empathielabs/imdb_v0 huggingface dataset:
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user\nA long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (sound familiar), water has become the most precious commodity (this has got to sound familiar) and a small minority control its distribution (what a surprise, just have a heart attack and die from that surprise). A group of ice pirates (water renegades?wet bandits?...oh wait, that last one's been used) try to discover the route to a fabled unlimited supply of water with a lovely but spoiled (Druish?) princess en tow and a group of idiotserdespicable villains in pursuit.
This movie has the potential to be a really great comedic parody (\"Star Wars,\" David Lynch's \"Dune\") but was just not handled correctly. It goes for, I believe the term is, \"low brow\" humor. It doesn't really succeed in being all that funny which is a shame since it has Angelica Houston, Ron Perlman and Robert Urich, (hence the three stars) who aren't exactly slackers in the acting department.
Definitely a rental and definitely have a drink straight up.
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user\nI can't knock this film too terribly, because it's obvious midway through the the watching of it that they were trying to make it bad, or 'campy' if you prefer. Anyway, many of the parts they tried to make funny actually are, but often simply for the cheese factor. Watch the 'space invaders' game, actually played as real-life! Scratch your head at the bumbling robots...oh, the wackyness! And watch the whole thing go way over the top near the end with the 'time warp'! And the sexual innuendoes just keep on flying...I'm actually surprised this got away with a PG. Oh well. A fun way to waste a couple hours, but Star Wars/Trek this ain't, folks. 3 out of 10.
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user\nI like the \"Star Wars\" series. I like a good, cheapo sci-fi flick every once in a while, too. Heck, I even like the Roger Corman-produced nickel-and-dime jobbies.
I do NOT like \"The Ice Pirates\", though.
For one, it just looks too cheap, you know? For a movie that's supposed to take place in outer space, it feels cramped and closed-in like it's being filmed in the front seat of someone's Mazda. And the special effects, while appropriately cheesy, look more than anything like foam rubber painted metallic gray.
Usually, I don't let things like that bother me, especially if the story and the characters are worthwhile.
They ain't.
The whole storyline, about these ne'er-do-well space pirates who decide to find a planet loaded with ice they can melt down and sell as water (a hot commodity in the future, I guess) is about as original as the jokes, which is not a compliment.
The humor comes in at about crotch-level (like that castrating machine you'll see early on), and everyone seems to have a cranky attitude. And who told John Matuzak that he was funny? Whoever did, shame on them. Good old Robert Urich tries, but he's a reliable actor on board a badly sinking ship (or starship, in this case).
I watched this one about three times and ended up feeling the same way every time - shanghaied.
No stars. In spite of of the presence of Huston (one year prior to \"Prizzi's Honor\") and Carradine (at the tail end of a once-lofty career), these \"Pirates\" should walk the plank.
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user\nWow. The storyline to this was just incredibly stupid. I realize that this movie was supposed to be of a comedic genre. But still, even nonsense is supposed to make at least some vague sort of sense.
Water has become incredibly rare substance?
Well, that's strange, considering that hydrogenated oxygen (or oxidized hydrogen) is one of the most plentiful substances there is in the universe. And pretty easy to make. Glomp together hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and voilà, water.
Instead of water, the rarity of dilithium crystals or some such thingamajig should have been used as a plot device as something the pirates would go after. Water as a plot device was just dumb, dumb, dumb.
The \"comedy\" seemed labored and contrived and forced. The comedy in the TV series \"Red Dwarf\" was labored and contrived and forced, but, it was actually amusing. Here instead, i felt like saying, \"Ha ha, that was just so funny, i forgot to laugh...\"
Sigh... all that money put into sets, costumes, actors... what a waste...
Rather than just whimper and whine and complain at it's lameness, my recommendations to make it better: 1) Use a believable plot device. 2) Get rid of the \"comedy\". None of the actors were really any good at it. The movie would work better as a \"serious\" action adventure.
The obvious intention of the writers was to do a spoofy comedy, but they didn't quite pull it off. It's not likely i'll ever watch this again. It's too much a total hack job.
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user\nAfter missing out on this innumerable times on TCM UK, I decided to check it out given its sci-fi/adventure/camp pedigree: I knew I’d be in for a thoroughly silly ride – but it was also astoundingly bad! Anyway, perhaps appropriately given the characters involved, the script rips off many sci-fi titles then of recent vintage – SOYLENT GREEN (1973), ZARDOZ (1974), LOGAN’S RUN (1976; to the extent that it was filmed on some of the self-same sets!), STAR WARS (1977), ALIEN (1979) and MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981)!
The plot is simple but not exactly engaging: from the title one can deduce that water has become scarce on the planet where all of this takes place – so our ragtag buccaneer heroes take it upon themselves to steal ice blocks from the tyrannical Templar(!) rulers. Also involved is a beautiful princess (Mary Crosby, daughter of Bing!) in search of her father, the deposed king; by the way, the cast includes another famous offspring: Anjelica Huston (daughter of John) as one of the pirate band – thankfully, the actress’ mistake in accepting such a role would soon be forgotten in the wake of her winning an Oscar (under her father’s guidance, no less) for PRIZZI’S HONOR (1985). Since STAR WARS had Peter Cushing as the “Supreme Commander”, the film-makers opted to have a screen legend of their own – 78-year old John Carradine (who’s seen strapped to a sort of operating table during his one brief scene!).
The most notable bits (for all the wrong reasons) are: the alien using the toilet; the castration machine; the clumsy antics (including karate-style combat!) of the inevitable robot companions; the goofy slave/eunuch make-up worn at one point by the heroes; the recurring attacks by the “space herpies” (whatever that is); the climax in which the characters are made to age when going through a time-warp (Crosby becomes pregnant, gives birth, and sees her son grow up in the space of 30 seconds, while leading man Robert Urich himself is replaced by John Ford stalwart Hank Worden for this scene!) – incidentally, the jump-cuts adopted here (intending to denote the rapid passage of time) are not only unsuccessful but downright irritating.
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user\nThe only redeeming scene in this movie is when the robots are sent out to fight 'karate style', there was one good spinning side-kick... and that is the best 3 seconds of the movie. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie has very little to recommend it -- there are better spoofs out there.
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user\nYou want to know what the writers of this movie consider funny? A robot child sees his robot parents killed (beheaded, as I recall), and then moves between their bodies calling their names. Yeah--what a comic moment. This is the worst movie I ever paid to see.
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user\nAn unintentionally hilarious early talkie melodrama with Kay Francis as the Countess Balakireff chasing everything in pants. At the beginning of the film she \"throws back\" the stableboy for being too young before setting off for the chauffeur! The high-toned English set she moves in is such a clichéd bunch of harummpf-ers that it's ridiculous. But the topper is Basil Rathbone as an Italian violinist with a Chico Marx accent! \"My violeen! How weel I ever play eet again!\" \"Patreecia, my meelk is cold!\" It's campy beyond belief.
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user\nAlthough many Billie Dove fans are delighted with her work here, I have to pass. As a socially prominent member of the British smart set, her British accent is basically non-existent and her line readings sound just like, well, line readings and her emoting seems trance-like and ponderous. Basil Rathbone, usually a fine actor, seems off-kilter throughout and also speaks with a weird sort-of-accent - in his case something like Italian, though we cannot be sure. The script manages to keep his precise ethnicity a secret. He is further hampered by the script which gives him one of those old movie diseases, something to do with nerves, which requires surgery. The only real entertainment is provided by the illustrious Kay Francis sporting a lacquered bob with side curls in her role as a depraved countess who shamelessly devours men, including Rathbone, and then spits them out. She pulls it off with her unique aplomb. She is the only living thing in this dead sea of a film.
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user\nBog Creatures shows exactly what can happen when very enthusiastic people get together with a little cash, some knowledge of movie making, a mixed bag of aspiring actors, and a lot of determination, yet all without the necessary knowledge and skills to pull off anything more than a fairly poor looking After School Special (in a bad way, not a nostalgic good way). I mean this is so-so quality home movie / student film stuff if you want to pass it around to family and friends for free. Thankfully, I found it in a discount bin somewhere. Sure, there may be some sort of market out there for this kind of thing, but it is a market that seems to only exist by default because there are so many poor B movies out there. Even more so now in this day and age.
The only people I would recommend this move to is aspiring guerrilla filmmakers. First, I would recommend that they watch the special feature MAKING OF thing included on the disc. See the film crews enthusiasm, their hard work, joy, and very high opinions of their own product. THEN watch the movie. Within a few frames you will hopefully understand what went wrong. Bored, I went through the whole thing and clearly the director and cinematographer tried, but just don't know enough about what they are doing. They knew enough to have fun, but in the long run, without necessary skills, this interprets to: They knew enough to be dangerous. This is like a bad Nickelodeon movie (as apposed to a more decent one I guess). A couple of the actors did ok, and the cool stoner looking dude with the tattoo (real or fake tattoo I know not) was probably the best and most natural and I hope he makes it. But their natural acting talent was what was coming through despite the bad movie, bad script, and so-so directing principles. If the director had spent more time helping these aspiring actors to develop their characters, studying successfully proven camera techniques and lighting principles to direct his crew better, and if the script had been actually worked on instead of written in a week or so (according to the very indulgent documentary) then maybe this could have been more of a film. Instead, it's a film that has a feeling of some potential, and has a few moments in it (due more to the genre than the film itself), but ends up showing nearly every frame, WHAT NOT TO DO. If you want to see what a decent low budget horror movie can really look like, watch Phantasm or even Laserblast. If you want a glorified home movie (no joke), get Bog Creatures.
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user\nI saw this movie yesterday on a public service channel. They had advertised it as an awful movie, and so I was drawn to see it, and I was not let down.
A group of 18-19 year old go to an excavation site at an old viking castle in Denmark, to try to uncover the myth of the Berserker vikings. Strange things happens: something is in the forest, and people start disappearing.
The main thing about this movie that really bothers me, is that the story is supposed to take place in Denmark, where I happen to live. There were so many places in the movie where the Hollywood-style overlapped danish reality. It really made the acting and drama look ridiculous in my eyes.
You never see the characters interact with any of their surroundings. Its feels like a mini-Hollywood in Denmark, and it takes away the credibility of the movie. When at one point you hear someone speak \"old danish\", it sounds exactly like modern day Swedish. Really bad research, considering the director is from Denmark.
The characters in the movie used GPS and maps, and that's really funny, since Denmark is about the size of your backyard. Nomatter where you are, there is never more than 50 km to the sea, and 500 meters to civilization. And if you are at a castle, there are going to be tourists everywhere. We see a lot of overviews of forests in the movie, and sometimes, we see what appears to be North American vegetation(?) The story did not exactly appeal to me, maybe because the acting was so bad. When the characters see the bog creatures for the first time, they are not even scared. I guess their acting skills were insufficient to display realistic emotions. At the end, there is an unexpected twist, but it didn't impress me, since I didn't really care.
The bog creatures are cheap, but they had the potential to be scary. Unfortunately, they fail, since we get a good look at them standing in the forest when the characters arrive at the castle. Also, there are no really scary scenes, since the Bog Creatures are mostly just standing around.
Anyway, conclusion: Disregarding the facts, the movie is your typical B-horror flick. I guess people from other countries can enjoy it more. As long as you are unaware of reality, it doesn't matter. Just like I think of USA as one big action movie set, everyone else can think of Denmark as a forest with a castle.. and some living-dead people in a bog..
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user\n********SPOILER ALERT************** Wasted 85 minutes of my life watching this \"film\". first of all, we think it is hilarious that the producer cameoed in the film as the autopsy doctor with a horrible unbelieveably unbelievable accent -- what the hell was that anyway, romanian? And how is it that in Denmark no one speaks danish except the bog creatures? (Note, the scottish camp director...). ? And who does the shopping for the bog creatures? Their pants looked like they were purchased at Banana Republic. Very nicely dressed for being 1200 years old. This one was worse than Scarecrow Slayer (we didn't think that was even POSSIBLE). We basically fast forwarded through 75% of the movie looking for any gore/death/scary moments. None found. Do rent the DVD just to watch the 2 hour \"Behind the Scenes of Bog Creatures\" featurette. Who are these people? Are they serious? And the filmmakers are like 60 years old. I think this is their holy grail and that's pathetic enough in and of itself.
BEST LINE from the movie, hands down: \"Not bad for a girl who never even went to graduate school....\" My blind grandma who has alzheimers could make a better movie.
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user\nLaughed my ass off but probably because I was stoned. That aside ... this is in no way a horror movie, there is no horror whatsoever in this entire movie and the plot holes are so huge that even a below average IQ person would think it was stupid. On top of that, I am living in Denmark and have been for all my life and can assure you that Denmark is way too small a country that you need GPSS and maps to find your way back if you got lost. I would estimate that unless you really put an effort into it you could never be farther away from town or other people than maximum 3 hours on foot. Secondly I don't think any part of the movie, apart from two shots from Copenhagen where none of the actors were in, were actually taped in Denmark. The bog woman is talking Swedish not Danish. The helmet on the first bog body is brand new. The girl they find in the forest is hiding under a type of rock that does not exist in Denmark. This is just stupid.
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user\nA potentially good idea gets completely let down by a weak script which throws all credibility out the window leaving the actors very little to work with. Roth covers it up as best he can by being all mouth; Hurt has about as much menace as a fluffy bunny and Stamp can't seem to decide whether he's playing an ex-London crook or some toff straight off the playing fields at Eton. As for poor Laura del Sol she does what she can but her character is no more than every northern European's idea of the stereotypical Latino woman who's all pouts and hot temperament. If you're a fan of any of the main actors don't disappoint yourself or fool yourself (as I suspect many of the other reviewer's here have done). Watch it by all means but stay critical; you know these guys can do better.
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user\nWhen King Kong stripped her of her top in the 1976 remake, I was breathless. I don't know how many times I went back to see that movies hoping to see more. Jessica Lange was not a great actress then (She became one), but she was so hot! I went to see \"Sweet Dreams\" when it came out because, by that time, Ms. Lange had become a great actress. It looked like a wonderful story. And she's always exciting to see.
I never walked out of a movie faster. My wife concurred.
When we got into the car, I turned to her, and said, \"If you had told me I would get bored watching Jessica Lange take her clothes off, I would have said your crazy. I just got bored watching Jessice Lange take her clothes off!\" How bad is that?
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user\nDirector and playwright Richard Day adapted his own stage material for the screen, clearly inspired by Rock Hudson's real-life dilemma from the 1950s: what to do with a screen idol who is secretly homosexual? Marry him off to an unsuspecting woman in order to quell the gossips (and keep him working). Wispy-thin idea given some energy by the good cast and retro production design which amusingly resembles a greeting card by Shag. The dialogue isn't very clever, and there's some slapstick goofing around near the beginning which fails to work (spitting out food, etc.). Still, when a serious tone comes over the final act, it is handled with great taste--and is far more welcomed by the viewer than all the klutzy silliness. Matt Letscher does good work as movie hero/male whore Guy Stone, but are his experiences here enough to strengthen his character, or would he be right back at the bar the next night? The movie seems not to know--or care. Day wants to get off a few one-liners and one carefully written pro-gay speech--a plea for tolerance--but he has no other agenda. For audiences who invest their time and interest in these people, the sentimental bow on this thing can look like nothing more than a prank. *1/2 from ****
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user\n... why watch a TV drama (billed as a comedy) in which none of the characters are likable or even interesting people ? I can sort of see what the writer David Renwick was trying to achieve: the misdirections and bad-taste surprises that he put into \"One foot in the grave\", etc. I admit that the script made a bit more of an effort than most on British TV at the moment. But really ... who cares about these people ? They are cold bores.
Another poster mentioned the scene in which the woman sits down to watch a video of herself and her deceased ex-boyfriend shagging. That was the moment when I switched OFF this programme, never to return.
P.S. It's interesting to note that the posters who didn't like this series are all British, whereas those who praise it are mostly in other countries. This reflects the fact that when the BBC broadcast this series it was ignored by viewers and sank like a stone.
P.P.S. Good news for those who liked it ! There will be a second series in Autumn 2007 - though without the male lead. It sounds like the BBC have decided to turn it into a more conventional 30 minute sitcom.
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user\nIf you live in the suburbs, are relatively well off financially, and do not really have much contact with the city life of england, then this is the comedy for you. Not something a mass audience would go for, but if you're like these characters they show you'll love it to pieces. Overall this is a comedy that the snobs at the BBC will sit back and laugh at for their pleasure and only a select few of the publics. Comparing it to BBC Comedys like Only Fools and Horses, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, and other classics, this series tends to drift away from the BBC's regular product to the audience and deliver to somewhat of a folk culture.
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user\nThis is the worst exercise in middle class pretentiousness yet to hit our television screens. I unfortunately did not see it when it was first shown but paid for the joy of watching six hours of excruciating drivel - and I'm still waiting for the laughs to arrive. I love Tasmin Greig having been a big fan of both Black Books and Green Wing and therefore know that she is capable of the very best of comedy parts. However, she played this part as well as she was able considering the lack of any decent comedy material provided. Please broadcasters bear in mind that the Trades Descriptions Act may well be invoked if you continue to bill as comedy material which is at best pseudo psychological romanticism and at worst a drama which poses as a quirky comedy to hide the fact that is neither fish nor fowl.
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user\nThis is a crummy film, a pretender to a genre of surprise ending movies. And a genre that has been done so much better before. The plot limps along, with a predictable ending. (Yawn) The characters are unlikeable, and some are so unlikeable they are almost unwatchable. Matt Dillon, a fine, intense actor is totally miscast here and is stiff and mannered. The others are forgettable. Much of the dialog is sophomoric, again a pretender trying to be witty. I wouldn't hire the screenwriter to write my grocery list. Yes, it's that bad, veering from misogynistic to just plain gross, as in beyond frat-house gross. With so much real talent out there, I'm really surprised this movie ever got made. It shows the total lack of imagination of the office suits...
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user\nSeems like a pretty innocent choice at first- the name \"employee of the month\" might ring bells with \"Office Space,\" and the show \"Office Clerk.\" I think not. This isn't even a dark comedy. The director of this movie, whoever the guy's name, was a complete jerk, and has a sick, perverse mind. There is no pleasure in being lured into feeling sorry for a complete loser who cheats on his wife, steals from his top-notch job, and lies through his teeth 24/7. The second I walk in to the room when my family are watching it (and believe me, they were only watching it more because they were praying that there would be at least some relief, perhaps even some fable in the end, sending a warm message of good justice done and when the good guys look good). All the good guys were killed so long ago that they had no time to look good. No memorial was made.
This movie has borderline insanity. It disrespects the elderly, the dead and women- and the director tries to make people to like it.
I gave this movie a two only because the soundtrack was good. But not even that was all that memorable. If you were lucky enough to not see this in theaters, definitaly my friends- do not do this at home.
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user\nI can't believe the amount of reviewers who praise this as realistic. I'm a million miles from being an expert, and I'm never going to climb a mountain; but even the very basic knowledge attained from reading Into Thin Air, and watching Everest Beyond The Limit and a few other Everest docs meant that this film just got more and more ridiculous as it went on. There is some good climbing footage at the start; and when the billionaire mission leader asks early in the film \"How much experience above 8000 metres do you have?\", I was encouraged to hope that this might be a gritty and accurate man-vs-nature odyssey. Instead you have a bunch of climbers zooming up a mountain with no acclimatisation; climbing with goggles off in full sun, and they are barely ever out of breath performing miraculous feats of endurance. Only near the summit is a little fatigue suggested, to dramatically accentuate the physical feat of climbing such a monstrous peak, almost as an afterthought. If you have no knowledge of mountaineering, give it a look: be prepared for some clichéd heroics (although no more clichéd than a hundred other passably diverting flicks), and a clichéd outcome. I've been developing a minor fascination with high mountains and was looking forward to watching K2; but other than some amazingly beautiful scenery, it was a let down because it was so far removed from reality. I can imagine some experts being employed in the making of this movie, but then being conveniently ignored in the pursuit of the heroic, and sadly fantastical storyline. Also, you would sound like a bit of a tit if you said \"welcome to the death zone\" at 200000 feet.
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user\nI bought the DVD out of a big bin for $4.99, thinking I'd lucked into some documentary pearl that would actually show extensive footage of the Karakoram mountains, and K2 in particular. Fast-forwarding through the film, I reached the climactic scene in which the climbers catch their first sight of ---- Mount Waddington, towering to all of 13,260 ft, in Canada's Coastal Range. At least one of the several bozos geared up to climb K2 clearly has no idea what the real mountain actually looks like -- he has to be assured by his friend and climbing partner that he wouldn't have been brought by said partner to an ugly mountain. Given that one of the film's premises is that 27 or so people have lost their lives on K2, you might think that the jerk in question might have taken a minute or two to bone up on a few basic facts, but the clown seems to think that preparations on this scale, while good enough for the likes of Reinhold Messner, are beneath him. To be honest, I haven't watched the whole thing. What I've seen makes me cringe. They say that you get what you pay for. At $4.99, I've been ripped off.
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user\nI don't know why I even watched this film. I think it was because I liked the idea of the scenery and was hoping the film would be as good. Very boring and pointless.
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user\nThey call this film \"euro trash horror\".
Well, it's not horror. The film takes place in Europe, so yes, it's \"euro\". Trash? Ah yes, it's trash all right.
You know you're in for a great movie when, right at the beginning, the DVD gives you text on the screen apologizing for the quality of the print you're about to watch. Expect crackles, odd jarring cuts, and for the movie not to fit the screen. Plus there's the sound -- at first I thought I was watching a dubbed film. Then, watching the lips carefully, I realized that, no, it's that the sound quality is embarrassingly bad and out of synch.
The plot itself is fairly goofy -- an old, disfigured woman named Dr Bannister kills a scientist for his youth formula. I'm not giving much away because when you see the \"old woman\" it's pretty obvious she's under a layer of thick, badly applied make-up. Anyone with a lick of sense, seeing the fake old age, knows what's coming next.
Yes, the \"old crone\" is miraculously transformed into a beautiful young woman -- complete with face make-up and a long wig of hair! Zounds!
When I say the old woman is disfigured, I mean she has cornflakes glued to her face. The film makes no attempt to explain how the cornflakes got there. For that matter, there is no attempt to explain anything at all relating to any of the characters. They're never developed beyond the level of finger puppets.
The two policemen pursuing our anti-heroine just wander about, apparently baffled by the simplest clues. The murdered scientist was working on a youth serum, the old woman has disappeared, and we keep running into a young woman -- how do these pieces fit together?! What does it all mean?! One of the cops sweats a lot and pats his face with a cloth. The other smokes a pipe. That's pretty much all we get, character-wise.
Dr Bannister (the crone, now a beauty) goes around wearing odd costumes and then taking them off so we can see her flesh. She has affairs with men. She gets in a catfight with a young woman in a nightgown. She goes to Geneva so we can see the lake there. She water- skis a bit, then takes off her wet suit to reveal a strange bead-curtain bikini. She takes off her clothes again in a strange ninja costume striptease.
The ending? Well, without giving anything away, it's just a bizarre, tacked on conclusion that makes about as little sense as the rest of the picture. It's the sort of thing a writer comes up with when the director wakes him up at 4 AM and says, \"Quick! We need an ending for our movie! What happens next?\"
The writer mumbles something half awake, and the director runs with it.
What's good about this movie? Some of the music is campy and fun. That classic 60s organ music that's so corny it's enough to make you laugh out loud. There are some odd seduction scenes, bizarre dialogue, goofy moments.
It's very close to being so bad it's good. I did manage to watch it from start to finish without gouging out my eyes or sobbing. I guess that's praise, of sorts.'
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user\nThis Spanish-Italian co-production tells an interesting and weird story about Dr. Bannister, a woman that not only has the best years behind her, but also has a scarred face that makes her look like a freak. But in Madrid, a professor she knows has conducted some experiments on animals with a substance which regenerates cells. The experiments were successful, but the animals became aggressive. Because the professor won't allow Dr. Bannister to be the first human guinea pig, she kills him and consumes the substance. She becomes a beautiful young woman, but also a vicious killer when it comes to keep her secret a secret.
The plot of the film is great fun, but Piero Vivarelli had not enough skills and money to make a cool movie out of it. Also, the film becomes boring after a good start and doesn't manage to regain a fast pace even though the film's running time doesn't exceed 83 minutes. And as the setting changes to Swiss city Geneva for the last third of the film, it sometimes even looks like a vacation movie as we see how beautiful Geneva is (which it is indeed - but it doesn't help to push the plot forward...). So, with a more talented director, better actors and a bigger budget, \"Satanik\" could have become an obscure Italian classic. But, as it is, it's just a lacklustre and boring crime film that isn't really worth looking for. Rating: 3 out of 10.
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user\nDeformed, aged female scientist kills fellow scientist in order to steal formulae for rejuvenating cells and reversing the aging process. She takes it and turns into the beautiful, evil Satanik (Magda Konopka) who goes around, seducing and murdering wealthy businessmen.
She dresses very stylishly in late-60s mod clothes and manipulates those around her, looking a lot like the late Marisa Mell from the DIABOLIK film. Coincidence??
However, in spite of all this, it's amateurish and sloppy without the James Bond pop-art gadgetry that DIABOLIK had had. Even the Madrid and Lake Geneva filming locations don't make up for this.
The soundtrack is by Manuel Parada & Roberto Pregadio and it isn't bad at all, consisting of lush orchestration with a little fuzz guitar used as an embellishment. Perfect for one of those European Loungecore CDs that came out in the 90s.
The Retromedia DVD also uses a substandard grainy color print that's in poor shape, with an explanation at the beginning saying that this was due to the age of the film. Bull ! They either didn't bother looking for a better source or they couldn't find one at all. There are only a few stills of Magda and that's it.
Sloppy & poor all around, this one gets a 3 out of 10.
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user\nDr. Marnie Bannister (Magda Konopka) is a horribly disfigured woman. When one of her colleagues discovers a rejuvenation formula, Marnie sees it as her opportunity to become beautiful. When she's denied the drug because of possible side effects, she kills her colleague to get what she wants. The drug works and she becomes beautiful. But the formula brings out the worst in her and it's not long before she's left a string of bodies behind her.
Have you ever heard the expression \"as exciting as watching paint dry\"? That pretty much sums up Satanik. During the film, one of the characters utters the line, \"Something so horrible, it's inconceivable.\" I wasn't sure if he was talking about something in movie or the movie itself. I'm really disappointed because I had high hopes for this one. Satanik had possibilities, but they're never realized. At every opportunity, the plot has Marnie do the dullest things imaginable. The writing is horrible. And part of the problem is Magda Konopka. She's not that appealing and cannot carry the film on her own.
Another big problem with Satanik is the direction and editing. It's a mess. We see things and places that have no bearing on anything in the movie. The camera lingers on shots too long after the scene is over. I can't think of a single shot that would call anything but unoriginal. This group of filmmakers exhibits little in the way of imagination or talent.
I may not be familiar with the Italian comic on which Satanik is supposedly based, but I'm sure it's got to be better than this.
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user\nOld bat transforms to younger OK looking girl after drinking a potion. This movie was dreadful. The acting atrocious. The camera work made me head spin. And it features the longest, most excruciatingly boring strip-tease ever put to film. Piero Vivarelli should be ashamed for directing this. Eduardo Manzanos Brochero should'voe been blacklisted just for writing something so awful.Don't rent this movie, the only exception I can this of is maybe If you're dying and only have less then 90 minutes to live, watch this film cause it will feel like an eternity and you'll be begging the Grip Reaper come a little early.
My Grade: F
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user\nAs I write this in November 2005 I've become aware that the great British boom of cinema has come to an end and while people will claim much of this is down to the British government not giving film makers tax breaks I think the cause is much simpler - A lack of diversity on the part of producers over the last few years . Let's have a look at what the Brits were producing 1995-2005:
Funky gangster thrillers . LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRALES was a truly great and thoroughly entertaining film and people went out of their way to ape Guy Ritchie's style with usually disappointing results
Romantic comedies . Yeah okay I do realise FOUR WEDDINGS , NOTTING HILL etc were produced by American studios but they're still vaguely \" British films \" . Unfortunately because they're guaranteed to make a profit for the studios they have to follow a winning formula which usually involved Hugh Grant playing Hugh Grant for the umpteenth time
Black Comedies . Can anyone explain what a black comedy actually is ? In the British context it's usually a rambling film with often contemporary political statements made and which often resembles Mike Leigh's NAKED
Jasmin Disdar's BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is a good example of the third type of British movie . Filmed in 1999 but set in 1993 it opens with two men having a fight on a bus and it's later revealed that one's a Serb and one's a Croat so we get a bite sized rundown of what was happening in the Balkans at that time , though what's the odds of two former enemies in the Balkans bumping into each other on a London bus ? This sums up one of the major flaws of the movie - Irony takes precedence over likely situations , you can appreciate the final irony of the subplots but is the outcome likely ? Perhaps the greatest irony is the title of the film . It's called BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE but certainly this audience member found them clichéd stereotypical people that I couldn't believe in as three dimensional characters
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user\nI had to lower my rating of this movie to a 4 due to the terrible sound track. I'm pretty sure it was not a problem with me or the tape, because some actors and the sound track sounded great. But most of the actors voices were distorted or garbled beyond recognition, especially for non-brits.
There are plenty of cute little twists that would make this an enjoyable movie - ending up in Bosnia by mistake is great - but much of the humor was lost in the sound.
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user\nThis very forced attempt to fuse Robert Altman and Quentin Tarantino (who is wildly overrated himself) is neither informative nor entertaining. The character development is arbitrary and unbelievable -- especially in the final scene of the thugs and the little boy, as other reviewers have noted. Also, a couple of humorous moments aside, the film is not as funny (black humor or otherwise) as the director seems to think it is.
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user\nWhat I miss most of all in this film is that it lets no place for imagination, everything is said. It is like a documentary film, but not as good as a documentary, because it is no documentary. A patchwork film without a continuous story. Very superficial, nothing to think about, because the film tells you already what you are supposed to think. Too many different problems are touched but none is worked out in order to make you think. I do not even know if it is a funny film that wants to be serious or a serious film that wants to be funny. Many scenes are very unrealistic, and the acting is quite poor. The film is quite boring.
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user\nWell, I saw this movie during the last San Sebastian Film Festival. The reaction to it was...let's say as funny as the movie unintetionally is. It happened that they showed a copy with terribly wrong spanish subtitles. They seemed to be a translation from chinese to english and then to spanish. It was all confusing, the genders were switched (girls appeared as boys and boys as girls), and my friends and I remember great lines... but because they were so absurd. All in all not a good movie, but if they ever show it on tv, and you have nothing to do, and if you want to laugh (again, not so much with the movie) then go ahead, \"Visible secret\" is your film.
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user\nIt goes without saying that a modicum of allowances has to be made when a true story is being adapted for the big screen. But if you shoot a fairy tale that has next to nothing to do with what actually happened - why call it Bugsy and make the audience believe this was a halfway true story? The Godfather trilogy processes many real characters and events, Once Upon A Time In America does it, too, but they don't claim to be telling true stories.
* SPOILER*
In the movie, Benny has this grand vision of a gambler's Eldorado; in real life Lansky had to argue him into going to Nevada. Benny deemed the notion of a counterpart to Monte Carlo idiotic, and he'd have preferred to continue his life as a playboy in L.A. Not until much later Benny warmed to the idea. But of course he's the hero of the movie, so naturally the idea had to be his.
In the movie, Benny wants to use Count diFrasso to get close to Mussolini in order to assassinate him because he was Hitler's partner, and Hitler killed jews in gas chambers, after all. Obviously we're supposed to like Benny, so the screenwriters invented this nonsense. In real life, at that time nobody knew about the gas chambers, least of all Benny who was completely uninterested in politics. In fact he did use the countess' connection and he did visit Mussolini, but not to kill him, but to sell explosives to him. He even met Goebbels and Goering during his sojourn in Italy.
The whole Greenberg subplot was nonsense. Greenberg didn't turn stool pigeon, he didn't seek refuge with Benny, Benny didn't kill him (that was up to Albert Tannenbaum)... at least they got the name right.
I guess it was supposed to be very romantic to have Virginia return to Benny, offering him the money she had stolen. The movie even goes so far to tell us via text panels that she ruefully returned the money to Lansky after Benny's assassination. Let me just say, revisionism just doesn't get more impudent than this.
This list is by no means exhaustive - there's the issue with Benny's family not living in L.A, the way Benny deals with Dragna and Adonis, the portrayal of Costello (a disagreeable corporate type), Lansky (a lovable teddy bear), Benny himself (an aging windbag who wouldn't have reached age 12 if he had regularly gone \"bugsy\" in situations like those in the movie, and what's more, who neither has the good looks nor the charisma of Benny Siegel) and many others. Apart from a few hard facts nothing's right in this flick.
* SPOILERS END HERE*
All in all, this is the one mafia movie that manages to be even more ridiculously bad than Harlem, NY. But honor where honor is due: This is a feat in itself.
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user\nThe reality of the mafia environment is absolutely dog-eat-dog where a gangster will be killed for showing any sign of weakness because they become a liability. I've got no problem with the human side of gansters' being portrayed but Bugsy steers too far in the direction of soft, comical, men. The film is enjoyable but is only light entertainment and not a biopic of a man who, though exciting, was extremely dangerous and fearsome.
The acting's all good and the direction very solid. The locations and era are very well represented and the themes very interesting. Did Bugsy really want to kill Mussoulini?
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user\nNot as bad as \"Billy Bathgate\" but close. Try as he might, Warren Beatty just could not be believed as Bugsy. Whenever he flipped out, instead of being shocked by the violence, I found it pretty embarrassing because it was so phony. The other actors don't fare as well either. Annette Bening just doesn't have what it takes to play seductive women, she is better off with safe characters. As many have noted, Joe Mantegna would have fared better if the script had him as a more believable George Raft. Only Harvey Keitel emerged unscathed, but then again this guy can do these movies in his sleep. And Robert Beltran, with just one line, steals one of the big Beatty, Bening scenes. With these films, I'm never sure if the director is intent on making the mobsters seem like normal businessmen or if it just comes out that way. Either way, I don't like it. These guys were killers and no matter how much Las Vegas is indebted to Bugsy Siegel, I don't think that a movie should be made glorifying the guy, especially one with a big studio backing.
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user\nA tedious gangster film that leaves you wishing someone had edited it farce more ruthlessly. I would have thought that the story of the creation of Las Vegas would prove interesting but it fails at almost every turn. Warren Beatty's performance as the stupid and unlikeable Bugsy Seigel leaves you wishing you were watching someone else. Once or twice he flashes through the fog of his performance to deliver an interesting scene but most of the time you just can't care about him. Annette Benning gives a skilled turn as his untrustworthy lover but even she's only faintly more savoury than he is.
I really wouldn't bother with this turgid drama unless you're a Benning devotee.
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