Poets ? They're a bit gay aren't they ? Usually they're middle class and middle aged and they get ripped off by scam merchants who post adverts saying " Send us your poetry submissions for our best selling anthology book of erotic poetry and don't forget to enclose $30 for administration costs " In short there's nothing less cool than poetry but Miguel Pinero made the genre cool , streetwise and sexy and he deserved a far better biopic than this

I'd never heard of the guy until I saw this movie . A remarkable life story of a man who spent time in the big house and soon achieved critical acclaim via his plays and poetry . He wrote a play called SHORT EYES set in a prison , a play that was turned into a film . Just out of curiosity I went to this site and looked it up . The phrase " short eyes " is American prison slang for a child molester the lowest of the low in any penal system . It's also a movie that IMDb reviewers have greatly praised . Now why did I have to visit this site to find out the remarkable story behind the making of the film ( Check out the trivia page on SHORT EYES - I guarantee you'll be amazed ) if I was watching a biopic on the play write behind it ?

By trying to show us how cool and streetwise the eponymous character is the director/screenwriter fails to show us anything about Miguel Pinero the man apart from that he swore and took a lot of drugs which hardly made him a unique individual . The story slips in time and space , from colour to monochrome and has characters appearing and disappearing in a haphazard manner . Miguel Pinero made poetry the new street culture and he probably deserved a better film telling his life story


The film distractingly switches between black and white and color, as well as time. It goes from the present to the past, and back a number of times through the feature. We are shown how several individuals live in the drug environment(ending up in prison), getting the feeling we are to be sorry for the way they have lived their lives.

The dialogue is filled with four letter words. Maybe that's the language that is used in this community, but it seems to add little to the content of the story of this man's life.

If there is a message in this film, it's the wrong one. Drugs and prisons seem glorified and accepted as a way of life. We all have choices. The people depicted in this film, for the most part, made the wrong ones.


I live in Marin County where this flick was filmed and was an extra in it. I remember watching Jonathan Parker direct his actors and thinking, "This is gonna look better in the finished product. It HAS to." Because what I was seeing looked laughably amateurish. If not for the presence of name actors like Noah Wylie and Illiana Douglas, I would have assumed I was watching the production of a student film.

Well, when this baby finally hit screens at the Mill Valley Film Festival, I was surprised to find my suspicions had been correct: no amount of editing or re-packaging was gonna polish this turd.

What's too bad about all this is that, at its core, the movie had some good ideas. The ongoing battle between slick, greedy developers and aging, environmentalist hippie boomers is a very real one here in the Bay Area, and there's ample hypocrisy and fodder for satire on both sides.

But Parker gets lost in a sea of tired clichés and labored, talky dialog and in the end can't decide what kind of movie he wants to make. Is it a satire of the tug-of-war between progress and preservation and the colorful players involved? Or is it a sappy, love-triangle romance? Or how about the tale of a short-sighted man's redemption by way of a flighty young songbird? The Californians tries to be all these things (and more) and ends up being nothing more than a muddled, uneven mess.


It is difficult to believe that this discerning cast would have involved themselves in this project if the initial reading proved to be as unsatisfying as the finished work.

Another work, John D. McDonalds' book "Condominium", for example, dealt with similar subject matter but with an intelligence and style that allowed the protagonists to be understandable and even sympathetic characters in spite of their flaws. In "The Californians" the characters appeared unaware of the importance of the world around them while wandering aimlessly through their own, increasingly trivial, lives.

To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling:

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs

and blaming it on you ... chances are you haven't grasped the

situation! "


The pieces of this movie are much better than its entirety. Featuring some really fine musical performances, it is also at times cloyingly unwatchable. Its attempt to be "fair and balanced" is about as fair and balanced and believable as Fox cable news; it pokes witty and intelligent fun at strident liberals, while taking cursory potshots at greedy bankers who foreclose on cute visionary land developers.

fr Noah Wyle is so cute as the steamroller of California's last few inches of free livable terrain that zealous liberal women of all ages melt before his dreamy gaze. All except his miserable, jealous, possibly lesbian, twin sister.

"You're so hot!" exclaims Cloris Leachman's upper crust earth mama. Looking like Tucker Carlson sans bow-tie, Wyle seduces beautiful young Kate Mara by taking her to his hideous McMansion dream home. Despite the fact that she was raised by hippies and spent her entire life loving nature and fighting to preserve it, one glance at the ersatz Roman columns and faux marble fountain in the living room is enough to convert her to an appreciation of his architectural "artistry."

Immediately after insulting her by telling her that she's a packaged commodity being exploited by all of her p.c. friends and family, he wins her back by adding that he loves her packaging. And what's inside. Awww. How can any woman resist such heady charm? And that twinkle in his eyes?

But it's easy to see how a beautiful talented young hippie chick could turn to putty in Wyle's hands. Apparently there are no cute boys in Northern California who share her political views, or appreciate her fashion model good looks, her passion or her genuinely lovely singing voice.

Mara plays a beautiful and glamorous hippie singer raised on protest songs, playing in a folk group with her family. In one unlikely moment, dad Keith Carradine, who is perhaps the most interesting of all the stereotyped characters in this movie, shows an ugly side as he chides his daughter for greedily wanting to go out on her own. Revealing his own inner greed. Another evil hypocritical hippie exposed.

To be honest, Wyle undergoes a dramatic character change of his own. Losing his Brooks Brothers sports coat for a more organic L.L. Bean ensemble of layered denim and cotton. Which totally sums up his depth of character.

At the big climactic concert, Mara hesitates before going onstage, pining for vapid, avaricious, pretty boy Wyle (who has overshot his financial dreams and wound up screwed by the evil banks who've foreclosed on his dream project) and doubting the motives of everyone she ever trusted in her life, from birth.

Finally she comes out onstage, quieting the frenzied fans lusting for her politically correct folk tunes. Instead, she announces her love for a developer, which upsets them even more, into a booing hissing near riot.

Luckily, she soothes their primitive savage breasts by singing her latest song, a brain-dead ditty about getting a tan and walking hand in hand with her man on the beach. Prompting a chorus of oohs and aahs and a vigorous ovation.

Having thus seduced them into bliss, she exits with her man, while the shrewish liberal harpy who'd exploited her worst of all now finds her own happy ending onstage, crowing out a song which succinctly condemns every facet of humanity without discretion, or any sense at all.


I liked the concept of this movie but it was too cluttered. My mother agrees with me on this point. There are so many themes running that it feels like having a three course meal from McDonald's drive-in. There are also too many main characters. This movie is about messages - naturalist to commercialized, being true to others and/or oneself. This movie feels like the writing was inspired by passion. The problem is that all that passion means nothing if it gets caught in a blender. In this case less is truly more. Finally, I must say in defines of this movie... life sometimes jumps in and out, up and down very quickly. The people in our lives are many and sometimes we are forced to make rapid decisions regareding them and us.


Great cast and a potentially good story, but it just didn't happen. I found it to be boring and without a decent plot to make one interested in the movie. With only a few comedic moments and some good music/vocal moments.... it was not enough to make this a movie worth watching. I'm glad I caught it on cable (Showtime) and didn't waste my money in the San Francisco area to see it. I doubt it will see a premiere anywhere but in California.

The movie starts out as a message about destroying/preserving the beautiful land that the money hungry developers want to consume, but then transcends into a romance between the two fractions of indifference. The movie offers nothing other than a waste of time.


While I'm not a fan of this kind of humour, it is testament to England's ability to produce quality programmes that is echoed the world over.

Even though I haven't seen the American version of this show, and have no wish to, it does beg the question, why can't American TV execs watch a British comedy without saying "that's a good programme, very popular, lets do it ourselves" And ruin it. Not that this programme needs ruining since it did it, itself. But alas, I am clearly in the minority, this show has stood the test of time with countless re-runs on BBCtv, UK Gold, and while I stand to be corrected, even on Paramount Comedy. So credit to the actors in the show!


With David Jason as the lead and also one of the producers, I expected a lot more than I got when watching this. The first half was pretty good and promised an intriguing finale, but the second part descended into a confused and unconvincing mess where the crew weren't the only ones to wonder what was going on. I got the feeling that some rather heavy-handed editing had occurred, both with the plot and the final production. There were glaring anomalies in the story line and the original theory of how the sub had reappeared after being missing for forty-odd years was completely ignored at the end (apart from a brief display of mysterious lightning).


David Jason is brilliant. Sadly a good actor cannot salvage an obvious story line (which owes a lot other work, such as the similarly named Ghostship) which meant it all became a little predictable, and towards the end just plain silly.

Characters behave inconsistently and illogically as the story lurches towards the less than surprising end.

The special effects themselves were also erratic - obviously a lot of money was spent on the set of the sub, but the cgi shots ranged from the okay to dreadful.

Okay if you are bored, but not the great work I was expecting.


A submarine lost in WW2 re-appears in 1981 and David Jason's character Hardy (The only survivor of it's last voyage) is asked to go back with a crew and retrace the steps of the Submarines's last journey (why? You may ask?...well obviously it wouldn't be much of a drama if they just found it and put it in a maritime museum :p)

Anyway after the recent hype about the drama I did have high expectations but was disappointed. There was lots of submarine jargon which went over my head, so unless you have a particular history with or an interest in submarines, then I'm assuming most people would have the same problem... and so it got a little confusing.

I wouldn't attack the plot too much because after all it is called 'Ghostboat' and so you expect it to be a little far fetched/supernatural so that's fine BUT... at the end when the Navy and the Russian Navy (or whatever they're called in Russia) closed the case on the strange goings on, there was no mention of and never any mention of, all the other boats they blew up along the way...and as for the hostile German aircrafts...well I can only assume that they were imagined?

Now I know there were some grey areas as to which was going on in the past and which was in the present but Hardy did state that it was only 1943 inside of the sub and still very much 1981 outside... hence the reason why the Russians of 1981 were getting a little anxious at the sight of the sub on its radar... so I'm assuming that the boats they blew up were real and of 1981 too?

But...if I did get too confused by all the submarine jargon...and completely missed something due to this fact...and anyone knows any different...please tell me?

Thanks :-)


David Jason, a 'family favourite' plays a character in the exact same style as he does in A Touch Of Frost, in this ridiculous and predictable thriller.

In this 2-parter, David Jason plays the character of a old WWII seaman who is called in by the Navy when his submarine re-emerges after disappearing in the war. Only David Jason's 'Jack Hardy' survives from the original crew but he suffers from memory loss, and has to piece together his movements from a series of flashbacks when taken back inside the ship.

The story then becomes laughable when the Navy decide, for some reason, to re-enact the last voyage of the Submarine by piecing together the movements from the Captain's Log. After accidentally sinking a Russian Submarine they come under attack from German WWII aircraft and Jack Hardy realises that someone is filling in the incomplete Captain's Log...

Good for a one-off if you don't want to do much thinking but easily forgotten.


Say It With Songs is the first all talking film that Al Jolson did on initial Warner Brothers contract and for him the first flop in his Hollywood career.

You can't say that the Brothers Warner didn't follow the usual Hollywood formula in that if something succeeds, copy it as best you can. Jolson had scored well with his second film The Singing Fool and his singing of Sonny Boy to four year old Davey Lee was the big hit. What to do, team them again and you even get the crack songwriting team of DeSylva,Brown&Henderson to write this score as well.

Except for the song Little Pal none of the other songs had any lasting staying power from Say It With Songs. Little Pal did become a Jolson standard though not to the same degree as Sonny Boy. But the score is serviceable for the plot which has Jolson as a radio singer.

Being a radio singer obviated the need for Jolson's usual blackface persona. Say It With Songs became the first of two films he did without the blackface, a fact I hadn't known before. I had assumed and I'd seen it written that Hallelujah, I'm a Bum was the only film he did without the blackface.

More's the pity here because if Say It With Songs had been a hit Jolson might have abandoned the burnt cork and his historic reputation wouldn't have suffered so.

The plot has Jolson a happy go lucky radio singer who unfortunately likes to drink and gamble and generally carouse. A wolfish radio manager has some designs on wife Marian Nixon and offers her an indecent proposal. When Jolie hears of it he kills him when he hits the wolf just a little too hard and his head strikes a cement curb. That lands him in jail.

Marian Nixon has to support herself and goes to work for a doctor who's always had an eye on her as well. Of course when Jolie hears about in prison he's all for it, but not for her taking up their kid as well.

Jolie gets one of the earliest paroles in penal history, even for what probably is a manslaughter 2 conviction because little Davey Lee ages not a bit. But little Davey also gets himself hit by a car while chasing his dad. Davey becomes paralyzed and what's Jolie to do? By coincidence the doctor is a specialist and he offers Jolie the indecent proposal this time.

I think with the general description of this plot you get the idea of the general mawkishness of the plot. Director Lloyd Bacon doesn't try to control Jolson's incredible overacting for the camera. Those two factors were what mainly sank the film.

Yet Jolson's dynamism as an entertainer still shines through and when he's singing you almost forget about the plot. Almost that is.


The 4 reviews that precede mine are fair. This film really is for buffs only. I wouldn't have missed it, but it's poorly done at all the important levels. And Jolson really is a ham here. At times he makes fluffs in his lines, as if he just barely had them memorized. I was surprised at how shoddy the film was, in writing and in set design. The courtroom scene has a stark set which looks like the kind of empty sets that Monogram used in the 40s. The songs are subpar for Jolson, with lame lyrics that have you guessing ahead to each rhymed line ending. Two really cheesy scenes gave me the most entertainment. First, in the prison, the (unseen) orchestra starts playing and Jolson sings verse after verse of "Why Can't You?" to his fellow cons. The burden of the lyric is, if caged birds can sing, why can't you? Picture this in a modern prison -- he'd be lucky not to get shanked before the bridge. Second, and even more deranged, he is told by the first attending doctor that his son, who has just been hit by a truck, has spine damage. In the next scene, Jolie carries his son to another doctor for treatment! They had some tough spines in '29. The big message of "Say It With Songs" was in the box office -- Warners learned that all-talkers did not guarantee profits.


Frankenstein 1970 starts deep in some German woods with Carolyn Hayes (Jana Lund) desperately running from a monster intent on killing her... Film director Douglas Row (Don 'Red' Barry) shouts cut & the scene is in the can. Baron Victor von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff) has hit hard times & is skint, he has let a film-crew consisting of Row, cameraman Morgan Haley (John Dennis), writer Judy Stevens (Charlotte Austin), assistant director Mike Shaw (Tom Duggan) & actress Hayes make a film in & around his castle & estates about his ancestor's. As one would expect the current, & last, Frankenstein is continuing the family tradition of trying to re-animate a stitched together body (Mike Lane). His latest patchwork creation is missing several vital ingredient's, a heart, a brain, a face & a couple of eye's. His nosey servant Shuter (Norbert Schiller) provides the brain & heart, however while handling the eye's Frankenstein drops them. He re-animates his monster so it can go & find a suitable pair, meanwhile all the missing people are starting to make everyone become suspicious of Frankenstein & what his real intentions are...

This black and white potboiler was directed by Howard W. Koch & there is very little to recommend in Frankenstein 1970, & that's another thing what's with the 1970 in the title? No mention of the fact it is set in the year 1970 is made & the film was made in 1958. Anyway, I am amazed that the script by Richard H. Landau, Charles A. Moses, Aubrey Schenck & George Worthing Yates took four people to write it. Four people?! Didn't at least one of them stand up & say 'look guys this is total crap & the audience deserves better', obviously not it would appear. It's slow, boring, uneventful & is basically Frankenstein trying to create a monster using spare parts from various unwilling donors just like most other cheap Frankenstein films. He doesn't even get an assistant this time. The only original part of Frankenstein 1970 is the presence of the film-crew but it's never used to forward the story or try to take things in a different direction other than one would expect. The ending is abrupt but there is a certain degree of fun to be had watching this man with a bucket on his head wrapped in bandages running around trying to act scary & menacing, totally failing of course.

Director Koch does nothing to distinguish the film & it's bland throughout from the awfully dated lab to the flat castle interiors. The lab itself features some of the worst looking scientific equipment ever, massive computer panels with huge dials & knobs to all the stupid flashing lights & a control panel that wobbles whenever Frankenstein touches it. The monster starts off looking OK as it lies on an bed with no skin on it's face & just it's skull exposed but once it gets re-animated it looks awful, it's completely wrapped from head to toe in bandages (which makes it look more like a Mummy) & the shape & size of it's head resembles a large bucket! One more thing, when the monster is looking for some eye's for itself how can it see where it's going or who it's kidnapping & why are there eye holes cut into the bandage's around the bucket, erm sorry head, so it can 'see'?

With a budget of about $110,000 Frankenstein 1970 looks cheap throughout & considering Hammer's Curse of Frankenstein (1957) looked better & was made a year previous there really is no excuse, it's just bad film-making. The acting is poor & Karloff is obviously living on past glories here, in this he has a weird haircut, a stupid exaggerated limp & scar on his face.

There really is very little to recommend Frankenstein 1970 by, I can't really think of anything other than the fact that I have seen worse films. Not one of Karloff's finer moments although I'm sure fans of his will lap it up. Not worth bothering with.


This film has only ever been shown once in my neck of the woods and on a minor Sicilian TV channel at that so, despite its negative reputation, I've always wanted to see it. After all, it does have Boris Karloff playing the Baron for onceeven if, for some strange reason, he is named Victor here while his notorious ancestor is called Richard!!

The film's pre-credit sequence, in which a German fraulein is being pursued through the forest by a barely-glimpsed fiend is promising enough but, as it turns out, it's also the best sequence in the whole filmwhich ought to give you an idea about the worthiness of the whole enterprise. However, even from this first sequence, one is made aware of the sheer ineptness of the direction: it not only cuts away from one character to another with a boring regularity but the sequence is framed in such a way as to cut the creature's head off! This factor cannot be attributed to watching a pan-and-scan version because, surprisingly enough, the film was being shown in the correct widescreen ratio. This is exacerbated as the film goes along by the director's apparent refusal (in some sequences, at least) to move the camera in any way; I don't know if this was an attempt on his part to satirize the TV medium (given that it is, after all, a TV crew which impounds on the Baron's home ground) but I'd be surprised if the thought had occurred to the director in the first place. Coming hot on the heels of Hammer's full-blooded color version, it would have been a daunting task for anyone I presume

Of course, it goes without saying that Karloff gives it his all (particularly during a rehearsal for the upcoming TV show in which he narrates straight to the camera his ancestor's diabolical deeds) and sometimes it's hard to watch him simply walking around the castle as the evident strain this is having on his legs is palpable and there were a couple of times where I could have sworn he lost his footing! Even so, apparently this does not detain him from creating the monster and installing the all-important atomic reactor (which is barely glimpsed in the film anyhow) single-handedly. It's incredible to note that, despite his failing health, some of Karloff's best work - Roger Corman's THE RAVEN (1963), Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH (1963) and Peter Bogdanovich's TARGETS (1968) - was yet ahead of him! Still, even here - with the haphazard appearance of the Baron, whose misshapen face apparently gets "lifted" every once in a while!  the film's limitations make themselves felt. And why is it that every mad scientist out there has to be an accomplished pianist as well? Why not try your hand at an electric guitar, Herr Baronafter all, we're in the age of Chuck Berry here, aren't we? Erno - make that 1970: "Monster making is for me, likeyou knowoutta sight, man"!! And how about that deadening monotone music during the laboratory sequences? Also, the less said about the goofy mummyermonster, the better! To top it all, there's an execrable attempt at an echo but the dialogue spoken in the cavern (the site of the Doc's lab) is totally all over the place and overlaps ad infinitum!

I know Joe Karlosi (if he's still around, that is) won't be too pleased with my review of this one as I know this is one of his guilty pleasuresbut I have to say that my negative impressions were certainly amplified by the abysmal state (correct aspect ratio notwithstanding) of the print I watched which was replete with print damage and missing frames which not only managed to shorten the film to around 70 minutes (against the official 83!!) but also made the parts of the narrative and the revelatory climax particularly incoherent! Recently, there's been some talk of an upcoming Warners DVD of this one and, strange as it may sound, I hope it does materialize as I wouldn't put it past me to give this clunker another chance under more ideal circumstances. For the moment, however, I suppose even LADY FRANKENSTEIN (1971) is preferable!


Luster is a coming of age story about a group of 20 & 30 somethings in L.A. in the midst of an odyssey into their teens. And they are soooo cool & punk rock. They've got that really rebellious "I'm REAL punk rock & I'm not a poseur & you ARE & the rest of the world sux" thing from high school still going pretty strong.

Everyone in LA is infatuated with the lead character Jackson, even the "guy next door" who stalks him at work. I'm not sure why, since I was eventually hoping someone would smack Jackson upside the head & shut him up.

Amongst the film's problems are too many story lines & subplots fighting for attention, none of which seem to blend or create a sense of relevance to Jackson's life or a cohesive central theme. The worst of these is an S & M subplot that seems terribly contrived, misplaced, & rings totally false with the rest of the film's "realism."

There are a couple of funny moments, like the photographer & the interaction with her "subject."

And of course there are a couple of full frontals from a really good looking guy, which help this situation along slightly.

But worse of all, I never felt for a minute why Jackson was lusting for these guys & guys were lusting for him. There's no sexual chemistry in this movie between anyone. NADA. Just a bunch of obnoxious & pretentious brats pretending to deal with "real life" & "art." Yuck.

Plenty of better queer films out there.

See it if you must.


This indy "drama" is completely and utterly awful! Just because you are gay and watching a film about gay men and/or women does not mean you have to abide by some unwritten rule forcing you to say that it's good. I watch a load of independent movies, many with budgets much lower than this film had, and I have yet to see such a badly written, badly directed, badly made and woefully badly acted dud as this. The film is as unfocused as it is unbelievable and veers off on side plots that contribute nothing to the main storyline.

And Justin Herwick is a good actor in the lead role? Please don't make me laugh. Are you friends of his or something? His emotions do not change a single time throughout the entire film and he mumbles his way through all of his dialogue as if he could care less. I've never seen such an inept and lazy performance in my entire life and it's one of the main things that completely ruin this film. It's as if the actor thought he could cruise on his looks alone. Sad thing is, he isn't all that in the first place and you have NO clue why everyone in this movie is in love with him. He's not very bright, average looking, self-absorbed, incredibly boring and slutty; your typically dumb airhead club kid type. Yet everyone in this movie is falling all over him as if he's either a drop dead gorgeous and/or fascinating person. Please!

But of course there's a heavy-handed moral to the story after most of the running time has been used up basically showing a bunch of guys parading around naked, useless subplots that exist basically to show even more nudity and people spitting out laughably angsty dialogue (a part where one character compares love to 9 miles of intestines in the human body is about the worst attempt at "deep" dialogue I've ever heard). The horribly conceived "it's time to grow up" moment in question though is when Sam (Shane Powers), a friend of Jacksons, kills himself because he's also secretly in love with him! I guess at this moment, almost at the very end of the movie, we're suddenly supposed to sympathize with Jackson. Too bad you'd already spent an hour wishing Jackson would get run over with a bus and that the Sam character is so poorly underwritten you know almost nothing about him.

1/10 (I'd give it a 0 if I could)


I decided to watch this film as despite that it seemed to have a ridiculously low budget, there were some very good-looking guys in it. I have to say that there was not one good aspect to this entire film. The story line is weak and completely unrealistic whilst the writing is painful. There was no passion between any of the actors and the main thing i could not get to grips with was how everyone "fell in love" with someone else after seeing them for two seconds. If the main character does not annoy you to death, then Billy's (played by Jonah) portrayal of a masochist in an S&M relationship will! The main character is unintelligent and full of himself. The director's poor attempt at making the characters seem poetic or artistic is laughable. The whole 'music store' scene is clearly an attempt to make these boys look deeper than regular 'club-kids'. It failed. The attempts at poetry or deep conversation are as pathetic as the acting! AVOID THIS MOVIE!


This film ran on the Sundance Channel last night, and after watching less than ten minutes of it, i knew I was in the presence of yet another poorly written, embarrassingly acted piece of TLA crap. This film had me groaning out loud at how poorly written the dialog is. It makes Kevin Smith films seem like Shakespeare...and I hate Kevin Smith.

If you are so starved for frontal nudity, I guess you could turn the sound off and get a few nice bodies to look at now and then. But I warn you, if the sound is on, you're going to be screaming at the screen.

Don't waste 90 minutes of your life on this mess. Rent "Shortbus" instead.


Before watching Road to Bali, Road to Singapore was the only other Hope/Crosby Road movie I'd seen. I enjoyed Road to Singapore and I've been meaning to give some more of these movies a go. In comparison, however, Road to Bali is terrible. It's just not funny. The jokes and sight gags never seem to hit their mark. For example, the bit about the loved starved gorilla was painful to watch. I was especially annoyed with all the self-referential, "look, we're in a movie" attempts at humor. When used judiciously, breaking the mythical fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience can be funny. Unfortunately, Bob Hope does it so often in Road to Bali that I wanted to scream. Also, I've real other comments where people favorably mention the various cameos. They felt forced and didn't work for me either.

With all that being said, that doesn't mean I'm not going to give some of the other Road movies a shot. Next time, however, I think I'll stick with one of the earlier ones.


When more than one writer is credited with a script, chances are the movie stinks. As if he knew this, the director had Bob and Bing breaking the fourth wall, and throwing in stuff that did nothing except bog the "story" down. It was the cinematic equivalent of watching a doctor desperately trying to revive a patient who is D.O.A.

It was creepy that women young enough to be their daughters throw themselves at the boys. Indeed, the sexism and racism here is despicable! Were Bob's and Bing's egos' that fragile or that inflated? I couldn't decide which.

How was it that the natives spoke perfect, unaccented English? Where did they get their fine clothes and jewels? How did they build that mansion? Bob, Bing, and Dorothy land on a supposedly deserted island, but spend the night in the swankiest hut ever built, and Dorothy romps in a man-made lagoon the next morning! Why did they throw in the tiger and the gorilla? How did Dorothy's evil cousin wind up where she wound up? Then, because the film makers ran out of ideas (not that they had any to begin with), they pull an Irwin Allen, and have a volcano erupt! Ninety minutes of torture, and our trio never do get to Bali (why they had to get to Bali is never explained). Instead, Bing, Dorothy, and Jane Russell (don't ask) walk toward a yacht anchored in the harbor (don't ask) as Bob frantically tries to stop the "movie" from ending (don't ask).

Avoid this like the plague. Your brain cells will thank you.


I thought Mr. Crosby had a great voice. He should have had more singing time in the film. Mr. Hope seemed a bit hapless - perhaps he and Crosby were not ready for the film. They seemed very unrehearsed, especially during the "song and dance" bit.

The movie is very dated. My grandmother says this "comedy" wasn't even funny, to her, back then. I believe these "native/road" movies sent a coded message that there would be a lot of "skin" time shown... well, this doesn't work, today. The players don't show all that much skin; perhaps, at that time, it was enough?

The "clever" jokes (Sadie Thompson was the hooker in "Rain") seem not to move the characters along. Many of the scenes look disjointed, and cheap. The ending is a mild pick-up. Despite the obvious "come ons", the film is sexless.

*** Road to Bali (11/19/52) Hal Walker ~ Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Murvyn Vye


it doesn't age well.

No real plot--Bing Cosby and Bob Hope fall into "hilarious" misadventures with princess Dorothy Lamour.

Now this IS colorful and fast moving...but it just isn't good. The jokes are bad and VERY dated ("Sadie Thompson slept here"????) and not even remotely funny. It's also chock full of incredible sexism (some of the lines had me cringing and EVERY woman was falling for Cosby and Hope--who were in their 50s) and pointless song and dances. Cosby + Hope's opening number shows us why vaudeville died and poor Lamour is introduced singing a terrible number with ridiculous moves (and half nude dancing girls there for no reason whatsoever). Crosby DOES have one good romantic song and the three of them have a fairly humorous song but that's it. Everything else is lame and tired.

Hope and Cosby were great in their time but it's long since passed. Cosby did have a beautiful voice and some great songs--Hope also had his songs and some very funny comedy but none are evident in this movie. Lamour is just there for the men to ogle. The only amusing parts here were a few asides to the audience but I really didn't laugh once.

Tired, dull, sexist and unfunny. Sadly I have to give this a 1.


I've always been a fan of Gothic horror/mystery movies. I love them, LOVE them! I was ready to sit down with my dad and watch a new movie which I thought I would love. I was....disappointed to say the least. So many questions were left unanswered...Why did the John have a limp? Why did Stephan say Marjorie was going to have a baby? Why were there random curtains hanging in the hallway? Why was this film so bad??? The staging just made me mad....horrible! The script made me want to rewrite it! The acting made me want to puke! Ed Wood could have done a spectacular job on this movie! I'm angry at Fritz Lang for not doing a good job, I'm angry at the writer for writing horrible lines that make the actors sound like idiots! Don't watch this film it will make you mad....


All right,(shuddering intake of breath) here we go.

This movie was bad. Now look up bad in every english thesaurus ever made, and all the words there won't begin to describe how bad this movie was.

I LIKED the first Mummy. I give it a ten. While there might have been a couple tiny bits that left a bad taste in my mouth, overall I thought it was great. Stephen Sommers is an awesome writer/director, I've always enjoyed his films. But this...

When I saw the previews, my mouth watered, it looked awesome. Sure it had a kid in it, but I didn't think he'd weigh the film down. They had all the original cast coming back, John Hannah, Oded Fehr... slam dunk, hole in one. But this...

They took the first movie, then instead of taking all the good stuff, they just condensed the Bad Taste In My Mouth parts. I'm amazed the Kid wasn't the worst thing about it. Oh, he was Bad, but there's a lot of bad in this movie. Historical innaccuracies, zero characterization, cliche's galore...any one of those I could have forgiven, but not all of them.

This is a big, soulless, hollywood, summer movie. This is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I hated Short Round...and I hated this Kid. For the most part, it's a total rehash of stuff from the first movie. I'd put in a SPOILER warning, but if you saw the first one, you know how this is gonna turn out. Bad. It's bad.

The chick that played Ananck Su Namun is back, and apparently she wanted a speaking role this time. Bad Idea. The Rock out acted her. Not the wrestler, one of the rocks on film. Not that good acting would have saved this plotless chunk of filth. If you want decent characterization, I guess they thought it would carry over from the first movie. The actors were there for filler in between pointless special effects, and dumb fight scenes. (If you're a fan of either, forget what I've said, go see it, enjoy.)

Plot holes, oh the plot holes. Big enough to pass the Giza Pyramid through. How did Oded GET to england, much less to Rick's mansion? He says he's never been on a bus before. Evie is a kung-fu chick? Why didn't these neato abilities kick in in the first movie??? They sure as heck woulda been useful. Rick is a magi? Does he need a DAMN reason to fight the mummy? Flashback to Ancient Egyptian Foxy Boxing, why? The huge honkin' tropical rainforest...around a PYRAMID...in the middle of a DESERT!!! No one noticed this before? Seems odd in a world filled with ROCKET POWERED BALLOONS!!! Sorry, suspension of disbelief only goes so far...jets...we didn't even HAVE JETS THEN!!! That guy would have made some serious money with his inventions. I know the Germans woulda been interested...

And the special effects...sure, they're impressive...but they don't make a movie "Good" in my book. Case in point, Dragonheart. Nuff said. Goin' to see a bad movie for good special effects is akin to goin' to the circus to gawk at the "Freak Show". Well, looky that. If that don't beat all! They're nice, they're gravy...but I'd rather have a well made movie. And the Scorpion/Rock...man, flashback to Clash of the Titans. Ray Harryhausen is turnin' over in his grave...if he's dead. I hope not, Ray's a good man. But this...guh.

I'm not alone in my feelings either. Pretty much all in the theater felt this way. When the balloon thrusters kicked in, I screamed and threw a bottle of mountain dew at the screen. Many others followed suit.

Okay...guess that's it. I tried to stay calm and rational...I guess I coulda sent in a comment that was just full of screaming and profanity...which was going on in the car on the way home...but I figured this has a better chance of being put up as a warning. If you liked the first one at all, I don't think you'll like this one much. If you're just looking for a stupid summer movie...go ahead, it's YOUR soul. Peace.


The Mummy Returns is a quick fluff action piece with some poor slapstick comedy. It uses numerous Deus Ex Machina for the sake of using them. One might feel there's the use of retconning here too, but again, even those were completely out of place.

It is pretty much a family movie (far more so than the first one) but some young children could be scared by the mummies. For the most part it is upbeat and doesn't ever give you the feeling that anything will go wrong.

Synopsis: Bad guy comes back to beat another bad guy to rule the world and the good guys try to stop them all. Most of the characters do a lot of traveling and then have a showdown. Mixed in is some chumming of the good guys that leads no where. Plus they add fate/destiny stuff just to make sure we don't get any more sequels.

It assumes the audience has attachment to the characters and assumes you feel the good guys are a tight group but never really builds that up. It's hard to tell if the movie was just poorly made, or if there was really a much grander and broader story that had to be cut down to a couple hours.

The acting is okay except for Patricia Velasquez who seemed wooden, but that might have been the directing and not her. She was quite sexy, so it balances out. Rachel Weisz was far sexier in this movie than the first, and the rest of the cast does okay; certainly Brendan Fraser is very comfortable in his role as Richard 'Rick' O'Connell.

If you watch it right after the first movie, you'll notice clearly that the CGI is a lot worse in returns. This adds to the idea that it was just a poorly written movie to cash in on the first movie's success. Besides the poor CGI, the action sequences really are quite well done. They're easy to follow, are fast paced, and include more dynamics than the rest of the movie.

This is a different movie than the first one. It's less Indiana Jones and more.... well think of a bad kids movie that's supposed to be an adventure but seems silly.

It really doesn't feel like it meshes with the first movie (especially the love between Anck Su Namun and Imhotep), and while it introduces the Scorpion King idea, it again doesn't mesh with that movie at all. Unfortunately I think it ended this franchise when it really should have spring-boarded a series of movies had it been done with more thought.

With all of that said, ultimately it is a fun movie if you don't care about verisimilitude and as I said, most people would see it as fun for the whole family. It just lacks depth, solid writing, directing, and decent CGI. If you can snag it cheap, you'll feel like you got your money's worth. It isn't one of those movies where you just feel cheated for your time. It's okay, fluffy fun; just turn off your brain first.


If you're thrilled by amusing one liners and nonstop special effects of all kinds of weird creatures, then you're sure to enjoy this second Mummy picture. If not, you will probably turn it off after a few minutes. The first Mummy picture was quite good, in that it managed to fit in characters and plot amongst the big budget special effects. The first picture showed that Universal movie monsters could easily be remade into big budget, special effect extravaganzas, and still be good. Everything I liked about the first movie (minus the characters) was overdone to the extreme here, and about halfway through or earlier, I found myself loathing this picture. The overall feeling though was not one of hatred...this is just an overplotted mess, with moderate entertainment value throughout.

Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) is back, nine years after the first movie (I thought it was two, but whatever), and he and Evelyn (Racchel Weisz) are married and have an 8 year old kid, Alex (Freddie Boath). Imhotep's (Arnold Vosloo) mummy has been brought back to life, and he wants the bracelet of immortality, which is now in the hands of Rick and company. The bracelet controls the Scorpion King's (played in a pointless cameo by the Rock) army, which consists of easy to defeat dogs who with one hit turn to sand. Chaos ensues throughout.

If you aren't paying attention in this movie, or you miss the first ten minutes, you will be extremely confused. Heck, you could be paying attention the whole movie and still be confused. So much is going on, and so many special effects and new plot lines are shoved in your face way too often. Special effects on the mummies and creatures are pretty cool, but the bigger effects are just a huge headache, and they look very artificial. The plot is virtually nonexistent. I guess there are several plot lines, but in between them are many sidetracked scenes, and by the end, this just feels like a bunch of random scenes shoved together.

This movie is full of cutesy moments. I'm unsure as to why a mummy movie needs any cutesy moments, but since this is meant for families, writer and director Stephen Sommers made this both violent and cutesy and comedic, so it never fully works as anything (though it does work much better as an action movie than anything else). Jonathan (John Hannah) provides many of the movies cringe worthy lines. He's one of those characters that is scared to death from anything and everything, and still quips out the bad jokes. Brendan Fraser does the same, but he has a charm he brings to the character, and is one of the few positives of the movie. The kid Alex was a good addition, and for some reason, he felt more mature and developed than most other parts of the movie.

Overall, this is a pretty bad movie. It's full of effects that add up to nothing, and characters that do the same. There is some entertainment to be found, but you may find after you finish this, you'll be in desperate need for something intelligent.

My rating: * 1/2 out of ****. 125 mins. PG-13 for violence.


I loved the first movie so I thought the second one would be even better. I was wrong.

The story and the script for the movie is excellent, and the characters are wonderful as well. The worst part of the movie are all the animations. They are neither realistic nor timed at all, just a big pain in the backside. And annoying, which lowered my vote from an 8 to 4.

The DVD-release of the movie is not better. The cover tell you about all the extra-material and such, but when you launch the extra material in the extra annoying and slow interface, all you get is: "You need a computer with Windows and a DVD-drive to use the extra-materials".

Am I going to buy another DVD just to check out the bonus materials?

Not likely. This lowered my vote from 4 to 3.

Conclusion: Avoid this movie. Perhaps you can use it as a sleeping pill.


Even if the stars do a great job, the action is definitely the biggest star in this film, as in the others in the series, and therefore the story has it faults. But if you go for a rollercoaster ride, do you expect subtlety? I hope not, and with that in mind, a lot can be forgiven in this kind of movie, but some things just plain bug me. Like how ** SPOILER WARNING** Anck-su-namun would leave her beloved because she is afraid of a little raining stone! This girl killed a god (or at least a man perceived as one) for Imhotep, and she has already been brought back to life, still she freezes in fear while our brave (and beautiful) Rachel Weizs races to the rescue. **SPOILER END** And most times we are going directly from the one big action scene to the other, without any pause or development of plot. Mostly because of the lack of it. Still, the film could be really good for what it is attempting, cut the brakes and full gas and all that stuff, but then at least they should have gotten the special-effects right so the scorpion king didn`t look like a plastic doll. Back to the rollercoaster example. It is often the slow ride before you plunge, where you hold the breath and wait in excitement that makes the moment, but here you just keep on going downwards from the cool beginning to the more and more excruciating ending.


This film is similar to Jurassic Park II, in that the computer graphics make the movie. A campy film that doesn't take itself too seriously is OK in my book, but this one is too campy by far.

As in the first film, the plot makes no sense, the acting leaves one with no feeling of tension. The additional of a cute kid is not helping, as it did not for "Blue Brothers 2000" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".

If you're an action movie lover like me, you will be tempted to try this film. But only those with the highest tolerance for letting go and enjoying the wild, stupid rile will enjoy it. And don't take along your SO looking for a romantic comedy.

Who should see this film:

-- Those who didn't mind the lowbrow but punched-up action in "Jurassic Park II", "The Mummy", "The Mask", "Batman II", "Mars Attacks", etc.

-- Computer graphics afficionados who want to try to figure out how they did all the special effects

I regret I must give "The Mummy Returns" a 2 out of 10.


Upfront, I must admit that I watched only the first 30 minutes of this film. Only because I couldn't bear to waste another hour or more on it. I don't have a problem with the hackneyed premise--many good films have come from bog-standard scenarios before, but the characters are no more than clownish caricatures, the dialogue painfully unfunny, and the acting is hammy and highly overperfomed (perhaps in a vain effort to make the dialogue funnier.) Not being familiar with the actors, who may very well have been brilliant in everything else they've ever been in, this may well be the director's fault. "The Wild Guys" may have been a very successful and funny stage play, but this movie fails on every level. Zero stars.


True life stories do not make for good films. Julie Andrews - giving a brilliant performance in Star! - could not redeem a poor script. Other, more recent examples could include films about Vietnam, American presidents, the British royal family.

The true life element is uplifting; the film itself is not. Take Nathan Lane's hysteria (and histrionic it was) in The Birdcage, his bitchiness towards Andrews at the Tony Awards, and his bizarre turn in Jeffrey. Multiply by a hundred and you can see why I was irritated beyond measure at some of the turns in the movie.

Like Philadelphia, this plays oh-so-safe. The gay men are queens. Finito. Little of the quiet dignity Hurt portrayed in Love and Death on Long Island, or Robin Williams in The Birdcage. Mostly all of them wear make-up, are transvestites or transsexuals. And the straight captain, starts to learn tolerance.

Laugh at the prima donnas putting on make-up. Snigger as they fight over a man. Giggle uproariously as they wriggle their asses in a bizarre little dance routine. Guffaw as they stick out their tongues and screech to high heaven. Chuckle as the 'ladies' make it oh so easy to laugh at, rather than with, a gay population.

The telling subtitle, 'Are you gay because you're not a real man, or are you gay because you wish you were a woman' (to that effect) is the crux of the movie. There is no honest attempt to examine the range of sexuality and celebrate gay differentness in myriad of colours. Here it's a shrill, high-pitched pink.

Thank God for the dignified acting by Hangsopon as the Coach - truly inspired acting, and a pivotal role that raises this film from the depths of total stereotype. Phohklee as Chai and Buranapansit as Wit give good performances.

Even two dimensional acting is better than one dimensional acting, and that's the kindest that can be said for most.

In all, a really disappointing film.

* 1/2 out of 4


True film about a volleyball team from Taiwan composed of gays, transvestites and transsexuals, who battled homophobia and hatred and won a championship. The film does advocate tolerance and (sometimes) shows homophobia is bad BUT those messages are buried under a ton of offensive material. The men playing gay characters all act VERY effeminite--too much so. They're all wearing makeup, screech and scream constantly (it's played so the audience will laugh at it) and are always preening and acting bitchy. Jokes are constantly made at their expense--THREE times we see one member go hysterical when he breaks his nails! Also three times we see his nails deflating balls (that's impossible but hey--anything for a joke). Also the film contained almost every gay verbal slur known--I almost walked out. As a gay man I found this film offensive and sickening. I'm giving it a 2 only because some of the guys were handsome, some of the acting was good and the climatic match was exciting. Otherwise, it's offensive trash.


I expected some commentary on the intrusiveness of surveillance cameras or on our voyeuristic culture, but the movie is very much NOT that. It uses the STYLE of surveillance cameras, which is a clever idea, but the film simply exploits our voyeuristic tendencies rather than commenting on them. The movie is so raunchy, the camera style just feels like an excuse to portray various people in inappropriate sexual situations while trying to call it "art." There are no characters to root for or sympathize with, and very little plot development beyond people behaving badly. Strangest of all, in the end, all the characters' (mostly) minor transgressions are punished, but the real criminal gets off scot free. It's incredibly cynical, on top of being vulgar. Despite it's original concept, based on the exploitive execution, I cannot recommend it.


I'm convinced that many of the favorable reviews here are planted by the producers, or written by very imperceptive people.

Other reviewers have actually posited that the only people who would dislike this movie would be those with a limited understanding of film - those who would reject anything that's not a conventional, run-of-the-mill Hollywood movie, lacking the intellectual yearning for movies with insight into society and the human condition.

That's a ridiculous assertion. I'm all for avant-garde, inaccessible films. And I like "deep" stuff that insists on showing the underbelly of humanity that some people would want to deny. To put this movie in that league is ludicrous. It's terrible.

Okay, telling multiple, eventually overlapping stories with pseudo-surveillance camera footage is an idea that has some potential. But this movie is very poorly conceived and executed. Not a single scene is convincing as actual surveillance camera footage. Not one. The main characters are all too conveniently visible, at the center of the shot (as if there were a director filming ...), at all times.

Not only that ... the stories rely on dialogue! DIALOGUE!!! Are you kidding me?! I'm pretty sure most - possibly ALL - of the surveillance cameras represented in the film would not record audio. Yet every word spoken by the main characters is crystal clear ... including when the surveillance camera is recording them from a considerable distance, such as in a parking lot or food court, where a number of other people are, but for some reason, the camera doesn't pick up a peep from them, but somehow zeroes in on whatever the leads utter. And when we cut between cameras during the same scene, the audio is uninterrupted. The dialogue is always at the front of the mix. You know, like a movie, in which everything seen and heard is placed intentionally. This film's creators were either clueless, or banking on a clueless audience.

To do this right, it would have had to lack audio, and show only small pieces of events, making it hard to see what's going on at select moments, telling the story by implying it. The data markers could be dropped from the movie that was made, and it would basically play out like a low budget, schlocky student film. The whole "Oooooo, Big Brother is watching" conceit is pretty extraneous to the actual film, and comes off as an afterthought. All of the stories (a teacher having sex with a student, a cop getting killed at a traffic stop, a little girl getting abducted) are nothing more than juicy smut that play to our base nature in the same way certain prime-time TV dramas do. This movie has nothing to say, but acts like it does in a half-***ed way by tacking on as the opening some text reporting some data about the number of surveillance cameras in the country or on the planet or whatever.


2 bit actors attempting to look as though they are being filmed without their knowledge. I was expecting actual footage of events with people being seen stealing, etc., without their knowledge. This was just terrible. I have no doubt that the average American is captured on camera several times a day but this film exploits the concept and does so VERY POORLY. Don't waste your time watching this trash.... You would be better off doing something constructive like sleeping. The only positive thing I can say is that the actors are complete unknowns. This lends "slightly" toward the sense that we are watching people captured on store security cameras, gas station monitors, ATM's, etc. Other than that....pure garbage. The only thing you'll want to do if you do watch it, is take a bath.


Short review on this one. I was very excited by the premise of a film taking a serious look at the 'coined "Big Brother" culture we all live in today, it is a known fact to most people and has become a seemingly accepted part of our lives. Hopefully this film could help me to understand some of the finer or more disturbing facts surrounding this reality.

However the films opening scene had me thinking, perhaps I had the wrong film, maybe this was "Girls Gone Wild: Changing Rooms of the Midwest" and not a serious look at anything. Apart of course from the blonde's a**hole, which the brunette analyses kindly as she herself is considering anal bleaching, they then proceed to dry hump each other against the changing room door... it was at this point I was compelled to look away, for good.


It has an interesting idea and concept, sort of, I will give it that...however it is *almost* completely unwatchable. I will watch almost ANYTHING, and even I had to admit - its a seriously god-awful film. The sound doesn't match the video, which is rather unnerving to begin with. There IS decent nudity early on which wasn't *great*, but did help some, I guess; without that, I would have been much angrier that I spent almost two and a half dollars to see this. To be honest, I couldn't even watch it to the end, it was that bad, and not even in a 'so bad it's good' way. I feel like the "one star" rating is really a star (or two) too many. These people owe me over an hour of my life back. I'll forgive sitting through the dressing room scene, but thats as much credit as they're getting from me, and probably more than they deserve. I think that, in the unlikely event that someone actually PAID someone else to see this tripe, the person who was paid would still be getting the raw end of the deal. I wish I could UN-see it, and I cant.


Even if I where bleep up betting the gee-gees in ISLE OF MAN coming home head down I could not sit watch this movie. LOOK what an original title there. Happy to see somebody made Big Brother into a movie. What's next? Girls Gone Wild at the cinema! Adam Rifkin made one dirty grab you by the nuts movie. NIGHT AT THE GOLDEN EAGLE. One of the best. This movie had to be made by little children with Mum's camera. Acting went below 2 bit. Any sane person would call this horrible rubbish. I am in full support of kriskoppy1961. A good shower is only way to cleanse yourself from this piece of cinema garbage. LOOK should have only cost 100 Euros to produce 50 Euros for Mum.


This is one of the worst Stephen King movies I've ever seen. This is not the only Stephen King movie that is bad. There are several others. I have never read the book and I probably never will.

*Spoiler Alert*

The movie revolves around a scientist named Dr. Lawrence Angelo(Pierce Brosnan) who uses virtual reality to try and increase the intelligence in chimpanzees. Then he sees Jobe Smith(Jeff Fahey), a mentally retarded man and gets an idea. He decides to try an experiment to see if he can make Jobe smarter. He succeeds. When Jobe gets smart enough, he decides to go on a killing spree and kill all those who have wronged him and kills anyone that stands in his way.

There were a few problems with this movie:

1. Jobe has become a genius, he has a hot blond girlfriend who loves him, can now read minds, has the telekinesis ability, and he is angry because some guy called him retarded?

2. Why does Jobe goes on a killing spree? Surely, if Jobe was a genius, he must have figured out that killing people is not the answer. So why does he just kill everybody?

3. Why does Jobe want power? Why doesn't he just use his knowledge for good and benefit mankind?

4. How and why does Jobe get transferred into the computer? What does he plan to accomplish now that he controls everything that is electronic?

*End Spoiler*

Overall, it's a stupid movie. Skip this one.

I give it 1 star out of 10. This movie makes no sense!


The film is supposedly based on a short novel by Stephen King. I say "supposedly" because when he saw what they did to his book, King demanded his name be removed from any association of this film! When an author does that, it's kind of a tip-off that someone has made a bad movie.

I also wonder if Pierce Brosnan ever looks back and winces when he recalls being the star of this film? Actually, maybe he shouldn't because it's not that bad a premise. The film is no award-winner, but it is intriguing in its originality. I mean, how many films deal with a slightly-retarded gardener who becomes an experiment with a into-your-brain video game? Jeff Fahey is pretty interesting as "the lawnmower man." Being someone who is fascinated with special-effects, I watched the film probably normally would have considering some of the bias (see below).

What I objected to - and nobody else ever seems to - is another cheap shot at a cleric, where I see in almost every Stephen King story, whether he authorizes it or not. In this movie, we see a priest let the wandering mower-man live in a little shack in back of his church, and then he whips the man! Rule number one in a King adaptation - or in the movies, in general, seems to be: always show a Christian figure as a villain. At that point, I joined King and disavowed any association with this garbage.


Apparently this film was vaguely based on a short Stephen King novel, and I did see an image from the film in a book about special effects, I think it was the leading James Bond actor that attracted me. Basically (possibly in a near future) Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) works for Virtual Space Industries trying to make chimpanzees more intelligent using drugs, and virtual reality, but one of them escapes and he is forced out pretty much. He didn't get the chance to prove or perfect it to work on humans, but he believes he can turn his simple minded gardener, aka "the lawnmower man" of the title, Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey) into a more intelligent being. Jobe agreed to it, and slowly he shows good improvement in intelligence, but of course it turns into a Frankenstein theme when he develops the ability to move objects, his voice sounds more like a computer, and he has turned evil. In the end he is defeated by his creator in the virtual world. Also starring Jenny Wright as Marnie Burke, Mark Bringleson as Sebastian Timms, Geoffrey Lewis as Terry McKeen, Jeremy Slate as Father Francis McKeen, Dean Norris as The Director, Colleen Coffey as Caroline Angelo, Jim Landis as Ed Walts, Troy Evans as Lieutenant Goodwin and Rosalee Mayeux as Carla Parkette. The special effects for 1992 I suppose are quite good, but I almost lost track of what is going on a couple of times, so not one I'd bother with again. Okay!


'Honeymoon in Vegas' is, as the title suggests, a romantic comedy film. Fans of Elvis are sure the love this film with all of the Elvis references and a whole team of skydiving Elvis impersonators near the end of the film. This film is just the typical American romantic comedy of the 1990s. It's not a particularly memorable film, but there are some funny scenes. My low rating for this film is due to the story and the characters; it just was not engaging enough to make a really good story, and now that I have seen it once, there is nothing in it that would make me go back and watch it again - unless, maybe I was an Elvis fan. It's not a great film because it has little to offer, and it blends in with all the others.


This was supposed to be a great comedy, but I didn't find a man losing his wife in a poker game to be something to laugh about, nor did I find it cool that the woman would have a fling with the gambler who "won" her. All of that is supposed to be "hilarious," to all the mainline film critics.

Well, I guess that's just another of the thousands of examples of how sick film people are, on both sides of the camera. The lower the values, the more they like it, and vice-versa.

And while your at it, Hollywood: stop with all the Elvis imitations. That's getting tiresome, especially in Vegas. So was Nicolas Cage's constant yelling in here. This movie will give you a headache in addition to making you nauseous.

This is one honeymoon you want to skip.


Andrew Bergman wrote and directed this very dry comedy about the fear of marriage. Alter-shy Nicolas Cage, in Las Vegas ostensibly to marry girlfriend Sarah Jessica Parker, instead winds up in winner-take-all poker game with wealthy James Caan, a slick gambler who eventually wins the hand of Cage's lady. Nutty comedy relies on stray eccentricities to put it over, but aside from the three leads, nothing about this scenario is very interesting. Cage--encouraged to overact--mugs for laughs, while the finale (with the flying Elvis-impersonators) was used as the film's sole advertising gimmick. Bergman isn't desperate, he's just relentlessly uninventive. *1/2 from ****


Have you ever been to one of those movies that everyone's been pushing you to "go see! go see!" Sure enuf, you "go see" and then, after 15 minutes, you just want to "go" period. This stinker was SO bad it made me angry! I wanted my money back. Why the reviews have been from "good" to "excellent" on this one is totally beyond me.

Nicolas Cage and airhead Sarah Jessica Parker headline this misguided slapstick as a long-standing couple who finally decide to tie the knot after years of hedging on his part. They head to (where else?) Las Vegas to make it official wherein Cage proceeds to "lose" Parker in a stacked poker game set up by a big time mobster (Jimmy Caan). Trying to win her back is supposedly the fun part of this "comedy" what with all the crazy problems that ensue and inane characters he encounters.

It's all for nought. Cage and Parker, known for their loopy auras, are just plain dumb here, as is everything and everybody else associated with this dreck. Cage, who has always been an acquired taste, was FUNNIER in "Leaving Las Vegas"! (That's a joke, guys, and better than anything you'll find here.) Parker, who can be a sexy, delightful featherbrain (catch her in "L.A. Story") is entirely wasted here.

Supposedly full of inventive bits, it has more the feel of somebody who stitched a bunch of stupid, tasteless, half-baked ideas together using very weak thread. Offbeat director Andrew Bergman has done better work I suppose ("It Could Happen to You" -- also with Cage) but, to tell you the truth, I just don't connect with his style or humor.

As far as I'm concerned, a THOUSAND flying Elvises couldn't save this turkey!


1st watched 2/10/2010 - 4 out of 10(Dir-William Sterling): Fair musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll's book about the young girl mentioned in the title and her adventures. This version is a British live production with a few notable British comedians covered in makeup and costumes so you hardly recognize them(especially Dudley Moore but also including Peter Sellers). There a few songs mostly sung by the lead played by Fiona Fullerton and done well for the most part. The downfall of this version, in my opinion, is the amateurish sets and the costumes are similar to a Saturday morning kids show. The songs are fine but nothing very memorable and we really don't get a feeling that Alice has learned anything when it's all over(I guess I'm not sure if this was the author's intention but we see this in the Disney version). Anyway, the movie just doesn't keep us that interested and it's just OK viewing. It would be interesting to read the book now that I've seen a couple versions filmed to see what was included or dumped in each one. This version is viewable but not much else as I've already said, but I was glad I watched it.


Even the Disney animated version isn't as cheesy, lame or frankly ridiculous as this live action remake, based on the Lewis Carroll tale. You know the basic story, Alice (A View to a Kill's Fiona Fullerton) falls asleep, and dreams chasing the White Rabbit (Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em's Michael Crawford) into the bizarre (more son in this version) world of Wonderland, meeting a variety of weird and "wonderful" characters, such as the Dormouse (Dudley Moore), The Caterpillar (Sir Ralph Richardson), Tweedledee (Frank Cox) and Tweedledum (Freddie Cox), the Cheshire Cat (Roy Kinnear), the Mock Turtle (Michael Hordern), the Mad Hatter (Robert Helpmann) and March Hare (Peter Sellers), the Gryphon (Spike Milligan), and Queen (Flora Robson) and King (Dennis Price) of Hearts. I don't know if it is the film itself that is ridiculous, or the fact that so many well known TV and film stars are making complete idiots of themselves, and as for the songs, they don't help, oh, Fullerton talks to herself too much. It won the BAFTAs for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design, both wrong choices. It was number 63 on The 100 Greatest Family Films. Pretty poor!


First of all, let me say that, in my opinion, the music is totally wrong for the film. It sounds like it's straight out of a love scene from of a James Bond film, and with good reason - it was actually composed by John Barry, famous for the JB theme. The acting is certainly up to adequate standards, and the cast is as sterling as they come. In order for this to take on 'classic' status, I would recommend that it be re-edited with an alternative soundtrack. It's all too easy to lose one's concentration watching this film, although admittedly the subject matter is dreamy. Surely this ripe for a remake, perhaps with Tim Burton at the helm?


I saw this film while in Europe, and was extremely unimpressed. The characters are wooden, the acting painfully amateur, and the story uninteresting. The plot involves a group of spoiled, aimless British twenty-somethings that do nothing but hang out and play in a 'garage band' thanks to the wealth of an orphaned megalomaniac friend. We soon find the lack of a father figure drives the ambition of this wealthy peer to ruin all of his friend's lives in an attempt to make them a marketable musical enterprise. He drives one friend to become an improbable drug dealer/addict, and emotionally torments several girlfriends. Dominated by this troubled youth, the other friends flail and fret their way through to success or failure. The sappy, stupid soap-opera script is not saved by the actors, who give performances better suited to television dramas like Eastenders. It is rare you run across a film where you could care less what happens to the characters or what will happen next on screen. Best save you time for other pursuits than watching GMT.


Films, so the screen writing gurus tell us, are written from the ending. Writers are on a journey; they know where they are going and then plan how to get there. The destination in this film is two ex-mates turning up coincidentally in a bank at the same time, one with a bunch of flowers, the other with a gun. Each equally implausible, given that they share the same purpose - to win a woman's affection. If you think I am wrong, ask your female friends how much they like it when their ex turns up in the middle of their shift in front of their workmates to try and get back together.

I assume this is the ending the writers set out with, and it bodes ill for the British film industry that no one shouted 'contrived!' at any stage. If this was not the ending they started out with, how did the collaboration process end up at this farcical destination??


I saw this movie at a film festival when it first came out and, after skipping over it at the local library for the last nine months, finally borrowed it on loan to see what my younger roommate would think of it and to view it again myself, nearly a decade later. It certainly features game performance by the three male leads, but the real triangle here is that of the gay male hunk, the plus size, clueless fag hag and nebbish gay guy.

Unfortunately, what a number of viewers apparently found funny in Mara Hobel's character of Christina, I simply found mostly tiresome and repetitive. From her scene walking in to the divey apartment "Fabulous" to her scene walking in to roommate Marc's bedroom after he first has sex to her nervous breakdown or crying during the "grand gesture" to the whole cluelessness of her New York existence - it just was about four feet too much over the top and ruined what little good there was in her character or her performance. What was her degree in? Basket Weaving? She took that special class for the championship NYU football team in Ballroom Dancing? In 1997, she graduated from college without knowing how to find a semi colon on a key board?

But so as to not seem like I am aiming all my daggers at Ms. Hobel, the idea that the "bad" good would turn out to be (a) a liar; (b) a user; or (c) a hustler were not only predictable but telegraphed not just a mile away, but a drive through the state of Texas away. Likewise, that the nerdy nebbish (Woody Allen without the fixation on the adopted children of his mate) gay guy -- who, unfortunately for him, was ten years ahead of the gay geek hotness era we find ourselves in -- and in any event, hot gay geeks are not Broadway musical fans much less piano players, would be in love (in classic Hollywood romantic comedies from the 40s and 50s fashion) with the gay hunk best pal and, ultimately, the hunk would (for no reason at all, without any real basis, after turning him down because the neb was clearly not the hunk's type, and after lusting in love with a guy who's only real thing in common with the neb is that they both have a musical background? You might as well say that the hunk fell in love with them because they both breath air.

This film does have some charms and again, with a different writer and director, some different casting choices, a tighter script (it went on too long, meaning some entire characters could have been cut out), might have made more of itself. You could cut the entire Cynthia story down to 5 minutes and not make her a roommate and make Marc's apartment a studio and have a much tighter and probably more interesting movie in the process. Perhaps then you could spend a little more time in the relationship between Robert and Marc to justify why they end up together at the end, other than rom com conventions of the Hollywood 40s and 50s and bad Broadway musicals of every era, say they must.


I really wanted to like this film. But the bad acting, horrible script and horrific directing made me hate it. And LONG! It's bad enough when a movie "seems"to drag on because it's so bad. Well, this movie is worse as it is BAD and clocks in atjust under 2 hours. This film makes "The Titanic" seem like a short. This could have been such a great little film too. But it is just too tedious and too poorly executed to qualify for even a movie to fall asleep to. "Attack of the killer tomatoes" seems like an oscar winner compared to this stinker. If you want to see a great gay themed movie, skip this trash and go rent "Edge of seventeen" or "Trick." I am not kidding, this film is alful.


Only because this movie hasn't graced MST3K, has it not received attention as the worst of all time. I saw this film over 20 years ago and still remember it as the worst ever - without having seen it since. And yes, I have seen "Plan 9" and "Robot Monster" and a number of the films shown on MST3K, like "Manos, The Hands of Fate" and "The Puma Man."

This film, which I saw as "The Man With The Synthetic Brain," is truly terrible. A crime film which becomes a mad scientist film, which becomes a chase film, and ends up as a zombie movie!

I saw this on TV, and when coming back from commercial breaks, I frequently thought that I was watching a different film entirely. Both in plot and cinematography, it's like a film pieced together from ill-fitting parts of other films. A Frankenstein of films - at least in the method by which it seems to have been made.

The dialogue is horrible and most of it unnecessary. A typical line: "I flew in.....on a plane!" That would be opposed to flying cross country by flapping his arms. I'm glad they explained that one, I'd have been lost otherwise.

The best part (or worst)? The ending with a Witch Doctor / Scientist shown wearing a Witch Doctor mask and a lab coat. Why a lab coat? Why not?! The lab coat would protect his delicate mix of monkey brains, goat lips, fish heads and guano from suit lint. The suit lint would ruin everything!

Only see this film if you love bad films. Anyone looking for even a below average B-quality movie would be very disappointed by "Blood of Ghastly Horror."

- SCG

p.s. Who gave this movie a "10?" Were they confused by one of the 300 titles used to repackage this bomb? Then again I note that there were two "10" votes and two writing credits on the film. I sense a conspiracy. Someone get Mulder and Scully on this.


Al Adamson might just have been the worst film director in history. I truly think that his films are at least as bad as Ed Wood's and both men finished up their careers making porno flicks. This film, made in the pre-porno days, manages to perhaps be the worse excuse for a film Adamson ever made--even worse than Dracula VS. FRANKENSTEIN!! That's because this master of the super-super cheap drive-in film found a way to make this film even cheaper and cheesier than the rest--he took apart an older film he made (PSYCHO A GO-GO) and pieced it together with some new scenes to make an entirely new film!!

The original film, PSYCHO A GO-GO was actually one of Adamson's best films (though its current rating of 2.0 is hardly stellar). It was about a jewel robbery gone bad and particularly focused on a psychotic killer within the gang and his evil deeds.

Now, the same guy who was killed at the end of PSYCHO A GO-GO is back as a zombie re-animated by John Carradine with an electronic brain! And, it's up to Tommy Kirk and a bunch of other no-talents to unravel the mystery (about the murders, not why they agreed to be in this pile of bilge).

Much of the film makes no sense at all and it's all quite confusing and stupid--with very large chunks of the old film re-used haphazardly. Apparently none of this was important to Adamson. What was important, it seems, is managing to make a new film for $5.78. The only people who could enjoy this dull mess are bad movie freaks like myself who occasionally enjoy laughing at horrid films. And this one has it all--very bad acting, the director's stripper wife making yet another gratuitous appearance in one of his films, non-existent writing and terrible direction (with quite a few out of focus and poorly framed shots).


You really get 2 bad films for the price of one.Its obvious the producers put 2 turkeys together to get one dead fish. If you see this film you may never go back to the video store again,feeling cheated and ripped off.


Disjointed horror film that was made from a heist film that was cut apart and had new scenes added. It has something to do about a zombified people going around killing. The original film was a crime caper film about a jewel heist. Watching the film for the first time in years, and for the first time without commercials I found it to be an absolute disaster area of a film. Its awful. Its films like this that make me hate Al Adamson films because they are such patchwork messes with new and old footage mingling freely. After listening to the commentary on the DVD I have to temper my criticism of the film since its clear that the scenes from the original heist film were actually really good. Had that film been released (it couldn't get released because it had no stars) I'm pretty certain that it would have had a nice reputation and Adamson might have gone on not to be a hack. The trouble was that Adamson was willing to sell his film short and shoot and reshoot and cut apart the heist film. Producer Sam Sherman who does the commentary takes the blame for ruining the film with the re-cuts and rewrites. The film as it stands now seems to be about four films blended together, which is about right since the heist, the cops, the zombie and what ever else all seem to be in different films made at different times. Sherman in his commentary said the film plays better with commercials and he ain't kidding. Watching this on TV you can blame the station for hacking it up, however seeing it sans commercials you realize what a nightmare it is. Awful


I watched this Z-grade excuse for a "movie" under its title "The Man with the Synthetic Brain", but I can assure that any form of brain activity is the absolute last thing you should expect to find here. Now I am aware that one shouldn't anticipate much when selecting a movie directed by the notoriously incompetent director Al Adamson (his other "highlights" include 'Blood of Dracula's Castle', 'Satan's Sadists' and 'Brain of Blood') but this worthless excuse for a motion picture is literally insufferable. The first 3 minutes are the only ones worth mentioning, actually. During this falsely promising intro, we witness a Frankenstein-type monster savagely strangling no less than five people. What an awesome opener, you'd think  but then Adamson suddenly opted for a completely retarded and incoherent narrative structure, involving long & confusing flashbacks and unrelated sub plots. Don't even ask to summarize the concept, as it quickly got so boring and uninteresting that I lost all attention. Apart from during the intro, there's absolutely no other action or bloodshed, the acting performances are almost painful to observe and not one of the dialogs makes a slight bit of sense. John Carradine looks really fatigue in his umpteenth role as unstable scientist (and cause of all horror) and Adamson's direction totally lacks style and inspiration. Even horror fanatics that have a weakness for 'so-bad-it's-good' cinema shouldn't view this dud, as it's too terrible.


Don't ask me how I did it, but even though this is technically a botched and splicey patchwork of a movie, I had a good time with it. It's poorly made to be sure, but somehow it's also fun and mesmerizing at the same time. It helps going in to know the history...

It was directed by drive-in movie maestro Al Adamson (of "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" fame), who originally planned a straight jewelry heist picture in 1964 until meeting up with producer/mentor Sam Sherman who persuaded him to gradually add new scenes and ideas specifically for the horror/sci-fi television market in the early '70s. It was finally sold to TV with the lucrative title of MAN WITH THE SYNTHETIC BRAIN, but Sherman thought it could be milked further, so the movie was also played at theaters where it became known as BLOOD OF GHASTLY HORROR.

Ultimately emerging as connected pieces of different half-baked incarnations (one of these was even called PSYCHO A-GO-GO before the music was eliminated), the movie begins with a zombified maniac running around town strangling people. Through flashbacks within other flashbacks we're treated to a background story of how a Vietnam vet named Joe Corey was wounded and then "helped" by a wacky scientist named Dr. Vanard (the always welcome John Carradine) who planted some sort of mechanism inside Corey's head and unintentionally turned him into a murderer with a taste for jewel robbing (which is how the old 1964 heist footage managed to get utilized). But this man-made killer's got an angry dad who's also a scientist and is even nuttier than Dr. Vanard. He's out to even the score for what was done to his victimized son, and that includes making a mummified and whimpering she-monster out of Vanard's sexy daughter (Regina Carrol, director Adamson's wife).

This isn't a film for most audiences, but anyone who revels in idiotic or badly made exploitation films of the '60s and '70s would want to get a load of this concoction. You've got to hand it to Sam Sherman and Al Adamson, in any case... they knew how to have fun and freak out audiences. The current DVD available by Troma is badly framed, however... this cuts out some widescreen and results in an unfortunate pan/scan affair. But it's unlikely at the time of this writing that there's any better source material.


The songs, including a couple of Sinatra's best, are easily the best part of this movie. But the rest is nearly unwatchable compared with the original, "Four Daughters."

John Garfield delivered a performance in "Four Daughters" that made him an overnight sensation - and deservedly so. His Mickey is a complex character that Garfield absolutely nails with a superbly nuanced performance. Mickey is a pessimist, but he is no brooder. He mucks through life as a rather detached cynic. But his brand of cynicism is not really bitter. Mickey is more resigned than bitter. His persona is the result of circumstances, NOT his innate character. That is what makes his character sympathetic.

By contrast, Sinatra carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He is very self absorbed and bitter. He has none of the devil-may-care insouciance of Garfield. While Garfield evokes sympathy, SInatra evokes pity (at best). There is the possibility that Garfield's character could actually fit into the Tuttle family, given a change of luck. But Sinatra's never will; indeed, he never does. Even while tinkling the ivories in the new happy ending, he still seems like a self- absorbed brooder. His persona is the result of his character not his circumstances. So, when his circumstances improve, his persona is unchanged. The happy ending is a terrible contrivance, but it would have worked much better with Garfield's Mickey than with Sinatra's.

Nor did I ever once feel any chemistry between Frank Sinatra and Doris Day that convinced me they truly were a loving couple who I wanted to cheer for. But I did feel that way about John Garfield and Priscilla Lane. There was never such a huge contrast in personality between Garfield and Lane as there was between Sinatra and Day. And I sensed much more chemistry between Garfield and Lane than between Sinatra and Day. The possibilities that seem to be in reach for Garfield and Lane are what makes Mickey's death so tragic. I never sensed those possibilities for Sinatra and Day. Sinatra's death would not have been nearly as tragic. Nor does his survival seem to offer the promise of fulfillment of those possibilities. The gulf between Sinatra's character and Day's character is huge. No mere change of circumstances can change that.

In sum, I didn't dislike the Mickey portrayed by Garfield; I didn't like the Mickey portrayed by Sinatra.

Finally, the Gig Young character in this remake is absolutely superfluous to the new story. Why even bother with him? Just have Sinatra be the guy who comes to stay with the Tuttles in the first place.


4 out of 10 for the animation. It's true that there's lots of action-packed anime out there that's big on flash and light on story. But this movie raped my eyes. This movie forcibly shoved unwanted imagery into my skull. I started watching it because I believed the slugline on the DVD box, that it was a sequel to NINJA SCROLL, which of course isn't true. I had to watch the whole thing, because I had to see how it ended. Any minute, and it would get good, it would show purpose. But it didn't END. It's one thing to fill it with the most graphic depictions of gore the animators could conjure, but it's another to have it all mean NOTHING in the end. A pointless, nihilistic waste of shelf space.


A truly awful film, this movie is an incredible waste of time and talent. The plot deals with a Christian noble trying to lead a rebellion and being opposed by legendary ninja warrior Jubei Yagyu. The story wastes no time with such trivialities as plot, characterization or story unity and gets right into the violence.

And the violence is stomach-churningly gross and repellent. Warriors are massacred by the hundreds, guts and body parts are exploded, and, well you get the idea. If all of this sounds like your cup of tea, by all means tune in. Others are rightly warned to steer clear.

BTW, this film is not at all related to Ninja Scroll, as the marketing would lead you to believe.


I rented this movie thinking it was a sequel to the vastly superior Ninja Scroll. It, however, was unconnected: in fact it seemed to be unconnected even to itself, as the various segments which I managed to watch seemed haphazard at best. I would strongly advise against watching this movie, as there are plenty of better things to do with your time. This comes from someone who enjoys watching "Plan Nine from Outer Space" from time to time. While I'm not an avid anime fan, a friend of mine who is despised it even more than I. I was further horrified upon visiting this site to learn that a sequel had been made to this wretched bit of cinematics. Please, save yourself the headache and go do something more productive, like staring at the nearest wall.


I was disappointed when I purchased this on DVD. I assumed when I saw the disc available that it was the sequel to "Ninja Scroll", and thus not happy when I found out it wasn't. I think this was deliberately portrayed as a sequel too (mainly based off of the title, the main character's name coming second). Nonetheless, once I got past this I decided to judge Resurrection on its own merits. It beat "Ninja Scroll" in one respect, it has a lot more gore. However, the plot is what gets me confused. I've had this problem before, mainly in regards to anime series, but in this instance I don't think it is a translation issue, I think it just isn't clear. It ends suddenly, leaving a lot of questions left unanswered. Now, a sequel could be used to explain much of the confusion that was created, but I doubt anyone will do that. Last I heard, there are no plans for a sequel as is. In any case, if you just want to see a lot of blood flying, go ahead and watch. If you want the complex storyline of "Ninja Scroll", just stay away.


People are mostly fooled by the title "ninja" and name "jubei" but this film is not the sequel of the "legendry" Ninja Scroll.

The film is really(!) bad. A waste of money. I get bored writing these comments, but I felt like I had to this time, as I didn't want anyone else to fall into my position.

Jubei is Jubei Yagyu from Samurai Spirits but don't be fooled, the game being good doesn't mean that the movie is good as well.

One final important note: Film is not MANGA made, thus it is bad enough (Ninja Scroll was MANGA's)


as aposed to what many people think this is not the sequel to Ninja Scroll. even though the characters names are the same they look nothing alike, it isn't the same person.

to the review. I hated this movie. I had to struggle to get through it. for one thing, this kinda stuff really happened. stuff as in the Christians being killed by the Japanese. they took a real historical event and made it into a very fictitious thing. plus it just was a bad movie. it was pointless gore and poinless nudity.

1/10


This is one of the worst animes I've ever seen. It is difficult for me to give an anime a low rating because I like the genre very much but this movie deserves a 2/10 at most. Unlike Ninja Scroll, this movie lacks character development, original and interesting story and good animation. Not even the gory fights make this worthwhile. My advice is to stay away from this one and email the people responsible for this to show how much you hate them for making something so awful and pointless. The only good thing about it is that it is short which makes the torture kind of bearable.


Ninja Scroll is the best anime and it seems to me that Ninja Resurrection tries to live in the fame of it's ancestor but has no real ties to Ninja Scroll besides Jubei the vagabond. The art direction is of a totally different style then Ninja Scroll and Resurrection is only an hour long, if that. It ends all too suddenly and there are plenty of questions still left unanswered by the end. Not worth seeing.


I think this is the first time that I've given an anime anything below a 6. As most others I had thought Ninja Resurrection was a sequel to Ninja Scroll, until ADV's openning showed up. About 70% of the running time is taken by bloody fight/horror scenes. The producers obviously thought that they can get away with a hit by borrowing the title and the character's name of Ninja Scroll while adding heaps of excessively disgusting scenes to the film. What they made was distasteful and the ending leaves me unsatisfied. I consider Ninja Scroll as the best anime film ever, Ninja Resurrection is an insult to that name. What is good about the film? Perhaps one sequence where Jubei was actually relaxing with his friends, a little break before we are punished with another barrage of gore.


This stupid, stupid religious horror film starts out with an arbitrary premise and goes precipitously downhill from there. Evidently there is some sort of demon that has been held captive for thousands of years, and for some unexplained reason it is set loose every thousand years. To stretch its legs, I suppose. One girl gathers together a bunch of devout college age believers to witness the demon and prevent its escape, and what we get is a ludicrous mess of a movie that does no justice to the enticing cover box, which should qualify as false advertisement.

Let me tell you a little secret about that demon on the cover box, by the way. It is by leaps and bounds the most interesting thing that the movie has going for it, and it is literally on screen for less than one second. That should give you an idea of the intelligence level of the movie.

I made the mistake of watching this disaster two days after watching The Passion of the Christ, arguably one of the most powerful religious films ever made, so when I saw Jesus with fangs in this movie I almost fell over backwards at the sheer, overwhelming dumbness of it all. Even without the fangs the guy who plays Jesus looked like some slob that got up off his couch just long enough to put on some sheets and make a pathetic attempt to play Jesus. This guy blew it that badly and he was only playing Jesus in some girl's nightmare. Then again, he fits right in with the rest of the actors, who deliver some staggeringly bad performances.

One IMDb user makes the astounding claim that this movie is beautiful, then goes on to suggest that the acting is not as bad as other reviewers claim. Well, in that regard he's right.

It's worse.


I can't believe everybody else like this movie! I love Gothics but this one is a snooze. Gene Tierney was a very beautiful and talented actress, but she's totally miscast here. She tries, but she's just not good. Vincent Price is always good no matter what, but he can't save the movie. It LOOKS good, but it's very slow and very dull. It's no wonder that this isn't on video. After an hour I turned it off--I was SO bored! Avoid unless you're a Gothic completist.


I'm getting really tired of movies that portray a Ghost as a modern-day "The Riddler" from the Batman TV series! Like The Riddler, the Ghost in "What Lies Beneath" has all the answers that you're looking for -- but you're only going to get pieces to the puzzle one incoherent piece at a time.

Let's all get on the same page here for a minute. We know, having watched the movie in full, that the ghost has these powers/abilities: 1) Can TYPE ON A COMPUTER KEYBOARD (or, at the very least, get words to appear on a computer screen)!! 2) Can write easy-to-read English on a fogged-up mirror, as if you were using your finger. 3) Can appear to numerous people (as the ghost appeared, in one way or another, to both the main stars in the movie). 4) Can open closed doors. 5) I'm not entirely sure about this one, but it seemed as if the ghost "took over" Claire's body and/or mind at one point (and mysteriously began acting sexually towards her murderer of all people, Mr. Ford).

Why would a ghost, with the abilities outlined above, give you vague clues in pieces and not simply tell you what the hell is going on?! As a Ghost, if you can get words to appear on a computer screen, WHY IN THE HELL wouldn't you just write "Your husband is a murderer, you can find my body at the end of your dock, my name is...". Why would you simply type your initials hundreds of times over and over?! Again, are we dealing with The Riddler here?! If that wouldn't work, how about just writing to Claire on the mirror after every shower each day?? If you were a Ghost, and all you COULD DO is leave messy clues to somebody you hope will help solve your murder, would you, upon getting screamed at from the top of your helper's lungs "What do you want?!?!" -- really write back a simple "You Know!"???? Obviously she didn't know yet, she was still gathering clues and thought she was going insane!! Wouldn't you have used that moment to write something just a bit more profound?! Like, maybe, "I need your help!". Wow.

And at one point the Ghost "took over" Claire's body and/or mind -- don't even get me started on how she could have easily killed her murderer -- so shouldn't she have tried killing Harrison Ford's character, her murderer, instead of just getting him horny?! I could go on and on, but at this point, I'm fatigued over this plot-hole-filled tripe. I just want to emphasize -- I hate when Ghosts are portrayed as The Riddler's character in the Batman series - as simple clue-givers.

:)

JD