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tt0101026 | Átame! | Ricky, a 23-year-old psychiatric patient, has been deemed cured and is released from a mental institution. Until then he has been the lover of the woman director of the hospital. An orphan, free, and alone, his goal is to have a normal life with Marina Osorio, an actress, former porn star, and recovering drug addict, whom he once slept with during an escape from the asylum.
Ricky discovers Marina’s whereabouts from a film journal announcement of the start of her next film. He goes to the studio where Marina is in her last day at work filming The Midnight Phantom, a Euro-horror film about a hideously mutilated, masked muscleman in love with Marina’s character. The film is directed by Máximo Espejo, an old film director confined to a wheelchair after a stroke. Máximo is a gentle mentor to Marina and threatens to throw out a journalist who mentions the words "porn" and "junkie" in Marina’s presence. His protection of the actress is not completely innocent since he is sexually attracted to Marina and lusts after her, enjoying what could be his last experience of directing a sexy female lead.
When Ricky comes to the set, he steals a few necessary items including the keys to Marina’s apartment and before long, he is an unwelcome presence in her life. Ricky, with a long-haired wig, does a handstand to try to capture her attention. Marina does not remember him and quickly dismisses him.
After filming the last scene, Marina goes home to change for the post-shoot party. Ricky follows her to her apartment. When she answers the door, Ricky forces his way in. He grabs her and headbutts her to silence her when she screams; he tapes her mouth and binds her with rope. Marina wakes with a terrible toothache, which normal painkillers do not relieve as she is addicted to stronger drugs. Ricky explains that he has captured her so that when she gets to know him better she will fall in love and they will get married and have children. "I'll never love you, ever," says Marina, understandably enraged at being handcuffed, gagged and lashed to the bed. "We'll see," says Ricky, who would do anything to win her heart. Marina is shocked and in pain, and eventually persuades Ricky to take her to a doctor who can give her the necessary painkillers. Ricky barely leaves her alone with the doctor, and she is unable to communicate her plight. They cannot get the drugs in the pharmacy so Ricky goes off to get them on the black market. However, rather than paying the street price, he attacks the dealer to get the tablets.
During the after-filming party Marina’s sister, Lola, who is the assistant director of The Midnight Phantom, steals the show with a musical number. Increasingly worried about her sister’s disappearance, Lola visits Marina's apartment and leaves a note. To avoid being discovered, Ricky moves Marina to her next door neighbor’s apartment. The apartment is empty, but the owner has left his keys with Lola so she can water his plants while he is away during the summer. In the street again, Ricky is spotted by the dealer who he had attacked. Ricky is then seriously beaten, robbed and left unconscious. During his absence Marina makes a desperate but somewhat halfhearted attempt to escape from her captivity. However, when he returns covered with blood and cuts, she sees his vulnerability and devotion to her, no matter how misguided. She cares for him, cleaning and sterilizing his wounds, and is suddenly struck by the realization that she has fallen in love with her captor. They make love at length and Ricky seems to be on the verge of achieving his aim. They decide to take a trip together to his native village. When he is about to leave to steal a car for the trip, Marina, who still considers herself his prisoner, tells him to keep her tied up so that she won't try to escape. However, in Ricky’s absence, Lola reenters the apartment and discovers Marina tied up and rescues her. Marina informs her sister that she is in love with her captor. Lola is astonished to learn that Marina really no longer wants to be rescued, but once convinced, she agrees to drive Marina to Ricky's birthplace. They find him there in the ruins of his family house in a deserted village, then the three climb into Lola's car to return to the city. Lola promises Ricky she will find him a job, Marina cries with happiness, and they drive off together into the distance singing, like a normal family. | comedy, sadist, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0078503 | Within the Woods | Two romantic couples, consisting of four teenagers, decide to spend a weekend together located in a remote cabin found in the woods. An unseen force stalks and watches the group without their knowledge. Ellen (Ellen Sandweiss) and her boyfriend Bruce (Bruce Campbell) enter the woods to have a picnic lunch. The other couple, Scotty (Scott Spiegel) and Shelly (Mary Valenti), remain at the cabin playing Monopoly to pass time. During their lunch, Bruce announces to Ellen that they're camping on an Indian burial ground. Ellen is concerned, but Bruce assures her that they will be fine as long as they don't disturb the graves of the dead. Bruce then explores the area and discovers an ancient dagger belonging to the Indians. Ignoring his own advice, he takes the dagger with him.
After lunch, Ellen takes a nap. When she awakes, she finds Bruce missing and wanders into the woods looking for him. To her horror, she finds Bruce's dead body, horribly mutilated with apparent knife wounds. She is then startled by the presence of a demonic entity hiding within the woods, and quickly runs back to the cabin. While fleeing, she is attacked by unseen forces. She runs back to the cabin and screams to be let in immediately, being let in just as the entity is approaching her. Ellen tells her friends that Bruce has been murdered, but Scotty dismisses the whole thing as a joke and goes to find Bruce. Shelly - Scotty's girlfriend -, and Ellen are concerned when Scotty doesn't return right away. Shelly walks outside to begin a search for the missing men, but a possessed Bruce assaults and strangles her, eventually stabbing her in the neck and killing her with the dagger that he found, moaning "join us."
Ellen encounters her possessed friend and flees into another room, grabbing knives to protect her. Something attempts to enter the room where Ellen is hiding, and she blindly lashes out with a knife - mistakenly stabbing Scotty who had just returned to the cabin. While horrified, Ellen is then attacked by the possessed Bruce. Ellen manages to trap Bruce outside, stabbing Bruce's hand several times in the process. The bleeding Scotty tells Ellen to look into the cellar for the gun they brought along. While walking down the stairs to the cellar, she trips on a broken step and injures herself. After finding the gun, she goes back up stairs and discovers that Scotty had been stabbed to death while she was downstairs. The demonic Bruce then attacks her, but she manages to cut off his hand.
Ellen attempts to flee but is severely beaten by the possessed Bruce, who throws her around the cabin. While being strangled, Ellen picks up Bruce's mutilated hand which is still holding the dagger found from before, and she uses it to stab Bruce. A large amount of blood is expended by Bruce, who lies motionless for a moment, only to then continue his assault on Ellen. Ellen mutilates Bruce's body even further with an axe, chopping off nearly every limb from the writhing body. Severely disturbed by the things she has witnessed, Ellen rocks back and forth muttering to herself. The corpse of Scotty suddenly springs up, before turning towards the oblivious Ellen, ready to attack. The screen then cuts to black, leaving the fate of Ellen ambiguous. | violence | train | wikipedia | The same plot as Evil Dead, but really really old and simple compared to the first full-length production of Sam Raimi.
I enjoyed it, but if you didn't know anything about Evil Dead or Sam Raimi, you would just blow it off.
Great little horror film by a pre-Evil Dead Sam Raimi..
Bruce Campbell and Ellen Sandweiss go out for a picnic while Scott Spiegel and Mary Valenti play Monopoly.
Sam Raimi made this film for $1,600 on Super-8 over one weekend.
This film is a real treat for Evil Dead fans, because, despite lacking Campbell's Ashness (where he was a wimp in Evil Dead, and progressed into an asshole in Army of Darkness), it contains many scenes that would later be seen in Evil Deads 1 and 2, and Sam Raimi's Evil POV shots.
"Within the Woods" is largely known as the prequel to "The Evil Dead".This 30-minutes film was created to sell investors on the idea of "The Evil Dead".The film is extremely low-budget and the story is minimal.Still there is plenty of gore to satisfy fans of American horror.Bruce Cambell plays Bruce,who gets zombified.Ellen Sandweiss plays his girlfriend,Ellen.However she doesn't get raped by a tree in this film,though.The cinematography is grainy and the moving steady/shaky camera-a Raimi trademark-probably made it's debut here."Within the Woods" is rather tough to find,but if you get a chance watch it.Highly recommended..
This 30-minute concept movie was intended to convince people to loan Raimi and his crew money to make the first "Evil Dead" movie.
Fun, huh?First off, I can't believe that Raimi actually had the nerve to use the words "Ancient Indian Burial Ground" in a horror movie.
But that and the vacuum cleaner sound effects aside, this is a great concept movie that showed exactly what it needed to - that Raimi even at that age was a competent director capable of making a successful movie.
There are aspects of this short movie that are present in the later ones, and it is interesting to note these ideas (the follow cam, the banging swing, "Join Us!") and exact sequences such as Linda trying to open the cabin door and the whole three minute "Zombie At The Door" sequence that appear literally shot-for-shot in Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2.Serious Evil Dead fans should definitely take a look if you ever get the chance..
It premiered in August 1979 at the Punch and Judy theatre in Detroit double-billed with the Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)The good: This movie heralds the birth of the Evil Force, a Raimi horror staple, along with his crazy camera movements.
The film was so intense, that even if the super-8 projector filled a 1/4 of the screen, the audience actually reacted to it!The bad: No available copy (excluding of course Raimi's and Campbell's) has high quality or sound and is hard as all hell to find.
This Super 8 short was put to round up some funding for what would later become "The Evil Dead" (1982).
You'll see many a gag and shot that will later be replicated in the official version and let's face it any "Dead" fan has got to see "Within the Woods" for the sheer fun.
A short film by director Sam Raimi, he made it in his college days in hopes of raising money to be able to make his masterful horror film The Evil Dead (1981).Two couples staying at a country house are terrorized when one of them becomes murderously possessed by evil spirits.Even with its grainy, home-made quality, Within the Woods is perhaps the greatest horror short ever made!
Raimi would later spoof scenes from this short in both The Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead II (1987).Young Bruce Campbell heads the small cast.
Campbell does a good show as a likable teenager turned horrid monster by an evil spirit.
Ellen Sandweiss (who would go on to star in The Evil Dead) appears as the films heroine.A bit of a rare find, but a must-see for Raimi's fans!*** 1/2 out of ****.
You can see some good Rami touches, but it is no way the caliber of Evil Dead..
This is the short film from the filmakers that made "The Evil Dead".
The film is kind of rough, and it doesn't come in that great, and about the only place to find it, is bootlegged on the internet.The story involves college students who take a picnic on an indian burial ground.
Anyone who likes Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2(-Dead By Dawn) will probably enjoy this effort of Rob Tapert (who is credited as Rip Tapert), Sam Raimi, and Bruce Campbell.
a 30 minute short with just 4 actors turns out to be a classic Art-house presentation of what would become the evil dead series.Highly recommended if you can find a copy, i saw this long ago.9/10.
Sure Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have gone on to bigger and arguably better things but this short is one of the coolest things they've ever done.
It's a shame this has never been given a legitimate release, I think it would inspire many people to go out and make their own horror films!.
Within the Woods (1978) *** (out of 4) Early Sam Raimi short has Bruce Campbell and three friends going to the woods for the weekend when they disturb an Indian burial ground.
If you said it sounded like The Evil Dead then you're correct because this is the film Raimi shot to show investors to try and get money for the feature, which would eventually be released three years later.
Needless to say, this doesn't hold a candle to the feature but fans will certainly want to check this out just to see how much Raimi kept from this movie and put into the future film and its sequel.
I was really surprised to see Raimi using many of the same techniques but many of them, like the point of view shots of the creature going over the ground, work very well here.
I think the film gets a little long winded as it runs just over 30-minutes but there's still a lot to enjoy here.
I remember making amateurish home movies with my buddies during our high school years, but young Sam Raimi took it a step further.
At 18, he wrote and directed this amazing half-hour short that would, a year later, be remade as The Evil Dead.While its far from a great film, its a truly amazing little gem that has sadly gotten lost in the folds of time.
Now, in an age when music could easily be lifted from the feature, Raimi (and his star Bruce Campbell) have made numerous comments that they're happy it is not readily available.
To quote an interview, "releasing it would be like showing off our dirty underwear".What they fail to realize is just how much fans of their work want to see this movie in a pristine version - or at least a better version than the one readily available online.Come on Raimi...
It's the granddaddy of all Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell zombie films.
Before director Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell would team together for their Evil Dead films (thus generating a strong cult following for this series of "funny" zombie films), they wanted to create a mini movie using a Super 8mm camera to demonstrate their artistic vision.
It must have worked because only a short time later they had enough to make the low-budget classic, THE EVIL DEAD--a film that went on to make millions and led to sequels, of sorts, such as EVIL DEAD II and ARMY OF DARKNESS (and even an off-Broadway musical).
This review is for that cheapie short, WITHIN THE WOODS.So what's the film like?
Sam Raimi's practise run for The Evil Dead..
While spending the weekend with friends at a remote house in the country, Bruce (Bruce Campbell) unwittingly violates an Indian burial ground, thereby unleashing a vengeful spirit that possesses his body and proceeds to attack his pals one by one.Within the Woods is director Sam Raimi's practise run for The Evil Dead, an extremely low budget thirty minute horror that lays down many of the ideas and film-making techniques that Sam and his team of enthusiastic friends would use in the making of their infamous 1981 video nasty.Although the film is extremely rough around the edges, it will undoubtedly provide half an hour of fun for fans of all things 'deadite' thanks to the the involvement of many familiar Evil Dead names and faces, the familiarity of the material, and, of course, a fair smattering of gore..
This short film was mostly made to show the Investors what kind of feature length horror film to what Sam Raimi and his friends are trying to make.
it went on to premiere in front of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" that was playing in Detroit, most of the audience really loved the short film but, it wasn't a commercially success.
Sam Raimi went to Approaching several investors in order to make his feature length horror entitled,"The Evil Dead." The plot of the film is the same as the movies teens hang out in the woods and get pick off by the spirit and demons one by one.
The quality of the short film is pretty bad looking, it's kind of hard to see, which it's understandable because, it was shot in a super 8 camera.
the only actors that appear in "The Evil Dead" are Bruce Campbell and Ellen Sandweiss, the difference in the film is Bruce in the short film is Possess by the spirit and Ellen is the hero but,in the movie Ellen gets Possess by the spirit and Bruce is the hero.
Not really a big fan of the music, i just find the music not scary and also, there is one music piece that came from "Jaws." I personally find the short film not scary at all but, i got to give it credit for helping Sam and his friends to Make one of the best horror films ever made..
So much of what we would see in the shoestring-budget "Evil Dead" (and it's not-as-shoestring first sequel) is on display here in micro form, and after over a decade of being a fan of the series, I sat in amazement and marveled at this 8mm prototype.
This is great film, and also EVIL DEAD is continuation of Within The Woods.
Find a copy and may your Evil Dead collection be complete.Although most copies available are not very good quality it is definitely worth your time to watch this and see if you can spot some of the scenes that turn up in later Evil Dead movies..
This 32 minute short Within the Woods is great.
The movie is about Bruce Campbell who digs up an old Indian grave and turns into a deadite.
This movie is the "prequel" of the Evil Dead trilogy.
My favourite film maker (Sam Raimi) directed this movie.
Raimi's Super-8 precursor to his cult debut feature THE EVIL DEAD (1983) is an amateurish half-hour piece about a geeky young man (the ubiquitous Bruce Campbell) coming under the influence of an Indian graveyard in the woods.
Despite it's obvious low budget, un-professionalism and complete lack of intelligence: Within the Woods may well be the most important horror short ever filmed.
For, if it were not for this little movie; the student team of Sam Raimi, Roger Tapert, Bruce Campbell et al may never have gone on to make the finest film in horror movie history; The Evil Dead.
If you've seen this film, then it's a good bet that you've seen The Evil Dead too; and if you have, you wont be able to get away from the similarities of the techniques used and the sequences shown.
Much of what happens in this film made it into the final cut, with things such as the conclusion to Ellen Sandweiss' chase sequence, the zombie at the door and the final monologue of the main character being lifted wholesale from this movie into The Evil Dead.It's not surprising why Sam Raimi and co ended up getting funded for this short.
The basic premise of the film wasn't changed for The Evil Dead, except that the actors have been swapped around.
This time, we get to see the great Bruce Campbell as the main monster, and Ellen Sandweiss as the protagonist.
While this works because Bruce's charisma allows him to excellently portray a possessed human; he makes for a better hero really, and Raimi and co ended up getting this right for the final cut.
If you're not an Evil Dead fan (unlikely), you wont like Within the Woods...but if you are - make sure you track it down!.
A good horror movie..
either way, sam raimi already showed great skill with a very minimal approach at creating suspense, and terror in this short..
the camera moving through the woods towards the character, ala evil dead, and the minimal soundtrack enhance it all.
not giving a long detailed review here, but if you are a big fan of the evil dead, and horror in general, this is WELL worth a look..
Before THE EVIL DEAD (1981) came this "concept" movie which is nearly the same exact plot aside from the fact it's missing the "Book of the Dead" stuff and drops one of the characters.
It runs only 30 minutes and since the budget is virtually nonexistent, it's naturally not nearly as polished as the later films and has that "home movie" feel to it.
Some slight changes were made here and there, but elements from this, as well as whole scenes, ended up making their way into the first two Dead films, so it's certainly a worthy watch for fans of the series.
The makeup effects from Tom Sullivan are fairly good, the acting isn't bad and there's enough imagination going around to see how Raimi was able to get investors involved in helping back the feature length version a few years later..
They plan on having a picnic & Bruce warns Ellen about the ancient Indian burial ground nearby & not to disturb it, however Bruce takes a sacred knife buried in the ground & ends up possessed by an evil spirit who wants to take revenge on the rest of his friends...Written & directed by Sam Raimi Within the Woods is a curious little film, it was made for the bargain basement sum of $1,600 specifically by Raimi to show to potential investors who might put up some cash so the full length Book of the Dead later renamed The Evil Dead (1982) could be made & I guess it worked.
Many scenes in Within the Woods are mirrored & perfected in The Evil Dead, from the spirits point-of-view shots to the general story to the same actor's although here Campbell plays the bad guy where as in The Evil dead he became the hero.
It is also different in some respects in particular instead of an ancient Book of the Dead the reason behind the evil spirits is an ancient Indian burial ground being violated.
To be honest I wouldn't say it's even finished, there are obviously sound effects & music cues missing, some of the editing is choppy & it's a touch dark at times but when all said & done it does look pretty good & is watchable.
The special effects are alright actually & again put some legit horror films to shame!Within the Woods is really only of interest to fans of The Evil Dead & want to see a virtual carbon copy of it, since it was never meant to be released to the public I can't say it was even a finished film but it ain't too bad.
As an avid fan of The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi and, of course, Bruce Cambpell, it would be no surprise that i give this movie a 10 rating.
But let me explain why: Elen Sandweiss and Bruce Campbell appear in this fantastic super-8 movie of a bunch of college kids in a house in the middle of the woods.
The ground-breaking camera-angles are apparent even in this early movie.The violence (which has become The Evil Dead's trademark) is in no short supply here.
It will satisfy any horror/Campbell/Raimi/Evil Dead fan..
Remarkable for a Super 8 short (and I've seen more than my share over the years), WITHIN THE WOODS proves that Sam Raimi had "The Fright Stuff" from the very beginning.
Raimi and Company manage to generate some genuine suspense and the makeup fx and the music and sound fx are all outstanding for a short (the totem pole was a nice touch and one can't help but smile when the normally scene-chewing Bruce Campbell gnaws off his own hand).
This half hour is an 1978 horror movie written and directed by Sam Raimi.
You will find quite a few parallels to the filmmaker's "Evil Dead" movies which came out shortly later.
The most astonishing thing about this short film is probably that Raimi was only 18 or 19 when he made it.
Today, he is mostly known for the "Spider Man" trilogy, but there is a lot more to his body of work and it looks like he is going to stay faithful to his early works with a new "Evil Dead" television serious about to be released.
Many of the actors in here also appeared in the "Evil Dead" series and Campbell is going to be in Raimi's new series as well.
This is a "must-see" for 'Evil Dead' fans!.
horror flick where **spoiler, i guess** Bruce Campbell talks tells his girlfriend how an indian burial ground was right under the house they're staying at with their friends.
This truly is an awesome movie which used a lot of 'Evil Dead' cliches which makes it even more entertaining as well as makes you very curious to see what happens next. |
tt0042804 | Los olvidados | The film is about a group of destitute children and their misfortunes in a Mexico City slum. El Jaibo escapes juvenile jail and reunites with the street gang that he leads. El Jaibo's gang attempts to rob a blind street musician. They fail at first, but later track him down, beat him, and destroy his instruments.
With the help of Pedro, El Jaibo tracks down Julián, the youngster who supposedly sent him to jail. El Jaibo puts his arm in a fake sling and hides a rock in it. El Jaibo confronts Julián, who denies that he reported him to the police. Julián refuses to fight El Jaibo because it wouldn't be a fair fight with El Jaibo's arm broken. As Julián starts to walk away, El Jaibo hits him in the head with the rock. He then beats Julián to death and takes his money. El Jaibo warns Pedro not to report the crime, and since he shares Julián's money with Pedro, Pedro is an accomplice to the murder.
Pedro's mother resents her son's behavior, and shows signs that she doesn't even love him or care for him as a son. Pedro is extremely saddened by this and vows to start behaving better. He finds work as apprentice to a blacksmith. One day, El Jaibo comes to talk with him about their secret and, unbeknownst to Pedro, steals an expensive knife from the blacksmith's table. Pedro is accused of the crime and sent to a juvenile rehabilitation program, the "farm school," where he misbehaves and kills two chickens. The principal gives Pedro a test. He hands Pedro a 50 pesos bill to run errands with as a test of trust. If Pedro returns from the errands, he can be trusted. If he doesn't, the principal is out 50 pesos. Pedro accepts the offer and leaves with the intention to complete the errands. As soon as he leaves, he encounters El Jaibo, who steals the money. Upset that his attempt to be good was foiled again, Pedro tracks down El Jaibo and fights him. The fight ends in a stalemate, but Pedro announces to the crowd that it was El Jaibo who killed Julián. El Jaibo flees, but the blind man has heard the accusation and tells the police.
Pedro tracks El Jaibo down once again to murder him. El Jaibo kills Pedro. While fleeing, El Jaibo runs into the police. As El Jaibo tries to run away, the police shoot and kill him. Meche and her grandfather find Pedro's body in their shed. Not wanting to attract the police, they dump his body down a garbage-covered cliff. On their way, they pass Pedro's mother, who, though once unconcerned with her disobedient child, is now searching for him. | revenge, murder | train | wikipedia | No matter that the production, photography, direction and even the performances of relatively unknown actors were most than good, no matter that for the first time in Mexico someone produced a film totally different, with the influence of the Italian Neo-realism, No matter that someone had the guts to film the reality of the majorities living in big cities, Buñuel was severally criticized and even censored.
He was forced to shoot it, but again, fortunately the crude and strong outcome prevailed for the good of the history, to show us that a lot of times real life is not necessary a happy conclusion, that sometimes there are children with good intentions in wrong environments, that poverty is a monster that is consuming the majority, that horrible crimes could be committed with apparently cold blood; that sometimes someone (like Buñuel) could shake our conscience once a while.
All the characters, including a young boy caught up in a dangerous gang, his harsh mother, the gang leader and vicious bully, and a bitter old blind man, among others, and what transpires among them are expertly captured by Buñuel's camera.
Los Olvidados, translated as The Young and the Damned, is a treatise on the street-life of kids in Mexico City.
There are at least three characters who are of focus here, and three others on the sidelines with equal importance: El Jaibo, a rough young man who's grown up on the street his whole life, and who's picked up more than his share of wicked, ego-driven habits; "Big Eyes" as he's called by a Blind Man (he's credited as Lost Boy on this site) is a kid whose lost his father, and is taken in by the old-fashioned, hardened old man, who lives next to the girl Meche; and Pedro, the hero, is deep down a good soul, but with a side that just wants to roam the streets, at the carelessness of his estranged mother, who like her son is poverty stricken.
All through Los Olvidados, based on real events and real people from the streets, I kept on feeling for these people in the same way I did for the characters I saw in the neo-realism movies like La Terra Trema and Shoeshine.
While he became infamous for such films in the thirties like Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or, and later for such originals like Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the obscure Phantom of Liberty (the climax in that is something that could've inspired most gross-out comedies of late), this film displays his worth as a writer/director outside of the reputation he garnered in that he tells us the story, with the little details and complex emotions that the Italian directors were able to bring forth, while every once in a while reminding us that it is his brand of movie-making at work.
Indeed, this could be seen as out of place for such a straight-forward drama on torrents of youth that resonate generation after generation (this is inspired by neo-realism to an extent, yet probably inspired the likes of Clockwork Orange and even the recent City of God), however we get an inkling of what Bunuel is trying to tell us- these are real people in real settings and in a somewhat melodramatic story set in times of economic drought and such, and feel for them as I do - but don't forget, it's only a movie.
It is also a masterful combination of gritty realism and Buñuel's surrealism (young Pedro's dream of Virgin Mary with a face of his mother whose love he desperately needs but never knows).
All the characters, including a young boy caught up in a criminal world but trying to be good, his tired mother who does not have time to love her children, the brutal and cruel gang leader with his own story that breaks your heart are not just wonderfully written and acted, they are absolutely real and would stay with you long after the film is over.
Buñuel uses his intuitive graphics and metaphoric sequences, rather than fancy lighting and cocky cinematography, to emphasize his concern with the boys (the protagonists: the 'forgotten ones') and his aversion to the apathy of the fathers (who haven't much screen time) who mind-numbed think about sanctions rather than the causes of the delinquency.'Los Olvidados' deals with the distance between two generations, especially the distance between fathers and sons.
Do the lives of 'the forgotten ones' have a direction at all, apart from trite survival?Although M (1931, Fritz Lang) already focuses on the psychological problems that delinquents can have (first serial killer on celluloid ever), the other movies mentioned above are all younger, so I tend to believe that Los Olvidados was a groundbreaking film and inspired the other filmmakers.
Finally Los Olvidados reminded me of 'Rocco e i suoi fratelli' (1962, Visconti), where a family moves to the city too and a disciplinary father figure lacks.This is another Buñuel film that seems to have no precise beginning and no end.
Atheist, Marxist, Freudian, Surrealist, anarchist, fetishist, satirist, or Spaniard, Luis Buñuel was all these or more
One of the greatest of all filmmakers, Buñuel expressed an extraordinary personal vision of the world through an exceptional self-effacing special taste, creating a body of work unequaled in its abundance of meaning and its power by any other
In 1946, Buñuel moved to Mexico where, between more conventional assignments, he summed up his creativity with a vengeance
His first masterpiece of this prolific period, "The Young and the Damned" was a masterpiece of social surrealism and the founding work of third world barrio repulsion
Portraying the distress of delinquents in MexicoCity's streets, he admitted the effects of shockingly cruel environment but declined to glamorize his victim-heroes: the gang torments a blind beggar who is himself a skillful paedophile, while a Freudian dream the most 'innocent' boy fights a friend for his mother' s sexual favors
The film is powerful enough to make a one firm man weep or encourage a true-believer to lose hope
Once seen, its disturbing images can never be forgotten.
"Los Olvidados" focuses the drama mainly in the bandit 'El Jaibo', justarrived from a reformatory (where he learnt 'new techniques' of robbery), Pedro (Alfonso Mejía), a boy rejected by his mother and Ojitos (Mario Ramirez), abandoned by his family and the new comer to the group, showing a few hopeless days of a group of marginal youths, in the slums of Mexico in 1950, with the leadership of 'El Jaibo' (Roberto Cobo).
After the success of his comedy The Great Madcap (1949), he was commissioned by producer Oscar Dancigers to make a serious film about child poverty in Mexico City, and out of it came Los Olvidados, or The Young and the Innocent, to give it it's American title.
Bunuel apparently spent months disguised as a homeless amongst the poverty- stricken children of the slums in order to research, and if that tale is true, it certainly came off, as Los Olvidados is one of the best and most realistic depictions of the innocent turning to crime in a fit of desperation.The film follows three children in the same slum.
Pedro struggles to keep himself out of trouble and leaves home after being accused of stealing a knife, only to find his and Jaibo's paths repeatedly crossing.At its heart, this is pure neo-realism, sharing its tone most obviously with Vittorio de Sica's masterpiece The Bicycle Thieves (1948) in exposing poverty and class divide as the main cause of criminality, due to the ill education and the hopelessness of the young.
Best known for his mocking of the upper-classes (the bourgeois were clearly as fascinating to Bunuel as they were repugnant), here he stays in the slums, promoting as much sympathy for its filthy lead characters as hatred.Jaibo is a true monster, raised without parents, he bullies his way through life, grasping any opportunity that presents itself (he even manages to seduce Pedro's lonely and overworked mother, and rob a legless man).
It is Pedro who is the beating heart of the film, especially when he leaves home and we witness the state of the lower- classes from his eyes and how they are viewed (in one powerful sequence, an upper class man obviously propositions him for sex, but we only see their exchange, as we watch them through a window).
Sadly, most of the characters could be located in any major city in today's times -- but now they'd also probably have handguns, if the film was moved to the US.Bunuel does not appear to let a lot of behavior remain off the screen.
This film is truthful because Buñuel showed on the screen everything that he saw on the streets of Mexico and it's relevant because much of what is shown in it happens nowadays in a lot of countries all over the world.
There is no hero in the movie ,everybody is presented as individuals, trying to survive.The movie well present what can happen with children, who grows without family support and love, especially without mothers love.It took me a while to adjust and try to understand Jaibo's character and reasons for his brutal actions as well as behaving afterward.The only light scene in the movie was when Pedro was sent to store by his principle, but the moment of hope for Pedro lasted just a second , until he run into Jaibo.
Bunel beautifully blends a driving, fast paced plot, with brilliant portrayals, and surrealistic dream sequences (for background see Un Chien Andalou) to bring across the struggle within this Mexican street gang, as well as the struggle to escape the harsh system that surrounds them.This film is also know by the name: The Young and The Damned..
The fact is that human life is the least cost in terms of bare survival.The director shows us a completely degraded society where poverty is commonplace, delinquency and crime are ways of survival, and children have long been lost.
Then we follow the lives of two of them, "Ojitos" (Eyes), who has been dumped by his father and is picked up by a blind man to use him as his guide-dog, and Pedro, a good-for-nothing kid who never knew his father and who brings nothing but misery and sorrow to his single mother-of-five by associating himself with the district's most notorious juvenile delinquents.
One of the earliest works of famed surrealist director Luis Bunuel's career, Los olvidados was an international hit primarily due to its portrayal of inner city Mexican children living on the brink of death due to immense poverty and crime.
The plot focuses on the conflict between two young boys, Jaibo, a recently escaped juvenile delinquent, and Pedro, whose mother struggles to raise three other children and seemingly has no affection or attention left for her eldest.
Los Olvidados is a movie by Luís Buñuel, he made it in Mexico and it is one of the best depictions of the lower class in Mexico city I've seen so far.I liked Amores Perros, I thought it was an entertaining movie but now that I'm seen films with another type of brain, even I don't know how to explain what I just said, I now know how that movie wouldn't exist if it wasn't for this one.The characters are an instant classic, I want them to become action figures to have them all display somewhere in my house, I'm talking about Ojitos, El Jaibo, Pedro, Pelón and many more.
The story smells like streets, like gangs and it shows how real life can teach you more than your average school.This movie is so unique because it doesn't have your typical goodies and baddies, every character has its own reason to act, they are in survival mode because living in the streets is tough and this is the way to go through life if you choose this path.This is a movie about the lack of love and how a dysfunctional family and the lack of affection can make you choice the wrong path.
It breaks the 4th wall (all about an scene with eggs), it brings surrealism to the foreground in a dream sequence, it has great acting and also a cast that could have been the brat pack of Mexico in the 50's, genuine young kids with a cool vibe.The direction is impeccable, another reason to show that you don't need to have a big budget to come with an elegant movie, all in all a masterpiece in all ways.PS: If you can PLEASE find the alternate ending to learn how studio executives can ruin your movie :).
"Los olvidados" is probably Buñuel's best film from his Mexican period; it's a depressing study in juvenile delinquency, set in the slums surrounding Mexico City.
Los olvidados made me fan of Luis Bunuel because i felt I m seeing a dream even tough the movie is harsh reality .
We are all corruptible, we are all despicable, but we also have a capacity for innocence and good.The movie mainly follows Pedro, a boy who struggles on the streets of Mexico City to survive.
As an outspoken believer in critical thinking at all times, Buñuel's Los Olvidados is a must for all!Perhaps the most memorable character of the whole movie is El Jaibo.
Though Buñuel is famous for his surrealist tendencies, aside from one dream-sequence in the film, the movie's only surrealist quality is the overwhelming sense that a place without any love or compassion could not possibly exist, yet here we are seeing exactly that.
Los Olvidados is a pessimistic view of life for children who have been orphaned and are living in the streets of Mexico.
There is Ojitos, the boy who has been abandoned by his father; and Pedro, the boy who has been rejected by his mother because he was a product of rape.The movie leaves you with a sense of hopelessness as the worst character (Jaibo) gets away with murder, Ojitos remains fatherless and Pedro, the orphan character who was on his way to redemption and who has finally won his mother's love, is ultimately unsuccessful.
It's a classic portrayal of rebellion and youth mentality: life and society exist to exploit and the gang takes advantage of that, but Bunuel carries it with such close impassiveness that the movie creates an instant familiarity with the characters as they are introduced.After some opening scenes the movie begins to focus on the moral contrasts between Jaibo and Pedro, beginning when Pedro sees Jaibo accidentally kill someone he suspects was responsible for landing him in jail.
Taking place in the poor areas of Mexico City in the 1950's the film tells the story of several children and their literal struggle for survival.
"Los Olvidados"-Tells the story of lost children living in the slums of Mexico City.
Los Olvidados aka "The Young and The Damned" Directed by Luis Bunuelos is one of the first films that reveals the bottom of life which is poverty.
In this "Los Olvidados" (the forgotten ones) Luis Buñuel brings up a detailed portrait of the young criminals in Mexico City back in the late 40's.
"Los Olvidados" 1950 by Luis Bunuel was mainly focuses on the life of a boy between the ages of 8-10 living in Mexico.
"Los Olvidados" is a film about poverty and juvenile crime in the poor parts Mexico City.
Los Olvidados (1950) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Luis Bunuel's bleak and sometimes depressing look at poverty in Mexico and the children it hurts.
50 years later we have films like City of God, and very little progress has been made in terms of the society in which these kids live.
POSSIBLE SPOILERSLuis Bunuel has done it again with "Los Olvidados." The film explores life in Mexico City's slums with a gang of juvenile delinquents.Jaibo, an older "delinquent," leads the gang of boys in a life of thievery, dishonesty, and crime.
In one scene Pedro killed a chicken inside a delinquent boys school and it showed how he was soon acting like another character named Jaibo.
"Los Olvidados" shows that it is often the social ills already in existence in our societies, an example being the complete lack of care and love Pedro's mother has for Pedro in most of this film, that can contribute to creating children who have social deficits – often creating anti-social and sociopathic personalities and tendencies – such as that portrayed by the characters of "El Jaibo", Pedro, and Julian.
"Los Olvidados" shows that it is often the social ills already in existence in our societies, an example being the complete lack of care and love Pedro's mother has for Pedro in most of this film, that can contribute to creating children who have social deficits – often creating anti-social and sociopathic personalities and tendencies – such as that portrayed by the characters of "El Jaibo", Pedro, and Julian.
To me, "Los Olvidados" showed a dystopian society – very much like the film "A Clockwork Orange", in which gangs of morally twisted youths know of nothing better else to do with their time than to take out their frustrations on everyone and anything they can.
To me, "Los Olvidados" showed a dystopian society – very much like the film "A Clockwork Orange", in which gangs of morally twisted youths know of nothing better else to do with their time than to take out their frustrations on everyone and anything they can.
---------This Review May Contain a Spoiler-------- "Los Olvidados", directed by Luis Buñuel, portrays the life of Juveniles living in the slums of Mexico during the 1950's.
For example, Pedro, a caring young man living with his mother in the movie, has no family support, role models, or father.
Los Olvidados is a film centered on the life of a young boy named Pedro.
Due to the absence of love from his mother, Pedro joins other kids on the street and lives a life of violence.
In Los olvidados, Buñuel presents a society without love as a film with out emotion. |
tt0363891 | The Pirates of Penzance | Act I
On the coast of Cornwall, at the time of Queen Victoria's reign, Frederic celebrates the completion of his twenty-first year and the end of his apprenticeship to a gentlemanly band of pirates ("Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry"). The pirates' maid of all work, Ruth, appears and reveals that, as Frederic's nursemaid long ago, she made a mistake "through being hard of hearing": Mishearing Frederic's father's instructions, she apprenticed him to a pirate, instead of to a ship's pilot ("When Frederic was a little lad").
Frederic has never seen any woman other than Ruth, and he believes her to be beautiful. The pirates know better and suggest that Frederic take Ruth with him when he returns to civilisation. Frederic announces that, although it pains him, so strong is his sense of duty that, once free from his apprenticeship, he will be forced to devote himself to the pirates' extermination. He also points out that they are not successful pirates: since they are all orphans, they allow their prey to go free if they too are orphans. Frederic notes that word of this has got about, so captured ships' companies routinely claim to be orphans. Frederic invites the pirates to give up piracy and go with him, so that he need not destroy them, but the Pirate King says that, compared with respectability, piracy is comparatively honest ("Oh! better far to live and die"). The pirates depart, leaving Frederic and Ruth. Frederic sees a group of beautiful young girls approaching the pirate lair, and realises that Ruth misled him about her appearance ("Oh false one! You have deceived me!"). Sending Ruth away, Frederic hides before the girls arrive.
The girls burst exuberantly upon the secluded spot ("Climbing over rocky mountain"). Frederic reveals himself ("Stop, ladies, pray!") and appeals to them to help him reform ("Oh! is there not one maiden breast?"). One of them, Mabel, responds to his plea, chiding her sisters for their lack of charity ("Oh sisters deaf to pity's name for shame!"). She offers Frederic her pity ("Poor wand'ring one"), and the two quickly fall in love. The other girls discuss whether to eavesdrop or to leave the new couple alone ("What ought we to do?"), deciding to "talk about the weather," although they steal glances at the affectionate couple ("How beautifully blue the sky").
Frederic warns the girls about the pirates ("Stay, we must not lose our senses"), but before they can flee, the pirates return and capture all the girls, intending to marry them ("Here's a first rate opportunity"). Mabel warns the pirates that the girls' father is a Major-General ("Hold, monsters!"), who soon arrives and introduces himself ("I am the very model of a modern Major-General"). He appeals to the pirates not to take his daughters, leaving him to face his old age alone. Having heard of the famous Pirates of Penzance, he pretends that he is an orphan to elicit their sympathy ("Oh, men of dark and dismal fate"). The soft-hearted pirates release the girls ("Hail, Poetry!"), making Major-General Stanley and his daughters honorary members of their band ("Pray observe the magnanimity").
Act II
The Major-General sits in a ruined chapel on his estate, surrounded by his daughters. His conscience is tortured by the lie that he told the pirates, and the girls attempt to console him ("Oh dry the glist'ning tear"). The Sergeant of Police and his corps arrive to announce their readiness to arrest the pirates ("When the foeman bares his steel"). The girls loudly express their admiration of the police for facing likely slaughter at the hands of fierce and merciless foes. The police are unnerved by this but finally leave.
Left alone, Frederic, who is to lead the police, reflects on his opportunity to atone for a life of piracy ("Now for the pirate's lair"), at which point he encounters Ruth and the Pirate King. They have realised that Frederic's apprenticeship was worded so as to bind him to them until his twenty-first birthday – and, because that birthday happens to be on the 29th of February (in a leap year), it means that technically only five birthdays have passed ("When you had left our pirate fold"), and he will not reach his twenty-first birthday until he is in his eighties. Frederic is convinced by this logic and agrees to rejoin the pirates. He then sees it as his duty to inform the Pirate King of the Major-General's deception. The outraged outlaw declares that the pirates' "revenge will be swift and terrible" ("Away, away, my heart's on fire").
Frederic meets Mabel ("All is prepared"), and she pleads with him to stay ("Stay Frederic, stay"), but he feels bound by his duty to the pirates until his 21st birthday – in 1940. They agree to be faithful to each other until then, though to Mabel "It seems so long" ("Oh here is love and here is truth"); Frederic departs. Mabel steels herself ("No, I'll be brave") and tells the police that they must go alone to face the pirates. They muse that an outlaw might be just like any other man, and it is a shame to deprive him of "that liberty which is so dear to all" ("When a felon's not engaged in his employment"). The police hide on hearing the approach of the pirates ("A rollicking band of pirates we"), who have stolen onto the estate, intending to avenge themselves for the Major-General's lie ("With cat-like tread").
Just then, Major-General Stanley appears, sleepless with guilt, and the pirates also hide ("Hush, hush! not a word"), while the Major-General listens to the soothing breeze ("Sighing softly to the river"). The girls come looking for him ("Now what is this and what is that"). The pirates leap to the attack, and the police rush to the defence; but the police are easily defeated, and the Pirate King urges the captured Major-General to prepare for death. The Sergeant has one stratagem left: he demands that the pirates yield "in Queen Victoria's name"; the pirates, overcome with loyalty to their Queen, do so. Ruth appears and reveals that the pirates are "all noblemen who have gone wrong". The Major-General is impressed by this and all is forgiven. Frederic and Mabel are reunited, and the Major-General is happy to marry his daughters to the noble pirates after all. | action | train | wikipedia | PIRATES in the Park.
Let's straighten out a few points in previous comments first.
This is the video of the original stage production, which started at the Delacourte (outdoor) theatre in New York's Central Park (it was free!) and then moved to Broadway (indoors) with a slightly different cast and then was made into a proper film - again with minor cast changes.Patricia Routledge originated the role of Ruth but was replaced on Broadway by Estelle Parsons.
In the film, the role of Ruth was taken by Angela Lansbury.
This was the only principal role recast in any incarnation of the Park/Video, original Broadway, or film version.
I don't know why Routledge and Parsons were replaced.
The smaller character of Samuel was also re-cast on Broadway (Stephen Hanan took over).
Oddly, when the film was made, the original Broadway cast recorded in a New York studio singing the soundtrack, but finances prevented those playing the smaller roles from actually going to England to do the filming.
English actors played Kate, Edith, Isabel and Samuel, lip synching to the original Broadway cast.
This 1980 video isn't quite as technically bad as some claim.
The percussionist is practically a major character and a love duet between Frederic and Mabel turns into a trio with the conductor in the middle.
But all in all it is certainly watchable.
It is unfortunate that a jet passes over the park just when the singers launch into the a capella "Hail Poetry", but the sound is not all that bad.
I had to jack up the volume on my home theatre a bit to compensate.
Having seen the original cast live on Broadway, I was happy to finally see Routledge in the role of Ruth.
She does a bit of ad libbing here and there but is very good.
PIRATES was her last New York musical after appearing in a string of flops including a disastrous 1976 musical called 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE where she played all the first ladies.
After PIRATES she returned to England and...well, the rest is television history.
The Samuel in this video is much more operatic than his Broadway replacement Hanan.
The incredible George Rose is in top form here while the later film version is better for the other principals, who had three years to perfect their roles.
This video also gives us the complete Act One. The film version fades out before Ruth's final plea to Frederic.
Other differences (vocally and visually) between the Park (this video) and Broadway/Film are minimal.
If you are a G&S purist, this Wilford Leach version is not for you.
But it has become the standard interpretation of PIRATES in stage productions everywhere..
Humorous melodrama.
I saw this production of "The Pirates of Penzance" in and around 1982 in San Francisco.
The only member of the cast not accounted for was Kevin Kline, who I believe was off filming "Sofie's Choice" at the time.
His role was assumed by James Belushi during Kline's absence, who did a superb job of portraying the Pirate King that year.
I had a great time seeing this production, and seeing this preserved performance brings back warm and welcomed memories.This version of Pirates is exceptionally well acted, but, as the foreword on the DVD states, the print is limited by the technology at the time.
I've seen the DVD on both high-res (definition) and on regular NTSC monitors, and, believe it or not, it actually looks better on older TV's (for which the technology of the recording was made).
The result being that on a high definition TV set the hot-spots and washed out colors look even more distorted than they actually are on the master.
Even so, on a regular television the image quality bounces from good to not-so-good, depending on the camera being used.
The center camera (number 2 camera?) wasn't properly white balanced, and the washed out brights show, giving a real unprofessional look to the TV production.
In fact, during the performance, the operator tries to stop down the camera, but the only result is sloppy camera work, forever preserved on DVD.
Whoever coordinated this thing clearly didn't do their homework.The same goes for the audio.
For some reason the high fidelity of today's top of the line audio systems, for all their bells and whistles to enhance music and general audio, just don't deliver a clear sound of the performance.
For some strange reason (probably because contemporary audio components try to "create fidelity" in source material where there is none) the regular old TV speaker delivers a clearer sound.
Note; it's not a higher quality sound, but sound where both lyrics and dialogue are easily understood.
On a digital stereo or home theatre the cast sounds very muffled by all the tonal enhancements, making the songs sound unintelligible.
If you must view it on your home theatre system, then do yourself a favor and grab a book of lyrics.
Otherwise you'll be left high and dry when the songs roll around.But, if you can get by all the video and audio shortcomings (a lot to ask for) you should have a good time watching one the most memorable productions of Gillbert and Sullivan's Light Opera (or operetta, whichever term you prefer).
Linda Ronstadt as Mabel plays the innocent young waif, who falls for the young dashing Frederick, played by Rex Smith.
The performances are perfectly melodramatic, with a couple of contemporary nuances to make them really stand out for modern audiences.
Each set of characters delivers an excellent performance; the daughters, the police troop/pirate-band, and of course the leads.There're two mis cued gags, but the fact that they weren't laughed at is more the fault of the audience than the actors: Ronstadt's vocal competition with the local birds, portrayed by a flautist, seemed to fly over the head of the audience.
And Tony Azito (the Police Sargeant) failed to get a laugh on his "...most perplexing" line, again probably because the audience's mind was on something else, or they didn't understand the context of the reference.As you may know this particular production was so popular that a film was made, using most of the original cast.
That is save for Patricia Rutledge of "Keeping up Appearances" and "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates" fame, who was replaced by Angela Lansbury (God knows why...
most likely because Lansbury was probably a name the American public could identify with, and hence haul in more movie goers for more box office dollars).
The film, from what little I saw of it, did little to enhance or give credit to the stage performance.
The stage production was popular for a reason.
The film bombed for similar reasons.Part of the reason for that is because plays, particularly ones like "The Pirates of Penzance," really need an audience that can appreciate good theatre.
That, and the era of the musical was dead back in the 70's and 80's (one or two exceptions).
"The Pirates of Penzance," and specifically this production, was a smash hit on the theatre circuit.
It was a thing that really couldn't be reproduced in a cinematic venue.Fortunately the good folks at Kutlur Video have put together what is probably the only surviving TV broadcast version of this light opera, onto VHS and DVD.
If light opera isn't your thing, then you may want to scope out the "teen-sexploitation" comedy version, starring Kristy McNichol, entitled "The Pirate Movie." That version lacks both music and charm of, what was then, THE NUMBER ONE stage production to see.
"The Pirate Movie" is okay, but is more or less an attempt to cash in on teenage dollars (and cheaply, I might add).Unfortunately the DVD of this legendary production of "The Pirates of Pezance" is priced around thirty smackers.
A bit pricey for a reprint of a twenty-year-old 3/4" broadcast master, but, if you're like me and saw the original 1980's production, the performances more than worth the money..
Far better than the movie version!.
Thank goodness this version of Joseph Papp's "Pirates" has been unearthed and released to the public!
For as lavish as the 1983 film version is, I always felt that it was lacking something....a live audience.With the exception of Kevin Kline's performance, this live recording of the Central Park production is very charming and well worth the watch.
Mr. Kline is wonderful as The Pirate King, but his performance in the 1983 version is far better.
After 3 years of performing the role, he perfected it, and truly made it his own.Reviews back in 1980 complained about Linda Ronstadt's performance as Mabel, noting her lack of acting training.
I found her to be perfectly charming and quite adorable.
She's a cross between Snow White and Lilian Gish...the perfect mix!
She handles the vocal difficulty of the role with ease and clarity.
Her upper voice is slightly improved by the time the big screen version was shot, but this early attempt is wonderful!
And Mabel really doesn't have a lot of acting depth to her anyway....G & S wrote her as a parody of grand opera sopranos.
Player her "straight", as Ronstadt does, and she's fabulous.The late George Rose and the late Tony Azito are almost exact on both versions...which to me a sign of a great performer.
I always heard the Rose did the entire movie version with no retakes, and I can now understand why...he's flawless.
Azito could have given Ray Bolger a run for his money back in the day...the man was like rubber.!
I would have loved to have seen him play the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz!
Sadly both Rose and Azito were taken from us before their time.
It's a great loss.Patricia Routledge leaves Angela Lansbury in the dust in the battle for the better Ruth.
Routledge actually had a character unlike Lansbury who simply played Jessica Fletcher as Ruth....serious miscasting there folks!
If you are a fan of Patricia Routledge in "Keeping Up Appearances", this is a must see for you!The video used for the DVD and VHS versions of this show is very rough.
It's been digitally cleaned up a much as possible, but it is 23 years old!
But it's worth the watch anyway!I LOVED IT!!!!.
Much more palatable than the movie!.
This is the theater cast that prompted the movie, also starring Linda Ronstadt, Kevin Kline and Rex Smith.
I always felt the movie was rather cheesy, even by '80s standards.
Kline shines as the Pirate King.
He mugs well with the audience, and has some wonderful business, often involving the pit orchestra.
(The stage was built partly around the pit, which makes for some wonderful interaction.) Smith and Ronstadt both have pop/rock roots, and it shows.
Smith at least has some theatrical bona fides, having debuted in "Grease." Still, musical theater is nothing if not camp, and Smith and Ronstadt are both sufficiently campy in this production.
(I note, with some glee, that they had to key most of Ronstadt's arias a third or more.) We bought this version because it was the only one available (all the others had been "returned to vendor!") and were pleasantly surprised.
I'd seen the movie and had to quell my gag reflex through most of it.
This works much better as the theatrical version from whence it sprang 120 years ago.
Still fresh; still funny.
The DVD quality is awful.
This is a very bad recording of a very good performance.The show was obviously professionally shot, and the credits list a multi-channel sound recording crew.
But the sound on this is in mono and has very audible "time code" noise, a high-pitched audio signal that was used to link the videotape to a simultaneously recorded audiotape.
Given the vintage of the shoot, it was probably shot on 1" videotape and 2", 24-track audiotape.
As few video productions facilities still have 1" playback equipment, and judging by the video quality, this was made from a 3/4" "safety" copy.Why?
The suppliers cheaped out.
They didn't spend the time or energy to find the original tapes, or if they had them, to transfer them, or to do a mix-down of the 24-track master audio.It is possible to make an excellent DVD from this material.
The DVD currently available is not it..
The BEST Available Today....
I have this version of the DVD, and in spite of the warnings of the'technology of the day', if enough finances and talent were thrown at restoration, it would make a fantastic experience.
Others have stated the short comings.
I am distracted by the poor video and audio quality.I have just finished watching the movie version, with Angela Lansbury.
Again, others have noted the short comings of the movie VS the Central Park production.
I must say, though that Ms. Lansbury did a very decent job.So, which one is better, in MHO?
This version, by far.
For one thing, which has not been mentioned, in the movie version many songs were shortened or eliminated all together.
This stage version is COMPLETE!
You get all the wonderful words and music created by G & S.
The movie also seems a little 'over the top'.
Now I realize that this play is meant to be hammed up, but the actors mugged it up a lot more, and there were disturbing sound effects inserted when all you really needed was the actor's expressions.
So, bottom line, in spite of the poor production, i'll keep my Central Park production, and forget the movie version..
The only thing wrong with this....
...is that I can't take a time machine back so that I can be there for this performance.
The tape is technically sub-par, but it's not that bad.
There's a bit of a machine hum for a few minutes and there's a little gargliness in part of the finale.
But it's absolutely worth it.
I'm a big fan of the film version, but it's like the difference between a blow-up doll and a live person.
Patricia Routledge gives a great performance.
And in the live show, you realize that Rex Smith has a HUGE voice.
This performance is so lively, and the audience is having such a great time.
I rented it and then promptly went to Amazon and bought it..
The best Pirates of Penzance on DVD?.
I'd say yes.
Although I did thoroughly enjoy the 2006 Opera Australia and the 1994 Sydney performances(the latter is not for everybody though) and the 1983 film, this Pirates really stood out.
All are much better than the 1982 D'Oyly Carte and 1985 Stratford productions, which I was disappointed by.
The Pirates of Penzance was my first Gilbert and Sullivan operetta and possibly my favourite.
You can definitely see why here.
The lyrics and dialogue have always been hilarious and they are still here.
The costumes and sets do look handsome, and the staging is always fun and never dull.
It is even better musically, with stylish orchestral playing and conducting, the sisters are charming, the pirates lively and the policemen hilarious(and not under-pitch like they were in D'Oyly Carte).
The performances are really impressive.
Kevin Kline is not quite as good as he is in the 1983 film but his Pirate King still has charisma and swagger.
George Rose's Major General Stanley is impeccable vocally and dramatically, he sings the patter like it comes easy to him when really it must have taken him a lot of practise and he performs with such gusto.
Tony Azito is alongside Richard Alexander for Opera Australia the best Police Sergeant on DVD, his facial expressions and body language are priceless.
Rex Smith is a dashing Frederic, and Linda Ronstadt is charming as Mabel, especially liked her duet with the flautist, a shame really that it went over the audience's heads.
Patricia Routledge is a funny and sympathetic Ruth also, superior to Angela Lansbury in the film.
Interesting to see Alice Playten(Blix in the fantasy film Legend) as Edith.
Overall, a wonderful Pirates of Penzance.
10/10 Bethany Cox. Fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon..
Cast is great, Kevin Kline, Rex Smith, Linda Rondstadt and Angela Landsbury!.
very dated but great content ,superb singing.
I have just watched this film for about the 20th time ,and I can assure you Ruth was played by Angela Lonsbury not Patricia Routlidge The one I watched I taped off the tv , all the other cast were the same.
is this another version ?many thanks T J Careless |
tt0489212 | The Living Wake | The film follows the journey of K. Roth Binew, a self-proclaimed genius. After discovering that he has contracted a rare and unnamed terminal disease, he enlists his eccentric rickshaw-riding best and only friend Mills Joaquin (Jesse Eisenberg) to accompany him on his last day to live. Throughout the film, he attempts to find the meaning of life in "a brief, but powerful monologue" that his eccentric father had promised to tell him, but abandoned K. Roth before he could.
K. Roth's final day begins with a confrontation with his neighbor and rival, Reginald, whom he invites to his living wake. With his friend Mills, he attempts to make his funeral arrangements, visits a "liquorsmith", and makes a goat sacrifice in order to appease Greek gods. Believing that love is the meaning of life, K. Roth has a picnic with his former nanny, Marla, whom he describes as his true love. This fails, and after a brief romp with a prostitute (Colombe Jacobsen), whom he also invites to his wake, K. Roth and Mills journey to the public library, where he tries to donate his entire works. When his books are deemed to be unfit for reading, K. Roth visits a psychic in another attempt to find the meaning of life.
With his wake and death looming, K. Roth falls into a depression. He is revived when he chances upon a church, the members of which encourage him to reconnect with his family. His brother, Karl, and mother (Jill Larson) are reluctant to reconcile with him, and do not believe that he is dying. Karl states that K is neither a writer or an inventor except in his own ego and is a delusional man, he calls the family doctor. After having a last drink at a bar, K. Roth and Mills prepare for the wake.
The wake begins, with the entire film's cast in attendance. The wake is made up of dancing by K. Roth, a song performed by Mills called "If I Was Real", and a one-woman play performed by K. Roth called "Remembrance of Dawn". K. Roth's wake is interrupted by the arrival of his mother, Karl, and the family doctor, Dr. Schoenberg. They plead with him to stop the wake, describing it as another of his "episodes". K. Roth refuses, and the wake continues with K. Roth tying up loose ends, including revenge on his neighbor, Reginald, and the giving away of his possessions. Mills recites a poem about K. Roth.
The wake is again interrupted by the arrival of the ghost of Lampert Binew (Jim Gaffigan), K. Roth's father. Though only K. Roth can see him, K. Roth proceeds to confront him in front of the audience about his abandonment. Lampert explains to him that he never abandoned him, and had simply died without leaving any trace. He tells K. Roth that there is no "equation for life", and therefore no monologue, and that the meaning of life was merely to live to your full potential. With his time drawing near, K. Roth has a moment of self-awareness, stating that his life was meaningless, and that he was a "stupid, drunk, scared, dying man". With encouragement from his father, K. Roth concludes his wake with a song and dance. With the last words of the song, K. Roth's disease takes effect, and he collapses into an upright coffin. He is proclaimed dead. The members of the wake pay their final respects. A mourning Mills takes K. Roth's body to a pond, where he sets it ablaze as the film draws to a close. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0039045 | Trap Happy | Jerry Mouse is being chased down the steps by Tom Cat. Jerry hides under a chair and Tom runs under it, but gets smacked on the bottom with a board from Jerry. Jerry's mouse hole is then mined with dynamite, but unknowingly for Tom, Jerry has lit another firework under him, and both explode. Tom angrily continues the pursuit until Jerry offers him a fireplace shovel to hit him with. Tom misses several times and Jerry holds the tool down until Tom pulls on it so hard he hits himself when Jerry flees. Tom jumps into Jerry's hole, but his lips are ruffled and Tom has to pull himself out. Tom is tired of the chase and searches in the Yellow Pages for a pest control exterminator. He finds one for Ajax Mouse Exterminators, with the motto One Call - That's All. Tom calls the company up impersonating Mammy Two Shoes and gets them to come over.
Butch arrives within seconds and goes to work. He paints a steel nut two shades of yellow so it looks like cheese, and tops it off with a blast of "Essence of Cheese". Butch rolls it into Jerry's hole. Jerry smells the nut and since it smells like cheese, eats it. Butch then attracts Jerry with a magnet, trapping the mouse. Butch pulls out an axe, holding Jerry down while he attempts to cleave the mouse in two. Tom, not wanting to watch, turns away. Jerry substitutes Tom's tail. Tom screams in pain and the chase begins.
Jerry runs into his hole and Butch pins him to a wall inside the hole with a corkscrew. With nowhere to go, Jerry touches two electric wires to the corkscrew, causing it to backfire onto Butch.
Later, the two cats attempt to kill the mouse with poison gas. Jerry walks out with a gas mask on; the two cats are puzzled, but are unable to figure out his identity. Jerry salutes and the cats salute as if to say "Good day!" Tom returns to pumping gas, but Butch has deduced the little creature must be Jerry. He slaps Tom and points to Jerry removing his mask, taunting the cats and running off. Both cats chase him one behind the other, but fall victim to Jerry placing an iron in their path such that Tom falls into Butch's mouth.
Jerry hides in another mouse hole and the two cats resort to prying up the entire wall. Jerry has a hammer and slams Tom's foot, causing him to lose grip and Butch's fingers to be crushed. Jerry plays "Yankee Doodle" on the eight digits and Butch releases them. Butch instructs Tom to keep quiet and hands him a sledgehammer while he sneaks in through a grate and chases Jerry through the walls of the house, doing significant damage. Jerry pops out of the hole and Tom swings as instructed, but hits Butch's head instead.
Butch lights a bomb and the cats hide. Jerry sees it and throws it back. The cats and the mouse play Hot Potato with the bomb until Butch's hat falls off his head and it is mixed up. Jerry, instead of getting the bomb as intended, gets the hat, and Butch has the bomb on top of his head. Puzzled as to why Jerry is not planting the bomb on Butch again, the cats look up, and then the bomb explodes.
Jerry runs into one hole and comes out the other to find Butch on that side, then comes back out the other and finds Tom on that side. The two cats both grope and feel Jerry at the same time and grab for him just as the mouse jumps, leaving the two cats with hands held (though they are unaware of it). Both cats think they have Jerry and yank the other cat into the wall several times. Butch then pokes at Tom with a broom and Tom proceeds to pull Butch through the entire wall, demolishing it, all with the false impression that their hands are latched on to Jerry.
Tom slaps the pile of brick and rock with a board until he sees an opening. He digs through the pile and finds Butch's hat, with a corner missing. As Tom tries to find Jerry in the hat, Butch revives and replaces the hat as he draws himself up, incensed at Tom and having enough of Jerry. Butch marks out the "MOUSE" in "MOUSE EXTERMINATOR" on his bag and replaces it with "CAT". Tom realizes the title is changed into a cat exterminator and reads, "C-A-T, Cat". Butch then takes a gleaming, double-barreled shotgun out of his bag. Terrified, Tom dashes to the nearest window and crashes through it. Jerry rushes to the nearest window to watch as Butch chases after him and shoots him as the cartoon fades out and the chase ends. | psychedelic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0101765 | La double vie de Veronique | In Poland in 1968, a little girl is shown the stars in the winter sky by her mother, who identifies the Christmas Eve star. In France, a little girl is shown one of the first leaves of spring by her mother, who points out the fine veins running through.
In Poland in 1990, a young Polish woman named Weronika (Irène Jacob) is singing at an outdoor concert with her choir when a sudden downpour causes the singers to rush for cover. Weronika alone continues to hold the last note while the rain falls on her smiling face. After the concert, Weronika meets her boyfriend, Antek (Jerzy Gudejko), and they go to his apartment to make love. The next day she asks her father to tell Antek she is leaving to be with her sick aunt in Kraków. She tells him that lately she feels she's not alone in the world.
Weronika travels to Kraków by train looking out at the passing landscape through a small clear rubber ball. At her aunt's house, Weronika talks about her boyfriend, then meets a friend at a concert rehearsal. As the choir rehearses, Weronika, who is watching offstage, accompanies them in a beautiful high soprano voice. Afterwards, the musical director asks her to audition. Overjoyed, Weronika rushes home with the sheet music. On the way, she passes through Main Market Square, where a protest rally is in progress. One protester runs into her, causing her to drop her music folder. After retrieving the sheet music, Weronika notices a French tourist taking photos of the protestors—a young woman who looks exactly like her. Weronika smiles as she watches her double board the tourist bus that soon pulls away.
At the audition, Weronika's singing impresses the musical director and conductor, and she is later told that she won the audition. The next day, while on a trolley studying the score, Weronika notices her boyfriend Antek following on his motorbike. When they talk, she apologizes for not returning his calls, and Antek tells her he loves her. Later, while getting dressed for the concert, Weronika presses her face against a window and sees an old woman with shopping bags slowly making her way along the street. That night during the concert, while singing a solo part, Weronika collapses onstage and dies—her spirit passing over the audience.
In Paris that day, a young French woman named Véronique (Irène Jacob), after making love with her former boyfriend, is overwhelmed with sadness, as if she were grieving. The next day, at the school where she teaches music, Véronique attends a marionette performance with her class. During the performance—a story about a ballet dancer who breaks her leg and then turns into a butterfly—Véronique watches the puppeteer controlling the marionettes. Back in her classroom, she leads her class in a musical piece by an eighteenth-century composer, Van den Budenmayer—the same piece performed by Weronika when she died. That night while driving home, she sees the puppeteer at a traffic light motioning to her not to light the wrong end of her cigarette. Later she is awakened by a phone call with no one speaking, but in the background she hears a choir singing the music of Van den Budenmayer.
The next day, Véronique drives to her father's house where she reveals she is in love with someone she doesn't know, and that recently she felt she was alone—that someone was gone from her life. Back in Paris, Véronique receives a mysterious letter containing a shoelace which she throws away. That night she is awakened by a strange light reflecting from a neighbor's mirror. Véronique retrieves the mysterious shoelace, and later while contemplating her recent EKG graph, she holds the shoestring across the graph paper in a straight line, alluding to a EKG showing no activity.
Véronique learns that the puppeteer is a children's book author named Alexandre Fabbri (Philippe Volter), whose marionette story was based on his book Libellule & Papillon. One of his other books is about a shoelace. In the coming days, Véronique reads several of Alexandre's books. When Véronique visits her father, he gives her a package addressed to her containing a cassette tape. When she's alone, she listens to the mysterious recording of a typewriter, footsteps, a door opening, a train station, and a fragment of music by Van den Budenmayer. There are also sounds of a car accident and explosion. The postage stamp on the envelope leads Véronique to a Gare Saint-Lazare train station cafe where she believes the cassette recording was made. There she sees Alexandre sitting by himself, as if waiting for her. He tells her he's been waiting for her for two days, that he's working on a new book, and that this was a kind of experiment to see if she would come to him. Angered at being manipulated, Véronique leaves and takes a taxi to a nearby hotel, After checking in, she sees Alexandre, who apparently ran after the taxi. He asks for her forgiveness, and she brings him up to her room, where they both fall asleep. During the night, he wakes her up and tells her he loves her, and they make love.
The next morning she tells him, "All my life I've felt like I was here and somewhere else at the same time." While looking at a proof sheet of photos taken on Véronique's recent trip to Poland, Alexandre notices what he thinks is a photo of Véronique, but she assures him it is not her, that she in fact took the photo—of a young Polish woman carrying a music folder. Véronique crumples the proof sheet and breaks down in tears. Alexandre comforts her and they make love again. Later at his apartment, Véronique sees Alexandre working on a new marionette with her image. When asked about the purpose of a second identical marionette, Alexandre explains, "I handle them a lot when I perform. They get damaged easily." He shows her how to work the one marionette while the double lays lifeless on the table.
Some time later, Alexandre reads his new book to Véronique about two women, born the same day in different cities, who have a mysterious connection. Later that day, Véronique arrives at her father's house, stops at the front gate, and reaches out and touches an old tree. Her father, who is inside the house, seems to sense this without seeing it. | psychedelic, mystery, depressing | train | wikipedia | There are rumors of a release in 2005, but for fans of movies like Amélie hungry for something with a little more depth, The Double Life of Véronique comes most highly recommended -- even if you have to search high and low for a copy on VHS..
Just like in Trois Couleurs Bleu, the music of La Double vie de Véronique is very indivisible from the film: the visual and the auditive form a united whole and also elements of it are directly part of the story.
And when it comes to music made for film, Zbigniew Preisner's powerful score for this one is as good as it gets.When there is little dialogue, it is not just the images and expressions on Irène Jacob's face that tells the story, but also the powerful strains of music intermingled with it.Even with just these elements in place, it would be a movie worth seeing, though obviously a narrative based in little extent on dialogue and with less emphasis on a clear-cut story than your average American movie is unfortunately lost on some of the earlier commentators.And even this seemingly sparingly laid out narrative reveals itself to the careful watcher to be a rich tapestry of symbols, metaphors and hidden meanings.
Kiéslowski, just as in his other movies, demands participation of the viewer, and the one who expects passive entertainment has found the wrong film to watch.Krzysztof never liked discussing meaning when it came to his movies, but liked keeping that up to the viewers, and few other directors have ever been able to lay out more food for thought and fruitful interpretation than him.I saw the Three Colours trilogy before seeing Véronique, and the many similarities, both musical and in visual narrative, makes it feel like it almost belongs together with those three to form a quartet.
Or it may be that a valued filmmaker has died and I know there is only so much to see new and I want to pace it through my life.Kieslowski is something of a demigod in my film world.
Irene Jacob, the streets of France and Poland, the editing, the love scenes, the plastic ball reflections, and especially the music all are so beautiful that actually made me shivered and stunned.Kieslowski's in another world now.
I think the film is more accessible for european viewers, the same way Dawn by law might be for american viewers (I can´t bear that pretentious american underground movies at all, with cool men swearing all the time, trying to be funny...
The film evokes the idea that gifted people such this soprano singer have a spare part somewhere in the world, the same way the puppetier has a spare marionette for the one he uses most.God is not mentioned but the scenes are revealing: Veronique caresses the bark of a thick tree in the very last scene, which could signify her real father as well, or just the idea of fatherhood.The music is ten out of ten, if you feel nothing while listening to Preisner´s masterpiece, you´d better not say you´re sensitive anymore.
Director Kieslowski sets up the odd dreamlike atmosphere right from the start, using mirror reflections and odd camera distortions to show us the bizarre way that Veronique/Veronika sees the world around her.
The problem this creates is that it takes away any real connection we have with the characters, we never really feel anything for them or are even that concerned for their outcomes, Kieslowski moves his actors around his "stage" in the same way the marionettes are manipulated in the film, but the film works on such a subtly hypnotic level I don't think that Kieslowski ever wanted us to feel part of this world.
Kieslowski follows Veronique/Veronika through Paris and Poland, intimately probing her with close, hand-held camera, the cinema-verite effect of this making the viewer feel almost like a voyeur, following the women's every movements and encounters.
Much of this is an adoration of French actress Iréne Jacob by Director Krzysztof Kieslowski; in a sense it is a homage to her, one of the most beautiful actresses of our time and one of the most talented.
And such a beautiful dream.An actress playing the character twice in a slightly different way has occurred in at least two other films in the nineties: there was Patricia Arquette in David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) and Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors (1998).
It's an appealing venture for an actress of course and when the actress is as talented as these three are, for the audience as well.Note that as Weronika/Véronique is in two worlds, Poland and France, so too has always been Kieslowski himself in his real life.
The movies in his Polish/French trilogy, Blue, White, and Red, are finely tuned, sensitive, imaginative dramas that use mystery, music, psychology and visual fluidity to immerse you in another world that is beguiling and fascinating.That's exactly what goes on here.
And into the world (or worlds) of the lead characters, both played by Irene Jacob, a classic kind of restrained French (French-Swiss) actress with a limited range, but within that range she has penetrating beauty and a moving, melancholic aura for the camera, which lingers on her face through much of the movie.
The allegories of 1980s Europe, splintering under Communism's last few years, have been written about a lot (the Polish Weronika gives herself to her music and dies for it, trapped somehow, the French Veronique is free to reject her talent, travel, and yet, ultimately, end up a puppet to her personal weakness).
(Note here that he again makes the individual's inner needs more important than the greater politics.) The French Veronique is free to be hedonistic, the Polish version cannot quite do that, though you feel her struggle with what to do with her life as a singer.All of this is obviously impressive.
I think it would help to see this film before the Three Colors trilogy, because they are better movies, especially "Blue" and "Red." I have seen "Red" several times, and it also stars Jacob, and I love it completely still.
"The Double Life of Veronique" is also focusing on the connection made between two people like Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy or his heaven,hell and Purgatory.But it is not about two people with a strong bond or two twins.The two girls are not merely soul mates,they're two versions of the same person.Like an old belief that after we die, our body will appear in different circumstances and live a new life.(in here they live two different life simultaneously).The power of music in Kieslowski's film is inevitable.The scenes are not significant by themselves,the impact of the ideas and images with the powerful music make the film special.Kieslowski well used colors and camera filters to create an ethereal atmosphere which was very helpful in creating the films sense .I think the music and Irène Jacob performance were the most outstanding pieces of the film.The central question of the film is "Is it just a matter of chance that one thinks and acts as one does?..Is there something as free will?"...It is a question of our lives too..
Such themes could be messed around, but in the hands of such talented people, these so-called "irrationalities" are brought to life with beauty, subtlety and intelligence.The music is amazing, the cinematography is stunning and Irene Jacob is wonderful.
If you like the Trois Couleurs trilogy, you'll surely love this too and maybe even feel like you've returned home, to the tree, to life, to the beginning - Kieslowski had the ability to move us all in such ways.
In fact, she felt a pain at the moment that Weronika died.The Double Life is a beautiful looking film, not just because of Irene Jacob's perfect breasts.
Visually, it shares a few things in common with the Colors Trilogy, and Irène Jacob (Veronique and Veronika) was actually the main character in Red. Her acting is extremely good in both films, and the mood she creates in this one is understated, but incredibly graceful.
All things considered, « The double life of Véronique » looks like an inexhaustible hymn to the life and to the capacity of regeneration peculiar to our vital tissues after an indirect experience of death, thank to the discovery of the absolute love, impalpable like the atmosphere that surrounds the whole story, unlikely and ethereal at the same time, sublimed by strange relations referring to subtle Kieslowskian metaphors always on the look-out.
And it is here, IMHO, that the film fails: I couldn't really believe the "metaphor" of two women being the same, at the same time, one feeling like the other, or one following the other's story.
Along the way are some intriguing, teasing suggestions of several more-then-coincidental similarities between the two women, but the effect is not unlike watching a film where every third scene is missing, and because the burden of meaning is placed entirely on the viewer it will likely infuriate anyone expecting a more coherent story..
Extremely absorbing movie, beautiful pictures, Irene Jacob takes us into a thrilling game about identity, congeniality of souls and what is important in life.
The film tells the story of two identical-looking women, the Polish Veronika and the French Veronique, who seem to be aware of each other in some way, but who have never met.
The radiantly beautiful Irene Jacob plays the double role of the title characters, and she is brilliant; the film doesn't give her very much dialog, but she communicates volumes with her facial expressions and body language.
The cinematography is gorgeous, with most of the film shot through amber-colored filters of one form or another, essentially eliminating the color blue from the movie and giving everything a slightly distant look.After seeing Kieslowski's three subsequent movies, his wonderful "Three Colors" trilogy, it seemed to me that "Veronique" was almost intended to be a prequel to them, with scenes in each movie alluding to scenes in the others.
(In fact, some reviewers simply have it wrong - e.g., although the puppeteer is initially shown as manipulative, within five minutes, the main character is saying that she's always loved him - it is she, not he, who empties the contents of her purse when he says he wishes to know all about her).The movie is like a poem with many beautiful images and no point - except the myriad of "meanings" that different readers will impart to it.
kieslowski is known for creating films that ask questions, rather than make statements and the double life of veronique is no exception.
Two exact look-alikes, the Polish Weronika and the French Véronique, inhabit the world of Krzysztof Kieslowski's memorable The Double Life of Véronique.
By its very nature, the story defies rational explanation and Kieslowski does not offer any, but the premise suggests that the separate self is an illusion, a projection of mind rather than an inherent expression of ultimate reality.Shot in Krakow, Poland and Paris, France, the film is suffused with the stunning cinematography of Slawomir Idziak and a sublime score by Zbigniew Preisner beginning with the song she sung by Weronica at her debut concert in Krakow.
The film is propelled by the emotions Véronique is experiencing: a strange feeling of being alone in a suddenly uncertain world and an unexplained sense of loss.The mystery deepens when she begins to receive enigmatic packages in the mail from Alexandre (Philippe Volter), a puppeteer whose exquisite marionette performance she has seen and whose gifts are tied to objects from his children's stories.
Krzysztof Kieslowski's direction uses light and shadow, and the atmospheric music, make "Double Life" a work of art.
This film has such a richness that it's enjoyable to watch it over and over again, each time I could discover some thing new about music (which is great), character etc.
After experiencing a feeling of not being alone which she is instigated to act upon, Weronika travels to Krakow where her aunt lives and when she gets there she notices a woman whom she has never seen before and who bears a striking resemblance to herself.Distinctly and subtly directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski, this finely tuned fictional tale which is narrated mostly from the two main character's point of view, draws a virtuous portrayal of the life of a Polish woman named Weronika and a French woman named Veroniqué who are identical and who one day coincidentally or determined by destiny crosses paths.
While notable for it's naturalistic and atmospheric milieu depictions, distinct production design by production designer Patrice Mercier, cinematography by polish cinematographer Slawomir Idziak, costume design by costume designers Laurence Brignon, Claudy Fellous and Elzbieta Radke, fine editing by French film editor Jacques Witta and use of colors and light, this character-driven and narrative-driven story where the director could focus more on the cinematic aspects of his film and less on the political which was characteristic in many of his previous productions due to the political situation in his country, depicts two interrelated and empathic studies of character and contains a great score by Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner.This dramatic, literary, somewhat surreal, romantic and humanistic drama from the early 1990s about identity and faith which is the last feature film Krzysztof Kieslowski made before ending his career with the Three Colours trilogy which consisted of "Blue" (1993), "White" (1994) and "Red" (1994) and which is set in the capital city of France and the capital city of Poland in the early 1990s and where a music teacher for children named Veroniqué who lives in France experiences a feeling of being alone, is impelled and reinforced by it's brilliant narrative structure, substantial character development, subtle continuity, interrelated stories, endearing characters, poetic scenes and the memorable acting performance by French actress Irène Jacob.
Later, at her classroom, she leads her students in a classical piece by the same composer that Weronika was performing when she died.,Veronique falls in love with a puppeteer and writer named Alexandre and as the couple go through a photo album, he sees a picture which looks like her.
One does not have to get into the existential meaning behind this film to truly enjoy it.It concerns two women, Weronika and Véronique, both played by Irene Jacob (Three Colors: Red).
One dies, the other doesn't.The outstanding performance by Irène Jacob, who plays both Weronika and Véronique; the amazingly colorful cinematography by Oscar nominee (Black Hawk Down)Slawomir Idziak; and the absolutely sumptuous score by Golden Globe nominee (Three Colors: Blue, At Play in the Fields of the Lord) Zbigniew Preisner all make Oscar nominee (Three Colors: Red) Krzysztof Kieslowski's film the experience of a lifetime.But, to get the true measure of the film, you have to devote some time and effort in watching.
I think director was successful in the sense that during the movie you'r always expecting something to happen by not too much things happen.The naked scenes of Irene Jacob was really aesthetic but it looks like director has used her beauty too much..
Kieslowski's direction, Jacob's exquisite performance, Preisner's music and Idziak's cinematography give us a film to look, hear, thinkand feel.
"The Double Life of Veronique" (or "La double vie de Véronique" in French) is one of his best known movies, made at the peak of his cinema career, between the Decalogue and the Three Colors trilogy.
If you ever felt something like this or if you can understand or imagine such feelings, this story of two young women, living in two different parts of Europe, sharing talents, feelings and fate without their lives ever intersecting for more than a few seconds, this story should not seem strange at all.Beautiful films (and books, and paintings, and musical works) have complex layers of meanings and a multitude of details that are revealed to the viewer, reader, listener.
Or maybe they're latent Jedis or something (I kid).How this is all filmed is completely absorbing; Kieslowski uses hand-held camera-work, but in a steady way that often creates tension, like when the two Veroniques are walking out in public (i.e., French side after she leaves her rendezvous with this not-so-mystery man and tries to go through crowded streets, and the Polish side after a rehearsal, where her heart becomes weak and she stumbles to catch her breath).
I could watch Irene Jacob in this film or Red and see an actress so in tune with the character(s) that she in a way does half the work for Kieslowski.
In other words, even when I was wondering, more than once, 'this storyline, such as it is, is getting a little weird and quixotic, maybe for its own good', she really grounded me in the emotional logic, and the pathos becomes so much that it makes something like a scene near the end this mix of heartbreak and bewilderment that I've rarely seen like this in a film.It's at times confounding, in certain choices and moments, but never in ways that might alienate; Kieslowski asks the audience 'come, a little closer - find out more about these women, and whatever the outcome, the journey is genuine and interesting.'.
My expectations i would say were not big, because i had heard that many people did not get the movie, but i hoped for the best.The Double Life of Veronique is directed and written by Krzysztof Kieslowski and it stars Irène Jacob, Wladyslaw Kowalski and Halina Gryglaszewska.
The Double Life of Veronique is the story of two young women who are in some mysterious and irresolvable way--- the same woman leading two different yet interconnected lives.
The Double Life of Veronique remains one of the defining works of European cinema in the 90's and is easily one of the greatest and most iconic films ever created by the late, great Kieslowski..
Director Krzysztof Kieslowski allows the viewer to individually interpret his movies and this one struck me as a dreamscape, almost as if the characters of Weronika and Veronique weren't real in the first place. |
tt0112131 | Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders | === Premise ===
The show's action is set in the legendary island of Avalon, here portrayed as a fairy tale style utopia that keeps its magic in check by the seven Crown Jewels of the Kingdom, each representing an area of the realm. The series takes place after a thousand years passed since the good wizard Merlin's initial victory over the witch queen Morgana. In the original version of the show, the title character has her name similar with Arthur's wife, Guinevere; other Arthurian characters include Merlin and Lady of the Lake. Mentored by the ageless Merlin, the Jewel Riders are the young female champions of goodness and magical guardians of New Camelot, who uphold the laws of the peaceful land and defend its people for generations. But when evil threatens Avalon and with their teacher Merlin suddenly gone, the trio of Jewel Riders, the kingdom's traditional teen defenders, aided by their animal friends, are tasked with recovering the mystical Enchanted Jewels that are essential for controlling the dangerous Wild Magic.
Avalon's fate rests with the Jewel Riders: the latest incarnation consists of the 16-year-old Princess Gwenevere (Gwen) and her friends, Fallon and Tamara. Their jewels, besides their unique powers, are allowing them to "ride" safely the tunnels through the alternate dimension of the Wild Magic, as well as to communicate with their Special Friends ― the magic animals who each share a similar gemstone in their neck collars. The girls are often assisted by the Pack, a teenage male trio of wolf-riding Knights of Avalon wielding the Forest Stones. The protagonists contend with the ruthless Lady Kale, a former princess of Avalon who has vowed to command all the magic and rule the kingdom no matter the consequences. An emphasis is set on the "power of friendship", which enables the Jewel Riders to overcome evil. In the second season, the threat to Avalon is not over yet, and gets worse with an introduction of an even more dangerous adversary for the Jewel Riders to thwart. Instead of Crown Jewels, Gwen and her friends seek out another cache of magical gems while still struggling to fight off the forces of darkness and to contain the growing chaos in the magic.
=== First season ===
The story is set up during the two-part pilot episode "Jewel Quest." Princess Gwenevere, the young daughter of the rulers of Avalon, Queen Anya and King Jared, is being prepared by Merlin for the day when she will meet a bonded animal friend to share their own themed Enchanted Jewels with. Gwen is yet to be given the magic of the royal Sun Stone, while her best friends Tamara and Fallon already wield the magic of the Moon Stone and the Heart Stone. Gwen needs to search for such an animal and become the new leader of the Jewel Riders. Suddenly, disaster strikes when the outlaw Princess Kale, a hateful and power-hungry sister of Anya, gets hold of the formidable magic of the Dark Stone and uses it to overpower Merlin, sending him into the perilous dimension of Wild Magic. The sorceress steals the Crown Jewels and plans to use their magic to take over Avalon and reign forever, but Merlin foils her by breaking their setting and sending them back to the lands from where they had come, scattering them wide across the kingdom and beyond. Gwen succeeds in getting her Special Friend, a winged unicorn named Sunstar. Unfortunately, once the Crown Jewels' bond is broken, magic is no longer stable and flows out of control, causing dangerous outbreaks until they are brought back together. Retrieving them is the only way the Riders can free Merlin from being lost in the limbo of Wild Magic and so their titular quest begins. Using the magic of the Enchanted Jewels and their friendship, the Jewel Riders must prevent Kale from gaining more power, reclaim the Crown Jewels, and save Merlin and all of Avalon.
For most of the episodes, the primary storyline tells of the Jewel Riders' efforts to locate and secure each of the Crown Jewels before Lady Kale can get her hands on them or to win them back if she does. The seven Crown Jewels consist of the Jewel of the North Woods (in "Travel Trees Can't Dance"), the Rainbow Jewel found inside the Rainbow Falls (in "Song of the Rainbow"), the Jewel of the Burning Ice found in the Hall of Wizards at the Wizard's Peak in the snow-covered mountains (in "Wizard's Peak"), the Misty Rose Jewel found in the Misty Moors (in "For Whom the Bell Trolls"), the Desert Star Jewel of the Great Desert found in the magical realm of Faeryland (in "The Faery Princess"), the Jewel of the Dreamfields (in "Dreamfields"), and the Jewel of the Jungle found in the hidden lair of the legendary wizard Morgana (in "Revenge of the Dark Stone").
During the two-part dramatic finale of the first season (in "Revenge of the Dark Stone" and "Full Circle"), Lady Kale succeeds in seizing control of the Jewel Keep at the Crystal Palace. Becoming seemingly invincible, she overthrows Anya, unleashes the dark magic onto Avalon, strips the Jewel Riders of their powers, and prepares to make herself a queen for eternity. Kale seeks out Merlin to finish him off, but he uses his remaining powers to pull the wicked woman into the Wild Magic and holds her there for long enough for the girls to release the positive magic of the Crystal Palace, revealed as the most powerful Enchanted Jewel in Avalon. Unaware of this, Kale attempts to absorb the powers of the gathered Crown Jewels which results in her being destroyed and her dark spells are undone. The girls then discover that they have tuned the Crown Jewels to their personal jewels, enabling them to channel all the magic of Avalon. In doing so, however, they squandered a chance of solving the magic crisis for good, as well as a chance of freeing Merlin, who has sacrificed his staff jewel to outwit Kale.
=== Second season ===
The Jewel Riders realize that the Crown Jewels have given them a set of new 'Level Two' armor and magic seven times more powerful than before. They girls now have at their disposal far greater magic than they ever dreamed possible; they also find it difficult to use. Meanwhile, inside the Wild Magic, Kale's Dark Stone is summoned toward a floating palace, where she materializes back to life and meets her accidental rescuer, the elflike Morgana who was the creator and original wielder of the Dark Stone. Morgana had led the other ancient wizards against Merlin a millennium ago but was defeated and, losing her jewel, she has remained trapped in the Wild Magic ever since. The two villainesses, united only by their mutual hatred for Merlin, grudgingly decide to team up and Morgana sends Kale back to Avalon in search for the other Wizard Jewels in a preparation for the return of Morgana and the deciding battle between the forces of light and dark. The Jewel Riders need to master their enhanced powers while they continue their quest to bring Merlin home, and soon they confront Morgana and realize that they are facing a dangerous new enemy.
The seven Wizard Jewels are just as hard to obtain as the Crown Jewels were, as they are scattered in magical places beyond Avalon. Through most of the season the Riders try to find the jewels before they fall into the hands of Morgana, who wants to use their magic to complete her conquest of the kingdom; at the same time, Lady Kale also seeks the Wizard Jewels for herself while supposedly working for/with Morgana. The seven Wizard Jewels consist of the Unicorn Jewel (in "Vale of the Unicorns"), the Jewel of Arden (in "Prince of the Forest"), the Garden Jewel (in "The Wizard of Gardenia"), the Jewel of the Sea (in "The Jewel of the Sea"), the Time Stone (in "Mystery Island"), and the Fortune Jewel (in "The Fortune Jewel"), not counting the Dark Stone itself.
Princess Gwenevere meets a handsome, mysterious young man called Ian (a good-hearted werewolf-like who later comes to her rescue her during the final battle), falling in love with him. Tamara finds a magical animal for herself, which turns out to be a striped unicorn named Shadowsong. Together they fight to protect Avalon. During the series' two-part conclusion (in "Lady of the Lake" and "The One Jewel"), set in the Heart of Avalon, Gwen is given the magic Staff of Avalon by the Lady of the Lake (the Spirit of Avalon), which she uses to rid of Kale, turning the witch to a crystal statue, and to save her friends. In the final showdown, the Riders and their friends then band together to battle Morgana in a test of skills and wits over the collected Wizard Jewels. Eventually, the princess fuses the Dark Stone with the Sun Stone and captures the ultimate One Jewel forged from the Wizard Jewels, which the freed Merlin then uses the One Jewel to do away with Morgana and the ancient wizards' ghosts once and for all. | good versus evil, psychedelic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt4047140 | Pooja | Ramachandra Rao/Ramu (Ramakrishna) falls in love with a beautiful girl, Lalitha (Manjula) who is also his cousin. He loves her so deeply that he wants to marry her at any cost. His father (Kanta Rao) is the Head of the village, his mother (Savitri) a housewife. Due to some internal disputes between Ramachandra Rao's parents and Lalitha's parents, Lalitha's father (Mikkilineni) denies the proposal. Later according to his parents wish, Ramachandra Rao is forced to marry another girl, Gouri (Vanisri) the daughter of a lawyer (Relangi). But he refuses to accept her as his wife as he is already in love with Lalitha, and does not behave properly with Gouri (now his wife). His parents observe their son’s behavior and leave for pilgrimage, thinking that their absence will bring both wife and husband together. Gouri is very obedient though she is well educated and rich. She loves her husband very much and expects the same from him like any other wife. But her husband continues to neglect her. She even asks him the reason for rejecting her. He says that he is helpless and asks her to go to her mother’s place. She refuses to leave and continues to stay in the same house along with her husband. She prays to her favorite God daily with great devotion. God listens to her at the end and her husband accepts her as his wife and gives her all his love. Watch the movie to discover why the hero suddenly changes his mind and accepts his wife. The comedy between the lawyer (Relangi), K.V.Chalam and Allu Ramalingaiah is enjoyable. As a whole, the film is a wholesome family entertainment movie. | romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt3678782 | Badlapur | Misha (Yami Gautam) and her son Robin become the victims of a bank robbery getaway during a shopping trip. Liak (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and his friend Harman (Vinay Pathak) rob a bank and use Misha's car to flee. Robin falls out of the moving vehicle during the struggle, and Misha is shot by Liak. Harman jumps out of the car to protect the money while Liak is arrested. Both mother and son die from their injuries in the hospital.
Raghu (Varun Dhawan), shattered from the loss of both his wife and son, immerses himself in seeking revenge on both culprits. Liak is sentenced to 20 years in prison, but refuses to reveal the identity of his partner in crime. Raghu learns about Jhimli (Huma Qureshi), a prostitute who is Liak's girlfriend, and visits her to inquire about the missing partner. After Liak's sentence, Raghu exiles himself to a reclusive life at a train station he gets off at – Badlapur.
15 years later, a terminally-ill Liak is paroled from prison on compassionate grounds. Unknown to Liak, Raghu has facilitated the release by providing a letter of pardon for Liak to the court, in exchange for being told the partner's name by Liak's mother. Bent on vengeance, Raghu finds Harman, who now runs a well-established restaurant. Liak is kept under watch by police as they believe he will lead them to the unknown partner. Liak contacts Harman, and arranges to take his share of the money. However, Raghu has already interrogated Harman and Harman's wife Kanchan (Radhika Apte). Harman tells Raghu that it was Liak and not him who killed his son and wife. Raghu is not convinced and takes Liak's share of the money, killing both Harman and his wife.
Raghu meets Shobha (Divya Dutta), the worker instrumental in arranging Liak's parole, pretending to be in love with her to create his alibi. He buries Harman and Kanchan's bodies, and police start investigating Harman. Liak learns from his mother that Raghu came to know about Harman and breaks into Raghu's house in search of the money. Raghu beats him senseless, and Liak tells Raghu that it was him, not Harman, who killed Raghu's wife and child, but he did it in a moment of panic, unlike Raghu who, Liak points out, planned his murders with a cool mind and without guilt.
Liak meets Jhimli one last time; she, now a keep of a local businessman, breaks down, knowing Liak is nearing death. The police now has circumstantial evidence that Raghu murdered Harman. Liak walks into the police station and takes Raghu's blame, giving him a second chance to live his life, and also doing one good thing in his own life before dying.
After seven months, Liak succumbs to cancer in jail. Jhimli meets Raghu and tells him that he has a second chance thanks to Liak, and should not waste it. She also asks Raghu that, now that his revenge is complete and all the guilty are dead, what good it did for him. Raghu is silent as Jhimli drives away. | revenge, neo noir, flashback | train | wikipedia | And he knows how to make a good thriller and keep his fans like me edge of their seats.Badlapur is the story of Raghu (Varun Dhawan) who is simmering in revenge after his wife and son are killed in a bank robbery all gone wrong.
It's a must watch movie who usually like Hollywood revenge kinda movie Badlapur Offers a cinematic excellence with a rider that there's violence and gore.
Acting = 7.5/10 (Varun Dhawan's best acted Movie yet to find growing edges and nawaj's act as usual at it's best you will enjoy his act more then anything in this film)Directing = 9.5/10 (Director Sriram Raghavan's crime thriller is about vengeance and forgiveness all right, but one thing that the film isn't is conventional.
Badlapur Movie with many shades significantly enhancing the effect of its pivotal dramatic conflict.In conclusion, Badlapur might not be in the Ek Hasina Thi and Johnny Gaddar league, but it is a happy sign that Sriram Raghavan has left Agent Vinod behind.Story = 8.1/10 (Badlapur is a Fantastic movie that suffuses on screen - a deftly written story, spectacular performances and an intelligently layered screenplay.
I give 6/10 rating to Badlapur movie because this is a great movie and its story line - (A young man (Raghu) wants revenge from the people who killed his wife and son in a bank robbery.There are two suspects in this case ,one escapes with the money and the other gets caught by the cops and is sentenced 20 years in jail.
Acting done by Nawaz is really impressive,but the movie is having low content.the character act by varun is not that much good.it leads the crime in the society.i watched movie because of nawaz otherwise i quit movie in the middle.climax put by the director is good.And the vulgarity shown by the director in the movie wasn't needed.If people want to take revenge from someone can be taken by otherway.
It will give the wrong direction to the society,and the women's respect will reduce and for that India is known as.Anyhow good try by the director,producer,writer and actors.hope they will give better movie to the cinema world..
The film also ask a question that whether its needed to give a person who has done a tragic sin a second chance .As i said the movie lacks the shocking element , because of that some scenes felt flat as our hero doesn't seems like he has a particular plan and is only doing random things.
Varun is good but in my honest opinion he should not accept this kind of role, he is the latest and talented breed of India cinema and has huge fan following but girls may not like this movie and they may start hating him.
Varun should learn something from Katreena Kaif, she is in the film industry since last 13 years and she never tried to act in non- commercial movies just to earn awards, because of this she is still in the industry and rest people has ended up their career.
Raghavan, like the film's leading man Raghu, plays his cards close to the chest and lets the audience simmer in anticipation as he slow-cooks the meaty, meaty plot and lets the story unravel.As a premise, Badlapur appears simple enough.
A young man shockingly loses game Overall average movie Badlapur might not be in the Ek Hasina Thi and Johnny Gaddar league, but it is a happy sign that Sriram Raghavan has left Agent Vinod behind..
Just like the Korean movies Badlapur tells a story that is more human and more practical, all the characters are so awesomely portrayed that the viewers can easily connect with them, understand them and can feel their pain.
No doubt it's a masterpiece from the director Sriram Raghavan and as I am expecting from the movies tag-line "Don't miss the beginning" the second and third chapter of the "BADLA" are coming soon and I am eagerly waiting for them..
Not only Varun, but shahid kapoor, siddharth malhotra, and riteish deshmukh showed a jump in their acting performance.For those who didn't know, Varun (during his shooting of badlapur) had very upset moments like not talking to anyone, because he got so much into the movie and he also stop training to show that old man's look.I hope this movie hits 200 crores.
Sri ram raghwan has created an masterpiece ,raised level of bollywood , varun ,nawaz uddin delivered great memorable performances , must watch movie ...
The movie is OK.The movie is awesome from start till the accident but after that it is very slow till climax.The climax is very brutal and thrilling.The story is OK.The story is about a man who lost his wife and son in a bank robbery and tries to avenge their deaths.Direction was good by Sriram Raghavan.The screenplay was good but the editing was slow.The acting was great from Nawaz and Varun.The songs are already hit and awesome especially jee karda and jeena jeena.So if you a die hard thriller movie go for this.A one time watch..
While the story is dragged out too much for my liking, the direction is fine and the cinematography is very good indeed, with lots of bright and vivid colours and scenes making a great change from the usual dull greyed-out colour palette favoured by Hollywood and its imitators.This isn't really an exciting or action-packed movie as it's more thoughtful than that.
Much of the drama unfolds in the minds of the characters and through the means of innocuous but fraught exchanges.Apart from the slain wife, Badlapur has four principal female characters - Liak's mother (Pratima Kannan), sex worker Jhimli (Huma Qureshi), social activist Shobha (Divya Datta) and the wife of a restaurateur, Kanchan (Radhika Apte).Both Liak and Raghu treat these women like useless chattel, with the latter, who is supposed to be the righteous hero, reveling in forcing them to disrobe and do his bidding..
The criminal's mother, too, is at the receiving end of constant apathy from a son who could not care less about her feelings.But for all its failings, Badlapur allows most of its actors, even those that play inadequately developed roles, an opportunity to make a mark.Varun Dhawan sheds his lover boy garb and sports a perpetual scowl to express inner turmoil.
He pulls it off for the most part.The trouble is that he is up against an actor of the natural calibre of Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who stamps his class even on the most unremarkable moments.Badlapur has a strong supporting cast, with Huma Qureshi and Radhika Apte getting enough footage to make the best of a bad deal.In conclusion, Badlapur might not be in the Ek Hasina Thi and Johnny Gaddar league, but it is a happy sign that Sriram Raghavan has leftAgent Vinod behind..
In the end, the movie has a message for people who thinks revenge is the best way.Extremely well chosen actors, from Nawaz to Divya, all have acted well.
In the end, the movie has a message for people who thinks revenge is the best way.Extremely well chosen actors, from Nawaz to Divya, all have acted well.
This is a gritty grimy movie that will keep you on the edge of your soul, not wanting the dark passenger within you to overpower your sanity to the injustices you might have suffered.Radhika Apte, Huma Qureshi, Vinay Pathak, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sriram Raghavan and the one and only Varun Dhawan - Great Job Done!.
Combined with few magnificent short roles by various characters, it was a deluge of brilliant performances.Background score often connected well and the music was good as an independent entity.Overall, acting treat to the viewers along with a great thrilling direction..
I thought Badlapur was solid for the most part.I really liked the chase scene at the beginning.I liked the story and the twists.Varun Dhawan was weak at times.
Varun Dhawan is the guy who has surprised with his dark yet brilliant performance, wonder how he pulled the role of a 40 year old man when he's himself of 27-28 in real life.
The film has came out with a UA certificate and thus the question of being an unsuitable film goes away.The film is the result of a genius behind it: Sriram Raghavan, the man who deserves the credit for bringing in great actors, and presenting a wonderful story with a good message for the viewers.Overall, BADLAPUR is a good action film that has everything, almost everything in its favour : Good actors, powerful screenplay, brilliant action and pleasant music.
Badlapur marks the initiation of true acting skills for Varun Dhawan to prove his critics of his performance abilities and capabilities that he can deliver strong characters.
so have fun with some chilling scenes and blood sheds....After his family is killed during a bank robbery, a man tries to avenge their death.Director: Sriram Raghavan Writers: Arijit Biswas, Massimo Carlotto (novel), 2 more credits » Stars: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Varun Dhawan, Radhika Apte | See full cast and crew ».
The strengths of the movie include a dark shade given to the characters yet not becoming digressive or dragging at times, different moods and shades given to the characters not confined to the central characters, perky flashbacks (which adds colors to the dark thriller), good music, and powerful performances of Varun Dhawan and Nawazudin Siddique for which the film is believed to have hit the bull's eye.
One of the Raghavan's skookum ventures, Badlapur is a fascinating tale of vengeance and hatred as the film plays a cicerone to the darker shades of his direction.The first interim is about a bank robbery gone awry and Raghu's wife (Yami Gautam) and son getting trapped in the chaotic situation that follows.
A heartbroken and devastated Raghu (Varun Dhawan) takes shelter in a town called 'Badlapur' far away from the memories of his cherished past; his emotions fueled with hatred, revenge and anger.Today where the filmmakers stick to the stereotype formula of hardcore action and crowd-whistling dialogues for revenge stories, Raghavan attempts to deviate from it to add a gritty and raw touch to the characters.
One of Raghavan's best films, Badlapur gives a new sphere to Dhawan's acting performance.7 on 10 stars.
Sriram Raghavan, opens 2015 with a big brutal punch right on your face with Badlapur as this vengeful crime drama is a disoriented tale that much like it's supposedly protagonist, is totally psychotic and furthermore, ends in the most twisted and abrupt fashion.Basically, the movie is a story about Raghav and his obsession to avenge the deaths of his wife and son who are caught in crossfire in between a bank robbery.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the role of Layak, who's the main antagonist (initially) or the second lead of the film and for obvious reasons, is one of the best parts of the movie.
The character of Liak could have been spiced up a bit.If the editing department had worked to keep it under 2 hours then I feel the overall impact would have been stronger.In the end, the reason I really liked Badlapur is the way it questions audience about what is right and what is wrong.
Hats off to Sriram Raghavan for his concrete direction and creating something different like Badlapur and ek hasina thi is also a good movie..
- Director Sriram Raghavan's no-holds-barred approach successfully accomplishes to arrest the viewer's psyche, offering thrills which pushes the envelope of noir genre in Bollywood.Each time I watched a Raghavan movie, I was moved by his quirky style of interpreting crime or revenge.
Badlapur, which is apparently based on true events, is the director's buyback of fame after the debacle of the damp squib, Agent Vinod.Quote vocal in its tag-line, "Dont Miss the beginning", the first 10 minutes of Badlapur just blows off your mind.In no time,the world before Raghu(Varun Dhawan) shockingly comes to an end when his wife(played by Yami Gautam) and kid are killed in a bank robbery gone kaput.
Raghavan employs some interesting twists and turns to keep the heat on, without bringing the cushion of morality into the game.The narration is crisp, the atmos perfectly gels with the gloomy tone of the film and you have some vignettes from the life of the jail inmates that ring a deja vu with respect to his ace thriller, Ek Haseena Thi.No doubt, Badlapur has its elements of gore in plenty but it is counter- balanced by emotional touch points and the palpable loss owing to bereavement Raghavan maneuvers the drama with razor-sharp dialogues and a terrific background score , but somehow the story degenerates into a tale of redemption with an unsettling climax that echoes the futility of revenge-fueled violence.
There Is A Very Thin Line Between Revenge & Crime ‼ Which Makes It Hard To Decide ‼ Who's Good & Who's Bad. The first few minutes of Badlapur are the key just like the tagline of the film suggest.
Yes, the film is dark, gory and violent, but, at the same time, it's also cerebrally stimulating and entertaining.Story - Flop ya HIT?"The axe forgets but the tree remembers." Badlapur opens with these lines and we know from the very beginning that it going to be an out and out revenge saga.
Badlapur brings freshness to a dull year in Bollywood cinema.One of the best revenge stories that you will come across.A good story with an appealing screenplay that keeps you on the hook throughout the film.No songs in the movie was another plus point as it doesn't affect the flow..The movie will get all emotions out of you.As an actor it is Varun raghu dhawan's best work till now.From the chocolate boy hero to a hurt Psychotic man,he pulls this role with ease.Nawazuddin siddiqui is brilliant as usual.Radhika apte and Huma Khureshi have done justice to their roles.Short of minutes but long on memory,both the actress play a very crucial part in the movie .Vinay phatak and Divya dutaa are very good.All in all Badlapur is a treat to cinema lovers that you don't want to miss.Worth your time and money..
I just want us to grow up and appreciate parallel cinema too because only such films put directors-actors to the real test n what comes out could be seen in Varun Dhawan n absolutely brilliant Nawazuddin.
This movie is about a young happy husband(VARUN dhawan) whose life completely changes when his wife and son is being killed in a hijacked car after a bank robbery Main culprit(nawazuddin siddique) gets caught but his partner(vinay pathak) escapes with the money.accused is found guilty and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.during interrogation he doesn't reveal his partners name.and it remains a mystery.
Coming to acting the lead actor the young man(VARUN) and nawazuddin siddique(villain) delivered their best ever performance I can say the best ever performance in any Bollywood movie.
Badlapur is not usual good versus bad tale or a typical revenge saga as there are no set black or white characters in the movie.
Badlapur is a story of Raghu (Varun Dhawan) whose wife Misha (Yami Gautam) and son Robin are killed by Liak (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and Harman (Vinay Pathak) during a bank robbery.
Badlapur was a fantastic movie especially the acting of Varun Dhawan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.The first real hit movie of 2015.
Varun Dhavan is a rising star and by doing this movie he has established himself as one of the talented and diverse actor in Bollywood.Overall the film was a worth-watching and I liked the movie.
Badlapur is Varun Dhawan's first neo-noir action crime drama.Direction of Sriram Raghavan is much better than his previous one(Johnny Gaddar).Story has nothing new except climax.Varun Dhawan as Raghu is appreciable this time than as Shinu in Main Tera Hero.Yami Gautam as Misha and as Raghu's wife is good in every scene.Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Liak is as always superb just like his other roles.Huma Qureshi as Jhumli is good.Vinay Pathak as Harman and as Liak's partner and friend is nice.Radhika Apte as Koko and as Harman's wife is good in every sequences.Divya Dutta as Shobha is nice but could have been much better.Liak and Harman robbed a bank and took the car of Misha along with her son(Robbin).Accidentally Robbin fell down from car and Liak shot Misha.Then Liak ordered Harman to get out from car and ran away.Police caught Liak but he told them that he is a driver and he didn't know anything.Raghu works for an advertisement company he received a call and he reached to hospital and he collapsed by showing his wife's and son's dead bodies.He didn't believe Liak and he thought that Liak has a partner and he was just cheating with police and him.Will Raghu take his revenge?
Thats the story of Badlapur.Music is already hit especially Jee Karda and Jeena Jeena.Best part of the movie is there is not a any full song.There are just few lines from each songs.1st half is short.2nd half is twisted but climax took the movie at the another level.Unexpected climax in revenge story.I guess this is why movie is getting one or two extra stars!!Overall,this is worth watching for every neo-noir movie lovers.Nawazuddin and Varun's performances made the movie average to good..
How do Raghu and Layak settle their equation forms the climax of the story.Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Varun Dhawan, who are the heart and soul of the film.Anil Mehta's cinematography is brilliant.Yaami Gautam and Huma Quresh are looking great On the whole, Badlapur is a Must Watch Movie (Shouldn't be missed).
you will be surprised to see Varun RAGHU Dhawan in a serious role after watching his previous movies.
Since it was a revenge movie,i had high expectation on this movie but this movie disappointed me,it is just an average 1 time watch,direction is poor so is the screenplay and acting wise Varun Dhawan is not suitable for this kind of character and Nawaz from nowhere looks like a villain and sometimes i fail to understand where is the revenge in this movie.
The only thing which is good in this movie was, acting of Nawazuddin Siddiqui. |
tt0119375 | Insomnia | In the small fishing town of Nightmute, Alaska, 17-year-old Kay Connell (Crystal Lowe) is found murdered. LAPD detectives Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) are sent to assist the local police with their investigation, at the request of police chief Nyback (Paul Dooley), an old colleague of Dormer's. Also, an intense Internal Affairs investigation in Los Angeles is about to put Dormer under the microscope. Eckhart reveals that Internal Affairs has offered him an immunity deal in exchange for his testimony regarding one of Dormer's past cases. Eckhart says that he has no choice but to accept the deal, to Dormer's frustration.
Dormer comes up with a plan to lure the murderer back to the scene of the crime. The attempt fails, however, and the suspect flees into the fog. The police give chase, and the suspect shoots one through the leg. Dormer spots a figure in the fog and fires with his backup weapon and without calling out. On his way to the fallen figure, Dormer picks up a .38 pistol the suspect has dropped. He then discovers that he has shot Eckhart. As he dies, Eckhart accuses Dormer of murdering him. Because of Eckhart's pending testimony against his partner, Dormer knows that Internal Affairs will never believe the shooting was an accident. He tells his colleagues Eckhart was shot by the suspect. He doesn't mention he has the .38 pistol. Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), a young local detective, is put in charge of the investigation of Eckhart's shooting. Police find the bullet that sliced the first officer's leg, a .38 caliber. That night, Dormer walks to an alley and fires the .38 pistol into an animal carcass. He retrieves the bullet and cleans it, then visits the morgue. The staffer hands him the bagged bullet retrieved from Eckhart's body. She is unfamiliar with its type. He leaves and switches the bullet with one from the .38.
Over the next few days, Dormer is plagued by insomnia, brought on by his guilt over killing Eckhart and further exacerbated by the perpetual daylight. He then starts receiving anonymous phone calls from the suspect (Robin Williams), who claims to have witnessed Dormer kill his partner. After looking through her belongings, the police learn that Kay was a fan of a local crime writer named Walter Finch. Dormer looks up his address in nearby Umkumiut and breaks into his apartment. Finch soon comes home, realizes the police have arrived, and evades Dormer after a chase.
Dormer returns to Finch's apartment. While there, he plants the .38 to frame Finch. Finch later contacts him and arranges a meeting on a ferry. Finch wants help in shifting suspicion to Kay's abusive boyfriend Randy Stetz (Jonathan Jackson) and will stay silent about Dormer's role in the Eckhart shooting in return. Dormer gives advice on handling police questioning. After Finch leaves Dormer on the ferry, he shows the detective a tape recorder he used to record the conversation.
Finch calls Dormer and tells him that Kay's death was "an accident" — he beat her to death in a fit of rage after she rejected his advances. The next day, Finch gives false testimony at the police station. When Finch claims Randy had a gun, Dormer realizes Finch has discovered his plant, and has hidden it at Randy's home. He races to Randy's house to find the gun before other officers, but is unsuccessful, and Randy is arrested. Finch offers to give Burr letters indicating that Randy abused Kay, and asks her to come and collect evidence from his summer home the next day.
Burr finds a 9mm shell casing at the scene, which conflicts with the bullet type found in Eckhart's body. She reads old case files from investigations Dormer was involved in and learns he has carried a 9mm, suspecting he has been lying about who shot Eckhart. Dormer confides in the hotel owner, Rachel Clement (Maura Tierney) about the Internal Affairs investigation: he fabricated evidence to help convict a pedophile he was certain was guilty of murdering a child.
Dormer searches Finch’s apartment for an address for his lake house, and realizes Finch intends to kill Burr after finding Kay's letters in the apartment. As Burr and Finch move through his house, Finch knocks the young detective unconscious. Dormer reaches the cabin, but is too disoriented from lack of sleep to fight off Finch. Burr revives and saves Dormer, while Finch escapes. Burr reveals she knows Dormer shot Eckhart. He admits it, but says he is no longer certain if it was an accident. From his shed, Finch shoots at them with a shotgun, and Burr returns fire with Dormer's gun, allowing him to sneak around to Finch's location. After a scuffle, Finch finds Burr's gun and shoots Dormer, who shoots and kills Finch with his own shotgun. Burr rushes to the fatally wounded Dormer's aid and comforts him by affirming that Eckhart's shooting was accidental, then moves to throw away the shell casing to preserve Dormer's secret. Dormer stops Burr, however, telling her not to lose her way and tells her to let him sleep as he passes on. | neo noir, murder, bleak, violence, cult, romantic, suspenseful | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0071216 | Big Bad Mama | In Texas in 1932, after stopping her youngest daughter's wedding, Wilma McClatchie (Dickinson) takes over her late lover's bootlegging business, but gets caught while doing the delivery route with her two daughters. After handing over all her money and her ring to the sheriff, they are let go and she begins her crime spree.
While Wilma is at a bank trying to cash a fake check, the bank is held up by Fred Diller (Skerritt) and his gang. In the melee, Wilma and her daughters, Polly (Robbie Lee) and Billy Jean (Susan Sennett), grab some money bags from behind the counter and escape, but not before Diller gets in their automobile and leaves with them. Afterwards, they decide to pair up, and Diller and Wilma also become lovers.
During a subsequent con, Wilma meets the refined yet dishonest gambler William J. Baxter (Shatner) and falls for him. He joins the group and becomes Wilma's lover, much to the chagrin of Diller. The gang proceeds with several more heists, each time getting more money. Eventually, they kidnap the daughter of a millionaire in hopes of getting rich off the ransom. When the ransom is paid, federal agents who had been tracking them arrive with the police.
Baxter is captured, but Wilma, Polly, and Billy Jean escape with the suitcase full of money, and Diller stays behind, providing cover with his Tommy gun. As the three women drive off, the mortally wounded Wilma's bloodied left arm is seen hanging down on the left side of the car. | neo noir, romantic, satire, depressing, violence | train | wikipedia | Finally saw it and while it is, as some suggest, "trashy," this is one of the most entertaining films I've seen in quite some time.I've always admired the talent of Mr Corman and his production of BBM is, for me, one of the highlights of his career.
Steve Carver takes a VERY low budget and gets the maximum out of it, there are some performances in this movie that will demonstrate the talents of some of your favorite actors that other, more popular and acclaimed films will NOT.
However the standout is the truly gorgeous Angie Dickinson, I knew she could act, I just never realized just how beautiful and sexy she really is, until this film.
think we all realize how much talent got early starts in Corman films and I think you will also enjoy noting those who went on to do excellent work in other films and especially TV, such as Michael Talbott of "Miami Vice" TV series.After watching this film I felt rather upbeat, BBM is the sort of fun film that we used to see more of, sans all that CGI and other expensive and often tawdry special effects, good entertainment that takes one out of the humdrum and into a place where ordinary belief is suspended and one is cheering for the heroes, albeit not the nicest heroes/heroines, wink.One can only wonder if there is a Director's cut somewhere as this is rated 'R', Angie Dickinson, Wow!
Again, BIG BAD MAMA may not be Oscar caliber but it is a very entertaining film and will keep your attention and interest throughout the entire film; get in on DVD today!.
Crashing cars, splatter guns, sex and nudity—whatever else about Roger Corman, he never made a boring movie, and this one seldom lets up.
I watched and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was still interesting and Angie Dickinson at 43, was better looking then most of today's young starlets.
All in all it was a good for it's time and if you are in your 40s like me, it will make you remember when cheesy movies were truly cheesy.
Hard times was at its worst, especially for Wilma(Angle Dickinson) and her two daughters BilliyJean(Susan Sennett) and Polly(Robbie Lee).
They come across Wilma's bootlegging lover(Noble Willingham) at a church to attend Polly's wedding which never takes place because Mama objects the man and his family.
"Big Bad Mama" packs a lot in this movie: Laughs, drama, romance, even gunfire.
Big Bad Mama (1974) *** (out of 4) Angie Dickinson got the role of her career playing the title character, a Texas mother of two teenage girls (Susan Sennett, Robbie Lee) who grows tired of being poor and decides to turn to robbery.
Along the way she picks up a couple different men (William Shatner, Tom Skerritt) as they head towards California to make it rich.
If you're easily offended then this might not be the movie for you but if you like sex, bloody violence, nudity, threesomes with sisters, robberies and just about every other sinful thing in the world then BIG BAD MAMA is just the film for you.
I don't think there's any question that this here is one of the greatest drive-in movies ever made and from the opening dialogue where Dickinson is wondering why her "angels" turned out so "wrong" the film just delivers one great thing after another.
It's very clear that the writers, the director and producer Roger Corman wanted to throw just about everything into this film that they possibly could.
One of the big selling points in having someone like Dickinson appear in a movie like this and her presence certainly adds a lot.
Those expecting great performances are going to be disappointed but I think both actresses delivered just what the film needed in terms of good humor.
Shatner and Skerritt are both very entertaining in their roles and Corman regular Dick Miller plays a nice part as well.
BIG BAD MAMA didn't win any Oscars when it was released but all these years later the charm is still there and it certainly deserves its reputation as one of the best drive-in flicks of the era..
Imagine Bonnie and Clyde without Clyde and with more of a trashy B-movie style to it, and you've got an idea of what Big Bad Mama is like.
With Roger Corman on producing duty, you've to expect some silly trashy fun, and this film delivers that in droves as it's clear that nobody cared about making a credible film, which is usually good news for entertainment value.
Angie Dickinson takes the lead role and makes good of it, as she carries the film with her engaging and enthusiastic performance.
The film focuses on Dickinson's character Wilma, who decides to go into bootlegging when her lover is killed.
Along with her two daughters, Wilma travels across the country and eventually meets a bank robber named Fred, and the pair decides to put their relative talents to good use in order to 'earn' themselves some money.
The support cast is good, with the likes of William Shatner, Dick Miller and Tom Skerritt being put to good use, while lesser known performers such as Robbie Lee and Susan Sennett also giving entertaining turns.
This does leave it feeling more than a little bit empty, but in a film where bank robberies, sex scenes, car chases and more feature heavily, this isn't a big problem.
Angie Dickinson stars in the title role as tough, but sexy matriarch, Wilma McClatchie, attempting to keep her family together during the Depression.
She initially tries to continue with Barney's bootlegging business with the help of her uncontrollable daughters Billy Jean (Susan Sennett) and Polly (Robbie Lee of 'Switchblade Sisters' fame).
A chance encounter with a bank robber, Diller (Tom Skerritt), causes a career rethink, and when the fugitives meet charming con man Baxter (William Shatner), the gang is complete.
Roger Corman reaffirms himself as one of America's coolest directors with the trashy-but-great "Big Bad Mama".
Along the way, crook Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt) and gentleman William Baxter (William Shatner) join up with them, while snide lawman Bonney (Dick Miller) chases them.
Well people I don't think it gets any better than this, Big Bad Mama had it all!
Although I would not recommend that kids watch this, this is a fun low-budget movie for those of you in the mood for something, let's say, trashy.
Low budget trash means that you're supposed to say that you hate it no matter how entertaining it is.High budget trash means that it is socially acceptable to like it and if it has an OK budget and is pretentious enough you can call it "art house" and pretend that watching it makes you cultured.This is just trash, but it is totally entertaining trash, especially when half the acting is praiseworthy and high caliber...and the other half is B-Movie crap.
A Trashy Roger Corman Film.
Mama (Angie Dickinson) and daughters get forced by circumstances into bootlegging and bank robbing, and travel across the country trailed by the law.According to director Steve Carver, Angie Dickinson allowed the crew to remain on set during the filming of her sex scene with Tom Skerritt, but William Shatner asked for all nonessential crew to be removed during his sex scene with Dickinson.
This exhilarating, fast-paced and typically 70s exploitation- adventure ranks as one of the most popular Roger Corman productions among his fans & admirers, and righteously so I daresay, because "Big Bad Mama" guarantees wild and unscrupulous entertainment from the very first opening seconds until (and included) the closing credits.
During the Great Depression era, in Texas, Wilma's cute but naive teenage daughter Polly is about to get married to a dumb farmer with an even dumber family.
Thanks to her pretty face and luscious curves, Wilma can easily persuade every man to do what she wants, and her young daughters Billy Jean and Polly inherited those same talents!
Roger Corman and director Steve Carver demonstrate that they are perfectly in touch with their B-movie loving audiences, as they extensively deliver what the crowd wants to see.
"Big Bad Mama" is clearly inspired by "Bonny and Clyde", as well as several other gangster epics of the late 60s/early 70s, but without the boring romances and numerous speeches/dialogues.
Angie Dickinson terrifically leads the delightful ensemble cast that also features impressive names like William Shatner and Tom Skerrit (albeit before their major breakthroughs) and, of course, Roger Corman favorite Dick Miller.
Angie Dickinson as a kickass bankrobber, her nubile daughters and the men they charm into their beds (Tom Skerritt and William Shatner).
Add in an array f nude scenes and gunfire and that's "Big Bad Mama".
I've heard good things about this movie - mostly the trashy fun and the magnetism of its star - and for me it was consistently amusing; mostly head-scratching.
That, plus a ton of GDs, mostly said by Angie Dickinson, make this a despicable, extremely bigoted film.Dickinson, and this era when movie makers had just gotten their freedom to spew all this bias, are about as low at it gets and sleazy with a capital "S." It isn't just the hatred and the sleaze and gratuitous nudity in here, it's just the pathetic immaturity of Hollywood during this period.Of course, it's more than just anti-religious bias.
The first Big Bad Mama is a favorite of collectors of celebrity nude scenes - Angie Dickinson has couple - and it's not a bad movie for what it is.
The story is nothing special - Depression era criminals plot a kidnapping which goes predictably bad - but the low budget was well used, the production looks decent enough and Angie, Tom Skerritt and Bill Shatner all contribute solid perfs with little help from a largely illiterate script.
Angie looks good and seems to be enjoying herself in a rare bad girl role, and there are enough car chases and shoot-outs to keep the viewer from falling asleep, but don't look for too much in the way of originality here..
Depression-era Texas widow with two sex-happy daughters plans to rob and swindle her way to California, picking up a two-bit gangster and a penniless con-man on the journey west.
Some of the hillbilly dialogue, as well as an early sequence where Mama tries door-to-door moonshining, is very funny (perhaps due to the script contributions of the estimable William Norton); otherwise, there isn't much to this narrative apart from the embarrassing overtures to "Bonnie & Clyde" and Angie Dickinson's intermittent nude scenes.
I met director Steve Carver when he came to town to shoot "Lone Wolf McQuade," and I'm something of a fan, but even with screenwriter Bill Norton aboard, this lacks the wit and cool characters that enliven his Chuck Norris movies or even "Steel." Dialog is particularly lacking, in some scenes even leaving Tom Skerritt with nothing to do but mutter incoherently, or a game Shatner mugging as if he's about to say something but either gets cut off or thinks better of it.
The two actors do their best, Skerritt all steely-eyed intensity and Shatner oozing lily-livered Southern charm, as do Royal Dano as a flustered preacher and a shockingly young-looking Noble Willingham as a lecherous bootlegging "uncle." As for the actresses, they certainly deliver the goods, and frequently, especially Angie Dickinson.
Along the way, much blood, clothing and inhibitions will be shed.Considering the budget and shooting time, the action is boisterous enough but haphazard and disjointed, with a lot of repetitive car chases featuring Dick Miller and a sidekick (representing the entirety of the FBI) in hot pursuit, miraculously always one step behind our anti-heroine and her mob.
Even if you know that the Hollywood hills don't actually look a lot like East Texas (the geography of where our characters are supposed to be at any moment in the plot isn't always made abundantly clear), the small-town locations and antique cars do an impressive job of keeping the movie in its Depression-era period.Look quickly for second-unit director Paul Bartel as a party guest, following in the footsteps of Francis Coppola in "The Young Racers.".
Trashy Fun. Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson) wants more for her two daughters than depression era Texas can provide.
Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, and Dick Miller are wonderfully cast.
Good, sexy, trashy 30's Depression-era set 70's drive-in exploitation fun.
Tough and gutsy Texas widow Wilma McClatchie (a splendidly brassy'n'sassy Angie Dickinson, looking mighty fine in her early 40's and frequently out of her wardrobe) and her two equally feisty hottie daughters -- the sexually precocious Billie Jean (adorable blonde sprite Susan Sennett of "The Candy Snatchers") and dim-witted Polly (pretty brunette cutie Robbie Lee of "Switchblade Sisters") -- embark on a wild'n'rowdy crime spree in 30's Depression-era America in order to escape hard times.
Directed with tremendously rambunctious gusto by Steve ("An Eye for An Eye") Carver, jam-packed with a pleasing plenitude of car chases, shoot outs, cuss words and tasty gratuitous nudity (even Sally Kirkland as a local harlot and Joan Prather as a snotty heiress the gang abducts doff their duds and bare their beautiful bodies), further enlivened by a ceaseless forward-ho quick pace, a rousing hillbilly bluegrass score by David Grisman, a cheerfully irreverent tone, and nifty supporting turns by Royal Dano as a profanity-spewing preacher and the always terrific Dick Miller as huffy fed Bonney (a sly homage to "Bonnie and Clyde," methinks), "Big Bad Mama" supplies a handy helping of joyous down-home trashy entertainment that's a true treat to watch..
BIG BAD MAMA is an outrageously cheesy 1930s-era crime comedy from producer Roger Corman; think of it as an over-the-top riff on BONNIE & CLYDE and you'll be right.
Other notable additions to the cast include Dick Miller as a dedicated lawman, Tom Skerritt as a wildman, and the great William Shatner as a shady character who falls in with the outlaws.
The film is very much an exploitation picture, with a simple plot, lots of action and movement, and plenty of nudity from the female cast members.
"Wilma McClatchie" (Angie Dickinson) is a single parent trying to raise two teenage daughters named "Billy Jean" (Susan Sennett) and "Polly" (Robbie Lee) during the Great Depression.
One thing leads to another and soon Wilma, her daughters and two men, "Fred Diller" (Tom Skerritt) and "William J.
Anyway, I liked the performances of Angie Dickinson, William Shatner and Tom Skerritt but I thought the nudity and sex were a bit too plentiful and were more raunchy than actually sexy.
The film is about 'Mama' (Angie Dickenson) and her two rotten daughters.
And yet, despite being trashy and wicked to the bone, Mama declares that they are a nice family and refers to her white-trash daughters as "my little girls"--even when they strip in public or sleep around with practically anyone or anything.
In a genuinely funny scene (one of the few in the film), during their first robbery, another gang also tries to rob the bank at the same time!
Just a bit later, Mama meets up with William Shatner--and almost immediately jumps into the sack with him.
Despite also living during the 1930s, this WON'T be mistaken for "The Waltons"!In addition to this sick group are two Federal agents--one of which is a perennial actor in Corman films, Dick Miller ("Bucket of Blood" and "Little Shop of Horrors").
It is especially recommended for people who consider "The Dukes of Hazard" and "Jackass" and "Flesh Gordon" to be fine family entertainment.So, despite being 100% trashy, is the film worth seeing?
You KNOW this is so when William Shatner's performance is the most subtle and understated in the entire film!!
I had rented two films, both from the seventies, one a big budget comedy and then this low budget Corman show.
And in the end, or towards the end of the film, a rich girl with an inheritance is kidnapped by the main characters who'd been having a blast robbing banks before, and from that point the movie goes from a fun romp into a mean spirited film with social envy written all over it.
In the Depression era Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dicksinson) and her two daughters--Billy Jean (Susan Sennett) and Polly (Robbie Lee)--became robbers to make a living.
Wilma has sex with both Fred and William and her daughters go after Fred also!Stupid and sometimes dull.
The plot is virtually nonexistent, the dialogue is terrible and (since this is a Roger Corman film) it was made on NO budget (and it shows).
Still it has frequent pointless car chases and crashes; plenty of female nudity (Dickinson has nude sex scenes with Skerritt AND Shatner); Corman regular Dick Miller as a policeman and plenty of bloody shootouts.
Sennett and Lee are terrible actors, Shatner and Skerritt are OK but Dickinson is great.
I have always accepted the latter position, so after re-watching Big Bad Mama I am happy to report that, although it is a movie in rank bad taste which deserves only a low IMDb rating, it provides a hilarious and very enjoyable viewing experience.
I am now on the lookout for its successor "Big Bad Mama 2 " which I have never seen.Its failures are largely in content, it makes fun of every serious concern it can look at during a relatively short running time of just over 80 min (ideal for cramming onto an 80 min VCD disk).
This film earns one star for excellent photography, including some extremely enjoyable shots of many delightful 1930 era vehicles, another for Roger Corman's usual impeccable direction - it is incredible how many different genres of film he has made that deserve this comment, and a third for its very acceptable acting - far above what I remember as the standard I used to expect from B movies, especially those seen in Drive-in theatres. |
tt0396592 | Fat Albert | The film opens with a traditionally animated sequence featuring Fat Albert performing the original series' theme song "Gonna Have a Good Time".
In real life, Doris Robertson is a depressed teenager still recovering from the death of her grandfather, and she is ignoring her foster sister Lauri's efforts to bring her a social life. Upon learning that her parents will be away for a two-day business trip to the Poconos, Doris sadly lets a tear hit her TV remote, as Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is on. The tear opens up a portal between the cartoon world and the real world and Fat Albert jumps out of the TV, knowing she has a problem. Then, Rudy, Dumb Donald, Mushmouth, Bucky, and Old Weird Harold jump out as well; Bill tells Russell to stay put and cover for them. Doris insists she is fine, but the gang knows otherwise and the show ends and they have to wait until the next day's show to come back. They follow Doris to school and are amazed by the new technology like pop cans, cell phones, and laptops.
Albert notices Lauri and falls in love with her. Reggie, an annoying schoolmate with an obsessive crush on Lauri, challenges Albert to a track race that Albert wins. In another attempt to help Doris, the gang persuades some cheerleaders to invite them all to an outdoor party. With some reluctance, Doris agrees to attend then went to a shopping mall. While at the party, Lauri dances with Albert. Reggie desperately attempts to make her jealous by dancing with Doris. When Lauri does not notice him, he tries to kiss Doris. Doris is offended and causes a scene. Albert warns the boy to stay away from Doris. The next day, Doris goes to school, but asks the gang to go to the park instead of following her. Harold, normally clumsy, joins in a basketball game and is able to play perfectly. Mushmouth, who cannot talk normally, is taught how to speak by a little girl. Donald goes to the library and is able to read and remove his pink face-covering hat.
When Doris takes them home, only three of the gang members, Bucky, Harold and Donald (whose eyes float in the TV without the hat on) jump into the TV, Breaking News interrupts the show before the other four can enter. Albert and Bill have an argument in private about going back. The gang takes Doris and Lauri to a fair on a junk-made car, Rudy; meanwhile, has fallen in love with Doris and ask her if she would go out with him if he was a real person and she said yes. Searching for guidance, Fat Albert literally meets his maker, Bill Cosby and tells him of the dilemma. Mr. Cosby tells him that his character is based on Doris' grandfather Albert Robertson which explains Doris' confusion over why Fat Albert seems so familiar to her. Mr. Cosby warns Fat Albert that he has to return to the cartoon world, or he will turn into celluloid dust (as indicated by the faded color of their clothes). Devastated, Albert tries to tell Lauri that he has to leave, but she thinks that he is just being insensitive. The next day, Rudy, Bill, and Mushmouth jump back into the TV (with Mushmouth starting to speak unclear again). Albert waits and go to the track meet, where Doris and Lauri are competing, encourages Doris to a victory. Reggie, who witnessed that the gang is from the TV, attempts to threaten Albert, but he pushes him aside. Albert rushes to the girls' home on a borrowed skateboard. He says goodbye to Doris and Lauri (who now believes that Albert is from the TV) and jumps back into the TV.
Sometime later, Mr. Cosby and his friends (who were in his routines, then were characters in the show) stand in front of their old friend Albert Robertson's grave. As the camera pans on each of the men, images of their counterparts are seen. Doris watches them. The old men race away; they are still kids at heart, the same kids from the TV show that they helped Bill Cosby inspire.
Before the end credits start, Fat Albert is trying to leap out of the movie screen, points out that people in the audience need help and he even tells someone in the back of the theater that he/she needs to come back and finish watching the credits. The boys pull Albert back inside and the end credits resume, beginning with the blend of both the animated characters' voices and the live-action characters singing the Fat Albert Theme Song. | romantic, fantasy | train | wikipedia | Dumb Donald, Mush Mouth, Fat Albert were all on target and delivered more to love in their human form.I also appreciated the movie's ability to laugh at itself.
They didn't need to sleep, eat, or go to the bathroom...because hey hey hey, they're cartoon characters.Lastly, the connection to the girl's grandfather Al was a lovely tie-in and the scene at the cemetery where the grown up Cosby gang paid tribute to their friend was sentimental without being sappy.Can I pick apart small things about the movie?
However, this movie provided my family and myself with such good feelings, smiles, and conversation afterwards that there is no need to bother.Compare this with other kids movies that are chock full of scatological humor and impending sexuality and you will see that Fat Albert stands far and above.This movie was funny, thoughtful, and brought back many a wonderful memory.
The characters were flat, the story was "normal chaos that has been done in nearly every other film", and the class of the television program Fat Albert was diminished by cheap thrills and over-budgeting.
While the ending tried to bring a tear to your eye, I was already crying at the utter lack of appreciation that this film carried and influenced the youth of our nation.To say that this film was horrible would be too kind of a word, to quote a line from the film "(Fat Albert is) like school on Saturday: no class" would again, probably be giving it too much credit.
There wasn't anything that could stop Fat Albert from helping another lost soul, and somehow in this film adaptation, none of these old feels could be remembered.
When it first started I had this feeling that Albert would be called to help Doris with her problem, causing him to be a secondary character (like her own Jiminie Cricket), but instead what happened is that Thompson's camera excitement stole the performance away from Doris while creating a film centered around Albert.
one of the most original and brightest cartoons of it's time deserved a lot more than this poorly-written, unimaginative effort - the characters were more two-dimensional than their original cartoon counterparts!The acting was OK, it was the script that was the real disaster - where was Fat Albert to help out with *that* particular problem ?the 'plight' of Doris and her sister barely raised enough concern in the audience to sustain a half-hour cartoon, let alone a feature film - with the long list of issues and concerns facing adolescents these days, the producers chose the softest possible interpretation of what Fat Albert was all about - kids sticking together and helping each out when problems arise - the 'problems' facing Doris were barely worth addressing - even the problems in the cartoon-within-the-movie ('Danielle' running away and leaving school) where more pressing ...The whole 'cartoon's come to life' scenario was pretty lame - either do a full feature cartoon or make a movie about the characters as if they were real people - combining the cartoon world with the real world just didn't work in the hands of these writers - they could barely muster a single gag in what was supposedly a light-hearted comedy ffs ...the characters were tampered with in a most displeasing way - Rudy was robbed of his original personality to be made more 'P.C.' - the makers of the original cartoon gave Rudy a cocky, smart-ass attitude to balance out the saccharine righteousness of Fat Albert and Bill Cosby - the gang didn't need anymore 'nice guys', and there could have been a lot of fun to be had with Rudy's character had he retained his original 'edge'.
only the tiniest reference was made to the Brown Hornet - surely something more imaginative could have been written with such an integral and fun character ?Fat Albert the Movie was a by-the-numbers waste of celluloid and cellulite ....
Now it's 2004 and Doris come home from school after having a bad day she turns on Fat Albert and begins to cry and Fat Albert the cartoon hears her cry and jumps out of cartoon land and into reality to help Doris with her problem and the Cosby kids follow him.
This girl, incidentally, is the half-sister of the girl the gang has come to help, and she is incredibly hot, a cross between Jennifer Lopez and Halle Berry, always wearing sexy clothes and looking great but of course, she is a sweetheart.There are some brief scenes of how the gang is amazed at modern technology (they do come from the 70's after all, although that decade is never directly mentioned) but thankfully the film doesn't waste time on many gags like that.
But above and beyond the field is the dude who plays Fat Albert, seemingly a perfect choice, a great performance where he's obviously having fun.The film is a great family film and there are no silly "adult jokes" that will fly over the kid's heads, it's all good clean fun.
The camera always seems to manage to catch her perfect body and tight, trim figure, and While she is there to keep dad watching and paying attention, everyone else will enjoy the film, although especially if dad watched Fat Albert 30 years ago, there's no reason why he can't enjoy it for what it is too.The ending is a great heart-tugger and not the predictable ending you may have expected.
The film does try to be a little bit "today" by making Fat Albert and the gang sing and dance to a hip-hop version of their theme song ("Gonna Have A Good Time") as they take over a hip-hop party, but even that is done so well you really won't mind.This is an extremely enjoyable film with laughs galore.
Probably the biggest laughs were when Fat Albert races the bad guy on the school track (a take on how fast he always managed to run in the cartoon), and every time Mushmouth says something.
I never watched "Fat Albert" as a kid, but I concluded that I would watch the movie based upon the cartoon's reputation.
Had I known that Fat Albert and the gang would lunge through the television from cartoon town to real life, I wouldn't have even watched the opening credits.It was a feel good story with a good message, but it was terribly done.
I just bought the original series DVD's before this movie came out and looked forward to seeing it.I sat through 45 minutes and realized that nothing made any sense, there was barely any story, and the characters were not even close to what Cosby put out in the 70's This movie was badly written, poorly acted and painful to watch.I feel very sorry for anyone who paid 8 dollars to see this junker.Cosby should be ashamed that he actually made a movie worse than Ghost Dad and Leonard Part VI.Fat Albert could have been edited to 15 minutes long and still got the point across, instead it dragged on for what seemed an eternity..
Through some sort of unexplained fluke of magic, Fat Albert and his "gang" leap out of a TV screen to come to the aid of a young girl who is having trouble fitting in with the kids at school.
As is his wont, Fat Albert - whose guttural "hey
hey
hey
" became his official character trademark - dispenses chicken soup sentiment and fortune cookie wisdom as he goes about the business of solving everyone's problems.Bill Cosby, who was the creator of the original "Fat Albert," has co-written (along with Charles Kipps) a screenplay that is so well-intentioned, so inoffensive and so white-bread bland in its attitude and demeanor that the movie seems to be evaporating even as you're watching it (much as the kids gradually fade away - though it is strangely imperceptible to the viewer - as their time in the real world runs out).
Thus, the comic tension that should be derived from that juxtaposition of two vastly different worlds never materializes, and we sit in backside-numbing soreness waiting for the movie to end.Keenan Thompson (from "SNL") brings a certain amount of sweetness and energy to the title character, but the screenwriters and director Joel Zwick have given him zero material of quality to work with.
"Fat Albert" may be fine for undiscriminating and undemanding preschool audiences - though most of them probably won't have any real familiarity with or affection for the original reference point - but it is far too juvenile to be of any interest to the people who grew up watching it on TV..
Even though, the film is not the best work that can be done with Mr. Cosby's creative characters, it does capture the essence of what "Fat Albert" is all about.
For the parent, it was seeing the Fat Albert I watched as a kid, with the same moralistic values that are so often left out/compromised these days, even in "G" rated movies.
I really appreciated that they stayed true to the cartoon and gave me a little "history" (true?) as well.Also, the film was well cast and it was gratifying seeing the "gang" develop and adapt in the "Real world" in ways that made them better--and I didn't even know I was rooting for it!The kids all found it entertaining, especially the *still!* coolness of Fat Albert and the *updated* music.Besides, gotta love Kyla Pratt and Kenan!!We will gladly add this to our collection!.
(It reminded me of the old "Honeymooners" episode where Ed Norton was dressed up like a fat man to scam a company out of some dough and Ralph Cramden told him his face didn't look fat.) Fat Albert simple didn't look real or believable, albeit he played a cartoon character who came to real life.That deal where they started to fade wasn't appealing at all.
OK, maybe if you are a little kid this movie might be good but if you are an adult hoping to capture some magic of the old TV series forget it.Where did it go wrong?
Just have them be kids of the same school and have a regular Fat Albert storyline would of been so much better.I also don't understand why all the characters but Russell were included in the 'real world'.
I recently bought the "Ultimate Collection" DVD and I must say that the 2004 live-action movie is very much in spirit with the cartoon.Cosby, who has in recent months come under fire from both whites and blacks for his comments about the state of the black community, shoves all those comments back in their faces by, for once (in a very long time), showing black people in a truly positive light - where we aren't shown as thugs, hustlers, pimps, or generally, a******s.And what people missed about Cosby's comments is that even though they were a little too general, the sad thing is he was basically correct in his charges that the black youth in this country are in trouble.
And perhaps with "Fat Albert," some dignity has been restored to the community.When Doris (Kyla Pratt of Disney's hit animated show "The Proud Family") is not invited to a party with all the rest of the cool kids, she goes home and turns on the television to an episode of "Fat Albert." Albert (Kenan Thompson in live form) and the rest of the Cosby Kids are magically transported to the real world when Doris' tears open up a portal into their animated world.So then begins a unique (and awkward) friendship as Fat Albert seeks to sort out Doris' problems and then finding a way for them to return to their world."Fat Albert," despite its shamefully low rating on IMDb, is a very fun movie to watch and the words "good-hearted" don't even begin to describe just HOW much fun it is.The main surprise here is Kenan Thompson, who as I last remember it, had a bit part on "All That," but that was way back in 1997.
Kyla Pratt is another revelation, giving a real performance as the troubled and left-out Doris.Bill Cosby need not fret about the community's rage towards his truthful comments, since his beloved "Fat Albert" is sure to make a big splash on the video after-market.10/10.
I've seen a lot of bad movies lately (Catwoman, Raising Helen, The Forgotten, The Grudge, Troy to name a few), but this one takes the cake.A few times during the film, I felt like yelling "All right.
Kenan Thompson stars as Fat Albert in this great family film.
I would like to see Fat Albert as a movie with a plot and not having anyone come out of the TV.
After all this time, I've finally seen the entire film, knowing it wasn't popular, and that it was more for kids, so it didn't surprise me when I found it to be a tad dull, even though I don't abhor it like many others seem to.Doris is an antisocial teenager in Philadelphia who hasn't been so happy since the death of her grandfather.
Fat Albert sees that Doris has a problem, and is determined to help her solve it, so he comes out of the TV into the real world, and most of the others soon follow!
I just saw Fat Albert and I laughed and I cried.I am once again impressed with Bill Cosby.While this movie is probably targeted as a children's film it has much to offer to adults.
The Fat Albert movie is a breath of fresh air from what the media feeds our kids with these days.This film teaches the positive value that if you try you can succeed.
I grew up with Fat Albert but don't think you had to know him to enjoy this movie.
I especially enjoyed it because it brought back childhood memories of my siblings and I watching 'Fat Albert' on Saturday Mornings and memorizing the song that the gang sings at the end of the program.
I see it as a medium for Bill Cosby to say: No this is not a cartoon world where a scripted character can just solve the social and emotional problems of those around him, but does that mean we all have to treat everything with negativity, criticism, and cynical views.I'd be pushing what I have taken personally from this movie and what I think others should if I go any further.Watch the movie.
I liked how kindhearted Mushmouth was, but he seemed to be abused a bit for laughs...and I really didn't want to hear him talk straight.Bill - Bill, being such a "normal" guy to begin with, seemed pretty much right-on here, and spends much of the movie helping Fat Albert.Bucky - Bucky seemed a little too argumentative at first, but got a little goofier and fun-loving as time went on.Weird Harold - Harold doesn't come across so much as weird, just clumsy and awkward in his advanced height.Dumb Donald - I have never thought that Donald was as dumb as his name suggests, but the movie seems to make a point of it.
I am a veteran Cosby and Fat Albert Gang enjoyer so I went in wanting to enjoy this film.
I was a fan of the original Fat Albert cartoon when I was a kid.
Also, the little kid from the gang gets left behind when the others go into the "real world." That is too bad because he always had great lines such as "Thanksgiving at school, No Class Turkey." Still these are minor problems and the girl that they are trying to help is very well played, as is her foster sister who falls in love with Fat Albert.
So if you want to have a good time for 90 minutes, then watch Fat Albert.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids are cartoon characters on a daily television show.
There are some funny scenes in the movie, especial with the Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
Lot's of fun - we love FAT ALBERT - very refreshing to see a film with family values and not a lot of bad words - violence etc.
I watched this with my -year old and she enjoyed it as much as I did and she has no idea who Fat Albert is.
Recently they did the same thing with the Bad News Bears.Fat Albert could have been a great 20 something movie that many people would have gone to see.
Has Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids helped solved problems each week.
Until now, Has the movie centers around Doris(Kylie Pratt) is watching a Fat Albert episode, and she is upset after a bad day at school.
The cartoon character Fat Albert hears her cries and jumps out of Cartoon land and into reality, and his friends(AKA The Cosby Kids) follow him, in hopes to help Doris with her problem.
But when you have a silly, simple show like Fat Albert, you don't expect everything to be exactly the same (which is one of the reasons why I'm both looking forward to and dreading the Simpsons movie).
But other than that, Fat Albert is a fun family movie.
I was never a Fat Albert fan growing up, never liked the cartoon, but was anxious to see the new film if for the only reason that I wanted to see Bill Cosby back in action because I am a fan of his.
Unfortunately Albert and the Cosby Kids find themselves fading in the real world, and on top of it all Albert has fallen in love with Doris' foster sister Lauri.The best thing I can say about Fat Albert is this story is so pure and fun.
Kenan Thompson embodies the personality of Fat Albert and his buddies look every bit like reality cartoon characters.
It was so cool to see Bill Cosby and his real life brother with other guys portraying older versions of the Cosby kids at the end of the Fat Albert movie. |
tt0036523 | Western Cyclone | On a western land, a governor's daughter (Marjorie Manners) is kidnapped and held hostage. Billy the Kid (Buster Crabbe) and Fuzzy Q, Jones (Al St. John) try to rescue her and capture a lot of men known to work for the kidnapper and hold them for questioning. While out on the ranch, Billy and Fuzzy spot a cowboy (Kermit Maynard) who happens to be a henchman with a letter about the kidnapped girl. He refuses to tell who gave him the letter so Billy decides just to find the girl on his own and leaves Fuzzy in charge of tying up the henchman and put him with the rest. Fuzzy tells the henchman to pick up a gun on the floor and when he bends down Fuzzy kicks him and knocks him out. While Billy is looking for the girl, Fuzzy ties up the henchman and takes his boots and socks off to perform an Indian fire torture on the soles of his feet in effort to make him talk, but the man still refuses to tell him who gave him the letter and Fuzzy can't bring himself to burn the henchman. While trying to light a cigar, Fuzzy strokes a match down the sole of the man's foot causing him to burst with laughter. Having found out the henchman was ticklish, Fuzzy grabs his feet and ask him to tell him who gave him the letter. The man once again refuses so Fuzzy begins tickle torturing his bare feet. Fuzzy asked him again and the man still refuses to talk, but the more he refused the more Fuzzy would mercilessly keep tickling the soles of his feet. After enduring brutal tickling on his feet, the henchman can't take anymore and confesses. Fuzzy then tells his friends how the henchman was so ticklish that he got him to talk. Now knowing who send the letter the guys all go to try to rescue the kidnapped girl. | murder | train | wikipedia | Hobnobbing with the governor. This Billy the Kid film from PRC has Billy the Kid hobnobbing with no less than the governor of some western territory/state who is being blamed for a rash of outlawry. In real life the only connection that William Bonney had with a governor was with Lew Wallace in New Mexico when he was negotiating for a pardon.Glenn Strange is the best thing in this film, he's the guy behind the the outlaw activity and he's leading a movement to impeach the governor for his own nefarious purposes not quite explained other than the usual lust for money and power. Buster Crabbe and the good citizens of the area should be grateful that Al St. John is around in this one. Billy the Kid ain't quite up to par in the end and Fuzzy proves invaluable.. Better than I'd expected, though I hated the Billy the Kid angle.. I've already seen a couple other Buster Crabbe westerns and was not at all impressed. While "Western Cyclone" is not a great film, it was a lot better than I expected.Crabbe plays Billy the Kid. Now this version of Billy has no similarity to the real character--and, oddly, quite a few western stars (such as Roy Rogers) played nice-guy versions of genuinely evil real-life bandits. So, despite all the nice things Billy does in this one, this is in no way related to the career of William Bonny--the real Billy the Kid.The film begins with Billy staging a FAKE holdup of the stagecoach and then rescuing a woman when the plan goes awry. It seems Billy wanted to convince the Senator aboard the coach that the west was lawless and needed lawmen to keep order!!! Again, this is an insane version of Billy---no relationship with the real thing! In the midst of Billy's campaign is another one but which is run by an unknown baddie (it turns out to be Glenn Strange*). It seems the baddie is orchestrating a lot of real crimes in order to make the Governor look bad so that they can have a recall election and he can have himself made governor. However, after this unknown stranger kills someone and frames Billy for it, the guy leaves a clue behind--a shell which bears the marks of a gun with a broken trigger. Can Billy and Fuzzy get to the bottom of this, prove their innocence, help the governor avoid a recall AND get the girl? I am no great expert on guns, but the main plot point is that bullet casings were left behind by the killer. However, this really makes no sense, as with an old revolver, the casing is NOT ejected when you fire and the killer would never just toss it on the ground, since this would indicate that there was a shooter other than Billy. But, despite this, a few other plot holes and the notion of making Bill the Kid a hero, the film is entertaining. Much of it is because Al 'Fuzzy' St. John is a wonderful sidekick in this one. Also, the film benefits from not having lots of singing like other B-westerns of the day. Fun to watch--just make sure your brain doesn't think too much as you watch!*By the way, Strange is most famous for playing Frankenstein in the later Universal monster films--such as "Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein". Also, St. John originally was the villain in many of Fatty Arbuckle's comedies. It didn't hurt his chances getting the job since he was Arbuckle's nephew!. Billy The Kid Goes Political. In Western Cyclone, a gang leader and wannabe politician frames Billy the kid (again) for murder and uses Billy's friendship with the governor and a recent string of robberies as a pretense for impeachment and a special election which the villain hopes to garner enough votes to gain power.This is as mediocre as it sounds, with less action than previous entries in Producers Releasing Corperation's Billy The Kid movies and a pretty dumb, far-fetched plot.One particularly silly scene involves sidekick Fuzzy using tickle-torture on an alleged bad-guy detainee in order to find out the identity of the man who framed Billy. Was that legal?! |
tt1832979 | Hart of Dixie | === Season 1 ===
Fast-talking New Yorker and brand new physician Zoe Hart has it all figured out—after graduating top of her class from medical school, she'll follow in her father's footsteps and become a cardio-thoracic surgeon. But when her dreams fall apart, Zoe decides to accept an offer from a stranger, Dr. Harley Wilkes, to work with him at his small practice in Bluebell, Alabama. Zoe arrives in this small Gulf Coast town only to find that Harley has died and left his half of the medical practice to her in his will.
She quickly finds that Southern hospitality isn't always so hospitable—the other physician in town, Brick Breeland, is less than pleased to be sharing the practice with this young outsider, and his daughter, Lemon, is a Southern belle whose sweet disposition turns sour when she meets Zoe. Zoe's only allies are the mayor, former football star Lavon Hayes, her bad-boy neighbor Wade Kinsella, and handsome lawyer George Tucker – who just happens to be Lemon's fiancé. Zoe is out of her element and ready to pack her bags, but a surprise visit by her snobby New York mother leads to Zoe's decision to stay in Bluebell for a while; she soon discovers the charm of small-town life and a side of herself she didn't know was there.
=== Season 2 ===
The second season opens with Zoe confused over her conflicting feelings for both George and Wade. Having just slept with Wade, Zoe decides that George is not ready for a relationship and tells him to date other people as she doesn't want to be his rebound. Following this, Zoe starts a casual relationship with Wade before they both agree to become an official couple. Later on in the season Wade has a drunken one night stand causing Zoe to end their relationship. After spending time mourning this, Zoe realises she still has feelings for George who turns her away as he is now happily in a relationship with Tansy. In the finale Zoe has a one night stand with Wade, after which Wade declares his love for her, but she decides to spend the summer in New York to get some distance from her life. George decides to leave Bluebell and goes on the road with Lily Anne and her band.
Other storylines include Lemon re-entering the dating world and trying to prove herself as an independent woman without George or her father, Brick's relationship with the much younger Shelby, Lavon's election battle against Ruby and their subsequent relationship and George's unexpected relationship with Wade's ex-wife Tansy. In the final part of the season Lemon and Wade become the co-owners of the Rammer Jammer and constantly collide over decisions and how to run the bar.
=== Season 3 ===
After spending the summer in New York, Zoe makes the decision to return to Bluebell with her new boyfriend Joel (Josh Cooke) although it's clear she still has unresolved feelings for Wade, a situation which is made more uncomfortable as Wade and Joel become good friends. Brick refuses to give Zoe half of the practice back so she must settle for being his employee. Zoe also reaches out to the family of her late father, Harley Wilkes. Although initially turned away she becomes close to her cousin Vivian who, in turn, starts a relationship with Wade. By the end of the season both Zoe and Joel's and Wade and Vivian's relationships have broken down and Zoe declares her love for Wade. Wade is cautious to get involved with Zoe again, believing they do not have a future together after all they've been through. Zoe vows to prove Wade wrong.
Lemon starts to realize that she wants more from her life than just the Rammer Jammer, so she decides to leave the business and look for something else. After tension between herself and Cricket she also decides to leave the Belles and re-assess her life. She has several short term flings during this time and before becoming the owner of Fancie's.
Lavon and Annabeth's relationship is tested as Annabeth longs for a stronger commitment. They must also deal with a house guest in shape of Lavon's cousin, Lynly. Lynly begins a relationship with George but after realising there is still a spark between him and his ex Tansy she leaves Bluebell.
Annabeth begins to want more commitment from Lavon but when he is unable to give it to her they break up. During their separation Annabeth begins dating a new man but turns down his proposal when she realises she still has feelings for Lavon; however, at the same time both Lavon and George race to declare their reignited feelings for Lemon.
Lavon must also deal with rising pressure as a neighboring town tries to force a merger with Bluebell in order to take over and re-build over the area.
=== Season 4 ===
The season starts off with Zoe trying to win Wade back. George and Lavon find out they are both in love with Lemon, who is on a single's cruise. Zoe and Wade sleep together, but Wade decides he doesn't want to be with Zoe. When they finally go on a date, Zoe runs away then later tells Wade she is pregnant with Wade's baby. Past the initial shock, Wade finally tells Zoe that she's the love of his life. After Crickett came out as a lesbian and get the divorce, she starts dating Jaysene a firewoman. George and Annabeth find themselves developing feelings for each other after moving on from their past loves. Lavon and Lemon finally come back together. The series ends with Zoe and Wade getting married just minutes before their baby boy is born. George and Annabeth confess their love and moving in together in Nashville; Lavon and Lemon also get married. | satire | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0024382 | Night of Terror | Police have been vainly searching the countryside for the knife-wielding Maniac, who has been on a murderous spree. The Maniac's victims are each found with a taunting newspaper clipping attached to their body. After the wealthy uncle of a young scientist is mysteriously murdered, people wonder if the Maniac is responsible.
Prior to his uncle's death, the young scientist in question, Dr. Arthur Hornsby, claimed to have developed a method of living without oxygen for extended periods. To prove his theory, he had himself buried after taking a dose of the serum. Despite his incapacity, the death of his uncle leaves a vast fortune, which is to be divided amongst his family members and servants. In the event that one or more them dies, the inheritance is split among the remaining survivors. Subsequently, members of the family begin to die, one-by-one, and suspicion is cast on the servants, including the "mystic" butler (Bela Lugosi).
At the end, we discover that Dr. Hornsby faked his burial and was using it as a cover for committing the murders. His plan was to kill any other heirs to his uncle's fortune so that he may obtain sole possession. His plan is eventually discovered and exposed by the butler. The Maniac is shot, and apparently killed, by the newspaper reporter, Tom Hartley; but in the closing moments of the film, he comes back to life and claims that he will haunt the audience if they reveal the plot twist to anyone. | romantic, murder | train | wikipedia | All that cliche-ic stuff (secret panels, the "maniac", seances, etc) is what makes this film a GREAT "Old House" film!
Granted, Lugosi is wasted in this role, but the entire film builds up a creepy, sinister "atmosphere".Both Maltin and the other reviewer dismiss the end of the film, where the maniac speaks to the audience but, I first saw this when I was about 6 years old, and it scared the bejesus out of me for several nights!
The house also contains a laboratory where a young scientist is attempting to experiment with a chemical formula that he hopes will raise the dead and is using himself as a guinea pig."Night of Terror" is yet another murder mystery masquerading as a horror story.
Bela Lugosi was added to the cast to give the film a horror element but all he does is provide a few menacing glares.
Old Dark House thrillers were very popular with movie audiences in the 1930's and Night of Terror is a prime example of one.
Wallace Ford is around to add the obligatory comedy relief that film makers felt was necessary to relief the tension in these kinds of productions at the time.The film also has a black comedy ending.Night of Terror was included in the Son of Shock Theater Movie package sold to local TV stations across the country in 1958 by Screen Gems following the success of Shock Theater in 1957.
While the police believe an escaped maniac is the killer, Ford probes to learn who will benefit from Rinehart's murder.One problem I have with the film is the escaped maniac who is about and who is killing people in the area.
It's a murder mystery set in a creepy house with a decent share of horrific elements: a Mr. Hyde-like goon with a knife in top hat and cape called The Maniac stalks the grounds; a scientist experiments with suspended animation and getting himself buried alive; the otherworldly Bela Lugosi headlines as a peculiar household servant in a turban who's married to his eerily mystical wife.
A dark house chiller from Columbia with all of the usual ingredients - serial nutso killer running loose (called "The Maniac" by newspaper headlines), an isolated house in the countryside, with a (constantly) screaming heroine, mysterious servants, one liking to peer into crystal balls and go into trances and make proclamations of death coming soon, a wiseguy newspaper reporter who bursts out gleefully "Boy, what a story" every time another dead body turns up and a hard nose detective who doesn't have a clue.Oh, yes, "comedy relief" is supplied by a black chauffeur who gets scared really easily.
I would become the first man to fly without wings." (Truth is, that might be the best line of dialogue in the film).These kind of films are easy to poke fun at and also, on occasion, fun, if you happen to like this kind of film genre (which I do).This particular film benefits, though, from a pretty good cast, with Bela Lugosi top billed over the title.
One of the participants holding hands at the table won't make it through the seance without a knife in the back.It's pretty Sally Blane (Loretta Young's sister) as the screamer and Wallace Ford as the reporter with the snappy one liners and an overly pleased manner whenever a new corpse turns up.
I remembered Tully getting knocked off in the silent version of the similar Cat and the Canary and kept counting the minutes before his character would do the same in this one."The Maniac" (who carries an oversized knife) keeps popping up throughout this film, peering through bushes with a scarred face and demented smile full of sharp teeth, climbing through windows and, generally, keeping everyone on their toes, until he lays a few of them out at their feet, that is.Night of Terror does have a bit of originality with one of the occupants of the house, a scientist (George Meeker) who plans on having himself buried alive in a coffin on their property in an experiment to see if, with an antidote administered eight hours later, he will still be alive.
"Night of Terror" is a bit higher budgeted and a bit less dumb than his usual Bs. Now don't get upset--when I call them dumb, I still like them...but the often have a lot of very silly plot lines and this one is no exception.
NIGHT OF TERROR (Columbia, 1933), directed by Benjamin Stoloff, being one of many contributions to the horror film mysteries attributed to Universal's cycle that all began with Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi, stars that legendary Hungarian actor in an interesting horror/ murder mystery commonly produced at that time.
Though not the best nor worst of this type, NIGHT OF TERROR has become one of the most neglected and least known of the forgotten thrillers due to lack of availability, even with the Lugosi name above the title.As the credits roll through the caption of a crystal ball with performers credited solely by their character names rather than the traditional actors and their roles billing, the story opens during the midnight hours with full moon in background view as a crazed bearded lunatic in dark suit and hat known as The Maniac (Edwin Maxwell) commits his latest killing on a young couple inside a car, leaving a note behind, the twelfth murder to occur which has both police and reporters baffled.
There's also Degar (Bela Lugosi), a Hindu and 15 year servant for the Rineharts; Sika (Mary Frey), a housekeeper/psychic who performs séances; Martin (Oscar Smith), a Negro chauffeur who claims he would be "the first man to fly without wings" when approached by The Maniac.
Upon Richard's murder, and the last will and testament having him leaving his entire fortune to his servants rather than his immediate family, it soon becomes "death among the heirs" while, at the same time, Hornsby going on with his experiment from beyond the grave, much to the dismay of a harassed Detective Bailey (Matt McHugh) called upon to investigate with his partner, Detective Dooley (Richard Powell).During its slow-pacing and bit confusing 64 minutes, NIGHT OF TERROR is actually two separate stories rolled into one.
Although Bela Lugosi could have played either one of those character roles more favorably, his Hindu servant with turban and earring on right ear addressing his employer, "Yes, Master," gathers enough attention in spite of being basically secondary.
Sally Blane, Loretta Young's look-a-like sister, does her part with her occasional screams, with one harrowing scene where she's abducted by an approaching hand from behind the wall.Regardless of being produced by Columbia, NIGHT OF TERROR looks more like something from "poverty row" Monogram Studios from the 1940s, right down from the stalking phantom-ish Mr. Hyde in the resembling manner of Fredric March's evil half from DR.
Watch for it.With the Maniac as part of the story process, and no real background to whom he is and why, NIGHT OF TERROR rightfully deserves its contribution in the horror film cycle.
This Columbia "B" thriller features many of the typical 'old dark house' trappings (which proliferated throughout the late 20s up till the mid-30s) and is therefore quite predictable; still, the denouement is rather effective and it's all capped by an amusing (if hammy) interpolation by the maniac killer of the main narrative, which sees him coming back to life to warn cinema patrons not to reveal the twist ending!
A mere two years after his runaway success with Dracula (1931), the film already sees Bela Lugosi reduced to playing thankless roles because, even though he receives sole above-the-title billing here, the horror icon's presence constitutes a red herring and nothing more (the way he's made to intimidate his spiritualist wife during a séance proves especially pointless) and is further hindered by the unflattering Hindu attire (turban, gypsy earrings) he is saddled with throughout.
To get back to the 'monster' of the film, again, his involvement results to be irrelevant to the central mystery (with an inheritance at stake, members of a wealthy family are getting bumped off one by one): familiar heavy-set character actor Edwin Maxwell is credited with playing the role, but he was unrecognizable behind the make-up.
Lovely Sally Blane (who happens to be Loretta Young's sister!) and Wallace Ford (insufferable as the fast-talking reporter hero, a role he virtually reprised in a later Lugosi cheapie THE APE MAN [1943]) provide the obligatory romantic interest; another requisite and equally resistible is the politically incorrect comedy relief supplied by the household's 'scaredy cat' black chauffeur.
Given a somewhat harsh BOMB rating by Leonard Maltin, I knew not to expect much from the film but, ultimately, it's a harmless way to kill 60 minutes or so
and, in any case, the script does come up with a handful of undeniably hilarious lines: when a delegation of scientists arrives at the mansion to assist to a dangerous experiment, the chauffeur remarks that they look like undertakers later, when he sees these same men transport a coffin in which his current master is about to be buried alive, he observes that he had been right all along!; driven as much by jealousy as the promise of a scoop, Ford bursts into the household to see Blane noticing four other hats in the parlor (belonging to the illustrious guests), he asks her whether she had been entertaining the Marx Bros.; when the bodies start piling up and the police is called on the scene, Ford offers his help but is told off by the investigating officer however, on asking for the generalities of all the persons in the room, the response of one of the scientists comes in the form of an unpronounceable foreign name and, so, the befuddled cop gladly relinquishes the writing duties to the newspaperman!; still, my favorite bit is when a hand-cuffed Lugosi asks the detective guarding him if he can smoke, and the latter with quite unwarranted hostility snaps back "I don't care if you burn!".
1933's "Night of Terror" is distinguished by the top billed presence of Bela Lugosi, plus its status as the very first bona-fide horror film from Columbia Pictures, part of the SON OF SHOCK television package that enjoyed widespread success in the late 50s.
Perhaps this is the reason why so many disparate elements get shoehorned into the film; an old dark house setting, a prowling maniac who has already claimed an impressive 12 victims, a scientist who creates a serum that will suspend life, intending to have himself be buried alive to prove its effectiveness.
The leading lady is Sally Blane, lovely older sister of Loretta Young, quite the best thing to see, as Lugosi is given precious little to do as skulking Hindu servant Degar, who at least is involved in the climax, as in the 1939 "The Gorilla." Bela would soon work with Loretta Young herself in "The Devil's in Love," and with elder sister Polly Ann Young in 1941's "Invisible Ghost" (he would be plagued by Wallace Ford at Monogram, in 1935's "The Mysterious Mr. Wong" and 1943's "The Ape Man").
The role of the Maniac is credited to Edwin Maxwell, who destroyed Lionel Atwill's masterworks in the earlier "Mystery of the Wax Museum," and it is clearly his voice we hear in the final scene, regardless of whether he was doubled or not (Dave O'Brien plays the first on screen victim).
In NIGHT OF TERROR, we learn that "The Maniac" killer (Edwin Maxwell) has struck again, and is on the loose!
This, while resident scientist, Professor Hornsby (George Meeker) prepares to be buried alive, to prove the efficacy of his new life-restorative formula, and resident mystic, Degar (Bela Lugosi) creeps about the place.
A great "old dark house"-type film, this one has a lot of moving parts.
The murders continue by the gutsy killer as he is committing them right under the cops' noses.One negative point of the film is that an uncredited Oscar Smith plays the role of Martin the chauffeur.
If you can allow for this you may enjoy this old time B&W horror film.One final note the ending is quite interesting as the killer reveals that he will come back from the dead to haunt you if you tell other people the plot twist.
Bela Lugosi once again dons a turban (easily his favorite movie headgear) for a cliched turn as Degar, sinister Hindu servant of a well-to-do but overly disfuntional family, in "Night Of Terror", a seldom seen, quasi-horror thriller from Columbia studios.
Although top-billed, Lugosi is mired in an undistinctive supporting role, which calls for him to skulk around, look mysteriously sinister and discover a freshly murdered corpse every 10 minutes or so.
Still, he provides the ONLY reason to watch this movie.A maniac killer on the loose is blamed for a series of murders, but it's pretty obvious that one of the family members is the true fiend, plotting to control a family inheritance.
Night of Terror (1933) ** (out of 4) Somewhat entertaining but overall boring horror/mystery about a deformed madman killing off members of an estate with a large knife.
If I were going to list the ten best films Bela Lugosi appeared in, this would be one of them.
This film has everything, including sliding panels, secret tunnels, mysterious visitors, sudden and horrifying killings, a seance where a murder occurs, bizarre characters, bizarre behavior such as the clipping of newspapers on the bodies of victims, and a rampaging misanthrope called The Maniac with a distorted, hair-raising face that would frighten the proverbial "boogieman".
(THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE DVD Invisible Menace/Night of Terror)This DVD presents Karloff and Lugosi, each in a film that is not part of their usual fare seen in other collections.THE INVISIBLE MENACE is a Warner Brother's quickie (clocking in at under 60 minutes) that shows that Boris Karloff could do far more than play monsters.
Overall it is an enjoyable little film.The second feature, with the generic title NIGHT OF TERROR, comes as a welcome surprise.
I had only seen it listed on Bela Lugosi film bibliographies.
Top billed Bela Lugosi has a minor role in this tale of a maniac on the loose.
It seems a maniac is going around killing people (I think the count given at the start is 11 people)while at the same time a group of people gather at the family estate to hear the reading of a will and a séance...and people begin dropping like flies.
An isolated old mansion is the scene of a strange experiment, with a scientist preparing to test a secret formula by having himself buried alive.
At the same time, a madman with snaggle teeth and wild eyes is on the prowl, stabbing a lengthy list of victims, and leaving a newspaper clipping about himself pinned to the corpse's clothing each time.Throw in Wallace Ford as a fast talking reporter who's investigating the murders, and romancing the pretty niece of one of the victims, a mysterious servant played by Bela Lugosi, Tully Marshall as a rich man who gets killed off, leading to a classic reading of the will sequence, and a black chauffeur who asks to be disinherited when he hears that he is to be paid a pension " for as long as (he) live(s)".
Add some dislikable relatives plotting to cut the servants out of the will, a grumpy police detective getting fed up with unsolved murders and the reporter's jibes, various hapless victims of " The Maniac", vintage cars, clothing and telephones, along with the basic collection of sliding panels, secret tunnels, clutching hands, etc.Result: one very entertaining old movie, with more action crammed into an hour than ten other movies put together.
Anyone who enjoys old dark house mysteries and Thirties horror movies should get a kick out of this..
I've read all sorts of comments about this film saying Lugosi doesn't do much in it and has a thankless role as a servant.
Lugosi is in fact a servant, and also a red herring of sorts, but unlike a lot of these roles he actually IS integral to the plot here and in fact pretty much solves the case!
Bear in mind Maltin gives nearly all of Lugosi's actually awful Monogram movies ** or so and none of those are even remotely as entertaining as Night of Terror.I really, really like this movie a lot.
In that respect it almost reminds me of something like Scary Movie, with the real killer here copying a serial killer that already exists.By all means check this film out on that Invisible Menace/Night of Terror double feature DVD.
On the heels of "The Old Dark House" comes one of its dozens of imitators, a decent B feature starring Bela Lugosi on loan to Columbia from Universal.
More members of the family follow, leaving reporter heroine Sally Gray in jeopardy with boyfriend Wallace Ford and two darkly clad servants (Lugosi and Mary Frey) to look after her.
I had originally intended to add Night of Terror (1933) to my listing of films to avoid, as I incorrectly assumed that sloppy writing was to blame when it was revealed at the conclusion that character X played the maniac.
Producer Bryan Foy's budget was really expansive, the cast line-up led by Bela Lugosi, Sally Blane and Wallace Ford, top of the range.
NIGHT OF TERROR is an early entry in the creaky 'old dark house' genre which was all the rage in the 1930s.
You get mad scientists, a maniac killer prowling the countryside and knifing his victims, a mystic, comedy relief from a frightened black servant, a shifty servant, secret passages, plotting, hidden motives, and gloomy old locales.
And some ostensible comedy is provided by having the one black character be inept, cowardly, and superstitious.Much of the acting in this film is actually quite good, in spite of the poor script. |
tt0064962 | A Session with the Committee | The movie follows a man (Paul Jones) who is unnamed. The movie starts out with the central character in a car with a man (Tom Kempinski) who just picked him up. The victim talks to him, but he's uninterested. The victim decides to pull over because he doesn't like the sound of the engine. While he's looking under the bonnet of the car the central character slams the bonnet down on his head several times, decapitating him in the process. The central character eventually sews the head back on, and the victim wakes up. The central character tells him he doesn't want to drive anymore that day and to leave without him.
A few years later the central character is called on to be part of a committee, groups that supposedly keep the system running but really don't do much of anything. He feels paranoid that the committee was called on account of him, and runs into the victim while there, who doesn't seem to remember him.
The central character talks about this with a man listed as 'The committee director' (Robert Langdon Lloyd) in the credits. This conversation lasts for the duration of the movie, and features most of the music Pink Floyd wrote for the film. | comedy, satire | train | wikipedia | Classic concert film from hilarious, influential comedy troupe!. This little-known film is actually an invaluable slice of classic comedy from one of the more influential comedy troupes of recent times, the Committee. Founded by a handful of ex-Second City writer/director/actors in San Francisco in the '60s, it was a very risk-taking, political comedy group. They were definitely the hippest comedy theatre on the West Coast, attracting such future stars as Richard Dreyfuss and Rob Reiner, as teens, to their shows. The more famous alumni include Peter Bonerz (from "The Bob Newhart Show," now a busy TV director of such shows as "Friends"), Howard Hesseman (Dr. Johnny Fever from "WKRP In Cincinatti," "Head of the Class," "Soap"), Carl Gottlieb (who wrote "Jaws" and co-wrote and appeared in "The Jerk"), Avery Schreiber (the comedy team "Burns & Schreiber," "My Mother the Car"), Garry Goodrow ("Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," "National Lampoon's Lemmings," "The National Lampoon Radio Hour"), Larry Hankin (the Trucker in "The Sure Thing," a grumpy neighbor on "Friends"), John Brent ("Catch 22," "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice"), and improv guru Del Close (who taught John Belushi, Chris Farley, & others at Improv Olympic & Second City). The troupe also commonly appeared on the famed "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and had parts in the cult classic "Billy Jack." This film is a collection of classic skits. Some are a bit dated (draft-dodging the Viet Nam War, anyone? Pot smoking cops, anyone?), but it is still very funny and historically valuable. Plus, Cheech & Chong apparently stole much of the Committee's then-outrageous drug humor to form the basis of their act! Great '60s laughs!. a comic time capsule of the Sixties. Former Second City director Alan Myerson decided to found his version of an improv-based sketch comedy company in San Francisco. Some of the players who played there over the years also clocked significant time with Second City, and one can see the two companies having a kind of dialogue about the possibilities of the form as well as providing a vital function of maintaining an ongoing commentary on what was going on in the country at the time.Most of the original Second City people were well-read, college-educated folk (frequently from the University of Chicago). The Committee's people generally had greater contact with what was happening in the street. Or maybe it's just that more of the street spilled into their doors.At any rate, this film is a collection of some of the more popular sketches at the time and it features some dazzling performances by a company, most of whom went onto bigger (though not always better) things. I run chunks of this for my students frequently and they always goes down very well indeed.Anybody interested in the intersection between American social and political history and satire should find this pretty compelling stuff. |
tt0227277 | Plata quemada | The setting is Argentina, 1965. El Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a petty thief, and Angel (Eduardo Noriega), a drifter, meet in the bathroom of a Buenos Aires subway station, and from that moment they are inseparable. They become known as "the twins", but their relationship is in fact that of lovers and, soon, as partners in crime. At a point when their relationship is already turning difficult, the plot sets in.
Their love and loyalty to each other is tested when "the twins" join a plan to hold up an armored truck together with a group of seasoned gangsters: their swaggering straight cohort Cuervo (Pablo Echarri), a sedative addict who's been carrying on an affair with the luscious Vivi (Dolores Fonzi); a 16-year-old nymphet; the trio's boss Fontana (Ricardo Bartis); and the elderly lawyer Nando (Carlos Roffé), who is past the days of any professional illusions and helps make connections to find a good team for the crime.
Angel is wounded by police gunfire during the robbery, provoking Nene to kill all of the guards and police in a fit of rage. Two police officers are among the victims, and so the police of Buenos Aires start a major search for the culprits. They soon find a lead to Vivi's apartment, where the gang had been hiding out, but by this time, all except Vivi have escaped to neighboring Uruguay. The police force Vivi to give away their plans, and the search is broadened to Uruguay.
Meanwhile, the gang needs to wait for new passports (to be arranged by a dubious character played by Héctor Alterio) for their escape from Uruguay.
They take refuge in an empty apartment in Montevideo, but the organisation of the documents takes longer than originally planned. The waiting is especially hard on Nene: Angel—who is described as constantly "hearing voices" and seems to suffer a slight form of schizophrenia—has been rejecting intimate contact with Nene since at least the beginning of the escape, for reasons indirectly connected with his condition.
Nene eventually decides to break curfew and "get some air", and he, Angel, and Cuervo go and enjoy themselves at a fair. That evening outside of the apartment is not their last though, partly because Angel continues to reject any contact and does not even speak to Nene anymore.
On one evening, Nene ends up verbally and sexually abusing another gay person, but finally he meets the prostitute Giselle (Leticia Brédice) and starts a relationship with her, even mentioning a solo escape with her.
When Nando is caught by the police, the group is forced to abandon their refuge. Fontana goes off on his own, but Nene brings Angel and Cuervo to hide out in Giselle's apartment before they leave the city at night.
Angel had sensed that Nene had been cheating on him, and he soon understands where Giselle fits in. Before it can come to a fight, however, he also hears from Giselle that Nene still cares for him and suffered from his rejection. Giselle tells Nene that she has a cousin who lives near the border and she can arrange passage, but not for three men the police are after. She says that a couple, a man and a woman, will be able to get across easily. When she forces him to choose between her and Angel, he chooses Angel.
Nene tells Giselle that he will find her and kill her if she turns them in. Despite his threats, Giselle goes straight to the police to turn in the gang. Before the group takes to their heels, police have already surrounded the building. At first, the trio believes they will be able to escape, thinking that the police will not endanger the haul (several million dollars) or the lives of a large number of policemen. In high spirits, the three of them set to defend the apartment and their freedom, while Nene and Angel rekindle their relationship and spend some short and erotic moments of mutual happiness. After the first wave of attacks, a contented Angel even says the "voices" he always heard have fallen silent.
The group soon finds out, however, that there is no way out. Cuervo dies in an attempt to sally, and Nene and Angel remain waiting for the next wave of police attacks on the apartment. Seeing that they can save neither their own lives nor the money, they burn the entire haul in a final outburst of joie de vivre.
Finally, Nene catches a bullet and dies in Angel's arms. Angel still holds Nene and sends a volley of bullets in the direction of the approaching police every now and again, when the lights fade out and the audience is left with the sound of the final fusillade of the police machine guns. It is implied that Angel committed suicide by cop. | violence, neo noir, murder, storytelling, romantic | train | wikipedia | Everything, the visuals, the literate script, with its sensitive, sensuous, heartbreaking dialogue, the suspense that does not leave you for a single minute, the violent finale that you expect and still keep hoping it will not happen, the exquisite acting of all the major players, it will all stay with me, forever, I am sure.
This is film-making of the best kind: contemporary, mature, it relates to reality but transcends it and reaches a perfectly beautiful, artistic, poetic level.
Often when (male) actors are asked to "play gay" you get an overly sexualized relationship - as though they feel the only way to portray the connection between men is through overt lust.The director and actors here, have instead sought out a more subtle, but infinitely more honest portrayal.
In a film such as this, when so much of the plot depends on the characters and their relationships, it becomes agonizing not to know exactly what they're saying..
They find it in Montevideo, they need false passports to leave so they wait day after day until the police come and everything goes apocalyptic.The bare facts.But the real movie is about the two killers in the gang, El Nene and Angel, called Los Mellizos (the twins).
It's the story of a doomed relationship, confined into four rooms where intense passion and violence push the extremes.In their hostile world of drugs, cheap sex, prejudice and revenge they have to deal with a feeling born from repression and the fear of naming it.
There is, above all, their desperate search for love and loyalty that makes them some kind of tragic heroes in the end.Seldom has cinema faced the subject of masculine desire and affection in such a natural, honest and even tender way.
BURNT MONEY (Plata Quemada)Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: Dolby DigitalArgentina, 1965: Following a violent robbery on an armored car, two gay lovers - rebellious rich kid Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and borderline schizophrenic Ángel (Eduardo Noriega) - are forced to flee with their accomplices to Uruguay, where they take refuge in a decaying apartment building.
Denied sexual favors by Ángel due to his worsening mental condition, Nene takes up with a sympathetic prostitute (Leticia Brédice), leading to jealousy, betrayal and tragedy...Based on true events recounted in a non-fiction novel by Argentinian writer/critic Ricardo Piglia, and directed by former producer Marcelo Piñeyro (THE OFFICIAL STORY), BURNT MONEY is a masterpiece.
The sacred and profane are interlinked in various ways (one extraordinary sequence cross-cuts between an act of worship in a Uruguayan church and an unpleasant encounter between Nene and a frightened youth in a public toilet), and the sweaty atmosphere is broken only by an explosive climax where the main protagonists are forced to take responsibility for their actions.
Former TV actor Pablo Echarri ("Chiquititas", "El Signo", etc.) plays a younger, headstrong member of the outlaw gang, blinded by youthful arrogance to the danger in which they have all become enmeshed, while Brédice (NINE QUEENS) plays one of the few significant female characters in this otherwise all-male scenario, a brittle creature who falls in love with the wrong guy, with appalling consequences for everyone around her.More than anything else, however, BURNT MONEY is a love story, played to perfection by two of the finest young actors of their generation.
Casting these two beautiful, experienced young men as lovers in a violent true-crime drama could not have been more fortuitous: Their devotions are rarely consummated on-screen (all of the aforementioned sex scenes are heterosexual), except for a chaste kiss at the end of the film, and an earlier, erotically-charged sequence in which Nene tends to a wound on Ángel's shoulder and initiates a sexual advance, only to be rebuffed because of Ángel's mental condition.
Look out for the devastating sequence in which Nene 'confesses' to Brédice about his relationship with Ángel, where he describes their mutual affection with heartbreaking emotional candor.To his credit, Piñeyro refuses to soft-pedal the dissolute nature of his central characters.
They may be thieves and murderers, but when Nene looks into Ángel's eyes, you know instinctively that their love transcends life and death, and is destined to last an eternity.
Not just a great gay film, BURNT MONEY is also a terrific love story, a heartstopping thriller, and an outstanding example of popular Spanish entertainment.(Spanish dialogue).
The two men at the center of the story are gay lovers who happened to be criminals.
At this point, we are of two minds, is Nene really cheating on Angel, or is he trying to use Giselle into providing another place where they can hide?
The violent end comes in a finale that doesn't have anything to envy to any other movies of the genre.The best thing in the film are the two leads.
Eduardo Noriega, is also a Spanish actor that has done excellent work before and he shows his range in a magnificent performance as Angel.
Leticia Bredice is Giselle, the young woman in Montevideo who befriends, then fall in love with Nene.The film proves Marcelo Pineyro is a voice to be reckoned with and who has an enormous talent for giving his audience his best..
The relationship between Angel and Nene is one of the most passionate, destructive, uncompromising depictions of love in all its blood-soaked sordidness that I've seen in a long time.
So complex a relationship needs time to develop on film and director ,Marcelo Piñeyro, isn't afraid to give it to them.
It is one of the most intensely erotic and romantic film I've seen in a very long time.This is a movie that will stay with me..
An excellent movie where everything is beautiful - from the crumbling, claustrophobic backdrops of the antagonists' hiding places, the actors and the background music.Besides showing an unusual homosexual relationship, the film also questions the relationship between sex, love and violence - even when the main characters turn "straight" violence and death hang in the air, with scenes sex often interspliced with those of death and agony.More importantly, you can't help but feel sorry - and yet almost envious - for the doomed (and did I mention beautiful?) lovers as they slide towards their inevitable end, just for the incredible passion they have for each other..
Burnt Money, a provocative, severe crime thriller from Argentina, begins like a Spanish- language Guy Ritchie narrative, with an assembly of criminals arranging a heist.
So much of this film seems already acquainted, from its appealing crime thriller stylization to its narrative echoes of Reservoir Dogs, Heat and Bonnie and Clyde, that when it takes one of its unprecedented turns it overcomes you.
There are a lot of unforeseen detours.The opening introduces us to Angel and Nene, gay lovers who live in a murky Buenos Aires apartment.
A narrator notifies us that they are known as "the twins." After showing how they met, in a grungy public restroom, the narrator distinguishes the one telling way they are similar: "the still eyes, the lost glare." The knifelike center on character relationships, and the novelistic way the story is divulged through sequential narrators, featuring internal monologue, prepares us to pull back to enmesh the "twins" in the heist.
Nevertheless, even in its brutal execution which extrinsically offers not much in the way of variation on a device dating back to the original 1932 Scarface, it maintains a theme of dissolution, a dream state made real to them, of feelings taking over, a theme which, in the end, makes the film its own beast..
I loved the whole experience; the feel, the mood, the music, the story, and the beautiful protagonists.I felt for the characters; their passion, problems, and failings.Besides, I like a true story told very well, with beautiful actors.
Burnt Money is an exceptional film in the crime drama genre and stands quite well as director Marcelo Pineyero provides Hollywood with an example of what subtlety can bring to cinema.
A few scenes strike out at me for recounting the director's work and it also must be said that the work of the actors that portrayed Nene, Angel and Cuervo was thoughtful and delivered with subtlety to match that of the director's nuanced vision of the world that the trio inhabits.Two scenes that immediately jump to mind are those that weave both dramatic long takes with clever use of diagetic sound to create a suspenseful dramatic scene.
Saw this movie several months ago and loved it , not only for the unusual way of portraying a gay relationship but for the fine acting , direction and the great sound track.
The plot is quite appealing (based on a true story, which helps building the film "credibility"), the director excels on creating a tense mood along the film and the actors masterfully build the carachters psichological profiles.
Well-acted, stylish Spanish crime-drama from Ricardo Piglia's book is allegedly based on factual account from 1965 involving estranged gay lovers in Argentina who re-energize their relationship with successful, brutal crime sprees (they call themselves "The Twins"); after one particular robbery ends in gunfire and dead cops, the two go into hiding along with their accomplices in Uruguay.
At first, the sexual clinches (which are actually non-sexual, as one partner keeps pushing the other away) are aloof and perhaps a bit self-conscious, but the actors improve along with the film; by the finale, Nene and Ángel really do seem like doomed soul mates, helplessly intertwined.
I like the relation ship between de main characters, is a way to show lovebetween two people, in this case, men Is a hard love story, but very human, very sensitive You can feel pain.
I didn't like the voice over at the beginning, we don't need itThe soundtrack is very smart, I loved the moment when The "nene" speaks thevoice over and we can hear Billy Holiday.
This film is based on a true story and its well acted but I did feel that this film could have been edited a little more tightly as it seems to drag at certain spots.
The overall look and mood of the film is impressive as it reminded me a little of "Traffic" and "Reservoir Dogs" with some good dialogue written in the script.
Its like "We'll put in a big gunfight at the end to make it more exciting" when the film really is more about two gay robbers and one is suffering a mental breakdown.
The way of act of Leonardo Sbaraglia and Eduardo Noriega is so close to life, so close to our way feeling deep inside.
Both films feature comparable nonstop action (in crime and in love), two young super stars (big names in their respective cultures), basically the same plot (change the location to Argentina & Uruguay in the 1910s here), and roughly similar shock values, relative to its time of release.
Starring Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega (Amenabar's "Abre Los Ojos) as a perturbed bank robber and Argentina's Leonardo Sbaraglia as his lover/accomplice, this action-packed period piece set in 1965 combines high production values and an intensely passionate love story.
The acting is first rate, as is the recreation of mid-1960s Argentina and Uruguay, but what make this movie worth watching is the chemistry between the two leads.
It's hard to write about this film, which is evidently based upon actual events, because the story and the characters are confusing.
If you want to see a gay love story (and sure, good acting) you might enjoy this movie.
Outcasts and somewhat desperate, two twenty-something gay lovers, El Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and Angel (Eduardo Noriega), known as "the twins" -- because they are always together -- set out on a life of crime, recruited by corrupt politicians and businessmen who want to rob a bank truck loaded with loot.
The plot starts out in Argentina but shifts to Uruguay as the gang tries to evade capture.The film's tone is dark and moody, which matches the two lead characters.
The film's finale is quite intense, as a showdown with the police looms.Set in 1965 and based on a true story, the film begins with a wonderfully 1960s stylized score.
The two lead actors are fairly good in their performances, except that they convey the impression that they are straight, and as such, don't much care for their gay roles.The biggest problem with the film, though, is the script, which takes a topic that could have been mesmerizing and turns it into a rather dull and dreary saga that seems stretched, or padded, with unessential plot points.
A re-write could have helped.Largely a character study of two gay lovers on the run from the law, "Burnt Money" is not a bad film.
These are hours I will never get back.I would bet that gay men would find this movie very interesting but if you are not a gay man, I'd recommend you spend your time watching something else.
Also, for me, the men they were portraying (as it is based on a true story) were too stupid to be sympathetic.Not a bad film, just not very interesting..
Sometimes everything goes wrong with a movie and that it is the case for this one, bad casting, bad script with a potentially good story.
If you want my advice, OK, watch any Brazilian movies, you won't be disappointed, about argentina, I don't know yet, I can only tell you, stay away from "Burnt money", unless you are into gay films of course..
This film tells a story, based on true events from 1965, about three men who steal seven million dollars and then flee to Uruguay together with a fourth man who runs the show from a distance.
Whilst being interesting, the story many times might make one uncomfortable as it deals with various issues, such as homosexuality and sex, which are seen through a raw lens which is not commonly used in most movies.
Burnt Money is a love story, alone in its conquest for equality in the Latin American setting of 1965.
At the center are two men, Angel and Nene, characters sharing an extraordinary bond of love, implicit in two ways: one, in that their sexual identity is repressed, and two, that the viewer never witnesses sex in its explicit form between the two.
In a nod to Hollywood cinema, Marcelo Piñeyro focuses on the action just as much as he focuses on the relationship of two men, who call themselves Los Mellizos, or the twins.
Scene after scene, the incredible excruciation of being in love is honorably, even horrifically evident, such as in the scene where Nene tenderly takes to the bullet in his lover, Angel's side; whose agonized screams are shrill as well as painful.
By the end of the movie, the audience realizes for itself how living in a materialistic culture affects their understanding of the film.
This movie is not for the viewer with a preconceived or pessimistic notion of homosexuality, or one who is easily turned away from overt sexuality, as it appears elsewhere in the film.
It's inconceivable to think of a love surviving amidst chaos, yet explicitly evident by the film's conclusion are two characters gleefully and explicitly demonstrating their devotion; a scene where the two burn the money that they stole, and that which their pursuers are after..
We know from the start where this thing is going, so one may fairly discard any pretension of suspense and concentrate instead on character portrayal and other broad strokes of the cinematic artist's brush.This is, in short, a brilliant film whether or not it "goes" anywhere or stumbles on the way.
Whether the film lives up to its claim of being fundamentally a true story is really beside the point.
Inspired by a true story, this movie took place in Argentina and Uruguay in 1965 when a couple of gay lovers involved in a money robbery and then hunted down by swarms of cops.
That depends on you but honestly, this movie is one of the best of its category with amazing acting by both main actors (Leonardo Sbaraglia as Nene and Eduardo Noriega as Angel) plus extraordinarily good cinematography.
Many people may say that this movie is full of violence, sex and nudity but they all must agree that the love story it contains is so much beautiful that touch everyone's hearts.
Angel and Nene loved !.
This is really a good film and the two main guys have done a jam-up job of acting.
Leonardo Sbaraglia, (Nene) , Wild Tango, Wild Horses, and Eduardo Noreiga (ll) ( Angel) , The Devil's Backbone, Abre los ojos, Thesis.
She tells Angel that she and Nene are going away together.
The Twins (Angel and Nene) and Cuervo rob an armored car but all goes to hell when they kill two policemen.
Nene's love for Angel is true and sincere.
A gay relationship isn't enough for a movie to be good.
That is true, but that alone doesn't make a movie good.I wasn't hoping for action (which in fact is there), but for good characters, for a good, well paced story, something to think about or at least mess with something inside me - good cinema.
And the movie is mostly just plain boring, as if the director was trying to stretch it for no reason with scenes that added not much to the plot and/or character development (and I'm not talking about "meaningful silences" either).
Many reviewers mentioned the "passionate love" between them and I just don't think the movie has shown us the reasons.
Of course, it is a true story and that was how it happened so that is not the movie's problem.
It is execrably unpardonable that when a film casts two Latin Adonis like Leonardo Sbaraglia and Eduardo Noreiga to play lovers and completely passes over their carnal engagement, what makes it more retrograde is that the only explicit sex scenes are heterosexual.
OK, it is a film made in the turn of 21st century and depicting a true story taking place in the mid-60s in Buenos Aires, maybe retrograde it what it should be in retrospect. |
tt0447257 | Little John | The film opens with an historical story in which the goddess Parvathi while performing dance with her husband Lord Shiva drops her nose stud (Mookuththi in Tamil) on the Earth and because of which a temple was raised named "Mookuththi Amman temple" in Tamil Nadu. The nose stud has many powers in it and so an evil powered soul named "Kaalabhairavan"(Prakash Raj) waits one thousand years patiently to capture it.
John McKenzie (Bentley Mitchum),an American student comes to India to visit and research the Mookuththi Amman temple and stays in his Indian friend Vasu's home. He is received warmly by his friend's family. John visits the temple and he learns the Mookuththi history by the temple key person Swamiji (Anupam Kher) and a leaf which guides them to protect Mookuthi from evil powers which is visible only to him and not to John. John does not believes the story yet he believes only whatever he sees in his own eyes. Meanwhile, John develops a love for Vasu's sister Vani (Jyothika) which is disliked by Vasu's parents. Kalabhairavan wakes up from his long patience and captures the Mookuththi by one of his faithful servant by hypnotising him. But the Mookuththi does not allow itself to go out of temple and hides itself in a snake hill inside the temple. John is charged for the theft of Mookuththi and arrested by police despite Swamiji's repeated words that he did not steal it. John escapes from police custody and seeks help of Swamiji. Swamiji throws a powder on him with an intention of making him invisible but John turns to a small tiny little being.
Swamiji was arrested for charge of concealing someone charged with a crime. John seeks Vani's help and they go to the police station with John in her pocket. Swamiji instructs him that the Mookuththi should be placed back in Amman's nose by that day's sunset else John will be 'Little John' forever. John takes away the Mookuththi from snake hill. Meanwhile, Kalabhairavan attempts to capture the Mookuththi. After several struggles between evil and divine, Mookuthithi is placed back in Amman's nose by John which destroys the evil Kalabhairavan. John gets back to his normal size and unites with Vani. | romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0826578 | Medea | The first half sums up the story of Jason and the Argonauts as they travel to Medea's barbarian land in search of the golden fleece. In fitting with the soundtrack (which features Iranian classic music, Japanese traditional music and other folklore pieces), Pasolini depicts Medea's people as a tribal people who perform rituals and sacrifices to secure their harvests. Their costumes and dances are based on those of Eastern European Mummers such as the Romanian Calusari ceremonies and their counterparts in the Balkans.
A young man is offered up as a human sacrifice and his organs and blood are sprinkled over the crops in a ritual sparagmos. The victim is bound to a wooden structure and killed and dismembered, and the villagers fertilize crops with his body and blood.
Meanwhile, Jason and his comrades have arrived and are shown pillaging the locals. Medea awakens her brother Absyrtus to help her steal the Golden Fleece, which they then deliver to Jason. The Argonauts hastily depart from Colchis, with horsemen from her village in hot pursuit. When the Colchians begin closing in, Medea kills her brother and dismembers his body, in a manner similar to the sacrificial victim of the sparagmos ritual earlier. Her father's men are then forced to halt and retrieve the scattered pieces of his son's body, enabling Jason and Medea to escape.
When they return to Jason's homeland as husband and wife, Medea is stripped of her ornate barbarian garb and dressed in the garments of a traditional Greek housewife. The film generally follows the plot of the play by Euripides from this point onward, though it takes some liberties with the chronology of events.
Jason has two sons by Medea, but he later decides to opt out of his union with her in favor of a marriage to the Corinthian princess Glauce. Enraged, Medea plots revenge against Jason and his new bride and sends Glauce a robe bewitched with magic herbs.
Here Pasolini introduces two versions of the destruction of Glauce and her father. The first follows the traditional legend and is possibly a vision of how Medea would like Glauce to die, as her face is superimposed over several shots. When the princess puts on the robe, the garment catches fire and burns her alive, along with her father Creon, who attempts to douse the flames.
The second version Glauce put on the robe that Medea wore when she served as High Priestess. Glauce, looking in the mirror, cries out and runs to the walls and leaps to her death. Her father follows her, and jumps to his death also.
Medea then proceeds to kill her own sons by Jason and sets fire to their house. She refuses to give Jason the bodies of their children for burial. Instead she keeps them from him, while he is held back by the fire she has lit, telling him that nothing can be done anymore. | tragedy | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0038494 | Dressed to Kill | Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) is a sexually frustrated housewife who is in therapy with New York City psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine). During an appointment, Kate attempts to seduce him, but Elliott rejects her advances.
Kate goes to the Metropolitan Museum where she has an unexpected flirtation with a mysterious stranger. Kate and the stranger stalk each other through the museum until they finally wind up outside, where Kate joins him in a taxi. They begin to have sex and continue at his apartment.
Hours later, Kate awakens and decides to discreetly leave while the man, Warren Lockman (Ken Baker), is asleep. Kate sits at his desk to leave him a note and finds a document indicating that Warren has contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Mortified, she leaves the apartment. In her haste, she has left her wedding ring on the nightstand, so she returns to retrieve it.
The elevator doors open on the figure of a tall, blond woman in dark sunglasses wielding a straight razor. Kate is violently slashed to death in the elevator. A high-priced call girl, Liz Blake (Nancy Allen), happens upon the body. She catches a glimpse of the killer, therefore becoming both the prime suspect and the killer's next target.
Dr. Elliott receives a bizarre message on his answering machine from "Bobbi" (voice of William Finley), a transgender patient. Bobbi taunts the psychiatrist for breaking off their therapy sessions, apparently because Elliott refuses to sign the necessary papers for Bobbi to get a sex change operation. Elliott tries to convince Dr. Levy (David Margulies), the patient's new doctor, that Bobbi is a danger to herself and others.
Police Detective Marino (Dennis Franz) is skeptical about Liz's story, partly because of her profession, so Liz joins forces with Kate's revenge-minded son Peter (Keith Gordon) to find the killer. Peter, an inventor, uses a series of homemade listening devices and time-lapse cameras to track patients leaving Elliott's office. They catch Bobbi on camera, and soon Liz is being stalked by a tall blonde in sunglasses. Several attempts are subsequently made on Liz's life. One, in the New York City Subway, is thwarted by Peter, who sprays Bobbi with homemade mace.
Liz and Peter scheme to learn Bobbi's real name by getting inside Dr. Elliott's office. Liz baits the therapist by stripping to lingerie and coming on to him, distracting him long enough to make a brief exit and leaf through his appointment book. Peter is watching through the window when a blonde pulls him away. When Liz returns, a blonde with a razor confronts her; the blonde outside shoots and wounds the blonde inside, the wig falls off, and it is Dr. Elliott, revealing that he is also Bobbi. The blonde who shot Bobbi is actually a female police officer, revealing herself to be the blonde who has been trailing Liz.
Elliott is arrested and placed in an insane asylum. Dr. Levy explains later to Liz that Elliott wanted to be a woman, but his male side would not allow him to go through with the operation. Whenever a woman sexually aroused Elliott, Bobbi, representing the unstable, female side of the doctor's personality, became threatened to the point that it finally became murderous. When Dr. Levy realised this through his last conversation with Elliott, he called the police on the spot, who then, with his help, did their duty.
In a final sequence, Elliott escapes from the asylum and slashes Liz's throat in a bloody act of vengeance. She wakes up screaming, Peter rushing to her side, realizing that it was just a dream. | murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0435680 | Kidulthood | The setting of the film takes place in an area of West London, in 2002. At a local school, Student Katie is seen to suffer intense physical and emotional bullying by a group of girls, as well as Sam Peel (Noel Clarke). When her Father picks her up from school that day, Sam quietly threatens to kill her if she ever tells anyone. That evening, Katie's older brother breaks into her room to discover that she has hung herself.
The following morning, the students are informed of Katie's death and are given the day off to mourn. Trife and his best friends Jay (Adam Deacon) and Moony (Femi Oyeniran) decide to spend it smoking Weed and drinking alcohol. Alisa, Trife's ex-girlfriend and also pregnant - supposedly with Sam's baby decides to spend the day with her best friend Becky (Jaime Winstone). Becky performs oral sex on an older man in return for drugs, and aggressively coaxes Alisa into doing the same. The boys make their way to Sam's house on an estate to retrieve a Game Boy Sam had stolen off of them earlier. Realising Sam is out, the boys also steal Sam's cannabis and Jay has sex with Sam's girlfriend Claire (Madeleine Fairley). Sam returns unexpectedly, but is beaten unconscious by the boys and knock down Sam's mother as they flee.
Alisa and Becky unexpectedly run into some of Katie's bullies aboard a train. Alisa, feeling bad that she was not there for Katie, berates the girls for the suffering they caused. Becky accidentally reveals that Alisa is pregnant, information that the bullies promise to spread around school in an effort to humiliate Alisa. At the next station, Alisa hurries off the train to vomit, whilst Becky scorns her for putting her life at risk. Having successfully sold the drugs they acquired earlier, they head to a shopping centre to buy dresses for a party later that evening. Becky demands Alisa into buying a cheaper dress, before the pair meet up with the boys. Jay, convinced that Alisa's baby is Sam's informs her that Trife wants nothing to do with her (although he does still care about her). Heartbroken, Alisa asks Becky if they can leave, however Becky refuses as she wants to go to the party.
At the same time, Trevor has gone to see his Uncle Curtis (Cornell John). Curtis presents Trevor with a revolver, the same one Trevor had drilled the barrel for in the beginning of the film at school. Trevor is shown downstairs, where Andreas (a customer seen earlier to of missed a drugs payment) is tied and beaten by Curtis and Trevor. Curtis then orders Trevor to carve a "C" into Andreas' face with a Stanley knife in order to test him. Though visibly terrified, Trevor carries out his Uncle's order, and flees the house traumatised. Trevor desperately tries to call Alisa, but is unsuccessful in doing so. On her way home, Alisa runs into a classmate, and persuades her to go to the party with him. At the party, Becky is stood up by Moony and fails in an attempt to convince Jay to have sex with her.
Trevor interrupts Alisa and the other classmate who are kissing outside, and confesses his love for her. Alisa informs Trevor that the baby is definitely his - she had never slept with Sam. The two rekindle their love, but a vengeful Sam arrives at the party and attacks Trevor. Alisa hurriedly tells Jay and Moony, who intervene to help Trevor. Outside, Sam beats down both Trevor and Jay, whilst intimidating Moony into not interfering. Sam challenges all the other party goers who come out to watch, however Alisa, the only one unafraid of Sam challenges and slaps him. When Sam grabs her by her hair, Trevor gets to his feet and fights him to the ground. Alisa however pleads with him to stop, and he ambles over to her. However, Sam takes this opportunity to grab his baseball bat, and deliver a critical blow to Trevor's stomach. As this occurs, a car pulls up to the party. Brandishing a gun, the assailant demands to know who Sam is - a friend of Katie's pointing out Sam to him when he pretends he isn't. Removing his scarf, the assailant is shown to be Lenny, Katie's older brother. Lenny forces Sam to his knees at gunpoint, and produces the note Katie wrote before she hung herself. Lenny demands to Sam why he shouldn't kill him. With his dying breath, Trevor shouts "because he isn't worth it". Sam is almost killed when he insults Lenny after the latter begins to walkaway, however the gun fails to fire. Sirens are heard in the distance, so Lenny and as his accomplice flee. Trevor dies before the ambulance and police arrive. | comedy, neo noir, murder, violence, cult, flashback, romantic, tragedy, revenge, sadist | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0095241 | Gor | After being snubbed before a weekend-getaway by his teaching assistant, socially awkward professor of physics Tarl Cabot accidentally unlocks the magical properties of a ring which transports him to the planet Gor. After his arrival, Cabot encounters a village being attacked by the army of the tyrannical priest-king Sarm. Sarm's forces are invading neighboring settlements in an effort to retrieve the Home Stone, a mystical object that creates pathways between Gor and distant Earth. Cabot too is abruptly attacked by Sarm's warriors. After inadvertently killing Sarm's own son during the encounter, he is left for dead in the desert. He awakens to find himself being nursed back to health by Talena (Rebecca Ferratti), a scantily clad barbarian princess of the Kingdom of Ko-ro-ba. Cabot learns that Talena's father, the King, has been captured by Sarm, along with the Home Stone. Cabot travels with Talena on a rescue mission to Sarm's lands, where they are captured. Cabot leads a group of rebels in an escape effort, whereupon Cabot is able to kill Sarm, rescue Talena and her father, and reacquire the Home Stone. Tarl et al. return to Ko-ro-ba, where, after Cabot and Talena admit their love for one another, Cabot accidentally activates the Home Stone, and is returned to Earth. | good versus evil, violence, romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0033722 | Hold Back the Dawn | Georges Iscovescu (Boyer) recounts his story to a Hollywood film director at Paramount. He is a Romanian-born gigolo who arrived in a Mexican border town seeking entry to the US. He endures a waiting period to obtain a quota number of up to eight years with other hopeful immigrants in the Esperanza Hotel. After six months he is broke and unhappy. He runs into his former professional "dance partner" Anita Dixon (Goddard) who explains she obtained US residency by marrying an American, who she then quickly divorced.
Georges therefore seeks an American wife, soon targeting visiting school teacher Miss Emmy Brown (de Havilland). They marry the same day. Emmy unexpectedly returns a few days later, but immigration inspector Hammock (Abel) appears, hunting for con artists such as Georges. In order to evade Hammock, Georges drives Emmy to a small village, where they participate in romantic traditional rituals for newlyweds. Georges becomes increasingly bothered by his conscience as he sees how happy and unsuspecting Emmy is.
Iscovescu develops genuine affection for Emmy. However this jeopardizes the plans of Anita, long in love with Georges, for them to work together in the US. Anita informs Emmy of the entire scheme. Emmy does not turn him in when questioned by Hammock, but nevertheless leaves Georges. Returning to the US she is seriously injured in a car accident. A distraught Georges learns of this and jeopardizes his imminent US visa by illegally entering the country to go to Emmy. On hearing his voice she begins to emerge from her coma. Georges sees police arriving so leaves for Paramount to sell his story to director Dwight Saxon (Mitchell Leisen) to get the money to care for Emmy, where Hammock catches up with him.
Some weeks later Hammock returns to the Border town. Anita has a new sugar daddy. Hammock tells Georges that he didn't report Georges for illegal entry and his visa has been approved. In addition Emmy has recovered and is at the border to meet him. Georges sees Emmy happily waving to him from across the border and goes to meet her. | romantic | train | wikipedia | First the lead is French;and in a small supporting part,there is Victor Francen,one of Julien Duvivier's ("La Fin Du Jour ",1939) and Abel Gance's ("J'accuse" 1918 and 1937) favorite actors.Plus "La Marseillaise " in the final sequences.Plus Olivia De Havilland who has been living in Paris for years.Except for Bertrand Tavernier,most of FRench critics do not speak highly of Mitchell Leisen's overlooked gem.This is the kind of superior melodrama I love.Olivia De Havilland is one of the greatest actresses of all time,one of those who never think twice when it comes to playing demeaning parts.She is so moving,so tender and so endearing that beauty Paulette Goddard almost leaves me indifferent.And I wonder why Boyer...The very structure of the film is highly original,being a long flashback,the hero telling his story (perhaps too much voice over) to a director to earn money (but we will know why in the last minutes )because he thinks all his trials can make a great film!Truth can be stranger than fiction cause he is in a film himself!
The subject of the movie is still topical today when you see so many people leaving their country for the wealthy ones (not only America:in France ,Russians and others are actually fighting to get French citizenship).For that matter,one of the peaks is when Victor Francen declaims Emma Lazarus's poem which is graven on a tablet within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands.There are subplots and Mitchell Leisen's talent manages to make them as interesting as the three leads .You may remember the lady who wants his baby to be an American and the way she makes her dream come true,maybe more than Boyer/Havilland's honeymoon.A honeymoon that takes them to an old Mexican village where they go to mass,with a candle in their hand.A scene that recalls Murnau's "daybreak" .Emmy (De Havilland) is a woman who has never known love.She really wants to hold back the dawn ,to make her dream longer than the night.She gave all she had and she 's so altruistic she even returns good for evil.When she realizes that she's through with her pursuit of happiness,she simply puts her glasses.I had seen Leisen's film when I was still a child.I saw it last night.With the same pleasure..
Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland and Paulette Goddard deserve high praise for their performances in this poignant and touching slice of Americana from Mitchell Leisen (who later directed de Havilland in 'To Each His Own').
His girlfriend and ex-dancing partner (Paulette Goddard) convinces him to marry an unsuspecting American schoolteacher (de Havilland)in order to gain fast entry before ditching her.
Colorful supporting characters come to life--most notably Walter Abel as an immigration officer and Rosemary de Camp as a pregnant woman who wants her child born in the U.S. Boyer narrates the story to a film director (Mitchell Leisen) and we see the story unfold in flashback from his point of view.
Charles Boyer, stuck in Mexico due to immigration problems, plans to get into the United States by way of marriage to schoolteacher Olivia de Havilland, who is under the impression that Boyer really loves her.
Beautifully-made romantic drama from director Mitchell Leisen has a complicated scenario which sometimes falls prey to its uneven tone (the linchpin of the plot has Boyer deceiving de Havilland as long as possible, which undermines their courtship sequences with a bit of sourness).
Adapted from Ketti Frings' (then-unsold) novel, "Memo to a Movie Producer" by Oscar-nominated screenwriters Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder; de Havilland also received a nomination, as did the film as Best Picture.
This movie is worth watching for the performances of Olivia deHavilland--unbelievably naive but Olivia has an internal sincerity that carries it off--and Charles Boyer--jaded and conniving but wonderful and romantic, a much better actor than is remembered.
(The film came out in 1941--probably before the US had entered the war.) Boyer is Romanian, a dancer and gigolo who is broke and feeling hopeless by the time he meets Olivia, a teacher who has brought her students on a field trip to Mexico for the 4th of July (which seems like rather an odd choice when you think about it).
The more things change, the more they stay the same.This film is interesting because of the screen play by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, although the IMDB only lists the latter one as the writer.
From there the story unfolds.George quickly learns after arriving in the border town, that because being Rumanian he must wait about 8 years to enter the United States because of immigration quotas.
He quickly learns the only way to make it across the border is if he would marry an American woman, and voila!, Emmy Brown, just happens to come to spend the 4th of July holiday with her students, thus his chance to make it in a legal way.The cast of the film is excellent.
Outtanding are Charles Boyer, in what I feel is his best acting, and Olivia de Havilland who apparently had to go to Paramount to be appreciated (her two Oscar films were made there, and she was nominated also for this one!) is a standout.
A fabulous film with an all star cast of Charles Boyer, Olivia De Havilland and Paulette Goddard.
Boyer plays a man who is trying to get US citizenship, the only way by which turns out to be, marrying De Havilland's character.
One of the all-time great tearjerkers, this film satisfies on many levels: it offers a truly involving and emotionally moving story, an abundance of well-drawn and complex characters, an unusual setting, and three excellent stars (Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, and Paulette Goddard).
Boyer's character narrates much of the film, describing how he woos and weds sweet schoolteacher de Havilland in order to gain American citizenship, and this device allows us to listen in as his jaded, mercenary persona mellows and purifies under the influence of his innocent bride.
Charles Boyer is a Romanian playboy, stuck in Mexico while he tries to get a VISA to enter the United States, a process which normally takes years.
He runs into an old friend (Paulette Goddard) who tells him that she gained her U.S. citizenship by conning someone into to marrying her, and later dumping him.In walks Olivia de Havilland (who received an Oscar nomination), playing a lonely (how?!) school teacher who's taken her students on a field trip over the border into Mexico.
Walter Abel plays an immigration official who's suspicious of Goddard, and then Boyer's motives.There is also a pregnant woman (Rosemary DeCamp), who also wants to get into the U.S., with whom Abel must deal.Directed by Michael Leisen, and featuring an Oscar nominated Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, the film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, as was its B&W Cinematography, Art Direction-Interior Decoration, and Score..
Hold Back the Dawn (1941) is a nicely told romance about a young and vulnerable young school teacher, Emmy (Olivia de Havilland), with a busload of kids, traveling in a Mexican border town during an Independence Day side trip.
Two of these waiters were a dance team, an Austrian woman, Anita Dixon (Paulette Goddard), and her former professional dance partner, Romanian Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer).
Goddard meets Boyer in this border town to tell him how she was able to get her green card in record time by marrying an American and then divorcing him after successfully making it into America.
Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland star in "Hold Back the Dawn," a 1941 film also starring Paulette Goddard, Walter Abel, and Rosemary de Camp.This film is an A all the way - the cast, the script by Wilder and Brackett, and direction by Mitchell Liesen, all great.The story is about immigrants stuck in Mexico as they wait to get into the United States, most of them living at the Hotel Esperanza.
There's a quota, and depending on what country you're from, the quota can mean a long wait."Hold Back the Dawn" is told in flashback, beginning with Boyer, as Roumanian Georges Iscovescu, approaching someone at Paramount, trying to sell his story.
It begins with Iscovescu, a gigolo, in Mexico, hoping to get into the U.S. and being told by the immigration consul (Walter Abel) that he has to wait.His old partner in crime, Anita (Paulette Goddard) shows up -- the two have quite a love 'em or leave 'em operation going.
But she shows up on a school break to spend the week with him.De Havilland is wonderful as a the pretty, naive Emmy, who falls in love with Georges.
Goddard is vivacious and beautiful as Anita, in love with Georges herself and not wanting anyone else in the way.In a supporting role, Rosemary Camp is Bertha Kurz, a pregnant woman determined that her child will be born in the United States.
Walter Abel is good as the harried counsel.The Mexican town and beat-up hotel make for a perfect atmosphere where people exist while waiting to begin their lives in the U.S. A beautiful film with a script by a man who knew well what it meant to be an immigrant, Billy Wilder.
Charles Boyer (Iscovescu) is a Romanian gigolo who applies to enter the US and is told that he will have to wait 8 years, so he rents a room in a Mexican border town and waits.
However, immigration officer Walter Abel (Hammock) is wise to the plan and does not intend to let Boyer get away with things.The film is overlong with certain scenes that stretch proceedings a little tiresomely, eg, the schoolchildren, the visit to a Mexican village and the rather painful reciting of some nonsense on a plaque that supports the Statue of Liberty.....oh for goodness sake.....get on with the film....!
However, set against this, Boyer and Goddard are good in their roles and their performances elevate this film to the score I have given as the story alone isn't fast-moving enough to maintain interest.
But depending on your point of view she's unlucky enough or lucky enough to meet Charles Boyer who is a Romanian refugee wanting really bad to get to this country.Boyer is a part time tango dancer and full time gigolo and his partner Paulette Goddard has already gotten US citizenship by marrying a jockey from Agua Caliente racetrack and later divorcing him.
She wants to resume her association with Boyer professionally and personally and Goddard urges him to romance some American tourist and do what he does best and get married.Which is when Olivia falls into Boyer's life.
Boyer gives a very subtle performance that should have received more recognition.Not to say Olivia didn't deserve her recognition coming in the form of that Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
As is part of movie legend these two sisters were quite competitive and this didn't help the relationship.In fact Hold Back The Dawn got six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, but came up short for Paramount.
Still it's an impressive piece of work even seventy years after it was first released.Also note the performances of Walter Abel as the immigration official and Rosemary DeCamp another refugee who finds her own method of entrée into the good old USA.I hope it comes out on DVD at some point..
Put Charles Boyer, Olivia DeHaviland and Paulette Goddard together in a film and you have terrific, sparkling performances.
These three stars along with Rosemary DeCamp and Walter Abel in lesser roles make this melodrama believable and one of the best for Paramount Studios in 1941.Boyer, a Mexican gigolo, in an attempt to gain access to United States by way of marraige, weds Olivia, a school teacher, visiting the Mexican border town with a group of school boys, in a quick and sudden ceremony.
She leaves him, as does Paulette, only to find Boyer trying to get his story made into a film.
On the contrary, there's plenty to enjoy for everyone, including a story that has taken on renewed urgency and relevancy considering the debate swirling around illegal immigration at this moment in our country.Charles Boyer plays a playboy fleeing war-torn Europe and stranded in Mexico awaiting an opportunity to get into America.
I voted this film 6/10 and saw it with a mixture of enjoyment and disappointment, so felt rather ambivalent about it.First the enjoyment, my prime purpose was to see the beautiful Paulette Goddard (who was about second in the running to play "Scarlet O'Hara" in 1939 - she did have a passing resemblance to Viv.)There were good location beach shots on the Mexican border with the USA and environs of Los Angeles.The studio got away from the claustrophobic 100% studio scenes which for reason of economy were often prevalent in Hollywood at the time.The screenplay had occasional flashes of intelligence in its writing and the scriptwriter remembered to add a line that sea water had to be flushed out of the car's cooling system (which I thought at the time was stupid when Charles Boyer is seen to put it into the car's radiator when the engine overheats).Now for the criticisms, first the dreadful stock interpretations and racist stereotype portrayals of Mexicans (and other foreign nationals) as rather childlike, indolent and rather stupid.I notice that even humble Mexicans doing manual jobs in US films always speak enough English to make themselves understood.Conversely how many American characters in US financed films are seen conversing in Spanish to Mexicans on their home soil?As I am married to a retired 63 year old school teacher, I can assure IMDb.com readers that no single teacher would be permitted to go on a school trip abroad especially without a TA to help.Teachers, far from the irritating stereotypes portrayed by film producers, are usually worldly characters and would be very unlikely to fall for the glib charms of a gigolo.They are kept busy doing lesson planning, meeting Government targets and other bureaucratic requirements,They certainly would not have enough time supervising a school trip to engage in personal romantic dalliances.Just interview any modern school teacher!I did not believe in Olivia de Havilland's character, especially the sickly sentimental final scene when she speaks to the immigration officer expunging all the moral guilt from Charles Boyer.Nevertheless my retired school teacher wife was engrossed throughout the film so I suppose for her it was mere escapism.P.S. she knows about my weakness for beautiful raven haired 1940s film actresses!.
The Looney Tunes character, Pepe le Pew, was obviously based on Charles Boyer and in the film "Hold Back the Dawn" Boyer is at his le Pew best--pouring on the charm as he very aggressively courts a young lady!When the film begins, George (Boyer) insists on talking to an American film director (actually, the film's real director, Mitchell Leisen).
However, later he meets up with an old friend, Anita (Paulette Goddard) and she tells him that he could easily bypass the quota if he could just find some American sucker to marry!
So, George goes in search of such a woman and after a day of searching, he hits upon a lonely American school teacher, Emmy (Olivia de Havilland) who has taken her young students to Mexico for a field trip.
Olivia De Havilland, vulnerable and sensitive as always, got an AA nom for her work here - the film earned 6 AA nominations in all.Immigration problems seem like something from the middle ages nowadays, when there seems to be a turnstile at the border.
Taking Kitti Frings' original story of European refugees in Mexico, Wilder and his partner Charles Brackett constructed the script for HOLD BACK THE DAWN.
George Iscovescu (Charles Boyer)is a Rumanian gigolo who has ended up on the Mexican/American border.
Anita keeps reminding him to go across the border, and send for her, but instead (to her growing dismay) she finds that George is spending all of his time getting to know Emmy better - and actually falling in love with her.
Besides the antics of George and Anita and Emmy, they look at Professor Van den Leuken (Victor Francen, in one of his nicer parts), a minor-Fermi or Einstein, waiting for a college position promised him to be cleared: Bonbois (Curt Bois), a French hairdresser, hoping for an opening in the quota - who happens (thanks to Van den Leuken) to discover he has a secret historical weapon that will open his way into America; and - possibly the most touching figure in the film - Berta Kurz (Rosemary De Camp) a German (probably German Jewish) refugee with her husband, who is pregnant and really determined that her child is going to be an American citizen come hell or high water.
In this case, Charles Boyer is a bit of a shady character from eastern Europe; he is in Mexico and decides to marry an American woman only as a means to get into the United States.
Boyer's plan is to dump de Havilland after becoming an American citizen, move east (she is from Azusa), and continue in his crooked ways with accomplice Paulette Goddard.
Goddard rats on Boyer to de Havilland, but to an immigration official she stands up for him...and then leaves him.
He comes to her side...illegally, and she pulls through and he gains his way into the country...with good intentions.I've grown to enjoy Charles Boyer more in recent years, and while he was right for this part he seems too sedate here, almost as if his heart wasn't quite in it.I recently watched another Olivia de Havilland film -- "The Heiress" -- and it occurred to me while watching it that Olivia de Havilland was the direct opposite of Bette Davis.
It's a very good performance.Paulette Goddard seems to get the short end of the stick here as the self-described "tramp" in the film.
It's not an impressive role for her.Walter Abel, a very able character actor, is good here as the American immigration inspector.
115 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An illegal immigrant, Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer), tells his story in flashback to a Hollywood film director (Mitchell Leisen).
Stranded in a Mexican border town and desperate to enter the U.S.A., Iscovescu romances an American schoolteacher (Olivia de Havilland), and with practiced ease quickly wins her heart. |
tt0101635 | Curly Sue | Bill Dancer and his young companion Curly Sue are the archetypal homeless folks with hearts of gold. Their scams are aimed not at turning a profit, but at getting enough to eat. After moving from Detroit to Chicago, the duo cons the rich divorce lawyer Grey Ellison into believing she backed her Mercedes into Bill, in hopes of a free meal. When Grey accidentally collides with Bill for real, she insists on putting the two up for the night, even over the objections of her snotty fiance Walker McCormick. After a confrontation with Bill exposing the truth of the con, Grey lets them stay for as long as they need when she understands the precarious position the homeless pair are in. One night, Bill tells Grey that he is not Sue's father, he met Sue's mother one night in Florida. After Sue's mother died, Bill raised her himself, growing to love her like his own, thus when they lost their home and money, Bill could not find it in his heart to give Sue up and put her into an orphanage, so he took Sue with him. Grey, thinking Bill has been neglecting and abusing Sue by using her in his cons and scams, suggests Sue stay with her when he leaves, but this only angers Bill, who says that after all the years he looked after her, if he gave up Sue now, people would make fun of her for being on welfare. He tells her that he is not neglecting or abusing Sue; he cares about Sue and his cons are to provide for Sue. However, when it becomes apparent that Sue is completely unable to read or write (despite spelling a difficult word earlier), Grey begins to push even harder for Bill to leave Sue with her. Eventually, Bill realizes that this is where she belongs - in a home, cared for by someone that can give her the advantages that his homeless, nomadic existence lacks. Walker turns them in and Sue gets put into welfare. Bill is arrested, because he never actually had custody of the child. Eventually, Grey gets Sue out and Bill is freed. Sue and Grey return to their apartment, and discover a tin ring (the one which was stolen earlier), which Sue takes as a sign that Bill chose to leave her behind with Grey. (It is implied that Bill pawned a ring left to Sue by her mother, which he would return to her when it came time for the two to part forever) However, the ring is accompanied by a note that says that he is in another room. Sue happily turns to find Bill, realizing that the ring is not a sign that he will leave her but a sign that he is going to abandon his old lifestyle in order to give Sue the home she needs and in order to pursue a romance with Grey. | romantic, melodrama | train | wikipedia | James "Not Jim" Belushi, a hammy kid actress, and a cheesy title in a John Hughes formula.
It's pretty hard not to fall into the story, develop a crush on Kelly Lynch, identify with James Belushi, dislike the stiff bad guy boyfriend, and laugh at the Curley Sue lines.
Writer/Director John Hughes covered all bases (as usual) with this bitter-sweet "Sunday Afternoon" family movie.
Fate matches them with a "very pretty" yuppie lawyer, and the rest is predictable.Kids will love this film, as they can relate to the heroine, played by 9 year old Alisan Poter (who went on to be the "you go girl!" of Pepsi commercials).
We may count ourselves lucky that writers/directors like John Hughes are occasionally able to make their creative voices heard.Whenever I notice that I'm watching a film for the third or fourth time and still find it thoroughly satisfying I have to conclude that something about that film is right..
Fred Thompson and Kelly Lynch play good roles as the upper crust and Alison Porter and James Belushi are a interesting fable like duo portraying street wise homeless drifters.
It's impossible not to love the smart and sweet orphan girl who changes the heart of a selfish lawyer only interested in pursuing success in her career.
This is a very optimistic movie and I sincerely believe that we need more films like Curly Sue.
If you can make the leap of faith required to believe that a successful attorney would actually fall in love with a homeless man, then you will enjoy this heart warming film.Jim Belushi does a fair job, either you like his style or you don't.
I found myself drawn into her performance in a way that was quite surprising considering a film of this nature.This movie is billed as a comedy and it was funny enough.
John Hughes brings us another sad tale of a character, who's heart is bigger than her wallet, or her guardian's brain.James Belushi plays a bum.
Curly Sue is a 6 year old with an abundance of hair and a life as a drifter.
But Jim has an on-screen charm that has gotten him very far -- and he has developed it well over the years.Curly Sue is one of his earlier films -- his weight is a giveaway (ain't that true for most of us?) -- and I like the film.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for the three aforementioned keys to a successful film, but I also like a nice, solid tale like this one.And although Belushi and Kelly Lynch deliver excellent performances, the real star of this film is Alisan Porter -- who is absolutely adorable.I don't know what happened to her career, but whoever is responsible for dropping the ball (agent?
Hi everyone my names Larissa I'm 13 years old when i was about 4 years old i watch curly sue and it knocked my socks of i have been watching that movie for a long time in fact about 30 minutes ago i just got done watching it.
Alisan porter is a really good actor and i Love that movie Its so funny when she is dealing the cards.
Every time i watch that movie at the end of it i cry its so said i know I'm only 13 years old but its such a touching story its really weird thats Alisan is 25 years old now.
I'm not sure if he is 16 right now i think he is almost 18 but thats kind of weird when u look at one movie and on the next there about 4 years old then u when they were only 1 in the last.I'm not sure i have a big imagination and i like to revile it.I am kind of a computer person but i like to do a lot of kids things also.
A review about Curly Sue. My daughter, her friends and I have watched this movie literally dozens of times.
I have to agree with Cal-37 it's a great movie, specially for the family, Kelly Linch is beautiful, the little girl is really talented and cute, of course Jim Belushi has earned his strips!
But want I really liked was the piano song, if you're a musician or not watch this movie just for that, you'll know which it is."You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" Written by Russ Morgan, Larry Stock, and James CavanaughSo have fun watchingSee ya,Nelson.
Curly Sue is not perfect by all means, but I actually did not see what was so awful about it.I agree the story can be predictable, and the film can be slow at times.
Curly Sue also is beautifully filmed, has a lovely soundtrack and the direction is solid enough.
Alison Porter is very endearing and cute in the title role, while Kelly Lynch is sexy and appealing and James Belushi is very watchable as the bum with a heart, and is also somewhat touching.Overall, has its faults but is both funny and touching.
Not a great film but a great family movie everyone can watch and enjoy, nice and heartwarming and clean dialogue etc..
Although the movie has emotional appealing Curly Stooge Sue striking you totally, she is those girls whose stolen your heart,Jim Belushi is no longer a star ,but in that time he was...Kelly Lynch is kindly and has a convincing performance,John Hughes put in several scenes a small gags that could be unnoticed,so pay attention for every single scene...
Curly sue is a good and cute father-daughter partner film.
This movie is a good and cute father-daughter partner film.I watched the film 3 times on Encore on Demand on Xfinity.
This film is not just for kids or teenagers but also good for adults/parents to watch.
Now for my review: The story:the story is about two con artists conning people to survive and they are father and daughter.so its pretty good.i like it.
Curly sue actress:she is a cute little girl that has curly hair like annie 1982 actress and her voice sounds like Mara Wilson(actress of matilda.she acts like annie actress in 1982 annie sometimes in the.film.
Belushi's style of humor is always pretty fun and his circumstances are not depressing in the least, as a drifter with the lovable, sassy and amusing 9 or 10-year old daughter, the title character who was designed as an updated Shirley Temple.
But in this a gag that occurs several times was his being knocked in the face, the ploy that was first used when the impeccable con artists meet the female lead (Kelly Lynch) who plays a (seemingly) cold, career oriented woman to whom they con a bill of fare off of and she turns out to be very caring, but their relationship is hindered by her snooty, contemptible fiancée (character actor John Getz).
After an impressive catalog of modern-day classics with him at the director's chair, beginning with "Sixteen Candles" (1984) and ending (before this movie) with "Uncle Buck" (1989) and not one bad movie within that list, Hughes didn't quite make his winning streak complete with this film.It's not that "Curly Sue" is a bad film.
It's just a film with a noticeable identity crisis, and it's either that fact or its poor home video distribution over the years that has prevented it from being considered one of the quintessential John Hughes classics.A movie about an precocious, cunning, homeless girl who hones her con-artist skills with the help of her deadbeat father invites itself to comedy.
However, it seems as if Hughes focused more on the homeless aspect of Curly Sue, and the film felt more dramatic than it should have been.That isn't so much the fault of the story as it is with the instrumental main title of the movie, composed by Groeges Delerue with an unforgettable leading clarinet solo.
It just did not have the same kind of balance of comedy and drama that the John Hughes-penned classic "Home Alone" (1990) had, and the previews for "Curly Sue" promised a comedy.Fortunately, Alison Lohman was absolutely adorable as Curly Sue. Whether she was in rags or in skirts bought at Lord & Taylor, she exuded a charisma some adult actors take years to learn.Lohman never utters a catchphrase, but she owned the movie.
How she did not elevate to the same child star status as Macaulay Culkin is beyond me, although she fortunately did not end up like him either.Jim Belushi, as Curly Sue's father, was pretty good, although I could not help but think that he was trying to emulate Bill Murray in this movie more so than any other he has done before and since.
It is to his credit that he never attempted to play any of the kinds of characters his late older brother played, but he could have been more original here too.I also enjoyed Kelly Lynch as Grey Ellison, a strong, independent attorney who ultimately gets conned into taking in Curly Sue and her father.
Lynch plays a female protagonist refreshingly unlike many that populate romantic comedies, and its a character we rarely see in family movies even today.I did take issue with the decisions Grey made with her career as the movie progressed and she grew more fond of Curly Sue. She started out with a lifestyle modern feminists could applaud, only to make an ultimate decision that one could say flies in feminists' faces.There are some other areas in the movie where the main characters perform questionable actions, and the reactions of those around are equally improbable.
"Curly Sue" seems to be pretty obscure compared to many other Hughes films, and I noticed a mediocre rating here, so as much as I've been impressed with most of the other efforts I've seen from the filmmaker, it wouldn't have surprised me if I had found this particular one to be consistently boring throughout.
It did look like that for a while, but eventually, that changed a bit.Curly Sue is an orphaned young girl who has been taken care of by a homeless man named Bill Dancer since she was an infant.
However, very shortly after this scam, Curly Sue and Bill meet Grey again, and this time, she accidentally ends up hitting Bill with her car for real!
Curly Sue and Bill find their lives changing as Grey lets them stay in her apartment, but are still headed for some complications.This movie is a dramedy, which means it has both humour and serious moments.
However, I eventually started finding much of "Curly Sue" to be fairly gripping, thanks to the drama in the film, though the humour continues to fail, and there may be some tedious segments, especially the movie theatre one.
At first, it looked like I was really going to dislike the Grey Ellison character, played by Kelly Lynch, with the scenes showing her on the job, but I found that this character soon changes.John Hughes certainly could have ended his directing career with a better film than this, but if you ask me, this one isn't as bad as its reputation may suggest.
Yes, the humour is usually lacklustre, and the filmmaker was well known for the humour in his movies, plus people have also considered "Curly Sue" to be excessively sentimental and clichéd, and I can understand that, but personally, I still found it heartwarming enough to give it an above average rating.
our heroes Jim Belushi, a con-man vagabond with a ten year old daughter, Curly Sue, in toe: helping him scheme people out of money.It's when you see a horrible movie by a lightweight director like John Hughes that you realize his brilliance otherwise.Using the close-up punch in the face gag (think UNCLE BUCK socking the clown) more than a dozen times, and with music so pulsating with contrived sympathy, this Hughes mess (his last directed project) isn't only unfunny, but has no plot whatsoever.But perhaps there's a theme: bums have hearts of gold, and anyone with money can be redeemed: if only they realize the theme of this movie.Blech!.
Basically the only reason I turned it to nauseating-sounding "Curly Sue" is because I saw that it only had a rating of one-star and I was kind of curious as to why.
Various little situations happened, including Jim Belushi's character and Susan going to some fancy restaraunt with his lawyer girlfriend, who somehow managed to offend them both; a Very Bad man filing a false report of abuse against Jim Belushi's character; a Mean Man pointlessly giving Susan a haircut(this is not even shown and to this second, I still don't know WHICH man it was) and Belushi involved in some ridiculous conflict at a jail, where he is trying to locate a ring.Without giving away the movie, I feel I can say that these various problems amount to absolutely nothing and have nothing to do with the film's ending, which is so predictable I knew what was going to happen the second I turned it there.
To give this silly movie "credit," at least its plotlessness and predictability made it amusing in a *bad* way, but it was still very, very easy to see why critics might give this film one-star..
John Hughes' Curly Sue is the film equivalent to a box of chocolates.
Curly Sue starts out promising, progresses pretty quickly, but there are instances that are questionable and not very necessary.This went on to be Hughes' final film in the director position.
It gets to be much and it shows a grand lack of confidence when a drama needs to throw punches.The plot revolves around Bill Dancer (Belushi) and his pint-sized, precocious accomplice Curly Sue (Porter) who go around conning people to give them money so they can pay for their next meal.
They manage to trick bitter divorce lawyer Grey Ellison (Lynch) by using the same practice, and kindly takes them into her home despite her husband's better wishes.Alisan Porter is perhaps the cutest thing in the film.
He should've reminded himself that sentimental kid comedies were a dime a dozen.Starring: James Belushi, Kelly Lynch, and Alisan Porter.
I love the score it's one of most brilliant pieces of original classical music that no one will ever hear because the movie wasn't any good.
Bill Dancer (Jim Belushi) and Curly Sue are homeless drifters running little scams to get by day to day.
Her cold-hearted fiancée Walker McCormick stops her from doing more despite her falling for little Curly Sue. Later, she actually truly hits him with her car.
Curly Sue. This movie is a harmless, fun and a little bit touching escape like a lot of family themed movies should be.
Not a complicated plot or deep meaning or anything just a movie to forget yourself in while you watch and know that nothing scary will happen and everything will turn out all right in the end.
I thought it would be really bad like anything else I have seen Jim Belushi in but it was more fun to watch than you think at first glance.
Well, I've finally seen Curly Sue, the notorious flop widely considered The Worst John Hughes movie.
I'm not really a fan of Cute Moppet movies and find most child actors irritating.The good news is, I found Alisan Porter to be a much more natural child actress than, for instance, Shirley Temple or the girl who played Annie.
I know it's been said by others, but Curly Sue really is an old-fashioned movie that feels like it should be set during the Great Depression (like Annie and all those Shirley Temple movies were).
(Having a rich and poor person fall in love despite class differences, was another common element in films of the Depression, however unlikely this may seem now.) When Curly Sue was released, this sort of escapist fantasy didn't seem relevant to most viewers, I guess.I enjoy many movies from the 1930s/40s and I love Frank Capra...
Personally I prefer uplifting movies with happy endings and I think more films should be made that the whole family can watch together.
However, I don't love Curly Sue - maybe because I've seen it's familiar elements done in many other movies, and done better.
including other John Hughes films, which I've found more heartwarming and humorous than Curly Sue.
(But it's not The Worst John Hughes Movie either - it's better than Weird Science!) Don't let my rating discourage you, if you're also curious, as a John Hughes fan, or looking for feel-good family films..
I don't think anyone will argue that John Hughes is a modern day film making legend especially for those of us that grew up in the 80's and 90's.
I have always enjoyed Jim Belushi and he has had some great films but he never really became a Hollywood superstar.
She of course as a youngster played Curly Sue in this movie so I wanted to see her in it, now that I know a bit about her as an adult.
She is a very smart little girl but without any education, and can't read or write.The man is James Belushi as Bill Dancer and the girl is Alisan Porter as Curly Sue. Working one of their scams, where Bill gets Sue to hit him on the head with a board, then they find an unsuspecting driver in a parking garage, pretend to get hit by the car, in the hopes of getting a meal and maybe a few dollars.The lady they scam is pretty Kelly Lynch as high-powered lawyer, Grey Ellison.
But a day later exiting her parking garage she in fact does run over him, the two end up at her place where she takes care of them.The arc of the story is to see if this hard-nosed lawyer can soften up by her association with Curly Sue, and to see if Bill can straighten up and get an honest job.I must say I am pleasantly surprised at what a fine young actress Porter was at that very young age. |
tt1651062 | Christopher and His Kind | In Los Angeles in 1976, Christopher Isherwood begins writing his memoir. The film flashes back to 1931 as Christopher prepares to leave England for Germany, against the wishes of his mother Kathleen. On the train he meets Gerald Hamilton, an English ne'er-do-well of Irish descent, who suggests that Christopher take a room at the boarding house where he lives. Upon his arrival in Berlin, Christopher meets his friend Wystan Auden, who takes him to the Cosy Corner, a seedy gay club populated by hustlers.
Christopher takes up residence at Gerald's boarding house under landlady Fräulein Thurau. There he becomes fast friends with Jean Ross, an aspiring actress who sings at an underground club. He also begins a tumultuous affair with Caspar, one of the rentboys from the Cosy Corner. Their relationship continues until Caspar abruptly disappears. Christopher does not see him until many months later and is horrified to see that he has joined the National Socialists.
To earn a living Christopher offers English lessons. One of his students is Wilfrid Landauer, the wealthy Jewish owner of a department store. He entreats Christopher to take a political stand against Nazism but Christopher, as an artist, initially demurs. Herr Landauer's home is ransacked by the Nazis and they lead a boycott against his and other Jewish-owned businesses. Christopher last sees Wilfrid when their eyes sorrowfully meet over a bonfire of books the Nazis are burning.
Heinz Neddermayer, a street sweeper whom Christopher espies from a café, enters Christopher's life and they fall in love. Frau Neddermeyer looks kindly upon Christopher but Heinz's brother Gerhardt, a Nazi sympathizer, detests him. When Frau Neddermayer enters a sanatorium for treatment of tuberculosis, Gerhardt angrily advises Heinz that Christopher and Jean are no longer welcome in his home.
Bobby Gilbert, the American steel heir, whom Jean had been courting to take her to Hollywood, departs Berlin suddenly, leaving Jean bereft and pregnant. She pawns her jewellery to pay for an abortion and soon after leaves Berlin as well.
With the Nazis gaining in power, Christopher and Heinz decide to leave Berlin. They travel to England where Christopher tries to secure permanent residency for Heinz. Their hopes are dashed, however, when a passport officer denies Heinz a permit to remain in the country. The couple decides to travel around Europe, avoiding a return to Nazi Germany.
Several years later Jean and Christopher chance upon each other in an outdoor café in England. They reminisce and he tells her that Heinz was eventually arrested and sentenced to prison, followed by a stint in the army. Jean confides that she does not miss Berlin.
The scene shifts to 1952. Christopher has returned to Berlin for the first time since 1934, to write a magazine article. He reunites with Heinz who, following the partition of the city, ended up in East Berlin. He has married and has a son named Christoph. Heinz expresses his wish that Christopher should find a family of his own and suggests that he and his family could move to America and become Christopher's family as well. Christopher refuses to commit to the idea but promises to remain in contact with Heinz. He visits his old boarding house for a joyful reunion with Fräulein Thurau, whose home ended up being in the American sector of the city. She presents him with the dolphin clock that adorned his old room, exhorting him to look at it and remember happy times.
Closing titles convey that the next year, 1953, Christopher met Don Bachardy and the two remained together until Isherwood's death. Christopher and His Kind was published in 1976 and Heinz, shocked at its frankness, never communicated with Christopher again. | violence, flashback | train | wikipedia | Inspired by Christopher Isherwood's 1976 autobiography of the same name Christopher and his Kind accomplishes it's greatest challenge in depicting the events and sights that would eventually inspire 1972's Cabaret, without actually imitating or reiterating the iconic Oscar-winner.
BBC2's first-class feature-length dramatisation of Isherwood's formative years brilliantly presents the characters, proceedings, and atmosphere of 'thirties Berlin in embryonic form.
The wonderfully witty screenplay smartly focuses on the Isherwoods' first travels to Berlin in 1931 and 1933, where both the romanticised sexual freedoms and the threat of fascism are seamlessly integrated into this snapshot of the inter-war years.
Told retrospectively from an aging Isherwood, the film begins with the barely-published author taking the train to Berlin, at the urging of friend, WH Auden.
Wisely, Isherwood is never portrayed as just a writer or observer, only briefly seen at the typewriter, and the film overcomes many of the obstacles in creating dramas based on writers to the extent that the publication of Isherwood's book 'Sally Bowles' remains just a passing reference, and receives little fanfare.
Matt Smith is effortlessly perfect in the role of Isherwood displaying the ease with which Isherwood integrates himself into the sexual underground and 'divine decadence' of the club scene.
If it was Smith's hope that this performance would inspire audiences to temporarily forget about his other BBC work then he has surely succeeded.
If it was Smith's hope that this performance would inspire audiences to temporarily forget about his other BBC work then he has surely succeeded.
Smith is perfectly accompanied by Toby Jones, as his rough-trade-loving neighbour and an impeccable Lindsey Duncan as his thoroughly British mother.
The film closes with a brief post-war reunion between the two former lovers, and the difference between the two is made clear.
Heinz, his German lover, is now married with a child and Christopher, as we know, is on the verge of being embraced by a burgeoning gay movement and meeting the man with whom he'll spend the rest of his life..
"Christopher and His Kind" was Christopher Isherwood's way of correcting what he glossed over in "The Berlin Stories" and this film version corrects the exceedingly glossy glosses of "Cabaret." The real Jean Ross (nicely played by Imogene Poots) was no Liza Minnelli.
It's hard for gay people today to imagine just how loose and louche things were in Berlin just before Hitler came to power.
A somewhat engaging film that recounts the Berlin years of Christopher Isherwood's diary.
I'm not a Doctor Who fan, so I was more distracted by the fact that Matt Smith looks nothing like Christopher Isherwood, nor does Imogen Poots look anything like Jean Ross, but they both give adequate performances.
The film mainly plays upon two brief love affairs and the trials and tribulations of Isherwood's boarding house neighbors, with Toby Jones giving a great performance as an immoral conman with a penchant for S&M-- frankly his character was the most interesting in the film.
In the end, like most biographies, it only touches upon great matters like Hitler's rise to power, the plight of the gay men of Berlin and the coming world war.
Christopher and His Kind is an uplifting movie.
Christopher and His Kind is not a heartfelt, moving film about homophobia and homosexuals being persecuted by the Nazis.
However, it is a movie about a gay writer who travels to a war- torn Berlin all for the sake of boys.
The main character, Christopher, goes to Berlin in search for freedom (and gay, gay sex) from his safe hometown of London giving up being a doctor in return for sexual freedom and promiscuity.
And does Christopher completely ignore this and go on crusading and falling in love?
Yep. To understand this movie you must first understand Isherwood, there is a reason why they chose Matt Smith and not bloody Johnny Depp.
If you want a poignant, moving story on homosexuality in the midst of the Nazis, go watch something else.
This is a lighthearted look into Christoph Isherwood's mind and motives, a biography, not a history book.TL;DR: It's funny, it's gay, it's insightful and inspiring.
If we have to look at BBC's "Christopher and His Kind" only as an informative piece about the Germany during the Nazi regime told by the perspective of a known writer, the movie works perfectly fine; but as an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's autobiography it doesn't go quite right.
I haven't read the book (and perhaps will never do since this is still unavailable here) but I can surely guess that inside of it there's much more than show an hedonistic type who went to Berlin because of the boys and his fascination for them, more liberated there than in his repressive England.
Something tells me that in the printed material there's way more than what we're told on the screen.As a biographic film the story provides some good insights into Isherwood's life and his time, his writing and his passions.
Played by Matt Smith ("Doctor Who") in a quite reliable way, the writer of "Mr Norris Changes Trains" has his fun, good and bad moments just like anyone else, falls in love and has to fight for it; and deals with the advance of the Nazism.
In other words, it's an usual biography film that shows a small period of life of a personality.
But compared to, let's say, Bennett Miller's "Capote", this TV movie doesn't go very far in almost anything (except for some good sexual scenes).Getting into it it's not that easy, the whole "Cabaret" segments are irritating and repetitive; most of the time it's fun and a little adventure here and there, the problems never are presented as something dreadful, dramatic, everything seems to be easily solved for these characters when in fact during the days of WWII things weren't so simple.
But what makes the movie not hold much of its audience attention is to give a deep look to its main character, I mean, what did he learn from this experience and what can we learn from his experience?
He's just a vain figure who wants to share his adventures and that's it?For a TV movie is quite okay, totally watchable, and it's not a total waste of time.
Acting, writing, directing, and production are all competent...and nothing more.Matt Smith's performance amounts to one unconvincing pose after another.
Surely there's a British actor out there who could have made an indelible impression with this part; Smith doesn't have the edge.
Very Poor Performance by Matt Smith.
An otherwise brilliant idea was ruined by Matt Smith's performance.
This actor had just done a few 'bit' parts in UK drama until he was cast to play BBC's 'Dr Who'.
His abilities are fine for light entertainment - but it doesn't make him a good actor.He was clearly chosen to play this role purely because of his 'Dr Who' connection - not for the merit of his potential performance.
He brought nothing to the role of Christopher Isherwood - a rich, complex and intriguing man who was a seminal and critical voice of Nazi Germany in the run up to WWII.
Matt Smith was unable to cope with such a demanding character and brought nothing to the part.
He was also completely 'out acted' by his fellow cast - each and every one of them.Get back to the Tardis, Mr Smith and leave the proper acting to the decent actors out there.
This film if you can even call it is an insult to the work and life of Christopher Isherwood, it's pompous, vulgar and ugly where Isherwood work was subtle, classy, distinguish but still modern and decadent .
The film takes liberty with his life and history that is odious, the acting except for Inoggen Peotts is disastrous, that Guy from Dr Who is trying hard to be an English gentlemen, but he's just excruciatingly irritating to the point you want to slap him in the face, he's cocky and pedantic something Isherwood was certainly not.
The camera work is pretty ugly, interesting angles sometimes, but the grain of the photography is horrible The mise en scene is utterly disgusting and the narrative is insulting to the intelligence of the spectator, you don't need to underline everything in red, we got the message the first time.
Next time someone does a film on Isherwood please watch A Single Man, interviews of the man himself, and Cabaret This so UN clever and clearly cheaply made , made for people with a low QI whose only idea of homosexuality is GAY and Comptons in Soho, pathetic.
OK But Too Who. This is a nicely constructed period piece which is completely watchable but nothing more than what you're probably expecting.(I know little of Isherwood but just from the description of the story I imagined how the film would be and I was exactly right.)Casting Smith as Isherwood wasn't such a great move, especially if you watch Doctor Who. Smith's performance in this film isn't as manic and heroic as his work in Doctor Who, and his acting here is fine.
But he still constantly reminded me of Doctor Who, especially as Doctor Who and Christopher Isherwood wear very similar clothes and have a similar haircut.
And since Doctor Who travels in time, seeing him in 1930s England and Berlin seemed entirely appropriate.
So, unfortunately, this film felt a lot like it could have been titled Doctor Who Takes a Gay Holiday.
Which makes Christopher and His Kind an ideal film if you're a Doctor Who fan who has always wanted to see the Doctor be as flexible with love and sex as he is with time and space..
I don't know why people dislike Matt Smith so much.
I thought he was a very creditable Christopher Isherwood.
And Imogen Poots is a far more rounded-out 'Sally Bowles' aka Jean Ross, than Liza Minelli was in Cabaret.
Christopher and His Kind is a well-produced and acted BBC period piece that evokes Berlin of the 1930s vividly.
The characterizations are appealing and often quite funny and the men are beautiful, with a far amount of nudity thrown in for diversion, but nothing vulgar or prurient.Much of the story is quite moving, the plight of the impoverished Berliners is heart-rending but not depressing.
By now we know about the atrocities and it's good to be reminded, especially in a more subtle manner than usual.This is a fine BBC show and I recommend it strongly..
It is supposed to be a true story that happened to a young man later remembered or rather recollected by the same man grown quite older, some forty years later.
It happens around 1933 in Berlin centering on Hitler's arrival to power.The young English, aristocratic man from England, Christopher Isherwood, goes to Berlin to meet with the young men available there most of the time for a price.
That will lead him to confronting one of his regular lovers and that lover will plainly disappear after that confrontation, only to be met against in the brown uniform of the SA though identified as a SS uniform.He does not understand that in the crisis in Germany in 1933 many young men who had no work chose to make the surviving money they needed by renting their bodies for a short moment to other men, generally older men, for a small amount of money, since they could not rent their bodies to an employer who would make a profit out of it by investing their work in the production of goods.
Christopher does not understand there is no love in that exchange.
Nothing but a commercial action of sheer survival.And the only choice they have if they do not want to go on or to start that "professional" activity is to join the SS, the SA, the Nazi Party and make a living by crushing the lives of others, Jews, merchants, gays, or whatever – mind you not whoever – is in the way of their getting rid of as many millions of people possible to make the misery and poverty of the others just one iota better.He will though find the love he is looking for.
But he will not be able to keep him in Great Britain after the arrival of Hitler because a British civil servant will understand the sexual dimension of the attachment and refuse the visa.
He goes back to Berlin in 1952 and meets the people who have survived Hitler.
Without giving the details of that end, it reveals how deep the uncaring carelessness of Christopher in 1933 has become a selfish nostalgia that turns the uncaring carelessness into a blunt rejection.The film is well done, shows the atmosphere in Germany in 1933, though rather superficially, but it reveals the extreme egotism of that man who only considered Berlin as a hunting ground and revisits it when the raptor, vulture and predator he has been has found his balance in the evanescent scintillating world of Hollywood.A sad, very sad vision of these aristocrats who can do what they want, provided they satisfy their desires in a lower social strata than theirs.
To prison and then banned from proper English society, though the young Lord pays no price, of course not.We have in this film the reverse situation and it reveals the extreme self-centered blindness of the author at the time of events.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU.
I have just watched this film and upon reading the reviews became quite confused since most of the reviews are being considerably harsh, particularly when it comes to Matt Smith's performance.
The atmosphere of Berlin in 1933 was captured really well and the supporting actors were well cast.
The greatest fault I found with the movie is probably that Heinz in the last bit in 1952 looks more like a woman impersonating a man than an aged man.Overall definitely a film I would recommend..
In the summer of 2010 I found myself on a transatlantic flight with a book, "Christopher and His Kind" and, coincidentally, a list of inflight movies that included, "Cabaret".
I had never seen the film nor heard of the book.
We already know them and half of the measly 87 minutes of this film did not need to be taken up by laying them out for the billionth time; and in the most hackneyed ways.
And that brings us to the second worst failing of this film, it's star, Matt Smith.
His Christopher Isherwood is little more than a potted plant with either a winsome or surprised look on his face that alternates A, B, A, B, throughout.
No one who writes as well, or lived as interesting a life, as Christopher Isherwood could ever be so dull.
The actual facts of Isherwood's life during this period is riveting.
I would not recommend this film to anyone but it would be unfair not to mention here that there were several excellent performances in the supporting cast.
Imogen Poots (what a name...) as Jean Ross was everything that Sally Bowles was, and Liza Minnell (according to Isherwood himself) wasn't: half talented and full of unearned confidence.
Pipp Carter with very little screen time as Wysten Auden, made a strong impression as Isherwood's best friend; and depressed, religiously tortured, brooding, confidant.
But it was an interesting and bizarre performance by Perry Milward, as Christopher's younger brother, that stood out most.
Unfortunately, for this film, a few good performances in the supporting cast can't save it from a shallow understanding of the story by the screenwriter and a listless performance by the title character.
If you are interested in this story read the book and watch "Cabaret".
CHRISTOPHER AND HIS KIND is a clumsy look at an interesting man.
Plot: An English homosexual goes to Berlin in the 1930s as the Weimar Republic ends and National Socialism begins.This is rather typical of BBC serious drama in that it has high production values, a youthful lead parachuted in because of his celebrity and a very dull script.
Christopher Isherwood was a rather interesting gay novelist and the period when he lived in Germany was even more interesting as it covers the depravity of Weimar and the novel horrors of the National Socialists - but sadly the screenplay isn't very interested in all that and plumps for plenty of gay sex and clichéd Nazis instead.
Berlin, and Munich and some other German cites were quite tolerant of Gays throughout the '20's and Germany had the highest levels of education in the world at the time.
From this distance it's hard to imagine how the rise of the Nazis could have happened, and movies like this make it real to today's viewers.
Of course opposition to Hitler in the 1930's was not as solid here and in England as is portrayed by most of today's history books.
From the hyperbolic verbiage of Oscar to the sparser prose of Mr Isherwood took only only two generations of Gay literature but during that relatively short time the love that dare not speak its name was being being grasped (figuratively speaking) by the incipient chattering classes and buggery - if "Christopher and his kind" is to be believed - was being elevated to the level of an Olympic Sport.
Mr M.Smith is very poor as Isherwood,inciting no sympathy whatsoever,rather a drawback you might think in a drama where he is the main character and,presumably,is supposed to be presenting a gay man in a positive way.Sadly Mr Smith does not seem to possess the acting "chops" to carry off such a complex part.
His Isherwood is only interested in one thing - and we all know what that is.
"Christopher and his kind" is a missed opportunity to interest a new generation to a minor but interesting figure of British literature whose life surely cannot really have been so proscribed by his sexuality. |
tt0062151 | Preparati la bara! | Django is wounded and his wife is killed when the gold transport that he guards is attacked by the men of his ”friend” David Barry, who wants the gold to finance a political career.
Django pretends to be dead and starts working as a hangman, who spares the lives of the condemned victims of David Barry’s conspiracies. He organises them in a band to ”haunt” the perjurers that sent them to the gallow. This is part of a plan to disclose Barry and bring him to justice. The ”hanged” are supposed to intercept an attack on a gold transport and capture Barry’s men to get evidence, but Garcia - who earlier has saved Django’s life during a fight within the group - convinces the rest of the men that instead they should take the gold for themselves. Garcia then kills the others.
Django saves Garcia’s wife from hanging, and she then saves Django after Barry has captured him. Garcia regrets his treachery, which he explains by the fact that he is poor, and helps Django lure Barry to the graveyard, where Django digs up his own grave coffin and then kills Barry and his gang with the machinegun kept in the coffin. Garcia dies in the fight. Django leaves a sack of gold to Garcia’s wife ”for you and the children” before he leaves. | western, revenge | train | wikipedia | "Viva Django" of 1968 with Terence Hill in the lead is a great Spaghetti Western, and, in my opinion, Baldi's second best film after "Blindman" of 1971.
After Sergio Corbucci's 1966 masterpiece "Django", quite a bunch of Spaghetti Westerns were given a 'Django'-title, although most of these cash-ins had little to nothing to do with the original.
Out of all these unofficial sequels, however, "Viva Django" is maybe the only one that can really be described as a sequel, and Terence Hill's Django-character in "Viva Django" has by far the strongest resemblance to the original character played by Franco Nero.
I would personally refer to "Viva Django" as the third best film with a Django-title after Corbucci's brilliant original, and Giulio Questi's surreal "Django Kill...
Therefore, out of all films that were actually meant to be Django films, "Viva Django" is my second favorite after the original.Django (Terence Hill) is employed as a hangman by corrupt politician somewhere in the old West.
Django does not really hang the delinquents, however, but just makes it look like he does, and thereby saves the lives of a bunch of innocently convicted men.
He then founds a gang of seemingly hanged men in order to avenge the death of his wife, who was killed in the robbery of a money transport guided by Django years ago."Preparati La Bara!" is a great and very entertaining Spaghetti Western, and, although in some parts quite humorous, not the usual comedy many would expect from Terence Hill.
I am personally also a fan of the Bud Spencer/Terence Hill comedies, their serious Spaghetti Westerns, however, are in my opinion their best films, and 'Viva Django' is definitely one of the best films Terence Hill has ever starred in.
Hill's performance as Django is excellent from the beginning to the end, and out of all the unofficial Django-sequels his character is definitely the closest to the great Franco Nero's character in Corbucci's original.
Terence Hill's character is not exactly the same as Franco Nero's of course, and in some parts even very different, but in comparison to most of the other sequels, the resemblance is much stronger.
All things considered, "Viva Django" is a very good Spaghetti Western, and probably the only one of the unofficial 'sequels' that can actually be regarded as a sequel to the original..
One of my favorite Spaghetti westerns is "VIVA DJANGO".
Terence Hill plays Django, a man who's wife was murdered by his best friend.
Excellent Spaghetti Western that never gets boring, full of guns and action!
Terence Hill does a good job imitating Franco Nero.
Really, really good old fashioned Spaghetti Western starring a young Terence Hill as the titular gunslinger.Gianfranco Reverberi's music is one of those old Western songs that just gets stuck in your head.
Great cast too: with George Eastman, Horst Frank, Guido Lollobrigida, and Luciano Rossi (who dies like he does in every other movie).
The dramatics is all melodramatic enough to the point of almost being funny, like with the action sequences where whoever is supposed to win just kicking ass and never getting hit once.It's also interesting to note that this film has almost the exact same structure as Kurosawa's Yojimbo / Leone's Fistful of Dollars, yet it throws in enough variation (and "Django-ism") to retain its own unique and colorful feel.
Much better filmed and more comic book-style than anything in the original DJANGO - plus a lot more fun.
I never really was a big 60's Spaghetti Western fan, but I still liked this movie quite a bit, which definitely says something..
Here is a early film of Terence Hill as Django, the legendary machine-gunning mystery man always bent on revenge.
This is a terrific film and the best Django since the original with Franco Nero.
Terence Hill plays the part perfectly & along with a very good cast.
Great and thrilling Spaghetti Western in which a revenger seeks vendetta against his wife's killers.
This moving Spaghetti packs noisy action , thrills , emotion , gun-play with exciting final .
It deals with a strange gunslinger named Django (Terence Hill) is hired by a political wealthy man (Horst Frank) and his hoodlum (George Eastman) as a hangman to execute innocent villagers accused by the local crooked boss , who wishes their land .
What the governor doesn't know is that Django isn't hanging the inmates at all , just making it look like he is, and using the prisoners he saves from the gallows to create his own band (Jose Torres , among others) in order to take revenge on the governor , but he then is caught up in a struggle against them .
As mysterious Django looks for vengeance against the spouse's murderers and ultimately takes the law on his own hands .This meaty Western contains an interesting but well known plot , violence , shoot'em up and results to be quite entertaining , though drags at times , balancing in ups and downs .
It's a thrilling western with breathtaking confrontation between the protagonist Terence Hill against the heartless Horst Frank , George Eastman or Luigi Montefiori and his underlings who caused the death of his wife years before .
The basic plot is typical spaghetti western fare , but what makes this movie stand out is its style .
The notorious Spaghetti actor , Terence Hill is good in his usual tough role .
The pic is well starred by Mario Girotti or Terence Hill , he began playing secondary roles into typical examples of popular Italian films of the late 50s as sword and sandal epics, comedies, adventures and was with spaghetti westerns that renamed achieved worldwide stardom .
He appeared in 18 films with frequent co-star Bud Spencer , both of whom starred Spaghetti , Fagioli Western , comedy ,adventure and police stories .There is plenty of action in the movie , guaranteeing some shoot'em up or stunts every few minutes.
Baldi was a craftsman who directed all kind genres but especially Western such as "Carambola's Philosophy: In the Right Pocket" , "Blindman" , ¨Il Pistolero dell'Ave Maria" or USA original title "Forgotten Pistolero" , ¨Adios Texas¨ , ¨Rita in the West¨ and of course ¨"Django Sees Red" at his best .
After successful original ¨Django¨ by Sergio Corbucci with Franco Nero , it was followed by several imitations , rip offs and cheesy copies , such as : ¨Pochi dollar per Django¨ or ¨Alambradas De Violencia¨ (1966) by Leon Klimowsky starred by Anthony Steffen , Gloria Osuna , Frank Wolff ; ¨Django Le Bastard¨(1969) by Sergio Garrone with Anthony Steffen , Paolo Gozlino ; ¨¨Django defies Sartana¨(1969) by Pasquale Squitieri with George Ardisson and Tony Kendall ; ¨Ein Pressen Fur Django¨ or ¨Barro en Ojos¨(1971) by Edoardo Mulargia with Anthony Steffen ; and the official sequel titled ¨Il Grande Ritorno¨(1987) by Nello Rossati with Franco Nero , Christopher Connolly and Donald Pleasence ..
Django (Terence Hill) travels from town to town as a hangman, but secretly saves the lives of the condemned and recruits them for a special task: revenge on David and Lucas who are responsible for an attack on a gold transport years ago in which Django's wife was killed.
All the essential ingredients of spaghetti westerns are here, including digging on the graveyard and a shootout with a machine-gun taken from a coffin.
This is almost an archetype for the genre, it surely became a favorite of the spaghetti western fans over the years, and Terence Hill was never a more serious anti-hero than here, even though more and more irony is sneaking in, but that is a development similar to "For A Few Dollars More" compared to its predecessor "A Fistful of Dollars"..
Hill does his best to copy the original performance by Franco Nero, and succeeds.
Director Ferdinando Baldi co-wrote this with Franco Rossetti (who also co-wrote the Corbucci film), and the result is an extremely entertaining film, with plenty of action, and enjoyable performances.
This is nowhere the really great spaghetti westerns such as "Keoma", "Bullet For The General", and the works of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, but fans of the genre will be more than pleased.
This was the western without Hollywood's vigorous airbrushing: Django an anti-hero shooting holes in the Klan and unsavory allies alike, his penitential coffin hauled through the muck of a corrupt post-Civil War society.Baldi is just a hack trying his best.
Haven't you seen all them Spaghetti Westerns starring Horst Frank?
Django finds this out the hard way when, following a successful election for Frank, Django gets ambushed transporting gold, his wife gets killed, and he gets turned into a vigilante killer!
Some of Django's guy double cross him, and then each other, until you stop caring about what's happening on screen and hope that at some point people will stop double crossing each other and you can just get to the big fight at the end.George Eastman is good in this one and has a memorable death.
Terence Hill in non-comedy mode is pretty good (He's basically Franco Nero with a pointier nose) and I'm watching too many of these films now as Horst Frank seems to be in most of them and it's hard to separate what he does in one film from the other.This one plays out like an average Spag Western but there are enough quirks in there to make worth watching once.
A gunfighter (Terence Hill) forms a gang of "deceased" execution victims to get revenge on the politician and outlaw who killed his wife.This film is unique among the plethora of films which capitalized on Corbucci's hit "Django" in that it is not only a semi-official, legitimate follow-up, but was also originally meant to star Franco Nero.
Other than a very brief (10 minute) run-down of the Django films from author Kevin Grant ("Any Gun Can Play"), there are really no bonus materials.
So a must for spaghetti western fans, but maybe not a must for the casual film buff..
A Django film that stands up proudly to the class of the original.
Whilst Viva Django is one of many Spaghetti Westerns to steal the "Django" moniker following the success of Corbucci's classic, this particular outing is a rarity in that it both captures the mood and effect of the original and actually contains the same character.The story presumably acts as a prequel to the Corbucci movie, with Django (on this occasion played by Terence Hill) hellbent on revenge following the murder of his wife at the hands of Lucas (George Eastman) and his gang.
Django was sold-out by his former friend and politician David Barry (Horst Frank).Years have passed and Django is acting as the local hangman, whose job is to execute 'innocent' locals who have been framed by Barry for the thefts carried out on his behalf by the Lucas gang.
Both are unaware that Django is faking the executions, and recruiting the condemned for his act of revenge.Few of these men can be trusted however, and whilst Django's back is turned (during the rescue of the innocent wife of one of the group members from the hangman's noose) a number sabotage Django's plot and beat Lucas' gang to a proposed ambush of a cash shipment.
I shall ruin the plot no more.......This is perhaps Terence Hill's greatest role (albeit in effect playing Franco Nero playing Django) as I personally often find his slapstick styling of later movies difficult to grasp.
Two of the great great supporting actors of the genre.Ferdinando Baldi's direction also merits much credit, managing to both keep the feel of Corbucci's original whilst also firmly stamping the movie with his own "comic book action" trademark.
Shrewd roving gunslinger Django (an excellent and convincing performance by Terence Hill) gets hired by the sadistic Lucas (a perfectly nasty portrayal by the always imposing George Eastman) as a hangman to execute innocent folks who have been framed by Lucas.
However, Django doesn't kill these men; instead he spares their lives and makes them members of his gang so he can get revenge on cruel and unscrupulous politician David (finely played by Horst Frank) for murdering his wife.
Ably directed by Ferdinando Baldi (who also co-wrote the intriguing script), with a steady pace, a twangy, harmonic score by Gianfranco Reverberi (the jaunty theme song totally smokes), a compelling premise, slick cinematography by Enzo Barboni (the gliding tracking shots are especially impressive), a tough, serious tone, well-staged action set pieces (the expected rough'n'ready fisticuffs and fierce shoot-outs are both smack dead on the money exciting while a thrilling stage coach robbery rates as the definite pulse-pounding highlight), and strong central themes concerning honor and revenge, this movie certainly makes the grade as a superior spaghetti Western winner.
Kudos are also in order for the sound acting from the capable cast: Hill excels in a juicy lead role, with bang-up support from Frank, Eastman, Jose Torres as the lethal, treacherous Garcia, and the lovely Barbara Simon as Garcia's fetching, loyal wife Mercedes.
One of the best classic, Django movies.
This spaghetti western written by Franco Rosetti who worked on Sergio Corbucci's original Django, is what you can expect from one of the many Django movies from that era.
I think, personally, this is a film which reminds me why I love spaghetti westerns but also what most of the spaghetti westerns actually were, not all cinematic masterpieces like the works of Sergio Leone, but cheaply made, quite surreal and unrealistic, yet absolutely fantastic and entertaining to watch.
Now one has received the Arrow Video treatment.DJANGO PREPARE A COFFIN begins with Django (Terence Hill) turning down a job opportunity from David Barry (Horst Frank) after saving him from an angry land owner.
After turning down the job, Django, his wife and a small group of settlers head out only to be ambushed, shot and left for dead by Barry's men.
Left while they attempt to catch the men who stole the gold, Django finds a way to set himself free and continues on his quest for revenge against both Barry and the men that betrayed him.The movie offers plenty of action and story, perhaps more than many films in the genre.
Hill is the perfect choice for the role having had success in several other spaghetti westerns before and after, most notably the Trinity series.
Here they limit it to a short called Django Explained" a new interview with Spaghetti Western expert and author Kevin Grant and the theatrical trailer.That being said it remains a quality product and one that fans will want to add to their collection.
Terence Hill is Django!!!.
If you're counting, "Django, Prepare A Coffin" (1968), starring Terence Hill, was writer & director Ferdinando Baldi's second Spaghetti western.
Baldi would later make other westerns, such as "Rita of the West" (1968) with Terence Hill, "Forgotten Pistolero" (1969) with Leonard Mann, "Blindman" (1971) with Tony Anthony, "Get Mean" (1975) with Tony Anthony," and finally "Comin' At Ya" (1981), with Anthony again.
Eventually, Nero starred in director Nello Rossati's lackluster sequel "Django Strikes Again" (1987) that bore little resemblance to Corbucci's muddy western revenge opera.
One of the many "Django" westerns that followed in the dust of the original "Django" was Baldi's "Django, Prepare A Coffin." Reportedly, Franco Nero was offered the lead role, but the actor headed off to Hollywood instead to co-star with Richard Harris in the Warner Brothers' musical "Camelot." Searching for a suitable actor to replace the steely-eyed Nero, Baldi settled on blue-eyed Terence Hill, who had previously been in two German westerns based on Karl May's western novels about the Native American character "Winnetou." At this point in his career, Terence Hill had yet to poke fun at westerns with his "Trinity" movies.
If you recall the original "Django," the eponymous hero desperately sought to balance a six-gun on a graveyard cross in a cemetery so he could kill the villainous Eduardo Fajardo.
Like Nero's Django, Terence Hill's Django is married, but he has been working for a greedy, unscrupulous politician, David Barry (Horst Frank of "The Grand Duel"), but he stops working for him so he can escort a wagon-load of money to Atlanta, Georgia.
Barry dispatches a cold-blooded killer, Lucas (George Eastman of "The Unholy Four"), to ambush Django and steal the gold.
This sounds like what Blonde and Tuco did in Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." However, Django not only allows the condemned to live, but also requires them to join his gang that he is assembling to wreck vengeance on Barry.
When three ungrateful men refuse to ride along with our hero and help him against Barry, Django guns them down in a fair fight.
Instead, the coffin contains a machine gun, but Django uses it to wipe out Barry and his army of gunslingers.
This is one of the standard tropes in Spaghetti westerns where one man wields a Gatling gun or a machine gun against the villains to mow them down.Although it isn't as great as the original "Django," "Django, Prepare A Coffin" qualifies as an above-average, dramatic, straight-faced Terence Hill western with little comedy, but plenty of action..
This is the second in a new series of spaghetti western reviews, my first review was Django, an now i'm going to review it's sequel.Viva Django is an excellent film,although it may not be as good as it's 1966 counterpart, i still enjoyed it and it has a lot of action to keep the average action fan happy.The action includes shootouts and brawls that you would see in any spaghetti western.
This scene is still one of the best parts of the movie, but i would have liked it more if Djangos machine guns was used throughout the entire movie.The main theme,you'd better cry is excellent, Terence Hill is very good,but he's not as good as Franco Nero, i think he should just stick to spaghetti western comedies. |
tt0067778 | Le souffle au coeur | Laurent Chevalier is a nearly 15-year-old boy living in Dijon in 1954, who loves jazz, always receives the highest grades in his class and who opposes the First Indochina War. He has an unloving father who is a gynecologist, an affectionate Italian mother, Clara, and two older brothers, Thomas and Marc. One night, Thomas and Marc take Laurent to a brothel, where Laurent loses his virginity to a prostitute before they are disrupted by his drunken brothers. Upset, he leaves on a scouting trip, where he catches scarlet fever and is left with a heart murmur.
After Laurent is bedridden and cared for and entertained by Clara and their maid Augusta, he and Clara check into a hotel while he receives treatment at a sanatorium. He takes interest in two young girls at the hotel, Helene and Daphne, and also spies on his mother in the bathtub. Clara temporarily leaves with her lover, but comes back distraught after their breakup, and is comforted by her son. After a night of heavy drinking on Bastille Day, Laurent and Clara have sex. Clara tells him afterwards that this incest will not be repeated, but that they should not look back on it with remorse. Afterwards, Laurent leaves their room, and after unsuccessfully trying to seduce Helene, spends the night with Daphne. | anti war, romantic, prank | train | wikipedia | I wonder what Freudians would think of the relationship between Laurent (Benoit Ferreux) and Clara Chevalier (Lea Massari), son and mother, who for half the film are basically on their own as the son gets treatment for a heart ailment.
And it all leads up to Bastille day.Murmur of the Heart is not a picture really bent on anything with a solid plot, as it's more concerned with the kind of European 'character study' (not that there isn't a story there to look at it).
It's really wonderful seeing how Malle directs the smaller scenes, the bits that a director usually wouldn't bother with for emotional sake, or the little bits of dialog that do go on in the real world that don't necessarily have to do much with the rest of the story (one of those is when Laurent is getting washed down with a hose at the medical clinic, and the woman washing him goes on a long tangent of talk, not conversationally, just to hear herself talk).
It could be tricky dealing with such mundane aspects of life such as brothers hanging out and goofing off, but there's layers of masculinity that get thrown in the mix (what are we to make of when the boys measure 'themselves' with a ruler, much to the angry housekeeper's dismay, or when Laurent tries out her mothers make-up I wondered).All the while Malle bases these characters in an entirely plausible environment and with a cast that works very well.
Murmur of the Heart shows in tragic-comic detail the sophistication and lewd sides of the French, and draws a lot to ponder about a boy's crossover in that rotten period of 14-15 years old and of a woman who has the same mixture of unstable emotions and child-like ideals of her own blood that pull the two into what happens.
This is one of my all-time favorite films.Young Laurent Chevalier, his mother & his roguish elder brothers break every taboo known to small-town 1950s Dijon: underage drinking, underage sex, blasphemy, incest, petty theft, adultery, art forgery, whoremongering, drunk driving...
Malle treats their escapades with such lighthearted sympathy & wit you can't help liking them.Before I first saw Soufflé au Coeur, I read a blurb for it in the monthly listings of my local repertory cinema that ran something like this (I quote from memory): "This film does a lot to restore the French to their former reputation for sophisticated naughtiness." I can't sum it up any better than that..
Louis Malle's delicate style of working with taboo subject matter reached a personal plateau with a dysfunctional household in "Murmur of the Heart", an early reach back into his own garden of memories and familial idiosyncrasies that he has stringently plucked from over the years.
It's definitely not about exorcising ghosts of the past but to let them regale us with stories of unforgettable youth.After 35 years, "Murmur of the Heart" still rings truer and closer to home than most contemporary comedies (and even dramas) revolving around the "coming of age" and "sexual awakening" in a young teen.
It's a smalltime superiority complex as he defines his sensitive sensibilities with discernment beyond his years and a haughty disregard for divergent thoughts with a self-important air.Revolving primarily about Laurent and his mother, Clara ("L' avventura's" Lea Massari), it's a refreshing look at a parental relationship based around adoration and fondness (coming under constant mocking by his brothers) than the contemporaneous and contemptuous notion of disdain and rebelliousness surrounding the authority figures and generational gaps.
Its characters place sex and carnality high up on a pedestal, while Malle condescendingly films it as something so pedestrian and run-of-the-mill, not worth the hype and excitement over it anyway.
Louis Malle perhaps has directed his most controversial film about Laurent and his complicated relationship with his mother.
Laurent is truly the film's most important character but his mother is definitely the most important figure in his life.
As he comes of age, she has to grasp with losing him to another woman, the inevitable outcome of any mother-son relationship.
While sexuality is another theme in this classic film, there are touching scenes between the Laurent and his mother.
Malle does a wonderful job of showing the relationships between the family members, helped by fine acting by all, particularly Massari as the beautiful mother and Ferreux as the gawky 15-year old son.
And his mother is full of laughter, beautiful and irresistible.The brothers drink, steal, and even replace a valuable original painting just so they can watch their father's reaction when they casually start cutting it to pieces during dinner.This is the ultimate French counterculture movie.
Murmur of the Heart will remind most of that classic, and, akin to French films such as Zero for Conduct, The 400 Blows, and Malle's own Au Revoir Les Enfantes, it is excellently acted, both by the adults in the film and the children (here, though, they're teens), and it is infinitely more truthful than most American films of the same genre.
Seven years before PRETTY BABY (1978), Malle directed another controversial film about the sexual awakening of a precocious teenager - in this case, a boy.
As with the later film, Malle's elegant handling - suffused with feeling and humor, even irreverence - brings no portentous message and certainly no sensationalism to this theme (which culminates in an incestuous relationship between the boy and his attractive, middle-aged mother!).
Even so, the complicity that goes on here between the boy and select members of his family seems to me to be wishful thinking on Malle's part (who also wrote the script) more than anything else: the boy's sexual initiation is organized by his promiscuous elder brothers and, apart from the mother-son "liaison" - which happens when she's intoxicated and is, in any case, shot in the dark and quite sensitively handled by all concerned - he's compliant of her various affairs, which actually brings him to confess to her that he never loved his father and consequently doubts his own parentage!The acting by the entire cast - veterans and newcomers alike - is wonderful; still, watching professionals like Lea Massari (in perhaps her most important role apart from the girl who goes missing in Antonioni's L¡¦AVVENTURA [1960]), Daniel Gelin (who has aged quite a bit from his 50s heyday!), Michel Lonsdale (as a potentially paedophile priest!) and Ave Ninchi (as the children's long-suffering, heavy-set Italian maid) is especially gratifying.
The best film by Louis Malle ( that's not saying much ) is a story about the awakening, sexual and otherwise, of a scampy 14-year old Parisian named Laurent Chevalier.
He's a precocious teen, and lest we forget, someone is always ready to remind us -- each character sees the same Camus book laying around on his nightstand and says something like "You're a real intellectual!" One assumes Laurent, played with bandy-legged aplomb by Benoit Ferreux, represents Malle as he wishes he were at a younger age.
Not the masterpiece that I expected from an Oscar nominated play, but it was an interesting film.Directed by Louis Malle (Au revoir, les enfants, Atlantic City) and starring Benoît Ferreux (Victory) in his first film as a 15-year-old discovering sex, it it a reflective look at youth in the upper classes of French society.Laurent (Ferreux) runs the table with masturbation, which result in counseling with an all-too-familiar Catholic priest; a rite of passage trip to the local bordello by his brothers, where he meets the typical caring prostitute (Gila von Weitershausen - Malle's companion at the time); attempts with girls at a spa; and, finally, a tryst with his step-mother (Lea Massari).
Realistically told is the tale of a 15-year-old boy from a well-off family learning about love and sex and growing up in general.What makes the film more successful than other similar work, I think, is the appropriate setting of the tone.
Although it is overshadowed by its portrayal of an incestuous affair that is depicted mainly in the film's final quarter, one must understand that this film is more than just "A Portrait of the Incest as a Young Man"; rather it is a tender look at adolescence, an accurate glimpse into the confused, sexually obsessed years of being a teenager.Shot and scripted with obvious nostalgia and a lovely autobiographical bite, "Murmur of the Heart" is splendid in its ability to be sensitive towards some strong topics.
Only in France would an otherwise typical coming-of-age comedy lead up to a tender moment of incest, and perhaps only Louis Malle could have filmed it with such grace, tact, and good humor.
The director's adolescent alter-ego is a gangly, jazz-happy son of a wealthy gynecologist, teased by his two older brothers, coddled by his cosmopolitan young mother, and suspicious of his father confessor's less than spiritual attentions.
A tender, witty and often raw coming-of-age film from Louis Malle.The film follows Laurent, a 14 year old boy, who is coming to terms with love and sex.The relationship between the son and his mother is played with brilliant conviction.The music score has some great jazz on it, from Parker to Gillespie.Le Soufflé au Cour also has a great script, where the characters are totally believable and have depths beyond your average film-fare.
I didn't like the way the film began, and although I kept expecting it to click into gear and improve, it never did.The rather anarchic household was tedious and not nearly as funny as it was no doubt intended to be; but that's not the real problem.The boorish elder brothers deserve a slap in the chops; but they're not the real problem either.The three brothers' obsession with sex is overdone, though not greatly so if I remember my own adolescence correctly; that's not the real problem either.And neither is the relentless "free-spiritedness" of the intensely irritating mother, although it certainly doesn't help the film.No, the real problem is the supposed resolution of what passes for a plot.
Yeah, right.And then son slips out of bed, tiptoes down the hall, tries (but fails, in the one faintly believable scene in this ridiculous sequence) to rape one of the two sympathetic characters in the whole film (the other being the nice prostitute at the brothel), and moves on to spend the night with another girl, a willing one this time.
As if.And finally, when he creeps back to his own room the next morning and finds his father and brothers there, fully clothed while his mother's still in just a dressing-gown, the film ends with everybody laughing.I've got nothing against sex, nothing against nudity, I love French films and I respect and admire Louis Malle.
A French film about the relationship between a teen-aged boy (Ferreux) and his mother (Massari).
Well, I guess more generally it is about Ferreux' coming of age, a kind of Bildungsfilm, because other characters play a part in his development -- a girl his age, a priest and tutor, and so forth.Ferreux and Massari are a little closer, a little more playful together than a boy and his mother should be, and there are little warnings along the way that his budding sexuality is budding in what most people would consider not quite the right direction.
It was bad enough that the three brothers are sociopathic sex fiends--but in the end of the movie the lead character has sex with his own mother (a biological one, to boot).
However, considering this is from Louis Malle, who brought us the lovely story "Pretty Baby" (about an 11 year-old who works in a whorehouse and is the object of desire for an old freak), this movie didn't come as a total surprise.
The main character has sex with his own mother and this is treated in the film like a loving and sweet thing!!!
Can't there be SOME boundary over which you don't pass in a film?!Just for the record, I'm against mother-son incest.
In 1954, in the Spring, the fourteen year-old boy Laurent Chevalier (Benoît Ferreux) lives with his Italian mother Clara Chevalier (Lea Massari); his father, the gynecologist Charles Chevalier (Daniel Gélin); and his teenager brothers Thomas (Fabien Ferreux) and Marc (Marc Winocourt) in an upper-class neighborhood in Dijon.
When the doctor finds that Laurent has a murmur in his heart, he suggests that the boy should go to Bourbon-les-Eaux to heal and Clara stays with him in the same room.
"Le Soufflé de Couer" is a coming of age story with Oedipus complex of a young boy in France in the 50's.
The fourteen year-old boy has an incestuous relationship with his mother; is molested by a priest; smokes; drinks; shoplifts; has sex with prostitute; cheats; drives reckless on the road with his brothers, but all the situations are credible and developed very naturally.
The sexual tension between Laurent and Clara is present from the beginning to the end and Lea Massari is extremely beautiful and sexy.
Laurent is an obnoxious fourteen-year-old boy who has two brothers almost as obnoxious as he is and a father who is not bad in the obnoxious department himself.
Now, in a movie in which a boy has sex with his mother, we figure one of two things will happen: either he will turn into some kind of Norman Bates psycho, or the incestuous affair will be a deep, meaningful, transformative experience for the lad.
I assumed that as a result of his having sex with his mother, he would stop being obnoxious and start being nice, warm-hearted, and loving, just like her.
By the end of the movie, he is still his same old rotten self.Before they have sex, his mother says that they will just do it one time, and then they will never talk about it again.
Of course, the movie indicates that they will forget about the fact that they had sex, because Louis Malle, the writer and director, wanted it that way.
Malle's film was controversial because it allegedly depicts a mother-son incestuous encounter in a positive light, but I'm wondering what film people have seen!
I remain puzzled by the film's glowing reputation all these years, and wonder if it is just because Louis Malle is one of those artists that people feel obligated to praise.
A French coming-of-age comedy-drama I've known by reputation, Murmur of the Heart (1971) by Louis Malle has been on my must-watch list for what feels like a long time now.
Supposedly, Malle claimed it as a semi-autobiography- quite a thing to acknowledge when his protagonist, a stand-in for himself, goes to bed with his own mother!Murmur of the Heart follows the French boy Laurent, almost-15.
Despite this, Laurent and Clara share a bond, and she is more like a friend to her three sons than a mother.Much of the glimpses into the Chevalier household are slice of life, feel authentic and have real humour to them.
They're mean to their servants, but this has a sort of dark comic value as well.The film reaches its special status when Laurent falls ill and gets a heart murmur.
On one hand is the (not so) sophisticated art-house film lover who thinks this movie is a challenging French "coming of age" film.
Make no mistake: if you actually thought Malle was suggesting that mother-son incest could possibly be a sweet, tender moment between two healthy, happy people, or if you laughed when one of the arrogant, obnoxious children wantonly destroyed a Corot hanging on the wall, and if you perceived all of the violent, awkward treatment of the domestic help and women throughout the film as tender or comedic coming of age moments, then you really need to re-evaluate things.
There's no way whatsoever that Malle intended any of the characters in this family to be anything other than detestable -- and it starts with the detestable mother, who damages everyone and everything she touches.
I think Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart is my very favorite French film because it was the first French film I saw long ago and the one that at the time, made a deep impression on me.
I have to admit, the scene where Laurant and his mother have sex was very shocking to me, but I'm not going to let that decide whether this was a good movie or not.
On top of that he has to do this as a fifteen year-old playing a fifteen year-old written with an apparently much older soul.I think the compassion/conflict of the son for his mother is true, agonizing and often beautiful here...but in watching the trailer for this film that came with the DVD, I almost wonder if Malle felt a need to take his memoirs and season them with something a bit more salacious?
From director Louis Malle (Atlantic City, Au Revoir Les Enfants), this film featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die when I read more about it sounded like something with a risky subject, which of course intrigued me more.
Critics obviously had the highest concerns about the incest storyline of the film, more so than anything else going on, but this is understandable bearing in mind the mother-son relationship and the age gap, however it is both shocking and fascinating to watch, it was for me what made the film a very interesting drama.
The movie is well filmed and not without charm and it may have been groundbreaking at the time, but it seems rather timeworn some thirty-six years on.I found the behavior of Laurent and his two brothers bothersome.
A fifteen year old Parissien boy discovers girls of all ages and types, has to figure out what to do with them, and also has to figure out how to come to terms with his relationship with his mother and the fact that she's female too.It's one of those films that's very true-to-life but not something you can really show to someone of that age without confusing them more. |
tt0093164 | Heat | FBI agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is an expert and effective investigator in New York City, but is despised by her allied agents for her egotistical & vicious personality. When her manager assigns her to a mission in Boston, she meets a detective named Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), a skilled but loudmouthed, bloodthirsty, sadistic, hot headed, & dirty cop who is part of the Boston Police Department. Ashburn's ruthless philosophy clashes with Mullin's nefarious style of law work, proved during their attempt to interrogate local drug dealer Rojas (Spoken Reasons) who was captured by Mullins. Under pressure from Hale (Demián Bichir), her employer, Ashburn reluctantly agrees to work with Mullins as her ally.
Ashburn and Mullins tail a local nightclub manager named Hank LeSoire (Adam Ray) to his place of business known as Club Ekko and successfully place a bug on his cell phone in an effort to get information on a drug lord, Simon Larkin. As they leave the club, Ashburn and Mullins are confronted by DEA agents Craig (Dan Bakkedahl) and Adam (Taran Killam), who have been working the Larkin case for several months and are worried that their case will be compromised. Ashburn and Mullins discover a surveillance video in the DEA agents' van showing Mullins' brother, Jason (Michael Rapaport), apparently connected to Larkin's organization. Jason was recently released from prison, having been put there by Mullins to keep him off the streets and out of trouble.
Ashburn convinces Mullins to go to her parents' home to ask Jason for information on Larkin. On their arrival at the home, it becomes apparent that Mullins' parents (Michael B. Tucci and Jane Curtin), particularly her mother and three brothers, Peter (Joey McIntyre), Mark (Bill Burr) and Michael (Nathan Corddry) two of whom have girlfriends, Gina (Jessica Chaffin) and Beth (Jamie Denbo) still resent Mullins for her involvement in Jason's incarceration. However, Jason does not have any ill feelings toward his sister, and tips her off about the body of a murdered drug dealer by the name of Sal Netalie in an abandoned car. Chemicals on the victim's shoes lead Ashburn and Mullins to an abandoned paint factory, where they witness a drug dealer being murdered by Julian Vincent (Michael McDonald), vicious criminal and second-in-command of Larkin's organization. They apprehend Julian but are unable to extract any substantial information regarding Larkin's whereabouts, even with Mullins going so far as to play Russian Roulette with Julian's testicles.
The pair spend the evening bonding in a bar, where a drunk Ashburn reveals that her foster child past may be partly to blame for her attitude. After a night of raucous drinking and partying, Ashburn wakes up the following morning to discover that, in her drunkenness, she has given her car keys to Wayne (Steve Bannos), one of the bar patrons. After unsuccessfully pleading for the keys, Ashburn and Mullins watch as the patron starts the car and is killed by a bomb. They discover that Julian has escaped from custody and means to harm Mullins' family, so Mullins moves her family into a motel. Jason leaves, intending to join the Larkin organization in an attempt to help Mullins solve the case. Jason gives her a tip about a drug shipment coming into Boston Harbor. Despite Mullins' reluctance, Ashburn gets the FBI to take down the shipment. The FBI finds that the ship is actually an innocent pleasure cruise ship. Jason was being tested by Larkin, who shoots Jason for informing the FBI about the supposed drug shipment. Jason escapes death but falls into a coma. A falling out occurs between Mullins and Ashburn, with Mullins vowing to bring her brother's attacker to justice. They then reconcile when they arrest several drug dealers as a way of gaining leads to Larkin's whereabouts, including Rojas.
Ashburn and Mullins go to equip themselves with assault weapons from Mullins' extensive personal arsenal, and infiltrate one of Larkin's warehouses. Despite taking out several of Larkin's men with a hand grenade, the two officers are captured and bound. Julian is about to torture them with knives when he gets called away by Larkin. Before Julian leaves, he stabs Ashburn in the leg and leaves the knife in the wound. Mullins removes the knife from Ashburn's leg and uses it to cut the rope binding her hands. Before she can finish freeing herself and Ashburn, they are discovered by Craig and Adam. Craig begins to untie the two women, but is shot and killed by Adam. Ashburn and Mullins learn that Adam is actually Larkin, who has been working his own case from inside the DEA for several months. Julian returns and Larkin orders him to kill Ashburn and Mullins while he goes to the hospital to kill Jason. After Larkin leaves, Mullins manages to finish freeing herself and Ashburn incapacitates Julian with a head butt, after Mullins had stabbed him in the leg. Mullins and Ashburn race to the hospital to save Jason.
Upon their arrival, Mullins rushes to find Jason. Ashburn, hindered by the stab wound in her leg, lags behind, unable to move quickly. Mullins learns that, due to the foul language she and her family exhibit, the doctor moved Jason to another room in the hospital; she finds Jason's room, only to be disarmed by Larkin. He is about to kill Jason when Ashburn, having had to crawl to the room, subdues Larkin by shooting him in the genitals (much to Mullins' surprise, as she would never actually do so; scaring Julian earlier was only a way of making him talk). With Larkin captured, Ashburn requests to stay in the FBI's Boston field office, having developed a strong friendship with Mullins. Jason is shown having fully recovered from his coma. The film ends with Mullins receiving a commendation from the Boston Police Department. Members of her family are present and they cheer Mullins, now having reconciled with her. Ashburn later gets a call from Mullins to look in her year book. Mullins had signed the back of Ashburn's yearbook with the words, "Foster kid, now you have a sister", showing the strong friendship that Mullins felt for a previously unpopular Ashburn.
As a surprise, Mullins brings to Ashburn the cat that she had found in Ashburn's neighbor's house, believing it was hers. Earlier, when Mullins saw a photo of Ashburn with the neighbor's cat, Ashburn had lied and said it was her cat which had gone missing in New York. Mullins quickly deduces that the cat is not Ashburn's; Ashburn confesses and the cat is boxed to be shipped back, ending the film. | revenge | train | wikipedia | Even though it came out a few months earlier, this great Burt Reynold's obscurity, "Heat," could have easily been a sequel to his other great 80s obscurity, "Malone." Once you changed a couple of small plot points to make the films consistent, you'd still have exactly the same character at the center of each.
Burt acts the same, looks the same, dresses the same, and his character in Heat has a very similar background and the exact same skills as the one on "Malone." In fact, the two films even share some of the same lines of dialog (almost).
In "Malone" the young girl tells Burt's character that he must like violence.
Burt replies that "No, I'm just good at it--there's a difference." In "Heat" Peter McNichol asks Burt if he's a naturally violent person.
"Heat" is basically a Spaghetti Western in the revenge mode.I love both of these flicks and wish they'd get decent DVD releases..
One of Burt Reynold's best performances.
Good Gambling Movie.
I used to be a 21 dealer in Nevada and "Heat" is one of the best films about the gambling mentality.
Reynolds in one of his better roles and Peter MacNichol offers indications of things to come.
Burt Reynolds break's a dude's leg by kicking him, slashes another guy's face with a credit card...and that's just the start of all the fun!
AT the end of the film, he pushes a wall over on a bad guy, inpales on with a medal rod onto a circuit board, electrocuting him...then the best one of the film...he throws gasoline all over some poor shmuck, then Burt proceeds to jump 30 feet in the air, kick out a light bulb, which sets the gas-soaked man ablaze.
The beginning of this movie I thought it was a horror film, a shot following a bloody woman to the ER.
However that set-up with the beat up girl is incredibul...its very interesting how the director chooses to take revenge on the people who beat up the girl...HOWEVER I have seen over a million movies in my day believe me and this is by far the worst ending I have ever seen.
After seeing the movie I was not mad I spent 2hrs watching it because the early action scenes were very good and showing the star with a gambling problem very unique.
We all know what happens to people with gambling problems and you see in the movie.
A million more movies can come out in the next 20 years none will end like this come on...YOUR LEADING UP TO THE FINAL BATTLE WITH a guy who has been in vietnam and is considered to be one of the deadliest men in the world and they don't even fight...you have to see what happens...wow...I can't take it.
This is the longest review I have ever written on this site and I just can't get over how good this movie could have been.
This is a 90+ minute film that doesn't use too many scenes (for some just drag) or story structure that basically goes out the window for the stretch, and we wonder what the hell.
It's kind of interesting, especially Burt losing so bad, it causes the dealer and good friend (Scarwid) to draw tears.
The paper thin revenge tale (oh, yes this from a book) of course is set in Vegas, where a close lady friend of Burt's (Young) has been up pretty bad by these three guys, two real beefy, and we know how dangerous Burt can get when provoked, causing him to do some really serious damage, the other guy, a thin sissy, faggoty type with ties to the mafia.
Him and Burt meet late together in the Mafia chambers, you could say, but prefore to this, and after he does some irreparable damage, he takes some nice bundles of cash, which he gives to his avenged lady friend, who watches the show Burt gives, then skips town, where a new client, (Ally McBeal's Peter MaCnichol) befriends Burt, looking to him as his teacher, trying to make him stronger, than the whining loser he is.
Underrated...as were many of Burt's movies from the 80's.
The movie takes place in Las Vegas and is complex with several sub-plots and character undertones.Burt plays an Ex-Special Forces Op turned gambling addict that hires out in solving various problems for his clients.
Everything from bodyguard to that of playing the role of fall guy for a weakling trying to impress his girlfriend to that of helping a rape victim friend seek revenge against the son of a wealthy syndicated mobster.
There are also profound scenes that depict his gambling addiction.Great cast and acting, decently written and directed, and a music score that captures the appropriate atmosphere to this darker side of life on The Strip.6.5/10Other overlooked winners by Reynolds in the 80's include: Sharkey's Machine, Stick, Malone, Physical Evidence, and Breaking-In..
We also get some memorable moments, one which will not leave my head anytime soon.After the fifty minute mark though the intensity started to die, and with it my interest.This movie is two stories that /mostly/ come together in the third act.
(Shucks, I felt closer to the Black Jack dealer.) Our lead kept sabotaging his own dreams and his character wasn't strong enough that this type of story worked for me.The ending had adequate tension, but not enough to save the movie.The two reasons I would recommend this film are 1) Karen Young's performance 7/10 stars and/or 2) You are a Burt Reynolds fan..
Burt Reynolds has know to be an action hero as well as a wisecracking actor.
Reynolds plays Nick "Mex" Escalante, a former soldier of fortune who is also a habitual gambler in Las Vegas.
When teaching one man to be tough, a call girl named Holly(Karen Young) get viciously beaten by a new high roller(Neill Barry) who is back by a pair of giants.
Earlier, he met a man named Cyrus Kinnick(Peter MacNicol), who knows about his situation: He wants to go to Venice.
When Burt's run finaly ended it was with this movie.
This movie had no script, believability, or good characters.
Burt's hot in this action film!.
Nick Scaliente (Reynolds) is a tough guy who is obsessed with gambling and lives a sleazy life in Las Vegas, working as a body guard.
This is a typical Burt Reynolds action flick of the mid eighties (like Stick and Malone), it isn't Burt's greatest film, but it isn't his worst (this `honor' goes to Crazy Six).
The script was penned by legend William Goldman, so the story is interesting and sustains the attention during its whole running time, although I felt that the film could have been a little shorter.
The action scenes are well-done, and I loved the final showdown between Burt and the mob guys, on the streets of Las Vegas.
The photography accentuates the two sides of Las Vegas the glamorous and the deadly and treacherous sides - the town never looked so bright and shining, kudos to the art director and photography .Burt gives as usual a terrific and powerful performance, how can you forget that brutal scene in which he goes to the spoiled kid's place,full of body guards, and beats them up to death.
"Heat" is an exceptional, vigorous and agile film, that counts with an efficient cast and a brilliant and structured story in a correct way.
In this world where everybody looks for pleasures without limits, Nick Escaliente (magnificently interpreted by Burt Reynolds), a veteran combatant from Vietnam, specialist in martial arts, tries to win a lot of money in the casinos of Nevada.
Reynolds is brilliant, and at the same time frightening as a man who carries inside of him a lot of hate and he riots and he is always ready to explode!the sequences where he avenges the friends' death and he beats to the end his enemies is of a violence and explicit plasticity.
I affirm that "Heat" is a "current" western, because the story happens in a dangerous and lawless Las Vegas, where the smallest negligence can mean the end!and "Heat" portrays this city with fidelity and professionalism, offering a plausible, pleasant and unforgettable show!this film really needs to be seen, appreciated and applauded!Burt Reynolds respects, as always, his fans, and he offers his more common acting: the solitary man, tough, charming, cynic and extremely lethal, who is always in the limit.
"Heat" might be considered as one of Burt Reynold's lesser achievements, when this once bankable star began the slide and the mid-80s showed it, but even though "Heat" does have its issues there are moments where a slumming Reyonlds does shine in what is an entertaining foray.
Sure you might call it a loathsomely dry turn, but those looking for a toughie action piece like "Malone" would surely be disappointed in what is a glum (although there are charming slabs of humour) talky character piece dealing with our protagonist's lost ambitions and gambling addiction.
Although it doesn't entirely scrap the violence, as it does pack a few, very brutal and nasty encounters where Reynold's ex-mercenary character goes on to show how lethal he is with credit cards?!
Loner ex-mercenary Nick Escalante hires himself out as a bodyguard / chaperone on the neon-lit streets of Las Vegas, but he actually dreams of a better life.
But soon his life becomes a deadly gamble when he helps out his ex-girlfriend who turns up beaten, asking for help in getting revenge on her attacker - Danny DeMarco; son of a mobster.
The cast outside of Reynolds are quite capable with the likes of Peter MacNicol, Karen Yung, Howard Hessman, Diana Scarwid, Joseph Mascolo and Neill Barry perfectly pitching the despicably smarmy Danny.Director Dick Richards' lean handling is workman-like without being particularly exciting and it breathes a sober, cheap made for TV quality.
Good use of the Las Vegas locations too and a real saucy vibe to the soundtrack works a treat.
Best Burt Reynolds Flick.
I thought this was by FAR the best Burt Reynolds flick ever.Fine story of a degenerate gambling mob fringe dweller who might get a chance for redemption.Also note the brief appearance of retired Jets Sack exchange member Joe Klecko as a mob bodyguard.
Not to be confused with Michael Mann's more famous "Heat"I thought this was a better film although their plots are different.These pictures are not linked at all..
Why?The movies shows how people with problems on gambling act.
Movie is totally based on Burt part but he plays it well.I recommend that you take a look at this movie and also vote that it should be released on DVD.
This movie was pretty good.
It is a good movie though..
Great Movie, I have watched it many times and will again..
Burt Reynolds played a tough guy with a soft spot for his friends.
Karen Young played a prostitute who I fell in love with, and Peter MacNicol was so good that I looked forward to seeing him again in something else.
This Burt Reynolds starrer had a very troubled production, with punches thrown and inevitable walk outs, it's no surprise to find this is hardly a great film.
However, it's not as some would have you believe, a chaotic turd either.The password is later!Plot has Reynolds as Nick Escalante, he's an ex-mercenary working out of Las Vegas as a bodyguard for hire - amongst other things.
Reynolds was still a star, even if the films he was starting to make in the 80s didn't come close to matching his status.
Unfortunately Neill Barry as chief villain Danny DeMarco is implausibly poor and irritating into the bargain.Enjoyment of Heat possibly hangs on if you happen to be a Reynolds fan, to get entertainment from watching him hold court.
Viewed as a strong character piece with Reynolds front and center it passes muster, but if looking for something more then you could end up - like many already have- disappointed.
This movie needs to be watched for only a handful of reasons.One, it'll completely revolutionize the way you think about how Burt Reynolds can jump.
It's incredible.Also, the ending is so void of substance, that you'll question your own appreciation of time, and ask yourself, "why in the hell did I just watch this." You'll then become a better person and get more out of life.Watch with caution, and every time Burt slugs someone or jumpkicks the hell outta them or throws medallions at their face, yell "HEAT!" at the t.v. It's the only way to go, and you'll feel much better..
Burt Reynolds had made bad films before this one, but he was always able to bounce back with films like Sharkey's Machine (1981) or City Heat (1984), but there was no recovering from this turkey.
It took Burt all the way to 1997's Boogie Nights to make a decent film.
So if Burt makes a good movie every ten years we should see one pretty soon.
Not a Dukes of Hazzard or The Longest Yard, but a real Burt Reynolds movie.
Come on Hal,if you're still kicking get together and bring back the good ol' Burt Reynolds..
This movie has a nice clean story with the right mix of action and talk.
The direction is ham-handed, the script ridiculous, the characters and their motivations laughable, the acting disastrous, and two thirds of the way through the film, just when you think your suffering might be over, it seems to become a different movie!
Burt Reynolds' tough guy is a cardboard cutout of the tired "dangerous man with a troubled past and a heart of gold" character we've all seen 100 times too many.
Peter MacNicol as the nebbish who idolizes him is not just unsympathetic, but actually so irritating I laughed out loud when he was machine-gunned by the bad guys.
So you finally breathe a sigh of relief thinking "ok, Burt's not really a jerk." But then the rest of the film starts...
Why am I watching this?From here, the story is all over the place; and Burt's character is sometimes likable, but often not.
I think Burt's an underrated actor and can pull out some really good films, but this isn't one of them..
Ex mercenary Nick Escalante hires himself out as a bodyguard in Las Vegas but he really wants a quiet life in Venice but lacks the funds.However he hits a lucky streak in the casino while minding a rich but meek businessman who he teaches to defend himself, but his luck does not last both in the casino and out of it.A mobster's son is out for revenge as Nick humiliated him for beating up a friend of his.Burt Reynolds was a busted flush by the mid 80s having a run of mediocre movies and this is really the pits.
The film goes nowhere with just a lot of talking, the action scenes look silly and you know it is Burt's stuntman doing all the work.
Burt Reynolds in "Heat".
Stoic chaperon and bodyguard Burt Reynolds (as Nick "Mex" Escalante) wants to leave Las Vegas and retire in Venice - but he always gambles his savings away.
When he meets computer software millionaire Peter MacNicol (as Cyrus Kinnick), Mr. Reynolds could be on his way to the watery city.
First, Reynolds has to deal with boyish gangster Neill Barry (as Danny DeMarco).
The well-connected little man roughed up Reynolds' call-girl friend Karen Young (as Holly) during a sexual encounter.
Reynolds got even, but it doesn't end there...The opening of "Heat" grabs your attention, but there is some unnecessary confusion because the two women look similar; it seemed like they were cross-cutting present with recent past, making Reynolds' "Mex" look like the perpetrator.
Moreover, Reynolds seems uncharacteristically humorless and angry throughout this film.
Too bad their efforts are wasted.***** Heat (11/12/86) Dick Richards ~ Burt Reynolds, Peter MacNicol, Neill Barry, Karen Young.
Burt Reynolds plays the same character again in this typical Cannon eighties movie.
His character needs to get 100k, so h can move to Venice, but first he must help MacNicol do other things than drink Perrier and be scared of betting money.A girl he knows gets beat up, so he goes to the attackers dressed up in a smoking jacket, and fights them all in slow motion, using a medallion as a weapon.But he struggles to make his money, as he's a compulsive gambler, and when he wins his 100k, he bets it away, because he wants more, and more.But then he gets chased by some organised crime members, the ones who abused the girl from the first act.
So Reynolds must act quick, before Statham remakes it in 2014...I don't care what the film is, but any action movie made by Cannon in the eighties is worth watching.
Heat is not exactly a must see, but in the action sequences, we actually rewound a few parts!.
Nick "Mex" Escalante (Reynolds) is a Las Vegas-based gambler and bodyguard that kind of just drifts through life, going from adventure to adventure - whether it be getting revenge for the rape of his friend Holly (Young) or teaching new acquaintance Cyrus Kinnick (MacNicol) how to defend himself.
He just wants to scrape together enough money to move to Venice, but all of his enemies, especially his latest one, Danny DeMarco (Barry) - want to prevent this from happening.This was the beginning of Burt's "Not Caring" period.
Probably due to circumstances in his personal life, what was probably perceived at the time as just a droll performance, is actually how Burt carried out most of his work from here on in.
And if you can't get enough of the magnetism of Burt Reynolds (not caring), Heat should satisfy that need.
Compared to later outings, he still had a little bit of "care" left in him.Heat is not exactly a must see, but in the action sequences, we actually rewound a few parts. |
tt0140620 | La Tierra Prometida | Steve Butler (Damon) has caught the eyes of top management at his employer, Global Crosspower Solutions, an energy company that specializes in obtaining natural gas trapped underground through a process known as fracking. Butler has an excellent track record for quickly and cheaply persuading land owners to sign mineral rights leases that grant drilling rights over to his employer. Butler and his partner Sue Thomason (McDormand) arrive in an economically struggling Pennsylvania farming town whose citizens are proud of having family farms passed from one generation to the next. Coming from a town and a life very similar to that of the people he is now determined to win over on behalf of Global, Butler tells the story of how his own town died after the local Caterpillar assembly plant closed. The idea of a town surviving solely on family farms being passed down through generations as a viable economy is one that he can no longer accept. He claims to be offering the town its last chance. Butler spends some pleasant after-hours time with Alice, a teacher he meets in a bar.
The community seems willing to accept Global's offer, until an elderly, local high school science teacher, Frank Yates (Holbrook), who happened to be a successful engineer in his working life, raises the question of the safety of fracking during a town meeting. It's decided that the people will vote in a few weeks whether or not to take the offer. After hearing about the vote, Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), an unknown environmental advocate, starts a grassroots campaign against Global, motivated by a tale of his family losing its Nebraska dairy farm after the herd died as a result of Global's industry-standard fracking process.
Butler begins to meet a great deal of resistance in town. Noble seems to be winning over nearly everyone, including Alice. One night Butler receives a package from Global that includes an enlarged copy of a photograph of dead cattle on a field that Noble said came from his family's Nebraska farm. The enlargement shows that an object thought to be a silo is in fact a lighthouse, which are nonexistent in Nebraska, revealing that Noble fabricated his story and deceived the people. The picture was in fact from Lafayette, Louisiana, where Global is in the midst of a lawsuit over environmental complications that were probably caused by their fracking practices.
Butler informs the town's mayor of the deception, who in turn informs the rest of the town. He returns to the hotel to find Noble loading his truck, preparing to leave town. Noble accidentally reveals that he knows the picture with the lighthouse was taken in Lafayette (In real-life, there are no lighthouses in or even remotely close to Lafayette, LA either.). Butler realizes that the only way Noble could have known this is if he were also employed by Global, and that Noble's job had been to discredit the environmental movement and, at the last minute, convince the town to vote in favor of Global's offer. He arranged for Butler to receive the "confidential" photos and engineered the entire public relations effort.
At a town meeting the next day, the citizens are prepared to vote on Global's efforts to buy drilling rights to their property. Butler talks to them about how the barn in the picture reminds him of his grandfather's barn. He reveals that Noble had manipulated them and is employed by Global. Butler leaves the meeting to find Thomason on the phone with Global. She tells him that he's fired and that she is leaving for New York. Butler walks to Alice's home and she welcomes him in. | allegory, avant garde | train | wikipedia | Excellent.. This is an excellent movie about the peasant struggle for land in Chile. I saw it in Rome, Italy in 1975. I can't remember all the details of the movie but I was blown away by the cinematography, the colorful costumes and the Chilean "Nueva Cancion" sound-track (I think by Inti Illimani or Quilapayun whose music was very popular in Italy at the time). It is one of few movies that made such a deep impression that I remember after nearly forty years not just the title and general theme but at least one scene of peasants on horses with an exciting instrumental accompaniment vividly. I would love to know if this movie is still available for viewing by any medium as I would dearly like to see it again and write a fuller review. |
tt0108308 | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III | In feudal Japan, a young man is being chased by four samurai on horseback. As they go into the woods, a mysterious woman emerges from the underbrush and watches closely. However, the samurai eventually capture and take the youth, revealed to be a prince named Kenshin, with them.
In the present, April O'Neil has been shopping at the flea market in preparation for her upcoming vacation. She brings her friends gifts to cheer them up. Michelangelo is given an old lamp (the lampshade of which he wears as an impression of "Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii"), Donatello is given a broken radio to fix, Leonardo is given a book on swords and Raphael is to receive a fedora, but having stormed off earlier, he is never formally given it. For Splinter, she brings an ancient Japanese scepter. Back in the past, Kenshin is being scolded at by his father, Lord Norinaga, for disgracing their family name, but Kenshin argues that his father's desire for war is the true disgrace. Their argument is interrupted by Walker, an English trader who has come to supply Norinaga with added manpower and firearms, and Kenshin leaves his father's presence to brood alone in a temple. There, he finds the same scepter and reads the inscription: "Open Wide the Gates of Time".
In the present, April is looking at the scepter and it begins to light up. She is then sent back in time, while Kensin takes her place; each wears what the other did. Upon arrival, April is accused of being a witch, but Walker deduces she has no power and has April put in prison to suffer. Back in the present, Kenshin is highly distressed upon seeing the turtles and calls them "kappa". After learning from Kenshin of the situation, the turtles decide to go back in time to get April. However, according to Donatello's calculations; they have to do it within 60 hours, otherwise the scepter's power will disappear due to the space-time continuum being out of sync. They bring in Casey Jones to watch over the lair and use the scepter to warp through time. When doing so, the turtles are replaced by four of Norinaga's Honor Guards and are confused at their new surroundings.
Back in time, the turtles awake on horseback and make a poor show of riding their steeds. During the confusion, Mikey (who is carrying the scepter) ends up riding off alone into the forest and gets ambushed by an unknown assailant. The others go to search for April at Norinaga's palace, where their identity as Honor Guards allows them cover in their search. After following one of Walker's thugs into the prison, the turtles rescue April and also free another prisoner named Whit (locked up for trying to start a mutiny against Walker, and who bears a striking resemblance to Casey), but their sloppy escape ends up leaving them all alone in the wilderness and without a clue where to go. Meanwhile, in the present, Kenshin is getting impatient and anticipates a fight from Casey. Casey instead introduces him and the Honor Guards to television hockey, which manages to calm them down for the time being.
Out in the woods, the turtles, April, and Whit are again attacked, this time by villagers mistaking them for Norinaga's forces. The attack stops when Mitsu, leader of the rebellion against Lord Norinaga, unmasks Raphael and sees that he looks just like one of her prisoners. The turtles realize that she is talking about Mikey and accompany Mitsu to her village. When they arrive, the village is being burned down by Walker's men. As the turtles help the villagers save it, Mikey is let out by a pair of clueless soldiers and joins in the fight. Walker is forced to retreat, but the fire continues to burn and has trapped a young boy named Yoshi inside a house. Michelangelo saves Yoshi from the fire, then Leonardo helps him recover by performing CPR.
As Walker continues bargaining with Lord Norinaga over buying guns in exchange for gold, the turtles spend some time in the village. Donatello decides to have a replica scepter made so they can get back home, while Michaelangelo teaches some of the people about pizza and later tries to console Mitsu about Kenshin, whom she is in love with. Raphael also gets in touch with his sensitive side through the child Yoshi, ironically being the one who teaches Yoshi on how to control his temper. Back in the present, the Honor Guards from the past are quickly adjusting to life in the 20th Century, and Casey decides to challenge them to a hockey game. To Casey's dismay, the Honor Guards think hockey is about beating up each other. Meanwhile, Kenshin and Splinter show fear that the ninja turtles will not return home in time before their sixty hours are up.
In the past, the replica scepter is completed, but an argument between Michelangelo and Raphael ends up breaking it. To make matters worse, Mitsu informs them that Lord Norinaga has agreed to purchase Walker's guns and will attack the village in the morning. When Raphael sneaks off to visit Yoshi, however, he is surprised to find the original scepter in the child's possession. The turtles are overjoyed to see it but are angry at Mitsu for hiding it and essentially forcing them to fight her war, however, Mitsu's grandfather clarifies that it was his idea to have the turtles fight in her place.
Suddenly, Whit betrays everybody and captures Mitsu, and the turtles return to Norinaga's palace to save her. After rescuing her, they are cornered by Norinaga and are made to fight waves of his soldiers. The turtles respond by freeing the prisoners in the palace, starting an all-out war on the palace grounds. After a while of fighting, Leo defeats Lord Norinaga in a heated sword duel, comedically finishing him by cutting his hair and then trapping him inside of a bell. Deciding to cut his losses, Walker takes the scepter and tries to escape to his boat. When cornered by the turtles at the dock, Walker throws the scepter into the air as a distraction. The turtles catch the scepter, while Whit launches a catapult at Walker and knocks him off the dock to his death.
The turtles are now ready to return to their own time, but Mikey says he'd rather stay (in particular because he wanted to be with Mitsu). Raphael decides he wants to stay as well because he feels like the Turtles are appreciated in Japan unlike back home. The other turtles and April try to convince them otherwise until Kenshin activates the scepter and makes the decision harder. After a long debate (which included Mitsu telling Mikey to keep his promise about Kenshin returning to the past), Michelangelo reluctantly agrees to go home with his brothers, but just barely misses grabbing the scepter in time. The Honor Guards switch back with the Turtles (all except for Michelangelo). Fortunately, the last remaining Honor Guard activates the scepter and swaps places with Mikey just before the scepter burns out.
In the past, Norinaga admits surrender to Mitsu and Kenshin, and the two lovers share a tender reunion. Michaelangelo, meanwhile, is depressed over the thought of growing up, but Splinter cheers him up by performing the "lampshade Elvis" impression, and the rest of the turtles join in with a final dance number. | cult, psychedelic, violence | train | wikipedia | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III in my opinion it is a underrated solid good sequel to the original flick.
It is the second sequel to the 1990 live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.
STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All CostsA magic sceptor transports an ancient warrior from 1603 Japan to present day New York.The heroic foursome in turn learn they must travel back to the warrior's timeframe to battle Lord Norinaga (Sho Shinoba) and his right-hand man Walker (Stuart Wilson) who are enslaving the people.The only film in the series to be completely absent of Shredder,the desperation begins to seep through at a very early stage.An obviously different,helium voiced actor plays Splinter,whilst we see Raphael adopt a less aggressive nature as events in the film progress.For this,and a fairly engaging script,the film is not a total failure.However,the lack of an engaging story proves to be quite a hindrance.The Turtles were certainly massive in the late 80s and early 90s and in retrospect,you could say good on them for wrangling all they could out of feature film adaptations for the franchise.Lets just say,they were certainly wise to leave it at this.**.
With a little help from the Jim Henson workshop and some well-cast B-actors in key support roles, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film was a major success that utterly dumbfounded the studio system.
While the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will never be confused with the likes of RoboCop, the first film went back to the roots of the original comic book and depicted a world that was, for all intents, rather dark.
The turtles, in their usual confused weird-species adolescent fervour, take it upon themselves to go back and rescue her, because we all know how an adolescent turtle would go all bug-eyed at the thought of rescuing a woman who looks anything like Paige Turco.Elias Koteas, the real star of the original film, gets to jump back in here, but the character he is best known for spends most of his time eating pizza, watching over a bunch of Japanese soldiers who changed places in time with the turtles (don't ask), and sharing conversation with the shag carpet that Splinter turned into.
In this movie, the turtles and April travel back in time, and rather go back to like the time of the dinosaurs, they go back to Feudal Japan in the 17th Century.
The scepter they use to travel back in time was cool.I've read reviews on this film, specifically on Wikipedia where one of the reviews stated that they felt like the movie would only appeal to kids, and not only that but looked like it was written by a kid.
This movie takes us back to Japan during that time, and I feel like they do a great job in brining 17th Century Japan back to life.
The turtles are at it again with their 3rd Turtle movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 but unfortunately, it isn't as good as the first two, the first one was a classic and the 2nd one was very good but the 3rd one is fairly dissapointing, the worst thing about this movie is Splinter's voice was awful and going back to time was a cheesy idea, but fortunately Elias Koteas returns as the immortal Casey Jones although he only gets to appear in about 10 minutes of the whole movie and Corey Feldman returns as the voice of Donatello (he couldn't make it to the 2nd one due to heroin addiction).
And since the second story pushed away from the Comic's original storyline....(TGRI was really TCRI...and was run by aliens from outer-space) There was no way a plot that furthered the story would be any good...unless....they chose the script they chose for this movie.
There are a couple of pros that save the film from being a total disaster, including: the return of Casey Jones (Koteas), who's reprisal may make some fans feel that the second installment had a void with his omission; some fun parallels between 1603 Japan and the turtles' life in 1993 New York; wonderful set production for the Japan scenes; and well-developed new characters.
It's also nice to see the turtles and Splinter are still living in the abandoned underground train station from the second film, as well as Turco NOT suffering a recast of April O'Neal like Hoag did; which shows some attempt at continuity despite its major differences from the first two.
Right from the get-go the movie seems like a lost cause, with the opening credits being accompanied by a ridiculously, terribly unnecessary, spontaneous turtle-dance.
Maybe kids will like it, but me, I found that just sitting alone with my own thoughts are more creative than watching this sad, pathetic excuse for a TMNT movie.
The Turtles arrived in the middle of a war, they have to battle the Evil Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono) and an English Pirate (Stuart Wilson) to reclaim the magic scepter that will bring back below the subways of New York City.Written & Directed by Stuart Gillard (Rocketman) made an enjoyable film that has great action, humour and fun for the whole family.
When your a kid and still hate this TURTLES movie you know it must be brutally bad, which unfortunately it is that and worse.
Pauly Shore, Freidberg and Seltzer, Jamie Kennedy, and Ed Wood all together could've made a better "comedy" than this.Also with writing, out of all the possible movie ideas and Ninja Turtles characters available, they chose to have the Turtles sent back in time to ancient Japan.
The Turtles look like they were made for a children's TV show, not the third instalment in a successful movie series based off a cartoon.
But I feel like I should give my two-cents on the first 2 movies.The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a classic movie for any fan.
1/10 If you want to see a review before watching, or even after watching to find out how bad this is, I recommend you-tube "The Angry Video Game Nerd: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." It gives you a great breakdown of what is wrong with this 3rd TMNT movie while still discussing why the the first 2 are good movies.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is a bad movie with good parts, that's really all you need to know.One of the best things about the film is that the turtles get to use their weapons.
The turtles voices are all great, and Cory Feldman makes a welcome return in the role of Donatello, I missed him in the second film.The film's cinematography is pretty good, the sets and lighting are decent, the scenes in Japan look really great, but the scenes in the sewer look like a set.
Pokemon wouldve been an even bigger success if they had, instead of pasting three episodes together and calling it a movie, had invested the time and money to make a live action film with actors, just so that it would be something worth remembering.
To Be honest this isn't a bad movie i love it it turtles i mean it lucky enough to be turtles not some crappy one which is not the fight scenes are that great but still there weren't very many fight scenes in the first one nor the second but give it a chance i think this turtles movie is for major turtles fans only and besides They go back in time how cool is that even though it not like the game turtles in time it stills a movie that has great laughs and not only does it have great laughs it does have good battle scenes but the only thing that was not good about this movie was that Leo looked like he got punched in the face don looks like he got older Ralph looks like he become a pussy and Mikey well he just Mikey master splinter on the other hands sounds like he has a cock in his mouth and some of the acting well is just plan horrible like some of the japan people but overall this turtles movie to me gets a 9/10 only because i love TMNT and the games and i cant wait for the new TMNT coming in 2011.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III however didn't belong to be in the theaters or be watched since it lost all the darkness of the original and concentrated on cuteness and having children involved.The plot of TMNT III deals with the ninja turtles going back in time after finding a device that takes the turtles all the way to 1800 Japan where a war is going on.
With the turtles in Japan, they befriend many of the townspeople with tough turtle Raphael being a pal to young Yoshi while Michaelangelo finds love.While I was glad to hear Corey Feldman's voice as Donatello after his absence from the first sequel due to the drugs along with seeing Elias Koteas as the crazed Casey Jones, the film wasn't the same.
Like a lot of prepubescent children in 1989 or 1990, my imagination was captured by this new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fad.
Like a lot of prepubescent children in 1989 or 1990, my imagination was captured by this new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fad.
Despite the negative critical reception of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE, the film was still a financial success and another TMNT film was announced, but this would be the last film to be released by New Line Cinema.The film was titled TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III or TMNT III or TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III: TURTLES IN TIME.The plot revolves around the "Sacred Sands of Time", a mystical scepter which transports the Turtles back in time to feudal Japan, where they become embroiled in a conflict between a daimyo and a group of rebellious villagers.The plot of this movie just drives me crazy a little bit, but the story is a little bit incoherent in a few areas, but it can also get really amazing and this movie should have gotten more praise and acclaim that the first film did and I really don't know why people hate this movie.The turtles look stupid as hell in this film and the visuals are impressive, and part of the reason why I think the turtles look as bad as they do is because and they are just fantastic and simply amazing.The music is composed by John Du Prez and it is spectacular.
Despite the negative critical reception of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE, the film was still a financial success and another TMNT film was announced, but this would be the last film to be released by New Line Cinema.The film was titled TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III or TMNT III or TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III: TURTLES IN TIME.The plot revolves around the "Sacred Sands of Time", a mystical scepter which transports the Turtles back in time to feudal Japan, where they become embroiled in a conflict between a daimyo and a group of rebellious villagers.The plot of this movie just drives me crazy a little bit, but the story is a little bit incoherent in a few areas, but it can also get really amazing and this movie should have gotten more praise and acclaim that the first film did and I really don't know why people hate this movie.The turtles look stupid as hell in this film and the visuals are impressive, and part of the reason why I think the turtles look as bad as they do is because and they are just fantastic and simply amazing.The music is composed by John Du Prez and it is spectacular.
The visuals and designs of this film is just amazing and really cool and spectacular.The acting is okay and that, along with the music is what keeps me from hating this movie in the worst way I can possibly can.
The visuals and designs of this film is just amazing and really cool and spectacular.The acting is okay and that, along with the music is what keeps me from hating this movie in the worst way I can possibly can.
Corey Feldman and the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cast returns to do their voices of their respective turtles and it sounds amazing.Paige Turco plays the role of April O'Neill and she does a great job once again.
Corey Feldman and the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cast returns to do their voices of their respective turtles and it sounds amazing.Paige Turco plays the role of April O'Neill and she does a great job once again.
Elias Koteas plays the role of Casey Jones once again and he does a great job once again and he is just incredible this time, especially after being absent from the second film.After this film, another film was in development for a release in 1997 titled "TMNT: The Next Mutation", the film would introduced new turtles, but this project was cancelled after trying to get it made.So, in 2007, both Warner Bros.
Elias Koteas plays the role of Casey Jones once again and he does a great job once again and he is just incredible this time, especially after being absent from the second film.After this film, another film was in development for a release in 1997 titled "TMNT: The Next Mutation", the film would introduced new turtles, but this project was cancelled after trying to get it made.So, in 2007, both Warner Bros.
Making things harder to weigh pros and cons is that for every plus, there seemed to be a minus to counter it.After anticlimactically defeating The Shredder for the SECOND time in a row (the first being from the original), the quadruplet of turtles come across an ancient magic Japanese staff that is able to transport people to another time.
The sound effects also come across more like a cartoon than an action film.Some of the practical effects looked better on our heroes for the third time.
I am a huge fan of the first and second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they were both fun films that even the oldest adult could still have fun too, I grew up with the cartoon and movies, so I just loved them from minute one.
But they find out that they need to help the army against and evil British soldier, or at least from what I've gathered.Please, stick to the first and the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, those are really the worthy and fun movies for the classic cartoon and story.
The story's not bad, and it's good to see Elias Koteas reprise his role of Casey Jones from the first film, but somehow this just does not match the charms of the original.
The turtles find themselves transported back in time to ancient Japan.The best thing about this film: the return of Casey Jones (Elias Koteas).
I recommend this to fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, maybe in particular those who want it less obviously and obnoxiously a "family film", without at all excluding kids from watching.
In this installment of the Ninja Turtle trilogy, the team must use a magic scepter to travel back to 17th century feudal Japan to rescue April who had teleported on accident.
I would've much preferred to see the Baxter Stockman/Mousers story arc brought to the big screen instead of the "zaniness" of Ninja Turtles trying to ride horses.On a positive note, Elias Koteas returns as Casey Jones, one of my favorite elements from the first film.
Back in New York, Donatello and Splinter have determined that the scepter is a time-switch device, and for the Turtles to use it, people from the past will be brought to the present.
The Turtles get their friend Casey Jones to guard the people from the past that will appear when the TMNT go back in time to find April.
They are great movies for kids and anyone who wants to see giant teenage turtles beat up a lot of bad guys.
If your kids love the ninja turtles and can't get enough, then this is good, but if you expect a somewhat decent movie, skip this one..
Not alot happens in this one (the Turtles go back in time to 17th century Japan, have lots of fights) though some of the fight scenes are pretty good.
The movie choice, none of them and instead create a new concept in which the Turtles travel back into time to 1603 feudal Japan.
It's just a harmless and silly little movie about four time traveling ninja turtles...what did you expect?
Yes, the Turtle costumes look cheaper than before, but at least there's no messy and confusing CGI like in the new TMNT movies.
While the last two films convinced you that these puppets were real characters, here they look like the unconvincing special effects they are.There are other reasons "Ninja Turtles III" is considered the crappy one.
Yeah, it's the worst one in this Ninja Turtles trilogy and it is a bad movie.
The thing is, this seemed more like a live action Ninja Turtles TV show from the 90's over it actually seeming like it's a movie.
So, her friends, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, use the scepter to go back in time to rescue her.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) was entertaining--the animatronics were good, excellent fight choreography, it had a nice film noir look to it, and it was fun watching a live action Turtles movie with guys in rubber costumes.
Not this time...The movie opens with a fight in 16th century Japan that doesn't make any sense, then what we get is the Turtles dancing to ZZ Top. No creativity, no suspense, no thought.
OK but not as good as the first 2 Ninja Turtle movies.
This is an OK sequel to the first Ninja Turtle movies, but not as good as the first two though. |
tt0119227 | Snow White: A Tale of Terror | At the beginning of the story, a queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of red blood to drip onto the freshly fallen white snow on the black windowsill. Then, she says to herself, "How I wish that I had a daughter that had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony." Some time later, the queen gives birth to a baby daughter whom she names Snow White, but dies shortly thereafter.
A year later, Snow White's father, the king, takes a new wife, who is very beautiful, but a wicked and vain woman. The new queen possesses a magic mirror, which she asks every morning, "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?" The mirror always replies: "My queen, you are the fairest in the land." The queen is always pleased with that, because the magic mirror never lies. But as Snow White grows up, she becomes more beautiful each day and even more beautiful than the queen, and when the queen asks her mirror, it tells her that Snow White is the fairest.
This gives the queen a great shock. She becomes envious, and from that moment on, her heart turns against Snow White, whom the queen grows to hate increasingly with time. Eventually, the angry queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the deepest woods to be killed. As proof that Snow White is dead, the queen demands that he returns with her lungs and liver. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest. After raising his knife, he finds himself unable to kill her and he spares her life. Snow White is told that her stepmother wants her dead and to get far away from the kingdom as possible. He instead brings the queen the heart of a wild animal.
After wandering through the forest, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarfs. Since no one is at home, she eats some of the tiny meals, drinks some of their wine, and then tests all the beds. Finally, the last bed is comfortable enough for her and she falls asleep. When the dwarfs return home, they immediately become aware that someone snuck in secretly, because everything in their home is in disorder. During their loud discussion about who snuck in, they discover the sleeping Snow White. She wakes up and explains to them what happened, and the dwarfs take pity on her and let her stay with them in exchange for housekeeping. They warn her to be careful when alone at home and to let no one in when they are away delving in the mountains.
Meanwhile, the queen asks her mirror once again: "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?" The mirror replies: "My queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White beyond the mountains at the Seven Dwarfs is a thousand times more beautiful than you". The queen is horrified to learn that the huntsman has betrayed her and that Snow White is still alive. Planning to kill Snow White, the queen disguises herself as an old peddler. The queen appears at the dwarfs' cottage and offers Snow White colorful, silky laced bodices and convinces Snow White to take the most beautiful laces as a present. Then the queen laces her up so tightly that Snow White faints, causing the queen to leave her for dead. But the dwarfs return just in time, and Snow White revives when the dwarfs loosen the laces.
The queen then consults her magic mirror again, and the mirror reveals Snow White's survival. The queen dresses as a comb seller and convinces Snow White to take a beautiful comb as a present. She brushes Snow White's hair with the poisoned comb and the girl faints again. She is again revived by the dwarfs when they remove the comb from her hair. When the mirror again indicates that Snow White still lives, the queen makes a third and final attempt on Snow White by disguising herself as a farmer's wife, an offering a poisoned apple to her. The girl is at first hesitant to accept it, so the queen cuts the apple in half, eating the white (harmless) half and giving the red poisoned half to Snow White. The girl eagerly takes a bite and falls into a state of suspended animation. This time, the dwarfs are unable to revive Snow White. Assuming that she is dead, they place her in a glass casket.
After a short period of time, a prince traveling through the land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin. Enchanted by her beauty, he instantly falls in love with her. The seven dwarfs succumb to his entreaties to let him have Snow White. The moment he lifts the coffin to carry it away, the piece of poisoned apple falls from between her lips and Snow White awakens saying "Where am I?" The Prince then declares his love for her and soon a wedding is planned. Snow White and the prince invite everyone to come to their wedding party, including Snow White's stepmother.
Meanwhile, the queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, again asks her magic mirror who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says: "Thou, lady, art loveliest here, I ween; but lovelier far is the new-made queen", which enrages the queen. Not knowing that the Prince's bride is her stepdaughter, the queen arrives at the wedding and sees that the bride is Snow White, whom she thought dead. She chokes with rage, falls down, and dies. Snow White and the prince reign happily over the land for many, many years and sometimes traveling into the mountains and visiting the dwarfs, who had been so kind to Snow White. | dark, fantasy, gothic, murder, cult, flashback, good versus evil | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0057916 | A Carol for Another Christmas | On Christmas Eve, Daniel Grudge (Hayden), a rich American industrialist, sits alone in a dark room of his mansion playing a record of a World War II-era popular song, "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)" by The Andrews Sisters. He looks at a framed display of war medals on the wall and seems about to cry. He shuts off the player, but as he leaves the room, he hears the record start to play again of its own accord, although the record player is still shut off. Downstairs, he meets a visitor, his nephew Fred (Gazzara). Grudge caustically notes that Fred always comes to him for help with various causes and asks what cause he is promoting this time. Fred complains that Grudge used his influence to cancel a "cultural exchange" program that Fred's university had planned with a Polish counterpart. In the ensuing argument with Fred, Grudge takes the isolationist position that the United States should stay out of international affairs, and not participate in cultural exchange programs, foreign aid to the needy, or discussions at the United Nations. Grudge distrusts foreign countries, and contends that the U.S. should build up its arsenal, including nuclear weapons, and make sure other countries know the U.S. is willing to use them. Fred disagrees, arguing that the U.S. should help all people in need and foster international communication in order to avoid future wars and nuclear destruction. As Fred leaves, he reminds his uncle that they have one thing in common: their love for Grudge's son Marley, who was killed in WWII twenty years earlier, on Christmas Eve 1944.
After Fred leaves, Grudge once again hears the record playing upstairs, and sees a short vision of the deceased Marley sitting at the dining room table. Suddenly Grudge finds himself aboard a World War I-era troopship, which is carrying many coffins. A soldier on board introduces himself as the Ghost of Christmas Past (Lawrence) and explains that the ship is carrying the dead of all nations and from all past wars, with more war dead arriving even as he speaks. The Ghost suggests that the way to stop the killing is to spend more time talking to resolve conflicts, since when talking stops, fighting starts. He and Grudge revisit a scene from Grudge's past in which Grudge, a Navy commander, accompanied by his WAVE driver (Saint), visited a hospital in devastated Hiroshima and saw Japanese schoolchildren whose faces had been destroyed by the atom bomb.
Grudge walks through a door and meets the Ghost of Christmas Present (Hingle), who is feasting on an excessively large Christmas dinner on Grudge's dining table under Grudge's chandelier. This new Ghost turns on a light and shows Grudge that right next to the dining room is an internment camp full of displaced persons from different nations who are poor, hungry and lacking adequate shelter. These people search through the snow for food as the Ghost eats in front of them. When Grudge criticizes the Ghost for this behavior, the Ghost reminds Grudge of his earlier statement to Fred that refusing donations to the needy would make them less needy and more self-reliant. The Ghost harangues Grudge with statistics and information about needy people in the world and finally in a fit of anger pulls the tablecloth, dumping huge amounts of leftover food on the floor. Grudge cannot stand any more and runs away into the dark.
Grudge emerges into destroyed ruins that he recognizes as having been his local town hall, where he encounters the Ghost of Christmas Future (Shaw). This Ghost explains that the town hall was wrecked in a disastrous nuclear conflict that also annihilated most of the world's people. A handful of survivors enter and prepare for a meeting. Their leader is a demagogue called "Imperial Me" (Sellers) who wears a Pilgrim suit and a cowboy hat cut into a crown. The crowd cheers as Imperial Me is paraded in and gives a speech exhorting each person to act as an individual in his or her own self-interest. Grudge watches his butler, Charles (Rodriguez), try unsuccessfully to convince the crowd that acting collectively for the greater good of all is essential for humanity's survival. Imperial Me and the crowd mock Charles as crazy and beat him. Finally Imperial Me has Charles brought forward and charges him with treason. Charles tries to escape and is shot dead by a little boy in a cowboy outfit. Grudge's cook Ruby (Teer) weeps over Charles' body, while the crowd, led by Imperial Me, enthusiastically prepares to first kill the people across the river who had approached them wanting to talk, and then kill off each other until only one person is left. An agitated Grudge asks the Ghost if this is the world "as it must be, or as it might be". The Ghost doesn't answer and leaves Grudge in the ruins of his own study.
A shaken Grudge awakens back in the real world on Christmas morning, on the floor of his (intact) study with the phone in his hand. His nephew Fred appears and says that Grudge called him at 3 a.m. and asked him to stop by on his way to church. Grudge apologizes to Fred for his statements of the previous evening and, without explaining the reason for his change of heart, indicates cautious support for the United Nations and international diplomacy as a way to prevent future wars. Grudge further shows his new internationalism by enjoying a radio broadcast of the children of UN delegates singing Christmas carols in their native languages. Fred leaves and Grudge, rather than have Charles serve him on a tray as usual, goes into the kitchen to have his Christmas morning coffee with Charles and Ruby. | anti war | train | wikipedia | Part of its financing came from the United Nations and the theme of the film is more about international cooperation than simply being anti-war.Sterling Hayden portrays a wealthy man who served in the Navy during World War II and is now a lonely bitter man upset over his son's death in a war he described as needless, presumably in Korea.
Coming right before the U.S. racheted up its involvement in Vietnam, it is easy to understand why this film didn't get shown again.The visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future (Robert Shaw) is the most frightening part of the film.
I remember there were threats of boycotts and protests against the politics of this work, which really express just basic humanitarianism, with some liberal fear of nuclear destruction.Three memories of this production: James Shigeta, playing a doctor in post-nuclear Hiroshima, answers the Scrooge character's (Sterling Hayden) cliched comment about nuclear-damaged girls (singing, with cloth over their scarred faces).
(I recall a second UN/Xerox special, with Theo Bikel playing a leader of refugees on a ship, but it wasn't nearly as good).Political and marketing restrictions cost us dearly when more efforts like "Carol for Another Christmas" were not made..
I remember it vividly from its original broadcast: a venal Pat Hingle devouring a huge turkey leg surrounded by starving refugees; the sweet voices coming from little girls scarred by the atomic blast at Hiroshima, their faces covered with gauze; the demented "Imperial Me" Peter Sellars addressing his crazed flock in a burned out cathedral after the nuclear holocaust of the future; Sterling Hayden, a modern Scrooge, his voice changing from booming commands to whimpering as he is led past the succession of proof of man's inhumanity to man.I saw this again at the Museum of Broadcasting in NYC and I was not disappointed.
It is my understanding that Rod Serling's Carol for Another Christmas was only shown once, and the print is now owned by one of the schools of filmmaking.This is a tale of the Cold War.
Rod Serling (writer of the Twilight Zone series) wonders what the Christmas Carol would have been like if Scrooge lived in this world.Even though I was quite young at the time this show played there are scenes that I can remember clearly.
He's the last of the isolationists and wants no foreign involvement anywhere period including humanitarian aid.The error of his ways is told to him by those spirits of Christmas past, present and future.
And if you know the Dickens story and how many in the English speaking world have never heard of it than you pretty much know what the story is.If this had been done in 1944 when Hayden's son was killed, a lot of people invested their hopes and dreams in a new world organization to come, the planning of which was undertaken even while the guns were still blazing in battle.
This is a redoing of the Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol", but this time it is a wealthy industrialist, Mr. Grudge (Sterling Hayden) who is supposed to be the stand-in Mr. Scrooge, in need of a lesson about loving mankind.But it comes out in the first conversation with Grudge's nephew, Fred (Ben Gazzara), that Grudge is a patriot AND an isolationist...even in respect to WWII!
We also learn that "Marley", in this Christmas Carol tale, is Grudge's son who was killed in a war in a foreign land, and is largely the reason for Grudge's isolationism.
In fact he was 48 himself when this was made.The last part, about "Christmas Future", has Peter Sellers doing a bizarre part as some kind of evangelist of selfishness, and the performance itself is worth the price of admission, but in context it just does not make sense.Even though this whole thing is a bit of a mess - including insinuating that we should just trust the Communists in eastern Europe and Russia at the time in spite of their past actions - it is a product of a huge fear of nuclear war in 1964 and that this war might start even accidentally.
The younger Grudge obliges; he still has a heart.Pat Hingle is Ghost Present, an over-sated, uncaring man who feasts while millions of war- displaced people remain starving within barbed wire fencing.
This development would have disgusted the vast majority of Americans in 1964, who would have answered Daniel Grudge's (Sterling Hayden) question to The Ghost of Christmas Future (Robert Shaw) - 'must it be like this?' - in the negative.
However, when you see it today, it comes off as silly, heavy-handed and incredibly naive.Rod Serling used Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" as a starting point for this film.
Made just after the financial disaster of "Cleopatra" -one of the most unfairly underrated movies of all time,at least in its four-hour version-by Mankiewicz.It's an updated Dickens' "a Xmas carol" with a "modern " uncle Scroodge ;one can notice that the "don't be selfish,open up,don't get caught up in the "me" machine was also treated by Frank Capra in his (certainly more palatable) "it's a wonderful life" .This is a movie which concerns today's audience ,in spite of its dated details ;more than ever we must help our fellow men and not hide our heads in the sand even when we feel like letting everything down.When the second ghost talks about the hungry people in the world,he's speaking to all of us;it's not surprising that the only man who rebels against the Imperial Me is a black man (and his wife).There's a stellar cast featuring Sterling Hayden as the lead and Eva Marie-Saint,Robert Shaw,Ben Gazarra as the nephew ,Peter Sellers and more ....
Since this isn't the first film w/ its history to turn out this way, it's becoming evident that believability was less important than rote facts being stated on screen.By the end of the movie, I wanted to take Peter Sellers' "Giant Economy Size" tin can gavel and knock some sense into it.
In 1964 I was excited that it represented the pairing of a noted film director, Joseph Mankiewicz, fresh off his frustrating experience directing the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton Cleopatra (1963), and Rod Serling, fresh from the CBS TV series, The Twilight Zone (1959-1963), which he had created, wrote for, and hosted.
As the title suggests, it was a modern version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.It had an all-star cast: Sterling Hayden as the Scrooge character called Grudge, Pat Hingle as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Steve Lawrence as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Eva Marie Saint as an nurse from Grudge's past, Robert Shaw as the Ghost of Christmas Future, and Peter Fonda, son of Henry Fonda, as Grudge's nephew.
He would then co-star with Hayden in Dr. Strangelove.The filmmakers even went to the trouble of reuniting the Andrew Sisters to re-record their 1942 hit number "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree," which is only heard in the film when a ghostly record player suddenly starts playing the recording, until Grudge pulls the needle off after a few seconds.On its website, Turner Classic Movies invites you to tell it what little-seen films you would like them to show, and I kept writing in Carol for Another Christmas.
Serling's screenplay for Seven Days in May the same year as Carol also has long stretches of dialog, but it was propelled forward by director John Frankenheimer, who plays with images within images, especially by showing television monitors all around, and a really top-notch cast.Mankiewicz loved to hear his characters talk too, as his screenplays for All About Eve, Letter to Three Wives, and certainly the four-hour Cleopatra show.
And so Serling had to tell the story not only of a man who hated Christmas but of a man whose war experience--and the death of his nephew on Christmas--caused him to become an isolationist and to resist the idea that nations and peoples can come together by talking.
The two different concepts--I hate Christmas because I remember sad Christmases of my past, and I hate Christmas because it reminds me of war and I think our country should just stay to itself--do not really mesh.The film only comes to life at the end in the apocalyptic landscape Serling was familiar with from The Twilight Zone, with Shaw as a well-spoken specter and Sellers as a crazy leader of the survivors of nuclear war.
If you've watched Twilight Zone and Night Gallery (and I've seen them all), you know that when Rod Serling had a point to make, he could be very heavy-handed, obvious, and preachy.
THE REASON WHY I REVIEW THEM IS TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT I HAVE SEEN!In Rod Serling's update of Charles Dickens, industrial tycoon Daniel Grudge has never recovered from the loss of his 22-year-old son Marley, killed in action during Christmas Eve of 1944.
But then the Ghost of Christmas Past takes him back through time to a World War I troopship.
Carol for Another Christmas presents what the left would like the masses to believe.
To sell them on the idea of interventionism.Other Hollywood movies such as the Green Berets present ideas that the right would like to share with the masses -- selling interventionism couched in warm polished conservative jargon.Carol for Another Christmas shows us that the left and the right are the same and do the same thing: seeking interventionism under a banner with pre-approved sales slogans, while their shared underlying reason for wanting interventionism remains hidden.Setting aside the messages in Carol for Another Christmas, the movie has many familiar actors from the 1960's and it contains the same pace and black & white in-studio visual style that viewers of The Twilight Zone will find easy to watch.Well worth viewing at least one time..
This is an interesting movie to watch in 2018, as it's a defense of the post-WWII order of international cooperation for the common good that Donald Trump has been dismantling.The movie begins with a fairly endless debate between isolationist Sterling Hayden and Internationalist Ben Gazzara over whether America should risk its soldiers in foreign conflicts or build bigger bombs and turn our back on the world.
Gazzara and screenwriter Rod Sterling say the former, the subtly named Daniel Grudge says the latter.Eventually Grudge meets the ghost of war-dead past who argues that our only choice is fight them over there or fight them over here, then has another long debate with a present-day ghost who lectures him on the starving masses.The most interesting sequence is a post-apocalyptic future lorded over by Peter Sellers as the Imperial Me, who leads his followers in raging against those who would want to discuss and reach out rather than decimate their enemies.As a piece of entertainment, Carol for Another Christmas is pretty static.
I believe in International cooperation, but in the present age, having seen the ill effects of attempts to police the world through force, it's hard to embrace Serling's starry-eyed arguments.This film is kind of worth watching just for the oddness of being a UN-sponsored ad for the UN, and certainly it's heart is in the right place.
This is a nontraditional version of Dicken's story, a Xerox special made to promote the United Nations.It features Sterling Hayden, Eva Marie Saint, Ben Gazzara, and many more leading actors of the day.The message of the film is simple: when we stop talking wars begin.
For example, this story has no annoying little Tiny Tim character.In Serling's original script, the main character in 'Carol for Another Christmas' was an embittered industrialist named Barnaby Grudge.
Serling changed the character's name to Daniel Grudge, and Sterling Hayden gives a standout performance in the lead role as Grudge, the surrogate Scrooge.After some surly dialogue with his black servants Charles and Ruby, and an argument with his nephew (Ben Gazzara, giving the worst performance hereabouts), Grudge gets some unwanted advice from a surrogate Marley, and then the story proper begins ...
I also wonder if the title of this script was a pun on the name of Rod Serling's wife: Carol.)Grudge's escort to the past is a World War One doughboy, extremely well-played by Steve Lawrence ...
The fact that those children ARE starving does not particularly disturb him.Next stop, the future: with the flash of an atomic bomb, Grudge finds himself in the darkness and rubble which are all that remains after World War Three.
The character arc of 'Carol for Another Christmas' follows Dickens's novel very closely, so it's no surprise that Grudge/Scrooge ultimately returns to his mansion in the present, where he now sees the error of his ways and he repents.
Like so many other liberals, Serling seems more interested in bringing down the mighty rather than uplifting the lowly.'Carol for Another Christmas' occasionally sinks into knee-jerk liberalism or America-bashing, but this TV movie's good points very much outweigh and outnumber its bad points.
Yes, this special runs like a final episode of "The Twilight Zone."And that is not a bad thing!This remake of "A Christmas Carol" is, by "Zone" standards, edgy.
Granted the acting is heavy handed but with both Sterling Hayden and Sellers in this production , I have to believe that Rod Serling considered that in case people found the message of Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb too subtle (as if), he was going all out here to make it clear.
Sterling Hayden plays our Scrooge-like character, Daniel Grudge, a wealthy man who lost his son, Marley, in World War II.
Truthfully his performance in this special at times is just plain awful, with that vacant expression on his face that leaves us to figure out if he's deep in thought or on the verge of a poo.The Ghost of Christmas Past is played by Steve Lawrence, who plays the role with a casual ease that's enjoyable to watch....at first.
A favorite reply of Serling's in this special is to have someone respond to something Hayden says to them with something akin to "Oh is that so." It happens frequently and is very annoying.The Ghost of Christmas Present is played by Pat Hingle and he does fine in a rather forgettable segment about starving children.
While Rod Serling's "Patterns" in the 1950's on live television is even better than this twist on the Charles Dickens classic done for the UN might even be more topical now than when it first aired.(Patterns is still topical too, a sign of how great a writer Serling was).Serling wrote a great dramatic script here yet again though for those who expect just a Dicken's remake, your in for a major surprise.Sterling Hayden plays Mr. Grudge, a sort of modern Scrooge ever since he lost his son in World War 2 on 12/24/1944.
Serlings themes here are brilliant and Eva Marie Saint, Britt Ekland, Sellers, and more help Sterling Haydens great performance in this television movie made just a year before some of these folks would be working with Kubrick in Dr Strangelove.I am glad to have caught it this holiday season on TCM as I had never seen it before now..
Although it spends its running time preaching an anti-war, global- unity message, Serling's 60s-contemporary Christmas Carol variation has its heart in the right place, even if many might consider the pulpit sermon and bong sounding a bit wearisome.
This cast is top to bottom with incredible talent, which might explain how important the United Nations Special meant to those involved.Sterling Hayden as the heart-hardened military powerhouse, Daniel Drudge, a lonely, bitter man who lost a son to WWII and is against his nephew's (Cassavetes' vet, Ben Gazzara) UN peace efforts; Steve Lawrence as Ghost of Christmas Past, a phantom representing all the soldiers, from every nation, taking Drudge to the battlefield; Eva Marie Saint as a Naval officer in the past who accompanied Drudge to a particular bombed area of Japan where they encounter a tent housing burned-face children for which anguished her; passionate Pat Hingle as Ghost of Christmas Present, at a dinner table covered in food and the finest trimmings, reveals barbwire fences and captives singing carols, certainly confronting Drudge about the plentiful times he's enjoyed the finer things while many others starve; Robert Shaw as Ghost of Christmas Future, in robe and speaking with righteous indignation, presenting an America wrought in rubble and madness; a masterful Peter Sellers as a rabble-rousing, messianic madman instigating a remnant of human deviants out of the Holocaust of the future to embrace selfish doctrine and hold close to Imperial Me instead of unifying to salvage what is left of mankind; Percy Rodrigues as both Drudge's butler/manservant and a rational, peace-minded man of conscience trying to appeal to Sellers' followers in a future fallen to ruin; pre- stardom Britt Ekland as a knitting Imperial Me follower.This one doesn't have Hayden returning from his visits in time with the phantoms a spiritually rejuvenated man ready to make the world a bright and shiny place.
Serling instead realistically ends it with Hayden and Gazzara agreeing that they need to help do something that makes a difference in the world they live.
Daniel Grudge (Sterling Hayden) is visited on Christmas Eve by his nephew, Fred (Ben Gazzara).
She guilt-trips Grudge about the bombing (as if he's personally responsible) even though, he points out, it likely saved 500,000 American and 2,000,000 Japanese lives.Grudge is then directed to a sound-stage where he meets The-Ghost-of-Christmas-Present (Pat Hingle).
God bless us, every one!The ghosts in "A Christmas Carol" taught Scrooge the error of his ways by SHOWING him scenes from his past, present, and possible future.
The performances are good (particularly Lawrence, Hingle, Shaw, Sellers, and Rodrigues) but, for the love of God, STFU already!In "A Christmas Carol" Scrooge's actions only affect the lives of himself and those closest to him but in "CFAC" Grudge's actions affect the whole world? |
tt0096341 | Uninvited | Kang Jung-won (Park Shin-yang), an interior decorator, is overcome with inexplicable anxiety as his long-overdue wedding with Hee-eun (Yoo Sun) approaches. One evening, Jung-won falls asleep on the subway on his way home. He is barely able to wake up at the last station. As he comes round, he sees two young girls asleep on the seat next to him. He cannot wake them before he has to jump off as the train leaves the station. He arrives home to find that his wife-to-be has bought them a new metal dining table.
The next day, Jung-won is working when he hears on the radio that two young girls were found poisoned on the subway. In the course of fitting some lights in a ceiling, he is hit by falling debris and cuts his forehead. After a trip to the hospital for some stitches, he goes home to find the two dead girls seated at his new dining table.
Jung-won, who is now working on renovating a psychiatrist's office, bumps into Jung Yeon (Jun Ji-hyun), a patient on her way out of a therapy session. She has been receiving treatment after her friend, Moon Jung-sook (Kim Yeo-jin), killed both of their children a year earlier. Another accident leads to Jung-won taking Yeon back to his apartment where she too sees the apparition of the dead children.
Having been tormented by nightmares and the hallucinations, Jung-won is desperate to find out something about the apparitions that haunt him. Yeon runs away refusing to help him, so he searches through the patients' records at the clinic to find out more about her. Using the information he succeeds in persuading her to help him uncover his past. Jung-won discovers that he had been born with shamanic abilities similar to Yeon and accidentally killed his father and sister.
Unfortunately, he suffers the consequences rediscovering his past. His fiancee Hee-eun suspects that he is having an affair and leaves him. Jung-sook is convicted of the murder of Yeon's child, but she suddenly commits suicide as she is leaving the courthouse. Shocked, Yeon calls Jung-won who comes over to console her. He talks to her husband, Park Moon-sub (Park Won-sang), who suspects that it was his wife, not her dead friend, who killed their children.
Jung-won, caught up in his desire to deny his past and his fear of Yeon, turns down Yeon's cry for help when her husband tries to have her committed to a mental hospital. His refusal crushes Yeon, who throws herself off Jung-won's apartment building. Jung-won sees her as she falls. In the final scene, Jung-won sits in his dust-covered apartment. Face lined like an old man, he brings a steaming dish of food to the dining table and sits down.
His dining table is full, not with the family he had been planning but the apparitions of the two poisoned girls on the subway and Yeon. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | This film virtually evades falling into any type of horror genre you could think of: it's part sci-fi, part slasher, part comedy!!!A fluffy house cat escapes from some random laboratory and is adopted by two bimbos who've been invited to cruise down to the Bahamas with mobster Alex Cord and take the cat with them for good luck.
Said kitty has some kind of rat-bat thing living inside it that emerges when kitty gets pi***ed off and then shreds anyone who comes too close - including henchmen George Kennedy and Clu Gulager!It's pretty funny stuff with a typical sequel-friendly ending (that was thankfully never taken up) and some really cheesy moments.
A small orange cat which has a monster inside, very bad special effects (Small toy boats, handpuppets, badly coloured blood to name a few.
A really contrived set of circumstances leaves a group of fun-seeking Fort Lauderdale spring breakers stranded at sea on a luxury yacht with some desperate criminals and a mutated killer cat for company.Uninvited is, to be completely honest, a total mess of a movie, with a ridiculous set-up, an incredibly unconvincing monster, and moments of utter tedium.
On the flip side, it frequently enters 'so bad, it's good' territory, features a pair of extremely hot '80s babes (Clare Carey and Shari Shattuck, who spend most of their time in skimpy bikinis), and chucks in some reasonable gore (including some nifty 'erupting veins' bladder effects), making it one not to miss for fans of Z-grade trashy schlock.Try not to laugh whenever the moth-eaten moggie hand puppet barfs up a rubber parasitic mutant twice its size!!
And wonder in incredulity at how Oscar winner George Kennedy wound up appearing in such tacky crud.4.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 5 for Clu Gulager's goofy teeth and bottle glasses, and that really bad sinking model yacht at the end..
Scientists inject a cat with a mutant virus but don't hold it very well as the cat escapes the state of the art facility (it does look funny with several men in hazmat suits chasing a tabby cat).
All I can say is yes this film is very cheaply made,however,what do you expect when you rent a film about a killer cat with a rabid mutant in its mouth?
Its made for kicks,though the only good acting was from the cat,and the rest of the cast was laughably bored.Though I admit I like this film,for the simple fact I love cats.(even though they are all horrible movies,I mean killer cats?
Well this cat has a smaller badder mutant cat living inside it's mouth that comes out to kill people.
Anyways, after the dastardly pussy escapes we catch up with two gals dressed in the most atrocious '80's garb being invited to a mafioso's yacht party along with three other jackasses as well as cat whom shows up unexpectedly trapped in a box.
Well maybe 'fun' isn't the right word, the idea is somewhat original, but a Chinese film by the name of "Xiong mao" or translated as Evil Cat came out a year before this and is light years better then this one in every way, shape and form.
I suggest looking up the film "Evil Cat" and leaving this one in the litter box.My Grade: DDVD Extras: Only Trailers for "Tokyo!", "One Eyed Monster", "Just Buried" (this DVD pairs this film with "Night Shadows" here under its alternate title of "Mutant").
The idea of a mutating cat barfing up a killer creature resembling a hybrid between a bat and a bowl of rotting placenta is already quite crackpot, but even more inconceivable is how literally everything in this film happens so impulsively and indifferent, like they are the most common events to occur in life!
The make-up effects are far beyond cheesy and inept, with 'scary' hand-puppets that wouldn't even upset a two-year-old child and supposedly virulent cat attacks that are actually rather tame.
"Uninvited" stars veteran horror actor George Kennedy ("Death Ship", "Virus", "The Terror Within") but exactly like the character he depicts he wonders what the hell he's doing in yet another lousy horror movie and once again surrounded by an ensemble cast of untalented nobodies.
It's about a mutant cat that goes around killing people.
A monster that looks like a beaver on crack jumps out of the cat's mouth and bites people.
To be honest whenever the creature pops out of the cat's mouth it looks like the cat is giving birth the wrong way.
Trust me, unless you like movies with cat's that look like there giving birth the wrong way, avoid it!.
A scientific corporation of ill repute loses control of its test subject-- a poisonous, mutant catThis was one bizarre movie, I did liked how the flowed , there were some calm scenes and the cool bloody scenes in this movie.There were some really ad scenes in this, i loved it cause some of scene were so bad that they were funny.There were some decent gory scenes in this movie for the PG 13 in 80's and did like the idea of plot, some scenes were done right at time.Really odd B-movie 4/5 out of 10.
Terror at sea, when a group of gangsters and teenagers have to battle a mutant cat (yes, that's a common house-cat with a parasite inside of it) on a cruise ship.
Very, very bad movie but George Kennedy dies a wonderful death!
Wonderfully imbecilic dialogues, poor characters with puzzling motives and utterly scary creature effects (for those who find mutant cat hand-puppets scary).
While this movie has a few of these bad/great moments, the time in between just drags on and on.
Keep an eye out for the killer puppet (with hand attached), who is still a better actor than anyone else in the movie..
Having killed multiple people along the way it is discovered and adopted by flighty young airhead Suzanne (Shattuck) who is headed for a yacht excursion with her friends.The yacht is owned by lecherous opportunist and Wall Street crook Walter Graham (Cord).
The cat very efficiently sabotages the boat and preys on its passengers infecting them with his bites while eating them.This howler of a low-budget direct-to-video turkey has some of the worst acting performances in history.
Before that the audience is witness to the rampage of an obvious hand-puppet portraying the title monster.The ponderous editing and other post-production miscues are enough in and of themselves to thoroughly embarrass some pretty gifted and respected actors in the cast (Kennedy, Cord, Gulager and Carey).
"Uninvited" is a hilariously bad horror flick about a cute cat,who transforms into hideous mutant thirsty for human blood.Greydon's Clark killer cat is an obvious puppet.Either it's a mutated cat that has a small demon spawn living in its belly or the cat is able to turn itself inside out,morphing into a mangled creature with razor sharp teeth.A genetic laboratory looses control of a house-cat infected with a malignant genetically-engineered virus.As the death-toll rises during its savage rampage,the feline-abomination is brought aboard the ship of a criminal king-pin by two sexy co-eds."Uninvited" is a cheesy trash of the highest caliber with utterly laughable monster and solid acting of George Kennedy,Alex Cord and Clu Gulager.I had a fun time watching it and I gladly recommend this cinematic oddity to anyone interested in B-movies.6 out of 10..
The killer cat movie that goes that extra mile!.
I had heard about this film from a group on Facebook that posts strange movies like this one.
I had never heard of this killer cat movie featuring stars George Kennedy and Clu Culager; granted, Clu puts on one of the goofiest performances of his career and he seems to be disguising himself too as he probably isn't proud of this one.
Poor George does not look like he wants to be in this film and I cannot say I blame him.
The greatest horror movie ever made about a killer mutant cat on board a yacht.
A deadly mutant cat escapes from a Florida research lab.
Boy, does this gloriously ludicrous honey possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four-star stinkeroonie: The ham-fisted (mis)direction by always dependable schlocko specialist Greydon Clark (who not only also wrote the supremely asinine script, but also makes a cameo appearance as an ill-fated doctor at the start of the flick), the laughable premise, the uproariously shoddy (far from) special effects (the cat is a pathetically obvious puppet that resembles a huge wet rat!), the cheesy gore, the tacky redundant synthesizer score, and the jaw-dropping "it ain't over yet!" sequel set-up non-ending all provide a wealth of unintentional belly laughs.
The welcome presence of three down on their luck faded name thespians slumming for a quick paycheck further enhances the overall campy merriment: Alex Cord as smooth sleazeball high roller Walter Graham, George Kennedy as the grouchy Mike Harvey, and, in a positively sidesplitting turn, Clu Gulager as the pitiful Albert, who's a hopelessly wimpy and browbeaten psycho nerd complete with buck teeth and coke bottle glasses.
Five college spring breakers (3 guys, 2 girls) end up in the lap of luxury as they get onto the boat of Wall Street sleaze ball Walter Graham (Alex Cord), who is heading to the Cayman Islands to illegally take out all of his money before the SEC busts him.
I think this is the first "genetically enhanced monster escapes the lab" film I've seen where the entire chaos results from a lab assistant not closing a door.
This is an impressively bad film about a mutant cat involved in research experiments that has escaped from its lab.
In fact the whole premise of how this mismatched bunch ends up on the yacht together is outside of the realms of comprehension, nevertheless this serves as the backdrop to the murderous happenings once on-board.The scenes were the cat's mutant crawls out of its mouth are laughable as it cuts to close-ups of a cute-looking stuffed toy.
UNINVITED is a gruesome straight-to-video horror film from director Greydon Clark, the guy whose long-running exploitation career includes the creepy alien film THE WARNING.
This low-budget offering is set almost entirely on a yacht, in which an assorted group of passengers including the usual vacationing teenagers and some old-time gangsters find themselves assailed by a mutant cat which has just escaped from a local laboratory.Sounds cheesy?
Still, you do get a bunch of old-timers in smaller roles, including George Kennedy, Austin Stoker, Clu Gulager, and Alex Cord.
Well, I see many here gave this movie low ratings and reviews, however, I won't give that because I actually enjoyed this movie.Yes, the effects are not that great, but look where technology has brought us today, if you look back on some of the old black and white movies, they'd be downright pathetic and horrible by todays standards.I thought this movie was entertaining and I believe many have it wrong on the cats motives when provoked to release the internal mutant from within its bowels.When the cat attacked those folks that it did, it was because of several variations, it sensed it was not liked or wanted by some of the first people to get killed, then as the movie went on, those that initially wanted it aboard, and insisted bringing it along, after it had killed others, now they were AFRAID of the very cat they opted and conned the captain to allow the cat passage, who DID NOT want it on board in the first place.
So he had a dislike for the kitty, cat knew it, and he knew it, from what I recall he mistreated the cat, so he got what he deserved.If the others had not started fearing the cat, but had instead rationalized why the cat had done what it did, they would have probably never been harmed, but then, there wouldn't be much killing going on, so they had to become terrified for their lives from the mutant killing cat.I still own the original VHS copy and will be converting it to DVD for my "Horror/Sci-Fi" collection, as I also collect movies with not only cats, but other animals {wolves, dogs, bats, etc.} in them.So yes, I gave this movie an excellent rating, and no I was not on drugs or alcohol either, don't believe in that stuff and never touch it, and I enjoyed this movie without the aid of any external influences.I was actually very disappointed when the new Univited movie came out as I was actually hoping it would have been a more technologically advanced remake of this one, alas that was not so, so I never went to see it.But as for this one, you have to look beyond the bad acting and low budget effects, you have to remember this was made before a lot of the fantastic technology we see, and have been very spoiled by in present day movies.
And chances are as we see more and more advances, even these movies of today will end up with bad reviews eventually because they would be watched AFTER such technological advancement in special effects in our movie going experiences.So my final comment is, if you like cat movies, if you like corny dialog, and you enjoy slasher movies, this one really isn't as bad as most make it out to be, but Freddy Krueger it isn't..
Really bad killer Cat monster film..
Uninvited starts in some genetics research laboratory where two scientists (including writer, producer & director Greydon Clark) are about to cut open a failed experiment when it escapes, although the experiment looks like an ordinary Cat something nasty lurks within it that can burst out at any moment & viciously shred it's it's victims to death...
Bobbie (Clare Carey) & Suzanne (Shari Shattuck) are both friends who meet up with millionaire businessman Walter Graham (Alex Cord) who invites them to a party on his yacht, Bobbie & Suzanne decide to go & take along three male friends & a stray cute looking Cat they find.
During the voyage the Cat turns killer on numerous occasions while they hopelessly drift miles off course, stuck out at sea with a killer mutant Cat things look bad...Written, produced & directed by Greydon Clark this straight to video killer Cat creature feature is considered a solid gold classic amongst most bad film lovers, while I can see a certain attraction & entertainment value I wouldn't say Uninvited was particularly good in any way even for unintentional laughs.
The script isn't great, for some strange reason Clark decided to have a fluffy docile Cat as the evil creature in his film rather than a vicious Dog for example.
OK, sure this other mutant Cat creature emerges every so often but even that is nothing more than a fluffy hand puppet with sharp teeth.
Ffairly ineptly made with the scientist leaving the door open of a top secret research laboratory just so the cat can escape or the scene when the truck crashes & changes make & model as well as the baffling sound effect of nothing but breaking glass as it rolls over & over down the hill.Filmed in Los Angeles & Florida this probably had a very low budget hence the hand puppet monster & the single yacht setting.
The acting is bad, there's a pretty good cast of character actor's here including Alex Cord, George Kennedy & Clu Gulager complete with comedy false teeth who are all fun to watch slumming it at the wrong end of their careers.Uninvited is an amusing creature feature of little competence & while it has a few fun moments & a good cast of veterans it's still not very good.
(Plot) A mutated cat escapes and somehow manages to hop aboard a yacht to wreak havoc, and kill people.
It does have moment's of cheesy fun, in a so bad its good way, but it's quite dull a lot of the time as well.
At the very start of the movie, the screen says "Amazing movies presents" Either that was supposed to be a joke, or they really were that arrogant, and actually thought this laughable junk was a good idea.
Stars like George Kennedy & Clu Gulager are clearly desperate for a paycheck to pay off some bills.
Final Thoughts: Too inconsistent to be fully entertaining in a so bad, it's good way.
Not even good for bad movie standards.
Greydon Clark's "Uninvited" is simply a movie that has next to nothing going for it, a dull and uninteresting pseudo-horror film from 1988, 90 minutes of inferior film-making with a very weak plot and even weaker execution, lazily paced with noted indifference by Mr. Clark."Uninvited" is a low-budget horror film whose plot revolves around a cat that's been genetically altered, which has recently escaped from a hi-tech animal research lab (in what looks like either Florida or southern California).
Admittedly the idea itself sounds fairly compelling, however with Mr. Clark aboard that's as far as the inspiration goes, because the resulting movie turns out to be nothing but a lame waste of time and this is entirely do to the utterly uninspired and workman like execution of Greydon Clark.
Just how poor old, Oscar-winning, George Kennedy got roped into this pitiful little B-horror film is anyone's guess, yet mercifully he's one of the films first victims and is killed about half-way through.
However, while enroute to the tropics, the winds turn foul and bad luck sets in and as the cliché line goes "but something went terribly wrong"!The yacht is filled with about 10 people to start with, the owner, two of his cronies, the captain and three college boys and some young, perky chicks, that happened to have caught the rich old horndog's eye, who wasted no time inviting them on his yacht. |
tt0117357 | The Pompatus of Love | The film revolves around four friends and their relationships with women. Set to the background of upscale Manhattan bars, lofts and apartments, the guys engage in sharp banter and one-upsmanship. The characters, Mark, a therapist (Jon Cryer); Runyon, a playwright (Tim Guinee); Josh, a playboy (Adrian Pasdar) and Phil, a plumber (Adam Oliensis), try (generally unsuccessfully) to sort out their troubled love-lives. Mark and his girlfriend (Kristen Wilson) are hung up over moving in together; Runyon is hung up over his old girlfriend Kathryn (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), who has moved to Los Angeles; the womanizing Josh is hung up on Phil's sister, Gina (Paige Turco), who has an abusive husband; Phil, who is married with children, finds himself hung up on an English interior designer (Kristin Scott Thomas).
The characters in the film spend much of their time trying to decipher the word "pompatus," wondering whether they are mis-hearing the lyrics: "Prophetess"? "Impetus"? "Profitless"? "Impotence"? "Pompous Ass"? "Pom-pom tits"? | romantic, satire | train | wikipedia | The X Factor. I saw this when it first was released on video, and now, 5 years later, got to watch it again from a different perspective.Character development - there's not much with the exception of Josh.Plot - sort of vague, it goes from one situation to the next with aside comments and monologues spliced together and thrown in just for fun and transition.So what is it about? Very simply put - the differences between men and women and how difficult they can be to understand.Why this title? No clue. But it sort of makes sense; how many people over the years have understood that Steve Miller was saying "the pompatus of love", and if they understood it, how many knew what the heck he meant by it?? Exactly! But the song was still a big hit. It sounds cool and is a blast to sing along with. Men and women, despite all the griping, jokes, cliches and misunderstandings between the two genders, still keep getting together and, hopefully, can make it through life with their sanity, intelligence and love intact.There is no pat answer with which to end this movie. Life doesn't have any either. I'm not one for vague endings. I usually prefer to have a Hollywood Happy Ending. But this works for me for some reason. There's no blinding vision of how one must change to be able to live happily ever after with the object of one's affection. It's just an acceptance that there are differences. Maybe not understood, but now one knows that they are there and can work with them; or around them; or whatever it may take.It's a good look at relationships for the over 21 crowd. It's a good movie.. Entertaining, I suppose. This movie is a victim of the post-"Diner" post-"Seinfeld" syndrome, in which inane conversation takes the place of true characterization. It's amusing at times, but ultimately leads nowhere - both the conversations and the movie. The Adrian Pasdar / Mia Sara / Paige Turco storyline was perhaps the most entertaining and had the most potential, but a movie like this is only as good as the worst bit of it. And everything about the Jon Cryer story is horrible - it should have been left out or at least given fourth place (instead of the most followed) subplot.It's entertaining in its own way, I suppose. And it gets points for being funny and for some clever referencing of 50s and 60s TV shows. Watch "The Brothers McMullen" instead for a similar movie done better with less money.. This movie seems sort of like the pilot for an unu.... This movie seems sort of like the pilot for an unusually clever sitcom; the dialog is often very entertaining, but its character development is very weak, bordering on nonexistent. Thus, the movie feels like a collection of amusing but unrelated incidents that don't really lead anywhere or to anything. The ending seems more like just a convenient stopping point where very little has been resolved, so it provides little feeling of resolution. I was not bored while watching it, but I'm glad I didn't pay $7.00 to do so.Overall Rating: 6 (out of 10), or 2 1/2 stars (out of 4). mildly entertaining "relationships" film. The movie has no great insights, and the style is somewhat derivative, but the performances are pretty good, and it is watchable. My primary complaint is that the best character in the movie is a woman that appears in the last half and gets relatively little screen time even after that. The movie Swingers has a similar subject, and is much better. |
tt0074553 | From Noon Till Three | The setting is the American West, late 19th century. A gang of bank robbers, including Graham Dorsey (Charles Bronson), is off to rob a small-town bank, but Graham is having second thoughts: he's had a nightmare in which the gang was wiped out during the robbery attempt. Worse, Graham's horse broke down and the gang members have to get another. They try at the ranch of the widow Amanda Starbuck (Jill Ireland). Amanda, suspicious of the men, denies having a horse. Graham checks out the barn and finds a horse, but still afraid of disaster, he lies to his men and agrees to wait three hours at the ranch for their return (the "from noon till three" of the title). It turns out he has another reason for wanting to stay behind though: he wants to force himself on Mrs. Starbuck. Amanda resists rather inventively; simply lies still, fully clothed. This frustrates Graham, who decides on a ruse. He pretends he is impotent, hoping to play on Amanda's sympathy. The deception works, and they make love three times.
As time passes, Graham and Amanda have a long, thoughtful discussion talking of their past lives, as well as their hopes and ambitions (Graham wants to go straight and work in a bank!). They even dance to Amanda's music box ("Hello and Goodbye"), with Graham wearing Mr. Starbuck's old tuxedo. A neighbor boy stops by to tell Amanda about an attempted bank robbery. The bank robbers from Graham's gang were caught and were going to be hanged in town that afternoon. She thinks Graham should ride out and help them. Graham thinks this is a way for him to be able to stay with her and get away from the gang. After much coercing he decides to play along and rides out, intending only to have a long nap. But this is shattered when the posse rides into sight, spotting Graham and giving chase. Graham eludes them when he comes upon a traveling dentist, exchanges clothes with him at gunpoint, and steals his horse and wagon. The unfortunate Dr. Finger is taken for Graham and shot dead. The posse, recognizing Mr. Starbuck's horse and tux, bring the body back to the Starbuck ranch. Amanda, seeing what she thinks is Graham's body (she cannot see the face) faints. But Graham does not get away clean: it turns out Dr. Finger was a quack, and the first person Graham encounters after his escape was one of Dr. Finger's dissatisfied customers. He is put into prison on a year-long sentence for Dr. Finger's crimes.
At first Amanda is ostracized by the townspeople. But an impassioned speech proclaiming her true love for him does a remarkable trick: the townspeople not only forgive her, they see a remarkable story in that of Graham and Amanda. This story forms the basis of a legend, one that spawns a popular book (From Noon Till Three), dime novels, a stage play, and even a popular song. The legend of Graham and Amanda becomes bigger than the reality of the two, and with her book a worldwide best seller it makes Amanda a wealthy woman. Graham, who reads the book while in prison, is amused by the distortions. Graham is described as being 6'3" (1.90 m), Southern, and very handsome; he is, in fact, none of these. After serving his time he is eager to renew his relationship with Amanda.
A disguised Graham takes one of Amanda's guided tours of her ranch, and stays behind, intending to reveal himself. When he does so, Amanda does not recognize him and becomes frightened. It is only when Graham shows her "something that's not in the book" that Amanda believes him. (Graham's exposing himself is cut from the TV version, causing brief audience confusion as to why Amanda finally "recognizes" him.) But instead of joy, Amanda is confused and worried. If word got out that Graham was alive, the legend of Graham and Amanda would be done for. Even Graham's suggestion that he live with her incognito is no good; after all, if Amanda were to live with another man, the legend would still be destroyed. The encounter ends up with Amanda pointing a gun at Graham... but at the last second she decides to shoot herself.
Graham is heartbroken. Not only has he lost Amanda, the secret of his real identity is lost for good. He tries to forget what has happened, but there are reminders everywhere. He hears "their song" at a local saloon, and walks in on a stage production of From Noon Till Three. Worse, people he knew slightly laugh when he says he is Graham, since he looks nothing like his description in the book. At the end he is arrested and put in an insane asylum, where he meets the only people who believe him: his fellow inmates. He seems relieved. | tragedy, comedy, violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0081259 | The Octagon | A martial artist (Chuck Norris) must stop a group of terrorists trained in the ninja style by his half-brother (Tadashi Yamashita).
The film opens with a short scene at a terrorist training camp. The main instructor, Katsumoto (Yuki Shimoda) tells the graduating class that all of their actions and whereabouts will be known and that if they do anything to expose or harm the group, they and their families will be killed.
The film then cuts to an assassination of a diplomat by members of the group. One of the terrorists is shot by a bodyguard while the others escape.
We then meet Scott James (Chuck Norris), a retired karate champion, who is at a dance performance. After the performance, he meets one of the dancers named Nancy (Kim Lankford). He takes her out to dinner because he is interested in how she incorporated the martial arts into her routine. She seems distant during the dinner and is more concerned about a recent assassination that took place abroad. She wonders if “an American was killed".
Scott takes Nancy home, and he senses that someone is there. The lights do not work as they enter, and then they are attacked by a group of ninjas. Scott fights them off, but they end up killing Nancy. After he restores power to the house, he finds that the entire family has been killed.
The next day, Scott goes to see an old mercenary friend named McCarn (Lee Van Cleef). Scott asks him if he knows about any ninja activity. However, McCarn tells him, “If you are seeing ninja, you are seeing ghosts.” McCarn tries to recruit Scott to join his cause in eliminating terrorists, but Scott declines.
On his way back from McCarn’s place, Scott encounters a rich lady named Justine (Karen Carlson), who managed to get her car stuck on the side of the road. She asks Scott for help, and after he helps her, she takes his keys, forcing him to walk back to her place to get them.
Scott goes back to Justine’s house to get his keys, and she pretends to find them in her purse. She offers to drive him back since “It would be the only decent thing to do.” Scott agrees, only on the condition that this time, he drives.
On their way back, Scott and Justine are chased by two cars. Scott and Justine manage to evade their pursuers. After Scott gets back to his car, Justine identifies one of the cars as being “her bodyguards.” Scott then asks her out to dinner since she has now become “an object of concern".
Before their date, Scott goes back to McCarn’s and notices that the car that was chasing them belonged to McCarn. He confronts Justine, and she confesses that she hired McCarn to be her bodyguard because McCarn told her that Scott would not accept her offer of employment. She also wants him to kill a man named Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita). She confesses that her father was killed by terrorists and that she has since been on a crusade to eliminate them. She has managed to help “retire” two of the three main terrorist leaders, but Seikura remains. Scott is insulted by her actions, and he promptly declines her offer and leaves.
Scott’s friend, A.J. (Art Hindle) is a karate champion and feels frustrated by the recent terrorist attacks that have taken place both abroad and on Nancy. He decides to start going after terrorists himself. He tries to find a German terrorist, but that terrorist is killed by McCarn’s men before A.J. can catch him. McCarn then fills A.J. in on just who he is and his relationship to Scott. He also tells A.J. that it was Nancy’s brother who was killed in the terrorist attack abroad and that she was killed in retaliation. A. J. decides to join McCarn’s cause.
We see a flashback where Scott remembers training with his half brother Seikura. He and his brother are seen running through an obstacle course to obtain a sword. Scott stumbles at the end but still manages to get the sword. However, his enraged brother grabs the sword and declares it to be his. Scott’s adoptive father (John Fujioka), then berates Seikura and disowns him. He tells Scott that Seikura is now his enemy for life.
The movie cuts to a scene at the Octagon training camp where a new group of recruits has graduated. One recruit, Aura (Carol Bagdasarian) has reservations about what she is doing but leaves the camp to report to a terrorist dispatcher named “Doggo” (Kurt Grayson).
Scott realizes that A.J. and McCarn are right, so he signs up and attends a mercenary recruiting camp in an attempt to be recruited so he can get to Seikura. He gets interviewed at Doggo’s camp, but Doggo knows his true identity, and he refuses his services. Scott then has to fight his way out of Doggo’s facility, defeating “Longlegs” (Richard Norton) and “Hatband” (Aaron Norris) and returns to his hotel.
Later that day, Aura grabs Scott’s file and defects from Doggo’s camp. Meanwhile, Justine manages to recruit A.J. to find Seikura. As Scott goes back to his room, he encounters Aura, and she tells him that she regrets what she has done and that she can lead him to Seikura’s camp. Justine then comes by to try once more to get Scott to help her, but she gives up after seeing Aura and decides to get Seikura herself. As she goes out of the hotel with A.J., she is hit with a poisoned dart from one of Doggo’s men and dies. A.J. then leaves to find Seikura’s place while McCarn stays behind to watch Scott. A few hours later, several ninja are seen scaling the hotel. They attack Scott and Aura but are defeated—the last shot by one of McCarn’s men as he is descending the hotel. A firefight then erupts between McCarn’s men and Doggo’s men, and all of Doggo’s men are killed. Scott and Aura then depart to Mexico for Seikura’s terrorist camp.
A.J. is then shown finding Seikura’s place (located in Mexico or an unnamed Central American nation) the hard way, and he is eventually captured and taken prisoner. Aura gets Scott to the compound, and Scott infiltrates the camp. He is eventually discovered and led to an area known as “The Octagon” (a building filled with treacherous paths and enemies). Scott fights his way through and ends up fighting Seikura’s “enforcer” named “Kyo” (again, played by Richard Norton). Scott defeats Kyo, and as a result, Seikura kills A.J. by slitting his throat. Scott and Seikura fight, but Seikura escapes the compound. Meanwhile, Aura infiltrates the compound and recruits several of her fellow former trainees to fight back and burn the compound to the ground. They end up destroying the entire camp, but only Aura manages to survive. She then goes after Scott and Seikura. As the sun is coming up, she sees Seikura attack Scott from behind. However, Scott stabs Seikura with his sword and the movie ends with Scott standing over Seikura’s body. | revenge, murder, violence, flashback | train | wikipedia | Can you go wrong with ninjas, Chuck Norris and Lee Van Cleef?.
Scott James a retired martial arts champion gets caught up in a complicated web involving a wealthy heiress trying to hire him for an assassination job that includes an international terrorist group of ninjas and their training ground called 'The Octagon'.
Along the way he gets help from an old friend/work buddy McCarn.Whenever you got a ninja problem, Chuck Norris is your man.
I never thought I'll be saying this about a Norris film, but it has too much going on in the story and this makes it feel rather drawn out when its not shoving in those crackerjack martial art sequences.
Making up the rest of the performances is the wittily badass Lee Van Cleef (who steals the few scenes he's in) as the sneaky underhand McCern who feeds Scott with information he needs.
Norris is Scott James, a man haunted by memories of his growing up and rivalry with his former martial art brother Seikura, who now heads a Ninja training camp and is teaching international terrorists the ways of the Ninja.
James must stop the organization and face off, once and for all, with his former brother.There's little in the way of story, and sadly the film takes it's time in getting to the point where Norris finally takes out the Ninja trash.
Like a lot of his movies, the lack of much plot means the film moves pretty slowly between the action.
Lee Van Cleef and Richard Norton pop up in small roles, Richard Norton actually has a few different roles here.I would have rated it an 8 out of 10 if there was a bit more action in the middle half of the film.
For the most part, only Chuck Norris and ninja fans will get the most out of THE OCTAGON (1980).Overall worth watching..7 out of 10.
The production is very cheap (to the point that you can barely see anything during the night scenes), and the plot is pretty vague (Is Chuck Norris playing a mercenary?
I just can't see this as a review excerpt - it wouldn't draw a lot of viewers - but it sums up "The Octagon" pretty well.I actually would have rated this movie much lower, but the final 20 minutes, where Chuck invades the Ninja training camp and confronts his 'brother' almost saves the film.
ALMOST.Aside from Lee Van Clief, Chuck Norris is the best actor in the film, which ought to set off warning bells in your head.
(One thing you can say for Norris, he did improve somewhat as an actor, and by the time 'Code Of Silence' appeared some years after this, he was considerably more expressive.) However, the screenwriter and director apparently never passed Screen Writing 101, because they make poor Chuck narrate almost every scene with intrusive whispered voice-overs (in a layered echo effect, no less) where he endlessly explains his moral dilemmas and his anguish and anger at his estranged brother...to HIMSELF...over and over again.
Even the early scenes set in the ninja terrorist training camp, which were probably meant to engage the viewer and keep the interest up, bog down in stupid inane dialog and exposition.But, as other reviewers have mentioned, things perk up considerably in the last bit, which actually has suspense, atmosphere, and drama.
Too bad the whole movie couldn't have been like this, but I suppose that watching 2 hours of Chuck Norris infiltrating a Ninja camp would have been like playing "Metal Gear Solid" without a controller.3.5 stars out of 10..
The Octagon on the surface is just another in a long line of not-so-great Chuck Norris karate pictures.
The most entertaining aspect of the film is Chuck Norris' voice over narration of his thoughts.
Chuck Norris show with a lot of noisy action , thrills , intrigue and violent combats.
In a world of choices, for one man there is no choice , a hero named Scott James/Chuck Norris must face The Octagon .
A martial artist expert (Chuck Norris who sports a bushy mustache in this fourth starring role in a cinema movie of action) must defeat a plan by ninjas to create a worldwide training camp for terrorists .
At the end takes place a breathtaking combat in arena , an "octagonal training compound of the Ninja cult, a school for terrorists of all types" (the set had a 12' foot perimeter wall and was built north of Los Angeles at a location known as Indian Dunes and spanned the size of an American football field) .
Action star Chuck Norris in this exciting picture filled with thrills , tension , suspense and violent as well as spectacular fights with high Body Count : 40 .
The movie displays a plethora of martial arts fights , as Norris cleans up the nasty fighters by means of punches , kicks , bounds and leaps with struggles certainly slick .
Fighting Stars Magazine ranked the climactic fight between Chuck Norris and Tadashi Yamashita as #13 on their list of the 25 greatest fight scenes of all time .
A few years after this film was made and released, the word 'Octagon' later became in 1983 the name of a caged enclosure used by mixed martial arts matches and the Ultimate Fighting Championship .
This was debut theatrical feature film directed by Karson , an expert on thrillers and action movies .
Norris isn't exactly the best martial arts actor, he hasn't got any spectacular moves and I get a little tired watching him wear the same type of jeans in almost every movie.
Chuck Norris stars as the only martial artist alive who can take down a ninja clan, (led by his adopted brother) in this very dull ninja movie which earns a couple points for the inspired performance of Lee Van Cleef.
Chuck Norris made only one ninja movie in his career (I think because I don't remember any others) but somehow The Octagon is a surprisingly plot driven ninja movie which isn't a very good thing since well ninja movies need to be swift.
Chuck Norris fans and martial art film fans in general will love The Octagon.
competition with young Norris kicked him out.Now the ninja school is being used to train mercenaries and terrorists and the
Has a more complicated plot than most of his films, with more subplots than usual gradually merging together, and an effective inter-cutting between Norris and the Ninja training camp.
However, Lee Van Cleef brings a certain authority to his scenes, and Norris delivers a better performance than usual.
It literally takes 90-minutes to get to the actual Octagon and then when the fights start they are choreographed in a fairly dull manner (as is common when Chuck and Aaron handled all the fight scene choreography).
A movie with ninjas needs more flash and better use of weapons and...well...ninja skills.Still, this is Chuck Norris so if I complain too much he'll find me.The podcast Don and his Amazing Friend (www.donandhisamazingfriend.com) just did a thorough review of this movie...so thorough their podcast is almost longer than the actual movie.
It's true that it may not appeal to martial arts movie lovers across the board because it actually has quite an involved, twisty plot and is going to be too slowly paced for some.
What lends "The Octagon" a high amount of unintentional hilarity is Chuck's overdone internal dialogue, all done with an exaggerated echo effect.Chuck stars as Scott James, a former fighter with bad memories, particularly of growing up with a hostile adoptive brother, Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita), who as an adult is now running a training camp for terrorists.
B movie legend Richard Norton makes his film debut in two credited roles and several uncredited ones as faceless ninjas.
(He's joked that he must have died a total of eight times in this movie.) And keep an eye out for people such as Brian Libby (whose next screen role was as Chuck's psycho nemesis in "Silent Rage"), Jack Carter, Ernie Hudson, Chuck's son Mike who plays Scott as a teenager, and an uncredited Tracey Walter.Good production design (by James L.
Chuck Norris, in the prime of his fighting days, plays some type of Karate exhibitionist/merc/counter terrorist who is recruited by a wealthy woman to defeat an army of ninjas being trained at a secret camp.
This is a shame because though it is under-lit, the action is still very rousing.Maybe it was also the forced plot line of having the man in charge of training the ninjas also be Chuck's long lost brother?
This is a good, all-around movie featuring Chuck Norris.
Like I said: In general, this is a good all-around martial-arts movie.
I live in San Jose, and I actually saw Chuck Norris in person at an MMA (mixed martial arts) event in San Jose on March 10 (2006), and it would have been nice to have him sign my DVD disk of The Octagon if it had been available..
Chuck Norris "action" star..
If it wasn't for the stunt work and brief appearance of Aussie Kung-Fu star Richard Norton this would have received a one.Chuck Norris plays a dude who tries to infiltrate a secret fighting society called THE OCTAGON.
The Octagon is the Chuck Norris attempt at making a Ninja movie.
Too bad for Norris that this is one of the worst American martial arts films ever made.First, the acting is possibly the worst I have ever seen on film.
When Chuck Norris is pretty much the best actor in the movie, you really have a problem with your cast.
The only actor with skill in the whole thing was Lee Van Cleef, and he didn't get enough screen time to really give the film much help.Second, I have no idea what happened, but Norris's end of the martial arts combat in this was just plain sloppy.
The Octagon sees martial arts legend Chuck Norris taking on an organisation of ninjas, which should be awesome, but isn't.Thanks to loads of drawn-out, talkative exposition before the inevitable showdown in the ninjas' South American terrorist training camp (the Octagon of the title?), the majority of this early Norris vehicle is, to put it simply, very boring.As martial artist Scott James, Chuck is given nowhere near enough fighting to do, the character spending most of his time chatting to attractive heiress Justine (Karen Carlson), best pal A.J.
(Art Hindle), and mercenary McCarn (Lee Van Cleef), while revealing his innermost thoughts to the viewer as reverberating whispers (a silly gimmick that quickly becomes very irritating).Avid martial arts movie fans will likely get a kick from the sight of genre regular Richard Norton's really bad hair, and the closing moments feature a reasonably choreographed fight between Norris and a hooded, hissing ninja, but the rest of the film is a major disappointment..
I'm definitely a sucker for 70's and 80's martial arts and action flicks (particlarly the output of Cannon films) and this blends both of them into one pretty awesome movie.
The fight sequences are excellent, which is pretty much the only reason someone would watch this movie anyway.
If you some fat goofy ten year old growing up in the early 80ies, seeing Chuck Norris fighting evil ninjas was just brilliant.
On those merits I would give it a solid 4, but screw that, it is a 10 because it is what it is, a cheesy Ninja vs Chuck Norris movie that if you were a little kid at the time seeing it you would have been in complete awe..
The fight scene inside the Octagon between Scott James (Norris) and Kyo the Enforcer (Norton) is one of the most impressive and best choreographed fight scenes I have ever seen in any martial arts flick.
A martial artist (Chuck Norris) must defeat a plan by ninjas to create a worldwide training camp for terrorists.Art Hindle's hair is the star of this film.
and here his hair is pretty epic.But I suppose Chuck Norris is alright (even if his hair is also a bit off in this film, and he looks awkward with a mustache).
A film that could be easily summed up as simply ninja terrorists and the sexual allure of Chuck Norris' hairy mammoth-chest, The Octagon is a standard martial arts actioner, involving a conspiratorial group of, well, ninja terrorists.
Chuck Norris is Scott James (although I was convinced after Norris stated his character name that he was in fact Scotch Eggs), a martial artist who stumbles upon the organisation that is secretly training a hard-core team of terrorists in a camp of unknown location.
From Lee Van Cleef's mercenary to Art Hindle's young martial artist with a case of premature penetration (that's not supposed to be euphemistic), but of course, as suggested by the appearance of his fur covered chest, one flash of this (in almost any Norris vehicle) sends the women giddy.
For some bizarre reason, when I sit down to watch any late '70's or '80's standard action film, I seem to believe that I am going to enjoy it.
i rather enjoyed this Chuck Norris vehicle.the fight scenes are pretty well done,and the y are a quite few of them.the acting is is good enough for the genre.the story isn't anything special,but it works for the genre.the one thing that did irk me,though was the stupid echoing voice over whenever we were subjected to Norris's character's inner thoughts.the effect came across as stupid and cheesy in my opinion.it would just take me out of the movie.
I grew up on Chuck Norris movies in the early 80's and the first one I saw was A force of one.
The Second was The Octagon and I was stunned by the action from the blonde man himself.¨ It had everything i wanted from an action movie, suspense, a little romance, good-looking fights, though heroes, badass villains and a great score.
I soon began training Ju-jitsu because I wanted to learn the great technique that Norris used in the fight scenes.
This movie, while cheerfully bad in terms of acting, screenplay, and cinematography, is one of the best examples of Norris in action, and is the best showcase of Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do that I've seen on film.
I was tripping out whenever Chuck Norris' character started thinking to himself in this movie, the whole whisper with a distorted echo thing."Doggo is not the answer...
As a spoiler, if you could spoil this film anymore, all it is is Chuck's brother decides to start ninja training for terrorists and because no-one believes in ninjas anymore thinks he can get away with it.
But that's not why people watch movies like The Octagon.
Not only is he constantly flashing back to his childhood and his initial Martial Arts training (the young Scott is played by Mike Norris), but the voices in his head are overpowering and seem to tell him important things.
While The Octagon contains no cage fighting, or Punchfighting of any kind, it is in fact a reasonable Chuck movie.
As is usual for a Chuck movie, Aaron Norris was stunt coordinator, and besides doing stunts, Richard Norton has a nice appearance as a baddie who gets in a fight with Chuck.Norton's hair and mustache combo look awesome, and his blonde bowl haircut is so bright, it actually lights an entire dark scene all on its own.
Yes, there are movies like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" , the "American Ninja" series, "3 Ninjas", and even "Beverly Hills Ninja", but "The Octagon" goes deep into the heart of these "ninjas"--mindless silent assassins who use deceptive martial arts in order to kill or maim their victims.This is how Chuck Norris uses his past competitive karate skills (away from the cinema world) to the fullest in the movie.
In the final fight scenes, I realized that the spinning back kick and the roundhouse kick would be his biggest human weapons in the flick.Chuck Norris himself plays a former student and classmate of a ninjitsu school, who turns out to be Seikura.
The hand-to-hand combat in and out of the ring helped make A FORCE OF ONE worth seeing.) Without a doubt, THE OCTAGON is Norris's showpiece: boasting more action (and less acting) than any of his other films, it's the perfect vehicle for the man and is still, after all these years, worth a look..
I think that most Chuck Norris films fall into the mindless martial arts film category, but that doesn't make them bad movies.
The crazy ninja training camp, which looked like a scene from "Hot Shots!
Previously to this film, the only other Chuck Norris movie that I'd viewed from this period had been AN EYE FOR AN EYE.
This was a fast-paced action movie, with lots of martial arts and even the added bonus of having Christopher Lee as a villain.
I automatically assumed this film was a typical early '80s Chuck Norris movie, and that others from the period would be the same.
Van Cleef doesn't even appear in many of this film's action sequences, and his role is a completely extraneous one.
The ending sees Norris infiltrating the enemy base and fighting a hundred or so ninjas.
It had a great chance to deliver some powerful family drama, between Seikura (Tadashi Yamashita) and Scott James (Chuck Norris) Instead, we get some cheap flashbacks of the two with little thought or care, and I didn't care one iota about it.
"Here's a movie that really gets going about 2 minutes before the closing credits." Like I said before, Chuck spends most of the flick whispering to himself in between random conversations with people.
Add to that a predictability factor that only a film like this should have: All the girls want Chuck (Even though the character is about as exciting as paint drying), and he never looses a fight. |
tt0034812 | The Great Man's Lady | A statue is being dedicated to the late founder of Hoyt City, and reporters from around the country have gathered, speculating that "the old lady's going to talk." When the anticipated "old lady" does not appear at the event, they rush to her home. She is centenarian Hannah Sempler (Barbara Stanwyck), who lives in an old mansion among the skyscrapers of Hoyt City. As she confronts the press who have barged in, a photographer says, "Hold it, Mrs. Hoyt!" She replies that her name is Hanna Sempler, and refuses to answer their questions as to whether she and Hoyt had been married, which as another reporter says, would make him a bigamist. The intruders leave, having learned nothing to prove or disprove the many rumors, but Hannah is persuaded to tell her story to a young female biographer who lags behind. She reminisces about her experiences with Ethan Hoyt (Joel McCrea) in the American West.
In 1848, a teenaged Hannah Sempler is squired by her wealthy father's associate, Mr. Cadwallader (Lloyd Corrigan), but she is not interested. Hannah meets and flirts with a young pioneer and dreamer, Ethan Hoyt, who comes to her home seeking financial backing from her father (Thurston Hall) in order to build a city in the western wilderness. Her father rejects Ethan's proposal, stating that it is too risky. Hannah, however, falls in love with the young man, and quite impulsively, they elope and head west. The first years of their marriage are not easy, but the couple are happy. When Ethan loses all his money and possessions in a drunken gambling spree to Steely Edwards (Brian Donlevy), Hannah wins back his losses and befriends Steely, who accompanies the couple to Sacramento, where they hope to strike it rich mining.
In Sacramento, Hannah and Ethan spend less time together, with Ethan working long hours in the mines. One day, Hannah discovers silver on Ethan's boots, carried from the Virginia City mine where he had been working. Hannah knows she is pregnant, but does not reveal this to Ethan, knowing he would never leave her behind in that condition. Instead she encourages Ethan to go to Virginia City and find his fortune in the silver mines. Thinking his wife wants him gone so she can be with Steely, Ethan leaves her with no intention of returning.
After he leaves for Virginia City, the friendship between Hannah and Steely grows. Steely in fact looks after Hannah and her twin babies. When Sacramento is threatened by torrential flooding, Hannah plans to travel to San Francisco. But knowing that Hannah still loves Ethan, Steely arranges for her to travel by coach to Virginia City to be with her husband—he will go to San Francisco alone. As the coach crosses a bridge near Sacramento, the river overflows and washes away the coach and its passengers. Hannah alone survives; the babies perish.
After burying the twins, and believing that Hannah is also dead, Steely travels to Virginia City to tell Ethan the tragic news. It has been years since they've seen or spoken, and by now Ethan has become a wealthy man. When Steely tells him that Hannah is dead, Ethan shoots him, saying, "He killed my wife." Thinking that Hannah and Steely are now dead—Steely actually survives the shooting—Ethan continues his dream of building a great city.
Steely returns to Sacramento and discovers that Hannah is still alive. He tells her that Ethan, who believes she is dead, has married another woman. Steely and Hannah move to San Francisco and open a gambling casino. Years later, Hannah's father visits her and urges her to "disappear" so as not to threaten the political future of Ethan Hoyt, who is now representing her father's railroad interests. Hannah refuses her father's request, and travels to Hoyt City, where she watches Ethan giving a political speech. No longer a champion of the people as he once dreamed of becoming, Ethan is now a man of wealth and power, participating in corrupt practices to achieve private goals. Ethan sees Hannah in the crowd and they meet. She tells him that she had divorced him, knowing his political future would be ruined by scandal if it were known they were still married. She reminds him of the dreamer he once was. He goes off with a renewed idealism, devoting the rest of his life to helping the less fortunate, even at his own expense.
The story concludes as it started, with the aged Hannah and the young female biographer discussing Ethan Hoyt, standing beneath the impressive statue. Hannah has been alone for many years now, Steely having died in the 1906 San Francisco fire, the same year that Ethan returned to Hoyt City, to die in Hannah's mansion. No one knew why he chose to do this, and for some thirty more years Hannah has remained silent about their marriage. The biographer now realizes the profound role that Hannah played in Ethan's life and success, and in the founding of this now great city. Also aware of Ethan's mythic reputation, she kisses Hannah sweetly, saying, "I'm kissing my biography [of Ethan] goodbye." Before Hanna leaves the statue, the old woman tears up the marriage certificate she has kept all these years, saying of his myth (and perhaps their relationship), "Forever, Ethan. Now no one can change it. Forever." | romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | For Business Reasons?.
Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck made six films together, the most they did respectively with other leads.
The Great Man's Lady while not the best example of their joint work is certainly one interesting if somewhat incredible film.I can certainly see what attracted Stanwyck to a role that was part Maytime and part any number of Edna Ferber like tales of empire builders.
Stanwyck is certainly a better actress than Jeanette MacDonald and she really does carry off the part of the 107 year old pioneer woman who is telling a young reporter about her most interesting life.Like in Cimarron, McCrea and Stanwyck start out for the west in the 1840s in search of opportunity and like in Cimarron the woman is being taken from a life of ease and comfort to become a pioneer.
The film shows how very useful she was to him.Albeit even with her conservative politics in real life, Stanwyck was a feminist icon and in the 19th century without even the right to vote, women held a far different position than they do legally now.
What help she renders to McCrea is on the unofficial side.
But as the story unfolds she contributes mightily to his rise to fame and power and sacrifices EVERYTHING for him.I'd like to give the film a higher rating, but the thing that totally throws me is the part her father plays in her ultimate decision.
Thurston Hall is Stanwyck's father and he's a typical robber baron of the era.
But I can't see any father asking his daughter to do what she did for business reasons.
It makes the whole story quite bizarre.McCrea and Stanwyck liked each other personally and professionally.
In Tony Thomas's book about Joel McCrea based on interviews he did with him in the Eighties, McCrea said that Barbara Stanwyck was his favorite leading lady.
She was thoroughly professional and helpful to every other cast member in any film she was in.
He had no qualms in saying that The Great Man's Lady is her film all the way.It's far from her best film, but for Barbara Stanwyck fans it's one of her best performances..
This film needs defending.
Such undeserved condescension on the part of most of your reviewers!
I thought it was an absorbing romantic drama in which Stanwyck was at her very best.
As she turned from youthful sparkly-eyed amused flirt in her first scenes with McCrea into the mature more gray-haired woman seriously urging him to do his political best for those whom he represented, her virtuosity as an actress of transformations came greatly to the fore.
It was a pleasure to respond to her in her various moods of youthful love, a stunned mother's loss of her two babies, her vigorous denunciation of her father in his unconscionable request of her, and finally the resignation of old age in which she at last destroys the long-lived marriage certificate she's been carrying around through most of the story.McCrea was also very good, especially in the scene in which he confesses himself guilty of the same kind of corruption so rife in the American West at that railroad-building time.The story seemed to echo the true events of The Ballad of Baby Doe (opera) in its background of silver mining and marital troubles; and it certainly resembled Edna Ferber-Abby Mann's Cimarron in retelling the story of a marriage in which the husband spends years on the road away from his wife.The 19th-century flooding in Sacramento was certainly up to date given the similar events happening in that city in our own times as well.A great movie.
Pay no attention to those detractors..
Confused Romance.
When the statue of the founder of Hoyt City, Ethan Hoyt (Joel McCrea) is dedicated, the sensationalist reporters and a biographer (Katharine Stevens) head to the house of the one hundred year-old Hannah Sempler (Barbara Stanwyck), where Ethan died, to know the relationship between them.
Ms. Hannah sends them all out but the lady.
Then she tells her life since she was a teenager and felt in love with the pioneer Ethan.
In 1848, in Philadelphia, Ethan dreams on building Hoyt City, but he needs financiers and influent people to change the route of the railroad.
Hannah decides to leave her upper-class father and marries with Ethan.
Eight years later, she meets the gambler Steely Edwards (Brian Donlevy) and they become close friends.
When Ethan discovers silver, Steely lends money to Hannah with the condition that she does not go to the mines with Ethan.
Along the years, Ethan becomes rich and far from Hannah that he believes had died in a flood.
Years later, they meet each other again in Hoyt City but their love is doomed since Ethan has raised a family of his own."The Great Man's Lady" is a classic with some of my favorite directors (William A.
Wellman), actresses (Barbara Stanwyck) and actors (Joel McCrea and Brian Donlevy); and haunting music score by Victor Young.
Unfortunately the story is a confused romance with a not well-explained triangle of love.
I did not understand the quote "spring never comes again", since spring returns every year.
My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Até Que a Morte nos Separe" ("Till Death Do Us Apart").
An excellent romantic, historical drama with two of my favorite stars..
~~~Since I was only 12 when I saw this years ago, I was very impressed with everything about the movie-----the stars, the storyline, the costumes, the historical flavor, and the emphasis on the noble character of the leading stars----Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea who were always great in everything in which they ever appeared.
It was the only movie I ever returned to see the second time before I started seeing numerous repeats on the TV Movie Channels.
The movie starts and ends with Barbara Stanwyck portraying an elderly lady who tells the story of her relationship to Joel McCrea from youth through maturity.
Through a series of flashbacks, Stanwyck tells her story to a pretty, young, blonde reporter who is interviewing her in the hope of getting a hot story on the day an imposing statue of McCrea is dedicated..
What were these A-listers thinking?!??.
This is a mess of a movie that, frankly, should not have been made, especially not by a pro's pro like Wellman, not even as a favor to the dependably phenomenal Miss Stanwyck.
Italian grand opera has never featured a plot gone this far off the rails.
Nor are any of opera's leading saints or scoundrels accorded the admiration plainly directed at the leads in this film, who show less common sense, valor, or candor than Wile E.
Coyote brings to a bad day on the mesa.
I won't spoil this turkey for intrepid or optimistic viewers, but I will note that the story nods (so quickly you might miss it) to an entire off-screen family whose existence, if contemplated for more than 10 seconds by any character, would've given some interesting version of this film a problem and points of view worth watching.
"Reefer Madness" handled continuity better than this.
Many of the lavish costumes are out of place on relatively bare sets.
Joel McCrea's mustache, for heaven's sake, looks like it's about to slip off his handsome face through many scenes!
Turner Classic, bless them, just showed this, earning my continued thanks for gallantly refusing to do my quality control for me..
"Spring never comes again...perhaps in the Indian Summer, we'll meet once more.".
Fake history, played for bathos.
On Founders Day in the thriving metropolis of Hoyt City, eager-beaver reporters swarm the home of a 109-year old woman, reputedly once married to founding father Ethan Hoyt; she's surely got a tall tale to tell, beginning when she was just a teenager in 1848 Philadelphia.
Barbara Stanwyck begs, borrows, and barters to finance the future of idealistic husband Joel McCrea, who owns a great stretch of land with nothing on it but a shack.
The narrative skitters over such crucial story-elements as railroad access, livestock, a water supply, financial aid--all for the sake of marital melodrama.
Brian Donlevy, as a shady gambler who has immediate eyes for Stanwyck, does what he can with a character conceived as an afterthought (he plugs up the holes left behind by a screenplay spanning many years' time); Stanwyck and McCrea fare a bit better, though this story is seldom credible, and is often downright loopy.
Production is handsome enough, and the intentions behind the film are apparently heartfelt, but there isn't a surprise in its entire 91 minutes.
A Weak Performance by All Hands..
Unfortunately I found this VHS at Video Vault and took it home.
Wellman directing, Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck acting, Victor Young doing the music and Edith Head the costumes --- each of these people have made pictures ten times better.Walt Disney's Thumper taught me years ago, "If you can't say nuthin' nice, don't say nuthin' at all." Therefore, I'll note that Great Man's Lady was better than "Shawshank Redemption" which ranks #2 of all time on this website, better than "Order of the Phoenix" whereby Warner's tossed the 750 page story and made a 2 1/2 hour movie with NO story.
Please see Wellman's AAA+ "Little Caesar" or McCrea's "4 Faces West" and skip this one..
Outdated.
Unfortunately, whatever production values this film contains are generally spoiled by the passage of time and fortunate changes in perspective.
For those of us watching now are happily forewarned in the narrator's introduction to the film in which it is not only explicit as to the woman character's subordinate position to her "great man" but also at least implicit as to the role of any woman in the life of her "great man." Of the many "flash-back" films where the character re-hashes their past, this is certainly melodramatic in its acting and characterizations.
The action does not seem compelling to watch, as if one could fast-forward to get to the punch line, which does not really satisfy - the principal male character's life is summed up in such high regard as to make one wonder if the viewer had just seen the same film!
One has to wonder how female audience members felt about the general message (such as it is) of this film when it opened in theatres, although Ms. Stanwyck most likely held her own in her stubbornness by standards of the time..
Really fine story that is NOT really a Western.
There were two Joel McCreas.
One was the fairly noted actor in Western films.
But before that, McCrea made many "regular" pics as a leading man, and he was usually very good, if not excellent.
I always bypassed this particular film because I was not a fan of McCrea in Westerns.But, although this film takes place in the West, I would not really call it a Western.
It's a sort of love story between McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck that happens to take place in the West.The story begins when a statue is being dedicated to the late founder of "Hoyt City", and there's a controversy that he may have been guilty of bigamy.
So reporters attempt to interview the 100 year old wife (or is she mistress).
A young female writer does get an interview, and Stanwyck (whom you won't even recognize at age 100) explains her story in flashbacks.
I'm not a big fan of flashbacks -- I think it's a technique in films that is overdone -- but here it really works.McCrea's character, in my view, does not come off particularly well here, although his acting is perfectly fine.
Oddly enough, the man who tries to steal Stanwyck from McCrea comes off as a more likable character, and is well played by Brian Donlevy.
There are many trials and tribulations that the main characters have to survive here -- floods, hate, the loss of children, the belief that the wife is dead (which unintentionally does lead to bigamy), and so forth.Stanwyck is excellent here, and apparently this was one of her favorite film roles, and deservedly so.I didn't particularly like the very ending of the film, but aside from that it really held my attention because it is a different kind of film and has uniformly strong acting.I highly recommend it, and savor Joel McCrea before he became a cowboy actor..
The story of a great bigamist and his lady.
This is a woman's picture (specifically, Barbara Stanwyck's picture).
The narrative skips large portions of time.
What a surprise to see in the opening credits that the screenplay is based on a short story by Vina Delmar.
Surely, it seems to be based on an epic novel-- and it could easily have been stretched out to 'Gone with the Wind'-style length.
The film is compromised by the constraints imposed by the production code (involving the bigamy of Joel McCrea's character and an extra-marital affair between Stanwyck's character and Brian Donlevy).
But Miss Stanwyck's hard work helps pull off the story, and the flood scenes are very well photographed, especially a sequence with an overturned stagecoach and infant children.
It is easily the most memorable part of the film.
There is a lot of rain/water used in this picture.
In one scene, the entire studio floor is visibly flooded.Some aspects of the plot are too contrived.
It is a little too easy for Stanwyck to turn back instead of going on after the bridge tragedy to find McCrea.
Maybe if there had been a quick scene of her attempting to locate him, but the road being washed out where she was forced to turn back, then that would have been more believable.
Did anyone else feel as if the biographer was going to turn out to be Stanwyck's stepdaughter, or rather, the daughter of McCrea's character with his second wife?
I suppose the filmmakers were prevented from showing McCrea as having committed bigamy, though the marriage certificate at the end proves it..
A great movie it almost was!.
The scenes actually directed by producer William A.
Wellman (a runaway marriage in a storm, news of the silver strike, the flood, Donlevy bringing the news of Hannah's death) are among his best work.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the movie is directed with only superficial competence by Joseph C.
Youngerman.
However, William C.
However, William C.
Mellor's beautiful photography of silhouettes and bleak landscapes, plus the breathtaking sets created by Hans Dreier and Earl Hedrick are really so outstanding, they make the film worth seeing just on their own account.
And let's not forget Barbara Stanwyck's faultless make-up.
Stanwyck herself gives a most convincing performance.
The screenplay too has its memorable moments but is inclined to undo some of its persuasive work and get all wishy-washy in the last quarter hour..
Stanwyck shines in the background while her man rises in the spotlight..
Not a great film by any means, this is still an interesting study of a woman standing by her man in the hardest of times and stepping aside when she believes that she is no longer needed in his life.
Barbara Stanwyck give one of her typically multi-dimensional performances as a woman over 100 years old who tells her story to a rising female biographer, flashing back to her days as a very young girl in Philadelphia society and moving on to the wild west when tragedy separates her from the man she loves, rising politician Joel McCrea.While the narrative is excellent, dragging segments and some convoluted details makes for a missed opportunity for what could have been a classic.
It is similar in many ways to the Greer Garson/Walter Pidgeon teaming, "Mrs. Parkington", and is a tribute to the bravery and integrity of the men and their women who helped the foundation of our country.
Directed by William A.
Wellman, it is not just a women's story, but like the best marriages focuses on what partnership.
It was a propaganda film of a different sort for World War II, and holds up still on many levels.
Brian Donlevy is excellent as the man who stands between Stanwyck and McCrea, while Thurstan Hall is her imperious father.
Young K.T. Stevens is sincere as the young girl who reminds Stanwyck (hidden behind old age make- up and a Whistler's Mother dress) that everything is important when your young.
So while this isn't one of her best known films, performance wise, it is a true sleeper. |
tt0291311 | Lil' Pimp | A little redhead, freckled 9-year-old boy (whose name is not mentioned during the movie, but is revealed in the very end of the movie, as well as in the credits, to be Lil' Pimp) is unable to adapt to suburban life, as his only friend is a foul mouthed gerbil and faces constant rejection by his peers. He accidentally meets a prostitute under the name of Sweet Chiffon, who takes him to her working place, a bar named "the Playground", where he befriends the pimp "Fruit Juice", who gives him a small amount of "pimp glitter". He decides he wants to become a pimp.
The following day at school, during show and tell he is scorned by his classmates for not having a living male relative and decides to use the pimp glitter to summon Fruit Juice, who consequently impresses the whole class. When he visits the Playground again, Fruit Juice alters the boy's style and dresses him as a pimp, too. Meanwhile, mayor Tony Gold threatens to close Fruit Juice's bar, unless he is given 90% of the profits. After this incident the boy's mother goes in search of him, first directed to a gay bar and informed by Sweet Chiffon of a "nasty midget" closely resembling her son and then to the Playground. The boy refuses to return home to his mother, of which mayor Tony is informed directly and takes advantage, accusing Fruit Juice of keeping the boy against his will. He is promptly arrested and his bar is closed down. Afterwards, mayor Tony Gold kidnaps Fruit Juice's prostitutes, in order to exploit them, while assigning two policemen to plant a bomb in the closed Playground.
Meanwhile, Fruit Juice believes that the boy betrayed him, but upon being visited and helped to escape by the boy, he changes his attitude towards him. After the narrow escape, the boy's friends meet secretly in his room in order to concoct a plan to foil the Mayor's scheme. His mother discovers them and agrees to disguise herself as a prostitute in order to lure the two policemen into giving her the keys to the Town Hall. The boy and his friends enter the Town Hall secretly and unveil mayor Tony's wide range of crimes, while the boy sets the prostitutes free. Then, after the gang moves the explosives, mayor Tony, unaware of the situation, presses the button on the remote controlling the bomb, devouring the Town Hall.
In the end, Fruit Juice turns his bar into a theme park also named "the Playground" but less sexually explicit. Mayor Tony and the two policemen are then shown to be working at the park as costumed mascots. | comedy | train | wikipedia | I thought "Lil' Pimp" was pretty funny.
Who cares if it is offensive because it's just a movie.
It's about a little white kid who decides to live with the ho's and pimps.
He wants to become a pimp after seeing their lifestyle.
There's also the sub-plot of corrupt mayor Tony Gold (Voiced by William Shatner) who wants to control the prostitution racket.
There are some big laughs here.
Some jokes do fall flat.
The character of Weathers (Voiced by Ludicrous) is little grating.
Jennifer Tilly doesn't do anything to advance the plot as Lil' Pimp's teacher.
Besides that, everything else is very funny.
It's worth a look.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com.
No Story, No Characters, No Composed Shots.
One of the commentators on the subject of Lil' Pimp (dbborroughs of Glen Cove), got it right when he/she stated that the movie is really bad but I take exception when he/she commented on the animation.The animation wasn't bad because of Macromedia Flash.
It was bad animation because it was directed wrong.
In the right hands, an artist can create animation as full and fluid as any Disney film and, in the wrong hands, it can look as bad as the stuff on the internet, which is where Lil' Pimp originated and should've stayed there.Studios such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney, and Warner Bros., create wonderful animation using Flash (i.e., Puffy Ami Yumi, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Mucha Lucha, etc.).Lil' Pimp was an ill conceived piece of tripe that was made because Revolution Studios bought Media Tripp and Lil' Pimp was one of the properties included.
Roth and company thought they'd make a quick buck exploiting a turd like Lil' Pimp and the sham was perpetuated by it's producer, Amy Pell.
The reason for this third trimester abortion of an animated film is that none of the executives at Revolution Studios had the pragmatic brains to sideline Mark Brooks and Peter Gilstrap (they really tried their best but were way in over their heads), and hire real writers, directors and at least a semi-competent producer.
They did one thing correctly though, they hired some of the best storyboarders, designers, and animators in LA, but as Lil' Pimp demonstrates, one can buy the best sports car on the floor but if you're a moron, you'll wreck it for sure..
The theme music was choice as.Bernie Mack was funny as as Fruitjuice.
So was the voice of Lil Pimp.Cool cameo from Dolemite as Mr Slippers.I found it a entertaining change from Southpark and The Simpsons et al.But the style was obviously influenced by the two.As well as blaxpolitation pimp flicks such as "Superfly" and "The Mack".Pushed the envelope a bit content-wise, which is why it had a higher age rating.A lil short on running time but animation normally is.Bring on more adventures of Lil Pimp!.
Starts off funny, but soon the joke wears thin..
Lil Pimp is the story of a little boy who becomes a pimp.
The animation and voice acting were perfect for this type of film.I laughed out loud for the first 20 minutes or so of this movie; mostly at the concept.
As a 15-20 minute animated short, Lil Pimp would have been a classic.
Instead, this movie consists entirely of one joke that lasts far too long.Weathers, voiced by Ludicrous, does have several crude and funny one-liners.
Unfortunately, that is all the boy's pet rat is good for as he contributes nothing else to the story.
Eventually, I grew as bored with his remarks as I did the rest of this movie.I am a big fan of South Park, and other animation aimed at adults.
The transition from little boy to lil pimp was brilliant; but after that, both the story and dialog became redundant and predictable.I give this movie a five.
It is worth watching for the great concept and voice acting.
It's Worth Watching If You Have A Dirty Sense Of Humor.
The only reason I gave this film a 7 out of 10 is because a flat 6 seems too low but it does feel a bit below a 7 as well.
Let me explain myself first.This movie started off very hilarious.
This kid who always gets picked on finds himself trying to help women cross the streets and wound up escorting this whore to her club.
I think the concept of a snot nose kid and his pet rat who's white but comes off as a ghetto raised thug and making these funny one-liners all the time was hilarious and makes the movie all worth watching.The voices were very good and done by a very nice cast.
The voices fit the personalities quite well and makes the jokes even funnier, if Junior sounded like a regular kid do you think you would've found his jokes funny or feel an innocent vibe with him?
Bernie Mac and Ludicrous were my favorite appearances though, even though the others were really good.The animation was admitting crappy but so what?
You can't always judge a good film on its looks.
I think it's about time someone stood up to the harsh media world and say "Hey, I can make a crappy looking film and make it hilarious!" Seriously, why would people even comment on how bad the movie is but only mention the animation.
All that does is make you look stupid and push all your opinions aside for anyone who has enough common sense to know that comments like that aren't needed.The downfall was where the comedy started to fall flat.
Many may think that Weathers was the only comedy in the movie but I beg to differ.
At 1st he was hilarious and had me asking for more, until I realized he is really pretty aggravating and makes his one-liner comments in every other 3 to 5 sentences.
The more Weather's mouth opened, the more his jokes actually seemed to fall.
By the end of the movie not only did I stop laughing at his jokes but I started getting upset by them.Besides Weathers actually irritating me, the storyline should've ran on a gag instead of running on a story.
Seriously, like I stated in this comment before, the regular concept of a shrimpy white boy experiencing the life of a pimp was funny enough but when I started to realize that there was a real storyline going on then I started to get disappointed because the jokes started failing to make me laugh, the characters were being pretty off, and the story itself was pretty stupid and fell away from what the film started off as.With all said and done I still think this movie is worth the watch and should definitely be rented if not bought..
This movie was da bomb!!.
This was a fantastic movie with the sort of stupid humour that you expect to see from any Flash presentation.
The characters were well defined and everything you expect, the actors were top-notch, and there was just the right level of comic naughtiness!!
We have seen plenty of movies over the years with humour just this side of stupidity and obscenity.
Just take a look at the movies Pootie Tang and Friday After next.
Pootie Tang took the hero to a totally new and unvisited level (rivalled only by radio segments such as Chicken-Man) when everything about the main character is brought into question (including the way they talk).For the right type of person this new movie media type is a real goer!!
As a first attempt I think they raised the pimp-hand and found that it was way strong!
I would like to see more movies done in this fashion (maybe something along the lines of a feature film payout).The problem that this film is suffering with is not only a lack of advertising but a misdirection of audience.
I only stumbled over this movie by chance and though that it would be a bit of a laugh and a giggle (knowing nothing about it and assuming that it had something to do with the Little Pimp character from the movie Friday After Next).
For a few grand I could easily get enough advertising happening for a film like this...it sells itself.Instead of the blurb talking about how it rivals SouthPark, it should read more along the lines of Pootie Tang, Friday After Next, White Chicks, and Soul Plane.
Each of these movies have found the right level of humour, matched it with the right actors (with the right type of voice) and come out with a little known blockbuster..
Review: I thought that this movie was quite funny in parts, especially Bernie Mac who will be truly missed, but it does get a bit silly after a while.
All the pimp game scenes were funny but the little kid was a bit annoying.
Some of the jokes weren't that funny and the storyline was a bit strange, but it's harmless fun for adults.
Its not in the same category as The Boondocks, which I thoroughly enjoyed and the animation was pretty quite bad, but Fruit Juice cracked me up along with some of his hoes.
Anyway it's worth a watch if you want a few laughs, but it could have been much better.
Watchable!Round-Up: Out of all of the characters in this animation movie about getting into the pimp game, Bernie Mac had to be the funniest.
I like the fact that the Producers added some swearing and profanity, because that's what made it funny.
It made me laugh when they tried to dress the little kid as a pimp along with the scenes when he's dancing in the club, but when the whole Mayor Tony aspect come into play, it just gets a bit over the top.
You do have to be into this type of humour to really enjoy it because there are going to be some people that will take offence to some of the language, but if you don't take it seriously, you will find some of the scenes shockingly funny.I recommend this movie to people who are into there animation movies about a young kid who wants to become a pimp.
I mean really, really, REALLY high and this movie has a shot at entertainment.
otherwise save the time out of your life and go do something more constructive with it, like hitting your head on a brick wall and insulting your own intelligence.
A complete waste of talent in some cases (Bernie Mac, John C.
McGinley, Tom Kenny, and the master of hams Shatner) and exactly the kind of crap they deserve to make (the myriad of rappers who insist on making movies).
Not without it's laughs (again chemical aid is crucial) and certainly not without offending the politically over-sensitive (which I'm always in favor of) but ultimately not worth the time out of your life..
Pretty funny, but not great.
I got this movie on DVD for $3.99 at my video store.
I couldn't decide if I wanted it or not, but finally got it.
It has some big laughs in it, most notable a commercial for a Hans Dribbler doll or something.
Like, this doll that shoots everyone...it was funny.
The concept of the movie is hilarious as well, and the Lil' Pimp's voice, as well as the other voices are pretty perfect.
It's really about a confused boy, just trying to find his place, which happens to be a strip club called the "Playground." I really don't know why this movie tanked so bad.
I saw if you watch this movie, you know what you are getting into.
Just don't let the kids see it..
Funny movie, laugh cos its wrong to find it funny..
I thought this was a very funny movie indeed.
It was cheesy and shouldn't be funny but it is.
I know thew animation is poor, internet quality but look past it and enjoy the comedy.William Shatner does a great job voicing the mayor and Bernie Mac is a wicked pimp daddy.If the movie Terkel in Trouble can get a decent score (and its an abysmal movie that just happens to look better) then this deserves recognition for being funny.Watch this movie and know that it is not made by Pixar with a huge budget.
Its not a border line kids/adult movie like shrek.
Its an adult movie, with adult humour.
I love the scene in the cab watch it and tell me it doesn't make you laugh..
The meaning of the Movie.
Lil' Pimp.
Interestingly enough I found this movie amusing.
I am the kind of person that loves cheesy horror flicks and despises American Pie wannabe cliché' films.
Fair enough it has some crude humor and a rather extensive use of the word M*****F****R, but hey, Pimps swear, if the movie didn't have swearing then it wouldn't be able to live by its name.
The innuendo I found funny.
THIS IS NOT A KIDS MOVIE.
adults like cartoons too, and its about time they made one that is for adults.
The fact that "good" produces and flash stylists made this film makes it apparent that they could have made the film very jointed and plausible BUT they make it cheesy for a reason.
It is the same kind of humor that attracts people to South Park.
It is the amateur "style" that mimics the techniques of South Park.
Its not meant to be like South Park, its purely the concept.
(this is all personal opinion and I'm sure there's people that disagree) In conclusion you pretty much need to see the movie to apprehend whether you would find it amusing or not.
Honestly I found this movie 100 times funnier than Neopolean(mental block on how to spell that) Dynamite.
Ps. I am sure Weathers is meant to be some sort of Gerbill thing, rather than a rat.
How do movies like this get made?.
First things first, I am by no means a picky movie watcher.
I'm not one of those people who gets movies just to pick apart the flaws and criticize, I, like most other people, watch to be entertained.
I'll basically watch any type of movie of, no matter how bad anyone says it is (sometimes a movie's so terribly made and written that it invokes a sort of pity humor which i get a kick out of).
With all that aside, lil pimp was simply pathetic.
I saw it on TV and just didn't know what I was watching.
It was too poorly written and cheesy to be an adult movie, and had way too much sex, innuendo and swearing to be a kid's movie, in fact, I doubt even kids would be amused by it.
The humor (pretty generous even calling it that) was so pretentious and campy, I couldn't see how anyone with half a mind could even find it funny.
The only thing that made me laugh was how people like Bernie mac and ludicrous could put their name and time onto/into something so hurting.
Luda's character was such a cheap ploy for laughs, which fell extremely short of its goal.
The plot didn't make any sense whatsoever, the storyline has got to be the worst sequence of events ever put together on screen.
I could keep going on, but I want to see what people think of my reaction before I start discussing specific instances of pathetic scenes.
All I have to say is it really has to make ya wonder how much time these writers spent on their knees trying ta get it made.J. Not for Kids and not particularly good..
First and foremost keep the kids away from this movie.This is the story of Lil' Pimp, a grade schooler who saves not only pimpdom, but the city from the evil clutches of the mayor.Its the first, and one hopes the last, attempt to make a complete feature film using the Macromedia Flash Animation program.
I doubt would have worked on the big screen since its often little more than static pictures with one or two things in motion.
The animation is so limited that it makes the cut outs of South Park look like the work of Leonardo Da Vinci.
The animators simply don't give us enough to look at.
Ultimately the style of animation dooms the film for any kind of success.Plot wise, first, second and third reports told of how this film was a complete and total disaster; of retakes, of complete rewrites, animators being sacked then cheaper help being brought in to save what many said was beyond saving.
I'm happy to report that the film isn't as god awful as the stories made it out to be.
If you can accept a kid as a pimp and don't mind dirty jokes and situations then you'll at least like this film, assuming the animation style doesn't rot your brain (yes its that bad) Pretty much its no more than an okay film, and its nothing one would or should actually pay to see, but for free on TV with some drunk friends this could be an amusing time killer late on a Saturday night..
The Mother F**ker of all films.
This is one of the few films that hits the nail on the head.
They set about making a kid a pimp and they succeed, while having a laugh along the way.
The choice of characters is superb, as well as being extremely well scripted.
Bernie Mac was made for the part of Fruit Juice, and there was no better choice for Tony Gold than William Shatner.With a pretty much all star cast the only things that were lacking was length (113 mins isn't long enough), and the total lack of advertisement.
I stumbled across this little gem in my local video shop and only rented it to see what the deal was with having a comedy legend such as Bernie Mac teamed up with Captain Kirk. |
tt0076686 | The Serpent's Egg | Abel Rosenberg, an American-born Jew is an unemployed alcoholic and former trapeze artist, who uses alcohol to help him deal with the horrific nature and uncertainties of life in 1920's post war Germany as poverty and inflation have destroyed the German economy at the time. He returns home one night to discover that his brother Max has committed suicide. Abel meets up with his old boss who gives him some money in an attempt to persuade him back to his now successful circus. Abel realizes he will not be as good as he was with his brother and so declines but his boss allows him to keep the money anyway. The Jewish community are being portrayed in the media as a drain on society and despite being a Jew himself, Abel has little sympathy for anyone, Jewish or otherwise who gets themselves into trouble for "acting stupid". He goes to see his brother's wife to break the news of his death to her. She asks what triggered Max's suicide but Abel is unable to provide a solid answer. The only sentence in Max's suicide note Abel can make out reads: "There is a poisoning going on".
In an attempt to drown his sorrow Abel goes on a drinking binge which lingers into the early hours and spends the night at Manuela's house. The next morning the two discuss possible new career paths Abel could look into. After Manuela leaves for work Abel steals from her in order to buy alcohol. He is later taken by police to the mortuary in order to identify a series of bodies, the first of which turns out to be that of Grether Hofer, his brother's former fiance who died via drowning. He is also shown the body of another man who was murdered via lethal injection, he does not know the man but comments that he looks remarkably like his deceased father. Next he is shown the body of an old lady whom Abel identifies as a woman who used to deliver papers to his village who he is told committed suicide. Finally he is shown the body of a young boy who was killed after being hit by a truck but does not recognize him either. Abel asks why he is being shown all of these horrific bodies and is told that all of the mysterious deaths happened within the vicinity of his home. He is told that he will have to remain in police custody until they are convinced of his innocence. Convinced that he is being set up due to his Jewish heritage he tries to escape the police station but is quickly recaptured.
Manuela visits Abel in hospital where she informs him that all her money is gone but Abel does not confess. Abel is released due to lack of evidence and returns home with Manuela. However, on returning home Manuela is told by her landlady that Abel must leave because he and Manuela aren't married which the authorities do not approve of, Manuela decides to leave with Abel. As they prepare to leave Manuela confesses to Abel that she actually works as a prostitute and merely made up her office job out of shame.
November arrives and Germany has become ever more fearful that a bloody confrontation between extremist parties could soon plummet the country into another war. Abel and Manuela have found residence in another apartment on the outskirts of town. Manuela leaves for work one morning but Abel secretly follows her, discovering that she has actually been going to church. She confides in the priest that she feels responsible for her husband's death and is struggling to maintain her new life with Abel as the two have become consumed by fear.
That evening Abel discovers that Manuela acquired their new apartment by providing sexual favours to the owner of the brothel where she works. He is initially disgusted and decides to leave and find his own place to live, however he soon returns and shares a passionate kiss with Manuela. One night while Abel and Manuela are enjoying a drink in the brothel and enjoying the cabaret, the brothel is over-run by soldiers who beat the owner to death before burning the building to the ground.
Abel manages to secure himself a new job working as a clerk in a hospital, assisting with the archiving of patient cards while Manuela gains employment at the hospital clinic, they are also given an apartment surrounded by many derelict or empty buildings. One night Abel is alerted to files containing detailed reports of graphic and I humane experiments conducted on patients at the hospital throughout the years. Suddenly Abel becomes even more fearful and paranoid to the point where he won't even allow Manuela to touch him, Manuela herself starts to suffer from extreme mood swings. Abel gets drunk at a local bar and on his way home vandalizes a bakery and gets into a fight with the baker and his wife, but immediately has no recollection of why he did so. He is found in the street by a prostitute who convinces him to have sex with her which starts off normal enough but Abel soon becomes very sexually aggressive with her.
Abel returns home to find Manuela dead on the kitchen floor and that the whole apartment is littered with cameras. He flees the scene and soon finds himself in a mysterious, seemingly abandoned industrial building. Eventually he is discovered by an unknown attacker and the two fight in an elevator which Abel uses to cut off his attacker's head.
He returns to the hospital and confronts the doctor about the inhumane experiments carried out at the hospital. This time Abel is shown footage of the horrific experiments which includes a woman left in a room for 36 hours with a brain damaged baby who will not stop crying, to the point where the woman was driven insane and smothered the baby. The doctor claims that all of the subjects of these experiments were volunteers who he states "would do anything for a little money and a warm meal". Abel is then shown footage of a young man injected with a serum that drove him mad within the space of a few minutes, the effects of the drug wore off but the man committed suicide a few days later nonetheless. It is then revealed that Abel's brother Max was also a patient of theirs and in his desperation agreed to be injected with the serum as part of the experiment which later triggered his own suicide. Abel then discovers that he and Manuela had been subjected to the hospital's latest experiments in which their apartment was regularly filled with a gas which caused their recent extreme mood swings. The doctor comments that he, his brother and Manuela were chosen randomly for these experiments and that their research was funded by "independent means" (Implied to be Adolf Hitler). As the police arrive on the scene and attempt to enter the laboratory, the doctor swallows a cyanide capsule and states that Germany is in need of a revolution that ordinary people are too weak to carry out and that these experiments will benefit mankind in the long run, before dying.
Abel is later shown recovering from his ordeal in a psychiatric ward. The chief of police arrives to tell him that the circus have offered him his old job back and forces him to accept to the offer to begin right away. He also mentions that the Nazi party's latest attempt to seize power has failed.
In the film's closing moment a voice-over reveals that Abel escaped from police custody on the way to the train station and was never seen again. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt1629391 | Tere Bin Laden | Ali Hassan (Ali Zafar) is a reporter with Danka TV, a downmarket local TV channel in Karachi, Pakistan. He is keen to migrate to the US for a better life and wants to work for an American news channel. He gets a chance to fly to the US, but ruins it on board while filming his own audition. He recites the words "Hijack" and "Bomb" too many times; thus scaring his fellow passengers and flight crew. As soon as he reaches the USA, he is deported. Furthermore, because of this incident his visa application is rejected six times in seven years. While covering a local event for his channel, he comes across an Osama Bin Laden look-alike, Noora (Pradhuman Singh), and hits upon an idea to make a fake Osama tape. He manages to convince his assistant Gul (Nikhil Ratnaparkhi) about the merits of his plan. With help from his travel agent's assistant Zoya (Sugandha Garg) and a local radio jockey Qureshi (Rahul Singh), he is able to make the tape by tricking Noora into unknowingly posing as Bin Laden. He then sells the tape to the owner of his channel, hoping to raise money for a new false identity, a new passport and a renewed attempt at getting the elusive US visa. However, the gravity of their action strikes them when the US Government takes the tape seriously and gets involved, as do the Pakistani intelligence agencies. Noora, too, comes to know about the trick played upon him and goes into hiding in his house.
Ali decides to defuse the situation by making another tape in which Osama would be declaring ceasefire with US. He manages to convince Noora and Qureshi. During the shooting of the tape in Danka TV studio, Noora unwittingly detonates a grenade, which kills his beloved prize rooster. Depressed, Noora runs away from the location with the Osama-makeup still on, forcing Ali and his team to follow suit. They manage to get hold of Noora and try to convince him for another shoot. Meanwhile, the FBI team, led by Ted Wood (Barry John) and Usman (Chinmay Mandlekar), head of the Pakistani intelligence agency tracks down the location of Ali and his team. The police arrests Noora, Ali and his team. Ted is delirious that he could at last catch Osama bin Laden. However, during the interrogation, the truth is revealed and to save Ted's face, Ali convinces him about his idea of making a tape of Osama declaring ceasefire. The film ends with US accepting the offer of ceasefire and Ted getting elected as Defence Secretary. Ali is, at last, able to make it to the US and Noora too changes his lifestyle, marries Zoya and helps her with the daily routine in her beauty parlor. Usman is shown to be admitted in a mental hospital as he tries to tell the truth to the world. | comedy, humor, satire | train | wikipedia | Its good news for all Comedy genre lovers as here comes a fine tuned comic flick with some great performances after a long time.
Out of all the genres of film-making I consider Comedy as the toughest one since each individual viewer has his own kind of sense of humor and it's really tough to make everyone laugh at the same time.
And if you are dealing with a concept based on the identity of the world's most famous personality OSAMA BIN LADEN then the vision of its makers really matter a lot.Fortunately "TERE BIN LADEN", comes up as a clear winner, offering you a highly enjoyable time in the theater with a fresh and daring subject.
The movie once again proves a strong point of film-making that a pleasing project solely depends upon its writing, script and execution more than its star-cast.
Now "TERE BIN LADEN" proves it once again, as the common man is appreciating it, even when he is not familiar with any of the faces seen on the screen.Based on the subject of creating a fake personality of OSAMA and then shooting his forged tapes to earn some quick bucks, the film is immensely likable right from its first sequence of deporting the lead hero by mistake.
And on top of all there is Ali Zafar, the hero with his impeccable timing and Pradhuman Singh who is made to pose as the fake OSAMA in a highly hilarious manner.Beside this, what really works is the mixed language used in the movie with insertions of Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi lines written intelligently.
So, considering it as a hilarious satire on the system, it's a fine funny take on the whole world fighting with the current situation of terror.A comedy mainly works, when a well crafted script gets an ample support from its performers and they all have a good time working together.
Luckily, that is the main USP of "Tere Bin Laden" where everyone gels together perfectly and contributes a lot to the overall experience.Frankly speaking, performance wise, the movie was a pleasant surprise for me as I knew Ali Zafar, the lead hero of the film, only as a talented singer-composer and Pop Icon of Pakistan.
He is surely the find of the season for both India and Pakistan and should soon be getting more deserving offers of acting.Among the rest of the cast, Pradhuman Singh as OSAMA is too funny playing with his Sikander (the chicken).
So the unexplainable regional disparities in backgrounds, getups and physical appearances remain the only hick-up in this immensely likable comedy.If "Khosla Ka Ghosla" gave us Dibaker Banerjee then "Tere Bin Laden" has given us another ace debutant writer-director Abhishek Sharma.
So, stop thinking and just go for it with your entire family at the earliest and have a good time.("Tere Bin Laden" also finds its place in my "Movie To See Before You Die" list as its an out of the box comedy based on a rare and daring concept never tried before.).
No, it's not a movie about cricket but it has the same formula for success where Abhishek Sharma is the captain steering the ship with zeal, there is team effort from five to six individual players and then there is a certain Ali Zafar who acts as 'Shahid Afridi' catalyst for the victory.Out of the 120 minutes I sat in the theater, without exaggeration I had a smile for 70 minutes and I laughed for 40 minutes.
The best thing is that it's not dragged unnecessarily and is shorter than your normal Hindi films.The movie marks the arrival of Ali Zafar, who will probably become the first major successful Pakistani actor in bollywood considering that TBL has already grossed over 10 crores at the Indian box office.
Olper's buntings on the shops and Dr. ZIauddin Road on the walls was brilliant.Even when the movie was over, I kept sitting to see the final credits and guess what; it offered more when it unfolded the future of those characters
an all-spiky Bin Laden!
Though The film has already fallen into many troubles but "Tere Bin Laden" is highly recommended for it's fresh concept and some pure humor.In recent times, Comedy only means non-veg, double meaning jokes, abusing each other, misunderstandings, slapping each-other furiously, funny proverbs etc.
But "Tere Bin Laden" has introduced Comedy in a fresh package with some not-so-cheesy but damn funny dialouges, Cock- kicks, Chicken-Kabab Blasts, Laden make-ups, Carrot eating FBI Agents & many more like that.
Without lavish sets, beautiful foreign sites, too much budget, unnecessary songs - "Tere Bin Laden" amazes us by its great wit, slapstick script & some biting dialouges.PLOT - Ali Hassan(Ali Zafar) & His Friend Gul(Nikhil Ratnaparkhi) are two luckless Pakistani reporters of a disgusting TV- channel "Danka TV".
By The Help of make-up artist Zoya(Sugandha Garg), Ali turns Noora into Osama Bin Laden & takes his video & sells it to his boss Majeed(Piyush Mishra).
Besides Singing, This Good Looking Paki Boy is to watch out for in the future for good acting & nicely made stupid expressions what was needed for the movie.
Rest Songs like "Shor Sharaba", "Kukduku" are fare.ACTING - Debutant Paki Singer Ali Zafar has done very nice job and for his naughty & stupid expressions made in the movie are very cool.
We will expect him gravely in future.VERDICT - In recent times, when most of comedy movies are coming up, "Tere Bin Laden" is completely different from them in concept and humor.
Comedy Films have a new nature to them - 'Tere Bin Laden'.Osama Bin Laden, surf this name in Google/Yahoo, and I can assure you...
I saw this movie recently on DVD, the reason I did not go to theater was (actually were) new actor, new director, and the plot was also not so much thrilling, as 9/11 and Osama are not in news now.The main drawback of most Bollywood comedy flicks is, they do not have any plot at all, and most of them have only three things 1.Misunderstanding 2.
Old or double meaning Jokes in place of dialogsThis film was nothing like old crap and to my surprise, I was completely wrong; the cast does justice to the movie's theme especially "Noora chacha" played by Pradhuman Singh and yes "Sikandar"(the chicken) too.
This is perfect platform for him to be launched in such a good movie.The main USP of "Tere Bin Laden" is a well-crafted script with total fresh idea and of course superb direction.
After "LAGAAN" and "3 IDIOTS", this is only 3rd Indian movie I rated as 10/10, and the rest of review explains why I rated it so..While India always has had wonderful actors like Amitabh , Naseer-ud-Din Shah and Aamir Khan, most of such talent is wasted because many Indian movies copy a lot, if you are a well-informed movie geek, you can identify a sequence copied from a classic Hollywood flick or some Giallo, as such movies make lots of gross in India but abroad they lose their charm as we know from ratings that biggest box office hits in Bollywood hardly pass 7 in IMDb ratings..But here and there the biggest film industry in terms of movies made produces absolute genius like the movies I mentioned, there are many more..TERE BIN LADEN is a no-brainer comedy with hilarious moments and equally compelling script and direction, and a totally original effort.The story starts with a Pakistani Journalist Ali (played by Pakistani pop-star Ali Zafar) who wants to go to USA and till the credits open, we know that his VISA has been rejected for 7 years (told in a funny way at how he tries to fool the immigration department), Ali works in a small news channel reporting small league press conferences and even cock- operas, he has a friend camera-man GUL (Nikhil RatnaParkhi) and a mean boss Majeed (Piyush Mishra), Ali gets an idea after watching a cock owner NOORA (Pradhuman Singh) and noticing his resemblance with BIN LADEN.He hires a Hair-Stylist ZOYA(Sughanda Garg) and Voice imitator, communist RJ QURESHI (Rahul Singh) , together they make a tape of Bin Laden and sell it to news, the rest movie tells the after effects of this and I won't spoil it , you have to enjoy it.The movie has a small message and asks a question about America's decisions, but it is lightly told so it doesn't effect the momentum of the movie.As for the performances, ALI ZAFAR was lucky to be cast in this, Pakistani Actors have never been lucky in Bollywood and he got such an original movie to launch his career, but its not to take anything off him, his performance is good, in some scenes he is hilarious while at others , he is just OK , but considering he is originally a singer, he didn't do bad.
The pick of the cast and the person who makes this movie is PRADHUMAN SINGH whose USAMA lookalike character is heart and soul of the movie, he is funny, natural and carries the movie to whole new level in all the scenes he is featured, one of best debut performances.
I would also like to mention Rahul Singh who plays Communist RJ Qureshi, he was also really funny and his physical gestures were really comic, the rest of cast, be it Ali's friends or police and FBI , are all on par.Now to the technical stuff, if this movie was 20 minutes longer, it would have been a plain turkey, but the 95 minute running time (about 5 minutes for credits) really keep your interest throughout without senseless sub-plots and gimmicks, the character of Ali is well developed and his love for America is into you in 10 minutes of the movie, the rest of cast are there to carry the plot, Abhishek Sharma who wrote the script and directed doesn't tell you unneeded stuff which slows down many Bollywood movies, like there is no extra prologue of NOORA and other characters, no annoying parents of Ali, all the characters and progression of movies is on the plot and the jokes are around the plot, which makes this movie great, such a good script needed excellent direction and here too Abhishek scores, with a low budget, he carries off the movie beautifully with short flashbacks and well-executed scenes, the Osama video is hilarious yet looks so original, I would love to see him doing bigger projects in future.For some Bollywood audiences , this might not be the dish but international audiences have liked the movie a lot and it is a big hit now, in India too it has grossed 120 million Rs.
This movie really makes you laugh with honest and entertaining performances by all the young actors.
Putting severe topic like Osama Bin Laden into comedy is itself an achievement.
Just Watched the movie Today, the Concept was Brilliant and the Laden fake worked just fantastic.
Yup, the movie will be a bit disappointment for the American in some scenes but tolerable, overall this is not a laughter riot but a laughter ride, A light Movie to go for, Talking About the performance, the poor Laden Fake was fantastic and done his part of Job, and he was the most memorized character of the movie when you finished watching it, Ali Zafar was good for first Timer, but the Show Stealer was Pradhuman Singh, The Laden Fake,Final Verdict : If you have the Time, Go for it..
You can see a lag somewhere, in almost every film, whether its a classic or a crap...But, surprisingly Tere Bin Laden never showed such a trend, i don't remember which was the previous film that entertained me this much...The protagonist Ali Zafar is a complete discovery!!!
we want to see you more on screen..And Pradhuman Singh, who portrayed Noora (Laden) is perfect, and very good in his role...
and laden(noore) in the movie is so comical, didn't expect this one to be so good but its excellent...
All the actors have done a fabulous job and hats off to them for pulling it off so well, one of the best movie's of bollywood in 2010, i would go with a 9/10 and 2 thumbs up for ali zafar and the director...
Abhishek Sharma's debut feature Without You, Bin Laden arrives with a great deal of both matter and controversy; banned in some nations, and begrudged in general due to its nature and its content, the 2010 black comedy about certain contemporary issues actually arrives with more of a brain and more of a heart than people give credit.
Hassan's enthusiasm to get started within the domain of journalism syncs up nicely with that of what we can only imagine were Sharma's initial struggles and problems in attempting to get his film made; the meeting of a certain chicken farmer named Noora (Singh) at one of these media events coming to formulate the catalyst Hassan needs to try and unlock a pathway into the big-time of media scoops and 'proper' news journalism.Principally, Noora's uncanny resemblance to a certain Osama Bin Ladan leads Hassan and his small crew that he concocts to shoot a mock-Al-Qaeda video of the guy making grave threats and release it so as to garner some kind of fame.
I saw this recently thinking lets c what we guys make comical of bin laden.so i dint expect much....but it was a surprise....this is a low budget movie....but this was funny....the guy who was Noor did play his role as bin laden really well....
i recommend u all should give this movie a try....i thought it was worth watching.the acting was good....it was funny....all in all i thought it was well done....go ahead....the way the story unfolds is good.you mostly know what is going to happen next and all.but still the situational comedy is good....and the part where you see the wannabe cop is hilarious.
We have already watched Chirag Vohra aka Lateef in Munnabhai and Mentos ads; he was hilarious as a supporting character.Sugandha Garg as Zoya was a surprise package and this movie really helped her to bring out her acting skills; Same for Rahul Sing as Quereshi, we have seen him in many movies (one of them is Kyun ho Gaya Na) but his roles were too short to notice...this movie truly gave opportunity to these efficient actors to show their acting skills to the audience.The positive side of the movie is that its really well integrated, straight and simple fun.
Good Job Actors and Director of Tere Bin Laden.
We need more GOOD comedy flicks like this one.Eagerly waiting for a new one.Thanks and Best Wishes Satisfied Happy Audience..
The dialogues, the repartee, the acting from all, the settings, it is all so funny.It is good to see such a wonderful if low budget film with relatively unknown actors.
'Tere Bin Laden' is an out and out comedy that will make you start rolling on the floor laughing.
Abhishek Sharma (the writer-director of this fantastic movie) sure need a special mention, Hats off.Ali Zafar is charming and funny as usual.
Pradhuman Singh, the actor who acted as 'Osama' has also done a great job.
Again, this movie is not one of those mindless comedies (Golmaal 3 or whichever) which rely on timing and dialogues of the actors, but is a well knit story around which the laughter is bound.
And that plan is to make an Osama Bin Laden tape to sell for money.However things get complicated.Yes This really is the plot to the film and let me tell you its so different compared to any other Indian film.
But, considering how many years it debuted after 9-11, it's probably about time for folks to laugh (a bit) about Osama bin Laden.The film was made in India but is set in Pakistan.
Well, in the film, the fake Bin Laden was in Pakistan...and it turned out the real one was being protected there as well!.
'Tere Bin Laden' is an intelligent and a confident comedy from India.Kudos to the well researched and meticulous script and great TIC humor!
The dialogues are witty and the storyline is quite different and equally is the treatment.I was pleasantly surprised by Ali Zafar's acting.P.S.:-A pat on the back for Abhishek Sharma Sir. Expecting more movies like this in future from you !
Even after reading good reviews I did not have the slightest urge to go and give Tere Bin Laden a try.
The person who played the Osama Bin Laden look-alike himself acted very nicely and gave us an impression of a simple and innocent man with an amazing sense of humor.
Tere Bin Laden is part of the new Indian Cinema.
Things that really make a movie Tere Bin Laden is different from most Bollywood films that have been made in the last decade.
Compared to the shipload of terrible comedies made in Bollywood over the last decade Tere Bin Laden can be heralded as the 2nd coming.
Ali Zafar the lead in the movie has posters of films like Goodfellas and Amercan History X.
I would be entertained in an intelligent manner that wouldn't insult my intelligence.Tere Bin Laden towards the end makes a few intelligent points.
Tere Bin Laden is already a banned movie in Pakistan but due to its funny and contradicting popular personality of OSAMA BIN LADEN is getting more anexity among people.
Its a completely funny movie with a reporter in KARACHI dressed like osama bin laden just coz he need to go to new-york but doesn't have money so makes a false tape and sells it to make money so that he can make a false identity to reach USA but while trying this they fall in certain tragic and comedic situations enough to entertain people.this movie is getting good response from the south asia and gulf regions .there are false attempts and spoofs been made over the internet that THIS MOVIE HAS CROSSED $50 MILLION WORLDWIDE. |
tt0032273 | Boom Town | "Big John" McMasters (Clark Gable) and "Square John" Sand (Spencer Tracy) are two down-on-their-luck oil wildcatters who join forces. Without enough money, they steal drilling equipment from a skeptical Luther Aldrich (Frank Morgan). Their well proves a bust and they have to hastily depart when Aldrich shows up with the sheriff to take back his property. The two oilmen team up and make enough money to partially pay Aldrich. To get him to back them for a second try, they cut him in for a percentage of the well. This time, they strike it rich.
When Elizabeth 'Betsy' Bartlett (Claudette Colbert) shows up, McMasters sweeps her off her feet (without knowing that Sand considers her his girl) and marries her. Sand accepts the situation, wanting Betsy to be happy. However, on their first anniversary, she catches her husband dancing with a barroom floozy. As a result, Sand quarrels with McMasters and they flip a coin for the entire oilfield. Betsy leaves too, but returns when she learns that her husband has lost almost everything to Sand and needs her.
Each man goes through booms and busts. Building on his renewed success as a wildcatter, McMasters moves to New York to expand into refineries and distribution, competing against former customer Harry Compton (Lionel Atwill). Seeking inside information about his rivals, he hires away Compton's adviser Karen Vanmeer (Hedy Lamarr), who uses her social contacts and womanly charms to gather industry information.
Meanwhile, Sand loses everything he has built up in South America to a revolution. When he meets McMasters at an oilmen's convention, the two finally reconcile, and Sand goes to work for his old friend. When he suspects that McMasters is carrying on an affair with Karen, he tries to save Betsy's marriage by offering to marry Karen. However, she deduces his motives and declines. When a miserable Betsy tries to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills, Sand decides that the only way to help her is to bankrupt McMasters. Sand loses his costly battle with his former friend and goes broke. It is only when he asks McMasters to give his wife a divorce that the married man finally comes to his senses. Later, McMasters is prosecuted by the government for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and loses his business. In the end, poor, but happier, Sand and McMasters team up again, with the blissful Betsy looking on. Aldrich supplies them with equipment and the whole cycle begins again. | violence, romantic | train | wikipedia | As one who has worked in the "oil patch" for 25 years, I feel that 'Boom Town' is the most realistic portrait of the industry (during that period) that has ever been put on film.
Claudette Colbert is fine as the woman both men love and Hedy Lamarr was her usual alluring self.Great entertainment all around..
This film has four big stars perfectly cast and appearing at their very best in a very entertaining film about "wild catting" in the American oil industry.I rated it 7/10.First up is Clark Gable playing the "mans man" role he made so famous in "Gone with the Wind".Next up is Spencer Tracy giving one of his speeches in court where he seems so comfortable, ("Judgment at Nuremburg", Cass Timberlayne" etc).Next up we have Claudette Colbert giving one of her best sympathetic "tea and sympathy" performances e.g.
"Since You Went Away" and finally there is the gorgeous Hedy Lamarr playing to her strength of a sophisticated, intelligent and beautiful business associate who knows how the oil industry business is is transacted in the New York corridors of power.The film was made one year before the U.S. entered WWII so the budget could afford to be generous.Fot its day, the scenes and special effects of the oil well fire were very realistic.One reviewer remarked that Clark Gable in his youth worked on a "wild cat" oil site, if so this gave his performance added realism.What about those muddy roads.I felt like asking the town corporation to pave them over with some of that oil money flooding into the oil barons' coffers which presumably would attract some local taxation!.
Portraying a friendship similar to the one they shared in the earlier "San Francisco," Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy play two oilmen or wildcatters in "Boom Town," an entertaining saga directed by Jack Conway.
Tracy is the more solid, down-to-earth Jonathan Sand, who is Gable's moral conscience, much like he was in "San Francisco." The pair meet cute while heading in opposite directions on a narrow board walkway across a muddy street.
The mud is barely washed off their clothing when Gable unwittingly steals Colbert from Tracy, and the jilted platonic lover carries a torch for his lost love throughout the film.
Oil gushers, well fires, and fistfights, the action wanders all over the MGM back lot from Texas to South America to New York.Gable anchors the film with his larger-than-life personality, while Tracy underplays in deference to his more charismatic co-star.
Although re-teaming the Oscar-winning leads of "It Happened One Night" must have seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, Colbert, unfortunately, often seems out of place in "Boom Town." Her manners, poise, and dress do not mesh with the Texas oil fields or the South American hovels.
However, she is certainly believable as the object of any man's lust and physically perfect as an "other woman." Fortunately, a fine cast of supporting players, such as Frank Morgan, Chill Wills, and Lionel Atwill, surround the leading stars and further enhance the lively proceedings.First class production values, a fast-moving story, and appealing stars make "Boom Town" a solid entertainment, if not a masterpiece..
They used four of their biggest stars, any one of whom could have starred in their own films.Clark Gable already had an Oscar for It Happened One Night, another nomination for Mutiny on the Bounty, and was nominated in the 1940 Academy Awards for Gone with the Wind.Spencer Tracy, a nine-time Oscar nominee, already had a nomination for San Francisco, a win for Captains Courageous, and a win the previous year for Boy's Town.Three-time Oscar nominee Claudette Colbert already had a win for It happened One Night, which she did with Gable, and a nomination for Private Worlds.Frank Morgan had gotten one of his two nominations for The Affairs of Cellini.And, our Star of the Month, Hedy Lamarr, was just beginning her career.This was a raucous film with all the excitement that you would expect in one about wildcatters in the oil business and featured barroom fights, streets of mud, and stories ripped from the headlines.
Tracy and Gable play two "wildcatters" -- oil hunters -- who are always at loggerheads and both manage to gain and lose several fortunes before the film's end.
A lot of fun scenes (especially when the 2 bullheaded oil barons finally duke it out), good characterizations (Morgan, as always, deserves a mention, this time as the slightly petty equipment broker they both rely on), but a somewhat predictable story, though well scripted.
Anyway, if I were Claudette Colbert, I would have a hard time deciding between Clark Gable (handsome and rugged) and Spencer Tracy (sweet, caring, and devoted).
Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy make the unlikely pair of men who join forces to strike it rich, and they're both lively and sharp on their game.
Later in the movie, Gable in New York (during a successful few years) and he is caught up with an urban siren played by Hedy Lamar.
But it's sweeping and convincing in that 1940s Hollywood style that is kicking in, technically flawless, beautiful made in every way.Throw in four great actors (as well as Frank Morgan, the man who the year before played the Wizard in that Oz movie) and you have a really excellent production.
I found it tough to get involved with the story and the characters.The cast was terrific: Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr, Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, Chill Wills - are you kidding me?
Gable had the lead as the cocky oil wildcatter "John McMasters" and Tracy has his more controlled friend "John Sand." The latter is more than leery of his buddy which turns out to be prophetic as McMasters marries the woman Sands had his eyes on: "Elizabeth Bartlett," called "Besty" in the film and played by Colbert.
As the main characters, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy are in top form, and still young enough looking in 1940 to play oil wildcatters.
The ladies, Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr, play more complex than usual women for this kind of film, as their motivations at all times make sense even if one doesn't care for them.Boom Town isn't an easy movie to categorize.
Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr star in "Boom Town," a 1940 film directed by Jack Conway.
It's about wildcatters and friends, played by Gable and Tracy, who make money as partners, love the same woman, go their separate ways, reunite, all under the specter of oil rigs.Gable has a role he owned, that of Big John, a tough guy, a man's man, kind of Rhett Butler goes wildcatting.
Well, she had to choose between Clark Gable, matinée idol, and Spencer Tracy, a character actor whose talent gave him leading man status.
The couple end up in New York, where Big John meets a Big Beauty named Karen (Lamarr) and goes for her, threatening his marriage.Everyone is very good in this absorbing movie, with Lamarr's knockout beauty a real asset.
A couple of oil-drilling buddies (Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy) strike it rich together.
BOOM TOWN can't decide whether it wants to be a buddy flick (CLARK GABLE and SPENCER TRACY) about wildcatters, a domestic romance with an "other woman" angle (CLAUDETTE COLBERT, HEDY LAMARR), or just a big brawling adventure epic about losers and winners amid gushing oil.Somehow, it manages to be all three--which makes for a rather uneven story that serves as a star-gazer for fans who like to watch the foursome go through their paces even though the script isn't strong enough to support them and their misadventures.Claudette is lovely in the chief romantic role as Gable's love interest, but it's HEDY LAMARR (who strolls into the story pretty late in the film) who dazzles with her close-ups and that amazing beauty.Gable is right at home in this get-rich-quick-scheme drilling for oil, since he was an oil rigger at one time before his movie days.
He and Tracy are both in love with Claudette--but after she falls for Gable she regrets his close working relationship with Lamarr--and that's where the plot starts to thicken but loses credibility at the same time.Lamarr's role is so underwritten that she hardly has time to register strongly as a sophisticated woman attracted to Gable.
The focus is hardly on the women involved, but instead the main thrust of the plot is carried by Gable and Tracy and their relationship.It's the sort of macho buddy film you'd think Gable's friend Victor Fleming would direct, but instead it's Jack Conway behind the reigns.
Okay, it's true that if you have a movie starring Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy it can't be bad.
The plot after a while becomes VERY tiresome and the relationship between the guys makes no sense (unless you read and agree with my final comment below).Gable and Tracy love each other and yet spend the entire fighting and making up again and again.
The initial excuse is over a woman, but it soon is apparent that this isn't the real reason, as Gable not only takes Tracy's girl but then takes a hot tamale as his mistress.However, despite the silliness of this plot, the absolute WORST moment of the film is the courtroom scene near the very end.
Two wildcatters Big John McMasters (Gable) and Square John Sand (Tracy) hit it off quickly (thanks to their mutual instinct of dodging potshots), and bouncily go for it in their oil rigging enterprise, there are hits and misses ongoing, but their archetypal bromance is put into a critical test when they are both besotted with the same dame, Betsy Bartlett (Colbert).
Thankfully, the reunited Gable-Colbert pair knows how to play the flirtatious bonhomie right, and a bluff Tracy makes a rather surprising capitulation to the "she is not that into him" situation but is never able to get over her, instead, he becomes the watchdog of their marriage, a resolute assurer that Betsy's happiness is unadulterated.
So an extrinsic force timely arrives in the form of Hedy Lamarr's drop-dead gorgeous Karen Vanmeer, Big John's business adviser and a socialite who is adept at eavesdropping, as an interloper, she is not beyond reproach but for once, she is presented more than a vacuous bombshell, in fact she has the wiles to apply her own counter- moves when Square John tries to buy her out.Slightly tortuous in its story-line, and 77 years have passed, Jack Conway's BOOM TOWN has sustained to evince a pristine luster in pointing up two of the most peddled attributes of America: the land of opportunity and the propitious everything-will-be-fine motto..
I liked the interaction between Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy.
In an oil-rich 1918 Texas town, manly wildcatter Clark Gable (as "Big John" McMasters) meets fellow prospector Spencer Tracy (as Jonathan "Shorty" Sand).
Gable and Tracy steal some oil equipment and strike it rich.
Tracy's well-dressed girlfriend Claudette Colbert (as Elizabeth "Betsy" Bartlett), who sells ladies' underwear, arrives and goes to bed with Gable.
Very predictably, this starts a long rivalry...Gable and Tracy win some, and they lose some..."Boom Town" starts out exciting and turns into a one-note soap opera that doesn't impress.
Rather late in the story, beautiful Karen Vanmeer (as Hedy Lamarr) enters as a second love interest for Gable.
Despite being hollow, "Boom Town" is a classy and engaging production from a studio with the staff to make it happen.***** Boom Town (8/30/40) Jack Conway ~ Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Hedy Lamarr.
"Boom Town" is a very entertaining soap-opera which solely depends on the charm of it's two stars.I'm happy to say that both Gable and Tracy are great in this movie.The action sequences are amazingly done considering the vintage of this movie.
However, aside from an unusually spirited performance by Gable; it was Hedy Lamarr, in a brief role, that made a big difference.
With 4 terrific stars, including the most beautiful woman in the movies Hedy Lamarr is beyond comprehension.
Don't get me wrong..love Claudette, but given a choice of watching her or Hedy on the screen...would be Hedy for me...just a quote from Spencer Tracy to Gable upon meeting her for the first time.."Wow...she can stop a stampede"...no truer words were spoken..
Even all the great stars of yesterday including Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy can't raise this picture above average and that's exactly what it is-average.I guess the dialogue is good.
This one has it all-great cast(Spencer, Clark, Hedy, Claudette), rousing action(check that oil well fire scene), over-use of montages, boom and bust cycles, beautiful women(esp.
A typical big budget, big star feature of the times.I donno how much I bought the soap opera angle-clearly Claudette and Spencer should have gotten back together at the end, w/ Gable taking off w/ Hedy.
In more than one case, Clark Gable was the raffish go-getter and his pal, Spencer Tracy, was the more grounded and less reckless partner.Here, the two are partners in a wildcatting oil drill in Texas in the earlier years of the century.
There's always Gable glad-handing everyone, Tracy glowering, Colbert wondering if Gable really loves her, and Hedy Lamarr glowing with her incendiary sensuality.
While this is a good film, it could have been a little better.It is interesting seeing & hearing Spencer Tracy make a closing speech in court where he mentions conservation of oil years before the industry even had any programs about this.
But that again is the part that Tracy always played in the three film pairings with Gable.
In a certain sense like most buddy films, the love story is between the two guys and it never shines better than in their explosive fight scene towards the films end.Claudette Colbert does a great job with a thinly written part as "the beautiful Betsy".
She really holds her own with the famous scene-stealer.Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, and Chill Wills are among the rest of the excellent MGM company supporting cast in this film.It's too bad that this was the last film with the two great stars.
Think Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis teamed with Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone tht would be todays equals you're already looking at 60-80 million dollar budget.Enough of that Gable, Tracy, Colbert, and Lamarr are all wonderful in the film.
Just before they strike it rich, big john meets a lady (colbert) as she arrives into town.
Diaster strikes Gable loses his shares to tracy and he and colbert go off to make a new fortune.
big john and betsy go out west to wildcat and are joined by square john happy ending.Although this all sounds contrived...it works...the film is fast paced each actor givesa solid performance.
Gable and Tracy are all manly men and Colbert and Lamarr are stunning as the women who love them.
In the present case, Gable teams up with an enthusiastic Spencer Tracy, and later with gorgeous Claudette Corbert.
The ups and downs of Gable's and Tracy's oil businesses, together or separate, and their relationship, constitutes much of the substance of the film.
Boom Town is a Love story, a Drama, a Western, and an Adventure all put into one movie.
The movie stars Spencer Tracy as Square John Sand, Clark Gable as Big John McMasters, and Claudette Colbert as (Elizabeth) Betsy Bartlett.
This is the last of three films that Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable starred in together which included San Francisco, Test Pilot, and Boom Town.
Hedy is a pretty lady; she just seemed stilted in this role; a siren should seem suave but she never quite comes across as the wanton woman she is supposedly portraying.The more Spencer Tracy movies I see, the more I appreciate his acting ability.
Gable and Tracy go through fortunes, friendship and they love the same woman all in one picture.The men meet by chance, finally strike it rich, Gable takes off with Claudette Colbert, the woman Tracy loved.Both men rise from going broke, but their love for Colbert endures over the many years.Enter Hedy Lamarr for a role she was born to play.
Great pic with great performances by Gable, Tracy, Colbert, & Morgan.
This is one of my favorite films with either Spencer Tracy or Clark Gable...and here you have both!
And, the film has another very necessary ingredient -- Frank Morgan, whose role sort of holds the whole thing together.Gable and Tracy play two oil wildcatters who steal drilling equipment from Morgan.
The fun is in following their cyclical ups and downs along the way in both oil and a woman -- Claudette Colbert who intended to marry Tracy, but then falls in love with Gable.This is a pretty interesting film where you can learn a bit about the climate of the wildcat oil business of the day.
Perhaps a bit more like the Tracy of "Northwest Passage", also in 1940.Claudette Colbert is wonderful here as Gable's wife.
The odd star out is Hedy Lamarr, who by rights shouldn't have gotten equal billing with Gable, Tracy, and Colbert.
Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, plus Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr!!!.
This is one of the many entertaining pairings of Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy; it's about two "wildcat" oil friends who become competitors and also get involved with two beautiful women, Claudette Colbert and Hedy Lamarr.
Lionel Atwill and Chill Wills also appear.The plot is light fare: Gable is a tough guy who literally runs into tough guy Tracy, but the two become fast friends and scheme to drill for oil using someone else's money (Morgan's).
Gable meets, falls in love with, and marries Colbert without realizing that she was Tracy's girl.
you can lick me if it'll help"The two, then the three (Tracy), and finally the four (Morgan) reconcile and are planning to work together to find oil again as the film closes.. |
tt0045208 | The Super Snooper | Daffy Duck is Duck Drake, a "Private Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat". He receives a call that summons him to the J. Cleaver Axe-Handle Estate, where somebody supposedly has been murdered. He arrives at the house and suspects a shapely female duck with red hair and a curve hugging red dress of committing the crime. The woman, referred to as 'The Body' shows him affection; saying "Rowr! Rowr! Oh baby! gorgeous hunk of duck," and showers him with kisses. However, Drake, is only interested in inquiring about the murder.
Drake immediately accuses her of hating the deceased and drawing her "little pistol" out of her bag (the gun is a revolver with a very long barrel but somehow fits inside a change purse), pointing it at him and slowly squeezing the trigger, tighter and tighter and tighter...until six rounds plug Drake right in the face. At first the bullets appear to have decapitated him until his head sticks out from his jacket with his beak full of holes and proclaims loudly "Not so TIGHT!" He then elaborates (after she hikes up her skirt to reveal her long curvacious legs, turns the lights out and plants numerous kisses on him) how 'The Body' grabbed the deer rifle off the wall, prompting the man (having apparently survived the pistol shots) to run screaming from the room then letting him have it when he tries to sneak out. Drake is shot multiple times while mimicking a game dummy so that the scoreboard goes from 5 to 200 before eventually saying "Pretty good shooting, sister".
The woman insists that he searches her and kisses him on the lips two more times. Amazingly, the target is still alive and kicking so the next scene involves her crushing him with a grand piano suspended from the ceiling. Drake predictably ends up on the receiving end of this reenactment after startling the woman into releasing the rope holding up the piano, which falls and crushes him through the floor, leaving him with piano keys for teeth. Even though the victim has been shot twice and squished by a piano, he is still defiantly clinging on to life, with the love struck duck getting another chance to kiss him on the cheek. This results in a last desperate attempt to kill him by moving nearby train tracks to the front door because the victim always watched the 5:15 express go past every day. At that precise time Drake opens the door and is flattened by the oncoming train, leaving him with a lantern on his head. After insulting the driver, he makes the shocking discovery that he is in the wrong house. "Silly boy! The ax handle estate is a couple of blocks up the street," The Body tells him.
Finally accepting that the seductress is innocent, he is further stunned when she claims being guilty "Of being crazy about you sweatheart!" Drake, having ignored her advances throughout the entire episode, notices the "old ball and chain" look in her eye (quite literally) and flees. He runs right through the front door. Not giving up on her 'cutie pie,' The Body hikes up her skirt and chases after him, also breaking through the front door which now houses their bride and groom imprints. | psychedelic, romantic | train | wikipedia | Gumshoe Daffy And The 'Inevitable Babe'.
Daffy Duck starring in a film-noir cartoon?
I love it!Daffy is "Duck Drake: private eye, ear, nose and throat" who narrates this crime tale, a la film noirs of the period.
His takeoff on a Sam Spade or Mike Hammer-type investigator is hilarious and a good spoof of those type of crime stories."Drake" encounters the "inevitable amorous babe who's just crazy about us hard-boiled gumshoes" and thinks she's the killer in this murder at a rich mansion.
He tries out several theories on how she killed her husband, demonstrating each and with the predictable (and humorous) results.As with any spoof, some of the jokes on dead-on and very good, others are so bad or so corny you wince but either way this provides good entertainment and is pure 100 percent Daffy Duck.
The excellent graphics don't hurt, either.
Kudos to writer Tedd Pierce and director Robert McKimsom for another solid effort..
Film noir with Daffy Duck.
As a huge lifelong fan of Looney Tunes and of Daffy Duck (one of Looney Tunes' best characters), while not quite one of my favourites The Super Snooper is a very entertaining spoof of film noir.
There is not much to criticise here actually.
A couple of jokes are a tad corny (the ending didn't quite work for me) and it does feel a touch heavy on the slapstick occasionally.
Nevertheless it is still very entertaining indeed.
Contrary to one reviewer, I for one thought the animation was very good.
Sure there has been better animation before, but it is bright, colourful and atmospheric, the backgrounds are suitably detailed and fluid and the characters are very well drawn, as said the atmosphere evoked is highly effective.
Carl Stalling can be counted on to provide a good music score, and he certainly does, great even.
It is beautifully orchestrated and characterful as well as enhancing the action brilliantly in the way few other composers scoring cartoon shorts did so well.
Dialogue is smart, fresh and witty and the story spoofs the film noir genre in a brilliantly clever and remarkably suspenseful way.
The gags a vast majority of the time work really well and the best of them like the piano, bullet-holes-in-Daffy's bill, the train and the goofy walk gags are incredibly funny.
The characters work well on their own and complement each other beautifully.
Daffy carries the cartoon with brilliant comic timing and great charisma, while the Lady Duck (possible inspiration for Jessica Rabbit?) is a deliciously seductive and potentially deadly counterpart.
Mel Blanc gives as always stellar vocal characterisations, again demonstrating his incredible and unequalled ability to voice multiple characters and give each of them a unique and different personality from one another.
Marian Richman's voice acting is also very suited to the Lady Duck.
In conclusion, very entertaining and very good.
Just not the best of Looney Tunes, or one of my favourites.
8/10 Bethany Cox. duck noir.
As the Termite Terrace crowd loved to spoof everything in popular culture, it should as no surprise that they took a swipe at 1940s detective movies.
Robert McKimson's "The Super Snooper" casts Daffy Duck as Duck Drake, a Sam Spade-style private eye, nose, ears and mouth.
One day, this hard-boiled gumshoe gets a call telling him that there's been a murder in a local mansion.
So, he goes there and finds the sexiest female duck of all, whom he immediately suspects of the murder.
So, he tries to recreate the crime, always making the hot babe cooperate...but it results to his detriment!
While Chuck Jones famously cast Daffy in the kinds of roles deliberately not suited to him ("The Scarlet Pumpernickel", "Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century", "Robin Hood Daffy"), Robert McKimson clearly also had an eye for this.
We see here Daffy in exaggerated form: he's so convinced of his own rectitude that he goes to any length to prove it, no matter what happens...and then we get a big surprise at the end!
And besides, THAT IS ONE HOT BABE!!!!!!!
A cross between Veronica Lake, Grace Kelly and Barbara Eden, if you will.Anyway, I gotta disagree with a reviewer who in another review said that Warner Bros.
should have closed Robert McKimson's animation unit and left Arthur Davis's unit open.
McKimson really directed some impressive work (though Davis also directed some good ones).
This is certainly a funny one..
Fantastic!
I very much enjoyed this Daffy Duck episode, for the following reasons: 1.
The idea was very good, Daffy Duck can pull off a detective role very well (as you may already know even if you have not watched this particular episode).
2. The woman character was excellent, she CERTAINLY liked Daffy!
3. The way Daffy narrated the story at the beginning and then re-did the mystery in the middle and towards the end were very well done and clever.
4. The funny-walk scene is hilarious and well-animated.
5. There were many amusing points in the episode, if a tad slapsticky at times.In this episode, Daffy stars as Duck Drake, a detective, who one day receives a call which does not interest him, until the caller posts a huge wad of cash through the phone.
Daffy decides, now he has such a good fare, he will go out and investigate the mystery.
He turns up at a very large merchant house, where a suspicious butler welcomes him in, with a funny walk, which Daffy imitates (and this was nearly twenty years before the Ministry of Silly Walks began!).
He then meets a very over-dramatic, seductive woman duck and Daffy guesses what happened and why she is the murderer.
Will he find out if she really committed the crime..?
The only thing that I did not find top notch in this episode was the animation, it was not the best for Looney Tunes.
Also, there is a little too much slapstick for me.Very well worth watching, I recommend this to people who like Daffy Duck, to people who like his detective roles or who want to see them and to people who like it when Daffy is paired with a woman duck.
Enjoy "The Super Snooper"!
In the animated short SUPER SNOOPER .
. Warner Bros.
anticipates the day when Americans can pay for services through their phones, as most of us do daily now.
An anonymous caller makes two phone payments to private eye Duck Drake (portrayed by Daffy Duck)--the first for his time, the second for his expenses.
The rest of this piece raises the issue of whether Daffy will become a pioneering cartoon gigolo.
I did not view SUPER SNOOPERS with the benefit of an alternate commentary soundtrack, so I do not know for sure whether the wedding music concluding this Sadie Hawkins fowl affair was Warner Bros.' idea, or a finale dictated by America's Pre-Release Film Censorship Board.
Frequent Looney Tunes viewers familiar with Warner's penchant for staging gay marriages among its stable of animated male stars might be surprised that Daffy is running off with (or running from) a less anachronistic female here.
But if you look closely at this alleged duck chick, she may sport the head of a bird, but she's certainly drawn with the legs of a woman.
Waddle your heart out, Daffy..
"THIS is innocent?!".
Daffy Duck as a private eye?!
Difficult to fathom, isn't it?
Yet he is indeed "The Super Snooper", donning the customary trench coat, hat, cigarette, and ineptness as he visits a wealthy estate and tries to trap a slinky dame into a confession.
In doing so, the hapless duck is hilarious!My favorite scenes in this cartoon are: the piano gag; bullet holes in Daffy's bill; and Daffy & the butler doing their goofy walk.Need help solving a mystery?
Then call on Daffy Duck, "The Super Snooper".
Of course, it would help if he actually pays more attention to where the scene of the crime is! |
tt0065677 | Le foto proibite di una signora per bene | Minou is a wealthy housewife, who yearns for the attention of her husband Peter. However, Peter is frequently busy at work and is rarely at home. Minou is out one night when she is attacked by a strange man, who cuts open her clothes and warns her that her husband is a killer.
Minou ignores what she has been told until she finds that a man indebted to Peter has been found dead. She receives a telephone call from her attacker, who plays a tape recording of Peter discussing the murders. The attacker tells Minou that he will go public with this evidence if she does not come to his house; when she is there he further blackmails her into sleeping with him. However, he has used a hidden camera to photograph the tryst, and continues to use this new leverage to continue blackmailing her.
Dominique, a friend of Minou, initially seems to be trustworthy, but Minou finds pornographic photographs of her blackmailer in Dominique's possession. When Minou leads the police to her blackmailer's home, it has been emptied of all belongings; while Dominique refuses to corroborate that the man even existed. Doubt begins to amass as to Minou's sanity, leading to her suffering a nervous breakdown and taking an overdose of tranquilizers. | cult, horror, murder, suspenseful | train | wikipedia | A society woman (played by Dagmar Lassender) is nearly raped on the beach by a sinister man who tells her that her industrialist husband has murdered one of his colleagues.
The husband meanwhile is himself involved with her sexually voracious best friend (played by Nieves Navarro aka Susan Scott), and the whole thing might be some kind of plot to drive her mad.This movie works mainly because of the acting.
Even better is Nieves Navarro as her sex-hungry best friend who has pornographic pictures taken of herself and says at one point, after Lassender's character confides about her near rape, that she would have "adored being violated" (there's a kind of refreshingly politically incorrectness to the ridiculous dubbed dialogue of these movies).
She is such a dubious and ambiguous character that even at the end it is not clear whether she is a loyal friend to the protagonist or an unexposed villain.The director, Luciano Ercoli, is the Italian husband of former Spanish model Navarro.
Ever after giallo writer Ernesto Gastaldi teams up with producer-director Luciano Ercoli for this Forbidden Photos...
Sultry Dagmar Lassander is at her best and Susan Scott is also fab as the devious friend.The plot is totally implausible but the suspense works til the end...It's always surprising to see in these 70's gialli how the women look incredibly sexy and how the men are all ugly...projections of the writers/directors fantasies, maybe?
The Forbidden Photos of a Lady above Suspicion is a Giallo that is different to what most fans will be used to, as the graphic, over the top murder scenes have been scrapped in favour of a sexually charged plot line.
I was worried that this might not work out, as murders are a key element of this sort of film for me - but to my surprise, Luciano Ercoli has turned out another first rate Giallo that makes up for it's lack of blood with a constant stream of intrigue.
The atmosphere is charged with desire and frustration, and the central plot; which features blackmail, sex and mystery makes best use of its array of amoral and perverse characters.
The story picks up when Minou is attacked by a stranger on a beach who informs her that her husband has committed murder and blackmails her into sleeping with him.
The plot then takes another turn when the assailant furthers the blackmail with pictures of their rendezvous...Luciano Ercoli is never going to get huge respect from Giallo fans simply for the fact that he hasn't made a great deal of films; but it seems that the ones he has made get rated down too often, and just like Death Walks at Midnight - Forbidden Photos is an underrated Giallo.
The director does an excellent job of ensuring that Forbidden Photos fits the plot in terms of look and style.
She is joined by Pier Paolo Capponi who takes the sinister role of her husband, while the cast is rounded off by the talented Susan Scott, whose husband and director Luciano Ercoli allows her to steal every scene she's in.
The plot is significantly less convoluted than most Giallo's, but if you ask me; this is a good thing as it allows the director to put all the implications of the story across without being bogged down by plot details.
In all his three Gialli, FORBIDDEN PHOTOS, DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS and DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT, Ercoli presents his story from a female perspective, but they are presented as utterly helpless when dealing with the various male perpetrators and chauvinist male detectives surrounding them.
Nudity level and body count are low, but as a mystery it's actually much more effective than most Gialli, stylishly filmed, well acted and permeated with intrigue, blackmail and fetishistic violence, supported by a groovy Ennio Morricone score.
'Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Of A Lady Above Suspicion' is an above average giallo that fans of the genre should seek out.
The beautiful Dagmar Lassander (Fulci's so-so 'House By The Cemetary') plays a woman who is attacked by a stranger who almost rapes her then retreats telling her that her husband is a cheat and a murderer.
This unusual giallo starring Dagmar Lassander (Hatchet for the Honeymoon- The House by the Cemetery) and Susan Scott (Death Walks at Midnight- Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals) is one of the best of the genre!
The movie follows a middle age married woman (Minou) who is almost raped by a psycho inform her that her husband is a murderer.
Instead, director Luciano Ercoli (Death Walks on High Heels- Death Walks at Midnight) give us an interesting story, a lot of style, wonderful Ennio Morricone score, and great acting by the four leads in a film that will keep you interested till the end .Very recommended if you are into the wonderful world of giallo.
The gialloesque elements come in the form of an eye-catching title, stylish camera-work, great interior decor, a Morricone score, a convoluted mystery, sleazy undertones and the usual quota of beautiful looking women and hideous looking men.
I would recommend this film for giallo completists and lovers of obscure Italian movies.
My old buddy Rob, who knows more about psychotronic movies than anybody I know, was the one who turned me on to one of my favorite film experiences of 2006, "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh" (1970), so when he recently raved about another giallo thriller from 1970 that he'd just seen, "The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion," I made a mental note to check it out as quickly as possible.
In "Forbidden Photos," Dagmar Lassander plays the part of Minou, a woman who is being sexually blackmailed by a man who has incriminating evidence of a murder her hunky businessman husband supposedly committed.
Luciano Ercoli's direction is impeccable; the script by Ernesto Gastaldi (who seems to have written every other giallo that I see!) is one made to keep you guessing (although, plotwise, the film is much more straightforward than many other gialli); and Susan Scott, playing Minou's best friend, is remarkably sexy.
Marvellous giallo and if it doesn't have lots of murders it does have Dagmar Lassander and Susan Scott (Nieves Navarro) both vying for our attention.
If you like Giallo films because they are all blood, nudity, style and senselessness this one will probably disappoint you.
"The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" has undoubtedly its assets: the remarkable camera work by cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa, quite meticulously chosen, très chic décors, exquisite sixties fashion, an expertly done soundtrack by Ennio M., and above all the ravishing beauty of Andalusian actress Nieves Navarro who would later marry director Luciano Ercoli.
"The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" (1970) is the first of three Gialli by Luciano Ercoli, the others being the fantastic "La Morte Cammina Con I Tacchi Alti" ("Death Walks With High Heels", 1971) and the decent "La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanotte" ("Death Walks At Midnight", 1972).
This is actually a highly unusual Giallo as it lacks the usual violent and stylish murders almost entirely; however, it makes up for the lack of bloodshed with a hugely compelling plot that will tantalize the viewer from start to finish.When walking alone at night Minou (Dagmar Lassander) is attacked by an assailant (Simón Andreu).
He does not rape her, but blackmails her with supposed proof of her husband Peter's (Pier Paolo Capponi) role in a murder.
Scripted by the great Ernesto Gastaldi, whose impressive filmography as a screenwriter includes Ercoli's other two Gialli and numerous others as well as several of the works of master directors like Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti and Sergio Martino, "Forbidden Photos..." has a fascinating and constantly tense plot full of intrigue, red herrings and sexual perversions.
The film is often referred to as a very 'sexy' Giallo; while the film has a plot filled with sex, it isn't explicit though, and actually quite tame for Giallo standards (there is no explicit filmed nudity, just some nude photos of sexy Nieves Navarro are shown).
Andreu is great in the role of the sex-crazed blackmailer and the ravishing Miss Navarro is once again fantastic in her role of Minou's nymphomaniac friend.
In spite of a very low violence-level, "Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" manages to be an incredibly suspenseful Giallo-experience from start to finish.
My personal favorite film by Ercoli is still "Death Walks with High Heels", but this one comes very close and is an undeniable must-see for any Giallo fan.
Whilst waiting for her husband to come home from another business trip, lovely Minou (Dagmar Lassander) has a frightening encounter with an assaulter on the beach.
Minou begins to notice Peter's increasingly suspicious business methods but does everything she can to avoid that the mysterious blackmailer tells his story to the police...and that includes sleeping with him.
Good luck guessing for the answers to all these questions and more, as the mystery in "Forbidden Photos of a Lady above Suspicion" is subtly and elegantly built up, leading to a tense finale that actually makes sense for a change.
Without ever resorting to graphic violence or pure sleaze, director Luciano Ercoli tells a story that is full of perversion, blackmail and sexual decadence.
"Forbidden Photos..." uses great dialogues, atmospheric music and adequate acting performances instead.
In one evening, a beautiful married woman, Minou, is attacked by a strange man who informs her husband, Peter, is a murderer.
Although Minou can't and doesn't want to believe the apparently crazy story, her best friend, Dominique, meaningfully suggests that a man named Jean Dubois, who was found to be drowned, might be somehow murdered.
In this sense, though Dagmar Lassander adequately plays Minou whose actions and reactions, spoken and unspoken utterances, tones of voice, facial expressions and gestures are Freudian and/or psychoanalytically explainable, this film per se isn't and can't be the one in which Lassander is at her best because her character lives in and only in the strangely self-limited world.
"The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" is a good entry into the Giallo genre, with a plot (concocted by Ernesto Gastaldi and Mahnahen Velasco) that's actually pretty easy to follow.
Mostly, Ercoli uses the film as a means of showcasing the charms of his dynamic and luscious actresses, Dagmar Lassander and Nieves Navarro (Ms. Navarro would become Ms. Ercoli two years later).Lassander plays Minou, the bored wife of businessman Peter (Pier Paolo Capponi), who is accosted by a stranger (Simon Andreu) on a beach one night.
Minou ends up caught in his blackmailing scheme, and when she tries later to convince people of what has been happening to her, there's no evidence to back up her claims.Lassander is a pleasure to look at, and delivers a sympathetic performance as well; Navarro is a saucy delight as her friend Dominique.
Capponi is engaging as Peter, and Andreu does look like he is having a good time playing the creepy blackmailer.
These performers and filmmakers do a creditable job of holding your attention and interested in how things will develop, although some viewers might predict where it's going on prior to its resolution.With outfits and music that strongly evoke this era (Ennio Morricone composes a nicely mellow score), this is worthy of viewing for lovers of the more exploitative side of Italian cinema.Seven out of 10..
The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion (Luciano Ercoli, 1970) ***.
Ercoli's first film turns out to be a relatively restrained giallo, but one that's better than its more typical follow-ups - DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (1971) and DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972); in these, Susan Scott (here supporting lovely Dagmar Lassander) was promoted to the lead role - having, by this time, become romantically involved with the director!
While the film may disappoint some fans by its low quotient in the sex-and-violence stakes, these elements are still implicit in the narrative - particularly in the relationship between young society wife Lassander and slick blackmailer Simon Andreu, which may very well have been modeled on the even more ambiguous one shared by Catherine Deneuve and Pierre Clementi in Luis Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR (1967)!
Lassander's pill-popping heroine (sign of the times!) is surely one of the most put-upon in the genre - in this, too, it differs from the norm given that, usually, there are several victims involved - and the occasional flashes to her degrading experience with Andreu are nicely handled, playing up to Ercoli's skills as an editor.There's yet another delightful and infectious score by Ennio Morricone, and the film's color scheme makes it one of the more elegant examples of the genre; lighting and props are equally well utilized (especially in Lassander and Andreu's scenes together).
Forbidden Photos would easily be among the best Gialli I've seen if it weren't for the lack of actual murders and other on-screen mayhem.
She never looked better or was she more mysterious than in Forbidden Photos.
Finally, Forbidden Photos features an interesting score from Ennio Morricone.
You just don't expect something so obscure (I don't believe that Forbidden Photos was ever released in the U.S. in any form until now) to look this good.
Minou (Dagmar Lassander, The House by the Cemetery) loves her husband, Peter.
Seeing as how he has recorded their tryst, he now has more material on her.Even her friend Dominique (Nieves Navarro, All the Colors of the Dark, who was married to the director, Luciano Ercoli) can't be trusted, as Minou finds photos of the blackmailer in provocative poses in her possession.
But come on - if you've watched any giallo, you knew that going in.Despite its lurid title, Forbidden Photos of a Woman Above Suspicion isn't filled with sex or even all that much violence.
Beautiful, but sexually repressed young housewife Minou (a marvelously luminous performance by luscious redhead stunner Dagmar Lassander) gets assaulted on the beach by a cunning blackmailer (a compelling portrayal by Simon Andreu) who tells Minou that her struggling businessman husband Peter (smoothly played by the handsome Pier Paolo Copponi) is a fraud and a killer.
I can't tell you how much I love Arrow Video when it comes to giallo films.
Arrow has given them new life and done so in a way that makes them exceptional.THE FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION is one such film, a giallo in the tradition of movies with a lengthy title that still offer the goods.
Here we start off with Minou (Dagmar Lassander), a married woman on holiday out of town waiting for her over worked husband Peter (Pier Paolo Capponi) to arrive soon to join her.
Now blackmailed with this new threat she turns to her trusted friend Dominique (Susan Scott), a woman who was once with Peter.The movie involves plenty of plot twists and suspicious characters that will keep you guessing just who is behind all of the events taking place.
It's not at all confusing but it keeps you guessing, trying to find the solution to the mystery before the film ends.Like most classic giallo films this one has a great story and mystery to be solved and it sets things in motion perfectly.
Those include a new commentary track by Kat Ellinger the editor in chief of Diabolique Magazine, "Private Pictures" a new documentary with archive interviews with actress Nieves Navarro (Susan Scott) and director Luciano Ercoli and new interview material with writer Ernesto Gastaldi, "The Forbidden Soundtrack of the Big Three" a documentary on the music of the film and 70s Italian cult cinema by musician and soundtrack collector Lovely Jon, "The Forbidden Lady" a Q&A with actress Lassander at the 2016 Festival of Fantastic Films, the original Italian and English theatrical trailers, an image gallery, a reversible sleeve with new artwork by Twins of Evil and for the first pressing only an illustrated collector's booklet with new writing on the film by author and critic Michael Mackenzie.If you enjoy giallo films or a great mystery then this is one I think you'll enjoy.
Pill-popping, alcoholic wife of a struggling businessman, Minou(the foxy bright red head Dagmar Lassander, often covered with heavy facial make-up)is being tormented by a sexual deviant/sadist(Simón Andreu)who has her listen to a cassette tape that might just possibly link her husband the killer of an investor who was recently found dead.
What Minou doesn't realize is that the blackmailing sicko photographed their sexual activity and now threatens to expose pictures to her husband if she doesn't allow herself to becoming his sex slave!
The blackmailer is quite elusive and any trace of his identity seems hard to come by..Minou's husband Peter(Pier Paolo Capponi)and Police Commissioner Frank(Osvaldo Genazzani)believe it's quite possible she's having a nervous breakdown or a collapse in sanity.
Only her nympomaniacal best friend Dominique(the VERY sexy Susan Scott who is wardrobed to show the goods and figure she's blessed with)seems to believe Minou's cries that there is a sadistic fiend threatening to kill her if she doesn't comply with his demands at sexual servitude.
The film's a practical run-way of Italian fashion dressing Lassander and Scott in various styles.
Instead this is a giallo that focuses around a mysterious blackmailer and has one of those "is she mad or isn't she?" plot evolutions in which the heroine is being secretly terrorised only to have nobody, including her husband, believing her.Much of the film centres on Dagmar Lassander's character, a wife forced into sex with a stranger who then realises that she's been tricked.
Swap these two around and the film would have been far better.Director Luciano Ercoli delivers the proceedings from a script by giallo veteran Ernesto Gastaldi; thankfully, the plotting is more convincing than most entries in the genre and the benefit of a decent English dub makes things easier to bear.
Ladling on the mystery and suspense throughout while also investing proceedings with a typically sexual flavour, Ercoli's first film as a director is a low budget success. |
tt2181831 | Shahid | The film opens with murder of Shahid Azmi (Rajkummar Rao) and goes into flashback to the violence during the Bombay Riots. There Shahid witnesses cold-blooded murders and in anger runs away to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where he spends a brief period at a militant training camp. He soon returns. In Mumbai, he is arrested under the TADA, for an alleged conspiracy to assassinate some politicians. He is brutally tortured by police and forced to admit to the crime, after which he spends seven years at Tihar Jail in New Delhi. During his incarceration at Tihar Jail, Omar Sheikh (Prabal Panjabi) tries to brainwash him. But another inmate War Saab (K K Menon) inspires him to start his college education. Once he is acquitted of the charges, he goes ahead to study law in Mumbai.
After receiving his law degree, Shahid works with lawyer Maqbool Memon (Tigmanshu Dhulia) for few months, before starting his career as an independent lawyer with the financial support of his elder brother Arif (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub). During this process he meets Mariam (Prabhleen Sandhu), a Muslim divorcee, and marries her. Shahid soon starts picking up cases of Muslims charged under the POTA. He fights many cases pro bono in consultation with NGOs. Shahid gets his first major success as a defense lawyer when Arif Paanwala, who has been arrested under POTA in 2002 Mumbai bus bombing, is acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Shahid then represents the accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings, the 2006 Aurangabad arms haul, and the 2006 Malegaon bombings case. He is criticized for supporting terrorists and starts getting threatening calls that disturb his family life. On one occasion, Shahid's face is blackened by assailants outside the court room. While defending Faheem Ansari in the 2008 Mumbai attacks case, he gets shot by two gunmen in his office and dies on the spot. Later, Ansari is shown to be acquitted of all charges by the Supreme Court of India due to lack of evidence.
In a post-credits scene, Shahid's journey to the training camp is shown. It is edited out of the final cut to make the story tighter. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | Watched this movie recently and i was simply too much impressed with its script, acting, and direction all were just too natural, real and perfect, hardly i realized in 150 minutes that i am watching a movie.The story was very sensitive as it was based on real life of Late lawyer Shahid Azmi who known for his high acquittal rate specially of terror accused who are falsely implicated in terror cased being poor and helpless, he was gunned down by unknown men in his office on Feb 2010 as he was defending the accused of 26/11 Fahim khan.The story is portrayed in such a gripping, yet responsible manner that it makes you hold your attention right from the beginning where we first meet Shahid as a young boy scarred by the barbaric violence during the communal riots of Mumbai in 1993.
But in a terrific scene that illustrates the actor's ability to convey volumes without the crutch of words, he changes his mind and heads back home.Shahid spent 6 years in Tihar jail along with the other terror accused, and kept hope and continued his studies being in Jail and latter was acquitted by the court after 6 years as there was no evidence found against him.A scene that stings with honesty, Shahid asks a packed courtroom if an accused by the name of Matthew, Donald, Suresh, or More, would be singled out and subjected to the same injustice as his client Zaheer, who has remained in jail for a year-and-a-half although no evidence could be gathered against him.This film has remarkable cast and their perfect performances.
Relying on minimalist instinctive acting over loud theatrics, he delivers his second winning performance this year after Kai Po Che.Shahid according to me is GEM of a movie produced in recent years.
The movie follows the life of the controversial criminal lawyer Shahid Azmi, who was murdered a few years ago.
I understand that the movie has been shot without studio lights and any special direction efforts - it was quite evident and it felt good.Rajkumar Yadav - playing Shahid is superbly convincing, and so is every other character.
Hansal Mehta's film on the real-life slain lawyer Shahid Azmi is fearless work.
Shahid is a must-see film with an absolutely impeccable sub text that can be read as an urgent warning against the politics of isolation practiced by many political parties.watched the movie last night and thought this is one of the best movie i have seen in a long time....
Go and watch the film – it is one of the most important films to come out of Mumbai in a long, long time" Best tribute to Shahid Azmi by Hansal Mehta, very inspirational true life story..
I feel ashamed of myself for not knowing Shahid Azmi- a slain lawyer and an altruistic humane activist before Hansal Mehta came up with a strong evidential piece of cinema that does not merely solve the purpose to entertain but also dares to enlighten our unresponsive- unsympathetic minds confined into its own safe but scared place to stay put.
Shahid, played by 'Kai Po Che!' fame Raj Kumar could be anyone of thousands who gets trapped into the torturous custody of Indian Police known for its tactical power-driven machinery and is thrown into Jail for beholding a name that comes from a certain section of people in minority
but where the most would disappear in the galore to turn radical against country & its governing bodies, Shahid decides to stand out.
Based on the real-life criminal lawyer-cum-human rights activist Shahid Azmi, film amalgamates facts and fiction beautifully.
Kay Kay Menon and Tigmanshu Dhulia play their parts efficiently with a sparkling presence on screen.After PAAN SINGH TOMAR, here comes an earnest biographical drama that I hope could change the way Indian Cinema thinks about our real life heroes.
As said in the film by the character Kay Kay Menon plays, "It takes time but it works." Painfully correct!On the whole, very few people dare to rise and take a stand to tell a story that might have been vanished from lives & in files if not attempted.
A true story of a selfless protagonist, fighting for the freedom of falsely framed victims of a minority community, this is about SHAHID AZMI, a noted lawyer who was killed in his own Kurla office in February 2010 by some unidentified men.
With a mix of more facts and less fiction, director Hansal Mehta makes this best film of his career in a pure realistic style, as an absorbing documentation of the life of Shahid Azmi which is going to be a fascinating yet disturbing cinematic experience for many.
Apart from its scary & unbelievable kind of real life account of a lawyer, what makes SHAHID hit you hard is its sharp editing, flawless casting and superb, realistic performances from the entire talented cast.
Such is the authenticity in his performance that after watching him, one feels like having met the real SHAHID and for that both the actor and his director truly deserve all the praises showered upon them in the last few months.
The names are Prabhleen Kaur and Baljinder Kaur (Shahid's mother) and they do provide a strong visible support to Raj Kumar's towering performance along with subtle Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub,silently playing his helpful brother.
Personally, more than the film, it is the message, the purpose and the mission of the man named SHAHID, which forces me to include it in my must see movies list right away, particularly for the Indian viewers, who are facing this religious clash everyday like an inseparable issue of our multi-cultured society.
Probably that is the reason why we very well know about the men who made important arrests at those crucial times of crisis but don't really know about the man who got many innocents out of the jail after few years, rightly fighting the court of law with his own sincere efforts.For instance, be it Mumbai, Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat, Assam or any other region of our country, we always get to hear and read the news of suspected terrorists arrested from anywhere and it's at once all over the media as their main focus.
The poor coverage of such cases, don't let us know about many courageous and human right activists like SHAHID AZMI and therefore the film presented on his life is indeed a very vital and major contribution made by Hansal Mehta and his team to Indian Cinema as well to Indian social system, embracing diverse religious beliefs since centuries.
Practicing as the lawyer for such special framed cases, Shahid had an astonishing record of getting 17 acquittals from the court in his short career span of only seven years.
So if you are willing to see a rare kind of alarming as well as enlightening biographical film made on a true fighter who always fought for others in his forcibly shortened life of only 32 years, then do watch SHAHID as a must and celebrate this new triumph of Indian cinema made for a cause..
His record of 17 acquittals in a short span of time is indeed a great achievement so people please watch this for sure, Shahid will not disappoint you.
Saw this film today and couldn't resist coming to IMDb and look at this movie's page.I was shocked to see the 6.7 rating and read the 3 reviews which give 7 stars(hopefully that will change).Now,it could be just that not everyone likes this movie as much as I do.But,when I think about it there is not a single thing about this movie that you can criticize.This movie is as underrated as you can find.Acting by every actor in the film is top-notch.But,the acting of protagonist's mother and Kay Kay Menon are something exceptional.Cinematography is also good compared to other Indian movies.If this movie had a more famous actor like Aamir Khan or Akshay Kumar,I am sure I wouldn't have write this review.Story is both cruel and sweet.
STRONGLY RECOMMENDED!After PAAN SINGH TOMAR, here comes an earnest biographical drama that I hope could change the way Indian Cinema thinks about our real life heroes.
Hats off to Director Mr. Hansal Mehta, who had chosen this story to be told and the senior actors, who had given priority of subject above remuneration and length of roles otherwise this low budget movie could not have accommodated them and without good actors there were chances of movie going misinterpreted.
A movie which tries to grasp you emotionally but then hits you hard in the face?Well, earlier Raj Kumar Gupta's Aamir was one of those now Shahid joins that list.
Why?Shahid is a biopic of Shahid Azmi, a man who first became the victim of being accused by the police of knowing a terrorist and how he gets a motive in his life for doing higher studies while he is serving jail time.
You must have guessed it by now that after his acquittal he goes on to study LAW and then helps the hopeless people who falsely become the victim like him of unsubstantial accusations made by the police.Shahid played by Raj Kumar Yadav is nothing less than a class act.
Zeeshan Ayyub(remember Murari of Raanjhnaa) as a so-sensible and more-responsible elder brother.Hansal Mehta, the director and writer Apurva Asrani and Sameer Singh has kept the movie emotional as well as thought provoking which is an achievement as it's really hard to maintain a line between these two.
Supported by great visuals in parts and dark where it's needed from Anuj Dhawan the cinematography is worth appreciating.I recommend you do watch this biopic of a real life hero which works in every department.
Movie leaves a deep message for us by showing extra ordinary life of an ordinary man.A must watch for those who is sick of bollywood bakwas masala.
Movies like Shahid are made because some stories are important and should be told with utmost honesty possible.
Hansal Mehta does an excellent job with a touching and thought provoking story in his hands.Rajkumar Rao playing Shahid, first a victim and then a savior, is exceptional.
That is what Hansal Mehta succeeds in achieving by adopting the life of Shahid Azmi into silver screen.
With powerful performances and an engaging story-line, Shahid is one of 2013's best films.Rajkummar Rao has evolved into a more mature actor with this role, if we compare his previous stints.
I have always wondered why do miss out to nominate films like SHAHID, Madras Cafe or BA Pass in Indian awards.
Fortunately, I was lucky to watch SHAHID and it blew away my mind with incomparable direction and stupendous performances.Based on the life of lawyer and social activist Shahid Azmi, SHAHID gives real-time events which changed the life of an innocent boy to a social activist who was only committed to fight for justice.It takes courage and guts to make a movie like SHAHID.
Prabhleen Sandhu and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub lends in good support.Shahid is definitely 2013's most under-rated film.
Based on the life accounts of one of the most controversial figures of our times, the slain lawyer Shahid Azmi who got 17 cases successful in 7 years of his career, the film also highlights the Indian judiciary system and the venom of terrorism in broader light by director Hansal Mehta (also directed "Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar!"/2000) whose narration is gritty, no nonsense and moreover without any melodrama which will make you sympathize and criticize few moments in the film.
Mohammad Zeeshan Ayyub is great in the film as he returns with his "Raanjhanaa" charms and last but not the least is Raj Kumar: Take A Bow as he walks away with all the applauds with such a brilliant portrayal of the slain lawyer with sheer excellence.
Shahid is one of those low budget movies which comes in every year and gets pummeled by all the star studded, extravagant, over the top commercial films.
Even though a message at the start of the movie clearly mentions that it's a work of fiction 'inspired' from a real life incident, nowhere in the movie does it seem like the director or the writers have exaggerated.
This film is a tribute to Shahid Azmi, who is inspiration for the plot and Rajkummar Rao has truly justified his life.
But Kudos to the producers like Ronnie Screwvala & director Hansal Mehta showcasing the dark reality of the people who take up the struggles for justice and empowerment in this country.
Its a great service to the nation showing the real story of Shahid Azmi who was actively involved in organizing legal defence for many innocent & poor people who got arrested in Maharashtra & Gujarat on charges of masterminding and carrying out terror attacks and was assassinated in India, fighting the brutal police State that the Indian democracy has become in its dubious war against terrorism.
I would highlight what Ajit Sahi wrote in Tehelka: "Because the Indian State is hand-in-glove with the western powers, and because India's dominant middle classes solidly back that relationship, the western or Indian media are unlikely to hail Shahid Azmi, who was killed in Mumbai on February 11, as a martyr to the cause of bringing justice to hundreds of the poor, mostly Muslims, falsely accused of terrorism." Advice all those who actually love India to see this movie..
The film is a semi-biopic of advocate Shahid Azmi and his fight for the helpless Muslims who were mistaken for terrorists.
Based on the life of late lawyer & human rights activist Shahid Azmi, 'Shahid' is a Terrific film in all respects.
Without doubt, 'Shahid' is amongst the finest films to come out of the Hindi Film Industry in recent times.Hansal Mehta's Direction, which Won The Prestigious National-Award for Best Director, is utterly brilliant.
my eyes got wet after watching this movie story is not all that new but its presentation i.e its screenplay along with the background music are amazing.its much better than all the junk delivered time and again.the director has taken special care to present the movie with an objective perspective while being fair to the person being portrayed on screen.this is a superb movie and i cant think of another actor going to the extent like raj to portray the character.the film is also critical of our judicial system with lot of dark humor in it happy viewing 2 all.
The agony and ecstasy of life through the eyes of slain lawyer Shahid Aazmi have been portrayed poignantly and harshly at the same time.Shahid Azmi (Rajkumar Yadav) raised in the slums of Mumbai (Govandi), in the middle of communal disruption and religious turmoil between Hindus and Muslims in 1993 riots.
He does pure justice to the multi-layered portrayal and leaves a strong impact pushing the limits.Prabhleen Sandhu gives a notable performance as single-mother who marries Shahid and lives an insecure life, it was really a tangible role played with conviction.Hansal Mehta leaves an emotional impact on the audience with his gritty and unsophisticated production.A must watch.8/10..
Shahid is a real movie of a common indian muslim boy whose community have been suffered many times by the extremism at India..
This film based on a true life of a man Shahid, of the utmost integrity and bravery.
I tend to favour real life, especially court cases and when the common man has an uphill struggle, so I am happy from the start, but this film was outstanding in every way..
We need more people like Shahid.Direction, Screenplay, Cinematography: Justified.
In this movie Shahid who is an advocate tries to defend the people who is in jail on the basis of just doubt by police for years and years.This movie has to watch at least once....
Based on the real story, the movie highlights several aspects of the lives of such people.
Direction, acting by Rajkumar Rao and other actors, script- everything about this movie is just perfect!.
Based on a true story, one of the few movies that I'd recommend everyone to watch out.
Acting by every actor in the film is top-notch.But,the acting of protagonist's mother and Kay Kay Menon are something exceptional.Cinematography is also good compared to other Indian movies.If this movie had a more famous actor like Aamir Khan or Akshay Kumar,I am sure I wouldn't have write this review.Story is both cruel and sweet.
It focuses on the life of Shahid Azmi, a lawyer who defended those who were accused in terror cases.
Shahid is a 2013 Indian Hindi biographical film directed by Hansal Mehta and produced by Anurag Kashyap.
It is based on the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi, who was assassinated in 2010 in Mumbai.The film opens with murder of Shahid Azmi (Rajkummar Rao) and goes into flashback to the violence during the Bombay Riots.
He fights many cases pro bono in consultation with NGOs.The real life Shahid Azmi had defended the 2004 film Black Friday in the courts while it was languishing with the censor board for its controversial content.
Rajkumar Yadav plays the role of Shahid Azmi and he is an actor to watch out for.
Mind you it's a biopic based on a lawyer Shahid Azmi and I salute his spirit of fighting for the innocent.
The film tries to depict the life of Shahid Azmi who was killed in 2010.
It is very rare for our bollywood to produce an authentic biopic on the life of a controversial lawyer like Late Shahid Azmi.
The way and manner in which it has been told by Director Hansal Mehta and enacted by Rajkumar Rao truly bring heart and soul into the film with at par performances from all the co-actors as well.
The film and the story of a righteous person who once shared spaces with terrorist like Omar Shaikh, to turn his life around for the people and their good cause, is definitely worthy to be watched. |
tt0976238 | Old Dogs | Dan Rayburn (Robin Williams) and Charlie Reed (John Travolta) are best friends and co-owners of a successful sports marketing firm. Seven years prior, Dan, recently divorced, married Vicki (Kelly Preston) after being whisked away by Charlie for a tropical vacation. The marriage, however, is short lived. Seven years later, Vicki resurfaces to tell Dan that their short marriage resulted in something he never suspected: twins Zach (Conner Rayburn) and Emily (Ella Bleu Travolta).
Vicki, facing jail time for her work as an environmental activist, asks Dan to take care of the kids while she does her time. Thinking this might be his chance to get back with Vicki, Dan agrees, but only if Charlie will help him since neither have any experience taking care of kids. At the same time, the two must finalize a huge marketing deal with a Japanese company; something they've always dreamed of, but will take all of their talents to clinch.
Because Dan's condo does not allow children, he has to board with Charlie. Whilst this is happening, Charlie and Dan are close to securing the biggest account in the history of their careers with the Japanese corporation. Charlie and Dan's attempts to take care of the kids are well-intentioned, but very misguided. On a trip with the kids to an overnight camp, a hard-nosed camp instructor (Matt Dillon) becomes convinced that Dan and Charlie are homosexual partners. The trip ends with a bang after Dan accidentally sets a beloved statue of the camp's founder on fire.
The kids then proceed to spill and replace Charlie and Dan's prescriptions, mixing them up in the process. Dan then must play a game of golf with the Japanese executives while experiencing extreme side effects and Charlie tries to woo Amanda (Lori Loughlin) with a face frozen by the pills.
Desperate to help Dan communicate with the children despite his inexperience with children, Charlie recruits his friend Jimmy Lunchbox (Bernie Mac), a flamboyant children's entertainer, who is famous around the world. Jimmy comes by and straps Dan and Charlie in motion control puppet suits so Charlie can help Dan make all the right moves with his daughter while having a tea party. The suits malfunction, but Dan speaks from the heart, winning over Emily but his speech makes Jimmy emotional. Everything is great with Vicki as she returns home upon having served time in jail. However, the guys have sealed their Japanese deal, sending junior associate Craig (Seth Green) to Tokyo. When Craig goes missing after arriving there, Charlie and Dan must fly to Tokyo themselves to work. Dan must leave the kids and Vicki despite his (and their) desire to be a family.
Once in Tokyo, Dan realizes that what he really wants is to be a good father. He leaves the meeting without sealing the deal, rushing with Charlie to Vermont for the kids' birthday party. They aren't able to get into the Burlington Zoo in time and are forced to break in with the help of Craig. However, they mistakenly wind up in the gorilla enclosure. Though Dan and Charlie escape, Craig is captured by the gorilla (which takes a strong liking to him).
Dan then pays a birthday party performer hired by Vicki to use his jet pack and suit, flies into the ceremony and wins his kids back over. When the jet pack stops working in mid-air, he is taken to an ambulance on a stretcher. One year later, Dan and Vicki are together, Charlie has married Amanda, and Craig has become like a new "uncle" to the kids. | comic | train | wikipedia | I refuse to admit I live in a world where those who enjoy this dreck actually know how to read."Old Dogs" is an ugly artless stupid film that has been created only to keep your kids quiet for a couple hours; although making them sit through this should legally be on the same level as child abuse.
Like an old dog that needs a bath, this thing stinks something awful.Robin Williams and John Travolta have done better.
If you made a record or a painting or a movie that helped lift up the standards of culture and made the world a better place, even for a brief moment, then I think you should get a pass if you're forced to make dreck to put food on the table.I was ready to give Robin Williams his pass for "Reality...What a Concept," "Moscow on the Hudson" and "Insomnia." John Travolta had a potential pass for "Pulp Fiction" and "Get Shorty." Seth Green gave us "Robot Chicken." Matt Dillon, Bernie Mac, Amy Sedaris, Ann-Margaret, for God's sake....Ladies and gentlemen, no longer.
More and more people will pay good money to see Seth Green get cuddled by a gorilla or watch Williams and Travolta go through the same list of gay panic jokes (with a little racism thrown in for extra flavor) that was excreted on screen for "Wild Hogs." Keep polishing that turd, folks; it won't change what it is.Don't force the ones you love to see this movie.
A few toilet jokes kept the kids amused and a few well placed adult puns made me smile.I just wish that the television trailers hadn't shown ALL the good bits - which took away all the surprise funny bits and really just left the mushy stuff in between to watch....Travolta and Williams are living breathing classics and make the movie well worth watching.I simply can't understand the low overall rating this movie has received up until now - it really ain't that bad.....
Evidently, John Travolta, his wife, daughter and siblings needed an excuse to take a working family vacation with Robin Williams, and this cinematic open sore is the result.
Here's an example of the film's logic: Kelly Preston (Mrs. T) plays a mother of 7-year-old twins; on the eve of being sent to prison, she tells Robin Williams that he's the dad.
Just good clean humor.John's daughter and wife were terrific...I would recommend this movie to any age group.I had read the reviews and disagree with the negative ones.
In the genre of serious films - don't bother with it - but if you just want a good time, laugh till your sides hurt and just forget about everything else negative in your life - Robin Williams, John Travolta and cast provide entertainment that anyone can enjoy.
By far one of the better comedies I have seen come out of 2009.The cast of "Old Dogs" is really good, as everyone have great on screen charisma, and everyone is a gifted actor, so that works well in a great way.
I always like Robin Williams, but I must say that John Travolta did a really good job in this movie (and I am usually not a big fan of his work).The movie is good for fun and laughter, whether you sit down to watch it alone, with your significant other, or with your whole family.
There is something in this movie for everyone."Old Dogs" have a somewhat sassy story, sure, it was a Disney product after all, but it worked out well anyway.
basically don't waste your money,i went to see this a couple of days ago, and about 20 minutes into the movie wanted to go home.if your going to take children to see something for the holidays, go to a Christmas carol so much better.
the only funny parts of this movie were the previews, the plot of the story was just dumb, jokes were dumb, they were just old stuff, critics got it right for once, usually whenever i hear critics reviews of it.
It is always great to see men deal with kids and feel their way through it.Williams was the star - Travolta played second behind him.
Ultimately, this won't go down in the annals of Disney history as even a good film, and it certainly is one of the worst films that John Travolta and Robin Williams have ever made.
I'm guessing those that gave this movie a glittering review either put their review on IMDb against the wrong movie or their IQ levels after watching this dross had plummeted to singular figures and they just dragged their knuckles over the keyboard and got lucky.Young kids will probably laugh at the fart and the whack-in-the-sack jokes, but jeez - when that's all there is...A steaming pile!
The plot was horrible, the acting was terrible, the chemistry between the two dad figures (Travolta and Williams) and the kids was nonexistent, and the general pace of the movie was pitiful.
For negatives, while Robin Williams and John Travolta do there parts to the best of their ability the supporting cast is lackluster, while there are funny cameos by numerous comedy faces the supporting characters that actually matter (mum and friend) are not very good and don't add anything to the fun of the movie.
This being said, Robin Williams and John Travolta hold it together all the way through with just a couple not very funny scenes.
Overall, if you want to take your kid to a movie you could do a lot worse then "Old Dogs".
Two best friends—one unlucky-in-love divorcé (Robin Williams) and the other a fun-loving bachelor (John Travolta)—have their lives turned upside down when they're unexpectedly charged with the care of six-year-old twins while on the verge of the biggest business deal of their lives.
First and foremost, for anybody who read my review and wanted to say that I'm a total idiot for loving this one, than forgive me for my love to this movie.Old Dogs is a movie of a family comedy genre, so anyone that wanted to have a bad joke or rude joke just like the ones in Tropic Thunder, than this one is definitely not for you.
It got a very good family atmosphere and this is definitely the one for them who values family the most.When I see this movie, all I have to think is, how they portrayed some problem in human's life greatly and they (Travolta and Williams) did a great job here.
I think the critics are just looking for Oscar material, not a good family movie with laughs and heartwarming ending.
In the insufferable and unwatchable "Old Dogs," John Travolta and Robin Williams play longtime Manhattan business partners who've been best friends since high school.
Now that the kids are in his life, Williams is learning what it means to be a daddy - movie-comedy style, that is.I guess there must be an audience out there for these dumbed-down daddy-day-care scenarios, featuring grown men who are more childish and immature than the kids they're supposed to be raising, but, frankly, I don't get the appeal.
(And, in deference to their careers, we hesitate to even mention that Bernie Mac, Ann-Margret, and Matt Dillon drop in for some ill-advised cameos, which I'm sure they've since come to regret).This may not be the worst movie ever made by either Travolta or Williams, but it's certainly right down there vying for the title.
I wasn't sure this was going to be a funny movie, Most movies today show all the funny scenes in the previews, not Old Dogs.The premise of the movie is not likely but the story was great and had twists that are always unexpected and were properly set up.It might not be as funny to younger children, but to those of us that are graying, everything is the truth and funny when it happens to other people.I probably missed some funny stuff from laughing so hard.
There were gags that had me looking at the credits to see if Mel Brooks had a hand in it.If you like Mel Brooks style comedy, you will love Old Dogs..
In fact, I will measure it against what it didn't do.This slapstick comedy is about middle-aged Dan (Robin Williams) finding out he has 2 children, now twin 7 year olds, and friend/marketing partner Charlie (John Travolta) joining him for two weeks taking care of the kids.
John Travolta and Robin Williams do their usual great jobs, and the supporting cast was good also.
Over all I really enjoyed this movie, and I would recommend for any one that enjoys family comedy.I also have to say it was fun to watch Ella Travolta.
It's a comedy - I laughed.As a movie starring Robin Williams about a father and his children, it's a lot better than "Hook".
Great comedy ride, true fun for the whole family.I thought that Robin and John worked great together,the kids are funny and do a great natural job acting.The crowd at the theater really got into it, and uncontrollable laughs were abound.The mother Vicki ( Kelly Preston) was also great playing a paranoid mother.The whole cast really work well together.Walt Becker manages to get this cast to deliver time and again.
Here is one example of a throwaway joke in the movie, this in no way spoils the plot: Before meeting an old flame Robin Williams is convinced by his friend John Travolta to get a spray tan because he looks "Like an albino".
The whole movie is filled with either overly predictable jokes that go nowhere or forced sappy sentimentality in a rush to build some sort of real connection between the characters.Its got a decent cast but they all feel like they are forced onto the screen at gun point.
"Old Dogs" stars Robin Williams as Dan and John Travolta as Charlie.
Robin Williams and John Travolta are both legends of the silver screen so it is such a shame to see them turn up in this pretty poor Disney family comedy.The premise is borrowed a lot from 'Three Men and a Baby' but this film can't claim to be as a smart or as funny as that film.
Old Dogs seemed like it could have some potential as a good comedy but it really just fell flat.
The story is that a woman is sent to prison so Charlie Reed (John Travolta) and Dan Rayburn (Robin Williams) have look after her kids.
In short, nothing.The sad thing is, I generally like Robin Williams, John Travolta, and Seth Green.
I've seen some stinkers in my day and this is clearly one of THE worst of the last decade.Sporting what one would think would be a competent comedic cast consisting of Robin Williams, John Travolta and Seth Green, Old Dogs is simply the lamest of excuses to cobble together some poorly executed and unfunny sight gags that may have seemed like a good idea on paper, but fail miserably on screen.There's so many things that are wrong with the movie, it's a wonder that it was approved for production, let alone released.
I don't know what Travolta and Williams thought of this project, whether they knew it was stinking while they filmed it and therefore put no real effort into awful material, or whether they're losing their grip on reality and thought they were doing a good job.
The Jokes Are Repeditive Like John Travolta & Robin Williams Being Grandparents & Seth Green Being Short I Mean Come On This Film Unlike G.
This is a disappointment: In terms of acting, this is by far, the worst film of John Travolta and Robin Williams.
I was willing to give Travolta and Williams the benefit of the doubt for this film but I was shocked at how truly bad this movie was.
Then perhaps someone should pass the hat around so these guys can be sent to Robert McKee's Story seminar.Old Dogs is about two business partners, Charlie and Dan (Travolta and Williams) who try to land a large account while taking care of twins that Dan fathered during a drunken one-night stand in Florida, while their mother spends time in jail for political activism.
Because if you want to stop watching the movie and instead smell farts and listen to weather updates that never once change, that's bad.Maybe it's not fair to rip on Old Dogs but let's call it what it is--a symbolic whipping boy for the worst crap Hollywood has to offer.
There's a bad movie anyone could love.But Old Dogs is so spectacularly pedestrian in its crappy-ness that there's not one thing to even mildly like much less love.And, frequently, there are moments in the movie that leave you cringing with shame as Robin Williams feebly attempts to catch relevancy by the tail with gut-wrenching tries at channeling the spirit of more contemporary comedy performances seen in Judd Apatow films, in movies like Wedding Crashers and the film personas of Steve Carrell and Will Ferrell.Robin Williams' character gets his chest shaved and tattooed in one scene a la Carrell in 40 Year Old virgin and gets naked down to his undies which has become a staple of Ferrell's film work (to the degree that everyone is already tired of seeing even Ferrell's obligatory strip downs to his hilariously flabby form.)But there's something desperately sad about watching Robin Williams try to pretend that he's a hip, younger comic actor with fresh ideas even as the movie is about two over-the-hill guys confronting their lack of connection to their own emotions and other human beings.And what about John Travolta as the crazy, id-driven, comic ladies-man pal to Robin Williams more uptight straight man?
We were unable to see Old Dogs at the movie theater, but when I found it out on DVD I had to see it and I am glad that I did.John Travolta and Robin Williams were just great and soooooo funny.
We would love to see more movies with John Travolta and Robin Williams they really pulled this one off nicely.
And while the two old dogs in this Disney romp don't have parasites, you'll soon wish they did.After his divorce, Charlie (John Travolta) takes Dan (Robin Williams) on a vacation, where he meets Vicki (Kelly Preston).
Other than that, this film happened to be funny man Bernic Mac's swan song, and one which came in the aftermath of personal tragedy to the Travoltas, with John a starring roles opposite Robin Williams, and wife Kelly Preston being in a supporting role playing the latter's object of affection.I would like to give this film some brownie points, but this is quite typical of the many parents-children films out there, with the former group put into situations to please the latter, and therein ripe for many comedic moments.
John Travolta and Robin Williams play Charlie and Dan respectively, two best friends for over 30 years who co-own a lucrative boutique sports marketing film which is on the cusp of one of their biggest deals ever with the Japanese.
Williams and his co-star John Travolta play two middle-aged men( Dan and Charlie respectively) who are best friends as well as co-workers who have to take care of Dan's kids as the mother,Vicky(Kelly Preston) cannot.
Watching Robin Williams in this movie, I was sort of reminded of his character in Mrs. Doubtfire, an eccentric but lovable guy who realizes his kids are the most important thing in his life, only in this film he gets to wear a superhero outfit and not a dress.
I Enjoyed It. I watched this movie with my nine year old son and I have to say we both laughed at it, and overall enjoyed it!!Plot In A Paragraph: Dan (Robin Williams) and Charlie (John Travolta) are best friends and co-owners of a successful sports marketing firm.
I think I first discovered this 2009 comedy very recently, within the past few months, and I noticed that the two co-stars were Robin Williams and John Travolta, both big names in the acting business.
Sometime within the past few weeks, I finally saw Williams in "Good Morning, Vietnam" for the first time, and he sure made me laugh a lot in that movie, but unsurprisingly, this much later film marked one of the low points of his career.Dan Rayburn and Charlie Reed are two middle-aged men who are best friends and business partners.
The cast is really good, John Travolta and Robin Williams made a excellent couple and both deliver good and funny performances, Seth Green is hilarious, the kids Conrad Rayburn and Ella Bleu Travolta were delightful and the special appearances by Matt Dillon and Bernie Mac, in his last movie; were decent and convincing.
A Little Over The Top. Old Dogs is not my normal type of movie to watch because generally this form of comedy seems over the top and not that funny.
Bachelors and best friends Dan (Williams) and Charlie (Travolta) care for Vicki's (Preston) kids while she goes to jail for 2-weeks.
Robin Williams and John Travolta are good actors, and their on screen chemistry was okay, but if the physical comedy, slapstick etc weren't as good as they were this would have bombed big time.
'Old Dogs' is a waste of John Travolta's and Robin Williams'Talents, particularly Williams.
Travolta and William are quite entertaining as best friends and business partners in this family comedy.
I went to see the new family comedy Old Dogs expecting not to like it.
I went to see the new family comedy Old Dogs expecting not to like it.
The film stars Robin Williams and John Travolta as Dan and Charlie, two businessmen and long-time best friends.
The film stars Robin Williams and John Travolta as Dan and Charlie, two businessmen and long-time best friends.
John Travolta and Robin Williams are a great comedic duo with their slapstick comedy throughout this movie.
if you like a good family comedy old or new clichéd or not then this is a good film..... |
tt0048976 | Backlash | Jim Slater (Richard Widmark) meets Karyl Orton (Donna Reed) in Gila Valley, Arizona. She thinks that he is searching for a gold cache believed to hidden somewhere in the valley. When a man with a rifle starts shooting at him, Jim wonders if she can be trusted. After Jim kills his foe, he discovers the dead man was a deputy sheriff from Silver City. He takes the body there.
When Sheriff J. C. Marson (Edward Platt) questions him, Jim reveals that he is after the person responsible for his father's death. Jim's father and four other men were besieged and killed by Apaches. Jim believes there was a sixth man who got away and could have gone for help, but instead decided he wanted the gold they found all to himself. Marston reveals that one of the men was the brother of the dead deputy. There are two other brothers, who will want revenge. When Jim refuses to leave town, Marston suggests he go see Sergeant George Lake (Barton MacLane) in Tucson. Lake led the detail that found the massacre victims.
Jim takes his advice, but finds Lake and his men under siege at an isolated trading post. Lake tells Karyl that only three of the bodies could be identified. While there, Karyl stakes her claim to the gold; her husband was another victim of Gila Valley. Lake and Jim sneak out that night and stampede the Apaches' horses, allowing the party to escape. Lake, however, is mortally wounded. Before he dies, he reveals they found a horse bearing the brand of Carson's outfit in Texas.
When Jim returns to Tucson, he encounters Karyl in a hotel, being forced upstairs by a stranger. Karyl calls him by name, whereupon the stranger draws his gun. Jim kills him and wounds another man gunning for him, though he himself is shot in the shoulder. Afterward, Karyl reveals that the dead man is Jeff Welker (Robert J. Wilke) and the survivor his brother Tony (Harry Morgan). Jim slaps her. She tracks him down, tends to his wound, and offers to trade information. Jim kisses her.
When the pair reach their destination, Major Carson (Roy Roberts) tries to recruit Jim against Bonniwell (John McIntire), who has organized the local bandits. Jim is not interested in the upcoming range war, though he does learn that Bonniwell arrived in the region with $60,000, the same amount as the missing gold. One of Carson's gunmen, Johnny Cool (William Campbell), informs Bonniwell of Carson's plans.
Bonniwell gathers his men in town, guns down Sheriff Olson (Robert Foulk) when he tries to keep the peace, and prepares an ambush. He finds Jim locked in the jail. He lets the prisoner out when he learns who he is, then reveals that he is Jim's father, whom Jim had not seen since he was a child. The gold came, not from mining, but via robbery. The others forced Bonniwell out, only to run afoul of the Apaches, leaving him to collect the gold. Disillusioned, Jim wants nothing to do with his father.
Karyl pleads with Jim to leave now, but he wants to warn Carson. When he tries to fire a warning shot, he discovers that Bonniwell gave him back an unloaded gun. Bonniwell chases his son with a knife, but Jim manages to wrestle a gun from one of the bandits and fire. Alerted, Carson has his men surround the town, whereupon the bandits panic and flee. Bonniwell offers to step out of hiding and draw to see which Slater is faster, but he treacherously already has his gun in his hand. Fortunately, Carson's men ride in and fatally shoot him just before Jim steps out in the open. | revenge, violence | train | wikipedia | Donna Reed comes upon Richard Widmark at a place called Gila Valley where five men were massacred by Indians and one man escaped with $60,000.00.
Three of the five men were identified, but none of the deceased is either Widmark's father or Reed's husband.
But both seek and find support and comfort in the other.Backlash as a previous reviewer remarked is almost like a detective story set in the west.
The two who stand out and steal the film from the stars are William Campbell as a punk gunfighter and John McIntire as the amoral outlaw leader in whose hands Widmark and Reed fall into at the end of their odyssey.No studio backlots for this western, good location photography and a very nice plot distinguish this film.
Given the pedigree of its makers--director John Sturges, producer Aaron Rosenberg, screenwriter Borden Chase and novelist Frank Gruber--one would have expected BACKLASH to be a bit grander in scale and offer more memorable action scenes.
Richard Widmark plays Jim Slater, a Texan looking to uncover information about his father's death, particularly the identity of the man who left his father and four other men to die at the hands of an Apache war party in a remote place called Gila Valley.
The missing sixth man left with $60,000 in gold, ostensibly from a mine, which means that relatives of the other dead men, including a pretty widow and the notorious Welker brothers, are gunning for the same man, but with an eye towards retrieving the gold.
Eventually, Slater finds his man, only to learn a shocking secret he wasn't prepared for, propelling the drama to a whole new stage and a violent confrontation with oedipal overtones.Much of the film is spent simply tracking down people who may or may not have known the dead men or the elusive sixth man.
As such, it pales next to other works by the same creators, most notably the trio of Anthony Mann-directed westerns produced by Rosenberg and written by Chase, WINCHESTER '73, BEND OF THE RIVER and THE FAR COUNTRY, which placed their heroes in far more complex moral dilemmas.Nonetheless, BACKLASH is blessed with a great cast of tough guys acting hard and drawing guns at the drop of a chair.
Wilke, old hands at this kind of thing, play the ill-fated Welker brothers who have a propensity for forcing the widow, played by Donna Reed, to sit down and have whiskey with them.
Onetime gangster heavy Barton MacLane appears in a sympathetic role as a grizzled army sergeant whom Widmark seeks information from and winds up assisting in a fight with Apaches.
Roy Roberts turns up as a powerful rancher seeking to wage a defensive range war against the mysterious Frank Bonniwell who turned up out of the blue with $60,000 to buy up land and equipment only to start rustling other ranchers' cattle.
John McIntire plays Bonniwell, adding to the actor's rogues' gallery of memorable bad guys (see also WINCHESTER '73 and THE FAR COUNTRY).
Donna Reed is quite good as the opportunistic widow who can't quite determine if she's more loyal to Slater or the gold.Trivia Note: William Campbell's character name, Johnny Cool, was the name of a 1963 crime thriller starring Henry Silva as the title character.
Silva had earlier appeared in another tough 1950s western, THE TALL T (1957), in which Skip Homeier played an outlaw character named Billy Jack, which was later the name of a 1971 counterculture hit starring Tom Laughlin..
Anyone else but Richard Widmark, and BACKLASH might have been a forgettable, hollow mystery set in the old West.
As it is, Widmark and a dark-tressed, feisty Donna Reed give this slight tale some real impact as two people searching for lost loved ones, Reed her husband and Widmark his father.
The truths Widmark and Reed must face by the climax are tough to take, but these two prove tougher than they might at first appear.
The entertaining story is a typical one by the great western-writer Borden Chase: plenty of twists of the plot, of surprises, of double-crossing, of complicated kinship relations between the many characters.
Richard Widmark is a great actor in every role: either as the good guy (here), or as the villain (in many other movies).
Donna seems even more beautiful and appealing in "Backlash" than in the Capra's movie (in fact she's really gorgeous).
Is she so good to be able to improve her looks, depending on her role?Predictably enough, "Backlash" oozes amiable cliches and naive flaws, which, however, almost increase the pleasure of us old western-movies-fans.
And we have the usual geographical oddities of old classic westerns: the guys just cross a mountain and they pass from Arizona to Texas!I like "Backlash" and I recommend it: see the movie, relax and have a good time..
John Sturges was at his best in the fifties (Black Rock, OK Corral, Fort Bravo) and no more proof of that than "Backlash".
The love relationship between Widmark and Donna Reed is well built, and the scene where Donna takes of her shirt to help the wounded Widmark is very, very sexy.
Richard Widmark, (Jim Slater) played the role of a young man who was a gunslinger and had reason to believe his father was killed up North while he hit it rich in a gold discovery.
Donna Reed, (Karyl Orton) is also searching in this same town of Silver Creek for the killer of her husband.
However, when Karyl and Jim meet up with each other they fight like cats and dogs and Karyl many times attempts to kill Jim. John McIntire, (Jim Bonniwell) and Barton McLane, (Sgt. George Lake) give great supporting roles along with great photography and a very good story with many twists and turns.
This is an outstanding movie, particularly for Westerns filmed in this period, which included the mid-50's.Widmark and Reed give excellent performances, as usual for both, and the remaining cast, particularly William Campbell and John McIntyre, do as well.Campbell's brash "young gun" is a bit overdone, but that was a trait which was a virtual necessity from this type character in films 50 years ago.
The only other aspect which detracted a bit from the story was Donna Reed's appearance.
Traveling by horseback in remote, dusty areas, she looked like she might be dressed for a "Western night" sorority party, with makeup perfect and hair well-coiffed, perhaps by her sorority sisters, if not at the campus beauty parlor.But again, this was an element of 1950's pictures, and didn't detract from the story.
Here, there was more plot, drama, good acting, and realistic dealing with the plot's events than your likely to find in the usual 10-15 Westerns, combined..
Backlash (1956) is directed by John Sturges and adapted by Borden Chase from the novel written by Frank Gruber.
It stars Richard Widmark, Donna Reed, John McIntire & William Campbell.
It's shot in Technicolor by Irving Glassberg on location in Tuscon, Arizona.1870 Arizona, and Jim Slater (Widmark) is searching for the truth about what happened to his father during the Apache ambush at Gila Valley.
This brings him into contact with strong willed Karyl Orton (Reed), who courtesy of her missing husband also has an interest in the events of that raid.
Glassberg's cinematography is first class, really vibrant and bursting out from the screen as they nicely film it on location of where the story is set.
Widmark is excellent as the tough as nails hero and Reed looks stunning whilst neatly essaying a prickly femme fatale type.
McIntire gives another classy supporting turn and Campbell is enjoyably OTT as hothead gunslinger Johnny Cool.The principals have all done far better work in the genre, but this is a nice change of pace for all of them.
She travels on horse-back...I would like to submit the fact that Donna Reed never wore a dress in the movie Backlash.
As a matter of fact in the early part of the movie she was in slightly tight trousers and for the remainder of the movie she was in culottes.She did use her blouse to dress Richard Widmark's wound earlier and one must wonder where she got a blouse to wear for the rest of the movie.
She did so very well in this movie even though she only contributed a blouse from her saddle bag to dress Richard Widmarks wound.
Was the scene where she dressed Widmark's wound believable?
You put the beautiful Donna Reed in a movie and leave out her sexiness and you have committed the most grievous of sins.
In fact, every relationship in this less than epic oater develops with with an expedition better suited to humor an audience than to lasso them into believability.A sample: The scene where Widmark takes the dead deputy into Silver City is ridiculous.
Next thing you know, Widmark and Reed are ordered out of town.
What does not make sense here is that Platt is demanding accountability from Widmark and Reed, but none from aggrieved brothers of the dead deputy.
And, while I did enjoy it, I was far from excited about BACKLASH--mostly because the writing, at times, seemed trite.The film begins with Richard Widmark in the western desert.
A dark-haired Donna Reed approaches him and soon appears to set him up to be killed.
A bit later in the film, the same thing happens again--at which point Widmark smacks her across the face.
Who this was and what exactly happened to his father and Reed's husband (who were in the group massacred) is the theme of the film.
An interesting concept.Overall, the acting is very good and the people in the film give it their best.
Again this week on AMC and while watching it i noticed chairs around the fireplace Donna Reed sat in one....in scene where confrontation where Slater learns about his father...Any ways i was taken back with the fact that a chair would get my attention as i have a similer chair..Why am i bringing this to IMDb attention?Thought i'd seek some advise from persons in props department or advise on companies that supply props like the furniture used in "Back Lash".
I will not take the time to list all of the Sturges movies I like, but I am particularly fond of his westerns.
The movie stars (the underrated, in my opinion) Richard Widmark, joined by Donna Reed.
I will not give too much away regarding the plot (no spoilers here), and will only say that the story revolves around Widmark searching for the man who left a group of men stranded.
In fact, the premise, and suspense that stems from it, has caused some reviewers to classify this film as a "psychological western." This subgenre is known for building slow burning suspense, relying more on tension rather than scenes of action (the original 3:10 to Yuma is a good example).
It's a lean, action-packed gem of a western with excellent pacing, an exciting story, and great acting.
Five or six men who discovered gold at Gila Valley in Arizona were attacked by Apaches and massacred.
Jim Slater (Richard Widmark), whose father may have died at Gila Valley, is searching for one survivor who deserted the rest, taking all of the sixty thousand dollars in gold.
A sole woman, Karyl Orton (Donna Reed) rides into his camp, and Slater offers her a cup of coffee.
They exchange a few words; Slater tells her he does not care about the gold, but rather the identities of the dead men.
Orton is searching for her missing husband, and unlike Slater, the gold.
Marson identifies the dead man as Tom Welker, who lost a brother at Gila Valley.
Before Slater leaves the sheriff provides the name of Sergeant George Lake to help him on his search.
Before he dies he provides a couple of clues to Slater, especially one that leads to the Carson ranch.Meanwhile, in Tucson the two surviving Welker brothers, who would like to get their hands on the Gila Valley gold, try to put the pressure on Karyl Orton, who ended up in a saloon.
We learn that Slater never knew his father, who deserted his family and who may indeed be alive after all.
At the Carson ranch there are tidings of an impending range war that will involve both Major Carson (Roy Roberts) and his adversary, shadowy Jim Bonniwell (John McIntire).
Slater also discovers from Carson the fourth name of those killed in the Apache massacre at Gila Valley.
Slater begins to connect the new facts: It is nearly certain that his father is alive after all, and was in fact the sixth man, the Gila Valley deserter, Jim Bonniwell.
In the meantime we have an interesting character, a scene-stealer if there ever was one, psychotic gunslinger Johnny Cool (William Campbell).
The director must have been aware of Campbell's on-screen style, as the actor is third-billed, behind stars Widmark and Reed.
It is fine enough, however.Richard Widmark made his movie debut as Johnny Udo in "Kiss of Death" (1947).
Director John Sturges made "Backlash" with Richard Widmark, Donna Reed,and John McIntire after he helmed "The Walking Hills," "Escape from Fort Bravo," and "Bad Day at Black Rock." This Borden Chase scripted horse opera deals with a dark truth concealed about the past.
Wilke, Harry Morgan, William Campbell and John McIntire.
Incidentally, although this is a western set in the days of horses and stagecoaches, Donna Reed is pretty leathery herself, sauntering about with a quirt dangling from her wrist like an S&M, mistress.
Shoot-outs, Apaches on the warpath, and men talking tough to each other provide the bulk of the drama, but "Backlash" isn't in the same league with "The Walking Hills," "Escape from Fort Bravo," "Bad Day at Black Rock" and the later collaboration between Sturges and Widmark entitled "The Law and Jake Wade." Primarily, Sturges doesn't stage the action as distinctively as he did in either his previous or later westerns.In the first scene, Karyl Orton (Donna Reed of"From Here to Eternity") rides across Widmark slinging dirt around with a shovel at a set of adobe ruins in the wide open spaces.
Jim Slater (Richard Widmark of "Kiss of Death") scales the mountain, six-gun in fist, and gets the drop on the trigger-happy hombre.
Only after Slater searches him does he learn that his attacker was Silver City deputy sheriff Tom Welker (Regis Parton of "This Island Earth").
Initially, Slater thinks that Karyl set him up to be shot by the rifleman when she asked him to for her cigarettes.
The Sheriff of Silver City puts Karyl on the stage to Tucson and warns Slater that Tom Welker's brothers will come gunning for him.
"My father was killed at Gila Valley, and I'm going to find the man who murdered him."The trail that Slater rides to learn the ugly truth takes them into an Apache besieged trading post to ask a U.S. Cavalry Sergeant George Lake (Barton MacLane of "High Sierra") about the bodies since he was in charge of the burial detail.
Before he can get his information, our hero has to help Sgt. Lake distract the bloodthirsty Indian so that the people at the trading post can escape by the stagecoach while Slater and he keep the Indians busy by running off their horses.
Lake doesn't shed much light on the mystery before he dies from an Indian bullet, but he gives Slater a clue that takes him to Major Carson's ranch.
Meanwhile, a feud brewing between two ranchers, Jim Bonniwell (John McIntire of "Wagon Train") and another rancher Major Carson (Roy Roberts of "My Darling Clementine") and along the way Slater has to shoot it out with a decked out in leather hired pistolero, Johnny Cool (William Campbell of "Escape from Fort Bravo"), who is lightning fast on the draw.
Look closely and you will spot Maxwell Smart's superior (Edward Platt) from TV's "Get Smart" playing a sheriff wearing a Stetson and packing a six-gun.Although it's a taut western with a surprise ending, "Backlash" resembles Frank Gruber's 1952 novel "Fort Starvation" only in minor respects.
Indeed, our protagonist John Slater embarks on an inexorable quest to discover the identity of the sixth man He visits the massacre site and an unseen assassin shoots at him from afar.
Ultimately, Slater doesn't encounter the father that he neither knew and Susan isn't look for her husband as is Karyl..
This screenplay tosses in as many Western tropes as can fit in the running time: a man (that Hollywood invention, a gunfighter) ranging for revenge; a woman of ambiguous fidelity; a war between ranchers for control of a town; a flashy punk to challenge the gunfighter; gold; Apaches (much mentioned, not seen).Everyone except Widmark looks as if they are soaking up the local color at a dude ranch — most of the cast sport bandanas in a range of designer hues and tones around their necks and are attired in notably neat, clean clothes.
(Reed did come from Iowa; Widmark from Minnesota.) When things threaten to slow down or seem too absurd, there is another Hollywood invention — the fast-draw showdown.
There are four, or maybe five, including the not-quite-a-showdown at the end.A sign of how misguided this film is can be seen in its having the congenitally likable Harry Morgan as a badass dude (he gets plugged by the black leather-wearing flashy punk, who is named...Johnny Cool).Widmark does solid work, and has some snappy lines as the roving avenger.
Reed does the best she can, but at times seems to be thinking ahead to settling down in the suburbs as the wife of a pediatrician, which she would do a few years later on her own television show.The filmmakers may have been trying to have it both ways here: serving up slickly done clichés to satisfy the fan of Westerns while casting sideways winks to those who might be attuned to the camp aspects of the affair. |
tt0446667 | Che Guevara | === Part 1: The Argentine ===
In Havana 1964, Che Guevara is interviewed by Lisa Howard who asks him if reform throughout Latin America might not blunt the "message of the Cuban Revolution."
In 1955, at a gathering in Mexico City, Guevara first meets Fidel Castro. He listens to Castro’s plans and signs on as a member of the July 26th Movement.
There is a return to 1964 for Guevara’s address before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, where he makes an impassioned speech against American imperialism, and defends the executions his regime has committed, declaring "this is a battle to the death."
March 1957. Guevara deals with debilitating bouts of asthma as his group of revolutionaries meet up with Castro’s. Together, they attack an army barracks in the Sierra Maestra on May 28, 1957.
On October 15, 1958, the guerrillas approach the town of Las Villas. The Battle of Santa Clara is depicted with Guevara demonstrating his tactical skill as the guerrillas engage in street-to-street fighting and derail a train carrying Cuban soldiers and armaments. Near the film‘s end, they are victorious. With the Cuban Revolution now over, Guevara heads to Havana, remarking "we won the war, the revolution starts now."
=== Part 2: Guerrilla ===
The second part begins on November 3, 1966 with Guevara arriving in Bolivia disguised as a middle-aged representative of the Organization of American States hailing from Uruguay, who subsequently drives into the mountains to meet his men. The film is organized by the number of days that he was in the country. On Day 26, there is solidarity among Guevara's men despite his status as foreigner. By Day 67, Guevara has been set up for betrayal. He tries to recruit some peasants only to be mistaken for a cocaine smuggler. On Day 100, there is a shortage of food and Guevara exercises discipline to resolve conflicts between his Cuban and Bolivian followers.
By Day 113, some of the guerrillas have deserted and the Bolivian Army has discovered their base camp. Much to Che's disappointment Tamara "Tania" Bunke, Guevara's revolutionary contact, has botched elaborate preparations and given away their identity. On Day 141, the guerrillas capture Bolivian soldiers that refuse to join the revolution and are free to return to their villages. CIA advisers arrive to supervise anti-insurgent activity and training. On Day 169, Guevara's visiting friend, the French intellectual Régis Debray, is captured at Muyupampa by the Bolivian Army, which launches an aerial attack on Day 219.
Guevara grows sick and by Day 280 can barely breathe as a result of his acute asthma. On Day 302, the Bolivian Army kills Tania Bunke, Juan Acuña Ñunez, and several others in Che's forces in an ambush as they attempt to cross the Vado del Yeso after a local informant tells the Bolivian troops about the movements of the rebels. By Day 340, Guevara is trapped by the Bolivian Army in the Yuro Ravine near the village of La Higuera. Che is wounded and captured. The next day, a helicopter lands and a Cuban American CIA agent Félix Rodríguez emerges. The Bolivian high command are then phoned and give approval for Guevara's execution. He is shot on 9 October 1967, and his corpse lashed to a helicopter's landing skids and flown out.
In a final flashback scene, Guevara is aboard the Granma in 1956, looking out over the ocean. He sees the Castro brothers alone at the bow of the ship; Fidel is talking and Raúl is taking notes. Guevara hands a peeled orange to one of his comrades and returns his gaze to the lone brothers before the scene fades to black. | violence, avant garde, romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | An Embarrassingly Poor Film.
CHE as written, directed, and produced by Josh Evans is an amateurish attempt to present the life of one of the more interesting revolutionary figures of the 20th century - Ernesto 'Che' Guevarade la Serna, the Argentinean physician who searched for meaning in his view of the world and joined Fidel Castro in overthrowing the dictatorship of Cuba.
Despite the presence of the fine actor Eduardo Noriega in the title role and Sonia Braga in a cameo role as Celia, Che's mother, the film is plagued by simplistic dialogue, lack of momentum, choppy editing, and a large cast that would have been a bit more credible had the film been shot in Spanish - the language of all of the actors.
Josh Evans provides no insights as to the person of Che or his motivations, but instead relies on the viewer's knowledge of the period to provide the missing lapses in story line.
And while many may feel that Che was the more important force in the idealism of the revolution than the leader Fidel Castro, it is doubtful that Castro was as tepid and uninspiring a figure as actor Enrico Lo Verso and the pathetic script make him appear.
With the 'other CHE' of Steven Soderbergh with Benicio Del Toro and a stellar cast due for release soon, it is not surprising that this amateurish film was released direct to DVD.
The story and the actors deserve better treatment.
Grady Harp.
Decent Movie, But Nothing Amazing.
Just finished watching this film.
Overall I think this deserves a rental, but not a purchase.First off Eduardo Noriega does a good job portraying Che. The cinematography is quite nice to look at, as well as Paula Garcés is very pretty to look at as well.As much as I really wanted to like this as a film I just didn't.
The way the story is told seems very sporadic, and jumps all over the place.
The shoot-outs never feel suspenseful, and the usage of the stock footage seems like it was used a a style thing, instead of using it to help tell the story.Also, the musical score.
Some films use a piece of music several times throughout a film and it just works.
This film however doesn't.
It seems like he just re-used the same piece of music because he didn't have any other stuff to work with.
It also feels like he is trying too hard to make you feel a certain emotion when there just isn't enough time spent to really understand fully what is going.Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, but I was left disappointed after the film ended.
I should also mention I got so bored the first time I watched it that I had to turn it off.Not a bad effort, but not great either.
Let's hope the Del Toro version will be more detailed, and feel more like a film and not a documentary..
Amateurish acting and dialogue.
This film is embarrassingly bad.
I don't blame Noriega; he has proved his acting ability in other films.
However, the script and the direction for this movie are absolutely terrible.
Every line is spoken as if by by a kid in a sixth-grade school production.The dialogue is nothing more than exposition -- "We need to take the fort.
It will give us a moral victory." "Let's go." "A large number of enemy soldiers are coming." "If you are lying, you will b punished." "I saw them." "Where are they?" There is absolutely no drama, no insight, nothing.
Just a flat display of a series of events, almost like an old-fashioned "life of the saints" type performance.The whole movie reminded me of a scene in Woody Allen's "Life and Death," in which a doctor, a soldier, and a prostitute were assigned to present a dramatic performance illustrating the dangers of venereal diseases -- stiff, amateurish, non-acting.
Truly awful.
Great story to be told, but this effort was, as previous comments noted, amateurish.
The most interesting thing about the production (?): What may be a "goof" in this home movie was after Che and a couple of others manage to survive the Cuban landing and fight their way through mountains, he appears to sporting a very nice wristwatch while performing doctor duties with one of the locals.
Hopefully it's a Rolex.
Anybody see "The Party" with Peter Sellars?
Opening is a movie shot of a 19th century Indian skirmish in which he's wearing a 1960's wristwatch.
The director loses it after having to shoot another take on account of this slip.
Apparently in Che they didn't have the time..
Was that supposed to be Fidel?.
Having seen the movie, "Fidel," we get a totally different Che, than the one in that movie.
In "Fidel," Castro is a kindly ideological revolutionary while Che is his ruthless hatchet man, killing anyone one comes in his way, and forcing Castro to accept communism.
In this movie Castro is the mean killer.
Che is the likable overly compassionate doctor, trying to bring a revolution to Cuba while fighting his asthma and randomly taking bullets because apparently he hasn't read his own book on warfare.The actor who played Fidel looked nothing like him, well he did have a beard.
The movie starts out in Bolivia 1967 with Che being captured near the end of his life.
We then flashback to the revolution and pre-revolution times.
The next thing we know Che is sitting in a chair smoking a cigar giving an interview to some white bread chick in Havana, post revolution.
During the interview we flashback again to the revolution.
During the flashbacks, we have duel scenes when the movie flashes ahead slightly during the flashback, such as when he meets a girl, he is talking to her for the first time, and then it flashes ahead to when they make love, then back to the conversation, ahead to loving making etc.
my head hurts, make them stop!
Please stop editing films on acid!The movie is pro Che, or somewhat anti-American.
One of my right wing friends would chide my overly left wing views by saying "Che was a weenie." This movie portrays Che as that weenie, someone who brings revolution in spite of himself.Not worth the view, even to a revolutionary. |
tt1606339 | Sushi Girl | Fish (Noah Hathaway) has been recently released from prison where he was serving time for his part in a diamond heist. He refused to give the authorities any information on his partners in crime nor reveal to them the location of the stolen diamonds. In order to locate and divide the stolen diamonds, crime boss Duke (Tony Todd) invited "Fish" to dinner along with the rest of the gang, including Crow (Mark Hamill), Max (Andy Mackenzie) and Francis (James Duval). The meal is sushi, served on the naked body of a woman, the titular Sushi Girl (Cortney Palm), who must remain motionless and silent for the duration of the night.
When Fish tells the others that he doesn't have the diamonds, they do not believe him. He is tied up, with Max and Crow taking turns torturing him. Duke instructs Francis to take a turn as well, but he refuses. Francis goes to the bathroom and reveals that he is wearing a listening device. The sequences of torture are intercut with flashbacks to the heist, culminating in the gang being run off the road by another car, with Duke shooting the driver in order to escape. Eventually Max loses control and begins to beat Fish savagely, causing him to die.
Max, Crow and Duke begin to argue savagely about who was responsible for Fish's death. Eventually they draw their guns on one another and shooting breaks out, with only Duke surviving. He returns to the Sushi Girl, telling her that she is to be his 'consolation prize'. He eats a piece of fugu from her body and promptly collapses, whereupon she sits upright and tells him it was poisoned. A final flashback reveals that she was present at the heist's aftermath; it was her husband whom Duke shot, and she who recovered the diamonds after the bag was ripped open. She explains that she used her newfound riches to arrange this night and take her revenge upon the gang, and then she shoots Duke fatally and departs. | revenge | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0057779 | Peyton Place | In April 1941, in the seemingly idyllic New England town of Peyton Place, drunkard Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy) stumbles out of his house as his step-son Paul - fed up with Lucas' alcoholism - leaves town. Lucas's downtrodden wife, Nellie (Betty Field) goes to work as the housekeeper for Constance "Connie" MacKenzie (Lana Turner), a rather prim-acting local dress shop owner. The daughters of the two families, Allison MacKenzie (Diane Varsi) and Selena Cross (Hope Lange) are best friends and are about to graduate high school.
Following an argument about the merits of a good education, a stranger to the town, Michael Rossi (Lee Philips), is hired to be the new principal of the high school by the president of the school board, Leslie Harrington (Leon Ames), the owner of the local woolen mill; the students' choice for the position is long-time teacher, Miss Elsie Thornton (Mildred Dunnock). The board is composed of Dr. Matthew Swain (Lloyd Nolan), the town's main physician; town attorney, Charles Partridge (Staats Cotsworth); his snobbish and gossipy wife, Marion (Peg Hillias) and Seth Bushwell (Robert H. Harris) the editor in chief of The Peyton Place Times, the town's local newspaper. Dr. Swain and Seth become friends with the newcomer.
Arriving at the school, Rossi wins over Ms. Thornton by telling her that he wants to work with her. She is pleased with the newcomer and they get on well.
Later, while picking out dresses for Allison's birthday party, Connie encourages her daughter not to invite Betty Anderson (Terry Moore) to the party, due to Betty's overtly sexual style; ultimately, Constance reconsiders and allows Allison to invite anyone to her party. Betty arrives at Allison's party with Leslie Harrington's son Rodney (Barry Coe), who swiftly turns the affair into a make-out party and kisses Allison; the party is ended, however, when Connie walks in, embarrassing Allison by making a scene.
Later on, Allison becomes a witness to Lucas beating and abusing Selena.
Later that week, Rossi arrives at the MacKenzie house to announce that Allison has been named valedictorian, and he asks Connie to chaperone Allison's graduation dance, and the two slowly develop a romance. Meanwhile, Harrington tells his son, Rodney, that he will not accept his going to the graduation dance with a girl with such a bad reputation as Betty Anderson, and forces Rodney to call Betty and uninvite her to the dance.
Instead, Rodney goes with Allison, though Allison is in love with another classmate, the shy Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn) who has an overprotective, widowed mother, Evelyn Page (Erin O'Brien-Moore). When they get to the dance, Rodney splits off to make out with Betty in his car, but she is angry at him for dumping her and refuses to have sex with him. She hits him with her purse and storms away from the car.
During the traditional singing of "Auld Lang Syne", Rossi, realizing he is still new and not part of the town's traditions yet, asks Elsie Thornton to lead the singing, to the dismay and horror of Marion, who never liked Elsie, even going so far as to call her a drug addict. Outside, after dancing with her, he kisses Connie, but she again rejects his advances. Selena is escorted home by her boyfriend Ted Carter (David Nelson), and is later raped that night by her drunken step-father, Lucas.
Selena becomes pregnant, and when she goes to Dr. Swain for an abortion he refuses, and she confides in him that her step-father raped her. Swain confronts Lucas, and he is forced by Swain to promise to leave town after signing a confession, all of which Nellie accidentally witnesses. Lucas chases Selena out of revenge when she returns home, and although she escapes, she trips, falls and injures herself. After treating her, Swain enters the operation as an "appendectomy," though in fact she has had a miscarriage, blackmailing his nurse into cooperating. Nellie then becomes morosely despondent in response to what has happened.
At a Labor Day picnic that same year, Rodney and Betty reunite and go skinny dipping while Allison and Norman go swimming, in proper suits, nearby. Marion sees the nude couple and falsely making an assumption, tells Connie it was Allison and Norman, whom she had earlier seen on their way to the lake. This disgusts her husband, Charles.
Connie explodes at Allison for causing rumors. They fight, and Connie tells her that Allison's father was actually married to another woman when she became pregnant with her. Allison runs upstairs and finds that Nellie Cross has committed suicide by hanging herself in a closet. This puts Allison into a state of shock, and she is confined to a bed for a time. Sometime after, Rodney and Betty elope, infuriating Rodney's father Leslie. Allison tells her mother that when she is well enough she is going to leave Peyton Place for New York City, even if she is forced to do the same things her mother did. After saying a tearful goodbye to Selena, Allison makes good on her promise to leave town.
World War II erupts during December 1941, and the men of Peyton Place go off to war. However, when Rodney is killed in action the next autumn, his now-chastened father offers to take care of his widow, Betty, and she is at last welcomed into the family. Meanwhile, during Christmas of 1942 Connie visits Rossi to apologize for being so dismissive of him, and, when she confesses that she was a married man's mistress, Rossi decides to stay in Peyton Place and promises her his offer for marriage is still open. During the same time, a drunken Lucas returns from the Navy and tries to rape Selena again, but this time she bludgeons him to death in self-defense.
Shortly after Easter of 1943, Selena tearfully confesses the killing to Connie and is later arrested and tried by the District Attorney (Lorne Greene) for murder. Allison, still estranged from Connie, returns for the trial, as does Norman, and the truth about Selena's self-defense, her step-father's abuse and her miscarriage - as well as Dr. Swain's false report and Connie's failure as a mother - all come to light. Dr. Swain also admonishes the town for their gossipy nature, and their failure to offer help to Selena when she needed it, to the disgust and fury of Marion. Ultimately, Selena is acquitted, and she and Ted are free to marry.
Allison, after seeing her mother's emotional breakdown, has a change of heart, and approaches Connie at the steps of their home with a hope of reconciliation. Norman is also welcomed into the house. | murder, melodrama | train | wikipedia | Before "Dynasty" and "Dallas" there was "Peyton Place" the 50th Anniversary.
This show was without a doubt one of the first prime time soap operas in the history of television.
The series upon its original broadcast was the first to aired twice a week during its entire five-year run.
Every 514 telecasts were original episodes in which 182 episodes of its first two seasons were telecast in black and white from September 15,1964 until September 7,1966.
332 episodes for Seasons 3 thru 6 were in color from September 12,1966 until June 2,1969.
The series aired on Monday and Wednesday nights in prime- time for ABC-TV from September 15, 1964 until the final episode on June 2, 1969.
The executive producers were Paul Monash, along with Ben Brady and Irma Phillips along with Everett Chambers and Richard Goldstone for Twentieth Century-Fox Television.
William Self was in charge of production.
The show's sponsors throughout it's run was the Chrysler Corporation, The R.J. Reynolds Corporation and General Foods Company.This show was a must see because for one you'll never what is about to occur or happened the next and it was always left viewers in a cliffhanger until either tomorrow or next week for the continuation of the story.
When the show aired on ABC-TV on September 15, 1964,viewers got the chance to recognized some of the characters who were in fact behind the drama and scandal that was in fact Peyton Place,but in other words,the series picked up where the first two installments of the movie versions,"Peyton Place"(1957),and its sequel,"Return To Peyton Place" (1961)left off.
In the TV series though,it was in two parts where one part would play on one night,and the next night it would have the conclusion and so forth.
On November 5,1965 the series expanded its format to three times a week (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights)a run that would continue until the end of Season 2.
A selected who's who of top-list Hollywood's best got top billing within this series which included Dorothy Malone, Leslie Nielsen, Ryan O' Neal, Gena Rowlands,and an unknown actress named Mia Farrow who got her start on this series.
Mia Farrow was with the series during it's first two seasons(1964-1966)and after her stint went on to become a huge Hollywood star.
As the series went along more guest stars would make weekly appearances.
This was a series that tackled some the issues of the day and had viewers coming back for more.During its entire run only actors Ed Nelson, Barbara Parkins, and Christopher Connelly along with Tim O'Connor were with the series throughout its entire run.
All of that change when the show made the transition to color for Season 3 on September 12,1966.
In the fall of 1968(Season 4), African-American actors and writers were hired for the series and for the first time the show would have its first black family moving into Peyton Place which were played by Percy Rodriguez and Ruby Dee and their college bound son played by a youthful Glynn Truman.
The show had it all....blackmail,murder,jealously,envy,and prejudices all within a half hour which went to airing twice a week for Seasons 2 thru 4 but during its final season was cut back to a once a week format due to its ratings that were beginning to declined until the show's final episode and the last episode in the series on June 2, 1969 after more than five seasons and 514 episodes.
The series that eventually replaced "Peyton Place" original prime-time run was another prime-time soap that ABC would bring in steady ratings was also based on a 1964 theatrical picture titled " Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers" that lasted 15 episodes when it premiered in the "Peyton Place" time slot on September 22, 1969 until January 12, 1970.
*This commentary was revised on August 15, 2014 to commemorate the show's 50th anniversary..
Peyton Place TV Series.
I have just seen episode 514 of this remarkable series.
I first started watching in 1968 when it was on daily at a time when I was making my way home from college.
If I got on the right bus I would sometimes get to see the second half of the programme on two days of the week and on Fridays when we finished early I saw a full programme!
During my summer and other holidays I could get to see a full weeks worth if I had the right temping jobs - I became a real groupie!
It has always been my favourite series and I always rated other soaps against it, the only two coming close were "Dallas" before it became silly and "Falcon Crest." Then when we got cable TV [30 years after the original screening] I saw the series again from about half-way through - missing again, Constances' wedding!
Then at the end of the run the series was restarted again and after the first episode the channel was pulled!
That was about 10 years ago - finally I have bought the set on DVD and have just watched it all again!
At a rate of about 4 episodes a night and 10 a day at weekends, it was a most satisfying experience!
Rubbish ending, but at least the mop-up film tidied up the areas that had never been resolved in the series and the series, although left up in the air had obvious story-lines that did not need a conclusion - other than who killed Fred Russell - my money's on the blonde kid!.
This Is The Continuing Story Of Peyton Place.
First aired on TV in the Fall of 1964, this scandal-ridden, prime-time soap opera was notable for pushing the boundaries of what was considered morally acceptable in the pre-sexual revolution of the early 1960s.Set in the quaint, picture-perfect, little, New England town of Peyton Place, what went on behind closed doors was enough to shock many delighted viewers right out of their socks and keep them coming back for more.From adultery, to teen pregnancy, to mental illness, and, yes, to even murder, Peyton Place delivered the dirt in spades.Filmed in b&w, Peyton Place's episodes have a running time of approx.
25 minutes and feature such a good looking cast of actors as - Mia Farrow, Ryan O'Neal, Dorothy Malone, Ed Nelson and Barbara Parkins..
those were the days..
at last i found the pages about Peyton place series .I used to see it in my country in white and black when i was about 12-13 years,i will never forget it,alway hopped to get this long blond hair of Mia FARO(which she shaved it completely later on as a protest to Vietnam war).when it was published in a book here (translated to my language i bought it at once.in brief Peyton place as TV serial make a part of my beautiful memories.
one day may i will be able to by the DVD of it ,if it comes available here.
I advise young persons to see it if they can ,insted of many series presented now.I cannot also foreget the Sweet love story of Alison makansy and Rodney Harrington..
Arguably the Best Prime Time Soap Ever.
PEYTON PLACE is the first and has remained to this day (arguably) the best-written prime time soap opera with consistent quality across its 5-year run and 514 episodes.Many people have utter contempt for prime time soaps and rightly so - it is a very difficult genre to get right and TV history is littered with a long list of instant flops or serials that got their magic formula right for a while, only to quickly succumb to contrived plot-driven storytelling, that many erroneously believe is the expected standard for prime time soap opera.But PEYTON PLACE sets the bar much higher, which is remarkable given its pioneer status.
It is a beautifully filmed unusually cinematic gem of a TV series that combines the slick glamour of the original movies with edgy B-movie grittiness, especially in its somewhat more compelling first black-and-white half (the first 267 episodes).The original book and the movies are used as a starting point the 1960s series wonderfully expands on with certain changes, depicting a fictional New England small-town world with deliciously knotty almost incestuous relationships among its many characters, where a chance meeting among any two people is invariably fascinating.The stories begin with leisurely-paced character-driven approach, but they are all ultimately built to riveting and therefore satisfying twists and conclusions.
The characterizations are rounded and non-judgmental.As it is always the case with shows that succeed, the casting is the key - Mia Farrow is perfectly cast as a shy and dreamy Alison Mackenzie as are Ryan O'Neal as a cool yet sensitive Rodney Harrington or Barbara Perkins as an ambitious and semi-trashy Betty Anderson.
Movie star Dorothy Malone with her fluttery eyelashes and breathy delivery is a great choice as the town's glamorous, but humble bookstore owner Constance Mackanzie.PEYTON PLACE also demonstrates the ability to successfully expand its fictional world and include previously unseen characters and places, folding them seamlessly into its rich back story as well as the ongoing present day narrative.
There is a cast shake-up every 30 or so episodes and many fascinating new arrivals such as the town's bitter young man Stephen Cord, the 19th century-style tyrant Martin Peyton (who literally owns the town) or his glamorous sharp-tongued housekeeper Hannah Cord.
A number of actors who went on to achieve great success later on - for instance, Leslie Nielsen or Richard Dreyfuss - can be seen in early stages of their careers.Unlike many TV series, PEYTON PLACE and its coastal setting have a strong awareness of seasons - it begins during a sultry Indian summer, moves forward in time to an eventful winter (during which it snows for a solid three months), before we suddenly jump forward to spring, to an unexpected wedding.
The switch to color midway through the series alters the tone somewhat as we enter the groovy late 60s.Only the first 64 episodes have been released on DVD, so those who wish to watch this brilliant series in its entirety will not find all of its 514 episodes in legitimate places.
Nevertheless, I highly recommend it..
Interesting series!.
Mia Farrow (September) "Allison MacKenzie," a young woman who worked in a cute bookstore owned by Dorothy Malone (Basic Instinct) "Constance MacKenzie Carson," who was her mother.
Allison started dating Ryan O'Neal (Zero Effect) "Rodney Harrington" and I used to love the series.
Allison had really long beautiful hair and was innocent.
I watched the series, dubbed and in black and white.
There were people in the series that became very famous, and others some somewhat famous, such as: Gena Rowlands (Hope Floats) Mia Farrow, Ryan O'Neal (The Thief Who Came to Dinner) Ed Nelson(There's Something About Mary), Mariette Hartley (TV commercials for Polaroid cameras with James Garner, Marnie), Leslie Nielsen (Mr. Magoo), Barbara Parkins (Valley of the Dolls).
The series and the actors were nominated for several awards such as Golden Globe, Emmy..
It was the only one soap opera I really loved..
I do not know if Soap Opera is inappropriate.
In Spanish it's not.
My favorites characters were Betty Anderson and Steven Cort.
I really fall in love with this beautiful woman.
I hope that one day I could get all the chapters and the final TV Movie in a DVD or whatever.
I recommend it.
I keep this serial in the deep of my heart and soul.
I want to say Thank You to all the people responsible for this great TV Show.
Sincerely Yours.
César Romero (My real Name).
Not as good as the FILM.
I understand the pilot followed the film and book somewhat.
The Cross family disappeared when the series arrived in 1964.
Rodney did not have a brother in the book.
Norman and Evelyn Page and Evelyn were eliminated.
Michael Rossi became a Dr. instead of a Principal of a high school.
Norman became Rodneys brother in the series.
Constance didn't have a husband and she ran a dress shop not a bookstore.
The series does not follow the films, the only resemblance to the films are SOME of the characters names.
I will take the films over the series any day !!!!!!!!
Dorothy Malone and Mia Farrow made the series, when they left "PEYTON PLACE", it went really down hill quick !!!!!!.
A doctors' saga.
To be frank, I am not well positioned to review the TV series Peyton Place.
For Peyton Place has been a part of my upbringing.
I was about ten years old, when the series started to be broad-casted in the Netherlands.
Our family had owned a black-and-white TV for not more than a couple of years.
I remember how the whole family looked in amazement at the unfolding events on the egg-shaped gray screen.
The community of Peyton Place was the talk of the town in our little state.
I still wonder what lasting impression it must have made on my blank soul.
I do remember that I was deeply touched by the romance between Rodney and Allison.
And how I wondered why she had not picked Norman.
Forty-five years later, watching the DVDs is like meeting a very old friend.
And still, the story (the episodes 1-31) had been almost completely wiped out by time.
Even the killed baby of Betty had been forgotten, although it plays such a central role.
Or Eli Carson.
He had become a familiar face without a name (an old neighbor of mine?
A far relative?).
Of course there is an immense shift of judgment.
At the time, you simply took the characters at face value, for granted.
An adolescent (I don't know about my parents) can not yet see the psychological aspects in their behavior.
For instance, on second acquaintance the Rod-Allison romance looks ridiculous ("Oh Allison..." and "I want to teach you everything I know.
If you let me").
And the deep tragedy of Rod killing his child.
The immature characters of Norm and Judy.
Also I had not seen the probable war traumas of George and Elliot.
The beloved doctor Rossi is actually quite arrogant and aggressive, and not at all so different from George.
Nonetheliess, at the time he was extremely popular with the Dutch housewives.
Etcetera etcetera.
If you try to classify this piece of history, the label doctors' saga bubbles up.
We watch the mental deviations of the characters from the perspective of the rational analyst (usually a physician or sometimes a veterinary; in this series it could be Swain).
In Peyton Place, these deviations are generally ugly, which makes this series a rather depressing spectacle.
If you are fond of such stories, consider seeing the Dutch film "Dorp aan de rivier".
It contains an impressive scene, where the doctor crosses a river by jumping on the moving ice-floes, in order to do a delivery,.
Martin & Hannah Cord.
Started watching the show because it's available on YT.Then bought the series on DVD.My favorite character is Martin Peyton,esp Macready's episodes,and THE Best ones also feature Ruth Warrick alongside her cantankerous pal Martin Peyton-she said he was the same offscreen and went out of her way to crack him up.She did two beautiful attempts by dressing in a teddie and later jumping in bed with Macready,the two laughing hysterically,and the time Hannah lit the mansion on fire,chasing old George around,tackling him and the two rolling around on the ground laughing!The rest of the story lines are okay,but my favorites all include Nr Peyton.George Macready's acting may take a lot of flak,but he's class personified,as are Ed Nelson/Tom O'Connor/Frank Ferguson?Dan Duryea/Ruth Warrick!You can have Rodney & Allison. |
tt1758795 | The To Do List | Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza), from Boise, Idaho, is an overachieving but socially awkward teenager who graduates as the valedictorian of her high school in 1993. After the ceremony, Brandy's two best friends, Wendy (Sarah Steele) and Fiona (Alia Shawkat), take Brandy to a party, where she gets drunk for the first time. Brandy makes out with a muscular college boy she has a crush on named Rusty Waters (Scott Porter). Since the room is dark, he mistakes Brandy for someone else and when he realizes who she is, he rejects her. Brandy blames her lack of sexual experience and resolves to learn all about sex over the summer to prepare for college. She decides that her end-of-summer goal will be to have sex with Rusty to complete her "To Do List".
Brandy gets a job at the pool as a lifeguard to be close to Rusty and her study-buddy Cameron Mitchell (Johnny Simmons). As the newbie, she is hazed by her slacker boss, Willy (Bill Hader) and her other co-workers by being given the most unpleasant jobs. Brandy is told to clean waste from the pool that appears to be feces. She assumes her co-workers are playing a prank on her, based on the Baby Ruth joke from the film Caddyshack, so she takes a bite only to find out it is actual feces. As revenge, she pushes Willy, who does not know how to swim, into the pool. She agrees to teach him how to swim in exchange for ending the hazing.
Brandy gets advice from her sister, Amber (Rachel Bilson), her mother, her two best friends, while her father, a conservative judge, is uncomfortable with the talk of sex. Using this information, she makes a "to do list" of sexual acts to learn and perform. As the summer progresses, Brandy has several sexual encounters with Cameron and other boys, all while trying to catch Rusty's eye. Cameron begins to fall in love with her but is crushed after discovering her list and realizing he was just part of her "mission". Willy catches Brandy, Wendy, Fiona, and adult members of a male grunge band in the pool after hours. Brandy is sent home where she is confronted by Cameron over the list. Cameron leaves in a huff and Brandy cries. Duffy (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), an ex-boyfriend of Wendy's, comes over to comfort her and the two hookup.
When Wendy and Fiona come over to watch the film Beaches with Brandy, they discover her list and see the list of boys with whom she had experimented. They get upset after finding out that Brandy hooked up with one of their ex-boyfriends and leave angrily. They declare that Brandy has failed to put "hoes before bros" and call her a slut.
Brandy finally gets close to Rusty when they vandalize a rival pool, but they get caught because Brandy leaves her bra, with her name on it and Willy fires her. Brandy asks out Rusty, and he takes her to a popular make-out spot to have sex, but the sex is brief. She sees her father and mother in the Dodge Caravan next to them having sex, causing her to freak out and demand that Rusty take her home immediately.
Willy goes to the Klark house to stop Brandy from having sex with Rusty, but is met at the door by Amber, who seduces him. When Rusty and Brandy arrive home, a jealous Cameron is there to meet him with a sucker-punch, and they fight until Brandy breaks it up. She compliments them on their good qualities, apologizes sincerely to Cameron for using him, and offers her own view of sex.
Afterward, she seeks out Wendy and Fiona to apologize to them. She sings "Wind Beneath My Wings" at Wendy's door, and the two girls join in, forgiving her. Brandy meets with Willy at the pool, and he offers her his job if she comes back next summer as he has quit to follow the Grateful Dead.
In the fall, Brandy and Cameron meet again at Georgetown University. Brandy apologizes to Cameron. They have various forms of sex and Brandy finally achieves orgasm, the last thing on her list, just as her father walks in on them. | adult comedy, prank | train | wikipedia | After watching "Bridesmaids" earlier this year, I was actually quite surprised to see a film that I usually would have flagged as a "chick flick" make me laugh and leave the theatre thinking I just watched an overall quality comedy.
Think of a cross between "American Pie" and "Superbad", with even dirtier dialogue, morals, and situations...with female characters as the leads.The film starts with quite a crafty opening credits sequence, which quickly lets you know that you're being brought back to the early nineties (1993 to be exact).
And that's probably the biggest trick that "The To Do List" is able to pull off : The situations through which the characters go embrace their stereotypical nature while constantly pushing both the limits of good taste/morals and of what you've previously seen in similar movies.
Where "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" got a bit sanctimonious at times, this film ends up stating that sex can just be a casual thing and should be enjoyed as exactly that.
In the same vein as "American Pie", "Superbad", and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", this film definitely doesn't bring anything properly new, but it does innovate by reversing the mold and putting female characters as the leads.
Aubrey Plaza's one note characters fit this movie well.What I liked most about the flick was that it finally gave a voice to the sexually confused teenage GIRL population.
It's a very progressive movie in the sense that it reverses the normal teen comedy gender stereotypes and gives the audience an unfiltered and unashamed (however hyperbolic) look at female sexuality, insecurities and intricacies.NOT FOR KIDS..
I'm sure I was followed by a few more people as well.Before you discard my review because I didn't watch the end, I did stay for about 80 out of the 105 minutes and just didn't care enough to stay.The film has a highly overdone premise, yet I hoped it would take a somewhat original take on it with this "to-do list" idea.
The movie had the most stiff dialog that was just so full of overly crude and unrealistic give and take between characters that it made me feel like I was watching some sort of amateur movie made by a sex-crazed film student.
It's almost like Mrs. Bill Hader (writer and director) didn't know what to do to add in humor so she threw in her husband for a little bit of weak and lame slapstick/stupidity humor.An obvious comparison of this film would be the American Pie films, which share in the same sort of over-the-top sexual content/humor.
I enjoyed those way more than this film simply because they were funny and had characters you actually liked.
Rachel Bilson and Clark Gregg, in the little screen time they had, made a legit effort to bring realism into their characters and allowed for a couple short chuckles.It seems that this film is getting some good reviews here on IMDb, and that's okay, I'm not trying to ruin Maggie Carey's career or anything.
I'm just telling it like I saw it, and I respect the positive reviews, but for me I just didn't catch the funny parts in such an awkwardly progressing story about a girl who completes sexual actions with others as part of a to-do list.Overall, the film was an unsophisticated, unrealistic, overly explicit and awkward dramatization of teenage sexuality.
Not having had any previous sexual experiences whatsoever and embarrassed about how little she knows about sex, Brandy decides to educate herself, taking it on like a school project.The To Do List takes us back to 1993 with an excellent cast including Bill Hader, possibly the best comedic actor working today, Johnny Simmons as Brandy's best male friend, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Alia Shawkat as Brandy's best friend, Rachel Bilson as Brandy's older sister as well as Clark Gregg and Connie Britton as Brandy's parents.
The movie takes place in 1993 and is about a recent high school grad who decides she needs to explore her sexuality and makes a "to do" list of all the things she wants to try before losing her virginity.
Besides Plaza (who, I must say, looks far too old to play 18 at this point; I know no one else is 18, either, but most of the others are more convincing), we have Johnny Simmons as the dorky, handsome boy who crushes on her, Scott Porter as the hunky older guy after whom she lusts, Alia Shawkat and Sarah Steele as her best friends, Rachel Bilson as her older sister (whose fiancé, Adam Pally, who was one of the funniest people on television in Happy Endings, is completely wasted), Bill Hader as her boss, Andy Sandberg as a grunge rocker and Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Donald Glover as a couple of other guys who went to high school with her.
The To Do List was a pleasant surprise since I figured it would be a low budget teen flick...But,you might say it was a very funny female version of American Pie. I'm also surprised at the modest rating on IMDb. The ensemble cast headed by Aubrey Plaza did a fine job in a fast moving, profanity laced raunch fest that still maintained a valid and interesting plot...a high school grad wanting to learn about what she had been sexually missing.She was helped by Rachel Bilson, as sexy as ever without her goody goody TV doctor persona and SNL's Bill Hader.Quite honestly it's hard not to like this film despite its grossness in parts.It would be natural to have a welcome sequel with Plaza'a character as a college girl..
"The To Do List" (R, 1:44) is a raunchy comedy from first-time writer/director Maggie Carey, who loosely based the movie on her real-life experiences.
The film stars the very talented Aubrey Plaza ("Parks and Recreation") as Brandy Klark, a brilliant high school graduate who becomes convinced that she has to prepare for college by having all the sexual experiences that her commitment to studying and her social awkwardness have not allowed for.
When Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) , the class scholar and all around nerd, decides to become more sexually experienced before going off to college, she makes herself a to do list to help her work her way up to losing her virginity.
In this 90s-era film, The To Do List tries to follow in the footsteps of teen sex comedies like American Pie and Superbad, but in the end it fails to even be on the same level as these films.
On the one hand, the To Do List has many qualities that could make it into a classic coming of age movie: an overachieving protagonist with a yearning to fill her sudden sexual deficiency before college; the supportive best friends who edge her on, the timid boy who attempts to cross over from being just a friend to being something more, etc.
All of the "sex" scenes are disturbing and trying to force some laughs from the awkwardness of showing some (parent, friend, nephew, coworker) walking right during the act, wherever the place and whenever the time.There is also no meaning in this.
The To Do List The first item teenagers should check-off on their sexual experience to-do list is pregnancy scare.Especially, since this comedy takes place before Plan B.As the valedictorian for the class of 1993, Brandy's (Aubrey Plaza) scholastic achievements outshine her sexual ones.To rectify this before going to college, she compiles a list of sex tasks that culminate with her and Rusty (Scott Porter).To scratch these arousing articles off her list, Brandy heeds the advice of her friends (Alia Shawkat, Sarah Steele), her sister (Rachel Bilson) and her mother (Connie Britton).Unfortunately, her empirical approach to intercourse has an adverse effect on those around her, especially her platonic lab partner (Johnny Simmons).Though it offers some good pointers to amateurs; ultimately, The To Do List is a drastically unfunny and unnecessarily revolting romp.As for #1 on a man's sexual to-do list: find a virgin with a sex to-do list.Red Light vidiotreviews.blogspot.com.
It isn't a high-brow comedy, but the sex jokes and gags are funny without feeling as juvenile as they do in many other films, like the countless American Pie movies.
Though the plot falters here and there, overall it is a satisfying comedy.The plot is quite straightforward, the virgin high school valedictorian, Brandy played by Aubrey Plaza, is looking for sexual experience and to lose her virginity before going to college.
There are also really cliché final monologues by Brandy about sex and love, which aren't funny at all and feel out of place.I am a huge fan of Aubrey Plaza.
'THE TO DO LIST': Four Stars (Out of Five)Aubrey Plaza stars in this teen sex comedy film as a brainy high school graduate who wants to explore sex (for the first time) before going to college.
The movie was written and directed by first time feature filmmaker Maggie Carey and co-stars her husband Bill Hader (along with Johnny Simmons, Scott Porter, Alicia Shawkat, Sarah Steele, Rachel Bilson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Donald Glover and Andy Samberg).
The film is basically the same as a guy teen sex comedy flick just from a woman's point of view (instead of a young man's).
She then makes it her mission to learn all about sex before going to college (through a 'to do list').The movie is full of raunchy and vulgar jokes that kind of seem fresh and different in this film.
watched THE TO DO LIST ...the first thing I liked about it is..that the story sets in the 90s..the awesome decade..BUT the makers choose to forget all the good-funny things about it & kept their focus only on "sex"...& try to made a teen movie with the theme of FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS & NO STRINGS ATTACHED..& it kinda reminds of EASY-A..BUT the film is not that bad..I mean they kinda made it like the American PIE with a girl thing though...it has a few funny moments thanks to its fine cast..they did a good job(in the time they had)...BUT the film looses its grip on the story when it reaches to the end...its like the makers said "OK guys today is the last day of filming..wrap it up" so the climax of the film is not that impressive...BUT its an entertaining film the for the young ones(by that I mean 14 to 22)It has no nudity..still one should avoid watching it with their parents I rate it just_WATCHABLE_.
"I like it." That's the LEAST funny line I've ever heard in a movie.On the whole, it's just a normal romantic comedy where she ends up with her best friend because she realizes that he's ...
If they weren't so completely clueless about their target audience, I could have forgiven them on some of the pop culture references that were a few years off.I've had my fill of Aubrey Plaza playing the awkward, misunderstood girl, but I do always like an appearance by an SNL cast member or two.
This is a movie about a teenage girl who is tired of being a virgin loser -- apparently a rarity in her school in 1993.Brandy (played by Aubrey Plaza) decides to experiment sexually before she goes off to college (where apparently the real fun will begin).
Once I add sexually experienced to the package he'll want me." After high school graduation valedictorian but sexually inactive Brandy Klark (Plaza) goes to her first real party and sees a guy that makes her feel things she never has before.
However, "The To Do List" sneaks by with what we pretty much expected; crude jokes, awkward instances, insane sight gags, and commentary on teenage sexual urgency that is already well-know and barely worthy of a "Cliff Notes" pamphlet.The film stars the lovable and underrated Aubrey Plaza, who's performance in last year's "Safety Not Guaranteed" I regard as one of the most sincerest performances of 2012.
A woman like Brandi would not realistically falls madly for this kind of guy, let alone enough to make her write an entire to do list of sexual favors she plans to perform before college rolls around.
Some of the things found on the list are too vulgar to describe here; let's just say there are a lot of jobs, a lot of genial-sounding favors, and it all leads up to sex with Rusty.The problem with "The To Do List" is the film feels more like a compilation of awkward situations strung together by the vaguest of plot lines.
She makes the "To Do List" in which she does different sexual things with any guy who is willing.It is easily one of the most funny movies I've seen.
Besides, the choice lead that went to Aubrey Plaza shall make the film likable.Aubrey Plaza plays as Brandy Klark, a nerdy senior high school Valedictorian graduate in 1993 who's bothered by her virginity and is pressured by her ungrateful sister Amber (Rachel Bilson).
Maggie Carey, the writer-director of the movie (Bill Hader's spouse) makes sure the sexual dialogue doesn't go too far the way American Pie or The 40-Year Old Vrigin was supposed to.
This very funny movie is an interesting version of the standard teen sex comedy, which is usually about boys trying to get girls, but in this case is about the opposite, with Aubrey Plaza playing a smart, studious girl who decides she needs to experience the whole of sexual experience before heading off to college.A number of reviewers here describe this movie as extremely raunchy, some even describing it as "gross," but my response was different.
Think this movie would've been better if it had been done with college aged characters (less of a sex to-do list, more of a sexual exploration through Brandy's college years), Bison's character was eliminated altogether, some of the gross out humor had been toned down a smig (such as the pool and shower "conclusion") and that the parents had acted a little more...
I love the cockiness in this movie, Audrey Plaza is awesome in her role, there some forced jokes in it but its very original we never see the point of view of a virgin girl, its mostly in guys.The To Do List is a relatively routine coming-of-age/graduation summer storyline – where a bookish character is thrown into one zany situation after another.The story arcs and comedy setups rely on jokes and awkward encounters that have been covered numerous times before on film – meaning a lot of predictable but still amusing gags.That said, The To Do List includes plenty of ridiculous (and cringe-inducing) moments that are sure to entertain moviegoers looking for a raunchy teen comedy.
The setup may not be as original as it would have been back in the time of the film's 1993 setting but there are enough clever pop culture references and awkward comedy setups to keep the movie feeling fresh.Is worth watching it.
I think Aubrey Plaza is a brilliant actor and this movie had a generally great cast.
The movies tells the story of Brandy Klark a valedictorian who under pressure sets out and makes a list to do everything that'd make her sexually experienced before she heads onto college.
I'm reminded of how i felt watching "american pie" for the first time, good for a few laughs, a bit shocking, but really nothing more than that.Finally i would like to make special note of how much i liked Bill Hader in this movie.
In fact i would go as far as to say this is my favorite role he has had on the big screen.(also, Rachel Bilson is thrown in the movie for nothing more than to prance around in her bra and aerobics uniform.....which i'm completely o.k. with.)All in all, "The To Do List" is worth a watch if you don't get too offended by a lot of sexual references and humor.
The supporting cast is also good: Clark Gregg is funny but not very believable as Brandy's father.One of the things I liked about this movie which is undeniably on the explicit side (albeit there is no nudity) is that there is an air of innocence about it, and the characters are broadly quite likable: neither Brandy not her sister are very sympathetic to start off with, but they are both funny, and you warm to them.So don't see it if you object to sex comedies, but if you are OK with that then you may well get some laughs out of it, especially if you are young and female..
It pretends to be set in the 90's but has zero feel of that time other than a loud soundtrack of hip hop songs that are out of place and some vague references.A super smart yet nerdy girl wants to lose her virginity before starting college so she makes a list of things she is going to do, all of them slang terms that mostly did not exist in 1993.Every teen curses in front of their parents and talks about sex, kids at a pool push lifeguards in the water with no repercussions and they use a Caddyshack joke while actually referencing Caddyshack and it's still not funny.
The film is well worth checking out and as the title of my review indicates, it is a breath of fresh air in the teen comedy genre.The film takes place in the summer of 1993, and Brandy Klark (Plaza) is a high school valedictorian who has achieved so much as a youth and is highly anticipating getting to college.
The film focuses primarily on Brandy spending the summer trying to complete her list, spend time with her best friends, and working at a local swimming pool.The To Do List is written and directed by Maggie Carey, who is making her first feature.
The movie is basically about this really unlikable and naive character named Brandy Klark, going through a list of sexual activities that leads to sex at the end.
It stars Aubrey Plaza as Brandy, a recent high school valedictorian graduate who makes a list of sexual activities to partake in before she goes to college. |
tt5892746 | Ezra | The last person of Malabar Jews residing in Kochi dies. Eyeing on precious antique possessions of the person an antiques seller steals a box with inscriptions and is later sold to Priya Raghuram (Priya Anand). Priya is the wife of Ranjan Mathew (Prithviraj Sukumaran) a nuclear waste management specialist, their's is a love marriage. Being a Marathi-Malayali Priya finds it hard to adjust with the shift from Mumbai to Kerala. On a retail therapy Priya buys the box from the antique shop. Later, paranormal activities are experienced by Ranjan and Priya. Ranjan is an orphan who was living with his mother's brother Fr. Samuel (Vijayaraghavan). Samuel is invited to Ranjan's house. Samuel tell Ranjan that the box from the antique shop is a Dybbuk . Ranjan finds more about the dybbuk from a rabbi David Benyamin (Babu Antony). He tells that dybbuk only possess people without mental stability or children under 3 years. The next day rabbi Benyamin is dead and Ranjan finds that Priya is pregnant and is known that his child is possessed. Ranjan finds more about the dybbuk in his house with the help of rabbi Marques (rabbi Benyamin's son)(Sujith Shankar) They get to know about a story in 1941 Thiru-Kochi. The story revolves around a love between a Jewish boy Abraham Ezra (Sudev Nair) and a low caste Christian girl Rosy (Ann Sheetal). Ezra and Rosy had a serious relationship and Ezra wanted to marry Rosy but in between they had sexual interaction and eventually Rosy gets pregnant. Rosy didn't tell to Ezra that she is pregnant . Ezra tells his father about his relationship with Rosy but he rejects it because of the caste system of Jews. With sorrow Ezra sends a letter to Rosy to tell her that they can't live together. Later Rosy commit suicide and her father get to know about the letter and goes to meet Ezra and his father. But he is killed by them and the villagers try to hit Ezra and they try to kill him. Ezra is taken to the hospital by his father and the doctors confirm that he is brain dead . Ezra's father decides to take revenge to the people of the society. His father purposefully kill him and takes his soul into a dybbuk box. The box is made in a way that the whole society can be destroyed. Dybbuk gets fully powerfully when the last jew in the place dies. The story comes back to Ranjan. Marques want the dybbuk to leave Ranjan and his family. So with the help of A.C.P Shafeer Ahammed (Tovino Thomas) he confirms that Abraham Ezra's story is true. Finally he decides to exorcise. But it is revealed that it is not Priya but Ranjan whom which Ezra possessed. Fr. Samuel tell them that Ranjan as orphan had mental problems in his childhood and though Ranjan is a nuclear waste management specialist , Dybbuk will be easily able to destroy the society. At last Ranjan is exorcissed and the dybbuk is taken to an ocean where Ezra'a body was left according to dybbuk system. | paranormal | train | wikipedia | Hi i watched the whole movie, this film gives the illusion to people who have no understanding of Judaism that jews practice blood sacrifice and magic.
This isn't the issue.The issue is the fact they make the jews look like human sacrificing evil magicians.thinly veiled blood libel c- horror film.
It is indeed a very good attempt to give a horror movie in Malayalam based on Jewish horror legend.
The filming, photography deserves appreciation as it attempts to match with Hollywood style filming of horror movies.But it appears the Director have taken some inspiration from Hollywood movie particularly 'The Possession ( 2012)' directed by Ole Bornedal which deals with the possession of Dybukk over a girl.There are of course scenes that are of pure cinematic portrayal which eludes our logic particularly the reappearance of the antique box from the sea shown in the post credit roll rescued by two youths.
How can a metal box dropped into the sea can all of a sudden reappear at some seashore of Mumbai?It evidently shows the Director's clear cut intention to produce a sequel.On the whole a good horror movie to watch out for..
Ezra is an Indian version of The Possession and has lot of scenes inspired from Hollywood Horrors but still keeps us engaged till climax..
Ezra (2017): Horrors of Indian Cinema are meant only for lame comedy but not for content or scare scenes.True horrors never try to entertain us rather it makes us feel suffocated with nail biting suspense,shocking jump scares.Ezra,a 2017 Malayalam horror film starring Prithviraj and Priya Anand,impressed with its trailer.How is the movie?
Then later Ranjan knowing that the box is not an ordinary box it is a Dybbuk box which contains a malicious spirit of a dead person.The film depicts how he is going to save his wife from this malicious spirit.My review: Ezra has the identical premise of 2012 American blockbuster The Possession.The entire concept of Dybbuku is lifted from the movie.Even the scare scenes are inspired from lot of Hollywood horrors like The conjuring,Sinister,Insidious and Paranormal Activity.Flashback is similar to Prithviraj's earlier blockbuster Ennu Ninte Moideen.Even though if the movie is not original still it keeps our attention till the end.Except a routine ending,movie has good moments and decent jump scares.Prithviraj is brilliant in his role.Priya Anand is adequate.BGM is spooky and elevated the mood of the film.Cinematography is the major pro of the movie.So,Ezra is an Indian version of The Possession and has lot of scenes inspired from Hollywood Horrors but still keeps us engaged till climax.My rating 6.25/10.
Many of us have gone through dozens of movies in the horror genre and know what to expect and what is being added and dished out, more often than not.
Well Ezra did appear to have promise, but as pointed out by other theres a lot of irrelevance, eg the ghost of the girl his wife sees.
Ezra is a much different horror movie.
But in Indian Cinema it has totally driven the horror genre to new directions.It was very dark themed and the background score was totally suiting to the Ghosts scenes and also in the rest of the movie.Prithviraj Sukuraman , Priya Anand and other supporting actors has done a fine justice to there roles.
It will be very difficult to not be impressed with debutante Jay K's horror period drama as it tries to be one of Malayalam industry's defining films of the 21st century.Ranjan (Prithviraj Sukumaran) and Priya (Priya Anand) are a happily married young couple who decide to move from Mumbai to Kochi after the former gets a promotion with transfer from his company.
Ignoring the ominousness surrounding it, she buys it and brings it home without having an iota of hint about the horrors that she and Ranjan are going to be subjected to by the vengeful spirit that it houses...Starting from the opening sequence, director Jay K succeeds in pulling its audience into the story that seems innocuous at first, but slowly starts to pick up, ultimately turning into a fast-paced, intense thriller.
Despite being a popular concept in the Jewish folklore, I'm sure it is going to be something new to the Indian audience.With sufficient doses of jump scares in the first half, the makers perfectly create a base in the film which escalates so quickly in the second half that you will sit in your seat wondering whether you are watching a Malayalam film.
You cannot tell a horror story without getting creative, for which Ezra gets at least 8 out of 10.Cast performance is another thing which propels the film into almost being a triumph.
All in all, the cast need to be lauded for pulling out those intense sequences which may look easy on reel but are, in real, very difficult and toiling.Of course, there are plenty of plot holes in the film on which I have had heated discussions with my friends, but once you accept the fact that you cannot narrate a horror story without taking few cinematic liberties, you will start loving it.
Director Jay has to be lauded for his attempt at opening a window of fresh air into Mollywood and giving us this exceptionally well-told and well-executed horror film without compromising on quality or bending the genre.
It is the visual extravaganza and the new style of horror in a Malayalam film that needs to be highlighted.
One has to just look at the title scene and he/she will understand why Ezra is going to be on the top 10 films lists of 2017.To conclude, if you are looking for a horror film to enjoy with your friends and family so that you can discuss it on the drive back home, watch Ezra.
BOTTOM LINE: Jay K's "Ezra" is an excellent horror film that samples an age-old Jewish myth to narrate a story that incites sheer fear and gives 100% entertainment.
Ezra could be termed as one of the better horror movie in the recent past in molly wood.It is a welcome addition to the list of good horror movies in India.Prithviraj Sukumaran has got a growing ability to choose movies wisely and roles that suit him very well, he is successful in it here also.Though nothing much to comment about his acting in here,it is pretty much good.Other cast members also made a good effort, i thought Tovino Thomas was not needed for that role because it was such an insignificant role which could have filled with any non-mainstream actor, also the lead lady Priya Anand was not that impressive and there was not much of a chemistry between Prithviraj Sukumaran and her which made it difficult for the audiences to sympathize with them in some scenes.There were some clichéd scenes also in this movie which could have easily avoided by the scriptwriter to make it more engaging.+ves ♦ Story ,thrilling scenes ♦ Movie managed to scare and induce tension in audiences ♦ Pretty fast paced screenplay ♦ Camera work ♦ good special effects for an Indian movie -ves ♦ First half was lagging and some scenes were not that impressive ♦ Climax was pretty ordinary and a bit rushed ♦ Some editing work needed and 2 unnecessary songs could have avoidedVerdict:3/5, Pretty good horror movie which is very rare these days..
In this movie, the dubuk is in the spirit of a Jew named Abraham Ezra.
Everyone was clapping for ezra one of my cousin was insisting me cz he hear good response i start watching with him....from the beginning i was confused about the story.....it was familiar to me...after some time it was cleared the story was stolen from 'the possession'my cousin also added that mirror sealing was from 'the mirror'im really disappointed.
Well crafted Horror movie with variety story,direction and cinematography and technical team has done amazing job which makes it never seen Malayalam movie.
"Well crafted Horror movie with variety story,direction and cinematography and technical team has done amazing job which makes it never seen Malayalam movie" My rating- 3.8/5 (Very good)Positives- 1.) Direction and story- Director (jay) took the film to next level and we have never seen this type of horror movies in Mollywood.
Story was variety and the smart part of it is that it was based on the Jewish concepts which are new to us and we may easily believe it while seeing the movie.
This is a good try for a horror movie and we never felt any clichés because its story is something new to us and creating horror in it is something which upcoming directors should learn while making this genre films.2.) Prithviraj ,Priya Anand ,Tovino and Sujith Sankar- For Prithviraj and Priya it wasn't a challenging role but they have done good performance.
Sujith Sankar has done it with ease and i really liked his performance.3.)Cinematography- Cinematography took the film to the Hollywood level and great applause to Sujith Vasudev.
His angles and certain camera technique was unique and never seen in Mollywood horror movies.
His techniques succeeded in creating horror feel.4.)Sound , edits and effects- I liked the sound effects because it also succeeded in giving feel to audience.
[ To get great experience its must watch movie in theater] 5.) Songs and bgscore- I loved all songs and last 2 songs succeeded in giving haunting effect to visuals.
I could see the struggle towards the end in the story line but makers could have improvised it.2.)Prithviraj's ghost appearance- Wasn't scary at all.
Something could have been done to make it scarier to his role.3.) Horror thrills- Even though cinematography and sound effects were giving horror feel the scenes didn't give any jump scares and it went normally.
They should have added a lot of jump scares.Overall- Its a must watch movie in theatres to get the feel and after pulimurgan this movie is one of the best technical perfect film.
Go for it and it will be a treat for you if you are horror fan and if you are not also you will enjoy because it suits all types of audience.My rating- 3.8/5 (very good) for full review go to- Ridinbal movie reviews.
EZRA has taken malayalam horror style to a very different and new level.
EZRA was an outstanding Malayalam Horror film and is one of the best Horror films I have watched yet.
Even though movies sticking to Horror genre are pretty routine in Hollywood and World Cinema,I have always sensed the deficit of quality horror stuff from Indian movie scene particularly down south,which has always sticked onto old-school black magic based template horror films or horror comedies in general.Ashwin Saravanan's Nayanthara starrer 'Maya' (2015) was a revelation as far as Kollywood industry was concerned and overlooked the stereotypical horror clichés found in Tamil movies till then.The humongous response that the movie received was an eye-opener for film-makers down south to experiment with the genre and produce engrossing movies in par with films from the west.To start with,I strongly believe Ezra is the much needed break for horror genre in mollywood,a first time experience for the normal malayali audience that deserves special mention for its visual splendor and grand scale of presentation that will make one go awe reflecting the budget constraints pertinent to a normal Malayalam feature film.Debutant Jay K's genuine effort to make Ezra a memorable film is evident in each frame of the narrative,the result being nevertheless a laudable attempt from mollywood ,a class apart from the typical horror movie stuff that we are used to.A promising talent to lookout for in future,Jay K could succeed in taking advantage of good technical support and neat performances to present a hearty horror thriller that has enough substance to scare you without compromising on the depth of the storyline.The pattern of narration is similar to horror thrillers form the west and presents different stages of demonic possession,namely 'Infestation','Oppression' and 'Possession' convincingly without any notable glitches in the screenplay as such.The concept of 'Dybbuk Box' from Jewish mythology was well incorporated by Jay K and refreshing for the fact that movies surrounding Jewish background aren't common in the Indian sub-continent in particular.The flashback sequences were pretty impressive and convincingly presented.Jumpscares were minimal in the second half but made up by the well-presented backstory and emotional connect of the storyline.A complaint that one can make is that the exorcism portion could have been presented in a more thrilling and detailed manner.Sujith Vasudev's top-notch frames and excellent work by the art direction team deserves applause for giving an avant-garde experience that's totally new to Mollywood.Cuts by national award winning editor Vivek Harshan were pretty good .Backgorund score by Sushin Shyam was top-notch and hiked the thrills and emotional quotient of the narration.The pick among the songs were 'Thambiran' and 'Lailakame'(composed by RahulRaj) of which the former was utilized as a haunting BGM through the second half.Performancewise,Prithviraj was as always pretty impressive with his controlled act as demanded by the storyline.Priya Anand had a meaty role to play which she did with required intensity and perfection.'Maheshinte Pratikaram' fame Sujith Shankar played his part really well.Sudev Nair's performance was fine.Tovino Thomas,Vijayaraghavan,etc gave neat supporting performances.Overall,Ezra is a neat attempt from debutante Jay.K and team that deserves a watch from the big screens..
First of all don't over expect about the horror in this movie.Yes there is horror and some scary scenes but this movie is just horror themed for it's story .The positive thing about this Movie is it's story which really is good,the spoiler which i am not going to talk about and the mind blowing camera work and visuals.Every frame for this movie was so good .i'll giveHorror -7/10 story-9/10 camera and visuals- 10/10 this movie is not a just made for commercial kind of horror movie with large junk of humor.The story really stands out .Don't take kids below 7 for this movie there are some intense scenes here and there(especially towards the END) .privithiraj's performance is very good.Tovino Thomas did his small role very nicely .Babu Antony's performance was stunning although he was a minor characters.There are a few cameos which i am not spoiling for you.
Overall a Great horror Malayalam movie in years.
Many people who suggested this movie said that it was really good, but I understood they have never seen English horror genres.
The director tries to introduce something new to the malayalam audience by using a Jew ghost.
No explanation is given to how the ghost gets out of the box and attacks people without opening it, Or the cringe worthy jump scare that shows and entirely different ghost.If you are going to watch it, be disappointed..
Ezra might not scare you out of the hell, but still it is a very much engaging horror thriller.
After watching Ezra, i can say that it reached those expectations of the audience.
If you see a bunch of Hollywood horror films, Ezra might not scare you out of the hell, but it engages you through out the movie and can even be considered as one of the best horror films ever produced in India.
Lot of scenes were inspired from Hollywood films, but director Jay. K doesn't make us feel so, because instead of copying he has executed those scenes in his own way and some scenes including climax were great and the credit should be given to the director.
Coming to the performances of the entire cast, prithviraj is the soul of the movie and his performance in the climax is outstanding, in which there was a high risk of it becoming a disaster and a comic scene even if there were any minute flaws in acting.....but he acted extremely well at that part and he proves that he is one of the few actors who is not afraid to take risks.
Priya anand is also gud in her role and got a break in Malayalam through her debut film here itself.
Tovino Thomas although has a limited screen space, has an impact in the film...when the face of the actor shown on screen, the kind of whistles and cheers he got from the audience shows that there is a high possibility that he is gonna make it big here in mollywood in the near future itself.
Only misfit i felt about the casting was Sudev Nair who played the title character Abraham Ezra who only appears in the flashback part.
So, watch this movie in theatres itself with your family as i said earlier that although it is a horror thriller, it is enjoyable to all kinds of audience....U wont get disappointed for sure..
It tries to replicate the scenes from the western horror movies its clearly 'inspired' from .
Some scenes are hilarious like the ghostly girl who jump scares priya .
The actual Ghost/Demon in the movie; Ezra is male .
This sticks out like a sore thumb..The scenes in the attic are similar to that in insidious and conjuring.Today's younger audience have already seen all these jump scares before .There are a horde of movies now coming in this genre like Conjuring ,Annabelle, , Insidious etc ....The story initially felt eerily similar to that of manichithrathazhu ,where nakulan returns to his hometown with wife ganga due to a company posting .
But in the 1993 classic the reason of haunting was ganga's psychosis whereas in ezra , it is really supernatural.Prithviraj' plays a nuclear waste management expert( well thats new !) and lives with his wife Priya who is from a malayali family settled in mumbai.
i rate this 4 for sujith vasudev for capturing the best a horror movie can deliver in malayalam .....the rest from the scene where the box was first scene is just copied from the movie titled the possession .....
however they added extra history and masala to the story ...even the climatic scene and everything surrounding the story base is just remade into malayalam ..even the climatic CGI of the ghost entering the box . |
tt4381236 | The Greasy Strangler | Big Ronnie runs a disco-themed walking location tour in his town, alongside his son Big Brayden. Ronnie allows Brayden to live with him on the condition that Brayden prepares excessively greasy food for him. Ronnie is a pathological liar who fabricates stories about disco groups like the Bee Gees, as well as his supposed friendship with Michael Jackson. Brayden aspires to be a space fantasy author. Ronnie asserts that Brayden drove his mother away, though Brayden says that she left Ronnie for a man named Ricky Prickles. Ronnie and Brayden frequently call each other "bullshit artist"s.
At night, Ronnie completely covers himself in grease and strangles residents of the town, starting with three people who were part of his tour group. After his killings, he cleans himself of the grease by standing in a car wash run by a blind man named Big Paul. During one of the disco walking tours, Brayden meets a woman named Janet, and the two begin a romantic relationship. One night, Ronnie buys a hot dog from a vendor and forcibly covers it in grease, against the vendor's pleas. Later, as the vendor is defecating in his trailer, Ronnie strangles him through a window, causing his eyes to pop out of his head, which Ronnie cooks and eats.
Brayden and Janet have sex, and the next morning, Ronnie attempts to seduce Janet by eating a grease-covered grapefruit. Ronnie takes Janet out to a discotheque, threatening to evict Brayden if he does not allow them to. Ronnie attempts to kiss Janet, but she resists, saying that she may be in love with Brayden. Ronnie kills Oinker, one of Brayden's friends, and goes to the discotheque with Paul. Against Brayden's wishes, Ronnie has sex with Janet, and he and Brayden have a heated argument the next day. Ronnie and Janet have sex again, and when Brayden confronts them, they mock him, prompting him to run from the house in despair.
One night, Brayden confronts Janet in the kitchen and admits that he is in love with her. Ronnie overhears this, covers himself in grease, and pretends to stand in the car wash, allowing himself to sneak up on Paul and strangle him. He decapitates Paul with a nearby saw and dances with Paul's head. The next morning, Brayden calls a detective named Jody and reports that Ronnie may be "the greasy strangler". Jody comes to the house the next day, and Brayden and Janet show him a spot of oil left behind on the carpet as evidence that Ronnie is "the greasy strangler". Downstairs, Jody concludes that the oil is meaningless circumstantial evidence, and demands that they end all inquiries about Ronnie having committed the murders. Jody removes his glasses in a mirror, showing that he is Ronnie in disguise.
That night, Janet declares her mutual love for Brayden, and they decide to get married. Ronnie, hiding under the bed, reveals himself, claiming Janet as his lover and evicting Brayden. Janet replies that Brayden can stay at her residence, and Ronnie leaves. He re-enters, covered in grease, slaps Brayden, and grabs Janet by the arm, leaving with her. Brayden covers himself in grease as well, and follows Ronnie and Janet to a movie theatre, where Ronnie is strangling her. Brayden strangles Janet instead, causing her eyes to pop out of her head, which both he and Ronnie consume.
The next day, on a beach, Ronnie reveals that he cares for Brayden, despite his annoyance with him, and says that he would rather be with him than co-owning a discotheque with John Travolta in New Orleans. They bond over, in hindsight, their disgust with Janet. They cover themselves in grease and head to a forest where they murder Ricky Prickles, and then witness themselves be executed by firing squad, watching as liquid and confetti explode from their heads. They venture deeper into the forest, still covered in grease, and primally shake wooden spears at the camera. | violence, humor | train | wikipedia | This is one of those movies that if I sat down and explained the whole thing from start to finish you would either say "Eww that sounds terrible" or "I need to see that now because I can't believe a movie like that exists." Everything about "Greasy Strangler" is just so strange and stupid, but at the same time it's hard to look away and throughout the movie I was pretty interested in seeing what would happen next.
It's kind of like if Troma and the guys behind "Napoleon Dynamite" teamed up and made a movie.There is tons of graphic nudity, over the top violence, and buckets upon buckets of grease.
By the time the credits rolled I felt like I needed to take a shower, the movie has such a dirty/uncomfortable tone to it, but honestly that didn't prevent me from being entertained and intrigued by it.
Greasy Strangler is so odd and out there that it's almost like an anti movie.
It doesn't follow any guidelines or strive to be like any other movie, it just simply does whatever it wants which makes it really hard to know what to expect next.
The dialogue, crude humor, and strange characters will likely turn a lot of people away, but those willing to look past the gross exterior of the movie may find themselves laughing a lot.
I liked "The Greasy Strangler", it is completely stupid but it is also original and oddly interesting.
If you dare to see this film, expect a very awkward experience with lots of full frontal male and female nudity (the male are prosthetics and the woman has an enormous bush) and the most bizarre sense of humor since Napoleon Dynamite and They Came Together.
You probably won't like this movie, unless you're willing to just suffer through a barrage of awkward pauses, repeated lines, and just stupid sex scenes that should have you in stitches.
The makers of this movie have to idolize Troma films (I know I do) since this just smells like it came from Lloyd Kaufman himself.
While they could never be mistaken for high art, these films had a charm and sincerity which would elevate them above other gross out movies and grant them an instant and lasting cult appeal.This noxious maelstrom is something a throwback to those films, a toilet where all semblance of good taste is flushed away in a swirl of feces and grease...lots of grease.
I will likely have PTSD every time I go to the car wash now, because some things just can't be unseen.Sometimes the phrase "Hootie Tootie Disco Cutie" pops in my brain just to torment me.I can't even cook bacon anymore because the sight of grease induces flashbacks.I saw this at the Phoenix Film Festival.
Everything is weird, awkward, and unsettling but not in a creepy way.I rate it a 6 because after I was done watching all I could really say was "Yup. I watched that." but it's very easily either the best film you'll ever see, or one of the worst, depending on what you want from it..
Bullshit artist.I truly believe this is an instant genuine cult master piece,I enjoyed the movie for its weirdness, it's entertaining because it's so random you never know what's coming next, it's a genre by it self.
No doubt when the original idea for this film was pitched at financial backers it seemed like a quirky and unusual change - something a bit oddball and fun for audiences to watch.But all this has turned out to be is some narcissistic self-indulgent tripe which will appeal to luvvies and 'those' types who think they know about art, and are quite happy to waste public money which could be better spent.Perhaps the fact that it didn't do well in cinemas and has made it's way to the bargain basement of many online streaming services tells us all we need to know.A childish and pathetic attempt at oddball humour..
They never care that the movie is abominable, just that they will find a like-minded group of people and finally achieve a sense of belonging that they've been waiting for.
I was incredibly pleasantly surprised by what a work of art this movie is.I am a big 80s horror comedy fan, and when I see this kind of over-the-top, cartoony type violence and sex that is sprinkled all over, I'm left with a sense of nostalgia, excitement and joy that stays with me for a long time.
Visually, the entire thing is striking, from the bizarre outfits (Big Ronnie's disco suit!) to the run down scenery to the colours and overall frame composition, everything oozes greasy.
The special effects and the violence remind me of Slime City, early Troma films or maybe even Peter Jackson's old movies.
The closest I could get to describing the soundtrack is that it sounds like the circus version of what Disasterpeace created for It Follows, building a dissonant but catchy backdrop that aligns perfectly with the rest of the movie.It is the kind of film I wasn't really expecting to see on a big screen.
Imagine David Lynch directing Napoleon Dynamite's horror comedy sequel.The 18 UK rating is pretty misleading and unfair - there's nothing truly offensive or scary about this movie, but there is a lot of swearing, gross-out moments, and genitalia on screen.
Morbidly obese women greased up and ready for 72 year old's to strangle them is what awaits you if you watch this wretched excuse for a grade C film.
I was left thinking how, as a horror, gross-out movie or comedy, it really failed to be any of those things.
I actually gave this movie a lot of thought, because it's so incredibly bad right from the opening scene that you know no film maker could possibly make a film so bad, unless they did it deliberately.
I actually gave this movie a lot of thought, because it's so incredibly bad right from the opening scene that you know no film maker could possibly make a film so bad, unless they did it deliberately.
I am fairly sure that there are some people out there who like cult films simply because they want to be part of something that isn't mainstream, and thereby look different and daring.
I am fairly sure that there are some people out there who like cult films simply because they want to be part of something that isn't mainstream, and thereby look different and daring.
In that sense if this movie actually brings meaning to peoples' lives by extending their social network to others like them, then that's good.
In that sense if this movie actually brings meaning to peoples' lives by extending their social network to others like them, then that's good.
All this time, murders are being committed by a foul creature, the Greasy Strangler.Incredibly stupid, and one of the worst films ever made.
The character's are out of time and very funny if you can manage the third degree of sense of humor, maybe 4th (have to be with you).It's a movie to watch with some friends to laugh a lot, a good midnight movie.The story is very stupid, it's about a killer who strangle people wearing a lot of grease, that killer is a very old man who have a huge freaky c*ck.
So when I watched it late at night in the dark thinking I was about to see a horror/slasher movie, I was a bit taken back when I realised it was a comedy I was watching!, And maybe it was because I was expecting a completely different type of movie but I was taken by surprise how funny it was.
Crazy story about an old guy called Big Ronnie and his middle aged son Brayden who conduct walking disco tours.
They also live together, end up sharing the same lover and Ronnie, who craves greasy food, also happens to change into the most bizarre serial killer that I have ever seen.
The Greasy Strangler is a black comedy horror that really has no middle ground - you'll either going to love it or hate it.
I personally though, don't like that type of thing so I didn't have a good time with this film.
I like weird films, but only if they are weird for a reason, this movie is just being weird for weirdness's sake alone, and while it's admirable I can't really recommend it to others..
There are also several very funny moments as Michael St. Michaels keeps complaining "you probably think I'm the greasy strangler!" when everyone from hotdog vendors to his own son refuses to put more grease on his food, and as he dons bizarre outfits without giving a second thought to how he looks.
What's more, the film even spins an at-times touching tale of father and son coming to understand and appreciate one another in the backdrop.
The film admittedly goes a little off the deep end towards the end and gets a little too weird for its own good, but this might otherwise be the most refreshingly unusual horror-comedy since 'Otto; or Up with Dead People'..
I promise you, you've never seen anything like The Greasy Strangler and it will stay with you long after the credits roll.
Cue applause from fans of fked-up cinema all over the world
The Greasy Strangler stars Sky Elobar as Big Brayden, a tubby lank-haired loser who still lives at home with his father, Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels), a grease obsessed disco tour guide who, in his spare time, likes to coat his naked body with oily goop and strangle people until their eyes pop out.
When Brayden meets and falls for Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo) during one of his father's tours, Ronnie does his best to spoil the burgeoning romance.It would take an age for me to list all that is wrong (or right, depending on your point of view) with this film, but I think that I only need to mention that old man Ronnie has a massive pointy pecker that he proudly displays at most opportunities in order to illustrate my point.
The film is about two characters, a father(Big Ronnie) and a son(Brayden) who live together.
This cause friction between him and his dad, as Big Ronnie also wants Janet to satisfy his own lust.At some point in the film you will be introduced to a unique character: "The Greasy Strangler" who is in fact a man drenched head to toe in grease.
Some people say that in years to come this film will attain cult status- I say no chance.You may like these cult horror movies: Suspiria (1977), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Alien(1979), The Thing(1982), Re-Animator(1985), Fright Night (1985), The Fly(1986) From Beyond (1986), Hellraiser (1987), Killer Klowns from Outer Space(1988), Brain Damage(1988), Frankenhooker(1990), Bride of Re-Animator(1989), Beyond Re-Animator(2003).
I watched this movie because it was mentioned by RedLetterMedia once upon a time, and to call it a "weird sex film" is not inaccurate at all.
The greasy bits of the movie are the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in a film, and I couldn't help but laugh about that.
But every night Ronnie ends up covered in a thick layer of grease and takes out his anger on people, which results in him becoming known as "The Greasy Strangler." The film makes no attempt to obscure this fact, it's pretty much a prevalent theme throughout the entire film, which could make one wonder if maybe they should have had some restraint or made it a mystery -- but then the movie wouldn't be so cheesy if it did!There's plenty of awkward sexuality and nudity in the film, complete with hideous prosthetic pieces for everyone.
In the end, the film is about a father and son in the late years of their lives, trying to cope with one another and how their choices tear them apart.
Imagine if Napoleon Dynamite and Junji Ito's Glyceride somehow had a baby - the offspring would be The Greasy Strangler.In this un-thriller, a thoroughly unattractive father and son navigate their strained relationship while dealing with a rash of murders in their town that have been committed by a not-so-mysterious killer who carries out said murders while coated in a thick layer of sopping, crusted grease.
It's in my top 10 movies of 2016 purely because there has been nothing quite like this in many years and it's a vile, crazy, greasy change from the norm.It deserves more than 5.7.
This morbid tale is of the relationship between a father, who runs faux tours of locations, where rock stars, actors, use to hang out, and his layabout, obese, wannabe comic artist/writer son, where from the first reel, nothing is left uncovered, well almost, and the movie holds nothing back.
What I love about The Greasy Strangler, where honestly, I can't give it more than a five, is that there's a style in it's repulsiveness, while being an addictive view, like crack to a movie viewer, who's seen it's preview.
Sure, there's a greasy strangler walking around and eyes do pop out but on a funny way or again, weird and stupid way.Not my kind of comedy but I can understand that people who can laugh with a fart will enjoy this.
There's not much else to say about the movie itself outside of the fact that is incredibly hilarious and anyone that likes T&E or Napoleon Dynamite style humor will also find this right up their alley, so I'll just leave a friendly reminder to everyone to vaccinate their children.
Almost as greasy as the movie and the Strangler himself.It's not a big mystery who the title character is, you'll find out soon enough.
If you like art house films, weird movies, or movies with an underlying deeper message (that is pretty wonderful once you look at it that way), you are in for a treat..
I don't know anyone apart from myself who has seen the movie and yet I love it, I am in not online group and have no online friends or community that know about, talk about or like this film and yet I love it, so there goes that theory2.
The Greasy Strangler sustains this weirdness the entire run time.
It's all there in the background and whether you want to look for it or not I'd recommend giving The Greasy Strangler a watch..
I absolutely love this movie, so much so I watched it 3 times in the first three days since I knew the film existed.
Perhaps the least gross parts of the film involve the actual murders committed by the eponymous Greasy Strangler.
"The Greasy Strangler" is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen.
The strangler looks like a monster, but is actually a naked man covered in grease.
I do not know what possessed me to try this POS, but let's just say it amounts to $6.99 I'll never get back, 93 minutes of time I'll never get back, and is one of the worst movie ever made."Greasy Strangler" is awful.
Was this made by lunatics because it actually made me shout out loud what everyone always says, it made me shout "What am I watching!?" So I'd heard something of a buzz about this movie lately and I thought I'd check it out for myself, well it did make me laugh a lot and it certainly had an atmosphere and characters that were genuinely grimy, nauseating, and all-round unpleasant to look at and listen to, the "Big Ronnie" character, who really for better or worse made this a worthwhile picture, was one of the most vile and disgusting slabs of sweet humanity ever committed to celluloid.
It's crude, offensive, shoddily put together, but it is called "The Greasy Strangler", and you don't pick up a movie with a title like that expecting Shakespeare.
I watched this expecting a horror film, which this isn't.
The Greasy Strangler its obviously trying its hardest to be the new bizarre cult film, it takes inspiration from every film that has filthiness, most notably John Waters films, but The Greasy Strangler manages to feel like its own thing.The film its heavy on the filth department, giving us some of the craziest scenes in recent weird film history, but its not really all that gory or exploitative in nature, its grossness comes from its characters and their surroundings, it isn't necessarily gross but they way they act makes it gross.The film may bore some audiences with some of its anti-humor, or even its grossness but I found it to be mostly entertaining and riveting.
They have four paying tourists on this walking tour and when an Indian tourist (Sam Dissanayake; who does an extremely funny bit a little later in the film when he mispronounces the word "potato") asks for verification of his story, Big Ronnie says, "What are you a bullshit artist?!?" (you'll be hearing that word a lot in this film, but it never grows old) and pulls down his pink disco shorts and farts in their direction (The pink outfits that both father and son wear shows their nipples protruding from their man-boobs!
He tells Big Brayden that he is the Greasy Strangler, but he doesn't believe him, saying "I call bullshit!
While this film contains some scenes that will likely make you wanna puke (Check out Big Ronnie disco dancing with his huge penis shaking in the wind while a spotlight follows him around), it is basically a love story at heart.
Even though Big Ronnie always tells people Big Brayden is a "crapper" (there is nothing he hasn't taken a crap on, even though none of it is true), he loves his son and you will be thinking about that long after the film ends.
I put this movie right up there with Tommy Wiseau's The Room, another one of my all-time favorite films.
The father/son team duo are so quirky and awkward, you can't help but laugh.Big Ronnie and his son, Brayden give a disco tour for a living. |
tt0037481 | Zorro's Black Whip | In Zorro's Black Whip the word Zorro never occurs, but a female who behaves like Don Diego in Idaho fights a cabal of corrupt politicians as "The Black Whip" after her brother (the original Black Whip) is killed.
Hammond, owner of the town's stagecoach line and a leading citizen on the council, is secretly opposed to Idaho becoming a state—because government protection would destroy the system and organization he has constructed—and conducts raids against citizens and settlers alike to prevent order, while keeping his own identity as the organization's leader secret. The town marshal is meanwhile powerless to act outside his jurisdiction beyond the town boundary. Randolph Meredith, owner of the town's newspaper, as the Black Whip, opposes this scheme to defeat statehood, but one day he is killed after preventing yet another coup. Meredith's sister Barbara, expert with a bullwhip and pistol, dons Randolph's black costume and mask and becomes "The Black Whip" in her brother's place, dealing a blow to Hammond and his gang each time they perform some heinous act in their efforts to keep the town, and their power over it, unchanged.
Aided by recently arrived undercover US government agent Vic Gordon, Barbara (Linda Stirling) as The Black Whip is quite obviously female but, even after a bout of wrestling, the villains do not realise they aren't fighting a man. Some reference is made to this in the script, however, when the villains are trying to determine who the Black Whip's secret identity could be:
Hammond: Barbara Meredith, she's the Black Whip! Baxter: She couldn't be! The Black Whip's got to be a man! He's outshot us, outrode us, and outfought us, stopped us at every turn!
Hammond orders her taken, but the day is saved when Vic Gordon discovers Barbara's secret and removes her from suspicion by appearing in her costume and overcoming her captors. From this point on, despite relinquishing the costume at her insistence that she must continue as the Black Whip, he tends to assume the hero role while Barbara becomes slightly more of a traditional damsel in distress, even while she still holds her own in successive violent confrontations with Hammond's henchmen, and more than once saves Vic's life.
After the town has finally voted on whether or not to accept statehood, most of Hammond's gang are gunned down while attempting to steal the ballot boxes. Hammond escapes, and secretly trails and confronts Barbara in her cave when she removes her mask. He takes aim, but is struck down by the Black Whip's stallion. The reign of terror has ended. Vic remains with Barbara and the marshall to help maintain peace in the territory. | action | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0388944 | Fainaru fantajî XII | === Setting ===
Final Fantasy XII is set within the land of Ivalice during an age when "magic was commonplace" and "airships plied the skies, crowding out the heavens". At this time, magicite, a magic-rich mineral, is commonly used in magic spells and in powering airships—a popular form of transportation in Ivalice. Ivalice is divided into three continents: Ordalia, Valendia, and Kerwon. Ordalia is located in the western part of Ivalice. The Rozarrian Empire makes its home in the vast inland plains of this continent as the eastern portion of it is largely desert and "jagd"—lawless regions so rich in Mist, the ethereal manifestation of magicite, that airships cannot function. Valendia is the home of Imperial Archadia, where lush highlands dot the landscape. Central to the story is Dalmasca, a small kingdom between the two continents and empires. Located in the middle of the Galtean Peninsula of Ordalia, Dalmasca is surrounded by an expanse of desert. The temperate climate of Dalmasca differs from the cold environs of Kerwon to the south and the lush plains of Valendia and Ordalia. During this time, Ivalice is beset by the pending war between the forces of Rozarria and Archadia. Caught between the two powerful Empires, Dalmasca and a number of smaller nations have already been subjugated by Archadia two years before the game begins.
=== Characters ===
The six main playable characters in Final Fantasy XII are Vaan, an energetic orphan of Rabanastre who dreams of becoming a sky pirate; Ashe, a determined princess of Dalmasca who lost her father and her husband in the Archadian invasion; Basch, a disgraced knight of Dalmasca charged with treason for slaying the king; Balthier, a gentlemanly sky pirate who pilots his airship, the Strahl; Fran, Balthier's partner and a Viera exile whose knowledge extends to legends and myths; and Penelo, Vaan's childhood friend who accompanies him on journeys to "keep an eye on him".
The Archadian Empire is ruled by House Solidor, headed by Emperor Gramis. The emperor's sons are Vayne and Larsa, the former a military genius and the latter a charismatic seeker of peace. Judge Magisters, upholders of Archadian law, protect House Solidor and execute every command issued by the ruling family. The technological marvels of airships and synthetic nethicite—a form of magicite that absorbs Mist—are thanks to Doctor Cid, a prominent researcher from Archadia. The Resistance against Archadia includes Dalmascan knight Vossler, an ally of Basch; Marquis Halim Ondore IV, the game's narrator and ruler of the skycity Bhujerba; Reddas, a sky pirate based in the port at Balfonheim; and the Rozarrian Empire, of which Al-Cid Margrace is a prince of the ruling family. The mythos of Final Fantasy XII revolves around a character known as Dynast-King Raithwall, a man who once united Ivalice to create the Galtean Alliance in ages past.
=== Story ===
In Dalmasca's capital city of Rabanastre, Princess Ashe of Dalmasca and Prince Rasler of Nabradia have just wed, as the Archadian Empire invades the two countries. Rasler is killed in the war, the city of Nabudis is destroyed in a single explosion, and the Dalmascan king Raminas is assassinated moments after signing a treaty of surrender. Marquis Ondore announces that the assassin was Dalmascan captain Basch, who has been sentenced to death, and that Princess Ashe has committed suicide.
Two years later, Vaan, a Rabanastre street urchin, ignores his friend Penelo's objections and infiltrates the palace during a dinner celebrating the appointment of Archadian prince Vayne Solidor as consul. In the treasury he finds a piece of magicite, a powerful magical crystal. He is discovered by Balthier and Fran, a pair of sky pirates looking for the magicite. The three escape as Dalmascan Resistance forces assault the palace, and in the sewers they meet the Resistance leader, Amalia, before being captured by Archadian forces. Detained in the Nalbina dungeons, they meet Basch, who was imprisoned but not killed, and who states his twin brother Gabranth was the one to kill the king. The four escape together with the help of Penelo, and flee to the floating city of Bhujerba.
In Bhujerba, they meet Lamont, a curious boy who is Vayne's younger brother, Larsa, in disguise. Basch confronts the Marquis over his lies, but the party is captured and detained aboard the Archadian airship Leviathan, headed by Judge Ghis. On the Leviathan, the party is reunited with Amalia, who is revealed to be Princess Ashe. Ghis takes the magicite, which is revealed to be a royal Dalmascan artifact, "deifacted nethicite", from Vaan to send to Archadia. The party escapes the airship, but as Ashe had planned to use the magicite as proof that she was the princess, the group makes plans to collect another of the pieces of nethicite, the Dawn Shard. They do so, but are again captured by Ghis; when he tries to use the Dawn Shard in the Leviathan rather than the "manufacted" magicite it normally uses, his entire airship fleet is destroyed in a mirror of the destruction of Nabudis, and the party flees again.
The party encounters Larsa, who seeks a peace treaty between Dalmasca and the empire. Convinced, Ashe and the group go to Mt. Bur-Omisace to seek the Gran Kiltias Anastasis, Ivalice's religious leader, and beg his approval of her as queen of Dalmasca. There, they also meet Al-Cid Margrace, a member of the Rozarrian Empire ruling family, who is seeking to avert a war between Rozarria and Archadia and is in talks with Larsa. Their plans are curtailed when Anastasis is killed by Archadia, and soon afterwards the Archadian emperor Gramis dies and Vayne ascends the throne.
After retrieving the Sword of Kings, which can destroy nethicite, the party journeys to Archadia to retrieve Larsa, who has been taken. There they discover Doctor Cid, who created manufacted magicite, and who directs them to go to Giruvegan as it is the source of nethicite. In Giruvegan, only Ashe can enter the final area, where she encounters the makers of nethicite, the immortal Occuria, who "pull the strings of history"; they give her the Treaty Blade to cut new pieces of nethicite from the Sun-cryst, the source of all nethicite and its power. She learns that Venat, one of the Occuria, has defected to put the "reins of History back in the hands of Man", controlling Vayne and Cid and leading the latter to create manufacted magicite to reduce the relative power of the Occuria. Archadia's expansion campaign was a front to capture the existing shards of nethicite.
Ashe and the party journey to Pharos tower, the location of the Sun-cryst, where she decides not to take her revenge by following the Occuria's wishes, but instead destroy the Sun-cryst. The party defeats Gabranth, who reveals that he killed King Raminas, and then the party also defeats Cid, before destroying the crystal. The group later learns from Al-Cid that the Dalmascan Resistance, led by Ondore, is about to fight Archadia in Rabanastre, but the Archadian forces now include the Sky Fortress Bahamut, powered by the Mist released by the destruction of the Sun-Cryst. They infiltrate the Bahamut, and find Larsa attempting to dissuade his brother Vayne from his plans for war to no avail. They defeat Vayne and Venat, and Ashe and Larsa announce the end of the conflict to the battlefield. Larsa becomes the Archadian emperor and Ashe the Queen of Dalmasca; Basch replaces his brother Gabranth as Larsa's protector; Vaan and Penelo fly an airship to meet Balthier and Fran for another adventure. | revenge, murder, violence | train | wikipedia | Final Fantasy XII is a really great game with a lot of extras to keep you busy for a long time.
Any fan of World of Warcraft or other MMORPGs will adapt to this game in two seconds, as it's basically the same fighting system.I found the weakest link was the story, which is odd because Final Fantasy is known for great stories.
You will find yourself broke often because everything - weapons, armor, magic, Gambits, technicks, EVERYTHING - costs a lot of money.But those are actually minor grievances once you start playing the game.
There are great bosses, the Judge Magisters are cool and intimidating, the voice acting is superb, the cutscenes are excellent, the graphics push to the PS2 to its limit, there are tons of different weapons and spells, the cities are large and sprawling with life, and Gambits - if you like 'em - can be mastered to perfection.All in all, a great game and a great addition to the series.
This is one game, especially in the Final Fantasy series that one will not want to miss..
Currently a little over than 60 hours into the game (with all characters at level 40), I'd say that "Final Fantasy XII" ("FFXII") ranks as perhaps one of the best video games I have ever played (not that I've played a lot).Maintaining everything from previous installments that contributed to this franchise's incredible success, "FFXII" contains excellent graphics, gameplay and story.
Two years later, in a desire to set out for revenge, she unites with street urchin (and playing character for most of the game) Vaan, sky pirate Balthier, the initially enigmatic Basch, the ex-Viera (a race of rabbit-like wood-dwellers) Fran, and the perky Penelo.
Together, they embark on a journey across the snowy mountains of Paramina Rift to the white beaches of Phon Coast in an effort to restore peace in Dalmasca.As with all the narratology of "Final Fantasy" installments, characters are given enough history to give the player a little more connection with them.
(I agree with the previous comment of another user that Ashe has the best backstory which is why I often use her as the party leader.) While not necessarily attaining the lofty bars "Final Fantasy VII" and, to some extent, "Final Fantasy X" ("FFX") has reached as far as characters are concerned, "FFXII" more than makes up with a better storyline (the nature of which I understand may reduce the appeal to some) and excellent visuals.
Music-wise, the score is good although there are certain stretches I half-expect "FFXs"'s battle theme, as well as "Final Fantasy X-2"'s "Yuna's Ballad" and "Eternity of Lightwaves," would play.
For instance, with the right gambit, license, weapons and/or armor, a character can both be an effective healer and a decent attacker."FFXII" is, needless to say, a great game that should satisfy fans as well as casual gamers alike.
For many years, the Final Fantasy series lived on turn-based random battles.
Well, once people tried the demo and the critics praised the game all that changed and the game sold massive numbers.FFXII is a fitting final bow to PS2 role-playing and gives us a glimpse of what the PS3 or the Wii will offer in the future.The battle engine here is flawless and is better than any Western RPG.
Similar to MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XI, your party wanders the land looking for battles to fight.
This is a much simpler way than Final Fantasy X's difficult-to-love Sphere Grid.The Gambit system, which allows you to micromanage your CPU mates, is very good and offers many different options that you can manipulate.
The music is stellar as always, although I did miss hearing the Final Fantasy victory music; only playing at the end of certain boss battles.The voice-acting is superb, better than Final Fantasy X's.
Like Dragon Quest VIII, it's a simple plot that expands as you go through the game.Where the game really shines is due to the sheer fun of running around and leveling up.
You'll look forward to these battles and getting those main characters like Vaan, Balthier and that sexy Viera Fran to Level 99.
And of course, there are tons of secrets.All in all, this is a tremendous game in the Final Fantasy series and one of the best ever made along with FFVI and FFIX.
It took me a bit to get a handle on it, but in the end it was okay and I was able to totally destroy the final boss of the game.
Also, be sure to make good use of the gambits as that is how I finally won the game.
Also with the time you spend walking places and leveling you forget stuff and characters that will be important later become forgotten as they are not seen for long stretches.
Still the character's are likable enough and the beginning part of the game is rather good, cut some time off of it and it would be great...the layout of the land is excellent though as this world is very detailed..
I have played every single Final Fantasy game this includes spin offs such as dirge of Cerberus and Ergheiz anything by square really heck I even played the Bouncer and Vagrant Story.As a hardcore final fantasy fan I was excited when I heard 12 was coming out I remember going out that week and buying it for 60$.
Then the combat system started and at first it wasn't so bad it was just a huge leap from what Final Fantasy games were before.
As I played more and more the battle system seemed to need me less and less to the point where i could set the controller down and go get food or read a book and I would be leveling up.The problem, with the game is not the story itself by the characters in it.
The epic story, interesting characters and dynamic battle system always leave me wanting more.
Probably 1/4 of that 185 hours was storyline.I still remember the feeling of waiting for the game to come out, staying in my room playing 10 and 8, just thinking and wondering what the game was going to be like, then I got it and was thrown into a world of war and peace and kings and queens.
The storyline was well thought out but It could of been better I believe.Square Enix also had the time to make huge and extremely hard bosses.
Took me 5 hours to beat.Well there you have it, reasons the game had gotten the best rank of the FInal Fantays series, all in a couple paragraphs..
The in-game graphics was also just amazing, few times i was not sure if it is FMV or in-game.I have a mixed feeling about Gambit battle system.
3 fires = 3 points, 1 firaga = 1 point, which is more logical to use?) Unfortunately, after some time i've realized, that the most optimal thing to do is to train the characters in a same way (axes and heavy armor), plus some chars could inherit armor from each-other, no need to buy 3 different types of armor if you low on Gil. I've heard it was fixed in FFXII international (different class specialties)Music.
FF 10 was a good game and very innovative in its own way with the use of voice actors, but the sphere system was very confusing at first it took too long to understand the how it worked but once it was understood it was a very powerful tool.
FF 11 was a bit better but I did not like the idea of it being and MMORPG.With that out of the way I move on to FF 12, the much needed revival of the Final Fantasy series.
What convinced me to pick up this game (more than it being a Final Fantasy) was a review of it I saw on X-Play on G4.
This game is the revival that I have been longing for in the Final Fantasy series; any gamer who loves the series needs this game.
Another think that I loved about the game was that Yoshitaka Amano is back on with the Final Fantasy crew (Welcome Back!!!).
For those who don't know Yoshitaka Amano has been director of character design for all of the Final Fantasy's except for 11 and 10-2 I believe, but he was back on for this one.
I like the story line for this one because it is different, which is what the FF series needed, in that it isn't a win or the world ends; it's more political but still very in-depth and interesting as each character has a defined back-story and their own purpose for joining the quest against the empire.The only think that I really didn't like was in the beginning it seemed like I was just playing a little between movie sequences, but that soon changed and more game time was alloted and less movies.Over all this is a must have for Final Fantasy fanatics and hard core gamers alike or if you just love awesome games..
Also another main character is Vaan who is not as rich,powerful, and wonderful as Ashe is, and also because he is a poor, stealing orphan trying very hard to make his dream a reality of becoming a famous Sky Pirate of Ivalice.
It's sort of like the sphere grid in Final Fantasy X, except you use it so you are able to use your new and really sweet weapons.
Although the license board does have a few annoying disadvantages, it's still original and new 9/10 Overall: This isn't the best Final Fantasy game in the whole series, yet never the less it should still be in your top three.
The characters are well described, the game play is new and original, and the storyline is excellent 10/10.
Worst of all final fantasy games!
The story starts off with a striking bang, the first 10 hours of the game are highly entertaining because of this, but soon after all of the main characters are in your party, the excitement ends.
Though the characters' long-winded speeches sound quite pretty, their overall lack of content and coherency makes them very boring.There's just nothing in the story to make the player want to smile.
Unfortunately, though, in Final Fantasy XII, the characters spend almost the entire game wandering around like silent unresponsive zombies, making no effort to interact with their environments.
The only other flaw that prevents me from givin' this game the whole 10 is because of its storyline, (which I thought was probably one of the worst of the series'), and occasional feeling of tediousness.But aside from that, it hooked me as soon as I started playin' it.I was addicted to its new gameplay; in my opinion, it felt far more realistic and enjoyable than the game's many predecessors, unless, that is, you'd rather not have such a realistic feel.I also thought the new license board system was great; but what constantly concerned me was the fact that, in the end, the characters would end up all being the same, instead of the diverse character classes that were available to the player in previous Final Fantasy games.Nevertheless, despite the somewhat 'bad' storyline and plot, the visuals and in-depth gameplay caught my interest, and overall I enjoyed it..
Many have waited in anticipation on how it will turn out and when it did, news spread like wildfire about it's amazing battle system, refreshing plot and the characters themselves.
Now, after 70+ hours of gameplay, wondering (read:lost) the massive world of Ivalice and watching the characters interact, I'm beginning to wonder if we are playing the same game.Don't get me wrong, when I first started this game, I was drooling all over the DVD cover, refuse to sleep, eat (I showered, however) or even move myself from my room, sparing only fifteen minutes of sun so that I don't die of the lack of vitamin D.
Kicking out the old random battles, ATB, enemies on one side and characters on another whacking each other while waiting for their turn, you get to actually kick enemies' butt in Real Time.
VA aside, the characters suffered in terms of development.While they have a strong start and seem to tease you for more, the writers decided to drop the storyline half-way through and focus on the battle system.
I mean it's not a bad thing, but when you're side-tracked by the Mark Hunts mini-game and arrive at one place wondering where you're suppose to go next and forgetting the reason WHY you need to go there in the first place, then you have a problem.
They wasted a chance here to move Final Fantasy away from the usual sappy-story-pseudo-philosophical genre that it had done for the last few games.
I can imagine the developers of FF-XII having this discussion before they started designing: "This is a fantasy game.
And without the incomparable Nobuo Uematsu composing the music (as he did for Final Fantasy 1 through 10) the game was missing a lot of heart.That's not to say that it wasn't a lot of fun.
Even basics like what the Elemental Magic icons meant were missing (c.f. the comprehensive Help in FF-VIII).In summary, it looks good, plays well, but really needed an infusion of personality in the main characters to be a real winner..
Good game, but Final Fantasy is supposed to be GREAT.
FFXII introduces Ashe a fifth or sixth of the way through, and suddenly she is the linchpin of all the adventures after we have dedicated a significant percentage of storyline to Vaan's development.There is nothing wrong with having Ashe be the main character; just don't set us up with one character, then supplant him, and put in extras like Fran, Balthier and (especially) Basch to pick up the slack here and there with little pieces of Dialogue.The biggest problem with this game is the plot.
There are so many things going on in this game that it forgets to develop the main story line, and before you know it, the game is over.
In FFXII though, we are deprived of perhaps a rich and beautiful civilization, certainly on terms with the less-than-inspirational-looking Arcadia (it was good looking, but I expected better.) We travel far West to the Tomb of Wraithwall, we hear about Rozarria, and we see their people, but we don't get to see their land
.sounds like the project had major plot changes that might have contributed to the wait
leaving us with something less than desired.
Since the way you move on the map is FFX style (no world map area), the main progression should move in a more predictable pattern.Good game, but it could have been great.
I thought to myself, 'Wow, I can't wait to get started!' The beginning of the game places you right in the middle of the fighting during the 'prologue' of the story line.
It's a nice way to get the player used to the new battle system and all the features that come with Final Fantasy XII, while keeping you in the middle of the action.Once you are finished with the prologue, you control the character Vaan.
As usual with a Final Fantasy you must run around and do little, trivial tasks to get used to the game, no problem there.
Finally you get to a boss or a town you are supposed to, but unfortunately it has been so long since the last time you saw a video or even heard from the characters that you most likely forgot what is going on.
I don't know if anyone else had any sort of problem with this but no matter how loud I turned my TV up, I could not seem to understand the characters completely.The fifth large problem with this game(yes I know there is a lot!) is the overall plot itself.
If you have ever played the beginning Final Fantasy games many of those had that same plot.
At first I was not against this as I believed that this classic plot could be told better and have a greater overall effect, but it didn't.Lastly, my sixth and final complaint includes the bosses of this game.
I must say that they are much harder than any other bosses of any other Final Fantasy I have ever played.
I have always believed that Final Fantasy bosses needed to be tougher, but this?!
I'm an avid Final Fantasy fan and have played everything from 1 up to 12 (excluding 11).It's important to note that the game doesn't follow the general battle system that most FF games would.
It takes some getting used to, and I wouldn't say it's my favorite combat system of any Final Fantasy, but it's very innovative and fits well enough with the graphics and storyline.The characters come with a set-up not unlike FFX, where a board exists for each person to level skills and magicks.
The character layout is very detailed and unique, just like the new combat system.The story, as always, is quite ingenious and keeps you hooked as you play along.
The quality of his acting AND of his voice seems subpar, and because he is the "main character" of the game it still disappoints me to this day.
Cut her voice out and I would have loved it.Battle System:100% in the right direction.The turn-based system of 10 and the other FF's is the most boring way to play a game EVER.That is one of the main reasons I'll never touch FF10 again or any FF before it.
The battles and monsters are on the same screen as your characters and with REAL-TIME!
Even though I liked this story way better than X it did suffer from being extremely boring at times.
If you are looking for the most ugly, mismatched clothes in the history of video games then look NO FURTHER than the Final Fantasy series. |
tt0077318 | The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith | Jimmie Blacksmith, a half-caste child of an Aboriginal mother and a white father, is raised to adulthood by the Reverend Neville and his wife Martha, hoping their influence will civilize him and provide him greater opportunities in early twentieth century Australia. With a letter of recommendation from his foster family, he goes out in search of work to establish himself, but is taken advantage of by multiple parties. His first employer, Healey, repeatedly shortchanges his pay by nitpicking his fencebuilding work, and refuses to write a job recommendation to avoid admitting he himself is illiterate. Jimmie then works for a local constable, Farrell, who uses him as muscle against other local Aboriginals, including capturing a former friend who is later molested and murdered while in custody, and forced to cover up the death. Jimmie finds some stability working on the farm of the Newby family, who still treat him little better than other employers, and decides to summon and marry a white girlfriend, Gilda Marshall, who is already very pregnant when she arrives to move in with him. Gilda later gives birth to a white child, obviously not fathered by Jimmie; while upset at the public embarrassment, he eagerly embraces being a parent.
Shortly after the birth, Jimmie's full-caste brother Mort and uncle Tabidgi come to the Newby property, and Jimmie enlists their help in his fence-building work. However, Mr. Newby uses their presence as an excuse to deny Jimmie his pay and needed provisions, claiming the extra men were not part of their arrangement. Meanwhile, Mrs. Newby and a schoolteacher friend Miss Graf try to convince Gilda to take her baby and leave Jimmie for a teaching opportunity in another part of the country, which Gilda refuses. Furious at the mistreatment his family is facing, Jimmie enlists Tabidgi to help put a "scare" into the Newby women while the men are away, planning to threaten them with hatchets. This suddenly and brutally turns into a rampage that leaves Mrs. Newby, Miss Graf, and all the Newby daughters but one infant dead. Jimmie's family flee the compound, and shortly after Tabidgi, Gilda, and the child are left behind as Jimmie and Mort continue on the run. They soon murder Jimmie's previous employer Healey as well, with Jimmie announcing that he has declared war, in the manner he once heard the fighting against the Boers described. As press coverage about Jimmie's killings become nationwide news, a reporter makes regular probing inquiries to his butcher, whom he is aware doubles as the city's hangman for the police, about what may take place when Jimmie is captured. Tabidgi, since captured and sentenced to death for accessory to murder, tells the convicting court that the decision to kill was not part of the plan and came to them on impulse.
Still uncaptured, Jimmie and Mort come upon a schoolteacher, McCready, who they initially wound by gunfire; he convinces them not to kill him by showing them a newspaper article about their national notoriety. They decide to take him as a hostage instead and take him from his home. As the brothers argue about the morality of their crimes of killing women and children, McCready makes bitterly humorous observations about the influence of white people on the native Aboriginies. He convinces Jimmie to go on alone and abandon Mort by indicating that Mort's soul has had none of Jimmie's detrimental white influences. Mort in turn takes McCready to a farm to recover, but is killed by a hunting party led by the Newby males and Miss Graf's fiancee Dowie Steed. Jimmie himself is shot at in a lake, but manages to crudely tend to his wounds and hide out in a convent for a night. He is found the next morning and taken by police, who vainly try to prevent townspeople from beating him as they take him to jail. In the final scene, Jimmie is read the last rites by Rev. Neville in his cell, as the butcher/hangman from earlier observes them, and declares that despite the (perceived) unique physical characteristics of Jimmie, his hanging will likely go as normal as any other. | tragedy, violence, murder | train | wikipedia | This is a fine example of the breed of excellent Australian films released in the 1970s during the Australian film renaissance (it's interesting to note that virtually all of the directors of these films, including director Fred Schepisi, later moved to the U.S. to make big budget Hollywood films).
This tale of a young aboriginal man who eventually turns to violence following one humiliation after another by white settlers in 19th century Australia asks some very uncomfortable questions of the audience such as: Is it morally justified to use violence against a corrupt, racist, violent system in which there are no lawful means to receive justice?
Additionally, it is up to interpretation whether the violent reactions of the title character are justified: we are clearly sympathetic to him in the beginning, but once he perpetuates incredible brutality on the settlers, can we remain sympathetic?
The U.S. has been asking itself these exact same questions for the past 50 years: Jimmy is very much a close Australian cousin to Bigger Thomas, the main character in Richard Wright's classic American novel "Native Son" - a black man pushed to violence by virtually every aspect of white society.However, like Wright, I admired director Schepisi's decision to carefully straddle the line between whether Jimmy can be viewed as a simple societal construct or whether he is a man in control of his own actions.
That makes the movie even more uncomfortable when one thinks about it afterward.In many ways, this is a very depressing movie; in the end there is no closure, no justice, and nobody has learned a damned thing, except possibly the audience, if they truly think about what they have just seen.
This is a film definitely deserving of a U.S. audience.
Too bad that its controversial (i.e. thought-provoking) nature has probably prevented it from being released on VHS or DVD in the U.S. I understand copies of this are quite rare abroad, as well, so I suggest viewing it if given the opportunity..
The Best Australian Film?.
Fred Schepisi's 1978 film may well be just that but it's not included in my Australian Cinema 12 disc boxed set and I've never known it to be on TV, here.
I became aware of it through my old film 'bible' Halliwells and they rated it very highly, awarding a rare maximum score, citing it as 'one of the greatest achievements in Australian cinema'.It's taken me a good number of years to finally find a copy that was on region of DVD I could play and wasn't a silly price.The first thing you notice is the sheer authenticity.
The language used to describe the aboriginal natives is as coarse and racist as you'll find in any gritty 70's set LA cop show and for that it is both upsetting and rather embarrassing, but at least goes to show the leaps and bounds humankind has largely made on this issue, since.Jimmie Blacksmith is a half-cast, a subject that has been visited in a few memorable films, particularly 'Rabbit Proof Fence' and as 'these' were often the result of rape against white women, were seen as worse than the lowest.
Jimmie (superbly played by Tommy Lewis) does have an advantage, he's overseen by the local white vicar and is known as a hard and honest worker.He soon goes on to work for white farmers, along with his fully aboriginal brother, erecting fences.
He does too good a job and they don't want to pay, so he moves on.
His relationship with a white girl, then marriage results in a child, that by colour alone, cannot be his.
Then, around half-way in, all this pent-up anger boiling up inside the civilised and decent Jimmie erupts.
This is when the violence (extreme in its day, now, maybe sadly, average) erupts as he goes on a vengeful killing spree.I need not go further than this, except that obviously, he is then a wanted criminal and a fugitive on the run.There's a real sense of the epic, with cinematic hints and nods to Nicolas Roeg's 'Walkabout', with the natural geography, fauna and the culture all vividly brought to life, superbly filmed by Ian Baker .Thankfully - hopefully, this can now be seen as a historical drama, the like of which can never happen again.
It is as hard-hitting and making as powerful a statement on in-bred racism there is and is without doubt a five star classic..
Thomas Keneally's THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH novel works on so many levels - a period piece, as a biting satire and as a wonderfully composed drama.
This film of the same name attempts to capture the poignancy and strength of the original classic novel.
The film is excellently acted and the violence is both well shot and vibrantly enacted.
Also the Australian landscape - not to mention its social underbelly, was never shot with as much insight.An excellent starting point to understand such great Aussie films like the tracker and rabbit proof fence.10/10.
This film from 1978 as directed by Fred Schipisi of SIX DEGREES fame and of Thomas Keneally's book - he wrote SCHINDLER'S LIST - is a grim and disturbing depiction set during colonial 19th century Australia of a young Aboriginal man's descent into frustrated violence against his white English landowner masters.
It becomes a really brutal film with explicit axe murders, especially against young girls and older women, and it is this visually distressing depiction that ultimately alienated the cinema audience.
Jimmy's humiliation and cruel treatment is equally explicit and it is a relentless string of unhappy experiences by his inhumane 'boss' that ultimately causes him to crack - and hack.
As a novel it is all in the mind of the reader but as a cinemascope color film, the 'running amok with an axe' sequences make any crowd want to run from the cinema.
It was not seen on TV in Australia for almost 20 years and it is not likely to be either without most of the violence cut out, thus blunting the heavy handed message and the ultimate impact.
Like poor Jimmy himself, the film version is in no man's land either.
Past all that, it is a well made film and with an excellent cast; but very tough going.
It fits well into a series of very sharply observed Australian films depicting the British colonial mind and its misunderstanding or cruelty towards Aboriginies: JEDDA in 1956, WALKABOUT in 1970, this film in 1978, RABBIT PROOF FENCE in 2001 and THE TRACKER in 2003.
It is a head-shaking but enlightening string of films, especially if seen in chronological order....like we all did!
Politically driven film with few positive elements.
If you're the sort of person who enjoys being depressed, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is the film for you.
Young half aboriginal/half white boy is raised by a white Christian family.
As he goes off to find a job, he discovers that every white person in the world is actually a racist.
He tries to get over this fact by trying to lose his 'black soul', and become more like a white man.
He goes and chops up a couple of women and young girls with an axe.
Well it gets better anyway, but I won't give away the whole plot in case you actually want to watch the movie.
It is true that Aborigines were generally considered inferior at the time, and that there was some racism going on.
But this film ruthlessly exaggerates it to prove a point, which appears to be that white society is a corrupter of black people.
Leaving aside the negative storyline and the political point-scoring, however, the acting is fairly decent, and score is alright too.
introspective film that many people miss..
Many miss the point...."he's half white." This film explore what structural racism produces, especially in that individual that seems to have the chance of crossing lines.
This is the point of the film.
It is the potential from the "half breed" that contextualizes the journey to where is own people/ family see him as a devil.
This film is moving on many levels and provides a glimpse into a history foreign to many.
A passionately hard-hitting Australian film!.
In Australia at the turn of the 19th century a part aboriginal man Jimmie, is torn between two different cultures.
One being the traditions of his people and the other is adopting the white customs.
Though, the racism he confronts from his white employers, he finds it unbearable trying to fit in and commits a massacre on a white family.This is an adaptation of Thomas Kelly's stimulating novel of the same title.
Director Fred Schepisi vision of the story is totally stunning in capturing the detail of the Australian landscape and the friction between two cultures, with such confronting and stirring context and some downright absorbing and strong performances.The look of the film is incredibly impressive.
The film is tremendously well shot, with it holding such a noble aurora.
The main leads were excellent and potent in their roles, especially the marvellous Tommy Lewis as Jimmie Blacksmith.
As well there were some effective supporting roles from some well known Australian faces.The violence is brutal; it comes across as uncomfortable to view at times.
Especially the scene involving Jimmie in a fist of rage hacking up some young white girls as the injured mother watches.
The violence is supposed to be shocking and it comes across as truly powerful in evoking the tension of racism that is fuelled between the Europeans and Aboriginals.
The racism is so vivid and it has some fairly shattering dialogue and scenes of confrontations.
The drama is a very heated one, especially the further along the film goes.
Though, it doesn't try to twist the side of things giving each their own good and bad traits of the two cultures.
We feel sympathy for Jimmie because of his treatment, but not pity because of what he has done, but he has become.The tone of the story is fairly bleak, explicit and uneasy.
Though, the emotional effect is never pushed onto you or forced in any way.
Jimmie is caught between the two ways of life, as he was brought up in his childhood through a white European couple.
While, he has a stint in doing white customs and achieving his dreams of a job, marriage and own house, but still his treated real badly and at times humiliated by his bosses, in a society that he will never be accepted in.
This causes the down ward spiral for Jimmie, as he can't take any more of it.Like some fellow users had typed, this is one depressing film that will stir up some emotion towards the material and characters.
(Spoilers) Jimmy Blacksmith is a young, half-caste Australian Aborigine who has been raised into adulthood by an English minister and his wife.
To show concern for the Aborigines the minister is intent on "imbuing one with decent ambition." Being half white gives Jimmy an entry into the minister's world, the thinking being that the white half of him might allow him to turn out acceptably well.
Jimmy goes along with the thought and tries to fit into the white world, the outcome being that he is tragically caught between two cultures.
The minister, seeing that Jimmy has applied himself to getting an education and worked hard, sends him out into the world with a letter of reference.
Jimmy takes on fence building at a couple of farms and both times he is given less compensation than agreed on and then given the boot.
Finally Jimmy winds up working on a sheep ranch.The movie is well paced in that with each indignation Jimmy suffers we see his change in attitude from eagerly trying to join the dominate culture to resenting the abuse he suffers because of his race.
The fuse was set and a sequence of events at the ranch results in a spontaneous explosion of violence.
True, they have bought into an evil doctrine, but how many people are independent thinkers enough to buck societal norms?After the killings Jimmy goes on the lam with his brother Mort.
The second half of the film deals with tracking them down.
And that is not easy, since Jimmy and Mort are skilled at moving about the countryside, being able to move fast and cover their tracks.
As a late attempt to stave off the massive search effort Mort and Jimmy take a hostage, a school teacher.
He comments to Jimmy and Mort, "You can't say we haven't given you anything.
A whole host of improvements."The acting is solid, especially considering that playing Jimmy was Tommy Lewis' first screen appearance.
The cinematography is noteworthy, with the Australian countryside being used to great effect.Being an American, English subtitles would have helped me.This is based on real events in the life of one Jimmy Governor.
Any fictionalized version of real events is always a bit suspect, but this movie has the feeling of authenticity.
I hope that is the case, since the movie deals with topics of such gravity that it would be a sin to rewrite the history to any great extent..
American viewers who expect an old-fashioned story about race in which the minority is treacherous and the white guys are mostly honorable -- "The Birth of a Nation" with African-Americans or "Stagecoach" for Indians -- will be disappointed.
So will those looking for a more politically correct story about white arrogance and noble savages -- "Tell Them Will Boy Was Here" or "In The Heat Of the Night".Instead they'll get something more along the lines of William Faulkner's more mature stories, in which race place a central part and there is a history of injustice, but people are people.I don't think I want to get into the plot too much.
Jimmy Blacksmith is a handsome, cheerful young man, half white and half Australian Aborigine, industrious and polite.
When he leaves the family of the Methodist minister who raised him, he runs into racism in forms that are both petty and materially important.Without much adumbration, there is an explosion of violence involving axe murders and shootings of men, women, and children.
Jimmy feels insulted beyond endurance and finds retribution in murder.
But as I write this, a week ago, a twenty-two year old American, went on a killing spree that left seven dead and thirteen wounded.
He looked and acted normal, but left behind a long list of complaints about having been mistreated by others and having his importunings turned down by attractive women.Are people like Jimmy Blacksmith and Elliott Rodgers driven to madness by their mistreatment?
The film is a reflection of its time.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith.
I found this Australian film listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before Die, like many of the others titles featured, I knew nothing about what to expect, but with good ratings I was looking forward to it, directed by Fred Schepisi (Roxanne, The Russia House, Six Degrees of Separation, Fierce Creatures).
Basically set in early twentieth century Australia, Jimmie Blacksmith (Tommy Lewis) is a half-caste young man, child of an Aboriginal mother and a white father, raised by Reverand Neville (Jack Thompson) and his wife Martha (Julie Dawson).
With a letter of recommendation from his foster family, Jimmie searches for work and hopes to establish himself, but he faces prejudice and people taking advantage, including his first employer Healey (Tim Robertson) while he is fence building, and his second employer, local constable Farrell (Ray Barrett).
Jimmie finds some stability working for the Newby family on their farm, but they treat little better than previous employment, then he meets and marries white girlfriend Gilda Marshall (Angela Punch McGregor), who is already heavily pregnant, she gives birth to a white child, he is upset by the public embarrassment, but Jimmie embraces being a parent.
Shortly after the birth, Jimmie's full-caste brother Mort (Freddy Reynolds) and uncle Tabidgi (Steve Dodd) come to the Newby property, Jimmie enlists them to help with fence building, but Mr. Newby uses their presence as an excuse not to provide Jimmie with provisions and pay, meanwhile Gilda refuses a teaching opportunity suggested by schoolteacher friend Petra Graf (Elizabeth Alexander).
Furious by his family's mistreatment, Jimmie enlists Tabidgi to help him "scare" the Newby women, threatening them with hatchets, but this suddenly turns into a rampage that leaves Mrs. Newby, Miss Graf, and all the Newby daughters but one infant dead.
Jimmy's family are forced to flee, Tabidgi, Gilda, and the child are left behind, while Jimmie and Mort continue to run, they next murder Healey, Jimmie announces he has declared war against all that have wronged him.
Soon Jimmie's killings are covered by the press and becomes national news, a reporter questions the butcher, who also doubles as the city's hangman for the police, what may happen to Jimmie when he is caught, Tabidgi is captured and sentenced to death for accessory to murder, he tells that the killing was not part of the plan.
Jimmie and Mort still uncaptured come upon schoolteacher McCready (Peter Carroll), they wound him by gunfire, he convinces them not to kill him, instead they take him hostage, the brothers argue about the morality of their crimes, specifically killing women and children, McCready mocks that white people have influence over the native Aboriginies.
McCready convinces Jimmie to go alone, Mort takes the hostage to a farm to recover, there a hunting party led by the Neby males and Miss Graf's fiancée Dowie Steed (Peter Sumner) kill Mort.
Lewis does give a compelling performance as the half-Aborigine on a war cry of ferocious rebellion, this film caused some controversy upon its release, not necessarily for its obscenity, but it was caught up in the video nasties panic, the murderous rampage is certainly the memorable material, it is slow at times, but all in all an interesting period drama. |
tt0048641 | Sommarnattens leende | The film takes place in Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century. Fredrik Egerman is a middle-aged lawyer married to a 19-year-old beauty, Anne. Their two-year marriage is still unconsummated, due to Anne's reluctance. Fredrik has a son, Henrik, from his marriage to his late first wife. Henrik is in his early twenties and is studying to be a minister but is currently tormented by his love for his step-mother, who secretly loves him in return. Henrik is distracting himself from his urges by attempting an inconclusive affair with Fredrik's lusty young servant, Petra.
Between his two marriages, Fredrik had an affair with a prominent stage actress, the beautiful Desiree Armfeldt, but she broke off the relationship. Desiree now has a young son named Fredrik, born shortly after her affair with Fredrik Egerman. (It is implied, but never directly stated, that little Fredrik Armfeldt is the son of Fredrik Egerman.) Desiree is now having an affair with an army officer, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm. The Count's wife, Charlotte, is an old friend of Anne Egerman.
Fredrik goes to see Desiree one night to pour out his marital troubles to her and ask for her help. Fredrik falls into a puddle outside Desiree's house, and Desiree dresses him in the Count's nightshirt. The violently jealous Count shows up and orders Fredrik to leave. After Fredrik goes, the Count and Desiree argue and subsequently decide to part amicably. When the Count returns home, he tells Charlotte about the encounter and orders her to tell Anne Egerman about Fredrik's supposed infidelity (though no infidelity actually occurred). When Charlotte visits Anne, she confesses that she loves the Count despite everything and would do anything to be loved in return.
To solve these woes, Desiree has her mother invite all the characters to her country house for Midsummer Night, the shortest night of the year, a traditional observance in Sweden, when many party-goers stay awake all night until dawn. Desiree and Charlotte become temporary allies. Henrik and Anne, unexpectedly finding themselves alone together in a bedroom, consummate their relationship and elope with the assistance of Petra and her new lover Frid, another servant. Charlotte then joins Fredrik in the garden pavilion. Learning his wife is with Fredrik, the Count bursts in and challenges Fredrik to a game of Russian roulette. Fredrik loses but the Count had loaded the revolver with soot so neither party was ever in danger. The Count reunites with his wife, his feelings for her renewed by his jealousy. Desiree comforts Fredrik and he asks her not to leave him. The dilemmas of the four pairs of lovers appear to be happily resolved in the course of a night, said by Frid to have smiled three smiles upon them all. | comedy | train | wikipedia | "Smiles of a Summer Night" is one of the most elegant and charming carnal comedies ever filmed.
"Smiles of a Summer Night" was a great success with both the critics and the audiences and was submitted for the Cannes film festival
without its creator's knowledge.
And then I read the title, "Smiles of a Summer Night" by Ingmar Bergman." He recalls how poor he was then and he borrowed the money for a ticket to Cannes from Bibi Anderson whom he dated at the time.
The story is a time honored one, referencing the same tradition of romantic complications found in Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and Rostand's LA RONDE: every one is either in love with or married to the wrong person.A famous actress with two very different lovers invites both, their wives, and the son of one lover to her mother's country estate in the hope of sorting out the romantic entanglements to her satisfaction--and the result is considerable charm and unexpectedly dry wit.
Never quite veering over into broad farce but never sinking into romantic sentimentality, it is a very precisely written tale, and both cast and director make the most of it.In the face of Bergman's later work, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT may seem rather slight, and indeed both psychology and cinematography is considerably less complex than one expects.
It is in every way a charming film that Bergman fans will enjoy.Incidentally, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT was successfully translated to the stage as the musical A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, the score of which includes the famous "Send In The Clowns." Fans of the original film will be interested to compare the two works.Gary F.
Charming, light-hearted, delicate, and romantic are not the terms most people think to use when describing Bergman films, and yet "Smiles of a Summer Night" is all of these.
Men, as a gender, do not come off well in Bergman's charming sex comedy Smiles of a Summer Night, made only one year before his breakthrough hit, The Seventh Seal.
Another over-the-top male character is Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle) a poseur whose only response to his wife's infidelity is to challenge the paramour to a duel or a game of Russian Roulette.In Bergman's world, men are childish, selfish, and arrogant.
Though it remains unclear as to why this is the case, nonetheless, Frederik is not at a loss for romance, taking up with a famous actress the equally lovely Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck), a relationship that began soon after Frederik's first wife died but never revealed to Anne.
Here they all drink a mystery wine and sort out their relationships in a remarkably satisfying manner.Smiles of a Summer Night came as quite a surprise to me, being used to the philosophical Bergman of Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal (yet always with an added bit of humor).
I found it thoroughly enjoyable, an opinion apparently shared with Woody Allen whose film A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy mirrored it and Stephen Sondheim who based his musical "A Little Night Music" on the film.
"Smiles of a Summer Night" is a pretty edgy film, touching with great candor subject matters somewhat taboo today.
This is certainly one of the great sex comedies and certain to be a good introduction to Bergman for those concerned about some of his tougher films.
So I did like it--I give it an 8.Later musicalized by Stephen Sondheim as "A Little Night Music" and disastrously remade (sort of) in Woody Allen's "A Midsummers Night Sex Comedy".
He uses this emotional logic with his actors for this comedy of manners and the heart (pre-Seventh Seal), where he has his screenplay wonderfully unfold the character's amusing feelings on love, sex, and dealing with the opposite gender, all the while making sure his players know the words and the music.
Harriet Andersson, also a regular in other Bergman films (a key one being Cries and Whispers where she played the dying woman), appears as a young, joyful woman, who even gives the lawyer's son, a priest, a bit of lust here and there.In fact, Smiles of a Summer Night is Bergman's most joyous film, though that's not to say there can't be grand moments of joy in his dramas and reflections on god.
Woody Allen famously based A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy on this movie, thus coming out as a Bergman fan.
Frankly, I think Allen has more talent for comedy than Bergman, but Smiles of a Summer Night has more depth and more interesting development of ideas than the Allen follow-up.
In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the successful fifty years old lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand) has been married for three years with his naive nineteen years old wife Anne (Ulla Jacobsson), who is still virgin.
They go to her house, Frederik falls in one puddle and she gives the robe and the pajamas of her present lover, the military Count Carl Magnus Malcolm (Jarl Kulle), who is married with Anne's friend Countess Charlotte Malcolm (Margit Carlquist).
Along the night, with the three smiles of love, four couples are formed."Sommarnattens Leende" is a delightful, cynical and witty romantic comedy with wonderful dialogs and situations.
Showing a magnificent art direction and cinematography, this sardonic story discloses three different types of love: the pure of the youngsters, represented by Anne and Henrik; the silly and quite naive, represented by the maid Petra and the groom Frid; and the cynical and malicious of the arrogant Malcolm and Charlotte and the Machiavellian Desiree and Frederik.
I have seen just about all of Bergman's available films and Smiles of a Summer Night is among my favorites.
(I'd never seen the show.) Smiles served as a good beginning to Bergman films: it's got some very dry humour, some very physical comedy, and the trademark panorama of morality that accompanies a Bergman character set.
Bergman made many films, this one made him."Smiles Of A Summer Night" is a landmark in the Solemn Swede's carrier.
As late as in an interview recorded in 2003, Ingmar Bergman agreed to call "Smiles Of A Summer Night" a watershed in his film career.
SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHTS is an intelligent, honest and very funny comedy about complicated love relationships between men and women.One prominent lawyer, who is faced with problems in his marriage, requires the help of his former mistress.
Despite the cynical views on love and sexuality by Mr. Bergman, the end of the film is still happy and all the protagonists are "satisfied".Characterization is commendable.
Harriet Andersson (Petra) is lively and merry maid and Åke Fridell (Frid) is a coachman who explains to us the existence of three types of love on a summer night.This is a playful comedy in which love conquers frustration and tragedy turns into farce..
The math doesn't work out until an uninvited guest also shows up.The film's plot—which involves switching partners on a summer night—has been adapted many times, most notably as the theatrical musical, A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler and Harold Prince, which opened on Broadway in 1973, and as Woody Allen's film "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" (1982).What actually strikes me about the film is how generally upbeat it is.
Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" is a charming comedy (in its way) about love and romance.
Fredrik's grown son, Henrik (Bjorn Bjelvenstam) is a minister and in love with Anne; Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlback) is having an affair with Count Carl-Magnus (Jarl Kulle), but she's still got it bad for her ex-lover, the aforementioned Fredrik.
The starkness of the black and white images is quite stunning, and the landscape shots look like famous photographs.This is different from many Bergman films that were to come, and it's a lovely reminder that this man could do anything he set his mind to, including send in the clowns..
Bergman's Smiles on a Summer Night is a delightful and mild-mannered comedic effort studying love and the different natures of relationships those of opposing genders go through with one another in regards to feeling strongly for the opposite sex.
It is quite the involving, rather scathing film looking at people rich in attitudes towards culture and finer things but utterly devoid of any kind of sensible or moral outlook on sexual relations; a quite brutal comedy covering people sneering down at those of a generational difference below, despite those of whom occupy such a space are infinitely the more well-natured and humanist amidst all the other fatuity.The film begins with a lawyer named Fredrik Egerman (Björnstrand) occupying his decorated office, a rich space inside of a large and rich manor house in Sweden.
From the manner in which his general location is decorated with props and items, we can tell the man has a substantially large amount of money and appears both regimental and thorough in his business, particularly when the time comes to speak to his younger son Henrick (Bjelfvenstam) who's a piano player; is studying to become a priest and has feelings for both his mother-in-law Anne (Jacobsson) and a young house-servant called Petra (Andersson).
Furthermore, the actress he was once in a relationship with unfolded not so soon after a previous wife died thus implying a mentality of the man as one that enjoys the company of women.Frederik observes this actress-come-former lover Desiree Armfeldt (Dahlbeck) on stage, Desiree given a big build up as she lingers off stage by the characters within the play further-still characters within the film, dialogue to do with the power she has over most men complimenting what will later transpire in the film as a whole; her appearance on stage is greeted by an array of applause and she is the focal point of everybody's attention.
Their relationship and knowing of one another will come to form a great part of Bergman's film.
He clashes with Frederik when Carl-Magnus finds him in Desiree's back-stage dressing room, and Bergman frames them in profile with Desiree's beaming figure standing between them highlighting what, or who, it is they are essentially clashing over, face to face.The film is deceptive in its initial beginning and surroundings, the film not so much about a love triangle involving Fredrik, this actress and her current lover as much it is about human nature's reaction toward love and firm relationships; the sorts of relationships people get into with those of the opposite gender and the vast characteristics and mannerisms that define these relationships as perpetrated by those enacting it.
Secondly, the Bergman film also looks prettier--almost like a fairy tale at times.While "sex farces" are NOT my cup of tea, if you MUST watch one, this one's about as good as any..
It's by far Bergman's most accessible film and it makes one wish the super-sober director had let his hair down more frequently.Woody Allen aped "Smiles of a Summer Night" in "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy," but that film does not do justice to the original material.
While not quite one of my favourites from the supreme Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, Smiles of a Summer Night is still a film that I was captivated by and would wilfully see again.
The actor Jarl Kulle is doing one of the most classic swedish comedy roles ever(and maybe one off the best).I have not seen so many Bergman films yet (this the Devils eye and the BIG masterpiece the seventh seal).But I hope that I will see more off his films soon.
It tells the story about Fredrik Egerman, a middle-aged attorney who lives in a small town in the 19th century with his adult son from a previous marriage named Henrik, who is a theology student, his 19-year-old wife Anne who loves him as if he was her father, and his young servant Petra.
All of the sudden there is a knock on the door, and in walks Desirée's lover, a married army officer named Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm who takes one look at the man whom he sees is wearing his clothes and challenges him to a duel.Distinctly and engagingly directed by Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, this multifaceted fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws an intriguing portrayal of numerous converging relationships between young and middle-aged men and women.
While notable for it's atmospheric milieu depictions, stellar production design by Swedish art director and production designer P.A. Lundgren (1911-2011), black-and-white cinematography by Swedish cinematographer Gunnar Fischer (1910-2011) and costume design by German-Swedish costume designer Mago (1925-2008), this dialog-driven, narrative-driven and humorous comedy-drama depicts some condensed studies of character and contains a good score by Swedish composer Erik Nordgren (1913-1992).This charming, rhythmic, theatrical and somewhat romantic chamber drama from the mid-1950s about love, marriage, infidelity and interpersonal relations which became Ingmar Bergman's first internationally acclaimed feature film, is impelled and reinforced by it's quick-witted dialog, colorful characters, interrelating stories, subtle character development, cogent narrative structure and the brilliant acting performances by Swedish actor Gunnar Björnstrand (1909-1986), Swedish actor and director Jarl Kulle (1927-1997), Swedish actor Björn Bjelfvenstam and Swedish actresses Harriet Andersson, Margit Carlqvist, Ulla Jackobsen (1929-1982), Bibi Andersson and actress and writer Eva Dahlbeck (1920-2008).
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) **** (out of 4) Delightful romantic comedy from Ingmar Bergman about various couples whom end up at an estate where love, relationships and sex are the topics.
It's hard to believe that Woody Allen failed to capture much of this film's humor with his semi-remake A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy..
Desiree invites both men and their wives and Egerman's gloomy son Henrik to her mother's country house for the weekend ...This touching, funny and beautifully observed comedy of sexual manners is one of my favourite Bergman films, made just before he was about to become a key figure in world cinema with movies like Det Sjunde Inseglet and Smultronstället.
As with all his work, it's Bergman's insight into the universal frailties of human nature that makes the movie so touching; we have a man who has married for beauty not love, a femme fatale who is tired of twisting men around her finger, young lovers who careen between ecstatic joy and suicidal misery, a man who foolishly ranks his pride above all else, and a self-loathing wife who can't stop loving a cheating husband.
Loosely remade twice; once as a Stephen Sondheim musical (A Little Night Music) and also as a charming Woody Allen farce (A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy).
Even Anne, who at first shows signs of being much too sensitive for her own good, toughens up quite a bit when Charlotte comes to visit and lets her in on her husband's affair by throwing it right back and effectively silencing her into dullness.A beautiful and quite touching comedy, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT is a movie that makes for a perfect introduction into Ingmar Bergman's work even when it's the only flat-out slapstick he's directed and all of his movies following this one are much graver in nature.
Not being so informed about Bergman and his oeuvre as I might be I had somehow formed the impression that he made this light comedy quite some time after and as something of a break from and a contrast to his early dark work like Seventh Seal so I was surprised to read here that Smiles in fact preceded Seal.
After a slight irritation of the clumsy exposition in which two of the clerks employed by the chief character, lawyer Fredrik Egerman, tell each other (and us) that 1) Fredrik has two tickets for the theatre where the star of the show, Desiree Arnfeld, used to be his mistress and 2) that he will be going with his new wife, Anne, who is half his age and leaving his son, Henrik, by a previous marriage, at home, it settled down into a well observed comedy of manners owing a little to a current American film, Baby Doll, in its central story of a child bride who refuses to consummate the marriage but then spinning off another series of lovers both star-crossed and otherwise.
The cast reads like a roll call of the Bergman stock company, Harriet Andersson, Ulla Jacobsson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Eva Dahlbeck etc and not unnaturally they play as an ensemble.
Ingmar Bergman's 1955 comedy Smiles Of A Summer Night (Sommarnattens Leende) was the film that first garnered him international recognition.
Yes, compared to even more 'intellectual' Hollywood comedies of recent vintage, like Sideways, Smiles Of A Summer Night is far deeper, but there is truth to the old Woody Allen claim that drama is 'sitting at the grown ups table'.
In fact, Allen was so smitten with this film that he tried to do his own version of it a quarter century later, in A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy.
After "Smiles of a Summer Night" was released, the studio showed it at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was a sensation.
Bergman did "The Seventh Seal," which sealed his reputation as a world-class director.I haven't seen "A Midsumer Night's Sex Comedy" by Woody Allen since it came out, but I'd be surprised if "Smiles of a Summer Night" were not an inspiration for Allen's film.
I found Smiles of a Summer night to be one of his best, looking over his extraordinary 50-odd year career.The story isn't that complicated; it's a bit less involved than Rules of the Game, to which it might be compared.
I do like the occasional good sounding foreign film, and as this one from Sweden from director Ingmar Bergman (Persona) featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, how could I miss it.
With all the smiles of the summer night, and after Frederik and Magnus have a game of Russian roulette, with no real bullet, started after two of the girls get their own way, four couples are formed.
I can say I did laugh at some of it, but I was more interested in the sexual romantic elements, played out like Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream or something, it is a very enjoyable romantic comedy. |
tt0105592 | Tiger Claws | The police investigate a serial killer Bolo Yeung who seems to target only martial arts masters. One after another is killed in the same brutal fashion. This may be a chance for detective Linda Masterson to work on her first murder case. She is assigned the job and to assist her is another martial arts specialist, Sgt. Tarek Richards. Now they need to find a tiger style master, because the killer obviously uses tiger-style kung fu. Not a simple task, since tiger is a very ancient and rare style.
Sgt. Richards decides to renew his training in tiger style in order to better prepare himself for the eventual confrontation with the serial killer. He manages to track down the serial killer and engages him in combat where he ultimately defeats him. | violence | train | wikipedia | Pretty decent.
Rothrock was the best in this with her fights,acting and outfit alongside with Bolo Yeung , but she wasn't the lead, Merhi was.
The problem with that was, Rothrock had all the experience and was better equipped to lead a movie and at the end of the movie it was more than OK if Rothrock had been finished Bolo in a combat fight.If Jean-Claude van Damme or even Richard Norton had been the lead male in this movie then this film had been a classic.Jalal Merhi was very awful in this unfortunately but the movie was enjoyable enough though but would have been a lot better.
So i recommend you this film and if you are a Cynthia Rothrock fan you'll not be disappointed..
Ok action....
This movie, starring Cynthia Rothrock, Jalal Merhi, and especially Bolo Yeung, showcases everything that's wrong with martial arts movies.I still don't know why, but since it's inception, this genre is plagued by production values, acting and direction, which put it only one peg above porn, if that.Jalal Merhi especially talks like Serge the art dealer from Beverly Hills Cop. Cynthia Rothrock's abilities are accomplished, but her acting is limited.
Bolo Yeung still doesn't seem to have mastered English, although I always enjoy his performances..
One of the best Rothrock movie.
Cynthia Rothrock and Jalal Merhi are New York city undercover cops.
There are mysterious killing of martial artist in the city.
Jalal correctly identifies the style as Tiger Claws who only three martial artists in the country are capable of using.
Rothrock, and Jalal gets on the trail of the culprit who turns out to be none other than bad guy played by Bolo Yuen.This is one of the best American made Cynthia Rothrock movie.
It was good move on the producer's part to hire Bolo Yuen as the bad guy.
He brought menacing personality that's usually lacking in movies of this type.Cynthia Rothrock is not known for her range of acting, and it's hard to make an interesting story around her character.
In this movie Jalal and Bolo creates enough contrast to be of passable quality.Out of all the American made Cynthia Rothrock movies, this one is my favorite.
It doesn't have much in the way of contents, but the action is pretty good.
Choice of locations shot were better than usual, but I wished the producers put in more class into the movie as it were in Rothrock's Hong Kong made movies..
Good Classic movie for Martial Art's fans..
Some complain about acting.
They don't know the features of martial art Acting.
It's a different thing.
Not just b-side kung-fu-karate beat em up.
This one is unique for it's sub genre.
What we have here is a thriller.
The main maniac-killer has very big sport ambitions, but he satisfies himself with anonymus fights till death, leaving only his signature scars on the bodies of his opponents..Bolo plays his role very well.
He is a quiet painter in the dojo and he is an ego-maniac killer.
Cynthia is sweet and cute in throwing her mighty kicks as allways:) Jalal is less known action star, but he suits the cast perfectly.
He looks believable in the role of undercover police man.
His pure mean simlycity is the right cure for the twisted Claw-mastermind...
Bolo Yeung Saves It From Obscurity!.
The unstoppable force that is Bolo Yeung continues to run out of control in Tiger Claws.
In this film Bolo goes up against Jalal Merhi, who wrote..
who produced....
who Co-STARRED in this legendary Yeung vehicle.Tagging along with Merhi is the hot Cynthia Rothrock, who's name not only sounds like a porn star, but she also voice acts like one.
No emotion what so ever is detected in her lines, which is offset by her phenomenal martial arts ability and incredible pectoral superiority.The only thing that manages to bring Tiger Claws down from a perfect 10 would be Jalal Merhi's entire performance as the "hero", and the two cop buddy extras from Beverly Hills Cop.
(hey man, we aren't gonna fall for no banana in a tailpipe!).
I've Seen Better Acting in Porno.
I honestly feel bad for the people who made this movie.
You can tell that they take themselves seriously and are hoping something decent will come of their efforts.Unfortunately for all involved, including the viewer, all we're left with is an embarrassing excuse of a movie.
I won't get into the plot - there's really no sense.
As you can imagine, there's a bad guy, some good guys and a lot of kicking.
The only interesting twist in this one is that the star is a woman, and she actually has some pretty decent moves, I guess.
Her acting, if you can call it that, is beyond horrific, even for martial arts movies, and she doesn't have much of a supporting cast to help her out either.Even if you are a martial arts movie fan, stay away from this mess.
My girlfriend walked in the room when I was watching it and it literally took twenty minutes of viewing to convince her that I wasn't watching a porno.
I'm not sure she's convinced to this day..
keep on kicking....
Tiger Claws is one of the lesser known Rothrock movies and that is no bad thing, it is a pretty decent entry into the old school Martial Arts canon.
Cynthia made a few stronger themed movies around 1991/1992 and this is one of them, the inclusion of Bolo is good, who himself featured in a few films also around that period.
The storyline is good in that it goes some way to explaining Tiger style Kung Fu - instead of just being a cop after a villain style with Martial Arts thrown in, which was an element of her earlier work.
Also some of the fight scenes are pretty decent, with Rothrock herself impressive as always.
Well worth a watch, however as of 2010,this title is not yet available on DVD..
A dangerous death dealer stalks the city of New York killing off Martial Arts Instructors.
Bolo Yeung plays a 'death dealer' - a man who can kill with his bare hands or Tiger Claw Style.
In the film Bolo kills off New York's best martial arts instructors and use their belts, trophies, swords as an offering to the gods to prove to himself he is the best there is.Throughout the film we see hints of Bolo killing off the martial artists, whilst Cynitha Rothrock and Jahal Merhi (both who play New York Cops) try and track him down very, very slowly.
The film, in fact, moves so slowly its hard not to fall asleep.
The plot although a strong one, fails to get off the ground - we never actually see Bolo killing off the martial artists giving the impression that the fighting was going to build up into an all out action-packed ending - but it never did - instead we get a mixed film that couldn't decide whether it was a Martial Arts film or an Action film - in the end it turns out to be a lame cop film with a bit of martial arts - most of which comes from Bolo.Jahal, who is on supension seems to forget that he's wearing tight jeans and seems to be able to high kick on demand whilst Cynitha hardly does anything but sit in a car or fight badly.The fighting sequences themselves are extremely poor - however the training sequences were very good.Jahal, who infiltrates the Tiger Claw training camp trains with other Tiger Claw students, and finally meets Bolo in a strip joint.
There his cover is blown and he, and Cynitha chase Bolo to a conveniently placed Harbour - where they play hide and seek with Bolo.When the final fight sequences appear, Bolo seems to forget he's a psychotic killer and just stands around and waits to be kicked by Jahal - when Bolo does strike he signals to Jahal to get up instead of finishing him.I felt this film with its strong plot could have been and should have been so much better.
The fight chero-gerophy should have complemented Bolo's extenstive martial arts skills and we should have at understood why Jahal (who only trained for ten minutes) could have defeated a psycho-killer in three.Out of ten, I'd give this three for effort..
The main problem with Tiger Claws - missed opportunities and untapped potential..
A mysterious serial killer known as the Death Dealer is stalking the streets of "New York City" (not Canada.
Not Canada), and the only clue the police have to go on is that the dastardly murderer uses an obscure, underground fighting style known as Tiger.
Because of this, the police chief assigns officer Linda Masterson (Rothrock) the case - he knows she is a practitioner of Martial Arts.
He has another "Kung Fu cop" on the force, a strange foreigner named Tarek Richards (Merhi), so, naturally, he pairs the two up and sends them on their way.
Despite Tarek's lack of enthusiasm, he still is a rogue cop who plays by his own rules.
Usually garbled, presumably.
So Tarek goes undercover at the Tiger training center and meets the mysterious Chong (Bolo).
Will our two heroes get to the bottom of the mystery of the Tiger Claw Killer?
Find out sometime...So if you were going to paint on your hair, what would you do with your life?
Maybe become an insurance salesman?
Carny?
CEO of a company?
Nah, you'd want to be in front of the camera, whether you had any business being there or not.
Hence the rise (?) of Painted On Hair Guy, AKA Jalal Merhi.
Seriously, this guy doesn't use a comb, he uses a paintbrush!
Hey-Oh!
But, in all seriousness, if you could paint on any hair in the world, why would you choose that?
He also has a thick accent AND deadpan delivery.
This "Deadpan Accent" is slowing things down, and he has no screen presence or spark.
On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, we have top fan favorite Cynthia Rothrock as his partner.
Any interest generated by this movie comes from her.
However, the no-energy of Merhi coming up against the genuine energy of Rothrock results in a wash for the viewer and the two forces cancel each other out.
So we're left stranded in a Sargasso Sea of slowness in this amateurish, low-budget-junky-feeling exercise.Much of the movie has almost a childish feel - there are silly shootouts and fights that feel like kids playing in the schoolyard.
Even the laundry list of clichés - it's an election year, the final warehouse fight, the baddie saying to the hero how they're really both the same, the drug deal gone wrong, among many others - here are not FUN clichés, necessarily, like they many times can be.
You get the feeling director Makin was makin' this stuff for the first time ever, not retreading it.
Amazingly, the writer, Maunder, came on board as director for Tiger Claws II.
The dialogue also feels infantile, with a Detective Henderson stating, and we quote, "Serial killers are hard to find." Additionally, if more people die horribly, it "won't look good." But there is a classic "searching for the Martial Arts school montage", so, there's that.For the deadliest Martial Art ever, the extensive training sequences sure are boring, and pounding your fists in woks of sand repeatedly somehow start to lose their flair.
This highlights the main problem with Tiger Claws - missed opportunities and untapped potential.
You'd think with Rothrock and Bolo Yeung, if not Merhi, the movie would have been better.
But Rothrock does pioneer the maritime Martial Art of "Oarfighting", hinting at what the movie could have been if it had a bit more life and pizazz.Many in the cast have funny voices, and perhaps leading the pack is one Bill Pickells, in the acting stretch of a lifetime as Bill Pickells.
Supposedly he's a badass Martial Artist, but the guy looks like Oates and sounds like he's been sucking on a helium balloon for the past several hours.
But his credit at the end is almost up there with gems like "Sgt. Slaughter as Sgt. Slaughter" and Mike "Cobra" Cole as "Cobra" Cole.
But Pickells would still have been a better choice for the male lead than Merhi, who is very stiff, and, if we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times, he was separated at birth with Bronson Pinchot.
We're fairly certain Merhi was actually born on Mypos.Featuring the hair metal song "Break the Walls Down" by Attitude (in the poolhall scene - another sliver of what the movie should have been all along) - Tiger Claws was inexplicably followed by two sequels.
We would say it's for Rothrock and Bolo Yeung fans only..
Worth a look for Rothrock fans.
Cynthia Rothrock is quite hot in this movie, thanks to a combination of her hairstyle, her outfits (if you hadn't noticed before what a busty, curvy figure she has, you'll notice it this time) and her brutal, high-impact fight scenes.
And even those who complain about her acting (which I have always found OK for this genre) will have to admit that it's a lot better than the acting of her co-star, Jalal Merhi.
Bolo Yeung still has his physical presence, but to be honest, the lethal blows of his Tiger Style - deep nail scratches - don't strike me (no pun intended) as particularly brilliant martial arts moves.
The plot is thin, the motivation of the killer is absent, and I also disagree with the way the ending plays out (spoilers follow): after Cynthia fails to take out Bolo singlehandedly, Merhi should have failed also, and he and Cynthia should have teamed up to turn it into a 2-on-1 handicap match.
But I guess Merhi's ego (he is also the film's producer) got in the way and he had to finish the job alone.
Ummm...
Disappointing.
This movie is sub-par for a B-movie action flick.
I was excited to see Tiger Claws since I love Bolo and Rothrock, but man this movie just flat out sucked my enthusiasm for the genre right out of me.
It was so bad that I may never watch another Jalal Mehri film ever again.
This is the second Mehri movie that I watched and both were pretty sad.
The first was TC 2000 which was saved by Billy Blanks, Bolo and the unbelievably beautiful Bobbie Philips.In Tiger Claws the acting is weak across the board.
When Cynthia Rothrock is the best thespian in the cast you know you are in for a rough ride.
Mehri of course is deadpan with no personality or charisma.
Bolo is great as the villain but really just lurks around until the fight scene finale.As far as the plot goes, it is similar to Blood Moon where some greatly skilled martial artist is killing all the big time celebrity and champion martial artists around town.
Mid-way through the movie you learn that it is Bolo.
Rothrock and Mehri are the detectives who find out that the killer practices Tiger Claw Kung Fu and track down his dojo.All is well and good but you know what blows about the story line?
You never find out why Bolo is killing everyone.
They never give a motive.
Where's the pay-off?
Where's the pay-off?
Even on Scooby Doo you find out the antagonist's motives.
At least with Blood Moon you find out that the killer was DQ'ed from an MMA tournament and wanted to kill all the participants (though you never find out why he has two prosthetic fingers).Finally, the opening scene will throw you.
Rothrock working vice dressed as prostitute with a black wig and sunglasses also sporting huge implants.
During the scene I was wondering who the hot chick was, she looked fine.
Then she walked down an alley where the rapist followed and she opened up her karate on him.
After the fight was over she took off her glasses and wig and what do you know it was Cynthia Rothrock.
I had no idea, this is the first movie that I had seen of hers where she is augmented.
Nice.As far as the overall movie though, it does stink.
I love the No Retreat No Surrenders and the Hong Kong stuff that Rothrock has done but this Jalal Mehri took a decent premise and some good character actors and basically crapped the bed.
Even the fight scenes are weak.
Watch this movie only if you're a die hard Bolo or Rothrock fan.
The middle 30 minutes slow and boring, so much that I found myself checking email and playing Dragon City on my Nexus...
not a good sign..
Bolo's Tiger Claw.
I was searching for this movie for some time now, and i finally got to see it.
Some psychotic martial-artist (Bolo Yeung) kills other martial artists with a rare Tiger Claw fighting style.
Police detectives Linda Masterson(Cynthia Rothrock) and Tarek Richards (Jalal Merhi) who are also martial-artists, try to stop him.
That is pretty much all i can say about the plot.Throughout the movie Rothrock and Merhi are searching for Bolo, and it gets boring.
Actually i wanted to see this only because of Bolo Yeung, and i wasn't disappointed.
Although all the killings occur behind the camera, in the end Bolo really shows why he's considered one of the great martial artist worldwide.
There are couple of good fights, especially the one with Bolo Yeung kicking the hell out of Cynthia Rothrock.
The ending fight between Bolo and Jalal Merhi is somewhat believable, but its not enough to save the movie.
However if u're a fan of Bolo Yeung, i highly recommend this action flick.
PS: Bolo was 54 when this movie came out.
Keep that in mind, and watch his fights. |
tt1266029 | Nowhere Boy | The drama tells the story of John Lennon's teenage years from 1955 to 1960.
John was separated from his mother, Julia Lennon, when he was five. He was brought up by his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, as their own son. He learns the truth at George's funeral, becomes curious and seeks out his mother. John becomes obsessed with rock 'n' roll music during a visit to Blackpool with Julia.
When John is suspended from school, Julia offers to let him stay at her house during school hours so that Mimi won't discover his suspension. Julia teaches John how to play the banjo. Mimi discovers their arrangement and demands that it stop, but John refuses and moves in with Julia. A week later, John overhears an argument between Julia and her husband, and he decides to return to Mimi.
John tells Mimi that he wants to start a rock 'n' roll band and she buys him a guitar. John organizes some of his friends into a band which he names the Quarrymen. They play their first gig at a village fete. After the show, John meets Paul McCartney, who auditions for the band with the song "Twenty Flight Rock". Paul is accepted into the band and he and John begin writing songs together. The Quarrymen soon become very popular. John meets Paul's friend, George Harrison, who also auditions. George is accepted into the band as lead guitarist.
Julia holds a birthday party for John at her home. After the party, John confronts her about his missing father, Alf Lennon, and asks why Julia gave him up. He also confronts Mimi, who tells him that Julia cheated on Alf and refused to work on the marriage. Alf allowed 5-year-old John to decide whom he wanted to live with, and John chose his father. Alf planned to move with John to New Zealand, but when Julia abandoned the family John was torn by his devotion to his mother. Without the time or money to legally determine custody, Mimi assumed custodianship of John and raised him as her son. John is upset by this revelation, and leaves in anger.
John moves out to live on his own. Over time, John accepts his past and Julia and Mimi become friendly. When Julia is hit and killed by a car, however, John is consumed by an anger that he cannot overcome.Two years later, John asks Mimi for his passport so that he can travel to Hamburg with his newly formed band, The Beatles. Mimi asks John to call her as soon as he arrives in Hamburg. The film ends with the caption, "John phoned Mimi as soon as he arrived in Hamburg...and every week thereafter for the rest of his life." | tragedy, adult comedy, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0065777 | Il giardino dei Finzi Contini | In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, a group of young friends get together for afternoons of tennis and happy times. Some of them are Jewish and a rising tide of Fascism has imposed increasingly anti-Semitic restrictions in their lives. Barred from regular tennis clubs, they go to play at the grand, walled estate owned by the Finzi-Contini, a wealthy, intellectual and sophisticated Jewish family. The two young Finzi-Contini, Alberto and his sister Micòl, have organized a tennis tournament. Oblivious to the threats around them, life still seems to be sunny at the large Finzi-Contini estate, keeping the rest of the world at bay.
Among the visitors there is a man vying for the beautiful, tall and blonde, Micòl Finzi-Contini. Giorgio, her middle class Jewish childhood friend, feels entitled to her heart. A series of flashbacks show how Giorgio used to wait outside the walls of the estate, hoping for a glimpse of Micòl. As teenagers they became fast friends. Now as adults, they enjoy their mutual company and Micòl gives Giorgio special attention. Escaping a sudden downpour in a gazebo, Giorgio tries to touch her, but she rejects him. Alberto, whose health is fragile, enjoys a close friendship with Bruno Malnate, a darkly handsome gentile with socialist sympathies. Giorgio's father considers the Finzi-Contini so different that they don’t even seem to be Jewish. Wealth, privilege and generations of intellectual and social position have bred them into a family as proud as it is vulnerable. The other Jews in the town react to Mussolini's edicts in various ways: Giorgio is enraged; his father is philosophical. But the Finzi-Continis hardly seem to know, or care, what is happening.
Giorgio, who is about to graduate, becomes a frequent visitor to the Finzi-Contini's villa where he is allowed to use their extensive library. He is in love with Micòl, and she seems to return his feeling, but she unexpectedly leaves to stay in Venice with her uncles. On her return Micòl changes, coldly rejecting any show of affection from Giorgio. Instead she carries on an affair with Bruno, a man she claims to despise as too vulgar, crude, and leftist for her tastes. Peeking through a window Giorgio discovers Bruno and Micòl naked together. Heartbroken Giorgio is comforted by his father.
The political events close in. A journey to visit his brother Ernesto in Grenoble exposes Giorgio to news of the Nazi persecution, but he returns to Ferrara. With the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Bruno is recruited and sent to the Russian front. By 1943 all the young Jews who used to visit the Garden of the Finzi-Continis have been arrested. Bruno has been killed at the Russian front.
By the time the frail and sick Alberto dies, Italian soldiers are hunting down and rounding up the Jews of Ferrara. The Finzi-Continis are abruptly taken away from their contentment and illusory isolation. Separated from her parents Micòl and her frail and distraught grandmother are placed in a former classroom. They are surprised to find Giorgio’s father. Anxiously she asks him about Giorgio. He tells her that he hopes that Giorgio and the rest of his family has made it abroad. The fate of the Jews of Ferrara is to be deported to the concentration camps. Giorgio's father hopes that at least they won't be separated.
Images show happy days of Micòl and Bruno playing tennis and now the empty tennis court. The sequence is accompanied by the El male rachamim, a Jewish lament for the dead. | romantic, flashback | train | wikipedia | Chances are, if you are only casually aware of the world that you live in, your life imitates that of the Finzi-Continis, one of two families depicted in this film.
The beginning of de Sica's film follows the state of affairs in Italy shortly after the Fascist government of Mussolini has declared the ordinary tennis clubs off limits for Italian Jews-just the beginning for the Government's separatist stance.
The Jews in town react in various ways: Giorgio, who is in love with the daughter of the Finzi-Continis, is enraged; his father his philosophical; Giorgio's brother is upset only after being sent to France to study, and later, finding out to his horror about the German concentration camps.
It seems that years of prestige and social status have put them above the laws of the land.The walled garden of the Finzi-Continis is a symbol for the false security that people retain, unaware that problems on the outside may force them into reality.
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is a great film for many reasons, one of which is how it forces us to take a proactive stance regarding the world that we live in.
In this haunting work by Vittoria De Sica an aristocratic Italian-Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, serve as a symbol of European civilization in the hands of the brown shirts on the eve of World War II.
Seeing it again after thirty years I find myself saddened almost as much by the story of a stillborn, unrequited love as I am by the horror of the cattle cars to come.Dominique Sanda with her large, soft eyes is mesmerizing as the beautiful, enigmatic, but icy Micol Finzi-Contini.
However in this extremely disturbing film, De Sica is saying that it wasn't a rape, that the aristocracy of Europe (here represented by the Finzi-Continis of Ferrara, and in particular by the young and beautiful Micol) was a willing, even an eager, participant in the bestial conjoining.The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is far from perfect; some would say it is also far from De Sica's best work.
Consequently, for those of you who have not seen the film and do not want to risk having it spoiled for you, you should stop reading now and come back afterwards.Everything in the movie works toward setting up the cabana scene.
And there is the wall that separates the Finzi-Contini's garden of civilization from the brown shirts in the streets, a wall that also separates the rich from other people, particularly from the middle class who support the fascists (as we are told in the opening scene).
In THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS -- based on the autobiographical novel by Giorgio Bassani -- legendary Neorealist filmmaker, Vittorio de Sica, dramatizes the human cost of the `racial laws' gradually implemented against the Jews in Fascist Italy during the years 1938-43.
The more Bassani's young middle-class Jewish protagonist feels the brunt of Mussolini's anti-Semitic edicts encroaching upon him, the more he feels drawn to the aristocratic Jewish Finzi-Continis' estate -- their Edenic "garden" -- and to Micòl, the family's beautiful young daughter.
(This could the reason why some people find the film -- and its heavily symbolic, impressionistic style -- a little confusing and underwhelming.)For Giorgio -- both the naive hero and wisened author of the story -- Micòl embodies the mystery and allure of the Finzi-Continis, as well as their insularity and their apparent passivity in the face of the escalating Fascist crackdown.
The muted and deliberately spare representation of these characters and their feelings, as evidenced in their unusually restrained behavior, is meant to isolate and heighten the impact of a few devastating strokes of sudden realization and lucidity -- pointed indications that the protective spell of the Finzi-Continis has been finally broken.All in all, well-acted and gorgeously, languidly poetic in its imagery...yet, narrative-wise, the picture seems overly elliptical and ultimately opaque -- and leaves just a few too many rough fragments and loose ends lingering at the end of the story (not quite Proustian irony, maybe?).
It is important to note, however, that the last scene -- in which Giorgio's father meets the Finzi-Continis in a detention center -- is fictitious and does not appear in the novel, and Bassani had a falling out with de Sica about this..
It is shortly before WWII, a time when the Fascists are slowly taking away the rights and livelihoods of Jews, including the Finzi-Continis.But none of this seems to pass the walls of their magnificent garden, where the children Micol and Alberto often invite their friends.
The way this film evokes such youthful, quixotic yearning, or a woman's growing awareness of physical beauty's power, is splendid.The sadness I felt at the end came from knowing all along what would happen to all of them, rich and not-so-rich, and that they didn't recognize what lay in store for them until it was too late.
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis was Vittorio De Sica's last hurrah, a masterpiece of neorealism, and timeless evocation of a time lost..
While undeniably not for the shallow or those who expect their movies to lay every detail out for them amid plenty of "action," THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS (a parable on a latter day "Eden" of doomed innocence?) remains after more than a quarter century one of the most perfect reflections of the gradual process by which the Holocaust could have happened in a Europe which believed itself civilized.
Only our own action - or blind ignorance - can allow us out.Not a lot need be added to the perceptive comments already examining the details of this beautiful and moving film - but Americans, especially those of my fellow Republicans who are able to objectively look at their own country and leaders, should seriously examine the politicians who use fear and nebulous "enemies" to gain and hold power in the light of this film.
A question of degree not of kind.The garden is still seductively attractive, the country around it still relatively free, but will we follow the course the Finzi-Continis took or will we come actively out of our garden while there is time?.
Unfortunately for them, not even their social status can protect them from the doom that awaits them.Much like in "The Bicycle Thief" over 20 years earlier, Vittorio De Sica shows the desperate existences of a few people, surrounded by what many incorrectly assumed to be a joyful world.
Here we have a later masterpiece, not generally regarded as such.The basic story is of two Jewish families, the impeding brutality of fellow Italians and different approaches to life and love in the knowing face of doom.
Plus our hero goes from Passover at his house where the family is singing something vapid to the Finzi-Continis where they are doing something movie-like" looking into a glass to see the future.Third: we know this is not straight-on narrative, because the camera has a habit of drifting out of the narrative frame.
`The Garden of the Finzi-Continis' stands out from the scores of films about the Fascist persecution of Jews due, in no small part, to director Vittorio De Sica.
It's all rather prettily photographed so that a dreamlike spell blurs much of the story and keeps the audience just as isolated from reality as the characters who inhabit THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI.It's a pretentious sort of film that Vittorio deSica has fashioned to illustrate what happened when Europeans isolated themselves from the ruthless turn of events that unfolded once Hitler and Mussolini came into power.
Well acted by a competent cast that includes HELMUT BERGER and DOMINIQUE SANDA, it's hard to work up much interest in characters that are treated with such detachment by the screenplay.It moves predictably toward the crushing humiliation of defeat with passive Italians being marched off to suffer their fate in concentration camps, a downbeat ending to an offbeat film.Summing up: Will appeal mostly to the art house trade..
One of the most celebrated foreign films in history, "The Garden of the Finzi-Contini" has been re-released so that people who missed it in 1971 can see the film restored as it was originally meant to be viewed -- then ask themselves WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT!!!!!This film recounts the fall of a Jewish family during Mussolini's rise in Italy during World War II.
Some old films hold up so beautifully, but I found the Garden of the Finzi-Contini's to be among the creaky dated ones.
The only way to understand the Finzi-Continis and their garden is as literary metaphors.
The power of the film is provided by the portrayal of Georgio's family, stuggling to understand and accommodate as their rights are taken away one at a time.
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is simply an experience not to be missed for any serious foreign film lover.
It has a beautiful innocence to it in this tale of the early days of the Finzi-Continis family before WWII.
Then it shows the tragedy and sadness in time lost and how really horrible and wrong war is.It is beautiful, yet somehow a very haunting film with a wistful score, that seems to be longing for things unattainable.
In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, Italy, the Finzi-Contini are one of the leading families, wealthy, aristocratic, urbane; they are also Jewish.
Into the circle steps Giorgio, a Jew from the middle class who falls in love with Micol."The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Director Vittorio De Sica eschews the neo-realism that defined his earliest work and takes a more poetic approach with this story about a wealthy, privileged family who shut themselves away from the encroaching threat of fascism in the early days of WWII Italy.
They ultimately find that their elite status does not protect them from the fascist threat, and the quietly devastating ending shows the family being separated, perhaps forever, as they are rounded up and herded into lines like so much cattle.The ending makes this film memorable, but everything proceeding it struck me as rather lightweight, given the subject matter.
Sanda, whom I recently discovered from Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST (1970, 9/10), plays Micòl, the young daughter of the aristocratic Jewish Finzi-Contini family in Ferrara in the late 1930s, is the love interest of Giorgio (Capolicchio), from another Jewish but lower-class family, although they have been childhood sweethearts, Giorgio's courtship has yet come off.
As a war drama of ordinary people being shoved haphazardly by the humanity-defying heinous torrent of rabidness, the movie (maybe also Bassani's source material) obviously don't want to lay bare the ugly truth with pulverizing segments which one can generally assume would happen during the persecution of those Jews (cautiously the film finishes right before that), everything meanders with tepid temperature and sensuous palette, from jovial time on bicycle to the final illusory tennis court flashbacks (the difference between De Sica and Antonioni is immediate), but at any rate, it is wanting a bang to emanate the revelation which is always up in the air, not even the reveal of Micòl's lover with Sanda's bare-chest audacity and soul-searching stare.
In the Garden of the Finzi-Continis is a wonderful movie depicting the lives of a wealthy jewish family in Italy during the Holocaust era.
De Sica's tale lets us identify with real participants and victims of the fascist Italian pogrom in a way that let's you clearly see that there are people around you who would do this to you and your children if they have the chance.You will enjoy this film for the nostalgia in it's design and the cinematography, settings, costume and locations and for the absence of conceits and cinema effects.
This was probably Vittorio DeSica's last excellent film before his death in 1974 and it took me about 20 years to view it a second time.
The family of the Finzi-Continis are rich and Jewish and live in a huge manor behind locked gates and they love to have friends over for picnics and tennis.
DeSica still wanted to show the world what it was like in Italy during the darker times and even though he had a larger budget and professional actors in his films his attitude never really shifted.
After viewing this thought provoking film once again, maybe DeSica was showing us that Micol needed to get out of her haven and understand the world about her..
"Nostalgia is self destruction." – Adrienne Rich "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" takes place in fascist Italy during the reign of Mussolini.
Slowly a race is made invisible.Against this backdrop is told the story of two Jewish families, the affluent and aristocratic Finzi-Contini family and the middle class Bassani family.
When the family hosts tennis games for friends and family, de Sica shoots them like innocent forest nymphs, frolicking in Eden.Of course, outside the stone walls of the Finzi-Contini estate, trouble brews.
The Bassani family adjusts to Mussolini's racist laws with success at first, their father stating that despite their new limitations they can still live a reasonably secure existence.
Big mistake.The second half of the film focuses on the romance between Giorgio Bassani and Micol Finzi-Contini.
The Finzi-Continis are an aristocratic, wealthy, "connected" Jewish family in Italy in the 1930s-40s.
E.g., when (early on) Jews were prohibited from using public tennis courts, young Jews flocked to the estate garden of the aristocratic Finzi-Continis, which had tennis courts.
First off, the reason why I teared up, i.e., what I did like about the film especially: the relationship between Georgio and Micol.
Possibly the biggest problem of the film is that the scenes dealing with anti-Semitism and the onset of war never really coalesced with the problems surrounding Micol's and Georgio's relationship.
In _The Garden of the Finzi-Contini_, there is not even time for a proper conclusion.
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is not just a physical safe space from the pressures and evils of a world about to be plunged into a second world war, but also a metaphysical memory of the mind, a last enduring remnant of the pre-war society where Jews were not third class citizens.
The garden remains in Giorgio's mind, long after the Jews rights have been taken from them until not even his father can justify it.
In its own quiet way this Vittorio de Sica gem is as gripping and powerful as such more graphic Holocaust films as "Schindler's List" and "Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom." It deals with a wealthy Italian Jewish family living in a secluded estate in the city of Ferrara.
The Finzi-Continis are almost completely assimilated and have little in common with their fellow Jews, but once Mussolini's racial laws begin to take effect they open their gardens to young Jews from the neighborhood.
The movie leaves the fate of the Finzi-Continis unresolved, but we know from the novel by Giorgio Bassani that none of them survived.
Much like Louis Malle's similarly themed film from 1987 AU REVOIR, LES ENFANTS, Vittorio daSica's THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI's is a meditative piece on the relatively safe haven of a group of people -- in this case, an entire family of wealthy Jews who enjoy a life of privilege as the horrors of World War II and anti-Semitism rages on.
DaSica's movie is a slow-moving lyrical poem which differs from his earlier Neo-Realist work, and captures in its running time this illusionary reality as if all this were a dream that the Finzi-Continis were having.
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.
I think I only just remembered that I read about this Italian film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, because it is an unusual title, but with the high critics rating it was one I definitely looked forward to trying, from director Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D.).
Basically set in the late 1930's, in Ferrara, Italy, a group of young friends are banned from playing tennis at regular clubs, so they do so in grand, walled estate owned by the Finzi- Contini, a wealthy, intellectual and sophisticated Jewish family, the two young Finzi-Contini are brother Alberto (Helmut Berger) and sister Micol (Dominique Sanda).
Alberto meanwhile has fragile health, and has a close friendship with darkly handsome Bruno Malnate (Fabio Testi), and Giorgio's Father (Romolo Valli) feels the Finzi-Contini don't seem all that Jewish at all, but the family is perhaps overwhelmed by wealth, privilege and generations to be as proud as vulnerable to the realities of what is going on around them.
By 1943 the Germans have invaded the Soviet Union, and all the young Jewish people who hung around the family estate have been arrested, Alberto dies from his sickness, the Finzi-Continis are finally seized by the Nazi army and taken into isolation, packed into a former classroom and separated from each other, the fate for all the many Jewish people of Ferrara in this space is that they will all be sent to concentration camps, the film ends with the final happy images of Micol, Alberto, Giorgio's brother Ernesto (Raffaele Curi) and Bruno playing tennis, with death music playing in the background.
I will be honest and say that most of the pleasant material before the last twenty to thirty minutes were fine, the family and friends bonding is good, but for me the most memorable scenes are the horrific sights of the Jewish people you know are doomed to the fate of the holocaust, but throughout there is great music, good colourful and later faded imagery and all in all a good feeling humanity tested, it is an interesting Second World War drama.
Much of the beginning and middle of the movie concerns Giorgio's unrequited infatuation with Micòl Finzi Contini.
However, as the movie continues, his optimism turns to pessimism until he and the Finzi Contini family are rounded up for deportation to the extermination camps by the film's end. |
tt2885364 | Willow Creek | Set in Humboldt County, California, Jim is a Bigfoot believer whose idea of a romantic getaway is to head deep into Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, video camera in tow, trying to shoot his own Bigfoot footage at the site of the Patterson–Gimlin film. That 1967 fragment of footage purporting to show a Sasquatch striding along a dry sandbar beside Bluff Creek became a key artifact in the cryptozoology community, and Jim dreams of nothing more than setting foot on the actual location where it was shot. His long-suffering girlfriend, Kelly, agrees to tag along for the ride, despite the fact that she thinks Bigfoot has about as much chance of being real as leprechauns.
The two stop off first in Willow Creek, the Bigfoot capital of the world and home to an annual Bigfoot festival, where various locals talk to Jim's camera, warning them to keep out of the woods, singing ballads about Bigfoot, and generally enjoying their 15 minutes in the spotlight while Jim and Kelly have a blast, cracking wise amidst all the touristy Bigfoot kitsch on display. At a restaurant they notice a missing woman on a poster on the wall and make fun of it before dismissing it as an everyday occurrence. When they strap on packs and head into the forest via a two-hour drive down a dirt road, they start to feel like they might be in over their heads. Well, Kelly does, at least. Jim, as he approaches what he considers hallowed ground, is in heaven.
That night they are awakened by mysterious sounds echoing through the woods, and whooping vocalizations that might be Bigfoot, but that might also be locals pranking them. The noises grow closer and less human-like and their imagination begins to wander when the noises become surreal and hits their tent. They become spooked and decide to leave the site at dawn. Jim discovers a gray, bloody strand of hair he believes may be evidence of Bigfoot's existence. They wander in circles through the thick California woods whilst hearing the same noises they heard the night before. They become frustrated and get lost by a river bank very similar to the river bank in the Patterson-Gimlin footage they sought to find the whole trip. A whooping, angry noise rustles the bushes behind Kelly scaring her into running. As night grows in they are confused and lost in the dark at the end of the movie, Jim and Kelly encounter an overweight, naked woman, bearing strong resemblance to the missing woman on the carton and an unseen creature attacks them, killing Jim and moving on to Kelly, whose cries for help are heard in the distance. Her fate is ultimately unknown but implied she is taken as a "forest bride" like the other missing woman used by Sasquatch to procreate. The movie ends with three whooping vocalizations also heard in the distance. | boring | train | wikipedia | null |
tt1986770 | Anger Management | In 1978, a young Dave Buznik is about to kiss the girl of his dreams, when a local bully, Arnie Shankman, pulls down his pants and underwear, embarrassing him in front of everybody. This leaves Dave with lasting trauma about public affection, as well as repressing his emotions. Twenty five years later, Dave Buznik lives in New York City, working as a secretary for Frank Head, an abusive boss who takes credit for Dave's work. His problems also extend to his private life his girlfriend Linda's ex-boyfriend Andrew still being close friends with her and being condescending to Dave at work.
While flying to a business meeting, Dave sits next to a man named Buddy Rydell. After a series of annoyances from the flight attendant and a sky marshal cause Dave, who repeatedly wanted a headset to watch an in-flight movie suggested by Buddy, to lose his temper, the sky marshal, who also mistakes Dave for a racist, tasers him, and Dave is arrested for assaulting the flight attendant, and sentenced to anger management therapy. The therapist happens to be Buddy. Buddy's unorthodox techniques cause Dave to lose his temper, and Buddy tells Dave he recognizes his problem as passive-aggressive anger. After Dave gets into a bar fight caused by Chuck, another of Buddy's patients, Dave is sent back to court and Buddy intervenes on his behalf, choosing to move in with Dave and shadow him in his life as part of more intensive therapy. Failure to comply will result in a year of jail time for Dave. Having Buddy as an unexpected and hovering roommate irritates Dave, which prompts Buddy to offer more therapeutic advice which, in turn, irritates Dave even more. Although Dave believes Andrew is doing nothing to ruin him at work, Buddy suspects otherwise and tells him that he needs to start fighting back or nothing will change. After receiving a phone call for Buddy informing him his mother is undergoing minor surgery, Dave jokes to him about its seriousness, prompting Buddy to warn he'll get Dave back.
After seeing Buddy's mother, the two stop at a restaurant on the way back to New York. After Buddy pressures him, Dave flirts and goes home with a young lady, but rejects her amorous advances out of loyalty to Linda. Later, Dave is devastated to learn that Buddy has told Linda about the woman, but Buddy explains the woman was a former patient of his, having set up the encounter to get revenge on Dave for the "dying mother" prank, and he will explain the truth to Linda. Buddy takes a detour to a Buddhist temple, so that Dave can confront a reformed Arnie, who has become a monk. While confronting his tormentor, Arnie expresses his sincerest apologies to Dave for bullying him all his life and asserts that Dave didn't deserve the abuse, but he laughs when Dave reminds him of the kiss incident. Buddy and a hesitant Dave provoke Arnie by lying about Dave exposing himself to Arnie's mentally ill sister, and Dave and Arnie fight. Dave and Buddy tease the monks into a rage and are chased off the grounds, Dave feeling good on confronting his tormentor. Back in New York, Dave attempts to propose to Linda but loses his nerve, and Linda suggests that they take a break from their relationship. Soon after Buddy begins dating Linda, Dave (unaware this was the next step of his therapy) sees this as the last straw and loses his cool by attacking Buddy. Being called back into court, Dave is given a restraining order by the judge, who threatens to lock him up if Dave has another incident.
Called into work and yelled at by his boss, Dave finally snaps when he learns that his boss intentionally passed him and gave the promotion to Andrew. He immediately confronts both men for the way they've mistreated him in the past. Dave calls Andrew out for trying to interfere with both his promotion and relationship with Linda, revealing he wants Andrew out of their lives permanently. Andrew attempts to insult him about being too dependent on Buddy to back him up and admits he isn't good enough for Linda. Taking Buddy's advice, Dave debunks the claim and knocks him out cold. He proceeds to humiliate his boss by using a golf club to wreck his office and reminding him of all the years of his loyal services just to be denied of the promotion he wanted so much in favor of someone who didn't deserve it. Dave then tells his boss that if he gets out of jail within three years, he expects his boss to do the right thing and give him the promotion that Andrew presumably resigned from. His boss agrees and Dave leaves. Learning Buddy has taken Linda to a New York Yankees game, Dave assumes Buddy intends to steal his proposal idea and races to the stadium. Security captures him and begins to remove him from the stadium but Mayor Rudy Giuliani orders them to allow Dave to speak. After admitting that he does have an anger problem and is willing to change, Dave agrees to kiss Linda in front of the stadium in exchange for her marrying him. Linda and Buddy then reveal that the game was the final part of Dave's therapy, and explain that the tormentors and aggravations he has been put through were Buddy's doing to teach him how to unleash his anger in healthy doses to avoid it building up. The passenger, the Judge, the waitress and the flight attendant are Buddy's friends. Dave then asks about the Sky Marshall who tased him if he was involved with Buddy and Linda admits he wasn't.
The three attend a picnic with Buddy's other patients, where Dave plays a final joke on Buddy with a friend holding the group up with a water pistol, and the film ends as the friends sing "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story together. | comedy, psychological, adult comedy | train | wikipedia | Charlie's new show is not a masterpiece, nor is it trying to be, but it is better then Two and Half Men's current offering.
I'm a huge fan of Two and a Half Men and dearly wished that Kutcher would hold the show, but it transpires that Alan's character is the only thing keeping the show remotely amusing anymore.
I never watched Two and Half Men for Oscar performances or for the story line, I just wanted the show to make me laugh and that's exactly what Anger Management does.
I never thought that Sheen could pull it of after being a complete idiot when he was fired on two and a half man (which by the way gets less funnier by the episode), but he did it again and makes himself very likable.I think it's clever that Charlie makes fun of his own issues, which makes the show so much more hilarious.The strength of a good comedian is being able to make fun of himself in the first place.
I'm a big fan of Two and a Half Men, I've watched every episode many times and the show still makes me smile even after many viewings.
And i'm not that big a fan of TV in general I cant watch the new Ashton version as it despoils a perfect show.Sheen is the man, he is the Hollywood bad ass that makes these kinds of shows realistic, Adding creditability to his lines.I've seen the 1st and 2nd show of Anger Management and it Rocks.
Charlie is back and if the show continues with this high caliber comedy it will become a bigger hit than Two and a Half Men ever was.Good Work Charlie glad to see you back....Keep it up....
The fact that there are a lot more people but the dialog stayed just as witty as it did in two and a half men is a nice trade up as are Sheens' cast members.
The cast is a good mix and mix quite good with each other in the show.The twist of Charlie's own anger issues and he himself being an anger management therapist is quite hilarious.The show delivers excellent comic situations.
That can be good or bad, make up your own mind about that.The show is explained in one sentence, Charlie is a therapist and is trying to help a group of people to get over their anger issues.
He talks too fast his voice is too dark and the laugh track in the background is making no sense.I give this 5 Stars for the many funny hours i had watching Charlie Sheen, this show is a complete failure in writing and casting.
I had my doubts about this series, I figured it was a "in your face" to the producers of 'Two and a Half Men', and of course I thought it would be a flop, considering how crazy and outta hand Sheen was during that time.
Though I love Charlie Sheen, this is not a one man show, and the supporting actors/actress are either not funny, or may be the writing was not up to their talent.
In Two and half men every character had its momentum, and the jokes came out naturally unlike in anger management, where they force the joke on you though it is not really a funny one.On the other hand, I don't understand why the show runner insisting in repeating the role of Charlie as a sex addicted playboy, played in Two and a half men, which already have exhausted during the nine seasons run of the show, although he is capable of doing much better than that.
I have never been a fan of Charlie Sheen but I think he does a great job on this show and I have changed my mind about him, he is very funny!
This is just the kind of sitcoms/comedy i have been waiting for, and it is with Charlie Sheen!(I dint know what before i saw it) I give this 10 of 10 points when it comes to comedy!
He pretty much plays the same character he's been playing for over twenty years (identical to the one in Two and a Half Men) and pretty much ripped off the movie Anger Management.
This show feels like Charlie Sheen is desperate to prove to people that he's a good person and just troubled(Yes a trouble fifty year old?
Like his character in his former show, Two and a Half Men portrayed, he'll always come out doing okay.
We all had to accept that Two and a Half Men would never be the same.Then I heard about a new show called Anger Management starring Charlie Sheen!
I couldn't wait to see this show and I had high hopes that the show would be as good as Two and a Half Men with Charlie Sheen.I sat down, watched the first episode and was truly flabbergasted.
It didn't even come close to my expectations, but I decided to watch some more episodes and at least give it a fighting chance.I saw Charlie Sheen being surrounded by some B-actors, who were funny at times but didn't come close to Jon Cryer(Alan Harper) and Angus T.
Don't misunderstand me, Anger Management made me laugh at times, mostly because of Charlie Sheen, but it just couldn't meet my expectations.Unfortunately I have to say Anger Management is just another average series.
I think Charlie is great and I loved two and a half men with him in it!
The magic that two and a half men had was due to Charlie being a laid back man whore that never let anything bother him!
This show could be good if the cast was a little better, they get rid of Selma, and Charlie has funny one liners opposite his supporting cast!
It looked like Charlie wanted more than funny episode to keep himself afloat.
I was excited when this show came out, and after watching season 1, I was feeling like this show has the potential to be good.
Charlie Sheen as an Anger Management Therapist can work, but rather than having group sessions at home and at the prison, it should be more of a one on one session and have his patients be a revolving door of characters.
With his current "patients", we're in the middle of season 2, and we have no idea who these people are, why they're in anger management therapy, and why anybody should care.While it was smart to have his real life father play his dad, those two are the only ones on the show with any visible on-screen chemistry.
But another sitcom,that too starring Charlie Sheen,who according to me is the best thing ever happened to sitcoms in the 21st Century,is both a welcome and a refreshing change.After Two and A Half Men, Charlie sheen returns to screen as Charlie Goodson the quirky,easy-going therapist-cum-playboy who has anger issues of his own in Anger Management.
There are almost all the ingredients of a typical Charlie Sheen sitcom-a dysfunctional family,a million dollar home,dozens of hot and dumb chicks,and a bunch of weird guys thrown in,finally,dirty humor.The entire show rests on Charlie Sheen himself.Most of the other characters are quite weak and fail to impress.The jokes are good,in bits and pieces.All in all,the show could be much better.
But can Anger Management be as good as Two and a half Men,that,only time can tell..
I was very upset when they fired Charlie Sheen from Two and a Half Men!
I've watched all the episodes in one go!I'm a big fan of Two and a Half Men and I love Ashton Kutcher but it's obvious that he is not able to save the show.
It's clear from the very first episode that Charlie Sheen is trying way too hard to prove to the world that he's still a useful member of the acting community.
I'm not sure what is more annoying - the repetitive laugh track (perhaps he couldn't find a real audience that would actually laugh?), the sub-par acting from every character, or the predictable, overdone plot that casts Sheen once more into the only role he seems capable of playing.
It's really sad that Charlie sheen, as OLD as he is, acts the way he does!
I don't believe this show is being funny got anything to do with Charlie Sheen, it is simply about good & sophisticated writers that doing great job with the script and the jokes, there are no limits, no barriers...
Of course I have to admit that it is not even close series Two and a Half Men while Charlie played in it.
I repeat, it is not Two and a Half Men as long as he plays Charlie.But your sincere smile.
I like the larger cast, I do not miss Allen one wee bit, and it is great to see Charlie Sheen working and on track.
Charlie Sheen is just phoning in his performance (and that's on a good episode).
Anger Management is a good television series with reasonably well developed plots and a talented comedic cast.
This is the series that Charlie Sheen bounced back with after leaving Two and a Half Men, and his performance in the show is very strong, he still certainly has leading man qualities that make this show worthwhile.
Funny and with a terrific comedic cast, Anger Management does overstay its welcome, but it is worth the watch if you ever see it on television and are looking for something short and sweet, just do not go out of your way to see it.
To me, that's what makes this show acceptably funny.I'm a moderate fan of Charlie Sheen, but after a while, his shows tend to become less funny - still funny, just not as good as before, and seemingly struggling to get back to the high of the first few episodes.But I still like this show because of the other characters - I cannot imagine the show without his regular patients or his ex-wife.
So, i've been watching Anger Management all season and didn't spend a second thinking of writing a review, and today, as the 16th episode airs, i feel the time is due.
I must admit is it watchable and some characters (Lacey and Nolan) are funny and series has some very good moments, but bottom line is that all chicks appearing are ultra thin sexy like models and Sheen is like sex god and honestly he is not even handsome, at least to me.
The new two and a half men show is nothing without Charlie.
Over all, if like me, you stopped watching 2.5 Men after a few episodes with Ashton in it, and experience withdrawal symptoms - then Anger Management is a real remedy.
But it wasn't long before it began to get old: Humor that's been done before in some many more sitcoms, really one-dimensional characters and Charlie starting to act more and more like he did in Two and a half man, which got old even when he was still in Two and a half man.
I thought Charlie leaving Two and Half Men would mean he wouldn't take part in the same pathetic charade but clearly he did, which is disappointing.Overall it's not really worth a watch but way worse shows are getting hit ratings so none of it really matters.
This started as a great show, a lot better than Two and Half Men ever hoped to be, until that Brat Sheen got jealous!.
Charlie Sheen was trying to get back in the game with this series, it had some great punch lines and punches taken on the expense of his former series, but this didn't amount to the same status.The series is about Charlie, he is a Anger Management Therapist, yes that is the plot and yes he do have people in a group that are quite different, but in many ways, divides his problems and faults :) He still has a thing for the ladies, a lot of them and different ones, but he tends to stick to the bad ones, ones that have the same vices as himself.The weirdest part about the series is that it had an insane amount of episodes to each season, it was very weird, season 1 had 10 episodes and then season two had 90 episodes, just to even it up to one hundred before closing it down it seems.Okay series, but became much of the same deal, over and over again..
It may be funnier than what we are getting in the last few years of "Two and Half Men", but do we really need to set the bar so low?Also, Sheen looks prematurely old and that makes it difficult for us to accept the premise of the show.All in all this show is watchable, but you can probably find something better..
I've watched a few episodes of Anger Management, and my oh my, does it make you miss Sheen in Two And A Half Men. I never watched the pilot for this, where I've just become aware than Sheen's character's daughter in this has OCD, something I've had for years, where I'd like to see those particular episodes.
When Charlie Sheen started 2 1/2 Men as the philandering rake, he looked the part and it was somewhat believable.
But it's pathetic to watch, as Charlie Sheen is now too thin and old- looking; he hasn't aged well.
It has the same problem the show, Frazier had - unattractive old-looking guy as chick magnet scoring with women half his age.The episode I watched was disturbing - Sheen is seen bedding a beautiful rival therapist.Wearing a skimpy black bra and panties, she demands that he take off her underwear with his teeth and then we see Charlie slipping under the sheets.
The series depict a wide spectrum of different characters, each having their own stereotypical peculiarity, some of them are even quite distasteful - but yet presented in a funny 'we all have our problems'-kind of way.It is also great fun to see Charlie and his dad, which make an excellent combo together!I highly recommend Anger Management to everybody old enough to watch..
She is so darn sexy and deserves way better than having to act against low class actors like Sheen.
Martin Sheen plays the father on occasion and he has his own anger issues between he and Charlie.
Charlie Sheen plays yet another guy called Charlie who is a ladies man, but the difference THIS time is he is a disgraced baseball player and has an ex wife and a daughter, who in the first episode has OCD then miraculously it is never mentioned again.It is VERY weird writing this because I do actually watch this every week, hoping the acting gets better, hoping the story lines get better.
The woman who plays Charlie's ex wife is TERRIBLE at acting, she has had so much botox she cannot move her face, she is portraying the character to be a bit of a flirt but it just makes her seem like an emotionless whore.
All of her lines are delivered flat and it makes her scenes unwatchable, which is unfortunate because I enjoy Charlie's acting.All characters in the "group" are unlikeable and generic, you have the whore, the gay guy, the bigoted old guy and the weirdo who you wonder why he is there in the first place.As for Selma Blair's character, she is meant to appear cold, attractive and desirable, like the sister in Cruel Intentions, but she is just a plain bitch who isn't attractive at all.The truth is I probably will watch the rest of the season for Mr Sheen, but the story lines aren't enjoyable at all and I mostly end up skipping a lot of episodes within the first ten minutes if I know it's just gonna be generic and mindless.
If you followed Charlie over from when he left Two and a Half Men, chances are you are committed enough to watch at least one episode, but I doubt you will stay for the whole season..
I started watching Anger Management solely for Charlie Sheen, but stayed with the show for his interactions with Selma Blair.
Unlike Two and a Half Men, Charlie had a reliable love interest in recurring character Kate.
His interest in her and her apparent disinterest in him as anything more than a friend with benefits was engaging and refreshing after Charlie's womanizing ways on Two and a Half Men. When they fired Selma Blair, FX made a huge error.
FX brought Charlie's character back to what it was in Two and a Half Men, with a different woman in every episode, with whom Charlie was either sleeping with or trying to sleep with.
In my opinion, Anger Management can only be saved by bringing in a new full time love interest that carries on throughout the rest of the show, which will not be very long if FX doesn't change Charlie Goodson's character into something more than Charlie Harper..
Charlie Sheen bounced back from being sacked from 'Two and a Half Men' with this sitcom, based on the 2003 film, that sees him playing an anger management coach.This show is actually very similar to Sheen's previous one, albeit never likely to trouble the ratings or the audiences' attention much.Sheen plays a guy in power who has relations with lots of beautiful women - hadn't we seen that before somewhere else?
Anger Management is a show that could of exceeded the 100 episode Mark, the show has great writing, directing and acting.
Anger Management could not of been if it wasn't for the awesome Charlie Sheen who I love and hope to see in another sitcom soon.
Charlie Sheen is funny as usual.
Charlie has new role as father which wasn't seen in Two and a Half Men.Anger Management seminar don't take much time out of each episode but they are quite funny.
But felt it did better job than Two and a Half Men did at comedy after Charlie left.Spoiler: Some of the jail scenes in the series are funny too. |
tt0155060 | Prophet | Kamila, a widowed mother, works as the housekeeper for Mustafa, a foreign poet, painter, and political activist being held under house arrest. Mustafa is guarded by the soldier Halim, who has a secret crush on Kamila. Kamila's daughter, Almitra, has stopped talking due to her father's death, and has become a troublemaker who frequently steals from local merchants. Almitra has seagulls for her only friends; she even seems able to talk to them by making birdlike noises. Halim's pompous Sergeant arrives to tell Mustafa that he is now free, but he must board a ship to his home country by day's end. The Sergeant escorts Mustafa to the ship, and Mustafa spends the time conversing with Kamila, Almitra and Halim, as well as with the townspeople, who regard him as a hero. Mustafa's conversations, ranging in topics from freedom to marriage to parenthood to eating, are animated by the movie's many directors in their own unique styles.
Once everyone reaches the ship, the army imprisons Mustafa in a fortress instead of allowing him to board. The commanding officer labels Mustafa's writings as seditious, and demands that he retract his statements. Mustafa refuses, asserting that his writings are not seditious. Thus, the commanding officer sentences Mustafa to death by firing squad the next morning unless he disavows his writings. That evening, Kamila, Almitra and Halim try to help Mustafa escape. Almitra sees Mustafa through his prison cell window, and talks for the first time since her father's death. Mustafa refuses to try to escape, giving his final animated poem, this time on the topic of death. But he asks his friends to return to the house and rescue all his paintings and writings before the army can destroy them. The next day, Mustafa again refuses to renounce his writings as he is being led to the firing squad in the fortress's open yard. A large flock of seagulls surround him as he is being placed in position. Over at the house, Kamila and Almitra save all of Mustafa's writings and drawings right before the army arrives, and they hide in the woods. Then suddenly they hear loud gunfire and see the flock of seagulls fly out of the fortress. But Almitra insists that Mustafa is all right, as she sees the flock circle around the now departing ship, and imagines Mustafa being aboard that ship. | violence | train | wikipedia | not a bad little movie.
i would like to see don teamed up with a hong kong movie crew that way we would all see his potential instead of van damn of the late eighties style...
the only other thing that struck me about this movie is that it appears to be quite similar to a certain television series.
But apart from that not a bad effort...alot better then his previous films *two thumbs up*.
Nice b-film with lot of action!.
I am a big fan of Don "The Dragon" Wilson and when I saw this film in store I grab my money and I buy it.
Where was lot of action ( I mean fights) to keep every action fan happy.
Fighting choreography was good too.
It's not the best "The Dragon" film but I recommend it..
It's always great to see Barbara Steele in anything new..
I was lucky enough to get an uncut copy of this flick .
I will be honest, I wanted to see this flick because of Barbara Steele.
Although I do like The Dragon.
Naturally I felt there wasn't enough of Barbara.
Also, I felt the director lost an opportunity to create a really great story.
I felt the experiments on the children wasn't explored as deeply as it could have been.
Overall, the film is a very good action flick.
Lots of fun for a rainy afternoon.
I recommend it for both fans of The Dragon and the Queen of Horror..
Bad plot + bad acting + bad action = don't watch.
There are few action stars I watch for their acting skills and Don Wilson is certainly not one of them.
But if he is put in a picture with a weak and incoherent story and action scenes that are so lame and poorly choreographed, they make you weep, you have one bad movie.
Don't watch it unless you enjoy guys shooting at each other at 20 feet with no cover for minutes and missing their targets, Don and his 'partner' parking their car and strolling leisurely although they are closely followed by the bad guys, Don leaving 2 rounds in a gun to allow the murder of an innocent man, just to expose a traitor.At one point two bad guys corner Don against a wall with a car, but he is fast enough to duck under the car before he is hit.
The two guys pull back the car and naturally Don is gone.
There is nothing else around, no other cars or hiding places.
But the two guys get both out of the car, pull their guns, walk towards the wall and stare at the floor where Don should have been lying squashed.
Don of course stands right on the car's roof and shoots them from there.There are many more scenes that insult the intelligence or strain the patience of the viewer (in fact there are few that don't).
So unless you want to make a study of how many mistakes a director can cram into an 83 minute film, avoid this one at all cost..
Laughable (unintentional) action movie.
I am not a movie critic in part because I don't tend to be critical of movies.
If I find the movie even halfway believable, with a plot that is interesting, I am easily satisfied.
However, I only continued to watch this movie to see how much more ridiculous some of the scenes would be.
For a bunch of characters who are supposed to be highly experienced operatives of various Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, it was amazing to me how badly they all shot.
In one scene three agents come into a room and fired automatic rounds continuously for nearly 30 seconds with no target in sight, only to have the hero suddenly enter from a side room and kill all three with a revolver before any could return fine.
While the hero is so fast and accurate with a revolver in one scene, he has a shoot out in a train car with another villain and neither can hit the other while emptying their guns.
The same is true in another shootout in a hallway in which they are only 15 feet apart.
The acting of Don Wilson and a few of the others is passable, but most of the second tier cast is amateurish at best.
Don't expect to see Oscar performances in this movie..
Possibly the greatest movie ever..
This has to be one of the greatest action movies ever.
I mean this low budget action flick was crazy!
Don "the dragon" wilson delivers an action pack performance that is out of this world.
From start to finish you'll be on the edge of your seat with action and drama!.
Cheap, but just about gets by.
THE PROPHET is an action thriller with sci-fi elements, starring the one and only Don "The Dragon" Wilson and directed by Fred Olen Ray. With a pedigree of that calibre, how could it possibly go wrong?
The answer is that it doesn't, and THE PROPHET does deliver the goods in fulfilling its aims, but it's not a particularly good movie regardless.
Olen Ray has always been a cheapie director and that's no exception here, with little thought or sense having gone into location photography, staging, or storyline.Still, as an action showcase for Wilson, this could be a lot worse.
His acting is very poor but his fight scenes are a lot of fun, and there are plenty of them.
Being an Olen Ray movie, the director also finds time for cameos from Barbara Steele and Robert Quarry, but most of the attention is on pneumatic starlet Alexander Keith, who has to be seen to be believed..
Its a Don Wilson movie.
What do you expect??.
Its really hard to be critical about a movie because i really have a tendency to like any film i get.
Even if it sucks i'd still enjoy watching it because it sucks.
So when i give 3 stars here, it doesn't mean i didn't have fun watching it.
But critically speaking, the movie just isn't good.
The plot isn't very original even though it tries to make you think it is, acting is bad but not incredibly bad and the fights are just passable.
And yeah, why do the people in these type of movies act so dumb??
And if these people have ESP powers enough to find hidden people and stop tripwires from exploding, how come they cant realize the danger they're in till they have a bullet in their heads??.
this movie gets 4 stars for the mammary glands of the female co-star.
Other than that, some slightly improved acting on Wilson's part, an underrated plot about mind control experiments on kids a la Project Monarch or the McMartin preschool case, and lame fight choreography.
Not a great movie by any stretch, but for a Don Wilson movie, pretty darn good with some pretty smart plot twists and quasi-political content.
Someone is mysteriously killing all the people Wilson was programmed with as a child.It's one of the few worth seeing from this kick-boxer-cum-actor, and even more so for aforementioned huge mammary glands.
It's not good for anything but maybe sitting on the couch late at night with a bowl of spaghetti, killing time before you fall asleep or your lady-friend arrives; rent 'Redemption' if you want an honest-to-goodness bearable Wilson film..
At 80 minutes, It won't tax your brain or your schedule too much..
Jarrid Maddox (Don) is a CIA agent in L.A. who is working through some past trauma.
When he teams up with fellow agent Vicki Taylor (Keith), he is tasked with getting to the bottom of what happened to a bunch of children that were involved in a top-secret government program.
However, if Agent Oakley (Steele) is involved, you can bet this will be a (Capitol) conspiracy that goes...you guessed it, all the way to the top.
Along the way, Jarrid - which is, evidently, how he spells it - gets into a bunch of fights and shootouts.
Will he unravel THE CAPITOL CONSPIRACY?We were worried at first, at least after initially seeing the box art, that this might be an attempt at "more serious Don" - in other words, an actionless political drama.
Thankfully, that is not the case, as our wonderfully wooden old pal The Dragon gets into plenty of fights, including the time-honored barfight, and his gun is always at the ready as well - though we much prefer the Martial Arts combat scenes.
As you might expect with a Roger Corman-produced, Fred Olen Ray-directed outing, you get some punching, some kicking, some shooting, some nudity, a bit of plot and a smidgen of Barbara Steele and it's all wrapped up in about 80 minutes or so.
It won't tax your brain or your schedule too much.
Another thing low-budget actioners like this seem to have in abundance are actors that look like other actors.
There's the Gary Busey guy, the Michael Dudikoff guy, and the Jake Busey guy, but, in all fairness, this might all be the same guy.
Impressively, someone else looks and sounds exactly like Charles Napier.
Just why they couldn't get the original Napier to be involved is unknown.
Because it was 1999, our hero Maddox has Earthlink email that talks.
Not only does it tell you that "you've got new mail!" (they probably had to add the word "new" to avoid legal action), but it reads your message out loud too.
Welcome to the future.
And Jarrid Maddox is leading the way.
A movie highlight comes when Maddox is on a plane, innocently trying to read a book.
Suddenly two wrestlers - one wearing his championship belt on the plane - begin getting a bit too rowdy for their own good, and Maddox has to calm the situation down.
Despite his painful flashbacks, the man can act independently as his own Air Marshal.
He even gets the phone number of the stewardess for his trouble.
Is there nothing the man can't do?
Our point, really, is that The Capitol Conspiracy (or Prophet if you prefer) needed more scenes like this - unbridled silliness that brings the fun level up a few notches.
All in all, The Capitol Conspiracy may not be the best Don outing out there, but it's certainly worth watching, and it goes by without causing any undue stress or anxiety in your life.
Unlike the victims of the aforementioned conspiracy.
Also, the trailer for the film features footage from other Don movies that are not this one, in order to pump up the action quotient. |
tt0085724 | Independence Day | On July 2, 1996, an enormous alien mothership that has one fourth the mass of the Moon enters orbit around Earth, deploying 36 smaller spacecraft, each 15 miles (24 km) wide, that take positions over some of Earth's major cities and military bases. David Levinson, an MIT-trained satellite technician, decodes a signal embedded in the global satellite transmissions that he determines is a timer counting down to a coordinated attack. With the help of his former wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano, Levinson, and his father Julius, gain access to the Oval Office and warn President Thomas J. Whitmore that the aliens are hostile. Whitmore orders large-scale evacuations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., but it is too late; the timer reaches zero and the ships activate devastating directed-energy weapons, killing millions. Whitmore, the Levinsons, and a few others narrowly escape aboard Air Force One as the capital is destroyed, along with other locations over which the ships are positioned.
On July 3, international leaders begin ordering individual counterattacks. Their aviation forces attack destroyer ships positioned above the ruins of the cities, but the ships are protected by force fields. Each destroyer launches a swarm of attack fighters, each with its own shield as well, which wipe out the human fighter squadrons. Captain Steven Hiller, a pilot with the USMC squadron VMFA-314 based out of Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, survives by luring his attacker to the enclosed spaces of the Grand Canyon and sacrificing his plane, forcing the alien to crash-land. He subdues the injured alien pilot and flags down a convoy of refugees, hitching a ride with former combat pilot Russell Casse. They transport the unconscious alien to nearby Area 51 where Whitmore's group has landed. Through Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki, they learn that a faction of the government has been involved in a UFO conspiracy since 1947, when one of the invaders' attack fighters crashed in Roswell. Area 51 houses the refurbished alien fighter and three alien corpses recovered from the crash.
When eccentric scientist Brackish Okun examines the alien captured by Hiller, it regains consciousness and attacks. It telepathically invades Okun's mind and uses his vocal cords to communicate with Whitmore before launching a psychic attack against him. Whitmore sees visions of the alien's plans: their entire civilization travels from planet to planet, exterminating all indigenous life and harvesting the planet of all natural resources. After Secret Service agents and military personnel kill the alien, Whitmore reluctantly authorizes a nuclear attack; a B-2 Spirit fires a nuclear cruise missile at an alien destroyer positioned above Houston, but the ship remains intact.
On July 4, Levinson demonstrates that the key to defeating the aliens lies in deactivating their force fields, and devises a way to do so by uploading a computer virus into the mothership. He proposes using the refurbished alien fighter to implement the plan, which Hiller volunteers to pilot. The two are able to implant the virus and deploy a nuclear weapon on board the mothership. With military pilots in short supply, Whitmore enlists the help of volunteers with flight experience, including Casse, and leads an attack on a destroyer ship bearing down on Area 51. With the alien's shields deactivated, the fighters are able to inflict damage but their supply of missiles is quickly exhausted. As the destroyer prepares to fire on the base, the last missile, equipped on Casse's plane, jams, and Casse decides to sacrifice his own life. He flies his plane kamikaze-style into the directed-energy weapon port, which results in an explosion that destroys the ship. Human resistance forces around the world successfully destroy the other craft using this vulnerability. As humankind is rejoicing in victory, Hiller and Levinson return to Area 51 unharmed and reunite with their families. They and military officers nearby accompany Whitmore and his daughter in watching the wreckage from the mothership burn up, resembling a fireworks display as it enters Earth's atmosphere. | violence, romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt3421844 | Batman: Arkham Knight | === Characters ===
Arkham Knight features a large ensemble cast of characters from the history of Batman comics. The main character is Batman (Kevin Conroy)—a superhero trained to the peak of human physical and mental perfection and an expert in martial arts. He is supported by his allies, Robin (Matthew Mercer), Nightwing (Scott Porter), Catwoman (Grey DeLisle), Barbara Gordon (Ashley Greene)—who assists Batman covertly as the hacker Oracle—and her father police commissioner James Gordon (Jonathan Banks). Batman's loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth and Wayne Enterprises colleague Lucius Fox (Dave Fennoy) provide Batman with tactical support, and the holy warrior Azrael (Khary Payton) aims to replace Batman as Gotham's protector.
Throughout the city, Batman is faced with several supervillains: he must overcome Scarecrow's (John Noble) plot to threaten Gotham City, dismantle the Penguin's (Nolan North) weapon dealing operation, put an end to Two-Face's (Troy Baker) bank heists, conquer the Riddler's (Wally Wingert) challenges, capture the plant-controlling Poison Ivy (Tasia Valenza), and subdue Harley Quinn (Tara Strong), who wants revenge against Batman for the death of the Joker (Mark Hamill), Batman's psychopathic nemesis.
The game introduces the villain Arkham Knight (also voiced by Baker), a character created specifically for the game by Rocksteady, DC Comics CCO and comic-book writer Geoff Johns, and DC co-publisher and comic artist Jim Lee. The Arkham Knight is a militarized version of Batman, with the "A" logo of the Arkham Asylum facility worn as an emblem on his chest. Other villains include the pyromaniac Firefly (Crispin Freeman), the beastly Man-Bat (Loren Lester), the assassin mercenary Deathstroke, the serial killer Professor Pyg, the religious fanatic Deacon Blackfire, and Hush, who is impersonating Batman's alter-ego as Bruce Wayne.
Arkham Knight also features appearances by various characters drawn from the history of Batman comics and the previous Arkham games, including: pharmaceutical businessman Simon Stagg, reporters Vicki Vale and Jack Ryder, police officer Aaron Cash, corporate businessman Lex Luthor, crimefighter Kate Kane, serial killer Calendar Man, and mutated gangster Killer Croc, while the game's downloadable content features appearances by Black Mask, Starro, Mad Hatter, Mr. Freeze, Ra's al Ghul, Nyssa Raatko, and Nora Fries. The game also makes references to many characters from the history of Batman and DC Comics.
=== Setting ===
One year after the death of the Joker during the events of Arkham City, Batman is struggling to come to terms with the absence of his nemesis and the uncomfortable feeling that the pair shared a bond deeper than either could admit. Without the Joker's chaotic presence, Gotham's citizens have never felt safer, and crime in the city has dramatically declined. However, this gives Batman's enemies, including Penguin, Two-Face, and Harley Quinn, a chance to unite with the singular goal of killing Batman.
On Halloween night, Scarecrow threatens the city with his newly created strain of fear toxin and bombs planted throughout Gotham, forcing the evacuation of the city's six million civilians. Only criminals remain in the city, leaving Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham City Police Department outnumbered. Anticipating a new threat, Batman continues to develop crime-fighting technology and maintains a vigil over the city.
Arkham Knight's Gotham City is approximately five times the scale of the open-air Arkham City prison in Arkham City. The game takes place in the center of the city, which is split into three islands: Bleake, Founders, and Miagani, with various districts such as the neon-tinged Chinatown, and the industrial shipping yard. Bleake Island features shorter buildings, disheveled areas, and abandoned docks, while Founders Island is a modern development of skyscrapers built on the ruins of Gotham slums, and Miagani Island is an older metropolis with Wayne Tower at its center. Oracle has set up her communications headquarters in the Gotham clock tower, which also houses a makeshift Batcave.
=== Plot ===
On Halloween, Scarecrow forces the civilian evacuation of Gotham City after threatening to unleash his potent new fear toxin. Batman tracks Scarecrow to a hideout where he rescues the imprisoned Poison Ivy, who had refused to join Batman's other rogues in Scarecrow's plot. Batman meets with Oracle, who identifies Ace Chemicals as the source of Scarecrow's toxin. Batman investigates the facility but encounters the Arkham Knight and his heavily armed militia. Batman overcomes the forces and locates Scarecrow, who has transformed the entire building into a toxin bomb. Scarecrow reveals that he has kidnapped Oracle, and exposes Batman to the toxin before escaping. Batman inhibits the bomb's blast radius before he is confronted by the Joker.
A flashback reveals that before the Joker died, his infected blood was used in blood transfusions, infecting five people including Batman; Batman, concealing his infection from others, imprisoned the four other recipients who were physically and mentally transforming into the Joker. The Joker, now existing as a mental projection produced by the infected blood and fear toxin, frequently appears to taunt Batman, and manipulate his perception of the world around him. After Batman escapes the exploding Ace Chemicals, he alerts Gordon to Oracle's kidnapping, who angrily leaves to find Scarecrow.
Batman learns that Scarecrow recruited businessman Simon Stagg to build the "Cloudburst"—a mass dispersal device for the fear toxin. Aboard Stagg's airship, Batman interrogates Stagg and finds Scarecrow, but a dose of fear toxin allows the Joker to temporarily assume control of Batman's body while the Arkham Knight extracts the Cloudburst. Recovering, Batman locates Oracle in Scarecrow's hideout, but when he arrives she is exposed to the fear toxin, and commits suicide in terror. Harley Quinn seizes Batman's base in the Panessa movie studio to rescue the Joker-ized patients. Batman and Robin capture Harley and the infected, but one of the patients kills the others, before committing suicide, believing that Batman will become the perfect Joker. Realizing that Batman is infected, Robin attempts to imprison him before the Joker takes control, but is instead imprisoned by Batman, who refuses to stop until Scarecrow is caught.
The Arkham Knight activates the Cloudburst, flooding the city with fear toxin. Batman destroys the Cloudburst and convinces Ivy to empower an ancient tree that can neutralize the toxin; she succeeds and saves Gotham, but the strain kills her, while Batman's exposure to the toxin strengthens Joker's control. Batman pursues the Arkham Knight to a construction site to rescue Gordon. The Knight reveals himself as Jason Todd, the previous Robin, who was seemingly murdered by the Joker, and has been left traumatized by torture at the Joker's hands. Todd blames Batman for abandoning him, and although Batman offers to help Todd recover, he escapes. Batman and Gordon confront Scarecrow on the building's roof, where Oracle is revealed to be alive, and her suicide the result of a hallucination. Batman rescues Oracle and returns her to the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD), but Scarecrow escapes with Gordon. Using the remaining militia, Scarecrow assaults the GCPD to eliminate Batman's allies. Batman and Oracle neutralize the militia, but Scarecrow uses the distraction to kidnap Robin.
To save Robin and Gordon, Batman surrenders to Scarecrow and is taken to the ruins of Arkham Asylum. Scarecrow reveals Batman's secret identity to the world on television, before repeatedly injecting Batman with the fear toxin to break him before the public. Batman and the Joker then battle for control inside Batman's mind; Joker attempts to weaken Batman by recounting the people who have suffered and died because of Batman's crusade, but Batman triumphs and locks the pleading Joker away in his mind forever to be forgotten — the Joker's only fear. Todd arrives and saves Batman, who subdues Scarecrow with his own fear toxin.
After Batman ensures that Gotham is safe, Gordon dispatches the police to reclaim the streets, and Batman activates the "Knightfall" protocol to protect his loved ones. Surrounded by reporters, Batman returns home to Wayne Manor where he is greeted by Alfred. As the pair enter the manor, it explodes, seemingly killing them both. Gordon, now Gotham's mayor, prepares to attend Oracle and Robin's wedding. Elsewhere, two criminals attack a family in an alley but are confronted by a nightmarish silhouette resembling Batman. | violence | train | wikipedia | Batman Arkham Knight: Clueless, mindless, foolish. Recently I've seen some great fan made Batman films, this one however has brought me crashing back down to earth to what I expected these things to be.Made on a $15k budget this isn't so much a story as a clip from a movie, and a poorly made one at that.Featuring Black Mask & Batman with a brief appearance by Harley Quinn after the credits, this has no purpose at all. The action is embarassing, the script is generic and as mentioned it doesn't actually go anywhere it's just a mere clip.I have no idea what they were going for here but it missed it's mark on every front.The Good:NopeThe Bad:Action sequences are laughableEverything looks cheapWeirdly editedGoes nowhereThings I Learnt From This Short:The creators should perhaps quit while they're ahead. Wait sorry did I say ahead? I meant just quit.. Bearable, but not good. "Batman: Arkham Knight" is a fan movie written and directed by Osokwe Tychicus Vasquez. According to IMDb, it is from 2015, but I believe it is already a couple months (or years) older. Looking at how the budget was pretty small I guess they did not do the worst job, but it also wasn't on a level where I would want to see a feature film or care about the director's other work. I felt the monologue could have been slightly less pretentious and the acting from pretty much everybody could have been better too. The editing wasn't great either, felt really rushed at times. I did like the main villain though and it would be nice to see him in a "real" Batman movie. This one here may be a solid watch for Batman fans, but nobody else needs to see it really. Nothing particularly memorable about it. |
tt0115378 | Superman | On the planet Krypton, using evidence provided by scientist Jor-El, the Council sentences attempted insurrectionists General Zod, Ursa, and Non to the Phantom Zone. For this, Zod swears revenge on Jor-El and his family. Jor-El, despite his eminence, is unable to convince the Council that Krypton will soon be destroyed when its red supergiant sun goes supernova. To save his infant son, Kal-El, Jor-El launches a spacecraft containing him toward Earth, a planet with a suitable atmosphere where Kal-El's dense molecular structure will give him superhuman powers. Shortly after the launch, Krypton's sun explodes, destroying the planet.
The ship crash lands on Earth near Smallville, Kansas. Kal-El, who is now three years old, is found by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who are astonished when he is able to lift their truck. They take him to their farm and raise him as their own, naming him Clark after Martha's maiden name.
At 18, soon after Jonathan's death due to a heart attack, Clark hears a psychic "call" and discovers a glowing crystal in the remains of his spacecraft. It compels him to travel to the Arctic, where the crystal builds the Fortress of Solitude. Inside, a holographic vision of Jor-El appears and explains Clark's origins, educating him on his powers and responsibilities. After 12 years of training, with his powers fully developed, he leaves the Fortress wearing a blue and red suit with the House of El family crest on his chest and becomes a reporter at the Daily Planet in Metropolis. He meets and develops an unrequited romantic attraction to co-worker Lois Lane.
Lois becomes involved in a helicopter accident where conventional means of rescue are impossible, requiring Clark to use his powers in public for the first time to save her, and goes on to thwart a jewel thief attempting to scale the Solow Building using suction cups, captures robbers fleeing police in the Fulton Market, depositing their cabin cruiser on Wall Street, and rescues a girl's cat from a tree in Brooklyn Heights. Clark also rescues Air Force One after a lightning strike destroys the port outboard engine, making the "caped wonder" an instant celebrity. He visits Lois at her home the next night and takes her for a flight over the city, allowing her to interview him for an article in which she names him "Superman".
Meanwhile, criminal genius Lex Luthor has developed a plan to make a fortune in real estate by buying large amounts of barren desert land. After learning that the U.S Army and U.S. Navy will launch a twin nuclear missile test, he diverts one missile to a weak point in the San Andreas Fault.
Knowing Superman could stop his plan, Luthor lures him to an underground lair and reveals his plan and exposes him to Kryptonite. As Superman weakens, Luthor further taunts him by revealing that the first missile is headed east toward Hackensack, New Jersey, aware that even Superman cannot stop both impacts. Eve Teschmacher, Luthor's accomplice, is horrified because her mother lives in Hackensack, but Luthor does not care and leaves Superman to a slow death. Knowing his reputation for keeping his word, Teschmacher rescues Superman on the condition that he will deal with the New Jersey missile first. After Superman diverts the eastbound missile into outer space, the other one explodes near the San Andreas Fault. He is able to mitigate the effects of the nuclear explosion, getting rid of the pollution from the fallout and shoring up the crumbling Earth, but the aftershocks damage the Golden Gate Bridge and cause the Hollywood Sign and the Hoover Dam to collapse.
While Superman is busy saving others from the aftershocks, Lois's car ends up falling into a crevice that opens from one of them. It quickly fills with dirt and debris and she suffocates to death. Angered at being unable to save her, Superman defies Jor-El's earlier warning not to manipulate human history, preferring to heed Jonathan's advice that he must be on Earth for "a reason". He accelerates around the Earth, rewinding time, in order to save Lois. He then delivers Luthor and Otis to prison and flies into the sunrise for further adventures. | revenge, violence | train | wikipedia | If it wasn't for the success of Batman the animated series..
If it wasn't for the success of Batman the animated series, it is likely that this series wouldn't have been made.
There was a cartoon Superman series in the early 1940's which is in a class of it's own.
Excluding the 1940's series, the other Superman cartoons look dated and cheezy if you were to watch them now.
This Superman series is brilliant, on par with Batman:The Animated Series.How did people make this series work?
They did exactly what they did with Batman:The Animated Series and did it with this cartoon.
Superman is an intelligent cartoon for adults and children with great plots, humour and plenty of action.
It has been ten years since Batman:The Animated Series made it's debut and it has not aged at all; the same can be said for Superman.I strongly recommend this movie and also, the Batman/Superman team up movie from 1998.
Absolute magic!.
After the success of "Batman: The Animated Series", Superman, who'd been out of the lime light for a while except for "Lois & Clark", finally got a shot at his own series again.
M*A*S*H alum Mike Farrell provided the voice of Superman's Earth dad.Storylines were generally good and voice acting solid (as mentioned above), but the only thing that really marred this show was the animation.
Sadly, this look has been retained for "Justice League".Batman has made guest appearances on Superman from time to time, even did a "movie" with him, which brought their relationship up to date.So all in all, a 9 1/2 out of 10..
Superman best animated series.
When you are watching this series you are feeling Superman is one of the greatest heroes in comics history.
You will learn about his weakness, his enemies and his friends through the episodes.Later in series you will see Superman teaming with another greats superheroes like Batman, Flash, Green Lantern and more.
The episodes of Superman and Batman are excellent because are mixing enemies from both series.
I recommend to watch Word's Finest episodes.Lex Luthor is the main enemy of Superman but you will see in action more enemies like Metallo, Darkseid, Braniac, Joker and more.
But every episodes are great and you don't wanna miss any one of them.I recommend this series..
If one were to gather their knowledge of Superman from these movies they will deduce that Superman's main villains were Lex Luther, Zod, Nuclear Man and Richard Pryor.
Well this animated series was great as it featured a vast assortment of villains, great voice work by Tim Daly, and had interesting stories.
I enjoyed watching this incarnation of Superman as he was actually Superman without being indestructible unbeatable man like he has been portrayed at times.
No here you will see him lose a good friend to the cold Darkseid, help the Green Lantern take on the villainous Sinistro, and battle schemes by Lex involving him creating a cyborg man with kryptonite in his chest named Metallo.
Superman was also in a few DC Comic superhero show spin-offs like "The Batman/Superman Adventures" and "Justice League".
I watched Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, love Christopher Reeve's Superman, and I watched this animated series.
The animated series is a personal favorite of mine along with my favorite super hero, Spider-Man. I loved both these series in the 90's.
The Spider-Man films are perfect along with Christopher Reeve's Superman movies!
Just as good as Batman the animated series.
The relationship between Lois and Superman/Clark is great right from the beginning.
The crossovers with batman are great, and provide some of my favorite episodes.
My favorite episode was when superman went undercover as batman and teamed up with robin because Bruce Wayne went missing.The Animation is great.
While it was not as thin and cheap looking as "The New Batman Adventures" (don't get me wrong, that animation looked great) it wasn't as good as the animation in Batman Animated Series.
While Batman TAS had the best animation, there were some episodes that had HORRIBLE animation, but with Superman this doesn't happen..
Of particular interest and excitement is the introduction of Mr. Mxyzptlk in "MXYZPIXILATED" (released on DVD in Volume 2), Darkseid in "TOOLS OF THE TRADE" (Volume 1) and the Joker (usually a Batman villain) to the series in "WORLD'S FINEST" (Volume 2).
This series still, even though it has long since been cancelled off the air (except for syndication), proves to be a great homage to the Superman universe, and to comic books in general.
It is an excellent example of outstanding ideas, insight, animation, action, a bit of romance, and suspense.THIS REVIEW IS DEDICATED TO ANYONE, LIVING OR DEAD, INVOLVED IN THE PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE "SUPERMAN" UNIVERSE..
I thought the animated series was great it had the feel of Superman and best of all it Superman looked like Superman.
It isn't as good as the Batman: Animated Series but still a damn good animated version of the Man of Steel..
Superman: The Animated Series shows once again that lightning can strike twice.
Great animation, stories, and voice-over performances prove that Superman can survive 60 years and still find audiences in this sarcastic television era..
From the pilot episode to further adventures of the Man of Steel, Superman:TAS is another gem of the golden age of superhero cartoons(and that's counting the X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons as well as Iron Man and Fantastic Four).
Like the Batman series, the character driven stories are great with awesome writing and truly spectacular action scenes that sometimes share the spotlight with other well-known stars of the DC Comics spectrum.
The Superman movies were great and all, but the animated series made me more and more infatuated with Superman.
Superman: TAS is one of the best animated properties to come out of DC Comics.
This, even more than the previous Batman animated series, is strongly influenced by the 1940s Max Fleischer cartoons.
It is perhaps more child friendly than the Batman series, with for example, Lois Lane constantly depicted wearing the same clothes, but the makers clearly understand the difference between the two superheroes, Batman is a punisher of the guilty while Superman is a defender of the innocent.The writing, while not so daring as the Justice League series of the same time, is not without innovation.
The one dud of the first series is "the Main man" an ill-considered story which unfortunately straddles two episodes.
The animation is very handsome and detailed, with intriguing character designs(Clark/Superman's big jaw is quite unique).
Perhaps it is not as atmospheric as Batman: The Animated Series, but that is enough of that still.
The characters are wonderful, Superman is a charismatic hero, Supergirl is a great addition, Lois avoids being stereotypical and Lex Luthor and Braniac are great villains.
At first, I wasn't sure I was going to get into it considering I was never much of a Superman fan, but this is a fantastic show that was surprisingly very consistent and contained superb storytelling on par with Batman: TAS.
The best episodes are some of the best in the entire DCAU canon, and this show actually made Superman a compelling character to me to the point where I became a big fan for once.
The music was terrific as well and way ahead of its time in regards to animated series.I think that once Darkseid entered the show, it became even better because the story lines involving him pretty much knocked it out of the park in regards to what the show was capable of (emotion, drama, action, suspense, etc).
Overall, the only other show in the DCAU that comes close in my opinion is Batman: TAS, and I'm happy to own both on DVD along with the rest of the DCAU series.
Animation for bringing me both exactly what expected from The Man of Steel and a lot more, because I feared that I would be bored watching my least favorite superhero in this series.While not as complex as the masterfully crafted characters of Batman: TAS, I was presented with many entertaining characters old and new like the intimidating Darkseid and the destroyer of Krypton himself Brainiac and the hilarious Mr. Mxyzptlk.
Other memorable villains include the business-man Lex Luthor who quickly became my favorite and the tragic case of Bizarro.As a non-Superman fan I still have my own problems with Superman himself, because I think he's quite a bore, but I didn't expect anything else.
Tim Dailey may be "the voice of Superman" for the fans like Kevin Conroy is to Batman fans, but I personally prefer the Justice League series' George Newbern.My praise towards Superman: TAS goes to the colourful animation and the reinvention of the Superman mythos along with the episodes Brave New Metropolis, The Late Mr. Kent and World's Finest.A treat for Superman fans and superhero fans in general and, yes, even a non-Superman fan can occasionally get a new appreciation for the Man of Steel..
Best Superman TV Series ever.
This is truly the best Superman series.
Totally in line with the Superman Mythos, is has so many great episodes, it would take the entire review to list them.
Just a great series and a true telling of Superman..
Well, as a fan of Superman, there's nothing much to say, the 10 out of 10 score will tell you.But since I'm required to write at least 5 lines, here's what I think: This animation series are definitely thumbs up & I actually think that the team must be Einstein's students perhaps.
The First Spiritual (and shared universe) Sequel To Batman: The Animated Series!.
Superman: The Animated Series filled the void left by Superman IV: The Quest For Peace and gave what fans of Batman: The Animated Series wanted: a show focusing on The Man of Steel done in the same manner as that of The Dark Knight's masterful series.
This series launched the wider DC Animated Universe, while Batman: The Animated Series planted the aesthetic foundations for the later shows following its continuity, like Batman Beyond and Justice League.Superman has never looked better than he does here; the sharp Bruce Timm aesthetic is still eye-poppingly gorgeous to look at, and it's great seeing characters like Green Lantern, Batman, The Flash and Aquaman make appearances.
Superman: the Animated Series.
Superman: the Animated Series.
I remember this came out around the same time as Batman the Animated Series started to end.
Unlike Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series started with his origin.
Well it's not on par with the Batman cartoons it still has its own finesse and some good moments at times.
This is a good but not great incarnation of Superman.
On the other hand, the handful of episodes where Superman has no physical challenge are some of the best and most faithful adaptations you will find in animation or film.Too many of the villains challenge Superman physically.
It seems like every member of Intergang has a laser that can hurt him, every villain, even at one point a wind up boxing kangaroo (Toyman) can challenge Superman physically.
Of the 54 episodes in this series, I'd say a good 40+ of them involve Superman going toe for toe with the villain.
She's a version that seems like a good reporter and not someone who Superman is attracted to for no reason.Watching this series I would rank the top villains as Lex Luthor, Darkseid, Metallo, Mxyzptlk, and Bizarro as the top 5, in that order.
(S2E25-26) - Knight Time (S3E02) - Little Big Head Man (S3E05)All the Batman crossover episodes are good highlights as well..
From the people that brought you Batman: The Animated Series.....
....Comes a show that needs more improvements then I don't know what.This is an okay show with great character development but it needs better stories.
First, it's not great as batman or spider man, the only good thing is the action with villains as darkseid, brianiac, etc.
The thing that I hate in this show is super girl, she looks like a prostitute and I don't understand why they ruin the series like that, and I HATE this Supergirl because she ruined the series of the new adventures of batman, and the series are not the same as BTA, that's the reason that I prefer the series of spider man or iron man, because in spider man when you have seen a spider boy or spider girl?
But I insist the series of superman would have been better without super girl, I think she is worst character that I have seen.
Best Animated Interpretation of Superman Ever!!.
While I am a Batman fan first and foremost and love the animated series, I also love Superman quite a bit.
I've seen every animated series of Superman and as far as I'm concerned, this one is the best of all of them, even though the classic Fleisher cartoons of the 40's give it some competition.Superman: The Animated Series is a more modern looking show than Batman is judging by the cars in the city as well as the technology.
Superman himself and his alter ego of Clark Kent captures that feel more than anybody and I personally enjoyed his vocal performances by Tim Daly and was saddened he was unavailable for Justice League.
Other than Lex Luthor, my favorite Superman villains were: Brainiac, who in this series is from Krypton, Mr Mxyptlk, who voiced over by Gilbert Gottfried, was so damn funny, that I bust a gut laughing at his episodes.
And for a dangerous, undefeatable villain, I choose Darkseid, voiced brilliantly by Michael Ironside.Since I didn't read Superman comics like I did Batman, I got familiar with characters in the animated series like: Anchorwoman Angela Chen, Detectives Maggie Sawyer, and Dan Turpin of the Metropolis SCU.
NOW!, episodes with Supergirl, the final two part episode, Legacy, and I especially love teams ups with Batman, like World's Finest, Knight Time, and the Demon Reborn.
I love everything about the series, the animation quality, the voice over cast, and the great music by Shirley Walker.
I've recently heard that there will be an animated Direct to DVD Superman movie coming out this year.
I'm already anxious to see it and get it.Superman: The Animated Series was superb.
Superman, though a cartoon, had great plots.
Plus, the final episode, unlike the weak ending to, "Batman: TAS," was great.
Superman The Animated series comes from the creators of Batman The Animated Series and is in many ways a sequel.
Mettalo has much more depth, Parasite absorbs thoughts as well as powers, but best of all Brainiac is a Kryptonian Super Computer.The show is largely an adaption of the 90's Superman Stories, with Lex Luthor the owner of Lex Corp, Pa Kent it still alive and Batman and Superman aren't so buddy, buddy.The show, however, really begins to shine when it adapts older stories.
Superman the animated series was over, but he lived again in Justice Leaue....
superman the animated series is possibly the best we have seen of superman in animation the characters are very well presented.The writers have actually took the time to show us who superman is where he came from and how he came to terms with his powers and becoming the man of steel.The cast of voices are very well done i.e Tim daily aka superman and Clancy brown aka lex Luther.batman even makes a guest appearance in a brilliant episode and you see some classic villains i.e metallo,dark side,the joker.batman the animated series was amazing superman isn't as well written or dark but they are totally different.The action is Briilant and as young kid it made me smile to see superman soaring in the air.
The Man of steel animated series.
This cartoon is like an animated version of Smallville and The Man of steel (which I actually like).This show had great art style, voice acting, and character designs.
I even have a comic of this series somewhere at home.My favorite villains of the show were Metallo, Brainiac, The Unity, Lex Luthor and Luminous.
At about the same time someone else noticed that Batman had replaced Superman, similarly, for the #1 spot.
Superman The Animated Series is without a doubt my favorite version of Superman.
I grew up watching this series along with Batman TAS and Justice League when they aired on Cartoon Network.
It is not quite as good Batman TAS but it is still a great series.Tim Daly, in my opinion, is Superman.
I thought he nailed the character of Superman the same way Kevin Conroy nailed Batman in Batman TAS.
I like his performance as Superman in this and in some of the DC animated movies where he voiced Superman like Superman/Batman Public Enemies, Justice League Doom, etc.
I thought the voice actors did a fine job.I even liked Lana Lang in this series, which is a big surprise.
In fact I think she is even prettier than Lois.The villains are great and a lot of fun.
Some of the villain's stories are different from the comics like Brainiac, but that does not bother me so much.
My favorite of the villains are Lex Luthor (of course), Brainiac, and especially Darkseid.
Out of all the incarnations of Darkseid that I have seen put to screen, this version is the best by leaps and bounds.The animation is pretty good.
It is not as great as Batman TAS, but above average.
This series can be quite dark when it wants to be though.One thing I do not like, however, is how much they depower Superman in both this series and in Justice League.
Writing a story around such a powerful character like Superman can be very challenging.
When I was younger I used to watch this occasionally because it was the same good animation as Batman: The Animated Series, and it was one of the most famous super heroes in a cartoon. |
tt0031650 | The Mikado | === Act I ===
Courtyard of Ko-Ko's Official Residence
Gentlemen of the fictitious Japanese town of Titipu are gathered ("If you want to know who we are"). A handsome but poor trombonist, Nanki-Poo, arrives and introduces himself ("A wand'ring minstrel I"). He inquires about his beloved, a schoolgirl called Yum-Yum, who is a ward of Ko-Ko (formerly a cheap tailor). One of the gentlemen, Pish-Tush, explains that when the Mikado decreed that flirting was a capital crime, the Titipu authorities frustrated the decree by appointing Ko-Ko, a prisoner condemned to death for flirting, to the post of Lord High Executioner ("Our great Mikado, virtuous man"). As Ko-Ko was the next prisoner scheduled to be decapitated, the town authorities reasoned that he could "not cut off another's head until he cut his own off", and since Ko-Ko was not likely to try to execute himself, no executions could take place. However, all of the town's officials except the haughty nobleman, Pooh-Bah, proved too proud to serve under an ex-tailor, and they resigned. Pooh-Bah now holds all their posts and collects all their salaries. Pooh-Bah informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum is scheduled to marry Ko-Ko on the very day that he has returned ("Young man, despair").
Ko-Ko enters ("Behold the Lord High Executioner") and asserts himself by reading off a list of people "who would not be missed" if they were executed ("As some day it may happen"), such as people "who eat peppermint and puff it in your face". Yum-Yum appears with Ko-Ko's other two wards, Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing ("Comes a train of little ladies", "Three little maids from school"). Pooh-Bah does not think that the girls have shown him enough respect ("So please you, sir"). Nanki-Poo arrives and informs Ko-Ko of his love for Yum-Yum. Ko-Ko sends him away, but Nanki-Poo manages to meet with his beloved and reveals his secret to Yum-Yum: he is the son and heir of the Mikado, but travels in disguise to avoid the amorous advances of Katisha, an elderly lady of his father's court. They lament that the law forbids them to flirt ("Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted").
Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah receive news that the Mikado has just decreed that unless an execution is carried out in Titipu within a month, the town will be reduced to the rank of a village, which would bring "irretrievable ruin". Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush point to Ko-Ko himself as the obvious choice for beheading, since he was already under sentence of death ("I am so proud"). Ko-Ko argues, however, that, firstly, it would be "extremely difficult, not to say dangerous", for someone to attempt their own beheading, and secondly, it would be suicide, which is a capital offence. Fortuitously, Ko-Ko discovers that Nanki-Poo, in despair over losing Yum-Yum, is preparing to commit suicide. After ascertaining that nothing would change Nanki-Poo's mind, Ko-Ko makes a bargain with him: Nanki-Poo may marry Yum-Yum for one month if, at the end of that time, he allows himself to be executed. Ko-Ko would then marry the young widow.
Everyone arrives to celebrate Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum's union ("With aspect stern and gloomy stride"), but the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Katisha, who has come to claim Nanki-Poo as her husband. However, the townspeople are sympathetic to the young couple, and Katisha's attempts to reveal Nanki-Poo's secret are drowned out by the shouting of the crowd. Outwitted but not defeated, Katisha makes it clear that she intends to get vengeance.
=== Act II ===
Ko-Ko's Garden.
Yum-Yum is being prepared by her friends for her wedding ("Braid the raven hair"), after which she muses on her own beauty ("The sun whose rays"). Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo return to remind her of the limited duration of her impending union. Joined by Nanki-Poo and Pish-Tush, they try to keep their spirits up ("Brightly dawns our wedding-day"), but soon Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah enter to inform them of a twist in the law that states that when a married man is beheaded for flirting, his wife must be buried alive ("Here's a how-de-do"). Yum-Yum is unwilling to marry under these circumstances, and so Nanki-Poo challenges Ko-Ko to behead him on the spot. It turns out, however, that Ko-Ko has never executed anyone, not even a Blue bottle, and cannot execute Nanki-Poo, because the ex-tailor is too soft-hearted. Ko-Ko instead sends Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum away to be wed (by Pooh-Bah, as Archbishop of Titipu), promising to present to the Mikado a false affidavit in evidence of the fictitious execution.
The Mikado and Katisha arrive in Titipu accompanied by a large procession ("Mi-ya Sa-Ma", "From Every Kind of Man"). The Mikado describes his system of justice ("A more humane Mikado"). Ko-Ko assumes that the ruler has come to see whether an execution has been carried out. Aided by Pitti-Sing and Pooh-Bah, he graphically describes the supposed execution ("The criminal cried") and hands the Mikado the certificate of death, signed and sworn to by Pooh-Bah as coroner. Ko-Ko notes slyly that most of the town's important officers (that is, Pooh-Bah) were present at the ceremony. However, the Mikado has come about an entirely different matter; he is searching for his son. When they hear that the Mikado's son "goes by the name of Nanki-Poo", the three panic, and Ko-Ko says that Nanki-Poo "has gone abroad". Meanwhile, Katisha is reading the death certificate and notes with horror that the person executed was Nanki-Poo. The Mikado, though expressing understanding and sympathy ("See How the Fates"), discusses with Katisha the statutory punishment "for compassing the death of the heir apparent" to the Imperial throne—something lingering, "with boiling oil ... or melted lead". With the three conspirators facing painful execution, Ko-Ko pleads with Nanki-Poo to reveal himself to his father. Nanki-Poo fears that Katisha will demand his execution if she finds he is alive, but he suggests that if Katisha could be persuaded to marry Ko-Ko, then Nanki-Poo could safely "come to life again", as Katisha would have no claim on him ("The flowers that bloom in the spring"). Though Katisha is "something appalling", Ko-Ko has no choice: it is marriage to Katisha, or a painful death for himself, Pitti-Sing and Pooh-Bah.
Ko-Ko finds Katisha mourning her loss ("Alone, and yet alive") and throws himself on her mercy. He begs for her hand in marriage, saying that he has long harboured a passion for her. Katisha initially rebuffs him, but is soon moved by his story of a bird who died of heartbreak ("Tit-willow"). She agrees ("There is beauty in the bellow of the blast") and, once the ceremony is performed (by Pooh-Bah, the Registrar), she begs for the Mikado's mercy for him and his accomplices. Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum then re-appear, sparking Katisha's fury. The Mikado is astonished that Nanki-Poo is alive, as the account of his execution had been given with such "affecting particulars". Ko-Ko explains that when a royal command for an execution is given, the victim is, legally speaking, as good as dead, "and if he is dead, why not say so?" The Mikado deems that "Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory", and everyone in Titipu celebrates ("For he's gone and married Yum-Yum"). | romantic | train | wikipedia | Suffers from cuts, but makes up in the quality of the performers--Modified rapture!.
In the 1930s the decision was made to do a movie of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta as a star vehicle for Kenny Baker.
They decided to do "The Yeomen of the Guard" with Baker as Fairfax and engage members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for other roles in the film--including Martyn Green as Jack Point.
In his autobiography, Green states that he feels "Yeomen" would have made a better movie.This is an interesting Mikado, with both its upsides and its downsides.
The Mikado is one of Gilbert and Sullivan's best works, and it's a shame that so much of G&S's score is left out.
Missing from the production are Pooh-Bah's "Young Man Despair;" Ko-Ko's excellent "Little List" song; "So Please You Sir, We Much Regret" (the quartet between Pooh-Bah and the girls); much of the Act I Finale; the quintet between Pooh-Bah, Pitti-Sing, Ko-Ko, the Mikado, and Katisha--"See How the Fates Their Gifts Allot;" Katisha's solo "Alone and Yet Alive;" and Katisha and Ko-Ko's duet "There is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast." I assume these were all cut due to time, but it is a shame to lose them.
Despite the fact that it's Kenny Baker and Jean Colin's faces you see on the front of the box, the star here is Martyn Green as Ko-Ko.
Green was the principle comic baritone with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (a name which has always been synonymous with the best performances of Gilbert & Sullivan you can find) for many years and both this and the many recordings he made show that he was one of the best actors to ever play the Grossmith roles.
He gives a stellar performance as Ko-Ko, the lord high executioner, and it really is a shame the list song was cut.
Another D'Oyle Carte regular, Sydney Granville, plays Pooh-Bah and he is excellent as well.
His Pooh-Bah is just as great as Green's Ko-Ko. There are quite a few other D'Oyly Carters here as well--Elizabeth Paynter and Kathleen Naylor (Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo), the entire chorus, and Gregory Stroud (Pish-Tush) had done a bit of work with the D'Oyly Carte during the 1926 season.
Victor Schertzinger manages to transfer the show to film quite well without it feeling too awkward on the screen (although I agree with Martyn Green in feeling that Yeomen would have made a better movie).All in all, despite the song cuts, it is an excellent production of the Mikado, one that is well worth seeing.
Of the Mikados I have seen on video and/or DVD (including this one, Stradford's production, Opera World's, and English National Opera's), I would say this is the best one out there.
I've seen this 1939 Technicolor version of the Mikado now maybe 10 times over 3 decades and it hasn't palled on me yet, it's a wonderful production of a wonderful operetta.
I'm not a huge Gilbert & Sullivan expert, but I consider this to be their best work overall - I'd give the music and lyrics 9.9 out of 10 alone - and I do recognise this was edited to be squeezed into 90 minutes.
This means a few great scenes and songs are not here, but as it's still great all the way through anyway I don't mind too much.Although he did a good job, was good looking and had a fine singing voice Kenny Baker is the only thing about this production that jars a little, his kind of material was best displayed in films like At The Circus.
Was it simply to help sell it in America, or did he want the role?At this distance we should be grateful for what we've got - I wish this entire team (cast and crew) had also made some of the other greats such as Pinafore and Penzance for us to admire and then quibble over the chosen edit!
To anyone who wants to give G&S a try, try this, revel in Gilbert's gloriously witty and extensive use of the English language, be roused by some of Sullivan's most beautiful and catchy tunes.
For many years it was fashionable to sneer at this early marriage of Gilbert & Sullivan, the D'Oyly Carte and the movies.
But most of what remains is charming, fresh and very lively.Martyn Green steals the film as KoKo, though Sydney Granville gives a time honoured performance as Pooh Bah. My only real gripe is that Darrell Fancourt, that doyen of the D'Oyly Carte, was not called upon to sing the title role.
And if I don't believe that this is the best of the G & S works, it is certainly a delightful way of spending an hour and a half..
Great singing, wonderful production..
Given these, the camera can rejoice in the operetta's stage-centeredness: the chorus can file onstage in glorious pageant and wondrous costume; the singers can face the audience and extend their arms in that wonderful G&S take on the hamminess that underlies the proper Englishman.
The singing is tops, the physical comedy is wonderful, and there's more good feeling in it than in the next 20 Hollywood feel-good movies you'll see..
The fact that it was shot in the UK in the new (and very vivid) technicolor, was a first for a start, and the preservation of the performances of a number of D'Oyly Carte principals makes this an important historical document.
Sadly, this seems to be a reissue of the version that was on general release in the cinema.
The original cut of the film included a number of sections not present in this release - Ko-Ko's "Little List" song for instance was filmed and certainly was present in the original master copy (a copy of which was in the possession of a late member of the old D'Oyly Carte administrative staff).
Those Flowers That Bloom In The Spring Tra La. With the exception of American radio tenor Kenny Baker, the members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company are the cast of this filmed production of the Mikado.
It was the first technicolor film done in the United Kingdom although in that same year, much better use of color was made in The Four Feathers.A lot of history has passed since The Mikado made its debut in the 1880s.
When that treaty was not renewed in 1923 it eventually set the two powers on a course for war.But in the 1880s Great Britain was fascinated by things Japanese and Gilbert&Sullivan scored a big old satirical hit with The Mikado.
The way Pooh-Bah collects offices and honors with the accompanying salaries was very much in line with the way the British courts over the years rewarded service rendered.Starring in the role of Nanki-Poo the Mikado's son who has run away because he doesn't want to marry some old harpy dad's picked out for him is American radio singer Kenny Baker.
He did several films, most notably the Goldwyn Follies where George Gershwin's last song hit during his lifetime, Love Walked In, became permanently identified with him.
No doubt for reasons of export the British producers chose Baker to have some recognizable name away from the D'Oyly Carte regular company who no one on this side of the pond would have known.
Baker's light pleasing tenor does justice to the Gilbert&Sullivan patter.The film does lack production values though, it's a photographed performance of the opera.
I would have liked to have seen better and outdoor sets possibly, but this is a never-neverland kind of Japan.The Mikado got an Oscar nomination for color cinematography, but was just another casualty to the Gone With The Wind juggernaut of 1939.
Still it's an interesting film and Gilbert&Sullivan fans who just care about the music should be pleased..
superb, if snipped, Gilbert and Sullivan.
This version of 'The Mikado' was released in 1939 and was an early Technicolor production.
This, and the fact that most of the cast are D'Oyly Carte veterans and experts in the material, means it is extremely watchable today.
Even the addition of American Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo (who acquits himself very well in such exalted company) can't spoil the feeling of watching a superior piece of operetta.Of course there are a number of songs missing from this score, which is a shame.
Chief amongst these is Ko-Ko's 'Little List', which I think was cut because of contemporary references which could seem offensive today.
I'd also liked to have seen more of Pooh-Bah, who has two songs deleted.If you like Gilbert and Sullivan, or operettas generally, or big stage production musicals, sung well and acted with style, 'The Mikado' is for you..
However, the cuts and interpolations made to turn the play into a movie are absolutely vile.
Several totally uncessary scenes are added, songs are given to the wrong characters, and several of the best are cut.
What's The Mikado without "I've Got A Little List" or Katisha's magnificent "Oh, Living I" aria?
I'd also be more comfortable with classic Japanese costumes (which, BTW, Gilbert insisted on) rather than these exaggerated, silly versions of them.
The D'Oyley Carte association with this film led me to expect an absolutely authentic production, and I was terribly disappointed..
Flawed but well made, well sung and interesting film of The Mikado.
The Mikado is one of Gilbert and Sullivan's best works, and I was most interested in seeing this version after trying to view as many G&S productions as possible.
I personally prefer the Lesley Garrett/Eric Idle 1987 version, but while flawed this Mikado is still interesting.
I can understand why there were some, but some either didn't make sense to be cut or are just too good, KoKo's Little List number was especially true to this.
I also thought the spoken prologue was rather pointless and characters have a tendency in important scenes in drift in and out of range.However, visually and technically it is splendid, the Technicolour looks gorgeous and the costumes and sets are wonderfully authentic.
The music is among G&S's best, and while you do wish it was complete it is beautifully performed and conducted.
The performances are generally great, Kenny Baker is not quite as impressive as Nanki-Poo, vocally the singing is bright and clear and he looks the part but his acting is rather bland.
John Barclay is an imposing Mikado, Gregory Stroud is good in the insubstantial role of Pish-Tush and Sydney Granville is delightfully pompous as Pooh-Bah. But the best performance easily comes from the splendid KoKo of Martyn Green, one of the best ever in this role, that's for sure.All in all, interesting and generally well-made and sung, but at the same time perhaps not the most ideal of versions.
It is a pity about the cuts but even so the production is a delight with excellent diction and the 'cut glass' accents of the pretty maids is splendid.With regard to the cuts: the biggest loss is Katisha's "Hearts do not break" and Katisha's duet with Koko " if that is so let's merrily marry".
Yumyum's " The sun whose ray's" is truncated in that the second verse about the moon is omitted, however the Mikado's " I've got a little list " is there and his laugh is terrific, worthy of Boris Karloff.
What did surprise me was that Nankipoo's song " A wandering minstrel I " had an unexpected resonance when combined with the date 1939, it gave his patriotic ballad section a shiver up my spine and brought back memories I would rather not have brought back.Anyway Ken Baker's singing was excellent and as I said the whole thing was beautifully done.
For 1939 and early color this is a film to be remembered.
As Maltin says, Kenny Baker is not ideal, mainly because he has the only American accent in a cast of English G&S specialists and strikes a somewhat discordant note.(I saw this film when I was in the second grade and I still have vivid memories of it, I might even say that it opened a whole new world of musical theatre to me)..
This film romps through the Mikado in less than 90 minutes.
The American lead Kenny Baker, as Nanki-Poo, and Jean Colin, as Yum-Yum both, strangely, sound as though they inhaled from a helium balloon before they started to sing.
This was all beautifully shot at Pinewood Studios with excellent costumes and sets.
The Mikado is a movie that should appeal to those who like musicals or those 35 and older.
The singing is okay and the songs delightful.
All in all, a delightful little musical by Gilbert Sullivan.
I think the effectiveness of the movie would have been more appreciated if Japanese artist had played the roles.
Kenny Baker hogs it but historically of great importance..
This old Technicolor film from 1939 is shown on television quite a lot.Kenny Baker is a taste I never acquired (Dennis Day, his successor on the Jack Benny show was much more bearable.) and, especially in the prologue, he's all over the place.
Kenny's problem is not only his American accent but his really overripe tenor and equally overripe smile gets quite irritating after a while, at least to me.Despite all this, the film is an important record of the D'Oyly Carte company in 1939 and especially of Martyn Green's performance.
A most interesting film for its time.******* out of ***********.
This film looks like a candidate for a restoration if the original negative still exists.
Kenny Baker was OK, but I can't help thinking that he was "groomed" to be another Dick Powell.
Looking at Martyn Green's performance made me think of how Buster Keaton could have played Koko.
And that brought to mind the old television version with Groucho Marx in the role.
Gilbert & Sullivan!
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company!.
I find that I didn't really like it -- but I didn't really DISlike it, either.At the start, I was SURE that this movie had been "colorized".
Then I restarted the opening credits and saw it was, indeed, filmed in color -- in 1939.Yes, they cut "I Have a Little List" and a couple of other favorites.
And yes, they switched the order of some them.However, I think today's audiences would prefer the emended "Little List" and "Sublime" to Gilbert & Sullivan's original lyrics.
I think this version was filmed BEFORE the "official" amendments to those songs -- to eliminate the N-word.I agree with the reviewer who said that this production is better seen as a visual record of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company than as excellence in transferring a stage production to film.
This film was produced by arrangement with Rupert D'Oyly Carte.
Chorus from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Songs, all lyrics by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, music by Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan: "The Sun, Whose Rays" (Baker, reprized Colin), "Gentlemen of Japan" (chorus), "A Wandering Minstrel, I" (Baker and chorus), "Our Great Mikado" (Stroud and chorus), "Behold the Lord High Executioner" (chorus), "Taken from a County Jail" (Green), "Comes a Train of Little Ladies" (chorus), "Three Little Maids from School" (Colin, Paynter, Naylor and chorus), "Were You Not to Ko-Ko Plighted" (Baker and Colin), "I Am So Proud" (Granville, Green, Stroud), "With Aspect Stern" (Green, Granville, Stroud, chorus), "The Threatened Cloud Has Passed Away" (Baker, Colin, Granville, Paynter, Naylor, chorus), "Long Life to Nanki-Poo" (Granville, chorus), "Your Revels Cease!" (Willis, chorus, Paynter, Baker), "Braid the Raven Hair" (chorus), "For He's Going To Marry Yum-Yum" (Paynter and chorus), "Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day" (Colin, Paynter, Baker, Stroud), "Here's a How-De-Do!" (Colin, Baker, Green), "Miya Sama" (chorus), "Obedience I Expect" (Barclay, Willis, chorus), "A More Humane Mikado" (Barclay and chorus), "The Criminal Cried" (Green, Paynter, Granville, chorus), "The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring" (Baker, Green, Colin, Paynter, Granville), "Titwillow" (Green).
Deleted songs: "Young Man Despair", "I've Got a Little List", "So Pardon Us'', "Oh Fool", "Flutter Little Heart", "A Is Happy", "Alone And Yet Alive", "Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast", "For He's Gone and Married Yum-Yum".
Copyright 10 May 1939 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. A G&S Films (London) Production.
U.K. release through General Film Distributors: January 1939.
Mind you, some viewers complained that Kenny Baker's American accent was distracting.
Others were unhappy by the omission of Ko-Ko's famous patter song about his "little list".
And many of the songs that are retained have been cut down to a few verses.
I came to this movie expecting a full-scale professional performance, encouraged by the presence of authentic Savoyard Martyn Green in the cast (he plays Ko-Ko).
For the first 20 minutes Schertzinger channels Quentin Tarantino: He gives us a capsule summary of the whole plot, followed by a flashback to Nanki-Poo's departure from court (including "If you want to know who we are" and some dialogue pilfered from Act II).
Then Nanki-Poo sings the first verse of "The sun whose rays" -- Yum-Yum's song from Act II -- just to mix things up a bit.
After that it settles down with a classical "Wand'ring Minstrel I" (interrupted only by one Village-of-the-Damned-looking little girl tugging on Nanki-Poo's sleeve during "Oh, sorrow").Green's Ko-Ko and Sydney Granville's Pooh-Bah are reasonable facsimiles of the stage roles, although they do manage to botch most of Gilbert's jokes with a wooden delivery -- and in many cases the punch lines are simply cut out!
Kenny Baker's Nanki-Poo is an inoffensive tenor (contradiction in terms?); Yum-Yum, on the other hand, sounds like one of the Chipmunks in most of her songs.The songs also suffer.
Most detrimentally, "I've got a little list" is cut entirely, as is Katisha's Act II solo, and "Our great Mikado" is shortened by a verse (which renders the lyrics more than a little confusing).
Blame the cuts on budget or censorship (or having no idea, or not being there) -- you can't blame them on time constraints.Schertzinger's "Mikado" was the first in a planned series of Pinewood G&S adaptations. |
tt0047029 | Romeo and Juliet | The play, set in Verona, Italy, begins with a street brawl between Montague and Capulet servants who, like their masters, are sworn enemies. Prince Escalus of Verona intervenes and declares that further breach of the peace will be punishable by death. Later, Count Paris talks to Capulet about marrying his daughter Juliet, but Capulet asks Paris to wait another two years and invites him to attend a planned Capulet ball. Lady Capulet and Juliet's nurse try to persuade Juliet to accept Paris's courtship.
Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Montague's son, about Romeo's recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems from unrequited infatuation for a girl named Rosaline, one of Capulet's nieces. Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo attends the ball at the Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline. However, Romeo instead meets and falls in love with Juliet. Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, is enraged at Romeo for sneaking into the ball but is only stopped from killing Romeo by Juliet's father, who does not wish to shed blood in his house. After the ball, in what is now called the "balcony scene", Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and overhears Juliet at her window vowing her love to him in spite of her family's hatred of the Montagues. Romeo makes himself known to her and they agree to be married. With the help of Friar Laurence, who hopes to reconcile the two families through their children's union, they are secretly married the next day.
Tybalt, meanwhile, still incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt's insolence, as well as Romeo's "vile submission", and accepts the duel on Romeo's behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to break up the fight. Grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo confronts and slays Tybalt.
Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder of Mercutio. The Prince, now having lost a kinsman in the warring families' feud, exiles Romeo from Verona, under penalty of death if he ever returns. Romeo secretly spends the night in Juliet's chamber, where they consummate their marriage. Capulet, misinterpreting Juliet's grief, agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when she refuses to become Paris's "joyful bride". When she then pleads for the marriage to be delayed, her mother rejects her.
Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a potion that will put her into a deathlike coma for "two and forty hours". The Friar promises to send a messenger to inform Romeo of the plan so that he can rejoin her when she awakens. On the night before the wedding, she takes the drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is laid in the family crypt.
The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, Romeo learns of Juliet's apparent death from his servant Balthasar. Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from an apothecary and goes to the Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris who has come to mourn Juliet privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he drinks the poison. Juliet then awakens and, finding Romeo dead, stabs herself with his dagger. The feuding families and the Prince meet at the tomb to find all three dead. Friar Laurence recounts the story of the two "star-cross'd lovers". The families are reconciled by their children's deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the Prince's elegy for the lovers: "For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo." | tragedy, romantic | train | wikipedia | Renato Castellani's ROMEO AND JULIET has somehow fallen into a hole in film history.
Despite a handsome production with some worthy performances, it is overshadowed by Franco Zefferelli's 1966 film and even the 1936 MGM movie with Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Basil Rathbone, and John Barrymore.
One has to wonder why - it was the first version of the movie to be shot (or partially shot) on locale in Italy in color.
While the leads are not the proper juveniles that appeared in the 1966 version, Lawrence Harvey and Susan Shentell were closer to the ages of the characters than Howard and Shearer were.My guess is that it's very reliance on Italian movie production may have been a drawback to the audiences who (unfortunately) counted the most: English - speaking ones.
The leads were all English and the basic play (despite the Italian setting) was in English by the greatest writer of the English language.
Orson Welles' had completed and released OTHELLO in 1952 (where it, like this ROMEO AND JULIET, won a prize at the Venice Film Festival).
The failure of the Castellani movie remains striking and puzzling.Today Zefferelli's version is considered the best one by most viewers, because of his making his hero and heroine what they are: growing teenagers.
But one should not sneer at Harvey's attempts at Romeo opposite Shentell's Juliet.
Whether due to her acting or the director's direction she gave Juliet's passing a type of dignity I have rarely seen.As for the performers in the cast, Sebastian Cabot's Capulet is the picture of an Italian Renaissance merchant prince type, corpulent and ruthless towards his family's foes.
It's funny thinking of Cabot today as a villain in his roles, but in fact (prior to his going into CHECKMATE on television - where he was the wise spy master of the heroes) most of his film parts were villainous, or (as in THE TIME MACHINE) ridiculously self-important.
Look at his scene at the ball he is throwing when Tybalt (Enzo Fiormonte) wants to kill Romeo, but Cabot restrains him - adding that it can be done later.Also note Mervyn Johns as Friar Lawrence, who manages to show the all-to-human side of the good man, which enables so many bad things to occur because of his trusting the wrong people (one messenger is locked up because he is stuck in a quarantined house), or his instructions were not clear enough.
Johns was a fine character role player, and was lucky to pass on his skills to his daughter Glynnis..
This film version created by Renato Castellani is a beauty to behold.
In the picturesque settings of Siena, Padova, Verona and Venice, this romantic tale unfolds in glorious color.While the character interpretations may appeal to a select number, I appreciate the total concept and the carrying out of that objective."Romeo" takes on a stylistic life of its own through Castellani, and for those willing to go on his journey, the rewards are great.Mr. Harvey is interesting to see in an early role.
There's nothing inherently sacrosanct in the role of Romeo, and Harvey interprets the way he (and Castellani) sees him, rather than according to some staid traditional model.
There are certain indispensable elements for a great Romeo and Juliet: youthful, energetic lovers; a brilliant Mercutio and irrepressible Nurse; and crisp pacing.
Castellani's version fails on all counts.
Yet Castellani's screenplay DRRRAAGGSS, interrupting key scenes with tedious stage business.
Similarly, when Romeo opens the tomb, Castellani has him stop, walk all the way back outside, find an appropriate tool, and then start over.
It's dismaying that these unnecessary scenes are added at the expense of some of the play's best material.
A high point in most productions is Mercutio's Queen Mab speech yet Castellani omits it!
Castellani seems to think little of Shakespeare's language, preferring his own dialogue.
That's right; he cuts Queen Mab but adds vapid filler for Rosaline and other minor characters.
As for the actors, Susan Shentall sleep-walks through most of her scenes, but after two hours of Lawrence Harvey's plodding monotone, I can't blame her.
These actors can't even summon the energy for a proper swordfight; Tybalt merely stabs Mercutio, while a bored looking Romeo bashes Paris over the head.
Where's Basil Rathbone when you need him?This production is often praised for its lush costumes, picturesque Italian locations and cinematography reminiscent of Italian paintings.
Handsome, leisurely-paced, ineptly cut, often badly acted (especially by Laurence Harvey as Romeo, surprisingly) version of Shakespeare's most playful and youthful tragedy.
Much of the film's charm lies in the creation of sumptuous tableaux in the tradition of Italian Renaissance painting, and the portrayal of Capulet is a marvelously acted stereotype of the fat, crude nouveau riche Italian patriarch; but Harvey (despite a few promising moments early on) is far too effusive and unctuous, creepily reminiscent of John Dall in Rope; Susan Shentall displays admirable coyness and gusto in the "overture" of the dance and courtship scenes, but stiffens and is stifled by the death of a thousand cuts toward the end (although almost nothing is cut from the first act).
Still, aside from some ghastly, somnambulistic line readings, the film often dazzles with its feeling for the music of Shakespeare's text; the Nurse's folkloric shanty is highlighted with musical settings (shadings)-- Flora Robson is delightful in the role; the vaguely rappish banter of Benvolio and Romeo's first scene is gracefully and intelligently played.
The near-interchangeability of the actors who play Benvolio, Tybalt and Paris is regrettable..
Susan Shentall conveys all the fire of the first love and the impending tragedy that will follow it.
Laurence Harvey, though not the ideal match (as far as age is concerned) for Shentall's Juliet, manages to pass Romeo's brash, passioned nature.
The great Robert Krasker's photography is the work of a consummated master: each picture frame reflects a Renaisssance painting, as well as the sets (all original ones in Venice, Padova, Verona and Siena), costumes and the décor.
The best names then available in those fields in Europe were recruited to recreate what Romeo and Juliet's Verona should have been.
Roman Vlad's use of an Italian medieval gagliarda as the film's dominating musical comment is a lesson in itself.
When compared to Castellani's masterpiece, all other versions seem like pale, unfocused, poor readings of WS's immortal tragedy.
Hope this film will soon be available on DVD.The Blu-Ray version of the Castellani "Romeo and Juliet": this is one of the greatest movies of all time.
Castellani was surely not a Visconti nor a Rosselini, but his "Romeo and Juliet" is absolute perfection.
- there is more: subtitles are frequently a gross distortion of the original text - e.g.: in the DVD version the master of ceremonies at the Capulet's ball announces that "...
For its time it was revolutionary, because no previous Shakespeare film had used so many outdoor, realistic locations.
Since 1954, however, it has been remade in more cinematic and dynamic versions.Nonetheless, it's a very worthwhile movie, especially for Shakespeare fans.
I personally think Laurence Harvey is a terrific Romeo.
In fact, Harvey is the screen's best Romeo; he's a lot more passionate than Leslie Howard in the MGM version, and he speaks the verse better than either DiCaprio or Leonard Whitting in the two subsequent versions.
The locations, better than any version, remind us of just how thin the streets were in Verona during the time of the play, and the high, thick, stone walls serve as a symbol of the intransigence of the families.Yes, it does have shortcomings, but don't dismiss its virtues, which are many, especially to those of us who want more than the MTV-type Shakespeare that the DiCaprio version offers..
A very good film about the immortal and tragic story of the Verona's young lovers.
This lavish British-Italian production about ill-fated and star-crossed lovers deals about the Montagues and Capulets, two feuding families whose young sons Romeo(Laurence Harvey) and Juliet (Susan Shentall) meet and fall in love and whose passion for one another is irresistible .
But Juliet's father(Sebastian Cabot) wants marry her to a rich suitor (Norman Wooland) and keep apart Romeo.There are many obstacles on the way and they have to hide their love from the world because both know which their parents will not allow them to be together.The prince of Verona has prohibited duels and fights, but Tybaldo Capulet (Enzo Fiermonte) kills Mercutio and Romeo Montague as revenge murders Tybaldo.
The priest friend (Mervyn Johns) prepares a potion for Juliet to simulate her death.
Then Romeo is banished to Mantua when he receives the news that Juliet has dead, and happen their tragic destiny.This is one of the best filmed and most pleasant adaptations of Shakespeare's play.
Lush production and well-performed, though is handicapped because the two protagonists are too old for the roles , but at the play they were fifteen and fourteen years old respectively .This sumptuously version has the virtue of good and appealing casting , Laurence Harvey , Flora Robson , Mervyn Johns,Bill Travers and a brief introduction by John Gielgud.
Exquisite cinematography by Robert Krasker, a cameraman usual of costumer and historical super-productions (Alexandre the Great , Cid , Fall of the Roman Empire) .
Hauntingly wonderful musical score by Roman Vlad .The picture was professionally directed by Renato Castenalli, made in Pinewood Studios and Italian location .
Anyone interested in tragic love tales and timeless stories will want to watch this cinematic version on Shakespeare tragedy.Other versions about this know story are the following ones : the vintage classic, Romeo and Juliet (36)by George Cukor with Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard ; a dancing adaptation (1966) by Paul Czinner with Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn ; famous rendition (1968) by Franco Zeffirelli with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey ; and modern versión (1996) by Baz Luhrmann with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes ..
Renato Castellani's rendering of this tragedy is my all-time favorite version.
Using on-location settings and magnificent costumes and art direction, this presentation is without peer.Laurence Harvey is perfect as the young Romeo.
He brings genuine love and pathos to his character that is heart-rending.Susan Shentall's gives the most intelligent and moving execution of this challenging role I've ever witnessed.
She, like Harvey, overcome minor matters of age to make these characters their own.Who could be a better nurse than the great Flora Robson, or Norman Wooland a finer Paris?
Roman Vlad's original score is wonderful, and he's composed a Gallilard that becomes a haunting motif as it's reprised throughout in different variations.If only a digitalized restoration could be done on this great work, that would make everything complete..
The best Film of Romeo and Juliet ever made..
I was able to see it again a few years ago, thinking that maybe it would not have the same appeal as when I was a child, but I loved it again, only more appreciatively so.
The casting was brilliant and modern versions of this film bear no comparison.
It made an impression on a young child and encouraged further interest and research into the works of Shakespeare.
This version of the film is, in my opinion the best interpretation of the author's original play..
Admittedly, the performances are not perfect, but I actually like Susan Shentall in the role of Juliet.
Why is it that so many actresses playing Juliet feel the necessity to shout their lines?
So does Megan Follows.I will agree that Laurence Harvey is awful as Romeo.
(Although, truth be told, Howard's Romeo seems ageless to me.) His costumes aren't much better than his acting.
In the scene where he marries Juliet and the subsequent duel, he is wearing a blue and yellow ensemble that makes him look like a demented superhero.I'm still waiting for a film version of Shakespeare's wonderful play with an actor who truly seems to understand the character of Romeo.
A friend of mine lent this film to me, because I'm doing research before directing the play.
I've now seen about 9 different productions, and while the production is handsome and offers some interesting scenes to try and move the plot along, it features costumes woefully wrong for the period.
The interpretation of the text is probably as good as it can be, but huge chunks of dialogue, including the Queen Mab Speech are cut, and Mercutio, always a vivid character, has been reduced to a few lines and an unimportant character.
Sebastian Cabot is marvelous as Capulet, and Flora Robson offers some fine moments as the Nurse.
Susan Shentall's Juliet is not bad, but except for occasional scenes, Laurence Harvey is phoning it in.
I don't completely hate this one -- that would be the Baz Lurhmann disaster, but in comparison, while I've always loved the 1968 Zefferelli version, I'm seeing it from different eyes now, and as I watch the 1936 MGM production, I'm liking the interpretation of the text in that far better than the 1968.
This film is an interesting artifact, but it's not especially inspirational.
Some stage-like acting means story is viewed from a distance.
I wished Juliet hadn't been played so demurely.
I enjoyed Mervyn Johns' Friar Lawrence.
We had to wait another 14 years for Zefferelli's definitive version..
This version of Romeo&Juliet might have worked better had Marlon Brando and Pier Angeli done the leads as originally intended.
Laurence Harvey and the unknown Susan Shentall who stayed unknown after playing Juliet were adequate and nothing more.Possibly the mix of Italian and English players might have had something to do with it.
Such key roles as Mercutio and Tybalt were given short shrift here and they are integral to the story.
One thing I absolutely did not like was the dueling scenes between first Tybalt and Mercutio and then Romeo and Tybalt.
This is always to me the high point of Romeo and Juliet where matters come to a head between the two feuding families, Montagues and Capulets.
A pair of secondary characters in the play are who you notice.
Flora Robson as the nurse and confidante of Juliet and Lord Capulet played with passion by Sebastian Cabot stand out.
I never saw any other actor get so much out of that scene as Cabot did.The film is shot in Italy for authenticity and the cinematography is nice, as nice as Franco Zeffirelli's version.
The acting for the most part is not as good as that over the hill gang version that MGM did with Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer..
Highly praised by critic Pauline Kael, and absurdly over-rated by most other critics, this is undoubtedly one of the worst English-language, talking film versions of Shakespeare ever made.
It makes the ridiculous casting of Dick Powell in the 1935 "Midsummer Night's Dream" seem absolutely inspired.It isn't that the actual casting is bad, just that a lot of the acting is.With all due respect to gay people everywhere, I can safely say that Laurence Harvey, normally an excellent actor who can make even badly written roles seem memorable (such as his Col.Travis in John Wayne's "The Alamo"), is by far the swishiest Romeo imaginable, making you wonder what Juliet sees in him.
He makes Leslie Howard in the 1936 "Romeo" look like Clark Gable as Rhett Butler carrying Scarlett up that staircase.
He has a moony-eyed smile on his face during the balcony scene which makes you want to say,"Snap out of it!"Susan Shentall is a beautiful but bland Juliet, Flora Robson is just OK as the nurse, especially in comparison with Pat Heywood in Zeffirelli's 1968 version.
Worst of all, director Renato Castellani has made an awesomely stupid decision in cutting the roles of Mercutio and Tybalt to shreds and casting two unknown, barely competent Italian actors with dubbed English-speaking voices as these colorful characters.The very minor role of Benvolio is beefed up for Bill Travers.
The brawls and duels are miserably done (there is actually no duel in this version between Romeo and Tybalt; Romeo simply rushes up to him and stabs him!), especially in comparison to both the MGM 1936 version and the Franco Zeffirelli 1968 film.
Only Sebastian Cabot (better known as Mr. French in TV's "Family Affair") comes out unscathed---he is a brilliant Lord Capulet.
The movie is the first "Romeo" in color, and filmed in Italy, but no match for Zeffirelli's version..
Actually I consider this one of the better filmed versions of Romeo and Juliet.
The best one for me is the 1968 Zeffirelli film, while I liked the 1936 Cukor film(though it was less than perfect) but didn't care for the 1996 Luhrmann version.
Castellani's does have some clumsily choreographed scenes, the stabbing of Mercutio and Romeo bashing Paris around the head were the worst offenders, a Mercutio that has no feeling for Shakespeare, a Paris that doesn't do anything with his already bland role and a Tybalt that is nowhere near smooth or nasty enough.
But of the four versions I put it second to Zeffirelli's.
And generally the script is witty and full of poetry,though the omission of Mercutio's Queen Mab is regrettable, and generally the actors do have a feel for it.
It is intelligently if leisurely directed by Castellani, while the story is still as emotionally resonant as it ever was.
The banter between Romeo and Benvolio is very intelligently done too.
The performances, apart from Mercutio, Paris and Tybalt, are great.
I personally liked Laurence Harvey as Romeo, much preferring him to Leslie Howard in Cukor's.
Susan Shentell brings a lovely gentle quality to Juliet and looks ravishing.
Flora Robson is simply delicious as the Nurse, while Mervyn Johns is a noble Friar Lawrence and Sebastian Cabot is a brilliant Lord Capulet.
Overall, this version is problematic but on its own it is a visually beautiful and more than decent film.
It seems the focus was so much on the religion of the play it lacked any passion whatsoever.Utterly unwatchable.There was a superior version filmed in 1936 and 1996 looks glowing by comparison. |
tt0270480 | Juana la Loca | Tordesillas, 1554. Seventy four years old, Queen Joanna of Castile, called Juana La Loca (Joanna the Madwoman), is still mourning the loss of her husband who died a half century before. Joanna remembers with emotion the man she loved passionately, but who brought her ruin. She does not fear death, she says, because death would allow her to be reunited with her husband. Their story goes back almost 60 years.
In 1496, Joanna, the third child of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, is leaving Spain through the port of Laredo. She is headed to Flanders to marry the Archduke of Austria, Philip, nicknamed the Handsome, a man she has never laid eyes on. The marriage has been arranged for political purposes. Joanna's siblings and her mother, Queen Isabella, bid her farewell.
Once in Flanders, Joanna, young and inexperienced, is immediately smitten by her handsome fiancé. He is equally pleased with his beautiful bride and orders the marriage to take place at that very moment so they can consummate their marriage without any delay. Their union is initially a great success. The political alliance between their two countries has been consolidated and Joanna and Philip are very attracted to each other. With his good looks and bed manners, Philip completely captivates his wife. Their passionate love making soon produces results. Joanna has a daughter, followed shortly after by a son. She gives birth to her son in an emergency bathroom delivery without any assistance, cutting the umbilical cord afterwards with her teeth.
A combination of love, lust and emotional dependency make the passionate Joanna deeply attached to her husband. Her love becomes consuming, but the intensity of her passion turns Philip away. He is a restless man who finds entertainment in going hunting and in the arms of other women. The deaths of Joanna's brother, the stillbirth of her brother's daughter, her older sister's death and her sister's son's death unexpectedly make her heir of the Castilian and Aragones crowns. However, she is not interested in government. Obsessed with her husband, Joanna surprises him in bed with a lover, who Joanna later successfully identifies as Ines de Brabante, one of the court ladies. In a fit of jealousy, Joanna cuts the long red hair of her rival. While Joanna despairs at her husband’s unfaithfulness, she receives further bad news. Her mother has died. Joanna thus becomes Queen of Castile and has to return to her kingdom. Her tantrums over her husband’s infidelities have made her start to become known as Joanna the Mad.
At the Castilian court in Burgos, the Queen is happily greeted by her subjects, but her marital life is still in turmoil. Philip is soon bewitched by the charms and spells of Aixa, a Moorish prostitute who uses her sexual attraction and black magic to secure Philip's favor. With this new lover, the King becomes noticeably indifferent toward his wife, which adds to her increasingly insane jealousy.
Against the background of this troubled marriage, there are two opposed political parties at court, one Flemish, the other Castilian. The conspiring Flemish usurpers are headed by Señor de Veyre, Philip's right-hand man. Their objective is to have Joanna declared insane and for Philip to take power away from her. Joanna has her own set of supporters, the loyal Castilian royalists, headed by the Admiral of Castile. The Admiral and the Queen's friend and confidant, Elvira, try unsuccessfully to rescue Juana from her marital obsessions.
However, it is not the government that is on the Queen's mind; she is fixated on retaining her husband’s love. To avoid any temptations at court, she hires only ugly-looking maids of honor to serve her, but in fact Aixa has been brought to court by Philip, passing as one of the court ladies under the name of Beatriz de Bobadilla. Unaware of this, the Queen relies on Beatriz to find a spell to help her retain her husband's love. Joanna is equally misguided in her attempt to regain Philip's attention by simulating a love affair with Captain Álvaro de Estúñiga, a close friend from her childhood. The Queen’s lack of control permits the manipulation of her enemies to have her declared incompetent to rule. The King, encouraged by Señor de Veyre, resolves to take the rule of the kingdom for himself and shove Joanna out of the way. He finds an unlikely ally in Joanna's own father, king Fernando, who has remarried and has no further interest in either the fate of his daughter or in the kingdom of Castile.
While her fate is decided at a court assembly, Joanna is able to successfully make her case, counting on the unquestionable support of her subjects. However, her powerful speech coincides with Philip falling gravely ill. Although she devotedly takes care of her husband, the doctors are unable to do anything for him. On his death bed, Philip apologizes to his wife for his past excesses. After the death of her husband Joanna, heavily pregnant, takes on a long journey to the south of the country to bury her husband. She does not go far. Forced to stop to give birth to a daughter, Joanna never reaches her destination. Although she retains her title as queen, at the age of 28 she is locked as a madwoman in the castle of Tordesillas for the rest of her long life.
Philip's body was laid to rest in a nearby monastery, which Joanna was allowed to visit from time to time. | insanity, gothic, historical, flashback | train | wikipedia | Unable to control with whom she spends her life or make basic choices, Juana is confined in a woman's role, yet has sexual passion fit only for men in her time.
This is the historic tale with a politic fight behind , concerning a deep love story who transformed Juana, Queen of Spain, into Juana "The mad" in which Pilar Lopez De Ayala did a powerful interpretation of the nutty queen .
Juana is married off by her pious parents , the two famous Catholic kings : intelligent Fernando of Aragon (Héctor Colome) and sensible Isabella of Castille (Susi Sanchez) , to ally Spain , united by their marriage, to the Burgundian and other Habsburg heritage of archduke Maximilian and Maria's son Philip (Daniel Liotti) .
As in 1496, Juana De Castilla, daughter of the Catholic Kings, travels to Flandes to marry the Archduke Felipe De Austria, known as 'El Hermoso' or The Handsome .
Deaths in her family soon make Juana Isabella's heir , but Ferdinand suggests she inherited her grandmother's craziness and supports Philip's ambition to govern instead , which becomes the stakes of political maneuvering in the Cortes and then multiple drama is inevitable .
Juana "The mad"concerns a peculiar story of love , lies and jealousy with a political confrontation behind .
This interesting as well as intimate story is a passionate retelling and a touching drama , including strong sex scenes .
Vicente Aranda also writes the script along with Antonio Larreta based on a story by Manuel Tamayo and being filmed in his usual formal and stylistic scholarship , without leaving a trace the thought-provoking issues , in terms of dramatic and narrative excitement .
Other retelling about this known story based on the play by Manuel Tamayo Y Baus are the followings : A silent version (1909) by Ricardo Baños ; the Spanish classic ¨Locura De Amor¨(1948) by Juan De Orduña with Aurora Bautista as Doña Juana , Fernando Rey as Felipe El Hermoso , Sara Montiel as Aldara , Jorge Mistral as Capitán Don Alvar ; a comical rendition titled ¨Juana La Loca De Vez En Cuando¨ by Jose Ramon Larraz with Lola Flores as Reina Isabel I 'La Católica' , Beatriz Elorrieta as Infanta Doña Juana De Castilla , Jaime Morey as Felipe 'El Hermoso' , Manolo Gómez Bur as Cardenal Cisneros and Quique Camoiras as Fray Tomás de Torquemada ..
The movie should be seen chiefly for its main actress, the beautiful and talented Pilar López de Ayala.
It is highly doubtful that the real Juana became "mad" chiefly out of love for an unfaithful husband, who in this movie is not shown to be particularly interesting anyway.
And if the real Juana was anywhere near as beautiful as the actress who plays her, I suppose the real Philip would not have been such a mean husband to her.
Prior to seeing this film , the fact that it was in Spanish and in Spain(therefore no English sub-titles), gave me the worrying feeling that I would miss the main outline of the story.
The first the historical one tells of Juana, daughter of Isabel, Queen of Castille(spain)(one of the most important figures in history) who is arranged to be married to Philippe of Flanders, heir to the Holy Roman Empire, which consisted of Germany, Flanders and northern Italy.
I haven't enjoyed many films from Spain, but "Juana La Loca" (curiously translated by the distributors as "Mad Love" instead of the more appropriate "Joan The Mad") now tops my list of Spanish language films.
This is a big, handsome costume drama that evokes Renaissance Spain with gusto, although there's a certain movieness to the look of things: almost everyone is abnormally good looking and everyone's clothes are remarkably clean (Philip, Juana's betrothed, sports a physique that smacks of modern day gyms; it's doubtful that a monarch who doesn't lift a finger would be so chiseled).
By contrast, "Shakespeare In Love" captured some of the grubbiness of life during the Renaissance.The soundtrack is also a bit heavy-handed, with music that occasionally gets a bit obvious.But overall, this movie attacks its subject matter with relish and intellect.
Instead of obligatory sword fights and battle sequences, "Juana La Loca" opts for dialogue that oozes with machinations and intrigue, and a pace that keeps things moving along and the viewer interested.I give it 7 on a scale of 10..
There is no question that director Vicente Aranda has taken considerable liberty with generally accepted history, but despite this and a few flaws within the context of certain scenes, what we have is an excellent story, and one very well recounted and acted.It will come as absolutely no surprise for those who have seen this film to know that Pilar Lopez de Ayala (as Juana I) and Rosana Pastor (Elvira, Head of Queen´s Household) are nominated in the lead and supporting categories of the Spanish Goya Film Awards, and, despite having been ignored by the Golden Globes, this film should be in contention for Oscar Consideration as Spain´s representation for the "Best Foreign Film" of 2001.
Frankly, the performances just mentioned were so stunning, especially Pilar Lopez de Ayala, that I would consider her among nominees for Best Actress at the Oscars, not only given the absolutely pathetic list the Golden Globes presented in the Drama category, but simply because Pilar Lopez de Ayala DESERVES IT, much as did Fernanda Montenegro in the Brazilian masterpiece "Central Do Brazil" just a few years back.For the historians among the viewing public, my recommendation is to simply look the other way on the bit of revisionism on display, given that far greater crimes have been committed by Hollywood as regards same.
The story is excellent, the costumes & design, art direction, cinematography, and above all film editing are simply tops -- and film editing has been a GREAT problem in US films in recent times.
True story of "the mad queen of Castile" focuses on the innocent daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella contracted into marriage with the infamous Hapsburg heir of the Holy Roman Empire.
Allegedly the "true story" of Juana de Castilla, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Queen Isabella (yes, the same who funded Columbus's expedition), the film charts the progress and degeneration of her morbid obsession with her husband, the Archduke Philip of Austria, known as "The Handsome" (and played in a rather unispired manner by Italian hunk Daniele Liotti, at his most buttery and beefy here).
Liotti looks positively bored and Pilar López de Ayala in the title role though to be fair she may mature into a proper talent just seems to be trying too hard, switching back and fourth from two-dimensional horny-looking to spoilt teenage hysterics all the way through.
*Juana la loca* is a film for sensitive people whose intellect has gone far than watching trashy actions and shallow soap operas.
This Spanish drama makes a viewer use his intellect, it's not an entertaining film - it is too deep and too emotional, and too well-played to be called *soap opera*.
Based on real events the film gives us the full description of those beautiful and at the same time sad pages of Spanish history.
She played so naturally no matter whom - an innocent young girl, a woman in love or a miserable queen driven into madness from jealousy towards her husband.
If you like overwrought historical dramas, not particularly good ones, I'd say this is the film to watch.
She is called mad several times in the movie over, even before she displays any sort of crazy behavior--so I'm likely to think it was just her fulfilling some prophecies.
Her husband--played by Daniele Lioti, whose two expressions are "I'm going to rape you" and "I'm going to beat you"--seems to be someone to run away from, not love with a fiery passion.
I happen to believe that using a narrator in a film with characters and dialogue, although sometimes justifiable, is many times a sign of script or directing weakness; usually, if both the screenplay and the director are good enough, conveying all the information should be possible (and would be more powerful) without a narrator explaining what's going on.The second thing that bothered me was the acting.
Liotti seemed lifeless, although I was told his voice was dubbed in Spanish, which usually lowers the power of a performance quite a bit (apparently, he originally delivered a lot of his dialogue in Italian).The third thing that bothered me was the film's (director's?) incapacity of explaining the roots and justification of Juana's mad love for Phillip.
Yes, I know it was a powerful combination of lust and emotional dependency, that Juana was a passionate woman and apparently Phillip was quite a fiery lover, but I never felt the characters' passion.The film focused too little on Juana's personality/character and the way the chemistry between her and Phillip developed.
The story, loosely based on the Spanish queen Juana de Castilla's life, is quite moving, maybe more for those who have experienced the kind of passion that Juana had for Phillip.
A woman so passionately in love with her man, so consumed by her love and so anguished by his philandering and growing lack of reciprocity to her love that she becomes obsessed with possesing him and forgets she is a queen and that her first duty is to her people.
I was just sorry to see such a passionate love story idea being presented in a bit of a lethargic manner..
Based on the stage play `La Locura de Amor' (Teatro del Principe, Madrid, January 12th 1855) by the dramatist Manuel Tamayo y Baus (1829-1898), Vicente Aranda's film `Juana la Loca' ran into several problems even before it appeared in public.
The story centres around Juana, eldest daughter of Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragón, historically known as `Los Reyes Católicos', whose youngest sister, Catalina (Catherine of Aragón) was to end up headless following her marriage to Henry VIII, king of England, and mother of Carlos who was to be Carlos I of Spain and V of Germany.
Unfortunately the future Queen Juana lost her head by falling so hopelessly in love with this goodly hunk of man (played here rather insipidly by Daniele Liotti), that she went crazy as he was always off on such masculine adventures in the arms of other women.
Was the real historical character also left-handed?Vicente Aranda has never reached me as one of our great directors: if `Tiempo de Silencio' (1986) (qv) is his best film, followed by `La Pasión Turca' (1994), in neither case I found the film totally satisfying in terms of doing justice to the novels on which they are based - by Luis Martín-Santos and Antonio Gala, respectively -, and others of his films like `Celos' or the `Capitán Sánchez' TV series, just simply left me unimpressed.Added to that, José Nieto, one of Spain's most accomplished film and television composers, seemed to be rather uninspired for `Juana la Loca'.
a film of costumes and invitation to discover the real story of Juana.
good intentions, a lot of colors and large oasis of ambiguity, influences of soap opera and few scenes who escapes from the sketch status of film.
not profound, far to be original, but interesting for atmosphere recreation, for the performance of Giuliano Gemma , for hard work to convince of Pilar de Ayala and for the air of old rose.
Juana de Loco is a film that questions if love above duty is more natural for a woman than a man.
The film has a rich and sensuous look in staging of 15th century Spanish courtlife, but beyond that, its revisionist take on the historical record is questionable.
Juana on the other hand, plays the game according to the rules for women and gets incarcerated for the remainder of her life.
On the one hand, the film suggests that Juana's "madness" was that she was just a woman ahead of her time.
"Mad Love", as the DVD I rented was entitled, tells the story of Juana or Joan, Queen of Castile Espana (circa early 1500's), who inherited the monarchy at a young age and spent most of the rest of her life in exile from the throne due to madness.
"Mad Love" muddles fact with fiction and history with histrionics as it portrays Joan as a woman so obsessed with her husband and so jealous of his wanton ways as to make her an impotent ruler.
Given subtitles and the fact that most have never heard of Joan, "Mad Love" is not likely to find much of an audience in the U.S.
Vicente Aranda has made a terrible historical movie.
story of a woman like many others, captive of her jealousy, it is one of films who not gives more than small references about a generous subject..
In this movie I like the acting of "Pilar López de Ayala" she was awesome .
Focus of the movie is on the Juana Mad Love.
Start of the film marriage of king and queen.
So, Juana love her husband with full of heart till the end of the movie.
First of all I have to say Pilar Lopez de Ayala is playing really GREAT!
That is the true passion!The male character is in my opinion very well chosen, the actor is the embodiment of the Spanish "hot" lover and makes her "madness" seem plausible!
The only thing I do not particularly enjoy about this movie is: -the intermezzos with another voice making it look like a documentary -the image of the old woman saying rather improper things (let's face it it doesn't sound good unless from the young and beautiful actors) -the ending...
And while the fair-minded viewer will find much to recommend it, "__Juana la loca__" (English title "Mad Love") is probably (and understandably) best appreciated by those who know the history, culture and language inspiring it.
Into the bargain "__Juana la loca__" is gorgeously filmed, and well acted, especially considering themes and situations essential to the story that might seem like pure melodrama if less well executed.
this movie is about the queen of spain, a woman who is deeply in love with her husband, but her love is ignored.
in the end, the queen's love for her husband is what did her in and caused her to be declared crazy by parliament and sent away to jail for the rest of her life.
i think that this is a story that proves just how powerful love is, and how lonely and desperate a person can become without it.
Juana la Loca is the story of a 15th century young Spanish monarch, Juana.
As Juana, Pilar Lopez de Ayala is beautiful, feisty, and full of passion for her husband bordering on madness.
When he turns to rampant womanizing, Juana's heart is broken, and she begins to obsess on her husband, sacrificing her duties as ruler of the kingdom.
This is a very good movie, and Lopez de Ayala plays the role very well.
No one could ever play a young queen as well Cate Blanchett did in Elizabeth; but Pilar Lopez de Ayala is totally convincing as Juana la Loca -- Joan the Mad..
Seeing a movie with such drama, excitement and great acting is very rare.
Although the viewer might not like the cruelty of the king in matters of being faithful, the movie gives a realistic idea of what life has been like in the 15th century in Spain..
Great Pilar Lopez de Ayala performance.
Pilar Lopez de Ayala deserves all prizes in the world for her role as Juana de Castilla.
Vicente Aranda and his collaborators took liberties when they decided to base their film on the tragic figure of Juana, a Spanish princess, the daughter of the Catholic Kings of Spain.
Historically this film is incorrect as it's derailed by the sexual context Mr. Aranda gave the movie.When Juana is sent to Flandes to marry Phillip, little prepared the young and sheltered woman to find a man who was, above all, a womanizer and a libertine, who took his pleasure wherever he could find.
In fact, Phillip's nickname was "the handsome", something that comes across in the way this vain man acts throughout his life.Pilar Lopez Ayala, who plays the leading role, shows some passionate moments in the way she portraits the tragic Juana.
This is not just the historical tale of two royals forced into a marriage for political reasons, it is also the story of a husband and wife with all the failings and successes a marriage can bring.Juana the daughter of the great Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella is sent to Flanders to marry the dashing Philip, known through out the word as Philip the Handsome.
It's the story of a jealous, clingy wife madly and deeply in love with her philandering bored husband who is using her as a pawn to get what he wants.
I watched the movie in Spanish and it was amazing, a second time I watched it with subtitles and can say I understood little more, it is a film that transcends language.
Think of the many monarchs with sexual and emotional hang ups -- Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth and Essex, Othello who, like the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand here, loved not wisely but too well.
Philip brings his advisers with him and they suggest that the queen is getting a little too jealous over Philip's peccadilloes and that maybe she's mad and Philip should take over and become ruler of Spain in her place.
She's more angry and anxious about Philip's infidelity than anything else.Pilar Lopez de Ayala is Joan, the principal figure, and she's convincing as a queen.
But, this may be one you haven't heard of.It concerns Juana, daughter of Isabel, Queen of Castille, who is arranged to be married to Philippe of Flanders. |
tt3689910 | Sarusuberi: Miss Hokusai | The manga story consists of episodes which are not necessarily connected to each other. They feature Ō-Ei and her life in Edo, as she works in the studio of her father. The younger sister appears in one of the episodes.
The anime story begins in Edo in 1814, during the Edo period. Ō-Ei is one of the four daughters of the painter Tetsuzo, who later became known as Hokusai. The film takes place at the moment when Ō-Ei reaches adulthood, while her father, aged about fifty, is already a recognized artist in his country. The studio in which they both work is completely cluttered, she goes to her mother's place to eat but spends the night in the studio. Tetsuzo is known for his famous painting skills, such as painting the Great Daruma or two sparrows on a grain of rice. Ō-Ei has the talent and obstinacy from her father. She paints often at her desk, without signing her work, in order to complete the orders. She does not get any recognition for her talent.
The film alternates episodes of the life of Ō-Ei and her father and the painters that visit, especially Zenjirō Ikeda (Keisai Eisen), who later became known for his bijin-ga, and Kuninao Utagawa. Several scenes feature Japanese mythology and Buddhism. After accidentally damaging a Japanese dragon painting that her father had to deliver the next day, Ō-Ei had to repaint the dragon herself. During the night, a heavy storm breaks out and the dragon descends from the clouds. This could be the story from the Tang period, according to which there is a technique for capturing a dragon in a painting. The topic of ikiryō is also depicted, such as when Tetsuzo's astral hands fly, or when they investigate rumours about a famous oiran in the Yoshiwara district, whose astral head tries to leave her body during the night. The Amitābha Pure Land Buddha is also a theme, such as when the wife of a patron is losing her mind because of a painting of jigoku (Buddhist hell) by Ō-Ei. Tetsuzo realizes that Ō-Ei did "not finish" the painting and he completes it by adding the image of the Amitābha, which finally gives the wife peace. The Buddha makes another appearance with two Bodhisattvas in a dream sequence.
The film also evokes the relationship between Ō-Ei, Tetsuzo and the half-sister of Ō-Ei, from her father's first marriage. She is a blind little girl by birth, but Tetsuzo, who is afraid of death and disease and hates the sick, does not visit her. It is Ō-Ei who takes care of her by taking her to Ryōgoku Bridge, describing the landscapes and making her touch, listen and feel the world. At the same time, Ō-Ei remains single and is not interested in romantic relationships. But her father entrusts her with orders for erotic shunga prints, and customers reproach Ō-Ei's drawings for being too coldly executed. She is intrigued by seduction, but ultimately is not interested.
When Ō-Ei's younger sister falls ill, she convinces her father to finally visit, and he even paints a picture of a protective deity. But the little girl does not recover and passes away. She enters the studio in the form a strong gust of wind, leaving behind on the floor a single tsubaki flower her older sister once gave her.
The film ends by indicating with a text displayed on the screen the fates of the main characters. Tetsuzo, who became Hokusai, died at the age of 90. Ō-Ei survived him for nine years and seems to have traveled all over, but no one knows where she died. | flashback | train | wikipedia | Beautiful Anime.
In 1814 Edo, Japan, a master artist Katsushika Hokusai, known as Tetsuzo, and his daughter O-Ei spend their time creating splendid paintings, some on commission and some just because.
Tetsuzo lives away from his wife and younger daughter, who is blind, and he tends to have little to do with them, perhaps because he is afraid of illness and disability.
Instead, he instructs O-Ei and others in his art, but in some ways his daughter outstrips even his talent.
This lands them in trouble on occasion, for example when one of her paintings is believed by its owner to be enchanted by devils, but Tetsuzo knows how to make things right again.
If only his daughter wasn't so hot-headed!This is a beautifully rendered anime based on a manga, Sarusuberi; having not read the manga, I don't know how faithful the film is to the source material.
In any event, it looks lovely and the story of the artists' lives is very well told.
It has more of an episodic feel to it than a straight plot-line, but since Tetsuzo was apparently a real person in 19th Century Edo (now Tokyo), that method of story-telling works very well.
If you like anime, you'll love this movie..
Miss Hokusai is a "slice of life" animation, it portrays the characters' at their daily lives in briskly light mood.
It may set in one of the most romanticized eras, yet it's mostly a few short stories about artists, especially the heroine Oei, woven together.
This is a tribute to Japanese classic painting ukiyo-e, the tumultuous time told in different light and appreciation of the artists themselves.Oei is the daughter of talented painter Hokusai, who has a knack for painting herself.
The animation is more of a method to appreciate the art as it changes constantly when the characters do narrative or monologue.It uses classic touches on the tales, which can seem supernatural yet bizarrely fitting for that particular era.
The setting is made with great care, details like the street corner or dimmed room with faint light of candles provide fine atmosphere for these characters to play in.
Occasionally, they would talk in vague words, it's not a drama where people yell at each other frequently, there's a restrained on their mannerisms.Miss Hokusai is a nice homage to early art works, celebrated by modern Japanese animation, it's quaint, unimposing and warmly colorful..
Great art, no plot or character development.
The art, as well as the way the making of art is portrayed in the film is great; however, there is no real story arc or character development to speak of.
Perhaps not much is known about the daughter of Hokusai, but even so, historical fiction is fiction for a reason.
Just when she may go beyond her immature, mean self, beyond her father's shadow, the film ends with a few narrated summary lines conveying what happens in the next 30 years without actually showing it.
The film seems to focus on the period in which the blind daughter of the famous painter (the narrator's sister) is young, falls sick, and dies.
It is not clear how and why Hokusai is separated from his wife, why his eldest daughter draws and paints with him (though she resents him plenty)...
None of the romantic interests develop during the film, yet the summary in the end tells us she married once!
It is hard to imagine her marrying, so this would be a great story, but it is not the subject of the film.
At one point, we learn that she has a passion for fire, but have no idea how, if at all, this affects her paintings, her art...All in all, the art is great, especially the parts where painting and drawing itself is discussed.
The animation is gorgeous, and the fact that "Miss Hokusai" does not follow traditional biopic conventions only strengthens it.
With all the interest around Hokusai and woodblock prints in the West, it's unfortunate that this film was not publicized more..
plot needs development.
He lives with his daughter O-Ei. She also paints but he often critiques her work harshly.
She often visits her blind half-sister O-Nao who lives with her mother and Tetsuzo rarely visits due to his aversion of the sick.This evokes a time and place.
It paints two great characters.
The plot is episodic in nature and I would like more in terms of plot development.
I love the woman haunted by O-Ei's painting.
There are great bits of a story.
I don't know if O-Ei's character development is enough.
The script needs a plot development rewrite.
It paints a beautiful picture but the picture doesn't really move.
Does she become a great artist?
The family was creating great paintings so the animators took special care to create scenes of rare beauty.
Not much adventures but lots of thoughts and details make the film very alive.
The film leaves our subjects a bit early and the epilogue is brushed over quickly it seems.
We meet O-Ei, grown daughter of the famous Japanese painter Hokusai.
She has a younger sister, O-Nao, who is blind.
(O-Ei's name was actually Katsushka Ōi, but it also appears as "O-Ei".) Hokusai is depicted as a gruff, single-minded man, living in his studio, apart from his wife and children.
The blind young sister is invented - as is most of the rest of the story.
But she plays a very important part.There are great moments here.
One incredibly beautiful moment occurs near the end of the film.
And of course, there's a delightful scene involving his most famous print, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa".The animation is beautifully done, in typical Japanese fashion.
Not as beautifully as Miyazaki, but still, good.The story covers a lot of ground, including the Japanese form of erotic art (shunga).
Part of that thread involves an important plot element.The musical score is very Western and modern, which could be a little off-putting.
As the credits went by, I saw one of the song titles given in Spanish!.It's a movie that keeps you involved, and doesn't let you nod off.PS: Keep your eyes on the little dog that shows up at the beginning..
If you want to impress your date, take him/her to see this film.
American films are a shallow, inane mess.
That's why people go see foreign films at art houses.
Miss Hokusai probably isn't playing in theaters anymore.
But if it was, it's a great place to take a date if you want to impress them with your amazing and elitist tastes.I'm not one for typical anime.
And of the other anime-ish films that were big in America - Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, etc.
Miss Hokusai is a film critic's dream.
Film critics' tastes are extremely predictable.
Why Miss Hokusai gets rave reviews from critics:-It's Japanese anime-ish, and critics and TED lecture fans alike all salivate for those.
- LBGT in there, and it's not even implied or subdued!!-I don't know what the f--- it's about, but it sure looks good!-Japanese Edo period, about famous artist/painter!
-Beautiful Japanese anime-ish characters!
Critics adore and appreciate cinematography, history, architecture, and the outdoors - a plus if it's a different culture!-And what is the film about again?
I don't care, it seems experimental and cool, so I'll upvote it!Anyway, I'm guilty of thinking like critics, so I was pretty impressed with the film, and I enjoyed it.
I'd hate to say this, but it really is way better than typical American films.
Despite being an animated film, "Miss Hosukai" is not a film for children nor was it ever intended to be.
Instead, it's a very melancholy portrait of the life of the famed Japanese artist Hosukai and his daughter, O-Ei and it's seen through his eyes.
But it's not a normal biography, as you only see bits an pieces of one period of Hosukai's life.
The story itself is VERY meandering and this lack of direction to the film made it difficult viewing for me.
Beautifully animated but otherwise the film left me very cold and left me wanting to know more..
I have to admit this is not my favorite style of anime.I am the type that grew up on Dragonball Z and Akira, but at the same time, I can appreciate things like The Wind Rises and From Up on Poppy Hill.I wish I felt the same about Miss Hokusai, but I don't.
It's one of those stories that does not need animation to be told.
to fully enjoy MISS HOKUSAI, you must discard cultural blinders.
MISS HOKUSAI (MH) is an ambitious and visually sumptuous anime interpretation of the Edo period historical manga _Sarusuberi_, written/illustrated by Hinako Sugiura.
The film is a brilliant exercise in the Japanese Buddhist concept of "everyday suchness." When you look at a centuries old Japanese painting of a young girl in a garden, staring into a bamboo aquarium containing goldfish and bare accouterments, you think you know what you see, but can you really see what the artist experienced to create that painting, let alone the ideas underlying the image?
The source manga is disconnectedly episodic in nature and it's a real stretch to claim that there's any main character therein, even though the historical figure Katsushika Hokusai pops up repeatedly early in the series.Hokusai's most famous historical work is a woodblock print series, yet, for all of MH, we never see him work on a woodblock.
We do see Hokusai paint.
No. Hokusai is not the point of this story.The Edo period is a time when chronic illness turns to death in the blink of an eye.
Although Hokusai pays little attention to healthy living, he's highly adverse to spending time with his terminally ill youngest daughter, for fear of catching something that might prevent him from living to be 100.
For reasons known only to him, Hokusai believes he'll achieve artistic mastery at that nice round age.It's another daring move to make Hokusai's daughter, Katsushika O-Ei, the seemingly central character of MH.
Yes, MH is a feminist tale.O-Ei is the chosen vehicle for telling the anime's story which is larger than just her.
The only obligation is to remember.As in real life, O-Ei's personality is very much like her father's, yet O-Ei is judged by many, on screen and in the audience, as being "harsh" and "unlikeable," while drunken and slovenly Hokusai is well admired by many more.O-Ei is a woman far ahead of her time, even as she willingly carries out "traditional" duties of assisting her father in his work.
She knows that she is honing her own skills through the experience, while being far from subservient.Valuable lessons, harsh though they may seem, from Hokusai to O-Ei, about composition and balance, are literally and tersely depicted in the context of the story's moment.O-Ei's highly opinionated and suffers no fools.
She's pursued by some for her beauty and by others for her art.
O-Ei's hardly maladjusted.MH shows us everyday Edo period life as an artist, who just happens to be O-Ei, experiences it.We learn that O-Nao is blind and that she "sees," with her mind's eye, that the goldfish pets given to her by O-Ei are having great fun inside their bamboo aquarium, which brings O-Nao equal joy and respite from her illness.MH includes many direct representations of how elements of everyday life become ukiyo-e prints and paintings, often emphasized in perfectly timed freeze frames that do not interrupt the flow of the film.Sisters in a riverboat, fingers trailing in the rippling water, speculating about the dangers of rough open seas.
She passes Hokusai ambling along in the opposite direction across the street.
A scene brimming with symbolism.(The more you know about Hokusai's work, the more Easter eggs you'll find in MH.) Mindfulness/awareness/context, within everyday life, are what MH is all about.
Not "character development." Not "plot." Don't let western cultural conventions/blinders keep you from absorbing and enjoying what MH shows us about everyday suchness.
Too much is made about how trivially O-Ei's "marriage" is narratively tossed off in an end title card.The real O-Ei was briefly married to a fellow art student BEFORE she became an assistant to her ailing father.
We see the gist of that "relationship" play out in O-Ei's later interactions with her male contemporaries in the film.
...Now, what do you see when you look at O-Ei's painting of O-Nao in a garden admiring her goldfish?
The little girl, in a peaceful garden, is surrounded by death.O-Ei's painting is a wistful remembrance/celebration of her dearly departed sister, for which words can do no justice.That's the context of that centuries old painting.
That's the point of MISS HOKUSAI..
Wistful window into life in Edo. While lacking in plot and character development--generally what most people look for in a film--Miss Hokusai is a lovely and wistful look into life in Edo, which was Tokyo before the Meiji Restoration of 1867.
The film centers on the painter Hokusai, whose Great Wave off Kanagawa is probably the most well-known Japanese artwork, and his real-life daughter O-Ei, of whom little factual data remains.
They live together in a squalid flat and are completely devoted to producing art, while Hokusai's wife and blind younger daughter live elsewhere.
The film unfolds as a series of vignettes featuring well-known works by the artist, some of which the film posits may have been painted by his daughter.
There is a visit to a brothel in Yoshiwara to see a geisha who has out-of-body experiences at night, dealing with a haunting caused by one of O-Ei's paintings, a ride on a boat where the great wave is reenacted, and various other scenes.
Two subplots round out the film, one involving O-Ei's unrequited love for her father's disciple, and the other the younger daughter's worsening health and eventual death.
The short film is capped with O-Ei telling how her life played out after the events and a text crawl at the end relating her own death.
With the exception of the younger daughter's death no single plot line in the film is fully played out, which leaves something of a sour taste in the mouth.
But the film is nonetheless enjoyable for its visual beauty and the window it grants into life in Edo. The scene where O-Ei follows the alarm to a fire was especially fascinating, the firefighting companies holding their standards, getting doused with water and tearing down the surrounding structure to prevent the fire from spreading.
The character designs are somewhat simplistic, maybe even a bit crude, but they're deftly animated and with the exquisite backgrounds the team at Production I.G. have created another masterpiece visually.
Worth watching, and if you're intrigued plan a visit to the Edo Tokyo museum in Tokyo for a more in-depth look at life in this fascinating time..
"Miss Hokusai" reflecting Anime that is ineffably Beautiful and even enlightening..
"Miss Hokusai" is a beautifully rendered and even 'mystic' anime originating from manga-artist Hinako Sugiura becoming a full-length animated 2015 Film by Keiichi Hara spotlighting legendary Edo period artist Hokusai, famous for the strikingly powerful and iconic painting "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" This particular story 'Miss Hokusai' reveals the lesser known tale of Hokusai's amazingly gifted & equally artistic daughter 'O-Ei' who never received the recognition she richly deserved, positing that many of O-Ei's original artistic renderings became later attributed to her renowned father.From a purely visual-perspective the meticulous animation of 'Miss Hokusai' presents abundantly breathtaking artistic renderings and recreations of 'Hokusai' inspired Works, also evoking the rich imagery inherent to Classic Japanese Edo period-setting with all its sublime & ineffable-beauty.From the standpoint of storytelling 'Miss Hokusai' provides profound insights into the highly creative but also chaotic lifestyle of the obsessive artist, a Life filled with the endless search for unpredictable/ unexpected but authentic creative inspiration.There are also 'spiritual' (e.g. primarily Buddhist) elements introduced as the Story progresses which adds greatly to authenticity, providing additional insights about the culture (and belief-structure) inherent to the specific time & place in which O-Ei and her father Hokusai produced their timeless Works.'Miss Hokusai' embodies the rich combination of strikingly beautiful animation enhanced by an intriguing rumination reflecting on Edo-period Japanese culture replete with its deeply-spiritual qualities and ineffable contradictions, an anime film that is beautiful, unique and even enlightening..
I watched this movie, because I loved the trailer and I was waiting forward for a nice biography of two great painters!
Thank Buddha, at least it was well drawn.The movie has a great start and a cool ending but inbetween we see almost nothing.
Even the final plot twist is confusing.So, watch it only if you want to see a well drawn anime movie with almost nothing going on.A great disappointment..
This movie is good for someone who is learn about Japanese culture before the world advanced.
But the rock music didn't really help set the scene to be honest.Just be vairy that before you watch this film there is a lot of religious and god references to Heaven and Hell throughout the movie.Just to be clear this is not a movie for children nor it is intended to be (check out Paparika) especially because there is a few swear words used and in one scene we see two people get into bed together....not going to go into detail.However, the animation, art style and voice acting is good from the dub side of things.If you want to know how life in Japan was like especially if you were a painter I would recommend this movie..
For a movie that plays in the 18.
century the chosen rock music is the worst and absolutely destroying the complete mood of the whole movie right from the start.I couldn't find any ups in the whole story, only one down after another, nothing cheerful in an harsh world that wasn't shown like one.I can't recommend to watch this one, because you will search for an happy end that never comes up. |
tt1869416 | Faroeste Caboclo | The music starts with the introduction of João do Santo Cristo and his twisted childhood. João lost his father, murdered by a soldier (it is unclear if it was the Military Police or the Brazilian Army, since the music was written during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship) and, while growing up, he got himself flirting with the criminal life, stealing the "donation money" of the church, having sex with all the girls of the city and, when he was 15 years old, he was sent to a correctional facility, where he started to think about the discrimination against his social condition and his skin color.
João's main history starts when he is released of the correction facility and decides to leave his city, searching for a better life. He bought a ticket to Salvador, Bahia and there, he sat in a coffee shop and met a rancher, who gives him a bus ticket to Brasília, DF because he (the rancher) needed to visit his daughter and therefore, he would lose his trip. João readily accepted the ticket and entered in the bus to the city. When arriving, he got really impressed with all the Christmas' lights and decided to get a job around the "New Year's Eve". He started working as a carpenter in Taguatinga, DF and spent all his money partying around the city. In one of these parties, he met his "bastard" cousin - a Peruvian man named Pablo who lived in Bolivia - who was planning to start a business.
João worked hard as a carpenter, but his wage was too low even to his subsistence and decided to take Pablo as a role model, started to plant and sell marijuana and in a short time, he ruined every drug dealer in the city. With his "drug lord" persona, he met a lot of people, but he was caught stealing and went to state prison where he was brutally beaten and raped and these facts increased his anger towards the world. João's prison time made him a very fearless, dangerous man, who struck fear in the whole region of Brasilia. But his world was turned upside down when he met Maria Lúcia, a beautiful young girl who made him regret about his crime life. He promised her his heart, left the crime life, got back to carpentry and said that he wanted to get married and have a child with her.
One day, a very wealthy man came with a very shady job proposal to João. He refused it, saying that he wasn't going to bomb anywhere neither protect powerful, but coward men. The wealthy man was very angry and threatened João, saying that João "just lost his life". One day, he skipped his work and got drunk, only to know that he was replaced in his job. That enraged João, who turned to Pablo and got an association with him. Pablo would bring the drugs from Bolivia and João would sell them in Planaltina.
João activities enraged Jeremias, a very influent drug lord, who gave parties filled with Rock 'n' Roll, girls and marijuana, who saw João as an intruder in his turf. Jeremias decided to kill João and when João discovered this, asked Pablo for a gun and Pablo gave to João a Winchester .22 rifle. But João decided to wait Jeremias make the first move to use his gun.
João activities also made him leave his home for a long time. Feeling homesick and missing Maria Lucia, he returns home, only to find out that Jeremias married her and got her pregnant. That was the last straw for João and he called Jeremias out for a duel the very next day at 2:00pm in Ceilândia planning to kill both Jeremias and Maria Lúcia, who he saw as a traitor. Somehow, the word got out and even the TV broadcast the news about their duel.
At the duel's place, crowded with people who saw the news on the TV, Jeremias shot João in the back and João, feeling the blood down the throat and looking to all the spectators, started to remember his childhood and decided that he was not going to lose easily. Then, in a twist of fate, Maria Lucia brought João's Winchester .22 and gave it to him. João called Jeremias a coward for shooting him in the back with no chance of defense and shot him (Jeremias) five times. Maria Lúcia dies in the gunfight, at João's side and all the crowd claimed João was the winner of the duel and said that João was a saint, just because he knew how to die. | violence, murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt3139072 | Son of Batman | At the headquarters of the League of Assassins, Ra's al Ghul grooms Damian Wayne (son of his daughter, Talia, and Batman) to succeed him as head of the league. The league is attacked by a group of assassins led by Slade Wilson, Ra's al Ghul's initial choice for successor before meeting Batman; Feeling betrayed, Slade decides to seize power. During the battle, Ra's is defeated and fatally burned, dying before he can reach the Lazarus Pit. Damian stabs Slade's right eye during the battle, forcing him to flee. Talia takes Damian to Gotham City to meet his father and ask for his protection.
In Gotham City, Batman confronts Killer Croc, who is stealing mutagenic chemicals and steroids to enhance himself. Batman gets ambushed by Croc before Talia electrocutes the latter from behind. She tells Batman about her father's death and leaves their son in his care, though Damian believes that he can take care of himself and does not need Batman. Slade, now calling himself Deathstroke, captures Dr. Kirk Langstrom, who conspired with both Croc and Ra's, promising the latter a formula for his soldiers. Slade threatens Langstrom's wife Francine and his daughter Rebecca to force him to recreate the Man-Bat formula for him. Damian bypasses Wayne Towers security to speak to Bruce, telling him that Deathstroke's contact, Ubu, is stationed in Gotham. Although Damian wants to avenge Ra's al Ghul by killing Deathstroke, Bruce objects to Damian's willingness to take lives. Talia is captured by Deathstroke when she and her assassins attack his compound.
Against Batman's orders, Damian leaves the Batcave and, after a chase and a long fight, defeats Ubu, whom he located by accessing the Bat-Computer. Before Damian can kill him, Nightwing arrives, mistakes him for a criminal and subdues him before bringing him back to the Batcave. Batman berates Damian for his recklessness, willingness to kill and exposing their operation. Batman then has Damian don the mantle of Robin to teach him discipline. Searching for a lead on Langstrom's location, Batman goes to Arkham to interrogate a rabid Killer Croc, who supplied the mutagens to Langstrom in exchange for his enhancements and is currently going through drastic, agonizing withdrawal symptoms that cause him to shed his scales and tail. Since others are too afraid of him to medicate him without being harmed, Batman promises Croc help in exchange for information. Batman follows Croc's lead about the formula's mutagen to Langstrom's apartment, where he finds a throwing star that he takes evidence of Deathstroke's involvement. Before he leaves, he goes throughout the building and finds a storage room filled with caged bats, with one larger cage being empty and broken open from inside. Batman then finds a rabid gorilla with bat like mutations, one of Langstrom's unstable subjects, and it attacks him until it dies from its mutations. A drone aircraft sent by Deathstroke then flies past and crashes on the building, destroying it, though Batman evades the explosion. Commissioner Gordon warns them about an abandoned stadium believed to house Deathstroke's men.
At the stadium, Batman and Damian question Langstrom but are attacked when Damian becomes violent. Before they successfully escape, they fight off a swarm of Man-Bats. In the cave, Langstrom reveals Deathstroke's plan to create superhuman, flight-capable assassins. While Nightwing works with Langstrom on an antidote, Batman and Damian rescue their family. Batman guesses that Talia has been abducted when he finds evidence of torture in an empty cell, which he keeps from Damian to not set him off. They find and rescue Langstrom's family, but Batman is unaware that Deathstroke challenged Damian to a fight in exchange for Talia's life through a video device he gave Langstrom's daughter in exchange for sparing them. Both Langstrom's daughter and Deathstroke's video tell him not to involve Batman in their fight.
Nightwing learns that Deathstroke is operating in an oil rig off the Scottish coast, and when Batman is distracted, Damian goes to the rig. He finds Deathstroke and Talia in an underwater base with a swarm of Man-Bats and another Lazarus Pit, whose fluid Deathstroke intends to sell. Damian pulls a gun on Deathstroke, who holds one against Talia's head until Damian drops his gun. Deathstroke fires at him, but Talia is hit instead after she jumps in the path of Deathstroke's gunfire. As Deathstroke corners Damian, Batman appears and the Man-Bats attack. Batman wards them off with sonar-emitting batarangs, while Deathstroke flees with Damian giving chase.
Batman heals Talia in Lazarus Pit, while Nightwing and Langstrom reach the oil rig and cure the Man-Bats. At the same time, Damian fights and defeats Deathstroke, but refuses to kill him because he is his father's son. The elevator from the rig to the underwater base is destroyed when the Man-Bats, overwhelmed by the sonar devices, overcrowd the glass elevator shaft, flooding the base. Batman, Talia and Damian escape, but Deathstroke gets left behind. Batman believes that Damian should stay with him and remain as Robin while Talia still wishes to recreate the League with Batman, who would rather disband the League, and Damian at her side. She decides to let him care for their son and leaves with the League of Assassins though she says she will return for him.
As the credits roll, a slideshow of the fight between Damian and Nightwing is played between credits. | violence, neo noir, murder | train | wikipedia | Unrealistic in various aspects, not how the typical Batman movies are suppose to be.Part of why Batman is so popular is because viewers enjoy watching a man using his intellect and natural resources to solve crimes and ultimately capture the villains.The almighty "trailer" makes any movie look hype and all the rave.
Slade or Death-stroke is an entity to be feared and not to be so easily defeated by Damion who has not even reached his prime yet.Also the character Batman was ineffectively orchestrated, he did not have the mysterious, lone-wolf, and independent personality which stays true to the Comics and previous movies or series and original concept character for that matter.Overall the movie was lacking and I think a fair appraisal is, 5-5.5 out of 10.
Literally.But the story hooked me so I tolerated the subpar production values and actually had a fairly good time.More than once I even wondered if somewhere out there was a producer who would find the cash to do this live action but given the audience expectations for a live action BATMAN, especially after Dark Knight, I guess that REALLY WOULD BE A FANTASY..
To me it just doesn't seem that much fitting for the dark knight and, quite frankly, I think he is kind of a boring villain so the idea of Batman and Talia having a son never was appealing to me.
Seriously, he is the one who gets abused the most on-screen, by a preteen no less.Poor villain aside, "Son of Batman" isn't actually all that bad.
The movie, for its run-time, tells just about the right amount of story for each character with the right amount of action.
Damian, while at first seemed could be annoying, comes off as a solid addition, nothing special and probably the Robin I like the least, but still good enough.
Damian, Talia, Nightwing and the others, while not perfect, were good.Overall a satisfying DC animated movie.
I truly believe this is worse than Batman and Robin, because at least that film is funny.The plot makes no sense, the villain's motivations are frankly ridiculously stupid and nonsensical, the fights are uninspired, Damian Wayne is at his worst in terms of insufferable characterisation and insipid, mean-spirited dialogue, the voice acting ranges from fairly good to the worst I've heard in professional animation.Deathstroke is changed from an incredible and intelligent fighter into a pathetic, idiotic bumbler who gets knocked out with one punch from Batman.
That's not even getting into the scene between Batman and Talia which seems to suggest the writers are rape apologists--yes, Bruce states he was drugged and raped by Talia, but that it was "not all bad" which is undoubtedly the most horribly awful thing I've heard in a DC movie.Bottom line, I only recommend this to people if you want a truly hilariously inept film to watch and laugh about with your friends, which is precisely what I did after trying to watch it on my own..
Even though I generally like the work from writer Grant Morrison, I have to admit I wasn't left very satisfied by the graphic novel Son of Batman, and that's why I started watching the eponymous animated film with low expectations.
The plot is simplified a bit in the movie, but, let's accept it: the point of the film is seeing Batman facing the difficult paternal role for the first time.
As for the voice work, Jason O'Mara and Stuart Allan make a perfect work as Batman and Damian, respectively, but the rest of the cast feels rigid and artificial.
And I found the animation of a better quality than the one from other DC Comics movies; the choreography of the action scenes is clear and fluid, and the design of the characters keeps a good equilibrium between realism and stylization.
So, Son of Batman ended up being a very pleasant surprise, taking into consideration the fact that I didn't like the original comic very much; it doesn't have the epic scale from Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths or Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, but in this case, I think it was a good decision to keep everything on a more real level, because that puts the emphasis on the chemistry between the characters and the transformation of roles which implies Damian's arrival.
Speaking of which, Son of Batman isn't part of "The New 52" continuity, like the previous film of the animated universe (Justice League: War) was.
Taking inspiration from Grant Morrison's Batman and Son comic story arc, SON OF BATMAN reveals the illegitimate love child of Bruce Wayne and former nemesis Talia, daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, leader of the league of assassins.
Animation short cuts are very obvious here.All in all, SON OF BATMAN works better as a set up for bigger stories.
Son of Batman is a great, action-packed animation many people will enjoy.
Because it's a story definitely worth to make a film adaptation, I mean...when I first knew about the existence of this movie, I tough to myself: "Wait!
I have to check this out!"I haven't read the graphic novel this movie is based on (Batman and Son), but something tells me that almost all the hate towards this film is because it's not truly faithful to it.
For example, a huge part of the movie is full of bloody battles, the cold attitude that Talia has even tough her father Ra's had just died (Batman fans will agree with me about the fact that Talia is truly faithful to her father and that if something happens to him, she wouldn't just throw it away).In spite of its fails, it is a highly underrated and worth to watch, because it portrays in a very decent way the paternal side of Batman that we have never seen before..
It's interesting that this installment of the DC animated films is called Son of Batman and it stars a ten year old Robin, yet it's the most adult of these movies I ever seen.Adapting the origin of Damian Wayne from the comics, Deathstoke (who was not evolved with this in the comics)unleashes his plot to take over the league of assassins, killing Ra Al Ghul in the process, and putting his daughter Talia on the run, forcing her to unite her son, Damian with his biological dad, Batman.The character deign was pretty good.
I really like the design of Killer Croc who makes an appearance in the movie as well.The story was pretty cool too.
I feel there was a misstep in Batman, however, but Robin and his relationship with Nightwing was close to the comics.The animation was mediocre.
The opening scene between Deathstroke and Ra's Al Ghul is like something out of a parody of '70s kung-fu movies, complete with over the top voices.
I watched it with someone who knows nothing of Batman outside of the movies and I had to explain quite a bit of stuff that the script didn't bother with.
The movie doesn't explain it, just tosses him in with the assumption the entire audience already knows his story and connection to Batman.
Damien has to be one of the greatest characters in Batman's recent history (surprisingly, created by one of the most God awful hacks the DC universe has seen) and his story shines like the summer sun in this gripping tale of a child coming to terms.
I feel the first thing I should mention in my user comments for this movie is that I am not a big fan of Batman - I haven't read the comics in years, and I only have a basic knowledge of the character of Batman and the other characters in the series.
Particularly the last two.Like those films, 'Son of Batman' is certainly not for kids.
People complain that Deathstroke is too pompous, but the good part is he is still true to the comics, compared to Slade from Teen Titans, who was nothing more than a censored, although an amazing, version of the character.
Damien Wayne was perfectly true to the comics in being the son of Batman and Talia and raised by the League of Assassins.
No menace or expression here, Gibson sounds like he wishes he was somewhere else and it shows in his flat line delivery and his voice doesn't fit the character, far too nice.
The action is never thrilling or exciting, didn't feel much urgency actually and a lot of it was ridiculous with the villains defeated too easily and by what the heck means.Generally the script tends to be bland and childish, devoid of any kind of complexity, and the story suffers mainly from the film being far too short and having too much going on and too many characters to fit in.
its a nice new look on the league of assassins and a new robin the action scenes were good but the overall story was just bad it seemed like they dragged it on for too long I did not like it that much below average not what I expect from anything batman so five out of ten its okay watchable..
I'm not a hardcore Batman fan or anything, meaning that I haven't read the comics and so I don't know everything about the universe and how well this movie adheres to its source material.
The entire thing is a misfire almost from the very beginning.The story centers around Damian Wayne, the son of Batman and his sometimes foe, sometimes lover Talia al Ghul.
When the League of Assassins is decimated by Deathstroke, Talia leaves Damian with Batman.
The two almost immediately butt heads due to Damian being raised as an assassin and Batman having his "no killing rule." Despite this, Batman attempts to train and bond with Damian, even as the newest Robin seeks out revenge.Since I like to give credit where credit is due: the action scenes are fairly well staged (though much more bloody than is necessary, which is something I'll come back to.) Jason O'Mara continues to do strong work as Batman.
Every word he spoke was flat and disconnected and just killed a visually intimidating character.Coming on the heels of the already flawed (though not this badly) "Justice League: War," this just kills my enthusiasm for the films based off of stories taken from the New 52 line of comics..
Marvel dominates the live action stuff but, until DC catches up, they have the animated film department mastered
until they released "Son of Batman." I'm not one to complain about the changes made from adapting a book, graphic novel or comic (and this one had A LOT of changes), instead, the problem that hurt my enjoyment of this one had to due with the fact the story was just really weak and the dialogue was absolutely terrible.While the film follows the predictable lines of a man finding out he has a son and has to somehow connect with them despite the fact they have been alienated from each other for a significant amount of time, the movie fails to hit that requirement of the two finding common ground and they learn, laugh, love and grow together.
Damian is a bratty little snob of a child up until he gets the exact thing he wants and is the one thing Batman keeps trying to teach him not to cling to and then *BAM* they are all good and their common ground is found and are now the best of besties.
The DC Universe continues combining its New 52 Universe and its animated movie universe with "Son of Batman." It was a lot easier to adapt "Justice League: War" for the big or small screen given that it was already rooted in the rebooted world we've come to know in the past few years.
The real question everybody wanted to know the answer to was, "How will a book written before the launch of the New 52 fit into the new cosmos?" Whether you like the outcome or not, credit has to be given to DC for accomplishing the feat.When Ra's al Ghul is assassinated by Deathstroke and his army, his daughter Talia and her son Damian are left on the run for their lives.
Batman soon finds himself partnered with a new Robin when he is put in the middle of a battle between Talia's new brigade of Man-Bats and Deathstroke's squad.If you've read Grant Morrison's graphic novel that "Son of Batman" is based on, then you know right off the bat (pun intended) this is not as faithful an adaptation as you might have expected.
It's really about Damian Wayne, the hot-tempered son of Batman, who we are introduced to in the opening of the film.
Almost every aspect of Son of Batman is bad: the voice acting, the half-anime animation, and Damian himself has to be one of the most aggravating characters in the history of film.
That is by far the worst aspect of this pitiful excuse for an animated DC Universe movie: the titular Damian Wayne.
Although Damian is the most unlikeable character in the movie, Batman is almost as bad.
Throughout the movie it seems Bruce Wayne/Batman constantly gets showed up by his bratty twenty-five years younger son.
I'd like to think he was trying to instill confidence in Damian, or using some other sort of Batman strategy, but sadly, I believe that wasn't the case.The movie starts with the League of Assassins being betrayed by Slade Wilson a.k.a. Deathstroke.
I want to say that she would have been best left out of the movie, but regrettably, she is too important to be left out.Filled with wrath and vengeance, Damian brutally cuts his way through the traitors, just like his grandfather, until he reaches Slade...and stabs him in the eye.
Talia al Ghul decides it's time for Damian to meet his father, so they travel to Gotham, and she leaves him with Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman.
Sure there are some weaknesses then and there, but overall it was a interesting and fun Batman movie.
The most intriguing part about this animated movie is the relationship between Batman and Damian who is this stuck up, arrogant kid fueled by vengeance.
Indeed, it is not good as the comic book but it still good as the other great Batman movie.
THE LAST FIGHTING BETWEEN DEATHSTROKE AND ROBIN IS THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE.
I think it's a must watch batman movie..
Never the less the rest are good enough in order to make me not bother to much for those problems.To start the animation fits perfectly with the brutal fight scenes and the tone of the movie.
Now I personally don't like the anime style in DC animated movies but her is done well so I will give it a pass.Next the story is really good for we see Bruce dealing with the problems of parenthood and I was quit entertain by that as well as the fact he is one of the persons of the world who can understand what it means to have a tough childhood.
Truth be told Damian never knew anything else than training so Bat's quote is to the point.Lastly and that is my personal opinion the voice acting died a fantastic work bringing these iconic characters to life and their portrayal was done ,apart from Deathstroke, in a respective manner to the source material.All in all here we have a fine DC animated film and if you want go watch it.
Anyway that's neither here nor there,back onto the review.The film is based on a 2006 story arc written by Grant Morrison who has written for so many characters and arcs isn't surprising his work is being adapted into films.The film starts off with a huge training camp being destroyed that we know is owned by the Al Ghul family, a young boy and Mother escape to the boys Father, who turns out to be none other than Batman himself.
Batman takes his newly revealed son under his wing deciding to train and protect him from what has already happened.Bruce allows Damien to join him and Robin, in fighting crime, but keeping the criminals alive in typical Batman tradition, throughout this time a huge development happens which will soon have a incredible impact on the plot.The film has a pretty short run time, which isn't to bad due to the fact we do not really need that much characters time, however I would like to have had seen some more on screen relationship progression between Bruce and Damien.
A Talia Fans review of Son of Batman.
I have been on strike from anything DC related since the abysmal treatment of Talia Al Ghul and Damian Wayne in the Batman Inc run, Grant Morrison completely and utterly decimated the core character of Talia Al Ghul.
ON TO THE REVIEWSo anyway a friend of mine comes over and has Son of the Batman with him, personally I'm like "Get that thing out of my house" since, I've not bought or looked at anything since Damian and Talia were murdered.
Jason O'Mara did good as Bruce/Batman though I am more of the golden voice of Kevin Conroy.
Personally I would have rather seen Dusan as the main villain him trying to take the League of Assassins away from Ra's and Talia makes a lot more sense than Deathstroke.
Well it seems Batman got drugged one night and did the nasty with Talia al Ghul who had a son Damian.
Well, this isn't the best Batman movie I have nor the worst but I think this movie had a lot of week potential then good for example Nightwing is shown to be very weak in this movie and he was lucky to defeat Damian during the fight scene.
Their stronghold is attacked by Deathstroke, who pretty much eliminates any possibility of this being anything less than a PG-13 movie.Much like most men suddenly finding themselves as fathers unexpectedly, Batman tries to steer his son in the right direction, and through a number of combat scenes. |
tt2954474 | Visions | David Maddox consoles his wife Eveleigh as she regains consciousness in a hospital. Eveleigh recalls being in a fatal car accident that killed a child in the other vehicle.
One Year Later – Now three months pregnant, Eveleigh and David prepare to reopen a vineyard they purchased in Paso Robles, California. Top area wine distributor Helena Knoll attends a party for the couple and Eveleigh finds the woman muttering in a strange trance while alone inside their house.
Eveleigh begins suffering from nightmares and hallucinations and comes to believe something supernatural may be haunting her or the house. Eveleigh also starts attending a yoga class where she makes friends with a pregnant woman named Sadie.
Sadie accompanies Eveleigh on a visit to realtor Glenn Barry. Glenn reports that the vineyard house has no horrible history, but tells Eveleigh that she may wish to research prior owners the Porters for answers regarding possible paranormal activity.
Eveleigh’s visions continue intensifying. Worried that her PTSD has returned and is to blame for her hallucinations, David and Eveleigh’s OB/GYN Dr. Mathison insist that she resume taking the anti-depressants she previously stopped due to pregnancy. Eveleigh reluctantly relents and the visions finally cease.
Several months later, Eveleigh reconnects with Sadie, who convinces Eveleigh to stop taking her medication. Eveleigh’s haunting visions return and she also begins suspecting a secret conspiracy against her that David might be involved in.
Eveleigh contacts Jane Porter after learning that she had been researching ghosts and poltergeists. Jane leads Eveleigh back to Helena Knoll to ask about the trance she had at the party.
Also sensitive to supernatural phenomena, Helena accompanies Eveleigh to the ruins of a destroyed home that previously existed on the vineyard’s property. Both women experience a vision. Helena tells Eveleigh that psychic violence can echo throughout time and some kind of paranormal activity imprinted itself upon the land. Helena collapses suddenly. Before dying, Helena says to Eveleigh, “it’s not what you think. It’s you.”
Eveleigh visits vintner Victor Napoli, whose family owned her vineyard a century earlier. Victor tells Eveleigh that his great-grandmother burned down the old house on the property because of paranormal activity. He then shows her sketches from when a medium tried contacting spirits in the home. Eveleigh is shocked to see that the sketches depict her and David.
Eveleigh comes home to an intervention staged by David, Dr. Mathison, Eveleigh’s friend Eileen, and family therapist Victoria Lambert. Eveleigh tries explaining that she was not being haunted, but rather, she and David were ghosts haunting the past. The Porter and Napoli families were experiencing premonitions of a future tragedy that Eveleigh realizes is about to take place that night.
Sadie arrives at the front door with her husband Ben. Both of them are armed with guns. Victoria tries to run and Ben shoots her as the room erupts in commotion. Eveleigh realizes that every vision she had was showing her a glimpse of events currently taking place.
David discovers Sadie is not actually pregnant when he stabs her stomach. Sadie turns the knife on David and he falls to the floor. Eveleigh pushes Sadie through a glass door and flees. Ben kills Eileen before running after Eveleigh. He then kills a neighboring farmer before confronting Eveleigh. Eveleigh is attacked from behind and knocked unconscious.
Eveleigh wakes to find herself being held captive by Ben and Sadie. It is revealed that Sadie is the woman who lost her child in the fatal car wreck. Holding Eveleigh responsible, Sadie plans to cut out Eveleigh’s baby. Eveleigh wrestles free of her restraints and slashes Sadie’s throat. Ben moves to attack, but David arrives and shoots Ben dead.
In the aftermath, the vineyard house stands empty as realtor Glenn Barry shows the property to a new couple. | paranormal, revenge, flashback | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0279077 | FLCL | FLCL is a coming-of-age story and revolves around Naota Nandaba, a 12-year-old, working-class boy living with his widowed father and grandfather. His life in the city of Mabase is interrupted by the arrival of Haruko Haruhara, who runs over Naota with her yellow Vespa 180 SS scooter, gives him CPR, then hits him on the head with a blue vintage Rickenbacker 4001 left-handed electric bass guitar. Naota discovers that the blow to his head created an "N.O." portal, from which giant robots produced by a company known as Medical Mechanica emerge periodically.
Naota later finds Haruko working in his house as a live-in maid. It is later discovered that Haruko is an investigator for the Galactic Space Police Brotherhood. Haruko uses Naota for her search for the Pirate King, Atomsk. She is at odds with Medical Mechanica, a monolithic industrial corporation. Naota is being watched by Commander Amarao, a special agent of the Bureau of Interstellar Immigration, who believes that Medical Mechanica is out to conquer the galaxy. Naota is ultimately drawn into a three-way battle between Haruko, Amarao and Medical Mechanica. | cult, absurd, psychedelic, action, satire, romantic, entertaining | train | wikipedia | this is what dreams are made of.FLCL is a 6-episode japanese anime production that impresses and entertains beyond explanation.
those who find their way through it's layering of bizarre beauty will realize what it truly is: the greatest thing ever.FLCL, also known as Fooly Cooly or Furi-Kuri in Japan, centers around Naota, a Japanese kid whose beloved older brother has recently moved to America to play baseball.
In the midst of it all, Naota (or as Mamimi calls him, ta-kun) finds his already troubled life turned on its side as a strange girl named Haruko rides into town on a Vespa scooter and smacks him on the head with her trusty, electric-blue, motorized Rickenbacker bass guitar.
Indeed, it's impossible to summarize the show without making it sound completely stupid: "It's about an alien woman who hits a boy with a guitar, and robots start popping out of his head." Yeah, that's gonna make people want to see it (not).
It completely departs from the classic realistic anime style, and seems to emulate more American cartoons by not letting the characters show very exaggerated characteristics at times.While it indeed is filled with craziness, there is an obvious and very strong structure to the plot.
I've read someone write that watching FLCL is like falling in love for the first time again, and it's a great description.
After all, as a coming-of-age story, those are the feelings that the main character Naota is going through himself.The music is simply the best in anime, period.
This woman and the main character are somehow tied together through a story that involves sex, baseball, aliens, robots, secret government organizations and an underlying message about growing up and finding who you are.The first time you watch it, you will not get it.
This is one of best ways to show the strides GAINAX is making as well as other greats like Evangelion, Gunbuster, and others.Almost everyone in this series undergoes change especially Naota.
This dull life changes when, for no apparent reason, a pink-haired girl named Haruko shows up on a moped...and proceeds to plow right into Naota, sending headlong into an adventure he would most likely prefer to avoid.
However, the focus seems to be very, VERY far removed from such down-to-earth elements as "Following a steady plot" or "developing characters"; instead, Furi Kuri seems to lampoon anything and everything it can, from basic elements of life and society to American Television (yes, there is a South Park section in the series).
The last episode, while lacking any true "tying up of loose ends" at least brings all events of the past to a pseudo-close, bringing an understanding to the basest wackiness exhibited.Usually, I find myself enjoying shows that are able to combine elements into powerful scenes - Cowboy Bebop is a good example of this, splicing wonderful jazz and rock with the action pacing of each section of the series.
the wonderful mix of characters and weird story, along with a cruel and wicked sense of humour and craziness makes for one outrageous anime which will not disappoint.
I am not a huge fan of anime, as I have only seen this series, Cowboy Bebop, and Trigun, but this is my favorite.Set in an urban, Japanese town called Mabase, FLCL is a zany, frenetic, wild, and hilarious look of the events following the arrival of Haruhara Haruko.
But Haruko is about to shake things up a bit...Story - 9/10 Although some may be confused and bewildered after a first time viewing, the series presents more than what is shown on the surface.
The theme is developed through Naota's experiences with Haruko as he learns what it means to just live life as a kid.Animation - 10/10 Sporting some of the craziest scenes ever, the quality doens't get much better than this.
If you are a fan of anime, or want to take a crazy trip through 6 amazing episodes, this is your series..
Ordinarily I despise anime dubbing, but as I watched the final two hours of FLCL words flew so fast and furious that I had to experiment.
(2) Make a point of switching back to Japanese at regular intervals so as not to lose important rhythms.Other than that, FLCL is superb, wildly Freudian (or something along that line), and, for its electric guitars, one of three great musically based anime I can think of at the moment.
FLCL sounds and looks like a relaxed romance/slice- of-life story
until a girl named Haruko crashes into Naota with her moped, knocking him unconscious and shifting the focus of the series (She KOs him again – with a baseball bat – immediately after Naota arises).
This is a basic summary of FLCL (known as "Fooly Coolly"), a highly controversial series among anime fans.
My question is, is this any good?I really like FLCL's stylistic shifts, the series mainly using this great slow-motion effect and a manga look for a couple of scenes.
The music is also an A-plus, a rock-oriented soundtrack that strangely fits FLCL, but what I appreciate most is this anime's character portrayal.
Mamimi evokes an unprecedented level of pity from the other characters and the audience, a confused young girl trapped inside a very confusing anime.Most renowned anime have a few undesirable traits, like a random plot twist or a terrible acting performance from a character, but I don't know where to start with FLCL.
Finally, it's FLCL's attempt at comedy, everything from the character's fast-paced talking (particularly Naota and Haruko) to the awkward South Park look in one scene and, perhaps worst of all, the lame running gag of focusing on Commander Amarao's tremendously thick eyebrows.
It was fun to learn things I (really) didn't need to know about the characters, to watch as FLCL shoved another crappy moment in my face when I assumed there were no more, and to joyfully look forward to FLCL's conclusion.
"People love robots so let's add a bunch into FLCL!" "Those otaku can't get enough of fan service so let's try to make every other scene a suggestive scene." Everybody loves South Park so we should turn a random FLCL scene into a South Park scene!" Throughout the 6-episode series, a lot of characters took a look at Naota's horn and said it was Fooly Coolly (the title of the series), but it's never explained what it means.
I've tried to like this 6 episode series, I've tried to link the beginning to end, I've tried to like the characters, the WAY overthetop animation, the erraticism, the niche, the "Fooly Coolly" too Coolly for Schooly everything.
They explain JUST WHAT I TOLD you in a little more detail by episode 5, but it's about four more words than what I just said to avoid spoilers.Along with these two is a couple more of said manipulative girls, an apathetic horny father, full on uzzi battles where people don't get completely blown to shreds, a creepy chain smoking school girl, a REALLY weird spider-mech battle with a young girls legs, forehead, crotch and panties turning into weapons (again, not making this up), I don't know how many hand motifs.
Perhaps it is for the better that the story is pushed to the background by a constant stream of mostly inexplicable madness, with the leitmotivs of guitars, robots, cats, cars, curry bread, eyebrows and buttocks.The best thing that can be said about "FLCL" is that it is good at what it does.
Besides the elasticity of space, time and consequence, the audience is bombarded with everything the animators could come up with: sudden switches to manga style, a South Park parody, sudden fourth-wall breaking - why the hell not?The consequence of no consequences is, however, that the audience threatens to lose its involvement in the events.
In the sixth episode, the creators seem to plainly have run out of ideas, having the characters interrupt another manga-styled sequence, and saying they are glad they can be a normal anime again, once again demonstrating what place fourth-wall breaking takes in the barrel of screenwriting.There can be a certain charm to the non-stop madhouse action and comedy; especially notable is the meticulous animation of hundreds of frames that are lost in the spitfire editing, yet are portraits of hilarity individually.
The only anime television show I've come to really love is Cowboy Bebop because there isn't any of what FLCL has.First, the good points.
FLCL is an anime series that consists of 6 episodes.
But the problem is this non coherent anime got only one thing that makes sense to everyone, it's about how a 12 year old boy is manipulated and used by 3 girls among them 2 older girls and one of them adult, along with a horny father in the house it's always about sex.
And the characters are great...I've got their pictures on my desktop (very well-animated, by they way); they all change, all have personalities...if you thought every story has flat characters in some way or another, you're wrong.And the parodies are awesome - they have parts of the movie where it's entirely still manga with chaos for audio.
As it has been stated before, the story line will be hard to understand before watching it a few times, but having to think about what you saw kind of allows you to set your imagination to what you want the story to be.
It's deceptively deep and subtle, and it still has the ability to blow me away, despite the fact that I've seen it over ten times.Unlike some popular anime, FLCL's English dub is high quality.
As Gainax (The Production Company) says a few times in the insert booklets with the DVDs. I swear this has got to be one of the best animes ever,even if you don't like anime that much,you'll at least watch this one!
FLCL is, by far, one of the craziest animes I have ever had the insane pleasure of watching.I couldn't even begin to summarize it for you,(Not because I have a lot to say about it, it's just I don't understand half of what happened myself.)But if I had to, I would tell you that there's alot of robots, guitar smashing (Mainly over people's heads), and lots of main character Naota getting run over by a Vespa.
Fast-paced isn't the word.FLCL will leave you breathless and floating in the air, the way you get when you know you've just had a life-changing experience.You'll wonder what the hell is going on, and you won't want to stop watching, so you can find out what's going on.
And you'll finish watching it again, and then you'll start again, because it is right, and it's so, so cool.Manga-style, bullet-time, construction paper animation.
It has a wonderful sense of humor, you immediately like all people on their first appearance and most of all, the music (The Pillows) is the best for this 6-episodes.
I don't like to rank my favorite things, but if I had to, I would say FLCL has to fall among my top 5 animes of all time, but I prefer to put my most favorite things on the same pedestal, so I would say FLCL is tied as my #1 favorite anime with 4 or so other shows.Someone once said "FLCL is a metaphor for growing up", I really liked that description.BUT there is always the chance that you will not like it, nothing is universally accepted, no matter how good it is in the majority's opinion, I introduced FLCL to many people, and while most people loved it, many of them simply did not "get it", I guess they were trying too hard to make sense of it on their first viewing, you shouldn't do that, just go with the flow and let is sink in slowly, you'll never really "get it" on your first viewing anyway.The region 1 DVDs are very high quality, from the stylish packaging (transparent cases and reversible covers), a perfect direct digital video transfer, the only English dub I actually like, DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY, booklet inserts (containing explanations of the Japanese-centric jokes in the episodes, interviews with the staff), and more.
I ranted on and on and I'm sorry but this is the bottom line.It's wacky it's crazy, it's manic, this is a show that works on every level no matter how deep, it's a show with good lessons on life, it's about growing up.I'm fourteen, and I've seen people my age who are forces to read certain things, or watch certain things because they want their child to be a better person.
Heck you see even bit of South Park parody in one the episodes.This really down right funny anime, however if there was anything wrong with it, its for people who understand popculture, Mainly Japanese Popculture.
Haruko is the wildest girl since Excel to ever appear on Anime, Mayumi Shintani voice acting is pretty damn good (even when she turns into a serpent and starts licking Naota).In the series you'll be able to see the most stupid thing ever: GIANT ROBOTS COMING OUT OF PEOPLE'S HEAD!!!!
FLCL is was great anime show on Adult Swim in 2004 and come back in 2018 on Toonami.
It's not about some kind of weirdness value like you're maybe thinking, it's a unique work of art that just might click with you.FLCL is a coming of age story that immerses us in the topsy turvy world of a teenage lad.
Let's see what we can find.Visuals: This is some of the best animation that you are likely to see in a TV series.
There's a clear plot about Naota and Haruko that we are following, but there are things going on the background that are barely explained, and even the final episode, which makes few things clear, still opens the show up to a lot of questions.
I honestly don't know I watched All six episodes and I still have no idea what's going on here but I'll try to explain it the best I can.Some random kid 12 year old kid named Naota Nandaba has some kinda puberty thing going and one day this crazy b*tch with pink hair on a motorcycle hits him with a guitar and a giant computer robot comes out of his forehead....I am not making any of this up folks a Giant robot climbs out of a 12 year-old boys forehead.
One such WTF moment follows the other in breathtaking speed, underlined by an awesome soundtrack from the Japanese rock band "The Pillows".Therefore, when watching FLCL for the first time, you will most probably understand only a tiny bit (if anything) of the storyline.
And I am quite sure that the (few) negative reviews found here come from narrow-minded people who watched only one maybe two episodes, and then decided that FLCL is too random and whacky.
Shame on them.But many others will be fascinated (like I was) by the beautifully psychedelic scenes and continue watching, if only to find out if it can get any weirder (believe me, it can!).And those who watch the whole series open minded and pay attention to the story will be rewarded by far more than having experienced an one- of-its-kind anime LSD trip - suddenly it will all make sense.
FLCL is so dense and fast-paced that you might have to watch it multiple times to discover all the hidden puzzle pieces you need to understand it.In conclusion and retrospective, I still have a place in my heart for the above mentioned Elfenlied, and other great animes (like Mononoke, Nausicaä, Spirited Away to mention just some few), of course.
Not to mention some great music by the Pillows.Indeed, Fooly Coolly (FuriCuri)(FLCL)(whichever you want to call it) will leave you saying "And then I watched FLCL and was like WTF was THAT??!!" (but in a good way) XP.
These episodes are great if you have not seen FLCL i would have to say that you are missing out on viewing one of the best anime productions ever.If you would like to read up on his production of FLCL I would suggest the viewer to go to the website www.flclw.com a website constructed for FLCL fans..
Usually I'll seek out a subtitled version of all my anime but I was impressed with the quality of the English voice-work on this one.If you do decide to watch FLCL you should accept going into it that IT WILL NOT MAKE SENSE.
I don't know why some people criticize this anime mini-series for being absurd and random: While it is true that "FLCL" is completely absurd and random, those are the main reasons of why this is so entertaining to watch, being a completely unpredictable animation that is also very funny and well done.I liked very much the characters of this series, which were very likable, strange and interesting: The contrast of the "sanity" of more "down to earth" characters as Naota, with the craziness of characters as Haruko, combined with the many eccentric events that take place in the course of this story results in something very original and fascinating, which never fails to entertain.It also helps the fact that this incredibly well animated and has nice music.Also, the little South Park homage in one of the episodes was simply awesome."FLCL" is something crazy and wonderful at the same time: I'm not sure if this is supposed to be something "deep" or "symbolic", but personally I enjoyed it very much..
The ending, to me, gave off a feeling of a Mandarin Chinese movie.Anyway, if you watch it for the first time, don't give up after the first episode, the LEAST you can get out of it is some good music..
However I hope they bring back some characters from season.If you want an anime which is really mature and is robot associated I would recommend FLCL.. |
tt0015400 | The Thief of Bagdad | Ahmed (Douglas Fairbanks) robs as he pleases in the city of Baghdad. Wandering into a mosque, he tells the holy man (Charles Belcher) he disdains his religion; his philosophy is, "What I want, I take."
That night, he sneaks into the palace of the caliph (Brandon Hurst) using a magic rope he stole during ritual prayers. All thoughts of plunder are forgotten when he sees the sleeping princess (Julanne Johnston), the caliph's daughter. The princess's Mongol slave (Anna May Wong) discovers him and alerts the guards, but he gets away.
When his associate (Snitz Edwards) reminds the disconsolate Ahmed that a bygone thief once stole another princess during the reign of Haroun al-Rashid, Ahmed sets out to do the same. The next day is the princess's birthday. Three princes arrive, seeking her hand in marriage (and the future inheritance of the city). Another of the princess's slaves foretells that she will marry he who first touches a rose-tree in her garden. The princess watches anxiously as first the glowering Prince of the Indies (Noble Johnson), then the obese Prince of Persia (an uncredited Mathilde Comont), and finally the Prince of the Mongols (Sojin Kamiyama) pass by the rose-tree. The mere sight of the Mongol fills the princess with fear, but when Ahmed appears (disguised in stolen garments as a suitor), she is delighted. The Mongol slave tells her countryman of the prophecy, but before he can touch the rose-tree, Ahmed's startled horse tosses its rider into it.
That night, following ancient custom, the princess chooses Ahmed for her husband. Out of love, Ahmed gives up his plan to abduct her and confesses all to her in private. The Mongol prince learns from his spy, the princess's Mongol slave, that Ahmed is a common thief and informs the caliph. Ahmed is lashed mercilessly, and the caliph orders he be torn apart by a giant ape, but the princess has the guards bribed to let him go.
When the caliph insists she select another husband, her loyal slave advises her to delay. She asks that the princes each bring her a gift after "seven moons"; she will marry the one who brings her the rarest. In despair, Ahmed turns to the holy man. He tells the thief to become a prince, revealing to him the peril-fraught path to a great treasure.
The Prince of the Indies obtains a magic crystal ball from the eye of a giant idol, which shows whatever he wants to see, while the Persian prince buys a flying carpet. The Mongol prince leaves behind his henchman, telling him to organize the soldiers he will send to Bagdad disguised as porters. (The potentate has sought all along to take the city; the beautiful princess is only an added incentive.) After he lays his hands on a magic apple which has the power to cure anything, even death, he sends word to the Mongol slave to poison the princess. After many adventures, Ahmed gains a cloak of invisibility and a small chest of magic powder which turns into whatever he wishes when he sprinkles it. He races back to the city.
The three princes meet as agreed at a caravansary before returning to Bagdad. The Mongol asks the Indian to check whether the princess has waited for them. They discover that she is near death, and ride the flying carpet to reach her. Then the Mongol uses the apple to cure her. The suitors argue over which gift is rarest, but the princess points out that without any one gift, the remaining two would have been useless in saving her life. Her loyal slave shows her Ahmed in the crystal ball, so the princess convinces her father to deliberate carefully on his future son-in-law. The Mongol prince chooses not to wait, unleashing his secret army that night and capturing Bagdad.
Ahmed arrives at the city gate, shut and manned by Mongols. When he conjures up a large army with his powder, the Mongol soldiers flee. The Mongol prince is about to have one of his men kill him when the Mongol slave suggests he escape with the princess on the flying carpet. Ahmed liberates the city and rescues the princess, using his cloak of invisibility to get through the Mongols guarding their prince. In gratitude, the caliph gives his daughter to him in marriage. | action, entertaining, fantasy | train | wikipedia | THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (United Artists, 1924), directed by Raoul Walsh, is an original Arabian Nights fantasy that remains one of the most visually stunning of all silent films with trick photography and lavish sets (compliments of William Cameron Menzies) taking top form over anything else.
Then again, this is 1924, running 150 minutes (depending on the projection speed), and a small wonder how audiences felt watching this lavish tale during its initial premiere, focusing on mythical events set in "The Dream City of the East." It was quite obvious then this was something never before presented on screen, making the current products of director DW Griffith seem old-fashioned and out of date.
Fortunately, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD doesn't fall into that category, and hopefully never will.It's star attraction, Douglas Fairbanks, having made a reputation for himself in costume swashbucklers, previously appearing as Zorro, Robin Hood and the leader of The Three Musketeers, assumes another challenge, an Arabian Nights Fantasy.
Almost immediately, the Thief, bare-chested and sporting baggy pants resembling the bottom half of a pajama, lives up to his title picking pockets, stealing food from the ledge of a balcony, and living by his philosophy, "What I want, I take." The movie opens and closes with a Holy Man (Charles Belcher) raising his arm towards the glittering stars in the heavens spelling out "Happiness Must Be Earned." In between those words, the moral of the story is told to a young lad how this thief earned his happiness.Lengthly with some lulls, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD never ceases to amaze.
A magical tale, brilliantly told, full of surprises too plentiful to mention here.THE THIEF OF BAGDAD is Douglas Fairbanks' finest hours on screen.
The Douglas Fairbanks legend lives on with films such as this.A supporting cast of not so famous performers, only Anna May Wong as the Mongol Slave, did make a name for herself in future films up to the sound era.
Aside from Brandon Hurst (Caliph), and Noble Johnson (the Indian Prince), Sojin stands out in his spine chilling performance as the evil Mongol Prince.THE THIEF OF BADGAD was one of 13 feature films broadcast on the PBS 13-week series, "The Silent Years" (1971), hosted by Orson Welles.
There is none in the kingdom wily & cunning enough to thwart the evil one's wicked plots - no one, that is, except THE THIEF OF BAGDAD.This is another wonderful Douglas Fairbanks silent adventure epic.
His athleticism is here perfectly at home in a realm of flying carpets, magic armies & undersea battles.Director Raoul Walsh & Art Director William Cameron Menzies have created a realm of domes & towers, turrets & great halls, bazaars & souks - all the perfect backdrop for Fairbanks & the plot's sinuous action.In the supporting cast, Sojin makes an excellent villain, the mysterious epitome of evil.
Look for Anna May Wong as a palace maid & versatile African American actor Noble Johnson as the Indian Prince.Both versions of this film now available on video feature scores based on themes from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, which exquisitely conveys all the allurement of the Thousand and One Nights..
The movie also has some silly looking but yet great early special effects, toward the ending of the movie.The story has all the ingredients needed for such a genre movie as this one; an heroic main character, a love interest, stereotypical villains and lots of fun and action.
After all, he photographed at least twenty of the current top cult favorites) and the magical acting by the athletic Fairbanks, the scheming Sojin and the entrancing Miss Wong, all not only contribute richly to the film's success, but each actually presents a compelling reason for making this Thief of Bagdad an absolute must-see!.
It would have to rank among the best adventure/fantasy stories made in the silent film era, and it's still as entertaining as just about anything of the kind being made today..
"The Thief of Bagdad" was my first introduction to Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and, as first impressions go, I've not been this impressed with an old-time film star since I watched Fairbanks' cinematic successor, Errol Flynn, begin creating his own legend in "Captain Blood".The imagination and power of the visual design of the sets by Raoul Walsh make a nice complement for Fairbanks' script.
Charming, smart, irresistable to women, tough enough to take on the bad guys, gifted with a physique that borders on the unbelievable...he's every boy's greatest heroic fantasy come true.All that said, another reason "The Thief of Bagdad" is important AND fun is because it really marks the starting point for the modern genre of action-adventure films.
Fairbanks essentially invented the action/adventure movie genre, known in his day as swashbucklers."Thief of Bagdad" was made in 1924 when Fairbanks was half way through the heyday of that part of his career.
Only Griffth's "Intolerance" created the same kind of feel, and it was gritty and warlike, where as "Thief" was a sort of wondrous dream about what it would be like to live by your wits, go off and slay dragons and eventually, win the hand of a princess by saving her father's kingdom.Fairbanks was over 40 when he made this film and yet seems so perfectly suited for it that we forget his age.
Raoul Walsh's direction is also great, although the film is a little long in some spots and would be aided by some skillful editing.Fairbanks acting style seems today very much of the silent era, yet at the same time, there is always the feel of joyous celebration to it.
This is certainly one of the best examples of the greatness of the medium now called 'silent film.' There are truly wondrous moving images here, created by means of human actors, stage techniques, and primitive FX, made to tell a very satisfying mythic story.
I saw a restored cut of this film on PBS TV in the late 1980's, with the original color tints and an orchestral soundtrack composed of rearranged bits of Rimsky-Korsekov's 'Scheherazade.' The Scheherazade material works perfectly with this material, not only because it helps establish the magical world in which our story transpires, but because it goes perfectly with Fairbanks' ballet-style action sequences.
True, some of the "special effects" are a little corny by today's standards, but the film holds up, nevertheless.And to all those who appreciate the male form, Douglas Fairbanks physique is unbelievable!.
This is a silent film that can be throughly enjoyed by those who normally shy away from the pre-sound era, because it is overwhelmingly a visual visit to an otherworld through fantastic set designs and dazzling special effects.There is a bit of hammy acting but it doesn't seem objectionable because it is overshadowed by the grandeur and scope of the production.
True, the film is lengthy and may contain a couple of lulls in the pacing, but when Fairbanks, the visuals and the adventure and fantasy elements of the story were so good, this was hardly a problem for me.
The fact is that this film's audience was probably people who didn't go to the movies often, and were still amazed by the novelty of moving pictures.Keeping in mind all I said about why most silent films have not exactly stood the test of time, is "The Thief of Baghdad" a good movie?
For many reasons, yes, and it should be watched by people who are fans of action and fantasy movies, because this really paved the way for what CGI and other special effects sciences only made better in the years to come.The movie tells a good story, although one that sputters and stalls a few times in the first 30 minutes.
In fact, the first five minutes of the film are incredibly entertaining the way he manages to pickpocket wealthy patrons, and effortlessly fling his way up to a balcony with just a long rope and a donkey.The story really begins, though, when the thief disguises himself as a prince, and attempts to woo the princess.
How did they edit the film so that that particular effect worked?" If you have that sort of wonderment out of a moviegoer who just went to see "Avatar", you've got a good movie.The movie was also probably shot on a studio lot, but the set design is so detailed with its tall buildings and plants carefully placed in the makeshift Baghdad that there are few indications of such a location.
Still, the movie told a good story, the special effects were awe-inspiring considering its time period, and the message of the film is something to take away: "Happiness Must Be Earned".
Like John Kay sang, "Fantasy will set you free." ********* The Thief of Bagdad (3/18/24) Raoul Walsh ~ Douglas Fairbanks, Julanne Johnston, Sojin, Anna May Wong.
There is no denying that for its day and age this is wonderful.Given that it is nearly a century old it holds up very well.Though slow in places and long at 2 hours and 19 minutes I can imagine the original audiences must have blow away by the special effects, action, and story, costumes and sets etc;If course, the real selling point is Fairbanks who truly lights up the screen.
Some of the special effects still look good especially the flying carpet scenes and creating the million man army, but the rest for the main are primitive however if you're unfortunate enough to see any of the laughable modern versions, maybe some with eye-splitting digital cartoonery too you'll realise special effects do not make a great movie.
However if comparisons are possible between silent and sound films, I think Korda's version was something extra special and on another level altogether.So if you care, dig out a good non-budget issue of this for a magical night's entertainment..
Douglas Fairbanks shows off great silent acting & fantastic stunt work in a very entertaining film.
This is the type of film that should be pulled out when someone wants to do a theater organ score with a silent movie.There is a very good reason this film is great visually and clever with special effects.
And every time that I have the opportunity to watch it again, I don´t waste the chance (although unfortunately is rarely show it on t.v.) This film is almost eighty years old, and in my opinion has yet to lose their strong plot history, with Douglas Fairbanks at his top performance and in his stunts.The stages are so impressive.I like this picture a lot more than the 1940 version,that was made with much more resources.
Each time I see it, more and deeper messages come to me about the real message that this movie portrays.This film is now 75 years old and I say one thing, it gives the movies of today one good run for their money.
When seen with such accompaniment, the film is a delight to watch, with the film and music and live sound effects making a real evenings entertainment.A classic silent movie with all fun of the fairground.
Made on grand sets that rivalled the likes of Cabiria (1914), thanks to some spectacular set design by William Cameron Menzies, and featuring some ground-breaking visual effects, the real attraction of The Thief of Bagdad is Fairbanks himself, who compensates for some quite outlandish over-acting with an irresistibly athletic performance.
He also cherishes untoward designs on the Princess of our very city!The most revered cinematic version "Thief Of Bagdad" may have come almost 20 years later, but this silent Douglas Fairbanks actioner bows to no film in creating fantastic adventure.
If you want a case study for how Hollywood got it right early blending special effects, stunt work, and ample good humor, this is a "Thief" worth catching.Bagdad here is not exactly the Baghdad we know today.
"Allah hath made thy soul to yearn for happiness, but thou must earn it," he is told, and once we allow for the conventions and limits of silent film, we come a good deal closer to earning it ourselves.The direction by Raoul Walsh is sturdy enough, supported by stunning sets by William Cameron Menzies.
It does not have the Technicolor opulent look of the 1940 version, and Douglas Fairbanks is not as handsome as the 1961 thief, played by Steve Reeves, but this 1924 production intelligently blends comedy and drama; the framing, angles and camera movements used by director Raoul Walsh and cinematographer Arthur Edeson are visually elegant; and sets, costumes and effects were beautifully conceived and executed.
The film moves with a fascinating rhythm during the first two acts in Bagdad, before the Princess' suitors travel in search of the strangest treasures: there are countless sets to stage all the dramatic and action scenes: the marketplace, the sewers, the palace garden, the throne room, the Princess' bedroom, immense stairs, doors, walls, halls and vines, lavishly designed by William Cameron Menzies.
Everybody is fine in this film: Fairbank as the thief is all smiles, but when he has to show the dramatic nuances of his character he excels; Sôjin Kamiyama is excellent as the Mongol Prince (especially when compared to the 1940 and 1961 villains, more than aptly played by Conrad Veidt and Arturo Dominici), and Julanne Johnston's Princess is both attractive and funny, but I especially enjoyed beautiful Anna May Wong as the wicked Oriental maid and hilarious Snitz Edwards as the thief's sidekick.
It all works together to bring to life a fantastic world of flying carpets, magic ropes, mermaids, giant apes, and invading foreign armies, all contained within an exotic Arabian backdrop.The film is pretty long, and it drags at certain parts (mostly the middle).
The music score is great too.The Thief of Bagdad is not only a seminal classic for fantasy films, it's also one of the biggest and most imaginative silent-era films I've seen.Recommended!
One of the best films of the Silent era, right from the start: the stunt where Fairbanks gets to a balcony by means of a rope, a donkey, and a sleeping fat man is still one of the funniest in movies.
An epic silent adventure straight out of the Arabian Nights, 'The Thief of Bagdad' has lavish sets, pretty cool special effects, and Douglas Fairbanks bounding about athletically (and bare-chested) for much of the film.
The prince from Mongolia has the upper hand though, aided as he is by a spy he has amongst the princess's slaves (Anna May Wong, who was just 19 years old).The film is stylish from its very outset, when we see the words "Happiness must be earned" materialize in the starry night before the tale is told.
A recalcitrant thief (Douglas Fairbanks) vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.Long before we had Disney's "Aladdin", we had the thief of Bagdad.
But lush costumes and sets are not enough.My score would be higher were this film one hour shorter, because the paper-thin plot and characters at play in The Thief of Bagdad do not warrant a two and a half hour run-time.
"The Thief of Bagdad" (1924) is an amazing adventure film and it is one of my favorite movies.
The acrobatic skill and charisma of Douglas Fairbanks fits well with the magnificent sets and magical special effects of this timeless romantic fantasy, but all the histrionic mugging and florid over-emoting only makes the silent epic look sadly dated when seen today.
This was the 20s version of a 'blockbuster' with its editing, scope and scale, continuous action, special effects, and a fine fantasy story--something not seen comparably again until the unleashing of 'Star Wars' (1977).There are a couple of slow spots, the Thief's repentance scene and his first time alone with the Princess go on a little too long, but so much else happens in the film that these momentary slowdowns are easily overlooked.
Although the senior Fairbanks in closeups might have looked a little long in the tooth to be playing the young thief who wooed and won a princess, he hadn't lost a bit of athleticism that his films were known for.The Tales of the Arabian Nights was the inspiration for this The Thief Of Bagdad and the more familiar sound version that Alexander Korda produced and shot here in the USA as well due to wartime conditions in Great Britain.
I wouldn't be surprised if Griffith took an unofficial hand here.The sets were created of course by young William Cameron Menzies in one of his earliest films, costumes by Mitchell Leisen, and the director was Raoul Walsh, all of them getting big boosts in their careers from Douglas Fairbanks.
Fairbanks gives one of his best performance as the often grinning and shirtless almost all the way through scoundrel thief turned brave hero, Johnston looks pretty as the princess longing to find the right prince, and the other supporting characters do their parts well also.
I can see that this would have been one of the inspirations for ideas put into Disney cartoon Aladdin, obviously it an Arabian Nights story, and with elements like magic ropes, flying carpets and magic powder there is great spectacle, these special effect moments use terrific camera and editing tricks, and the swashbuckling bits with fights and chases are great fun, a splendid silent fantasy adventure.
THE THIEF OF BAGDAD is the lengthy silent version of the famous exotic adventure, with Douglas Fairbanks taking the title role.
Did such a place ever really exist or is it just a fictional fantasy?The Thief of Bagdad was one of the most expensive films of the silent era and that money sure went to good use.
This movie is a masterpiece.This was movie,but i enjoyed it as much as any modern film.Douglas Fairbanks made a wonderful role.The whole movie was so interesting.effects and everything.i like everything about this movie.this is a silent movie masterpiece.In the scenes with the giant ape, the guards are played by children.
After all that, I wonder how the 1940 version will hold up compared to this one.DOUG: 1924 sees the release of of this rip-roaring screen classic directed by Raoul Walsh and starring silent film adventurer Douglas Fairbanks. |
tt1763316 | The Theatre Bizarre | The film contain six stories, each inspired by Paris’ legendary Grand Guignol theatre.
The six stories are presented within a connecting framework, "Theatre Guignol": Enola Penny is intrigued by an abandoned theatre in her neighborhood. One night the theatre door mysteriously opens and she enters. A puppet host (or Guignol) introduces six short films. "Mother of Toads", "I Love You", "Wet Dreams", "The Accident", "Vision Stains" and "Sweets". As each is shown, the host becomes more human and Enola becomes more puppet-like.
"I Love You", "Wet Dreams" and "Sweets" match the Grand Guignol genre: physical or psychological conte cruel horror with natural explanations, cynical, amoral, ironic, sexy or gory in combinations.
"Mother of Toads" is loosely based on a supernatural horror story by Clark Ashton Smith. Set in France, the story concerns an American anthropologist and his girlfriend who fall victim to a witch known as The Mother of Toads after the witch sells them a pair of Elder Sign earrings and shows the anthropologist a copy of The Necronomicon.
"I Love You", set in Berlin, concerns a man who awakes on his bathroom floor with bloodstains around him and deep cuts in his right hand. He is an obsessive man who follows and calls his partner constantly. His partner, a French woman, announces she is leaving him and that she has been unfaithful to him on many occasions and even had an abortion without him knowing. The obsessive nature of the man's love leads to the doom of three people.
In "Vision Stains" a writer/serial killer injects fluid extracted from her victims' eyes into her own to experience their lives for her journals. Most reviews note "The Accident" seems out of place: a mother and daughter thoughtfully discuss the nature of death after witnessing an accident. | romantic, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | Some of them like the "Vision Stains" are really hard to watch.I absolutely do love "The Accident".
Mother of Toads is a great B-movie throwback, I Love You is like a violent version of The Room, Wet Dreams has Tom Savini, therefore it is automatically gold, The Accident is harrowing and haunting, Vision Stains is interesting and engaging and Sweets is disgusting fun.
I admit that while I heard quite a few good things about this movie I held off on it because I typically do not like anthologies but this one was pretty good and original.
7/10Wet Dreams Has Tom Savini directing so the effects are top notch and probably the best of any of the films.
Still though some of the stories are weak IMO and it is definitely not for everyone, even some horror fans will not like it.
Unfortunately none of the six tales qualifies as truly outstanding, but at least the segments "I love you", "Vision Stains" and "The Accident" rate as well above average.
"Vision Stains" is about a woman who kills homeless/troubled women and injects their eyeball-fluids in her own veins to live their memories
Until she witness things she didn't want to witness.
"The Accident" is somewhat of an alien segment, as it's more of a melodrama instead of a horror story, but it features a wonderfully grim atmosphere and a couple of harrowing moments.
The first segment "Mother of Toads" is very H.P Lovecraft like, with creepy monsters and nasty make-up effects, but writer/director Richard Stanley totally forgot to tell a story.
"Theater Bizarre" is a horror anthology that much reminds me of last years "Little Deaths" in that it takes some rather strange and extreme ideas for some of the stories of which there are many.
So lets start at the extremely disappointing beginning..."Mother of toads" is a totally lame and rather typical horror story about a couple on holidays meeting a strange witch inviting them to look at her Necronomicon.
Basically as forgettable as the first story and nosedives with dumb lines like "My vagina and your penis never were friends"."Wet dreams" is about a guy having nightmares about castration and a psycho therapist telling him to open his eyes to wake up from his dreams.
This is no real horror story but a rather slow meditation on life and death through the eyes of a mother and her little daughter who witness a motorcycle accident.
Unfortunately the promising short leads absolutely nowhere in the end."Vision stains" is some really twisted stuff by "Subconscious cruelty" director Karim Hussain.
This one has a point to end on but honestly I found it a little uneven too.Last but not least "Sweets" continues the disturbing imagery with some pretty nasty food fetishes and a bizarre break up scene of a couple.
It all culminates in one of the goriest scenes of this anthology.The surrounding Theatre-Plot with Udo Kier has some great visuals by "Wizard of Gore" Remake Director Jeremy Kasten but the lack of a story and Kiers accent which is nearly as annoying as that of the male lead in "I love you" ruin it.After all this is your typical anthology.
If you want some bizarre stories like in "Little Deaths" enjoy the second half but don't expect too much.
20 years later the best little horror anthology was brought to us that was filmed four blocks from where I am typing this review.
A couple of the stories were forgettable but if you hone in on " I love you " " Vision Stains " and " Sweets " well lets just say you will be darkly moved.
An anthology of weird an bizarre tales directed by famous names from the genre like for example Tom Savini and Karim Hussain.
There's even some gore involved in that segment.all the stories aren't what you think normal, they all have a twist at the end.
I feel this wrap around story should have had more of a point to it, but in the end, it only serves as a conduit to get us to the actual segments of the film.The Mother Of Toads [5/10] - This segment takes its influences from HP Lovecraft, and has some really cool and unsettling imagery in them.
Because of the short nature of anthology movies, we were never really given enough time with the characters to really care about them and it also feels as though they had to just wrap it up before being able to do anything.
It does not go anywhere until the last 2 or so minutes, but it does deliver one heck of a finale.Wet Dreams [5/10] - Being directed by Savini, you know it is going to have good effects, which it does.
Not bad, but not good either.The Accident [9/10] - It feels out of place next to all these segments of horror and gore.
While this never comes, you find the director knows how to set an atmosphere, and you will get a feeling from this segment you will not find in any horror movie.Vision Stains [9/10] - The best of the entire movie.
I just saw The Theater Bizarre on DVD and I have to say that it's a shame that great films like this are only seen in the festival circus and don't get wide distribution.
This anthology opens at a movie theater with a carnival like atmosphere as an introduction.Story #1 is "Mother of Toads" begins with a Gypsy woman selling an ancient pair of earrings to a tourist couple.
A 7/10.Story #2 "I Love You" A man wakes up on the bathroom floor in a bloody t shirt, not remembering what happened previously, when his wife shows up and explains to him that he is a control freak and she needs room to breathe and thus she is leaving him.
7/10.Story #4 "The Accident" is the briefest of the lot, a little girl and her mother discuss the death of her father and the meaning of life when they come upon an accident involving a motorcycle and a deer.
Horror fans do yourself a favor and pass on this I really feel I have to get the message out there because anthology's are my ultimate favorite and this just plain sucked for lack of better words, wasn't even worth watching for free on the net, there are better films to watch out there so pass on this one.
The actors in the film were very talented which in turn made people in the theater to oooh and awww during every segment, including an individual that actually got sick during one of the movies.
It peaked my interest and at the end it left me with wanting more of The Theatre Bizarre and its great story line!
It was without having any prior knowledge about what this was about, aside from it being an anthology of horror stories, that I sat down to watch this movie.Some of the segments, chapters, call them what you will, were actually nicely enough put together and shot in a great way, however they were lacking shock and scare aspects.
Udo Kier was perhaps the person that left the most memorable impression in the movie though.I am a fan of horror, but "The Theatre Bizarre", just didn't cut it for me.
Overall Theatre Bizarre is probably one of the better horror anthologies I've seen in a long time.
Airy pretensions and a somber mood don't mean much here.Vision Stains has an interesting premise and some good moments but isn't exactly great.Sweets is a nasty, gross, icky flip off of a segment.
What an apt title for this rather interesting (not always for the right reasons) anthology horror movie.
Inside she is greeted by a man who introduces her to a show of short movies: "Wet Dreams", was pretty good.
I can see references to Fulci style of horror and cinematography, also the last segment resembles some Italian art film of Fellini and more contemporary Sorrentino but with gore included.The acting varies from bad to mediocre to acceptable.
Anthologies and horror movies that centered around short stories quickly became my favourite type of movie.
Although some of the subject matter seems to be quite twisted and doesn't take itself to seriously, I guarantee there is at least 1 story in this movie that will stick with you long after the credits have stopped rolling.A little bit darker than your average tales of horror in the sense it's not good vs.
Mostly, if not all, of these tales have an extremely bleak ending or dark sense of justice.This is another one of those movies best enjoyed with friends just for the sheer visuals portrayed in a few of the stories.
"Wet Dreams" will definitely have you and your friends laughing out loud and "The mother of toads" is another one that causes either pure revulsion or gales of laughter.All in all a great escape into some horror that doesn't cause you to think too hard or follow a convoluted plot.Stay scared my friends..
Let me make clear that I'm not giving my review of the whole movie, my review is strictly for the segment: The accident,which caught my eye when I saw it, the segment is very different from the others in perspective it does not fit into the hole movie which focuses on horror and gore.What separates it from the other shorts is its gentle nature in the narrative of properly speaking of what is death,how a child has her first experience with death,to be more precise how a mother explains to her what is death,this narrative jumps from the day of the accident to a conversation from mother to daughter that same night,we see images of motorcycle accident which are witness by both and we cut to a warm moment between mother and daughter, daughter in her bed and her mother beside her explaining the meaning of life and death for the first time to her child,the girl asking her questions about why people die and how the mother dose not have the answer to it and trying to convince her that death is not always a bad thing.The accident is incredible mixture of storytelling and music, the song is a combination of orchestra with electronic sounds with vocal samples, giving us a calm vibe and a little disturbing at the same time fitting perfectly with the story.It's not morbid to talk about death.
It's an horror anthology that joins six independent little stories about different topics.
In fact this anthology's start is very bad, "Mother of Toads", the first story is totally disappointing with a lame script and some rude special effects.
"I love you" is too slow paced and boring and "Wet dreams" is a bit sexist in my opinion
It just starts getting better with the fourth story, "The accident".
It's a very short but also very deep story about a little girl that witnesses a motorcycle accident with a deadly victim and then starts a conversation with her mother about what is death and why people die
It's a very simple and realistic story with no conclusion at the end but that put me thinking about this topic as well
It's not an horror tale at all, but for me it was one of the best of this anthology!
The next story "Vision Stains", from "Subconscious cruelty" director Karim Hussain is also good.
The last one, "Sweets", is a real gore fest and for sure the bloodiest story of the anthology.
First of all i am gonna say that this movie was so depressing and sick i almost couldn't finish it..okay they wanted to make a horror anthology..i get it..so why are they making these random awful stories that even myself could have made them much more interesting and scarier..there is one story that has nothing to do with the rest of them,it's a story with a little girl.The awful nightmarish last story was not only dreadful but bloody disgusting too..i though 'oh well i found what to watch when i wanna start a diet'..Honestly one of the worst movies ever!!!If you wanna see horror stories that are worth it check out Campfire Tales..now that was interesting!!!.
I will start off by saying that I am a huge horror anthology fan, so I went into this film very excited.
There are all up 7 short films- (including the wrap-around story Theatre Guignol) and I will rate them one-by-one.Mother Of Toads- Visually impressive, and moderately tense short, but lacks depth, and does drag on a bit towards the end-(any time you are watching a short film and get bored, you are doing something wrong).
Not a good start.I Love You- COnsidering the fact the story is so derivative and played- out, the clever script and the solid acting saves this short from being a disaster.
A creepy mechanical puppet man (the always delightful Udo Kier at his most divinely strange and unnerving) relates six weird tales of horror to a scared young woman (a solid performance by Virginia Newcomb) at an old abandoned Grand Guignol theater.
Fifth and most original outing, "Vision Stains" - Director Karim Hussain makes the most out of the fascinatingly novel and original premise of a young woman who lives off the memories of other folks by taking fluid from their eyeballs at the moment of death.
It's an anthology with six stories in it, none of which are all that good, most of which are just excuses to hit us with gore or sex.
It's pretty much an FX Demo film, I guess.But since I have to do ten lines, I guess I need to talk about this stuff.The first story about the witch was kind of silly.The story about the guy who dreams about being tortured by his wife has a lot of gross special effects and no real point other than to make men cringe.The story about the little girl and her mommy explaining death.
THE END.The movie presents short stories that has elements of horror, the torture, the blood are not missing also many of them have sexual references witch makes somehow different from any other movies with short film in it.
It's a horror anthology, you see, comprised of six shorts and one wraparound segment.
Visually creative though they may be, the wraparound segments make no adequate connection between the individual stories and exist primarily to be gawked at."The Mother of Toads," directed by Richard Stanley.
What are we to make of the fact that, at two points in the segment, Axel awakens on the floor of his bathroom with a gaping wound on his hand and blood everywhere?"Wet Dreams," directed by Tom Savini.
Mixed-bag of horror anthology parts "Twilight Zone" meets "The Hitch Hiker" : young Newcomb finds an abandoned theater housing human marionette Kier (ever creepier) as the host of a series of terror tales including : "The Mother Of Toads" about a cursed monstrosity recalling vintage Corman; "I Love You" features fine performances from its tormented couple Hennicke and the ethereal Anbeh questioning fidelity at a painful cost; "Wet Dreams" with a philandering dreamer in a nightmare; "The Accident" (the best of the bunch) that truly echoes Rod Serling's aforementioned dream state retelling of a life-and-death situation; "Vision Stains" offers a serial killer of women who injects their memories directly into her eyes (yeah, not for the squeamish); and the final tale "Sweets" about a souring relationship with O.Henry meets the Marquis de Sade twists.
It's pretty hard for a movie anthology with six different segments to strike out six times in a row, but this mess managed to fail on every occasion.
the first two min stories within the movie are kind of boring since you don't get to watch it enough to feel for the characters ( i love you) was pretty sexual though.
the next few stories are great starting with wet dreams which was directed by Tom savini special effects legend haha the accident and vision stains are the best in my opinion though.
And to tie them all together they used creepy marionettes as openers, udo kier the puppet master is fantastic all in all a great movie for the anthology subgenre since they tend to blow, I think it's because they didn't have a trashy main story line to try to tie them together they chose to have different actors and directors for each sub story making everything flow better so all in all a 8/10.
Aptly named anthology The Theatre Bizarre delivers a mixed bag of horrifying goodies.A young woman is walks into a seemingly abandoned Theater, where she's soon welcomed by a marionette version of cult legend Udo Kier and numerous other grisly dummies who present a number of nightmarish stories.
Overall I do like an anthology and The Theatre Bizarre isn't the worst, but it certainly isn't the best.
On the whole this is an uneven anthology, but don't miss "I Love You" if you like horror for and about adults - a rare thing indeed.
Other stories like Sweets and Wet Dreams had a lot of gross yet visual appeal.
Five of the six shorts were good in this horror anthology..
The Mother and Daughter actors in 'The Accident' were wonderful.Screenplay: 9/10 Well-made horror anthology..
The short stories were progressively gory and depressing as the movie went on.
A six part anthology horror film has an effective wrap around segment Directed by Jeremy Kasten.
It tells of a young woman (Virginia Newcomb) who is drawn to a rundown Theatre where a marionette-like man (Udo Keir) introduces the stories.
The first is "The Mother of Toads" based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, this bizarre tale tells of a couple in the outskirts of France who meet an old witch (Catriona Maccoll) who entices Martin (Woodward) with a real copy of the Necronomicon.
"Vision Stains" Directed by Karim Hussain tells of a woman (Kaniehtiio) obsessed with other people's memories.
This is a new form of anthology movie which has different Directors doing each segment. |
tt0104107 | Diggstown | Gabriel Caine (James Woods), a con man, is released from prison in Winfield, Georgia and immediately gets to work on his next scam. Caine and his partner, Fitz (Oliver Platt), travel to a small town not far from the prison: Diggstown, a city obsessed with boxing.
A mean-spirited man named John Gillon (Bruce Dern) owns almost all of Diggstown. He is feared by many but also respected because he was the former manager of Diggstown’s pride and joy, the once-famous boxer Charles Macom Diggs, the man for whom the town is named.
Upon hearing a remark that Diggs once knocked out five fighters in one day, Fitz “drunkenly” says he knows of a fighter who could knock out any 10 in one day: Honey Roy Palmer. Gillon tries to take advantage of the situation and bets Fitz $100,000 that no one man can best ten Diggstown boxers in one day. Caine quickly volunteers to finance Fitz's bet and the con is on.
Caine seeks out an old buddy, Palmer (Louis Gossett Jr.), who is now a 48-year-old YMCA supervisor. After some initial reluctance, Palmer agrees to participate and starts to train for the fight. Caine and Gillon agree to various conditions of the bet, with “one day” being 24 full hours and “Diggstown fighters” being able to come from any surrounding area of Olivair County. A loan shark backs Caine's bet, with the understanding that his health and welfare will be riding on the outcome.
Caine discovers that Gillon’s treachery (and his bank account) goes deeper than Diggstown people know. As his manager, Gillon drugged Diggs during a fight so that Gillon could collect on the opponent’s long odds. Diggs suffered irreversible brain damage as a result. With help from his prison buddy Wolf's sister (Heather Graham), it is learned that Gillon has more than $1.5 million in assets. Caine tricks him into risking all of it. Now it is up to Honey Roy Palmer to defeat all 10 of Diggstown's men.
They begin with:
Buck Holland, who is played by former Heavyweight Boxing Contender Rocky Pepeli who puts up a good fight, Palmer barely beats him.
Slim Busby, who like his brother, Hambone, has been bribed by Caine to take a dive.
Billy Hargrove (a young James Caviezel), who is easily beat.
Sam Lester (played by Roger Hewlett), who is secretly given a laxative before the fight and eventually runs from the ring.
Hambone Busby, who, like his brother, has been bribed to take a dive. Gillon, however, threatens to kill Hambone’s brother, Slim, unless he is victorious in the ring. Hambone fights a vicious fight, but is ultimately defeated. Slim is indeed found murdered.
Palmer is enraged. His next fight is with Sonny Hawkins, who is easily dispatched. Robby Gillon, the son of John Gillon, approaches the ring next, but then backs out under instructions from his father. His cowardice is regarded as a forfeit. Frank Mangrum officially loses to disqualification after kicking Palmer in the groin, then hitting the referee then gets knocked out by Palmer. Tank Miller, a gargantuan fighter, is next. He puts up a good fight, but a tiring Palmer eventually beats him.
That brings up Diggstown's best man, Hammerhead Hagan, the only fighter ever to actually beat Palmer during their professional careers. He is brought in as a surprise ringer. Gillon moved him in as a county resident just before the bet rules were established, meaning that Hagan can legally fight.
The bout is one-sided. Palmer looks done for, but he gets new motivation after seeing Diggs, who is sitting courtside, move his hand slightly (which he interprets as a show of support). Caine, not wanting to see his friend die, attempts to throw in the towel, but Palmer catches it and throws it back. Palmer rallies to knock out his opponent.
Palmer, Caine and Fitz begin their celebration of this miraculous feat. They are cut short by Gillon, who notes that his son never entered the ring -– therefore, only nine fights have transpired. The true tenth fighter is then introduced: Minoso Torres, a tough-as-nails boxer who ruled the boxing underground in the prison from which Caine was recently released. No one has ever defeated him. Gillon admonishes Caine with: "Never try to hustle a hustler."
An exhausted Palmer is no match for Torres. But just when all looks lost, Caine whistles at Torres, gets his attention, straightens his tie and does a thumbs-down gesture (copying a move Gillon did earlier). Torres drops his gloves and invites Palmer to hit him, hitting the canvas, knocked out. Caine was expecting such a trick from Gillon and bribed Torres long ago for a moment like this.
Gillon has lost everything, leading Caine to correct him with an admonishment: "Actually, I believe it goes: Never con a con-man, especially one who's better than you are." Calm at first, he snaps and pulls a gun. His son, Robby, tries to intervene and Gillon smacks him. Palmer then grabs Gillon and prepares to deck him. Instead, he turns to Hambone, claiming, "My hands hurt." Hambone gladly obliges and delivers Gillon a powerful knockout blow.
Caine congratulates Palmer: "What you did," he says, "couldn't be done." To which Palmer replies, "Now, you motivate me". | cult, revenge, murder, humor | train | wikipedia | null |
tt2210463 | Battle of the Damned | A group of mercenaries led by Maj. Max Gatling are fleeing from a failed rescue attempt, having been hired by a rich industrialist to enter a zombie-infested city to rescue his daughter Jude. At the extraction point, Gatling tells Smiley that he is staying to find Jude and complete the mission. After searching through the city and killing many zombies on the way, he locates Jude and tells her that he is going to get her out of the city, and she takes him to other survivors. There, he is introduced to the survivors including group leader Duke, Reese, Elvis, Lynn, and Anna. Jude is revealed to be in a relationship with Reese and pregnant with his child. The next day when Gatling, Jude, and the others go out to retrieve gasoline from a gas station, Gatling attempts to get Jude out of the city by force when she refuses to go without the others. However, he is stopped by the others and left for dead. After discovering that Jude is pregnant, Reese rushes to Gatling's aid so that Jude can be taken out of the city. At this point it is revealed that not only is Jude's father some rich industrialist, but he is also the one who caused the zombie pandemic. While returning to the stronghold to get Jude, Gatling and Reese discover a band of non-programmed robots. Gatling reprograms the robots and proceeds to the stronghold. When it is revealed that the city is to be firebombed, Gatling and all of the survivors make preparations to escape.
On the day of the escape, Gatling, Jude, the survivors, and the robots shoot down and kill many zombies along the way. When taking defensive positions while being attacked at a junkyard, Duke ditches them all and hides away. The robots also malfunction and one begins to attack Gatling. Gatling destroys the robot, and the rest of them reboot. Gatling, Jude, Reese, and the remaining survivors escape the junkyard in a car being pushed by the remaining robots. Duke is left behind and eaten by zombies. Gatling and the others then arrive at a car parking complex and go underground while the robots hold back the zombies. Once the Zombies start swarming the car park, Gatling and the others struggle to fight them off. Gatling finds that one of the robots is still functioning and he sends it to find Jude.
As the firebombing starts and reaches the complex, Gatling, Jude, and Reese jump into a partly flooded level of the complex to escape the fire. Once the firebombing ceases, Jude and Reese leave the complex, and all of the city is shown to be entirely destroyed. They meet up with Gatling, who reveals to Reese that a part of his mission is not only to take Jude home, but to kill anybody that can whistle-blow on the outbreak. But knowing that Jude and Reese are expecting, Gatling decides to let Reese live and the three of them then leave together with the last surviving robot who Max asks to get him a coffee. | violence | train | wikipedia | Although the zombie attacks are less and lees in the middle of the film, they come back with a running vengeance that overwhelms most of the survivors.The plot is thin and basic, but the added adventures when the robots come into the picture change the course of their actions quickly.
There was some sketchy dialog particularly noticeable when Dolph's character max was speaking with his fellow soldier while they were walking on the bridge early in the movie, and some of the acting was stilted, but I loved that the zombies moved quickly and the robots were fun.
now this is even stranger because I've never seen the previous film, but heard about it on the message board here, and in THIS film, the robots mention the massacre and program error, so its the same robots LMAO!!!sorry to ramble on, but give this one a try, its a pretty fun throwback to trashier days starring a great action trash actor ;).
First of all, I would like to mention that this is an 100% b movie, not only in terms of budget but also in terms of plot, acting and effects.
When they do die the soldiers/mercs die because even though they fought well they were simply over run by superior numbers not because of total complete incompetence which is the standard for 99% of zombie flicks.Most movies like this have some sort of special forces or organized shock troops that go into battle against the zombies and then just slowly take random unaimed volleys into the zombie crowds with little or no effect and then die pointlessly- their entire lives full of training and discipline completely forgotten and unused- VERY unrealistic.
After a zombie outbreak in Asia, the mercenary Major Max Gatling (Dolph Lundgren) is hired by a wealthy industrialist that was the responsible for the pandemic to rescue his daughter Jude (Melanie Zanetti) with his team from a city.
Then they find a group of robots killing zombies and Max reprograms them to help the survivors to escape.
Will the group succeed to escape?"Battle of the Damned" is a laughable movie with Dolph Lundgren in the lead role.
If it wasn't Dolph Lundgren as the action hero(with a GREAT heroes name "Max Gatling") than this movie would score much lower.
A quick search solved this dilemma "Battle Of The Damned is written and directed by Christopher Hatton (who previously made Robotropolis), will commence shooting in Malaysia this summer, and will be released at some point in 2013." So recycled robots, and effects...and yes, i am reviewing that movie next (out of order on purpose since they don't really have anything to do with each other) If you like Dolph, then it is fine, mindless fun.
The city is quarantined and a soldier and his team are hired to rescue his daughter.Christopher Hatton writes and directs this low budget science fiction romp that fuses two sub-genre subjects, the modern zombie-infected and Robots.
The violence is aplenty, with the gun and abundance of knife play being effective enough.There's no small Dolph Lundgren cameo it's very much is his film focusing on his Max Gatling character throughout.
Beneath the low end production there is quite a good story even if it swaps development, depth and pacing for action.Don't expect too much, Hatton has a lot on his hands juggling all the high concept elements coherently and keeps it linear but what is on offer is the infected, robots and soldier high-jinks and basically that's what it delivers..
Zombies, robots and Dolph Lundgren....
And corporate CEO hires military expert Max (played by Dolph Lundgren) to infiltrate the infected quarantine zone and bring back his daughter.That was basically the storyline.
It works for what it is intended to do though, and the movie is entertaining enough in itself.As for the infected, or zombies, well first of all they were hyper-mobile and agile, running around and making odd bestial growling sounds.
Not super great, but it is enjoyable, and well worth watching a single time.With the people hired for the various characters and roles, you know what you are getting for your money's worth, so don't expect Oscar winning performances here.If you enjoy Dolph Lundgren's movies, then I am sure you will find some enjoyment in "Battle of the Damned".
But not this movie, this movie is a testament to how awesome and epic the Dolph can be.Here is what your in for when you watch this movie Spin kicks, roundhouses, handcuff chokes, guns, zombies getting blasted, a dumb plot.
Seems like a horrible way to attack and kill zombies, and it would be if you were anyone but Dolph.
I guess there's other actors in this movie, I have no idea who they are or what there story is every time they came on screen I just spaced out till Dolph came back on.So to recap you will love this movie if you don't care about things like dialog and plot, and instead care about important things like smashing a zombies head in with a well placed round spin kick.Seriously, watch this movie..
Dolph Lundgren is a soldier for hire who gets employed by an individual who wants him to go into a quarantined city of infected people and rescue his daughter.
Also while trapped in the city Dolph and his fellow survivors come across Robots that happen to have wondered into the city fresh off of malfunctioning and killing people from another movie called Robotropolis.
And by the end, this off the beaten track little entry in to his back catalogue has become a most jumbled mix of horror, action and sci-fi that's a hell of a lot to keep up with in a film not even ninety minutes long.
So, we open with Dolph in the action, battling zombies that aren't very scary and you don't really take much notice of, and the camera's too bloody close up for you to enjoy any of it anyway.After that, the big Swede tracks down the missing daughter, a whiny, stuck up little madam who leads him to some others, making her just one of a group of annoying people, including her geeky boyfriend Reese (Matt Doran), eccentric old ham Duke (David Field), who seems to be in charge of it all, and Chinese, martial artist pair Elvis and Lynn.
Average b-movie action with killer robots and fake zombies.
We've seen the same concept before, of a bad-ass going into a dangerous quarantined city to save someone (in Escape from New York for one), but this time, there's "zombies" and robots.
For an action film, it matters as I kept thinking that Dolph was going through the motions instead of actually fighting.The CGI robots were done nicely enough (although recycled from Robotropolis), but they took too long to appear, had no personality and seemed underused to me.
After a devastating viral outbreak, a soldier is sent into a quarantined city to rescue the daughter of an important businessman and enlists the aid of an army of robots to stave off the advancing zombie hordes and complete his mission.This is a highly enjoyable and absolutely entertaining blast of a zombie/action film hybrid.
The zombies are kept as a great threat throughout because there's so many of them in here, and that forces the survivors to have to find several ways of dealing with them safely as they're always around, so there's a ton of confrontations to come through with the group forced to deal with the swarm in here from the supermarket brawl to the chase through the ghettos and finally the assault on the compound which starts in the best part of the film, the last act with the reinforcements.
Since these are spent in their compound not a lot happens here and it does have some rather long moments where it feels like it's just going in circles trying to get her to come along and refusing without going anywhere or getting anything accomplished, and this leads to a pretty boring middle section of the film in between all the fun action bits, but overall it's a lot more fun and enjoyable than anything else.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language..
Dolph has done it, Seagal has done it, soon every 2 bit actor has done a zombie Movie.
However, it is saved by good sfx and decent acting.The zombies are "modern", i.e. they move like the zombies in 28 Days later and Worls War Z, they react to sound and you can kill them by any way you can - not just a head shot or decapitation.The Movie is not bad, just not exciting at all.
It has some good humor and doesn't take itself seriously, Dolph really makes a bad movie be watchable.
Killer robots, flesh eating running zombies and Dolph Lundgren, it's a fun action mix..
Dolph Lundgren in a zombie movie.
If you like such series like Resident Evil and Underworld you gonna enjoy Battle of the Damned (2013).The characters is boring and the action scene is unbearable with bad camera angle and lighting but if you want a midnight popcorn flick this movie might do the trick.There also bad CGI robot in there too.
Awful, slipshod film another entry in the " Zombie Epidemic"genre but in this case and as various characters say a few times in the film, these are not zombies.They are infected, they can be killed by being shot anywhere, not just in the head or anyhow, stabbed, blown up etc, the only thing they have in common with zombies is they eat flesh.Film as you would expect " borrows" liberally from other films such as " World War Z" and "28 Days Later" both much better films than this.Even has the audacity to copy characters from "Day Of The Dead" and " Land Of The Dead".Dolph Lundgren looks old and bored and acts accordingly, and so will you be.
The only interesting thing is the robots that walk around killing zombies, they are quite good.
Dolph Lundgren + zombies + robots = you do the math.
Hatton ups the ante in this one by including Dolph Lundgren and zombies, so it sounds pretty much like a B-movie lover's dream.And, truth be told, it isn't so bad for what is quite obviously a cheap B-flick.
As long as you're OK with that, and you are an action flick film as I am, this is entertaining enough to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon watching.The acting--outside of Lundgren--is not great.
This, if it is a sequel, bears almost no resemblance to the poor effort displayed in Robotropolis.Overall, if you are a fan of Dolph, you like action and you like Zombie movies, this is enjoyable.
Following a deadly viral outbreak, private military soldier Max Gatling (Dolph Lundgren) leads a handful of survivors and a ragtag band of robots against an army of the infected.I know the 1980s are over and action films are not what they used to be, but I have to feel sorry for Dolph.
This film is SO BAD, I'm trying to think of someone responsible for wasting 90 minutes of my precious time that I can sue!Same old rubbish - zombies or infected folk running around causing chaos, but these ones can run better than when they were alive or healthy!And speaking of running, it's about time Dolph Lundgren gave up dodgy action movies - he has the dexterity of a constipated, arthritic nun!
Compared to much of what's out there in the zombie/horror genre the gore level is relatively low, but this action packed piece is well done and plenty entertaining.Dolf has great screen presence and he along with the rest of cast had no problem selling this science fiction nightmare with solid acting performances.
Overall, Battle Of The Damned is a good low budget(not low quality) zombie/action film worth watching for fans of the genre.
"Zombies, killer robots, nice town you got here." After a viral outbreak causes people to turn into zombies, military soldier Max Gatling (Lundgren) is called into battle.
Not only must he fight off the zombie army with a few human survivors, but a group of robots that have been trained to kill as well.
Perhaps it was the tough act of Dolph Lundgren or the cuteness of Melanie Zanetti or the ridiculous bit with the utility robots, but I enjoyed watching parts of the movie for some reason.The plot is a combination of Resident Evil and Escape from L.A. Zombies have overrun a city which is quarantined from outside.
It's a zombie movie with killer robot soldiers.
Then, after you find out they are not really zombies, and therefore can be put down rather easily, and the robots usually kill only when they have good reason, you begin to realize that a certain amount of thought has gone into this project.
So a Mitt Romney look-a-like hires major Max Gatlin (Dolph Lungren) to breech the blockade and brave the zombies to get his daughter.
Some zombie killing robots were thrown into the mix later on in the movie.
Will entertain anyone who loves B-movies that fit into the action, sci-fi, and horror genre.
He now moves into the sci-fi / horror B-movie arena with "Battle of the Damned." A movie that has Lundgren kicking butt and blowing away the "enemy" can only get better when you add zombies AND robots to the equation.Commander Max Gatling enters Thailand to rescue an industrialist's daughter from the clutches of populace infected with a virus that turns them into ravenous cannibals.
As the masses of ferocious sick begin to overtake them, he does what any desperate hero would do to keep himself and his rag-tag group alive
he trains battle-ready robots to help take out every hungry creature they see.There's plenty of action, gore, and wanton destruction in "Battle of the Damned." It's about as good as it gets when diving into the world of sci-fi / horror B-movies.
One thing the movie doesn't have is any nudity or sensuality."Battle of the Damned" will entertain anyone who loves B-movies that fit into the action, sci-fi, and horror genre.
So yeah basically the same plot as a couple of hundred other action flicks.The twist is the "Dangerous area" is full of zombies, and on top of that military grade robots are also out in force.With a hostile reception from all sides upon his arrival Lungren must dig deep to find and rescue the girl.It's dumb, it looks shoddy and despite the zombies vs robots thing which is remotely original the whole thing feels oddly familiar.For fans of Lungren or hardcore zombie nuts only.The Good: Lungren still looks the part Kind of original The Bad: Crappy zombies SFX more miss than hit Weak kills Seven shades of dumb Things I Learnt From This Movie: Every Asian person knows martial arts......it's 2017 people come on!
Battle of the Damned is the story of an ex-soldier (Lundgren) who has to save a girl from a quarantined city filled with zombies.
Getting out they encounter a bunch of robots that should help them achieving their goal.I thought Battle of the Damned was a nice movie.
Dolph Lundgren can still carry an action movie like this, although he runs around as if he carries a big turd in his pants.
Dolph Lundgren like Arnold and Stallone is getting a little long in the tooth for this kind of action movie.
After a viral outbreak in unnamed SE Asian city that looks like Johor Baru, Malaysia, Max (Dolph Lundgren with reading glasses) is hired to find and rescue Jude (Melanie Zanetti) the somewhat rebellious daughter of a rich man.
So even tough i was tired and not really prepare to watch a Dolph movie(no beer and such lol) i gave it a shot and i actually liked it.Its a good little zombie movie with some weird concepts and ideas but that don't actually look bad at all.
But all the characters seem to dispatch them with ease without never getting bitten even at very close range until they are overwhelmed for the typical zombie death scene.In any case, its a very low budget unusual Dolph movie, and yet i had fun watching it.
In this movie Dolph Lundgren has the mission to get in an city infested with zombies rescue June, the daughter of an important business man.
I guess Dolph enjoyed making this movie because he does what he knows to do best.
Has a little humor in it, plenty of action, acting is OK, is not so long, so I don't see what is to hate about this one.I liked because I've seen something new added to this genre..
There is a zombie outbreak on an abandoned street, and Dolph Lundgren spends the majority of the film walking up and down this street with other soldiers killing random zombies who run out every now and again, trying to kill them.After doing this for a while, he bumps into a girl who looks like a young Sigourney Weaver, and she takes him back to the big house at the end of this street, much to the frustration of the other people in the house.Oh, and there are killer robots, and Lundgren gets chained to a lamp post....If you don't mind watching Lundgren walking round for ninety minutes shooting and stabbing things running at him, then this is the movie for you.It's devoid of anything though, decent story, script, characterisation, and any intensity.
but when the synopsis states that Lundgren fights zombies with the aide of killer robots, I obviously wasn't expecting much, but I was expecting a little cheesy fun, but I didn't.It goes very bizarre come the end of the film, but shouldn't bonkers movies be a little fun?It's a boring affair from beginning to end, and that's a shame, because this should have been a funny old romp..
An action film starring Dolph Lundgren that pits Zombies against Killer Robots, surely if ever there was a recipe for success? |
tt0049477 | Manfish | Inspector Warren of Scotland Yard flies into Jamaica and is taken to the headquarters of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. Exchanging credentials with a Jamaican Inspector, Warren reveals he has come to seek the extradition of a wanted criminal known as "The Professor". Surprised when the Inspector refuses to extradite the Professor, the Jamaican Inspector recounts a story told in flashback.
Devil may care adventurer Brannigan has won the ship Manfish and its first mate Swede in a poker game but keeps away from the Manfish's creditors. During a drunken evening out Brannigan is attracted to a woman sitting with an older man called "the Professor" with the two brawling over her. During the brief fracas Brannigan notices the Professor is wearing an unusual heavy ring of a skull and cross bones.
The next day the Manfish is at sea engaging in a turtle hunt. Two divers from the ship find a skeleton underwater holding a bottle. Brannigan swims to the skeleton and grabs the bottle. He breaks it open on board finding a ripped piece of paper dated 1793 with nonsensical French written on it, but inside the bottle is the same ring that the Professor wears.
Tracking down the Professor, Brannigan persuades him to tell what he knows revealing it is half of a document by the pirate Jean Lafitte with the professor holding the other half.
Fearing for his life but clever and greedy, the Professor translates the map to reveal a treasure is on the island of Hispaniola but the Professor insures his safety by destroying the map and memorising the contents. Once on the island a treasure worth £25,000 is recovered but the Professor promises it is a drop in the ocean compared to another treasure buried later by Lafitte that the Professor says he can locate. | murder | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0096531 | Alien Nation | The year is 1991; one year since an unidentified flying object bearing 300,000 enslaved aliens, the Newcomers, landed in the Mojave Desert on planet Earth. Los Angeles later becomes their new home.
Matthew Sykes (Caan), a police detective, loses his partner Bill Tuggle (Brown) in a shootout; the detectives had been trying to stop two Newcomer criminals murdering another Newcomer named Porter at a grocery, in what appeared to be a robbery. The next day, Sykes' superior Captain Warner (McCarthy), informs his squad that they will have to work with the newly promoted Newcomer detective Sam Francisco (Patinkin). Although biased, Sykes enlists to work with Francisco to investigate a similar homicide with a Newcomer named Warren Hubely, feeling that if he investigates that crime, he will also find opportunities to investigate his partner's death (which he is officially forbidden to do).
While at a crime lab, trying unobtrusively to establish a connection between the two cases, Francisco detects an abnormality on the body of one of the Newcomer criminals who was killed in the robbery. Later, Sykes and Francisco are led to a nightclub to investigate a link in the killings with a Newcomer named Joshua Strader (Kober). However, they end up interviewing his girlfriend instead, after Strader is murdered by a criminal ring led by Newcomer businessman William Harcourt (Stamp) and his henchman Rudyard Kipling (Howard).
Harcourt is in the latter stages of launching advanced plans to exploit the alien race by attempting to mass-produce and sell a drug called Jabroka. The drug was used in the past to pacify the Newcomers when they were slaves, but has no effect on humans. The abnormality noticed by Francisco on the body of the Newcomer criminal earlier turns out to have been a visual sign of the drug's influence. In addition, the Newcomers Hubley, Porter and Strader were involved in the planning phases of the operation, but were later murdered due to Harcourt's desire to exclude them from any future financial rewards. Ultimately, Sykes and Francisco track down Harcourt, where he is secretly negotiating a timetable for a release of the potent narcotic. The detectives attempt to foil his plans, as they are later led on a car chase with Harcourt and his cohort Kipling through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Following a head-on collision where both parties are injured, Harcourt attempts an escape on foot. Sykes pursues and corners Harcourt onto a desolate drawbridge. Harcourt then purposely overdoses on a sample of the stimulant.
As Sykes mistakenly believes Harcourt has died, Harcourt is taken away by an ambulance, but later mutates into a significantly larger and more muscular Newcomer intent on causing violence. The duo pursue Harcourt, catching up with him near a fishing pier. Sykes later ends up in a physical confrontation with Harcourt in the open sea. Harcourt dies, as his body disintegrates due to the effects of direct contact with salt water, which is hazardous to Newcomer physiology. Francisco commandeers a police helicopter, and rescues Sykes from the water. With the Tuggle and Newcomer murder cases solved, the authorities dismantle Harcourt's illicit scheme. | murder | train | wikipedia | Why did this Series only last One Season???.
This series is fantastic!
I do not understand why it only lasted one season.
It gave us so many insights into the relationships between people of all "races".
It allowed us to see the pain of "inter-species" relationships and the acceptance of beings "different" from us.
As the series unfolded, it was uplifting to see how people can overcome their differences to get along and thrive on earth.
There are so many lessons that we can ALL learn from this series.
We can get along in peace and harmony..
A great show, pure and simple.
One of the best sci-fi and/or buddy cop shows I've ever seen.
Like all really good science fiction, it comes up with an utterly improbable premise (namely that an alien slave ship lands on Earth and the humanoid ex-slaves must integrate into human society) and proceeds to be completely real within that premise.
Without fail, every single episode of this tragically short-lived series was, in turns, touching, humorous and compelling.If you can find this show on the air, watch it, its well worth it..
The Best Sci Fi Show I've Ever Seen.
Normally I'm not a fan of sci fi but something about this series changed my opinion Alien Nation is probably one of the best cop shows that was on TV.
A slave ship carrying an alien race known as the Tenctonese crashed in the Mojave Desert near the city of Los Angeles five years ago.
They have been bred to have great strength and quick intelligence, hard edged Officer Matt Sikes, played by Gary Graham is teamed up with a newcomer officer George Francisco (Pierpoint).
Although the two mismatched cops have many differences and issues they have to work together thrown into the mix is George's family wife Susan (Scarabelli), young daughter Emily (Woodland) and teen aged son Buck (Six).
Meanwhile Sikes must also deal with his budding romantic feelings for his neighbor and scientist Cathy Frankel (Treas) a gorgeous newcomer.What I like most about the show is the humorous and difficult moments that are displayed when prejudice is shown towards the newcomers, also it's interesting to see a romantic relationship developing between a human male and a tenctonese female but what's a love story without the hurdles of interspecies romance.For fans of sci fi classics Alien Nation is the number #1 show to watch..
This is one of the better shows out there.
It deals with racism in a really positive way and isn't "preachy" or "cuddly".
There are a few problems (Why would people who dissolve in salt water choose to live in a coastal city like Los Angeles?) but those are easily overlooked.
The show is really well done and makes some great references to todays society.
The new race has drug and alcohol addictions, faces discrimination both inside and outside their communities, and struggles to integrate itself into the human world.
One of the ongoing jokes in the series is the newcomer names.
They never had names on the ship so they are assigned names by a human agency.
A lot of them are comical, like "San Francisco" but some of them are politically incorrect, like calling a mentally challenged newcomer "Albert F---ing Einstein".
The middle name was dropped for the series but the character remains.
I recommend it, it is a great show..
Good show, golden oldie, glad my parents made me (AKA forced me to) watch it..
This deserves 15 out of 10.
Man oh man....watching this show with my parents is so fun!
Shame on the negative people!
GREAT SHOW.
GREAT SHOW.
GREAT SHOW.
May it have a great remake like V's or BattleStars!
Fun to watch, good characters, believable plots...maybe 'new' Hollywood should take notes.
Seriously.
The action is fun, it has good 'morals' for a show like this.
It's what shows are supposed to be.
It takes you out of reality and puts you in a world with a (fairly) deep plot, fun characters, good lessons, and cool fights!
It's sort of like Miami Vice with aliens!
The parts with the bad guys always baffles me.
The bad guys that kept the people on the ship always tend to be smart and vicious yet human bad guys spout of pitiful remarks that tend to get them killed.
Seems like they'd learn.
lol, any way....if you haven't seen the show...Do!
It's well worth your time and money!.
A really wonder science fiction show..
"Alien Nation"is a science fiction show that is well done,well acted and well created by Kenneth Johnson(The Incredible Hulk, and V).
The series dealt with a lot of issues, especially racial issues,and cultural issues too.The Tenctonese are a race that were slaves who came to earth cause of their ship crashing in the Mohave Desert in 1991.
The Tenctonese are from the planet Tencton, they have the ability to adapt in any environment, they learn fast and live a little longer than Humans,they are known to us Humans also as Newcomers.There are Humans who don't like the Newcomers, they are called Purists, the Newcomers are called Slags, the word "slag" is a racist term by the Purists.The Newcomers that don't like Humans much call us Humans, "Terts".Human cop Matthew Sikes, played superbly by Gary Graham(All The Right Moves, Robot Jox, and The Last Warrior), is a cop who lost his former partner to a Newcomer in a robbery.
Sikes's new parter, a Newcomer cop, Det. George Francisco, played awesome by Eric Pierpoint(Invaders From Mars, Forever Young, and Liar Liar), work together to fight crime.
The two Detectives have their disagreements on certain issues,but work great together.
Cathy Frankel, played awesome by Terri Treas(Seven Brides For Seven Brothere, The Nest, and House IV)is Matthew Sikes's Newcomer neighbor who he develops a relationship with her later on, Capt Bryan Grazer, played by Ron Fassler(Camp Nowhere, Child's Play 3 and Gremlins 2), Det. Dobbs, played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs(Welcome Back Kotter), Albert Einstein, a Newcomer janitor, played by Jeff Marcus, are some of the members of the precinct.George Francisco's family consists of Susan Francisco, played by Michele Scarabelli(Air Wolf),Buck Francisco, played by Sean Six, is a teenage Newcomer who has got into some trouble, but has got better, though he has resentment towards Humans.
Emily Francisco, played by Lauren Woodland(The Young And The Restless), is a young Newcomer girl who is a nice girl who is smart.I was very upset that Fox canceled "Alien Nation"in 1990, but they did redeemed themselves by making 5 "Alien Nation" TV movies, "Alien Nation:Dark Horizon", "Alien Nation:Body And Soul", "Alien Nation:Millinium", "Alien Nation:The Enemy Within", "Alien Nation:The Udara Legacy".I give this show 10/10 stars and 2 thumbs up.The "Alien Nation" TV series was based on the "Alien Nation" movie that came out in 1988..
OK, I don't do scifi, but....
Having grown up in a household where Science Fiction was Dad's staple, I never really picked up on it, preferring more real-life drama.
Having said that, this show is about the top of the line for TV scifi.
The characters are believable, fully developed and imperfect.The acting is top-flight, and the stories, mostly carrying a message, are not overly burdened or preachy.
The culture, habits, language, slang of the Aliens is presented in a matter-of-fact manner.
Other than Heinlen or Finney, this is about the best scifi I've come across.
And I don't like scifi..
great names.
How can you not like a show with names like Kenny Bunkport, Norman Conquest, Phil Dirt, Al Fresco, Polly Wanakraker, Marina DelRay, Gail Warning, Rick Shaw, Terry Firma, Carey Onbag, Patty Melt, Len Guini and Paul Bearer.
My children and I watched each week just to see what name they would come up with next.
The fish out of water aspect was the best part of the show.
The deadpan delivery of the newcomers who were oblivious to what was going on around them made it as much of a comedy as it was science fiction.
In order to appreciate science fiction you have to suspend disbelief and if you can't do that then you won't get it at all..
Buddy cop/sci-fi show.
I was hugely disappointed when this was cancelled.Although looking back i cant say i'm particularly surprised given the network it aired on.FOX network has a long history of cancelling cool sci-fi shows without giving them a fair chance.Their biggest blunder of course being Firefly.You know their regretting that one especially.I think i loved the buddy cop aspect of the show more than the sci-fi aspect.And that's coming from somewhat of a sci-fi/horror nerd.This was due to the great chemistry stars Gary Graham and Eric Peirpoint had with each other.Even if your not into sci-fi it works great as a cop show.Just with sci fi elements.Wish it had lasted longer than 1 season but at least we were treated to 4 follow up TV movies.Rarely does a 1 season cancelled show get that.In fact i can't think of any other..
What happened?.
One season and, bam, it's history.....one of the best sci-fi series on TV in years, totally underrated and should make a come back .
Jeeze Louise, they are doing a whole lot of up dates and remakes, most of which they shouldn't and those who deserve a second chance never see the light of a new day..
Memorable nation.
"Alien Nation" is a perfect examples of a well-executed spin off.
The original James Caan movie was a decent buddy cop flick, but the premise really lends itself to long0for television; and there's some great character development here as a result.
It's a good mixture of sci-fi and cop show, and the big themes - racism, slavery, xenophobia - are handled with subtlety.
But the important thing is that you do grow to like these people, and it's a worthwhile investment.I know that there were TV movies produced to settle the dangling plot threads, but part of me is still disappointed it was cancelled on a cliffhanger (Fox was still young; it didn't yet have a reputation for killing off quality shows).A good show, nevertheless.7/10.
"This is really not what real Sci-Fi is all about".
"Alien Nation" the TV series as well as the following TV movies was all together lame, poor-quality science fiction that severely lacked in intelligence and class.
Here you have a cliched flying saucer making an abrupt crash landing on Earth and in five short years these aliens have already been assimilated, widely accepted, and living ONLY in the United States and ONLY in Los Angeles.
Not a bright premise."Alien Nation" was really a cheesy cop show with some stupid-looking ETs thrown in nothing more.
I also believe that the subject matter basically dealing with racial equality was extremely overplayed and overrated.
As a species, we humans have yet to get along with one another let alone welcome with open arms, aliens from outer space if in real life they really exist at all.Bottom line: the show sucked..
pilot problems overcome.
It's 5 years after a disabled alien spaceship land in the Mojave desert.
There are 250k alien slaves on board.
The newcomers or derogatory called slags have settled into their new homes, mostly in southern California.
Slave drivers called Overseers are rumored to have blended into the refugee population.
Detective Matthew Sikes lost his partner to an alien gunman.
He is assigned newcomer Detective George Francisco, the first in the LAPD.
The Franciscos move into the suburbs and face varying discrimination.
Salt water hurts them and sour milk gets them drunk.
Humans calling themselves Purists oppose the newcomers.
The two species try to overcome cultural differences as criminals on both sides take advantage of their new reality.First, the pilot is compelling but overplays the discrimination aspect.
They are literally burning a circle instead of a cross on the family lawn.
The daughter's story works well and incorporates a nice new friend with the bullying story.
The fountain story is too on the nose.
The worst is Sikes firing his gun in the air like Martin Riggs going half-pretend-crazy during the school demonstration.
Somebody really overplays the script.
Then there is the rebel son.
The rebellion is fine but the killing lays a deadly landmine for future episodes.The story promptly steps into it by catching the boy but somehow gets the equivalent of probation.
It's the weirdest of rewrites.
I guess the writers had no way of writing out of that predicament.
It's the last major misstep.
There are little questionable aspects like how the Overseers have a mark on their wrists.
It seems like an easy to identify them.
The show does find its footing.
The relationships are compelling.
I would give more time with the family.
The daughter doesn't have enough screen time.
This is a police drama and the school has no place in the show.
The captain is a weak character but worst, he's played by a weak actor.
Despite any shortcomings, the show worked for the most part and should have been renewed except for troubles at the network. |
tt0066126 | The Losers | The Losers are an elite black ops team of United States Special Forces operatives, led by Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and formed by Roque (Idris Elba), Pooch (Columbus Short), Jensen (Chris Evans), and Cougar (Óscar Jaenada), who are sent to Bolivia in a search and destroy mission on a compound run by a drug lord. While painting a target for an upcoming air strike, the Losers spot slave children in the compound and try to call off the attack, but their superior, codenamed "Max" (Jason Patric), ignores their pleas.
With no other option, the Losers enter the compound, successfully rescue the children and kill the drug lord in the process. As a helicopter arrives to pick them up, Max, convinced that they know too much, orders it to be destroyed, unaware that they decided to rescue the children first. The Losers watch as a missile destroys the helicopter and kills 25 innocents. Knowing that the attack was meant to kill them, they fake their deaths and become stranded in Bolivia, determined to get revenge on the mysterious Max.
Four months later, Clay is approached by Aisha (Zoe Saldana), a mysterious woman who offers him the chance to kill Max, against whom she wants revenge. Clay accepts and Aisha arranges for the Losers to return to the United States, where they proceed to attack a convoy supposedly carrying Max, only to discover that they were tricked by Aisha into stealing a hard drive with Max's secrets.
Unable to access the files, Jensen infiltrates the company that made the drive and steals an algorithm that allows him to crack the code, discovering that the drive contains credits for a $400 million transfer in Max's name, which he received for selling "Snukes"—eco-friendly bombs with the potency of a nuclear warhead, but no fall-out—to international terrorists. Tracing the money flow to the Los Angeles International Port Of Entry, which the Losers deduce is Max's base, a plan is formed to attack it and kill Max.
While studying the drive, Jensen discovers that their mission in Bolivia was a cover so Max could eliminate the drug lord—who had discovered his plan—and that Aisha is the man's daughter, seeking revenge for his death. After her cover is blown, Aisha shoots Jensen and escapes. Believing that she might betray them, the Losers decide to speed up their attack on Max's base, only to be betrayed by Roque and captured by Max and his right-hand man and chief of security, Wade (Holt McCallany).
As the Losers are lined up to be executed, Aisha returns and ambushes Max's team. In the ensuing fight, Clay confirms that he killed Aisha's father. Roque attempts to steal Max's plane, loaded with his money, and tries to escape. As Roque's jet heads down the runway, Wade takes a motorcycle and goes after him to retrieve Max's money. Cougar shoots the motorcycle's engine, causing Wade to be hurled into the jet's engine and the flaming motorcycle to be hurled into the cockpit of the plane, which explodes, killing Roque.
As Jensen, Cougar and Aisha help Pooch, who has been shot in both legs by one of Max's security guards, Clay pursues Max to a crane, where Max says that he has activated a Snuke that will destroy Los Angeles, and Clay will have to choose between de-activating it or killing Max. Clay chooses the former and Max escapes, but Clay affirms that he now knows what Max looks like and will soon find him.
Max escapes on a bus and is robbed by two thugs. His fate after this is unknown.
Shortly thereafter, the Losers help Pooch reach the hospital where his pregnant wife is giving birth to their son and attend Jensen's 8-year-old niece's soccer game. | cult, violence | train | wikipedia | William Smith is the Man. William Smith is my all time favorite B-Movie actor- a truly talented individual whose list of lifelong accomplishments is extraordinary.
He single handedly made movies like "The Losers" watchable and even enjoyable if you don't take them too seriously.
The film centers around the U.S. Army hiring a motorcycle gang to rescue a presidential adviser being held captive in Cambodia.
Smith plays gang leader Link Thomas, whose Army Sergeant brother sets up the mission.
Most of the movie is spent focusing on events leading up to the mission with the gang partying, smoking, getting in fights and souping up their choppers as the rescue nears.The acting is average, although a respectable cast (Adam Roarke, Paul Koslo & Bernie Hamilton) was assembled.
There is too much time spent on love interests which tends to bog down the film, but the latter half especially is very entertaining as the mission takes place.
This is 70's schlock through and through, but is a treat for William Smith fans, as he gets top billing and the lions' share of screen time.No one will confuse this with anything Oscar worthy, but so what?
A good way to numb your mind for an hour and a half..
If you want to see "real"stunts and "real"special effects!!Watch this movie!!
If you want a CGI cartoon watch Avatar!!.
Man,I hate to read how some people hate the good classics.When there's all this commercialized,politically correct & sensitive "stuff" that some Hollywood loving"whoose"would call good entertainment.A little note for the people that are un-aware about "Hollywood movies"and how they claim to make the best movies in the world.They spend more on advertisements for the movie than they would on the budget for the production of the film.They are always afraid to take chances on new ideas and very talented writers and directors that think for themselves and don't worry about the box office "mumbo-jumbo"or the "bratty"youth demographic.The Losers is a real great movie,that is the real thing when it comes to "real" stunts and "real" action."Real" being the key word when talking about this movie.I as a viewer appreciate stuntmen going to risk their careers and lives for the sake of art,entertainment or just a pay check.GOOD PEOPLE!!The only thing I hate about this movie is that"love song"..Man,that's a weird song to put in that movie!!The movie holds up for many reasons.One,there was a horrible remake of The Losers last year.Two,The Expendables is practically the same movie!Except,for the 5 million dollor cast!Which should've only been worth $200,000 for the whole "over-rated"cast and probably the whole computerized crew.Three,The Losers is better movie than all that I've seen from this era.How can you hate a movie that has real fights in the movie and behind the scenes?.
Complex b-movie.....
While watching History channels "Gangland" a program dedicated to show the origins of various crime syndicates, I got the feeling that most outlaw biker gangs were created in the aftermath of Vetnam.Bandidos, Mongol Nation, Warlocks, are just few the many notorious biker gangs that was founded by Vietnam vets.
In case of Bandidios, their leader was former marine who supposedly used the marine corps as rolemodel when it came to structure, chain of command.This biker film is apparently inspired by an offer Hells Angels leader Sonny Barger made to President Johnson.
Barger offered some of his men to be used as an guerrilla force behind enemy lines in Vietnam.Johnson turned him down and thus Hollywood took over the idea.Basically this film is about some very mean, violent, outlaw biker gang who are deployed in Vietnam in rescue mission of an American diplomat.But as it turns out, is not going to be easy...To be honest this just your average B-movie biker film, but it does have a few surprises up its sleeve.The director is clearly inspired by Sam Peckinpahs films, when it comes to the violence(often shot in slowmotion) but the also the main protagonists being antiheroes.Even one of this films taglines is inspired by the The Wild Bunch (1969):It's The "Dirty Bunch" On Wheels!
There are also heavy criticisms against USA and its foreign policy, the way US military handles the Vietnam war.
Another subject this film touches upon is the racial tension that exist in the US army.It is unusual to see that kind of material in a cheaply made b-movie and makes this film a bit more interesting then the rest.William Smith playing Link Thomas is very convincing here and plays the gangs leader very good.Vic Diaz, who always been a favorite of mine, plays another one of those sleazy characters that he was so good at.So if you like bikerflicks but want something a little different from the average then see this even though it is cheaply made b-movie its still more interesting then Twilight(2008)..
OK biker/war flick..
In order to rescue a Presidential Advisor (in a Francis Ford Coppola costume) from a group of Chinese Communists in Cambodia, the government enlists a subdivision of Hell's Angels led by William Smith to break in there and get him out.
The back of the box said this film has more action than 'The Dirty Dozen' and 'The Wild Bunch' combined.
In reality, the film is a bunch of bikers having sex, getting drunk, getting wasted, getting into lame fistfights, falling in love, waxing poetic and building stupid-looking motorcycles sandwiched between two decent action scenes with 2nd rate Enzo G.
Castellari slow-motion (which would make it 4th rate Peckinpah).
All in all, it's actually not bad, but the climax should have been better considering the time we have to wait in order to get to it.
Have ear plugs ready when the title song comes up.
It's a soft medley probably sung and written by some drugged out hippie chick that doesn't fit with the movie at all..
The CIA sends a motorcycle gang into Cambodia to rescue a presidential adviser..
When the president's chief adviser is captured by enemy forces in Cambodia, the CIA, in it's infinite wisdom, recruits members of the Hell's Angels in order to pull him out.
Aside from being criminally grotesque and sinfully stupid, these hog-jockeys spend most of their time trying to get organized and end up kicking the snot out of each other.
And on top of that, they won't complete their mission without a bitchin' combat-ready chopper between their legs.
That oughta come in handy in the jungle.
Be sure not to miss the scene where a spindly member of the gang offers his fat biker buddy an ammends brewski, then hammers him in the gut with everything he's got, leading into a slow-motion exploding spit-up which I'm sure you'll want to savor every single frame of..
A truly mindless, incoherent piece of trash, NAM'S ANGELS or THE LOSERS sucks under any name.Five embarrassingly stereotypical American biker dudes are hired to rescue a CIA man from a Chinese prison camp during the Vietnam War. Of course the plan doesn't go entirely smoothly as the chumps hire prostitutes, get drunk and generally help the enemy by not only losing the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese, but ripping them out of their chests and stomping on them in laughter.
Eventually they get their acts together and ride into the camp on armored bikes equipped with front-end machine guns.
Such weaponry might be cool in a less horrid picture.The premise of THE LOSERS (the actual on-screen title when I saw it) had the potential for some silly b-movie fun, but the film tries to be something it isn't -- legitimate cinema -- and it falls apart before ever forms.
There have been worse films, but not by much.
Sad to admit, I know, but I paid good money to see this drivel in first release in1970.......released as a double feature with GOD FORGIVES I DON'T or some other drivel, THE LOSERS as it was known in Sydney Australia saw the arclight in the glorious 2500 seat Capitol theatre, now the restored home to Disney extravaganzas like The Lion King.
When I was there, this biker vs the Vietcong epic did quite good biz for 2 weeks and let us see, for the first time, a man drinking beer get hit in the guts and vomit on camera...in slow motion!
The rest of this castrophe was how the US Govt got bikers to chase gooks and blow them up.
I like when directors try to mix genres like "Chopper Chicks In Zombie Town", "Blade Runner", "Rock'n'Roll Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy" etc.
In "The Losers/Nam's Angels" B-movie veteran William Smith leads a bikergang against the Viet Cong.
Fun idea but the film spends too time with the bikers' love affairs, bar fights etc.
In the end the gang gets their s**t together with their special built warbikes (no Harleys!).
It's too late to save the movie but Tarantino must've been impressed since he used some scenes in "Pulp Fiction"!
This movie essentially begins with five bikers from an outlaw motorcycle gang called "The Devil's Advocates" arriving in South Vietnam on a special mission to ride into Cambodia to rescue a CIA agent named "Chet Davis" (Jack Starrett) who is being held as a prisoner by Chinese communists in a heavily fortified camp behind enemy lines.
Naturally, since their Harley choppers aren't suitable for the rugged terrain they are issued Yamaha dirt bikes which they modify by adding armor and weaponry.
Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I didn't have high expectations for this film and in that regard I wasn't too disappointed as both the plot and the action scenes were just plain ridiculous.
As a matter of fact, about the only thing this film had going for it was the addition of two pretty actresses by the names of Anakorita (as "Kim Sue") and Lillian Margarejo ("Suriya") but even then their roles were much too limited to make a difference.
All things considered then I find it very difficult to recommend this movie to anybody and I have rated it accordingly.
One movie that's may'be lost it's way.
When I first saw this movie, I turned off after a while, really finding it a bore.
I watched it to the end.
This is an unremarkable movie, about a group of expendable bikies, you feel sorry for, as they are so pathetic.
They're sent in to Asia to rescue a thankless CIA guy, who shouts abuse at them, after most of these poor sods are already dead.
where leader, Smith is really the last man standing.
This really chafed only for a moment, cause this movie really lacks any kind of interest.
One bikie, having some R and R with some nude hotties, not following procedure, explains himself to one of the guys in charge of this operation, which I found funny.
The scenes in this cat house were the only ones I liked in this forgettable movie, part of the Roadshow Vibrant Video collection..
A pretty tedious affair.
The biker film was a staple of American exploitation cinema in the late 1960's, culminating in the "generation defining" studio funded classic, Easy Rider (1969).
What we have here is somewhat of a genre mash up, placing a bunch of Californian bikers in the midst of an "exotic" war zone.
Five gang members, led by Link (William Smith), are employed by the CIA, sent into the heart of darkness in Vietnam, to rescue a captured agent, Chet Davis (played here by director Jack Starrett - who most will recognise as the vicious police officer, Galt, from First Blood (1982)).The first hour of the film is spent with the gang as they integrate into a small village, basically brawling, f*****g, drinking and fomenting relationships with the all-too-easy ladies.
It is a completely ludicrous premise; OK so perhaps this gang of low-life's were more expendable than the troops being sent out daily, but it is hard to believe.
That being said, this is exploitation cinema at its most ridiculous.The action accelerates in the last reel, as the bikers infiltrate a camp, their bikes armed to the teeth, but the action is repetitive, and with little merit: Bikes jump, huts blow up.
Besides this though, some of the characters are likable enough, with their dialogue of clichéd, counter-cultural hyperbole, but it doesn't really save a pretty tedious affair - perhaps the trailer was exciting, so maybe you should just see that.
Like all exploitation films of the time that were set in exotic climates, this was of course filmed in the Philippines (where filming is cheap!).www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com.
Dumb--even for a biker film.
Aside from "Werewolves on Wheels", "Nam's Angels" (aka "The Losers") is probably the dumbest biker film of its day.
Now that's saying a lot, as there were MANY bad biker films and only a few good ones.
It's a very strange genre that many folks today simply won't understand...and frankly, I lived during that era and STILL don't understand!
This film begins with a motorcycle gang (headed by William Smith) arriving in Vietnam during the war.
They have been recruited to infiltrate territory where the Army isn't allowed--and they'll go using their motorcycles!
Think about it--cycles through the jungle!
But, before they go on their stupid mission, the guys do what you'd expect--get drunk and make it with local prostitutes.
Overall, the film is cheap, makes zero sense and is pretty dull.
If you love bad biker films, then this should be right up your alley--otherwise, you could only do better looking elsewhere.By the way, 'Vietnam' in this film is actually the Philippines--a place where tons of horrible American-produced movies were made in the late 60s and early 70s..
i purchased a DVD of this movie thinking it to be one of the great war movies kinda stuff especially on the Vietnam topic but my adventure lasted only 15 min i bet anyone can last long the movie.the print originally is so dull as if the movie is made in the 20's .the cast is uncomment-able it's a completely useless topic hiring the gangsters or the outlaws to do a job.completely this guys if you ever see this movie you have just won an award because it needs patience in it.
this is truly the worst movie ever made...
An excellent and exciting bikers go to 'Nam 70's trash exploitation classic.
Rough and tumble hog-riding Hell's Angels hellions Link (the almighty William Smith), Duke (the equally awesome Adam Roarke), Dirty Denny (former real-life Green Beret Houston Savage), Speed (Gene Cournelius) and Limpy (a fine Paul Koslo) are recruited by the CIA to rescue an arrogant presidential adviser (expertly played to the hateful hilt by director Jack Starrett) from the vile clutches of the Red Chinese in Cambodia.Directed with his customary rip-snorting brio by the extremely underrated and always dependable Starrett (whose other credits include the Jim Brown blaxploitation vehicle "Slaughter," the hugely enjoyable "Cleopatra Jones," and the Satan worship car chase knockout "Race With the Devil"), this bang-up gutsy and thrilling little pip works like gangbusters.
The performances from the top-rate cast are all uniformly excellent (it's a real treat to see biker pic perennials Smith and Rourke on screen together, plus longtime favorite Filipino fat guy thesp Vic Diaz has a funny supporting part as a friendly mechanic).
The incredibly explosive action sequences are staged with considerable incendiary aplomb (the big climactic raid on an enemy prison camp is a definite highlight).
Moreover, the bikers themselves aren't glamorized or sanitized in the least.
They are a scruffy bunch of mangy nonconformist malcontents who are as likely to brawl with each other as well as anyone else who crosses their bitter antagonistic path.Better still, this remarkably bold picture fiercely ridicules America's involvement in the Vietnam war, clearly stating that we hurt these people more than helped them (the subplot about the Vietnamese prostitute with a mulatto baby is especially poignant and provocative).
The fact that this defiant movie was made while the Vietnam war was still going on makes it that much more pertinent and resonant.
And the crushingly downbeat bummer ending is likewise very powerful with both its unflinchingly cynical anti-government stance and unsparingly grim statement about the wasteful futility of war.
In addition, this film was also influential in that it established the basic let's-bring-the-boys-back-home premise which was later reused in such 80's action features as "Uncommon Valor," "Missing in Action," and "Rambo: First Blood, Part II." The Dark Sky DVD offers a beautiful widescreen presentation along with the following tasty extras: two radio spots, the theatrical trailer, a still and poster gallery, and, perhaps the single most savory bonus, a highly amiable, entertaining and informative commentary by stars Paul Koslo and William Smith..
William Smith, Badass.
Okay, first of all, get loaded before watching this film.
It was obviously filmed in the Philippines with Filipino folk playing Vietnamese and Cambodians.
William Smith's hair gets progressively lighter until during the final sequence, he is blond.
The other four guys who portray Hells Angel types are pretty pathetic.
Limpy looks like a skinny, sleazy 70's porn star.
Then there's the guy with a shocking green rag across his forehead with a swastika on it.
I don't think macho biker types would wear chartreuse, but he never takes it off.
Then there's the flabby guy with the huge love handles who fights all the time with his shirt off.
Then there's the guy with no muscle tone and killer blue eyes who is the farthest thing from a biker type.
We get to see a few topless Filipino women and that's nice.
The final assault on the enemy camp with choppers modified with shields and machine guns is classic.
I think they knocked down and blew up the same tower three times.
Anyway, William Smith is the only legit biker type and he carries the film.
Fun movie, but make certain you have plenty of malt liquor on hand to help maintain your viewing pleasure. |
tt0126810 | Bedrooms and Hallways | The film opens as Leo (Kevin McKidd), an openly gay man celebrating his 30th birthday, arrives home and is very unhappy to find a surprise-party organised by his roommates Darren (Tom Hollander) and Angie (Julie Graham) in full swing. Leo has a complicated personal history with some of the guests and hides in his bedroom, feeling grumpy and old. The movie then goes into an extended flashback which explains this history.
It turns out that his colleague had encouraged Leo to attend his weekly men's group run by New Age type goofball Keith (Simon Callow) whose wife is Sybil (Harriet Walter). There, Leo meets hunky Irishman Brendan (James Purefoy) whom he develops a crush on, which he reluctantly reveals to the group. However Brendan is straight and lives with his ex-girlfriend Sally (Jennifer Ehle) who is later revealed to be Leo's high school sweetheart. A series of 'Iron John' group exercises leads Brendan and Leo to develop a friendship. As they bond, it becomes clear that Brendan's curiosity towards Leo starts to grow in a sexual escalade. In the men's group, one of the other groupsmen become very jealous of Leo's "friendship" with Brendan and that he does not have that with Leo. Brendan fights with the lad over Leo. The friendship is soon to become more, as Brendan appears unexpectedly late one night at Leo's door and sleeps with him; after which they become something of a couple, to the consternation of one man in their men's group, though it encourages another, Terry (Con O'Neill), to explore his sexuality.
Meanwhile, flamboyant Darren has met real estate agent Jeremy (Hugo Weaving), who gets a kick out of having sex in houses for sale he has been given the keys to. However, he is not interested into "couply" things, despite Darren's attempts. Eventually this leads to them having sex with handcuffs and blindfolds in the bedroom of the house which Sally has on the market, during which she unexpectedly returns home. Jeremy abandons Darren, who dumps him. Leo gets close once more with Sally, and ends up kissing her. Feeling guilty, he leaves in a panic, and ends up telling Brendan what happened, who goes ballistic as he still has feelings for Sally. Leo finds himself in a quandary, and decides to confess to Sally that he is the one who is seeing Brendan (Sally had previously believed it was Leo's roommate Angie). He inadvertently does so while Brendan is there too, and leaves Brendan to face Sally.
The film then returns to the party, where Brendan and Terry get into an argument over Leo and take it outside, where Brendan punches Terry on the nose, who crumples. Brendan asks him to go with him for a drink (the same tactic he had employed with Leo). Thus, Brendan starts dating; Leo's colleague and Angie get together; Jeremy and Darren make up; and Leo sleeps with Sally. | romantic | train | wikipedia | Often hilarious look at an atypical gay love life.
OK, I don't kid myself that this is the typical gay love life but since when are straight romances in real life as they are on the screen?
It was a riot to see Hugo Weaving play a sex-obsessed gay real estate salesman who uses his clients' houses for his trysts with the flaming Darren (Tom Hollander).
This is a gentle romantic comedy about the diversity of human sexuality and in some ways not unlike an Ealing comedy with its friendly pokes at New Agers and estate agents.It was very well worth it alone though for the Jane Austen send up scene - handsome James Purefoy striding about in breeches saying 'I've been out all day whipping stable boys - would you like a whipping, boy' to footman Kevin McKidd who nearly orgasms on the spot.
This is a bit of a cinematic in joke anyway as several of the cast (Purefoy, Ehle and Walter) have all starred in recent Austen adapataions.There are several belly laughs too - this is one for curling up with someone of the same or opposite sex, and having a cuddle and glass of wine whilst you enjoy it..
Leo (Kevin McKidd), handsome, gay, and a bit vacuous, turns 30, still without a special someone in his life.
Highlights include some very funny scenes in a new age mens' encounter group facilitated with voyeuristic aplomb by Keith (Simon Callow), an affair with Brendan, a hunky Irish cafe owner (an unrecognisable James Purefoy), and reunion with an old female flame Sally (Jennifer Ehle).
Tucked into this plotline are the sexual adventures of Darren and real estate agent Jeremy (a straight acting Hugo Weaving).
This is hardly an original insight but this film tackles the issue with zest and a great sense of fun.
Keith's wife (Harriet Walter), author of a book called "The Obsolete Penis" seems to have strayed in from another movie and Brendan looked a bit too disheveled to be the front man in a trendy cafe operation.Rose Troche, responsible for the rather didactic lesbian comedy "Go Fish," directs with a much lighter touch here and takes full advantage of Robert Farrer's light hearted but occasionally poignant script.
The tone is comedy rather than comic and we do care a bit at the end how it's going to work out for Leo, colourless as he is.
Compared with a conventional romantic comedy like "Notting Hill" this film derives its tension from the unexpected rather than the inevitable, and gives the audience a lot more stimulation on the way.
Though I saw this movie dubbed in French, so I'm sure it lost something in the translation, lack of accents, etc., it was an excellent, fun movie for a lonely night in a hotel room--a real pick-me-up that portrayed accurately and positively the complexities of individual sexuality, gender role, and finding a place within the communities to which one is supposed to belong--male, gay, urban, 30-ish, etc.
While the fact that the gay lead character ends up somewhat "straight" in the end is mildly disappointing, that's life, and that happens sometimes.
Rose Troche introduced herself to us in 1994 with the small budget, pleasant lesbian love story called Go Fish which was set in the United States.Her very assured Bedrooms And Hallways moves its locale to urban England and follows the will I, won't I musings of Leo (Kevin McKidd).He's fallen for five o'clock shadowed Irishman Brendan (James Purefoy) but Leo fears he might have got himself into trouble.
He's just come out of a long standing relationship with a woman.The two men meet at a men's s group run by a serious eyed and voiced Keith (Four Weddings and a Funeral's Simon Callow).It would seem that Rose Troche and her team find a lot that goes on at these groups to be pretty funny.
He's having a great time with Jeremy a real estate agent played with terrific intensity by Australian actor Hugo Weaving.
There are plenty of laughs in what is a smart, impressive new movie from Rose Troche.Things have changed over the years in films.
The boys and girls used to be nearly ten years younger in these sorts of comedies and we were used to them finding a life long, heterosexual partner in the final reel, to then live happily ever after.These days a three night trial liaison is probably more than can be expected, a situation which more suitably fits the thirty somethings these films are about..
Extremely well-acted and funny film.
Terrific performances, and thoughtful script and great direction from the talented and funny Rose Troche all combine to make this film a winner!.
I found it hard to care about these characters, who were either annoying or insipid, all living their fabulously hilariously urban lives.The dialogue was excruiciating at times, and at other times the narrative seemed hard to follow - was it me or were entire scenes deleted?It felt like a poor sitcom somehow turned into a film.
Perhaps if you've never met any gay people or never thought about homosexuality before, then this film might have something meaningful to say.
Finally, here's a story about a group of people who meet some challenges, flounder a bit, and then decide to just be themselves and end up happy for; when was the last time you saw that in a film?
Dealing with the fluidity of life, love, and sexuality, the characters are faced with real problems (albeit in often ridiculous situations like the men's group camping trip, and the explicit realatory liaisons) and manage to learn and grow without the movie getting preachy, darkly desperate, or too unrealistic.
You'll love and care about the characters who, far from being hollow stereotypes, portray real people with just a touch of the truth behind their would-be labels.A good romcom for a Saturday afternoon, and the only movie I've ever seen where sexual fluidity ends happily, and no one is forced to be anything they don't want to be.
Far better than Kissing Jessica Stein, a good choice if your tired of watching gay movies that have some painful lesson and bitter lesson.
Simon Callow, playing a horny straight, is always worth watching, and he's by far the only reason to stay with the movie.
I loved that the lead character wanted guarantees about his future, and that his roommate sets him "straight" of all people.
I seriously enjoyed watching this movie for the first time some years ago and whenever it gets aired again somewhere (which luckily happens from time to time in European cable television) I experience the same thing, I'm moved, entertained and end up wishing there were more movies like this one.It all deals with Leo (Kevin McKidd) and his group of friends living in urban London, Leo as a gay guy who follows a friend to a hilarious New Age Men's Group and falls for straight guy Brendon, played by dashing James Purefoy, who turns out not so straight after all.
Thrown in as side characters are the equally great Tom Hollander and Hugo Weaving whose side story alone is worth watching the movie, Simon Callow as the leader of the Men's group, turning in a great as ever performance.
But it's really hard to pick some folks out here, because every character, the female ones like Jennifer Ehle's, Julie Graham's and Harriet Walter's as well, are exquisitely acted.
Maybe even Kevin McKidd looks a little pale compared to his co-actors but it benefits his somewhat subdued character.The idea behind this movie is a simple one: There is never only black and white, classifications are difficult and may not always stand the test of time.Leo identifies as gay but ends up falling for a woman as well who turns out to be his teenage sweetheart and Brendon's long time girlfriend.
Darren and Jeremy (Hollander and Weaving) are gay and loving it and even the straight folks in the movie, like Angie, Leo's female roommate, get their fair share of love and funny moments up until the end of the movie.
The comedy bits(especially Tom Hollander who's just hilarious) are funny and on point and the emotions are believable, as confusing as they may appear at times reading this summary.What I like about this movie is its genuinely positive notion.
Whether you're gay, straight, bisexual or simply not sure, this movie leaves you feeling that it's just okay NOT to be sure and that "not being sure" might be something worth living out as well!
Sexuality is portrayed fluid in this movie and none of the main characters seem to have a real problem with it, apart from all the gay/straight camp fights that you sometimes get fed with in other gay themed movies.
I can only wholeheartedly agree with the subtext of the movie, that what you feel certain of one day, when you think you identify as gay, straight, whatever, can look very different on another.
This movie dares going where few movies go, gay or straight movies, by not playing on labels and stereotypical assumption of sex and relying on that.
It goes further and assumes that there may be a life to sex after well-known classifications and I think the times are more than ready for that and other movies exploring postmodern themes like this one!
Light romantic comedy romp among a gay/bi/straight group of late 20/early 30-somethings in mid-90s London.
Gentle, charming script affectionately pokes fun at trends in the air at the time; the new-age "Men's Group" scenes are quite amusing (I've been there).
Politically-correct gays will predictably bridle at the bi-sexual themes, and suggestions of fluidity of sexual attraction.Actor James Purefoy is a revelation; he is very attractive, worked-out, and sexy, particularly when his clothes come off.
He is probably at the height of his looks here in this film (aided by "designer stubble"), and is vaguely similar to Hugh Jackman, but without that level of screen-presence unfortunately.The only real problem that I have with films like this (and I'm also thinking of both versions of "Queer as Folk" for example) is all the straight actors portraying gay/bi guys.
For me they bring a completely different feel and tone than exists in the real gay world - one that I WISH existed there - and in the end I find it slightly depressing.An American indie film in a similar vein is the amusing "I Think I Do" (1997)..
A study of relationships and the troubles we all seem to have, plus a hilarious look at all the Touchy Feely New Age Mumbo Jumbo nonsense that was so prevalent in the 90's.Sadly, the focus group was poorly chosen and almost 1/3 of the people in the audience left after the first "guy with guy" scene.
He already "looks and acts straight" anyway, and he's a carpenter to boot."Men's Lib" has never been taken seriously, and clearly this movie was not going to be the first one to do so.
Eventually it does, in the person of Brendon, played by burly and gorgeous James Purefoy, who seems to be toying with our hero between being straight and being gay.
It was fun to see Simon Callow on screen as the head of the "straight" men's talk group.
Lots of Fun. This movie was a pleasant surprise because I didn't expect much.
It's a social satire sex comedy in the best way and reminds me a bit of the old "Carry On" movies.
James Purefoy is the "not-so-straight" love interest here and manages create a flesh and blood character.
Bedrooms and Hallways is the kind of film that makes you realize that the drama of life is hidden in the details.
Even though your own love life and your own friends may not be as unique as the characters in this movie, every one is bound to recognize themselves and others in the colorful protagonists of this film.
And that's the great strength of Bedrooms and Hallways, that the irony of life is that the most confusing things that happen to you can be the most interesting/hilarious/funny/sexy/...things too!
The halt and lame who call the shots in the entertainment industry may find it difficult to understand just how extraordinarily good this wry little film about Londoners behaving as if they're living and loving in Southern California really is.
A boffo ensemble cast includes brilliant work by Tom Hollander, Kevin McKidd, Julie Graham, and James Purefoy, with fun and frolicsome supportive roles by Hugo Weaving (as a predatory estate agent), Simon Callow and Harriet Walter (who enjoys a cult following thanks to her brilliant work ten years ago in the BBC Lord Peter Wimsey series).
I saw this film at the Boston Internation Festival of Women's Cinema last night, and was saddened to hear Ms. Troche tell us (in her Q&A after the screening) that she doesn't expect to see too much US distribution, due to her insistence on including all of the so-called "gay content".
Wonderful cast, FABULOUS script, and of course, Rose Troche's direction make this one of the funniest films I've seen..
Bedrooms and Hallways gives its audience a look into the mind of a man who thinks he's found himself, only to find out that he's not so sure he found the right guy.
Although the movie ends without much resolution, the hilarious one-liners, peculiar situations, and quirky characters are sure to satisfy..
And the biggest reason I like UK films much better than American ones are that the actors aren't afraid to act out what is needed..
Viewed at the U.S. Premiere, January 10th, 1999 The Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival.How terribly(wonderfully)British to unravel all of the complexities of sexual identity with a wicked wit!Chaotic, Hilarious, And yes, a romantic gay comedy..
It was a fun film to look at.
Never have I seen a movie like this; didn't plan on seeing it but it was worth the turn of the TV channel.
It starts out as a one sided film with a simple love triangle, then became something a little different(can't tell more then that.
Also, this movie starred Hugo Weaving from the "MATRIX" and "THE LORD OF THE RINGS" in a role I would not have expected...very funny guy.
I enjoyed this movie - it was light, very funny, and had an interesting statement about the flexibility of sexuality.
I really enjoyed the interaction between characters - especially Leo's roommates, Darren (hysterical!) and Sybil (really funny.) The biggest surprise was Hugo Weaving, whose scenes had to have been my favorite.
He plays a great perv!Admittedly, this movie got a little dull towards the end, with the whole bizarre love triangle, but the supporting cast made me stick it out to the end..
This movie is one of those uber-phony gay romps like Jeffrey and Maybe, Maybe not.
I rarely write a panning review, but here goes.These actors in gay roles really play games with your memories of a lot of far more worthy films.
It has good direction but the simple fact is that it undermines what all gay and lesbian people have been fighting for all these years.
As what usually happens in these films the straight actors play the main parts and the out gay actors play the secondary straight roles.
The leads are played by handsome men but don't let that distract you from the fact that this is a a film that leaves you feeling unfulfilled.
I found the idea of Leo's attraction to Sally very interesting, from the point that everyone has someone or something in their past that makes them think "What if?" Brendan, I felt was using Sally as a way of anchoring himself in 'normality', a safeguard in case the whole gay thing didn't work out.
(Which is pointed out to him in the film, by a character I presume he later sleeps with.) I think Leo could be straight, at least for a while, but only with Sally, and eventually, she's going to get hurt.
Amusing story, very well acted, likable characters, fast paced, great dialogue and some hilarious lines.
Gay man goes straight once he finds the right woman.
Straight actors pretending to be gay but no worries - they all end up straight at the end because the main character apparently was just waiting for his childhood sweetheart to lead him back to the promise land of heterosexuality.
Gay male life is presented as nothing more than meaningless sex with no hope for love unless he comes to his senses and settles down with a woman.
Throw in that old trope of seducing straight men into the "experimenting" with gay sex for a juvenile lark only to return to heterosexuality with a little maturity.
Apparently, even lesbian directors aren't immune from internalized homophobia.As for all the fawning heterosexual commenters, of course you love this movie as it reinforces all your negative stereotypes about gay men..
Totally apart from the straight guys playing gay, there is one serious fault with this film that makes it SERIOUSLY bad: *Spoiler* Sexual identity can be, often is, a fluid and somewhat "iffy" business -- lots of "chance attractions" go on all the time: The film takes it to a perfectly ludicrous and totally unbelievable height.
Bedrooms & Hallways starts off with a funny idea, and has some fun characters.
The movie is unpredictable, and fun to watch, but...the ending is not what I would have liked...and it did not "ring true" to me, considering the characters involved.
The actors really are good, & the movie is worth watching for the comedic situations alone.
Kevin McKidd plays the main character, and he is fantastic -- he is sweet & funny & genuine, and he does a great job playing a regular guy who happens to be gay.
Kevin has played macho men in "Dog Soldiers" and "Trainspotting", and in this film you can watch him become someone completely different, yet he is still totally natural and believable. |
tt0810892 | The Haunted Airman | During the Second World War, young pilot RAF Flight Lieutenant Toby Jugg (Robert Pattinson) suffers a serious spinal wound during a bombing raid on the city of Dresden. This injury consigns him to a wheelchair, facing a life as a paralysed recluse. In the hope that he can recover, his aunt-in-law, Julia (Rachael Stirling), takes him to Llancebach, a remote military hospital in Wales run by Dr. Hal Burns (Julian Sands), known for his unorthodox treatment methods.
Toby's stay as a convalescent, surrounded by shell-shocked military veterans, leads him to new terrors, especially after other patients suddenly die. Dr. Burns implores him to confront his demons, but during the night, Toby starts suffering from horrific nightmares, reliving the terrible carnage he had created. Reoccurring hallucinations and visions begin to cloud his mind. His only outlet is his cigarettes and the doting attention of Sister Sally Grant (Melissa Lloyd), a nursing sister.
Julia, with whom Toby was having an affair, seems to be the only person he trusts. When an intern at the nursing home goes to the nearby town, he brings a letter from Julia to Toby, who now knows that Dr. Burns is hiding his correspondence with his aunt. At his request, Julia moves into the hospital in order to treat her ward, but Dr. Burns begins an intemperate affair with her.
One night, the doctor gives a drugged Toby a razor and tells him "to do the right thing". When he rejects any further help from Dr. Burns, Toby subsequently begins to suffer from psychological disorders. Doubting everyone and everything, Toby conjures up a sinister plot involving Julia and Dr. Burns, but in his madness, kills the one person who loves him. | insanity | train | wikipedia | If you watch it as a stand-alone movie it quite well portrays the story it is supposed to tell.
I knew already when I saw the length, that it couldn't be close to the book, so I decided to NOT compare and therefore liked the movie, regardless.One thing is for certain - Robert Pattinson shows an excellent range!
In the World War II, the airman Toby Jugg (Robert Pattinson) is hit in the spine during an airborne attack and he becomes paraplegic.
One night, Dr. Burns gives a razor to Toby and tells him to do the right thing, trying to induce him to commit suicide.
But late night Toby discovers the secret of Julia and Hal."The Haunted Airman" is a tale of paranoia, with a confused story, melancholic but beautiful cinematography with blue filter and great performance of Robert Pattinson.
I was expecting a horror movie and not a drama, but anyway the director and screenplay writer Chris Durlacher completely fails since he never develops the character of Julian Sands.
It's like someone in Britain said, "Hey, this guy is somewhat good looking so we need to make a movie with him in it that's based on a great book.
While we're at it, let's throw the scrabble letters against the wall every time we want some dialogue in this 'movie' and that will be what the actors say." If this was the case...mission accomplished.I honestly can't even begin to describe how horrible this movie is.
A disabled and traumatised WW2 airman is sent to a convalescent home in Wales, where his mental health gradually degenerates as a result of disturbing hallucinations, and growing suspicions that the doctor in charge may not be as benevolent as he at first seems.Though billed as being based on The Dennis Wheatley story 'The Haunting of Toby Jugg', the relationship is a highly tenuous one.
Unlike the book, this is a psychological drama with no hint of the supernatural, and while the technical quality of the filming is very good, it is very, very slow-paced and, at the end, downright confusing.
I can only guess that the film's makers were trying to emulate the ambiguous nature of 'The Turn of the Screw', but this is not in the same class at all.If you liked the book, I can't recommend it.
Sorry, but a slightly moving shadow on the floor in the middle of the night means nothing, especially when the curtains are open; it's probably just a branch moving outside the window.Robert Pattinson is attractive as ever and turns in a pretty good performance, but there was no way he could salvage this piece of crap.My response in a nutshell: yeah, it was only an hour lost
but I can think of so many better and more interesting things I could have done in that hour.
As a fan of the late prolific Dennis Wheatley who found "The Haunting of Toby Jugg" to be one of his most gripping thrillers, I was confused to find that this tedious mess was supposed to be inspired by that work.
Playing Jugg, Robert Pattinson mostly gives the perfect Goth fashion model note of cool emotionlessness, which presumably serves him well in the hunky teen vampire stories to which he owes his fame.
This movie, I have to admit, I was only watching because I am a Twilight fan.I wanted to see Robert Pattinson in something other than Harry Potter before viewing him in Twilight.
Watching this made me a very big Robert fan as he blew my mind as to his acting capabilities.
This young actor is severely underestimated.He has shown an enormous bout of talent and hopefully Twilight can help expose him a little further into the realm of big time acting.I cant wait to see any future films he is in as they are sure to be a success for not only him but for people that go and see the films.
I'd only ever seen him in Harry Potter and the atrocious attempt at a movie adaption of my most beloved book Twilight, and apart from a beautiful face I thought he showed talent.I think he does very much so in this film too.
As I found most of the storyline quite confusing, his acting was the only thing that kept me watching; I understand that the story in general is about a RAF pilot who gets injured during a bomb raid, and later is tormented by the memories of war, but then it gets a bit...
If you want to understand this film - don't watch it, read the book..
Problem is - if we don't know what's real, we can't understand the film, now can we?I have not seen the Twilight trilogy, so I'm enough unbiased to be able to say that Pattinson's acting in this film wasn't as superb as other reviews would have you believe.
The one thing good about the script was the poetic touch in the letters Toby wrote Julia.So...
i managed to sit through it once when i was ill but from about 10 minutes into the film i became distracted, you didn't feel in it like you do when reading the book.Robert Pattinson tries so hard to convince us of his madness, so hard he looks more funny than sinister.
i can now see why it was a freebie with another DVD i bought, don't waste your time watching it, read the book instead..
I don't know though, right now seems like his prime-time, starring in quite a few films.
There is not one ounce of subtlety anywhere to be found in the piece -- whether it's the protagonist's memories of bomber runs, or the blue-grey tone slathered all over the photography, or the hallucinations of the PTSD-afflicted Toby Jugg.I suppose this is in keeping with Dennis Wheatley's own work and philosophy, however, as Wheatley didn't consider himself any sort of stylist and his books are notably light on quality and long on gung-ho plot, with dialogue redolent with cliché and childishness at times..
I would not recommend this to anybody except a preteen girl who isn't really watching the movie anyway, just staring at the average looking actor who plays a crappy sparkly vampire elsewhere..
While Burns continues to offer him treatment, Jugg starts to believe that all is not as it seems.I'm all for a good ghost story because, although I do scare quite easily, the reason I tend to avoid horror movies is the gore they provide in place of genuine chills.
Screened as part of BBC4's season of ghost stories, I did hope for more from The haunted Airman more than modern "scary" movies but also more than it actually managed to deliver.
At their best these do work but even then they are pretty clichéd and obvious; at their worst they smack of a total lack of imagination with easy tricks that don't have the desired effect.The acting doesn't help, although again I suspect the performances are hurt by Durlacher not having a grip on everything.
Stirling, Lloyd and others end up hanging around the scenes with the purposeful presence of extras.Overall then an average film at best.
Maybe the Director, his Screen Writer and such are aware of the tedious progress of this movie, but to us mere mortals...."what the heck is this plot all about, where is it going".
Yet another reminder that the Dennis Wheatley novels may well be a very good read (or they were, many years ago) but that they invariably make (or are made into) pretty crappy movies.
I don't even remember if I actually read "The Haunting Of Toby Jugg" myself or just have an awareness of it and think I did, so I can't compare in this case and just took the movie on its own merits.It was ostensibly very well made (props, camera-work, location, lighting &c.) and the acting is difficult to fault, in fairness, but disappointingly the storyline was not entirely free of some fairly well-worn clichés and dragged on without going anywhere much for so damn long I was ready for just about any ending just to get it over with.
Which is just as well - the ending was such a mess it was almost a case of 'Times's up, please hurry up and vacate the lot, we need it for someone else!' and it was neither particularly satisfying or shocking when it did finally arrive....The whole thing was pretty much a letdown like a sandwich with little or no filling - a pity really, it could have been so much better if it had tried a little less hard to be weird and suspenseful!.
If anyone deserves haunting, it's got to be the guy who has used the Dennis Wheatley name to conjure up an audience for this pathetic movie.
It belongs in a film museum, in the "Dismal Failure" section, or we could use it in school to teach how not to.It's pretentious and plodding and oh-so-politically correct, and would be bad enough in its own right, but to drag poor old Dennis down to the same depths of drawn-out inanity, with a plot that has virtually nothing to do with the book (!!), this is surely a case of tomb raiding.
If I've saved anyone a wasted evening with this warning, some good might yet come of my having watched it..
Toby Jugg (Robert Pattinson) is a WWII bomber pilot hit in the back during a bombing run.
The Haunted Airman (character Toby Jugg).
The young British airman, Lieutenant Toby Jugg, has been critically injured in his last raid over Nazi-held territory during World War II, and is transferred out of war-ravaged London to a remote psychiatric hospital for wounded soldiers.As played by a very young Robert Pattinson, his psychically wounded spirit is captured with amazing clarity.
Toby Jugg, an Airman, is sent to a convalescent home to recuperate from wounds suffered in the War. He slowly loses his mind in the home.I took this DVD out because of Robert Pattinson who was great in TWILIGHT (also a great movie) and he was a Vampire.
I watched the movie and kept waiting for the Vampire within him to emerge.
Actually, the whole story was kind of boring, draggy and the relationships with his Dr. Burns (Sands) and his aunt Julia (Stirling) were not well defined and all was left to our imagination.
Hmmmm, now we have to work at things
.Besides this not being a Vampire movie, was there anything else that didn't seem right?
And, I felt I was misled into thinking this was a Vampire movie -- Probably because of the success of TWILIGHT, and his picture on the DVD box.
I have seen Julian Sands in "A Room with a View" and "Warlock" and along side Robert Pattinson in "The Dark Kingdom".
Not only is he tortured by nightmares, but his therapist (Julian Sand) has some pretty unorthodox techniques.This BBC pseudo-thriller is big on shadowy atmosphere but short on every other essential; there is no coherent plot, the music is terrible, and it all seems sadly pointless.
Made two years before "Twilight," Pattinson doesn't yet have the shaggy hair, bushy eyebrows, and blank gazes that would make him so popular as a vampire; here he's clean cut, youthful, and gives a fairly good performance, albeit one that relies heavily on long, slow drags on his cigarettes.
As his doctor, Julian Sand's character and motives are never explained; most of his performance must have ended up on the cutting room floor.
i only came across this on BBC Four one night when i was flicking through the channels on my TV and i was immediately hooked.the story revolves around flight Lt. Toby Jugg(Rob Pattinson)whose lost his ability to walk after an accident with his plane.Thanks to his aunt Toby ends stranded in a hospital where a creepy doctor steals his letters and tries to assume that there's something wrong in Toby's head.
From Robert Pattinson's portrayal of the physically injured and psychologically tortured airman, to Julian Sands as the less than beneficent doctor, who, from the moment you see him you just know is going to be evil.The story commences with Toby Jugg (Pattinson) flying his bomber when it's hit, leaving him a paraplegic, followed by his arrival at a convalescent home somewhere in the English countryside, looking far too gorgeous to be ill, and accompanied by his Aunt by marriage who the viewer realizes almost immediately he is in love with.Over time he comes to realize that his doctor is keeping him isolated, not sending his letters to his Aunt nor passing her correspondence to him.Then a couple of the other patients - who seemed to be improving - die and his paranoia really kicks in.If I have a complaint about the film it's that the Direction could have been a little tighter.
The acting is exemplary (as one expects from Pattinson and Sands - although Sands always seems to play the same character no matter who it is) however, and I have no complaints with the script.All in all, this is a very entertaining, if disturbing way to spend 70 minutes.....and did I mention how easy on the eye Robert Pattinson is?.
This movie has Robert Pattinson in it, you get to see his pretty face.
At no point in this movie do you truly know who were the bad guys.
When I first saw this movie I was shocked that I had never heard of Robert Pattinson before his "Twilight" success.
This movie was great from beginning to end.
Good film, Robert Pattinson was fantastic..
The acting was fantastic though, especially Robert Pattinson.
Overall the movie was watchable and I would watch it again for the sake of Robert Pattinson, maybe the story would be more clear the second time round as I have not read the book.
For just over a hour the film is really well done and acted, definitely recommend watching twice before you decide whether you like it or not.I wouldn't say the film was terrible I've seen much much much WORSE!.
As a Twilight and Pattinson fan, I was extremely eager to see The Haunted Airman.
After it was over I wondered what the hell I just saw.The film version of the book, The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Dennis Wheatley, is very choppy and confusing.
Robert Pattinson plays Jugg and he is the best thing in this movie.
It is a brilliant performance and Pattinson shines.The second reason, if there are others, to see this short film is Rachel Sterling.
She plays the beautiful aunt-in-law of Toby's who starts a relationship with Dr. Burns and pulls away from him.
Sterling is gorgeous and you can see the chemistry between them; it is as though they really WERE the characters and the strain of the relationship is evident
especially at the end.Other stand out performers include Julian Sands as Dr. Hal Burns.
you want to watch an interesting movie?.
I JUST watched this dreck an hour ago and I have NO IDEA.Save yourself the agony: it's not the actors faults (probably), the script should have been tossed on the 'interesting but only for a short story' pile, the director should have called in sick (it might have been better!
Being a big Robert Pattinson fan (I admit it is due to the whole Twilight madness, he did not catch my eye in Harry Potter at all, wonder why?
I probably am mostly in love with Edward in fact), I was curious to see this film...so I saw it had a lot of bad reviews, but as a fan you have also some responsibilities, so...I have to say, the only really bad things about this movie are the script and Julian Sands.
I have not read the book, so no idea what the movie wanted to describe, but to me (spoiler alert) this movie just shows how Toby is slowly but surely getting mad, due to a guilty conscience from his awful war experiences, added to his fury and despair that he is now impotent(being paralysed from hip down or so).
The script is just awful, and I mean awful, leaves too many holes, scenes at the beginning are just like stop and go, action/cut..perhaps they want to show how Toby feels, the chaos and craziness??
Julian Sands on the other hand is not convincing at all and seems not to know exactly if he should play the bad doctor or the good doctor...or is that intended too?
So yeah, all a bit confusing, I guess for this movie it all depends on what you want to see and understand from it, you need a bit of patience and to have an open mind.
Outside of Robert Pattinson's performance, which I found to be stellar, especially given this was a leading role involving a very difficult topic early on in his acting career, for me, The Haunted Airman is rather a difficult movie to rate.
Did it begin because of the letters Toby wrote to Julia?), for example, I think it all would have made more sense to more people.
When rating it, I almost added one star for where it seemed Durlacher was trying to take this movie, but sadly, it was an almost good idea that fell just a bit short.
It runs 70 minutes, and by the end of the first 20 you will be aware that you are watching a piece of garbage.
That is the end of the movie.
It was mostly a bore but somehow I kept watching it.Rob smokes so much in this movie,it's to the point of hilarity.His performance was subtle but believable despite many dull droning speeches which I dare any actor to make exciting.
I would say watch a few choice scenes if you're into creepy stuff or like Pattinson but don't torture yourself & watch the whole thing. |
tt1121628 | Power Rangers Jungle Fury | For over 10,000 years, a spirit of pure evil known as Dai Shi has been locked away and safely guarded by the Pai Zhua - The Order of the Claw - a secretive Kung Fu clan. The Pai Zhua select their three top members, Jarrod, Theo, and Lily, to become the new guardians of Dai Shi. Unfortunately, Jarrod's arrogant and bullying nature led to him being excluded, so a rookie named Casey is chosen to take his place instead.
During the initiation ceremony Jarrod returns and attacks Master Mao, inadvertently breaking the vessel containing Dai Shi's essence as he does so. The freed Dai Shi kills Master Mao and takes over Jarrod's body who then escapes. The trio are sent to the city of Ocean Bluff to seek their new master, and find him to be a man named RJ - chef and owner of "Jungle Karma Pizza". After testing them RJ grants them the powers and abilities of Jungle Power Rangers, making them Earth's only hope to stop Dai Shi - who along with his Lieutenant Camille, other henchmen, and army of undead Rinshi warriors is attempting to take over the world and allow animals to rule over humans.
Initially RJ acts only as Sensei and trainer to the Power Rangers, but as the series progresses he joins their ranks as the Wolf Ranger. During this time they are also joined by Dominic who studied with RJ, and Fran - originally a customer then employee of Karma Pizza. Dominic joins as the Rhino Power Ranger, and Fran is enlisted to watch the monitors and advise of Rinshi attacks while RJ is with the other Power Rangers. Eventually, Camille is targeted by henchmen Scorch and Snapper who are jealous of her popularity with Dai Shi - although in reality it is Jarrod's own human spirit fighting against the Dai Shi she is attracted to. As a result, she turns against both them and Dai Shi, enabling Jarrod to throw off its spirit control and the two join the Power Rangers who use their animal spirits finally to defeat Dai Shi and its forces.
In the epilogue Jarrod goes back to the Pai Zhua to begin his training again, followed by Camille who later returns as a Power Ranger in her own right. Lily, Theo, and RJ remain at Karma Pizza. Dominic and Fran backpack around the world, and Casey becomes a teacher at the Pai Zhua - with Jarrod and Camille among his students. | good versus evil | train | wikipedia | null |
tt3110960 | Jimmy's Hall | In 1932, after ten years in the United States, Jimmy Gralton returns to his native Ireland to help his mother run the family farm. A new government is in power in Ireland ten years after the end of the Civil War. To meet the needs of the young people of County Leitrim, Jimmy, in spite of his reluctance to cause upset to his old enemies (the Church and the local landowners), decides to reopen the "Hall", a young people's centre, free and open to all, where the local young people meet to dance, study or talk. Success comes quickly, but the growing influence of Jimmy and his radical ideas are not to the taste of everyone in the village.
The film centres around political tensions between the Catholic church, the state and the republican movement to which Jimmy through his pre-emigration history is connected. Jimmy's political alignment is central to the film, he suffers for being a free-thinker and committed to the liberation of ordinary people through education and also by having experience from America of jazz (the rhythms and passions of "darkest Africa" are warned against in one church sermon warning of the perils of the "Hall"). Jimmy is aligned to communism by the communist support and encourage participation in the study and dancing that evolve as key activities at the "Hall".
The power and hypocrisy of the church is demonised in the film by aligning it to the beating by her father of a free spirited young girl who laughs at the priest while she is named and shamed for attending a dance at the Hall in a church service. The pious religion of Jimmy's mother is also contrasted against her love of learning and ability to explore popular non-religious literature, which has aligned her family to Communism for liberation of working people. It is clear throughout the film that Jimmy and his mother are not aligned to any struggle above and beyond the necessities of their local community; however, this does bring them into involvement with attempting to prevent an eviction of a family who are displaced from their home.
This eviction and the assertive reinstatement of the family along with Jimmy's support and oratory to those gathered at the reinstatement draw him to the attention of the Gardaí. This starts a chain of events which ends in Jimmy's expulsion from Ireland based on the flimsy premise that he holds a US passport and that political agitators have previously been expelled from the country on such grounds. The lack of a fair trial is emphatically explained in the film by a speech given by Jimmy's mother at a rally surrounding the expulsion.
The behaviour of the state's police is shown and explained to be occurring at a time when Stalin was in full control of the Soviet Union and it is obvious that the state and church are fearful of forces that threaten to destroy them. It is this tension between the ideals of Christianity and the fear of the church and its natural tendency to be reactionary that is the central issue that the film explores. | flashback | train | wikipedia | This movie opposes two different and opposed views of the world: that of Jimmy Gralton, who apart from wanting to open a dance hall, is also a left-wing idealist.
In fact the heart of the movie is the confrontation between Jimmy Gralton and Father Sheridan, which despite the depth of conflict, is fundamentally based on a grudging mutual respect.What, indeed, could be wrong with opening a dance hall and cultural center?
"Jimmy's Hall" sees him return, in some respects, to the territory he explored in "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" and it is one of his very best films.
Again we are back in Ireland but 10 years after the end of the Civil War. Old wounds haven't healed, (they still haven't healed completely to this day), and like "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" the divisions here are much more political than social and almost as violent.It deals with the very specific conflict between those who opposed the Treaty, those who supported it and the dominating Catholic Church when one, Jimmy Gralton, returns from 10 years exile in America and reopens a community hall that was the source of all his trouble in the first place, against the express wishes of 'Holy Mother Church' and those who backed it.As scripted by Paul Laverty it is, of course, a deeply political film but Loach is the most humanist of political film-makers; consequently it is also a deeply moving (and, at times, very funny) picture.
In this story based on facts and one man's intention to give culture, song and dance to his small, impoverished community, it defies belief that this travesty of injustice occurred.As usual, the Catholic Church, the overlords and the unjust legal system come together to destroy any chance a small community has of the vital birth-right of culture and harmony for those who need it most; an isolated county in Ireland.As one man steps up, after having been deported once already for the grand crime of opening a hall where people can learn such basic things as song, dance, art, literature and boxing, after his ten first ten year deportation, the local youth who have nothing to look forward to in life, convince him to do so again.This is a straightforward movie about a circumstance that defies belief, and yet it occurred.
Worth the watch for anyone who understands that oppression and fascism is wrong and that normal people deserve joy, community and to fight back when their world makes no sense on account of simply wanting to life a life..
This film reminds us of the other side of the story: greed and power are the feudal and capitalist side of the story.One flaw in the movie is that people assume the struggle between Jimmy and the priest is communism versus the church.
Based on a true story about an Irish country man who opened what was pretty much a community Center that allowed the folks of the village to educate themselves in arts and entertainment, but the Catholic church was not fond of people taking any sort of education out of God's hands and into the hands of his children.
As the movie opens, we are told it is "County Leitrim, Ireland, 1932", and we see Jimmy coming back to Ireland after 20 years in New York (presumably because of the Depression and related unemployment).
It's not long before Jimmy and his friends decide to renovate the Pears-Connelly Hall, so as to give young people and the community a place to gather for dancing, reading, drawing, singing, etc.
into the movie, but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: this is the latest movie be legendary British director Ken Loach, now a crisp 79 years young (and similar to Woody Allen in his never-ceasing output).
Loach is well-known for using his films as social commentary, and "Jimmy's Hall" is no exception.
Alas, it was not to be, for several reasons: first, the movie is not very helpful to let us understand why certain factions take a particular position (we are never told what beef the landlords have with Jimmy and his friends) or why the issue of the land ownership matters initially, and then a bit later on it doesn't.
If this was a fictional story, I'd have walked out an hour into the movie, but since this movie is "inspired by the life and times of Jimmy Gralton" (as is announced at the beginning of the movie), I wanted to find out how it would all unfold.
Last but certainly not least, there is a very nice musical score to the movie, featuring both traditional Irish music and jazz from the 20s and 30s.I had seen the trailer for "Jimmy's Hall" a few times and was really looking forward to this.
In 1933, Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward, "Songs for Amy") became the only Irish citizen ever to have been deported from Ireland when he was exiled to America without a trial.
His crime seems to be that he was a Communist who incurred the ire of the Catholic Church and the landlords by daring to establish a dance hall where such sinful pleasures as community dances, singing lessons, poetry readings, boxing lessons, and political debates took place.
Written by Paul Laverty ("The Wind That Shakes the Barley") from a play by Donal O'Kelly, Ken Loach's ("The Angel's Share") Jimmy's Hall directs our attention to a not very well known incident in Irish history that followed the Civil War of 1922-23, a war waged between two groups of Irish republicans over the Anglo-Irish Treaty.Partially filmed in the village of Drumsna, a village only a few kilometers from Gralton's birthplace in Effrinagh, the film begins in 1932 with Jimmy's return to County Leitrim after having lived in New York for ten years.
After showing historical footage of New York during the 1930s, particularly its poverty and unemployment during the great depression, we learn that Jimmy's brother has recently died and he is coming home to support his mother (Aileen Henry) in running the family farm.
When he responds "Same as ever" to her question about how he is, she tells him that "Nobody's the same after 10 years away." Now named after Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, two martyrs of the 1916 Easter uprising against British rule,Jimmy restores the boarded-up community hall that had been closed by the Catholic Church ten years earlier, stocking it with a wind-up Victrola and jazz records he brought from New York.
Fearful of stoking community activism, Father Sheridan (Jim Norton, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close") stirs up his congregation by playing the Communist card and by warning his flock about the debasement of the country's morals."What is this obsession with pleasure?!" he demands, and asks "Is it Christ, or is it Gralton?" Railing against "the Los Angelization of our culture," the fearful pastor says that the hall has become a place where "the sins of jazz music and the rhythms from darkest Africa with pelvic thrusts may poison the minds," and reads aloud the names of those who went to the hall the previous night.
O'Byrne, "Queen and Country") is shown whipping his daughter because hers was one of the names read aloud, shots are fired into the hall during a dance, and the hall is set on fire and burned to the ground on Christmas Eve, 1932.The best scenes in the film are Gralton's one-on-one conversations with Father Sheridan in which he reflects on the father's outward display of hatred towards those who are working towards the common good, defying Christ's message to love thy neighbor.
Though his hint of transformation is aided by a young priest, Father Seamus (Andrew Scott), it is too little and too late to make a difference to Jimmy who is arrested and, deported to America where he will live out the rest of his life.Jimmy's Hall, like all of Loach's work, has its heart in the right place.
The movie Jimmy's hall is a man's fight against the authority, a man's fight to freedom.
In the midst of hardship in Jimmy's hall, the poor celebrated their true culture, their music, poetry, and dance.
Parents may disapprove of the kind of dancing (or what it may lead to), religious leaders may feel that the kind of dancing these young people do is immoral, or the authorities may see modern, non-traditional dancing as a form of rebellion
and a sign of more rebellion to come.The short list of these rebel dance films range from very popular to very obscure, but they should be recognized and appreciated by dedicated movie fans, regardless of the individual's own level of proclivity to move to the music.
2015's addition to rebel dance films is the British-Irish movie "Jimmy's Hall" (PG-13, 1:49).This one is also based on a true story, but is about a lot more than dancing which some people and institutions find objectionable.
Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward) returns to his rural Irish home after ten years of living in the United States.
All of this brings him back into contact with a lost love (Simone Kirby) and back into conflict with Father Sheridan (Jim Norton), a powerful local priest who uses the pulpit to criticize the hall for its modern music and dancing – and the socialist ideas discussed in the hall.
Most of the community supports Jimmy, and a younger priest (Andrew Scott) increasingly speaks out against Father Sheridan's handling of the situation, but strong forces are gathering to oppose Jimmy and his hall.Then, the movie's plot takes a sharp turn – a sharp LEFT turn.
And quiet a story."Jimmy's Hall" depicts an interesting and little-known episode in Irish history, but isn't very compelling.
People with no prior knowledge of the problems of this place at this time will have trouble relating to Jimmy's story, and the movie lacks the narrative power to overcome that obstacle.
Director Ken Loach's tribute to Jimmy Gralton a Leitrim (Ireland) Socialist and his attempt to build a dance/meeting hall..
Seventy-nine year old British director Ken Loach has been dealing with social issues in film since the early 1960's and JIMMY'S HALL is no exception, based on a 10 year period in the life of Jimmy Gralton, a Leitrim (County in Ireland) Socialist - the only Irishman ever deported from Ireland in 1933.
The clash between the Catholic Church, intermixed with local politicians and what they considered Stalinist/Communist ideas brewing in a small village's Dance/Meeting Hall - built for the local community of farmers and laborers - teaching art, poetry, song, boxing classes, highlighting music and dance performances; a space to openly speak about landowner/working conditions.I am a sucker for a good-looking Irishman, and Barry Ward is just that; he plays Jimmy who is expressive, passionate and a stirring advocate for basic individual freedoms.
We meet him in 1932, after a forced 10 year exile in NYC, returning home to work on the family's small plot of land at a "hopeful" time, a new government has come into power.
Life in 1932 is and is not the same - personal relationships have changed - former love interest Oonagh who fought at his side in earlier days, having not heard from him for a long time after Gralton was forced to flee Ireland in 1921, married a "solid" man from the hamlet and bore 2 children.
Despite the years gone by, their deep connection has never come untethered and the tenderness between these two intense fighters for human rights is filmed in a lovely scene where they slowly move together, swaying under the pale light of unrealized dreams; fulfillment impossible.JIMMY'S HALL is a movie about the pervasive paranoia and corruption of Ireland's Government/Church partnership in maintaining "moral order" in a world that is absorbing new ideologies; where principles and tenets cannot be contained in ancestral and inbred receptacles.
There were rumours that Jimmy's Hall would be the final film from Ken Loach, the angry old man and true socialist of British cinema.
Working with his regular collaborator Paul Laverty, Loach brings us the story of Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward), a young Irish man who returned home from America in 1932 following the economic collapse and the Great Depression.
Gralton rebuilt the local community hall, which became the hub of social activity for the local farmers, who would dance and celebrate on a Saturday night and then go to Mass on Sunday morning.
By the end, Jimmy's Hall becomes a howl of outrage at a blatant miscarriage of justice, the abuse of power by both the church and state, and the continued oppression of the downtrodden and working classes.
There is plenty of great Irish music here, but the film also offers a look at the cultural and political landscape of Ireland in the early 1930s.
Here, with a sharp screenplay from Paul Laverty, who often collaborates with Loach, the director presents a most powerful drama, inspired by the life of Jimmy Gralton.Set mostly during the worldwide Great Depression, Gralton is returning home to his native Ireland, after 10 years of self-imposed exile.
Amid this turmoil, Gralton, ably portrayed by Barry Ward, wants to work his family farm in peace, in County Leitrim.However, he's approached by a group of local youths who ask him to revitalize and re-open the hall he owns, which has been shut for years and is completely dilapidated.
However, it becomes the bane of the powerful local Catholic Church, led by Father Sheridan (Jim Norton), who feels it's a threat to his authority, and the playing of such music as jazz (imported from America) is disgraceful.
Father Sheridan begins to go to any lengths to disparage all the locals who go there, and brands Gralton and his friends as Communists and subversives.At the same time, powerful and rich land owners are trying to squeeze out many local farmers, by foreclosing on them without due process.
In this particular case, the oppressive authority is the catholic church in Ireland, and the people fighting for freedom are the ordinary farmers and citizens, building their own community hall where they can dance, sing, play music and organize other events.
'Jimmy's Hall' is a film without sharp edges, a one-dimensional tale of good and bad.
The good guy is Jimmy, who returns to the Irish countryside after ten years in New York.
The locals ask him to rebuild the old community hall, but when it is finished he has to confront the bad guy: the local priest, who considers the hall to be a threat to the power base of the catholic church.
'Jimmy's Hall' is beautifully filmed, and brings an unsavoury aspect of pre-war Ireland to attention.
And to dance, to sing, as free human beings." James Gralton (Barry Ward) Jimmy's Hall depicts an Irish dance hall, Pearse-Connolly Hall, made by the people as a Depression-era testimony to their will to be free human beings.
In Jimmy's Hall, the people have dirt on their hands and worn clothes on their backs, but they have an indomitable spirit that exists always despite major oppression from the likes of England and the Catholic Church.
In any case, those of us on the low side of the 99% can identify.In this film, the rebellion is aimed squarely on the Catholic Church, embodied in the local pastor antagonist, Father Sheridan (Jim Norton), who mistakenly labels Gralton and his followers "communists," although they want only freedom and dance for everyone.
For the Irish, a people deeply imbued in culture and specifically music and poetry, the film draws us to their charisma and grit, a beautiful evocation of spirit.The love between Jimmy and erstwhile sweetheart Oonagh (Simone Kirby) is as good as you'll get in any film, especially where dance plays such an erotic and symbolic part.
This pro- German nazi ideology was quite common and was of course founding itself on a strict fundamentalist approach of the Catholic religion as the compulsory unique unifying element of the whole of Ireland.The film tells the story of a young man, James Gralton, when he comes back from the USA and New York in the 1930s after having been forced to expatriate himself in the 20s by the same people as those hostile to him when he comes back: the catholic church, the landowners, the politicians and all those who have a little bit of authority or power.
His crime was in the 1920s to have constructed a community hall where people taught poetry, painting and drawing, music, dancing, etc, freely and where he had balls every week on Saturday nights.
When he comes back ten years later, the young people ask him to reopen the Hall, and he does.
In other words he is denied his native Irish nationality.When we watch that film and try to think about the period it depicts, the poverty and the exploitation it paints and the suffering it represents for simple, poor, ordinary working people, we feel the nostalgia about this period where courage existed and where the communist ideology was bringing some hope to the poorest among "us." But the nostalgia is not meaning "That was a good time and it is a shame we have lost it!" The nostalgia is progressive: "Thanks God we have gone beyond that and left it behind: today we can enjoy our life without the constant control of the catholic church, without the dictatorship of landowners and politicians.
Director Ken Loach's newer "Jimmy's Hall" is cozy look back at the life and times of James Gralton, an Irish Communist living in the first half of the 20th Century.
So they open a dancing hall and the church opposes it, than the owner gets deported...
(or whatever reason, but this reminds me of the Chumbawamba song: Love me, I'm a liberal!)Spoiler: "we will keep on dancing Jimmy!" "Yeah, I'll send you money to throw a party..." Well it IS retiring time for Mister Loach. |
tt0094869 | The Chocolate War | Jerry Renault is a freshman attending an all-boys Catholic high school called Trinity, while coping with depressive feelings and existential questions that stem largely from his mother's recent death and his father's enduring grief. Jerry is quickly recruited onto Trinity's football team, where he meets "The Goober," a fellow freshman and instant friend.
Trinity's vice-principal, Brother Leon, has recently become acting headmaster and overextends his rising ambition by committing Trinity to selling double the previous year's amount of chocolates during an annual fundraising event, quietly enlisting the support of Archie Costello, the genesis and leader behind The Vigils: the school's cruelly manipulative secret society of student pranksters.
Archie arrogantly plans to alternate between betraying and supporting Leon in a frenzied series of power plays. His first "assignment" is to incite Jerry to refuse to sell any chocolate for ten days. However, Jerry, inspired after reading a quotation inside his locker: "Do I dare disturb the universe?" from T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," feels strangely determined to sell nothing even after the ten days have passed, thus estranging himself from both Leon and The Vigils.
At first, Jerry's refusal to cooperate with the corrupt school culture and fundraiser is seen by many classmates as heroic, but the gesture threatens Brother Leon and The Vigils' ability to coerce the student population. Leon presses Archie to put The Vigils' full force behind the chocolate sales and so they set up Jerry as an enemy for the rest of the student body to harass through bullying, prank calls, and vandalism. Only The Goober remains Jerry's friend but does little to protect him. Ultimately, Archie enlists the school bully Emile Janza to beat up Jerry just outside the school, but, even in the aftermath, Jerry maintains his defiant nonconformity.
Finally, Archie concocts a showdown: a boxing match at night between Jerry and Emile. On the football field, the match is watched by all students, who can select which blows will be laid during the fight through a randomized lottery system; however, the fight ends when a teacher shuts down the electrical power on the field, and Jerry is brutally injured in the ensuing darkness. Half-conscious, he tells The Goober that there was no way to win and he should have just complied, conceding that it is best, after all, not to "disturb the universe." Though Archie is apprehended as the mastermind of the fight, Brother Leon intervenes on his behalf and privately praises his efforts in the unprecedented success of the chocolate sales. Leon implies that next year, if he is officially made the new headmaster, he will work to preserve Archie's power. | psychedelic, prank, cruelty, flashback | train | wikipedia | Our young protagonist, Renault, still agonizing over the death of his mother, is given a right-of-passage style task by his school's secret society, run by the calculating and elagantly power-hungry Archie : To refuse to sell chocolates to boost school income for 10 days (an activity Brother Leon, the equally power-hungry John Glover, is pushing on the students with unexpected zeal).
Both Archie and Brother Leon then use every method in their power to keep this rebel without a cause from toppeling them from power.Simple enough, but this, as I said, is not a simple film about fighting the powers that be.
Light touches of humor (including a brief but spot-on perfect cameo by "Harold and Maude"'s Bud Cort) reinforce this classification and keep the proceedings from ever becoming bogged down in their gloominess.All in all, though, The Chocolate War is a very dark, slightly surreal tale of the emptiness of life, for winners or losers.
good film, great book.
As a movie, THE CHOCOLATE WAR is good, but doesn't do justice to the book.
While the film does wimp out on the original ending, it does a great job of conveying the bleak landscape of the adolescent mind and the dreary banality of high school life.
One of those five is Kieth Gordon's, The Chocolate War.Actually, I found myself watching this film when searching out titles starring Ilan Mitchell Smith who portrays Wyatt Donnelly in Weird Science.
The acting headmaster, played the very excellent John Glover, decides that because the school is running out of money, they will hold a chocolate sale to boost the revenues.
Filmed on what looked like the dreariest days in Washington state, this is a very gloomy movie, but nonetheless presents a powerful psychological study of what people will do under pressure when alone or when in groups.
My perspective on this film is likely to be unique, in that I've never read the book.
The critical reception and most user reviews widely criticize Keith Gordon's re-writing of the book's ending and this was ultimately reflected in its shocking performance at the box office.
If you've never read the book, you can effectively ignore all criticism, because The Chocolate War is arguably one of the finest films to explore the dark underbelly of teenage cruelty, manipulation and the childhood induction of the mob mentality and a superb directorial debut for Keith.John Glover's performance as the twisted and politically carnivorous Brother Leon is stunning and easily his best work.
With echoes of Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War explores the outer reaches of cruelty, fear and control exercised by the two antagonistic forces of the student led secret society The Vigils, and the school's acting school head - Brother Leon.
But the revelation is the haunting piano of "Shepherd's Song" by Scott Cossu, which holds the space for Jerry's introspection, his loss and the tragedy of his situation.Yes, there are some elements lacking in this film - namely the performance of the hero (Jerry) played by Ilan Mitchell-Smith and some of the dated directorial techniques adopted by Keith Gordon for the flashback sequences and other scenes.
Keep in mind this was Gordon's feature film directorial debut.I'm not going to comment on the ending, other than to say it works perfectly for the narrative of this film and is in no way disappointing.
Dark, strange, slightly amateurish yet oddly compelling, "The Chocolate War" is an excellent antidote to the happy-go-lucky teen films made popular by John Hughes in the 1980's.
Based on the popular book by Robert Cormier, the story concerns Jerry Renault (Ilan Mitchell-Smith, "Weird Science"), a bright but sad young man coping with his mother's untimely death (which has also turned his father cold and distant).
Jerry is a student a prep school known as Trinity, where he clashes with a sadistic "secret fraternity" known as the Vigils and the oh-so-slightly-mad acting headmaster Brother Leon (played to perfection by John Glover).
At first by order of the Vigils, and then on his own, Jerry refuses to participate in the annual fund-raising chocolate sale, which not only angers Brother Leon but also causes an assortment of other problems.
Yes, this is a rather simplistic summary, but going into great detail will not only take a lot of time but will also spoil the viewing experience."The Chocolate War" is the directorial debut of actor Keith Gordon ("Christine," "Back to School"), who also wrote the screenplay.
The film is a fairly faithful adaptation of Cormier's novel, but the ending is changed significantly.
Fans of the book argue that Gordon's ending for the film is too "tidy" or "happy," but in it's own way the film ends on a rather despairing note, with no easy answers or solutions.
Obviously filmed on a shoestring budget, "The Chocolate War" still boasts wonderful performances by its young cast.
Wally Ward (better known today as Wallace Langham of "Veronica's Closet") is very good as the Vigils' evil "assigner" Archie, and Bud Cort ("Harold and Maude") has a funny cameo as another teacher.
Sometimes the pacing is slow, and sometimes the director attempts to be a little too "artistic" in his style; the film also suffers from a soundtrack that was dated even when the movie was made (the music comes from such new-wave dinosaurs as Yaz and Kate Bush).
Though it has been said that the film was not as good as the actual book, I think the adaption made its point and the lesson was learned.
The Chocolate War is a movie about a young kid named Jerry and his power struggle with the group at school called the Vigils.
I really enjoyed this movie and I thought that Wallace Langham gave a great performance as Archie.
This movie actually surpasses the original novel, because of amazing performances by John Glover (Smallville) as Brother Leon and Wallace Langham (Veronica's Closet) as Archie Costello.
While typically labeled an 80's "Coming of Age" film, this is not a feel good teen movie like "Dead Poet's Society" or "The Breakfast Club." This is a dark story about human cruelty and manipulation, no more "Coming of Age" than "Donny Darko."Director/screenwriter Keith Gordon attempted to moralize the ending...a mistake from an artistic standpoint, but probably wise, considering the audience (American public).
This comically dark but heartfelt adaptation of the novel of rebellion is like Dead Poets Society without the "poor me" ending.
The soundtrack (Peter Gabriel/ Yaz/ Kate Bush) eclipses any John Hughes movie collection and lifts some scenes that are a little rough around the edges, budgetarily-speaking (this was a real, pre-Sundance indie film).
Sure this film doesn't compare to the classic Cormier book but, as it is, it's not a bad film about the abuse of power and the evils of conformity.
I think the reason why the producers chose to change the ending is because, face it, the book made everything so hideously, slash-your-wrists-depressing (like all of Cormier's other books) that I don't think anyone would want to see it!Despite the changed ending, director/adapter Keith Gordon manages to make the message clear.
While this is a low-budget film with obvious limitations (the school looks like it has a total of 100 students at best), Gordon never lets the film drag and he got good performances from the actors (particularly from John Glover who steals the show as the evil headmaster and Bud "Harold and Maude" Cort in a great cameo as one of the priests).
This is a textbook example of how NOT to adapt a book to the screen.Teenager Jerry Renault in high school is having a terrible life.
It was also shot with a wobbly camera which made me sea sick and (for some reason) Jerry has acne and nobody else does (?????) And, worst of all, they totally changed the ending which completely destroyed the point of the book!
The ending is just hopeless--I'd love to know what they thought of when they dreamed it up.The book is powerful, grim stuff and NOT for kids.
Growing up in high school, our year 10 teacher assigned us to read this book as part of our education.We also got to (occassionally) watch the movie adaptation of the novel.I really liked this film as the storyline was good.The Vigils are a secret gang in an all boys school who assign tasks to students as part of their way of saying " we will not conform to the standards others set, so we go our own way." Then Jerry Renault is selected for a task of not to sell chocolates for a set period of time.After the time elapses, Jerry still stops selling chocolates and becomes a sort of hero, as he is overcoming adversity and going beyond his boundaries.If Forrest Gump was around, maybe Jerry could have sold his portion to Forrest and Forrest could have given them away to people as he told stories to strangers on a park bench somewhere.Look out for an appearance of a young Brendan Fraser (before he was in Encino Man, or The Mummy).Its an educational film and should be viewed in all schools as part of the learning curriculum..
A great film of what a strict catholic high school could be like!Great acting but i leave it down to the cast who put in a great performance!
Keith Gordon ("Dressed to Kill," "Christine," "Back to School") made his directorial debut with this adaptation of Robert Cormier's 1974 classic young-adult novel.
Gordon gets a lot of things right, but he tacks on an unnecessary happy ending that utterly eradicates Cormier's point.
Trinity is holding its annual chocolate sale; Jerry refuses to participate, first on the orders of the Vigils (Trinity's secret student society), then of his own free will.
The Vigils' "assigner," Archie Costello (Wally Ward), joins forces with the wormy Brother Leon (John Glover) to force Jerry to sell the chocolates.Gordon takes most of the events right from the book, so he catches the intricate power games between Archie and Leon, between Archie and his right-hand man Obie (a pre-"X-Files," pre-"Green Mile" Doug Hutchison), and between Archie and the Vigils' president Carter (Adam Baldwin, too old for his role).
Trying for something more commercial than Cormier's original downbeat material (it didn't work anyway - the movie barely got released), Gordon sexes the movie up by casting Jenny Wright as a hippie who taunts Jerry at the bus stop.
Gordon went on to direct the better movies "A Midnight Clear" and "Mother Night" as well as "Waking the Dead." Interestingly, all his movies are based on books by young-adult-novel favorites (Cormier, Kurt Vonnegut, William Wharton, Scott Spencer)..
I use this film with high school sophomores while we read the Robert Cormier novel.
I wouldn't run out and rent it unless you can't find your pirated cassette of Yaz's Upstairs at Eric.The Chocolate War is yet another coming of age novel set in a boys preparatory school, this time in a rather lower-middle class Catholic school called Trinity.
Clearly, the confrontation in the book and the film is between Jerry and the Vigils (specifically Archie).Power and non-conformity are the themes of both the book and the movie.
If you don't want to read the book, this movie can almost get you through, but there are some changes, including a rather substantial revision of the ending (high schoolers beware).Don't rent it unless you're in the market for video Cliff's Notes..
At the Trinity all-boys Catholic high school, there is a secret society of Seniors called the Vigils that like to hand out special assignments to the other students.
the ending of the book was changed in the movie to make it nice and sweet and happily ever after.
the actors were bad also, the boy portraying archie costello, the main character, made archie seem like a homosexual, which he isnt in the book.
I'd read the book the Chocolate War not a week before I found out there was a movie version of it.
Thinking about the end churns my stomach, but the rest of it is so good you can get over it.If you haven't read the book the whole thing will probably seem pretty good, but if you have - well, watch the movie, most certainly, but if you don't think you can stomach Cormier's meaning get ripped out .
If you like Robert Cormier, you're better off reading his books, but otherwise this is an OK movie..
And that's all within the setting of a chocolate fund raiser.Some reviewers have criticized the ending because it's not faithful to the book, and fair enough.
That's what Jerry Renault (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) did when he beat up Archie Costello (Wallace "CSI" Langham) in the boxing ring.The soundtrack is haunting and it was never released commercially, but you can get the songs from other sources.The acting is top notch and given the small budget (I think only $170,000), Keith Gordon did a masterful job directing this feature..
The movie made the book look terrible because The man who played Archie did not show the evil side and Brother Leon was not as good as he was portrayed in the book.
Because the ending in the book is how life is sometimes and it really showed how a Catholic school can turn.
I liked the original Ending better than the movie's ending because Archie showed how he really was.
Before the fight scene, I'd thought that this film version of a great novel, up there with with Lord of the Flies in my opinion, was one of the best I'd ever seen.
Considering the powerful and harshly real novel by Robert Cormier, this Keith Gordon film falls short of the mark.
There are some good performances, but I felt Glover was miscast as Brother Leon.The film does a good job siding us against Archie and for Jerome, but I did not feel this was necessary.
Archie is not the only, and hardly the worst, villain.The ending, which does not comply with that of Cormier's novel, defeats the whole purpose of the story.
Based on a novel by the late Robert Cormier, the film paints a fairly dark picture of humanity in general and emphasises the dangers of mob rule through the vehicle of a chocolate sale in a Catholic High School of all things.
I had no idea what the film was about but I didn't think "chocolate war" was literal.
I rarely write reviews here, but I had to put in a good word for The Chocolate War when I saw so few positive comments on the film.
When a school chocolate sale becomes the focus of the Vigils and the staff, Jerry takes a seemingly futile stand against conformity that sets off many ramifications...The main things to praise about the adaptation are the acting by the various (mostly quite young) participants, and the tight script, which maintains a remarkable fidelity to the structure of Cormier's novel.MAJOR SPOILER!!!There has been much controversy concerning the ending to the movie, which is of the surface quite different from the novel.
The point being that even if Jerry 'wins' the climactic fight, he has still really lost, because he has doomed himself by being a participant in a contest not of his making.Worth a look, but if you're studying the book at school, you'll need to read it as well..
But in "The Chocolate War", the ending is completely changed, and Cormier's point is totally lost.
Jerry Renault is hounded by his classmates (especially "The Vigils", the secret society at school) and pressured by his teachers.
But he refuses to back down.Throughout most of the film, Keith Gordon is true to Cormier's vision.
Gordon gives us your standard "feel good, everything's okay" Hollywood ending.
That's what happened in Cormier's book, and while it wasn't a wonderful happy ending, it MEANT SOMETHING.
I saw the film Rushmore before the Chocolate War and found many similarities in Max and Archie's characters-their ability to control other people and to get themselves involved in everything going on at their respective schools.
Compared to Archie, Renault is a rather pale and pathetic little hero, but he doesn't really win in the end anyway.
As I haven't read the novel, I thought the film's ending still illustrated the Vigils' manipulative powers extremely well.
I'm sure the book is better, but I think the movie is quite good in its own right..
This movie followed every little detail it could, and I found myself smiling and waiting for the brutal conclusion.--Spoiler-- Like the majority consensus, the ending rattled me.Now, let me first say the ending is moderate for someone who has not read the book.
Archie is a simp, he can't fight, but he's also so much a simp that he can't take one blow.This part of the movie negates everything Archie had come to be throughout he film, and novel.And then, he is demoted for losing his head.Now, if that weren't bad enough, it seems that Brother Leon and Janza were so *proud* of Jerry for beating the crap out of Archie.
I had read the book and loved it, so was interested to see whether the film version would live up to the novel.
For the most part, it was pretty good, but I was disappointed that the ending had been changed significantly from the book.
The film's conclusion, in my opinion, lacks the punch of the original and wimps out by giving Jerry a happier (if not exactly happy) ending.
It's not so much that the film gives the good guy a happy ending, although it does leave him infinitely better off than the novel, but that it gives the bad guy the punishment he deserves.
I read it way back in high school, but they wouldn't show us the movie.
When I went out on my own and rented the movie, I could see why.::spoilers ahead::Now, the meaning of the whole book all boils down to the ending. |
tt0062047 | Wanted | Radhe (Salman Khan), a gangster with a mysterious past, kills others for money. He meets Jhanvi (Ayesha Takia) while she's doing fitness training and instantly falls in love with her. Even though their first meeting leads Jhanvi to think negatively about Radhe, she later begins to reciprocate his feelings. However, Talpade (Mahesh Manjrekar), a selfish and perverted Inspector, lusts after Jhanvi and tells her to marry him with the threat that he would rape Jhanvi's mother (Prateeksha Lonkar) if she decides to go against his decision. Talpade is tipped off about Radhe's existence by Jhanvi's landlord. Talpades tries to threaten Radhe but ends up getting frightened of Radhe after getting outsmarted by Radhe .
Gani Bhai (Prakash Raj), an international don, arrives in India for an assassination and hires Radhe. Two gangs, Datta Pawle's (Raju Mavani) and Gani Bhai's, fight for the biggest part of Mumbai. Due to this, Commissioner Ashraf Khan (Govind Namdeo) decides to make Mumbai free of crime. He arrests Gani Bhai, who makes various attempts to contact Radhe, however, in vain. Ashraf Khan is blackmailed to release Gani Bhai, after his men release an explicit video of his daughter online after kidnapping her. Under the influence of drugs, his daughter reveals a mission that involves an IPS officer, Rajveer Singh Shekhawat, murdering Gani Bhai. Since Rajveer Shekhawat's identity is difficult to decipher, Gani Bhai holds his father, Shrikant Shekhawat (Vinod Khanna), captive. Shrikant proudly tells him about his son, without revealing his true identity. Gani Bhai mistakes Ajay (Inder Kumar), Radhe's adopted brother, for Rajveer Shekhawat and kills him. Gani Bhai realises his mistake and pressures Shrikant to reveal Rajveer's identity. Shrikant is murdered by Gani Bhai after he refuses to tell him. His son, Rajveer Shekhawat, who is revealed to be Radhe, arrives at the place of his father's death. Radhe is infuriated and decides to avenge the deaths of his father and brother. Through threatening Talpade, he locates Gani Bhai. After an intense combat, Radhe finally manages to kill Gani Bhai and his co-conspirator Talpade. | western, violence | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0379217 | Coffee and Cigarettes | The eleven segments that make up the film are as follows:
=== Strange to Meet You ===
This is the original 1986 short Coffee and Cigarettes with Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright having a conversation about coffee and cigarettes.
=== Twins ===
Originally the 1989 short Coffee and Cigarettes, Memphis Version – aka Coffee and Cigarettes II – this segment features Joie Lee and Cinqué Lee as the titular twins and Steve Buscemi as the waiter who expounds on his theory on Elvis Presley's evil twin. Cinqué Lee also appears in "Jack Shows Meg his Tesla Coil". The scene also features a recounting of the urban legend that Elvis Presley made racist comments about Blacks during a magazine interview.
=== Somewhere in California ===
Filmed in 1993 as the short Coffee and Cigarettes - Somewhere in California, and won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In this segment musicians Iggy Pop and Tom Waits smoke cigarettes to celebrate that they quit smoking, drink some coffee and make awkward conversation.
=== Those Things'll Kill Ya ===
Joseph Rigano and Vinny Vella have a conversation over coffee about the dangers of smoking. The silent Vinny Vella Jr. also appears to beg his father for money, which is given in exchange for affection, which is not provided.
=== Renée ===
Renée French (played by herself) drinks coffee while looking through a gun magazine. E. J. Rodríguez plays the waiter, who is eager to be of service. He initially approaches her to serve more coffee, to which she reacts by saying "I had the right color, right temperature, it was just right". After that, he comes back several times, hesitates, and leaves. He seems intent on striking up a conversation with her.
=== No Problem ===
Alex Descas and Isaach De Bankolé are a couple of friends who meet and talk over some coffee and cigarettes. Alex has no problems, or so he answers to Isaach's repeated questioning. At the end of the scene, Alex takes out a pair of dice and rolls three sets of doubles. It could be assumed that Alex Descas has an excessive gambling problem but to him it is not a problem because of what he can roll. Notice he doesn't roll the dice in front of his friend.
=== Cousins ===
Cate Blanchett plays herself and a fictional and non-famous cousin named Shelly, whom she meets over some coffee in the lounge of a hotel. There is no smoking in the lounge, as the waiter informs Shelly (but not until Cate is gone). Shelly tells Cate about her boyfriend, Lee, who is in a band. She describes the music style as hard industrial, similar to the band Iggy describes. Cate tells Shelly she looks forward to meeting "Lou" someday. Cate is made to feel awkward and uncomfortable by Shelly's constant envious remarks about how she perceives Cate's life and attitude.
=== Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil ===
Features Jack and Meg White of the band The White Stripes having some coffee and cigarettes. They play themselves, although the scene seems to perpetuate the band's former pretense that they are indeed siblings. Jack shows Meg his Tesla coil that he says he built himself and waxes intellectual on the achievements of Nikola Tesla. In the beginning, Jack seems upset that Meg doesn't share his excitement, and it takes Meg some coaxing to get Jack to agree to show Meg his Tesla Coil. He introduces the line, "Nikola Tesla perceived the earth to be a conductor of acoustical resonance." Cinqué Lee plays a waiter in this segment. In the end, the coil breaks, and Meg and the Waiter offer suggestions as to why it might be broken. Finally Meg says something that Jack seems to agree to, and he leaves to "go home and check it out". Meg clinks her coffee cup to produce a ringing noise, pauses, says "Earth as a conductor of acoustical resonance" and clinks her coffee cup to produce the noise again; she looks pensively out into the distance before a cut to black. Early during the segment, "Down on the Street" by The Stooges is played in the background.
=== Cousins? ===
British actors Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan have a conversation over some tea. (Coogan offers Molina a French cigarette, but Molina saves his for later.) Molina is a very enthusiastic fan of Coogan's, who contrarily is very uninterested at their meeting and barely manages to hide this. Molina excitedly shares with him research he came across, learning that they are distant cousins, and proposes a friendship or show business project to capitalize on this. Steve Coogan still remains evasive, lightening up only when an attractive female fan recognizes him. He later tries to make up excuses to keep from ever having to hear from Alfred Molina again, and then clumsily tries to reverse this when he overhears Molina get a call from good friend Spike Jonze. But it is too late and Molina, disappointed, leaves Coogan with the bill. Although the scene is set in LA, the segment was actually shot in Brooklyn at Galapagos, Williamsburg.
=== Delirium ===
Hip-hop artists (and cousins) GZA and RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan drink naturally caffeine-free herbal tea and have a conversation with the waiter, Bill Murray, about the dangers of caffeine and nicotine. During this conversation GZA makes a reference to how he would drink lots of coffee before going to bed so his dreams would "whip by" similar to the camera-shots at the Indy 500, very similar to the same reference that Steven Wright did in the first segment. Murray requests that GZA and RZA keep his identity secret, while GZA and RZA inform Murray about nontraditional methods to relieve his smoker's hack.
=== Champagne ===
William "Bill" Rice and Taylor Mead spend their coffee break having a nostalgic conversation, whilst Janet Baker singing "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" from Mahler's Rückert-Lieder appears from nowhere. William Rice repeats Jack White's line, "Nikola Tesla perceived the earth as a conductor of acoustical resonance." It is possible to interpret the relevance of this line to the constant recurrent themes throughout the seemingly unconnected segments. | cult, psychedelic, atmospheric, romantic | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0380366 | Ae Fond Kiss... | Set in Glasgow, the film tells the story of the Khan family. Casim is the only son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants to Scotland. He has a younger sister, Tahara, and an older sister Rukshana. Casim's parents, Tariq and Sadia, have arranged for him to marry his first cousin, Jasmine, and Casim is more or less happy with the arrangement. He then meets and falls in love with Roisin, an Irish Catholic immigrant (who is a part-time music teacher in Tahara's Catholic school). Roisin books a short holiday break for them both on seeing an advert in a travel agent's shop window, and while on holiday Casim tells her about the arranged marriage his family are planning for him. They then have to decide whether their love is strong enough to endure without the support of their respective communities.
At the same time, rebellious Tahara struggles to find herself between the bullying of some Scottish schoolmates and her Pakistani relatives. Meanwhile, Rukhsana loses her fiancé because Casim's new relationship shames the family. Roisin loses her job because the Catholic school's direction does not accept her relationship since she is a married – though separated – woman and because she and Casim are living together.
Roisin is finally moved by her hierarchy to a non-denominational school, Casim confronts his family, begging them to respect his choice before returning to her, while Tahara leaves to study journalism at the University of Edinburgh against her parents' will. | romantic, psychological | train | wikipedia | In this case, it's Casim Khan (Atta Yaqub), a second-generation Pakistani immigrant, and Irishwoman Roisin Hanlon (Eva Birthistle) in Glasgow, Scotland.
It's so easy for us to sympathize and empathize with her because she draws us in with a wonderfully subtle, nuanced and open performance.There's also a superb cameo from Gerard Kelly as a sanctimonious priest.We rarely get to see films such as "A Fond Kiss" in the U.S. Films that bravely tackle social issues, expose our prejudices and force us to think and understand other people and cultures.
Seeing movies like this always brings us a strong feeling of nostalgia.A Fond Kiss is the love story between Casim, a young Pakistani man, and Roisin, a young Catholic woman, with the backdrop being modern day Scotland.
Despite the predictable problems that arise, the story is accompanied by a strong performance from the entire cast, and the use of common Hollywood love-story gimmicks are refreshingly absent from the plot.I must note that the performance by Casim's father was especially moving for me; you want to judge him quickly for his hypocrisy and bigotry, but soon feel for his predicament.
I am reminded of the problems I have had with my father-in-law; for the longest time I hated him so much, but only now I see that he's one of the most caring and loving individuals I have ever known, and any problems he gave me was simply his way of testing my devotion to what matters most to him, his daughter and family.The ending scenes were also beautifully woven together.
Aside from 'location-spotting' the Glasgow geography, there was a feeling throughout the film that's difficult to pin down (or articulate!); just a kind of "yeah, that's right, these people and these feelings are real".Lead-wise, a great line up, Atta Yaqub plays a quiet Casim, and Eva Birthistle a brilliant but natural Roisin - there's nothing that stops you believing that this is a couple in love.As for the rest of them - some excellent characters and some good acting.
The strength of the whole cast comes through though, and there's certainly no feeling of any tokenism or stereotype characters.One actor who doesn't appear to have had much notice in any write-ups I've seen is Shabana Bakhsh, who plays Tahara Khan, Casim's youngest sister.
Every romance film should be this way; the lovers bickering, throwing each other out of the apartment, taking shots at each other's families and generally not getting along in between periods of being so intensely in love that they forget everything but each other.Sadly, most romance movies aren't like this at all.Ae Fond Kiss, or Just a Kiss, is a gritty account of two blue-collar workers in love, one a Scottish girl and the other a product of an immigrant Pakistani family, all taking place in the not so glamorous city of Glasgow during the late 20th century.
The story line is believable, especially today, and the sub plots were intriguing.I'm not normally much for romance films, unless there are a lot of naked chicks wobbling around, or the popcorn is really good, but I liked this movie quite a bit.
It would make an excellent date movie, giving you something to discuss while providing that all important element of romance that leads to your hand sliding off the gear shift and squeezing her thigh while you make some pseudo-intellectual point about one of the various issues in the film.There is no feel-good Hollywood ending here, it just sort of fades out, leaving you wondering what would happen with such a couple.
"Ae Fond Kiss" does not shy away from the truth and attempts to deal with issues in a far more serious and believable way than such films as "Bend it Like Beckham".
But still, she never seemed to understand any viewpoint different to hers - not even the fact that her boyfriend was torn between his love to her and his family.The film exemplified very well the different mentalities of, on the one hand, a Western city single, completely unattached, and, on the other hand, an immigrant community where the family and honour are highly valued.I had some trouble with Roisin's relationship towards her Catholicism: we were never shown if she was faithful or just a nominal Catholic who wanted to remain so because she wanted to teach in a Catholic school.
This is a honest and simple film telling the love story of a young Muslim Pakistani raised in Glasgow and a young Irish teacher (a splendid performance by ms Birthistle).
This has been shamefully demonstrated by the late controversial Dutch mediocre director van Gogh in his last film before he was killed.While a love story between two human being should be a non-issue and to much of a movie screenplay, this one is not.
The portrayal of the family meeting where the eldest sister were arranged to meet a young man and her parent in laws were striking.I feel sorry with the so-called liberal Hollywood bunch where they do not dare to pick interracial love story, which unfortunately still an issue there.
It tells the story about a Pakistani Dj and student named Casim Khan who lives in a city in Scotland with his father, mother and two sisters.
One day when he is at the Catholic school which his younger sister named Tahara attends, Casim meets a teacher and pianist named Roisin Hanlon whom he immediately takes a liking to.
Subtly and finely directed by European filmmaker Ken Loach, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the two main characters viewpoints, draws a gentle and incisive portrayal of an Irish woman who falls in love with a man who is promised away to someone else and a Glasgowian-Pakistani student named Tahara who wants to leave Glasgow to go to a school in the capital city of Scotland where she can become a journalist.
While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, fine cinematography by English cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and production design by English production designer Martin Johnson, this character-driven and narrative- driven story about the adversity a man and a woman of different ethnicity are faced with after they find each other, depicts two humane and interrelated studies of character and contains a great score by English composer George Fenton.This atmospheric, conversational, somewhat historic and at times humorous love-story from the early 2000s which is set in Spain and Scotland in the early 21st century and where a natural romance between two human beings leads a man into a dilemma which entails that he has to go against his family's wishes to be with the woman he loves and a woman into a conflict with the parish priest at her school, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, subtle continuity, eloquent and natural intimacy and the involving acting performances by Irish actress Eva Birthisle, Scottish actor Atla Yaqub in his debut feature film role and Scottish actress Shabana Akhtar Bakhsah.
In this case there is nothing to worry about.At times it feels a bit like a storyline from a British soap opera until you realize that it is Ken Loach and he always goes one step further - the sex scenes are almost embarrassingly intimate, the arguments are seriously intense and there are no tidy conclusions.
This film dealing with the inter-racial relationship between a Muslim pakistani young man and a catholic irish woman all set in Glasgow, Scotland, does an excellent job in giving insight in the family values of pakistani and Indian muslims in a predominantly catholic British environment.
I gave it 5 out of 10, due only to the good acting of the majority of it's cast.It doesn't seem to be able to make up it's mind whether or not it's meant to be funny or serious and it certainly doesn't delve into a major issue with the intense passion that is strikingly apparent in Loach's other films (e.g. Ladybird 10/10) and the conflict created by multi-racial relationships is dealt with far better in "Bend It Like Beckham".
The love scene is unnecessary and very unLoach like - in fact, its inclusion plus the cutting away too soon from the conflict between the two lovers gives the film it's superficial feel.My other favorite directors (Mike Leigh, Polanski, Von Trier) have disappointed me as well so it's proves that even the genius of the world can make errors, so I'm still a major fan of Mr Loach but have to say, looking forward to something much better next time..
With his Pakistani family long resident in the UK, Casim meets, and falls in love with his young sister's Irish Catholic music teacher.
Both Muslim and Catholic tradition reject mixed marriages and relationships so the couple face grave obstacles to their happiness - starting with Casim's engagement to a cousin he hardly knows.
In Ae Fond Kiss Ken Loach does what you wish other film-makers would do, and does so, with a surgeon's skill: it's blunt trauma, but without a blunt instrument: here are real lives, real issues, and yet there is a universal undertone here that rings true.The tale of how on earth two people from wildly opposing backgrounds might get a chance or not to be with each other is way better than romantic drama - it raises all those questions about family, culture, and identity that have been part of the United Kingdom from the 70s onwards, but never tries to resolve it with platitudes or to simply offer simple solutions.This is above all, in its own way, a deeply romantic film.
Roisin Hanlon, music teacher at a catholic school, Irish, catholic 'divored' gorree in Scottish Glasgow and the Glaswegian Casim Khan, second generation Pakistani immigrant in a Muslim family; Casim Khan, trained as an accountant, but working as a DJ and with plans to have his own disco.This the background for the age-old conflict of star-crossed Romeo and Julia.
Both sides, the Catholic priest, a kind of 'father'-figure for Roisin and the Islamic father hide behind prejudice, are hurt by cultural clashes, widen the gap of social differences, discriminate as good ass they understand themselves, worried.
The movies ending is a family plot by the parents and their daughter Rukhsana in which Casim and Roisin have to act, unknowing, their part.
When the two leads first meet in Ken Loach's A Fond Kiss, it's out of a negative item in the form of some racial harassment of a young man's younger sister; someone he was picking up from school.
The rest of the film will dedicate itself to the relationship of this young man and woman, the sequence setting up an overall tone or outlook on events played out within, an observing of a good thing being born out of a terrible thing; a systematic realising of the good and the bad that plagues life, as later on certain events and revelations will arise that'll have the ability to both tear and sway entire families onto plateaus of bad, seemingly without much in the way of a positive outlook.The leads are British born of Pakistani descent Casim (Yaqub) and Irishwoman Roisin (Birthistle); two people based in the Scottish city of Glasgow.
The idea is fairly clearcut, in that tone of skin is irrelevant as is racial background and ethnicity and that if two people can connect with one another, then that is a beautiful thing.The film is certainly more lower-key Loach than one might expect, A Fond Kiss taking a step forward and mingling with two people of different racial ethnicities as struggles and items that exist to block their fondness for one another arise within the respective camps: an organised marriage Casim wants nothing to do with and issues the Catholic Church has with him in challenging Roisin to break off the affair for the good of her career.
The film is of a relatively routine nature by Locah's standards, running on a Romeo and Juliet infused premise as life in the shoes of each of these respective people whose issues, aspirations and families clash with both a British based culture and and their own.
For Roisin, her life and aspirations are threatened by way of issues within the field of her career as Casim's first generation and consequently strictly traditional parents threaten to destroy what Casim wants in terms of a partner.It'd be fair to say the affair takes its toll on the two, with Casim's business deal that'll enable him to build his own nightclub (one that runs on an expansive sense of equality) and an arranged marriage Roisin will have to learn of sooner of later hovering around above all of this and acting as a consistent off screen threat; their relationship hitting a major buffer the one time they're out of the nation and therefore further away from problems linked to job, family and so forth during a half term holiday in Spain.
Spain is a radiant locale Loach uses to push their relationship away from mere flirtations, rides home and the odd drink with each other and into a more passionate and embracing bond as the bodies of these two are exposed more on the warm, welcoming beaches as the systematic feelings they have for one another becoming equally exposed; all the while under glowing cinematography as the location of Spain glistens in an interesting juxtaposition.The film proves Loach can construct a love story whilst systematically maintain an eye on how the greater items in each of these persons lives can also affect them.
The film's story here doesn't carry as much dramatic tension nor visceral involvement in each of these people's problematic lives as later-in-the-decade efforts such as 2006's The Wind That Shakes the Barley did nor the shared, tri-directorial piece entitled 'Tickets' that Loach made with two other directors in 2005; his segment revolving around young British individuals struggling in a foreign territory as the timer ticked down and the train neared its destination as the guard loomed about the place.
A Fond Kiss is an admirable effort, engaging and interesting in its own right but I found a hollow space where I wanted to feel for these people and their plights with modern society; respective cultural clashes and then later religion.
After a fracas at school in which a young Muslim girl is being chased by bullies, she meets and begins a relationship with Casim Khan (Atta Yaqub), a Pakistani disc jockey in Glasgow clubs who plans to open his own club.
Though Ae Fond Kiss is basically a romantic drama, it has a great deal to say about issues of class, race, and religion and does so in a very forthright manner.Casim, a second-generation Pakistani, is very close to his parents, Tariq and Sadia (Ahmad Riaz and Shamshad Akhtar) and his two sisters, Rukhsana (Ghizala Avan) and Tahara (Shabana Bakhsh).
'What about your heart, and my heart?' Roisin replies.Casim tells her that he has personally seen the racism directed towards his family and believes that adherence to his culture's values is the community's best hope for survival.
I watched this movie expecting to be told about social problems, that is Ken Loach's typical film-making.
Loach cleverly uses the illiberal catholic priest to show that religious rectitude is not the sole preserve of the Moslem's.This is not the first British film to deal with love across the cultural divide but it is a good example of naturalistic film making..
The elder sister "Rukhsana" claimed to be an aerobics teacher - as they say in Glasgow - "aye right hen...." - she was a little on the hefty side to be an aerobics teacher and her acting was about the worst in the whole film - just watch the scene in the cafe with Roisin (the female lead).
Well, it's not so gritty but it certainly doesn't flatter any of the characters.It's a simple story of two people falling in love from different sides of the fence and their families/communities opposing the relationship.
I think Ken could've explored that further and not just dismiss it like he did.Other than that, it's a very strong and real-to-life film that I highly recommend because the subject matter really deserves more debate..
"Ae Fond Kiss" manages to find appealing freshness in a tale probably older than "Romeo and Juliet." There have been many, many films that have dealt with the conflicts between young lovers from different ethnic or racial backgrounds and there's strengths and weaknesses in how director Ken Loach and his frequent collaborator writer Paul Laverty avoided some clichés while stridently emphasizing some others.
There's not the wit and the sophistication of the 1985 Frears/Kureishi collaboration My Beautiful Laundrette, which still stands as perhaps the classic British cross-cultural love story and also one of the most novelistically complex films in English of the past two decades.Maybe A Fond Kiss has its emotional impact for just that reason: it sticks firmly to the saga of Casim and Roisin: all external events and characters are seen exclusively in relation to them, though the emotional pain felt by Casim's parents at "losing" their son is vividly shown.
And it's just a wonderful love story for a change.At times in this film their relationship seems impossible.
But 'Ae Fond Kiss' (love the title, though, that attracted me in the first place!) film is not only predictable, it's irritating and you expect more from Ken Loach than an unbelievable love story with extensive love scenes that have nothing to do with the story.
His devout Muslim parents have arranged for him to marry his first cousin, Jasmine.He is more or less satisfied with the marriage arrangement until he meets and falls in love with Roisin Hanlon,played by Eva Birthistle,an Irish Catholic working as a part-time music teacher at his sister's Catholic school.
Coming to her rescue is her brother Casim (Atta Yaqub), who chases them back inside the school only to meet, and fall in love with Roisin (Eva Birthistle), a gorgeous, streetwise Irish Catholic schoolteacher. |
tt0056552 | Tales of Terror | The film uses an anthology format, presenting three short sequences based on the following Poe tales: "Morella", "The Black Cat" (which is combined with another Poe tale, "The Cask of Amontillado"), and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". Each sequence is introduced via voiceover narration by Vincent Price, who also appears in all three narratives.
=== "Morella" ===
When Lenora Locke (Maggie Pierce) travels from Boston to be reunited with her father (Vincent Price) in his decrepit and cobwebbed mansion, she finds him drunk, disordered, and depressed. He refuses her company, insisting that she killed her mother Morella (Leona Gage) in childbirth. Lenora then discovers her mother's body decomposing on a bed in the house. Lenora cannot return to Boston and remains in the house to care for her father. His feelings soften towards her when he learns she has a terminal illness. One night Morella's spirit rises, and kills Lenora in revenge for her childbed death. Morella's body is then resurrected, becoming as whole and as beautiful as she was in life. This is in exchange for Lenora's, which is now decomposing where Morella lay. Morella strangles her horrified husband as a fire breaks out in the house. Then Morella and Lenora return to their original bodies, Lenora smiling as she lies on her dead father, rotten Morella cackling as the flames consume the house. The cast includes Edmund Cobb as a coach driver.
=== "The Black Cat" ===
Montresor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) hates his wife Annabelle (Joyce Jameson) and her black cat. One night on a ramble about town, he happens upon a wine tasting event and challenges the world's foremost wine taster, Fortunato Luchresi (Vincent Price), to a contest. Herringbone becomes drunk. Luchresi escorts him home and meets his wife. Time passes, and Annabelle and Luchresi become intimate. The cuckolded Herringbone then entombs them alive in an alcove in the basement. The authorities become suspicious and two policemen (John Hackett and Lennie Weinrib) visit the house to investigate. Hearing screeching behind a basement wall, they knock the wall down to discover the dead lovers — and Annabelle's black cat, which Herringbone had accidentally walled up with the lovers. Cast includes Wally Campo as bartender Wilkins and Alan DeWitt as the Wine-Tasting Chairman.
=== "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" ===
Dying from a painful disease, M. Valdemar (Vincent Price) employs a hypnotist, Mr. Carmichael (Basil Rathbone), to alleviate his suffering by putting him under various trances. He then remains between the world of the living and the dead. In a trance, Valdemar begs Carmichael to release his soul so he can die but Carmichael cruelly refuses. Months pass and Valdemar's putrefying body remains in his bed under the complete control of Carmichael. The hypnotist tries to force Valdemar's wife Helene (Debra Paget) to marry him. When she refuses, he attacks her. Valdemar's putrid body rises from the bed and kills Carmichael. Helene is rescued by Valdemar's physician (David Frankham) and carried from the scene of horror. | gothic, murder | train | wikipedia | This one ends on a note of pure horror, and is nearest to Poe in its mood and ideas.Screenwriter Richard Matheson did a reasonable job of adapting Poe, and Corman was probably wise to emphasize jokes in the middle tale, as Poe was one grim, death-haunted writer, and each of these stories is a meditation on death and the tricks it plays on us.
Tales of Terror is a classic anthology of Edgar Allen Poe stories brought to life by Richard Matheson's writing and Roger Corman's directing.
This film is a very loose adaptation of three Edgar Allan Poe tales, "Morella", "The Black Cat" and "The (Facts in the) Case of M.
Valdemar concerns a doctor experimenting with hypnosis (or "mesmerism") on a terminally ill man.Although fairly clunky and uneven compared to the other Roger Corman/Vincent Price Poe collaborations (which tend to be excellent), and even compared to other similar collections of short films from the same era, such as Amicus' Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), this is still a good film, and earned an 8 out of 10 from me.It is usually very difficult to try to adapt Poe stories to film--similar to the difficulty of attempting to adapt H.P. Lovecraft to film.
This segment is particularly notable for the set design, which is the best in the film.The Black Cat, which is Poe's most conventionally plotted tale out of the three presented here, is also probably the most changed.
In a fairly literal way, this is a great zombie story, although the ending of the filmed version is a bit more vague in both plot and in explaining the horrific dilemma than Poe's version.Despite its slight flaws--mainly that it's a bit too bright and colorful and the mood of the segments could have matched better--Tales of Terror is worth viewing, especially for any Poe, Corman, Price or Rathbone fans..
"Tales of Terror" presents three adaptations of good stories by Edgar Allan Poe directed by Roger Corman.
My vote is six.(2) "The Black Cat": The drunkard Montresor (Peter Lorre) is an abusive man that spends the money that his wife Annabel (Joyce Jameson) earns working drinking wine in a tavern.
Another of the Roger Corman/Vincent Price films based VERY loosely on three Edgar Allan Poe tales.The first is "Morella" where a dying girl comes to visit her father (Price) and find out why he abandoned her as a child.
Roger Corman presents this horror anthology based on three stories by Edgar Allen Poe, where all three segments are introduced by and star Vincent Price.
Entitled The Black Cat', this story follows the drunk, cat-hating Montressor (Peter Lorre) who during one of his less sober moments, challenges Vincent Price's wine-critic character of Fortunato to a wine-tasting contest and shortly Montressor begins to wish the two had never met.
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to enjoy this film as much as i did, but the more I thought about it, weren't Poe's stories one big sick joke themselves?Vincent Price appears in all three segments and he does a good job under the circumstances.
Also, making Morella the heroine instead of the victim was an improvement.The final sequence "Valdemar", has a great revenge ending involving a melting Price and Basil Rathbone.
The fourth venture into Poe adaptations for Roger Corman and Vincent Price sees them taking on the portmanteau format with a trilogy of creepers.First off is Morella, which finds Price as a typecast loner living in a big old mansion with the dead corpse of his wife!
Price is a wine tasting dandy, Lorre a complete drunk and once Price meets Lorre's beautiful put upon wife, things are going to end badly.Finally is The Case of M Valdemar which pits Basil Rathbone into the mix as a devious hypnotist who uses his powers for what he thinks will be sexually tinged deeds.
All together, Roger Corman directed eight movies that were based on (short) stories by the legendary Edgar Allen Poe. Tales of terror is the fourth one and some sort of turning point in the series.
'Tales of Terror' consists of three separate stories based loosely on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The trilogy is directed by Roger Corman and among the cast are Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone.
By the time the incredibly prolific Roger Corman came round to making his fourth entry in the now-dubbed Corman-Poe cycle, it seemed that the count-the-coppers director was getting a bit bored with Edgar Allen Poe. Although he would make four more adaptations, including one of the best - The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) - Tales of Terror lacks the Gothic atmosphere generated in the likes of The Fall of the House of Usher (1960) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1961).
In fact, the film works best as a comedy thanks to some tongue-in-cheek camping from Corman-Poe stalwart Vincent Price, and one of the most convincing impersonations of a drunk I've ever seen from Peter Lorre (although the actor's morphine addiction may have played some part).The first tale, Morella, sees Price don the familiar guise of a reclusive widower, Locke, holed up in a decaying mansion in solitude.
1962's Tales of Terror is another entry in the subgenre, only there are three stories, and one combines aspects of two Poe stories.The first one, Morella, is about an aged widower (Vincent Price, who appears in all three stories) who lives alone in an isolated family castle, grieving over his dead wife and blaming the daughter who killed her during childbirth.
Three short stories, all based on the collection of Edgar Allen Poe, are told in an anthology setting.The Good Stor(ies): Morella-Arriving from Boston, a young woman arrives at the castle home of her father to meet him after a lifetime of being away.
Between the experience of the movie and the 8 hours of being home alone, it burned this memory into my brain that won't ever go away, but the strange thing is that despite excellent acting, a great adaptation of Poe's short stories and great direction by the King of nickel horror films, Roger Corman, I never saw this film again until I tripped across a copy of it on DVD on Amazon.As I have often found with films that made a huge impression on me in my younger years, I expected to be disappointed but I was surprised to be caught up in the narrative and acting of all the people involved in the project.
It's impossible to hate Peter Lorre, Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone and Roger Corman can definitely make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.This movie helped to launch a lifelong love of Edgar Allen Poe and other writers of horror bent fiction--but not the slasher flicks or needless and gratuitous sex and blood movies of today.If you want a quality piece of horror cinema then go see Dracula with Bela Lagosa, or Frankenstein with Boris Karloff, or even The Fly with Vincent Price.If you're not interested then this review won't mean much to you anyway so you can just breeze by to the next one and no hard feelings..
Fine Roger Corman horror anthology with a trio of Edgar Allan Poe tales adapted to screen by Richard Matheson, each starring Vincent Price."Morella" - Lenora (Maggie Pierce) returns home after years abroad to live with her father (Vincent Price) in his decrepit mansion.
Still, the elements mentioned, though familiar, do entertain."The Black Cat" - Drunkard Montressor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) befriends Fortunato Lucrezi (Vincent Price) over their love of wine and soon discovers Fortunato is having an affair with Herringbone's wife (Joyce Jameson).
I saw Tales of Terror because I'm a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone and I like Peter Lorre too.
The story and writing convey the wittiness, intelligence and horror of Poe's writing very well, while Price gives his best performance of the three segments again in a role that really plays to his strengths and very rarely will you see Basil Rathbone as evil as he is here.
Roger Corman teamed up with Vincent Price, director and star, to produce two thirds of a good trilogy inspired by tales from Edgar Allan Poe. Sad that it couldn't have been a horror trifecta.The first and weakest of the stories is Morella where Price plays a distraught father who has never gotten over the death of his wife, weakened from childbirth and who lives like a male version of Dicken's Miss Havasham.
As usual, they star Vincent Price, are written by Richard Matheson and come from Roger Corman's masterful hands.The first story ("Morella") is a bit average, which is unfortunate for a Price/Poe tale.
Roger Corman's entire Poe cycle starring the great Vincent Price (one of the greatest actors of all-time, as far as I am considered) is essential in Horror movie history.
The third movie in this wonderful cycle (not counting "The Premature Burial" of the same year since it doesn't feature Vincent Price), "Tales Of Terror" of 1962 is an anthology horror flick consisting of three Poe-based stories, "Morella", "The Black Cat" an "The Facts In The Case Of M.
The movie is, besides "The Raven" of 1963, the most humorous entry to the cycle, especially the second story "The Black Cat" is often very comical (in a certain creepy manner), and although it is not one of the best entries to Corman'S Poe-cycle, "Tales Of Terror" is a film that no fan of Gothic Horror and Vincent Price can afford to miss.The first story, "Morella" is a short yet creepy and atmospheric Horror tale that reminds both of the Poe cycle's first movie, "House Of Usher" (1960) and "The Tomb Of Ligeia", which became the final film to the cycle in 1964.
A young woman named Leonora (Maggie Pierce) visits her father (Vincent Price), who lives in a derelict mansion since his wife Morella (Leona Gage) died in childbirth with Leonora...The second story, "The Black Cat" is basically a dark comedy.
Apart from Price, the movie features two other great icons, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone, and, not surprisingly, those two brilliant actors also deliver excellent performances.
The supporting performances are furthermore also very good.All said, "Tales Of Terror" does not quite share the brilliance of the Poe-cycle's greatest masterpieces (such as "The Pit And The Pendulum", "The Haunted Palace" and "The Masque Of The Red Death"), but it is definitely great Horror that my fellow Vincent Price fans, as well as fans of Gothic- and Classic Horror in general can not afford to miss.
Three short stories from Edgar Allan Poe that has a comedy treatment and black humor,in first segment "Morella" a daughter visiting the dying father (Price) after long time was haunting by mother's ghost,the second segment "The Black Cat" is more interesting,Peter Lorre playing a Jealous husband when your wife falling in love to high class wine-taste (Price) and third and final segment "The Case of Mr. Valdemar played by Price who is dying has a help of a hypnotist (Rathbone) before the death comes....directed by Corman this tales are really amazing!!!.
Price plays the demented widow and father in the first film entitled "Morella." The second part is my favorite entitled "The Black Cat" which stars Peter Lorre as Mr. Heringbone.
Roger Corman's Tales of Terror is a mostly wonderful showcase for Vincent Price along with Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone in good support.
"Tales of Terror" is a splendid mix of humour and horror.The first story-"Morella" is rather creepy,albeit a little bit predictable,the second one-"The Black Cat" is my favourite-filled with black humour,and Peter Lorre is just amazing in the main role!The third story-"The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar" is quite good and it features Vincent Price as a zombie-woah!To be fair all three stories contain English horror veteran Vincent Price.All in all I liked this one so choose it as your next horror film..
Opening with an outré shot of a beating, bright-red human heart suspended in air, Vincent Price directs us to an estranged father and daughter arguing over the corpse of her mother in the upstairs room ("Morella"); a drunken villager who takes revenge on his unfaithful wife and her lover ("The Black Cat"); and a hypnotist who keeps the mind of a man alert long after his body has expired ("The Facts in the Case of M.
From the talented team of Roger Corman, Vincent Price and, of course, Edgar Allen Poe comes this lively and inventive trio of horror stories; Tales of Terror.
The first story is a lot like Corman's excellent earlier film, 'The Fall of the House of Usher' and stars Vincent Price as the father of the girl whose mother believes murdered her.
This tale is very short, and we don't get a lot of time for the important things such as atmosphere building or character development due to it being short; but it's a nice little tale non the less and gets the audience in the mood for Poe's style of story telling.The second and longest tale is based on one of Poe's most famous stories, 'The Black Cat' and stars Peter Lorre as the drunk who discovers his wife is having an affair and proceeds to take revenge.
This tale has been covered many times and from many different angles, from the 1934 classic to Fulci's version, all the way to Argento's take on it in Two Evil Eyes; but not one of them has ever truly done the story justice in my opinion; and in spite of this starring Peter Lorre and featuring a performance from Vincent Price, this one doesn't quite do it either.
The black cat itself doesn't really get enough screen time in this tale, and that's what I think keeps it from being the definitive version.The third, final and best tale of the trilogy again stars Vincent Price and covers another tale that was covered in 1990's Two Evil Eyes; The Case of Mr. Valdemar.
Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone star in these Roger Corman directed adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories:"Morella" - Price plays a man mourning his late wife who welcomes his daughter back to his castle with unfortunate results: Though atmospheric, tale is too quickly told and lacks impact."The Black Cat" & "The Cask Of Amontillado" - Price and Lorre are amusing, but relies too much on visual trickery than terror, not to mention comedy."The Case Of M.
Though Corman was no stranger to taking a few meagre pages and expanding them to feature length with previous films such as The Pit and the Pendulum and The Fall of the House of Usher, he wisely keeps the running time to roughly 30 minutes each here.The first story is an adaptation of Morella with Vincent Price brooding in his gloomy castle, pining for his long-dead wife and the daughter who's birth killed her.
While TALES OF TERROR is not my favorite of the Roger Corman/Edgar Allen Poe/Vincent Price outings, it's ghoulish fun to watch since the cast includes such horror stalwarts as BASIL RATHBONE and PETER LORRE joining VINCENT PRICE for three handsomely produced tales supposedly based on some Poe tales of terror.The first tale is preoccupied with the spirit of a dead woman getting revenge on the daughter who caused her death and is pretty reminiscent of too many other Poe tales dealing with the undead.The second, THE BLACK CAT, takes only some of the material from that tale and turns it into a combination of horror and sophisticated fun as VINCENT PRICE plays a wine taster to good comic effect.
In "Tales of Terror", Price teams up with horror director Roger Corman in a somewhat overly lavish production of three stories based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe. In particular, the extravagant use of color doesn't lend itself to the creepiness of the subject matter, and the picture might have been better served in good old black and white.Of the three vignettes, I enjoyed the Black Cat story the best, particularly with Peter Lorre in full bloom matching wits with Price in a wine tasting challenge.
Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone all shine in this hugely enjoyable Edgar Allan Poe horror anthology treat.
This immensely entertaining vintage 60's American International Pictures horror anthology treat based on a trio of delectably macabre Edgar Allan Poe short stories features Vincent Price in peak form in all three episodes.First and most spooky yarn, "Morella" - Young Lenora (the lovely Maggie Pierce) visits her estranged alcoholic father Locke (a superbly anguished Price) in his crumbling mansion and attempts to reconcile with him, which in turn incurs the deadly wrath of the vengeful spirit of her long deceased mother Morella (the stunning Leona Gage).Second and funniest anecdote, "The Black Cat" - Peter Lorre gives a hilarious, spirited performance as wretched drunkard Montresor, a pathetic sot who befriends pompous wine expert Fortunato (a deliciously droll Price).
Consisting of three tales; Morella, The Black Cat and The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar, it's a cracker, partly because I just love anthologies, and partly due to the presence of distinguished horror writer Richard Matheson, who adapted the three stories for film.
The treacherous character played by Basil Rathbone and eerie voice from the spirit of Valdemar (Vincent Price) make this a great horror experience.
With a powerhouse team of talent, including Roger Corman, Richard Matheson ('I am Legend'), Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone, these three short horror films are still a lot of fun to watch some 53 years later.
In 1962, Corman and Matheson signed on Vincent Price to star in 'Tales of Terror', which showcased four different Poe stories in three separate shorts.
"Tales of Terror" has three stories, two dramatic and one comic, but all having two things in common: Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price.
Having been away from Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe horror series with 'The Premature Burial' ( 1961 ) - which starred Ray Milland - Vincent Price returned for this, a compendium of three short stories. |
tt1494829 | Unnatural History | In London during the year 2002, the dark-haired Sam Jones is living a normal life, though struggling with a drug addiction, when the Eighth Doctor arrives in the shop she works in and tells her that she should have blonde hair and be travelling with him. Shocked by this, she runs out onto the street to get away from him and is attacked by a ten-year-old boy, who claims that she shouldn't exist. When the Doctor rescues her, she agrees to go with him to San Francisco. When they arrive, the Doctor finds Fitz and explains that when the TARDIS destroyed the Earth, but reversed time, a scar in space and time was left behind and strange creatures from other dimensions are being attracted to the city by it. The TARDIS has become trapped inside the scar, and will be crushed by the strain of trying to stabilise the scar in three days unless it is removed. When the Doctor originally arrived, blonde Sam fell in the scar, and dark Sam appeared in London.
The Doctor's attempts to contact the Time Lords to obtain new equipment to close the scar fails, and he meets the boy again, who reveals that he is a member of Faction Paradox, but he claims that he isn't here to harm the Doctor, just to observe his actions. Later the Doctor notices a Kraken in the bay, which will destroy the city looking for food if it detects the energy coming from the scar, but the TARDIS is currently blocking it from detecting them. Now under another time limit, the Doctor finds a scientist called Joyce who promises to help repair the equipment needed to close the scar. The Doctor tells Sam that her biodata is vulnerable to change from the pulses coming from the scar.
One of Fitz's contacts kidnaps them and delivers them to a man who fits them with tracking devices and releases them. In Golden Gate Park the Doctor discovers lines of his own biodata lying exposed on the ground, and seeing this removes the tracking devices. The Doctor now realizes that the man who kidnapped them was from the higher dimensions, and has been experimenting with the Doctor's biodata. The Doctor learns that the man's name is Griffin and he wants to collect the unnatural creatures in the city. The Doctor traps Griffin who explains that his ambition is to categorize every creature in the universe. Griffin then escapes and the Doctor returns to his hotel. At the hotel Griffin's henchmen kidnap Fitz, but accidentally leave Sam behind.
The Doctor goes to check Joyce's progress with his equipment, only to discover that Joyce has also been experimenting with his biodata as well, but refuses to explain why. After learning that Fitz has been kidnapped, the Doctor confronts Griffin, who explains that he wants to see the Kraken destroy the city. Griffin decides to simplify the Doctor's biodata and begins experimenting on it. Sam attempts to rescue him, but Griffin takes a sample of her biodata before they both escape. Joyce finishes repairing the Doctor's equipment. Returning to the scar, the Doctor finds his equipment can't close the scar and will only remove the TARDIS from the scar, which will enable the Kraken to destroy the city, so the Doctor decides to sacrifice the TARDIS to seal the scar.
Joyce accidentally tells Griffin that the largest amount of the Doctor's exposed biodata is at the scar. Griffin goes there and tries to edit the Doctor and Sam's biodata, but the Doctor threatens to alter the higher dimensions that Griffin lives in. Griffin releases Fitz, but Fitz then attacks Griffin and traps him in his dimensionally transcendental specimen box. The Doctor pulls the TARDIS out of the scar, causing the Kraken to look for food. The Doctor places a machine to distract the Kraken on the bay, and the boy offers to create a paradox, but the Doctor refuses. Back at the scar, Sam jumps in, turning her into blonde Sam. The Doctor frees Griffin's specimens from the box, who attack Griffin and push him into the scar. Sam throws the specimen box into the scar after him, causing it to close, and which causes dark Sam to cease to exist and the Kraken and the other creatures return to their own dimension.
The boy explains that blonde Sam is a paradox, because blonde Sam was created when dark Sam threw herself in amongst the Doctor’s biodata in the scar, but she was only able to do so because the Doctor brought her to the scar he’d created. Now he has no shadow, like the other Faction members, and the boy tells him that he will soon be a Faction member. | paranormal | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0084267 | Long zhi ren zhe | In Japan of the Tokugawa Ieyasu period, a young ninja named Genbu wantonly kills samurai and other government officials, leaving his clan to face the blame. When they hunt him down, Genbu and his wife Akane sail to China both to escape their wrathful kinsmen and for Genbu to complete revenge by finding the last man he holds responsible for his father's death.
That man, Fukusa, leads a peaceful life as a mirror maker under the name of Uncle Fu. He has a young protégé, Sun Jing, a smug martial artist who constantly tries to prove himself by taking up every opportunity to fight. Jing also constantly teases his lecherous servant Chee and takes few things very seriously. When he sees his surrogate father attacked, Jing immediately rushes to his aid, but during several clashes he finds out that he and the ninja are evenly matched.
It is revealed that Genbu's father was not killed by his clan members; he died as a hero in a rebellion instead. Ashamed of his own cowardice in escaping to China years before following that attempted uprising, Fu makes peace with Genbu. But before their final encounter, Fu took poison to restore his honor by his own death. Fu asks Genbu to kill him in order to spare him the last agony, which promptly leads to a misunderstanding between Genbu and Jing. The two battle each other to the top of Jing's family temple and finally settle their differences just in time to face The Magician, a spiritual boxer whose son Jing has insulted in the course of the movie.
The film ends with Jing and Genbu killing the Sorcerer, with some unwitting assistance from Akane and Chee. The latter promptly tempts fate by claiming the better part of the credit for this victory, prompting Genbu and Jing to teach him a lesson. | revenge | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0053719 | The City of the Dead | Jim finds Danny alive as the book opens but the living dead soon converge on their location. Frankie and Martin join Jim in the house and they are soon trapped in the attic. As they see Danny's neighbor in his panic room across the way the zombies set fire to the house. They rig a ladder between the two houses and everyone but Frankie makes it across, Frankie however has a two story fall into a swimming pool below. Meanwhile: Don, Martin, Jim, and Danny regroup and make a run for Don's Ford explorer. Upon escaping the garage they find Frankie fighting zombies in the front yard badly hurt from the fall and shot several times. They rescue her as she goes into shock.
Back in Hellertown Ob has taken Baker's body and is instructing his minions to make a motor pool from all the abandoned vehicles. Ob is distressed that Jim is alive and escaping him, he begins to fantasize killing Martin and Jim. Here he divulges that the Sissquim can see the life auras coming from the living. Ob is then killed by some hiding guardsmen who he discovers.
Their escape is short lived as Frankie left the keys in the Humvee and the zombies are in hot pursuit. They use the Humvee to force the car into an accident. Jim regains consciousness as zombies are trying to pull Danny from the wreckage and biting his arm. Jim loses it and violently kills the zombie, punctuating each blow with the words "I told you to leave my son alone." Martin has been thrown from the car and his head had turned a full 180 degrees around. Jim smashes his head in with a rock as he reanimates proclaiming "There is no God". Jim leads the zombies away distracting them from his party including a very badly injured Frankie making plans to meet them in what looks like an abandoned parking structure. There is a legless zombie hiding in a car who alerts more zombies to the groups presence. Jim races back to the structure as the group races for the roof. Almost simultaneously a helicopter shows up using a powerful sonic device that kills all the zombie birds and almost kills Jim. They rescue Jim and take him to Ramsey towers.
Ob Reanimates in a new body that is in great shape. His host died of a heart attack while masturbating. His old host had knowledge of secret armories for the NYPD as well as the National Guard. He uses this knowledge to help arm his army as he sends for his forces in Hellertown as well as across the country. He also learns that all human life in Europe and Asia has been eliminated.
Ob then lays siege to last remaining humans holed up in Ramsey towers, using heavy artillery he is able to breach the supposedly impenetrable building. With the approaching forces the remaining humans are falling apart as the zombies storm the towers and eradicate them. Jim, Frankie, and a few others escape into the sewers only to be followed by Ob and his forces. Three of the company are killed by Zombie rats, one of a gunshot wound, one eaten by a zombie crocodile, and one having his throat slit by another zombie. Ob personally confronts Jim telling him he is glad to be the one ending his incredible journey; Jim then uses a flame thrower on a gas line killing Ob and the surrounding zombies. Frankie and Danny are eventually killed by zombie rats in their sleep.
Sometime before the final act however, Frankie has a dream in which the spirit of Martin talks to her, laying out the complex plan set up by Ob and his minions. The plan shows her that surviving the zombies would have been just the first ordeal. The undead were merely the first wave, with the purpose of eliminating all human and animal life. Once that task is accomplished, other obots would begin the assimilation of the plants and insects. It is also revealed that Jim, Danny and the rest of the characters from the books are reunited in some sort of afterlife and are happy. | good versus evil, cult, gothic, murder, flashback | train | wikipedia | I have now seen it 6 or 7 times over the years including twice in the last few months with the VCI Entertainment version of the dvd.The movie doesn't scare me like it used to, but it still amazes me how it transports me into it's own world of the fog shrouded town of Whitewood, Massachusetts.
Her professor, Alan Driscoll (Christopher Lee), gives her directions to the town of Whitewood where 300 years earlier an alleged witch was burned at the stake.
Her brother then goes to the hotel where she was last seen, and runs into all kinds obstacles, not the least of which is the innkeeper of the Whitewood Inn, who just happens to look exactly like the witch burned 300 years earlier, and also Christopher Lee who happens to be a long ago resident of WhitewoodThere is an old, blind priest who stays in his church despite the fact that he has no congregation.
Having not taken much time to watch older movies of this genre, I was pleasantly surprised by how comprehensive the film was.Black and white photography rarely seems to look this good, and has been one of the things that has turned me off such films before now.
The visuals in City Of The Dead are so sharp and foreboding that they serve to accentuate the small town paranoia perfectly.In terms of the characters, Patricia Jessel as Mrs Newlis and Christopher Lee as Prof Driscoll, are supremely sinister, whilst Venetia Stevenson as Nan Barlow, is hopelessly deserving of the viewers compassion as the witches prey!I've come to love this film, not just for the sake of the film itself, but because it proved me so wrong in my assumption that most movies of this type/age are dull, it's incredibly watchable and tense..
******SPOILERS****** After listening to a lecture by Prof.Alan Driscoll, Christopher Lee, on the town of Whitewood Massachussetts back in 1692 where a local witch, Elizabeth Slwyn, was burned at the stake one of Prof.
One of the common threads with this movie is that if you saw it when you were a kid it scared the heck out of you.No doubt you caught it on a creature features afternoon show back in the 60's or 70's.And the movie stayed with you.The basic plot is simple enough.A town basically made up of a coven of 300 year old witches are looking for human sacrifices.(Ergo the classier title City Of The Dead).A young student is guided to Whitewood for research and well anything else would just spoil it for you.Just expect the unexpected.I love showing this movie to people and then telling them it was filmed in England with a British cast.The cast does an outstanding job with their accents.This is a film that relies on mood and suspense rather than cheap shocks.But it does contain its share of shocking moments that aren't uncalled for.It is also one of the foggiest films I've ever seen but that just adds to the atmosphere.Great black and white photography and a director that got the most out of a limited budget but stellar cast.Pick up the dvd if you can and skip the bootleg tapes..
The City of the Dead is a British made horror starring industry legend Christopher Lee.It tells the story of a student studying witchcraft who decides to go to a sleepy town drenched in rich occult history.
There she finds more than she could have ever expected.The movie is years ahead of it's time, it looks great, it plays out perfectly and I walked away considerably more satisified than I expected.It almost felt like a Hammer Horror except without any of the goofiness, in fact the film is really quite merciless by comparison and would have heavily stood out back in 1960.A very enjoyable effort for all horror fans.The Good:Looks greatVery dark for its dayPerfectly pacedThe Bad:Ending is weaker than the restThings I Learnt From This Movie:It's best to invite someone into your home after they're already inWitches though bulletproof are vunerable to guns actually being thrown at them.
Starring Christopher Lee. It's notable for being the first feature film produced by Amicus- in their attempt to rival the Hammer horrors.It tells the story of a young female university student who is passionate about her studies into satanism and the occult.
I first saw horror hotel as a kid,it was on creature features.and it scared the hell out of me.the great legendary;Christopher Lee shines as a professor with a class about witchcraft and the occult.a young and naive female student visits the town where a witch was burned years and years ago.the town is very creepy and foggy.and the town folk are equally creepy.its in black and white but you overlook that since it is a good story.i recommend the widescreen version which is available very cheap from diamond entertainment,with the second bill; carnival of souls,another classic shriek show.i am a huge fan of Christopher Lee,and i believe this ones one of his many best,Lee who made at least a thousand movies,maybe more,is'nt slowing down anytime soon.i believe he holds the Guinness book of world records on his many movies.i think the other title city of the dead does it an injustice.
The Great Christopher Lee. horror hotel(aka;city of the dead)is a vintage black and white horror film that its extremely spooky and creepy.its a good Halloween movie.
made in england on a modest budget it rivals Mario Bava's;black Sunday(aka;mask of Satan)a long dead witch curses an entire town as she is being burned at the stake,thats all I'm going to give away.i believe anyone who enjoys horror movies will like horror hotel,and any fan of the great Christopher lee,who is one of my favorite actors of all time.
i got this as a double feature DVD for a buck at a place called dollar tree.the other movie on the disc is terror in the crypt also with Christopher lee,two awesome horror films.the horror hotel print is in widescreen which i like.I'm not a fan of pan and scan.watch this on Halloween night with all the lights out,10 out of 10..
This truly is a genuinely scary and terrifying cinematic experience that no Horror lover could possibly afford to miss."The City Of The Dead" ingeniously begins in 1692, when the accused Witch Elisabeth Sewlyn is dragged to the stake and burned by the people of Whitewood, Massachusets.
the burning of Elizabeth Selwyn as a witch is terrifying and its a nasty little film that has the power to shock as its disturbing as horror hotel is evil get it for one hell of a shock.some films are nasty this is one of the worst it is not totally bad unlike carnival of souls which is pretty evil what do you think get it as you wont like it no way.
Fast forward to the end of the fifties, and student Nan Barlow is all hooked on the history of witches by her teacher Christopher Lee, who suggests that if she's so interested in witch burnings, she should head for the New England town of whitewood and check out the history there.This she does, much to the protests of her boyfriend and her teacher brother.
Heading to Whitewood, she discovers that the place has a really bad fog problem like some late eighties Italian film director has been let loose on the place, the locals are creepy bastards who love staring at her, and the landlady of the local hotel is a dead ringer for Elizabeth Selwyn!
It's up to her brother and boyfriend to get to the bottom of what's going before someone else is sacrificed for Satan.Very atmospheric, not to mention foggy, with a lot of visual references to fire, great use of shadow with even a noirish quality to it all, Horror Hotel may not be the most eventful film but certainly has a certain vibe to it all.
Note to Jethro - after this burning is over you might want to leave town because praying to Lucifer with a condemned witch is just not good form in a paranoid conformist society such as 17th century New England.Cut to present day (1962) and a professor (Christopher Lee) is lecturing students on this particular incident on his series of talks on witchcraft.
Let me just say that this is one of those horror fllms in which the characters refuse to acknowledge the clues/warnings that would turn most of us in the opposite direction, but then we would have no movie if everybody had their curiosity tempered by self preservation.With cinematography by Desmond Dickinson that is wonderfully atmospheric and eerie with one of the great inspired endings to a horror film.Eeriest scene to me?
RELEASED IN 1960 and directed by John Moxey, "The City of the Dead" (aka "Horror Hotel") takes place in Massachusetts when a curious college gal (Venetia Stevenson) vacations in the remote village of Whitewood to investigate its infamous roots in witchcraft/satanism.
A curious student visits a mist enshrouded village to investigate the historical case of a witch burned at the stake, but she finds more than she expected ...Wonderful opening scene - although not original, the madness of the faces sets the mood for what is a fairly straight horror thriller that sadly doesn't follow through the emotional arcs of its good guy characters.
A good part of this lingering feeling no doubt comes from the stifling atmosphere of gloom which the film positively oozes thanks to the fog-soaked contained soundstage sets shot in stark black and white and the presence of the ever foreboding Christopher Lee. In the movie Lee (famous for clocking in the most amount of screen representations of Count Dracula) plays Professor Driscoll, an American demonologist who is encouraged by the interest one of his students, Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevens), has shown in the legend of the 17th Century witch Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel), who was burned at the stake in Whitewood, Massachusetts in 1692, and advises her to visit the town to conduct first-hand research.
Following Nan's disappearance, concerned friends and family trace her to the town and in seeking to discover her whereabouts uncover the occult secrets of the town.The "town cursed by a witch consumed with flames" story comes from the pen of Milton Subotsky (who would later go onto to found Amicus productions which would go toe-to-toe with Hammer Films in the classic British Horror sweepstakes) and unfortunately suffers from having been done-to-death (no pun intended) since, well, the Sixties.
This is a shame as while 'Black Sunday' has taken more than its fair share of praise since its release, 'City of the Dead' certainly deserves much more recognition than it has received as the film carries its story along well and maintains suspense throughout with a tight script, good performances, and manages to hit the kind of creepy New England Gothic atmosphere that H.
Throw in a good mystery story carried by solid acting and The City of the Dead/Hotel Horror is great entertainment courtesy of a time when CGI and uber-realistic make-up effects were non-existent.
The basic plot: A young female student hoping to do some research on witchcraft goes to a suspiciously moody town to do it, but she disappears and her skeptic brother and boy-friend go to investigate , but find some supernatural stuff going on.....The praise: Atmosphere and performances are the best.
However, don't be confused by the title, it is definitely not anything like George Romeros 1968 classic "Night of the Living Dead", but it does give a pretty good indication of a well crafted 1960's "drive-in" horror flick.What I liked best about this film is the atmosphere and the acting of an incredibly young Christopher Lee. If Peter Cushing would've showed up in this flick I'd probably like it even better!!!!There are plenty of creepy images of fog covered graveyards, Salem witches, burning warlocks, secret dungeon chambers and a burnt body.
Hundreds of years later undergrad Nan Barlow travels to the still foggy Whitewood on the advice of Driscroll, her Witch Studies Professor, played by Christopher Lee, to do research for a senior paper on witchcraft in the 17th Century.
He uses his sharp eye for detail, lots of fog and shadows for atmosphere, a fairly literate and tight script, and some pretty good acting to create this wonderful, oft-forgotten horror film about witchery in modern New England.
Although not as good as Black Sunday, City of the Dead is a film of the same ilk from the same year and a film that certainly should not be forgotten.The story revolves around a professor (Christopher Lee) that tells his young female student to travel to the small New England town of Whitewood, where a witch was burned and a curse was put upon the town, to enable her to carry on her studies in the subject of witchcraft.
While there, the girl becomes a sacrifice for the witch's celebration of Candalmas Eve, and disappears.City of the Dead is a fantastic example of how to build atmosphere; with just a small set and a load of fog, director John Moxey is able to build a creepy, eerie New England town that overflows with atmosphere and manages to actually be quite scary.
The film builds up it's tension through the creepy atmosphere and finishes with a terrific third act, which is both exciting and lives up to what the rest of the movie has being building up to.City of the Dead is not a masterpiece, unlike Bava's Black Sunday, but it is very good and fans of Black Sunday, Carnival of Souls, The Haunting etc, or horror fans in general will have lots to like about this movie..
Soon her boyfriend and father travel to the village to find answers about her disappearance and find help with a local girl.A chilling and 'VERY' atmospheric low-budget horror film, which is quite grim in tone and superior in cinematography, setting and atmosphere, especially at night with its misty fog smothering the ghost town and a few but creepy townsfolk that are wandering around seem pretty lifeless
just like the roaming dead and add an crazed old reverend to the mix.
While Moxey paces the film rather well and truly gets stolid performances out of his cast.Excellent performances from the cast, especially from Patricia Jessel as the icy Elizabeth Selwyn/Mrs. Newless the witch that was burned at the stake- but who is now running the hotel and luring people as sacrificial victims, Venetia Stevenson as the elegantly naive Nan Barlow and Christopher Lee has a small- but sharp role as the mysterious college Professor Allan Driscoll.It's not a totally scary experience...
John Llewelyn Moxey's "The City of the Dead" is a wonderfully atmospheric and sinister witchcraft tale.There is a distinct air of dread over the entire film and the sets are all appropriately fog enshrouded.The acting is pretty good and the score is really nice.A young student Nan Barlow(Venetia Stevenson)goes to an old town called Whitewood that is recommended by her creepy professor,Alan Driscoll(Christopher Lee).The town was the site where the famous witch Elizabeth Selwyn(Patricia Jessel)was burned at the stake almost one hundred years ago,and Nan thinks its a perfect place to do her research.Where Nan's family and boyfriend don't hear from her in almost two weeks,they organize a search that ends up revealing the truth about town and its mysterious residents..
The Raven's Inn. John Llewellyn Moxey directed this atmospheric thriller about a young college student named Nan Barlow who, over her boyfriend's objection, goes to a small New England town called Whitewood to do research for her paper about witchcraft that her Professor(played by Christopher Lee) has requested.
Certainly filming in color would have diminished this film's effectiveness, and the cramped sets create a sense of claustrophobia that is not at all unhelpful.There are a lot of special treats in this film: the great Christopher Lee doing an American accent, a virginal ingénue giving the audience a pleasant glimpse of herself in kinky underwear, and a wonderful jazzy soundtrack...the satanic chant being both beautiful and creepy.Despite this being a true B-grade film, the direction is A-level...of special note is one particular Jump Cut, coming at the climax of a human sacrifice scene, which is probably the greatest single Jump Cut in the history of B-grade horror cinema...more than that I cannot say without spoiling the film.It is interesting to note that this film was made in 1959, yet strangely anticipates several of the distinct aspects of the 1960 mega-hit 'Psycho.' I will conclude with a comment on the theology of this film, where the magic of the Devil is quite strong, apparently only slightly less strong than God's magic.
Horror Hotel was one of my favorite movies of all time.Fright scenes happened when you least expected them.A great scene is when the poor mute housekeeper writes a note to warn a guest of the dangers only to get strangled for her good intentions.Patricia Jessel was great as the witch with her calm demeanor yet evil doings.Valentine Dyall was also good with his extremely deep voice and threatening presence.Christopher lee feigning innocence throughout the whole movie finally gets what,s coming to him deservingly.I recommend this movie.It is one of the better british movies..
Christopher Lee stars as the seemingly benevolent Professor Driscoll, who sends his eager student Nan (Venetia Stevenson) to the town of Whitewood, Massachussetts to research local legends of witchcraft.
Yet City Of THe Dead, or Horror Hotel as it's also known, was actually made just before Psycho, an interesting case of parallel plot development.We start with the afore mentioned witch-burning of Elizabeth Selwyn (a fantastic Patricia Jessel).
The acting was OK & Christopher Lee is on hand in a small role to lend a bit of class.The City of the Dead is a great horror film the likes of which we will probably never see again, that's definitely a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. |
tt0066561 | When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth | A tribe on a cliff are about to sacrifice three blonde women. Three priests, wearing dinosaur hides, are about to kill them for their Sun God, but one of them, Sanna, escapes and jumps off the cliff. She is rescued by Tara and some men on a raft.
Tara takes Sanna to his seaside tribe, who also worship the Sun God. After building a hut for herself, She joins them at a feast and celebration of a successful hunt. An Elasmosaurus attacks the seaside tribe until it is lured to a store of oil and immolated. The feast continues, and a brunette woman, Ayak, is interested in Tara, but he is too fascinated with Sanna. He brings her food. After a ritual fight between Sanna and Ayak in the water, Sanna's former tribe arrives, looking for her. She flees and they give chase. Hiding in a tree, a large boa sees her, but attacks and kills one of the men instead. They think Sanna is in a nearby cave, but a Chasmosaurus makes its lair there and disembowels one man before injuring another with a deep gash. Vultures, drawn by the carcasses, jab, bite and slash at the wounded man. When Tara seeks Sanna, he finds the one man dead and, after the Chasmosaurus charges him. He is chased to a cliff, where he hides on a small ledge as the Chasmosaurus loses its footing and plunges to its death.
A funeral pyre at the shore is followed by a tribal frenzy during which an enraged Ayak burns down Sanna's hut. Sanna meanwhile, running through a rainforest, sees a reptile and runs before it notices her. She becomes trapped by a carnivorous plant, and she cuts off her hair to escape. Tara unfortunately thinks Sanna has been eaten by the carnivorous plant.
Sanna sleeps in a large Megalosaurus eggshell. The other egg hatches, and the Megalosaurus (of a nonexistent species of quadrupedal predator — all predatory dinosaurs are bipedal by default) thinks Sanna is its sibling. The parent, thinking Sanna is one of its own, brings her a deer carcass. Sanna, enamored by the beast, plays hide-and-seek with it, and teaches it to sit. She dives into a nearby lake and catches a fish in her teeth. She returns and finds the mother Megalosaurus in a fight with two men, but she distracts it so they can escape.
While Tara is hiking back to his tribe after getting a drink of water, he is carried off by a giant Rhamphorhynchus with a thirty-foot wingspan. At its nest, he kills it by ripping its wing, and then knocking it off its nest when it lands. Tara sees Sanna being followed by the Megalosaurus and assumes she is being chased, but he runs to her and finds she has domesticated it. They reunite at Sanna's cave where they express their love for one another and have passionate sex.
They are seen by a lookout, however, and when Tara returns to the tribe he is sacrificed to another Elasmosaurus. Ayak cries as he is set adrift on a burning raft to the animal, held in place by another woman and forced to watch. However, when they are gone, he re-emerges from the water still alive. Seeing they have left and somehow having evaded the beast, he escapes to Sanna.
But the tribe is still searching for Sanna, and see smoke from her fire. The two run away into a forest, where Sanna's dinosaur "parent" rescues her, but as for Tara they prepare to burn him again. Giant fiddler crabs kill and consume a few people as the weather grows ominous again. The Moon seems to be forming, and a tidal wave looms. Sanna arrives to save Tara from one of the giant crabs, and a raft escape begins to take shape. The tribal leader tries commanding the water to heel, and is swept away and (presumably) drowns. While Ayak is running on the sand, she steps into a trap of quicksand and is sucked down to her death. Giant waves hit the shore, but Tara, Sanna and a few others survive on a raft. As the waters calm, the survivors stop to witness a lunar eclipse, as the Moon exists. | absurd | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0278017 | Perlasca: Un eroe italiano | The film starts in a Budapest Hotel with a narrative introduction by Perlasca. His chambermaid warns him of a raid of Hungarian Arrow Cross storm troopers coming to arrest him. He escapes and manages gets to the railway station, where he tries to sneak onto a sheep transport wagon. Discovered by a local officer named Glückmar he is arrested (as Italy has surrendered to the Alllies, Italian citizens in Hungary are considered enemies). While he is being taken away, an Allied air strike hits the station and Perlasca escapes.
He goes to an upper-class party to get information from Contessa Eleonora about Resistance members who can help him leave the country. Another squad of troopers, led by Captain Bleiber, arrive on the scene and arrest some guests, including Italian military officers. The contessa uses her Hungarian social rank to get Perlasca out safely and sends him to Professor Balázs, a doctor. Perlasca finds he is sheltering Jews who have left the ghetto, at a time when they are being deported to Nazi death camps.
Perlasca spends the night at his clinic, but the place is investigated by Bleiber and his Lieut. Nagy. Escaping the immediate threat, the Jews leave the house in fear and most are caught and killed by Bleiber and his forces, who had been waiting outside. Perlasce survives with Magda, a young Jewish woman, and her daughter Lili. They reach the Spanish Embassy where, thanks to a safe-passage letter signed by Francisco Franco, he gains an audience with the ambassador Sanz Briz. He sends them to a Spanish safe house, protected by embassy sovereignty. They are accompanied by a local Hungarian Jewish lawyer working for the embassy.
At the safe house, Perlasca meets more refugees from the clinic, and Eva and Sándor, a Jewish couple. He helps get groups to collaborate within the house. He and the lawyer leave the house for s drink but upon his return he recognizes that the house was indeed cleaned up illegally by the Arrow Cross soldiers. He begins searching for Magda first in the railway station where the fascists have already started to gather and load the Jews to wagons ready to roll out.
For the second time, he confronts Glückmar, who helps him . Perlasca is sent to the SS-Führer of the station who is easily bribed and thus lets him compile a list of Jews needed by the Spanish Embassy. He cheats with the list and actually calls more people to his truck than it is permitted, except Magda, who isn't on the train. He then visits an Arrow Cross Interrogation base, where he finds a lot of executed Jews but saves those few who survived the torture with Magda among them. Returning to the Embassy, Briz tells him that the Spanish are withdrawing from Hungary and ceasing to operate. This is the point where Perlasca decides to take on the role of a so-called consul and to lie, saying he is of Spanish nationality and have others call him "Jorge". He refuses to let the Arrow troopers in and acts as if the Embassy is still functioning and is therefore sovereign territory. He organizes education, alert duty and supplies within these buildings. He visits Gábor Vajna, the Arrow Cross Interior Minister of Hungary as consul and claims that the Jews housed by the Spanish are Sephardi Jews. Meanwhile Lt. Nagy – according to the local rules – forces the protected Jews to the streets to clear debris caused by air raids. He then attempts to escort the group to the railway station for deportation, but is stopped again by a dispatch reporting Perlasca's and Vajna's agreement. Then comes the aforementioned encounter with Adolf Eichmann where Perlasca saves the lives of two siblings. He then falsifies 5000 'Schutzbriefs' (protection letters) when he is informed of his own Spanish passport waiting for him at the Hungarian border. He still chooses to stay because Magda's life is in danger. A final raid on the safehouse results in Nagy taking all the Jews (except a half dozen of them who remain in hiding) to the Danube bank, while Perlasca is attending a ball where he tries to borrow a train-wagon for his protégés to be sent to Switzerland. While running away from the safehouse, Magda's father is shot on sight by a young militiaman, who tries to test him by asking him to recite the prayer, "Our father, who art in ... ". As a Jew he can not do so, and the soldier yells, "Where is our father?" When Sándor responds, "I don't know where he is," he is shot immediately. Perlasca and the few remained Jews find shelter at Professor Balázs' flat. At the Danube river the 1944/45 Danube executions take place and despite recruiting aid from Major Glückmer, Perlasca arrives too late to the scene. He manages to save only Eva. Upon hearing the news of plans to burn down the Budapest ghetto and its inhabitants, he decides to convince the Jewish community to take up arms and to fight if necessary. He also makes his final visit to Vajna's office and, with a successful bluff, he convinces him to let the ghetto stand and thus be freed by the Red Army days later. In the final scenes, Cpt. Bleiber is seen hanged in the street and Perlasca leaves the city with the help of Glückmer, who was originally ordered to arrest him because of his previous fascist affiliations. | good versus evil, murder, tragedy | train | wikipedia | People who care.
Perlasca.Un eroe italiano (2002) tells about Giorgio Perlasca, a man who once lived and did something most people were afraid to do or just didn't care.He saved many Hungarian Jews from concentration camp in 1944.He did care and actually do something while the rest of the world stood still and did nothing.Luca Zingaretti gives a strong performance in this Alberto Negrin's TV movie.This movie awakes feelings of anger and despair in you.It's hard to hold your tears.When you see a scene where the mass execution takes place you are at the same time very sad and very angry.Why did all this have to happen?
Why couldn't anybody get Hitler killed?
Why couldn't there have been more people like Perlasca?
The original title means An Italian Hero.That's what Giorgio Perlasca was; a hero..
Schindler's List part II.
The title summarizes it all: this is a second version of Schindler's List: a fascist who finally saves the jews by all means he has...
What's the big difference?First of all, it's the peculiar setting in time and place.
During World War II, Hungary chose the side of the Axis, until Horthy, the dictator seeked for contact with the Allies in 1944 (the walls of the Third Reich were crumbling at that time).
Hitler then supported the Hungarian Nazi's (who never were a part of the regime of Horthy), the Arrow Cross Party, to take control.
They immediately introduced a severe jew prosecution and extermination.
These facts are little known.
So, it's strange to see the uniforms and symbols of the Hungarian Nazi's, because they are unfamiliar to us.Second, where Spielberg was a bit wary of showing too many horror, the Italians didn't hide a thing.
For instance the mass execution scene where couples were tied up on each other and the husband executed, dumped in the Danube so the wife drowned isn't suitable for children.This movie may be stamped forever as Schindler's List II, but it's better..
Moving biography about an Italian businessman changing name and posing as a Spanish Ambassador who helped save thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi persecution.
Biopic movie about an Italian man named Giorgio Perlasca who along with the Spanish ambassador , Angel Sanz Briz , saved hundreds of Jews in Budapest .
Giorgio Perlasca is the main subject of this 2002 television series "Perlasca: The Courage of a Just Man" , a man who once lived and did something most people were afraid to do or just didn't care as he saved many Hungarian Jews from concentration camps in 1944 .
The real happenings being filmed on location in Hungary and powered by splendid acting .
This is a staggering evocation of the Jew's saviour , Giorgio Perlasca , finds its voice in Luca Zingaretti .
Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian veteran of the Spanish Civil War along with Angel Sanz Briz , a Spanish diplomatic who was sent to Budapest in 1942 carried out saving the lives of 5,200 Jews from the Holocaust by issuing them fake Spanish papers ; as Spain was neutral in the war , this made the difference between life and death for those Jews .
In his new false assignment, Giorgio starts immediately to hide , shield and feed a lot of Jews issuing Spanish fake safe conducts for the Jews of Sephardic origin and all the Nazi as well as the Hungarian authorities believe him .
When the Nazi occupied Hungary, in 1944 , instead to leave , he directed an original escape for multitude of Jews and was in contact with other heroes of that time , such as Raoul Wallenberg and , of course , Angel Sanz Briz .
Perlasca together with other volunteers , running incredible risks had saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from a tragic death .
Incredibly Perlasca succeeded to save Jews directly from the hands of Nazi authorities at the train station .
By doing so he saved about 5000 to 6000 Jews lives at the end of the WWII , Bucarest , 1944 .
This hero, after the war terminated in 1945 , was completely forgotten .
A Tour-De-Force and labor of love for benefactors Giorgio Perlasca and Angel Sanz Briz who finally garnered the attention and respect they deserve .
Perlasca inevitably became drawn to save Jewish as the man who turned an unlikely hero and saviour of a race not his own , being well performed by Luca Zingaretti , he is top-notch all the way throughout , only faltering in an out-of-character breakdown at the ending .
This exciting flick in ¨The Schindler's list¨ style contains intense drama , emotion , thrills , chills , violence , and ordinary Nazi brutalities .
The German atrocities are depicted matter of factly as a by-product of sheer Nazi evil .
The highlights of the movie are the thrilling as well as disturbing scenes happen on the train station as when Perlasca attempts to save a lot of Jewish and the brutal executions when the Jews are thrown by the river .
Well shot on location in Budapest , due to the sensitive nature of the story .
Excellent performances from main starring Luca Zingaretti who uses his powerful physique and intelligence as a protective buffer ; Elena Arvigo as Anna , she is watchable as a good Jewish , Marco Bonini , Amanda Sandrelli , Stefania Sandrelli's daughter, and special apparition of Mathilda May as Contessa Eleonora .
And brief appearance by Tamás Puskás as infamous Nazi chief Adolf Eichmann who personifies perfectly evil .
Evocative as well as colorful cinematography by Stefano Ricciotti .
Impressive as well as sensitive musical score by the great Ennio Morricone in his usual style .
In the picture appears historical characters who had an important role on the sad deeds such as Raoul Wallemberg , a Swedish diplomat who also saved thousands of Jews and disappeared when Stalin's troops entered in Hungary ; Angel Sanz Briz though when the Red Army approached Budapest he was ordered to leave for Switzerland ; and , of course , Adolf Eichmann in charge of Jewish transport trains .
This stirring TV picture compellingly directed by Alberto Negrin was based on real events , these are the followings : Hungary chose the side of the Axis , until Horthy , the dictator sought for contact with the Allies in 1944 though power of the Third Reich was falling at that time .
Miklos Horthy is the Hungarian ruler Admiral , Hitler then supported the collaborating Szalasy who took power over Hungary .
Later on , the Arrow Cross Party takes control to carry out politics about Jews extermination , including their transport to concentration camps .
They immediately introduced a severe Jewish prosecution and elimination .
There appears Giorgo Perlasca ; during the 1920s he was an Italian Fascist supporter, fighting in Africa an in the Spanish civil war where he deserved a safe conduct for Spanish embassies .
After some years, disillusioned by fascism, he is a fresh supplier for the Italian army.
When the Nazi occupied Hungary, in 1944, instead to leave he escaped to the Spanish embassy in Budapest using his old safe conduct and becoming a Spanish citizen , changing name into Jorge Perlasca .
When Angel Sanz Briz , the Spanish consul, is removed, Perlasca immediately substitutes him , like if he was officially appointed from Spanish authorities .
After that time Perlasca continued his labor with fake documents , posing as the Spanish Ambassador after Spain closed down their embassy .
Later on , he achieved to save thousands of Jews from martyrdom and massacres .
He was subsequently recognized by the Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem of Israel, and gave his heirs the title of Righteous Among the Nations .
And recently the Hungarian government gave him the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary..
Worth watching.
Luca Zingarelli is great as Perlasca.
It is a story about courage in the face of oppression and tragedy.
Perlasca was a fighter for the Spanish & Italian fascists and changed over to his human side when confronted by the brutality of the fascists against the Hungarian Jews.
Not Jewish himself, he risked his life against the Nazis and saved almost 6,000 Jews, posing as the Spanish Ambassador after Spain closed down their embassy.
Zingarelli's performance is astounding and you are on edge the entire film - as his monumental energy in not letting one victim die if he can disallow it, comes into view throughout.
There are many touching human moments where people connect in the film.
How Perlasca plays with the children, how he deals with young & old alike.
How he deals with so many in shock with tenderness, strength and decency commands your attention in this very long film.
I believe it was supposed to be watched over two nights in Italy, but I watched the 3 hour movie in one sitting.
Great performances including Magda and Farkas, the consul.
Bring popcorn..
Totally Awesome.
I am so totally in awe of the movie I would first like to start by thanking the people at NETFLIX for making this, and other similar, movies available to its viewers.
The performance of the cast created a lot of emotion in me, I especially liked Luca Zingaretti and the Nazi officers.
BRAVO!
The power of the story by Enrico Deagilo kept my attention to the very end.
How could have people been so cruel to their very own countrymen?
No matter how dire the situation there is always compassionate people, like Perlasca, who are willing to step forward and attempt to correction the situation no matter what it will cost them.
I am a big believer in the study of history and believe that those who don't are doomed to repeat it.
The music by Ennio Morricone makes the movie even more appealing.
This movie should be required viewing by all students in the world getting ready to graduate from high school. |
tt0066033 | Macho Callahan | Placed behind bars during the war, Diego Callahan (David Janssen), also known as "Macho," travels to Texas looking for the man responsible for his imprisonment.
He quarrels with a one-armed Confederate Army colonel named Mountford (David Carradine) over a bottle of champagne and kills him in front of Alexandra (Jean Seberg), the officer's wife. Vowing vengeance, she immediately puts a $1,000 bounty on Callahan's head. She entices Duffy (Lee J. Cobb) to help her seek out Callahan, who wears the yellow boots that Callahan remembers him by.
Traveling with Alexandra through Confederate Texas, Duffy locates Callahan and challenges him to a game of horseshoes for money, but when Alexandra seeks Duffy, she finds that Callahan has hanged him.
Alexandra goes to work at a casino run by Harry Wheeler (James Booth), writing letters for illiterate cowboys. Wheeler agrees to hire a team of bounty hunters and give chase. Alexandra spots Callahan at the casino, and befriends a young cowboy (Bo Hopkins). She convinces him that her honor has been insulted. The cowboy goes over to where Callahan is playing poker and a melee breaks out. He escapes in the confusion but she pursues Callahan on her own and meets up with him, and the two travel with Callahan's partner.
Later, in Callahan's cabin, Alexandra tries to kill him, but Callahan overpowers her and savagely beats her before raping her. Despite the savage beating leaving scars on her face, Alexandra decides to stay at the cabin, likely suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. After nearly being killed by a mother bear protecting her cub, she is saved by Callahan, who shoots the adult bear. He saves the cub because it won't survive on its own. She falls in love with Callahan.
Now in love with the man who has killed her husband, she travels with Callahan and his partner, but Wheeler's posse is in pursuit. Wheeler's men are determined to collect that reward, and Callahan finds that he can't kill them all. | revenge | train | wikipedia | Was impressed with the movie..
I thought David Janssen was excellent and made a really convincing cowboy/gunfighter/escaped POW from a Confederate prison.
After escaping, he goes after the man who got him sent to prison in a round about way and then lynches the hombre (Lee J.
Jean Seberg, who does an excellent job also of the bereaved wife whose husband has been killed by Janssen, is after Janssen and has posted a bounty for him.
She finally meets up with him, tries to kill him, and gets raped for her effort.
But the ending will surprise you.PS--I also loved the small bear.
He was cute and if you don't like the movie for any other reason, you have got to love that bear...LOL Hope you enjoy Macho Callahan as much as I did..
One of the darker examples within the American Western canon, MACHO stars David Janssen as a half White, half Mexican drifter gulled into enlisting with the Confederate States Army in 1863 by a con man (Lee J.
Cobb) and subsequently sentenced for desertion to a year's solitary confinement in a Texas stockade.
Ticketed for a substantial budget, the film lost some funding but endures as an example of a work influenced by Sergio Leone and other directors of "Spaghetti Westerns", most apposite in the opening scenes depicting an attempted widescale breakout from the wretched stockade by largely hapless prisoners.
Shot in northern Mexico's Guadiana Valley, the work chronicles Macho's eventual escape and reunion with his former partner in crime Juan (Pedro Armendariz, Jr.), his killing of a Confederate officer, and the pursuit of the outlaw pair by those hoping to benefit from a cash reward tendered by the slain officer's widow (Jean Seberg).
The lowered budget proves not to be a major burden, although there are some embarrassments, notably a poorly edited scene wherein a charging black bear is obviously a man in an ursine costume, but very fine contributions from Gerry Fisher behind the camera and Ted Marshall's production and set designing more than balance the scales.
A lack of continuity results from confusing moments when motivation for actions seems to be lacking, but here also strong performances from most of the cast offset this to a large extent, and director Bernard Kowalski properly focusses upon the relationship between the characters portrayed by Janssen and Seberg.
A self-consciously moody affair, MACHO profits from ambiguity of motive in the performances of Janssen, Seberg, Almendariz and Bo Hopkins, with the efforts of all involved combining to create what well may be an anti-feminist classic, and one largely devoid of symbolic trappings..
Passable and slow-moving Western about a prisoner escaped from horrid Confederate prison.
Dirty Western concerns about Macho Callahan (David Janssen) , he is a Confederate inmate in horrible concentration camp called Hooks during American Civil War , 1864 .
Macho organizes a mutiny and gets the getaway .
As Macho reunites with his old colleague and sets out to murder the person who was responsible for his being in the hard camp .
After that , Callahan arrives a town , when in a discussion he murders a man (David Carradine) over a bottle of champagne , the man's wife (Jean Seberg) seeks vendetta .
Meanwhile Macho accompanied by his partner (Pedro Armendariz Jr) looks for the man (Lee J.
Cobb) who deceived him for killing .
Later on , they are pursued by a posse (James Booth , Bo Hopkins and several others) .This gritty Western produced by Joseph E.
The POWs breakout at the beginning result to be the best scenes , they're spectacular and impressively filmed .
Offbeat point of view of West , but dialog and situations are bit believable and badly paced with some flaws and gaps .
Good main cast as David Janssen plays a soldier hardened by his confinement and enjoyable Jean Seberg who is miscast as spouse seeking revenge against man killed his husband who turns out to be Callahan .
As with many of his co-stars throughout his career, Jean Seberg enjoyed working with David Janssen , she said in her book that he had proved very fun company .
Prestigious supporting cast though wasted , such as Lee J Cobb, David Carradine , James Booth , Bo Hopkins, and Richard Anderson as Confederate officer , among others .
Furthermore, it appears very secondary Diane Ladd as a prostitute , Matt Clark as a Confederate torturer , Anne Revere , James Gammon and the Mexican Hugo Stiglitz .
Shot in Durango and the Mexican state of Morelos had a major power outage during the filming of this movie .
The motion picture was middling directed by Bernard L.
The picture is only for Jean Seberg fans .
This is an unrelentingly grim movie set in 1864 in lawless Texas and New Mexico.
It's a movie about vengeance.
Macho Callahan wants to hunt down and kill the guy who tricked him into enlisting in the Confederate army, which led to him being thrown in Camp Hooks Military Prison for desertion because he wouldn't go to war.
Alexandra Mountford wants to hunt down and kill Macho for killing her husband over a bottle of champagne.I like David Janssen in westerns.
The word that comes to mind when I think back to his portrayal of the aptly named character Macho is unflinching.
It describes his demeanor as he stares down the barrel of a gun at the beginning of the movie.
It describes his interaction with David Carradine's character.
It describes how he looks at Lee J.
Cobb's character after they pitch a game of horseshoes.
And it's how he looks when Bo Hopkins' character calls him out for insulting a lady.
But David Janssen was able to imbue his character with a lot of sympathy, even though that character exhibited a lot of violence.The actor I really enjoyed watching was Pedro Armendariz Jr. though.
He plays Macho's friend Juan, the nicest person in the entire movie.
And with a friend like Juan, it helps to define Macho as a stand-up guy.
We don't get a lot from the sparse dialogue aside from Juan suggesting to Alexandra that she should use her heart in order to understand people.
So it's this friendship (and his care for a bear cub) that gives us insight into Macho's character.Jean Seberg as Alexandra is lovely, has a very direct gaze but could have been a little more expressive.
I liked her very much although she's the one that sets in motion the bounty hunters.
Diane Ladd has a tiny role and she gets to chew the scenery a bit in her one scene; it's one of the few times we get a break during this somber and dramatic movie.
The prison camp scenes are harrowing though well done.
The moment when Macho actually breaks out through the gates is great.
The fight scene when Alexandra tries to kill Macho with a poker and he fights back is quite brutal and tough to watch.It's a dark, tragic tale which I don't want to see again any time soon, even though I liked it.
" It isn't every day, one gets to meet a woman, bent of killing him ".
In the original novel by Richard Carr and later in the movie directed by Bernard L.
Kowaski, viewing audiences get to meet Diego Callahan played by David Janssen.
Cobb) tricks Callahan into signing an enlistment form to join the Confederate Army.
later, Callahan finds himself in solitary punishment box for attempting to escape.
Still, much later he manages to escape to hunt down the agent.
In the interim, he crosses a Confederate Office (David Carradine) over a bottle of Champane, killing him in the process.
The wife (Jean Seberg) of the dead man posts a large reward to anyone who will hunt down a kill Callahan.
On the run, the hunted man and his Mexican friend (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) traveling to Mexico find themselves pursued by friends of the wife, reward seekers and gun packing lawmen.
All in all, an interesting picture for Janssen, despite it being a bit dark.
Nevertheless, I would recommend it as a milestone for him and those who join him in the cast, which include, James Booth, Bo Hopkins and Richard Anderson.
Grim, savage Western balanced out by warmth and tenderness.
Released is 1970 and directed by Bernard L.
Kowalski, "Macho Callahan" stars David Janssen in the title role as a man who rebels after being duped into enlisting into the Confederate Army and is therefore locked in a hellish POW camp on desertion charges.
After getting out and reuniting with his old sidekick, Juan (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.), Callahan goes after the man responsible for his travails (Lee J.
An unfortunate honor duel with a Confederate officer (David Carradine) ends with Macho being pursued by the officer's vengeful widow (Jean Seberg) and a gang of steadfast bounty hunters (James Booth, Bo Hopkins, etc.).
Diane Ladd has a small part.The first act in the Confederate camp is dirty and brutal, ringing with authenticity; this is the furthest thing from those old Westerns where everyone has bright, clean clothes and courteousness abounds.
Callahan is a very hardened man after his harrowing prison sentence and thoroughly unwilling to allow a Confederate officer to dishonor him, particularly when Macho's fairly drunk.
The opening score is very austere and inspiring in a somber way, but it later morphs into more pleasant aural reveries.
For instance, one character apologizes and is forgiven because the recipient discerns it's sincere.
All this points to the "Stockholm syndrome" NOT being at play in the story, as some claim.
Watch the movie and see for yourself.
See the commentary below for details.The love and compassion that surface separates "Macho Callahan" from one-dimensional and juvenile Spag Westerns.
As such, it's puzzling to hear Brian Garfield lambaste the film as "strictly for sadists" and "revolting." This same critic said "the story defies reason everywhere and is impenetrable," but this simply isn't true.
The plot is simple and the characters' motivations are obvious.
If you want to see a Western that defies reason watch the original "The Magnificent Seven" (see my review for details).
Unfortunately, the ending leaves a bad taste in the mouth and I wish it went the route of "The Outlaw Josey Wales." Still, it's worth checking out if you like atypical realistic Westerns that are dark, brutal, ugly, warm and beautiful at the same time.The film runs 98 minutes and was shot in Durango, Mexico.
The script was written by Cliff Gould from Richard Carr's story.GRADE: BADDITIONAL COMMENTARY ***SPOILER ALERT***Generally speaking, Stockholm syndrome occurs when a strong emotional link develops between captor and captive where the former intermittently abuses the other in one way or another, whether beatings, threats, intimidation or harassment.
This is not what occurs in the movie: Alexandra hooks up with Callahan & Juan in order to kill Callahan (i.e. she's NOT a captive), and she almost succeeds when the opportunity presents itself.
Thus Callahan fights back savagely to survive, BUT he mercifully doesn't kill her; and is clearly concerned about her recovery later.After this violent episode, Alexandra gets to know Callahan & Juan and slowly discovers that they're not evil.
Macho saves her life at one point and even trusts her with a rifle.
She's NOT a captive and is free to leave when she wants.
Callahan even apologizes for what happened to her husband, and sincerely so, but implies that it was a matter of honor between the two men (and, really, it was the greedy bartender's fault).
A mutual attraction blossoms into love before the movie's over, ending with the touching sequence during the standoff at the climax..
Starts off Good....Ends Bad. This movie starts off really great, it shows Richard Kim...I mean, David Janssen in a Civil War Prisoner Camp.
I think they should have given Janssen more lines, he barely says a sentence throughout the movie.
I watched this movie to see David Janssen in a different light other than the Fugitive.
I don't know, I think his character could have been better developed.
There is this really freaky scene where he rapes this girl then the day after, she falls for him.
The premise of his character is a really rough draft of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, I think.
Not a bad movie if your a David Janssen fan, but it could have been better..
Feels like spaghetti .......
Throw some "b" movie actors into a not fully developed revenge plot, and what you get is "Macho Callahan".
This filmed in Mexico western has David Janssen, Jean Seberg, Lee J.
Cobb, David Carradine, and Bo Hopkins trying their best to imitate the fast dying genre known as "spaghetti westerns".
It certainly has the feel of an Italian "oater", with little character development, choppy editing, and revenge as a motive.
The difference here is that the script starts out good in a revolting Confederate prison that Janssen escapes from, but then after Jean Seberg puts her bounty on Janssen for killing her husband, things get talky, and the film loses steam minute by minute.
Don't expect much more than a slightly above average "spaghetti" type western, and it's watchable, but just barely.
Interestingly the VHS box has the running time listed at 2 hours, 39 minutes.
Thankfully this is incorrect, because 99 minutes was more than enough of "Macho Callahan" - MERK.
Another "spaghetti" style Western, a victim of its time.It's pretty much just routine formula Hollywood.
"Spaghetti" was actually just the same Hollywood formula and set of clichés set to extremes.There are many problems with such movies, and this movie is a prime example.
We never care about any of the multitude of dull "demi god" characters thrown at us.
They're so self righteous and unmotivated in their "demi god" status that they just bore us.Don't bother trying to watch it in one sitting.
Mature people, educated people, people who aren't crack heads, all of these are totally alienated by the writing here, and that's because of the stereotypical characters that are impossible to relate to.It's like watching demi gods decide to make the world into crap, for no reason.And what in the world was Lee J Cobb thinking, being a part of this garbage?.
Weird is the word for this oddball western directed by Bernard L.
David Janssen is recently released from a federal penitentiary seeking revenge on the scoundrel who railroaded him.
While looking for Lee J.
Cobb, he shoots one armed army vet David Carradine (over a bottle of champagne).
Carradine's wife (Jean Seberg) pursues Janssen across Texas and New Mexico all the while upping the reward money.
After a very unlikely case of Stockholm syndrome, Seberg comes to regret putting a bounty on Janssen's head.
This is a strange movie with so-so acting (Janssen is not suited for the wild west) and the direction by Kowalski is all of the place; there's no pacing, a lot of bad editing and characters disappear without a trace (just WHAT did happen to Cobb?) The supporting cast is peppered with the likes of James Booth, Bo Hopkins, Hugo Stiglitz and, at least briefly, Diane Ladd as a good time girl..
Macho Macho Man!
I wanna be a Macho Man!.
***SPOILERS**** Somewhat mildly interesting western with a grizzly and bearded looking David Janssen as Diego "Macho" Callahan who's life has been royally screwed up since he joined the Union Army at the urging of enlistment agent Duffy, Lee J.
It was Duffy who promised Callahan it would pay for his collage education-Macho wants to be a CPA-when he fulfills his obligation to stay in it until the Civil War is finally over.
Callahan was instead caught by the rebel forces where he finally ended up breaking out of the confederate POW camp in Texas that he's a prisoner in.
While on the lamb Callahan gets involved in a shoot-out with one armed confederate officer Maj. David Mountford, David Carradine, over a cheap bottle of .champagne thus killing him.
It's now the late David's wife Alexandra, Jean Seaburg, who's determined to get her husband's killer whacked with a $1,000.00 bonus to anyone who can finish Callahan off.
This as were soon to find out isn't as easy as it looks.Callahan for his part want's nothing of the trouble that he gets himself into in the movie but it follows him wherever he goes and keeps sticking him in his behind.
It's finally at a Texas town saloon that Calallhan runs into Alexandera who incites the drunken patrons lead by hot blooded Yancy, Bo Hopkins, to work him over only for Callahan to escape during the carnage and take off into the wild with his Mexican friend Juan, Pedro Armendanz Jr. It's there where Callahan ends up saving Alexander's-who got herself lost- life from a wild and ferocious mama bear who's cub the kind loving and feeling Macho Callahan adopted as his pet.
The thanks the Callahan gets for saving Alexabndra from being a meal for the 400 pound she bear is her attempting to murder him where in return Callahan ends up busting her jaw and cracking her skull and then before he's finished raping her.****SPOILERS**** Alexandra who at first wanted nothing but to kill Callahan, for him killing her husband David, falls madly in love with him which creates a problem for her boyfriend back in town the bar owner Harry Wheeler, James Booth,who has rustled up a 15 man posse or lynch mob to track Callahan down and, after giving him a fair trial, hang him.
This despite Alexandra who started the ball rolling by inciting the mob on him now ends up changing her mind about doing Callahan in!
Trapped and surrounded Callahan sees the writing on the wall and faces the fate that's waiting for him knowing full well that death can't be any worse then what life or the movie he's staring in has in store for him! |
tt1951216 | The Look of Love | The story opens in London in 1992. Paul Raymond (Steve Coogan) returns to his flat after attending the funeral of his daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots). Raymond plays a videotape of a TV programme he and Debbie took part in and reflects on their lives.
In a flashback to the late 1950s, Raymond is an impresario on the seaside variety show circuit, where he is making a name for himself by adding semi-nude women to his stage acts. After a lion attacks the show's dancers, his wife Jean (Anna Friel) joins the show. When the Daily Sketch claims that Jean performed nude, Raymond sues the newspaper unsuccessfully but appreciates the ensuing publicity, after which Raymond launches his London strip club, the Raymond Revue Bar. Its success allows him to expand his property empire and also indulge in a playboy lifestyle, which his wife tolerates.
In the early 1970s, Raymond moves into theatrical revues and casts aspiring actress Amber St. George (Tamsin Egerton) in a nude revue. Raymond moves in with her and his marriage to Jean ends. Raymond also agrees to meet a grown son, Derry, he sired out of wedlock, but after an awkward dinner together, he gives Derry no more of his time. Tony Power is approached by Paul Raymond to run a men's magazine, Men Only. Tony Power, who was only in his 20's at the time, was subsequently corrupted into a sleazy world by Paul Raymond, ending in his untimely demise. The magazine is a huge success, in part thanks to roving sex reporter Fiona Richmond, St. George's pseudonym. Raymond continues to enjoy a hedonistic, coke-fuelled lifestyle. This becomes too much for St. George and their relationship ends.
Into this mix, his daughter Debbie is introduced. Initially, Raymond tries to make her a star in his theatrical ventures, but she lacks talent and the show is an unprecedented failure for her.
Debbie marries musician Jonathan Hodge. Jean returns for the wedding and volunteers to pose nude for Raymond's magazine. In the delivery room, Debbie gives birth to a girl after sniffing a line of coke that her father provides. She dies in 1992 of a heroin overdose.
After the funeral, Raymond returns home with his granddaughter, pointing out the property he owns that will someday belong to her. An epilogue reveals that in December 1992, he was the richest man in Britain. | tragedy | train | wikipedia | Michael Winterbottom is reunited with Steve Coogan in this watchable tale of one time richest man in Britain, porn and property entrepreneur Paul Raymond.
Coogan puts in a well rounded performance playing Raymond (it would have been easy to make the character either too likable, too bolshy or too obnoxious, credit to Coogan for getting the balance just right) from his early days when he first opened a members only strip club in SoHo to his later years after the death of his daughter Debbie - Imogen Poots.
A cautious tale of morality the film spans several decades following the life of Porn Baron Paul Raymond, who went on to own Men Only and a string of other magazines, shops and clubs in Soho.
I actually met him and his daughter once, though I don't think I knew who they were at the time.Raymond (Played with appropriate gusto and restrained measure by Steve Coogan, at his best) and his daughter (Imogen Poots, outstanding) were ultimately damaging for each other as shown her.
It's story of a grieving father who failed to heed the warning signs he was given and steer his daughter back on the right path, and ultimately paid the price.James Lance plays Raymond's long time lawyer friend in a rather two dimensional role and does well to put meat on the bone and other appearances from a number of comic and acting talents from the UK fill out every role possible.Production design here is first rate, with the Soho of the 1970s and 1980s which (the latter) I remember all too well recreated superbly and the lavish flat of Raymonds can well be believed, designed as he loves to tell all who will listen by Ringo Star.Like many who rise to the top, Raymond was ultimately a tortured soul, who found it impossible to stay in one relationship and tragically lost the people he loved the most.
It's not quite Partridge, but we've seen it before in 24 Hour Party People and in things like Tristram Shandy and The Trip, where Coogan plays an unflattering version of himself - sort of narcissistic, insecure, a bit sarcastic and witty, not without flair.I didn't mind this in the Tony Wilson biopic, largely because that was played for laughs and also looked outwards to the whole Manchester music scene, but I did mind it here.
I decided to watch it because the title reminded me of ABC's The Look of Love song which played at the credits of Hamlet 2 which, funny enough, starred Steve Coogan (the song is a favorite of mine).You might be wondering why I'm rating this a 10 and it's because I read Felix Dennis's "How to Get Rich," which is his honest telling/recollection of his own story about becoming filthy, filthy rich and living the kind of lifestyle that he did (Dennis is the founder of Maxim Magazine) and this movie captures a certain essence in which I felt was present in Dennis's book (coincidentally, Paul Raymond was the founder of "Men Only" which I had no idea about prior to watching this film).
But he had a troubled relationship with the women of his life, his wife, his lover and his daughter.Steve Coogan plays Raymond, a Liverpoolian lad who starred out as entertainer but quickly moved to working behind the scenes and starring to run exclusive men's clubs with his wife Jean (Anna Friel).
During his rise he forms a relationship with Amber (Tamsin Egerton) who becomes Fiona Richmond, a famous British sex symbol, leading to him having the largest divorce settlement in British legal history and stay close with his daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots) who he sees has his heir apparent but has a massive drug addiction.As the subject for a bio-pic Paul Raymond for both his business achievements and his personal life: but The Look of Love stretches itself too thin, not knowing where to focus and therefore making for a shallow experience.
It felt like the film was gutted in the editing room with how it only briefly on many different aspects such as the controversies, his rise in business and a sex scandal just to name a few.The Look of Love was written by Matt Greenhalgh who has written two excellent bio-pics, Control and Nowhere Boy. The strength of those films are they were both were very focused on a specific area of their character's lives, John Lennon and his relationship with his mother and Ian Curtis' epilepsy and depression.
Egerton, Poots , Friel and Chris Addison too were solid in their roles, but Davad Williams' role was extremely minor that it felt pointless to the point where his role seemed like it was mostly cut and people like Stephen Fry and Dara O Briain were camoes.Director Michael Winterbottom does inject a lot of period detail to the film and there are some stylist moments when he does montages.
If you don't mind too much, you will get an entertaining enough movie to pass the time.If the real "Paul Raymond" was half as charming as Steve Coogan in this, than you understand his charm.
Michael Winterbottom understands how to get the best from Steve Coogan.This, his fourth feature film working with Coogan, has him utilising both the well cultured comedic timing of Coogan and his remarkable ability to evoke sympathy from characters that would otherwise be seen as deplorable.Coogan this time brings his chameleonship to the role of Paul Raymond, a pioneer in the British adult magazine industry.A hedonist by nature, Raymond seemingly has everything you would expect from leading such a lifestyle; the admiration of young women, expensive cars, an excessive wealth, which has bought him half the properties in Soho and all the drugs that a party hard club owner in the 70s could desire.Winterbottom seems obsessed with the 70s, having previously made 24 Hour Party People (also starring Coogan) a film set in the tail end of the decade charting the rising profile of the Manchester music scene....
Cliché of a biopic, unfocused, the film doesn't know if its about Raymond's life or his empire or his relationship with his daughter, it's trying really quickly to cover far too many events in 100 minutesIt's fast for no reason, badly filmed, badly edited, not engaging, you don't feel much when his daughter dies, which should be tragic, There's a few good ideas of film making, like the photo shoot that looks like Men Only ages with kitschy artwork alas it's really poorly executedSteve Coogan is insufferable in this film, he's not acting anything else than him, you just ve the feeling of watching a film about him in costume period, shame for the female actress who are all excellent There's too many dialogues, some of them are good but some are just unnecessary , it just makes the film suffocating and leaves very little space for emotionsYou just have the feeling the film was wrapped up in two days, I'm usually a big fan of Winterbottom but I must say I'm clearly unimpressed with this It's trying hard to be original but it's just another biopic with fast editing and a few breaking walls, With material like Paul Raymond's fascinating life it's a shame to end up with such a terribly flawed filmIt's mildly entertaining but mostly very boring.
Biopic of a Fundamentally Empty Man. Recounting the life of porn king and entrepreneur Paul Raymond, THE LOOK OF LOVE tells the story of a self-made man, born Geoffrey Quinn, who rose to become Britain's richest man.
This film is about a controversial adult entertainment tycoon who made a fortune in the West End of London decades ago."The Look of Love" is a biopic about an interesting character, it could have had so much potential to be portraying morally questionable individuals in glamorous and exotic settings.
The film concentrates on Paul Raymond' love life and his adult magazine, with little character and plot development.
And I think the film is such a misnomer, Paul Raymond's on screen character is about every bit love does not look like..
The Look of Love from Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom was definitely something to look forward to--between the two of them they've cooked up 24 Hour Party People, Tristam Shandy, and The Trip--all three of which are top notch films in many ways.
There's not much to engage you or pull you into the story this time around and Coogan's character who's supposed to be the central figure of this "character study" never begins to come across as a vivid, fully fleshed out person the way he does in the other films...i kept waiting for the details of his life to get filled in but the film mostly glosses over the details that would've made his character someone to root for (or against) Instead what we get is a barely there stick figure, you can sympathize with some of the things his character has to goes through towards the end, but you can never fully feel for his character.Coogan plays somewhat of a British Larry Flynt here...someone who becomes a wildly successful entrepreneur and real estate tycoon on the strength of a pornographic empire and his successful attempts to have frequent nudity and stripping in proper polite public society.
Its said at the end of the movie that his character was the richest man in Britian in the mid 2000's,--tho the film itself is set during the late 70's/early 80's (Relying on the soundtrack to tell you when you are is what i did, as Donnovan's "Sunshine Superman" pops up towards the beginning, and Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" pops up in the last half hour, i got that we were moving from the 70's thru the 80's here but its honestly hard to tell because there are so many different period signifyers all kind of just thrown on screen.)The film's storyline involves Coogan's ever evolving relationship with his daughter whom he refuses to leave when he walks out on his wife and son, apparently he shares a significant bond with her, we're told that she's a lot like him character wise and you can see why that is as the story moves on.
The bulk of the story is essentially how the business he very successfully built for himself ends up destroying his own daughter little by little (you know it isn't very long before she ends up over-indulging in drugs and the lifestyle in general and getting in way over her head, etc, etc) Meanwhile Coogan keeps whatever difficult emotions he's feeling bottled up while witnessing the slow decline of his daughter, preferring to over-indulge in the nightlife himself.This could have all been a nicely effecting story about a guy who never took the time to share or process his feelings towards the other people in his life suddenly having to grapple with the choices he had made having such a significant effect on the one true loved on in his life.
'The Look of Love' tells the story of the first 'porn baron' of London, Paul Raymond - arguable the richest man in England to ever make his money in such an industry.The first thing you need to know is that the casting of Steve Coogan is a sheer masterpiece.
Both vices are frequently portrayed from the opening act to the end.Ultimately, the film charts the highs and the lows of Paul Raymond's career, although, if you investigate the man himself, you may feel that Coogan's portrayal of him and his industry is quite kindly.
STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday MorningIn their latest collaboration, Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan explore the world of Paul Raymond, the visionary porn producer who was one of the pioneering forces that transformed London's Soho in to an erotic industry, bringing live shows to the forefront and launching the iconic Men's Only magazine, which eventually saw him become the richest man in Britain.
But it also fueled his self destructive edge, finishing his marriage to Jean (Anna Friel), the mother of his children, and leaving her for forthright starlet Fiona (Tamsin Egerton), while leading his daughter Debbie (Imogen Poots) into a world of drug fueled self destruction.Coogan and Winterbottom are the forces behind a series of works that are anti mainstream but still have the star power to appeal to a fairly wide audience, if not commercially, then critically.
Coogan fits the lead role perfectly, embodying his real life character with the larger than real life personality and character traits he had, while a naturally attractive female supporting cast adorn other key roles.Lacking the dynamism and effortless energy of 24 Hour Party People, but at least not full of the pretentious self indulgence of A Cock and Bull Story, The Look of Love doesn't quite manage to set the screen alight, but still leaves your senses and emotions on a string.
It is not easy to illustrate the shocking things the man did without sacrificing that sense of human frailty which helps the audience relate to the character.It is with self-effacing wit and charm that he publishes porn, has dalliances with several strange women at a time and bonds with his daughter Debbie by sharing the same cocaine - a disgusting drug with a disgusting method of use that two generations of party people have deluded each other and themselves about..
After collaborating on 24 Hour Party People (2002) and A Cock and Bull Story (2005), two equally unconventional and uncompromising approaches to the biopic and novel adaptation respectively, prolific writer/director Michael Winterbottom and star Steve Coogan coupled up once again to tell the story of Paul Raymond, the property and smut tycoon once honoured with the title of richest man in the UK.
After the energetic, entertaining rise, the film plummets into a non-stop barrage of cocaine, orgies and excess for its second act.Raymond's wife Jean (Anna Friel) seems happy with her comfortable life of luxury and even lets her husband have sex with other women, but she is soon abandoned after the beautiful starlet of his new show, Fiona (Tamsin Egerton), catches his eye.
Except that is, for his daughter Debbie (the lovely Imogen Poots), an entitled yet troubled girl who shares her father's fondness for excess, and who seems to be the only person Raymond actually cares about.Just what attracted Winterbottom and Coogan to Paul Raymond is a mystery.
The turns by Imogen Poots as Raymond's daughter Debbie and Chris Addison as Men Only boss Tony Power stand out, and it is never difficult to watch Anna Friel, here playing Raymond's wife Jean.
Director Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan collaborated a decade ago on 24 Hour Party People – a look at Manchester's innovative music scene from the mid-1970s onward.
So hopes were high as they united once more for this biopic about Britain's erstwhile soft-pornographer-in-chief, and ultimately the country's richest man, Paul Raymond.Sadly, they cannot re-create the magic in this hotch-potch of a film which seems to lack any kind of compass and is unsure of the statement it wishes to make.There is a total lack of irony as we follow Raymond's hedonistic and highly lucrative lifestyle, giving people what many of them clearly want and for which they are happy to pay large amounts of money.Steve Coogan as Paul Raymond frequently drifts far too close to his Alan Partridge persona throughout the film, and comparisons are almost invited as he shows Raymond impersonating Sean Connery to his friends.There are under-weighted cameos from the likes of Stephen Fry and Matt Lucas; David Walliams plays a lecherous vicar, apparently a good friend of Raymond, but we are given no idea as to how he arrived on the scene and without backstory he comes across as a superficial irrelevance.The soundtrack is impressive, especially the Bacharach and David numbers, and the film does succeed in evoking a sense of period.
Paul Raymond, the Grand Master of 70s pornography and the self proclaimed King of Soho, is the central character in this biopic by Michael Winterbottom, based on Paul Willets book, Men Only - and yet Winterbottom's film is as much about the people around Paul Raymond as it is about the man himself.The film begins with Paul Raymond - played here by a superb Steve Coogan - mourning the evident loss of his daughter Debbie, reflecting on his life and relationship with her via an old video recording.
This film is not just about Paul Raymond's life and career but also about his relationship with his daughter and how she was ultimately sacrificed to the lifestyle he chose.
Steve Coogan plays Paul Raymond in a similar bumbling way but it doesn't seem as true to character here.
A good idea on paper,as indeed it started out,based on Paul Willets biography Members Only.But the process of distilling a life into 400 pages and then again into a film leads to a feeling that The Look of Love is merely a series of anecdotes strung together.The story is told mainly in flashback,Raymond watching a documentary about himself and his daughter Debbie,for whom at the outset of the film we are informed things haven't panned out too well.
This is the fourth film Winterbottom has made with Steve Coogan, after Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, The Trip and 24 Hour Party People.
With a cast reading like a UK comedy rich list, led by 'the man who thinks he's it', Steve Coogan, a film about one of Britain's most famed smut peddlers has the potential to go any number of ways.Charting his rise from lowly entertainer to Britain's richest man, the focus of much of the plot is on his relationships with the most important women in his life: his wife, Jean Raymond (Anna Friel), his lover Fiona Richmond (Tamsin Egerton) and, most importantly, his daughter, Debbie (Imogen Poots). |
tt0292515 | Flatland | The story describes a two-dimensional world occupied by geometric figures, whereof women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a square named A Square, a member of the caste of gentlemen and professionals, who guides the readers through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The first half of the story goes through the practicalities of existing in a two-dimensional universe as well as a history leading up to the year 1999 on the eve of the 3rd Millennium.
On New Year's Eve, the Square dreams about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) inhabited by "lustrous points", in which he attempts to convince the realm's monarch of a second dimension; but is unable to do so. In the end, the monarch of Lineland tries to kill A Square rather than tolerate his nonsense any further.
Following this vision, he is himself visited by a three-dimensional sphere named A Sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees Spaceland (a tridimensional world) for himself. This Sphere visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the sphere and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of Spaceland and the third dimension. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste), including A Square's brother, B.
After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth ...) spatial dimension; but the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace.
The Square then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland, whereof the point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any communication as a thought originating in his own mind (cf. Solipsism):
"You see," said my Teacher, "how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understands them at all, he accepts them as his own – for he cannot conceive of any other except himself – and plumes himself upon the variety of Its Thought as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this God of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction."
The Square recognizes the identity of the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of higher dimensions. Once returned to Flatland, the Square cannot convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announced that anyone preaching the existence of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). Eventually the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason, with only occasional contact with his brother who is imprisoned in the same facility. He does not manage to convince his brother, even after all they have both seen. Seven years after being imprisoned, A Square writes out the book Flatland in the form of a memoir, hoping to keep it as posterity for a future generation that can see beyond their two-dimensional existence. | good versus evil | train | wikipedia | null |
tt0365289 | Grimm | A brother and sister, Jacob and Marie, live with their father and mother. The family is in a situation where living becomes difficult for them. One day Jacob and Marie's father abandons the two of them in woods while they go collecting firewood. From that moment on, the two teens must fend for themselves, fighting off rape and taking on any possible situation, reacting to situations as if animals. Their mother put a note in Jacob's jacket telling them to go to their aunt and uncle in Spain, but they arrive to find them both deceased in an accident.
Not sure what to do, Jacob, feeling hungry, goes to buy a roll, and finds a note left by Marie that she has gone off to marry a rich man named Diego. Jacob arrives at the house, ominous in spite of its brightness, and finds much to distrust in Diego.
Diego, a surgeon, then plots to steal Jacob's kidney to help his sick sister Theresa. Diego drugs both Marie and Jacob and separates the brother and sister.
After Marie escapes, she finds Jacob severely injured in a stolen car and both brother and sister (reunited again) drive away. Suddenly they are chased by Diego in a car. In the chase Diego's car crashes off the road. Jacob and Marie take shelter in an abandoned house in an abandoned village. With the help of Marie, ailing Jacob gets healed.
As the days pass one windy day Diego comes in search to take Marie and kill Jacob. In the encounter by hide and seek Jacob kills Diego by shooting an arrow. Jacob and Marie bury Diego's body and on hearing sound they sneak under the house. Police come on routine patrol and search the house and leave.
Jacob and Marie sit relaxed beside a nearby flowing river and the credits scroll on. | murder | train | wikipedia | This film has a rather impressive billing, with the version I rented stated "siblings Jacob and Marie embark on a surreal, often night-marrish odyssey." The movie starts out Hansel and Gretel-esquire in that regard, but doesn't move much further.
There is a journey to be had, if one is interested in following two characters whom they know little about through different cities where they meet different people.
As far as the comedy, the movie fails to win stars in that department as well.
This fact is acceptable for the first 40 minutes, but by the 41st, you will certainly ask yourself why you are still watching, hoping that something relevant will occur.I cannot totally smash the movie, however, as the colors were quite vibrant and the journey itself is something that certain watchers might find interesting in its own right.
I should also mention that a greater understanding of the Brothers Grimm and their folk tales might lend itself to a greater appreciation of the film.
It was clear that this was the case with the 2005 Matt Damon film, but with this one, it is less obvious whether a greater understanding of the tales would make Grimm better.If you're going to watch it, make sure you school yourself on the back story (the Brother's Grimm tales)..
It's absurd, it's a little Bunuel sometimes and mostly funny.Probably this is supposed to be a modern Grimm tale, but including sex.
There are no real human beings here, like in Grimm.
Like Hansel and Gretl, the brother and sister are alone in the world, with no parents to lean on.
They leave Holland and come to a strange dreamlike Spain, where they meet another brother and sister, evil and crazy.There certainly are scenes here you will remember, but most of all you will remember the dark humour, which makes you laugh at totally wrong places..
As mentioned in the title, Grimm is, what I hear, based on the fairy tale of Hansel & Gretel.
That sounded good but the movie I watched really had nothing to do with the story I knew.
What we get is a decent, yet dark, movie that had some amusing moments.Maria (Halina Reijn) and Jacob (Jacob Derwig) are an adult brother and sister who appears to have a sexual relationship as well.
Gotta love the Dutch movie makers.
Anyhow, Maria and Jacob are abandoned in the woods early on in the movie by their parents because they could no longer afford to take care of them.
At this point in the movie, you know that nothing good will ever happen to Maria & Jacob so Diego can't be good.That seems to be the theme of the movie.
I do not think they find one person who actually helps them out in the movie.
Possibly, this is the resemblance to the fairy tale but, in all honesty, it does not seem similar at all to me, with minor exceptions of being lost in a forest, running into evil people, etc.Overall, it was a decent movie that I felt could have done without the Hansel & Gretel connection.
This was not as good as I expected, however, I have spent my time in worse ways and on worse movies in the past.
The film starts off as a homage to 'Hansel and Gretal', the Brothers Grimm's popular tale, however in the end the film spirals out in a completely different direction to their story, with many bizarre events along the way.
While it is not all that satisfying to watch illogical events, the film is somewhat intriguing since anything can happen.
It has a dark sense of humour at times too, and strange sexual elements are worked into it.
It is often repulsive, the characters are not developed so that they can be easily liked, and the hybridisation of the crime, horror, fantasy and western genres tends to jar an already awkward narrative.
This is a story about a brother and a sister going on a journey together, because their parents didn't have money to support them anymore.Where the movie is about a journey, the movie itself is like a journey too, where the viewer constantly falls into amazement, excitement, recognition, and sometimes a laughing fit.
Its a surreal story that starts of exactly the same as Hansel and Grettel, but where you expect the brother and sister to find a house of candy, the movie takes a totally different turn, and goes on like that.
Every time you think you know whats going to happen, its like the director says "ha ha, but I'm not that predictable" and sticking out his tong to you.
As I continue to read more and more dedicated, intelligent graphic novels, I cannot help but think that perhaps director Alex van Warmerdam didn't read a couple prior to creating this film.
From the opening sequences until the end of this film, you cannot help but feel a sense of whimsy, the fantastical, and enchantment.
From our hopeless characters to the sporadic plot, Warmerdam has created a film in which the symbolic references and fairy tale connections isn't laid out in front of you, but instead deeply rooted within the chaos of Grimm for only those who are truly dedicated can find them.
In fact, it isn't one of the greatest films that I have seen, but it did burst from the seams with potential.Warmerdam has quite the ability to build a very surreal world, place unknowing (and sometimes unwilling) characters into the mix, and give us bleak references to pop-children's culture.
For those of you die hard fairy tale fanatics, you may not like this story.
It is not one that the average film viewer will enjoy.
It takes some time developing the characters, and it takes quite a bit of time giving us its story.
Warmerdam does a great job of giving us two great navigators through his story with Jacob and Maria.
While their interweaving stories could/should have been developed deeper with stronger bonds between them and the other characters in this film, Warmerdam has done a superb job of giving us their sole stories and emotions.
If you solely watch just Jacob and Maria throughout this film, you will see such a strong human element and the sporadic events that occur to them as they continue their perilous journey.
I applaud Warmerdam for his work on these two characters because they lead us through the story.
We feel for them, we grow with them, we rally behind them near the end, so in essence, we enjoy these characters.
Alas, his lacking story structure is the only hurdle that is tough to cross.Warmerdam interweaves so many different fairy tale-esquire moments throughout the story that you begin to loose focus of the central themes.
It reminded me of a third-grade story in which the young child forgot to do his homework and begins his report on "Hansel & Gretel" and inadvertently brings in moments from "Peter Pan", "Little Red Riding Hood", and "Jack & the Beanstalk" unknowingly.
As the class laughs, you cannot help but think of how interesting a story like that would be.
I think Warmerdam did his homework, brought several different childish stories together, but somehow never quite completed them.
I wanted to enjoy the different stories.
Warmerdam had a great concept with this film, but never was able to pull his ideas together.
Coupled with a horrible choice of music selection, Warmerdam never quite built the darkness surrounding Grimm.
That is what ultimately hurt this picture.Overall, Warmerdam did a decent job with overall final product of this film.
Grimm is not a film for everyone, but for those that enjoy moments of David Lynch coupled with themes of childhood fairy tales.
It is a dark story that never quite makes you laugh but instead attempts to use shocking cinematography to bring you this surreal world that we never quite believe exists.
His characters were strong, but his story lacked decent connection.
I found myself, like Jacob and Maria, lost during several of the scenes only to reconnect later during the film.
In a loose adaptation of "Hansel and Gretel", Dutch siblings Jacob and Marie are abandoned by their parents and eventually make their way to Spain.
Everything looks normal at first, but it becomes apparent that Diego might not be quite what he seems, especially after Jacob tries to drag Marie away from him.What's really neat about "Grimm" is how it plays with the audience.
After they leave the Netherlands, you think that the movie's important part has already happened, but you're wrong.
That door in Diego's house gives me the feeling that along with "Hansel and Gretel", there's also a tinge of "Bluebeard" here.
And I wonder if that town at the end is the one where they filmed the spaghetti westerns.
You might propably not like this film at all.
I think this is of these films that need the viewer to be open minded.
If you are one of those who say: No, you cannot go from Holland to Spain with one tank of gasoline, you should never watch this film!
However, if you feel that odd things might very well be possible in films, and you don't care about odd things in films, this might be the one for you!I think viewing it requires a bit of knowledge about fairy tales.
The same way as the Coen Brothers knew how to use an old existing story and place it in modern times without loosing the context, Alex van Warmerdam took a story and found how to remake it in a modern way.
The same sense of absurd humor, but maybe a little less funny, than o brother were art thou.
van Warmerdam, however knew very well how to keep the way of storytelling by the grimm brothers intact.
The flickering way of storytelling, combined with a fine feeling of suspense, makes this into one of my best Dutch films recently..
At last we can see a movie that makes us Dutch folks laugh.
It's based on a fairy tale of Grimm.
It worth watching because I didn't see any better Dutch movie this year.
Starts as a fairy tale (of course that's why the movie has been called Grimm) and continues as a totally absurd, but very funny story.
Great acting.Don't watch this film if you have a lack of fantasy and/or humor.
Yet another stab at making a contemporary adult (as in intended audience not porn) version of the Grimm brothers' fairy tales.
Weird but not strange enough, dark but not dark enough, lurid but not lurid enough, the film ends up being pointless and tedious.
Opening with clear Grimm Bros inspiration as our two protagonists are abandoned in the woods by their father, the film quickly abandons its early premise (as well as its promise) and loses any focus as they arrive in Spain.
A sure sign of a problem is the best thing I can say about the film is its inspired choice of a set - the use of an abandoned Wild West ghost town leftover from Spaghetti Westerns..
Director Alex van Warmerdam is known for his own sort of surreal and absurd style of film-making, that however never feel too artistic or forced, which makes all of his movies also perfectly watchable for most large public groups.
The movie begins as a modern fairytale, with some of the generic elements in it.
Then the movie almost suddenly stops and slows down once the two characters get to Spain.
The movie becomes an entirely different one again.The middle part and till some extend would had made a fairly good movie on its own but keeping in the mind the first part of the movie it makes you realize how utterly pointless that part was, since it doesn't really connect with the rest of the movie.
It's way too disjointed all.I can definitely understand van Warmerdam's intentions with this movie but it just doesn't all translate to the screen very well.
He probably thought he was making his "El Topo".No matter how hard Halina Reijn tries, she and Jacob Derwig, who play brother and sister in this movie, just don't have much chemistry together.
The movie is filled with some other well known Dutch and I suppose also fairly well known Spanish actors, in some small as well as some bigger roles.
Some are well cast, others obviously aren't.The movie is good looking, with professional cinematography.
Also very little wrong with the actual directing of it all, they just didn't had the best material to work with in the long run.Has some quality but it just isn't the best watchable movie.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/.
Although this movie has it's funny moments, yes and even good acting.
Last night this movie was shown on dutch television so I decided to take a look.Why did I do that?
The last could be a good thing, but it isn't, I meant it in a bad way.If you like your characters to be unlikable, somewhat retarded, incestuous and totally weird, you might like the movie.
Moral of the story is : Face it and handle it without complains!Grimm Rocks!I think this movie is unconventional and offbeat.
Both the characters though inspired from Hansel and Gretel are quite original.
Both the characters though inspired from Hansel and Gretel are quite original.
Moral of the story is : Face it and handle it without complains!Grimm Rocks!.
On a winter's day a cold-hearted father abandons his son Jacob and daughter Maria in the woods, while they were off looking for firewood.
The story loosely takes on the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, but goes for a more grownup approach, which is filled with dark humour, incredibly odd adventures and like the title implies a grim nature.
To make matters worse the characters, especially Jacob and Maria are glazed over and because of that they're hard to like or to connect with.
I rented the movie because it's cover looked interesting.
There are a few good, humorous aspects in this film, and a ton of potential, but right up to the credits I found myself waiting for the plot to wrap itself up or conclude.
I cannot tell you how much I regret watching this film.
"Grimm" is a strange re-working of the old story of Hansel and Gretel.
However, it's been changed so much that you can hardly call it "Hansel and Gretel"--particularly since the characters' names are Jacob and Marie.This bizarre story begins with a starving family in Holland during a cold winter.
I sure didn't know and that is why I kept watching...hoping that the film would ultimately prove satisfying.Could this sick material have worked?
However, making the two main characters so unlikable (as is EVERYONE in this film) didn't help matters any.
The only things I really found of interest was the escape from the ugly woman (this was rather funny) and seeing an old Spanish/Italian western movie set at the end..
"Grimm" is a remotely original and well-intended Dutch re-working of the famous Hansel and Gretel fairy-tale, updated with nowadays social issues like violence, sexual perversion and even the mafia-like trade in human organs!
Siblings Maria and Jacob are left behind in the Dutch woods by their father and intend to head for Spain, following a written note of their mother.
The road to Spain, as well as the actual residence, is a series of obstacles and encounters with weird characters.
The first half hour is really good, alternately comical and compassionate with some absurd (but ingenious) ideas, like Jacob's acquaintance with a farmer who forces him to have sex with his corpulent wife.
The rest of the film is totally illogical and very, VERY pointless.
If you think that's nonsense, don't even bother watching the rest of the film...
Most of the time, you're wondering why the hell you should care about the dreadful tale of these two weirdos and even the beautiful Spanish settings become boring after a short while.
Director Alex Van Warmermeer has the reputation of being a pseudo-artistic and gifted filmmaker, but so far I haven't enjoyed ANY of his films I've seen (others being "Abel" and "De Noorderlingen")..
Most things we do, see and say every day don't make much sense.Aside from writing and directing, Warmerdam is also a wonderful actor given to playing overwhelmed characters who are never really sure why they're alive.
The dichotomy between light and dark is very evident in this film and very evident in Warmerdam's predilection for dark/light humour and quasi-surreal drama.Throughout the film, Warmerdam reminds us that this is a modern fairy tale (hence the Grimm title).
Halina Reijn as Maria and Jacob Derwig as her brother Jacob are terrific playing siblings involved in a lovingly incestuous relationship that is so casual it never really speaks its name.
This is Warmerdam at his mischievous and satirical best: haven't we, with our overactive, dirty little minds, always suspected there might have been more to the Hansel and Gretel story than two lost kids courting danger in the forest?
A peculiar film which quite deserves its name, GRIMM is a post-modern non-fairy tale of (adult) siblings abandoned in the woods by their parents.
Her relationship with her brother Jacob (Jacob Derwig) is rife with incestuous overtones.While it helps to have read the original Grimm tales (not the modern Disneyfied versions), knowledge of the history of Spain & the Netherlands is also quite useful.
(A)Sexual cold Holland.As soon as the couple drive through the "magic" tunnel & arrive in Spain's "netherlands" I was reminded of Alex Cox's STRAIGHT TO HELL, another modern "fairy tale".
I'm not certain (as I haven't seen S.T.H. in at least 15 years), but I believe the western movie set town they finally arrive at for the final acts of GRIMM is the same place."Let's go home." and bring the donkey along.Include on DVD is a short silent film called "Painting" (verb not noun). |
tt0131400 | Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale | Wal Footrot (John Clarke) and Cooch Windgrass (Peter Hayden) are shearing sheep on Wal's farm. Cheeky Hobson (Fiona Samuel), Wal's girlfriend, is driving on the highway when she is driven off the road by the Murphy brothers, Spit (Brian Sergent) and Hunk (Marshall Napier), flying in a helicopter. The Murphys then terrorise Wal's property, leaving Dog (Peter Rowley) to drown in a sheep pit. As he is in the water, he has a flashback of when he was a little pup: how he was united with Wal for the first time, a gift from Aunt Dolly (Dorothy McKegg), and how he met Jess, who was nearly drowned by Spit and Hunk. Soon, Wal wakes Dog and Cooch and the dogs manage to foil the Murphys, who were in the process of capturing Cooch's deer.
Later, Wal finds Rangi Jones (Rawiri Paratene) and Pongo Footrot (Fiona Samuel) playing catch with a rugby ball, and so he joins in to coach them. After a while, Rangi and Pongo tell Wal about an All Blacks selector coming to watch an upcoming rugby match, and Wal daydreams about being an All Black. Over the next few days, Wal works out and goes on a date with Cheeky. Wal takes her to an untidy caravan restaurant selling fast food, run by Pawai (Billy T. James). Dog bursts in on them, thinking that Cheeky is trying to poison Wal, but ends up ruining the dinner after Cheeky vows never to see Wal ever again.
Wal leaves Dog tied up outside as punishment, and Dog is later attacked by rats but is rescued by the resident stray cat, Horse. It begins to rain heavily, and Jess is knocked out of her box and is lost somewhere near the Murphy's. Meanwhile, the Murphys, under the direction of Irish (Peter Hayden), steal Cooch's stag under the cover of darkness. While Wal tries to move the bull, Wal's goose tries to bite Wal on the butt (a running gag) and Rangi and Dog try to move the sheep, Rangi notices that Jess is gone. He tries to get help from Wal who refuses, his only concern being to play in the rugby game. Rangi and Dog decide to go looking for Jess themselves but are later separated. Rangi decides to go and get help from Wal, while Dog goes and looks for Jess, literally following in her footsteps. As the storm starts dying down, Cooch goes to feed his deer, but notices his stag is missing.
The next day, Rangi still tries to get help from Wal, but Wal wants "His Big Chance" to become an All Black, and so drives to the local rugby pitch with both Rangi and Pongo. During both the drive and the game (played against the Mill team and their star player Spit Murphy), Rangi tries to come up with a plan to get Wal to the Murphys'. When one of Wal's players are sent to the hospital wing, Rangi chooses to play with Wal in order to steal the ball and get Wal to follow him. When Rangi grabs the ball and runs off, Wal follows him, but only because Pongo mentioned that the Murphys stole Cooch's stag, after eavesdropping on their conversation.
Meanwhile, Dog finds Jess under attack by rats, led by their leader, Vernon the Vermin. Soon, while running from the Murphy's dogs, Dog kills Vernon with a log. Rangi hitches a ride on the top of the Murphy's van and later arrives at the Murphy's farm. Rangi is captured by Irish Murphy and locked in a shed. Irish decides to kill Dog, Jess and Horse by following them to the river with a gun. Wal and Pongo arrive. Pongo goes to help Rangi, while Wal chases after Irish and Wal's goose chases after Wal. Spit Murphy tries to help by taking the helicopter, but it's destroyed and Spit is captured by Pongo and Rangi. Irish manages to shoot Horse, while Wal swings in to get Murphy. First he falls in a mud pit, then he saves Irish from drowning and then finally ends up getting bitten "on the freckle" by his goose.
Dog saves Jess from crocopigs, with the unconscious Horse on the raft. Later, they float to a bridge, where Wal, Pongo and Rangi attempt to bring them up. Fortunately, Rangi manages to get a hold of Jess, but misses Dog and Horse. They pick up Cooch and decide to try down the beach, but no luck. They all leave, with the exception of Jess. After they leave, Jess starts barking, so Wal, Cooch, Pongo and Rangi turn back. Dog and Horse, now recovered, are still alive and arrive at shore.
The movie ends with Dog and Jess walking past Major, Wal's pig dog, with puppies in tow. | romantic | train | wikipedia | An animated classic.
One of the few non-disney animation films that are truly great.
This story of rural New Zealand follows the adventures of a farmer, the local kids and a dog- Dog. The only animated feature new zealand has ever produced is a classic.
Exciting, hilarious, scary it has everything.
The unique style of the comics works well on film and the atmosphere created by the dingy colours at some times is truly immersing.
See this movie now!.
A ground breaker.
This film was an amazing event when it was released in New Zealand.
Footrot Flats has for several decades been New Zealand's most popular and best loved journal cartoon strip.
Murray Ball's characters are household names to millions of Kiwis around the world, and this film gave them living character, voices, movement.
The film was celebrated immensely and rightly so as, made as it was with that unique NZ quality that comes with our movies, it had cartoons speaking with Kiwi accents that weren't forced or too Australian, NZ scenary, NZ themes that captured the rural environment of the day - everything about it was, and to many people no doubt still is, very familiar.
The film has Dog - the real-life inspiration for whom died a few years back which received national media attention - saving Jess, his bitch, and starting a family, trying to keep Wall and his girlfriend Cheeky apart, and discovering the meaning of being alive, as well as the human menaces of his life living their simple existences.
A must for all patriots of Aotearoa, anyone who's lived on or spent time on a farm out the back of some place here or there, or anyone who loves good quality animation..
One of a Kind.
This movie was bloody excellent - sorry but its almost like a opening line by Wallace Footrot.
Anyways They are releasing this movie on DVD for the first time in almost 20 years on November the 9th, 2005.
The movie set the scene for many New Zealanders or as we call them Kiwi's.
It shows the life on the farm, as well as the sport that many Kiwi's love, Rugby.
the life of a jealous dog who loves his owner and Loves his owner to love him.
The trials and tribulations of a Dog, and owner relationship, with the beautiful animal lover neighbor, his pet cat, named horse who is ferocious and a fine example or a fine male dominant cat.
We can forget the many others in this movie as well.
Slice of 80s.
This film was indeed a big hit when it came out in the mid-80s.
I watched it again recently for the first time since seeing it on the big screen, and was suprised at how different my perception was of it as an adult rather than a kid.
As a kid I don't remember the awful synth music being quite so awful, yet of course this can be put down to the decade which spawned it.
The voice of the dog was also far too weak and naieve, and was the script, I didn't feel that it captured the dog's character as I imagined it having grown up reading the Footrot Flats cartoons.
Aside from the script and soundtrack though, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie again.
The backgrounds are great and really capture the dark gritty feel of rural New Zealand.
The animation is good and the rugby scenes are funny and really capture the end of an era - farmers dreaming of being All Blacks, not for money but for glory.
The days before the All Blacks donned Adidas shirts.
I think that if the soundtrack was re-recorded and some of the script changed this A Dog's Tail could be re-released and make a comeback in the theatres.
However as a slice of 80s it is a pristine example as it is..
Great Movie.
I have to say that this is one of New Zealand's greatest movies.
Unlike "Lawless", "Xena", "Hercules" and the like, this movie proved that New Zealand can do animated features.
The soundtrack is great - personally I like Oughta Be In Love and Slice of Heaven.
Good on ya Murray Ball and my Dog Rest in Peace..
A good cartoon film showing New Zew ealand life.
A great piece of work by New Zealand cartoonist Murray Ball.
This shows New Zealand culture at its best.
Most people will think of xena when they think of New Zealand entertainment but this is really a piece of art..
this would be so great if it was remade!
or even a sequel.
Truth is I did keep an open mind, but i could see that despite the heart of this movie it wasn't enough to hide the missing a few basic film making essentials.
I laughed but it was usually when no one else was, kids and parents around laughed a little more robustly so i maybe jaded, anyway I feel that...Too many cutaways were missing, to tie things together and make it a sweeter experience.Characters needed just a little more development to give them some character.Script needed tightening as did some scenes.(wal dancing to 'outta be in love') The most defined and likable characters were RANGI and HORSE, Jess was likable enough but needed a little more attitude and more screen time.best voice over was RANGI(rawini prating) I recommend this if you have kids, are a kiwi or want to know about NZ and kiwis or if you are a farmer or want to know about farmers..
I'm a Brit....
...and A1+++++, I loved this kid's movie!
It's entertaining down-on-the-farm happenings are brilliantly brought to life through the late great Murray Ball's creations.
Get the 1986 movie now on DVD; it's a true keeper for kids of all ages!.
Warm moonlight over our horizons.
Vale Murray Ball - and thank you TV3 for screening this homage to a bygone era.Yes it's dated, sexist, homophobic and probably racist to boot, but there's still something quintessentially endearingly cheerful about this snapshot in time of a bygone age.Our heroes face Homerically impossible odds against the evil forces of the Murphys, rats, wild pigs, the weather and anything else you can think of - but time after time they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat - this is the kind of spirit that led to the invention of Number 8 fencing wire, this is New Zealand....
This old girl has not aged well at all..
Beautifully drawn but Clunky, economical animation and an abysmal home made soundtrack, Its most damming mistake was to almost completely ignore the subtle and endearing humor of the original comic strip.
The story was at its best when it was more true to its origins.
There was just way to much noise,action, fight and chase sequences.
Not to mention the most annoying helicopter ever animated.
Another sore note is the under use of Dave Dobins "Slice of heaven".
A missed opportunity considering what a great song it is.In context and at the time it was released it was popular and its seemed New Zealand was saying to the rest of the world, "watch this space" 3/10.
Footrot Flats.
I am quite happy with the way Murray Ball has put together such a great movie.
I am a girl I know but I love football...
The soundtrack to go with the movie just made the movie so much better.
I do agree with the annoying helicopter noise and not enough of the song Slice of Heaven.
But have bought it and is in a special collection.
Congratulations to all cast and crew for a great job....
A movie that will never die for me...
I watched the making of the movie and it was the best part of the DVD.
Seeing the characters are really based on actual people.
They have made the details so accurate it is unbelievable.
Don't judge the movie until you watch the making of the Footrot Flats.
Considering how old the movie is, it is still so popular.
Wal was my best character as he reminds me so much of an average every day guy, but he is still so romantic.
My other favorite character is dog.
The biggest sook but still a mans best friend.
I hope everyone enjoys the movie as much a I did..
Wish this was better.
As a Kiwi who grew up with this comic strip, I looked hard to find this film which few stores in my part of Australia seem to stock.
However, I was disappointed in the results.
The film tries to fit far too much in, and lacks a coherent plot.
Where's the resolution of the dog drowning in the sheep dip?
What about the 'breakup' between Wal and Cheeky?
My kids watched the film and frankly were bored.
It just goes to show that a great comic strip doesn't necessarily work as a film.
I also thought the soundtrack was lame, especially when Wal (voiced by the always excellent John Clarke) suddenly breaks into song with the high-pitched tones of Dave Dobbyn - a voice that would have been much more suited to the dog.
Let's face it, if this wasn't a Kiwi animation with nostalgic value for many of us, it would be a complete bomb |
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