember that she won an Oscar for her role in the "Last Picture Show."Her movie career started with a great small role of a young woman running nude on a Highway at the start of "Kiss Me Deadly" (Aldridge, 1956).
Here she is terrific as the housewife who slowly comes to realize that her husband may be a killer.
Laurence Luckinbill is excellent as the husband.
He gives a very natural and smart performance, going against the stereotypes of the genre.
William Schallert, with over 350 television appearances is legendary.
He gives his usual lovable and sympathetic performance as a clever defense attorney.The movie is mainly a courtroom drama with the gimmick that one of the jurists is actually involved with the real murderer.
The suspense comes from the jurist slowly putting together the clues to figure this out.
Some things ring a bit hollow here and there like the prosecutor making basic mistakes while presenting his case, but we can just chuckle over the goofs and enjoy the rest.
Overall, it is a pleasant and suspenseful 74 minutes..
Passable TV Mystery-Thriller.
A passably entertaining made-for-TV thriller, "Death Sentence" reveals the killer in the opening scene.
Laurence Luckenbill strangles his annoying blonde mistress with his own yellow scarf, because she threatened to go public with their affair, which would have destroyed his cherished family.
Cut to the courtroom, where Luckenbill's wife, Cloris Leachman, has been accepted as a juror in the trial of Nick Nolte, who is on trial for the murder of his wife, the woman that Luckenbill killed in the opening scene.
If the premise sounds a bit far fetched, it is, not to mention the murdered woman preferring Luckenbill to the young Nolte.
Based on the novel After the Trial, the film cuts back and forth between the courtroom testimony and Leachman's domestic scenes with her husband and children.
As the testimony progresses and evidence is presented, Leachman slowly suspects her husband's involvement.The performances are uneven; Leachman is good as the wife, intently listening to witnesses, while slowly connecting the dots.
However, Luckenbill, the family-values man, overacts at times, and poor Nolte sits looking at his hands for most of the movie, until he provides brief testimony in his own defense.
Director E.
Absolutely no motive or evidence are presented to implicate Nolte, other than the malicious dislike of his mother-in-law and unreliable claims from a nosy neighbor.
Leachman's suspicions are all circumstantial, and some of her actions are completely implausible.
However, for non-demanding viewers with an hour or so to kill, "Death Sentence" is decent entertainment, if they just go with the flow and do not ponder the details..
Woman in Peril thriller with a bit of "Ladies on the Jury" thrown in..
Taking a tip from Edna May Oliver in "Ladies on the Jury" and Helen Broderick in its remake "We're on the Jury", simple housewife Cloris Leachman becomes embroiled in danger when she becomes compelled to investigate the murder of a married woman whose husband she is sure did not kill his wife.
Her husband (Laurence Luckinbill) is upset because she has postponed their vacation in order to serve on the jury, and the involvement in trying to discover who the real killer is becomes frustrating to him as well.The ever busy Leachman was everywhere on TV and in movies during the '70's, but she is not well served by this obvious "movie of the week".
Even worse is the fact that the killer's identity and motive are revealed at the beginning of the film, removing all suspense and making it all pointless.
Even if it wasn't seen earlier, the revelation is so far fetched that even a child would shout "Hog Wash!" as it all comes out.
Leachman is also badly served by some unflattering photography.
A bevy of familiar '70's faces from TV and movies make this a curio, particularly William Schallert and Allan Oppenheimer as the attorneys, Peter Hobbs as the judge, and Hope Summers as a very hostile witness..
An idea which could have worked...except the writer made a couple women in the film just too stupid to be realistic..
When the film begins, a scum-bag husband is meeting with his mistress.
She informs him that she's pregnant AND she's giving him an ultimatum to dump his wife...or else.
Not at all surprisingly, he soon strangles her to death!
Soon there is a trial for the murder of this woman...but the police have arrested the wrong man...her husband (Nick Nolte) and not her lover.
Now here is an insane coincidence...the murderer's wife (Cloris Leachman) is picked for the jury...and through the course of this film, she comes to realize that her own husband might have done the killing!
The plot here is very difficult to believe but could work.
Sure, it's a HUGE coincidence that the woman would be on the jury for a crime her husband actually committed.
Unfortunately, this movie isn't particularly well written because they make the wife too stupid to live.
Because when she thinks her husband might have done the crime, she doesn't go to the judge or either of the attorneys to tell them but instead tells her husband!!!
And then, she picks up the phone to call the police instead of leaving to get help!!
This essentially makes the lady too dumb to be real AND makes women look stupid (after all, the mistress was incredibly stupid to give her lover such an ultimatum).
Perhaps such things might have been more likely in films of the era...nowadays I am sure many women would be offended by this sort of nonsense.
As a result, I am knocking off a few points...as it could have been handled much more intelligently and would have been a much better movie of the week.This is a film I would really love to watch with a lawyer.
This is because as a non-lawyer I don't know how inappropriate the prosecuting attorney was during the course of the trial.
Many times his witnesses didn't just report what they saw and knew but drew very damning conclusions---conclusions that obviously would have colored the jury.
Sure, the defense attorney objected but it happened often enough I wondered if it would have normally resulted in a mistrial..
Plot Synopsis: John Healy is placed on trial for the murder of his wife.
Everyone in the town is of the opinion that he is guilty but as the trial goes on, one of the female jurors begins to suspect that her own husband had an affair with the murder victim & killed her to keep their affair secret.The Review: Death Sentence (not to be confused with the more recent film by SAW mastermind James Wan) was an early 1970s made-for-television film produced by Aaron Spelling, the master of that era's television soap operas.
It also features Nick Nolte in one of his early roles.Death Sentence is, in most respects, an unremarkable film.
Nothing in the film stands out in any way (except perhaps for Nolte giving one of his better performances as the murder victim's husband, a role that Nolte nails with such precision that you wonder if he was actually being himself), not even the novelty plot device that plays with every juror's worst nightmare – what if you were on the jury in a murder trial & you discover that your partner was responsible for the deed?The other thing I must mention is the fact that producer Spelling must have been hands-on with the film featuring the same brand of needless melodramatics that his other works have featured.
I thought the idea of revealing the killer early on in the film was kind of interesting but it also has the effect of taking all the mystery out of it – other than the climax, you are never on the edge of your seat...
Consul is presenting his summation!
He's not offering any evidence in this case!.
(Some Spoilers) Not much to figure in this court suspense/drama in who exactly did it because we all saw who did it within the first ten minutes of the movie.
The sleazy and manipulative Don Davies, Laurence Luckinbell,the low down rat of a husband of poor sweet innocent and naive, to what he's doing to her, Susan Davies, Cloris Leachman,has been having an affair behind Susans back for over a year.The other woman in the affair Marilyn Healy, C.J Hincks, had gotten pageant by Davies and has been blackmailing him ever since.
Before having the child aborted, by causing a miscarriage, Marilyn married the not too bright John Healy, Nick Nolte, so that her child would have a name and she would not be suspected of having the baby out of wedlock.
All this came to a tragic end with Don Davies murdering Marilyn and making it look like the totally innocent John Healy was the culprit.As fate would have it Don Davies' wife Susan is called to jury duty and picked as a juror on the very trial that the totally Innocent John Healy is fighting for his life in him being indited in his wife's Marilyn's murder!
Susan who at first is not at all convinced that Healy is guilty of murdering his wife Marilyn becomes more and more convinced, as all the evidence is presented, that her husband Don is!As all the pieces in Marilyn Healy's murder fall into place Susan is certain that her husband Don, not John Healy, murdered her.
It's now up to her, and two other jurors who are holding out for acquittal, to save John Healy from ending up behind bars for the rest of his life, being that the story takes place in 1974 there's no death penalty, behind bars.Somewhat unbelievable in how Susan acts after she finds out that her husband not only cheated on her but murdered his lover, Marilyn Healy, when she was going to go public with his infidelity.
The totally confused and what seems like fatalistic, in not being all that interested in being found not guilty, John Healy is the most sympathetic person in the cast.
Trying to do the right thing by giving Marilyn's unborn child, by Don Davies, a name John is dragged through the mud and made to look like a fool by her, refusing to even have sex with him, that drove the man to almost drink himself to death!****SPOILER ALERT****What's the most ridicules thing about the movie "Death Sentence" is that besides it's giving away who the killer is at the beginning it also doesn't give it's audience just what the jury verdict is at the end!
All we have is Susan screaming and acting hysterically in the rain as her by now whacked out of his head husband Don, who had just attempted to murder her, is seen smirking and acting as if he doesn't have a clue to what her actions are all about.
All this is happening as the police, who Susan called on the phone for help, are coming to her rescue!
You get the impression, without the movie having a jury verdict, that Don Davies gets away with his crime and both John Healy and Susan end up spending the rest of their lives behind bars in a state penitentiary and mental institution |
tt0117477 | Ridicule | The film begins in 1783 with the Chevalier de Milletail (Carlo Brandt) visiting the elderly Monsieur de Blayac (Lucien Pascal), confined to his chair. He taunts him about his past prowess in wit and reminds him of how he humiliated him, naming him "Marquis de Clatterbang" when he fell over while dancing. He then urinates on the helpless old man.
The film then shifts to the Dombes, a boggy region north of Lyon. The Baron Grégoire Ponceludon de Malavoy (Charles Berling) is a minor aristocrat and engineer. He is one of the few aristocrats who care about the plight of the peasants. Horrified by the sickness and death caused by the mosquitoes that infest the swamps, he hopes to drain them; he goes to Versailles in the hope of obtaining the backing of King Louis XVI (Urbain Cancelier).
Just before reaching Versailles, Ponceludon is robbed and beaten. He is found by the Marquis de Bellegarde (Jean Rochefort), a minor noble and physician. As Ponceludon recuperates at the marquis' house, Bellegarde takes him under his wing, teaching him about wit (l'esprit), the primary way to make one's way at court. At first, Ponceludon's provincial background makes him a target at parties and gatherings, even though he proves himself a formidable adversary in verbal sparring.
At one such party, he catches L'abbé de Vilecourt (Bernard Giraudeau) cheating at a game of wits, with the help of his lover, Madame de Blayac (Fanny Ardant), the beautiful and rich recent widow of Monsieur de Blayac, who was to have been Ponceludon's sponsor at court. Blayac repays his generosity in not exposing them by arranging for the certification of his lineage—thereby allowing his suit to proceed. Despite his success, Ponceludon begins to see that the court at Versailles is corrupt and hollow.
In one notable example, a bumbling noble of the court, Monsieur de Guéret, falls asleep during a roll call to partake in court with the King Louis XVI. L'abbé de Vilecourt, seeing that the noble is asleep, removes the noble's shoe, throwing it in a fireplace, and mimics a call for him. The noble wakes upon hearing his name, but finding out he has only a single shoe, is terribly distraught. To attend court without the proper clothes is a social impossibility, and because of this, the noble is forced to leave. He is so terribly distraught with his own failure that he later hangs himself in the garden.
The only exception is Mathilde de Bellegarde (Judith Godrèche), the doctor's daughter. She has agreed to marry Monsieur de Montaliéri, a rich, old aristocrat whose wife is dying. Her motivation is twofold: to support her science experiments and to help pay off her father's debts. Ponceludon begins to help her with her experiments. Montaliéri observes their growing attraction to each other. Later, Montaliéri tells Ponceludon that he should wait, as he is not likely to live very long, and Mathilde would be a rich widow. Even after Mathilde admits that she dreads her upcoming marriage, Ponceludon does not want her to end up the wife of a poor man.
One day, a deaf-mute named Paul runs through the woods wearing Mathilde’s diving suit and frightens Madame de Blayac. Blayac makes Bellegarde send him away. Bellegarde sends the boy to the Abbé de l'Épée, a pioneering educator of the deaf. Mathilde visits Madame de Blayac and unsuccessfully pleads for Paul. Madame de Blayac senses a rival for Ponceludon. Meanwhile Vilecourt is concerned that Ponceludon is becoming too successful, so Madame de Blayac promises to bring him down. Madame de Blayac traps Ponceludon at a dinner party (with her accomplice Montaliéri) where one too many guests has been invited. A contest of wit is used to settle who must make a humiliating departure. Distracted by Blayac, Ponceludon loses, and is convinced that his disgrace will force him to leave the court. However, he is reminded of why he set out in the first place when a village child dies from drinking contaminated water. During this time, Mathilde appears at court, breaking the terms of her engagement contract.
Vilecourt finally obtains an audience with the King, but blunders by accidentally blaspheming against God in an attempt to be witty, and Blayac turns her attention back to Ponceludon, convincing him to return to Versailles. He sleeps with her in exchange for her assistance; she arranges a meeting with the King. She maliciously has Bellegarde attend her in his capacity as physician when Ponceludon is still with her, ensuring that Mathilde learns of their relationship.
During a presentation at court of the Abbé de l'Épée's work with deaf people and development of sign language, the nobles ridicule the deaf mercilessly. However, some nobles change their minds when the deaf demonstrate their own form of wit: sign language puns. In response, de Bellegarde stands and asks how to sign "bravo," leading Ponceludon to rise and clap to show his support. Mathilde is touched, and they soon make up.
Ponceludon joins the King's entourage and, after showing off his engineering prowess by proposing an improvement to a cannon, secures a private meeting with the King to discuss his project. The embarrassed cannoneer then insults Ponceludon, forcing him into demanding a duel. Madame de Blayac almost persuades him to avoid the duel, but he eventually decides to proceed, under the supervision of Bellegarde. He kills the cannoneer, but is later informed that the King cannot meet with someone who has killed one of his officers right after his death, although he is assured that it was right to uphold his honour.
Madame de Blayac is furious when she learns that Ponceludon has left her for Mathilde and plots her revenge. Ponceludon is invited to a costume ball "only for wits." Upon arriving at the ball with Mathilde, he is manoeuvered into dancing with Blayac and is tripped. His spectacular fall earns him the derisive nickname "Marquis des Antipodes" by Milletail. Ponceludon tears off his mask and condemns their decadence. He tells them that they class themselves with Voltaire because of their wit, but they have none of Voltaire's compassion. He vows to drain the swamp by himself, and leaves the court with Mathilde. Madame de Blayac removes her mask and stands silently crying.
The movie closes in Dover, England in 1794, where Bellegarde has fled from the French Revolution and where he gets a taste of the English “humour” which the nobles had discussed earlier in the film. On-screen text states that Grégoire and Mathilde Ponceludon successfully drained the Dombes and live in revolutionary France. | revenge, intrigue, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0070904 | Welt am Draht | It is the present day. Cybernetics and Future Science's (Institut für Kybernetik und Zukunftsforschung) new supercomputer hosts a simulation program that includes an artificial world with over 9,000 "identity units" who live as human beings, unaware that their world is just a simulation. Professor Vollmer (Adrian Hoven), who is technical director of the program, is apparently on the verge of an incredible secret discovery. He becomes increasingly agitated and anti-social before dying in a mysterious accident. His successor, Dr. Fred Stiller, has a discussion with Günther Lause, the security adviser of the institute, when the latter suddenly disappears without trace, before passing on Vollmer's secret to Stiller. More mysterious still is the fact that none of the other IKZ employees seem to have any memory of Lause.
Meanwhile, one of the identity units in the simulation attempts suicide. This unit is deleted by Stiller's colleague Walfang, to keep the simulation stable. To investigate the reasons for the suicide, Stiller contacts the contact unit of the simulated world. The unit, called Einstein, is the only identity unit who knows about the simulation, and this is necessary to run the program. In an attempt to become a real person, Einstein switches his mind into Walfang's body while the latter is in contact with the simulated world. Einstein gives Stiller an explanation for the mysteries, vanishing memories, and vanishing persons. He tells him that the real world is nothing else but a simulation of a real world one level above.
This knowledge causes Stiller to slip into insanity. The other "real" people interrogate Stiller, and he is threatened with death, incarceration, and involuntary commitment. Stiller is finally able to convince Hahn, the IKZ psychologist, of his theory. The latter soon dies in an accident that is pinned on Stiller, marking him as the suspected murderer of both Hahn and Vollmer.
Stiller flees and searches for the necessary contact unit who can connect the "real" world with the real world a level above. He survives several assassination attempts and discovers the contact is Eva, Vollmer's daughter, with whom he had once had a romance. Eva tells him he was modeled on the real Fred Stiller, a person whom Eva loved, but became mad with power from directing the simulation in the world above. While Stiller is programmed to die in an ambush, Eva switches the minds of the two Stillers and brings the simulated Stiller into the real world. | sci-fi | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0052808 | Five Gates to Hell | Several nurses including Athena Roberts, Joy Brooks and a Catholic nun, Sister Marie, and a surgeon, Dr. Richter, are taken captive in Indochina by a band of marauders led by Chen Pamok. He leads them to a jungle fortress guarded by five gates and heavily armed men and demands Dr. Richter treat the gravely ill Gung Sa, a warlord.
Chen becomes infatuated with Athena and, after she resists, she is raped. Richter diagnoses a malignant brain tumor and is told that, if his surgery does not save Gung Sa, he and the other prisoners will be put to death. When the patient survives, Richter is told the women will be kept as sex slaves but, as a reward, the doctor may choose one woman as his own. Although he is in love with Athena, he chooses Sister Marie, to spare her virtue.
Athena uses her wiles to lead a revolt, mowing down guerrillas with machine guns and leading an escape into the wild, Richter sacrificing his own life to help save theirs. Chen's men pursue and many from both sides are killed. Sister Marie, appreciating how protective the others have been of her, ultimately picks up a weapon to fight back. Athena is able to shoot Chen, who dies pledging his love for her. | violence | train | wikipedia | grim but entertaining war story.
I first saw it very early (about 1970), and didn't see it again (as far as I know) until just a few years ago, but somehow the general idea of it always stayed with me.
There have been many movies, I think, about women guerrilla fighters, but as far as I know, they usually do it for patriotic reasons.
These women were doing it partly to stay alive and partly to get even, which gave it a different "feel", along with the fact that they were NURSES turned guerrilla fighters.
Because of this, in the back of my mind, I always think of it as an exploitation film (the kind about "girl gangs" and so on).
Which are fine with me, but it isn't one.
It also isn't a "yellow peril" story, or really any kind of propaganda film (for France or any other country being in Vietnam).
And where else can you see Nancy Kulp (Miss Hathaway) holding a hand grenade?
(Unless maybe in some broad comedy routine.) And in how many other films (until a few years later) would you see a nun firing a machine gun?
(Even though she did it very briefly.) And I know that people either laugh or get mad when they see an Asian (or in this case Eurasian) character played by a Western actor, but Neville Brand was very good in the part (again, he wasn't a "yellow peril" villain and nothing else).
It isn't a perfect movie, but I think it mainly works..
Women on the Warpath.
I haven't seen this film since the early seventies, and I can remember it being a shocker to my teenage sensibilities.
( I think I had just been allowed to wear white lipstick, shades of Yardley!) But it held my attention, and I can remember seeing Nancy Culp (Yikes, Miss Jane, what are you doing with a grenade?) in a role 180 degrees from the office of the Commerce Bank and Mr. Drysdale.
I remember the role of the nun being virtuous, but stoic in the face of war, and that Neville Brand was riveting as the main character.
I wish this were available on DVD.
The writing and the story were gripping, and Clavell never disappoints....
true war feelings win out amid low budget surroundings..
So what do you have to "get over" to like this movie?
The fact that standing sets and one American are used to be Vietnam.
Those are small faults in a tightly put together potential exploitation film that instead manages to actually be dramatic and yes it's nasty in a war that's realistic to war in general and Vietnam in particular.Due to a fast pace and tight dialogue this one won me over very quickly.
It's well acted and there are things you won't see coming.
The faith elements--both of the nuns and the doctors--are changed and broken realistically.Unlike other Vietnam films--those made while the war was still being fought--this one presents the war in a way that time has supported, not torn down.
There is no flag waving here.
Also given good context and excitement to it all is a good musical score by Paul Dunlap.James Clavell--as he proved with his novel turned movie KING RAT and with his later last film as director, THE LAST VALLEY, doesn't shy away from rape and death and nastiness in war but manages to make it about characters and drama not cheap exploitation.
Which isn't to say that fans of just that wouldn't find this enjoyable and maybe even a little bit educational as well.It's a good movie with limited production values--but makes the most of itself..
Emblazoned in my memory.
The day I was watching this movie, I went into labour with my second son, who has now passed away., therefore this particular movie has stuck itself into my memory, and when a friend told me today of this website, I had to see if it was listed....and it was.I never actually saw the entire movie, and would now love to purchase it if at all possible.Thank you.
Mary Anne Sibley.
A wartime story with a twist on victory..
I saw this movie long ago and I remember being riveted to the story.
I thought Neville Brand was a great bad guy and the Five Gates to Hell were where he ruled.
It was a very different war theme.
I would like to purchase this in video if I could find a copy.
I have looked about everywhere on the internet..
This movie is up to the quality of Shogun, in movie form.
I believe Clavell was a great historical novelist, and when he tried out the silver screen, with all its limitations, he maintained his integrity.
The sheer quality of this flick shines through.
It's set in Vietnam in 1950, and, as usual, if it's Eastern society, he can teach it..
Shabby little shocker.
George Bernard Shaw once referred to Puccini's Tosca as that "shabby little shocker." That's an apt description for this Vietnam war film written and directed by James Clavell.
Every manner of atrocity is committed in this unredeemable mess: garroting, rape, human boiling, crucifixion, pick-ax murder, and of course point blank shooting.
Sure, it's a bloody war, but Clavell goes for the obvious sensational effect, without meaningful human values, much in the same way we've seen more recently in slasher pics.Clavell manages to elicit terrible performances from his usually-commendable team of actors.
Patricia Owens as a cynical nurse and Shirley Knight as a sanctimonious nun win the awards for bad acting against fierce competition.
And for all the murders he commits, the usually tough Neville Brand is surprisingly innocuous, although it doesn't help that he's forced to play a Vietnamese leader.
Greta Chi gives the best performance; doesn't that say it all?There's some consolation at the end of the film when the women take arms against their captors.
It's rather cathartic, I have to admit.
But for sheer unpleasantness for most of its running time, this is a movie to avoid..
A movie to unwatch.
I was against film censorship and film ratings less than zero until I saw the aptly named Five Gates of Hell.As a previous critic noted, 'A shabby little shocker'.
When asked to name a movie I wanted to 'unwatch', this is at the top of my list.
Oh, and just when you thought the sociopathic film couldn't be worse, there's Nancy Kulp(Miss Jane Hathaway from the Bev Hillbillies) with a hand grenade, and Neville Brand in oriental blackface.
If you're interested in the fates of women in World War II and Asian prisoner-of-war camps, I suggest you watch the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) miniseries 'Tenko'..
The Yellow Peril.
A rather trashy early account of the Vietnam War when it was the French still
fighting it is Five Gates To Hell.
It's as if someone got all those yellow peril warnings out to create this film.If you believe this the Vietminh were really interested in our women folk for sex.
Well proportioned females weren't all that prevalent among their own women.Neville Brand plays a Vietminh guerrilla leader who kidnaps a hospital staff to
treat a local Vietminh leader, doctors and nurses.
The patient dies and the
hospital staff effects an escape, the doctors die but the women wind up defending French colonialism and the virtue of white womanhood with the
exception of nurse Nobu McCarthy.A number of reviewers have already commented on Nancy Kulp, better known
as Ms. Jane Hathaway of the Beverly Hillbillies lobbing handgrenades like she
Nolan Ryan on the pitcher's mound.As if this oriental depravity isn't enough these people are even raping nuns among the nurses.Pure unadulterated trash..
The final line?.
I saw this when I was a kid, and so it impressed me probably more than it should have.
But the only thing I remember about it is the end, and a line of dialogue spoken by Neville Brand.
The Viets had killed a bunch of people, and the survivors fought back, killing most of their attackers.
Except for the leader, Brand.
He is wounded, and while lying on the ground, he sees the leader of the women, (whom he had raped), coming to him.
He raises his gun, looks at her, and then lowers it.
His last words are, "Can't kill.
Love", then dies.
That always stuck with me.
Anyone else remember that bit? |
tt2042447 | The Amityville Haunting | In June 2008, the Benson family moves into 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, due to issues with their teenage daughter, Lori. Despite the disturbing history of the house where Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed six members of his family in 1974, the Bensons agree to purchase the house. Upon their decision, they walk outside to find their realtor dead in their driveway. The following day, Tyler Benson witnesses one of the movers falling down the stairs, which kills him instantly. The family continues to live in the house, despite the tension growing from the unexplainable events occurring. From doors opening, to a mysterious phone appearing in the kitchen, paranormal phenomena continue to bother Tyler, while his parents refuse to believe that there is anything happening beyond their own explanation. Douglas Benson takes matters into his own hands when he decides to install CCTV cameras in the house. Young Melanie Benson attracts the attention of the family when she starts talking to her "imaginary friend" John Matthew, which leads Douglas to wonder if Lori or Tyler told Melanie about the history of the house. As the family grows more fearful of the unexplainable deaths of a close family friend and a neighbor boy who was attracted to Lori, Douglas starts to break down, using religious paraphernalia to rid the house of any spirits that reside within the house. After one month within the house, Lori, Virginia, Douglas, and Tyler Benson all die in various manners. Melanie Benson is the only survivor, as she says that she has plans to stay in the house forever, along with John Matthew. The autopsy reports shown at the end of the film place emphasis on the fact that each victim was under extreme stress at the time of their death. | murder | train | wikipedia | Oh wait, except for it didn't working on any level.The movie was an endless stream of really bad camera work, interrupted by this blackening-out screen and static sound whenever the entity was about to make something happen or make an appearance.
I got thoroughly frustrated by the crappy camera work and the static sounds just added fuel to the fire called irritation with the movie."Amityville Haunting" is one of the most uneventful and frightfully boring movies I had ever had to sit through.
Actual found footage that documents the horrifying experience of a family that moved into the infamous Amityville haunted house.Opening with words in "1974" blah, blah "Defoe murdered his family", blah,"Lutz" blah, "32 years later", blah blah "what you're about to see is real".
Both female leads are effective enough, it's not an awful film, the acting is at times naturalistic but the issue is that this style of horror has already been done and done better with more imagination.
There are a few moments in the closing scenes where director Geoff Meed slightly redeems the film but it's too little too late.The problem with The Amityville Haunting is that it perpetrates to be real and pushes the fact right to the end but nothing feels credible.
The actual film was a parody of paranormal activity and the Amityville Horror, although it is the 'same' house it is now in the suburbs rather than countryside...
They try to add narrative with a child and a video camera who feels it necessary to annoy everyone in the film with the camcorder and me with his recap of each bad 'horror' segment.
Not this kid, as he says things are 'really creepy'- Yes Tyler (or whatever generic name you have) it is actually if I was you I'd be like maybe we shouldn't be here rather than worry about your future career in documentaries.Although, he may get a job in one as he can't act.This films acting I have got to say is pretty bad...
The actors don't morph as a cast and the Dad's tone from the start makes me think that they casted him because he has the attitude of a serial killer with a slow mono-tone voice, and thats pretty much it.I wanted to like this film due to my likings of any horror with a half decent storyline and OK effects.
The Amityville Haunting was yet another movie filmed in the ultra- irritating 1st person style.
The movies start with saying, This footage you are about to see is real!.It start with 4 drunk teenagers who break in and then drink and have sex with there a bit of nudity , while filmed by Phone and we see some one sucked in the door and blood sprays and girls scream and cuts to black screen (This happens under 2 minutes at start of the movie.Then it cuts to a new family moving into the house Dad and wife, oldest is daughter in her teens, only one boy who's that documenting the things around the house and there a little girl You already know what roles they going to play!.The acting and script were both really horrendous, all the chacaters are so annoying, that you what something really bad to happen to them, The boy was the only one that didn't annoy me at all!This movie is not creepy or scary but do have one or two descent jumps scenes here and there and some scare are so utter silly that it will make who laugh!The movie goes from bad to worse as it goes on and it is really hard to watch this movie, i still can not believe I saw the whole movie.
Watched 20 minutes of this utter waste of film space before I couldn't handle the DT's of camera work any further.
It is really that bad, not anywhere near the hopeless camera work of Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity, 100 times worse than that.
You would think that after the other horrible movies that were filmed like this - Blair Witch Trial, etc.
The point is that new people are moving into the Amityville house and their son records everything weird that happens.There's a scene where a ghost just appears and does nothing for a full minute.
My Amityville binge has led me to this, a found footage movie set in a world where Amityville has been recognised, made into movies and books and yet another family moves into the infamous house anyway.As with all found footage films very little happens and this is 80 minutes of sheer unadulterated boredom.What makes it worse (If that's possible) is that it's not even the Amityville house despite being said multiple times that it is.
Both inside and out that becomes blatantly apparent and really is seven shades of stupid.So we have shaky cam, we have night vision cam and we have the obligatory handicam filmed by someone who absolutely positively has to record everything for some reason.In true Amityville style people change, folks turn on each other and yet somehow this is the worst one yet.The Good: It ended, that bit was good The Bad: That had to be the least sexy sex scene since the zombie humping in Braindead (1992) NOT the Amityville house The "Warning" real footage thing is getting dumbThings I Learnt From This Movie: The fact that there are no opening credits, no closing credits and therefore everyone involved is uncredited screams volumes Someone should really trademark Amityville so Joe Talentless can't keep adding it to his film.
The dialog is dire, the acting is below pre-school levels.The characters have zero likability, you'll be waiting for them to die with joy especially the kid when he whines about his 'docoooomannary' and the less said about the father character who needs a good slap when he goes into 'military dad', the better....
This is probably to lamest film to date and I can't even applaud the effort.If the acting weren't so terrible, especially the dad and son characters, it might have earned a 2.Nothing scary or believable in this movie, whatsoever.
The fact that a vast majority of the film features the family at odds over what happens, from the death of the mover to the ways it shows them adjusting to the move and how the different methods for announcing the ghostly presence in the house that goes ignored for what they perceive to know better.
That makes the film exceptionally hard to get through as the film is far more concerned with building an atmosphere of dread being in the house than anything to do with a rational thought, leaving tons of situations that play out in a rather infuriating manner of bringing the situation to their attention only to have it turn out to be shot down by their refusal to spot anything wrong with what's happening, such as the failure to recognize the tape left behind that clearly shows something is happening, the inability to spot the flies on the window which clearly should've required more attention than what's being offered here as these clearly signal something is going on inside.
Another problem to overcome is the fact that the house itself is clearly not the usual setting for the rest of the films as the place is cramped, closed off and completely removed from how the house has looked in the past that it really seems like a different location entirely.
The "actors" don't know their lines and constantly talk over each other, the script makes ZERO sense, the characters are entirely unbelievable, not to mention unlikable, and everything about the production values looks like something a high school A.V. club would put together.
It's so bad they couldn't afford an actual phone to use for the movie, and instead of using a cheap old one from a salvage shop, or even just using one of the cast or crew's phones, they pull an iPod Touch out of their buttholes and try to tell us it's a phone.
The only good thing about this film is that, after watching, I am at least 1 hour and 26 minutes closer to death..
so the movie starts with the words "what you are about to see is real" this is so not true, in fact, its another one of those Paranormal Activity "true story" plots where one person is shooting the video the whole time: it reeks of horror movie cliché.
i don't really mind the whole 'shaky camera' trend in "real" horror movies these days, but what really gets to me is the fact that these people record the whole incident but don't bother to check what they have recorded until the very last moment.
The "Shadow" (knock off of Halloween, anyone?) did not even try to look like Ronald DeFaeo, Jr. The dad was a complete and utter asshole, and the guy who played his part could not act his way out of a paper bag.
This turns out to be a found footage twist on the whole AMITYVILLE HORROR franchise, which inevitably rips off just about every found footage movie in existence.The main "inspiration" behind this film is, clearly, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, although this movie makes that film look like a masterpiece in comparison.
There's quite a bit of incident in the last five minutes (none of which makes much sense) but it comes far too late in the game to make THE AMITYVILLE HAUNTING an interesting film..
This movie barely follows any of the original story or the true story happenings and attempts to make a clone of an already done-to-death found footage style film.
Stop with all the ghost documentaries and Paranormal Entity 3 references.Now,Yes,This effort has good points in suspense and shows some acting on the leads part.Erin Marie Hogan, Who is not the daughter this time around,Built a career on Paranormal Activity nude scenes.Bill Oberst ,Jr. played the sheriff in A Haunting In Salem and just has a look,None of which is here.Feel bad there wasn't much to love about this effort,Maybe Asylum just needed a break from all its Disaster/SyFy/Giant monsters ?
If you have any experience with any horror movies, you know EXACTLY which role each character is going to play.The script and acting are both horrible, which is NOT GOOD in a found footage movie.
If I was the writer of the script, I would go back to school , take some acting and writing classes and maybe try again.SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE A GOOD FOUND-FOOTAGE MOVIE.
don't waste your time absolute rubbish the acting is abysmal so is the direction camera work and the none existent special effects this is one rushed badly written so called horror films of all time......don't get me wrong i no not every film has millions to spend on it but these cheap b movies can still be made to a better standard with more time and care better talent scouts better writers and so on to put amityville in the title is an insult to the classic and misleading director and writers and everyone else involved needs to quit my eight year old son has a better imagination and if i got my camcorder out id do a better job....i recently watched apartment 143 similar style and i enjoyed that one much more..
If I can somehow think of anything that I actually liked in this film , it may just be the hot blonde in the beginning of movie.
It's one thing that the movie tries to copy Paranormal Activities, which will be hard to beat, but this movie could have been good if it wasn't for the acting.
The acting is bad, the camera work is worse and I don't think its even the right house!!!
You could take ANY of the other Amityville films, including the really bad sequels and feel like you're watching mastery in action in comparison to this insipid piece of garbage.
First off this is one of those movies that you shouldn't take any notice of the poor reviews because i did & i didn't watch it for a long time because of the poor reviews & when i did watch it i was pleasantly surprised its by far not the worst found footage movie I've seen also its not the best far from it but given that it was probably made for £20 i think they did well with what they had,also you don't have to wait till the last half hour for something to happen so if you're like me & you're sick of trawling through the utter crap they call horror movies today you can do worse than to give The Amityville Haunting a go you to will probably be surprised as also i think its the best of the recent Amityville movies they seem to be pumping out..
The next in a series of Amityville movies after The Amityville Horror (x2) and the Amityville Asylum.The Amityville Haunting is purportedly based on a compilation of real hand-held camera and CCTV footage which depicts a series of events which surround the Benson family after they move into the old Amityville house.
Watch it if you like B-class horror movies.
Sure, we are all familiar with the whole amityville haunted house crap, but seriously, making a "found footage" film about it makes Paranormal Activity look like it won an Oscar.
Let me just say, for the record that the more these people keep making up more ghost stories about the amityville, the more people would start to wonder, again, that the house is really haunted.
It's been far too long, and those who know the true story would understand how fed up it would be like if more films based on the Amityville horror were ever released..
A family of five (mean father, weak mom, dirty older sister, annoying brother, bland young sister) move into the legendary Amityville house when strange things start to happen.
The effects are bad, just like the whole movie, and every time there is a death you don't even see it because the camera supposedly blacks out or it is just off camera.
But forgiving that it's a rip off of movies that are already out there, the acting is just down right awful.When the Tyler kid sees something for the first time, he sees a shadow of some sort, his line was..
The real Amityville house most recently sold for upwards of $900,000 and would not be purchased as a last resort by a family who "couldn't afford anything else." And, contrary to what the movie will tell you: since the tragic DeFeo murders and subsequent occupancy by the huckster Lutzes, a number of families have lived there for years at a time and reported nothing out of the ordinary.Having said all that: if you're looking for a cheap, no-budget (this IS The Asylum) horror movie, you could do worse.
The "camcorder" plot device makes the movie seems a lot less cheap than it is, and the acting isn't too terrible (although the father is such a Grade A jerk, you begin hoping for his premature death -- James Brolin he ain't).
I advise you to not watch this movie unless you like to waste time.
I mean I understand this is a low budget film but I think I could put together a better movie than this..
The Amityville Horror enters the 00s in a found footage device telling the story of the Benson family as they move into the house though its never seen or the inside architecture resemble the original.
If you want to see how not to make a good horror movie, watch this Amityville Haunting.
OK it's easier to film that way when you don't have a lot of money to put in your movie, but here it's badly used.For example the kid explaining to the camera what he just filmed at the end of every sequences is annoying and useless, same thing for the screen turning suddenly black for some seconds during all the movie.Then the movie is full of "clichés" : The teenage girl is ALWAYS on her phone and ALWAYS in bad mood, the youngest sister of course have an "imaginary" friend that turns out to be a ghost, the parents don't believing anything supernatural happens when they know the past of the house and people are dying around them or closed doors open by themselves...And of course, the acting is bad.
I watched this movie solely because I thought that it was "The Amityville Horror" (2005).
At the end of the day, this hardly counts as horror(thin plot, bad acting, and camera work aside), most of the time there isn't anything even happening.
Not to mention that you find yourself probably screaming at the movie "JUST LOOK AT THE DAMN FOOTAGE!!!"If you want to invite some friends over for a rip roaring time, you can't do much worse than this.
Acting in this film was pretty bad, (mostly from the son)I was very Aware that i was watching a movie.
Everything in the movie is similar, the poltergeist, the security cameras working in the night, the first view, and the plot, the family moves to the 112 Ocean Avenue, and everyone is killed, just like paranormal activity, but in that one only the girl lived.
The movie is filmed by one of the dead family kids via Blair Witch documentary style, and the rest of the footage is from via home security footage aka Paranormal Activity style.
Not bad for a movie that looks like I could of made myself..
Which again had me in stitches of laughter when all I wanted to do was watch a good horror movie. |
tt3382518 | Wolfenstein: The New Order | Three years after the destruction of the Black Sun portal, the Nazis have developed advanced technologies, enabling them to turn the tide against the Allies. At dawn on 16 July 1946, U.S. special forces operative Captain William "B.J." Blazkowicz (Brian Bloom), accompanied by pilot Fergus Reid (Gideon Emery) and Private Probst Wyatt III (A.J. Trauth), take part in a massive Allied air raid against a fortress and weapons laboratory run by his nemesis, General Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse (Dwight Schultz). The three are captured and brought to a human experimentation laboratory where Deathshead forces Blazkowicz to choose who he will gruesomely kill, Fergus or Wyatt, before leaving Blazkowicz and the survivor to die in the laboratory's emergency incinerator. They escape the laboratory, but Blazkowicz suffers a critical head injury during the escape, rendering him unconscious and putting him in a coma. He is brought to a psychiatric asylum in Poland, where he remains in a vegetative state for 14 years from which he is unable to awake. He is cared for by the asylum's head nurse Anya Oliwa (Alicja Bachleda) and her parents, who run the facility under the Nazi regime. Blazkowicz watches as Anya's parents are regularly forced to hand patients over to Nazi authorities, who deem them Untermenschen for their mental disabilities.
In 1960, fourteen years after Blazkowicz' admission, the Nazis order that the asylum is to be shut down, killing all the patients and executing Anya's family when they resist. Blazkowicz awakens from his vegetative state as he is about to be executed, killing the extermination squad and escaping the asylum with Anya. Blazkowicz and Anya drive to her grandparents' farm, where they inform him that the Nazis won the war by forcing the United States to surrender in 1948, and that the members of the ensuing Resistance were captured. Blazkowicz interrogates a captured officer from the asylum (he was hidden in the trunk of a car), learning that the top members of the Resistance are imprisoned in Berlin before brutally executing him with a chainsaw. Anya's grandparents smuggle her and Blazkowicz through a checkpoint in Stettin before they travel to Berlin. During the train ride, Blazkowicz and Anya enter into a romantic relationship. When they arrive, Anya helps Blazkowicz break into the prison, where he rescues the person he spared fourteen years prior (Fergus or Wyatt) and finds that the Resistance movement is a revived Kreisau Circle led by Caroline Becker (Bonita Friedericy), who was left paralyzed due to her injuries at Isenstadt.
The Resistance execute an attack on a Nazi research facility in London, bombing their base of operations, stealing secret documents and prototype stealth helicopters. The documents reveal the Nazis are relying on reverse-engineered technology derived from an ancient organization known as Da'at Yichud, which created such inventions as energy weapons, computer AI's, and super concrete; however, it is also revealed that someone is tampering with the super concrete's formula, making it susceptible to mold deterioration. The Resistance discover a match with Da'at Yichud member Set Roth (Mark Ivanir), who is imprisoned in a forced labor camp. Blazkowicz agrees to go undercover inside the camp and meets Set, who tells him that the Nazis have been using technology made by him and other Jewish scientists to mass-produce and control robots, and offers to help the Resistance in return for the destruction of the labor camp. Blazkowicz finds a battery for a device that controls the camp robots, which he and Set then use to destroy the camp and rescue prisoners.
Set reveals to the Resistance that the Nazis' discovery of one of the Da'at Yichud caches, which included advanced technology centuries ahead of its time, is what allowed Germany to surpass the Allies in military might and ultimately win the war. Set agrees to assist the Resistance by revealing the location of one such cache, but states that the Resistance requires a U-boat to access it. Blazkowicz obtains a U-boat, but discovers that it is the flagship of the Nazis' submarine fleet, and is equipped with a cannon designed to fire nuclear warheads, which requires codes from the Nazi lunar research facility to operate. Blazkowicz uses the technology found in the Da'at Yichud cache, namely the Spindly Torque—a sphere that destroys the super-concrete—to steal the identity of a Nazi Lunar scientist and infiltrate the Lunar Base. He succeeds at obtaining the codes, but upon returning to earth, he discovers that Deathshead has mounted an assault on the Resistance base, capturing some of the members.
The Resistance use the nuclear codes and the Spindly Torque to mount an assault on Deathshead's compound. Rescuing the captured resistance prisoners and evacuating them, Blazkowicz makes it to the top of the tower, struggling to Deathshead's workshop. Inside, Deathshead greets Blazkowicz, revealing to him that he possesses the brain of the soldier that Blazkowicz chose to die, and puts it in a robot. The robot comes alive and assaults Blazkowicz, who defeats it and puts his friend to rest by destroying the brain. Commandeering a larger robot mecha, Deathshead then attacks Blazkowicz, who gets the upper hand and destroys the robot, dragging Deathshead out of it. He repeatedly stabs Deathshead, who pulls out a grenade, which explodes and mauls Blazkowicz. As a gravely wounded Blazkowicz crawls towards a window, he mentally recites The New Colossus as he watches the Resistance survivors boarding a helicopter, alongside Anya and Set. Seeing that they have reached safety, and bleeding heavily from his injuries, Blazkowicz orders the Resistance to fire the nuclear cannon. After the credits, a helicopter is heard approaching. | alternate history | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0206917 | The Man Who Cried | Fegele Abramovich (Christina Ricci), a Russian Jew is separated from her father (Oleg Yankovsky) as a child in 1927. Her father has travelled to America to seek his fortune and plans to send for Fegele and her grandmother. Before leaving, he sings "Je Crois Entendre Encore" from the Bizet opera Les pêcheurs de perles to her. After her father leaves, the village is attacked and burned in a pogrom. Fegele escapes with the help of neighbours; after overcoming many obstacles, she is crowded onto a boat headed for Britain, with only a photo of her father and a coin given to her by her grandmother.
Upon arrival, an English official renames her "Susan" and places her with foster parents. English students at school taunt her by calling her a "gypsy", but she does not yet understand English. A teacher at the school overhears her singing "Je Crois Entendre Encore" in Yiddish, and teaches her to sing and speak in English.
Time passes, and Suzie auditions for a singing dance troupe heading for Paris. There, she meets an older Russian dancer named Lola (Cate Blanchett), and they share an apartment as friends. At a formal party, both women perform as dancers alongside a mysterious performing horseman, Cesar (Johnny Depp), a Romani to whom Suzie is attracted. After their performance outside, they overhear a tenor inside singing "Je Crois Entendre Encore"; the voice belongs to Dante (John Turturro), an Italian opera singer who immediately catches Lola's eye. Lola works her way into his good graces and falls for his charms, enticed by his wealth and success. Dante, Lola, Suzie, and Cesar all work for an opera company directed by Felix Perlman (Harry Dean Stanton). Dante is an imperious follower of Mussolini; this alienates him from Suzie even as he becomes Lola's lover. Meanwhile, Cesar introduces Suzie to his "family" (essentially his entire tribe), and they fall in love.
One day, Dante is rifling through Suzie's things after a dalliance with Lola in the apartment, and deduces her Jewish heritage after finding her father's photo. An elderly Jewish neighbour downstairs, Madame Goldstein (Miriam Karlin), also knows that Suzie is Jewish and has warned her of the dangers on the horizon as the Germans invade Poland. The following year, as the Germans invade France and approach Paris, an exodus begins of Jews and other people threatened by Nazism. Crowds for the operatic show dwindle, and eventually the only cast members left are Dante and Suzie. When Dante attempts to seduce Suzie, she rebuffs him. He lashes out at her for her heritage and her relationship with Cesar, whose heritage he also scorns. Perlman comes to her defence; he reminds Dante that as an Italian in Paris at that time, should Mussolini align with the Nazis, Dante's own position in Paris would be precarious. Perlman closes down the show; the Nazis enter Paris the following morning.
Dante reluctantly returns to his earlier role as minstrel. After another rebuff from Suzie, Dante reveals to a German officer that Suzie is a Jew. Lola overhears this and informs Suzie that she is in danger and must leave Paris. Lola has also decided to leave Dante and has purchased tickets for Suzie and herself on an ocean liner headed for America. The same night of the party, the Nazis attack the Romani village and kill a child. When Cesar comes to her apartment to say goodbye, Suzie expresses her desire to stay and help Cesar fight the Nazis for his family, but he tells her she must flee and find her father. They share a tender last evening together.
Suzie searches for her father and discovers that he changed his name, gave up singing, and moved west after hearing about the attack on his home village, which he assumed killed all the members of his family. Suzie goes to Hollywood, where her father was a studio head, and discovers he has a new family and that he is dying. She goes to the hospital, walks past his new wife and children who are waiting outside the door to his room, and is reunited with her father. He recognises her and expresses joy at her appearance. She sits on the side of his bed and sings "Je Crois Entendre Encore" to him in Yiddish as tears roll down her face. | violence, intrigue, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0139462 | Message in a Bottle | Theresa Osborne, a former reporter, works as a researcher for the Chicago Tribune. On a trip to Cape Cod, she finds a mysterious, intriguing love letter in a bottle in the sand, addressed from Garret to Catherine. She is fascinated by it and comes into possession of two more letters by the same person, eventually tracking down the man who wrote them, Garret Blake. He refurbished a boat called Happenstence with his wife before her death and he lives quietly on the Outer Banks of North Carolina near his father, Dodge.
Theresa and Garret become better acquainted, but she does not reveal her knowledge of the love letters. Along with the literal distance between them — they live hundreds of miles apart — there is another problem: Garret cannot quite forgive Catherine for dying and leaving him.
Theresa's career flourishes as the romantic "message in a bottle" tale is told in print, without naming names. Garret makes a trip to Chicago to visit Theresa and her young son. Their new love grows, until one day Garret finds his letters in a drawer in Theresa's apartment. Garret angrily confronts Theresa and, after a night of explanations, he goes home by himself.
A year later, Dodge tracks down Theresa. He informs her that his son Garret has died at sea in a storm while attempting to rescue someone else. A bottle with a message inside was found on his boat. Theresa realizes that it was written the night before Garrett's last sailing. In it, he apologizes to Catherine and says that in Theresa he has found a new love, a love he must fight for. | romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0112993 | Evolver | Teenage computer whiz Kyle Baxter (Ethan Randall) participates in a virtual reality version of laser tag and is about to win a nationwide tournament, only to be disrupted by another player, a girl named Jamie. Despite his loss, he hacks into the company's system to make himself the winner of the prize: "Evolver" (voiced by William H. Macy), a robotic opponent armed with a compressed air gun, to compete against in a real-world version of laser tag. Whenever Evolver is defeated, he "evolves", becomes smarter, quicker and harder to beat (to simulate rising game difficulty). Kyle, his friend Zach, Jamie and his sister, Ali begin playing with Evolver, and easily pass the first level. As Evolver evolves, he develops a human-like competitiveness and obsession with winning. He replaces his "ineffective" default ammo - soft foam balls - with ball bearings from Kyle's room.
After learning Evolver has recording capabilities, Kyle and Zach send Evolver into the girls locker room at their school. Discovering the robot, the girls push Evolver into the boys locker room. He switches to game mode and enters the boys locker room and sees the only occupant - Dwight, a bullying jock - and makes Dwight another opponent. Dwight throws Evolver against a wall, to which the robot reacts by shooting out one of Dwight's eyes and knocking him down a flight of stairs, killing him.
After getting home, Evolver continues to absorb negativity from his surroundings, for example swearing and hostage-taking from TV. Evolver is defeated again in the second game and "evolves" up to the third round. Zach, wanting to get the disc recording Evolver's adventures in the locker room, takes Evolver to his house and tries to manually remove the disc. Evolver turns on after the disc is removed and begins to attack Zach. Trapping him in his garage, Evolver chases after Zach with a saw blade and ultimately crushes him while Zach hides under a car (raised on a jack). While making his way back to Kyle's house, Evolver wanders into an arcade where two marijuana smoking teens are playing the Evolver virtual game. He electrocutes and kills them both.
Kyle comes to see Zach being loaded into an ambulance. Worried about Evolver's increasing lethality, Kyle looks through its programming and sees a program titled S.W.O.R.D. (acronym for Strategic War-Oriented Robotic Device). He goes to Cybertronix, the company that built Evolver and the virtual reality game, and the creator, Russell Bennett (John de Lancie), promises to look through the disc Evolver recorded. The disc shows Evolver killing Dwight and the danger becomes clear to Bennett. Meanwhile, Kyle and Jamie sneak into a lab at Cybertronix. Looking into Evolver's past, they learn that he was originally meant to be an AI military robot designed to infiltrate enemy encampments, adapt to the situation and eliminate targets, but the project was terminated.
At home, Ali puts back in Evolver's battery (which was removed by Kyle after learning of Zach's accident) and starts playing with him alone. Evolver loads steak knives into his shooting arm and chases Ali into the backyard swimming pool, attempting to electrocute her while she is trapped. Kyle and Jamie return home and save Ali and Kyle defeats Evolver, only to kick him into the pool, shorting him out. Bennett and two other Cybertronix employees come to Kyle's house and take Evolver back to be dismantled. On the way though, Evolver kills Bennett and the Cybertronix technicians and escapes. He evolves one last time for the final level, charges up at a nearby power plant, and heads back to Kyle's house for one last battle.
Evolver takes Kyle's mother and sister hostage, trapping them inside of a Laser-crafted Cage using a laser-gun, a kaleidoscope, and a super-charged battery. Seeing the wrecked Cybertronix van, Kyle and Jamie return home to find Evolver, now armed with a destructive new laser gun. Evolver plans to execute his hostages if Kyle does not win within 3 minutes. Kyle places a metal pan on his chest, confronts Evolver and feigns death when he is shot by Evolver. Jamie distracts Evolver and Kyle shoots it in the remaining targeting sensor. Defeated, Evolver becomes extremely confused and malfunctions allowing Kyle to beat Evolver with a baseball bat until it shuts down.
After Kyle frees his mother and sister, Evolver re-activates again, now armed with only its arm and brute strength. As he prepares to kill Kyle to avoid losing, Kyle grabs the laser gun with the super-charged battery and shoots Evolver until it explodes. The family and Jamie go to the hospital as Cybertronix's CEO faces the press. The camera pans over to Ali's bedroom, to show Evolver's remains and a single glowing eye. The last scene shows Evolver's HUD screen reading out "KILL NOT CONFIRMED" before fading to static and blacking out. | murder | train | wikipedia | Although Predictable and Forgettable, Evolver Entertains.
Kyle Baxter (Ethan Randall) is a teenager who plays very well a video game called `Evolver'.
This game was developed by Dr. Russell Bennett (John de Lancie).
He wins a competition of Evolver where the prize was a robot similar to the game.
What nobody knows is that Evolver indeed is a war machine with artificial intelligence.
Therefore, the friends of Kyle are playing against a dangerous weapon.
Although being a very predictable and forgettable movie, Evolver really entertains.
It has some good special effects and a reasonable thriller.
My vote is five..
Excellent teen movie.
First I'd like to point that I don't consider this a sci-fi movie and therefore I won't judge it like sci-fi.
This is more like a teen movie with a slight cyber twist.
A distant reminder or titles like "War Games" (more sci-fi) and "Hackers" (more teen and harder to swallow for me as a IT professional).
The plot is based on an idea similar to "War Games" - a machine that eventually turns bad, due to inappropriate/biased programming, but here we have also some teen movie elements like boys/girls locker room, teen relationships, etc.
I want to point out the good cast of the movie.
Cassidy Rae as Jamie Saunders was perfect.
Also excellent and very convincing performance from the others.
All in all a good and professionally made movie very entertaining and highly recommended if you like this kind of "cyber-teen" movies.
Great sci-fi fun!.
I thought this movie was entertaining and for the most part kept my full attention.
There is a lot of computer talk, so if computers aren't your thing then you might search elsewhere.
Basically, a kid whose excellence at virtual reality games grants him a free robot named "Evolver".
Well, Evolver goes nuts and starts killing people.
The story is fun to follow, with characters that are easy to follow and interesting.
For the most part, cheesy dialogue but that is expected.
Enjoyable little sci-fi gem, check it out!.
Great,Scary fun.
I don't see why people dislike this movie.
Probably the same people who watch movies only for special effects (i.e. The Matrix) This movie has alot of entertainment value, especially if you're into Robotics,Virtual Reality or just plain Sci-Fi/Horror.*** 1/2 out of *****.
Cheesy yet enjoyable.
I'm one of those guys who enjoys pretty much any movie, so I guess I don't count.
There are some things that struck me as stupid, but what could they do?
CDRs didn't exist at that time, so they had to fake it.
Still, the fact that they stuck what amounts to a CD in a floppy drive and faked reading it.
The effects were great for the time, and are still decent.
Back to some technical errors.
Now, it IS possible to boost a laser to the point where you can burn things, but the power of the laser goes down as the distance goes up.
Which means that if you put one up against a magnifying glass or something, the magnifier would melt.
Also, boosting the power of a laser would not change the color.
But still, it was a more than enjoyable, in my humble opinion..
play the game.
Although a little nasty in some scenes, Mark Rosman's "Evolver" is mostly a fun romp.
It focuses on a computer whiz (Ethan Embry) who wins a robot with whom to play laser tag, only to find that this particular robot got designed for an army program, and is therefore intended as a killing machine.
Specifically, one that never loses.
There were a few scenes that I think that they could have done without, but otherwise the movie is pretty enjoyable.
Maybe a little predictable, but no one expects much else from one of these movies, right?
Also starring Cindy Pickett (the mom in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") and William H.
Macy as the voice of Evolver..
so bad it reaches greatness.
Mark Rosman's best movie is this highly guilty pleasure from the mid-nineties.
True it's a pretty insubstantial horror film with crappy special effects & highly predictable story, but seriously how can you hate a film that features Q creating a murderous robot with the voice of the Shameless William H Macy?
And the family that 'wins' it in a contest.
This one has a few very quotable lines as well.
It's MUCH better than the similarly-themed "Brainscan" at least.
But one note: This movie goes better with alcohol Eye Candy: 2 extras are topless when evolver goes on a spy run in a locker room.
a cheesy but cool movie..
I saw this on the sci-fi channel 1 day & thought it was cool.
So I decided 2 buy it & I thought that this was a cheesy but cool sci-fi flick.
Ethan Randall(at the time, now its Embry) is a whiz at the Evolver game & plays a tournament & wins the 1st made EVOLVER.
He is the ultimate in electronics but then goes beserk & starts killing.
It has suspense but its more Sci-fi.
This was when Ethan R.
was getting 2 b more noticed.
Its worth seeing if u like chessy movies.
I say, give it a look..
We definitely recommend Evolver!.
You won't fail to be entertained by the greatness of Evolver!
Teen Kyle (Embry) likes to hang out at "TurboPlay Virtual Excitement", a Virtual Reality (remember VR?) arcade of sorts.
He's so good at VR games, crowds come to watch him do his thing.
So much so that his buddy Zach (Quinn) takes bets on this neo-Tommy and his neo-Pinball machine.
It's also there where he meets the cute Jamie (Rae) and they strike up a friendship/relationship.
All seems to be going relatively well in Kyle's world, and when robotics company Cyber Tronix eyes him as a popular video game fan, they announce him as the winner of the "Evolver" contest.
What's that you ask?
Evolver is a robot that lives in your home and you play with him.
He has built in "levels" that get progressively harder.It seems fun, but there's one problem.
Deep in Evolver's (or "Evo" as the cool kids call him) is government-created warfare technology.
Seeing everyone as an enemy, Evo goes off the rails and begins killing and maiming people.
Can Kyle and Jamie put an end to the robotic chaos?
Find out today!
Evolver is a wildly entertaining movie that everyone should see.
It has no fat or filler - and it doesn't have much time to, as it can only be described as a Sci-Fi Horror Comedy Coming-Of-Age Tale.
Amazingly, it all works and is a lot of fun.
The movie takes cues from such movies as The Terminator (1984), Robocop (1987), The Last Starfighter (1984), Weird Science (1985), C.H.O.M.P.S.
(1979) and most notably the two Short Circuit (1986) movies.
But its heart is in lower-budget exploitation like Arcade (1993) or Chopping Mall (1986).
The 90's VR trend allows for some lovably dated graphics, and it all adds to the fun.As far as the Evolver robot is concerned, this li'l homunculus is like some sort of bizarre melding of Nintendo's Rob the Robot, a game of Laser Tag, a Tamagotchi, the "Happy Birthday Paulie" robot, a Roomba and Mr. Bucket.
But instead of balls popping out of his mouth (remember the song?) - it's metal ball bearings that shoot at you.
Naturally the voice of Evo is none other than William H.
Macy.
It's truly a career best performance.
We're not being sarcastic, he's great as the tricky little bugger.
Paul Dooley is on hand as the head of the robotics company, and Ethan Embry does a great job as Kyle.
He's a real teen and not a 37 year old in disguise.
He really seems to care about the proceedings.What's great about Evolver is that it's just an insane idea that actually got made.
It's not really that predictable for most of its running time either.
It should really be more well-known.
But maybe this movie was originally made as a tie-in or potential long-form commercial for a real Evolver you can buy in stores, but it never materialized.
Either that, or there are hundreds of them buried in secret in the Nevada desert like the E.T. game for Atari.
We just better hope they never wake up and go for revenge.Interestingly, in Kyle's living room at home, not only does he have an NES, but a pretty decent VHS collection, and very briefly on screen you can see an assortment of Vidmark titles (Evolver is a Vidmark).
One of which is one of the American Kickboxer (1990) movies!
So clearly Kyle has good taste.Featuring the 90's techno song "Beat the Machine", Evolver will appeal to just about anybody.
But fans of 90's nostalgia especially will love the movie's charms.
We definitely recommend Evolver.For more action insanity, please visit: www.comeuppancereviews.com.
Crap-alert!...
Crap-alert!...
Terminate.
Movie..
Well, okay, I'm being harsh.
This movie isn't total crap.
In fact, though it is pretty lame for today's standards, it's entertaining on some levels.
The story is predictable and offers no surprises.
Kyle Baxter is a champion in the virtual reality game 'Evolver' and hereby wins a real-life Evolver robot.
So Kyle and his friends can now chase it around the house while playing the shoot'n'survive game.
But there's a glitch in Evolver's system, making it see enemies everywhere as he gets going on a killing spree.
Kyle finds out that its initial program was used in an abandoned military project (you didn't see that one coming, did ya?
Harharhar!).I can imaging a 10-year-old being extremely excited about the coolness of Evolver, but to me it looks like a Transformer-version of Johny 5 from SHORT CIRCUIT.
Why EVOLVER got an R-rating is beyond me, 'cause there's almost no blood in it (and certainly no gore or nudity).
In Belgium it got a 12-rating, just like it should be 'cause this is a horror/sci-fi-flick for kids.
But it is kinda cool that every now and then Evolver upgrades himself to the next level.
Though he looks like he's made out of plastic, he really is a tough little bastard.
Throwing him in a pool, hitting him with blunt objects and even blowing him up don't seem to shut him down.
Why didn't anyone call Optimus Prime to terminate it?
The only real surprise this movie provided was when I read in the end-credits that William H.
Macy performed the voice of Evolver.
So you can imaging your friendly neighbor sounding much scarier than Evo. However, Mr. Macy did have some nice one-liners like "Delete this!" and "Bonus round!" before killing someone.
Ethan Embry (as Kyle Baxter and rather young at the time he did EVOLVER) maybe isn't a top-notch actor but he injects a certain enthusiasm in his role and he did manage to show up in the surprisingly good horror-flick THEY (2002), giving a decent performance in it and showing us that he has grown as an actor.So, EVOLVER is that kinda movie from the mid-90's that's neither good or bad.
Just average acting, average special effects and an okay-looking robot.
We've seen it all before.
Remember the shoot-out scenes from the virtual reality game in GHOST IN THE MACHINE?
Well, EVOLVER's got 'em too, only not as good and less dynamic.
One good thing might be that the movie never gets really boring, but don't expect any scary stuff either.
I say EVOLVER is somewhere stuck between Pyun's ARCADE and Flynn's BRAINSCAN, though none of them are comparable movies for that matter.
I was contemplating giving EVOLVER 4 out of 10 stars, but I feel generous and will therefore add one star extra for Mr. Macy doing the robo-voice. |
tt0117959 | La tregua | The book starts with the departure of the Germans from the camp. The sick Häftlinge were left on their own after the healthy ones were taken on a death march away from the approaching Red Army. As all the services have left the camp exploration journeys begin in search for food and essential items.
When they arrive the Red Army is shocked by the state of the people in the camp and they provide basic medical aid. All remaining inmates are taken to a hospital in the main camp.
After the protagonist has regained some strength he starts a long journey. First to Kraków, then to Katowice where he stays for some time and works as a pharmaceutic assistant.
The journey continues after weeks westwards to Tarnów, Rzeszów, Przemyśl and into Ukraine: Lviv, Ternopil, Proskurov, Zhmerynka. The plan was to go south to Odessa but instead he had to take the train northwards and arrives at Slutsk (Belarus). From there he walks and rides in a horse cart to Starye Dorogi where he lives inside Krasny Dom and works as a medical assistant.
Then, after weeks, a Russian Marshal, Semyon Timoshenko, came to the displaced persons camp and declared that they can make their way back home now. By train the journey continues southwards and then westwards: Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. After 35 days of travel since leaving Krasny Dom he arrives in his home town Turin, which he had last seen 20 months ago. | romantic, autobiographical, storytelling, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt4016454 | Supergirl | Kara Zor-El lives in an isolated Kryptonian community named Argo City, in a pocket of trans-dimensional space. A man named Zaltar allows Kara to see a unique and immensely powerful item known as the Omegahedron, which he has borrowed without the knowledge of the city government, and which powers the city. However, after a mishap, the Omegahedron is blown out into space. Much to the distress of her parents, Kara follows it to Earth (undergoing a transformation into "Supergirl" in the process) in an effort to recover it and save the city.
On Earth, the Omegahedron is recovered by Selena, a power-hungry would-be witch assisted by the feckless Bianca, seeking to free herself from her relationship with warlock Nigel. Whilst not knowing exactly what it is, Selena quickly realizes that the Omegahedron is powerful and can enable her to perform real magical spells. Supergirl arrives on Earth and discovers her powers. Following the path of the Omegahedron, she takes the name Linda Lee, identifies herself as the cousin of Clark Kent, and enrolls at an all-girls school where she befriends Lucy Lane, the younger sister of Lois Lane who happens to be studying there. Supergirl also meets and becomes enamoured with Ethan, who works as a groundskeeper at the school.
Ethan also catches the eye of Selena, who drugs him with a love potion (which will make him fall in love with the first person he sees for a day); however, Ethan regains consciousness in Selena's absence and wanders out into the streets. An angry Selena uses her new-found powers to animate a construction vehicle which she sends to bring Ethan back, causing chaos in the streets as it does so. Supergirl rescues Ethan and he falls in love with her instead while in the guise of Linda Lee.
Supergirl and Selena repeatedly battle in various ways, until Selena uses her powers to put Supergirl in an "eternal void" known as the Phantom Zone. Here, stripped of her powers, she wanders the bleak landscape and nearly drowns in an oily bog. Yet she finds help in Zaltar, who has exiled himself to the Phantom Zone as a punishment for losing the Omegahedron. Zaltar sacrifices his life to allow Supergirl to escape. Back on Earth, Selena misuses the Omegahedron to make herself a "princess of Earth", with Ethan as her lover and consort. Emerging from the Phantom Zone through a mirror, Supergirl regains her powers and confronts Selena, who uses the Omegahedron's power to summon a gigantic shadow demon. The demon overwhelms Supergirl and is on the verge of defeating her when she hears Zaltar's voice urging her to fight on. Supergirl breaks free and is told by Nigel the only way to defeat Selena is to turn the shadow demon against her. Supergirl quickly complies and begins flying in circles around her, trapping her in a whirlwind. Selena is attacked and incapacitated by the monster as the whirlwind pulls Bianca in as well. The three of them are sucked back into the mirror portal, which promptly reforms, trapping them all within forever. Free from Selena's spell, Ethan admits his love for Linda and that he knows that she and Supergirl are one and the same, but knows it is possible he may never see her again and understands she must save Argo City. The final scene shows Kara returning the Omegahedron to a darkened Argo City, which promptly lights up again. | revenge | train | wikipedia | null |
tt5621890 | Liberdade, Liberdade | Born in the 19th century, Joaquina (Mel Maia/Andreia Horta) is the daughter of revolutionary Tiradentes (Thiago Lacerda). A woman ahead of her time who carries in her blood the fight for freedom in Brazil.
As a child, she witnessed her father’s death after he fought for people’s freedom and was double-crossed by Rubião (Mateus Solano), his sword-arm. She was then taken to Portugal under the care of a revolution sympathizer who adopted her by the name of Rosa. Years later she comes back to Rio, a place of wrongdoing and slave abuse. A great anger at this situation awakens the will to fight she inherited from her father. There she meets Xavier (Bruno Ferrari), a rich Medical school student with a secret revolutionary side to him. Together they will find out they share not only the desire for freedom but a true love for one another.
Then Rubião crosses her path once again. Without knowing she Tiradentes’ daughter, the villain will pursue her to marry him, making her life a living hell. But she will also make strong allies like Virgínia (Lília Cabral), a brothel owner who has always supported the revolution.
It is now in Joaquina’s hands to end the war her father started. And she will not rest until freedom is written on the pages of history, even if it takes her own blood to do it. | violence, murder, romantic | train | wikipedia | Fake History With Politically Correct Standards. The Brazilian Globo network is characterized by sophisticated productions filled with Computer-Graphic-Imagery since approximately ten years ago. They opt for visuals based on sepia tones typical of old photographs. Liberdade Liberdade (Freedom Freedom) adds soft-core pornography to its exaltation of current political correctness. It's a mere by-product of the ideological disease that plagues the 21st century: Politically correctness equals Cultural Marxism. The soap opera aims to reinvent history by placing feminism within colonial Brazil in the 18th-to-19th turn of the century. Joaquina, the protagonist, did exist indeed, but nothing was ever known about her, except that she was the bastard child of the leading rebel Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, nicknamed Tiradentes. OK, it's certainly valid to get fanciful as far as fictitious plots go. But to rewrite history? To emphasize current myths such as feminism and multi-racial sex by mixing them into the old, sad reality of slavery? To be sure, in colonial Brazil there was an actual lack of intimacy between the Republican project of the republican conjurers and the everyday life & common aspirations of overseas subjects of Empress Maria of Portugal. Such national symbols and heroes, like Tiradentes, would only be forged much later on, of course. Not to sound necessarily moralistic, but... Prime-time sexplotation? This is minimally slutty towards any middle-of-the-road, conservative audience. To rent a porn DVD is one thing, to watch a simulacrum of history is another thing, far less commendable, far more arguable. |
tt2205697 | Stuck in Love | Novelist and part-time teacher Bill Borgens (Greg Kinnear) has been floundering since his ex-wife Erica (Jennifer Connelly) left him for a younger man two years ago. Instead of working on a new book, he spies on Erica and her new husband Martin while pretending to be jogging. Bill's son Rusty (Nat Wolff) is a high school student in love with a classmate named Kate (Liana Liberato) but lacks the courage to talk to her. Bill's daughter Sam (Lily Collins) is a cynical college student who prefers one-night stands and hook-ups with people she knows are less intelligent than herself, in order to shield herself from love.
On Thanksgiving, Bill has a reluctant Rusty set a place for Erica. At dinner, Sam announces that her first novel has been accepted for publication. Bill, having raised his children to be writers from birth, is thrilled, but becomes annoyed when she admits the book is not the one he had been helping her write. Rusty goes to have Thanksgiving with Erica and Martin, but Sam refuses, citing Erica's perceived betrayal of Bill.
While at a bar, Sam's classmate Louis aka Lou (Logan Lerman) tries to prevent her from initiating another hook-up. Despite being rebuffed, he continues to pursue her and eventually strong-arms her into a cup of coffee. While discussing their favorite books, Sam is unnerved by their similar tastes in literature and runs off, refusing to be roped into a relationship. When Lou stops coming to the writing seminar they both attend, Sam tracks him down to the house where he takes care of his mother, who is dying. Sam is humbled by this and agrees to go out with Lou. When they discuss Sam's novel she reveals that a scene in which the main character sees her mother having sex with a man on the beach was about Erica and Martin. When Martin worried if Bill might see them, Erica replied, "I don't care." While listening to Lou's favorite song Sam begins to cry, afraid of being hurt. Lou tells her he won't hurt her, and they share a kiss.
Rusty reads a poem in class about an angel. Bill reads Rusty's journal, which he has paid both Sam and Rusty to keep over the years. When Rusty catches him, Bill says that Rusty needs to really experience life in order to become a better writer. Rusty and his friend Jason bribe their way into a party held by Kate's boyfriend, Glen (Patrick Schwarzenegger). Rusty inadvertently sees Kate and Glen doing cocaine in the bathroom, leaving him dispirited. He and Jason are about to leave when they witness Kate and Glen arguing; when Glen shoves Kate to the ground, Rusty punches him in the face and flees with Kate and Jason. Since Kate can't go home bruised and high, Rusty brings her to his house. While tucking her into bed, she asks Rusty if his angel poem was about her; he admits it was. They share a kiss and begin a relationship. Rusty gives Kate a copy of It, his favorite novel, and she gives him her favorite album. On Christmas Day they have sex in his closet, which she believes neither of them will forget (as it is Rusty's first time). At the same time Kate struggles with her drug addiction; while visiting Erica's house, she rifles through a medicine cabinet and is on the verge of stealing prescription drugs when Erica walks in on her.
Bill has regular sexual liaisons with his married neighbor, Tricia (Kristen Bell), with whom he occasionally jogs. However, he continues to mope over his failed marriage. While Christmas shopping he runs into Erica and they talk over coffee. He tells her that, if given a second chance, he would be a much better husband, leaving Erica visibly uneasy. Tricia urges him to move on and begin dating again, helping him dress better and creating an online dating profile. After going on a somewhat successful date, he stops by Erica's house and peeks in her window. Seeing her read a book, he leaves his wedding ring as a sign that he has moved on. However, he does a double take and realizes she is reading one of his own books. Heartened, he takes back his ring.
Sam has a party for the launch of her book, where Bill makes a speech about the process of writing, quoting What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, his favorite book. Erica is invited by Lou, but is clearly uncomfortable and avoids conversation. Bill encourages her to talk to Sam, who pretends not to know her when signing Erica's copy of her novel. When Sam gives Kate champagne—unaware of Kate's addiction and the fact that she's underage—Kate goes back for more and eventually goes home with Gus, one of Bill's students. The Borgens track her down; Bill and Erica barge into Gus's apartment and find her asleep in his bedroom after a night of drinking and doing drugs. As Kate is loaded into the car, Rusty lifts the blanket covering her and realizes she had sex with Gus (perhaps while unconscious), which leaves him in tears.
Heartbroken, Rusty turns to alcohol and comes home drunk almost every night. While at a convenience store with Jason he runs into Glen, who chases down and beats him. Kate writes Rusty a letter apologizing and telling him she's in rehab, having realized the only person who could truly fix her is herself. She hopes that one day she could be worthy of somebody like him. Bill, worried about Rusty, tells him to channel his pain into his writing. Rusty asks if he did the same when Erica left, prompting Bill to ground him. Rusty writes a story entitled "I've Just Seen A Face" (after the Beatles song of the same name, which he told Sam he hears when thinking of Kate) and finds it therapeutic. Later, he gets a call from Stephen King, his favorite author, who tells him that Sam sent his story to King, who had it published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Bill reveals to Sam that he walked out on Erica when Sam was a baby, and that when he came back six months later she accepted him, having waited the whole time. He promised that if she ever left him, he'd give her a second chance. When Lou's mother dies, Sam realizes how much her mother means to her and they tearfully reconcile. A year later, Bill shows he's moved on from Erica by not setting a place for her at the table for Thanksgiving. As the family sits down to eat, joined by Lou, Erica arrives and tearfully asks if there is a place for her. She joins them at the table and Rusty announces his story is being published. While the family celebrates, Bill again quotes from What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: "I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark." | cute, romantic, feel-good | train | wikipedia | null |
tt1014774 | A Shine of Rainbows | Young orphan Tomás (John Bell) is harassed and ridiculed for his small size, timidity and stuttering by the other children in his orphanage. Just after freeing a pigeon from his classroom, he is called to the headmasters' office to be greeted by Maire (Connie Nielsen), who has adopted him, and takes him back to her island home, where Tomás is greeted somewhat coldly by her husband, Alec (Aidan Quinn), a fisherman, who had expected someone older and perhaps more confident, and Tomás is intimidated by Alec.
Tomás makes friends with Nancy (Tara Alice Scully) and is greeted tepidly by Seamus (Jack Gleeson). They take him to their 'secret' cave, inhabited by bats. There, Tomás runs away, scared, after which his two friends chase after him and console him. Tomás is introduced to his new school and, unlike at his previous school, here he is generally accepted by the pupils. As Maire's influence on him begins to shine through, he starts to gain in confidence and become drawn to wildlife.
Soon thereafter, Alec and Tomás get a little closer, and when Maire has to go to the mainland for some shopping, Alec and Tomás go fishing. Together they find a young seal, apparently abandoned, on the beach. Christened 'Smudge' by Tomás, he wants to care for it and feeds it regularly for the next many days.
For Tomás' birthday, the couple give him a new fishing rod & reel. Maire suggests that the two guys go fishing, Alec to teach Tomás how to use the tackle, and the plan is set. The next morning, they head out, but Alec, distracted with helping some friends move a stuck boat, tells Tomás, "I won't be long, wait down there." Tomás waits around nearly all day for him to show up, but Alec, after helping, then instead goes to the pub with the friends.
Maire finds Tomás and takes him out in the boat herself. Maire discloses she was an orphan too, never adopted out, and that is why she picked Tomás, loving and 'knowing' him, due to her own experiences. Maire teaches Tomás to picture his grandmother in his mind and he does, remembering her for the first time in a long while. He learns he can recall memories by 'painting' them in his mind. They then see a rainbow and she promises to take him into one someday. That night, Maire has an argument with Alec, telling him that he shouldn't have left Tomás waiting.
The next day after school, Tomás comes home to find that Maire, has taken sick, a doctor at her side. He goes to stay at Katie's home, with her children, Seamus and Nancy. He buys Maire a very colourful tablecloth, as she likes colours, and later goes visiting her in hospital. Tomás learns that Maire is going to die, and distraught he rushes to her bedside, crying at the thought of her passing. Alec asks Tomás to leave, and later at the house Alec tells him that she has died.
At Maire's funeral, Alec and Tomás are both distraught, but Alec still won't bond with Tomás. Tomás says that Alec needs him but Alec continues to be brusque with Tomás. Tomás also learns from his friends that the orphanage will soon reclaim him, as Alec never signed the adoption papers.
Alec starts to drink to soothe his sorrows, and burns all of Maire's possessions because "she's gone". When Tomás finds out, he tries to stop Alec, blaming him for Maire's death, and runs away to Katie's. She explains how sad Alec is about losing Maire. The next day, Tomás goes to feed Smudge, asking it to pass on a message to Maire, asking her 'what he should to do'. A rainbow appears, the 'end' of it bathing Tomás and Smudge in colours, and Tomás has 'received' the guidance he was looking for.
When Tomás returns home he finds Alec drunk, slumped in a chair. Tomás wakes Alec, giving him a red scarf Maire had 'smiled' into for him earlier, as a memento to remember Maire by. Alec goes to bed, snuggling with the scarf, as he hears Maire's laughter.
In the morning, after packing up his possessions, Tomás goes out in the boat to deliver Smudge to his 'Mum'. When Alec realises that Tomás isn't at home, he attempts to rescue Tomás, but doesn't reach him in time. Tomás' boat has capsized, but, with help from Smudge and a pod of seals, he washes up on shore. Alec, frantic, checks to see if Tomás is still alive, which he is.
For breakfast the next day, Alec produces the colourful tablecloth to cover the drab table. Alec asks if Tomás wants to go back to the orphanage. Tomás proclaims "No!", and says he wants to remain with Alec. Alec finally signs the papers, and Tomas calls him "Dad". | romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0041963 | The Threat | Detective Ray Williams (Michael O'Shea) is recuperating from a broken rib as his wife Ann (Julie Bishop) tries to persuade him to get a desk job, especially with the new baby on the way. However, a call from the police inspector (Robert Shayne) informs him that homicidal criminal "Red" Kluger (who Williams apprehended) has busted out of Folsom Prison. As Williams is going to leave in his police car, he is kidnapped by Kluger (Charles McGraw) and his men. District attorney Barker MacDonald (Frank Conroy) is also kidnapped by his men. Lastly, nightclub singer Carol (Virginia Grey), who apparently ratted him out is kidnapped. She however claims it was Tony, one of Kluger's associates, who Red has arranged to come out of Mexico City to Palm Springs to give Red and his associates the $12,000 from a deposit box and give them an escape plane to leave the country out of. Kluger makes no secret of his plans to kill Williams and MacDonald once he's made a getaway. Carol claims to not have ratted him out constantly, but Kluger rejects her claims. Kluger also takes in another hostage, Joe Turner, driver of the truck escorting the gang. The gang is housed up at a shack, awaiting Tony. Joe tries to escape with a gun he had stolen from the truck earlier, but Kluger subdues him, takes the gun and kills him.
Ray is forcefully told by the gang to give the police a false lead on the radio to throw them off. Inadvertently, he tips off his wife that he may be in danger by saying to tell his wife the newborn kid can be named Dexter, which his wife finds suspicious due to his previous statements that he'd name the newborn Dexter only if he'd had a gun to his head. Kluger tells Lefty and Nick to force Williams to call off the search for him, but Williams and MacDonald subdue and tie up the henchmen. They call out to Kluger to come to them, awaiting to try and shoot him, but in the ensuing gunfight, Kluger shoots Ray in the knee. Williams decides to climb up the wall and hang over the door, as MacDonald tries to bait Kluger to come to them. As he walks over to the door, Ray jumps up and lands on Kluger, but Kluger overpowers him and hits him with a chair. Kluger goes outside to see that a plane with Tony is nearby, waving to him to land. However, as he comes back inside, he sees that Carol has a gun. Telling her to drop the gun, he yells at her to not shoot, but Carol shoots him twice, killing him. Ray gets up and thanks her, while saying that he will deal with Tony.
The film ends with Williams discussing with Ann over the naming of their kid, and she reveals that one can be Dexter – because they're having twins. | revenge, murder, sadist | train | wikipedia | Effective "B" film that established Charles McGraw.
"The Threat" is an effective "B" film noir that is kind of a junior league "White Heat" with Charles McGraw starring as an escaped killer seeking vengeance on those who sent him up.
The storyline is relatively clever and the threadbare production values are easily overlooked due to the earnest acting and fast pace.McGraw was so evilly convincing as the heavy that RKO subsequently signed him to a seven-year contract and starred him in "Armored Car Robbery", "Roadblock" and "The Narrow Margin".
When you consider that this picture was shot in under three weeks with a total budget of $221,000, it is quite an achievement for director Felix Feist.One doesn't have to be 8 years old to appreciate economical film making that rises above the typical RKO "B" film sausage grinding of the time..
Charles McGraw- Wonderful Character Actor.
He steals this movie from Michael O'Shea and with his steel blue eyes totally captivates every scene he is in.
McGraw's "technique" lets us know that he was an actor to be reckoned with and that he was going to be around for a long time, which he was- another forty years as one of our better character actors who was given the lead in a few "B" movies and provided support in many "A" and "B" movies.
I can not envision too many actors taking this role and fully making it his own the way Mr.McGraw did.
Charles McGraw Was The Look & Sound Of Film Noir.
Charles McGraw was one of the all-time best at playing tough guy roles in Hollywood.
Both men were always interesting and both hit peaks in the very early '50s.In this film, McGraw is the main criminal, "Red Kluger," a man who has just busted out of Folsom Prison.
He immediately goes after the two guys most responsible for putting him behind bars, captures then and then goes on the lam with a stolen truck, a couple of other thugs and the kidnapped driver of the big truck.At only 65 minutes, this moves by pretty fast, although there is a lull halfway through until things start to get tense as the cops get closer and closer.
The only difference was that he had a mustache in this movie.One credibility problem: the truck driver, "Joe," could have escaped a few times, especially with his riding partner up front got out of the cab to talk to a cop!
What a perfect chance to slip out his side and run for it...but he stays in the driver's seat (with nobody looking at him?) Oh, well; no film is perfect.The climax was fine, offering some tense moments and a surprise finish regarding the hostages and crooks.
Kluger (McGraw) may take hostages for criminal purposes, but the screenplay takes no prisoners.
If there were B-movie Oscars, which there should have been, he would be richly deserving.Anyhow, the plot manages to turn the familiar prison break fugitive into an exciting chase across California, replete with a number of clever touches and a few surprises from an unflinching camera.
It took about 10 minutes for me to get into the story, because I didn't recognize any of the actors at first and I wasn't sure who I was supposed to identify with; but this turned out to be a typically tough and snappy little crime caper (65 minutes long) from director Felix Feist.Feist really knew how to use his small budgets wisely.
He creates a tension-filled atmosphere, keeps things moving at a crisp pace, deftly establishes and stokes conflicts, and can usually be counted on for one "bravura" piece of camerawork in every film (here, it takes place at the climax in the desert shack).
Here, Charles McGraw plays an escaped convict whose thirst for revenge against the detective and D.A. who put him away, really fuels the film and keeps it on track.
It's a good part and a very fine performance - the guy just doesn't give an inch and you find yourself having to respect that.Generally, when low budget crime movies fail it's because the bad guy is stupid or lets his guard down at a crucial moment - none of that here.
Charles McGraw's Best film.
In my opinion, Charles McGraw is probably the best and best known actor of the post war / film noir genre.
Michael O'Shea and Virginia Grey get top billing, but compared to McGraw they're hardly even in the film at all.
Scary because criminals like this actually do exist, and a great little film like this brings the audience enough into the movie that you can't help but think "what if I were kidnapped by a homicidal lunatic like this?" At 65 minutes, "The Threat" is a very tight film noir type crime drama filled with tension, and Charles McGraw is the center of picture.
Great film and a great under rated actor with Charles McGraw.
This little-known 'B' noir tightly-paced and efficiently handled by journeyman Feist provides Charles McGraw with one of his best roles as a vicious escaped criminal out to get the three people responsible for his conviction; clearly resourceful, he manages to kidnap all of them within the space of a few hours from his freedom (with the help of two other associates)!
The film makes great use of confined spaces: in their attempt to escape detection on the way to crossing the border into Mexico, the gang exchanges their hide-out a number of times a house, a moving van (conveniently concealing a police car inside it which, apart from carrying the hostages, allows McGraw to know the pursuing force's every move!) and finally a cabin in the desert.As with other post-war examples of the genre, the violence is more pronounced in particular the stunning sequence in which McGraw pins the hero to the floor (by stepping on the latter's outstretched arms) and breaks a chair over his face!
The hero, however, is rather colorless and it's the young van driver (himself an unwilling captive) who offers the most resistance to McGraw and gang though, in their final confrontation, the criminal is able to disarm him in the blink of an eye!
Good minor film noir...Charles McGraw excellent....
CHARLES McGRAW is not the first name you think of when it comes to actors who specialized in good film noirs during the '40s and '50s, but in THE THREAT he shows why he was one of the best in this genre.McGraw is an ex-convict who kidnaps a D.A.
Pretty JULIE BISHOP is O'Shea's worried wife.There's not a wasted moment of running time in the brisk one hour and six minute film.
RALPH BYRD as a thug and VIRGINIA GREY as the captive girlfriend do well in good supporting roles.It's McGraw who makes the strongest impression as a steely-eyed killer, especially during the tense closing scenes with the captives held at gunpoint.
When vicious killer Arnold Kluger (Charles McGraw) and his pals escape from Folsom Prison, they go after the detective (Michael O'Shea) and the DA (Frank Conroy) who put Kluger in prison in the fist place.The two, plus a woman Kluger thinks ratted him out are holed up with the men in a desert shack where Kluger and his pals are to be picked up by another confederate, Anthony.Michael O'Shea plays a police officer who, with is wife, is awaiting the birth of their child.
At first, Kluger makes him call in as if all is well.Virginia Grey is the woman Kluger thinks betrayed her, and she spends most of the movie screaming and crying to let her leave.
Not looking good.Charles McGraw is dynamite in this film, incredibly mean, without one drop of human kindness.
He's absolutely frightening because he's capable of anything.If you're a baby boomer, you'll recognize the voice of Inspector Henderson from Superman right away, Robert Shayne as Police Inspector Murphy.
The film was made in 1949, and most if not all of these actors wound up in television.Michael O'Shea was always likable, and he's no different here, playing a police detective who keeps his cool.
Married to Virginia Mayo, the two did a lot of theater together, and after he retired he became a plainclothes CIA operative.Virginia Grey was a good actress and a lovely one, though this role called for her to be hysterical a good part of the time.This is a short film that packs a wallop - a real wallop.
It stars Charles McGraw, Virginia Grey, Michael O'Shea, Julie Bishop.
Wild.Maniac criminal Red Kluger escapes from jail and sets off to kidnap the three people he holds responsible for his incarceration.Compact at just over an hour in run time, The Threat is all about Charles McGraw impressing on everyone just what a great portrayer of hard cases he would become.
Once the escape and set up of plot has been formed, pic basically confines itself to one cramped location as Kluger and his two henchmen hold four people hostage at their hideout, the fourth person being an unfortunate truck driver who has got in the way.
The air of menace is palpable, the atmosphere hot and sweaty, and via torture, violence and mind games it builds to tough old climax, having got there without fuss or filler.Nothing memorable visually, and some of the screenplay involves characters doing daft things, but it's a gritty "B" noir well worth taking a look at.
It was reported that one of them was just like Charles McGraw, known to have a grudge against the people who sent him to prison.
McGraw would have been better off had he kept running as he's not only a mean customer, but a very shrewd one.McGraw busts out of the joint and he'll flee to Mexico, but first he's got a score to settle with detective Michael O'Shea and District Attorney Frank Conroy who put him in the joint.
McGraw also takes his former girlfriend Virginia Grey by force because he's not sure if she didn't rat him out.
And Grey can't convince him she didn't.The Threat is one no frills and never let up exciting short film about a manhunt for a dangerous man.
McGraw who played a lot of mean hoods was never meaner and threatening than in The Threat.Robert Shayne also has a plum role as the police inspector coordinating the manhunt who doesn't know that O'Shea is a captive until almost the end.
I'd like to think Shayne's role here was something that showed Henderson capable of real police work without Superman.The Threat is really top notch Charles McGraw and a top notch noir thriller..
Charles McGraw (Kluger) is a psychopathetic bully who escapes from prison and has a meticulously planned route to an escape that includes kidnapping DA Frank Conroy (Barker) and detective Michael O'Shea (Williams) who were both involved in his arrest and who he has vowed to kill.
He kidnaps these two with the help of Anthony Caruso (Nick) and Frank Richards (Lefty) and he also takes former girlfriend Virginia Grey (Carol) along for the ride as he suspects her of betraying him.
An unwitting driver Don McGuire (Joe) joins the gang as McGraw leads this troupe to a pre-designated desert hideout to await his escape to Mexico.The cast are all good in this short thriller.
Even the more humorous moments of the film are charged with tension, eg, thug Caruso asking about the time and handing his watch over to McGraw only to have it smashed with the response "Now you don't have to worry about the time".
Funny....but this guy McGraw makes it scary.A nice surprise of a film..
Charles McGraw is prisoner Red kluger, who is out to get the guys who put him away.
Directed by Felix Feist...had started making shorts, then moved to full length films.
McGraw a Really Bad Guy. I agree with the people who have talked about the psychological part of this movie.
Homicidal criminal Charles McGraw does a good job acting .
Not the best film noir .
Threat, The (1949) ** 1/2 (out of 4) A man (Charles McGraw) escapes from prison after swearing to seek vengeance on those he feels got him there in the first place.
I really enjoyed the story, the direction and the music score but the supporting performances are so incredibly dull that I couldn't wait for the film to be over.
McGraw is very good in his role but his supporting cast doesn't offer any help so their story is never interesting nor did I ever care if they were killed or not.
The story climaxes in the ubiquitous desert hide-a-way.The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is after escaped psycho killer "Red" Kluger, played brilliantly by veteran actor Charles McGraw.
A nasty criminal escapes from prison and immediately takes up with his old gang, kidnapping a key witness (who actually never blabbed), the detective who caught him, and the D.A. who prosecuted him.
Charles McGraw is ruthless and seemingly unstoppable as the head of this gang of violent criminals, while Michael O'Shea is a tough yet law-abiding (and more importantly, honest) cop.
***SPOILERS*** With convicted murderer Donald "Red" Kluger, Charles McGraw, busting out of Folson prison the lives of those involved with his capture and conviction Det. Ray Williams, Michael O'Shea, and D.A Baker McDonald, Frank Conroy, are in serious danger.
Not only that Kluger kidnaps his former gun moll night club singer Ann Williams, Julie Bishop, who he feels ratted him out to the police as well as took off with the $100,000.00 in cash he hid in a bus locker in downtown L.A. Still on a roll Kluger hijacks a moving truck together with it's driver Joe Turner, Don McGuire, to make his getaway amid some dozen police and state trooper road blocks.
It's in fact Tony who can clear up this confusion in Kluger's mind if Ann really took the cash he had hidden away and ratted him out to the police!
There's also Ann who's on Kluger's sh*t list and whom he treats like dirt during the entire movie who in the end is the one person who ends up blasting him with his own gun: The only one of the Kluger gang's guns that had live bullets in them.P.S The John Garfield looking tough guy actor Michael O'Shea fit perfectly in the part as detective Ray Williams in him coming from a long line of police family members, all his five brothers ended up being cops, himself.
The premise of "The Threat" - an escaped criminal seeking revenge on the cop and the district attorney that sent him to jail - is an irresistible one.
The acting is pretty good as well, and there are a few genuinely tense moments.All the same, I thought the movie could have been better.
This is a fast-paced noir with a gritty, tense atmosphere, and a commanding performance by Charles McGraw as the escaped con Kluger.
His character helps make The Threat interesting, but overshadows all of the other performances.Kluger's strategy involves kidnapping the two law enforcement personnel (Michael O'Shea and Frank Conroy) who were mostly responsible for his incarceration.
He has at least three decent chances to surprise Kluger with his hidden gun, but waits instead.
Another nice touch are the circling planes--Kluger is visibly shaken, he has to wonder if it's his accomplice Tony, or the police.The solid revenge premise could've made The Threat an outstanding noir, but the plot suffered from using its characters awkwardly, and counting on the lead to carry the movie.
I would've liked to have seen Carol, Lefty, and Nick more developed, with less Ray and Mac. And forget Joe. Overall, The Threat starts and ends well, but there's too many dead ends along the way for it to keep our suspension of disbelief intact..
As a general rule, the only people who are allowed to be good with guns in a movie belong to one of three categories: (1) policemen and other law enforcement officials, as well as prosecuting attorneys; (2) criminals and immoral women; and (3) military personnel, including veterans.
In short, movies tend to support the position of gun-control advocates, who argue that civilians are more likely to hurt themselves by owning a handgun.
But this movie is the absolute worst of them all in this regard.Kluger, who was on death row in Folsom Prison, manages to escape.
Kluger and his two henchman, Nick and Lefty, pack up their captives and a lot of stuff, and put them in a moving van so they can drive to a place and meet up with Tony.
And he owns a gun.Joe is supposed to drive the van with Lefty sitting in the cab with him.
Later, they come upon a roadblock, where there are several cops looking for Kluger.
Never mind that Kluger, known to be a vicious killer, is not going to let him live once he is no longer useful, and so Joe has nothing to lose by making a break for it, he is apparently too timid to risk it.When they stop at a filling station for gas, Joe retrieves his gun and hides it on his person while Lefty is dealing with a policeman.
But Kluger starts walking toward Joe, talking to him in a soothing tone of voice, saying it was a mistake to pull out the gun.
"Come on, give it here," Kluger says, as he gently reaches out his hand and takes the gun away from Joe without any resistance.
The only people left are those who movies allow are capable of using a gun, and so it is just a matter of time before one of them gets his hands on a gun and uses it competently.
This time Kluger knows he is in trouble, because she is not a spineless civilian like Joe, whom he can coax the gun away from. |
tt3818776 | Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. | The game’s framing device is that it is a comic book being read. The story opens in a steampunk fantasy version of London on the opening day of the Steamgate Bridge. Henry Fleming (based on the protagonist of the same name from the book The Red Badge of Courage and voiced by Adam Baldwin) is going over security detail at the American Embassy when suddenly the city is attacked by an unknown enemy. He manages to escape and meet up with his old friend John Henry (voiced by Michael Dorn). The two are then rescued by an airship called the Lady Liberty, captained by President Abraham Lincoln (voiced by Wil Wheaton). He explains that the city is under attack by aliens and conscripts the two into the strike force S.T.E.A.M. (short for Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace)
After rescuing Queen Victoria with the help of Lion (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Tiger Lily of Peter Pan (voiced by Kari Wahlgren), and Tom Sawyer (voiced by Jeremy Shada), the soldiers are eventually forced to leave England to its fate and retreat to America. They are delayed by a giant monster that is defeated by Lincoln himself in his giant mech, the A.B.E. (Anthropomorphized Battle Engine). They swing by Boston in order to help the forces there and meet up with Queequeg (voiced by TJ Storm). They then receive a distress call from Professor Randolph Carter (voiced by James Urbaniak) of Miskatonic University, S.T.E.A.M.’s expert on the occult. They meet Lion’s friend Scarecrow (voiced by Paul Eiding) on the way there and manage to evacuate the university with Carter in tow. However, before they can get on the Lady Liberty, Carter’s notes are taken by a mysterious creature called a Starface who then flees the scene.
Carter says to Lincoln that the aliens weren't just after his research, however the Necronomicon which has led to numerous discoveries that have improved technology manifold. It was kept at Miskatonic until recently and the team sets forth for its current location: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, directly under the White House. They manage to get to the White House, meeting with dashing thief the Fox (voiced by Grey DeLisle) and warrior queen Califia (voiced by Kimberly Brooks). While they do keep the Necronomicon from the hands of the enemy, they unfortunately have to abandon the capital.
With the Necronomicon, Carter concludes that the source of the threat is the Great Shugguth, a creature that can perpetually create soldiers, left behind by the aliens 200 million years ago for reasons unknown. The Shugguth is buried underneath the South Pole so the team stops by Monument Valley to repair and refuel. However, their base comes under attack and they barely manage to escape with the help of the cyborg Tin Man (voiced by Andrew Kishino) and Lincoln critically injured.
When all hope seems lost, a strange light appears in the Lady Liberty, revealing none other than Dorothy Gale (voiced by Amber Hood) who takes the team to Oz which is also under attack. They save Queen Ozma whose engineers at Oz manage to upgrade A.B.E. so it’s capable of drilling through the ice in the South Pole as well as giving them emerald keys so they can teleport instantly between two points in space. Returning to Earth, they hear from General Ulysses S. Grant that half the planet has been frozen over and that they are running out of time.
Fighting through the aliens’ lair, they manage to confront the Starface and defeat it, though the Shugguth turns mad and goes on a rampage. Lincoln faces off against the great beast, but in its death throes it intends to take out the entire planet. Lincoln then self-destructs A.B.E., destroying the Shugguth but at the cost of his own life. With the planet saved, S.T.E.A.M. pays their final farewells to Lincoln, throwing a bouquet into the great chasm where he made his last stand and are joined by other airships doing the same. A post-credits sequence reveals Lincoln’s hat, but an emerald key is nearby, hinting he may have survived. The comic is then turned over, revealing a new story arc is upcoming. | sci-fi | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0049006 | Beyond a Reasonable Doubt | Shreveport, Louisiana TV reporter C. J. Nicholas (Jesse Metcalfe) is convinced that District Attorney Mark Hunter (Michael Douglas) is corrupt, following an unbroken string of convictions based only on circumstantial evidence. After flirting with Assistant D.A. Ella Crystal (Amber Tamblyn) to obtain an evidential videotape that he hopes will be revealing, they begin dating and fall in love.
The videotape suggests to Nicholas that Hunter is using one of his investigators, Lt. Merchant, to obtain DNA evidence from suspects in custody and plant the evidence to support a conviction. Still unable to prove his claim against Hunter, he is demoted from watchdog reporter to general assignment due to budget cuts. Nicholas becomes even more determined to expose Hunter, convinced that he will win a Pulitzer if successful.
He concocts an elaborate scheme to frame himself for the murder of a prostitute using circumstantial evidence. His passion for the project enlists support from Crystal—who still does not know he is gunning for her boss—and co-worker Corey Finley (Joel Moore). Finley accompanies him as he obtains objects online and from pawn shops that will circumstantially link Nicholas to the murder. Finley records these instances on video with Nicholas holding a newspaper showing the date to be after the date of the murder. The original video kept in Finley's desk and a back-up copy is placed in a safe deposit box.
Nicholas gets himself arrested for DUI while wearing his falsified circumstantial evidence. He is arrested and charged with the murder. Merchant, however, becomes suspicious and informs Hunter that Nicholas is trying to set them up.
Crystal, who still doesn't know what Nicholas has been plotting, visits him in jail and offers to quit her job and join his defense team, but he convinces her not to do so.
The next step in the plan is to wait until the prosecution rests its case, then introduce the documentary evidence exposing the truth. Hunter instructs Merchant to destroy the video evidence. Finley finds his desk ransacked. Panicked, he tries to retrieve the back-up, but is pursued by Merchant in a high-speed chase in which he is killed.
Nicholas reveals his plot in court using only the dated receipts for his falsified evidence, but Hunter casts doubt on his story. Nicholas has no proof that the victim's blood, which was found on the false evidence, was planted by Hunter's people. The jury convicts Nicholas for the crime.
Crystal still believes in Nicholas and begins her own investigation, unaware that Hunter knew she was dating Nicholas. She is followed by Merchant.
Nicholas is sentenced to death. Hunter visits him in prison to reveal that his phone calls to Crystal, guiding her investigation, have been recorded.
Crystal obtains crime scene photos from Hunter's convictions and takes them to digital photography experts, who determine that the objects containing the suspect's DNA evidence in each case have been digitally added to the original photos after the fact.
When she attempts to take this evidence to the police, Merchant tries to kill her with his car while she flees on foot. She is rescued by Lt. Nickerson (Orlando Jones), one of Nicholas' police contacts, who shoots Merchant dead. Nickerson reveals that he suspected Merchant was up to no good, and he had been "following him following" Crystal.
The doctored photo evidence leads to Hunter's arrest in a public scandal. Nicholas' conviction is declared a mistrial and he becomes a media celebrity. Hunter's convictions are re-examined by the state.
Crystal, however, begins to suspect that the evidence reveals something else, too. After re-watching Nicholas' award-winning documentary about the murder of a prostitute in Buffalo, New York, she recognizes the hands of a woman who supposedly died of a drug overdose during production as the hands of the victim in the murder for which Nicholas was convicted. She correctly deduces that the woman came to Shreveport to blackmail Nicholas, that Nicholas killed her, then used the murder in his scheme against Hunter.
Crystal alerts the police, and tells Nicholas that he is not subject to the double jeopardy law because he wasn't declared innocent. As the police arrive to arrest him, she tells him, "I just thought of one other thing. Fuck you." | plot twist | train | wikipedia | "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" is a curious film - it has the look and feel of a B movie and two stars who had seen better days - Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine - yet it's a good script directed by Fritz Lang.
A novelist (Andrews) and his future father-in-law, a newspaper magnet (Sidney Blackmer) work together to prove that the death penalty isn't justified by framing Andrews for a recent murder.I thought the story excellent with some exciting twists, though the whole movie has an underplayed (not to mention inexpensive) feeling to it.
For his final Hollywood film, Fritz Lang decided to expose the pitfalls of capital punishment for circumstantial evidence.
Enter Tom Garrett; Austin's son in law to be, and the man that agrees to frame himself for murder...This is perhaps Lang's best assault on the American justice system; he has created a story that is interesting and very plausible and it works a treat in that it gets you thinking about the fact that with this kind of law; someone really could be killed for something they didn't do.
Lang shows us everything about the plot; from the first ideas, to the setting up, all the way to the trial and because of this; the final twist comes as a complete surprise.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)An early wide screen black and white drama that marks the end of Fritz Lang's American career and also shows the winding down of two great stars, Joan Fontaine and Dana Andrews.
The owner of an important newspaper Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer) opposes to the capital punishment and particularly to the prosecutor Roy Thompson (Philip Bourneuf), who has just succeeded in a trial based on circumstantial evidences.
When a dancer is strangled and the police have no suspect, Austin convinces his future son-in-law, the prominent writer Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews), to plant circumstantial evidences to self-incriminate, while he would hold pictures, receipts and other evidences of his innocence until the very last moment.
When the jury withdraws from the court in the end of the trial to give the sentence, Austin takes the evidences that prove the innocence of Tom from his safe, but has a car accident and dies.
Tom is sentenced to death penalty and tries to convince Susan of his innocence as his last hope."Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" is a great film-noir with a surprising twist in the very end.
With Tom looking for a subject for a second novel, Spencer suggests that they set Tom up for an unsolved murder using circumstantial evidence to prove how easy it would be for the courts to kill an innocent man.
However when Spencer is killed in car crash and none of the evidence can be found then Tom faces the chair.A very interesting concept still needs a good delivery to make for a good film.
In the world of film noir, of course, we know that such a character won't get away with it, but when Lang depicts the tragedy the viewer knows will come, he majestically turns the entire premise on its head.
In his last film in the USA before returning to Germany where he had left to escape the Nazis in the Thirties, Fritz Lang takes up the case of capital punishment and its application, especially when the case is a circumstantial one.
The story has its due ration of twists as Dana Andrews's writer is persuaded by his prospective father-in-law, a crusading press magnate, to set himself up as a burlesque dancer's killer; the two of them will keep records of the plot that are sure to exonerate Andrews before he faces the chair.
Inevitably it all goes wrong, with horrendous consequences for himself and his loved ones.The film is directed by Fritz Lang and is his last American movie, and you can sense his heart wasn't really in the material.
As a whole the film lacks the sense of mystery and atmosphere of the likes of WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS and SCARLET STREET, but that's not to say it's bad; it just could have been even better.None of these things change the fact that the plot's a good 'un, even if there's one twist too many along the way.
Dana Andrews makes for a solid and dependable leading man as always, and it's nice to see Joan Fontaine playing his love interest, even if she has little to do.
Plot about former newspaperman-turned-novelist incriminating himself in a murder he didn't commit (to make points on capital punishment AND come up with a bestseller in the bargain!) is just dumbfoundingly basic, a connect-the-dots noir without any of the genre's suspense, passion or intrigue.
A writer (Dana Andrews) conspires with a feisty anti-capital punishment newspaper owner (Sidney Blackmer) to frame himself for murder and get the death penalty.
There's little else for the old maestro to do but try to follow the ins and outs of the story, which is too unbelievable and predicated on coincidence to really convince with even the twist at the end just too far-fetched and under-powered to finish the film on any kind of high, plus the complete absence throughout of any other suspect makes the final denouement obvious in the extreme.
The acting is solid enough with Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine only occasionally looking befuddled by the over-intricacies of the narrative but in the end this isn't one of the great director's finest hours and not a film he'll be best remembered for..
Fontaine has one of her weakest roles, but the film's biggest flaw is the way it toys with the viewer's expectations and then fails to deliver that final punch.Definitely one of Fritz Lang's lesser works..
Fritz Lang's last American film before he returned to Germany, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt suffers from the director's clear lack of interest.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, an intriguing little noir starring Dana Andrews, is by no means a bad film, but is clearly the work of a man handicapped by the system and a film that is pessimistic in its execution.Tom (Andrews), a novelist in search of inspiration for his second book, is approached by his newspaper publisher father-in-law Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer) to help aide his opposition of state capital punishment.
Naturally, during the trial, an incident prevents Austin from delivering the evidence and testimony that will prove Tom's innocence, so Tom's disgruntled fiancée Susan (Joan Fontaine) races against time to prevent Tom getting executed on Death Row.Lang had already exposed the fragility of the justice system in his German masterpiece M (1931), and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt begins in suitably grim fashion with the silent execution of an inmate.
You most likely won't see it coming, but it ends the film with plenty of plot- holes to pick at and left me scratching my head at exactly what point the movie was trying to make.
I won't say anything other than the following: Dana Andrews plays Tom Garrett, a novelist who's persuaded by his newspaper mogul friend Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer) to pose as the suspect in a murder in order to prove the pitfalls of circumstantial evidence and politics in death penalty cases.
They decide to "frame" the writer (Mr. Andrews) for murder; after he is tried and convicted, they plan to reveal he didn't commit the murder - saving him from the electric chair and showing how easily an innocent man can be killed with circumstantial evidence.
*** Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (9/5/56) Fritz Lang ~ Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer, Arthur Franz.
Plot has Andrews as a writer who hatches a plan with his future father-in-law to expose the weakness in using circumstantial evidence to send suspects to the electric chair.
But it's a dangerous game to play, and fate and hidden secrets may have the ultimate say on the outcome?It was Fritz Lang's last American movie, after wowing cinema fans with such excellent pictures like M, The Big Heat, Scarlet Street and While the City Sleeps, it's safe to say that Beyond A Reasonable Doubt is not the great swansong many had reason to expect.
But veering away from our yearnings for technical smarts, film finds Lang determined to prove a bitter based point whilst enjoying dangling his protagonist above a fascinating pit of ifs and maybes.The fascination comes from the court case that underpins the movie, as we observe the law unfurling its might, privy to the dangerous ruse perpetrated by Andrews' daring Guinea Pig. It feels cold in narrative, and most certainly that is intentional because the last fifteen minutes of film pulls the rug from under everyone and finally reveals its hand.
On seeing the first few minutes of this film, started off thinking "Oh no, not another load of anti capital punishment rubbish !" but by taking the time to watch and follow the plot, I realize that my initial judgment had been too hasty.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Frustrating film about a journalist (Dana Andrews) who decides to show that the current court system has a lot of holes in it by framing himself for the murder of a dancer.
In this case it's story is so contrived and convoluted, compared to the also manipulating David Gale, that you just want to rewind your VCR or DVD player just to see if what you actually saw and heard on the screen the previous 80 or so minutes really happened!A life long opponent to the death penalty newspaper publisher Austin Spencer, Sidney Blackman, comes up with this bright idea of having an innocent man arrested tired and convicted for a murder that he didn't commit.
By having a totally innocent man on the brink of being executed by the state.Austin get's writer Tom Garrett, Dana Andrews, who's engaged to his daughter Susan, Joan Fontaine, to go along with his hair-brain scheme as the person who's to be sent to the electric chair until he comes charging, like the US calvary, to the rescue into the D.A's office with a car-load of evidence exonerating the soon to be fried Tom. Looking in the newspapers Austin finds this story about a dancer being found strangled outside he city.
With no clues for the police to follow up and together with Tom plans to create and plant evidence that it was Tom who murdered her.Having everything documented to prove Tom's innocence Austin has it all under lock and key in his office until just after Tom, like it was planned from the start, was arrested tried and convicted of the dancers murder and is just about to be executed.
Talk about Bad Luck!If you think that the film would now concentrate on finding evidence by Austin's daughter,and Tom's fiancé, Susan as well as his lawyer Jonathan Wilson, Sheppard Strudwick, of his innocence, in order to save Tom from the chair, your wrong dead wrong.
There's an even bigger surprise withing for you, and everyone on the screen, just as the movie is about to end which leaves your brain frozen in a total state of suspended animation.It's hard to imagine that a movie like this was ever made with top stars, Dana Andrews Joan Fontaine etc., being in it but in fact it was and the only reason that any studio was willing to go along in bankrolling it.
Was it because of it's director the legendary Fritz Lang who also came up with the idea of the movie "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" in the first place.
All of this circumstantial evidence is planted and the publisher has all of this info so if Andrews in convicted he will come clean and say it was a ruse to prove how simple it is to send a man to Death Row. Well I knew what was going to happen before it happened.
It is as brutally insensitive to audience weaknesses as Tom Garrett is to his fiancee - like Lang, he creates a plot to prove something; his lack of humanity, though, counteracts the supposed humanitarianism of his cause, even before we discover his real motives.DOUBT is a cruel movie, which makes its 'implausibility' and 'unrealism' (sic?) part of its theme.
"Beyong A Reasonable Doubt" is an offbeat thriller with a fascinating plot about two men who devise a dangerous scheme to expose the flawed nature of the legal system, the uncertain value of circumstantial evidence and the inherent dangers of using the death penalty as a form of punishment for certain crimes.
The clever set-up for the story, a number of entertaining plot twists and a good deal of suspense make the whole film compelling to watch and compensate greatly for some of its shortcomings which appear to be attributable mainly to its low budget.Newspaper publisher Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer) is an opponent of capital punishment who's become concerned about the conduct of his local D.A. Roy Thompson (Philip Bourneuf) who regularly uses circumstantial evidence to secure convictions for crimes which are punishable by the death penalty.
Austin's concerns relate to the unreliable nature of the evidence, the risk of an innocent man being executed and the belief that the D.A. is more concerned with gaining publicity to advance his political career than he is about ensuring that the justice system operates fairly.Austin explains his concerns to Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews) a novelist who used to work for him as a reporter and suggests a plan that could lead to an innocent man being sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit.
If the plan could be carried out successfully and the man's innocence could subsequently be proved, the use of capital punishment could be effectively discredited.Tom, who's engaged to be married to Austin's daughter Susan (Joan Fontaine), agrees to be framed for the murder of a nightclub dancer and as he plants various items of phony evidence, Austin takes photographs which could later be used to prove that Tom's not the murderer.
Her father is an editor of a newspaper who is anti-capital punishment and he convinces Andrews to 'set himself up' for murder using only circumstantial evidence.
This is Lang's final movie in America.He was to make another two-part movie in Germany but the latter can easily be dismissed compare to'beyond a reasonable doubt".Prologue:an execution scene,filmed with an absolute intelligence :instead of focusing on the condemned person,the camera searches those who watch a human being die:priest,wardens,executioner,journalists and among them the hero (Dana Andrews).The black and white cinematography is austere,unspectacular,and it will remains so during the whole projection.
The hero's soon-to-be father-in-law,who attended the execution too, wants to demonstrate the absurdity of death penalty.He asks Andrews to play the wrong man,guilty of murder;he would bring the proofs or evidences of his innocence just before his execution.To reveal more would make me a spoiler.Suffice to say the suspense is constant,the plot unlikely (Hitchcock's screenplays were too) but fascinating.In France,this movie is praised by the unanimous critics as a peak of the film noir.Give it a chance,it deserves it!.
But, you will be surprised.Dana Andrews, a writer, agrees to take the fall for a murder in order to help his fiancé's father (Sidney Blackmer), a newspaper publisher, make a point against capital punishment.
They plot to fake evidence to make it appear he committed the murder.You're only into the film a few minutes before you begin to think that either Blackmer is guilty himself and is trying to frame Andrews, OR Blackmer will die before being able to prove Andrews innocent.
Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews), a writer looking for an idea, and Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer), an editorialist against capital punishment, contrive a bizarre scheme to expose the flaws in the American legal system.
Spencer agrees to withhold the evidence of his innocence until after Garrett is convicted and sentenced to the death penalty.
They did manage to get us pulling for them to somehow make this a better and more enjoyable film.OF THE PRINCIPAL players, Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine are cast in the leads.
What wonderful plot twists here in this film where a writer is convinced by the newspaper owner to have information planted on him so that he may be arrested in a murder, only for the owner to die in a car crash and the defendant have to go it alone in proving his innocence.This all comes about due to the editor's fierce opposition to the death penalty.
Joan Fontaine, Andrews's fiancé and daughter of Blackmer, doesn't know what to believe at first until she comes around, only to have to reverse herself at film's end.Barbara Nichols really steals the show here in the scenes she is in.
"Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" is the last film that "M" director Fritz Lang made in Hollywood, and the theme of this intriguing but far-fetched law and order thriller concerns the morality of capital punishment.
Capital punishment, crime, and murder obsessed Lang throughout his lengthy career, and this RKO release provided Lang with another opportunity to deal with an innocent man who through a fluke in the justice system may die for a crime that he didn't commit.Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews of "The Ox-Bow Incident") is a former newspaper journalist turned novelist who agrees to test the strength of the justice system when his former boss, newspaper publisher Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer of "Duel in the Sun"), thinks that the local district attorney is too good at his trade.
If Tom is condemned to die on the electric chair, Austin will have all the evidence to render the case for capital punishment for Tom a mockery of the system.Fritz Lang directed this RKO 1956 film.
The screenplay by Douglas Morrow offers a satisfying courtroom drama with an ironic twist most viewers do not expect.Dana Andrews is at the center of the picture as Tom Garrett, a successful novelist in his own right, much in love with Susan Spencer.
"Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" was the last Hollywood film of German-born director Fritz Lang. |
tt0013741 | Das Weib des Pharao | Pharaoh Amenes (Emil Jannings) receives glad tidings: King Samlak of Ethiopia proposes an alliance, to be cemented by the marriage of Amenes to Samlak's daughter, Makeda. Sothis, Amenes's master builder, reports there has been an accident at the construction site of the treasury and begs for more time for his workers' sake, but Amenes is unmoved.
As Samlak and Makeda trek to Amenes, Ramphis, the son of Sothis, spots Makeda's despised Greek slave, Theonis. Entranced, he takes her home with him. When Ramphis tries to kiss Theonis, she playfully runs away toward the treasury, unaware that the penalty to approach the place is death. Ramphis chases after her, but they are caught and brought before Amenes.
Pharaoh sentences them both to be executed at dawn. Theonis throws herself at his feet and begs him to spare Ramphis, as it was all her fault. Amenes immediately falls under her spell. He offers to let Ramphis live in return for her. Theonis rejects him, but seeing Ramphis about to be crushed underneath a gigantic stone slab, she gives in. Amenes commutes Ramphis's sentence to a life working in the quarries; the prisoner is told that Theonis has been executed.
Amenes decides to make Theonis his queen, mortally offending King Samlak. Samlak raises his army and invades the country. Meanwhile, Ramphis triggers a rebellion at the quarry when he goes to the aid of a stricken fellow prisoner. He escapes in the confusion when the news of the invasion breaks.
Back in Amenes's city, Pharaoh prepares to lead out his army. Before he leaves, however, he demands that Theonis swear an oath not to take another man if he is killed in battle. When she refuses, he orders that she be sealed within the treasury. He has Sothis show him the secret entrance to the treasury, then has the builder blinded.
Samlak launches a surprise attack on Amenes's camp, routing the defenders. He personally shoots an arrow into the back of Amenes, causing him to fall from his fleeing chariot. Before he succumbs, Amenes asks Samlak not to harm Theonis.
Ramphis makes his way home. When he learns what has happened to his father and Theonis, he enters the treasury, intent on killing Theonis, blaming her for his father's blinding. However, when he sees her, he cannot go through with it.
Samlak marches on the city. He gives the terrified inhabitants a choice: give up their queen or he will sack the city. Theonis, apprised of the situation, decides to give herself up, but instead, Ramphis rallies the soldiers and prepares an ambush, having the army hide in and around the treasury, and lets Samlak break down the gates and enter the city. Then the Egyptians attack the unsuspecting and celebrating Ethiopian army. The Egyptians are victorious.
Queen Theonis chooses Ramphis as her king, to the delight of the soldiers. Then Amenes shows up, haggard but still alive. The chief priest tells him he has lost his throne, but that Theonis is still his wife. No one dares challenge the law of the gods. In desperation, Ramphis offers him back the throne in return for Theonis. When the couple leave the palace, the mob turns on them, stoning them to death, despite Amenes's attempt to stop it. Distraught, Amenes returns to his throne, then falls down dead. | romantic | train | wikipedia | Emil Jannings and Dagny Servaes Are Great.
Massive and brilliant restoration of this once-lost film is cause to celebrate.
This 1922 epic directed by Ernst Lubitsch boasts massive Egyptian sets, great costumes, a brilliant music score and several great performances.Twisting plot entwines the lives of Pharoah Amenes (Emil Jannings), a Greek slave girl Theonis (Dagny Servaes), a hero Ramphis (Harry Liedtke), and a vicious Ethiopian king (Paul Wegener).After Ramphis steals Theonis from the Ethiopian princess (Lyda Salmonova)and returns to Egypt, the Pharaoh spies her and instantly falls in love.
But he's already promised to return the slave girl to the Ethiopian king.
Pharaoh takes the woman, but she loves Ramphis.
After the lovers are caught in the treasury, Pharaoh condemns Ramphis to slave work in the quarries.
But Pharaoh does not return Theonis, so the Ethiopians start a war.Before he goes off to war, Pharaoh walls up Theonis in the treasury and blinds the architect (Albert Bassermann) so no one will find the entrance.
Amenes is presumed killed in battle and Theonis, technically Queen of Egypt gets to pick a new Pharaoh and she picks Ramphis.
But Amenes is not dead and soon returns to Egypt to find a new Pharaoh installed.Serpentine plot keeps the viewer guessing as the main characters are all bound up in various promises and oaths and star-crossed loves, and no one gets what he wants.Emil Jannings and Dagny Servaes are terrific.
While the rest of the cast overacts, it seems fitting for such a sprawling story set against massive Egyptian sets.The restoration of this film ranks among the great restoration projects, and the final result, despite some missing sections, is absolutely amazing.
Fascinating Egyptian epic.
I viewed an incomplete print of 'The Wife of the Pharaoh' that was reconstructed (from several sources) by Stephan Droessler of the Film Museum in Munich.
Even in remnant form, this is a phenomenal film: an epic piece of film-making, with 6,000 extras and elaborate sets.
'The Wife of the Pharaoh' is the nearest Ernst Lubitsch came to making a film like 'Metropolis'.'The Wife of the Pharaoh' was released in 1922, the same year that Englishman Howard Carter unsealed Tutankhamen's tomb ...
but at this time, much of the most important work in Egyptology was being done by Germans, and German interest in ancient Egypt was high indeed.
This film is set in dynastic Egypt (Middle Kingdom, by the look of it) ...
and the sets, costumes and props are vastly more convincing than anything done by Hollywood in this same era in films such as 'King of Kings', "Noah's Ark" and the Babylonian sequences of 'Intolerance'.There are of course a few errors in this movie: the elaborate Double Crown symbolising the two kingdoms of Egypt is the proper size and shape, yet the actors heft it about so easily that it's clearly a prop made from some improbably light substance.
The pharaoh receives papyrus scrolls bearing messages written in hieroglyphics; this is wrong (the messages would have been written in hieratic, and the king would probably require a scribe to read them on his behalf), yet somebody made a commendable effort to use the proper hieroglyphics ...
which is more than Universal Studios bothered to do in any of those 1930s mummy flicks.Emil Jannings gives an operatic performance as the (fictional) king Amenes.
The king of the Ethiopians (Paul Wegener), hoping to make peace with Egypt, offers his daughter Theonis to become the wife of Amenes.But Theonis falls in love with Ramphis, the handsome son of the king's adviser Sothis.
(Ramphis wears a hairdo stolen from Prince Valiant: one of the few really ludicrous errors in this film.) Amenes sentences the lovers to death, then offers to spare Ramphis from execution (sentencing him to hard labour for life) if Theonis will consent to love only Amenes.There are some truly spectacular scenes in this film, very impressive even in the partial form which I viewed.
Paul Wegener gives a fine performance as Samlak, king of the Ethiopians, but he looks like he escaped from a minstrel show: to portray an Ethiopian, Wegener wears blackface and body make-up, and a truly terrible Afro wig.
And since his daughter Theonis is presumably also an Ethiopian, why is she white?There are fine performances by Lyda Salmonova as a (white) Ethiopian slave-girl (the nearest equivalent to Aida in this operatic story) and by Albert Bassermann as the adviser who is spitefully blinded at the pharaoh's order.
Theodor Sparkuhl's camera work is superlative, as always, and the art direction is brilliant.
Although I viewed only an incomplete version of this film, I've read a surviving screenplay; the script (with some lapses in logic) is definitely the most ridiculous part of this film.
I'll rate 'The Wife of the Pharaoh' 9 out of 10..
Great Action Scenes Make Film.
The Loves of Pharaoh (1922) *** (out of 4)Imressive German epic from Ernst Lubitsch about the war that breaks out when an Ethiopian King (Paul Wegener) offers his daughter to a Pharaoh (Emil Jannings) but she then falls his love with one of his servants.
THE LOVES OF PHARAOH is a very impressive silent thanks in large part to the wonderful visuals and mammoth sets, which certainly make this rank right up there with the work that D.W. Griffith and Cecil B.
I think the most impressive thing is how massive the sets are and how many extras were used during the battle sequences.
There are some moments here that make you want to pause the film just so you can get a better look of everything that's going on.
The greatest sequence comes towards the end of the picture when we see a giant hill where the camera is pointing straight at it.
These scenes are just so big that you can't help but wonder how long it must have taken just to get one shot.
The performances are another major plus with Jannings doing an excellent job with the villain.
I also really enjoyed seeing Wegener here as the "look" from THE GOLEM is still here.
Lubitsch does a masterful job at building up all the action but I think the film's one flaw is the screenplay.
Epic Lubitsch.
As he is erecting a new treasury building in ancient Egypt, iron-fisted Pharaoh Emil Jannings (as Amenes) receives an offer of a pact with wild-haired rival Paul Wegener (as Samlak).
The Ethiopian king brings along his desirable light-skinned daughter to offer as a wife for Mr. Jannings.
Instead, Jannings is smitten with demure Greek slave girl Dagny Servaes (as Theonis), who has escaped from Mr. Wegener and his jealous daughter Lyda Salmonova (as Makeda).
Later, Jannings catches Ms. Servaes smooching with stout Harry Liedtke (as Ramphis), the treasury building worker who snatched her off the shores of the river Nile...Jannings is so madly in love with Servaes, he spares Mr. Liedtke a death sentence in order to win Servaes' hand.
Meanwhile, Wegener is miffed at Jannings for rejecting his daughter and understandably irate when he discovers their missing Greek slave girl has taken her place in the palace.
You can safely predict this means war...This silent epic led Ernst Lubitsch's entry into Hollywood, where his films, particularly those with Pola Negri, were wildly popular.
Partly preserved silent films by renowned directors are often declared lost masterpieces.
Like many, this film does not live up to those lofty description, but it is still an excellent spectacle.
The bulk of the film appears to have been digitally restored to pristine condition, by Thomas Bakels and his crew.
Art/set direction is outstanding.******* Das Weib des Pharao (2/21/22) Ernst Lubitsch ~ Emil Jannings, Dagny Servaes, Harry Liedtke, Paul Wegener.
A Luscious Restoration with a Breathtaking Score.
The fabulous restoration of this film alone makes it worth viewing.
It makes you realize that even though the movies were still silent in the 1920's, the quality of the film was first rate.Also extremely noteworthy of the version recently shown on TCM is the spectacular orchestral score, really one of the best.
Try to actively listen to the music if you can from time to time - especially in the late battle scenes, it is worthy of Wagner.The sets are over the top, and the cast begins as a cast of dozens, then scores, then hundreds, and then literally thousands as the climactic battle scenes are reached.
The Germans really outdid themselves here, easily matching the Hollywood spectacles of the same era.
With great skill, director Ernst Lubitcsh was able to interweave outlandish spectacle with a lot of close-up tragedy, perhaps having learned this technique from watching D.W. Griffith fliks.Unfortunately, the exaggerated emotive acting is a little painful to watch at times.
This is the kind of over-acting histrionics that would be mocked by some for many years after the advent of sound.The plot occasionally borders a bit on the unbelievable as well.
I think the silliest thing was when, early in the film, the pharaoh is about to sign a peace treaty with the Ethiopians, when suddenly he is informed that someone is "approaching" the Treasury!
In great shock, the king abandons the ceremony to deal with this incredible event personally!
Silly indeed.The actor playing the hero "Ramphes" may also have the ugliest haircut in the history of serious film.But these are minor distractions.
"The Loves of Pharaoh" is art, and it is movie history, and the glorious restoration makes it well worth viewing..
"Das Weib Des Pharao" (1922) has been one of the most anticipated silent film restorations released in this modernen year.
September saw the long awaited premiere of the film which was superbly restored thanks to the efforts of different European institutions.
This little known Herr Ernst Lubitsch movie of his German period is now available to the joy of silent film fans around the world.
"Das Weib Des Pharao" was the last film directed by Herr Lubitsch before he departed to Amerika where his career was very different in terms of artistic style and goals.
Certainly "Das Weib Des Pharao" is characteristic of his work during his Teutonic epoch.First of all, the film is "kolossal": magnificent décors, lavish and gorgeous costumes, crowd scenes astonishing in the number of extras employed.
This huge production and Herr Lubitsch's mastery transports the audience back to ancient Egypt.But "Das Weib Des Pharao", spectacular art direction and staging notwithstanding, is also a tormented love story, intimate and nuanced and combining seamlessly with the more spectacular dimension of the plot, the war between the king of Ethiopia Herr Samlak ( Herr Paul Wegener ) and the pharaoh Herr Amenes ( Herr Emil Jannings ).
The conflict begins when the king of Ethiopia invades Egypt because his daughter, Frau Makeda ( Frau Lyda Salmonova ) has been rejected by Herr Amenes due to his infatuation with Frau Theonis (Frau Dagny Servaies), namely slave of Frau Makeda.
To complicate matters, Theonis is in love with Herr Ramphis (Herr Harry Liedtke).
Theonis, against her will, becomes the Queen of Egypt.
Tragedy follows for all.This Herr Von was absolutely fascinated during the scenes between the pharaoh Amenes and the beautiful slave Theonis; Jannings' restrained performance shows all the pain and longing of unrequited love as he vainly tries to win her favour.
Some of the scenes are in lovely chiaroscuro; the cinematography by Herr Alfred Hansen und Herr Theodor Sparkhul is brilliant."Das Weib Des Pharao" is for this German count a very special Lubistch oeuvre, combining the characteristics of a "kolossal" picture with intimate melodrama.
None of the Lubitsch wit is on hand and there is certainly no humor in the film to lighten the story.
It remains serious all the way through and is without concessions, making it a very unique Lubitsch film whose rediscovery is a great gift to lovers of the Silent Era. And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count has an appointment with his beautiful Teutonic slave instead of one of his fat German heiresses..
It's hard to adequately judge the quality of this film, as large sections still are missing..
It is very difficult to adequately judge "The Loves of a Pharaoh" today.
Most of this is because the film has been pieced together--much like a jigsaw puzzle that is still missing a few pieces.
While the restored film is better than the insane re-creation of "London After Midnight" (where NONE of the original film exists and it is basically just a slide show with intertitle cards to fill in the gaps), it still isn't exactly complete.
About a half dozen times during "The Loves of Pharaoh", scenes are missing and intertitle cards and stills are employed.
Because of this, I am choosing not to give a numerical score for the film.
The story is set in ancient Egypt and I'd sure love to know exactly where it was filmed.
According to IMDb, it was filmed in Berlin--but what about the desert scenes with huge dunes--they sure don't look like Berlin!It begins with the king of Ethiopia pledging his daughter to the Pharaoh in order to cement an alliance.
However, soon after, the Ethiopian princess' slave, Theonis, is spirited away by the rather dumb Ramphis.
When Ramphis and Theonis are caught hiding in the Pharaoh's treasury, they are sentenced to death.
But, inexplicably, the Pharaoh is so smitten with Theonis that he agrees to instead send Ramphis to work as a slave and marries Theonis.
Considering he doesn't know this woman at all AND marrying her would bring on a war with Ethiopia, Pharaoh's behaviors seem irrational and silly.
See this epic silent and find out for yourself.While the acting and style of the film is rather dated (even compared to other silents), the film is still rather impressive.
It features a huge cast, terrific sets and lots of nice costumes.
So, while the story is very weak and overly melodramatic, the overall look of the film is nice.
Director Ernst Lubitsch clearly created an spectacle here--albeit one with a plot that needed a re-write as much of it just made little sense.
Worth seeing once and a chance to see Oscar-winning Emil Jannings in an early film role as the Pharaoh..
THE LOVES OF PHAROAH Stunning Reminder of Lubitsch's Masterly Handling of the Epic.
TCM presented a beautiful print of Ernst Lubitsch's Egyptian epic THE LOVES OF PHAROAH (1922).
Released by Paramount in the US, the film was Lubitsch's last feature in his home country of Germany before setting up camp in Hollywood.
(That's another story all together.) The "Lubitsch Touch" in his historically-based epics, such as CARMEN, MADAME DUBARRY, SUMURUN, or ANNA BOLEYN, is the director's ability to present us with the overwhelming sight of the plight of the crowd and then gradually direct our attention to a personal drama taking place within the epic sweep of time and destiny.
(He does so more genuinely than DeMille, who seemed to have imitated this approach.) Then, of course,there are the sexual situations, the uncontrollable attractions, and the inevitable rejections that determine the fates of the characters, a theme continued into the director's sophisticated comedies and, later, witty musicals that followed this film.
LOVES OF PHAROAH has stunning visual moments both large and small: the crowds working, revolting, being manipulated by rulers to the turning of Emil Jannings to a wall and dropping an outstretched hand, showing his reluctant realization of the futility of his affections.
The film is deliberately paced but never draggy.
Though there are moments of regret (the depiction of the Ethiopians is particularly stereotyped and inconsistent), this foray into Arabian exotica is a dramatic improvement over the stilted presentations seen in SUMURUN from a couple of years before.
With THE LOVES OF PHAROAH, Lubitsch reaches the apex of his epic years (though THE PATRIOT may have reached greater heights, though we'll never know until a print is found)..
Old German silent film set in ancient Egypt.
"Das Weib des Pharao" or "The Loves of Pharaoh" is a German movie from 1922, so this one will soon have its 100th anniversary already, only slightly over five years to go.
The director is early German filmmaking legend Ernst Lubitsch and he was around the age of 30 when he made this one, long before his Hollywood success.
Given the year, it should not be a surprise to anybody that this 100-minute movie is a black-and-white silent film.
And as with some other early films from Germany, it takes us into a world and culture that is fairly different compared to ours, especially compared to the fairly bleak years between World War I and the Nazis' rise to power here in Germany.Egypt is the center of the action here and like with many other early silent films, it is a mix of drama, costumes and romance as well.
The cast includes a handful of fairly successful silent film actors from back then, not just Emil Jannings, but also Harry Liedtke and Paul Wegener for example and if you have an interest in German movies from that time, then you will see more than just one or two familiar faces.
I myself have never been that big really on these very old silent films and sadly this one here cannot change my perception.
As many other times, I also felt that it lacks intertitles on many occasions, so that the actual story is fairly difficult to follow at times and the plot not too easy to understand.
Still, if you like the genre more than I do and maybe even care about films set in ancient Egypt, then this can be a pretty rewarding watch for your and I would not totally say that I don't recommend it to anybody.
However, if this description does not fit you, then maybe it is best to stay away or check out comes other silent films from the 1920s first (more known ones like "Metropolis" or other Fritz Lang works) before deciding to give this one a go. |
tt2289920 | Justice Is Mind | Henri Miller is a successful restaurateur and family man living the quintessential American dream. On the eve of the opening of his third restaurant while showing his proud minister father, Joseph, around his farm, Henri finally succumbs to a medical history that has trailed him since childhood—unexplained headaches that have increased in pain and intensity over the years.
Raced to Worcester Hospital, his family braces for the worst when Henri seemingly recovers in the emergency room without any medical intervention. Revealed that he has been secretly seeing a neurologist, his wife Margaret demands that Dr. Pullman disclose the medical history. With all but one test remaining, Pullman convinces Henri to have the new FVMRI procedure – an MRI-like machine that will read Henri’s long-term memory in video form.
Although Henri’s relationship with Joseph and his mother Maria has been recently cordial, Henri doesn’t want to relive his past, a past that will reveal the hatred he had for his father and detest for religion that has plagued him since a childhood exorcism.
When the FVMRI procedure apparently reveals that Henri shot and killed two people running away from him on his farm, all worry of his relationship with his father takes a backseat when this memory video excerpt is sent to the District Attorney who reopens a previous investigation involving Henri – two missing contractors who were responsible for losing Henri over $250,000.
Faced with the memory of a crime Henri doesn’t remember, the first Superior Court trial in Massachusetts with evidence introduced from the defendant’s own mind is soon underway. When the memory evidence of Henri allegedly shooting these two contractors is shown to the world, Joseph immediately falls ill in the courtroom having witnessed that exact memory before…in 1944.
With time running out and Henri’s guilt of second degree murder all but assured, counsel, family and friends search two continents for answers. Kept from the public and in the hands of the government, justice will finally reveal that Henri’s last bastion of privacy – his mind – will answer to all crimes – those of the present and those of a past forged in hatred, guilt…and the genocide of those long past. | murder | train | wikipedia | Fascinating view into what may very well be our future. It is not often that a film inspires me to do some study but with this film, Justice is Mind, I did just that. A fascinating look into what may very well become part of our future.A gripping story that revolves around a trial of the century. One in which what is viewed in ones mind becomes hard evidence against him. Can he be convicted because his brain recalls an event that he has no recollection of committing? What follows is a trial full of detail and intrigue. Admittedly, I don't like films based on trials yet this one was different. This filmmaker has a great story to tell and he does tell it in precise detail. Having done his homework, Mark Lund, the writer and director does a wonderful job of bringing out a compelling story full of intelligence and real life science. I commend him for his writing and story telling.Vernon Aldershoff, the films lead character, does a perfectly absorbing job of portraying Henri Miller the subject of the films trial. With near childlike innocence his grasp of Henri's struggle leaves the viewer loving and caring for him Guilty or not. Kim Gordon and Mary Wexler hold the arms of justice as prosecutor and judge. Both delivering such believable and watchable portrayals we are able to become so deeply invested in what evidence is discussed and presented. These ladies really make the trial feel real, feel important and feel like nothing less than a trial of the century.These New England actors and filmmakers should really be commended for what they have brought to the screen. It will be a long while before I ever forget the scenes so magically captured by these wonderful people. If you are looking for a film that is different on so many levels then look no further. Justice is Mind is not only a good film, it is a peek into our own judicial future.Christian Calloway www.IMDb.me/IamHollywoodHomeless. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE ACTING. Terrible acting. So bad I couldn't continue to watch this movie. It's an interesting concept, but a real struggle to get past the acting. |
tt0114345 | The Scarlet Letter | In June 1642, in the Puritan town of Boston, a crowd gathers to witness the punishment of Hester Prynne, a young woman found guilty of adultery. She is required to wear a scarlet "A" ("A" standing for adulteress) on her dress to shame her. She must stand on the scaffold for three hours, to be exposed to public humiliation. As Hester approaches the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd are angered by her beauty and quiet dignity. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses.
As Hester looks out over the crowd, she notices a small, misshapen man and recognizes him as her long-lost husband, who has been presumed lost at sea. When the husband sees Hester's shame, he asks a man in the crowd about her and is told the story of his wife's adultery. He angrily exclaims that the child's father, the partner in the adulterous act, should also be punished and vows to find the man. He chooses a new name – Roger Chillingworth – to aid him in his plan.
The Reverend John Wilson and the minister of Hester's church, Arthur Dimmesdale, question the woman, but she refuses to name her lover. After she returns to her prison cell, the jailer brings in Roger Chillingworth, a physician, to calm Hester and her child with his roots and herbs. He and Hester have an open conversation regarding their marriage and the fact that they were both in the wrong. Her lover, however, is another matter and he demands to know who it is; Hester refuses to divulge such information. He accepts this, stating that he will find out anyway, and forces her to hide that he is her husband. If she ever reveals him, he warns her, he will destroy the child's father. Hester agrees to Chillingworth's terms although she suspects she will regret it.
Following her release from prison, Hester settles in a cottage at the edge of town and earns a meager living with her needlework. She lives a quiet, sombre life with her daughter, Pearl. She is troubled by her daughter's unusual fascination by Hester's scarlet "A". As she grows older, Pearl becomes capricious and unruly. Her conduct starts rumours, and, not surprisingly, the church members suggest Pearl be taken away from Hester.
Hester, hearing rumors that she may lose Pearl, goes to speak to Governor Bellingham. With him are ministers Wilson and Dimmesdale. Hester appeals to Dimmesdale in desperation, and the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in Hester's care.
Because Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople are happy to have Chillingworth, a newly arrived physician, take up lodgings with their beloved minister. Being in such close contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth begins to suspect that the minister's illness is the result of some unconfessed guilt. He applies psychological pressure to the minister because he suspects Dimmesdale to be Pearl's father. One evening, pulling the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth sees a symbol that represents his shame on the minister's pale chest.
Tormented by his guilty conscience, Dimmesdale goes to the square where Hester was punished years earlier. Climbing the scaffold, he admits his guilt to them but cannot find the courage to do so publicly. Hester, shocked by Dimmesdale's deterioration, decides to obtain a release from her vow of silence to her husband.
Several days later, Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest and tells him of her husband and his desire for revenge. She convinces Dimmesdale to leave Boston in secret on a ship to Europe where they can start life anew. Renewed by this plan, the minister seems to gain new energy. On Election Day, Dimmesdale gives what is declared to be one of his most inspired sermons. But as the procession leaves the church, Dimmesdale climbs upon the scaffold and confesses his sin, dying in Hester's arms. Later, most witnesses swear that they saw a stigma in the form of a scarlet "A" upon his chest, although some deny this statement. Chillingworth, losing his will for revenge, dies shortly thereafter and leaves Pearl a substantial inheritance.
After several years, Hester returns to her cottage and resumes wearing the scarlet letter. When she dies, she is buried near the grave of Dimmesdale, and they share a simple slate tombstone engraved with an escutcheon described as: "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules" ("On a field, black, the letter A, red"). | historical fiction | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0075527 | Logan's Run | In the year 2274, the remnants of human civilization live in a sealed city contained beneath a cluster of geodesic domes, a utopia run by a computer that takes care of all aspects of their life, including reproduction. The citizens live a hedonistic life but, to maintain the city, everyone must undergo the ritual of Carrousel when they reach the age of 30. There, they are vaporized and ostensibly "renewed". To track this, each person is implanted at birth with a "life-clock" crystal in the palm of their hand that changes color as they get older and begins blinking as they approach their "Last Day". Most residents accept this promise of rebirth, but those who do not and attempt to flee the city are known as "Runners". An elite team of policemen known as "Sandmen", outfitted in predominantly black uniforms and serving in an agency of the city called "Deep Sleep", are assigned to pursue and terminate Runners as they try to escape.
Logan 5 and Francis 7 are both Sandmen. After terminating a Runner, to whose presence they were alerted during a Carrousel ritual, Logan finds an ankh among his possessions. Later that evening, he meets Jessica 6, a young woman also wearing an ankh pendant. Logan takes the ankh to the computer, which tells him that it is a symbol for a secret group whose members help the Runners find "Sanctuary", a mythical place where they will be safe to live out the rest of their lives; it points out that the Sandmen have lost one thousand and fifty-six (1,056) Runners that way. The computer instructs Logan to find Sanctuary and destroy it, a mission he has to keep secret from the other Sandmen of Deep Sleep, which it code-names "Assignment 033-03". It then, by a procedure it calls "retrogram", changes the color of his life-clock to flashing red, making him technically and suddenly four years older. In order to escape Carrousel, Logan is now forced to become a Runner. Logan meets Jessica and explains his situation. They meet with the underground group that leads them to the periphery of the city. Logan finds that the ankh symbol is actually a key that unlocks an exit from the city. They come out into a frozen cave, with Francis following closely behind. In the cave, they meet Box, a robot designed to capture food for the city from the outside. Logan discovers to his horror that Box also captures escaped Runners and freezes them. Before Box can freeze Logan and Jessica, they escape, causing the cave to collapse on the robot.
Once outside, Logan and Jessica notice that their life-clocks are no longer operational. They discover that the remains of human civilization have become a wilderness. They explore an old, seemingly abandoned city, which was once Washington D.C.. In the ruins of the United States Senate chamber, they discover an elderly man. His appearance is a shock to them since neither has seen anyone over the age of 30. The old man explains what he remembers of what happened to humanity outside the city, and Logan realizes that Sanctuary is a myth and had been all along. However, Francis has followed them and he and Logan fight. Logan fatally wounds Francis and as he dies, he sees that Logan's life-clock is now clear and assumes that Logan has renewed. Logan and Jessica persuade the old man to return to the city with them as proof that life exists outside the domed city. Leaving the man outside, the two enter and try to convince everyone that Carrousel is a lie and unnecessary. The two are captured by other Sandmen and taken to the computer. The computer interrogates Logan about Assignment 033-03 and asks if he completed his mission. But Logan insists, "There is no Sanctuary." What he had found was "old ruins, exposed", "an old man", and that the missing Runners were "all frozen". These answers are not accepted by the computer, even after scanning Logan's mind, and the computer overloads, causing the city's systems to fail violently and release the exterior seals. Logan, Jessica, and the other citizens flee the ruined city. Once outside, the citizens see the old man, the first human they have met who is older than 30, proving that they can indeed live their lives much longer. | sci-fi | train | wikipedia | Gregory Harrison was perfect as Logan and Heather Menzies was great as Jessica.
Logan's Run, based on the 1976 movie of the same name, was a good show.
Gregory Harrison was Logan, a Sandman, Heather Menzies was Jessica.
Donald Moffat played the android Rem. Logan's Run originally aired on Friday nights at 9:00 pm, but was bounced around the time slots so much by CBS that when it finally ended in 1978, CBS didn't care whether it survived or not.
(This often seems to be the case with shows that are too good.) I've no idea how it would hold up now, since it has never, to my knowledge, been repeated on British TV, but I have fond memories of this series.
My friends and I thought that Heather Menzies was very pretty, but we were especially impressed by the android, Rem. If "Lost In Space" and "Land Of The Giants" were my preferred viewing in the late 60s, "Planet Of The Apes" and "Logan's Run" (in their TV-series manifestations) were my shows of choice in the late 70s..
All of my friends and I thought that Heather Menzies was a goddess!!The fact that it ran for only 14 episodes makes the prospects of ever watching reruns (specially here in my country) so much harder!!
I saw "Logan's run" (the movie) yesterday and it reminds me of this TV series I used to watch a long time ago.The movie which I saw in a movie theater drastically wandered from the novel:for instance the part of sandman Francis would amaze people who only know the movies and the TV series.The TV episodes kept only Jessica,Logan and Francis and added REM ,a robot (but a human one ,not the nasty robot who freezes the fugitives).It roughly followed the pattern of "the fugitive" of the sixties ,although Francis did not appear in all the episodes.My favorite one was based on "the most dangerous game" and featured German actor Horst Buchholz as the hunter,Jessica and Logan being the preys.Unlike the movie,neither Jessica nor Logan showed love feelings and when REM hinted at it ,the heroine simply answered: "He's only a friend" .Correct me if I'm wrong ,but the last episode was not really an "end " :they probably intended to make more episodes.They did not,and it was too bad..
I didn't watch the Logan's Run tv series during it's original run, I actually watched it after I saw the 'Logan's Run' movie (feature film) on the TNT Network (USA): One of Ted Turner's networks.
The beautiful Melody Anderson was in a episode(Manimal tv series star).
REM was a great character and a cool idea.
One of Heather Menzies relatives was in the classic 'Things to Come' movie.
I did manage to get a rather poor quality video to DVD copy of all the episodes of this series.
The props and sets were tweaked and manipulated about as far as the budget would take them to create an imaginary dystopic future, complete with gun wielding bandits and robots gone haywire.Shot on a shoe string budget the shots and stories look like they were cranked out in record time.
Which is all the more shameful, for had this series just waited perhaps another eight months, then the powers that brought it into being could've drawn some very good lessons from Star Wars, and infuse some real production values into a series coasting off the diminishing wave of its feature film predecessor.
Instead we have a TV translation of a major motion picture, that, like a lot of TV series based off of major theatrical releases, really doesn't hold up to well.
And this is from a man who saw the 1980s revamp of Buck Rogers, and liked it.TV's "Logan's Run" is what it is; an attempt to bring some G-rated adventure from source material is firmly in R-territory.
I enjoyed it, and perhaps that's all that really matters.If you've got a hankering for retro-TV, then scope out the nearly forgotten "Logan's Run" TV series..
Time Has Not Been Good To This "Manhunt" Sci-Fic Series.
Logan's Run was hot stuff to my 12 year old eyes...even on my black and white television set!
Then, in Australia at least, the series vanished from the face of the earth for decades.Last year, I finally found it again on YouTube and discovered that time has not been good to Logan's Run. It looks too low budget and, since 1977 or 1978, I have seen a few "manhunt" television shows/movies and Logan's Run does not measure up to the others.
Logan's Run is one of my favorite shows from the mid 70's.
Obviously Universal won out over MGM TV with their series tho I always thought the MGM science fiction from the 50's - 60 - 70's was different, ideological & more enjoyable than the more mainstream format of other scifi TV series of this era, tho obviously MGM, in decline at this time, didn't have the same budgets to work with as Universal, Fox or Paramount.
This series was great, starring Gregory Harrison & the concepts original & engaging, even now for me.
The sets, costumes (other than the Sandmen's kit) & sfx are hammy, even camp, when it comes to the female kit & protagonists Logan & Jessica encounter, with glitter fabrics right out of a gay mardigras; probably from bolts of material left in the store house from the old MGM musicals era.The decaying MGM backlot is used to excellent effect in Logan's Run. There's something about TV series from the 60's 70's that apart from the nostalgia element has a aura all its own; is a similar feel with 'The Invaders from the mid 60's, another show I love.
The best episode from the most underrated television series from the 1970's, the aptly titled, "Man out of Time" entry, sings a story that can only be described as wonderfully compelling.
A man from the past drops in for a visit with Logan, Jessica and Rem. He's coy at first.
But will that also negate the births of Logan and Jessica, and the design and production of Rem?
"Logan's Run," the series, deserves a DVD release..
It's sad that it didn't have a longer run, or that it does not appear to have been re-shown at all.Donald Moffat as REM was the original android-that-looked-human.
Long before Brent Spiner and DATA came along, he was my favourite character of the show.The hover car looked suspiciously like one of those Citroen cars with the hydraulic suspension to me, With just a few bits bolted on and sprayed to look good.Like Star Trek and other "original" series, it'd probably be cringe-inducing to see it again now, but I'd still give it a watch..
I now realize it came before Star Wars, which makes it look even better to my eyes.
I recently got hold of all 14 episodes and am watching them all, one by one, and must say that I think the series is still great.
Of course it brings memories from those times in my life, but the way the stories are so naive is great.
The weak sexual tension between Logan 5 and Jessica 6 (the numbers instead of family names are also precious), the obvious reference to Mr. Spock in Rem's lines, the still great looking effects of the sandman's weapons...
While in this TV Series from 1977-78 of which it inspired It's set in the 24th Century and Logan and Jessica are in trouble with The Secret Society of Elders of whom are hidden behind the computers' voice saying "There's no Sanctuary." and Francis is offered a bonus to avoid "renewal" and sit on council with the elders via hunting down Logan and Jessica and bring them back alive and he knows the truth as well as they do in reality.In The Movie Francis is under The Impression that only Jessica changed Logan not knowing Logan was sent out on a mission In the Series Logan and Jessica don't really find love until the last episode.As you'll find out as the original series run got canceled before it was really finished with Logan willingly going back with Francis from the effect of the dart giving him temporary partial amnesia and Rem and Jessica have to go back to rescue him this is where the series' original run got canceled but with Logan,Rem,and Jessica leaving the city without it exploding like in end of The Movie and so it could go just a little bit further.Also before leaving Logan says "Sorry Francis."Then Francis responds "I bet!"and then Logan takes his weapons saying"You'll never admit it will you?"He then says "We've been through this before Sanctuary does not exist outside."he then said "No but Life does,that'll be all for now and you just stay put there until I'm gone."Later when other Sandmen come Francis Grabs one of the others' sensors to track down Logan and Jessica It was also in this episode that Jessica meet's up with her old friend who's an African-American woman who's surprised to see her again thinking that she thought she never would get to while in the movie none of these are seen.Also as I found out when I watched the reruns on TNT from 1990-91 season how there were a few more episodes including when they had a chance to eliminate Francis after Jessica pointed out how he hunted them & Logan also pointed out how Yes that's true but it was because of him that they were still alive and so that he instead chose to have him held back long enough for them to escape.As The episode of The Time Traveler from 2118 showed it's a typical plot that in someone trying to change history it only results in resulting causing it to happen in the first place.I really liked The Movie a lot and looked forward to the TV- Series but for the same reason that Science fiction is hard to carry off in a weekly series and that's one of the reasons why it got canceled it also couldn't have a happy ending like the movie did without getting canceled too soon too.Like "Planet of The Apes" and certain other TV Series'.This is more popular in reruns Please check out my Movie review for Logan's Run as well as all of my other reviews on IMDb too.Though when I guessed that there would be a Planet of the apes cartoon after the TV-Series and it came true and it was called "Return to The Planet of The Apes."But my guess then to follow that there would be a Logan's Run cartoon however didn't come true.Let's Also look forward to the movie remake of Logan's Run in the works since 2005 and as of the latest will be out in 2012.Also please check out the Novel Logan's Run as well as its 2 sequels of which are Logan's World and Logan's Search the latter in which without giving too much away Logan gets to fill in for his younger counterpart on a parallel earth.The Coauthor of the 1st novel William F.
Johnson is the other coauthor of the Novel of Logan's Run.P.P.S.If You want to look even further into the concept of Parallel Worlds?Then one way is the Sci-fi TV-show of "Sliders" of which had first premiered on The Fox Network and then upon there immediate release of letting it go it right immediately went on the Sci-Fi Network via being sold into first run syndication.As well as both Episodes of "Lois and Clark:The New Adventures of Superman and various Fox Cartoons Like "Crisis on Two Earths." and even the episode of "The World's Greatest Super Friends." entitled The Universe of Evil.Also other various TV-Shows..
It won for best special effects and is considered the film that lead the way for the Star Wars special effects.
May say mostly because that sci-fi what is produced this days is pretty much poor, mostly even not real sci-fi, rather some gore crap, some new age agenda disguised in sci-fi .I remember well movie - watched it in theater, just before joining army in 1977 :-)
Yes, they were pretty much poor, especially arm fire, those force field 'fences' - looked very cheap.It was good that it took very soon different path than movie.
What a terrible follow up to one of my favorite SF movies of all time!
It might have been good had it A)had some decent stories rather than simply making it a rip off of the Fugitive and B) had more than 10 dollars an episode for a budget.
Rather than slavishly follow the movie, it should have been a follow up to the movie, having Logan and Jessica and their people re-learn how to live in their new, unprotected world.
Logan's Run is easily the worst movie I've seen in two decades.
Back in the 1970s, almost every good movie wound up as a TV series, often with less than satisfactory results.
However, LOGAN'S RUN, like MASH, was not only better on TV, but aired by CBS as well.
Too bad CBS didn't give LOGAN'S RUN a chance to become the hit series that it deserved to be.Like the movie, our heroes managed to escape their Utopian city in pursuit of "sanctuary".
As a TV series, the potential to explore all kinds of strange civilians that evolved after the Holicaust which destroyed all civilization as we know it.My favorite episode involved Logan and Jessica having discovered the remains of an advanced civilization that had been abandoned with no evidence of violence or sickness.
It was as if everyone had simply packed up and gone away.Puzzled by this, Logan and Jessica investigate and discover some archives and a time machine.Seeing this as an opportunity to change history and prevent the holocaust from happening, Logan goes back into time to present day Washington DC, where he reads the newspapers about US/Soviet talks disintegrating and the threat of a nuclear war becoming more and more of a possibility.So Logan, in his futuristic costume, barges into the US Senate, warning them to resume talks and search for a lasting peace, or else!
The elected officials actually believe him and take his advice, thanking him for the warning and Logan is treated as a hero.Patting himself on the back for a job well done, he goes back to his time, expecting to see a better world.
She directs him to the archives and he sees himself in the news.Next, he sees that the Soviet Union demands that the US hand over its time machine.The US replies that it has no time machine.The Soviets accuse the US of lying and backs its demands with a nuclear strike.The US denies having a time machine.The Soviets react with a nuclear strike.Jessica then tells Logan, "You caused the holocaust!" The memory of this episode, after over 26 years, still gives me a chill.Too bad this series doesn't see the light as a DVD release..
Logan's Run follows in the time-honored Hollywood attempt to translate film success into a TV franchise.
Now, thanks to a surprising commercial DVD release, I had a chance to catch up on this buried treasure.The pilot replays the basic thread of the movie, using footage from the film, with new opticals for the flameouts on Carousel.
Logan joins Jessica on the run, while Francis is dispatched by a newly revealed council of elders (which seems like a hard thing to conceal).
Logan and Jessica find a living world outside their domed city and quickly discover other people.
They continue on their journey to find Sanctuary, with Francis in hot pursuit.Gregory Harrison, Heather Menzies, and Randy Powell are fine as the three central characters, though not quite in the same league as their movie counterparts.
Donald Moffat steals every scene as REM, our series Spock; which brings up a troubling point.
The series seems to mine a lot of Star Trek plots, with people split into good and evil sides, alien prisons of the mind, and fantasy made reality.
There are plot holes, like how other Sandmen join Francis on the hunt, yet no one else seems affected by what they see outside their domed city.
It's not Star Trek, but that series has its hit and miss moments, too.
I remember seeing Logan's Run the TV series as a kid and being addicted.
I've recently saw the series reran on cable here in the UK,full marks to Gregory Harrison,he is perfect as Logan,Donald Moffatt as the android Rem,is great and he steals every scene,he's in with his wit.
Heather Menzies is likable as Jessica,but the creators were clearly going for a Farrah Fawcett look,hair and lip gloss,and credibility takes a nose dive with Jessica's perfect hair and make up as she and Logan run for their lives.
The real threat of death was removed as Francis was instructed to bring Logan and Jessica back to the City of Domes alive rather than dead,Francis not as frightening as he was in the film and indeed,he doesn't appear in a large number of episodes.
fugitives Logan and Jessica flee from a supposed Utopian city in a post-holocaust future.
LOgan's Run is yet another TV effort to cash in on the science fiction book Star Wars, and to some degree Close Ecounters of the Third Kind set off in the 1977/1978 period.
I tried to see all science fiction, or fantastic genre TV series in the 1970s at least most of the time.
I don't think I have actually seen any of LR-the TV series even on VHS since it first sired, but I enjoyed what of them I can recall.
Gregory Harrison, and the lovely Heather Menzies fit the parts of Logan and Jessica well.
There was also a very short-run comic from Marvel based on the series of which I have seen a few copies, and seem easy to find for comics fans.
Both this series, and the 1976 feature film were based on the novel Logan's Run by William F. |
tt0031831 | Q Planes | In September 1938, advanced British aircraft prototypes carrying experimental and secret equipment are vanishing with their crews on test flights. No one can fathom why, not even spymaster Major Hammond (Ralph Richardson) or his sister Kay (Valerie Hobson), a newspaper reporter, who is working undercover in the works canteen used by the crews at the Barrett & Ward Aircraft Company.
At first Major Hammond is seen as an outsider at the aircraft factory, especially by Mr. Barrett, the owner (George Merritt), who is working under a government contract but he soon finds a friend in a star pilot, Tony McVane (Laurence Olivier) who helps him try to solve the case. Hammond becomes convinced that Jenkins (George Curzon), the company secretary at the factory, is a foreign agent and mole but Jenkins is killed by unseen gunmen before he can give up the names of his contacts.
McVane returns to the aircraft factory, determined to make the next test flight. His aircraft, like the others, is brought down by a powerful ray beamed from the S.S. Viking, a mysterious salvage ship manned by a foreign crew. Although the nationality of the crew and agents aboard the Viking is only implied, it was understood by audiences: "All of the crew speak with German accents and little doubt is left who the villains are," wrote Variety.
Along with his aircraft, McVane and his flight crew are taken hostage on the ship, where he discovers many other missing airmen have suffered the same fate. Gathering up weapons, McVane leads the British survivors in an attempt to take control of the ship. Major Hammond learns the truth and directs a Royal Navy ship (HMS Echo) to come to their rescue. Kay and McVane form a relationship and Hammond learns, to his chagrin, that his long-time lady friend, whose plans with him are repeatedly being cancelled as the action escalates, has married someone else. | murder | train | wikipedia | A secret British aviation project is being disrupted by a foreign power, until an effete but supremely confident intelligence agent, Charles Hammond, is assigned the case.
What follows is a tense espionage thriller that refuses to take itself seriously.
Yet strangely, this odd mixture of screwball comedy and political potboiler actually works.
"Q Planes" (released in America as "Clouds Over Europe") was directed by an American, Tim Whelan, who establishes a near-anarchic tone throughout.
Here, he satirizes what other late-1930's filmmakers may have considered too serious a subject to examine lightly: a potentially disastrous affair for King and country, in which experimental aircraft are being "electronically" hijacked right out of the sky and docked within the confines of a large ship from a hostile nation.
(The culprits' nationality is never identified, but as soon as they speak their lines in that thick Teutonic accent, we can just about guess their origin.) The dialogue, much of it written and improvised by the actors themselves, is crackling, smart; and the action, while wildly improbable and clumsily staged, is as unreal and stylized as the characters.
As portrayed by Ralph Richardson, he boasts to anyone who will listen of his own considerable skills as a solver of crimes, a solver of crossword puzzles, and a solver of lovers' squabbles.
Richardson plays him as an eccentric of many shades and interests – horse-racing addict, amateur master chef, verbal wit extraordinaire, constant belittler of his "gentleman's gentleman" (Gus McNaughton), and a man whose obsession with the intrigue of his case causes him to repeatedly ignore his beloved Daphne (Sandra Storme), the single character who bests Hammond in the film's fittingly ironic conclusion.
Hammond is aided on the case by his intrepid sister-reporter, Kay (Valerie Hobson), and a temperamental test-pilot, Tony McVane (Laurence Olivier), whom Kay picks up while snooping around an aircraft factory.
Kay's character may have been intended as a caricature of the "liberated" working English suffragette.
But she holds her own when competing with her two male cohorts - McVane, who hates reporters and let's rip whenever he hears mention of Kay's profession, and Hammond, the charismatic, ardent egoist-as-detective.
"I'm right - and the whole world is wrong!" Naturally, Hammond's irregular method of sleuthing bears out his claim – as if any enemy country could measure up in a contest against single representatives of MI-5, Fleet Street, and the RAF..
The young Oliver and Richardson -- especially Richardson -- are obviously having a ball in this mix of spies, high adventure, and tongue in cheek comedy According to Michael Powell, the two stars tore up the script, and devised their own scenes, and the pleasure they have in sending up the material, and in each other's work, shines through.
(In fact, once or twice, Oliver seems to be trying not to crack up at Richardson's antics.) Patrick Macnee says he based The Avengers' John Steed on Richardson's character in this film, and that, too, shows.
Thrills, spills,secret rays, gags and eccentric British characters, and villains from a country suspiciously reminiscent of Germany, but not named in 1938..
Some 20 years before Ian Fleming started writing about these things, it's nice to know that the British Secret Service was on the job and apprehending spies and saboteurs even if they're a bit slow to catch on at times.
With a little inside help from the air plant, some Teutonic looking gentleman have perfected a ray that immobilizes airships and brings them down real nice on the ocean.
It's of concern to test pilot Laurence Olivier, to British agent Ralph Richardson, and to news reporter Valerie Hobson.Hobson and Richardson are brother and sister.
As you can imagine his job involves secrecy and undercover work and Hobson's from the Lois Lane school of journalism.
She also falls for Olivier while she's undercover working as a waitress at a coffee shop near the plane factory.Q Planes must have been seen as wildly fantastic by the 1939 audience, but two generations who saw Sean Connery and Roger Moore engage in even wilder derring-do than is shown in this film, would regard Q Planes as all in a day's work.
Olivier and Hobson are fine, but Richardson steals the film whenever he's on screen.
Q Planes will never be ranked as in the top 10 of any of these players, but it's a nice breezy espionage comedy/drama made a lot better by some of the greatest thespian talent in the English speaking world of the last century..
Classic British wartime romp.
When newly developed planes being disappearing during testing with no trace a police Inspector and a test pilot begin to look into the possibility of espionage within the company.Wartime dramas are very much of a standard affair feel good affairs where we beat the Germans.
This is very much one of those the story is very flimsy and unlikely but it manages to have plenty to commend it.
The story is carry by the comedy and the characters that make you overlook the sheer unlikely way in which the planes vanish.
The story progresses to the inevitable shootout between the Brits and the Germans but on the way there's plenty to enjoy.The film is mainly saved by a wonderful performance by Ralph Richardson as the inspector he is funny from the first scene and his character is wonderfully charming and forgetful.
Olivier is also good, but it's not his best!
The supporting cast of sassy women and foolish businessmen also add to the mix to make for an enjoyable romp.Overall this isn't a classic but the comedy and a superb Richardson makes this better than the sum of it's parts..
It's all Olivier and Richardson.
The two stage actors rattle off the rapid-fire dialogue like two Spitfires in a dogfight.
Rollicking good fun.
Everyone involved with this brisk comedy/thriller seems to be enjoying themselves immensely.
It's a ripping yarn about spies, disappearing planes and a secret ray gun, lit up by Olivier and Richardson, with lots of cheerful gags along the way.
It's dated, of course, but if you can leave that aside it's still good fun..
Some very "James Bond" elements, 25 years earlier.
Experimental craft are disappearing.
Because villain uses a ray to disable the craft, then captures craft and crew intact.
There must be half a dozen Bond films with this plot.
The villian's henchmen are also very much in the Bond mold - running all over the ship like so many ants in an ant colony.
Only difference is that these henchmen are more realistic; they are harder to kill, and are better shots..
Beneath the British B-picture exterior lies a hidden gem of an espionage thriller.
Q PLANES is briskly paced and delightfully entertaining, balancing exciting spy intrigue with lighthearted character moments.
The villains' dastardly scheme foreshadows James Bond villainy to come, and one can almost hear the John Barry music swell up during certain scenes.The film is anchored by Ralph Richardson in a droll performance as a slightly Holmesian secret service man: undeniably brilliant, if a tad eccentric and prone to absent-mindedness.
The triumvirate of stars is completed by Laurence Olivier as a pilot (and all-around good guy) and Valerie Hobson, who we learn is a newspaper reporter out looking for a scoop (in the grand tradition of such characters).Top-secret experimental planes are disappearing under mysterious circumstances and Richardson is doing everything he can to get to the bottom of it.
The main cast of Richardson, Olivier, and Hobson are great together and the movie manages to blend real comedy with real excitement.
This little-known British thriller is a real winner.
It's lots of fun and a wonderful surprise.
Very pleasant classic, never mind the little perforations..
A 'Korda Collection' classic film and I shan't part with my videocassette - 'Tiger' comic script and stilted dialogue notwithstanding.
Doesn't even matter that McVane appears to take off in a different airplane to that which is captured and seen in flight.
Only trouble with Valerie Hobson is she retired too early..
Fun. You really can't go wrong with Ralph Richardson in a cast, and it holds true with "Clouds Over Europe," a 1939 film that also stars Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson.
It's pre-WW II, and Richardson plays a secret service man in England who is convinced that a series of missing planes from diverse places is no accident.
He's convinced the planes are being sabotaged, but by whom, and why?
Olivier plays one of the pilots, and he's funny as well as handsome.
Valerie Hobson is a reporter in an adversarial relationship with Olivier.
She turns out to be related to someone else in the film.But it's Richardson who steals the show with his eccentric portrayal of Major Charles Hammond, a man who always forgets his umbrella and returns for it.
He helps to give this affair a lightheartedness that makes it enjoyable.Recommended for its very good British cast..
Essential Comedy.
As a confirmed Ralph Richardson fan, I can say that this is one of his best performances.
I watch it happily avery several years or so and always come away delightfully entertained..
I've probably seen it ten times and I always laugh at the same bits..
instead it is a fun little espionage piece with a witty script with its tongue placed firmly in its cheek.
Set during the tense years preceding the outbreak of WWII, the Brits are losing experimental aircraft (the titular Q Planes) in mysterious circumstances, and Ralph Richardson's character is head of a government agency out to discover whats really going on, whilst Valerie Hobson is seemingly a spy for a foreign power, trying none-too-subtly to extract information from a bemused, cynical test pilot played by Laurence Olivier just before he headed off to bigger things.The tone of the film is set from the initial scene, which opens with a composed, but confused Richardson trying to work out what he's doing in a trashed room, why he's surrounded by police, and what the heck his own name is.Aside from a fun plot & great cast, there are some neat period aircraft up for viewing, for those with an interest in such things.
Some other interesting tidbits that Wikipedia turned up are that airfield shots in the film were filmed at Brooklands (an early center of aviation & motor racing) and that the film was apparently based off actual events where the British government believed that the Germans were behind the downing of an experimental plane over the English Channel, so they helped fund this movie to let the Germans know that they were on to them, without any messy diplomatic unpleasantness being needed..
Produced before WW-II, this is a sort of British equivalent of the Saturday-matinée thrillers they used to produce in the U.S. by the hundreds in those days.
However, this particular example sports A-List British stars Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Valerie Hobson.
The story involves a nefarious plot by foreign agents to steal the newest British airplanes, and the efforts of an eccentric intelligence agent, a female reporter and a heroic pilot to thwart them.
It's strictly comic-book stuff but these three pros, and particularly Ralph Richardson, lift the material up above the level of mediocrity.This was early in Olivier's career, before he made "Withering Heights", the movie on which he admittedly learned how to act in movies.
Olivier was still clearly not entirely at home in front of the camera.On the other hand, Valerie Hobson was a major British film star and was at the peak of her relatively short career at the time this movie was produced.
However, this is clearly Richardson's movie.
He is delightfully hilarious as an eccentric British Intelligence agent, and milks every scene he is in for all it is worth.
When Richardson and Olivier share the same scene Olivier doesn't stand a chance.
One of my all-time favorite actors, Ralph Richardson was one of those versatile British actors who seemingly could turn his hand to everything, from Shakespearean tragedy to low comedy, with equal grace.
Small wonder that, when Terry Gilliam had to cast an actor to play the role of "The Supreme Being" in "Time Bandits", he chose Ralph Richardson.
After all, if there is a God, doesn't it stand to reason that He would have to be something like Ralph Richardson?If you don't mind checking your mind at the door this is the perfect movie with which to sit back and enjoy some vintage fun..
Good.....could have been better..
"Clouds Over Europe" (also known as "Q Planes") is a film that has been mischaracterized by some as a 'wartime' picture, though it actually came out several months before WWII began.
Additionally, although the baddies in the film COULD have been Germans, no mention of their nationality is given and most have very British accents.Several experimental planes have been lost around the world.
In each case, no trace of the planes ever turned up and the Major (Ralph Richardson) is convinced someone is behind this.
Good thing that a hot-shot pilot (Laurence Olivier) is out to help the Major.In some ways, it's a very good film.
I love some of the main characters-- particularly the Major .
When it comes to the characters, this is the big strength of the movie.
The story idea also is quite nice.
What is NOT so nice is how easily the baddies are beaten at the end of the film.
Why would they allow the planes' crews to live and have ANY opportunity to fight back?!
With a better handled ending, it easily could have scored an 8 or 9..
No wonder that this picture anticipates Bond by 25 years, it was co written by Jack Whittingham, who was one of the principle architects of the movie version of James Bond.
Whittingham shares a credit on the film, and the novel, Thunderball, which was originally intended to be the first James Bond picture.
More than a few of the classic Bond tropes are contained in the story--it actually points to Dr No (bringing down planes electronically) and to so many of the Bond stories that have huge battles at the end, with the hero freeing, and/or working alongside troops of one kind or another..
Hobson's Choice.
The great Ralph Richardson not only walks away with this film but makes Laurence Olivier look as wooden as Richard Todd, John Gregson, Laurence Harvey and Richard Pasco combined.
Both primarily actors in the theatre they had appeared in something like ten or twelve movies apiece (including The Divorce Of Lady X in which they both played) but whilst Richardson is laid-back and thoroughly at home before the camera Olivier is self-conscious in the extreme and about as believable as a pilot as Stan Laurel would be as a thoracic surgeon.
It's all very Boy's Own Paper with a fair quota of sloppiness in the writing - no explanation of why Richardson is sleeping in a building that is being raided by police and nothing more said of the raid, for example, plus George Merrit's character - supposedly a hard-headed businessman who has built up an airplane factory yet is portrayed as a buffoon.
All this is forgiven whenever Richardson is on screen which, luckily for us - and tough for Olivier - is virtually throughout the running time..
Comedy Thriller..
It's 1938 and Britain is gearing up for war by testing secret devices in their airplanes.
Unfortunately, the airplanes are disappearing over the sea once airborne.
Ralph Richardson, an intelligence officer, and Lawrence Olivier, a pilot, come independently to the same conclusion.
-- namely that there's a spy in their midst and -- SURPRISE!
-- there is a spy in their midst.
The spy makes an error and is bumped off by his irate colleagues, just like all the other enemy spies who make mistakes in other movies.There are several familiar names in the cast, including Richardson and Olivier, who at first play rivals.
They rush through their lines the way they rush through the rooms, flipping off some neat wisecracks along the way.Valerie Hobson has the part of Richardson's nosy journalist sister, which means that Olivier gets the girl.
Here she poses as a counter waitress in order to get stories for her paper and she trades unchaste and speedy quips with the best of them.
It has to do with some kind of ray invented by Marconi that disables airplanes in flight at a distance, bring them down into the hands of "those fellows." If the production values weren't as high as they are, if the performances weren't so professional, and if the wit were lower, it could be a Charlie Chan movies, or Mr. Wong, or Fu Manchu.
As it is, it's rather fun..
The film, though a good one, seems to have a rushed up ending to draw to the climax as soon as possible.
I guess that is called film budgeting.Ralph Richardson, in a way, is comedic here and that was something different for the veteran screen star.
As the head of the bureau, he is often right exactly where the action is, while he has to constantly disappoint a female dinner date who can't get to tell him something.The film involves planes with special secretive equipment mysteriously disappearing throughout the world as the war clouds in 1939 are gathering.
Laurence Olivier is one of the pilots and he makes sure that when one plane is downed, it doesn't have the necessary material leading the spy ring involved to kill the British employee who was in cahoots with them and thus opening a Pandora's box.Valerie Hobson is a waitress whose shifty eyes and questioning reveals that she is much more than a waitress- a newspaper reporter itching to get information on exactly what is going on.
Coincidentally, she is the sister of the Richardson character and soon the love interest of Olivier.Would have rated this even higher had it not been for the rather quick ending to a sordid affair. |
tt0098206 | Road House | James Dalton (Patrick Swayze) is a professional "cooler" (i.e. specialized doorman, or bouncer) with a mysterious past who is enticed from his current job at a club in New York City by Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe) to take over security at his club/bar, the Double Deuce, in Jasper, Missouri. Tilghman plans to invest substantial money into the club to enhance its image, and needs a first-rate cooler to maintain stability.
Arriving in Jasper, Dalton eventually takes lodging at a local farm owned by Emmett ("Sunshine" Parker). He attracts attention driving his 1965 Buick Riviera and having a quiet demeanor—contrasting with the tough locals. Dalton's "real" car is a 1986 Mercedes 560SEC with New York license plates, which he keeps hidden (at a private garage and later under a car cover in his landlord's barn in Jasper) because it becomes a target for disgruntled bar patrons. Dalton is soon introduced to local business magnate (and next door neighbor) Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara), who appears to have a stranglehold on the town; little happens without his knowledge and approval. In the course of cleaning up the violent nightclub, Dalton dismisses several unruly and corrupt employees, some of whom are connected with Wesley. After one particularly violent night where Dalton is forced to physically remove Wesley's henchmen, he suffers a knife wound. Going to the hospital for stitches, he strikes up a friendship with Dr. Elizabeth "Doc" Clay (Kelly Lynch), which develops into a romantic relationship.
Wesley summons Dalton to his home in a seemingly innocent attempt to make peace, but has an ulterior motive: Wesley would like Dalton to work for him once he extorts Tilghman's club. When Dalton declines, Wesley begins an assault on Dalton's friends, including interfering with liquor deliveries to the Double Deuce. Dalton's mentor, legendary but aging cooler Wade Garrett (Sam Elliott), arrives in town after a disconcerting phone call from Dalton and helps him defend a liquor shipment from Wesley's thugs.
That evening, local business owner Red Webster's (Red West) auto parts store is destroyed by a fire after he refuses to give ground to Wesley's persistent extortion demands. Dalton, not wanting to exacerbate matters, allows Wesley and his men entrance to the club that night. The next day, car dealership owner Pete Stroudenmire becomes Wesley's next victim when he also refuses to pay. As a result, Wesley has one of his thugs, Gary Ketchum (Anthony De Longis), demolish the dealership and crush four station wagons in the showroom with his monster truck (BIGFOOT #7) as Dalton and his friends look on with contempt.
That night, Doc visits Dalton and attempts to persuade him to leave. However, their conversation is interrupted by a powerful explosion at Emmett's house next door. Dalton rescues Emmett from the blaze before his house is destroyed. He then witnesses one of Wesley's henchmen, Jimmy (Marshall Teague), fleeing the scene, and manages to intercept him. After a vicious fight, Dalton kills Jimmy by ripping out his throat with his bare hand. The next morning, Dalton receives an ominous phone call from Wesley, who vows to have either Wade or Doc killed. At that moment, Wade staggers into the Double Deuce, badly beaten but alive. Believing Doc to be in danger, Dalton races to the hospital, but she refuses to leave with him, repulsed by his increasingly violent nature. Upon returning to the Double Deuce, Dalton finds Wade sprawled out on the bar with a knife lodged in his chest. Deeply in tears but also enraged, Dalton pulls the knife free and jumps into his car, determined to settle the score with Wesley.
Driving his Mercedes, Dalton speeds recklessly toward Wesley's estate. The car draws gunfire from Wesley's henchmen but when it crashes they discover the car empty, and the knife that was used to kill Wade stuck in the accelerator. Using the distraction, Dalton sneaks onto the estate on foot and, one by one, dispatches each of Wesley's thugs, eventually coming face-to-face with Wesley. Dalton gains the upper hand in their fight and prepares to finish Wesley in the same brutal manner as Jimmy, but decides against it. As Dalton releases him and walks away, Wesley seizes the opportunity to reach for a gun, but is promptly shot to death by Red, Emmett, Stroudenmire, and Tilghman. They stash the weapons away prior to the arrival of law enforcement and proceed to corroborate each other's innocence, with the implication that what happened in Wesley's house will remain a secret.
The final scene finds Dalton and Doc enjoying each other's company in a swimming hole, suggesting that they do get together and Dalton remains in town for good. | suspenseful, murder, violence, cult, good versus evil, humor, romantic, revenge | train | wikipedia | For all I know it was filmed either at Uncle Ron's or El Matador here in town!Road House is the story of a bouncer hired to clean up a rough bar in a tiny town.
The line focuses on the supposed size of Swayze's package, and the size vehicle his seed could fill.The film is filled with bar fights that eventually turn into shootouts, hot women, fast cars, monster trucks, explosions, you name it.
The whole thing plays out like a typical night on the town for us yokels here in the red states.The film comes in surprisingly long at 114 minutes, but don't worry.
Patrick Swayze's best action movie he ever did my personal number 1 favorite.
Road House (1989) is my personal favorite number 1 film from Patrick Swayze.
It is my third favorite Patrick Swayze movie and It is a action martial arts classic childhood!
My mom loved to watching him in her favorite miniseries North and South it was her favorite show that she talked about with me.Plot: Dalton (Patrick Swayze) is the best bar bouncer in the business, but he's anything but "typical." He's a little small for his trade, has a degree in philosophy and he believes in "being nice." But when he's hired to clean up the Double Deuce in the small town of Jasper, he's pushed to his breaking point.
Now it's "no more nice guy" for Dalton as he starts busting heads, leading him to the all-time, no-holds-barred, butt whooping showdown of the century.There is a lot of action in this film, a lot of kickboxing and a lot's of fights in it.
Road House is my favorite film, it has a lot of action and kickboxing fight scenes, Patrick Swayze does a really good job playing a hero for an late 80's action flick it is pretty good and I love it.
Road House is a film that I will always cherish and I definitely don't agree with people who doesn't like this film.You have an epic martial art's fight between Dalton (Swayze) and Jimmy (Marshall Teague) watch the fight carefully Dalton uses eagle claws technique when kills Jimmy.
The grueling work put in by the actors is visible in their strained expressions adding that no-holds-barred street fight feel to a fight scene packed with some excellent technical maneuvers.I love the beautiful music score on the end of the film When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky by The Jeff Healey Band which is very beautiful song on the end of the credits.
I love the final showdown between Dalton and Wesley on the end of the movie and the happy ending.This film is directed by Rowdy Herrington who made some pretty good movies that I like, Gladiator and Striking Distance with Bruce Willis which is definitely my Bruce Willis's favorite action thriller film.
- Patrick Swayze (1952 - 2009) I really miss you so much and I wish you could do more bad ass action movies, I am your biggest fan and so was my mom we all miss you and we all love you, I love you to death!
Road House (why doesn't THAT film get the cult/appreciation/notice of this POS), Uncommon Valor, Steel Dawn (underrated) and Black Dog are my top 4 favorite Patrick Swayze movies he ever did!
That legendary year saw the theatrical release of three of Hollywoods most beloved films-the Hulk Hogan opus No Holds Barred, the Sylvester Stallone masterpiece Over the Top(OK, I guess that came out in 1987,but it has a totally 1989 vibe) and our current topic of discussion, Road House.Master auteur Rowdy Herrington has taken the archetypes from ancient mythology (the hero fated to undertake an impossible task, the wise elder who guides the hero, and the villain who the hero must confront)and crafted a tale as powerful and everlasting as any of the classical myths.Dalton, the worlds greatest (or second greatest, depending on who you ask) cooler is given the Herculean task of cleaning up the Double Deuce, a honky tonk bar so vile they sweep up eyeballs with disturbing regularity.
The acting leaves a lot to be desired, and the dialog is pure corn, but it fills the "guilty pleasure" category like a glove.While others like Dirty Dancing, this movie will always define Patrick Swayze to me.
In his memory, I will watch it over and over.It will be the movie that reminds me of how attractive Kelly Lynch is.It will remind me why I like Sam Elliott.It will remind me why Ben Gazzara is perfect as Boss Hogg.It's not art, it's pure entertainment, and why I will always remember Swayze.Besides, it has one of the best soundtracks around..
Patrick Swayze plays the best bar bouncer in the world, hired by Marshall Teague to clean up his rowdy bar, the Double Deuce.
A good example of how a great B-movie should be made.It entertains and gives the fans of it's genre straight up satisfaction without expecting the audience to take the whole story too seriously.Much like reading a good comic book.Here we have a good action comedy/drama with good action choreography and a simple plot of good versus evil and why each side does what it does.The acting is adequate and the cast chosen here was also good.The production values were all average but still,the overall flow of the movie just delivers for all those fans who understand B-action movies.This is the Swayze and Elliot I love........
The film follows James Dalton (Patrick Swayze) a cooler (bouncer) and the best in the business, as he takes employment with Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe) the owner of the Double Deuce in Jasper, Missouri.
The film has a great cast including Patrick Swayze, Kevin Tighe, Ben Gazzara, Kelly Lynch, Marshall R.
I am stopping my interest in (new) movies now.Road House has brawny men, nice women, bad women, thin women, available women, fighting, music and rowdiness.
We get lines like, "I f--- guys like you in prison!" "The Double Douche?" "Come on, chicken dick!" "You're too stupid to have a good time." "God, I love the way Don Knots makes love." The movie has tons of violence, a bar fight every 15 min.
I've never seen a fight with so many perfectly pointed toes.Dalton's love interest (a blonde doctor with a family of five living in her giant hair) inexplicably wears a picnic-table cover throughout the entire movie.And we have a musical cameo!
The movie has its own rules and an internal structure mostly explained by the character of Dalton (Swayze), a supervisor of bouncers termed a Cooler.
(I lied about the lady doctor thing, the mere thought of it makes me uncomfortable.)Sure, its can be a little too intellectual for some; a little bit pretentious and some could argue, conceptually grandiose.But so what?Road house in essence is an artistic masterpiece, and as with all good art, it stakes you down and rakes your psyche over the hot coals of morality and dares you to ask the hard questions.Questions like:
Roadhouse have it all.Action: Kicks and punches everywhere by Patrick and his mentor (a drunk and cool buddy who arrives to see how is the life of his pupil and clean a few bad guys in his travel.Terror: The person who owns the town is THE BEST VILLAIN IN CINEMA HISTORY (a nomination for the razzie awards for worst actor???
Everything with it is just perfect, from music to fight scenes, best action movie Swayze ever did !.
(Well, actually Wade Garrett is the best, but he's getting old.) This philosophy-major-turned-bouncer is hired to clean out the Double Deuce, the kind of place where they sweep up the eyeballs after closing.While whipping his rag-tag group of bouncers into shape, Pat crosses the path of Ben Gazarra, the evilest man in Jasper.
Patrick Swayze plays a "cooler" who's hired to clean up a rowdy bar in Kansas (actually filmed in Valencia and Canyon Country, CA).
A "B" movie with so many stereotypes, bad lines, poor acting, naked boobs (at least in the video version), and actors who went from nowhere to....more nowhere, it makes it fun to watch.Patrick Swayze looks like an Oscar caliber actor in this one, but so what?
At times Julie Michaels hair looks like it is made of plastic.Badguy rednecks abound (complete with a monster truck!), the good guys win, a hero is killed, another hero gets to girl, and finally all the scared little town folks gather around Swayze to stand up to the evil Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara clearly at rock bottom of his career)...see Pale Rider for the better acted and written western version of the same story.Just sit and enjoy a trip back the 1980s, and a decent Jeff Healey Band soundtrack, and don't expect too much, but it is lots of fun!.
Joining him are Kelly Lynch as a very sexy doctor, Sam Elliott as Dalton's teacher-mentor gives a surprisingly impressive performance as Wade Garrett, and Ben Gazzara is quite convincing as Brad Wesley.
It features Patrick Swayze as Dalton, a tough, good-looking and perpetually oiled-up nightclub 'cooler' who travels from town to town like a hair-sprayed Lone Ranger.
As if that isn't enough, the soundtrack features a bunch of blues standards rocked up by the Jeff Healey Band that will delight drivers of big rigs everywhere.Owners of gun racks and monster trucks will love this movie, the rest of us will watch with a mixture of amused delight and spellbound horror.
To find out you'll have to watch the eighties classic ROAD HOUSE.A fun action film that's filled with a fair share of homo-eroticism.
Aside from that, this was good old fashioned hero/stranger comes to town, bashes the bad guys and gets the girl movie, with laughs and martial arts thrown in.
Patrick Swayze lost the whole pretty boy image with this action classic that features one of the best fights from 89 and a few kinky sex scenes.
I'm just going to list (in no particular order) the things that makes this piece of trash art one of the greatest so bad it's so good movies of all time.
You read that right.Patrick Swayze stars as Dalton, the (second) best cooler in the business, who's charged with cleaning up The Double Deuce, the seediest honky-tonk bar in Jasper, MO.
He sets out to hire the best "Cooler" in the business and calls on James Dalton (Patrick Swayze) who informs him that Wade Garrett (Sam Elliott) is the still best.
This film is far and away Swayze's best performance to date and their is able support by Sam Elliot as his buddy and Ben Gazarra as the nefarious villain of the piece.
Road House is a gripping story of trying to run away from your past only to have your past thrown at you like a beer bottle smashing full-throttle towards Canadian-guitar legend Jeff Healy.The two melancholic characters, played or better said - lived - by Patrick Swayze and Kelly Lynch, seem to be in desperate need for a change in life but are in unable or uncertain on where to find it.Dalton, Patrick Swayze's person just seems to go with the flow without any particular purpose, that until a starry night a job offer arrives (re: a purpose in life arrives) in the form of a bouncing job at the notorious Jasper, Wyoming nightclub, the Double Deuce.The arrival of Dalton creates a variable chain-like sense of purpose in lives of the patrons and staff of the Double Deuce.
Brad Wesley (played to perfection by gravel-voiced Ben Gazzara), a big time criminal with the whole town under his belt, has already set his eyes on the beautiful Doc. Needless to say, he doesn't quite appreciate Dalton's presence in both the Double Deuce and the Doc's bedroom.
It is then up to Dalton (with a little help from Bouncing Legend and mentor Wade Garrett, a role Sam Elliot was born to play) to prove to the Doc, the Double Deuce, and most importantly, to himself.There are plenty of action-packed fight scenes and steamy hot-Swayze love moments in this masterpiece, but in my view, the film as a whole is both a very sad yet uplifting movie about an outsider who finally accepts and repairs his tattered inner strength and combines it with his sheer outer power.The long shot of the "Showdown at Wesley's" is simply amazing, forcing you to generate your own images out of the gloom like a bespeckled Jackson Pollock canvas, one spattered with hope, dreams, desire, and love.
Patrick Swayze (In a mullet that need to be seen to be believed) stars as Dalton, the best bouncer the business who looks to set a bar straight and kick the bad influence of Ben Gazzara out of his bar and town.
Indeed Swayze spits out lines like "Pain don't hurt","Guess what tails again!" and the best line of the film "If somebody gets in your face and calls you a c***sucker, I want you to be nice.
Most of the bouncers in this film fight more like Sid Vicious than they do Bruce Lee.Roger Ebert hits the nail on the head when he states that the houses Dalton and Walsh live in seem to be the only two in the entire town, and everything that happens in one appears to be staged for the benefit of the other.
Yet, if you don't watch Road House expecting too much you can still enjoy it.The very simple story is about a legendary and genuine bouncer called Dalton that tries to teach a chaotic and corrupt village, controlled by the appalling but prosperous Brad Wesley, how to behave.
**SPOILERS** Better then I expected kick-a** movie about a collage educated, he has a degree in philosophy from NYU, nightclub bouncer Dalton,Patrick Swazye, who likes to do things the peaceful way and not used his fists and feet unless it's absolutely necessary.
Dalton who seems to like his job, as a nightclub bouncer since he had 31 broken bones 2 bullet and 9 stab wounds doing it before the action in the movie "Road House" even started.
Like renting him an apartment and selling him spare parts for his car, which is constantly being smashed and vandalized by the Wesley Mob. Soon the legendary bouncer Wade Garrett ,Sam Elliott, a good friend of Dalton and who thought him everything that he knows about bouncing shows up in town to lend him a hand.
Who's love of the humanities and being a man of peace have long abandoned him since he took the job as chief bouncer at the Double Deuce.It was hard to take Dalton seriously since you got the impression that he'll handle things at the Double Deuce with his brains, like he skillfully did at the beginning of the movie, not his fighting skills but got into to action almost as soon as the bottles and fists started flying.
The ending was also a bit strange with Dalton, who just finished off the entire Wesley mob single-handed, having such a hard time with the much older, by 22 years, and out of shape, all he did in the movie was drink booze and smoke cigars, Brad Wesley that he needed a little help from his friends, four shotgun blasts, to put Wesley down for good.Of all the actors in the movie "Road House" Ben Gazzara seemed to enjoy himself the most , and not taking himself at all seriously,as the despicable and vicious mobster Brad Wesley.
First of all i aint a Patrick Swayze fan.but this movie i like a lot loads of action like a modern day western.this isnt one character depth this is merely to entertain.if this of starred mel gibson this would of been a big hit.but i guess he chose bird on a wire.the action is nonstop the cast are on good form.even terry funk gets stuck in.theres a great soundtrack.Hopefully this will be released on dvd in England soon.this was in my top 10 list for 1989..
This '80s classic sees Patrick Swayze playing James Dalton; a cooler called in to turn around a rough bar and make it the sort of place civilised people go to.
Patrick Swayze is a lot of fun as Dalton and Ben Gazzara hams it up as Wesley...
It's certainly a great action movie with some of the best fight scenes in all of cinema and it's built around the cult of body worship and mostly male body worship which isn't to say that the broads aren't broad where broads should be broad but fundamentally this is all about the guys, who have been mostly picked for their looks and their physiques.
What, you didn't know that every small town had one of those guys?Swayze gets driven to the edge and it's only the love of a good woman, and the friendship of a great cowboy (Sam Elliott, the dude from big lebowski) that can stop him going over.
"Road House" is a great action film which is about a cooler who signs up at a country bar to clean it up.
Even so it's a reasonable way to fill your time and if you like action and the good guys coming out on top then you won't be too disappointed.
Plenty of fights in this action packed movie.Swayze is good in this.Ben Gazzara is a excellent Villain.Sam Groom is great as the mentor.And Terry Funk turns up in a all out brawl.i saw this with friends and they laughed when i suggested we watch this on DVD.But afterwards the only thing they wanted was to watch it Again.A Really great Guys pic.8 out of 10.
Patrick Swayze is uber bouncer/cooler that has his hands full in cleaning up The Double Deuce, which ultimately escalates into a confrontation with Brad Wesley, a guy who runs the town and got rich by taking advantage and muscling its local business to consolidate money and power.
Patrick Swayze is Dalton, a "cooler" for hire who comes to a small town to clean up a country bar named The Double Deuce.
I thought Patrick swayze did great in this film. |
tt0040876 | The Three Musketeers | In Venice, the musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, with the help of Milady de Winter, steal airship blueprints made by Leonardo da Vinci. However, they are betrayed by Milady, who incapacitates them and sells the blueprints to the Duke of Buckingham.
A year later, d'Artagnan leaves his village in Gascony for Paris in hopes of becoming a musketeer as his father was, only to learn that they were disbanded. At a rural bar, he challenges Captain Rochefort, leader of Cardinal Richelieu's guard, to a duel after being offended by him, but Rochefort merely shoots him while he's distracted. Once in Paris, d'Artagnan separately encounters Athos, Porthos and Aramis and, accidentally offending all three, schedules duels with each. Athos brings Porthos and Aramis to the duel as his seconds and d'Artagnan realizes who they are. Richelieu's guards arrive to arrest them, but, inspired by d'Artagnan, the musketeers fight together and win. All four are summoned before the young King Louis XIII and Richelieu urges him to execute them, but Queen Anne is impressed by their bravery and the king condecorates them instead.
Richelieu instructs Milady, now his accomplice, to plant false love letters among Queen Anne's possessions, steal her diamond necklace, and take it to the Tower of London in order to frame her as having an affair with Buckingham, which would force King Louis to execute her and declare war on England. At this point, the people would demand a more experienced leader: Richelieu himself. In order to secure her own position, Milady demands that Richelieu declare in a written authorization that she is working on behalf of France.
The false letters are found and given to King Louis, who is advised by Richelieu to set up a ball at which Queen Anne would be forced to wear the necklace. If she doesn't, then her affair is real, and there will be war. Queen Anne's lady-in-waiting Constance Bonacieux discovers Richelieu's plan and pleads with the musketeers to stop him. They follow Milady and Buckingham to London, while Constance is captured by Rochefort for helping the musketeers to escape from him.
In London, Milady tells Buckingham the musketeers have arrived to take revenge on him and teaches him all their tendencies in battle. D'Artagnan is captured, but turns out to be a decoy, allowing his associates to steal Buckingham's airship and rescue him. Milady's getaway coachman reveals himself as the musketeers' manservant Planchet and delivers her to his masters, who retrieve the necklace from her. Athos prepares to execute Milady for her treachery, but she leaps off the airship, apparently dying on her own terms.
The musketeers depart back to Paris, only to be intercepted by Rochefort in another airship, as Milady had given Richelieu copies of da Vinci's blueprints. Rochefort offers to exchange Constance for the necklace, but captures d'Artagnan and orders an attack as soon as he retrieves the jewels. His superior airship has the upper hand and severely damages the opposing ship, but the musketeers manage to crash both onto Notre Dame. On the roof, d'Artagnan duels and ultimately kills Rochefort. Constance is sent ahead to quietly return the necklace to Queen Anne.
The musketeers arrive at the ball and, for the sake of King Louis and his people, lie by claiming that Rochefort tried to sabotage an airship that Richelieu built for them, and that they executed him for his treason on Richelieu's permission. To convince the king, Athos presents Milady's authorization, which the former accepts. Richelieu, satisfied, offers the musketeers a place in his army, but they refuse, and Richelieu vows they will come to regret their decision.
Meanwhile, Milady is found alive at the English Channel by Buckingham, who declares his intention to exact revenge. He is then revealed to be advancing towards France with a massive fleet of battleships and airships. | intrigue, action, historical fiction | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0037514 | Anchors Aweigh | Joe Brady and Clarence Doolittle are Navy sailors who have a four-day leave in Hollywood. Joe has his heart set on spending time with his girl, the unseen Lola. Clarence, the shy choir boy turned sailor, asks Joe to teach him how to get girls. Donald, a little boy who wants to join the navy, is found wandering around the boulevard by a cop, who takes him to the police station. Clarence and Joe end up being picked up by the cops to help convince Donald to go home. After the two sailors wait at home and entertain Donald, Donald's Aunt Susie arrives. Clarence is smitten with her from the beginning. Susan goes on to tell them that she has been trying to find work in music, and longs to perform with José Iturbi. Trying to make Susan impressed with Clarence, Joe tells her that Clarence is a personal friend of Iturbi, and that he has arranged an audition for Susan with him. That night, they go out to a cafe where Clarence meets a girl from Brooklyn, and they hit it off. The next day, Joe visits Donald's school, and tells the kids the story of how he got his medal, and how he brought happiness to a lonesome king (played by Jerry Mouse from Tom and Jerry, with Tom briefly appearing as a servant), and joy to the forest animals of the kingdom.
Meanwhile, Clarence has been trying to get into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios to find Iturbi with no luck. After many failed attempts to find Iturbi, all hope is lost for Joe and Clarence, who want to come clean with Susan and tell her there was no audition. On Clarence and Joe's last day of leave, Susan runs into Iturbi at a café, who has no idea of the audition. Susan begins to call Joe, whom by now she has fallen in love with, to yell at him. Iturbi stops her and agrees to get her a screen test, which turns out to be very successful. The movie ends as Iturbi conducts the choir in singing "Anchors Aweigh", and Joe, Susan, Clarence and the girl from Brooklyn kiss. | storytelling | train | wikipedia | Released some months before the end of the war, "Anchors Aweigh" is one of Gene Kelly's major musical triumphs of the forties
Under the direction of George Sidney, it had the benefits of a pleasant score, andbest of allthe services of Gene Kelly in his first true starring role at MGM
The year before, in Columbia's "Cover Girl," he had revealed an innovative approach to dance on the screen, a light but agreeable singing voice, and considerable charm In "Anchors Aweigh," although he was billed under Frank Sinatra and Kathryn Grayson, he was laying the solid groundwork for his most revealing years at MGM
The film's story, a kind of dry run for "On the Town" four years later, follows sailors Kelly and Sinatra on shore leave, spend their holiday in Hollywood, where they become involved in the affairs of an aspiring singer (Grayson) and her little nephew (Dean Stockwell).Grayson, it appears, has her heart set on an audition with conductor-pianist Jose Iturbi
She gets the audition, of course; Kelly gets Grayson after some misunderstandings; and Sinatra, has forgotten to be shy, and has lost his heart to a girl from Brooklyn (Pamela Britton).The plot is conventional for the period but, regrettably, it now seems barely tolerable
But there is Gene Kelly, who dominates the movie with his agreeable personality
Perhaps he grins too much, but when is permitted to dance, the film finally lifts off the ground
"I Begged Her," his early song and dance with Sinatra, is amusing and slightly absurd, in which he imagines himself as a bandit chieftain in a Spanish courtyard, courting maiden Grayson with a flamboyant flamenco dance and some athletic leaps
He also does a charming Mexican dance with little Sharon McManus in the square of a Mexican settlement in Los Angeles
The highlight of the movie, however, is Kelly's famous dance with the cartoon character Jerry the Mouse (of "Tom and Jerry" fame).
Delightful and innovative, it skillfully combines live action and animation in its tale of a sad mouse king who refuses to allow music in his kingdom until Kelly, a sailor in the "Pomeranian Navy," wearing a striped shirt and a beret, shows him how to dance
"Look at me, I'm dancin'!" says the gleeful mouse king....
ANCHORS AWEIGH sees two eager young sailors, Joe Brady (Gene Kelly) and Clarence Doolittle/Brooklyn (Frank Sinatra), get a special four-day shore leave.
Both times I felt that ANCHORS AWEIGH was the better film in terms of plotting and structure--all the dances and songs fit the moment in the plot, and they develop the characters and story rather than hamper them.
The musical *is* splashy with great songs bursting out all over, like the duets between Kelly and Sinatra ('We Hate To Leave', 'I Begged Her' and 'If You Knew Susie'), the singing of Sinatra ('What Makes The Sunset', 'The Charm Of You', and the best of all, 'I Fall In Love Too Easily'), and without a doubt the always inventive, always breathtaking dancing of Kelly.
Famous for the scene where Gene Kelly dances a duet with Jerry Mouse, this zippy musical is also the one where Kathryn Grayson trills 'Jealousy', and Frank Sinatra sings in the arena of a thousand pianos ('I Fall in Love Too Easily').
Her little boy (Dean Stockwell, who would turn up much later in TV's Quantum Leap) wants to join the US forces, and so he meets sailors Kelly and Sinatra heading out for a bit of leave.
Joseph Brady and Clarence Doolittle are two sailors, who have a four-day shore leave in Hollywood.Joe knows everything about girls and can't wait to see Lola, while Clarence is shyer and needs some advice from his buddy on how to meet girls.They then run into a little boy, Donald Martin, who has ran away in order to join the navy.They take him home and meet his beautiful aunt Susan, who wants to be a singer.Clarence wants Susie to be his girl, but his shyness gets in the way.But he doesn't feel shy with a waitress, who comes from Brooklyn, like he does.Soon Joe notices he's in love with Susie.The boys are in a fix when they lie to Susie on meeting with a big time music producer they don't even know.As they are in a fix with their feelings.George Sidney's Anchors Aweigh (1945) is a great musical comedy.Gene Kelly is top-notch, once again, in his singing and dancing routines.Frank Sinatra is terrific as the shy guy from Brooklyn.Shy isn't the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Frank Sinatra, but he plays his part well.Kathryn Grayson is fantastic as Susan Abbott.We sadly lost this gifted actress and operatic soprano singer last month at the age of 88.The 9-year old Dean Stockwell does amazing job as the little fellow wanting to become a sailor.Jose Iturbi does great job performing himself.It's magic what he does with the piano.Edgar Kennedy plays Chief of police station.Sara Berner is the voice of Jerry Mouse.There's a lot of great stuff in this movie and some fantastic singing and dancing numbers.Just look at Kelly and Sinatra performing "We Hate to Leave".It's so energetic."If You Knew Susie (Like I Know Susie)" is quite funny.It's a nice moment when Frank sings Brahms' Lullaby to little Dean Stockwell.It's lovely to listen to Grayson singing the tango "Jealousy" .The most memorable sequence is the one that takes into the animated fantasy world, and there Gene sings and dances with Jerry Mouse.Also Tom Cat is seen there as the butler.They originally asked Mickey Mouse but he refused.The movie was nominated for five Oscars but Georgie Stoll got one for Original Music Score.Anchors Aweigh is some high class entertainment..
Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra play sailors on leave who get mixed up with Kathryn Grayson.
The film is best known for Gene Kelly's dance with MGM's Jerry the Mouse.
For a really nice, sweet, and funny movie with some good music, I recommend TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME which also stars Kelly and Sinatra together.
Gorgeous color photography only shows up the cheap sets and rear projection used for this sound stage-bound film.Frank Sinatra (playing the dope again) and Gene Kelly (he can't act) play two sailors on leave who get saddled with a runaway kid (Dean Stockwell) and his Aunt Susie (Kathryn Grayson in a cloying performance).
Along the way Kelly falls for Grayson and Sinatra gets stuck with a stiff from Brooklyn (Pamela Britton is a lousy performance).Maybe an OK story for the time, but the film is way too long and wanders all over the place, including several dance solos for Kelly and the famous cartoon sequence.
Anchors Aweigh is a Technicolour MGM musical focusing on Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as two sailors on shore leave in Hollywood.Kelly did the choreography on two dream sequences show dances which are the highlights of the film.
The cameo from Tom and Jerry and the dance with with Jerry The Mouse is what makes this film well known.The other is the Paso Doble/Tango as Kelly playing a bandit which was impressive.The storyline of Sinatra being the young, naive sailor who falls for Aunt Susie and later a waitress from Brooklyn.
A kid who plans to run off to the navy which is a more humdrum affair.Sinatra never convinces as an innocent and looks too old (He was almost 30 years old.) Stockwell, who almost seventy years after this movie was made is still acting is charming as the kid.There is good chemistry between Kelly and Sinatra.The film is overlong and some of the songs just come across as a filler.
The joke among soldiers was that "GI" meant "Get Iturbi" (he did a lot of concerts at military bases).Gene Kelly was a great dancer and Frank Sinatra an excellent singer, but at the time this movie was made Sinatra was barely 30 and had only been under contract to Columbia Records for four years.
Although in my opinion this is one of the lesser musicals of stars Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Kathryn Grayson and director George Sidney, a lesser musical featuring anyone from that line-up is nothing to sneeze at, and in conjunction, the line-up makes Anchors Aweigh a pretty good film despite its flaws.Sinatra and Kelly are Clarence Doolittle and Joseph Brady, respectively, two Navy men.
Things become more complicated when Brady lies about Doolittle knowing a famous musician, Jose Iturbi, who is in residence at a film studio, and claims that Doolittle has set up an audition for Abbott, who is a singer and actress, in front of Iturbi.Because of the story, the music is a strange combination of militaristic music--because of the Navy premise, obviously, Broadway pop--what the stars tend to sing in more informal settings, opera--what Abbott's character excels at, Liberace-like popular classical--what Iturbi did, and Mexican music--because Abbott frequents a Mexican restaurant in a Mexican section of L.A. The combination doesn't work as well as it could.
Matched in excellence to the dance with Jerry the Mouse is a long song and dance number featuring Kelly and Grayson, where Brady is imagining Abbott in a scene from a period film while he woos her, having to resort to acrobatic stunts to reach her physically as she stands on a high balcony.As uneven and flawed as the film is, it is largely successful and entertaining to watch.
The musical numbers save the movie: "The Worry Song" with Jerry and Gene Kelly; "I Fall In Love Too Easily" by Frank Sinatra; the dance number with the little Spanish girl (Sharon McManus), too many others to list.
After all, two are about sailors on leave, two feature Betty Garrett and Jules Munshin, and all three musicals star Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra!
Anchors Aweigh features songs from Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, but the most famous musical number from this film is the dance duet of Gene Kelly and Jerry the mouse.
Adorable Kathryn Grayson is the center of the love triangle, but while she gets to sing a couple of songs, it's Gene Kelly who stands out in this campy, happy-go-lucky, pro-soldier, post-war, silly musical.If you don't think you can sit through all of it—because you're not a die-hard Gene Kelly fan, or you'd rather watch a Frank Sinatra movie where he actually acts—at least watch the cartoon dance number.
There's some patriotic flag waving, gorgeously choreographed dance numbers, your standard love story, a fantasy interlude featuring Tom and Jerry (yes, the cartoons) and some backstage musical bits reminiscent of the Busby Berkeley films from the 1930s.
However, as a result of trying to fit so much in, Anchors Aweigh feels overlong and drags quite severely in places.Kelly, Sinatra and their costar Kathryn Grayson try to keep the audience engaged through sheer star power, and their efforts are admirable (particularly Kelly's big solo number near the end of the film) but are never quite enough to compensate for the long stretches of tedium between the big musical set-pieces.
But they and we have a good time trying.Along the way, Kelly gets his legendary dance with cartoon mouse Jerry of Tom & Jerry, looking like it came right out of the Land of Oz. Then too, I like his really charming number with the little Mexican girl (McManus).
What matters is the song and dance (of course) and the leading actors: Gene Kelly (wonderful) and Frank Sinatra (a great singer and at this young age a mediocre actor).
The working class humour of Gene Kelly that have made his films less dated then most other musicals of the Golden Era of Cinema is completely on show here where the audience is treated to humorous dance numbers about hooking up with women and sarcastically showing sympathy to fellow crew members when they're awarded with leave.
Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, and Jose Iturbi star in "Anchors Aweigh," directed by George Sidney.Kelly and Sinatra are Joe and Clarence, two navy guys on leave in Hollywood.
They try to help, but there's a mix-up.This is a very energetic musical with great dancing and singing by Kelly and Sinatra.
Absolutely enjoyable singing and dancing movie starring Frank Sinatra and gen Kelly, as well as Kathryn Grayson.The film won and Oscar for George E.
The lovely Grayson (The Toast of New Orleans) dazzled us with her singing, and we had a lot of great songs and dance routines by Kelly and Sinatra, as well as the artistry of pianist-conductor José Iturbi.A classic Hollywood music from an era gone by..
Gene Kelly's dance with the mouse is one of the great moments in the history of musical cinema, but the rest of the movie wastes the talents of Sinatra, as well as Grayson.
But the script writers (to propel what would be a short film - Kelly has plans to spend four days having sex with one "Lola", an unseen good time girl in Hollywood) saddle Gene with Frank.
He keeps getting dragged back to Grayson's house, as Sinatra feels she is the right woman for himself, but needs Kelly to train him in love making.I suppose my presentation of the plot may annoy fans of ANCHORS AWEIGH, but I find this kind of story irritating.
While the singing and dancing and concert music of Kelly, Sinatra, Grayson, and Iturbi are first rate, it is annoying to have to take the idiocies of someone like Sinatra's character seriously.
It's a great dance and a great song and a very unique scene that hasn't really ever been copied or redone The movie by itself has some great laughs and is definitely worth watching, especially if you are a Gene Kelly or Frank Sinatra fan.
Kelly and Sinatra play Joe Brady and Clarence Doolittle, two sailors on leave in Hollywood who befriend a young boy (Dean Stockwell)who introduces them to his attractive young aunt (Kathryn Grayson) a struggling actress who is working as an extra at MGM.
The paper-thin plot leaves room for several great musical numbers including "We Hate to Leave", Joe and Clarence's lament to their fellow sailors as they're leaving the ship; Grayson's torrid rendition of "Jalousie"; Sinatra's dreamy rendition of "I Fall in Love Too Easily" (a number which is sadly deleted from some prints of this film), and "The Worry Song", a fantasy dance that Kelly does with animated Jerry the Mouse from Tom and Jerry fame.
And the scene at the Hollywood Bowl, with Sinatra and Kelly emerging from the woods above it at the top, and then running down the steps, while dozens of pianists play on the piano, is the best scene in the film, even though the scene in which Kelly dances with Jerry Mouse is more famous.
Sinatra knows nothing about girls--much like in "On the Town" best when NOT doing the fantasy sequences"Anchors Away" is the movie made famous by Gene Kelly's very famous dance number with Jerry Mouse (from Tom & Jerry fame).
The film begins with a ship coming into port and a couple sailors, Clarence (Frank Sinatra) and Joe (Gene Kelly), are out on the prowl for some 'dames'.
When we thinking in musical movies we expect to see gorgeous legs girls dancing in large stages,but this time too family movie even Sinatra was strangely dumb and behaved,just Kelly has some malicious thoughts along the movie trying make a appointment with a hot girl who so long spoke about and all audience expect to meet her,for a family movie once more Dean Stockwell made history...by the way a few boy who made successfully career after grow up like him...backing on movie is easy to watch but a lack of the other beauty legs and faces made a puritanical movie...just for adjusted families only!!
Anchors Aweigh is the first film of the Frank Sinatra-Gene Kelly trilogy, tapping into classic Hollywood musicals odd fascination with sailors.
A jolly musical featuring a great double act in the pairing of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, who don't share quite as many song-and-dance numbers as you'd expect.
Yes, this is one of the great musical movies I grew up with with such great entertainers as Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, not to mention the petite and glorious voice of Kathryn Grayson.
Gene Kelly did a great job dancing, expecially to that tango (when he was trying to express his love to Kathryn).I enjoyed the classical music being played by Jose Iturbi.
"Anchors Aweigh" is the product of the classic MGM musical production unit, and on the whole the film is every enjoyable good music by Jule Styne and others, excellent dancing by Gene Kelly (and even a passable job by Frank Sinatra), and a funny well-paced script.
One of the first of the best musicals, Anchors Aweigh features several memorable musical sequences, such as Kelly dancing with Jerry the mouse, Kelly dancing with 7-year-old Sharon McManus, Sinatra singing with Jose Iturbi playing piano, Kathryn Grayson singing with Iturbi conducting, and much more.
I will be honest the only reason I wanted to see this film was because of the piece of animation, and this sequence also featured reanimated in an episode of Family Guy. Basically navy sailors Joseph 'Joe' Brady (Oscar nominated Gene Kelly) and Clarence Doolittle (Frank Sinatra) are on leave for a few days and hanging out in Hollywood.
The highlight of the film is of course the little story (like the ballets of An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain) with Kelly meeting the king of an animated land, Jerry mouse from Tom and Jerry, getting his medal after a dancing lesson, the rest is alright musical too.
Two sailors (Gene Kelly as 'sea wolf' and Frank Sinatra as 'Brooklyn') get a 4 day leave to find some women in Hollywood, and discover gorgeous Kathryn Grayson(as Aunt Susie) in an unusual introduction. |
tt0177606 | Puss in Boots | The tale opens with the third and youngest son of a miller receiving his inheritance—a cat. At first, the youngest son laments, as the eldest brother gains the mill, and the middle brother gets the mules. The feline is no ordinary cat, however, but one who requests and receives a pair of boots. Determined to make his master's fortune, the cat bags a rabbit in the forest and presents it to the king as a gift from his master, the fictional Marquis of Carabas. The cat continues making gifts of game to the king for several months.
One day, the king decides to take a drive with his daughter. The cat persuades his master to remove his clothes and enter the river which their carriage passes. The cat disposes of his master's clothing beneath a rock. As the royal coach nears, the cat begins calling for help in great distress. When the king stops to investigate, the cat tells him that his master the Marquis has been bathing in the river and robbed of his clothing. The king has the young man brought from the river, dressed in a splendid suit of clothes, and seated in the coach with his daughter, who falls in love with him at once.
The cat hurries ahead of the coach, ordering the country folk along the road to tell the king that the land belongs to the "Marquis of Carabas", saying that if they do not he will cut them into mincemeat. The cat then happens upon a castle inhabited by an ogre who is capable of transforming himself into a number of creatures. The ogre displays his ability by changing into a lion, frightening the cat, who then tricks the ogre into changing into a mouse. The cat then pounces upon the mouse and devours it. The king arrives at the castle that formerly belonged to the ogre, and, impressed with the bogus Marquis and his estate, gives the lad the princess in marriage. Thereafter, the cat enjoys life as a great lord who runs after mice only for his own amusement.
The tale is followed immediately by two morals: "one stresses the importance of possessing industrie and savoir faire while the other extols the virtues of dress, countenance, and youth to win the heart of a princess." The Italian translation by Carlo Collodi notes that the tale gives useful advice if you happen to be a cat or a Marquis of Carabas.
This is the theme in France, but other versions of this theme exist in Asia, Africa, and South America. | romantic, action, fantasy | train | wikipedia | One of my childhood favourites.
When I was a kid I watched this many times over, and I remember whistling the "Happy Cat" song quite often.
All the songs are great, and actually memorable, unlike many children's musicals, where the songs are just stuck in for no real reason.
The scenes and costumes are lavish, and the acting is very well-done, which isn't surprising, considering the cast.
Christopher Walken is very catlike, and doesn't need stupid make-up, or a cat costume for the viewer to believe he's a cat transformed to a human.
And Jason Connery's so cute, as the shy and awkward miller's son, Corin, who falls in love with beautiful and the bold Princess Vera.
This is a really fun, enjoyable, feature-length movie, where unlike most fairytales, the characters are given personalities.
Some of my favourite parts are when Puss makes Corin pretend he's drowning; at the ball when everybody starts dancing a country dance, as it's "all the rage abroad"; when Walken is in the kitchen, dancing on the table (he's a pretty good dancer, too!); and when Vera tells Corin all the things she used to do when she was young, like pretending she was a miller's daughter.
I'd recommend this film to children and parents alike, who love magic and fairytales.
And it actually IS a movie you can watch together, as it won't drive adults up the wall..
One Cool Cat!.
"Puss In Boots" was the last of the Cannon Movie Tales produced.
Another attempt to elongate a basically simple story, it is graced with a lively performance from Christopher Walken (who still thinks highly of it) as Puss, a straightforward performance from Jason (son of Sean) Connery as the miller's son, and a charming one from Carmela Marner (one of the sisters in Cannon's "Beauty And The Beast") as the princess.
Physically, the film looks fine, and the photography is good.
The songs, however, go in one ear and out the other, and merely stretch the running time more than necessary.
Not one of the better movie tales, but not the worst, either..
I never saw this when I was a kid, so this was seen with fresh eyes.
I had never heard of it and rented it for my 5 year old daughter.
Plus, the idea of Christopher Walken singing and dancing made me curious.
The special fx are cheesy and the singing and dancing is mediocre.
But the story is great.
My daughter was entranced.
I loved watching Walken in this role thinking about what the future held for him.
Very amusing to see him dance!
And if the songs weren't great, at least they weren't Disney over-produced saccharine sweetness.
The ogre scene in the beginning was a little scary for her, and she was a little nervous when we saw him again at the end, but it was mostly benign.
Interestingly, we had recently read "Puss in Boots", and I had wondered about the implausibility of the story.
But while staying true to almost every aspect, Walken's acting made it believable.
Great fun.
Great fun.
I'd watch it again with my daughter..
A childhood memory for me - unique and wonderful!.
Everytime this film is on TV I always watch it!
It was one of my favourites when I was young - i loved the songs, the dances and of course the romantic story, not to mention the exciting parts with the ogre.
Now I'm older I've realised that musical romance is not the norm for Christopher Walken and Corin, who I wanted to marry, is actually Sean Connery's son!
The special effects are quite dated now but nevertheless I still enjoy it!
I would recommend it to anyone - children will love it and anyone who associates Christopher Walken with The Deer Hunter, A View to a Kill, Pulp Fiction or True Romance will be in for quite a surprise!
It's truly unique!.
Don't miss it if you like fairy tales - or Christopher Walken.
This is one of my personal favorite Cannon Movietales because, believe it or not, it's full of great performances.
Christopher Walken is a great actor, and who knew he did children's movies?
Jason Connery (yes, Sean's son) does a great job too, although he does have a habbit to look a little embarrassed that he's in this.
Carmela Marner is lovely as the princess and is (I believe) related to the director Eugene Marner.
Singing Bad, Story Good.
If you fast forward through the horrible singing, you will find a classic fairy tale underneath.
Christopher Walken is very humorous and surprisingly good in the role.
His trademark style of acting works well for the sly Puss in Boots.
The other actors are well for their parts.
I did not find any of the acting terribly fake or awkward.
The king in particular appears a real dunce though, and I wonder if he is supposed to be.
I can not remember the original tale.
The special effects are typical of the eighties, but at least they are not overly fake like some of the computer generated fare that we see today.
Overall, I recommend this movie for children and adults who are a child at heart..
A Marvelous Classic Tale.
Although this was obviously a low-budget production, the performances and the songs in this movie are worth seeing.
One of Walken's few musical roles to date.
(he is a marvelous dancer and singer and he demonstrates his acrobatic skills as well - watch for the cartwheel!) Also starring Jason Connery.
A great children's story and very likable characters..
Christopher Walken just about makes this watchable.
Although none of the nine Cannon Movie Tale films are flawless, with the flaws varying in number and size, all of them are worth a viewing at least once.
And while Puss in Boots is one of their lesser outings (with the weakest being The Emperor's New Clothes, and their best being Hansel and Gretel and Beauty and the Beast), it's not an exception.The best thing about Puss in Boots is the performance of Christopher Walken as Puss, the singing is not the best but he clearly looks as though he's having a whale of a time here and he is so much fun to watch, performing with sly line delivery, a wonderful twitchiness (which is quite appropriate for a cat), fearless bravado and absolutely no signs of being embarrassed either.
Carmela Marner is a charming Princess Vera, and has a truly infectious smile, while Yossi Graber is entertainingly buffoonish as the King without resorting to mugging too much.
The dialogue does descend into over-silliness sometimes, but is witty and genuinely hilarious, so it would be a lie if I said that I wasn't entertained.
The film is nicely photographed, the sets are nice and rustic if somewhat recycled of other Cannon films and the incidental score has the right amount of energy and whimsy.Puss in Boots has several major problems though.
For one thing, apart from the photography and the sets the low budget does show and it is generally one of Cannon's cheaper looking films.
Some parts are dimly or gaudily lit and the costumes are garish and seldom flattering, looking like leftover material, but worst of all were the very cheap and out-of-date-looking (even for a film from the 80s) special effects (the Cannon film that fares the worst in this regard), especially the cat transformation and the under-sized ogre.
While the incidental score is good, Puss in Boots does boast one of Cannon's weakest song scores, with only those for The Emperor's New Clothes being worse.
The songs here are forgettable at best, some also go on for too long- feeling more like padding than anything else- and some of the lyrics are so dreadfully silly that they're enough to make one cringe, like the rhyming lyrics in the song offering marriage advice.With the story, the basic details and characters are here but they didn't feel quite enough to sustain a feature length film, padding it out with forgettable and sometimes overlong songs and scenes that got too silly (i.e. the ineptitude of the guards), the silliness while entertaining did get too much at times and undermined the darker moments like the scene with Puss and the ogre.
With the rest of the performances, most of the rest of the supporting turns mug pretty embarrassingly, the ogre is more unintentionally comical than sinister (coupled with his underwhelming look, he was one disappointing villain) but worst of all was Jason Connery who spends the entire running time looking hopelessly bland and dim-witted and devoid of any charm, his and Marner's chemistry is dull while his and Walken's only just about passes muster because Walken does such a great job here.All in all, one of Cannon's weakest films but is still watchable for Walken's performance.
5/10 Bethany Cox. Christopher Walken Sings!!.
Corin (Jason, son of Sean Connery) is a poor miller's son.
When the old man dies, all that he leaves him is a house cat.
The cat appears as human to him, and keeps asking for a pair of boots.
Once the cat gets the boots, he become Puss in Boots (Christopher Walken).
Through wit and subterfuge, Puss passes Corin off as an important Marquis so that he could marry the princess.
Then Puss takes on a ruthless shape shifting ogre who commands a great castle.Sure this is a weak production.
The special effects come from 100 years ago.
The costumes and sets are gaudy.
Christopher Walken is what makes this stand out.
He sings.
He dances.
He dominates the movie.
I wish he had more opportunity to play Puss as a cat.
Puss is a bit of a dark character.
He lies a lot.
And it goes to a really dark place with the ogre.
It's a dark little kiddie movie..
but Christophere Walken change everything.
and it is not surprising.the role gives huge chance to explore the different nuances of a generous role.
and the only problem could be only this generosity.
because Jason Connery seems reduced at a nice sketch of his role and the royal court is far to be credible.
but , against not the most inspired parts, it is a nice film.
a young man and his cat.
and a lot of adventures.
Charles Perrault could be proud about a version of his fairy tale who use the humor as key to explore the different sides of a lovely story.
and, in fact, this is only important thing in the case of this film who could be easily criticized if you ignore its small but significant virtues..
These Boots are made for Walken.
Did this movie even happen?
It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Puss in Boots is sweetness personified, but it's so abrasively shoddy and weird that, watching it, it's easy to worry that you're lapsing out of consciousness and sobriety, much like the superimposed shapeshifting ogre and cat who flicker in front of our eyes like oh so many acid flashbacks.
The film is kind of winningly adorable - but in the same way that any train wreck would be adorable if hundreds of kittens sauntered out of the derailed caboose.
It's quaintly antiquated, insofar as no self-respecting recent release, even straight-to-DVD ones, would produce a finished product passing itself as a film so wooden, clumsy, and cheap looking (the community centre called - they'd like their cardboard sets and discount Halloween store costumes back, please and thank you.
This movie is too cute to properly mock!).
Everything is so gloriously stiff that it recalls a Coen Brothers parody, yet its bare-faced earnest wholesomeness grants it a transcendent level of camp hilarity.
We can forgive the lurching storyline due to the children's source material.
But the snoozy pace, stretching out and plodding along between Puss' machinations to elevate his master from lowly farm hand to sleight-of-hand royalty, is more bedtime story than nursery rhyme.
The musical numbers are so painfully bland and still, that I, at one point, started counting the threads on my couch as I telepathically implored the characters to stop, so I could stop nervously cringe-laughing at them.
Meanwhile, the cast performing them - so amateurish one practically wants to hand out participation medals - over or under-act with the wanton inconsistency of a grade school pantomime.
Jason Connery (yes, son of THAT Connery) in particular is so outrageously comatose that he practically sets a new low of what has been recorded constituting a performance - toddlers reading story books out low would demonstrate more inflection.So why the three stars?
Three guesses (and the first two don't count).
Christopher Walken.
Christopher Walken.
He's iconic in the industry for his unique ability to be unbelievably good in unbelievably bad work, and he's never put his talents to such use as he does here.
His flamboyant, gallant charisma and flawless song and dance skills bring effervescent life to literature's most famous trickster cat, while his uniquely syncopated delivery makes every line he speaks garrulously hilarious (whether it's always intentional is up for discussion).
Even his springy, fidgety physicality uncannily embodies feline twitchiness.
Cheerily oblivious to the disaster he's surrounded by, he's clearly having such a ball that it's hard not to share in his fun, and it's solely because of him that the film deserves even a whisper of recognition henceforth.
Puss in Boots is inarguably awful, but it's so gosh-darn likable that taking pot shots at it is the guiltiest kind of derision.
Walken works his Walken magic like never before, bounding around in a pirate hat and capturing our hearts.
His delightful weirdness is what helps transform this cheap mess into the surreal, camp masterpiece it was destined to be.
Still, even the youngest, most forgiving of audiences are likely to dismiss Puss in Boots as distressingly boring, weird, hokey trash.
not the best adaptation.
but lovely.
but lovely.
because it explores, with grace and precision, humor and great cast, the levels of Perrault's fairy tale, using inspired solutions and wise tricks.
its fresh air is the axis.
the performance of Christopher Walken - seductive.
Jason Connery seems bee the ideal option for the poor Corin.
and all seems be at right place.
so - no surprises.
only a nice story , few songs - not bad, not brilliant - an interesting manner to use the fairy tale in original manner and the ambition of musical moments.
the scent of childhood - that it is the fundamental gift to the viewer.
and that fact is real a virtue because, after its end, the joy remains for not small time..
Christopher Walken singing and dancing!?!?.
Now don't get me wrong, I loved this movie as a child.
I remember even being impressed by the songs "You're looking at a happy cat", and "Go to sleep, my friend", both sung by Christopher Walken.
I was even impressed by the singing.
I know a LOT better know as an adult, but I still watch the movie.
It's terrifying yet wonderul to watch if you're a child, and it's a true classic!.
So bad it's kinda good....
OK, so the musical pieces were poorly written and generally poorly sung (though Walken and Marner, particularly Walken, sounded pretty good).
And so they shattered the fourth wall at the end by having the king and his nobles sing about the "battle" with the ogre, and praise the efforts of Puss in Boots when they by rights shouldn't have even known about it.Who cares?
It's Christopher Freakin' Walken, doing a movie based on a fairy tale, and he sings and dances.
His acting style fits the role very well as the devious, mischievous Puss who seems to get his master into deeper and deeper trouble but in fact has a plan he's thought about seven or eight moves in advance.
And if you've ever seen Walken in any of his villainous roles, you *know* the ogre bit the dust HARD at the end when Walken got him into his trap.A fun film, and a must-see for anyone who enjoys the unique style of Christopher Walken..
Another Altogether, Together, Cannon MovieTale Production.
look.not a great work of cinema.
no one would be that insane or naive enough to make a claim about something like this.
but like all Cannon MovieTales, this production works out happily ever after.
it does everything nicely and efficiently, and even though it doesn't leave the viewer with much, it attempts consummate professionalism with modest means.
and succeeds very well.the best thing about this is Cristopher Walken of course.
i'm always impressed at how Cannon was always able to obtain big name actors for their modest direct to video productions.
i always kind of think it was the promise of the singing and dancing because the paycheck couldn't have been that impressive.
whatever the reason, the celeb names are always engaging in these movies and Walken is especially good here.
and eerily feline like as puss.
he's also good at dance and song which he rarely does outside of Fatboy Slim music videos.the youthful leads are also cute and nice to watch.
even though they don't do there own singing, their wholesome appeal rivals anything in a high school musical show.the songs aren't memorable but they definitely are functional and it's surprising a modest production like this even has a original score in the first place.even though there isn't a lot of high tech CGI FX, due to the fact that these movies were made in the eighties prior to the current technology, they still hold up well.
and Cannon offers two attributes no one else is currently offering in fairy tales outside of Disney right now, the films are impeccably wholesome and safe entertainment for families, and they are usually musical tellings.
that sets them aside as a little more original then some of the recent, trendier tellings marketed today.i really love Cannon MovieTales and i love what they offer.
it is special and unique, and that keeps them timeless. |
tt0041481 | Home of the Brave | Shortly after learning their unit will soon return home, American soldiers Lt. Col. William Marsh (Samuel L. Jackson), SGT Vanessa Price (Jessica Biel), SPC Tommy Yates (Brian Presley), SPC Jamal Aiken (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) and PVT Jordan Owens (Chad Michael Murray) are sent on a final humanitarian mission to bring medical supplies to a remote Iraqi village. On the way they are caught in an ambush by insurgents. The forward vehicles of the convoy are trapped in the narrow street where they are forced to fight the attackers. The rear vehicles manage to escape the initial barrage by taking a side-street, only to be met with an improvised explosive device hidden in the carcass of a dead dog. SGT Price, the driver, is seriously wounded, having been somewhat protected from the blast by her front seat passenger who is killed instantly. While pursuing the young boys who left the bomb along with other attackers, a soldier in their team is shot and killed. When Aiken, Yates and Owens head out to shoot down the attackers, Aiken trips on loose bricks from a broken wall and injures his back, so Yates and Owens continue on alone to find the shooters in a graveyard.
Wounded in the leg, Yates falls behind as Owens races after the shooter, thinking he knows the shooter's position. But the shooter has moved, and Owens is shot from behind. The shooter escapes before Yates can move forward to attack. Yates comes upon Owens, who is bleeding profusely from his wounds, but it is too late. Owens dies in Yates's arms.
At a field hospital, a mortar attack injures multiple personnel and destroys many vehicles. The medical staff is struggling to address the urgent care required of the wounded and dying as mortars rain down upon the compound. A young soldier carries his squad-mate into the trauma care ward. When the doctor (Samuel L. Jackson), turns to address another soldier's wounds, the man draws a Beretta side arm and threatens to shoot Dr. Marsh if he doesn't take care of the dying soldier right away. Another squad-mate comes up and pulls the threatening soldier away.
Price and Aiken are each transported via medevac helicopter to a field hospital, where Price loses her right hand to amputation. Aiken survives his wounds, and returns to the unit when they rotate back to the states. Price is remanded to a formal hospital for physical therapy and fitting for a non-functioning rubber hand.
Upon returning home, each of the main characters struggles to deal with their transition back to civilian life. Price struggles with day-to-day things, like learning to unbutton her clothing with only one hand while trying to resume her job as a crippled P.E. teacher and a one-handed basketball coach. Tommy struggles with employment, having lost his job at a gun shop during his deployment. His father pushes him towards the police academy, but Tommy, witnessing the self-destruction of Jamal who had become frustrated and angry at being denied VA benefits for his back injury and the rejection of a girlfriend, walks out of the academy's entrance exam.
Dr. Marsh begins to slip into self-destructive behavior as his son, angry about the senselessness of the war and what it's done to his family, gets into trouble at school. Drunk on Thanksgiving Day, Marsh brings home three yard workers for dinner to the dismay of his wife and family and afterwards his wife catches him in his study with a loaded pistol, implying that he was contemplating suicide. He agrees to go to therapy for PTSD, where he reveals that he doesn't feel any emotion over the soldiers that died, but as a doctor he believes he should. The conflict had slowly eaten away at him until he couldn't control it anymore.
Jamal is shot and killed by the police at the small fast-food diner where his girlfriend worked; a result of him taking her and her co-workers hostage when he brought a pistol to the diner to force her to talk to him. The doctor's wife reaffirms her love for him and that she will help him through his counseling. Price finds new love in another coach at her school, whom she had rejected when she had first returned because she was still trying to transition back to her life. Tommy, after an emotional outburst at his father's shop, decides to re-enlist.
As the movie ends, Marsh's son is happily playing in a soccer match at the school where Price teaches. She introduces her new boyfriend to Dr. Marsh's wife and confirms dinner plans with them. The scene changes to show Tommy going through basic training again, then continuing to patrol the streets of Iraq so that other soldiers won't have to go through what he's been through.
Prior to the credits, a quote of Niccolò Machiavelli appears briefly: "Wars will begin where you will, but they do not end where you please." | flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0312859 | Kannathil Muthamittal | The film begins in a small village in Sri Lanka called Mankulam, where M. D. Shyama (Nandita Das) is married to Dileepan (J. D. Chakravarthy), who along with few other Sri Lankan Tamils in the village, is part of the Tamil Tigers rebel association. While having a quiet moment, the couple hears sounds of Sri Lankan army troops approaching. He asks Shyama to leave while he remains in the forest. Shyama realizes that she is pregnant and waits in vain for Dileepan’s return. Her villagers begin fleeing to India to seek refugee due to the war. Shyama is initially stubborn to leave her husband behind, but her relatives convince her to seek refuge for her unborn child's sake. The villagers board a boat to the shores of Rameswaram. On the journey one of the rebels says that he has seen her husband, Dileepan, with bullet wounds in the forest. Shyama wants the boat to turn around but it is too late. In Rameswaram, while a local collector takes down the names of the refugees, Shyama gives birth to a baby girl. However, the urge to find her possibly wounded husband and be with her people back home overwhelms Shyama and she leaves behind the newborn girl, hoping that the girl will lead a better life.
Nine years later in Chennai, a young girl, Amudha (P. S. Keerthana) narrates about her family life. She introduces her father, writer Thiruchelvan (R. Madhavan), who uses the pen name 'Indira' for his books. Indira (Simran Bagga) is Amudha's mother, while she has a younger brother named Vinay and another younger brother called Akhil. Amudha's ninth birthday approaches and both of her parents take her to the temple. Indira later reminds Thiruchelvan of their promise to reveal 'the truth' to Amudha on her ninth birthday. After their prayers, Thiruchelvan brings Amudha to Marina beach and reveals the truth that she was adopted from a refugee camp in Rameswaram and is not their biological daughter. Amudha is heavily disturbed after hearing the news and begins distancing herself from the family. Indira's father criticizes them for revealing the truth to her, but Thiruchelvan and Indira are certain they have taken the right decision. Amudha asks her foster-parents about her adoption.
The film then flashes to nine years ago in Rameswaram, where Thiruchelvan, then a budding writer, constantly travels to the refugee camp and writes stories inspired by the people there. At one such instance, Thiruchelvan sees a newborn baby girl, and writes a short story about the girl. Indira is his neighbour, and has always expressed an interest in him. Thiruchelvan, after a while, finds the urge to adopt the girl, but realizes that he will not be allowed to do so until he is married. He then proposes to Indira in order to be able to adopt the baby. Indira suggests the name 'Amudha' after seeing the baby once, and then adopt the baby after they marry each other. Vinay was born few years after their marriage, followed by Akhil, and thus, the family happened.
Even after hearing this, Amudha is dissatisfied. She requests to meet her mother despite Indira's insistence that they can't possibly find her even if they wanted to. Thiruchelvan gives in and promises to take Amudha to Sri Lanka to find her mother. Leaving the two boys under the care of Indira's father, the trio travel to Sri Lanka and are greeted by Dr. Herold Vikramasinghe (Prakash Raj), who also helps them to find Amudha's mother. Amudha and Indira's relationship strains as Amudha becomes increasingly rude at her mother while urging to find her real mother. While taking a walk in the jungle, Thiruchelvan and Vikramasinghe are captured by a group of LTTE rebels. Thiruchelvan immediately recites Tamil poetry and is identified as Indira by the group's leader (Pasupathy). Thiruchelvan explains his motives of coming to the country, mentioning the only evidence that he has regarding Amudha's mother is that her name is Shyama. The group leader arranges a meet and says he will bring Shyama to the spot. It is later revealed that Shyama is the group leader's sister who is also a part of the LTTE rebels living in seclusion.
The next day, Vikramasinghe, Amudha, Indira, and Thiruchelvan wait at the spot, but a sudden series of bombings break out at the place as the Sri Lankan army tries to infiltrate the hideout of the rebels. Indira gets shot in her arm in the process. The family finally leaves the place, and Amudha, apologizes to Indira and asks all of them to return to India. The next day, the family leaves for the airport but unexpectedly, Indira requests that they drive through the meeting spot one more time. As they wait, Shyama arrives. Amudha asks Shyama a series of questions, which Shyama is unable to answer, but she finally says that her life would be dedicated to fighting for her people in her country and that Amudha should live happily with her adopted parents and leaves.
The film ends with Thiruchelvan, Amudha, and Indira hugging each other as Shyama leaves, and a teary-eyed Amudha kisses her parents, re-affirming her love for them. | violence, flashback | train | wikipedia | I have seen this movie and it has clearly revealed to me the maturity Tamil cinema has in its screenplay and narrative which bollywood better catch up with.By the way to all we westerners, Tamil Cinema is more qualitative and very different from Bollywood which is all about good looks glamour and promotion.Coming to the point what was India thinking when they sent a movie like 'Devdas' to the Oscars?
The film tells the story of Amudha, a precocious nine-year old whose parents reveal to her that she was adopted, thus beginning an odyssey that takes them all from India to war-torn Sri Lanka.
The Director of Kannathil Muthamittal directed the first Indian film I had seen "Dil Se" which led me down the path of buying well over 122 Hindi DVDs in thecourse of four months.
The acting was superb, the photography was beautiful, I think you could stop the movie at any given time and would notice that any give frame would be worthy of painting.
Kannathil Muthamittal was simply one of the most touching and sincere movies ive seen in a long time.
mani ratnam generally has a tendency to create unreal and pompous overblown characters in this movie, every person seems real and their interactions are touching and sincere.
this is the reason why this ranks as one of his best movies.the movie is emotionally draining and tugs at the heart of the viewer, keerthana as the 9 year old amudha and simran as her adopted mother are simply brilliant.
they again seem forced and stand out, not gelling with the rest of the script.having said these, this still is one of the most poignant and beautiful movies to come out of india in a long long time.
It seems that the rebels of the Tamil minority have been in an ongoing conflict with the military regime that runs the country for many years, causing many deaths and widespread suffering on the island.Mani Ratman's latest film, A PECK ON THE CHEEK, tells the story of a young girl named Amudha, who is separated from her Sri Lankan parents by the war and raised by a young Indian couple.
Although her adopted parents love her as much as could be, and have raised her without prejudice along with their biological children, Amudha cannot help but want to learn more about her biological family.Mani Ratman is probably best known for his 1998 film DIL SE, which hides a story about terrorism and politics inside a love story (or is it the other way around?).
The central theme that binds the movie is of love between all the various members of a family, and especially that between a child and her adopted parents.
It's an emotionally complex film, with characters that are somewhat idealised but still behave in a very human way.The film revolves around 9 year old Amudha, played with charm and vivaciousness by young actress P.S. Keerthana in her first and only acting role.
The film is a bold and artistic effort to explore issues that are not frequently covered on the silver screen.Mani Ratman's direction is superb, very confident and mature - the most sophisticated work I've seen from this director yet.
A.R. Rahman provides the film's soundtrack, which is not as good as his classic DIL SE or BOMBAY music (based on first impressions at least) but still shows his great musical talent.I'm not aware of a DVD release for the film yet - I saw it in Tamil with English subtitles thanks to the San Francisco International Film Festival, of which the film was undoubtedly the highlight.
The impact on children and families caught in the conflict is sensitively dramatized by acclaimed Tamil director Mani Ratnam in his 2002 film A Peck on the Cheek, winner of several awards at the National Film Awards in India.
While the civil war is merely a backdrop for the story of a young girl's voyage of discovery, the human cost of war is made quite clear and Ratnam gives the fighting a universal context, pointing the finger at global arms traffickers as the source of wrongdoing.Beautifully photographed in Southern India by cinematographer Ravi K Chandran in a setting mirroring the terrain of Sri Lanka, the film tells a moving story about an adopted 9-year old girl who sets out to find her real mother in the middle of the fighting in Sri Lanka.
Played with deep feeling and expressiveness by P.S. Keerthana in a memorable performance, Amudha is brought up by a loving middle class family with two younger brothers after her natural parents Shyama (Nandita Das) and Dileepan (J.D. Chakravarthi) were forced to flee when the fighting broke out, leaving her in a Red Cross camp.
In a loving flashback, we see Amudha's adoptive parents, father Thiru (Madhavan) a prominent Tamil writer, and mother Indra (Simran) a TV personality, marry to facilitate their adoption of the darker-skinned little girl.Young Amudha has no idea that she is adopted until it is sprung upon her abruptly on her ninth birthday, according to the parents' prior agreement.
Amudha runs away several times until her parents agree to go to Sri Lanka to help her find her true mother, now a fighter for the Tamil separatists.
The family's immersion in the reality of the civil war leads to some traumatic moments and difficult decisions, handled mostly with skill by Ratnam, though a sequence where the family was caught in a crossfire felt amateurish.A Peck on the Cheek is of course a Bollywood-style film and that means tons of music and melodrama.
Mani Ratnam's 'Kannathil Muthamittal' is another of the movie from his 'political terror' series (along with films like 'Roja', 'Bombay' and 'Dil se').
It tells an intense story about 9 year old Amudha who, with the help of her adopted parents, seeks to find her birth mother in Sri Lanka.
The movie is set with the backdrop of the civil war in Sri Lanka.
Prakash Raj is irritating and his Sinhalese is all wrong.Though 'Kannathil Muthamittal' revolves mainly around the Tamil people, the film is, in a way, arguably a bit partial as it shows how the war has affected the Tamil people in Sri Lanka without implying how this also had severely dangerous consequences for the non-Tamil Sri Lankan.
Then again, the war is only a part of the film as 'Kannathil Muthamittal' is more about the unconditional love between two parents and their daughter.
If he had been working in Western Countries he would be considered in the same league as Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Spielberg or Martin Scorsese.With Kannathil Muthamittal ( A Peck on the Cheek) he has taken the two sensitive subjects of Adoption and the Civil War in Sri Lanka and linked them together to make a heart wrenching story.The entire cast is superb.
We are led from the jungle of northern Sri Lanka to the serene beaches of Southern India, as well as from the terror of war to the ultimate conquest by love of the human heart.
Beautiful, subtle, witty, with a few hidden surprises waiting for the viewer, this movie stands up to being seen again and again, and the story within the story, The Umbrella, is done so well, as we watch the scene unfold from drawings in a book.
Mani is back wit a Rathnam(gem) he manages to capture the mental trauma of a small girl searching 4 her mother they way he goes about showing the problems-in Ceylon is a treat..
Rahman a find of Rathnam has given some great tunes the lyrics r apt 4 the movie the locations used for the movie are very good and makes viewing pleasant the movie starts of in a light manner moves over to capture the feelings of the girl finally goes on o shed light into the life of people in war torn places across the world this is yet another classic from ManiRathnam.
They can be proud to show this movie at all film festivals for it has got everything that needs to name it as an "all time classic".
The war and its impacts in Sri Lanka through the eyes of a ten year old girl is the movie all about but the scenes and circumstances will surely be not the one that you will expect.
Madhavan no wonder he is one of the best actors in the country who can always add beauty and unique identity for the role he plays, and it needs real daringness to act as a father for three kids when he is considered as a dream boy with a glamorous personality in the industry.
Above all the story and the way it is told makes it as the best movie in the recent times..
I think this is one of the best tamil movies i've seen in a while.
I highly recommend this movie to anyone who wants to enjoy a good cry and some great acting (and superb songs!
You don't have to be a tamilian to appreciate this gem of a movie.I don't know a word of tamil and saw this movie only because a friend had recommended it to me.Understanding a movie without knowing the language is quite tough but I could make out the story because the lead actors (and actresses)emoted really well.And the little girl was really cute (she wasn't irritating like child actors in most hindi movies).The story is really touching and hats off to Mr. Ratnam for trying something different.The relationship between the parents and their children are shown quite realistically.(I could identify with the characters in the movie).It was alltogether a movie that will remain in my heart forever and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to my friends.Also the songs are just out of this world!They were beautifully and meaningfully picturised.If only I could understand the right meaning of the lyrics:(.
The war scenes were amazing, camera work excellent, and plot beautiful.
Mani Ratnam is a great director, and I hope his next film was a success..
I went to this movie without any expectation though I knew Maniratnam would've given an excellent film!
The story is about how an young girl Amudha who lives with her foster parents at Chennai, India leaves to Sri Lanka in search of her real mother.
And hats off to Mr.Maniratnam.Mani Ratnam has once again proved that he is a director who can take Indian cinema to great heights!
Back home and forgiven, Thiruchelvan tells Amudha the story of how she inspired his writing and how she caused the marriage between him and Indra.Inspired by real stories of adopted children from this area, I was attracted to this film because it appeared to be different from some other Indian films I had seen (specifically not a three hour romance with an album full of songs in it).
Simran was pretty good but the real maternal emotion comes from Das in a small but key role in the film.
Unlike many Indian films, the songs are restrained numbers that support the story rather than dominate it and the direction is good again quite restrained and good at drawing the beauty out of the surrounding as well as staging large action sequences.
Where's the actor willing to bury his personality for the sake of the character?Why are Indian films ALL frickin' musicals?Kannathil Muthamittal has GREAT acting, ok, not great, only great comp'd w/ Indian movies, but good even by western standards.
In this movie mani ratnam does not exaggerate or give advices (like in Vuyire) but simply narrates the characters as they are .
Mani Ratnam has amazingly improved.21-04-2010: Now I can see how cunningly lots of scenes are put in this movie against the (so called) terrorists.
Based on a true story of an adopted girl who goes in search of her biological parents, Mr. Ratnam paints a classic that rivets as much as it rebukes, cherishes as much as it chastens and preaches as much as it practises.Where does one start?
With the crushing realization that she has no hope of staying with the one who bore her, Amudha does to her adoptive mother what this film's title means: a peck on the cheek.As for the cast, the trail is clearly blazed by the brilliant PS Keerthana.
Do not judge it as a lesson in film-making; you will only lose out on experiencing one of the very best from the Mani Ratnam-A R Rahman stable..
The backstory of how Madhavan and his wife come to adopt the child is extremely well done, with little histrionics, but a lot of love and heart.
We in America have little concept of the Tamil "insurgency" in Sri Lanka, but this film vividly portrayed the horrors of civil conflict in a country best-known for peace, love, and natural beauty.
Her desire to find her mother - quite unrealistic in the war-torn refugee camps of northern Sri Lanka - is nevertheless undertaken by her parents, one of whom is a famous novelist.This film moved me very much, and I'll check it out and see it at least once, again..
as compared to the usual fare we are subjected to in india, mani ratnam's movies like roja and bombay were sophisticated and magical.
in kannathil muthamittal everything, besides the cinematography and some of the acting, is strictly run of the mill.it does surprise me that people have liked this movie so much, but the majority of comments here are from non-indians, who probably are not so used to the emotion-hammering of indian cinema.
Maniratnam, who in India, is often compared with prominent world film makers and is regarded a genius in film-making, has yet again proved that he can only make the frames look visually good, without offering much food for thought.Forget about pure cinematic pleasure that can be derived from cinema as a very old form of art.While I would not like to claim and portray myself as someone who has seen all the beautiful movies made around the world, still any thoughtful and a bit educated film goer can identify that his films do not contain innovative ingenuous plots, does not contain lingering effects afterward and MOSTLY contain ridiculous ending and a LOT of melodrama, seen profusely in Indian movies.Overall, Maniratnam has successfully confirmed my distaste for his films once again.Sorry for those who on this board were claiming otherwise.
Unfortunately, the film's second half, which takes place in war-torn Sri Lanka, feels like an entirely different, and disappointing movie.
The final sequence, where the daughter and mother are reunited, is good, but so over-the-top with the music and a well-timed downpour that it feels like a cheat.
Several attempts at truancy later the adoptive parents take her to Sri Lanka to try to find her birth mother.
But this also leads to their meeting the new Shyama - one who finally is confronted by Amudha and asked why she abandoned her daughter.The story of a child who has to grapple with the fact that she was abandoned at birth, her obsessive drive to reconnect with her birth mother, the unconditional love of the adoptive parents, the demons that drive the birth mother, the normalcy of Chennai and the horrors of terrorism ravaged Sri Lanka - Mani Ratnam made a masterful film that blended many ingredients into a saga that is soul stirring.
The film has excellent performances from Madhavan, Nandita Das, Simran and an absolute stunner role as Amudha - the abandoned one - done by the child artiste P.
Most probably the best Tamil movie I've ever seen in my life.
Mani Ratnam has yet again proved that he is the best in making meaningful and heartfelt movies.This movie is basically about a young girl (P.S. Keerthana) who is in search of her biological mother (Nandita Das) who abandoned her in a refugee camp to fight for her country just like her husband (J.D. Chakravathy).
He and his wife (Simran) decide to adopt this young child but one day she finds out that they are not her real parents and decides to search for her biological mother.This movie really screams EXCELLENT.
The way Mani Ratnam presented the movie is magnificent.
Mani Ratnam has made movies similar in plot to Kannathil Muthamittal, which were Roja (narrating a love story amidst The Indo-Pak cold war for Kashmir) and Bombay (Another love story with Mumbai communal riots of the 90's in the background).This one is also a love story..
Be it the light moments between the girl and her adopted family, her constant frustration and persistent desire to meet her real mother, the miniature representation of the clashes between Sri-Lankans and resident Indians telling the story of an otherwise vast catastrophic situation present around, or the brilliant climax where even a cold hearted murderer would sob...
Seeing the impact all this had on the girl and parents (particularly the adoptive mother) was impressive to watch and sure sparked my interest.Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has been involved in a very, very long and brutal civil war with Tamilese militants, off and on, for three decades.
If it were me, I might have been tempted to pay an unemployed actress to play the part and fool the kid--thus avoiding being in the middle of a war!Despite my complaints, the film was lovely to watch and was very rewarding.
I found "A Peck On The Cheek" which I saw on a Netflix DVD, to be overall an extremely well done film, with excellent effects in the war scenes, and fine performances, especially the girl who played "Amudja".
She gave a very realistic and complex portrayal of a 9 year old, who upon finding out she was adopted (with little sensitivity by her parents), wants to find out who her biological mother was.
We have seen in flashback at the start of the film how her mother became married and why she gave her child up. |
tt0027099 | The Three Musketeers | In Venice, the musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, with the help of Milady de Winter, steal airship blueprints made by Leonardo da Vinci. However, they are betrayed by Milady, who incapacitates them and sells the blueprints to the Duke of Buckingham.
A year later, d'Artagnan leaves his village in Gascony for Paris in hopes of becoming a musketeer as his father was, only to learn that they were disbanded. At a rural bar, he challenges Captain Rochefort, leader of Cardinal Richelieu's guard, to a duel after being offended by him, but Rochefort merely shoots him while he's distracted. Once in Paris, d'Artagnan separately encounters Athos, Porthos and Aramis and, accidentally offending all three, schedules duels with each. Athos brings Porthos and Aramis to the duel as his seconds and d'Artagnan realizes who they are. Richelieu's guards arrive to arrest them, but, inspired by d'Artagnan, the musketeers fight together and win. All four are summoned before the young King Louis XIII and Richelieu urges him to execute them, but Queen Anne is impressed by their bravery and the king condecorates them instead.
Richelieu instructs Milady, now his accomplice, to plant false love letters among Queen Anne's possessions, steal her diamond necklace, and take it to the Tower of London in order to frame her as having an affair with Buckingham, which would force King Louis to execute her and declare war on England. At this point, the people would demand a more experienced leader: Richelieu himself. In order to secure her own position, Milady demands that Richelieu declare in a written authorization that she is working on behalf of France.
The false letters are found and given to King Louis, who is advised by Richelieu to set up a ball at which Queen Anne would be forced to wear the necklace. If she doesn't, then her affair is real, and there will be war. Queen Anne's lady-in-waiting Constance Bonacieux discovers Richelieu's plan and pleads with the musketeers to stop him. They follow Milady and Buckingham to London, while Constance is captured by Rochefort for helping the musketeers to escape from him.
In London, Milady tells Buckingham the musketeers have arrived to take revenge on him and teaches him all their tendencies in battle. D'Artagnan is captured, but turns out to be a decoy, allowing his associates to steal Buckingham's airship and rescue him. Milady's getaway coachman reveals himself as the musketeers' manservant Planchet and delivers her to his masters, who retrieve the necklace from her. Athos prepares to execute Milady for her treachery, but she leaps off the airship, apparently dying on her own terms.
The musketeers depart back to Paris, only to be intercepted by Rochefort in another airship, as Milady had given Richelieu copies of da Vinci's blueprints. Rochefort offers to exchange Constance for the necklace, but captures d'Artagnan and orders an attack as soon as he retrieves the jewels. His superior airship has the upper hand and severely damages the opposing ship, but the musketeers manage to crash both onto Notre Dame. On the roof, d'Artagnan duels and ultimately kills Rochefort. Constance is sent ahead to quietly return the necklace to Queen Anne.
The musketeers arrive at the ball and, for the sake of King Louis and his people, lie by claiming that Rochefort tried to sabotage an airship that Richelieu built for them, and that they executed him for his treason on Richelieu's permission. To convince the king, Athos presents Milady's authorization, which the former accepts. Richelieu, satisfied, offers the musketeers a place in his army, but they refuse, and Richelieu vows they will come to regret their decision.
Meanwhile, Milady is found alive at the English Channel by Buckingham, who declares his intention to exact revenge. He is then revealed to be advancing towards France with a massive fleet of battleships and airships. | action, historical fiction | train | wikipedia | Interesting version.
This is quite an interesting version of the 3 Musketeers.
It does not follow all of the book, and ends about half way into the book.
I thought Walter Abel was great in this version.
If you see the 1948 Gene Kelly version, you will note that Kelly definitely copies the Abel look for the hero.
Also another great film score.
Favorite scenes include, the Assembled body of the Musketeers at their fencing exercises, and the meeting between the Queen her English lover.
Action packed, because it is shorter than most versions, and quite stirring..
Solid Entertainment From Aged Swashbuckler.
In 1625 an ambitious youth joins forces with THE THREE MUSKETEERS to save the French Queen's honor from the machinations of the cruel Cardinal Richelieu.RKO does Dumas proud in this rousing version of the ancient swashbuckler.
Too long ignored or slighted as dull or drab, it is in fact lavish & lively, with dashes of welcomed humor, and should keep the interest of most uncritical viewers.
The absence of any major stars is actually a benefit, as the plot is able to speak for itself without being sifted through the skein of celebrity.Initially, Walter Abel seems a curious choice for the impulsive D'Artagnan, but his exuberance & enthusiasm quickly envelop the role.
Paul Lukas, Moroni Olsen & Onslow Stevens have fun as the title characters and the fact that there's very little reason to tell them apart does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the film.One could wish for a bit more screen time for Ian Keith & Nigel de Brulier as the villains de Rochefort & Richelieu respectively, but Margot Grahame makes the most of her opportunities as the evil Milady de Winter.Heather Angel provides the romantic stimulus for Mr. Abel, while Lumsden Hare as the Musketeer Captain & mild-mannered John Qualen as D'Artagnan's servant equip themselves well in small roles.
Movie mavens will recognize an uncredited Lionel Belmore as an innkeeper.In his single scene as the Duke of Buckingham, British actor Ralph Forbes reveals the talent which, in a fairer world, would have made him a major Hollywood star.Not surprisingly, the original story has been streamlined & altered in various ways and at least a couple of notable deaths have been omitted, so as to provide a happier fadeout.*****************************************What were the facts surrounding the historical Richelieu & Buckingham?
Since the novel & films make much of their rivalry, a closer examination is in order.Both men rose from semi-obscurity to positions of enormous power & influence in their respective kingdoms.
Each found it necessary to dominate the weak sovereigns whose patronage they enjoyed.
Both endured the utter contempt & hatred of powerful domestic factions allied against them.
And were there ever a flirtation between the French Queen Anne of Austria and Buckingham, it was of a very mild nature.
There certainly was nothing resembling The Adventure of the Queen's Diamonds and all the derring-do associated with it.Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and Duke de Richelieu (1585-1642), came from a minor gentry family which was saddled with enormous financial debt upon the death of his father.
However, blessed with a very good brain & a manipulative mother, Richelieu used his intellectual charm to advance his ascent through the Byzantine levels of Church hierarchy.
Once having caught the attention of Louis XIII Richelieu never looked back.
Eventually wielding absolute authority, the Red Eminence took as his life's mission to thwart Spanish Habsburg hegemony in Europe and to crush all outbreaks of French Protestantism as they arose throughout the kingdom.For his part, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628), had his extreme physical attractiveness to thank for grabbing the eye of James I - who liked to dance both ends of the ballroom - and later became the favourite of Charles I as well.
The son of a knight, Buckingham soon rose to an eminence of power and angered the nobles by his monopoly of the king's affections and his arrogant accruement of great wealth.
As a diplomat & military strategist, Buckingham was hopelessly inept and he needed the king's protection to save him from trial in the Star Chamber.
Having failed disastrously in an attempt to succor the Huguenot of La Rochelle, France, he returned to England where he was quickly assassinated by a disgruntled naval officer.
When news of Buckingham's death reached London the people rejoiced in the streets..
All for One and One for All. The Three Musketeers was probably RKO Studio's biggest budget item for 1935.
It's a condensed version of the classic novel by Alexandre Dumas and casts Walter Abel in the lead role of D'Artagnan.Walter Abel had a distinguished career as a fine character actor, but from this film he just not have the charisma needed to carry a whole film.
Ironic that the three most obvious D'Artagnans all were not available in 1935.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was in Great Britain, Tyrone Power was a year away from his break out picture, Lloyd's of London and Errol Flynn was just being introduced at Warner Brothers in Captain Blood.
Why none of those three ever got to play D'Artagnan is a mystery, especially Flynn who did do a version of The Three Musketeers as a radio play.The best bit of acting is from Ian Keith as DeRochefort.
The novel has DeRochefort as Cardinal Richelieu's chief enforcer, but here he's a loose cannon with very much his own agenda.
Paul Lukas makes a brooding Athos although the best portrayal of that role comes from Van Heflin in MGM's version in 1948.This is a decent version of the classic and far superior to what Darryl Zanuck inflicted on the public in 1939 with the Ritz Brothers as Athos, Porthos, and Aramis..
A good adaptation of the classic.
I really enjoyed this old version of the three musketeers.
D'Artagnan was not too well cast but I did enjoy the musketeers.
This movie did an excellent job of following the book and showed a vile Milady De Winter.
There is a lot of the style of older movies in this one, for instance, the four musketeers do a little singing from time to time, but it's surrivable.
I would people who like older movies to give this one a try, it's worth it..
Totally forgettable.
Of all the major American and British sound versions of the Dumas classic made up to 1999, this is easily the worst.
The trouble is in the casting and the direction.
Walter Abel was "introduced" in this film, although he had actually been in films since as far back as 1930, and because this was his first swashbuckling role, the producers didn't know what to make of him.
He has none of the dash of Douglas Fairbanks,Don Ameche, Warren William, Cornel Wilde, or even Gene Kelly, and none of the charming awkwardness of Michael York, all of whom have played D'Artagnan in other films.In fact, Abel gives, in plain English, a bad performance, partly because he is so totally miscast.
Film fans will recognize him as one of those actors whom you see often,but never know what their name is.
He would give better performances later in his career as worried, nervous managers (in "Holiday Inn") or business executives( i.e. Gregory Peck's boss, who falls memorably out the window to his death in "Mirage").
The other roles are indifferently cast and performed--this could be any one of a hundred B-movies--even the villains,and that's the real problem.
A swashbuckler is supposed to be exciting and thrilling,and this one is neither--it's as if director Lee just didn't care..
"Keep your head out of politics, your hand out of dueling, and your heart out of love.".
Cocky young swordsman D'Artagnan (Walter Abel) arrives in Paris and is taken under the wing of three musketeers (Paul Lukas, Moroni Olsen, Onslow Stevens).
First English-language film version of the Alexandre Dumas story.
It's pretty dull stuff.
Walter Abel is painfully miscast.
This was his first starring role.
He would have better luck in his career as a character player.
Film debut of Moroni Olsen.
Three Musketeers movies should be fun, exciting, and action-packed.
This one's tedious.
Even the action is unexciting.
Max Steiner wrote the music and lyrics for the corny theme song.
Hardly his best work.
Watchable but forgettable..
THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Rowland V.
Lee, 1935) **1/2.
This is at least the seventh official adaptation I have watched of the archetypal Alexandre Dumas swashbuckler – the others dating from 1921 (Silent), 1939 (semi-musical), 1948 (for my money, the definitive version), 1953 (French), 1963 (Italian spoof) and 1973/1974 (the popular star-studded two-parter); there are still a few more to go, to be sure – including a renowned French Silent serial and a vintage British TV mini-series which I will be getting to shortly – not counting myriad sequels, offshoots and variations!
Being the first Talkie rendition and emanating from the golden age of the genre, much was perhaps expected of the outcome – especially since its director had just supplied the best-regarded take on another of the author's classic and oft-filmed adventure tales, namely THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (1934); however, it ended up proving so uninspired that the picture has virtually fallen through the cracks over the years – until the recent dusting off, being an RKO production, via Warners' "Archive Collection"!
While the essence of the narrative is there for the most part, the spirit is sadly lacking (despite a script co-written by Lee and the renowned Dudley Nichols); not surprisingly, it looks fairly good – but the cast is variable to say the least!
The worst offenders here are certainly Walter Abel's bland D'Artagnan (he is awkwardly speechless during the opening sequence!) and Paul Lukas' unimposing Athos (with his trademark broken English delivery intact!); the remaining Musketeers are played by Moroni Olsen (a typically rowdy Porthos in his debut) and a young Onslow Stevens (an adequately brooding Aramis) – incidentally, their famous exploits have even yielded a theme tune!
The other famous characters are just as unevenly served – with Ian Keith's Count de Rochefort (for the record, he would reprise the role in 1948) and Margot Grahame's Milady de Winter (who bows out not in the traditional manner, i.e. at the mercy of the public executioner, but rather by leaping off a bridge into the river below!) acquitting themselves reasonably well, while Miles Mander as the King and Nigel de Brulier's Cardinal Richelieu (a part he would tackle four times in all, including the 1921 original and two separate versions, made in 1929 and 1939, of Dumas' "The Man In The Iron Mask") barely register here!
That said, the fencing by Fred Cavens (a master in his art throughout the genre's heyday) delivers the expected goods...but, as a general rule, the positives are outweighed by the negatives – perhaps never more so than when D'Artagnan engages in drunken singing (with his just-met beloved Constance on one arm and the Queen of France{!} on the other being urged to helpfully join in) to escape the attention of the Cardinal's men after a clandestine night-time rendezvous with the Duke of Buckingham!!.
Dated, cheapo programmer.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS is a cheap, 1935 version of the Alexandre Dumas novel made by notorious programmer studio RKO Radio Pictures.
Despite the shortness of the running time this is a plodding affair that looks quite dated to the modern eye.
The heroes are stiff and wooden and the bad guys straight out of a pantomime.It is true that the movie has a sufficient period 'look' to it, although a lot of the locations, like the wooded track which carriages run through repeatedly throughout the movie, are re-used.
This kind of film was crying out to be made in colour because the vibrant costumes are wasted.
The script is lean but lacks decent characterisation although it has to be said the female characters are far better written and more interesting than the male ones and quite alluring at times, particularly Margot Grahame's de Winter.Sadly, the titular musketeers are both interchangeable and dull and Walter Abel's d'Artagnan is hardly a guy to root for; maybe a sanctimonious fellow you'd like to give a good pasting instead.
The sword fights are pretty excruciating and although there are flashes of inspiration here and there (the climactic carriage chase is rather fine) it's not enough to prevent this from being a bore. |
tt0029842 | The Adventures of Marco Polo | Nicolo Polo shows treasures from China and sends his son Marco Polo (Gary Cooper) there with his assistant (and comic relief) Binguccio (Ernest Truex). They sail from Venice, are shipwrecked, and cross the desert of Persia and the mountains of Tibet to China, to seek out Peking and the palace of China's ruler, Kublai Khan (George Barbier).
The philosopher/fireworks-maker Chen Tsu (H. B. Warner) is the first friend they make in the city, and invites them into his home for a meal of spaghetti. Children explode a fire-cracker, and Marco thinks it could be a weapon. Meanwhile, at the Palace, Ahmed (Basil Rathbone), the Emperor's adviser, harboring dubious ambitions of his own, convinces Emperor Kublai Khan that his army of a million men can conquer Japan.
Kublai Khan promises Princess Kukachin (Sigrid Gurie) to the King of Persia. Marco, arriving at the palace, sees Kukachin praying for a handsome husband. Marco is granted an audience with the emperor at the same time as a group of ladies-in-waiting arrive; Kublai Khan lets Marco test the maidens to find out which are the most worthy. Marco tests them all with a question ("How many teeth does a snapping turtle have?"), and he sends off the ones who had incorrectly guessed the answer, as well as those who had told him the correct answer (none), retaining those saying they did not know. His reasoning behind this is that they are the perfect ladies-in-waiting, not overly intelligent, and honest. Kublai agrees and Marco immediately becomes a favored guest. Ahmed shows Marco his private tower with vultures and executes a spy via a trapdoor into a lion pit. Kukachin tells Marco that she is going to marry the King of Persia, but, having fallen in love with her, he shows her what a kiss is. A guard tells Ahmed, who vows to keep Marco out of the way. Ahmed then advises Kublai Khan to send Marco into the desert to spy on suspected rebels. Kukachin warns Marco of the deceiving Ahmed. | action | train | wikipedia | Gary Cooper plays the Venetian explorer, and the film opens in a Venice seemingly constructed of cardboard.
The placid mandarin figure takes this in his stride, and happens to mention that he is treating his son to a crash course in both eastern and western wisdom - which is not bad for a place that has not yet been visited by a European.Soon our Gary (er, Marco) is served a mysterious oriental dish called 'spaghet', which he thinks he will introduce to Venice when he returns.At the royal palace (made of a superior form of cardboard), he is soon immersed in the intrigues of the court of Kublai Khan.
Archie Mayo's 1938 "The Adventures of Marco Polo" is an odd film to watch.
Robert Sherwood, a distinguished writer of better films, is responsible for writing the screen treatment, but frankly, his imprint is lacking in the finished product.Of course, times have changed and no Hollywood producer would dare to give this type of "entertainment" to today's audiences because they would be seen as ridiculous, at best.
It's obvious the people behind this film either had budget problems, or they didn't get the right art directors to improve the film.Gary Cooper, as Marco Polo, appears to be lost.
THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO take him from his home in Venice, across the wide expanse of Asia, to the palace of the great Kublai Khan.Lavish and at times exciting, this adventure film never rises far above the level of a comic book and should not be relied on for much historical accuracy.
Even so, it is nonetheless entertaining, with a sturdy hero and a villain worthy of scorn & hisses.To his credit, Gary Cooper plays the title role with good grace and a straight face, doubtless well aware that a fat paycheck would be his reward for spending so much time running about in 13th century garments.
His romance with princess Sigrid Gurie is refreshingly low-key and charming, even if wholly implausible.Basil Rathbone is the evil Saracen who controls the Khan's court, his lust for ultimate power having made him as rapacious as the vultures & lions he keeps in his private apartments to feed upon his enemies.
Suave & sophisticated, Rathbone's soothing voice and sinister good looks made him the perfect intelligent villain.A bevy of fine character actors keeps the fast paced story moving: little Ernest Truex as Marco's bookkeeper with bad feet - he spends much of the film perched on Cooper's back; H.
B. Warner as the soft-spoken Chinese inventor who befriends Marco; chubby, dithering George Barbier as a less-than-awesome Khan; rotund Robert Greig, sporting enormous fingernails, as the Khan's majordomo, and diminutive Ferdinand Gottschalk as a most unfortunate emissary from the Khan of Persia.Jolly Alan Hale appears as a rebel leader who blithely sends his prisoners off to be boiled in oil, but secretly lives in fear of his termagant wife, Binnie Barnes, while he secretly ogles slave girl Lana Turner.***************************Some of the true facts concerning Marco Polo (1254-1324) and omitted by the film should perhaps be relayed.
(There was no romance between Marco and the princess; to attempt one would have been more than his life was worth.) Eventually, after seemingly endless travel, the three Polos arrived home in Venice, having been gone for 24 years.
Worthless as biography and not even much of a Gary Cooper adventure film but on a camp level there is entertainment value here.
Gary Cooper does not look at all like a traveling merchant in the 13th century but like Gary Cooper of course, oddly that's one of the films strengths since even when faced with the unlikely sight of Basil Rathbone as Ahmed a Mongol villain Coop is there to remind you that this is a vehicle for its star and little else..
Other than that, it has no distinction whatsoever except that it provides a nice comic book excursion into the past with lavish sets of Oriental splendor but little else for compensation.Still, it's watchable enough thanks to the low-key and quietly humorous performance of GARY COOPER (an unlikely choice for the role of the Italian adventurer from Venice).
It's also interesting to watch SIGRID GURIE, fascinating in close-ups with Hollywood's brand of Oriental make-up--but an actress who never managed to be more than a passing fancy.BASIL RATHBONE adds the right touch of menace as Ahmed, the villain of the piece, and ALAN HALE brings his boisterous presence to the role of a man who was afraid of his lecherous wife (BINNIE BARNES) but not afraid to dispose of his enemies in boiling oil.It gets more laughable as it goes on, but reaches new heights of incredibility with an ending that has Polo making use of explosives to bring down the enemy camp.
Like the better realized but equally fake-medieval "Adventures of Robin Hood," released the same year (1938), "The Adventures of Marco Polo" (note the similar title) provides plenty of entertainment in the comedy-adventure genre that eventually led to "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Evaluating either "Raiders" or "Marco Polo" on its historical accuracy misses the point.
(Remember, it's not supposed to be real.) As Kublai's evil vizier, Basil Rathbone emanates the same elegant menace as he did in the role of Sir Guy in "Robin Hood." The ubiquitous Alan Hale, Sr., plays his usual self, and if you look carefully you'll see teenybopper Lana Turner in a small but fully credited role.Why aren't there any Chinese here in leading roles?
Gary Cooper plays the role of Marco , a venetian adventurer , in this all star production of Marco Polo's adventures .
Young Marco travels to China to help Kublai Khan fight against rebels, headed by his own assistant , with a new invention : gunpowder .
High budget Hollywood production deals with Marco Polo travels from Venice to Pekin , where he falls in love with the Emperor's daughter .
Marco (sympathetic as well laconic Gary Cooper) becomes the first traveler to record his visit to the Eastern court of the Emperor Kublai Khan .
Kublai (Barbier) is a kindly fellow , but his villain aide Ahmed (Basil Rathbone replaced originally cast John Carradine as the evil of a piece) wants to get rid of Kublai Khan so he can be emperor, and to get rid of Marco Polo so he can marry the princess .
But Ahmed sends Marco Polo to the West to fight barbarians led by a Tartar chief called Kaidu (Alan Hale Jr), but he goes back just in time to save the day .
Look out for Lana Turner in her sixth movie making a short appearance , almost extra , as a slave girl , later she recalled in a Gary Cooper biography that her "fancy black oriental wig" had been glued around her face with spirit gum, while she felt extremely uncomfortable in her costumes .
The film was received poorly at the box-office, becoming the biggest flop up to that time for both Gary Cooper and Samuel Goldwyn; it was estimated that the picture lost close to $700,000 .
Being a Samuel Goldwyn production, the film is the very antithesis of a history lesson; still, it's more interesting when dealing with the title character's various discoveries in the Orient than his romantic conquests!
Goldwyn, however, could surely afford to employ a reliable cast - most of whom, though, one would be hard-pressed to accept as Chinese - including Gary Cooper (likeable as always in the lead, if not exactly believable), Basil Rathbone (a typically sly villain), Sigrid Gurie (Kublai Khan's daughter and, naturally, an object of contention between Cooper and Rathbone), Ernext Truex (funny as Cooper's flustered sidekick), Alan Hale (a jovial rebel leader) and H.B. Warner (who basically replicates his dignified Chang from LOST HORIZON [1937]).
But - although the film (of course) plays loose with historical fact - it must be remembered that Marco Polo did it as well, and there is almost no actual record to compare anyone's version of the story against: Polo (like Cellini) was a notorious liar-in-print.
I first saw this film with my world history class when I was a junior in high school.There were three other classes watching with mine,most of us were heckling it.Among the corniest aspects were the sign for the Polo Brothers business written in English(this was Venice,they were Italians),then when Ernest Truex was in a gondola searching for Marco Polo breaking out in song about him.Even after makeup,Sigrid Gurie looked about as Chinese as Hillary Duff does without makeup.I couldn't believe such talented actors as Truex,Gary Cooper,& Basil Rathbone would have made such a silly film.The best performance was by H.B.Warner as Chen Tsu,the first Chinaman Polo befriended.It was on TCM last night,Robert Osborne commented about how the movie was not a box office hit,I'm not surprised.The only reason to watch is for laughs at how corny it is..
THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO is an unjustifiably maligned film.
Yes, it has a lot of problems with it, including the miscasting of the Chinese characters (Sigrid Gurie was a mistake), the sluggish middle part and somewhat insulting plot points concerning Chinese culture in general (they don't know what a kiss is?) but if you overlook this (yes, it might be much for some), there's actually a fun film here with Gary Cooper at his most relaxed and handsome, Basil Rathbone being wonderfully evil, some cool vintage Hollywood sets, an exciting climax all done with an amiable goofy tone to it which makes you forget the film's obvious weaknesses.The best thing about ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO is Gary Cooper.
Thankfully, Basil Rathbone is there to bring balance to the uneven film with a control and yet knowingly campy performance.So to recap, a fun old fashioned adventure film with Gary Cooper at his most enjoyable..
It's quite an expedition to go to China,if we are to believe the screenwriters!Today,Venice ,and the lovely women Marco ,a womanizer as irresistible as Casanova,seduces,and tomorrow,no problem ,we are in a Chinese village where a wise man reads the Bible to children ("are you a Christian?-No,but I want'em to be carefully taught and be aware of all religions around the world ";relevant today and even a lesson to be remembered in our troubled times)A cheap expedition :only two persons (Marco and some kind of dwarf ,here to provide the story with a comic relief ) and not a long and winding road full of ambushes or dangers .As easy as to go from the Doges Palace to Marco's uncle's mansion .(The uncle is just passing by) It's very pleasant though.Gary Cooper is handsome and his charm is as effective in China as it is in Venice (or in America);there is a very tongue-in -cheek side that sustains the interest throughout:Marco suggests he "test" the women,before a khan shocked by his brazenness;the princess ,reciting all his family tree to play for time and thus not to marry the ugly villain,the ending with a dubious moral ,which people with a dirty mind might take for a future menage à Trois..
Venetian Marco Polo (Gary Cooper) travels to China and meets the famed ruler Kublai Khan (George Barbier).
Unfortunately he must deal with the evil machinations of Khan's scheming adviser, Ahmed (Basil Rathbone).Diverting adventure drama with a slightly miscast Cooper having a good time.
With The Adventures of Marco Polo he could hardly have done worse.How can I say it, Gary Cooper just does not suggest a renaissance Italian Man. Unless they all had that Montana drawl.
The two of them as the history books tell us, go off to the court of Kublai Khan to negotiate a trade agreement for Venetian merchants, particularly the House of Polo.There the real history stops as Cooper gets involved in all kinds of palace intrigue.Here's some of where Sam Goldwyn's casting gets positively zany.
Mr. Goldwyn produced an absolute bomb here in his depiction of Polo (Gary Cooper) going to China.By the way, with the exception of a map stating Cathay, ancient Cathay is referred to as China in this film.
Gary Cooper comes across like a western star and Sigrid Gurie, his leading lady, must have thought she was doing a poor imitation of Luise Rainer in "The Good Earth."You know you're in for it when Ernest Truex, the bookkeeper, goes singing "Marco Polo" on a gondola at the beginning of the film.Alan Hale and Binnie Barnes play leaders in western China where the Kublai Khan sends them to.
Barnes and Hale are completely unfaithful to each other.Basil Rathbone, as evil as ever as the horrible Ahmed, minister to the khan, even looks disgusted and rightfully so by all this.H.B. Warner provides the firecrackers, spaghetti and gun powder for all this.Goldwyn lost a bundle on this mess and rightfully so.
Sam Goldwyn production, Vasquez Rocks sitting in for China, a 40-ish looking Gary Cooper playing a 17 year old, some harmless, Caucasian boob masquerading as the Great Khan, good old Alan Hale for comic relief (what else could he provide?).
Everyone is miscast: a Caucassian actress born in Brooklyn, herself billed as a "Norwegian beauty" cast as a weak sister Chinese princess; Alan Hale as the western Chinese rebel leader; Gary Cooper as Polo.
Historically inaccurate doesn't even begin to describe how bad this movie is -- and I happen to like Gary Cooper.
This film was a big loss to MGM in 1938, most people did not find that Gary Cooper was suited for this type of picture and his leading lady, Sigrid Gurie was a star from Norway who lived in Brooklyn, N.Y. and not many people knew anything about her.
Anyway, Cooper played Marco Polo and tried his hand at comedy which did not suit him.
Sigrid Gurie,(Princess Kukochin),"Sofia" fell in love with Parco Polo (Gary Cooper), "The Plainsman" even though she was going to have an arranged marriage to another man she did not know.
Basil Rathbone, (Ahmed), "The Black Sleep", played the evil person who had strong desires for the Princess and wanted to kill Marco Polo.
Six foot, three inch Gary Cooper standing upright and passing through the palace guards undetected among the Chinese peasants (e.g. pretending to be a Chinaman himself) isn't the only unbelievable moment in this fictionalized biography of the great Venetian explorer.According to Robert Sherwood's screenplay, or N.A. Pogson's story, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by Archie Mayo, Marco Polo (with help from Kaidu, played by Alan Hale) actually saved China, rescuing emperor Kublai Khan (George Barbier), and his daughter Princess Kukachin (Sigrid Gurie), from his own ambitious adviser Ahmed (Basil Rathbone), as well as bringing spaghetti and coal to Italy.Apparently Polo also discovered that the gunpowder China used to burn bright for celebrations and make firecrackers (as toys) could be also be utilized on a larger scale for weaponry (e.g. to blow up gates or bring down walls).
Since historians question the facts surrounding this famed, mid-to-late 13th century trader-explorer, I'll not comment further on the validity of such claims.In the film, Ernest Truex plays Polo's traveling companion and bookkeeper Binguccio, Binnie Barnes plays Kaidu's wife Nazama, H.B. Warner plays the native Chen Tsu who helps Polo, Ferdinand Gottschalk the Persian Ambassador, Harold Huber plays Toctai, the assassin Ahmed sends to kill Kaidu, and Lana Turner plays Nazama's maid, who's coveted by Kaidu.Because his son is young and popular with the ladies (his disarming good looks?), Nicolo Polo (Henry Kolker) and some Venetian businessmen decide to send Marco (Cooper) to the East to establish trade agreements.
THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO was a notable flop for producer Samuel Goldwyn, being a staged Hollywood version of the adventures of the famous Venetian explorer who travelled to China and brought back spaghetti and gunpowder.
Gary Cooper is miscast as the lead and there's some value from Basil Rathbone's clichéd scheming villain, but watching the likes of Lana Turner and George Barbier pretending to be Asian is quite the embarrassment.
You can just imagine the planning meetings; "yeah, we'll have Gary Cooper as Marco Polo, there'll be adventure, beautiful girls, romance, action, all set in the mystic east, it's gonna be GREAT...".Except it wasn't.
Often films that don't do well at the time are viewed more kindly in hindsight, but not this one; it is very patchy indeed.Gary Cooper does his best but you can see his heart is not in it; if he too had been made up to look 'oriental' then it could have been an epic miscast on a par with John Wayne in 'the Conqueror' two decades later.
The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938): Gary Cooper, Basil Rathbone, Sigrid Gurie, George Barbier, Lana Turner, Binnie Barnes, Ernest Ruex, AlanHale, Ward Bond, H.B. Warner, Robert Greig, Henry Kolker, Lotus Liu, Harold Huber, Reginald Barlow, Harry Cording, Richard Farnsworth, Leo Fielding, Anne Graham, Hale Hamilton, Eugene Hoo, Greta Granstedt, Granville Bates.....Director Archie Mayo, Story by N.A. Pogson, Screenplay Robert.
"The Adventures of Marco Polo" was a different type of film for him and originally, audiences did not flock to see it.
The real Marco Polo never behaved the way Cooper does in the movie, nor did he ever experience the type of encounters he has in this film.
For such a film, this one is well worth viewing, especially if you're a fan of Gary Cooper or have an interest in classic films.1300's era Italian/Venetian explorer Marco Polo (Cooper) is assigned to explore China, namely the capital of Peking, the home of the Great Emperor Kublai Kan (Barbier).
Trouble arises when Marco is sent to dangerous enemy territory, as part of a carefully constructed plot by the Emperor's adviser Ahmed(played by Basil Rathbone).
Gary Cooper goes from Italy to China in a manner that only old Hollywood could manage with make believe sets and white actors pretending to be Asian.
Cooper, a good actor in the right part, is completely out of place as Polo.
Not.The one redeeming factor of the film is Gary Cooper. |
tt0083480 | Smiley's People | Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova, a Soviet émigrée in Paris, is told by a Soviet agent calling himself "Kursky" that her daughter Alexandra, whom she was forced to leave behind, may be permitted to join her for "humanitarian reasons". Maria eagerly applies for French citizenship for her daughter, but time passes with no sign of Alexandra and no further contact with "Kursky". Realising she has been duped, Maria writes to General Vladimir, a former Soviet general and British agent, for help. Vladimir immediately realises that Maria was unwittingly used to provide a "legend", or false identity, for an unknown young woman, a ploy which KGB spymaster Karla has fruitlessly tried before. Vladimir also recognises that the operation is wholly unofficial, because Karla uses blundering amateur agents instead of trained intelligence officers.
Vladimir contacts Toby Esterhase, his old handler and "postman" in the Circus, but Esterhase has left the service and refuses to be involved in Vladimir's plans. Nevertheless, Vladimir sends a confidant, Otto Leipzig, to interview Maria in Paris. From a photograph, Maria immediately identifies "Kursky". Vladimir then sends the son of an old friend to Hamburg to collect vital proof from Leipzig. He contacts the Circus again, invoking Moscow Rules and insisting on speaking to his former "vicar" or senior case officer, George Smiley, not realising that Smiley is also retired. The Circus personnel, unfamiliar with Vladimir, are sceptical and uncooperative. Meanwhile, Vladimir's activities are betrayed to Karla, probably by jealous members of Vladimir's émigré organisation. Vladimir is assassinated on Hampstead Heath, evidently by Moscow Centre agents, while on his way to meet an inexperienced handler from the Circus.
New Circus head Saul Enderby and Civil Service undersecretary Oliver Lacon believe that Vladimir was merely an obscure ex-agent seeking attention, and want to bury the matter quickly to protect the Circus from any scandal. They recall Smiley from his forced retirement in the hope that he will erase any links to the Circus. Unlike Enderby and Lacon, Smiley takes Vladimir's claims seriously and begins to investigate. He manages to recover a second letter sent to Vladimir by Maria, who is now being shadowed and fears for her life. Near the site where Vladimir was killed, he discovers Vladimir's half-empty packet of Gauloises cigarettes, containing the negative of a compromising photograph of Leipzig and another man with prostitutes. Smiley recalls that Leipzig had often blackmailed a venal Soviet agent named Oleg Kirov to obtain information, and surmises that Kirov is probably the other man in the photograph. Meanwhile, Soviet agents bungle an attempt to kill Maria.
Smiley consults dying former Circus researcher Connie Sachs, who remembers some background information on Kirov, also known by the cover name "Kursky". Following Vladimir's logic that Karla was acting outside the dedicated system he himself devised, Connie also recounts rumours that Karla had a daughter by a mistress whom he had later sent to the Gulag when she turned against him. The daughter, Tatiana, who grew up without a mother and with a father she never knew, became mentally unstable and was subsequently confined to a mental institution.
Smiley flies to Hamburg, where he hopes to learn the rest of the story. He tracks down Claus Kretzschmar, an old associate of Leipzig and owner of the seedy night club where the photograph was taken. Kretzschmar gives him directions to Leipzig's temporary address on a boat in a gypsy encampment on the Baltic Sea near Lübeck, but two of Karla's agents have already tortured and killed Leipzig. Smiley's search of Leipzig's boat uncovers what Karla's agents did not; the torn half of a postcard hidden underwater in an old gym-shoe on a fishing-line. His discovery is witnessed by several people, and his rental car is damaged by two boys. Smiley rushes to finish his work in Lübeck before German police and Soviet agents close in on him. Here, Smiley appears as the spy of old and a master of tradecraft.
He takes the half of the postcard to Kretzschmar, who matches it to the other half and in exchange gives Smiley a tape recording made at the time the photograph of Leipzig and Kirov was taken, and a photocopy of Maria's first letter to Vladimir. Smiley lays a false trail in the direction of London, and then hastens by train and ferry to Copenhagen, from where he flies to Paris, fearing for Maria's life. With help from his old friend and former lieutenant Peter Guillam, who is serving out his days in the British embassy in Paris, Smiley gets Maria to safety. He also learns that Kirov has been summoned back to Moscow, and has probably been killed for his indiscretions.
Smiley returns to London and meets in secret with Enderby. The transcribed tape of Kirov's confession to Leipzig shows that Karla is secretly diverting funds to a Swiss bank account and misappropriating other resources using a commercial attaché of the Soviet embassy in Bern, named Grigoriev. The money is going to the care of Karla's daughter, who has been committed to an expensive Swiss psychiatric sanatorium under the faked citizenship papers of Maria's daughter. Smiley explains that if the Circus can obtain proof of this activity, they may have the information necessary to blackmail Karla and force him to either defect or be exposed. Unexpectedly, Enderby gives Smiley approval, and secret and deniable funding, to mount an operation to secure the evidence from Grigoriev and close the trap on Karla.
While Smiley does research at the Circus, Esterhase sets up a covert team in Bern to keep Grigoriev under observation. Smiley then visits his estranged wife, Ann, and makes a point of cutting all relations with her as he prepares to face down his greatest foe. Smiley recognises how ruthless he must become if he is to be Karla's nemesis.
In Bern, Smiley learns that, like Kirov, Grigoriev is untrained in spycraft and hopeless at concealment. Esterhase's team soon gains ample evidence of his unofficial handling of funds for Karla and his affair with one of his secretaries. Although Grigoriev is normally accompanied everywhere by his wife, he makes an informal trip by himself to Bern, where Esterhase and his helpers take the opportunity to bundle him into a car. He is then subjected to Smiley's expert interrogation and given the choice of cooperating or being thrown to the mercy of Swiss authorities and, later, Karla. Grigoriev quickly confesses all he knows of the arrangements regarding "Alexandra's" care and the details of the visits he makes to her.
Smiley visits "Alexandra", who is being treated in an institution run by an order of nuns. Among her "symptoms" is her insistence that she is actually called Tatiana and is the daughter of a powerful man who can make people disappear but who does not actually exist. Smiley writes a letter to Karla, which Grigoriev passes on instead of his usual weekly report on "Alexandra"'s treatment. The letter details Karla's illegal activities and offers him the stark choice between defection to the West and protection for Tatiana, or his destruction at the hands of his rivals in Moscow Centre.
In a final scene, Karla, posing as a labourer, defects using a bridge connecting East and West Berlin. Before crossing over into the waiting arms of Western agents, Karla stops and lights a cigarette. As he passes near Smiley he drops a gold cigarette lighter, a gift to George from Ann, that he purloined from Smiley years earlier in an Indian prison. Smiley fails to pick up the lighter, another sign that he has become that which he resisted for so long. | insanity, murder | train | wikipedia | As far as I know, neither `Smiley's People', nor its prequel, `Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', is available in the US in BBC packaging (the current distributor) so you'll have to use your initiative if you want them.
I acquired my copies of `Smiley's People' and `Tinker, Tailor' through my video guy, who makes a couple of trips every year to London to shop for Euro-only products.
If you have not read it (admittedly, LeCarré is not for everyone), here's an appetizer:Retired British counter-intelligence operative George Smiley (Sir Alec Guinness in a remarkably nuanced performance) becomes aware, through events linked to the murder of a former colleague, that his seemingly invulnerable arch-rival in Soviet counter-intelligence, known to the western intelligence fraternity as `Karla', may have finally exposed an Achilles heel.
(Some years earlier, as recounted in the more episodic yet excellent `Tinker, Tailor', Karla nearly destroyed British counter-intelligence, wrecking Smiley's marriage in the process).
Going on an initial hunch and a fragment of evidence, turned up in a beautiful sequence reminiscent of a similar scene in Antonioni's `Blow Up', Smiley methodically begins to put the pieces together, despite the fact that almost everyone he knows is advising him to go home and don his robe and slippers.
Karla (introduced in a fascinating, wordless performance by Patrick Stewart in `Tinker, Tailor') is no comic book villain but a brilliant, almost monumental adversary who survived Stalin's purges, rising through the labyrinth of Soviet socio-politics to the pinnacle of power.`Smiley's People' is a tale of revenge.
Some of its greatest pleasures are found in scenes that center on the unflinching Smiley and his elegant, slightly honest, former master of spy-tradecraft, Toby Esterhaze (Bernard Hepton).
Smiley recruited Esterhaze from the Vienna gutters at the end of the World War II and to open a line of fire on Karla, reactivates him to compromise and turn one of the Soviet spymaster's European operatives.
(If Toby had been Nixon's Chief of Staff during the Watergate crisis, the Nixster would probably still be president.) The initial meeting between Smiley and Esterhaze, their first since a rather unfriendly encounter in `Tinker, Tailor', is masterful, almost poetic.Even in its somewhat streamlined, screen version `Smiley's People' is complex and dimensional, requiring full attention at all times.
Karla will be especially responsive to Smiley, for it was he who unmasked Karla's highly-placed and destructive double-agent in `Tinker, Tailor', through whom Karla had been manipulating the entire western intelligence community for decades.As events proceed in their intimate, quiet way, the suspense builds like layers of paint, one thin coat at a time.
The recent death of Sir Alec Guinness prompted me to wonder which role in his very long career he should be remembered for, and I believe it should be his portrayal of John Le Carre's master spy and inadequate man, George Smiley."Smiley's People", like the earlier "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", derives much of its fascination from its mundane realism.
Especially in the final scene, where all Smiley's friends and supporters are practically dancing with joy, Guinness's studied absence of emotion dominates.Few corporations other than the BBC would dare drag a 200-page novel out to over 4 hours of TV time, and very few actors other than Sir Alec Guinness could have held the viewer fascinated throughout such a marathon..
In my opinion, this is only slightly less praiseworthy than Tinker, Tailor and that is due to the previous high standard of its predecessor.SP has excellent character parts, particularly Bernard Hepton as Tobe Esterhazy, Beryl Reid, and even the maligned Barry Foster as Saul Enderby.
(His outstanding scene with Guinness on the roof after the consideration of Smiley's evidence about Karla is outrageously deleted in the Acorn DVD version.
So yeah, you have to pay attention.) Now for the bad news.The Acorn DVD is a travesty.With about forty minutes cut and scenes shortened and juxtaposed, this is NOT the Smiley's People that appeared on PBS and the BBC videotape.
The previously mentioned Enderby-Smiley scene is nowhere to be found.I don't know where or why this particular 'version' of Smiley's People was found or used but it as an extreme disappointment to me and to viewers who are coming new to this film.
The merits of Alec Guinness's Smiley are familiar to anyone who has seen this wonderful BBC adaptation of LeCarré's great 'Karla' trilogy of books..well, two of the books anyway.
Sadly they skipped over 'The Honourable Schoolboy' arguably the most exciting of the three.Both 'Tinker Tailor' and 'Smiley's People' have their casting mishaps but nothing that detracts in any important way.
I won't say any more to avoid a spoiler.'Smiley's People' is not as riveting as 'Tinker Tailor' I think because I found the first mini- series, focusing on the inner workings of the Circus, to be far more interesting than the foreign "outside" locations in 'Smiley's People.' But that's just me.
I still love this film and watch it often.Don't miss the Smiley series!
"Smiley's People" is the sequel miniseries to "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and is also based on a novel by John le Carré.
In this series, George Smiley investigates the murder of a Russian general formerly passing information to the Circus which puts him on the trail of his old rival, Soviet spy master "Karla".As with "Tinker, Tailor", Alec Guinness is perfect in a subtle performance as George Smiley.
The returning performers and new performances are solid as well."Smiley's People" is at least up to the high standard of "Tinker, Tailor" and perhaps better.
Whereas in "Tinker, Tailor" Smiley investigated within a limited circle of people and limited area, in this series the locations and characters are more varied.
In this way the plot of "Smiley's People" requires more focus to understand the connections between characters, which I enjoyed.As with "Tinker, Tailor", the style consisted mostly of Smiley conversing with people for information, so this series is also not appropriate for those looking for a fast-paced James Bond type spy thriller, but enjoyable for those looking for a deliberately paced spy film.
I won't choose between TINKER TAILOR and SMILEY'S PEOPLE.
PEOPLE isn't as dark (even though bodies litter the landscape), but it builds to great tension even on repeat viewings.Master-class performances by Michael Lonsdale (Grigoriev), Michael Gough (Mikhel), Eileen Atkins (Ostrakova), and even the unknown Stephen Riddle (Mostyn).
All your life!") is brought to life by Bernard Hepton, reprising his role from TINKER and showing himself equal to the novels' original dialog.The SMILEY'S PEOPLE Special Features DVD has a different interview with John le Carré than the TINKER one does.
This is the sequel to the Tinker Tailor mini-series and last chapter in the Karla Trilogy (they skipped 'schoolboy').
Nothing has fundamentally changed: Smiley is brought out of retirement for one last round of spy games against Karla, his old nemesis.
Moreover, it is filmed in that BBC way I adore—transparent camera, natural light and textures.Which brings me to a point I made in my Tinker Tailor post.
(one episode is capped by Smiley actually having a flashback)So, because you have only a partial view of the story (reflected in the film in a crucial bit of evidence being a film strip), and the story shifts as you move through (indeed, you don't know there is a testimony that goes with the strip), this would be like a chess game where each new move shuffles the rules, trying to make sense is not enough.
Indeed, whereas the bulk of intelligence operatives work as analysts, a good analyst is worth his weight in gold because he does just this: he can flow through a sea of information, salvaging only the crucial bits, the anchors that explain the story.So, my notion of a good spy film is one that makes watching itself have agency in the world—any film would benefit from this, hence why a template.
And the sense of place is powerful —Paris, the Hamburg strip club and lake camp, quiet picturesque Bern, Berlin and the simmering anxiety of the Wall.But the best piece of news is this: there is talk of a sequel to the recent Tinker Tailor film, which is going to be this one (alas for 'Schoolboy').
which is to paraphrase John Le Carre's own description of George Smiley played by Alec Guinness in this.
There's a remarkably seamless continuity between this, the sequel TV series to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – seamless in all departments that is and not just in Alec Guinness's performance.
Alas, since then they've settled firmly into the gutter, producing year after year of cheap unloved tripe and remembered by no one.Complicated tale of "modern" and old systems of espionage clashing, of smoothing over the many consequences of various past causes, of West & East blurring in the middle, of a spy story expertly related, and basically of staunch Briton Smiley hoping to find his old adversary the master-crafty Russian Karla had an ancient Achilles Heel after all.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is still to this day one of the best mini-series I've seen.
Just a reminder, this was the follow-up (sequel?) to the novel "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (1980) They both were extremely well done.
Why does "Smiley's People" (based on a novel by John LeCarre like his others - "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "Spy Who Came In From The Cold", and "Russia House") stay on the shelf ?
For those who are fans of the spy novels of John Le Carre, George Smiley is admired for his savvy and pitied for his loneliness.
Compelling thinking-man's spy thriller from John le Carre and Alec Guinness.
Those whose idea of a spy thriller is James Bond will be disappointed in "Smiley's People".
Those points being granted, however, "Smiley's People" is a brilliant, intricate, thinking-man's spy thriller, worthy of the author of "Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy" and "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold".
Alec Guinness, who probably played more different sorts of characters than any other actor, considered George Smiley to be his favorite role.
The fact that he is so bland meant that the part of George Smiley was probably a whole lot more difficult to play than most of the flashy character roles for which Guinness was known.Give this one an 8 for it's intricate, thoughtful plot and the superb performance by Alec Guinness..
'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' was one of the standout television series of the 1970s, a perfect adaptation of John Le Carre's best book, a spry thriller, a detective story, and a character study of every shade of English eccentric, brought to life by a perfect cast.
It's a lower key tale, set right at the end of the careers of Le Carre's favourite protagonist, the fanatical moderate George Smiley and his perpetual nemesis Karla; for a thriller, there's an awful lot of sitting around while not much happens.
A little over an hour, I believe, was cut from the six-part series.George Smiley is brought out of retirement again, this time to find out who killed his friend, The General, and why.
The General winds up dead.Smiley retraces The General's steps and his investigation leads to someone high in the Russian secret service, someone who seems to be killing everyone in his wake in his quest to hide a big secret.I will admit that I have always found anything connected with George Smiley, be it books, TV mini-series, or films, very hard to follow.
The stories contain a lot of subtleties and often assume knowledge that you may have had twenty years earlier when you read a Smiley story or saw a movie, but which one has now lost.Nevertheless, thanks to the wonderful performances and interesting story, even with cuts, this is a marvelous psychological study of two men: Smiley and his long-time adversary on the other side, Karla (Patrick Stewart) who are not so far apart as might be imagined.In the spy game, there appear to be no winners and no losers, so anything seen as a "success" is empty.
So much as been already said about either Tinker Tailor or Simleys People that my addition is small, however in a film world driven by special affects or minimal story content, these two film series represents some of the foremost screenplay, editing, acting and cinematography to date.
"Smiley's People" is the sequel miniseries to "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and follows George Smiley as he faces off against his nemesis, the fanatical soviet spymaster Karla.At the onset, Smiley is, as usual, in forced retirement but brought back in to help out his colleagues at "The Circus" (British Intelligence).
There's even more spy thriller action in this series, which isn't saying much, but it's still noticeable (of course, the appeal of the Smiley stories is how exciting they are without any hokey James Bond kind of silliness).This series also gives Smiley more psychological depth, and we see him resolve his glaring character defect - his tolerance of his wife's infidelity - while in the process gaining a new one - a level of cold ruthlessness which he might have described as fanaticism in his opponent Karla.Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that having more components made this a better production than its predecessor.
While still a watchable and intelligent story, Smiley's People is a distinctly different animal from its companion Tinker Tailor.
Each time I've watched Smiley's People I've found myself yearning for the kinds of complexities and subtleties movies based on LeCarre''s other stories are usually rich with - alas, the yearning goes unrequited.
Whereas I can watch Tinker Tailor yet again and discover an uncaught double entendre or an unnoticed directorial adumbration, I find little new after repeated viewings of Smiley's People.
Perhaps most disappointing is that Smiley's People is really not a spy movie at all.
This should have been as good as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but, having watched episode one, it's obvious that the change in director and the start of the 1980s has partially ruined the show.Alec Guinness is trying too hard to be a certain type of, let's say, experienced older generation spymaster and not making a very good job of it.
I enjoyed Tinker Tailor and found the mini series riveting as they try to unearth a Soviet mole deep in the inner bowels of the circus.I caught up with the recent repeat showing of Smiley's People and during the first episode I thought we are in for a treat here as we had intrigue and plot development.
The series just meanderedIts only the final episode that regained my interest but by then I knew this was a sandwich with no filling.So Smiley comes out of retirement to investigate the death of one of his agents, a Soviet General who discovered information about the infamous Karla.The series has two actors famous for portraying James Bond villains in Roger Moore movies.
We have brief cameos from Patrick Stewart, Sian Phillips and Beryl Reid.The most interesting aspect is that the character of Toby Esterhase, one of the people in charge of the Circus in Tinker Tailor.
Unlike Tinker Tailor, where the entire circus was portrayed as a snake pit of cut-throat careerists all very full of themselves, one cares about the characters in this story.
Another great outing for Alec Guinness as George Smiley.
I watched 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' and enjoyed it so much that once I'd finished I had to watch its sequel, 'Smiley's People', straight away; having now watched the latter series I must say I found it just as gripping.
information that leads him closer and closer to Karla.Once again Alec Guinness was brilliant as George Smiley; he really inhabited the role.
Unlike 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' the action does move about a bit as the trail leads Smiley to Switzerland, this doesn't make the series any less gritty though as none of the scenes take place in the sort of picture postcard locations often favoured by film producers scouting for over seas film locations.
If you enjoyed 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' I'm sure you will enjoy this too...
it is just a pity that there aren't more stories featuring Alec Guinness as Smiley..
On the other hand, George Smiley, the middle aged spy master, is once again put out of retirement to investigate about this mysterious case.
And the more he looks into it, the more he's convinced this would be a very bad idea...Smiley's People happens a few years later TTSS: actually the third part of a novel trilogy by John Le Carré, whose second part, was never filmed.
Supporting characters have grown weary as well: Connie Sachs, (Beryl Reid), is almost dying and she works harder than ever to give her precious memories to Smiley, Peter Guillam (Michael Byrne, the only important cast change who's fine but not as much as Jayston in TTSS) still likes fast cars but seems to have said his youth goodbye, Karla ( Patrick Stewart) appears as a frail little old man, who makes dangerous choices out of concern for his daughter; Ann Smiley (Sîan Phillips) must face definite separation.
If you are a John Le Carre fan, it doesn't get any better than this six part BBC series, available on three disks from Netflix and (presumably) other on line film services.
Alec Guiness was a marvelous actor, as we all know, and he may have equaled his role as George Smiley in some film or stage performance.
The sequel to the equally enigmatic TV series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy we see a different side to the recurring characters in Smiley's People.
It is the perfect sequel to the rivalry we see between two Spy masters Smiley and Karla and it encapsulates the cost one pays to achieve ends.I watched this three times the first time it felt like watching an adventure unfold, the intrigue of it all was great fun to watch.
For me this was better than Tinker, Tailor although the plot accelerates as it goes on so require some patience at the beginning, which is well rewarded as the exciting finale draws closer.Also well acted. |
tt0085180 | L'argent | Saccard and Gunderman are rival Paris bankers. Saccard sees an opportunity to rescue his failing bank, Banque Universelle, by financing the solo transatlantic flight of Jacques Hamelin, a pioneering aviator, and then capitalizing on his popularity to set up a colonial business project in Guyane. He also hopes to seduce Hamelin's wife Line in his absence. When a rumour circulates that Hamelin has crashed, Saccard exploits the false reports to manipulate shares at the Bourse.
Gunderman disapproves of Saccard and his methods, and has secretly bought shares in his bank as a future weapon against him. The Baroness Sandorf, a former lover of Saccard, acts as a spy to assist Gunderman's interests, and more particularly her own.
Hamelin's work in Guyane becomes an expensive liability, and his failing eyesight prevents him from keeping adequate control of the accounts. Saccard ensnares the naïve Line in mounting debts which compel her to tolerate his attentions. Incited by Sandorf, Line makes a formal complaint about Saccard's financial dealings, which launches an enquiry, and when she discovers how her husband's reputation has been compromised by Saccard she tries to shoot him at a party. Sandorf now restrains her, fearful for her own investments if Saccard were to die. Gunderman sells his shares in Saccard's bank and precipitates its collapse. Saccard is arrested, along with Hamelin who has returned to France. Saccard's duplicity is exposed in court, and through Gunderman's intervention Hamelin is released. Saccard goes to prison, but wastes no time before planning new financial schemes - with the aid of his gaoler. | murder, prank | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0071577 | The Great Gatsby | In 1929, Nick Carraway, a World War I veteran, is receiving treatment for alcoholism at a psychiatric hospital. He talks about Jay Gatsby, the most hopeful man he had ever met. Nick's doctor suggests that he writes his thoughts down, since writing is Nick's passion.
In the summer of 1922, Nick moves from the Midwest to New York after abandoning writing. He rents a small house in the North Shore village of West Egg, next to the mansion of Gatsby, a mysterious business magnate who often holds extravagant parties. One day, while Nick has dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, he is introduced to Jordan Baker by Daisy, who hopes to make a match between them. When Nick returns home, he sees Gatsby standing on the dock, reaching towards the green light coming from the Buchanan dock.
Jordan tells Nick that Tom has a mistress who lives in the "valley of ashes", an industrial dumping site between West Egg and New York City. Nick and Tom visit the valley and stop at a garage owned by George Wilson and his wife, Myrtle, who is Tom's mistress. Later, Nick receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Upon arrival, Nick learns he is the only one to receive an invitation and none of the guests have ever met Gatsby. Nick encounters Jordan, and both meet Gatsby. Gatsby offers Nick a ride to town for lunch. On the way, Gatsby tells Nick he is an Oxford graduate and war hero from a wealthy Midwestern family. They go to a speakeasy, where Gatsby introduces Nick to his business partner, Meyer Wolfsheim.
Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby had a relationship with Daisy years ago and is still in love with her, and that Gatsby threw parties in the hopes that Daisy would attend. Gatsby asks Nick to invite Daisy to tea. After an awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy begin an affair. Gatsby is dismayed when Daisy wants to run away with him and wants her to get a divorce. He asks Nick and Jordan to accompany him to the Buchanan home, where he and Daisy plan to tell Tom that Daisy is leaving him. During the luncheon, Tom becomes suspicious of Gatsby and Daisy, but Daisy stops Gatsby from revealing anything and suggests they all go to the Plaza Hotel. Tom drives Nick and Jordan in Gatsby's car, while Gatsby drives Daisy in Tom's car. Tom stops for gas at George's garage, where George tells him that he and Myrtle are moving and that he suspects Myrtle is unfaithful.
At the Plaza, Gatsby tells Tom of his affair with Daisy. Tom accuses Gatsby of having never attended Oxford and having made his fortune through bootlegging with mobsters. Daisy says she loves Gatsby but cannot bring herself to say she never loved Tom. Eventually, both Gatsby and Daisy leave. After a fight with George over her infidelity, Myrtle runs into the street and is fatally struck by Gatsby's car after mistaking it for Tom's. After learning about Myrtle's death, Tom tells George that the car belongs to Gatsby and that he suspects Gatsby was Myrtle's lover. Nick deduces Daisy was the driver, though Gatsby intends to take the blame. Nick overhears Daisy accepting Tom's promise to take care of everything, but he does not tell Gatsby. Gatsby admits to Nick that he was born penniless; his real name is James Gatz, and he had asked Daisy to wait for him until he had made something of himself.
The next morning, Gatsby hears the phone ringing and thinks it is Daisy. Before he can answer it, he is shot and killed by George, who then kills himself. Nick is the only person other than reporters to attend Gatsby's funeral, as Daisy and Tom are leaving New York. The media paints Gatsby as Myrtle's lover and killer. Disgusted with both the city and its inhabitants, Nick leaves after taking a final walk through Gatsby's deserted mansion and reflecting on Gatsby's ability to hope. In the sanatorium, Nick finishes typing his memoir, titling it The Great Gatsby. | tragedy, revenge, murder, storytelling, romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0247425 | In the Bedroom | The film is set in the Mid-Coast town of Camden, Maine. Matt (Tom Wilkinson) and Ruth Fowler (Sissy Spacek) enjoy a happy marriage and a good relationship with their son Frank (Nick Stahl), a recent college graduate who has come home for the summer. Frank has fallen in love with an older woman with children, Natalie Strout (Marisa Tomei).
Frank is about to begin post graduate school for architecture, but is having second-thoughts and considering staying in town to continue working as a fisherman and, more importantly, to be near Natalie. Natalie's ex-husband, Richard Strout (William Mapother), tries to find a way into his ex-wife and children's lives, going to increasingly violent lengths to get his intentions across to Natalie. Ruth is openly concerned about Frank's relationship with Natalie, while Matt thinks it is only a fling.
Midway through the film, Richard kills Frank during a confrontation at Natalie's house following a domestic dispute. Though equally devastated, Matt and Ruth grieve in different ways, with Matt putting on a brave face while Ruth becomes reclusive and quiet. Richard is set free on bail, paid by his well-to-do family, and both Matt and Ruth are forced to see Richard around town.
The tension between Matt & Ruth increases when they learn that the lack of an eyewitness to Frank's shooting means Richard will instead be charged with accidental manslaughter. An argument erupts between the couple in which each one confronts the other. With the air cleared, the couple is finally able to find common ground in their grief.
Matt then abducts and kills Richard. He and a friend bury the body on the friend's wooded property. Matt returns home to Ruth, who is awake and smoking in bed. She asks him, "Did you do it?" Matt appears troubled and unresponsive. He climbs into bed and then turns away from her. Finally, Ruth gets up to make coffee. Matt rolls over onto his back and pulls a band-aid from a finger he injured hauling traps. Ruth calls from the kitchen, "Matt, do you want coffee?" Matt doesn't answer. | depressing, murder, bleak, dramatic, violence, flashback, melodrama, revenge | train | wikipedia | null |
tt1839591 | Recoil | Ryan Varrett (Steve Austin), is an ex-cop determined to avenge the murder of his family. In 2009, when Ryan was a cop in Dallas, Texas, his wife Constance Marie Varrett (Rebecca Robbins) and 9-year-old son Matt Ryan Varrett (Connor Stanhope) were viciously killed by a gang. Ryan survived the assault and killed three of the gang.
However, Ryan quits the Dallas police and hits the road to find everyone else responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. Special Agent Frank Sutton (Lochlyn Munro) of the FBI's Seattle office is investigating the deaths of criminals.
After killing a rapist named Dale James Burrows (Roman Podhora), Ryan ends up in the small town of Hope, Washington, where a gas station owner named Kirby (Patrick Gilmore) directs Ryan to a tiny hotel run by a woman named Darcy (Serinda Swan). Ryan finds Rex Ray Salgado (Noel Gugliemi), a member of the gang that attacked Ryan's family.
It turns out that Hope is under the control of the Circle, a drug and arms dealing biker gang led by Rex's brother, Drayke Salgado (Danny Trejo), who is on the ATF's most wanted list. Sheriff Cole (Tom McBeath) is in Drayke's pocket, so Ryan has only himself and Darcy to depend on.
Ryan kills Rex, Drayke declares war on Ryan, and the town of Hope becomes a battleground. It turns out that Drayke masterminded the shooting of Ryan's family members, and the families of other cops who years ago sent him to prison, where he was brutalized. Drayke got even with the prisoners who brutalized him, then got even with the cops who put him away.
After Kirby is killed by Crab (Keith Jardine), Drayke's right-hand man, Sutton arrives in town, and Cole tries to convince him that Rex's death was an accident. Cole thinks that by appeasing the bikers, he is protecting the town from more bloodshed. Ryan finds Crab and burns him to death.
Since Cole is not much help, Sutton goes to Cole's son, Deputy Hedge (Adam Greydon Reid), who is not in Drayke's pocket. Hedge explains that a long-time ago, the Circle used to protect the town. That was before Drayke took over and started running guns. Rex provided Drayke with a recipe for meth, and Drayke and his gang started selling drugs too.
However, Drayke and his gang are arming themselves for all-out war against Ryan, and they don't care whom they have to kill. At night, Darcy hears bikers approaching her hotel. Ryan kills the three bikers. Outside, more bikers grab Darcy and beat Ryan up.
On the next day, Ryan has been taken to Drayke, and some of his men bring Darcy into the room. They're on an abandoned ferry boat that Drayke uses as his headquarters. Drayke leaves his man Prospect (Tygh Runyan) to beat Ryan up. Ryan breaks free from his restraints and takes care of Prospect. Ryan overcomes Drayke's men, finds Darcy and frees her. Deputy Hedge goes to his father's house and finds Cole has shot himself. With Sutton's help, but Hedge plans to go after Drayke.
Ryan remembers Drayke being present during the attack on his family. Until Ryan came to Hope, Drayke thought Ryan was dead. Ryan and Drayke start fighting. A shot kills Drayke. It was Sutton who fired the shot. Darcy decides that she's going to stay in Hope, and Sutton decides to not arrest Ryan. Hedge becomes the new sheriff. Ryan decides to leave town, but promises Darcy that he will send her a postcard to let her know where he is. | violence | train | wikipedia | Classical revenge movie, with a rather boring plot.
Steve Austin is a massive mean looking dude and he is angry because his family got killed by another mean looking dude: Danny Trejo!
Small town violence and ass kicking ensues, to the viewer's delight.Or does it?
"Stone Cold" Austin is a stone cold actor.
He doesn't do much in the way of expressing emotions.
Of course, his role here was of the do more say less type, but still, hard to empathize with a guy that answers with calm one sentence phrases in the discussion about his family's death.Also, Danny Trejo is a great psychopathic gang leader, but he could have done a lot more.
I just loved the scene where he had to choose a weapon, he took the machete, then he changed his mind and took the sickle.
Maybe he should do a sequel to Machete called Sickle :) Anyway, he is doing great at the age of 68!The plot was also terribly boring.
In a bunch of situations anyone but the indestructible hero of the movie would have died a thousand deaths.
Instead, he somehow always gets to fight in hand to hand combat, where he excels.Bottom line: a redneck punching movie.
I expected this and I got it.
A little more attention to the plot would have probably offended its intended audience..
Easily the best Steve Austin movie so far.
A "Boondock Saints" like idea that isn't nearly as good, but watchable.
"I think you know why I'm here." After the murder of his wife and child former cop Ryan Varrett (Austin) becomes obsessed with revenge and justice.
When he gets to the town of Hope he finds what he is looking for.
I have always wondered why wrestlers (who pretty much act for a living) have never been good movie actors.
I liked Stone Cold when he was wrestling but as an actor he is quite bad.
This is a hard movie to review for me.
The opening five minutes were so bad I was laughing and wanted to turn it off, but the longer it went on the more I liked it.
I'm not sure if it was because it was actually a good movie or if I just got used to it.
I think I mainly liked it because of the idea.
I loved "Boondock Saints" and while it's impossible to compare the two, any movie about a vigilante who doses out his own justice to those who fall through the cracks is OK with me.
Overall, Steve Austin's best movie so far (which isn't saying much).
I recommend this though.
I surprisingly give it a B+..
From B grade to A grade!.
Yeah yeah here we go again, another try by Stone Cold Steve Austin trying to be an actor, so far all his films are the forgettable type.
But not this one, no way there is a road to the Oscars for this film, but I was entertained and thought the acting was OK, good supporting cast, not bad fighting scenes, and loved that American muscle car.I sort of felt like I had seen this film before as the story line has been done before in other films, it sort of felt like an early Schwarzenegger 80's action kind film, OK to watch, and good enough for me to say Steve has lost that B grade tag.I would give it a 7.5, but the great IMDb would only let me pick a 7 or a 8, not good enough for a 8, so 7 is more than a fair score..
Routine at best, tiresome at worst.
First of all, I should mention that I enjoy a lot of made-for-video movies, so you might understand why I was pumped up when I got my hands on a copy of RECOIL, because it starred not only Steve Austin, but Danny Trejo.
However, I have to confess that I felt somewhat let down by the end results.
The production values are okay, though some of the photography has that dark look you find in a lot of other low budget Canadian movies.
But the screenplay is lacking, making a lot of time go by between action sequences, and containing plot elements and characters we have see A LOT before in other B movies.
The action sequences, when they do come, aren't very exciting.
And while Steve Austin and Danny Trejo do bring some presence to the movie simply by showing up, they don't deliver that much more - maybe they too found this story routine and predictable as well, and didn't think it was worth the effort to be more energetic.
I guess the movie deserves some praise for giving some of my fellow Canadians some work in front of and behind the camera - but that's about all that's positive about this movie..
First things first: If you like brawl fighting, this will be your thing.
It also won an award for this fighting, so the stunt people (coordinators) must have done something right.
Apart from that the story is nothing special, you've seen it before.
But it has a charismatic Steve Austin and a very good Danny Trejo in it.
Serinda Swan fills in the beautiful woman in distress department.Effort is really good, but the story still lacks a punch here and there.
It really begs you to suspend your disbelief, especially right before the big finale.
Morality might not be the strongest theme in this movie, but it will do the job, if you don't expect much.
Autistic Reviewers Opinion of This Movie.
This is a story of a man (Steve Austin) who is out for revenge for the death of his family, and he heads to a town where it has been taken over by a Bikie Gang where its run by the one and only Danny Trejo!
The plot is very typical and extremely simple.
The movie itself was very low budget, and it felt like an 80's type movie.
Not such a bad thing, though.
Everyone works really well with the budget they have.
The acting wasn't great, the action was okay, the story is clichéd, but good, the pacing was good (it keeps you watching, and you never get bored) and the direction was good.
The whole movie doesn't really rely on far fetched Martial Arts to be put into this movie.
It feels more of a street fighting type movie.
It actually works too!
Trejo was 70 years old when he did this movie...so hats off to Trejo for still kicking butt at the age of 70!
The final fight scene between Trejo Austin was definitely the best part of the movie.
All in all..it's a watchable movie.
If you're bored and got nothing else better to do then watch this.
3/5 stars.
You should make sure he's dead..
I'm a big Danny Trejo fan, and he seemed to really have a meaty role in this film.
Otherwise, I would have dismissed it as another ex-wrestler grabbing a paycheck for kicking butt.
Of course, Serinda Swan also made the time spent watching it worthwhile.I typically like a good revenge flick, but this one was missing something.
It was like, "They killed my wife, and now I am going to do something about it." There wasn't any real passion in Austin's character.
Trejo chewed the scenery every time he appeared.
This was his best role, but Austin just didn't have the stones - he was cold.Austin needs to find some John Cena passion..
Nothing special to see here.
Ryan (Steve Austin) is a former cop who turned vigilante after his family is murdered.
He's come to town to take on Drayke Salgado (Danny Trejo) and his gang who controls everything.
Darcy (Serinda Swan) runs the hotel.This is a lower budget TV movie made in Canada.
This one has the interesting combo of Austin and Trejo.
Austin plays a bit too wooden.
Trejo is his usual bad guy persona.
The movie really just suffers from a lack of imagination and action.
There isn't much in the way of story.
There are some fights, some guns, some explosions, but none of it is that impressive.
There's just isn't anything special to recommend in this movie.
The closest comes from a minor stage fight between Keith Jardine and Steve Austin.
I would pay to see these two do the real thing..
Not Bad. Like the last review i agree a lotall in all it was a good movie with a few actors i have seen in other movies in the past.
Nice car used in the movie a real classic with out that i would have gave it a 4 out of 10 lol.OK fight scenes but could have used a little more help with that i feel.Drugs, guns, bikers and an ex cop OK lets not forget the feds and the town cops paid off by the gang but all in all it was a good movie.I gave it a 5 out of 10 for a good try maybe steve's next movie will move him into a real actor but so far its been just bit pieces for him.Rent this movie: Yes Pass on this Movie: No Buy This Movie: No This movie is not worth buying!.
Very generic action movie....
This movie might have been even more enjoyable if they had Steven Seagal in the lead instead of Steve Austin.
It seems like your average Seagal movie; an ex-police officer seeking justice against those who took away his family.What made the movie somewhat watchable was the biker gang and those portraying the gang members, as well as Danny Trejo as the president of the biker gang.
Oh, and Lochlyn Munro walking around as an FBI agent and flinging one-liners all over the place.This is your typical one-man-takes-down-a-hundred-opponents type of action movie.
And not a very interesting one at that.
It offers nothing to the genre that hasn't been seen or done before.There were some wonderful bad things in the movie too, of course, aside from the fact that Steve Austin was set to be the lead actor...
Yes, actor!
For example, you knew that it was a Hollywood car that exploded upon impact with a solid object.
No, cars don't explode like that, only in American movies.
And when Drayke said "take me there" to go to the location of his dead brother, he was seen in the lead of the motorcycle gang.
Wouldn't you assume he would be tailing behind whomever was to take him there?
Tch, tch...If you enjoy action movies stay well clear of this boring movie.
Your time and money is better spent elsewhere.
Funny how a title this unfitting for a movie has absolutely no bang.
Even if you sat with your eyes closed throughout the entire movie you would still be up to speed, because the movie is that scripted, generic and predictable..
The Rock must have been busy.....
so Steve Austin took the lead role in this movie.
Austin plays a former cop out for revenge after his family was gunned down at a barbecue.
It seems he's been a vigilante, killing bad guys and has finally found the men responsible for his family's murder.
Head biker, Drayke, is running guns and meth in town and he's the one Austin is after.
Of course, there is the hot motel clerk, Darcy, that Austin has to save from the bad guys.
Then there is the sheriff on the take, but the deputies that are for truth and justice.So everyone gets what's coming to them in the end.FINAL VERDICT: nothing original about it, don't waste your time.
A cross between Punisher and Sons of Anarchy, not nearly as good as either.
Steve Austin stars as an ex-cop out for revenge after his family is murdered.
Danny Trejo is the head of a big bad biker gang whom Steve tassels with in this very generic straight to video yawner.
Striking quite a few parallels to FX networks' "Sons Of Anarchy", this film suffers from such comparisons as this as forgettable sub-par revenge flick.
I say this with a heavy heart as I did enjoy Austin in "Tactical Force" and was hoping this one would be as fun (Seriously go see that film if you haven't already).
Sadly this one was just boring and tedious.
Wouldn't even recommend it for a lazy Sunday with nothing better to do..
Wasn't expecting much, got less.....
Austin plays some guy who has a beef with Dany Trejo and his biker gang.Truth is, his wife and child were killed, and obviously Machete is too blame.So Austin spends the majority of the movie looking serious and doing his best lumbering 'Crow' impression, wreaking vengeance and looking mean.....The only wrestlers who have ever made any impact on the big screen are the Rock, and maybe Cena.
Austin has made one watchable movie, which was the Condemened, and now he is comfortable with direct to Blu Ray trash and The Expendables.This poor effort is by far his worst movie, and bored the living daylights out of me.I knew the film wasn't going to be groundbreaking, but this was something else.
If like me you were bought up on eighties action, you may make the same mistake as me and give this a go.Please don't, it really doesn't do anything or go anywhere..
Worth it if you like Austin.
RECOIL is a solid little Canadian action film with a leading role for wrestler-turned-actor Steve Austin.
He plays the normal heroic cop whose wife is killed when masked bad guys show up and machine gun a family barbecue.
Austin then goes gunning for revenge, discovering that the murderers are none other than the members of a biker gang resembling the Hell's Angels.
Plenty of fight scenes and explosive action ensues, all of it delivered on a low budget.
It's simplistic but enjoyable, with hard-man Austin beating his way through one thug after another and very little depth to get in the way.
Danny Trejo co-stars in a villainous turn as the head of the bikers, and there are a few nods to MACHETE along the way..
This Film Makes Other Bad Action Films Look Good.
After the first 15 minutes I wondered if this film was satire but looking it up I couldn't find mention of it being that; if it was satire then hey, great movie!
It shows all the horrible things in other action films with an over used and cliché plot: "Cop loses his wife and child (usually a girl but this time a boy) and goes after those responsible!
Then becomes a vigilante and goes after other people who got away with their crimes!" Oh, and of course the 'good cops' let him go but give a speech about how they're coming after him.
Dude, he's right there: arrest his contradicting butt!
Just a bad 80s early 90s action flick.
Those films are pieces of art compared to this badly directed, acted, composed, written piece of ----.
I watched this solely for Danny Trejo and Lochlyn Munro and while Trejo wasn't half bad Munro was awful.
Maybe he should stick to Comedy.
This film was just one cliché after another where other films had done it a billion (exaggerated) times before.
Awful..
Quite Entertaining!.
I really enjoyed this little film despite it has a very confusing storyline about a man who goes on a killing rampage against the killers of his wife or somebody close to him!
This movie is full of action that a normal action movie fan would be satisfied with.
Danny Trejo again is a pretty decent villain as always.
The movie is pretty awesome and if you are a fan of gold old fist fighting check out the end fight scene!
There's not a lot to say about this movie other than it is a simple yet action packed film.
Danny Trejo and Austin want to kill each other from beginning to end which you gotta love.
It was way better and had less plot holes than Tactical Force which is why I have decided to rate it a 6 out of 10..
Typical Saturday night action movie.
For some reason, Steve Austin never busted in the big screen like The Rock did, which is surprising considering Austin was just as good at acting in the WWE in term of his character and he is just a bit smaller physically(but still impressive).
For some years now he has made some average to good direct to DVD movies and i can say i liked them in general.
Last one i saw had Michael Jay White and Lexa Doig and was pretty good in term of general plot and action, but had some scenario inconsistency and non sense that downgraded it badly.Saw this one 2 days ago and honestly i appreciated it.
Putting Mr hundreds of movie Danny Trejo as the big bad is a sure value in term of villain.
This guy have played all sorts of characters from cannon fodder characters to villains to father figure and even lead good guy.
He definitely nail the part solid in this movie as well.
Austin plays a kinda "Punisher" character.
He was a cop, his family was murdered and he has now decided to punish the worst criminals himself.
He is now so loud, acting impressive and i would say he nail the part pretty well also.The action is decent, yet i think there could be more.
The fights are made in a tough thug kind of way.
No martial arts is show in this movie, the fights are mostly street boxing type.
I got to say i usually prefer the first, but in this movie it wouldn't had work at all as the bad guys are a bunch of bikers.Thecnically this movie is a solid direct to DVD release and is entertaining, but it represent well the DTDVD type in term of action, special effect, recycled plot(yet good to watch) |
tt1772264 | Eliza Graves | In 1899, an Oxford University professor demonstrates a case of female hysteria, Lady (Eliza) Graves (Kate Beckinsale), before his class. The patient is drugged and protesting that she is sane, but the professor points out that all mental patients claim to be sane, much as all criminals claim to be innocent. He ignores her demands that he not touch her to induce a fit for the students to observe. The professor advises his students to believe nothing they hear and only half of what they see.
Later, a young man, the newly-minted Dr. Edward Newgate, (Jim Sturgess), arrives at Stonehearst Asylum on Christmas Eve, where he desires to take up residency. A group of armed men led by Mickey Finn (David Thewlis) allow him entry. Finn escorts him to the office of the superintendent, Dr. Silas Lamb (Ben Kingsley). Although Lamb was not expecting him, despite Newgate having sent letters preceding his arrival, he welcomes the help of an Oxford-educated doctor and grants him the residency.
Newgate is surprised by Lamb's unorthodox methods and uncustomarily humane asylum. Lamb explains that he does not believe in drugging or incarcerating his patients, and he encourages their delusions when he feels it will bring them greater happiness, thus creating a kind and dignified environment at the asylum.
Lady Graves, now a resident at Stonehearst, is introduced to Newgate, who appears immediately smitten. Lamb explains that the Lady Graves has an abusive and painful past. She developed hysteria from enduring her husband's "unnatural appetites" and can no longer bear emotional or physical contact without seizing in hysterical fits. She stabbed her husband in the right eye with a comb and bit off his left ear trying to protect herself, which led to her father committing her into the asylum to escape her marriage to her "monster" of a husband. Her husband has since been trying to free her back into his care. Dr. Lamb is currently prescribing musical therapy for her and refuses to declare her sane, for her own safety.
Though she brushes aside Newgate's attempts at flirtation, she is struck by his empathy and respectful demeanor. An elaborate Christmas feast follows, during which the staff and patients mingle and a small fight between Newgate and Finn occurs, cementing their dislike for one another. After the dinner, Lady Graves delivers ominous warnings to Newgate, and quietly insists that he flee the asylum, but Newgate refuses to leave without her.
The reason for Lady Graves' warning soon reveals itself. Newgate discovers dozens of prisoners being kept in basement cells. The prisoners reveal that they are the true staff of Stonehearst, and the doctors and nurses Newgate has met upstairs are actually patients.
The real superintendent, Dr. Benjamin Salt (Michael Caine), explains that Lamb and Finn drugged their drinks and led a revolt. Dr. Salt and Mrs. Pike (Sinéad Cusack), the matron, warn Newgate that Lamb is a dangerous madman – a surgeon who murdered his patients during wartime. Isolated and with limited options of regaining control over the asylum even should they be freed, the staff must remain in their cells to await outside assistance. They request that Dr. Newgate locate the keys in Finn's possession to release them, or else escape to London and seek help.
Lamb begins his unorthodox training for Newgate's residency through an enlightening, if hands-on, lesson in patient dignity. Newgate attempts to recruit Lady Graves to his cause of freeing the true staff, but she declines to become involved and tells him of Salt's and his staff's inhuman abuses. Newgate reveals the scars of his own abusive past and tells her he understands.
Newgate sneaks into Lamb's office and successfully retrieves Salt's notes, but not the keys. While hiding, he overhears Lamb and Finn discussing him. Finn is deeply suspicious of Newgate, but Lamb believes Newgate shows promise and could be a great asylum doctor one day. Both acknowledge the prisoners in the basement, and Lamb promises that the loose ends will be tied up by the New Year.
Salt's notes detail his barbaric medical treatments used against Lamb, who had been under his care for 9 years without cracking before the uprising. Newgate is conflicted when, after two of the prisoners in the basement escape to seek help, both die under suspicious circumstances after being caught by Finn.
While the patients are happy and thriving, there are some definite failings to Lamb's method of running the asylum. They are quickly running out of provisions and having difficulties keeping up with the every-day demands of the large institution, such as heating the building in winter. Some of the more violent patients, such as Finn, are also difficult to control, and he eventually murders a female patient.
By New Year's Eve, the patients are burning the furnishings for warmth and Lamb has destroyed Salt's mind via cranial electroshock, turning him into a patient in his own institution. Newgate is convinced the situation must come to an end and that he and Lady Graves should escape.
Newgate's attempt to drug the patients and gain control of the asylum is thwarted and Lamb prepares Newgate for electric shock therapy to turn him into a mental patient to live among them. It is revealed that Newgate had come to the asylum specifically to rescue Lady Graves, whom he had seen at the Oxford medical demonstration and become fixated with. Before the treatment, Lamb grants Newgate a final request: to see a picture of Lady Graves that he keeps in his pocket. The true object in his pocket, a picture of one of the young soldiers Lamb shot (which Newgate discovered in the padded cell Salt kept Lamb in), causes Lamb to stagger out of the room in a fugue. Finn goes to pick up the electric prods to finish the job, but Newgate is rescued by Lady Graves who overcomes her hysterical fits to kill Finn via electrocution. A fire starts and spreads as Lady Graves rescues the staff from their cells and leads the patients out of the building.
Lamb has now become near-stuporous from the crushing flashbacks of his past actions when, under extreme pressure during his time as a field doctor, Lamb had snapped and executed his battlefield patients as a form of mercy killing before attempting to kill himself.
After all are rescued, as daylight breaks, Newgate again asks Lady Graves to leave with him, but she says that she cannot be with him because he is sane and she is not. Newgate says that he is not sane, as he is madly in love with her, and he intimates that he has a secret to tell her.
Later, Lady Graves' husband and the earlier Oxford professor arrive at the asylum. The asylum has been restored to a gentler order under the kind hand of Mrs. Pike, who is now in charge and has incorporated many of Lamb's methods of treatment. The professor demands Lady Graves' release, but Mrs. Pike says that Dr. Newgate already released her weeks ago. The professor reveals that he is the true Dr. Newgate and the one they knew is an imposter. The Dr. Newgate they met was never a medical student, nor a doctor at all, but an escaped mental patient who had also been part of the exhibition. Dr. Lamb, playing chess with the reduced Dr. Salt, hears this and shows a spark of his previous self as he gleefully remarks "Checkmate."
Lady Graves and the impostor Newgate end the film at the Santa Cristina Asylum in Tuscany, Italy, where they are known as Dr. and Mrs. Lamb, treating mental patients with the original Lamb's methods. The two dance happily and embrace in a beautiful garden. | insanity, romantic, gothic, murder, plot twist | train | wikipedia | It was my first time encountering Jim Sturgess in any film but he did a great job too, I mean, everyone was right at the top of their game.The movie is not fast on its feet and contains little action but it makes up for it all with a well told and engaging story.
Despite this - the film works very well, not least because we never know quite what to expect from Ben Kingsley and the always top notch David Thewlis as the villains of the piece, and to go with the melodrama there's some genuine villainy & tragedy to keep the narrative going not to mention a few twists and turns.I've no idea how this relates to the tale by Edgar Allen Poe, but the director / writers have managed to balance the sense you get when reading a Wilkie Collins novel or other 19th century melodrama with the (slightly) more critical perspective we have today, although having said that the idea of a therapeutic community - an idea implicit in much of the film - remains quite controversial even today, where drug treatments as a first line of intervention remain the norm rather than the exception.
Great acting from an impressive cast.Yes the story is based on a Poe story, but instead of finding it eerie I found myself laughing out loud at some parts,(maybe that's just me).If you haven't seen the trailer then all the better, a few twists and turns become apparent about 30mins into the film.
But there is more to it so don't feel disappointed.In general an entertaining film about lunatics and an asylum, set in a Gothic era, the cast really do bring a lot to this film.Ben Kingsley imparticular brings so much to his character.I give it a good 7.5 out of 10.
While the film might lack some the macabre drama and dark humor of the original Edgar Allan Poe tale, it still does a fine job of conveying a creepy, engaging thriller with a brilliant Gothic atmosphere and fine performances from its terrific ensemble cast.There's probably a brilliant, award-worthy film to be made about the inhumane way the medical practice dealt with the mentally ill in the past.
It has a bit of a "Shutter Island" feel to it, however the only things similar are Ben Kingsley, a Mental institution, suspense, spoilers, a script and story that keeps you pleasantly confused, and solid acting.
They all played their parts wonderfully.It was suspenseful, intriguing, dramatic, thrilling and in a way horrifically ironic.I guess that does describe Poe, who wrote the story.It has an interesting twist at the end, which I didn't expect, and I am always looking for a twist.However, the twist was refreshing, even sardonic which is rare these days.This is a tight film.
Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Kingsly and Michael Caine are all big name actors but the movie never rose to their level.
The young doctor Newgate, stumbling in from the cold, introduces himself outside the gates of the isolated and ominous towering buildings of the Stonehearst Asylum, eager to observe and learn.And receives much more than he bargained for.The good doctor quickly discovers the central secret of Stonehearst early in the plot, and must then painfully confront a complicated question: Are the patients better off at the hands of doctors who are attempting to 'cure' through sadistic means, or would their world be a better place if ruled by one of their own compassionate (and thoroughly mad) unfortunates?Silas Lamb, the storys' antagonist, is brought to life as only Ben Kingsly can do it.
The plot and execution of Stonehearst Asylum evoke the cinema from Amicus and Hammer Films made in the '60s, even though it isn't a horror film, but a psychological (psychiatric?) thriller in which the clinical focuses from two doctors who want to help their patients in two different ways compete.
Nevertheless, there are various positive elements in Stonehearst Asylum, such as the excellent performances from Jim Sturgess, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Brendan Gleeson and David Thewlis.
I guess its most accurately described as a Gothic romance.It's a loose riff off Poe's "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" with a few canny twists.The cast is stellar: Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Kate Beckinsale, Sinead Cusak.I tend to define films in terms of whether or not I would enjoy watching them with my undoubtedly better half.
the casting was perfect too each character is strange enough to draw your attention throughout the movie ,make you want to know more about each.You will be fearful over Jim Sturgess character with his cute face and the pretty Kate Beckinsale will own your sympathy and stop you from believing that she has a mind's sickness.
What could the viewer expect from a film with a cast with names such as Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, David Thewlis and Brendan Gleeson other than a great film?
My wife and I really enjoyed this title and had a great time trying to guess what was going to happen next.I haven't read this specific book but as I've grown up surrounded by books written by EAP (my mom is a huge fan of his) I knew it would be one of those stories that we'll try guessing what's happening but never see things actually coming.We were torn at first as we think it can be very hard sometimes to make a good movie out of Allan Poe's novels..
There is a scene during the opening of the film where a young doctor played by Jim Sturgess arrives at this Gothic asylum and the atmosphere seems ideal for a great suspenseful thriller, but the story never seems to catch on with the visuals and the atmosphere is lost.
Jim Sturgess, Kate Beckinsale, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Kingsley, and Michael Caine all star in this film which should automatically make it worth giving it a watch, but unfortunately the script doesn't do anything to make their characters interesting.
The film is based on Poe's short story, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, but the adaptation to the big screen doesn't necessary make for a good watch.
Early in the movie there is a twist that I won't give away, but where Edward is introduced to some other characters among which is Benjamin Salt (Michael Caine) who makes a very interesting claim that could change everything he has come to believe about the asylum.
A most enjoyable and entertaining film with a quality cast of actors and actresses who do an excellent job to develop the story and the suspense which stems from it from beginning to the end.This is certainly a film on DVD you will be tempted to watch more than once to catch up on the little bits you might have missed along the way.Might even suggest and recommend the movie makes excellent viewing for Christmas Day but it certainly offers an intriguing insight to an Asylum at the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth.I understood Lunacy to mean from 'luna' the moon in Latin and a Lunatic as someone who went mad from looking at the full moon or something like that.
There really is nothing at all 'Wrong' with the film in any way, but probably just for me personally, I would have liked the story to be a bit more intense and the plot points and/or twists to have a little more 'Oomph' behind them.
I think that if the director could have possibly infused a bit more of an undercurrent of intensity and palpable 'Mood' (like in 'SESSION 9') I feel that that would have added a lot more to the film.But, with that said, the movie is very competently done and it is engaging and all of the characters are interesting.
At first I didn't know what this movie was about and based on a book of E.A.P. but at the first two minutes passed I notice that who belongs the story,you never know the turns that the story can take It always surprised Allan Poe ,very good adaptation,give a suitable speed to the story ,the cast was very well chosen ,Ben Kinsley as always is remarkable and Kate Beckinsale was made for this kind of role,the costumes are appropriate to the time, end of the nineteenth century.
It is a period piece, very dark in theme and in cinematic transformation, and it boasts a huge cast of very highly respected actors.The time is turn of the century (1899-2000) and a recent medical school grad Doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) arrives at Stonehearst Asylum in search of an apprenticeship, he is warmly welcomed by superintendent Dr. Lamb (Ben Kingsley) and a mesmerizing woman by the name of Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale).
And there are some terrific surprises in store
.LIkrly the film would not have worked so well under less competent actors hands, but Anderson was wise in casting David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Kingsley, Michael Cain, Sinéad Cusack, Jason Flemyng, as well as Kate Beckinsale and Jim Sturgess.
Yes, of course you know who is the villain of the story but after series of twists and revelations, which believe me nobody can see coming, the lines are not so clear and you just have to watch the story unfold, because in one moment the status quo of the story is just completely turned upside down- in the most entertaining way I assure you.The film feature top-notch performances by brilliant actors.
Though loosely based on the short story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" by Edgar Allan Poe; this will be one of the best suspense films I've watched over a couple of years combining both great plot and acting.
You'd think with Stonehearst Asylum's impressive cast (Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, Kate Beckinsale...) and ominous setting it would be quite the thriller, but this movie is bland.
Stonehearst Asylum: 6 out of 10: An all-star cast (Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine etc) take on a Poe tale about an asylum for the mentally deranged which may not be as it seems.
Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale) is a mental health patient prodded and probed rather unmercilessly by the doctor who supposedly cares for her.Later on a young enthusiastic medic, Doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) arrives at the remote misty Stonehearst Asylum.
Somewhere among the ongoing madness Newgate takes an interest with the beautiful Eliza Graves but he needs to escape for his own safety.The film is based on an Edgar Allen Poe short story but it is a bit too flabby, relies too much on the cruel treatment of the insane and then settles on stereotype behaviour from the inmates.
there's not much mystery or suspense in this movie either.Don't get me wrong this is a solid story with a great cast of British actors, including good performances from Kate Beckinsale as Eliza Graves, Ben Kingsley as Silas Lamb, David Thewlis as Mickey Finn, Jason Flemyng as Swanwick, and Jim Sturgess as Edward Newgate.
Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, Brendon Gleeson, Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, David Thewlis are all actors that don't need much effort to make it a believable story.
Its star power and great original source make for a great mystery thriller and while it doesn't necessary produce genuine terror, it will most likely be pleasant to horror genre enthusiasts.The story revolves around a new doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) as he visits the titular asylum only to find that the institution harbors illicit secrets, and most importantly a certain beauty Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale).
It didn't get a major theater release (did it come to any theaters at all?) despite having a great story and an excellent cast.For a basic plot summary, this movie takes place at an insane asylum just as the 19th century is turning into the 20th.
Some twists and turns, a little bit of humor, a few slightly gruesome parts but nothing horrible.The acting was top notch, especially Ben Kingsly as "Silas Lamb", the man in charge of Stonehearst Asylum, and of course Michael Caine was great as always.
The story contains enough twists and turns to stay interesting and it has a satisfying ending.I recently watched a documentary about the popularity of performing lobotomies up until something like 50 years ago, and I found this film to all the more relevant and believable due to that fact.I loved the Gothic renaissance style wardrobe and production design and though that many scenes had a great feel and style.
The movie is well cast, and the director was very creative with developing the different characters in the asylum.Edgar Allen Poe's story holds up surprisingly well in modern times, and makes for a great movie, that deals with issues still very relevant today.
I loved "Stonehearst Asylum" and consider it on top of the best films I've ever seen.I really had a great time enjoying this smart movie.It is brilliant psychological thriller movie.The story was very strong with interesting twists till the last moment of the film.I liked the characters and especially the lovely couple Jim Sturgess and Kate Beckinsale.It definitely deserves 10/10.I highly recommend it :).
That's the questions it wants to pose to us, and at points it does, but for the most part it's just a great thrill ride that often makes no sense at all but is always enjoyable.Stonehearst Asylum attempts to give us a riddle to solve that links back into the bigger questions of the movie, but in truth no one cares for them, because we get so wrapped up in the shared fun of the film that we can't help but ignore anything that will take away from it, like continuity or a plot.
That in a nutshell is the story, apart from we are missing the tiny point that EVERYONE is MENTAL in it, and when you think of the names attached to the piece it's quite surprising.Firstly we have (and I should state that everyone I'm about to mention is either: out right mad, accused of being mad or pretends to be mad) Brendan Gleeson who turns up for 5 minutes at the beginning and the end of the movie, and then we have (in no real order) Jim Sturgess, Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, David Thewlis and Jason Flemyng, all of whom play nutters.Any one of those cast members could carry a movie alone, but to see them all together in such incidental small parts is baffling.Stonehearst Asylum is a film that embraces what is it, and that's a fun, crazy, surreal, thriller that has an all-star casts and a plot that doesn't just goes off the rails but starts a new track, all aboard, next stop the looney bin!.
On IMDb, Stonehearst Asylum is described perfectly in one sentence: "An Oxford graduate takes up a job in a mental asylum, only to discover that the new treatments are inhumane and there is more going on than meets the eye." That's all you need to know before watching this film, besides the all-star cast: Jim Sturgess, Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, and Sinead Cusack.
The Call director Brad Anderson returns to the helm for this psychological thriller loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 short story The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, and centered on the experiences of a Harvard Medical School graduate (Jim Sturgess) who becomes obsessed with a mental patient named Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale) while working at a mental asylum that's been taken over by the inmates.
The movie is supposed to be a scary thriller but it's narrative is just lost in it's translation at least that's how I felt it was mostly just surrounded with cool name actors who do give a good performances from the likes of Jim Sturgess, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine and Kate Beckinsale and the production design is pretty okay but that's just it.
From Mel Gibson as a producer to the main cast (Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine) to the book it was based upon by Edgar Allen Poe; this movie lined up big shots.The setting is 1899 England when mental and psychological problems were still a relative unknown.
The Movie has a great cast(Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley), a intelligent story loosely based on the short story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" by Edgar Allan Poe, and is very well directed.Its one those Movies you will remember much longer than your typical summer Blockbuster with too much CGI and unnecessary over the top action.If you give this Movie a chance it will take you back to the late 19th Century.Amazing Film 8/10.
Inspired by a short story from Edgar Allan Poe, Stonehearst Asylum is a film of a collection of different genres.Previously known as Eliza Graves,it features Kate Beckinsale together with Jim Sturgess, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, and David Thewlis.Brad Anderson directed it.Young doctor Edward Newgate arrives at Stonehearst Asylum in search of an apprenticeship.He is welcomed by Dr.Lamb and a beautiful woman,Eliza Graves.Edward gets exposed Dr. Lamb's methods of treating mentally ill patients that leads him to discover various things that are happening inside the asylum as well as the hidden mystery behind Eliza.While it is far from a classic,it manages to be a fun film of different genres.It manages to balance humor,melodrama,romance,thriller and horror which becomes a wonderful achievement of the director,Anderson.As for the performances,the cast did very well despite the fact that there was nothing really outstanding or award-winning in it.Besides,the cast are known to be outstanding in their careers.One would surely be entertained watching it..
Then, set the film in a creepy turn of the 20th century insane asylum, and cast Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine and Brendan Gleeson, and consider me exceptionally excited.From the opening moments, there is a certain nostalgic or throwback feel.It recalls the "B" movie feel of so many from the 40's and 50's that I grew up watching on late night TV. |
tt1173745 | Revanche | Alex works in Vienna for Konecny, owner of the brothel "Cinderella", where Tamara, a Ukrainian prostitute, also works. Konecny has a possessive attitude towards Tamara, not realizing that she and Alex are in a secret relationship and want to leave Vienna as soon as possible to begin a new life together. While visiting his grandfather Hausner, who lives on a smallholding in the country, Alex decides to rob the local bank. Hausner has a neighbour, Susanne, who lives nearby, and visits him regularly. She is married to Robert, a policeman. They keenly want a child, but although Susanne was pregnant, she lost the baby and is unable to conceive a second time because of Robert's fertility problems. Susanne would like to adopt, but Robert refuses to accept that there is any difficulty in his fathering children. Consequently, their relationship is suffering.
Tamara has a bad feeling about Alex's planned bank robbery, and insists on waiting for him in the getaway car while Alex, armed and masked, holds up the bank. By chance, Robert is on patrol and walks past the car at the moment Alex is returning to it. Alex threatens him with his gun and drives off. Robert shoots at the tires as it speeds away but instead hits Tamara fatally. In despair, Alex abandons the car and Tamara's body in the wood and makes his way to Hausner's rustic barn, where he hides out. His loss makes him very withdrawn and distraught; he scarcely speaks, and spends hours every day aggressively chopping wood for the winter. Hausner begins playing the accordion a great deal with encouragement by Susanne, who visits often, adding to Alex's growing unease.
Robert and Susanne's relationship becomes further strained because Robert's unintentional killing of Tamara is causing him great mental anguish. He blames himself for it and can find no way to discuss or deal with the guilt. He carries Tamara's photo round with him, and looks at it constantly. His colleagues refuse to take his grief seriously, and try to encourage him by telling him that he has only killed a bank robber's accomplice, and that in the forthcoming official inquiry into the death he will have nothing to worry about.
While they are shopping Alex and Hausner meet Susanne, who tells them about the bank robbery and that it was her husband who shot at the car. This has an effect on Alex. On her visits to Hausner, Alex has scarcely reacted at all to the extremely talkative Susanne and, when he does, is very dismissive, although this has apparently not bothered her. Under cover of darkness, he now starts to spy on the couple in their house and follows Robert when he goes jogging in the woods. After one of her visits to Hausner, Alex speaks to Susanne bluntly and tries to discourage her from returning. This seems not to trouble her: she invites him to her house, with a hint that she will be alone that evening. Alex appears not to react to the invitation but that evening suddenly turns up at her terrace door and startles her, until she realises that it is "only Alex." She offers him a glass of wine. While Susanne talks brightly but nervously in an uninterrupted stream, Alex looks depressed and is almost silent. After a while he asks her why she wants to have sex with him. To his astonishment Susanne participates willingly in an almost brutal sex act, which seems to offer Alex a vent for his accumulated aggression. When he goes to take a shower he sees the nursery that Suzanne and Robert have set up in their house, but Susanne refuses to discuss it. As he is leaving she asks if he wants to come again.
The next time Alex sees Robert jogging in the woods, he draws his gun and aims it at Robert's back, but does not fire it. Alex later meets Susanne again while shopping. She tells him that she will be alone again that evening and that she wants him to visit her, which he does. She asks him whether he has a girlfriend, and he tells her that until recently he used to have, but that she was murdered, and that now he thinks day and night about killing the murderer. Susanne protests that he cannot do such a thing, and must not even think about it. But she understands now why Alex is so cold, and takes him to bed. In the night Susanne is wakened by the sound of a car engine. Robert has come home, and she urges Alex, lying next to her, to go. Robert, crying, tells Susanne that he has been declared unfit for duty and suspended from the police force. He shows her Tamara's photo, which he is unable to stop looking at. As Susanne goes to throw it away, she sees Alex leaving the house.
Some days later Alex is sitting on a bench by the lake in the woods and waiting for Robert. He jogs past, and sits on the bench with Alex. In the course of their conversation the subject of the bank robbery arises. Robert tells how the death of the young woman has preyed on his mind, and how he was aiming to shoot the tires. Alex asks if Robert is not afraid that the robber will come and shoot him, out of revenge. Robert's only comment is a resigned "He's welcome to." He gets up to leave but pauses to add that he would like to ask the bankrobber why he took the woman with him in the first place: "the whole mess wouldn't have happened if the woman hadn't been in that car without any reason." When Robert is out of sight, Alex throws his gun into the lake. That evening Susanne tells her husband that at last she is pregnant.
On Sunday Susanne calls again to take Hausner to church, but he is in hospital and only Alex is at home. She asks him to consider their affair at an end, and not to tell her husband about it, and Alex promises this. Susanne then sees Alex's photo of Tamara on the table, and in a moment of insight the connections suddenly become clear to her. At the end the two come to an understanding. The last scene is of Alex collecting fallen apples into a big basket. | romantic, revenge | train | wikipedia | Caught in the middle is Ursula Strauss, who plays Susanne, Robert's wife.The story starts out in the squalid world of Viennese prostitution, at a tacky brothel on the periphery.
Alex works for the local prostitution boss and he has fallen in love with one of the Eastern European streetwalkers, Tamara, played by Irina Potapenko.
But if the surrounding become simpler, the interaction does not, as Alex becomes entangled in the lives of the small town police office and his wife.The film is satisfying on many levels.
The name "revanche" has a double meaning in German, both revenge and a return match or a second chance, and it seems that both of these ideas are being developed throughout the story, as characters juggle their need to get even with their desire to secure their own futures.
Yet, if fate controls the characters' destinies, it is the strength of willpower that will decide who survives and who will fade into insignificance.Revanche did not get nominated in any categories for the EFA awards in 2008, but it is Austria's entry for the Oscar Foreign Language film nomination in 2009..
The first couple is on the edge of Vienna and the other lives in the country, but circumstances bring them together.The action begins with Alex (Johannes Krisch) and his Ukrainian prostitute girlfriend Tamara (Irina Potapenko) in Vienna.
When Alex goes to stay with Hauser, it seems almost that he's fallen off the map that includes the prostitutes and the scummy underside of Viennese life.Alongside Alex's story is that of the policeman, Robert, who seems unable to give his wife Susanne (Ursula Strauss) a baby; too bad, because they both want one.
But things get complicated, people talk,and that changes.Revanche builds on coincidence but in ways so rooted in gritty milieu and so gnarly and unexpected they really seem to emerge not from a writer's brainstorm but the downright mind boggling absurdity of real life.
A love in the underworld between Russian prostitute Tamara (Irina Potapenko) and bordello body-guard Alex (Johannes Krisch) leads them to embrace the perspective of escape from the harsh realities of debts owed to crime bosses.
However grief turns to concepts of vengeance, when it turns out that Robert and his wife Susanne (Ursula Strauss) are neighbours.Starting off from a seedy, hopeless love affair, after a few scenes certainty of an emotional train-ride becomes evident.
As Alex, Robert and Susanne interact questions raised reach satisfying, if uneasy, conclusions, as a full circle is reached, making this one of the most poignant movies on the question of revenge, much detached from the typical Hollywood or Hong Kong take on the matter.The story has a unmistakable natural flow (partly owed to the settings and the camera-work), as happenings build the story without effort or forced connections.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film last year, it is just now making its way to Dallas - one of the few downsides to not living in NYC.What I love is the subtle approach of the filmmaker, director Gotz Spielmann, who obviously is a keen observer of people - moreso, I would guess, than a film buff.
As a viewer, we thoroughly believe this story would play out this way because these people are reacting to real situations.Johannes Krisch is captivating and powerful as Alex, one of the brutes working at a brothel.
That's when things get really interesting.Alex is thrown unexpectedly into the real life of police officer Robert (Andreas Lust) and his wife Susanne (fascinating acting from Ursula Strauss).
The coincidences lead to a touch of comedy and also some real soul searching from Robert, Susanne and Alex.The film could have ended about three different ways and I couldn't have been more happy with what we get.
You don't really think about these reservations as you are watching Austrian director-producer-screenwriter Götz Spielmann's quietly fascinating film, "Revanche." The one-word title in French translates to 'revenge.' But this is hardly your usual action thriller, though there are anxious suspenseful moments and bank heist involved.Love the film.
The four main roles are so solidly portrayed: Alex by Johannes Krisch and his girlfriend Tamara by Irina Potapenko; Robert the policeman by Andreas Lust and his wife Susanne by Ursula Strauss.
I actually appreciate this film more than the winning 2008 Oscar foreign film "Departures" - well, it's different in story layers and 'Departures' encompasses many aspects, while "Revanche" also has its layers of emotions, psychological human nature perspectives, is delivered 'clean' and focused, ever so naturally acceptable of human foibles, vulnerability and one woman's life force.
As seen at the AFI Film Festival, Revanche is a tight thriller that is at a the same time a mood piece and a human moral drama.
i saw that movie and should say that i am going to watch it again many times as it is just thrilling and stunning as it could possibly be despite of being primarily about just ordinary people lives.and yet it is truly a masterpiece and it is a shame that it did not get an Oscar, probably other nominators were quite competitive.there is no need to tell about the plot and the background of it.
it is pretty ordinary (and that probably makes it quite realistic) so it could have happened everywhere and not just in Austria and so it applies to the main characters.the key word for that movie is imperfect (yet i still believe that movie itself is excellent) that nothing is perfect or ideal and people always make mistakes and if something may go wrong it will definitely go wrong.because we are human beings after all - with our emotions, irrational thinking, affections, etc.
Writer/Director Martin Gschlacht offers up a tale of crime and revenge from Austria in a good looking cinematic presentation although the story set up is a little long and characters you expect to return are discarded.
With Ursala Strauss as the shopkeeper Susanne and Andreas Lust as her policeman husband Robert this is a good film but would carry a strong R rating for nudity and sexual situations.
A quietly compelling, suspenseful film about the ability of the human being to redeem themselves through understanding, Revanche would probably be frustrating to those accustomed to the Multiplex thriller full of quick cuts, revved-up music and one explosion after another.
Like the author Dickens, director Spielman contrasts the gritty, downbeat lowlife in the big city with the honest toil and rich rewards of the country, and although the film starts to be about a simple bank heist, it becomes something else entirely; chopping wood becomes punctuation to the internal road the main character takes to self-understanding--while realizing that this is quite a heap of philosophy to lay on what becomes a cat-and-mouse thriller, there are plenty of surprises in store for the patient viewer who wants a film of some maturity and depth.
Again, this is a slow-moving, character-driven folk tale about the outcome of a botched bank robbery, if you can imagine such a thing.Acting -- Johannes Krisch as Alex is spellbinding.
This Austrian drama starts as a love story between a scruffy ex-con and a Ukranian prostitute, but evolves into an interesting character study.
It is a film that not only challenges you to predict what comes next, but one that forces you to decide whether revenge ever makes sense, to confront feelings of anguish and make decisions you can live with.
Credit also goes to Johannes Thanheiser as Alex's grandfather, a man for whom life is much the same each day, yet this is no reason to complain, and Ursula Strauss as Susanne, who, as Robert's wife, must balance her role as supporter in difficult times with her needs as a woman.Ultimately, the film leaves the viewer to tie up the loose ends, inviting comment on the drama that has unfolded.
But, as this movie illustrates, the details of such an incident and its aftermath can be surprising and interesting.The movie starts with Alex and Tamara working in a seedy Vienna brothel.
The realistic behind the scenes look at the brothel, run by a tyrannical pimp, was enough for me to understand why Alex and Tamara were desperate to escape and, when Alex proposed the bank robbery, I could well understand his motivation, since it was not going to be easy for either Alex or Tamara to get out of the rather sorry state they were in.What sets this thriller apart is that we get to know all of the main players--Alex, Tamara, the policeman and his wife, and Alex's grandfather-- as believable people.
Their interactions are well motivated and understandable.As the title suggests, the movie has important things to say about revenge, about snap judgments and false assumptions.I found some of the filming techniques interesting.
To improve their life and pay off Tamara's debts, Alex decides to rob a bank and things get out of control when a policeman shows up on his getaway.
It's a drama movie that creates tensions and the revenge story was told in a different suspenseful way.
There is actually something from the Haneke style in this film, with a story where chance may lead to tragedy and with the world of dark secrets hidden under the appearances of quite and banal lives.Two distinct worlds are presented in Revanche.
"Revanche," Austria's 2009 nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film, is a structured, yet unpredictable psychological thriller.
Writer/director Götz Spielmann reveals himself to the cinematic community and movie goers to be a fantastic storyteller, and a master of his craft."Revanche" is a slow, methodical film, much like its lead character Alex (Johannes Krisch), who decides to rob a bank with his girlfriend, Tamara (Irina Poapenko).
Tamara wants out for the prostitution business and away from her pimp, Konecy (Hanno Poschl), and Alex is riddled in debt and works in Konecy's brothel as a bodyguard.
Despite Alex's plan, the robbery goes wrong, and when speeding away from the scene, police officer Robert (Andreas Lust), shoots--aiming for the tires, but instead kills Tamara.
In the matter of the relativity of good and evil the Austrian movie depicts in an authentic (milieu and natural tongue)way something similar like the action-loaded "The Departed" (2008).
REVANCHE; Austria entry for the Oscars is a movie that starts pretty interesting; but after while; when the situation is completely presented, the pace slow down causing more tedium than suspense.There is a failed robbery; an accidental killing and a vengeance prospect; but besides the very forced setup; there is nothing else original or unexpected in it.
Beautiful photography and no music -- I was enraptured.Since they are making me write more lines, I am going to paste my review here again:But it's definitely the first time I've posted on the IMDb. This movie's supremely visual; it looks like what would happen if my favorite directors got together: Carl Th. Dreyer, Michelangelo Antonioni, Bela Tarr.
Alex discovers Robert is living nearby and has an affair with his wife Susanne.I really love the direction of the first part of the movie.
Basically, the film is too slow, and gives the viewer nothing but tedious viewing.Johannes Krisch I thought was great as Alex, for the most part, but some of his 'angry, upset' scenes seemed overacted.
He reminded me of Robert Carlyle for some reason...looks like him I suppose.I just thought Revanche should of been better, its just too slow and doesn't really offer anything.Revanche is one of those films that was promising but was let down by a poor plot and once too often the director has scenes of boring dialogue and a slow paced build up to the ending.And as for the ending......was it an ending?.
Perhaps that's not the point of the story - a "just" revenge - but there was no other emotional engagement either that compelled me to care about what happened.I really have a hard time seeing why this movie has such a high rating.
Celebrated Austrian writer and director Götz Spielmann's 2008 revenge thriller Revanche premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival to critical acclaim.
The film begins with an ex-con (Johannes Krisch) and his Russian prostitute girlfriend (Irina Potapenko) wanting to escape from their lousy lives in Vienna.
The second half of the film introduces some other major characters, most important a police officer (Andreas Lust), who encounters the man and woman right after they rob the bank, and his grocery clerk wife (Ursula Strauss), who is having some problems with her marriage.
As I said above, however, it was hard to like the characters and so much nudity makes it a very good film that many won't ever get to see.
Even though Alex had tried to dissuade Tamara from joining him on the bank job, he was clearly shaken by Alex's unknowing accusation.Susanne's character was also nuanced — someone who was a rescuer (in a good way), her attempts to protect her husband while also getting what she wanted, were compelling.This, for me, has been one of the better movies of the year.
The scheming ends with a decision by Alex (Johannes Krisch), a middle-aged janitor and go-for at a Vienna brothel, to rob a bank in order to pay off the debts of his girlfriend Tamara (Irina Potapenko), a Ukrainian prostitute.
A married woman, who lives nearby, Susanne (Ursula Strauss), visits the grandfather, encourages him to play his accordion, and accompanies him to church.Now things begin to fall into place, from the perspective of the viewer though not initially from that of the characters.
Susanne's husband, Robert (Andreas Lust), is the policeman who accidentally shot and killed Tamara.
"Revanche" assumes it meaning, in German, of second chance as well as revenge.This summary does not do justice to the consistent excellence of the film's acting and direction.
There are a lot of "second chances" in this Oscar nominated film.Alex (Johannes Krisch) wants to give Tamara (Irina Potapenko) a second chance to escape her life of prostitution.
He also wants a second chance with his father (Johannes Thanheiser).Unfortunately, life is what happens when you are making other plans, and the encounter with the policeman Robert (Andreas Lust) ruins Alex's plans.Revanche also means "revenge." You can see the slow burning of Alex as he broods over the loss of Tamara.
Even when the policeman's wife Susanne (Ursula Strauss) tries to get intimate with him, he has sex, but treats her like dirt.What Alex doesn't realize until he and Robert meet is that Robert is grieving as much as he is.
He shot Tamara by accident and is aching over her death.There was some outstanding acting by all the characters in this film.
The story is set in modern-day Austria where the protagonist, Alex, is working maintenance in a brothel and is in a relationship with Tamara, one of the prostitutes there who hails from Ukraine.
Alex successfully sticks up the bank, but a police officer (Robert) just happens to come along and questions Tamara who's sitting in the getaway car.
Robert leaves Tamara's body inside the car and abandons it in a forest.The second half of the movie is much more slow-paced than the first.
In turn, he confesses to Susanne that he was the bank robber and presumably their secret is safe with him.While I was disappointed that Revanche did not have a slam-bang twist ending, I was relieved at the same time that Alex did not resort to the ugly act of killing Robert.
In Spiellman's world, people make bad decisions: Alex concocts the robbery, Tamara goes along with it, Robert fires at a vehicle moving away from him, in violation of procedures and Susanne commits adultery by having an affair.
I never would have thought I would see this 2009 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film on a plane."Revanche" is an Austrian movie, though it could have been made anywhere else.
It is basically about four people: from the city, an Ukranian prostitute Tamara (Irina Potapenko) and her thug boyfriend Alex (Johannes Krische), and in the countryside, an honest cop Robert (Andreas Lust) and his friendly wife Susanne (Ursula Strauss).
"Revanche" is a German-language movie from 7 years ago and, together with "Antares", the most known work by Austrian filmmaker Götz Spielmann.
As much as I liked looking at the stunning Irina Potapenko, they certainly could have kept these sequences at 30 minutes max and, consequently, the film at 100 minutes.There is absolutely nothing wrong with the acting here: Krisch, Lust, Strauss, the aforementioned Potapenko and Thanheiser delivered from start to finish, even if Thanheiser's character did not really add that much to me for the movie.
He may not have lost a loved one, but he suffers almost the same as Krisch's character, emotionally and professionally."Revanche" is not among my top5 favorite non English films from 2008, but I still recommend the watch.
The revenge/revanche story is pretty good (no spoiler here, the clue is/was in the title), but for all it's slow moving pace and great ideas that the movie has, it has one big let down ...
Here revenge is used in a different and ultimately redemptive way.Early in the film the camera lingers on a street scene.
This is just the case with Austrian "Revanche", an incredibly dull and slow movie coming from nowhere and leading nowhere.Nothing is right here.
This is a revenge story of Ex-con Alex who is in love with a prostitute Tamara, and wants to escape with her after robbing a bank.
It would have made the film even better and fast paced.Alex figures out that, Robert is the neighbor of his grandfather after he comes to live with his father.
But, the way things turn out in the end is very different from the usual revenge movies I've seen.
I do not have a problem with slow paced movies, but it may be a problem with some viewers.Good film but it could have been great, had it been a bit fast.paced. |
tt0002130 | L'Inferno | The exhumation of Lizzie Siddal's desiccated body is seen, followed by a shot of Rossetti dancing among the flames of a bonfire of paintings by Reynolds and Gainsborough. A voice-over informs us that Rossetti is a founder of a revolutionary group of artists called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The figure of the young Lizzie dressed as Joan of Arc appears above the flames.
Lizzie is seen modelling for Millais' Ophelia and for a painting of Joan by Rossetti. The voice-over states that she eats little and often throws it up. She and Rossetti spend several years together while he paints and draws her, but she spurns his sexual advances, even slashing him with a needle when he presses himself on her. Rossetti turns to the more accommodating Fanny Cornforth.
Lizzie is introduced to laudanum by Emma Brown to alleviate her stomach pain. She is advised by Christina Rossetti that Dante Gabriel needs a patron. Christina's voice-over speaks her poem In an Artist's Studio, about Lizzie. She tells Lizzie she looks ill. Rossetti and Christina visit William Holman Hunt, who is painting The Light of the World. Hunt asks Rossetti to look after his girlfriend Annie Miller while he is away in the Holy Land painting The Scapegoat, but Rossetti has an affair with her and Hunt spurns her on his return. John Ruskin visits Rossetti's studio and shows an interest in Lizzie's art.
Rossetti meets Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris in Oxford and encounters the beautiful Jane Burden. They paint the Oxford Union murals. Jane marries Morris and Rossetti marries Lizzie. Lizzie becomes increasingly hysterical due to her laudanum use and Rossetti's philandering. She dies from an overdose. Rossetti buries his unpublished poems with her.
Some years later, Charles Augustus Howell persuades him to dig the poems up, but Rossetti is haunted by the image of the dead Lizzie and becomes addicted to chloral. Fanny Cornforth rescues him from a suicide attempt, but Rossetti is now increasingly obsessed with Morris' wife Jane. He sleeps with her when Morris is away in Iceland, but she remains distant. Isolated, with only the loyal Fanny to care for him, Rossetti sinks further into addiction. | psychedelic, violence | train | wikipedia | A striking piece of history, this 1911 adaptation of Dante's The Divine Comedy was the first full length feature made in Italy.Taking visual inspiration from Gustav Doré's iconic illustrations, Giuseppe de Liguoro worked for more than three years with 150 people and what was then the biggest film budget ever to complete his masterpiece.Newly restored from a variety of sources, it's still an amazing visual experience as the poet Virgil leads Dante on a journey through Purgatory and Hell.L'Inferno's pantheon of demons and sinners are imaginatively conjured up on ambitious sets using a variety of then-pioneering cinematic tricks such as forced perspective to allow a gigantic Pluto to rage at the dwarfed interlopers, overlays for when they arrive at the city of Dis and see furies scaling the battlements and an ingenious combination of miniatures and live action to create remarkable encounters with three chained giants and a final confrontation with Lucifer himself.In between these set pieces, Dante and his guide meet a rogues gallery of history's great sinners and the ironically apposite corners of Hell reserved just for them.The only real pitchfork in the backside of this otherwise commendable project is the decision to harness the visuals to a soundtrack culled from Tangerine Dream's concept album based on the same literary source.It's not the German electronic outfit's best work and comes with the additional burden of vocals which tend to detract from the Gothic mood created by the visuals alone.Still, you can always turn down the sound and play something more sympathetic, say, Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra, because this is one screen gem that deserves to be enjoyed several times over..
Fantastic film for anyone interested in film history, Dante's Divine Comedy, or genre movies.
The pure ambition of setting this story to film and the impressive staging of the circles of hell overcome the lack of sophisticated cinematic language to which we are accustomed.
These folks should be put in movie jail for plastering their names all over it in the artificial credit sequence and marrying the modern and inappropriate Tangerine Dream music to the picture - not as an audio option, mind you, but as the only option!
The ridiculous way in which the credits are appended (tons of credits for each Tangerine Dream musician down to whoever provided the donuts during their sessions, but only a bare few credits for the 150 people who actually made this fantastic film in 1911.
There is a circle of hell in L'Inferno for film 'remix' people like these..
Its use of sets and hour-plus runtime would help influence the movie-making industries on both sides of the Atlantic to produce longer and more epic films.
Griffith wasn't the only one to have used varied camera positions, dissected scenes and used crosscutting and continuity editing to make his narratives more cinematic, either.This is one of the earliest feature-length films to last at least an hour and seems to be the earliest that has survived to this day and been available on video in near complete form.
Like "Cabiria" and "Quo Vadis?", "L'Inferno" was also quite successful; in the US, ticket prices went for as high as $2.50 ("Dante on View"), and the film was the first to pave an American market for feature-length films through roadshow bookings and states rights distribution--a system, which for a time, coexisted with the Nickelodeon programs.This film, of course, is dated.
With the help of the sets, the bare plot of Dante's work remains involving and, at least, visually interesting, despite the static camera.
So, for my second viewing, I muted the television and played an old piece of classical music based on Dante's original epic.
Another gripe is that the DVD producer's added an electronic music score, which also features lyrics from some woman singer, which sound horrid and really doesn't add anything to the film.
After the first few minutes I turned the soundtrack off and watched the film without any music.
Story" by Clive Hirschhorn, telling what the Warner brothers did after Edison's infamous Trust had "persuaded" them to sell their film exchange business, which would have been in 1911 or 1912, "It was only a matter of months, however, before Sam Warner returned from a trip to New York having bought the rights for a five-reeler called Dante's Inferno based on the famous poem.
A Must-See View of the Poem of Dante Alighieri with the Music of Tangerine Dream.
During his journey, Dante meets poets and different sinners being punished by their transgressions."L'Inferno" is a must-see view of the poem of Dante Alighieri with the music of Tangerine Dream.
One century later, the visual concept of Limbo and Inferno of Gustavo Doré used by directors Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan and Giuseppe de Liguoro is still impressive, giving the sensation of pictures in movement at an exhibition, specially considering that the cinema technology was in its beginning.
A strange beast this one; apparently the first ever Italian feature film, based on Dante (with some unacknowledged visual indebtedness to Gustav Dore) L'inferno has lately resurfaced on DVD complete with a new soundtrack, and by Tangerine Dream no less.
A great film, full of early fantastical touches, L'inferno still makes for reasonably enthralling viewing, especially as the shooting style of the time - slow moving tableaux, with no close ups - is eminently suited to Dante's epic narrative based around a grand tour of horror.
Some of the many special effects are reminiscent of Melies' imagination (if far less studio bound than the work of the French master), as Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil, progress through the various circles of Hell, viewing increasingly horrendous torments on display.
There's also no real story: it's a series of tableaux depicting Dante and Virgil moving through the different circles of Hell.
Some of the trick photography is among the best that was available at that time (and men like Melies did a fantastic job even ten years before the release of this film); some is 'rags on a stick'-variety.
WARNING: This review contains explicit language which some people may find offensive.I attended a special screening of "L'Inferno" at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan; for this screening, the film's intertitles had been removed, and the movie's dialogue and narration were spoken live by the brilliant actors Len Cariou and Roberta Maxwell, accompanied by an appropriately hellish violin score by Gil Morgenstern.For all its considerable crudeness, this early film is still powerful.
Several flashbacks contain interior shots, featuring painted sets of the style which modern audiences will attribute to French film-maker Georges Melies.I try to perceive every film that I view in the context of its own time.
I feel that he should have been less literal and more colloquial: when Dante described a damned soul "making a fig", it wasn't immediately clear to the (mostly American) audience that this referred to an obscene hand-gesture.For all its crudity, this is an astonishing film with great visual impact.
This remains a remarkable film, particularly given its time.It helps to have read Dante's "L'Inferno" before seeing it.
Actually, the fantasy element of the whole – which sees the national Italian poet journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise has always intrigued me – even if one requires special knowledge (since it makes specific references to events and people in the author's life and times) to fully appreciate the text.
That said, the "Inferno" is the most popular segment and, given my own predilection for Horror, it is just as well: this Silent production, then, running 68 minutes in the version I acquired (accompanied by a serviceable Tangerine Dream score which, however, comes with a handful of songs that not only merely reiterate what is already in the text but actively interfere with it!) is famous for being Italy's very first feature-length film – incidentally, it was being constantly projected over the walls of the main hall of the "Palazzo Del Cinema" during the 2004 Venice Film Festival to which my brother and I had been accredited to attend!Before I go into the movie proper, I must say that I am always surprised to see nudity in early movies – but this one has easily the most extensive amount of this, since virtually all of the condemned are presented in their birthday suit (albeit either strategically positioned to obscure genitalia or else donning pieces of cloth over 'offensive' parts of the body)!
Anyway, as I have often remarked about such 'museum pieces', it is hard in hindsight to properly evaluate the artistic quality of the film (which essentially hinges on its faithful recreation of the influential Gustav Dore' illustrations inspired by Dante's work).
Mind you, if one had to compare it to what was emanating from the U.S. at the time, this obviously wins hands down on the basis of sheer ambition and scope alone (pioneer D.W. Griffith would be restricted to two-reelers until 1913) – but, then, the film-making approach here is in the, admittedly, then-prevalent vein of wildly (and relentlessly) gesticulating actors within tableaux-like scenes, with plot progression depicted not through the (eventually) natural expedient of editing but rather by having an intertitle describe the next 'moving image'!
In any case, Alighieri's muse Beatrice asks the poet Virgil to accompany Dante on his odyssey through the nine circles of Hell where the dead are eternally punished for having committed a variety of sins, each level representing a more heinous transgression than the one before (for instance, misers and spendthrifts are forever made to roll bags of gold and rebuke each other of their respective foible)!
Along the way, they meet a number of well-known historical personages (Cleopatra for her lustiness, Ulysses for the bad advise he gave during the Trojan War{!} and, in a bit of poetic justice, Caiaphas is crucified to the ground for having hypocritically rejected his own Messiah: bafflingly, there is even a designated spot where all the good people born before the advent of Christ on Earth can 'reside', obviously without being castigated!) but also more obscure ones known by Virgil and Dante and whom the latter in particular verbally and physically lashes out at (recognizing one even if he is standing upside-down with his head in a hole), or they at him!
Guarding the damned are a horde of demons who, again, either are not pleased to receive the poets' visit (though they can hardly protest since this tour is apparently being conducted through Divine will!) or they gleefully curse/torment their charges.As I said earlier, we also get interjections in which the fates of a handful of tragic figures are shown: these include clandestine lovers Paolo and Francesca and Count Ugolino (betrayed, imprisoned and starved to death by his former friend, an Archbishop, in the netherworld he continually gnaws at the latter's head in an icy ambiance!) – interestingly, these accounts were eventually turned into films that I own but have yet to watch, coincidentally both dating from 1949 and directed by Raffaello Matarazzo and Riccardo Freda respectively (the latter title, unfortunately, only survives in a ragged print marked by a constant flurry of missing frames!).
In the end, Dante and Virgil come face to face with a gigantic Lucifer gleefully feasting on the bodies of Cassius and Brutus, chief conspirators in the assassination of Julius Caesar (which rather exposes a bias towards his own country's turbulent past in the poet's notion of Hell), but they are allowed to re-enter the real world..
L'Inferno was the first feature film released in Italy, beginning that country's long career of storied cinema.
An adaptation of the famous Inferno by Dante Alighieri, L'Inferno is not a horror film in the traditional sense.
It's almost impossible to find a copy anywhere.This, of course, is based on Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy"-particularly on the first third of that epic poem, "The Inferno" (which is my favorite part of the series).The film isn't as good as the book, I will say that for sure, but I feel as though it's the best adaptation we could ever get.
It works so well, to be so old, and I'm surprised more horror fans don't talk about this flick, or demand for a constant release of the flick in a twenty-movie collection box set from K-Mart.The actor playing Virgil (I believe was his name), whom leads Dante through hell, is absolutely fantastic, in his performance, taking notes of how portraits of the epic poem by Dante have looked, in the past.
It's a mix between a stage play and a typical film, at that time, which was common in the silent era, but it feels more prominent (and realistic), here.This is such a good flick.
There is some good costumes and special effects and that was like watching a Star Trek Classic but at the end, we are faraway of the power of words and art from Gustave Doré that inspired the movie..
Firstly of all this movie was made in 1911 then it was more daring movie of his time,showing Dante to a journey through inferno,the first ever adaptation from a Dante Alighieri's literally work,the movie took three years to be done and more giants stage was built to tell this magnificent story...Dante was lead by Virgil who goes to all circles of hell and in the way they found such famous characters of our past history....L'inferno show us many levels of suffering and how the different sinners are punished for their errant life....l really love this movie even with added of new score modern music..
Frequently classed as the first "blockbuster" of its time because of its large production budget, long runtime and higher-than-average ticket costs at the box office, L'Inferno adopts Dante's prose and brings its pages to life with some decent production values helping it along the way.
As far as adaptations go, the movie is fine and features a handful of impressive shots and sequences.
Despite the film's best intentions then, you're nevertheless left to watch a bunch of scantily-clad white people faff around for 80 minutes either getting burned to varying degrees or flailing around in some water for whatever reason while another white guy (Dante) has a day-trip through hell in order to feel good about himself by looking down on and deriding the "sinners".
L'inferno is a pretty early feature length film.
The movie takes Dante's portrait of hell and puts it on the screen in big fashion and it's not so much the story that matters but the images.
Dante is rightly revered in Italy and the mere mention of him or his works is enough to begin motion without actually turning on the machinery of the poetry.That's why this film was made, an odd thing if there ever was one.
This silent film work is one of the first ever known film adaptations and is based on Italian Dante's literary epic.
This film, as the title plainly indicate, is a dramatization of Dante's Inferno which comprises a third of his Divine Comedy.
As is well-known to all, the Inferno relates Dante's journey through Hell being guided by the Roman poet, Virgil.
Indeed, this movie uses Gustave Dore's illustrations of the Inferno as the basis of the cinematography.As for the film itself, its technical crudity and the highly uneven quality of the film stock, really make it mainly of archival value.
With the success of this film and other Italian feature films which followed like The Last Days of Pompeii and Cabiria, film makers like D.W. Griffith were inspired to direct long, involved films like Birth of a Nation and Intolerance.Unlike most other commentators, I wasn't too put off by the Tangerine Dream soundtrack.
I do look forward to seeing it, however, to note any additional footage that may exist here and for what seems, from advance reports, to be a very decent visual quality of the materials.I used to teach Italian to high school students and for many years I taught Dante's Inferno in translation, often acting out various episodes while donning horns and carrying a pitchfork.
The music I used to use in showing the movie was a CD recording of Franz Liszt's "Dante Symphony." It is about 50 minutes worth of music.
Surprisingly, and pleasingly, the drama of the symphonic piece, especially the first and second part (Inferno and Purgatorio), worked very well as an accompaniment.I have had a great deal of experience with this film, have seen it hundred of times, and I would certainly recommend that anyone showing or watching this DVD would turn off the sound and play this music instead.
Yes, it's important as an very early feature film that actually survives in something like its original form (the loss of much of a film t like The Kelly Gang is a tragedy) but L'inferno is pretty primitive.The story telling technique consists of an inter-title telling us what we're about to see, followed by a static shot showing it to us.
This silent-era underrated masterpiece was way too ahead of its time.Even when this film wasn't an entirely faithful adaptation of the epic poem written by Dante Aliegheri, I think that this is the only cinematic version that was able to capture with such magnificence all the horrors described by Dante about the Underworld realm, having a visual style highly influenced by the wonderful paintings done by Gustave Doré.Of course, there are some scenes that could be considered "dated" or "cheesy" for modern viewers, but personally, I think that the "ancient" look of this film gives it a solemn, timeless tone, that fits perfectly well with the source material, being in that one of the most incredible and ambitious samples of the early years of cinema. |
tt0049552 | Nightfall | Commercial artist James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his friend, Dr. Edward Gurston (Frank Albertson), are on a hunting and fishing trip in Wyoming. They stop to help two men whose car has crashed. John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond) are bank robbers, fleeing with $350,000 in loot, who don't plan on leaving any witnesses.
They murder Gurston using Vanning's hunting rifle, but through luck Vanning survives. He's knocked out cold but is still alive. He awakens to discover the stolen money, left behind by mistake, and runs with it from the returning hoods. He gets away but loses the bag in the blizzard.
Much later, at a café in Los Angeles, Vanning makes the acquaintance of Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft), a model. He is ambushed by John and Red, but once again gets away. Marie falls for Vanning and travels by bus with him to Wyoming, tailed by an insurance investigator named Fraser (James Gregory) who has been following the case all along.
John and Red have found the money and get the drop on the other three. The crooks double-cross one another, however, and Red shoots John dead. Vanning fights with Red, who is killed by a snow plow. The insurance man will clear Vanning, who is now free to marry Marie. | suspenseful, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | He's just right here, playing tough guy up against cold-hearted Brian Keith and buddy/big brother/love-interest to model Anne Bancroft, who gets caught in this crime web and yet doesn't seem to mind.
Despite a sluggish start and a few details that don't come together (such as why the crooks' car runs off the road in Wyoming, or why the two bank-robbers don't follow Aldo Ray when he runs through the river with the satchel of loot), director Jacques Tourneur handles the criss-crossing plot with buttery ease.
If "Out of the Past" is one of the best films noir to be released in the 1940s, then "Nightfall" must be one of the best from the succeeding decade.Aldo Ray plays James Vanning, who, with his doctor friend Edward Gurston (Frank Albertson), finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up knowing the whereabouts of a bag of stolen money, wanted mightily by two bank robbers (one played with droll relish by Brian Keith).
Fate, always a principal character in any film noir, brings James together with Marie Gardner (an impossibly young Anne Bancroft), a fashion model who becomes his girl Friday.
I don't know if Aldo Ray was considered a good actor at the time, but he does a terrific job here -- who better to play an American everyman caught up in a sticky web than this all-American jock of an actor?
He and Bancroft sizzle in their scenes together, and one of the movie's highlights comes when they are racing away from one of Bancroft's fashion shows with the bad guys in hot pursuit, and Ray, frustrated by the fact that Bancroft can't run in the impractical gown she was just modeling, picks her up and runs with her into the safety of a cab, after which she leans against him and says, "You're the most wanted man I know." This scene and line got laughs and applause at the screening I attended, but you could tell that people were laughing with the film and not at it.This film is one of the highlights of the noir genre, and I highly recommend catching it if you get a chance.Grade: A.
But consider the opening chance encounter between Vanning (Aldo Ray) and Marie (Anne Bancroft).
Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall follows the classic Film-Noir pattern: a man hunted by someone for something he did in the past, a beautiful woman, expressionist black and white photography etc..
The action of the film takes place in Chicago where James Vanning (Aldo Ray), meets in a bar a beautiful young fashion model Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft).
Though Nightfall doesn't stand comparison to Jacques Tourneur Film-Noir masterpiece Out of the Past, it's still quite an interesting film generally well acted with some very good dialogs in it and the most remarkable end sequence that probably served as an inspiration for the ending of brothers' Coen Fargo.
The artist James "Jim" Vanning (Aldo Ray) meets the model Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft) in a bar and they have dinner together.
Will Jim prove his innocence?"Nightfall" is a film-noir with a story of coincidences and bad luck.
The wonderful Jacques Tourneur directed this 1957 noir, "Nightfall," starring Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, James Gregory, and Frank Albertson.James Vanning (Aldo Ray) is on the run from some vicious criminals who have stolen a fortune from a bank.
They believe that Ray, an innocent party, knows where in the Wyoming mountains the money is.Back in the city, Vanning meets a model (Bancroft) and this is picked up by two of the crooks.
He manages to get away and goes to Bancroft's place; since the thugs know who she is, the two of them have to go on the run.Tourneur's themes here are similar to his other films, such as "Cat People," "Out of the Past," "Experiment Perilous" as three examples: Chance meetings and coincidence dominate a story where Tourneur uses flashbacks expertly.
Here, two innocent people are drawn into a situation and being pursued.Very absorbing story -- in her early films, beautiful Anne Bancroft, a powerful actress, was cast in these young leading lady or ingenue roles, like Bette Davis when she first came to Warners.
The film opens stunningly: we watch the hunted protagonist (the, well, stolid Aldo Ray) as Los Angeles day darkens into dusk, and the pace flows seamlessly to a "chance" meeting with the young Anne Bancroft in a cocktail lounge.
Anne Bancroft is luminescent in her film debut as the model who comes to anti-hero Ray's aid.
And James Gregory is fabulous as the detective shadowing Ray. But Rudy Bond steals the show whenever he's on screen as Brian Keith's sadistic partner.
So he's doing the Richard Kimble thing and staying low.I'm sure he couldn't believe his luck when beautiful model Anne Bancroft gives him the come hither look in that bar just to get him out in the alley so Brian Keith and Rudy Bond can get to him.
Of course she being the good citizen she is, does this because she believes they're cops and they just want to apprehend Ray. In flashback we learn that out in the Wyoming woods Keith and Ray get some help from Ray and his friend Frank Albertson who happens to be a doctor.
After that Ray's on the run.Jacques Tourneur directed this rather unbelievable noir film and the thing I most can't believe is this is the same guy who directed Out of the Past.
So what if Brian Keith and Rudy Bond stupidly lose 350,000 dollars just so they can move the story along and chase protagonist Aldo Ray from snowy Wyoming to sunny LA.
The biggest problem is the plot which gets worse the further along you go and climaxes in an unbelievable (not in a good way) and contrived ending, which if re-written, could have made this a pretty decent film..
It's a widescreen black and white affair, set in an unnamed (I think) big city and in wilderness Wyoming.It's no surprise that director Jacques Tourneur makes a dark, brooding movie with unusual location shooting.
Tourneur was on a long slide in his career (though a cult classic of his, "Curse of the Demon," was due out in a few months), and I think he is just a victim along with everyone in Hollywood of the 1950s nosedive due to t.v. and changing tastes.That said, there are so many things to like here, including a more modern feeling of noir sensibilities, it's a great movie to study, or to appreciate as much as get swept up in..
****SPOILERS**** Unconvincing and very talky movie about about an innocent man James, Aldo Ray, on the run from two hoodlums John & Red, Brian Keith & Ruby Bond, as well as a bank insurance investigator Ben, James Gregory.
James then gets involved with Marie, Ann Bancroft, as the whole bunch go from L.A to some 1,000 miles South-East to end up in the snows of Moose Wyoming for the movies climactic and totally contrived ending sequence.
The film "Nightfall" ends with James & Marie and the two crooks, John & Red, as well as the bank insurance investigator Ben heading down to Moose Wyoming.
It seem by now that the movie makers just got so sick and tired of the story, like those of us watching,that they wanted to finally end the movie and put the audience as well as those actors in the film out of their misery.
In the end of the film the three surviving cast members, James Marie & Ben, split up the bank money and live happily ever after..
It stars Aldo Ray, Brian Keith, Rudy Bond, James Gregory and Anne Bancroft.
Music is by George Duning and cinematography by Burnett Guffey.A pretty model, an insurance investigator, two thugs, an innocent man on the run and a bag of stolen money buried out in the Wyoming snow.
Destiny awaits with devilish glee.It resembles the earlier Tourneur classic Out of the Past, so loses a bit of freshness, it hinges on a major contrivance involving the bag of money and it's more blanc-noir than film noir, but Nightfall rounds out as being a well executed paranoid thriller.
Pulling it into the film noir universe is the protagonist played by Aldo Ray (a mighty physical presence), he's the victim of mischances and coincidences, his situation worsening because of paranoia and the inability to comprehend how the vagaries of fate have put him into a life and death predicament.
These characters are always interesting, the thugs played by Keith & Bond are unusual because they need the help of Ray's protagonist, thus having to rein in murderous tendencies, Gregory's investigator is like an impartial observer on the periphery and Bancroft's babe starts out cold but becomes a woman prepared to go on the lam with a guy who clearly has issues to be resolved!
Ultimately, and rightly so, it's Ray's movie, his Vanning character is a haunted figure, the world weighing heavily on his huge gait, with gravel in voice and bemusement in eyes, it's a true film noir character that is excellently portrayed.Interesting if a mixed bag, Nightfall is however comfortably recommended to those interested in noir cinema.
Jacques Tourneur is at his poetic best with this simple tale of a wrongfully accused man pursued by the police and the crooks — a classic noir plot if ever there was one.
The cast is perfect: Aldo Ray is solid as the likable hero in the wrong place at the wrong time, Anne Bancroft has just the right combination of worldly wisdom and hope as the girl caught up Ray's troubles, Brian Keith and Rudy Bond are a couple of hard guys who don't much like each other but have 300,000 reasons to form a slightly uneasy alliance and the wonderful character actor James Gregory gives a nuanced performance as the insurance agent on Ray's trail.While Nightfall won't change your life if is a solid piece of entertainment which Hollywood seem to toss off with so little effort back in 40's and 50's.
The film starts out with James Vanning, (Aldo Ray)walking down a dark street and trying to keep himself in the shadows when he meets up with a man who wants a light for his cigarette, this man is Ben Fraser, (James Gregory) which is a very quick encounter and then James goes into a bar and not long after he meets up with a pretty girl, Marie Gardner, (Anne Bancroft) who asks him for five dollars and he becomes rather suspicious at first and after a while he takes her to dinner.
When the story begins you learn that Ray's being tailed by an insurance investigator (James Gregory) as well as two thugs (Brian Keith and Rudy Bond).
Into this odd little flick is dropped Anne Bancroft for no apparent reason other than to provide SOME female presence in the film or else to provide the clichéd "woman who believes in him" story element.
In this noir he plays an artist pursued both by the cops and the crooks -- and Anne Bancroft leaps at the chance to hitch her wagon to the big lug with a nice face and trouble from all sides.Jaques Tourneur (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) directs with exceptional taste and restraint.
All the actors are nicely human as they go through some pretty grisly stuff at a brisk pace.Brian Keith as the big bad guy plays him low-key and reasonable but not averse to torture if it works.
A terrific B-movie with A-list credentials, (Jacques Tourneur directed, Stirling Silliphant did the screenplay from a David Goodis novel, Burnett Guffey was the cinematographer and the cast included Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, James Gregory and Jocelyn Brando though it is Rudy Bond's psycho-killer who steals the movie).
The intensity of the action, superb direction, astonishing juxtaposition of the city sequences and scenes in the tranquil, snow-filled countryside, and - probably most of all - the many hardboiled dialogues present Nightfall as a truly expressive film noir.
Through a clever use of retrospectives the film introduces the audience to James Vanning (Aldo Ray), whose life story is as tragic as it is suspenseful.
It begins with the doctor,(you may recognize character actor from Hitchcock's "Psycho"; the wealthy oil man) anyway the doctor and his friend, Aldo Ray, are on a hunting trip in Wyoming.
She is interested in helping Ray, at first cautious, doubting his story.There is the usual pursuit and chase as the criminals trail Ray. Brian Keith is rather good as a menacing character, there is a scene in a oil field where he is threatening Ray, if the whereabouts of the stash of money is not disclosed.Overall a do not miss, worth buying on DVD.
The other great noir film directed by Jacques Tourneur.
NIGHTFALL is a spellbinding 1957 noir film directed by the great Jacques Tourneur.
Based on a novel by David Goodis ("Dark Passage," "Shoot The Piano Player," etc) the film stars Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, James Gregory and Rudy Bond.
Nearly a forgotten film, NIGHTFALL has never been available on any home video format.NIGHTFALL tells of the plight of an innocent man (Aldo Ray) plunged into a nightmarish scenario of fear and paranoia when he becomes the object of pursuit by both the cops and a pair of sadistic killers (Keith and Bond) over the whereabouts of a cache of stolen money.
Anyone familiar with the dark and despairing novels of David Goodis will no doubt be drawn into the dire world of NIGHTFALL's protagonist, Jim Vanning---beautifully played by the vastly under-appreciated Aldo Ray. Ray's compelling portrait of a tough man on the brink of utter desperation (a common thread in Goodis' fiction) is a revelation---as honest a depiction of a tortured hero as 1950s American pulp cinema has provided.
Much of the heavy lifting is done by Brian Keith as a bank robber and James Gregory, who was very good as the insurance investigator.
Anne Bancroft is the female lead in a non-taxing role as Ray's girlfriend.Tourneur does an excellent job for an independent production company on a picture which is not in the same class as "Out Of The Past", but comes close.
After watching it I am happy I didn't know anything about the plot because in that way I enjoyed it much more than if I had known , so I advice you to watch "Nightfall" before reading comments, reviews or summaries about it.Now if U want to know more about the movie before watching it here is a little more information: All the performances are great, but I have to say the actors who played the bad guys were terrific, I found them similar to the characters played by Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta from Pulp Fiction (one of my favorites movies).During the first minutes there is a couple of great scenes with excellent dialogs at a night club between the characters James Vanning and Marie Gardner.
It is a pretty nice device as it goes, because it allows a lot of action to be happening at the same sort of time in the film even if events were further apart at either end of the story.The downside of the flashback device is that it is trigger by James telling "love interest" Marie about his past; Marie doesn't seem to exist for any other reason than enabling this plot device to be used, so when she is not being used this way then she feels a little bit redundant as a character and does get in the way a little bit.
Man On The Run. An innocent man named James Vanning (Aldo Ray) finds himself in a predicament involving bank robbers.
I wouldn't put this on the emotional level of that wonderful film, but it does effectively contrast the cold dark city with the cold white space of the countryside.The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks related by the singularly unlucky James Vanning, our hero.
But to make things worse, John and Red also catch up with Vanning...and they're prepared to do whatever's necessary to get their money back.The chase is on, with Vanning trying to elude the sadistic thugs as well as Frazier, while also romancing Marie, a sultry model who offers him shelter.Beautiful cinematography is a given in any Tourneur film and the direction here is as top notch as ever.
Anne Bancroft is most attractive as Marie, though I never shook the feeling she was a token female stuck in the movie for a tacked on romance.As with just about any film, the bad guys really dominate.
These flaws lay at the heart of Nightfall's problems.Ordinary guy Jim Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his doctor friend (Frank Albertson) are out hunting when they witness an auto crash.
We learn more about his character than that of anyone else in the cast, but he ends up having little to do with the story's outcome.The final strike against Nightfall is delivered by Aldo Ray. As written Jim Vanning is basically an ordinary guy in way over his head, so scared that he jumps when a newsie suddenly turns on the lights of his newsstand.
Ray is at first mistaken for one of the robbers by James Gregory, doing his best to play a sincere character, a bank bond investigator.
One that tends to slip through the cracks is Jacques Tourneur's "Nightfall", an excellent film released in 1957, toward the end of the noir cycle.
James Vanning, a commercial artist played by Aldo Ray. Vanning's one of noir's strangest saps.
When the Columbia honchos cast him with more stage-trained costars (Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith and James Gregory) like they have done in this picture, the result is a truly interesting set of dynamics and interplay.The story is told mainly in flashback and the pacing is fairly brisk.
One thing about actor Aldo Ray. To me, his craggy voice disqualified him forever from being the leading man type in films. |
tt0049301 | Helen of Troy | The film retells the story of the Trojan War in In 1100 B.C., albeit with some major changes from the Iliad's storyline: Paris of Troy (Jacques Sernas) sails to Sparta to secure a peace treaty between the two powerful city-states. His ship is forced to return to Troy in a storm after he has been swept overboard on the shore of Sparta. Paris is found by Helen, Queen of Sparta (Rossana Podestà), with whom he falls in love. He goes to the palace where he finds Helen's husband, King Menelaus (Niall MacGinnis), Agamemnon (Robert Douglas), Odysseus (Torin Thatcher), Achilles (Stanley Baker) and many other Greek kings debating whether to go to war with Troy. Menelaus, who is denied by Helen, sees that his wife and Paris are in love and, pretending friendship, plots Paris' death.
Warned by Helen, Paris flees and, after they are both nearly caught by the Spartans, takes Helen with him to Troy. Under the pretense of helping Menelaus regain his honor, the Greeks unite, and the siege of Troy begins. Much blood is shed in the long ordeal, with the Trojans blaming their plight on Paris and Helen until it turns out that the Greeks are solely after Troy's riches, not Helen. The siege culminates in Greek victory through the ruse of the legendary Trojan Horse. While trying to flee, Helen and Paris are cornered by Menelaus. Paris faces the Spartan king in single combat, but just as he wins the upper hand he is stabbed from behind, denying him a fair trial by arms. Helen is forced to return with Menelaus, but she is serene in the knowledge that in death she will be reunited with Paris in Elysium. | violence | train | wikipedia | This film is well-scripted (it's based on Homer and neither substracts nor adds to his basic plot - except for the Gods, which are mentioned but never seen, which makes it a modern secular version of the Iliad), well-acted by some very impressive British actors, superbly constructed (art direction, photography, costumes, period research, choreography) and creates a lasting impression.
Robert Wise, besides being the director of The Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story and The Sound of Music started his career as the editor of Citizen Kane and it is his input in the editing (vibrant, energetic, kinetic, masculine) that makes this movie a real winner and actually brings life to the giant vistas of this classic and tragic fairy tale/war movie/love story.
HELEN OF TROY as directed by craftsman Robert Wise is very pleasingly made and with excellent action and spectacle - especially in the well populated fiery siege scenes.
All the elements of a magnificent spectacle exist in Homer's work - a lavish and decadent court life, the tension of the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, the most beautiful woman in Greece, and a drama of love and seduction...Thousands of weapons are used: spears, bows, arrows, body armor, helmets, shields, maces and ships of the period l200 B.C., plus a tremendous wooden horse...Paris, on a diplomatic mission to Sparta to arrange peaceful trade, is washed up on the Spartan shore after being shipwrecked during a storm...
The lovers make their way to Troy...From that point the spectacular elements - the massing of the ships and men, and the battles outside the walls of Troy, take over...Rossana Podesta - a natural brunette given a blonde wig and the classical Grecian look - plays Helen, the indirect cause of the Trojan War, but for Paris, she is the goddess of love and beauty, "Aphrodite."Jacques Sernas plays Paris...
He is the chief warrior of the Trojan army...Niall MacGinnis is the furious Menelaus, King of Sparta, who calls on his brother Agamemnon to gather an army and avenge the mark of shame...Torin Thatcher is Ulysses, king of Ithaca, the man of outstanding wisdom...Sir Cedric Hardwicke is the powerless but kindly King of Troy...Janette Scott is Cassandra, daughter of Priam, loved by the goddess Athena...
With a great spirit of prophecy she warns her father to burn the wooden horse...Robert Wise makes a brave attempt to marry the intimate with the spectacular - a difficult task - but "Helen of Troy" is an epic movie, a superior entertainment filmed in CinemaScope and Technicolor...
As a fan of Greek Mythogy, Helen of Troy is the closest I've seen reenactment of the Trojan War. Under the Direction of Director Robert Wise, this is a well produced version in telling the story.As most people know the ending it was still sad, they had it made, but the advice given by Helen "Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts", was ignored and thus the downfall of the City of Troy.All in all I did enjoy this version, I don't think anyone else will disagree.
While the greedy Greeks plot to invade Troy to steal the treasures of the Trojans, Prince Paris (Jack Sernas) is assigned by his wise father and King of Troy to travel to Sparta and shows the peaceful intentions of his people.
The underrated "Helen of Troy" is an engaging romantic adventure with a wonderful version of Homer's epic poem "The Iliad".
Spectacular and Hollywood style renditíon based on Troy war with splendid cast and breathtaking battle scenes.When París : Jacques Sernas escapes with Helen : Rosana Podesta there takes place the Troy war.
This event lead to the Siege of Troy.Director Robert Wise picked two new Italian stars: Sernas and Podesta to play the íntimate lovers in this impressive as well as epic tale based on the known poem written by Homero: Iliada.
As Greek warriors under command of Menelaus , Agamenon , Ulysses , and Achilles : Stanley Baker get to hide out in the Trojan horse when they take the Wooden Beast into the Troy city and they are successful.This monumental and epic retelling contains a moving love story , Drama, tragic events , and overwhelming battles with a cast of thousands.
The picture ignores true deeds for lavish and high budgeted effects, including a great number of extras and a lot of war machines.In the movie shows up numerous historical and mythological roles as Priamo: Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Hecuba well played by Nora Swinburne , Agamemmon performed by Robert Douglas , as Menelaus interpreted by Neal MacGuinnis , Ulysses : Torin Thatcher, Hector : Harry Andrews , Achilles: Stanley Baker , Cassandra : Janette Scott , Ajax : Maxwell Reed , Patroclus : Terence Longdon , among others.This events about Troy war have been adapted on various films : Silent movie titled The Private life of Helen of Troy by Michael Curtiz 1927 with Maria Corda , Lewis Stone ; Italian versión 1962 by Giorgio Ferroni with Steve Reeves , Juliette Mayniel, Lidia Alfonsi, Mimmo Palmara; Italian recounting titled Fury of Achilles by Marino Girolami with Gordon Mitchell , Jacques Bergerac , Gloria Milland , Ennio Girolami and Troy by Wolfgang Petersen, with Brad Pitt, Diana Kruger, Rose Byrne , Orlando Bloom , Brian Cox. And a TV series 2003 by John Kent Harrison with Matthew Mardsen , Sienna Guilery, Rufus Sewell , Joe Montana,Daniel La Pine, James Callis , and Katie Blake as Cassandra..
Most of the cast were British, so Lithuanian actor Jacques Sernas, Italian Rossana Podesta, and French Brigitte Bardot's voices were carefully dubbed to avoid annoying and inexplicable variance in pronunciation which could have been a major flaw as in other films such as "The Vikings" and "Spartacus".This was a believable,realistic treatment with authentic period sets actually modeled after the palace at Knossos.
Contrast this convincing Greek-styled seemingly hand-hewn wooden horse carrying a shield with the emblem of Athena to the origami version in "The Trojan Horse", the rag and barrel dog-like travesty in "Troy" or the unbelievable extravagantly elaborate cast-metal object in the TV miniseries and you can see this for yourself.When Helen is forcibly taken back by the Greeks her only solace is in knowing that her love for Paris will never die and indeed it hasn't: their legend is immortal..
This is an impersonal movie,coming from someone as talented as Robert Wise ,who seems less comfortable in the sword and sandal genre than he is in the musicals ("West Side Story" ),the fantasy and horror movies ("The haunting" 1963!)or mainly the film noir ("odd against tomorrow" "I want To live" "the set up").He is not helped by an heterogeneous cast including Italian Rossana Podesta (Wise found her in Fernandez's "La Red"(1954) in which she played half-naked most of the time:so the part was tailor made for her),French Jacques Sernas (and a brunette Brigitte Bardot in the priceless part of a devoted slave),English Stanley Baker as Achilles ,as tradition as it,as far co-productions are concerned.That said,Wise's Troy is certainly smarter than the 2003 version which had Achilles die during the storming of the city,just because star Brad Pit needed a longer part.The judgment of Pâris,which was passed over in the modern version,is also absent ,but the screenwriters found an interesting counterpart with the statues of the goddesses.Generally the Spartians look nasty,sinister-looking whereas the Troyans are good-looking,loyal,brave and virtuous.Best performance,IMHO,comes from Janette Scott as Cassandra who plays her game well in an underwritten part.Lavish film sets , good battles scenes and a story closer to Homer than the 2003 version ..
The story, familiar to many, is simple: Trojan Prince Paris and the lovely Helen of Sparta, wife of King Menelaus, fall in love and flee to Troy - an impregnable coastal fortress-city.
Sernas and Podesta are great, but it's the supporting cast-including not only Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Stanley Baker, Niall MacGinnis, so many others, and even Brigitte Bardot in her first major screen appearance-who really ice it; there's even Desmond Llewelyn, known to future generations as the first and only true Q from James Bond!
The first half of the film deals with the Spartan argument, (Homer's epic doesn't start until 75 minutes into the film,) Achilles (Stanley Baker) making an impressing entry, with Brigitte Bardot as Helen's slave girl who is given for the night to Paris by Menelaos but instead helps him escape - she is only 22 but striking - you recognize her figure before you see her face.
Jacques Sernas (totally unknown to me) is the perfect Paris, a beautiful young man of great charm, sympathetic intelligence and audacious insolence, and Rossana Podestà (also unknown to me) is a very credible Helena, masking her real identity to get away with Paris from Menelaos.Among the Trojans, Cedric Hardwicke makes a very plausible Priam, he is given the most famous quote of the Trojan war, taking Helen round her chin: "So this is the face that launched a thousand ships," (Christopher Marlowe), and also Nora Swinburne as Hecuba, Ronald Lewis as Aeneas and Janette Scott as Cassandra, a Trojan parallel to Brigitte Bardot.
Only Hector is not quite convincing, Harry Andrews being the wrong type, (Eric Bana is the better compensation in the 2004 Wolfgang Peterson version), and all the battle scenes are dramatically violent and bloody enough.The action is swift and never dull, the dialogue is comfortably fluent all the way, the story is well but not exaggeratedly sugared with romanticism, and to all this comes Max Steiner's glorious music, culminating in the orgy of the wooden horse.Of course, you have to make a comparison with the 2004 "Troy" version.
But of all the film versions, I think Robert Wise, with his concise and clever editing of the story, with its flamboyantly efficient story-telling (it's less than 2 hours,) and exciting virtuosity constituting an excellent epic for all time, has made the best of it..
After the innovative style of his EXECUTIVE SUITE in the mid 1950s, he takes time and effort to film 'all the storied wonders of Homer's immortal 'Iliad' and all the gloried moments of its inspired romance,' as HELEN OF TROY trailer announced...
Therefore, the first and the most significant 'wounder' of this film is the love story of Prince Paris (Jacques Sernas) and Helen (Rossana Podesta).
HELEN OF TROY does not commit that 'sin.' Starting with Sir Cedric Hardwicke who beautifully portrays the good hearted and kind ruling Priam, through yet to come sex symbol Brigitte Bardot as Andraste, Stanley Baker as the brave warrior Achilles, Nora Swinburne as subtle and delicate Hecuba, Harry Andrews as good hearted Hector to Niall MacGinnis as cruel and wretched Menelaus.
I hereby refer to the monumental depiction of the siege of Troy with crowds of extras (more than 30,000), the lavish sets built in the Cinecitta Studios near Rome, the sea storm that brings Paris to the shore of Aphrodite, the lustful bacchanalia scene when the Trojan horse has just been brought within the city walls...The bacchanalia moment requires special attention as a very daring yet a tasteful depiction...
I missed the opening and didn't know all the time that I enjoyed a movie by Robert Wise, who tells us about Helen of Troy, who actually was the wife of an unloved Greek King, who took of cause the chance to follow a young good looking fellow to the town of Troy, which is the said reason for a 10 year long war that is told us from ancient times by Homer.
Now first of i am not a fan of Greek stories the only ones that i like is this one , Walt Disney's Hercules; and Pompeii.Beginning with this movie i was going into it with the intention of hating it.But boy did this one surprise me.I didn't even catch on that this is the story of the Trojan horse i realized it first when the wooden horse showed up on the screen.That aside the love story that's inter wined is perfect Rosanna podesta and Jack sernas was a perfect cast even though their voices were dubbed seeing that both of them are french.That aside this is remarkable movie.Give it a try and you will fall in love..
I've yet to see the story of the Trojan war done true justice on the screen; Wolfgang Petersen's TROY was the most recent and most lavish version of the tale, full of CGI-enhanced spectacle, and probably my favourite to date, but it was far from a perfect film.
HELEN OF TROY, a Robert Wise-directed retelling of the story, isn't bad, but it's a film which has dated in the worst way with a lot of stagy Hollywood actors pacing around and delivering their lines in the most old-fashioned way imaginable.The story is one we all know by now: Paris kidnaps Helen from the Greeks and takes her back to Troy, leading King Agamemnon to set sail with a massive army to get her back.
Big budget Hollywood epic at its best (although made in Italy), and directed by one of Hollywood's greats, Robert Wise (noted for The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Desert Rats, Somebody up there likes me, Westside Story and many others), this production shows what could be done, back in the fifties when there was still money enough to splurge.
Oh, yeah the great battle scenes too...The story follows the usual myth: Paris (Jacques Sernas) is shipwrecked when on his way to Sparta to get a peace treaty with nasty king Menelaus (Niall MacGinnis).
Compared to such epics as Cleopatra (1963), The Ten Commandments (1956), Helen of Troy stacks up as an equally good romantic classic.I've seen the more recent Troy (2004) but that is a very different take on the battle for Troy; it's more a story about Achilles than it is about Helen and Paris.
Only Menelaus in this film is portrayed as a complete chump The intervention of Aphrodite/Venus into his his marriage and the fact that in Homer, though not as skilled and renowned a warrior as Achilles, Ajax,Ulysses and others on the Greek side he is brave and noble unlike the weasel Paris in the story who is constantly berated by family and Helen for his less than stellar participation in the war.
For those who haven't read the Iliad or know the real story behind the Trojan War, they will probably never realize that Paris is NOT the main hero or character of the story, though he does play an important role, for it was his act of abducting Helen that started the war - but the other Greeks, such as Achilles, Agammemnon, and Trojans like Hector.However, this film portrays the Greeks in a rather negative light - as boozy, two-timing cheats who go back on their promises, and gives all credit to Trojans as a peace-loving cultured nation.
Cedric Hardwicke is appropriately dignified as Priam, Niall MacGinnis a standout as Menelaus, and there are good bits from other actors, but the most impressive parts of the film are concerned with the spectacle of the assaults on Troy.Wise lets out all the stops for the battles, which achieve a genuine power, despite being rather tame by modern standards (though watch for a few surprising parallels with some of the assault on Minas Tirith in "Return of the King").
In ancient Greece, handsome Trojan prince Jacques Sernas (as Paris) is shipwrecked in Sparta, where he meets beautifully-figured slave girl Rossana Podesta (as Helen).
It is interesting to see future "sex kitten" Brigitte Bardot play a dark-haired handmaiden, and Niall MacGinnis (as Menelaus) does well in his supporting role.**** Helen of Troy (1/26/56) Robert Wise ~ Rossana Podesta, Jacques Sernas, Niall MacGinnis, Brigitte Bardot.
Homer's characters are there but the story has little to do with his version of the Troyan war as narrated in The Iliad.That aside, "Helen of Troy" stands as an enjoyable and entertaining ancient Greece adventure due mainly to spectacular battle scenes, wide open sceneries, lots of extras, adequate armours and costumes, carefully designed interior settings, a fine musical score and acceptable acting.
You always have the feeling that producers didn't try to save money on this movie and director Robert was "Wise" enough to understand that long duration is not what makes an spectacular epic film.The main couple, Paris (Jack Sernas)and Helen (Rossana Podesta), deliver standard performances and though both of them may have the "phisique du rol" for their characters, you come to understand why none of them quite reached stardom.
A very young Brigitte Bardot is also around in one of her first appearances on screen.The single combat between Achilles and Hector is very well handled and a highlight in the picture.In all, if you don't take "Helen of Troy" as a version of Homer's Iliad but just as an action/adventure/romance film in ancient times, you'll find it most enjoying and entertaining.
An Interesting Interpretation of the Trojan War. As most people probably know from reading the Iliad by Homer, "Helen" (Rossana Podesta) was the most beautiful woman in the world and happened to be married to "King Menelaus" (Niall MacGinnis) of Sparta.
"Paris" (Jacques Sernas) was a Trojan prince who got shipwrecked near Sparta and upon seeing Helen fell in love and then managed to take her back to Troy with him.
In this film, you can catch other celebrated actors hamming it up in crowns and togas - Sir Cedric Hardwicke portrays King Priam, Nial MacGinnis plays the imperious and possessive Menelaus, Janette Scott plays the blind, mad prophetess Cassandra, whose predictions of the fall of Troy are ultimately fulfilled, and Brigitte Bardot, who would later rise as a sexy and charismatic actress in the 60's and 70's, plays Helen's slave girl Andraste.
No, the story of the Trojan War is much more tragic than that because when Paris loses Helen it is because he is killed and she is dragged back to Greece to once again become a slave to Menelaus. |
tt0044859 | Lure of the Wilderness | The film is set in the 1910s in Fargo, Georgia, near a dangerous swamp. Ben Tyler and his father Zack one day go into the swamp to search for two lost trappers. During an unsuccessful journey, Ben's dog Careless disappears while running after a deer. While looking for Careless, Ben is hit in the head by someone, and when he awakens, he finds himself captured by two primitive people, the old Jim Harper and his fierce, aggressive daughter Laurie.
Ben recognizes Jim, who has been accused of a murder committed eight years ago. Fearing lynching, Jim and his daughter have since fled the nearby village to live in the wilderness. Jim admits to one killing, claiming it was done in self-defense, but insists that the other murder was committed by the vicious Longden brothers. Despite Laurie's clearly noticeable lack of trust in Ben, he believes the story of Jim and tells them he wants to return to the civilization to give them a fair trial.
The following days, Ben accompanies Jim and Laurie in their routine days, which includes hunting. In this period, Laurie's hostility towards Ben softens and they start feeling attracted to each other. During a short return to home, Ben outrages his father and fiancée Noreen by announcing he will soon go back into the swamp. Noreen announces she does not plan on waiting for him and that she will look for another beau. At a later dance, Noreen provokes a fight between Ben and Jack Doran, her date, and Ben eventually breaks off the engagement.
Noreen follows Ben to Laurie and finds out about her identity. She falsely claims to Laurie that Ben has betrayed the Harpers and she next tells the Longdens about Ben's interference with Jim and Laurie. As a revenge, the Longdens almost drown Ben and later try to find the Harpers to kill them, so the truth will not come out. Ben also goes into the swamp to warn Jim and Laurie, who initially do not believe his warnings until Ben becomes a target of the Longdens. After Jim is shot by one of them, Laurie sets a trap which kills one of the brothers and captures the other. In the end, the Harpers' name is cleared and they are finally able to return to the civilization, accompanied by Ben. | murder | train | wikipedia | I would like this movie on DVD.
I saw this movie in original release and have always wanted to see it again.
It is beautifully acted by the entire cast, especially Walter Brennan.
As usual, he was always an asset to any movie.
The setting of the swamp gave the movie adventure,suspense and beauty.
This is one classic that should be restored to its original state..
Good story...Great adventure!.
Here is an unusual story about a girl and her father, who take refuge in the Georgia swamps as they try to evade a linching mob.
The father (excellently played by Walter Brennan) had been wrongly accused of murder in a small neighboring town.
The girl (who turns out to be the beautiful -and quite athletic - Jean Peters)grows up in the swamps, away from civilization, until a man (handsome Jeff Hunter) arrives at their campsite looking for his stray dog.
Of course the two young actors eventually fall in love, but even this is believable and interwined into the action and adventure of this highly intersting film.
Director Jean Negulesco offers us a well balanced and magnificently edited film that deals with prejudices and lies - which can be abundant in any small town.
Very well acted by Peters, Hunter, et all...who award us with quite authentic southern accents, for a change..
excellent movie,wonderful cast,and very enjoyable to watch,so i'm wondering why it was never released to video,I know that there has to be a copy somewhere because it was shown on Disney channel years ago,when satellites first came out,I have a copy from back then,still watchable but would love to own a new copy of it.just can't understand why this version was never released,and swamp water was,Lure of the wilderness is a remake of swamp water,and is a much better movie.,SO if one of these ever becomes available,I would sure love to purchase one.So you guys find me one.
Thanks for the chance to express my opinion.
Louise.
Film basis.
This film was based on the earlier "Swamp Water" - both great films.
The earlier film also starred Dana Andrews and John Carradine.
I loved all the Walter Brennan movies as well as his character, Grandpa Amos, in the TV series "The Real McCoys", which starred another late and great actor, Richard Crenna, as Luke..
Constance Smith/Jean Peters.
When I happened to come upon this film on TV, Constance Smith was on the screen.
Immediately, I thought of Jean Peters because the resemblance was so great.
I even thought she WAS Jean Peters, although the eye color and absence of the turned up tip of the nose gave me reason to doubt my initial impression.
Lo and behold, who did I find was also in the film - Jean Peters!
I did not see any reference in the film to the resemblance between the two, but I wonder if they were cast together because of this resemblance (admittedly, a subjective impression on my part).
Perhaps there was an unstated implication that Jeffrey Hunter was attracted to Jean because of her resemblance to his "fiancee", played by Constance.
In any event, a very good, if relatively unknown film, even as a remake of the generally more highly rated film it's derived from (with Walther Brennan in both!)..
Very Uplifting Story.
The setting really makes the movie.
The swamp.
Super photography and the acting is fairly decent.
Reminded me somewhat of a Disney family movie..
Lure of the Wilderness.
Lure of the Wilderness.
This is one of those very good technicolor 90 minute or so little gems made in the early 50s that is a mostly forgotten movie and it is sad....a very young Jeffrey Hunter and a very young vivacious Jean Peters star in a tale about a girl (Peters) and her father (Walter Brennan) who have been falsely accused of a murder and had to run from the law and hide in the Georgia swamps for years...waiting and waiting until someone could possibly come to find them and get them a fair trial.
Enter Jeffrey Hunter who decides to take a fearful journey into the Okefenoke swamp, a place where neither man nor beast dared venture into to find his lost dog from a hunting trip.
The swamp is loaded full of death traps, including plenty of gators, deadly snakes and other assorted beasts.....Hunter finally sets up camp in an area where Peters and Brennan have been hidden for years.
A relationship develops between the trio and Hunter believes Brennan's story that he was falsely accused and tries to dig up enough money in fur pelts from various animals to help him fund a defense lawyer.
Along the way a wily damsel who supposedly will marry Hunter becomes a jealous, sneaky woman and finds out about Hunter's real motives for continuing to keep venturing into the swamp.
A love story ensues as Hunter and Peters fall in love...a very sweet and tender story follows and the real killers who had put Brennan into hiding get their due in a quicksand pit...one brother survives to tell the real truth and in the end of the movie Brennan is acquitted and Peters and Hunter ride off into the sunset.
This is one little gem of a movie and should be released to video if Fox had any sense.
Hunter and Peters very early in their careers make a handsome couple and the acting is very solid, led by the veteran Walter Brennan, who could handle just about any role.
See this film if you can...watch for it on the Fox network on cable. |
tt0068502 | Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde | Dr. Henry Jekyll dedicates his life to the curing of all known illnesses, however his lecherous friend, Professor Robertson, remarks that Jekyll's experiments take so long to actually be discovered, he will no doubt be dead by the time he is able to achieve anything. Haunted by this remark, Jekyll abandons his studies and obsessively begins searching for an elixir of life, using female hormones taken from fresh cadavers supplied by murderers Burke and Hare, reasoning that these hormones will help him to extend his life since women traditionally live longer than men and have stronger systems. In the apartment above Jekyll's lives a family: an elderly mother, her daughter Susan Spencer, and Susan's brother Howard. Susan is attracted to Jekyll, and he too returns her affections, but is too obsessed with his work to make advances. Once mixing the female hormones into a serum and drinking it, it not only has the effect of changing Jekyll's character (for the worse) but also of changing his gender, transforming him into a beautiful but evil woman. Susan becomes jealous when she discovers this mysterious woman, but when she confronts Jekyll, to explain the sudden appearance of his female alter ego, he calls her Mrs. Hyde, saying she is his widowed sister who has come to live with him. Howard, on the other hand, develops a lust for Mrs. Hyde.
Dr. Jekyll soon finds that his serum requires a regular supply of female hormones to maintain its effect, necessitating the killing of young girls. Burke and Hare supply his needs but their criminal activities are uncovered. Burke is lynched by a mob and Hare blinded. The doctor decides to take the matters into his own hands and commits the murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. Dr. Jekyll abhors this, but Mrs. Hyde relishes the killings as she begins to take control, even seducing and then killing Professor Robertson when he attempts to question her about the murders.
As Mrs. Hyde grows more powerful the two personalities begin to struggle for dominance. Dr. Jekyll asks Susan to the opera, however when he is getting dressed to go out, he unconsciously takes Mrs. Hyde's gown from the wardrobe instead of his own clothes, realizing that he no longer needs to drink the serum in order to transform. Susan is heartbroken when Jekyll fails to take her out to the opera, and she decides to go alone. However, the evil Mrs. Hyde decides that innocent, pure Susan's blood is just what she needs to finally overtake Jekyll's body. She stalks Susan through the dark streets, but Jekyll's will only just manages to thwart Mrs. Hyde's attempt to kill Susan. He then commits one last murder to find a way to stabilize his condition, but he is interrupted by the police after a comment by Hare leads them to realize the similarity between Jekyll's earlier experiments on cadavers and the Ripper murders. As Dr. Jekyll tries to escape by climbing along the outside of a building, he transforms into Mrs. Hyde, who, lacking his strength, falls to the ground, dying as a twisted amalgamation of male and female. | good versus evil, gothic, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0073114 | L'histoire d'Adèle H. | In 1863, the American Civil War is still raging and Great Britain and France have yet to enter into the conflict. For the past year British troops have been stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, carefully checking European passengers disembarking from foreign ships. The beautiful Adèle Hugo (Isabelle Adjani), the second daughter of Victor Hugo, makes it through and takes a carriage into Halifax. Traveling under the assumed name of Miss Lewly, Adèle finds accommodations at a boarding house run by Mr. and Mrs. Saunders.
Adèle finds a notary and inquires about a British officer, Lieutenant Pinson (Bruce Robinson), with whom she's had a relationship. Later that day Adèle sees Pinson at a book shop. When she learns that Mr. Saunders will be attending a military dinner which Pinson is likely to attend, Adèle asks him to deliver a letter from her—a love letter announcing her arrival. While showing some old photographs to Mrs. Saunders, she talks about her older sister Léopoldine Hugo, who died in a drowning accident at the age of nineteen many years ago just after being married. When Mr. Saunders returns from the dinner, he tells her that he gave Pinson her letter but he did not reply. That night Adèle has nightmares about drowning.
The next day Adèle writes to her parents, telling them that she must be with her beloved Pinson and that they are planning to marry, but she will wait for their formal consent. She spends her evenings writing in her journal about her life and her love for Pinson. "I'll be able to win him over through gentleness," she writes. Pinson goes to the boarding house, where he tells Adèle that she must leave Halifax and stop following him. Adèle believes that if they marry, all his concerns will be resolved. Pinson knows that her parents do not approve of him and his heavy gambling debts. Adèle tries to persuade him, telling him that she's rejected another marriage proposal, threatens to expose him and ruin his military career, and even offers him money for his gambling debts, but he remains unmoved.
In the coming days, Adèle continues writing in her journal, convinced that she is Pinson's wife in spirit. She tries to conjure the ghost of her dead sister to help her. One night she follows Pinson to the home of his mistress, where she watches them make love. Undeterred, Adèle continues her writing, and her behavior becomes more eccentric. Mr. Whistler (Joseph Blatchley), the kind bookseller who provides her with writing paper, shows an interest in her. As she leaves his book shop, she faints from exhaustion. Mr. Whistler visits her at the boarding house and brings her paper, but she refuses to see him. Doctor Murdock (Roger Martin) visits and diagnoses a mild case of pleurisy. He notices one of her letters is addressed to "Victor Hugo" and informs Mrs. Saunders of the true identity of her boarder.
Adèle's obsession grows stronger. One day she writes to her parents telling them that she has married Pinson and that from now on, she should be addressed as Madame Pinson. Upon receiving the news, Victor Hugo posts an announcement of the marriage in his local paper. The news reaches Pinson's colonel. After Pinson writes Victor Hugo to explain that he will never marry Adèle, Hugo writes to his daughter, urging her to return home to Guernsey. Adèle responds to her father's letter with more fantasy, urging her parents to accept Pinson.
Having learned of Adèle's identity, Mr. Whistler offers her a gift of her father's books. She responds in anger and paranoia. She hires a prostitute as a gift for Pinson. She follows him to a theater to see a hypnotist act, where she is inspired to think that she can hypnotize Pinson into loving her; she is forced to abandon this plan once she learns that the hypnosis was faked. Adèle begins to go mad with despair. She goes to the father of Pinson's fiancé and claims that he is married to her and that she is carrying his child. The father ends the engagement. She finds Pinson once more, and he again rebukes her, calling her ridiculous. After leaving the boarding house, Adèle continues to deteriorate. She wanders the streets in torn clothes talking to herself.
In February 1864 Pinson is shipped out to Barbados, and a destitute Adèle follows him. Now married, Pinson learns that Adèle is in Barbados claiming to be his wife. Concerned for her, Pinson searches for her and finds her wandering the streets in rags. When he tries to confront her, Adèle does not acknowledge or recognize him. Helped by a kind former slave, Adèle returns to Paris, where the French Third Republic has been established. Her father places her in an asylum in Saint-Mandé, where she lives for the next forty years. She gardens, plays the piano and writes in her journal. Adèle Hugo died in Paris in 1915 at the age of 85. | insanity, romantic | train | wikipedia | Without the film ever leaving the secular world, Adele Hugo descends to Hell and Truffaut finds the horror of her journey in the most mundane settings and gestures.
Not because there was any doubt about Adjani's acting, but because casting someone who was arguably the most beautiful actress in the world as a character driven mad by unrequited love raised a potential credibility issue.
And could someone like that elicit sympathy from the average viewer.But Truffaut knew what he was doing because Adjani's Adele Hugo is 100% convincing.
Adjani's breathtaking beauty actually is an asset as Truffaut wants us convinced that the world holds open unlimited possibilities for Adele if only see can let go of her obsession.
Adjani plays the character with such intensity that you are finally relieved when Adele's madness has reached the stage where she is no longer aware of her own suffering.Apparently Adele Hugo (Victor Hugo's daughter) had other issues going on well before her obsessive quest for Lt. Pinson's love began.
Visually, Truffaut's stays with blacks, browns and blues; with much of each frame filled with shadows; not exactly dreary but consistent with a character who has found little non-fantasy happiness during her life.The camera loves Adjani, a good thing as she is on screen for over 90% of the film.
Isabelle Adjani plays the title role, that of Adele Hugo, daughter of the great French writer, a woman obsessively in love with an English army lieutenant who doesn't want her.
Adjani's sensuous beauty and her intense and passionate nature command the screen and we are drawn to identify with her as she spirals toward madness as her abject pleas of love are unrequited.
It is easy to see how something like this can lead to complete madness.Memorable is a little story within the larger tale, that of the fraudulent hypnotist whom Adele thinks might be able to turn Pinson's indifference into love.(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!).
"I'm still young and yet it sometimes seems to me that I've reached the autumn of my life." This tragic statement, taken from the diaries of Adele Hugo, daughter of Victor, is both the doomed statement of a young girl driven mad by love, and an ironic testament to the performance of a then 20 year old Isabelle Adjani.
Young Adele Hugo arrives at a camp in Nova Scotia seeking out her great love Lieutenant Pinson (Bruce Robinson), who she had embarked on a love affair with and whose potential marriage had been frowned upon.What may have become a rather frustrating depiction of a desperate woman in love, Truffaut takes special care to create an air of Greek tragedy, as we witness the emotional deterioration of our protagonist, and her desperate pursuit of the unwilling Lieutenant Pinson.
Adele herself, as depicted in the picture, is a time-bomb of emotions, giving every ounce of her strength into the tidal wave of pure love she feels - possibly a result of her father's grand romantic poems and novels - so anything less from Adjani wouldn't haven't done Adele justice.This is a different kind of work to what I've previously seen from Truffaut - I'm more familiar with his New Wave productions.
But whether this is an ode to tragic intellectualism, or a human story that grabbed Truffaut's heart, I'll never know, but this is a gently haunting tale, and one that will make you want to personally open the eyes of Adele to the possibilities that are all around her, were she not so swept away by madness and love.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com.
In this movie she is simply one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.She plays the tormented daughter of Victor Hugo.
Summary: A talented writer, Adele Hugo, becomes obsessed with her former lover , the indebted and womanizing Liutenant Pinson.
Adjani actually shows us the thoughts and rationality of her character; we first see Adele as an intelligent, innocent young woman who somehow, some way, becomes slimmed down to a stub of passion in Pinson's presence.
The director filmed this scene with the door blocking half the screen, which made the viewer feel, like Adele, very cut off from Pinson.
It concerns an unrequited love between Adele H., the daughter of Victor Hugo, and a member of the English military stationed there.
French actress Isabelle Adjani superbly plays a woman whose love is rejected and who inches down a slippery slope to madness.
It was also interesting to learn this sidelight about Victor Hugo.Most of all, I enjoyed this film because it raises the question of whether its main character is crazy to begin with or whether, being possessed of such a strong love, it was a natural progression to madness when it was rejected.
The real story of Adèle Hugo, Victor Hugo's youngest daughter, played by a yet-to-be 20-year-old Isabelle Adjani, whose one-sided infatuation to a British officer, Lieutenant Albert Pinson (Robinson), drives her to leave her family and come to Halifax alone, where he is stationed, only to be subjected to more stern rejection from Pinson, eventually she loses her sanity in Barbados and is sent back to her father, she lives until 1915 at the age of 85.Truffaut strong-willedly mines into the absurdity and irrationality of unrequited love evinced from Adèle's own diaries, and beats about the bush about Adèle's mental faculties at then, as at first viewers may get a vague idea that she is a congenital liar and her obsession could be completely derived from her imagination.
So, Adèle's torment, is simultaneously inflicted by Pinson's heartless rebuff and by her own deep-rooted delusion, it always takes two to tango, that's where lies the frustrating perverseness of the little destructive thing called love.The film is Adjani's star-making vehicle, she harrowingly lays bare Adèle's severely troubled soul on top of her ethereal beauty, and marvelously characterizes her vulnerability and paranoia, which are much beyond her age and experiences, and she laudably earns an Oscar nomination for her prowess.
Credits should also be given to Bruce Robinson's portrayal of the obnoxiously uppity, narcissistic and self-serving Albert Pinson, who can mercilessly spurn Adjani's Adèle, a nonpareil belle who only wants to be loved by him, it is a rather surreal and idealistic role, and Robinson indeed makes a dent of his own effort notwithstanding that the movie has never focused on him, it is purely a showcase for the young Adjani.Adèle's tragedy is a rich kid's blues, living under the shadow of her world-known father and sibling rivalry, she pestered by the incubus of her late sister Léopoldine's drowning accident, and quintessentially, her relentless pursuit of love and marriage is a desperate attempt to imitate Léopoldine's short but fulfilled life, in Adèle's recount, the husband of Léopoldine voluntarily dies with her, that is something she needs to possess, to prove her own worth, after all, it is not about Pinson at all, which is emphatically captured by the final encounter between them.Like the illusionist (Gitlis) in the picture, our world is populated with deceptions and play-actings, and THE STORY OF ADELE H (it must be where Noah Baumbach's FRANCES HA 2012 gets its titular inspiration), further vouches for Truffaut's will power to debunk the ugly truth in his works, only this time, let it get brutally emotional under a often sombre palette from the one-and-only Néstor Almendros and incited by a compelling tour-de-force from Ms. Adjani..
Isabele Adjani (also Nosferatu 1979) brings the role of Adele to life superbly.This is a brilliant film!
Adjani performance sometimes is very disturbing,and she really shines as this dark,genuine,amazing young woman,Adele H is not the most popular of Truffautt movies ,but IMHO is his most solid work,you don't need to be his "fan" to appreciate it..
The highlight of this movie is, of course, the performance of Isabelle Adjani (who plays the title character).
Isabelle Adjani's sublime performance - and, we cannot deny, her mesmerizing beauty - as Victor Hugo's daughter, Adèle, blindly in love with a Lieutenant (played by Bruce Robinson, who wrote "The Killing Fields" and directed "Jennifer 8"), are the greatest force behind this film: Isabelle's face is one of the most expressive in film history, and she makes us feel all the sorrow of the tragic Adèle with a single look.
I think you need to be of a certain character to really understand the madness of the protagonist.A rewarding movie experience and Isabelle Adjani's portrayal of Adele Hugo is haunting and mesmerising.
This is a true story about Adèle Hugo, the younger daughter of the famous 19th century French author Victor Hugo (1802-1885, best known today as the author of LES MISERABLES, which is causing an even greater stir now that the musical show has been filmed and nominated for several Oscars).
(No French young person today who has not made extra effort even knows the names of the famous French authors and poets of the 20th century, much less their works, apart from the noxious and revolting Sartre, whose poisonous influence lives on like an ineradicable invasion of Japanese knotweed, choking all the good plants around it to death.) In this film, the 20 year-old Isabelle Adjani gives the performance of her life, a harrowing, wholly compelling and convincing study of a disturbed girl who goes from obsessive love into detachment from reality and thence into total madness.
The causes of Adèle's madness will never be entirely comprehended, as it was all too long ago (in the 1860s), but Francois Truffaut, who directed this miniature masterwork, hints at her being obsessively haunted by the death from drowning of her beautiful older sister Leopoldine at the age of 19.
No wonder Victor Hugo's last words on his deathbed were: 'I see a black light!' This film is a searing emotional experience, largely because of Adjani's incredible performance, where one forgets entirely that she is Adjani and believes one is in the presence of the demented Adèle herself, robed in all her despair and bespangled with the glittering hopelessness of a mind which is disintegrating like an atom in a cyclotron, all before our horrified eyes.
Francois Truffaut's historical tale about Victor Hugo's daughter Adele and her obsessive quest for the English soldier she loved is bittersweet and heartfelt at the same time.
It takes the true talent and caliber of a director like Truffaut to make a character such as Adele Hugo into a person that ends up being more sympathetic than deplorable.
There is a burning desire in this woman that is both disturbing and admirable at the same time.Isabelle Adjani won much acclaim for her work as Adele and it was well- deserved.
There is the constant feeling about Adele that she, being the daughter of the famous French poet Victor Hugo, is simply a spoiled rich girl using her father's money to try and buy a husband.
"The Story of Adele H." is an account based on the life of Adele Hugo, daughter of the great writer Victor Hugo, who led a tormented and difficult life in Halifax, New Scotia where she tracked down the man of her life, a military (Bruce Robinson) who after this desperate act of the woman decided to dump her away.
No, and the film shows us an obsessive woman (stalker if you prefer) that seems to love this guy with a power and ferocity that she'll do anything to be close to him.Putting together the word disappointing along with the name of the talented director François Truffaut is almost a sinful act, and I'll try to go in another direction, but considering the mind behind the movie one can almost say that.
Truffaut's idea was amazing, he used some of the diaries of the real Adele and added something more to the story, but almost the whole film keeps on the same path and that is the obsession of a woman for a handsome womanizer as later we find out.
To female (and a few males I think) viewers Adele's story might be awful or something that makes of a beautiful woman a mere object considering the way she's treated by this guy and all of her attempts to make him fall for her, she throws herself into so many downer and sad levels, almost to insanity that I believe many people won't care about it.
Isabelle Adjani's performance as Adele is great, she makes the whole film interesting, she has a powerful presence on screen, guarantying a Academy Award nomination of Best Actress (losing the award to Louise Flecther in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); Bruce Robinson who plays Adele's love is a good actor and as the woman says to her in some moments before he walks away from her: "You're beautiful".
Story of Adele H, The (1975)*** (out of 4) Isabelle Adjani picked up an Academy Award nomination for her performance of Victor Hugo's second daughter Adele who follows Lt. Pinson (Bruce Robinson) to Halifax where her obsession with him quickly turns to madness.
I guess I'm in the middle because I thought the film was terrific to look at and we also get a great performance by Adjani but in the end it was just impossible for me to connect with this character or care a bit about her.
Truffaut takes his time telling the story and this actually builds up a pretty good atmosphere and the way he reveals the woman's obsession and how he shows it turning into this craziness is picked up very well with the slower pace.
While notable for it's atmospheric milieu depictions, sterling production design by French production designer Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko, cinematography by Spanish cinematographer Néstor Almendros (1930-1992), costume design by costume designer Jacqueline Guyot, fine editing by French film editors Martine Barraqué and Yann Dedet and prominent use of colors, this character-driven and narrative-driven period piece depicts a scrutinizing study of character and contains a good score by French composer Maurice Jaubert (1900-1940).This historic, tragic and romantic late 19th century drama from the mid-1970s about a young and cultivated woman's afflicting and obsessive infatuation with a British officer she has chosen as her one and only, which is one of Francois Truffaut's most complicated and ambitious productions, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development and the gripping and internal acting performance by French actress Isabelle Adjani.
A cinematographic, literary and psychological love-story from the mid-1970s which gained, among other awards, the NSFC Award for Best Actress Isabelle Adjani at the 10th National Society of Film Critics Awards in 1975..
The first time I saw this film (twenty years ago) the thing that impressed me the most was Isabelle Adjani's portrayal of Adele, the natural way in which she conveyed her character's emotions.
I credit that to Adjani's talent and the director's vision.The final scene punched me emotionally and spoke volumes without any of the characters uttering a word to each other: Adele, her mind lost by now, passing by Lt. Pinson without even recognizing him - so consumed with her obsession and grief for her lost love that she forgot who was the cause of her torment.
This is an incredibly sad movie to watch because you know that Adele was a REAL person who lived an incredibly screwed up and sad life.
Slowly, she moves from a form of Obsessive-Compulsive disorder to Schizophrenia and it is especially apparent in the last portion of the movie.I really liked Isabelle Adjani's acting--she and the director (Truffaut) really pulled you into her world and it seemed quite poignant.
That the stalker is the daughter of Victor Hugo simply adds to the morbid curiousity of it all.Adjani is pretty in a simple way which lends itself well to the story.
As the British soldier who is the object of Adele's all consuming passion, Bruce Robinson is callow enough that it makes you wonder why she would follow him all over the "new world" for him.I especially like the mixing of both English and French especially in the scenes in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
8 Is guilt or passion the driving force behind Adele's obsession for Lt Pinson?
But what Adele ignored is that the handsome Pinson, was a seducer and she was the love of his life as long as he lived in Guernesey.
Isabelle Adjani plays a woman obsessed with a man who has no interest in her.
Long before Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction, there was Isabelle Adjani playing Adele Hugo, daughter of the famous writer, Victor Hugo, and completely crazy about Lieutenant Pinson, a man she's determined to marry or else ruin.There's not much to say about this movie.
Taking on a roll that titans Moreau and Deneuve had their eyes on for years, 20 year old Isabelle Adjani gives an extremely charismatic performance as Adele,whose experience with schizophrenia is treated with great sensitivity by Adjani,that is matched by Adjani's wide-eyed passionate young love,for the story of Adele.
Adjani plays Adele Hugo, the second daughter of author Victor Hugo.
We've sensed from the very beginning that Adele is a little mad and that knowledge gives weight to what she does for the rest of the film.She is undeterred by his brush-off and begins writing bogus letters back home the she and Pinson are in the throws of a love affair and later she writes of their marriage.
To look at Adele is to understand the commonality of all of Truffaut's characters who are not led by plot but are urged on by their personalities, their obsessions and their emotions.
Adele is unstable from the beginning (though it is not very apparent) and Pinson rejection fuels her madness and consumes her for the rest of her life.Truffaut isn't interested in pushing Adele into a simple-minded role as a sympathetic waif, his characters were always more complex than that. |
tt0059557 | Our Man Flint | Spy extraordinaire Derek Flint (James Coburn) is an ex-agent of Z.O.W.I.E. (Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage) who is brought out of retirement to deal with the threat of Galaxy, a world-wide organization led by a trio of mad scientists: Doctor Krupov (Rhys Williams), Doctor Wu (Peter Brocco), and Doctor Schneider (Benson Fong). Impatient that the world's governments will never improve, the scientists demand that all nations capitulate to Galaxy. To enforce their demands, they initiate earthquakes, volcanoes, storms and other natural disasters with their climate-control apparatus, for the only purpose to bring the nations to give up weapons and nuclear energy.
Flint decides to take them on after a preemptive assassination attempt by Galaxy's section head, Gila (Gila Golan), who replaces a restaurant's harpist while Flint is dining with his four live-in "playmates": Leslie (Shelby Grant), Anna (Sigrid Valdis), Gina (Gianna Serra), and Sakito (Helen Funai). Gila uses a harp string as a bow to fire a poisoned dart, which misses Flint, but hits his former boss Cramden (Lee J. Cobb). Flint sucks the poison out of the wound, saving Cramden's life. A chemical trace on the dart directs Flint to Marseilles for bouillabaisse. In one of Marseilles' lowest clubs he stages a brawl to gain some useful information from "famous" Agent 0008 (Robert Gunner), who is investigating the narcotics trade keeping Galaxy in business. Galaxy agent Hans Gruber (Michael St. Clair) is in the club enjoying his favorite soup while waiting to rendezvous with Gila. Gila sends Gruber to ambush Flint in the lavatory. Flint ends up killing Gruber in a toilet stall, while Gila escapes, leaving behind a cold cream jar she has booby-trapped with explosives. Flint detects the trap and chases the bystanders from the club before detonating the bomb.
The remains of the jar lead Flint to Rome. After investigating several cosmetic companies, Flint arrives at Exotica, where he actually meets Gila for the first time. Gila lets him come to her apartment for an exchange of information. Following their encounter, he steals the keys to Exotica and breaks into the company's safe, learning of Galaxy's location before being trapped inside by Gila's assistant, Malcolm Rodney (Edward Mulhare). Malcolm and Gila assume that Flint will soon run out of air in the safe as they transport it to a waiting submarine. During the journey, Flint learns that his playmates have been kidnapped and taken to the headquarters on Galaxy Island in the Mediterranean Sea. He then uses his power of self-induced suspended animation to fool his captors into thinking they have successfully killed him. Gila and Rodney take an evidence photograph of the "body", which they send to Cramden, then carry Flint back to headquarters on the submarine.
Flint revives and sneaks into the Galaxy complex, but his infiltration is thwarted and he is taken before Galaxy's trio of leaders. Offered a chance to join their new order, he refuses, and is sentenced to death by disintegration. Gila's failure to eliminate Flint results in her being stripped of her leadership role and reassigned to become a Pleasure Unit - a fate which has already befallen Flint's playmates. She thus changes sides, slipping Flint his gadget-filled cigarette lighter before she is hauled away. With the help of the lighter, Flint again escapes, sabotages the machinery, rescues his playmates and Gila, and departs the island as it disintegrates. Flint and the women are picked up by a waiting American warship, as they watch a volcano erupts on the island. | brainwashing, absurd, satire, murder, violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt5978822 | The Wedding Party | A heatwave has hit Torquay, bringing Basil's incompetence—not to mention his intolerance—to an all-time high. When he realises that the two young lovers Alan and Jean, who are checking in, aren't married, he tries to force them into single rooms on separate floors. Meanwhile, Mrs. Peignoir, an attractive French antique dealer, seems to have taken a shine to Basil, much to Sybil's annoyance. Alan returns to the lobby and asks Basil if he knows whether any chemists are still open. Basil initially assumes he wants to buy condoms, then when Alan says he wants batteries, Basil – still assuming it must be sex-related – tells him that is "disgusting". When Alan explains that he wanted batteries for his electric razor, Basil tries to save the situation. Later that evening, Mrs. Peignoir arrives home and drunkenly trips over Basil as he crouches on the floor picking up her purse that she has dropped, ending up sitting on him. At that moment Alan and Jean also arrive, witnessing what appears to them to be a very intimate situation. Later that same night Manuel, who had been out celebrating his birthday, returns home drunk with his umbrella (a birthday gift from Basil) outside Basil and Sybil's door and accidentally hits Basil over the head with the umbrella. As Basil crumples to the floor in pain, Manuel drunkenly sits over him, saying "Mr Fawlty, I love you, I love you ...." and once more Alan walks in on the situation. Then Basil strangles Manuel.
Jean's mother and stepfather Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd arrive next morning. Basil soon notices strange going-ons between the Lloyds, Jean, Alan, and Polly. For example, Basil accidentally walks in on Jean hugging Mr. Lloyd, and not realising that they are family he tries to keep Mrs. Lloyd from the room where he saw them embracing. He shows her the kitchen, where Manuel is sleeping off the previous night's celebration in the linen basket. Finally he lets her up to the room, only to discover Polly (a family friend of the Lloyds) is now hugging Mr. Lloyd. He again distracts the now very edgy Mrs. Lloyd by showing her another room, explaining that the Lloyds' room is not as nice. When Mrs. Lloyd enters the room, she realies that it is exactly the same as the one Basil showed her. As he is leaving the room, Basil hears loud moaning noises from Alan and Jean's room and Polly hurries out, dressing herself (she has been trying on a dress Jean made for her and the moaning was because Jean had been massaging Alan's shoulders). Thinking the worst, Basil prepares to fire Polly and tells the Lloyds to leave. Sybil explains that they are one family and that Polly went to school with Jean, and has known them for years. Basil, feeling shocked and stupid for his actions, argues with Sybil about apologising to them, saying sarcastically "No, no, I suppose it's all my fault, isn't it?" But Sybil insists and advises him to "Tell them you made a mistake." So he rehearses the apology (to Sybil, to Polly, to himself and to empty space) "I'm so sorry, I made a mistake", but by the time he reaches the guests' room, the sentence has become "I'm so sorry, but my wife has made a mistake!"
Sybil's good friend Audrey has split up from her husband, much to Basil's irritation as she's constantly on the phone and repeating the phrase 'Ooh, I know'. She goes to visit Audrey the following day and, as Major Gowen puts it, "listen to all that rubbish" while consoling her friend. A flirtatious Mrs. Peignoir tries to charm Basil that night while Sybil is away, and he is very jumpy in the evening. As he tries to undress someone keeps knocking at his door, and he believes it to be Mrs. Peignoir trying to seduce him again. However, when he realises it is actually Sybil returned early, he opens the door and unconvincingly says "Oh, what a terrible dream," trying to explain his previous whispers to Mrs. Peignoir (as he thought) to go away. Sybil, however, doesn't notice his odd behaviour, as she tells Basil that she has heard a burglar downstairs. Both are unaware that it is actually Manuel, who has awakened from the linen basket, still hung over. Basil quietly creeps downstairs in his underwear and hits 'the burglar' over the head with a frying pan. Manuel is revealed unconscious, and Basil crouches over him in the foyer. Just as Basil realises who it is, Alan, Jean and the Lloyds walk into the hotel, where they are confronted by the sight of Basil apparently lying on top of Manuel with no trousers on. They creep past, bemused by his behaviour, and Mr Lloyd, slightly drunk, says to Basil "We've been to a wedding". In frustration and humiliation, Basil draws back the frying pan for a final vengeful clout. | romantic | train | wikipedia | If you're a Nigerian . . .. In particular a Nigerian of a certain age (b/w 30-40) who lives elsewhere, but misses certain aspects of Nigeria, this is a really good film. Noted: that's a very narrow category. Look, Nollywood has produced some embarrassing nonsense, but The Wedding Party is something that is actually well-produced and directed. Also, the actors are good and/or appear to be having a good time. Is that a relatively low bar? Perhaps. But, again, consider the demographic and then see if you don't enjoy it. I hope there's more to come like this from Nollywood. |
tt0060490 | Harper | Private investigator Lew Harper's (Paul Newman) marriage to Susan (Janet Leigh) is on the rocks and he doesn't have many friends, but one of them, mild-mannered attorney Albert Graves (Arthur Hill), brings him a case in Santa Theresa, 90 miles up the coast from Los Angeles. Ralph Sampson, the millionaire husband of hard-boiled Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall), has disappeared after flying from Las Vegas to L.A. Ralph, worth $20 million, is described as money-driven, crazy, alcoholic and egotistical. Elaine, physically disabled from a horseback riding accident, doesn't even seem to like her husband and believes he is off with another woman. She just wants to know where he is.
Harper first interviews Elaine's spoiled, seductive step-daughter, Miranda (Pamela Tiffin), and her amiable boyfriend Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner), the missing man's private pilot. He is told Sampson disappeared from the airport after calling a hotel to send a limousine for him. The hotel staff says Sampson cancelled his request shortly after making it. A photo of a glamorous starlet in a bungalow Sampson keeps at the hotel leads to Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters), now an overweight alcoholic. Harper gets her drunk to see if there is any evidence linking her to Sampson's disappearance. While she is passed out, he answers her phone and pretends to be the "Mr. Troy" that the caller, "Betty" (Julie Harris), initially assumes him to be. Betty says that Fay was seen with a stranger – that being Harper – and that they need to be careful "when the truck goes through." As soon as Harper mentions Ralph Sampson, Betty realizes that she is not speaking to Troy. After Harper hangs up, Troy comes out of the woodwork. He is Fay's husband, Dwight Troy (Robert Webber), and the house is his. He kicks out Harper at gunpoint.
Harper tracks down Betty Fraley, a lounge singer with a nasty drug habit. When he asks about Ralph, she recognizes his voice from the phone call. Harper, noticing the fresh track marks on her arm, threatens to turn her over to the narcotics squad, and Betty admits she knows Sampson, but only casually as a drunk who comes into the bar. Harper becomes more insistent and Betty has the bouncer, Puddler (Roy Jenson), throw him out. Puddler works over Harper in the back alley until Taggert comes out of nowhere and knocks Puddler unconscious. Taggert had apparently been following leads himself which led him to the lounge. They head back to Troy's house to check on the truck, thinking Sampson may be in it. While Harper is inside the house, he hears gunshots. Taggert, standing watch outside, spotted the truck and tried to shoot the tires. Harper tries to run the truck down on foot, but the truck with distinctive tire tracks attempts to run Harper over before it speeds away.
Elaine receives a message from Ralph asking her to cash in $500,000 worth of bonds. She verifies that the handwriting is Ralph's and Harper deduces that he's actually been kidnapped. After Graves cashes the bonds for her and puts the money in the estate's safe as a contingency, Harper advises him to call in the cops to guard it while he goes up to a remote mountaintop property that Sampson gave away to Claude (Strother Martin), a bogus holy man, for his cult's Temple in the Clouds. Despite Claude's attempts to distract him, Harper looks around. He finds a huge kettle of beans cooking and a tire print identical to the truck's.
Back at Sampson's estate, Harper finds a ransom note with instructions to drop the cash that night at an oilfield outside of town. Since the note assumes they already have the cash, Harper suspects the kidnapper has an inside source, which someone eavesdropping on his call to Graves confirms. They decide that Taggert and Graves will make the ransom drop with Harper nearby to observe the pickup. The man picking up the money is shot dead and the cash taken, however, by someone following in a white convertible. A matchbook on the body leads Harper to The Corner, a seedy bar in Castle Beach, a beachfront community. Harper cons the barmaid into revealing the dead man was "Eddie", a regular customer who had made a long distance call to Las Vegas from the bar three nights before. Outside, Harper spots the truck that earlier tried to run him over, driven by Puddler, which he follows back to the mountaintop temple. There, he uncovers a smuggling operation of illegal immigrant labor run by Troy, who use Claude's temple as a front, with Eddie as the smuggler. Harper is caught by Troy, who knows nothing of the kidnapping or Eddie's part in it but recognizes the white convertible as Betty Fraley's. Puddler takes Harper to another location and beats him, but Harper manages to kill him and escape.
At the estate, Graves tells Harper that the dead man was Eddie Rossiter, a small-time car thief and junkie who has a sister, Betty, also a junkie. Harper concludes that because Taggert was the only person who knew Sampson was in L.A. and could have cancelled the request for a limo, that Taggert, Betty, and Eddie conspired to kidnap him. Taggert was at The Piano to rescue Harper because he was a fan who fell in love with Betty, he shot at the truck not to stop it but to warn Eddie, and Taggert was the person Eddie called in Las Vegas, to arrange the kidnapping. He confronts Taggert, who pulls a gun on him. Harper vows to let Taggert escape with the money if Harper is allowed to finish the job of finding Sampson. Taggert tries to kill Harper but is shot when Graves bursts into the room. After Harper tells Miranda that Taggert is dead, Miranda admits she hated her father out of self-loathing. Graves, who has long been in love with Miranda, attempts to console her.
Harper goes looking for Betty and the money in Castle Beach, where she and Taggert had their love nest, and locates the cottage by finding her white convertible parked outside. He hears Betty being tortured inside by Troy, Claude and Fay. She tells them the money is hidden in a deep freeze storage locker. Harper bursts in, shoots Troy, slugs Claude, locks Fay in a closet and, after he retrieves the key to the locker, helps Betty to escape. After he says that he knows she double-crossed and killed her brother, she reveals that Sampson is being held in an abandoned oil tanker. Harper calls Graves to tell him to meet them there. Harper is hit over the head from behind while searching the ship, knocking him unconscious. Some time later Graves revives Harper. They find Sampson dead, presumably murdered by whoever hit Harper over the head. They also discover that Harper's car is gone, driven off by Betty. When she sees them looking for the car, she flees at high speed along a narrow winding hillside road and is killed when the car swerves off the road.
Harper and Graves retrieve the money. Harper says that he knows that Graves is the one who hit him from behind and killed Sampson, because if it had been Betty or another kidnapper, Harper would have been searched for the key to the locker. Graves admits he killed Sampson when the opportunity arose because Sampson was cruel to everyone including him, prodding Graves to pursue Miranda's affections just for his own cruel amusement. Harper tells him that he has no choice but to turn him in. Harper tells Graves he'll need to shoot him to stop him. Graves cannot bring himself to shoot Harper. Neither man is sure what to do next; each pauses uncertainly, saying to himself, "Aw, hell." | neo noir, murder, sadist | train | wikipedia | "Lew Archer."In "Harper," all the characters are suspicious and they vary from suave "Allan Taggart" (Robert Wagner) to the coquettish late teen "Miranda Sampson" (Pamela Tiffin) to a lawyer "Albert Graves" (Arthur Hill) who's infatuated with the hot teen and also carries a gun.
I first saw this film when it came out, at age 12, and chewed my gum like Paul Newman for the next 20 years.What's remarkable about that is, I "got" the film at that time, recognized its depth (as well as its superficialities), loved it; and having seen the film several times over many years, the basic experience hasn't changed.This is probably the most accessible "hardboiled" detective film ever made, yet it never panders - it depicts a rough world straight on, and doesn't particularly like - or condemn - any of its characters.
No, because its world is smaller than that of Chandler/Faulkner/Hawks, even though it glitters more; and Smight is a solidly competent director but not an 'auteur' - which works in the film's favor: Smight just gets on with the job and tells his story, he doesn't stop for extra flourishes.But, although all the acting in the film is top-quality, it is Newman's performance that carries the film over the top: witty, cynical, detached, yet with glimpses of passion and commitment, Newman uses Harper to define pre-hippie cool once and for all.Historical note: although this is not "The-Maltese-Falcon" classic noir film, the detective film was believed to be a genre of the past (at best fodder for bad TV) when this came out.
It has an outstanding supporting cast and, except for Pamela Tiffin, the acting is good, with high marks especially for Paul Newman and, in my opinion, Arthur Hill.
Newman gets more than he bargained for as he runs into one flaky character after another: Shelley Winters as a bloated former child star, Julie Harris as a junkie, Pamela Tiffen as Bacall's extremely bitchy stepdaughter, Robert Wagner as a private-eye wannabe, and, best of all, Strother Martin as nasty, new-age guru.
Who could resist seeing Pamela Tiffen on that springboard in that bikini if you watched it for no other reason that would not be bad start.The look on Newmans face when he sees the pool for the first time and the laconic looping wave of the arm as he departs the pool after the first encounter with Tiffen & Wagner.The supporting cast should not be forgotten with sterling efforts from the adorable Lauren Bacall & Strother Martin to name a couple.Like many 60s movies which were quickly seen & forgotten this one is worthy of a place in the top shelf as Newman says in the film theres something all bright & shiny.
This includes Julie Harris, Lauren Bacall, Pamela Tiffin, Strother Martin, Arthur Hill, Robert Webber, Janet Leigh, and Shelley Winters.
The film opens with Harper (Newman), unshaven and gradually awakening from a hangover
He puts his head under a faucet, attempts to make coffee but finds none left, and dispiritedly takes yesterday's grounds from the garbage and makes a perfect1y terrible cup of coffee
At once we get Harper's image as an antihero detective without any illusions
As he is commissioned by Lauren Bacall to trace her wealthy husband who has been kidnapped, the details are filled in: he's tough, ironic, cool, unpleasant and repugnant
Although occasionally given to a moment of sensitivity or remorse, he's most1y sadistic and exploitative
Harper is a loner, with an air of detachment and an ability to dispatch opponents with a fist and a flippant remark
He swings into action only mechanically
He chews gum constantly, looks around in an uninteresting manner, makes little disapproving gestures, laughs in total disregards, and smiles mischievously
Harper's dealings with women are based exclusively on coldness, deception and sexual exploitation
He is estranged from his wife and would like to renew his marriage.
But "Harper" tries too hard to be cool, falling short both as story and character study.Lew Harper (Newman) is down to recycling used coffee filters and waiting for his wife's divorce to come through when he gets a plum assignment: Find a rich drunk named Sampson with a talent for making enemies.
Harper calls him "Beauty", a heckuva thing for Newman to call anyone, but their chemistry works, at least until the film turns dark and weird and even Strother Martin as a kooky New Age preacher man can't force a smile.
Newman cast in the title role of HARPER is a 40ish 'Private Eye' living out of his small agency office pending divorce from his 'had it up to here' wife Susan played by Janet Leigh.The movie starts out on an early California morning with LEW HARPER going to visit the extremely wealthy convalescent Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall) at her palatial mansion.
HARPER goes on a whirlwind through southern California running into a variety of interesting supporting characters from fat boozy former starlet Faye Estabrook (Shelly Winters) who had been doing Mr. Sampson's astrology charts for the past several years, Faye's sadistic criminal husband Dwight Troy (Robert Webber), cabaret singer Betty Fraley (Julie Harris), and Claude (Strother Martin), a man to whom Mr. Sampson gave away a whole mountain that he has turned into a 'religious sanctuary'.
Paul Newman is "Harper," a detective called upon to find a missing husband in this 1966 film based on the book "The Moving Target" by Ross MacDonald.
It also stars Lauren Bacall, Arthur Hill, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Shelley Winters, Robert Webber, Janet Leigh and Julie Harris.
Now this does NOT mean that the story made no sense--the writers did a good job of piecing it all together and making it watchable.Harper (Paul Newman) is the basically honest, a bit sad and a tiny bit macho private detective.
And fortunately, in addition to Newman's fine acting, he's supported by a very nice cast--including Robert Webber, Strother Martin, Lauren Bacall (who, incidentally was in "The Big Sleep"), Arthur Hill (an underrated actor whose face you'll probably recognize) and Julie Harris (in a very atypical sort of role).Together, the snappy script and characters work very well together to create a well-crafted film--one that stands above the many, many, many other detective films of the era.
The roll call consists of a gun-toting attorney (Arthur Hill), a poolside gigolo (Robert Wagner), an alcoholic ex-starlet who has let herself go (Shelley Winters), the missing man's horny daughter (Pamela Tiffin), a jazz loving junkie (Julie Harris), Harper's estranged wife (Janet Leigh) and the leader of nutty religious order "Temple Of The Clouds" (Strother Martin).
Along the way, Harper meets an obvious assortment of characters, which includes the dispassionate widow, Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall), the beautiful but self-absorbed, daughter Miranda (Pamela Tiffin), the loyal but lecherous attorney (Arthur Hill), the trusted friend Troy, (Robert Webber) the faithful but ambitious driver Allan Taggart (Robert Wagner) and finally the vicious thug Puddler (Roy Jenson).
His laconic screen persona always seemed so right for the role of private gumshoe.Lauren Bacall hires Newman through the offices of mutual friend, lawyer Arthur Hill, to locate her missing husband.
But that's a review for that film.Of the supporting cast I particularly liked Julie Harris as the junkie jazz singer and Strother Martin as leader of a wacko religious cult that has some criminal interests.By the way, the ending is left very much up in the air in terms of what knowledge Newman will divulge to the authorities.
The movie cast is impressive enough, with old pros like Lauren Bacall, Janet Leigh, Julie Harris, Shelley Winters, Strother Martin, and others working with Paul Newman's Lew Harper.
His California journeys take him across almost every eccentric personality that one can think of in a movie: a gigolo type (Robert Wagner), obese alcoholic actress well past her prime (Winters), spoiled teeny-bopper who likes to dance while standing on a pool diving board avec transistor radio – and with limited acting skills (Pam Tiffin), phony religious cult leader (Martin), drug addict lounge lizard (Harris), and enforcer/strong men (Robert Webber and Roy Jenson).
In this tough guy detective movie, Paul Newman plays Lew Harper, an annoying Los Angeles cop investigating the case of a missing person, at the request of wealthy invalid, Mrs. Sampson (Lauren Bacall).The film tries to be an updated 1940s noir film.
The most interesting sequence, visually, is the one wherein Harper drives fast along a narrow dirt road on the crest of a mountain.My impression is that the film, mostly a cinematic vehicle for Newman, gets high marks from viewers who are attracted to all the big-name movie stars, and from people who drool over the lead actor.
Paul Newman's detective is another matter; a smooth, slick player (and gum-chewer!) who uses funny voices on people to pump them for information, Harper (named Archer in the novel) is supposed to be the 1966 equivalent of Bogart's Marlowe from "The Big Sleep", and yet it's clear Newman isn't invested in the creation.
Robert Wagner, Shelley Winters, Janet Leigh and Arthur Hill manage to have some Fun with Their Characters, but Julie Harris, Strother Martin, and Lauren Bacall are Miscast and can't rise Above the Misstep.The Awful Generic Music is that what was quickly Found in Elevators Relegating some kind of Hipness to those who didn't have a Clue.
In the somewhat confusing "Harper", Paul Newman plays the title detective who gets hired to find a kidnapped man.
Also starring Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Pamela Tiffin, Robert Wagner, Shelley Winters, Harold Gould and Strother Martin.
Let me tell ya - If 1966's "Harper" was supposed to be a prime example of Hollywood "neo-noir" - IMO - It sure fell flat on its smug, little face.Old "blue eyes" himself, Paul Newman plays irksome, apathetic, L.A. gumshoe, Lewis Harper, who has about as much charm and charisma as does a slimy slug.Regardless of this film's "big star" cast - Its "Find-A-Missing-Millionaire" story got so complicated and convoluted that it had me repeatedly rolling my eyes to the ceiling and groaning out in total exasperation, over, and over again....
Handsome gum-chewing detective Paul Newman (as Lew Harper) looks around the Los Angeles area, for missing millionaire Ralph Sampson.
The film is conspicuously long, and its climactic sequence is unappealing.***** Harper (2/23/66) Jack Smight ~ Paul Newman, Arthur Hill, Shelley Winters, Robert Wagner.
Private investigator Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is hired by Mrs. Sampson (Lauren Bacall) to find her husband, or rather, find out which woman he's shacked up with.
Jack Smight directed this stylish mystery that stars Paul Newman as Lew Harper, a small-time but smart private detective about to get a big case when he is hired by a Mrs. Sampson(played by Lauren Bacall) to find her missing husband.
Entertaining film with an intriguing mystery and good cast that also includes Janet Leigh, Robert Webber, Julie Harris, Shelley Winters, and Strother Martin..
As he gets further and further into the case, he finds a whole viper's nest of loathsome types: the millionaire's jealous wife (the legendary Lauren Bacall); his daughter (Pamela Tiffin); a playboy pilot (Robert Wagner); a jazz-club junkie (Julie Harris); a fading actress (Shelley Winters); a ladies' man (Robert Webber) involved in illegal immigrant smuggling; and a religious fanatic (Strother Martin) whose "Temple In The Clouds" was bought and paid for with money from the missing millionaire.
Martin's appearance as Claude, the "Holy Man On The Mountain", is particularly good, and helped establish him as one of the greatest character actors in Hollywood history.All of this made HARPER not only a great addition to Newman's filmography, but also undoubtedly made for one of the greatest of all private-eye and crime films of all times..
Typical, yet interesting, detective movie, "Harper" gives full room to Paul Newman for an interpretation that has probably set a model for Elliot Gould in "The long good-bye".A ragged private eye gets involved in a complicated story where power, money and crime are tied one to each other.
While the plot is a rather clear homage to "The big sleep", the action takes place in the late sixties and pays a little tribute to the era's clichés with the characters of "yeye girl" (played by Pamela Tiffin) and of the Californian alternative guru.The wonderful and well exploited supporting cast makes this movie very interesting to see and a "must see" for all fans of Paul Newman and for all fans of the hard-boiled genre (with me belonging to both categories).
Paul Newman exudes much of his trademark cool in the role of private eye Lew Harper, in this adaptation (by screenwriter William Goldman and director Jack Smight) of the novel "The Moving Target" by Ross MacDonald.
The excellent collection of actors also includes Arthur Hill, as Harpers' gun-toting attorney friend, Janet Leigh as his estranged wife, Robert Webber as smooth criminal Dwight Troy, Harold Gould as a sheriff, Roy Jenson as a muscleman, and a memorable Strother Martin as a religious cult head.This film is a lot of fun to watch, and is an effective vehicle for Newman, whose Lew Harper is a very calm professional, a man who takes everything in stride.
I'm not sure when or why Moving Target changed its name to Harper, possibly after the later Drowning Pool, also starring Paul Newman and also based upon a great Ross Macdonald book.
Janet Leigh is his frustrated wife, and Shelley Winters plays an obese has-been film star who has a problem with alcohol.All in all, "Harper" is a tired repetition of not only "The Big Sleep" but some other classic film noires.
Paul Newman gives us the greatest private eye ever in this highly underrated Neo-noir that includes acting greats Shelly Winters , Lauren Becall and Julie Harris.
That alone is good enough recommendation, in my opinion, for viewing this classic movie.Newman is supported by Janet Leigh as his soon-to-be ex-wife; Robert Wagner appears as a playboy, hotshot, and on the spot wannabe PI; Arthur Hill always seems vaguely uneasy as Mrs Sampson's lawyer, and as Harper's buddy; Shelly Winters steals scenes as an over-the-hill actress and lush – in lush surroundings; Robert Webber looks suitably nasty as her sleazy and oh-so-weird husband; Julie Harris well plays a deadbeat jazz pianist who's lost the beat; Pamela Tiffin shows her teeth and claws as the perfect brat-kid, daughter of the kidnapped man-you-never-see, and pathological enemy of her dragon stepmother, Lauren Bacall; and the ever-unctuous Strother Martin, has fun as the new-age guru from heaven – or hell, depending on your point of view.And all in lush Technicolor, in lush land that is Los Angeles that was; and perhaps still is.And for one of the best Hollywood-inside jokes I've heard, I think the script writer, William Goldman, made an oblique reference to one of the all-time great thrillers, The Third Man (1949) when, in relation to the gang of bad guys, Harper says to his lawyer buddy: 'There was no fourth man!'But, it is the ending that is most intriguing of all, then and even now.
Lauren Bacall plays Mrs. Sampson, Julie Harris is Betty Fraley, Janet Leigh is Susan Harper, Pamela Tiffin is Miranda Sampson and Shelley Winters if Fay Estabrook.
Harper (1966)*** (out of 4)Private Investigator Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is hired by a rich man's wife (Lauren Bacall) after he goes missing for a day.
HARPER certainly isn't a masterpiece but it's a fun movie to watch.The best thing going for the film is the terrific cast with Newman leading the way with another strong performance.
A number of connections (including Shelley Winters, Julie Harris, Robert Webber, and Strother Martin) are deceptively interviewed and a number of double-crosses are made along the way — but, as it turns out, the truth can be found in the areas one originally wasn't going to consider.I could tell you the guy behind Sampson's disappearance (an unexpected shock, certainly!), but I couldn't manage to explain the dot-to-dot intricacies of the relationships between all the other characters that pump intrigue into "Harper"'s plot.
The fashions and music reinforce the movie's 60s credentials and overall the blend of 40s and 60s influences work together remarkably well.Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is hired by the extremely wealthy but crippled Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall) to find her missing husband.
Predictably, Robert Wagner, Shelley Winters and Janet Leigh are also excellent in their roles and Arthur Hill makes a big impression as Harper's lawyer friend who has an enormous crush on Miranda Sampson and great faith in the benefits of isometric exercises."Harper" is a movie with a tremendous cast, an absorbing plot and a variety of very colourful characters.
He's an all-too-fallible small-time detective who investigates a kidnapping case involving a rich industrialist and lots of ransom money.The plot is very complex, and leads Harper into a seamy corner of society, interacting with a variety of characters: Dwight Troy (Robert Webber), a human smuggler; Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters), a former glamour girl turned fat and alcoholic; Betty Frales (Julie Harris), a drug-addicted bar patron who's after the ransom money; Claude (Strother Martin), a phony preacher; Miranda Sampson (the luscious Pamela Tiffin), the kidnapped man's daughter; Susan Harper (Janet Leigh), Harper's frustrated and estranged wife; Allan Taggart (Robert Wagner) a playboy and member of the kidnap gang; and many others.
Basically Mrs. Sampson (Lauren Bacall) has hired private eye detective Lew Harper (Paul Newman) to find her missing husband.
Also starring Julie Harris as Betty Fraley, Arthur Hill as Albert Graves, Janet Leigh as Susan Harper, Pamela Tiffin as Miranda Sampson, Robert Wagner as Allan Taggert, Robert Webber as Dwight Troy, Shelley Winters as Fay Estabrook, Harold Gould as Sheriff, Strother Martin as Claude and Roy Jenson as Puddler.
Of course, Smight does have a great cast here, including top-of-the- bill Paul Newman who is a brilliant selection for Lew Harper, and Lauren Bacall, making a welcome re-appearance on the big screen as Mrs. Sampson. |
tt2784936 | Backtrack | Troubled psychotherapist Peter Bowers suffers from nightmares and eerie visions ever since the death of his daughter Evie in a street accident a year earlier, which he blames himself for after he was briefly distracted by something in a store window and failed to notice her veer off the sidewalk. His wife Carol suffers extreme depression and rarely gets out of bed while he works in his practice, meeting some clients referred to him by his mentor, Duncan. One client, Felix, apparently suffers from anterograde amnesia, believing that it is still the 80s; another, Erica, talks of her suicidal thoughts, but finds herself unable to commit suicide; and another, Elizabeth Valentine, is a girl who is apparently mute and who reacts with fear to the sound of the train passing by Peter's office, and before she flees, she writes a series of numbers on one of Peter's notepads: 12787.
Elizabeth returns unexpectedly, and Peter finds her looking out of his window to where the train will pass. Again, she is disturbed by the sound of it and begins to choke; she hits the window, leaving a handprint. Peter records her, but she disappears before he can speak to her further. He plays the recording to Duncan, who claims he hears nothing and believes that Peter is hallucinating Elizabeth out of guilt from failing to prevent his daughter's death, pointing out that her initials sound like Evie's name. Later, Peter hallucinates Elizabeth saying that "we have her" before turning into Evie and then vanishing, and later, he has a nightmare about Erica, who says she wasn't able to commit suicide because she's already dead. Doing research, Peter discovers that Elizabeth died in 1987, along with all over the other clients who had been seeing him. The numbers that Elizabeth wrote on his notepad was a date: July 12, 1987. Perplexed, he calls Duncan and asks to speak with him later, and then has a vision of his deceased patients on the train outside of his window.
Duncan comes over, and Peter worries about his sanity and questions how Duncan could have referred the patients when all of them have been deceased for decades. He then notices that Duncan doesn't appear in a mirror, and he, too, is a ghost. Now fully disturbed, Peter uses a map to discover that all the deceased patients lived along a train line leading to his hometown, False Creek. He travels there alone and meets with his father, William, a retired cop. Going to the bar, Peter meets with a childhood friend, Barry, and tells him that there is a weight on his conscience that he wants lifted. Barry alludes to a horrifying event that happened in their youth that they promised to keep a secret, and tells Peter to leave him out of any confession.
When the two were teenagers, Barry led Peter to a secret location that his brother mentioned, where couples would apparently have sex in their cars. The two left their bikes at the side of the train tracks and went to go spy on a couple in a car. Peter panics when he hears a train whistle, and he raced to move their bikes; in the process, he saw what he thought was Barry, running ahead of him. However, neither got there in time, and the train was violently derailed, killing 47 of the passengers on board. Peter saw several of the victims, all of whom would be his deceased future clients. He is then terrorized by the ghosts of Evie, Felix, and Elizabeth.
The next morning, Barry drives to the train tracks, and Peter goes to the police station. There, he meets Barbara, a constable, and confesses the incident to her. She tells him that he will likely face no charges, as it was an accident that happened when he was a teenager, and the statute of limitations has expired. Peter also discovers that she was the daughter of Erica. He apologizes, and Barbara tells him that her mother was the only local killed in the accident, and that William was kind to her at the funeral, inspiring her to become a police officer.
Barbara investigates the accident while Peter tries and fails to burn his newspaper clipping of the accident. He is drawn to a closet, where the ghost of Elizabeth briefly strangles him. Duncan then appears, telling him that there was no way that bicycles lying against the tracks would have derailed the train, and that there was more to the accident. He also urges Peter to remember exactly what distracted him on the day of Evie's death. Peter recalls looking into a toy shop window at a railroad set, specifically, a model of a switch tower. The next morning, he investigates the switch tower beside the tracks and finds Barry, who has committed suicide, inside. When the police arrive, Peter confesses to Barbara that Barry was there the night of the accident, but he intentionally left him out of the confession. Later, he tells her about his hallucinations since Evie's death. When she does not believe him, he tells her details about Erica that he wouldn't otherwise know. Rattled, she orders him to leave.
A police officer finds an old and encrusted pin lying on the floor of the switch house and gives it to Barbara, who discovers that it's the insignia of Elizabeth's high school. As Peter once more returns to the scene of the accident, she pays a visit to William and tells him that during her investigation, she has discovered that the road he apparently drove to get to the aftermath of the crash was blocked off, and he would have only been able to drive there if his car had already been near the tracks. Furthermore, Elizabeth was the only victim with a cause of death that the coroners deemed inconclusive. Meanwhile, Peter sees Elizabeth's ghost once more, and, taking the same path he did as the night of the accident, he realizes that it was not Barry he saw running ahead of him, but Elizabeth. Going up to the switch house, he suddenly remembers all of the night: he looked through the windows of the house to see his father strangling Elizabeth. In her struggle to survive, she left a handprint on the window (the same one he saw earlier), and she also accidentally pulled the levers of the train tracks, leading it to derail and kill the passengers. Afterwards, William placed her body at the scene of the crash.
Barbara asserts to William that she knows Elizabeth was not a victim of the crash, and she believes that Peter saw something that night that William wanted covered up. William knocks her unconscious and puts her in the trunk of his car. Peter returns and tells William that he knows the truth: the couple that Peter and Barry saw in the car was really William raping Elizabeth, and he saw William kill her; he asks William if Elizabeth was his only victim. William pulls a gun on him and tells him to get in the garage. Inside, Peter hears Barbara regain consciousness, and after a brief struggle, William knocks him unconscious as well.
The next morning, William drives out with both Peter and Barbara restrained in the car. A gun is on the passenger seat. However, the ghost of Elizabeth appears in the road and in the car, startling William and making him lose control of the car. In the process, Peter is thrown out of the backseat of the car and ends up a safe distance away, with the gun. William ends up on the train tracks, the engine dead and the doors locked as a train begins to approach. He tries and fails to escape and yells to Peter for help. Peter attempts to shoot out a window so William can escape, but only succeeds when the train is extremely close. The trunk opens and Barbara manages to climb out, and Peter pushes her off the tracks to safety. William, held back by Elizabeth's ghost, is crushed by the train. As Peter and Barbara stand on the side of the tracks, Peter can see the ghosts of the victims on the train, and sees a tranquil Elizabeth turn and depart.
Later, Peter is on the beach with the ghost of Evie, who gets up and walks into the ocean, finally moving on and at peace. His wife joins him and asks what he's thinking about; Peter tells her that he's thinking about kids. Carol smiles, and they embrace. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0095984 | Retribution | Yoshioka, an experienced detective, investigates the murder of an unknown woman in a red dress. She was drowned on the Tokyo waterfront, but an autopsy reveals that her stomach is full of seawater. Moreover, all the clues he finds relate to himself: A button found at the murder scene matches one that is missing from his own coat, and fingerprints found match his own. Yoshioka realizes that the only viable suspect is himself; but he doesn't remember a thing.
A ghost in a red dress soon starts appearing to him. As these apparitions become more intense and bizarre, similar murders occur with people killing loved ones for small infractions. All the perpetrators are found by Yoshioka as he searches for clues about the original murder. Eventually the drowned woman is identified. Yoshioka visits her parents, only to find she had a boyfriend who was extorting her parents, who happens to visit the house at the same time. He quickly confesses to the crime.
Yoshioka is visited by the ghost again who reveals that she is not the murdered woman, but a ghost of a woman whom he saw in the window of an asylum fifteen years ago who has died. All of the murderers took the ferry past the same asylum. Yoshioka sends his girlfriend away, afraid of what he might do to her. He goes to the asylum, where the woman in red agrees to forgive him for not helping her 15 years ago. He goes home, only to discover that he murdered his girlfriend 6 months ago. Going insane, he tries to forget. He collects the bones, and goes to the asylum to pick up the ghost's bones. His partner arrives at his apartment like the bowl of water, which was used to commit the murder, empty as the ghost menaces him in the background. An earthquake occurs as the bowl is refilled. The ghost suddenly appears and drags him into the bowl. The film ends with Yoshioka walking in the street holding a bag containing his girlfriend's and the ghost's bones, with the ghost repeatedly saying: "I am dead. So please, I want everyone to die too". | paranormal, cult, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | Manic depressive artist George Miller snaps one Halloween night, decides he wants to end it all and jumps from the top of the inner-city fleabag motel he calls home.
Across town, small-time gangster Vito Minelli finds out the hard way, what happens when you don't pay off your gambling debts, as his vengeful cronies blow out his kneecaps, then douse him in gasoline and set him on fire.Somewhere between life and death, George's and Vito's lives intersect, and both will be changed forever.
This is not a good thing for George, and even worse for Vito's assailants, as they will each discover to their horror and dismay...As low-budget supernatural thrillers go, RETRIBUTION manages to strike a nice balance between the yen of those horror fans who like character-driven stories, and the gorehounds who like to see "folks git blowed up real good." TV and movie vet Dennis Lipscomb, who very rarely gets to carry a picture, delivers a scary and sympathetic performance as the troubled George.
They make it look so easy, most people don't even consider what they do to be "work," and that's the trouble.Another out-of-print, hard-as-hell-to-find but worthy entry into the B-movie hall of fame..
Retribution may look a little bit dated compared to up-to-date films, with it's cheesy 80's feel, but that was just the sign of the times.Dawn of the Dead by Romero, is just the same in the out-dated department-but anyone who's seen it will agree it's still one of the best Zombie films to date!
If you enjoy the horror genre, and have not yet seen this classic- try and get a copy.
Everyone i have shown it to was well impressed.It's a treat-especially with todays appalling excuses for Horror films.
I really do highly rate and recommend this film, and so does everyone i know..
The plot centers around introverted artist George Miller, wonderfully portrayed by Dennis Lipscomb, who reminds me of a good friend in the military, and his failed attempt to commit suicide.
This dampens George's new lease on life, with a courtship of a friendly prostitute, played by B-Movie Queen Suzanne Snyder.
Every time George falls asleep, the tortured spirit tales control of his body, and exacts revenge on the people who killed him.This is a very entertaining film with believable everyday characters.
Dennis Lipscomb does a splendid job transforming himself from bumbling loser George to a possessed force of destruction.Night of The Creeps and Killer Klowns From Outer Space star Suzanne Snyder, who owns the sexiest smile in cinema history, was sensual and caring all at the same time.
This role allows Suzanne to wear some crazy looking, yet rather revealing hooker outfits.I recommend this film to people who like a little substance with their horror, but keep in mind, there is plenty of gore to go with the superior genre acting..
Solid 80s horror film.
Starving artist George (Dennis Lipscomb) decides to end his life by jumping off his apartment building on Halloween night.
As he lays dying, his body receives the spirit of a man who shares his birthday and is killed at the exact same time (confused?).
He lives and the spirit takes over when George goes to sleep and seeks retribution on folks who burned him alive (Freddy who?).
This is a pretty solid horror flick that I liked even more watching it now than back in the 80s.
You can hear the filmmakers whisper, "It is like ELM STREET, see?" (the burned villain even looks like Freddy), but writer-director Guy Magar does enough to make it stand apart.
Lipscomb, looking like a nerdy Christopher Walken, is an interesting choice for a leading man and I like that casting.
On the technical side, there is lots of great camera work and some interesting use of lighting.
Solid B-movie with OK performances and slam-bang special effects.
This is one of those neglected little thrillers that set out not to offer anything new to the genre, but at least to give fans of those movies their money's worth.
And this one generally seems to know its business (although it does get a little too loud near the end).
very well done death scenes, and an unusual lead actor.
Surprisingly good!A plain, somewhat overweight, nerdy-looking man stands on the edge of the roof of the Don Hotel (no "tiny bubbles" jokes in the movie, though).
The people in the Don Hotel, a somewhat strange bunch, are sympathetic, as is a neighborhood hooker he's friendly with.
Additionally, while he paints blood appears out of nowhere, and does at other times too and isn't just a hallucination it seems.In the nightmares, he visits people and brutally kills them with some sort of telepathic abilities while his eyes glow.
Though there aren't a lot of murders, the scenes are pretty strong.
The way a man dies there is quite memorable.While a Catholic priest works at the hospital, and the main character visits a church, the one attempt at exorcism is done by a "Dr. Rasta"!
A solid little horror flick.
Dennis Lipscombe is a depressed artist who throws himself off the roof of the hotel he lives in on Halloween.
He survives, but starts having visions of a small time gangster who died the same night.
Soon he is having nightmares about stalking and killing strangers, and the murders he dreams of are really happening.
His psychiatrist and his hooker girlfriend try to help him figure out what is going on, while cop Hoyt Axton investigates the murder spree.
This is a pretty solid mid-80's horror flick with colorful photography, creative, gory deaths, and a really solid cast of recognizable character actors..
i watched this film years ago, and was pleasantly surprised how effectively scary it was because i'd never heard of it.
i can remember the lead character with scary eyes at the end, and a sexy suzanne snyder as prostitute i think.
i would love to watch this movie again, just to see if it has the same effect now as it did then.
i doubt it though as most of these eighty's films usually age badly, it would be good to know if i can own this film on DVD.
this film if i remember rightly does not deserve to to b washed up and never seen again like a lot of the mindless tosh being produced at the time.
Great at Times But in the End Falls on its Face.
I first saw this movie years ago when it was released on Virgin Video and I seem to remember that it was a pretty scary movie.
Years later, in 2006, I finely get to see it again and unfortunately it wasn't as good as I remember it.
The premise is a man called George (Lipscomb) decides to commit suicide on Halloween night.
After spending 3 months in a hospital, George has a new lease on life and kind of starts off with a fresh new start.
The problem is when George falls asleep his body is taken over by a spirit with demonic powers and the spirit is out to kill the people who murdered him in life.
This is actually a well directed movie with some great acting and good cast.
The problem I had with the movie was for one, it is a very dated film.
For instance, the music for the movie was so typical of the era it takes away from the seriousness of the story.
This movie runs almost two hours with some great build up to the climax but in the end the movie falls on its face.
It is to bad because this really had some great potential and the makers of the film probably could have easily made this a 2 and a half hour movie and still keep your attention.
I do, in the long run, recommend this movie because it is still an enjoyable experience.
One really good episode of TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE that I remember is "Dead Man's Shoes," where an average Joe finds a pair of shoes and decides to put them on.
The shoes, however, belonged to a recently deceased mobster, who decides to possess the man and seek revenge on those who sent him to his grave.
RETRIBUTION is just like that, only a lot bloodier.George is a depressed painter who's had it with life.
On Halloween night, he jumps off the roof of his apartment building and dies.
Whenever he falls asleep, he has dreams of killing people in gruesome ways, and when he awakens, these people are actually dead.
You see, he is now possessed by a mobster who not only shared his birthday, but he was gunned down at the same time George realized he can't fly, so now, the mobster is killing those who killed him.
Can George stop him before the killing begins again?
RETRIBUTION is a decent enough watch, but it could have been a whole lot better.
Considering this was released in the trash-tastic year of 1987, they managed to have a really intriguing plot, great actors, and good gore effects.
Unfortunately, they underplay everything except the actors.Yes, there is a lot of talking and a lot of character building, which is both a good and a bad thing.
Good, because we actually begin to like and connect with the characters.
Bad, because it keeps us away from the good stuff.The kills in RETRIBUTION are all gory, all inventive, and there aren't many of them.
There are only four people who gunned down Vito (the mobster), and he doesn't even get his revenge on all of them.
There is some great build-up and suspense with the deaths and the "possessed George" is frightening enough to work.There are a lot of scenes where George's possession takes hold, like when they go to a spiritualist, or when he paints several portraits of the charred Vito (which looks eerily similar to Freddy).Don't get me wrong; RETRIBUTION is from being a bad movie, it's just not all that great.
I liked all the characters, I liked the gore, and the scares were good, it's just that each of these is either underplayed or overplayed.
It's "technically" a lot better than most late-eighties direct-to-video garbage; it's just not as entertaining as it should be.Still, it's worth watching..
Depressed painter George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb) chucks himself off a hotel roof, his suicidal act most likely prompted by either his terrible haircut (I'd want to die too if I sported that style) or his complete lack of artistic talent.
As medics bring him back from the brink of death, George is possessed by the vengeful spirit of gambler Vito Minelli (Mike Muscat), who was shot and burnt alive by the men to whom he was in debt.Retribution could have been a fairly reasonable supernatural potboiler, but George Miller is such a dour, whiney loser that it makes for seriously hard going.
I found myself increasingly irritated by the man's persistent hang-dog expression, so-much-so that I began to wish that the emergency team who revived him had been held up in traffic.The film does deliver one or two reasonably well-executed scenes of violence-the brutal demise of Vito, the manager of an abattoir being cut up the middle by a circular saw, a guy having his hand removed with an acetylene torch-and there is an impressive sense of style throughout, director Guy Magar making particularly good use of colour and lighting.
However, the unbearable protagonist and an overlong runtime of 107 minutes means that the film as a whole is far from great..
George Miller is possessed by vito Minelli who has homicidal tendencies.
ONE GOOD ONE EVIL ONE BODY.
George Miller is a timid, gentle man whose failure as an artist drives him to attempt suicide by leaping off the roof of his seedy hotel.
Vito Minelli is a small time crook whose treachery results in his brutal execution at the hands of his underworld associates.Being a true horror fan i have come to know whats the difference between a good horror film and a bad one, and this is a great horror film.
A real rare gem of a film.
Probably one of the best horror films i have seen and delivers frights and gore at the barrel full.
A pretty rare film now and just as hard to get hold of but i recommend anyone who enjoys this genre as much as me to do what you can to get hold of a copy..
RETRIBUTION is a low budget and rather gruesome horror film of 1987, given a splendid DVD presentation by the team at Code Red. The story is nothing special and sees Dennis Lipscomb's mild-mannered protagonist being possessed by the spirit of a gangster which causes him to go on a supernatural killing spree.
It's one of those films where you end up twiddling your thumbs in between the kill scenes, but the gory special effects are imaginatively used and there are some bizarre highlights here, which I won't go into.
I did find Lipscomb to be a rather creepy character even before the supernatural stuff takes place and the budget isn't perhaps quite up to the job at times, but this is reasonable fare for horror fans..
It's creepy Miller Time!.
"Retribution" is odd and unusual 80's horror, but it's often very scary and you got to admire how director Guy Magar breaks with all the dreadful clichés and stereotypes that marked the decade.
The filming locations are hideous, the violence is raw & explicit and the characters are extremely anti-Hollywood.
Especially our lead actor Dennis Lipscomb is someone who you'd normally NEVER see as the protagonist in a 80's horror slasher.
His character George Miller is an introvert, unattractive and rather pathetic looking loner who lives in a sleazy hotel room and paints macabre stuff for a living.
The movie opens with George ready to take a dive from the hotel roof top to end his sad life with suicide.
He survives the attempt because, at the exact same moment, his body becomes possessed by the furious spirit of a murdered gambler.
When George returns home from the clinic, everyone is very caring and concerned (he even scores with a warm-hearted prostitute that's way out of his league!), yet the homicidal spirit homing inside him makes him commit repulsive murders when he sleeps.
"Retribution" is a brave little horror movie, albeit slightly overlong and sometimes focusing too much on the human interest aspects.
The special effects, however, are great and the murders are incredibly gory and sadistic!
The ghost inside creepy George Miller is obviously VERY upset, as he crushes people's heads with elevators, processes bodies with frozen animal carcasses and slices stomachs.
Quite a few sequences in this film definitely aren't for the squeamish!
The flashback scene near the end, enlightening us about the gambler's death, is quite shocking and you immediately understand why he's so angry!
If I were George, I would even have volunteered to complete the murder cycle!
The music and camera-work are also very effective and there are excellent supportive roles for Hoyt Axton ("Gremlins"), Suzanne Snyder ("Killer Klowns from Outer Space") and Leslie Wing ("the Dungeonmaster").
Recommended to fans of solid B-horror..
Co-writer / director Guy Magar offers up a sufficient amount of razzle-dazzle in this low budget revenge saga.
It's got plenty of atmosphere and special effects, plus an always grim feel to its story.
It also gives a rare starring role to Dennis Lipscomb, a veteran of supporting and character parts (in movies like "WarGames", "A Soldier's Story", "Crossroads", and "Under Siege") who'd previously headlined the independent productions "Union City" and "Eyes of Fire".
He plays George Miller, a wimpy, depressed painter who survives a suicidal jump off a building only to find out that there's a scary reason that he survived.
Somebody else who perished at the same time (on Halloween night, no less) is determined to get back at those that messed him up, using George's body as his instrument of revenge.
Magar makes this a visually arresting experience at all times.
For one thing, staging the opening sequence on Halloween night is great because it's a weird image to see a bunch of Halloween masks taking in the spectacle in front of them.
Some strong violence is suggested without being shown in any great detail, which could understandably frustrate and disappoint some genre fans, especially as there's a little bit of invention here: one victim is shoved inside an animal carcass and sawed up.
Better performances than usual for this sort of thing help, with Leslie Wing as a caring psychiatrist, Suzanne Snyder as your friendly neighbourhood hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, and singer / actor Hoyt Axton as an investigating detective.
(However, if you're an Axton fan, be advised that he doesn't get to do all that much and doesn't even show up until over an hour into the movie.) You may also recognize George Murdock ('Barney Miller') and Harry Caesar ("The Longest Yard" '74) among the supporting cast.
At an hour and 49 minutes, this does go on longer than your typical horror movie, but it's nice that Magar actually cares about his characters, making them more than one-dimensional and focusing on adult protagonists and antagonists instead of teenagers.
This is a true horror movie, and a fairly intense one, and deserves another look from devotees of the genre.
This one teeters on the edge of pure cheesiness, and does fall wonderfully overboard into it, but is saved by Dennis Lipscomb's magnetic performance.
I couldn't help myself chuckling at much of this movie- and really, that's a good thing.
The plot of someone being possessed by someone else from beyond the grave to exact revenge is as clichéd as they come, but it's still a fun ride here- and that's what I'd compare this movie to: a fun ride.
The ride could've been quite unbearable if Dennis Lipscomb did not make it worth getting through.
I'll definitely be checking out more efforts by Lipscomb and the director. |
tt0031503 | J'accuse! | In a Provençal village in the south of France, the villagers welcome the declaration of war with Germany in 1914 and flock to enlist. Among them is François Laurin, a man of jealous and violent temperament, who is married to Édith, the daughter of an upright veteran soldier Maria Lazare. François suspects, correctly, that Édith is conducting an affair with the poet Jean Diaz who lives in the village with his mother, and he sends Édith to stay with his parents in Lorraine - where she is subsequently captured and raped by German soldiers. François and Jean find themselves serving in the same battalion at the front, where the initial tensions between them give way to a close friendship that acknowledges that they both love Édith.
In 1918, Jean is discharged through ill-health and returns to the village, to find his mother dying. Édith reappears from captivity, now with a young half-German daughter Angèle. Her father, Maria Lazare, immediately leaves to avenge the shame to the family name. When François comes home on leave, Jean and Édith fear his reaction to the illegitimate child and try to conceal her from him, which merely revives his jealous suspicions of Jean, and the two men fight. When the truth is revealed, François and Jean agree to seek their vengeance in battle and both return to the front.
In a great battle, in which a mythical figure of Le Gaulois leads on the French forces, François is wounded and dies in the field hospital. Jean, meanwhile, is so shell-shocked that he becomes insane. He returns to the village and gathers the inhabitants together to tell them of his vision on the battlefield: from the graves of the dead, soldiers arise and gather in a great cohort that marches through the land, back to their homes. Jean challenges the villagers to say whether they have been worthy of the men's sacrifices, and they watch in horror as their dead family and friends appear on the threshold. The soldiers return to their rest, and Jean goes back to his mother's house. There he finds a book of his own poems which he tears up in disgust, until one of them, his Ode to the Sun, drives him to denounce the sun for its complicity in the crimes of war. As the sunlight fades from the room, Jean dies. | anti war | train | wikipedia | Startling and impassioned plea for peace!.
Abel Gance, undoubtedly one of the greatest film-makers ever, made this extraordinary film as he saw Europe rushing toward World War 2.
It is a remake of a film he made when he was in the trenches of World War 1.
At its core is the magnificent performance of Victor Francen as the only survivor of a World War 1 patrol who is determined to prevent war ever happening again.
With photography and amazing mis en scene, Gance evokes the waste of war and the terrible effect it has on its survivors.
The climax involves Francen conjuring the dead of World War 1 to stop World War 2.
This is stunningly shot and extremely powerful.The only faults this film has is the over reliance on stock footage (I assume because of budgetary problems), and a romantic sub-plot that doesn't quite work.
But this is a true work of art - highly political and visionary, and fascinating historically.
What a shame humanity didn't listen in 1938!.
Powerful.
J' Accuse!
is one of those imperfect films that have so many captivating and remarkable scenes as to burn them into memory forever.
From the first 45 minutes concentrating on the battleground of the first World War that rivals All Quiet On The Western Front to the final half hour of surrealist horror/fantasy that evokes the groundwork for such films as Night of the Living Dead there is much to love about this work.The editing and use of actual stock war footage actually brings the viewer a historical grounding for the social and moral stance the film takes.
The special effects are in grand display for a film of the 1930s and eerily successful during the climax which is one of the truly great accomplishments in cinematic history.The only drawbacks for the film is depending on your version/copy you may have re-edited scenes which create an odd linear flow to the film and which are also quite obviously placed.
Also, the middle of the film does get bogged down in a romantic sub plot that does not seriously work and all too often finds the actors suffering from melodrama.However, the historical significance of this film's anti-war message should not be detracted from the horrific circumstances surrounding WW II.
The film's message actually centers on the scientific advances of the well played lead, Victor Francen, who allows his country (in this case France) the perception of a military advantage to consider war as beneficial.
You can easily see this film speaking to the scientific community in any country of the time - especially Germany.
Politics aside, the message is clear and as haunting as any you may find in the annals of cinema..
Abel Gance is a titan..
Titan is the right word for a director who is the French equivalent of a David Wark Griffith.He borrowed from Zola his famous sentence "I accuse!" which comes from the Dreyfuss affair.(people should try to see William Dieterle's "life of Emile Zola" which focuses on it)."J'accuse" is one of the most convincing and impressive pacifist film of the whole history of the seven art.I'm sure its first half-hour influenced Kubrik's "paths for glory".There are three versions of it:the 1919 one,now forever lost,the 1922 one,with a new and watered-down ending,because of the military censors.Then the 1938 one,which is,to my mind ,the best.The historical context was so threatening that Gance's movie seemed like a cry of terror.IT was terribly different of what was going on in the French cinema at the time :Marcel Carné used to hide his fears behind metaphors for instance The first half-hour depicts life in the trenches.Some lines are as provoking as you can imagine.A soldier:"soon there won't be enough trees to make crosses".A little girl:"I want my dad to bring me back a gun to kill the war".The armistice may come quick in the movie,but you must remember that Gance had a message to send to the world.Armistice scenes are astounding:a bugle call resounds while the camera shows a dying soldier.The crowds rejoice as the soldiers salute the dead in voices chocked by emotion.The aftermath of war as filmed by Gance had certainly a strong influence on later movies.The essential of the movie takes place 20 years later .A survivor,played by Victor Francen,had sworn his soldiers pals who died there would not be another war.Then he begins his incredible task.I want to insist on that:Victor Francen is so good,so sublime,that you must see this movie in French,with English subtitles.Dubbed in English,Francen 's tour de force would lose most of its strength.You should hear him screaming "J'accuse!
J' accuse!" People around him thinks he's gone nuts.One breath-taking scene shows him breaking everything in sight.A sublime shot:he's just brought under control, then a gun hanging on a wall comes down and fall.For the last part of his movie,Gance outdoes himself;using horror movie codes,stupefying(for the time) special effects, Francen's extraordinary tragedian skills,and an editing to rival David Wark Griffith's "intolerance",he leads us to believe the unbelievable.The Dead awakening will haunt you long after you've seen the movie.The use of the Verdun memorial and its tower make me think of movies that were yet to come!("2001" and its monolith,for instance)French movies had never been better than in the thirties.I wish I could find a mathematical formula to prove it..
A stunningly effective anti-war classic..
J'Accuse surely ranks as one of the most stunningly effective anti-war films ever made.
Its early scenes involve a group of French soldiers who are compelled to go out on a hopeless and utterly pointless patrol.
The men are instantly slaughtered by the Germans.
The next morning, an armistice is declared.
The men on patrol were the last to die.
Think of the great anti-war films you've seen--like "Paths of Glory" or "All Quiet on the Western Front." In my opinion, Abel Gance's "J'Accuse" ranks with these masterpieces and, in its final scenes, even surpasses them.
Jean Diaz is the sole survivor of the doomed patrol.
Before the men leave the trenches, Diaz swore to his colleagues that their sacrifice would not be in vain--there would be no more wars.
Diaz devotes his life to achieving this goal for which he sacrifices everything.
Of course, he fails miserably, as the European powers prepare for a new and even more catastrophic war.
In the final scenes, Diaz plays his last and best card in scenes that will not be soon forgotten by those who are fortunate enough to see this great film..
very good anti-war film that COULD use a remake.
This film is an anti-war film about a man who served in WWI and sees that further wars are approaching because we never learned the lesson.
Despite his rants, people seem to think war is a GOOD option, so the film ends with his unleashing an object lesson everyone won't soon forget.Wow, did this film attempt something different!
It was a remake of an earlier silent version by the same director.
However, despite its STRONG IMPACT and imaginative script and cinematography at the end, the film was far from perfect.
My first complaint is the quality of the camera work.
While, as I said above, the end is spectacular, a lot of very grainy old vintage WWI film is inter-spliced into the film.
It just doesn't look very seamless, as the quality is dramatically worse than the movie itself.
It could really use a remastering--using computer technology to clean up and restore the old footage.
My second complaint is the length of the film.
For once, I actually think the film would have been better if it would have been shortened.
The plot in the middle of the film greatly detracted from the emotional impact of the beginning and the end.
Third, while the director was very sincere and was right that WWI was a pointless and stupid waste of life where no one person was truly to blame, his message of moral relativism probably contributed to the French ethos that led to their quick capitulation to the Nazis in WWII.
World War II was NOT morally equivalent, as Hitler was indeed evil and the cost in human life to stop him EARLY in the war would have been well-worth it in the end (i.e., taking a pacifist stand allowed Hitler to do FAR more damage to mankind than standing up against him in 1939-40).
I admire the effort, but wonder what would have been the result if this film had NOT come out just before WWII.Do not assume I am gung-ho about war.
Most wars are pointless and WWI is the greatest example of the stupidity and waste of war.
For an even better film about this, try watching the original ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930).
Another excellent anti-war film is THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK, also set in WWI.4/28/08--By the way, I just saw the "original" version of this film by the same writer/director.
Despite BOTH having the same name, the films are very different.
While J'ACCUSE (1919) is more of a spectacle and was more innovative for the time, J'ACCUSE (1938) is much more watchable today and has a much clearer anti-war message.
Also, there is a movie by the same name from 2003 and a mini-series from the 1990s--but both have nothing to do with the French films..
Masterpiece With Social Relevance.
This film is a masterpiece with extreme social relevance for the human race.
Try to rent it if you can find it.
It is still relevant even almost 70 years after it was made.
It may be hard to find but it is worth it.
Enjoy!!!.
A near classic..
An important film for its time with a powerful message that only fell on deaf ears when World War II went ahead.
Unfortunately, the film was technically flawed with some campy moments and a messy story structure.
Still, the ending is a classic..
Stop Perpetual Useless War!!.
A plea from beyond the graves of 53,000.000 who died in WWI, this movie eloquently watches 12 men as they prepare for what they know will the last patrol of their life.
120 men have already gone to their deaths in their 3 years at Verdun, on the same patrol.
As two men argue over their love for one's wife, the husband is suddenly bound to forgive the other and makes him pledge to mail letters to the other's wife should he die, at 2 week intervals to keep her thinking of him alive.A few subplots involving a chanteuse who has all the men singing while the bombs explode around them in a town that is wiped out by the barrage.
The scene in which the dead answer the call of the scientist who has worked for 20 years to bring back his friends and others has been often copied in far lesser films since.
The dialogue in this movie is of great impact, made more so by the fact that my son has just returned from the slaughter in Iraq.
A eye for an eye makes everyone blind, and no movie makes the point as well as this one.
The death scene may deliberately be set up to make you think of Jean D'Arc, but it just reminded me of how mindless the masses are, no matter of what nationality.
The brainwashed American public is a case in point.
Oh, for a decent educational system.
Maybe we should give up and just show movies like this one, 'Paths of Glory', 'Attack' and 'Deerhunter' all day.
Whoever puts up statues to military, writes military marches and glorifies marching off to war should have to tell all the widows their loved one has died for nothing, only repeats of death---be it through war or 9/11s..
Genuinely internationalist, genuinely anti-war and genuinely cinematic art..
This is a rarity -- a genuine anti-war film that is also a genuine work of art.
Gance's protagonist is the only member of his battalion to survive the trenches of WWI.
The experience so horrifies him that he is driven to develop technology he hopes will prevent all future war.
On learning, in 1938, that his native France is again preparing to send its young to the slaughter, he summons his outrage and grief for all his fallen comrades and calls on the war dead of 1914-1918-- from France, Italy, Britain and Germany -- to rise from their graves in rebellion against the horror.
Sounds naff?
Watch it, and think again.
Any filmmaker or lover of cinematic art who reviles the current state of the world could learn from this film ...
technically as well as thematically.
Gance includes graphic and enlightening footage of the armies of France preparing for the second imperialist onslaught.
That alone serves as a refreshing visual antidote to the decades of mind numbing propaganda that would have us believe there would never have been a WWII had Germany not existed..
Even in a shortened for this is a powerful cry for the end of war.
(There are spoilers ahead) I saw a short American cut (75 minutes or so) of Abel Gance's anti war film.
Made on the eve of the second world war this tells the story of an inventor who survives the trenches and vows never to let war engulf the world again.
Twenty years on as the world marches toward war he is horrified to discover that the same people who fought in the last war and also vowed never again are marching us toward another war.Abbreviated or not this is a kick in the head.
Not so much a plea for peace as a long scream this is a film that some how transcends it's sometimes silliness to become a something that will rattle your soul.
Gance pulls no punches and tells it like it is.
War sucks and the thought of ever waging it is insanity.The end of the film, where the war dead rise up is chilling.
These are not people made up, these are the battle scared marching towards us in a disturbing in your face manner.
I really liked the film both intellectually and emotionally.
Its not perfect but it is a kick in the head and the heart.
(Gance's full version runs over two hours.
I haven't seen that version of the film, I've read that it includes a several characters who counterpoint the main story.
I haven't seen it so I can't compare but this short version really made me say Wow.).
A powerful statement from the past.
I saw a clip of this movie in a documentary about horror films and it prompted me to obtain it.
I am so glad I have seen this movie.
As a history buff who is interested in the First World War (the Great War) it appealed to me on that level.
Jean-Diaz lost most of his friends on the last patrol on the final day, and that sums up the futility and waste of WWI.
Some have criticized the use of stock footage, but in this case I think it works.
This is a movie about war after all, and you don't get any more powerful than the real thing.
Also, given the technology of the time it would have been difficult for the crew to recreate the war.I agree with other reviewers, there are problems in the middle.
The romantic subplot with Flo just doesn't work at all.
I also wish they would have given us a closer look at what Jean-Diaz was doing in his workshop.The final scene at the Verdun cemetery is among the most powerful I have ever seen.
When he calls out to the dead in French, English and German that is moving.
He calls them his friends -- he is one of them because in a sense he died in the war.
At the opening a credit is given to the group, "Mutiliated Veterans of the Last World War".
Those were real WWI vets playing the part of the ghosts who rise from the graves.
Their scars are real.
Haunting!
See this movie if you have a chance. |
tt0049086 | Comanche | In 1875, near Durango, Mexico, a group of renegade Comanche attack a peaceful village and kidnap the daughter of a Spanish aristocrat. They escape the Mexican Army by crossing into US territory. Jim Read (Dana Andrews), a frontier scout, is sent to investigate and ease tensions between the Mexicans and the Comanche. But long standing hatred and the profitable business of scalp-hunting does not help in resolving the conflict. Read is sent to negotiate with the Comanche chief, Quanah (Kent Smith). Whilst searching for Quanah, Read sees Art Downey (Stacy Harris), a local scalp-hunter, shoot and injure a Comanche. Read rescues him and takes him to Quanah. Read however is himself accused of the shooting by Black Cloud (Henry Brandon), the renegade leader, until the injured brave recovers enough to clear his name. Read reveals to Quanah that they are cousins and that his mother was the sister of Quanah’s mother. Quanah swears loyalty to his white friend. Read leaves to fetch government officials to a peace council, but discovers a cavalry detachment that has been massacred by Black Cloud and his renegades. The Government official, Commissioner Ward (Lowell Gilmore), has ordered the cavalry to subdue the Indians, by force if necessary. Black Cloud attacks a column of cavalry troopers and captures Ward. Quanah and a large force of loyal Comanche intervene and threaten to attack Black Cloud. Vengeful Black Cloud kills Ward. In the ensuing battle, Read kills Downey and Black Cloud and peace is restored. | murder | train | wikipedia | This colorful western has plenty of action and the beautiful landscapes of Durango, Mexico as the setting for a story of war and peace on the Texas plains between the U.S. cavalry and the Comanches.
The Indians also attack Mexican villages and take horses and captives and rampage on both sides of the Rio Grande.
Dana Andrews is the scout whose task it is to convince Quanah Parker to stop raids into Mexico and talk peace with the American soldiers.
Of course, the quest for peace is threatened by white scalp hunters and renegade Indians.
There are several good cavalry-Indian battles in this film which was the American debut of Mexican movie star Linda Cristal, who is Andrews' love interest.
It is also worth noting that several lines of dialogue in this film were lifted verbatim from Elliott Arnold's excellent work, "Blood Brother", which details the Apache wars and the friendship between Cochise and Tom Jeffords.
Many of Quanah Parker's ideas of war and peace were taken word-for-word from Arnold's novel and attributed to the Comanche chief to portray him as the sage leader of "the lords of the south plains".
One wonders if Arnold ever received credit or acknowledgment for the screenplay in this movie..
Peaceful Mexican villages were tragic victims...Comanche is directed by George Sherman and stars Dana Andrews as frontier scout Jim Read, who is sent to hopefully broker peace between Mexicans and the Comanche.
As usual conflict exists within the tribe {Quanah Parker and Black Cloud}, as it does within the cavalry.
Thus peace will be very hard to establish after years of mistreatment and mistrust.Filmed entirely in Durango, Old Mexico for authenticity and shot in deluxe colour for a Cinemascope production, Comanche is a very tidy B Western offering.
The action scenes are well constructed, with the Blanco Canyon scenes particularly eye catching; as the cavalry and divided Comanche armies form.
While the acting, although far from being great, is competent and never at any time hinders the movie.
Some misplaced jauntiness and a shoe-horned in romantic arc {Linda Cristal} threaten to derail the piece, and no doubt about it the film has over familiarity issues with Delmer Daves' far better Broken Arrow from 1950.
And since we may never get a great film that deals with the Quanah Parker {played by Kent Smith here} story, Comanche at least made the effort, and made the effort to watch it worthwhile.Solid, interesting and enjoyable.
Had this movie starred a lesser name than Dana Andrews, I probably never would have watched it or else turned it off after a while, as this was a rather dull but competently made picture.
Aside from more modern sensibilities about the American Indians (they aren't savage or bad and there is an attempt to understand their motivations), there really isn't anything different to set this apart from hundreds, if not thousands of mediocre Westerns from the 40s and 50s.Part of the problem was in casting Kent Smith as the Indian chief.
While his character was supposed to have SOME White blood, Smith looked and sounded about as much like an Indian as Shirley Temple!
It's odd that although the script is quite sensitive and "politically correct" by today's standards, they still used a lot of White actors in makeup as the Indians (if you look, you'll also notice Mike Mazurki as an Indian as well).Another part of the problem is that while I like Dana Andrews a lot, I've got to admit he was pretty bland in the part--a part which would have been more convincing had it featured Randolph Scott or Jimmy Stewart.
Andrews just wasn't believable as a cavalry scout in the old West.
Andrews forte was in contemporary stories--placing him in a horse and Indian film just seemed unnatural and his performance reflects this.Aside from these complaints, I am not recommending you avoid the film--it is fairly entertaining and won't rot your brain.
Dana Andrews is called in to negotiate a peace treaty with the Comanches raiding across the border into Mexico.
There are elements on both sides who don't want peace including the Indian-hating scalphunters on the one hand, and the breakaway Comanches (led by Black Cloud) on the other.I hate to say it but Kent Smith isn't convincing as Quanah Parker.
If they were going to have this kind of robotic dialog, then they should have at least gotten Charles Bronson or Steven McNally to do it since they look more Indian-like than the blue-eyed, fair-haired Smith does.
Yeah, I know Parker was half-white and all that, but still...Plus you have Dana Andrews and the rest of the cast looking like they are sleepwalking through the whole thing.
Were they bored with it, or was it only what the script demanded?The only character who was remotely interesting was Andrews' sidekick Puffer, played by Nestor Paiva.
He looked sufficiently grizzled for the part without resorting to too much of the silliness that say, Gabby Hayes would have done if he had played the role.
It's too bad his part wasn't bigger.The battle scenes look lame even by 50s standards with the whole thing having a rushed look to it, despite the widescreen technicolor cinematography by George Stahl.
This use of color was a rarity on United Artists part since they mostly shot their westerns in b/w.And with the title music sung by The Lancers sounding all hokey and Disney-like, all it does is bring it down a couple of more notches for me.
Blasé outdoor yarn set in 1875 is based loosely on real events, with peaceful villagers near Durango, Mexico pitted against the Comanches.
Linda Cristal plays the daughter of a Spanish aristocrat who's been kidnapped; frontier scout Dana Andrews (looking weary) is working with the Calvary to bring peace between the white man and the Indians until he and his partner are also captured.
There's an amusingly upbeat theme song by The Lancers ("A man is as good as his word/as good as his word is he/and if he is as good as his word/he's good enough for me"), and the outdoor cinematography is inspiring, but this plot is so old it creaks.
For acting less wooden, watch a cigar store indian!.
From the score to the hokey storyline to the AWFUL acting and portrayals of everyone in the film.
The only way my husband and I could watch this film was to give it the MST3000 treatment.
And we had lots of fun, but at the movie's expense.We laughed out loud at the ridiculous singing that underscores several points in the film.
We could not understand why the Indian chief spoke English with no accent, but couldn't seem to put his words in the right order.But our favorite part was waiting for the Scalper guy to repeat what someone had just said, but rephrase it as a question.
Filmed in Technicolor, this was NOT a B-grade movie.
Yet I have seen many B-grade westerns that are superior to this utterly pedestrian effort at film-making.
In fact, the color film is the only thing about this movie that is decent.
The Lancers' upbeat, ersatz-folk sound is hopelessly out of sync with the story, giving the film a kind of schizophrenic quality.
The songs, with a change of lyrics, would be better suited to a Frankie and Annette film of the same era - or an upbeat Disney movie.Then there's the acting - or better stated as a question - where's the acting?
In particular, I have never been able to understand how Dana Andrews ever had a career in film.
He is absolutely the most wooden actor ever seen in Hollywood.
His delivery is the same whether he is portraying a film noir tough guy or an Indian scout.
He must have had the dope on a lot of Hollywood big-wigs to have been cast in films - even as an extra!
The rest of the cast is apparently mimicking other actors - the Gabby Hayes wannabe, the Stewart Granger wannabe, the Dolores Del Rio wannabe.
They are all pretty much on autopilot - delivering caricatures rather than portraying characters.The question I have whenever I subject myself to an abomination such as this is: Who is most to blame - the actors or the director?
Did the director actually want these actors to act as they did, or was he simply incapable of getting anything else out of them?
Almost A Good Western That's Let Down By The White Man. This has all the hallmarks of being what later became known as a revisionary Western .
By this I mean Hollywood woke up to the fact that the indigenous Native Americans had a raw deal from history and Hollywood movies featuring whooping injuns portrayed as violent savages weren't helping matters much hence in the late 1960s and early 70s you'd get movies like SOLDIER BLUE and LITTLE BIG MAN and later still we had DANCES WITH WOLVES that showed the wild west through the eyes of the Indians .
This 1956 film called COMANCHE pre-dates these revisionary Westerns where the poor noble misunderstood savage is set upon by the white man Actually it doesn't because from the outset we're shown it's the Mexican/Hispanic community who are all to blame .
We're given a short history lesson that when Spain conquered Mexico the Spanish held the Comanches at gunpoint and made them work down the mines gathering silver .
After Mexico gained its independence the slaughter continued with Mexicans putting a bounty on Indian scalps 100 dollars for a warrior , 50 dollars for a squaw and 25 dollars for a child" Wow Theo that is so cruel and if anyone did that today they'd be getting arrested and tried for crimes against humanity at The Hague " Undoubtedly and rightly but you have to ask yourself a rhetorical question that would the native population of the United States be getting a better deal ?
No they wouldn't this film tends to ignore this and seems to portray the United States White Anglo-Saxon Protestant as being morally superior to that of their Hispanic neighbours who are portrayed as being as untrustworthy but are very good guitar players and it's left to an American WASP to save the day This cultural arrogance is not so much offensive but a great pity because COMANCHE did have some potential to be a good Western that would have appealed to people who don't like the Western genre .
Quannah Parker gives his word.
This B film attempts to do for the great Comanche warrior chief Quannah Parker what Broken Arrow did for Cochise.
Quannah deserves better than that.Scouts Dana Andrews and Nestor Paiva are trying to get Quannah Parker to sit down and negotiate a peace.
And he's in an impregnable redoubt.Andrews and Paiva are beset by troublemakers on both sides.
Scalphunter Stacy Harris wants to keep a lucrative business going and Henry Brandon as sub-chief Black Cloud is not counting the human cost in Comanche lives.
Andrews and Paiva have their work cut out for them.This was a bad year for Henry Brandon as a Comanche.
And ironically in Two Rode Together, he got to play Quannah Parker for John Ford.The movie also introduced Linda Cristal as a Comanche captive that Andrews takes a fancy to.
She also would play another Comanche captive in Two Rode Together.Quannah Parker's story deserved an epic western and while this film is an unpretentious and good B western, one would hope that a bigger film might tell Quannah's tale and make him the central character..
"Give the word now, the White Eyes must die.".
The film offers two unique features I haven't seen in a Western before.
For starters, it utilizes Americans as intermediaries between the warring Mexicans and Comanches, involved in a years long series of revenge massacres by both sides.
The other would have to be the finale where Chief Quanah Parker (Kent Smith) doesn't interfere in the battle between the Cavalry and Black Cloud's (Henry Brandon) renegade band of Comanches.
As an aside, I would also go so far as to suggest that I've never seen as many Indians in one place at one time on the movie screen.Dana Andrews portrays cavalry scout Jim Read, by now relegated to films of lesser quality than those in which he gained his stature as a genuine Hollywood star (1944's "Laura" and 1946's "The Best Years Of Our Lives").
Andrews appeared competent here, although the role didn't call for a lot more than your typical cavalry Western.
The story matched him up with partner Nestor Paiva as an old salt frontiersman named Puffer.
Apparently it was someone's idea to have Paiva resurrect the character of Gabby Hayes, but doing a Walter Brennan impersonation.
That kept me off balance for a while, but I did get a chuckle out of Mike Mazurki calling black jack on Puffer in one scene.The other casting decision of note was the American film debut of Linda Cristal, who I would not have recognized apart from her starring role in 'The High Chapparal'.
The pace of her relationship with Read seemed a bit forced, particularly given the circumstances of her capture by the Comanches.Catching the film the other day on Turner Classics, I was impressed by the color cinematography given the era.
Offered in wide screen letterbox format, the film makers took full advantage of the natural beauty in the Durango area of Old Mexico.
Where they could have improved though was the selection of a theme song; the bouncy beat of "A man is as good as his word" kept me making an unintentional comparison to the "Bonanza" TV series, quite expecting to see the Cartwrights round the corner at any moment.
"Comanche"Shares 30% of its DNA with "The Searchers"....................
Released 6 months before John Ford's magnum opus,"Comanche" also features the same actor as the renegade Indian - Mr H.Brandon - and several scenes that are strangely similar.Whether this was happenstance,coincidence or enemy action is a matter known only to God now presumably.
Standing on its own it is a passable post - bellum Western with a bored - looking Mr D.Andrews as a Scout (kissing - cousin of a Comanche chief who is trying to wind in the more independently minded young men of his tribe led by the aforesaid Mr Brandon)and make a treaty with the U.S.Government.
Made in the days when it never occurred to most people that the Indians had every right to defend their lands against the White Eyes,the film makes a creditable attempt to present Native Americans with some dignity and humanity rather than portray them merely as howling savages as had been Hollywood's wont for the previous 40 years.
Having said that,it is packed with clichéd characters and situations that director Mr G.Sherman lacks the will or the imagination to invest with a fresh eye.
Mr Andrews and his comic sidekick ("Puffer" by name,poltroon by nature) with the help of the Cavalry eventually win through against the renegades and a Pax Americana is imposed on the Indians who will meekly buckle under to the forces of democracy thus proving once again to 1950s movie audiences that Might is Right.
Mr M.Mazurki is particularly embarrassing as an Indian brave.
Not the greatest Western,but a nice enough effort.How anyone could say it's awful must be looking for FX.Dana Andrews not at his best,but makes an honest effort.Henry Brandon is as wooden here as Black Cloud as he was as one of Maximilian's soldiers/officers in Vera Cruz.Linda Cristal and Dana show their having gotten quite close during Mexican filming.Loved the wig.Didn't realize Lowell Gilmore,one of my favorites was in this as an agent for the U.S. Government.Kent Smith again co-stars with Dana Andrews,as Indian Chief trying to keep his nemesis Black Cloud from gumming up the peace with Washington,DC.Just thought it was a decent enough film..
classic "boston tea party" Cavalry versus Indians movie.
There's nothing like seeing close-ups of actors portraying Native Americas / American Indians, who have blue eyes.
The huge "buck" who throws a man off a cliff (when he's actually at the top of a sloping hill) is somewhat familiar Austro-Hungarian actor Mike Mazurki.
The movie is really lame, just another celebration of the story of European subjugation of a continent through complete lack of respect for other cultures.
Might be worth watching by film students who want to learn how NOT to make a movie.
If you don't grasp my meaning by my summary, maybe you would like this film.
Granted, the production values are high, but the overwhelming white-bias that the film typifies should not be lost on viewers.
Quanah Parker in a headdress with bison horns is typical Hollywood fluff.
The most ethnic of actors portraying characters of any significance in this film is Nestor Paiva, whose role include such distinguished native portrayals as a Po-Ho chief and a Native Guide, on the animated series, Jonny Quest.
Comanche is worth watching if you are bored and have nothing else to do, but don't pay money to rent it!
Frontier scout befriends the Red Man..
COMANCHE is filmed in Durango, Mexico for a sense of authenticity.
It is also one of the first Hollywood films to be sympathetic toward the Native American Indian.
A Comanche attack on a Mexican village nets the capture of several woman and children including the lovely Margarita(Linda Cristal).
Black Cloud(Henry Brandon)is a hotheaded brave that have no use for the white man, let alone Mexicans, whom he can also get the pleasure of scalping.
Jim Read(Dana Andrews)is a strong willed frontier scout, who hopes to shield his Native American friends from a bigoted genocidal Gen. Miles(John Litel).
It is Read and his friendship with Chief Quanah Parker(Kent Smith)that restores trust and peace between the Indians and the white man.
This is Cristal's movie debut.
Andrews, not out of the norm, is wooden.
Others in the cast: Nestor Paiva, Tony Carbajal, Lowell Gilmore and Iron Eyes Cody. |
tt0100130 | Megaville | National boundaries have been broken, two giant super-states remain—a bleak, decaying Hemisphere, and the sprawling media state Megaville. Travel between the states is restricted. The "CKS" governs daily life in the Hemisphere. All forms of media are illegal here.
Raymond Palinov, an unassuming captain of the media police finds himself drawn to a spaghetti western and cannot pull away from it during a media raid. Palinov is ostracized by his superior for the incident. After nearly losing his job, Palinov begins to exhibit strange character traits. During a rally in which outlawed media recordings are shown to the media police as examples of contraband, Palinov laughs out loud at a comedy clip. Palinov then appears to have a complete mental breakdown and loses consciousness. Whereas most agents would have been terminated following such an incident, Palinov is spared. Palinov is found to be exhibiting unusual brain activity and is sent for an examination. Palinov explains to Dr. Vogel that he has been having bizarre flashbacks and seeing memories in dreams which are not his own. Dr. Vogel tells Palinov he believes the strange behavior is due to years of exposure to media "filth" and initiates a procedure which will remove the unexplained brain activity and restore Palinov's personality in its entirety. The procedure doesn't work and Palinov's mental episodes become steadily worse.
Palinov is contacted by Mr. Duprell, the director of the CKS, with an infiltration assignment. The Hemisphere war against media is about to intensify with news of the introduction of "Dream-A-Life" (DAL) a hallucination-inducing consumer product. People in Megaville could start new lives in their own fantasy world of choice. The government of Megaville has deemed DAL legal and its use has become prevalent with the help of a mysterious figure in the Megaville underworld known as Mr. Newman. Duprell explains that Palinov bears a striking physical resemblance to Newman's only known contact in the Hemisphere, Mr. Jensen. Palinov's mission is to assume Jensen's life and infiltrate the criminal underworld of both the Hemisphere and Megaville, discover who Newman is working with, and who Newman's contacts are in the Hemisphere. In order to assist his infiltration, Palinov is implanted with some of Jensen's memories. As he slips into the role, he soon meets Jensen's almost lover, Christine, a former demolitions expert for the armed forces who went AWOL after being ordered to kill civilians. Christine demands that Jensen take her to Megaville. Christine and Palinov travel to Megaville and meet Newman, who refuses to reveal any information about his operation. Meanwhile, the president of Megaville, outspoken against DAL, is assassinated. Palinov suspects Newman is involved, but the only witness is the president's personal aide, who is now permanently trapped in a DAL induced hallucination.
When Palinov attempts to remove the headset, the aide is shot in broad daylight by Newman. Duprell contacts Palinov through his brain implant, informs him to close the deal with Newman or his mother will die; Duprell does not want to stop DAL, he wants in on the deal. Palinov refuses and Duprell attempts to kill him via the implant. Palinov's mother saves him by destroying Duprell's transmitting device, but is then murdered. However, before she dies she reveals the truth to Palinov; she is not his mother at all, he is actually Jensen the man he thinks he is impersonating, Palinov's mind is the fake. Palinov escapes with Christine, pursued by Megaville's underworld; all except Palinov are killed in a shoot-out. Duprell has been watching Palinovs mind, which Palinov finally realizes. He uses a DAL device to fake Duprell's activities on a Megaville national broadcast, which Duprell believes to be real. Palinov says all the evidence of the conspiracy is in a briefcase at Christine's apartment. Duprell opens it and detonates the bomb inside. Newman reveals to Palinov that he is Jensen's biological father and claims he wishes they had spent more time together before shooting Palinov. Newman then notices his leg is handcuffed to Palinov and he is now trapped in the desert. | sci-fi | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0164023 | Exiled | In 1998 Macau, former mobster Wo (Nick Cheung) lives quietly with his wife, Jin (Josie Ho), and his newborn child in a nondescript apartment, having turned over a new leaf. But vengeful mob boss Fay (Simon Yam)—whom Wo once tried to assassinate—has dispatched a pair of ageing hitmen to cut that peaceful existence short. Once arrived, killers Blaze (Anthony Wong) and Fat (Lam Suet) find a second pair of hitmen, Tai (Francis Ng) and Cat (Roy Cheung), who are determined to protect Wo. After a brief showdown, the whole group comes to an uneasy truce, lay their weapons down and bond over dinner— after all, these men grew up together in the same gang. Reunited and hungry for another score, they visit a fixer called Jeff (Cheung Siu-fai), who gives the gang the job of killing a rival boss, Boss Keung (Gordon Lam), as well as telling them about the location of a large quantity of gold being transported for a corrupt official. Wo makes the gang promise that if anything happens to him, his wife and son will be looked after.
Later that night the friends find Boss Keung in a restaurant; however Boss Fay wanting to take over the other boss's territory, interrupts the meeting. Boss Fay recognising Blaze sitting in the restaurant, openly chastises and humiliates him for not killing Wo, culminating in Fay shooting Blaze. However unbeknownst to Fay, Blaze is wearing a bulletproof vest and survives. Wo seeing this opens fire before Fay can finish Blaze off. A gunfight erupts in the restaurant with Fay being shot in the leg and Keung in the arm. The two bosses come to an agreement to share territory and profits, further agreeing to kill the gang of friends. Having narrowly escaped the restaurant shootout the friends decide to take a severely shot Wo to an underground clinic for medical assistance. After negotiating a price, the doctor operates removing the bullets from Wo. However, as he is sewing up Wo's wound, there is a loud banging at the door. Having heard this the remainder of the waiting friends hide in the doctor's flat. The door is answered and both Fay and Keung burst in seeking help for their injuries sustained in the restaurant shootout. Fay pushes a still unconscious Wo out of the way and orders the doctor to tend to his wound first. Meanwhile, Keung takes a look around the flat and comes across a hiding Fat. Realizing that they have been found the gang begin to dispatch the bosses' henchmen. Meanwhile, Wo wakes up and slowly gets to his feet to escape before collapsing. The rest of the friends not knowing where Wo has got to, make an exit down the back of the apartment. However whilst escaping across the back courtyard, Boss Fay throws Wo from a high window and pins down Wo's friends preventing any rescue attempt. The gang desperately try to retrieve their critically injured but still alive friend but Fay still shoots at them and even manages to shoot Wo. Quick thinking Fat seeing that his friend has come to rest on some tarpaulin pulls Wo to safety and the gang escape. Now in the car Wo knowing he is near death, asks to be taken back to his wife and son. Wo dies shortly after.
Handing Wo's body over to his wife, Jin, she demands to know what has happened and in her grief opens fire on Blaze and Tai who run away. Jin contemplates killing herself and her son but thinks better of it. She instead smashes up the furniture in the house and makes a funeral pyre for Wo. She then sets fire to Wo and the flat and leaves with her son. The reduced gang leave the city in search of the gold. After coming across the heavily guarded convoy carrying the gold, they flip a coin to decide whether to hijack it or not. The coin comes up tails meaning they will not proceed with the robbery. After carrying on down the road however the come across the convoy being ambushed by another gang. They witness all the police officers bar one crack-shot being killed. The friends decide to help the officer (Richie Jen) by dispatching the rest of the gang. The friends appreciating the policeman's sharp shooting decide to split the gold with him and drive off to a hidden dock to transport the gold to the mainland and a new life. Meanwhile, back in the city, Jin still furious about the death of her husband goes looking for the friends, asking many people until she is recognised by the fixer Jeff who in turn contacts his boss, Boss Fay.
Fay with a captured Jin calls a gloating Blaze, who is then informed of the situation. He is told to meet Fay at midnight otherwise Jin and her son will be killed. Determined to protect Jin after Wo's death, the friends agree and leave the officer at the dock with the gold telling him they will return by dawn. Once at the meeting place the four friends are confronted by Jin, whom Fay allows to shoot Blaze in revenge. However Blaze is again hit in the chest, surviving due to his bullet proof vest. Tai steps in, throwing a bag of gold at Fay's feet telling him that he can have it all if Fay lets them all go. Fay agrees, but tells them Blaze must stay to face the consequences of not following orders. Blaze agrees to this deal and the remainder of the friends leave with Jin. However, as they leave, Tai informs Jin of the boat and the policeman and tells her to drive there. With Jin safe the greatly outnumbered friends open fire. In the resulting gunfight all are killed including Boss Fay and Boss Keung. As the friends lie dying they all smile knowing they have kept their promise to Wo. | murder | train | wikipedia | I'm not sure how captivating this movie would be for those who didn't love Mike Logan from the first 5 years of "Law & Order".
I *think* Chris Noth did a brilliant job conveying Mike's sense of loss, despair, and alienation, but then again, I've missed him sorely from the series.
And the contrast between the suburban streets of Staten Island and the city (especially for those who remember the episode "God Bless the Child" and Mike's comments about small-town policing) were well done.
In fact, the movie was filled with resonating triplets: Staten Island-the ferry-Manhattan; Cragen-Stopher-Van Buren (Mike's bosses); his three partners (past and present); the three women (the wife, the victim, the sister)...
All right, all right, I was ecstatic as the next L&O junkie when I heard that Chris Noth would reprise his role as Mike Logan.
That might have worked with brand new characters, but we've all watched Mike Logan, Lennie Briscoe, Anita Van Buren, and Jack McCoy for years.
I've been a Chris Noth Fan for a long time, and was very upset when he left LAW & ORDER.
What a treat that Mr. Noth and co-writer Charles Kipps finally told us what happened to Logan after he was banished to Staten Island.
I'm reminded of the phrase "Be Careful What You Wish For...You May Get It." Logan got what he wished for: He returned to the 2-7, and the Homicide work that he loved, only to find out that you can't go back again.I'd enjoy seeing a sequel, to find out how the character resolves this.Good Work, Chris Noth!.
My name is Mike Logan, I am the best part of Law&Order...I completely dominated this wonderful two hour special of Law&Order entitled "EXILED" I was incredible in my acting performance and I look FANTASTIC!!...Many people want me back on Law&Order..
When you are 6'4" and you are loved by women and admired and respected by men due to your great looks and wonderful personality, you are cast as the highlight in a Law&Order television special....Exiled was my show...nobody else seemed to spark the television audience nearly as much..."Exiled" was great, because I was great!!!...Of course, Chris Noth is way too modest to say all of these things...but he should...So I will say it for him...I loved Chris Noth in Law&Order "Exiled" just as I thought that he was without question and effortlessly the best part of Law&Order as well!!!.
It's possible that when Chris Noth did Exiled he might have had some hopes of making Mike Logan the lead character of another police detective series maybe based in Staten Island.
Of course his motivation for making a thorough going investigation of a prostitute murder which I can tell you most cops anywhere let alone New York City wouldn't have given five seconds of attention to that kind of homicide, was to get back to New York.
Noth is doing his commuter thing on his way to work in Staten Island when he notices a female body wash up where the ferry is docking.
By coincidence the story takes us to his old precinct which brings in all the familiar Law And Order regulars.
And as it turns out Eskelson happens to know the family, she and Mandylor grew up together.It could have been a pilot for another Law And Order spin off, but things didn't work out that way for Chris Noth.
Noth is now retired from the NYPD, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Logan surfaces as a private eye in another film or TV series.
Noth goes back to him like Yul Brynner went back to The King And I.If you can buy all the coincidences Exiled is not a bad film and it sure has a built in audience with all the Law And Order fans..
I am glad Chris Noth is back on "Law & Order" (Criminal Intent)...
Chris Noth was in virtually every scene in this special presentation, I think it is because the television audience really likes the character Mike Logan on "Law & Order"!!!
Chris Noth does an excellent job as a straight forward detective who has the challenge of bringing down crime in his blood stream!!
Mike Logan is tough and likable, and this special made for T.V. movie was identifiable with all who remember him on the early days of "Law & Order" ...
I give this movie a thumbs up, and I think that "Law & Order" has never been quite the same without Chris Noth!!
I recommend to everyone who likes "Law & Order" that they see "Exiled" ..
Chris Noth is great in "Exiled" and cameo appearances by many of the "Law& Order" cast contribute to this movie as well!!
Law & Order fans will appreciate the return of Chris Noth to the setting, and also the slightly longer look at New York City, which obviously cannot be caught in the pacing of a regular episode.
The film does seem to attempt to crowd in a few too many Law & Order characters from the period and the years previous to it, and sometimes the pacing is a little slow.
Dana Eskelson is adorable as a Logan's partner, a detective who grew up around the Uzielli crime family, and takes this and her status as a woman on the force to mean she has something to prove.
All in all, this movie is not a waste of your time, if you are a Law & Order junkie like the rest of us..
The dialog was flat, several scenes were repetitive and didn't further the plot in any way, and the cinematography was not at all like any of the other Law & Order shows.
I thoroughly enjoyed "Exiled--A Law & Order Movie" (NBC, 11/08/98).
Detective Mike Logan was one of the main reasons Law & Order had 5 golden years in its early history.
Actor Chris Noth portrayed Logan from 1990-95 as a complex character with a number of admirable qualities mixed with a few interesting flaws.
Whether he will return to Manhattan remains to be seen.Actor Chris Noth has been interviewed by many publications since his contract was not renewed in 1995 by the show's producer, Dick Wolf.
Interviews published in 1998 have revealed his reasons for filming "Exiled," and his hopes for a few more films about Det. Mike Logan since a large number of fans continue to be vocal about his untimely departure from the weekly drama on NBC.Remembering Mr. Noth's goals for the film helped me understand and appreciate it even more.
I watched it to see Det. Logan's character developed the way Chris Noth felt it should.
Credit for the consistent popularity of Detective Mike Logan belongs to Chris Noth.I'll watch Chris Noth's version of what a skilled homicide detective is like over Dick Wolf's any day..
"Exiled" has its high points, but unless you're an enormous fan of Mike Logan (and I know lots of people that are) this one isn't going to tempt your taste buds much.
It follows his "exile" from Manhattan to the outer district, and his attempt through a homicide case to get back into the big leagues, with run-ins with former associates along the way.Having seen many, many L&O episodes, enough to know the characters pretty well, I felt a lot of them were spot on.
A few years after Chris Noth left the cast of Law & Order on television, he and Charles Kipps came up with the idea of a television special to reunite him with his audience.
Chris is in a precinct in Staten Island, under the jurisdiction of Dabney Coleman, and with Dana Eskelson as a partner.
He desperately wants to get back to his old territory, so he fudges the details of a homicide so he can crack the case and earn a transfer.The opening credits will reassure you that all the Law & Order cast members you know and love join Chris Noth in the movie, but in reality, they have glorified cameos.
But it's still fun to see them—it wouldn't be Exiled: A Law and Order Movie without them!
I think the series is generally as good as ever overall (some ups and downs), but I agree with several other reviewers here that the classic years were those with Chris Noth and Jill Hennessy.I have to say, having skipped it when it premiered, I really enjoyed the film.
I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to see the familiar settings with a new pair of eyes (Noth's), to the point that I could forgive it some character inconsistencies (e.g., I had a hard time recognizing Lenny Briscoe).
It also explained for me where Profaci went (other than over to the Sopranos).Some remarks on comments by other viewers:1) The latina maidThe numerous cast changes this series has undergone has given ample opportunity to show that cops don't like having to work with new partners.
From early on in the movie, it's made clear that the reason Logan is working petty crimes is that in his banishment, HE WAS NOT ASSIGNED TO HOMICIDE.
'Kay?If you are a huge Law & Order fan, I recommend catching this film when it comes around again.
As a rabid "Law and Order" fan, I knew the backstory of Mike Logan and his exile after smacking a N.Y. Councilman on the steps of the Hall of Justice.
I enjoyed the nuanced performance by Chris Noth, the twists of the plot, the humorous one-liners, the trance-y music by Mike Post, the balance between action and intimacy.
it reminded me of how good a character profaci was and what a shame it was to see him so dissed by the egomaniac NOTH...when i watch things ,i root for the underdogs like profaci.
If you love the characters from law and order then you will love this movie.
I love Chris Noth and thought his character was fantastic.
So with out ruining the movie for you if you like Law and Order please watch this movie.
loved law and order Exiled but thought Chris Noth should go to SVU.
But, I also felt that bringing his old captain to debut a new show called Law and Order SVU was shabby.
they should have let a great actor like Chris Noth star in Law and Order SVU.
in fact I would like to see him back on Law and Order I don't really like the new actor who replaced the the character Lenny Briscoe.
If Law and Order can put aside it's feelings about Chris Noth I believe he was and could still be a great asset to the show.
let's bring back Law and order the way it use to be.
Let Chris Noth be the best actor he can be.
I enjoyed the Movie and was glad to see Chris Noth as Mike Logan again!
Hope to see more of Chris Noth in tv movies.
One of the things I enjoyed about this movie is that we finally got to see Mike Logan involved with a woman.
Also he should have written it in the script to have Detective Curtis respond with him in order to properly interview the Spanish speaking maid in the hotel when he was inquiring about the old mattress which was removed due to all the victim's blood on it.
In the first place the movie makes it seem that there are no homicide or other serious crime committed in Staten Island,and so Detective Logan is bored and homesick for Manhattan.
In the second place when he goes back to his old command investigating the murder that was committed in the precinct's vicinity,they leave behind the only so called Spanish speaking detective that had taken Logan's place when he was so called, "Exiled" to Staten Island, and go to the crime scene, [the rundown hotel],to investigate.
Now we get to a crucial scene where Detective Logan asks the maid, "This is a new mattress.
You mean to tell me that Chris Noth, working all those years in the area of New York City, could not tell the Producer Dick Wolf, that in this scene he wanted a Spanish speaking officer, in order to make the movie more realistic.
If Chris Noth is to continue to write for the movie industry, I suggest he take a little initiative in trying to give credit, where credit is deserved..
It was great to see Chris Noth back in the role of Detective Mike Logan.
If they'd ditch the "Rey Curtis" character and bring Logan back to "Law and Order" full time, I'd be happy to go back to watching it again!.
***SPOILERS*** Having been exiled to far off and low crime Staten Island for slugging, in front of TV cameras no less, a New York City councilman Det. Mike Logan, Chris Noth, has been dying to get back where the action is.
Logan want's to be transferred back to his old precinct the 27th, the Two Seven in police lingo, in midtown and high crime ridden Manhattan.Finagling a murder victim found floating in New York Bay Logan makes it look like the victim was dropped, or deep sixth, off Statan Island to get on the case.
Back in the good old Two Seven, on a temporary basis, Logan soon finds out that the murder victim was an exotic dancer and part-time hooker named Suzan Taylor, Nicole Ari Parker.
A cop who that in fact was Det. Logan's partner before he was sent into exile to Statan Island!Made for TV movie version of the top TV crime series "Law and Order" with it's top stars, besides Chris Noth, Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston, as Det. Lennie Brisco and D.A Jack McCoy, making cameo appearances in the film.
"Exiled" could be thought of as a vanity project for Chris Noth, who co-wrote the story and was present as Detective Mike Logan in almost every scene.
The story has a 'spur-of-the-moment' feel (the detectives fail to wear gloves when examining a bloody crime scene) which at times makes the film look like an old episode of "Hunter" or "T.J. Hooker".
Noth is wooden in some scenes, good in others (especially when his Mike Logan is with old colleagues).
Noth the actor/storyteller, like Logan the cop, wasn't perfect, but ended up getting jobs done.Tony.
I'm a fan of Law & Order (the original series anyway).
I too liked Chris Noth's character a lot, so I was happy to see this.Unfortunately it was a hackneyed script with uninspired trite dialogue.
He is and always will be the best junior detective to grace the original Law & Order series.
The movie drove a stake into the hearts of those fans who wanted Mikey back, and was both cavalier and even cruel in its treatment of longtime characters.A junkie-prostitute was murdered and her body mutilated to prevent identification by the police.
Logan used this homicide as a launching point to move back up the ranks after his demotion and exile (hence the clever title) to Staten Island following his punching out of an obnoxious city politician.
As for McCoy, he didn't much like Logan but he worked with him the same as with any cop from the Manhattan area, but Mikey wasn't from there anymore and Jack owed him nothing.
(We all know that wanting those pesky kids leads to all manner of evils!) Poor Profaci had always been one of the most down-to-earth and professional cops from the original show, and to see him treated thus was heartbreaking.At the end of it all, Logan was left with nothing: no promotion, no girl, no friends except maybe for his current partner.
It was an empty finish to a pointless movie that seemed only to serve as a finale---not a grand one, either---of Noth's L & O character.
Exiled seemed like Noth's way of saying, "I am NOT Mike Logan anymore!", much in the same way Leonard Nimoy used to vehemently deny he was Mr. Spock after Star Trek was cancelled.
Welcome to New York, or in fact to Staten Island where Mike Logan has been reassigned, in fact exiled.
Mike Logan, following the body of the girl from Staten Island to Manhattan easily finds out there is a rotten cop somewhere and he has the great privilege of finding who, and that who is a colleague he worked with three years earlier when he was still working in Manhattan.
Nope, the magic's gone.A sluggish attempt to cash in on Chris Noth's persona from the excellent TV series "Law&Order." What the series had going for it was a fine ensemble cast, concision, interesting plots, and that immortal sound -- Plonk Plonk.The producers have done everything they could, I suppose, to reestablish Noth after his character (and the actor himself) had been booted off suddenly from the original.
His Detective Mike Logan was reliable and believable.But this ragout of incidents and plot elements drag in characters from the original series willy nilly, just to let the viewer know that Noth is in good company, and then dispenses with them.
It's a pretty cheap device and, although I don't blame the writers for trying, it doesn't work.Noth and his new unexceptional blond partner from Staten Island do everything they can to lay claim to homicides that properly belong to Noth's old precinct.
A decent "Law & Order" episode made into movie..
"Exiled" (1998) feels like a decent episode that has been made into a movie.
It follows the annals of Chris Noth (as Detective Mike Logan) who left the show in 1995.
SPOILERS Not bad for a "Law & Order" movie..
I quit watching "Law & Order" for awhile after they fired Noth, but this movie did not live up to my expectations.
The character of Mike Logan may have been wild, but he was always by the book.
Letting Miss Taylor get away with the murder of her sister was far too unbelievable, almost as unbelievable as Logan falling in love with her.While it was great to see Chris Noth back in the role he perfected from 1990 to 1995, this storyline really could have been better written. |
tt0084934 | Yol | Yol tells the story of several prisoners on furlough in Turkey. Seyit Ali (Tarık Akan) travels to his house and finds that his wife (Şerif Sezer) has betrayed him and works as a prostitute. She was caught by her family and held captive for Seyit Ali to end her life in an honor killing. Though apparently determined at first, he changes his mind when his wife starts to freeze while travelling in the snow. Despite his efforts to keep her alive, he eventually fails. His wife's death relieves Seyit Ali from family pressure and he is saved from justice since she freezes but he has an internal struggle and must return to jail.
Mehmet Salih (Halil Ergün) has been arrested for his role in a heist with his brother-in-law, whom he abandoned as he was being shot by police. His in-laws want nothing to do with him, and he is finally forced to tell his wife Emine (Meral Orhonsay) the truth. Emine and Mehmet Salih decide to run away and get on a train. On the train, they get caught in the toilet while having long-awaited sex with each other. They are saved from an angry mob by the train's officers and held in a cabin before being handed over to officials. There, a young boy from Emine's family who boarded the train shoots both Mehmet Salih and Emine.
Ömer (Necmettin Çobanoğlu) returns to his village. Being a border village, it has a struggle with the army due to smuggling. Ömer visits and arranges to cross the border to escape prison. Though Ömer is clearly determined, he gives up after his brother is shot dead while smuggling. Through his brother's death, Ömer has inherited the responsibilities of his brother's wife and children as dictated by tradition.
Each prisoner in the film suffers from a conflict that threatens his freedom, with tradition also imprisoning him. | violence, romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0228488 | Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) | At a Los Angeles party, Harry Lockhart recounts recent events. Fleeing a botched burglary, Harry's friend is shot, forcing Harry to evade police by ducking into an audition. Harry unintentionally impresses the producers with an outburst of remorse they mistake for method acting. At a Hollywood party before a screen test, Harry meets private investigator Perry van Shrike, hired to give Harry on-the-job experience for his role, and party host Harlan Dexter, a retired actor who recently resolved a ten-year feud over his wife's inheritance with his daughter, Veronica. He also encounters his childhood crush Harmony Lane but wakes up in bed with her hostile friend. He runs over to Harmony's place at 6 a.m. to apologize.
Perry and Harry witness a vehicle being dumped in a lake and are spotted by the apparent killers. Perry shoots the trunk lock in a rescue attempt but accidentally hits the female corpse inside as well. They cannot report the body because it appears Perry killed her.
Harmony contacts Harry, explaining that her sister Jenna came to Los Angeles, stole Harmony's credit cards, and later killed herself. Believing Harry is a detective, Harmony asks him to investigate Jenna's death as a murder. After she leaves, Harry discovers the lake corpse in his bathroom and a planted pistol. Harry and Perry dump the corpse, later identified as Veronica Dexter by police. Harry discovers it was Harmony's credit card that was used to hire Perry to come to the lake, tying Jenna to their case. He goes to see Harmony, who (accidentally) slams the door on his finger, cutting it off, and she takes him to the hospital.
They go to a party, but Harry is abducted, beaten, threatened, and ordered to cease the investigation by the killers from the lake and then let go. While taking Harry back to the hospital, Harmony sees the killers heading to Perry's stakeout. Realizing that Perry is heading into a trap, she leaves Harry in her car and rushes off to the stakeout, where she saves Perry, and one of the killers gets shot to death by a food-cart operator. A pink-haired girl, affiliated with the killers, steals Harmony's car and unwittingly drives an unconscious Harry to her safe house. The remaining lake killer arrives and shoots her; Harry recovers the pistol and shoots the killer. His finger has fallen off again, so he puts it on ice, but a dog jumps up and eats it. Harmony meets Harry at his hotel where she reveals she had told Jenna that Harlan Dexter was her real father. They quarrel in bed, when Harmony reveals she had previously slept with Harry's best friend, and he throws her out, being careful not to slam her fingers in the door.
After Harmony disappears following a lead, Harry and Perry investigate a private health clinic owned by Harlan Dexter. Perry realizes Veronica Dexter was incarcerated there by Harlan so an impostor could drop her court case. The pair capture a guard to question him but accidentally kill him and then are captured by Dexter. He reveals he now plans to cremate his daughter's corpse to remove any remaining evidence. Harry calls Harmony, who had not actually disappeared but had simply gone to work. Harmony steals the van containing the coffin. Harry and Perry escape, but Harmony crashes the van. Perry is incapacitated in the ensuing shootout; Harry manages to kill Dexter and his thugs but is also shot.
Waking in a hospital, Harry finds that Perry and Harmony are fine. Perry reveals Harmony's sister was not murdered but committed suicide. Jenna had escaped her sexually abusive father in Indiana and located Dexter, believing him to be her real father. She accidentally witnessed Dexter having sex with Veronica's impostor, the pink-haired girl. Believing this father was also incestuous, Jenna commissioned Perry and committed suicide.
Perry travels back to Harmony's hometown and confronts Jenna's father, who is now bed-ridden, slapping him multiple times and calling him an animal. When the old man berates Perry for attacking a helpless old man, Perry says simply, "Yeah. Big tough guy," and leaves.
Having lost the movie role to Colin Farrell, Harry gets a job working for Perry. | murder | train | wikipedia | Came to me as a positive surprise.
I was supposed to see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) but instead I saw this one - and I don't feel disappointed at all.
I'm surprised and delighted.I really liked this movie, because it made me feel not only joy but pity and sympathy as well.
It never was clear what would happen next though everything that happened then was somehow self-evident afterwards.The main actor Stellan Skarsgård deserves extra mention.
He was very credible in his role and his minimalistic expressions created the basis of this hilarious comedy.I have to give 10 out of 10 because this one needs more recognition than it gets.
Don't get me wrong, it's close to what I would have given anyways..
not your average hit-man.
Felix is a hit-man who wants out of the business.
He takes up a job to look after an reclusive man; he been in a room for 33 years.
Bubba is like a giant kid, he doesn't understand people and doesn't know much, never seeing the outside world before.
But Felix has bigger problems.
He wants to patch up his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, and he's being targeted by his old colleagues; their not letting him get away so easily.Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) is a good little dramatic comedy.
The friendship between Felix and Bubba is very amusing and heart felt.
What would have made this better if it had the hard hitting edge and malice dialog of great movies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Sexy Beast.
Instead of standing by itself, it takes it points from them and doesn't really crack any new ground.
Though this does have some great laughs to bring; it shows the best way to sure smoking that is just hysterical.
The acting was solid enough to keep you interested; it was interesting seeing Chris Penn play a different character than playing a 'tough guy' like he usually plays.This isn't anything new, but its still good entertainment..
Weird Dramatic Black Comedy.
In England, Felix (Stellan Skarsgard) is a hit-man who wants to retire after collecting the last words of his victims along many years of "hard work".
He has just finished the training of Jimmy (Paul Bettany), but the weird leader of his crime organization does not want Felix to leave the "club" and orders the other killers to eliminate him.
Meanwhile, Felix needs some cash and accepts a job of "babysitter" of Bubba (Chris Penn), a grown-up man raised like a child, who lives locked in a room, protected from the outside world by his father.
Bubba moves to Felix's place and meets Sherry (Jacqueline Mckenzie), the girlfriend of Felix, and then he is introduced to the real world, drinking straight whiskey, meeting women and going to night-clubs.
Meanwhile, the gang of assassins is trying to kill Felix.
"Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang)" is a weird dramatic black comedy, using elements the "Rain Man" and some Quentin Tarantino movies, with bizarre characters.
The whole cast has a great performance, I like black humor, but I did not like this story.
My vote is five.Title (Brazil): "Um Beijo...
Um Tiro." ("A Kiss...
A Shot.").
Lock Stock meets Kindergarten Cop. By turns funny, poignant, violent and energetic, this film has many faces.
In the same vein as Lock Stock, but not your usual London underworld flick the film includes gritty reality and, bordering on far fetched, sentimentality.
Could become a cult classic..
Worst film I've seen since Haunted Honeymoon (1986).
...and I've watched some tripe.
What on earth was this film trying to communicate?
Who on earth was it aimed at?
Worse casting and a more schizophrenic and moronic concept you would struggle to find.
A sorry entry in (the late) Chris Penn's otherwise generally reasonable filmography.
His performance was terrible but did not stand out as markedly different from anyone else's!
This partly due to the characters being poorly defined or very poorly clichéd (that is to say clichéd poorly).
There aren't many films I would like to be able to charge the studio for wasting the time I spent watching them...this sadly is one!It's just awful!
This film is so hazardous, that if you get any in your eyes you should rinse them immediately with cold water and consult you physician.---- ---- ---- ---- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Mnw. I loved this movie!
Good for laughter...and a few tears..
Stellan Skarsgård plays Felix, a hitman who wants to retire, but the organization for which he works wants him to undergo a different kind of retirement.
One day he walks away and being strapped for cash, he has to take a job "babysitting" a grown man who has been sheltered from the world.Chris Penn shows his talent for comedy (again) by playing Bubba, a childlike fellow who becomes attached to Felix because Felix "tells him things" and takes him out for a view of the "real world." Penn makes the character likeable...no small task because Bubba could have easily become an annoying cartoon.Lots of hilarious stuff, like the scene where Bubba gets ahold of the francs given to Skarsgard by his father and does something very unexpected.
I laughed out loud a lot, said "awwwww" a lot and enjoyed myself thoroughly.Great flick..
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Good movie for those who understands it, worse for those who doesn't.
The storyline is heavy with a lot between the lines.
The movie isn't really that long, but the action scenes are really good and realistic.
There's also some amazing contrasts in this movie!
A totally serious ex-hit-man baby sitting a 30 year old man.
The scenery between grey and cold big town streets to happy and colorful outskirts.
The humour in this movie is great too.
The man the ex-hit-man is baby sitting has some very good comments and acts.
The cast they choose for this movie is kinda strange too.
The main character is played by a swede, same with one of the other character.
The "baby" is played by the American actor Chris Penn.
There's also an Australian actor among the main cast.
To me this is the most original, hell, maybe even the best, British movie I've ever seen.
And the type of concept it is built on is very rare and funny!.
Actionmovie that turns too childish.
Recap: Felix is an old hand at the assassination game.
But now he has lost the taste for it and wants out before he ends up dead.
He has trained Jimmy, who he regards as his replacement, and declares his intentions.
But he is in short supply of cash and needs a job.
An art and antiquities dealer offers him a lot of it if he looks after his son.
But the son turns out to be an extremely over protected 33 year old man who never has left the house.
Felix can't stand it and takes him home where he gets a crash course in real life.
For at the same time Felix's old agent is out to kill him as he can't accept Felix's decision to leave.Comments: A movie with friends Stellan Skarsgård and Paul Bettany naturally comes with high expectations, as both are skilled actors.
However, it fail to meet those expectations on almost every point.
Bettany soon gets sidetracked to a small side plot and the main story between Felix and the old boy Bubba, played by Chris Penn, quickly turn ridiculous.
And not funny ridiculous but predictable and cliché filled uninteresting ridiculous.
Naturally Felix seem not to be able to stand Bubba's naive and childish ways but of course they soon form a bond that will teach them both a lesson about life and mature.
This is evident from the moment they meet and from that point the movie became dull and uninteresting.
I've seen it before and it wasn't any better then either.It does end a little peculiar though.
I'm not sure I like it or not, but it sure is different compared to the rest of the movie.
Because suddenly it turns back to the assassin action movie that it briefly started out as, before it changed to a drama.
What it did was to leave me with a different taste and some different thoughts about it.
And if it is the last impressions that last it possibly can redeem a little of the movie.
Unfortunately it is far too little far too late.3/10.
not worth a rental.
For me the movie wasn't funny,I got bored half way through,the acting was average some bits were just strange,the only entertaining bit was the man that behaved like a child,he was convincing enough.Most of it was rather sad & the ending not realistic & believable,I was quite disappointed I was told this movie was good,maybe I rented the wrong one & should have got the 2005 version.I didn't quite understand the whole club thing it was rather strange,it also seems unlikely that the overgrown kid would manage to get a girl friend and know how to defend himself when he has been isolated from the outside world all of his life,also the main character who was followed by about 10 people would have gotten shot much earlier,1 person alone cannot keep track of 9 others when they all have guns,yeah so if you want to watch it don't have any high expectations...the storyline is odd & only 1 character is interesting. |
tt0278435 | Enough | The film begins in a Los Angeles diner where a waitress named Slim (Jennifer Lopez) works with her best friend, Ginny (Juliette Lewis). She receives unwelcome romantic advances from Robbie, a customer who teases her about her name. Another man in the diner, Mitch Hiller (Billy Campbell), reveals that the customer had made a bet that he would be able to convince Slim to sleep with him. Soon after, Slim falls in love with and marries Mitch, and they have a child named Gracie (Tessa Allen). Years later, Slim finds out Mitch has been cheating on her with a French woman named Darcelle. She confronts him and he admits it, but also insisting Darcelle means nothing to him. Slim becomes angry and threatens to leave, which enrages Mitch, who becomes violent, slapping and punching her in the face. He gives her a warning, saying that he makes the money and gets to do whatever he likes, implying he wants an open marriage. Mitch refuses to stop his affair unless she wants to fight him. The next day, Slim confides in Mitch's mother (Janet Carroll); she asks Slim what she did to make Mitch angry, implying he has a history of physical abuse. Ginny advises Slim to leave and imprison Mitch, but Slim does not want to hurt Gracie. She then goes to pick up Gracie from school, only to discover Mitch had already picked her up. Panicked that Mitch might have left town with her, she calls Mitch, who tells her that he took Gracie to the zoo.
During dinner that night, Mitch further insults Slim for confiding in his mother, while staying civil in front of Gracie. Having had enough, Slim plans her escape with her friend's help. However, while escaping late at night, Mitch foils her plan by breaking out of a closet he is hiding in and grabbing her by the hair. He throws her to the ground and begins kicking her in the chest, while Gracie is asleep on the sofa. Slim's friends, waiting outside the house, hear the struggle and break in. Then Mitch threatens them with a gun, before Phil (Christopher Maher) picks up Gracie to use as a witness while exhorting her to look at her father. Unable to shoot the man with Gracie watching him, Mitch lets Slim escape. Slim retreats to a cheap motel, having had her credit cards frozen by Mitch. However, they are only there for a short time before Mitch tracks them down. Slim then goes on the run to Seattle where she briefly stays with her old boyfriend Joe (Dan Futterman). Some of Mitch's friends, disguised as FBI agents, show up at Joe's house claiming to investigate a "kidnapping." She leaves Joe behind and, in need of money, goes to her father (Fred Ward), named Jupiter, who is a wealthy philanderer and does not know about Slim's existence. When Slim informs him she is his daughter, he doesn't believe them and gives them only $12, thinking they are homeless and just want money. Slim leaves, disheartened with Jupiter, and moves with Gracie to Michigan. However, after Jupiter is threatened by Mitch's men, he is piqued by the situation and decides to help. He sends them enough money for a house.
Slim buys a house and changes her name to Erin Ann Shleeter. Although their future looks bright after a visit from Joe, Mitch's friend tracks them down, passing the information on to Mitch. Mitch comes to the area, and hides in Slim's house. As she is going about her morning routine, to her horror, Mitch suddenly appears from the shadows in her hallway, saying he wants Slim back, promising "it will be different." When she refuses, he attacks, waking Gracie, who runs to help her mother, and jerks on his hair. Mitch flings Gracie to the floor, which creates a diversion, and allows an opportunity for Slim to retaliate with pepper spray. Snatching up Gracie, as Mitch rolls on the floor in pain, she is prepared for a fast get-away, having an escape plan. A car chase ensues between Slim and Robbie (Noah Wyle, revealed earlier as Mitch's "wing man" during the encounter at the diner years before) while Gracie screams in the background. Realizing she cannot live her life in fear, Slim goes into hiding in San Francisco, hires a woman who looks like her to keep her cover, and sends Gracie away to Hawaii with her best friend Ginny to get her out of harm's way. She prepares herself with a self-defense trainer (Bruce A. Young) who teaches her Krav Maga, since self-defense is not murder. During her training, he gives Slim the final lesson - if Mitch knocks her down, she is to hold on to his voice and awaken when he is about to attack or kick her. She returns to Los Angeles, breaks into Mitch's new home and waits for him there to return home from work, after hiding his guns and blocking the phone connections, so he cannot call the police. When he arrives, Slim makes her presence known once he realizes someone's there. She approaches him to begin fighting, but when he says he cannot hit her, she asks him why he could do it before when she was defenseless. She provokes him, and in the ensuing fight, Slim uses her new skills, beating Mitch until he becomes unconscious. After an opportunity to kill him with an object, she cannot bear to do it and throws the object away. She calls Ginny saying she cannot kill him, and while on the phone Mitch hits her from behind with a lamp. Slim puts into practice what she learned in her training and trips, beats and kicks him in the chest and sends him off a balcony to his death. She calls the police, who rule her actions as self-defense.
With Mitch no longer a threat, Slim and Gracie go on to live a happy life in Seattle with Joe. | revenge, suspenseful, murder, violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0080849 | Haywire | Former Marine Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) goes to a diner in Upstate New York to meet Aaron (Channing Tatum). He tells her to get in his car, but she refuses and they fight. He pulls out a gun, but she disarms and pistol-whips him. Scott (Michael Angarano), a customer in the diner, intervenes and Mallory demands his car keys and that he get in the car. As they flee, she explains who she is and what has happened to her. The flashback sequences are intermixed with scenes of their flight.
Mallory tells Scott that she and Aaron work for a company that handles "operations". One week before, the firm's director (and Mallory's ex-boyfriend) Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) had attended a meeting in Washington, D.C. arranged by government agent Coblenz (Michael Douglas). Kenneth's firm was hired to rescue Jiang (Anthony Brandon Wong), who was allegedly being held hostage in an apartment in Barcelona. Also present at the meeting was Coblenz's Spanish contact, Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas).
Mallory and her team, which includes Aaron, travel to Barcelona and, despite difficulties, succeed in rescuing Jiang and delivering him to Rodrigo.
Back in the United States, Mallory is approached by Kenneth, who insists she undertake what he describes as an easy assignment: to pose as the wife of British MI6 agent Paul (Michael Fassbender) during a mission in Dublin. Mallory agrees and accompanies Paul to a party at Russborough House, where they meet with his contact, Studer (Mathieu Kassovitz). Paul meets with Studer again as Mallory watches from afar. She sees Paul go into a barn and after he leaves, she enters it to find Jiang dead, clutching in his hand a brooch which Kenneth had insisted she wear as a recognition signal for her initial contact with Paul. Mallory realizes she has been set up.
On returning to their room at the Shelbourne Hotel, Paul attacks Mallory and they have a brutal fight; Mallory gets the upper hand and suffocates him near to death with a choke hold, then shoots him point blank in the face. She finds a missed call on Paul's phone and returns it. Kenneth answers and asks if Mallory has been taken care of, before realising who is on the other end. As Mallory leaves the hotel, she evades Kenneth's agents, who are tailing her. Heavily armed members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) appear and try to arrest her. She escapes after a chase and sneaks onto a ferry to England.
Mallory calls Rodrigo and asks him whether it was he or Kenneth who set her up. Rodrigo calls Coblenz, who then calls Mallory. Coblenz tells Mallory that he has had suspicions about Kenneth for some time. Coblenz then contacts Kenneth and tells him to inform Mallory's father, John Kane (Bill Paxton), of her purported crimes.
Meanwhile, Mallory enters the United States and reaches the diner, expecting to meet Kenneth. Now on the road, Scott and Mallory are captured by the police. Both are taken into custody but the police are ambushed by Kenneth's men. Mallory manages to kill one of them and flees with Scott in one of the police cars. She releases Scott and leaves to meet with her father.
Mallory reaches her father's house in New Mexico before Kenneth, Aaron and two other men arrive to interrogate John about his daughter's whereabouts. Aaron receives a photograph on his phone of Jiang lying dead, and it dawns on him that Mallory might have been set up. He tries to press Kenneth for the truth, but Kenneth shoots him and escapes, as Mallory takes out Kenneth's other men. Aaron apologizes to Mallory as he dies in her arms.
The following day, Mallory meets with Coblenz, who reveals that he told Kenneth to contact Mallory's father, expecting that Kenneth would go to her father's house and that she would kill him there. Coblenz also gives her Kenneth's present location. Before they part, he offers her a government job, but she says she will respond after she has found Kenneth.
In Mexico, Mallory confronts Kenneth on a beach and they fight. Kenneth's foot becomes jammed between rocks. Unable to escape, he reveals that Jiang was a journalist who was being protected in a safe house after having exposed Studer's crimes. Knowing that Mallory planned to leave his firm, Kenneth arranged for her to kidnap Jiang and deliver him to Rodrigo, who delivered him to Studer, who killed him. Kenneth then framed Mallory, planning to cut all ties that could lead to him, and convinced Paul that Mallory was a double agent whom he should kill. Mallory leaves Kenneth to drown in the incoming tide.
A few days later, Mallory locates Rodrigo, who is on vacation in Majorca. The film ends as she confronts him, presumably intending to eliminate him as the last remaining link in the conspiracy against her. | cruelty | train | wikipedia | The Hayward/Sullavan bunch. One thing about Brooke Hayward and her memoir. She told it all in terms of her incompatible parents who had a great passionate love, maybe too much so. Haywire is both the title of the memoir she wrote and the title of this film. Deborah Raffin plays Brooke Hayward through whose eyes we see the story of Margaret Sullavan and Leland Hayward. To be sure the film is tempered somewhat by the fact that in 1980 many of the characters in their lives were still around. Both of Sullavan's former husbands were still around, Henry Fonda and William Wyler, as was her four time film co-star James Stewart. None of them appear here though they do get passing mention. Maybe in another generation the story can be retold.It's obvious that this was meant as a two part film. The first half deals with Margaret and the second half with Leland. Maybe it should have been dealt with that way. I think the first half with Margaret is a bit stronger.Lee Remick is Margaret Sullavan who tried terribly hard to balance marriage and family and a career. She left Hollywood for good to concentrate on the stage and family, but she was touring so much that the kids were left to their own devices. As Remick portrays her, Sullavan was a woman with an iron will who had a vulnerable spot when it concerned her kids.Leland Hayward as portrayed by Jason Robards, Jr. is every bit the free wheeling hedonist he was in real life. He was charismatic and dynamic, he had to be otherwise he could never function in an industry that relies a lot on bluff, bluster and charm. Hayward was married several times, but his kids were with Sullavan and she really was the love of his life.The first half is done in flashbacks from Sullavan's death in 1960 either intentional or accidental with a dose of sleeping pills. She loved acting, but hated all the pretense that went with show business. Hayward as a producer was all of that and he knew the value of the kind of publicity Margaret loathed. One of many things that drove them apart. The second half is in flashbacks from Hayward's death in 1971.Raffin's two siblings are Hart Bochner and Dianne Hull. Bochner was a withdrawn kid who was underestimated by his father. Hull was the tragic Bridget Hayward who was her own tragic story. Hull may take the acting honors in a cast that all perform well. Quite a family the Hayward/Sullavan bunch. There a game of six degrees of separation unto themselves. Look up both Hayward and Sullavan and see what I mean. Quite a family, quite a story. |
tt0118900 | Gang Related | Vice police detectives Frank Divinci (James Belushi) and Jake Rodriguez (Tupac Shakur) gun down narcotics dealer Lionel Hudd (Kool Moe Dee), after the two engage illegally in drug trafficking; this is in order to recover the cocaine Hudd purchased from them. When Divinci and Rodriguez find out Hudd was actually a "deep cover" DEA agent—because Hudd's partner, Richard Simms (Gary Cole) drops by their precinct for help sniffing out the killers—they try to frame anyone else with the murder. It does not help that Rodriguez has outstanding gambling debts, and that a loan shark known only as "Mr. Cutlass Supreme" (Tiny Lister) is on his case for it. After arresting numerous felons without success (because they cannot possibly link Hudd's murder to any of them), Divinci and Rodriguez arrest a homeless drunk by the name of Joe Doe (Dennis Quaid). While Joe is still intoxicated, the detectives convince him that he shot Hudd. They even make him sign a confession. Divinci and Rodriguez convince local stripper Cynthia Webb (Lela Rochon), also Divinci's mistress, who was the "bait" in their trap for Hudd, to "identify" Joe in a police line-up.
At his first legal hearing, Joe is declared mentally unfit to stand trial (he can not even remember his own last name). The trial is postponed accordingly. Really believing that he killed Hudd, Joe informs his attorney that he deserves to be in jail and is willing to accept a plea bargain. Meanwhile, it turns out that the Magnum that Rodruiguez stole from the police-evidence room to kill Hudd is that of Clyde David Dunner, a murderer and arsonist arrested by Divinci and Rodruiguez and whose case is currently being tried. To fill the void, Divinci gets another gun to replace the other, but during trial Dunner recognizes that this one is not his gun and the case is dropped for lack of evidence.
At Joe's second hearing, high-profile lawyer Arthur Baylor (James Earl Jones) attends the proceedings. Baylor reveals that his client's name is actually William Dane McCall, and that he is actually the missing-and-presumed-dead co-heir to the financial empire of a high-status family, as well as a surgeon who used to attend and help the poor. Baylor asks the court to grant a one-week continuance so he can prepare his defense properly. The court agrees. Afterwards, Cynthia is summoned to testify in court. Nervous and afraid, she disappears. Divinci, fearing that she may betray him, hires a bail agent named Manny (Terrence C. Carson) to locate her; when Manny's efforts fail, he is roughed up by Divinci and Rodriguez. Cynthia is finally discovered and brought in for The People vs. William Dane McCall. She gives her rehearsed testimony against "Joe", at which time William informs Baylor that he lived in an alley next to Cynthia's apartment. Baylor questions Cynthia and points to the contradictions in her testimony until she finally confesses to knowing "Joe". The fact that she knows the defendant as "Joe" and not as "William Dane McCall" shows that she had previous knowledge of the defendant, thus proving her testimony for "Joe" being Hudd's killer to be false. She is arrested for perjury while the verdict of William's case remains pending. Divinci hires Manny to get Cynthia out of jail. He plans to kill her before she can testify.
On their way to "silence" her, Rodriguez tells Divinci how he feels regarding the numerous murders they have committed. Divinci suddenly suspects his partner of taping their conversation; such indeed turns out to be the case, after Divinci forcibly searches Rodriguez. Rodriguez informs Divinci that he has already confessed to the DEA regarding what they have done. Unwilling to kill Rodriguez here and now, Divinci renounces their friendship and drives off into the night. Rodriguez returns home to find his bookie and Mr. Cutlass Supreme waiting for him. Enraged about the preceding events, he attacks them only to be shot dead. Cynthia is brought to court by Baylor, who strikes a deal with her to testify against Divinci and thus get her perjury case dropped.
Four months later, Frank has become a fugitive. Knowing that Cynthia blew the whistle on him, he breaks into her home. He takes her money, then shoots and badly wounds her. Cynthia is rushed to an emergency room at the local hospital, where Doctor William Dane McCall prepares to operate to save her life.
Divinci forces Manny to help smuggle him out of the country. Manny hires a luxurious car and a driver for Frank. Unfortunately for Divinci, said driver turns out to be Clyde David Dunner who produces the same revolver used to kill Hudd. He shoots Frank in the head, then abandons the car and body in a deserted alley. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | Jim Belushi and Tupac Shakur have a good chemistry as 2 crooked, conflicted cops.
Tupac Shakur actually played a very good character as the increasingly troubled cop.
Jim Belushi plays a morally dumb cop who continues to make the situation worse, and continues to believe he can probably manipulate his way out of anything.Dennis Quaid, James Earl Jones and Lela Rochon were all excellent.I didn't expect too much from this, but I was drawn into a well-done, well-acted movie..
James Belushi (K-9, Race the Sun) and the late Tupac Shakur (Gridlocked, Poetic Justice) play two corrupt cops.
I really didn't want to rent this film, but one of my friends, PA(nick-name)who was a big fan of Tupac Shakur talked me into it.
James Belushi was great in this film, and so was Shakur and Lela Rochon.
James Earl Jones appears in a little role in the last 40 minutes of the film.He was great, too.
But unfortunately the 11th time(The one we saw) goes wrong.The buyer was a undercover-cop and they has been set to do the investigation.Now the film really starts.
Good movie....has a few twists and turns you don't expect.
Both James Belushi & the late Tupac Shakur were well cast in the main roles - especially Belushi - this role being very different from his usual ones.
In a sense a typical good cops go wrong movie - but one that at least grabs you and sucks you in to watching it to find out what happens next.
GANG RELATED (1997) ***Starring: James Belushi, Tupac Shakur, Lela Rochon, Dennis Quaid, James Earl Jones, and David Paymer Written and directed by: Jim Kouf Running Time: 106 minutes Rated R (for strong pervasive language, violence, sexual situations, and some nudity) By Blake French: My expectations for "Gang Related" weren't exactly peak high when I decided to screen it.
The two main characters are FBI agents Divinci (James Belushi), and Rodriguez (Tupac Shakur).
The movie's intentions are clear from the first act; we are watching a story from the bad guys point of view.
I really liked where the film goes from here: In desperation, Divinci and Rodriguez decide to frame a homeless bum for their murderous crime, played tremendously convincing by Dennis Quaid.
Characters who enter the story afterward are Cynthia (Lela Rochon), a stripper who is persuaded to lend a deceitful but helping hand to Divinci and Rodriguez, powerful lawyer Arthur Baylor James (Earl Jones), who comes to the rescue of the bum's hopeless defense, and another "lesser" lawyer named Elliot Goff (David Paymer).
But one thing came across my mind as I watched Divinci and Rodriguez work up a taut sweat as they make life or death cover up choices, why don't they just flee the country?Jim Kouf, who wrote and directed this final film to star the late Tupac Shakur, observes decent performances with the strong dramatic impulse manifested.
This is a solid noir movie with outstanding performances from Jim Belushi and Tupac Shakur, but the thing I've appreciated most is the history , and the ending too is so different from the average of this kind of movies.
Settling on homeless man 'Joe', they give him drink, get him to sign a statement and falsify the evidence to make a strong enough case to convict.I had half wanted to see this film for a few years simply because I am keen to take the few chances I have to try see Tupac acting for me he was the saviour of Poetic Justice and he is much better than the vast majority of the hip hop 'actors' we have seen recently.
It could have done with a greater sense of tension though, for the majority of the time it merely unfolds as opposed to being fast paced or very exciting but it is still an enjoyable enough little film even if it pretty much goes where you expect it to.The cast is a big factor in making this film more interesting and making it rise above the other genre films that it will be competing with on the bottom shelf.
Belushi has been in more than his fair share of sh*t video thrillers but here he is actually quite good and seems comfortable with material that, although not great, is certainly nowhere near the low level that he is getting used to.
In his last film, Tupac is great and he should be a role model for all hip hop stars who want to act even just in the choice of role he gives a great example can you imagine many other rappers playing a corrupt cop with as little glamour as Tupac had?
The gorgeous Lela Rochon is given an eye candy role at the start but she is able enough to make a good performance out of it (as well as having a body and looks to die for!).
Quaid for example has so little to do you wonder why he bothered he feels like he should be a bigger part of the film but he isn't.
For the opposite reason Jones, Cole and Paymer are all quite good because they are minor roles and they just feel like quality padding.Overall this is not a particularly earth shattering thriller but it does its job well enough and I found it pretty enjoyable.
A well-known cast certainly helps to make the material rise slightly above the rest of its genre but it is a great performance by Tupac in a different role that made it for me; if only other rappers were less afraid of their image when making role choices then we may not be experiencing a wave of awful blaxploitation films all over again..
I didn't have very high expectations for this one (partly because I am not terribly keen on James Belushi) but actually, the film was pretty good.The important thing is to understand the film as a thriller, rather than as a realistic or atmospheric piece.
One could easily imagine a movie like this being adapted to the stage.The acting is generally of a very high standard with strong performances by Shakur and Belushi.
GANG RELATED Aspect ratio: 2.39:1Sound format: DTSJames Belushi lifted himself out of his career doldrums just long enough to appear in this hard-bitten cop thriller alongside gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur, wherein they play rogue cops who supplement their income by murdering drug dealers and stealing their cash, passing off each crime as 'gang related' incidents.
Reynolds make little use of the widescreen format, but the film's lack of visual style is somewhat redeemed by its breakneck pace and impressive performances, most notably Belushi and Shakur in dark, multi-faceted roles, and Lela Rochon as their former accomplice, a frightened stripper whose involvement in Belushi's criminal misdeeds places her in mortal jeopardy.
James Earl Jones is the famous defence attorney who takes up Quaid's case as soon as the latter's identity is confirmed, and a gaunt-looking Gary Cole provides solid back-up as a dedicated DEA agent determined to nail those responsible for Cummins' death.
Sadly, the movie is dedicated to the memory of Shakur, who was shot and killed in a drive-by incident during the film's post-production process; on this evidence, he was clearly a natural actor and had the makings of a major Hollywood star..
This movie is not too bad, once you get past the fact that it stars TuPac Shakur...
Actually, to be honest, I didn't expect great things after seeing Poetic Justice, but he wasn't too bad in this movie after all.However, when watching this movie, the question I kept asking myself was, "How can these two fools make this situation any worse?" In fact, I think that's what makes this film work.
The film certainly doesn't disappoint if you like plot twists, even if you can see them a mile away.Overall, this is a pretty good drama about corrupt cops.
*that joke* James Belushi.Belushi seems to be in a world of his own.But don't let that put you off because it's worth watching it for Shakur's extraordinary talent, and some of the support cast which carry Gang Related through!
Corrupt cops Frank Divinci (James Belushi) and Rodriguez (Tupac Shakur) kill a drug dealer to rob him with stripper Cynthia Webb (Lela Rochon).
Divinci and Rodriguez are assigned to investigate the murder of the drug dealer who turns out to be an undercover DEA agent.
What started as a comedy about a drugdeal gone wrong, evolves into a real good dark crime movie.
Gang Related had me a bit exicted back in 97 it was the last movie performance of Tupac and he's the only good thing in this slow paced and somewhat predictable movie.
James Belushi makes a horrible bad guy and Dennis Quaid is watsed.
Surprisingly good support in this one, with James Earl Jones, Dennis Quaid & Gary Cole.
Gang Related starring by James Belushi and the late Tupac Shakur is a good example when the badge is used for hide own crime.
The entirely story of the movie started when two corrupt cop killed for mistake a under cover agent of the DEA .
And here starting the nightmare
..The movie is very good to generate a high level of tension only with the story(also if in the plot there are few holes), and the twist of the facts narrate and interlace between of its succeed to passionate the spectator till to the wonderful end.
The two actors , Belushi and Shakur are very good and believed in the lead roles.
Only point negative of the movie going when the twists of the plot grow up too and born few incongruousness, but all of the rest is a good work and specially the playing.
Gang Related is a much better film than I expected.
It's basically a somewhat ridiculous ending.Tupac Shakur was an okay actor and he was good in Gang Related which sadly (as everyone already knows) turned out to be his last film.Good film.
The lead actors, Jim Belushi and Tupac Shakur, play two cops who've gotten themselves into a big mess, out of which they can only lie, cheat, steal and kill in order to save their jobs, and their lives.
Tupac and James belushi were very good in it but I still didn't think it was great.
I like the way in this movie Tupac is the one who doesn't want to kill people or do bad things for once.
Its one of the films where your watching it and waiting for something to happen, like a final crazy ending, but I hated the ending...Great acting, the only reason I give it 5 is because 2Pac is in it and its always good to see him in anything:) but other than that I wish it could of been better, I cant really explain, the story was highly interesting it just felt like the last half could of been done differently, I feel from that point on it went downhill.
I was starting to become curious if his acting was as good as his rapping so I wanted to watch this movie.
At first, I dind't really expect much from it but it turned out to be a really good movie instead!Tupac plays as a street thug/criminal in most his movies except for this one where he plays as a police officer.
This adds what I personally think, a very nice twist to the movie.Tupac and James argue a lot because their opinions differ pretty much, this is what actually makes the movie funny in a way.
Everything that can go wrong does go wrong for a couple of corrupt homicide cops in "Disorganized Crime" director Jim Kouf's "Gang Related," an ensemble police procedural thriller that springs one startling surprise after another on its unsuspecting audience.
Indeed, Kouf's accomplished piece of film-making looks like the flip side of Peter Hyams' buddy cop movie "Running Scared" with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines, although the cops that Crystal and Hines played were good guys to the core.The characters in "Gang Related" serve as the pawns of a serpentine plot.
You can barely recognize Dennis Quaid at first as a remorseful derelict and James Earl Jones's arrival occurs straight out of the blue.As Detective Frank DaVinci and Rodriguez, James Belushi and Tupac Shakur create a credibly chummy chemistry.
In his final screen appearance, the late rapper Tupac Shakur shows that his artistry will be missed as much by music enthusiasts as moviegoers.Writer & director Jim Kouf has breathed new life into a routine plot by standing it on its head.
Usually, in a movie like "Gang Related," the heroes are the guys who are in trouble, but neither DaVinci nor Rodriguez qualify as heroes.
If it wasn't for the fact that I'm a huge fan of Rap-music, and that I consider Tupac Shakur as the greatest rapper of all time, chances are that I would have never taken my time to watch "Gang Related".
In fact, I don't consider any of the films Tupac starred in as directly bad.
Now "Gang Related" was the only film he got the chance to star in, where he didn't play a criminal or a street-thug from the ghetto.
Divinci (played by James Belushi) and Rodriguez (Tupac Shakur) are two cops who are dealing drugs, bribing and even murdering peoples when they're at work.
This seems to work just fine until one of their victims turns out to be a undercover-police officer.Crime-movies like this isn't exactly my favorites, but I liked this one.
Jim Kouf has written an interesting story with enough thrilling and surprises, and except for that part, the actors has to carry the film on their own.
I haven't seen many films starring James Belushi, but this is the best performance I've seen by him.
Lela Rochon (a beautiful woman who plays Divinci's friend Cynthia) and Dennis Quaid (who plays the bum Joe) are also giving some approved performances.Before watching "Gang Related" I had seen a few teasers, and it looked like an average crime-film to me.
It doesn't fit the film and it's mood at all."Gang Related" is a good crime-film, with a well-written story and two good actors in the leading roles.
Tupac Shakur's last film.May he Rest In Peace.8.0 out of 10.
Tupac Shakur shines, Lela Rochon whines..
The irony of this film is that even though Tupac portrays one of these "bad" people, you end up rooting for him anyway.
That is the power of his acting in this film - his character has a moral conscience, and you keep rooting for him to do the right thing - although inevitably it comes much too late.
I like gang movies and especially 2Pac so I decided to see this film.
It opens with Divinci (Belushi) and Rodriguez (2Pac), who are both undercover cops, selling $25,000 worth of cocaine to a man in a hotel.
It was somewhat entertaining to see Belushi and 2Pac together and the dumb things they do throughout the film.
It was very unclear why the film was entitled "Gang Related" and unless you are a die-hard fan of 2Pac or Belushi you should not waste your time on this.
A duo of cops + dope + a famous-rapper-turned-movie-star, what can you expect from such a mix of ingredients?
Directed by the relatively unknown Jim Kouf, the film can indeed boast a personal tone, which makes it easily stand out of the crowd of lowbrow crime movies.
The two improbable partners here are white detective DiVinci (James Belushi, excelling at being unbearably talkative and self- satisfied) and his black counterpart Jake Rodriguez (Tupac Shakur, surprisingly collected in his last role).
Now the film makes its way to blu-ray courtesy of Olive Video.Det. Frank Divinci and Det. Rodriguez (James Belushi and Tupac) are two corrupt cops more interested in making money than in doing their jobs.
Problems arise when their latest mark turns out to be an undercover DEA agent.Given the job of finding the killer the pair come upon a homeless man (Dennis Quaid) and pin the rap on him.
Instead we have the reverse with two killers who have the means to cover their trail easily but who create so many mistakes that their tension over what to do next becomes ours as well.It's difficult to sympathize with these two main characters but before the movie ends you find yourself wondering if perhaps they will do the right thing.
Two corrupt cops murder an undercover DEA agent by mistake, and frantically try to cover their tracks by framing a homeless man for the crime.That involves juggling evidence, coaching witnesses, and improvising to keep their desperate scheme from unravelling...James Belushi should stick to comedy, or be a comedy sidekick.
There is a lot of talk of Tupac becoming a great 'actor', and while he is okay in this, there is nothing to show he could have been the next big thing.The way rappers or 'hip hop stars' do in movies, i'm sure he'd be concentrating on his music, or making straight to blu ray movies with Snipes.The premise of this film is so so good, and has great potential, that it's such a shame it's treated in such a hap-hazard way.Belushi is unbelievable as a dirty cop, and i was expecting Jerry Lee to come to his rescue.There are the inevitable double crosses and the predictable ending.
It tries to be like a gritty seventies cop movie, but ends up dreary and boring.Quaid is the saving grace in this movie, and his character is the most interesting arc in the whole movie.
Tupac gave a great performance as well as Belushi (we can see Belushi doing a different performance than in his other movies).
Dennis Quaid and James Earl Jones were excellent.Belushi and Tupac are crooked cops who sell drugs and then kill the guy they sold it to, and mark the murder gang related.
Good dialogue and main characters, good story and great twists!Worth watching! |
tt0114137 | Piranha | Two teenagers come upon an apparently abandoned military installation. They take advantage of what appears to be a swimming pool to skinny dip. The teenagers are attacked by an unseen force and disappear under the water. A light activates in the main building and a silhouetted figure investigates the screams, but is too late to help.
A determined but somewhat absent-minded insurance investigator named Maggie McKeown is dispatched to find the missing teenagers near Lost River Lake. She hires surly backwoods drunkard Paul Grogan to serve as her guide. They come upon the abandoned compound, which functioned as a fish hatchery before being militarized. They discover bizarre specimens in jars and indications of an occupant. Maggie locates the drainage switch for the outside pool and decides to empty it to search the bottom, but the moment she activates it a haggard and frantic man begins to panic and attacks her, attempting to stop the draining until he is subdued by Grogan. The two find a skeleton in the filtration trap of the empty pool, and learn it was filled with salt water. The man awakens and steals their jeep, but crashes it due to his disorientation, and is taken to Grogan's home where they spend the night. They take Grogan's raft down the river, where the man wakes up and tells them that the pool in the facility was filled with a school of piranhas, and that Maggie released them. They are skeptical until they hear a dog barking and they come across the corpse of Grogan's friend Jack, who has bled to death from an attack on a fishing dock.
The man reveals himself to be Doctor Robert Hoak, lead scientist of a defunct Vietnam War project, Operation: Razorteeth, tasked with engineering a ravenous and prodigious strain of piranha that could endure the cold water of the North Vietnamese rivers and inhibit Viet Cong movement. The project was shut down when the war ended, but some of the mutant specimens survived, and Hoak tended to them to salvage his work. Grogan realizes that if the local dam is opened, the school will have access to the Lost River water park, and the nearby summer camp where his daughter is in attendance. They encounter a capsized canoe with a boy whose father has been killed by the fish. Hoak rescues the boy but suffers mortal injuries when the school attacks him; he dies before he can reveal how to kill them. Blood from Hoak's corpse causes the piranha to tear away the raft's lashings, and they barely reach shore. Grogan stops the dam attendant from opening the spillway and calls the military.
A military team led by Colonel Waxman and former Razorteeth scientist Dr. Mengers feed poison into the upstream section, ignoring the protests that the fish survived the first attempt. When Grogan discovers that a tributary bypasses the dam, Waxman and Mengers quarantine them to prevent the agitated pair from alerting the media. After they escape, Waxman alerts law enforcement to capture them. The school attacks the summer camp during a swimming marathon, injuring and killing many children and a supervisor. Grogan's daughter escapes due to her fear of water, and aids her camp mates in escaping.
The school continues downriver. Waxman and Mengers arrive at the water park to intercept Grogan and Maggie, but the piranha attack the resort and kill many vacationers and Waxman. Grogan and Maggie commandeer a speedboat and rush to the shuttered smelting plant at the narrowest point of the river. Remembering the empty facility pond, Grogan realizes the fish can survive in salt water; if the school passes the delta, they will reach the ocean and spread over the world. He intends to open the smelting refuse tanks, hoping the industrial waste will kill the fish. They arrive at the plant ahead of the fish, but the elevated water level has submerged the control office, and Grogan must go underwater; he ties a rope around his waist and instructs Maggie to count to 100 before pulling him out. Grogan struggles to move the rusted valve wheel when the school arrives and attacks him. The assault hyperadrenalizes him, and he manages to open the valves just as Maggie pulls him to safety. Maggie takes Grogan back to the water park, where a massive MEDEVAC is tending to the victims; his injuries are severe and he is seen in a catatonic state.
Mengers gives an on-site television interview, providing a sanitized version of events and downplaying the existence of piranha. Her voice is heard carrying out over a radio on the shore of a West Coast beach. As she says "there's nothing left to fear", the piranha's characteristic trilling sound drowns out the waves on a beach. | cult | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0186589 | Sugar & Spice | The story is narrated by Lisa Janusch (Marla Sokoloff), the bitter and jealous head cheerleader of Lincoln High School's B-squad.
Diane Weston (Marley Shelton), the popular head cheerleader of Lincoln High School's A-squad, becomes pregnant by the star football quarterback Jack Bartlett (James Marsden). The two move out of their parents' homes to find an apartment of their own. Jack initially has problems staying in a job, due to his tactless personality, but finally gets hired at a video rental store. In spite of their problems coming up with the rent money, Jack and Diane try as hard as they can to survive while going to school at the same time. Lisa, Diane's bitter rival, occasionally runs into Jack at the rental store. She is interested in winning Jack's heart, but fails to get his attention.
After struggling with the rent and anticipating the financial hardship of supporting a family, Diane and her four cheerleader squadmates, Kansas Hill (Mena Suvari), Cleo Miller (Melissa George), Lucy Whitmore (Sara Marsh), and Hannah Wald (Rachel Blanchard), plan the perfect bank robbery. They promise each other not to tell Jack about their plan, because of his inability to lie to others.
The squad watches heist films to learn how to rob banks, and Kansas visits her mother at the women's penitentiary for tips on where to find weaponry. Following the women's advice, Diane and her friends visit a bug exterminator, "The Terminator" (W. Earl Brown), who sells illegal arms and ammo. He refuses to sell them the guns unless they accept his daughter, Fern Rogers (Alexandra Holden), on the squad.
The squad agrees to do so and they begin rehearsing the robbery, as well as their choreography for the winter ball. During winter break, they order masks to hide their identities. Lucy backs out of the heist because she receives a scholarship to Harvard. At Christmas, Diane receives an engagement ring from Jack. She then finds out he sold his GTO in order to buy her the ring. The squad is forced to buy a new get-away vehicle, which turns out to be an old van with bad brakes.
At their first robbery at a supermarket, Lucy returns to the group having decided to help them after all. Lisa happens to be in the store at the time of the robbery, and notices that they perform cheerleader stunts in order to cover up the security cameras. The squad robs the bank and come close to shooting a customer after one of the guns discharges. They make off with armloads of cash and celebrate their success after burning their costumes. The robbery is reported on TV. Neither Diane nor her friends expect Lisa to suspect them until they are confronted by her and the B-squad in the high school cafeteria, followed by the FBI.
Diane and her friends are jailed and need an alibi, so Diane promises to promote Lisa to captain of the A-squad in order to keep Lisa silent, since she is approaching her third trimester and can't do rigorous activity. The group is outraged, but come to appreciate this decision. In order to cover up her actions, Diane tells Jack she won the lottery and after they have their children, Jack wins his senatorial campaign, and Diane's squad lead successful lives after high school. | cult, comedy, satire, romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0106226 | The Age of Innocence | In 1870's New York City, Newland Archer is planning to marry the respectable young May Welland. May's cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, has returned to New York after a disastrous marriage to a dissolute Polish Count. At first she is ostracized by society and vicious innuendo is spread, but May's family boldly stands by the Countess and she is gradually accepted by the very finest of New York's old families. Archer prematurely announces his engagement to May, but as he comes to know the Countess, he begins to appreciate her unconventional views on New York society and he becomes increasingly disillusioned with his new fiancée May and her innocence, lack of personal opinion, and sense of self.
After the Countess announces her intention of divorcing her husband, Archer supports her desire for freedom, but he feels compelled to act on behalf of the family and persuade the Countess to remain married. When Archer realizes that he is in love with the Countess, he abruptly leaves the next day to be reunited with May and her parents, who are in Florida on vacation. Archer asks May to shorten their engagement, but May becomes suspicious and asks him if his hurry to get married is prompted by the fear that he is marrying the wrong person. Archer reassures May that he is in love with her. When back in New York, Archer calls on the Countess and admits that he is in love with her, but a telegram arrives from May announcing that her parents have pushed forward the wedding date.
After their wedding and honeymoon, Archer and May settle down to married life in New York. Over time, Archer's memory of the Countess fades. When the Countess returns to New York to care for her grandmother, she and Archer agree to consummate their affair. But then suddenly, the Countess announces her intention to return to Europe. May throws a farewell party for the Countess, and after the guests leave, May announces to Archer that she is pregnant and that she told Ellen her news two weeks earlier.
The years pass: Archer is 57 and has been a dutiful, loving father, and a faithful husband. The Archers have had three children. May had previously died of infectious pneumonia and Archer had mourned her in earnest. Archer's engaged son, Ted convinces him to travel to France. There, Ted has arranged to visit the Countess Olenska at her Paris apartment. Archer has not seen the countess in over 25 years. Ted confides to his father May's deathbed confession that "... she knew we were safe with you, and always would be. Because once, when she asked you to, you gave up the thing you wanted most." Archer confesses that she never asked him. That evening outside the Countess' apartment, Archer sends his son alone to visit her. While sitting outside the apartment, he thinks about their time together and gets up and walks away. | historical, flashback | train | wikipedia | But watching it again 10 years later, this film is anything but common.The true intensity is Scorcese's detached presentation of a hypocritical & hateful society which holds its members as prisoners.Not to mention impeccable art direction & beautiful cinematography by the legendary Michael Ballhaus.
The film looks as impressionistic as the paintings that line the walls of the characters' homes.Scorsese is always acute in his casting decisions, and this is one of the films many virtues:Lewis is perfect as a man who's struggle between his passion & his duty are constantly on the verge of devouring him (yet somehow he thrives on his torture).Ryder is the seemingly innocent & naive girl who is completely manipulative & cunning underneath her exterior (gee, who would have thought?!) -- notice the arching scene.In a sense, this was one of Pfeiffer's defining roles.
Great observance of "high society." Many of those codes are strangely applicable today.Not recommended for those who like fast paced movies, or those who are looking for the "usual Scorcese." I would couple this with "Last Temptation of Christ" as Scorsese's most brave, artistic, demanding & abstract films to date..
For those who wonder what is Mr. Scorsese looking for in a film like "The Age of Innocence", (probably more suitable to a director such as James Ivory), the man himself gives the answer: "This film deals with the same matters that can be found in my work in the last 25 years.
Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) must choose between his current fiancee May Welland (Winona Ryder) and her cousin who has just arrived from Poland and is recently divorced, Helen Ollenska (Michelle Pfeiffer).
But what lies beneath this wonderful movie is a priceless ode to individuality.Michelle Pfeiffer plays Ellen Olenska, a proto-feminist who flees from her failing European marriage to the home of her blood relatives in 1870's New York Society.
"Harmony could be shattered by a whisper", as well narrated by Joanne Woodward.Daniel Day-Lewis plays Newland Archer, an up-and-rising patriarch who sees something in her that no one else in his rich circle could offer him: an independent viewpoint to life.
Through excellent film-making, I can see why Society felt the need to operate in such a ruthless fashion, in order to protect itself from Ellen and what she represented to Newland, its newly crowned prince.Over the past few months, I have also grown an appreciation for Winona Ryder's performance as May. She is a shrewd politician, who uses her "bright blindness" as a megaphone for Society's rules of conduct, a weapon of manipulation against her destined husband Newland, and as a way to continue plotting without easily being detected.I wonder how many more times I will watch "The Age of Innocence" before I risk being exposed to Hollywood's 21st century conformity, such as "Independence Day" or "Wild, Wild West".
All the more appropriate as this is exactly what Scorsese wants us to see in the world of end of XIX th century New York- a society brimming with peace and innocence in which nothing appears to ever happen but under the surface of which gossip and intrigue work relentlessly and destinies are decided over the small talk of the dinner table.
Daniel Day Lewis, equally talented, is the tortured lover who must choose, a promise of marriage to Mae (Winona Ryder) or risk his stalwart reputation in society to express his love for Pfeiffer.
I was very impressed by the use of the objects, the clothes of the time to describe the feeling of the scene or of the characters involved.The actors are all very good, but Michelle Pfeiffer really delivers and excellent performance.
It is about a lawyer named Newland Archer (played expertly by Daniel Day-Lewis) who yearns to break free of the rigid, repressive world of upper-class New York in the 1870's.
It's an interesting idea and that violence is played out by a superb cast topped by Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder.
Day-Lewis takes on the role of Newland Archer, who is recently engaged to Ryder's May Welland but finds himself having difficulty masking his desires for her cousin, Pfeiffer's Ellen Olenska.
It's your standard set up for this kind of period piece and it's not told in any way that makes it stand out, but the acting is enough to keep it relatively engaging throughout.Day-Lewis has gotten worlds of acclaim and two Oscar statues for his theatrical, outlandish performances but I've honestly always preferred him in his more subtle, intimate displays and here is another example of him showing what a great actor he can be when he holds things in.
The emotions are mostly underneath the surface in this film, and Scorsese was smart enough to cast three actors who were superb at portraying them in the perfect tone, expressing those emotions quietly without overdoing it to the audience or to the other characters on screen.
Ryder doesn't say a word addressing this realization, but through her eyes and the way her face sinks, through the slight change of tone in her voice, she absolutely breaks your heart.Scorsese has always been adept at crafting an atmosphere for his films, but I don't think that particular skill of his shines through here at all.
Michelle Pfieffer seems to be the only actress who didn't fully embrace the period in manner or behaviour, but the rest of the performers aquit themselves wonderfully.At times it almost felt a little 'modern', but one can't fault the film makers, they were only trying to update it a bit for their intended audience.Altogether a wonderful film and definitely worth seeing, but - as always- the book remains far superior..
Martin Scorsese's beautifully done "The Age of Innocence" almost reaches excellence on a grand scale by having stunning performances and creating real intrigue with a story that could have been slow and dull.
However their lives are changed when Day-Lewis is asked to defend Ryder's cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer), a woman trying to divorce herself from an abusive marriage to a man that never loved her.
"The Age of Innocence" takes the audience into the pages of 19th century New York's social register as it follows one eligible blue blood, Day-Lewis, and his love interests (Pfeiffer & Ryder).
It's worth mentioning at the outset that I am a complete Martin Scorcese fan; however I do not agree with an apparent consensus here that this is among his best films.For me, the biggest hurdle is the (mis)casting of the endlessly effete Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead role.
So: if you like Daniel Day-Lewis, you may well love the film--he's in nearly every scene.
And saddling his character with feminist political philosophy, while it may enhance his appeal to some viewers, is a stretch from the novel's characterization and quite anachronistic besides.However, the other leads are notably fine (especially Michelle Pfeiffer and even the endlessly variable Winona Ryder) and there are knockout performances in the supporting roles, particularly Siân Phillips, Jonathan Pryce and Miriam Margolyes.Otherwise, the film's pacing is the problem.
I can't believe I resisted watching this movie ( Maybe waiting that it improved a little, since it has very talented actors: Day-Lewis, Winona, Michelle )But it never happened.The story about a man that is going to marry soon and some days before the wedding he recognizes he is "in love" with her fiancé's cousin ( Ellen ).She is a divorced woman, in an era when divorce was considered as a delit.He is not brave enough as to marry her and confront everybody, and spents her next 30 years thinking of her, altough he married a wonderful woman, who knows the situation, but remains silence.DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.
When Martin Scorsese deigned to adapt Edith Wharton's novel "The Age of Innocence" for the big screen he obviously saw it as a highly stylized period piece.
Martin Scorsese's THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is a graceful film that balances deceit, forbidden love, scandal, passion and intrigue so astoundingly that multiple viewings enable one to revel in brilliance.
Based on Edith Wharton's novel set in 1870s New York high society, the film wonderfully depicts the falling of tradition and the opening of modernity in the lives of 3 people and their vicious back-stabbing families.
Lawyer Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is engaged to society maiden May Welland (Winona Ryder; who won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress) but all that is set off-course when May's cousin - the passionate, charming and scandal-clad Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) - has returned to the USA, fleeing her cheating Polish husband, Count Olenska.
A high society lawyer(Daniel Day-Lewis)in mid 1800s New York City falls in love with his intended's(Wynona Ryder)cousin(Michelle Pfieffer).
He builds a sumptuous, even fastidious, set, decorates it with some rather good actors, and uses highly toned up coloring, no doubt as if to add insult to grievous occular harm, which, for 1870 New York, was indeed a gross insolence and incoherent injustice.The dialogues are somewhat akin to the luscious-looking dishes spread out on the extravagant tables: made of plastic and indigestible, however brilliantly sic they may have been filmed.So much mannerism and forced modalities, at times taking on tragicomedy theatrical proportions, seemed as authentic as a penguin acting as a tourist guide in `La Alhambra'.The non-original music included some good pieces, even though `Alerte!
The lead acting was amazingly bad, some of the side characters were well done, but this movie focused on the wonderful faces of Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder.
I haven't read the Edith Wharton novel myself, so I'm not sure whether the story is dull to begin with or whether it was poorly rendered onto the screen.For starters, the weakest element by far was the lovelorn tension between Newland Archer (Day-Lewis) and the Countess Olenska (Pfeiffer).
The smoothness of the camera, that one continuous shot, takes my breath away each time I watch it, it is pure art.It might not be one continuous shot in The Age of Innocence, but I found similarities with Russian Ark. With a slow moving camera, Scorsese takes time to show us many details from the decoration, the life of the high society where the strict code of conduct is well depicted, ex: men's white gloves, cutting cigars, social convention...
I'm not sure that the 2 main female characters were the bests to play their parts, but Scorsese was able to build a subtle sexual tension between them and Newland (played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who is very good).
It's a meticulous, richly detailed, leisurely adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel about a thwarted love affair between a man who is engaged to a beautiful young girl (Winona Ryder) and his yearning for her more worldly cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer).
Daniel Day-Lewis's respected lawyer is engaged to Winona Ryder's heiress, but then falls for her cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer).The idea behind the story is that the main character is as trapped by his surroundings as is Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver".
Overwhelming in its Depiction of Surface, the Sets, Costumes and Incredible Attention to Detail, the Film's Characters have the Difficult Task of Creating Emotional Attachment when all those Feelings are Suppressed even when it is Convenient to do Otherwise.The Best Scenes are when Newton Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis slightly miscast) Defends Ellen (Michelle Pfeiffer completely miscast).
When I first saw this film in the cinema, back in 1993, I remember thinking that Newland must be mad if he could contemplate leaving the lovely Winona Ryder, with her fragile, haunting beauty, even for someone as undoubtedly attractive as Michelle Pfeiffer.
Martin Scorsese's film The Age of Innocence (1993) is an adaptation of a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton, which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize.
Both, the novel and the film are set in upper class New York City in the 1870s.The Age of Innocence is the movie that proves once again what a versatile talented, unpredictable, incredibly passionate, and artistically outstanding director Martin Scorsese is.
The director himself described The Age of Innocence as the "most violent" film he's ever made, clearly referring to the inner turmoil, disappointment and resignation the two main characters of this drama go through.The material world Scorsese created and paints with his lenses is of incredible beauty.
Two beautiful passionate people found love that could only happen once in a life time but the strict norms or society they live in and the unbending unwritten rules based on convention and hypocrisy they must obey won't permit them to follow their hearts freely, to fulfill their desire, and to be happy in that Age of Innocence.
The cast is superb, and includes Daniel Day-Lewis, the film protagonist Newland Archer, Michelle Pfeiffer, as Countess Olenska, a woman with "a Past" who stole his heart, and very young Winona Ryder, May Welland, the girl whom Archer will marry.
Grant, Alexis Smith or Michael Gough, not to mention the leading roles (the presence of two beauties like Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder might be a just too evident warning of the special qualities of this film).You have not lived until you have heard the voice of Joanne Woodward narrating the story by Edith Wharton: subtlety, irony, sorrow.
All these elements flow from a screenplay that is respectful of its source and plays by some of its rules: this is certainly not a film for those who like their movies to do all their thinking for them.Leonard Maltin is dead wrong in giving "The Age of Innocence" 2 1/2 stars and saying, "it's hard to connect with these characters on an emotional level." The blazing eyes of Daniel Day-Lewis; the smoldering, wan glances of Michelle Pfeiffer and the doe-eyed gaze of Winona Ryder just didn't do it for him, huh?Like many other of Martin Scorsese's movies, this one is a love letter to his city, New York.
Here in the Age of Innocence, Scorsese depicts (with the help of Edith Wharton's novel) of a time in New York when things when things were elegant, though also brutal in the deep.
Daniel Day Lewis plays a man who is torn between marrying a woman he likes (Winona Ryder) and making her family happy as well, or choosing a tempting woman with a free mind (Michelle Pfieffer).
It is mildly ironic that, considering the material and its background that, in making The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese produced perhaps one the films most true to his most unique canon and at the same time, so true to Wharton's novel.
Then there is Winona Ryder's delicate work as May Welland, which could easily disappear from view when considering the quality of the two leads, but Ryder complements things beautifully with a cunning innocence that is the very image of power and privilege.Probably the most stunning aspect of the film is the rich production design from Dante Ferretti, which manages to bring together Scorsese's cinephilic reference points, with meticulous period detail, making for a subtle and devastatingly beautiful period costume drama..
This includes the dazzling talents and brilliant performances by Daniel Day-Lewis (Newland), Michelle Pfeiffer (Ellen) and even, surprisingly, Winona Ryder (May).
Daniel Day-Lewis heads a major cast and has the dilemma of Michelle Pfeiffer versus Winona Ryder who in real life is 13 years her junior.
The forbidden love Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) has for Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) while being engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder) grows ever so gradually, until it becomes a raging fire.
Daniel Day-Lewis is Newland Archer, the protagonist of Edith Wharton's novel about love, manners, ethics, money, gossip, and inner turmoil in upper-class 19th-century New York in the 1870s.
The exclusivity and distinction of the elite is beautifully shown in this film of passion and loss as the masquerade of the period politics slowly fall apart in the eyes of Newland Archer.The film Age of Innocence takes us into a new realm of skill shown by Martin Scorsese with this brilliant period piece set on the novel by Edith Wharton written in 1920.
The three central performances from Daniel-Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder hold the whole social orchestration of the time perfectly.
Martin Scorsese directed and, though a few of his trademark touches are in evidence, his ultra-restrained atmosphere (while appropriate for the period) proves disenchanting as entertainment, turning his three star leads (Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder) into suffering, swooning waxworks.
Plus, he met Daniel Day Lewis who lit up the screen in The Gangs of New York.If I didn't know that Scorsese was the director of this film, I might have liked it better.
it certainly is interesting as a period piece and repressed/suppressed love story, but Martin Scorsese makes his usual mistake as a director of this film....
What adds to the film tremendously are the fine performances of Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Martin Scorsese has been one of my favorite directors for some time now yet this is a film that I have always put off watching.
With beautiful detail, and sumptuous to watch, this is one of the strengths of this film.But there are two main triumphs: Firstly, Daniel Day-Lewis gives an intelligent introspective performance as Newland Archer.
The cast is great as Daniel Day Lewis gives one of his best performances (on par with The Last of the mohicans and gangs of new york).
Scorsese and Jay cocks have written a great screenplay in Age of innocence, almost as great as the one in gangs of new york, although the cast is better in this film.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, and Michelle Pfeiffer play three characters caught up in a love triangle during a period in time when society dictated what type of behavior was to be considered appropriate and acceptable, and any stray from the norm would serve as ground for ostracism.
The way he darkens part of the screen and focuses on Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer in one scene at the opera is further proof of his genuis as a film maker. |
tt0847182 | Mansfield Park | At the age of 10, Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, as her own parents do not have enough money to support their many children. Once at Mansfield Park, Fanny meets her cousins Tom, Maria, Edmund, and Julia, as well as Fanny's other maternal aunt, Mrs Norris. Fanny does not feel welcome, and Norris treats her more like a servant than a relative. Edmund behaves kindly to her, and the two develop a friendship that grows as the years progress.
When Fanny is eighteen, Sir Thomas and his eldest son Tom travel to Antigua. In their absence, the Bertram family is disrupted by the arrival of Henry and Mary Crawford, relatives of the local clergyman. Worldly, cynical and beautiful, Mary and Henry arrive looking for amusement. Edmund is instantly smitten with Mary, somewhat ignoring and hurting Fanny. Maria and Julia both vie for Henry's affections, even though Maria is already engaged to Mr Rushworth. Henry shamelessly flirts with Maria. Later, Tom returns from Antigua, arriving drunk and bringing a friend, Mr Yates, with him. Yates and Tom convince the Bertrams and Crawfords to stage a risque play, Lovers' Vows. The play allows the young people to openly flirt with each other. Edmund initially speaks out against the play, but changes his mind when he is offered a part that allows him to act out flirtatious scenes with Mary. Sir Thomas arrives home, and in anger immediately stops the play.
Maria marries Rushworth, esteeming his fortune above his character. Henry decides to pursue Fanny as a means to amuse himself. However, Fanny's gentle and kind nature gradually captures his fancy, and Henry becomes emotionally attached to her. After his behaviour towards the Bertram girls, Fanny distrusts him and does not believe his declarations of love. Even so, Henry proposes and Fanny is pressured by her uncle to accept the offer; she disappoints the family by refusing. Angry, Sir Thomas gives Fanny an ultimatum – accept Henry's proposal of marriage or be sent back to her poor family and experience the difference in comfort. Fanny looks to Edmund for support, but his indifference forces her to choose the latter. Several days after her return home, Henry pays a visit to convince Fanny that his affections for her are genuine. Although she looks more favourably on him, Fanny continues to cling to her feelings for Edmund and rejects Henry. Only when a letter from Edmund arrives which discloses his hopes of marrying Mary does Fanny accept Henry's offer. However, Fanny realizes she does not trust him, and takes back her acceptance the next day. Henry leaves, exceedingly hurt and angry. Edmund arrives to take Fanny back to Mansfield Park to help care for Tom, who has fallen seriously ill and is near death. Edmund confesses he has missed Fanny.
Henry gains Maria's pity when she learns of Fanny's refusal of his marriage proposal, and together they succumb to their lust. The affair is discovered by Fanny and Edmund. Shocked, Fanny is comforted by Edmund and the two nearly kiss, but he remembers himself and pulls away. News of the scandal spreads rapidly and Mary quickly devises a plan to stifle the repercussions. She suggests that after a divorce, Maria would marry Henry while Edmund would marry Mary; together they might re-introduce Henry and Maria back into society. Fanny questions Mary as to how a clergyman could afford lavish parties, and Mary shocks everyone by stating that when Tom dies, Edmund will be heir to the family's fortune. Edmund is appalled and tells Mary that cheerfully condemning Tom to death whilst she plans to spend his money sends a chill to his heart. Having betrayed her true nature to the Bertram family, a shamed Mary leaves the Bertrams' company. Edmund ultimately declares his love for Fanny, and they marry. Sir Thomas gives up his plantation in Antigua and invests instead in tobacco, while Tom recovers from his illness. Fanny also mentions that her younger sister Susie has joined them at the Bertram household while Maria and Aunt Norris take up residence in a small cottage removed from Mansfield Park. | romantic | train | wikipedia | And, as with all the other versions of Mansfield Park out there, the character of Fanny Price is no where to be found.
Someday, I would really like to see a dramatization of Mansfield Park that actually includes a depiction of the character of Fanny as she was written by Jane Austen.
Unlike some other Jane Austen novels (P&P, Emma), Mansfield Park does not rest on the strength of its female protagonist.
I watched this movie because I have just now finished reading Mansfield Park, and I am absolutely horrified by what I see; Miss Austen is rolling in her grave..
This is the worst adaptation of 'Mansfield Park' I have ever seen, even worse than the 1999 film version.
At best, this is 'inspired' by the story of 'Mansfield Park' and I'm sorry to say that it's barely recognisable to the original.I like Billie Piper.
Many modern adaptations feel the need to shake up the story and make Fanny Price more like Elizabeth Bennet which is exactly what they've done here.
In addition, a key event in the story involves Fanny going back to Portsmouth to visit her parents, something that makes her realise that perhaps life at Mansfield Park is not so bad in comparison with where she would have otherwise grown up, and that helps her to discover a sense of her own identity.
In this adaptation, Fanny is simply left home alone at Mansfield while the rest of the family go off somewhere, which merely results in her feeling (shock horror) lonely and rejected and viewers like me suspecting that the producers didn't have much money.
I'm no Jane Austen purist but why make a film like this if you have nothing to say.Billie Piper was so wrong for the part it is difficult to know where to begin-wrong personality,modern make-up,completely wrong hair (there is no way a young lady of her age would have romped around in public with her hair loose and unbrushed like that),she didn't seem particularly meek nor put-upon by the family and I didn't understand why everyone seemed to think of her as particularly saintly or kind.The picnic(substituted for the ball) was so low-budget it was embarrassing to watch and missing out the Portsmouth section completely destroyed the point of the piece (as well as losing scenes which could have added a gritty counterpoint to that oh-so-claustrophobic pink sitting room.)To those responsible:-If you haven't the imagination (even the budget doesn't matter so much as the imagination) to do something meaningful with an adaptation please don't pretend to be producing Jane Austen.It was about 10% Mansfield Park and 90% nothing much at allPS Edmund was very good.
I watched 40 minutes and couldn't bear it any longer the television went off and I returned to some light reading "Lobotomy for Beginners".It was hard to say what aspect of this production was most displeasing - dialogue made up entirely of sound-bytes or the acting by numbers.It was difficult to determine the period in which the drama was supposed to take place.
The other bright-young things had make-up and costumes more appropriate to a 21st century fancy dress party - the bleached-blonde Fanny, Billie Piper being the least credible character.UK commercial television obviously believes heaving bosoms, pouting lips and deep meaningful looks make a good story.
Fortunately Jane Austen had other ideas.If you want to find out the story of Mansfield Park, buy the 1983 mini-series DVD..
Admittedly, Mansfield Park is the most difficult of the novels to "get," and Fanny is certainly the hardest to like, but...
I have read many of Jane Austen's novels, Mansfield Park being one of them.
This seems like a film made with Jane Austen kind of elements but doesn't relate at all to the 'Mansfield Park' novel that Jane Austen wrote.
I agree this novel of Jane Austens is the difficult to portray particularly to a modern audience, the heroine is hardly a Elizabeth Bennet, even Edmund is not calculated to cause female hearts to skip a beat.
If some past adaptions may be seen as dated the weakness of this one must be that it is too modern ('his life is one long party'?????) The cast was generally adequate, but I think Billie Piper was the wrong choice, it needed someone more restrained, I gained no impression of hidden depths beneath a submissive exterior, she was more like a frolicking child.
Furthermore, Billie Piper is completely miscast in the role of Fanny Price, a character described in the book as shy and timid.
It is incredibly distracting, and the rest of the cast is in the greasy hair, rumpled clothing genre that shows a real disrespect for period accuracy.One thing is good here - Haley Atwell is the best Mary Crawford of all the versions.
This is just a production that really missed the mark, a real low for Austen fans.The only serviceable version is the one with odd duck (perfect for the role) Sylvestra La Touzel (despite the very very gay Henry Crawford - he's just laughable)..
Her looks and demeanour are completely out of place.The ITV website shows the makers of the film saying (this is the gist) that Fanny Price is a boring character, but that they fixed that by bringing in Billie Piper.
Key sections have to be rushed or alluded to, or omitted; there barely enough time just to get in the chronology of events, so character development has to be sacrificed: we cannot get much of a sense of who the people are, which robs us of what makes Austen so great.One major negative for me was the cinematography, which I thought was just awful, and quite literally sickening.
Of course, this did distract from the rather lackluster I'm-just-reading-what's-in-the-script acting (isolated scenes are nicely done, but not enough to save things).Adding up the score so far in the Complete J.A. Sweepstakes: I'd rate "Northanger Abbey" a success, because of superior direction and production values (and the story lends itself better to short treatment), "Persuasion" OK (though not the equal of other versions, with condensation again being at fault), both far ahead of this attempt.
As Fanny Price, Billie Piper is just wrong in every respect - too modern, too flirtatious, and too aware of her station.However there are some compensations, even if the characters are portrayed with little reference to the original book - Douglas Hodge, Jemma Redgrave, and Maggie O'Neill are pretty good, while Blake Ritson has a decent stab at the role of Edmund.It just doesn't feel right or have the correct sense of period.
I've read plenty of Jane Austen in my time and approve of several cinema/TV adaptations but this one we just don't need.Rating is a 2 as I wouldn't say it's awful just so boring you will feel like you've wasted 90 minutes of your life.
This Mansfield Park may not be badly shot and the scenery looks great, but I saw very little evocative about the period recreation, I missed the atmosphere that even 2007's Persuasion(disappointing as that was) had and all the best Austen adaptations have and to me it felt too much like a costume drama being shot against a modern era rather than being transported through a time machine.
The story also disappoints, the adaptation is too short so consequently the storytelling feels too rushed complete with characters that you just don't care anything for and very little of the attitudes and statuses of the time which would have given it some authenticity.
I wasn't too thrilled about the casting either, the actors are good and try their best but it is all a wasted effort when their characters and story aren't very interesting or well developed.
I recently read the book (a bit of a slog but brilliant) and was interested to see a screen adaptation, wondering how on earth they could breath life into Fanny Price who seems to be more of an ideal that a real person.
Mansfield Park, in its second half, is my favorite of Austen's novels, and Fanny Price my favorite of her heroines, so I'm saddened by the unhappy fate she's suffered in her big- and small-screen representations.
If the actress had been younger she would have been good visual casting as well; but the Fannys that have reached our eyes to date have more resembled, respectively: Mary Crawford; Ruby the scullery girl; and (in this incarnation) a jovial serving wench, or possibly tart, with her high moral principles pulled down a peg.Well, I had hoped for better, but had feared worse.
First of all, you have probably been warned in the past to not read a book before you see the movie, because "it will ruin it." Well, in this case, having seen the other Mansfield Park kind of ruined this one for me.
Rich and I both agreed that it would seem the 1999 version must have been twice as long, because there is so much more development, so much more tension built over time between Fanny and Edmund, so much more depth to the characters.
She left out fairly major characters, combined events, took several liberties like those, and yet it made for such a great movie, that even having read the book many many times, it didn't bother me at all.
It may not be strictly Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, but at least it was well-written, beautifully shot, and well-acted by a superior cast.
Fanny Price (Billie Piper) was sent to live with her aunts in Mansfield Park at the age of 10.
The family is turned upside down with the arrival of their neighbors siblings Mary (Hayley Atwell) and Henry Crawford (Joseph Beattie).Billie Piper is a very modern personality and doesn't fit the Fanny character.
Fanny Price, the main character, was hardly in it, all Billie Piper's lines could have fit onto a single page of A4.
I do like Billie Piper as an actress, but this role did not suit her and was much better played by Frances O'Connor in the 1999 version who gave overall a far more subtle and convincing performance.
Jane Austen adaptations will always provide a love story to leave you feeling good but unfortunately, this is one of the worst I have seen..
they made fanny price seem too much like jane herself and totally changed her countenance, which in my opinion is the subject of the book.
I would like to see BBC make another Mansfield Park which will give time for story telling.
If anyone has read all of Jane Austens books as i have, I'm sure that you will find that out of all her leading ladies, Fanny Price is the dullest therefore i am glad this production showed a more passionate story and although not a complete portrayal of Fanny Price i thought the story well put together and all together beautiful.
I was so enchanted by it that i walked away at the end of the production beaming as i thought it so beautiful.For a comment on the acting i thought that Billie Piper's Fanny Price was very well done and that Blake Ritson's Edmund Bertram was worth watching if not only but to drool over him.Enchanting, beautiful and worth watching: this coming from a viewer who is not intellectually-challenged!.
I had already read some of the reviews here when I started watching this latest version of Jane Austen's novel, and I kind of expected the worst.
Mansfield Park is probably the dullest Jane Austen book, and Fanny definitely the dullest heroine.
When I first read the book I was almost shouting at her to "do something!" ITV tried to fix this by casting Billie Piper, but she is totally wrong for any Austen production, as she is just too modern looking (I read somewhere they considered asking her to dye her eyebrows blonde!
the two main characters Billie piper and Blake ritson where wonderful and i was glad that i watched and bought this movie,,they were sweet and tender and made you feel good for a change..
its a delight and the plot is wonderfully romantic and fulfilling, like many other itv film productions of Jane Austen's work..
Read the book first , and then enjoy Billie Piper's glowing depiction of Fanny Price.
Honestly, Mansfield Park is probably Jane Austen's dreariest novel.
However, if you want to watch a film adaptation of the novel then this is by far the better choice.
I think Billie Piper does an excellent job of bringing Fanny Price to life by remaining true to her character but making her likable.
I also think the opprobrium heaped on Billie Piper was completely unfair: the reviewers seemed to blame her for the fact that she was not like the Fanny of the novel.
Having seen her in many productions, I think Billie is a fine actress, and she delivered precisely what was asked of her for this version of Mansfield park.
I will not say anything about the miscasting of Billie Piper as Fanny (Maggie O'Neill as Mrs Norris and Jemma Redgrave as Lady Bertram were also I feel miscast), nor about the enormous liberties taken with the plot, nor about Fanny's hair, nor about Fanny bouncing about like a fairy, I will even hold my tongue about the actress's manicured eyebrows as these have already been covered by other reviewers.
But there are so many other things that are wrong in this 'adaptation'.What I really liked about the book is how Fanny is the only constant in the story, everyone around her changes their feelings, opinions even their characters but Fanny although timid and shy sticks by her strong moral standards and shows a strength of character that surprises everyone who thought who knew her.
I did not see the conflicted Crawfords almost becoming good people, I did not see Sir Thomas regretting the way he brought up his children nor did I see Edmund falling in love with Fanny.
(I had to stifle a chuckle when the light shined off Fanny's messy hair and Edmund was suddenly struck with love as if shown the way by the Holy Spirit) I didn't even see the seduction progressing between Maria and Henry Crawford which is a pity as this is the only Jane Austen book that touches on infidelity.An other thing I really disliked is how they changed the characters of Mrs Norris and Lady Bertram.
Last things; the opening narration was just lazy, most of the acting bland.To end on a good note, i really liked the music, James D'Arcy who plays Tom Bertram is very good looking and my inner (and secret) squealing, girly, rom-com loving girl enjoyed the bit were Edmund runs after Fanny and they get together at last - although the joy was short lived when I remembered that this was supposed to be Mansfield Park..
When she is 18, new neighbors Henry and Mary Crawford come into her life; Henry has eyes for Fanny while Edmond is smitten with Mary.This Masterpiece Theatre version of Jane Austen's novel was really disappointing.
As long as it's not viewed as a film related to the Jane Austen novel, it is enjoyable and delightful to watch.
If one wants to see a delightful Elizabeth Bennett character, one should watch Pride & Prejudice.Also, as aforementioned in other comments, not sending Fanny away from Mansfield to her poor home most definitely changes the anatomy of the story as well.
The sets were gorgeous and I really feel that with the correct story structure and direction that Billie Piper (whom I'd never seen before) could actually have been a great Fanny Price.
Worst Adaptation of a Jane Austen Novel I have seen.
It can barely call itself an adaptation of Jane Austen's Novel, Mansfield Park.
This movie is bad on so many levels...Whoever had the idea of casting Billie Piper as Fanny Price should take a long hard look at their choice of career.
This is perhaps the Jane Austen novel in which it is most difficult to interest a modern audience, to whom Fanny and Edmund can seem at best dull and insipid and at worst self-righteous and priggish.
And he manages to present so wonderfully the key to Edmund's character - that he is in love with an ideal, but does not see it lives right in front of him (in the person of Fanny) until after the heartbreak with Mary Crawford.
I must admit that in most of the movie, I got irritated at Billie Piper's Fanny Price-character.
If you are a Janeite, as people who love all things Jane Austen, you are not gleeful about the latest adaptation of Mansfield Park.
It seems that the writer just jumbled a few plot lines from the book and added a few of his or her own and moved the story along so quickly that no one had a chance to identify with the main character Fanny Price or any of the Bertram family for that matter.
I have read Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and I think she is an amazing writer but even though this TV version with Billie Piper isn't true to the story, I thought it was brilliant and that appearances from James D'arcy and Blake Ritson made the whole adaptation even more amazingly good.This is, of course, my own thoughts and taste but I love the ending when Edmund (Blake Ritson) falls in love with Fanny (Billie Piper) in the last ten minutes of the whole program.I thought it was very sweet and romantic and the whole reason why I would watch it again and again and again.<3 <3 <3.
This is a lovely story by Austen, in part because her main heroine, Fanny, is not noted for her wit, but rather for her good nature and kindness.
If you love Austen, period pieces or romantic dramas, do seek out this new version of Mansfield Park. |
tt0120032 | Romy and Michele's High School Reunion | Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow) are two friends living together in a beachfront apartment in Los Angeles, California. Romy works as a cashier in the service department of a Jaguar dealership; Michele is unemployed. They are both single and unambitious. Romy encounters former high school classmate, Heather Mooney (Janeane Garofalo), who informs Romy about their upcoming 10-year high school reunion back in Tucson, Arizona.
At first excited at the prospect of attending, Romy then has the realization that they will not be able to make a good impression at the reunion. Desperate to impress their former classmates, Romy and Michele make last-ditch attempts to improve themselves to avoid the bullying they endured, mostly at the hands of the "A-Group", led by cheerleader Christie Masters (Julia Campbell).
In a series of flashbacks from 1987, Romy and Michele's suffering is revealed; Christie attached magnets to Michele's back brace and once took a bite out of the burger Romy was eating. Christie humiliated them once again at the prom, telling Romy that her handsome jock boyfriend, Billy Christensen (Vincent Ventresca), was in love with Romy and has now broken up with Christie to be with her. Christie tells Romy to wait for a dance with Billy. Christie and Billy then ride away together, unbeknownst to Romy, who patiently waits all night long at the dance for Billy. In tears, Romy then dances with Michele in a depressed state.
Failing in their attempts to get jobs and boyfriends, Romy and Michele decide to simply pretend they have been much more successful by showing up in an expensive car and business suits. Romy obtains a nice car from the Jaguar dealership, and Michele makes their outfits.
On the way to the reunion after making the realization they had not thought of what kind of business women they were, they decide to claim that they invented Post-it notes, reasoning that their true origins are obscure. Romy wants to state it was her idea to invent Post-Its and Michele's main contribution was deciding they should be yellow, which Michele takes as an insult to her intelligence. This leads to a further argument about who's the cuter of the two. The argument results in their decision to go their separate ways once they reach their destination.
When they arrive, Michele hears Romy saying that she invented Post-its all by herself. Michele convinces the A-Group girls that she invented a special kind of glue, explaining the glue's complicated formula in great detail. Sandy Frink (Alan Cumming), the nerd who had a crush on Michele in high school, turns out to be incredibly wealthy and gorgeous and hits on Michele, while Billy and Romy reunite and hit it off. Both Romy and Michele win awards as the most successful members of their graduating class. Though still refusing to speak with each other, they look back at each other with longing.
Seventy years later, an elderly Michele learns that Romy is on her deathbed, so she calls her to make amends. However, they rehash the same argument. Romy dies, flipping her the bird, and they never get a chance to resolve their issues.
Michele wakes up alone in the car in the present day, disturbed by the previous dream sequence. At the reunion, Romy has begun to spread her story. Heather Mooney disrupts their lie by revealing the real name of the person who did in fact invent Post-It notes (something Heather learned in business school). The A-Group girls begin a vicious verbal attack on Romy. Michele ineptly defends her. Christie further humiliates the two in front of everyone by revealing Romy's lie; Romy runs out, with Michele chasing after her.
Michele then tells Romy that she genuinely thought that their lives were wonderful just the way they were, before Romy said that they were not good enough. Michele also says that they should not care what everyone else thinks. They change into fun, stylish outfits they've designed, and return to the reunion, determined to have some fun at any cost.
They confront Christie about her bullying. Romy says she no longer cares about Christie because Christie is just "a bad person with an ugly heart". Christie makes fun of their clothes; former classmate Lisa Luder (Elaine Hendrix), an ex-member of the A-Group who has since become a fashion editor for Vogue, sees things differently, and announces that the outfits are actually very well made and overall "not bad". Christie begins to attack Lisa, but Lisa coolly dismisses her in front of the crowd that has gathered to watch. The other A-Group girls defect and Christie is left by herself, while everyone else makes their way over to congratulate Romy and Michele. Heather apologizes to Romy and Michele and tells them that the two of them had actually made her unhappy in high school, for she had been in love with Sandy. Romy and Michele then make her feel better by saying that she too had the luxury of making someone miserable, referencing former classmate and reunion committee head Toby Walters (Camryn Manheim), to whom Heather was always cruel in high school.
Sandy Frink then arrives via helicopter, and turns out to be a billionaire who made his fortune from inventing a special shoe rubber. He goes over to talk to Romy and Michele. Michele tells Sandy that he must be the most successful person in their class; Sandy responds that despite all the wealth and success he has, the one thing he doesn't have is her, and asks her to dance with him. Michele agrees, so long as Romy can dance with them too.
After an interpretive dance to Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" that receives huge applause, Sandy escorts them to his helicopter.
Heather walks out, not interested in the new Sandy. While smoking, she encounters a mysterious classmate dressed as a cowboy (Justin Theroux). Heather remembers that in high school, he would often offer her a light by silently flicking lit cigarette butts at her. This time, Heather demands that he talk to her. The cowboy lights her cigarette with a lighter and apologizes for his previous behavior, stating that he had suffered from a speech impediment in high school.
Romy and Michele leave with Sandy. On their way out, they encounter Billy Christensen, who is now Christie's husband; he is now an alcoholic, with a dead end job, living a miserable life with Christie, and unsure if he's the father of her latest pregnancy. When he propositions Romy, she tells him to go up to his hotel room, get undressed, and wait for her. He excitedly shuffles off; Romy laughs, having finally settled the score with Billy. They board the helicopter and see Heather down below amongst some bushes, making out with the cowboy.
Six months later, back in L.A., Romy and Michele use money loaned to them by Sandy to open their own fashion boutique. Heather has stayed in touch and has become friends with the girls, shopping in their store (and finally getting an outfit that's not all black). | cult, revenge, comedy, flashback | train | wikipedia | ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION (1997) ***1/2 Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow, Janeane Garofalo, Alan Cumming.Hysterically funny comedy about two best friends/roomies Sorvino and Kudrow (think female "Dumb and Dumber") facing their 10th high school reunion and, realizing their lives are not worth really bragging about, coming up with pseudo lives.
Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) live in Venice, California and love watching the film Pretty Woman.
I don't find Romy and Michele's High School Reunion to be as funny as some seem to—just consistently amusing—but I still like it: it has a warmth and charm that you don't find in many Hollywood films, a few profound points to make about life and true happiness, and two absolute babes with amazing legs—and sometimes, that's enough.The lovely Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe from Friends) and the possibly even lovelier Mira Sorvino play lifelong pals Romy and Michele, a pair of ditzy blondes sharing an apartment in Los Angeles.
In the ten years since graduating high school, the girls have led a carefree existence together, avoiding responsibility during the day in minimum wage jobs, and partying at night.When they discover that their high school in Tuscon is holding a class reunion, Romy and Michele decide to attend, but on realising that their lack of accomplishment over the last decade is unlikely to impress, they concoct a story to make themselves appear successful.
Of course, the whole deception crashes around their ears, but through the experience, Romy and Michele discover that their lives have been much richer than they had realised.The comedy of Romy and Michele veers towards the extremely silly at times, and is unlikely to appeal to those who enjoy more cerebral humour, but the underlying, heartfelt messages, the effervescent performances from its likable (and luscious) leads, excellent support from Janeane Garofolo (as class grouch Heather Mooney) and Alan Cumming (as nerd-turned-millionaire Sandy Frink), and spirited direction from David Mirkin are guaranteed to provide a fun time for all but the most joyless of souls..
But from this simple lie their friendship is broken apart and are made the laughing stock at the reunion.Romy and Michele's High School Reunion is a great little comedy of nostalgia; looking back upon school years, the fashion, the music and how people were back then; seeing that they've changed or just stayed completely the same.Overall this doesn't say much; there is that moral that friendship is the most important and to stand by your friends in any situation.
There is that idea also that when people look back upon school years people realise if they were liked or not; Christy and the A group finding they were the most hated and despised and that the 'freaks' of school go on to be the most successful.Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow fit their characters perfectly; giving so much energy and naivety to them.
Its one of the funniest films I've seen and is not only a great flashback of the 80s [Although not a damn patch on 13 GOING ON 30] but a hilarious bimbo movie, possibly the best if it weren't for 2004's MEAN GIRLS.This is an endearing, funny, mean, warm movie about the innocence of being a bimbo and its negatives and positives.
Lisa Kudrow is especially comfortable in this role thanks to Pheobe.It's not exactly high brow humour, but the laughers and great characters of the 97 set picture not only bring back memories of the 1990s now but it also lets us all know that we shouldn't accept the crap of todays Hollywood.
"Romy & Michele's High School Reunion" is all about Sorvino and Kudrow as a couple of best friend ditzes who have supported each through and since school and are confronted with their first high school ten year reunion.
Mira Sorvino is great as Romy White , as is Lisa Kudrow as the ditsy yet fun Michele, and Janeane Garfolo as the rude and moody Heather Moony.
They are perfect together at a point to believe that they are real intimate friends.It's one of the best and funniest movies I've ever seen for one simple reason: it's one of the best movies together with "Muriel's Wedding", "Welcome To Dollhouse", "Mean Girls" and some other ones to portray as a satire way what really happens to a lot of people's lives at Elementary and High School times.
In recent times many films have been made about the boring lives of American teenagers.If there is one film which has the ability to stand apart from a huge crowd of inane Hollywood teen pictures,it is surely Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.It is a perfect film which does not hesitate in attacking fake American values prevalent in high schools.It is a known fact that there is too much pressure on American high school children to succeed in all realms of life.There are many people who become a part of this system.There are some like Romy and Michelle who decide to follow their own paths.Hollywood director David Mirkin has directed a nice film about these two girls who do not take their lives seriously.It is through a great soundtrack that we are showed a not so rosy picture of the lives of disillusioned souls like Romy and Michelle.It is a nice film which teaches us that people can be happy with what they are.One has to remain true to oneself if one wants to be respected.Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino look fabulous as Romy and Michelle..
And the message is pretty clear: Happiness comes from within, not how successful people think you are.Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorveno excel as to Blonds who return to their high school reunion intent on making the "Popular People" stand up and take notice.
Alan Cummings bit part shows his true talent of being able to step into any role and fit in.The only place where the movie fails is too much time with Romy and Michelle in L.A., and not enough with them at the reunion, which if written correctly could have made this laugh out loud funny..
"Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" is a movie that I've heard about for a long time, having seen the video stored at someone's house or whatnot.
The verdict is while there are some funny moments, and the ending is good, there are enough dead spots to only get it a lukewarm recommendation.Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) are two best friends...and first class ditzes.
The movie is at it's best when it allows them to be the ultra-dim bulbs that they are, but there just aren't enough of these moments.Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino are terrific as the leads.
-The Best: Lisa Kudrow, Mira Sorvino, Janeane Garofalo, the most talented writer who provided us one of the most pleasant comedy movies to sit along for 1 hour and half.
Almost all the cast is hilarious and there's also place for the villains' starring the most annoying of all Julia Campbell as Christie Masters, well I know that's her role and she needs to look mean and, all, but let's face it she is really annoying to the part.Get yourselves all together to this big party called Romy and Michele's High School Reunion', seat back, enjoy and have fun, recalling all the greatest hits from the 80's which are a remarkable point to the very century's history and to the movie as well, no one will even forget the greatest leaving of Romy and Michelle via Helicopter with one of the greatest 80's songs behind
.See it, it's absolutely worth watching
7/10.
Janeane Garofalo is hilarious as the chain-smoking, grumpy Heather and almost steals the screen in every scene she's in.The movie is full of witty one-liners and memorable characters, each with their own distinct personalities not to mention very well-written.With a fantastic 80's soundtrack (that will have the songs stuck in your head for days), Romy and Michele is a gem of a comedy movie that remains so, no matter how many times you watch!.
"Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" does a great job of showing what high school is really like, and that one day you to can get revenge on the mean girl that bullied you.
I could not stop laughing while I was watching this funny film!Romy and Michele are ditzy blondes who get invited to their 10 year high school reunion.
Oh my gosh Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997)makes you just want to have a best friend like romy or michele!
David Mirkin (director) did a wonderful job casting Mira Sorvino (romy white) and lisa kudrow (michele weinberger).
The plot is pretty good, it's about Romy and Michele(as you probably guessed from the title), who, 10 years after high school haven't really gotten anywhere with their lives, and are told about a high school reunion.
Right from the very first moments I realised that I wasn't watching the predictable "Friends" type comedy but something far more surreal and enjoyable.The best aspect of the film is the way it uses a basic and very predictable storyline, the girls that were unpopular at school get their own back, and yet adds humour and style, along with some bizzare dream sequences to create an unpredictable journey with turns and twist a plenty.I would be lying if I said that it was a classic, but thanks to some good acting, sharp script and very well judged humour it manages to amuse time and time again.
I thought Dumb and Dumber was great fun, even if not all of the jokes hit home, but Romy and Michele's High School Reunion was almost tiresome to watch.
Mira Sorvino is too talented for this film and Lisa Kudrow is playing Phoebe from "Friends".
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion is one of those pleasant movie-going experiences that doesn't offend, excite, or challenge anyone.
I also think this was Lisa Kudrow's best performance in all the movies she's ever done and was even more impressive than her ditsy Phoebe Buffay character on "FRIENDS".
Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow) are dim-witted blonde best friends in L.A. Romy runs into her high school classmate Heather Mooney (Janeane Garofalo) who is now wealthy with news of the upcoming Sagebrush High School 10th year reunion in Tuscon.
I thought the two leads were both very good.It's nothing special and the characters and story aren't that "deep" but for what it is, a silly "desperate to impress people at a high school reunion" comedy, it's a lot of fun.
I just noticed the advertising slogan for this movie ("The blonde leading the blonde") and kind of wished that whoever came up with that witty one-liner might have hung around to help with the screenplay itself, but this is still a reasonably amusing chick-flick about two ditzy blondes working dead-end jobs in L.A. who decide to crash their old Tucson high- school tenth anniversary reunion and make a point to the three bitchy seniors who picked on them during their time there.That folks is the sum of the plot as our female Wayne and Garth set out on a road-trip in a fancy borrowed car to Tucson, improbably power-dressed as the company executives who invented "post-its" where they predictably crash and burn, even falling out with each other in the process, before assisted by the intervention of two of their even weirder former-classmates, right all the past wrongs done against them and of course come out on top, friendship and status intact, indeed enhanced.Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow are both equally likable as the blonde and blonder leads, stupid but sassy with it.
This movie is fun to watch, especially if you have a high school best friend that can be paired with these two's tandem.Rate 8/10.
Way More Fun Than It Shoud Be. Two women (Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sovino) get into a lot of trouble when they go to their high school reunion and lie about their lives after twelfth grade.This film is a win.
This film is great for teenagers especially girls, as they will enjoy the banter between all of the characters but also understand what Romy and Michele are going through and also understand how popular people are really just mean people and how horrible they can be.
This film is also great because of the moral it has in it, and that is " It doesn't matter if you are a nerd in high school, because in the end you are going to come out on top" and that is what this movie represents.
Lisa Kudrow is as funny as ever -- perfect casting.A wonderfully silly little film with an important message - "Success comes from within, and who cares about the past "SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE" in our collective lives !" A local DISH "encapsulation" of this movie had the NERVE to call their characters "two pinheads who go to their high school reunion".
ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION is one of those movies that isn't necessarily terrific, but very lovable nonetheless.
It's the story of Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow), best friends living in LA who get news of their ten-year high school reunion going on in Tucson.
Also mentionable is Camryn Manheim as Toby Walters, and all of the actresses playing the "A-group."ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION isn't the best comedy you can find out there.
Lisa Kudrow (Michele Weinberger) and Mira Sorvino (Romy White) are the perfect fit the the character parts portrayed in this movie.
romy and michele,s high school reunion is very funny the dresses what they make r so cool mira sorvino and lisa kudrow were made for that part and janeane garofalo is so funny 2 and the A group they were realy good acting like bitches and the cowboy was realy hot!.
Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) and Lisa Kudrow from TV's 'Friends', star in this blonde comedy, directed by David Mirkin.It's been ten years since Romy White (Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Kudrow) completed high school at fictional (?) Sagebrush High in Tuscon.
Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow give great comic performances, and their dance sequence with Alan Cumming always makes me laugh so hard I cry--then I rewind and do it again!.
She how junior high looks when it's interpreted through high school!!!It's a riot!Then grow up--keep your best friend--have changed practically not-at-all, then meet those people again, who oddly enough haven't changed either!Then learn a lesson, and GROOoooww, like little flowers in a garden...hmmmmAdd instantaneous perfect random choreography--and WOW--you got my favorite comedy movie of all time:ROMY AND MICHELLE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION!!!.
High school outsiders as comedy material has been pretty well done to death, so I was a little sceptical when I saw this rated **** by our TV guide critic, but I have been very impressed with Mira Sorvino in other movies so why not.
Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino bring this funny script and make it their movie.
It is full of great one-liners, it moves at a brisk pace (in fact so brisk that when it ends you definitely wish that it would last a little longer) and Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino are dead-on in their portrayals of these two girls whom all of us would easily recognize from our own high school years.
I love Romy and Michele because they are everything my former best friend and I were in high school.
Ten years out of high school in Arizona, and Romy and Michele the best friend heroines are living in Southern California.
Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) play a couple of dumb blondes who were losers in high school and sees their 10-year reunion as an opportunity to make up success stories and get back at the popular and snobby Christy Masters and her friends.I loved the flashbacks, especially the one at the prom where they were both wearing Madonna outfits.
This movie follows Romey (Miro Sorvino) and Michelle (Lisa Kudrow) who are best friends since high school, and they are going to their high school reunion, and they want to impress the class and the movie shows the funny things that happened to them in high school and now; it's worth the money and time, rent it - you'll see!.
So ditzy and whacko - love the flashbacks, the dream sequence and the sweet revenge Romy and Michele exact on Christy Masters and her snob squad...If ever you've been picked on in high school (and let's face it, who hasn't unless you're on Christy's side), this is the greatest movie to watch with the loose moral underneath about "being yourself" and "friends over popularity".
What really gets me is the people who love this movie, but don't know what it's like to be in Romy and Michele's shoes.
Romy and Michele is a great movie, because of the silly comedy and the great acting by Kudrow and Sorvino.
Now almost 1yr after I originally bought and watched it, I can be sure that it definitely is one of my favourite comedies of all time, joint only with 1998's "There's something about Mary" that was absolutely hilarious.The performances were first rate all round, Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow and Janeane Garofalo were superb.
There are several reasons I think this movie is great, but the biggest ones are the performances of Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow as Romy White and Michele Weinberger, two lovable airheads and best friends from Los Angeles who decide to attend their ten-year reunion in Tucson, Arizona.
"Romy and Michele" gets funnier everytime I watch it.Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow make a great comedy team.
Romy and Michele´s High School Reunion is one of the best films I ever have seen .
Romy & Michele's High School Reunion is one of my favorite movies! |
tt1448608 | Turbo | In a suburban San Fernando Valley garden in Los Angeles, Theo, a.k.a. Turbo, is a garden snail who dreams of being the greatest racer in the world, just like his hero, 5-time Indianapolis 500 winner, Guy Gagné. His obsession with speed and all things fast has made him an outcast in the slow and cautious snail community, and a constant embarrassment to his older brother, Chet. Turbo desperately wishes he could escape the slow-paced life he's living, but his one chance to live proves a near fatal disaster when he tries to recover a prize tomato and needs to be rescued by Chet.
Demoralized, Turbo wanders onto a freeway to admire the traffic and wishes he was fast on the first star (which is actually an airplane light). Suddenly, he gets into a freak accident when he gets sucked into the supercharger of a drag racer, fusing his DNA with nitrous oxide. The next day, when Theo wakes up, he now possesses incredible speed and accuracy, as well as some characteristics of an actual car. Unfortunately, Turbo's first attempt to show this power off ends with him crashing a Big Wheel tricycle into the garden, getting himself and Chet fired from the garden crew by their foreman.
As the siblings quarrel over Turbo's problems, Chet is snatched by a crow, but is pursued and rescued by Turbo at a run down strip mall called Starlight Plaza. There, they are captured by Tito, a "Dos Bros" taco truck driver, and are brought to a snail race held by him and his co-workers. Theo astounds both humans and snails alike and earns the respect of the snails, led by Whiplash, with his crew members Smoove Move, Burn, Skidmark, and White Shadow, who have skills of their own. Inspired by this extraordinary snail, Tito dreams to revive the strip mall with Turbo as an attraction, and eventually with the help of the snails who manage to divert and strand a tour bus and drum up impressive business. At this success, Theo convinces Tito to enter him in the Indianapolis 500 as a competitor. While Tito's brother, Angelo, still declines to support him, the neighbors agree to put up the entrance fee and accompany them to Indianapolis.
Once there, Tito is refused entry into the race, but a chance meeting with Guy Gagné gives Turbo a chance to show off his speed, astounding the audience and the racers and qualifies for the race. This impossible feat soon becomes a sensation on social media and the CEO gives in to the pressure, egged on by Gagné himself, to let the snail compete. However, the night before the race, Turbo is demoralized by Gagné, while Chet confesses that he cannot bear to see his brother endanger himself. Undeterred, Turbo enters the race the next day, but the dangerous racetrack and the more experienced competitors leave him trailing in last place. At a pitstop, Whiplash and his crew give Turbo a vital pep talk, advising him to stop racing like a car. Back in the race, Turbo realizes what they mean and uses his small size to his advantage. With the snail rapidly gaining in the standings, Gagné starts racing dirty and manages to knock Turbo against the circuit wall, damaging his shell and weakening his speed powers.
Eventually, in the final stretch with Turbo in the lead, Gagné tries a desperate maneuver to beat the snail and gets into a major crash that snares most of the competitors in a major pileup. Similarly, Turbo is thrown, waking up from unconsciousness with his shell punctured and his speed gone. Alarmed at seeing Turbo giving up, Chet puts himself into incredible dangers to meet up with Whiplash's crew to get to the racer. Seeing his brother and the crew arrive on crows to encourage him to continue, Turbo resumes the race. Unfortunately, Gagné, refusing to lose, single-mindedly pursues him by dragging his wrecked car attempt to win. At the last second, Chet tells Turbo to tuck and roll into his shell at Gagné's last blow and the force allows him to tumble past the finish line to win. Gagné is then attacked by Kim-Ly before being disqualified for cheating.
At this victory, Starlight Plaza becomes a major attraction with all the businesses becoming spectacular successes including extremely elaborate snail races with Whiplash's crew getting special propulsion aids for their shells, while Chet is content with his new job as the track referee and paramedic. As for Turbo, he becomes happier discovering that his shell has healed, and with that, his superspeed has returned. | violence | train | wikipedia | Making the most of a small budget!. Director Jarrett Lee Conaway does a lot in a surprisingly small amount of time. Choreographed fight scenes with flurries of special FX shots highlighted within, deceivingly big and futuristic sets, and a young cast you barely get to know, but quickly come to love.In Turbo, star Hugo Park (acted well by Justin Chon of Twilight fame) gambles his brother Tobias' (Ilram Choi, a professional stuntman) rent away at a local club, playing a virtual reality game called 'Super Turbo Arena 2'. The game requires gloves and special glasses, it which point, the player's movements are tracked on screen. This movie couldn't have been made at a better time, as video consoles have finally reached a point where movement tracking controllers are a reality. Suddenly, the idea of STA2 seems more possible than ever.This is obviously a movie by a gamer, for gamers, as every minute detail is covered. From the techno music backing the fights, to the announcer's voice, this film is a love letter to "Street Fighter", and many other 3D fighting games.The only time I found myself disappointed was during key scenes near the end, when a final tournament is held, with a prize take of $50,000. I was looking forward to all of the fights leading up to the final tournament battle, but unfortunately, the only one you really get to see is a part-flashback style fight between the protagonist and his nemesis. I was hoping to be wowed by the action, but cutting what should be an important tournament for ALL of the characters in the film was not the best decision.Overall, Turbo nails the atmosphere of Martial Arts video games, and by not overstaying its welcome, it succeeds in drawing you in and keeping you interested. Perhaps this is why so many video game films struggle... you can only do so much with a story you ultimately create yourself (In modern games).. Very impressive genre film despite limits in performances and scale. Turbo is a virtual reality fighting game which can be played online or face to face in organized tournaments. When young Hugo loses his brother's rent money in a fight to bully Shamus Bryce, it also ends his hope to enter a larger tournament. However Ruse Kapri saw him fight and liked his spirit, lending him the money to enter. However what hope does he have against the undefeated Shamus? Well, very little until older brother Tobias, an injured former fighter, steps in to help train him in real life skills to use in the game.This film opens with a scene to grab your attention and make you jump online to check if you really are watching a student film or not. We start with a fight sequence in a computerized world which is a nicely shot walkway over a road but does the trick. It features animation like in Street Fighter or Tekken and it moves very well within the fight but also slipping out into Hugo's house where he stands on a platform wired up so his character repeats his moves. From here we get the detail of the world and we quickly get into sports genre movie territory – essentially this is Karate Kid where a young fighter takes on a bully with training from an older master.Technology wise the film is very impressive indeed and Conaway has not only done great work in the post-production but his direction of action sequences is good in this context, keeping the camera moving to add energy and impact. I would have liked some more extended fight sequences and more elaborate locations, but what I got I liked. The short running time does limit the plot because, like I said, this is Karate kid but it is really compressed and the rush does show. This also hurts the performances a little bit and I would have liked a little more time to develop characters and draw me in. Chon and Choi in particular were good but with limited time Lehre and Hunter were a bit unnatural and caricatured. In the fight sequences stunt performers Choi, Noviello and Tiare do well. The rush and the material does limit the performances though – not all down to the cast. While the use of computer technology and the camera movement is effective, Conaway doesn't quite overcome the challenge of resources in other ways and during the big fight the small room of people watching does feel like a small room of people rather than something bigger, and the real-world set for the final battle is a big "sound-stage" rather than feeling real and atmospheric – minor quibbles though.Turbo is a great little genre film – not "good for a student film" but actually good enough to watch on its own without any context. It has weaknesses in terms of material, performances and scale at some points, but it is still very impressive and, although rushed, is enjoyable and fun.. High adrenaline short film, great production, and funky soundtrack. Hard to believe this is a film school short as the production values are pretty damn high. This film is a genre fusion of augmented reality computer gaming, martial arts and old school classic fight tournaments with some pretty decent performances. Set in a near future, the story features an underground tournament where contestants compete in an augmented reality martial arts game called Turbo. Those of you who are gamers, imagine an augmented reality version of Virtual Fighter (or Streetfighter) with your own life-like avatar, using your whole body as the controls, then throw in a Karate Kid storyline of a bullied boy trying to prove himself and a brother mentor that trains him to fight, and you have a predictable but highly enjoyable short flick. Why its so enjoyable is the movie knows its clichéd like hell but delivers it with style and a little self mocking wink.Non gamers would enjoy this too for its kinetic energy, slick visuals, martial arts, cool soundtrack and good old boo the bad guy, cheer the good guy feel.Being a film school production, I cant really say much bad things about it but I do agree with another reviewer on how fights are edited. Its a pity, the old school pan out long takes are not adopted these days. Having said that, the fights were were still enjoyable despite the fast edits.To top it off the film ends with a superb end credit sequence that most Hollywood movies would envy. |
tt0018742 | The Cameraman | Buster (Buster Keaton), a sidewalk tintype portrait photographer in New York City, develops a crush on Sally (Marceline Day), a secretary who works for MGM Newsreels. To be near her, he purchases an old film camera, emptying his bank account, and attempts to get a job as one of MGM's filmers. Harold (Harold Goodwin), an MGM cameraman who has designs on Sally himself, mocks his ambition.
Sally, however, encourages Buster and suggests he film anything and everything. Buster's first attempts show his total lack of experience. He double exposes or over exposes much of the footage, and the rest is simply no good. Despite this setback, Sally agrees to go out with Buster, after her Sunday date cancels. They go to the city plunge (pool), where Buster gets involved in numerous mishaps. Later, Harold offers Sally a ride home; Buster has to sit in the rumble seat, where he gets drenched in the rain.
The next day, Sally gives him a hot tip she has just received that something big is going to happen in Chinatown. In his rush to get there, he accidentally runs into an organ grinder, who falls and apparently kills his monkey. A nearby cop makes Buster pay for the monkey and take its body with him. The monkey turns out only to be dazed and joins Buster on his venture.
In Chinatown, Buster films the outbreak of a Tong War, narrowly escaping death on several occasions. At the end, he is rescued from Tong members by the timely arrival of the police, led by a cop (Harry Gribbon) who had been the unintentional victim of several of Buster's antics over the last few days. The cop tries to have him committed to the mental hospital, but Buster makes his escape with his camera intact.
Returning to MGM, Buster and the newsreel company's boss are dismayed to find that he apparently forgot to load film into his camera. When Sally finds herself in trouble for giving Buster the tip, Buster offers to make amends by leaving MGM alone once and for all.
Buster returns to his old job, but does not give up on filming, setting up to record a boat race. He then discovers that he has Tong footage after all; the mischievous monkey had switched the reels. Sally and Harold are speeding along in one of the boats. When Harold makes too sharp a turn, the two are thrown into the river. Harold saves himself, but Sally is trapped by the circling boat. Buster stops filming to jump in and rescues her. The monkey gets behind the camera to film the daring rescue. When Buster rushes to a drug store to get medical supplies to revive her, Harold returns and takes credit for the rescue. The two go off, leaving the broken-hearted Buster behind.
Buster decides to send his Tong footage to MGM free of charge. The boss decides to screen it for Harold and Sally for laughs, but is thrilled by what he sees, calling it the best camerawork he has seen in years. They also see footage of Buster's boat footage and the monkey's shot of Buster's rescue of Sally. The boss sends Sally to get Buster. She tells him he is in for a great reception. Buster assumes a ticker-tape parade is in his honor, whereas it is really for Charles Lindbergh. | bleak | train | wikipedia | He gave little thought to financial matters; he believed in doing things right, whatever the cost in money, time or physical hardship.In 1928, Keaton's producer Joseph Schenck dissolved his studio and turned him over to MGM, the biggest, richest, and most authoritarian of the major studios.
As a result, THE CAMERAMAN became a Keaton masterpiece, one of his most mature, satisfying, and hilarious films.Not surprisingly, some of the funniest and most inspired moments were not in the script but were improvised by Buster during filming: when he pantomimes a baseball game in Yankee Stadium, when he calmly demolishes his room in an effort to open his piggy bank, and when he attempts to change into a swimsuit in a small cubicle shared with an irascible fat man.
It's a delight to watch her riding around on Buster's shoulder, scampering up and down his body, and embracing his great stone face with her tiny hands.THE CAMERAMAN reflects Buster's fascination with film-making and the mechanics of the camera.
There's the most poignant moment in any Keaton film, when Buster, having rescued Sally from a boat wreck and rushed off to get aid, returns to the beach to find his rival has taken credit for the rescue and won her gratitude.
The romance in THE CAMERAMAN is more fully developed than in most of Keaton's films; Sally is played by the exceptionally pretty Marceline Day, and unlike Buster's often prickly love interests she is unfailingly sweet and supportive.
It must be a candidate for the shelf of the classics, to stand in its own right among all others and hold its own.A tall order for a little comedy, you might think, even with the irreplaceable imagination and grace of Buster Keaton on both sides of the camera.
-- proves not simply a one-off gag, but key to the plot; and it is this sort of coherence that gives the film as a whole its beautiful sense of shape.The story itself is very simple, almost episodic, compared to some of Keaton's wilder offerings: boy loves girl, boy sets out day after day to prove himself and find his dream, as events conspire to frustrate him.
-- have been an influence on Gene Kelly's famous rapture of delight (and encounter with bemused policeman); the echoes are so close...There are no great set-piece stunts and chases to take over the screen and dominate the plot, as in "Seven Chances" or "The General"; but much as I love Buster's breathtaking skills and endless acrobatic agility, I think the film actually benefits by the more integrated style.
This film quite simply has *everything*, and that's why even among Keaton's work it stands out.Buster Keaton, meanwhile, is in top form, playing perhaps the most fully-realized of his various romantic dreamers: the little street photographer with his hard-saved nest egg, ten cents a time, who longs to become a daredevil cameraman capturing the breaking news.
This is classic Keaton: the fascination and frustration with machinery, the ingenuity applied and misapplied, the beauty of face and body that can express an entire universe without words, the flights of fancy and the inevitable falls.Buster could, notoriously, "run like a jack-rabbit" for all his small size, and here his speed as well as his famous frozen poise are put to memorable use.
Buster Keaton and his leading lady Marceline Day shine in this deliciously romantic comedy from 1928, about a tintype cameraman who longs to become a successful newsreel photographer for MGM.
Best scenes in The Cameraman are the public pool scenes, where Buster tangles with a mafia type in his dressing room, then loses his bathing trunks while swimming; the Tong War scenes with Josephine the monkey (so adorable!); and the regatta scenes, where Luke (Buster) saves Sally, only to have her affection stolen from him by an unworthy competitor.
While THE CAMERAMAN does not really feature any incredible or death-defying stunts, there are a number of set pieces that provide exciting humor (the staircase sequence, for instance), and also some hilarious situations such as when he loses his bathing suit at the "municipal plunge" or when he has to protect his camera from the attackers during the tong war.
Its sight gags may not be as funny, complex and clever as in Buster's independent films (The General, Sherlock Jr, Steamboat Bill Jr and others), but The Cameraman has probably the best romance of all his films, and is certainly one of the best directed.
It starts off rather slowly, but gets better and better as it moves along, leading up to a great finish that is fully worthy of Keaton's genius.The setup, with Buster as a cameraman who desperately yearns to break into the newsreel business, lends itself well to visual gags and also provides Buster with the kind of hard-luck character which he always portrayed so convincingly and humorously.
The early parts do move slowly at times, aside from a few good gags - but Keaton apparently once said that there was some good material in the original film that has not survived because the negatives deteriorated (this seems likely, because there are some noticeable blemishes even in what is left in the prints on the current video version).
While plying his trade of TinType Photographer, Keaton meets up with Sally (Marceline Day) who works at MGM.
It is reminiscent of some of his early slapstick works: there's a pure anarchistic glee throughout that finally explodes in an incredible scene involving a monkey, a movie camera, and Keaton amidst a full-fledged Chinese gang war (!) that must surely go down as one of the most ambitious gags anyone has ever attempted.
Buster Keaton plays a kind hearted but bumbling cameraman trying his best to win over a clerk at MGM studios.
I find The Cameraman, in its best moments, funnier than Buster Keaton's earlier, non-studio production, The General.
So it needs to pull of a few major original gags, which it does: anarchy punctuates the odd scene in the rain with the police officer who wants to test his reflexes to see if he's "goofy"; and, Buster undressing with another man in the changing room at the swimming pool is brutally funny.
Wonderful comedy with Buster Keaton as a 3rd rate day-dreaming cameraman who tries to be a freelance newsreel man.Along with the trademark Keaton chase scenes, there is also a sweet story as he falls for a secretary (Marceline Day) who seems more interested in another man.
"The Cameraman" was Keaton's next to last silent film,and the last feature he had any real measure of creative control over,and it shows,especially in it's new restored DVD release.While still missing some of it's original footage,the existing material has been restored to near perfect condition,allowing the viewer to really see what's going on,and with a visual artist like BK this is essential!
It's said that MGM's print of this was worn ragged because it was considered a perfect example of comedy writing and directing and was REQUIRED viewing for all their new comedians.Why then did those in control at MGM refuse to allow Keaton the freedom he needed to make his kind of picture?
This is such a brilliant little movie, so far ahead of its time, and like the rest of Keaton's work, so influential for generations to come.
There are comedy bits that are still fresh today, a sweet romance blended in, and what seems like one great scene after another for 67 minutes.Keaton's character is lovable as a sweet guy who has fallen for a women (Marceline Day) who works in a newsreel agency, and who tries his best to 'make good' there as a cameraman.
THE CAMERAMAN (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1928), directed by Edward Sedgwick, is a comedy, a silent comedy featuring that "stoneface" comedian, Buster Keaton, in the title role.
Though not essentially that of a cameraman working behind the scenes at a movie studio, but one working for an MGM newsreel company in New York City.
Feeling he hasn't a Chinaman's chance in obtaining enough footage covering a tong war, Buster acquires unexpected situations that not even he could have ever imagined.If the plot sounds overly familiar, it should, for that THE CAMERAMAN was reworked in both story and gags as a Red Skelton comedy retitled WATCH THE BIRDIE (MGM, 1950).
Portions of it are still from the old negative and the difference dramatically shows the value of proper film presentation."For THE CAMERAMAN, the Keaton style made famous in the twenties soon leaned towards a new creative Buster, MGM style.
Great moments in Keaton comedy consist of pantomiming a baseball game playing all positions in the completely empty Yankee Stadium; Buster's struggles to open a piggy bank; he running up and down a long flight of stairs in his apartment building to answer the phone in the lobby; and best of all, Buster's first screen encounter with big and burly Edward Brophy in a tight scene where they attempt to change into bathing suits in a small bathhouse.
Though Buster works basically alone as the man with a camera, he does acquire a sort of sidekick, that of a monkey who's annoyance as well as good deeds add to some really clever and creative comedy timing.
Keaton's got a double motive not just the job, but he wants to win the heart of newspaper secretary, Marceline Day.The rest of the film is a succession of gags with the camera, and poor Buster's efforts to take pictures in some perilous circumstances.
Funniest sequence is when he's sent to cover the Chinese New Year celebration and two rival tongs start a war on the spot.In these days where now photographs are taken from hand held cellphones, younger viewers might not get some of the problems with the bulkiness of those old movie cameras.
Although the most famous of his silent films include THE GENERAL (1927), COPS (1922) and THE BOAT (1921), THE CAMERAMAN (1928), which had for long been feared lost, includes many of his most powerful acting pieces and moments which make this movie a truly amusing and authentic comedy.The movie presents us to the character: a cameraman so intensely sought by the people and so intensely seeking the better chance for self promotion.
Buster (Buster Keaton), though so close to a great career at MGM Newsreels, meets attractive Sally (Marceline Day) and, from this moment, he does his best to impress her.
There are terrific camera shots in the movie, including the sequence on the stadium while the main character is having a rehearsal, the city shots while Buster is running in order to date with Sally, the scene at the swimming pool.
It seems that Keaton's deal with MGM had a promising start, but things went downhill from there as the silent era came to a close.DOUG: Despite all the creative freedoms that Keaton sacrificed, this manages to be the best film of his that we've watched since The General, with some of his best and most inspired sequences.
Buster tries to get a job as one of the studio's cameramen, and after buying a second hand camera at a pawnbroker, he gets advice from Sally (who wants him to make good) to find something interesting to film to audition to the office boss to get a full time job.
After Sally goes on a date with Buster, trying to cheer him up, where he has trouble getting into his swim suit, diving, and trying to compete for Sally's attention with every guy, including Stagg (another cameraman for the studio), Buster tries to succeed on his next assignment: Getting exclusive pictures of a Tong War on the streets in Chinatown.
If you're not immediately drawn to him, try out a different movie for tonight's entertainment and come back to Buster Keaton after you've had a heartbreak or two.Buster finds out Marceline works for MGM's news department, so to impress her, he strives to become a professional cameraman.
"The Cameraman" was also the last time Buster got to work with his usual gag writers, camera people, directors and other staff.
The Cameraman is Buster Keaton's last great film..
When he pawns his tintype machine to buy an outdated, hand cranked movie camera, all in the service of getting closer to Sally, the newsreel production office receptionist, things spin out of Buster's control pretty damn fast.
That's not the typical response to your typical slapstick and reflects the elevation of Buster's small-man-in-a-big-world character beyond mere comedy prop.With hindsight being 20/20, it's difficult to not find a tinge of the bittersweet in The Cameraman, solely because it is Buster Keaton's last great film.
But this film must be an exception to that rule, because it has Keaton's footprint all over it, and is one of his finest works.Keaton plays a lowly tintype photographer who vows to become a MGM newsreel cameraman, in order to impress a pretty girl (Marceline Day).
However, when a full-blown gang war breaks out in Chinatown, Buster is there with camera cranking (and, no joke, a monkey with a machine gun!)Keaton is well-known for his death-defying stunts, and there are a few of them here, but the film really shines in the quieter moments, as the lovelorn cameraman must accept failure at every turn: there's one unforgettable image of Keaton sitting on the beach, having been abandoned by his girl, looking completely and utterly dejected, a broken man.Despite being thought lost for decades, 'The Cameraman' has proved surprisingly influential.
The silent MGM lion roars in the beginning.The comedic masterpiece begins.It stars Buster Keaton as our tragic hero.This time he's a cameraman who wants to become a newsreel photographer for MGM to win the heart of a beautiful office worker, Sally Richards (Marceline Day).The uncredited Buster Keaton directed The Cameraman (1928) with Edward Sedgwick.Keaton was one of the true geniuses of the silent era.Sadly his career started going down with the sound pictures, after this movie.But in The Cameraman you get to watch the brilliance of Keaton.It's full of incredible gags, like the one with the double decker bus.Or at the swimming pool.And the Tong war.The leading lady, Marceline Day is amazing.I fell in love with this woman the very second I saw her.Just watch her in the bathing suit...Wow!
Harry Gribbon is hilarious as Hennessey (the cop).And let's not forget the monkey.Keaton alongside other masters was very good at combining tragedy and comedy.There's a scene where there's no room for him under the rooftop so he has to travel at the back of the car getting all wet in the rain.Then he has to walk in the rain and the mixture of laughter and tears can be seen and heard in the audiences.This movie is truly memorable.Everything is just perfect.The beginning, the middle and the end..
If you are one of these people just watch "The Cameraman" (or any one of Chaplain's great silent comedies) and you can easily see that good humor is not a new thing.
THE CAMERAMAN (working title SNAPSHOTS) was the first film Buster Keaton made at MGM, the studio that drained his creativity.
Hopelessly in love with a woman (Marceline Day) working at MGM Studios, a clumsy man (Buster Keaton) attempts to become a motion picture cameraman to be close to the object of his desire.This seems like a pretty good film, with a similar premise to many other silent comedies: boy wants to win over girl.
I understand why people want to call "The Cameraman" Buster Keaton's last silent film: It makes for a helluva swan song before a hellacious fall, not to mention a powerful and hilarious example of Buster's screen persona's drive and moxie against terrible odds."No one would ever amount to anything if they didn't try," Buster is told early on by the woman he is trying to court by taking up the job of newsreel cameraman.
In 1928 he was being forced to adapt to a new way of doing things at big studio MGM, and even had to hand over the director's chair to Edward Sedgwick, though Keaton clearly contributed.In his art, if not in life, Buster could always beat the odds.
'The Cameraman' was also the last time Keaton performed the reckless physical stunts he'd become famous for, which the studio saw as an unreasonable risk to their valuable star.Buster wanders the city streets with camera and tripod making tintypes for ten cents.
In one scene Buster cranks away on his camera, filming a gang war in Chinatown, while the tiny monkey in a sailor suit cranks away on a machine gun!
I LOVE this movie; it's one of my favorite Buster Keaton films of all time!
Film historians know that Buster Keaton signed on as a contract player with MGM Studios after his contract with independent producer Joseph M.
Whatever Keaton's future problems, the new agreement certainly began well, as his first MGM effort, The Cameraman, shows little, if any, waning from some of his great movies.
Keaton is a clumsy tintype photographer (appropriately named Buster) who desires to become a great studio newsreel cameraman at MGM Offices in order to impress Sally, a lovely lass.
There are a few things that really stand out about this movie and about Buster Keaton's comic genius (which I never would have appreciated without The Cameraman!).
He gives up being a newsreel cameraman and gives MGM his last roll of film, which contains (of course) both the Tong War and footage of Buster saving Sally (that's one helpful monkey!).
The Cameraman (1928) is Buster Keaton's last great film, before drink and MGM's misguided stifling of his creativity effectively ended his career as a director-star.
All is not lost as "de monk" has been doing some camera-work on his own and has filmed Busters' rescue of Sally on the end of the missing Tong War reel.I would highly recommend this film as I found it a lot more enjoyable than "The General".
What makes the relationship between Buster and love interest Sally (Marceline Day) work so well? |
tt1985017 | Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike | Dagny Taggart pilots an airplane in pursuit of another plane. Dagny asks herself, "Who is John Galt?" before apparently crashing into a mountainside.
Nine months earlier, Dagny is trying to understand the abandoned prototype of an advanced motor she and her lover Hank Rearden have found. Scientists across the country have been disappearing under mysterious circumstances, but Dagny is able to locate Quentin Daniels, who agrees to help from an abandoned laboratory in Utah.
Dagny's brother James Taggart, president of the family railroad, meets store clerk Cherryl Brooks and brings her to see a renowned pianist, who disappears during his performance, leaving a note asking, "Who is John Galt?" Later, at James and Cherryl's wedding, Dagny's friend Francisco d'Anconia argues with other guests about whether money is evil, and secretly informs Rearden about devastating explosions at his copper mine—the next day. Rearden spends the night with Dagny. Later, he is confronted about the affair by his wife Lillian, but when he offers a divorce she declines, in order to maintain her position in society.
Rearden sells his advanced Rearden Metal to Ken Danagger's coal mining company, but refuses to sell it to the government, in defiance of the newly enacted "Fair Share" law that forces businesses to sell to all buyers. The two are charged under the law. Dagny barges into Danagger's office, realizes that he too is about to disappear, and understands that she is close to understanding the force behind the disappearances. At trial, Rearden defends individual freedom and the pursuit of profit, and is given only a token penalty by the court, which fears turning him into a martyr. The government announces "Directive 10-289", which freezes employment and production and requires that all patents be gifted to the government. Rearden defies this decree as well, but relents when he is blackmailed with photos of himself and Dagny that would damage Dagny's reputation.
When Dagny hears about Rearden's "gift" and her brother's complicity, she quits the railroad. During her absence, a Taggart Transcontinental train collides with a military train in a tunnel, due largely to political pressure by a passenger and human error by Dagny's poorly trained replacement. This impels Dagny back to her job. D'Anconia tries to dissuade her from returning, as he had earlier tried to talk Rearden into leaving his business, but she returns anyway.
Dagny takes a train to Colorado to show her faith in the railway, but its engine fails. The repair technician used to work for 20th Century Motor Company, which produced the motor Dagny found. He tells Dagny how the need-based reward system in his company failed, and his coworker John Galt left the company vowing to "stop the motor of the world." Dagny calls Daniels, who tells her that he is quitting. Dagny buys a small airplane and flies to Utah to try to dissuade him, but as she is landing, she sees him get into a plane on the airstrip.
After a pursuit in the air—the opening scene of the film—Dagny's plane crashes in a valley hidden by stealth technology. A wounded Dagny Taggart crawls to the edge of her crashed plane, where she is greeted by John Galt. | alternate reality, philosophical | train | wikipedia | null |
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