Immediately after this movie was finished, I wanted to find out how I could get back the hour-and-a-half of my life that I wasted watching this stereotypical, unimaginative, poorly written, poorly directed mess. In addition it boasts one of the worst endings ever in the history of movies. Please don't waste a fraction of your life watching this film. Like me, you will not be able to get that time back.


Disney sequels, generally, aren't always as good as the original movies. There are, however, some very good sequels such as "The Lion King II," "Lady and the Tramp II," and "Toy Story II." But "Tarzan and Jane" is indeed the worst of Disney sequels, where the story was dope, the characters were boring and aren't as lovable as they were in the original movie, the music was awful, and the animation was rubbish. The story was simply about Jane wanting to find an anniversary present for Tarzan, and while doing so in the jungle, she starts remembering the adventures they've had so far. If Disney continues to produce movies like this, it will definitely lose its touch and magic. Disney's "Tarzan," though regained its prestige in "Tarzan II," where they did a good job in it.


i was very glad to see the movie in the rent store i couldn't believe my eyes! how could i have missed this movie before? i rented it and couldn't wait to go home, i opened it and i couldn't believe my own eyes..

this movie has nothing to do with the first it was really bad. How can they make it again? it didn't have an exciting adventure, all of what is said was that Jane was seeking a present for Tarzan and she has trouble finding it.

every time she remembers a gift or something to do in the anniversary a bad memory pops up and makes her change her mind. the animation was awful. the voices has nothing to do with the first.this movie was made for nothing i don't get why they made it.

fans off Tarzan DO NOT rent/buy this movie it will change your whole mind about it.


The animation was poorly executed compared to the original Tarzan flick by Disney. The plot was poor, and insulting to children's intelligence. Overall, the movie was a poor sequel. We should expect Disney to produce better sequels than this. Toy Story 2 was a good sequel to Toy Story. Tarzan and Jane isn't even a good Saturday morning cartoon...


To quote Tracy Chevalier, the originator of this pseudo-historical rubbish, "Girl with a Pearl Earring is a story about a painting and how it came into being". However, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' is not a story about "a painting" as she put it; it is the title of a famous masterpiece that has been admired for over three centuries; the exquisite work of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.

Unfortunately, the title "Girl with a Pearl Earring" was appropriated by Chevalier to serve as the title of what would have been, if not for the co-opted allure of the famed artist and his well known masterpiece, considered a run of the mill, garden variety historical romance; certainly nothing special. As many art historians fear, the transference of Chevalier's fabrication to the silver screen is sure to create misconceptions about the Vermeer legacy in the minds of those who are limited to the confines of contemporary awareness, that is, most of the population.

Chevalier apparently gained an edge in the writer's market by exploiting the fame and creative efforts of an artist who has long been dead and is therefore unable to defend himself or the members of his family against the negative characterizations concocted by this mediocre novelist. Director Peter Webber was quoted as saying, "Girl with a Pearl Earring was really inspired by the painting of the same name". Inspired? Doesn't he mean that the "painting of the same name" was practically stolen and painted over for posterity with Chevalier's 21st century glitter glue? The fact that Chevalier and others have made a killing by irresponsibly trashing the memory of Vermeer and the members of his family to create an erotically suggestive tale says a lot about our culture. All marketing and no integrity.

What did the Vermeer's family ever do to Chevalier to merit such post-mortem character assassination? They were merely related to the famous artist. One wonders how Chevalier would feel if she were likewise negatively depicted by some stranger after her death. Because the Vermeers were real persons who lived at one time, it is wrong to villify them in fiction three centuries later. The central characters in Chevalier's novel are not,as Chevalier suggests, merely spun from scant memories of persons who were known to have lived at one time. Chevalier contradicts or ignores the known facts of Vermeer's life. By all accounts, his marriage to Catherina who he did in fact paint several times (in contrast to what is suggested in Chevalier's storyline that he never painted her because she did not understand or appreciate his work)was a happy marriage. By the way, the Vermeer's had only the one maid, Tanneke, whom Vermeer also used as a model for some of his work.

Chevalier defamed Vermeer's wife and family by crafting very unflattering and rather unimaginative character from their memory: Vermeer is the stereotypical brooding artist,his wife a vicious, ill-tempered,mean spirited, and jealous bitch. Catherina's demonic portrayal was obviously necessary as a literary device to justify and evoke sympathy for the illicit undertones in the relationship between Vermeer and the fictional Griet. Vermeer's daughter Cornelia was depicted as a child whose behavior is so pathologically anti-social, she would probably be judged today as a child at risk for growing up into a serial killer.

Come to think of it, while Ms.Chevalier's fictional ingénue surfaces as the only noble character in the entire story, her fictional renditions of the Vermeer family cast them as the horrid folks from which she must attempt to shield herself. So henceforth, as far as popular culture is concerned, Vermeer is trapped in a miserable marriage, his wife and daughter are cold hearted witches, his mother-in- law the head shrew, and his patron the most lecherous man in Delft!

The worst thing about the film version of "Girl with a Pearl Earring" however, is that the image that will appear in association with Vermeer's masterwork in the future, will be Scarlett Johansson's Griet. Hers is a performance that could only be described as vapid and which consists mainly of Johannson's perpetual look of dumb surprise, her mouth hanging open continually, which although was probably meant to be seductive, looks more a general lack of intelligence or a contrived expression of feigned innocence. She was supposedly demure but appeared more or less bovine. It was a face that I grew so tired of by the end of the film, that I dearly wished the wicked and capricious (per Chevalier's fictional interpretation)Catherina would have given it a good slap when she went all out in her tirade in the final scenes.


Actually, watching paint dry would be more interesting than watching this plot less, plodding film.

I gave it 3 stars out of a possible 10. The ONLY thing this film had going for it was seeing people in a simulated historical setting in the 1700's of Holland. You do get a bit of a glimpse into what life was like for the serving classes and the upper classes in that era.

The dialog is extremely sparse. The eyebrow-less Griet (played by Scarlett Johansson)speaks maybe 20 words in the entire film and has one expression throughout, a blank, half-scared stare with her mouth hanging open like she has a sinus condition and can't breathe through her nose normally.

Johannes Vermeer (played by Colin Firth)as the artist, also has one expression, a severe, grim frown. He also speaks possibly 20 words in the entire film.

By the time the film is finished one knows no more about these characters and how they feel about anything or what their hopes, dreams and heartbreaks are then when we first meet them.


Last night I was feeling edgy. That fidgeting edginess that seems to arrive and then settle in for the evening. Then I pressed play on my video and half an hour later I was, according to my girlfriend, sleeping like a baby. Cue the jabs in the ribs that forced me to endure the remainder of this anaemic folly. I must say that I am often a fan of films in which very little of any consequence occurs. The previous night, for instance, I had loved every minute of The station Agent. This sort of film however can only work if it manages to engage. And in this The Girl with a Pearl Earring, for all its beautiful costumes and scenery, spectacularly fails. Colin Firth plays the same role we all know by heart, and Scarlet Johansson simply fails to bring any sympathy or life to her character. Tom Wilkinson is as good as ever, but his character is so one dimensional you wonder whether he has simply been copied and pasted from a comic book of villains. I was left rather annoyed by this pointless work. Firstly because I had been woken up to suffer it, and secondly because every time I see the beautiful painting that inspired it, I will be left with the painful image of a mute Scarlet Johansson and a mute Colin Firth in a room together, with not an ounce of tension between them.


OK, so a lot of comments I've read on this film have called it beautiful. Is this a sign of unimaginativeness? Is it just fans jumping on the band waggon in their admiration? No - it is a true description of this film because that is the word that jumps to minds on seeing this film. The lighting subtly filling corners in the painting studio, spilling over the actor's clothes, reflecting off the dark water as the guests arrive for the birth feast; this aspect of the film alone shows the hard work and dedication of the people involved to make this film look like a Vermeer painting. And it works. Perfectly.

So do the actors, Colin Firth breathing life into the taciturn artist so completely, he effectively walks off the page in the novel and into our imagination. Scarlett Johannson portrays the innocence and youth of the maid Griet with equal skill and vivacity. Solo, these actors are a credit to their profession - couple, they are an erotic force to be reckoned with. Each fleeting moment of contact is so sexy because it never actually leads to anything between the two.

So watch this film once, then watch it again to appreciate the effort made by the crew and actors to make this film truly deserving of the title 'beautiful'.


Witless romp featuring Gregory Peck as a sports-writer who has a whirlwind courtship with fashion guru Lauren Bacall, leading to a quick trip to the altar. CinemaScope fluff directed by a water-treading Vincente Minnelli does allow Peck to loosen up for a change, but the screenplay seems to have been written around the opportunities for mini-fashion shows (indeed, costumer Helen Rose devised the movie's premise, which helped win a Best Screenplay Oscar for writer George Wells). It's very slow on laughs until the amusing farcical conclusion. Peck and Bacall are not quite the sparkling romantic duo they're meant to be, nor is the lackluster supporting cast any help. Good to look at, perhaps, but certainly not memorable. *1/2 from ****


It is obvious from the start that this movie was staged around the costumes. The writing, directing, and acting (except for Gregory Peck) are horrific. Up until the time I saw this film, I had never considered that Lauren Bacall was actually acting, but her performance in Designing Woman is atrocious. It may have been that she was directed to spotlight the costumes -- that can be the only answer to why she flipped around swaying her skirts and otherwise acting like a peahen in the overwhelming number of costumes she wore. Each costume is wonderful, but they simply steal the show! Ms. Bacall's posing -- again, most likely due to the direction and the attempt to highlight the costumes -- is not comic, but concocted. The lines are not light comedy, they are silly.

There are so many instances calling for suspension of unbelief that after about 30 minutes, one cannot ignore them. The one that sticks in the front of my mind is when Peck lets the poodle out of the bedroom where he is hiding from his wife (Bacall) with his shoe in its mouth. Why let it out? Why not at least take the shoe away? The sets are cheap-looking (the doors struck me as having just been stuck there, many opening the wrong way according to most buildings) and the lighting obvious (having the silhouettes on the wall was okay in the dance rehearsal, but it was too much to follow up with silhouettes during the fight scene). The flow of the film is terribly rough, going from scene to scene in metronomic fashion. The fight scene is moronic beyond match, integrating the overused character of the punch-drunk fighter with the irritating character of the choreographer, making the audience wince with embarrassment for everyone involved in the making of this movie.

If you like pretty dresses, watch this film and hit the "mute" button. If you watch it in anticipation of seeing a solid Minelli-Peck-Bacall movie, save your time. It's just not pretty seeing a vulnerable Lauren Bacall at her worst, whether due to the direction or to her now visible weaknesses as an actress. If Minelli were going for a film with near-slapstick comedy, he missed. It is neither slapstick nor comedy!


I've seen at least parts of this before, but I sat through it today and couldn't stop shaking my head. Stagey, stilted, and wooden.

Only a few minor actors (viz Jesse White as Charlie Arneg) seem to be at ease and make their dialogue natural. Bacall and Peck barely utter a believable syllable throughout the entire production, so you could really care less if they live happily ever after or get hit by a bus. (Dolores Gray is actually the much more sympathetic character.)

The direction often seems more like choreography, with Bacall or her friends moving about the set in exaggerated or bizarre fashion. Scenes meant to be charmingly madcap (the party at the newspaper; the party at her apartment; the poker game cum theater get-together) are simply manic without being funny.

Maybe Doris Day and James Garner could have breathed life into this film.


I was very excited to watch another Tornatore's movie, but after 5 minutes I wanted to ask my money back! I really wasted 10$. The actors were good; this is probably the only thing I liked and allow me to give a "1" as a score. The movie tells the story of Irena, an Ukraine girl, who comes to a small town in North of Italy and works as a janitor in a nice building. She becomes a thief, steeling and making copies of the keys of the apartment of the Adachers, a rich family of jewelers, who lives in the same building. Then she is responsible for the falling of Gina,and replaces her as a maid in the family. The movie is characterized by feedbacks of Irena's past, when she was a prostitute, forced to have children and sell them. Just to the end, we discover the real plan of Irena: living close to Tea, the last child she was forced to have, and apparently was sold and adopted by the Adachers. But the ghosts from Irena's past come back and the story ends in a real drama and in years of prison for Irena. The all story was horrible. First, I'm really tired of seeing another Italian movie showing the story of a foreign from East Europe being a prostitute, a maid and a thief. Come on, Giuseppe, find something better! It looks an "amateur" story, not directed by a famous director as Tornatore, but by young director at his first movie. And don't tell me it was his first thriller: if somebody is not able to direct a thriller, just don't do it. There were good ideas but he just wasted them, and none of them look credible. As the falling of Gina, the old maid of the Adachers, is not credible. The old lady is paralyzed after falling down the stairs, and, just at the end, starts recovering from the accident. Her recovering doesn't make any sense to the story and is left in the air. Then the Mold, an evil character from Irena's past, performed by an excellent Michele Placido, who was killed by a giant scissor that would have killed an elephant, is still alive and comes back in Irena's life. Or the last name of the family that adopted Tea, chosen by the Mold by a name engraved on his necklace. Not to mention that, after Tea's mum died because of Irena, Tea continues to write to Irena while she is in jail and pick her from prison years later. I had the impression Tornatore started the movie without knowing the end and then he just developed it, adding new ideas, but none credible. I really don't understand how actors as Claudia Gerini, Michele Placido, and Margherita Bui decided to appear in this movie. It's really awful and it is far ages from Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and Malena.


Much as Nuovo Cinema Paradiso was about hope, in an environment that Tornatore knows very well (Sicily), this movie is about bitterness and the absolute lack of hope.

Tornatore shows his deep contempt for the ultra-Catholic, yet totally inhuman, NE of Italy. Whether this contributes to make this movie a masterpiece is rather questionable, however.

Characters are paper-thin, lots of unnecessary brutality is displayed, to cater to some type of thrill-thirsty audience, I presume, as it would otherwise be entirely unnecessary,

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso was a brilliant masterpiece. This one ain't.


Richard Benjamin directed this. Ted Danson plays a lead as Hal the auto salesman. Whoopi Goldberg plays a lead as Sarah. Will Smith plays a lead as occasional boyfriend. Jennifer Tilley, oh dear.

What a mess of a movie and completely uneven, wavering all over the place from outrageous slapstick (a racing elephant!!!) to frequent attempts at poignancy. Too huge and sudden swerves in characterization by the leads matching the swerves of their vehicles, motorcycles and bicycles.

What ever happened to the wit of Richard Benjamin? How did he sink to trite and formulaic? This coulda been a really interesting movie as the premise is intriguing - an adult seeking her sperm donor father.

BUT: instead we have this simplistic plot with very few laughs.

Only good point is a white-black romance without any eyebrow raising or racism (made in 1993) and we still (2008) haven't had many of those in theatres). Whoopi chews the scenery all through it. But the (lack of decent)script is 100% responsible. Avoid. 4 out of 10.


Richard Benjamin was such an interesting actor in the 1970s (indifferent, unafraid to appear dishonest, sharp-tongued) that his transformation into a film director of complete and utter piffle is both surprising and disheartening. Here he helms a crass comedy laced with old-fashioned trimmings: Whoopi Goldberg plays the mother of teenage girl who gets the news she was the result of mom's visit to a sperm bank. Worse, her biological father is both white and an obnoxious car-salesman! Shrill, misguided piece flails about trying to be funny and does not succeed. Goldberg can't rise above the cheap, smarmy writing, nor can she do much under Benjamin's even smarmier handling. * from ****


*Watch out my review contains a spoiler, if you have not seen this movie yet, you may not want me to ruin it for you... if you want to find out what the ONLY funny scene in the movie is, read ahead*. My favorite scene in the movie is when Whoopie Goldberg and the guy from "Three Men and a Little Lady" go to a Japanese restaurant and Whoopie Goldberg takes a whole gulp of Wasabie, that's the only funny scene in the whole movie, trust me. Other then that, the movie is pretty lame. I was actually surprised that Whoopie Goldberg was even in this movie, anyways if you want to watch a really bad movie definitely rent this one.


This starts with a premise involving Will Smith going along to a sperm bank so I was expecting to see a bad taste comedy similar to THERE`S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY , but then the whole feel of the movie changes and we see a rampaging elephant running around which led me to think we`d be seeing an animal driven slapstick comedy like ED , but then the film turns into a slightly rom com type movie , and just right at the end it almost turns serious and we have an obligitary uplifting ending . As you can guess MADE IN AMERICA seems to be very confused as what it`s trying to do which is usually the sign of a bad film and if it`s a comedy with no laughs involved then it IS a bad film


When the executives watched the dailies of this film, did they really sit there and think it was good? Could they actually watch this muddled mess and think that the public would take to this crap? It is films like this that remind me how foolish Hollywood really thinks the audience is. They seem to think that as long as you have a couple of recognizable faces in the film, it means that it is going to be box office gold. But we are not that stupid. As a film goer I need a good story, good direction, and some good a acting. This film contains none of this. There is one funny part in this film and that is when Will Smith tells Whoopi there is a white man at the door. But we already saw that in the commercials, so there is nothing really to look forward to. This is really inexcusable garbage. I don't even know what 3/4 of this film is about. This is a film about a sperm bank mix up. In it you have a stereotypical dumb blond, an elephant chasing a bike, a bear, a monkey, a monstrous sounding nurse and too many more ridiculous situations that don't add anything to the film. Whoopi Goldberg started off doing silly but funny comedies, now she either does bad films or films that are too self important. She is still one hell of a funny lady but what she saw in this film besides a paycheck is an enigma wrapped inside of a riddle embedded in a mystery. The only good thing to come out of this is Nia Long got introduced to Will Smith and she later appeared on his television show. She is a great young actress and I am glad that she has broken into Hollywood. But the rest of the film is just plain terrible.


Richard Benjamin's 'Made in America' keeps harping on a theme in vogue.

According to the script Nia Long realizes that her father was a sperm from a sperm-bank. Whoopie Goldberg - her mother - denies everything. Even that she was born at all. And then comes a white man called Ted Danson and upsets their whole world.

So that's the story. Goldberg extravagant performance is annoying. However she and Danson falls in love with each other on the shooting.

Will Smith has eyeglass, the script has no gags, and we have to see something else.

4 of the 10.


Located as an extra on the Special edition DVD of the movie "Vamp", this 22 minute short is what got Wenk the job doing that film in the first place. It has to do with Count Dracula leaving Thansyvania for New York for it's "pulsating night life". Watching it in 2005, it has dated well at all and is way too shrouded in the '70's a decade that any sane person wish didn't exist due to the crappy music, fashion, presidents, and narcissistic attitude. Yup, I loathe the "me decade" with a passion. What does this have to do with the film you ask? Well i'm stretching to meet the 10 minimum line requirement, which is hard to do when dealing with ultra-crappy short films.

My Grade: F


Please, for your mental safety, stay far away from this awful movie! It's not even funny. Everything is failed. Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner tried to do like Michael Bay so he moved his camera at every image but he just managed to give us an headache. On stage, Titoff is not funny. On TV sets, he's just dumb. But on screen, it's catastrophic. He got dead cow eyes, he's unable to say a line with conviction,well i don't have enough words in English to tell you how Titoff is bad! The music is awful, the editing is terrible, the story has been written by a four years old kid,well, Gomez & Tavares, it's just a pain in the ass,the movie you don't want to see. Compare to it, VERCINGETORIX is a master piece!


I didn't like this movie. I read the reviews, watched it, and came away thinking that if this was a movie about a male teacher who "loved" a female student or a female teacher who "loved" a male student that people wouldn't be so sympathetic. In a nutshell, this teacher had no right to be sleeping with a young girl... even if the young girl was the one who initiated the contact. I've also known quite a lot of religious in my life (both priests and nuns) and never knew one who was quite as creepy as "Mother Immaculata" from this film. Her own relationship with Simone was odd. The fact that Simone repeatedly asked to have Annabelle moved out of her dorm and had her comments ignored without discussion was strange. I think the only scene that moved me was when Simone was in church speaking to the priest. When he said his problem was that he "knew everything" I really felt that he was trying to tell her that he knew she was a lesbian and didn't condemn her for it. And I found that simple handclasp at the end of the scene very comforting.


I just watched loving Annabelle, and i do not understand how it has been rated so highly. It lacks so much a film should be to make it great. OK its a lesbian film, fantastic there should be more of them, but this is not a good film just because its made by a lesbian for lesbians. The plot is thin and obvious, the acting is good and would of been so much better if there had been something they could work with. I have read lots of things about this film watched interviews and clips about how long it took to make and get realised and finished...i was expecting something more, something good. All i got was the film that is out there....throughly disappointed. Believe me i never comment on the internet on films and stuff because, you know, its peoples choice to like it or not to. But this film has let me down in what it claimed to be, so i had to say something for others to read.

Ceri


I would have given this film a 3 but I figured a 1 would be more effective in bringing the average rating down. I initially rented this movie because of its high rating and I just want to contribute a low score to prevent others from renting it solely because of its high rating.

Yes, I am sure lesbians have cathartic moments where they must face the reality of their inner soul / sexual predisposition. However, I found this movie to be be incredibly predictable and terribly arduous. The director could have edited half the movie without losing any appeal. Also, I am not sure if the writer/producer/director are gay (nor does it really matter) but the tone of the movie was very biased. The incredibly sensitive poet/teacher/photographer and soon to be lover of Annabelle has a rather disappointing love scene with her boyfriend. It was a cold and rather mechanical scene filmed above the boyfriend while he is literally "pumping" the conflicted lesbian teacher with the fervor and passionate skill of a mongoose. She, without his knowledge, makes obvious expressions of tolerant disdain for his efforts (amazingly enough, my face was mimicking her expression of disappointment throughout the movie).

Of course, eventually we come to the climactic love scene between the no longer conflicted teacher and Lovely Annabelle ... BIG surprise -- The love scene between them is passionate, romantic and full of heat. A complete reversal ... Shocking how ingenious the director was.

Why did this annoy me? Well, set aside the fact the characters are lesbians. But, could they not have made the male patsy less mechanical and more skilled in bed? She could have been on top, he could have been pleasuring her, more foreplay, etc. It would have been more effective this way because it would have showed that it was not the lack of creativity and variety in bed that made her feel uneasy with her boyfriend -- But it was just the unfortunate fact that he was born a male. The homosexual community does not have the patent on great sex.

Oh, I almost forgot one of the ridiculous subplots. Annabelle is apparently the daughter of a female Senator with aspirations for the presidency and she sends her trouble-maker daughter to the Catholic school which employs the Poetry teacher. In the end, they are caught and the teacher is arrested by what look like government officials. This was RIDICULOUS and unrealistic. If this were the case, the event would have been quietly put under the rug, so to speak, and Annabelle would have been transferred by her mother, the "evil" goal oriented Senator. The end was even more distasteful and improbable than the movie.

Additionally, did anyone even feel uncomfortable with the age difference and the fact that an authority figure (a teacher) had a sexual relationship with a student? Many people seem enamored and blinded by the story of the relationship between "Simone" (she looks like she is at least 43 years old) and lovely 17yo Annabelle. Although the character was presented as an intelligent and "worldy" 17yo girl, this story could have been more effective if Annabelle was a college grad student and Simone were the young poetry professor. This will also eliminate the ridiculous sub-plot about Annabelle's Senator mother.

Oh gosh, and why does every young lost love story have to include an ex-lover that committed suicide (simone's ex lover that she still mourns for) ... Doesn't being gay and a teacher in a catholic school provide enough angst and development for the character? How much must a woman suffer to pull the audience in? Too too cliché.

So much more to say, but I think I feel relieved of the 96 minute burden I just experienced.


To faint-hearted US citizens - who tend to pass out or cry havoc at the mere sight of a female nipple - this decidedly tepid tale of a 17-year-old lesbian girl falling in love with her 40-ish teacher and dragging her into bed might have SCANDAL written all over it; to more enlightened people, it's simply shallow and, even at its b-movie running time of 76 minutes, immensely boring. The muddled, underwritten script works strictly on the level of a high-school play, driving home its well-worn messages (true love will find a way to overcome even the greatest obstacles, heterosexual men are selfish bastards and bad in bed to boot) with all the subtlety of a poorly greased jackhammer. And while the acting is okay, some scenes - such as the kissing-in-the-swimming-pool bit - look as cheesy as if they were lifted straight from "The L Word" or a soft-core lesbian sex flick; how director Katherine Brooks managed to hire people like Elizabeth Shue, Will Patton and the ever-magnificent Frances Conroy for her latest effort ("Waking Madison") is beyond me. Finally, the climactic (no pun intended) sex scene is actually very tame and never goes beyond European prime-time TV standards, so, dear kids and guardians of public morals, there's really nothing to worry about.

Contrary to some of the comments here, the film doesn't encourage, let alone propagate "pedophilia" (which generally stands for the sexual abuse of a child, a category a sexually active and aggressive 17-year-old hardly qualifies for in my book) but mostly plays like a chin-up movie for young lesbians about to come out.


I want to preface this by saying that I am thrilled that lesbians are being depicted more and more regularly, and less stereotypically, in television and film. On a superficial level, I enjoyed this filmparticularly Diane Gaidry's portrayal of the sexually-repressed yet undeniably hot teacher, Simone. But I simply could not believe that Simone would fall for Annabelle who, to me, seemed like a self-important, immature teenage girl who would not be worth the risk of getting involved with. Maybe it's a generational thingcertainly, Erin Kelly is an attractive-enough actorbut there simply was nothing compelling about her character. The script makes cloddy attempts to show that Annabelle has an artist's depth (which we are supposed to conclude from her not-very-insightful interpretation of poetry, her recognition of Simone's photographic skills, and the singularly unremarkable song she apparently wrote and plays for Simone), the compassion of a much more mature person (which we are supposed to conclude from her comforting a classmate who has lost a pet and from her comforting Simone after discoveringby snooping, no lessthat the woman Simone loved killed herself), and the courage of her convictions (which we are supposed to conclude from her unwillingness to give up her Buddhist beads). These attempts are unconvincing and inconsistent with Annabelle's overall surly demeanor. If Simone were driven merely by flattery and lust, then the coupling might seem understandable, but the story seems to go out of its way to show that there is a deeper connection between the two, one that drives the poised, thoughtful and otherwise careful Simone to throw caution to the wind and bed down with jail bait when it isn't even clear that she was able to do the same with a woman she knew for years and loved. I had a hard time believing it.


I would give it 10/10 for cinematography and soundtrack, and 1/10 for the script.

I can buy the student-teacher story, but the rest of it is virtually unbelievable to me. The plot is so poorly brought together it hurts. The movie could have been much better!

Why are they trying to persuade us it's a *love story* i don't understand. Love supposes some future and support, and what future could these two live together? So we better call it a movie about two girls craving to have sex, one of them eager and open for it, and the other trying to make fences all over and finally yielding. This stuff I can wholly buy and this sounds reasonable.

BTW bloopers and alternate ending appeared to be best of all about it


After hearing rave reviews of Loving Annabelle, I rented the film without realizing the plot involved a teacher and an under-aged teenage girl. I thought the story was between a teacher and a college student, in other words between two consenting adults. True, this film is fiction. Yes, these situations happen. It is not enjoyable watching an adult take sexual advantage over a child. I watched the film hoping for redemptive quality; instead, I stopped the film when they kissed passionately because it was evident that the plot progressed beyond the point of no return. That was not a scene between two consenting adults, rather between a teenage girl and an adult woman. Am I the only one who was deeply disturbed by the lack of responsibility of the teacher in the film?

Like most young teenage lesbians, I had huge crushes on teachers, camp counselors and Girl Scout leaders. To their credit, they never crossed that boundary between teacher and student. Over the past 20 years, working as teachers at various camps, I have experienced crushes from blossoming baby dykes. As the adult in the situation, I have tremendous obligation as a teacher, role model and a sister to these young women, not to take advantage of the situation. Yes, egos are stroked with adoration, but it's never appropriate to reciprocate the feelings. Mentors are looked up to and entrusted with inmost secrets, feelings and thoughts. It is not an opportunity to exploit, but to lead and guide. It is never acceptable simply because the student makes the first move.

If the teacher in the film were instead a man, would perceptions and opinions of the film be different? I draw the line with entertainment that includes adult and under-aged sex even when it's packaged as a lesbian love story. In this world of perceived animosity toward gays and lesbians as pedophiles and promiscuous, films such as this perpetuate the myth that gays and lesbians cannot control their passions, and as such do a great disservice to us all.

Two thumbs down for me.


My girlfriend talked about wanting to see this movie for months on end and so finally I gave in and got it for her so that we could watch it together.

I had no idea about what it was about until we started watching it.

The plot is going to offend a lot of people. The teacher/student/illegal relationship bothered me and I'm a pretty open-minded person. There wasn't much feeling in it and it came off very unrealistic. It needed to be much more powerful to pull off such a touchy subject.

The acting wasn't the best. The characters were horribly planned out, and I couldn't see any (real) chemistry between the two of them.

Annabelle is your stereotypical "bad girl" that gets sent to a Catholic Boarding school. The stereotype is ridiculously overplayed. I stress that point. In fact it's so bad that you no longer even root for Annabelle's happiness because she becomes such an annoyance. Her behavior was unbelievable. And I was hoping that she would just leave her poor teacher alone.

And why does Simone just let it happen? It's not believable that a woman like Simone would be even mildly interested in Annabelle, much-less risk that much for the stupid little girl. She doesn't even seem to be that interested in her, she seems more like a victim in their "relationship".

The sex scene was probably the only well done thing in the entire movie, but with the rest of the plot, you didn't even want to see them have sex. In fact I was hoping throughout the movie that it wouldn't happen.

At best, this movie was a complete joke. It was hard to take you eyes off of it in a "car crash" sort of way.

If you're gonna watch this movie, I'd recommend borrowing it, not spending the money to rent it or buy it.


Alan Ayckbourn's only major stage to screenplay (to date) is mucked-up with a lot of tricky camera work and opened up like a cancer patient, straying far off the path set by an excellent stager re: newcomer disrupting a provincial troupe staging John Gay opera on proverbial shoestring. Fine effort by Tony Hopkins as transplanted Welshman director but to no avail. Films centering on staging plays (NOISES OFF, of note) rarely hit the mark and this is no exception. I'll keep my memories of the Royal National Theatre production and try to forget this plodding mess. Bury it with flick BEYOND THERAPY, another stager gone wrong for a wonderful stage scribe.


I was actually an extra in this movie, one of the worst sports movies ever made. I only did one day's worth of work and it was one of the most boring things I've ever experienced. I'm in the scene where someone supposedly puts helium in the basketballs and they float to the top of the Civic Arena. A crane (out of camera range) had thin wires attached to the balls. The director took about 10 takes of the scene. I thought I would lose my mind, trying to act surprised every time the balls "floated." When I saw the film I was shocked at how little screen time the shot got, but not as shocked at how bad the whole movie was. With a cast as good as it has you'd think they could save it, but the script was so bad even the great Stockard Channing couldn't help!


I paid to see this dog in an actual movie theater...I can't imagine how boring my life must have been then to not have any better alternative--say, root canal work on four teeth at once without Novocaine.

Julius was my hoops hero at the time (still is in some ways), and I was major-league embarrassed for him.

The premise is ridiculous, and the movie takes itself so seriously it just strains all credulity. If it were a little bit more "camp" in style, it might be funny to watch 20 years later, but it just doesn't get how ludicrous it is. Even the hoops highlights are mediocre.

We called it, "The fish that ate our $3.50 (which was movie admission at the time!)."


Gerald Green's novel, about a slum doctor in Brooklyn whose sudden positive notoriety has left him with a bitter aftertaste, comes to the screen with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Paul Muni (in his final film, for which he was inexplicably Oscar-nominated) plays the stereotypical 'old humbug' practitioner who helps save a young girl's life one night and is hailed in print as a local hero; soon, a documentary team wants to turn their cameras on Muni, who finds himself caught between good intentions and insincere sympathy. Too many targets--and too much heavy-handed chatter--cloud this picture's alleged focus: the elderly doctor who only wants to do right by his young patients. Daniel Mann directed, poorly; his actors seem encouraged to be theatrical, while the hysterical pitch of the piece steadily climbs to a ridiculous level. A handful of scenes work (particularly the moments between Muni and troubled youth Billy Dee Williams), yet the doctor's relationships with his eager-beaver nephew and stalwart wife are sadly artificial. ** from ****


This is the type of show that used to be produced weekly on Playhouse 90. Many of those dramas were later re-made as motion pictures. It even has a television drama feel. There seem to be commercial breaks built into it. The acting is strictly Ham-Ola. And for all the comments about Muni's performance - he is as bad as he ever was. Luther Adler plays his friend. Adler was the original "Golden Boy" in Clifford Odets Broadway play (opposite Frances Farmer) here he gives a surface performances.

A completely self-indulgent project that is saved only by the performances of a few of the supporting players including Billy Dee Williams and Betsy Palmer. David Wayne was never good in any role, this one included.


OK. To begin with, I just watched all of Buffy recently. I never watched it on TV because when the Buffy movie came out, I hated it (of course, a lot has changed since then). That being said, I gotta admit that I was very stunned to find out how enjoyable it actually was. I even began to get Willow-y when I talked at times haha. Season 7 was much darker than all the others, but I liked the way it was going, especially in the final few leading up to the finale. You can tell that the writers had practically given up by this episode or run out of ideas or something. The weren't giving nearly as much as they had for all of the others. I had a lot of problems with this episode, but one thing I did like was the Spike and Buffy scene (even though I never wanted them together, esp after he turned stalker-y and built a mannequin and a sex-bot, sniffing her undies...etc) I didn't understand why the spell had to turn all potentials worldwide into all out slayers when the major battle was in the school. Which also brings up another question... Why did the spell have to be performed at the school? Why not have done it at home instead of putting Willow and her girl in danger? I didn't think about it til today, but someone brought up another good point on this message board... Buffy was nearly killed by the uber-vamp two or three times... and she's got 8 years or so experience on the "new slayers", but they were killing the slayers with no problem. I was also rooting for her sis to be a potential which could've led to a very different ending, probably even better, a lot better. Its not that we are criticizing the show for it being the finale. All of the other endings were far better (even the one with the dream sequence). 5 was the best ending when they planned to end it the first time. What happened?


This episode should have been carefully thought out, several times and with careful consideration to the fans and the heart of the series.

I almost wish I had never seen this last episode. If you haven't, it could be an alternative not to see it and just imagine the end you would like to see instead.

Long before I saw this last episode, I was a bit afraid that the writers might use up most of the episode's runtime on the final battle.

In my opinion, the final battle should have taken up maybe 50% of the episode. So that the last 50% could have been used to clear things out and to round up a good and satisfying ending to this great series.

Instead, my worst fears got answered, and then some. 90% involves the final battle, 5% is left for some social substance before the battle and 5% at the end, after the battle.

Of course, it's not all bad. There is -one- scene in it that is nice. The scene is of course when Buffy and Spike are talking at the end of the battle, and Buffy reaches for Spike's hand, their hands embrace and a magic flame bursts out from their hands, in my interpretation; "the flame of love". This is also where Buffy finally tells Spike: "I love you". And I'm almost crying of joy and the intensity of the moment, only to get a "slap" in the face 2 seconds later, when Spike replies; "No, you don't... But thanks for saying it".

I could not believe my ears; Buffy finally admits that she loves him, and then Spike replies that she does not and is only trying to be nice, giving me the impression that Buffy might be lying. Then he tells her to go, she goes and eventually Spike begins to die/burn up and finally dies.

Not only was his rejection of Buffy's sincerity in her love for him a painful anti-climax, having been built up for so long and we, the fans of their relationship, had been waiting impatiently for, for so long, but he dies as well! Then we have the completely unnecessary death of Anya, which I could have been able to accept if Spike had survived, answered something different to Buffy, and they had ended up together.

But now, this was just something completely unnecessary. To me, the characters of the principal and Willows new girlfriend, Kennedy, would have been much better candidates for the obligatory deaths in a battle of this magnitude.

Xander is also very indifferent when he hears of Anya, the love of his life's death. This is also somewhat of an anti-climax.

At the end, when the survivors are standing around, looking at the big hole in the ground, not much is cleared out.

I was devastated when the episode ended. I was angry, sad, disappointed, frustrated and I felt a bit empty and deceived. This is not how I wanted to feel the night of December 24:th.

Now, in retrospect, I have been able to interpret Spike's reply in a different way. I believe he told Buffy that she does not love him, just because he knew that he would die and he wanted her to leave so that she would not die as well. He also wanted her to be able to love somebody else, and not love him. So she was sincere and he knew that.


State Senator Willard Waterman is one uptight dude, but a politician with his ear to the ground. In danger of losing his election he decides to go to a ski resort to see what the youth of today are all about. Music publisher Chad Everett and coed/songwriter Mary Ann Mobley are ready to show him as well.

Upon this flimsy plot hangs Get Yourself a College Girl which is also the name of the song Mary Ann Mobley wrote. She's been writing songs for a few years now, the royalties have helped with her tuition. When the board of trustees of this exclusive women's school find out about it they want to expel Ms. Mobley. I seem to remember this same plot involving a showgirl in Abbott&Costello's Here Come the Coeds. And it was better done there.

Of course the film is merely an excuse to showcase several popular groups and artists of the mid sixties. The Dave Clark Five, the Animals, the Shandells, etc. all do their popular songs of the day in good style.

And of course Willard Waterman wins the election by the tried and true method of bringing out the over 21 vote at the colleges. The film would really work now that the voting age nationwide is 18.

And maybe John Kerry should have tried something like renting out a go-go club as his campaign headquarters. History might have been different.


No kidding. Except for Stan Getz and jazz organist Jimmy Smith, this is one awful excuse for a movie. It's sexist, not sexy, it's base and insulting and ... well ... one of the great, if negative, cultural documents of the turbulent 1960s.

It manages to encapsulate in a short series of badly staged, and nearly-meaningless scenes, almost everything that the '60s were really about, including the obnoxious political leaders then in power, the rampant dissatisfaction of young women with their exclusive, but all-female educational institutions, the commercialization of pop music, and the proclivity of certain Hollywood types to place beautiful young women in static combinations on a set, where they can actively leer at them with their film cameras rolling.

It stinks. It makes a mockery of the soulfulness of the music of the era. It annoys most horribly when it could have entertained us at least a little bit.

And worst yet, the basic story concept, of the internal conflict felt by a bright young woman who can write winning popular music, in an era still as stuffy as Mamie Eisenhower's tea parties ... was a most intriguing concept. And they got a young Nancy Sinatra to join the cast, too !! Why oh why did they not make the movie the real story of the heroine's dilemma ? Instead, it looks like a very long commercial for Decca Records and for the idea of skiing at Sun Valley.

Yes, I watched this on Turner Classic Movies while waiting for the plumbers to come and fix a badly broken set of pipes. A big ol' tip of the cowboy hat to TCM for having the "chutzpah" to show this dog of a musical movie at all. Gotta love them for it. I wanna do lunch with their film archivists, truly .... But what a stinker of a film.

My eyes still hurt.


So the plot is definitely straight out of an Elvis movie, and the production values so bad it's almost better to play this one like it was a high school play than a movie. The sets look like fake movie sets in movies about movies.

I find two things fascinating about this movie forty years out:

(1) what passed for sexually suggestive or titillating once upon a time, which still has some fetishistic appeal (pay attention to Nancy Sinatra's scenes).

(2) Exactly how ugly Eric Burdon and all of the Animals were. Come to think of it, everybody in this movie is kinda ugly, at least everybody on stage. The Dave Clark Five made me "Glad All Over" I didn't have a British dentist.

But this is a movie worth watching just for the musical performances, and if you like camp or early 60s lingerie you'll have something to get you from the party scene to the telethon scene.


Instantly forgettable and pretty bad color "rock n roll" film that's deadly dull. It's got all the clichés, like the older generation who doesn't "get it", and young people dancing and strutting their stuff in revealing outfits.

The female eye candy, in the form of pretty Mary Ann Mobley and her other girlfriends, are about all there is to watch in this deadly dull timepiece. Some of my favorite '60s groups, like The Animals and The Dave Clark Five, get to perform a few numbers on stage, but their material is just as underwhelming.

*/****


Okay, it's got Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, plus the Jimmy Smith Trio, so as others have said, if you like jazz, you've got two good scenes. Personally, I love the Dave Clark Five and The Animals, but the songs they perform here are far from their best. They aren't hits, and why they'd choose to waste filler material on a movie with the potential to reach a bigger audience is beyond me.

One of my pet peeves is when a film features a song clearly written by an older songwriter with a background in show tunes and the like, and tries to pass it off as a big pop hit. I can't fathom any universe in which the song performed by Mary Ann Mobley, "Get Yourself a College Girl", would be a hit. And yet she's presented to us as this major songwriter with her finger on the pulse of today's youth.

The script feels like it was thrown together on the set. Is it about Mary Ann Mobley being booted out of college? No, wait, it's about her fighting and falling in love with her publisher. Nope, never mind, it's about re-electing a senator. Oops, looks like we're out of time. The end. But before we go, here are the Dave Clark Five and The Animals to sing some more songs you've never heard of while we film them in a straight-on close up that looks like a mugshot.


Let me start by saying that I was expecting so much more.

The first part was more like psychological thriller - the rundown kind that has no twists and genuine scares. In fact, all of the "scary" parts were created by using unexpected noises and creepy music, which got boring and predictable really soon. Even changes in the camera angle were accompanied by a loud bang.

The second part, however, turned into a supernatural slasher and I was actually quite thrilled, because the first part of the film had been really bad. So I adapted and stayed tuned, hoping for at least something genuine in the whole thing. Needless to say, I was disappointed once more.

Babysitter Wanted failed at everything that would have made it rise even slightly above the average mass of horror flicks. Not only was the main character annoying and unbelievable, the supporting roles weren't much better either. The protagonist kept commenting her own actions and narrating, which was unnecessary and - yup, you guessed it - annoying. The whole story just fell flat and didn't even give me a good fright nor a laugh nor evoked some sort of an emotion.

Moreover, I was disappointed that the religion aspect of the whole thing wasn't utilized and as far as I'm concerned, that's a serious loss.

So, what we have here is a shell of a movie. All of the necessary components with bad execution and with no soul.


The only reason I gave this movie 2 out of 10 instead just 1 is because I found acting pretty solid and good old "jumpy" effects a la John Carpenter copied pretty well (like she is walking back and bumping into someone - simple but still scary). Solid camera and good editing in that way. Everything else about this film is a cheap and extremely stupid Hollywood mishmash of the horror ideas exploited much better at the beginning of the last century. Girl babysitting a boy-devil that eats flash of baby-sitters is the prevalent idea of the whole movie. I saw more intelligent horror ideas among the 7 year old kids. I wish I disregarded the comments I read.


Just watched it. I was so eager to watch it after all the praise it got from IMDb and even a loyal facebook fan base. Stay away. The whole movie is predictable, besides the twist - which had me in hysterical laughing fits, it's plain ridiculous. The movie is one cliché after another, the acting is not too bad, but the story is just lame. I don't understand what separates this film from other 'teen slasher/horror' movies. How can someone describe it as a horror? It was utterly lame. Me and my gf predicted the film in 5 minutes. What's the point of watching something so predictable? Even the twist didn't save it. Enough with these repetitive projects, create something original. I can also admit that I enjoyed Midnight Movie more than this. Stay away not even for a rainy evening.


Are people actually serious! The rating is 8.4! What the heck! This has got to be one of the worst films i have ever seen i mean OK the beginning was OK, good babysitter stalking film then seriously! the devils son. the kid with horns. I fell over laughing the horns!!!!! Hahahahahaha. The film was just so pathetic, "he only eats female meat"! how would he know the difference. This film was just awful! Avoid at all costs, what a waste of time. So glad i didn't pay to see this otherwise i would have demanded my money back! Cannot even believe i watched it. I still cant actually get over the boy with the horns hahahahaha. Total joke of a film.


Who writes these reviews. Thanks to them I wasted 1.5 hrs of my time. I do like a good horror and its a shame as this is not one. There are some so called gory bits but on the whole you have to like crap horror, poor scripts and annoying characters to enjoy this. I even forwarded to the end. The start was quite promising with some suspense, ooh, whats going to happen and to who? But very quickly it became obvious that I was watching a real bad horror and not bad in the good sense. My original thoughts on what will happen really didn't matter anymore as I quickly lost the will to live but persisted for almost 80 minutes, by this point I'd had enough and flicked to the end. And its open for a sequel so all you fans, careful what you wish for...


This movie is beyond incredibly bad. The first half hour shows promise, but goes laughably downhill immediately after the real story comes to light. Save your money and precious time out of your life by avoiding this movie like the black plague. I kid you not...it is REALLY that bad! The acting was laughable, the dialogue cheezy and the story, although different, was grasping at straws to be TOO different. I threw it in the trash right after watching it. It starts out suspenseful, but turns comedic shortly after. Even my normally jumpy wife was disappointed and laughing at the sub par acting and ridiculous storyline. How this movie even made it to release is beyond me. I've had commercials grab my attention more.

Satan drinks buttermilk!!....lol


Wow read some reviews and saw the trailer and seemed interesting. The beginning i did enjoy. Towards the middle then to the end just got weirder and weirder.

Spoilers Once the whole thing with the priest and the kid being the devil started the movie started to unravel for me. The acting with the mother and father was just so odd. I would stay away from this movie unless you want to be disappointed in the end. After showing good promise in the beginning this movie took a turn towards unforgettable. The acting was OK but the story just went so far out there. The end leans towards a sequel. At least would know what to expect with that and could stay away.


This film is far inferior to the apparently less-loved and less well-known "Babar:King of the Elephants" and one should not be confused between the two.

In terms of style, animation, etc., the two are very similar, and a lot of the same people worked on both. However, Babar the Movie inexplicably strays from the stories, totally messing with the events as portrayed in the books. One example is that in Babar the Movie, Babar is a very young, and apparently reluctant, king at first, seemingly thrust into the position, and without Celeste as queen. This is completely different from the books where Babar, although chosen king, is mature by then; is the one who makes the elephant society "complex" and urban, etc.; and marries Celeste as soon as he becomes king and before he builds the city. Moreover, the "war" with the rhinos in Babar the Movie is more violent, so it is not as good for really young children, and it is inexplicable and apparently senseless, unlike the fight in Babar: King of the Elephants or the first books.

The story and conflict in Babar the Movie may be based on some of the latest books in the series, but not any of the books I have read, and it differs in story and spirit from the Babar books with which I am familiar. If it is based on later books, then I would venture to say that such books, if actually like this cartoon, stray from the original ones and fail in the same regards and for the same reasons.

Also, adults seem to like this one more because it is less "cutesy" and more "dark," but I disagree with any such opinions. Both cartoons are still child-oriented, neither really is great, neither is very artistic, and neither really transcends the child/family genre to appeal truly to people of all ages. I don't especially enjoy or appreciate kid/family oriented stuff that much, but I don't find this any more appealing to me because it is supposedly more "mature." In fact, the more artistic sequences of Babar: King of the Elephants I find to be handled much better, with greater care, skill, and art, than anything in Babar the Movie. I also find the scene in the other film, where the hunter kills Babar's mom, to be more powerful and interesting, even emotionally unsettling, than the stupid war in Babar the Movie, yet, it has an important point, is highly relevant, and is more appropriate an issue for kids. The war in Babar the Movie is unsettling as it seems totally gratuitous and sensationalized, used simply to create a showy story. It gives the feel of throwing in elements from a low-grade action film with pointless violence used only to gratify base desires, which simply is not appropriate for a cartoon such as this or for Babar.

Babar: King of the Elephants may be a little more "cutesy" than the books, and suffers for this, but it does basically stay faithful to the original spirit.

In sum, if one really wants to watch Babar, then one should watch Babar: King of the Elephants, not this movie. If one instead wants something more artistic or fitting with "mature" tastes, interests, etc., then one should watch neither. Babr the Movie seems to try to straddle both worlds (children and adult), and in doing so fails to succeed in either. Babar: King of the Elephants pretty much knows where it is and it succeeds as a result.


if you loved the "wogs" series of the late 80's then you will probably think this is funny as well.

Racial stereotypes set in day to day life, if you want to watch something in that sort of vein go watch "Kingswood Country" or for a USA production, "Married with children" or "SOAP".

If the producers were trying to turn away potential immigrants then they have a hit production, this would turn me away if I was foreign born and saw this as what Australian's were like.

It's as funny as Barry Humphries' Dame Edna character, and has as much to do with Australian life as Dame Edna does.

do yourself a favor, if you find it funny, go see a psychiatrist?


This is one of the worst Australian 'comedies' in recent years, and that's saying something. It easily ranks amongst the mind-numbing Skithouse, Big Bite, All Aussie Adventures and Comedy Inc.

It easily ranks amongst some of the most over-rated and over-watched Australian shows of all time like Neighbours and Home & Away.

All this show is is a bunch of self-indulgent, old, untalented actors and actresses playing stupid, annoying characters (i.e. themselves), recycling jokes from 'Big Girl's Blouse' and trying to be funny with cheap puns.

What irritates me even more is that when 'Double the Fist', one of the all time greatest Australian TV shows ever made won the AFI for best comedy beating this show, every newspaper article afterwards winged about how this got it's arse kicked by a more deserving show.

Wise up Australia! This show is crap.


Forest Of Fear is generally dull and boring with a few "decent" bits (note: decent doesn't always mean good!) The story starts off quite interesting but soon gets tedious. A group growing illegal drugs are sprayed with a toxic herbicide which turns them into bloodthirsty zombies. After this a lot of stalking around the forest and occasional gore follows. None of the characters are particularly interesting and you won't feel any sympathy when they die. The decent bits are when a man gets his hand severed, complete with spurting blood, and a few splatter scenes such as when one of the zombies is killed at the end. I wouldn't recommend watching it for this as you can find ten times as much gore in a Lucio Fulci flick. It has a typical synth score and a woman gets her breasts out.

I would only recommend Forest Of Fear if you're a backwoods slasher fan. It's not really for zombie fans as the "zombies" just look like regular people with makeup and dark circles round their eyes. It's a rare title too - unavailable on DVD, but old VHS copies appear on ebay from time to time.


One of the infamous video nasties that were banned in Britain, this one known as Forest of Fear, is still banned. It was released on video in the US as Toxic Zombies, and is also known as Blood Butchers. With all these names changes, maybe they can sneak it past the British Film Board.

It is a typical zombie movie. The government sprays some unapproved substance (DROMAX) on marijuana fields on government land, and it turns the pot growers into zombies. They start killing their friends that didn't get infected, then move to campers in the woods.

Lots of blood and body parts, but only one gratuitous nude scene (Debbie Link) before the whole thing starts as one pot grower is bathing out of a pail.

Cameo by John Amplas (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Knightriders).

For zombie completists.


And to think, I was actually looking forward to seeing this film! Forest of Fear is a Video Nasty zombie flick, and if that's not enough to put you off; the fact that it's really boring might. The plot looks like it might give way to a fun little flick, as it follows the idea of a field full of weed being sprayed by chemicals, which turn everyone who smokes it into zombies. However, the film can't capitalise on this plot base; I'm not sure if it was because of the budget constraints, or merely a lack of talent on the writer's part, but most of the film is made up of tedious sequences; and even the parts where the zombies get to munch on human flesh aren't up to much. I've got no idea why this film was banned, as while there are gore sequences in the film; none of them are particularly gruesome, and I reckon that whoever made up the actual 'Video Nasty' list decided to take this film out of circulation because it's a zombie film. Not that I particularly have a problem with a ban on this movie; it's not worth seeing anyway.

Despite being rubbish, however, Forest of Fear marks a personal achievement for Charles McCrann. McCrann, apparently a movie buff, has credits on this movie for acting, directing, editing, producing and writing - and that's no small feat, even for a movie of this low calibre. However, despite McCrann's personal achievement; Forest of Fear is a zombie movie of the lowest order. Movies like Dawn of the Dead took the idea of zombies and moulded it around a substantial social commentary, and later films such as The Evil Dead worked in spite of a low budget thanks to a constant stream of entertainment; Forest of Fear lacks both intelligence and interest, and it very much just another zombie movie. Ironically, had the film have been Italian; I may have been more forgiving given all the glorious trash that they've given the world of cult cinema, but unfortunately; this is just a really bad film and unless you're planning to see everything on the Video Nasty list (like me) - I can't recommend going out of your way to find this.


The film opens with a shot of a car in the distance travelling along a dirt track in the middle of thick forest towards the camera, we wait for what seems like ages before it reaches us. Inside are two Federal Agents (James Hart and John Kuhi). They stumble across a hippies camp site. Jackie (Debbie Link) is bathing, less than three minutes on the clock and we get some naked breast shots, I'm almost impressed. Realizing that this is camp of a bunch of illegal marijuana growers they attempt to arrest the hippies. Jackie is shot through her throat and killed, the other hippies, manage to turn the tables on the Feds and kill them both. Back in civilization the Federal Agents are missed. In their boss Briggs (Paul Haskin) office, we know it's a Feds office because there's a big table, swivel chair and an American flag, he tells agent Phillips (John Amplas) to spray the whole area with an experimental, untested, toxic, chemical herbicide called Dromax. Back at the camp site the hippies decide to harvest what they can and leave before more Feds turn up. As they start to harvest the crop five of the hippies (Bob Hanson, Gerald Cullen, Ronald Keinhuis, Kim Roff and make up effects man Craig Harris) get covered in Dromax as it's dumped by a constantly drunk crop sprayer (Bob Larson) from his plane. They all start to cough up blood and look very sick. The hippie leader (Dennis Graber) and his girlfriend (Debra O'Leary) both escaped being sprayed and quickly find out that the Dromax has turned their friends into bloodthirsty mindless zombies! A husband (Roger Mills) his wife (Pat Kellis) plus their two children Amy (Judy Brown) and Jimmy (Kevin Hanlon) and anyone else the hippie zombies can find are attacked. It's up to the local forest ranger Tom Cole (played by editor, producer, writer and director Charles McCrann as Charles Austin) his wife Polly (Beverly Shapiro) and his half brother Jay (Philip Garfinkel) who are on weekend fishing trip, to try and save the day and put an end to the hippie zombies reign of bloodthirsty terror! Starring in, edited, produced, written and directed by Charles McCrann, who according to the IMDb died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. Well, we know who to blame then. I didn't exactly hate it but at the same time I certainly didn't like it either. Generally quite poorly made with awful acting, cheap effects, extremely static boring photography and lackluster instantly forgettable music. There's next to no gore or violence in it, a chopped off hand, cut off leg, a few gunshot wounds and a few splashes of blood here and there, that's it. The only nudity is the woman taking a bath in the opening scenes. The script sucks, it has no excitement, tension and very little originality. The hippie zombies have no purpose, their bite doesn't turn others into zombies and their never shown eating anyone, they just kill for the hell of it. Most of the characters in the film aren't even given proper names which shows how much character development McCrann was interested in. The limp ending is terrible as well, it just sort of ends all of a sudden. The dialogue is very sparse and some of the worst I've heard in a long time, none of the characters are developed at all, I couldn't care less what happened to anyone at any point in the film. This film has various alternate titles including Bloodeaters, Toxic Zombies, Blood Butchers and it's known as Forest of Fear here in the UK. Poor, don't waste your time.


"Toxic Zombies" is one horrible zombie movie! With an uncountable number of faults, I would rank this movie within the top ten worst films I've ever seen. This movie would provide a great example of a bad movie that came out of the early eighties zombie era.

The "plot", which is virtually non-existent, is as follows: A group of people are growing marijuana on a piece of land that is owned by the government. When the government hears about this, they drop a load of extremely toxic chemicals on both the marijuana and the people (the government apparently did not care about the condition of the people). These chemicals end up turning the group people into zombies, hence the name "Toxic Zombies". The rest of the movie involves zombies killing and eating people.

The plot may not sound that bad to some, but what the director did with it is what made the movie so bad. There is not a large amount of gore, unlike what the box lead me to believe, and when gore is inserted, it is extremely fake. The acting is very bad, as is the dialogue and the plot. The only good thing about this movie is the unintentional humor derived from the script and the bad acting.

I recommend this movie for nobody. My rating: 2 out of 10


OK, where to begin? I love rare zombie flicks, and I love homemade horror films like this one. But I don't particularly like it when movies fail to entertain me, as "Bloodeaters" did. First off, the title. How does one "eat" blood? It's a liquid. You drink it. But "Bloodeaters" is a more accurate title than the retrofitted "Toxic Zombies", which seems intended to make the film seem as if it's a Troma flick. It's not, although it's definitely the kind of movie that Troma spoofs constantly.

I do not have a problem with the film's low budget, because so much creativity can happen in a low budget movie. But there's a strange alchemy in creating an enjoyably cheap flick, and "Bloodeaters" never quite gels. It's not the bad acting, or the rock bottom production values, or the unconvincing effects, or the awful script. It's a combination of all of it. You can tell the director is inexperienced, and it shows.

The "ghouls" here are not even zombies, they're just ordinary people who are very sick and extra homicidal. But there are some great WTF moments, like an opening nude scene that shows a woman bathing herself in the woods with a sponge and a dirty bucket. There's also a memorable "love scene" that begins as a love scene, turns into an argument during which the lovers tear each others clothes in anger. Then they start having sex.

The plot itself is even strange: a group of marijuana farmers hiding out in a rural area, growing their crop, are found out somehow. Two feds (in flannel shirts and jeans, and without backup) approach a covert weed-growing operation in the wilderness. When they wind up dead, headquarters (?) decides that since they haven't reported back, then that MUST mean they've been killed by the weed farmers, who are only suspected to be in the general area. As a solution, they recruit a local crop duster to spread an experimental defoliating agent, which raises a number of questions. Without visiting the area themselves, how did they know what to tell the crop duster to look for? Why risk poisoning an entire area of wildnerness just because two agents haven't reported back? These guys are not too bright. In any case, it's lights out for the weed farmers, who get violently ill and then get the urge to shamble around and start biting people in order to drink...er, EAT their blood.

Although it's not great cinema, there is one compelling moment where a wife and mother sees her husband murdered by the shambling sickies, and the actresses musters some convincing hysterics and terror. Unfortunately, the director follows it up with a typically ridiculous sequence where someone chooses to ignore all obvious signs of danger and gets chomped for no good reason.

Devout zombie fans may get a charge out of "Bloodeaters", just so you can say you've seen everything. But no matter how your crop is dusted, this one will probably just bore you to death.


OK so i am a sucker for these terrible 80's horror films, and this is definitely not one of the better ones. However as with so many others its laughs all round, due to the shockingly bad script, plot etc. As far as the acting goes, well the less said about most of the cast the better, but a couple of leads aren't to bad, just the script lets them down.

As far as gore goes, this film is very tame even by 80's standards. I put this down more to the low budget (which by the way is LOW), resulting in some very laughable effects, like jam looking blood and fake flies... There's a couple of good bits one where a guy has his hand chopped off, another where a guy has his head beaten in by a rock, but the effects are so lame that anyone affected by this film, really needs to look to seeking help.

I think Forrest of Fear is a clear example of one of those films that the BBFC & Police simple stuck on the nasties list most probably due to the outrage at zombie flicks in general at the time. Certainly even by 1980's standards its laughable that this film could fall under the category of an 'obscene publication'. The fact the film still today remains banned in the UK, is not due in any respect to any offencive material, but due I'm sure to the fact that no distributor can be bothered to resubmit the film to the BBFC.

My advice, avoid this unless your into super low budget, terrible 80's zombie flicks. Which personally i love


Toxic Zombies is a rather cheesy film made in a rural area of Pennsylvania, and this is a good place to grow pot? Well, maybe, I don't think of that area of the country as a hotbed of that sort of activity. At any rate, the Feds zone in on a bunch of harvesters ready to pick their crop and get out of town fast, especially after they killed a couple other Feds. But, a lunatic government agent (are there any other kind?) decides to spray the area with an unproven toxin to kill the pot & oh, and if it makes the pot growers sick, who will care? Of course, after the initial dusting, the harvesters are puking blood & not feeling too well, but not long afterward they begin to change into...wait for it....zombies.

Now, these are not your usual George Romero zombies, they don't pounce on a victim and rip out entrails and gnaw lustily on shin-bones, they just take a bite, and then let blood run out of their mouths as they wander off to do something else. Maybe they're just stoned. Anyway, I did kind of like the close-up shot of one victim with red lines painted on their body and perhaps plastic (or dead) flies lined up, with the buzzing sound dubbed in, now THAT was class.

This isn't God-awful terrible, but it's just not a very exciting film. The idea isn't bad, the locations aren't bad, but the actors are wooden & the whole execution of the thing leaves plenty to be desired. I do like cheesy movies but they need more life in them than THIS. 4 out of 10.


A flatly photographed living dead cheapie made in rural Pennsylvania with minimal skill and talent. Forget Romero, this thing doesn't even manage to muster up half the entertainment value of Bill Hinzman's laughable (though oddly enjoyable) 1988 rip-off REVENGE OF THE LIVING ZOMBIES (aka FLESH EATER). About a half dozen marijuana harvesting yahoos camping out in the woods are sprayed with a toxic chemical called "Dromax" by a passing helicopter (sent out by some corrupt federal agents well aware of what they're doing). Most of the pot growers start getting sick by the next day, cough up blood and then become raving lunatics who kill random people for their blood. A man (played by Charles Austin McCrann; the director, writer, producer and editor of TOXIC ZOMBIES) going on his annual fishing trip with his very whiny and irritating wife (Beverly Shapiro) and his brother (Phillip Garfinkel) end up getting caught in the middle. There's also a family of four (husband, wife, teen daughter and retarded teen son) on a camping trip that get attacked, as well as a hermit, a trucker, the copter pilot, his wife and a couple of others. The drug enforcement agents (including John Amplas, star of Romero's MARTIN) show up at the very end to complicate matters.

For starters, the enticing re-release moniker TOXIC ZOMBIES is a bit misleading. This was originally filmed under the much more accurate title BLOOD EATERS. In other words, if you like your zombies to look like zombies; you known with rotting flesh make-up applications or even a coating of blue or gray or white or green paint to give them an undead appearance, you're sure to be disappointed by the minimal look of the ghouls here. They basically just look like dirty people. Dirty unshaven hippies with a few boils on their faces, to be exact. They grunt, use weapons (basically a machete in one scene and a rock in another) and even burn down a shack with torches at one point. The fact there are only a few of these blood-hungry maniacs lurking about at any given time doesn't really help the fear factor any. None pose much of a threat and are easily disposed of when the time comes. As far as gore is concerned, there are a couple of cheap effects, such as a hand being cut off, a head shot and an eyeball stabbing, but the gore quotient is almost as minimal as the "blood eaters" makeup.

So sadly, fellow zombie fans, all we're really left with here is an inept film that not only looks ugly from an aesthetic standpoint but is also dull from an action/guilty pleasure stance. The first five minutes, which should be attempting to capture our attention, consist of two camera changes of a car driving down a dirt road, followed by two guys walking in the woods carrying rifles. The acting is terrible, there's an irritating, generic and repetitive piano score, silly dialogue not worth listening to, one out-of-nowhere topless shot of a woman sitting by a bucket of water scrubbing her breasts and lots of scenes of people running through the woods... and out of the woods onto the road... and then back into the woods again... It's probably worth a single watch for cheap movie lovers and zombie film completists (some parts aren't too bad and others are amusing in a bad movie kind of way), but most will want to rightfully steer clear.

The writer/director/producer/editor/star was an ivy league graduate (Princeton; Yale Law) employed at Marsh & McLennan Company in the World Trade Center and, sadly, was killed during the September 11th terrorist attacks. R.I.P. to him.


Bloodeaters (a.k.a. Toxic Zombies) seemed to be a 1980's satire on propaganda such as Reefer Madness or Teenage Devil Dolls. The movie itself is toxic, but the entertainment factor delivered by such makes this movie more than what it is. I'm surprised that it is not more of a cult classic. It doesn't take itself seriously, but neither does much satire. This terrible movie is a gem simply to sit and laugh at. For this factor, we'll give it a three out of ten.


After watching this movie a few times, i can honestly say it's probably the best that Chuck Mccran (RIP) could have done with such a weak budget and cast. The effects are super cheap and there really isn't one good one. The zombies aren't very menacing either, considering there's only 4 or 5 in the whole movie. and the acting, BAD BAD BAD.

I think that this movie could have actually been fairly decent had it had a bigger budget, a few script revisions and a much better cast. Of course, the most noticeable role played by John Amplas (Martin). He plays a federal officer in the beginning who, with another officer drive out into the woods to search for the marijuana growers. I say, this is a cheesy yet in a way fun (yet also very boring) ATTEMPT at film-making. Also look at the guy who starred in, wrote, directed, produced, and edited the movie: Chuck Mcrann. He was NOT a filmmaker, just a guy who felt like making a film because of his love for movies.


BLOODEATERS (which I saw the theatrical trailer for many years ago and laughed at), and TOXIC ZOMBIES are the same film which I discovered by accident after renting it. I had heard terrible things about both titles but as a zombie movie fan, I tend to fall prey to my inner hunger to see guts ripped out and devoured onscreen by pasty-faced freaks, often against my better judgement. This film was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be--although it's no masterpiece, either. The film is padded out, has terrible, wooden acting, a ludicrous script,awful zombie makeup, and yet somehow it doesn't fall flat on its face... well, not entirely. On the plus side, there is a small but decent amount of gore effects (severed limbs, bullets through head and neck, guts seeping out of a dead body) and the soundtrack (similar to John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN) is actually quite eerie and effective, rendering the film a tad more suspenseful than it has a right to be. The zombies, not truly being undead but just drugged out homicidal maniacs, are the result of being sprayed by a secret government herbicide, and thus die all too easily (as any normal person would). The film needed more zombies, more victims, more gore and more action. It has its moments and a certain creaky, campy charm, but suffers mightily from its amateur cast and crew and is paced only slightly faster than your average snail and has about as much intelligence. Not a bad rental if you're hard up for zombie fare. I give it a 3 out of 10 stars.


This cheap imitation of "The Night Of The Living Dead" is an earnest attempt to revive the "appeal" (and the chills) of the 1968 film, but while most of the appropriate ingredients seem to be in place, somehow they don't work. The film has no impact, no scariness. The desolate atmosphere - more a result of the setting itself, rather than of directorial competence - is about all it has going for it. (*)


Ignore the blurb on the VHS box, the movie is not about a couple's hot parties with hip friends, it is about a couple's awful parties with jerk friends. Now, that might not be a bad thing -- in fact, I think it could be easier to make a good movie about bad parties than about good ones -- but the advertising is dishonest.

Much worse, though, is the the pointless and boring character of the movie, which is about a bunch of stupid or verbally sadistic "friends" who mostly don't like each other. While I've known cliques that keep getting together despite frictions between some members, it's inconceivable that these people would keep getting together for these abusive and tedious holiday events. Also, the couples' relationships, which come and go between these parties, are unexplained and mostly unexplored, as are some individuals' character changes, and indeed, almost everything that doesn't happen at the parties themselves.


A really bad movie. I never cracked a smile. I very rarely give a film a rating below 5, (gave this one a 3) not because there are no bad movies, it's just that I don't watch films that I think are going to be bad. I taped this one just because it had Justine Bateman in it, and I had liked some of her stuff on TV. She wasn't bad here, she just had nothing to work with. This one was painful to watch. I wasted 90 minutes, and the cast and crew wasted 6 days. Grade: F


It might be creatively written, it might have been done a nice small budget, but I still can't give the movie much praise. While it tried its hardest to make the audience laugh, I kept waiting for a punchline that never appeared. Parts became monotonous, dragging so far as to invoke the fast forward button on my remote control. Possible it wasn't the script at all, it felt that the actors and actresses had little or no chemistry or emotion throughout.


"Highball" is a funny spoofy/campy/droll comedy about a bunch of friends at parties. This dinky little flick sports a good cast and some funny writing. Everything else is pretty much crap. If nothing else, this movie will make you wonder why so many good actors climbed on board this low budget dog.


In a 1998 issue of Premiere Magazine, a female producer on this film told a writer, "It's a romantic comedy. It lets the girl get the guy. It's adorable. It's gonna be great!" All right, so what do we get? A bunch of losers swearing and smoking. That producer must've been a flunky at MTV who got a break (and now hopefully she's busy being adorable some place else). This collection of 'wacky' characters, all trying to make their way to the same 1981 New Year's Eve party, have nothing fresh to say. The script seems to be written as an inside-joke, but it's hard to laugh when the actors on-screen are humiliated (and in such a lifeless vacuum). The ashtrays are overflowing, but the dialogue is stilted and the scenario is strangely aloof and cold. Martha Plimpton plays the unfortunate girl giving the party and one feels sorry for the performer, not the character. Plimpton is a young actress who is difficult to cast; she's tough and direct, but her toughness isn't engaging and her direct, no-nonsense manner isn't particularly feminine or fetching. Janeane Garofalo has some sparkle, but the teaming of an annoying Courtney Love and an even more annoying Paul Rudd doesn't pay off. Other party-poopers include Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Gaby Hoffmann and Christina Ricci--all portraying people with low IQ's. *1/2 from ****


I hope I would be sleeping. What A waste of good young talent. Ben Affleck and Courtney Love should be ashamed of theirselves. The plot is very loose, the characters boring and the photography just adds insult to injury. The only thing good is the closing credits with the new Blondie song. (Trust me, buy the record rather than waiting around to hearit. Better memories!)


than see this film again.

Though I did laugh at a few jokes and thought that Martha Plimpton's character was funny and real, the movie was a complete disaster and thoroughly disappointing. Most of the characters were at best wooden and at worst excruciatingly annoying and the acting performances were terrible, even from some of my favorites. For example, Christina Ricci-- normally excellent-- puts on the worst New Jersey accent I've ever heard. Also, I didn't get the feeling that this movie was taking place in the early 80's... if it weren't for the annoyingly omnipresent MTV soundtrack and a few flock-of-seagulls do's, I probably would've completely forgotten the time setting.

To get your 1981 fix: rent a bunch of John Hughes movies, get out your old albums and look at your high school yearbook or photo albums from the time. You'll enjoy yourself-- and probably laugh-- much more.


It's easy to see that Risa Bramon Garcia is a successful casting director (and not a screenwriter) for dozens of Hollywood films: the best part about this movie is definitely the on-screen talent. Except that it's wasted in a lackluster script that plays heavily on stereotypes (the little virgin in pink, the punks who are actually nice guys, the rude girls from Jersey) and fails to create any sort of compelling story. After following these cartoon cutouts around NYC for two hours, we simply don't care what happens to them - they are a really whiney bunch of people, for starters. Note for future script reading: yelling does not equal real conflict, lead characters must be likable on some level, and, if you spend the entire movie setting up a New Year's eve party, for God's sake, show the party on screen! The Polaroid montage may have saved you money, but it didn't save the film.

One final note - the casting may pull in the teen set, but I was a high school teacher until two years ago and I GUARANTEE that virtually nobody under the age of 21 knows who Elvis Costello is.

Sorry, one more thing. Why, oh why, in this day and age, are we doing a film that is such a lengthy and impassioned advertisement for teen smoking?


I really disliked this film. I had high hopes for it, though. The "plot" is choppy and disjointed. Most of the stories are unconnected until the end, which, normally, is a method of plot development that I enjoy. Who would continue to try to make it to a New Year's Eve party after falling backwards into a pile of doggy doo?? I wanted to leave but the others that I was with did not so I was forced to stay until the disappointing end. Janeane Garofalo's talents were seriously wasted. She is one of the funniest comedians in Hollywood today.

There were only 2 things that I liked about the film. First, the pairing of Paul Rudd & Courtney Love was enjoyable. Their storyline was the most interesting to me, probably because they had the most intellectually stimulating conversation. Secondly, the soundtrack, an interesting compliation of early 80's pop, was quite entertaining.


Oh man...talk about a stinker of an awful atrocity of an excuse for entertainment. You know, this movie epitomizes everything that is wrong in the movie industry today -- just stick together a bunch of good looking big name celebrities with tons of web sites devoted to them together with a hip soundtrack and see what they can pull off. This entire story seems like it was written by a fifteen year old. Worse yet, a moronic fifteen year old. Honestly. And all there is to blame for this absolute mess of a terrible film is MTV. It seems to me that the only people this movie would appeal to are those absolutely void of any semblance of a brain, because this movie is kind of like a slow-growing fungus. It starts off seemingly harmless, a bit annoying, but tolerable. But it keeps growing and growing and there is never any hope in sight except to mercifully kill it or yourself.

In the movie's feeble defense, all of the performances are very good, particularly Christina Ricci (good as always, I suppose) and the girl from wings. But nobody can save this junker. Save yourself two hours and seven bucks and just go stare at a wall for two hours. At least your mind will wander and your brain will be somewhat stimulated.


This film had to have been written by a junior high school student, because that's the only mentality that could enjoy it. When the main plot device is to make sure you sleep with someone on New Years Eve (in 1981 to boot) you can't expect much more. Also, it contained the most stilted dialogue and wooden acting to make it to the screen in quite some time. I'm especially disappointed in Christina Ricci, who is capable of so much more. I didn't care what any of these people did or if they ever got to their party. A few laughs, but not worth the time. The soundtrack is the best part of this juvenile, amateurish film.


Basically, you have a story of a woman throwing a New Year's Eve party and panicked that no one will show up. Meanwhile, ALL (as it seems) of the invitees are meandering around NYC killing time until the party begins, having really meaningful conversations about nothing, and, at one point or another, getting into the cab driven by Dave Chapelle. These people are loosely connected by their cab ride and the party at the end.

There's no payoff, as we only get to see the party through Polaroid snapshots during the credits. Meanwhile, we're treated to the most god-awful stereotypes of human beings: a whiny and neurotic single gal, Jersey girl snobs--with accents to match, a morose poet type, punk rockers, a cute but dumb bartender, two best friends (one of which always sleeps with the other's boyfriends--and yet they're still best friends), a handsome young man who has the curse of women falling all over him, and, worst of all, the wise and flawed Black person to offer commentary on all these white people. Ugh.

One good thing: the soundtrack!


This movie never gets boring even though at the end it starts to feel a little long. There's too much conversation in it at times, often simple unneeded conversation which probably is suppose to be funny but fails miserably. The good thing about the movie though is that the story moves along quite nicely, even though there's a lot of conversation things actually do happen in it at times.

I didn't really like the characters in it because they are stereotypical and simple, but I guess you have to make them like that because if you don't it would be difficult for the audience to get to know all the characters since there is a lot of them in this film. The acting in it is below average, the best acting job in this film I thought was made by the Scottish guy who seemed convincing in his part. Christina Ricci was a huge disappointment since she normally is a great actress but she didn't fit in playing her character. Her accent seemed really fake and phony.


A few of the characters had some depth and some of them I was really interested to see where they wound up, but I regret to say that most of them irritated the h out of me. Martha Plimpton, Garofalo (one of my faves) and Kate Hudson were the only saving graces to this film, that I feel, could have been a lot better. However, as much as I like Kate Hudson her character was even a bit much. These characters display no hint of self worth or self respect in there personas, except for Plimpton's and Garofalo's characters seemed to have traces. And they all seemed to run around the town like a bunch of hyper-active, shallow and glitzy teenagers all obsessed with sex. The costumes were fun and it had it's moments but overall, just a mediocre, high-strung film set in the early 80's.


Bad characters. Bad dialogue trying to pass as witty. Just a bad, bad movie. Painful at times. Not far off from a talking heads movie, yet the conversations were slow enough that even if the movie involved gunfire they'd still be boring.

And, no, the characters would have been stereotypes back in 1981 as well. A bad movie is a bad movie, no matter how one tries to sell it as a "well, you had to be there". Well, I was there. It wasn't like that. It didn't suck this much. No excuses, please. See "Last Days of Disco" if you want relative accuracy... 200 would suck in any era.


200 Cigarettes is a bad movie, no doubt. But bad movies can be interesting, sometimes even addicting to watch. For me, and the small group of people who watched it with me a couple of nights ago, it was a struggle to avoid hitting the STOP button halfway through it.

This movie was just horrible. The characters were not likable or interesting, all whining and repetitive. The many intertwined stories seem like they came out of some stupid WB show, only to be painfully stitched together at the end to give it all some phony 'full circle' effect. This movie is just fluff, the enemy of substance. There is nothing here hasn't been done before a thousand times - in many better films.

I wish I could find one redeemable moment, one glistening quote, one interesting subplot, but there was literally nothing at all. Just an awful movie that wasn't even worth the rental price.


Did this movie have a point? I'm running into more and more of these movies lately where it's just a bunch of people having an average conversation with nothing interesting to say. How are movies like this allowed to get made? - better yet, how is these movies get so many stars to be in them??? The only highlight of this film was Janeane Garofolo and the nostalgic soundtrack. Don't waste your time with one. I don't see what all the hype was about.


Many critics thought the film "200 Cigarettes" would be the "American Graffiti" of the 90's. Maybe these critics were smoking some cigarettes with some weed-induced nutrients because this film was all wrong. It is about a bunch of young people in the 80's and their adventures throughout a New Year's Eve. By one-quarter into the film, you probably had 200 reasons not to continue watching "200 Cigarettes." The screenplay was definitely up in smoke. And to waste the talents of talented actors- Christina Ricci, Paul Rudd, Ben Affleck, and Courtney Love was like a throwing away a good stogie to smoke. "200 cigarettes" is definitely a film for the no looking section. ** Needs Improvement


Oh man I wanted to like this movie. It has a great cast and it is a small independent film. And I really admire Ben Affleck. I like his story of his leap to stardom. But I think his loyalty is what got in the way of his good sense. Because how he got suckered into this film has to be becaue of brotherhood. Now I don't know if this is true or not but I read somewhere that Casey Affleck was very instrumental in getting this film going. It was his baby. And perhaps big brother decided to add his name to the film just to help him out. Whatever the story is, the film is trash. It isn't funny, it isn't interesting, it isn't even remotely likable. And Christina Ricci is so incredibly annoying in this film that I wanted to shoot her every time her winy voice invaded the soundtrack. " Yuaa wwwuuaanna gyet sum cwoffee? " Arrrgggh, please stop the insanity. I am kind of upset about it too because I generally enjoy indie films, there is a freshness to them. But this wasn't fresh. It was just down right annoying. Don't ever see this, unless you are about to head to the gym for an intense workout. This will give you new frustrations to take your anger out on.