George W. Bush impersonations are the comedic equivalent of duck hunting in a 2*2 pool loaded with 50 ducks. There's no way you can't get something- in the duck case, meat; in the Bush case, laughs. Everybody has picked up on funny Bush mannerisms. They've heard his laughs and seen his shakes. They know he's a "good old boy." Not everybody laughs at Bush, but a lot of people (especially in Canada, where I live) do.

Comedy Central apparently knew this when assembling the guest list for their "Roast of Jeff Foxworthy." They knew that they had to at least get either some respected comedians in some form or some really funny non-celebrity comedians. They partially succeeded here- they got some really funny big-time comedians. Bill Engvall, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy had to be there- they did Blue Collar! Most of the big-shots came up on tapes, like Jay Mohr and Denis Leary. That's fine with me. I just want to laugh.

I couldn't laugh with this special. It stank. It paled in comparison to the original Martin roasts. What really annoyed me about it was that almost all the comments included either profanity in the form of a four letter word beginning with "F", insults about Jeff's TV show and how bad it was, gay jokes or insults directed towards some Jeff routines that didn't include profanity.

Let me give you an example. The original Martin roasts are Ex. 1; the Foxworthy roast is Ex. 2. Ex. 1: You lightly tap yourself on the head with a screwdriver. Sure, it hurt a little bit, but not really. It was mostly in your mind. You could do this over and over before getting even a bump. This is like the Martin roasts: they did insult people, but the insults were mostly funny and even the celebrities who were getting roasted laughed at them. In fact, they more made fun of the celebrities than insulted them. Good, clean fun. Ex. 2: You drop a 500 pound weight directly onto your chest. You will either break your ribs, your skull, collarbone, arms and legs, or you will die. This is the Foxworthy roast. Comics getting up and delivering really bad insults. *Really* bad insults. They were insulting just to insult. The only exception is Ron White. This man is a genius. He can make just about anything funny. He went up and delivered good, clean jokes that more made fun of Jeff and his buddies than insulted them. He actually delivered the one good laugh that I got out of the entire evening: "This guy's been releasing CDs forever. I have 'You Might Be A Redneck' on vinyl, and when you play it backwards it goes 'heeere's your sign!'" See? A harmless little joke, referencing Bill Engvall's signature line. The rest was horrific. I couldn't watch it and actually got physically ill after Lisa Lampernelli's "performance." If you have this special on tape, burn it. If you have it in any way shape or form get rid of it. It was not good. It stunk.

In fact, it stunk so bad, I'd like to make "Roast Of 'Roast Of Jeff Foxworthy.'" -lpokeefe


Ever since I first saw the Drew Carey roast that kicked off the tradition of airing the Friar's Club Roasts on television, I knew that no matter who was being roasted, the comedians could make it funny. And why not? They were people in a club dedicated to comedy. These were people who were legends like Freddie Roman and Alan King.

I carried this opinion until the Roast of Denis Leary aired, a roast which was not an official Friar's Club Roast and was actually produced by Denis Leary himself. It was a sick case of ego boosting, but even it had a few good laughs. However, with the Roast of Jeff Foxworthy, consider the horse flogged dead.

When we once were treated with comedic performances by some of the world's best comics, we've been downgraded to three people from Tough Crowd (a show so horrifically unfunny that not even spillover from The Daily Show could save it), the same Gilbert Gottfried plays an animal bit from Leary's roast and the same other three guys from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. And, a hilarious video (note the sarcasm) of Denis Leary half-assedly calling the guests gay. Ground breaking stuff.

Though, it wasn't a total bust. Greg Giraldo did have some funny jokes and the Bush impersonator was pretty dead on. Unfortunately for the rest of the show, it came off as an obvious attempt at making a quick buck off a passing fad. Not to say that Jeff Foxworthy doesn't deserve the recognition of a roast because he does. It's too bad that this was so superficial that it's not really an honor.

A pale husk of what roasts formerly were, I just hope for the day when the Friar's Club and Comedy Central make up and let them do the roasts again instead of Denis Leary's company.


Don't get me wrong, I like the Blue collar guys but whoever booked the show has no ideal of the term "Fan Base" You could tell by the expressions on Foxworthy's face that he was uncomfortable and not just because it was a roast. Just when I think it could not get worse they bring out a county rap group. Country + RAP = CRAP. There where some good parts. Larry, Bill and Jeff where funny as always and the guy that did the Bush bit was great. Never quite figured out how Ron White fits in with the blue collar guys but he was there repeating his act. Now I know why they call it a roast, There where several people trying to rekindle the fire to their careers.


I am a big fan of Jeff Foxworthy. The Blue Collar Tour movies and Blue Collar TV are hilarious. Unfortunately, this roast did not follow in their foot steps. I, usually, think Larry the Cable Guy is very funny, but not this time. His comments about Corky from Life Goes On were totally uncalled for. To make such a comment about a person born with Down Syndrome was in poor taste. His comment about Christopher Reeve sat badly with me, also. If I was a member of Mr. Reeve's family I would have liked it even less than I did. Several made comments about Jeff's 'clean' comedy, but they chose not to follow in his footsteps by repeating such words as f**k over and over. When will they learn four letter words are not what makes a comedian. This show put down others more than it did Jeff Foxworthy. It attacked those with Down Syndrome, Mexicans, gays and, of course, the South, as well as others. If you were a comedian on this show, you might want to take lessons from Mr. Jeff Foxworthy. This show fell short of the usual Foxworthy standards.


If you're looking for an entertaining fighting movie, avoid this one at all costs. Do you want to see a movie that's so bad that it becomes an unintentional comedy? Then you also should avoid this one, because it's so utterly bad that it's not even funny. The movie's plot circles around illegal, underground street-arena fights where the fighters use many kinds of brutal weapons and kill each other. Sound familiar? This has been done many times, but never as bad as this. Most of the fighters are really unfit and shabby people, and there aren't much that reminds me of true martial arts skills. The story makes no sense, and is just full of plot holes. I just don't get why Lorenzo Lamas stars in this. He's not exactly the best action star around, but this was a disaster even by his standards.


This film has more cheek than any I have seen. It seems to be made almost entirely from left over footage from The Swordsman. It is like watching outtake footage. The plot has been extended to include a new baddie, but the relationship between the two main characters bounces around in context all over the place, continuity is almost non-existent and you keep wondering where in time and space the activity is happening. I guess this is recycling taken to new levels. However watching The Swordsman and then Gladiator Cop is an interesting exercise in picking up what you have seen already, what really belongs in the first film and why you aren't doing something more productive.


Okay, it had its moments. The plot, or rather the idea behind the plot was pretty good. The science talk seemed slightly more scientific than usual (Well, not being a rocket scientist, for all I know they could have been exchanging formulas for melted butter - but it sounded right in the first part of the movie). Some of the acting even appeared okay. But then it all ends. Introducing a computer wiz never actually doing any wizzing other than shouting commands at his homebuilt and amazingly awkward computer system. Hacking into what was clearly analog CCTV!? Not to mention camera angles requiring surveillance cameras literally all over the place. Why did Mr. Fulton send Luke through a hole but Teri over the fence instead? How do you get nuclear material into a tokamak without shutting it down? And then at last; a climax as exciting as a flat tire. No, this is definitely a colossal waste of even the dullest evening.


Why can't I put in a 0 vote? This movie sucks worse than any imaginable black hole. I mean, you have a nuclear material container stuck and on fire, the obvious thing to *not* do is use another similar container to knock it loose? A company called *Pandora Corporation*? Hail Eris, I say!

And all the time wasted on chasing a guy on a bike, then drop him from a helicopter. And the loving couple of students who seem only to be in the movie in order for them to 1) get killed in full visual goryness, 2) nearly get killed in the same way, despite being warned. And they are supposed to depict super-intelligent university graduate students?

And a computer interface "inspired" by William Blake? Disgusting, admittedly in an intriguing manner. The intriguing thing about it is: how on Earth would anyone come up with something _so_ stupid?

Oh, and with all the blue light emanating from the plant, which I suppose was supposed to be Cerenkov radiation, everybody around would have been fried.

I agree completely with Thomas' review. I'd just like to add a suggestion: If you want to see a *good* British eco-thriller, watch _Edge of Darkness_ instead. If you can't get that, find a picture of Chernobyl somewhere on the net and look at it for the duration of this movie, and you will have spent the time better. Avoid this movie!

-Lasse


OK, I need to make a disclosure first: This movie is just plain camp as far as i can tell. The plot is highly UN-original, and the characters appear to be conceived in caricature. The script seems almost to have been written in the mid nineties judging by the production design and the references. In fact, the first time i saw it on TV i thought it was 6 or 7 years older than it actually was.

But, gosh i just cant put my finger on it, the film actually draws you in. Perhaps because i'm of the same age. Also, it works if you watch it from an outsider's standpoint. Here you get a glimpse of the shallow, self-centered reality that LA and much of the US is infected with. As noted previously, the cast plays its part in that over-the-top way common in cult or camp. And it works! Frankly, the script couldn't support anything more.

Yet, I end up caring for the characters and their story.

Entertaining if you watch it half conscious or sleepy, a bright and fun piece of culture this is.


If you've ever been stumped at a cocktail party when someone asks you, "what's the worst movie you've ever seen", you may want to rent this movie so as to have an instantaneous reply. I mean, there's bad, then there's REALLY bad. This film falls into the latter category.

What's amazing is not that they got a budget for this film, but that they actually got some name actors for it. I can't imagine any working actor looking at this puerile script and thinking to themselves, "yes, this is one I must do."

The script itself is dreadful. Overwhelmingly bad. If one didn't read the credits, you'd think it was written by an undersexed (or possibly oversexed) 8th-grader. It's the kind of script that drunken frat boys might come up with if they were really bored, and had a half hour to spare. If you took out the fart jokes, the penis jokes, and the irritable bowel jokes, there would really only be about 10 minutes of film, and those 10 minutes would be stuffed with every comic cliché you could imagine.

The film offers no real laughs, predictability to the extreme, and, surprisingly, no nudity. Which is odd, since it's like watching a slasher film with no blood. The only reason I can imagine a film like Showgirls (which is "Gone With the Wind" compared to Sol Goode) got financed was because they promised the backers that Elizabeth Hurley would be naked and gyrating throughout half the film. This film doesn't even have the common decency to try and titillate the audience after forcing us through the 100 minutes of torture.

The performances are mostly quite good. The actors do a great job at elevating the material, especially Katharine Towne, in a thankless and underwritten role. Cheri Oteri, Natasha Wagner, and Jamie Kennedy all put their best foot forward trying to turn very little into something. Cheri Oteri plays a sadistic, high-powered agent, which is actually the best writing in the film. Unfortunately, it's a subplot that really has no connection to the main storyline. It may have been a better film had they simply stayed in the agency and made it all about Jamie Kennedy's character, since the least interesting character in the whole film is the title character. You can't quite imagine how so many people seem to know and admire a guy who has never had a job, isn't getting work as an actor, dates homely women, and doesn't even seem particularly funny or charming.

The film goes nowhere, and takes forever to get there. But I will give this writer/director his due. It takes quite of bit of pluck and determination to get a film this bad made. He surely deserves "hustler of the year" award. If he could sell this film to execs, he could sell ice to Eskimos.


Although not total garbage, it's pretty crappy.

The dino stop-motion is worse than the old 1933 version of King Kong, and the dinos look like rubber. The effects are like something from a Nintendo game. The Prism creature looks like a troll doll. Everything in this looks as phony as a nine-pound note.

Acting is awful...like something you'd expect from a primary school play. And that horrible piece of crap bike that kid rides is a disgrace. No one could race that junk heap (I'm glad it got vapourised). Azebeth Siege and her codes of kong (is this movie riddled with references to King Kong?) is lame, lame, lame. And there's one scene where this little kid just runs underneath the dino for no apparent reason. And what's with all the moths flying around in the beginning sequence...Did they film this in an old barn?.

The sword fighting with the dino was also way lame. And sacrificing people to the "dragon" (dino)...hmmm...again, somebody's been watching too many King Kong movies.

I wonder what the budget for this was...$2.

It's sort of cool though how this is set up like old serials. Chapter one at least leaves you hanging & shows a preview of the next chapter.

My friend gave us a laserdisc player & a box of movies. In the box were chapters 1 & 2 of this series. We watched the first one. And maybe one of these days when I'm extra bored I'll watch chapter 2...that is if I haven't used the laserdiscs for frizbees by then.

I wonder if laserdiscs will shatter nicely upon impact with a tree...In this case that's about all they're good for. Well maybe some really bored little kids might like Josh Kirby.


This was a total mish-mash for me. There were elements I found very impressive, and others plain awful. Overall, I wouldn't watch it again. Die-hard fans will be happy to see lots of behind-the-scenes and will probably enjoy it for that fact alone.

Here are the GOOD things: 1) Creative and thoughtful editing of what appears to be countless hours of footage. 2) The'derangement' and sound mixing of the songs - the highpoint for me. The vibe was great - felt reflective and a tad melancholy. You could tell it was pieces and parts of the original recordings used in a new way. 3) The music and video editing complement each other very well given that most rock docs feel tossed together by amateurs.

The BAD: 1) The grainy Super-8 and a combination of bad lighting made some parts difficult to see 2) There was not one shred of 'real' in this -- just the blokes messing around having fun.

The UGLY: 1) Stewart may have written the script, but he is absolutely HORRIBLE in narrating it. It completely overshadowed the good 2)The script was pompous, detached and avoided any real insight or emotional details about the rise and fall of this band. Left us knowing little more than we already do. Too much footage of fans, and very few intimate moments with the band. Guess The Police don't want to turn off their fans since they have re-stoked their machine and are milking it once again.


I have quite a few problems with this documentary, being a huge fan of The Police. (Own "Message in a Box", saw them live in 2007, I'm totally influenced by them in my own music...) This was a major letdown. Here's the problem.

Copeland is a terrible narrator, half the film he's mumbling on and has such little charisma for narrating a documentary. The quality of his super8 camera is brutal, and that in itself wouldn't be so bad, but the WHOLE documentary is basically told with this super8 grainy, look.

It doesn't capture the actual soul of what the Police were. It basically follows 79-84, as if it were just, "Oh then we got a track on the charts, then we went to a concert, then we did some traveling, oh then we did some more shows, now we're big, then we released a couple albums, then a few more shows, now it's over." The only sense of conflict in the band you will get in the WHOLE documentary is the following quips.

Stewart: I'm starting to hate this band.

Sting: Stewart... I blame you for all my problems.

--- That's it. This is the so called band that had it's drummer break the lead singers ribs, get into fistfights, and downright hate each other, but at the same time record some of the greatest rock music ever. It basically is something slapped together, with some old footage, called a Police DOCUMENTARY and it just, has no thread. Nothing, I can only say, SOME (but little), of the documentary was okay, and had a couple cool things going for it, some interesting little parts to it, but way to little to even make this a repeat viewing.

If you're a die hard police fan, it's only an hour, and you might get a chuckle, and a "Oh cool.", but believe me, for the 5 minutes of total time where you're interested, there's another 60 of boring crap. Why can't Martin Scorsese do a Police documentary?


Woeful, and blatant, attempt to cash in on the "Breakdance" craze that swept the western world in the early to mid-eighties.

The script (from Allen DeBevoise, Gerald Scaife and Charles Parker) is a terrible "Flashdance" clone with street dancers Adolfo Quinones and Michael Chambers trying to get their big break on the stage, and show the world what they can do, with the help of classically trained hoofer Lucinda Dickey. The only thing worth watching is the dancing itself, with some well choreographed pieces blending easily with the natural 'breakin' talent.

There is absolutely no acting prowess on show, and director Joel Silberg would be well advised to stick to putting up the money for someone else to run things. For something a little more down to earth and closer to reality, try "Beat Street". Music was penned by Gary Remal and Michael Boyd.

Sunday, August 18, 1996 - Video


Man, oh man. I remember seeing this movie when I was about six with my mom and thinking "Turbo is the coolest thing EVER." Of course, my friends and I were break dancing outside (with or without cardboard) for the next several months. Spiked bracelets and adidas ruled the day. My wife and I rented the movie a year ago and it completely stunk. Where the hell do Ozone and Turbo live, in a garage? They're two grown men; to whose home is their garage attached? Why does Turbo dislike Special K? Is it because she becomes lovey-dovey with Ozone? Is the reason for the hatred at all related to the flamingly gay dude with the pink leotard that shows up EVERYWHERE Ozone and Turbo go? It's great to watch this movie to recall the good ol' days and maybe to see some pretty good breakin, but as a film it truly sucks b*lls.


When you look back on the eighties break dancing and graffiti movies there are a handful of movies that should be a required viewing. If you want to see a bad break dancing movie, then check out Breakin.

What makes this movie so bad is the fact that is just really missed the mark of capturing the essence of breaking. It was more of an attempt to crossover to a larger audience outside of the urban community. It may have succeeded reaching a larger audience but it really does not connect with the hardcore breaking audience.

If you are looking for good 80's Hip Hop movies check out Beat Street, Wild Style, Krush Groove, Berry Gordy's Last dragon and please leave this on the shelf.

Without being politically correct this movie is really gay. the gayest part has to be John Claude Van Damme in the opening scene wearing some tight black spandex.


This film is a classic? What you been smokin' girl?! I decided to give this movie a 2 star rating out of 10 because at least it is very funny. This is probably the funniest movie ever without trying. The cheesy eighties clothing that is trying to pass for street clothing of the period was great! If you like to watch movies strictly for the cheese factor and horrible acting, then this is the movie for you. Break it down Bobby Brown!


Do not listen to anything that someone who has given this movie a positive review has to say: they are lying to you, literally. It is pretty common knowledge amongst the posters of this movie that there is a conspiracy to improve this movies image on IMDb.com. If you look at the rating percentages, there are next to no 8's and 9's, which is a very good and reasonable score for a movie that is as good as some say it is. No, the only significant positive rating that is given is a 10, which makes no sense. Look at the rating history, look at who has commented on it, and look at their post/rating/comment history. It is quite amusing indeed.

As for the movie itself, it's supporters have one thing right: it's pretty hard to make a movie on the budget that they must have had to make "13 Seconds" (which I'm guessing is in the neighborhood of $100). First, it is not at all scary. At no point am I scared, "creeped out," on edge, nervous, or even disgusted. It only affects the viewer's emotion in one way; it makes the viewer angry, angry for having spent the money to have seen it, and angry that you wasted an hour and a half of your life on it. The special effects are very distracting (no, we cannot fault the film makers for this, but it certainly does hinder your watching experience). The acting is horrendous (I'd say bad by high school theater standards). The plot is mediocre at best. And the dialogue is painfully terrible (lines like "I found this book."--"is it old?" and many others make you rewind it to see if you heard what you actually heard). I can, in all honesty and with absolutely no exaggeration, say that this is the worst movie that I have ever seen.

I am this strongly critiquing this movie not because I have a grudge against its creators (although I'm not happy about losing 90 minutes and $4). I am critiquing it so that no one else is fooled by what others are posting on this website. This is a terrible movie and is only worth watching if both a)you get it for free (or, even better, are getting paid to see it), and b)you do not value your time at all. No, on second thought, even if those two conditions are met, there are still better things to do. Steer clear, friends. Steer clear.


although i've used IMDb as a resource for years i've never felt the need to chime in as a reviewer or post on the message boards, in this case i felt absolutely compelled to, especially after reading the false glowing reviews posted by others...which is just as fraudulent as this movie winning any recognition, a DVD distribution deal...any of that. i felt completely ripped off and i felt like a sucker after trying to watch this garbage. the mere fact that anyone could give this film 3 stars, much less 10 out of 10 is a complete farce.

i watch pretty much EVERY horror movie that comes out that i can get my hands on (which explains why i rented 13 Seconds i guess) and i have never seen a movie so atrocious and completely unwatchable.

low budget movies are not a problem with me....as long as there is good writing, good acting, good direction. this film is devoid of any of that and there is nothing "creepy" or "scary" about this trash.

the only thing scary to me about this movie is that not all of it landed on the cutting room floor.

i haven't been so angry after trying to watch a movie ever. i'll watch a Hollywood crapfest festival of Hudson Hawk followed by Gili followed by Showgirls back to back before i'll watch 10 minutes of this movie again.

i want my money and the 30 minutes of my life that i wasted BACK!


By far the worst movie I've ever seen. I actually enjoy watching bad movies. I can find ways to enjoys movies most people think are pure ****, but this movie is an all-time low. As I said, it's the worst movie I've ever seen, so far. I always hate it when I see people that say this about a movie, since with all the movies in the world, I find it hard to believe that so and so could be the worst movie ever made, but honestly, I promise you, believe me, for the love of God listen to me, this is the worst movie I have ever seen. This movie makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like Casablanca. The acting is garbage. I don't know how they pulled it off, but the acting is actually far worse than that of the films and videos from my past art classes. I didn't think you could act this bad if you tried, but they somehow managed to pull it off. The script is incoherent gibberish, just God awful. The direction is crap. How many close ups do you need? I do have to commend the "director/writer" for being able to dupe people into seeing it, since I found it in Blockbuster that means he was able to make some money off the movie. As for that, I am impressed. As for the movie, I had more fun with a scorching case of syphilis.


but after watching it I just have to know... who the hell are these poor poor mislead souls that are giving this movie such high praise!? 13 Seconds was a god-awful piece of crap. Even the best reviews on this site mention the bad acting and the (obvious) low budget, but try to say that those aspects of the film are simply something a "low budget" or "indie" film maker must deal with and the writer/director/actor should be commended for dealing with such shortcomings and still finishing the production. This is patently untrue, and I take such comments as a highly offensive slap in the face to the REAL independent, low budget film makers who can not only deliver on a clever story (which I will admit, 13 Seconds had), but they can also get something close to a decent performance out of their actors, better sound and editing... hell, everything involved in making a movie. And I do mean EVERYTHING.

To put it into terms that most people can relate to, 13 Seconds equates to a very low-budget Halloween season haunted house. The scares are cheap and ineffective and the actors hired to pull off those scares are almost as talented as my cat. At least my cat makes me jump on occasion.

The bad acting only makes the awful dialog even more unbearable. Add on top of that the total lack of effort put into the dubbing and you have the perfect formula for a movie that even Ed Wood would find abhorrent.

Even the argument that "well at least he went out and made a movie" doesn't hold water. One of the main reasons I have not gotten my own production off the ground is because of movies like this. Watching this movie made me remember that I didn't have to settle for whatever actors I could scrape out of a trailer park, a DP who had no experience outside of a Polaroid camera and sound recorded on an answering machine while the freaking actors phone it in. Sorry, but I'll hold out until I can find people that, when placed in a soggy paper bag and told to act, would be able to find their way back into the light.

To sum up: remember kids, just because you CAN make a movie does not mean you SHOULD.


Anyone, and I mean anyone, who writes that this movie is any better than a 1, was watching a different movie when they were told they were watching this movie. The B.S. about good camera shots/angles for low money is a good joke. My two year old cousin could shoot better angles than this movie.

It had a good concept but the ending doesn't make the movie better, it makes it about 48 times worse. The only chance this movie had a chance to be even a 2 was is if it lasted 13 seconds, and that is including the credits. This movie is so terrible, I think it gave me cancer! I would rather repeatedly jab a knife into my arms and legs than to ever, and I do mean ever, sit through this horrible excuse of a movie again. And the independent excuse doesn't work for me. How this won any awards besides crappiest movie ever made is beyond me.


I saw this at the video store and it caught my eye. Ooooh I told myself, look at these awards, this could be a low budget B-movie worth watching. Boy was I wrong.

This film was written bad, the actors did a bad job, the story was... well how can I put this...LAME!!

I couldn't believe how boring and how bad the acting and story was all at the same time. Do not waste your time with this movie.

If you are watching this for horror, don't bother. If you just want something bad to laugh at, this may be for you that is if you don't fall asleep.

Directing - F; writing - F; Acting - F; story - D; Over all movie F-


Oh, horrid film, where did you go wrong? I hope I have enough fingers to count the ways. There is a point during film-making when a director or producer can simply say "Stop". There is no harm in that, nor is there any shame. This should have been one of those films that somebody, anybody, should have said, "we need to stop now". From the uninteresting characters, to the lackluster story, to the very poor production, the lines between avant-garde horror cinema and cheaply made movies became hazy.

There are three ways to completely destroy the power of a film without touching the story and those are through sound, sight, and mind. If a movie sounds great, you have captured some of your audience. If it looks good as well, you have captured even more and finally, if you can keep them mentally involved than you, as a director, should have most to all of the audience in your hands. Sadly, 13 Seconds did none of the above. The sound was horrendous. Synchronizing your actor's voices to match what they were saying when filming and the emotions they were feeling is not hard. Apparently, director Jeff Thomas decided robots could make this English spoken poorly dubbed in English feature. There was no emotion behind anyone talking, even our main character Davis. I found myself laughing whenever anyone opened their mouth. I couldn't tell if anyone was actually interested in what was happening, or if the amount of beer drinking that occurred before the dubbing was finally taking effect. Second, the sight of this film was just as bad as the voices. No apparent acting classes were needed from any of the actors or from the demons. There needs to be some level of class with the both the actors and demons, but in this film there were not. Davis, Jeff Thomas, was trying hard to be exactly like Bruce Campbell, which only lowered this film further into the pit of disgust. Everyone else seemed like they were going through the actions that were given to them that minute and trying to remember what exactly they were doing. There were no genuine moments in this film visually, just non-actors remembering to be robots. Finally, the mental involvement is key. I am not talking about just story here, because you can have a bad story but still keep people guessing for more. I am talking about just the apparent want to see what happens. Does your audience want to see what is going to happen next? In this film, my answer would be "no". The ending does provide a moment of shock, but you need to force your way through an hour and a half of sludge just to see it  and it really isn't that grandiose.

With these three elements lacking considerably, you may be thinking what is the value of this film? I was amazed to see that it had won some awards in the horror circuit because, to me, it showed the poorest of the poor. While I would agree, that the ending (without giving it away) was creative and inventive, what filmmakers need to realize that you need to have a complete film to blow us away. Do not just pride yourself on the ending because you are going to have upset people like myself that could tell that you spent more on that then you did the rest of the film. I have heard other critics say that this is like a low-budget The Sixth Sense, but for me it was not even in the same ballpark. Half the fun of The Sixth Sense was the action leading up to the surprising ending (which wasn't even that shocking), and that is where 13 Seconds suffers. Thomas' film has nothing to offer in the middle except for a very muddled story in which you nearly need a PhD in pagan culture to fully understand. I think I would have been more impressed by the ending of this film if there was a meaty center instead of all that gristle and grime.

Was this the worst film I have seen this year? After a day of thinking about it I can say "no", but would I be truthful to myself? There were some interesting scenes, which did showcase some of Thomas' potential, but the blatant disrespect for everything else just hurt those good points. I had trouble coping with the voices and the constant clichés that Thomas tried to repetitively use. There just seemed to be too much running into rooms and shadows lurking in the darkness instead of character development and understanding. I needed to know who these people were and a better explanation of the immediate story. Thomas seemed and felt unfocused in this film giving us not enough in one area, while completely destroying another. Inconsistency is what hurt this film, but what destroyed it for me were the small bits that could have easily been changed to construct a decent film. I wasn't happy, and I don't think many will be with the final results that 13 Seconds has to offer.

Grade: ** out of *****


My roommate is an avid fan of horror movies and spied this anti-gem whilst browsing through Blockbuster. The movie is about a band that decides to practice or record their music in a forgotten school house. First off, the acting. It is obvious that the actors/actresses are friends of Jeff Thomas. I would be surprised if one of these people had acting experience outside of high school. With the exception of home movies and porn, it is impossible for a television screen to display worse acting. Every participant reads through their lines without emotion, as if they are reading them from a teleprompt. The acting provided my friends and I with an element of inadverdent comedy that had us rolling on the floor. I doubt Jeff was striving for laughter. The writing. I cannot honestly say that the plot is any less hapless than several other horror movies you could pluck off of the shelves of your nearest rental store. However, the dialogue sure as hell is. At one point, a girlfriend attempting to calm an argument actually says, with utmost seriousness, "Can't we all just get along?" WTF? If one character is addressing another for the first time, the introductory word is the character's first name. It is simply unrealistic and unnatural. If you were in an alternate universe, you might expect people to converse in such a way. Nothing else in this movie really matters. The setting is an old school house yet the furniture is in great condition without any dust. The beds have clean linens. Someone even remembered to pay the electric bills. Gotta love the hospitality of evil demons. The music is a joke. Casio keyboard style suspense music will play during an "intense" scene and just cut out at any moment. Whether it fits or not. The mouse squeak is the official mascot sound of this movie. My final mouse squeak count ended at 1,142.

I suggest you rent this movie because it could motivate you. How? Once you see this used toilet paper square of a movie, you will know that even you can a get film on the shelves at Blockbuster.


Wow what a steaming pile of dung.

While I enjoy low-budget gore as much as the next guy, this one was almost unbearable to watch. This was mainly due to the acting, if you can call it that. Every person in this flick had the same monotone voice coming from the same expressionless face. For a horror film there was a decided lack of screaming. I would expect some screams when one is getting hacked in half, or their chest ripped open, but I think there were a total of 4 screams in the entire film.

I can't believe this thing won awards. It must have been the only entry.

Can I have 90 minutes of my life back please?


This movie stinks!!! What is all the hype about? It deserved no awards, no festival fanfare, no attention whatsoever. It's so boring, pretentious and incompetent it doesn't even deserve to be released! 13 Seconds is just another shot on video, no budget loser put in a nice, shiny box to fool you into thinking there might be some production value or creativity behind it. But... nothing happens in this film (certainly nothing interesting or remotely scary). The special effects are laughable and few and far between. The acting is terrible (especially the hillbilly fat guy with the funny hair cut) and to top it off, everyone is so badly DUBBED in post it looks like a kung-fu movie from the '70s whenever anybody opens their big, ugly mouth (and they sound like their dialogue was rerecorded in an empty warehouse for all the echo on it). Do we really need another rotten horror movie about a rock-n-roll band? Did we learn nothing from the 1980s and films like Hard Rock Zombies or Black Roses? Watching this movie for even "13 seconds" is a waste of time. Shame on Lion's Gate for releasing this timid, wet fart of a horror movie! I give it a "1" only because the rating system doesn't go any lower... Avoid 13 Seconds like the plague!


Please listen to the post claiming it's literally so bad it's not funny. I can usually find the silver lining in a terrible horror movie, but this movie, this is really something special. Usually a movie this god awful would be so bad it's in some way amusing, nope. This movie is so bad it took me 3 watches until I could finish it without falling asleep. Unfortunately I'm one of those people who has to watch a movie in it's entirety before forming an opinion. Somehow this middle school project waste of time ended up on a Blockbuster shelf with a cool cover. Someone posted a review defending the acting and calling this a good new independent horror film. That poster should make it clear that they're directly related to the absurdly inept director of this movie. I'm a pacifist in general, but this movie was so bad I actually became furious with everyone involved in this inane venture. Absolute trash.


This movie is an embarrassment! It is so atrociously bad that it even makes you angry while watching it. I couldn't even tell you what it is about since I only watch 5 minutes, and my husband, thinking it would get better, watched 10 minutes of it. But, anyhow, I couldn't care less. I cant believe I rented it! It made me so angry that I almost went to blockbuster right away to get my money back. I should have, since it is a rip off they have that kind of "movies" to rent. I makes me angry the fact I made the director a bit richer by renting it!!! DO NOT WATCH this movie unless you want to waste 5 min of your life (I say 5 minutes since you wont get further than that). It is the worst movie I have ever seen. It looked like those videos the teachers used to make us watch at school to learn Spanish. Do not trust the first reviews of this movie. They are probably written by the actor's (If you can call them that...) family, friends or even themselves...


I have no clue how this movie managed to win 4 awards, especially not a Highly Commended award? The whole movie is laughable, and the acting is so horrible it makes the cast of 7th Heaven look like veterans who've won many Academy Awards (yeah, it's that bad). Save yourself the money and rent other cheesy 80's horror flicks instead of this uninspired "award winning" garbage feast. It lacks subplots and doesn't really seem to know where it wants to go and again the acting is so horrible it overshadows whatever, if any, could have been good. The start is just confusing and doesn't seem to belong to the same movie. The only reason I'd recommend this is to witness what horrible material gets the go-ahead sometimes...


This movie had none of the attributes of a successful horror movie. The dialog was terrible, the acting was atrocious, and the story and set design were none existent. If the objective was to make the worst movie of all time then this movie is indeed a success. At least the title was somewhat accurate since this bomb of a movie could only hold your attention for 13 seconds. I hope the budget for this stinker was kept at under $100; if not then the producers of this garbage should sue the filmmakers for their money back. I would suggest instead of watching this abomination that you wash your dog, go to the dentist, or have a colonoscopy, which would all be preferable to watching this movie.


I am still trying to wrap my brain around the awards this film has won. Yes, it's budget must have been low, yes, the cast and crew must have been classmates, yes a flashlight worked for lighting in Blair Witch... but none of this works here. The acting is beyond atrocious, so bad I was glad the sound wasn't synced. The special effects were... appalling, the script was painful, but the worst of all this horrid, make-shift "film" would be the lighting. It was beyond irritating, it was like using a cheese grater on your knees. It's really clear that the rest of this groups classmates or whatnot have tried desperately to upgrade this bowel movement beyond it's actual potential. It deserves to be flushed, never be seen again.


I wish I could vote in the negative number range, but unfortunately, IMDb does not allow that.

This is the worst film ever to grace a screen in the history of the world. It had absolutely NO redeeming qualities about it. From its lack of terror AND lack of interesting story, to its horrible camera work. We couldn't even get through it. Like the title says, Blockbuster video gave us a refund on the movie PLUS a free rental because they said 5 other people also complained about it. I guess it's not company policy to take movies off the shelves because sure enough, the next time we went in it was still there.

Please save yourself the 20 minutes (that's all you'll be able to get through before turning it off) and DO NOT rent/download/buy this movie.

-55/10 is my rating.


Is this movie some kind of joke? It looks like the camera crew went to best buy and bought a hand-held Sony camcorder to record the whole darn thing! The acting in this movie makes bad soap opera actors look ingenious in their work. I had to pay to rent this?? This movie should be in the FREE box, so then I could take it just to burn it. One guy posted a review that mentioned "I've had turds that were more interesting than this movie", and I think I would agree with that.

When I picked up this movie at the video store it looked decent at first; at the bottom it showed 4 awards from 4 different festivals that looked like this

WINNER, Newy York Independent Film Festival, WINNER Detroit International Horror Film Festival, WINNER, Fantastic Festival of Film UK, WINNER, Barebones International Film Festival

WHAT??? maybe if I make my own low budget film, put absolutely NO effort into it, these film festivals will love my movie as well as this piece of crap.


After reading the reviews that have been written for this god-awful piece of crap, I can't help but think that the only people who have voted for this junk are the people involved with making it.

First off, this movie isn't close to "action-packed." In fact, it's horrendously boring. It's laced with some of the worst acting ever captured straight-to-video, and that bad acting is helped on its journey into the pits of much-deserved obscurity by an editing job that doesn't even deserve to be praised as amateurish. The script seems to have been dreamed up by some religious fundamentalist with a monosyllabic dictionary. The story is terrible, terrible, terrible... just terrible. It's all been done before.

This film is an amateurish rip-off of "Jacob's Ladder" with some bits of a Night gallery episode thrown in (the one with Roddy McDowell as a man who murders his rich uncle and then cowers in his house as a haunted painting depicts the victim returning from the grave to wreak vengeance). Anyone seeing even a few minutes of this lousy excuse for a horror flick will quickly note the BLATANT theft of plot device after plot device from "Jacob's Ladder," right down to the head-swiveling demons -- although this low-budget turkey obviously didn't have money for special effects, so the demons just shake their head from side to side accompanied by sound effects that resemble someone shaking a tin of peanuts.

None of the cast can act worth a damn. Seriously, not a single person in this film EVER delivers a convincing line. "Wooden" is a mild description for how bad the acting is.

I watched this film at a recent horror film fan convention, and at the screening at which I was present there was a continuous stream of groans and jokes directed at this intellectually-insulting, abysmal garbage. There was supposed to be a Q&A session with the director and one of the actors after the screening, but everyone who'd watched fled the theater as quickly as possible ... because nobody cared what those involved with such a TERRIBLE film would have to say about it.

To top it all off, the ending of this movie is not only predictable, but it smacks entirely of religious bigotry and is just plain INSULTING to anyone who isn't a fundamentalist Christian.

In short, the only reason to ever buy a copy of "13 Seconds" is to BURN IT. This is perhaps the worst movie ever made. Having been a fan of obscure, z-grade horror flicks for some 30 years now, I do not say these things lightly. This film has NO redeeming qualities, and should be buried somewhere safe, where it can never see the light of day again.


... horrible, horrible. I made the mistake of picking up this movie at my local rental store based on its cover alone. Big mistake. '13 seconds' sucks on all fronts: the acting, the story, the sound, the camera-work - all sink below any standards I can recall having ever seen on this side of my father's home videos from the 1980's. I'm usually a fan of low budget and independent horror, but in this case there's no redemption possible. The combination of absolutely no talent and next to no budget calls for disastrous results. The only thing scary about this movie is that it actually manages to strike up some positive reviews... truly horrifying!


I'm a big fan of horror movies especially zombie or vampire movies. So I've seen a lot of horror movies and non-horror movies, too. Out of all the movies I have seen in my lifetime, this movie by far is the worse movie I have ever seen. It is so bad in every aspect you could ever imagine. How this movie even got into a blockbuster I will never know.

I've seen some really bad zombie or vampire movies in my time, but this movie ousted those movies by far. Don't get the wrong impression this is not a zombie or vampire movie. It's some dumb plot of a dumb band going to an abandoned art gallery to shoot a video or something!!??? Like come on why???? I mean sure horror movies does have some weird or stupid plot lines but come on this was just retarded.

The camera shots are so awful. Every time someone talked it zoomed into the person's face so the whole movie you see the camera on someones face as they talk no clever camera angles. The actors honestly could have shot the movie anywhere. All they had to do is look directly into a camera a read their lines and an editor just cut and splices their lines to make a conversation. The lighting of the movie is horrible. Like i said all you see the whole movie is the actors faces but majority of the time you only see half their face because the other half is just black or dark. If Jeff Thomas thought that was a cool thing to do he's just a retarded nerd. There are some scenes where its just all black and you really can't make out anything. Bad shots and lighting doesn't even compare to how bad the acting is. You could pick random people off the street and get better acting. These people in this film aren't just normal or bad actors. They're like super anti-acting sucking. Honestly, you couldn't even act to act as bad as these actors were. Their tones are monotone the whole movie and the script is so unnatural and awkardward (yeah it's misspelled this horrible movie must have killed my brain cells).

Although I do come on this site a lot to check things out I never ever registered for an account, but after watching this movie I made an account just so that I could post this comment. If I can get just one person to read my comment and save them from watching this movie, I can know that I truly made this world a better place. Honestly, DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! SAVE YOURSELF!!! YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!!! If there was a movie out there that could make people commit suicide, this would be the movie. I never actually said this before in my life and truly meant it but, Jeff Thomas should be shot if he makes another movie and there should be laws enacted to prevent this guy from making movies especially if he decides to be the main character. What's worse Jeff Thomas's movies or his acting????? By now you actually might want to see the movie just from curiosity of how really bad could it be, but DON'T!. Worse movie ever. Some things are better left unknown don't let curiosity overcome you. STAY AWAY.

This movie should be the worse rated movie on IMDb, but it seems like jeff thomas and his friends came on here made random accounts and posted up fake comments and ratings for this movie so people could be mislead to watch this horrible movie. There are comments who gave this movie ten stars!!!!! get the $%#@ out of here. Those are fake. Any comment with more then 2 stars is definitely a fake comment to trick people and boost it's ratings up so it wouldn't be the worst rated movie on IMDb.


My father in law bought some kind of stock in this movie. (I think he made a bad investment.) That is how I came across it. At first, the story is confusing and you are wondering what in the world is going on. They do not explain anything at all in the beginning. On several occasions, I was about to shut this movie off but do not. The story only gets better with time. More secrets are revealed Later in the movie. They movie is choppy with the scenes and is very hard to follow. The acting killed the movie. It was the worst acting I have ever seen. The characters talk in the same tone even when someone is ripped open right in front of them. This is definitely a low budget film. The only good things are the surprises and the gore. It could have been a good movie with decent acting and a bigger budget.

Grades: Acting: D- (This would be an F but Jeff Thomas does a decent job as the lead) Suspense: C- Sometimes this movie was too slow sometimes it was too fast Gore: B- This was the best part Story: C It sucked at first but revealed a lot in the end Characters: D You had no clue who was a main character or if they were dead Overall: C- had the potential to be good but nothing was explained well Do not buy this movie! If you see it on a shelf at blockbuster, rent it along with some other horror flicks you never heard of and compare them. This movie is not worth five bucks to own. The acting is one reason to see this movie. ( IT is so horrible it is worth more than the movie itself.


I rented this horrible B movie last night before checking out people's comments first.I will never make that mistake again.I couldn't even get a credit for another DVD after asking for a one at the video store because it's just their stupid policy not too because it's a renter beware thing or something.I thought the opening scene was a bit funny but knew from there it was no horror and could not get into it because it dragged on and was boring as hell.It was filmed in the same cheap same format as a daytime soap opera.I trusted the stupid cover art when it said nothing but good things about this movie.Even Fangoria gave it praise.I'm not sure I wanna read Fangoria anymore after being mislead.I don't understand how it could win anything.The idiot who made this film has no taste and it never should have even found distribution. Don't waste your time or money on this!


This movie aside from being completely horribly made. Lacked any real plot,one minute there supposed to be making a video. The next they're playing f***ing Scooby Doo. It lacks all meaning and the horrible scene where the characters do heroine is... Well there are no words to describe the apparent acted reaction of the actors. Not only that, but there is a scene in the movie where the characters attempt to nail a door shut, that opens in the other direction... The audio and visual of this trash fest was both poor and horrible. One of the characters spent the whole movie chewing on someone else's tooth. I wouldn't even suggest watching 13 seconds of it. The poorly edited pictures that were supposed to give hints as to what would happen next, where done in two different mediums and did not make any sense.


So this is another one of those crappy low budget horror movies, that tries to make you think. I have news for you, when it comes to low budget we want slashers, zombies or something with blood. If you're gonna make us set through GOD-AWFUL acting then at least give us something to keep us occupied...like umm i dunno - a damn story perhaps.

I love low budget horror movies, but they cant take 20 grand and try to make The Sixth Sense or something out of it. So many people go on and on about giving them some credit because it is AFTER ALL...A low budget movie - BULLS**T -- OK I am as lenient as can be for that fact, but thats no excuse for the bad acting and poor direction and most of all the story... Why do these people even attempt to make a movie for, because they have a camera and no job which leaves them with lots of time and they try to throw some crappy effects in and make a movie. Bad idea.

I'm glad that someone liked it, but it was just lazy in my opinion.

The only good thing about this one was that people were dying and there was blood. It started off so good, then they got to the house altogether and man did the suck start flying. The acting killed this movie... I admit I only watched like 45 minutes to an hour of it.. it sucks that bad


I bought 13 seconds from my local BlockBuster straight outta the old previously viewed section. The cover art looked good and I thought I'd give it a try.

From the very beginning of the movie due to the way this film was shot you can tell it's a B movie. (Not always a bad thing) Have you ever called in sick from work and been forced to watch daytime T.V. or If you've ever been forced to watch some of the acting on the daytime soaps.... That was better acting than in this movie. ( Over Acting all the way) The story had a small cleverness to it but not enough for me to waste my time again. The effects were B grade. Where the movie really went bad for me was right from the start. In the beginning for no real reason to progress the story the main character shoots up. For me I thought we were suppost to root for the main character. This did two things, First, I'm not gonna root for a junkie not to be killed. Second, through the rest of the movie I found myself wondering if either the main character was just high or if he had died with that needle in his arm. Personally I feel it would have been the smart move to kill off the main character when he shot up. The movie would have been much more enjoyable.


The gore in this film was good. Thats about all the good I can say about this film. I see others saying the acting was good when I read other reviews on this film and I only have to say one thing about that.. What are you people taking? This was the worst acting I have ever seen and I have seen some really bad acting, and the story??? ooh very bad. There where to many hole in the script writing. And everybody is raving about a surprise ending. um mm people......Most film today are going into that direction of weird twisty endings. It's being overdone. All's I have to say about this film that 13 seconds is 13 seconds to long to watch it.


This film infuriated me enough that I'm not certain I can write sensibly about it. So forgive me if I begin to rant. The thing is, this movie blatantly rips off several movies that I love, including "Harold And Maude," "Pump Up The Volume," "Some Kind Of Wonderful," "Sixteen Candles," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Rushmore." It is not an homage to these films. It's simple thievery. And not done by an adept thief, but by an amateur. Meaning the thievery doesn't even work.

The song "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out" was written by Cat Stevens specifically for the film "Harold And Maude" (one of only two songs written for that film, the other being "Don't Be Shy"). In this film it's used twice, the first time as a duet on the piano, just as it's used the first time in "Harold And Maude," which is annoying enough. But the second time, it doesn't fit at all. It's used to end a play - a play that is supposed to be controversial, by the way, but which clearly isn't - written by a student. So Gustin Nash has the student be a thief as well - this poor suicidal character (the suicide attempt, incidentally, is straight out of "Pump Up The Volume," as is Charlie Bartlett's speech near the end and his subsequent arrest - in fact, as he is put into the back of the police car in slow motion, I couldn't help but turn to my friends and say "Talk hard"). So the play within the film ends with a song stolen from a much better film - but doesn't fit at all. Also, they didn't get the lyrics right, but that's insignificant when compared to the larger problems of this movie.

If you do decide to see this film, I suggest a way to enjoy it: shout out the title of the movie each scene is stealing from. I'll give you a hint. When the movie begins - and I mean the second it starts - shout out, "Rushmore." You'll be ahead of the game.

The first scene is the first scene from "Rushmore." A teenager's fantasy about standing in front of his peers, being successful and leading the way - and then getting shaken out of his reverie by a teacher. Actually, the first several scenes are from "Rushmore." The boy gets kicked out of private school, ends up in public school, but still wears the blazer with the private school emblem on it.

But Gustin Nash is not content to steal from just "Harold And Maude" and "Rushmore." We're soon introduced to the bully from "Some Kind Of Wonderful," and - surprise, surprise - he and the main character become friends. And he, like Elias Koteas in the better film, has hidden artistic talent. He can act. So, like in "Rushmore," the bully is in the play at the end of the film. We also have the scene from "Sixteen Candles" where a couple leave a dance to go sit in the backseat of broken car within the building. Of course, before that we're treated to the school bus ride from "Sixteen Candles." That reminds me. There is a school bus sign to let Charlie Bartlett know where to catch the bus, yet no one else gets on at that stop. So why was the sign there? Did the bus always stop there, even when there were no students? Or did they just put the sign up that day for him?

Well, this movie is not the worst film I've ever seen. There is actually some good acting in it, especially by Kat Dennings as Susan, Charlie's love interest, and Tyler Hilton as the bully. And of course Hope Davis is always good. And Robert Downey Jr., an actor I love, does the best he can with the material - but he does fall flat in several scenes, particularly a horrible scene involving him waving a gun around next to his pool. I could go on for several pages about all that is wrong with that scene, but I won't. Because I hope by now I've convinced you to stay far away from this film. Don't let this amateur thief have a hit. Let him fade quietly away.


This has the potential to be a clever, fun movie. There're are a lot of things going on that point out the absurdity of modern teenage life, and the pressures we put kids under so that they achieve our goals.

However, the adults are morons. Rich, successful people are complete fools. Somehow in America you stay poor if you are ugly, but if you are an imbecile with a size 2 dress, you live in a 5,000 sq ft house with a staff of 15 (never seen) who do all the chores. You don't actually learn anything, so you can't pick up on normal social clues that everyone else does - Charlie, for example, gets beaten up in school because he doesn't pick up that a tough guy and his sycophant in the high school bathroom are people to avoid. Instead, he gets beaten up all day long.

And - ha ha, this is so funny - the school principal (Robert Downey) is disconnected to the kids in the school, so they completely disrespect him *and* he doesn't know how badly he is functioning. But he's rich, too, and lives in a 4,000 sq foot house with a staff of 10 (never seen) who do all the chores.

The high school is composed of students who are just about on the lowest margin of functionality and awareness. Not a single one of them is destined to be successful serving fries at a McDonalds, let alone doing anything positive. But they are all on drugs - ha ha! - and they barely can keep themselves from disrobing and "making out" (euphemism for what all high school kids do all the time in Hollywood high schools). They openly smoke cigarettes and dope in school, and Charlie distributes high powered drugs (Ritalin & others) in school. All high schools are like this, of course. Not a single kid has a healthy relationship with any adult, and not any adult has a rational frame of mind.

Ha ha. You just can't get enough of this.

And - ha ha - Charlie can just read up medical books and - poof! - he is smart enough to prescribe drugs *just like a real doctor!* And he does.

*** SPOILER*** Charlie's family has a psychiatrist on-call, and he's bamboozled the Dr. (who went to medical school and psychiatry school but somehow was never warned about manipulative kids) who lets Charlie describe fake symptoms and then prescribes drugs for Charlie, who then sells/distributes the drugs in school. Ha ha. This is so funny.

I gave it a three because it had some good moments - but the cruft around the good is just so awful.

This should have been caught in the editing stage. The editors should have been more on the ball. They could have rescued this film.

Instead, the producers must have intervened, saying "We don't care if this is a failure of a movie. We're on a schedule." Lame movie. Lame script. Some good acting. (Charlie actuall does some good stuff.)


I enjoy a good high school drama as much as the next guy, and I'm quite willing to hold my nose a little bit with regards to originality and believability, but unfortunately, with this movie, the stink penetrated my best nose-blocking efforts.

There is nothing new in this movie at all. There is nothing that is even gently used. It's all been done before, again and again, ad nauseam. And done better. But unoriginality is not this movie's only crime. Worse is the total lack of a believable setting or narrative.

First of all, high school is not like this at all -- this is the Hollywood stereotype high school that we have all become so familiar with over the years in movie after movie, most recently with "17 Again". Why can't they break free of this particular fantasy and create a high school that is just a little more interesting and believable?

Second, you don't have to examine the story very closely to find it wanting. I'm willing to let all kinds of things go for the sake of suspension of disbelief, but this movie just pushes it too far. There's a scene where Charlie and his buddy decide to sell videotapes of students being beaten up, and the whole school goes crazy trying to buy them. I just didn't get it. Another sequence features Charlie visiting psychiatrist after psychiatrist to obtain prescription drugs. Presumably,as a minor, they would consult with his mother before prescribing these drugs, and in fact, it would be very unusual for them to even accept him as a patient without first having contact with a parent -- at very least to arrange for payment (this being the United States). And the things he gets away with in the boys' bathroom? Please.

And third, the stereotype characters. Dear Lord, save us from the same set of stereotypes yet again -- even more crudely and lazily fashioned than they usually are. Go and write the first three to five high school stereotype characters that come to mind on the back of an envelope -- and yup, you're going to see them in this movie. I get the impression that the film makers didn't even try to do anything different with these characters because they were as bored with them as we are.

If I were from this age group, I would be particularly offended by this movie because of the way it portrays teenagers. Dumb, drug-addled, text-messaging sheep. The ill-defined clumsy lesson at the end seems to be something about how parents have to be better, and have to support their kids dumb, drug-addled, text-messaging sheepish ways - or something like that.

The whole movie reeks of "why bother". Redeeming qualities? Well, the actor who plays Charlie Bartlett does a nice job. He's fun to watch. I've always thought Robert Downey Jr. is talented. He deserves better than this movie. I would have to dig really deep to come up with a third one. Ummmm. The architecture of the school is nice.


Mix together Rushmore, Thumbsucker, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, sprinkle in some odd classics but go real light on creativity and originality, and you got Charlie Bartlett. The movie is a mess. Lots of moments stolen from other "High School movies" but no clarity and the movie is completely ridiculous and unrealistic; moments like Charlie (and shortly after the whole school) going completely ape on what was supposedly a LOW dosage of ritalin were very frustrating. But most importantly, it is completely uninspired and surprisingly boring. You know there's something wrong when even Robert Downey Jr. is uninteresting in a character that made me wonder why he chose to do the movie in the first place. Moments like the musical tribute to Harold and Maude ("If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out")just made me think: "Why am I watching this movie; I should be watching that one" which made it very hard to appreciate the few moments that were good.


Story of a spoiled rich kid who begins to sell Ritalin and advice to the student body of his new high school. In doing so he begins to find himself and his life.

What you think of the film will depend on what you think of Anton Yelchin as Bartlett. To some he's a charming rogue, to me he comes off as an insufferable twit in the same way that Frank Albertson could be annoying in the B movies of the 1930's and 40's. I found him abrasive and had an impossible time getting through the film. To be certain the film is witty but with out a central character you care about all the clever lines in the world will fall flat, which was what happened here. In all honesty give me Juno any day.


I really wanted this movie to succeed, but it didn't. What started out as a mildly interesting premise grew into a disturbing and strange movie about a prep school drop-out making his way in a regular school by treating and prescribing for the mental health of his fellow students. It was not funny nor amusing nor entertaining. The acting struggled in several scenes, but the most obvious deficit is the lack of emotional connection between the characters. Our lead, Charlie, has a romantic interlude with the lead female character, the principal's daughter, and I couldn't imagine a more sterile, unromantic joining. They barely seem connected or interested in each other, and yet we're led to believe that they've made love. It's strange and pathetic. I felt like I was watching a movie trying to be a play trying to be significant, and it just wasn't. I'm sorely disappointed and wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone.


If you do not care about quality acting or cinematography, this movie might just be for you. If you love cheesy characters who are anything but believable, this movie is for you. If you love the cheesy plot structure of a Disney movie and consider yourself to be intellectually worthless, you're only a ticket away from mindless bliss. If you find overweight goth girls attractive, well... you get the point. There are several 'fight scenes' in this movie which look as realistic as Sonny beating up Carlo in the Godfather. Note that this movie was made in 2007. Charlie is able to trick his 'psychiatrist' into prescribing him all manner of drugs. Somehow his psychiatrist doesn't see a problem with Charlie taking drugs for almost every defined psychological disorder. I wonder if he got his degree at the same place as the director. Life as a high schooler is portrayed in an absurdly cliché way. There is a bully, a drama geek, a suicidal kid, and of course a principal. The principal is the most unrealistic character (aside from Charlie) in the movie. The principal is an unrealistically normal person until he decides to get liquored up and fire a pistol into the sky above his suburban neighborhood. Of course Charlie dates the principal's daughter. You can't have a cheesy movie without the father vs. boyfriend and principal vs. mischievous student relationships. In the end, the moral of the story is "Hey! Charlie Bartlett is just a kid! You can't expect much from a kid, can you?" Whatever kid has the charisma and public speaking skills to influence and control his flock-of-sheep high school class isn't a kid to me.


I was initially excited about seeing El Topo. Not only had it received excellent critical reviews, but I also found various postings on the Internet praising the film as a masterpiece. Well, I'm here to say that this is a vastly overrated student art film.

The symbolism is overdone and sophomoric at best. In fact, it is as if the director thought symbolism could be substituted for plot and character development, forgetting that these are tools used to enhance them. Also, the overly hackneyed and simplistic symbolism takes away from the surreal experience that the director intended to create. It was akin to viewing the subconscious of a mental midget: weird but boring as all hell!!

I'm not even going to dwindle on the violence. It goes without saying that over time it has lost its shock value. However, it was not necessarily gratuitous--although the symbolism was--and did add to the story.

Overall, if you like freaky stuff for the sake of freakishness, this film is up your alley. But, if you want more substance and meaningful development avoid El Topo at all possible cost. I know I want those two hours of my life back!


To say that Jodorowsky uses symbolism in this film is an understatement. There is no plot; it's all symbolism, a Biblical allegory exploring themes that only Jodorowsky and his fans can appreciate. The script, if it could be called that, is amateurish and pointless, featuring random acts of violence, which veers from silly to repellent. The self-indulgent Jodorowsky may be called a poor man's Sergio Leone, but doing so would be an insult to the Italian master. The acting is uniformly terrible, including Jodorowsky himself in the title role, a la The Man With No Name. Films like this give surrealism a bad name.


Watching this film because of John Lennon's endorsement and a short synopsis I had read, I found myself very upset about what I saw and disappointed with the story as a whole (particularly the second half = the acting and plot went downhill very quickly). While the visuals, for the most part, are amazing and hauntingly desolate/strange...the film quickly became an unsettling, pretentious mess. First, the entire film is a biblical allusion (Old and New Testament), which would be great...BUT Jodorowsky's religious references are so blatant and redundant that they become annoying, tired and expected (like moral ground in a Disney cartoon geared toward a six year old). Secondly, there are hundreds of dead mutilated, mostly real animals throughout the entire film making it one to watch on an empty stomach (I actually do biomedical research using rats, which I have to dissect biweekly for brain and spinal tissue, and the animal carnage still gave me a foul taste in my mouth). Thirdly, the physics don't make any sense at all (a certain thrown knife that impossibly kills a baddie...as well as other incidences that make you say "what...but how???". Finally, what makes me most ashamed for watching this film, is the gratuitous, undignified and disrespectfully dark humor use of actual maimed and deformed (by birth defects) people throughout the entire film. A perfect example of this is a part where a man with no arms reaches for a gun in his holster.

So before you buy...I strongly recommended renting it. And if you really want a slick, surrealist gunfight film, try Branded To Kill by Seijun Suzuki (so strangely wonderful, he was fired for making it).


***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I was perusing the Foreign section of the local video store of rare and hard to find films when I saw "El Topo" sitting plainly on the shelf. My heart rose, as I had heard much about the film and wanted to see it very much -- plus it is so hard to find and JESUS CHRIST it was sitting right there!

I took it home and watched it right away. I was extremely disappointed. Folks, there is a reason why this movie is so hard to find, let me tell you...

(SPOILERS)

The first half of this movie has the main character El Topo with his young son riding through the desert where they encounter various violent wierdnesses. The first is a barn in the middle of nowhere with mutilated human and cattle all over the place. Only one man is left - he is lying on the ground, wounded, and begging for El Topo to put him out of his misery. El Topo gives his gun to the seven-year-old boy, who kills the man. Nice, right? This is just one of the many pointless situations they get themselves into. After this, they arrive somewhere else, and then somewhere else, again and again, just for more unexplained violence, without any other plot, explanation, or transition between these episodes.

The second half begins after El Topo is shot dead. We are taken to yet another remote village in the desert (again, without any explanation or reason whatsoever). A few scenes stand out in my head:

1.) A man is slaving over a group of women in some sort of salon. They all seem to be hitting on him, wanting him to fool around with them. Eventually, one of the women drops something, and when he bends over to pick it up for her, she pulls him to her inner thigh and then starts screaming out that he is advancing on her without her consent. The other women rush over and start hitting him, then sexually abusing HIM, all the while shouting at him to stop raping them. He is dragged outside by the town's men where he is hung and shot.

2.) In some sort of room, a bunch of townspeople are passing around a gun loaded with one blank bullit (which they pretend is real) and pretend to play Russian roulette. Everyone misses the blank bullit, and shouting out that they are holy for being so lucky. The son of El Topo (who has found his way to this village and now grown into a man) takes the gun, removes the blank and replaces it with a real bullit. He then does a round of roulette on himself and survives. The people love it. They pass around the gun, pulling the trigger on themselves, surviving. Each time, they shout out praises to God and what not. In all the excitement, a young child grabs the gun and shoots himself in the head and dies.

If these scenes are supposed to mean something, I sure as hell missed the point.

(END OF SPOILERS)

It's not that I don't like Jodorowsky's work, or am weak-stomached. I adore SANTA SANGRE and would recommend it to anyone. It's just that the film seems to exploit unpleasantness as if it were a valuable asset in a film. It does so without entertainment, shock-value, or any other form of success and just comes off as a waste of the little time and money it might have cost to make it. It is offensive for that reason - offensively bad.

Anyone who is on this website must appreciate good films. I know I do. There is so much else to apply your mind to, ladies and gentlemen. Go out and rent something worth your while. Don't rent this crap just because it's rare and "notorious". That's why I rented it, but that's not why I didn't like it. Even for those who pursue hard-to-find videos, like me: beware. This is pretty lousy film-making.


A company of British soldiers are sent to Bosnia under the auspices of UNPROFOR , the United Nations Protection Force

I`ve looked through this page and have been amazed to see the praise WARRIORS has received . I hated this teleplay down to the highly inaccurate points on screen . Yes Muslims were massacred and murdered in central Bosnia in 1993 as shown here , the only thing is that they weren`t murdered and massacred by Serbs , they were murdered and massacred by Croats ! WARRIORS would have you believe that the only people committing war crimes were Serbs. Did anyone remember Martin Bell`s BBC report from 1993 about the massacre in Amichi where scores of Bosnian Muslims woman and children amongst them were rounded up and burned alive ? It was Croats who were responsible for that atrocity and Croats themselves were the victims of Muslim war crimes in the region . Central Bosnia where the British UNPROFOR were based in Travnik , Gornji Vakuf , and Vitez is a region with very few Serbs with the ethnic composition being almost entirely Croat and Bosnian Muslim . It was the scene of the very bloody ( And now forgotten ) " Muslim - Croat war " of 1992 to 1994 . If you think I`m apologising for the Serbs I`m not , try and track down news reports at the time , go into a libary with a large archive and look through newspaper reports from 1992 to 1994 , read accounts like The Fall Of Yugoslavia by Mish Glenny , talk to British soldiers who were there and you`ll find out little of the crimes ( And they were crimes ) were done by Serbs though they were guilty of terrible crimes elsewhere in the region

This annoyance is not only down to ignoring facts , it`s also down to director Peter Kosminsky trying to set some hidden agenda . When WARRIORS was broadcast Kosminsky was appearing on every current affairs show saying the role of British and Western forces should be used for humanitarian intervention . Britain and America bombed Serbia to stop Serbs murdering Muslims in Kosovo , Britain and America invaded Iraq to overthrow a murderous right wing secular Arab regime that was murdering Muslims in Southern Iraq . I wonder if Kosminsky was for both these interventions ? It should also be remembered Kosminsky made the anti war documentary THE FALKLANDS - THE UNTOLD STORY about a black and white conflict , so for him to make a pro interventionist drama about a deeply complex war is very hypocritical

WARRIORS is only worth watching to see Damien Lewis and Ioan Gruffodd when they were both unknown actors


All of the good reviews I've seen on here make me think that none of them have read Ed Gorman's book that the movie was adapted from. I think they got the idea and the character's names right, but it stopped right there. The Poker Club was a great book, I don't know why they didn't just keep to the original story and not make it predictable and stupid, like they did. Schaech needs to stick with acting and forget about screen-writing. Glad I just rented this pile of crap and didn't buy it. The whole part of the movie about both Jan and Aaron both having affairs was just pointless. I understand a movie can't be made as detailed as a book, but come on! If your'e going to adapt a movie from a book, at least stick to the story or come up with your own damn idea.


Johnathon Schaech stars and co-wrote the 'teleplay' for this movie,It is from a novel by Ed Gorman.This is a mystery story that could have been much better. The general tale has been done too many times already to maintain any suspense or real mystery.

Another point that dooms this film is that none of the people are very good or interesting & I for one was unable to care one bit on what occurred. NOTE I have not mentioned any of the cast names

As I said in the above summary the best thing is the running time.including credits only 82 minutes.

The acting is only fair, same for the production, there is nothing I can recommend here.

OK I have my 10 lines,.

Ratings: ** (out of 4) 52 points(out of 100) IMDb 4 (out of 10)


Johnathon Schaech has definitely got talent, writing and acting in this although it was a mediocre film. The plot seems all too easy and done plenty of times before, but it still somewhat keeps your interest. It was obviously not a Hollywood hit with a huge budget, but for what they had, I believe it turned out OK.

The story follows a lead character Aaron(Johnathon Schaech)and his response to him and his friends killing a burglar on their poker night. They make a commonly used film move and dump the body and get rid of the evidence. Things begin happening to the people involved in this murder and evidence points to our lead character as a determined and suspicious detective (Judy Reyes) investigates Johnathon's character. The plot leads us to an interesting, but non-surprising twist in the end which leaves the audience questioning elements about Aaron's wife and her actions. Johnny Messner once again plays an obnoxious character who is not too likable, for reasons explained in the film. Overall, wasn't too bad considering, but there's definitely better straight to DVD features out there to watch.

Obvious why it's a DVD feature, but still have to give credit to Johnathon Schaech for his drive and determination to adapt this screenplay and get it made.


Cyclone's plot features a group of people stranded at sea after a cyclone rolls through leaving them with little water or food. The movie examines the lengths these people will go through to survive. I have now seen three films directed by Rene Cardona, Jr. and Cyclone is easily my least favorite. While it has its moments of weirdness, overall it is neither as sleazy as Tintorera nor as bizarre as The Treasure of the Amazon. For the most part, it's just plain dull and nowhere near as fun as the other two Cardona movies I mentioned. Add to that some bad acting, bad special effects, bad gore, and a bad script and you've got the makings for a bad movie.

Animal lovers beware. Cyclone features one scene in particular that is as cruel a scene as I've ever seen. I realize that the animal probably wasn't hurt, but I found it repulsive nonetheless.


Having seen this film twice now - which some might find unbelievable or even masochistic - I felt I had to comment on it. It's easy to pan. The music is cheesy. In fact, as my wife suggested, it sounds like a porn flick. The dialog is downright juvenile if not stupid. Its runtime is way too long. I could go on but you get the idea. So why did I watch it twice? Well, one of my guilty pleasures is bad movies and I am a devoted fan of Carroll Baker and this movie fit both bills. Strangely enough the second time around I found much to like. The underwater scenes were really well done, especially those of the corals which were absolutely spectacular. The sharks were awesome, shown in all their predatory splendor and captivating ferocity. The cyclone scenes were also really cool, especially the ones of the seawall breaking and subsequent flooding. My guess is they were filming a real cyclone as these were not studio or miniature shots. And of course it starred Carroll Baker, still a knockout at 47, even without a hint of makeup. And Arthur Kennedy, at 64, in another trademark performance. Seeing him in this megalomaniac turkey was akin to a pilgrimage. To be honest, had it not been for these two actors I would not have bothered to see the film let alone review it.


Rene Cardon's grim, but not entirely terrible rip-off of JAWS, HURRICANE, AIRPORT, etc. A plane crashes and the survivors are rescued by a pleasure boat. There's too many people on board, so...it's gross and very silly. Nevermind the fact that the production values stink, it's actually kind of bizarre wondering why the great Arthur Kennedy is in this thing. Is this the same multi-Oscar nominated actor from SOME CAME RUNNING, TRIAL and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA?!? Carroll Baker appears as well(and is way too old at this point to be seen in a bathing suit). Clearly these faded stars needed a paycheck. The best that can be said is that it's better than Cardon's SURVIVE! Lionel Stander is in it too.


René Cardona Jr made the overlong, boring and trashy shark flick Tintorerra a year before he went to make this overlong, boring and trashy disaster/survival flick with sharks thrown in. I can only imagine that the director was a real big fan of Steven Spielberg's Jaws as this is his second shark flick where sharks are not the main focus, and by rights don't actual have a real part to play in the story. I am thankful to say that he has ditched the soap opera elements of Tintorerra in favour of some more exploitative survival style elements, and it's slightly more interesting; although really the film is a mess and far to boring to entertain. The plot focuses on an airplane full of people that crashes during a storm. The survivors get themselves onto a small boat and are swept out to sea, but it's not long before hunger starts setting in, and this in turn sets off arguments between the survivors as they realise that they have to eat...something. However, their hunger isn't the only thing they are under threat from, as there's sharks in the vicinity too.

The plot actually sounded like it might lead to something decent, and I dare say it would have done in the hands of a decent director. However, René Cardona Jr is obviously not one of those and he manages to turn the whole thing on its head and ensures that nothing about the film is likable. The idea of people being forced into cannibalism is interesting; but the characters are boring and the overall atmosphere is far too impressive for the film to be enjoyable at the same time. There are some real unpleasant scenes in the film, and while this might have pleased some people; they are not done very well at all and a scene that sees a man kill a dog, for example, looks incredibly fake and stupid. The location used is just about the only successful element; as we see the people baking in the hot sun and this helps to get their desperate situation across. Anyone going into this film is liable to be extremely disappointed as there are no sharks at all for most of the film (excluding some stock footage) and they don't appear until the last ten minutes. By then, it would have taken something really special to create some excitement, but predictably; we are only served more disappointment.


You'd have to be a truly unscrupulous and slightly decadent Mexican trash-director in order to take a real-life human tragedy, like that of the plane crash in the Andes, and maximally exploit its storyline and horrific elements. René Cardona Sr. already directed a fairly truthful and impressive re-enactment of the real disaster in 1976 ("Survive!), but apparently his own son was jealous at the money-making concept and decided to make pretty much exactly the same film, only set in a *slightly* warmer climate and with a handful of sharks thrown in for additional menace. The result is a preposterous and severely unpleasant film that falsely aspires to be an intense drama, but actually it's just shameless excuse to depict the mental downfall of people and slowly build up towards cannibalism for the sake of survival. "Cyclone" opens with cheerful postcard images of a sunny holiday resort where tourists make boat excursions near the coastline. Then the calamity displayed in the title brutally interrupts the holiday spirit and, for several long minutes, Cardona Jr. simply edits together a compilation of random National Geographic documentary images to illustrate the harshness of the cyclone. Castaways from a tourist excursion and a fisherman's boat, as well as survivors of a sea-crashed plane gather together in a tiny sloop and face several long days of hunger, mental & physical exhaustion, desiccation, hopelessness and of course the inevitably increasing feelings of mutual hatred and competition. If all this painful human suffering isn't enough yet, the waters are also infested with bloodthirsty tiger sharks. After nearly a dozen days of despair, some of the survivors see no other option than to feed on the flesh of the deceased, but this socially sensitive suggestion really tears the group apart. Like I said, "Cyclone" is an incredibly unpleasant viewing experience and it hardly appeals to any cinematic target group. The film is far too heavy-toned for horror fanatics but simultaneously it's too uneven to please disaster-film freaks and too repulsive for admirers of dramas. The characters are bleak and the script draws their personalities rather inconsistently. Carroll Baker's character, for example, is initially portrayed as a real bitch that protects her poodle from the burning sun rather than to rescue fellow human beings, but when the climax approaches she suddenly transformed into one of the most amiable people on board. Same problem with Arthur Kennedy's priest character! At first he's comprehensive and helpful, but later it actually seems as if he wants to prevent people from saving themselves. Do not, repeat NOT, raise your expectations too much regarding the shark sub plot. The exact same shark footage is shown no less than four times and, if my memory serves me well, these scenes also already featured in Cardona's other sea-adventure "Tintorera". The last half hour of this extremely overlong (120minutes) exploitation ordeal is literally disgusting and actually discouraging for those who were still expecting a happy ending. The gore and bloodshed is shocking, indeed, but you can't possibly neglect the many moments of boredom and the overall execution of "Cyclone" is downright tasteless and sick.


Where to start? Appalling dialogue which is barely audible, 'acting' on a par with a junior school Nativity play, no budget, bad lighting, shocking editing... the list of faults is endless.

The story, of which there is precious little, concerns a group of 6 friends on a journey to Norwich, who's car runs out of petrol in the middle of nowhere and are offered shelter for the night in a country mansion house. And that's pretty much it.

Throw into this heady mix a bit of Devil Worshipping and the obligatory retarded cook/manservant come dogsbody and the slutty maid, and you have a perfectly good idea as to why the British film industry is in such a bad way these days.

80% of the, thankfully short, running time is made up of badly choreographed sex scenes, which begs the question was this made as a short intentionally, or is there a longer hardcore version floating around that was made for international distribution, as at the time, here in the UK, there were almost Draconian laws governing what could and couldn't be shown on screen in an adult movie. Looking at the way the majority of the cuts appear on screen this would seem the case, though on the other hand it could just be a bad movie. Directed by the guy who we all now know as Ben Dover and starring his girlfriend, former Penthouse Pet Linzi Drew, this also makes you think there's more been filmed than the running time listed offers. The remainder of the running time consists of some badly lit Satanic Ritual that could have been quite effective, but like the rest of the film is just poorly executed. While sex movies were all simulated here, home video was wholly unregulated, which in later years would bring up the furore over the so called 'Video Nasties' and the introduction of the Video Recordings Act, so as this movie was made in 1981, a little imagination and a little more money could have made an effective adult chiller.

As a horror film it fails miserably, basically because there is none. Again as a sex film, considering what was going on in the rest of Europe and the USA at the time, it's light years behind the times, but again, that can only be attributed to the laws of the land at the time, but on an exploitative level it very nearly works, it's just the right side of sleazy and cheesy to make it worth trying to track a copy down, if for no other reason than to pick fault with the way certain pieces of music have been put to bad use.

As the credits finish we are treated to a final screen that flashes up 'COMING SOON - DEATH SHOCK II'. Fortunately, 20 odd years later, we're still waiting.


I spent 15 years trying to find this film before finally picking up a UK pre certificate tape of it.

Well it was pretty much just as I expected it to be.Lots of soft core action with obscured viewing angles and action just out of screen etc. In fact you could be forgiven for calling this a soft core Ben Dover since the director Steve Perry went on to create the Ben Dover series and this plays exactly like a Ben Dover film. You do get the feeling that there are hardcore scenes that have been removed but I don't know of a stronger version.

Not really worth the £50 I paid for it (uk pre certificate tapes are very collectible) but a worthy addition to my collection none the less.


I am a huge fan of Jeff Bridges, so I rented this to explore his early career. Boy was I disappointed. Not that Jeff was bad. Rather, his character was simply boring. But what makes this movie so disappointing is the horrible script and the moronic character played by John Heard. Heard's character Alex was absurd and over the top. There's nothing artistic about playing a bitter drunken amputee. Why are people so impressed when an actor portrays a intoxicated lout who lacks self control? Where's the talent in shouting and stumbling and acting like a fool? Playing such a character doesn't appear to require much acting for many of Hollywood's "talent".

But even if Heard had delivered an Oscar worthy performance, the horrid screenplay cannot prevent this film's inevitable fate in the bottom of the garbage can. It is linear and plods along as if the writer didn't know what to do next, I fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through the movie and had to finish watching "the riveting climax" the next day. This "riveting climax" (the horse scene) is so ridiculous that I'm laughing as I think about it now. The screenplay appeared to have been written by someone with no creativity, no clarity, no logic. After viewing this crap from start to finish, I can understand why it was so quickly forgotten. The only thing more pathetic than this movie are all those people who wrote such raving reviews about it. Yet, ironically, these wannabe movie critics are very nearly at the top of the movie critic profession... raving about movies no one wants to see.

Despite this misstep, Jeff Bridges is still one of my favorites.


Warning: Spoilers

Two parts of the movie really irked me:

1) When Gwen is trying to seduce Caleb, she says something about him trying "normal" sex first. For someone whose best friend is gay, that seems like a pretty homophobic thing to say, as if gay sex is not "normal," but straight sex is. 2) After the horrible things Gwen has to say about Kyle at the end, Caleb (who earlier professed how much he cares for Kyle) doesn't even bat an eye and still wants to be with Gwen.

Gwen is a bad person, the acting is bad, the story weak; it's only good for admiring Ryan Carnes' and Scott Lunsford's hot bods. Just rent it and watch with the sound off.


I just got in from watching this movie with a friend of mine. Though, he laughed at maybe 3 jokes this movie tried to force feed us I'd have to say we were more amused and embarrassed by this movie if we had to explain why others heard us laugh. The dialog was wretched. It was Buffy-like speak and at the beginning it was way over done. I had to turn to my friend and ask him if we as gay men were expected to talk like this all the time. The acting was over the top by almost all the actors save for Caleb which was so understated that it made his passive character seem like a doormat. I think the only character that was remotely interesting was Tiffany (the dildo-wielding gal) since we could understand why she had to be over the top. There's nothing to expect from her as a character.

The two lead guys are hot to watch but not much to write home about when it comes to their acting abilities. The blonde gal with the freaky hair at the end was excruciating. If I were her roommate I would have moved out a long time ago and changed Social Security numbers. The worst was that whole dinner scene with the parents. Talk about the need for acting classes and while we're at - directing classes or a whole new 4 year degree at another film school.

As far as the nude scene by the two guys, while it was gratuitous I say why the hell not? Women are subjected to this 50 times more than men are in mainstream movies. It's time the USA caught up with the rest of the world when it comes to the nude male form in film. I keep thinking Jack Valenti sitting in his personal screening room sweating bullets at the mere thought of a man's penis flashed in his face. It is what is and while it didn't add anything to this film or speak highly of the director's creative acumen it at least is a step in the right direction for the male form in cinema.


This new interpretation just does not flow as well as the original. If you have never seen the original, then you may just become confused as to what this movie is all about. I highly recommend that you see the original and get the DVD if you can. The DVD is not great quality and the pictures are blurred and have lots of shadows, but it is a great story. The original scared a lot of people, this new version will only confuse them.

I sure wish that they had followed the original story line more closely.