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Sometimes when a film is panned by the critics one just has to see it to see if it is really as bad as the claim, well in this case it was. I believe it was meant to be a sex comedy but it was neither sexy nor funny, I think I chuckled once when Johnny Vegas failed to vault a roadside fence and that was it.
The film follows the lives of four men who deliver potatoes for a living, each of them has a problem with their sex lives; Dave has left his wife and seeks out an old flame who once invited him for a threesome a few years before, Ferris is living with his mother in law who treats him as a sex object, Tolly has an obsession for involving strawberry jam in his encounters and Jeremy claims to be in a loving relationship but is in fact stalking some poor woman.
The tone of the jokes varies from tasteless to "I don't believe that anybody could write that" an example of the the latter being when they tell a small child his father has died in a car crash, then for the punch line when the boy asks how his mum is they tell him she is in a coma. The blame for this all lands squarely at the feet of the writers, the actors obviously made a poor choice agreeing to be in this film but I didn't think their acting was all that bad... not that it was all that good either. Surprisingly for a fairly sleazy film about sex there is no nudity and the sex is never erotic.
I certainly wouldn't recommend seeing this for any reason other than morbid curiosity although judging from other reviews this seems to be a love it or loathe it film, I suspect it would be better watched after a few beers and with your mates.


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Now i like Johnny Vegas which is a good start, I also enjoy toilet humour
Such as Young Ones and Bottom etc. This however failed to bring even a
small smile to my face. The story follows Johnny around after his wife
chucks him out (how he got his good looking wife and kid i dont know)
as he attempts to shag anything that moves. Failing normally. I was looking forward to this but found it to be totally boring and a waste
of my time altogether. Unless you are stuck for something to do for 90 mins apart from wash the car then dont bother.....



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The unfunniest so called comedy I've ever seen
Not a patch on the naturalism of the hilariously dare Twin Town
Vegas I ;like normally but this script is so dire so predictable so well English in the worst way (In recent years the English films have been awful all of them) Ireland at least produced the commitments, Scotland with Braveheart and Trainspotting 2 stand out great movies and Wales had Twin Town, Zulu, Last Days of Dolwyn , Torchwood, Doctor Who and Under Milk Wood etc
The comedy is paint by numbers, the actors are dead men walking because there is no characterisation and no originality and it's just so unfunny
England is falling behind no matter how many grim up north movies they produce. It's the old class system that destroys English films. The Oxbridge graduates spewing endlessly clichéd scripts about working class people they've never lived with. It is pathetic. Monty Python wasn't funny, neither was anything from Oxbridge.
Let guys like Jonny Vegas and Peter Kay, Rob Brydon, Billy Connolly or write their own dialogue and forget the archaic failed class system let the working class people and the real talent that comes through the system properly take over the writing and the British and English film industries will rise again what next prince Edward to write a modern day Oliver Twist?


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The other day I showed my boyfriend a great movie, Stand By Me, a movie I have shown to many people and they absolutely adored it, but for some odd reason he didn't like it. He lends me a movie called Backdraft and he tells me that he's shown it to many people and they loved it, instead I hated this movie. I don't think I've hated a movie so much in a while, how this movie has even a 6.6 rating is beyond me. I couldn't keep up with the five million stories here: Billy Baldwin becoming a fire man, the random sibling rivalry, the random love story(s), the who's being an arson story, the investigator, the fire who has a personality of it's own. I just have a problem that this movie can't keep up with all these stories, they didn't balance out well enough make the film interesting. I would have just preferred if this movie was about being a firefighter or the investigator and how he came to be one or what it is exactly he does and why.
The movie tells the story of a group of Chicago firefighters, two brothers. Stephen "Bull" McCaffrey, the elder brother, is obsessed with the beating of the fires that he fights. Brian, the younger brother quit the fire fighting academy school several years before, then embarking on a number of other unsuccessful careers before returning to become a firefighter. He is looked down on by his elder brother who expects him to fail in his newly chosen career as a fire fighter. Donald "Shadow" Rimgale is an arson investigator who is dedicated to his profession. He is called in because a number of fires that have occurred have somewhat similar connections. .Martin Swayzak is an alderman on the City Council. He has obvious hopes of being elected to mayor, but has had to make a number of budget cuts to the fire department. Many of the rank and file firemen believe that the cuts that he has made are endangering the lives of the firefighters. However, Swayzak is initially successful in portraying the fire department as bloated and ineffectual after firemen are repeatedly being killed in blazes.
I just couldn't get into this movie, I don't know how anyone else could, it was incredibly unrealistic and portrayed firefighters all wrong. I loved how they had every action cliché in the book to match this action flick. I just felt also like there was great talent wasted on such mediocre roles, Donald Sutherland, great actor, but such a strange role that could have been taken by a lesser known man who had the upcoming talent at the time. I know Ron was going for great quality, but I think him casting such huge actors in small roles was a mistake for this film. I even had to joke my way through while watching this movie commenting how the doctor in the background was probably Kevin Spacey. The fire was so unrealistic and the movie was just so out there, I didn't enjoy it and honestly wouldn't recommend it to people, I'll stick to the recommendations in my relationship from this point on.
2/10


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I loved this movie when I was a teenager. LOVED it. It hasn't grown up with me, though. Maybe that's because it's a melodramatic load of old rubbish, full of macho posturing, cheesy dialogue, overwrought slo-mo and characters saying 'Goddammit' a lot. The lumpy narrative blobs gracelessly from one character to another, one plot strand to another, without ever bringing it all together, and it doesn't help that William Baldwin's mono-expression of a performance is wet enough to put out every fire in the movie's overlong runtime. Robert DeNiro and Donald Sutherland are worth watching, but no one's really at the top of their game here, and the women folk get particularly short thrift. The only real impact comes from the impressive firefighting sequences, and Hans Zimmer's majestic score, which remains one of my all-time favourites.


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If You can watch a film without worrying about the plot, or corny acting, then Backdraft is definitely the one.
However, if, like me, you like watching films that you can believe, then Backdraft has some serious flaws. It doesn't offer anything new, and there are hundreds of 90's action films that follow identical formulas, whilst not being quite as clunky.
After two firefights, i'm thinking, this has got to go somewhere else, i mean, how many big fires are there in one city? Surely firemen do other things, such as getting cats out of trees? Well I was wrong, and the repetition continues again and again, up until the end.
A good aspect of the film is the fire itself, well filmed, and I must say i felt quite hot while watching it, which suggests that two hours of watching fire without a story or acting would have been more suited to my taste.


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The basic plot is good and can be engaging. The music is so great that it became the theme music for the TV show IRON CHEF (though it is WAY overused and too intrusive in the movie). So, how did this movie end up so poor?!?! Well, the plot was about 95% predictable and the characters were about as 1-dimensional as possible. And the dialog?! What person would actually allow themselves to receive credit for coming up with the STUPID macho bull-crap that purports to be dialog? You get much greater realism from most cartoons! The bottom line is that this movie has some good points but is so marred by hackneyed clichés and rotten dialog that it quickly becomes tiresome. And, this is a shame, because firemen deserve a better tribute than this mess! If you don't believe me, look at the number of goofs listed on IMDb for this movie--WAY in excess of what you'd expect to find. They just didn't care enough to work out all the kinks and problems. So, as a result the movie seems rushed and in need of a re-write and re-editing.


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The man who gave us Splash, Cocoon and Parenthood gave us this incoherent muddle of cliched characters, poor plotting, you've-got-to-be-kidding dialogue and melodramatic acting? I guess everybody has a bad day at the office now and then. He's allowed.


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When I first watched this film, I thought that it would be rally good, because it featured my favourite actor of all time. He gives a sterling performance, though it is fairly obvious he didn't have to life more than half a finger to make the róle work. He is the only good thing in it, unlesss you're into explosions and American dream-working class hero trash (which I'm not).
I don't get it. How can this film get away with being so naf. That bit with the little boy being rescued, I mean, come on! You can't tell me that he would have been rescued without the fire-guy wearing any goggles (I know for a fact that it would have been pitch black in there and you can't see for more than a couple of feet infront of you) and no breathing equipment (he'd have choked after 2 minutes!). This film was just bad, OK?
Why Robert? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY????!!!!
Sorry if this is your favourite film.


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Beautiful images, propaganda and history as toy. The ingredients of this film, good, interesting but with many shadows. Politicall shadows. Jefferson is more than the hero of a mythical America. He is silhouette of a vision about life and society, an extraordinary thinker, teacher of large part of North America. In film is only Superman. The delicate contour of ideas are crushed. The subtle birth of essential truth is forgotten. And Jefferson is basic instrument for create a good image of American realities. The end,triumphal and fake, romance and heroic, is gun suicide of a story who may be tall with more wisdom. And the war against "Avatar" is another gray stain. For one who heard nothing about Jefferson, movie is a good beginning. For the others - disillusion. It is like the precious silk of a tailor. But the tailor is fascinating about silk and the clothes are only ordinary cloth. So, a sad experience. Slices of beauty and boring lakes, patriotic lesson and the crush of expectation. A film who must impressive. And the ash of a story who could be magnificent.


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I just got back from "AGS". After seeing it, I'm convinced that no matter how much it's written how he extensively researched the film, Stone NEVER has watched an NFL game in his life. Great cinematography ? Give me a break. The game montages were almost unviewable and 90% of the other shots in the film were close-ups. Was there ANYTHING in this movie that wasn't brought up in "North Dallas Forty" ?
Aging star player ... check. Young hot shot .... check. Painkillers .... check. Owner who doesn't "get it" .... check. Crazy off-field behavior .... check
Also, it's the playoffs in Dallas (i.e Dec or Jan) in an outdoor stadium, yet people sitting there in tank-tops and shorts ! And what was with those lights ? Were they playing in a Japanese Kabuki theater or a sports stadium ?
And the strategy shown in the game was laughable. It's fourth & 1 inside the "Sharks'" 30. Dallas leads 35-31. KICK THE FRIGGING FIELD GOAL. Not only would this had made sense football-wise, but you'd then have an even better final sequence where they could have scored and had to go for the two-point conversion. Hell, tie the game w/ the extra point and Stone could have made it an even 3 hours with overtime.
Were the lame montages of "old time" football players supposed to be a tribute to the game ? Give me a break.
And the script ... ugh. More cliches than you can shake a stick at .. oops, there's another one.
"Slapshot" was better than this movie. By far.
1/10.
Skips this at all costs.



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I have never seen a more unrealistic movie than this foul piece of dung. The acting was over the top. The direction was tacky and amateurish. The script was just a joke. The story looked penned by a person that has never been around a high school football game, much less a professional game. And why, why did Oliver Stone feel the need to place himself in this movie as an actor? He was terrible, playing the most unrealistic announcer ever. He could not even get hired to do professional wrestling contests. Then you have Jamie Foxx, who throws like a girl. But, he is a tad more athletic than the aged Dennis Quaid. Seriously, Stone wanted to direct this film at 16 year old males with ADD. That is why we hear the loud music, the quick cuts and numerous edits. It just became a bad MTV video. Shame on Al Pacino for doing this crap. Cameron Diaz? Heck, that no-talent takes any role that comes down the pike. When Lawrence Taylor is the best "actor" you got going, well, your movie sucks! And this one does.


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Another lame attempt to make a movie "gritty" and "thought provoking"- whatever the hell that means. They have Al Pacino say a lot of words like - "Television killed football." Yeah whatever. This is another movie that showcases Oliver Stone's Delusions of Grandeur. If Stone is trying to show us that football will be our downfall or something, why does he insist on romanticizing the sport with his stilted camera movements and Kid Rock songs? He even throws Cameron Diaz into the fray for purely aesthetic reasons. It's a shame that Diaz and Pacino have to meet in a movie that is so bad.
Ever since "Scent of Woman," writers and directors have used Pacino to romanticize their pathetic lines. His characters are nothing more than loudspeakers - their voices covering up what would normally be redundant and trite. He needs to reinvent himself, showing how he can act without yelling. He has to stop feeling sorry for hokey scripts with cheesy lessons like "Organized football is messed up," and act out a good story.


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This noisy, dizzying football film from director Oliver Stone seems to have everyone in the cast - well, everyone except William H. Macy, who could have tackled the role played by Mr. Stone, the team doctors, or the "fruitcake" selling cereal. If you're a fan of the foul-mouthed, there are some great, profanity-laden knock-down, drag-out, put-down phrases you can try-out on two-faced friends and way-ward lovers. The film is sometimes good as lively background party atmosphere, especially during the first two hours; it even features some MTV-styled music video scenes.
** Any Given Sunday (12/16/99) Oliver Stone ~ Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid


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I looked forward to seeing this movie, because the trailer made it look so cool. But the fact is that this movie is boring, and totally muddled. There is no plot, and half the movie is fast flashing shots from football games. Zoomed in shots, that gives you no overview of the games. I was constantly looking at the timer, to see when the movie was over!
There's only ONE good thing about this movie. The sound!! The soundtrack is awesome! .............Don't expect anything from this movie.


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Stone has tried another type of movie. Any Given Sunday falls short of a the above average The Last Boy Scout and the below average Against all Odds. Stone can be fantastic, see The Doors, Natural Born Killers or Platoon but he can also repeat himself see Nixon or Born on the Fourth of July. His real brilliance is realized in the Michael Caine perfection, The Hand.


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Predictable, cliche, unbelievable, boring...what else can I say? It's only the caliber of the cast that saves any redeeming qualities of this bloated mess. Oh yeah, and the entertaining end zone antics.
But wait for the eleven o'clock highlights, 'cause the outcome is as predictable as who's going to win the Globetrotters/Washington Generals matchup.
I was well into the second act before I figured out these were supposed to be PRO teams we were watching (all clad in vintage Padres brown). And Cameron Diaz character's imitation of a youthful Georgia Frontiere was ill-conceived on the page. (Not your fault, Cameron. Would you like to go to dinner?)
Enough of this - I'm only on a rant because I was looking forward to this film. Rent THE LONGEST YARD instead.



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For a horror film, this is criminally dull. A few memorable, gruesome bits can't compensate for a really poor script. Very little coherence is achieved, and the movie relentlessly overplays its one basic idea (a killer cat), until it becomes repetitive - and things are made even worse by the constant use of shots from the cat's point-of-view. (*1/2)


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I've always found the dilettante Man Ray and his artistic efforts to be deeply pretentious, and I've never understood why his work attracts so much attention. Apart from his Rayographs (which he invented by accident, and which are merely direct-contact photo prints), his one real contribution to culture seems to be that he was the first photographer to depict female nudity in a manner that was accepted as art rather than as porn. But surely this had to happen eventually, and there's no real reason why Ray deserves the credit. The critical reaction to Man Ray reminds me of the story about the Emperor's New Clothes.
"L'Étoile de merde" ... whoops, "de mer" ... features a lot of blurry photography and a recurring visual theme of a starfish, which is never explained. Starfishes have the fascinating ability to regenerate lost limbs -- and even to regenerate entire duplicate bodies -- but, if that has anything to do with this movie's theme, Ray neglects to say so. I was much more impressed by this movie's title cards, which (in French) manage to include rhymes, a pun ('Si belle, Cybele') and some portmanteaux.
As so often in Ray's work, there is indeed a beautiful young woman seen in this movie. Unfortunately, the photography is (largely) so blurred that we have little opportunity to appreciate her. I'll rate this mess one point out of 10.


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A woman in love with her husband (he's suicidal) decides to have a baby to save his life. She's been to a fertility clinic - as has the lover she takes - so both know how artificial insemination works; but, instead of using the method thousands of people use every year around the world (the $5 turkey baster), they engage in coitus. We also are to believe that although the immigrant is in love with his fiancée, he doesn't suggest the obvious alternative to intercourse. Further, even though this is a business arrangement, the first time she's with her sperm donor, she takes off all her clothes, as if it's a seduction. Plus, her husband doesn't notice when $30,000 goes missing from their bank accounts. Does all this seem to demand more willing suspension of disbelief than even most Hollywood fare? Far fetched on all counts.


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Admirable but weak James Bond film mainly because both the hero (Bond) and villain (Blofeld) were seriously miscast. Lazenby is too big and innocent looking to play Bond. He looks and acts more like the good-natured but dim-witted sidekick in a police action movie. The director and writer try to establish his credibility, but his saying of lines like "Royal Baluga, North of the ..." just aren't effective in establishing him as this worldly and suave rogue. Savalas doesn't do a bad job, but his characterization and behavior is more fitting of a mob gangster. The best portrayed characters of the movie are those of Tracy and her father. But the performances by those actors when sharing the screen with Lazenby only serve to emphasize his deficiencies as an actor. This movie is too long (140 mins.) for a Bond film and doesn't offer any excitement until Bond's mountain escape, where it begins to pick up. This film tries very hard, but falls short. Many Bondian elements are present and the climatic battle is top notch, but I always get a sense of something missing when watching this one.


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I attended a screening of 'The Cooler' at the Toronto Film Festival this year. While the other reviews I've read seem to be generally (and mystifyingly) positive, I must tell you without any kind of axe to grind that this film is unimaginably, unspeakably bad. The very brave and candid performances by William H. Macy and Maria Bello have been horribly misspent on what is probably the least polished, most clichéd script to have received the green light in years. I don't know how bad The Brown Bunny was, but I'm certain it couldn't have attained the Dante-style depths that this one did. As courageous as their performances were, perhaps the bravest thing these otherwise brilliant actors did was to entrust themselves to such a dreadful director and abysmal screenplay.
He must pitch pretty well in the boardroom, because he should never been permitted to be within a hundred yards of a camera. The dialogue is so embarrassingly contrived and clumsy that I actually found myself blushing during the screening. I am mortified that the talents of Macy have been totally squandered in the hands of someone whose direction is as incompetent as his writing.
Watching gifted actors like Alec Baldwin labor through Kramer's appalling script and ham-fisted direction was akin to watching a baby seal get clubbed to death - I felt angered, helpless, and sickened all at the same time. Although I am always glad that there are investors and industry-people willing to take risks on quirky scripts with interesting premises, this picture was a total, utter fiasco. Kramer couldn't have been crueler to these actors if he had himself taken a steel pipe to their knees. I hope for their sakes they can all avoid similar humiliations in the future. Macy wisely ducked out the side door and didn't even stick around for the screening. Regrettably, it seems that the bad luck of main character has rubbed off on the picture in the worst possible way. Anyone accustomed to quality independents will likely find it completely unbearable.


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This movie is very disappointing for one who has read the book. As written by Rafael Sabatini, this was a clean cut tale of piracy in the Caribbean, and it would have made a grand motion . Also, it would have been very simple to make. All the action takes place aboard ship and on a deserted island. Unfortunately, the screen writers took the title from Sabatini then threw the rest of the book away. Even the name of the main character was changed, and his screen personality was completely different from that of the individual described in the novel. It's a sad loss for one who loves a good sea story.


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This is a stereotype plot. A young fighter tries to enter a competition when he is not ready and is not selected to represent his fighting school. This leads to separation from the fighting school and naturally he finds a strange new master to teach him to fight.
The fights are not of high standards. They are way too "simple" in a way that 1+1 is simple to every adult. The fighter has trained and enters the ring, but does not do what he trained and gets an ass kicking. The coach yells do this and do that with no success. And after some more of this ridiculous beating he suddenly does what he is told and hits his opponent once. This results in a turning point in the fight, although our hero has been taking a beating of his life up until that point. Think about the Rocky movies and you'll have a good point of reference of how much beating he really takes. The fights are also shot poorly.
There final thing that screws this film up is the stupid romance. Cheesy music and awkward moments are not what I call entertainment.
These guys really could have made some quality entertainment, but the director wasn't up to the task. Or the other crew in my opinion. Maybe they had a small budget, I don't know, but what matters in the end is that this movie is bad and deserves the rating of 3 out of 10.


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This week's surprise screening at GV turned out to be the horror movie The Nun (La Monja). Seriously, I think that horror movies should try and come up with more imaginative titles, even though the story's about the character as described in the title. Who knows, soon we'll have spinoffs like The Monk, The Priest, and others belonging to various religious sects.
The basic premise goes very simply, that a ghoul dressed up in a Nun garb (so that it can lay claim to the title) goes around killing ex-convent girls. There seemed to be some sort of conspiracy involved, as the daughter of one of the victims, Eva (played by an eye candy Icelandic Anita Briem), goes on to discover, with the help of a few good friends, like a rip off of I Know What You Did Last Summer (mentioned also, by the way).
So as the body count increases, it's a race against time for our emotionally scarred (aren't they always?) heroine to uncover the truth and save the day. Delving into the sins of the mothers, the movie did the unthinkable, that with a dream sequence as the introduction. I hate dream sequences as it's a pretty cheap technique if not done correctly, and there are a couple of them in the movie.
In part, the movie played at times like Ju-On gone wrong with the plenty of Dark Water references, and they could have retitled this Unholy Water, for the circumstances and plot points in the movie. However, there are plot holes abound, so don't be looking into the storyline too deeply. You'd come to expect the standard textbook twists towards the end about the sadistic nun, and sets which look like they can rival recent Thai horror movie Dorm.
The acting's pretty forgettable, with the cast speaking in perfect heavily accented English. And since most of them are pleasing to the eye, the story must weave in a love scene in the middle of a witch-hunt. What gives? Hello, got hantu, still got mood ah? Then again, the ghoul is a pretty cheap animated/SFX which has a built in AI of popping up every now and then, in various fashion, just to elicit screams from timid audiences. The characters also break every unwritten rule in the Do-Nots in horror lore, so you know and expect their just desserts.
Can you possibly enjoy this movie? Sure you can. Just ensure that you're watching it in a full house (should be easy, since local folks are suckers for anything remotely horrific), and laugh at those who are so jumpy they scream at every "frightening" scene. It's pretty fun, and adds to the atmosphere, besides what's going on the screen. Surround sound doesn't even come close.
Think of it as watching an episode of Scooby Doo without the wisecracks, and it's a pity that the gory moments in the movie had to be censored for a PG rating. Those could possibly have been the best bits, now left rotting on the censor's floor board.


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This is a good blueprint for a study of corporate power and the dichotomoy between required public life and the need for privacy. Robert Taylor has been primed by corporate head Burl Ives as a surrogate son to replace him as head of the corporation. He sends him to England to negotiate a deal, where Taylor is both taken aback by the ethics and morality of the men he is dealing with and manages to fall in love with a refugee while he's at it. He comes back emtpy handed, having done his duty but having told the truth to the English about his motives. He attempts to marry the refugee rather than the boss's niece and so begins an attempt by Ives to discredit the refugee as a suitable wife for a corporate executive. It could have been gritter, nastier and less romantic - the amount of time spent on the romance skews the film away from the points it's trying to make about corporate ethics.
Somehow the costume design was nominated (undeservedly) for an Oscar - it's all business suits and the two women in the film dress conservatively - studio politics at work yet again, no doubt.
What is stiking however is the black and white CinemaScope cinematography which is excellent - this if anything deserved the Oscar nom. (It was MGM's first 'Scope film in B&W).
Not as good as it could have been but not terrible either.


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I love Japanese movies--having seen at least 100-200. So it's obvious I am not afraid of Japanese films. However, sometimes there are Japanese concepts for film that just don't translate well to Westerners. They might be hits at home, but abroad they just don't seem, well,...normal. It's like the live fish my wife ate on a business meeting or odd PS2 games such as dating simulators or Katamari Damacy--things that are accepted there that confuse non-Japanese. This is probably the way others view things Americans take for granted, such as American football, fried Snicker bars and Paris Hilton! Well the king of strange Japanese films that just don't seem right to Americans might just be ATAMA-YAMA. Now the style of animation isn't the issue--it's different but nice enough. No, it's the story concept itself and the rather bizarre ending. That's what make this a truly unusual film and it goes like this: There was a stingy man who, for no apparent reason, had a tree growing out of his head. It was little at first and he simply cut it away, but again and again it grew back--so he just decided to let it go. And, after a while, people began living on his head under the shade of the tree. Oddly, while they were under the tree, they were tiny but when they left, they were full sized again. Then, after finally getting sick of it all and yanking out the tree, the man drown himself(!?) in the hole in the top of the head where the tree was! The end.
See! I told you this was very, very odd--but not in a good way like TAMPOPO or HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS--just odd. O-D-D....odd! And unless you have a very high tolerance for this sort of thing, I doubt if you'll feel bad to know that this Oscar-nominated film did not win. Frankly, that makes me happy, as I really DON'T want this film to spur on such similar films. The only reason it earns a 4 is due to nice, but not spectacular animation.
This film made my brain hurt....I hope that isn't a sign that I have a tree!


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It is very possible that I simply didn't give the movie a fair enough chance because it was so immediately unappealing to me (something similar happened with Triplets of Belleville), but I really should have caught on when I put the film on and my roommate, an exchange student from Japan, immediately started laughing at the movie, saying that it sounded dumb. Now, I don't agree that it is dumb, the animation is very simple but clearly very skilled. It's like classic animation with added layers that add another element of realism to them while remaining strictly in the realm of the surreal at the same time.
But the subject matter is entirely unappealing to me. It has an interesting message about stinginess and greed, but it is wrapped in such an unpleasant package that it is almost not worth learning, especially because you already knew it anyway. The sound effects while the man is loudly gobbling cherries and cherry pits, for example, are indeed repulsive.
There was a clever scene of animation as we kept diving endlessly into the hole that the man finds in his head when he pulls the sapling out of his scalp, but it goes on for so long that it seems to overshadow everything else. There is so much stock put into that one sequence that it is almost like the whole movie is about it.
As I said about Triplets of Belleville, this would have been a great thing for a late night TV program like adult swim, or its Japanese counterpart, but an Academy Award nominated film? It gives me the impression that there is not generally a long list of animated short films for the Academy to choose from.


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In all the episodes, I never saw any real action or drama or comedy.
The plot is so repetitive.
****Somebody gets something old and then somebody else tells them a little bit about it and how much it's worth and who made it and where it comes from and how much it could sell for and if there was any work done to it.
Sowhile I watched about 30 of these, i realized...there is no drama....nobody ever loses a limb or life or gets divorced or hit by a car or air-plane.
There are no car chases or explosions- not even a horse race with old carriages.
All those guns and swords and nobody goes on a violent killing spree...what gives? No pshycos, no axe-murders, no-gun-totting old Englishmen in bad suits...just yap yap yap...you have an old tea set and it came from the country of Germany back in 1602 - blah blah blah...
I'm still waiting for somebody with a time machine to go on screen and ask about it, but no...it never comes to be and the only thing that happens is that some stuffy Englishman or woman serves up some crap about something old being sold in Boston or China during the Ming Dynasty - big EFFIN deal.
Can't anybody ever kidnap one of the leads and hold them for ransom? Is there no alien spacecraft that will obliterate the entire floor? Who the hell writes this stuff as a series and expects us to stay awake? This is about as entertaining as watching paint dry - only with commentary.
There's no sex, there's no comedy or romance, no action, no suspense, no action, no drama, no mystery or martial arts.
This show sucks! What ever happened to supermodels wearing thongs and spewing lasers from a futuristic weapon? Antiques Roadshow - More like grab a blanket and pillow and go to sleep show...


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It's about jealousy, it's about racism, it's about manipulation, but the underlying message is love. Geoffrey Sax tried to pull off Shakespeare's Othello, by bringing it to modern day context. However, the actors were not convincing enough to pull this off. There were extra bodies to help put everything in to perspective, however, John Othello, played by Eamonn Walker, over reacted a lot in this film, causing for the down fall of Keeley Hawes, Dessie Brabant, eventually ending in Dessie's death.
Ben Jago, played by Christopher Eccleston, was seen as the main character in the film. He didn't give enough evidence for Dessie to be cheating on Othello, with Michael Cass, played by Richard Coyle. Instead he just played a friend to all and gave one reason as to why she "was" cheating. In the play, it took a lot more convincing from Iago to make Othello even suspect anything. This change made the movie more about rage for the wrong reasons, than what the book was based off of. However, the movie did have a few good points. It turned the army scenes into more a racist group toward blacks, where Othello is the main chief of the police squad. These scenes are made believable by the raging crowds, and burning fires. You are able to sense the amount of racism in the movie, more so than you can in the book. This book plays up the modern day scenes by making it much easier to understand, than the Shakespearian times it was written in. In the play Iago (Jago) gets tortured at the end, but in the film he gets his satisfaction, and gets Othello's position. He never gets what he deserves and is never caught for telling the lie to Othello until it is too late. I saw this as a downfall in the movie, because I feel that the villain is granted his treasure of the promotion out of lying, and in the book, he is found out by Rodrigo. Overall, the movie could have done a better job based on the play than what it did. I feel that the director of the movie left out some of the most important parts of the play that were mentioned or there to make the play flow, or make it more of a tragedy. I would say that you should read the book first, in order to understand all of the events that happened in the movie, otherwise you may find yourself lost, and confused.


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Othello is set to burn the eyes of the viewers of this film. The bad depiction of Shakespeare's characters, and the terrible rendition of the love that Desi & John had, made this movie the horrendous filth that it is. By far, Othello, directed by Jeffery Saks, is beyond mediocre and atrocious.
The movie Othello is a pitiful drama about the love between John and Desi. Their faithfulness to one another will be tested by the man's friend. In the opening scene of the film, it is clearly shown that the love between John and Desdemona is inseparable beyond belief. Moments later, Ben Jago, John's friend pops out into the screen scaring the viewers and showing them right away how much of a liar and power hungry person he is.
By far, this movie was much more horrid than the Shakespeare novel itself. With that being said, it does have a miniscule amount of good parts. For example, the love that was shown between John and Desi, was depicted very well and it looked that the couple was so inseparable; just as it was explained in the book. Although the love between them was shown exceptionally well, it still did not show the jealously that Othello had between Cass and Desi as well as it should.
Love, jealously, deceitfulness, this movie is based on all three of the main topics that were in the Shakespeare novel. The novel however, really explains how all of this came together much better than the movie could. For example, the conclusion of this story ends much more differently in the book than in the film. Much more detail is also put into the novel. This is why this film is such a disappointment, trust me, those who have read it will find it disappointing as well.
In conclusion, this film was by far, the most horrendous depiction of a novel that has ever been put out by mankind. By avoiding to see this film, not only will viewers save themselves an hour two of their lives, but also save themselves an eye or two from the distasteful face of Ben Jago popping out at them.


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It seems like an exciting prospect, a modern-dress "Othello" with Christopher Eccleston, who was so frighteningly good in "Shallow Grave" and (especially) "Jude," and Eamonn Walker, who brought such intensity and introspection to his pivotal role on "Oz." One would think them both natural Shakespeareans, but both performers misfire: Walker's Othello is a fairly cookie-cutter take on the part, with a whispery delivery that doesn't make much of an impact; and Eccleston hams it up appallingly as Iago, winking at the camera in almost an outrageous parody of the role. It's likely he was egged on by his director, whose florid approach might have worked better with Elizabethan language, but who seems a jarring, pretentious choice for this modernized screenplay. And the screenplay itself is less disappointing in being modern than it is in being obvious  it's as if Andrew Davies sketched out the famous plot and then just wrote whatever dialogue first popped into his head. All in all, a failure. 4 out of 10.


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"I haven't laughed this hard since granny got caught in the wringer," says one of the potheads in this hilarious quasi-spoof of all those Val Lewton and George A. Romero walking-dead movies we have come to love (or loath, depending on your personal taste) through the years.
In this story, a young actor pair play a ghoulish prank on the rest of their troupe after, one spooky night, they visit a cemetery island. Their artistic director, Alan, pretends to bring the dead back to life by conducting a highly stylized ritual.
Way too much screen time is misspent; the amateur dialog includes lame witticisms, melodrama and other kinds of unnecessary filler commentaries (And can't Alan stop that irritating laughter... way too much!). Once the action kicks in (which comes close to the end of this film), it's worth the wait.
I saw this one on a late-night, local station television program that ran films very much like this one... only this one scared me at the age of 13... but then again, you might laugh your way through it, until the bitter end... ...which is probably the reason, nowadays, why very few people still wear striped hip-huggers.


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Strange, often effective hippie zombie flick, starring the unforgettable husband/wife team of Alan and Anya Ornsby, this movie isn't as bad as most in its genre, but is still way high on the cheese-factor. Includes several bargain-basement zombies, outrageously campy dialogue, a scene-chewing performance by Alan Ormsby, several gay/kinky grave-robbers, and one straange soundtrack. Wife Anya puts on a performance that's so odd, one has to wonder if she's really acting at all. There are much worst pics of this kind during the era (look for any Al Adamson flic), but it's no Night of the Living Dead. Director/Writer "Benjamin" Clark, is really Bob Clark, who went on to create the purile "Porky's" early 80's teen exploitation disasters. He has only now resurfaced after 1 inexplicably good movie ("A Christmas Story") to return to his dreadful ways with "Baby Geniuses". Weirdo Alan Ormsby later wrote the kinky Nastasia Kinski/Malcolm McDowell version of "Cat People". Moocow says check this hippy horror movie out for fun, zombie frolics, and campy dialogue :=8)


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I'd heard a lot of bad things about this film before seeing it, but thought all the negative comments were probably down to the film's low budget and poor acting - both of which I can deal with when it comes to zombie films. However, what I didn't count on is this film being really, really boring; if there's one thing you can count on from low budget zombies, its gore and entertainment - but unfortunately, this film has neither. I'm quite surprised, because the previous two horror films I've seen from director Bob Clark - Deathdream and Black Christmas - were both highly inventive and entertaining films, but Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things just doesn't cut it. The plot line follows a group of young adults that travel to a burial island in order to mess about with rituals to bring the dead back to life. However, they soon learn that playing with things they don't understand is a really stupid idea when their rituals actually bring the dead back to life and the corpses of the island return to feast on their blood!
The plots sounds like it could lead to a decent flick, but what I didn't mention is that the interesting parts don't start until the final twenty minutes; and as this is a ninety minute movie, I'm sure you can guess that this isn't a good thing. The opening hour and ten minutes are padded out with poor acting and even worse characters. I can understand setting up a situation so that the horror is more potent once it comes along; but please, if you're going to spend so long on it, you've really got to make it interesting. All of the characters in the film are over the top and annoying, and personally I just wanted the zombies to hurry up and eat them. The film is not without its merits, however, as the atmosphere is a standout. Lucio Fulci would show seven years later how an isolated island and flesh eating zombies can blend well; but Bob Clark already did it with this film. The direction isn't bad either, but it's brought down by poor make-up effects and a distinct lack of blood, which isn't likely to please fans of zombie movies. Overall, I really can't recommend this film; but if you're a hardcore zombie fanatic, you may get a kick out of it.


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