So I get that Asian-American actors need richer roles than just kicking some guy in a martial arts movie, but please don't tell me that this is the alternative. All the characters are stereotypical, flat, and undeveloped to the point of caricature. You've got the sixteen-year-old blonde, the cynical man who wants to "rediscover" himself, and the hot girl who provides the easy impetus to do it. Where is the heart in this movie? Where is the exploration of real issues? If Ken Leung was white, there is no question that most Asian-Americans, or Americans in general for that matter, would find his character deeply offensive. He comes to Shanghai commenting on its modernity and looking wide-eyed at all the bright lights like he expected to find two huts and a water buffalo. He's sleazy, he's in love with himself, and his "conversion" at the end is unconvincing. It's easy to go back to "rediscover your roots" when you have a gorgeous house with the best view in the city and a beautiful girl (portrayed by Kelly Hu, quite obviously not Chinese, let alone Shanghainese) who conveniently speaks English waiting for you. He doesn't make any real effort to learn Chinese and absorbs culture by hanging out in Karaoke bars and expensive restaurants. I mean, come on.

It's great to see an Asian guy who can finally get (lots of) girls in movies, that's for sure. But as an Asian-American woman from Shanghai, I found this movie egregiously awful. If you're looking for a quality Asian-American film, you can do better. I'm pretty sure that all the actors and filmmakers themselves can do better as well, since they are pretty talented individually, just apparently bad collectively.

I was really looking forward to this film and am sorry to say that I was sorely disappointed


This is a terrible movie with really nothing going for it that I can see. Being that there are three versions of this movie this surely must be the worst (I have seen the first but not the last but if it is worse than this then I will be avoiding it like the plague) . These middle class white suburban American settings are something I always struggle with as I find them so unreal and twee especially as in this case they are Disneyfied. Sheeley long again proves that she should never have left Cheers and again plays a watered down version of Dianne. The plot as you all must have gathered by now is that well trodden path of parent and child swapping bodies and all the pranks and pitfalls that they have to deal with (oh how we laugh!). With no direction to write home about and no performances of note this film has been dome before and so much better. If you are looking for a film of this type to watch as a family then do yourself a favour and watch 'Big'. Not to be viewed again


SPOILERS BELOW

+ + Rose leaves her husband with no real explanation ever offered- and relocates to Kentucky! She meets the wonderfully sympathetic Sister Evangeline and the crotchety heart-of-gold spinster landowner along with some of the other pregnant women. The audience is geered to feel empathy for these mothers who are forced to relinquish custody of their babies- yet despite a few initial protests, Rose does nothing to challenge the dictatorial Mother Superior or change any of her dictums even after she herself becomes a mother! Oh, and for reasons never explained, she isolates herself from her daughter Cecilia ASAP as well her her bigamously wed 2nd husband Son. Cecilia grows into a remarkably well-adjusted teen without any evident boyfriends who cherishes her de facto mothers (Sister Evangeline and the late spinster landowner who left the house) and her de facto father Son but is understandably puzzled and bitter towards her own mother's cold behaviour. Beyond cooking together for the unwed mothers and teaching her how to drive, Rose sees to it they have as little interaction as possible and openly resents any queries into her past. Rose actually berates Cecilia for driving the seriously injured Son to the hospital when there was no other reliable means to safely reach the place as though Cecilia had taken a joyride! Eventually Rose's first husband finds the family shortly after Rose has taken off with only the tersest explanation but he seems perfectly willing to leave things be. At the end, after someone smashes her car back window, Rose has an epiphany and drives back home and while a long-dry spring gushes to life, Rose gushes about how she's now Cecilia's 'REAL mother!' while hugging her daughter and bigamous husband. Contrary to another reviewer, I don't think Cecilia had miraculously become totally accepting of Rose at that instant but just seemed willing to see if this New Rose was going to change! Usually Lifetime movies try to provide compelling motivations for the despicable behaviours of the leading characters but this one didn't even slightly bother! While Rose wasn't overtly cruel or sadistic, it's hard to remember a less sympathetic female character- and she owed everyone in her life major penance! I'd have preferred it if the movie had been focused on Sister Evangeline, the spinster or Son instead of Rose. Sada Thompson and Ellen Burstyn shined in their parts but even the great Dana Delaney couldn't make Rose believable or likable!


The most I can say about this movie -- without risking a spoiler -- is that I feel it is centered around an unlikable character who treats pretty much everyone like doo-doo. She is selfish, deceptive, and evasive -- for no real reason.

Not a great chick flick, in my opinion.


Recently this movie was on Lifetime. It is about a woman who leaves her husband for no reason when she becomes pregnant. She goes into hiding to give up her child at a convent. The story gives no apparent reason for her running away until the very ending, which makes no sense. She then marries again, while still married to her first husband, to the grounds keeper, Clancy Brown. She decides to keep her baby and lives in a separate home from her husband and child at the convent. Years go by of the couple living apart and the child grows up thinking her mother doesn't love and care for her. Then after a mail incident, her first husband finds her and comes looking for his wife, which of course he is still in love with. Then the story finally unwinds and we find out why this woman runs from her family, which of course is very weak, and leaves the viewer full of questions that are never answered. I watched this whole story to find out the reasoning of a religious event that happens in the first 5 minutes of the movie with a sick child becoming well after a spring of water appears out of the ground, at the very end of the movie the spring appears again, when the lady who runs stops running, I don't see how the 2 relate to the story line that seemed to be full of holes, and how a woman can leave her child and have that child have peace suddenly at the end of the movie is a bit to far fetched for me! I would not waste my time with this movie. One of the worst I have seen.


It is a weak movie, but it is based on a great book. The Patron Saint of Liars is a sad story of a woman unhappy with who she is. It details how she runs from her life then she puts herself into another life. She is never quite happy with her second life either. The story is sad, but interesting. You relate to her and feel sorry for her at the same time. The movie is much slower than the book, and not as deep. The book takes you in more and allows you to relate more to the characters and their feelings. Dana Delany is kind of bland in the lead role. It does have a small early role for Maggie Gyllenhal.It is worth a watch, but definitely worth reading.


Another voice added to the comment choir. This is a pretty awful movie that allows one to wander the house, do laundry, read a book (even the book upon which the movie is based) and still be bored with it (the movie that is). Add my vote to those who hated the lead character. She isn't presented as a patron saint but more of an excellent liar and fairly worthless character. People like Rose may have a few screws loose or lost but whatever the reason for her behavior, I can't work up the empathy to care. Gist of review: Sticking with this movie is like watching the wrong shade of paint dry on your walls so you can finally repaint with a better color. Fortunately, viewers can avoid the wait by just changing the channel.


Casper Van Dien, last seen battling giant bugs in STARSHIP TROOPERS, now gets to take on sharks in the aptly named SHARK ATTACK. Once again it's the humans who are the *real* bad guys, and Van Dien soon finds himself in more trouble than he bargained for. The acting is pretty bad all around, although the mad scientist is amusing and has some good one-liners. The plot is fairly meaningless until the very end, when everything gets impossibly complicated. It's like a Bobbsey Twins mystery gone bad. Complementing the acting and plot portions of the film is second-rate documentary footage that the producers probably sneaked out of the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" reject bin. If you like BAD movies, you should enjoy this one. If you don't enjoy B movies, try JAWS instead.


Casper Van Dien breaks a new record in looking shabby in this movie, although he is supposed to be a marine biologist. If you can buy that, you will probably be able to handle the rest of the movie as well. "Shark Attack" tells the story of Van Dien going to South Africa (where just about everyone seem to be a hustler), to look for his missing friend. He finds out that his friend became shark food, and tries to find out why the sharks have started to behave so aggressively in this particular area. He gets help by another expert, Corinne, who loves to run around in her bikini while trying to solve the case.

If you are looking for really bad acting, check out "Shark Attack". You won´t believe your eyes. The effects are awfully lousy, unless you find rubber sharks convincing. The script contained so many old cliches that I lost count of them, and that is not too good. Right from the start it is quite obvious who is good and who is evil.

These kind of films can be so bad that they become entertaining, but "Shark Attack" is not fun at all. Man, I´d rather watch an episode of "Baywatch" than this kind of crap. Why somebody felt it was necessary to make a sequel to "Shark Attack" I have no idea.

* out of * * * * *


What a pointless film about genetically mutated sharks. First of all, there are barely any sharks and this film and the gore is crappy low-budget like the ONE shark that comes in at the end. Otherwise, it's a really sh-tty, bad, low budget, typically modern, horror film that makes real good cinematic horror genius like Mario Bava role in their graves. How could there be a big scam for this made-for-TV movie? Yes, this is a made-for-TV crap-shack which you know, knowing this is a made for TV film that there's not going to be much good quality. If you want a shark movie, go watch "Jaws" or even "The Deep" but not Shark Attack. Because despite the title, it's a poor excuse to make money off the SCI-FI channel.


This movie starts out with Steven McKray ( Casper Van Dien ) wanting to go to Africa to investigate a series of Shark Attacks near a remote village called Port Amanzi that has scared the town's tourism and driven fishermen out of business. As our hero visits an old friend, Dr. Miles Craven located in the town he learns his close friend Marc Desantis was killed by a Shark.

Steven McKray a expert marine biologist learns that Marc Desantis sister Corinne Desantis ( Jennifer McShane ) is also in town and meets up with her at the Hook & Net bar where they meet hostile fishermen, who blame American scientists for the Shark Attacks. They soon both find out that Marc Desantis might not have been killed by a Shark after all and both begin to investigate.

This movie is more about Steven McKray and Corinne Desantis looking for the reason why someone killed Marc Desantis and why sharks have turned so violent in this remote village called Port Amanzi. The director in my opinion should have focused more on the shark attacks because in the movie there isn't enough to satisfy the audience, even though the sharks shown in the movie are actually real and cool to watch, the movie lacks any thrill or scary moments when the main cast actually comes face to face with the sharks.


The lurid title may suggest vacationing teens getting massacred, but the truth is very different. The cast is almost entirely middle-aged and mad scientists, ruthless businessmen and corrupt officials all play a far greater part in the proceedings than any shark, whether stock footage or rubber. Casper Van Dien gives a sold, hard-working performance, while Jennifer McShane manages to sidestep as many clichés as she can and make palatable the ones she simply can't avoid hitting head-on. Bob Misiorowski captures and conveys the desperation that clings to coastal communities from Port Albert to Skegness, but is far less sure of himself with the attack scenes, all of which lack the tension and otherworldly fear they should be full of. Shark Attack is a decent film that - with a little more darkness - could have been a very good one.


I have just seen this movie and have to say that it was pretty poor, I mean there are hardly any attacks and when there are they are all "stock footage" of actual sharks. There are also many pointless scenes in the movie, and many bits make the viewer laugh. I wouldn't bother with this film, and for starters the back cover of the film stuff it up by saying that it's a hammerhead when it's clearly a "great white".

Oh dear.......


I actually live about an hour outside where this film was shot, and have been there many times (wow, privileged eh?). The film is set in Natal, but filmed in Port Alfred. If you live in South Africa, you would appreciate the fact that Port Alfred is easily recognizable and it seems a joke to try and make it out to be Natal.

Aside, I can't believe how bad this is for a 1999 film, even if it is a TV film. Why would van Dien act in this crud. The story is lame, lame, lame. Let's face it, Jaws was the original. Deep Blue Sea is great though, but this and Cruel Jaws are vile.

Also, being South African, I laughed at the accents in the film. It seems that no film yet portraying the South African accent has got it right. This film's attempt was even worse than Val Kilmer's attempt in The Saint. I suppose that it is a little known accent and it only annoys South African's though.

Whether you live in SA or USA, watch this film and despair.


quite simply this film put me to sleep in under 30 minutes. Why bother using live footage of great white sharks and try to edit it into a movie. The whole thing stunk of being cheap and nasty and spoiled what was left of my night. i'm stunned to find they have made a Shark Attack 2, i certainly won't be entertaining it.


There is only one word to say about this movie and that is boring. The plot: A marine biologist heads for Port Amanzi in Africa after his friend, Mark DeSantis, is supposedly a victim of a fatal shark attack. DeSantis had been conducting research on a series of shark attacks in the area prior to his death and now his friend, along with DeSantis' sister, takes up the research and finds that the sharks may not be the only threat in Port Amanzi. 3 Things you should never do.

1)Buy this movie. 2)Watch this movie. 3)Don't watch it again just to review it.

The worst think about this movie was that the shark was real underwater and every time come above sea level it was fake, i don't even get me started on the fake blood!. There is one good thing i can say about this movie is the acting from small part of cast is Okay.


Casper Van Dien is one of the worst actors I've seen in movies today, but he is particular bad in this terrible shark movie which is completely devoid of good action, horror, and fun. If you are looking for a shark movie without much of a plot but with fun moments, check out DEEP BLUE SEA (7/10), the more expensive and superior shark movie that came out the same year, but do not watch SHARK ATTACK.

3/10


Ok I have seen alot of bad rip offs about the great movie jaws but this is just stupid!!!!!!!!half the time it is not even about sharks. Most of the time it is about this guy and his brother(SPOIL)who gets killed at the end(END SPOIL)and how he hates him and he works for this evil fat guy (SPOIL) who gets killed by his own creations(END SPOIL)so to put it in plain turms THIS MOVIE REALLY REALLY SUCKED so do yourself a favor AND DO NOT WATCH IT.


Let's not waste too many words on this piece of junk, as I certainly don't want to be the one responsible to raise any interest and make more people suffer through it. "Shark Attack" is an unendurably stupid movie with no redeeming elements whatsoever: unoriginal plot, lame and overly fake action-sequences, no tension dull characters and  worst of all  absolutely no sense of humor! I usually like B-creature features but there's nothing as pathetic as an animals-revolting-violently-against-humans premise that takes itself too seriously! The completely untalented Casper Van Dien stars as a scientist (yeahhe sure looks like one) who travels to an African fishing town because the increasing amount of shark attacks there and one of the victims was his old high school buddy Marc. Upon arrival he discovers that another scientist is trying to genetically use the sharks for the developing of a cancer vaccine. Breeding sharks for medical reasons, hmm Now where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, Renny Harlin did the same with his "Deep Blue Sea" and that wasn't a very good film neither! Some of the dialogues are so bad they hurt your ears and the acting is really lousy. There's no horror here, neither, unless you consider the dissection of several shark-cadavers to be grueling. The James-Bond style climax is ridiculous and the concluding moral of the film is that animals can't be mean-spirited by naturehumans always the evil driving force behind everything. Yawn! Better watch "Jaws" again, even though it's for the 200th time.


I saw this movie three years ago on tape when i rented it. since i live right across the street from it i walk there. I was going through all these films in the 's' section. i came across shark attack 3, shark zone, shark hunter, when i came across a tape of shark attack. i had seen the third many times, so i thought it would be a great film to laugh at. while walking home, i had to stop every five seconds to look at the boxart and read the back and look at the tape, it took me an hour to walk 5 hundred feet when it usually takes me 20 minutes. When i put it in, the first five minutes were boring. 15-20 minutes into the film i was so distracted by all the people in the house because they were family i made it to the part where he is talking to a guy in a lab with shark things all around him. since a few other people were watching it i left it on, i decided to watch it some other day and never did and they were selling tapes and somebody else bought it and i'm gonna buy it soon. All i can say is the film's first half hour is boring, but it has a lot of action, so it is okay, the paragraph above is just to keep you entertained because there isn't a lot to say about this junk, just treasure how bad the film is. 4/10 stars.


I'm still laughing- Not! I'm still asking my myself what the point was. I barely got a chuckle, this movie sucks. It tries to be charming and touching, but it turns out stupid. I do not recommend it.


This is one of the most predictable movies I have ever seen. And this supposed to be funny..... Boring, boring, boring. Find the fast forward button at your remote and use it... I can`t say I laughed once, and the only good feeling this movie gave me was relief when it ended.


The most accurate description of how Billy Crystal fairs in "My Giant" is to say that this movie is to his career as "Ishtar" was to Warren Beaty's - it didn't ruin it, but it slowed it down.......a lot. Crystal should know the three golden rules of Hollywood: 1) never play opposite a kid 2) never play opposite an animal 3) never play opposite someone that is almost 3 feet taller than you, is as innocent as a kid and "acts" like an animal.

What is this story? A comedy? I guess, but I didn't laugh, except at the scenes where Crystal is on his own and not burdened with his (what-is-her-role-in-this-movie) ex-wife or the afore-mentioned Giant. Did I mention there's also a kid in this film? Well, forget about him. The son is brought in to make us feel sorry for Crystal, and we do, but for the actor, not the character. Billy Crystal is a funny man. If you don't believe me, watch him in old episodes of "Soap" or "Saturday Night Live." Go rent "City Slicker" or "Running Scared" or "When Harry Met Sally."

"Giant" is more ho-hum than fee-fi-fo-fum.


Theatrical Spoilers

CURTAINS is a typically Canadian thriller. Had this been a US made film, the script and the production would have been completely different. The first thing that would have been different if it was a US production is that every women in the movie would have been under the age of 25. As it is now in CURTAINS, the cast includes Samantha Eggar and Linda Thornson, two capable actresses who weren't young things back in 1983. Also, had this been a US production, it would have been "sexed up" (or cheesed up, to be more precise) and the look and feel of the movie wouldn't have been so, well, Canadian. For instance, I doubt very much that the scenes when we see the actresses ice skating or dancing would have been included in an American production. Too artsy. So, on one hand, I'm glad CURTAINS is not your typical American-made slasher. But this doesn't mean CURTAINS doesn't have its share of problems because it's Canadian.

In fact, I'd say CURTAINS is a near mess of a film. It's well know that there were production problems during the shooting of the movie and they're in evidence on screen. What I really like about CURTAINS is that it takes its time to build suspense. It's not in a rush to clobber its audience with a sledgehammer. But somewhere halfway through the story, something really bad happens to the narrative and the film was completely derailed off of its tracks and it never fully recovers. This moment happens when Vernon and Thorson are shot. During this scene and everything else afterwards, the production feels completely different. It obvious that something happened behind the scenes and the mess that we can clearly see during this scene and everything else afterwards nearly destroys all the slow and quasi-meticulous work that went into the narrative/direction up to that point. This gives the movie a very lopsided feel to it. A somewhat structure beginning gives way to a very unstructured ending. A big chunk of the story or script is seemingly missing. Or it's as if the producers wanted to get rid of two somewhat expensive actors (Vernon & Thorson) and the way the characters are dispatched is very unconvincing. After the clunky shooting scene, we see body doubles of the dead Vernon and Thorson and then the film concentrates on a bimbo who runs all over the place and who is eventually dispatched as well. This stalking scene is long and seemingly pointless because we never really got to know this woman and her screen time seems truly excessive, compared to the more interesting actors that were just killed.

Another important failing of the direction (or the script) is how vulnerable the killer is. The killer is often knocked over and/or falls unconscious. Now how scary is that for a killer? We always snicker at the "indestructible" killers found in practically every slasher but somehow I actually missed the unstoppable killer here in CURTAINS. The killer was just too weak to create an overpowering sense of dread.

And there are many HUGE plot-holes that are never satisfactorily explained, like how did the killer know who was going to be invited at the house? This automatically leads to the next question: How did the killer know the blonde woman at the apartment (who is seemingly raped in a very long and tedious scene) was going to the audition and how did the killer got hold of that creepy mask, which was a prop stashed away at the mansion, a place where the killer hasn't been to yet? And other things, like the inconsistent use of the sad doll before each killings or the inexplicable appearance (and disappearance) of the film's other male character, the one seen at the diner table. We see him here and there, in the jacuzzi or skidooing but then, after seemingly having disappeared from the movie, he reappears, dead in the jacuzzi, right after the moment Vernon and Thorson are shot. What was the point of his character? Such big gaps in the story make CURTAINS feel very sloppy.

But there are several aspects in the film that are good enough or interesting enough for me to recommend it to fans of slashers or horror. The film has attain a certain cult following. VHS tapes of CURTAINS (which is not available on DVD yet) often go for a good price on eBay. I'm sure fans of either John Vernon, Samantha Eggar or Linda Thorson (star of the AVENGERS) have kept the film from oblivion. And the couple of sex scenes, like the faux rape or the "lesbian" audition scene, have caught the attention of certain completists of exploitation. And I'm sure fans of movies with creepy dolls have also made this Canadian slasher a minor cult item. But with all said and done, the poster is probably the only thing I really like about CURTAINS, a slasher/giallo that's well intended but sorta falls short because of less than gruesome killings, extremely uneven script, a weak killer (with an albeit cool mask) and a chaotic production history.


If you think being an "actress" is so glamorous and wonderful and challenging, then you'll like this movie. The women in here seem to think acting is the best thing in the world. It's one of those movies that talks about how great acting is. I hate that. I like acting and all, but when movies go on about "being an actress" and "trying to make it big" and all that Hollywood crap, I lose interest fast.

But just for horror movie value, the ice skating scene is the best, and most unique part of the movie. The mask is really freaky.

The ending is lame. In fact, I just watched the movie last night and I had to really think about what movie I watched (I knew I watched SOMETHING!) for about a minute before I could even remember it at all - it was that bad.


Absolutely devoid of any suspense, terror, or drama of any kind, this miserable "horror" film is completely incoherent. The lighting is so poor it's difficult to see what's happening. The setting (an old house in the woods) is not milked for any significant mood or atmosphere. Most of the actresses are indistinguishable from one another. The underlying theme of sexual violence and degredation is disgusting. And the sight of the masked "killer" on ice skates, doing laps around a frozen pond, is sure to send you into a fit of hysterics. By far one of the worst horror films of the early 80s, and believe me, I've seen most of 'em. 1/10.


As a senior at a college in northeastern Pennsylvania, I accepted the opportunity to be an "extra" in a movie being shot in Honesdale, PA. Well, guess which movie it was - you got it - "Playing for Keeps"! I don't think I've told anyone I was ever in it (except my wife) as I'm sure I don't want them seeing it! We spent the day there - mostly outside in the cold, and shot 1 scene - the final scene where the guy comes back from jail - for the night. I thought I performed well, and am still waiting for my credit! (And the lunch that was promised!) Was a fun experience - haven't seen it in years - guess I've gotta get a copy! Actually don't remember seeing Marisa, but do remember hanging around with some of the other cast members during the unbelievably long down-time. Guess that's why they call it work...


...in September 1986 when I was 13 and caught it on opening weekend - the only weekend it appeared at a theater - because it sucked so bad no one saw it besides me and some others that barely helped it crack that weekend's top 10 grossing film. Just glancing at this IMDb page reminded me that it remains one of the WORST movies I've ever seen. Don't torture friends or family with this stinker unless you don't want to associate with them anymore. Where do I start? The trailer with the exploding toilet received heavy exposure on MTV, where I suppose the Weinstein brothers got a favor thrown their way for advertising this bomb of bombs, or the horrible acting and non-existent script. If you're looking for good 1980s flicks marketed towards younger moviegoers, anything is better than this with the exception of "St. Elmo's Fire". Find "Fast Times At Ridgemont High," "The Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Say Anything," "Heathers" or "The River's Edge" - just don't go near "Playing For Keeps."


I'm surprised to see so many negative reactions to this film. As a regular junkie for obscure 80s comedies, I kind of liked it. I mean, the underdog story was quite far-fetched and there were several elements to make it laughable (the music video-like sequences scattered through the more motivational sequences in the film), but it is it really deserving of such poor ratings? Actually, this is the kind of film that an obscure 80s comedy/drama fan might only appreciate (it is probably destined for cult status anyways, even if the following for such is extremely small) because you have to expect (and forgive) a lot of campy cheesiness. Afterall, that's the natural byproduct of the underdog genre.

This is the story of an optimistic, and idealistic, teen from NYC. A recent high school grad, he's determined not to be stuck in some dead end junk job that he would regret for the rest of his life. Among the three friends who are primarily the main protagonists of this film (along with Harold Gould as Rockerfella and Marisa Tomei as one of the girlfriends), he is the dreamer with plenty of ideas for greatness. Opportunity comes a-knockin' this time in the form of a deed to an upstate hotel inherited from an Aunt, along with eight thousand dollars worth of debt. Despite urgings from his mother not to bother with it, he and his friends plan to fix it up and turn it into a youth hotel, The Hotel Majestic.

This, of course, is much to the chagrin of the small town's high profile investor, who, in cahoots with another sleazy businessman, intend to get their hands on that hotel any way they can. And when the teens refuse to sell it to him, he turns the whole town of middle-age and senior ogres against them. Being the underdog genre, you have to know that these kids (and their friend, Rockerfella) aren't going down without a fight. Like I said, you have to expect quite a bit of cheesiness. But the film has it moments of sly city humor (I particularly like Jimmy Biao's character, Stienberg) and other elements that may make it worth watching. I actually started watching it with the impression that it was going to be terrible (I had bought it at a video store where I usually have zip luck with the selections). Certainly, fans of obscure 80s films ought to give it a try.


This movie is very similar to the 1980 film Xanadu. A lot of IMDB users may not like that film either, but at least Xanadu had the beautiful Olivia Newton-John and a great soundtrack. This film has about 10 minutes of the cute Marisa Tomei and 1 decent soundtrack song (Say the Word by Arcadia). I wanted this movie to end so badly, yet it was like watching a car accident. I just couldn`t turn away because it was so bad!! This movie is no `Xanadu`.


Let me just set the scene. The kids are beginning to fix up an old hotel. They look pretty bored while they're sawing and hammering and whatnot. THEN, one of them throws in a Sister Sledge tape. First the black kid starts doing a little air guitar with his broom. Harmless enough. Then the two guys sawing logs start to feel the music and get looks on their faces like "Oh yeah, I can dig that!" And then, and then, it happens....SPONTANEOUS CHOREOGRAPHED DANCING. Wow was that a treat! And to top it all off, the token old guy who is helping them tilts his body back and gives shrieks of ecstasy right in sync with the music! And that is the movie as far as I'm concerned.


I rented this movie last week because I love 80's teen movies (License To Drive, Can't Buy Me Love, Don't Tell Her It's Me, etc.) I read the reviews (which were pretty negative), but decided to give "Playing For Keeps" a chance anyway. My conclusion: YOU GUYS WE'RE RIGHT! This movie is LOUSY! I tried so hard to like it, but I couldn't. I won't bother explaining the reasons why (because there are so many reasons). Just trust me, and all the other reviewers. Don't bother.


This movie could only be interesting to someone who is conducting an anthropological study of 1980s pop culture. Bad hair, bad soundtrack, bad lipstick, gratuitous shots of women's legs, bad over-acting, ludicrously tight pants, bad plot. It's just very bad.


The Winning Season is a fantasy which initially focuses on a 12 year old Little Leaguer, Joe Soshack, whose parents are always bickering due to the father's lack of success as a breadwinner. While not stated explicitly, Joe's lack of confidence as a Little Leaguer is linked to the family's dire economic circumstances.

Joe earns extra money doing chores for Mrs. Young, an elderly woman in the neighborhood. He hopes to buy a 1971 Willie Stargell baseball card who a local baseball card memorabilia dealer has reserved for him at a discount price. Mrs. Young offers him a few bucks to clean out her attic and when Joe finds an extremely rare and valuable Honus Wagner baseball card, he runs home without telling Mrs. Young he's found the card. When his parents tell him that he must return the card, in a fit of greed, Joe grabs his bicycle and pedals off to the local little league field, presumably now a runaway.

At this point in the film, I'm reminded a bit of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy also runs away because her parental figures don't "understand" her; the same with Joe. But where Dorothy is upset because Miss Gulch has taken Toto away, Joe swipes the Honus Wagner Card more out of basic selfishness. Although he claims he's doing it for his family so they can escape the financial bind they're in, the impulsive act pegs Joe more as a spoiled brat and wholly an unsympathetic character for most of the film. The whole idea is that Joe is simply immature but given the high moral principles the parents live by, I would have thought that he wouldn't have been so selfish.

Time travel fantasies need a clever way for the protagonist to travel back in time. In Back to the Future, Marty travels back in time in a retrofitted DeLorean car. In 'The Winning Season', there's nothing clever in the way Joe goes back in time. He merely stares at the 'magical' Honus Wagner Card and poof, he's back in 1909 right in the middle of the World Series between the Pirates and the Detroit Tigers. And strangely, Joe is no longer 12 year old Joe; he's 25 year old Joe. There's no explanation for the transformation but without it, the film's scenarist will not be able to pull of the clumsy scene in the film's denouement, when Joe takes the place of Honus in the last game of the 1909 World Series.

Whereas the real Honus Wagner was the son of German immigrants and very much a rough and tumble character of his day, Matthew Modine plays him as a generic good guy. Just about the only truly historical fact we learn about Honus Wagner was that he refused to cooperate with a tobacco company who wanted to use his image on baseball cards which they hoped to use in promoting their product. One would have hoped for a more nuanced portrait of Wagner, but the film's scenarist placed him on a pedestal.

In reality, Honus married in 1894 and had three daughters. But in 'The Winning Season', his true love is 'Mandy' who ends up breaking up with him after believing that his true love is baseball. While we find out little about the real life Honus Wagner, we find out next to nothing about the fictional Mandy, a wasted part played by a ditsy Kristin Davis.

The antagonist here is Ty Cobb. While Cobb was known for being overly aggressive on the field and having a bad reputation amongst his fellow ballplayers, he's turned into a virtual criminal when he attempts to blackmail Joe after stealing the Honus Wagner baseball card. Cobb extorts Joe into preventing Honus from playing in the last game of the World Series (it seems highly out of character for the highly competitive Cobb to prevent his arch-rival from competing against him in any game, let alone the World Series!). Joe taking off in the car and leaving Wagner stranded, makes him even more unlikeable (despite the soon and expected redemption!).

Most engaging baseball films involve the focus on one particular moment in a game where the protagonist helps his team go on to victory. In the charming "It Happens Every Spring", Ray Milland, helps his team win the championship by catching a ball with his bare hand; it's an instinctive act of self-sacrifice as he breaks his hand in the process. Unlike that dramatic moment of sacrifice, there's a completely awkward moment in 'The Winning Season' where Joe goes out on the field pretending he's Honus (he can't even fit into Honus's uniform) and no one notices the deception except Ty Cobb.

The ending to 'The Winning Season' is utterly predictable. When Joe returns to the present day 1985, he's 'learned his lesson' and is no longer a self-centered brat. What's more he's become confident (due to the tutelage of the angelic Honus Wagner) and now hits a home run, helping his team win the championship and confound all the kids who've been heckling him as a wimp.

There's a final canard thrown in where Mrs. Young turns out to be the embittered Mandy who on her deathbed regrets breaking up with Honus. Now Joe is willing to make a 'sacrifice' by giving up the magical Honus card which Mandy uses to return to 1909 where she shacks up with Honus. All well and good but if that happened, history would have turned out differently and the young Joe would never have met the spinster Mrs. Young in the first place.

'The Winning Season' admirably attempts to recreate the look of the "Dead Ball" era but as other reviewers have pointed out, little attempt has been made to be historically accurate (yes, why do the Detroit fans cheer when Pittsburgh wins the Series?). 'The Winning Season' could have been something really clever but settles for scenes of predictable sentimentality.


Willie Stargell was the last card he needed for what set? He had a place for the card in a scrapbook with cards from 1953!?? The space for Stargell in the book wasn't large enough for a 1971 Stargell super card. Why in the 7th game of the series do all the Detroit fans cheer when Pittsburgh wins? Why in two different games when the visitors are up the scorekeeper changes the home team's score? Why would the owners of a tobacco company live in Pittsburgh? Especially, right across the street from the Hentons. Mandy said she regretted leaving Honus, but never mentions her husband, Mr Young. (Unless she just changed her name to prevent Honus from finding her, still in Pittsburgh. I don't even think Piedmont was a person's name. I believe it is a region in South Carolina, but I understand this was just done for dramatic purposes. Why would anyone think an autographed T206 Wagner is worth more than an unautographed card? It's not mint anymore. Why did it look like the card was signed in ink when Wagner asked to borrow a pencil? The kid never stops him to tell him to use a pen. Why put a $400,000 card in your pocket, pass it around to everyone, and tap it against your head? Why didn't he buy something to protect it when he was at the card dealer? Also the card seemed a little off center which would ruin the 'mint' appraisal. Why wasn't he more upset when Wagner threw the cards in the fire. Joe could have kicked the fire out and saved the cards, enabling him to go back to 1985 and give back the one card to her, while still have plenty for himself. How could Honus throw the cards in the fire knowing how important they were to Joe? Lastly; how could Joe go back to 1985 and explain to the card dealer that the card he showed him before now is autographed. (This would probably drop the value of the card to about $100,000.)


THe film was overly sentimental and over dramatic. Moreover, in spite of the lavish attention to period baseball with the appearance of CGI stadiums along with period uniforms and gloves, it seems to me that they failed to understand a simple fact of baseball. In the final game of the World Series, played in Detroit, the main character, Joe, runs out on the field to play defense for the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates to start the game. The visiting team always bats first and the home team takes the field first. A gross error of judgment. I also agree with the other poster about the huge numbers of homers and long balls being out of place in the game of that era.


Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) is a genuinely silly, unfortunately outdated story. Its epic scope made it one of the highest-grossing films of 1977, nominated for two Academy Awards ® (it lost Best Visual Effects to George Lucas' "Star Wars"). Now, 27 years later, it just seems goofy and sickeningly sweet.

Spielberg adds a schmaltzy layer to most of his films that set his projects apart from the work of other directors. Arguably the most famous filmmaker since Hitchcock (in terms of public recognition), Spielberg is responsible for some of the greatest films ever made. Most critics consider "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"  both films that deal with extra-terrestrial life  to be some of his finest. For me, they are both rather disappointing. And unbearably sugar coated.

So, what is the primary problem with "Close Encounters"? Is it a bad movie? No, not really. But it's not a particularly memorable one, either. Apart from a few so-called "classic" sequences (the boy opening the door, the mashed potatoes, the alien arrival), the movie fails to spark much interest. Most of it  to be completely blunt  is quite stupid. Spielberg admits on the Special Edition DVD that he finds "Close Encounters" a bit too optimistic and unrealistic. When Spielberg made this movie, he believed in extra-terrestrial life, and was a young man with no children. In retrospect, Spielberg claims that the movie is a perfect snapshot of his youth, but as an adult, he would never make the movie the same way he did in '77.

One of the largest flaws is the fact that Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss fresh off the success of Spielberg's 1975 smash hit "JAWS") abandons his own family (wife and children) to embark on a crazy search for extra-terrestrial life. In a matter of thirty minutes of screen time he has packed up, traveled to Wyoming, broken past blocked off roads, found a new romantic interest, and by the end...well...let's just say that the conclusion is rather shameful on Spielberg's behalf. It is quite evident that he had no firm grasp of moral obligation in '77, and Roy's climactic decision is wholly unbelievable.

Then again, most of the film is like that, too.

Neary is an electrician who experiences a "close encounter" one night when a UFO seems to attack his car, and then flies off into the distance. Roy soon struggles with confusing mental images that have mysteriously implanted into his brain.

Hounded by the smart Dr. Lacombe (French director Francois Truffaut in his acting debut), Roy soon realizes that the extra-terrestrials plan to land on earth  and he wants to be there, to see it all.

Roy's evolution is too fast  in a matter of what seem to be few days he has turned into a complete loon, and because of Spielberg's lack of character arc, the sudden change is startling and  worst of all  cold. We lose all sense of empathy for Roy, primarily because we do not experience his pain  we see him suffering, sure, and moping around like a "cry baby," as his son names him. But this happens so fast that we are left wanting more.

The movie's conclusion  which lasts over forty minutes long  is the most exciting part, but the abrupt change of pace (from being a slow-moving charming family film about "close encounters" to an oddball chase movie about the government covering up a dangerous conspiracy and hunting down escaped witnesses) hinders the lasting impact. Spielberg is constantly trying to find a groove for his movie, and never really finds one to stay the course.

Then, there's the long-awaited alien introduction (which lasts over twenty minutes long). Most people flocked to the theaters in order to see this sequence  the special effects showcase of the year. This is proven by the fact that Spielberg purposely draws out the scene for such a lengthy period of time. Then, audiences savored the F/X because they were the best since Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (even the trailer advertisements claimed this was so, in order to entice viewers). Now, they're outdated, by almost all standards of special effects. Watching them for twenty minutes becomes tiring.

And of course, the annoying musical conversation between man and alien comes next  something else that only makes the film more grating so many years later. "It's so '70s!" someone once said. I agree. (Many great masterpieces were made during the 1970s, but most people forget how many downright cheesy, forgettable movies were made, too.)

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" simply does not hold up after 27 years, which is quite unfortunate. The F/X are shoddy, the ideas are insane, the movie is long and boring, and the direction and acting are about the only two things that approach greatness. Spielberg shows talent behind the camera here, but it is vastly inferior to "JAWS." Even John Williams' score fails to leave the same impact as "JAWS," "Jurassic Park," etc.

Produced during a slew of "happy alien" movies (followed by another slew of "mean alien" movies during the '80s after Ridley Scott's "Alien" in 1979), "Close Encounters" is at times amusing, annoying, fast, long, and silly, all at once. The nation needed hope during the '70s, and they turned to the skies. Spielberg answered their calls, with a movie that set records, but is now nothing but a forgettable tale.

Many will disagree with me when I say that "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is an overrated, disappointing motion picture with few redeeming qualities. The harsh feedback should be interesting.

2.5/5


* 1/2 star out of ****

Keep in mind Steven Spielberg is my all-time favorite director. I love so many of his works, whether it's powerful drama (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Amistad) or fun escapist action films (the Indiana Jones films). But with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I was hugely dismayed by how dull, plodding, predictable, and outright stupid this film was.

The fact is, the film contains so many annoying little flaws that all combine to bring the whole thing down. Probably the most damaging aspect is the predictability of the story. It takes 2 hours for the film to get to where I knew it was headed, and the resolution was most definitely not worth it.

Richard Dreyfuss (who you'll probably confuse with Bob Balaban because of their similar looks), who is a decent actor in his own right, is disappointing as Roy Neary, whose character is so crazy and unlikeable, the experience of watching the film becomes numb. The fact that he decides (spoiler) to leave his family behind to go with the aliens is unbelievable, nowhere near as convincing as Jodie Foster's and Gary Sinise's decisions to explore the stars in their respective sci-fi dramas, Contact and Mission to Mars, two vastly superior films.

Close Encounters also suffers from some rhythmless pacing. Everything moves slowly, and nothing really interesting occurs. Granted, the finale is a visual treat, and the aliens do look realistic, but it's surprisingly dissatisfying. There's nothing here truly worth watching.

The script, written by Spielberg himself, isn't particularly compelling. The dialogue is a little weak, the character development misfires, and attempts to inspire a sense of awe are smothered by some really odd music from John Wiliams (a contrast to the brilliant scores of Alan Silvestri and Ennio Morricone in, once again, Contact and Mission to Mars). Talk about a time when this film could have used one of those two composers or James Horner instead.


Hated it when it came out, still feel the same. Pure fantasy, not to be confused with real science fiction. "The Burbs" of UFO movies. Hard to take this one seriously. And with all due apologies to Mr.Spielberg, who has made a number of great movies, but this ain't one of em'. There's nothing compelling, or intriguing about this flick and it's quite silly actually. I doubt that was the intent. Impossible to muster any sympathy for Richard Dreyfuss' character. He appeared to be having a little too much fun with his "obsession." Either that or he was warming up for his part in What About Bob. Melinda Dillon was quite good though in a contrasting role. And (spoiler alert) please people, escaping from the grasp of the military on a top secret installation and actually allowed to get away so they can take a peek at that horrible giant Fisher-Price synthesizer and watch the pretty UFO's dart about all dressed up in their finest Christmas season trim! I don't think so. If you're ever out in Vegas, take a run up to Groom Lake where you will likely be greeted very rudely if you trespass the signs that read "Lethal Force Authorized." That basically means shoot first and ask questions later. Good alternative to Disney for the kiddies. 4/10


10) Francois Truffaut - I'm sorry, nothing against the guy personally, but Spielberg casting him in this movie was a mistake. At least without giving him a solid, intensive course in how to speak English. I don't mean to be so U.S.-centric, but come on - when one of your main characters has to have his every sentence translated, it gets awfully annoying, and calls undue attention to itself. A real "Special Edition" would have shown mercy for the audience and had his entire character edited out.

9) Terri Garr - Again, nothing against her, but this has to be, next to Willie Scott in Temple of Doom, the worst written female character in any Spielberg film. Ok, we're supposed to get that Roy Neary is becoming obsessed, moving dangerously away from his family - but how well served is that premise if his wife is such an unfeeling bitch from the get-go? We never see any kind of harmonious rapport between them, but neither are any marital problems examined or made clear to us. She's just the cardboard "bad guy" of the piece, and such two-dimensionality is cheap in a movie which purports to at least be partly about "real people." After all, Darth Vader or the Nazis make more enjoyable and less offensive villains than Teri Garr ever could. But her character is only symptomatic of a much bigger problem the film has, which leads directly to. . .

8) Who the hell ARE these people?! - And why are they so gosh-darned obsessed with UFOs. Why is it so important that Roy Neary get on that spaceship? Why is Melinda Dillon's kid - alone amongst the entire pre-adolescent population - singled out for abduction by the mysterious aliens? Why are all these seemingly normal people drawn to making replicas of that ooga-booga lookin' Devil's Tower? I mean, I know there's a place for dramatic ambiguity (hey, I love 2001!), but Steven can you at least throw us a bone? What is it about the particular people who are "invited" (in the words of Truffaut's interpreter) to see the alien landing that makes them so special? If Spielberg could have figured out some way to tie these peoples' emotional lives to the urge for extraterrestrial contact (as he did in E.T.) he might have had something powerful here. In the absence of any such clear link, however, all we get is a bunch of sound and fury (oh, and LIGHTS, too!) which ultimately signify nothing.

7) The funereal pace - Steve, yo Steve - who told you that you had to be so damn solemn about this whole thing? I guess, after Jaws, you were trying to prove that you could be SERIOUS, and WEIGHTY - and that translated inevitably as SLOW. Things take forever to happen in this movie - probably to cover up for the fact that not much does.

6) The "running up the mountain" sequence - Ok, this is perhaps a crass criticism, but am I the only one who noticed that Neary's and Jillian's escape to the top of Devil's Tower (against direct Army orders) could have made for a great action chase? In a movie, I might add, which desperately needs some action! A whole ten-minute cat and mouse game between Neary and co. and the Army helicopters in pursuit could have been a tour-de-force of style, tension and kineticism. You know, the kind Spielberg is known for. Instead, he just throws the sequence away. They get to the top of the mountain - end of story.

5) Mothership sequence lasts far too long, with no real payoff - Yeh, all those flashing lights were cool, and that five-note musical motif is ominous and haunting - but what of it? Ok, so the set pieces are in place for a great sequence, but. . . nothing really happens, does it? And, as with the rest of the movie, it takes so long for it not to happen, that you're numb about halfway through. This is where all the individual failures of the movie come together to lay one big colossal turd upon the viewer. Since we don't care about, or even understand, the characters we are cut off from their personal rapture at the landing; since the aliens' plans or general purpose is never articulated (or even suggested), there is no tension generated by wondering what they are going to do when they get here; and since the entire movie has been so deliberately slow and ponderous, this scene has to be even slower - you know, to show how important and climactic it is. What we're left with is a big sound and light show, nothing more. Anyone who's ever been to a Pink Floyd concert has seen it all before - and better.

Ah, I don't have the heart or the interest to continue with this list - anyway, you get the idea. Close Encounters so clearly wants to amaze and enrapture us, but it forgets that you do that best by engaging us with actual characters, making us care about them, and then leading them through a fantastic trip or quest where they find some kind of meaning. The movie has the quest part down, but neither the meaning nor the engaging characters. It's like, it believes that the suggestion of UFOs and other intelligent life in the universe by itself is enough to make us sit up and take notice. Well, it isn't. This movie lacks the zip and excitement of Star Wars on the one hand, and the philosophical/metaphysical speculation of 2001: A Space Odyssey on the other. From Spielberg's own canon, it is missing the fundamental heart and whimsy of E.T., as well as the strong interconnectedness of the main characters found in Poltergeist.

So what does it have? A ranting Frenchman, a shrewish wife, a rag-tag group of inexplicable characters, a deathly snail's pace, and a cheesy Disneyesque parade of bright lights and colors (Wow!). If that's your idea of a good time, then be my guest. You deserve every frame of this movie.


This is one of the films which cause my wife to hide my remote from me, so that she doesn't have to endure any more of my weird movie selections. After this film, I have more sypmathy for her.

** Some Spoilers**

Normally I like both Jeff Goldblum and Mimi Rogers, but in this film Goldblum annoyed the hell out of me. His stream-of-consciousness, stammering blather appears in almost every scene. His mannered performance serves to attract attention to Goldblum and not the story itself. Not only would this repulse normal people from ever conversing with him, it feels like a fakey way to produce internal dialogue. We spend 90% of the film thinking that Pigeon is more of a Weasel than anything else, and suddenly we're supposed to say 'Awwwww' as they hug and kiss and make up (twice) at the end. Both the audience (and his wife) are supposed to conveniently forget that he planned her cold-blooded execution and only missed out on doing it because she abruptly left him first.

Mimi Rogers lends her glowing screen presence to this limp noodle of a film, but her straightforward portrayal unfortunately accentuates the weirdness of Goldblum's; either both should have played it straight or both should have jumped off the deep end together. As a result, she winds up looking like she's waiting for Goldblum to take a breath at mid-bite (on the scenery, natch) to quickly inject her dialogue.

Very little fits in what should have been a taut and funny thriller of sorts. The detective is made to appear as a buffoon when he is actually GETTING EVERYTHING RIGHT. All Pigeon does with his friends is berate them for not doing enough for him, and they act like they agree with him. His wife goes off on a hike in terrain so rough that a guide is required, but then we see her at a perfectly accessible campsite wearing walking shorts and a flannel shirt, not to mention the platoon of policemen clad only in uniform following Pigeon up the trail. We're supposed to be amused when minor characters are interviewed on TV saying how strangely Pigeon acted -- after everyone assumes his wife is dead -- but he WAS acting strangely, so strangely that you wonder why no one reported him to the police while he was staying at the resort.

It's not an awful, 'Battlefield Earth' disaster, but it's not good at all. I give it a 3.


This movie is rather unknown (only 85 vote on IMDb at the moment) and it should stay unknown.

The movie is very simple. It's very predictable and for a comedy it has very few laughs. Also the style itself is simple and about as average as it can be. The story is not really good and doesn't always flow or makes sense and is filled with some rather big plot-holes.

Jeff Goldblum on the other hand is good and comically talented and so is Burt Kwouk's (Cato from the "Pink Panther" series) in his small but fun role. But quite frankly all of it is not good enough to save this movie.

It is no disaster but it's not recommendable either.

4/10


Elizabeth Janeway's novel becomes depressive soap in the usually-capable hands of director Otto Preminger. Had Preminger not also served as the film's producer, I might think this melodrama may have been foisted upon him as an obligation (it certainly doesn't seem like material he'd be attracted to). New York artist Joan Crawford, living in a rather elaborate 'hovel', marries ex-soldier and widower Henry Fonda as a response to lover Dana Andrews constantly putting his wife, children, and business before her. It is apparent that Andrews and Crawford are having a sexual relationship, yet Joan doesn't act like a fallen woman; she strides about during an argument, cleaning up her apartment defensively until Dana takes her in his arms (where she melts, like a pushover). Fonda and Crawford do seem like the better match (he calls her "Deezy" and she calls him "Peetah"), but the circles these stuck-in-a-rut characters go around in quickly become tiresome. Preminger doesn't have many surprises in store for us (except Andrews' scorned wife, who takes her frustrations out on her youngest daughter), although Andrews' penchant for using terms of endearment towards both women and men is amusing and the design here is tidy and attractive. ** from ****


What is film noir? Perhaps it's easier to answer this question by detailing what it is not. Because film noir is currently flavor of the month among cineastes, many DVD companies are issuing almost any old black-and-white film from their libraries as film noir. A notable case in point is the 1947 movie Daisy Kenyon directed by Otto Preminger. Now I'll admit that Daisy Kenyon does have some noirish elements, chiefly in the dark photographic texture imposed on the picture by Leon Shamroy (who presumably disliked working with Joan Crawford because he often seems to go out of his way to capture her close-ups from unflattering angles). And there's also a court case in the movie. And two auto accidents. But the court case is a divorce proceeding, not a criminal suit, and one of the car accidents occurs off-camera before the story even commences. It's true too that the Andrews character is a heel, and that Fonda's soldier is both battle-scarred and neurotic, and that Daisy herself presents as a terribly mixed-up kid. But aside from Daisy's consistent indecision, these elements are under-played. Instead, as the title implies, aside from a few forays into the glum two-timing Andrews household, the camera's focus always remains firmly fixed on Daisy. Is she emotionally unstable? Not really! She does admittedly suffer one major breakdown, but then recovers with remarkable celerity. Is she hemmed in by forces she can't control? To some extent, but only to near breaking point on one occasion (the cross examination) and to an actual break at the climax. Is she depressed, disillusioned? No more than most of us, and probably less rather than more. Is she ever in any danger? Only in one short sequence, and that strictly from herself. Threatened? Never! Does she ever feel she has no way out? No.

Above all, is the prevailing mood of the movie downbeat? Dark? Black? Answer, despite all Shamroy's efforts to indicate otherwise, no!

Therefore Daisy Kenyon, although it possesses a few noir elements, is not film noir. Personally, I found the central character unconvincing. Her reactions are those of a dime novel heroine rather than a real life person. True, Joan pulls out every trick in the actor's handbook to bring this impossible caricature to a semblance of reality, but is defeated by the slow-moving mechanics of the impossibly stodgy plot. As for the two male characters, I found them both distinctly unsympathetic.

What I did like about the movie were the incidental touches that producer Preminger introduced (Garfield, Runyon, Lyons and Winchell at the Stork Club). The main game from director Preminger, alas, was dead dreary from go to whoa! Any picturegoer who couldn't figure out which man Daisy would choose five minutes into the action was obviously unacquainted with the Breen Office's inflexible requirements. And as the whole plot revolves around this question, the movie is totally pointless. Why make such an enormous issue of Daisy's choice, when we all know what will satisfy Breen almost as soon as the picture starts? And yet for 99 minutes this is dragged out. Incredible, but true! All told, Daisy Kenyon is a picture strictly for patrons who enjoy watching paint dry.


"Daisy Kenyon" is a dated, totally superficial soap opera that not even diva Joan Crawford is able to make interesting. She plays an independent career woman who for some mysterious reason thinks she has to choose between an amoral married man (a strangely unsympathetic Dana Andrews) and a psychotic war veteran (Henry Fonda in one of his dullest roles) who wants to marry her the first day they meet (?). The movie is a total bore because Crawford's choice was obvious from the very beginning; run to the nearest convent and become a nun. I'm not a big fan of Crawford, but I truly believe she is a better actress than what people give her credit for and I think she tries her best to improve this ridiculous melodrama. She and those giant shoulder pads of hers are hard to resist, but this is an atrocious movie. The silly script and director Preminger's ("Laura") unimaginative direction sink this movie quickly. Ruth Warrick ("Citizen Kane") has a thankless role as Andrews' uncaring wife. Unless you need to see everything Crawford did, I recommend you to skip it.


This movie has less plot than a porno. There is no real point to the movie, except that everyone is sleeping with Harvey Keitel. The man shows that he knows nothing about self control, although he is trying to teach people about "cults". She was better off before her family hired him to "help" her.


Harvey Keitel is one of my favorite actors, but even he is laughable in this pedantic (dramedy)? Jane Campion has not made a watchable movie since Sweetie. If anyone is interested in good cult deprogramming movies, Checkout: Ticket to Heaven 1981...or Split Image 1982..


I'd much rather be stung by a thousand dung beetles (do those critters sting?) while up to my neck in raw faeces in the middle of a hot and humid African jungle than have to endure another viewing of this awful movie.

Well! Now that I've gotten *that* off my chest, allow me, kind reader, to expound.

After "The Piano", that most enchanting of movies, I became a Campion fan and couldn't wait for her next offering. I guess this is a case of being careful what you wish for. Holy Smoke is the complete antithesis of The Piano in every regard from "interesting story" to "great scenery."

While I recognize her zeal for exploring the off-beat and zany, this story has little to recommend it. The story begins somewhere in India, wanders over to somewhere in Australia and finally ends up rather ignominiously somewhere in the Australian outback (ugh) and is replete with such themes as the search for enlightenment, muscle-bound idiots, antlers on speeding cars, Old vs. Young, Man vs. Woman, Tom Cruise and Matt Damon-inspired adultery, attempted rape, battery and, get this, self-urination! If that doesn't give you a feeling of how haphazard the movie is, I don't know what will.

Where there are indeed many parts of the story that border on funny and is sometimes even thought-provoking, the overall feel of this movie is as arid as the Outback. One gets the feeling that the writers' only goal was to shock as many of us viewers as possible in one big swoop down. Walking out of the theater made me feel like a cute, innocent rabbit (Ahem!) who was suddenly been plucked out of some idyllic field by a terrible eagle on it's way to being fed to the eaglets.

Oh! And seeing Keitel's be-pimpled butt didn't help much either. Say, Jane, get off the hashish! :-)


Often after a movie, I will sit to myself and think, "Was there anything redeeming at all about that movie, or did I just lose 2 hours of my life that I'll never get back?" In this case, it was the latter.

Despite commendable acting from the films actresses, Harvey Keitel looks embarrassingly like an amateur in a high school drama. Although the plot has potential, the movie has the maturity of a 7th grader making farting sounds under his armpit. If only the movie was animated, it would be a perfect Simpsons satire of the stereotypical bad movie.

Another major problem with the film is that it tries to mix humor with seriously sad problems. Imagine the success of a comedy based on 9/11 and you get the picture. Obvious attempts at humor completely fail in canned, painfully predictable sequences directed with the subtlety of a mack truck. Add to this the fact that the director clearly cannot differentiate between what to shoot and what not to shoot.

Other various problems were the irrelevant and distracting Neil Diamond soundtrack, the irritating, obstructed camera shots somehow meant to be creative I guess, and the token gay characters who have nothing to do with the plot. Although the movie supposedly took place in Australia, only one person actually had an Australian accent, the rest of them being vaguely British which is confusing during the entire story. The movie culminates in a transsexual, surrealistic fantasia which can only be described as the work of a deviant, hallucinating pervert.

If nothing else, this film realistically demonstrates why you would never want to go to India. And really the only way I can figure that it came about is that Kate Winslett must have owed a debt to the teenage son of some guy who got her career going. Unfortunately, someone gave him a camera.


I bought this DVD because I expected it would provide some serious and interesting insights into Indian cult adventures, followed by some keen deprogramming techniques back home in the pond of Christianity.

However, in this movie, for a sincere truth-seeker, the whole matter is interpreted on perhaps the lowest possible level.

There is hardly a life lesson to learn from this movie, except one should perhaps not spend one's life on the Australian countryside, and the fact that sexuality is a strong force that's easily misinterpreted when it comes to true spirituality.

An almost true waste of time.


I got this movie because of the box art. It looked interesting, like a nice little romantic comedy. The tag line even looks like a comedy. But what really looked cool was Harvey Keitel on the cover.

So I paid for the video, went home, and was all set for a good movie. The movie then played. The movie finished. I don't think I'll ever pick a movie by the bow cover again.

The movie has perhaps the most uninteresting and unlikeable characters ever. Natural Born Killer's Mickey and Mallory were at least interesting.

The plot itself mainly revolves around two or three, maybe even four main plot points. The rest of it is just filler leading up to the quasi interesting.

Keitel's and Winslet's performances aren't bad. They worked with what they got. What they got was Holy Smoke.

I don't like summarizing, and I don't think I'm allowed to , so I only give my opinions. And in my opinion, don't waste your time on this.


I've always hated Campion films. They're overrated and tedious beyond belief. This is no exception. She takes an interesting premiss and a talented actress, and makes an awful film.

It's attempts at humour were awful. The supporting cast were pointless and dumb beyond belief. No sexual chemistry existed between the leads. And what is it with Keitel, everytime he either strips or acts or Campion he's awful. It's only saving grace is that it's not as bad as "The Avengers".


The main bulk of the film is right up its own fundament but there are some fantastic shots of a fully nude Kate Winslet which makes this film a must buy... but it is really lousy apart from that. The plot doesn't go anywhere that could even vaguely be described as interesting and I thought it would be a really juicy look at cults. Alas, it was shabby.


MINOR SPOILERS HEREIN

I was forced to watch this movie for my Media Criticism and Theory Class. The film looked promising, a great director, two great lead actors who I respect immensely, and an interesting subject matter. The film quickly went downhill. The entire film is stylistically and structurally disjointed. The director didn't seem to know if she wanted to make the film realistic or not, so she just sort of goes into non-sequitor fantasy sequences at random points in the film, most of which just end up looking silly in an otherwise realistic looking film. The whole thing with Ruth's running off and joining a cult would have created more sympathy for her if there was ever any actual explanation as to what the cult was doing or proof that they were actually dangerous. This was never proved and, in fact, the entire religion actually comes off looking legitimate, especially with the fantasy shot in which the guru touches Ruth's forehead and a third eye opens up in her forehead, which suggests that this guru actually does have spiritual powers, which contradicts the rest of the film.

Not that this matters, however, as halfway through the film, the writers decided that the story was no longer about the cult and just made it about this weird sexual relationship between a psychiatrist and his client. Seeing Kate Winslet naked seems to be everyone's favorite part of this film but, as wonderful as that is, it comes out of nowhere and is made ludicrous and disgusting by the fact that she is peeing on herself. And while seeing Harvey Keitel running around in the deserts of Australia wearing a little red dress is certainly entertaining, I really think that, at that point, the audience is laughing AT the film, not with it.

Don't believe these people who try to tell you that this movie is "over some people's heads". These are the same people who think that if anything is weird or doesn't make sense, then it has some deeper meaning that they're missing, so they better pretend to see it so that they look smart. You know, the "Emperor's New Clothes" kind of people. This movie is crap. The characters are unbelievable, the dialogue is pretentious and annoyingly pseudo intellectual, the imagery lacks any form of subtlety and, aside from a few laughs and some good performances from Keitel and Winslet, there are no redeeming qualities to this film.

1 out of 10


Possibly THE WORST FILM I have ever watched. It was pure torture to sit through it all...and the only reason I stayed until the end is because I was waiting for something good to happen. Unfortunately, the only good thing to happen was the rolling of the credits.


it all has to come down not being able to keep ones c... in ones pants, is that what they are saying. a joke of a writing job does nothing to show how kate is broken or anything else for that matter. instead of a film about how and where we get our ideas for campion has presented a farce with no bite...castle like cariacatures of australians without the comic intelligence. poor show, why did it all have to come down to the obvious sex thing, and just sex...boring and not at all convincing.


First of all, I have to say to all of you that I haven't seen the anime. So if you're looking for a review that compares this with the anime, then just skip this. This movie came as a disappointment to me. I could easily see that this movie is influenced by Japanese cartoons. The main reason for that, is that the movie is really violent, bloody and brutal. The fights are really hardcore. Unfortunately, they are not very good. Daniels isn't anywhere near his best in this movie. The movie makes him act more than he usually does, and that's a failure since he can't act. It's the fighting that makes him so great, and when the fight scenes didn't deliver, there was so no hope for this movie. --An unintentional comedy because of a stupid story and lame characters.--


Fist of the North Star is one of your typical, small budget action flicks which seem to appear from no where without any specific reason. I actually liked it during the first couple of minutes during the time, when the main character, Kenshiro (Gary Daniels) hadn't opened his mouth yet, but after he spoke and revealed, that besides the looks he hadn't slightest bit of acting talent I quickly stopped liking it.

My favourite scene of the film is when a Finnish ex-WWF wrestler and a (yes sad but true) member of parliament Tony Halme gets the smirk kicked out of his face. Literally. Small scene, I know, but I found it hilarious.

FOTNS is total waste of Malcolm McDowell's abilities, and as such as it is, it can only be seen as a curiosity for his fans. Maybe the fans of original graphical novel will get something else out of this film.


If you happen to be inebriated or just love B-Rated movies in general though there are fares that are far more worthy in this genre and you don't have to be drunk to enjoy them i.e. Phoenix the Warrior or anything with Loren Avedon, Cynthia Rothrock etc, etc.

Still, despite the horrendous acting, the butchering of the story and characters, and D-grade special effects, they did get some of the set pieces right so I guess we know where the budget went.

In the end however, for any fan of the original anime/manga series it is a must see if for no other reason than to contribute to the ongoing littering of the internet with inane conversation threads ...

BTW, for an equally 'entertaining' fare, check out the "ThunderCats" trailer made by some fan-people (I think) that's floating around the internet. So bad, it's a blast!


I'll start with quoting other reviews I've done. You have to enjoy this movie for what it is. It had horrible stage fighting, crappy special effects, and probably had plot holes that you could drive a bus through, but it actually was fairly entertaining.

My only real beefs with the movie include:

1) Shin is the Fist of the South star, and has mastered several forms of Nanto Seiken. Why, in his early fight with Ken, does he feel the need to Gas peddle him. Also, why does Ken occasionally gas peddle people.

2) Rufio.

3) When the actor formally know as Rufio (or Bat/Bart if you want to get technical) is pretty brutally killed, he not only makes a cheesy death speak like in Hook, but Ken says something to the effect of "because of you, the village is saved." Rufio didn't do anything. He just stood off with Bondage-face and got stabbed to death.

4) Bondage-face (whoes name eludes my at the moment) was way cooler in the anime. There, his name is Jagi, and *POSSIBLE SPOILER* he turns Shin to evil, tarnishes Ken's decent name, and trash talks him a few times during their battle. And he wears a cool mask. *END SPOILER*. In this movie, he is one of Shin's random minions, and has a really lame death (the death is the same as the anime, but the fight with Julia was just dumb).

5) Ken doesn't scream when he punches people. It's probably for the better though, for if he had screamed, it would have just made the movie worse.

As I said, the movie is pretty good for what it is. Also, it must be noted that it is a B-movie, and thus will never be good.

One thing of note though, is that the makers seemed to keep some of the shots from the anime (like when Ken and Shin jump kick each other). While these shots didn't remain intact, it is worth noting that they are there.


Fist of the North Star starts with a lengthy, & boring, narration by a guy named Ryuken (Malcolm McDowell). The opening shot is of a desolate post-apocalyptic world with what were once our cities but are now crumbling ruins, a lawless world where acid rain falls from the sky & the strong prey on the weak. Ryuken talks of a school of martial arts named the Southern Cross, the flag of the Southern Cross is now the fearful symbol of a new order. The North Star is the last opposing school, basically the Southern Cross is evil & the North Star is good. The Southern Cross Master, Lord Shin (Costas Mandylor) executes the Master of the North Star, Ryuken. Lord Shin also tires to kill Ryuken's son, Kenshiro (Gary Daniels). Lord Shin leaves Kenshiro for dead in the wastelands & takes his lover Julia (Isako Washio) as his own to Southern Cross City which he rules. However, Kenshiro is not dead & sets about finding Lord Shin & putting a end to his evil plans to 'liberate the wastelands' by any means necessary. About 200 miles North of Southern Cross City is a small town called Paradise Valley where they protect their most precious commodity, water. Lord Shin wants this water & sends his deformed henchmen & their gangs out to destroy Paradise Valley & take the water lead by head bad guy known as the Jackal (Chris Penn). Kenshiro runs into a teenager named Bat (Dante Basco) & a young blind girl named Lynn (Nalona Herron) who he magically cures. Since they both have a common problem in the shape of Lord Shin & his men they sort of join forces to defeat him, after some silly plot devices keep throwing them together. I guess that's just about it, Kenshiro eventually meets up with Lord Shin & after some personal angst over Shin kidnapping Julia & murdering his Father they have a fight & that's about that.

Co-written & directed by by Tony Randel based on the Japanese comic & anime Hokuto No Ken by Buronson & Tetsuo Hara I thought this live-action version of Fist of the North Star had a lot potential which it ultimately didn't deliver. The script by Randel & Peter Atkins ditches the over-the-top violence & comic book feel. The film seems to take itself a little too seriously & as a result ends up being a bit dull. There are a couple of scenes which try to recreate the comic book feel like when Kenshiro kicks someones face & dislocates his jaw to an amazing extent or in the same sequence where he punches someone in the back & a big bulge appears on their chest from the force. Unfortunately these are about the only scenes worth mentioning in this regard as the rest of the fights are short, dull, unimaginative & few & far between. Towards the end Kenshiro has to fight lots of Lord Shin's guards, he literally punches or kicks them once & they're defeated, Kenshiro's climactic fight with Lord Shin was also a let down. Fist of the North Star really needed lots more blood, gore, violence & energy in it's disappointing fight scenes. Having said that the fights are reasonably well choreographed & aren't any worse than any other low budget martial arts film. The story is simple to say the least, large chunks of it are annoyingly told in monologues & flashbacks by various characters. The characters were annoying thinly sketched bland stereotypes. It also could have done with losing a few minutes worth of running time as it drags a little in places. The cast features some familiar faces, Malcolm McDowell is in it for about three minutes maximum even though he gets near top-billing in the credits, Chris Penn makes for a sleazy bad guy & is criminally wasted throughout, Costas Mandylor didn't convince me as the most evil man on Earth, Clint Howard makes an appearance as Stalin one of Lord Shin's henchmen, Melvin Van Peebles was here somewhere but I don't know who he played & as for leading man Gary Daniels he is about as wooden & unconvincing as I expected. The music by Christopher L. Stone is totally inappropriate as it's very quiet & orchestral, this film needed an upbeat fast score to compliment the action scenes & at least try to get the blood pumping a little. The one thing where Fist of the North Star gains a few points is it's production values & design, it's actually rather impressive. The wastelands, Paradise Valley & Southern Cross City all look very convincing considering the budget as do the costumes & the overall look of Fist of the North Star. There isn't much blood or gore & disappointingly not a single on screen exploding head even though Chris Penn's head almost explodes but unfortunately the scene cuts away just at the vital moment, there is a cool looking zombie though who's in it for a couple of minutes & a few blood spraying wounds. Overall Fist of the Nortrh Star is a reasonable film, there's nothing greatly wrong with it as it's generally well made & tells it's story competently enough but I can't help but feel disappointed at what it could have been had it been made by a stronger director who had the guts to go with what made the original Japanese comic so good. Average at best, worth watching if you've got nothing better to do.


****Spoilers**** This has to be one of the lamest, most predictable movies I have ever seen. The plot is predictable, the acting is barely passable and the fight scenes are marginal. I mean in one scene, where the hero is being attacked by foe after foe, ad-nauseum, you see some of the "dead" move out of the way of another falling foe! In another scene, it looks like the hero and the villain are trying to step on each other's toes! If that isn't bad enough, and this is a spoiler, (as if this movie was unpredictable to have that matter) the hero all but give up when he is lead to believe the great love of his life is dead only to be given renewed hope from a weed sticking up from a crack in the floor! Having said all that, I found myself staying up late just to watch the end of the movie! Bottom line...Not a good movie, but a fun movie! A 4 out of 10


This movie had to be the single worst example of a manga/anime-to-movie transition to ever come into existence. NOTHING about this flaming pile of dung was good.

We had a hairy white guy with a Japanese name (who was SUPPOSEDLY the master of the Hokuto Shinken martial art) who could barely land a decent punch on his goofy and wholly ineffectual enemies, another hairy white guy (who was SUPPOSEDLY a master of the Nanto Koshuken form of the Nanto Seiken martial art) who, as was mentioned in a previous comment, fought like a common street thug and sported a hilariously stupid accent, a Japanese lady who couldn't speak a lick of English and had to read cue cards written in her native language to struggle through all of her scenes (all 0.015 of them), a total switch around of the Hokuto no Ken characters and canon, acting bad enough to strip the paint from a wall, the most mind-numbingly fake movie sets in the history of the universe, and a less-than-healthy dosage of regurgitated "mystic oriental proverbs" courtesy of Ryuken (which of course made absolutely NO sense whatsoever).

A complete and utter bastardization.

And even if I hadn't seen this lame-assed movie with the knowledge of its origin, I would've still given it a failing grade. The fight scenes were laughable, the plot razor thin (without the campy goodness from the anime and manga that made it fun), the actors wooden and unconvincing, and the enjoyment null and void.

There were no good points to this film. Absolutely none. It's a failure of the highest degree and its existence should be removed from all human memory.


This is simply the worst movie ever created by human kind. Please never see it and avoid it like the plaque. The acting is terrible, the premise is simply awful. The effects are the worst thing I have seen since Big Trouble in little China Town. At all costs, avoid this, even if it in involves shooting yourself squaw in the noots.


This movie does no no justice to the story, originally presented in the fabulous and timeless classic cartoon. Rent the cartoon instead and stay VERY far away from this version. Even you gore hounds will find the cartoon much more satisfying.


This is without doubt the worst film I have ever seen. The acting, action and fight sequences were truly awful. I do understand that this was a low budget film but that is no excuse for such a poor effort by all involved.

People be warned, do not watch this film!

By watching this film you will appreciate all other films that were ever made!!

1 out of 10(if it was possible to give zero for this film I would definitely do it, that bad!)

I hope you all agree


I stayed up to watch this film thinking it was the incredible 1980's Japanese manga movie 'Hokuto no ken'. Little did I know there was a farcical 1990's low budget Hollywood version, and this indeed was it. This is surely the gayest film of all time, particularly in the final battle scene, in which one of the main protagonists is wearing a woman's blouse. It is all bronzed, shiny flesh and rippling muscles and plenty of 'smell the fart' acting. As I recall, the plot of the original version was quite hard to follow, but for this version it seems to have pretty much been given up on altogether. The best thing about this film is that it stars Downtown Julie Brown, who has the coolest name in showbiz.


Gary Daniels stars as Kenshiro a banished warrior who takes on Lord Shin (Costas Mandylor) to avenge his father's death and reclaim his bride in this visually appealing yet terrible actioner. Some good sets and a good atmosphere remain the film's only asset.


WARNING: SPOILERS!!!!!

This movie is awful. Any Canadian who watches it and likes it should have their heads examined. Don't give me that "it's just goofy political satire" crap. The fact is, they start insulting Canada before they consider a cold war with Canada (i.e. the hockey game: "What's with the flag, is that some kind of weed?") Aside from the meaningless anti-Canadian jokes, the jokes are pretty dumb. The only part which cracked a smile from me was when they were (trying) to sing "Born in the USA."

Bottom line, don't waste your time with this highly offensive claptrap. This should have never been marketed as John Candy's final movie. By the way, he was Canadian.


It's amazing how even an ultra-talented ensemble cast couldn't save this film. According to Moore's "Adventures in a TV Nation" book, many of the featured actors agreed to make Canadian Bacon because they were shown the TV Nation pilot. They likely didn't know what they were really getting into.

Canadian Bacon is less entertaining than colon-rectal surgery. It's tedious, unfunny, and meandering. And when it attempts to recreate Dr. Strangelove (which is frequently), it borders on being unwatchable. I smiled ONCE during the film ... during the graffiti scene. Cabin Boy is more fun to sit through than this dumbed-down "comedy."

I like Michael Moore a lot. I think he makes great reality-based satire. I also think he realized that was his calling after seeing this finished product. I really hope so.


This movie is just a waste. One of the worst John Candy movies ever made. I don't think I laughed at anything in it. Not the stiff acting, the moronic plot and certainly not any of the so-called "jokes." If this was the first movie for any of these actors, none of them would ever work again. It was so bad that it made me feel sorry for Alan Alda, who I don't think rises to the acting ability of a second grader in a Christmas pagent.


Not a particularly good film. It proves that Michael Moore isn't nearly as good at telling a story than showing a story. Canadian Bacon will be remembered more as one of John Candy's last films than a brilliant satire. Although, it is interesting that the premise was totally recycled in the South Park movie. However South Park succeeded where Canadian Bacon failed, it made me laugh. There are too many unforgivable cliches. I found the way the black character constantly referenced the fact that he was black annoying. I don't recommend this film to anyone unless you are a die hard Michael Moore/John Candy fan. Moore redeemed himself with the follow-up documentary, The Big One.


Shouldn't a satire be funny and not poorly ape a satire that was?

I can't believe the mass of talent in front of the camera (and some behind, like Bernstein). Funny? Nope. I didn't even chuckle. It was like having my teeth cleaned with limburger. The constant and flat references to Dr. Strangelove made it all the more unbearable.

So smug. So slow. So what? I couldn't even finish it. Then I find this was written and directed by the man that talent and character forgot, MM. That made it kind of a curiosity, but for all the wrong reasons. And shouldn't Rip Torn have just thrown the script in the trash with a "Nobody needs money this bad" snarl?

Yet another blindingly bad film with SNL and SCTV comics (who have been so funny elsewhere).


A 1995 Michael Moore film (of "Bowling for Columbine" fame) that does not deliver. It's a "Wag the Dog" type of film that gets only sparse, occasional laughs. [Canadian director/script-writer] Moore seems more interested in venting irony against his southern neighbors than on creating a real comedy. The jokes are, for the most part, far stretched, based on "anti-American" cliches and lacking in subtlety that would make them more useful for the overall plot. Although he does let a few hints of sarcasm against his fellow Canadians as well, I think the film fails to appeal to a broader audience other than those looking for an excuse to re-affirm their cliches.

Interesting Trivia: A cameo appearance by Michael Moore, as a naive and wild, gun-slinging American.


Being born here, I have lived with "humourous" portrayals of Canadians on TV and in movies since I was born. Do they get funnier with age? No, they don't, and Canadian Bacon is chock full of them. A Mountie wearing full dress reds? Yeah, I see THAT everyday. C'mon. Although the movie is supposed to be flattering to Canada, it's really only Michael Moore's twisted perception of how we live here. In Bowling for Columbine, for instance, he made it look as if we all leave our doors unlocked. Newsflash: It depends where in the country you live. I'll bet there are places in the states (actually, I know there are places in the states) where people leave their doors unlocked.

Canadian Bacon is a half assed attempt at humour, and a half assed attempt at political commentary. Does this make for a whole ass? Nope, just two missed-matched ass halves that don't fit together. This movie is crap.


CANADIAN BACON is a not so thinly veiled attack on conservative American ideals. One would not expect any less from Michael Moore who is an arch-liberal.

There are only a few laughs. John Candy shines. The only time worth watching the screen is when he is on it. There are also a few good moments provided in cameos by Steven Wright, James Belushi, and Dan Akroyd. But their total combined time onscreen is less than five minutes.

But all in all, it is not worth the hour and a half for the four or five laughs.

In sum, if you share the liberal political philosophies of Michael Moore, you will enjoy the America bashing, and overall enjoy the movie more than others. All others should stay away.


John Candy is always funny to watch, but Michael Moore's anti-Americanism was really coming to the fore in this movie. This was released after Candy's death, and so Canadian Bacon is notable for his fans in that regard. Dan Aykroyd's cameo appearance as an RCMP trooper is priceless and other parts of the movie are well done. Stomaching Moore's tripe is another matter. From his typical military-bashing (embodied in Rip Torn's General Panzer) that he refers to these days as "supporting the troops" to mocking the Western position against Commumism (of which Canada was a fully-supporting member in the fight), Moore hasn't changed much. His premise that the good old USSR wasn't so bad (note the "Peace through Fear Since 1947" signs in the factory the President visits) runs parallel to his position today that Al Qaida isn't such a bad bunch of chaps and that, in Moore's words, "there is no terrorist threat." Moore has since "graduated" to creating fictional movies disguised as documentaries in order to profit from the suffering of others (Columbine, 9/11). In retrospect, perhaps Moore should have stuck to comedy.


Let it be said a comedy can't run on a one joke premise and that's exactly what Canadian Bacon tries to do. No matter what the media says and portrays stereotypically us Canadians and Americans aren't that different. Sure there's cultural differences, how our countries are run, unique pop culture influences, but we're not miles apart from each other. Canadian Bacon isn't deep, intellectual comedy. It's not brilliant satire either. It's a running loop of overused, unfunny clichés.

As such, I feel bad for everyone involved. John Candy, Rela Perlman, Michael Moore, Alan Alda, Kevin Pollak. This is absolute junk when you consider this was supposed to be a comedy. It's just plain boring. I only laughed once. It's dry - so very dry. If you're Canadian, feel free to be insulted. If your American, you might find this hilarious. I really don't know. This movie's story revolves initially around a large military arms manufacturing plant closing resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs. Which sounds suspiciously close to the closure of the car plant in Michigan which so happens was covered by Michael Moore and made into a movie too.

Welcome Michael Moore. Welcome to the land of hope and freedom. The freedom to sell your wares wherever possible, but what am I saying? You've already been given a lesson in that I see. This is one movie you don't need to see.


I had no idea this movie was made by Michael Moore. I still try not to think about that, because normally I really admire his work. But this movie just wasn't funny. My husband fell asleep while watching it because he found it so boring. I really wanted to stop watching it but decided I'd stick it out to the end and see if it got better, and it just didn't. The jokes weren't funny and the pacing was really slow. I normally appreciate a wide range of humor - everything from the sophomoric to the sophisticated. This just didn't seem very funny at all and even though it's been a number of years since I've seen it, it still reminds the standard against which I measure how bad a movie is. I'm glad Michael Moore went in a different direction with his career, because it would have been a disaster if he did more like this.


This is another of John Candy's bombs. For such a talented actor, he did so many bad films. This film does not make Canada look good. I was insulted at how stupid this film portrayed Canadians and Americans. The problem is there are people on both sides of the border that behave like this film. The thing is this film was written by a Canadian. Is this what he thinks of his fellow Canadians? Canadians always seem to write good scripts and this is what this film is lacking. The problem is the people who made this film show how silly Canadians can be. 2/10


When I first heard about this movie, I thought that the plot sounded humorous, a war with canada could be pretty interesting. But instead, I saw ugly stereotypes of americans, (isn't moore american?) viciously insulting portrayals of our military (rip torn in the idiotic role of a warhawk general)and bland, predictable humor. I was shocked at how americans were shown as gun toting, moronic, bloodthirsty simpletons, who like to pick fights with people. I also could not believe the manner in which the military was made fun of. I think that Moore should remember that if it weren't for the brave men & women that serve our country, his freedom to abuse the first amendment would not be so free. Maybe I am overreacting, but I found this movie insulting and degrading, and made me lose all respect for michael moore


We had Cindy on tape as kids but misplaced it when we moved. Has anyone had any success in locating Cindy?? If so please contact me at his_luv23@yahoo.com so that I may obtain a copy. I would love to show this movie to my children as well, To me it is more than a classic but a piece of African-American history. The cast, the set, the music, it was all so invigorating and exciting. I would love to experience this movie again.

Hope someone finds Cindy. It is truly a classic.

Please if you have any information about how I can get a hold of this movie, I would surely appreciate it.


SPOILERS AHEAD:

There are so many loose ends in this movie. If the Ice Man really did come from a much earlier civilization, what happened to all those buildings in that civilization? Why is that man the only proof of the civilization?

And about Andy? At first, Jack is angry about him receiving the experimental treatment. But at the end, he's happy God made him a continuation of a long-forgotten civilization. Jack's not even worried about Andy possibly dying like the Professor did.

I thought the scenes with the angry monkey were funny. But on the whole, this movie was very sloppy. Kinda like if Rain Man was a sci-fi B-movie from the '50s, directed by some orangutan.