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user\nWhat's written on the poster is: \"At birth he was given 6 years to live... At 34 he takes the journey of a lifetime.\" Ami is an American-born Israeli who was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy disease at the age of one. At age of 34, after the love toward his 22 years old care-giver didn't go well, he decided to come to the US to face the doctor who said that he would have only 6 years to live. He wanted to show the doctor that he is still alive, and weights 39 pounds. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, even I have seen this film.
Obviously it's courageous to live when all he can move is his left index finger, but why does he have so much anger toward the doctor who diagnosed his disease 34 years ago? His doctor just told his mom that based on the medical history, people with his disease won't live long. What's the point of him showing up at old doctor's door for? Why is tracking down this old doctor in the US is a journey of his lifetime? There are so many things we might be interested in Ami's life: how can he make those animations with the movement of only one finger? How can he go through daily lives while totally depending on others? How did he out lived his doctor's prediction? How does he deal emotionally when other people look at him like looking at a strange creature? The movie told us none of that. Instead, the filmmaker got a van and set up a trip to let Ami to show up at his old doctor's door in order to show him that he is still alive. I thought it was a joke.
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user\nThere are three movies with this animation style that I fondly remember from my youth. This movie, \"The Last Unicorn,\" \"Flight of Dragons\" and \"The Hobbit.\" I own copies of both \"Dragons\" and \"The Hobbit\" (both excellent) and I hadn't seen \"The Last Unicorn\" in more than a decade. That was until today and now I wish I hadn't. What bothered me the most was the script. It was incredibly choppy and often inane. Things would happen for no reason and other things would happen without explanation. We're not just talking about little things here either; we're talking about key plot points! The story itself isn't that great to begin with, but it could have worked had the script been decent. Not even close. On top of that the music was awful! I know that music in movies such as these rarely have what one would call classic pieces, but the music in this movie made me want to knock myself unconscious with a bowling ball. This was one of those films that I was going to show to my kids some day, but it just got cut. I don't think I could ever sit through that crap fest again. Disappointed is putting it mildly.
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user\nI loved \"The Curse of Frankenstein\" so much that I rushed out to get \"Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed\" to see Cushing at it again...even if it was without Chistopher Lee this time. To my great disappointment, this movie not only does without Lee, but it does without Frankenstein's Monster altogether! Was it a case of \"If we can't get Lee, we won't have a monster at all\"? Why would they do that? The monster is half the fun of the whole thing!! This film is dedicated solely to the study of Baron Frankenstein and his quest to finish experiments he had begun in brain transplants before ending up in an asylum. I found the script extremely weak, with the need to suspend disbelief forced upon the audience a little too much. I'm willing to suspend a fair amount, but this movie got fairly ridiculous, which took me out of the film rather than immersing me in it.
Peter Cushing, though, is absolutely brilliant playing pure evil in this film. For being one of the most beloved actors and notoriously sweet men, he sure could play menacing and malevolent extremely well. The supporting cast is competent, but has little to do, even the young doctor and his fiancée blackmailed into helping Frankenstein. A bumbling police chief is introduced, along with his put-upon sidekick, to generate some comic relief, then they are completely dropped from the movie! Why? We are led to believe that the police chief will be the main nemesis of the Baron, then we are led to believe it will be the young doctor, and then it ends up being the victim of Frankenstein's brain transplant experiment. There was no tension, we weren't invested in the \"creature\", and the ending was left so ambiguous as to leave one unsatisfied because it is so clear they are setting up another sequel.
Also, there are virtually no \"horror\" elements. Yes, there is a beheading in the beginning (off-camera), and we are treated to the sounds of Cushing cutting the tops of two men's skulls off (again, off camera), and there is the most unsettling and thoroughly unnecessary rape scene (90% of which is, again, off-camera). I understand that there is a love of \"letting the audience imagine it all, for their imaginations are far worse than what we can show\", but come on, if you're not going to give us a Monster, then at least let us SEE the few \"horrific\" elements you do choose to include. Showing us a skeleton in the lab lit with a green light is just not scary.
On top of a weak script, I thought the directing was mostly flat. There were a couple of nice shots, but otherwise no excitement, atmosphere, or suspense was generated. The same director did \"Curse\" back in 1958 and I thought it was brilliantly directed...guess he was as uninspired by this film as I was.
The movie gets a 4 out of 10 from me strictly for Peter Cushing's powerful, nuanced performance...beyond that, I found little in this movie worth recommending. Instead, my suggestion is to watch \"The Curse of Frankenstein\" and see a truly great Hammer horror film.
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user\nOh, man! This thing scared the heck out of me when I first watched it... and I was SIXTEEN!!!
That creepy animated Barbie is scary as hell! I want to stop talking about her now.
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user\nThis was a big disappointment for me. I think this is the worst Mastroianni-movie ever made. Cosmatos tries too hard to make this movie a masterpiece and that makes this movie a typical \"art\"-movie. I give 4/10 for this movie.
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user\nvery badly made film, the action/violence scenes are ridiculous.
1 point for the presence of Burton and Mastroianni + 1 point for the real tragic event of the massacre of the innocent italians: 2/10.
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user\nThis does give away some of the plot, by the way. A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of those timeless classics that teach you the value Christmas and just enjoying the holiday. This, however, does not. It tries to capture the emotion of A Charlie Brown Christmas, there even is another Christmas play, but fails with lackluster and easy jokes. Charlie Brown is no longer wondering about the spirit of Christmas but is instead wants to buy a present for Peggy Jean ($25 gloves...what?). His sister Sally is the most annoying character in the movie. Here is one of her jokes: Sally wants to write a letter to Santa, but doesn't know how to spell Charlie (for some reason he needs to be in her letter) so instead decides to name him Sam, because she knows how to spell Sam. Also, Sally plays an angel in the play with one word to day: \"Hark!\" She instead says hockey stick (har har). If Sally saying hark 12 times (all oddly sounding exactly the same) doesn't kill you, nothing will. Peppermint Patty and Marcy are a large focal point, but that hardly makes it better. Marcy is funny with her responses to Patty, but Patty is another story. She sounds like a boy (which doesn't dispel the rumors) and gets mad when she has to be the sheep in the play (terrible baas and all). Apparently she is the sheep every year, and is worried she will forget her lines (lines she doesn't have). She is so worried she mentions it twice, one right after the other, and gets the same response. I'm assuming she must have short term memory loss, or something. Lucy and Linus are more welcome (although Linus still has annoying advice), but hardly amount to much air time. I'm sure Schroeder isn't even in this one. All in all, it tries to be a parasite to the original, but compromised the message for a few quick laughs.
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user\nWhen I noticed that \"Hamish Macbeth\" was being broadcast in the United States, I was thrilled. I then had the misfortune to watch the darn thing. I adore M. C. Beaton's books about the wonderful Scottish Constable. The characters in the book are entertaining and very well-written. The powers that be who are responsible for this mish-mash apparently have never have read one of Beaton's books. Only the name \"Hamish Macbeth\" has anything to do with the series. Besides the lack of familiar characters, I find the whole show offensively loud. It seems that the actors feel they must shout their lines and scream at each other. If you love M. C. Beaton's adorable Hamish Macbeth don't waste your time on this rubbish.
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user\nI went to see this film based on the review by Siskel and Ebert; not only did I get duped, but I took some friends along, and had to spend the rest of the day profusely apologizing for making them sit through this pointless crap. After this, I never went to see a movie based solely on Siskel & Ebert's advice.
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user\nI'm amazed how many comments on this show are about how \"real\" it is. Maybe I'm not part of the same universe because if Veronica Mars is anything, it's over the top in a big way.
The acting is chewing the scenery with enthusiasm and the plots have holes you could drive a truck through. That's not what I call real.
It is so earnest in its desire to be \"relevant\" that it only shows how cut-off from reality Rob Thomas and his staff are.
Overall, I found it to be at best a snooze-fest and at worst more than a little annoying. Kristen Bell looks like she could be a good actress, but it's hard to tell with the over-the-top style of the whole show.
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user\nThe biggest mystery of Veronica Mars is not one that she had to tackle on screen.
Rather, the mystery is why this perennial ratings disappointment is still on the air. This week marked a nadir for Veronica Mars: it ranked 146 out of 146 shows in the big 6 (soon to be Big 5). Yes, you read right. Veronica Mars was beaten by every show of the now-defunct WB and every show on UPN. It was beat by all the shows on Fox and of course by all the shows on ABC, CBS and NBC.
Now, the hip hypesters are going to say: but this was a re-run. But everything on TV that week was pretty much a re-run! It boggles the mind why CW would choose this proved ratings disappointment as one of the few shows it saved from UPN.
Clearly something is going on behind the scenes. Favors are being exchanged and influence peddled.
Sorry to be so cynical, but what other explanation is there? The \"Veronica Mars has potential\" line is clearly dead now that it's had two years to establish itself and failed to do so.
Maybe it's Joel Silver's influence and clout, but frankly, I am at a loss why anyone would choose to spend their clout on a bad show that no audience is watching.
A great mystery and a very inauspicious debut for CW.
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user\nLast week, I took a look at the weekly Nielsen ratings, and there was Veronica Mars, supposedly \"the best show you're not watching\".
Well, they're right that you're not watching it. It aired twice and was ranked 147 and 145 out of 147.
Translation: this is the lowest-rated show on any nationally broadcast network... and deservedly so. I tried to watch it a couple of times because of all the press coverage hyping it as a \"great\" show, a \"realistic look\" at life and all such nonsense. The reality was otherwise. Veronica Mars is a bore. It's as unrealistic as it gets, and it richly deserves to be canceled.
The only Mystery is why CW felt compelled to put on its inaugural schedule the lowest-rated show in memory, after two years of continued commercial and artistic failure.
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user\nI was so disappointed by this show. After hearing and reading all the hoopla about it, how it was a \"ground breaking show\" and all sorts of wild promises if quality, I tried to watch it.
What a letdown!! The acting was way forced and exaggerated. The story made very little sense. As for any hint of the vaunted \"look into teenagers' lives\", I could only see a paltry attempt that had as much reality to it as a reality show.
Some are wondering why there are so many negative comments about this show. The reason is that it's really not all that good and beating the drums over quality on this show only serves to attract attention to how poorly made it is.
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user\nI give this movie a ONE, for it is truly an awful movie. Sound track of the DVD is so bad, it actually hurts my ear. But the vision, no matter how disjointed, does show something really fancy in the Italian society. I will not go into detail what actually was so shocking , but the various incidents are absolutely abnormal. So for the kink value, i give it one.Otherwise, the video, photography, acting of the adults actors /actresses are simply substandard, a practical jock to people who love foreign movies.Roberto, the main character, has full spectrum of emotions but exaggerated to the point of being unbelievable.however, the children in the movie are mostly 3/4 years old, and they are genuine and the movie provides glimpse of the Italian life..
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user\nAwful! Absolutely awful! No plot, no point, no end. It looks like the director turned the camera on and then the whole crew went to lunch. Every day. I'm trying to GIVE this video away but no one will take it. I'm giving it a 2 instead of a 1 because I like Benigni. Roger, I'm going to have to say thumbs down on this one.

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user\nI like silent films, but this was a little too moronic. As much as I wish I could say that it was worth the hour I stood up I can't. I don't think any version of the movie even comes close to the book. And don't try it out on kids, they might freak. And the lady who played Pollyanna, how old was she? 38? I know the labor laws were different back then... BUT COME ON PEOPLE.
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user\nI could not, for the life of me, follow, figure out or understand the story. As the plot advances it too stays incomprehensible. I'm going to guess and say that there was a preproduction story/plot problem that never got sorted out. The producers could never separate the many details that the novel, or any novel, has the time and space to create from the other idea, which was to make a movie about a serial killer and the killer's pursuit by the police. They ended up with too many things happening in a proscribed feature film time limit. Too bad really because they had a solid cast, a director who knows how to move things around and excellent cinematography. In fact, a well made movie that one could enjoy and relax with for a couple of hours.
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user\nWhen we were in junior high school, some of us boys would occasionally set off stinkbombs. It was considered funny then. But the producers, directors and cast of \"Semana Santa\" (\"Angel of Death\" in the DVD section of your local video rental) are adults and they are STILL setting them off.
Like the previous reviewer who wondered if the cast were anxious to get off the set and home, I doubt more than one take was done for any of the scenes.
Mira Sorvino, hot in \"Mighty Aphrodite\" and other top-rated films, seems to have undersold herself to this project. Her acting is non-existent, confined mostly to wistful stares that are supposed to indicate how \"sensitive\" she is to the plight of the film's various victims.
But let me warn you--do not be the next victim! Step away from the DVD if you find it on the shelf. Tbere are not many good leg shots of Mira (the only high points I could find in the film) and the supporting cast is of inferior quality, delivering a mishmash of badly-done dialogue with embarrassing \"Spanish\" accents worthy of the best high school theatrical production.
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user\nI saw this movie for a number of reasons the main being Mira Sorvino. With her on the cast it couldn't be so bad. And it even seemed like it had some mystery and Olivier Martinez was her boyfriend at the time and he was pretty good in `Unfaithful'. The story is set in Spain so it could be an exotic entertaining movie with one of my favorite actresses.
If you're thinking about the same thing let me warn you: this is a truly awful, uninteresting, boring movie. The only adjective that comes to mind is pathetic.
The story is contrived with sub-plots that add nothing to the narrative. They try to build a slasher/thriller with a look at fascism in Spain but fail horribly. The twists have no credibility and the so-called investigation leads nowhere.
The characters are paper-thin! I didn't care about anyone. More than that they're irritating and pretty hateful people.
The acting is atrocious. Mira what is wrong with you? Why Mira? You're an oscar winner! Keep some dignity! Her character was weak but that is no excuse for such an awful performance. She seems to be sleepwalking all movie long. Come to think of it, I actually think I saw her eyes slowly closing in some scenes. I used to think this woman was sexy. Well she isn't here. If you want to look at some skin try Romi and Michelle because there's nothing to see here. And that accent? My god...
Olivier Martinez is even worst. It's too painful to remember his performance to describe it here. Im sorry but I can´t. Ive suffered enough with this garbage.
This whole movie is depressing! It's so bad in every way it's a wonder how it was even made. A lousy team to produce a lousy script and make some money over the actor's name. Don't fall for it.
Avoid it!

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user\nIt was agonizingly bad movie. It will eat your heart out while you watch it. I beg you: don't watch this movie! You will hate you losing 1,5 hours of your lifetime! It's not as some movies that are so bad that you can watch those and enjoy... this movie is boring as... there is nothing as boring as this movie. You will hate yourself after watching this movie till the end. And you will hate yourself that you didn't listen to me.
I hate myself. I tortured myself and I did watch this movie to the end. Now excuse me, I will shot myself. I have seen all.
Please. Read this very carefully. Don't watch this film.
Please!
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user\nI agree with the previous comment, what a disappointment. Rented it thinking it was going to be a good movie since Mira and Olivier where in it. I was surprised by their performance, expected more since they're good actors.
Thought it was a slow beginning but it got worse. I even laughed at some bad stunts!! when is supposed to be a mystery movie. You can even guess who is the killer beforehand!!!
For real what happened??
Sorry to say but don't even bother you'll waste time and money.
Boring!!!
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user\nThis may actually be the worst movie that I have ever scene. Incoherent would be a compliment. Even the end made no sense but it was a tremendous relief that it was finally over. I watched it with a kind of fatalistic fascination to see if it could continue to deteriorate and it did. By the end of this mess I was sorry any of the characters survived and I wasn't feeling too charitable about the actors either.If you want to watch a train wreck, I recommend hanging out at a train station. Even waiting on a deserted train platform beats this mess. Apparently I haven't vented enough to fill up my prescribed ten lines so, at the risk of redundancy, I will say it one more time. This movie is a zero and it would be less if I had a word for an even lower rating. How about minus zero?
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user\n\"Semana Santa\" or \"Angel Of Death\" is a very weak movie. Mira Sorvino plays a detective who is trying to find a killer who shoots arrows in people. Mira has an Italian accent which falters from time to time. Couldn't she just speak English? All the other characters have a forced Mexican\\English accent which is distracting. The dialogue is very bad and the delivery of it is wooden. The cinematography looks nice, but that's not enough to save this tripe. THIS NEXT PART OF THIS REVIEW DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!
During the climax it looks like the villain is going to get away, but then he comes back down stairs to get shot and do a cool stunt down the railing. That just shows this script has no originality whatsoever. AVOID!
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user\nwith all the European studios involved in this one, you would think you'd at least get some pretty photography; but the local color is kept to a minimum.
Irritation #1 is Mira Sorvino using a Russian accent in order to play a Spanish cop - WTF? The story is hopelessly confused. There's a supposed romantic back story that is intentionally confused - is she or isn't she a lesbian? - serving no purpose whatsoever. The cops in the movie are the most stupid to have graced a serial killer film in a long time. There seems to be some message about the mid-'30s Spanish Civil War But since pretty much everybody involved in that is dead, one doesn't see the point in it.
Despite the bull-fighting backdrop of part of the narrative (which part? who can tell), you never even get a good look at a bull fight. Earnest Hemingway would have punched the director in the nose - with my blessings.
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user\nI seems in the beginning a interesting film, a Spanish thriller in a interesting nowadays Madrid, but it isn`t none of that, is actually a film only interesting for future films directors learning about what not to do making a film, it can`t be worse in others words, even the presence of a oscar winner ( Mira Sorvino ) isn`t enough to justify the $ 3.00 dollars expended to see this film , the acting is horrendous and it seems the actors were just waiting to finish the daily shots to go home, it lead to nowhere and is boring, weak and bad, don`t expend time or money on this film.
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This movie sucks big time. It reminded me of the movie Resurrection (Christopher Lambert), which i also found extremely boring. And \"Semana Santa\" is in every way an even poorer movie.
Only fine one in the cast doing something for this movie is Alida Valli. Alida is one of the grand old ladies in european movie history. I loved her maniacal looks in \"Suspiria\" and \"inferno\" (Dario Argento). I will not spend more time dealing with this movie. I will say another good thing about this movie...use it if you want to fall asleep very quickly...
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user\nThis film aka \"the four hundred blows\" is a mistranslation.Faire les 400 coups\" means\"to live a wild life. As a French,I'm stunned when I see the popularity of this good ,but by no means outstanding film. 1.It's not the first film of the \"nouvelle vague\" move;check Agnes Varda's \"la pointe courte\",(1956)Alain Resnais's \"Hiroshima mon amour\"(1958),Claude Chabrol's \"le beau serge\"(1958) are anterior .Historically,\"les 400 coups \" comes after. 2.The \"nouvelle vague\" was sometimes ponderous and hard on their predecessors:Overnight,Julien Duvivier,Henri-George Clouzot,Claude Autant-Lara ,Yves allégret and a lot of others were doomed to oblivion.THis selfishness and this contempt is typically \"nouvelle vague\".You 've never heard (or read) the great generation of the thirties (Renoir,Carné,Grémillon,Duvivier already,Feyder) laugh at ,say,Maurice Tourneur or Max Linder.So,thanks to Truffaut and co,some people will never discover some gems of the French fifties or forties(Duvuvier's \"sous le ciel de Paris\",Autant-Lara's \"douce\",Yves Allégret's \"une si jolie petite plage \" and \"manèges\").THe novelle vague clique went as far as saying that William Wyler,Georges Stevens and Fred Zinemann were worthless! 3.\"Les 400 coups \" is technically rather disappointing:it's very academic ,the story is as linear as it can be,the teachers are caricatures,and the mother Claire Maurier delivers such memorable lines as (you've got to be a French circa 1960 to understand how ridiculous it is): Well ,your father 's got only his brevet (junior school diploma)and,as for me ,I've got only my high school diploma!You've got to know,that circa 1960,hardly 10%of the pupils had the HSD in France! Antoine Doinel should have been proud of his mother after all!She wants him to have diplomas,who can blame her? 4.Compared to the innovations of \"Hiroshima mon amour\",which features a brand new form,and a new \"fragmented \" content,\"les 400 coups \" pales into significance.Truffaut will master a new form only with the highly superior \"Jules and Jim\", helped by the incomparable Jeanne Moreau. 5.The interpretation is rather stiff;Jean-Pierre Léaud ,arguably listenable when dubbed in English ,is still decent,but he will soon degenerate into the most affected of his generation. 6.The topic=stolen childhood had better days,before (Julien Duvivier's \"Poil de carotte\" ,Luis Bunuel's \"los olvidados\") and will have after (Maurice Pialat's \"l'enfance nue\",Kenneth Loach's \"Kes\") I do not want to demean Truffaut,his movie is not bad,but,frankly,French movie buffs,prefer \"Jules and Jim\" \"l'enfant sauvage\" (a film honest ,true and commercially uncompromizing to a fault)\"l'argent de poche\"(as academic as \"400 coups\" but much more funny)or his nice Hitchcock pastiche \"vivement dimanche\".

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user\nThis is the sort of thing that only now thrills the film eggheads. After all, Feierstein's Flex Crush will have you know that Real Men don't watch anything by Truffaut.
It might have been interesting if Truffaut had anything to -say- here. The camera-as-voyeur motif was nothing new. Have we all forgotten De Sica's \"Bicycle Thief\"? Or anything by Hitchcock?
So all we get is the extended metaphor of the juvenile as Truffaut, who spends all his free time 'screwing up his eyes' at the movies, who wrecks schoolroom discipline, gets accused of plagiarism(the many petty thefts), and ultimately escapes societal confines to make 'his own movie'. Sorry...been there, done that too many times for this to matter.
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user\nThis movie bewilders me. It may be that I'm just a stupid American, but I really just don't get 400 Blows. Everything I've read about this movie has been a total rave, but I just couldn't stay interested. I'm sure that it was as revolutionary in film-making as all the critics say, but when it boils right down to it, it's just really really boring. Maybe it's the language barrier, may I'm just not \"sensitive\" or \"artsy\" enough, but whatever the case is, I hated this movie. The story itself isn't bad; it's about a young French boy who is treated unfairly by his parents and his teachers, and eventually he ends up in a juvenile facility. That in itself ought to be interesting, and it was, at first. There was nothing wrong with the dialogue, but then again it's hard to say because half of the conversations weren't subtitled and for no apparent reason, so I didn't always know what was going on. But for the dialogue we could understand, it made enough sense. The actors were believable enough, but it's hard to say what a real person would do in these situations. So you feel for the main character, but only in the sense that when he gets into trouble you think, well that sucks. The plot isn't even your typical plot. Each time he gets in trouble, he gets into more trouble than the last time, but the reasons never vary too much. And through the entire film you realize that there's nothing the main character can really do about it. So it's more like just waiting to see how it ends. The ending, by the way, was completely over my head. It's way too artsy for me, and I just didn't get it. Leading up to the end was easy enough to follow. The structure was certainly there, and it made sense as well, but everything was really drawn out. For the amount of dialogue and significant moments, the movie could have been an hour shorter. It just didn't end. Part of it was the unnecessarily long shots, none of which were especially memorable; for example, the ending was a clip of the main character running down a country road that lasted a good thirty seconds. Now, I'm sure that had some deeper meaning in it somewhere, but for the average viewer, I'd rather have gotten up to get some more food during that time. Or at least done something a little more useful than sit and watch this boy running, like doing my laundry, or taking a nap.
Final Verdict
The feeling throughout the whole movie was that this probably would be very moving and just amazing and that it would teach me some great life lesson, if I could only get what the director was trying to say by his unique decisions. As it was, I just felt cheated out of a good two hours of my life.
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user\nMy title ought to be enough.
It baffles me that a culture so rich in literary excellence (Dumas, Flaubert, Balzac, Maupassant) would churn out such tosh as the \"nouvelle vague\" cinematic movement. Until the 20th century, France had a great tradition of artistic lucidity and clever philosophy. But the minute you hand them a movie camera they start acting like WOOOHOOO LOOK HOW WEIRD I CAN BE! PLOT? THEME? PSHAW! LET'S FILM AN AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE GOING ROUND & ROUND! At least this is not as bad as Godard (who has an unhealthy fascination with the backs of peoples' heads. Oh-la-la, quel artiste.). No, Truffaut maintains a degree of visual clarity. But so does the security camera at a quickie-mart. The two are indistinguishable.
Haha, just as an aside to all you dweeby film school nerds: I bet the vein is popping out the side of your neck right now. But don't leave without reading the last sentence of my review.
Anyway, if you like French literature, you will HATE this. People who like this movie probably have never read any books other than the ramblings of Jack Kerouac or maybe \"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy\". Or maybe they have read the lyrics to The Doors songs, and they think that's profoundly moving. Whatever floats yer boat. I find it ironic that this film injects some (weak) allusions to Balzac, one of the finest and most meaningful writers who ever lived. Nice try, Truffles. But you're nowhere near the ballpark.
Avoid this film like an aids-infected syringe.
If you're the type of person who likes to think, then stick to Jean Cocteau (ORPHEE), Robert Bresson (PICKPOCKET) and the Japanese masters Kurosawa (IKURU), Kobayashi (KAIDAN) and Teshigahara (SUNA NO ONNA).
If you're an idiot, enjoy your Truffaut, Godard, and Andy Worhol. And for pete's sake push that vein back in your neck. You look like a cabbage.
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user\nHave you ever seen a movie made up entirely of long wide shots? No? Me, neither. Well, I've finally seen one in \"Spring in my Hometown,\" and I must confess, now I KNOW why people don't do this. The technique is \"arty,\" to be sure, but it's definitely NOT ripe for public consumption. The technique is heavily flawed simply because the viewer has no emotional attachment to the characters, and perhaps that might be the director's whole intentions. I don't know, I can't read minds, and I certainly don't know enough about the director to make a judgement.
But one thing about this movie that IS painfully obvious is its ridiculous anti-American sentiments. As an American, I'm well aware of my country's participation in the Korean War, and I'm very well aware that we weren't always angels, but I'll be damn if I'll take this guy's version of how things happened. According to this blind fool, Americans were not only at the root of the war, we were the CAUSE of the war, and we almost singlehandedly destroyed the country. Whatever, Mister Director. And I suppose you'd still be making this film in COMMUNIST KOREA if we hadn't interfered, right? Talk about forgetting your history. This is almost akin to making the Nazis the \"good guys\" while turning the Allied forces into the \"bad guys.\" This movie is so historically naive and so factually inaccurate that it's almost embarrassing to watch. For a man who comes from a country that owes its very EXISTENCE to American interference, he sure comes off as high and mighty and judgemental.
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user\nI'm the sort of person who went down to the local library and read books on Babbage's difference engine whilst my schoolmates were playing football etc.. So, if there is any such thing as a target audience for this film, then I guess I'd probably be included in that.
Maybe I just need to watch it again. A previous reviewer mentioned not to watch this film whilst being tired. Maybe that was my mistake.
I tried my best to enjoy this film, and there are aspects of it that I do like, but overall I found it amateurish and quite plodding.
Being somewhat of a self confessed computer nerd, I just can't help but pick up on the exact time frame when the movie was actually made, and how the employed graphics reflect that time (i.e. 1997). Having played games of the era c.f. \"Mind Grind\" to cite one example, this film cannot escape that 16-bit colour low res multimedia explosion of that time. Now thankfully this has somewhat lessened in more recent years in the gaming world at least, in favour of actual game play.
Having to resort to watching this movie via a German FTA satellite channel (as I don't think it's ever been aired on UK FTA TV, well not recently anyway), I was mildly amused to see the end credits note Gottdog (God dog) had 4 people working on it's design. Maybe it's mean spirited of me to be amused by this, given that ten years have elapsed since the movie was made, nevertheless the end result makes movie graphics from the eighties look good by comparison.
But, as for the main story, I agree that the format isn't the best idea. Like others I agree that Ada deserves a film without the sci-fi angle, and a more straightforward biographical approach would perhaps be better suited to covering the life story of this remarkable lady.
There are fundamental mistakes that undermine my enjoyment of this movie. First of all the underlying idea that somehow lost real-world information from the past can be accurately reconstructed through some sort of extrapolation via software based intelligent agents, seems somehow ludicrous.
Also, the theme running through the movie that a computing device can indeed predict the mechanics of all things through the course of time (e.g. the winds) is now known not to be the case.
OK, so the Victorians may have held this view, but the 20th century works of Gödel proving that no mathematical system can be complete, Turing's works on the limits of computability, not to mention chaos theory and quantum mechanics, have all completely undermined these ideas, which seem central to how the modern day researcher's software is supposed to work.
Finally, the clicking of the mouse in the air to mean \"programming\" is also just plain wrong, as previously mentioned.
This film maybe could have been OK, but at least some technical and scientific consultation would have given the film some much needed credit in the believability stakes.
I won't forget the film though, as like \"Pi\", it is clearly a unique work, but with too many fatal mistakes for me to truly enjoy it, 3/10 from me.
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user\nExpecting a combination of scifi and period film about Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, the history of computers, etc, I was disappointed by this movies nonsensical pseudoscience and mixture of real and fabulous history. It gives the impression that its writer (Lynn Hershman-Leeson) has no real understanding of the Math, technology, or history constituting the film's subject, but is working instead from a sort of fuzzy artistic impression of them. This hits a sore spot with me, as I've long been irritated by the tendency of the arts to glom onto and awfully misuse science terms and ideas to the point of confusion, eg: Emmy Coer: \"information waves have a half-life\", Ada: \"I'm not at all certain that half a life is better than no life at all\".
This movie does worse than fail to entertain - it misinforms. The only redeeming value I can imagine for it is that it might attract a viewer to learn about the subject it so badly distorts. It's more likely, I think, to promote a superstitious perception of science and technology of any degree of advancement as indistinguishable from magic.
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user\nMany days after seeing Conceiving Ada, I am still in awe that any group of people would spend so much time to make such an atrocious film.
No one ought see this film in hopes of learning anything of consequence about Ada Lovelock, her colleagues or the product of her endeavors.
Likewise, no one ought to see this film in hopes of being entertained.
As a sci-fi film, this would unquestionably be a horrendous failure. Somehow, the main character manages to bring the past to life and interact with it on her personal computer--with the advice and encouraging words of Timothy Leary. I doubt anyone could suspend their disbelief enough to keep this from seeming absolutely absurd.
As a drama film, this would unquestionably be a horrendous failure. Somehow, the writer/director manages to fill eighty-five minutes with constant, unnecessary, annoying and trivial drama over essentially nothing. I doubt that anyone could feel that all the drama in the film serves only as an irritating distraction.
I find it difficult to fully express my degree of contempt for Conceiving Ada. The circumstances under which I saw it forbid me from leaving the theater but there is no question that I would have otherwise. I am still angry that I wasted the time that it took to see it. Only that I might more effectively criticize this movie, I wish that I were more articulate.
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user\nIf you make it through the opening credits, this may be your type of movie. From the first screen image of a woman holding her hands up to her face with white sheets blowing in the background one recalls a pretentious perfume commercial. It's all downhill from there.
The lead actress is basically a block of wood who uses her computer to reach into the past, and reconstruct the memories of photographs, to talk history's overlooked genius, Ada, who conceived the first computer language in the 1800s.
The low budget graphics would be forgivable if they were interesting, or even somewhat integral to the script.
Poor Tilda Swinton is wasted.
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user\nDespite some occasionally original touches, like the \"virtual sets\" that provide the background for the Victorian interiors featuring Ada Lovelace and her circle, this film falls short and ultimately disappoints. Newcomer Francesca Faridany seems talented, but is wasted as Emmy, a character who by mid-film is reduced to nothing more than staring at a monitor watching Lady Ada narrate an autobiography. 'Conceiving Ada' takes off briefly when Lady Ada (Tilda Swinton) appears; the camera lingers on her facial expressions, mannerisms, even making her appear to be translucent or momentarily invisible, apporting into scenes to dramatize Emmy's \"virtual\" rendering of her.
A straightforward biopic of Ada Lovelace would have been worthwhile, but this film unfortunately makes a hash of both Lady Ada's life, and that of a modern-day computer scientist (and her broadly-drawn, doltish boyfriend).
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user\nThis was a nice attempt at something but it is too pretentious and boring to rise above it's low budget trappings. The use of virtual sets almost works but at some points it fails miserably. They made good use of the small budget I guess. I just wish the story and most of the acting was better. There are a lot of parts where you see what they were aiming for and it would of been great if they actually hit those marks but they don't. Confusing and unbelievable story. Bad DVD transfer too. It doesn't take much for me to watch a movie in one sitting. This I had to shut off. It was too boring. I can do slow movies. But just make them appealing in some aspect. Visually, story-wise, acting, etc. This was lacking in all departments so it never added up to an engrossing experience. Maybe the film maker's next attempt will be better.
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user\nYes, In 35 years of film going I have finally viewed the stinker that surpasses all other ghastly movies I have seen. Beating 'Good Will Hunting' Baise Moi' and 'Flirt' for sheer awfulness. This is pretentious blige of the first order... not even entertaining pretentious bilge. The effects are cheap, and worse - pointless.
The script seems to have been written by a first year film student who doesn't get out much but wants to appear full of portent! The acting is simply undescribably bad - Tilda Swinton caps a career filled with vacuous woodeness with a performance which veers neurotically between comotose and laughable 'intensity'. Apparently, some fool out there has allowed the director of this film to make another one... be warned
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user\nEncompassing virtual reality, the potential of computers, communication with the past, the ongoing struggle to express your identity in a constraining society, and the fascinating Ada Byron Lovelace portrayed by the fascinating Tilda Swinton, this film should have been great. But it is lousy, terrible if you consider the potential! The acting - aside from Tilda Swinton and Karen Black - veers from tolerable to atrocious. The plot construction is awkward to say the least - the modern day programmer is a dull one-note character, but half the movie is spent setting up her character, and then when Ada finally appears, it is to narrate the events of her life, not to present an engaging story (Swinton almost pulls this off, though). You never fully get to know her as a real person, just an icon from a grad student's history paper.
The digital effects, such as a digital dog and bird, are lousy and distracting, considering it was 1997 and not 1985. And, finally, the script is just bad. Bad, often pretentious dialog - especially the fights between the programmer and her boyfriend, which made me squirm - cold and distant characters, and zero attempt to create a sense of wonder. The programmer successfully contacts a person in the past! Astonishing! But it hardly seems to surprise anyone, and her boyfriend says, \"Well, be careful.\" (Although we're given no clue then or later why it might be dangerous, and it never seems to actually be dangerous.)
Also, despite being about computers and Ada Lovelace and her love of mathematics, it is clear no one involved with the script had any knowledge of mathematics OR computers - any references to these subjects come across as complete mumbo jumbo that defies any suspension of disbelief.
One scene, towards the end of the movie, is quite good, a monolog by Tilda Swinton expressing her sadness at the fragility of life but her joy in that life. Poignant, passionate, and insightful, it seems to be dropped in from another movie.
So I am disappointed in this movie, because it is a missed opportunity for a fascinating little cult film. If you find the subject matter interesting, you might want to rent it, but be forewarned. See Orlando for another, much much better examination of gender roles in history with a great Tilda Swinton performance.
***spoiler/question: * *
At the end of the movie, Ada asks that her memories not be preserved (in what I thought was the best scene in the movie). But then the modern day programmer seems to do it anyway, transferring the memories into her little girl (hence the title of the movie). Am I correct, that the programmer violated Ada's wishes without even struggling over it? Or is this another confusing plot point that I'm misinterpreting?
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