No offense to Mamie, she's a lovely, voluptuous woman. But her acting chops are minor at best, and she should never, EVER try to sing. Not that any of the 'hip' youthful songs in this movie were any good at all. The plot, about a town in a cotton pickin' county, is rather lame, involving a dishonest female judge and a sleazy cotton grower. Oil-hair boy has seduced the judge (a woman old enough to be his mother) into changing the city laws so that people can be arrested for even minor infractions such as jay-walking and then be sent to his cotton farm as free labor. There are plenty of 'interesting' lesser characters, such as the leering deputy who arrest mamie and her sister at the swimming hole, the drunken overseer, and the greasy chow cook with the pumpkin pie fetish. Why they call this film 'Untamed Youth' I don't know since most of these kids seemed really drab and half-asleep most of the time??? Rounding this out this cast was a woman whose purpose I wasn't really sure about and whose sex was indeterminate, since she looked like Greg Brady in a dress and wig. When these 'criminals' weren't slaving in the field, they were rockin' the house, although you'd think they'd be exhausted after all that physical labor. Unfortunately, no. We were treated to many, many scenes of bad singing and 'dancing'.

There was a subplot with one of the girls who was five months pregnant and whose nickname just happened to be baby. She dropped dead from a miscarriage, making you wonder if the director had a king-sized trowel for laying on the morality tale. To top it all off, the underscoring soundtrack was of the soft core porn variety, heavy on the sleazy trumpet.

These youth films of the late fifties, early sixties, were a curious phenomenon. It was as though the adults of the time sensed the coming of the hippie generation and were trying to hold on to their old way of life by brainwashing the youth of America into being good. I don't know who their intended audience was since I'm fairly sure none of the targeted teen types would have gone to see them. ???


One of those late late late show movies on cable that you watch when you cant sleep or have nothing better to do. Truly abysmal movie has

a crazed vietnam vet and his girlfriend terrorizing the patrons of a small diner. What are Hal Linden and Lee Grant doing here?,they deserve so much better. Parts of this movie got so bad that I had to laugh especially at Marjoe Gortners hamming it up badly. Spoiler.. Yes folks the bad guy does get blown away at the end in a stupid duel.

I think some have called this a cult classic,Id call it bottom feeder material.Every once in a while we all watch really bad movies and this is below bad.


If it weren't for a recent viewing of the American produced version of the local comedy "He Died With A Felafel In His Hand" I would have had to say that 'Red Ryder was easily the most excruciatingly poor film I have ever seen.

My nightmare scenario would be to suffer sudden total paralysis in front of a TV when this movie comes on and therefore to be unable to either suicide or destroy the television, rather than watch it again.


Ronnie (Adam Scott, who'd later go on to parts in Step Brothers & the Matador) is a sad sack loser of a guy who works at a halfway house for the mentally disabled. He grows infatuated by Sara, one of the residents when he spies her naked n the bathroom. So much is his fondness that later when he sees her standing in the middle of the street (she had wondered out of the house) he decides to take her back to his mom's place (where he lives, mom's in the hospital after falling out of a taxi) for some nookie. Things get complicated when Ronnie's druggie brother, fresh out of prison, shows up a day early and decides to party with his equally pathetic friends. Meanwhile the other helper at the Halfway house is looking for Sara.

The movie started out with an intriguing premise, but soon devolved into something else entirely. Everyone in the film acts insanely stupid and none of their actions make much sense even under the lightest of scrutiny. By the end (which was such a WTF moment that I ceased to exist caring) I was though even trying to care what the hell was going on. The film felt more like a series of random story ideas thrown out there and less like a coherent plot. I'm positive there's a good story to be told of a mentally handicapped person who's kidnapped by a social worker for nefarious sexual purposes, but this movie just isn't it.

Eye Candy: Fini Goodman shows T&A but her character is mental

My Grade: D

Where I Saw it: instant Netflix via Xbox 360


First and foremost I want to say that I am not disrespecting the people that organized this film or the actors. They are doing what they gotta do I guess. I do believe some people in this movie have talent, but it's not being expressed.

It seem like black cinema has reached an all time low. This is the most stereotypical movie to come out since "Birth Of A Nation" but yet it's embraced by the black community for one and Hollywood seems to be OK with it. Why? Is it because it represents every stereotype out there about black people. My aunt enjoyed this movie while my father and I were the only ones who realized how offensive this was.

This movie is about a young, fat, extra dark, illiterate, welfare, woman who loves chicken,is getting molested by her father,and has two kids. Is this all black filmmakers can do today? We come off as monolithic because we're always falling into the bag every time. I can watch the news every day and see these representations of black people. And this is suppose to be inspirational? Anyone could of made this movie. The script literally seemed like the whole movie was improvised. If the girl precious drops a crumb on the floor her mother literally goes into 100% ghetto mode. "You ain't sh*t you fat b****. That's why nobody wants your fat, black a**.You fat ugly b**** you ain't never gonna be nothing in life". I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not. We've got to get beyond promoting ignorance. And it wouldn't be as m=bad if we saw a balance in black cinema, but this is all we're seeing.

But on the other hand the black audience embraced it. But when a positive movie like "The Great Debaters" or "The Miracle at St. Anna" come out we don't support it. Let's wake up and see a wider view of what black people are capable of and stop supporting everything that's a stereotype.


'Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire' is a film typical of this time of year; award season.

Unfortunately, that's the only reason Lee Daniels made this picture; to scoop sympathetic awards from the Oscar and Golden Globe panels.

'Precious' is a shallow, cold-hearted film that basically a two-hour advert for child abuse, it's a sick way to guilt-trip Western audiences into donating money to charities and other money-squeezing organizations.

They even had the cheek to get Oprah Winfrey to present the film which tells the audience only one thing; we want your money.

It's a disgusting picture that deserves no awards and no praise. It's utter self-obsessed rubbish that made me angry to watch, it makes the audience feel responsible for Precious' appalling lifestyle.

Admittedly, it's very well performed, Mo'Nique is quite extraordinary but she doesn't deserve the Oscar, that should go to Anna Kendrick for 'Up in the Air', but sadly that won't happen.

And what's up all this stuff about it being uplifting and heart-warming? Have you actually watched the film? She's obese, illiterate, a victim of incest rape, pregnant, beaten, and she gets AIDS? Yeah, mega uplifting. It's hardly believable too.

All in all, I really don't get why people are raving this film so much, it's long-winded, dire, depressing and frustrating.

The only reason I've given it 2 stars is because of the performances.

Just diabolical.


This is a movie that is about being vulgar, hateful, and worthless. It in no way is an inspiration to anyone. There are people out there that live this way, but why promote it as a way of life? There needs to be more family friendly movies instead of this kind of garbage that actually perpetuates damaged families and their lack of importance to each other. Some families are broken as shown in this movie, but unfortunately, those same families will walk away from watching this movie feeling vindicated in living this lifestyle rather than seeing this as an embarrassment to their lifestyle. I have known people like this in my lifetime, and they would completely take this as, "...yep, this is my life and there's nothing wrong with it; they even made a movie about it." I HATED this movie. I want to bring good values to my family and friends. I don't want to validate this stuff. I don't want to ignore it and pretend that it doesn't exist, but it's better to help people who are like this than to make a glorified movie about it.


I'll admit, I didn't even want to see this movie after reading the synopsis. I could tell right off the bat it was going to be one of THOSE movies (you all know what I'm talking about). Well I got pressured into it by a group of women who all thought it was so "real and raw and emotional" and were sharing tissues to wipe their tears while I sat there thinking "really? I PAID for this?". I could have gone to Oakland and watched people beat on each other and curse each other out and it would have had the same effect. And that's NOT what I like to do for entertainment.

I found the whole thing to be almost cartoonish, the story pointless, and the characters bland and boring. I GET IT...there are people, in this case poor black people, who have terrible lives. But honestly, when this movie was done all I could think was that I am SO OVER the whole "black thing". OVER IT!!!. I'm not a prejudice person and I try so very hard to ignore some of the stereotypes that play out all around me every day and think that people are people and intelligence is intelligence and everyone has the ability to be a decent person but this movie wants to blow that idea all to hell. It make me feel like there are groups of people, sub cultures, cities even, that we should just wipe off the face of the earth because there will never be enough programs or charities or money to dig them out of the hole they put themselves in and they are just going to drag society down with them. And apparently it's a hole they don't even WANT to get out of.

Bah. I don't write movie review, I've never written one before, but this was awful. I'm neither impressed with the acting or the story or the writing and I can't for the live of me figure out why it's getting such rave reviews, except may by people who equate "gritty" with "genius" because they don't know anything about the world and want to feel hip. Or because Oprah had something to do with it.


Other than a few items glanced at in the newspaper, I had no idea the intricate details of this movie, and went in hoping for something different. Alas, the first hour was not much of anything at all. And I wonder if the movie would have done so well if not for the purse strings and names of 2 of its executive producers. That aside, the story revolves around a 16-year-old living in Harlem in the 1970s. She is pregnant, for the 2nd time, by her father. Her mother is one in a long line of selfish, self-absorbed ignorant people, and played, by the way perfectly, by Mo'Nique. The last scene with Mo'Nique makes sitting through this boring film worth it. And yes, it was boring. But what frustrated me the most is that when actors are mumbling, as more and more are doing in movies, there is too much background noise (music in this movie), so it's difficult to understand what the character is saying. This was a major problem for me with this film. I would have so loved to hear what Precious was saying, in her own way, but she mumbled, talked street while also mumbling, and a lot of it was just drowned out. Just the same, I was ready to turn the movie off, but decided to stick it out. After the 1st hour it began to move as something was actually happening, and get more interesting until the somewhat climax at the end in the social worker's office (played okay by Carey). Yes, people lived like this, and still do. Children are abused, and in so many ways. The system can only do so much. And there are people who try to cheat the system, as the mother kept trying to do. Not as much drama as hyped, and some of the acting seemed forced. Did I miss something?


I love movies that push it and show the dark side and psychology in human interaction without sugarcoating it. Precious has some really interesting premises for sure but as the story behind the main character unfolds it just gets more and more until its just too much and feels like a cartoon.

We are talking about a grotesquely obese illiterate black teen growing up in the worst conditions. She is pregnant with her second child which she got from her own father who repeatedly raped her. Her mother is abusive, keeps depriving her of self worth and makes her eat. Could be a psychological study but they just keep layering everything until you wonder if this is a joke. Her mother seems to sexually abuse her too, she treats her first child like an animal because the girl has down syndrome. It goes on like that, spices everything up with her father dying and her finding out he was HIV positive right when she is trying to turn her life around with her second child and her learning progressing in a new school. Come on... subtlety is really lost on this movie and honestly I thing a lot of things just don't add up in the behavior of her mother who is depicted like the devil himself until a final breakdown.

Precious sure is not a bad movie but if you touch on subjects like this and go about it like you are trying to top of the previous SAW movies with new sick inventions it just hurts the premise. Its a totally average movie and it gets down to this when you see how people her either call it "best of all time" or "worst movie ever".


I found this movie to be a tedious entry, so different from the other movies in the Hardy family series that it took me by surprise and disappointed me. It begins on the night the previous entry, "Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941)" ended -- high school graduation night. Andy (Mickey Rooney) has a month to apply for a scholarship to go to college, so he decides, with his family's reluctant blessing, to go to New York, get a job, and see what life is all about. Judy Garland lives there and keeps an eye on him, but her talents are totally wasted. Judy doesn't sing at all (unless you count the few lines of "Happy Birthday to You"); Mickey finds the school of hard knocks so trying it was painful to watch his plight, which included an attempted seduction of him by an older woman (Patricia Dane) and the death of a friend. I hardly laughed at any point of this somber movie. I might have enjoyed the movie more had I been forewarned that it is much more of a drama than a comedy.

The National Legion of Decency classified this movie as unsuitable for children because of Rooney's scenes with Dane and his man-to-man talks with his father (Lewis Stone) about fidelity to one's future wife, whoever she may be.


It's nice to see the SCA people getting more work. In fact, they get a huge amount of work in this cheesy quasi-medieval movie, playing all the extras and even some of the principals.

The so-called premise of this stinker is that the inventor and scientist Archimedes invented a huge amount of technology, including some kind of laser. One of his assistants collected everything and hid it away in a cave somewhere in ENGLAND! Uh-huh. They did this to keep this technology away from the world, which is a good thing in my opinion. Archimedes gets killed by some Roman soldiers(what?!)-or a guy at a toga party gets stabbed by a guy in a bad Halloween costume, take your pick.

Cut to the fourteen hundreds, where a really annoying, whiny little kid is being sold as a slave 'somewhere in Europe'. Europe the country, that is. A beggar buys the kid for one copper, because nobody else wanted him(what a surprise). The beggar turns out to be a spy for an organization called the Delta Knights(the airline?). He recognizes the girly slave boy as some kind of special prophet that the Knights have been waiting for, because he can translate a 'red book' left by Archimedes to point the way to the treasure. The puzzles in this book are so lame that a two year old could have figured them out, but whatever.

The beggar-knight teaches the boy for six years or so(or at least that's what it feels like). The kid grows long golden curls and looks ever more like a girl, which makes me think of a good reason why the knight kept him around so long. Especially since the boy calls him 'Master' all the time...

In comes the villain of the piece, played by the same actor who played the beggar-knight! You'd think the guy would recognize his identical twin, but no...Maybe its the stupid costume Lord Vulchare is wearing that keeps the knight from recognizing himself. It involves gold leaf, horns, and a truly silly looking cape. I'm surprised that he didn't spend all of his time swishing it. He looked like an escapee from a Broadway musical.

Lord Vulchare captures the knight, the boy rescues him using a blow gun, of all things! And then Vulchare kills the knight. I wonder what happens when you wipe out your Doppleganger... One annoying character down, a man we couldn't forgive anyway because of an earlier scene in which he threw his own urine onto a passing 'villager'. Unfortunately, the boy-girl survives and escapes.

He meets an Orlando Bloom wannabee in a tavern, after getting hit on by a tavern whore. The prissy artist type claims to be Leonardo Da Vinci, a heresy if ever I saw one. The kid can't even draw, I doubt Da Vinci EVER wore clothes that femmy, AND he spent the rest of the movie hitting on the tavern whore. The real Da Vinci might have evinced far more interest in the pretty boy-girl than in the overblown charms of the woman.

The pair saves the girl from Vulchare, I'm never sure why, and set out to find the storehouse. This is supposed to involve a trip to England, but I never saw them in any kind of boat. Did they fly over the English channel? They get captured by a Robin Hood type, who turns out to be a Prince of some kind(of what, we never find out). And lo and behold, the tavern whore turns out to be his long lost sister! At this point, I had the massive urge to slap this movie briskly..

There's a scene where the boy and Leonardo try to escape from the Robin Hood guy, and as they flee through the night a disembodied voice croons "I'm coming..." over and over again. Hysterical. Somebody was obviously sucking a medieval bong before they went out to chase down the dynamic duo.

They finally find the store house, and marvel at the cheesy artifacts. Leonardo promptly appropriates all of Archimedes' ideas, proving that he was a lucky idiot rather than any kind of genius. The kid blows up the store house to keep the treasures from getting out into the world, making you wonder: "What was the whole purpose of this movie!" Arrgh! The whole quest goes down the tubes, and you sincerely wonder why you just spent the last hour and a half wasting your time watching this piece of crap! Oh well, at least it was quite funny, especially Richard Kind as the idiotic 'great wizard'.


the most historically inaccurate film ever made. I'm not even sure this can be called a movie, maybe it's just an after school special on the middle ages gone horribly wrong.

 There's something in here, about a boy who becomes the leader of an underground knight group that's trying to stop an evil villain from obtaining a device of unlimited power, at least I think that's what happens.

 The acting is bad, but the sets and "special effects" are just so laughably bad that it's a wonder this film got released at all. The MST version was funny, though not one of their best efforts. Nothing for the film, but a 7 for the MST version.

-I wonder how cheap the casting for the film must have been, well David Warner played both the villain and one of the main heroes, so that may be some indication as to how low the budget was.


Having seen this film on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I was more than a little surprised to see this in the children's section of the local video rental place. The packaging definitely made it clear they were marketing this to children.

And I thought to myself, of course! We were looking at the film all wrong, through our jaded adult eyes. Why, this film is perfect for children, from the hilarious pee-throwing scene all the way to the whorehouse (setting new standards in fantasy films for how much breast can be exposed without actually showing a nipple).

It's educational too! Why, you'll learn that Archimedes lived contemporarily with the Romans, and he had a secret "stoolhouse" where he kept all the wondrous inventions of Atlantis. Or that Leonardo da Vinci was a cretinous lech who lifted all of his best ideas from the aforementioned Atlanteans. And that everyone in Europe spoke cheesy middle english and wore poofy hats (Europe's all pretty much the same, right?)

So next time Junior's running wild and you want him to settle down, plop him down in front of this film. It's better than a lobotomy for eradicating any remaining joie de vive! (or, indeed, a reason to live)


The photography is beautiful. The actors are attractive and their characters have moments of interest. I enjoyed the first half hour or so of a slowly unfolding story of family conflict, nostalgia for an interrupted youth. Frequent flashbacks enlivened the development of the backstory.

However, the slow unfolding became a plodding march from incident to incident more akin to the animation of a bulleted list than the representation of a maturing person.

The acting and cinematography talent are wasted on an overly long, contrived, unbelievable and trite plot. The writing is wooden to the point of embarrassment. My wife summed it up: This is the movie equivalent of a Good Housekeeping novel, in the worst sense.


How did this movie win an award and receive a four star rating? Was it four stars out of ten or what? It was so BAD, so unbelievably soap-opera predictable, that it had me mesmerized.

I found myself waiting desperately for the dog to return, since his acting outshone that of any of the human actors. The main character was ridiculous, her friend was so ill defined as to be non existent and her love interests were A) clichéd and B) wooden.

And what is with Genevieve Bujold? I could say that perhaps she has fallen on hard times, but her acting was as weak as the rest. I've been to high school plays with more believable characters than these.

How do movies like this get funding?


I saw this film earlier this year at a film festival and I found it to be dull, uninspired and unoriginal. It's the filmic equivalent of a glass of warm milk or elevator music. Servicible acting, workmanlike direction and competent writing: it's all as flavorless and exciting as plain white bread. Don't get me wrong, it's not "so bad it's good". It's so bad it's boring! If you like your films mild and movies with interesting characters and story lines are too spicy for you, I highly recommend "Finding Home". It won't get you all riled up, in fact you can sleep right through it. Don't worry about catching it on the festival circuit though, wait a couple of weeks and watch it on Lifetime where it belongs.

I'm not sure where all of the positive reviews are coming from - I guess the director must have a lot of friends. Good for him.


This film was so bad that I quit before it was finished. I would have watched it in a flash, just because Genevieve Bujold was in it. I don't know how she could ever have got mixed up in this load of trash. The plot was weak; the acting was terrible; and the script was atrocious. The background music was like a 1940s 'B' movie.

The script was filled with inconsistencies. A friend who has never been to the island agrees by telephone to come for the weekend. She finds her way there - including the charter boat trip - without directions. After she arrives, she starts crying with loneliness because she needs her boyfriend - after one day in a vacation hotel with her girlfriend! Everything else is as zany, inconsistent and unlikely.

It seemed to be trying at Bergman, but it got about as close as Animal House without the humour. Don't waste your money on it. With that music, it's even useless as a sedative.


Finding Home is an execrable film laden with not-so-subtle anti-abortion sentiment. (Even a secondary character who finds herself pregnant after a brief fling with the film's villain opts to "keep her baby.") It also should be noted that viewers allergic to Christian propaganda should avoid this one at all costs. (Who knew that there were no gay men or lesbian women in NYC? Who knew that high-powered career people never utter a single obscenity? Who knew that an emancipated woman of the world would utter a statement like "You just wanted to jump me"? Or that the US of A is such a squeaky-clean, shiny place?) Please allow me to enumerate the ways in which this film almost (but, alas, not quite) enters the annals of being "so bad it's good." First, the lead gives a truly amateurish performance. She signifies all emotions with a furrowed brow and widened eyes a'la Bambi, and her voice is thin and grating. Second, the script is idiotic. I particularly loved the villain's dash toward the sea (?) and his ultimate comeuppance. (He moves to Hollywood where, as the heroine sanctimoniously notes, someone possessing his dubious sense of morality will succeed. Um, wasn't she a purportedly hard-boiled career gal in NYC? Pot, kettle?) The revelation that the hero is independently wealthy (evidently, at the age of 12, he invested in Microsoft stock) also warrants a few good guffaws. Do I need to mention that the hero also is soulful and artistic (he sculpts!) and single and physically fit and (Another funny bit: In homage to Lionel Richie's Hello, the hero's work in progress turns out to be a most unflattering sculpture of the heroine.) Third, Finding Home is laden with Christian "subtext" (note: quotation marks). The heroine marries the hero and, approximately 10 months later, gives birth. (Premarital sex is bad! Giving birth out of wedlock is evil. Not getting pregnant is even worse!) The climax reveals a blonde moppet grabbing a cookie from an immaculate kitchen. Obviously, the heroine has abandoned her empty existence as a career woman, and opted for the infinitely more satisfying role of hausfrau. (Remember kids: women should stay at home!) The hero does odd-jobs, whereas the heroine worked in NYC (curiously, we never find out what she does). Yet, she needs HIM to help her run the inn she inherited from granny. "What can I do? Help me. Help me!" The only names in the cast (Bujold and Fletcher) are wasted. Is it that difficult for more mature actresses to land decent vehicles? If Finding Home represents the best that Christian cinema has to offer, then I'm grateful to be an atheist.


I feel a bit like the girl in the cheesy teen horror flick, as she dials 911 for help when the killer is right in the house with her... I'm watching the movie right now, and I feel like I have to do SOMETHING to get help... This is the most awful movie I've seen since Hope Springs. The writing lurches, the characters stumble, and the music swells repeatedly like that nasty, recalcitrant pus-filled boil on Farmer Bean's neck. Brutal - sorry, this film simply has no redeeming features. Photography? Scenery? Bulloney! Buy a calendar of the coast of Maine, if that's what you're after. Somehow, the main character's looks of concern, fear, sadness, fatigue, and anger all seem to be the same - and I find that it's impossible to care just which one she's trying to portray. The dramatic flashbacks are oh-so-undramatic, and oh-so-annoying. Enough.


Four male writers couldn't hang any of this film together in spite of some great old stars (Louise Fletcher, Genevieve Bujold) who try their best with a leaden script and subversive fundamentalist messages.

Clichés? Let me count the ways. I believe I've never been privy to so many in this one loooooong contrived movie that must have gone straight to DVD. It wouldn't survive a Friday night at the local Odeon.

Traumatic event in childhood conveniently forgotten by the star - who by the way has to be one of the most irritating actresses ever, she ran the gamut of emotions from A to B to quote a famous critic. She squeaks her lines and does a lot of batting with the eyes. Awful to watch her.

The granddaughter is forbidden to see the grandmother as an eleven year old child but then makes no effort to see her as an adult even though she professes undying love for her? She behaves like a receptionist in her "high career" in New York, excited over her birthday and her new boyfriend, her "boss". The audience is not privy to what everyone does for a living. It is strictly so she can give up her career (in that "fundy" way) to settle down and get over that nonsense.

The caretaker-sculptor turns out to have invested in Microsoft when he was twelve (doesn't everybody?) and is now wealthy but living as a boatman/bum.

The secret was not getting worked up into a froth over. Fisticuffs a plenty and the oddest, strained dialogue. Squeaky clean too. She accuses her boss of travelling all the way to Maine so he could "jump her". Man that spun me sideways before I burst out laughing. "Jump"? Wha'? I've never heard a woman use that term. Guys, yes.

And it goes on and on and on and on and on. Each cliché heavier than the one before it until it collapses, whimpering, under the pro-life ending.

I gave it 2 out of 10. The scenery and the inn are truly lovely and so is the haunting music.


Crazy Like a Fox is a deeply flawed film that nonetheless has its merits. Well acted (mostly) and beautifully filmed, the movie suffers from a ham handed script and dubious direction. The plot when analyzed simply doesn't make much sense. The occasional voiceovers do more to muddle the story than to clarify:

Nate (Rees) sells his historically rich but dilapidated house, finds out the new owners want to tear it down and decides to live for months in a cave on the edge of the property (in Civil War military garb). When the owners go out of town he moves back in as a squatter. He elicits the sympathy and help of the locals, the sheriff and the local judge who back him up despite the fact he is clearly in violation of the law and collectively and somewhat inexplicably they eventually drive the new owners away.

OK, sure we're sympathetic to ruthless developers raping the land, but what exactly did Nate living in a cave accomplish other than cast doubt on his sanity? And are we to be sympathetic to people who take the law into their own hands, and use nepotism and small town politics to usurp the rule of law simply because they don't like outsiders? Who exactly then are the bad guys?

Shakespearean actor Roger Rees in his first film role is generally good, problems with his accent aside and Mary McDonnel gives a very nice performance. One feels that both would have done better with more coherent direction. The cinematography and the score (by Washington composer David Kane) are both first rate.

All in all, CLAF represents opportunities lost.


Nothing at the 2004 Savannah Film Festival was quite as frustrating to watch as the non-dimensional, feature-length helping of twisted Southern principles, "Crazy Like a Fox." The plot: A man sells his house to rich snobs and, after being tricked, changes his mind. He manages to conjure up the support of his fellow Southern folk in an effort to drive the outsiders out of their town. U.K. actor Roger Rees plays Nat Banks, a Virginian farmer who even after living his whole life in the South still hasn't been able to stop speaking with a British accent (seriously, he does, and without explanation).

The bad guys, played like cartoon characters, manage to purchase Nat's house fairly and squarely. Unable to deal, Nat begins camping out on their property. Eventually, he musters the courage to seize the house with the support of the police, judges and anyone else who doesn't care about breaking the law.

Perplexing and ultimately unsettling, "Crazy Like a Fox" argues that law, order and a free market are not valued in Virginia and that rich, snobby people are mean and should be kicked out of small towns. More astounding than this movie being accepted into the film festival is the fact that someone, somewhere, funded this 98-minute disaster.


Superstar though he may have been, I have to confess that I was never that impressed with Bob Hope's comedy. Admittedly, my exposure to him came late in his career, mostly through his television specials in the 1970's which the elder members of my family insisted on watching. Given his superstar status, I thought I'd try out a Bob Hope movie when I came across this one. In all honesty it's what I would have expected - amusing rather than outright funny and with a somewhat confusing story that held my interest but was never well enough explained.

This is one of those movies that starts at the end and then uses flashbacks to explain how the end came about. In this case, Hope played Ronnie Jackson, a baby photographer who as the movie opens is sitting on death row waiting to be executed. Jackson dreamt of being a private eye, and as the result of a case of mistaken identity, ends up being hired by Countess Montay (Dorothy Lamour) to help find her missing uncle. Here's where the confusing mystery comes in. What we're told is that Montay had an appointment at the State Department and that it had something to do with uranium. There's also a bunch of bad guys out to find a map which ends up in Jackson's possession. Aside from that, the mystery wasn't well explained. Of the bad guys, Peter Lorre was OK and somewhat mysterious, but I thought that Lon Chaney (in a somewhat limited role) was really quite good, as well as being a somewhat sympathetic character. Hope and Lamour were fine; Hope's type of comedy essentially what I remembered from the 70's TV specials. There's a very brief cameo from Bing Crosby at the end of the movie, responded to (out of character) by Hope, who says "that guy will take any part he can get." It's not an outstanding movie by any means, and it's also not a bad movie. Mediocre seems to suit it well. 4/10


Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour star in this tired comedy. Hope is a photographer who specializes in baby pictures but really wants to be a private detective like his hero down the hall, Sam McCloud (a cameo by Alan Ladd). One day when McCloud is out of the office, Hope happens to be there when Dorothy Lamour slips in and, mistaking him for McCloud, hires him to unravel a mystery. This is just one more of Hope's mistaken identity comedies, and not a particularly good one. The writing is weak, Elliott Nugent's direction is flat, the supporting cast--other than Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr.--isn't really up to par, and for some reason Hope and Lamour don't seem to have any chemistry at all. On top of that, the picture just looks cheap, like a later Bowery Boys movie from Monogram. Hope and Lamour made much better pictures than this. It's not really worth your time.


This sitcom is basically a half-hearted attempt to copy Larry Charles in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Kirstie fails miserably. Every episode shows her stuffing her face and not even TRYING to lose weight. Watching it I'm wondering, what am I doing watching this loser of a show? It's not what it claims to be because Kirstie "gets work" even as a fat actress. Fact is, it's a man's world and there is no way around it. Men can be ugly, fat, balding, flat-butt, short, whatever, and we accept it. However, fat women are DISGUSTING on film and the last thing a viewer wants to see is a fat woman EATING compulsively on TV. This show is disgusting, not even funny and should be canceled.

That being said, Rachael Harris is awesome. She carries the show. The time she smoked crack from Kirstie's brother was hilarious. And her comments as Kirstie and others are talking are spot on and hilarious. Now, I would LOVE to see HER get her own show.

But to Kirstie - if you are going to star in your own show - be original. You are just a "showtime" "subpar" version of Curb Your Enthusiasm. You aren't funny.


This movie is impudent enough to bedazzle you. A funny satirical mockumentary about the rise and fall of a dimwitted bus driver that becomes a country & western one-hit-wonder. Billy Burke plays Dill Scallion the unlikely star with his hit "When You Shared You". His gimmick is having his foot stomped on before going on stage; and his crippled dance becomes a dance hall sensation.

Lauren Graham plays Scallion's girlfriend that is caught up in the fame game. David Koechner plays Bubba Pearl, the right hand man of the new star and wanting to reclaim some of his own past glory. Henry Winkler plays a talent promoter and a bearded Jason Priestly plays the role of county icon Joe Joe Hicks.

Making cameo appearances are LeAnn Rimes, Travis Tritt and Willie Nelson playing themselves and Robert Wagner cameos as Mr. Llama the boot baron.

You really start thinking this is too damn dumb to watch, but you hang in there waiting to see how silly this thing can get. I will definitely watch this again. Laugh at it and with it.


John Travolta, Rene Russo, Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini. The only name that mattered was on the signature of their checks as distributed by over rated director Barry Sonnenfeld. Now, I have no ax to grind, and watched this at home twice over 12 months to ensure I wasn't angry at the world the first time. No, I'm just disappointed that I wasted roughly an hour and a half (twice) waiting for this diarrhea to gel into a reasonable movie. How can you expect to have any suspension of disbelief belief when the dialog sounds like it's written by idiots like me? There were a few instances where a funny line should have been inserted as when Gene Hackman was reduced to eating through a straw, but all that was uttered by our leading dud was, "suck hard". That line sums up the movie experience


I love Barry Sonnenfeld as a nice crazy director, although all of my friends dislike a lot of his work but I've always loved his distinctiveness and advanced capabilities in not too many movies like (Men in Black - 1997) or (Wild Wild West - 1999) or as a producer of the brilliant TV-Series (Secret Agent Man - 2000). Yes, he is not one of the greatest NOW but I think he hasn't had the REAL BIG chance to prove that he could be one of the immortal fun makers.. BUT HERE ..It's simply his worst.

I want to know indeed what's in here to be watched ??, where is the plot ?, what's about ?, and what's the beauty of it (if there is a beauty in it at all ??!!). I've read that John Travolta after he came back to life by the force of (Pulp Fiction - 1994), he was agreeing to whatever Quentin Tarantino strengthened to him !!..and I'm not sure about Tarantino's kind of taste !! So it's nothing unusual to have a movie by Travolta like (Get Shorty) !

Not only because the stars in it I've watched THIS for 3 times !! But mainly to understand why on Earth they made it ?? It's not a crime comedy and of course it's not a thriller (like you will read in the column of genre at the main details page in our very site !), and it's not originally a drama with meaning !

So who's Shorty ?, and why would we get him ?? OH it's a complete waste of time with a lot of "after the strange success of Pulp Fiction's ego or false confidence" which produced very empty movie like this.

The only thing that have been saved and deserved watching was : the scene in which Rene Russo takes off her clothes and we get to see her long beautiful legs and her colored panty as well !! Plus that other scene where Bette Midler tempted Gene Hackman.. Though unfortunately both of the 2 scenes had been deleted from the movie by our censorship !! So for me, watching that movie was nothing but searching for something which's non-existent, and I mean fun ..by every sense of the word.


PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING!!!!!!!!! OK, anybody who says they "liked" this movie or thought it was "intellectual" is a complete idiot. this movie had absolutely no plot, fun, entertainment, point, theme, message moral, or anything else that you would watch a movie for. seriously, was the first scene with the woman driving and hitting the badger or whatever really necessary? and the part where she drove down a hill and saw some weird guy and some sheep was totally pointless and gave me a headache. and another thing, what was with the naked little kids runnin around? that was just stupid. and is there really a war going on who was that old lady callin on the radio? one more, couldn't they make a more believable unicorn? it looked like someone rolled up a newspaper and taped it to a donkey's head. they only give me 1000 words to review this move, but that most certainly isn't enough. i could write at LEAST five hundred pages on why this movie was awful, but i would have a stroke if i had to relive this piece of crap again. you would have a more fulfilling experience if you boiled garbage in cat urine and ate that while having weasels gnaw on your feet, and that would leave you feeling much better about yourself than if you watched this movie. whoever decided to curse the world with this grotesquely bad film should be forced to watch it over and over for the rest of their lives. seriously, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE.


[ possible spoiler(s) - although I think I could dictate exactly what I saw in this particular movie from beginning to end without really giving anything away. It's that peculiar. ]

I'm not sure what movie the last reviewer watched - I have no idea what all his comments about cherubs and seraphs are about. Perhaps he saw heavenly references in the naked children chasing/wrestling the hog. But that doesn't explain the sheep; the turkeys; the huge talking rat; the short, shaggy, talking unicorn; the war; the WWII radio; the mother, brother, and sister's relationship; Lily's actions from beginning to end; the costumed houseguests; the black eagle; eating the ant infested cheese; nursing granny; etc, etc, etc...

I suspect the movie may be full of symbolism and hidden references but all I saw was one long surreal visual nightmare (with surprisingly very little dialog). Even if the writer explained exactly what each symbol meant to him I think that each viewer would get something different. Me? I got confused and more than a few unintended laughs. But I did find it somehow compelling enough that I watched it all the way through (after falling asleep a couple times because there are long stretches with no dialog or "action"). Perhaps that's the best explanation; I fell asleep early and had a very strange nightmare instead of watching the actual movie.

Unless you've seen and enjoyed movies like "Eraserhead" and "The Naked Lunch" I can't recommend this movie to anyone except as a way to recalibrate the low end of your movie rating scale.


This film had a couple things going for it; it is obvious that some very talented people had a hand in creating this film, and the concept for the story had potential, but these were vastly overshadowed by the fact that it was uninteresting, lacked any kind of storyline, and was too real to simply be a girl's imagination. It lacks the imaginative quality of Alice In Wonderland, and substitutes it for random implausible scenarios. The story gives no background for the girl, no idea of who was fighting the war, or why, or if the people she met were real, and mutated by her imagination, or if she manufactured them completely. If she WAS trapped in this place, why did she never try to escape? The basic instinct in a human is to flee from or fear the unknown, of which she did neither. This movie did not even reach a conclusion, leaving you to wonder why you just wasted an hour and a half of your life. And what was with the naked little kids running around? Seriously!


I guess you have to earn the right to be totally idiosyncratic. If Malle were a first time film maker, there is no way that this film would have been tolerated. So many idiotic annoying things in this film. The intrusive sound track. A beetle scuttles thru the grass and it sounds like a rhino charging thru a corn field. At one point in the film an ENDLESS series of wind-up alarm clocks ring; an ear-splitting annoyance that goes on for almost a full minute as Lily frantically tries to shut it off. As soon as she does another one goes off, then ANOTHER. After 3 or 4 alarms go off, she finally just starts throwing them out the window,thus making a clever point: time flies? At the end of this scene, and about TEN alarm clocks, I wanted to chain Malle to a grandfather's clock and throw HIM out the window! Then the huge,irritating rat which speaks gibberish in a loud, grating high-pitched drone. Also it appears that no one, from the unicorn that looks like it's ready for the glue factory, to the old lady , can eat ANYTHING without a deafening smacking of the lips before and during ingestion. Insects and farm animals appear at random amid throngs of naked children. A painting of a warrior beheading an eagle foreshadows the exact incident being re-enacted by the brother, which sets off a pointless indecisive battle between he and his sister. Lily's underpants fall down to her ankles ....TWICE, which the old lady finds hysterical and she grabs her instamatic for a "Kodak moment"! Lily eats a big piece of swiss cheese after removing dozens of live ants. I kept thinking of that terrific scene in "After the Fox" when Peter Sellers is on trial for smuggling while using the pretext of making a film to disguise the crime. The poorly focused, badly cut film of random activities is shown as evidence in the case. Afterwords a film critic in the crowd leaps up and begins to rave. "Encore! Brilliant!! I Laughed, I cried, it became a part of me!" I don't care what credentials a film maker has, allegory is NOT a random series of vignettes that please the director. I like Cheese so I'll have scenes with cheese. I hate the sound of an alarm clock so I'll show you just how annoying they are. Mr Malle... GO POUND SAND!!!!!!!


I found some parts interesting. Especially the nature photography. But i found the plot and characters not interesting. The acting was as bad as it can get.

The film is supposedly over a battle between men and women. But one could easily also imagine Bosnia.

On the one hand a rural landscape where everything appears normal but on the other scenes of death and destruction. The long scenes in the bedroom of the ugly old lady bored me to distraction.

The hordes of naked children did give a bizarre aspect: but this is a film where nothing really seems to happen. A girl who is always running seeking but never seems to find.


At times feeling like Airport '77 without the plane or the all-star cast, 1978's Gray Lady Down came out in the dog days of the disaster genre when Charlton Heston's career as a big screen leading man was on its last legs, and there's a sense of tired routine to this tale of a sub stranded on an unstable ocean ledge after a collision with a fishing vessel. The last major submarine movie until The Hunt for Red October, it suffers the problems of most peacetime submarine movies. Without the standard can't fail wartime dramatics of the genre  depth charges, torpedoes, silent running et al  it's a pretty static affair with Heston and his crew spending most of the film sitting around waiting to be rescued while Stacy Keach hovers around the rescue ship's control room and David Carradine and Ned Beatty sit around watching from their prototype mini-sub in murky model shots.

A lot of money has been spent, but to little effect. David Greene's flat direction doesn't disguise the fact that there's little in the way of tension while at times you can't help wondering if the price of the Navy's co-operation was eliminating any possible drama from the script in the fear it might make them look bad. The film does briefly raise the possibility of conflict between Heston and Ronny Cox's ExO over responsibility for the accident only to quickly let the matter drop lest anyone get the impression that not all of the navy's sub commanders are at the top of their game.

Christopher Reeve has a couple of lines in a bit part and it's nice to briefly see Heston's War Lord co-star Rosemary Forsyth as his wife even if all but one of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, but the film remains a pedestrian time-filler. Even Jerry Fielding adds nothing much to the proceedings with his TV movie-style score, bizarrely built around the Carol of the Bells.


GRAY LADY DOWN

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)

Sound format: Mono

Whilst heading home on its final voyage, a nuclear submarine is sunk by a careless fishing vessel and lands on a crumbling ledge above a yawning abyss.

Arriving at the tail-end of the 1970's disaster cycle, this half-baked thriller toplines catastrophe stalwart Charlton Heston (going through the motions) as an iron-jawed captain who preserves morale amongst his surviving crewmembers while awaiting rescue by military top brass (including Stacy Keach and David Carradine). Unfortunately, the basic scenario - remarkably similar to another sub-in-peril drama, MORNING DEPARTURE, filmed in 1950 - is fairly humdrum, and once it's been established that the survival of Heston's crew depends on work carried out by a unique exploratory vessel created by Carradine, the plot begins to alternate between non-activity in the sub and endless journeys to and from the stricken vessel by Carradine's miniature craft. TV director David Greene fails to generate much excitement, and the outcome is entirely predictable. Co-stars Ned Beatty and Christopher Reeve were re-teamed later the same year in Reeve's break-out movie, SUPERMAN.


First this movie isn't at all for kids.

Next, this movie isn't a movie at all, it must be just a practice or a draft. There's a lot of unexplained blood and violence in this movie, and confusion/unknown responses to these actions.

And lastly, this by far is one (if not THE) of the worst movies I've ever seen.

If you are looking for a bad movie to laugh at how bad it is, then you may want to watch this one.

I was playing my Game Boy after 15-20 minutes in the film and was shocked to see the ton of sudden blood in a few of the scenes.

Lastly, the only reason why this film gets a 1, is because they are after some rare diamond (although the plot is still pathetic) and the beginning titles was actually decent (like showing the 7 ninjas individually).


Definitely a Saturday night trash movie!

A serial killer is knocking off female law students and photographing their bodies as he is a photographer professionally.

The beautiful lawyer tries to track him down, the trial is an interesting farce and although the twist was predictable it was reasonably well done.

The lawyer's former law school room-mate was a victim, and the victim's father keeps on cropping up with pieces of advice and wisdom ... "You have to trust the system".

Perhaps he can be Yoda in the next Star Wars film.


This episode does contain everything a really bad Star Trek show needs. A plastic conflict, created merely for moral purpose, a sentimental, naive way of raising theological and philosophical questions and an easy one dimensional solution at last. Furthermore there's not the slightest moment of suspense or innovation to this one. It's plain boring... Questioning death penalty is a highly complex matter, as is comparing different law and moral systems. But the biggest impudence is that God thing. Couldn't they have thought of something more intelligent and original?

The cast seems to have felt as uneasy with it during production as I did while watching. McFadden is unconcentrated and delivers one of her worst performances, showing that there is everything but a loving relationship between her and Wesley (or Will Wheaton). Picard's overly harsh treatment of Data quite set me up as well as the latter one's relapse to an earlier state of development. We may be in the 9th episode but Data already has learned a lot about humans, though surely not enough to prevent any conflict sufficient to know what is considered important. Picard's silly speech at the end finishes this one off and leaves the audience in despair (or should I say outrage?)...

The Edo do have some lovely girls and the idea of a paradise-like society is as old as mankind itself but that's not enough to get away with. We see Picard's quarters for the first time (why does Dr. Crusher enter without permission?) and the opening shot, showing the Captain's face from a low angle while circling around him has something to it but all the rest is pure rubbish (should I exclude Worf's remarks on Klingon sexuality?). And honestly, has anyone ever believed, Wesley would die in the end (I for my part kept hoping, although I knew better)?

I want to watch Star Trek to get inspiration and not a lecture on simple solutions.


It seems that science fiction is always raising questions that have no easy answers. Often, sci-fi is almost prophetic in critiquing the way things are by presenting alternative futures. Sci-fi has a long history of social critique.

This episode of ST:TNG is particularly troubling in two ways: the questions and issues it initially raises, and the ease with which it evades actually probing or answering those issues. The beginning point is a question of justice: how can we regard as just any system in which the legal consequence of every crime is the same, or in this case death? This is troubling for some of the metaphysical questions it raises, especially if you are a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew (and not just a Jew in the cultural or ethnic sense): is God just in setting eternal consequences for our actions? Is God just in setting the same eternal consequence for every bad deed or lack of good deed? Is God just in judging all people by the same standard? Beyond that, there is also the question of whether humanity itself (presumably Western civilizations in particular) now saddles itself with unjust laws and punishments which do not "fit the crime." If this episode had chosen to actually deal with those questions (or for that matter raised them in a less simplistic scenario) it could have been one of the best episodes of the entire series. Instead, we have a speech and Picard and crew pretty much do what we've known they could do all along. It was sad, easy, and anticlimactic.


Giving it a 2 only because a few scenes are actually quite interestingly photographed. But otherwise this is pure, odious, drivel. Insulting that this guy Keoni Waxman actually expects people to sit all the way through this mess -- I sure didn't. Why is it so apparent that the writers of pool movies have never set foot in actual pool rooms? Why are we allowing these hacks to make movies? I saw the bad reviews on this one, and decided to rent it anyway because I love pool and I'm still waiting for a decent pool movie. (Poolhall Junkies is bad, sure, but at least it offered some laughs. It's worth the rental just to hear Christopher Walken say "Benz," and to see Rod Stieger overacting to the point of hilarity.) I'm begging you: don't make the same mistake I made. Skip this one entirely. Anything to dissuade Waxman from making another movie. Please!


A pool hustler becomes a member of a pack of hustlers. He rises to the top, but soon finds himself the monkey in the middle of a match between his boss and a crooked cop.

Freddie Prinze Jr. seems to have a string of bad films lately, with such titles like Scooby Doo, Summer Catch and Scooby Doo 2. But one only has to look at his film credits to see that he hasn't been in a really good movie at all. His career ranges from teen slasher flicks to a poor excuse for a video game adaption. It seems with Shooting Gallery Freddie is trying to show that he's serious now, and that he's left his Scooby Doo image behind. Well, Freddie, I got a message for ya, keep dreaming'

When I first came across Shooting Gallery, Poolhall Junkies rip-off is what came to my mind, but for the sake of an argument, I gave it a chance. After watching it, I still came to the conclusion that it's a poolhall junkies ripoff and a poorly executed one too. The main character here tries to act as if he's cool and slick, but with Freddi Prinze Jr. as your main catch, he's comes off and nothing more then a pretty face who thinks he can shoot some pool. In the final stages of the film, I wanted to cut my ears off I couldn't stand his "broken nose" accent. Ving Rhames makes an appearance. All he does is walk around and chew on alligator feet. He actually does nothing in the film, until the climax when he shoots some pool and a gun.

In the film "Rounders" Norton has an ace tattooed on his arm, he says that he has an ace up his sleeve, it worked. In "Shooting Gallery" they get 8 balls tattooed on their arm, with Rhames on his bald head. It shows that their part of a gang...but it doesn't work. Rhames outfit is comical, you should see it to believe it. The plot is poorly written, and one of those, he was hustling everyone from the start type gigs, completely clichéd.

The pool shooting is quite good, not better then what is showcased in "Poolhall Junkies" but good nonetheless. Freddie actually shoots some pool here, nice to see that, but it's obvious that the trick shots are done by someone else. I liked the whole switching of the shooting sides that Freddie does near the end though, I thought that was a neat addition. "Poolhall Junkies" has Walken and "Shooting Gallery" has Macfadyen. Macfadyen is definitely the highlight here as the drunk, druggie, poolhall hustler. He brings some enthusiasm to an otherwise dead cast. It was nice to see some life pumped into this dead film, but it doesn't last long.

The poolhall lingo consists of what the director has heard and made up. Which is obvious when you listen to other lines such as "If I'm Lyin...I'm Dyin." Some characters names, if you'd like to hear are Paulie the Pawn and Cue Ball Carl. What's with the random words appearing on the screen? Poolhall lingo? Purpose to the script? It was distracting and adds nothing to the experience except confusion and dread.

Skip "Shooting Gallery" unless you want a headache from poor acting and a clichéd plot. "Poolhall Junkies" this is not. Unless you're a massive fan of pool, check out something else.


My chief complaint is that there are no captions, so I'm only catching bits and pieces of the movie. The names are already killing me. Jezebel... Jericho... Is this pool or 'Children of the Corn'?

The acting as a whole was atrocious. Was there even a director on the set? The accents and dialogue are hilarious. All I hear is "sisal, sisal, sisal". I have never in my life heard anyone talk like this in any pool hall I've ever been in. The special features said the slang was 30% made up by the movie makers - try 90% and the rest they got wrong. Like what is all this "tribe" talk? Nice tattoos, by the way. So they get branded. With eight-balls, no less. Way to hustle there, sports. I expect to hear Ving Rhames offer to get the horses for his "mastuh" any minute now. Oh, Freddie... if you're lyin, you're dyin? That's tough. Especially with you lowering your voice like that. It's reminiscent of Rocky Balboa.

Then not only did they make up their own jargon, they butchered actual pool terminology. It's a good thing this movie never made it to theatres, or we'd have a bunch of clowns running around our pool halls rambling about dandelions and lemons.

Of course, the shots, the bridges, and the "sharking" these guys are doing are all horrible, but I expected no less. The rack twirl got me, though. You know what I'm talking about... That thing ball-bangers do. I also noticed when "Jericho" and "Cueball Carl" (*rolls eyes*) are playing, they rack the balls in numerical order. Nice. And love the glove, Carl.

Shooting Gallery was also an apt title. I think they shot more with guns than cues. I actually felt like I was watching a soft porn through some of those scenes.

Not all is lost, though. I walked away with a new playing strategy: When on the nine, hit it as hard as you can. And cuss. A lot.

This movie does what I never thought possible, which is suck more than 'Poolhall Junkies'.


I can't believe people are saying Roselyn Sanchez was good in this. Granted, with all the things wrong with this film, not much would have made it better, but a competent lead actress might have helped a bit. I know white boys from Iowa that could play a hardcore barrio chica better than her, and as far as being a gambling junkie - gimme a break. She's utterly unbelievable, unsympathetic, unlikable, and her acting is as flat as a railroad track in this film. The rest of the actors' poor performances have been adequately covered elsewhere here - the only worthwhile performance was from Angus Macfadyen as Tenderloin Tony. If you can see it for free, go ahead and watch it as an example of how not to make a film, but by no means pay to see this one.


What can I say? Ving Rhames takes a paycheck, Freddie Prinze Jr. demonstrates the limitations of his acting abilities, and the script tries to simulate the coolness of the "insider" but serves mostly as the embodiment of its own title, providing easy targets for ridicule. I was glad I got this one at the library. It's not badly produced, granted, and some of the green felt action is well-shot, but this dog ain't no hustler, if you catch my drift. Small wonder this went direct to video. One thing is certain: its shelf life will depend strictly upon the durability of Ving Rhames's career. I surely hope his career never depends on this film.


I'm a fan of poolhall junkies. i loved PJ because everything flowed and the shots were awesome. PJ wasn't so focused on hustling and an obvious fantasy plot line. PJ showed a range of pool players and the community. The kids who get punked, hustlers, pro players, and everything in between.

This movie on the other hand was so made up. The director even mentions a few of the lingo used was made up. SG had too much lingo if you asked me. All the clutter messed up the dialogue. Normal people in pool halls do not talk like that and I have been in plenty. So who the hell was the writer trying to target? Cuz I am sure there is only a small population of the nation that can understand everything these kids are blabbering about. And why have 8-ball signature logos when everyone knows the game is 9 ball. The 8-ball has no significance to the movie.

Bottom line, the director has no concept of what is true to real-life and what is just made up. this movie is like a report with a whole lot of footnotes, but none of the sources are relevant to the point.


Stupid - there was a line about 4/5 of the way through the movie where the girl says something like "Let's get away from here" and I just had to respond "That's the first sensible thing anyone has said in this movie". The idea that the characters would live in such a world just didn't make sense. For the main character a normal day seemed to include having a couple of guns shoved in his face, getting badly beaten up and generally getting threatened. Just so he could earn a little money playing pool? Well, there's more to it but that's only near the end. But otherwise this seemed the general lifestyle associated with the pool players. It was just over the top to the point of being silly.

Horrible - what a bunch of unpleasant characters. As the movie developed I came to realise there wasn't one single character I cared about, so I lost interest. I didn't really care what happened.

Unsatisfying - I persevered in case there was a twist. There was something revealed, if not quite a twist as such, and it was feasible but by that time I didn't care, it was all too stupid and horrible and my eyes had long since glazed over. And it just didn't seem enough to deliver much impact because of a sense of contrivance. It must be very hard to pull off a complex and fragile plan involving various highly volatile and unpredictable individuals without their knowing they are part of a hustle when you can never be quite sure from day to day whether you are going to make it through to sunset. Yet the main character pulled it off. Yes, in the end, somehow it all came together and in a frenzied shoot-out all the right people got shot and the hero got away the girl. Oh.

The movie had promise. Some very nice textured visuals in the cinematography, a capable cast, a bold start which presented lots of intriguing questions. But it all fizzled. Not really worthy bothering with.


According to the movie slang, a "slide" is a guy so dumb he even has no idea he's being framed on. I wish I know someone that would knowingly allow to be framed, so the term is kind of a lame one to me. Anyway, when you finish watching this movie-crap you feel that someone got framed indeed. You feel like you are the "slide" here. Specially if you paid for the flick. I found it miscast, poorly written and bad directed. But I have to agree with those who still find something enjoyable on it. If you search hard enough you can always find useful things in a garbage dump, as long as you care to sift it out. So maybe I have missed the hidden gems of this one. It's a blessing it went straight-to-video. I mean for Keoni Waxman. It should have gone straight-to-dumpster.


Beware of movies where the same person is credited as the writer, producer, and director. It's an omen that should never be ignored. The general consensus is that this movie is terrible, and I have to agree. Unless this person inherited a boatload of money, hoe could he have convinced anyone to provide financing for it? I bought the DVD in Shanghai for $1US, and it's not worth that. At least there are captions...in both Spanish and in Chinese - nice! Check out an incredible continuity problem around the 50 minute mark. Freddy Jr is in bed, talking with Jez. Freddy has a huge tattoo on his right arm...next scene, it's missing...no, there it is again...wait, it's gone...it's back, again...Hilarious! If you need to vacuum the floors, or iron some shirts, this is the perfect DVD to have playing in the background to keep you company.


The worst thing of all is that even a layman wouldn't believe that a guy who wants to be a pool hustler would get a tattoo of an 8 ball on his wrist, for whatever reason. Just plain stupid.

This pretentious garbage has lines like "and on the seventh day, God created pool" and "if I'm lying...I'm dying." Numerous pool terms periodically flash across the screen meaning the screenwriter went into a pool players dictionary on the web and incorporated what he learned into the movie. They make no sense, do not move the movie along and are just dumb.

At no point do you for one second believe that Freddie Prinze is cool or a good pool player, two things we are supposed to buy in this film. The direction is just awful, some music video director who thinks it's cool to keep having white flashes quickly appear on the screen (like the film is briefly over exposed). Lots of jump cuts, quit edits and boring characters reciting dialog that doesn't ring true, makes this one waste of film. Hearing Prinze in that stupid accent say "if you like dat...yo gonna love dis" made me cringe.

My only real question about the production: What was Ving Rhames thinking?


The film portrays violence, low-lifes, and foul mouths that the writers, actors, directors, producers, etc have never once in their lives experienced. It is not entertaining! It lacks both a moral and morals. It is not a film reflecting life. It has no redeeming qualities. It is nothing more than a poorly made film that gives those involved a chance to show gory scenes, unrealistic dialogue, a glimpse of a nude woman in a lewd act (lewd when shown in public) and does very little to connect to the audience. I always love it when a bunch of really bad dudes fire 1000's of rounds of ammo to hit someone a couple of times. Film makers should be required to take a course in the actual use and effect of weapons. I rented the film because it has Ving Rhames name on it. I will not rent another that he is featured in. The next thing you know he will be playing some bald white guy sucking on a lollipop.


What Can I say about this movie that hasn't been said other then it's one of the best movies ever. Then I would be lying to you all. The Camera angles and the lighting were well.....you already know. The acting was down right humor. Who thought of this idea anyway?


Please note that this film is almost universally acclaimed so feel free to disregard my comments:

2046 is the story of a man who is haunted by a great unconsummated love in his past. It has eaten away at him and he is left unhappy and soulless. He engages in a series of meaningless sexual affairs to try to free himself from his memories or perhaps to find a similar love.

The film took 5 years and many revisions to make and this shows. The circular meandering plot is frustrating. The action moves back and forward in time and one place is as empty and soulless as the other. Nothing seems to happen in this overly long film, which ultimately disappoints.

Dáithí


this movie was the worst thing i had ever seen in my life. It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring and i was hoping it would get better but it only got worse and worse. The people in the audience were just as upset i could see them getting out of their chairs and leaving the others stayed but it was a dilemma for them they got up and then sat back down. After an hour and a half i had enough and left it had seemed like 6 hours had gone by. I hate how they had to incorporate every single detail it was like watching a book the fact that it had subtitles made it that much harder to focus. I mean like there was five minutes devoted to a man walking??????????. Omg is all i can say that was the worst movie of all time grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr


I rented this movie the other night, and I'll be damned if I still don't have a clue as to what is going on throughout this movie. Without getting into any spoilers hopefully, all I can say is that when watching other movies similar to the way this story is told in which it seems to jump around with no clear direction, just didn't work for me. I kept waiting for all the pieces of the story to come to a conclusion, but when it finally does (kind of), the story I think should have ended. It doesn't and that just leads to more confusion. For a low budget film I do think that the quality of the movie itself was pretty good, although the sound at times was annoying. Sometimes the music was too loud and the dialogue was drowned out. And I don't want to even try and figure out what was going on with Henry's facial marks??? I can't recommend this movie. I feel like I wasted 1 hr and 30 minutes.


A film so bad that halfway through I found myself wondering if the production company could have gotten away with paying the actors who portrayed Henry less for a non-speaking role (the character is mute) rather than following the story.

Perhaps you think it will be different for you, maybe you're too cool for the room and able to appreciate the finer aspects of the struggling low budget film that still respects the art man. Well let me ruin it for you. Henry kills a kid and brother Travis kills some other kids, then they don't but then Travis does and Henry doesn't then I turned it off and thought how I could have better spent my time.


Daddy Day Care is a nice family film that is entertaining to watch. Charlie and Phil are so consumed by their advertising jobs that they are completely missing out on the joys of fatherhood. After failing to excite the public about vegetable cereal, Charlie and Phil are fired from their ad jobs. While in search of employment and tending to his four-year-old son Ben during the day while his wife Kim is at work, Charlie has an idea. If he and Phil can handle taking care of two kids, how much harder can it be to supervise ten? Much harder than they ever imagined. But, they will try to manage to pull through and not let Miss Gwyneth Harridan ruin their day care. The plot doesn't sounds great but it does have some potential, Fortunately, it delivered as this is film was actually quite funny. It wasn't over the top funny or Finding Nemo funny but it defiantly can stand on its own. At most times Daddy Day Care may just seem like a film with a bunch of screaming kids and nothing else which isn't true as there are many laughs to be found as well. Eddie Murphy stars and gives quite a funny performance. The real stars of the film though are the little kids. Most of them were funny, some were annoying but they were all tolerable. Regina King plays Kim and she doesn't really appear in the film very much but gives a funny line or two. Steve Zahn was really funny as Marvin. Sure sometimes his character was too stupid to like but it never crosses the line. Anjelica Huston plays the same role I usually see her in, she plays a mean person well but it is tiring seeing her do the same thing. Lacey Chabert has a small but funny role and she is a bit underrated. Jeff Garlin wasn't that good, like when compared to everyone else he was weak and not very funny either. Steve Carr directs and does a decent job, nothing special. I don't know why I liked this movie as much as I did. It was stupid and kind of had a weak story but I still liked it. It does get dull at times, particularly the beginning as it starts off slow but it becomes funnier as the film continues. The running time is 92 minutes so it wouldn't be that much of a punishment to watch. The movie isn't very clever it's a simple film but it does contain enough laughs to entertain most people. Daddy Day Care is also a lot better then The Haunted Mansion. So, if you have a choice between the two, I would go with this one. In the end, this isn't a great film but it might fit the bill if you are in need for a family flick. Rating 6.7/10


This has to be one of the one of the worst comedies to walk on the face of the Earth,the acting is dreadful,the plot sucked and Eddie Murphy put on a bad performance.I've seen Eddie Murphy in the Shrek movies and he put on great performances.It's about to lads who call themselves losers and put up a daddy day care center and they soon find out that they can't control the kids and an inspector comes and says they need more staff or else he will shut daddy day care down but fear not...the two boneheads have a plan that doesn't seem to work and daddy day care gets shut down.The only way to reopen it is to find a bigger place,more staff and try to get the kids back from some school for kids aged 2-4 or something like that.This movie is a real joke that can't make you laugh instead it makes you sleepy.The story isn't that bad but nothing is funny except the part when a kid comes out of the bathroom and says "I missed"and Eddie Murphy looks in the bathroom and the music from "Psycho" comes on.

Eddie Murphy fans will be extremely disappointed with this movie but I kind of doubt they will like it but its your choice to watch it.This really is a really bad movie and that includes Eddie Murphy's performance.

I would only watch this again if I have to pick a choice between "The Pink Panther" or this,I would watch this movie again This is a movie that should be avoided at all costs and don't say that I didn't warn you if you're disappointed.What a waste of time and film.


I ultimately decided to give this film a chance despite its awful critical reviews based upon my experience that low-brow comedies are often brutally panned when in fact they achieve precisely what they set out to achieve by providing low-brow laughs. Roger Ebert is one of my favorite film critics, a guy who does not normally hold all films against the requirements for excellence, but after I finished viewing the recent low-IQ comedy "Old School" for the second time in a row, I was disappointed that Ebert hated it so much. Thus, I figured how bad could "Daddy Day Care" really be?

The answer: really bad. Really, really bad.

You could do worse ("Wrong Turn" may still be playing at a theatre near you), but this is just the sort of formulaic Hollywood psuedo-family comedy that is so tried and true it should work, but falls short in every laughless scene. The formula is remarkable similar to films like "Liar, Liar", except this one simply doesn't have the same oomph that made that stupid comedy somewhat watchable. Most of the adult actors appear bored with the picture themselves and probably angry with their agents for letting them sign the contracts, and the only amusing moments are provided by a few of the children (a la "Kindergarten Cop") and surprisingly by Steve Zahn as a socially-challenged Star Trek/comic book geek who just so happens to deal extraordinarily well with children. (When asked why, he responds, "I read Dr. Spock's book on child development. It's not about Star Trek!")

Some might advise you wait until video or DVD for this one, but I suggest you only view the trailer - it literally contains the only good parts to the film.

3/10


I don't want to write a comment for this useless and completely overrated film, I really don't, but I feel it is my duty to warn people about it, so here we go.

Let me start off with the good things:

Okay, now that that's over, let me go to the bad things:

The acting was bad from everyone in the whole entire film, the comedy was not funny in anyway, the script was dumb and unamusing, the movie itself is nowhere near touching, heartwarming, or useful whatsoever, and it was really annoying and utterly ridiculous through most of the film.

Now, I warn you to stay as far away as possible from this movie if you haven't seen it, and don't even bother reading any other comments, because all you need to know is what I just told you.


To be honest I still had some respect left for Eddie Murphy before this. He just seemed to have lost his way in the 21st century. But nothing will ever make forgive this. He's just went all 'kiddie' in recent years. And it's sick.

In the 80's Murphy gave us strong African-American characters like Reggie Hammond, Billy Ray Valentine, Axel Foley and Prince Akeem. But that was a long time ago. And it's a shame to see him trade a hard edge for movies like this.

It's so sugary it is literally sickening. It's about as subtle as a brick in the face too. Annoying kids who are obviously reading phonetically off oversized cue-cards held off camera, David Newman's worse than generic 'family movie' score, clockwork predictability and toilet humor (how many more family movies are going to milk fart sounds for all their worth?) are all you can expect from this film.

Staring directly into the sun is not as painful on the eyes as this.


Possible inane plot spoilers

After having given us one of the bigger and more notable bombs in recent years with Pluto Nash, Eddie Murphy now brings us Daddy Day Care. Though I knew it was probably a long shot, I decided to give this movie a try figuring Eddie was due for a winner. I've never had a long shot finish in the money, and thanks to Daddy Day Care,I still haven't had the big one come in.

Unless you're a brain dead zombie from Night of The Living Dead, you know what the plot of this movie is going to be before the $8.50 even leaves your hand for the movie ticket. That's not a problem because that's the way it is with most films these days, especially formula comedies. If they give you a snappy script with funny dialogue, tolerable acting, characters you can care about, and enough humorous moments so that you don't miss that $8.50, then any film can make the grade. I don't think having those elements are too much to ask for, but the people involved in Daddy Day Care sure must think so.

Very early in this film they give us Jeff Garlin and Steve Zahn dressed as broccoli and a carrot, so that they can promote some kind of vegetable flavored cereal. The whole premise is so idiotic, that I'm thinking how could this be funny? As it turns out, I'm right, and just as I am predicting that the kids will turn on Garlin and Zahn in their tossed salad outfits then begin throwing things and attacking the vegetables, it happens on the screen. If you think your kids hate vegetables now, you'll never get them in the little tykes after they see this nonsense. Not one minute, not one second, not one millisecond of this is remotely funny. To top it off, I'm now in a sour mood as I think of the $8.50 I once had, and the almost ten dollars I had spent on popcorn and soda. I'm thinking there's still a chance Daddy Day Care can recover and get better.

Of course, Murphy Zahn and Garlin, are soon fired, so out of financial necessity, they start Daddy Day Care. Now at this point, we start getting the fish out of water story, and our hopes are high that the fun will now begin. It doesn't. We know the kids are going to start out by giving Murphy and Garlin a hard time. There should be some funny gags here, but there isn't. The kids are annoying and Murphy and Garlin do nothing more than stand around as targets for their shenanigans. What is worse, they feed the kids a bunch of ding dongs, making them run around aimlessly even more, getting into more things and being more obnoxious than ever, and not doing it in any way to suggest the slightest taste of humor. To top it off, we get to see the kid can't hit the potty scene which was in all the previews. Believe me folks, it played better as a coming attraction then it does here. Come to think of it, the whole bit was in the trailer so what you saw is what you get.

Later, when Steve Zahn finally returns to help the guys out with their Day Care, does the audience finally chuckle for the first time since they sat down to watch this turkey. He's the best thing going in this movie, but isn't used nearly enough. All the rest of the goings on you can guess: the boys will learn to do better, the kids will like them, more parents will bring their kids, blah blah blah. Only when Zahn is on the screen does any of this play out with any sense of comedy.

Anjelica Houston, who should know better by now, plays the villain running a competing day care center. I think she is trying to play it in such a way so that we think it is campy enough for there to be humor in her performance. We can laugh while we hate her. We don't laugh, and we don't hate her, because we just don't care.

Daddy Day care does try to redeem itself toward the end and show that it has somewhat of a heart. It is way too little, way too unfunny, and way too late to salvage this romper room rubbish. If you must watch a fish out of water story about kids, I suggest you head to your nearest store and pick up Kindergarten Cop. Shwarzenegger and the kids are much funnier and Arnold's not even suppose to be a comedienne. Come to think of it though, judging from has last couple of movies, Eddie Murphy is no longer a comic or an actor. What a waste!


I spent several months scouring DVD stores and P2P networks, looking for Harry's Game, simply because I'd heard from numerous sources that it was the most authentic portrayal of the N. Irish troubles on film. I finally got my hands on a copy, and I was very excited to see what I believed was going to be the best depiction of life in N. Ireland under the shadow of the war.

Dear GOD. The acting, the accents, the dialogue, the camera work, the directing; is there anything in this friggin' series that doesn't seem like it was under the control of a high school media student?

This is the worst - yes, the WORST - depiction of the Troubles I've ever seen, and I've seen some pretty abysmal Troubles-inspired movies, let me tell ya! There are two things, and ONLY two things that make this series tolerable enough so that I could sit through the full three hours. First, the overall visual "bleakness" of the series. It really "felt" like Northern Ireland, and certainly the Northern Ireland of the 80's. As long as no one spoke or acted out anything other than walking around, it was quite authentic. Then again, this probably had nothing to do with the director's/producer's vision and more to do with their budget, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The second positive point is that it appears to have been reasonably well-researched in terms of the "operating procedures" of both the IRA and the British intelligence apparatus. In that respect, it's no more or less authentic than any other half-decent attempt to portray the N. Irish Troubles.

I found myself shaking my head in both disbelief and anger every time someone did or said something on-screen. The casting appears to have been made up predominately of weak B actors, somewhat-known British TV actors, and a handful of N. Irish natives who probably hadn't acted in their lives. The accents...God almighty, the accents. Every single "N. Irish" person in the series - other than those actually FROM N. Ireland - seemed to have developed their own bastardization of the N. Irish accent. They may as well have been from different planets. Some were so bad that I burst out laughing...others were just bad enough to make me cringe. The dialogue was no better; the writer was putting words into the mouths of these characters that they'd never say, and making them spew out their moronic lines at inappropriate/unnecessary times. It just felt weak and unrealistic, which is quite staggering considering the fact that the one word that everyone associates with this series is "authenticity".

The Clannad theme song for the series is a fine piece of music, and the fact that it plays during the end credits is probably a wise choice - end credits, good music; a fair pay-off for having wasted several hours of your life.

Overall Authenticity = 4/10

Overall Entertainment Value = 2/10

This is bog-standard, low-budget 80's TV. Don't expect anything more, and don't expect a history lesson about N. Ireland.


Unless you are easily distracted by Laura Antonelli, I wouldn't say that there is anything particularly noteworthy about this weak Italian comedy. There were a few funny moments, but more often than not, the jokes were misfires. It didn't take all that long for me to start watching the clock with regularity during this film, so I would have to say that it is fairly dull as well. Learn from my mistake, and don't waste your time watching this forgettable film.


1970s kung fu movies have never exactly been known for outstanding (or comprehensible) plot. So, if you're anything like me, you were expecting this movie to be like the rest of Jackie Chan's early career: silly, unrealistic, and largely nonsensical, but fun nevertheless just because of Jackie's sheer force of personality. And, of course, his incredible stunts and fight scenes.

Unfortunately, New Fist of Fury fails even to meet that modest standard. The entire first half of the movie is apparently dedicated to the development of the plot. Bad move on the filmmakers' part. A kung fu movie is about kung fu, not lots of boring... *talking*. Jackie doesn't even start to learn kung fu until the movie is nearly over, for pity's sake! This would be forgivable, I guess, if the resulting plot were at all interesting. No such luck. Besides which, most of it simply becomes irrelevant by the second half of the movie, when everything hinges around a straightforward martial-arts-school showdown. As for the ending... well, I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say it's incredibly abrupt and surprising. And not in a good way.

This isn't to say there aren't fight scenes. There are several of them pointlessly interspersed throughout the tedious plot development, and one big one at the end that *almost* makes the rest worthwhile. But when the fights do break out, even when Jackie is actually involved, this isn't the almost cartoonish, balletic violence we see in his other movies. Rather, it's fierce and bloody -- the actors in the final fight scenes chomp down fake blood capsules like M&Ms -- and seems to hinge around the frequent use of kicks to the groin. (The guys kicked in the groin, inexplicably, are all given lingering closeups.) The fight scenes are still incredibly cool, of course, but not worth sitting through two hours of cheesy dreck.

In brief, this movie is too ridiculous to work in terms of plot, and its fight scenes are too nasty and spaced-apart to redeem it.

A few particularly ridiculous things to look for, if you watch this movie anyhow:

1. The high-pitched whoops and screeches during the old kung fu teacher's speech. (I don't know if that was a loon being tortured to death, or the cries of agony from one of the groin-kick victims.) 2. The old kung fu teacher's leaping-and-shouting related death, and the fact that his body still stands there looking annoyed afterwards. 3. The Japanese army captain's dubbed-over voice. "Weaselly" is a vast understatement here. 4. Jackie's Fist of Fury technique -- described on the back of my VCR tape case as "a new and deadly art, never before revealed on the screen" -- which involves waving his arms up and down slowly during funky 70s hypno-music. Deadly indeed.


I saw the premiere of this movie at the Sundance film festival. It starts out as a rather intriguing character study in a beautiful agrarian setting. The audience is immediately endeared to the main character, Duncan, played excellently by Emile Hirsch. However, Duncan's vacant naivete becomes ridiculous. The film doesn't go any deeper into him than it did at the beginning. Duncan is also rather stupid. Of course, he's meant to be pure and innocent, but the concept just goes too far. Duncan is silly enough to take his dear pet chicken on a truck ride with some crazy drunk kids, and he continually goes back to them despite his acknowledgement that they're only playing with him. A search for acceptance would be a credible explanation if Duncan weren't so relentlessly stupid for the entire film. There's no enlightenment. There's no character arc. And I wouldn't suggest that an animal rights activist (like myself) should watch the ending. I won't give it away, though I almost already have. In any case, when an audience member asked the director/writer, Michael Burke, why he chose to give the film the ending it has -- which was undoubtedly the lurking question that everyone was mulling over but afraid to ask -- Burke answered, "Well, I got to the end and -- that's what happened!" Here we were all expecting some story of catharsis and liberation, and it was revealed to us that not only did the ending have no thought behind it, but the rest of the movie was thoughtless as well. The actors are great, and there are a few suspenseful scenes, and Duncan is rather lovable if you don't think much about it, but if I weren't an Emile Hirsch or Thomas Guiry fan, I'd skip it. There's nothing to learn or discover here.


Well to be fair, matters do at least get off to a cracking start in this, the final chapter in this infamous series of flicks. Sadly however, it has to be said that what follows is tedious at best and moronic at worst.

Fans of the violent excesses that these flicks are most notorious for will be in for a major disappointment here as the said scenes have been well nigh omitted entirely with our hero (the incomparable Sonny Chiba) adopting more of a subtle approach to matters. In fact, our protagonist is now shown adopting multiple disguises in order to accomplice his nefarious ends (a far cry from his head on brutality as displayed in the first two films!)

Easily the least of the series, there's really very little to recommend here other than the rather cool final fight between Chiba and his nemesis (in other words just fast forward to the end)

Overall then, this proves to be a somewhat sad way to end the series. Oh well, one can always re-watch the first two over again I suppose..


"Telegrafisten" is one of the worst movies that I`ve ever seen and this is how Norwegian movies mostly are: pis# poor! The movie is based on a poor book, has a poor script, bad directing, terrible actors and a totally uninteresting story taking place on a small island in the northern part of Norway. We were forced to watch this crap at school last year, and I recommend all of you to steer clear of this guff.

0,5/10


The writings on the wall.

Hackers is a high minded film about the intricacy of Hacker subculture in the mid-90s. It's about people living on the fringe of society, who express themselves through a connection to the electronic world.

The storyline is simple, a young man is found guilty on his 11th birthday of using a virus to infect multiple network systems and causing them to crash. Subsequently, he is put on a probation that restricts him from owing or operating a computer & touch tone telephone. Fast forward to his 18th birthday, and after a broken family, a move to New York with his mother, and a change of schools; he falls into a group of people who live as "Hackers". After one of them inadvertently copies incriminating data from a Mineral Company computer, the company's head of computer security hatches a plan to track them down. With a couple of plot twists, and a Good/Evil story, its an easy watch. Angelina Jolie even briefly gets her nipples onto film for the first time.

The downside comes in the fact that the characters are very one dimensional. It's hard to engage with them, as they all seem to be trying so hard to be interesting and edgy. The computer jargon thrown into the dialogue is appropriate for the time frame of the movie, but it really has not aged well. Its a mess of bad cliché and cheesy one-liners that creates a nasty cringe factor.

Using New York as a backdrop, the film is shot nicely, giving a gritty urban feel, and allowing it to seem larger in scope than the sum of its parts. However, with wooden acting & delivery, the characters seem to fade into the background, not taking advantage of the settings they find themselves in.

The low rating is more for the poor acting, lackluster dialogue and cut'n'paste storyline. This, though, does not mean its a bad film. Hackers has a great soundtrack, with quirky tracks that work perfectly for the material. It also seems to work on a visceral level, providing entertainment and laughs that it wasn't really intending.

The best bet is to turn your brain off, grab some popcorn, and (if you have a passing knowledge of computers) have some belly laughs at the utter cheese of it all.


Cliché is the key word here. The computers that have no basis in reality, except for a few screen shots from Macintoshes; the "kooky" hacker types who wear Battlestar Galactica-inspired jackets and New-Wavey clothes; the evil villain and his secret-service style minions; the edgy attraction (are they gonna get together by the end?) between the two main characters, etc. Stylistically, it doesn't even seem relevant to mid-90's hacker culture at all. One wonders if there was any research involved in the script. The computer operating systems are more like Tron then what they really should be, which is a bunch of Windows or Unix machines with boring information displayed in a pedestrian and boring manner on regular CRT's. The plot is very predictable and lacks any suspense. You know how it's going to turn out. This would have made an OK made-for-television flick.


Unlikeable characters fling 'tude and computer buzzwords at one another as they diss the big bad adults with their magic computer skills in a series of goofy and unconvincing situations. Any similarity to real computer terminology and technology, or real hackers' lives - both far more interesting than these hip cartoon technoteens - is purely coincidental. Read "Cuckoo's Egg" instead.

- Kate Orman


Hackers is a horror flick for everybody, that knows at least a little bit about computers. Young people, bursting with sex appeal are living almost underground and preaching rebel computer philosophy... They are hacking with gigabit connection, so that the nice animations of a broken fire walls and virtual rooms with databases and folders can load on their screens for the sake of the public. They use a laptops to hack from the top of the buildings, from the roofs, from the subways - because the laptop is such a powerful tool (in movies hackers almost always use laptops) - this device is meant to display "ACCESS GRANTED"! And the fight between the automated machines that change movies in the TV station office? Give me a freaking break! I rate this movie 2 for some shocking stupidity and frightening inadequacy.

P.S. If you don't know anything about the way internet and computers work - it's a nice teen crime/comedy - 4.5/10


This movie is BAD. There is no getting around the fact that this movie is grossly inaccurate, inconsistent and generally poorly made. The plot is contrived, overused and generic. A group of young hackers create some trouble until they find out about an evil plot. Then it becomes a bad action, romance hybrid... with outdated computers... that never existed.

Indeed, the movie hackers breaks at least two dozen fundamental pieces of computer knowledge that anybody even moderately trained could catch. Most of these somehow involve over the top dramatic camera angles and cut-away. The script moves in a kind of jumpy staccato shuffle, with the occasional inconsistency or absurdity making you jump for a moment. For instance, while finding the infamous hosts of the show "hack the planet" (which manages to crack into the TV station every week at a predictable time and stay on air for half an hour with a live feed) They are held at gun-point by a robotic arm! Once the hosts (Annoying twins) find out that they are allies, they show their secret, it was a squirt gun! Oh you hackers, what a waste of two hours that was!


Even allowing for it's age, this film is basically a clunker.

The plot is ridiculous, the script is dreadful, the acting dire and the special effects are laughable.

Anyone who knows anything about computers will cringe at lines like "the new RISC architecture will change everything." "yeah, RISC is cool." or "it has a 28 point 8 bps modem" (even when 28.8 modems were state of the art, who called them 28 point 8 BPS modems?)

If you are teenage boy and a fleeting glimpse of Angelina Jolie's nipples is the most exciting thing you can think of, watch this movie. Otherwise look elsewhere for your evening's entertainment.