The Last Broadcast is presented as if it's a "documentary" about the murder of two hosts and a hired hand for a cable access show named Fact or Fiction. In the scenario, Fact or Fiction was in New Jersey's Pine Barrens to present a live show on the Jersey Devil. A second hired hand is convicted of the murders (this isn't a spoiler because it's stated at the beginning of the film). The film also makes an attempt to become more philosophical towards the end, and there is an unexpected twist.

For me, this film failed on most levels, although there were a few small things that worked. The Last Broadcast is often compared to The Blair Witch Project, which arrived a year later. The comparison is appropriate, and it's difficult to imagine that The Blair Witch Project writer/directors didn't lift the basic idea from The Last Broadcast. The Blair Witch Project didn't work for me, either, although in my view, it works better than The Last Broadcast does. Both films rest on a similar gimmick of claiming to be partially a composed "documentary" and partially a collection of videotaped images by a group of young adults who are about to get killed in the woods, and we're watching them as "evidence" of what happened to them. Both have ambiguity whether something supernatural happened, as the characters were exploring a legend about a supernatural being, or whether more mundane homicides occurred. There are finer-grained similarities as well, but I mainly bring it up to give you an idea of what The Last Broadcast is like if you haven't seen it but you've seen The Blair Witch Project.

The first problem with The Last Broadcast is that it doesn't play like a documentary. I've seen many documentaries. I've never seen one that looked like The Last Broadcast. Rather, this film looks like how an amateur filmmaker who has never seen a documentary might imagine documentaries, armed only with a description of the genre. That's a big problem, because the film hinges on playing like a documentary. In a similar vein, there is a problem with the Fact or Fiction program, and the actors playing the hosts. Even though Fact or Fiction is supposed to only be a cable access show, the material is done poorly and the actors are unconvincing. Again, it looks more like an amateur filmmaker who has never seen cable access programming imagining what it would be like based on a description only.

Like The Blair Witch Project, another big problem with The Last Broadcast is that for some strange reason directors Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler decided to use purposefully bad camera-work for much of the material, especially any footage shot by the Fact or Fiction guys, and footage by the documentary host, David Beard. While the idea to use purposefully bad camera-work isn't flawed, the execution is flawed, because the camera-work is so ridiculous that it again comes across like an amateur filmmaker imagining what bad camera-work might be like. Characters inexplicably will not keep the camera still (a really annoying scene showing this is when David Beard is filming himself in the woods towards the end and keeps revolving). They inexplicably have extreme close-ups of mouths, eyes, etc. If the idea is to make the documentary and the cable access show seem real, such exaggerated bad camera-work just does not work.

Another problem is that the documentary keeps repeating material. Most of the videotaped evidence is repeated many times. The 911 phone call is repeated. The narrator keeps repeating the same ideas over and over. It all plays like an attempt to pad out the film's running time. Also, the narrator has a very annoying monotone, which comprises the bulk of the dialogue throughout the film. It is another aspect that does not help sell the film as a documentary.

Finally, the attempt at becoming more philosophical about media's influence on reality perception is very sophomoric, and the big "twist" at the end was fairly inexplicable to me. There were a couple other small points throughout the film that were confusing to me, as well, such as why the soap opera director wasn't involved with the Pine Barrens shoot, but my attention might have drifted a couple times. I was also confused how Fact or Fiction, which was otherwise so technically bare bones and incompetent, was able to manage an audio/video as well as an Internet satellite feed miles into the woods in 1995.

On the plus side, the premise has promise--the story is interesting, and there are some nice shots of the woods accompanied by atmospheric music. Perhaps if the film were handled more conventionally, The Last Broadcast may have been moderately successful. Even though the twist made little sense to me, the style of the film at that point, which pulled further away from the feigned documentary, worked better for me.


I have heard that this movie came before the Blair Witch Project, which I thought was excellent (and in my opinion it's popularity is well deserved), and that it may have inspired the Blair Witch Project. Like the Blair Witch Project, the Last Broadcast is marketed as a horror movie. Although I wasn't expecting "another" Blair Witch Project, I was expecting a horror movie in the same low budget style as the Blair Witch Project. That's, after all, how this movie is marketed, a low budget horror movie. Well, it's certainly low budget, but it's definitely no horror.

Everything this movie tries to do fails. If there is a C (or even D) category for movies, this is it. Dead End and the Blair Witch Project are two low budget movies which prove that low budget movies can be A movies, for sure. The Last Broadcast is unprofessional and only succeeds in misleading the viewer. It's hard to be specific without giving away any spoilers, and that's exactly what this movie requires to be exposed. Whatever you expect to see, you won't. However this movie is marketed, whatever the DVD box tells you on the backside, just know that it's misleading and unless you don't have any expectations, you will be disappointed.

There is nothing else worth to say about this movie. Imagine renting the Terminator and instead of seeing some science fiction action, you get to see a lower than a straight-to-DVD quality movie about something that is supposed to resemble the Terminator. That's the Last Broadcast. A complete waste of time.

The tagline of this movie is "what actually happened that night in the woods?" My answer is "nothing interesting".


THE LAST BROADCAST is a fake documentary executed in a similar style to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, a very famous movie that it is often compared to whether in a positive or negative context.

The plot of the documentary is actually very interesting. A fictional TV series is seeing its viewing figures dwindle. In an effort to prevent its end, the producers decide to film an episode showing a search for a local mythical legend known as the "Jersey Devil". The start of the movie explains how 3 of the 4 TV crew were found dead. The sole survivor was charged with and found guilty of the murders of the others. A filmmaker decides to gather the evidence surrounding the case to prove the survivor's innocence. The documentary he makes constitutes THE LAST BROADCAST.

Despite an interesting concept (a documentary examining in great detail the evidence of a murder case in order to disprove a convicted man's innocence) and also an interesting embedded story (the search for a local legend in the woods), sitting through THE LAST BROADCAST is one massive endurance test. I barely made it to the end and was constantly looking at the elapsed running time, cheering myself for surviving another minute of this cinematic torture.

Now I'll go through the individual elements to demonstrate why THE LAST BROADCAST is so terrible.

First, the narration. This is a fake documentary. As such, there is plenty of narration and often over still images. For this to capture interest, the narrator has to convince us that there is some significance to these images in relation to the rest of the work. Unfortunately, the narration is - as another reviewer has pointed out on here - done in a very monotone manner that fails to invoke even the slightest interest.

Second, the direction. For this story to work, the "interviews", video extracts, still images of exhibits and so on must all be carefully co-ordinated to ensure a clear narrative. Unfortunately, everything just seems to be jumbled up, without a specific order or structure. This makes it highly difficult to keep track of what the "documentary" is trying to tell us. Also, the home video extracts are very poorly filmed with no tension, suspense, scares, thrills or even laughs.

Third, the acting. The actors can be divided into three categories - the narration (done by the "director"), the crew of the fictional TV series and the "inteviewees" (police investigators, reporters, psychologists and so on). The acting is poor right across the board. Anyone who has seen an episode of a real documentary series (THE FBI FILES for example) will immediately be able to tell that the "experts" in this fake documentary are actors (and very bad ones at that). The crew of the fictional TV series do not seem the least bit scared or even interested by the investigation they are doing. And as already mentioned, the narration is monotone.

The only positive comment I can make about this excuse for a movie is the twist ending where there is actually a scene that is interesting to watch. Unfortunately it is not worth sitting through the remaining 80+ minutes to reach.

If you want to see a truly great fake documentary, I highly recommend GHOSTWATCH - an excellent piece of work that is carefully scripted, genuinely puts you on the edge of your seat, contains great scares and still makes you question what you've seen even when you know it's a phony.

If you want to see a great horror movie done in the style of a camcorder home video, I highly recommend REC, a fast-paced thrill ride from beginning to end that is genuinely scary and tense.

Finally, I advise everyone to avoid THE LAST BROADCAST like the plague!


The film begins as a documentary, explaining how a triple-homicide plays out in the Pine Barrens, located in Southern New Jersey. Although the film captured my attention quickly, it stalled out into early points and didn't seem to connect later in the film. For example, they employ an ex soaps director to direct the live broadcast, yet he not only does not accompany them to their live broadcast, he is basically left out of the film entirely. The shaky camera work, I think, worked well in some cases, but was overdone. Some camera shots just don't make sense (the camera angles from outside the camp, looking in, for example).

The 'documentary' also doesn't play out like a normal documentary. It was close, but maybe thirty minutes or so in, I could tell something was a little off, and didn't make sense.

The movie had a ton of potential. Done a little different, and with a different 'twist' ending, it could have easily been a great movie. As it stands now, the 'twist' at the end barely made sense, and although I understood what they were trying to portray, it came across as a cheap ending, a 'it was all a dream' sort of conclusion.

To be honest, I'd skip this one if I had the choice.


*spoilers* I will admit that I was unable to make it all the way through this movie. The two reasons for this were.

1. Narrators voice was monotone. When you narrate a movie, it will pull the audience out of the experience, so you better have a really fun/sad/interesting voice to listen to. The narrator did not seem to care what was going on, no matter what happened it was always the same low drone voice. Picture Ben Stein.. "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?".

Some people had touched on bad acting, but I can live with a bad actor if the movie has a believable plot line. Which brings me to #2

2. So what made this movie soo unbelievable? The fact that, in 1998, a poor bunch of public access TV hosts had access to the internet in the middle of the woods. Even today we don't really have access in remote areas without expensive equipment. Perhaps I missed the explanation of how this was possible.. but I doubt it. I love IRC, so to see this movie use it as part of the plot line was laughable..

In closing, I hope that everyone involved in this movie learned from it. The Blair Witch creators took this idea and made it better. 10x better and even The Blair Witch kind of sucked. So when you see this playing on Sundance or IFC, please take that into consideration.


Holy crap this was one of the worst piece of cinematic trash I've seen in a long time. The is no point to this movie what so ever. No one will shut up in this dumb movie. It also uses repetition constantly though out the movie. It also uses repetition constantly though out the movie. It also uses repetition constantly though out the movie. It also uses repetition constantly though out the movie. Get my point? Why does anyone care about this movie? There is no competition between this piece of crap and The Blair Witch.


A pseudo-documentary that features such appalling acting that it ends up less convincing than Soviet propaganda of the 1950's.

A nice try, but even the early interviews with the supposed witnesses and the law enforcement officers are just too relaxed to be realistic. Anyone who's watched real documentaries about murders will spot it soon enough.


If you're looking for a creepy, faux-documentary, rent "The Blair Witch Project". Yes, "Last Project" was made first, but there's a reason it's not as well known. The acting is on the community-college level. The script is film school tripe - plodding, self congratulatory, stupid, without any sense of pacing or urgency. The ending is completely ridiculous, and was painfully embarrassing to watch. The filmmakers did attempt to make a different kind of film, unfortunately their efforts fell flat.


The guy committed the murder so he could have a good documentary to be made out of, but this film has so many plot holes like a swiss cheese: How did the blood get on Jim Seurd's clothes if he didn't commit the murder. What ever happened to Steven "Johnny" Avkast? His body was never found. How did Jim Seurd die in prison?

It's obvious that this psychopath is the one who sent them the message on the IRC and Jim Seurd was probably a real psychic.

It was all a great idea for a mysterious documentary, but the film makers failed to explain several reasons. If the Jersey Devil did exist and this was not a murder piece for some psychopath trying to gain the spotlight, it would make sense if Jim got blood on his clothes, if Steven did disappear, and Jim died in prison mysteriously. They could have explained it all.

Rather than a switch from doc to regular film (why the heck is the picture still the same - in bad quality?) they could have the psychopath just leave his documentary camera running as he killed the woman. But we know this "Last Broadcast" documentary is a finished piece so he would have cut that part out.

I have a better ending - how about that woman tries to make out the picture and she sees red eyes and a row of sharp teeth? Yeah, let's leave the Jersey devil thing intact because their "clever" idea failed - it just doesn't fix with the rest of the film.

Or another way could be a doc within a doc within a film (like Scream 3) where the special effects could be cut out and the psycho would be filming a "Blair Witch Project" type of documentary and the film part would be the police finding the pre-produced doc in the possession of a man they just arrested. And at the end they could have shown the same man in the holding cell.

All this stuff could have been a better way instead of what these film makers just made. My preference would be that the Jersey Devil did exist in this film. The documentary had me glued on the screen because I was anxious to see what would happen (like a real documentary) and I got deeply disappointed anyway.

3 out of 10


Most of this movie is good. Unsettling even. But, the end of the movie (without going into details that might ruin it for those who haven't seen it) made me laugh out loud at its ridiculousness. After I stopped laughing, I was mad that I had spent 3 dollars on this movie. I'm not a movie-maker, or a script-writer, but I think that your average person could have written a better (at least more unsettling) ending than they did. The silliness isn't even limited to the script. The camera movements at the end left me with a couple questions. Who, for instance, is filming if the narrator isn't holding the camera (as was the case during the rest of the movie)? It still looks like a hand-held shot which leaves me asking who is this other person helping the narrator film? I'm sure the filmmakers wanted the perspective to be switched to "outside observer" instead of seeing events through the narrator's documentary lens, but then, shouldn't they have used a still shot or at least a mounted camera to avoid the viewer thinking that someone else is hand-holding the camera? It left me a bit confused, but mostly disappointed that the filmmakers seemed to rap this film up at the end without really taking time to make the ending as unsettling as the first 3/4 of it.


Flat, uninteresting characters and a poor attention to the supposed documentary style made this the worst use of my movie rental dollars in a while. Where 'The Blair Witch Project' drew me in and ably created the atmosphere of immersion, 'The Last Broadcast' improperly used shots from impossible camera angles (there are several shots in the ending where the only people present are in the frame and the camera placement was improbable for the story), ruining the illusion of the 'documentary'. Technical gaffs abound in the internet sequences and in the restoration of a video frame from static to perfect picture upon which the ending relies.


This has got to be one of the most boring films I have ever seen. What the Last Broadcast did wrong, The Blair Witch did right. I watched this movie and waited for something to suck me in. And I waited, and waited....until the anti-climactic ending.

I wanted to turn it off after about 45 minutes, but I sat through it hoping for the twist, or hoping for SOMETHING to happen, it never did, thank goodness I only rented the movie....


A great film creates its own universe, which is why the subject matter of a movie is not really the point. However, every universe, no matter how perverse or obscure, still has its rules.

"The Last Broadcast" fails miserably as a film not because of its low budget, or cheesy production values, or less-than-stellar performances (all of which exist); rather, the movie creates its universe, then, for the finale, decides to disregard everything that it has presented, in an attempt to be 'surprising,' or 'crass' or 'hip.' Instead, it makes its filmmakers look like they have no idea how to tell a story. And, worse - it treats its audience as though it has no sense of logic or reason.

Which is a shame. For an hour or more, the picture is reasonably interesting and entertainingly directed. If the performances are somewhat shaky, at least they do not distract from the overall allure of the story. That the story bares a passing resemblance to 'Blair Witch' is irrelevant; both pictures feature film-type crews journeying into the woods to cover stories of the presumed supernatural.

But, where 'Blair Witch' ended in inevitability, 'The Last Broadcast' ends in utter stupidity. How anybody could have read the screenplay and thought, 'wow, what a clever twist of an ending' is beyond me.


I rented this movie based on the fact that the Blair Witch Project supposedly stole the idea for their movie from this one. Like the Blair Witch Project I was very disappointed with the film. The ending was the only real plus. It was totally unexpected and threw me for a loop. The BWP did a much better job creating a "real" atmosphere. What was with those generic microphones at the podiums of the supposed "real" news conferences from law enforcement authorities? They were far from convincing. I give this film a C (the ending saves it from a D).


To start off with, this is not a bad movie at all considering how little it cost to make ($6000? $3000? Something like that.) and was edited on a desktop computer. But, it's still pretty cheesy. The low-budget documentary format is clever, but doesn't really lend itself to being scary. The Blair Witch project is much, much better...much, MUCH scarier, and much more convincingly performed. The Last Broadcast is going to start making some dough now that it's riding on the Blair Witch's coattails, and unbelievably, some people are saying that it's better than TBWP. NO...FRIGGIN...WAY... The Last Broadcast is interesting and original, and it holds your attention well-- I'll admit that I was surprised by the ending and had to view it several times for it to sink in-- it was quite cool. Overall, though, the movie was a disappointment.


This film is apparently about the Jersey Devil, I say "apparently" because there is NO Jersey Devil in this film. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the Writers had no idea of what it was, they probably just liked the hockey team. Now I'm sure that some of you out there find this to be funny...it'll stop being funny after you sit through this turd. Nothing will be funny for at least two days after the viewing of this movie, you'll be that mad at yourself for watching the whole thing. What's it about? It's a "Blair Witch" type film, with worse acting, no real plot and not much in the money department. The film asks the question..."What happens when a group of indi film makers go into the woods to find a fictional beast?" Well I'll tell you exactly what happens...NOTHING. And not just nothing, 2 plus hours of nothing. Here's the spoiler, at the end of this very long and very boring documentary the film breaks the atmosphere of documentary by having the individual responsible for the deaths of the townsfolk kill the person who's making the documentary. Then it shows him stuffing the body in the trunk of the car and he drives away. They spend all but the last 3 minutes of the film trying so desperately to make you believe that this is a documentary and not just awful camera work and bad acting and then they throw that out the window with the "big twist". If there is a God, and after seeing this movie you'll really question that, he will "strike down with great vengeance and furious anger" those responsible for this turd that is so in need of flushing. Please, please, stay FAR FAR away.


The difference between this film and The Blair Witch Project is simply, this one gives us the 'horror of what happened to the filmmakers' from a different perspective. Rather than us going along on the journey with them, we are given collective interviews from different people in the style of another episode of VH1's Driven...shows. While I do have respect for what the creators of this movie accomplished, I still hold stronger feelings towards The Blair Witch Project. I suppose I just enjoy going along on the ride more so than having the story be given to me through the eyes of the documentarian covering the deaths of the filmmakers, although the ending does give us a rather splendid surprise. 4/10


Just watched it...a Blair Witch Project ripoff...How could anyone believe that modern video equipment would produce such poor quality...like shoving a guy and the video goes bananas...carrying a monitor around the woods, what a joke, these guys could not carry a monitor across the room...ATF investigating, not a chance in the real world. Even the actors cannot keep a straight face in most of the shots. Blair Which Project built characters from the ground up, this backyard quality movie doesn't even have characters. The title of the movie has it right, the producers, writers, editors, and actors should have seen their last broadcast. I would never pay to see anything of this poor quality.

Luke


If you don't know anything about Algeria, you might enjoy this movie. Anyone who knows the country of Algeria, its history or its geographic location will know that there is something wrong with this movie. The biggest question is the use of French as the language of the characters. while French is widely spoken in Algeria especially in academic institutions, Arabic is the official language and is the language of the street. Through out the entire movie, i haven't heard a single Arabic word of dialog (excepy for the song in the café)which is absurd. The other puzzling question is the death of the prostitute. In a country that is awash with guns and violence, its hard to believe that a state security officer will go to great lengths to murder a prostitute who he thinks stole his gun. I just find this very stupid. it doesn't make any sense. the setting for this story should have been in Europe or Latin America not Algeria. this movie was a total waste of time.


I found this movie pretentious and lacking believability. For one thing, I was turned off by the fact that the language of choice was French although the story is in Algeria and the characters are Algerians. I would understand this if the story was about Algerian immigrants or second generation Algerians in Europe, but that is not the case. I do not understand French or Arabic either way, but I found it bizarre, as if the director/producers shied away from Arabic to appeal to French speaking crowd for commercial reasons.

The character development is also quite weak here, even for a slice-of-life movie. The director seems to be under the impression that leaving many bits and pieces unconnected would intrigue the audience, but I found it simply annoying. There is a back story for the Goucem's (main character) mother (Bouyane) to be seriously afraid from fundamentalists and you know it has something to do with her past as a singer and dancer, yet you do not have hint of what really happened. They talk about terrorism of the Islamists, but that also does not develop into anything, even as a few scenes in the backdrop. What about the character of Samir? He seems to be infatuated with Goucem, yet we never know why and how it started. Let's get to the guys who went after Goucem's neighbor Fifi, what is their real motivation? There is a difference between intrigue and leaving a lot of stuff up in the air, and I think the director ended up doing the latter.

Finally, let's look at the acting. I do not think they were believable as Algerians living in Algeria. Other than the way the characters dressed, I really could not see the 'Algerian' touch here! I like watching international movies, always hoping to see something that is new, or seeing something through a different point of view, but I simply felt cheated watching this movie.


The two first series are great, the third one is not too bad (fortunately, Melissa George was here), but then it got really bad. When plots got completely messy, zombies appeared and boring characters were introduced, this show became SO rubbish !

The only reason I was keeping on watching was to finally understand the mystery around Rambaldi. But in the end, we'll never know because it's not explained. Not to mention that characters were totally lost in the ending (Irina wanting to destroy Washington and London to have power ??? Are you kidding me ???). It's really disappointing and lots of fans are angry about that.

Watching Alias is a waste of time.


I was quite amused by the first series of Alias and am now ploughing through series 4, having seen the quality drop remorselessly since the opening. Excess can be amusing in moderation but not episode after episode after ... I was interested to see what happened with Rambaldi but I think I realise now nothing ever will; we will just continue going round in circles since any form of conclusion will kill any form of suspense however minute. I now watch it looking to see how many times they use the word protocol (loved the inferno protocol - hard to top that for over-thetopness) and to see if the actors will surprise me with a new expression beyond their stock-in-trade bemusement (Vaughan), bewilderment (Jack Bristow) etc. Hard to blame the actors when the script is so inane and one-dimensional. It reminds me constantly of the parody-line in Notting Hill "inform the pentagon we need black star cover". The whole script is full of this line over and over. And for a bunch of supposedly mentally toughened CIA agents they do fall apart when family comes up. It is clear if Sydney (or anyone else for that matter) were to find out her mother had been hurt she would either break down in tears (to a suitable song of course) or raze the whole of the USA to find the antidote. I also carry in my mind a (slight mis-)quote from the end of episode one which I am still waiting for Jack Bristow to say; it sort of sums up the experience so far in this show where nothing is as it seems yet everything is totally predictable - "Sydney, I'm not your father, I'm your mother".

Well, I think I shall be leaving the show after series 4. It was amusing in the beginning but enough is enough. If it had ended after series 1 with a good resolution of Rambaldi I would have given it an above-average mark. Unfortunately episodes 3 & 4 dragged it down.


Having watched all five seasons, the only reason i did that was because i watched season 4 & 5 first so i had to watch the first three for closure. All i can say is that i was really impressed with season 4 & 5 i think they were really well made however the preceding seasons were ill conceived and patronising to anyone with real sense. This was starting to look more and more like a Steven Seagal flick (only worse this is a series) all the baddies are so generic they are either waiting to have their asses kicked or get hypnotized into giving up intel by Jennifer garner garner's hot body i can't say i am really surprised since the creator is none other than J.J Abrams THE SAME MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST which like alias had a lot of potential but like its predecessor is bricking itself in by trying to overstretch a concept. Any way back to Alias the thing i find most frustrating are 1) Arvin Sloane's implied sense of evil, honestly for a man who is supposed to be so evil i expected gut wrenching evidence of his villainy without this evidence i find it hard to detest this man, in fact i find myself drawn to him and in most cases rooting for him to do something to cement his credibility all ending in disappointment.

2) Sydney bristow - if agent Bristow is really the bleeding hard she is portrayed as why doesn't she have the heart to give Sloane a second chance in spite of his transgressions(the mind boggles). The condescending forwardness with which Sydney conducts herself is a miscalculated attempt to portray her an independent strong woman which backfires because we are all aware that such conduct wouldn't fly with any credible organisation let alone a government agency like the CIA , please,

3)Agent Vaughn's wooden acting, no doubt Vaughn is a cute guy but his face seems incapable of rendering an emotionally rooted performance

In conclusion i feel obliged to recommend to anyone who's planning on catching this show on DVD or tivo DON'T or you CAN'T but if you insist let someone who's watched season season 1 - 3 tell you what happens then watch season 4 & 5


What is it about J.J. Abrams that he keeps getting bad shows (and now bad movies like MI:3 and Cloverfield) on the air? Alias is a study on what not to do if you want to make a good TV show.

First of all, you need to avoid the J.J. "Plot Hole" Abrams way of not caring about whether the story makes any sense.

Then you need to instruct your actors to act, rather than pose for the camera. Even when she is in danger, Jennifer Garner keeps on looking like she is making a spread for Vogue. That's not acting, that modeling! Finally, you need to worry a lot less about the hype and a lot more about real quality, although these days, Hollywood seems intent on committing Hari Kiri by hiring bad writer-producers like J.J. Abrams again and again to watch them fail again and again.


If Jennifer Garner is a good actress, you can't tell from the creative mess that is Alias.

No matter what improbable and plot hole-ridden situation the bad writers put her character into, there is one thing you can be sure of: she will be wearing improbably skimpy clothes and/or she will be pouting and otherwise mugging for the camera.

All pretense at actual drama in Alias died in the first half-hour of the pilot, and all that was left was a fashion show masquerading as a spy thriller.

Hopefully, Jennifer Garner will get some good directors in the future who will strip her of her bad habits.

As to J.J. Abrams, his writing is so abysmal, I do not hold any hope for improvement. All I can do is avoid any further show or movie he has anything to do with.


Simply put: Alias is a hype job.

It pretends to be a lot of things that it's not.

First of all, it pretend to be that intelligent, complicated spy thriller. Of course, to be "intelligent" requires something other than ridiculous situations and plot holes galore. I know, that's exactly what 24 does... but 24 picked up the hype where Alias left it and is no more intelligent than Alias.

J.J. Abrams is really good at hyping himself, and unfortunately in today's Hollywood environment where TV executives are only worried about appearing hip and edgy, that's all that's required. Actual quality in J.J. Abrams' writing? There is none.

Then there is Jennifer Garner. A decent but not stellar actress in other projects, she gives some of her worst performances in alias. Why? Because all she does is pout and mug for the camera. Understandable. After all J.J. Abrams thinks of Alias as a fashion show and knows the only thing that'll keep them tuning in is to show Jennifer in various states of undress and funky costumes.

Look no further than the main titles to see that's all Alias was about: a fashion show.


I'll admit it, I'm officially old.

Why? Because I seem to be the only one to notice that this series is old dug up scripts/actions/themes that has been seen many, many times before on TV. But I guess with youth comes the ignorance of the past - I mean, I wasn't around when the original Oceans 11 came out so liking the new one is probably a big disappointment to those who WERE around at that time...so I guess you all can see where I'm coming from.

But I give everything a chance before I render an opinion. I hate it when folks hate something they haven't even saw or tried. So I saw and tried. It was a bore for me. The big deal seems to be around the actress Jennifer and the idea of a college student getting recruited for this work and yadda..yadda..yadda...yawn. Sorry, the actress Jennifer whozits is about as interesting to watch as a cactus growing in the desert to me. The story? Refurbished. The actress? Nothing special, memorable...

The real star? Well, just like with "Sex in the City", it's the fashion and just added with this one, the special effects. The special effects guys and gals are stellar. But the show? Well, it's a guys new T& A "Charley's Angels" and a young woman's new, "gosh a woman can do everything" argument with her semi-chauvinistic group of guys on a Friday/Saturday night as they go out drinking and debating.

What would make this series interesting to me? A whole host of things but all of those things would make everyone else who is looking at this now, turn away. So why bother. It's entertainment for some, good for them. There ARE worse programs on the air, which is why this is probably doing as well as it is.

JJ Abrams is getting much more credit than he deserves -- his series are bland and rehashed to me, but that just says one thing: I am old. Maybe I'll continue to watch TV Land and old series like 'Honey West' or 'The Girl From Uncle' or 'The Avengers' or even 'Get Christy Love' or 'La Femme Nikita' (not that other Americanized version, the real one), et al.

And then maybe when I'm even older and I've lived long enough -- this crowd will be watching this on TV Land and saying the same thing when another program by another youngster that is just the same comes out.


Is there anyone else out there who thinks that all the wrong characters ended up in the wrong spots?

Sloane

Arvin Sloane was perhaps the most interesting character on the show. It's not often you get a morally conflicted character in a story. To have him end up bad just did not work. Of course we were all rooting for him. Conquering temptation is a story everyone's going to be behind. Sloane should have redeemed himself.

Sydney

Sydney Bristow was the least interesting character on the show. She's always good, always righteous. Kind of like the teacher's pet, Sydney is the "writer's pet," and it's just way too obvious to relate to her. Everything is about Sydney. It gets old. How many stories with a prophecy and a "chosen one" do we really need? Writers have got to learn that audiences are sophisticated enough now to find such clichés embarrassing, rather than cool.

She has no chemistry with her love interests. Her delivery is stiff, which gives you the sense that she's shallow and therefore faking her emotions to seem like a genuine person. She aces just about every mission, and she's the star, so you know she's not going anywhere. Therefore, there's no suspense in the action scenes.

I didn't know who Jennifer Garner was before I watched this, so I googled her. I read she's married to Ben Affleck. (Pardon the social commentary, but it seems like mediocre talent who make ridiculous money like to hang out to ease their collective consciences for coasting through le dolce vita while everyone else works their asses off?)

How many times did we have to hear Sydney tell Sloane she knew he was really evil? It wasn't cool, dramatic, or interesting the first time and yet it kept happening, as if it were the most dramatically meaningful thing that ever happened.

Vaughn

Vaughn was equally boring, although the actor did a slightly better job of delivering his lines. He was fine as a bit part.

They should have left Vaughn dead or minimized his role. Sydney should have quit the business and become a side character. The romance between Sydney and Vaughn was flat and mechanical, so it should have been sidelined.

Jack Bristow

Moderately interesting. If they had made the show about him, from his perspective, I think it would have been a more interesting story. I agree with other comments he was a bit stiff, but that was an intentional part of his character.

Will Tippin

Moderately interesting. The story could have shifted to the viewpoint of Tippin or Jack as the main character. The audience could do a better job of identifying with Tippin, because he was "an average Joe," who was introduced to the spy life. He should have gotten field training and become a main part of the show.

Irina

Irina should have turned out to be an interestingly good character, who did lots of good behind the scenes, but was misunderstood. For example, she could have been collecting the Rambaldi artifacts for a good cause, maybe to help a sick person. That would have been the twist that preserved the series. Lena Olin did an amazing job as Irina, at least early on, and really brought the story to life. I believe just about everyone wanted to find out Sydney's mom did abandon her for no good reason.

Devlin

I don't know why, but even though Devlin was a bit part, his self-righteousness was annoying. He should have been the covenant mole who went down in Jack's rampage.

Summary

This was a story with decent potential that just took the wrong turns with its characters and left its viewers with a bad, anti-climactic aftertaste.

It's hard as a writer to know who your good actors are going to be and which characters are really going to come alive and be interesting. Ideally writers should analyze the talent and re-think the stories to emphasize the best talent. Unfortunately, Alias just couldn't let go of its original vision enough to realize where the real assets were, to give this story a truly satisfying ending.


Seen this clichéd piece of film-making tonight; now I want my money back; extremely disappointing film on all levels.

After enjoying the freshness of the original Pusher, then Bleeder was alright film overall; although it was hailed as a big advertising flop here in Denmark.

Anyway, this Pusher 2, of which I hear the only reason they made this, is that they thought they could big money on a sequel and they needed it because their production company's Fear X was a big flop in America. Personally I think this is always a bad idea to make a movie from this viewpoint.

The "story" follows Tonny (not a bad performance by Mads Mikkelsen but nothing at all special either) as he comes out of prison and finds out about his family and stuff and oh yeah steals a Ferrari; which turns out to be the biggest laugh of the film; somebody leaves a Ferrari in the middle of the road with the keys in it, hops out to say hi to his girlfriend and Tonny steals it...ha ha..yeah lucky guy!!! I love dark and gritty films but please don't give me this clichéd nonsense...and by the way; if all these guys and girls have no money, how is it that every scene you see them, they are snorted coke? It just made it all seem less real and the filmmaker was trying too hard to be "ghetto"...it just doesn't work.

I heard there is another Pusher 3 in on the way, lets hope they bring back Kim Bodnia !!YEAH!! and all will be forgiven for this mess!


Pusher was a great movie no doubt so clearly i expected A lot from this one but i'm sorry to say that it does NOT and i repeat NOT at all reach the heights of the first one.

it's generally boring and not so tuff and scary as the first one cause i can remember in some scenes from Pusher i was really frightened but not at all in this one.

Mads Mikkelsen does a good job definitely but i really missed Kim Bodnia cause his role was far more intense and now i've heard that his not in pusher 3 neither is Mads! i hope pusher 3 goes back to the original environment from the first one and i'm glad to see that Zlatko Buric is back in this one cause he has only a very small role in pusher 2 and that sucks!!


After the shocker(but not a good one) that was HalloweeN III, Moustapha Akkad knew he had to resurrect Myers. Throw in a couple that has sex, a crap teen cast and an average killer in a mask along with a b.s. plot and you have HalloweeN 4.

After being burnt to a smoking pile of bones at the end of Halloween II, Myers and Loomis ended the series there for 7 years. When Myers was madly asked for from fans, the Akkads decided to make Myers come back in style. So why didn't he? Well folks, here's where the spoilers start. You have been warned...

Myers didn't die (? His fiery skull was seen at the end of part II), he just fell into a coma for 10 years. He is about to be transferred from the sanitarium he has been housed in when, surprise surprise, he breaks out. He tails his 7 year old niece Jamie and plots to kill her. Lee Curtis intelligibly jumped ship after II, so they had to bump her off in a car crash with her husband. That is all that is mentioned. No bloody explanation or anything. Jamie is Lauries daughter, and so Myers uses the 'kill-all-family-members theory' to make her a target. Danielle Harris and Donald Pleasence are the gems in the acting crown here, which says a lot. Yes, you read that right. Pleasence makes a return as Loomis, which is impossible as he was in the middle of the explosion at the end of II. The only blemish on his face is a not-so-severe burn mark. But the thing that ruined 4 for me was Myers. The mask is a poorly customised Will Shatner mask which isn't scary at all, and Myers is an average killer. Yea, no leaping out of shadows and scares here, just him walking about and turning menacingly. Jesus, even that jerk Ghostface from Scream woulda done a better job. After seeing Myers get shot down an old abandoned mineshaft, the film ends with Jamie butchering her mother wearing a clown costume scarily similar to that of childhood Myers' getup. The whole thing echoes the opening scene of the original perfectly, as Jamie stands atop the stairs, grasping bloody scissors in her hand...

I give this film a 3.

1 mark for Harris' acting 1 mark for Pleasences acting and 1 mark for having the balls to bring Myers back

Only watch this if you are bored on Halloween night and you want a cheesy film to get on with.


Saw this on Sky Movies a while back and I have to say this is a total mess of a film. Maybe it was because I was tired, but hardly anything in this film made any sense at all, and wasn't one of those "teenagers" the demonology expert from 'Night of the Demons 2'?

There are two plotlines shambolically merged together in this film, both centering around Kerry (Suzanne Davis). In one plot we have a group of teenagers on a field trip being attacked by bigfoot-type creatures, in the other we have Kerry seeing a psychiatrist due to depression and nightmares (one assumes that Kerry is seeing the psychiatrist after the events of the field trip). A story about Kerry's childhood eventually unfolds but it would be quite easy to lose track, especially with the completely nonsensical ending.

It's almost impossible to fully understand what is going on due to the directors decision to flash back and forth constantly between the two storylines, and also showing images and visions that appear to have no place in the film at all. Even some of the characters seemed to have no place in the film like a Native American who, as far as I remember, says and does next to nothing. The acting was also atrocious, even from more accomplished actors like Billy Dee Williams and Stacey Keach. Why they got involved in this disaster-piece I will never know.

The direction and screenplay are pitiful, full of pointless "filler" such as snowball fights and some half-assed attempt at a love story. I suppose, as far as the main stories go, the director was trying to make a film that required thought to fully immerse yourself in the world he created, unfortunately he failed. There is nothing, in my opinion, that redeems this film. To me this ranks alongside disasterous films like 'Killjoy' and 'Camp Blood'.

I'd avoid this movie, it's not worth the 90 mins of your life. I actually switched it off at one point, but realising there were only 15 minutes left I thought I may as well watch the rest, I'd got that far after all. If you do watch it, expect nothing.

2/10


"Wow,a completely unknown title.Nobody ever heard about it.It will be probably a great horror flick!"-I thought when I prepared to watch this one.Was I disappointed after the projection."Fear Runs Silent" is dull and confusing,the characters are annoying and one-dimensional and the film is relatively gore-free.If the movie ain't gonna be scary,at least they should make it bloody."Fear Runs Silent" tries to be more psychological rather than typical,but fails miserably.OK,there are some good points especially a wonderful location sets(a snowy mountains,forests)-delicious!All in all,I was really disappointed with this one.This is not completely bad picture,but isn't good either.


Wow ! A revolutionary plot of having a bunch of teenagers go off into the woods to be stalked by a monster . But they`re not any type of teenagers , no siree , instead of being the usual collection of bimbos and jerks one of the bimbos is in therapy and on prozac while the monster stalking them is Bigfoot ! Well it is in the script but on screen it looks more like a man who has never shaved and is wearing yellow contact lenses . In fact for the first half hour FEAR RUNS SILENT has the same sort of structure as the dismal NIGHT OF THE DEMON with a voice over , a gory severed limb , a couple of dead teenagers , several college scenes that I just knew that I`d be watching a big pile of bigfoot droppings so I switched off


You really do wonder how a human being can screw up something this bad. Is it really that difficult to make a movie about a monster that kills people? Just get a monster, and have it kill people. And try not to edit in forty minutes of a girl in an isolation cell, if that's not too much to ask. The psychological thriller touch doesn't work at all. It's like I wasn't even watching an actual movie because well, the two plots completely cancelled each other out. You don't care about the monster because I think it was imaginary (or something), you don't care about the girl because she's wasting precious monster time. She's also a very bad actress by the way, but nobody's perfect. This movie is really annoying to watch. There's an intense boredom involved because nothing really happens, we know from the first minute these are all dream sequences and hallucinations. The direction also just plain sucks, you can barely make out what's going on. This thing is just really messed up in every aspect of film-making.


The short story told by the Native American, as a prologue to this movie's plot, is the best part of the film. It is hard to believe that the same creative minds responsible for the opening short story could screw the rest of the movie up so badly.


Avoid at all cost!

After seeing this movie I understand why there is not a single positive comment listed here: it's because this movie does not deserve any!

The director is either completely unskilled, or he tried to go beyond what did lay within his capacities. This movie is a confusing mixture of a dime-a-dozen teenage horror flick and a story told through flashbacks/flash forwards which end up confusing everyone as to what is going on. Every time the 'regular' action gets remotely interesting, there is a cut to another scene in which the main character has some stupid therapy session. How boring!

Seriously, I cannot believe this drivel was released. What amazes me even more is that the director has since directed many more movies - you'd expect the studios to never want him on a set again.

The only thing remotely redeeming about this movie is the short scene in which the main character strips her pants off. And that's pretty sad.

The effects are horrible (men in suits, fake fangs and with yellow contacts... ooh scary...), there is no plot to speak of (if you find it, let met know) and there is nothing exciting or fun about it.


For a start I'm not interested in adding nothing new in this review."Fear Runs Silent" has a good premise,but this premise is completely wasted.Director Serge Rodnunsky doesn't create almost any atmosphere(apart from the beginning,which is pretty creepy),instead he fills this trash with so many annoying flashbacks.The ending is totally awful:after all these grisly events it all turns into dream!!!Yeah right,what a load of s***!!Three stars:one for a funny performance by Stacy Keach as a biologist,one for beautiful photography,and finally one for the beginning.Avoid this mess like the plague.


I am a big fan of pool, and have been watching all the pool movies I can find. The obviously great Hustler and Color of money are the only two of any quality I have found. The pool played in Poolhall Junkies is absurd, the way the plot develops is so slow and preictable and the ending is just dull. To me it seems strangely disjointed in places with many scenes not fiting or joining to those around them. Its not funny enough for a comedy and the plot and action is too thin for anything else. It is a little better than Stickmen which is not even worth comment.

Can it really be that to make a good film about pool Paul Newman is needed ? Surely someone with a brain out there can come up with something a little better than Poolhall Junkies, I'm considering writing a script myself.


The trivia for "Poolhall Junkies" says that the two individuals behind the movie spent two weeks on the script and ten years trying to get the movie made. Well, I believe the two weeks on the script part because the script is utterly wretched, but I don't know about the ten years part because this movie rips off "Rounders" to a huge extent. In fact, "Poolhall Junkies" is just like "Rounders" minus the great acting, the interesting story, the realistic dialog and the production values. "Poolhall Junkies" is a juvenile fantasy film about hustling and pool that never approaches the heights or depths of hustling and poker as depicted in "Rounders".

The story in "Poolhall Junkies" follows Johnny Doyle (Mars Callahan)a pool prodigy discovered and groomed by Joe (played by a slumming Chazz Palminteri) to be a pool hustler. Johnny double-crosses Joe for reasons that I'm not going to get into because they're stupid, and later has to face Joe's new hustler Brad (played by a slumming Rick Schroder) in a high-stakes game of pool, while suffering from a broken wrist given to him by an angry Joe. Okay, we all know what the ending will be in a film like this -- its the journey that makes it worthwhile, and "Poolhall Junkies" makes the journey painful and nausea inducing. Not even an appearance by Christopher Walken can save this Hindenburg of a movie.

The stupidity of this movie especially shines through when Johnny is having some trouble in the climatic final game versus Brad, who is revealed to be the 13th ranked pro pool player in the US. That's when Nick (Rod Steiger), the grizzled old hustler who owns the pool hall the match is being played in, reassures Johnny by saying "Don't worry. I've seen his type many times before... they always crack under pressure. He can't last, so hang in there." Well, no. Since the guy is the 13th ranked player in the US he obviously doesn't crack under pressure because if he did then he obviously would be unable to make his living playing pool for high stakes.

And why would a pro-player work for a two-bit hustler like Joe anyway? He could hustle for himself if he felt the need to make pocket money, there's nothing to be gained by hooking up with a small time criminal. The whole scenario makes absolutely no sense, except to the scriptwriters of "Poolhall Junkies". And the whole movie is full of idiotic sequences just like this one. Save your time and your eyes and watch "The Hustler" again if you're in the mood for a pool hall flick.


This movie could only appeal to someone who doesn't know the game. The actors can't hold a cue and are shown making ridiculous and sometimes even illegal shots (the push stroke to roll a ball along the rail is not a legal stroke). Bank shots being played when a direct shot is available.. etc. This movie sucks as a pool movie. The acting is poor and the scenes contrived. The movie would have us believe that someone could get away with betting that a shot could be made on a player's turn and then being able to take the next shot because the player bought his opponent's turn and therefore the subsequent shot was still his. Guy would have his ass kicked.


I don't hate this movie as much as I hate Mars Callahan. He is an awful person for allowing such precious film to be wasted. It seems to have all gone wrong during the writing process. Mr. Callahan forgot the most important rule about writing: Rewriting. And rewriting. And rewriting. The trivia section says he wrote this in two weeks. No kidding. The whole thing looks like improvisation. Bad improvisation. We get it, "Mars". You like to play pool. And you're good at it. That's about all I got from this series of pictures masquerading as a movie. The result was about as effective as giving the audience the finger.

What else can you expect from this? A bunch of bad jokes that shouldn't go beyond the locker room they're so lame. I didn't get anything from the characters, much less the "lead", the great Mars. He just came off as a douche. And Chazz Palminteri and Chris Walken do their best but two great actors aren't enough to save this Titanic mass of garbage from sinking. They might as well be bumping into walls for 120 minutes. It's too bad YouTube wasn't invented at the time this came out. Could've saved a lot of people a lot of time and energy and money...If you've read this and still decide to rent it, you deserve what happens to you.


Horrible. The dialogue was just bad as well as cheesy. I had to force myself to watch the entire thing. The acting was bad as well... almost as though he was reading everything off a teleprompter. Even walken couldn't save the movie, i'm sure he did everything he could but his lines were just bad. The lines and the formula were so stereotypical, the concept(pool) isn't too mainstream but the structure was. Coldfire gives this movie two BIG THUMBS DOWN! Maybe that explains why i haven't seen any of the actors since. It reminds me of that steven sigal film.... ONLY I COOK FOR THE CAPTAIN *punching and kicking ensues*.

p.s. dialogue came up as spelled wrong? wha?!


The English films of this time - with a few exceptions - are stunningly awful, as this relic reminds us.

Packed with derivations from films that weren't any good in the first place (DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT, BEETHOVEN'S GREATEST LOVE) we get the studio-with-location-insets romance of classical pianist (wouldn't you know) Margaret Lockwood, who is not quite as awful as she would be in her post war efforts, and soon to be blind (he practices walking in mine shafts !) Stewart Granger, which inspires her to go riding in Pony Carts singing traditional numbers then pushed by the radio and composing the Cornish Rhapsody, in which she entombs the sound of sea gulls and breaking waves.

Never convincing and never throwing up appealing fantasies, this twaddle just offers a complacency which disturbs in its historical context. Despite it's attempts at high gloss, it's also remarkably drab.


Shelly Long is an excellent comedic actress who has excruciatingly terrible taste in choosing films. Watching her on Cheers is a joy. She has perfect comedy timing and is at her best as an intellectual in a company of clowns.

BUT she should NOT be cast as the clown! In her movie career she pulled a "Chevy Chase" and spiraled down from an attractive bright person to a buffoon. Hello Again is the nadir (I hope!).

Where do I start? The writer, Susan Issacs, must be somebody's niece. She is a rotten writer. Making Lucy's character a stumble bum is pointless. Why? Who would think the constant pratfalls are funny?? It is embarrassing to watch.

Judith Ivey should get the ham of the year award for drastic overacting. Gabriel Byrnes is wonderful. I had not seen him before, but seeing how he could even pretend to be in character in this turkey was impressive. And I liked Corbin B.

I watch this movie to cheer myself up. No matter how bad things are in my life, at least I didn't appear in this film.


I must admit I am a fan of Shelley Long. I believe she's a truly talented comedy actress. However, not even her greatest endeavours could help save this truly awful movie. Don't get me wrong, it has some strong points, but these are generally swamped by poor acting, poor script and poor direction. Long's incessant clumsiness was both unfunny and irrelevant. The script seemed to be a minefield of cliches and dull one-liners. The direction as a result appears dramatically effected by this, but surely could have improved some of the scenes. The plot also hovers between scientific miracle and occult fantasy, when perhaps one approach would have sufficed. Long's trickery of her friend near the end, although cleverly "acted", was lame and contrived. I'm so disappointed to write this. Please, please, please (to the producers) don't ever make a movie like this again. And finally....how much money did it lose?


Director Frank Perry, who in the early 1970s showed some honest talent and an abundance of visual wit, channels the same cartoony approach to 'life' here as he did with his "Compromising Positions"...and the affects are equally as meager. Shelley Long dies but comes back, however there's nothing relatably human about Long's approach to acting. Yes, she's playing a klutzy ditz with a heart of gold, but Long has no shadings, and when she tries for sincerity it rings hollow (even her overly-clear speaking voice sounds as if it's coming from an echo chamber and not a person). I liked Long in the underrated "Irreconcilable Differences", where she really had a chance to carve out a character beyond her snippy "Cheers" persona. It's not that she's a bad actress, there just doesn't seem to be a soul in that body. Pert and perky, she's utterly one-dimensional, pink-and-blonde-and-bland. Who cares if she returns from the dead? *1/2 from ****


A saccharine little comedy, with ooey-gooey sweetness dripping from it's pours, about how Long returns from the dead and find's life a mess. The film sets her up as a plain-Jane housewife, with a cardboard doctor of a husband, and a son ready for college. Feeling at a loss of what to do with the rest of her days, she does the most interesting thing she can: she dies. Fortunately her nutcase sister is a pseudo-witch doctor who "chants" her back to life. Only for Long to be hounded by the media and jilted by her husband. It's all handled so tamely, so TV-movie-like that it could qualify for MST3K showings. Hard up for laughs, Long is written as a klutz, who trips, falls, spills, slides, and even at one point, undresses herself while trying to walk stairs. Her new love interest is a lifeless doctor who smiles at her maybe twice in the film, yet somehow falls for her. Throw in a melodramatic, over-baked finish, and you have a real eye roller. But what might be the clincher are just some of the shots used. Director Perry has people walking arm in arm and laughing gleefully, while entering rooms, or adjourning from others. Or they jack up the saxophone score on Long's "me so cute" smile, and even add a head tilt for Byrne's predictable, "I love you". The ultimate pile of sugar is during the end credits, as a photo album is thumbed through. Pictures of all three lead couples, getting married, getting pregnant, and then posing with their babies. And Long is even blessed with twins! Then a male hand puts his on a female hand oh so sweetly as they look at the pictures. Please. Talk about redefining "And they lived happily ever after".


Shelley Long... ugh!!! The female Steve Guttenberg of the 1980's. Hello Again is merely playing on the ideas that were already washed up in the 1930's screwball comedies, but had least had clever writers and fresh ideas. This is like watching the rejected pages for "Blithe Spirit" or "Move Over, Darling". Corbin Bernsen is just a smarmier Guttenberg.


Tripe of this sort never ceases to amaze me. What's worse, though, is the presence of good actors such as Gabriel Byrne. I hope that everyone was paid well for this film because I don't think they were doing it for artistic acclaim!

 Shelley Long has no business on the big screen...just as she had no business on television - and THAT'S saying something considering the sub-par acting that usually goes on in the world of TV actors.

 I have no problem with silly movies and cute story lines. But when a film is so obviously leading in one way with characters drawn with the largest strokes...it becomes a cartoon...and not a very funny one at that.


This is not a good film. It's neither entertaining nor making the viewer think of poverty and homelessness. The development of the main Character "Tristan" (laddie: Moritz Bleibtreu) is so ridiculous: He changes from a tough guy only affected by money and sex to a good boy who falls in love with an inhibited soldier of god. All he was seeking for was her virginity and after he got what he wanted he became a better person.

The film fails because of two things: The plot gives the impression that the script only existed of a few key scenes which were strung together inaccurately. This makes the development of the story and of the two main characters Tristan and Josefine appear illogical. Moritz Bleibtreu plays on the level of a daily-soap actor. His bad guy behaviour is implausible. The new male german stars like Bleibtreu, Wink and Bauer shouldn't spend their time on fame but on learning to act (Bauer) and reading good scripts. And that's meant for Detlev Buck, too.


Detlev Buck's films once used to be fun, in a way of weird and absurd humour and a lot of funny ideas and intelligent plots. To me all this is gone in his latest film. I was not only disappointed to see this film but even disgusted.

I would not even call it "bad taste" to use rape as a kind of joke, I would call it "no taste at all". This is only one drastic example in a line of dozen others.

It is not my habit to walk out of films but in this case it was close. I do not have a clue what could have been Buck's intention with this movie. I would not suggest watching it.


After hearing for more then 2 hours of Quran suras, because one of my neighbors had to play it very loud, i looked forward to this BUCK movie. No wonder this religion produces terrorists, because hearing this voice screaming suras is the living hell. Having survived this torture i was so excited when the movie begun. BUCK known for many nice movies before, that all are very nice and comical, was more than a promise. I expected everything, but not such a disaster!! I couldn't stand more than 30 minutes. The storyline is unbelievable. There was no situation in this movie and no minute that i could take as realistic. No joke worked. The good actors act horrible..... I could give it 1 point, because as a BUCK fan i am disappointed, but i don't have to. It is simply gruesome, and i haven't seen anything so bad as this 30 minutes of this movie for a long time. The fact that so many celebrities worked in this thing, makes it incomprehensible. See for yourself, when you don't believe! But beware!!! Mixing it with Quran suras is dangerous....One more bad experience tonight and i am ready to kill.......... :-)


I didn't think SciFi Channel could broadcast a worse myth-&-monster movie than MINOTAUR. I was wrong.

It's okay to make a movie on the cheap; not everyone has access to a big budget, and amazing things can be done with a little imagination and talent. But there's very little of those commodities here. Acting is at a high school level. Direction is worse. Dialogue is trite. Scenes lurch from one dull monster attack to another, with occasional babe (er, goddess) interludes to break the monotony. The goddesses look and sound as it they're reading cue cards at a second-rate beauty contest.

Why must the makers of such movies mess with Greek myth, about which they clearly know (and care) nothing? Here, Homer the tale-teller appears as part of Odysseus's crew. That's an okay idea. Except this Homer (played by the worst actor of the lot, which is saying something) scribbles notes (with a feather quill!) and fawns over the heroes like an embedded reporter in Iraq. Legend tells us that Homer was blind, and recited his stories from memory. There is great power in that idea, a hearkening back to a prehistoric, preliterate age of traveling bards and oral tradition.

A magical movie could be made about Odysseus, and Homer, but this is not it.


It's neither good nor bad, amateurish acting, poor direction with compentent special f/x,weak script/dialogue. Many movies lately just can't seem to get the language of a time period right without adding ridiculous modern dialogue clichés, slangs and what not. I kept waiting for one of them to pull out a cellphone because most the performances were phoned in, for me the beginning was the worse stupid twinkling lights in the background of scenes of them on the ship while long shots with harpies flying over head were of a cloudy twilight sky, so where did the twinkling stars come from....this is just pointing out one of many flaws and of course this ship was filmed in a studio with no water at all, I'm sure of it. If you're a fan of sword and sandal sci-fi adventure with sorcery and magic it only barely acts as an apetizer, a lightly flavored one at that, leaving you wanting terribly that you had The Odyssey starring Armande Assante in your DVD collection because watching all the hours of a rerun would be more satisfying than watching 90 minutes once you remove commercials of this drivel. I had tivo'd and fortunately was able to fastforward some simply painful dialogue moments in order to watch the special f/x. One thing to keep in mind few things shown as Sci-Fi Channel orginals they are really just productions from foreign markets like Canada, BBC, Germany or worse some reckless direct to video producer. Voslo does what he can but with this material its a wasted effort.


A decent enough film, certainly not good but not really bad.

The acting is patchy. Vosloo is quite good as Obysseus, Bourne and Antonakos are OK in their roles but Edwards is terrible as Homer, not so much his performance as the fact that while the other characters are talking in a old style Homer speaks like a modern person and this jars every time he talks and finally Gibson is awful, completely wooden, but thankfully she isn't in it long.

The story is simple with good guys and bad guys and we are in no real doubt about which is which. It is an old fashioned fantasy film with OK effects although the action sequences are a bit poor.

Its a cheap film with a simple script and a decent pace.

The mixture of modern and old speech patterns is annoying and the cheesy extra bit at the end is also annoying but it'll kill a bit of time painlessly.


I really wanted to like this film. I truly did. The cast seemed excellent (although the inclusion of "Homer" should have told me all I needed to know about the script). Sadly, the best looking men on screen could not save this one.

The language is always a problem, and I realize that it is hard to decide between going for pure period speech or making it all modern. I prefer the former with some latitude for comprehensibility, but too many writers today don't even realize how people spoke in times past, so the occasional slip into a modern cliché is just glaring.

So as long as you don't pay any money for it and put your brain in neutral you'll get through it fine. Chant the mantra: entertainment value.


No movie with William Powell can be a complete loss, but he really seems to be sleepwalking through this undernourished RKO mystery. The major problem is a poor screenplay--- apparently a collaborative effort---that never provides Powell with the witty repartee he could so joyfully dispense in better efforts. Even the supporting cast, excellent as they are, seem to be a bit embarrassed by the proceedings.


I've seen this movie a few times and while it does have it's moments, it also has some really fundamental flaws. Overall I consider it mediocre at best.

WARNING, POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD...

First of all I thought some of the prison scenes were a little on the far fetched side and really strained my credulity - specifically one where Pedro and company confront a rival black gang leader and his crew in the cell block for several minutes with hoots and jeers and toilet paper flying all around. I really can't believe that the prison guards wouldn't have intervened long before they did. And the idea that the Latino gang would dare to kill the Mafia crime bosses son was ridiculous.

Secondly, as some other reviewers have commented, the overuse of the words "ese" and "homes". I'm not even a Latino and I found this stereotypical and contrived.

The films was rather long and slow moving and could definitely benefited from editing.

There were no really sympathetic characters and some of them were down-right repugnant. I didn't even particularly like Pedro's girlfriend, Yolanda. I can't empathize with someone who falls for a man who spent 18 years in the joint running a prison gang and is then surprised when he turns out to be a user and fake and not a social reformer. About the only person who seemed to have any honor at all was "El Japo" A movie needs to have someone you connect with and root for me to enjoy it.

Lastly, there was no optimism at all to the ending. It seemed to say to me, "It's all hopeless and will never end". Rather depressing.

Overall, a nice try, but fall short of the mark.


I am a fan of both drug and prison movies so when I was recommended this movie I had some pretty high expectations. I read a lot of reviews on here and it seemed that people felt this was an accurate portrayal of prison life. I have never been to prison but I highly doubt that many of the events that happened in the movie could occur in prison. The one specific scene that I am talking about is the near riot. The other problem I had with this movie was the overuse of Latino terms. I understand that these terms are used in real life but every other word was "essay"(sp) or "homes". This wouldn't have been such an issue if the movie at least had some action between long drawn out conversations. The action was few and far between and I found myself dozing off many times. The thing that bothered me with this movie was the lack of a score. There was little to no background music to set the tone of a scene. This left the movie with a ton of awkward silences with the actors standing just making a silly facial expression for minutes at a time. So if you are looking for an action filled drug movie I'd look elsewhere but if you are looking for a way to waste 2 hours of your day I'd recommend "American Me".


American Me: 3/10: In all fairness I have to admit I was expecting more of a gang picture (albeit a serious one) with Mexican overtones rather than a straightforward prison drama.

American Me is a straightforward prison drama.

Nobody in this film emotes and pass the K-Y jelly cause there is more guy on guy action in this movie than in the men's room at a Sex in the City wrap party. Add in the bathroom/drug smuggling scenes and you may be squirming in your seat for more reasons than a slow pace.

In addition a lot of older actors can play characters in their twenties. Even those that have obvious hairline issues (see the later Porky's movies) seem to pull it off. Edward James Olmos is one man who should never even try. He looks like he was born fifty. He also plays the lead with the charisma of a sullen rock.

In addition to the miscasting and sodomy American Me suffers from serious script issues. It simply takes at face value the characters contention that they are king of the world. They are not. It is one thing for the characters themselves to be misguided (as they are most certainly are) but the movie itself seems not to realize what big losers these guys are. Sure they are king of the cellblock. Hurrah, that's like being voted carny of the month.

A good first 45 minutes or so quickly melts into underacted pathos (Nobody emotes in this movie, cause they are all tough guys see.) and misguided plot twists (the whole taking on the mob bit was horribly done). The movie just keeps getting worse and worse.

Oh and Olmos's character writes poetry. Really bad rhyming poetry. Yup poetry and anal sex, American Me is one makeover away from its own Bravo series.


If you are Italian and old enough to have lived there in the 70s/80s, then you will probably get the point of this movie: Moretti's conflictual relationship with the (then) Italian Communist Party. But that doesn't change the fact that the film is weird and delirious.

If your clique is the intellectual/radical/snobbish kind, you'll have to say that the movie is superb.

If none of the above applies, then pick another film.


For such an interesting topic, I found the film lacking in actual information about Victor. Then the film just ends. Victor is somewhere between 12 and 15(?) years old, if that old, and all we've seen are the attempts to teach him to read. The film was neither a film (acting was apparently not an issue) nor a documentary. I had to look up online to find out that he died 28 years later. Of what? What happened to him between where the movie ended and when he died?


As though Mr. Bean wasn't tiresome enough, this film puts Tim Roth into a role with the same sort of inane physical comedy, and it is painful to watch. All his foppish affectations are utterly unfunny, but at least it helps keep the movie consistent.

The only bright spot is the third segment, directed by Robert Rodriguez, so if you stay awake that long, check it out. Antonio Banderas is surprisingly good, and the whole segment has a great way of piling on the complications to create a chaotic ending.

The fourth segment will make you puke, watching Tarantino thinking he can act. the worst thing about that is that he's also the director, so he gives himself plenty of screen time. Notice during his monologue to Tim Roth, the camera never once leaves his face! Obviously, he's got rather a high opinion of his execrable acting abilities. Lucky for him he's a director, otherwise he'd never appear on film. Oh, how I wish it were so.

Then there's the plot. Stolen from a Hitchcock story which was stolen from a Roald Dahl story. They do acknowledge the Hitchcock thing, but it's merely a not-so-clever ploy to try and disguise the fact that he didn't even come up with a story, but used some previously reheated leftovers from 30 years ago. There are no twists whatsoever on the Hitchcock theme that Tarantino describes. So, bad enough you have to endure his "acting," but you don't even get a good tale out of it.

So all in all, a terrible film. Fast forward to the third story, and you can safely skip the rest.


Bearing in mind the directors and cast involved, Four Rooms was a huge disappointment. Tim Roth gives a bizarre central performance which, rather than coming across as quirky, is simply irritating. Robert Rodriguez' slapstick section is best by a mile, followed by Tarantino's contribution, but the rest is extremely unfunny and rather tedious. One to avoid, unfortunately.


This movie was absolute trash. I never though that the creator of Kill Bill could be in such garbage. Ted the bellhop walked in a very strange manner and his personality would switch all the time as if in mood swings. In THe Missing Ingredient he was very nervous and jittery and same as in the Wrong Man but in the Wrong Man he yelled at a guy with a gun in his face, something no one would ever do. But, in the Misbehavors(most disgusting, disturbing thing I've ever seen)he was angry and yelling at the kids and when he saw the dead hooker in the bed he threw up and almost made me. Then, in the last story when he was going to cut off Norman's finger in some sick bet Chester, Leo and Norman made he had no problem yet he couldn't even have sex with the women in the beginning of the movie and was throwing up all over the place in the Misbehavors. It was like some creepy remote hotel where there was only Ted and the people in the four rooms but it was actually in L.A where there would be many other hotel staff and you would see some guests. He was totally alone except for the significant characters and I found it strange and irritating. They had Antonio Banderas, Selma Hayek and Quentin Tarantino(hope I'm not forgetting anyone) but the movie still managed to be worse than dirt. The actors were horrible, even Banderas, Hayek and Tarantino and it turned out to be the biggest disappointment since Underworld. If only there was a negative number on the Vote cause this movie deserves to be taken to the desert and buried.


Tarantino and Rodriguez are two of my favourite directors but this film still left me cold. Maybe it was because I was expecting so much. When I was told about the film it sounded great -four rooms, four directors- two of which I loved. But sadly as is always the case when you expect something brilliant you rarely feel satisfied, and for me this was an extremely unsatisfying film.

Out of the whole cast there were only 3 characters I liked - the 2 kids in The Misbehaviors and Marisa Tomei. For me the rest were at best boring and at worst irritating to the point of actual anger. I really like Tim Roth, normally, but his character actually made me angry, he was so irritating and slapstick that I wanted him to get killed in some horrendous way, something I never wish for the protagonist of a film. Actually he didn't annoy me throughout entirely, when he didn't speak in that stupid idiot voice he was OK, the rest of the time he was Peewee Hermin.

This is just my opinion and is of course subject to change as maybe if I watched it again at the right time and in the right mood I may see something I missed and get what all the people who enjoyed the movie got. I don't think I could take the risk though.


I really can't understand those who like this movie, and I really can't understand this movie!The first two episodes are totally nonsense, and I think the first is the worst of the movie. The only part I liked is the Rodriguez one because Banderas is really funny and the plot and the circumstances are fine. The fourth part of the movie, or the fourth room is not totally bad but I think it's boring. Tarantino speaks, speaks and speaks again, but the action of the finger-cutting is too short. Really bad in this movie is also the Tim Roth's Character, with that strange way to walk, to run , to talk or to make lots of thing! My conclusion is that this movie is not funny in a good way, but in a really stupid way!


Maybe other people appreciate this, but if you are a fan of Zucker Abram Zucker type films (airplane etc.) or Ben Stiller movies, you won't find much to laugh about in this film. I didn't find anything save for (spoiler) the finger cutting off scene at the end, which is a twist on the way movies usually do things. Even that was not laugh out loud funny, more funny in the sense of "We are in on QT's joke about the film industry". Big Deal.

This movie is worth it's 5.9 rating, i.e. it is below average. Don't bother. It must have gotten that rating for the elements of drama that it had, it seems that great comedies such as Austin Powers series etc. can't push more than mid 7s without having an element of "social significance" or drama as Dr Strangelove might have.


Four Rooms is a collection of four stories -- all of which take place within the same hotel. The first segment ("The Missing Ingredient") is, quite possibly, some of the worst drivel I have ever watched. It's downright painful to sit through. I got the strong impression that it was written very quickly, and that it was written with the intention of being humorous by a person who doesn't know the first thing about humor.

I can't even remember the 2nd story ("The Wrong Man"), which is a testament to the poor quality of the first half of this tape.

Thankfully, things start to pickup with the 3rd installment "The Misbehavers" (written by Robert Rodriguez). I'm glad it came along when it did, because I was painfully close to ejecting the tape. This segment is, by far, the best of the lot.

The 4th segment, "The Man from Hollywood" is exactly what you'd expect from Quinten Tarantino. It's chock full of outrageous dialogue and Tarantino overacts like there's no tomorrow.

All in all, this is not a "movie" worth renting.

I give the first two segments a 3/10, I give the latter two segments a 6/10. Overall I'd rate it a 4/10.


FOUR ROOMS / (1995) *1/2 (out of four)

"I'm in a situation I can't begin to explain." -Ted the Bellhop

You can say that again! For Ted the Bellhop, things go from strange, to stranger, to even stranger in the comedy "Four Rooms," a film that is really four films by four separate teams of filmmakers, all linked by location and a single character under increasingly urgent circumstances. When another character asks Ted his problem, his response is right on the money: "Problem? I haven't got a problem. I've got f*cking problems. Plural." One could also say that about this movie, a confusing, pointless mess of stale, unfunny humor, overacted characters, and a load of Hollywood stars and filmmakers so prestigious that it makes us wonder why such people would involve themselves such an unentertaining flop.

"Four Rooms" stars Tim Roth in a biting, fanatical performance as Ted, a bellhop working at a faded hotel. He is the only person on duty this night, and he really gets his hands full. In the first story, called "The Missing Ingredient," written and directed by Alison Anders, Ted checks in a clan of witches who try to perform a resurrection but can't because they lack a certain component in their spell. Naturally, its semen. What other bodily fluid is there in movies these days? Ted is the only male around, therefore, its only a matter of time before Ted finds himself seduced by a bare-breasted witch.

The next segment, called "The Wrong Man," written and directed by Alexander Rockwell, is equally as bad, if not worse (it's a tough call) as the first. Ted walks into a room with a manic depressive lunatic who holds his wife at gun point to test her fidelity. Ted becomes the middle man, with no where to run and nowhere to hide.

Robert Rodriguez writes and directs the film's best part, though that's not saying a whole lot. It's called "The Misbehavers" and features Rodriguez's "Desperado" actor Antonia Banderas. He leads his rich, fancy family to the hotel, then abandons his two chaotic children to spend New Year's Eve with his lovely wife. He pays Ted five-hundred dollars to baby-sit them for a few hours. After a predictable hell breaks loose, Ted concludes this situation with the following reflection: "There's a putrid, rotting corpse of a dead whore stuck in the springs of the bed. There's rooms blazing afire. There's a big fat needle from God knows where, stuck in my leg, infecting me with God knows what. And finally there's me, walking out the door, right f*cking now. Buenas noches."

"The Man from Hollywood" is the film's finale, by "Pulp Fiction" director Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino himself stars as an obnoxious Hollywood star who rents a suite with his bizarre arrangement of friends, including Bruce Willis as a man with marital difficulties. By the time Ted walks in, they're drunk and doing a replay of an old Alfred Hitchcock TV episode where a man bets he can light his lighter 10 times in a row. If he loses, he also loses his pinkie finger. This episode probably holds the record for containing the most four letter words in twenty minutes.

"Four Rooms" has reportedly been substantially cut since its disastrous September 1995 screening at the Toronto Film Festival, but it's hard to imagine the film running any longer. The first half is a painful experience, while the second half is simply not good. The film has a lot of energy, a cute little theme song and opening credit sequence, and Tim Roth is hard at work here, quirky and full of life. But he is all by himself, not supported by the writing--there are problems within his character. The key to a movie like this is to keep the connecting character consistent through his experiences.

However, "Four Rooms" changes him from meek and timid to explosively reactive. It's hard to laugh at jokes about abnormalities when the main character is almost deranged himself.

The four film's connect well, and I kind of liked some of the material in the closing segments, including the performances by Bruce Willis and Quentin Tarantino. But even here the situation is disposable and the dialogue is all over the wall. "Four Rooms" keeps us stuck in a series of stories that are not funny, entertaining, or engaging, but lackluster and deprived.

The film was released on Christmas Day, which really amazes me. This movie is R-rated and intended for adult audiences only, containing everything from plotless nudity to streaming vulgarisms. Most movies released on this family-oriented holiday are, well, somewhat tactful, but not "Four Rooms." The sheer nerve of the studio to release the film on December 25th should in itself be a good sign of its audacity. Consider yourself warned.


I curled up with this one last night and felt like i was "looking for love in all the wrong places". What did Tim Roth think he was doing? Actually, I watched it because i expected the bellboy character to evolve through the four episodes. The first episode didn't turn me off. In fact, the incantatory rhymes of Eva the all-girl witch were one of the few good laughs in the whole four-part joint. The next bit of absurdity, Room 404, has been done so much better elsewhere. Jennifer Beals' acting kept me involved here, believing some actual content might emerge -- like a plot? Her eyes promised so much! The dialogue gave so little! From time to time the art direction was notably okay. Charming. Meanwhile, wincing at every other facial maneuver Roth tries. So, by the time we get to Rodriguez's great kids, the big ones and the little ones, a parallel of adult/child misbehaviors, Roth is hardening, yes? He calls into the (cliche) pad of his boss, firm, resolute, quitting. Now I'm yawning. Yes! Yes! get this thing over with. Just one more room (oh, dang!). Is that Bruce Willis? Will he punch Quentin Tarantino in the jaw and shut him up? The bellboy, the twitching Candide, does come through in the end. But i was asleep, and had to rewind to see what happened. Quentin Tarantino is apparently some kind of loser that people talk about with excitement. The shock value of being "bad" is something a lot of us worked through when we were pre-adolescent. Some took it to advanced stages. Some are still working out their anger issues. Some are doing hard time. Some are dead. The writer/director has to be very sharp to make this funny. QT should pay me to watch his work.


Vicious murderer William Holden and his gang break into the lodge of the pipe-smoking psychiatrist Lee J. Cobb, who is having guests. Holden and the gang hold them hostage. Holden, as it develops, is having some mental problems. Cobb quickly cures him and Holden is never able to fire a gun again and he is free of symptoms and nightmares and is led off peacefully to jail.

It's a tough slog. Every piece of work has to be judged in terms of its period, we know, but this may have been fatigued even by 1950 standards. We had, after all, already had Hitchcock's "Spellbound", of which this is more or less a copy. These days, after a decade or two of "getting in touch with our feelings" (what does that MEAN?) it looks more dated and more schematic than ever.

The Freudian version of psychoanalysis was the canon at the time. A psychiatrist had to read ALL of Freud's seventeen volumes of work and know them inside and out. And this story sticks to material that might be found in "Psychoanalysis for Dummies." Everything is laid out for the audience, beginning with the conscious and the unconscious, and later leading through a handbook of dream interpretation and even dabbling with the Oedipal complex, although that part isn't gone into to any great extent. Let's take into account the sensibilities of the audience. Let's just have Holden kill his father, steal his father's "gun", and live happily at home with his mother.

The quick cure we see was always mythological. Just ask Woody Allan. Not that it hasn't been tried with psychoanalytic theory. When it became clear that very few people could afford to throw away a fortune on an unending psychoanalysis, psychiatrists developed other, shorter forms of treatment. One of them, William ("Wild Bill") Murphy invented sector therapy, which was a kind of psychoanalytic quick fix, a band aid rather than an psychological excavation. I lost track of the evaluative literature but sector therapy probably had the same success rate as its model.

It would be nice to say that, despite the datedness of the material, it's well done, but that, alas, isn't the case. Rudolph Mate's direction is uninspired. The subplots are mechanical. The acting is perfunctory, though we have to say that Lee J. Cobb is a good psychiatrist. A little adventurous, true, but under the circumstances, such as having a pistol pressed against his belly -- well. Nina Foch is good as Holden's necessarily motherly girl friend too. William Holden gives the hammiest performance of his career, popping his eyes, grimacing, calling everything "screwy." Too bad. It has a fine noirish title -- "The Dark Past." But this past was prologue to nothing.


Holden had a great eye for a good script and always chose interesting three-dimensional characters and interesting situations. Other than this one, that is. Terribly dated and talky psychological drama that goes nowhere slow. One can only think Holden was forced to work on this picture, which hits you over the head with salvo after salvo of predictable psuedo-psychological double talk and laughable explorations into "hidden traumatic childhood incidents" intended to sensitively explicate present behavior in painfully simplistic terms. There is much unintentional laughter, but this is not a fun or funny movie. The great Lee J. Cobb is particularly wasted in a do-nothing part. Do yourself a favor and go rent BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI or SUNSET BOULEVARD or STALAG 17 and put this psychobabble snoozefest back on the shelf.


I can only assume this short's popularity has something to do with its political incorrectness; in itself it's rather lame. How funny is it really to see a grunting halfwit running around in circles after a bunch of little kids? The film does have its moments, especially with Spanky and Bumbo in the kitchen, but overall it reminded me a lot of that standard childhood nightmare of being chased by a gorilla, except not as exciting. I pass on this one.


What this low budget film has going for it is a terrific performance by Nick Stahl. He plays Dodge, a young and straight hustler who works the streets in a gay area of Toronto. Dodge does drugs to quell the emotional pain of having to work at something so debasing. He spends his time alternating between walking the streets, living with fellow hustlers in a dilapidated loft, talking with a diner waitress (well played by Michele-Barbara Pelletier), and teaching a new recruit named Oliver the ins and outs of the "business".

The script is not well written. Questions are left unanswered. And there's lots of downtime wherein not much happens. The result is considerable tedium and boredom, not just for the characters but for viewers as well. The story is depressing because the characters are all so hopeless.

Another problem here is that the concept is not original. We've seen all this before in other films, like "My Own Private Idaho". I'm not sure what the point of "Twist" is, apart from being a contemporary update of the Oliver Twist story. I do like the music at the film's start, and it recurs off and on throughout.

Low-key, and very slowly paced, with long camera "takes", this bleak story would have been better with a little more substantive action. Other than Nick Stahl's fine performance, the movie does have atmosphere, albeit dreary, but not much else.


Looking at this movie, I wondered if I did not already see it. The theme is not original (anymore), we have seen the setting in other movies, the acting is poor, as is the story. So, there is no reason why I should recommend this movie to anybody.


In the last ten or so years, there has been a rash of movies starring young, white, straight-seeming actors portraying bedraggled streetwise hustlers, with all scenarios (it would seem) stemming from Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho". This one has the conceit of being a gay updating of Dickens (!) with Nick Stahl as sort of an Artful Dodger of Queer Toronto. The trouble with "Twist" is...that's the only twist, and it isn't a groundbreaking one. These kids, who seem to turn tricks for coffee, cigarettes and the occasional needle, have nothing much to offer us except their names. We see the seedy side of life yet we're given little explanation why Stahl and his friends are so belligerent against hope, without any imagination or the drive to get out and succeed. *1/2 from ****


I saw this as part of the '04 San Francisco GLBT film fest. The description seemed interesting enough, and Nick Stahl has made a couple good movie choices, so I figured it was a safe bet. Wrong-o. Can we please put an end to the male hustler genre? This Dickinsian train wreck could have been just as easily made by piecing together scenes from the fair "Johns," the violent for violence-sake "Bully," and the utterly stupid "Speedway Junkies."

The movie had a couple nice shots, but any art of the film was wasted by the story. I also really liked the soundtrack. Those two highlights do not justify the 98 minutes of my attention that I gave to this film. I couldn't get out of the theater quick enough, and considered walking out more than once.

Anyone who feels the slightest tug toward this movie should just rewatch "My Own Private Idaho" (if you want a hustler movie) or "In the Bedroom" (if you want a Nick Stahl movie) and buy an Alison Kraus album (for the alt-country/bluegrass soundtrack).


When I walked in, I wondered why the theatre was empty. I wanted to like this movie. Hey, Gary Farmer's a funny guy. I hoped to see something balanced, lifelike, with ups and downs. Instead what I saw was a "scared straight"-style, here's-how-bad-it-can-get cliché without any relief, either humorous or realistic.

I was supposed to get taken in by the comparison of this movie to Dicken's story. Except it was nothing like Dicken's story, except for the names and the squalor. The Victorian gentleman had a handle on reality; this paternalistic and uninspired film wants to paint everything outside the mainstream worldview as endlessly fear-driven and hopeless. It's as if the writers wanted to us to think that Dickens was a pollyanna and wanted us to know how bad things *really* are.

Do such awful things actually happen? For sure. Do -all- of these things happen to real people in the real world? No. Which makes Twist a horror film -- if that's what you're after.

Maybe someone wanted kids to know what they might face if they ran away from abusive homes to the big city. In that case, they should have found out what kids face -- verisimiltude anyone? -- instead of throwing together an orgy of dark imaginations.


Stone is one of the worst movies ever made: inept direction; bad (funny) dialog, low production expertise and values, bad editing and endless boring sequences of motorcycles as if a bike on a road is interesting cinema. Yes, there is a big stunt, but that does not make a film.

The movie is a boring and unintentionally funny, ridiculous counter culture trip that owes much to Easy Rider without a Hopper or Nicholson.

Stone's special sentimental place in Australia must be due to the audience's thrill at seeing their own on film. Some movies should be banned to save a country total humiliation - and Stone is one of them.